(Awkward) Family Reunion Part 1

This shit only happens in Houston.

Peter managed to grab a few hours of sleep before waking up with a problem. Wet, sticky sheets. Jesus car-tossing Christ.

Two and a half boxes of pizza down with only crap on TV, he decided it was a better idea to sleep in the bed he paid for instead of yet another night sleeping on a couch. TV wasn't an option when one channel was talking about the time Spider-Man and the X-Men got hunted live on TV, a Jerry Springer rerun about runaways reunited with their families was on, and some late night talkshow host was taking calls about the red monster that had drained someone's cousin a few months back.

PBS and the Discovery Channel were airing two completely different documentaries about spiders. He watched those and managed to learn about some select species that weren't as solitary as others. Not all females ate the males, some males even lured and ate the females, and daddy long legs weren't actually spiders.

Yeah, sleep had been the best option.

The bed was king-sized and soft. Memory foam or something, nice and cool in the Houston humidity. The bedroom itself was nearly three times the size of his cramped, messy one back in Queens. The entire suite was half the size of his house. Made going to sleep difficult but he managed it after curling up next to one of the bags. Wasn't until later he realized it wasn't the money bags. It was the one that had his makeshift costume in it, along with the stuff he managed to take with him from Queens.

He dreamt about the usual stuff, more vivid because of the TV. It really will rot your brain. He remembered the night Gwen died, the thing that came back with her hair, her body, but not her face. It was so unreal he almost managed to write it off as just a nightmare. Then he remembered that his life was so shit that something like that, a pretty blonde with the face of a monster, actually existed.

MJ was there too. Kitty, Dead-Gwen and not-Gwen, May, and the Black Cat - just his luck that most of his problems revolved around women.

MJ and Kitty were leaving because he was going to get them and their families killed. The X-Men and Anna Watson. Dead-Gwen pointed at not-Gwen and said it was his fault, then not-Gwen ate her. Black Cat vomited on her breasts, gave him a derection and the finger. May just shook her head, slammed the door in his face.

It got weirder. The last thing he dreamt about took a hard turn from being in Houston again, swinging through the city half naked. He wasn't alone and that should have been his first clue. Managed to see long brown hair when his was down to a buzzcut, then he was in the hospital.

Layton's head was twisted back 180 degrees and his neck was charred to a crisp. The doc, Donald, was a flaming corpse on the ground outside of some room with a half open door. Inside was covered in webs and spiders and the mutant girl was curled up on the bed. Trying to make herself small enough to disappear. She looked scared.

Then it disappeared and it was like she was looking at him. "Hombre Arana?" She asked. Her eyes were white, then they weren't. "…Peter?"

Then it changed. He was in a bed, then he was on a ceiling, then a wall. Legs wrapped around him, small, hand-mauled and hickeyed tits pressing against his chest, his hands pressed tight into the meat of the softest ass he ever felt – only one since the Black Cat – and Gwen – his dick balls-deep inside someplace it had never been – and even in the dream he took a moment to realize that he had a murderous chimera of a technical kid – that thought it was his best friend – and he was still a virgin.

"Not anymore," she said, squeezing her legs tight around him. Her arms held him close and her tongue was in his mouth. Hazel eyes, long brown hair all over her flushed red face. "Makes two of us." She came in close, trailed her tongue from his cheek all the way up to his ear. He was about cum and started to pull away, but she tightened her hold on him. Her legs did too. "Come inside, okay? Please."

He woke up. Not a single night in silk sheets and he blew his load. Peter wasn't sure which was worse, that his dick was trapped in sticky sheets or that he knew exactly who he was dreaming about. It wasn't the first time, but it was the most… vivid. Recent. Right in the hotel suite, too. With Jessica. As if he didn't have enough problems.

Probably the best thing about it was that it meant he was going to take another shower. Like he needed an excuse.

Four showers later – two of them he spent blowing a wad over the shower wall, christening the facilities his dirty money bought – the sun was fully up. The other two were spent after waking up the same way as before. Jessica on her hands and knees, her fat ass jiggling while he pinned her to the bed, her screams. Her moaning his name, him growling hers, the sounds and- well, he woke up.

