Just so it's clear, this is the MCU Peter Parker! The fic was planned out before No Way Home and I needed the backstory of the Maguire Peter to make this work, among other things. Ergo, NWH isn't gonna happen, and since this is a crossover with a very silly anime, expect shenanigans from the Monster girl side of things.
The days since his two new (temporary) roommates showed up moved by in a haze. Gina coordinated funeral arrangements and other paperwork while the Biker, "Mina" as she introduced herself, would handle any lifting and errands. All the while, Peter continued going to school and keeping his studies up, just like Ben would've wanted. He was going through his usual motions in an almost robotic fashion, but after what happened, it brought back some sense of normalcy.
It was almost as if Ben had never left, but just stepped out to get some milk.
But Ben was gone, and there were little moments when it hammered home. Ben often woke up early with Peter and had coffee and eggs ready, but the mornings were silent as a grave. Gina sometimes asked questions for little details on the funeral, like flowers or catering. However, the final nail in the coffin was when Peter came home and found Mina sitting on the floor among a mix of flat and built cardboard boxes while she taped another one in her hands.
"What are you doing?" Peter asked.
Mina looked up from her task, showing the wicked scar across her face. "Hey, kid. The Boss asked me to bring some boxes over." She tore off the tape strip and slapped it across the flaps. "You know, for packing your uncle's stuff."
"Right." The word came out of his mouth with the rest of his breath. The hollowness he had been feeling suddenly opened up into a cavernous pit and the world began to tilt a little. His eyes began to trail along the various photos hung up around the place to the living room where more of Ben's possessions lay across the mantle and windowsills. Medals and memorabilia from his time as a police officer hung up on the wall. Photos of the two of them out on fishing trips or hikes or at some science fair Peter won. It was all going to be put away, gathering dust in some closet.
Snap! Snap!
Peter flinched as the sound burst in his ear. Mina had gotten up from the floor at some point and snapped her fingers right next to his head. She gave him a concerned look.
"You like motorcycles?" she asked.
To say the question caught Peter off guard would be putting it lightly. "What?" he answered dumbly.
Mina pressed the advance. "You like pizza?"
"Uh… Yeah?"
Peter had stopped yelling several miles back and now just clutched Mina's waist as she rocketed down the highway. He could just barely hear her whoops over the wind rushing by and the honks of the many angry drivers she blazed past. In any other circumstance, he would have enjoyed this on some level, but it was hard to enjoy the sight of the speedometer edging closer and closer to the triple digits.
"Can you slow down?" Peter tried to yell.
"Not if we want to get there in time!" Mina yelled back.
"You said this would be a short drive!"
"It is!"
"We're in New Jersey!"
"I know! We're almost there!" Mina tweaked the throttle and they sped even faster down the road.
'Almost there' turned out to be thirty minutes later when they pulled into the parking lot of some place called "Zombies Crave Pizza." It looked like some of the dive bars Peter saw back in New York, except the front had a mural of zombies rising from their graves to grab for a slice of fresh pizza. Peter barely had time to pull his helmet off when Mina grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. Mina was clearly a regular as she had put in their order before they were seated in a secluded booth.
"Why'd we come all this way for pizza?" Peter asked, "There's like, a thousand pizza places in New York."
"Yeah, but have you ever had a 'Slice of Hell'?" Mina said with a scoff. "Hell's Kitchen can't even deliver that. I'm pretty sure that's false advertising, but I don't know who to complain to."
The corner of Peter's lips twitched. "I'm pretty sure that's not why it's called Hell's Kitchen."
Mina gave him a teasing side-eye. "What are you, a history nerd too? Stay in your lane, dude." She flicked him in the arm. "Bore me to death with the chemical makeup of my soda."
