Hey, Vsauce. Queue here. Just me this time, with my first solo fic! I present yet another """minor project""" by me or Fluffy that got out of hand.
This fic will strive to answer the questions no one even thought to ask, such as "What happened to all those pies that Nelson and Murdock got in season one of Daredevil?" and "What happens next?" after watching Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3.
Ursula Ditkovich swept the sand from the bottom step onto the lobby floor, aiming poorly and sending half of the grains spattering against her ankles. As she stooped to sweep up the pile, she wondered how Peter had managed to track in so much.
The news channel had been beginning to assess the damage the Sandman had caused downtown when crunchy footsteps had sounded from the stairs. Peter's gait.
She'd peeked out onto the landing. Sand had been clinging to Peter's shoes and the wrinkles of his clothing.
"Were you at the ceremony?" she'd asked.
His eyes had darted up to her before creasing with his smile. "Taking pictures."
He hadn't been carrying his camera, Ursula realized as she finished sweeping up the pile of sand and stood with the help of the broom. She eyed his door upstairs, explaining to herself he'd probably dropped it in the chaos, or she wasn't remembering correctly. Still, the sand-filled dustpan sat heavy in her mind as it was in her hand.
Two nights later, Ursula rolled over in bed for the thousandth time since laying down and pressed her ear against the pillow. Faint staticky voices and beeps were poking at her ears, forbidding her from falling asleep. Eventually, she swung her legs off the side of the bed and planted her feet on the ground, determined to tell her father to turn off the TV or stop whatever it was he was up to.
But when Ursula opened her door, she was met with a pitch-black apartment. There wasn't even a thin sliver of light streaming from underneath Tato's door, and the only sound coming from behind it were his rumbling snores. They were a familiar, almost soothing sound to her after twenty-one years of hearing them every night, so they weren't what was keeping her up.
Her ears led her out onto the landing, where she stood with her arms crossed over her thin nightgown. The noise was coming from the other side of Peter's door.
"Three Henry ten-eleven, I have a residence, seven-three-eight-one... 7-Adam to Central, responding to one... 642 Madison Ave..." came muffled voices between blurbs and static.
A police radio? wondered Ursula. What business did Peter Parker have with a police radio?
Whatever it was, she wasn't about to confront him about it, much less in her pajamas. Much less these pajamas.
Ursula heard something unlatching and she darted back into her apartment and pressed her back against the cool wood of the door, her heart doing flips in her chest. When there weren't any further sounds, she eased the door back open a crack. Peter's doorknob hadn't so much as turned, and when the papers in his apartment started to rustle, she realized it must have been the door to his balcony that had unlatched.
The pounding of her heart had worn off by then, and it was replaced by a wide yawn. She had what she'd gotten up to get, the ability to fall asleep, so she filed Peter Parker away into the back of her mind and took catlike steps back to her bed.
"—and despite the webbing's message, Spider-Man is yet to take the call to action, and has not arrived on scene," is the first thing Hal Fishman said as soon as Ursula turned on the TV. "Eyewitnesses are doubtful of how long the webs will hold the taxi that Mary Jane Watson is being held hostage in."
The remote dropped out of Ursula's hand. Mary Jane? Did Peter know about this? She got up and dashed onto the landing, not bothering to close the door behind her. She'd heard Peter come up the stairs a few minutes ago, and she hated the thought that he might be sitting in his apartment blissfully unaware of his girlfriend's danger.
"Peter?" she called as her fist thudded on the glass. "Peter! Do you know about Mary Jane?"
She persisted at this for a little while, her feet shuffling in a nervous dance and her voice straining further with every sentence. Eventually, she reached for the doorknob, found it missing, and instead heaved the door open with her shoulder.
She stumbled into the room, but there was no Peter to look up surprisedly. "Pete?" she called into the quiet. There was an empty chest laying open on his bed, but nothing else seemed out of place.
Ursula ran her fingers through one of her pigtails and fidgeted in a circle. She could've sworn those were his footsteps she'd heard on the stairs. Where was he?
The balcony door rattled in the wind and she noticed it was ajar. She dashed through it.
"Peter?"
The balcony was empty as the street below, which was an eerie sight. People must have been staying in because of what was happening downtown, or, knowing New Yorkers, they'd rushed to join the crowd.
She turned to go back inside but couldn't think of where to look for Peter next, so she paused for a moment on the balcony. The wind that whipped her pigtails around her shoulders also carried the scent of Peter's apartment. Despite the mildew and hints of smoke from previous owners, it had Peter's distinct smell as well: hints of Spandex, rubber, books, and cologne…
The sound of a crowd cheering "Spider-Man! Spider-Man!" on the TV speaker drifted through the open doorway across the hall. Jennifer Dugan said faintly, "He seems to have come out of nowhere to answer the prayers of the city. Just when all hope seemed to be lost."
Ursula's eyes landed on the chest on Peter's bed. It would fit a suit. A suit that smelled like Spandex and rubber. A suit that would explain the time he'd returned from the laundromat with a pink-dyed load of whites, despite never having worn red socks in his life. A suit that would explain the sand and the missing camera, the police radio, and all the times she hadn't heard him leave but found him gone and the balcony door open.
A curious smile resting on her face, she left his apartment as it had been, and her feet carried her to the recycle bin where she'd discarded a newspaper earlier that week. SPIDEY SCORES spanned the top of the page, and the photo was by someone named Eddie Brock, not Peter Parker. It showed Spidey's half-unmasked, upside-down face pressed up against that of the chief of police's daughter.
Half-unmasked. Ursula flipped the page upside-down. It wasn't obvious, but as her fingertips traced the clean-shaven jaw and the shape of his chin and lips, she knew they looked familiar.
Ursula discarded the paper and returned to the living room, where Tato was now sitting on the couch, shaking his head. Ursula's brow furrowed and she sat close to him, leaning forward.
"He's no match for them both," mumbled Tato.
Pete is every match for them and more, Ursula thought, but as she watched, she found herself agreeing with her father more and more. Peter trying to take down the Sandman looked like a fly pestering a dog. And he wasn't the only enemy Peter had to worry about. Ursula chewed her thumbnail down to its quick and moved on to the next nail.
"It's hard to believe what's happening," Jennifer Dugan said, "The brutality of it…"
Ursula tore her eyes away from the screen as the Sandman pummelled Peter with his boulder-like fist over and over and over again. Ursula could practically feel each blow taking the wind out of him. She stood and ran to the kitchen, grabbing the flour.
"What are you up to now?" asked Tato.
"I'm making cookies." She struggled to keep her voice firm. "With nuts in them." For him, when he gets back.
Because he would get back—she knew he would. He would come up the stairs for the second time that night without going down them once, and he'd have a few cuts and a few bruises, but he'd be standing.
The sound of an explosion emanated from the TV speakers. Tato swung his arm over the back of the sofa to look at Ursula. "Green goblin," he said.
Ursula's heart felt like it was being wrung out, and her hand froze mid-stir. "What did he do?" she asked, staring down at the dough. She pictured Peter's charred body dropping to the ground, but she closed her eyes to the image.
"He blew up Sandman's head."
Ursula's eyes darted up. "Sandman? You mean—He's on Spidey's side?"
"Guess so." Tato shrugged and turned back around.
Ursula took a deep breath and snatched the pecans back down off the shelf and dumped the rest in. A new picture filled her mind's eye, one of Peter looking at her with his kind gaze, his soft hair combed, the top button of his shirt hiding the red suit underneath. With that image in her mind, her arm barely tired as she forced the spoon through the thick dough.