CH 2 of "Spider-Man: Homesickness" is out now
Read the whole thing on AO3 here
Rating: M
Chapter word count: 9k
Summary: 5 years after the events of Liberty Island and Dr. Strange's spell, Peter's carefully stitched-together life turns upside down.
(I would recommend reading ch 1 first, but you do you)
So excited to start my new job at Oscorp! Wish me luck! #movingonup #canibetheguyinthechairnow
What?
Fuck.
No!
Peter’s frozen. There’s no way.
But that’s the thing, there is a way. There are an infinite number of universes kind of way. And more importantly, there is this universe’s way.
How could he have been so stupid?
Why did he never think to see if Norman Osborn existed here? If there are multiple Peter Parkers, and multiple Spider-Mans, then it only makes sense that there are multiple Osborns. Multiple Green Goblins.
Fuck.
A sharp sting wrenches him back to himself, and he realizes that he’s bitten a chunk out of his bottom lip. He can taste the coppery blood welling up from the wound.
His chest is tight. Is he breathing? It doesn’t feel like it. His head is full of cotton.
He slams his palm into the center of his chest and the thudding pain seems to get his lungs back online. Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Breathe out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. And again. And again.
With shaky hands, Peter pulls up his phone and searches for any information on Oscorp that he can find.
The first thing that comes up is a news article from Science Today dated 2 weeks ago, congratulating Oscorp on the relocation and expansion of its head office to New York City, which was previously located in Washington, DC. DC? He was in DC?? That feels like eons ago. Another lifetime. If only he’d known he would have-
What? He would have done what?
Nothing, because at the time he wouldn’t have known a thing.
No one knew what was to come.
He shakes himself and continues reading.
“Oscorp Industries has rapidly become one of the leading corporations in the country related to technological manufacturing and distribution over the last decade, following Tony Stark’s retirement from Stark Industries and eventual passing. While Stark Industries, now run by Stark’s Widow, Virginia Potts-Stark, is still considered number 1 in the US, Norman Osborn, CEO and founder of Oscorp Industries seems determined to surpass Stark.
“Hiring over 2000 new employees just in the last month, the company’s expansion has skyrocketed its stock prices and has brought a wealth of fresh industry to our fine Manhattan. The public should be keeping their eyes peeled for what scientific marvels we’ll be seeing soon.”
So he is here, the menace. And he’s working on unknown technology unsupervised? Unchecked?
Absolutely not.
What had Peter-2 said about him, from before, in his universe? He created his own gear. He knew who Peter-2 was and had a vendetta against Spider-Man.
In this world, if he’s still a tech genius, and if Oscorp is beginning to rival Stark Industries, then there’s no telling what kind of gear he could be carrying on him. What if he has access to nanotech? What if he knows who Peter is here?
There are just too many possibilities. Peter has to investigate, and now.
Fuck, Ned.
He’s working there. He’s helping him. There’s no way he knows what Oscorp is truly getting into.
He has to make sure Ned is safe.
The article does not list an address, but it does show a picture of a new building. A new building under renovation that Peter swung by just a few days ago and recognizes instantly from the photo. Like lighting, he’s off and swinging across the city, urging the muscles in his arms and shoulders to take him there as fast as possible.
He’s wire-tight and ready to snap. He cannot let that monster out into his New York, not again.
He also knows that Osborn hated Spider-Man in his universe. He hated Peter Parker too, but Peter’s banking that he’s done enough in the last few years to stay out of the limelight and not make any enemies as Peter. As Spider-Man, though. He has several.
As much as it pains him to go in without relying on his powers, perhaps this is a mission for Peter more than Spider-Man.
Oh, JJ would love to see the day Spider-Man got caught breaking and entering.
Peter lands on a rooftop a few blocks away from Oscorp, and what timing he has. They’re just in the middle of lifting the massive new neon sign to the front of the building stating Oscorp Industries.
Well, that’s subtle.
Peter scans the streets in front of him until he recognizes one of the buildings. There’s a Greek restaurant he loves, and he happens to know that their bathroom has a high window that they keep open and unlocked, because no one could realistically climb up to use it. Well, no one, unless they had superhuman spider powers.
Peter crawls his way down the side of the building’s wall, and after a quick glance to make sure it’s empty, slips himself through and jumps softly to the ground.
The worn-down single-stall bathroom has chipped tiles and an irritatingly buzzy lightbulb, but it’ll do in a pinch. He locks the door from the inside and gets to work throwing his clothes on just like this morning. He thought that it couldn’t get any hotter than it already was in the oppressive July heatwave, but he was wrong. This tiny, tiled room seems to trap humidity. Peter really doesn’t want to think about why that might be.
He makes his way quickly through the tables and out the front door of the restaurant before any of the staff register he’s even there. The streets are just as busy now as they were this morning, but they also part around him just as well.
He spends a few minutes circling the building, trying to find the best way in. It’s days like today that he misses having Karen around, but these days he runs a bit more old-school.
Eventually, he finds an unlocked service exit that’s been propped open by someone. Maybe someone moving furniture in? He waits and times his entrance for when the area is clear.
Once inside, this area looks basic, like any office building. This floor has soft cream linoleum and bare white walls, and he passes rows and rows of empty offices, most of which have bare name placards. He goes to turn a corner and reflexively tips back again behind the wall. Peering carefully, he can see that the hallway curving to the left quickly becomes a large open entry room, with an imposing security desk between Peter and the massive row of glass doors at the front of the building.
