Spiderhead

In a Semi-Alternate Universe...

"They're going to be back any second," Dick warns to the group. "We need a game plan."

Tim just squints at Peter. "Can't you just break the bars?"

Peter considers it, but then shakes his head. "They're charged too high," he says ruefully, listening to the distinct sizzling sound from the electrically charged mettal. "I'd fry up, probably pass out before I can finish the job." The kidnappers Peter doesn't know who they are yet have actually thought somewhat far ahead.

Bruce scowls menacingly. It really is a predicament they've gotten into—every single one of the bat crew plus Peter, trapped in a cell by some bad guys who plan to unmask them publicly, live, on whatever channel they hacked into. No back up is coming for them now.

Peter wracks his brain, comes up with an idea, almost immediately scraps it. "I have a plan," he says slowly. "I don't know how well it'll work, but... just trust me. Let them come for me first."

"What are you planning?" Bruce growls, never one to be left out from scheming. Peter just stares at him blankly from the mask and flashes him a thumbs up.

When the masked men come, Peter makes a point to be as mouthy as possible. All it takes are a few too many fuck you's and also a few personal attacks to their fashion sense.

"Alright, you're first," the lead guy snarls, grabbing Peter by the handcuffs he can definitely break out of. He just has to wait for the right timing to catch them off guard.

They lead him to a chair, pretty much throwing him down before strapping it to him. He can hear the sharp, angry inhales coming from the peanut gallery in their cell, but he pays the bats no mind. Just focuses on doing something that he knows will leave his skin feeling itchy for weeks.

One of the henchmen turn the camera on, points it straight at Peter. he gives a little wave from where his hands are tied.

"Starting off our entertainment tonight is the Spider-Man," the lead guy sneers. He hunches over to Peter and threateningly grasps him by the jaw. "Are you prepared to be exposed, bug boy?"

"I've made my peace with it," Peter snarks. "Stop dancing around and just get it over with, buddy. You're boring me, and I'm hungry."

The guy thunders, socking him in the stomach to Batman's furious growl before gripping the edge of the mask from where it peaks out under the rest of his suit. Peter prepares himself.

The mask lifts over his head.

"WHAT THE FUCK?"

Peter's face is nonexistent, mass dissolving into an army of spiders that pour out of his body, spilling out of his suit, leaving it entirely empty. During the moment of sheer terror and confusion from the villains of the night, Peter sends a few of his spidery body parts to pick up the keys to the cell from where they've been dropped on the floor by the men in their eagerness to get the fuck away from Peter's consciousness scattered into several thousand spiders.

He carries the keys over to the cell, where the bats are watching in open-mouthed horror.

"Here you go," Peter says, using a fair amount of spiders to morph into a vague-humanoid shape, putting the key into the lock and turning it. A few of the spiders zap and die in the process, and Peter feels the pain acutely, like sharp needles in various points of his body. But the rest of him isn't all that affected.

The door swings open.

The fight is over before it even began.

Peter pulls his spider suit back on before morphing back into his own body.

"Eugh," he says, making a face. "I hate doing that."

Everyone is staring at him. Even Damian looks at him with an expression that goes past his usual disgust, and is just landing on terrified.

Peter distantly realizes that he's never quite mentioned this power to them.

He embarrassedly rubs the back of his neck. "Oh, did I forget to mention that I can turn into a body of spiders that have my consciousness?" It's rhetorical. He already knows he didn't tell them.

There's a long, heavy silence. Nobody's even paying attention to the unconscious bad guys who'd been minutes away from unmasking them earlier.

"Spider-Man," Bruce says, and his voice is uneven in the way that Batman's voice is never uneven. There's no growl at all. "What the fuck."