Chapter Text
“So why are we doing this again?” Peter asked.
Will grinned as he set down the tests, “It’s - uh - an initiation. Of sorts. Take the DNA test, make sure you’re definitely not a Wayne kid or grandkid and boom. You’re one of us.”
Peter looked apprehensive but he swabbed his cheeks and tonsils and applied it before handing the tests off to an assistant who left to take it to the proper lab. “Have any ever come back positive? Honestly this doesn't sound super ethical for WE to DNA test their employees."
“Its not actually policy. It's for us scientists. Like pledging. We just store the data on their servers." Will shrugged. "As for the positives its happened once but falsely. You should’ve seen it,” He laughed, “Archie was trying to call up his mom, crying until Mr Drake ran in, retook the test there and then - prioritised like - and confirmed that it was really negative. Guess he didn’t feel like gaining any new brothers. We only test Wayne, Grayson and Drake. And Queen and Luthor although I can’t tell you the way we got their DNA because we were made to sign NDAs about it,” he wiggled his eyebrows. Peter was pretty sure that was technically breaking the non-disclosure agreement but he wasn’t here to split hairs, he was here to do science.
“So,” he said, “How about the calibrations in the arm?”
Tim thought he was going to have a heart attack. He could feel it coming on, the sweat, the chest and shoulder pains. Then he realised it was just the verge of a panic attack and had to spend thirty minutes doing breathing exercises and trying to calm down when he had just seen That up on the screen. Hopefully it was just another Archie incident. Although, after glancing at a picture of Peter Parker next to his brother, there was a definite possibility that the newest employee of Wayne Enterprises was really Dick Grayson’s son.
His phone rang, he picked it up with shaky fingers, “Yes?”
“Tim,” said Barbara, “You sound ill. I’m assuming that’s because you just saw what I just saw and not that you’ve been avoiding sleep again?”
“The test?”
“Mmhmm. We’ll have to take our own but-”
“You saw him and compared his appearance?”
“I knew Dick when he was seventeen. There are differences, eye colour, nose shape, hair colour and texture - all of which rules out the clone theory but the age difference is fourteen years.”
“What you’re saying is Dick fathered a child in freshman year of high school.”
“I mean… yeah.”
“Dibs not telling Bruce but getting to see his reaction.”
“Don’t we have to tell Dick? He doesn’t know, obviously, but this guy was homeless. Nightwing found him and brought him to us.,” Tim whispered furiously into the phone, “He doesn’t appear to have any family. This would crush Dick . He has a son - a nearly adult son who doesn’t have any family, any support and lives in the employee housing without which he would be homeless!”
“This is bad. I think if one of us sees an opportunity to tell him, we should but like… let’s keep this between us. God forbid anyone else finds out before Dick.”
“Or Peter, since you know. It’s his dad.”
“Or Peter,” added Barbara.
Peter saw the results when he got back into work, processed the data, printed it, folded it carefully for safekeeping/future laughing material and told his coworkers it was all negatives. He was from a literal alternate dimension (although no one else… exactly knew this, obviously) sure, it was weird that his dad was Richard Parker and according to this paternity test, his dad was Richard Grayson but that was too weird. Even for him.
Okay, since he broke the multiverse, met two of his alternate universe selves and their villains and sent them back, only to get sucked into one of the universes a week and a half ago, it wasn’t too weird but still. A definite coinkydink, to meet an alternate version of his extremely late father, having close enough DNA with Richard Parker, father of Peter Parker, who got adopted by a billionaire and is now a detective in the only city apparently worse than Gotham.
Peter had only been there ten days but Gotham sucked. He’d been better off than most, landing in a dumpster a second before semi-local vigilante, Nightwing landed on top of him and offered to take him to a place to stay for the night before Peter, concussed and stupid, told him he had nowhere to go at all and had no income and had landed himself a job at Wayne Enterprises, which appeared to be somewhat similar to SI and a one bedroom apartment in what was definitely not the worst area of the city, as seen from his arrival and two trips out as Spiderman.
A city this size could not be normal and have this many vigilantes. It had like two million people tops. New York had eighteen million and maybe three to five regular vigilantes, Peter wasn’t sure of the actual number since there wasn’t exactly a union for people who enforced the law with some kind of superpowers who weren’t the Avengers didn’t exactly have a union or workplace meetings. Did the Avengers have a union? Probably not. Maybe he should propose that if he ever got back home.
‘If’ being the operative word there.
He didn’t really want to think about getting home. He didn’t think there was a home to go back to. She was dead. She was dead, it was his fault and he couldn’t do anything about it. Ned and MJ should be fine getting into MIT then. He would miss them. He already did. He hoped they’d miss him.
He bit his lip hard enough he tasted metal and bent over to do more work. There would be time for him to figure this stuff out… eventually. Right now he just had to focus on not breaking down and continuing his duty as spiderman even in another universe, another city.
With great power there must also come great responsibility.
He tried to swallow but his throat had developed a lump.
He didn’t want to go out tonight. He wanted to crawl up in his bed and cry until he passed out or morning. But Peter still pulled on his suit and climbed out his window even as he began to cry. He had a job to do.
Dick didn’t think anything of it when Tim asked him for morning coffee at his office. It was nice to not be the person reaching out for once and he accepted immediately, arriving five minutes early with an iced latte for him and a double espresso for his brother.
“Hi,” Tim had bags under his eyes but his hair was combed and suit pressed. There must’ve been a board meeting that morning to justify why he was looking better than he normally did. Or maybe Dick only saw him at his worst at work. Even so, he still looked anxious, clutching a stress ball and crushing it every other second.
“Here’s your drink,” Dick handed it over, “What’s up.”
Tim rubbed a hand against his forehead. “I wanted to just talk really. Well, um. Relationship stuff.”
