Chapter Text

Chapter One

Jason had been gunning for the Joker for months. Well, longer than that, but it was harder to get to the asshole when he was in Arkham and his last breakout was five months ago. It had been years since he last tried to kill the clown. He had more on his plate than avenging his own death, which sucked, but someone in this idiot family had to be a responsible adult and actually clean up the streets.

Which is how he ended up here, five months later than he wanted to be, fighting a kid – at least Jason thinks he’s a kid, he’s built like a brick shithouse – with white face paint, a big red smile smeared over his scowl, hair as disgustingly green as the Jokers, and venomous spikes coming out of his wrists. He also bent a metal beam trying to punch Jason in the head, so Jason is super glad that he ducked out of the way in time.

The others are doing just about as well as Jason is with their guys. Nightwing and Red Robin are facing off against the newest Joker Jr. and another kid the Joker called Able. Considering the guy he’s fighting is called Cane, Jason has a feeling he’s not going to like the finale that the Joker has planned for them. Sure, it’s impossible to tell if Cane is legal to drive, drink, or rent a car, but Able is, like, twelve.

Batgirl and Batgirl – It’s not Confusing™ – are fighting two teenage girls, Mini Mimi and Poppet. Mini Mimi is not looking good, despite that the one punch she landed on Spoiler shattered her collar bone. She’s wheezing like standing hurts and is spending most of the fight hiding behind Poppet, who is giving Black Bat a serious run for her money.

They’re in an abandoned warehouse, a dime a dozen of them in Gotham, and Joker’s second favorite spot to disturb some shit. If Jason had just had time to track him down and put a bullet in his head like he wanted from the get go, Joker wouldn’t have had time to A) make a bomb as big as the one they were all fighting around, B) make twelve other bombs to scatter around the most populated areas of Gotham, and C) find and tortured these kids into being his own fucked up band of Marionettes to ‘compliment’ Batman’s Birds.

“My demands are simple!” Joker cackled. “Batman gets here so I can blow all of you to Timbuctoo, or twelve high rises full of kittens and puppies and orphans go… BOOM! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“God, I fucking hate this guy,” Jason snarled, ducking under a stab from Cane and tagging him with a rubber bullet. It just makes the guy angrier. Jason has a sinking feeling that if he was packing heat like he used to, it would have the same effect. It’s like fighting a polar bear on roids with poison knives taped to his paws.

“B, what’s your ETA?” Dick asked, tagging Able with an escrima stick, only to have to pull back as Joker Jr. moves in to try and snap Dick’s arm off.

“Five minutes, hold on,” Batman’s voice crackles over the coms. “Can you last?”

“Yes but… confusing,” Cass answered. “I can’t read them. Their body and body language are saying different things. They don’t want to fight, but their bodies move anyway.”

“Mind control?” Dick asked.

“No telepath,” Cass said. “Body language and body would match, only eyes are a give away then. Something else.”

“He’s got two things in his hand,” Tim grunted as Joker Jr. grabbed an old fire extinguisher and chucked it at him. “Holy shit, these guys are fast. Where did Joker find them?”

“They aren’t something he made, that’s for sure,” Steph said, almost collapsing when Poppet momentarily turned her attention from Cass to try and get a jab in when Steph got too close.

“What I’m saying is that Joker’s got the switch to the big bomb in one hand and a voice modulator in the other.”

“Brain washing?”

“I can think of a few methods that look like this,” Tim said. “But that doesn’t explain why they’re so strong or so hard to hit.”

“I’m hitting my guy just fine,” Jason grunted.

“Danger Sense,” Cass says, moving away from Poppet’s hand as it shoots out to decapitate her. Jason’s positive they’re strong enough to do it in one motion, too. “And training. Assassin.”

“Damn, there’s no way Joker just found these guys, they had to come from somewhere,” Steph also moves out of the way, just in time. Mini Mimi is slower than her siblings, if they even are related and not disparate mutants or metahumans that Joker rounded up.

“Mutant Trafficking?”

“They’d have mutant collars,” Tim said. “Which Oracle could have already hacked into, disarmed the bomb inside, and blocked their powers until we can gain control of the situation.”

“Oracle, do you have anything?” Dick asked. “One hit from these guys in the right spot… it’s not gonna be pretty.”

“The makeup is too thick and they’re moving too fast to get a good enough picture to run face ID,” Oracle said over the coms. “Oh, Signal just diffused the last of the twelve bombs scattered around the city, by the way. Yours is the only one left, but it’s gonna be a bitch to disarm.”

“I’ll manage!” Tim yelped, then screamed in pain. Joker Jr. tagged him in the upper arm. “Fuck, that’s broken. That’s really broken.”

“Have any of you gotten to the Joker yet?” Batman asked.

“No, these freakin puppets are getting in the way,” Jason growled. “I could probably get a bullet in his brain but by the time I pull the trigger Cane over here’ll probably Hulk Clap my brains all over this shit hole.”

Batman growled. He hated it when Jason talked about killing, being killed, or swore. And also breathed, probably. Daddy issues were great!

“I’m at the warehouse, just stay calm.”

“And what makes you think Joker is gonna hesitate when he sees you?” Jason growls.

“Because he has to monologue,” Batman grunted. “When he’s distracted, Red Robin needs to get to the bomb and disarm it.”

“Yeah, I can… do that one handed, no problem,” Tim hissed. “No… ow… ow…”

“I can cover you,” Dick growled. “These guys are nothing.”

“Owie,” Tim mumbled.

Jason always forgot how formidable Nightwing was. It only took a single clip from these guys to shatter their bones, they were stupidly fast, and they were impossible to hit, and yet Nightwing had avoided everything they threw at him and landed a lot of his own hits. Not that they did much other than piss them off, but still.

Jason was about to consider switching to live rounds when the skylight overhead exploded. The Batman, cape splayed out like a massive black cloud, figure obscured by the moonlight, descended from above and slammed into the Joker, full force, yet still not knocking the wind out of him.

The Joker cackled, pulling the voice modulator to his face and shouting, “Now the show can really begin! Cane, kill your little brother.”

Cane roared in anger, slamming an open palm against Jason’s chest, knocking him back with enough force that Jason slammed into the wall thirty feet behind him and everything went black. He came to only seconds later, but chaos was already unleashed. Joker Jr. was holding Cane’s arms desperately, Able was scrambling away from them, and the Joker was cackling. The two girls were rushing to reach the fight in time, but the Joker managed to roll out from under Batman and cackled some more.

“Junior, I told you not to interfere. Let him go. We’re putting on a show for Batman! Girls, stop moving.”

Joker Jr. eyes widened, a strangled sound escaped his throat, as he let Cane go. The girls literally stopped moving, falling to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. Cane lunged for Able, but they were all too winded to do anything about it. Cane’s fingers closed around Able’s throat, the little boy clawed at his arms desperately, but Cane was an immovable object.

Jason loaded his gun, wondering if trading one kid’s life for another was even something he could do, but the only thing he could think to do was put a bullet in Cane’s head to save the younger kid.

Joker had gotten free of Batman for a moment, spinning close enough to Cane to pat him on the back and he trembled with rage.

“It’s biblical, isn’t…”

With a mighty roar, Cane ripped himself away from brother and slammed into the Joker with all the might and grace of a derailing train. Jason’s fingers slipped on the magazine of live ammo and the world turned white for the briefest moments.

Then everything went red.

Cane pinned Joker to the floor, screaming with each breath, raising his fists in the air like an enraged gorilla and bringing them slamming down on any part of the Joker he could reach. Blood, guts, brains, and bone fragments splattered over him and in at least a ten-foot diameter around him.

They saw violence every day, and Jason dreamed of the Joker being beaten to a pulp, but it had always been more of a figurative pulp.

Cane turned the Joker into something that looked like spaghetti meat sauce.

And he kept slamming his fists down, screaming, until he only had red, cracked concrete to hit. Whatever the Joker did to them, it was more than what he did to Jason, if that rage was anything to go by. And the Joker tortured Jason to death.

Jason wasn’t sure he ever wanted to find out just how low the depraved little coward of a clown would go to ‘put on a show for Batman’.

They watched in silence as Cane exhausted himself, eventually staggering away from what could barely be called a body at this point. He fell to his knees and threw up. Jason was pretty sure he was gonna hurl up something himself. He skipped lunch and it was past dinner so, scrambled eggs, probably.

Jason tries to look at something else, anything else, and looks away from the red smear on the ground and up towards where Tim is disarming the bomb, only to shout a warning. Joker Jr. is right being Tim. He’s going to…!

Junior picks Red Robin up by the scruff of his cape, and places him away from the bomb panel like he’s a puppy that got into something he shouldn’t have. Joker Jr. rips the panel off and jams his hand into it, his brows furrowed in concentration, a surprisingly stubby tongue stuck out for a moment, then there was a crunching sound and Joker Junior ripped the bomb apart, diffusing it and removing the trigger in one fluid motion. He handed the jumble of parts to Tim, who took it in his good hand and frowned down at it then looked up, confused.

Joker Jr. patted him on the head then walked over to where the modulator had rolled and stamped on it, shattering it into a million little pieces.

Jason looked to where Batman was standing, watching them quietly, judging the situation, assessing threats, being broody. Nightwing was standing next to him with a sneer on his face.

“Hey, B,” Nightwing punched Batman’s shoulder almost playfully. “You gonna try CPR now?”

Jason starts laughing. It’s a weird, uncomfortable, bubbling laugh. It builds in his throat until he can’t hold it in anymore. He has to take his helmet off just to try and stop laughing, but he can’t. He gets up and his ribs scream in protest. He’d be surprised if there a single one not at least bruised. Laughing hurts, but he can’t stop.

It’s over.

The clown can’t hurt anyone ever again.

The Joker is well and truly dead.

He must have blacked out because the next thing he knows is that he’s outside and Bruce is standing over him. B is breathing heavily, each breath desperate and ragged, but the moment Jason looks up at him, he snaps back into focus.

“Why were you laughing?”

Jason looks away and shrugs.

“I thought you got gassed,” Bruce hissed.

“Oh,” Jason huffs. “No. I…” I’m just fucked in the head, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. “Just thought it was funny.”

“A man died, Hood.”

“Sure,” Jason snaps. “Sure, a man died. This is why I don’t… just leave me alone. I’m fine.” Jason pushes away from Batman and starts to gather his bearings, trying to figure out where he parked his bike so he can get out of here. He needs a shower. Or a bath and good book and some heavy metal.

“Hood…”

“Don’t…” Jason spins on him. “A man died? Is that all you have to say?”

Batman doesn’t answer.

“A man died? That wasn’t a man, Bruce, that was a monster. A… a kid was forced to do something that you refused to do.”

Batman still doesn’t answer.

“And… and I don’t know whether I’m relieved that he’s finally gone or upset that you… I will never know if you would have avenged me or not, because you aren’t the one that stopped him from hurting anyone else.”

“Jason,” Bruce’s voice is so quiet, Jason pretends he didn’t hear him.

“You let him stay alive long enough to do that to more kids!” Jason screams at him. “You…”

“Stop,” Batman turns from him, his tone leaves no room for disobedience. Bruce doesn’t use that tone with Jason anymore, he knows better. He should know better, so…?

Waller.

Jason recognizes her voice. God, he hates her. He doesn’t deal with her often, she’s more concerned with the big fish rather than local grown crime lords with no powers. But he remembers how slimy he felt whenever he had to interact with her when she messed with the League; back when he was still Robin. That was a lifetime ago.

“Where are they?” Waller is shouting at Commissioner Gorder.

Jason hates that he looks to Batman for context.

“The Marionettes escaped while we were… concerned that you were having a reaction,” Batman admits.

“Thanks for the concern,” Jason snorts. “Least it did something good.”

“It’s not good that there are five unknown metahumans in Joker makeup running around this city.”

“But Waller’s after ‘em.”

“Yes, she seems to be,” Batman growls.

“What does that change?”

“A lot, but… not the things I’d like it to,” Batman says.

“Is the rest of the brood already following them?”

“Hn,” Batman grunts.

“They wipe that paint off, get the die out of their hair, you don’t have enough on them to find them.”

“I know,” Batman sighs. “Stay here, I don’t want her near you.”

“I don’t want her near me, either.”

Despite that, Jason can’t help but lurk in a dark shadow nearby where the tech in his helmet allows him to listen in. He knows Bruce knows he’s doing it, but he doesn’t care. And Bruce doesn’t react, so he probably won’t get lectured. He’s not Robin anymore, he won’t take being lectured for lurking.

Waller is throwing a fit, demanding that Gordon allow her men into the city or she’ll send them in without his permission. Gordon, to his credit, isn’t cowed by her. Jason can tell Batman is about to step in, but a man appears almost out of thin air and holds up a badge.

“Hello, I am Agent Coulson, I’m with Shield.”

“Damn spooks,” Gordon sighs. “I can manage my city better without outside interference.”

“I am well aware of that, Commissioner Gordon,” Coulson says. He sounds familiar, maybe Jason met him when he was Robin and it’s one of the memories he still haven’t gotten back yet. “I’m here to tell Waller that the… project that concerns the missing children is no longer under her department’s control.”

“Under who’s authority?”

“General Ross,” Coulson said.

Waller snorted in amusement, “Sure he did.”

“I am aware that you may consider General Ross one of your friends. Information about your project was brought to him and he changed his mind. He transferred the project to SHIELD.”

“Bullshit,” Waller snapped, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

They watched in amusement as Waller called Ross, started yelling, stopped mid-sentence, pinched her face like she’d sucked on a lemon, and stormed off.

“What was that about?” Gordon asked.

“One the people harmed by the project was a very close friend of General Ross. He described her as a second daughter to him. He’s not currently happy with Waller at the moment,” Coulson said. He looked amused. Jason decided he liked this guy.

“I want to know everything you know about them,” Batman growled. “They’re lose in my city and…”

“They won’t be for long,” Coulson said. “Shield has ways of keeping tabs on them.”

“Where did they come from? Joker definitely didn’t make them. He doesn’t have the experience to make super soldiers on his own.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“I assume Waller had a hand?”

“Yes, she did,” Coulson said. “Shield is working on rectifying the situation.”

“Not in my city they aren’t. I don’t like rogue metas lose in my city.”

“I wouldn’t either, if I had a city,” Coulson smiled. “They’ve been through a lot. I promise you, SHIELD has done a thorough threat assessment and determined that they don’t pose a threat to the public. At least, the public that doesn’t dress like clowns and mind control children.”

“I want that assessment and any info that lead them to that conclusion,” Batman growled.

“You’ll have it,” Coulson said. “I might even be able to leave in some redacted info. But I’m afraid I can’t say any more.”

“And why the hell not?” Gordon asks.

“That’s not for me to say,” Coulson assures them. “Believe it or not, despite everything they’ve been through, they do have civilian identities.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Gordon sighs.

Batman already disappeared.

Jason figured his pull his own disappearing act. He had a date with Jane Austen and a warm salt bath.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

Peter loves the smell of fresh French toast, warm maple syrup, and the motes of powdered sugar floating through the air after he shook the shaker with the ferocity of a dog with a squeaky toy. Mom was playing the fun music on the speaker. She tried to make wheat cakes since they were Peter’s favorite, but she can never get them to turn out like Aunt May’s. Peter didn’t mind the French toast one bit. Mom and Dad let him put powdered sugar on French toast, but not on wheat cakes.

“Peter, help me cut Teresa’s toast,” Mom says, lifting Peter up onto the counter.

“But, Moooom, my toast is getting soggy!” Peter giggles as Mom tickles his sides and then tweaks his nose.

“You want to be a good brother, don’t you?” Mom laughed.

“I guess,” Peter sighs.

“We told you not to put so much syrup on your toast, Peter,” Dad ruffles his hair. “You’ll get your fingers sticky.”

“I was gonna wash my hands, promise!” Peter’s little voice squeaks. He hates it. He wasn’t to be big and grown like Mom and Dad. People take them seriously. People don’t take six-year-olds seriously.

At least he knew how to cut up Teresa’s toast in small bites because she was too little to chew big bites. She was 14 months old, 40 whole months younger than Peter. That was a lot of months, it was four tens! Peter learned that in school yesterday.

“Peter, do you…”

Peter blinks. He doesn’t… where… wasn’t… Teresa? There was… something. A loud noise. Did he miss the school bus? Where is he?

Peter blinks some more, but everything is blurry and his eyes sting like he’s underwater. He tries to breath in but there’s liquid. There’s liquid in his lungs, all around him. It tastes funny. It’s not water and when it coats his lungs, it’s scary, but he doesn’t feel lightheaded or any burning like when he dunked his head in the bath and got soap in his eyes.

Where’s Mom? Where’s… the liquid is going away now. The light is really bright. He feels his back sticking to a plastic stretcher underneath him. A hand move a light out of the way and things are less blurry, but it’s not great. He tries to wipe the gunk from his eyes and blinks some more. He can see some computers far away, but the man sitting next to him is blurry. He reaches for his glasses, but he can’t find them. He swallows. Somehow, his throat is dry.

The figure grabs Peter’s face and he squirms away from them, yelling a little and curling in on himself. He’s naked, but he… wasn’t he just eating breakfast? Then… then there’s a loud noise and everything went blank and now he’s here.

“Stop squirming!” The figure shouts in a familiar voice. A hand strikes out and slaps him across the face and he freezes.

He starts wailing. His face hurts. He didn’t know what he did. He doesn’t know where he is. Where’s Mom? Where’s… Dad?

“I said shut up!” the figure screams, hitting him again. But… that’s Dad’s voice? Why did he hit him? What’s happening?

“Dad?” Peter wails.

The figure freezes, then stiffens, “I’m not your dad.”

“What?”

“You are Specimen Alfa Phase 731.”

“But…” Peter mumbled. He’s Peter? He’s Peter Benjamin Parker and he lives in Forest Hills, Queens with his mom and his dad and his baby sister. “What does Alfa Phase 731 mean?”

“That’s your serial number,” Dad says. “I didn’t think it would be able to talk so quickly.”

But Peter’s been talking since he was ten months old? Mom said so. She said his first word was May. He was using full sentences by the time he was Teresa’s age, but it took him until he was almost eighteen months, but Teresa could already walk.

“Dad?” Peter’s voice quivers. “I… I’m cold.”

“Why is it calling me that? I didn’t program it to do that, did I?” Dad ignores him, shuffling through papers.

Peter curled in on himself, rubbing his shoulders as the weird liquid evaporated all of his body head. He couldn’t help but start shivering, but he was scared. Dad was acting really weird. He kept hitting him. What if he asked for a blanket or some cloths and Dad hit him again? Where was Mom? Where was Teresa?

Peter sat there, trying not to draw too much attention to himself, while Dad flipped through papers and mumbled to himself. Eventually, he grabbed Peter by the arm and slapped a weird bracelet onto it. It looked like the hospital band that Peter had when he had that really bad allergic reaction last month and had to spend overnight in the children’s wing. Only this one had a metal tag on it. Peter wanted to read what it said, he was good at reading, but Dad manhandled him around the lab. At least it looked like a lab. Dad never took him to his work before.

There was equipment around, mostly the DNA stuff that Peter read about when he got into Dad’s textbooks. They left the lab section and entered a hallway with what looked like jail cells in it, but funny. They were like the animal kennels at the pet store, but people size and with super strong looking mesh and doors. Each cell had a little flap door in the back and a little cot. Dad fiddled with his keys and opened the only one with a label on it. It said AP-731, just like what Dad called him.

He pushed Peter inside and told him to put on the cloths sitting on the cot, locked the door, turned around, and left. The overhead lights turned off, leaving Peter in the low level light of the emergency lighting, harsh and red.

Why did Dad leave him here? What was happening? Where was Mom? When were they gonna go home? Did Uncle Ben and Aunt May know where he was. Why… why was this happening. Why wasn’t Dad calling him Peter anymore? He didn’t want to be a number; he liked being Peter.

Peter found the clothes sitting on the bed and pulled them on. He didn’t get shoes, just a hospital gown that was closed in the back and some shorts. He missed his glasses.

Peter curled up on the cot and pulled the blanket around him. It was a weird material, sort of plasticky and not very soft, but not itchy either. It was so, so warm. He bundled himself under the blanket until he stopped shivering and his eyes adjusted to the low red light.

He slowly got up, keeping the blanket around him like a cape, and started to explore his new… he supposed this was his new bedroom. He missed his old room with his posters and books and toys. He wanted his stuffed bear back really badly.

Across from the door there was a pocket door where there was a really small bathroom, just a toilet and a sink. No mirror, no Captain America toothbrush, no bathtub with his toy boats and cups. At least he could go potty and wash his hands, but there wasn’t even any soap.

Peter sat there in the dark, waiting for something to happen for what felt like an eternity. He was so bored. The only thing to do was cry but then he ran out of tears and he wasn’t really tired, but he tried to sleep anyway. There was nothing else to do. He was so bored he wasn’t even scared or confused anymore. Just overwhelming boredom.

He ended up laying half on the cot, the top half of his body hanging down, looking at the red emergency light, and trying to list of the periodic table in order, but he only got to Cadmium before he couldn’t remember what was 49, but that Tin was 50, so he skipped it and resolved to ask Dad what 49 was when he came back. The next one he could remember was Xenon because Mom said it sounded like a warrior princess name and Dad said that was Xena, not Xenon, but Peter didn’t remember what number Xenon was. Einsteinium was 99 and he remember that because Einstein was smart and Jewish just like him. Uncle Ben said so. And 99 was a cool number.

That’s when Dad came back. He turned the lights back on and it made Peter’s eyes hurt for a bit, but he blinked a bunch and it got better.

Peter jumped up and ran up to the mesh of the cage to say hi, “Hi, Dad! Do you know what the…” but Dad slammed his fist into the bars, making them rattle, and Peter leapt back, wide eyed.

“Stop calling me that,” Dad snarled.

Peter blinked. Stop calling him… Dad? But… what else was Peter supposed to call Dad. He was Dad. Peter tilted his head in confusion.

“You are Alfa Phase 731, I made you in a test tube,” Dad snarled. “You look like a little boy, I’ll give you that, but you are a clone. You’re not a real person, so stop acting like one!” He slammed his fist into the cage a few times until Peter was backed all the way up against the wall, cowering and covering his ears. He missed Dad. This was scary. “Making you out of Peter’s DNA was a mistake,” Dad sighed.

“What’s… what’s a clone?” Peter whispered.

“Let me show you,” Dad opened the door and grabbed Peter, dragging him out of his new room and bringing him back into the lab, shoving him in front of a line of pods just like the one he woke up in. There were a bunch of them, maybe ten, but Peter was too distracted by the body in the one next to his. It was… him? But it looked half his age. But it was him. The one next to it just had liquid in it, and the rest were completely empty.

“That is Bravo Phase 888,” Dad pointed at the little boy, no older than three, in the second tank. “And this is Charlie Phase 322. That one’s female.”

Peter looked up at Dad, confused.

“You were grown in this over the last two years at three times the rate of a real human child. Any faster and you would have been too unstable, at least with the breakthroughs I’ve had already. I’m aiming for four times the rate by Echo Phase.”

This was a lot of really confusing stuff.

“But… I thought that mommies grow babies inside their tummies?” Peter asked quietly. That’s how they got Teresa. That’s how he was made, too? Wasn’t it? Mom showed him the pictures of her when she had him in her tummy. There was a picture on the mantel of her and Dad in the hospital holding him. It even had a little footprint and the hospital bracelet he had when he was in the NICU because he was two months early.

“Yes, women have uteruses that grow human babies,” Dad said. “You are not a human child. You are an artificial lifeform made by Cadmus.”

But he was Peter, wasn’t he? He remembered being Peter. He remembered the pictures and his room and his family. He was Peter.

“But… where’s Mom?” Peter asked. Mom would…

Dad punched him. It wasn’t like the slaps from earlier. This… Peter was on the floor, too stunned at first to make noise, then unable to stop himself from screaming. His face hurt. Dad… Dad started kicking him.

“You! Are! Not! Him!” Dad screamed. “You are a lab experiment!”

“Dad!” Peter sobbed. “Stop! I’m sorry!”

“Stop calling me that!”

Peter sobbed.

Eventually, Dad stopped kicking him and punched the tank that had Bravo Phase in it. Peter wanted to cry out, don’t hurt him! He’s too little! But he couldn’t do anything but cry.

Dad paced the room while Peter did his best to keep his crying as silent as possible. Until Dad stormed back over to him and grabbed him by the hair, yanking him to his feet and dragging him back into the hallway with the cells, tossing him back into it and locking him in.

“You are not a human child, so stop acting like him,” Dad snarled.

Peter was left in the dim, red glow again. He grabbed the blanket and the pillow off the cot and pushed himself under it, hiding from the world.

He couldn’t get the image of Bravo Phase out of his mind. It looked like him, but it wasn’t. But Peter knew who he was, even if Dad told him he wasn’t. So… was Bravo Phase also him? He wished Bravo Phase was awake so he could ask him if he remembered yesterday, too. Did he remember Mom’s French toast? Did he know who Teresa was? Was Charlie Phase going to get big enough to see and then look like Teresa? Was Peter real or was it just his imagination?

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

The moment the Bats were distracted, Peter hauled Kaine to his feet and made sure the other three were following him and they left the way Batman came, through the now glassless skylight. He didn’t have his web shooters, he never managed to finish them before…

Don’t think about that.

They were fast enough that they made it out of what he hoped was the Bat’s immediate range before he led his family up a smokestack in what looked like an abandoned factory and down inside it, where they were hidden from prying eyes.

Peter checked over his little siblings, finally able to catch his breath. The controller didn’t exactly wear off, but the state of the guy giving the orders really made them feel meaningless, so… they were free. For now.

Until Richard found them again and…

Don’t think about that.

Kaine looked the worse for wear. There was so much blood. Ben had some on him, too, so Peter bunched up his sleeve and started wiping it off, holding Ben’s face still with his other hand. Ben was only eleven, it was hard not to baby him. He was made last, before the program got defunded.

“Hey!” Ben squirmed.

“Hold still, I’m almost done,” Peter said.

“Hey, you almost sound normal!” Jessie said.

“Dang, now he’s gonna be bossy again,” Peni snorted.

