Chapter 35: Gloves off

Stepping inside a police station the very next day after a massive bust was, in general, a bad idea.

Stepping inside a police station the very next day after a massive bust that involved an illegal fighting rink you competed in was, most definitely, an atrocious idea.

Doing so as a free man, when almost everyone else who wasn't a big wig had been captured and waited transportation directly from said station's cell to the nearest jail was, absolutely and certainly a terrible idea of the worst kind.

Being very aware of how stupid it would be to try and step inside the place this night of all nights, Peter immediately tried to shove the food into the nearest officer's hands and got a few glares as a reward. In a very cold voice, the woman he had tried to dump his responsibilities onto told him she was busy and that he should know better than to try to get in her way. From the look of her, she hadn't gotten much sleep recently and, by the smell of her, the only thing keeping her going was an unreasonable amount of coffee. Between her and Jason, he wondered who was the most sleep deprived.

Gothamites were so weird.

His next attempt at getting rid of the delivery went a bit better but still proved fruitless. The officer he talked to gave him a distracted pat on the back, cracked one of the boxes open, stole a slice and simply walked away without saying a word to him. The older man did not seem in much better health than any of his colleagues. There had been a lot of people at the Pits and it was obvious the department only rarely conducted mass arrests of the sort. He assumed there had to be some differences between his legal system and this one but he couldn't imagine they were done processing everyone. No wonder they ordered pizza.

He threw a pitiful look at the station's entrance, coming to terms with his terrible fate. If he could manage to avoid being seen, he could maybe get out of it without a new reputation as a snitch.

Of course, he was a snitch since he had sold information to Gordon in the past. He was not enough of an idiot to want it spread around, however, and this was by far the busiest he had ever seen the GCPD. Even if Jason hadn't intended to help the Bats in any way when he contacted Nightwing, it was clear his actions had huge consequences throughout the entire underworld. That last fight had been watched mostly by higher ranked members of the mob, and the arrests would likely have left a huge hole in the leadership of the most powerful gangs.

It also forced the police and the justice system to stretch themselves thin. He wondered how much violence would result from this one event and if it would even out with the lives saved.

"What are you standing here for?" A burly officer snapped, shoving past him to head towards one of the many patrol cars parked in front of the headquarters. "Wipe that stupid look off your face."

Peter grimaced but took a few steps forward, still looking around desperately to try and find anyone who did not look as if they would bite his head off if he tried to speak to them. After five minutes and more than a dozen suspicious looks thrown his way, he ended up having to resign himself to his terrible fate. Wishing he had brought one of his few clothes with a hood with him, he slipped into the station, trying his best to look completely innocent and blend in with the people around him.

The entire place was packed with people. The front hall itself buzzed with sound, both from the workers running to and from the deeper half of the building and from a large crowd of civilians that had amassed in front of the three front desks. He flinched at the noise level but still tried to make his way to the unfortunate soul in charge of dealing with visitors. The young man he ended up elbowing his way to looked very happy to see him and plucked one of the boxes from the pile in his arms before telling him to head straight back, pointing at one of the open doors behind him, where he assumed the actual police work happened.

He took one look at the crowd the poor guy had to deal with before sighing and nodding, hoping nobody had described him in too much details.

If he didn't have his Spider Sense and if said sense had not been so quiet, he would have been worried about this being a trap. There was no way he hadn't been described or at least mentioned by the members of the crowd, especially after they saw him beating Bane up. Marco's did not have that many delivery boys and luring one of them to the GCPD was as easy as ordering a few boxes of pizza.

If there was a trap, it would not happen now, he decided. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, then stepped out of the crowd. With a bit of luck, most of the criminals taken would not be in this specific station and, if they were, they wouldn't be kept detained so close to the entrance. 

He got a few odd looks as he walked past the desks to enter the restricted part of the headquarters but was eventually let through. A quick pat down revealed the bulky shape in his pocket was not a weapon but Jason's stolen gas mask, causing most of the suspicious glances to turn the other way. It was a lot more advanced than any others Peter had seen in this world and the officer who searched through his jacket and pants clearly thought the same but, still, he was let in.