“ Oh , that’s what this is about. Interesting. So how are things going with Conner?”
“Fine, it’s great. How old were you when you lost your virginity?” Tim was bright red.
“Tim, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to just because you’re reached a certain age. If Conner is pressuring you-”
“No. No!” He dropped the stress ball. “How old were you? ”
“Will this get back to Bruce?”
“No.”
Dick had to think about it for a minute. “I think maybe, thirteen or fourteen. Why do you want to know? Is it for a really weird case?”
“You could say that.” Tim pulled out two plastic baggies and a qtip. “Can I have some hair and saliva? It’s for the same thing.” He added quickly.
Dick wasn’t the greatest detective in the world but he was trained by him. “Is there a kid in the lobby?” His stomach twisted.
“More like one of our scientists in the labs. You know that ritual thing they do?”
“So how old is this… kid?” He desperately hoped they were a kid. Maybe an intern. And hopefully a false positive.
“Hard to say,” said Tim. “It’s that guy y- Nightwing brought in last week. Peter Parker. He says he’s twenty one but I’d say younger. We have a positive DNA test. Provided he’s lied about his age, the timing adds up. Honestly, he looks a lot like you. The thing is, he’s seen the results. I asked one of the other lab techs who’re with him and they said it was negative.”
“Which means he probably won’t come forward,” finished Dick, feeling like he’d aged a decade in the last conversation. Tim’s mouth thinned to a line and he nodded.
“We don’t really have a protocol in place for this that I’m aware of. Since the only other time it was a baby assassin with a stabbing problem and an ego ten times the size of himself and I have a feeling Bruce doesn’t really want to think about us…”
“They probably exist but Bruce doesn’t want us finding them. I remember when Roy got Lian, he pulled me into this whole talk about responsibility and protection and its the closest thing I’ve received to a talk and it was only about ten years too late.”
“Well, when two people of consenting age love each other very much-” Dick glared at Tim. “I’m sorry. We could find the protocols I guess but that might tip off Bruce-”
“-Which might be a disaster.” He bit his lip. “Any chance there’s some parenting book about how to deal with a child who doesn’t want to tell you that you’re their father biologically but you know and they aren’t in a very good situation. Oh my god. This is fucking insane.”
“Parenting book, no. Insane, yes. He followed you as Nightwing, what if you sought him out to check up on him, maybe he’ll tell you.”
“Maybe. And you’re going to do another DNA test?”
Tim’s mouth twisted, “You’ll be the first person to know the results when I get them. Well, second. Barbara gets an alert when these things pop up, same as me.”
“Oh. I have no idea how to respond to that.” He hugged him, “This stays between us, please. I don’t really know what I’m going to do and I think it’s only fair to Peter if we don’t crowd him.”
“Yeah, otherwise he’ll be welcomed in by having his kneecaps broken or get outed by the paparazzi before he’s ready, if he’s ever ready.”
Dick paled. “That would not be ideal. I’ll visit him tonight, can you send me the address?”
Peter wasn’t there. Nightwing knocked his window three times and waited for a minute, listening, to see if he would come before picking the lock and slipping inside. It was empty. Not unlived in, the bed was unmade with the covers pulled back to air, there were clothes on the chair and the desk was covered in papers, some of which he’d handed to Peter. Who wasn’t here.
He could just be out, at a bar or something. His ID said he was twenty-one and unless you were in Red Hood’s territory, bartenders probably wouldn’t question it anyway, provided you’d pay. But this was Gotham. Nightwing had seen first hand how people who went out for a drink ended up sometimes. Injured, hospitialised, dead.
He was going to wait for him. Make sure he was safe. He climbed out of the window, locking it again and grappled up to the roof. And waited. And waited.
Close to 3am, a light turned on in the apartment. Nightwing was about to try again at the window when he heard the roof access door open.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise anyone was up here,” Peter was talking so fast he could barely understand what he was saying.
“No, no,” He cut him off. “I was actually looking for you.”
A suspicious look, “Why?”
“I just wanted to check how you were doing since I last saw you.” He bit his lip, thinking of what he could say that would get not non-answers but wouldn’t scare him off either.
Peter rubbed under his eye with the tattered sleeve of the hoodie. Nightwing recognised it as the same hoodie he’d been wearing when he fell on him. “The apartment’s really nice. And the job’s good. It’s really interesting, thank you for arranging that. I’m actually surprised though that WE takes people who haven’t gone to university at that level though.”
Nightwing sighed and patted the area next to where he was sitting. Peter joined him, crossing his legs in a way most people his age wouldn’t be able to without flexibility. “The Bats and the Waynes, we both- we both know that places like Gotham especially lock people out of their potential if they can’t finish school or go to university and end up in situations that otherwise they wouldn’t be in. So we work with them to help people get jobs and not have to worry about paying things like medical fees or even rent, you know?” Peter nodded. “It helps all of us, really. Mr Wayne has dedicated a lot of his life and his fortune into helping the city, this project decreases crime and poverty and the average life expectancy has been raised by like five years in the Narrows and Park Row.”
“MJ would love that,” said Peter before he caught himself, evidently not meaning to say that out loud.
“Who’s MJ?”
“She’s just… someone from back home. She loves talking about community services like that and social projects.”
“Where is back home?” Nightwing asked, trying not to press but curious all the same.
“Queens.” Peter bit it out, like saying it caused him pain. He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry but I have to be awake in a few hours, do you mind?”
“Not at all,” He ruffled his hair, the curls reminding him of his daj and the way they had rolled out through his fingers as a child when she held him. “See you another time, sleep well, Pete.”
Peter nodded before disappearing down the stairs. Nightwing pulled himself to his feet. They were definitely going to have to repeat that DNA test.