Anja twirled her pinkie around in her now lukewarm coffee, hand pressed against her cheek and ignoring the electricity in the air. The girl was late.
There were rules, loose guidelines passed through whispers on the streets on how to get the bare knuckled slugger to work for you. Don't call in the mornings, don't bring anyone along, and don't be late. It didn't seem like a lot to ask, and she felt annoyance creeping up in the back of her throat every minute the clock ticked on and she was seated in the diner alone, sipping on her second cup of coffee. But then, when Anja saw them creeping towards her, dainty bruised legs sliding in the booth across from her with shaking hands and flickering eyes, the annoyance faded away and the emotion in her throat twisted into something else. Anja couldn't ever turn anyone down.
Heart steady in her ears, she tried to drown out her surroundings and focus on the cream that curdled and floated to the top of her coffee, watching it swirl while she waited. She didn't think coffee did anything for her anymore, exhaustion constantly displayed itself under her eyes, but she felt it when she stopped throwing back cups. She felt it in her head and in the blackness that crept up in the corner of her eyesight. It wasn't worth the money she would save.
A sigh fell from her lips and she straightened up as the waitress approached, white apron and pink dress the last remnants of a time when this diner wasn't a grimy mess. Her black name tag read Margot and she kept a hand on her hip while topped off Anja's cup with hot, stale coffee. "Your date late?" Margot questioned, eyeing the untouched table settings.
Anja shrugged. "Maybe I'm getting stood up."
"Maybe the word got around that you bring a new girl here almost every day," Margot teased lightly, smiling in a way that made her crow's feet impossible to ignore.
"Guess I'll have to find a new diner," she deadpanned, earning a huff from Margot as she turned and swayed her hips as she walked away.
Anja blew out a huff of air, watching the clock on the wall tick and tick and tick and the girl was almost at her time limit. Anja was patient and she could put up with a lot but it had almost been a half hour and if Margot came around and started making any more comments it might've stretched her out just a little too thin.
Five more minutes, Anja thought to herself, tearing up the ends of a flimsy straw wrapper. But when the clock reached the end of that five minute limit, Anja stayed in her seat, restless and fidgeting in her seat. She wasn't used to staying still for so long. It put her on edge.
When the bell chimed and the door swung open, Anja whipped up a quick lecture, an scathing speech about wasting her time and disrespect. But when the small girl stepped through the door, Anja's heart dropped and the words went dry before they could ever make their way up to her lips. She could feel it, the desperation, the fear, tightening her chest and twisting around in her gut. Anja slumped back down again, eyes firm on the cup of coffee. She couldn't have been more than just sixteen.
The sticky booth across from her let out a puff of air when the girl slid in the spot, the bottom of her thighs dragging against the fake leather uncomfortably and loudly. Anja let her eyes flick up at her. "I am so so sorry," the girl gushed, blonde hair flying out of her ponytail and big green eyes wide and pleading. Anja counted the bruises, some of them looked too fresh. "You are, you are, you're her, right?"
Anja choked everything down and struggled to sound indifferent. "What's the name they gave you?" she questioned, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back into the desk.
The girl was mousy in demeanor, shaking and twitching and constantly twisting around like she was trying to see everything at once. Her arms were thin like toothpicks. She couldn't have been older than sixteen. Anja watched as she picked the dead skin off her lips and she ran her tongue over her bottom lip before she leaned in and whispered, "They told me to ask for the Harpy."
Anja gave a slight smile. "Then I'm her. What can I do for you?"
It took the girl a minute. It usually did. They were each marred by something, tense and scared and unsure. They didn't like talking about it. Not with a stranger and not in public. But they always did. They needed to. Anja just watched, still, with the hood of her sweatshirt tucked over her ears and balls of her feet tapping rhythmically against the floor.
Eventually, the girl shoved her hand deep into her pursed, shuffling around through her belongings loudly and unabashedly before she pulled out a crumpled and stained envelope, placing it on the table and pushing it towards Anja.
The older girl had a bit more discretion. In a quick and fluid movement, Anja had the envelope open and held it under the table, her eyes scanning over the contents. A bent, glossy photo of a grinning man bent over three little white lines, spiky blonde hair and eyes that were blue like a storm. "How old is this photo?" Anja inquired, tracing her thumb over the crinkles.
"I don't know," the girl answered honestly. "I stole it from his room when he was sleeping. Probably at least ten years; he looks a lot older now. But you can tell it's him."
Anja hummed, flipping the photo and studying the handwriting on the back of it. The ink was fresh, a scribbled down address and the name Ronnie Trevino in big, bubbly letters. Anja memorized it, repeating it three times over it in head before she ripped the photo in half and stuffed it in her back pocket. She looked back up at the younger girl. "Is this your boyfriend? Or is he your boyfriend?"
