Peter gets a text from Matt the morning after the disaster that was Tony finding out about his extracurricular activities. He's sitting on the couch wearing one of Uncle Ben's old sweaters when his phone makes the soft pinging sound of a text message coming through, and it takes him a couple minutes to work up the energy required to sit forward and grab the phone off the coffee table where it's sitting next to a half-finished bottle of Gatorade.
'Talk with Tony went as well as could be expected last night but I have a solution. Meet me at my apartment at six and I can show you' the message reads, followed by a text containing Matt's address. Any other day Peter would be stoked as hell to have managed to get Daredevil's motherfucking home address, but today he just feels… drained. But he guesses he owes Matt for at least trying to help with Tony, and if he has a solution that's something Peter definitely wants to hear about.
He responds with a simple 'okay' before tossing his phone back down on the table and retreating into his cocoon of blankets once more. He must stay like that for a while, because the next thing he knows, Aunt May has a hand on his forehead and is frowning down at him.
"Are you sick, baby?" she asks softly, smoothing Peter's hair back as he sits up and brushes her off with a shake of his head.
"No. I just—" Peter can already feel the tears welling up and he hasn't even fucking said anything yet.
"Peter, what's wrong?" May asks, continuing the gentle tone she's been using as she sits down beside Peter and puts an arm around his shoulders and squeezes him reassuringly.
"Mr. Stark's really mad at me," Peter finally whispers, resting his forehead against May's shoulder as he hugs her.
"I'm sorry baby… what's he mad about?"
Peter just shakes his head and squeezes her a little tighter. She gives him a concerned look but doesn't push.
"Alright, you don't have to talk about it, but if you want to I'm right here…" Sensing just how uncomfortable Peter is with the topic, May takes it upon herself to change it. "So, you have any plans today?"
"Um, yeah. Tonight I'm gonna go hang out with some friends in Manhattan," Peter answers after a moment of deliberation about whether or not it's actually a lie. Matt is his friend, so technically...
"Alright. I'm meeting some of the girls from work for brunch in about an hour. You wanna come?"
"That's okay. I don't wanna intrude…" Peter mumbles back.
"They love you, baby. You wouldn't be intruding."
Peter really wants to do nothing more than just lay in bed for the rest of the day, but he figures he better do something if he wants to be a functioning human being by the time he meets Matt later.
"I guess," he replies after a minute.
May beams at him and kisses him on the forehead before she gets up. "It's that place on 48th that you love. I'm gonna go get ready, alright?"
"Alright," Peter murmurs, waiting for May to walk back into her bedroom and out of sight before he gets up and goes to take a shower that he definitely needs.
Standing under the spray of hot water for twenty minutes surprisingly does a fair amount to improve his mood, as do the six Tylenol he takes to help with the headache he has from all the crying he did the night before. It had taken a fair amount of trial and error to figure out the right dosage with his new metabolism, but six still seems to be enough for a headache. He hopes his enhanced metabolism also means he won't ruin his liver. When he gets back to his bedroom he pulls on his nice jeans and a black sweater so that he won't look homeless next to Aunt May, who likes to dress up especially nice for brunch. With the extra hours she's had to start working since Ben passed away, she doesn't have very many excuses to get pretty.
Peter's back on the couch and scrolling aimlessly through Instagram by the time May comes out of the bedroom, putting on her earrings and her shoes at the same time.
"You ready to go?" she asks, checking the time on her phone as she grabs her purse off the floor by the couch.
"Yeah." Peter puts his shoes on, and they head out.
They walk to the restaurant, keeping up a light banter about work things, the different women who're soon to be fawning over adorable little Peter Parker, and telling him to eat more since he's so skinny. He can't really deny the fact that he's lost a little bit of weight since he got his powers, considering the inhuman metabolism they gave him, but that doesn't make the fussing at him any more tolerable than it was before.
They arrive at the restaurant about fifteen minutes late which shouldn't be a surprise at all to anyone who's known May for more than a week. Sure, she's punctual about work, but for other things she's a bit more lax about getting there on time. A group of young to middle-aged women are sitting at a table and wave them over with bright smiles on their faces.
"Peter! It's so good to see you," one woman greets, standing up to hug him, before sitting back down. She's short and heavy set with short, brown hair, and it takes Peter a minute to remember her name.
"It's good to see you too, Ms. Theresa," he replies as they sit, and the waiter comes by to get drink orders.
Peter sort of loses himself in the drone of whatever his aunt and her friends are talking about as the conversation fades from one morning talk show style topic to the next before he eventually gets dragged into the conversation.
