Peter had just taken his last bite of cake when the tracker beeped. Katya checked it, her eyes wide, and she stood up abruptly from the table. "Thank you so much for dinner, May, and the day, it was really great-" Peter stood abruptly as well, following her into the front hall where they'd hung their coats. She started hurriedly putting on her own.
"Myshka," Peter hissed, grabbing her wrist so he could see the tracker showed Aneszka moving around in midtown, nearing Rockefeller Center. "What are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" She managed to get her other arm through her coat and began to button it up. "I'm finishing this. She's not that far."
"Myshka you're in no condition-" he tried, but knew that nothing he was going to say was going to stop her. He bit back a sigh. "All right, let me get my suit."
"Peter?!" May called from where she still sat at the kitchen table. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, May, everything's fine-" he ran into his room and grabbed his suit, changing as quickly as he could. "Katya and I are just going to go for a walk. We don't want to miss the lights on the tree, you know?" He was having a hard time getting his foot to slide in right-
"Peter are you kidding me-" Aunt May's voice was a lot closer this time, and he looked up, hopping on one leg, to see her standing in the doorway. He finally managed to get it through, wriggling the rest of the suit the rest of the way up before smacking his breastplate so it would adhere to him.
"We'll be back soon, I promise. It's nothing dangerous this time, just, you know, neighborhood stuff." He lied, like a liar. Aunt May sent him a look, and opened her mouth momentarily as if she was going to say something else, but just shook her head, "You two be careful."
"We will, we promise!" Katya called from her place still in the front hall. Peter jogged to meet her, and together they left the apartment, throwing a few more placations for Aunt May's benefit over their shoulders.
Katya dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a set of comms as they began to walk, which Peter took one of wordlessly, slipping it in his ear. He tugged his mask on, as well. "You didn't happen to bring your suit with you, did you?"
Katya shook her head. "Tony's got it under lock, key, passcode, and bioscan. There's no way I'm getting to it without talking to him first." Her irritated tone suggested she'd tried, and clearly failed spectacularly.
"So you're just going to go in there with your stitches-"
"I have a thick coat this time, pauchok, and heavy bandaging. Also, this-" she reached down to tug her butterfly knife from her boot, where she always kept it. It glinted in the streetlights. "And this time, we're surprising her. I don't expect this to be a drawn out confrontation."
Peter certainly hoped that Katya was right in her assumption of the element of surprise, as Aneszka had managed to track them down at a school dance, of all places, based on sheer facial recognition and what Peter could only assume was heavy reconnaissance alone.
"Okay, and the serum?"
Katya slipped it out of her coat pocket just enough that he could see the vial's casing, shooting him a look like it was a stupid question. He did trust her, this just all felt so wrong-
Peter gathered her in his arms and they swung their way as close to Rockefeller Center as they could get without disturbing any tourists or causing too much of a scene, lest Aneszka catch wind of their presence and attempt to disappear. They landed the block behind FAO Schwarz, across from the skating rink to the giant Tree.
Katya glanced down at the tracker and then back up, scanning the crowd in front of them for Aneszka. She did this a few times before- "There!" She pointed, across the ice skating rink, to where Aneszka was leaning against the railing of the sidewalk above the rink, seemingly just people watching, a cone of warmed nuts from a stand nearby in her hands.
"We're gonna need Spiderman to find a good wing to wait in- we don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves." She muttered to him as the two began to make their way around the skating rink. They didn't have a plan, but Katya's face suggested she was currently making one. "Where do you think you could hang out so you're close enough to help but not obvious enough to draw eyes?"
"I've got a few roofs I can choose from," Peter responded, glancing up at them. There was 30 Rock itself, which was extremely high, as were most of the surrounding buildings, but no one said he had to go all the way to the top.
"All right then," She glanced at him and tapped her ear reassuringly before pulling the hood of her peacoat over her face, "Go high. See you in a second, pauchok." She disappeared into the crowd.
There was so much foot traffic that Peter didn't stop to worry about anyone noticing him sling himself up to about halfway up the building next to the Rockefeller, so he could watch Aneszka from the side opposite that Katya was approaching. He trailed Katya with his eyes as she dodged through the crowd, letting herself get pulled and diverted bit by bit with the natural flow of the human traffic. Peter knew she could've just beelined for Anezka, who hadn't moved, but she was clearly plotting to approach from somewhere specific.
The crowd was thick, and Peter was trying to figure out what Katya was thinking- there'd barely be any room for a fight there, and maybe that's what she was banking on. The only pockets were where wads of tourists were lining up at the base of the tree to take photos before moving on, only to be replaced almost immediately by another group.
"So what's the plan, myshka?" He asked into his comms, eyes still trailing her dark green coat's hood.
"I"m trying to find a route to her, but there are so many people- and I don't want anyone to get hurt."
"Do you think this will end in a way that they could?"
"My plan is to subdue her immediately and smash the vial in her face so, hopefully, no."
"So what do I do?"
"Keep watch. If she moves on me I'm going to need you to web people out of the way, just in case."
So, the plan was, go to the most populated area of New York City on the busiest night of the year and cause a massive scene. Perfect.
It took what felt like ages for Katya to slip around the crowd enough just so she could approach Aneszka from behind, in a natural enough way that she wasn't interfering with the flow of people, but he knew it took mere seconds- it was like watching a drop of water slither through oil.
She was only about two people away now…nope, three- nope, back to two-
Aneszka whirled around, dropping the cone of nuts she held in her hand, where they scattered like the tourists who had been closest to her. One man stood his ground, and made to round on her- typical New York hospitality- but she shoved her wrist into his neck , no doubt deploying the widow's gauntlet she probably never took off, and he dropped to the floor. The other tourists in the area began to cry out and step back, giving the two girls a wider berth than Peter expected Katya had been counting on.
"All right, pauchok, I need you down here!" Katya came in through comms, and he could see her drop into a stance- not one she'd taught him yet, but one he'd watched her use before. He could vaguely hear the two of them speaking in Russian through the comms before he slung his way down, webbing up those closest to the two girls punctuated by various apologies.
"This is for your own good-" He shot one at what was clearly a family-
"-Stay out of the way-" he told a group of Asian tourists with matching Christmas sweatshirts on-
"-Just a second- those smell great-" He webbed up the candied nut seller to his cart and pushed it backwards.
The two girls were still speaking, Katya's voice sounding desperate, before Aneszka lunged.