A/N This was written on a reader's request for a story pairing Snoopy, Lucy, and the Andrew Garfield Spider-man. Please enjoy!
It was a dreary Saturday Spring day in Manhattan as Peter Parker changed his clothes in an alley and then came to visit Gwen Stacy at her apartment. Inside, he grinned as Gwen's brother Phillip opened the almost-familiar door to Apt 2016 (he usually stopped by Gwen's window) and he stepped inside to the smell of dusty air. He looked around and saw that most of the Stacy's belongings had been packed into boxes – a reminder that they were moving, which was incidentally a reminder of Captain Stacy's death at the talons of the Lizard.
Manhattan was an expensive place to live and the money from the Captain's accidental death and disability and social security would not cover the family of four for long, even with Mrs. Stacy increasing her hours at work. Mrs. Stacy did not want to work full-time and leave her young sons alone, and to ask Gwen to sacrifice her internship to become a babysitter for the boys would make it harder for Gwen to get a scholarship to pay for college. Of course, her daughter had already qualified for a few scholarships based on her grades, and the Fraternal Order of Police had sidelined her, and later the boys, to receive a scholarship in memory of their dad.
Fortunately for Peter, though, she was moving to Queens, so they would still be able to go to the same high-school.
"Hi, Peter!" Gwen said, peeking around the doorway from her room. She was wearing baggy, gray socks instead of her boots and some of her hair had slipped out from her headband. Clearly, Peter should have texted before coming over.
"Gwen." Peter smiled and rubbed the back of his neck, nervously. "I was in the neighborhood and…"
Just then, another blonde girl peeked around the corner of Gwen's door, then a funny-looking dog with white fur and big, black ears shifted to look out from behind the door at him as well.
The dog sniffed, then gave Peter a suspicious look. Then the dog walked over to him on two legs and licked Peter's hand with his slobbery tongue.
"BLERGH!" the dog choked out and crossed his front legs.
"This is my cousin Lucy VanPelt and her dog, Snoopy," Gwen explained. "They've come all the way from Nebraska to visit the next couple of weeks.
"Nice to meet you," Lucy said, extending her hand, and Peter, who had been scrubbing off the dog slobber onto his jeans, took her hand and shook it.
"Nice to meet you too, I'm Peter Parker, Gwen's boyfriend," he said, then stared as Lucy stared at his hand.
"Ugh, I'm sorry about Snoopy," Lucy said, her hand had gotten stuck to Peter's and Peter suddenly realized he was using his spider-abilities while shaking her hand. He let go. Peter just hoped she'd think it was due to the sticky dog-slobber. "Snoopy's a weird dog," she said, and then she and Peter looked to the window where Snoopy was leaning with his chin resting on his paws on the windowsill as a bright, yellow canary cheeped on the fire escape.
"I can see that. So, Lucy, have you gotten to see the town yet?" Peter asked.
"We went down to the bodega," Simon, one of the brothers, said.
"What about Central Park, Museum Mile… Broadway?" Peter asked, unsure of what Nebraskan tweens liked these days.
"Not yet," Gwen said, "Mom has some seats to The Lion King for Wednesday."
"Where's your mom now?" Peter asked.
"She's pulling a sixteen-hour shift at the tutoring center today," Simon said.
"Well, how about we all go out together?" Peter asked. "We could go to the Natural Science Museum," he said, hoping that Gwen would agree. It had been a couple of years since Peter had been there and he wanted to see the new exhibition on the development of LRAD.
"Alright," Gwen said, and her brothers and Lucy cheered and ran to put on their socks and shoes.
They walked for a mile until they reached Central Park and then walked on the sidewalk around it until they reached the museum. It was then that Peter noticed that the dog Snoopy was following them – and that he wasn't even on a leash!
"Um, Lucy," Peter said.
"Yes?"
"Why is that dog with us?"
Lucy looked puzzled. "Well, he goes with me everywhere. I mean, not to school… most of the time. But he's been to the department store and even performed on stage."
"I just don't think that they'll let a dog in the museum with us," Peter explained.
But Snoopy seemed to understand them, he ran over (on four legs for once) to some shrubs and pulled out an old baseball cap. He dusted it off and set it backwards on his head like a punk kid and began walking on two legs again.