The second time had been on the side of a building. By the last time he stepped out of the shower his testicles hurt and he had no more sheets to sleep under.

Used to be that he dreamt about MJ. Then it was Gwen. Then it was both. Not together though – with Gwen's standoffish attitude and MJ's kind, understanding one… made a good scenario for them both to have a tite-a-tite, breasts pressed together while they argued over which he'd like better.

When Cat came along it was about peeling her out of that latex suit of hers, sliding between her cheeks while she said something about family jewels and milk.

Then Kitty came along and all he could think about was getting a blowjob under the breakfast table or fucking her through the wall while the rest of the X-Men wondered why she was half in, half out and crosseyed, not knowing he was all the way in and she was crosseyed because his balls were against her pussy and he was in her ass. Just simple shit for a teenaged boy.

Then Jess came along. It started out innocent, awkward at first. That hug they shared turned into a kiss on the cheek, and he would get hard. She'd look down, look up at him and smile. He got harder when she did. He didn't want to know how the girl version of him made her bedroom eyes make him get even harder but they did, and then he'd wake up.

In the months that went by it got worse, or better, but definitely worse for his boxers and whatever cover he managed to curl up under. His balls learned to accommodate it to the point that his refractory period was nil and his nuts were nearly the size of his fists. Jessica's arms would be wrapped around him, hugging him close after not seeing him in so long.

Then she'd start pressing her lips to his neck. She'd be in the skimpiest shit he could imagine, which happened to be her costume with a hole cut out at the crotch and two at the chest. It wasn't the most imaginative thing for his dream girl-clone/sister to wear, but it did its job. No dream ever ended without him balls deep in her and her begging him to give her a baby, at which point May would open a door or step into view and say it wouldn't be welcome in her house.

He threw the sheets into the corner, not sure what to do with them or if the place had a laundry room. He sure as hell wasn't about to take sticky sheets through the hallway and drop them in front of room service... not yet at least. It had been months since he slept in a real bed, never before underneath silk sheets. He wasn't about to give that up.

Deciding he needed to get away from it all – the room, the posh display of wealth, the bags of money- just the place where he managed to ruin sheets while he dreamt about fucking his technical sister, actually. And to forget the nightmares - for once dreaming about him and Jessica, the two of them fucking like rabbits wasn't the worst part of the night. He just managed to dream about the nicest couple he'd met since the Parkers lost their head of house, being killed. That was nice.

He walked out onto the balcony and admired the view… then he jumped. Then he realized he was still naked and had to go back for some pants.

His webshooters had dried up months ago from disuse but he didn't need them anymore. Now, Jess wasn't the only one with a big fuck you to mother nature. His didn't come out of the fingertips like hers did – Otto must have been high when he thought of that – but they did come out of his wrist, complete with a bunch of muscles that shouldn't exist in the human wrist. Peter was just grateful it wasn't coming out of his ass.

The webs came out with enough force for him to know that his strength wasn't limited to his arms. It fired like a dart to one of the buildings and attached easily, just like the webshooters. The feeling of it coming out was weird though, ticklish, but web-swinging came back to him like geometry and soon he wasn't thinking of anything even while he swung through early morning traffic at streetlevel.

All of the power, none of the responsibility. With the buzzcut he barely looked like Peter Parker enough to worry about anyone connecting the dots.

Houston was fucking hot though and he needed to stop. Maybe he was out of shape – it had been months since he did this – or maybe it was something in the air. It was so humid he wondered if every person in the city was sweating and it was all coming up. He didn't doubt it.

He stopped on the side of a building, not giving a fuck who saw. Managed to see something weird – weirder than Jessica climbing off of him and cleaning the fuck-juices off his cock while she played with herself, at least. A tarantula (he thought of his 'little brother' and cringed) being carried away. By a wasp. For some reason it made his head tingle. Creepy.

