A/N: This story is set in an unwritten AU I have, that I really hope I to get down on paper one day. Backstory time, Felicia and Peter were in a relationship but she left after discovering that she was pregnant. Felicia's back in New York by the time of the story, along with her and Peter's son, Tobey Hardy.
"Mommy?"
The single word was all it took to jolt Felicia Hardy awake. Rolling onto her stomach, she ignored the pain that flared up from her left thigh at the sudden movement and instead reached for her bedside table lamp. Light flooded the bedroom and the little boy who had been peering around the half open door cautiously stepped further inside.
Felicia's brain entered full parent mode and she threw off the covers and raced towards her five year old son. Slipping fully inside the bedroom, Tobey Hardy hesitantly looked at the door for a second, wondering if he should close it behind him or not. Felicia made the decision for him, and shut it without a sound, not wishing to disturb her father who at his time of life needed his rest.
Kneeling down in front of her son, Felicia placed the back of her hand against Tobey's forehead. It was cool to the touch, which caused the cat burglar to let out a sigh of relief. No sudden temperature was a good sign they had all agreed.
"Another headache?" She asked gently.
The five year old nodded. "It woke me up and wouldn't stop." He whispered, his eyes directed towards his bare feet. "I got scared."
"Do you still feel it?"
Tobey shook his head. "It's gone now."
Running a hand lovingly over the top of his head, Felicia gave her son her best reassuring smile. "It's just like they say. Mommy makes it all better."
"Who says that?" Tobey asked as his mother's hand began rubbing the back of his skull, the point where these sudden headaches originated from.
"Everybody at some point in their lives." Felicia replied and began to stand up. She regretted it almost instantly as her son's eyes locked onto the ugly yellow and black bruise that she wore on her upper thigh. A look of total panic washed over his face. "You should see the other guy." The Black Cat grinned triumphantly.
Felicia had decided from the moment Tobey had begun to learn how to walk that she wouldn't keep him in the dark about her less than legal activities. Walter, her father, had ultimately agreed with her decision, providing that she thoroughly educate her son on the very clear differences between a cat burglar, whose sharp skills and quick mind meant that no innocent was ever harmed during their daring crimes, and the common criminal, who would employ brutish, crude, and heartless methods to achieve their goals.
Walter had been Felicia's idol as a child and now she was the same to her son.
But even the most diehard fan can get worried. As evidenced by the fact that Tobey was now carefully examining the rest of his mother's body, frightened that he'd see other tell-tale injuries.
"Do you want to stay up for a bit?" Felicia asked, distracting the five year old from his medical exam. He nodded. "Well we've got to be quiet okay?" She instructed him. "Grandpa needs his beauty sleep."
Tobey once again nodded.
"Why don't you make yourself comfortable and I'll be back in a second." Felicia turned away and headed towards her ensuite bathroom. Closing the door behind her the cat burglar took a long look at herself in the mirror.
"Damn it." She whispered.
She shouldn't have gone to bed in her underwear. Cuts and bruises were something that any child would take notice of, and when it came to Tobey, well he had been born observant, a trait that Felicia and Walter had carefully honed and encouraged as part of the family legacy. Turning to one side, she stared at the ugly mark through the mirror.
She should have worn her joggers to bed.
Mentally berating herself for causing her son unnecessary worry, Felicia did a quick body check to make sure that there were no other offending injuries to be seen. Another small bruise was beginning to form on her lower back, and the cut on her arm was only just starting to heal.
Neither of them were serious injuries but when combined with her latest battle scar Tobey was sure to get upset and right now he had enough on his plate.
She should have worn her jogger to bed. And she had meant to, but by the time the Black Cat had returned home she had been thoroughly exhausted. Stripping out of her suit, Felicia had struggled through the motions of hiding it away in her closet's secret compartment and then had stumbled her way across the bedroom and crawled under the covers. That was the last thing she could remember.
Sleep had taken her almost instantly.
It had been a rough couple of weeks for the cat burglar; firstly she had been dealing with some rather unpleasant competition in the form of the Beatle and the newly reformed Rat Pack. Both played the game ruthlessly and seemed to be taking it personally that the Black Cat was constantly outscoring them.
Of course they were nothing that Felicia couldn't handle. In fact the Rat Pack were quickly becoming a delightful bonus for the cat burglar. Steal the prize, knock around some thugs, be home before midnight.
Sadly home is where the second of her recent problems lurked.
Tobey had started having headaches.
At least that is what they had all decided to call them.
When her son had first described his symptoms to his mother, Felicia knew exactly what it was that Tobey was experiencing. Unfortunately there was no way for her to help him. The tingles that he felt at the back of his head came and went at random. Sometimes they were light and easily ignorable. Other times they became like ringing bells, almost painful and impossible to block out.