The room behind the front hall was a lot older looking than he had expected. It was large, impressively so, with an open desk area spanning most of the visible ground floor and an open ceiling that let him look up at several different floors as he walked. The left and right walls led to a dozen offices, all of which were being actively used. The back of the room separated into several other corridors, although it also held a few elevators. He could not see any holding cell which made him sigh in relief. A relief that disappeared relatively fast when he realized the noise level had not gotten any better since he left the front hall. Even this huge space felt cramped that evening. His head was beginning to throb.

Between that and the library, he was starting to suspect Gotham's citizens had a bit of an attachment to traditional architecture and aesthetics. He couldn't complain. As much as he liked swinging between skyscrapers, those did not look very appealing on the inside. There was a certain charm in the dark hard wood that decorated the walls around this central work room and the staircase standing at its heart looked as if it had been plucked out of some history documentary. Even the furniture looked to be excellent quality and worth its weight in gold.

He was surprised. This had to be the most well funded police department he had ever seen. 

"You!" Someone called behind him. "What the hell are you doing-"

He turned as fast as he could, holding the boxes in front of him like a shield. The woman who had called out to him closed her mouth and raised an eyebrow. She looked just as tired as everyone else but, unlike the other officers he had met so far, she calmed down pretty fast once she saw he was carrying food with him.

"Ah. You're the pizza guy. Awesome."

He handed the food over wordlessly, accepting the two ten dollar bills she gave him in exchange. Unfortunately, she did not dismiss him right away, choosing instead to look inside the boxes, maybe to make sure he hadn't poisoned them on the way there. People in Gotham were like that, and this wasn't the first time he had seen someone act this way. He waited as patiently as he could, glancing around and noticing with a sinking heart that one or two detectives were looking at him with obvious mistrust. 

Not everyone here was aware of who he was, then, but those who were definitely did not trust him. He tried to smile in their direction but, to his disappointment, that only made their glares more intense.

"Pizza is here!" The woman eventually cried out, once she decided she was not at risk of being poisoned. "Stay here for a sec." She added in a softer tone, pinning him down with a stern look.

His neck still was not tingling so he stepped back and let a ravenous horde of overworked officers rush past him. As soon as the food had been cleared, the area had instantly turned into a free for all, with quite a few feet being trampled. He grimaced in sympathy after seeing a skinny detective being rudely pushed away from the slice he was trying to grab. Not the most disciplined bunch but he couldn't blame them, there was not a single person in this room who did not look as if they were dead on their feet.

He heard someone step close behind him and turned his head. The female officer -no... lieutenant, she was a lieutenant- looked down at him. She was still holding a box in her hands, which she held out, visibly expecting him to take it back.

"Erm." He said, rather eloquently.

"We have a guy on signal duty." She explained. "I'll give you an extra twenty to take that up to him."

Well if that wasn't code for "we need to talk to you", he would eat his own mask.

If he had a mask to eat, of course.

He considered the odds of this being an ambush but his Spider Sense was still absent. He rubbed the back of his neck out of habit and nodded. A twenty dollar tip was already pretty generous but he couldn't resist the opportunity to double it. The roof would be away from prying eyes and he was beginning to hope he could make some extra cash by sharing info. He definitely did not want to be on the GCPD's bad side, not if he wanted to have a future as a civilian, plus he had continued to visit the Pits mostly to get information on the underworld.

He remembered the face of every single person in that VIP arena. Some of that knowledge had to be useful to someone and, so far, Gordon had struck him as a pretty ok guy. He doubted the commissioner would be there to talk to him in person, considering the state of the station, but he hoped whoever he had tasked with meeting him could be trusted. And he hoped that they would be as generous as the old man had been. A few hundred bucks looked very nice from where he was standing.

