Chapter Eight: Spider-cat, Spider-cat, Hides Away in Spidey's Bag

*TIME SKIP: 3 MONTHS*

Hiro wasn't sure if this idea was brilliant or dead stupid. But wasn't that his whole life, summed up in one sentence? Hermione would agree with him. The thought sent a pang through his heart, quickly shaken off as he was faced with big brown doe eyes pleading with him to get in the bag. At last, his curiosity and Gryffindor courage won over his common sense and non-existent self-preservation instincts that hadn't improved when he was turned into a cat.

He chose to ignore Peter's quiet celebration at what he viewed as a success on his part, just rolling his eyes inside the backpack and making sure there was an amply wide slit in the zipper, so he could poke his head and paws out, but hopefully small enough that he wouldn't fall out. Hiro watched the reflective gold-tinted goggles slide down over the chocolate eyes, a half-mask hiding Peter's smile, though you could still tell it was there. Then his seat was picked up and hooked over two shoulders, much more gingerly than the last time he had hitched a ride in secret and it had been swung up and dangled by one strap.

Spider-man, as he was now used to calling Peter when he was in costume, peeked back at him one last time before deciding he was good and crawling out the window before something crazy happened, like Aunt May walking in on them. That… probably wouldn't end well.

The kit heard the easily recognizable thwip and poked his head out as the hero swung them through the air, towards the more downtown and troubled part of the city. With the wind rushing through his fur and everything blurring by at high speeds, he was happy, at home in the sky. Harry had always loved flying, whether on a broom or something else, and some of his happiest memories were up in the sky and/or playing Quidditch. This feeling, along with the lack of panic, probably made Hiro seem even odder to his "owner," but he didn't care.

He loved this rollercoaster ride in the air and closed his eyes just to sense the rise and fall as they went along. But he couldn't keep them that way for long and viridescent irises flew back open with his bubbly happiness. Up and down and up and down in a way reminiscent of diving for the Snitch, yet completely new and exciting. Mostly, Hiro was just happy to be back in the air.

And then they were suddenly diving lower, close enough to the ground for Spidey to land with a few steps rather than dropping down like he'd seen him on the telly.

Back down in the depths of his pack, the cat's ears swiveled and caught muffled conversation, snippets about someone or something stuck in a tree. Slow day, then. Hiro felt the bag jostle as Spider-man climbed a tree and poked his head out to see a young girl huddled out on the end of a branch on the widespread maple. She looked terrified, with wispy strands of blonde hair escaping her pigtails and big hazel eyes filling up with unshed tears. He soon saw why as the branch creaked and the superhero froze in place. That branch was too thin and leave it to city folk to not have a ladder.

"Hey," Spidey whispered softly to the girl. "It's okay, it's okay… I'll get you down, don't move." All he got in return was a tiny whimper and more creaking as she shifted, obviously not quite trusting the masked man. "Shh, shh, you'll be fine… I promise." The last words came out haltingly, not enough for the girl to hear, but Hiro picked up on it. Though he shoved the questioning thoughts to the back of his mind, they weren't going to be ignored for too long. Crawling out of the backpack and shimmying his way fully to Spider-man's shoulder, he meowed loudly at the youngster. She couldn't be older than first or second grade and her eyes lit up at the sight of the kit.

"Kitty?" It was so quiet, anyone else would've missed it, but the duo trying to get her down perked up.

"You like cats?" the currently human one offered hesitantly, both his words and his arm. "This is Hiro. He's very friendly." Hiro perched cheerily, puffing up his chest in a way he knew was silly, hoping to get a laugh.

He wasn't disappointed as little giggles came along with her nod. "We can't have a cat. The apartment man says it's pro-prohi- "

"Prohibited?"

"Yeah." The girl was more relaxed now, talking with a superhero with a cat was evidently better than talking to a superhero. A point that encouraged Hiro's shenanigans as he crept along the branch to her, even pausing when it let out a warning groan, and allowed her to pat him a couple times before leading her back to Spider-man. He cast a glance behind his shoulder and meowed again when the girl stopped in fear. She made it all the way across and Hiro tucked himself back into the backpack, though his head still poked out to watch her curiously as she turned nervous again.

