Peter had been patient, letting Ezekiel tell his little morality fable but enough was enough.

"What? Does any of what strike a chord? A bedtime story? What are you even trying to say?"

Ezekiel smiled patiently, prompting a frown from Peter. It felt condescending.

"Oh, I was just wondering if you knew anybody with a tendency to be an inspiration to people. Something you should know is that I first came across Anansi and his stories in Ghana, but that's not the only place I heard them. They spread, as stories are wont to do, they especially did so across the transatlantic slave routes." He shook his head contemplatively, sadly. "If there were ever a group of people in need of an inspirational hero, especially one who uses their wits to outsmart those more powerful than them, well… I can't think of a more fertile plot of land for him to grow."

Anansi's stories, he went on to explain, had spread like wildfire. His exploits zig-zagged across the Caribbean, tales of Anansi's triumphs gave people hope that perhaps they too could find their own victory in the face of impossible odds. Even after his ascent into godhood he continued to exchange stories with man, not abandoning them to their fate but remaining a hopeful presence. Separation from the Ashanti people, from his people, did not suit him. Which is why he sent his envoys crawling out across the web of life, searching for those who could provide the best stories. When the right person was found, only one in a century or so he was quick to remind, he would share a piece of his essence with them.

In this way he would be able to walk among the people once more.

"You," Ezekiel explained, "Carry his essence. You are one of his successors. And one day when you've passed into dust there will be another and so it will go into perpetuity."

"Uh-huh." Peter was thoroughly unimpressed. "So I'm supposed to be carrying a piece of some dead god and that's why I do what I do. Nothing with an explanation, just…" He spread apart his hands as if he were measuring something. "...'Gods!' "

Zeke's grey head shook back and forth. "Not dead, Peter. Gods don't die any more than ideas do, they can only ever be forgotten. And Anansi?" He cleared his throat, "Anansi is anything but forgotten."

"Well that clears it up then. I get it now." It was dismissive.

"I don't think you do, Pete. I think you're being sarcastic."

"Wow, can't get anything past you."

The older man's lips were pulling up gently at the corners. "You haven't reached the point that you can accept it just yet, that's fine. You'll get there eventually."

Now it was Peter's turn to give a condescending smile.

"No. I don't think you'll be selling me on a folk tale any time soon. You know that's what it is, right? It's a folktale, like Paul Bunyan. Last time I looked there weren't any 8-foot lumberjacks up in the pacific northwest." He screwed his face up as he thought about some of the people he'd met before. "Although people do get pretty tall these days so I wouldn't be surprised…" He pointed a defiant finger at the old man sitting across the table from him, "But the rest of what I said stands. There's a difference between a tall guy with an axe and… Spider gods!"

Ezekiel clicked his tongue, making his disappointment clear. "It's not quite a folktale, it's not something you'd hear in school."

Exasperated, Peter raised a hand in the air and then dropped it in resignation.

"Zeke, I've heard of Anansi. It didn't click at first but yes, I've heard of him, okay? This is New York, you think I haven't heard of folktales and fables just because they're from further away?" He picked up a slice, trying to will himself to eat it but his appetite had left the building, unusual for him. "Okay, let's say, just for a single, purely hypothetical moment, that I believe you. Why do you have my powers? Does Anansi like to have different channels he can switch to? Or am I just some poser who's cramping your style? Because I'm gonna level with you, chief: Up until yesterday I had never officiated a conga-line of arachnids. And with you knowing all of this crazy stuff maybe you're the one who's supposed to be dealing with all of this, so if this is some kind of 'Highlander' situation and there can be only one then to hell with it. It's all yours, man. I've done this for 23 years and it sucks like all the time and now you're telling me I've been doing it wrong the whole time? Fine, the show's yours, hope you have a better time than I have because all it's done for me is ruin my life."

Peter slammed his uneaten slice of pizza onto the table, splattering himself with sauce and grease and glared at the other man across from him, mentally daring him to say something about it. Instead he found himself staring into eyes that were warm, old, and understanding.