"You can take the outside stairs." The lieutenant informed him. He pocketed the rest of his tip and smiled, feeling slightly nauseous. Giving information to the police was turning out to be a lot more stressful than he had expected it to be. He couldn't stop thinking about how his very suspicious and definitely very criminal neighbors would react if they knew he was making extra cash selling intel.

He slipped through the side door she had pointed out to him and, as soon as he stepped outside, took a few seconds to breathe in and enjoy the relative quiet.

Almost everyone he could see in the streets around the station was either a police officer, a member of the press or some kind of legal worker. A few civilians, maybe family members of some of the arrested gang members, flitted around anxiously, the majority of them on their phones. The crowd sticked to the front of the headquarters, thankfully. Most of the people around him were on their smoke breaks or having a discreet mental breakdown next to the dumpsters. He could relate to that feeling very well.

The stairway leading to the roof was guarded by a couple bored looking officers who only let him through after he had bribed them with a slice of pizza each. He walked as quickly as he could up to the roof. He was in the shadows but he was also the only person on this staircase. The least eyes on him, the better he would feel. Nobody looked to be paying much attention but still, his skin crawled.

The roof he stepped onto was empty except for two people. He took note of their location immediately, listening intently. One man, a bit more than middle aged, standing fifteen feet in front of him, slightly to the left, past a bulky air vent and a few stone reliefs. One woman, around his age, light on her feet and absolutely impossible to detect for someone without enhanced senses. Even with his powers, he seriously doubted he could have spotted even just a few weeks earlier. He had made leaps and bounds in his ability to feel the world around him, so much so that he found it a bit worrying.

"Kid." Gordon greeted him. "I have to say, you have some balls on you."

Peter faltered halfway out of the shadows, stopping before he fully left the cover of the stone relief separating the two of them. The commissioner glanced at him, a half smoked cigarette in his hand and an odd look on his face. The teen thought it was a mix of suspicion and curiosity, but he wasn't sure. Like a lot of the adults he had met around Gotham, the man did not let most of his emotions show on his face. If he was considering dragging him back inside and trying to lock him up, there was no sign of it.

The hidden woman shuffled closer, her steps perfectly silent. She was about twenty feet away on their left, up on a higher part of the roof, which had to be some kind of access to the station. She was not triggering any kind of reaction from his sixth sense so he chose to ignore her for now.

"Hello." He said with all the confidence of a man who was regretting every single choice that had led him to this point. "Long time no see."

He could have been more polite, he could have been more careful but, at this point, he was feeling too tired to care. He had just lived through the most stressful walk he had ever taken, had fought Jason in front of his place of work, had gotten harassed by a billionaire and his creepy son and had disappointed the first person he'd properly met in this universe. He could not find it in him to care about watching his tongue, especially since Gordon himself did not look like he gave much of a damn either.

Much like all the other officers he had seen in the building, the man appeared not to have seen his bed in a pretty long time. He was starting to feel good about his own sleep deprivation, and he hadn't gotten more than five hours of rest in the past two days.

"Some balls indeed." Gordon repeated, glancing to the side at what looked like the oddest version of a stage light he had ever seen. It was uncovered, with a thick piece of cloth bulked up around its base. Since it was still unlit, Peter wondered if he was the reason behind the bat-signal having been prepped for use.

He had read about it online but it was still interesting to see it in person. Not many people had that privilege, he suspected. Gordon working with a vigilante was well known, mostly because of the light show that went off whenever an extreme emergency struck Gotham. Despite its infamy, it was used sparingly, and only in the most dire of situations. It was as much a call for help than it was a warning for the population to hide out and be ready to defend themselves until someone else could afford to save them. The hero forums, social media and articles he had read had conveyed that impression to him at least.

He tore his eyes away from the piece of equipment and looked over at the commissioner.

"Pizza for you." He said, with his best winning smile.

Peter thought his customer service voice had gotten pretty decent over a couple weeks of delivering food to very unstable and very well armed people. Gordon did not look amused. He still took the box, though, so that was a win.

"I have heard a lot of interesting things about you." The man said after setting the food down on a nearby stone gargoyle. "I assume you also have a lot of interesting things to tell me."