A security guard sits at the desk with his back turned to Peter. He’s a broad-shouldered man, who seems more than a little bored. Thankfully some good luck for Peter.
He very carefully creeps down the hall in the opposite direction, following as it curves out of view. After a dozen or so more empty offices, he pushes into a room and closes the door behind him.
He was hoping that the computer would have some information about the company and what they’re doing here, but these empty offices still have factory default computers. There are no additional programs installed, no web browser history, and no interesting files.
Damn.
Peter eventually finds a stairwell at the junction of another few hallways and he’s starting to realize how much of a maze this place might be. In the stairwell, the placard says that there are 27 stories and 3 basement levels. While the basement levels might be holding some interesting things, it might also just be a parking garage. A lot of high-rise buildings around here are built that way, and with the construction workers in the main loading bay out front, Peter isn’t sure he can avoid all of them in an open garage.
After a moment’s deliberation, he decides to go up. Those levels could be everything. Anything.
He takes the stairs two at a time, deciding to start somewhere in the middle of the building.
One of these floors has to have some useful information.
~X~
Seven uselessly explored floors later, two dodged office workers, and one narrow escape into an empty conference room, and Peter is rather frustrated. There has got to be something here. It just doesn’t make sense that someone like Osborn could be a diabolical, murdering monster in one universe and a boring, bland CEO in the other. There’s no way.
He’s got to be hiding it somewhere. Maybe he uses Oscorp as a front? Maybe he keeps it in his home? That might take some extra research.
“…nium chloride wouldn’t set off the fire alarms, sir, even in large quantities. They’re just not designed for it. There had to be something else.”
Oh, Peter would know that voice anywhere. Ned. He’s talking to someone in an office down the hall, with a cracked open door and a large viewing window facing the hallway. Peter creeps his way forward, keeping low to stay out of sight of the window.
“Leeds, I understand that you’re new and you want to help, but you’re not being paid to investigate a faulty fire alarm. Leave it to security. Or facilities. Whoever’s job it actually is.” A gruff, slender man with a full beard is sitting, leaning back in a rolly chair that looks like it might topple any minute. Peter edges forward a bit further until he can see Ned’s face.
Ned looks just like his photo, professional and put together, with a fresh haircut and a clean shave. “I get it, I shouldn’t take on more than my job description on the first day.”
“Damn right. You’re here to make sure all these new employees have tech functioning the way it’s supposed to. That’s it.”
Peter gets a shiver down his spine. He ignores it. It’s cold in this empty building.
Ned’s face is pinched as he says, “I know, I just feel like there’s something fishy going on. Either the fire alarms that were put in aren’t standard issue, or something else happened. There’s no way that-”
“Hey!” A voice cuts in from behind Peter. His head snaps around and he sees the security guard from the front desk, standing at the end of the hallway Peter just came from.
Shit.
Peter stands up and bolts down the hall, sparing one last glance over his shoulder at the conversation he was listening to. At Ned. And Ned is staring back, with a quizzical look on his face. Double Shit.
Peter makes it around the nearest corner just as he hears the security guard’s footsteps start thundering after him. “Get back here, punk!”
Well, his look certainly isn’t doing him any favors now.
He runs down another hallway and into unknown territory, ducking and weaving through a series of cubicles in an open floor plan, and slamming through a doorway at the end just as the guard enters the room behind him. Left. Right. Right. Left. Left. He sprints down the sprawling corridors with no regard for where they lead.
Peter comes face-to-face with a different door to a stairwell and launches at it, shoving open the safety bar and barreling down the staircase as quickly as possible. He makes it down four flights before the guard bursts into the stairwell behind him, but the guard continues to call after him. As much as he would love to sling a web and dive down the open center column in the stairwell, it would only do more harm than good toward the whole secret identity thing, so he keeps running.
Eventually, he hits the bottom floor and bursts out of the emergency exit, setting off a blaring alarm that echoes as he stumbles on the gravel outside and takes off running around the corner and down the street.
Five minutes later, once he’s sure that he’s ducked around enough streets and the security guard has long since stopped chasing, Peter finally stops. He drops, right where he is on the curb and kicks at the sidewalk, cracking it under the force.
How could he have been so stupid? He got reckless, hung up on seeing his fri- his former friend, and stopped paying attention to his surroundings.
Now they’ll go back and check the security footage for sure. If he’d been in and out without notice, they probably would never have bothered. This is going to make everything so much harder when he takes on Osborn. He’ll need proof. Undeniable proof.
And Ned. Fuck, he let Ned see him. He’d been so careful over the years to make sure that never happened and it all went out the window in an instant.
If he did make his way back into Oscorp, he’d have to make doubly sure to steer clear of Ned. What floor was that? 14? 16? He’d gotten so turned around and lost track. All the levels look the same, blurring together in his memory.
His eyes sting with the wave of frustration he refuses to let bubble over. He pulls at the sleeve of his jacket and rubs it over his eyes, holding pressure for a moment as he breathes. Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Breathe out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. And again. And again. Sweat drips down the back of his neck, sticky and uncomfortable, but grounding and here nonetheless.
So maybe not all is lost. He now knows some things about how the building is laid out. He can go home and research more about Oscorp, more about Osborn. Maybe he can even find his home address, and do a little reconnaissance there.
He’s overdue for a new hair color, this just proves that it’s time. Anything to keep himself off their radar.