Lucy grinned, "I think we'll be alright."
Peter wanted to argue, but they were almost to the museum as it was and even if they couldn't go inside, maybe they could find something to do at Central Park. As Lucy was from Nebraska, Peter did not know if the park would impress her, but he could at least point out some famous landmarks that she had probably already seen in the movies without realizing it was New York City. It seemed that since NYC was in so many movies, that everyone had grown up seeing it and it felt familiar even if their hometown was nothing like NYC.
To Peter's amazement, the clerk at the museum entrance did not seem to notice that Snoopy was a dog, granted, Snoopy was standing behind the kids and his cap was basically all one could see. They walked into the museum while Peter subconsciously held his breath – he had just turned eighteen that month and would be held as the "responsible adult" in charge of the group. Peter was so lost in thought that he didn't notice which exhibit the boys were leading them to; it was the spider-exhibit.
"Welcome to our newest exhibit," a plastic figure of a scientist said. "While the city debates 'Spider-man: threat or menace,' we as scientists ask, 'How does he do it?' This exhibit shows you the relation between the Spider-man's powers and the abilities of spiders."
Peter saw a poster of his costumed self emblazoned on the back wall while small glass cages held various spiders. Many of them had built webs all over their cages as they had nothing else to do. He felt someone grab his hand and looked down to see Lucy. He squeezed her hand gently in return and turned toward her.
"Hey," he said. "Have you ever heard of Spider-man?"
"I head the name," Lucy said.
"He's a man who fights crime," Peter said. "He's really brave and uses his superpowers to fight villains. He can fire webs at bad guys and climb on walls."
"Is he a spider?" Lucy asked.
"No…" Peter laughed. "He's not a spider. He's a man, but he has spider-powers, you see."
"How?"
"Well… That is… that is what we all wonder, I guess," Peter said nervously. "Anyway, he's a good guy."
Snoopy pointed with a toe on his front paw at one of the early prototype Osborne spiders and then made an "I'm watching you" gesture at Peter, but no one else seemed to notice.
Peter gulped as he felt Gwen nudge him discreetly with her elbow. Peter looked down at Lucy, she still looked creeped out by the spiders.
He craned his neck around to see what was nearby – the next two exhibits were on combustion engines and octopi. Maybe Lucy would like the octopi exhibit better. He led her over to that hall, followed by Snoopy.
At least there were no live octopi in this exhibit.
There were even some cute drawings of octopi, although there were of course a lot of bizarre photos of octopi squeezing themselves through tiny crevices (apparently, they could even compress their heads when doing this) and catching fish.
Snoopy padded over to vial of octopus ink sitting on the table and breathed in the smell and made a stuck out his tongue at Lucy.
"Stupid, dog," Lucy said and walked over to him and patted him between the ears.
After Gwen and the boys caught up with them, they moved on throughout the museum, seeing stuffed mammoths and walruses. As far as dates went with Gwen, this was not very exciting, but Peter was able to see another side of her, one that was good with her brothers.
Gwen was a good person and Peter loved her. Yes, he had promised Captain Stacy that he would no longer date her, but it hurt her more to be away from Peter. She did not deserve to lose two men in her life at once. Besides, Captain Stacy would not have made Peter promise to stay away from his daughter if he had known how much it would disappoint Gwen.
Sometimes promises had to be broken.
Peter tried to distract himself from these repetitive meanderings in his brain by staring intently at a poster describing the effects of thermal radiation, but in truth, he could not remember a word of what he just read, so he began to read it again.
"Hey, where's Snoopy?" Phillip asked. They all looked around, and Lucy turned to see the leash lying limp behind her. The collar lay open on the ground. Snoopy was missing and wasn't even wearing his collar!
"Who saw him last?" Gwen asked, looking around so quickly that her ponytail slapped her in the cheek.
"I remember him looking at the miniature of the reactor when we came in here," Simon said.
"That was ten minutes ago," Phillip estimated.
Gwen turned to face them, "I'm going to security."
"What if we get in trouble for bringing a dog in here?" Phillip asked.
"It's too late to worry about that now, Snoopy's lost, and we need to find him," Gwen explained.
"I don't think he's lost," Lucy said. "Back at home, he walks all over town and always find his way home."
"But Lucy," Gwen said softly, "Manhattan is very large, and it is easy to get lost."
