serotonin creation initiative

Peter fidgeted. “I’m sorry it’s kinda last minute…” He trailed off, not sure what else to do.

Kon inhaled deep and then let out a sigh. He scrunched his eyes closed and then pulled on his sunglasses. “Okay. I’ve accepted it. Let’s go to Gotham now.”

Peter bluescreened. “Let’s… just go to Gotham now?” 

‘Oh no, he thinks I have an apartment and stuff set up. I can’t take him to Gotham and hide him in a water tower or whatever. He’d get so scared.’

“Yeah, Gotham. Now. Us.” Kon pulled on his leather jacket. It was the one that he’d bedazzled, not the one with the mesh cutouts. “Chop chop.” He slid on sunglasses with matching rhinestones. 

“I don’t have an apartment!” Peter burst out. “I don’t have anything, I just can’t be here.” He flexed and fisted his hands a few times, trying to calm down. “You should stay here, you have all this stuff.”

Kon looked at him funny. He lowered his sunglasses, opened his mouth, and then paused. A wrinkle formed on his brow. He took a few seconds to speak. “Uh, are you willing to hide from Batman?”

“...I was planning to,” Peter said, “but how is that relevant?”

He shrugged. “You can live with me, then. Luthor got me a place there. He thinks it’s really funny for me to go there under the radar.”

“Batman doesn’t want you, specifically, in Gotham,” Peter checked. He blinked rapidly, trying to process this. “Does he like, hate Hawaiians?”

“...Yeah.” Kon’s face twitched. “He’s a weird guy, I don’t know. Also he doesn’t like Luthor, but that’s fair.” He shoved the sunglasses back up and avoided eye contact.

Peter took a minute to assimilate this new information into his worldview. The vampire guy was bigoted against Hawaiin people. “But you’re a kid though,” he said uncertainly. It didn’t seem right. Batman was supposedly a good guy. And it didn’t really seem like Kon was being honest with him. “Are you sure that’s it?”

Kon actually grimaced, shoulders hunching up. “Okay, it’s…” He blew out a long breath. 

‘He’s so nervous,’ Peter marveled.

“It’s not that I’m from Hawaii, it’s something else about me.” Kon rolled his shoulders like he was ready for a fight. “Okay, so I know I seem like a normal guy.”

Peter nodded agreeably. Sort of. Aside from being a super hot and strong neglected minor who could fly, yeah, Kon was a normal guy.

Kon breathed out shakily. “I’m kind of like Robin. You remember Robin, right?”

Peter stared at him blankly. “Yes,” he lied, trying to remember which person on Wendy the Werewolf that was. “The, um. The one with-” 

“The one with all the colors,” Kon said, nodding. “But not like Robin, because Robin is normal,” he babbled. “I’m, uh.” He gestured at himself. “I’m a freak of nature engineered in a laboratory.” He looked ashamed to be in his own skin. “And Batman doesn’t– he doesn’t hate people like me, but he doesn’t want us in his city because we are a danger to normal people– but I’m not a danger to you, I promise.”

The panicked words came out in a waterfall. Peter struggled to make any sense out of it. He latched onto one thing in particular.

All the colors- Kon must have been talking about the bisexual lighting. ‘The gay one,’ Peter realized. ‘Er. Bi. Whatever. The show hasn’t gotten around to clarifying it. Either way, Kon is coming out to me right now.’ He opened his mouth and shut it, trying to adjust to the information that Batman was so virulently homophobic that Kon thought they had to hide from him in order to live in Gotham. Did that mean Kon was going to have to put away the boob window leather jacket he’d made, in order to slip under the radar? That was so unfair! Kon loved that boob window!

“Kon.” Peter reached out and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He tried to make eye contact. Kon was so nervous he only got a second of it before the younger boy looked at his feet. Whatever, that was fine. “There’s nothing wrong with the way you are, and if Batman has beef with you, then I have beef with Batman.” He scowled at just the thought. A danger to normal people? What the heck! That was a messed up thing to say. Batman was an intellectual radish, and his opinion was worth nothing. Spider-man was going to have some words for him.

That was going to complicate things, but he could make it work. It was rough, though. He hadn’t expected Kon to be part of another vulnerable population. Not only was the poor guy a neglected minor, he was also gay? Was that why he didn’t live with his family? Holy shit, had they kicked Kon out for being gay?

While Peter was processing all of that and trying not to choke on fury, Kon blinked at him. He put a hand on the back of his head. “...That’s it?” he checked. “You don’t have any questions, or comments, or sudden realizations?”

Peter scoffed. “Did you think it would affect my opinion of you?” he said. “Besides.” It took effort to shrug. “Maybe we are like, not that different.” He lifted his chin a bit. If Kon could come out, so could he.

“...Not that different,” Kon said slowly. He tilted his head to the side and all but lasered Peter with his intent stare. “I would love to know more about what you mean.”

“Can we talk about it after we get out of NYC, I am being chased by ninja,” Peter said apologetically. It was more than he’d meant to say, but at this point it seemed fair to open up a bit more. “Raincheck?”

Kon blew a raspberry. “You’re being harassed by ninja?” He heaved an aggrieved sigh and looked up at the ceiling like he was praying for patience. “Yeah, sure, I'll buy that. Weird that this keeps happening to the guys I know.” He pursed his lips. “Okay. If you need to ditch a tail like that, you should shower here, change into my clothes, leave anything that might have been seen or tampered with. Fresh start, buddy. I’ll get packing and we can get out of here in twenty.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll have Daddy BigBucks send a driver to take us to Gotham, it’ll be less conspicuous. Can’t fly in Gotham,” he added with a grimace.

Peter blinked. That was inconvenient. “Because of Batman or like, pollution?” he checked. “Uh, airspace regulations?” he guessed. Kon put a hand on his back and pushed him gently towards the bathroom. He was still typing rapidly with one hand.

“Because of Batman. I’ll bring you a change of clothes, chop chop, my dude.”

True to his word, Kon got the important things into a duffle bag and the two of them into a car in less than an hour. Shell-shocked and damp, Peter clutched the bag with his spider suit and sewing machine.

They were in Gotham before ten am. Peter got out of the car gingerly and hugged his duffle bag. “Um, thank you,” he called to the driver. He still hadn’t seen them. The car had one of those weird partitions. He could only see the shadowy outline of a head and shoulders.

The driver did not turn to acknowledge him at all. It had moderately bad vibes that Peter didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with right now, so he just, uh, didn’t think about it. 

Kon got out the other side of the car and slammed the door shut with a toothy grin. “This is the place.” He gestured up at a remarkably dirty apartment building with a flourish. He made the ginormous bag on his shoulder look like it weighed nothing at all. 

“…Cool,” Peter said, looking at the three-inch thick deposit of pigeon poo over the door. “They’re not gonna look for you here.” It was very different from his fancy NYC apartment. The windows were nearly black with grime. Was—how was the stone facing cracked in the shape of a guy? Peter squinted and turned his head to the side, trying to figure out what was actually going on. It couldn’t be impact damage from a person, no way.