PROLOGUE

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Happy New Year!"

There was nothing more depressing than spending New Years alone.

If anything, Peter Parker should have felt relief. That what he told himself, at least. Over and over again. He was closing the book on what was easily the worst year of his life. - If anything, he should have felt blessed for it to be over.

He didn't feel blessed at all.

As Peter watched the crystal ball above Time Square drop on his boxy television set, the crowd on the screen erupting in a boom of confetti and cheers, he felt alone. Utterly alone in the world.

'Welcome to 2025!' the screen read. A new year. A year without May. A year without MJ, or Ned, or even Doctor Strange.

A year without Peter Parker.

The walls in Peter's shitty apartment were thin, covered in chipped and yellowing paint. And in the lonely emptiness of his apartment, he could almost hear the chatter next door, the sound of an excited girl's voice, crystal glasses being touched in a cheers.

May had always loved New Years. The apple cider had always been her favorite.

The thought alone stung, like most memories of May did, and Peter recoiled without meaning to.

"Tonights for you, May." Peter whispered to himself, collecting his mask from his bedside table. There was nothing more than he wanted to do than curl up in bed, to close his eyes, to stop existing. But he couldn't. That's not what heroes did. Instead, he held the mask in his gloved hands, watching as the new azure fabric gleamed in the low light. "Great power.." he reminded himself.

Peter Parker technically didn't exist anymore. But that didn't mean Spider-Man didn't either.

"Great responsibility." And as Peter shut off the TV, the silence in his place deafening now, Spider-Man slipped on his mask and out onto his fire escape, the window slamming shut behind him.

"Hurry up, we're gonna miss it!"

"Shut up, we're not gonna miss it!"

"Yes, we are, now hurry up!" Kate Bishop urged, turning on the couch to watch Felicia fumble with the glasses. The champagne in her hands fizzled with carbonation, and as Felicia Hardy set the champagne flutes down on her coffee table, Kate slipped a pair of gaudy '2025' shades on her friend's face.

"Did you get the grapes?" Felicia asked, watching as Anderson Cooper did the opening speech for the ball drop.

"The grapes!" Kate said, springing up from her seat on the couch. "Shit, the grapes!"

Felicia scoffed. " You were the one who wanted to go all superstitious. I mean yellow panties and eating grapes on New Years? Who even does that?" she asked, crossing her arms as Kate made a ran dash to her fridge.

Life with Kate was always like this - hectic, always fun, - never boring. Ever since Elanor's arrest (and the fact Kate's place had been burnt to smithereens), Felicia's place had become their place - not that either of them were complaining.

"Are you kidding, you haven't heard about eating 12 grapes for good luck? 12 grapes, 12 months!" Kate said from the fridge, as if it should have been obvious.

"Kate!" Felicia warned, as the hosts started the countdown.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

"Happy New Year!" the pair exclaimed, clinking glasses and throwing back a gulp of champagne as the clock hit zero.

"To new beginnings!" Kate grinned, popping a grape into her mouth.

Felicia nodded, sinking into her thick old couch, a satisfied smile on her face. "To new beginnings, Miss Hawkeye." she said, holding out her glass for another cheers.

Kate leaned forward, glass poised to clink. And then the window next door slammed.

Kate yelped, the two of their glasses crashing and shattering between the pair of them, sending champagne across their laps.

"Jesus Christ," Felicia hissed, jumping up from the couch to go for the paper towels.

"Hey, uh, not my fault- " Kate said, quick to defense, but Felicia waved her off. Lucky, the Pizza Dog, watched the two of them worriedly from his place on the loveseat, but made no move to intervene.

"I know, I know. It's my fucking neighbor. New kid moves in next door and starts slamming windows all time of the fucking night. It's like every night, once at 12 then another at like 3." she said irritably, as Kate began to pick shards of glass out of the fabric. "Don't know what the hell is up with him."

Kate couldn't help but watch Felicia, eyes filled with amusement, and already Felicia knew exactly what Kate would say.