Her voice was squeaky when she said, "Both, I think. I don't know. It wasn't supposed to be like this and I just want to-"
"Hey," Anya cut her off, "you don't have to explain anything to me." Her tone was firm but not harsh and it took a lot of practice for her to get to that point. "You want me to take care of it? I'll take care of it."
Her eyes were wide. "When you say take care of it…," she trailed, her voice squeaky and nervous.
Anja raised her eyebrows. "Well do you want me to do what I do? Or do you want me to make it someone else's problem?"
Anja could tell from the way the other girl sat, frozen with her shoulders upright and her breath caught up in her throat, that she had no idea what Anja meant. Anja wouldn't explain. She couldn't. She leaned forward and said, "Do you want to leave it up to me?"
Wordless and wide-eyed, the girl nodded, and Anja knew what she needed. All these girls, they all wanted the same thing.
A full year in New York and Anja still didn't have any friends. She had her girls, the ones she took care of and the ones she looked out for, but they didn't even know her real name. They knew her as a myth, as the Harpy, something unreal and untouchable. She had her landlord, Mr. Rywin, who took a fondness to Anja when he found out she was also a Jew from Poland. But Mr. Rywin was pushing seventy and never left the apartment building and Anja didn't think she could drag him out to a dive bar for green tea shots.
Anja just made friends with the rats that scurried through the hallways and the roaches in the hall.
Anja knocked three times, gently, on the cracked wooden door with the rusted number six on it. On the other side there was the screeching of wooden chairs against wooden floors and the creaking and crooning of worn down floor boards. Anja counted to ten before the door grumbled, complained, and popped open.
Mr. Rywin looked down at Anja with warm eyes and croaky greeting of, "Mały."
Anja beamed. "Cześć, Mr. Rywin. I was wondering if you had any more bialys. Stavros down at the gym said he's not letting me back in there till I bring him more."
The older man chuckled, and then waddled away from the door, disappearing into his kitchen. Anja leaned against his doorframe and watched as he rustled through various containers. "Well, the way I hear it, mały, Stavros banned you from his gym, and none of my baking is getting you back in there." He picked up a plastic container, filled with the small little rolls. "In fact, he told me explicitly to keep these out of your hands."
Anja let her neck drop, groan rumbling in her throat. "He called?" she questioned, going limp against the door frame.
Mr. Rywin gave her a sly smirk. "Left three very vocal messages about it. Said you scare his business away," he teased, and tossed the container towards the girl.
Anja caught it with one hand and twisted her backpack around to shove it down the front pocket. "Thanks, Mr. Rywin. You know Stavros is being dramatic. He always is. I'm good for business, y'know."
"I'm sure you are," he told her, voice soft and comforting and Anja liked being around Mr. Rywin. She liked his kindness and she never met either one of her grandfathers but she liked to imagine that they were like him, sly little mischievous old men with containers of bialys and jelly donuts and knishes. "Just try not to get him in trouble again for a few weeks, alright? All that kneading is bad for my old joints,"
Anja grinned. "I'll be good, Mr. Rywin," she said in sweet voice between her teeth. Mr. Rywin rolled his eyes.
"No."
"Stavros come on!"
He shook his head, arms crossed over his chest and whistle in between his lips. He wasn't watching Anja, he had his eyes on one of his hopefuls, twirling and flipping and jumping. Her floor routine sucked.
Anja groaned, trying to shove the container of bialys into his hand but he stood still, like a soft statue. "Stavros please. I won't even use the floor mats! I'll just stay on vault and bars, please!"
"No, Vaselevsky, not after last time," he told her in a firm voice, huffing and puffing with each word. "It's like I told that old man, you're bad for business."
"Stavros," Anja groaned, dropping her head back. "Come on! If you let me practice here, I'll compete for you! You have like, what a senior group, right?"
The man sighed, turning away from the athlete on the floor and facing Anja with a flat expression. "Vaselevsky, I don't want you competing. You're sloppy on the floor and you don't take it seriously," he explained. "And besides, you're too old for the senior group. You should be on a college team by now."
The girl on the floor had halted her routine, a little teenage diva with an Olympics pipe dream. "Anja why don't you go get a job like a normal adult so I can practice?" she shouted towards the pair, arms stretched over her head.
Anja yelled back, "Land a half-in, half-out without breaking your fucking ankles, brat!" at the same time Stavros ordered, "Mind your own business, Heather, keep doing your routine!"
The younger girl rolled her eyes, and put on a bright, plastic smile before doing her little scissor kicks. Anja scoffed.
Stavros gave her a stern look. "This is what I mean. Bad for business."
