Loneliness was one thing Peter Parker didn't have experience in. Fighting aliens in space? Check. Teaming up with his alternate universe selves to defeat an array of super powered psychotic bad guys? Check. Losing mentors and family and first loves? Check check check.

But through all that Peter had always had a support system to hold him together…his people. Now for the first time in his life he was completely and utterly alone.

He lived alone in his tiny apartment on the wrong side of town where the only people he talked to was an overly hostile landlord that collected his nearly always delinquent rent. He made money uploading footage of Spider-Man in action on YouTube so he didn't exactly have coworkers. Unless you considered muggers and and the always-late-to-the-scene police coworkers? He had gotten his GED and enrolled in college classes but he sat in the back and seemed to be invisible to everyone, save for the sweet round cafeteria lady who always returned his smile and gave him an extra scoop of whatever was on the menu. Did he really look that pathetic?

He used to check up on Ned and MJ as much as possible, just making sure they were safe. But they were at MIT now and as far as he could tell living normal, happy lives. They really were better off without him.

But god, he ached from the silence.

—

"Well batten down the hatches folks, it looks like we're in for the storm of the century tonight! Maybe it will rain hard enough to wash the itsy bitsy Spider-Man down the drain! Hah! We can only hope!" Jamison laughed at his own joke as his loud and sharp voice rang out from the huge screen in Times Square.

Peter rolled his eyes as he grumpily sheltered under the awning of a nearby building. It was raining ridiculously hard as the nor'easter rolled in and his hand-sewed suit didn't protect from the rain quite as well as nanosuit did. So he would spend the night fighting the bad guys (criminals just loved to start stuff during a storm) and be drenched the whole time, suit clinging to his clammy, cool skin. He really needed to find a more water proof material to design with.

Suddenly the hair all over his body stood on end, the sounds around him distorted and time seemingly slowed. He was alerted to something a couple blocks over and he could have sworn that just for a microsecond he heard an alarm going off before being silenced.

Peter swung down from his station, hopping to the building in question, quickly distinguishing the very room and floor his senses were leading him to. The bank on 5th, 14th floor, the biggest vault.

The criminal in question seemed to have a bit more sense than the hopeless amateurs he had been taking down lately. Without his super hearing he would never have heard the careful finesse of the robber smoothly disabling the alarms and breaking into the vault, the loudest noises concealed behind well timed claps of thunder. Even when he dropped in through the cut out hole in the window, the room was silent except for the tiny graceful movements that he was capable of discerning.

He crawled on the ceiling towards the motion, his night lenses and enhanced perception allowing him to see the figure crouched in the dark, pulling something small carefully out of the now open safe. The robber was smaller than he expected, petite and…whoah those curves were definitely of the female variety. This criminal was a she.

The woman was dressed all in black, athletic type leggings paired with a crop top thingy (he was pretty sure that's what they were called) over a mesh type of material that covered her arms and stomach. He couldn't see her face but dark purple hair hung down over her shoulder to her waist as she crouched, focused on whatever she was holding. Not what he had been expecting to find.

"Ma'am, I don't like to be one to assume but… I don't think that's yours," Peter quipped into the darkness and to his surprise the robber didn't yell out at the sudden interruption as they usually did. He heard a sharp intake of breath, a feminine gasp that for some reason had the hair standing on his arms as much as his spider sense had, and then the glint of a blade being flung in his direction.

He easily dodged the throwing knife, hopping down in front of the direction she had leaped towards. She pivoted easily the other way but he was able to catch a glimpse of her face, full lips under a lacy black mask.

Wow, he thought. She's kinda…beautiful.

He stuttered in his movements for just a moment, after all he had very very seldom found himself having to fight women, much less women that looked like…well…that.

In his split second hesitation, the girl had turned back with a well placed kick that landed firmly in his stomach. Peter could tell the kick was strong and if he had been a regular guy it probably would have landed him on his ass and gave her the extra time to flee. But he had super strength and she didn't seem to so the kick did little to nothing before he caught her black combat boot in his hands and held it to his chest.

"Hey now," he said, "less flying ninja moves and a little more handing over the stolen goods ma'am."

He saw two rows of shiny white teeth flash as she laughed, a sound that made him strangely turn red under his suit. She was really really pretty. Why was such a pretty girl out here stealing stuff in the middle of the night in a storm? Was she in tr…

"Oh this?" She asked, holding up the small leather box in her hand, gray eyes sparkling behind her mask.

