boss-man: storm tonite {2:31 pm]
boss-man: like lit eral shit ass snow bitch [2:31 pm]
boss-man: stg if ur crazy ass ends up on the news bc u swung arund nyc in a leotard at negatve butfuck degres im not payin workers comp [2:32 pm]
Me: crime waits for snow man [2:32 pm]
boss-man: yea [2:34 pm]
boss-man: thats comin out yuor pay chrck [2:34 pm]
Me: dang [2:25 pm]
Peter tipped some more hot chocolate into his mouth as he walked, mindlessly dodging melting ice patches on the sidewalk and nudging Ned away from the ones he almost stepped on.
"I always forget how much I hate snow until we actually get it," Ned grumbled after taking a gulp of his own hot chocolate. Peter could hear the crunch of peppermint bits between his molars. Traitor. "Like, what did I do to deserve this? You saw me slip this morning, and now my butt cheeks are still numb."
"I told you to stand in front of that space heater in the coffee shop."
"No one in there needed to witness my buns get toasted."
Peter snorted and shoved his phone and the hand holding it into the pocket of a thick-ish brown jacket that was a little too big, its sleeves hanging down to the tips of his fingers. He'd grabbed Thor's jacket by accident this morning—oh man Ned would freak if he found out—after the god stopped by for breakfast the fifth time in two weeks. Mom had been in the middle of pulling a tray of cardamom buns from the oven when Thor strolled in through the front door already talking about some creature Peter's never heard of before. His jacket went down on the couch arm next to the smaller also-brown one with sleeves that went to the middle of the palms but before he could say anything else, he'd stopped and stared at the tray of fresh bread in Mom's hands like it was the very last thing he expected.
"Alas, the things I do for divine honeyed rolls."
Mom wouldn't look their brother in the eye the rest of the morning.
But long story short, he picked up the wrong jacket when he left for school. It had roomy pockets and a stupid number of zippers, and Thor wouldn't mind if he had it for the day, right? Probably. Hopefully.
He gulped down some more hot chocolate.
All after-school activities had been canceled because of the weather, and it had to be a bad one if both Midtown and Sister Margaret's shut their doors for the day. That also meant patrol would be non-existent if people couldn't get out on the streets to even do crime, so if he was getting one of those rare days off from Ferret and Spider-Man, maybe Peter Parker could go out and do something for a bit. He could take his camera out and add to his picture board he hadn't been able to update in a while, or sneak into a library to chill out with a few books he wanted to read instead of barreling through this year's book list, or take apart the old stereo half dunked in a dumpster.
Or he could sit quietly for a while in the snowfall, just watching for a little while.
"Hey, so." Ned looked down. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm... I'm worried about you."
Peter's forehead scrunched as he turned his head. "What?"
"It's just, you've been kind of different lately. Not in a bad way! You're doing good, and I'm really happy for you." But then Ned frowned, and Peter's shoulder began to tense. "But I don't know how you're doing it."
He tried to keep the strain out of his smile. "Seriously, what are you talking about?"
"You sleep four hours a day at best because you work the weirdest shift from eight at night to one or two in the morning on random days, you nap at lunch and eat at practice, manage to get all your homework done with all that bullcrap padding work from all our APs, and somehow between all that you're, you know." Ned held down his middle and ring finger on his free hand and thwip-thwipped in random directions. "Dude, how are you even alive?"
If Ned found out that the homework got done between gym time with Wade and range-shooting with Neena and that the weird shift he worked got cut in with business stuff for Mr. Weasel before sometimes spending the tail-end of the night with lighter Deadpool missions, his friend would simply perish on the spot and he'd have to find a way to explain to his Lola how a normal human could spontaneously combust. Not to mention he was also staying over at Mom's a couple nights at a time, especially during the days May worked graveyard. It was hard to keep track of which clothes he left at which apartment, but both places were in Queens and if he really wanted to make the trip to match a pair of socks, it wouldn't take long. Easy peasy.
Peter glanced at the snow-crusted sidewalks.
... Maybe less than peasy. But 'great responsibility' was synonymous with 'crushingly heavy,' right?