Anja stared the man in the eye, mouth in a flat line. For the few seconds of silence, she felt this prickling from the back of her head, electric crackling inside of her skull. She was tempted. She raised her eyebrows and studied the stern expression of the man in front of her and decided that she wouldn't. With a sigh, Anja reached into her gym bag and fumbled around with a few objects for a second before she found what she needed. A crispy, blood-free fifty dollar bill. She flattened it out, stacked it on top of the bialys, and handed it to Stavros again. His arms remained crossed for a minute before he sighed. "I'm not asking you where you got this."
"That's probably smart," she grinned, stepping away from Stavros, towards the locker room.
"Bars and vault only!" he yelled after her, and Anja tossed up a hand in acknowledgment.
Stavros's gym was suspiciously damp, constantly squishy and moldy. The thick, pungent stench of decades old stale sweat blended beautifully with the cutting metallic smell of blood. The bars struggled to hold the weight of even the tiniest of girls, and metal structures were more rust than anything. Anja could not be the worst thing for business at this gym. It was disgusting and old and rotten, a zoo for girls who weren't rich enough for gyms that could get them to national competitions. But Anja thrived there. It was the only place she could flip herself over the vault without being knocked over with the memories of when she was the one with Olympic pipe dreams.
Her technique and discipline suffered for lack of coaching, over the years. But Anja was a powerhouse. What she lacked in technique she made up for in strength. When she snapped off the vault and soared through the air, the echoing booms of her feet hitting the ground earned attention all around. When she dismounted off the beam with an impressive set of twists, all eyes were on her tight form. Maybe that's why Stavros didn't want her on the floor. Anja didn't dick around with kicks and splits, she did pass after pass, loud and thundering and aggressive and commanding. Little girls watched her with wide eyes. Anja didn't have the discipline they needed and they didn't have the force Anja was born with.
Her limbs were stiff, but she stretched them out and enjoyed the strain in her muscles. She liked the way that particular brand of pain felt, the tightness and the release; she savored it. Pointing her toes and holding onto them, nose tucked in between her knees, Anja drowned out the whistles and the thumps and the springing. This was the only time she really could drown everything out. Normally, she was buzzing, a radio tower for activity, for body language, for movement or for stillness. She spread her legs out, splitting in the middle and reaching for either side. Anja would have to go easy; three hours at most and long stretches after. Ronnie Trevino lived five stories up.
Balaclavas were in in New York fashion. Pretty girls with pretty pink lips and long eyelashes batted their eyes and took their shots behind their preppy pink knit. When Anja pulled one over her nose and down her neck back home, she got long, suspicious looks from strangers, lasting and judging. In New York, she walked down the street in her all black garb with her all black balaclava pulled over her features and people thought it was just another girl following another trend. It was a blessing, really.
Anja leaned against a brick building in the Lower East Side. She figured a pimp with a coke problem would probably be able to afford something a little flashier than her rat's nest in South Brooklyn.
At four in the morning, all that was left on the street were drunks and vagrants, people who minded their business and people who turned the other way. Anja's crowd. The beating heat the sun brought had long faded into a gentle warmth, but Anja still sweat underneath her handmade mask.
With four deep, controlled and counted breaths, Anja closed her eyes. A swiping knife clattering on the floor, blood squishing out from a dainty nose, tufts of blonde hair in her fists, purple skin, and a thick stack of dollar bills. Her eyes shot open.
It was a clear shot from the ground to that third window in from the right; the fire escape was rickety and rusty but sturdy enough for Anja to fling herself up there. She leaned back, scanning for weak spots and nosy spots before she gave one final exhale. And then she was flying.
Her canvas shoes hit the top of the railings for barely a second before she was jumping and reaching again, kicking her legs up and swinging. She was grateful for the time she spent on the bars today; her arms needed the practice.
Once she was perched on the edge of his fire escape, out of view and still, she let a sereneness wash over her. Nothing was wrong. She was safe. She was warm. She was cozy and comfortable and content. She left it tingle in the top of her head and sink down her skin, spreading through her limbs and through the tips of her toes and out her nose through deliberate breaths. Anja continued with the spread, focused only on the feeling of being disarmed and relaxed while her fingers and a bobby pin waged war against the window lock. It popped open silently, and Anja stuck a toe in first, letting the rest of her body slink in after.
She took it all in. The apartment was decent-sized, scarcely decorated with oak wood flooring and a sage green on the walls. Anja was crouched down in the living room, a kitchen to her left and a bedroom to her right. She took a deep breath, moving slowly and silently with her sereneness growing and probing. If he was asleep, he wasn't about to wake up. Her movements were painstakingly slow, careful to avoid any creaking or cracking of the floors. She stayed low to the ground.
The bedroom door was open. Anja didn't think anything of it. The only light in the bedroom was whatever leaked in from the window in the living room; she could barely see but she took her time, savoring the anticipation and trying not to let it soak into her spread.