"Snoopy won't get lost." Lucy looked at them like this was something that happened all the time.
"Well, I think Gwen's right," Peter said. "Let's go look for him, we'll retrace our steps while Gwen goes to security."
A minute later they had all left the room not noticing the small figures of a black and white dog with a canary on his shoulder wearing deerstalker caps and hiding behind a pillar.
A couple of hours later the humans had not found Snoopy. Eventually the museum closed for the day, and they had to leave.
"Maybe he went into Central Park," Simon suggested.
"It won't hurt to look," Peter said.
They searched until it got dark, then they had to go back to the apartment.
"Maybe Snoopy's waiting there for us," Lucy said.
If Snoopy had indeed been at the apartment the whole time, Peter was going to send him to the doghouse for causing them all that worry. But when they reached the apartment, it was empty. Mrs. Stacy was still at work. They turned on the computer and searched the website of Animal Control to see if they had found a strange black and white Beagle, but found nothing.
In the end, Peter went back home to Aunt May, calling her first to be sure that there was not anything that he needed to pick up from the store. He had taken to being a bit more responsible.
After that he retreated to his room to grab his costume, he opened the door and saw that the window was open about seven inches. He did not remember leaving it open. His spider-sense told him nothing. Clearly, if someone had tampered with his room, it had not been for malicious reasons, and he did not notice anything missing.
Maybe Aunt May had left the window open for some fresh air, but he didn't know that she knew how to unlock his door. Of course, he would not have put it past her to have found out some way to open it. Since he had installed the lock, their relationship had become more strained. But he needed his own time and needed his own space. He was tired of Aunt May waking him up every few hours by opening his door to check on him. Did she think he was two years old? And now that he was Spider-man, he needed space to compile files on criminals and invent better webshooters.
He slipped on the spandex suit and began his trek to hunt down criminals. As always, he decided to swing by Gwen's apartment. He worried about her.
He got into view and saw a blonde girl on the fire escape, "Spider-man!" she called.
Peter quickly fired another webline to change course and landed on the half-inch wide metal railing with perfect balance. The girl took a step back, it was Lucy.
"Spider-man," she said so nervously that Peter started laughing.
"Well, that is what they call me."
"I need you to help me find my dog."
Peter blinked and tried to focus on acting nonchalant. "Your dog?"
"Yes, my dog."
"What does he look like?"
Lucy pulled out a picture of a grinning Beagle that a group of children were carrying as if he was a rockstar – one of the children was nearly bald. He looked quite unusual.
"That's my dog, he went missing at the Natural History Museum. We looked everywhere in the museum and everywhere in the park next door, but we never found him. And we checked with the pound: they hadn't found him either." Lucy looked down at the street as if she might spot him down among the pedestrians.
"I'll find him, I promise," Peter said. There it was, yet another thing he promised so easily without realizing how impossible it would be to keep.
"Good, I'll come with you," Lucy said.
Oh, Peter thought, she meant now. "It's faster if I swing through the streets."
"I'll ride on your shoulders and call for him and he'll hear my voice," Lucy said.
Peter sighed internally, he was already tired and carrying people threw off his balance, but Lucy was so small that he could not find an excuse. "Okay."
She put her arms around his shoulders.
"Now, remember, don't cling to my neck; I have to breathe."
"You got it!"
Peter and Lucy swung for the streets for about an hour, during which time Lucy was continually calling, "SNOOPY!" at total lung capacity.
At least she doesn't have a shrill voice. Peter thought. Also, she must be pretty worried about her dog to be able to hold on for this long. Surely, Lucy's arms that clung to his shoulders must be cramping from the unexpected strain. It had taken Peter a while to become used to strain in his arms from the g-forces of webslinging.
They were swinging further and further away from the museum epicenter when they came across Oscorp Tower. It was South of the museum and stood like a grim guardian beside Central Park. It's helipad on the top showed its frequency of important guests. It was there that Peter's spider-sense tingled. He dropped from the air to land on the side of a building across from it and then he craned his head around.
"What are we doing?" Lucy asked.
"Shh..." Peter whispered, and he scampered up the side of the building on his hands and feet with a shocked Lucy trying not to look down.
When he got on the roof, he knelt, and Lucy jumped off his back.
