Felicia made her way to Peter's apartment shortly after her classes ended the next day. The address that he'd texted her wasn't terribly far from the university campus, but she opted to take the bus instead of walking anyways. Rain clouds had been gathering all afternoon and, sure enough, heavy, fat drops started to fall as she neared her stop, quickly growing into a furious downpour.
Felicia wasn't one to carry an umbrella, but luckily the bus stop was close enough to the entrance of Peter's walk-up that she could make it without getting too soaked. The smell of cat urine and mildew hit her like a punch to the face though, as she ducked into the foyer and she made quick a beeline for the stairs while holding her breath.
When she knocked on the apartment door six floors up, a little out of breath, she only had to wait a moment before she heard several locks being undone.
"You must be Felicia." An older woman, with hair like steel wool, answered the door. The skin around her blue eyes crinkled as she smiled, carving deep lines into her skin. "Come inside, dear, please."
Before Felicia could so much as blink, a slender arm settled on her shoulders and ushered her into the apartment with surprising strength. Felicia stiffened like a board at the contact, but managed not to stumble as she entered directly into a small kitchen.
The space was dimly lit, with the only source of light being a series of tea candles lined up on the counter and on a ledge behind the stove. More light filtered in from a window in the attached living area, but the large lightbulb in the kitchen's ceiling was dark.
Felicia noticed that a sizable hole had been punched in the Sheetrock above their heads, exposing the black space between this apartment and the one above.
"This whole building has faulty wiring." The woman – Peter's mother presumably - had caught Felicia looking up at the hole. "Our maintenance was supposed to come fix that light ages ago, but all they did was put a whole in our roof. Peter's been poking around up there, but no luck. Are you hungry? I just put a casserole in."
The old oven was aglow and a pleasing, warm scent filled the entire apartment. Felicia turned to find the woman watching her, still smiling, but shifting on her feet a little nervously, as if worried Felicia would turn her nose up at everything she'd seen so far.
"I'm not hungry." Felicia finally said, flashing a small smile. "Thank you though. You… you have a nice apartment." She nodded from the kitchen to the living area, where there were many a book and picture frame.
It looked suitably cozy.
"You're very kind. We used to have a house in Queens, but had to…" The woman sought for the word briefly. "Downsize after Ben died."
Felicia didn't know what to say to that, but luckily the woman continued.
"I'm so sorry, where are my manners?" She said. "My name is May, Peter's aunt. It's so nice to meet you."
May offered her hand and Felicia took it. Her fingers were warm, and a little swollen and curved from arthritis.
Footsteps sounded from around a corner then, and Peter slid from a hallway on his socks, stopping on a dime at the sight of Felicia.
"Felicia, you're here." He gaped. "What are- I mean, how are you?"
"Good." Felicia released May's hand and turned to him. "You?"
"I'm good too."
"Nice."
"Yeah."
They fell silent then, with Peter just standing there and looking at her like she was some kind of exotic bird that had flown in and perched in his kitchen, instead of his real-life, human classmate that he'd invited there. May, for one, seemed to find their brief exchange and Peter's odd behavior pretty amusing. She grinned at both of them, a glint in her eye that made Felicia feel as if she was missing part of a joke.
She was just about to say something to break the silence when, after a long moment, a cog in Peter's brain seemed to lurch and start turning again.
"Sorry for all the candles. I'm sure May's told you, but our landlord is kind of useless." He said.
"No worries. I like candles. We aren't allowed to use them in the dorms." Although, that had never deterred Felicia's roommate from lighting many a large and noxious triple-wick.
"I think candles are quite romantic actually." May chimed in, turning to fuss with the oven. Peter shot his aunt a glare and Felicia thought she glimpsed a slight smirk on the woman's face, but under the room's flickering light, she couldn't be sure. "So you two have a chemistry project to work on?"
"Yeah. We have to come up with a proposal for Dr. Marconi by tomorrow." Peter explained in a rush. "We're gonna go talk in my room. Shout if you need any help in here."
He motioned down the hall where he'd come from and Felicia followed him from the kitchen. A short hallway, past a shared bathroom, led to Peter's bedroom. It was comparable in size to Felicia's own room at her dorm, infinitely more cluttered, but in a well-used and lived-in kind of way that her spartan room couldn't match.
