To those in the states, happy Turkey Day~

Late at night when everyone was supposed to be asleep, it was only marginally surprising what you could notice going on throughout the night. For Cindy, the event that had been replaying itself over and over in her mind as if she had seen it in person rather than merely heard: the opening and closing of a recently lubricated window. It was by no means as loud as it was the past few times Peter had slipped off to do Spider things, but he had chosen the absolute worst moment. If he had waited a few minutes later, he would have had the chance to utilize the rumble of a vehicle breaking curfew. But he hadn't. And so here she was at the forsaken hour of two in the morning, staring at her burner phone and wondering if she hadn't made a mistake in letting the youngest Parker do his own thing for the better half of a week.

Just across the alley, one room over on the second floor, MJ's lamp flicked off. Like her, MJ had been plagued by thoughts of recent events. In the quiet moments when patients were all gone and all that was left was stress and paperwork, MJ's face had become flooded by grief and melancholy. An unsurprising affair; the extent of MJ's traumas was limited to the usual affair of teenage issues coupled with a single father with behavioral issues. Watching a stream of injured people come in was something beyond her usual concerns. While true that said injuries were only minor scrapes and bruises (or at least things where their bearer were still able to walk with), with them came endless stories of how they had crawled out from rubble and wreckage; how they had been burned all across their back from a car explosion outside a bar or restaurant.

The nightmares that plagued MJ these past few days were borne of unseen threats. To Cindy, those were decidedly the worst option. Imagination left unchecked, allowed to freely run wild with nothing to ground you. Her thumbs flew across her phone, a series of judgmental emojis constructed within seconds and sent off. Moments later a response came back in the form of a sad cartoon cat. Cindy gave it a few moments before she sent off another slew of emojis, these ones more heavily centered around sleep. To that, MJ sent off another cartoon cat with heavy bags under its eyes.

She scoffed in amusement. Another couple seconds passed before she sent off a link to a video Peter had shared ages ago: a woman being advised by her purple puppet on how a warm glass of milk might help her 'sleep like bebe'. MJ's response was a gif of an animated kitty looking side to side. A far enough answer, one which she replied to with a simple emoji of well wishing.

Cindy let out a tiny huff, this one of exasperation rather than any sort of fondness. As entertaining as the conversation with MJ was, there was still the issue of Peter being out late at night, doing who knew what and coming home for less than two hours of sleep only to make breakfast for the house as soon as he woke, just to leave before either herself or Uncle Ben were in any state to wake.

It was honestly irritating. Peter had the uncanny ability to be far more mature than anyone his age should have been; Uncle Ben was well into his sixties. Why was she the one having to step up and making sure the both of them were handling things properly? Why wasn't she allowed a respite to process her emotions? To properly dissect the utter grief Uncle Ben had on his face as they hurried into the hospital room to see Aunt May, wonderful, beautiful Aunt May who had promised to teach her some of the recipes she'd picked up over the years last weekend. Aunt May who was always the one to patch up her clothes because despite having a steady hand in the lab and able to place specimens on a microscope slide perfectly the first try every time, her own fingers were as useful as a frozen sausage in a snowstorm when it came to sewing.

Her breath caught in her throat. This. It was things like this that kept making her stop and rap her fingers along her thigh the past few days. The stress of everything. Of her living situation, of the fact that MJ and her teen friends had ended up accompanying her to a place she at first thought was just going to be a quiet place to keep her mind busy (and also Uncle Ben out of the house), of how she wasn't able to ride her motorcycle after sundown and enjoy the roads because of the curfew, how Long Island was still constantly being set ablaze even five days after the fact.

#Where are you.# A period. Not a question mark. She was tired. She was stressed. She was done with everything.

#Spider.#

#You have two minutes to answer.#

Two minutes later, she began sending calls unendingly. The moment it went denied or to voicemail, she simply called again, until at last: "Sister."

"Get your ass back home."

"But—"

"No. I'm sick and tired of wondering where the hell you are and whether or not you're getting enough sleep. I'm tired of having to hide your bloodied clothes and having to go to the laundromat with my underwear and pretending that I accidentally got me and my boyfriend's clothes messy. Get your ass back home, sleep for however fucking long your stupid metabolism lets you, and when you wake up you're coming with me, you're spending time with your fucking family at the triage tent we're volunteering at, and then tonight you keep your ass at home, we have dinner as a family, and then we work on a puzzle or play cards or fucking something because I miss my stupid brother and I just want him at home."

She wasn't sobbing. She wasn't breathing hard. When her blood family had kicked her out all those years ago, she had gotten far too good at controlling her emotions to let herself get emotional in a moment like this. All that mattered was getting her desires across, and if the other side refused or was incapable of hearing it then that was their own damn fault. Emotions could wait for when she was out of the situation and could rant to her friends over drinks.

"Spider."

"...I'll be home in a bit."