"It's Oscorp Tower, I have this sixth sense. Something strange is going on in there right now. I don't know if you heard, but that is where the scientist Doctor Connors turned into a lizard. Who knows what they're experimenting with now?"
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to get in a ventilation shaft and follow my spider-sense until I find out what's going on in there."
"What about me?" Lucy asked, arms crossing nervously.
"You'll be staying on this roof until I come back," Peter said.
Just then a deep voice spoke behind them. "With all respect, Spider-man, neither of you will be doing either of those things."
"Who are you?" Peter asked, sizing the man up and down. He was tall, lanky, and wearing brass knuckles and a gun. He was dressed in a green foreign paratrooper outfit.
"I will not have you sabotage my operation. Hail Hydra!" the man said, making a fist.
"What do you have to do with Oscorp?" Peter asked.
"It's funny," the Hydra agent said in a dour voice. "You live in New York, but you don't realize the vast riches contained in this one building. They have information to reshape the human genome."
"That's not a good thing to play around with," Peter said.
"Are you speaking from experience, Spider-man?" The agent said. "Imagine a world without genetic defects. Nobody would be born deaf or with Sickle Cell Anemia and paralysis could be cured."
"And how is stealing other people's work going to help with that?"
"Capitalism must fall!" The agent cried. "When Hydra has the knowledge then we will take over the world."
"Yeah, if you're so smart, why don't you invent the technology yourself?"
"You're wrong!" The agent screamed and threw a punch a Peter. Peter dodged and got a solid left hook on the agent's chin and webbed him tightly to the ground.
"COME!" Peter told Lucy. Soon the rooftop would be crawling with Hydra agents.
Lucy climbed on his back, and he took a running leap and then web-launched himself to the Oscorp Tower. He climbed the tower until he reached a side vent and they crawled inside the small space.
"I know this isn't fun," Peter said, thankful that Lucy did not seem to suffer from claustrophobia. These vents were so narrow that he could not even turn around. If an agent were able to follow them, they could very well become trapped.
Peter trusted his spider-sense and soon they reached a vent that opened to the center of the tower. He punched through it and then he crawled out. He helped Lucy step out of the vent. "Put this on," he said, handing her a spare mask. "We don't want them to know that you broke in here."
"Under the circumstances, I wouldn't really call it breaking in," Lucy said, slipping the mask over her head. Somehow, the lenses were made well to where she could see well through them. She had not expected that.
"We can argue semantics later," Peter said. He ran to the edge of the center of the building that looked down to the lobby below. He could see lights on near the room of spiders.
They webslung down a few stories to the spider-room.
The door was open, and Peter saw two men in ski-masks and lab-coats rifling through the files and breaking open computers. Peter got the drop on them and webbed them to the walls.
While Peter was doing this, Lucy scouted around the room, looking for more agents that might be hiding. Peter's spider-sense had only concentrated around these two ski-masked agents, so he did not even think to do this.
In fact, Spider-man took many shortcuts because of his spider-sense that he did not even know that he was doing.
"I wonder why they were in this room?" Peter asked.
"Look," Lucy said, picking up the folders that were lying on the floor. A folio had slipped out halfway and its headline read:
THE POTENTIAL FOR HUMAN-ANIMAL HYBRIDS THROUGH GENETIC MANIPULATION OF THE ADULT GENOME: An Applied Computer-Analysis of the of the Risks and the Need for Human Test-Subjects
"They're trying to make more of you," she said, glancing at him, briefly and cocking her head.
"Possibly," Peter admitted. "It doesn't say that they are building spider-people."
"Oh, but we are," said a quiet man's voice behind him. Peter turned to see the smear on the man's face.
"What are you doing?" Peter asked.
"I should ask what you are doing here, Spider-man. We heard rumors that there would be a break-in, but we never guessed that you'd be in on it. Who are you working for?" The man clenched his hands and Peter saw electricity spark over his arm-length rubber gloves.
"I'm not working for anyone."
"Everyone's working for someone."
"I saw Hydra Agents casing the building. I knew I had to stop them," Peter explained.
"Why?"
"Look, I'm in the business of stopping crime. If Hydra has your technology, my job is going to get a lot harder."
"So, then it is true. You did get your powers from our technology."
