Disclaimer: Hmmm... Maybe I should upgrade this to M for language? It isn't that bad, but just to be safe... Nah, I'll wait 'til someone complains. This chapters a little rough, even by my admittedly rather lax standards, but I can't think of how to fix it. I'm sorry for the inexcusable wait, but I have mentioned before that I am frightfully lazy and rather prone to procrastination. As always, I do not own Spiderman or his amazing friends. Also, in this chapter, I should throw in that I don't own the Power-puff girls (or even admit to watching an episode).
Shit.
Peter had a dead man in his room, his metal self resting dumbly in plain sight, a case of human BSoD that was only just beginning to crack and a former badass assassin now current badass handyman knocking on his door with his ten year-old daughter in tow.
Today was not an excellent day to be Peter Parker.
"Peter! Are you there? I'm coming in," Shin called. Peter heard a key rattling in the lock and his frozen mind blurred into sudden thought.
"Hold on, I'll be there in a second." He leapt off the couch and sped toward the door just as it began to open. He slammed into it, closing it rather firmly again. There was a loud crash behind him. He spun and saw that his metal self had dropped his couch upside down onto the corpse, possibly acting on some subconscious imperative in Peter's mind to hide the body. Then it flowed sinuously back into Peter's small bedroom, presumably to return to its lair under Peter's bed.
Peter paused to make sure it was out of sight before spinning around to open the door, shove himself through, and close it before his two visitors could get a good look at what was inside. He smiled nervously at the two. "Hey! Good to see you again," he said lamely.
Shin frowned at him in puzzlement. Jubilation, for her part, merely looked bored and more than a little sullen. "Are you going to let us in?" Shin asked.
Peter Parker thought of the corpse in his living room. "No," he decided. "I don't think so. I'm redecorating. It's not safe in there, power tools and rusty nails and falling objects and everything."
"Was that your couch on upside down on the floor?" Shin asked.
"It's a new aesthetic, I admit, but I think it'll catch on," Peter replied without pause.
"And the body under it?" Shin asked in that same puzzled but casual tone.
"What body?" Peter returned nervously.
"Uh-huh," Shin said, pointedly unconvinced. "And your face? It looks like someone bitch-slapped you pretty good."
Peter scrambled. "I, um, I fell down a flight of doorknobs?" he tried weakly.
"Try again," Shin said, and Peter could see the amusement lighting his eyes.
Peter said the first thing that came to mind, "Mary Jane."
"That little red-headed girl?" Shin asked skeptically. "She gave you a black eye?"
"Yes," Peter said earnestly. "It's not her fault, though. It's me. I don't listen."
"…Right. So, where are you going to watch Jubilation?"
"I was thinking we could go see a movie, then go to a restaurant and then I could drop her off back at your place."
Shin stared at him, no expression on his face. "You want to take my ten year-old daughter on a date?"
"No no!" Peter assured him. "It's just my apartment is a mess, and this will keep us both out of it for tonight. I was thinking a kid's movie and McDonalds. Nothing remotely date-like or creepy. Okay, so it's a little unintentionally creepy, now that you mention it, but it wasn't meant to be. She's like a little sister to me, an adopted little sister I'd never met or known about until yesterday, which I guess makes her a total stranger, and-" Peter quite suddenly realized he was babbling. The whole gruesome death thing must have unhinged him more than he thought.
"Stop talking," Shin said. "I'm leaving. Have her back by ten. Take care of her. Or else."
"Errrr…" Peter said. "Okay?" Shin was already gone.
Peter looked at where Shin had been, and then turned to stare at the little girl who was staring back at him, managing to combine indifference and muted hostility in one flat stare. "We're going to see the Power-Puff Girls movie," she informed him.
"Oh," said Peter, as he felt his heart sink and the last tattered remains of his masculinity die a terrible death. It was probably a mercy killing, granted, but still…
"And then McDonalds," Jubilation further decided. "I get a happy meal. You can have whatever you want, since you're paying."
"Thanks bunches," Peter said dryly, then sighed. "Let's go."
The movie was somewhere south of awful. Luckily, Peter was too anxious about the body he had left in his apartment to pay much attention to it. Jubilation seemed to like it though, bouncing up and down in her seat excitedly during the action sequences, spilling, Peter noticed with a wince, her very expensive extra-large, extra-buttery popcorn. He would have been more irritated, but he did steal the money to pay for it from assorted lowlifes (and that one pizza delivery guy who should not have been lurking in a dark alley looking like a lowlife). Still, it was the principle of the thing.