He groans, stretching his shoulders and back as he climbs to his feet, feeling somehow both boneless and wound tight at the same time. The sun is beginning to set over the horizon, tinging cars and windows in a peach-colored glow. It’s pretty. Office workers are changing over into the night crowd. Restaurants are starting to bustle with the dinner rush.
This is his city, and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep it safe.
He stands there for a minute, watching the people and cars zoom by. Closing his eyes, he tries opening his other senses to his surroundings. The smell of exhaust lingers, as it always does at street level, and sweet cinnamon sugar wafts toward him from the churro vendor on the corner. A slight breeze picks up from the east, wafting over his face pleasantly. Harmless chatter washes over him from passersby.
“…telling her that she needs to talk to an adult when these things happen. She can’t just kick a classmate…”
“… believe it! I mean, 12 bucks for a sandwich? A sandwich! It’s high…”
“… told me that you’ve been spending more than a little time with Jess. Care to explain…”
“…no way. I’m done for. I could only finish, like, half the questions before the bell. Mom is so going…”
“…don’t know what you’re missing out on! Did I mention that the Harry Osborn is our guitarist!”
What?
Peter’s head snaps around towards the voice, where a petite girl - barely a high schooler, he suspects - is being not so gently ushered out of the front door of the business behind him and onto the sidewalk. The building looks to be some sort of bar & grill, with an open patio that is still packed away for the day.
The man ushering her out doesn’t seem to notice him, or maybe he doesn’t care. He has a crusty apron tied around his waist and rather forcefully pushes at the girl’s shoulder until she stumbled backward out from under the canopy. “I don’t know who that is and I don’t care. Go find some other chump to sell your story to, and don’t come back here until you have an actual album,” he says with a grunt.
“We’re working on our album thankyouverymuch,” she says in a huff. Righting herself and straightening her askew sleeve, she glares up at him, despite the foot difference in height. “And how can you not know? His name is on the fucking building down the street!” She gesticulates wildly, in a vague approximation of the direction Peter just came from.
So Norman has a brother? Or maybe a kid? Either way, maybe this is a way in.
He looks her over. She has short blonde hair that is shaved down one side, with a stripe of pink and blue dye. Her ripped jeans look more fashionable than well-worn, and she clutches a crumpled paper in her hand, looking for all the world like she wants to strangle this man, but is taking it out on the paper instead.
“Like I said, kid, I don’t know and I don’t care.” Without remorse, the man slams the door in her face, and Peter hears a deliberate click of the lock snapping into place.
“Eugh, asshole!” She whirls around with a frustrated scream, before coming face to face with Peter. With wide eyes, her frustration slips from her face, and her cheeks tinge pink. “Sorry you had to hear that.”
“Seems like that guy was a right dick.”
She barks out a laugh, high and tinselly, “Yeah no kidding. Not the first time though.”
Peter can’t help but grin just a bit. “You regularly deal with large men shoving you out of their place of business? Sounds like you might need to work on your sales tactics, Girl Scout.”
“People tend to underestimate me.”
“Teenagers don’t generally hold a lot of respect in the public eye, and high school bands aren’t usually any good. That’s part of the schtick.”
She pouts at him, honest-to-god pouts. “I’m not in high school. I’m 19. And we’re actually pretty good if I do say so myself.”
“Hmm,” Peter, “alright, I’ll bite. Tell me about it?”
She immediately launches into an explanation of genre and themes using terms that Peter has never heard of before, but he tries to keep up. Something about Bubblegum Pop meets 90s grunge. At some point, she starts talking about shoes. Someone named Ariel Bloomer inspires their singer. It seems like something rock-like, maybe? Perhaps Peter really has been out of the pop-culture loop recently.
“…and we play at Drifters every Tuesday and Thursday, but they don’t pay us because apparently ‘exposure’ is as good as.” She brings her hands up for exaggerated air quotes. “I want to get us more gigs, more paid gigs, but no one wants to listen to me. And, Mary’s been busy with her job and Harry’s move has put our album recording on hold, so that leaves just me to try.”
Harry’s move, huh? Might be related to the new Oscorp.
Maybe he should pay this guy a visit.
“You said you play at Drifters on Tuesdays, yeah? So you’ll be playing tomorrow?”
She lights up, smoothing her wrinkled paper across her knee before passing it over to Peter. “Yeah, we play after I get out of class. There’s a front door fee, but I could probably get you a ticket if you want.”
He looks over the wrinkled page. It’s got a photo showcasing the girl, bracketed by a taller, dark-haired guy and a curvier, red-headed girl, all smiling broadly. Across the bottom is says “Light Failure, Drifters, 7:00 PM, $8 pre-sale/$10 door”. The place isn’t too far out of his way, all things considered.
He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture before handing it back to her. “Sounds fun, and I’ve got nothing better to do on a Tuesday night. I’m Peter, by the way,” he says as he holds his hand out for her to shake.
“Gwen,” she says simply. She looks him up and down, briefly. “I think you’ll fit right in.”
“Oh?” He can’t help the surprise in his voice.
“Yep,” she pops the ‘p’ at the end of the word.
He waits, but she doesn’t elaborate, just watching him with an amused twinkle in her eye. Peter feels a bit like a bug under a microscope.
“Okay, short stack, I really should skedaddle.” He pauses, looking her over, “Are you gonna be ok getting yourself home?”