"Pete, I'm not you, I don't want to be you, and if I'm being completely candid here I don't think I could fill your shoes even if I did. You were chosen, and you were chosen for a reason. I've made a lot of mistakes and the one thing I've taken away from all of them is that I don't know better than ageless beings who have been stirring up the affairs of our world since before my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's were born."

Ezekiel picked up a napkin and wiped away at an errant splatter of grease that had made its way to his side of the table and leaned in, resting his chin on his leathery hands. They weren't the hands of someone who had spent their entire life behind a large oak desk, they were hands that had been places. Seen things so to speak.

"As for me? Consider me nothing more than a kindred spirit, a fellow traveller walking next to you as we make our way down the road of life. Our roads stem from different points and they're headed to different destinations, and I assure you that mine has not always allowed me to remain as pure as you have, but for now I simply want you to know that you can consider me a friend if you're open to it." A half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "One day I hope I can tell you a little more about my path, but now's not the time for that. I just want you to know that you are the real deal. I want you to know that the world operates on a series of checks and balances: Life and death, predator and prey, love and hate… Opposing forces all keeping their opposite in check. Spiders are predators. You-" He extended a finger towards Peter. "Are a hunter. I know you're not going to appreciate hearing this, but you're a predator, wild and savage. You can keep it under wraps as long as you like but eventually you will bare your fangs."

Peter pushed his chair out and stood, there was nothing for him to gain here. Ignoring Ezekiel's curious look he slipped his phone out of his pocket and checked the time to discover that wow he had spent far too much time here when there were other, far more useful and interesting things he could have been doing. He'd like to have chalked up his indulgence of the old man's fantasies to thinking it was entertaining, but he knew in his heart that it was because he was so rich, so powerful, and for once combined those two things with a distinct lack of trying to kill him. Growing up with an always empty wallet had given him a tendency to believe that they all knew something he didn't. He had to admit that he'd never actually heard Anansi's story in its entirety. If it were even true.

"Yeah, okay. Look, I think that I've wasted enough of your time, I'm sure you're a busy guy. So I'm just gonna go ahead and mosey on out of here. Thank you for the pizza, don't call me I'll call you." He stepped around the table and headed for the door only for Ezekiel to reach out and grasp him firmly above the elbow. He looked down to ask what the hell he thought he was doing but stopped when he found himself looking into a face full of grave concern.

"Peter, please. You haven't accepted what I've said here today and I can understand why, it's a lot to come to grips with. I beg you though, hear me out on this one last thing. I spent all the time and money tracking you down for one reason: To give you a warning. I won't stop you from leaving but please, you need to hear this."

Peter spun, yanking his arm free, tearing a hole in the sleeve of his jacket in the process. The guy had one hell of a grip. "What?! Is it ghosts or aliens this time?"

Ezekiel held his hands up, palms outwards in a sign of appeasement. "Look, forget about all of that for the moment. You're in danger."

"Oh." He rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the heads up, it didn't click when someone pulled a building down on me but now that you've said something I think you might have a point." He left a pause, waiting for a rejoinder that never came. "Zeke, I've been doing this for a while in case you weren't aware, I know I'm in danger. I'm always in danger, it's kind of my thing."

The older man shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes centered on Peter's. "Not like this, Pete, not like this. This is something the likes of which you haven't tangled with before. It isn't after you specifically, it's after what you're carrying, it's after the spider."

"I'm the spider! Anything gunning for me is after me, okay?! We're done here." He turned again to leave only for Ezekiel to leap out of his chair, executing a perfect backflip in midair and attached himself just above the exit door.

"Can't you see I'm trying to help you? I have a place that you can hide, where it can't get to you! You can't fight this!"

Peter stood for a moment, hand on doorknob, steadfastly ignoring the new wall decoration.

"That's never stopped me before. I don't put on tights and spring around the city because I know I can win, Zeke. Maybe that makes me crazy but it's what I do, because I made a promise to someone that I would use my powers to help people. Whether it's appreciated or not, if I can save one life then that means someone will make it home to their friends and family. That's all that matters. Besides, I'm just a guy from Queens, but if I'm anything like your Anansi I'm not only lovable but can always beat the odds. I'll be fine."

"It's not your responsibility, Pete."

"You can tell yourself that, but you know what else comes with these powers?"