He didn't have a long time to wonder about it as some jackass in a loud car turned the corner. The bass from their speakers was so loud Peter felt it in his teeth. He looked down at the street and the car was a hummer, and not just because of the make. Loud engine, love letter to overcompensation and alternative methods to pleasing a woman. And right in It's path was a little old lady crossing the street.

He waited for her realize that but she kept plodding along. Peter turned his nose up. It wasn't his problem and he couldn't make it in time. He had been a man of science once. Being homeless didn't lend itself to cracking open a textbook or anything, but this was Darwinism. Harsh but true. Old bitch better turn into Sonic because that car was going fast.

Then he got a reminder of why having the mutant girl's voice in his head was a shitty idea. "You think she has kids? A nephew? Students, family? Just anyone who cares about her at all. Maybe a down on their luck runaway without anyone in their life that really needs that old bitty?"

She could have been a wolf in old lady's clothing for all he knew.

"Oh, completely. There's always a chance. She could also be oblivious and old. Like, if she has a… nephew, or something, and his secret is pretty obvious but this oblivious lady has no clue… and dies like that. Kid would be heartbroken. Maybe he already lost someone. Or multiple people, I don't know. But it's not your problem right? Not your responsibility."

Jean Grey would have been better than this shit.

If he was inclined to be stupid today, save someone, the car was going too fast for him to just swing down and get the dumb, old, slow moving bitch out of the way. Need to improvise. He'd have to jump off the building and-

He was already falling. The plan he managed to make was to essentially stomp to the ground, get up, and tackle the old bat out of the way. Didn't know if he could take it but he knew there was no way he'd get there in time otherwise. He'd been thrown through brick walls and stone banisters. Could take a hit. Maybe there was a chance he didn't end up a cripple that would eventually tell his daughter of the 'old days' where he jumped around in spandex.

"You fascinate me," the other voice in his head said. He hit the street like a cannonball and it broke. He didn't.

Wheeled around to get the geriatric out of the way in less than a second, but he had been right. The car was going too fast. His spider-sense blared. Wasn't fast enough, not to take that chance. Old bitch was an old bitch, but she probably had family. Family that needed her.

"Fuck!" He shouted, outstretching his arms. He didn't shut his eyes because if he died, he was taking Tarantula and Quasimodo and he was haunting the old bat. Wanted her to see his eyes when he died.

He heard the engine and then the horn, then he saw white. His feet dug into the street and he couldn't breathe, like being beat up on by Flash and his goons and tossed into a locker again.. Been a while since he felt that. Then, he got pissed.

He gripped the sides of the car and pushed back, lifted it like a paperweight. Every good and ugly mug that ever thought it was funny to push him around, every bully and thug that tried driving off after ruining someone's life, taking their family. The corpses at the port, May, everything.

Wheeled the car around without much effort, muscles flexing as he tore through the chassis and hefted the metallic piece of crap up and over in the air, his height keeping the crushed and dented metal from clipping the old fuck that had gotten him into this mess. Fuck her.

He slammed he truck into the street. It was deafening. Silence followed, the smoke left the wreck of the vehicle. All he noticed was the lack of music.

The hummer slammed into the street so loud it was deafening. Peter looked into the car. The high hood was crunched like paper, the driver, somehow, wasn't dead. Making out with about three airbags at once, but not dead. Yet. He winced as a sharp pain hit him in the stomach and looked down to find a piece of metal sticking out of an ugly gash on his side. He yanked it out and pocketed it. The only place his DNA was ending up was in his sheets.

Heaving, he fell forward on the hood of the truck and closed his eyes. There was his action for the day, and since he wouldn't be getting a reward- "…Aaand scene. Ow."

"That car… it would have- thank you, thank you! You saved me!" The wizened old voice made him turn around. He heard his bones creaking and just looked over his shoulder. The old woman was gaping at him.

Peter snapped. Could be because he had never been thanked by an old lady, or much of anyone, or because she was an old lady. He bet money a feminist therapist would have a field day with gender-bait like that.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" Spit flew from his mouth and all over her face. She was lucky he swallowed the rest. Or had that been blood? Tasted like it. "YOU DEAF, SENILE, DECREPIT, FUCKING STUPID OLD LADY!"