"What's your name?" Spidey inquired, seemingly at ease when they were all back near the trunk.

"Fiona."

"That's a pretty name." He got her to hold on around his neck while he cradled her with one arm and climbed down with the other. "I'm Spider-man."

"I know that!" Fiona laughed in the squeaky way of children. "Everybody knows you!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say everybody…"

"Yeah, everybody!" she insisted bouncily and barely noticed that they were back on solid ground, even as the boy set her down. "You're a hero!"

"And you're out of that tree," he added as she peered around, a tad surprised. "Are your parents around here?" The grassy field in the middle of the concrete jungle was spotted with picnickers and people sitting on branches, but no one had come over or even expressed remote concern after Spidey swung over to help. They went on with their food and conversation and he couldn't spy any couples searching for a little girl.

"Hmm… well, best thing to do is stay in one place until they come back." He knelt down to her level with a ridiculous, silly smile that anyone could see despite his colorful ensemble and ticked a finger thrice. Hiro scrambled back up to his shoulder, eager to provide more help. If there was anything he liked more than a good adventure, it was helping. Also known as his "saving people thing," according to his friends. "That's the rule. But, since I have time to spare, I'll sit with you. Sound good?" With her shy nod, Spidey plopped down right then and there, stretching exaggeratedly and leaning back against the trunk of the tree they'd just escaped from. Fiona sniggered again and joined him on the grass, beaming widely when Hiro stepped carefully over her messily crossed legs and into her lap.

They talked and chatted about a hundred things with topics ranging from school, where her favorite subject was recess and Hiro secretly agreed, though Spider-man acted horrified in an only partially joking manner, to whether or not "sparkle" was a color. They finally agreed that it was, which made Fiona very happy.

Almost as happy as she was when her parents, a middle-aged couple who had probably gained a couple grey hairs through this ordeal, came running over and swept her up in a big hug. The girl had her father's hair, her mother's eyes, and that reminded him painfully of his own parents. Harry had resembled his father almost exactly, from the hair to the glasses, and gained his almost otherworldly green eyes from his mother, whose fiery temper sometimes showed itself in him, though uncommonly; like her, he was usually perfectly nice unless you really did something to set him off. Like Draco at Madam Malkin's and then again on the Hogwarts Express, first year.

He drug himself out of his sadly nostalgic and semi-sweet thoughts, noticing Spidey looking at the family like he had been until a second ago. Though hard to tell with his mask still on and the goggles blocking any emotion that could've shown in his typically expressive eyes, he had the same air about him. Worriedly, Hiro gave a small mew, nuzzling his cheek before obediently getting into the comfy carry-on and letting the superhero swing off, out of the park and in between the skyscrapers.

They went past a construction site teeming with workers that looked like ants from their height. Glass windows, metal supports, concrete blocks were running together on each swoop as they picked up speed and height until Spidey finally released a web at the top of a particularly large pendulum motion, sending them on an adrenaline-rush-inducing flight through the sky. One more web-line latched onto the bottom of something Hiro couldn't see, as he had ducked fully into the bag when he realized that the web-slinging happening was wilder than it had been earlier, almost like the spider-themed hero had forgotten he was there and had defaulted to his usual, and they swung in a full loop before Spider-man landed in a crouch.

Only then did he dare emerge, finding that the backpack had been set a yard or so away from the boy, tucked safely behind a foot-high ledge and on the actual roof portion, opposed to where the brunet sat on a metal eagle-head, or something of the sort. He was on the mostly flat part of the sculpture that poked fully out from the roof and over the city and sat with one leg dangling, one bent upright and with his arms looped around it. His hood was down, and his kerchief hung around his neck, fluttering uncertainly, with his goggles pulled up off his face. Eyes closed, he tipped his head back, everything about the position causing Hiro a great deal of worry for his safety, sticky powers or not.

The kit's first few steps were rather unsteady from the flip-ride on the way up and he didn't hop up on the ledge but placed his front paws and head up there to gaze at the teenager. Peter sighed heavily, the sound traveling surprisingly easily due to the abnormally still atmosphere for a perch so high up. "Sorry, buddy. Bit of a rough ride."

