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“Rrrr…” Spider-Man’s teeth clatter together as he zips through the cold air, swinging as fast as spider-humanly possible to his Chelsea apartment. A few scattered snowflakes stick to his mask lenses, and his breath fogs the night air around him.
“What’d I d-do --” he shivers violently, “ -- to piss off J-Jack Frost?”
Peter had been minding his own business -- rounding up a handful of bodega bandits as per usual -- when what should have been a mild August night suddenly began to plunge into the negatives. It wasn’t long after he noticed the windows he was speeding by start to spider-web with frost that Peter realized he was tiring.
His aim began to get sloppy. His heartbeat slowed. Spidey picked up the pace when his eyes dangerously tried to close.
Web-swinging becoming too much of a risk, the hero decides to parkour the last few blocks to his warm bed.
A warm bed.
Sleep, something murmurs in the back of his mind.
Spidey jolts, his momentary slip-up almost making him miss a vital handhold.
He’s so sleepy. What’s happening to him?
He goes to jump to the next apartment complex, but undershoots it, crash-landing onto a bed of colorful flowers on a concrete balcony below.
“Ow…”
Spider-Man distantly notes he isn’t shivering anymore. The flowers are soft, and only a smidge warmer than the rapidly cooling air around him. He pulls his limbs close to his body, trying to conserve body heat.
Maybe it would be okay if…?
Sleep.
His breathing slows, and as the vigilante clings onto his last threads of consciousness, he panics a little. Is this what dying feels like?
“N-No...wait…”
It’s okay , his spider-sense whispers, just go to sleep.
The icy fear melts away into warm darkness, and Peter sinks into a dreamless abyss.
Doris shudders as she slides open the doors to her garden terrace, pulling her warm shawl tighter around herself to keep out the lingering morning chill.
If the papers were correct, some superhuman conflict upstate required the summoning of a massive blizzard, inadvertently enveloping the far northern states into a sudden flash-freeze. Thankfully, the polar vortex only lasted a few hours, but with temperatures measuring below zero at times it was a miracle that there were no human casualties.
Plant casualties, however…
Thoughtfully, Doris examines her garden, dusting off layers of ice that cover the leaves. The hydrangeas probably aren’t going to pull through this one, but if any of her plants were to survive being frost-bitten for a night, it would be the pansies.
She shuffles past crystallized black-eyed susans, autumn joys, and snapdragons to the pansies’ corner. Pushing aside her curtain of brilliant blue morning glories, their delicate coverings of frost falling away in her hands, she jumps in surprise.
“Oh!”
A colorful red-and-blue costume is curled up in her pansy box. Squishing her pansies in her pansy box! Spider-Man’s folded limbs are framed by their delicate, squashed faces.
“Hey!” She yanks off one of her slippers. Blap! Blap! “Rise and shine, ya yuppie!”
The spider doesn't stir.
She huffs, her frustration billowing out in an opaque cloud, and returns inside to retrieve something.
“Go on, get! ”
BWAP!
She strikes him with enough force to startle a nosy bear from the porch, but the pansy box intruder doesn’t even twitch, the broom assault only disturbing the invisible halo of frost on the still form’s costume.
Carefully, maybe more curiously this time, she prods him with the broom, rolling him over onto his back.
Spider-Man’s arm limply falls to the side.
A manicured hand flies to the side of his neck.
“Thank heavens,” Doris sighs. The hero’s pulse is unnaturally slow, but every beat is strong and steady. She places a hand on the webbed pattern on his stomach to check his breathing, her own breath hitching when she finds him ice-cold to the touch.
“Okay, big fella,” Doris grunts as she hoists the sleeping hero upright, wrapping her tired arms around the vigilante’s middle, “Let’s get you inside.”
She pulls him gently to rest in front of her apartment’s radiator. Shutting the sliding patio door with a solid click , the last remnants of the chilly morning cause her lace drapery to softly brush over the unconscious hero while the delicate spider emblem etched onto his chest rises and falls in time with shallow breaths.