The other stranger had not moved from the spot she had been in earlier. He could smell metal on her. Weapons, but no gun. Sone kind of blade, then. He resisted the urge to look in her direction, not wanting to make himself seem too threatening. Was he losing his Spider Sense again? He was beginning to doubt he was completely safe, with how close she had gotten to them. 

She could be a fellow police woman, although he had never met one who was able to be so silent. The only other possibilities he could see would be an elite agent, either working for a rich criminal or for the GCPD, or one of the Bats. The last option seemed the most likely. If they collaborated regularly, he could see the vigilantes tagging along with the commissioner for his first time alone with him after the Pits disaster. He had not made a very good impression on them, and the opposite could be said as well. The only one he trusted not to attack him was Nightwing.

Wasn't he supposed to keep them away? Sure, this wasn't interfering with his actual life and he probably wasn't supposed to be spotting anyone, but spying on him crossed a bit of a line. And now he would have to lose the vigilantes if they decided to track him after his shift. Not the best way to end his night.

"Maybe we should go inside." He offered, trying his best to look innocent. He would rather risk being seen by more people than have to deal with another chase.

"Don't worry kid." To his surprise, Gordon looked up and straight at the person in the shadows, who was still watching over them. The chief was a lot more honest than he expected. "Anyone here is someone I trust."

That meant he would be telling them everything that was said anyway. Lovely. Between protecting the identity of active criminals and having the Bats get involved in his business again, he picked the second option.

"I'll hold you to it." He replied, walking to stand a little closer.

"I heard you had fun with Bane." The policeman turned to lean against the bat signal. The thing was so large it held his weight without any reaction. "He talked about you for a while, I think you made an impression."

That was about the last thing he wanted to hear and he made that quite clear. Gordon smiled at his look of dismay. It was a hard smile, full of dark humor.

He was not being treated like an innocent, naive outsider anymore.

But he was still invited to share intel. He wasn't so much of a risk that they wanted him off the streets. Not yet. There must be a lot of other informants like him, who were considered as both assets and potential threats. The chief was careful to order food when the station and the streets were busy, and had gone as far as getting one of his allies to back him up. 

A familiar zipping sound made him freeze for a second. It would have been too quiet to be heard by anyone else, and it had been covered by the sound of a squad car starting up, but he had been running into grappling guns too often not to recognize it. Gordon had not just called one of his allies, he considered him dangerous enough to have two of them as back up. Well, at least the tool was confirmation enough that he was dealing with the Bats, and not any other party.

The newcomer was male, older than him but not by much. He felt familiar.

He focused back on the commissioner.

"I wouldn't call that fun. It was more painful than fun."

"That is not how I had it described to me."

Peter glared at him for a few seconds before he caught himself and hid his annoyance. Having to break the bones of a downed opponent because he was so doped up he didn't feel pain and kept attacking him had been horrible enough that he had barely slept since it happened. What kind of guy did the GCPD think he was? He couldn't see how he could have ever enjoyed that situation. Gordon watched him attentively, perfectly calm and almost finished with his smoke. He looked in his element. In all likelihood, he was.

He missed his webs. After a point, even his strongest opponents could get weak enough that he was able to restrain them, as long as he had enough fluid. He had taken his shooters along this time. Without having to worry about being randomly led to a fighting rink liable to confiscate his weapons, he had no reason not to slip them on before he headed out. He only had a few swings left in them, however, and wrapping Gordon up for being annoying would empty the tanks.

He smiled politely. "Is this all you need, sir?"

The second Bat was even quieter than the first, settling next to her with only his heartbeat telling Peter he was there. He hoped it was Nightwing. As weird as it would be to run into him so frequently, he was the least likely to lead a chase. He really needed to get some sleep and half an hour running from suspicious vigilantes was just as much precious rest he could have caught up on.

Please be Nightwing.

"Did you get to talk to him?"

