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THEO WAS SHOVING A BAG OUT OF HIS BEDROOM WINDOW, HIS ROBIN SUIT ON AND HIS MIND SHARP AS A KNIFE. It was one of the main reasons why he was chosen to carry out the mission. He was laser-focused, barely having room in his head for distraction. He knew what he had to do and there was absolutely no one that could get in his way and stop him from seeing the task through to the end.
With how rigorous the training had been at C.A.M.P., no one was surprised—it was almost as good as its predecessors, the Winter Soldiers and the Black Widows. Several other programs had come in between them and the C.A.M.P, but they all fell away due to an unstable foundation. The discipline had been lacking within those programs, thus ending their short lives, but Theo could count the number of tiny scars that littered his body from all of the cuts he got.
He wore those cuts as little badges of honor, another trophy for his collection. The worst one he got was the one that crossed the bridge of his nose. While it had fully healed, it stung a little every now and again. Thankfully, the cut hadn't been too deep and his sense of smell hadn't been compromised—although it would've been fixed, anyway. Theo needed all of his five senses at their best if he wanted to do this right.
Strapping the bag onto his back, he shot his grappling gun into the night sky and waited for it to catch on the lip of the roof before beginning to scale the side of the apartment building and starting his stakeout for the little red and blue spider. "Robins eat spiders as part of their healthy, balanced diet," the instructor had said, ramming the mantra into the side of Theo's head as he was preparing for the very lengthy, twelve-step process to take Spider-Man out.
After the destruction the Vulture had caused upon New York, along with the damage he had left behind and the mess Spider-Man had failed to clean up, it was only right to take the masked vigilante out for good. After the Avengers incident in 2012 and the Accords that followed the incident in 2016, Vulture and Spider-Man were the last straw.
Theo remembered learning about the citywide law that took over Municiberg, Indiana in the seventies, the one that put a lot of heroes on a path to underground shadow work because of one Mr. Incredible and the railroad he had blown up. Having grown up in Municiberg, some of the effects still lingered, a still-withering fear, even though the heroes were safe to resume their duties out on the streets. But the Parr family had been relocated again and no one's seen them since.
When Theo first entered the C.A.M.P, he was twelve. He was just on the verge of starting to go through puberty—and a a slight emo phase. His voice was still squeaky in some pitches when he spoke, he stood at 5 feet, 5 inches and weighed about 135 pounds soaking wet. When he had started training, memory erasure had been a tragic part of the process. He had no real recollection of the events that had taken order in his life up until this moment. That way, his mind was theirs to play with and warp as they wished.
Theo had taken a different version of the Super Soldier Serum, one that had heightened his senses to their sharpest point and within a year of his physical strength training, his body fat percentage had dropped from 20 to 6 percent. He had quickly excelled, climbing up the ranks with ease and outdoing all the other C.A.M.Pers. He had been the first to be awarded the Robin suit, equipped with a toolbelt and a throwing knife in the shape of an R that sat neatly on his left pec. It had been the first step of many to prepare him for the mission he was currently embarking on.
When Theo finally reached the roof of the apartment building, he pulled out his map that had been marked up with several red circles where Spider-Man had last been seen, and from the looks of it, he was all over Queens. He then shoved his map back into his bag and began his nightly trek across the city.
Peter was a blur of red and blue as he swung from building to building, weaving and dodging his way throughout the city. He was unfortunately unable to feel the wind in his hair but the air conditioner built into his suit did keep him cool. It also alerted him of anything that was slightly threatening to him or the city that never slept, the things that were just the tiniest bit too far out for his spidey senses to reach. So when Karen went to set off the little alarms in his suit, Peter was quick to stick himself to the nearest wall and start climbing.
When he got to the top of the building, there stood the guy in the dark red, green, and gold suit—the one he had been running into for the last month. A golden R was emblazoned on one side of the suit and Peter wondered what it stood for. When he realized that the guy wasn't going to move, he spoke. "What, are you stalking me now?"
"I wouldn't call this stalking," the guy retorted, and by the tone of his voice, he sounded about the same age as Peter, but for some reason, he sounded cooler.
"This is literally stalking. If you were to give me a dictionary right now, I can guarantee you that there would be a picture of you next to the words 'stalking' and 'stalker'."
"Stalk," the guy piped up.
"What?" Peter questioned, eyeing him, his goggles focusing.
"The word wouldn't be 'stalking', it'd be 'stalk'."
"So you're admitting."
"I'm correcting."
"Aren't you getting tired of this cat and mouse game we've got going on? You've been following me around for a month now. What gives, dude?"
"Haven't you learned? You don't rush the process, you wait for everything to fall into place before taking action."
"Yeah, well, I've seen paint dry faster." Peter leapt at the mysterious figure, who was quick to dodge his attack, somersaulting out of the way. He threw a punch, sending Peter stumbling back for a little bit. When he regained his balance, there was a whooshing sound and the guy was gone. It had been like that for a while now—Peter would run into him on the roof of some random building, they'd bicker, they'd fight, and then the dude would disappear. It was a cycle of almost total nothingness, but he did say not to "rush the process", whatever the fuck that meant.
Peter had enough of all this waiting, he was getting tired of it. This time, he was going to take matters into his own hands. He was going to find out who this mysterious person was and why he wanted Peter's head on a stick all of a sudden.
✧˖*° ━━AUTHOR❜S NOTE
whoo ! second chapter complete ! peter on the other hand. . .
ne way, tell me what you thought ! i would love to hear it <3
