In The Web Of Gotham

Inspection

Selina came home and saw her little brother passed out on the sofa. With some of her cats laying on him to keep him company, all of which also being asleep.

"Aww. That's adorable. They're getting along," Selina said with a smile. She looked at the clock, seeing that it was midnight. She was out for 3 hours, and she looked at Peter's shift schedule. It started in an hour and a half today. She didn't want to disrupt Peter's sleep, so she went into the kitchen and started brewing him a cup of coffee. She's seen him go out as Peter Parker and not come back until near 3 in the morning due to him being Spider-Man.

He gets so tired, sometimes banged up all over his body that it sometimes hurts her to watch him leave with the suit on. Especially because now he's had his first actual run-in with Batman, which means it won't be the last time Batman butts heads with Spider-Man. She heard Peter stirring in the living room, the cats all jumping off of him and scattering throughout the apartment. She brought the fresh cup to him and gently handed it to him as he woke up.

"Hmm...hey Selina...how did dinner go?" He asked her immediately. Ignoring how he feels to ask how his sister's dinner date went.

"It went well. How are you feeling?" Selina asked as he carefully grabbed the cup and sipped at it slowly.

"Still a bit sore...other than that, mostly groggy," He replied as he sat up, sipping the coffee at a consistent rate.

"Nice nap?" Selina asked with a smile.

"Yeah. Thanks for the coffee," Peter nodded as he basically chugged the rest of the coffee cup and slowly started feeling the caffeine kick in to get his energy and awareness levels up. He quickly started putting the Spider-Man outfit on, perching onto the window sill as he put the mask on.

"Be careful Peter. Don't get in over your head with Batman," Selina warned him. Peter gave a nod before leaping from the window and start swinging from the lines of webbing that came from his wrist shooters. He made sure to avoid any of the direct lines of sight of anyone who could try and see him. He lands himself in the same alleyway he remembers from last night. He ducks down behind the dumpster to start changing back into Peter Parker the detective. Once he changed the clothing to hide his suit, he put the glasses on to finish the look.

Peter adopted the shy timidity he had established for himself as he walked down the parking ramp to the GCPD precinct. Once he walked in and clocked in to work, he was met with Commissioner Gordon holding the files he had compiled for Batman last night.

"Parker, I have a few questions for you about your theory," Gordon asked.

"Yes sir?" Peter asked him, looking through the files to see if something was wrong.

"How did you know that the business locations Spider-Man hit were fronts?" Gordon asked him. Peter fidgeted a bit, trying to think of a legitimate reason that could justify how he determined it.

"I just...noticed a pattern that all the locations were business that were either cash only....or had no business for months, yet still stayed open," Peter lied, making a legitimate reason to suspect some of the businesses weren't what they seemed.

"Ah. I see what you mean. Just to make sure though, I'm putting you with Bennett and Arrazio. They have the bulk of the charter information for you. The firms who own the buildings and the like," Gordon instructed Peter.

"Yes sir. Would you like me to cross reference the addresses on the charter papers with the locations from the files?" Peter asked.

"Yeah. If you can find that the locations match, then we can bring this to Batman and have him work his magic," Gordon said as Peter took the files and went to Officers Vincent Del Arrazio and Ethan Bennett. For the last few years, they've been investigating how many businesses large and small in Gotham are actually just large scale schemes to hide illegal activities from the eyes of the law. Hide illegal transactions under the guise of legitimate business.

"Hey Parker. Here's a stack of charter papers for businesses that we've had on our radar for a while. Just read the building's stresses and let us know if any match your mystery locations," Bennett explained to him briefly.

"Got it Ethan," Peter said as he started doing some rapid analytics. Comparing and contrasting addresses, sort out the addresses that matched for the ones that didn't. Spoiler alert, Peter noticed most of the addresses on the incident files match with a business that had been on the suspicion list. Once he sorted the piles out into matching the list and not matching, he started going to a bit if an extra mile. He started checking the business names, then checking to see which attorney firm the business was listed under. The idea is that if he can figure which firm has which businesses, then he can go do some detective work with these attorneys to dig some info out of them. Either as Peter Parker, or as Spider-Man.

"Wow, you work fast. Maybe you should help us with these sort of things all the time," Arrazio joked, in awe at how efficient Peter was at keeping his progress organized.

"I'm working towards going on field work later. Might not have time to sort businesses by attorney," Peter said with a shy but cold demeanor. As he made more edits to his notes to show Batman later, he also made a list onto his phone of the attorneys and the address of their firms. He made a mental decision that he would swing by them as Spider-Man, but submit the evidence as Peter Parker.

Bruce Wayne exited out of the Batmobile and walked to the Batcomputer, sitting in the chair as the computer pulled up every piece of information it could find about Peter Parker. His parents were Richard and Mary Parker, who were retired spies that did some investigations into dealings with the crimes families of Gotham. They found some information that should they have gotten it to the right avenues of authority, could put Sal Marone away for the rest of his life. Their relatives were Benjamin Parker, Richard's older brother who learned how to be humble and responsible as he married May Reily. Richard and Mary had Peter when they were 35, and Peter was only 5 when his family was all caught in a drive by shooting. Presumably by Marone, but no one could find any evidence to directly tie the murders to Marone.

"My god. That's quite the colorful family history. How did young parker survive?" Alfred asked in shock.

"When police found him, he was hiding behind a gazebo," Bruce said as he pulled up the police report of the Parker family massacre.

"Smart child. Strange that the spies weren't more aware. Seems like something that the child saw coming before hand," Alfred pointed out.

"That is strange. Perhaps something involving this...spider incident. A few weeks before his family's death, he was bitten by a spider that left him with an intense fever afterwards. Along with that, the day of his family's murder he had a splitting headache. Maybe that headache plays a role," Bruce said, letting the detective out of the cave. He was working in full capacity, because there's something he's missing. What about this headache has anything to do with a five year old Peter mysteriously knowing when something was about to go wrong?

His thoughts were cut off when Oracle called him, answering immediately.

"Talk to me, Barbara. What do you have on Spider-Man?" Bruce asked.

"I have him heading towards a...a law firm. I wonder why he's heading there," Oracle replied, sending the approximate coordinates of where Spider-Man seems to be heading.

"Well that's rather unusual. The vigilante going to a lawyer," Alfred remarked as Batman walked towards the car, inputting the coordinates into the Batmobile's GPS and letting the Batmobile plot its course as Batman began putting his suit on.

"Do be careful sir, there's only so many times to try and get the drop on Spider-Man," Alfred warned as the Batmobile peeled out of the Batcave and hit the road at full speed.