He shut the door behind them and then quickly crossed to the bed, stumbling over a pair of sneakers as he went, to sweep the jumble of discarded clothes and other detritus there into his arms.
"Sorry about my aunt. She can... um, come on a little strong when meeting new people." He searched for a place to stow the bundle in his arms, eventually deciding to just dump it on the floor in the corner.
"Your aunt is nice." Felicia could still feel her skin buzzing from where May had touched her shoulder and shaken her hand. She shucked off her jacket and folded it over her arms, casting about Peter's room to distract herself from the phantom feeling. On his cluttered desk was a mechanical something that looked partially-dissected and she stepped over to it. "What's this?"
"Oh, just something I was messing around with. Kind of silly, but it's an old police scanner, see?"
With quick fingers, he reached over and slotted a back panel onto the device, then flipped it over so it was right-side up. The small display on the scanner flickered orange as he twisted a knob on it's face and garbled chatter started coming through.
"Sounds like there's reports of a… fender bender blocking traffic by Union Square." He interpreted, then turned to grin at her sheepishly. "I know there are like a billion apps for this kind of thing now, and the speakers on this scanner are god-awful, but I found this just thrown away in the trash by school and I figured-"
"It's pretty cool." She interrupted, sensing that he was starting to ramble. The mental image of him flipped turn-ways, with only flailing legs visible as he scrounged through someone else's garbage in a dumpster, made her almost laugh. "Okay, maybe the whole dumpster-diving part isn't, but it's cool that you were able to fix it. Do you… find good stuff in the trash pretty often?"
"Uh, sometimes." A rosy tinge colored his cheeks and he let out a little nervous laugh. "Listen, I'm not like raccoon person or anything. It's just, you know... a guy's gotta have hobbies."
"No judgment." Felicia replied with a shrug. "Just don't touch any used syringes or anything like that."
Peter genuinely laughed then.
"Ah, man." He grinned. "But that's the kind of good stuff I'm talking about."
"I feel like part of my job as lab partner is to make sure you don't get a blood infection." She explained. "Or start doing heroin."
"Hmmm." He hummed, faux thoughtful. "So hard drugs are definitely off the table then?"
"Maybe on the weekends, I'll allow it."
He laughed again and Felicia was pleased to find that the awkwardness that had been hanging over them since she'd arrived had faded and disappeared almost entirely. His cheeks were still quite flushed though, she couldn't help but notice.
"So," She crossed and sat on the edge of his bed. "You're a genius with computers, in physics, in chemistry… Am I dreaming, or did I hit the jackpot for lab partners? Like, part of me is worried I'm going to wake up and be sitting next to Flash Thompson or something."
If more blood pooled in Peter's face, Felicia suspected he'd likely pass out.
"Fl- Flash isn't that bad." He deflected.
"He's dumb as bricks though."
"Okay, maybe." Peter chuckled and some of his normal color started to return. "But you're really smart too, Felicia. I- I'm really… glad that you and I are partners."
"I'd wait until we start actually working on this project before you start singing my praises." She sighed. "Speaking of, I still have no idea what we should do for our experiment."
"I have a few ideas." He pulled out his desk chair and plopped down in it across from her. "I think Professor Marconi would be really impressed if we came to her with something practical, you know? So I was thinking… how hard would it be to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid?" At her blank stare, he clarified: "It's also known as: asprin. I was thinking our project could be us making it from scratch ourselves."
"Sounds pretty cool." She admitted. "Also sounds pretty hard."
"I've already done a little bit of reading and I think it shouldn't be too bad. The components are actually pretty simple." Peter's hands moved while he talked and he had to keep pushing his glasses up when they slid down his nose. His excitement grew fast and was almost, almost infectious. "Supposedly just a little bit of salicylic acid mixed with acetic anhydride, quenched with water, and then voila!"
"We can open our own pharmacy."
"We very well could." He agreed, smiling. "I wouldn't want to interfere with your crime-solving work though, driving cars and drinking martinis and whatever else it is you said you wanted to do."
