#redflagshipwriter

“Yeah, he thinks it’s beneath him to have his creation live in an actual apartment,” Kon said absently. “But if he kicked everyone out, Batman might notice something was hinky with the apartment building.” He threw himself on the single piece of furniture: a sofa. For lack of anything better to do, Peter sat on the other end of it and looked around the space, wide-eyed. “I guess he started working on it when I said I might want to go to school here.” Kon scratched his face and avoided eye contact.

Peter finally had to confront the truth that had been in front of him all this time:

Luthor was rich. Like, rich-rich, Peter realized. Having an apartment for your kid and keeping his credit card paid was one thing. Last minute renovations on an apartment building was a whole other level. Mr. Stark would have struggled to pull that off any faster.

No wonder he said grandiose things like describing his kid as his creation. Peter eyed Kon from the edge of his vision, trying to decide if this affected anything.

“What?” Kon’s voice was normal, but his shoulders moved up a hair. He was uncomfortable. He knew it was weird.

Peter swallowed. “Can your rich-ass Luthor order pizza?” he joked.

Less than an hour later they were scarfing down a truly disgusting amount of pizza and using Kon’s laptop to look at furniture. “I think I have to go see him.” Kon said absently. He made a face. “To refresh the credit card, you know how it is.”

“...To see Luthor,” Peter said slowly. He would not mind knowing who exactly was responsible for Kon. He blinked. “D’you want me to come with you?” he checked. “I mean, he’s housing me, so I should probably meet him,” he justified. He tried his best to look like someone who would never enact vigilante justice against a child neglecting jerkwad. 

“Luthor doesn’t know you exist,” Kon said slowly. He sucked in air through his teeth and made an unpleasant expression. “But he will eventually notice I’m living with someone. Maybe it’s a good idea…” He seemed pained. 

He didn’t wanna push and make Kon uncomfortable, so Peter hummed in the back of his throat. “I think we should get jobs,” he changed the subject. His ID was definitely good enough for an entry level job. “It’s better not to be too reliant on someone, you know?” His pitch went up a little with nerves by the end. Peter resisted the urge to fidget.

‘Is that something rich kids don’t worry about? Maybe Luthor has to take care of him no matter what. But I can’t hope that I’ll keep getting jobs online with no references. If anyone looks into that ID, I am toast. I need something steady and reliable.’

“Oh.” Kon frowned slightly. “Yeah, I guess it would suck if he decided to stop paying. I don’t have any money, just his card. So he could, like, cut me off at any time.” It was like the concept was just dawning on him for the first time. He turned to Peter wide-eyed. “Should I have my own bank account?”

‘He’s so smart but he’s like a little kid. It’s like no one ever cared if he knows how to take care of himself.’

Peter pressed his fingertips together and took a deep breath so that he didn’t scream. “Yeah, I think you should,” he said as levelly as he could manage. “It’s normal for a 17 year old to have their own money, especially if they’re getting ready for college. What if you wanna do some kind of activity?” He eyed Kon. “Like football. Or go to parties.” 

‘He’s going to be so popular. As long as he gets a good enough score on the SAT, he is going to have a great time. He’s going to make a ton of friends and stuff.’

Peter was happy for him, even though his plan was, uh, pretty different.

“Oh, fuck yeah.” Kon flashed a grin at him. “What kind of work can we do?” 

Peter hummed. He didn’t want to come off rude, but honestly, probably nothing good would take them. “We don’t have any references or experience, and we don’t wanna do crime,” he listed off. “I think we can, like, stock shelves, man. Maybe put back grocery carts.” Peter lifted his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

Kon looked at him and nodded slowly with no expression. Peter’s tension clicked up a notch. What did that mean, was he mad– Kon lifted an arm up and flexed as his answer. “Fuck yeah, brother.” He grinned. “I’m going to be the best stock boy ever!”

Phew. 

He grinned back, relieved. “Yeah, I think you just gotta go to work and not set up fall hazards and you’re set.” Peter gave him a double thumbs up. “Aight, I’ll find us a place to apply to! We wanna work together, right?”

He put in applications online for three different places that night, figuring at least one of them had to be able to take two employees. Peter accepted a cool high-five as thanks for that work and then settled back to do the finishing touches on his spiderman jacket. Kon bounced down onto the sofa and copied him. 

Well. Sort of. Peter stole a glance through his eyelashes and tried not to cackle. Kon was working hard to insert a mesh panel down the side of his pants that would inevitably show Kon’s underwear. Or lack. “That’s going to look so good, bro,” he said.

Kon beamed at him. “Thanks, man.”  He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe you should make something saucy too, for those parties we are going to go to.”

Peter snorted. “More like pocket protectors for my pens,” he joked. “I’m not going to be invited to college parties, just look at me.” He waited with a half-smile for the agreement.

Kon didn’t laugh. There was a long second of silence as his joke bombed. Kon frowned. He twisted his mouth to the side, clearly debating internally. “You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that, man,” Kon finally settled on. “I think you’re cool.”