Peter let them distract him, just so he could check them over, too. She had blood on her nails, she must have made some decent contact with the Batgirls. That didn’t surprise him, she may only be fourteen, but she had the most combat training of all of them, even Kaine, who had two years on her. They were all meant to be assassins, but Peni was meant to be the assassin of assassins. They hid most of their powers from the Joker. He never ordered them to tell him, so they didn’t.

Peni could sort of turn herself invisible, not like Invisible Woman, but enough that you really had to know she was there to see her, and if she didn’t want you to see her, you wouldn’t. She also had a similar venom touch to Kaine’s, only hers was a neurotoxin, while Kaine’s acted more like acid. Peter would have to find a way to get her some antidote for her venom so she could knock people out easier without risking killing them. It was a good thing Joker didn’t know she could do that, or he could have easily ordered her to use it against the Batgirls.

“Peter, are you done brooding yet?” Jessie teased.

“Hush, you,” Peter turned to her to check for injuries.

Jessie was the weakest of all of them. Her tank had been cracked when Kaine was released, so she wasn’t as stable at them. Richard really hurt Kaine when he realized that he’s caused Jessie to develop muscular dystrophy.

She was still formidable, don’t get Peter wrong. She compensated for getting fatigued faster but hitting harder, even if she only had L2 Super Strength to their L4 through 6 and half the healing factor they did. She could also connect all of them telepathically and spread their skills, so she… Richard kept her. Peter had to convince him she was still useful but he saved her. He needed to keep her safe.

“Pete, come on, I’m fifteen,” Jessie mumbled.

“Don’t read my mind.”

“I don’t gotta, you got like, two thoughts in your head and they’re ‘I wanna protect my family’ and ‘I wanna hot dog.’”

“Shut,” Peter cupped her face in his hands. “I’m your big brother; those are the only two thoughts I need.”

“I need a shower,” Kaine announced.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” Ben said. “You look like Carrie.”

“We all need showers,” Peter said. “And who showed you Carrie?”

“Nunya,” Ben mumbled, sticking his tongue out at Peter.

“I’m not falling for that,” Peter sighed.

Peni looked sheepish; it was probably her. She did love horror movies, but she hated watching them alone. Jessie would leave the moment she realized it was a scary movie and Kaine would leave if there wasn’t enough drama, so that left Peter and Ben to watch with her if Uncle Ben and Aunt…

Don’t think about that.

“You think this dye will come out in the wash?” He asked none of them in particular.

His tongue really hurt, but he was glad it grew back. Richard never cut his tongue out like Joker did, but he always threatened. He used to cut off Peter’s fingers if he misbehaved because they knew that would grow back. Well, they hadn’t known the first time, but Richard decided that Peter’s non-dominant ring finger was worth sacrificing to find out.

“Kaine, did you break anything?”

“Nothing attached to me,” Kaine grunted. “You’re such a worrywart, Mom.”

Peter scowled at him, but didn’t take the bait. Kaine loved riling them up so they’d make the first swing and he wouldn’t get in trouble for starting it, just finishing it. Only Uncle Ben ever…

Do. Not. Think about that.

“Where do we go now?” Ben asked.

“I want to go home,” Peni whispered.

“Me, too,” Jessie said.

“Me, three!” Ben added.

“We can’t,” Kaine snarled.

“It’s too dangerous,” Peter said. “It’s compromised. We could get caught again.”

“But I miss my bed,” Ben whined. “And my toys and my…”

“I know, Benji, but… I can’t go back there,” Peter said. “I just… I can’t.”

“But all our stuff…”

“Was probably auctioned off with the rest of the house by now,” Kaine grunted. “If you can even sell a house like that with what happened…”

“Don’t,” Peter snapped. “Look, we’re not going home. End of discussion.”

“Who died and put you in charge?” Kaine growled.

Peter almost punched him, but Ben jumped between them, “Stop!”

“You fucking know who died, Kaine,” Peter snapped.

“Guys, come on!” Jessie said.

“Kaine, don’t… be yourself for five minutes while we figure this out,” Peni pleaded.

“Who says we gotta stick together anyway!” Kaine said. “You four can do whatever the hell you want, I wanna go to Mexico and… live on the beach or something. You can follow or not, I don’t give a shit.”

“You can’t… you can’t leave,” Ben said. “You… we gotta stick together! Aunt May made you promise!”

“Shut up about Aunt May, Benjamin!” Kaine snapped.

“We promised we’d always be family and family sticks together!” Ben insisted.

“Fuck you!”

“Kaine, stop!” Peter said. “Just… you’re both right, okay? We should stick together, but we can’t force each other to do stuff we don’t want to, got it? If Kaine wants to leave, he can leave.”

“I never said I wanted to leave.”

“You just said you were going to Mexico,” Peter said.

“No I didn’t,” Kaine snapped.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Shut up.”

“I think we should put it to a vote. All in favor of Mexico?” Peni asked.

Kaine raised his hand.

“Are you kidding me!?” Peter snapped.

“Shut up,” Kaine repeated.

“Alright, that’s one vote for Mexico. All in favor of Forest Hills?”

Ben, Jessie, and Peni raised their hands.

“That’s not an option,” Peter said. “This isn’t a democracy, I’m in charge.”

“Why?”

“Cause I’m the oldest and I promised… I promised them I’d keep you guys safe.”

“Boo,” Peni said. “Vibe killer.”

“Even a dictator derives his power from the people, Peter,” Jessie said. “We’re rioting against your tyranny.”

“That’s not… what? Jessie, stop… just stop reading weird books about communism and dictators and stuff, it’s making you weird.”

“You read that book, dumbass,” Jessie punched him in the shoulder.

“Hey!” Peter snapped. “Fine, whatever, you know what I mean. I can read it, it’s not weird. You make it weird.”

“Viva la révolution!” Jessie pumped her fist into the air.

“So, you got a third place for us to vote on. By the way, you can vote more than once, we’re looking for whatever gets the most votes in the first round of voting,” Peni said.

“That’s too complicated, let’s just… head back to Queens, we can figure something else out once were there. Kaine’s right, there’s probably a new family living in U… in their house. It’s probably not even an option.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Jessie said.

“I’m pretty sure. It’s been months.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Kaine said. “I need to know where you dumbasses end up before I leave for Mexico so I know how to check up on you.”

“You just said you weren’t going to Mexico,” Peter sighed. Sometimes he wished he was an only child.

“Okay, so I do wanna go home,” Ben said. “But I really wanna get this clown paint off first, and I’m stinky, and also Kaine looks like he just murdered a guy.”

“I did,” Kaine said. “I wanna get the clown off me.”

“I’ve got some of him on me, too,” Ben said.

“Okay, we… break into a convenience store that’s closed, stead some soap and shampoo, mark down the address so we can send payment later…”

“Narc,” Kaine teased.

“Shut up… and then we find a 24-hour gym or maybe one that’s closed, we take illegal showers, then we find a bus headed to New York and sit on top.”

“We’d need blankets for that, it’s cold,” Peni said.

“I’m not risking a bus driver being able to describe us to police if questioned,” Peter said. “It’s too risky to be spotted.”

“Fine, but we’re stealing some blankets, too, then,” Peni said. “I don’t like being cold or wet and it smells like rain.”

“Maybe the rain with wash the grime off and we can…”

“No, hot shower, fancy soap,” Kaine said.

Peni went into the store to steal soap. It was nearly 2AM but everywhere was still open. With how messed up Gotham was, Peter wouldn’t be surprised if their operating hours has the AM and PM swapped and they opened at 8PM and closed at 10AM. Peni used her camouflage to steal some soap while Jessie and Ben were on a mission on the opposite block, looking at clothes lines for baggy hoodies and sweatpants so they wouldn’t be walking around in skintight black bodysuits. The Joker liked the contrast of black body suits against the white paint he smeared all over them.

Peter was glad Kaine was able to break the control after years and years of it. Maybe the rest of them could break it, too and they’d really be free. He could stop looking over his shoulder, scrutinize ever middle-aged man with dark brown hair, finally feel what it was like to let his guard down. Maybe release some tension in his shoulders.

Peni returned with soap, “I don’t have pockets so I just had to grab what I could fit in my hands. Got Head-and-Shoulders and a bar of Irish Spring body wash.”

“Thanks, Peni,” Peter pulled her into a hug. She was out of his line of sight for too long and he didn’t like it, even if Jessie had connected their Spider-Senses so he would know immediately if she was in danger.

“Yeah, well, these are your favorite and you’re the one who needs to relax the most, you goober,” Peni said, nuzzling into his hug.

They hadn’t been able to hug each other at all after Joker captured them. He like ordering them to stand still like dolls when he didn’t need them and he usually forgot to release them before he went to bed so they had to stand there all night, multiple nights, for months now. Peter missed lying down.

“Love you, Pen,” Peter mumbled into her hair.

He couldn’t wait for them to get the acrid smelling products out of their hair. Peni’s hair was supposed to be a pretty chestnut brown. She liked having a bob cut which made her hair poufy and light and nice to brush. It was currently half dyed black and half bleached white. “Like a domino! Or a cute dalmatian puppy!” Joker’s voice echoed in his head.

The rest of them had green hair, “Just like your papa!” Kaine was standing a little bit away, glaring at his distorted reflection on a weirdly shiny HVAC unit on the roof they were hiding on.

“Don’t do it!” Peni said. “We can wash the dye out.”

“I don’t like what Pete’s stupid grocery store soap does to my hair.”

“I can go back down and get you something fancier,” Peni insisted.

“Too late,” Kaine pulled his hands up to his head and used his acid hands to burn all his hair off. “When’re Ben and Jessie gonna get up here with clothes?”

Can’t find anything in your size, you freakin’ tank, Jessie’s voice echoed in their heads. Oh, no, Benj found something, headed back up.

Ben and Jessie returned with five hoodies and five sweatpants. One of the hoodies was massive, but it was beige. Kaine wrinkled his nose at it and grabbed the dark blue hoodie.

“Oh my god, you diva,” Peter said, snatching the hoodie from him.

“I don’t like the color.”

“Nothing else it gonna fit you, you’ll rip this one.”

“That’s bull, I don’t like the color, I want the dark one.”

“The dark one’s a medium, the girls or Ben get this one.”

“I want the light blue one,” Ben said. It wasn’t really up for debate, since it was a small so it would only fit him or Peni.

“This one is mine,” Jessie said. “I already called dibs.” She grabbed the other medium hoodie, a yellow one.

“You can match with Jessie,” Peter said. “You like Jess.”

“Fine,” Kaine growled.

Peni slipped on the dark blue hoodie and Peter grabbed the large red one. They all pulled on the sweatpants and started looking for either a bus stop or a gym with showers. They found the bus stop first, made a note of it, and then found a gym.

“They don’t have a sauna,” Kaine complained.

“Why are you like this?” Peter asked.

“Why do you wash your hair with Irish Spring body soap?”

“I only do that when I run out of the 2-in-1,” Peter mumbled. “And you’re really gonna lecture me about what I put in my hair, when you pretty much scalped yourself with your acid hands?”

“You were taking too long and I don’t like your soap,” Kaine grunted.

“You are unbelievable.”

They took turns in the shower since there was only one set of soap and shampoo and it took them an hour each to get all the makeup off. Thankfully, all but the bleach in Peni’s hair came out after half an hour or rinsing with scorching hot water. Kaine went first and only took half an hour, foregoing the shampoo since he was basically bald now. Then Ben, who took an hour, and then Jessie and Peni, an hour and a half each. Peter started getting restless, since the gym was gonna open soon by the time he got in and the water was starting to get cold, but he didn’t care.

The sooner he got out of the shower, the sooner he had to find a bus headed to NYC and the sooner he’d be in Forest Hills, where he didn’t want to be.

Do! Not! Think! About! It!

He couldn’t go back; he couldn’t keep his little sisters and his little brother away. He didn’t blame them. They were probably blocking out what happened just as much as he was and they spent years there, safe, loved, cared for, not… Peter never truly relaxed, but his little siblings smiled and laughed and got to be kids there. Of course they wanted to go back, at least one last time, to make sure it wasn’t an option.

“Pete, it’s been two hours man, you’re gonna turn into a prune,” Jessie said.

“Five more minutes,” Peter whined.

“Pete, they’re gonna open any minute and see us,” Kaine said. “We need to move.”

Peter whined some more.

“And you call me the diva, I took the shortest shower, asshole.”

“Fine, fine,” Peter complained, turning the water off. “Hand me my stuff.”

Peni handed him a towel and his clothes and he quickly got dressed. He caught sight of himself, hair finally brown again, with only a few green streaks left that would easily fade within the week, white paint gone, penciled on smile erased. He had bags under his eyes and his hair did look sad. He didn’t remember his shoulders dropping so much. He looked so much older than seventeen. He felt older than seventeen.

But he did look really good in the red hoodie and blue sweatpants. Kinda like a superhero. Even Green Lantern had red and blue in his costume and he was called the Green Lantern. Well, the new ones didn’t, but Peter always thought the Justice Society was cool. They were friends with Captain America, after all.

The bus ride was cold, but they huddled together under a blanket that Jessie liberated from a clothesline, keeping each other warm in the highway breeze. It was only a two-hour bus ride from Gotham to New York. They even caught sight of the Statue of Liberty on the way into the city.

“Train woulda been warmer ‘n faster, coulda just jumped the turn style,” Kaine grumbled. “My head’s cold.”

“That’s cause you burned your hair off, stupid,” Jessie teased.

“Don’t you start, too, I’m getting enough shit from Peter.”

“Stop being shitty and I’ll stop giving you shit,” Peter shoved him playfully.

“Can we take the ferry?” Ben asked.

“No, I just said I’m cold and you’ll insist on doing the Titanic thing with me like you always do when we take a ferry,” Kaine snapped. “We’re taking the subway.”

“I want a hot dog,” Jessie said. “Peter keeps thinking about street dogs and now I want one, too.”

“Why are you blaming me for you being hungry?”

“We’re all hungry,” Peni said. “Jess, you don’t gotta telepath our heads to know we’re all thinking about street dogs right now. We haven’t eaten in a week.”

The one benefit of Joker making them play doll was that their metabolism, though enhanced, were entirely dependent on whether or not they were moving around. Standing still, they could go months without eating or getting hungry. They still needed to drink, but at least the goons around the Joker knew that and handed them water when the Joker wasn’t looking.

Fighting the Bats, running from Gotham, even the showers really worked up their appetite though. Peter could easily finish off a whole large pizza by himself right now. That sounded so good. He missed pizza nights when Uncle…

NO!

“Okay, pickpocket competition?” Peter said.

“Oooh, you don’t usually condone pickpocket competition,” Peni said. “I’m gonna win.”

“No, no, not the usual one. There’s five of us,” Peter said. “We each get one mark and whoever has the most cash in their wallet wins. Catch and release rules. Cash only, put the wallets back once we have the money.”

That meant that they had to judge their marks based on whether or not they looked like they’d have cash on them. With apps now, some people didn’t even carry their cards on them anymore.

“People reading, my specialty,” Jessie said.

“Jess, you can only telepath us, you suck as people reading.”

“We all suck at people reading, that makes it fair!” Ben said. “Otherwise I’d win because I’m small and have tiny pickpocket hands.”

“Nuh-uh, I’m invisible, I would win if it was a numbers game,” Peni said.

“Let’s just get this over with, I’m hungry,” Kaine snapped.

Kaine ended up winning. Peter saw him hit his mark, too. The classic ‘not looking where I was going’ and managed to snag a rich ladies entire clutch.

“Quickly, hand me the cash so we can reverse pickpocket their wallets back,” Peter said.

Kaine handed him 5 Benjamins, Peni got four hundreds and a twenty, Ben had five twenties, and Peter and Jess got nil, only credit cards, which can be tracked. They quickly spread back out to find their marks and slipped the wallets back. Peter didn’t want any risk of them being tracked.

“I think I should get second to last since my guy had a credit and debit card and Peter’s just had a gift card to Tesco and we don’t even have Tesco here.”

“He was a foreign tourist! I should have at least gotten like, British money, right? He didn’t even have any coins.”

“You suck at this,” Kaine said smugly.

The asshole had the ability to sniff out money, Peter swears. The unmarked bills were stinky or something because the first few days when they were in Gotham, before Joker found them, Kaine had showed up to their hideout with a duffle bag full of unmarked bills. If Joker hadn’t found them, if he hadn’t taken the money, they could have lived out of that duffle bag for years. It was at least half a million. Peter knew better than to ask Kaine where he got it.

“Let’s just get some grub,” Peter sighed.

Five loaded street dogs and five medium pizzas later, the five of them were full for the first time in months and headed back to the familiar subway lines, looking for home. For a moment, it felt normal, like Peter had been left in charge of his siblings on a weekend while Aunt… while they were on a date night. They were normal again. Everything was normal.

Then they got off at their stop, playing and wrestling and laughing on the walk home, the familiar neighborhood fighting off the demons of the last few months, until there they were, across the street from their house, looking at the yellow police tape, busted front door, and Uncle Ben’s car still sitting in the driveway under its tarp.

Peter couldn’t move.

This wasn’t a day trip to Midtown Manhattan to get pizza and hang out with their friends. It wasn’t date night. It never would be again.

“Wow, I guess there’s not another family in our house,” Jess said.

“I… I wanna see my room again,” Ben looked both ways before crossing the street.

“Yeah, me, too!” Peni followed him.

Ben and the girls went into the house. They ducked under the police tape and maneuvered around the door and disappeared into the house. Peter was rooted to the spot and Kaine stood next to him, clenching and unclenching his fists and his jaw.

“Fuck, man,” Kaine growled.

Aunt May and Uncle Ben really were gone.

This was real.

Peter’s worst day really did happen.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four

It was Peter’s sixteenth birthday. He’s already been in high school for two years, but he hadn’t made any friends, so it was just him and his family. He honestly preferred it. He loved going to school, but he always got so stressed when he was so far away. Kaine was old enough to go to Midtown with him, but he insisted on homeschool. He’d rather spend all day with Aunt May. And the rest of the kids were in middle school or elementary school, so they were out of range of Jess being able to connect them together so Peter could know if they were in danger.

But today, Peter was sixteen and he was having his first birthday in a decade. Aunt May made him a cherry pie because that was his favorite. She kissed his forehead and Uncle Ben ruffled his hair, and they all got on the F Train and went down to Coney Island. Peter hadn’t been there since he was six. Aunt May and Uncle Ben had taken him last time, too. He used to tell the others about it on dark nights, to the light of the red emergency light, when they were particularly sore from training or Kaine had his healing factor tested again and was missing an arm or a leg.

But now it was real.

“Peter, do ya think I’m tall enough for the coaster?” Ben asked. “I wanna be tall enough.”

“The rate you’re growing, kiddo, you’ll be tall enough by next year if you’re not already,” Uncle Ben laughed, pulling Benji into a side hug.

“I’m gonna win the biggest stuffed animal I can find!” Peni announced.

“They don’t give the big prizes out past 9am, you know that,” Kaine grunted.

“What do you want to do today, Kaine,” Aunt May asked him.

Kaine just shrugged, keeping his hands in his pocket.

“How about you and I try out the Ferris Wheel?” Aunt May said. “Ben, you take the others on the Steeplechase.”

“I’m kinda feeling the Slingshot today,” Peter said. “Looks fun.”

“Good thing those are next to each other,” Uncle Ben laughed.

They put another solo rider next to him, a girl with blond hair. She had a friend with her, a guy with red hair, but he was too scared to get in line with her. She talked to him a little bit, when they were still in line, but he wasn’t really listening. He knew that was rude but he was worried about Ben and Kaine and Jessie and Peni. Well, not so much Kaine, but Ben might get scared on the Steeplechase. He shouldn’t have gone off on his own, he…

And then the ride launched and something in him clicked.

The ball was flung into the air, bouncing around on the wires, swinging them around and Peter felt like he was flying, but better. It felt like gravity was moving around him and for some reason, being out of control of the swinging was the only foreign feeling. He had dreams of swinging like this, but not. He had some sketches in his notebook, but they’d been pushed to the back of his mind. A pipe dream, really.

But as he was flung around the sky, it was like the formulas he’d only theorized about came into clear focus.

The ride was over too soon.

“So, what’d you think, SlingShot buddy?” The blonde girl laughed.

“Oh, uh…” Peter blinked the equations away. She was kinda pretty… “Good. Great. Enlightening. Wish it lasted longer.”

The blonde laughed, “Well, I think I underestimated how much I like freefalling. Oh, that’s Harry, Harry!”

“I got cotton candy!” Harry, the red head, ran over. “Who’s your friend?”

“Um… Peter, right?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. She must have introduced herself and he wasn’t paying attention and introduced himself on autopilot.

“You here with anyone?”

“My uncle’s over there, my younger siblings wanted to go on the Steeplechase.”

“Oh, that’s much too exciting for me,” Harry said.

“Hare, everything’s too exciting for you, you big baby,” the blonde teased. “How many siblings do you have?”

“Uh, four,” Peter mumbled. He didn’t like talking to new people, even when they were his age. The other kids in his school left him alone, for the most part, other than Flash, Liz, and their friends who kept making fun of him and singling him out.

“Whoa, that’s so many,” Harry said. “Gwen and I are both only kids but… I mean… we’re basically twins.”

“Brother from another mother,” Gwen – that was a pretty name for a pretty girl – said.

“Hey, maybe your uncle will let you hang out with us for today, give you a break from your siblings.”

“I like my siblings,” Peter snapped.

“Hey, sorry,” Harry said. “I’m sure you do just… four is a lot, is all.”

“Not for me,” Peter snapped back. “Bye.”

He stormed over to Uncle Ben, hearing Gwen ask, ‘what was his problem?’ as he crossed his arms and hunched over while they waiting for Ben, Jessie, and Peni to get off the ride.

“Making friends?”

“No,” Peter grumbled. “I don’t need friends; I’ve got you guys.”

“Aw, bud, I’m glad you like us all so much, but don’t you think it would be nice to have friends, too?”

Peter shook his head, “Can’t get close to people.”

“Why not?”

“They might… what if they post a picture of me on their Instagram or something and Waller finds us?”

“Oh, bud,” Uncle Ben pulled him into a side hug. “I wish you weren’t so…”

“What? Me?”

“Hurt,” Uncle Ben sighed. “I hope that your Aunt and I can show you that you’re safe and that we mean it. They’re gonna have to get through me to get to you, buddy, that’s a promise.”

Peter snorted, “It’d be harder to get through me than you, you old fart.”

Ben laughed, “I know, champ. But I’m your uncle, I’m in charge of you and your safety, alright? When you go off to college and move out of the house, you can worry all you want about your own safety, but right now, just let me be there for you.”

“I’m trying,” Peter whined. “It’s hard.”

“I know it is,” Uncle Ben said. “Hey, why don’t you go and apologize for being rude…”

“How d’ya know I was rude, anyway, you couldn’t hear what we were talking about,” Peter pouted.

“I have eyes, Peter,” Uncle Ben laughed. “Here,” he handed Peter a ten-dollar bill. “Go pay for some games with your new friends or get funnel cakes and hot dogs. There just over there and they seem nice.”

“Ug, fine,” Peter grabbed the bill.

Uncle Ben pulled him into a hug before pushing him off towards where Harry and Gwen were playing whack-a-mole.

Peter sheepishly walked over and asked if he could join. They looked at him skeptically, but let him apologize and pay for the next game.

“Sorry, I just… don’t really talk to anyone but my family,” Peter mumbled.

He let them win, he didn’t want to be suspiciously good or break the machine. His Spider-Sense let him predict where the next mole was but his strength meant he was too scared to actually whack them.

“I… um… have social anxiety? Is that too much, I don’t really… I feel like you deserve an explanation because I was rude but also… I don’t know you but…”

“It’s okay, we forgive you,” Gwen said. “You still wanna hang out today?”

“Sure,” Peter mumbled.

Overall it was an okay birthday. He got cherry pie, Uncle Ben and Aunt May bought him a microscope, and he sort of made two whole friends, which was up from zero. Gwen gave him their phone numbers and added him to a group chat, but Peter almost had a panic attack when she asked to take a picture of him for his contact icon and he ran off without saying goodbye.

Then he felt awkward and left them on read when Gwen texted to ask if he wanted to hang out with them next weekend at the park.

They occasionally texted him asking to hang out, but he always said he was too busy or ignored them. He figured they’d stop after a while, but they didn’t. They even texted him a year later asking if he could go to Coney Island again and he, again, said he was too busy.

“Uncle Ben?” Peter slunk down the stairs and into the living room. Ben and Kaine were wrestling in their room and Peter felt crowded but Jessie and Peni were playing DDR in their room, but he didn’t want to be alone, but also needed some stillness. “Aunt May?”

“Oh, Peter, dear, everything all right?” Aunt May asked.

“Yeah, I just… is there something wrong with me?”

“Come here, buddy,” Uncle Ben scooted over so that Peter could fit between them on the couch.

Peter nestled in, reveling in the feeling safety it gave him.

“What’s brought this on?”

“You know… um… Harry and Gwen?”

“Oh, your little phone buddies!” Aunt May said.

“Yeah, well… they want me to hang out with them but… every time they ask, I lie and say I’m busy. Why… why am I scared of them? They’re, like, the only people other than you guys that are nice to me and… lets be real, Kaine and Jessie are barely nice to me and Peni and Ben ignore me now that we’ve got you so… it’s just you two and them two and I can’t… why is them being nice to me so terrifying?”

Aunt May pulled him into a hug and he melted into her.

He nuzzled into her, his voice muffled by her blouse that smelled like cherries and chocolate and wheat cakes, “None of the others are having trouble making friends. Even Kaine hangs out with Flash and Liz sometimes and he doesn’t even go to the same school as them. Why is it just me?”

“It’s unfamiliar,” Uncle Ben said slowly. “You’ve spent so long holding them together, keeping them from feeling like you feel, that… you’ve forgotten how to be a kid.”

“Oh,” Peter mumbled. “Sorry.”

“Peter, don’t you ever apologize for what they did to you,” Aunt May said, kissing the top of his head. “Not ever.”

