Chapter Text
Not even fifteen minutes after walking into the building, Peter was completely lost.
In his defense, Jameson had let him loose the moment they stopped inside.
“Go get some pictures of the place,” He ordered. “Anything that looks incriminating.”
He wasn’t really sure what he was getting pictures of (It was an office, not an evil lair. Not a ton of incriminating stuff laying around for him to photograph), but Peter didn’t want to risk ticking Jameson off on the first day of their trip. He set off deeper into the building, passing through the maze of cubicles and occasionally snapping a few pictures.
Peter kept walking; past the offices, the meeting rooms, the storage closets. He kept walking until he found himself in a… gym? Geez, these guys must be loaded.
The place was completely barren of people, all of its previous occupants probably busy with work. Different machines that Peter couldn’t even hope to name lined the walls. Well, there were some treadmills over there… some barbells scattered across the floor… and a squat rack with someone handcuffed to it.
Wait.
Peter did a double take, brown eyes meeting milky white as he registered the man across the room.
He was wearing a suit that seemed out of place given their location, but was pristine nonetheless. But, more pressingly, from the neck up he seemed to be a… bat? More pressingly, though, his right arm was sticking up in the air, his hand limp as it pulled against the chain keeping him in place.
“Wait, hang on, Boberto, I think I’m good,” The man said to… wait, who was he talking to? “Hey, could you, uh… lend a hand real quick?”
“Uh… yeah, sure,” Peter shook himself out of his stupor, crossing the gym floor to better assess the issue. “How did this even happen?” He mumbled, looking closer at the restraints.
“It’s… it’s a long story.”
“Yeah, ok,” In all honesty, Peter wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He messed around with the cuffs for a while, poking and prodding in the hopes that there would be some sort of weak spot he could utilize, but they just wouldn’t budge.
“Losing feeling in my hand,” The man sighed, turning his head to the side. “And not in a fun, kinky way,” He froze, then turned to Peter. “Uh… sorry. Earpiece.”
“No problem,” Peter huffed, noticing he was, in fact, wearing an earpiece. In fact, if he strained, he could almost make out the cacophony of voices over the line. “This… This isn’t working. Uh… hang on.”
Looking around to ensure that, yes, it really was just the two of them in the gym, Peter turned back to the handcuffs and grabbed them with both hands. In one swift movement, he yanked, and the chain fell to pieces.
The man stared at the floor for a moment as all the little links fell to the floor, then looked up to face Peter. “That’s gotta be a cool party trick.”
Robert felt like up until this point, things were going pretty good.
The reporter was… abrasive, to say the least, but it seemed like she had things handled until the man sauntered up to him at the leaderboard.
“So, you’re the one running this shitshow,” He said, crossing his arms as he took a look of his own at the rankings. “So far, this program seems a lot less like rehabilitation and a whole lot more like SDN letting a bunch of criminals loose on the streets.”
Clenching his fists at his sides, Robert turned to face him. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember the guy's name despite Blazer’s briefing just before she talked to him. Jackson? James? Jenkens?
Whatever his name was, he was starting to get on Robert’s nerves, which was honestly pretty impressive as they hadn’t even been talking for a minute.
“Yeah, well, it’s a work in progress,” He gritted out. If he squinted close enough, he could just barely make out the name on the guy’s press pass. J Jonah Jameson, and wasn’t that a mouthful?
Well, at least he’d been close.
“A ‘work in progress’ that’ll get people killed,” Jameson argued, lips pulled taut in a smug smile that Robert very much wanted to punch off the guy's face.
“Robert!” Chase’s voice came from behind him, a hand landing on his shoulder. “One of your team members is in need of assistance.”
Ignoring Jameson’s huff of laughter beside him, Robert followed Chase back to the desks, frown deepening when he heard the clack of the reporter’s fancy shoes behind him. He sat down in his chair and rolled up closer to the desk, throwing his headset on as he watched the blinking red outline of Sonar’s icon. With a few clicks, he was looking at Sonar’s exact location, and he was…
In the gym?
“Sonar, you alright?” He asked, ignoring Jameson looming over him, casting a shadow on the keyboard. “Why are you sending a distress call when you haven’t left the building?”
“Could you… send a locksmith downstairs?” The man asked, ears drooping in embarrassment.
“What happened?” He prodded further, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Chase managed to shoo Jameson away, hopefully to go bug someone else for a while.
“Coop seduced me.”
Robert had to resist the urge to facepalm at the situation as Coop’s breathy chuckle sounded over the line.
“No, I said ‘Wanna see something cool’,” she corrected. “And then handcuffed you to a squat rack.”
“But you said it with a hot voice, so I assumed it was boobs.”
Distantly, Robert wondered if it was too early to just go home for the day.
He pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh instead. “Okay, team, I know Blazer mentioned someone’s getting cut, but don’t let that distract you from-”
“Wait, hang on Boberto, I think I’m good.” Sonar interrupted. Pulling up the Gym security footage again, Robert squinted at a shadowy figure at the far end of the gym as it approached his subordinate.
“That’s- ok, whatever. Moving on.”
Maybe Robert should’ve listened to his gut and stayed home that morning.