"It's not that bad," he shrugged. "It might sound like a lot, but how bad can it be if I'm still alive?"
Ned cast him a dubious look over his chocolate splattered cup. Peter tugged his sleeve to pull him away from another ice patch.
"Don't give me that face. You know you only have to worry the day I turn down Lego night for something that isn't any of those things that's supposed to kill me."
The quip flew far enough to pull a huff out of Ned, but the second those words passed Peter's lips he was struck with a passing thought: why was it that any actual luck he had only worked for skydives? For fire? For concrete?
His chest churned as he went to tip back his cup. But when nothing but a couple undissolved drops of cocoa powder hit his tongue, he crumpled the cup in his fist and chucked it into the nearest recycling bin.
(He missed the layer of frost that covered it before it hit the bottom.)
"Just keep me in the loop?" Ned asked, and Peter felt like the worst best friend in the history of best friendships. But what else was he supposed to do? Ned wasn't half-alien or spider-mutated and even though he could hack into a system designed by one of the greatest geniuses of the century, that didn't stop him from getting stabbed. Shot. Hunted down like an animal if he ever got on the wrong side of the merc on a bad day, and then what? Ned got hurt? Died?
How many people would have to die before Peter knew better?
And. And if Pool's missions all ended the same way, well. Even better that Ned never learned.
"I'll let you know when things get bad," he lied, and this time the ice in his gut wasn't from somewhere out in the stars. He forced his best smile. "I promise."
::
prickle
"Oh good, still human enough to go to corner stores like the rest of us."
Peter's mouth quirked into an unwitting, humorless half-smile as he snagged a pomegranate drink from the fridge and closed the clear door and turned to the person standing behind it.
"Hi Dr. Strange," he greeted. "It's way too cold to be coming in hot like that."
Stephen shrugs, the heavier coat on his shoulders shifting over the dark blue cardigan he had buttoned underneath. "Winter's not my season—makes me a bit contentious. Prickly."
"You've got more spikes than a cactus."
"Well don't hold back."
"Okay. You're an SOB, too."
"Fair enough."
"A real bunghole."
"... Interesting choice."
"I mean, I guess I could just call you an asshole," Peter said as he twisted the purple cap off his bottle and took a swig. "But I feel like everyone else already does that for me."
Stephen's face crossed with an expression Peter liked to call "the cheek," but one side of his mouth curled up before he unhooked a small pack of almonds and a bag of salt and vinegar chips off the passing shelf. The bar was probably rubbing off on Peter, Granny Sal especially since she loved to talk smack while they were back in the kitchen and had him spending the night scrubbing chipped dishes and laughing into his sleeve. Ned had to be wrong about this too; the days both Neena and Wade were both out on jobs and when Weasel was busy mixing drinks and printing cards, he'd be elbow deep in cheap soap and dishwasher, just breathing.
"They're not wrong," Stephen said, snapping him back to Delmar's Deli & Grill. "I'd like to think I'm getting better at it, but I was too focused on possible threats at the time. It's not an excuse, I know."
Peter paused. "Wait, are you, like, trying to apologize right now?"
"Wong may have mentioned it. And as much as I hate to admit him being right, he has his moments."
"Uh. Wow."
"And for what it's worth, I am... sorry." The word stretched like every letter had to be strung out the man's mouth one syllable at a time. "For how I treated you at the Sanctum."
"It's. It's fine," Peter answered lamely. You were right, anyway, he didn't say. That he was just some brat way over his head who probably couldn't stop Loki even if he tried because what else could he do besides getting cats down from— "Look, if you're here about—"
"I'm not." Stephen crossed his arms. "I've kept tabs on him just in case he decides to turn tail and destroy New York again—"
Peter pressed his lips together and tried not to pop the bottle in his hands.
"—but he's stayed quiet. He works at a museum, lives in an upscale apartment in Queens, and looks after you." He glanced around the empty bodega before he sighed. "Spider-Man is Loki of Asgard's child. How many degrees off-axis has the Earth been knocked."
"If it makes you feel better, I've only known about it for a few months."