Blunt. The commissioner was a direct man, then. The way he acted now seemed truer to himself than it had been before. He wondered just how bad of a reputation he had gathered with him and his allies that he was now deemed worthy of not being treated with kiddie gloves on.

"Yeah." He glanced up at the spot Gordon had stared at earlier, now feeling it was safe to do so. He couldn't see anyone up there, the two spies were perfectly melting into the shadows. They knew the roof very well; unsurprising, considering their allegiances. How much did he want them to know? Did he even want to try and hide anything? They were not friends and he knew they would gladly catch and interrogate him if they had the opportunity. Still, they were fighting for the same thing. Jason would have told them to fuck off. 

He was not Jason.

The chief must have taken his hesitation for distrust, and perhaps it was. Still without a word, he took several bills out of his pocket. A few hundred dollars.

He looked at the money, feeling annoyed he was even planning on accepting it. He didn't know how long he would be able to keep his delivery job, and he had to get a safety net as soon as possible. He trusted that he would have trickled that information back to Gordon anyway, at least as long as he thought it could help someone. Even without a bribe he would have told him what he knew. No matter, his own emotions annoyed him.

He shouldn't be feeling relieved to get his hands on some cash, yet he was. He hated what it meant about him.

"I met him in the locker room." He began, "You have to get changed to fight there."

"I see." Gordon narrowed his eyes. It might not have been the best idea to remind him just how involved in the arena he had been.

The Bats both moved, only a twitch. It didn't produce any sound, but somehow he could feel it.

If this was what happened to him when he was too sleep deprived to function, he did not want to repeat the experience. The hyper enhanced hearing did help him spot anyone not included in his Spider Sense, but it was also very distracting, and it made his head hurt like hell.

"He was very talkative. And he injected himself with uh-"

In his current state the only way he could think to describe the liquid would be to call it green goo. He did not imagine Gordon would react well to that wording. He was already pretty tense, now that he had been reminded the kid in front of him had broken the entire body of a man twice his size.

"Venom." The chief said, dropping the butt of his cigarette into a nearby ashtray. "He did it in front of you."

"Yeah." He played back his memory, revisiting the moment he had seen the needle go in, "He was pretty weird about it. Did it very slowly, and talked about control. Control and power."

Seeing as Gordon still didn't seem to want to interrupt him, and the Bats were listening in attentively, he kept on talking.

"He said he was not a slave to it. The venom. I think that's what he meant." He focused, remembering every detail. He was tired but his memory had always been near perfect. "He said he wanted to refine his hm... arsenal."

He went back further, to the start of their meeting.

"He called the arena Penguin's bucket, said the people there were crabs." He noticed the commissioner twitch at the mention of the name. Penguin was infamous for slithering his way out of any long term sentences, and even an outsider like him knew the police was desperate to pin the man. "I saw him." He said, "Cobblepot."

Gordon's only reaction was to narrow his eyes slightly, and only for a fraction of a second. Peter caught onto the micro expression but let nothing on, still talking, still remembering.

"Bane was very talkative," He was repeating himself again, he had to be more precise. "He said he had fought several people already. They weren't much of a challenge. He was interested in me, because I'm a-"

He closed his mouth abruptly, fighting the urge to look away. The commissioner only looked mildly interested, keeping a perfect poker face on. He missed New York. Everyone was so hard to read in Gotham.

"He said he wanted to test his steel. I think he meant the venom. It smelled like poison."

Another part of the memory came back and he spoke a bit faster. "He mentioned a name. Said they had the core of it right. That it was an interesting formula. But it needed to be refined."

"A name." Half a dozen more bills joined those already in Gordon's hand. Peter despised how dry his throat got when he saw them.

He looked away, trying to find an answer. A name... 

"Someone named Ace." He spoke at the same time he remembered it, not missing a tiny muscle twitch next the commissioner's mouth. Tightening. He recognized the person, then.

The Bats did not give much of a reaction, at least not one he could feel. He wondered if he had said enough and, not confident he had, added: "He lost his temper very fast. I noticed that."