She laughs again, “Oh don’t you worry, I can take care of myself.” With a skip in her step, she starts down the sidewalk, walking backward as she says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Peter.” She then turns the corner and disappears from view, while Peter can hear her steps fading into the rest of the city’s soundscape.
Peter is left feeling, for all the world, like he’s on the outs of an inside joke.
~X~
Peter considers patrolling that night, but his heart isn’t really in it. Instead, the long and monotonous trip back home via public transit leaves him with time to think. To plan.
There are a lot of unanswered questions swirling through his head, a lot of loose threads and uncertainties. He is still mulling it over as he turns his apartment key in its lock, pushes through the creaky front door that never closes quite right, and flicks on the light.
And all those thoughts promptly leave the building as he jumps out of his skin.
“Fucking hell!”
“That never gets old.” Director Fury sits, with an edge of a smirk on his face, in Peter’s desk chair. He leans back casually with his fingers steepled in front of him, calculating.
Peter hasn’t seen him since everything that happened in Europe. He’s not even entirely sure how much of Fury he saw and how much was… well.
But if he’s here, he wants something. He shouldn’t know who Peter is, but if anyone is going to figure some things out, it would be him. Which would be bad. Very bad.
Peter needs to play this carefully.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Peter tries to push a note of fear and confusion into his voice.
Fury stands, commanding the room like he owns the place. “Director Nick Fury, SHIELD. You and I have a lot to discuss, Peter.” His voice twinges on the name, like he’s making a point.
Peter shuts the door behind him, hoping to keep out any prying eyes or ears. He can see where this is going, but he still has to try. Maybe a new tactic, then. “SHIELD, huh? Is there a CASTLE and a KNIGHT as well? How about a DRAGON, AXE, or SWORD?”
Fury’s eyes narrow at him, “Cut the crap. The deflection’s cute, but pointless. You were a difficult kid to track down, but even bugs leave footprints. Don’t they, Spider-Man?”
Shit. Okay, this day was gonna come eventually. At least Fury seems to be under the impression that they’ve never met, like this anyway. That means 2 things; it really was Fury who gave him the EDITH glasses, and Strange’s spell is still intact and operational, or, they really haven’t met before. Either way, he can work with this.
He casually tosses his bag the remaining few feet from him to his bed and walks to the kitchen sink, pouring a glass of water from the tap. “How’d you figure it out?”
“We have our sources.”
“Which are?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Peter sets the empty glass down on the counter. “What do you want, Director?”
“First, I want to know how a kid like you somehow became more untraceable than a Black Widow, while simultaneously swinging around in a blue and red gimp suit?”
“Untraceable? Director, you flatter me. I’m just living my life, doing what I can, when I can, to help out the little guy.”
“Yes, let’s talk about that life for a minute.” Fury pulls out a manilla folder with a handful of pages from a briefcase sitting on Peter’s desk and flips through them casually. “Pietrovich “Peter” Strakar, Age 22, is a refugee from Sokovia who arrived here at just 8 years old with no family and no legal record. A child who somehow managed to fly completely under the radar, lost in the bureaucracy of our system during the chaos of the Blip. A child who only filed for legal identification after turning 18. A child who, over 10 years, was never once picked up by CPS or the police, and somehow managed to stay housed, fed, and alive on his own during that entire time. Who now, after everything, works for pennies at The Daily Bugle selling Spider-Man videos. Am I getting that right?”
Peter shrugs, “Your point?”
He snaps the folder closed. “My point is that Pietrovich Strakar doesn’t exist. That much is obvious. Hell, Spider-Man was blipped, and as talented as you are, you couldn’t have faked that. So who are you?” He rubs across his forehead, smoothing the furrowed lines there.
What is he getting at? Peter knows his story has more holes than Swiss Cheese, but a few well-placed tears in front of the right social worker’s desk and he’d gotten his foot in the door. His faked backstory would never have been a spot on SHIELD’s radar by itself. So why now?
“I’m just Peter. Now what do you actually want?”
Fury is a stoic man, who doesn’t give much away, but Peter’s hearing picks up a slight increase in his heart rate. He’s annoyed, maybe stressed. Either way, Peter knows he has the upper hand if he can play his cards right.
“Fine, keep your secrets, just Peter. Regardless of your past, you do good work. And Tony Stark trusted you, which makes you at least somewhat competent in my book. He must’ve had his reasons for recruiting you, and for taking you with him on the Q-ship that crashed into Titan.”
Peter quirks an eyebrow. It’s been a long time since anyone has referred to him and Tony Stark in the same sentence, and it settles a funny feeling in his chest.
Fury continues, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Avengers are scattered. We have reason to believe that there is a need for Earth to have a united front against any intergalactic threats that may be on their way, and most of the original Avengers are out of commission.”
“You mean dead.”
“Or retired.”
“So you’re here to recruit me for your little propagandized militia again? No, no way.” There was a time when being an Avenger was the greatest honor Peter thought he would ever get, but that was before… everything. Sure, if another world-ending threat came at Earth, he would fight with the best of them, but he can’t abandon the city to go gallivanting off into other galaxies. Not again. “I had my reasons for working with Mr. Stark before, and those reasons died with him.”
“With SHIELD on your side, we could make sure that your… history gets officially approved. All legal identification would be provided for you, along with a salary as compensation for your work.”
Ah, that was the angle.
“No.”
Fury better not put his paperwork on hold over this. Peter’s not sure where he would go from there, but he would figure something out. He always does. It’s not the leverage Fury seems to think it is.