After the movie ended, Peter and Jubilation rode the flood of loud, hyped-up children and worn-out parents out of the theatre, through the lobby and out into the street, where Peter, with the unerring sense of one who practically lived on junk food, zeroed in on the nearest McDonald's. They got there food, sat down, and started to eat. Well, Jubilation started to eat. Peter sat and poked at his food.
"If you're not going to eat your fries, can I have them?" Jubilation asked.
"Sure," Peter said, absentmindedly.
Jubilation snatched them up and began munching with renewed vigor. Peter mostly ignored her until she spoke again. "So, who's your favorite?"
"Favorite what?" Peter asked, wondering if he had missed some part of the conversation.
"Favorite Powerpuff Girl," Jubilation said, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
"I have to have a favorite?" Peter asked.
"Yes."
"The guy in the lab coat."
"He's not a Powerpuff girl," Jubilation protested. "He's not a girl at all!"
Peter rolled his eyes and then winced as Jubilation kicked him under the table. "Ow. Fine. The red-headed one then."
"Blossom?" Jubilation asked. "Why? You don't even know her name."
Peter shrugged again. "I have a thing for red-heads," he said, thinking of Mary Jane.
"Ewwwww!" Jubilation said with exaggerated disgust.
"What?"
"She's like six!"
"Not like that, pervert."
"I'm not the one who has a thing for red-headed six year-olds."
"Technically she's probably younger," Peter noted, having managed to pay attention through the prologue at least. "I mean, she was created at that age, and she hasn't changed since then. I'd say two years old at the most."
"That's even worse," said Jubilation.
Peter shrugged and stole back a few of his fries, feeling more at home in the strange little conversation than in the movie theatre.
"Hey!" Jubilation protested the loss of her fries.
"Easy come, easy go."
She glared at him, trying to project menace. It didn't work. Peter snorted in amusement at the attempt. "I'm gonna tell my daddy you were mean to me," she declared.
"Wow," Peter replied. "Then I won't get to baby sit you anymore. Tragedy."
She had no real answer to that, so she settled for just kicking him under the table.
After the food was finished, with Peter stealing more fries in the vain hope that she would tell her father he was an unsuitable baby sitter, they left. Peter considered delaying the inevitable. He really, truly did not want to go back to his apartment, where the pale assassin was waiting patiently under his couch. He did not want to sit there and wonder what he would do with the body or whether Shin had seen it or what Aunt May and Uncle Ben would think if they knew. But it was getting late and Jubilation was difficult enough normally that he did not even want to think about what she would be like tired and grouchy. So, they headed back, and if Peter dragged his feet and meandered a bit, Jubilation didn't comment.
Peter decided to speak. "So, Shin should be back by now, right? We'll head to your place and you can tell him what a terrible babysitter I am and that you never want to be watched by me again, okay?"
Jubilation looked at him as if deciding something, then just shrugged. For some reason Peter was not reassured, but he soldiered on and hoped for the best, letting Jubilation lead him to her apartment. Neither of them had a key, so Peter knocked and waited a beat for someone to answer. The moment stretched and Peter was suddenly, horribly reminded of his own encounter with Tombstone. They had been after Shin. He was just a message. Wouldn't it be likely then that another assassin would be waiting in the Lee apartment? His metal self wouldn't be able to get to him this time.
The thought percolated in his mind and Peter tensed as the rattle and click of bolts being shot and locks turned. The door cracked open and Peter prepared for the worst, his fists clenching, his eyes a little wide. The door swung open and-
"What's wrong with you?" Shin asked, looking at Peter quizzically.
"He's a weirdo. He has a crush on Blossom."
Shin shook his head sadly. "It's always the quiet ones. Did you have a good time?"
Jubilation glanced slyly at Peter then nodded enthusiastically. "Uhuh! He's weird, but he can watch me anytime!"
"That's nice, now go get ready for bed. I have to talk with Mr. Parker for a while."
Jubilation nodded again, less enthusiastically, and left, throwing one last smirk at Peter as she left.
"I think she likes you." Shin grinned.
"I think she likes seeing me suffer," Peter replied.
"Close enough," Shin said. "Now, come in. We have much to talk about."
"Yeah," Peter said with obvious reluctance. "About that. Can we just put that off? I kinda have some homework to do, and…"
"Homework? Very important," Shin said, nodding seriously. "But I think you have other things to worry about right now."