“I know, I know,” Peter mumbled. “It wasn’t my fault. But… it was over three years ago, shouldn’t… shouldn’t I be normal already? I’m ready to be normal. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

“It starts with the first step, hand me your phone,” Aunt May say.

“Why?”

“I’ve learned not to question her,” Uncle Ben laughed. “Best to do as the woman says.”

“Okay,” Peter giggled. “But you better not do something embarrassing.” He handed her his phone after unlocking it.

“Gwen and Harry, right? Oh, of course, because the only other contacts you have are us,” Aunt May teased him.

“Wait, no! Aunt May?”

“Hey, guys,” She looked up from his phone, “Ben, teens talk like that right?”

“No!” Peter whined, but Ben hugged him to stop him from getting the phone back.

Of course, Peter could easily overpower them, but… this was nice. This was so, so nice. If anyone else held him like this, he’d panic. But Uncle Ben’s hug was safety and love and kindness.

“Try saying dudes instead of guys.”

“No, I don’t talk like that,” Peter laughed.

“How’s this sound, Peter. ‘Hey, guys. I’m free this weekend but I’ve got some homework, do you want to meet at the library in Astoria to study? We can go out for pizza after, my Aunt said she’d give me money for food.’”

“That… that sounds good,” Peter said. “But I did all my homework.”

“Then read your textbook again, they won’t know the difference.”

“I’ve already read all my textbooks, like, ten times!” Peter complained.

“Then do some extra credit,” Ben offered

“I did all the extra credit.”

“Do some extra-extra credit!”

“I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Work on a personal project,” Ben said.

“I… okay, I can do that,” Peter finally relented. “And… its Tuesday so I have a whole week to talk myself out of jumping off a building instead!”

“That’s the spirit!” Ben laughed.

“So I can send it?” Aunt May asked.

“You… didn’t already?” Peter asked.

“Peter, I’m not going to text your friends without your permission.”

“Oh, right,” Peter blushed. “Um… is it okay if you hit send? I give you permission.”

“Of course, honey,” Aunt May hit send and handed Peter his phone back. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, I… I’m proud of me, too.”

Harry

Whoa, you’re still alive!

Peter

Sorry

Gwen

I can meet you at the library, that sounds great. I gotta help Harry with his chem, what homework do you have to do?

Peter

Oh, uh, it’s actually a side project. Personal stuff. I actually already finished all my homework. I didn’t think I’d get this far and homework is easier to explain?

Harry

Wait, you do homework for fun?

Peter

Yes? Is that weird

The next two texts came at the exact same time.

Gwen

No way! Me too!

Harry

Gwen also does that!

Jinx you owe me a soda!

Gwen

Lame, you’re the one with a credit card.

Harry

I’ll pay but it’s coming out of your part of my budget

Gwen

We didn’t even text the same thing. Peter, can you believe this guy?

Peter

Thanks for… being so patient with me. You don’t have to be. I know I’m… messed up.

Gwen

Hey, we’re all a bit messed up

Peter

I’m extra, trust me

Harry

Oh, I’ve noticed. I hope you don’t mind but I feel like you’re our freaky old stary cat that we’ve been leaving food out for and it finally worked

BTW this means we’re not letting you go you’re our friend forever now

Peter

I don’t mind. Honestly, I’ve been called way worse than a stray cat before and it does fit, so that’s fair. Sometimes I feel like I have to leave food out for me to get comfortable too. I think we’re losing the metaphor

Gwen

What matters is that we’re having fun

You gotta tell me about your personal project, I’m uber curious now

Peter

It’s nothing, I just like making polymers and adhesives in my spare time and the house is a little crowded so I figured I’d go down to the library to work on my formulas

Gwen

Whoa, that’s so cool, you gonna patent any of them?

Peter

Maybe. Chem and physics just helps me relax. It’s not like talking to people or art or whatever. It’s structured, makes me feel safe, I guess

Not that talking to you is bad!

Sorry

Sorry

I just mean that its hard for me to make friends but easy for me to make polymers

Gwen

I get it, Harry’s like the only person I can stand to talk to and he’s still insufferable most of the time. I’m more into biology and genetics and stuff, but I’d love to see your formulas if you’re okay with that

Peter

Yeah, it’d be nice to get fresh eyes on it. My kid brother is the only other real sciencey guy in the family and he’s more into mechanics and my oldest sister is also into science but she’s a hacker. Not like, illegal hacker, she finds ways past firewalls and then reports them so they can be fixed. She got $500 for a bounty once.

Harry

That’s so cool!

What’s it like having that many siblings?

Peter

It’s good but sometimes it’s hard. I’m the oldest so when they’re goofing off it feels like I have to calm them down before they get in trouble instead of playing with them. You know, gotta make sure they don’t get hurt or something. Make sure nothing bad happens.

Gwen

Are your parents nice?

Peter

I don’t have parents. Well, just my mom’s dead. We live with our Aunt and Uncle for other reasons.

Harry

Damn

Gwen

Gotcha

Harry

Our moms are dead, too, and my dad sucks but Gwen’s dad is probably the coolest dad ever. I wish he was my dad, too, sometimes. Well, most times. I love my dad, I guess but kinda like Gwens dad a lot more

*Gwen’s

Gwen

Ug, he’s so overbearing. You’re only saying that because he can’t ground you and then send a squad car to pick you up when you break your grounding

Harry

Uh, private security, remember? I have bodyguards, Gwendy, it sucks

Gwen

Okay, fair. And yeah, my dad is better than your dad but that is not a high bar to clear

Peter

I can almost guarantee that my dad is worse

Harry

Almost?

Peter

Nothing is 100%, but this is 99.99% (.9 repeating)

Gwen

Mathematically that’s the same as 100%

Harry

Damn, what he do? (that’s rhetorical, you don’t gotta say anything unless you want to, this is a safe space)

(Gwen taught me that word)

Oh, I just asked my driver and he said he can actually pick you up if you live in Astoria and drive you over to my building and we can hang out around there. I live downtown so there’s loads of café’s we can study in instead of the library

Gwen

Harry’s allergic to books

Harry

I wanna try the Coffee Bean! I’ll pay, you don’t have to worry about that

Peter

I don’t know…

Harry

Please?

Peter

Okay. Okay, fine, sounds good but I live in Forest Hills, I don’t know if that’s too out of the way…

Harry

Don’t worry about it, just text me where my guy can pick you up, doesn’t have to be at your house

Peter

I can take the train

Harry

My guy is free

Peter

So’s the train if I hop the turn style

Gwen

Careful, buddy, my dad’s a cop

Peter

I mean… I have a free pass?

Gwen

Nah, I’m teasing you, I jump the turn style, too. Become ungovernable!

Peter

I can meet him at the train station, it’s like a block from my house

Harry

Awesome! Can’t wait! I’m gonna get the sugariest drink ever, you’re gonna have to carry me around cause ill be in a sugar coma

“Peter?”

“Huh?” Peter blinked and looked up, forgetting that he was currently sandwiched between Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

“You’d been on your phone for five whole minutes,” Uncle Ben laughed. “That’s a new record for you.”

“Texting with your friends?”

“Um, yeah, actually, they’re really cool. Thanks for… helping me text them.”

“We will always be here for you Peter,” Uncle Ben kissed to the top of his head. “Always.”

“Thanks,” Peter said. “I’m gonna… go back up to my room and see if Ben and Kaine stopped fighting. Thank you.”

“We love you, Peter,” Aunt May called after him.

“Love you guys, too!” Peter called back down.

He was a normal kid! He had normal friends and was going on a normal hangout in just a few days! He could do this. He could be normal.

Peter kept texting with Gwen and Harry during lunch and also during class (he already knew everything, it was fine). Flash even noticed, grabbing his phone and seeing Gwen’s text and name on his phone. (“Petey’s got a Girlfriend!” “Flash, gimme my phone back!”) He felt like he was on cloud nine, until Saturday morning.

“I think I’m sick,” Peter said. “I’m gonna reschedule.”

“Peter Benjamin Parker, don’t you dare,” Aunt May smacked his hands with her silicon spatula so lightly Peter barely felt it.

“But I can’t even eat your wheat cakes, Aunt May, I probably have the flu or something.”

“We don’t get sick!” Jessie shouted from the living room.

“Hang out with your friends, you big loser!” Peni added.

“Loser!” Ben couldn’t think of anything to say so he just copied Peni.

“What’s happening?” Kaine asked, a wheat cake practically materializing in his hand.

“Kaine, I’m not done yet, you have to wait,” Aunt May said.

“But I’m hungry.”

“Kaine, listen to you Aunt,” Uncle Ben adjusted the Daily Bugle in his hands.

“But I’m hungry,” Kaine whined, putting the wheat cake back.

“I’m almost done, sweetheart.”

“What’s Peter having a fit about this time?” Kaine asked.

“He’s got a playdate and he doesn’t wanna go.”

“That’s stupid,” Kaine snorted. “If I can make friends, you’ve got no excuse.”

Peter pouted, resting his head on the table, and whined some more, “Yeah, but your friends are mean, like you. Liz called me a nerd – and not in the cool way – fifteen times yesterday.”

“Cause you’re a nerd. Are your new friends nerds?”

“Yes, they are,” Aunt May said. “He’s been talking about them all week. Gwen likes science, doesn’t she, Peter?”

“Aunt May, I’m seventeen, not seven.”

“You’ll always be my little boy,” Aunt May laughed.

Peter groaned.

“I like science!” Ben said. “Can I come?”

“Maybe next week Peter and his friends can take you to the Gilder Center,” Uncle Ben said. “My treat.”

“Actually, Harry’s dad’s like, stupid rich, Harry just pays for everything,” Peter said.

“Can I come?” Kaine said.

“Of course, I mention money and you’re immediately interested.”

“Maybe he’s gay and single,” Kaine said. “I want a sugar daddy.”

“Kaine!” Aunt May scolded.

“What?”

“You know what, young man,” Uncle Ben said, shaking his head.

“I know what I want,” Kaine grumbled.

“We don’t behave like that in this family,” Uncle Ben said.

“Whatever.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Door!” Ben shouted.

“We heard it!” Uncle Ben shouted back. “Peter, why don’t you answer it, do you some good to move around and stop moping about seeing your friends.”

Peter groaned, getting up, but complained the whole way to the door. “It’s probably the missionaries again. I don’t think telling them we’re Jewish helped.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t ‘a done that, you made it worse,” Jessie snorted.

“Hi, we’re not…” Peter opened the door and froze.

No.

Not him.

Not here.

He couldn’t.

Peter was finally remembering how to be normal.

“Dad?”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

Peter couldn’t enter the house. He just couldn’t. He turned away and started down the street. Kaine followed him, but Peter didn’t know why. Kaine didn’t like him all that much. Then again, Kaine didn’t really like anyone all that much except maybe Flash and Liz.

Peter kept walking, trying not to blink because every time he closed his eyes he saw them and he didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see them; he didn’t deserve to see them. They deserved someone better to remember them.

He kept walking down their street until he reached Ben’s old elementary school. It must have been a weekend because there wasn’t anyone around. It was hard to keep track of the days after… everything. He ended up climbing up the almost neon blue plastic of the play structure and sticking to the spirelike roof. He felt the structure shift under Kaine’s weight as he stuck to the opposite side of the mock tower.

Peter looked up and watched the sun play through the leaves, trying to calm his breathing.

“They’d tell you it wasn’t your fault,” Kaine said.

“I know,” Peter sighed.

They sat there for a while, in silence.

“They didn’t know everything,” Peter said.

“Like hell,” Kaine snapped.

“Just because they’d say it’s not my fault, just because they would have forgiven me, doesn’t mean I know how to forgive myself.”

“I forgive you,” Kaine lied.

“I know,” Peter let them live in the lie, even for a few moments.

“I’m not lying,” Kaine snapped.

“Sure.”

“I’m serious, I don’t blame you,” Kaine said. “I… I had my hands around Ben’s neck and I… I almost squeezed. Do you have any idea how easy it to pop someone’s head off for us? Even to each other. I should have killed him.”

“But you were strong enough not to,” Peter said.

“I was pissed enough to distract myself with the fucking clown, Pete. If I didn’t have that much hate in me, I couldn’t have done it.”

“I know I’m weaker than you, I always have…”

“Shut the fuck up, man!” Kaine turned around and punched him in the back of the head.

“Hey, that actually hurt!” Peter snapped.

“You don’t have it in you to hate like that,” Kaine snarled. “You don’t want to feel like that, trust me. It… it’s like venom in my blood. It burns, Pete. It burns enough to hurt.”

“I’ve got plenty of hurt.”

“Boohoo, you want me to get you a pity cake, too?”

“Man, stop being such an asshole.”

“No.”

“Dickhead.”

“Penis Parker.”

“You know my name is Peter,” Peter grumbled.

“I didn’t want to kill the clown,” Kaine said. “I just… he told me to kill so I redirected it at him. I couldn’t find another way out. I’m not smart like you.”

“If I was smart, I would have found a way out sooner.”

“No, Pete. He gets in our heads; it’s not just the stupid control devices. Richard is an evil ass but… we’re from his blood. He molded us from start to finish. He knows how to get in our heads; he’s not like Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben never used it against us, he used that to help us. It’s… they both had power over us but they used it different.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know his philosophy on power, Kaine, I heard it enough times.”

“Yeah, me, too. He loved that one.”

“With great power there must also come great responsibility,” Peter sighed. “I miss him. I could really use an Uncle Ben-ism right about now.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Kaine said. “I don’t miss Richard, though, so that’s gotta mean something. I miss him because he loved me, even though he shouldn’t have.”

“And then I… I ruined it… I…”

“We’ve got a lot of blood on our hands, don’t we, Pete.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, looking down.

“But we made a promise to them, to look out for the littler ones, to… be our brothers’ keeper and all that.”

“You know, it’s not too late to change your name.”

“I did change my name,” Kaine snapped.

“Sure, Cain to Kaine to Cane,” Peter snorted.

“They sound different to me, that’s what matters. And don’t call me Cane again.”

“Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

“I wish things were different,” Peter whispered. “I want to say that I wish none of what Richard did to us ever happened, but… I’d be dead and the rest of you would never exist. I… sometimes I wish I was still dead but I… I can’t wish that you four never existed, that would be wrong.”

“Yeah, you can,” Kaine grunted. “You can’t help how you feel about us. It doesn’t change that you still love us. Like, way too much. We’re not that much younger than you and you act like you’re our fucking mom, you weirdo.”

“Just ‘cause I’m only a year older than you doesn’t mean I’m not your big brother.”

“Whatever man.”

“I wish I could say I wouldn’t change anything, but there’s a lot I’d change, if I could.”

“I know, Pete. I know.”

Peter was nervous. Waller didn’t usually come down to their lab and when she did it was to rile up Richard, who would then turn on them and Peter had to act up so he’d focus on him and not hurt the other clones.

“I need them to be ready,” Waller said to Richard as the six of them stood at attention. “This one can’t even move five feet without starting to fall apart, and you expect me to believe you’ve made progress?”

“These things take time.”

“And if you didn’t get sentimental and stop the growth processes so early, we could already have adult weapons. Instead you insisted on being sentimental.”

“I wasn’t being sentimental,” Richard snarled.

Peter flinched.

“I was being practical,” Richard said. “Preprogramming only goes so far. Those AI algorithms you gave me were inadequate. They can’t adjust to situations that raising a child re…”

“They are not children!” Waller shouted, slamming her fist into a table.

They all flinched at that.

“No, of course not,” Richard said. “But this is still a delicate process. You cannot program fear or respect into their brains, you have to beat it into them. No computer program can compare. And all the extra time I’ve had to actually field test them is invaluable. The simulations are useless compared to them actually moving their bodies around. The quality loss isn’t worth the rushed timeline. In my opinion.”

“In your opinion,” Waller scoffed. “I don’t pay you for your opinion, Parker.”

“No, ma’am.”

“I want results. Today.”

“What… what results?”

“I’m sending Alfa Phase into the field.”

“He’s not ready,” Richard said.

Peter felt like he was going to be sick. He thought he still had years of training left. He was only twelve! Dad… Richard said he wasn’t going to be sent on field work until he was sixteen. He had asked when he’d get to see the real sun, instead of just the UV bulbs they had to spend an hour a day under.

“I’ve been reading your reports, Dr. Parker,” Waller said. “They’re adequate for a mission I have for him. Unless you’ve been overexaggerating your results again?”

“I haven’t,” Richard said. “Are you taking him now or later?”

“I think I’ll take him now.”

Richard handed her one of the voice modulators and Peter really was going to be sick. He bet his face was at least a slight shade of green. His hands were shaking. If she took him now, who would protect the others from Richard when she left? He was always angry after she left. He always beat him. If he wasn’t here, who would he hurt? He had to protect them. He had to…

“Alfa Phase 731, come with me,” Waller ordered into the speaker.

He would have followed her if she hadn’t used it. He wasn’t dumb. He hated how his body moved with barely any of his own input. Sometimes they had the freedom to obey how they saw fit, but not usually. It felt like hands crawling under his skin, moving him around like a puppet. He followed Waller out of the lab and he couldn’t even be happy about setting foot outside for the first time since he was six. He wanted the rest of them to come with him. He wanted to never have to come back but he couldn’t leave his siblings behind.

“Where are we going?” Peter’s voice was small.

Waller spun on his and he stopped in fright, pulling his hands up to protect his face.

“Do not speak,” Waller said into the controller.

Peter felt like his mouth was glued shut. It was just a question. She could have just told him not to speak and he would have stopped. She didn’t have to do this to him. He knew the consequences. Why was this happening to him? It wasn’t fair.

Peter was loaded up onto a people carrier plan, one of those military ones. Echo Phase 142 would know, he loved that stuff. His twin couldn’t speak still, but Peter loved her all the same. They knew what she wanted because of Charlie Phase’s ability to feel what they were all feeling.

Waller had him dressed up in a full body combat suit. Even his entire face was covered.

“Is that a kid?” One of the other guys asked.

“He’s taller than Wolverine, so, probably not,” the guy shrugged. “He’s on a different mission than us.”

“Does he speak?”

The other guy shrugged.

There wasn’t even a window for Peter to look out of. The suit was uncomfortable. He knew Richard had recommended a different style of suit since their power lay in their agility just as much as their raw strength, but this one was padded in all the wrong places to comfortably do a flip and the gloves and boots were too thick to stick through.

Didn’t matter, anyway. Wasn’t like he had a choice. Waller showed him a picture of a man and told him to ‘Deal with this man, at all costs. Stop anyone who gets in your way.’ She showed him the layout of a building and told him the locations he was likely to have his bedroom.

The other two guys got dropped off on their missions and Peter was pushed out over a building that matched the layout Waller showed him. It was almost too high for him to survive the fall, but he was resourceful. He still pulled the mask up to throw up when he was finally on solid ground again. He looked around. He’s landed in the wilderness next to the building.

Could he…?

No, he could feel the compulsion to obey and go into the building and ‘deal with this man’. Plus, if he ran off now, there was no telling what Waller would do with his siblings. If she wrote them off as defective she’d decommission them like Richard did with the two Echo Phases that weren’t stable. Ther wasn’t even anything left to bury.

He couldn’t lose anyone else.

He trudged into the building. Sticking to the shadows until he came across a set of guards that he couldn’t sneak past. He let go of the ceiling with his knees and elbows, the only spots on the suit thin enough to stick through, and landed two quick blows, one to the head and one to stomach, dropping both of them. He continued on the floor since sticking was just too much of a hassle with this stupid combat suit.

Not a single guard saw him coming until he knocked them out. This was easy. There were all still breathing, too! Peter wondered if Waller would give him a grade like Richard did when he ran them through stealth simulations.

He found the guy exactly where Waller said he would be and grabbed the gun from under the pillow, crushing it in his hands. The man woke up, screaming, but Peter already took care of all the guards within earshot.

“You’re under arrest, Mister!” Peter announced, bonking him on the head and knocking him out. He grabbed the radio Waller gave him to signal for pickup.

Peter dragged the man up to the roof and waiting for the hover plane thing to pick him up. They let down a rope and he grabbed it in one hand and the man in the other and tugged it.

“That was fast.”

“It was pretty easy,” Peter said. “I think she gave me an easy one because it was my first mission.”

“What’s that?” The pilot asked.

“I… arrested my guy?” Peter tilted his head. Richard said they worked for the US military, right? That was like cops, wasn’t it. Didn’t they arrest people?

“Wait, how old are you?”

“Twelve and half?” Peter tilted his head.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with this place. I should have stuck with the Airforce.”

Peter shrugged.

Waller was furious. She said to deal with the guy, Peter thought that meant arrest him.

“How many witnesses did you leave?”

Peter tilted his head.

“Fucking hell,” Waller grabbed the controller and Peter stiffened. “You can speak.”

“Oh,” Peter mumbled. “W… witnesses?”

“Yes, how many did you leave alive?”

Peter frowned, “A… all of them? I knocked anyone in my way and I got the guy, I don’t… was that not what I was supposed to do?”

“Alfa Phase, you are an assassin.”

“D… R… Dr. Parker said I was like… a superhero or something,” Peter mumbled. “Well, not exactly like that but he said we’re gonna help people be safe and I figured ‘cause I’m a super soldier like Captain America that… I mean… in the comics, he punches guys and brings them in so the military can arrest them so I thought that’s what I was supposed to do, too.”

“Heaven help me,” Waller sighed. “This is a disaster.” She pulled a gun from her pocket and the man who Peter brought in started crying and blubbering and screaming, until she shot him once in the head and then twice in the chest. “Get him out of here.”

“W… why did you… no… he…” Peter couldn’t breathe. There was blood on him. There… there was blood in his mouth and it wasn’t his. “W…”

“Shut up,” Waller said in the controller. “Go back to your containment unit.”

Peter didn’t move. He didn’t know what that meant, but he assumed it had something to do with him going back to the lab, only… he didn’t know how to get back there from here. He’d never been out of the lab before.

“Well?”

He looked up at her, wide-eyed, unsure how to communicate that to her. He couldn’t speak.

“You can talk.”

“I don’t know where I am,” Peter whispered. “I don’t know how to get back from here. A… am I in trouble?”

“Follow me,” Waller sighed.

Peter followed Waller through the compound, trying not to have a panic attack and failing miserably. He thought he did good. What if Waller cuts their funding and Richard kills them like he said he would have to if they lost their funding? What if he decommissions the last two kids from Echo Phase? They were so small. Peter didn’t understand what he did wrong, he didn’t understand why this was happening. Why couldn’t they leave? He bet that Aunt May and Uncle Ben were still out there, they could live with them and be normal kids, if they weren’t good enough to be like Captain America.

The others weren’t in the lab when Peter got back, but there was a new bloodstain on the floor. Peter couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t… either it was Kaine, who could survive loosing that much blood, or it was one of the others and… Peter should have been here, he should have… Richard never hurt him nearly as hard as he hurt the others. Peter thinks that deep down, Richard knows it’s him, that he’s Peter. The others don’t have that.

“What happened here?” Waller looked at the blood.

“Echo Phase 143 finally destabilized all the way,” Richard said, like he was just talking about their blood in a Petree dish and not one of Peter’s little sisters.

“Shame,” Waller said.

“I’m rolling the last Echo Phase into the first team. I’m assuming I’m not getting additional funding until they start proving themselves. How did it go?”

“I thought you knew that you were making me a team of Deathstrokes, not a bunch of self-righteous Captain Americas.”

“What did he do?” Richard sighed.

“He left behind countless witnesses and didn’t even eliminate the target.”

“Did you tell him specifically to kill the target?” Richard asked, worried.

“I assumed I had.”

“She just said to deal with him,” Peter mumbled. “A… and to stop anyone who got in the way. I thought that meant I was supposed to arrest him.”

“You… you can’t really expect a twelve-year-old to know what that means, Waller.”

“I expect you to have taught him how to take orders.”

“I did, you gave him vague and confusing orders and are upset that he misunderstood you. He’s not the mind reader of the group, they follow orders as they interpret them, that’s how the controllers work. You want direct control, develop your own mind control powers.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, Parker,” Waller snarled. “I want to know why he’s read Captain America comics and why he thinks he’s the next All-American Boy Scout.”

“He’s never read those,” Richard said. “And I never told him that. I don’t know how he knows about Captain America, that wasn’t in his programming.”

Yes, he had read the comics, he had a whole bunch in his room when he was six. But if he said that, Richard would beat him, so he kept his mouth shut. And don’t look at what was left of Echo Sister. Echo Brother needed him right now. Their cells were next to each other so Peter could hold his hands through the bars. Sometimes Richard even left the doors open and just locked the main door and Peter could hold his little siblings when they were sacred.

“I’m defunding you, Richard.”

“For mistakes that you made! This is…!”

“I didn’t think I would need to remind you who is in charge here, Parker. You’ve been falling behind schedule, making changes to the program parameters using the excuse that it will increase the quality of the final product, and then falling short of even your own promised standards. You’re lucky I don’t have you fired.”

“Dammit,” Richard hissed. “You promised I’d be able to send them to take down the Red Rooms and get my daughter back.”

“Well, you should have thought of that when it took you eight years to figure out how to make just one of them and then pulled them from the growth tanks after only two years. If you followed the timeline I gave you, this wouldn’t be happening.”

“At least let me keep Alfa, Bravo, and Delta Phases,” Richard said. “I’ll decommission the rest, it’ll be cheaper. Those three have real potential!”

“I don’t see any potential in Alfa Phase other than your own sentimentality. I’ll consider Bravo and Delta Phase, but only if they perform.”

Richard swallowed.

“I’ll get back to you with my decision in the morning,” she left Peter standing there, in front of Richard. Peter wasn’t allowed to leave until Richard dismissed him.

“C… can I shower?” Peter asked quietly.

“You will stand there and think about what you’ve done,” Richard snarled.

“Y… yes, sir,” Peter whimpered. “I’m sorry. I thought I was doing what she asked.”

“I know,” Richard sighed. “This is my fault.”