“Your skills would be an asset that we could really use, and you can’t really-”
“I said no.” Peter cuts him off, and he can see a vein twitch in Fury’s forehead. “Go recruit Strange or Danvers or something. You already have a new Captain America to be your frontman, you don’t need another small-time enhanced vigilante.”
“Tony Stark, for all his recklessness and chauvinism, always backed the Avengers. He stepped up to the plate and did what Earth needed when it counted. He would want you-”
“Don’t tell me what he would want!” Peter is shouting now, fuck this. Fury has no right to come into his apartment and start spouting nonsense about what Mr. Stark would have wanted. Peter knows exactly what he would have wanted.
He doesn’t want to think about why that strikes a nerve so badly.
After a moment, he breathes deep and slow before saying, “Leave. Now.”
Fury buckles up his briefcase, looking rather unperturbed, but Peter can feel that this isn’t over.
“You’re going to regret this, Peter. Call me, when you change your mind.” He sets a small card down on Peter’s desk before walking towards the door. There’s a glassy look growing over his eyes that’s become all too familiar to Peter over the years.
“I doubt that.”
“You’ll need us as much as we need you.” Fury pauses as he pulls open the creaking front door, and calls over his shoulder, “The life of a vigilante, of a good vigilante, is lonely.”
The door shuts behind him with a groan.
Fuck.
~X~
There is green everywhere. Or blue.
Peter isn’t entirely sure what the color is, to be honest.
He’s thrown together the last bits of every green, blue, purple, and black hair dye bottle he has. It can’t wait. He needs the change today, so he’s working with what he has. He needs something to cover the fading orange without requiring another round of bleach.
If he does have the chance to go back to Oscorp to look around, it’ll hopefully be just the edge he needs to stay off their radar.
In the end, the color ends up somewhere in the area between emerald, navy, and inky black.
It certainly does the job of covering up his previous peachy color, but it also manages to cover most of his bathroom as well. Spots of dark color are flecked all over his walls and sink, and the bottom of his tub looks like someone has broken a fountain pen in it.
He feels like he’s usually not this messy, but the faded splotches of various other colors from the past few years say otherwise.
Whatever. If it’s a problem, Mr. Ditkovitch can’t do much about it anyway. He’s not living here strictly legally, and that’s how both he and Mr. Ditkovitch like it.
It’s hard to rent a place and undergo a background check when you have no background. Or credit history. Or ID.
Anyway.
He shakes a hand through the damp hair, ruffling the curls in an attempt to get them to dry faster. He left the top and sides long still; it keeps people from looking too closely at his face. But now, the back and edges are clipped clean again, which should help with the summer heat.
He’s got the NYPD dispatch playing from his phone, idly keeping an ear out.
“…Stacy en route, 10-53 located on 81st & Broadway, vehicle blocking traffic, no major injuries reported…”
He flops backward onto his dark sheets, enjoying the breeze coming through the window. He’s got most of the day to himself, until the music show tonight. He really needs to make more Web Fluid, but that will have to wait until later, after the university is empty for the night.
It’s as good a time as any to finish work on editing some of those Spider-Man ‘candids’ he shot yesterday morning. He tried to start in on it last night, but his head was swimming too much to make any real progress.
“…Richards reporting for the 10-90 on Johnson Avenue…”
His muscles groan at him as he peels himself up off the bed. The graze across his shoulder is completely gone now, with just the faintest white line of a scar where it once bled. Even still, though he’s perfectly healed, he feels tired. He probably hasn’t been eating as much as he should, but after the next set of photos, he should be able to afford some things.
Rent is coming up though.
Well, he’ll have to see.
“…folow up on 65th Avenue. It’s a 10-17 false alarm. Will…”
Okay, alright. Time to work. He settles down into his desk chair and gets started. A few shots need some background elements removed, the video footage is a little shaky and needs stabilization. One photo looks fantastic, showcasing Spider-Man backflipping through the air over the city skyline, but a stray pigeon flew between the camera and the shot, blocking his foot. He spends quite a while reconstructing that from other photos.
Some might say that he shouldn’t edit things as much as he does, but it makes JJ happy, and it’s purely artistic anyway, no harm done.
He knows how much damage editing can do in the wrong hands.
Best to keep himself as the prime photographer, then at least he has some control. Then he knows the extent of the situation. And JJ never cares anyway, he takes it all at face value.
“… got a 10-66 Eastbound on Linden Boulevard. 3 overturned vehicles due to a ground-level explosion. Witnesses report four individuals fleeing the area, followed by an enhanced individual. Might be Spider-Man out of his suit, but witness reports suggest otherwise. 10-85 we need all units…”
What?
Shit, what is it ‘Gretchen’ had said the other day? Something about a sidekick? Is someone out there impersonating him or something?
With a quick save of his files, Peter is up and pulling on the suit as fast as possible. He hates wearing the mask when his hair is damp, but he really doesn’t have an option at the moment. Linden Boulevard isn’t too far, but it’s certainly no skip around the park. He’s going to have to have to be quick if he wants to catch them before they disappear.
~X~
The first thing Peter sees upon reaching Linden Boulevard is the aforementioned overturned vehicles. There are two sedans flipped upside down and one unmarked van toppled on its side. From the scrapings on the ground, it looks like some sort of explosion emanated outwards and blasted the vehicles away.
Great.