"Have you uhh- Have you maybe tried talking to him about it?" Kate asked, a grin spreading over her face. As if the suggestion alone was a joke. To her, it kind of was. Because Kate knew for a fact that Felicia hadn't. Kate had known Felicia for years, and Felicia, to put it simply, was no-where near the extrovert Kate was. If Kate was a warm, personable, golden retriever, Felicia was a prissy, pissed, black cat.

"Well- No." Felicia said, as she crossed her arms. Of course she hadn't. "He's nice and all..very talky-talky."

Kate bit back a laugh. "Have you considered he's trying to be a good neighbor? That's that neighbors do, ya'know. They talk." Kate told her, taking the roll of paper towels from Felicia.

"Kate, this is New York. The one time I spoke to the last neighbor that lived in that apartment was to tell him I set fire to my kitchen and that we were evacuating." Felicia told her, the idea of talking to her neighbor bordering somewhere between uncomfortable and horrific.

"Besides, you're here now. Why don't you talk to him? I'm sure he'll listen to you." she went on.

Kate scoffed, more amused than shocked. "I don't even live here." she reminded Felicia.

"Yeah, but you will," Felicia reminded her right back. "We just gotta more your stuff in, then you can be as friendly with the neighbors as you want." she said, waving the older girl off.

Kate simply shook her head, amazed at her best friend's stubbornness. "I mean, I just don't get why you're so opposed to talking to him. It wouldn't kill you to be a more personable, Fe', I'm like your only friend."

"That is a lie!" Felicia insisted. It wasn't a lie.

Felicia Hardy had known Kate Bishop for nearly ten years now, from years together in Tae Kwon Do and Karate lessons, to freshmen at the same college. In the beginning, they hadn't even been friends. They had been opposed to each other, convinced they were opposites, back when Kate went to private school and Felicia went to Midtown. Kate had thought Felicia abrasive, Felicia thought her prissy, but in the end, they had a lot in common, even if it wasn't apparent at first.

For one, they were both unbelievably stubborn, no matter how much either of them denied it.

And secondly, they were both utterly, completely, super-hero obsessed.

"Besides, he can't be that bad. Did you even talk to him?" Kate asked finally sinking into the salvaged couch.

"I didn't say he was that bad, just that he can't stop slamming the damn window. He's fine. Saw him when I was coming in from work. Said his name was Peter or something. I mean, I don't hate the kid, it's just that every time he thinks you're not looking at him, he just looks so sad. Like super sad." And Felicia wasn't good with sad. Or with any heavy emotions. In fact, Kate hadn't seen Felicia cry in years.

"Even more reason to talk to him," Kate said, poking at Felicia's side. "Besides, if it was Spider-Man I'd bet you'd be dying to talk to him."

That at least got Felicia's attention. For a moment their eyes met, and a beat of silence passed before the both of them burst into laughter.

"Hell fucking yeah, I would! Every straight woman in New York would." Felicia snickered, watching as Kate laughed at her own joke. "And if Clint knew how much you still fangirl over him-"

"Oh, he does." Kate assured her, once again returning to her New Year's grapes. "He knows. Groans every time."

Felicia sank into the couch next to her. "Yeah, yeah, Miss Avenger. Tell you what, you have Clint go and dig in some government files to get me a date with Spider-Man or whatever, and then maybe I'll have a play date with the boy next door." she said, crossing her legs over Kate.

"As if." Kate snickered. "And that's not how being Hawkeye works, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah." Felicia told her, stealing a grape.

Felicia and Kate's lives had always been very, very different.

In fact, the first time Felicia had saw Kate's childhood home, she had went in the polished, porcelain bathroom and cried. Not that Kate had known that at the time. But the marble walls, the penthouse skylights, the private swimming pool. The first time around, it had been hard to swallow.

It got easier over time. It had taken three years before Felicia had trusted Kate enough to invite her over. But Kate never seemed to mind that the apartment Felicia had grown up in was the size of her mother's walk-in-closet, or that the metallic pangs coming from the radiators were supposedly normal.