He stood up and moved to where Peter was standing. Peter’s whole body clenched, waiting for the beating to start, but it didn’t. Richard pulled him into a hug and kissed the top of his head. He couldn’t move. Dad never did this. He never treated him like a human anymore, let alone like his kid.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” Richard whispered. “I couldn’t bring you back and I couldn’t even save your sister. Please forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” Peter whispered desperately. He wrapped his arms around Dad and leaned into the hug. Maybe Dad would leave with them and they could live in a real house and see Aunt May and Uncle Ben again, and they’d give the others real names and they’d be a family again.

“Thank you, for pretending to be him,” Richard whispered. “I never got to say goodbye to my little boy.” He patted Peter on the head. “I’ll see you in the morning, Alfa Phase.” He pulled the controller out and said, “Stand at attention until dismissed.” And left Peter standing in the dark, stiff as a board, sobbing.

“I swear, Pete, if you mess this mission up like the last one and they decommission Benji, I’ll decommission you myself,” Kaine snarled.

“I’m not an idiot, Kaine, I know how to kill people,” Peter snapped. “This won’t be like last year.”

“Whatever.”

“Richard saved us,” Peter whispered. “I think we can still get through to…”

“Shup the fuck up,” Kaine hissed. “He didn’t save us, Waller sold us to the highest bidder because Richard spent all her money and delivered subpar weapons – us – and she’s just recouping her losses. You don’t deliver on this mission and whoever she sold us to might split us up, fearless leader.”

“I know,” Peter sighed. “I just… one more shot at a normal life. If he doesn’t budge… then this is our life.”

“It’s already our life, dumbass.”

“I’m not giving up,” Peter said. “I’ll just… stop telling you my plans.”

“Like I ever tell you mine?”

“Whatever, man, just…”

“You can knock your guys out, but I’m going back and finishing them off.”

“You didn’t say that,” Peter said. “If you didn’t say that, then they’re not dead.”

“Fucking loser.”

They jumped from the helicopter and landed on the outskirts of a town. There was a man there, using the townspeople as unwitting human shields. They had to go in unnoticed, leave the civilians alone, kill anyone who was armed, destroy any weapons they found, and make sure the metahuman victims of the trafficker who took them were back in Waller’s custody. Oh, and they had to kill the guy in charge.

“I can’t believe she told me they’re sending the kids we’re ‘rescuing’ back to their parents,” Peter grumbled.

“Right? After everything they’re doing to us,” Kaine snorted. “She thinks we’re idiots.”

“She thinks I’m Captain America Jr.” Peter let out a dark laugh. “Who am I going to tell what she’s doing anyway? Anyone who can stop her are the ones who gave her permission to do this to us.”

They made their way through the town, sticking to the roofs and the shadows. Kaine peeled off from Peter twice and came back smelling like blood, but the black of the suits hid it. At least she learned from last time and gave them suits that actually worked with their powers.

“Who do you think bought us?” Peter whispered.

“Don’t care,” Kaine said. “Hope whoever it is, they’re nicer than Richard.”

“Hey, at least he didn’t buy kids,” Peter said. “He could have. He didn’t have to make us. You know the only reason we’re killing this guy is because Waller made him an offer to buy the kids he kidnapped and he refused.”

“His fault, then, for being stupid,” Kaine shrugged.

They made it to the main warehouse where the meta trafficking ring was located.

“You find any hostages and secure them; I’ll go remove this idiots head.”

“Kaine.”

“I’m not gonna baby you, dumbass, you’re older than me by seven years.”

“Only technically,” Peter grouched. “And I’m the leader, I’m supposed to call the shots.”

“I do my own thing,” Kaine snapped, disappearing into the darkness of the warehouse.

Peter shook his head and made his way across the ceiling, looking for any cages or locked doors. When he found where the victims were being held he froze. These were children. Well, he already knew they were kids but… mutants are his age or older because they get their powers at puberty and there’s way more mutants than metas. But these were metas, for sure. The oldest was eleven, Peni’s age. The youngest was Teresa’s age. Well, Teresa as he remembered her. They all had meta collars on them, most of them looked like they’d been crying, and the baby had a muzzle on it.

Peter lands in front of the door and rips it off its hinges. Waller didn’t technically use the controller for the whole debrief and part of that included securing the victims, if there were any.

“Are you a hero?” One of the kids sniffled.

“Yeah, I… I’m Spider-Man,” Peter said. “I’m new but… I’ve had a lot of training, so you know I’m good, okay? Just… don’t tell anyone about me. I… I’m gonna get your collars off.”

“You got super strength?”

“Dude, he just took the door off…”

“I’m a mutant, not a meta,” the oldest said. “I… my name is Kitty…”

“Don’t tell me your names,” Peter snapped. “Just, come here.”

They lined up and he pinched the locking mechanisms, making them fall off. He caught them before they could clatter to the floor, not that Peter thought Kaine was going to leave any witnesses like Peter did. But still. Best to be safe than sorry.

“I know Professor X…”

“Stop talking,” Peter hissed. “I’m compromised, okay?”

“Oh,” Kitty said.

“If I know who you are I can tell people and… I’m not supposed to be letting you go.”

“But you said you were a hero,” one of the kids said.

“Sometimes being a hero is doing what you can with the cards you’ve been dealt,” Peter said. “I… this is the hand I’ve got. We came through the south of town, and that’s our extraction point, too. Go north, don’t let them find you. If you know someone safe, go there, otherwise, don’t be seen. I don’t have to tell you what happens if you’re caught again.”

Kitty shook her head.

“Good, then go,” Peter said. “There’s an exit down that hall, we already cleared it, but be careful.”

“Thank you,” the girl said.

Peter nodded.

He met back up with Kaine on the roof. He had the bag Waller gave them attached to his belt with what Peter decided was a basketball inside. A basketball that smelled like blood but still. A basketball.

“What’d you do, Captain America Jr.?” Kaine sighed.

“Looked all over the place,” Peter said. “All the hostages escaped into the woods.”

“If she commands you to tell her what happened, is that what you’re gonna say?”

“Word for word.”

“Dumbass.”

“What about you? You…” Peter glanced at the bag.

“She wanted proof I did was I was supposed to.”

“I don’t like it.”

“He sold kids, Peter.”

“I know. Still feels wrong.”

Kaine shook his head and grumbled, “Fucking loser.”

“What do you think of the name Spider-Man? Ya know, cause Richard used those weird spiders of his to enhance us.”

“Sounds dumb,” Kaine snapped.

“Richard named you Cain ‘cause you kept trying to kill me and all you did was change how it’s spelled. What do you know about cool names?”

“More than you, apparently. Spider-Man. Sounds stupid.”

“Cooler than Superman.”

“No it isn’t.”

“It’s got a hyphen.”

“Dumbass.”

“Man, you’ve always been too good for you own good,” Kaine growled, moving from behind Peter on the roof of the play structure to next to him. Their elbows were even touching. Kaine never initiated contact on his own.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Peter said.

“Makes perfect sense, you’re just an idiot.”

“Okay.”

Kaine sighed, “We’ve done a lot of… things I know you regret. Maybe I regret them, too, I just… don’t let myself feel it and you don’t let yourself feel anything else. We can’t leave them in that house alone. It could be boobytrapped.”

“I know. Also, you said trapped.”

“Thank God, you’re back to your usually dork nerd self.”

“It’s almost like you like me.”

“Don’t read into it. You feel better?”

Peter nodded, “I… will do this for them. For the little ones and for… for Aunt May and Uncle Ben.”

“You’re a hero, Peter. No one can beat that out of you.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

Peter and Kaine went back to the house together, kicking a can down the sidewalk just for entertainment. It was weird. Walking down the street, it felt like nothing was wrong. Until they made it back to the house and Peter couldn’t look away from the violent yellow tape. They hadn’t removed it yet, which was a good thing. Returning to the… to the scene of the crime is one of the easiest ways to get caught.

“They’re not still in there,” Kaine said. “You’ll be okay.”

“Them not being there is what hurts.”

“Man, stop being so dramatic,” Kaine smacked in across the back of his head. “Nerd.”

“Don’t bully me, I’m older than you.”

“So? I’m taller.”

Peter rolled his eyes and braced himself. Just one foot in front of the other. He’s been able to walk since he was two years old, this shouldn’t be so hard.

There was a bloodstain on the ground under the archway between the living room and the hallway. Ben was already dragging the carpet to cover it, but it looked like the hardwood floor would need to be replaced. And there was dried blood splattering across the walls, the furniture, even the ceiling a little bit and it was a popcorn ceiling. Uncle Ben said it has asbestos otherwise they’d have already removed it.

“Our rooms are sort of untouched,” Peni said, making Peter jump. She practically materialized out of thin air. She had that habit. “Some things fell of the shelves. Jessie’s already up there tidying our room.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter nodded. “I’ll go tidy stuff in the guys’ room.”

Peni pulled Peter into a hug and he melted into her.

“We love you, Peter,” Peni said. “Even if we make fun of you or argue with you…”

“I know,” Peter mumbled.

“You’ve always been there for us. You’re always putting us first. It’s okay. We’re supposed to be safe here, right?”

“I don’t know I can believe that anymore,” Peter’s voice cracked.

Ben came over and hugged them both, sticking to their side, “You’re my favorite big brother.”

“Aw, don’t just leave Kaine hanging like that,” Peter laughed, ruffling Ben’s hair.

“That’s fair!” Kaine shouted from the kitchen. “You’re my least favorite big brother, so it evens out.”

“I’m your only older brother,” Peter pouted.

“Peter, don’t put my stuff on Kaine’s bookshelf,” Ben said.

“I won’t buddy. I know what stuff’s yours and what’s his. Kaine just has a bunch of books, anyway. You’re the one with the freaky bug collection.”

“They’re arachnids!” Ben gasped.

Peter went up the stairs slowly. He felt like he had weights on his ankles again. He stopped at the top of the stairs and looked over at Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s bedroom door. It was slightly ajar. He closed it, too scared to look in.

He could head Jessie moving around in the girls’ room, so he knocked gently on the door and leaned on the frame, trying to act like nothing was wrong. Like today was just any other day and the last few months hadn’t happened.

“Hey, Jess,” Peter said.

“There’s so much dust,” Jessie complained. “And my bookshelf fell over on my crutches.”

“You need me to move it for you?” Peter asked.

“Nah, I’m strong enough,” Jessie said.

“I need to help,” Peter whispered.

“Oh my god, fine, you goob,” Jessie huffed in amusement. “You’re such a mother hen.”

Peter lifted the bookshelf back into place and shuffled the books around to uncover Jessie’s crutches. Her minor healing factor and low level superstrength made it easier for her to mask the pain of walking, but she preferred her crutches or wheelchair when they were out for a long time.

“You need anything else?” Peter asked.

Jessie grabbed the crutches, leaning one on and putting the other one back against the bookshelf, “Nah, I just forgot where I put my knife cane, so if you see it, just holler.”

Peter nodded.

“Peter, you gotta learn how… I dunno, not be needed? Useful! You need to learn how to be useless sometimes.”

“Thanks,” Peter laughed.

“I mean, the moment you feel like you’re not doing enough and trust me, it happens a lot, you start driving everyone up the wall looking for something to fix or someone to help. You need to take a break.”

“I’ll work on that,” Peter huffed.

“You’d better.”

Peter left the girls’ room and wandered around the upstairs for a bit, avoiding his room. It was a four-bedroom house. Uncle Ben and Aunt May got the master suite, the boys got the largest bedroom, the girls the second largest, and the smallest bedroom had a pull-out bed and six desks, one for each kid and one for Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s old computer. Uncle Ben’s computer glasses were still sitting on the mouse pad next to the mouse and Peter’s breath caught in his throat.

He retreated to his room and stood in the doorway.

Ben had the top bunk, Peter had the bottom, and Kaine had the bed on the other side of the room. They each had a bookshelf with some things on it. Peter kept his old textbooks on his, the current ones were on his desk in the office. Ben had books on insects and arachnids. His light box with tarantula sheds in it was laying face down on the floor and Peter was tempted to leave it there, but he had promised Ben he’d put his things away.

Ben’s pet tarantula and its terrarium were missing. Since it was a live animal, Peter assumed that the police must have done something with it when they cased the house after… everything that happened. That thing gave him the creeps, but Ben adored it, even named it Little My for some reason. He hoped that it was rehomed and not released or something, since it was native to Mexico and wouldn’t survive in the cold New York winter.

Peter was still tiding up his and Ben’s side of their room when Kaine came back up.

“You gonna charge your phone?” Kaine asked.

Peter shook his head, “Too risky. No one can know we’re back.”

Kaine shrugged, “I was gonna text Flash and Liz…”

“You didn’t? Tell me you didn’t,” Peter snapped.

“Phone’s smashed,” Kaine shrugged. “Got the SIM card but I’m gonna need a new one.”

“Our cellphone plans probably defaulted or were canceled, anyway,” Peter sighed.

“I’m surprised the house is still standing, after everything,” Kaine said.

“Let’s not talk about that,” Peter said.

“Fine,” Kaine grunted. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

“I’m not gonna,” Peter said. “You’re hogging half the room anyway. There’s three of us in here.”

“So? I’m bigger, I need more space.”

Peter paused, waiting for Aunt May or Uncle Ben to shout up at them to settle the room debate. It’d been going on for years. But they didn’t. They weren’t there. There was an empty room, now.

Peter was drawn back into reality by shouting from downstairs.

“Guys!” Peni shouted.

“Holy shit, guys!” Ben added.

“Language!” All three of the older children upstairs shouted back down.

“It’s warranted!” Peni said.

Jessie, Peter, and Kaine all met on the landing.

“What?” Peter asked.

“We’re in the basement and we found a door!”

The three of them exchanged a look, then raced down to the basement. There was no one there to tell them not to use parkour in the house, and they were careful. Only a few pictures got bumped askew.

There really was a door in the basement. It was behind a drywall panel, across from the stairs, between the washer and dryer and the water heater.

“The dry wall came loose,” Peni said. “I think when everything went down, it got jostled.”

“Do you think they knew this was here?” Ben asked.

“I doubt it,” Kaine said.

“Did you look inside?”

“It’s another staircase, but we didn’t go down yet.”

“Did… did Richard ever live here?” Jessica asked.

Peter shivered at the idea that they were about to walk into a prototype of the lab they all grew up in. But… if there was something like that under the only home they’d ever felt safe in, he wanted to know.

“I’ll take lead, stay behind me,” Peter said.

He heard Kaine grumble a little, but no one outright objected. Peni handed Peter the flashlight and he led the way into the second basement. The side of the door not covered in drywall was six inches thick of solid metal, locked together like a bank vault door from a cartoon. The tunnel the stairs were in led into pitch black darkness, with the ceiling slanted above stairs and only three feet wide. Kaine bumped his head on a long dead emergency light. The walls were perfectly dry, perfectly preserved.

He was prepared for everything, a Black Site, a murder basement, a haunted tomb. Everything except what it actually was.

“What the fuck?” Kaine asked, still rubbing his head.

It was a doomsday prepper bomb shelter, two stories high. The tunnel opened out on a walkway that was only a little rusty. The only light was from Peter’s flashlight, but as he swung it around, he revealed more and more of an almost empty, cavernous room. If Peter had to eyeball the measurements, it looked like it was almost square, with the longer wall being about twenty-five feet and short about twenty. The floor to the ceiling was another fifteen feet, give or take maybe six inches.

The catwalk went along the wall that, if it went above ground, would be right where the back deck ended. They came out at the far end and there was door right in the middle, with more metal stairs leading down onto the lower floor on both sides of the catwalk. In the far corner there a spiral staircase that looked like it would be right under where the old garden shed was. Peter could see another door underneath the one on the catwalk through the grates.

“Okay, the air is stale down here and we’re gonna need more light, everyone back up,” Peter said.

“What! Bullshit, I wanna explore, I barely saw anything past all of you!”

“Nope, I’m gonna do a risk assessment first. Who wants to go to the hardware store with me to get oxygen and CO2 meters and maybe some batter powered work lights?”

“Boo, lame!” Jessie said.

“We’re not gonna suffocate in a murder basement under our backyard,” Peter scolded.

“Lame!” Peni added.

“You know what, everyone but Kaine’s coming with me to the hardware store,” Peter said.

“What, why?” Ben whined.

“Why’s Kaine being singled out?”

“Because Kaine’s not gonna explore the poorly ventilated murder basement on his own, but the rest of you absolutely would.”

“Nuh-uh!” Ben lied.

“Ya-huh. Now, c’mon, the Home Depot is only a thirty-minute walk.”

“We’re not going to Forest Hills?” Jessie asked. “It’s closer and they know us.”

“Yeah, they know us,” Peter said. “I’m not comfortable with people we know knowing we’re back just yet. They might talk or… call the police…”

“Oh, right,” Jessie said. “Can I stay?”

“Kaine, don’t let her in the murder basement.”

Kaine saluted, picking Jessie up and carrying her back upstairs.

“Hey! I can walk!” Jessie yelped.

“Then you can walk to the hardware store,” Kaine snorted. “You’re gonna fix my TV. I wanna make sure my DVR worked; I missed so many episodes of my shows”

“Ass.”

“Princess.”

They only had five hundred dollars left after all the food they ate, and it was a struggle to keep Ben away from parts he wanted for projects he wanted to start. It was hard enough for Peter to stop himself from getting excited about parts for projects. They were there for the most powerful camp lights they can find, maybe a rebreather or two, and the meters.

“We should get an EMF and Geiger counter, too, just in case is radiation monsters or ghosts,” Peni said.

“You just wanna play with a Geiger counter,” Peter snorted. They were all mildly radioactive and set them off just a little bit if they pressed the sensor to their skin.

“Maybe,” Peni said. “The EMF would be good for ghosts, though.”

“Only if it’s less than $50,” Peter laughed.

It ended up totaling to around $350, the AQ meter was more than half the budget, but they found these cheap little chargeable hand lights and got five of them, and two rebreathers for gas attacks. Peter would feel safer if they had five, but didn’t want to spend all of their money at once.

Back at the house, Peni, Ben, and Jessie played rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock until one of them was left standing and got the rebreather mask to go into the murder basement bomb shelter thing with Peter first to see if it was safe to breath down there and set up the lights. Jessie won, so Peter handed her the AQ meter, a rebreather, a flashlight, and two of the three work lights.

“You’re so overkill,” Jessie laughed.

“Safety is serious,” Peter insisted.

Turns out the safety was overkill. The air was stale, but not dangerous, and further inspection revealed some long-abandoned tools and supplies in the main room. Peter took the door on the catwalk and Jessie went into the lower door.

It was a living space, styled perfectly to the 1950s, just a little dusty. There was a kitchen, a living room with TV, bathroom, and four bedrooms. There was a journal sitting on the coffee table so Peter flipped through it. It was the ramblings of a man gone crazy from fear of nuclear war. He made mentions of the London Blitz and that when the Germans topple Europe they’d come for the US Eastern Seaboard first.

He went back out onto the catwalk as Jessie came back out holding a can of beans.

“Pete, we’re not gonna need to buy food for like, six years. Theres cans of everything down here.”

“Paranoid guy who lived here from 1940s to 1970s built the bunker. He was scared of the cold war and wanted to be prepared.”

“That’s hilarious, actually,” Jessie said. “And explains the six years of canned foods. I think the baby formula went bad, though.”

“Ew, toss that,” Peter said.

“There’s HVAC systems down here and the beginnings of an air recycler system. All of it’s super old but I bet Ben could get it to work.”

“It would be good to get this place livable, actually. We could hide right in the house and we’d be so hard to find. I mean, people have lived in this house for decades after that crazy guy left and no one found this place until now.”

“So… you know how there’s rumors that Batman’s base of operations is in a cave?”

“Jessie…”

“I’m just saying, we’ve all got powers, we know this city, and Queens doesn’t have a hero team yet!”

“No, not yet, not ever,” Peter said.

“Okay, Spider-Man,” Jessie put her hands on her hips.

“I can’t believe Kaine told everyone that,” Peter sighed. “Okay, family meeting upstairs about the bunker.”

“Jessie’s right, it’s our Batcave, it’s a sign that we should be superheroes,” Peni said.

“It is not…”

“You’re the one calling yourself Spider-Man, Pete,” Kaine teased.

“Shut!”

“I wanna be Spider-Man!” Ben said.

“You can’t be Spider-Man, Peter already called dibs.”

“But he doesn’t even like spiders,” Ben whined.

“I want to be Spider-Woman,” Peni said.

“I will be Spider… Web… Master? Web Master!” Jessie said. “I can monitor the police scanners and be like Q or something. Like in James Bond.”

“How about… Scarlet Spider,” Ben said.

“I’m Kaine,” Kaine grunted.

“No! Boo, you need a hero name, that’s your regular name.”

“How about Scarlet Spider,” Kaine mocked.

“Hey! Peter, tell Kaine to stop being mean to me!”

“Relax, squirt, I’m joking. Don’t want to be called anything other than Kaine.”

“You’re boring!” Ben complained.

“Everyone stop!” Peter said.

“Put it to a vote!” Peni said. “All in favor of becoming a superhero team and having a Spider-Cave…”

“Burrow!” Ben said. “Spiders live in burrows underground.”

“All in favor of superhero team and the Burrow Base?”

Everyone but Peter raised their hands. Peter let out a long-suffering sight, and then raised his hand.

“Great! It’s unanimous! I wanna make the costumes,” Peni said. “I’ll get Aunt May’s sewing machine and see what fabric I have laying around.”

“Peni, wait, let everyone design their own costumes with you. Otherwise you’d just put us all in American flags and call us the Captain America Squad.”

“Okay, what colors do you want your suit to be?”

“Red and blue…” Peter sighed.

“You’re dumb.”

“Just get…” Peter shooed her.

“Ben and I are gonna start getting the Burrow ready,” Jessie said.

And with that, only Peter and Kaine were left in the living room.

“You voted for being a superhero?”

Kaine shrugged, “Red Hood’s a Bat and he decapitates people. Punisher kills people, too. I can be a hero and do my own thing and be on the family super team. Besides, someone has to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

“You care about us,” Peter teased. “What happened to going to Mexico, huh?”

“That’s still on the table if you annoy me too much, Spider-Man.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

That morning, Dad told Peter that Bravo Phase was ready to be woken up. It had been a whole year since Peter woke up in this place. Dad poked and prodded him, ran him through tests both physical and mental. About a month in, he put Peter’s hand in a plastic box and held him down as a spider crawled on his hand. Peter screamed and cried and begged, but the spider bit him. He was sick for about a day, and then he was never sick again.

Peter was put through a whole bunch of new tests. It was like being in PE class but every day. Peter supposed it could be fun, but he’d always like science class and math class more. Dad had a little device and if he spoke into it, Peter’s body moved to obey without his own input, so Peter didn’t really have a say in what he did. He hadn’t really, before, but at least he could have complained about it. If he tried to ask to do something else or said he was too tired or in pain, Dad would use the device and make him run until he blacked out or lifted weights until he blacked out or he was in so much pain that he couldn’t move anymore.

Oh, yeah. Peter could do things now.

He was really, really strong. There were weights brought in by special equipment that weighed a ton each and Peter could almost lift three of them at once. He could also stick to any solid surface unless there was running water making it slippery. And the last time Dad tried to hit him; he moved out of the way. It wasn’t like when Dad used the controller, where his body moved on its own accord. It felt more like his body telling him he should move and then he did. And Dad’s hand moved through empty air.

Even though Dad had been angry when that happened, he got really happy after and he actually played a game of catch with Peter like he used to, only Peter was blindfolded and Dad kept walking around the room and throwing things at him from different angles and at different timings and Peter wasn’t allowed to toss anything back to him.

But out of everything that happened in the last year, Peter had still been eagerly awaiting today.

Today, Dad was going to wake up Bravo Phase and he was even going to let Peter be there. Peter loved and missed Teresa, he really did, but he loved the idea of having a little brother, too. Especially since Bravo Phase would only be a year younger than him, instead of a baby he couldn’t play with like Teresa.

“Alfa Phase, do you remember the buttons I showed you to press?” Dad asked.

Peter nodded, getting ready.

“Okay, you start,” Dad said.

Peter was just happy that he was being included. First he flipped the switch that drained the oxygenated nutrient fluid back into the auxiliary tanks. Then he started to release the life support systems in the order that Dad told him. The second to last one was the neural interface that molded the pathways in their brain that meant that even though they aged twice as quickly while in the pod and had never opened their eyes before, their bodies knew how to do everything from walking, to chewing, to holding in their poop. The last one was the sedation drip that kept the clones asleep.

At first, Peter thought he did something wrong, because the moment he hit the final button, his Spider-Sense went off like crazy. He lunged towards where Dad was sitting next to the pod and pushed him out of the way just Bravo Phase’s eyes snapped open and he let out a blood curdling scream, flailing his arms and legs and writhing out of the pod more like a frightened animal than a little boy.

“Shit!” Dad screamed. “Alfa Phase what are you…? Bravo Phase, stop that!”

Bravo Phase had slammed a fist into Charlie Phase’s tank and the glass had a hairline fracture. Peter could see beads of liquid form on the crack, but it wasn’t completely busted.

“Alfa Phase, contain him!” Dad screamed.

Peter sprung into action, grabbing Bravo Phase’s wrists and trying to hold him still, “It’s okay!” Peter tried. “You’re safe! You’re safe, I promise!”

Bravo Phase just screamed, struggling, looking around with wide, wild eyes. He was panting and sobbing, not unlike when Teresa got sick when she was a baby, only not six years old and really strong. Dad must have put whatever changed Peter into one of the medical drips connected to the pod, because Bravo Phase was almost as strong as him, despite being smaller.

“It’s okay,” Peter whispered.

Bravo Phase had stopped screaming, but he was still struggling and breathing hard.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Peter pleaded. “It’s okay.”

Bravo Phase finally stopped struggling, but his breath was still erratic.

“I’ll hold your hand if you’re scared, okay?”

Bravo Phase made a face and mumbled, “Not scared.” His voice was hoarse, like Peter’s had been when he first woke up. His vocal cords had never been used, but the neural interface at least made sure that he not only knew how to use them, but understood English.

Despite Bravo Phase saying he wasn’t scared, he let Peter hold his hand anyway.

“Alfa Phase, you’re dismissed, I can take this from here now that he’s calm.”

Bravo Phase immediately started breathing harder again.

