Chapter Text
Peter had woken up in plenty of strange places before, it comes with the territory of being a superhero and living in more houses than the average kid will in their whole life. So, when he wakes up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling and sleeping in unfamiliar sheets, it is actually quite a familiar scene. Almost.
“You snore in your sleep,” a flat voice grumbled off to the side.
Rolling over on his side with a huff, Peter looks over at Jean who is now glaring at him with an impressive amount of energy for the first thing in the morning.
“Do you ever sleep?” Peter groggily asks as he sits up rubbing his eyes.
“Do you ever not ask stupid questions?” She shoots back just as fast.
Not bothering to engage in this losing battle this early in the morning, Peter just chooses to ignore the question.
He sloths out of bed, the cool touch of the old hardwood floor waking him slightly. He stretches briefly before digging around his bag, looking for the cleanest set of clothes he can find.
He hadn’t even left the room last night, still bone-deep tired from pulling an all-nighter the evening before. He finished his paper assignment for math and passed out somewhere in the ribosome section of the science textbook around 10pm.
He goes to get ready for the day, waiting in a small line for the bathroom with clothes and toiletries in hand. He nods, a quite good morning, to a few of the other foster kids lined up. Everyone seems too tired to hold a proper conversation and, frankly, Peter himself doesn’t mind a small reprieve from socializing.
After his turn in the bathroom he wanders down to the kitchen where the smell of eggs and toast wafts through the air. Most of the kids sit around eating in silence, but a few talk softly in small groups.
There are 12 kids all crammed between the kitchen and dining room of all ages. A few younger boys who look like they are in early middle school sit off to the side while the odd duo of a younger boy and girl Peter saw yesterday whisper between themselves over a plate of eggs. Several other kids of other ages are scattered throughout the room as well, the oldest appearing to be a girl who looks like a senior, most likely about to age out.
Peter serves himself a few burnt scraps of eggs and an end piece of toast, a luxury meal for his standards. Glancing around the room, Peter notes that there are very few seating options left. He does notice a seat by a tall boy maybe a year older than him.
Peter cautiously approaches, breakfast held out in front of him like a shield.
“Do you mind if I sit?” he asks the boy.
After a tired but quick glance up and down Peter’s frame, the older boy simply shrugs and goes back to eating his eggs without saying a word.
Choosing to interpret it as an invitation, Peter balances the plate in one hand while pulling out the chair and sitting down. The two boys eat in relative silence for a while before he finally breaks it.
“I’m Peter by the way,” he offers casually between bites of food.
The older boy glances back at him. After a beat he replies with a nod, “Josh,”
Peter reciprocally nods at the simple introduction. “Nice to meet you, have you been here long?”
John shrugs his shoulders while finishing another bite of food. “Long enough I suppose, 3 months ish if you want to get technical. You’re new right?”
“Yeah,” Peter replies, poking some of the eggs around on the plate with his fork, “just got dropped off yesterday.”
“Mmh,” the other boy hums.
They talk idly about some of the house rules, how serious they are, the best work around, who not to piss off; the usual. At some point the room suddenly gets very quiet, their own conversation and the ones around them dying quickly.
Peter notices immediately, looking over to the front of the room. To his surprise, it is his new roommate who walked into the room causing the sudden hush.
Despite the obvious quiet heaviness now present in the room, Jean seems entirely unbothered as she goes for the box of cereal. She pours some into a small disposable bag before turning back around and making her exit.
The moment she left the room, the tension is immediately lifted. Conversations steadily trickle into a flow again while the background nose of breakfast once again becomes a backdrop to the room.
“What was that about?” Peter asks John the moment conversation returns.
“That would be Jean Grey, AKA the witch.” John replies.
“Wait, back up. What’s her deal?” Peter asks, confused at the title.
“Some of the other kids say she has some freaky voodoo kind of power or something. Claim that she can read their minds, make them do things they wouldn’t normally do.” John explains casually, as if describing the weather.
“What, like superpowers?” Peter questions further.
John just gives the same noncommittal shrug, “Superpowers, possessed, witchcraft, I don’t know. Best price of advice I can give you is to avoid her as much as possible.”
Frowning slightly, Peter fully sets his fork down. “Are we sure it’s even anything supernatural? Couldn’t she just be really good at reading people or just very persuasive?” He proposes.
John just scoffs, finishing off his plate of food. “Listen dude, I don’t know and I don’t really care. All I know is that kids that interact with her don't usually act the same after.”
Peter watches as John gets up to put his plate in the sink and walks off down another hallway. Doing the same, Peter finishes his own food and puts his plate in the sink on top.
It was a Saturday, meaning Peter would normally be out as Spider-man. Today however, he decided to use his free time to get a better map of his new living situation.