And she didn't care now that Felicia's apartment was a shitty, drafty hole in the wall. Over time Kate had gotten used to the aesthetic. Sure, it wasn't as picturesque as her place above the pizza shop. But it had character. Like the slamming windows.

'Thunk!'

The slam was loud enough to shake the glass pane next door, and it rattled so loud Kate thought it might break.

"Bro, Oh my God !" Felicia hissed, sitting up in bed as she blindly fished for her phone. Her cracked screen blinked to life, the display reading 4:23am. "Is he out of his goddamn mind?"

The two of them hadn't gotten around to getting Kate an actual mattress, and so the brunette sat up on from her place on the air mattress they'd manage to find in a old luggage. She was groggy, hair a mess, and Felicia barely understood her when she mumbled "He's probably just coming back in from a party or something. Look, why don't we go talk to him, and politely ask him not to. I'm sure that'll solve all of this."

The look of unbridled irritation on Felicia's face was clear.

"Fe." Kate bargained.

"Fine. Fine," Felicia caved. "We can do it your way. But if he says something slick to me..I'm gluing the window shut." she said, throwing back her covers. "You do the talking."

"Don't I always?" Kate asked.

The hallway of their building was worse than the studios, a draft running through all the corridors and up the stairs, and Felicia propped a shoe in the door to keep the deadbolt from slamming on them.

Peter had heard them the moment they'd turned their lock. That was the worst part of thin walls, his 'Peter tingle' affording him too much hearing for his own good. Peter froze, still half in his Spidey suit, as he waited for their footsteps to disappear down the stairs, like he expected them to. What he didn't expect were the footsteps coming here .

"Shit!" Peter cursed under his breath before the knock even came, and Kate passed a sidelong glance at Felicia. Felicia knocked, hard.

"Geez, you don't wanna scare him-" Kate whispered, just as the door swung open, and in the crack of the doorway, a face appeared from the neck-up.

The girls stared at him. Felicia had been right, he wasn't that bad.

"Are you okay?" Kate asked him.

"Yeah, yeah." Peter smiled, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"You're sweating." Felicia pointed out.

"Heats coming up real high-"

"No, it's not? My apartment is literally freezing." Felicia said, eyes narrowed at him. For a moment, none of them said anything, and Peter watched as the two of their faces morph into curious focus. And here he was, on the other side of the door, in his suit.

"C-can I help you?" Peter asked, after the silence felt like it might crush him.

Kate looked between the two of them, and then she shook her head. "Let's..start over, shall we? Hi, we're your neighbors, Kate and…"

"Felicia." Felicia said, as Kate held out her hand.

Peter looked down at it, his face almost sympathetic as he made no move to shake it, his hands sweating behind the door in his Spidey gloves. Kate seemed to get the message.

"We just-"

"Yeah, can you stop slamming that window. The springs broken and even time you don't pull it down, it slams shut really fucking loud and we can hear it. Every time." Felicia said, simple as that.

Kate shrugged. "What she said."

The look on Peter's face could only be described as dumbfounded. He didn't know where to even start.

"Oh, uh. Yeah..sure, no problem. I guess I didn't realize." he chuckled, almost going to scratch his head before stopping himself. "I'm Peter by the way. Nice to meet you."

For Kate, that was enough. He looked terrified, as if he'd seen a ghost, but at the very least he was willing to talk. "Well, nice to meet you too, Peter. If you wanna hang out, we're like always here to hang." she offered, giving Peter two thumbs up.

"Not always. But.. you're still welcome or whatever." Felicia said, already heading back to her apartment to get out of the cold.

Still, Kate lingered in the hall. "Don't worry about her, she's just a little..catty. She'll warm up to you." she assured him, leaning in closer. "And one question: Are you naked behind this door?" Kate said, narrowing her blue eyes at him.

And it hadn't occurred to Peter until right that moment that that was exactly what this looked like. Way to make an impression.

"No, I just..don't wanna let the draft in, y'know." he wagered, hoping she'd buy it.

Kate nodded. "Uh-huh." she said, not entirely convinced. "See ya around, Peter!" she called, as the door to Felicia's apartment slammed shut behind them.