Hiro tilted his head with a meow, to his not-owner's amusement. It wasn't rough, per se, just unexpected. "I don't know why that shook me up so much. Just a little girl stuck in a tree. C'mon, I rescue cats all the time, why not Fiona?" He was talking more to himself, but Hiro was glad to offer a listening pair of ears, something he had often wished for in his own childhood.

"I-I promised her," he said with a slight crack. "I kept that promise. I kept it." Peter clenched his fist, reassuring himself, as Hiro cautiously came to curl up next to him, then moved to his lap when he shifted to a cross-legged seat. The cat didn't make a sound, not a meow or vibrating purr, sitting with him. "I made a promise… one that I didn't keep once. It… got someone – no, not someone, my best friend, killed. My best friend, for as long as I could remember. I had promised Captain Stacy that I could stay away from his daughter, but I broke it and she died. Because of me. Because of me."

At this point, the cat in his lap desperately wished he could wrap Peter in a hug and never let go, that he was human and could do a much better job of helping and protecting. For now, though, he had to settle for providing warmth and comfort from his lap. "And then, I saw Fiona, just now, with her parents… I lost my parents. When I was around her age. And… it just hit home, just then. I don't know why. Maybe it was the promise thing? I don't know."

Brown eyes scanned the cityscape below them, searching, not finding, not really seeing. "Just… I'm this big hero. Well, not so big, but I have a responsibility to them. Something Uncle Ben said. 'With great power, comes great responsibility.' I got him killed too. Could've stopped that robber, but I didn't. It was spite, too. Stupid, huh? I didn't know he had a gun. I didn't know he would try an' car-jack my uncle. I was just… mad at someone for something as stupid as not getting paid what he owed me. It was my fault, you see? My fault."

Hiro kept still, but he wanted nothing more than to yell and scream and slap and hug and cry with this boy, pound it into his head that no, it was not his fault! He knew where it was coming from, he'd blamed himself for things like that in the past. The casualties from the war… Cedric… oh, Merlin, his parents, even wouldn't have died if he'd never been born. He'd gone through the same thing, and Hiro did not want Peter to think those same self-deprecating thoughts he had once.

The boy went on with his soft rambling, "And this city, I help them, and I'm supposed to protect them, but I'm getting shaken up by a little girl and her family. I'm up here lamenting over things I can't change. I'm crying over my lost ones when it's been at least a year, right? There are tons of people out there who have gone through the same thing. Tons who have been through worse."

The unspoken thought rang clear to the both of them. Who was he to worry about himself? Who was he to put himself above others? And Hiro wanted to tell him firmly that he was allowed to be sad, he was only human. But he couldn't. Because he was stuck as a Merlin-damned cat. Thanks a lot, Death.

The duo sat together there, above the city, until the costumed hero stood back up and the cat jumped into his pack and they went home.

AAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! (*more sobbing*) I don't know what this chapter turned into! I had no plan other than: "Hey, looked Spider-man is carrying around a cat in his backpack!" And then it took off in this direction because I was avoiding fight scenes because I suck at writing them and I ended up writing a tear-jerker ending! I swear, I almost died inside writing this and thinking, "Where did this come from? Why am I doing this to my characters?!"

Anyways, while not the direction I was expecting this one to go (though, there wasn't a plan in the first place), was it good? Obviously, I snuck in some of the popular story points from the movies and comics (Captain Stacy and Gwen dying, Peter letting the robber go, you know). And I think Hiro wanted to kill Death by the end of this chapter, though that's kind of a paradox…

Lucky (was also thinking about chocolate while writing this, hence the adjective "semi-sweet." Just don't ask… she doesn't know why…)

P.S. Das't, I almost forgot! HAPPY INTERNATIONAL FANWORK DAY EVERYBODY! (It's technically tomorrow, but I'll be gone, so here it is right now!)

To Vladimir Mithrander: Yeah, I love it! I finally got my mom to read it when she saw the movie trailer. They better not screw it up… and I know what you mean with the books. It was a nightmare to get to my Harry Potter books in the attic until I just cleaned out my desk and dedicated a good two drawers to them. =D

To jthy: Exactly! I hate it when the movie people screw stuff up. You should see me whenever someone even mentions the Percy Jackson movies. Just… yikes. Well, I'm glad you're enjoying and reading!