"Y-yeah that. And then.. I'm really sorry but I'm gonna have to hand you over to the police. I don't what's going on but you're a criminal and-"

Before he could finish the girl quickly slid her other leg along the floor between his, doing a complete split as she maneuvered on her back under his legs and behind him. He let go of her ankle even though he probably could have held on… but what if he broke her foot or leg or something from the angl…

In a quick flip she was off her back and running again before he shot a web at her boot stopping her in her tracks and causing her to fall back on the floor. He stepped over her carefully, reaching down to retrieve the box still in her hand. In a swift move she hooked her free leg around his knee making him stumble on top of her so that they were laying face to face. She shouldn't be able to get the better of him, why was he so off his game?

She was warm and soft against his body and when he looked in her eyes again they were big and doe like pleading at him. "If I give you the box will you promise not to turn me in to the police?" Her voice was soft and breathy, pleading. It went straight to his head, clouding his mind. "Please?"

"W-what?" Peter shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. What was happening? "I-I can't do that, I'm really sorry but you-"

She squirmed beneath him and he wondered if her hips were jutting into his on purpose. What, of course not. Don't be ridiculous, he thought.

She extended her arms over head, stretching out beneath him and he came to his senses a bit, reaching out his arm so that he was also holding the box that was still in her hands. But he didn't take it from her, only rested his fingers on top of her hand, making sure it was still there.

"But you don't know what they'll do to me," she pleaded and his muscles tensed wondering who she was referring to. So she was in trouble.

"Who is it?'' he asked in concern. "I promise I'll help you, you just gotta let me know what's going on."

She arched her back and Peter gulped, out of his element. A grin spread across her lovely face, the corners of her lips turning up like the cat who caught the canary. "So you will help me?"

"I-uh…"

One of her hands reached up to his mask and he had enough sense to snap out of it. He caught her fingers harshly, his brow furrowing, "What-"

She released the box to him so she could put her other hand on his face. Her slim fingers maneuvered under the edge of his mask and this time he let her, curious and not worried she would overpower him and rip his disguise off. She flipped the mask up just barely, revealing his mouth and the tip of his nose.

He didn't stop her when she lifted her head up to bring her lips to hers. Peter's stomach flipped and his whole body turned hot when he felt her mouth moving against his, sweet breath feeling his senses and he was in shock, completely still.

It had been so long since any human contact and now this…with her… this mysterious beautiful woman who might also be a thief but she was in trouble so he was going to help her and…

Before he knew what he was doing he was kissing her back, box forgotten by his side as she opened her mouth to him and he brought his hands to her hair. He didn't even get this much adrenaline from diving off of buildings anymore and for the first time in a long time he felt something other than the pit of loneliness in his chest.

She broke the kiss and looked up at him. "So you'll help me?"

"I-uh... yeah. Yeah." His voice cracked but he nodded in a daze. He couldn't believe this was happening. Lying on the floor with a criminal. Kissing a woman he just meant– but she needed his help. And it had been so long…

"Can you unstick my leg?" she breathed and he nodded and gulped, ripping the web that held her boot.

In a flash she was out from underneath him, and halfway across the room to the window. In a panic he recovered from his daze but was surprised and relieved she had left the box by his side.

"Wait! Don't you need my help?" he dove towards her, flipping across the room.

"I'll figure it out," she laughed nonchalantly over her shoulder. "But you've stopped me from stealing anything so let's just call it even. No cops right?"

She went to slip out the window but Peter caught her arm.

"At least tell me your name. Please?"

Something flashed in her grey eyes that he couldn't decipher and she hesitated. She turned back to him and planted one last kiss on his mouth, wet and warm, hard and fast. Just as he was leaning in she was pulling away. "You can call me Cat."

And then she was gone, diving out of the tiny hole in the glass in one fluid move. Somehow she disappeared completely in the heavy current of rain and Peter thought about going after her but he remembered the small leather box left on the other side of the room. The whole reason he was here.

He walked back over to it, relieved that at least he HAD stopped the robbery and she might have definitely been morally ambiguous but he couldn't imagine someone like that being BAD. He had done the right thing and it was definitely not because she had practically seduced him and clouded his mind and kind of tricked him and-

His rambling thoughts came to a halt as he flipped open the box.

Empty.

For the first time since seeing Cat his thoughts cleared and he realized he had been absolutely, completely, full on tricked. Scammed. Played. Bamboozled. His fist punched the marble floor, leaving a small crater.

Fucking b-