Anja couldn't even begin to name the times she had done this; crept into someone's home with this false blanket of security that they took into their deaths. She did it long before New York and she would do it long after, until the blanket had unraveled and it was her turn to go. But it wasn't until New York that Anja realized she could like what she did.
The apartment layout and decor was committed to memory when she realized that something was wrong. She froze, low to the ground and slowing breathing to keep her spread untainted. There was a thick stillness in the apartment, one too thick for even for sleep. Anya stood, back straight and abrupt and she inched closer and closer to the bedroom. One foot on the wooden floor, one foot on the carpet, Anya peered in to see that the bed was empty. One, two, three. Painful stillness. One, two, three. There was nothing.
But Anja knew what she saw. She saw the blood and the broken nose and the knife and the hair and she knew. It had to happen. A frustrated growl escaped her lips and she let her spread retract back inside of her with a snap as her forced calm melted into a rage. Anja was never wrong.
As soon as the energy was sucked back into Anja, there was a gentle thump. Her blood ran cold and she whipped around, lip furled into a snarl and from the shadows of the bedroom, he emerged.
Anja had seen him before in news broadcasts and blurry videos online, but she wasn't prepared to see someone like him in person. She figured her low-brow crime and hits were too low-brow for the likes of the Avengers. The cold panic that ran through her almost flooded into in the room. "Whew," said the so-called friendly neighborhood Spider-Man from behind his mask. "Thank god that's over. Did you do that?" he questioned casually, pointing a lazy finger in Anja's direction. "That was trippy."
Anja was shaking her head, ignoring the causality of his stance and his words and her fists were tight and trembling. "I didn't see you," she mumbled, mostly to herself, voice a blend of sheer panic and disbelief. Anja always saw. And she didn't like the implication that there was something someone could have done to make what she saw wrong.
The grown man in latex shook his shoulders. "Alright well, I guess I should read you your Miranda rights. I don't know them that well, but I do know that you have the right to remain-"
While he rambled, Anja lunged, swinging her leg around to hit him behind the knees and knock him off his feet. She righted, watching as he landed on the palm of his hands and sprung back up. "-silent "
Please come quietly. I don't want to hurt you.
White hot rage bubbled Anja's throat at the thought that echoed around her head, gurgled like it was underwater. She knew that he probably could hurt her. She watched his hands, waiting for one of them to flick in her direction. She didn't have the time to close her eyes and she didn't have the strength to break out of that fucking webbing. "Was the girl a trick?" Anja questioned, stepping back and circling, half curious and half buying time. She needed to know, before she committed, that the tiny little girl with the scattered bruises, wasn't going to suffer another night because Spider-Man crashed the party.
He mimicked her motions, one leg crossing over the other. "She's safe, if that's what you need to know."
Anja moved slowly, searching quickly for any proof. She found her, that blonde little girl with the green buggy eyes, sitting in a police station, huddled under a blanket with a strong arm over her shoulder, thumb tracing patterns on her skin, another pair of buggy green eyes.
That was enough, she guessed, and she lunged again.
He was faster than her and he was stronger than her. Even half assing it, his blows were quick and precise and Anja did what she could to block them. Elbows and shins and ducking and rolling. She couldn't get a hit in edgewise, and when she tried, a strong hand grabbed the middle of her forearm and held it in place. "Would you like to come quietly now, please? I really don't want to hit a girl."
Anja pressed her lips into a tight line, staring straight and into the eyes of his mask. It would be harder, the way his eyes were obscured. But not impossible. She pictured it, falling to her knees and offering her wrists up. She pictured the look of defeat on her features and the deflated sigh she would give and the way her shoulders would slump. Anja stood very still while he stepped back. "Oh, I didn't think it would be that easy. Alright. Okay, cool!"
While he spoke, seeing what Anja wanted him to see, she crept back towards the window. "I guess I just know when I'm bested," she said in a low voice, leg dipping out the window and into the night sky.
"Huh," he let out in a breath, hands on his hips. She smirked as she faded, sinking into the night and almost regretting not sticking around to see the reaction that would occur when he pulled off the balaclava and she disappeared into dust.
very quick disclaimer before i get into this. i am a casual fan and i casuallyconsume spider-man media. i just really fucking like the character a lot. so i don't know a lot about the comics and i don't know about the mcu and i'm not going to incorporate a lot of cannon into this story. if you have a problem with that and you're a diehard marvel fan, i would suggest not reading because i am not and this is just meant to be a fun little self-indulgent fic and boy oh boy do i love tom holland as spider-man. if that doesn't bother you, then stay! if it does, i do not care lol. but if you do decide to stick around, i hope you enjoy !