"Yeah, Peter's been pretty busy with his internship lately, so he doesn't have too much time for poor old me," May says, feigning sadness, even as she bumps her shoulder against Peter and smiles at him.
"Oh? Where're you an intern at?" Samantha, one of May's friends who he's met in passing, asks.
"Um, Stark Industries," Peter says after a second. "I work with the tech R&D people."
"Wow. That's pretty impressive. Have you met Tony Stark?" she asks.
"Uh, yeah. He kinda… personally recruited me," Peter mumbles. It comes across as embarrassed, self-conscious teenager, but May catches it for what it really is: anxiety about whatever it is that went down between Peter and Tony earlier.
"Speaking of Tony Stark," May butts in helpfully, "did you guys see that he's funding renovations to a bunch of hospitals all over Manhattan?"
That manages to switch the topic to hospital finances for a minute before a woman who Peter can't recall ever meeting before speaks up. She's young, maybe in her mid-twenties with long, curly black hair and brown eyes and a slight Hispanic accent.
"I used to work the ER over at Metro General," she says softly, taking a sip of her mimosa. "And that place needs any money it can get. They had some sketchy stuff happening there in order to get funding—there was some sort of conspiracy shit going down, and one of the best nurses quit over it. I transferred out pretty fast after that since the neighborhood had already gone to hell."
That catches everyone's interest pretty fast, and they all lean inwards toward the woman, curious to hear what else she has to say.
"What do you mean 'conspiracy'?" Samantha asks.
"One of our nurses, Louisa, got killed. Official word was that she got stabbed by some junkie with a scalpel, but I'm friends with the ME's daughter. She told me he was pretty messed up about it. They had him doctor the autopsy report. Louisa didn't get stabbed with a scalpel. She was impaled—straight through the heart. With some sort of curved sword."
"Like a katana?" Peter asks.
That gets all eyes on him, which makes him shift uncomfortably, but the woman nods. "Yeah—I think that's what she called it. Anyway, I'm just glad I got outta there. Between all that shit and the people the Devil left for us every night, I'm glad I'll never have to go to Hell's Kitchen again."
"Have you ever seen Daredevil, Carmen?" May asks the woman curiously.
"Yeah, a couple times. If a girl got beat up real bad, he'd help her then he'd walk her to the ER and make sure she got there safe. Saw him on the roof a couple times too, and he kicked the shit out of a couple guys who tried to mug my sister. Still, the way he left people… The Devil ain't a bad guy, but he sure as hell ain't human either." She clears her throat as the waiter comes by to take their orders. "Like I said, I'm just glad I'm outta there. Who knows what shit that hospital's elbow deep in now."
The rest of brunch passes by with much tamer conversation, but Carmen's stories leave Peter with a few things to ask Matt when he sees him tonight, namely: what the fuck was/is going on at Metro General hospital?
The women all decide to go out and do some shopping after brunch, but Peter excuses himself so he can go home. He needs to try to make himself a fully-functional human being before he has to go experience whatever it is that Matt has decided is a solution for having the suit taken away. Then he tries not to think about getting the suit taken away because remembering the sheer disappointment in Tony's voice is enough to make him want to cry, again .
Peter decides that he should probably just take a nap or something, but when he gets off the elevator and turns down the hallway that leads to his apartment, he sees Ned sitting outside the door.
Ned looks up when he hears footsteps and smiles brightly up at Peter. "Oh thank God, you're alive. I was starting to worry after last night, and then you weren't answering my texts…" he says, frowning down at his phone a little.
Peter frowns and pats his pockets, and realizes that he only feels the bump from his wallet and keys, which he pulls out to unlock the door to let Ned in. "Sorry, I guess I left my phone at home, what's up?" he apologizes as Ned steps out of the way for him to open the door.
Sure enough, as they walk into the apartment, Peter spots his phone sitting on the edge of the couch where he must've left it earlier that morning. Upon picking it up he sees about fifteen unread texts from Ned ranging from coherent questions to tier five memes to a series of question marks and commas.
"No worries," Ned assures, waving his hand. "Wanna tell me what happened the other night though? You said some Spider-shit went down, and I'm assuming that's why Tony frickin' Stark was here yesterday."
"Oh, yeah, that," Peter says, walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water for himself and Ned, who's already sitting on the couch.
"So, do you wanna talk about it..? I'm worried about you, man."
"Yeah, it's not that big of a deal," Peter says, downplaying it for the sake of his own mental state. "I was working a job with Daredevil—"
"'Working a job', God that's so cool," Ned interrupts. "Sorry, please continue."