"A girl's gotta have hobbies, right?"
Peter laughed again and Felicia couldn't help but smile herself.
The pendant hadn't left his neck since he'd found it.
Edward Whelan could feel it weighing heavily against the skin over his breastbone, tucked beneath the layers of his shirt and protective suit. He hadn't mentioned finding it to anyone, let alone shown it to any of his crew-mates. No doubt they'd want it for themselves as soon as they laid eyes on it.
It was almost concerning how quickly he'd gotten possessive he was of his little treasure.
Pretty soon he'd be caressing the rat charm, cooing sweet nothing's to it and calling it 'my precious'.
The thought made Whelan snicker. After all, why not? He already spent half of his life in the slimy depths under the earth. All he needed to do was start speaking in riddles and eating live fish.
"What's got you smilin', Eddy?" It was Shane, of course. "You think this is funny? You're enjoying this, huh?"
Truthfully no, Whelan wasn't enjoying this particular foray underground. He, Shane, and the rest of their team had been roped into surveying one of the older sewer outfalls under their usual sanitation route. What they'd found was a major blockage that was one extended rainfall away from causing a backup that could flood a quarter of Brooklyn.
And of course, it just had to be raining that night of all nights. They had to work fast.
"This is just his ideal Tuesday night." Another one of the guys supplied, earning scattered laughter from most everyone but Whelan.
They were using long pikes to sweep the bed of the sewer outfall for debris. They had already pulled up what at one point had been a bed duvet, as well as mass of plastic shopping bags the size of your average border collie. With every jab and pull of their staffs though, only more rubbish was discovered.
Whelan shoved his tool down into the water below with only a touch more force than necessary, but didn't respond to any of the jibes thrown his way. They'd all been working for hours, nonstop, well-past when their shift should have ended.
At least they'd gotten ahead of the worst of the rain. Although Whelan could still a dull hiss above them where the deluge continued.
"I'm taking ten." Grumbled Shane from Whelan's right, hefting his pike up onto his shoulder and turning to stalk away.
"The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can go home." Someone called after him, but Shane didn't respond.
At Whelan's feet, a warm, soft something brushed against his ankles.
"Oh shit. Look out!"
Whelan twisted just in time to see Shane bring his pike around in a swing. The hook on the end of the long stick missed Whelan's shin by inches, but connected solidly with the enormous rat that had been sniffing at his boots. The rat went flying, connecting to the nearby wall with a solid, wet thump, before bouncing to the hard floor.
Shane whooped and several of the other guys laughed.
"You owe me one." He waggled a finger at Whelan and then, encouraged by the cheers, he hefted his pike like a spear. "It's like hunting on the savanna. Anyone here hungry for vermin?"
The rat was stunned, and just starting to roll itself over as Shane lunged forward and jabbed with his pike, poking the rat hard in its flank. The poor creature's squeal echoed around the sewer, inside of Whelan's skull, and he saw a stubby tail flailing as the rat writhed under the assault.
Whelan wasn't thinking as he lunged forward, bringing his own pike up and around to crack against Shane's temple.
The other man fell hard, his weapon skittering away over the ground, and several voices cried out in surprise and anger. Whelan cast about for the rat he'd saved, but he only caught its vague shape as it lumbered away, quickly disappearing into the darkness.
The chain around Whelan's neck was hot and the rat pendant pulsed against his skin as if it was alive.
"What the-" On the ground, Shane was gathering his wits. He touched gingerly at his head, where Whelan's strike had hit the soft spot below his helmet, next to his visor. Blood was streaming from a shallow cut and before Whelan could react, Shane was up and slamming him into the wall. "You trying to get yourself killed, asshole?! What the hell is your deal?!"
Whelan wanted to answer Shane's question, truly he did. He wanted to tell him that his 'deal' was Shane's seemingly limitless potential for cruelty. He wanted to say he was sick of it all, that'd he'd rather take a hundred beatings than watch a helpless rat get skewered. He wanted to scream in Shane's face and tell him he better count his lucky stars Whelan's pike didn't have a sharper point.
He didn't say or do any of that though.
