After acquiring the cats with Daredevil's unexpected, but much appreciated, assistance Peter heads back to Queens. At some point along the trip it starts snowing, and by the time he's back off the subway and above the ground a fine layer of white is beginning to cover everything. He heads home and changes into the suit before swinging out the window, but there isn't much in the way of crime to be stopped. Two attempted muggings and one attempted car theft later finds Peter sitting high up on the edge of a roof next to a dummy owl that, judging by the bird shit covering it, doesn't do a very good job of keeping the pigeons away.

The city isn't quiet; New York never is. But the blanket of snow drifting down from the sky is enough to muffle everything just enough that it feels different. Peter knows that the difference in feeling isn't because of his powers because he can remember staying up late at night and sitting on the fire escape drinking hot chocolate with uncle Ben and it feeling the same. Maybe Ben's hot chocolate had a bit of Kahlua in it most times, but Peter can still remember sitting right beside him with one of May's plush throw blankets from the basket by the sofa wrapped around their shoulders. After half an hour it gets cold enough that Peter has to stand up and shake the gathering snow from his shoulders before jumping off the roof and swinging back to the fire escape outside his bedroom window.

May's gone when he gets back; she's still on the night shift for another week, so Peter makes himself hot chocolate with packaged powder and microwaved milk once he changes out of the suit. It's cold enough that he doesn't want to go outside, so he just sits in the armchair in the living room that still kinda smells like Ben if he focuses hard enough on it. Funny that he'd thought Daredevil was weird just a few hours ago for smelling shit when here he is doing the same.

He must drift off at some point because when he wakes up there's a blanket draped over him and light coming in through the windows to his left. Peter sits up abruptly to check the time, but when he sees that it's already eight he just lays back again. He's been working hard lately; it isn't like taking one day off from school is gonna kill him. Besides, he's not sure he has the motivation to actually get up and go today.

After taking about an hour to work up the motivation to get up and out of the chair, Peter makes his way into the kitchen to make himself another mug of hot chocolate, because even though he's in high school now he still can't stand coffee. The smell of it's great, but the taste is just… ugh. He thinks for a second about making some toast or something but decides against it and just goes takes his hot chocolate and the warm blanket from the armchair into his bedroom where he fires up his computer to play Minecraft. It's a simple game and the music is soothing, so he loses himself in playing it for a few hours.

It isn't until around 1:00 when May wakes up and does a double take at seeing Peter in his room when she walks past the open door.

The movement catches Peter's eye so he looks up and smiles at her. "Mental health day."

She smiles back at him and steps into the room to half hug him and kiss the top of his head. "Got it. Want me to order a pizza?"

"Mushrooms and pepperoni?" he asks.

May nods as she heads back out of the room. "Alright, gotcha. Have fun in here."

Peter keeps playing for the half hour it takes for the pizza to arrive, and when it gets there he joins May in the living room to sit on the couch and watch crappy game shows while they eat. They sit in amicable silence for a while before May ends up breaking it with a question.

"So," she asks, "you gonna go to the Stark internship today?" She bumps her shoulder against Peter's playfully, and he smiles and rolls his eyes in response.

"Nah, I think I can miss one day."

May nods and pulls Peter into a comfortable half hug. "Yeah, you work really hard. There's nothing wrong with needing to take a break every now and then."

"I know, Aunt May. You tell me that all the time."

"Yeah? Well, can you blame me? When I was your age all I was worried about was school and boys. You've got a hell of a lot more than that on your plate. You know, if you want I'd be happy to get you a therapist, right?"

"I'll think about it," Peter replies with a shrug. The idea of having a therapist is a bit worrying to him because he's not sure what the law is about therapists going to the police if they find out about the law-breaking, vigilantism, and superpowers.

"Alright sweetheart. Just let me know when you're done thinking, okay?" she says softly, ruffling Peter's hair before she gets up from the couch to throw away the now empty pizza box.

The remainder of the day passes by with Peter similarly lazing around either watching TV or playing video games with May either joining him or reading her book nearby. It's comforting to just be near each other for a while and not need to fill the space between them with conversation. In fact, it's so comforting that it lulls Peter into a bit of a trance and he doesn't realize that he totally ghosted Matt with seven whole cats until his phone rings around six.

Peter snatches it off of the coffee table and answers, ignoring the curious look his aunt is giving him.

"Hey Matt!" he says brightly.

"Hey, Peter, sorry for calling unannounced but I was wondering if you needed me to keep the cats for another day," Matt says, sounding more than a little tired.