Peter smiles because, yeah, honestly he still gets a little giddy at being able to say he was working a job. It makes him feel like a real hero. "Yeah, we were gonna crash a gang initiation, but apparently the Punisher got wind of it too, and he was there with Daredevil when I showed up."
"Duuude," Ned gasps. "The Punisher?! Were they fighting?"
"That's the thing— they weren't. I think they're like… friends now? It's super weird— Mr. Castle knows Daredevil's identity and everything. Anyway, back on topic- we go in to stop these gangsters from killing a guy, and that all goes pretty well, but when we have everyone down, one guy grabs his gun and tries to shoot me, but Daredevil pushes me out of the way and gets shot instead." Peter pauses for a second to take a breath and collect his thoughts. "And… and then Mr. Castle killed the guy who shot Daredevil. And I just… gunshots aren't like they are on TV, they're deafening, especially with my hearing, but I could hear the sound of this guy's skull cracking and his brain splattering all over the concrete and I know he was a bad guy, and he was trying to kill us and at the time I couldn't really think about it because we had to get Daredevil to a doctor, but now I keep hearing the guy die and I just… I can't stop myself from thinking about Uncle Ben…" he whispers, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.
Ned swallows sharply and leans forward to hug Peter. "Hey… it's alright. It's not your fault this guy died, and it's not your fault that Ben died either…" he says softly, rubbing a circle on Peter's back comfortingly.
Peter clutches onto Ned's shoulders tightly and presses his forehead into his friend's chest. "I know—I know but it's just—I can't explain it. But I just… I should've known . The Spidey-sense went off, so I should've stopped him, I should have known he had a gun, so he didn't have to die but—"
"Peter, if you knew he had a gun, you would've done something. You didn't know, and that's not your fault."
"But it was going off—"
"And you were in a room full of criminals with guns and the frickin' Punisher. One time the Spidey-sense went off because there was a puddle where someone spilled their water bottle in the hallway. You couldn't have known it was something else."
"But—"
"At the risk of sounding like Mrs. Mondaski from seventh grade English, no buts," Ned replies. "It's not your fault. The guy died, and that must suck, but it isn't your fault. And I'm assuming Daredevil's still alive, so you can't blame yourself for the death of my second-favorite vigilante."
Peter sniffles a little and sits back. He doesn't want to keep arguing with Ned as to why it is his fault, so he just says, "I thought he was your favorite."
"Don't be dumb. You're my favorite," Ned says, poking Peter in the middle of his chest lightly.
Peter lets out a slightly surprised laugh and shakes his head. "Alright, man. If you insist."
Ned smiles back at him brightly. "So, you wanna work on the project today or do it tomorrow?"
"Ugh, tomorrow, please, my brain is absolutely fried right now. And Daredevil and I are doing something later tonight, so I want to still have the motivation to live by six."
"Didn't you just say he got shot two nights ago? Should he really be out… Daredevil-ing so soon after that?" Ned's concern is apparent on his face and Peter just shakes his head.
"We're not gonna be Daredevil-ing and Spider-Man-ing. Honestly, I'm not sure what we're doing. He said something about a solution for my suit being taken away, so we might be breaking into Avengers Tower, but probably not."
"Well then, good luck with, you know, whatever it is you're doing. I have a strong feeling that it won't be legal, whatever it is. Probably."
"You're probably right," Peter replies with a shrug. "But I'm sure I'll have fun doing it."
Ned sticks around for another hour or so and the two of them just talk and catch up before Ned has to go home for a raid with his WoW guild. Peter never really got into World of Warcraft, but he's still more than happy to hear all about Ned's experiences with it.
After his friend leaves, Peter decides he really does need to take a nap, being sure to set an alarm for 4:30 so that he'll have time to make himself at least mildly presentable before he has to catch the subway to Manhattan. He'd prefer to swing his way there on webs, but again, no suit. He names the alarm 'ask Matt about Metro General' instead of just remembering the topic he wanted to talk to him about. He was way too tired to think, or remember anything. He then promptly passes out in bed.
The absolutely grating sound of the alarm rings what feels like just seconds later, but is definitely closer to three hours. Peter sits up with a groan and scrubs his hands over his face, before kicking off his blankets and getting out of bed. He pulls on his sneakers without even bothering to open his eyes and walks out into the living room of the apartment, stretching his back.
"Hey sweetheart," May says from where she's sitting on the couch. "You going out?"
"Yeah, a few people from AcaDec are getting dinner near Bryant Park," Peter lies easily. He's been practicing it all day, and he's pleased with how well it comes out.