That was that. Cindy powered off her phone, mutedly noting that she'd broken their rule of keeping their burner phones active away from their residence or usual haunts, and flopped into bed, staring up at the ceiling and letting various memories of work or riding around greater New York and how the skyline looked from various parts of the city fill her mind. It was only when she heard the near silent (but so very loud in the dead of night) sound of Peter's window open and close that she allowed herself to start falling asleep, interrupted only by a single message from MJ of a kitty snuggling up to another cat and happily closing its eyes.

/ - /

She'd woken up early today. Set an alarm on vibrate so that she could be the one to cook breakfast. Even tucked Peter back in when she made sure he was still here. And when he sat down at the dinner table with a smile and a healthy heaping of bacon and sausages for a teen boy who happened to have super powers, her smile grew ever slightly bigger.

"Well there's my favorite nephew."

"Uncle Ben, I'm pretty sure I'm your only nephew," Peter joked back.

Uncle Ben's expression pinched briefly. The moment passed a little longer than it normally would have, and Cindy watched through the corner of her eye as a whorl of emotions flew across his face. What must have felt like half a minute to the two boys but was in actuality only a few scant seconds went by before he sighed.

"So what have you been up to, Peter?" He gave a jovial nod towards her. "Cindy's been keeping me busy volunteering. Somehow the sport kids from your school ended up joining along and I've been chaperoning them for physical labor."

Peter gave that tiny smile he always gave whenever he remembered something— a memory that he wouldn't share and instead smoothly proffer a truthful deflection. "I've been helping out across the city. A bunch of people immediately near Long Island have been helping with organizing the rubble and everything and getting it prepped for official work. Apparently one of the people effected has done work for clean up crews before so they know the usual standard. It's been nice." He laughed. "A lot of the wives and girlfriends of everyone pitching in have been making us all lunches. We've been rotating through a lot of dishes and honestly I'm going to miss that the most."

"Well, if any of them own businesses, I'm sure they'd be happy to serve a familiar face."

She wasn't sure why, but at those words, a dozen different variations of Aunt May's smiling face flashed through her mind. Cindy closed her eyes and took a short breath, holding it in for a few moments before letting her breaths return to normal. "Leave the dishes when you're done, Peter," she said, methodically sectioning off another forkful of a pancake." I'll take care of them. Afterwards, go ahead and pack a day bag for yourself. No need for a change of clothes, the staff is good at making sure we take breaks." She didn't contribute much to the rest of the conversation, far too focused on distracting herself from the deluge of memories centered around her now late aunt.

/ - /

Parker was moving weirdly. Not in the way that he did the past few months when he started wearing shades or always had earbuds in (even if they were connected to nothing), but still weirdly. The entire time they were moving things, he hadn't taken a break once. Slowed down to chat, sure, but never to rest. Even Randy had to take a break here and there, if only for water. He wasn't the only one to notice, but no one said anything. And as the hours wore on, with the only breather ever taken was when they had to drive to a different area to help unload supplies, Flash couldn't help but wonder if not speaking up was a failure from all of them. It was exactly why he found himself pulling rather hard on Peter's shoulder around four in the afternoon, completely denying any protests from Peter around trying to get back to work.

"First your sister would kill me for letting you go the whole day without a break— shut it, Parker, car rides don't count— but then MJ would somehow find a way to revive me, torture me to death, revive me again, and then kill me for not keeping an eye on you. Slowly." He tossed a saran wrapped sandwich at Peter's face, his friend catching it in the perfect position to cleanly open it with his other hand. "Spill, dude. I'm not risking an earful from any of the women in your life." He swallowed down the regret at his words, chasing down the discomfort in his throat from his improperly chewed food with several gulps of water.

Peter sighed and leaned back against the wall of the alley, robotically moving to eat his food even as he mentally checked out of the situation. Or at least retreated into his own mind to figure out what he wanted to say. It was a toss up sometimes. "Cindy's mad that I've been doing my own thing," he eventually said. "I mean I get it, I haven't even seen my family the past couple days, but it's not like I've been doing anything wrong."

Bite. Chew. Swallow. It was the dullness of it that made him stare. It reminded him of that one video Peter showed him during one of his random fixations a long time ago of a dog's head reanimated by blood instinctively licking its lips because of food or water or something. He had half a mind to change out the sandwich for a bottle and see if he would even notice.

"All I've been doing was helping people directly effected by the bombings and fires. They need all the rubble sorted properly, things moved out of the way so anything salvageable can be gathered, figure out what their insurances can be covered," Peter took a big bite, tearing away with both hand and mouth. "No offense to what's going on here, but I'd really rather be out over there on the front lines."

"So why don't we?" The words left his mouth before he even thought them. "It's not like I don't have my own car. We can ditch everyone and head out to those 'front lines' and help out where you really feel you belong."

Peter stared at him for a moment before chuckling. "But then I'd have to deal with a disappointed Cindy, Uncle Ben, and then you'd be chewed out by the scary women in my life."