"It doesn't. Actually, it might make me feel worse." Stephen looked at him from the corner of his eye. "But there have been more frequent Thor-sightings and every building is still intact. For their sake, they better keep it that way." A pause, then sounding a bit more like when they first met, "Though the second I hear there's a god-made hole in the middle of the Woolworth, you won't be getting more chances."
Peter blinked. "Oh." He nabbed a couple bags of sour gummy worms when they ambled past them down the aisle. A chance? He was getting a chance?" "Oh! Mom just wants to have a life outside Asgard—"
'Mom,' Stephen mouthed.
"—and I ran into Mr. Thor by accident and when he found out Mom wasn't really dead he said all he wanted was to keep visiting on the down low without all the rainbow-y UFO lights from the Bifröst."
The Bifröst, which he recently learned was controlled by someone called Heimdall. That marked this mystery guy as someone who had interplanetary modes of transport and an all seeing-eye that got Thor to find them out in the first place; if he was a friend or not, he didn't know, but between Thor's camaraderie and Mom's disdain, he had to be at least be someone neutral.
Stephen stared at him. "... Right. I have no reason to interfere. For now, at least. I trust they'll keep it that way?"
Ah, not a chance. Just a message for the delivery boy.
"Yeah," Peter replied, keeping his eyes toward the front counter as his tongue swelled with a bitter taste. "I'll let them know."
A small bell rang at the entrance as Stephen nodded once, then cocked his head. "I never got your name."
A grumbling mrow perked up around their feet, prompting the teen to bend down and scoop a hefty orange-y brown cat with long hair that already started to stick to the sleeves of not-his jacket. The furball stretched and writhed until it fully flopped its head over his shoulder, purring all the while.
"I'm Peter," Peter introduced. He tipped his head at his fuzzy friend. "This is Murph."
Murph yawned.
An odd expression crawled onto and stayed on Stephen's face as they finally made it to the register where an older man was sitting on his stool, facial hair graying and gray as he appraised the bunch with a raised brow.
"Found your cat, Mr. Delmar. I think you should reward me with a discount."
"I gotta credit you with bringing back mi perozoso gorrón to this counter? You're lucky I don't double it, Mr. Parker." He was already opening his register. "Number five, pickles, the smush?"
"Yeah, and thanks!" Peter called out to Ruben in the back—always a fun name for someone who works at a deli—before he pouted to a decidedly unimpressed bodega owner and handed over a crumpled ten. "Am I getting too predictable?"
Delmar made change for a five in single bills. It was only ever five for the sandwich, never a cent more no matter how many bags of gummy worms Peter brought up to the counter, and it only made him feel worse about getting the old store destroyed. Consequences were something he'd gotten too acquainted with lately, with Toomes, with Mom, with Mr. Stark, with Wade.
(—with cops who hated him, with news articles that loathed him, with great power that might not save him one day—)
But that was okay. He was okay. He was alive, just like he told Ned. No way that didn't count for something.
"You just can't resist the best sandwich in Queens."
"Of course. I like the color of the new place, too."
He stepped to the side and leaned against the counter as Delmar waved over the person behind him. Murph chirped before he leapt back down onto the floor and wound around Stephen's ankles one, two times before meandering back through the aisles with his fluffy tail up high.
"And what can I do for you?"
"These, and a two and a seven. Please." As Stephen set down his bags of snacks on the counter, his eyes drifted down to the freezer chest close to his hip. Peeling and perfect stickers overlapped along the scratched white outside and inside the ice build-up could use a little chipping, but they nestled the uniform brand of ice cream just fine. "Spider-Man popsicles, huh. Are you a fan?"
Peter froze.
"Heh, yeah. I owe my life to that guy." Delmar rubbed his nose with a finger. "Old place got busted by some type of alien weapon and he got me and Murph out. I never got the chance to thank him for it. Fourteen even." He took the twenty handed to him. "He probably doesn't remember me, but I gotta pay him back somehow even if he doesn't know it."
Peter felt the burning stare Stephen subtly shot his way. He refused to raise his head to meet it.