Instead, Whelan only saw white as a blinding flash suddenly illuminated the dark interior of the sewer. The rat pendant burned, suddenly blistering hot – so hot that he was sure he would find a perfectly-shaped oval patch of charred skin next time he looked.
Whelan didn't have time to scream though. In fact, he barely registered the pain. It was gone as soon as it had appeared.
His team, who had been closing in on where Shane had him grappled, suddenly stopped in their tracks.
Shane's hands were no longer on him. In fact, Shane was now backing away from Whelan, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in a silent yell.
Whelan looked at his own hands and found he didn't recognize them. They were much wider and his fingers were much longer than he remembered, with razor-sharp claws protruded from each tip. He straightened up, rising to a new height that was almost a foot taller than he'd been a moment ago and looked down at himself. His protective work suit was gone, replaced with some new material that hugged him closely, shades of dark brown covering him from neck to foot.
He touched his face, not even thinking whether or not his new claws would tear rends in his cheeks, but his skin did not break. A soft mask covered his eyes and most of his forehead, stretching down to a point at the tip of his nose. His hair had grown long and shaggy and wild and there was no doubt in Whelan's mind that if he were to look at himself in a mirror, he would never recognize the monster staring back.
That thought didn't freak him out though.
What freaked him out, was the tail.
About as thick as a man's leg and nearly as long as Whelan was tall, the muscly appendage lashed behind him as he twirled to stare at it, dumbfounded.
I'm a rat. He thought and, for some reason, that notion seemed to sooth his growing panic.
A pike came down on his shoulder and snapped like a twig. Whelan turned to see that one of his coworkers had swung at him. Before he could react, a second one came around and cracked across his nose. The blows didn't hurt, but when a third strike came, Whelan reacted on instinct. His arm shot out and caught his attacker in the ribs, sending him flying to land some distance away with a loud splash.
"Run!" Someone screamed.
There was only one direction to go; back the way they'd first entered the sewer through a maintenance tunnel, away from where the outfall discharged water into a vast unknown. Someone threw a toolbox at Whelan as they fled, but he deftly ducked, wheeling to track his team's movements as they sprinted away from him.
He didn't need the orange, reflective stripes on their suits, nor their headlamps to track them. He could now see as if the tunnel was flooded with daylight. He could smell them too, their sweat-soaked shirts and their cheap colognes and the blood that flowed hot and coppery in their veins.
Whelan pounced after them, relishing in the power and strength that flowed through his limbs.
After all this time, finally he was the one tormenting them. Whelan could finally make them feel, make everyone feel, the misery he carried with him every single day.
Taking a massive leap, Whelan soared over the fleeing group and crashed down in front of them. The men came to a screeching halt, their path blocked, and Whelan saw that Shane was at the front of the pack, his eyes blown huge with fear and his wobbly mouth still hanging agape.
Inhaling deeply, Whelan allowed his instincts to take over once more, and when he breathed out, a brownish smog exited his lungs and filled the enclosed space.
Immediately, all of his former coworkers were wracked with coughs. Some began to retch, shaking and trembling as the toxin that Whelan spewed overtook them. A kind of frenzy infected Whelan himself, a giddy, light-headed feeling that he had never felt before.
He felt powerful.
He wanted to hold onto that feeling.
Turning his back on Shane and all the rest for the last time, Whelan set his sights on the maintenance shaft ahead and the streets above that he knew it would lead to. It was time to see just what exactly he was capable of now.
Peter and Felicia continued to discuss their Chemistry project for the next couple of hours. Much to Peter's delight, Felicia warmed to his initial proposal quickly and actually started to seem a little excited about the idea the more he explained just how easy it was to make crude aspirin. Eventually, while they were sitting in Peter's room with plates of May's casserole, they decided they would bring this proposal to Professor Marconi for approval.
"I may not be much help with the actual science," Felicia warned. "But I can definitely help with a write-up and the presentation."
"Perfect." Peter grinned, something he'd been doing a lot that evening. "I'm awful at public speaking."
"I'm definitely not good at it either."
"Maybe, but you won't embarrass yourself like I would."
Felicia shrugged at that.
"I just don't get embarrassed." She took another large bite of casserole, chewing thoughtfully. "There are bigger things to worry about than looking like an idiot in school."
