Reassembly 11
masterpost
Gotham was fine, actually. It turned out that not even Kon’s absent-but-hypercompetent neglectful family could fully furnish an apartment on no notice, but they had done something even weirder to the top two floors.
“Bought the building, knocked down walls, and just… made a new apartment,” Peter repeated. He turned in a slow circle around the eerily white, perfect space. Absolutely nothing had been done to decorate it yet. There were just clean, new walls, floors, and ceilings inside that dingy apartment building. The only thing that looked original was the stairwell that led up to a deceptively dingy doorway. The elevator shaft had been blocked off so that it ended below Kon’s double floor. Because Luthor wanted to make sure he had enough airspace to enjoy. Was that considerate or just weird?
“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 hummed and decided to dodge the question. “Uh, let’s eat.”