Walter worried about his grandson, but there was only a select few individuals on Earth that would understand what was happening to Tobey, and Felicia had stolen from most of them. There was also the problem that none of them could be trusted with the secret of her son.
For now all that Felicia could do was be there for Tobey in his time of uncertainty and offer him comfort and reassurance. Both of which would be a lot more easily received if she hadn't come home bearing the marks of a rough night out.
The headaches would pass in time, everything would be alright. The Hardy's would stick together like always and see things through. Everything was going to be alright.
Exiting her bathroom, Felicia moved quickly, almost skipping, over to her walk in closet and pulled a fluffy pink robe off it hanger. Slipping it on she emerged a few seconds later to discover that Tobey had taken her words on making himself comfortable a little too generously to heart.
There he sat, half tucked under the bed covers, running his hands over her locked treasure box.
Inside was an assortment of valuable trinkets and useless junk, and it wasn't always easy to tell which was which. The box itself was one of Felicia's purchases from the Tinkerer, making it almost triple its weight in gold. It had a simple outer design, black, with perfectly smooth sides and edges. There was no apparent lock or opening mechanism, meaning that should anyone come across it they would have no way of taking a peek inside. A useful feature when you had a curious five year old who loved to tamper with things he knew he shouldn't.
Tying her robe's sash, Felicia Hardy climbed onto the bed and reached for her treasure box. "And what did I say about taking mommy's things?" she asked with a ghost of a smile.
The five year shielded the box with his body. "I was only looking."
"You look with your eyes, not with your hands."
"I, I…" Tobey struggled to find an appropriate comeback. Pressing her advantage, Felicia leaned in and slipped her arms around her son. Her right hand grabbed onto the treasure box while the other began tickled under Tobey's armpit.
Letting out a short shriek of laughter, Tobey could not hold onto the box and it was smoothly plucked from his grasp. Ceasing the tickle assault Felicia shushed her son with a smirk and then turned her attention back to the treasure box.
"Want to look inside?" Felicia asked after a few seconds of silence. Tobey nodded eagerly. "Turn around then." His mother instructed, causing the boy to frown.
"Why?"
"Cause Mommy said so."
Unhappy with the answer Tobey hesitated for a moment, but his curiosity was too much to bear. Long had he wanted to explore the secrets held within the mysterious and tantalising treasure box, only ever catching brief glimpses of what was being held inside when his mother was preparing for a transaction with a buyer.
Watching her son reluctantly turn away, Felicia pressed her thumb against the bottom left corner of the lid where a tiny inbuilt scanner read her thumbprint. A second later and the lock disengaged without a sound and Felicia opened the box. Sensing movement behind him, Tobey quickly turned around and let out a whispered. "Wow."
In truth he couldn't name half of the strange and wonderful objects held within the box, but that didn't really matter to the five year old. His eyes darted back and forth and his mind filled with questions regarding each and every item.
"You can pick them up if you like." Felicia encouraged, bringing the box closer, watching her son's delight with a parent's joy.
"Really?" Tobey asked unable to tear his eyes from all the wonders before him.
"Yes, really."
With a slow, steady movement, the five year old reached out and hovered his hand over the various objects. It was like being asked to pick a chocolate out of a box, they all looked so good and he didn't know where to start. After several twitches of his fingers, Tobey carefully picked up a small, thin, shard of dark grey metal.
"What's this?" He asked, turning it over carefully in his hands.
"A piece of vibranium." Felicia explained, smiling as she recalled the chaotic night that had led to her getting her hands on it. "Not sure what I'm going do with it but it's worth a king's ransom."
Tobey looked up at his mother, doubt plainly written across his face.
"Hey, would I lie to you?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
Returning the vibranium shard to the box, Tobey's next pick was far shinier and significantly less valuable.
"Guess what that's called." Felicia pointed as he lifted up a gold bracelet fitted with several dozen diamonds.
"Uh…" The five year old thought hard on it for several seconds, mentally running through all the famous and valuable bracelets his grandfather and mother had shown him. "The cat's crown?"
"Close." Felicia answered as she gently took it from Tobey. "It's called the Cat's collar. And it was valued at nearly three million dollars when I stole it."
"Cool." Tobey whispered as he reached out to touch it once again.
"However," His mother continued. "Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that three of these diamonds…" She quickly pointed to the offending stones with an expert's eye. "are fake."
"What?" Tobey exclaimed turning to look from the bracelet to his mother then back to the piece of jewellery. "Fake?"
"Yeah, total waste of my time." The Black Cat huffed in annoyance. "The guy who had this before me, damaged it and lost some of the stones, only to then have them replaced on the cheap. He was going to gift it to a girlfriend but I got to it first, he then claimed a massive insurance check, while I got defective jewellery."
"That isn't fair." Tobey seethed.