"True." Peter agreed, lowering his eyes to consider his empty plate. His second empty plate, actually.
Since he'd started spending a lot of his free time burning calories swinging from New York skyscrapers, his appetite had doubled. If Felicia had noticed him eating like a shop-vac though, she hadn't said anything. Hell, she was on her second helping too, now that Peter thought about it.
He looked at her now, watching Felicia as she poked at her plate, sitting curled on the edge of his bed and looking incredibly mellow, as if she had been in his room dozens of times before.
He wasn't sure when his crush on Felicia started, but it was almost definitely a moment like this. Likely sometime back in Physics class last semester – where they'd first met.
She was just so… so confident in herself, in a way that Peter had never been, in a way he doubted he would ever be.
In a general sense, Peter agreed with her philosophy that embarrassing yourself in class, at the end of the day, was no big deal. Yet it was certainly something he still grappled with almost every day. Being Spider-Man was one thing, but he was still the same old Peter Parker too, still awkward, still fumbling, still anxious.
Felicia wasn't any of that.
He must have been staring because Felicia was smirking at him.
"Do I have something on my face?" She asked.
"What? N- no, of course not. I was just thinking."
"About?"
He flicked his eyes over her again, thinking quickly. He looked at her cropped, dark hair, her slim face, her hazel eyes that had been turned amber by the light filtering in from the street. A part of him considered trying to say something flirty, but thought better of it. He'd probably just end up making a fool of himself.
If Harry or Black Cat had been there, they definitely could have come up with something flattering and cool. His two best friends were much better than him at this stuff, he knew.
Okay, maybe not Harry, but Cat could flirt like the devil when she wanted to.
"Just… thinking where we should meet up next time we want to work together." He finally said, feeling lame. "We don't have to come here."
"Yeah, but then how would I get more of your aunt's cooking then?" Felicia replied and tapped her empty plate.
"I'll bring you some." He offered, not fully registering that she'd just given him a perfectly reasonable excuse to invite her over more. "Anytime May cooks anything, you can expect a plate delivered by yours truly."
"I'll hold you to that." She set down her fork and leaned back, studying the walls of Peter's room. "I don't mind meeting here though. I never feel like hanging around on campus after class ends and you definitely don't want to come to my dorm. I can almost guarantee my roommate has someone over right now."
"Oh, like a date?"
"You could say that. She throws parties a lot," Felicia grimaced. "But she's nice enough to give me a heads-up so I can make myself scarce."
"Gotcha." He filed away this tidbit of information - Felicia doesn't do parties - with the rest of his knowledge on her. He'd actually learned a lot of new stuff about Felicia that night and was eager to know more. "So do your parent's live in the city?" He asked.
She did not answer right away, but Peter waited patiently. He was just starting to register that she wasn't quite meeting his gaze just as the police scanner on his desk squawked loudly. The connection on the thing was spotty and it had been silent for a long while so he'd forgotten it was turned on.
"Available units…" The box buzzed unsteadily. "Need response… *zzzz* ...tiple reports of dsitur… *zzzz* …Park Slope. Possible 10-91V…"
There was a single beat of silence and then a response came.
"D- Dispatch, this is 272, I've got e- eyes." A female officer's voice came through in stutters. "Negative on the ten-nine-one, d- definitely 10-600."
Peter's breath caught in his throat. He'd long since committed the full list of police radio codes to memory.
10-600 meant superhuman activity.
It also meant he'd have to cut his night with Felicia short.
"10-4..." The police dispatcher responded. "Use caution and… *zzzz* ...272."
Peter was already on his feet, brain and mouth formulating an excuse, but he came up short when he saw that Felicia was suddenly standing as well.
"I just remembered, I have to get something from the store before they close." She said quickly, grabbing her leather jacket and shoving her arms through the sleeves. "Sorry, Peter."
"No, no don't worry. I was just about to-" His thoughts whirled as he watched her collect her things. "I was just about to take a nap."
This excuse gave Felicia pause and she turned her curious eyes to him.
"A- After you left, of course!" He continued in a rush. "Not while y- you're still here obviously. That would be really weird! Also, you were sitting on my bed so-"
He was effectively cut off when Felicia very abruptly stepped into his space and pressed her empty dinner plate and glass into his arms.