"You know, I still see him swinging by the window from time to time." The elder man settled back on his stool with a small sigh and an even smaller smile. "Glad to see he's still sticking to the neighborhood. You remember when Coney went up in flames? When that Stark, I think, plane crashed, the bird guy who stole it had his ass webbed up right on the beach." A brief laugh huffed right out of his chest, and Peter wished he could laugh along. "Thought Spider-Man moved onto bigger and better things after that. Wouldn't blame him if he did."
Mr. Stark thought so too. That was the only reason he'd been offered a spot on the Avengers—he'd proven his worth through plane rubble and sweltering ash he couldn't get out of his nose. He'd been way excited too, honestly. What was going to be up for him next if he joined the big leagues? Secret underground organizations? Space battles? Time travel? Multiverse hopping?
But then, he thought, who'd look after Queens?
"He'll always stick up for the little guys," Peter said, and he felt Stephen's eyes back on him. Again, he ignored it.
"And so he gets the popsicles." Delmar smiled and slid over the three sandwiches Ruben dropped off by his elbow. "Don't get caught out in that storm, yeah? It's gonna look rough out there in not too long."
"No problem. Later Mr. Delmar! Later Murph!"
"See you on another afternoon, Mr. Parker. And tell your aunt I said hi!"
"Definitely not!"
Delmar's hearty laugh followed them out the door.
Snowflakes drifted softly from the darkening clouds overhead as rushing people passed them by, swaddled in thick coats and long scarves and warm hats and even Stephen, his small plastic bag dangling from his fingers, almost immediately zipped up his overcoat to his neck when his feet hit the sidewalk. Peter tipped his head up at the gentle storm, drops of cold brushing his cheeks that aren't quite enough to force him blue.
"You really won't come looking for Mom?" He asked. "They're not... They won't cause anymore problems."
"Do you know for sure they won't?" Stephen returned. "Because they already invaded New York once and that's enough proof that they're capable of doing something on that scale again. I don't trust them, and neither should you."
Crack went the bottle cap under Peter's grip.
"But," he continued with a sigh, "as long as there's peace, I won't argue more." He angled himself toward the left of the bodega, the opposite direction the teen initially turned. "Stay safe, Peter," he bid, and the sentiment rattled in Peter's chest loud enough to make him nauseous. "I'd tell you to stay out of trouble, but I think it's already too late for that."
He inclined his head and started down the street with quick steps and hunched shoulders, blending in perfectly in the freezing-over of New York's streets and leaving Peter with his sandwich, his worms, and a half-empty bottle of pomegranate juice.
Peter watched after him for a moment before he slung off his backpack and stashed all his food inside.
He wasn't that hungry anymore.
::
He flinched awake in the high corner of the library he tucked away in. The little space between the top of a shelf and the ceiling stayed out of sight of any window, and if there happened to be a security round or anyone else who decided to stop by after closing, he was up high enough that no one would notice. And yeah, he'd snuck in after hours. It wasn't his fault closing at five was out of style.
He'd been catching up on some reading during his free afternoon, getting through a couple more books on the booklist for the semester so he'd have notes and annotations before they got assigned so he'd get through future English homework faster and free up even more time for his "extracurriculars."
Peter scrubbed his eyes and tore the webbing off the books he stuck around him and jumped down to slot them back where he found them. Outside could still pass for daytime with the way the moon bounced off the icy whiteness of the slow storm. Some stoplight reds and do-not-cross oranges sprung off the snow with no cars or pedestrians to direct, but how could anyone wander around when the cars were covered up to the tops of their tires?
Wait. He glanced at his phone.
The storm was at a lull after ten in the evening, and he was surrounded by the aftermath. There was a text from May telling him to stay safe at Mom's, a text from Mom asking why they had to lie to May about his whereabouts, and a text from Wade who sent a picture of a dick he drew in the snow.
Peter globbed together the last of his webs and shoved them in his backpack with his dagger, his gun, Pool's spare utility belt, his half mask, blue-tinted goggles, and the suit all wrapped up in a spare black hoodie and maybe he should sit down one day and figure out when his school backpack turned into an inventory chest for a first person shooter. Not today, though, so he pulled out his blue Spider-Man mask and tugged it over his head.