"You notice a lot." Gordon's eyes were not any softer, but at least talking to him appeared to have made him less of a threat. He could not define what was different about him, only that something in his demeanor had softened. "Anything else you noticed? We heard there were others on the scene."

Others they did not catch.

He tried to picture the faces he had memorized over his time fighting in the cage. He remembered everyone in the VIP sessions for the three times he had been there, and he described them the best he could. Most of them did not cause any reaction but one of the Bats had a significant heart rate spike when an old man with a piercing gaze and an odd two-toned body suit was mentioned. That one must have been dangerous. He couldn't see why one old dude would be more threatening to them than Ivy or any of the others who had watched his fights but he filed the information away for later.

"How about a man with a red helmet?" Gordon asked suddenly, opening the forgotten box and taking a slice of pizza, which must have become cold by then.

Peter frowned.

Red Hood was a dangerous criminal. No matter how much Jason wanted to become a vigilante, and he was not sure he wanted it very much, he was still a former budding crime lord. He had not been the worst person to lead a gang in Gotham, but he had still committed several atrocities. How much of that had been from him, and how much from the anger he felt, he had no idea. He would not be able to tell until he had found a way to cure him. He thought what mattered was that the man wanted to get away from that past and protect people again. This was what May would have wanted him to do. She thought it was good that he-

It caused her death.

She thought he had made the right choice.

And he had given himself a month to see if she had been right, if he had been right.

It caused her death.

"Never heard of him." He lied, knowing very well Gordon had gotten enough info out of his allies to call him out on it.

The man did nothing of the sort. He simply finished the food in his hand and wiped it on the side of the gargoyle he stood next to. Still with a perfect poker face, he reached towards him. The moonlight caught on the bills he held. There must be at least five hundred dollars in there, enough to buy food, get web supplies and start on working on some of other projects. The boy grabbed them, his heart pounding, and hid them in the inside of his jacket as fast as he could.

"Next time," Peter said, once he had gotten over the feeling of being financially secure, "Let's meet somewhere else."

Annoyingly, this caused Gordon to crack up. The man laughed out loud, smiling genuinely for the first time since he had met him. That simple act changed his face completely, going from the stern, threatening commissioner to a kind older man. He looked so familiar in that moment, and something tugged at his sleep deprived mind, a detail he knew he should not be missing. He was too tired to worry now and pushed it aside, running a finger inside his jacket and feeling the shape of the money hidden there.

"You're starting to wise up." The policeman grinned. "For a second I forgot you're just a kid from New York."

Peter glared at him, not bothering to hide it this time. This version of the man was more genuine but he was also too honest. He didn't need to be reminded Gothamites considered outsiders as barely more competent than babies, Jason and Marco did it often enough.

"Just do it. I'm not coming here again."

The only reply he got was another laugh and he ended up turning on his heels with a sigh. People were becoming annoying to talk to. If they kept on not sleeping, he might have to start knocking them all out, for his own sanity.

He looked up again. The Bats were still there. He wondered if he should bother them, considered the risks, then shrugged and jumped up. If anything, he was confident he could lose them and, with his gas mask, he had little to fear.

He was fast enough to land behind the two vigilantes before they could scatter. Still, they moved immediately. The bigger one, who was indeed Nightwing, took out two short sticks, holding them out in front of him. He smelled of exhaustion and surprise, but other than that seemed in good health, no different than when he had seen him earlier that day. The smaller one, who did look like a woman, smaller than him and dressed completely in black, reached to her belt with one of her hands, widening her stance. 

Remind them you are strong, but be nice enough they won't take it as a threat.

"Hey guys." He ignored Gordon taking out his gun a few feet below. Things like this were better kept for when his Spider Sense started to tingle. If he had indeed lost his power again, he would just go with his gut. "Just wanted to say I've got nothing against you. Sorry about the other night."

They stared at him expressionlessly, their creepy appearance made worse by their shining eye lenses. They were truly the only group of people able to beat out that Damian kid in the eeriness department. Didn't help that they sometimes dragged a literal child along with them. He still was not over the realization that Robin did not look old enough to be attending middle school. At least the boy was nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were being reasonable about it and only brought him out when their mission was safe and simple.