“B… but he needs me,” Peter mumbled.

“You’ll interfere with the rest of the process,” Dad snapped. “Don’t make me order you.”

“B…”

Dad raised his hand and Peter flinched back.

“He needs me,” Peter insisted, pleading. “I won’t interfere, I promise. It’ll be like I’m not here!”

Dad slapped him and chaos broke out. Bravo Phase immediately started struggling again. His hand ripped from Peter’s and two boney protrusions snapped out of his wrists, and he moved to plunge one into Dad’s chest, but Peter stopped him.

“Don’t!” Peter shouted. “We… we don’t hurt people.”

“He hurt you!” Bravo Phase screamed.

“I deserved it!” Peter struggled. Bravo Phase might actually be stronger than him. Peter’s only advantage was that he had been working out and Bravo Phase had been sleeping in his nutrient tank. His only exercise in there had been the electrical shocks that contracted the muscle to prevent it from atrophying.

“Bullshit!” Bravo Phase screamed.

“Stop,” Dad’s voice said through the device.

They both froze.

“Bravo Phase, you are not to attack me,” Dad snarled. “Alfa Phase, let go of Bravo Phase and step back three paces and wait at attention.”

Peter’s body moved back, letting Bravo Phase go and standing at attention like a soldier. He hated this order, sometimes Dad left him like that for hours. One time he left him there for a week just to see how long the order lasted. It turned out that Peter’s metabolism, while enhanced, only worked when he was moving. He’d only been released because he got dehydrated.

Bravo Phase wasn’t moving, just observing now. He could still move, but he was scared. Peter could tell.

Dad grabbed the rod he used on Peter when he was particularly upset at him and approached Bravo Phase.

“Please, he doesn’t know any better!” Peter begged. “He just woke up! It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have made you hit me, please. I’m sorry.”

Bravo Phase was his little brother, wasn’t he? He had to protect him, just like he used to protect Teresa. Back then, there hadn’t been anything to protect her from, but he still slept at the foot of her crib when she was fussy, just in case she was scared or needed him.

Bravo Phase glared at Dad, the stingers in his wrists held up.

“What are you going to do?” Dad scoffed at him. “Attack me?”

Bravo Phase snarled like a cornered dog and moved to jab at Dad, but he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t let him.

Dad slammed the rod into Bravo Phase with a sickening thwack.

“Don’t hurt him!” Peter pleaded.

“He needs this lesson, 731,” Dad said. “It’s the most important thing for things like you to know. You may be stronger than me, you might be able to do things I can only dream of doing, but I own you. You are property. You are not children, you are weapons, and it’s my job to forge you to perfection.”

Richard didn’t run many tests on Bravo Phase after he was done with his first ‘lesson’. At least, not that Peter could see. He sent Peter back to his cage using the controller. Peter stood in the dark at the back of his cage, unable to move, waiting for Richard to come back and lock the door so he could move again. He wasn’t sure how long it took for Richard to come back, but Bravo Phase looked like he was in so much pain.

Richard locked Peter’s cage and then Bravo Phase’s and left so quickly that he forgot to turn the light off. It was on a timer, so it would turn off in half an hour, but turn back on if Peter waved his arm out of his cage. He liked it when Richard forgot the lights because then when he had to pee at night he could turn the lights back on to see better.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked. “What… what do you remember?”

“Remember?” Bravo Phase’s voice was quiet, shaky, but had a firmness to it.

“About before here?” Peter asked. Maybe all the clones remembered his life from before. Maybe he really wasn’t Peter, and he was just a clone, like Richard said. If Bravo Phase remembered Teresa and Mom, then…

“There was something before?” Bravo Phase asked. “I… I woke up and there was a buzzing in my head and then you… you said I was safe but you were lying.”

“I… you really don’t remember?” Peter asked. “About Teresa and Mom? Uncle Ben and Aunt May? What Dad was like before here, you don’t remember?”

Bravo Phase shook his head, “I didn’t know there was a before.”

Peter felt awful for how amazing that made him feal. If he remembered being Peter and Bravo Phase didn’t but they were made identically then… somehow, Peter must be the real Peter. He didn’t know how but he remembered being Peter. That meant he had to be him.

He reveled in that, until he heard Bravo Phase sniffle.

“I… I didn’t mean to lie,” Peter said. “I didn’t think he… it usually takes more than that to make him that angry. Well… I mean… I never tried to stab him with bone things, but I mean, I’ve thrown a tantrum and he didn’t hurt me after. He just put me in a time out.”

“Stingers,” Bravo Phase mumbled. “Dr. Parker called them stingers. He said they weren’t planned. Would he really cut my arm open to look at them?”

“Um, yeah, but he’ll knock you out first,” Peter said. “He’s done that to me a few times already. It’s really not so bad! You sleep through the whole thing! I always feel awful after, but that just means that they let me read for a few days instead of the usual stuff so it evens out. Usually we only get to read on Fridays.”

“I wonder if I like reading, too,” Bravo Phase said.

“I’m sure you will.”

“You know about… places other than here, right?”

“Yeah, I do but… don’t tell anyone. D… Dr. Parker gets upset if I talk about outside or my… our family.”

“Our?”

“You… you’re like me but… new. That makes you my little brother.”

“I like… brothers,” Bravo Phase said. “Everything was loud and bright and my head was screaming but you… you helped make it quiet. Even if you did lie.”

“I really thought you were safe,” Peter admitted. “I thought I could protect you.”

“What’s the outside like?”

“It’s warm,” Peter said. “Okay, well sometimes it’s cold but that’s the weather. Even when it’s hot in here, it still feels cold. But outside, there’s the sun and wind and there’s so many smells! And there’s Mom, Teresa, and Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Mom’s name is Mary, but… I haven’t seen her in a while. I… I think she’s dead. I think that’s why Dr. Parker is so angry all the time. He… he used to be my dad on the outside. His name is Richard.”

“What was your name on the outside?”

“Peter. But…”

“Don’t tell anyone, I get it,” Bravo Phase said. “Did I have a name?”

“You… you weren’t there,” Peter said.

“Oh.”

“We can come up with a name for you!” Peter insisted. “Just for us. And for when we get out of here.”

Bravo Phase sighed, “It’s okay. I don’t need a name.”

“Everyone has a name. I’m not just gonna call you Bravo Phase or 888. Those aren’t people names, they’re weapon names.”

“But I am a weapon,” Bravo Phase said. “We’re both weapons now.”

“We… we can be both,” Peter insisted. “Like Captain America. His name was Steve Rogers but then they did something to him to make him really strong, just like us. He fought bad guys like the Red Skull and even sacrificed himself to save hundreds of thousands of lives. He got to have a weapon name and a person name, so you can have one too.”

“I… I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” Peter said. “There’s no rush, I just want you to know that you deserve a name, too. You’re my little brother, after all.”

“Fine.”

“I know it’s not much after what just happened, but… I promise I’ll protect you as best I can, okay. That’s what big brothers do. Mom said so.”

“You’re not that much bigger than me,” Bravo Phase grunted. “I can watch your back, too.”

“Okay, but… I call dibs on back watching, because I’m older.”

“Dumbass.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

“So, we’re really doing this,” Peter said, looking at Penny’s huge haul of red and blue spandex. There was a little bit of yellow and black as well. Most of the thread she bought was black. Ben had shoved a light blue hoodie on top of the pile with a sticky note with a spider he drew on it and another sticky note that said, ‘pretty please put this on the front and remove the sleeves because sleeveless is cool, thank you Peni!’.

“Why’re there so many bright colors?” Kaine complained. “I said I wanted black. There’s not enough black here for me.”

“And you keep flip flopping between saying you wanna do this and that you’re not leaving the house ever,” Peni snapped. “I’m not gonna spend time and money on you if you’re gonna be wishy-washy about it.”

“’M’not wishy-washy,” Kaine grumbled, wandering off.

“What’s the yellow for?”

“I want yellow highlights,” Peni said. “And black accents.”

“There’s not enough here for three suits,” Peter pointed out.

Peni sighed, “I’m gonna make Ben’s after he can beat me in combat.”

“Those are high expectations,” Peter said.

He couldn’t even beat her most days. Richard realized her powers were so perfect for assassination and infiltration that he had her on combat training almost from day one and exclusively in combat training. She could ‘jump’, a quick burst of speed or teleportation, it was hard to tell, become almost invisible, and could inject neurotoxin venom through skin-to-skin contact if she wanted.

Peter had taken it on himself to make sure that once everything was done for the day and they were finally left alone that she wasn’t left completely behind in everything else. He taught her how to read himself. He was the one who snuck her a small piece of chalk and a chalkboard so she could have something to doodle with when she showed interest in being creative.

She was the second youngest, but it was hard to baby her like he did with Ben. They’d managed to preserve a lot more of Ben’s innocence. He was only eleven, not even a teenager yet. Peni was fourteen and she’d been on three missions before they managed to escape captivity the first time. She didn’t talk about it with him, but she’d talked to Jess. Peter was happy he wasn’t going to be Spider-Man alone, but happier that she wouldn’t be Spider-Woman alone.

“Do you wanna see my sketches?” Peni asked.

“Always, Pen,” Peter smiled. “Everything you draw is amazing.”

“You’re pretty good, too,” Peni said.

“Sure, but prototype drawings aren’t the same as the stuff you do.”

“All I can do is draw superhero costumes and horses,” Peni said.

“Yeah, and all I can draw is chemical compounds and mechanical blueprints. We’re both still cool,” Peter teased, messing her hair up.

Peni pulled her sketch book out and handed it to Peter. He’d given her a few doodles himself, colored in with the highlighters he used on his textbooks and notes, but she’d turned his design to the next level. He’d merely doodled a spider on the front and a chunky one on the back, but she elevated it.

The spider on the front of her design was black, with the elongated body in the center of his chest and the legs all ending up facing downwards, reaching first across his pecs and then down to his waist. The head, chest, outside of the arms, and feet were a bold red with black webbing, while the inside of the arms, his sides, his back, and his legs were blue. There were two heavier armors spots on the back of his hand and front of his forearms that were black and had the label ‘for blocking’.

“This is awesome, Peni,” Peter whispered. It was like she took his doodle and somehow brought even more of him out and put it into the suit. “You’re so talented.”

“We gotta see if I can execute it,” Peni said. “I designed one for Jess and one for me, too.”

“I thought Jess was staying inside?”

“Well, yes, but what if we need emergency back up and Kaine is in another one of his ice cream comas?”

Peter snorted, “Okay, but he’s not completely incapacitated…”

“Besides, it would be fun for her to also have something to dress up in for a work uniform.”

Peter nodded, “Makes sense. Ben’s gonna be pissed at us, though.”

“He’ll live. Look at my suit!”

She flipped to her page and waited anxiously for Peter to judge her. Honestly, even if it was bad, he would have found something to praise. He never wanted his little sister to feel the way Richard made him feel when he tried to prove he could do science too and Richard just ripped apart everything he did wrong.

She knocked this one out of the park as well. Her whole body was black except for the arms and shoulders, which matched the red with black webbing on his suit. The hands were black but the fingers were red. Her mask was significantly more open, leaving her hair out and her lower face exposed. There were yellow highlights peeking in and out around the spots where the seams were and where the red met the black. Her spider was also red with a yellow gaster. The top four legs going into the red on her shoulders and the bottom two reaching down to the end of her chest.

“We’re definitely going to look like a team,” Peter said. “I love the fingers being a different color than the rest of the hand. Great job, Peni.”

“But…?”

“I’m a little worried that you could be IDed by your hair or your face with this.”

“Dude, Robin literally just wears a domino mask. This is the exact same mask design as both Cyclops and Kid Flash. And if you say something like, ‘I might leave DNA behind!’ our DNA is so radioactive that it decays unless it’s extracted in a lab and kept stable from the moment it leaves the homeostasis of our bodies.”

“I know, I know,” Peter said.

“Besides, I already ran this by Jess and she said facial recognition tech can’t face ID someone with a mask that covers this much of my face.”

“Yet,” Peter added.

“Batman has his lower face exposed and no one’s figured out his identity yet.”

“He probably hacks into the databases and deletes all their info on him regularly. Plus… I’m pretty sure Waller has hinted she knows who he is a few times, so that’s not even relevant.”

“Jess said she just wanted us to think she knows who every hero is so that we don’t feel safe. Besides, she has so much info on our powers, she’ll know who we are the moment she gets footage of us sticking to a wall.”

Peter sighed, rubbing his face, “I know. I’m sorry. It’s a good suit design I’m just…”

“Paranoid? Anxious? Overprotective and overbearing?”

“Sure,” Peter let out a quick chuckle. “Really, it’s good. It’s really good. I just…”

“You wish you thought of it sooner?” Peni asked.

“Yeah. I mean, I did think of it sooner but I was… I didn’t want to draw attention to us. Like you said, Waller will know who we are immediately. She sees a guy in red and blue spandex sticking to walls and getting cats out of trees… but I guess that never mattered, did it? Richard still found us. He still…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Peni whispered, grabbing his hand.

“Kaine said that, too,” Peter scoffed.

“Peter…”

“You’re really telling me that I didn’t love Uncle Ben and Aunt May as much as Kaine loves Benji? Isn’t… isn’t love supposed to be this all-powerful feeling that overcomes anything and lets you save anyone… it…”

“Bull,” Peni said. “We’re family, Peter. I love you, and it didn’t stop what they did to us from making me do…” She clenched her fists and growled angrily.

Jess knocked on the doorframe, making Peter nearly jump out of his skin.

“I felt a disturbance in the force,” Jessie said mockingly.

“Peter’s being self-loathing again,” Peni tattled.

“Hey,” Peter scowled. “I just… why was Kaine able to save Benji but I couldn’t save them?” He hated how his voice cracked. “How am I… I forgot how to function without them and now we’re here, where they’re supposed to be, and they’re not here and it’s my fault. I wasn’t strong enough to save them. I wasn’t enough.”

“I agree with Peni, that’s bull,” Jessie said. “You know it was Kaine’s stubbornness. The control was always weak on him. He got… pumped with too much spider and not enough human. His brain is wired differently than ours, of course he was able to break the control. Mine, too, I suppose, because of the mental stuff I can do. But Dr. Parker anticipated that. The control is baked into our brain patterns and our DNA. Kaine was overcooked, I was undercooked. You were made exactly how he wanted you.”

“He didn’t know he resurrected me,” Peter whispered. “He never believed me; it only ever made him angry. It… it doesn’t make sense. He was clearly trying to resurrect me, and then acted like he failed when I was right there in front of him.”

“He wanted you back, but he didn’t want to admit what he brought you back to,” Jessie said. “I can feel you four more than anyone else, but Dr. Parker was the only other person that I could really read. Maybe it’s because I’m half his DNA, or one third with the spider DNA. Maybe it was a survival instinct. He was scared of you and that made him angry.”

Peter scoffed, “I think something broke in him when Mom died. I… Kaine and Ben get on my nerves sometimes but I would never want what happened to Uncle Ben to happen to them. Even if maybe I do get the urge to strangle them sometimes.”

“Hey, we’re making progress!” Jessie slapped him on the shoulder.

He looked at her skeptically.

“You admitted that Dr. Parker was a part of what happened,” Peni said. “That’s progress, Pete! Who knows, maybe by the time you’re 30, you’ll accept that it wasn’t your fault, it was his.”

Peter scowled, “Whatever. Just… finish those suits, I’m gonna go to the junkyard that’s got the good electronic waste. Ben’s been bugging me about it all day.”

“We’re getting through to him,” Jessie said to Peni.

“These things take time,” Peni nodded.

“You two are weird,” Peter sighed.

Peter enjoyed taking Ben to the junkyard. Ben loved mechanics and Peter enjoyed inventing, too. Ben was more interested in old cars and repairing things than Peter, who leaned more towards inventing little contraptions and doodads, but they still bonded over it.

“Oh, man, Pete, I’m so happy we found that bunker,” Ben said. “I’m gonna revamp that air filter system so hard it’s gonna have the cleanest air in the whole city.”

“Yeah?” Peter laughed.

“I just gotta get the right parts,” Ben said. “I’ve been developing a nose for diving, though, just you see.”

“Just be careful. There’s sharp objects.”

Ben rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in an adorable pout, “I’m not a baby.”

“You kinda are,” Peter teased.

“What kinda baby has assassin training?”

“You,” Peter retorted. “Besides, we got out before you graduated to anything beyond white belt levels, anyway.”

“Ug, don’t remind me.”

“Hey, Ben, it was a good thing,” Peter reprimanded him.

“Sure, it was,” Ben moved away from Peter, deeper into the junkyard, rummaging through the scraps and bits and bobs. “All four of you have so much more combat experience than me. I was looking forward to the stealth training and the group combat and…”

“We weren’t in a school at Cadmus,” Peter snapped. “It was a prison, Ben. We were their property.”

“I know,” Ben pouted. “And… yeah, a lot of it sucked but… some of it was cool, okay? It… it wasn’t all bad.”

“Sure,” Peter scoffed. “Because being treated like a gun instead of a kid was just peachy. There wasn’t anything good there.”

“I had you,” Ben whispered. “I wouldn’t exist at all if… you’d be dead!”

“I know, Ben,” Peter sighed.

“I’d rather have… I’m glad I’m alive,” Ben said. “Maybe it cost more for us than other people but… at least we could afford it. We weren’t all so lucky.”

“I know,” Peter whispered. He still saw them in his dreams, the other three clones from Echo Phase. They never got a chance at life.

“I’m not taking being outside for granted,” Ben said. “I just don’t see why we have to pretend like it was all bad just because most of it was. Combat training was fun. Stealth training looked like so much fun, too, and I never got to do it. The simulation room felt… like the closest thing to a game we were allowed to play and… dodgeball in PE doesn’t really cut it.”

“It was dangerous,” Peter said. “We almost died in that simulation room, so many times. It wasn’t a game, Ben.”

“No, but… bet we could convert the food room into a simulation room that’s actually got safety measures installed.”

“The reason they disabled the safety measures was because if the program was designed not to hurt us, it didn’t trigger the Spider-Sense.”

“You’re smart enough to find a way around that,” Ben said. “Besides, how am I supposed to ever get to be Scarlet Spider for real if I can’t practice? Peni said I wasn’t allowed out until I can beat her in a spar at least once and I know you well enough to know you agree with that.”

“I do, yeah,” Peter said. “You’re too young.”

“You went on your first mission when you were twelve,” Ben said.

“This isn’t about missions, Ben, it’s about putting yourself in danger so that people who aren’t like us won’t be in danger.”

“I know,” Ben said. “I want to do that, too! I want to help.”

“Sometimes… sometimes you gotta be okay with not being able to help,” Peter said.

“Like you?” Ben scoffed.

“Okay, okay,” Peter said. “Let’s just find our stuff and get out of here before we get caught stealing from the junkyard. Superheroes don’t get caught dumpster diving.”

“Yes, Sir, Mr. Spider-Man!” Ben laughed.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine

Despite Bravo Phase and Delta Phase having a few successful missions, Waller still shipped them off to their new owner. They were drugged and put in human size carrying cages and loaded into a cargo plane like dangerous animals. Peter always hated how, despite having full control over them, Waller still acted like she didn’t. They’d never outright defied her orders or attacked her. Bravo Phase had wanted to, but Dad could read him like a book and always knew what to say to make him obedient.

Waller was on the plane with them, which was surprising. Whoever she sold them to, she must be on talking terms with. She didn’t have friends, that much Peter could tell. Her whole life was consumed with her mission, but Peter wasn’t entirely sure what her mission was. All he knew was that she hated mutants and metas that she didn’t control or that weren’t dead.

They had his hands in those meta restraining cuffs that covered his whole lower arm, chained to the thick iron collar around his neck, which was attached to the cage in three different spots. All five of them were restrained like this. It was only necessary with Bravo Phase, whose boundary testing involved trying to see if he was faster than whoever was holding the controller.

The man that bought them was tall, or maybe Waller was just short. Peter was restrained in the cage and still out of it from the sedatives. He was bald and he kinda sounded like Mr. Krabs, but that was really all Peter noticed before another round of sedatives was injected into his upper arm and he blacked out.

When he woke up, he was sitting in a medium size room, about three times the size of their containment units back at Cadmus. Instead of bars, the walls were concrete and hospital white. There was a door on one end and a glass wall on the other, with a reinforced door. The glass looked like it was a foot thick. One side of the room had a triple bunk cot and the other had a double bunk cot. They still had the collars on, but the cuffs had been removed.

Peter was the third one to wake up. Delta Phase was already up, looking around, huddled into his side. Bravo Phase was pacing the walls like a caged tiger, scratching at the collar around his neck and growling lowly when the lights overhead flickered periodically.

“I’m here,” Peter whispered, pulling Delta Phase close to him. It made sense they would be the first two to wake. Their bodies produced venom, so they had the highest resistance to toxins and medicines out of the five of them. Bravo Phase’s healing factor was also by far the most intense, so he worked through sedatives quickly.

“Where are we?” Delta Phase asked.

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted. “Hopefully somewhere better than we were before.”

“Don’t fucking kid yourself,” Bravo Phase scoffed. “Waller may have sold us, but wherever we are now, it’s because someone bought us.”

“Will they hurt us, like Dr. Parker and Director Waller did?”

“Probably,” Bravo Phase snarled. He slammed his fist into the glass as hard as he could as he passed by the window, and hissed when the lights turned red and all of them were zapped.

“Come on, man,” Peter winced.

“Fucking bullshit,” Bravo Phase snarled, walking back over to them and sitting down, crisscross with his arms wrapped around himself. “Didn’t think that would hurt you guys, too. Sorry.”

“S’fine,” Peter fidgeted, scratching under the collar. He knew better than to take it off, but it was clear that it wasn’t stronger than his superstrength. He didn’t want to get in trouble.

The zap woke up Charlie and Echo. Echo woke up with a startle, screaming in fear, and Peter lunged to pull him into a hug before he hurt himself or someone else.

“It’s okay,” Peter said. “We’re still together, we’re okay.”

Echo was breathing fast but curled into Peter’s protective embrace, burying his face in Peter’s chest. He was only eight years old. He was a baby. Sure, Peter was barely fourteen himself, but Echo was still so very small.

“What’s going on?” Charlie Phase grumbled. “My neck hurts.”

“Bravo Phase tested a boundary,” Delta Phase said. “If one of us gets zapped, we all do. Don’t touch the window.”

“Noted,” Charlie Phase hissed. “That was unpleasant.”

“We’ve had worse,” Bravo Phase growled. “Door on the other end is a bathroom. It’s decent size, too. Got a bathtub and everything. Three sinks.”

“Fancy,” Charlie Phase said. “Though at Cadmus, we each had our own toilets and sinks.”

“Yeah, but we couldn’t hug through the bars,” Echo Phase said, cuddling closer to Peter and Delta Phase.

The five of them sat there where they’d woken up, huddled together for warmth. It was cold in the room and there weren’t any blankets or pillows on the cots. They didn’t talk, but Charlie Phase connected them with her mind so they could just enjoy each other’s presence, revel in the comfort that they hadn’t been separated.

Peter didn’t know how long they sat like that, but Echo Phase had drifted to sleep after a little bit and Delta Phase was starting to drift off, too. Charlie Phase was leaning on Bravo Phase, but she wasn’t drowsy. Peter himself felt on edge. It was strange that no one had explained anything to them yet. He wondered if the bald man was the guy that bought them or not. Maybe. Or he worked for whoever bought them. It was unclear.

Bravo Phase heard it first. Peter could feel his ears prick over the mental connection between them, but it was a few more seconds before he heard the angry voice of a man and two sets of shoes clicking on the linoleum flooring on the other side of the glass, one clicking like Waller’s heals and the other softer, like Dad’s loafers.

“I wouldn’t have bid on them at all if I knew they were children,” the man snapped angrily, pushing the door open.

Out of habit, all five of them stood at attention, like Waller and Dad liked it, in order of age with Peter on their right, all the way to Echo Phase on the opposite end. Delta Phase was trying to get Echo Phase to stop fidgeting, but it was difficult. Peter watched them cautiously.

“At least they’re behaved,” the woman said.

“I was under the impression I was buying a set of Cape Killing harpoon guns or something, not children,” the bald man sighed.

“Norman almost out bid you, too,” the woman scoffed. “You should have let him, but your pride got in the…”

“Shut up, Mercy.”

“Yes, sir,” The woman flinched away from him.

“Do you have names?” The man asked them.

Peter wasn’t sure if it was a trick question so he identified himself as Alfa Phase 731, and the rest of them followed suit with their serial numbers. The man pursed his lips and sighed.

“I’m aware of your serial numbers, I want to know your names.”

Peter tensed, looking back and forth between the bald man and the rest of his siblings before finally saying, quietly, “We… weapons don’t have human names, sir.”

“The scientist called Bravo Phase Cain a lot because he kept trying to kill P… Alfa Phase a lot,” Echo Phase said.

Delta Phase elbowed him.

“Cute,” The man said.

“What’s your name?”

“Echo, shut up, he didn’t say you could speak,” Delta Phase hissed.

“Oh! Sorry… I…” Echo Phase shut up, shrinking in on himself.

“How old are you all?”

“Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, and eight… biologically,” Peter answered. “I’ve existed for eight years, down to five, then four. Echo Phase was grown faster and taken out earlier. But… he’ll be just as useful to you as the rest of us with a few more years of training, sir.”

“Fourteen,” the man grumbled. “What am I supposed to do with a middle schooler. Can you even kill Capes?”

“Yes, sir,” Bravo Phase answered.

“In… simulations,” Delta Phase corrected. “We’ve had successful missions in the field. But none against… capes.”

“Yes, I’ve read the files,” the man sighed. “Waller is, as always, frustratingly vague with the information she gives. Three confirmed kills, no witnesses for Delta Phase and over thirty confirmed kills for Bravo Phase. None for the rest of you. Cain, yes?”

“Sir?” Bravo Phase tensed.

“You are particularly blood thirsty,” the man said. “Do you think you could take down Superman?”