"That depends on the soda. They all use similar ingredients like carbonated water for the fizz, but certain brands use different kinds of sugar." Peter started listing off the ingredients, how they bonded to make the flavor, and overall going off on a complete nerdy rant like he had spent his whole life for this explanation. Mina egged him on with a question here and there. It went on past when the drinks came. It kept going even when the pizza arrived, and Peter couldn't stop talking even between bites. "... and that's why you should drink out of a glass and not a can." He finished off his lecture with a long sip of his drink to punctuate his point. He glanced down to see they had demolished their large pizza with ease, though Mina ate a little more than half of it.
"You sure know your stuff, dude," Mina said, taking a sip as well. "I understood maybe half of that. You gonna be a scientist after high school?"
"I don't know. Maybe? I want to get into MIT first, then…" Peter shrugged.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out. Next question: Feeling better now?"
Peter paused mid-sip. "Say what?"
Mina leaned forward. "Kid, this is probably the most alive I've seen you since we met. You look better geeking out over soda than moping around at the kitchen table. Boss might get mad at me for this, but you needed a change of scenery for a bit. So, are you feeling better?"
Peter thought about it for a moment, looking down at his plate and the half-empty soda in his hand. He then answered, "I do feel a bit better, yeah." He wasn't completely better, but a full stomach of pizza in a place with no memories attached to it helped to clear his mind.
"Good." Mina leaned back and grabbed the last of her crust, dipping it in the sauce before biting into it. In between bites, she said, "I won't sugarcoat it. What happened sucked, and it always will. But instead of focusing on memories, maybe you should take this as a chance to improve yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"I knew a guy who had grandparents that only spoke Spanish and he barely understood them half on a good day. Then one day grandma passes away in the middle of the night. After that, he signed up for Spanish courses and apps to try to understand his grandpa better. Got pretty good at it too." Mina slurped up the last of her drink. "What I'm trying to say is that you can mourn all you want, but things are different now and you can still make the best of it while you can."
Peter nodded as he digested her words and pondered on them. But the pondering didn't last too long when Mina's phone went off with a loud, hard rock ringtone. The scarred girl picked it up and didn't get a chance to say hello when a voice screeched through, making Mina wince.
"Gina. Gina, calm down… Yeah, Peter's with me… I just took him for a ride… Oh, fuck off! We went to get pizza… Just for that, I'm not bringing you a slice… Yeah… Uh-huh… Yep… 'Kay, we'll be back. See ya." Mina hung up and looked at Peter with a smirk. "Pizza time's over. Just think about what I said, okay?"
"Sure."
"And try not to crush my ribs on the way back," she joked as she got up to pay the bill.
Peter tapped his pencil against his calculus book as he stared down his assignment. He was an hour into the homework, but barely past the fourth question. He would have been done by now, but his mind kept wandering back to the conversation with Mina and the night Uncle Ben died.
"With great power comes great responsibility."
Peter had the power and used it for a quick side hustle. No one would have blamed him. But letting that criminal go when it was within his power to stop? And how many more crimes like that happen every day in New York? Stark Tower was in New York, but that didn't mean the Avengers would come save the day for the little guys like Peter.
But that was the difference, wasn't it? The Avengers have great power magnitudes above his and their responsibility was the world at large. Peter Parker was just a kid in Queens with some freaky powers and a whole lot of brains. He didn't have to save the world, but for the average joe, he could save their world.
Peter needed to do some research. It was time to figure out his strengths and what he could do. He was also going to need some excuses, the school labs, and a suit to fight crime in.
And a name. Cool heroes had names.
"Arachno-kid? No, that's lame. Black Wid- no, that's gonna be confusing. The Tarantula? God, I don't want to dress like Chewbacca. Come on, there's gotta be a cool spider name somewhere."
A/N: Yeah this idea has been stuck in my head for a while and it's been a bit of a catharsis after recent personal events. I'm still working on my other fics, so don't worry. In fact, my Salem fic may be getting an update sooner than the Azur Lane fic (the chapter for that one is rather chonky and complicated). So please stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