He tugged at his hair and remembered he didn't have any. His stomach clenched in pain and his side was on fire as the air left him, but he ignored it. "YOU'RE TOO FUCKING OLD TO BE DODDERING OUT IN THE GODDAMN STREET! TOO FUCKING OLD AND TOO FUCKING SLOW! IF I HADN'T BEEN HERE YOU'D BE FUCKING DEAD, YOU HEAR ME? DEAD LADY, DEAD!"

"Look!" Someone shouted.

They ran to the car behind the old woman and struggled to get the idiot who thought driving so fast was a good idea, out of the car. Or at least out of the air bags. Whichever came first. More people joined and seconds passed. They got the driver out and by then still no one was jeering or blaming him. Nothing like New York.

"…Houston," he muttered.

The driver was pulled out of the car and laid on the ground. The paramedics arrived not long after, quicker than he expected. One of them came up to him with bandages and something else, but he was having none of it. Too used to New York, even in Houston, he just left. After all that, he needed a drink.

After taking the metal out of his side and dropping it in a tub full of hot water – no one was going to get their hands on his DNA again – his first stop was the bar. It was nearly eleven in the morning and he already risked his life for someone, caused another scene.

"All the power, none of the responsibility my ass," he scoffed, expecting to hear the voice in his head. There was nothing. Good riddance.

He didn't drink for pleasure but he needed something to do to pass the time while he healed. He wasn't going to go patrol or fight…. whatever there was in Houston. Or watch TV. Was going to sit, enjoy his newfound wealth, give being a young lush another shot. Alcohol sucked the first time around but bodying a hummer made a lot of things sound better in comparison.

He turned the corner, barely paid attention to the lush looking redwood walls and sleek display of what money could really buy in this town. He kept his head down, sat down, and tapped down on the counter like he had in the half dozen or so bars he tried before. The universal signal for "Give me a drink without the conversation." Wasn't so lucky.

"No free drinks before noon," someone replied from behind the bar. A Texan accent, woman's voice. She leaned forward to see him clearer. After his display, without a mask he reminded himself, he wasn't in the mood for picture day. "…Sir. Unless you wanna pay for it."

He dug through his pocket and slapped down a bunch of crunched up bills he swiped from one of the bags as an afterthought. Peter hoped she was serious. Otherwise he doubted he would get a kiss on the cheek in return, much less a blowjob.

"What the fuck… Okay, wow," the bartender said, gaping at the money.

He grunted at the half dozen twenties on the counter and looked up. He stared for a second. "You have to be fucking kidding me."

God's sense of humor really was twisted. If MJ decided to go Pink instead of Red, was slightly older, then the bartender was a dead-ringer for her. He almost called her MJ too. Shoulder length pink hair with glam-pop… things on the fringes, pink lipgloss, shining green eyes.

She blinked at him. "Not the reaction I usually get from guys."

"I just threw down eighty dollars. You've got enough from me," Peter snapped, a little testy. MJ. For that matter, Kitty. Gwen. What were the chances they had doubles in this heat trap of a city too? Hell, maybe he'd see his own. Fat chance on that.

"You know what, you're right." She turned around and reeled back a glass case containing shelves of what they said was good stuff. From experience, he knew it tasted like burnt water and cigarettes. Hardly worth eighty dollars. "What's your poison handsome?"

"Anything that isn't crap," he said, bristling at the compliment. Being someone other than Peter Parker was uncomfortable. Like being unfamiliar in his own home. Unwanted, but he'd get used to one like he got used to the other.

Three drinks from an expensive looking bottle were set on the counter when she turned around. He reached for one and she pulled it away. "You old enough to drink?"

He snatched one for himself. "I'm old enough for a lot of things," he said, cagey-like.

Two glasses later he was still sober. That was a bad sign. She turned on the TV and it droned on in the background. Some news channel he didn't pay attention to. The bartender still nursed the third glass for herself like eighty off the top wasn't good enough. She inspected him, going so far as to lean over the counter and look at him.

"How old are you?" She asked.

"Old enough."

