Hi guys! Life has been so damn hectic recently. Apologies for the wait! I haven't even been able to write anything new yet - my posts are catching up to the last chapter I wrote!:(
To answer a question I saw in the reviews (which are so fkn lovely btw thank you so much!) Civil War has not yet happened. This is Tony finding out that there's a kid in a onesie swinging about Queens and wanting to find out who it is (spoiler alert: it's Peter Parker). So he's sending Mikaela to do it!
I hope you all enjoy the chapter:)
Chapter Eleven - Catching A Spider
Mikaela walks into the middle of the room and looks around, completely unimpressed. The paint on the walls is chipping, even torn off in big strips in some areas, and she's pretty sure she's spotted three holes in the walls already. The bed covers look absolutely grim, no doubt infested with bed bugs and all sorts of questionable stains, and the curtains have cigarette burns and what might actually be bullet holes dotted all over them. There is a lingering smell of vomit and urine and she's pretty sure she spotted some kind of rodent dash across the floor when they came in.
"Really?" she asks, wincing.
"Nobody looks twice at a young girl living alone in a shitty apartment," Stark replies chirply. "Your stay has been covered by yours truly, paid in cash so there are no paper trails to link us, and I'll give you this just now to keep you going," he says, dropping a backpack into her hands.
When she unzips it, she finds wads of cash. "This feels more like a Deadpool kind of operation than an Iron Man operation," she muses.
"I'm keeping it low-key," he defends himself. "Trying not to arouse any suspicion."
Mikaela sighs dramatically. "This is a little too low, don't you think?"
"Nah, it's perfect," he replies. "Look, I've got you four TV screens to link up with your mutation over there, there's plenty of food places within walking distance, and if you do a good job, you shouldn't be here for too long."
"If I do a good job," she repeats, nodding unhappily. "Find out who's parading around Queens in a shitty onesie."
Stark lets out a giggle. "Onesie, I like that. I'm gonna take it."
Mikaela shoves his shoulder. "Dick."
He gives her a nudge back, stifling a smile. "You'll be done in no time, it'll be fine."
Mikaela looks at the TV screens, holding off a frown. Stark wants her to find out the identity of some kid who's been literally swinging around Queens, taking on petty thieves and stopping assaults, while dressed in a red and black onesie. FRIDAY hasn't been able to get a name yet, but Stark is confident that Mikaela will be able to do it, despite her setbacks. Mikaela, on the other hand, is quite worried that her setbacks will actually prevent her from getting the job done. But she doesn't want to tell Stark that. She doesn't want to disappoint him, especially after failing so tremendously with Ultron.
"You're not trapped here, though," Stark tells her, oblivious. "Feel free to go on walks and stuff. And come by the Tower if you need anything else."
"Yeah, of course," she nods, looking back to him with a smile. "I'll keep in touch."
"Good luck," he smirks, slapping her on the back, "And have fun."
Mikaela watches him leave, sighing quietly to herself, before she turns back to the mess of an apartment she now lives in for the foreseeable future. "God damnit," she mutters.
She first starts up her TV screens, pondering which one will be used for which task. Then she pins up a map of Queens on one of the walls, ignoring the way the wall seems to crumble every time she touches it. Using the TV screen nearest to the map, Mikaela begins by searching for all photographic and video evidence of the so-called "Spider-Man", checking the locations they were taken in and marking them down on the map in a black marker pen. It's only been a few weeks since the first sighting was published, but the kid sure has been busy since then, and people are going mad for him. Mikaela doesn't really get it, to be honest. The kid could do with a serious makeover and can be unbelievably clumsy at times, never mind the lame one-liners he comes out with. But, Stark is interested in him, so here she is.
She has to take a break after she runs through all of the visual documentation of Spider-Man. Sitting down on the cleanest-looking spot of the floor, Mikaela drops her head into her hands and massages the skin, groaning. The pain always gets worse when she uses her mutation, and it won't stop intensifying until she stops. It can get so bad that her vision wobbles or darkens, or she has to run to the bathroom to be sick, but she has gotten better at learning her limits and not pushing too hard. She still has to push so that she can train herself to go for longer stints, but she doesn't want to end up vomiting every time she uses her mutation. That wouldn't look very badass.