The older man was silent.

"All of that. Goodbye, Ezekiel."

Peter pulled the door shut and made his way out to the street, leaving Ezekiel alone with his thoughts.

—

The plan had originally been to swing by Rosedell, see if there was anything he could dig up there, maybe even get a hold of this Susie if he was lucky.

Something made him run back home instead though. A vague air of wrongness pervaded everything, a static charge in the air lifted the hairs on the back of his neck and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why. Frowning, he fiddled with the police scanner in his hand trying to find something on the airwaves that could point him to the problem that needed solving, the bad guy he needed to punch, or the machine he had to shut down in order to make this all better, but it offered nothing more than a party getting out of hand nearby.

As far as the world was concerned this was just another night.

Then why am I so scared?

It was frustrating. He was no stranger to fear, far from it, but usually there was something he could point at as its source: A railroad tie hurtling towards his face at fifty miles an hour, someone important to him in danger, his cellphone bill, all of these were things that he expected to leave him with a feeling of anxiety. Tonight though he was just generally uneasy and he didn't like it. He'd already accepted that he wasn't likely to go peacefully in his sleep, he'd done that a long time ago, but there was something in him that wanted to run from something he couldn't see. He was a kid all over again, afraid of the dark.

He bent over, rummaging in the pocket of his still-torn jacket until he found his phone. Maybe Mary Jane would be able to tell him something that would help all of this to make sense, she'd always been his anchor, the one who could put things in perspective when he hadn't realized how his own had gone askew.

It went to voicemail.

He stood back up and stretched, not a 'Getting ready for strenuous activity' kind of stretch but instead the 'Wow, I'm carrying a lot of tension in my upper back' kind. He couldn't shake it, this constant feeling of being observed, chased even, was getting to him.

He undressed quickly and paced around his apartment shirtless, wearing only his bottom uniform tights and boots. If someone were to see him right now it would have been easy to mistake him for an out of work stripper trying to get back into the game. He grimaced as he typed up a message to Gayle asking her to let MJ know he loved her, then pulled his top and mask on, checking the area was clear before he slid surreptitiously out the window.

—-

It was shaping up to be a busy night, he'd only been swinging through the city for maybe an hour and he'd already had to deal with a carjacking, a mugging, and a home invasion. The ne'er do wells were keeping themselves occupied tonight, Spider-Man understood that everyone needed a hobby but couldn't they just take up bowling or something like normal people? He was just leaving the scene of the home invasion once the police were pulling up, took them long enough, when the earpiece he had connected to his scanner crackled to life again.

"904b on lower east side, fire en route. Be advised: Suspect may still be on-site."

He racked his brain, 904b was a building fire and if the perpetrator was still hanging around he likely wasn't planning anything good. He changed course for the LES when they finally gave out the address, hoping he'd be early enough to make sure that everyone made it out safe and sound. It turned out he didn't even need the address to find it, black smoke pouring into the open air made for a clear beacon at a distance and the sirens of on-scene emergency vehicles called him onwards. He quickened his pace and eventually dropped from the air onto a street painted in technicolor nightmare colors by police strobes and flames licking from the windows of the building.

He ran towards the nearest firefighter with rank he could find, an older lieutenant shouting emphatically into a handheld radio. The man lowered the walkie-talkie and wiped sweat from his dripping brow with a gloved hand, noticing the approaching hero as he did so.

"Sorry I'm late, what are you dealing with here? How many inside?"

The lieutenant frowned, gripping his radio tightly in his hand as he shouted a few more commands into it.

"It ain't lookin' good, Spidey. Right now we're just trying to keep a flashover from kicking off, looks like at least one hoarder's living here. Tenants say there's at least one more inside on the upper floors but we're so busy trying to keep that from going off..." He trailed off.

"Got it!" That was what he needed to know. He did a quick half-jog towards the building before launching himself upwards towards an already blown-out window. Inside he instantly found himself choking on acrid, black smoke as he made his way through the building, sometimes going up or down a level to avoid particularly dangerous areas, keeping his eyes and ears open as best he could even though hearing or seeing anything would be difficult blinded by smoke and deafened by roaring flames as he was.