"Like?" Peter asked as he felt a cool thrill of terror roll down his spine. He had almost managed to the body currently decomposing in his apartment out of his mind. He couldn't exactly forget it, but he could minimize it enough that he could function at his usual level of sullen snarkiness.
"Oh, I don't know," Shin said, his face serious but something dark glittering in his eyes. "How about that girlfriend of yours?"
"Huh?" Peter managed, somewhere between relief and a sick sort of feeling in his stomach.
"You shouldn't let her hit you, Peter," Shin began lecturing. "Even if you are blackmailing her into dating you, that's no excuse for her taking her frustrations out on you. If she did not want to be blackmailed, she should have kept her secrets better hidden."
"Wait, what?" Peter said, still trying to keep up. "Blackmail? Where did you get that idea from?"
Shin stared at him. "Ah, well, I simply assumed there was some blackmail going on. I mean you see someone like you with someone like her? Has to be blackmail."
Peter blinked, considering Shin's logic and finding it disturbingly sound. He tried to refute it anyway. "She could like my personality," he said, and glared at Shin when he laughed. "Fine. Blackmail. Whatever. Can I go now?"
Shin smiled again. "Sure."
Peter trudged out of the apartment muttering something that might have been a goodbye or an insult. Shin replied with something in Japanese that was equally ambiguous, though the muffled laugh from Jubilation's room in response tilted the odds towards 'insult'.
Soon Peter stood at the entrance to his apartment, suddenly aware of why he had been so anxious to stay away. There was a body in there, the body of a man he had killed. It was probably still frozen with rigor mortus, but that wouldn't last. It would thaw, becoming less a statue and more recognizably the remains of a living thing. Its presence would sink into the apartment, staining forever on some level with the taint of death and violence…
And it would probably smell awful, too.
Peter steeled himself, drew on that dull metallic coolness that lurked in the back of his head, his metal self, all heartless logic and ruthless pragmatism. It had kept him going since the night Uncle Ben died, and it did not fail him now. With a shuddering breath, he unlocked his door and, after looking both ways down the hall, pushed it open.
Nothing.
No body. No couch spilled across the floor. No foul scent in the air. Nothing.
His first thought: Thank God.
His second: Oh. Shit.
"I do good work, yes?"
He turned to see Shin grinning like a mad man, eyes glittering with dark humor.
"We have much to discuss Mr. Parker," said Shin. "Perhaps we should step inside."
Peter could only nod and walk in, gesturing for Shin to follow. When the door was closed and bolted, both stood in the kitchen, Peter leaning on a counter for support, Shin relaxed against the fridge. Of course, given the size of the kitchen they were less than two feet from each other.
"You saw the body."
"It was pretty hard to miss. And you're a terrible liar."
"I was a little stressed," Peter said defensively. "Usually I'm better."
"I'd hope so. A teenager who can't lie is a very sad thing."
"Did Jubilation see?" Peter asked.
"Possibly. Possibly not," Shin said, unconcerned. "She is a very good liar, very good poker face. She gets that from me. I won't know for sure for a week or two."
"Sorry. She shouldn't have to see that," Peter said, a crack appearing in his shell-shocked psyche as he remembered the first time he'd seen a corpse.
"We all meet death eventually," Shin said, a little distantly.
"Yeah, I guess," Peter said, and then silence stretched between until he finally spoke again. "You got rid of the body."
"Hiding bodies is one of those little skills you pick up along the way, like burglary or knitting."
Peter paused. "Knitting?"
"Assassination's sometimes boring. You have to amuse yourself somehow when you're kept waiting by inconsiderate targets." Shin shrugged.
"Ah. Sounds rough," Peter commiserated out of reflex.
"Pay's good though," Shin said. "And it's not all bad. An old friend taught me how to put a knitting needle through a man's skull at twenty paces."
"Hit-men have friends?" Peter asked.
"Oh yes. Anyone you haven't tried to kill three times is a friend. Anyone you have killed is an old friend."
"You killed him?" Peter asked before he could stop himself.
"Yes. Bullseye would understand though. He knew the game better than anyone."
Peter shook his head and tried to get the conversation back on track. "Do I want to know where the body is?"
"No."
"Right." Peter steadied with a breath and then asked, "What do you want?"
"A life for my daughter, one free of the filth of my past. My wife back. My youth back. A night without dreams. A bathtub full of money and a house in the country would be nice too, I suppose."
"What do you want from me?" Peter asked, an edge to his voice.
"From you?" Shin smiled. "Not much. Just a death."
Peter tensed. He felt his metal self stirring in the bedroom as his eyes went cold.