The townhouse is two stories with a basement and several rooms throughout. It is a bit dated and run down, though at least it seems to be kept relatively clean. There are several windows in the house and to Peter’s luck, it seems that they are left unlocked.
Eventually he finishes his circuit and makes his way back to his assigned room. Unsurprisingly, he is greeted by the sight of his mysterious and annoying new roommate sitting on the bed. She glances up at him from her book, shooting him a quick glare before wordlessly going back to it.
As much as Peter wanted to be petty or match her energy, a voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like aunt May spoke up. Like him and like every other kid in this place, she never asked to be here or to have her space invaded by a stranger. Maybe, he should be the bigger person and make an effort to try to bridge this gap. Maybe they could even be friends.
Taking a deep breath, Peter walks into the room and sits down on his bed. He faces Jean, trying to be as relaxed and non threatening as possible.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Peter started, causing Jean to look up from the book with a weary expression.
Not getting any verbal resistance, Peter continues, “Neither of us asked to be in this situation, I understand. However, if you’re willing, I think we could at least coexist in a better way.” As he speaks, Peter pulls on every tone Aunt May ever used.
Jean is quiet for a moment, almost contemplative as she watches him. Hopeful that perhaps he is finally making progress with his new roommate, Peter silently waits for her reply.
“Maybe,” she breaks the silence, her voice still quiet, “we can even learn to be friends.”
A small surprised grin breaks across Peter’s face. “Really?”
Just as fast, the slightly hesitant and open expression on Jean’s face immediately drops into an annoyed glare. “No,” she spits out, letting herself fall back against the bed with a huff.
Closing his eyes and letting his head fall against his chest, Peter lets out an annoyed sigh. “Hey, I’m just trying to make this situation tolerable.”
“Well knock it off,” she replies, flipping a page in her book and muttering something about gullible nerds with bleeding hearts.
Peter likes to think that he has more patience than the average 15-year-old boy. He has experienced more tragedy than some adults do in their entire lives and as Spider-Man he has come to understand more about the world than most. However, standing here in front of Jean Grey, Peter has never felt his patience tested more.
Letting himself fall back onto his own bed, Peter huffed, “Fine, whatever.”
The room falls into a tense and uneasy silence for about an hour as Peter tries, and fails, to work on his history essay that was due on Tuesday. Deciding that he doesn’t want to be in this room for any longer than necessary, he eventually gets up and grabs the duffel bag from under the bed. Change of plans for the day.
Without a word, Peter makes his way out of the room. The other occupant doesn’t even cast a single glance up as he shuts the door behind him.
Making his way to one of the windows on the second floor that had the most concealed view, Peter carefully and quietly pushes it open. Slinging the strap over his shoulder, he slowly crawls out the window and up to the roof.
Ducking behind the old chimney on the roof, Peter changes into his suit. The warm afternoon sun soaks into his suit as he makes a few last small adjustments to his goggles and web shooters. Briefly stretching and hoping on either foot, Peter warms himself up slightly before shooting a web to the taller apartment building next door. He pulls the web taught and the familiar rush of being pulled away from gravity fills him as he launches up into the air.
He patrols for about an hour, letting himself feel the fall and pull of swinging around the city. It is a great way to burn off the stress of the last few days; being in a new house, learning the new rules, and a particularly annoying new roommate. The consistency of the thwip of a web and the swing across the city anchors Peter in a way nothing else in his life really does.
It is a relatively quiet afternoon, much to Peter’s relief. He stopped a car mugging before it even started, helped a little boy coax a cat out of a mailbox, and helped a woman carry groceries to her car after one of her bags split open.
Now as the afternoon sun set and the city lights began to flicker on to counter the evening dark, Peter sat on a rooftop somewhere in Queens eating a hotdog. The man who runs the hotdog stand on the corner gave him one for free as thanks for helping stop his runaway cart the other week. Considering he was probably going to miss the allotted dinner time at the foster house, Peter was extremely grateful.
The sound of nearby police sirens wakes Peter out of his quiet meditation. Shoving the rest of the hotdog in his mouth, he pulls his mask back down and lets himself fall off the edge of the roof. Catching himself with a quick web, Peter launches himself around a building and in the direction of the sounds of chaos.
He easily catches up to the chase happening in the street below. Several police cars charge after a single van that looks like it has already sustained an impressive amount of damage without slowing down.
Gaging the angle, Peter lets go of the web at just the right moment, letting himself land with a thunk on the roof of the speeding vehicle. He quickly drops to his hands as well, giving himself a better grip as he crawls forward and looks down through the windshield.
The eyes of four intimidating looking men lock onto him as he taps on the windshield.
“I think you guys missed a couple stop signs!” Peter shouted over the roar of the wind whipping by.
The man at the steering wheel glares at him as he jerks the wheel, causing the van to swerve violently. Nearly losing his grip, Peter quickly shoots a web down on instinct to grab ahold.