Peter pushes the small button hidden on the insignia on his chest and his drone whirrs to life. When it’s floating in front of him, he double-taps his earpiece and enunciates, “Automatic track and capture video, stealth mode 1.” The device shifts, lifting higher in the air to record from a distance.
Peter can hear a series of sirens in the distance, racing down the street, and urges his muscles to swing faster to catch up. He passes a series of smashed cars, broken streetlights, and confused onlookers as he goes.
Scanning the roads as he blurs past, he doesn’t note any major injuries among the bystanders. That’s good. Seems like someone was looking out for them, or they got incredibly lucky.
The sirens are closer now, as he swings closer to the screeching police cars. Further down the boulevard, he can hear a faint explosion, followed by a series of faint popping noises. It’s not quite the sound of snapped steel cables, but it’s similar. There better not be another collapsing building. He hates dealing with collapsing buildings.
He can hear the whir of a smaller engine amongst the cars, maybe a motorcycle? The commotion turns a corner up ahead and he swings in a wide arc to follow.
Peter has to let go of his web and rapidly drop down at the last second to avoid smacking face first into… a dumpster? He launches out another web at the last minute and shoots himself sideways, landing on the side of a building about three storeys up.
Next to him is a city dumpster, hanging in the middle of the air, strung up by a network of webbing not unlike his own.
He plucks a finger at the white web and it reverberates with a twang, the dumpster bobbing up and down precariously. The tensile strength of this webbing is less than his own, maybe 75% if he had to guess, but it seems more elastic and lighter weight than his as well.
Interesting.
Now that he’s been forced to pause, he can see both behind and ahead of him are a series of webs, presumably from this copycat. Some are obviously from swinging between buildings, but others are holding up objects that have been launched from the ground or knocked off rooftops.
Peter leaps off the building in a reinvigorated pursuit. Whoever this is, they can’t be left unchecked. Spider-Man really doesn't need another hit to his reputation.
A moment later, Peter swings himself around another corner and comes face to face with a three-way standoff.
In the middle of a major intersection, a similar van to the one left behind is stopped, with two visibly popped tires and a cracked windshield. Four masked men stand here using the van as cover, all looking like they used Barney as inspiration for their Pinterest Board. Peter snorts to himself, before shaking his head to bring him into focus.
The first man has a large, glowing gauntlet across his right arm. He has a metallic mask over the lower half of his face, imprinted with a devious grin of sharp teeth, but his brow is furrowed in anger. Grumpy.
The second man has some kind of automated machine gun in his hands, with a long ammunition belt wrapped around his shoulder and chest. He gesticulates wildly over the scene before him, without a care for the civilians caught in his aim, all with a maniacal laugh. Happy.
Happy? Man, he really needs to work on how he picks his nicknames.
The third man has a string of curved blades strapped to his hip, but the way his hands twist over them shows a level of anxiety the others don’t have, a level of incompetence the others don’t have. His mask is more of a helmet than a mask, obscuring everything. Dopey.
The fourth wears a long and heavy overcoat over a glistening metallic armor, no doubt sweltering in the July heat. His mask covers his whole face with a thin fabric, not unlike Peter’s own. Doc.
It’s this last man who captures Peter’s attention the most. He’s leaning heavily against the side of the busted van, with a motorcycle overturned at his feet. He has no visible weapons and seems calm, in contrast to the other three.
Calm is intelligent. Calm is resourceful. Calm is dangerous.
A police barricade has pulled up on two sides of the intersection, with dozens of officers hesitant and waiting. The two groups are at a standoff - neither one making the first move.
A crowd of people lingers behind the intersection. If they had any sense, the citizens of New York would have learned by now to run in the other direction, but they’re rather desensitized to danger after all these years of villain-and-calamity after villain-and-calamity.
And across the intersection, climbing up the side of a building, is the copycat.
They’re small, slender, and wearing… is that a Halloween costume? It looks to be a cheap lycra Spider-Man costume, probably a size or two too small, with a blue so vibrant it almost hurts his eyes. And they’ve got chunky sneakers on their feet, no less.
The way they’re climbing the building certainly is like him. Is it possible that there’s more than one radioactive spider out there? More than one Spider-Man? He wouldn’t wish this life, this isolation, on his worst enemy. There’s no need for someone else to join him.
One is more than enough.
He can handle it. Alone.
Peter swings down from his perch and lands atop a traffic light, making sure he’s right in the middle of everyone’s view. “Looks like you went and started the party without me, and here I thought I was the guest of honor.” This is a delicate balance, not knowing exactly what their tech is capable of. He needs to stall, to make them comfortable before he can pounce.
He makes eye contact with Officer Davis, tucked behind a car door, with his walkie in one hand and pistol in the other. Davis nods, and Peter knows that he has control for a moment.
Happy looks at Peter with a manic sort of grin and says, “Itsy-Bitsy’s come out to play, how cute. And here we thought you were going to let your little sidekick die in your place.” He waves the gun around in his hands as he talks, gesturing to where Peter’s copycat is perched.
“Oh, that one’s not mine. Not sure where they came from, but I can assure you that I work alone.”
“So you won’t mind if I…” He aims the gun upwards at the copycat and fires a streak of bullets.
The copycat barely manages to dodge out of the way with a high-pitched shout, dusty craters from the bullet holes left in their wake.
Doc snaps, “Fenn! I think you’ve done enough.”
“I’m just getting started,” Happy replies.