Bravo Phase flinched, then paused, looking around in thought before finally saying, “M… maybe in a few years? I don’t… I…”

“We aren’t informed of our growth curves until after we meet or exceed them, sir,” Peter added. In the simulations, Bravo Phase could go toe to toe with Wolverine, but he doubted they’d ever be able to fight Superman one on one. He was basically every X-Man in one.

“What about as a group? Mercy, get to work on some simulations to run them through. I’m sure I’ll find something to do with them. At the very least, we can forge them into real Cape Killers, we just have to make sure that the Justice League or the Avengers or whatever they’re called don’t suspect me of buying child soldiers. I doubt ‘I didn’t know what I was spending billions of dollars on’ would fly with Batman.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Luthor.”

Luthor was better than Waller by a country mile, but despite that, the bar had been in the earth’s mantle, so there were miles to go before it was actually good. He ran them through several, grueling simulations and had them fight each other, without break, for weeks on end. When he was finally satisfied, he let them out of their new bedroom with the glass wall and down the corridors through his facility until he reached what looked like an exit.

He held the control device up to them and said, “I trust you know who is in charge?”

“Yes, sir,” they responded.

“I’m sure Waller gave you the stick exclusively, I doubt you’ve ever experienced a carrot in your life.”

Peter paused, timidly saying, “We’ve had vegetables before…”

“We’ve also been beaten with a stick before,” Bravo Phase snarled.

“It’s a metaphor,” Luthor sighed. “This is the stick, yes?” He held up the controller again. “I doubt it’s pleasant to be controlled with one of these. I’d rather it be insurance. I’d rather you want to do as I say because you respect and trust me more than you fear me.”

Bravo Phase growled and Peter elbowed him.

“Cain is a good name for you,” Luthor said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. “Charlie is at least a name for a little girl,” he gestured to the door. “Hopefully the rest of you will pick names better than your serial numbers, it wouldn’t look good for me to keep calling you by numbers and letters.”

They followed him through the door and found themselves in a lobby, with a front desk and chairs and everything. It reminded Peter a little of a hospital waiting room. He used to be in the hospital a lot before he died. There was a table with a stack of books on it and an empty bookcase.

“I assume you can all read?” Luthor asked them.

Peter nodded, gingerly approaching the table, looking at all the books. It was pretty much every penguin classic ever made, from Robinson Crusoe to the Odessey. Luthor took a book from the top of the pile and offered it to Bravo Phase. East of Eden.

“Here, Cain, I think you’d appreciate this one.”

Bravo Phase flinched when Luthor moved towards him, but then took the book cautiously. They weren’t often handed things, only smacked around.

Echo Phase picked up a book and eagerly showed it Peter, “It’s your name!”

Peter flinches. Echo Phase doesn’t know better. He doesn’t know that he’s not supposed to talk like their people with lives and names and wants and dreams in front of the people who own them. He’s not supposed to remind them that they are more than weapons that are bought and sold and pointed and fired. It makes people uncomfortable and when they’re uncomfortable they get angry with them. And that’s never good.

Peter gingerly takes Peter Pan from Echo Phase and nods, not wanting to draw too much attention to them. Maybe Luthor didn’t notice.

“Peter?” Luthor asks. “That’s a good name. It’s strong. Better than Abel.”

Peter makes a face at that.

“Cain and Abel are the brothers in the book,” Luthor says. “Why don’t you five go back to your room with your books? I’ll have someone bring you some bean bags tomorrow, maybe a few reading lamps and bookmarks. You’ll have the next few days off while I work on your training regime. Who knows, maybe the three of you will find names you like in these books.”

“Penelope,” Delta Phase says one day. “The woman in the Odessey. She’s a badass.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Bravo Phase grunts.

“Peni!”

“Peter and Peni is pretty cute for sibling names,” Charlie Phase says.

A few weeks after that, Bravo Phase announces that he’s fine being called Kaine, but you gotta spell it right. He doesn’t spell it for them, but they know what he means. Probably Charlie Phase connecting them together.

Echo Phase still doesn’t know what he wants his name to be and Charlie Phase can’t think of anything either. Peter tells them it will happen when it happens.

Luthor sort of treats them like how Peter wished that Dad had treated them. He doesn’t free them, he doesn’t bring them home and let them go to school and be real children, but he doesn’t order them around with the controllers, though he keeps at least two of them on him at all times. He gets comfortable enough with them liking him to ‘bring them to work with him’. He dresses them up in custom security guard gear that almost completely covers their faces and brings them to a meeting. Peter doesn’t think it’s his day job. He doesn’t think something called the Legion of Doom pays its members enough for them to buy billion-dollar child soldiers. He asks if they’re employed by Dr. Doom and Luthor tells him there’s no relation.

Luthor, as usual, doesn’t force them to comply, he trusts them to bow to his leadership. Peter’s fine with that. He’s really only told them to protect him if something bad happens. He’s worried that Kaine might go rouge, though.

He’s right, too.

“If I see an opening, I’m running,” Kaine tells Peter when Luthor’s too far away to hear him.

“You can’t leave?” Echo Phase gasps, at least understanding to be quiet this time.

“I’m going with him,” Peni whispers.

“Me, too,” Charlie Phase says.

“Are we all running?” Echo Phase looks startled. “Where would we go?”

“Who cares,” Kaine snaps. “Away. Anywhere is better than this.”

“It’s been good, though?” Echo Phase asks. “Hasn’t it?”

“No,” Peter says. “There’s more to life than being someone’s pet. We’re not property, we’re people.”

“Who would agree with you? If anyone finds out what we are…”

“I can think of a few people,” Peter says. Two, to be precise. He can still taste wheat cakes when he focuses very hard. “I don’t know how to get there from here, but… I’m sure we’ll find a way.”

“If there’s even an opening to run.”

“Luthor’s let his guard down. He thinks we like him, just because he’s not outright cruel to us. If there isn’t an opening, I’ll make one.”

It turns out Kaine didn’t need to make an opening. Luthor never ordered them explicitly to do anything, though he had bragged about them to the other members of his little club of evil. So when the Justice League finds them and busts the ceiling off their hideout, the five of them disappear into the night.

But not before Peter makes eye contact with the Joker, who is holding one of the controllers that Luthor always keeps on him, a sickening grin plastered on his face.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten

“What do we have on them?” Jason asks.

He’s not usually one for hanging around the Batcave, but he’s been antsy. They haven’t seen neither head nor tail of the Marionettes since Cane turned the Joker into spaghetti sauce. GCPD had to get him into a body bag with a shovel. Cane also broke six of Jason’s ribs and bruised all of them when he slammed his palm into him. It’s a miracle his organs weren’t mincemeat. The Joker was likely dead from the first punch; the rest were just for fun.

He’s also fairly certain that Mr. Cane is responsible for a duffle bag of half a million unmarked bills going missing from one of his own warehouses. Unless there’s another six-foot-fuck-you sized tank that can stick to the ceiling, skittering around hitting drug dealer’s warehouses.

“Sheild’s file was mostly redacted,” Bruce grunts. “Places, names, locations, all scrubbed. Except for Waller and the scientists working on project Spider. All scientists except for one.”

“Wait, you have the name of only one scientist or all but one?”

“Second one. I’m reverse engineering his name from Cadmus datafiles. I believe it’s the missing connection to Ross.”

“Why that one scientist?”

“Warren worked on the project,” Bruce grunted.

Jason shivered. He didn’t know much about Warren’s work, but the guy was a creep. He wasn’t directly involved in making the Super Clones, but he helped. He was on Oscorp’s payroll now, having been cut loose from Cadmus for delivering subpar cloning work. Dick had been complaining about Oscorp making problems for New York.

“You think they’re clones?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Warren doesn’t know how to do anything else.”

“Who’re they clones of?”

“I have a theory,” Bruce says. He pulls up another screen. It’s two obituaries. One of Mary Fitzpatrick-Parker and the second of her six-year-old son, Peter Benjamin Parker. “I’m almost positive that the redacted scientist is Richard Parker, PhD from Empire State in Neogenics. It’s the study of artificially inducing meta or mutant powers, specifically by making hybrids, in those who don’t already have powers. His field of study, combined with Warren’s, and then Waller’s obsession with making the perfect Cape Killer…”

“Artificial spider babies,” Jason finished. “Creepy. They look more human than spider.”

“They are,” Bruce says. “Mary and Peter were killed in a raid by the Red Room. They were after the baby, Teresa. She’s the Avenger’s Red Widow.”

“Holy shit,” Jason said. “How’d you even figure this out?”

“Both Richard and Mary Parker worked for the CIA. Before Mary was killed, the two had a nearly spotless record for clandestine missions. Most of them are completely redacted, just black marker. Word got out in the wrong circles that they had children, and the Red Room found them first. I was working the cold case almost from the start, even though it happened in New York, until Red Widow reappeared and I was able to make the connection.”

“How do the Spider Clones fit into this? You think they’re her clones?”

“I think they’re Peter’s clones. At least the oldest one. They are definitely related to Mary Parker. That was the Ross Connection. She was Betty Ross’ roommate since sixth grade, they went to the same military school. Mary’s parents died in a car crash when she was sixteen and she emancipated herself rather than be put in Foster care, but spent her vacations with the Ross’. Ross walked her down the aisle at her wedding and did the father-daughter dance as well.”

“This still feels a little too convenient, even for you.”

“I found their discarded clothes and brought them to Wolverine. He used to work with the Parkers… closely. He’s one of the only technically not redacted parts of their case files. He’s referred to as Agent Logan, and I had a hunch about who that could be.”

“Damn that horny old man,” Jason could only let out an amused huff of laughter. “Let me guess, Mary had red hair?”

“Yes,” Bruce made a face. He and Wolvie may be alike in a startling amount of ways, but there were ways that they were incredibly different. “He confirmed that they smelled like Peter. His memory is shoddy, so it was a longshot, but he remembered the smell of that little boy, even if he’d only met him as a baby.”

“Damn,” Jason hissed. “So, what are we going to do about this?”

“Nothing,” Bruce said.

“Nothing? That’s not like you.”

“They’re in New York, I’ve alerted Nightwing and the Titans. The situation is resolved, as far as Gotham is concerned.”

“There’s got to be more dirt than that. There’s always more dirt.”

“You’re welcome to look, I won’t kick you out.”

“Just like that? I thought I wasn’t allowed down here unattended?”

“Recent events have had me… reevaluating some of my past decisions and boundaries.”

“You never would have killed the Joker,” Jason snarled.

“No, you’re right. But there are some things I would change.”

“Like what?” Jason scoffed. But when he turned around to look Bruce in the face, Bruce was gone. “Typical. Conversation gets uncomfy and he pulls his vanishing act.”

Jason spent the rest of that night looking up the Parkers. Peter, Kaine, Jessie, Peni, and Benjamin. Relatively normal names for relatively normal looking kids, once you took the Joker paint off them. Completely unassuming. Lived with their elderly relatives until five months ago. Home invasion. Kids declared missing. Benji was missing a tooth in the yearbook photo they were using for the APB.

The oldest clone, Peter Parker, seems to have assumed the life of his deceased predecessor, only twelve years younger than he should be. Straight A student, full scholarship to Midtown High, all classes are AP and Honors except for History and English. He played the accordion in the school’s marching band. The accordion. In marching band. He was a complete nerd looser.

And he broke Tim’s arm in a fraction of a second and disarmed a bomb without looking in about the same amount of time.

Kaine Parker – hell of a name, probably where Joker got the idea – was homeschooled. That was about all he could find of the kid except him sitting in the back of a convertible in the photos of Liz Allan’s insta. Decent homeschool testing scores, apparently spoke six languages, which was insane, even for Jason, who knew five. Bruce like his kids to know at least a second language fluently.

Jessie rivaled Babs in tech proficiency, and she was only fifteen. Babs was not this advanced at fifteen. She’d hacked for fun, chasing bounties on weak backdoors. She entered competitions, too. One of them Jason recognized as one that Babs had entered. Babs had won, of course, but Jessie was second. It wasn’t a close second, but it wasn’t a close third, either. She could go places with a proper mentor, or proper practice. Web Master was a pretty clever hacker name for a kid with spider powers, too.

Peni was an artist. There was an article in the Daily Bugle about an exhibit she’d done for her school. She made a giant collage of the Avengers and Jameson interviewed her himself. Upon chasing that weird connection, Jason learned that their Uncle Ben had worked at the Daily Bugle for a few years while he finished his trade school and remained friends with Jameson even after moving on to be a handy man. He’d been Jameson’s Photographer, the Jimmy Olsen to his Lois Lane. Peni said her dream job would be as a comic book writer for Timely Comics, but she didn’t know if she wanted to write for a real hero or make up her own yet.

There wasn’t much information on Benjamin, other than he was on a softball team. Fifth grade teams didn’t track their players’ stats, but Jason has a feeling that the kid was either whiffing all his hits, or making a homerun. The picture of him standing dead center of his team photo, a big grin on his face, his Uncle in the assistant coach position, made Jason’s heart ache. He couldn’t stop picturing Kaine’s hands around that little boy’s throat.

Honestly, he was genuinely impressed that they, like Coulson said, actually had secret identities. It was a relief, even if it hurt. The Joker had almost ripped that away from them. These were kids with lives. It didn’t matter that they were mutants or metas or whatever it was that Neogenics made.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” Tim’s voice made him jump.

“Jesus, gotta put a bell on you,” Jason hissed.

“That wouldn’t help,” Tim grinned over his mug of coffee. “Those the Marionettes? I thought Shield was pulling our legs when they said they had secret identifies, but Bruce and I had them uncovered in a few days.”

“Of course you did,” Jason snorted.

“Unremarkable,” Tim shrugged. “They’re just kids.”

“Kids that can shatter bones in the blink of an eye. Oh, you can add something else to your file, by the way. Mr. Big and Beefy over here managed to snag half a mill in unmarked bills from my warehouse. The one on Tricorner.”

“No way, that was him? Why?”

Jason shrugged, “No idea. This must have been only a few days after the Amber Alert was put out on the kids.”

“Really? How’d they end up here?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t think he was working with the Joker at the time. He was wearing a hoodie in the camera footage I got of him. I really only recognized his silhouette and who else could put shoe marks on the ceiling?”

“We don’t have all the info yet,” Tim hissed. “There’s something else.”

“Yeah, we know Waller made them, but we don’t know how they’re controlled yet, do we?”

Tim shook his head, “We also know that there were five years where Waller didn’t have them. Only half of that is documented.”

“Do we know what happened the day of the home invasion?”

“Someone broke into the Parker residence,” Tim said. “The Avengers responded, which at first I thought was weird because they’re civilians. That was how we realized that the Red Widow was Teresa Parker, related to Ben and May Parker. Parker is a common name, so the connection wasn’t immediately clear. Kids were missing, Ben and May Parker were taken to the hospital, and out of respect for the Avengers, I didn’t investigate further.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, JARVIS broke into the system and told me to fuck off. Oracle’s still working on getting him out of the system. We thought we got him out last time.”

“Tony loves sticking trojans into the Bat computer, you flush that one, he’ll just find three more ways to stick more in.”

“Yeah, but that’s what keeps us ahead of people like Luthor and Osborn.”

“True,” Jason laughed. “Hey, call me when you figure out the whole puzzle. I’d like to know everything before I send them a thankyou basket for avenging me.”

“You’re so annoying,” Tim sighed.

“Hey, I could be worse. I could always be Big Bird.”

“Touche,” Tim sighed. “See you around?”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven

Kaine was coerced into cleaning up the cobwebs that had been made in the corners in the time they’d been gone. Jessie and Ben teamed up on him with their cute little puppy dog pouts and he was sent grumbling and growling up the wall to collect the webs.

“I don’t see why I have to do it,” He complained. “Any one of us can clean the ceiling.

“You do it best,” Jessie pouts.

“Ug,” he growls.

The moment he’s done he storms out the door, pushing past Peter who is standing next to the bloodstain in the living room, a mop bucket and mop in his hands, but he’s not moving.

“You gonna clean that?”

“Yeah, I just need to psych myself up first.”

“Here, I’ll help. You’re stupid.”

“Thanks?” Peter sighs.

“Just stop overthinking it. Embrace ‘head empty’.”

“Yeah, well, unlike you, I actually have functioning brain cells, Kaine.”

Kaine shrugs, “I tried. Good luck.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“We’re not done cleaning.”

“I need air.”

“Every window is open.”

“I need sunlight.”

“It’s overcast.”

“Shut the fuck up. I need space, asshole. I don’t need an excuse. I’m going out for fresh air and sunlight.”

“Fine, but you only get wheat cakes if you help clean.”

“I did help, I got the ceiling,” Kaine snapped, pushing out the front door.

“Be back by seven!”

Kaine flips Peter off as he storms down the front stoop and onto the sidewalk. He needs a cigarette or a beer, but Peter would smell that on him and he’s not in the mood to get in an actual argument instead of one of their usual ‘brotherly spats’, as Aunt May fondly called them. Kaine hated how Peter projected all his insecurities onto them. Maybe he would jump on a greyhound and take a bus to Mexico. He wanted to sit on a warm beach with a book, a margarita, and some relaxing Jimmy Buffet tropical rock.

Instead, he walked around the block a few times, trying to clear his head. Sometimes his thoughts got loud and fuzzy and frustrating. He liked sitting with Aunt May and watching her shows with her, listening to her talk on and on. It quieted the fuzz in his brain; helped him feel like a person again. Or least not feel like a jumble of tense muscles and poorly restrained violence. Aunt May was his rock, his lighthouse, and his lighthouse keeper. He didn’t know what he supposed to do with her not around.

He needed a distraction.

He kept walking around the neighborhood, hunched into himself, trying to ignore the roaring in his ears, the tension in his shoulders, the aching in his joints. His migraine was picking up again, so he pulled his hood up and readjusted his sunglasses. Aunt May always knew when he had a migraine, somehow. He’d sit on the couch and she’d message her fingers into his scalp without him having to ask for help.

He really needed a distraction. He desperately wished that aspirin worked on him, but he processed it too quickly for it to do any good.

Kaine wasn’t sure what drew his attention to it. He was readjusting his sunglasses when it caught his eye. His walk had taken him to the train tracks and it was dumped in the bushes along the track. He pulled it out of the bushes and marveled at his find. It was the body of a motorcycle, almost completely stripped, but he could work with that. Besides, Peter was always saying he should spend more time bonding with Benj instead of just pushing him away and calling him an annoying little dweeb.

Kaine put the bike over his shoulder and made his way home, satisfied with his haul. He’d do a better inventory on it later, ask Jessie what he needed to be the proper owner of the bike. There was probably something.

Kaine made it back to find Peter pulling weeds in the garden. The bucket and mop were abandoned inside, just visible through the open door.

“You’re back ear…” Peter paused. “Dude, is that a classic Harely?”

“It used to be,” Kaine grunted. “Open the garage.”

“You gotta let me help restore that,” Peter begged.

“I’ll think about it. Was thinking Benji wouldn’t mind looking it over.”

“It’ll be the brother project,” Peter said.

“It’s my bike,” Kaine snarled. “I found it. You can help restore it, but I’m the only one riding it.”

“Do you even have a motorcycle license? You know you gotta ride with a partner once you get the training license. We’ll need two so I can teach you.”

“Can’t believe you went through the trouble of getting a motorcycle license and you don’t even use it.”

“I was gonna!” Peter insisted. “I was just saving up to buy a bike. This is cooler though. Don’t think there was a second one wherever you found this one, was there?”

“No, just this one. Woulda grabbed both if there was two, I’m not an idiot.”

“I’ll figure something out, move over, I wanna look at it.”

Peter and Kaine fussed over the bike. Their relationship was usually tense, neither of them were exactly the easiest to get along with all the time, but they were still brothers. Occasionally, their vast similarities brought them together more than their minor differences drove them to squabbling. A motorcycle like this, even in it’s state, was one of those rare things that reminded them just how close they really were.

It was missing the engine, the wheels, half its panels, and the gas tank had some rusted holes in it and would also need to be replaces, but Peter insisted he could patch it. The VIN had been scraped off, too. Peter mutters the whole time, talking about what he’d do to fabricate the missing parts for cheap, or where he’d look to salvage new parts.

“Please let me build the engine,” Peter begged.

“Fine, but it’s gonna be a boys’ project. I don’t want Peni trying to turn this into the Liberator 2, and you know she would. And Jess would insist on painting it some stupid color like yellow.”

“Name a color that isn’t stupid,” Peter snorted.

“Black, the only acceptable color,” Kaine grunted.

“What about a really dark metallic red?” Peter suggested.

“No, black.”

“Party pooper.”

“It’s. My. Bike. Mine. Get your own bike if you want it to be red.”

“Okay, your bike,” Peter laughed. “Jessie’s been talking about getting a van, that can be their project. Ben’s going to be so jealous he doesn’t get to ride.”

“I will… consider a side car for him, but he’s gotta source it.”

“I am not riding in a side car and I will not be sitting on the back,” Peter said.

“I don’t want you to,” Kaine snarled. “It’s my bike, get your own.”

Peter was just about to start a rant about sharing and caring, Kaine could tell by the scowl on his face, when there’s a loud clang and the sound of a repulsor warming up. Kaine’s spider-sense pings, but not nearly as much as Peter’s. Peter pretty much full body flinches, moving to place himself between Kaine and the open garage door, as if his puny little body was enough to shield Kaine, who was easily three times his size.

“Hello, what are you two doing in my friend’s garage?” Iron Man asks.

“This… what…?” Peter squeaks.

“Look, you’re clearly, like, homeless kids or something. This is my friend’s house, you tripped the silent alarms, and I don’t appreciate squatters, even if they do have baby faces.”

“I don’t have a baby face,” Kaine growls, balling his fists up and flexing his jaw.

“That’s not the takeaway,” Peter snaps. “Look, I don’t know who your friend is, but…”

“I’ll give you to the count of three to step out of the garage with your hands up or I’ll make you by force.”

“Don’t…” Kaine snarls. How dare he think he can just show up out of the blue, crack their driveway with a pompous superhero landing, and then order them around in their own home. He’s lucky that Peter grabbed him before he lunged. He was gonna peel that asshole out of his suit like he’s a can of tuna.

“One…”

“Kaine, don’t,” Peter said. “We’re staying in here, just don’t…”

“Fuck you, Iron Ass!” Kaine pushes Peter off of him, but he’s distracted by the roaring of an engine. A woman in a red leather jacket, red leather pants, red leather gloves, red combat boots, red motorcycle helmet, and riding a red motorcycle pulls up to the curb and jumps off, immediately ripping into Iron Man.

“Tony, what the hell, I told you to wait for me!”

“It’s just a couple of hooligans, Tess, I can handle it.”

“It’s my house, asshole!”

Kaine can’t move. They haven’t seen her in two years. She’d facetime with Uncle Ben and Aunt May, but she was distant. She was, however, the most tolerable of all five of his annoying-ass siblings. Probably because she kept at arm’s length, his favorite distance.

“You don’t fucking own everything in the world, Tony, even if you act like you do. You have to let me handle my own business. Thank you for telling me the alarm went off, now let me handle…” she turned to them and freezes, her shoulders slumping and the helmet in her hands drops to the ground. “Peter! Kaine!”

Peter runs to her, stopping just short of slamming into her as her arms wrap around him. Kaine stays in the garage, glaring daggers at Iron Man, who finally lets his face plate up. He looks embarrassed. He should be, bursting into people’s homes and just acting like he’s the boss. He’s not the boss of Kaine. He’s an asshole.

“I thought I lost you again,” Tess holds Peter a little tighter.

“I’m sorry,” Peter’s voice breaks.

Kaine fidgets uncomfortably, and so does Iron Man.

“Are you all here?”

“Yeah, we’re all… it’ll take a lot more than… that to separate us, promise,” Peter says, his voice wet. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey, you’re safe. That’s all that matters. Where did you go?”

“Gotham,” Kaine grunts, growing uncomfortable with remaining silent. “Figured he wouldn’t follow us to Jersey.”

“Aw, Pete, you hate New Jersey.”

“Yeah, but… not as much as I wanted to keep the rest of them safe. It was… not the best move, in hindsight, but…”

“Joker had a controller,” Kaine snarled. “He’s not gonna be a problem anymore, though. Peter crushed it.”

“Kaine crushed the Joker.”

“Wait, that was you?” Iron Man said. “Damn, good job, kid.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kaine snarled.

“Alright, geez, don’t bite my head off,” Iron Man said. “Tess, I can get out of the suit, right? He won’t… Hulk out on me?”

Tess laughed, “No promises, Tony, but you’d better not get oil grease on the hardwood floors.”

Iron Man does get out of the suit, but he leaves it right in the middle of the driveway, until Kaine snarls at him that it’s an eyesore and Peter asks politely if he can move it somewhere less attention grabbing. Iron Man, or Stark, Kaine supposes, sends the suit into the back yard with a voice command.

They go inside to see Peni rushing to the front, calling for Peter. She freezes when she sees Iron Man and whispers in awe, “Tony Stark…! Tony Stark is in my house. This is best day ever…”

“What am I, little sis?” Tess laughs, holding her arms out.

“Teresa!” Peni squeals, unable to stop herself from spider-jumping with a split-second blur, directly into Teresa’s outstretched arms. “Tess!”

“Oh, Pen,” Tess holds her close. “I was so worried. Are you okay?”

“We’re okay now,” Peni says.

Jessie and Ben also throw themselves as Tess, until the seven of them are sitting in the living room. Ben is sat on Tess lap, telling her all about the air system he’s building and his plans for building a bug wall in the basement. Peter got everyone drinks, refusing to look at the mop bucket still on the floor. Jessie and Peni are sandwiching Tess on either side. Stark is lounging on Uncle Ben’s chair and Kaine is standing behind him, scowling at the back of his head. He shouldn’t be allowed to be comfortable, that isn’t his chair.

“So, what exactly went down?” Stark asks. “We looked everywhere for you. Well, everywhere but New Jersey, Tess was convinced you wouldn’t go there.”

“That’s why we picked it,” Peter admitted. “It would be the last place anyone who knows us would look.”

“Smart.”

“Not smart enough,” Kaine snarled.

“I didn’t know he was out of Arkham anyway. It’s been years, why would he even have held on to it. He never even saw our full faces; I didn’t think he’d recognize us.”