"Relax," Shin said. "Not yours. Another's."
"You want me to kill someone?" Peter said, halfway between repulsed and amused. "I thought that was your thing."
"It was. Is really. Not something you can leave behind," Shin admitted. "But you have some talents that I lack."
"What do you mean?" Peter eyed him warily.
"I think we both know what I mean."
"No, we really don't," Peter said calmly even as his heart raced.
"Very good," Shin said. "That's much better, but you're too calm. It comes off as forced. You should add a hint of confusion."
"What are you talking about?"
"That weapon you keep under you're bed – terrible hiding place, by the way. I was wondering how a scrawny little thing such as yourself could manage to crush Tombstone so… thoroughly, so I looked… Where did you get such a useful thing?"
Peter almost denied it completely out of pure reflex, but after a moments reflection he shrugged. The guy obviously already knew. There was no real harm in telling him more. "Science fair."
Shin quirked his eyebrow in disbelief.
"No, really. A science fair. OsCorp science division was doing a big publicity thing where it was showing off some new products."
"And that… thing was a new product?"
"Yep. It was supposed to revolutionize a lot of things. It would have been invaluable on space missions, or in deep sea research, or as a bomb disposal tool or… Well, a lot of things."
"Beating up thugs on the street and stealing their money?" Sin suggested.
Peter shrugged. "I'm a poor orphan just trying to get by. Who can blame me?"
"So, how did a poor little orphan wind up with a weapon like that?"
Peter's eyes darkened for a moment. "I wasn't an orphan then." He shook himself and continued, "The scientist they originally wanted to help demonstrate the thing was a no show. The other technicians at that exhibit all had their own jobs to do. They should have cancelled the damn thing, but that would have made them look bad. They decided to go for audience participation instead. I volunteered. They injected me with nanites to control the thing, and… It worked. I could move the thing like it was part of me. Like an arm or a leg. It was great."
"And they let you keep it?" Shin asked.
"Yes," Peter said. "They just gave me the highly experimental, incredibly expensive and seriously dangerous piece of equipment. It was door prize. Every tenth person got one."
"No need for sarcasm," Shin said, still smiling.
Peter disagreed, being of the school of thought that there was always need for sarcasm, but he shrugged and moved on. "I had finished the demonstration when Octavius attacked the conference. When it was over, my uncle was dead, the building was on fire and I was an orphan. Not my best day. I was in shock for a long while, When I came out of it I found I could still feel the presence of the harness. It was much dimmer than it was in the lab, but… I call to it, and it came to me."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why could you still feel it?"
Peter shrugged. "The nanites they gave me to control the thing were supposed to degrade naturally over time. At a guess, I'd say that for some reason they didn't, but I really don't know. I didn't invent the damned thing."
They stood not talking for a while, Shin thinking, Peter trying pointedly not to think. Seconds of silence stretched into minutes, neither saying a word, the only sounds the distant thumps coming from neighboring apartments. Finally, Shin spoke, "Do you know what I was going to do tonight? Before I burned it hiding your corpse?"
"No," Peter said, flinching at the mention of his crime.
"I was going to go gather up some weapons. An assault rifle, some pistols, some explosives, a bullet proof vest if I could find one."
"A lot to do in just one night," Peter commented.
"I gave myself a week to get everything together. If I did get it all done in one night, I'd probably just hide up on the roof reading porn while you watched Jubilation."
"I… I really didn't need to know that," Peter said, rubbing his eyes with one hand as if to massage the disagreeable image from his brain. "So why a week?"
"I needed you to get to know Jubilation."
Peter snorted. "Listen, if this is some sort of creepy matchmaker thing-" Shin glared at him and Peter cringed back, cutting himself off. Clearing his throat and trying to pretend he did not just almost wet his pants, Peter spoke again. "So why?"
"So when I died, you'd take her in," Shin said calmly.
Peter froze as he tried to process that statement. "There… There's just so much wrong with that, I'm really not sure where to start."
"It's simple. I needed the weapons to attack the Kingpin. I did not expect to survive the attempt. With me dead, even if I didn't manage to kill the Kingpin, he would have no reason to go after Jubilation. She would be safe, free." He stressed that last bit like it was all that mattered. To him, maybe it was.
"Free to spend the rest of her life in therapy," Peter countered. "The whole orphan bit? Messes you up in the head. Trust me on this. And I doubt that the fact that it's basically suicide will help."
"No plan's perfect," Shin said.