The blue suit was all he carried around nowadays. He was still too chicken to wear it on bright, three-in-the-afternoon types of patrols where he'll see a reel of himself the next day or on a spidey-spotting account on Instagram filled with blurry pics and distant shots. But on late nights he stayed out of the lamplight and tried to dodge smartphone flashes to keep the new suit out of circulation; it was only a matter of time before people started asking questions and articles started demanding answers, but he had time. However little he might be.
He slipped on the rest of the blue suit and let Thor's brown jacket hang loosely over his shoulders, and just before he opened one of the windows, he made sure his deep green beanie was snug over his head, then leapt.
Webs wouldn't work too well tonight. Their formulation upped the strength and viscidity compared to webs from an actual spider, but he could easily misjudge the depth of snowfall and whiff, or snap off chunks of ice that pretended to look like they could hold his weight for a millisecond. So it was all his hands and feet as he aimed to jump on rooftops instead of building sides when he could. It'll be a while until he made it to Mom's this way, but he had that other blue thing that would keep him from turning into one of Mr. Delmar's Spider-Man popsicles.
Me: see u tmrrw May! [10:34 pm]
Twists, spins, somersaults. No one was out to see Spider-Man tonight, but that didn't mean he couldn't have some fun.
Me: my bad i overslept! [10:35 pm]
Me: at the library [10:35 pm]
Me: long story [10:35 pm]
Me: in the bronx rn, mihgt nto make it to queens? will lyk! [10:36 pm]
Mom: Be sure you do. The storm is a fierce one, regardless if you can withstand it. Take shelter if you will not make it, and be well. [10:37 pm]
He nosedived down to a snow-packed car and spent a few minutes drawing his best impression of Lightning McQueen on the windshield.
Me: ka-chow.png [10:49 pm]
taco buddy: well now my dick looks stupid [11:01 pm]
It was when he re-opened his maps app trying to figure which direction to turn next that he was hit with the scent of smoke and burning.
He didn't have Karen to scout or fill him in with what she knew and, actually, it was weird having Karen only part-time as Spider-Man. He missed having someone to idly chat to on patrol even if she was probably programmed to keep up with teenage boy ramblings and wasn't technically a person per se, even though she was super cool. But ever since Happy...
Peter steeled his nerve and diverted his course toward the fire.
He hoped Karen didn't mind that he'd been feeling more blue than red lately.
It was useless to try and sling himself all the way there, wherever there is, so he picked up the pace and focused on sticking and unsticking every step to try and keep up some traction if his body betrayed him again by putting him butt-first on ice.
The storm was nothing but a few fluttering crystals and a deadly silent winter night, and it was soon through clearly lit skies that he spotted a rage of bronzed orange in the distance. As he got closer, he saw the flames licking up from the top corner window of a two story apartment complex. A mismatched crowd in pajamas and winter gear huddled in the middle of the street in front of the building
Nearest to the front, held steady by a few of the adults, was a man with a small baby and a toddler cradled in his arms as he sobbed.
"Please," he begged, "my son—my son went back into the fire—for—he—Eli! ELI!"
Peter wasted no time touching down before he shot a web around a nearby streetlight and used its leverage to crash through the window right next to the burning one. A haze was starting to set in, but only just, and he navigated past a hall of bedrooms and the living room before he burst into the hallway where smoke poured out the open door to his right.
"Eli!" He called out as he bolted into the apartment. Fire on the couch, the walls, the tables, the beach—focus. FOCUS. Nothing in the living room, nothing in the kitchen, a bookshelf toppled behind him, spreading burning pages onto burning floors. "ELI!" He shouted. "Where are you?!"
A faint cough rang in his ears somewhere to the left.
He ran into the first room in the hallway, the master bedroom lit up with a heat that made Peter's skin crawl and sweat as he pushed through the smoke. A boy wheezed while front-down on the floor—a teenager, a high schooler, someone that could only be his own age—with his lower half under a queen sized bed and a collapsed wooden bedframe alight with embers. His arms are outstretched and swathed in a baggy punk sweater with an old shoebox tight between his fingers and an even older cat laid by his wrist, meowing raggedly but making no motion to leave.