"Oh crap—yeah, I'm really sorry about that. Something came up today, but I can come get them tomorrow after school."

"Alright, just let me know when roughly when you need them and we can meet up somewhere," Matt replies though he doesn't seem at all bothered by the fact that he'll have his fluffy friends for about 20 more hours.

There's a faint rumbling noise that puzzles Peter for a moment until he realizes what it is and a smile breaks out across his face.

"Matt."

"Yes?"

"Is mom-cat on your shoulder right now?"

"Why do you ask?" Matt replies suspiciously.

"I hear purring."

Matt sighs and there's the faint sound of him adjusting the phone. "Yes, she's on my shoulder. And her name is Spatula—don't ask me. My business partners named all of them when I brought them to the office this morning."

"You brought them to work? That's amazing."

"Well, I couldn't just leave them alone all day," Matt counters.

There's the faint sound of someone yelling in the background of Matt's call and he sighs before yelling back to whoever it is. "Yeah—just a minute! Alright, Peter, I gotta get back to work. Have a nice evening."

"You too," Peter replies before hanging up.

Aunt May is looking at him expectantly, but Peter just looks back at her.

"What?" he asks.

"Who's Matt?" she asks curiously.

"Oh umm—" Peter fumbles for a good excuse. "He's um… a guy. Who's fostering some cats I found until I get the chance to take them to Mr. Stark."

"Just a random guy?"

"Not really. I asked the shelter and they gave me his number," Peter lies.

May doesn't look fully convinced, but she just shrugs. It isn't like Peter can't take care of himself. "Alright. Well, I gotta go to work. Text me if you decide to go out tonight."

"I will," Peter assures, scrolling through Instagram absently and liking a picture Ned posted earlier of a cute dog he saw on the way to school. Damn Instagram for getting rid of the chronological appearance of photos.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Alright, have fun. I love you," she says, hugging Peter again.

"I love you too." He hugs her back tightly before letting go and watching her leave the apartment.

After another twenty minutes of pointless Instagram scrolling, Peter's phone buzzes with a text message.

Ned: Dude where were you today?

Peter smiles at the message and types out a quick response.

Peter: Recovering.

Ned: From what? Did you get hurt?

Peter hesitates for a second before opening Snapchat and sending Ned the picture of Daredevil with the cats.

Peter: check ur snap

Ned's next messages are just a wall of keysmashes and question marks, and it gives Peter some pretty immense entertainment when the last message just reads 'im calling u now'.

Sure enough, his phone rings a second later, and Peter picks up, careful to hold his phone a few inches away from his ear just in case Ned's all caps keysmashing translates into his voice. It definitely does, and Peter spends two minutes getting Ned to chill before he relates the story to him. Strangely enough, Ned focuses in on something Peter hadn't even really thought about.

"So he has business partners and an office he can bring cats to. He owns a business, probably in Hell's Kitchen if he brought the cats to work. That narrows down his identity."

Peter's already running to his laptop to add that to the now sneakily named 'homework 1/15' document that holds all of his hints to Matt's identity. "Yeah Ned, a business in Hell's Kitchen. That'll be easy to find."

"I'm serious! Just narrow down what kind of business it is and then just call all those businesses asking to talk to 'Matt' and you'll find him."

"Okay, that would definitely work. But even though I'm new-ish to this hero stuff I know it's like… bad etiquette to unmask other heroes."

"Ugh, fine. Just earn his trust and then maybe he'll tell you. You could always tell him first," Ned suggests.

"But then he might feel pressured to tell me."

"Dude, he knocked the shit out of the Punisher. A high school student telling him his identity isn't gonna 'pressure him'."

"Whatever. He already knows what I look like and my first name and my age, so it's not like I have much to tell him."

"Wait he knows what you look like? How?"

"Last night I wasn't looking for cats dressed as Spider-Man. He recognized me because of my heartbeat and breathing. It was super weird."

"That's awesome! His hearing must be like… effing incredible. That's so cool."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep fanboying over him and I won't introduce you," Peter teases.

Their conversation devolves into a short roast session before they end up talking about what Peter missed at school which apparently included MJ brutally tearing Flash apart during a debate in English class. That transitions to them playing Minecraft together because they're both mature enough that they can admit Minecraft is just as fun as any FPS and isn't just for little kids.

When Peter's finally about to go to sleep his phone buzzes one more time, and when he checks it he sees a slightly blurry picture of all of the cats lined up on what looks like Matt's couch.