He'd already put off throwing his costume in the wash, this was not going to help matters. MJ would be disappointed if she knew he'd been marinating in the same suit for two days straight now, you could use all the powder in the world but it still wouldn't stop a nasty case of athlete's foot.

"Hello! Is anyone still in the building?! Let me hear you!" He'd lost count of how many times he'd shouted something along those lines in the past… However long he'd been cutting a path upwards through the roaring inferno that had once been people's homes, but he could feel his throat starting to go raw. He was starting to give up hope as close as he was to the roof when, just on the edge of hearing, he heard shouts for help. He quickly made his way to the source of the shouts, finally kicking through a door once he'd ascertained it wouldn't cause flames to rush into the sealed room and broil anyone still alive inside. The smoke was thick here, but he could make out someone kneeling next to a bed shouting into the space beneath the boxspring.

"Get the hell out here, goddammit! We're all gonna die!" The woman seemed to be frantically shouting at someone he couldn't see.

Great, more than one person, that might make the situation a little more difficult.

"Hey! Who else is here?!"

The figure turned to see him and moved away from the bed. With the smoke obscuring everything, stinging his eyes even through his goggles, it was hard to make out any detail but he could see that it was a slight woman with dirty blonde hair made all the dirtier thanks to the soot clinging to it. "Thank God you're here, Spider-Man! Help my baby, please! She's hiding under the bed and just won't come out! She's terrified!"

He nodded wordlessly as he reached her and reached out a hand to grab the hefty-looking dark wooden bed frame. Fear, he knew from past experience, could cause anyone to freeze up, make stupid decisions. One-handed, he lifted it effortlessly so that it was propped against the wall and revealing-

Really?

Beneath the bed was not the young child he had expected to find but instead a small siamese cat, its bright blue eyes wide as a dinner plate with terror. He reached down to pick it up, get them all out of here but it lashed out then recoiled from him, its ears flat to its head. It tried to bolt, although where it planned on bolting to was a question he didn't think it had managed to answer yet. He had to admit that the cat was fast, but he was faster. Lightning-quick he caught it up in a web cocoon, leaving its face uncovered as not to suffocate the poor thing. It looked like one of the cat burritos he'd seen pictures of get posted around the internet every once in a while. Man, whoever first thought of that was a genius.

"Mochi-baby!" The woman rushed over to scoop up the loudly protesting bundle of fluff and webbing, holding it close to her chest. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Don't worry, Mochi's gonna be fine." He pulled her in by the waist, holding her tight against his side as he pointed to the open window. "Which is more than we'll be if we don't get out of here five minutes ago, you ready?"

She nodded, biting her lip as she braced for the leap. It didn't stop her from screaming all the way down when he went through the window, clutching her to his side and bringing their descent to a gentle stop less than a foot above the pavement with a well-timed throw of webbing.

"Last stop: The sidewalk which, you'll be happy to note, is not on fire."

The woman's screaming gradually trailed off as she opened her eyes and looked around to see that they had in fact escaped the inferno above. She grinned sheepishly as he let go of the strand of webbing that kept them suspended in midair, dropping them to the ground where she almost lost her footing, kept aloft by Spidey's sure grip. Once he was certain she had her legs under her again he released her and pulled his sleeve up to reveal his web shooter, he slid open a small compartment and pulled a vial of runny, yellow liquid.

"So as soon as you can be certain Mochi's not going to run away use this to dissolve the webs. Yes, they'll dissolve on their own but it'll take an hour or two and she's already having a bad night, don't make it worse."

She took the vial from him and nodded, thanking him profusely all the while.

"And make sure she doesn't swallow it! It's nontoxic but I promise that you don't have the litterbox to deal with what comes next."

He backed away, waving off another round of thanks from her before turning to take off into the air wherever else his web strand and danger sense would lead him to that night and leapt, instead, into a pale, solid fist that sent him careening down the street and through a light pole.

Ears ringing, vision blurry he looked to see who, what had hit him and found himself staring at a tall figure clad in dark clothes walking towards him.

Right on time the screaming started.

It looked like Mochi the cat wouldn't be the only one having a bad night.