Crouching beside him, Doris turns his spindly arms over and around, looking for any signs of injury.
He seems okay physically, maybe he's just tired? But why wouldn’t he have just gone home? Surely Spider-Man had people who looked out for him, right? He’s too much of a skinny little thing to be any older than her grandson.
Her grandson! He likes superheroes, he might know if this is some mutant-behavior or something. Hurrying to the kitchen, she fumbles through a messy knitting basket for her phone.
Grandma: --picture sent at 10:34 am--
Grandma:
Hello Oliver, do you know what to do? He is sleeping I think. Found on balcony in flowrs lolo. Love, Gramma 💋 💋
Grandson Oliver:
WHAT?
GRAMMA?
SGDGHS SPIDERMAN???
Grandma:
Yes, he wont wake up. 💋💋 Not dead I checked.
Grandson Oliver:
WOW okay.
Uhhhm
OH
Yall were hit by that blizzard thing last night because of weschester stuff right? Super cool btw
anyways
I read somewhere abt how spidey may be more spidery than he lets on or somth. It was some blog post
If thats true, spiders don’t do well in the cold, it prob got too cold for him too fast
He may be hibernating?? Or somth
If you keep him warm hell likely wake up on his own time
Yeah
Hopefully haha
Grandma:
OK Thank you. Love you. 💋
Grandson Oliver:
Love you too!!
IM SO JEALOUS
SPIDERMAN AAA HGHGDFGDGF
Doris places the phone on the counter, still buzzing with her grandson’s very long, confusing acronyms, and returns her searching gaze to the sleeping hero across the room.
She’s not his mother, Doris thinks, she’s read the editorials by that Jameson fella’ -- this is the police’s problem, not hers. She’s not his mother.
But…
The mess of lanky limbs sprawled on her floor and the skinny frame soaking up heat from her paint-chipped radiator give it away. Spider-Man’s young , maybe late teens to early twenties at most. All ages where parents worry the most about their child.
Doris shuffles back over to the unconscious hero, running the back of her hand down the side of his masked face, her eyebrows furrowing at the icy touch of melting frost. She cooes, “Oh, honey…”
No, Doris may not be Spider-Man’s mother, but she in that moment decides she’ll do her darndest he’s able to get back to her. And sitting in a cold jail cell at the mercy of the law is not going to accomplish that.
Steeled in her mission, Doris lays her shawl across his body, bunching it up snugly around his chin.
Then she places a fleece blanket over him.
Then a spare duvet.
And soon the red-and-blue hero is nothing more than a pair of buggy lenses poking out of a polyester-blend burrito of cream-colored blankets and handmade quilts -- a warm chrysalis of fleece tucked up against the radiator in the corner of Doris’ living room.
The day then continues on normally -- chores are done, floors are swept, laundry is folded, the only difference being the many “snap chats” she sends to her grandson of her bundled houseguest in between occasionally checking the hero’s pulse or adding the occasional pillow. And when dinner comes, Doris finds herself plating a second bowl of casserole to place in front of the blanket pile, hoping the warm aroma of cheese and potato will bring the kid out of his deep sleep.
The next day passes much the same. The hero continues to be deathly still, with only the constant re-checking of his pulse point assuring Doris that no, the local hero-slash-probable menace named Spider-Man hasn’t yet kicked the bucket on her living room floor. But as the day drags on, Doris begins to gradually worry if she should call someone (the Avengers or Fantastic Four would have a better idea how to nurse a superhuman back to health, right?) when she suddenly is startled out of her late-night programs by a rumbling noise, drowning out her rerun of Little House on the Prairie .
Throwing back the single blanket she spared for herself, she hurries over to her houseguest. The rumbling is rhythmic and deep, was he...?
Yes! Spidey is snoring! The sign of life is a welcome relief after hours of eerie stillness.