“Wait, wait, controllers?” Stark asks.

Peter looks to Tess and says, confused, “You didn’t tell him?”

“It wasn’t his business,” Tess sighs. “You’re my family.”

“But they’re your superhero team!” Peni gasps, the thought that they wouldn’t share everything was too scandalous for her. “That’s like, family but cooler!”

“Pete, do you want to explain, or should I?”

“I… I’m tired,” Peter admits. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Kaine considers following him to steal some batter of the cookies he can already smell being made in the kitchen. Aunt May baked when she was stressed and Peter was learning how to help her, before, since he was pretty much always stressed. There was a faint smell of wheat cakes, but he didn’t think they saved him any. Assholes.

Even though they didn’t save him any wheat cakes, he still didn’t want to leave Stark unattended with the little ones. He didn’t trust creepy, rich old men, even if they were superheroes.

Tess explains exactly what the kids are. It’s clear she’d already told the Avengers that they were artificially made, that Peter and Kaine are direct clones of the original Peter Parker. Kaine has some extra genetics in there that made him so huge. The other three were made the same way but with a new combination of Richard and Mary’s DNA. Ben looked identical to Peter, though. They weren’t convinced that Ben wasn’t also a direct clone.

She talked about their powers, but most importantly, she told Tony about the brainwashing Waller had installed directly into their very DNA.

“Christ,” Stark hissed. “I always knew Waller was fucked in the head, but this is a new low, even for her.”

“Not very new,” Kaine grunted. “The project was in development for almost two decades.”

“New to me,” Stark corrects. “Ross funded this?”

“Yes and no,” Tess says. “I was tracking all the funding avenues, but it’s hard to place the blame on any one person. A lot of her funding comes from taxpayers. It’s part of the military budget..”

“Dammit,” Tony hisses.

“Even more of her funding is private, but it’s never specifically for one project. None of what Cadmus does is above board, but this is one of the worst things they’ve done. She’s so secretive about her projects that she’d make Fury blush. The only thing that isn’t blacked out in her reports to Ross are the words ‘Cape Killing Weapons’. He was in the dark in every other aspect until Shield did their own investigation and connected their specific project to my… our mother.”

“Is there anything we can do about it? How many of these controllers are out there?”

“Luthor has one,” Kaine grunts. “Waller has many. No telling who she’s given them to. Joker got one of Luthor’s spares. Apparently he kept it on him, just in case.”

“Luthor’s not that slimy, is he? Damn.”

“He never used it,” Ben said. “He said it was cheating. He wasn’t… everyone says he wasn’t nice, but he wasn’t mean like Waller.”

“He still kept up locked up under ground,” Kaine snarled.

“I know that, now,” Ben admits. “Uncle Ben and Aunt May are what we were supposed to have but… Luthor wasn’t cruel. He didn’t know what Project Spider was when he bought us, he just wanted to outbid someone who was annoying him.”

“I’ve been trying to pin trafficking charges on Luthor for years,” Tess says. “But I can’t get them to stick without outing the kids, so I’ve left it. I’m looking for other ways to take down Waller.”

“We found a way to break Bucky’s brainwashing, maybe we can find a way to break theirs.”

“It’s in our DNA,” Kaine snarled.

“You broke it!” Ben said. “I knew you would.”

“I didn’t,” Kaine said. “I don’t know if I could do it again.”

“Look, you’re Red Widow’s kid siblings, that makes you honorary Avengers…”

Peni squealed, then turned beat red, and hid behind a pillow, “Sorry! Sorry.”

Tess laughed, “Peni’s always been a huge Avengers fan, haven’t you, Pen?”

Peni nodded sheepishly, still hiding behind the pillow.

“Will you teach me how to hack better?” Jessie asked. “I mean, I’ve already found six different insecure methods to get into SI servers, but you don’t have bounties posted right now so I didn’t submit them.”

“You what?” Stark sputtered.

“I found ten in WE and I go after Lexcorp for fun, so don’t worry, you’re still the most secure big tech company.”

“Oh, by the way, Pete was a genius, so all his clones are also geniuses,” Tess laughed.

“Can I meet Captain America?” Peni asks.

“Sure, kiddo,” Stark laughs.

“No! Wait! I’ll only embarrass myself!” Peni shrieks, jumps up from her seat, and spider-jumps to the stairs, then up the stairs, and a second later her door slams. Kaine can hear her squealing in either embarrassment or excitement, he can’t really tell.

“Does this mean we won’t have to be scared of Dr. Parker coming back?” Ben asks.

“I’ll do what I can,” Stark said. “I promise.”

Kaine was positive it wouldn’t work. And he didn’t trust that Stark meant what he said. Weren’t they more useful to adults when they could be controlled? He sort of trusted Tess, but that was because her childhood was almost identical to theirs. She was one of them. Stark wasn’t.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve

Teresa escaped the Red Room only a week before Black Widow took them down for good. One of her Red Room ‘sisters’ found her another week after that and after they tried killing each other, explained what happened, let Teresa go, and complained that now she had to find her own clients.

Teresa was already drifting. She only knew her real name because she stole her file when she escaped. Teresa Ann Parker. She was from Queens. But she’d been taken as a baby. Sure, she had a few surviving relatives, but Richard Parker was impossible to track down and Ben and May Parker were in their golden years and happy. She’d only put them in danger. Her mother and older brother were killed when she was kidnapped. She didn’t know why, but when she couldn’t sleep, she’d look at their obituaries. She even cut out Peter’s picture and put it in her wallet. She didn’t think he’d mind.

She worked odd jobs for a while. She didn’t particularly like her trade skills, but as money got tighter, she got more desperate. She eventually started going to seedier and seedier bars, looking for signs of the underworld she’d been trained to work in since she was a year old. It was just a coincidence that the Bar with No Name was near Queens, where her Aunt and Uncle lived.

That’s how she crossed paths with the Black Widow herself. The mark she’d taken, a drug lord whose rival raised enough money to hire her services, was actually a rat for Sheild. Turns out Shield takes care of their own.

“You fight well,” Widow said.

“I’m gonna be honest, I am not being paid enough to kill this guy through you,” Tess said.

“You’re not concerned for your reputation?”

“I got paid upfront; I told the guy I might not be able to deliver. That’s on him for not paying half then, half later.”

“How much does the money mean to you?”

Tess realizes quickly that the Black Widow is judging her, getting a read. She doesn’t want to fight her either. There’s no way Romanoff hasn’t recognized her fighting style.

“Where did you train?” She asks, like she doesn’t know the answer.

Teresa doesn’t pretend she has to answer.

“I assume you’re looking for a job that pays better than whatever minimum wage dead end you’ve found yourself in. You don’t have to work for drug lords and rich old bastards, you know.”

“You offering me a job?”

“Perhaps.”

“Can I consider this my interview?”

“You may.”

She didn’t finish her job. Honestly, it was preferable. She didn’t want to be in the business of offing people for cash. That industry didn’t exactly promote healthy work relationships. She ended up being accepted in the Avenger’s reserve team. It was a nice, simple life. She spent most of her time keeping fit and going on recon missions. She felt more like a beat cop than a superhero. Any stakeout that the Avengers needed, she ran. A lot of sitting in a car or a van, with fast food and snacks, listening for potential supervillain or terrorist activity.

She worked more with Avengers like Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Mockingjay than the big hitters like Captain America or the Hulk, though Iron Man liked to be chummy with everyone, since it was his dime that paid everyone’s bills. She wanted to convince herself that he just liked to make sure the people he was paying were worth it, but her Widow training nagged at her, she knew he was just a sociable person. It was annoying, but nice, in its own way.

It’s the Winter Soldier who encourages her to finally go to Forest Hills.

“Who’s that?” He grunts. Despite how big he is, he’s one of the only people who can sneak up on her.

“Dammit, Bucky, can you not jump scare me like that?”

Bucky just grunts, “Queens?”

“It’s where I was born.”

“Knew there was a reason I liked you. Not as good as Brooklyn, but second place ain’t bad. The old guy’s your dad?”

“Uncle,” Teresa says. “I haven’t been able to track my dad down.”

“Haven’t? That’s not like you.”

“Haven’t wanted to. They were easy to find. I don’t remember them. I was taken when I was a baby.”

“I don’t remember my family,” Bucky said quietly. “Not well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d still give anything to see them again.”

“I… I’m sorry.”

“Do you need someone to go with you?”

“I’m twenty-four, Bucky, I don’t need my hand held.”

This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come here. The bike ride had been nice from upstate New York and down into the city. It was sunny, a nice 72, light breeze, partially cloudy. She had a day bag for staying overnight at the Mansion. She could hear the laughter of children playing in a backyard, maybe a neighbor’s house. Uncle Ben and Aunt May didn’t have any children.

All she knew about them were the pictures she found of them online. Their yearbooks had been digitized by their high schools, and Uncle Ben had a small blurb on the Daily Bugle’s website from when he was a photographer, but he'd been in college then. Aunt May’s most recent photo is as the director of FEAST, a homeless shelter. It’s about twenty years out of date.

She didn’t know these people. They didn’t know her. She was a reformed assassin, not the baby they lost twenty-four years ago. Wouldn’t it just hurt them to get her back but never get to see Peter again? They knew Peter. He’d been six when he was killed, and he died because she was a target. It was her fault their nephew was gone. If she was never born, Peter would still be alive.

Sam would say that’s the survivor’s guilt talking.

Teresa knocked on the door, waited a few minutes, felt nauseous, rang the doorbell, and immediately turned back towards the street to escape to her bike. She tried. It was a good effort, but really, the only family she needed were her coworkers! She was doing great. Everything is fine!

The door opened when she was halfway down the steps and she froze.

“Hello, can I help you?” A man’s voice said.

Teresa turned around and was face to face with Ben Parker. His hair and shirt were wet, but his crow’s feet were wrinkled in a warm smile. His eyes were a very nice hazel, she realized. None of the pictures she’d found of him were in color, neither his black in white yearbook nor his bio picture from the Bugle.

“A… are you Ben Parker?” She said, her voice hoarse like she’d been coughing.

“I am he,” Ben said. “You… look familiar.”

“I… I’m Teresa,” She said weakly.

“Oh!” Ben’s eyes widened. “You look just like Mary! That explains it. Do you want to come inside?”

“You… believe me?”

“Trust me, I’ve been having a very strange year,” Ben laughed. “May and the kids are in the back.”

“You… have children?” Teresa whispered. That hadn’t shown up in her background check.

“It’s a recent development,” Ben said. “Come in, we have lemonade and cherry pie. I think it’s best I explain some things before going back out there.”

“Why are you wet?” Teresa asks, following him inside.

“It’s warm out,” Ben says. “We’re having a water balloon fight in the back yard.”

“That sounds… fun.”

“Oh, it is. The kids are impossible to hit, though.”

“How… many kids do you have?”

“Five,” Ben hands her a glass of lemonade and a plate of pie and ushers her into a seat on the couch in the living room. The couch looks like it’s from the 80s. The whole room looks like it’s from the 80s. They have two TVs, an old tube TV and less old LED TV sitting on top of it. The bookshelf has an equal amount of DVDs and VHS tapes, not a single Blu-ray. There are pictures on the walls, most of them are prints she recognizes as Ben’s from his time at the Daily Bugle, but some are new. Most are black and white. There’s a picture on the mantel of seven people. Ben, May, and five children ranging from ages 9 to 15, three boys and two girls. She can still hear laughter and children playing from the backyard, but it’s more muffled inside.

“Do you… foster kids?” Teresa asks.

“No, no, I’m their uncle.”

“On May’s side, then.”

Ben sighs, “No, afraid not. None of May’s sisters have children. That we know of anyway. The way this year is going, we’re probably going to discover she’s got twelve nieces and nephews any moment now! No, they… I assume you came here to learn about your parents?”

Teresa nodded, “And… you. You probably thought I was dead…”

“No,” Ben shakes his head. “We knew you were out there, somewhere. Richard never gave up trying to find you. With his job, we trusted he’d find you but… the years kept passing, and he got no closer to getting you back. Losing you, Mary, and Peter… it broke him. He masked it for a few years, but he couldn’t hide it from me forever. I am ashamed to say I disowned him sooner than try and help him but… May says I shouldn’t blame myself for the atrocities he committed.”

“What… did he do?”

“Richard is a scientist. It was your mother that was the real spy. His field of study was biology. He… tried to bring your brother back to life, but he lost himself in the pursuit. He was working for Cadmus.”

Teresa felt the breath leave her lungs like she’d been punched. Cadmus was infamous in the hero community. Both the League and the Avengers had issues with Waller and her research division. They produced everything from guns that could kill Superman to clones that could kill Superman. If you wanted a cape killer, you went to Cadmus. And she was funded by the government, so not even SHIELD could stop her.

“The kids?”

“Clones of Peter,” Ben said. “The girls are ‘clones’ of your parents. I don’t really understand it myself.”

“Mutant, Meta, or Mutate?”

“Mutate,” Ben said. “He said he made them to break the Red Room and get you back, but he never really pursued that. I think it was just an excuse. My little brother lost most of his humanity and I’m not sure he’ll ever get it back. He treated those children like they were less than animals. It’s disgraceful. But Peter… the oldest, he kept them together. I’m so proud of that boy. They showed up on our doorstep a few months ago. Everything I told you… they only recently opened up about.”

“I…”

“Peter still asks about you,” Ben said. “They’ll be overjoyed to know you’re okay.”

“How do you know I’m okay?” Teresa scoffed. “I’ve barely said anything.”

“I can tell, sweetheart. You’re my little Teresa,” Ben said. “I knew you’d find your way back, even if it did take over two decades.”

“Oh,” Teresa whispered.

“So, what’s your day job? Must pay well, that’s one fancy bike in my driveway.”

“I… I’m a reserve Avenger,” Teresa said. “I didn’t exactly get a college ready education in the Red Room, but if Black Widow can make her way, so can I.”

“Of course you can, we’re a resourceful bunch, us Parkers!” Ben smiled. “Before we go back there, just know, the moment you tell the kids what your job is, they won’t stop asking you about it. Peni is obsessed with Captain America.”

“Are they… using their powers?”

“You mean to ask if they’re heroes?” Ben laughed.

Teresa nodded.

“No,” Ben said. “Not to my knowledge at least. We’re giving them as normal a life as we can.”

Teresa nodded, “Okay. That’s… that’s good. Will you tell me about them?”

“Of course!” Ben laughed. “May says I need to stop telling everyone all about them, but I can’t help myself. They’re just such wonderful children, it’s hard to talk about anything else lately!” Ben smiled.

He really could talk about the kids for hours. He gave her a quick rundown, though, since she’d meet them soon enough. Peter, Teresa was a little uncomfortable that a clone had taken her older brother’s identity, was the oldest.

Peter did everything he could to protect the younger ones, and hadn’t come out of his shell much yet. He did love school, and had been eager to get back to it. He was a freshman at Midtown High, the local charter school. Kaine, the second oldest, was homeschooled. He was practically glued at the hip to May and he didn’t talk much, but he loved the TV. Jessie loved learning to code and read, and she loved telling Uncle Ben all about whatever book she was reading. Peni was obsessed with superheroes, specifically Captain America, but she really wanted to meet the Titans, too. Little Benji was the youngest. He loved baseball and bugs.

When Teresa finally built up the nerve to go to the backyard with Ben, the kids immediately swarmed her. Peter recognized her immediately. There was a tension in his shoulders, but when he turned around and saw her, it melted away. Like he was waiting for his final sibling to enter his line of sight, safe.

Teresa played with them, giving Aunt May a break from evening out their teams. They went boys vs girls, and it surprisingly ended in a draw. Peni really did talk her ear off about superheroes. No one else could get a word in. She couldn’t even answer her questions.

By the time the sun started to set, Teresa felt lighter than she ever had in her entire life. She’d come here seeking answers and maybe a family, and she got both.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen

Peter didn’t like Stark. He was loud, overconfident, cocky, and nosy. Unfortunately, the only one who agreed with him was Kaine, but Kaine didn’t like anyone so that wasn’t saying much. Peni, Jessie, and Ben were over the moon that Stark seemed to be taking an interest in them.

Peni eagerly showed him her drawing of Captain America, Ben showed him his books on bugs, and Jessie showed off her uranium glass collection. To his credit, he humored them, though he looked tense. Peter and Kaine didn’t let him out of their sight.

“Tony’s not that bad,” Tess said.

Kaine was currently on unspoken ‘keep eyes on Stark’ duty, and Peter was in the kitchen doing the dishes.

“Sure,” Peter said. “He’s just a rich asshole who thinks he can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants and there won’t be any consequences because he’s rich.”

“I get that your experience with Luthor…”

“He bought kids and he’s still walking around his penthouse,” Peter snarled. “Everyone who funded Waller is still walking free, but we’re forced into hiding. We can’t rest because we don’t know which rich asshole or their buddies is in league was Waller.”

“Tony’s trying to fix that.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Would Captain America work with someone who would mind control children rather than help them?”

Peter scoffed, “I’m not Peni.”

“I’m just trying to help you calm down,” Tess said, her voice softening. It’s the same tone that Peter uses when one of the others has a nightmare.

“I’m not a little kid, Tess,” Peter snaps.

“Hey, come on, Petey, I’m your big sister…”

“I’m older than you,” Peter snaps. “I changed your diapers, you know.”

“Sure, the real Peter may have helped Mom change a few diapers but you…”

“I AM THE REAL PETER!” Peter turns on her, his heart racing. “I… I need air,” Peter storms outside. He knows everyone in the house heard that.

All he can hear is Richard’s voice in his ears, calling him a poor imitation, chattel, nothing but a clone to be molded into a weapon. He can feet Richard’s fist hit his body, he can feel his muscles tensing against his own mind. He doesn’t know he’s kneeling on the freshly watered grass until he feels a hand on his back and he has a moment of focus before he spins around to grab the wrist of the hand that’s attacking him.

“Easy, Pete,” Tess pulls away before he can snap any of her bones.

He can’t breathe.

“I know this isn’t my original body but I’m the original,” Peter’s voice cracks. “I… I have an unbroken consciousness from… I remember being Peter. I’ve always remembered being Peter. That morning, the morning of the attack… we had French toast because Mom didn’t know how to make wheat cakes like Aunt May can. I was cutting your slice of toast while mine got soggy… and then I woke up in a clone tank… and Dad started hitting me and I…”

His voice leaves him with one final scream and he collapses to his knees. He shakes, and can’t stop. Tess stands there, unsure how to help. He doesn’t know how long it takes for his voice to come back.

“No one ever believed me,” Peter’s voice cracks. “No one but the other clones. The only reason they believe me is because they don’t know anything else. Who do you think told them about Aunt May and Uncle Ben? Why do you think I knew where to go once we escaped? You think Dad… Dr. Parker who was beating us and belittling us was also telling us all about people as kind and loving as Aunt May and Uncle Ben? I’m Peter.”

“Pete…”

“I AM PETER BENJAMIN PARKER!” Peter screams. “I’ve always been Peter!”

“I believe you,” Tess whispers, reaching out a hand to him.

“A… and another thing!” Peter says, turning away from her and pacing. “The kids are real, too! Just because they were grown in a lab and not in a womb, it doesn’t mean they aren’t kids. They’re real, Tess. We’re all real. Just because I was a person before I was cloned and they weren’t… it doesn’t mean we’re not all people now. We’re human beings, spider DNA or not. They’re just kids! They’re just…”

Peter turns to her again, unable to control his breathing again.

“I couldn’t protect them,” Peter’s voice cracks. “They’ve been through so much and I couldn’t protect them from anything.”

“You did, Peter,” Teresa pulls him close. “You protected them as best as you could and you did a good job. Sure, Kaine might be… really fucked up but… god, by the time Benji came around, you protected so much of that’s kid’s innocence, it’s almost like nothing happened to him. I’m sorry I made you feel like I didn’t think you weren’t real. I never meant it like that. I didn’t know, Petey. I didn’t know you had his… your memories. I mean, resurrection outside of a Lazarus Pit… after twelve years of being gone? It’s never been done before.”

“I know,” Peter said. “I can’t explain it, either, but… I’m me. I don’t know how or why but I’m me.”

“I believe you,” Teresa repeated. “I promise I do, I just… and the fact that I didn’t realize it sooner, it doesn’t mean I thought of you as any less than my brother.”

“The only ones who believed me… the only ones who believed me were Uncle Ben and Aunt May,” Peter collapses into Tess’ arms, his breath ragged. “And I… I…”

“It’s okay, Peter, Uncle Ben wouldn’t have blamed you for what happened,” Tess whispers, holding him close. Her body is tense, but her hand is rubbing circles in his back. “He would never blame you for something that Richard did.”

“But I didn’t stop,” Peter sobbed. “I didn’t… Kaine stopped himself from hurting Benji, but I couldn’t save them. I…” He reaches his hands up and knots his fingers into his hair, pulling. He doesn’t think he’s pulling hard enough to actually hurt himself, he just… he needs to do something.

“You did everything you could,” Teresa whispers. “You didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

Peter sobs.

“Richard had control, it wasn’t you,” Teresa repeats. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe I’m not the real Peter,” Peter whispers. “The real Peter wouldn’t have killed… He wouldn’t have…”

“You are the real Peter,” Teresa says. “You said it yourself. I’ve seen Richard’s research. He didn’t have access to P… to the original brain patterns. He didn’t have the memories to upload into your brain. The only way you could know about anything he didn’t tell you about is if you are the real Peter. Nothing else makes more sense. He only uploaded basic language and muscle memory into you and the others.”

“I remember my old room. I had Captain America bed sheets and an entire toy box full of dinosaur toys. The carpet was red, blue, yellow, and green and it had an elephant and a zebra on it. I had a table of elements on the wall, above my desk. A… and I remember the nursery. It was pastel colors and you… you used to sleep with a little stuffed zebra named Zebbie. Your mobile had butterflies and birds on it and it played a music box version of ‘You are my Sunshine’ when it spun.”

“There aren’t that many people alive who would know that,” Teresa said.

“Me and Richard, now. We’re all that’s left.”

“Oh, Pete,” Teresa held him close.

“When I… when I close my eyes, I can feel Uncle Ben’s ribs break under my fists. I can see the look on his face when I hit him. I don’t think he believed I would do it. He couldn’t even beg me to stop, I collapsed his lungs instantly. There… his blood was everywhere, Tess. I couldn’t stop. Richard laughed.”

“The only monster that day was him,” Teresa whispered. Her fingers brushed through his hair. A feeble attempt at comfort. Peter leaned into it.

“And the monster he created,” Peter closed his eyes. “I went for Aunt May next… she was screaming when I hurt Ben, and then I hit her and she stopped screaming. She stopped breathing… I did that. I did that to them with my own hands, not Richard.”

“No, Peter. He infected your DNA with… with biological ransomware. You weren’t in control. It wasn’t you. You are not the violence he made you into.”

“Maybe someday I’ll believe that.”

“And one more thing.”

“What?”

“I don’t care if you were originally born in the 90s, you were dead for twelve years. That means I’m eight years older than you now.”

“Bullshit,” Peter managed a small laugh. “I’m nearly thirty, and I’ll die on that hill.”

“What kind of thirty year old hasn’t finished senior year of high school yet?”

“The kind that was dead for twelve years and then raised in an underground lab, that’s who. It’s normal.”

“Is that why your legal documents have your adjusted birthday on them?”

“You were looking at my documents?”

“I’m a professional spy, Petey.”

“I thought you were a superhero…”

“Reserve Avenger means fulltime Shield spy.”

“Ew,” Peter crinkled his nose. “The birds may work for the bourgeoisie, but the spiders don’t.”

Peter was going to say something else clever, but Stark called out to them from the kitchen door, which Tess had left open.

“You two done with your tantrum?”

“I wasn’t having a tantrum,” Peter crinkles his nose in annoyance.

Teresa gets up and Peter follows, doing his best to brush the wet grass stains off his pants. That’s probably not coming out. Peter debates whether or not he’s willing to keep his third most comfy sweatpants if they have grass stains on them, but Stark keeps talking.

“Well, that’s good,” Stark nods. “I can’t stand kids that have meltdowns.”

“I’m not a kid!” Peter snaps.

“Tony, don’t antagonize him,” Tess laughs.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I just came out to tell you that the kids’ surprise is here,” Stark said. “You better come inside. It’s getting late, anyway. You might catch a cold. That’s what adults say to kids, right?”

“Tony, shove it,” Tess laughs.

Peter wipes the tears off his face and follows Tess inside. He should really finish the dishes before going to see whatever distraction Tony has for them. It’s probably a pony or something ridiculous. Peter aimlessly wanders to the sink. He feels drained but there’s still chores to be done.

But Tess grabs his shoulders and steers him towards the living room.

He’s about to protest, but all the breath leaves him when he sees what – or rather who – the surprise is.

“Aunt May,” Peter’s voice breaks.

She’s sitting in a wheelchair and she looks older and more gaunt than he’s ever seen her, but she’s breathing, she’s smiling up at Kaine and holding his hand. Benji is standing on the other side of the chair and hugging her. Peni and Jessie are nearby, but the boys aren’t giving them room to hug Aunt May yet.

They all turn to look at him and part away from Aunt May.

Peter goes to her and falls to his knees, resting his head on her lap.

“I’m sorry,” Peter’s voice broke. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know, honey,” Aunt May’s voice is rough. Peter can still feel her throat collapse under his fingers and he lets out a broken sob.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. He doesn’t have any other words. They aren’t enough. They’ll never be enough.

“Don’t you dare, Peter Benjamin Parker,” Aunt May’s words are harsh, but her voice is as soft as it can be. “Don’t you dare let that man put more on your shoulders. He’s already put too much blame on you. Don’t you let him take anything else from us.”

“I… sorry,” Peter stammers. “You’re alive.”

“Just barely,” Aunt May coos, running her fingers through Peter’s hair lovingly. “Oh, sweetheart, you need a haircut.”

Peter laughs.

“We’ll get the scissors in the morning,” Aunt May pats his head.

“No, you’ll give me a bowl cut again,” Peter smiles, taking in her scent. It’s uniquely Aunt May. She smells like cherry pie, wildflowers, and lemongrass. There’s a faint smell of disinfectants and hospital, but it’s her. She’s alive.