"But how old?"

"None of your business," he grunted, then looked up. "Unless you want to make it yours?"

"I think if I'm serving drinks to a minor, it's already my business." She put her hands on her hips and looked down at him, though even then he was nearly bigger than her sitting down. Standing up she'd barely made it to his chest.

"What's the minimum age in Texas?"

She rolled finger around the rim of her glass and sipped at it while looking him in the eye. "21."

"Not the one I was talking about." She choked.

"Spill," The MJ lookalike said when she finally stopped coughing. "Or I'm cutting you off."

Peter looked at his glass and contemplated tipping it over, as she doubtlessly had said. "If I do, you're cleaning up the mess," he replied, taking a sip before grimacing. "This is shit. I should ask for my money back."

"You paid for it. Where does a young man like you get dosh like that?"

"From older women who like to pester me."

"I'm twenty-four," she said, looking away.

She was good looking enough. That was half of it; the other half was that she wasn't used to someone not falling over themselves around her. He had things on his mind that didn't include being an idiot around a pretty face.

"A person drinking before noon would be better off with coffee. We have tea too. It's good for you."

"And?"

"You should have some."

"I'm not a kid."

"Didn't say that, but since you mentioned it," she flipped her hair and leaned on the counter, all casual. "Downtown has lots of business for people like you there. You been?"

He had. Downtown Houston was cleaner than NYC, and the prostitutes, if they were prostitutes, were a lot. Otherwise, there were a lot of provocatively dressed women. …Or men. He didn't know what they were. "Hm," he grunted.

"I figured you worked there, or something. All that dosh."

"I'm not- You're calling me a prostitute?"

The bartender's eyes flew open. "What?! No! I thought you were a pickpocket!"

"I'm not a damn pickpocket!" He yelled. "Or a prostitute!"

"Then where did you get the money?!" She started to laugh. It sounded good. When she stopped she was tapping the part of the counter in front of him. Very close. She played with his glass like it was hers. "Where you from, up North? Your accent is funny."

He groaned. "All around."

"They have names there? Ages? …Numbers?"

"What?"

"Names, I said. Ages."

"…Yeah." Peter shook his head. He gestured toward the TV to distract himself. "Turn that up."

She grumbled but did it anyway. "Come here, throwing money around and expect me to listen to you? If I'm your next client-"

"Not a prostitute," he groaned.

"If you were."

"And if I said I'm a minor?"

"What the fuck- really?" He didn't move. "God damn, you from the Hinterlands or something?"

"New York."

"And you're a minor?"

He showed his pearly whites. "Barely legal."

She tossed her hands in the air. Muttered something like 'jailbait' and 'probably worth it', and 'rodeo'. Peter just rolled his eyes. Houston.

She almost avoided him after that. But looking furtively at him every few seconds while she chewed on her nails and fidgeted her hair didn't count as avoiding, entirely. There were worse ways to take flirting with a seventeen year old.

He tuned in to the TV as a news report started, motioned for a refill, and started to drink. She poured herself another glass too. "Don't report me," she said.

"—Melted containers. From what we've been told, the officers at the scene have suffered moderate burns and dehydration. Police are searching for what, or who, eyewitness reports say, caused this. Other eyewitness reports claim a figure similar to vigilante 'Spider-Man', last seen in New York City, was sighted there and was integral to the officer's safety."

The image changed to show a bird's eye view of what had occurred. Fire and plumes of smoke were everywhere. He could see a blurred figure moving nimbly around as balls of fire careened toward them. Long brown hair. A scarlet suit with a spider on it. Jessica.

His glass dropped to the table. At five inches in the air it made noise and spilled a little. Peter closed his eyes. "No fucking way."

"We now return you to the live coverage of the fire breaking out at Houston Medical Center. Firefighters are on scene and- breaking news! There are reports of Spider-Man being sighted in the area!"

"…You have to be fucking kidding me."

He stood up and walked out. The bartender looked up just in time to see him leaving. "Hey, dude- hey! Where you going? The name's Annabelle! Call me! I might have some business for you! …Just joking!"