“Hey, hey, big guy, can ya’ wake up?” She unwraps him a little to shake a thin shoulder, the movement wobbling his head back-and-forth on the flattened pillow. “How’re you feelin’ bud?”
Spidey inhales sharply, then turns to nuzzle his mask into the faded pillowcase.
“Spidey?” Doris gives his shoulder one more light shake.
Spider-Man mumbles something into the pillowcase, the words too muffled for her to catch, before his breathing evens out once again.
Doris huffs, patting his shoulder before pulling the blankets back up around his mask. “Okay, okay, five more minutes. I get it,” she smiles. Snoring is a good first step, waking up can come later.
Settling back on the couch, she tries in vain to refocus on her programs, her gaze flickering back over to the sleeping form every now and again.
Around noon on the third day, Doris is brewing away a pot of coffee in the open kitchen when she hears shuffling. Turning to peek into her living room she sees --
“Oh!”
Spider-Man is sitting upright, still cloaked in quilts and comforters, his mask pulled over his nose to expose his mouth. He's quietly nibbling away at the plate of fresh peach slices Doris had laid near his spot earlier that morning.
Doris quickly pours a second glass of coffee before carefully approaching the mass of blankets. She crouches down to the hero’s eye level so as not to tower over him.
“Hey there, buddy. How’re you feelin’?” She says, softly. She pushes the warm mug towards his plate.
Spidey sniffs and turns to meet Doris’ gaze, the motion swaying his entire body. Even from behind the expressionless, white lenses, she can tell he's in a daze. Completely out of it. The bright lenses seem to stare right past her.
She brings a hand to his forehead to brush away the comforter that hid part of his mask, but the hero jolts at the touch, retreating from her hand with a sharp inhale.
Half-conscious, but still responsive to stimuli, Doris notes. It’s another good step.
“Okay, okay, shh, I won’t hurt ya,” she soothes. “I brought some coffee for you. Can I…?”
She brushes the back of his hand with two fingers. He stares down at her hand, but otherwise doesn’t react. Good. Doris then gently wraps her hand around his fist and guides the gloved hand to the warm cup of coffee. His fingers close around it gingerly, and he picks it up to take a few sips from it.
“That’s it,” she encourages. “That’ll perk you right up. That stuff could give a sloth the jitters.”
The hero’s face contorts into a grimace and he smacks his lips. He unceremoniously puts the mug down, abandoning it to finish off the much sweeter peach slices.
“Too strong for ya’, huh?” Doris jokes, picking up the discarded drink. “Lemme guess, you’re one of those hippies that wants their milk with a side of coffee, yeah?” She stands, grunting from the effort, and empties the mug in the kitchen sink.
As she places the washed cup aside to dry, the spider-hero starts to shift again. The blankets slide off his spandex costume and into a jumbled pile as Spider-Man tries to stand up, his blue and red legs wobbling beneath him like a newborn fawn.
“Whoa, hey, hey, hey --” Doris rushes over as soon as she noticed, but it's too late.
Legs entangled in the mass of blankets, Spider-Man pitches forward, landing hard on his stomach on the wood floor. The force of the fall makes all the breath leave his chest in a single whoomph.
Undeterred, the kid's already starting to get up again when Doris finally gets to his side, yanking the fabric tangling his feet free. Weathered hands hook around the spider’s shoulders, aiming to help steady him.
The sudden contact is startling and invasive to the half-conscious vigilante, so Spider-Man starts to make a wild, instinctive noise that almost makes Doris drop the kid.
Was he...?
“Oh no, don’t you hiss at me , young man!” she admonishes. Unintimidated by his display, she gently tightens her hold around him.
Spider-Man continues to make a fuss in her arms, but it's clear his body has other ideas. She's easily able to brace him against herself and steer him to the couch, plopping him down on the worn cushions.