After about ten minutes, the pain lessens to its usual monotonous drumming. Mikaela finally lifts her head, cracking her neck when she stretches it. She looks around the room again, at the horrible bed covers and mattress, and wonders how on Earth Stark expects her to sleep on that. She is no stranger to living in squalor, but you would expect that being put up in an apartment by billionaire Tony Stark would look a little different from this. Mikaela decides that it just won't do, and she'll have to spend some of his money on buying more agreeable sleeping things.
She takes $300 out of the backpack and separates it into a few different clusters, slid into several jeans pockets and jacket pockets. She puts the backpack behind one of the TV screens, knowing it is unlikely that anyone would think this kind of apartment would have something of value in it, but wanting to be as safe as she can be anyway - not that hiding it behind a valuable TV is safe, but heyho. It's not her money. She dons her black baseball cap and sunglasses before she leaves the apartment, locking the door behind her. She can hear someone on the other side of the door of her new neighbour, but she ignores it, walking away from them both to descend the staircase.
It is a pleasant day outside in a not-so-pleasant area of Queens, but Mikaela feels somewhat safe knowing that Stark has FRIDAY keeping an eye out for Mikaela's cap and sunglasses combo. She takes about an hour to go into the right shops and pick up an airbed, sleeping bag, and pillow, before she finds a Subway on the way back and orders herself a sub. She keeps an eye out for any action as she walks around, wondering where Spider-Man is just now, whether he's suited up and fighting crime, or whether he's off being his hidden identity. She hopes that he isn't a boring guy, so that if she ever catches him, she won't have an awful time watching him go about his boring day-to-day life.
When she reaches the top of her stairs back in her building, her neighbour's door opens to reveal a grumpy, old, scrawny skeleton of a man, scowling at her.
"Who are you?" he asks, squinting.
Mikaela adjusts her hold on the airbed's bag. "I live here. Who are you?" she replies, adopting an impeccable American accent that she's been using to try slip under the radar more - her natural accent would stand out and cause questions.
He shifts from foot to foot, his fist clenching while his other hand keeps a hold of his door as if ready to close it at a moment's notice. "Glenn. I live here too."
"Cool story, Glenn," she says, moving to put her key in her lock.
"I'm onto you, little lady," Glenn blurts.
"What?" Mikaela asks in aggravated confusion, turning to look at him over her shoulder.
"I'm onto you," he repeats, louder, pointing a finger at her. "I bet you're one of those alien things in disguise."
Mikaela closes her eyes for a moment, dumbfounded. "Okay, Glenn," she says eventually, turning back to her door.
"I bet you're some spy for the FBI or the CIA," Glenn continues.
"I'm fifteen, Glenn," Mikaela retorts, opening her door and stepping inside, being careful to not reveal the TV screens and map.
"I bet you're with the Russians. I bet you're with the British," Glenn persists, still pointing a shaky, bony finger at her.
"Yeah, keep going, Glenn, I'm listening," she tells him, giving him a false smile, before she closes the door on him.
She drops the airbed bag on the floor and sits on top of it to eat her sub, noticing the length of time it takes Glenn to finally go back inside his apartment and close the door behind him noisily. Who knew she'd meet such interesting characters in such an awful area?
When she finishes her food, she sets up her airbed, sleeping bag, and pillow, positioning them on the left side of the apartment so that they're a good distance from the infested bed. She sits down on her new, clean bed, and looks up at the map, noticing the lack of a pattern in Spider-Man's appearances. It seems to Mikaela that the kid just rocks up at any crime within Queens, rather than appearing in locations that are each an equal distance away from one particular location, which she could assume would be his home or hideout. So, is he tuned in to the police's radio channel? Or does he literally just swing around the place until he happens to come across something?
Mikaela watches through some of the videos again, playing them through the TV closest to her. She watches the way he moves, closes her eyes to listen properly to his voice, the tone and inflections, his vocabulary and phrases, and rolls her eyes at his terrible attempts to be cool. She watches each video from start to end, three times over, learning as much as she can about him from what she can see and hear.