He snorted. "Dude, you really need to find some normal girls. All the ones you know are either going to scream the fear of god into me or pound me into next Tuesday."

"Hah! Sorry, Flash, somehow I don't think me and normal can ever really co-exist."

/ - /

Silence filled the room as we washed the dishes. Uncle Ben had gone off to their— his— room after we claimed the chores for the evening, which meant Cindy and I were left all alone. No humming from the room over as Aunt May worked away at one thing or another, no flipping of pages as Uncle Ben read through the paper next to his wife. No silly chatter between Cindy and I as we worked at a puzzle. Flash had ratted me out to Cindy, and Cindy had done her usual pseudo-detective deal with her memories and cornered me before we came inside.

Which was what led to this stand off of sorts. Incidentally, in the days since curfew had been enacted in our area, the crickets had come out full force. It was a beautiful symphony of nature that made me want to do nothing more than try and fall asleep on the roof.

As I put away the last dish (we'd never gotten around to testing out if I'd developed any allergies or sensitivities from the spider bite, and had no inclinations to see if undiluted dish soap caused anything), Cindy turned around and leaned against the counter, folding her arms and staring at me. "So what are you up to, Pete?"

I mirrored her stance, trying but failing to gather my thoughts into something cohesive. In lieu of any kind of reasonable presentation of my findings, I decided to simply ramble. "Someone called Tombstone is the one responsible for everything going on. He's been doing a land grab by causing property values to devalue and buying them up. Once people start trying to rent properties again, they're going to have to go through him, and he's going to try and extort them further through protection money, forcing them to use certain suppliers, and other crap like that. Blow up the short term, gain power in the long. It helps that he's striking at some of the other crime families and weakening them, in all the ways that means."

Cindy stared at me. I met her gaze, keeping myself open for study aside from my crossed arms. "You know where he is," she said softly.

"I have an idea where he is," I corrected. "I... I got some information from someone—"

"Pete."

I kept my gaze level. No swallowing. No twitching. No flicking around from anything.

Cindy stepped over and pulled me into a hug. "What did you do?" She asked quietly.

I hugged her tightly. "I..."

She said nothing, only stroked my hair.

"I didn't know how else to get information," I whispered. "I don't have a reputation, I don't know how to read people like you do. All I have is enhanced strength and some creativity. He's still alive!" I rushed into her shoulder, "but he definitely needed medical attention."

Other than a brief hitch in realization, she kept her movements even. "I'm not going to yell at you, Pete. We both know you're doing that more than enough for the both of us. But you can't do that again." She kissed my head. "Remember what you keep telling me whenever we end up dragged into a conversation about superheroes? A neighborhood hero who keeps an eye out for the little guy will always be cooler than the one constantly saving the planet. There's only one planet, but there's hundreds of worlds one life matters to."

"Friendly neighborhood hero Spider-Man," I mumbled into her shirt.

"Friendly neighborhood hero Spider-Man," she repeated, resting her head atop mine. "Never forget that friendly part, Peter. For your sake, and the world's.

I nodded and pulled away slowly.

"So?" She wiped away some of the tears on my face with a thumb. "You know what's going on. What's your plan?"

I pursed my lips. "I think I need to knock some heads. Try and be safe about it like I've always been, but there's a bunch of guys who are still causing trouble, and I have a chance to put them out of commission for a little while."

Cindy gave a heavy sigh. "And police probably won't immediately act on an anonymous tip."

"Not yet, anyway. Don't have that kind of rapport yet." Future past knowledge along the same line as my menagerie of enemies told me I'd have a sergeant of some kind that would at least be willing to listen to me, but I didn't remember who or when that would happen. Or even if, depending on how things went.

"Do you know how many people are going to be there?"

"Ballpark around twenty. Maybe thirty. Could be more, depending on how unlucky I get."

"Is this 'Tombstone' guy himself going to be there?"

I stared at a framed black and white picture of the Queensborough bridge Cindy had taken a few years ago. "For my sake, I hope not. A lot of the rumors I heard about him say that he was active during the issues surrounding Hell's Kitchen a couple years back, and that something from that ordeal ended up affecting him. Made him stronger than normal people. He probably couldn't break me like a toothpick, but I'd definitely be crippled for a long while if I fought him."

"And guns from nearly two dozen people won't?"

I shook my head. "I've had practice with guns. With harmful intent. So long as I stay on the move and keep aimed weapons to a minimum, I should be fine."

She sighed once again. "Alright. I'm hoping you're not going to be doing this anytime soon, though?"

"By the end of the week," I admitted.

"And you're going to do some reconnaissance before you get in?"

I nodded.

She sighed once more, almost collapsing into herself despite resting against the counter. "Try not to get too hurt, Pete. Aunt May's funeral is this weekend. I don't want to have to explain to Uncle Ben why you're so injured."

"I can just say I got caught up in a drive-by," I whispered.

Her face pinched. "Just— just be careful, Pete."

Next chapter will be December 11th.