"But this is pretty damn close to perfectly stupid." Peter said, unaccustomed heat worming its way through his usual apathy at the thought of a parent willingly abandoning their child like that. "And what do you expect her to do afterwards? She'd go into foster care and you do not want to know the stuff that goes on in there."
"That's why I wanted you to know her," Shin said. "So you'd feel obligated to adopt her."
"I'm fifteen! I can't adopt anyone!" Peter protested.
"You'd find a way, if you wanted to."
"How?"
Shin shrugged. "The same way you got emancipated?"
"Harry's dad? There's no way..." Peter stopped to consider. Peter admittedly didn't know Norman Osborn well, but he got the impression the Harry's dad didn't actually care about anyone but himself and, to a lesser extent, Harry. The only reason he had intervened in the first place was because Harry asked him to. If Harry asked again, he would probably intervene again, regardless of the absurdity of the request. And Harry? Harry would do it so Peter would owe him one, and so he could score points with Mary Jane for being so compassionate. "Okay, he'd do it, but it's still crazy. I'm fifteen. I rob drug dealers for fun and profit. I'm chronically depressed and I may have a split personality. I have more issues than a Marvel fanboy and the worst luck imaginable. I can't take care of myself, let alone anyone else."
Shin waited a beat to make sure he was done, then asked "A Marvel fan-what?"
"It doesn't matter," Peter said. "The point is-"
"Can you do a worse job than me?" Shin asked reasonably.
"… Probably."
Shin snorted in amusement. "Well then, it's a good thing I've decided against that plan."
"Why do I think I won't like the next any better than the first?" Peter asked.
Shin smiled. He did that a lot, Peter noticed, even as he spoke of corpses and plotted murder. "Because you're smarter than you look?" Peter growled at him. Actually growled, baring his teeth a little as he did to show he was serious. "All jokes aside, I need you to kill the Kingpin." Shin went from joking to serious in the space of a sentence, losing the smile and the spark in his eyes.
"What?" Peter said flatly.
"I thought that pretty much said it all. I want you to kill him. Kick his bucket. Punch his ticket. Sell him the farm. Screw his pooch. Whatever words you want to use. The point is I want him dead."
"Why would I do anything like that?" Peter asked, trying to be cold when a very significant part of him was telling him to hide in a corner and cry. "And screw his pooch? Really?"
"It's a euphemism for killing him. I don't think he even has a dog," Shin explained patiently.
"It really, really isn't. At all," Peter said. "And why don't you kill him? You're the badass assassin."
"Thank you." Shin actually blushed a little at the complement. "But I have my limits. As I said before, I would probably die in the attempt."
"I still don't see-"
"But you… You could do it no problem. He isn't expecting something like your weapon. You could slip in, kill him and slip out, none the wiser."
"I don't kill people," Peter said harshly. Shin only quirked an eyebrow in response. "… On purpose. I don't kill people on purpose." Shin still looked disbelieving. "Fine, I don't go out looking to kill people. Assault and battery? Sure. Murder? No."
"Consider the alternative," Shin said. "If you don't kill him, he'll send people after you. You will end up killing many, unless you simply let them kill you. Eventually, you will be forced to stop them at the source or die. And that's not even considering what will happen if he finds out about your friends. Killing the Kingpin now is your only option."
"Why me? How did this become my responsibility?"
Shin smiled. "You have the power. With great power comes great responsibility."
"I… I don't know," Peter said slowly. "I… I just-"
"Please, think of my daughter. I don't want to leave her alone. I don't want her under the Kingpin's thumb. Please." And Peter flinched at that last note as sincerity washed over Shin's features. The casual confidence that had marked him all along was gone, replaced by a glimmer of honest fear and sadness against which Peter could not stand.
"I hate you," Peter said flatly.
"You're not alone," Shin replied, a kind of bitter humor creeping into his voice.
Peter closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, and thought of his Uncle Ben. "Tomorrow night. Do you know where he's going to be? What he looks like?"
"Yes," Shin said, not a shred of celebration in his voice. "I can get you a picture."
"Tomorrow," Peter repeated. "Now get out."
Shin left without a word. Peter stood in his tiny kitchen for a long time after that, staring sightlessly past where Shin had been, his thoughts twisting in a mobius strip, returning again and again to one inescapable conclusion.
He was already a killer. He would become a murderer.
Silently, he wished for his Uncle Ben, who always seemed to know what to do, and his Aunt May, who seemed to make the world a warmer, kinder place merely by existing.
His wishes unanswered, he went to bed hoping, at the least, for some solace in sleep.