"Where do you come from?" she asks the paused video of him on her TV. She tilts her head for a moment, thinking, and looks to the map. Maybe she could take note of where Spider-Man came from every time he appears at a crime, but that would require people already filming the event and managing to capture his entrance, and most videos begin when Spider-Man's already on the scene, clearly just videoing in reaction to his arrival. Although, they usually continue to video after the crime has been stopped, capturing Spider-Man's exit route.
Picking up a green marker pen, Mikaela takes a deep breath, tries to ignore the pain in her head, and starts going through the videos again. She watches Spider-Man as he makes his grand, dramatic exit from the scene of the crime, taking note of the streets he goes onto. She marks his path on the map by drawing a green line along the street, stopping when the video won't show her any more. Then, she goes on to the next video, marking down his exit path for that instance as well. She continues on like this for a while, but soon realises that while it may be a good start, it isn't getting her anywhere. She knows she needs to get into the CCTV cameras on the streets, looking at those particular days and those particular times, but that is going to take up a whole lot of energy that she just does not have today. So, instead, she searches on social media platforms for text documentation of Spider-Man's activities, ensuring to filter out any that don't have geographical tags on them. These locations she marks on the maps with red pen, because they can't be trusted without visible evidence, but some of them still might be genuine.
When she finishes, she takes a step back and looks at her work. Black and red X's are peppered across Queens, with green lines branching away from some of the black X's. So far, it all seems quite random, and she knows the only progress she has made today is the idea of checking CCTV cameras for Spider-Man's paths after stopping the crimes. It's not a brilliant idea, she knows, because he might not immediately return home after stopping a crime, and instead might continue on his rounds, or go for a snack, or go to the movies or something; but it is an idea, and it might well yield some results. She has a lot of work to do, and not enough mind-strength to do it, but she'll damn well try her best.
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Over the course of that week, Mikaela loses all semblance of a sleeping pattern and eating pattern, only timing them after she feels particularly hungry or sleepy due to her energy-draining use of her mutation. She works at a task until she physically can't anymore, at which point she eats and goes to sleep, leaving it to her body to decide when she's had enough and needs to wake up again. She usually sleeps about two or three times a day, although she's finding that the ratio of sleep to work time is changing, demonstrating her body's ability to work at her mutation for longer now.
She has been going through the CCTV footage after each of Spider-Man's appearances and following him as far as she can before she loses him. All of his paths have been marked down in green pen on the map, and while a lot of them seem to be random or irrelevant, there are quite a few that point towards central Queens, so Mikaela figures that there's something important for him there. If he's smart, like she's worried he is, he's done this on purpose to throw off people like her, and he actually lives in Brooklyn or Harlem or something. Hopefully he's an idiot.
While more appearances are broadcasted on social media every second day or so, Mikaela started to realise that he only appears at certain times on weekdays. Usually, sightings were marked around 3pm or later, up until quite late at night, but never in the morning or early afternoon. Meanwhile, on the weekends, he could be spotted swinging about all damn day. Considering the pitch of his voice, the size of him, the times he is unavailable, and the stupid optimistic, polite way he has about him, Mikaela reckons he's still at school. He's just some nerd who has powers. She's still not sure the extent of his powers though, because he has mechanisms on his wrists to produce the weird web stuff he spits out at everyone, but he can also climb up walls and can take a lot of hits. Whether he's just real smart and has some special gloves on, or whether there's actually something else going on here, she's still uncertain. But she'll find out. Probably.
She has sent Stark an update with her findings, highlighting central Queens and the fact that the kid's most likely still at high school, but she wishes she had more to give him. If she keeps working though, she is confident that she will get something more.
"Okay," Mikaela says to herself after waking up from another recovery sleep. "What can I do?"
She looks over at the map of Queens and almost slaps herself when she realises a simple idea. Linking Google Maps to one of the TVs, she searches for schools in Queens, and focuses on the ones around central Queens. It wouldn't really make sense for him to go to a school further away than that, if he does actually live in central Queens like she hopes. She looks through her options, and stops on the third one.
"Midtown School of Science and Technology," she reads.
Surely a kid who is making his own weird web-shooter things is a science and technology genius, and surely he would therefore be going to this school. Right? There's only one way to find out.
Mikaela, with some effort, hacks into the school's system and peruses the student list, looking for young males. Of course, half the bloody school are young males, so that doesn't really get her anywhere, and they're all geniuses as well - there's no way she'll be able to differentiate between non-Spider-Mans and the real Spider-Man with this method. She'll have to actually go to the school and have a proper nosey.