"Enjoy your nap, Peter." She said, an amused smile quirking her lips. He did his best to keep himself from glancing repeatedly at her mouth. "I'll see you in class tomorrow?"
"Er- yeah. Yeah of course." He could feel his face burning stupidly, but he rallied himself mentally. The longer he spent tripping over his words with Felicia, the longer it would take for Spider-Man to get to whatever situation across town was unfolding. "Let me walk you out."
He escorted her from his room and through the kitchen to the front door of his apartment. She gave him a small wave as she stepped out into the hall and Peter watched her until she entered the stairwell and disappeared from sight. He shut the apartment door again, a small sigh escaping him.
"She's very nice, Peter." May was behind him in the kitchen. "I like her hair."
He turned to find his aunt pulling her grey curls behind her ears, mimicking Felicia's pixie-like cut.
"Yeah, she's great." Peter agreed, smiling despite himself. "But she's just a friend from school." Starting back towards his bedroom before May could start prodding further, he called over his shoulder. "But I'm feeling tired, so I'm gonna tuck in early, okay?"
"But it's only a quarter past eight-"
"Night, May!"
Peter ducked back into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him, locking it for good measure. Hurrying to his bed, he crouched low and pulled a beat-up suitcase from where it was tucked behind some of his old textbooks. The aged leather case had once been his father's, or at least that's what he'd been told. Apparently his father had been some kind of salesman before his death and no doubt his briefcase had once been filled with customer documents, merchant receipts, and so on and so forth.
Now though, when Peter unbuckled the clasps and pulled the case open, he was greeted with colorful fabric and a pair of web-shooters.
There were certainly better places to hide his suit, but the briefcase was still sturdy and could be locked with a tiny gold key.
And May knew to never touch it.
Peter stripped down to his briefs and then pulled his suit on with practiced hands. Half a minute later, he was crouching on the sill of his bedroom window, leaning out to look up into the alley outside. It was a cool night. The heavy rain that had been falling earlier had lightened to a dreary shower and through a gap in the clouds he could see a waxing moon.
The sound and smell of the city washed over him and as he took to the sky with a satisfying thwipp, his scattered mind focused itself, and he felt as if all his anxieties fell away – left behind in his bedroom.
Felicia stepped out of Peter's apartment building and crossed the street at a jog, her boots splashing through puddles along the curb. Half a block down the sidewalk was a narrow alleyway, partially obscured by sopping trash bags and cardboard boxes set out by the neighboring bodega.
She cast a quick look around, but the street was empty and without further hesitation, she squeezed into the dark alleyway and pressed herself against the cold, damp brick wall.
She waited a few seconds, then peeked around the corner into the street again. A taxi passed, headlights cutting swathes through the light rain in front of it, but Felicia hadn't being followed. No one had seen her hide.
Taking a deep breath, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
She had to be fast. She knew what the police code she'd heard in Peter's room meant and she knew that Spider-Man would no doubt already be in route to the scene. He always seemed to know when trouble was happening and showed up wherever it was with almost supernatural swiftness.
Almost.
Felicia knew of the supernatural and she knew magic, and as wonderful as her favorite spider was – he wasn't either of those things.
The chain around Felicia's neck started to grow hot under her shirt. The diamond-shaped charm that rested against her chest pulsed like a second heartbeat, first faintly, then strong and fast.
A flash of white light illuminated the alley and a breath later, Black Cat stepped away from the wall.
She was taller and broader than Felicia had been just a moment ago, with long, flowing hair the color of snow. A mask, midnight-black, framed vertical irises that glittered like gold in the low light.
With a silent leap, Black Cat bounded upwards between the walls of the alley and rocketed up to the rooftops, powerful muscles rippling under her dark suit. She perched like a gargoyle on a rooftop's ledge and breathed in the city, it's musk and it's sweetness and it's sour. Sirens were wailing in the distance and her ears pricked at the noise.
A wide grin splitting her face, Black Cat pounced in the direction of the disturbance, relishing the familiar shiver of excitement that raced up her spine.