Something about Doc’s voice rattles at the back of Peter’s memory, but now really isn’t the time to think about it.
“Eyes on me, pretty boy.” Peter launches a web at the gun to try to yank it out of the man’s hand, but his friend with the gauntlet, Grumpy, pulls him out of the way before it hits his mark. “No one here needs to get hurt.”
Dopey squeaks at this, pressing his back against the wall of the van. Happy slams his free hand on Dopey’s chest to quiet him.
“Let us go and no one will,” says Doc at the same time as Happy says, “But that’s no fun, is it, Spider-Man?”
Doc still hasn’t moved. Instead, he’s been surveying the landscape, waiting, and that makes Peter nervous.
What is he waiting for?
From their perch up high, the copycat shouts out, “You can’t let them go, Spider-Man! Those weapons- They can’t- They’re trying to-!” Their squeaky, stuttering voice is chalked full of panic. They sound like a kid.
Please don’t be a kid.
Peter lets out a slow breath. “Tell you what, you hand over all those fun little weapons, and I’ll see if we can get a few years knocked off your sentence. Maybe even get you put in one of those nice prisons with a weight room and TV. How does that sound?”
Happy cackles maniacally while Grumpy flips a switch on his gauntlet, making it glow brighter and emit a low, buzzing sound.
Peter can see Doc slink a half-step away from his friends, shoulders hunched and hands tucked deep into his pockets.
The air is thick with tension.
Several things happen in rapid succession.
His copycat slings a web at Doc, sticking to his shoulder and yanking him off-kilter.
Doc pulls back, ducking and rolling along the asphalt, and taking the copycat with him.
Happy cackles and begins firing his gun in a spray in every direction, without care.
Dopey blindly casts out two of his blades, not watching even as they swing in wide-curving arcs across the intersection. One whizzes right past Peter’s ear. Is it shaped like a bat?
Grumpy aims and fires his gauntlet at the copycat, emitting a shockwave that reverberates across the intersection and rattles the very foundations of the roads.
Doc throws something at the ground between him and the copycat while saying, “Sorry, kid.” It explodes on impact and kicks up a colorful cloud of green smoke. His copycat stumbles backward out of the cloud, coughing and clutching their chest.
Peter leaps into the air, twisting to dodge the spray of bullets, and slams into his copycat, skidding to a stop along the sidewalk on the other side of the intersection. He shoves the kid behind a parked car with a harsh, “Stay down!”
Another curved blade from Dopey zips through the air over their heads and impales itself in the brick of the building behind them.
Peter leans over the hood of the car and aims two webs at Dopey. Being the most inexperienced, he’s been fighting blindly and barely moving from where he’s pressed up against the van.
The webs hit their mark with ease, pinning him flush with his hands bound away from the remaining blades.
One down, three to go.
Doc picks himself and his motorcycle up off the ground, aiming in the opposite direction of the police barricade, obviously not caring if he leaves his friends behind. His engine stutters for a half-second before roaring to life. He throws another smoke bomb behind him for good measure, leaving an even bigger crater in the asphalt.
Peter leaps on top of the parked car and sends a series of webs at the motorcycle, each narrowly missing as it begins to weave its way through the gridlocked traffic. He’s forced to dodge side-to-side to avoid the spray of bullets aimed right at him.
The poor owner of this car better have good insurance.
Peter attempts to launch a final web through the lingering smoke at the tires before Doc can get too far away, but the man throws a small device from his pocket at the last minute. It swings through the web, cutting the cord cleanly, before curving back towards Peter like a tiny missile.
Peter cuts his losses, dodging the missile as it fires right at him. He sprints across the intersection and leaps up and over the top of the busted van. The missile lodges itself into the van door with a thunk!
“Oooh, two for one bad guy special.”
He’s trapped between the remaining two men, each taking swings at him simultaneously. His senses keep him sharp, but he can only move so quickly, ducking and dodging and attempting to subdue them both at close range. A cleanly placed web disarms the machine gun and pins Happy’s wrist down. Left, Right, Down, Right, Over, Left-
Pain blooms in his side as he takes a direct blow from the gauntlet to his abdomen, the reverberations of the shockwave shattering several ribs, if he can make any sense of it.
He stumbles backward, trying to shake away the fog that creeps into the edge of his senses.
His ears are ringing, but through the tinny sound, he can hear his copycat shouting something.
God that kid doesn't know when to quit.
He shakes his head, redirecting his focus back to the fight. His copycat is swinging over the top of the intersection, narrowly missing shockwave after shockwave. Peter’s senses focus in on his copycat’s movements - sloppy, inexperienced, and in a predictable pattern.
Even as spots flood his vision, Peter can see when Grumpy sees it too. He aims behind the copycat more than at them, not that his copycat has caught on.
Dust shakes from the brickwork of the building behind them.
Peter hears the crumbling before he can see it. The support beam holding up a corner of the building creaks, groans, and snaps, kicking up a dust cloud of debris.
He leaps forward, spraying out a network of webbing to hold up the largest pieces, while he uses his own strength to catch the broken support beam and hold it in place. His muscles strain under the weight, and the pain in his side pinches in narrow focus.
The copycat webs down Grumpy during the distraction, kicking the gauntlet off his hand and down the road, out of reach, before running over to Peter.
His vision swims and he swears there are three of the kid, moving like synchronized swimmers. 10s across the board.