Mikaela checks the time and decides she can fit in a quick sleep before she needs to be at the school for when classes finish. She lays down on her makeshift bed and curls into herself, falling asleep with a hand on her temple. For the first time in a while, she dreams. In her dream she finds Spider-Man, who encapsulates her in his web stuff when she tells him she's a mutant, and dangles her upside down from a nearby roof, ten stories in the air. He gathers a crowd underneath her head and they point and laugh and spit insults at her, until suddenly she's hanging from a tree and they have baseball bats and are hitting her like she's a fucking piñata. While she doesn't drop candy when they break her open, she does break open, shattering into tiny metal fragments as if she's a machine. Then she looks at herself, startled, and realises she's in the body of the broken Iron Legion that Ultron occupied when he showed himself to the Avengers. She tries to snap at the people around her, but her voice comes out as his voice, and she cuts herself off, disgusted. She wakes up when Stark comes at her with the bat.
She realises quickly that she is shaking and sweating, and grimaces at the state of herself. "Christ," she mutters, sitting herself up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She's never had a dream like that before, but it sure as hell won't distract her because it was just a stupid dream. She knows she's not Ultron. "But if that kid thinks he's gonna wrap me up in that disgusting shit he's got another thing coming," she says to herself. Every so often she needs to speak to herself so that she knows she isn't losing her voice, but she has to be careful in case nosy Glenn next door is listening in.
Speaking of nosy Glenn, he's standing in his open doorway, glaring at her, for the fifth time this week, when she leaves the apartment. He still stands the same way, with one of his stupid little rat-hands clutching desperately at his door while the other points a scrawny finger at her.
"Don't think I've forgotten about you, little lady," he croaks.
Mikaela locks her door and adorns her baseball cap. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Glenn," she smiles sarcastically at him.
He scowls at her, his finger shaking in the air, and makes a weird noise in his throat that sounds half defeated, half irritated. Mikaela slips her sunglasses onto her nose and walks away from him.
"See you in a few hours, Glenn," she calls over her shoulder as she walks down the stairs.
It takes her about twenty minutes to walk to Midtown High, and when she gets there she still has ten minutes to spare before the end of the day. She picks a spot on a street opposite and leans against the wall, pulling out a mobile phone to pretend she's doing something else. People walk past her without sparing her a glance, parents drive their cars past to wait for their kids coming out of school, and nobody seems to suspect a thing. Mikaela smiles to herself and waits to hear the bell ring.
When the students start to spill through the gates, Mikaela lowers her cap ever so slightly and peers through her sunglasses at them. Her eyes glance from boy to boy, looking over their physiques and heights. She realises this is a lot harder than she thought it would be - the majority of these kids are slim and around Spider-Man's height or above. Most walk away in packs or pairs, or get into their own cars or their parents' cars, but she can't see any who sneak away by themselves. Considering the time between some of the sightings and the end of the school day, Mikaela reckons Spider-Man brings his stupid onesie to school with him, and therefore needs to get changed into it somewhere. It would make sense for him to do it somewhere other than inside the school, so she's keeping an eye out for anyone heading suspiciously to an alley or a public toilet or something.
She doesn't get anything.
When the last of the students walk out of her eyeline, Mikaela shoves the phone angrily in her pocket and stands up straight. Taking off her cap, she ruffles her hair and pretends to sort it as her eyes go grey and she searches for nearby CCTV cameras. She finds some near alleys and along quiet streets, but they just show normal people going about their normal everyday lives; they give her nothing on a school kid sneaking away to get changed into his wannabe superhero costume.
Considering that he might just be ill today and took the day off or had to leave earlier in the day, Mikaela begins her walk back to her shitty apartment, keeping her head high just in case she spots a blur of red swinging between the buildings. While she walks, she goes against what her body is telling her and monitors social media for any new pictures or videos of Spider-Man at the same time as monitoring the feeds of CCTV cameras. A lot of information goes up about the kid every day, with new articles covering the appearances of the day before, people posting or reposting delayed pictures or videos of sightings, and even some low-key news channels doing segments on him. It's a lot for Mikaela to rifle through without having the benefit of screens to filter it all, and after ten minutes she starts to really feel the effects of pushing herself.