Peter did not know what to say. He was not a very good liar so trying to lie would just make him look worse, "I don't…"
"It's amazing that you did not die, those special spiders were very venomous. Even at that point, we had not considered human-spider hybrids. But now that we have seen the success of the Lizard and of you, it would be a mistake to not try and be left behind as other corporations beat us to the secrets."
"That's what all you guys say," Peter said. "Well, now that Hydra has been stopped, I think we'll leave."
"Not until you've helped us."
"What now?" Peter said backing away, "What do you want?"
"Just some samples: your blood, your DNA, an analysis of your strength…"
"How about, 'No.'"
I was afraid you'd say that." The man's gloves sparked, and a bolt of electricity flew at Spider-man, Peter dodged quickly, jumping away from Lucy so that the man would follow him instead. But the man never got the chance to electrify Peter again, because at that point a net fell from the ceiling and landed on the man. Peter quickly webbed the man to the wall.
Lucy and Peter looked up to the ceiling. A ceiling tile had been moved and the dark crawlspace could be seen, and shining out of the crawlspace was a huge, doggy grin.
"Snoopy!" Lucy shouted, running to stand directly under the dog and she spread her arms out to catch him as he dropped down, still wearing his deerstalker cap. A yellow canary flew down after him.
"It's that dog!" Peter said, shocked.
"That must not be a dog!" The man who had been netted yelled. "He must have a human brain inside a dog's body!"
"Don't underestimate him," Lucy said. Snoopy was the best dog in the world.
"Let's get out of here," Peter urged them, and he ran out the door and to the staircase. He had Lucy jump onto his back, and they began running up the stairwell, Snoopy and the canary hurrying after them.
Lucy had begun to question Spider-man's wisdom of running up the stairs, rather than down, when they reached the roof. She ran to the railing at the edge and looked down. The street below was so far down that she couldn't see well, but she could see that the building was surrounded by police.
She turned around and saw Spider-man staring at Snoopy. Snoop's doghouse was parked on the roof of Oscorp and he had gone inside it. She heard a quiet rustling of a frantic search that was drowned out by the incredible sound of the wind as it blew around their heads. Oscorp was one of the tallest towers in New York City, and nothing blocked the wind.
Snoopy came out with the canary on his shoulder. They were both wearing WWI era pilot helmets, green scarves, and goggles. He came over and saluted Peter, licked Peter's hand, and again complained, "Blergh!" and coughing. He gave Lucy a hug, then he climbed on top of his doghouse and started the invisible engine. After a minute he took off in his doghouse.
"Is that really your dog?" Peter asked.
"Well, actually, he's my brother's. He's Charlie Brown's," Lucy answered.
"I can't believe that he's not famous. I've never met a dog like this before." Peter rubbed his hair, which was under his mask and felt almost like he was rubbing a shower cap.
"I suppose," Lucy answered. "But I don't know many dogs."
So, she thought that Snoopy was normal? That was a change. Peter wondered though; If he had heard of Snoopy doing these things, he would have never have believed it himself. No wonder no reporters had published stories. Snoopy might do incredible things, but most of the time he was just a dog with a strange attitude. The last thing any of them would want to do would be to risk their reputations on a temperamental canine.
"We had better get out of here," Peter said, remembering the reality of their escape to the roof.
Lucy climbed on his back and had to do everything possible not to scream as Peter ran and leaped straight off the building. Because Oscorp tower was so high, there were a couple of seconds where they fell straight down before Peter could shoot a web at any nearby buildings.
When she landed safe and sound back on the fire-escape, Spider-man turned and launched himself away. She got the bizarre feeling that she had met him before, but that was ridiculous. She went back inside the apartment.
"He was just standing there," Mrs. Stacy was explaining. "He was right outside the door."
"So, we wasted all that time searching for him for nothing," Phillip said.
"Lucy, we found your dog!" Gwen smiled, looking very relieved.
"Um… Thank you," Lucy said. Snoopy came over and hugged her.
A little while later, Snoopy was looking at a photo of Peter Parker that was on Gwen's bookshelf. The canary cheeped and pointed at Peter too. Snoopy made "spider-hands" with his paws and wiggled his toes like hairy spider legs.
But how did you know? The canary cheeped.
Elementary, my dear Woodstock. Snoopy smiled. Elementary.