“What’s wrong with my haircuts, young man?” Aunt May teases. “They’re free.”

“For you, maybe, but I have to pay in embarrassment,” Peter says. They’ve had this conversation countless times. Whether or not he wins depends on when Aunt May’s last paycheck or Uncle Ben’s last pension check came in. “Besides, I’m going for a more shaggy approach. It’s the in style.”

“Unkempt is the style now?”

“Totally. I gotta stay relevant.”

He manages to pull himself away from her, but only because he wants to see her face. She’s really there, in front of him. The bruising around her throat is already mostly gone. He just can’t believe that she’s still here.

“If you’re…?” Peter lets himself hope, but he knows. He knows deep down what her answer is going to be.

“Oh, Peter,” Aunt May brushes some hair from his eyes. His hair really is getting long. Aunt May shakes her head, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Maybe. Maybe someday, he’ll actually believe that. He doubts it, but it’s what everyone else keeps saying. There’s one thing he does know for certain. He won’t let people like Richard hurt anyone else, ever again. He won’t let anyone else lose an Uncle Ben. Not as long as Spider-Man exists.

Chapter Text

Epilogue One

It only took Stark’s team of scientists a few months to undo what Waller’s did in several years. Well, Peter’s not actually certain how Richard encoded the need to obey into his DNA, or how long it took him to implement it. He just knows that it doesn’t work anymore. His least favorite part of the whole ordeal was Teresa testing each fix once it was administered. She stole Luthor’s final controller, which gave Peter a little peace of mind, but only a little. Once the effect was fully expunged from their system, they threw a party and Stark let them blow it up with dynamite.

Okay, so maybe Stark wasn’t all that bad. His compound was pretty nice, but Peter couldn’t wait to go back home to Queens.

“Peter, are you even listening?” Coulson sighed.

“No,” Peter grinned. “I’m dreaming about my own bed after months, can you blame me?”

“Is your bed here not comfortable?” Coulson asks. “You should have brought that up with Stark, he would have fixed it.”

“He’s just being an asshole,” Jessie said. “Don’t worry, the rest of us are listening.”

“I thought the whole point of this was so that we wouldn’t have to answer to anyone but ourselves,” Kaine snarled.

“Yes, against your will..”

“Cool, so I can leave…”

“Kaine, come on,” Peter says.

“Oh, so you’re allowed to be a little shit but when I do it…”

“Boys, not now,” Coulson said. “This isn’t a punishment, it’s a safety measure. If you want to operate as superheroes, you need to check in. That’s not negotiable.”

“I think it is,” Kaine says. “We’re gonna do what we want, regardless of what you tell us we can or can’t do and now, there’s nothing stopping us.”

“We will not be telling you how to be superheroes, we’re simply… making sure that everything we’ve done sticks. It’s for your safety, I promise. We will not be dictating what you do, or giving you missions, we’re just here so you know you have an open line to ask for help if you need it. Besides, I’ll miss you kids if we don’t.”

“Eugh,” Benji makes a gaging noise. “Can’t we get someone cooler to check in on us? You’re… like… really old.”

“That’s hurtful, Benjamin,” Coulson’s expression didn’t change, but Peter could hear a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“But you are! Why can’t Tess check in with us instead? That way she doesn’t have an excuse to miss family game night! That’s a great idea! I’m so smart.”

“Benji, you’re so cringe, actually,” Peni says.

“What!? Nuh-uh! Peter, Peni’s bullying me!”

“It’s not bullying if it’s the truth! Peter, tell him I’m not bullying him!”

“Why am I the oldest,” Peter sighs. “Why can’t it be someone else’s turn?”

“Now, children…”

“Besides,” Peni continues. “We should get Captain America to do it! That way I can show him my ideas for how to make his suit look cooler.”

“The person who checks in with you is not negotiable,” Coulson said, barely containing his laughter. “Besides, why can’t you show me your art? It’s very nice, Peni. How about I show you my Captain America collectible cards when this meeting is over.”

Peni narrows her eyes at Coulson, then concedes, “Buttering me up… does work. How do we end the meeting?”

“I need Peter to confirm that he will check in with me on with your hero actives.”

“Fine, but you accept what I report, even if the report is nothing more than ‘All’s good’,” Peter said. “I’m not writing essays for you; I’m already going to be playing catchup. I need my grades up by Senior year to get into ESU and I’m going to prioritize homework over calling you for an hour every week.”

“Not to mention that Pete’s got that job at the Bugle, now,” Jessie said. “How about I write the reports and Peter hands them to you?”

“No, Jess, you gotta focus on school, you’re starting high school, that’s really important.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, you’re not my boss,” Jessie sticks her tongue out at him.

“I want to write reports!” Peni says.

“Me, too!” Benji adds, just to be included.

“You’re not going out until you beat me in a spar and you haven’t yet.”

“I’m close enough,” Benji pouts.

“We can all write reports if we want, what I want is that we don’t get in trouble if the only report is ‘We’re fine.’”

“You’ll have it,” Coulson says. “All I need is to hear from you.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“We’ll do what we can to establish contact, but we won’t call all hands unless it becomes a real emergency. Again, this is really only because Waller and the people working with her will know your identity once you’re active. She’ll know where you are, who you are, the people you care about…”

Peter feels nauseous.

“If you’re obviously allied with Shield and work with teams like the Avengers, the Justice League, and the Titans, she’ll know that you and your family are protected by the best of the best. It will be our playing field, not hers.”

Peter nods, “That… that makes sense. Who else knows who we are?”

“Batman and his family,” Coulson said. “But he makes a point of knowing everyone’s secret identities. Again, this is for your safety, Peter, not control. That said, I do heavily encourage you to not go out alone if you can help it. The Titans are New York’s biggest hero team. Are you sure you don’t want to join them full time?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I’m Spider-Man, not Robin. Just because we’re going to be the Spider-Team… honestly, we’re probably not going to patrol together, it wouldn’t be very efficient.”

“Batman has asked me to tell you that he’s not comfortable with any of you working in Gotham…”

“I have no plans on ever going back to Jersey, trust me, that was a mistake,” Peter scowls.

“However, the rest of the Bats have given you an open invitation to patrol with any of them if you find yourself in town.”

“Is that for all of us?”

“Yes, it is,” Coulson said. “You impressed them.”

“Just not Batman.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Coulson smiles his disarming smile that makes Peter’s spider-sense tingle just a bit. “I do believe that’s everything I was supposed to cover. Happy has the van ready, but you don’t have to leave for another hour. Who wants to see my Captain America Cards?”

“Me!” Peni, Jessie, and Ben raise their hands in excitement and follow Coulson out of the meeting room.

“I’m going to finish packing,” Kaine gets up. “Don’t get lost in the vents or something, dumbass.”

“That’s only happened, like, twice,” Peter scoffed. “I’m already packed, so I’ll just… go for a walk or something. See you in an hour at the van.”

“Whatever,” Kaine scoffs, disappearing down the hallway.

Peter goes the other way, towards the grounds. It’s sunny out. He wants to really stretch his legs before being crammed in the back of a van with his four little siblings for the new two something hours it’ll take to get back to Queens.

He ends up sitting in a tree, looking up at the forested mountains that line the compound. Peter’s not sure exactly how many acres Stark owns, but it’s probably a lot, considering how they’re this close to the city and there aren’t any houses near the compound. This is prime real estate.

Peter’s lost in thought when he hears a voice below him and nearly lands on Stark before catching himself.

“Don’t sneak up on a guy,” Peter scoffs at him. “I coulda hurt you.”

“Sure,” Stark grins at him. He’s wearing stupid sunglasses that cost more than Uncle Ben’s car, but the rest of his clothes are cheap and covered in oil and grease stains. The repulsor battery in his chest is glowing from behind his white tank top. “Good view from up there?”

Peter shrugs.

“You wanna walk with me?” Stark asks. “I’m trying to get some creative juices flowing and staring at my unfinished projects wasn’t working.”

“Fine,” Peter shrugs.

They walk around in meaningless circles. Peter doesn’t start a conversation and, thankfully, neither does Stark. At least, not at first. Peter was enjoying the silent companionship, but Stark can’t go ten minutes without the sound of his own voice or he goes a little crazy.

“I assume you’ve looked over the defenses I set up for you house?”

Peter scoffed, “You better have removed the ones I said I didn’t want.”

“You’re really taking the role ‘Man of the House’ too seriously, kid. You’re a kid, let your Aunt worry about that.”

“I tried that. Now her husband’s dead.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“If one more person says that Uncle Ben isn’t my fault, I’m gonna start screaming,” Peter snarls.

“I get it,” Stark sighs. “That feeling that you have the world on your shoulders, that if you just… don’t sleep, if you never stop moving, never stop doing everything you can to protect the people around you, maybe you can ignore how red your hands are.”

Peter doesn’t respond to that. He didn’t take Stark for someone who could see into him like that. He doesn’t like it. It’s uncomfortable.

“But that’s not going to clean your hands, Pete.”

Peter looks away.

“I will admit, I don’t fully understand what’s going on in your head. I don’t know what it’s like to be you, kid.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t know what it’s like to have blood on my hands that someone else put there. But… I think, under those circumstances, you can wash the blood off. It’ll take time, I can see that. You got a lot of people in your corner, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Peter snaps.

“No, of course not,” Stark pats him on the back. “You’re Spider-Man.”

Peter is not comfortable with the Avengers knowing that. Apparently it’s just Teresa and Stark who know, but that’s still two out of the however many Avengers there are, and he’d prefer that number was zero.

“I’m not gonna be your Robin, if that’s what you’re trying with this… heart to heart.”

“Ew, no, wouldn’t dream of it,” Stark crinkles his nose in disgust. “Not that you’re not a great kid and all, but I’m not exactly the Batman and Robin kinda guy.”

“I’d be Batman,” Peter teases.

“Like hell,” Stark snorts. “Although, you certainly are broody enough.”

“Hey!”

“But then again, the newest Robin is an asshole, so he does prove it’s possible.”

Peter scoffs, “Just… don’t get in Spider-Man’s way. And stay away from Spider-Woman while you’re at it. We aren’t anyone’s sidekicks.”

“I hear you, just… promise me you’ll take breaks.”

“Do you take breaks?”

“This is a do as I say and not as I do situation. I have a problem. You have time to avoid it.”

“I think we both know I’m already past that point.”

“Make friends your age and make time to loiter in malls with them. Kids still do that, right?”

“All the malls are closing, so no,” Peter says. “Although… I did have plans to go to a coffee shop and walk around downtown with some friends before… everything went to shit. It’s probably about time I reconnect with them.”

“Atta boy, Petey. You still have time to be a kid.”

Peter nodded, “Thanks.”

“Wait, did we successfully have a little pep talk?”

“You’re ruining it.”

“Maybe I would be a good dad.”

“Stop talking, that’s not gonna happen,” Peter starts walking away.

“No, Robin, come back, I can be a great Batman, just give me a chance!”

“Fuck off, Stark!” Peter laughs.

 It’s gonna be a long road, but Peter can do it. Besides, he’s not just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, he’s got Spider-Woman, Web Master, and Scarlet Spider in his corner. And if they really do find themselves in over their heads, there’s a lot of people they can call on for help.

Spider-Man is going to be alright.

Chapter Text

Epilogue Two

Gwen was losing her mind. Everything was normal. It seemed like everything was normal. She wasn’t a very popular person, but she didn’t need to be. She had one friend, and only needed one friend, for as long as she could remember. Harry was her best friend, her brother, her confidant, her partner in crime, everything she ever needed. Then they met Peter. Peter had even less friends than her, he was even more hurt than her, and from the short conversations they were able to keep up with him, he was even smarter than her, which was unusual, since she was the smartest person she knew by a lot. He was also really super hot and Harry agreed with her.

Okay, so maybe their attempts to get him to hangout weren’t entirely above board. Maybe her and Harry had a bet going to see who could snag a date with him sooner, but she did genuinely want to get to know him better. He was bristly, sure, but also funny. They’d only met him in person once and they’d exchanged numbers, had a group chat going, and he even occasionally responded to them.

And then, after a year of being patient with him, he finally set up a study session, date, time location, Harry’s treat, everything. And then…

Nothing.

No text, no call, no show to where the driver was supposed to pick him up and no show at the Coffee Bean. Gwen actually called him and it went through. His voice mail was adorable.

“Hello, you have reached Peter Par… *ACHOO!*… eugh… good enough… *beep!*”

“Peter, you missed the Coffee Bean meetup and you’re not answering our texts. We’re worried about you. Please let us at least know if you’re okay. We can reschedule! We’re not mad, I promise. We just want to know that you’re okay.”

Peter didn’t even leave them on read like he usually does. The next morning, Gwen tries to text him again, but it fails to send. She texts Harry, asking if he can get a message through, but he can’t either. When she calls, instead of Peter’s silly voice mail, she receives “The number you are trying to reach is not available” and she feels a pit forming in her stomach.

During breakfast on Monday, she asks her dad some questions. She may as well take advantage of her dad being a Police Captain.

“Dad, do you know if there was anything… I dunno, bad happening in Forest Hills yesterday?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Dad says. “I’m prescient 13, that’s precinct 110. I can make some calls, but that’s a weirdly specific question to be asking me.”

“Oh, I guess so.”

“Is something wrong?”

Gwen shrugged, “I don’t know. I have a friend who lives there and he’s not answering all of a sudden. We were supposed to meet him yesterday, but he didn’t show and didn’t answer his phone and now it’s not even going to voice mail. He usually takes a long time to answer texts, but it sounds like his phone was disconnected or something. I’m worried.”

“Can you give me any more info?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gwen nodded. She gave her dad a quick rundown of what she knew. Peter’s description, he had five siblings, lived with his aunt and uncle, and he went to Midtown High School. She didn’t have his exact address, just that she knew he was in Forest Hills.

“I’ll call around,” Dad said. “Can’t promise I’ll actually find anything. He could have lost his phone.”

“I hope that’s it but… something just doesn’t feel right.”

“Alright, honey. I’ll tell you what I know after school, alright?”

“Thank you for listening to me, Dad.”

“Anytime, Gwendy. Don’t let this distract you from your schoolwork.”

Even Harry was worried, so he asked his dad if he could spend the night over with Gwen. Like usual, Harry barely got a response that they chose to interpret as permission to stay over. Gwen was positive that if Harry hadn’t asked, Norman wouldn’t have noticed that Harry didn’t come home that night. But that was a problem for Later-Gwen. Now-Gwen needed to reassure herself that Peter just dropped his phone in a puddle or something and he wasn’t reachable because it was still in rice.

“Did you find anything?” Gwen asked.

Dad looked nervous, and that made Gwen nervous.

“Yes, honey, I’m sorry,” Dad’s voice was more gentle than it usually was. “There was an amber alert yesterday. Peter and his siblings went missing after a home invasion that happened Saturday morning. Suspected kidnapping, his guardians are in the hospital. The uncle was DOA and the aunt is in critical condition.”

Gwen covered her mouth in shock. Harry looked green.

“But he was fine,” Harry whispered. “We finally got him out of his shell, it’s not fair! That’s… that’s not fair.”

“I know,” Dad sighed.

“Was it his dad?” Gwen asked.

Dad shook his head, “Yes and no. He was arrested at the scene, but the children are still missing. I wish I could say more, but SHIELD took over the investigation this morning.”

“Shield!?” Gwen gasped.

“Why?” Harry said.

Dad shrugged, “That, no one could tell me. But the Avengers were the ones who arrested Parker at the scene, so it’s a miracle he was in NYPD custody for the few hours he was. I prefer working with the Titans, they’re more respectful of the NYPD than the Avengers.”

“Whoa,” Gwen said.

“Who is Peter?” Harry said.

“This feels like more questions than answers.”

“I know, honey, but that happens sometimes. Especially when heroes are involved. I’ll let you know if I find anything else. I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Thanks for trying, Captain Stacy,”

After school the next day, Gwen and Harry took the train to Forest Hills, just to see if maybe they could find Peter’s house and get some better answers for themselves. They wandered around, but everything looked normal, and they headed back home before dinner time so her dad wouldn’t worry and send a squad car after them. Norman didn’t even text Harry when he didn’t come home.

That was how they spent the next two weeks. Well, two or three days a week, anyway. They still had homework.

They found the right house on the third week. It still had police tape all over it. The mailbox was hand painted and said ‘Parker Family’ on it, with seven different handprints, each a different color and size. They were debating breaking and entering, and Gwen had already ducked under the police tape, much to Harry’s protests, when a red convertible drove past and the driver started heckling them. He was their age, wearing a letterman jacket, and looked like he was more muscle than brain. His equally blonde girlfriend was sitting next to him on her phone.

“Hey! That’s my buddy’s house!” the guy shouted. “You’d better not contaminate the scene, or they might not be able to find them.”

“It’s our buddies house, too!” Harry shouted back. “We want to find him and the NYPD aren’t even on the case anymore.”

“What buddy?” The guy scoffed. “I know all of Kaine’s friends, Peter doesn’t have any friends, and you guys look way too old to be friends with Jess or Peni and definitely way too old to be Benji’s friends.”

“We are Peter’s friends, thank you very much,” Gwen snapped, ducking back under the police tape to better argue with the Jock.

“Wait, no way,” the girl finally looked up from her phone. “Are you Gwen ‘parenthesis’ Cute Girl ‘parenthesis’?”

Gwen’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she just blushed.

Harry laughed, clapping Gwen on back, and annoyingly said, “Yes, this is Gwen! We are real, believe it or not.”

“Holy shit, I thought he made you guys up,” the guy laughed. “I’m Flash, this is Liz. We’re friends with Peter’s brother. Come on, get in.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Because you might know more about the kids disappearing than we do,” Flash said. “And we’re bringing flowers to his aunt in the hospital.” Flash gestured to the back seat, where a fake plant was buckled in. “They turned us away last week for having real flowers. Apparently they’re a health hazard.”

Gwen and Harry got in the back of Flash’s convertible. Harry put the plant on his lap. The four of them exchanged pleasantries, small talk, and then Flash asked them how they even put up with Peter.

“That guy’s mean to everyone,” Flash said. “Granted, Kaine is too, but he tolerates us.”

“Peter’s not that bad,” Harry said.

“He was really rude when we first met him,” Gwen said.

“Okay, yeah, but I think he’s just shy.”

“Nah, Parkers Boys are like cactuses,” Liz said. “It looks easy to take care of, but it’s actually super difficult to get the conditions exactly right and if you get too close, they’re spikey. You two must be exactly right for Peter. Though, Benji is actually really sweet, but I think that’s just because he’s a fifth grader.”

“What do you know about their disappearance?”

“Not much,” Flash said. “But I think it was a supervillain attack. Their sort of estranged sister gives off super spy vibes, I think she works for Sheild or the Avengers or something.”

“Not this again,” Liz rolled her eyes.

“Look, Kaine said that she doesn’t work for them, but I can tell he was lying. He’s a shit liar.”

“How can you tell? He has one tone and it’s grumpy.”

“Come on, Liz, you spend more time with him than I do, you’re really telling me you can’t read his micro expressions?”

“The extra time I spend with him is spent with cucumbers over our eyes, I’m not looking at his micro expressions.”

“Cucumbers?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, Kaine and I used to get mani-pedis every Friday after school with his aunt,” Liz said. “Sometimes his younger siblings would come if they didn’t have an afterschool club. I hope they’re found soon. I miss him.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Flash said. “He’s a big grouch, but he’s my big grouch, you know?”

“We just convinced Peter to meet us at a coffee shop the day they went missing,” Harry lamented. “The Coffee Bean, it’s near ESU.”

“Damn, Parker must really like you if he was willing to go all the way to Manhattan for a meetup. He doesn’t usually do anything but scowl and do his homework.”

“You don’t think… something really bad happened to them, do you?” Harry asked. “They weren’t… murdered, were they?”

“No, I don’t…” Flash swallowed.

“I’m sure they’re okay,” Liz said. “I know we’re hard on Peter, but he wouldn’t let anything happened to his siblings. Kaine wouldn’t either.”

“If you ask me, they got spooked and ran away,” Flash said. “Their dad wasn’t supposed to find them. Not that they were in witness protection or anything, but I’m almost positive they had a restraining order. That guy was a piece of work.”

“Did you ever meet him?” Harry asked.

Flash shook his head.

“You didn’t have to meet him,” Liz said. “He did a number on Peter and Kaine. All we know is that he’s probably the reason why Peter and Kaine are so angry all the time.”

“I mean, I got my own anger issues, I’ll admit that, but those two had a whole other level of daddy issues. They make me look normal!” Flash managed to laugh.

Gwen wasn’t expecting to actually like Flash and Liz. At first glance, they’re the exact stereotype of high schoolers she hated. Flash was a quarterback, captain of the football team and a big dumb jock. Liz was the head cheerleader and had the looks and mannerisms of a Mean Girl. Flash did have anger issues, but he never actually punched anyone, just walls. And sometimes he’d show up to drive them places with a black eye and a fake smile on his face, but Liz would assure them in a quest whisper that Flash really didn’t get into fights at school.

Gwen asked her dad about Officer Thompson, but her dad just shook his head.

“He works for the 110,” Dad said. “It’s my least favorite precinct for a reason, sweetheart. They make the rest of us look bad. I don’t tolerate officers like them, but I’m not in charge of them.”

Flash was a lot of things, but he was a good friend, first and foremost. Most of the time the four of them spent together was looking for the Parkers. They’d get together for study group at the Coffee Bean and as soon as they sped through their homework, they got to searching. Gwen had access to the NYPD through her dad, but the case was taken over by Shield, so they kept trying to find backdoors. Flash, Liz, and Harry weren’t much help on that front, but they listened to her talk through trying to learn to hack. They tried to help, but a lot of their suggestions were pointless.

Every Friday, Flash would drive over to their school and pick them up and take them to the hospital where Mrs. Parker was being kept. She was in a coma for the first two months, but she woke up recently. She loved getting visits from them. She was so happy to see Gwen and Harry the first time.

“Oh, you’re Peter’s phone friends!” She smiled, even through all the pain she was still in after the attack. “He was looking forward to spending time with you in person. I’m so happy you’re here.”

When Mrs. Parker was ready to be discharged, the mysterious and distant sister took her upstate, so they couldn’t visit her anymore, but Flash insisted they facetime her instead, so they did. Gwen missed a lot of those. She didn’t really know Mrs. Parker like Flash and Liz did.

She dedicated most of her time to widening the search for Peter and his siblings. It had been half a year almost, her dad said to expect the worst, but she didn’t want to give up on Peter. She’d been patient for almost two years now; she would get her nerdy friend back. She never gave up searching.

Until one day, she didn’t have to anymore. It was Flash that called her.

“They’re back,” Flash said. “Didn’t want to text you news like this.”

“How?”

“No clue,” Flash said. “But Peter showed up in class this morning and he was actually surprised that I hugged him!”

“You hugged him?”

“Hey, just because he didn’t think we were friends and I also kinda bullied him, doesn’t mean I don’t care about that eggheaded dumbass. Someone’s gotta make me look better by proxy, after all. Oh, I invited us all over to his house tonight, you down?”

“Yes, I want to make sure he’s okay, of couse!”

“Great! I’m picking you up after school, tell Harry. He should buy chips and salsa and stuff. I’ll text him the brand Kaine likes.”

Gwen and Harry went to the store together to get the chips and salsa, “I feel taken advantage of,” Harry laughed when the bill came out to $50. “This is the fanciest, most artisanal brand of chips and salsa I’ve ever seen and my dad exclusively gets the fancy stuff.”

“Kaine’s got expensive taste, it looks like,” Gwen laughed. “Hey, maybe he’s single.” She teased him.

“I like Peter more,” Harry pouted.

“Sure, but Peter’s got me saved as ‘Cute Girl’ and you’re just ‘Harry’.”

“I have a feeling Kaine would only like me for my money.”

Gwen was nervous. She hadn’t seen Peter face to face in nearly two years. They’d exchanged texts, but Peter was difficult to reach and slow to respond. That last week before he went missing was the most they’d ever managed to text him.

Flash was the one who knocked on the door, and it was Peni, the youngest sister that answered.

“Flash!” She actually picked Flash up and spun him around.

“Whoa!”

“Uh… I’ve been doing strength training with Aunt May?” Peni blushed. “Kaine, Peter, your friends are here.”

She was answered with a grunt from the living room and a shout from upstairs, “I’m not friends with Flash!”

“You are now!” Flash shouted back up the stairs.

Peter stomped down the stairs, his face twisted in a scowl. There was a faint bruise on his chin and bags under his eyes, and he looked older than Gwen remembered, but she hadn’t seen him since his sixteenth birthday, so that made sense.

Peter opened his mouth to argue with Flash, but then snapped it shut when he saw Gwen and Harry standing behind Flash.

“Oh… hi?” Peter’s scowl vanished. “I… didn’t know you knew Flash?”

Harry pushed past Flash and pulled Peter into a hug, “Holy shit, man, you’re actually real.”

Peter laughed awkwardly, “Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t hug Harry back, standing stock still, until a girl’s voice, probably Jessie, shouted, “Hug him back, dumbass!”

“Oh!” Peter laughed, hugging Harry back.

“We missed you,” Harry said.

Gwen went to them and smacked Peter over the head, “We were worried sick!”

“Oh, sorry,” Peter said. “Won’t… won’t happen again.”

“Coffee Bean, first thing tomorrow,” Harry said. “You have to try their lattes, they’re the best.”

“What happened?” Gwen asked.

“We ran away,” a voice grunts from the doorway. It had to be Kaine. He was massive. He was not what she was picturing a guy who ate $30 chips and got mani-pedis with cucumbers to look like, that’s for sure. “Thanks for the chips. Hey, Flash, hey, Liz.” Kaine walked away. Flash and Liz followed him into the living room.

Mrs. Parker gave them hugs, too. She was still in a wheelchair, but assured them she was getting better every day, especially now that her children were back where they belonged. They spent the rest of the night all crowded in the living room watching westerns. Peter say between Harry and Gwen and eventually fell asleep leaning on Gwen. She leaned back and exchanged a smile with Harry.

They got their friend back.