They’re babbling now, “I’m sorry, Mr. Spider-Man, sir. How can I- What can I- I didn’t mean to-”
Peter grits his teeth through the pain and says, “Kid, get out of here!” The weight of the concrete on his shoulders reminds him eerily of another building collapse, many years ago now. That feeling of being crushed, helpless, and panicking, it’s as clear as the day it happened.
But today is not then.
His knees wobble, but he won’t let them buckle. He can hold out as long as it takes.
He looks across the road to where Officer Davis stands, ready to send his officers in to apprehend the webbed-up men, and Peter shouts to him. “I need you to make sure that you clear the area. Drag those guys back out of the road and clear the bystanders. I can’t hold this much longer.”
The copycat interrupts, “I can help! I can-”
“Don’t.” Peter shifts the weight closer to his shoulders, groaning under the pressure of the concrete and steel, to reach out a hand and grab the back of the kid’s lycra suit. His vision whites out for a moment as pain ricochets up his spine with the movement. “Get your ass out of here kid. I’m not done with you.” He gives them a forceful shove out of the way before slamming his hand upwards to support the wobbling weight.
The kid turns to look at him, face unchanging under the stretchy, lycra mask, but their shoulders hunch inwards and Peter is sure that he’s upset them. Tough luck. He has bigger things to worry about.
Peter breathes, slow and deep, holding out as long as he can. After a moment, the kid looks over to where Officer Davis and the rest of his unit are clearing the area to prepare for the debris. They seem to stumble back as if surprised or unsure, before taking off running down the street, out of Peter’s view.
Finally, someone listens to him.
The fog is creeping back in around his senses. It’s getting harder to breathe through the pain, but he tries. Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Breathe out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. And again. And again.
Eventually, Officer Davis gives him the all-clear. Peter barely registers it, but with a steely breath, he braces himself and leaps sideways, tucking and rolling as he goes.
Concrete and steel shatter to the ground; a large corner of this building crumbles into a million pieces, but no casualties and no major injuries.
Well, except his own, but that’s unimportant.
Peter’s throat catches on dust from the collapse, and the cough that wracks through him is so painful he blacks out for a moment. Just a moment. Probably.
With shaky legs, he stands, rights himself, and straightens his shoulders. Despite his chest’s screaming protest, he needs to put on a brave face. There are onlookers. They need to know that Spider-Man is invincible. They need that sense of hope.
He looks to where the three men are being loaded into the back of a police cruiser, stripped of all weapons and tech alike. The area is slowly being taped off for investigation.
A familiar figure stands at the edge of the intersection, phone in hand, pushed to the front of the crowd. It’s recording, if Peter knows anything by now.
Eddie Brock sure has a knack for being in the thick of it.
At least he wasn’t actually caught in the crossfire this time. That’s a dilemma to solve another day.
He nods to Officer Davis, knowing that he’ll talk to him if he needs a statement. The dozens of witnesses are probably enough, but you never know.
When Peter feels braced against the pain, he reaches up a hand and launches himself upwards and around the corner.
He has a kid to talk to.
~X~
He finds the kid tucked in on themself on a nearby rooftop. They’ve removed the cheap costume mask, but their face is pressed into their knees, with their hands braced over the back of their neck like they’re trying to curl themself into the smallest space possible.
Peter needs a moment, and it seems like the kid does too, so he carefully crouches down next to them and leans back in a way to minimize the pain of his aching side. He breathes, trying to collect himself, but the words aren’t coming easily. All that he’s focused on is the creeping fog around his senses and the panic over a kid nearly caught in the crossfire.
He tries his best to keep his voice even-keeled as he says, “You can’t do that again, kid.”
“I’m not a kid!” Their head snaps up to look at Peter. “I just thought… I-”
Yep, he’s definitely a kid. Probably early high school, but that’s hard to tell sometimes. To be honest, he’s probably not far off from how old Peter was when he started all this.
Best not to think about it.
Peter takes in the slope of his round cheeks, his soft, wide nose, and his deep brown eyes, youthful and innocent.
He needs those eyes to stay that way.
Time to break another heart.
“You need to leave these things to the professionals, kid. Come back when you’re in college.”
“But you don’t understand, they were- they’re making things. Those weapons aren’t normal!”
“Sure. And there are people who handle this sort of thing. Me.”
The kid scrambles to his feet, hands wringing over the stretchy lycra mask of his costume. “I have these powers now, like you! I can’t just stand around and let bad things happen. People could get hurt.”
“You could get hurt. And if you do, that’s on me.”
“I heal fast.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Spots creep behind his eyes, likely the beginnings of a migraine. That shockwave thing really did do a number on him. His voice has been steadily gaining a bite that he tries to steal away. “I have experience. I have a suit. I’ll take care of it.”
“I. Can. Help.” The kid’s face is stubbornly set now. Great. “Just tell me what to do.”
Peter slowly stands. His vision blacks for a second and he’s ever grateful for his mask. Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Breathe out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. “Go home, kid. To your parents, your family. Enjoy your childhood, while you can. Don’t do this again.”
Peter knows that he’s not far from passing out completely. The adrenaline and shock are wearing off. If he wants any chance at making it to Gwen’s show tonight, he needs to take a nap and let his healing work through the fractures.
Without looking back, Peter takes careful steps to the edge of the building and leaps off.
He doesn’t need to see the kid’s face to know that he’s upset. His erratic breathing and quickened heartbeat tell Peter all he needs to know.
Never meet your heroes.
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