Peter looked at him with wide eyes, genuinely touched. “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “I appreciate that.”

‘He just doesn’t know me as well as I know me. But that’s still nice. And it’s good data, isn’t it?’ Peter worried over the thought, examining it from a lot of angles. ‘Maybe… Being spiderman made me a lot fitter and more confident. Maybe it just didn’t help me socially at Midtown because everyone already thought I was a clumsy loser. I might come off different to strangers now.’ 

Living with Kon was good, but weird. They stayed up way too late for lack of a reason to go to bed. Peter woke up feeling groggy and shitty the next afternoon. Kon was still conked out and snoring at airplane engine levels. Peter scratched his back and blearily started trying to put together pancake batter.

The first pancake was burnt and raw. He threw it in the garbage and then said “Ah!” because Kon had appeared from nowhere to snatch the poor first try out of the air and hold it aloft on his palm like a pizza. “Uh, I threw that away on purpose,” Peter said. “It’s burnt, the pan heat was too high so the outside cooked before the inside had a chance.”

Kon said, “huh,” and crammed the whole thing into his mouth.

Peter winced and turned back to what he was doing. He had to shake his head incredulously. “Whatever works for you,” he muttered. 

“It’s not that bad,” Kon said through a mouthful.

“Swallow!” Peter cringed. He stuck his tongue out in exaggerated disgust. “That’s nasty, my aunt would-”

Would never say anything about it, because she was dead to him. Peter swallowed hard. Maybe she was fine. Maybe she was living alone in his world. Who would check in on her? 

Maybe she got snapped. 

He felt like absolute shit as he made the rest of the pancakes. Kon buzzed around without noticing anything. “Juice?”

Peter cleared his throat. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Kon pulled the fridge open. “Uhhhh- cranberry. And can we have bacon?” His voice was so hopeful that it put a dent in Peter’s dark clouds. 

“Yeah, uh, but we probably want a second pan.” Peter gestured to the other burner. “So it’s all hot at once. Grab- yeah, thanks.” He turned the heat on. “Butter, like this much?” he showed with his fingers. “Great. Toss it in whe– not yet!” He yelped, waving a hand. “When the pan is hot.”

Kon snatched the butter right back out of the air. “What, why?” 

Peter stalled. “...You don’t put the fat in a cold pan,” he said. “I don’t actually remember why, but I know it works a lot better. Oh.” He cleared his throat. “It lets you control how hot it gets, how much heat it’s exposed to before you start using it. If you burn it, that’s majorly gross.”

Kon had a really cute stubborn face, lips out in a pout. He crossed his arms. “The burnt pancake wasn’t that-”

“It’s different,” Peter laughingly interrupted. “The oil or butter will smoke up and turn black, the whole pan will. It’s a carcinogen.”

“....Oh, that sucks.” Kon huffed. “Maybe I should study cooking.”

“Watch a youtuber or something,” Peter suggested. “Why don’t you look someone up while the pan heats?”

Kon dug his phone out and leaned against the cupboard to start typing. His brow furrowed. He seemed really into it, so Peter took over with the bacon and had everything plated. 

“Duuuude,” Kon said, when he finally looked up. His eyes were glazed over. Peter waited with one eyebrow quirked up. “This guy…” he trailed off. “Lookit him.” He shoved his phone in Peter’s face. “He’s cool,” Kon said fervently. 

Peter squinted. Kon had found a cooking streamer who was, like, jacked. He looked back at Kon to compare— the streamer was even more built. He was pretty handsome, too, with a square jaw and an obviously broken nose. He was gesturing passionately with chopsticks as he talked. It was on mute, so Peter didn’t know what it was about, but he was standing in front of a steaming pot. 

“I like his hair,” Peter said mildly. 

“Do you think I’d look good with a bleached streak like that?” Kon wondered. He ruffled his hair in the same spot as the streamer’s bleach. 

‘It’s probably some subculture thing, isn’t it? I don’t know what it means….’

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.

I do feel like I could do better by this piece. This bit was actually kind of meant to more be an outline of what I wanted - to get a bit more of a feel for the materials I was using (including some new-to-me watercolor pencils that I didn't get to do the watercolor part with) and frame out the scene a bit and just play. I didn't even finish coloring in Danny's clothes - Oops!

Unfortunately, some Real Busy Life Shit started happening in between dreaming this up and the submission deadline, so I didn't get to come back to this work. I was honestly just glad to have something I was still comfortable submitting to the game along with the other chaos i pulled for it.

I'm still working on said Real Busy Life Shit - but I hope to come back to this work again. I was honestly all blushy by the comments in the game chat when this work dropped - for those who don't know the game, works are shared anonymously and your fellow players try to figure out who submitted which work - and it felt really nice to have the honest effort I put into this praised even when all I was seeing were the ways it didn't hold up to any one else's work and how I wanted to make it better.

I'm still really pleased with how well I pulled off the word "fly" inside the bat symbol, despite it being intended as a "first attempt" though. That was really neat of me.