Felicia Hardy laughed. "Tell me about it." She then twirled the bracelet on her finger, causing the diamonds, both real and fake, to catch the light and shine in a vast array of colours. "I thought once or twice about putting real diamonds back in but I never got around to searching for the right sized gems."
"Maybe you can do that for your next job?" The five year old suggested. "Make it all real again."
His mother silently mused over the idea. "Maybe."
The cat's collar was then returned to the treasure box and the hunt for the next wonder began.
One by one Tobey would pick out a piece of history and Felicia would in turn answer any questions her son might have. Time slowly ticked on and neither Hardy noticed at just how late it was getting, they were far too caught up in tales of past adventures, full of daring schemes and desperate battles.
As the five year old carefully examined a grinning jade demonic figure stolen from the home of the sorcerer supreme himself Felicia reached out and began stroking his platinum blond curls. When she had been younger and wilder she could never have pictured herself having children. She would've seen them as a distraction, an obstacle, something that got in her way and ate up precious time.
Danger and excitement is what made life worth living and a baby, no matter how cute it was, had no business getting in-between her and the thrills of the night.
It was funny how things like perspective could change.
"Mommy?" Tobey asked, bringing Felicia out of her silent reminiscing. "What's this?"
Sitting in the centre of her five year olds hand was a small silver disc designed to look like a spider.
Felicia blinked in surprise. She had forgotten that she still had that little keepsake. A second later and Felicia realised how ridiculous a notion that was. Of course she still had it; it was a memento from their earliest meeting. A trinket from a time before Spider-Man had a name, at least a real name, a face, or a life outside of the bright coloured costume.
He had slipped it on her, thinking that he could track her down at his leisure only to discover that nobody, not even him, could outwit the Black Cat.
It was a little piece of nothing and everything. An opening ploy that had failed that had led to rooftop battles and long chases through the night, which had evolved into flirty meetings and playful banter that in time had transformed into genuine affectionate and intimate moments between them.
The spider-tracer was the start of something that had led to this very moment.
Without it there might not be a Tobey Hardy staying up late and listening to her past.
"Mom?" Her five year old asked as he grew worried about the long silence his mother had slipped into. "Mommy?"
He reached for her hand and gave her arm a little shake.
"Sorry kitten." Felicia blinked as she once again found herself dragged back into the present. "Mommy got a little lost in her own head there for a second."
"Are you okay?"
"Fine." She smiled and reached for her son. Wrapping her arms tightly around his body mother pulled son into her lap and then took hold of the little silver spider disk. "You wanted to know what this is?"
"Ye-yeah." Tobey nodded. "It looks like a spider, is it a special coin or something?"
"Very special, but it's not a coin."
"Okay, then what is it?" The five year old persisted, as his mother slowly ran her thumb over the spider's body.
"A present," She answered. "from a friend."
"Is that a real friend or a rich sucker kind of friend?" Tobey asked causing Felicia to laugh. Walter had clearly been teaching him about the kinds of language used when describing potential targets.
"A real friend." She answered. "One of the best. And worst."
Confused at this answer, Tobey took the spider-tracer from his mother and began to slowly turn it around, examining both sides for any clues on to what the silver object actually was. Then he stopped.
"Ow." He whispered.
"What's wrong?" Felicia asked, her eyes turning immediately towards his hands in case he had somehow hurt himself on the old spider-tracer.
"I just had another headache." Tobey muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "Only a baby one though."
Staring down at the spider-tracer there was no doubt in Felicia's mind as to the cause of this sudden headache. She had thought that the circuitry inside had long since failed, leading the tracer to become a cute little novelty. But apparently some life still existed within its small silver frame and just like its creator, Tobey could connect to it.
Taking the spider-tracer from her son, Felicia held it up to the light.
It was so small and yet was the start of something life changing. How could she ever get rid of it?
"I'll tell you the story of how I got this one another night." She promised, returning the spider-tracer to the treasure box. "But now…" she continued, "it is way past your bedtime young man."
Tobey Hardy didn't even bother to argue over that point. This was most certainly the latest he had ever stayed up. He did however have one final question as his mother closed the lid of the treasure box which reengaged the locking mechanism. "Can I sleep here tonight?" Slipping out of bed, Felicia stored the treasure box underneath her bed. No point in bothering to hide it tonight. "Mommy?"
"Fine." She huffed with a smile after several dragged out seconds. "You can sleep here tonight."
Climbing back into bed, Felicia turned off the bedside table lamp and began making herself comfortable. She had just gotten settled when Tobey rolled over and cuddled close to her. Laughing softly at this, she wrapped her arms around him and brought their heads together.
"Goodnight mommy." Tobey whispered as he closed his eyes. "I love you."
"I love you more." Felicia answered back and kissed his forehead.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it, if you have any thoughts, comments or constuctive critisism, please let me hear them.