Unfortunately the web lands right at the front of the hood and when the van jerks back to its original path, the force of Peter being thrown to the side causes the web to pull the hood from its latch.
“Oh God-” Peter yelps as he slips back slightly, still attached to the web, when the hood of the van pops open. His other hand comes to grab the web as well as he effectively becomes a particularly less aerodynamic kite behind the speeding van.
It’s clear the diver’s view is blocked as the van sways dangerously side to side, speed not slowing a fraction. Glancing behind him, Peter can see the police cars are still right behind them, though they have given a little more space to the resident crime-fighting spider being slung around like a poor attempt at parasailing on land.
With a grunt, Peter starts pulling himself back up the web toward the van. He stops for a moment when one of the men lean out of one of the back windows, holding a long rifle-like weapon, the likes of which Peter had never seen before.
“That can’t be good,” he says to himself as he watches a static purple charge build around the nozzle of the rifle.
Not knowing what it is, but figuring that getting hit with it would be less than ideal, Peter swings his whole body to the side as the weapon fires. He can feel the heat of the plasma ball as it just barely misses his torso.
The man is about to take another shot when the van suddenly lurches violently as it swerves onto a ramp. Based on the construction signs flying broken behind them in a wake of destruction, Peter worries that there may be an abrupt end to the chase soon.
Apparently not the only one to share that thought, all four of the men one by one jump out of the now driverless van, attempting to make a getaway by foot. Typically, Peter would have swung after them. Unfortunately, he was currently the sole person able to stop this van before it could cause some serious damage.
Quickly hauling himself to the roof of the out of control vehicle, Peter quickly gets to work anchoring and firing webs as fast as he can. The van starts to marginally slow down webs straining and a few snapping from the tension.
Peter himself plants his feet, holding onto a fist full of webs that cause his muscles to protest as he remains steady.
The end of the bridge is rapidly approaching, the unbothered New York traffic meandering on the road below it.
Holding his breath and sending a small plea to the universe that the webs hold, Peter braces himself as the webs restrain the largest of the force.
Slowed down significantly by the webs, the van creeps to a stop, front hanging precariously but no further over the edge of the road.
Peter lets out a large sigh of relief before getting to work using a few more webs to secure the van, making sure it won’t be moving an inch further anytime soon. He also takes a moment to pry open the side door. The men may have escaped, but maybe they left something behind that could give him more information.
After poking around inside for a moment, Peter stumbles across a strange kind of handgun that is a similar style to the larger rifle-like gun one of the men had prior. He picks it up carefully, though it seems it was mostly broken in the chaos of everything.
The sounds of sirens grow steadily louder which let Peter know that the police cars seem to finally be catching up. He quickly tucks away the weapon for his own investigation and gives a salute to the officers as they pull up while he swings off.
After swinging the long way back, Peter eventually makes it back to the foster home, landing with a quiet thud on the old shingled roof. Spotting a loose couple of bricks in the old chimney stack, Peter quickly improvises a hiding spot for his suit and the weapon.
It would be next to impossible to analyze it in his room given the current roommate situation, but he could leave it tucked away up here until Monday. Then he would be able to sneak the strange device into the school and into a random lab where he may have more luck in discovering exactly what this thing is.
Changing out of his suit and back into his usual clothes, Peter carefully hides everything away in the old chimney. He then carefully makes his way back down the roof and into the unlatched window which he quietly opens and slips into with an easy silence.
He creeps his way through the house and to his bedroom, quietly opening the door.
Inside, Jean appears to be fast asleep. Her breathing seems even enough and she is facing the wall so Peter lets out a small breath and changes into pajamas.
Exhausted and bruised, Peter carefully climbs into bed and takes in the quiet silence and peace to just let himself exist.
It lasts about 30 seconds.
“So did you get your drugs?”
Peter jerked his head over quickly to see Jean, now sitting up in bed, staring at him with a smirk that in such a short amount of time knowing it, Peter had come to greatly dislike.
“Drugs?” Peter repeated out loud, clearly confused and already defensive.
“Obviously,” Jean said with an annoyed sigh, “the way you sneak in and out with a determination like that clearly means you are addicted to something. So what is it? You strike me as a cocaine kind of guy.”
“Seriously!” Peter whisper-shouted at her, “What is wrong with you?”
Jean just shrugged, not bothered in the slightest, “Several things, none of your business though.”
Peter just shot her one last glare before rolling over on his side, deciding he was too tired to deal with this at the moment. “Good night,” he said, not an ounce of sincerity in his tone.
Jean just laughed at that, annoying Peter further.
He closed his eyes tightly and curled in on himself slightly. As he waited for sleep to come, his mind worked its way through the day. Plans of investigating the strange weapon built in his head as he distracted himself from the bed he currently laid in.