"Alright, don't stay out past… it's Saturday? Let's say you should be on the way home by two," May replies. "And you have to give me a hug before you go."
Peter can't help but smile a little at that, as he walks around to the front of the couch and leans down to hug May. "I'll probably be back earlier than that."
"Just be safe, and have fun, okay?"
"I will. I promise," Peter says, standing back up straight and grabbing his coat off of the hook by the door, before walking out of the apartment.
He's never been the biggest fan of the subway, and since he got his powers he's liked it even less. The smells are more cloying, sometimes almost to the point that he can taste the B.O. in the air. His ears pop from the pressure changes a hell of a lot worse than before, and the sound of the brakes shrieking at each stop makes him want to shove cotton in his ears. Without a doubt, however, the worst part is the way the Spidey-sense is constantly going off. Someone the next car over who might have the flu sneezes? It goes off. There's a suspicious wet patch on the floor that he could possibly slip in? It goes off. A used needle beneath one of the seats that's also suspiciously wet? It goes off. There's absolutely fucking nothing in sight that could be considered a danger? It. Still. Goes. Off. Riding the subway is absolutely miserable now. He plugs in his headphones and just tries his best to ignore the constant shivers of anxiety rippling down his spine for what should be a 20-ish minute ride—assuming, of course, that there aren't any delays.
There's definitely a delay.
Peter emerges from the disgusting underground tunnels an hour later, ones that wouldn't be considered habitable by even the least self-respecting mole-person on Earth- or any other planet, and starts walking towards the address Matt had texted him earlier that morning. It takes him a solid fifteen minutes of dodging around the tourists crowding the sidewalks to get from the station to the old, kinda shitty looking building that Matt lives in. Peter checks the text again to confirm the apartment number is, in fact, 6A before he heads inside and up to the top floor. He hasn't even raised his hand to knock on the door before Matt's opening it with a smile.
He's dressed in all black except for the red-tinted sunglasses he has on—the same ones he'd been wearing when Peter swung by the offices of Nelson, Murdock, & Page to pick up the cats. Honestly, they look pretty good on him, but Peter has an aversion to sunglasses being worn at night. The song alone haunts him.
"Hey Peter," Matt greets, opening up the door up wider for Peter to come in.
It's dark in the apartment apart from a weird, purple light that's filtering into the living room from somewhere. Peter stumbles over something on the floor—a briefcase, from the feel of the sharp edge he just kicked.
"Sorry, forget other people need the lights on—there's a switch on your left," he tells Peter, though he continues into the main area of the apartment.
That's a weird comment. Matt had mentioned enhanced senses that one time though, so maybe that includes, like, super-vision or something?
Peter finds the switch after groping along the wall just a little, and he's pretty surprised by just how nice the place looks with the lights on. It's a big space with high ceilings and a separate bedroom (with broken sliding doors), not to mention the roof access which, hello, must be pretty damn convenient for the whole masked vigilante thing. The purple light is coming through the windows from a billboard across the street, and Peter can't help but wrinkle his nose up at the sight of it. The apartment is just so nice without that eyesore.
"The billboard?" Matt asks, somehow sensing Peter's change in mood. "Yeah, most people complain about it, but it keeps my rent down so—" he shrugs before grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. "You ready to do a little more walking?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," Peter replies with a sigh before he turns to follow Matt back out of the apartment and down the stairs.
Matt leads him down the sidewalk towards an even shittier part of the neighborhood where the crumbly brick buildings are covered in poorly done graffiti and the sidewalks have the occasional stain that would totally light up under Luminol. Matt takes a sharp turn down a particularly gritty alleyway before leading Peter down some steps to a heavy, metal door.
He knocks three times before pausing and knocking twice and then another pause before one more knock. Holy shit. A secret knock. Peter's so stoked he doesn't even care that any other time he'd be getting murdered in this alley and not meeting one of Daredevil's friends.
A minute later, an absolutely ripped bald guy opens the door and gives a huge smile upon seeing Matt.
"Hey! I was just about to call you! I fixed your suit, but man, you gotta stop getting shot. Your friends worry about you," the man says, turning and walking back into the building which Matt takes as an invitation to follow. Peter follows after him as well.
"I know you mean that you worry about me, Melvin," Matt teases gently. "And my friends told me the suit was gonna take a couple of weeks. Something about you needing to order new material."
"Course I worry. And I'll need to get some more material for something else I'm making you, but I have plenty to keep fixing the suit. Who's your friend?" Melvin asks as he starts folding up the Daredevil suit to lay in carefully in a big paper bag.