Yeah. As if. He was probably giving them too much credit. 

"You are very polite for a criminal." The smaller vigilante informed him, keeping her hand on her belt. She had slipped something out of it, a throwing star of some kind. No guns, but they were perfectly alright hurtling knives at people. 

"Hopefully not a criminal anymore." He smiled, doing his best impression of a perfectly innocent teenager. It did not work. "Gonna go to college and all that."

One day, he would. Ben and Tony wanted him to and he also had aspirations of his own.

Despite his best attempts at looking nice and friendly, the young woman did not reply, shifting her stance again and raising one of her weapons. Nightwing ended up being the one talking for the both of them, seemingly torn between annoyed and amused. 

"We have other things to do than chase you tonight." Below them, Gordon started. The girl turned to look at her partner, her emotions impossible to read. "Just go and don't get into any more trouble." The older vigilante shooed him away, his batons already back into the sheath attached to his bodysuit. "Seriously. Stay off the streets. For your own good."

Taking it as a dismissal, Peter waved at them, still going for pure innocence, and turned away. He used the shadow of a cloud to jump to the next building over, clearing a gap wide enough to fit half a dozen cars. He heard the Bats stand but, true to their word, they did not follow him as he ran back to the restaurant. Going through with meeting Gordon might not have been one of his best decisions but it was done, and he had officially met another one of the vigilantes too.

At least he had learned something. That Penguin was wanted by the GCPD was old news, according to the forums and videos he'd consumed. But they had reacted to the name Ace and, if he could figure out who that was, he could-

Do what? Bane was already in custody, What point would there be in investigating it, if his supply of venom had already been seized? Why would the GCPD even care?

Maybe Gordon was afraid of the drug getting out to other criminals and wanted to cut the supply before it became a risk.

But... Ace's drug wasn't venom. Bane had said it needed to be refined.

So it had been something else, something he had mixed in with his usual cocktail.

Something potent, going by his reaction.

A strength enhancer?

Muscle growth?

He remembered a man, a twisted, deformed thing, twitching in the snow dying.

Another drug.

It could be.

The Bats would be looking into it. He wanted to stay away from them, at least when Nightwing wasn't there. Jason hated them, couldn't be trusted when they were around.

But he had promised himself he would be getting to the bottom of this incident. In the memory of the man he had watched die.

He was feeling extremely conflicted when he entered the pizzeria, and his mental state did not get any better when his boss greeted him with, of all things, a very cheerful:

"How much did he pay you?"

He bit back another sigh and looked as neutral as he could.

"Who?"

Marco grinned.

"Decent. But you could get a bit more from acting angry. Something a bit like..."

He tilted his head back. His breath smelled of alcohol. He straightened up abruptly, his face showing nothing but cold, intense anger.

"What kind of guy do you think I am?" His boss asked in a low, threatening voice. He was genuinely intimidating, despite the fact he was drunk. His frown relaxed as suddenly as it had formed and he smiled. "Remind them they should be scared of ya." He laughed and drained his glass, filling it back up shortly after.

Peter stared at him silently. Eventually, he found enough energy to reply, although he couldn't help how exhausted he knew he sounded.

"We're delivering to another place next time."

To his great frustration, Marco, much like Gordon, found that statement hilarious.

"So you are learning something."

Everyone in this city was unhinged and very annoying. He couldn't wait to be back in his apartment. His bed, at least, was more reasonable than these people.

Notes:

Peter, with an average of two and a half hours of sleep a night, has the healthiest sleep schedule right now.

Maybe the Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms tag was the friend we made along the way. LOL

This story has fanart! Some super cute adorable drawings of Petey boy, from Mikaxcra/Chopperx33 You can find it here:

https://www.tumblr.com/irisenwrites/733121918200430592/fanart-from-chopperx33?source=share&ref=irisenwrites