The pain in her mind has never gone away since Ultron tore it to pieces, but when she pushes herself too hard it rises to a level that makes her slow and clumsy. She staggers along the pavement, determined to keep up her monitoring. But when her stomach turns in protest, she knows she needs to let go. In moments like these, it feels like she has let go of a weight that was dragging her down into a deep pit of mud, clogging up her senses and making her movements slow and weak. But the pain continues.
"Hey, miss, are you okay?" a familiar voice asks.
Mikaela looks at the ground and sees two red shoes with long red socks coming out of them. Of course he would find her before she found him. "Oh my god," she hears herself saying as she stares at his hideous shoes. "It's even worse up close."
"Do you need help?" he asks.
When she feels his hand touch her shoulder, she lifts her head enough to look at him but still hide most of her face, and shrugs him off of her. "Back off, dude," she snaps in her American accent.
"Woah, okay, yeah, sure," he says quickly, holding his hands up in defense as he takes a step back. "Sorry."
Mikaela feels her face contort in irritated disgust. Not only is his outfit worse than she thought it was, but his entire being is just blegh. This job is the worst job she has ever had to do.
She starts to walk away from him again, highly aware of how stupid she must look, stumbling along like a drunk. She brings a hand up to rub her forehead, wincing at the pain, but soldiers on. She walks a few blocks before stopping again, turning around to face behind her. Her irritation with this kid has hit a whole new level.
"Stop following me," she tells him.
He approaches her slowly. "How about I just give you a hand home?" he asks tentatively, as if approaching a dangerous animal.
Mikaela drops her head back and groans loudly. After a moment of calm breathing, she lowers her chin again to look at him, standing there in his stupid costume with the stupid goggles. He really does look ridiculous in that outfit. He clearly doesn't have a lot of money, unlike some of the other students she saw leaving Midtown in expensive cars. Maybe there was an angle she could work there?
"I don't need a hand home," she says.
He rubs his hands together as if uncomfortable. "You kind of look like you need-"
"Yes, thank you, I know what I look like," she cuts in irritably. "But try listen to the words I'm saying: I don't want your help, go bother someone else."
"Okay, alright," he relents, starting to move backwards. "Have a nice day." Then he lifts a hand and shoots a web off at the building across from them, jumping and pulling himself into the air.
Mikaela turns her back on him and starts walking again, pushing herself to get back to her apartment in time to track his path on the CCTV cameras. She keeps replaying the interactions in her head, getting herself more aggravated in the process, but also ensuring she doesn't forget what he sounds like - that could come in handy at some point. Something about his voice is just so annoying. It's the underlying tone of sincere empathy, she just cannot stand it. Nobody is that friendly or nice. Nobody.
Eventually she manages to climb the stairs back to her apartment, throwing a "Not now, Glenn" over her shoulder as she walks into the filthy room, closing the door on her incessant neighbour. She locks onto one of the monitors and, with a grimace, brings up the CCTV feed of the street she met Spider-Man on. She has to blink hard a few times to clear her vision, but she finally finds him. For a few blocks, she is able to follow his path, but then he starts going faster and stops getting low enough for the cameras, and she loses him just like she always does.
"Fuck," she hisses, slamming her hand down on the table.
She needs to focus. She feels so close. She's starting to think she can actually finish this job for Stark. She needs the win.
"What do I have?" she whispers to herself, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead. "His voice."
Suddenly she gets an idea. She swipes away all the CCTV cameras in the public from her mind, and searches instead for the cameras within Midtown High. There don't even seem to be many within the hallways, instead concentrated in the outdoor areas, and they don't have audio anyway. So, what else could get her audio in the school?
Social media. Schools love trying to be "hip".
She searches for Midtown High's social media presences and goes through their videos, struggling to find someone who sounds like Spider-Man. He doesn't really sound like he alters his voice or anything, so in theory it shouldn't be too hard for her to find him.
Mikaela feels a breath leave her and she takes a step back from the monitor, her eyebrows lifting.
A decathlon team.
And there he is, sitting in a panel of his teammates, answering a question in that stupidly friendly voice of his. She looks at the list of names.
"Peter Parker. I found you, you little shit."