Peter whipped off his backpack and dug, the straps straining from the force of it, and yanked out the half-mask he used on missions with Wade. It was almost textbook that every tactical mask be fitted with respirators, and he was quick to fasten it over Eli's head before he turned to the bed, crackling and red and eaten by a scorching bite.
There was no hesitation in grabbing the bottom to lift it enough to get Eli out, splinters almost piercing through gloved hands. The sheets were on fire, of course the sheets were on fire, and they singed his jacket on his upper arms before the hit his suit, melting, burning, blackening, and the second fire pushed against skin—
Peter screamed.
Fire had never felt like this before.
When he was eight and put his hand near the gas stove, he jumped and cried and got away with Neosporin and a band aid for a week. When he was ten trying to flick a lighter and got his thumb, he cursed a word that May cuffed his head for out of instinct.
A few months ago Coney Island burned around him, a little too hot for his liking but nothing he couldn't handle.
Now, the fire seared down to his marrow.
'I turn to ice now,' he thought faintly as he only managed to move the debris down to Eli's knees before the burning became too much. 'I turn to ice and I'm in fire.'
"Mom's box," Eli whispered, his voice even fainter through the mask. Peter collapses next to him with tinted purple blood running down his suit. "Dad can't." A small breath. "Can't lose th' rest of her."
Peter shook his head as the box shifted marginally closer to his shaking fingers. "You'll give it to him yourself when you get out."
The cat croaked pitifully as Eli's eyes began to well with tears. "Cat. M' sisters love her."
"And you'll get out with her, I promise." Peter's voice cracked as he reached for the bottom of the bedframe again and tried to push away the feeling of the flames on his palms roasting him alive, burying him in a shallow pit of gasoline and inferno. "Shit, shit." His vision spun. "Just a little more, just—just—AGH—!"
"Spider-Man?"
A crack resounded above them.
Peter turned his head. This kid could be fourteen or fifteen or sixteen and it wouldn't have mattered because either way he was Peter's age needing Peter's help and he—and he couldn't, because it felt like his skin was liquefying off the sinews of his muscles.
"I..." Eli's eyes dropped halfway, tears filling a small puddle on the carpet. "I don' really wanna die."
spike
The ceiling fan fell, the embers around it reminiscent of fireflies.
"NO!"
::
Spider-Man walked out with a cat under one arm and a shoebox under the other.
Eli wasn't with him.
::
He stood on a too-familiar front porch surrounded by a haggard stench of ash and dried salt stains stuck on the backs of his hands where he scrubbed at his eyes. A minute passed, then five, then thirty, and not one second of it could he bring himself to crawl up to the second window on the right side and knock.
"'m sorry, Ned,' he murmured.
He turned and ran.
::
Boxes of bullets littered Neena's coffee table as she counted up her stash. It was one of those sleepless nights where shut-eye just wouldn't do it for her and she'd kill for some wings and a half a dozen bottles, but with the storm outside and everyone boarded up for the next couple of days, there was nothing else but to make do with but the pizza rolls in the freezer and the shitty box of IPAs in the fridge that Wade dumped on her months ago. Asshole.
knock... knock
She loaded one of her pistols as she rose and undid the six locks on her front door before she opened it just enough to cast an eye into her hallway. She didn't know who to expect, or how to expect anyone making their way through the mountains of snow outside, and yet.
It was Ferret on the other side of her door and looked smaller and younger than she'd ever seen him. Black smeared the red spider on his chest and dyed his hair dark and the too-big brown jacket on his shoulders hung singed and charred and mixed with thick, liquid violet. She didn't know where his mask was, but his snow-wet curls stuck against his forehead and tear tracks cut through the angry burns and blisters from one cheek down to his chin.
"Hi," he whispered hoarsely. "Can I crash on your couch tonight, please?"
Jesus, kid.
"Come on, Pete," she said, stepping aside so he could limp through. "I've got pizza rolls to go with that couch, too."