"This is Peter," Matt introduces. "And I was actually hoping to ask you for a favor."
"Ask away," Melvin says.
"He needs a suit."
Melvin raises an eyebrow at Matt before looking over Peter, and then looking back to Matt. "He seems a bit young for that."
"Hey, either he has a suit and does it safe, or he has no suit and ends up half dead from a ninja with a knife on a chain," Matt replies with a shrug and a charming smile.
Melvin seems to consider that for a moment before sighing and rubbing at his forehead. "Alright. Anything the suit needs?" he asks, this time to Peter directly. He doesn't make eye contact, but his body's pointed in Peter's direction.
"Umm… I need to be able to move my fingers well, and I don't do a ton of punching, so I don't need gloves like Daredevil's… and I can't have any insulators on my palms or beneath my feet, so anything with rubber soles is out—" That request puts a funny look on both men's faces, so Peter decides to offer a little bit of explanation. "The way I stick to walls and stuff has to do with static electricity." Peter waves his hand dismissively. "Y'know, science-y stuff."
"Alright," Melvin replies. "What about design requests?"
"Um, my suit was red and blue, so I'd kinda like to stick with that theme. Also, I'd like to keep the spider emblem on the chest."
Melvin's eyes get a bit wider. " You're Spider-Man?" Peter preens, just a bit.
"The one and only!"
"Jesus, now I'm gonna be worried about you the next time I see someone throwin' a bus at you on TV," he mutters, walking over to the work table nearest to them and grabbing a tape-measure off of it along with a small notebook. "Mind if I take your measurements?" he asks, as he comes to stand in front of Peter.
"By all means," Peter replies.
Melvin proceeds to wrap the tape measure around everything from Peter's head to his calves and everything in between. All in all, the process only takes about six or so minutes before Melvin scribbles down the last measurement in his notebook and stands back.
"I'll need to get some more materials for this, but I should be able to have it ready in about a week. I'll text Matt when I get it done, and you can come try it on and see if anything needs adjusting. That sound alright?"
Peter's smiling like it's Christmas morning, and his heart is definitely beating fast enough for Matt to notice it. "Um—wow. Yeah, that sounds great, man."
"Cool, you'll hear from me when it's ready," Melvin says, handing Matt the bag containing the Daredevil suit. "I see you running around in that thing before you've healed up from getting shot and I'll beat you with your own billy-club," he threatens.
"I'm basically under house arrest for two weeks," Matt replies with a sigh. "My friends have decided that's the longest they can possibly keep me in for without me going insane, but I'm pretty sure I can argue it down to a week and a half."
"You can argue anything," Melvin counters with a snort.
"Damn right. You have my number if you or Betsy need anything, yeah?"
"You know I do. Be safe," Melvin says as Matt starts making his way back to the door with Peter following behind him. "You too, Spider-Man."
Peter smiles and waves as they leave. "I will be, bye!"
Matt offers to walk him back to the subway, and Peter refuses the offer before politely offering to walk Matt back to his own apartment. He refuses politely as well.
"The suit Melvin makes for you isn't going to have any sort of tech, but I can teach you a few things so you won't need sensors like the old one had. Once I heal, that is," Matt says as they walk the last block that has them heading in the same direction before they'll split off to go their separate ways. "I have a friend who can show you some stuff on Monday, if you're free."
"I don't think I have anything going on," Peter replies. "I'll text you later. Get home safe, Matt."
"Say hi to the cats for me," Matt replies before turning to head back to his apartment, reaching into a pocket of his jacket for something just as he gets out of Peter's sight.
"Doubt I'll be going by the Tower to see 'em anytime soon," Peter mumbles under his breath as he heads off towards the subway station.
The subway ride home isn't any more enjoyable than it was on the way there, but the excitement of getting a suit made by the same guy who made the iconic Daredevil suit helps him to ignore the Spider-sense, at least a little bit. Though the guy- Melvin- had taken the moniker 'The Devil of Hell's Kitchen' pretty literally for Matt's suit, so Peter wonders if he might should worry about the guy making him some sort of wearable, eight-legged monstrosity. He's tired enough that the thought only pops into his head for a fraction of a second before it disappears like everything else in his brain. He drops his keys twice before he can finally shove them into the apartment door to unlock it.
Aunt May is sitting on the couch eating ice cream in her pajamas when Peter gets home. She smiles and waves at him but thankfully doesn't try to make conversation so he's free to go to his room and pull on his own pajamas before passing out, and pass out he does. He only has one final thought before he falls asleep.
Shit. He forgot to ask Matt about Metro General.