The low hissing sound ceases as soon as she stops holding him, but the spider-hero immediately tries to stand up again, placing a gloved hand on the wall behind the couch to balance himself.
“HEY, no!” She hurries back over to the couch, blanket in hand. “You need to sit down!”
Spider-Man doesn’t hear her. Through his haze, he startles at the sight of the approaching figure, ditching his attempts to walk and instead starting to climb . One hand in front of the other, he begins to scale the apartment wall.
The sight causes Doris to freeze. You have Spider-Man in your house, she thinks , ‘course he can crawl up the walls.
Still doesn’t make it any less creepy.
Spider-Man’s arm bumps into a shelf full of knick-knacks, and a porcelain cat tips over and bounces off the couch cushions before shattering into pieces on the hardwood floor.
“HEY!” Doris shrieks. Before he can reach the ceiling, she jumps up on the couch to hug him tightly around his middle, the spider letting out a small ‘oof ’ at the pressure. With a swift tug, she’s able to detach him from the wall with an awful ripping sound.
The vigilante still in a firm bearhug, Doris watches with wide eyes as his masked head confusingly inspects his gloved hands, where long, torn strips of her kitschy wallpaper dangle from his palms.
Great.
Willing herself not to look at the huge bare spots that undoubtedly now scar her wall, Doris plops him down on the couch and hastily covers him in a blanket, hoping that the warm cage will deter him from moving away again. Spider-Man is just poking his head free of the first blanket when she dumps more onto him. “Now sit,” she orders.
With an exasperated sigh, Doris sinks into the lazyboy across from the couch, watching as the spider wiggles his head free of the second round of blankets. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to move around again, only starting to shake under the heaping pile of cotton and polyester.
“I’m...beginning to think that the coffee was a bad idea, huh,” she says to her houseguest. “Maybe makes you too jittery.”
The white lenses stare unfeelingly back at her before slowly tracking around the room. Spider-Man gives his head a shake, two shakes, trying to clear the cobwebs from his mind, before sinking lower in the blanket nest.
“Uhhnn... Wh’r?” Spidey starts, pulling the duvets tighter around himself. “Huu..?”
Doris perks up. “‘Where are you?’” she offers.
Spider-Man shivers in place.
He’s still cold. Doris leaps up, answering him as she gathers up the fluffiest sheets of the bunch left on the floor. “You’re in my condo. I found you in a flower box outside, and I brought you in to warm you up,” she slowly explains. “My name’s Doris, are you hurtin’ anywhere, honey?”
“Mmh...” is Spidey’s non-answer. But at least it's accompanied by a slight shake of the head.
“Okay, good. Do you need any more blankets?”
“N’ th’k…” The spider’s lenses slowly blink once, and his head droops into the cotton sheets.
Doris smiles. “Tapping out again?” She runs a hand over the top of his mask and the kid leans into her touch.
“Th’nks A’nt Mm...” he murmurs.
Ant-Man? Well, at least in this state he’s not crawling the --
Two swift, hard knocks on the door interrupt her train of thought.
The sudden noise also makes Spidey’s head jerk back up and focus towards the sound.
“Doris?” Someone outside taps on the door again. “It’s Louise and Carol.”
“Uh, yes?” She calls out. Spider-Man squirms a little under the covers, spiking her worry that he may try to flail around again. She places a calm hand on him. “What brings ya’ here, Lou?”
An audible huff can be heard from behind the door. “It’s Saturday? Game night?”
Doris heart skips a beat. Game night! She was so busy looking over Spider-Man she completely forgot it was her turn to host.
“Ringing any bells?” The annoyed voice continues.
“O-oh yes! Yes! Just let me…” She looks down at her trembling houseguest, his white lenses blearily staring back up at her, then darts to the shattered cat on the floor, then to the bare patches of wall.
“J-Just lemme clean up a bit!” Doris yells to the two women outside before crouching down to a half-asleep Spidey.
“Hey, hey, big fella’. I’m gonna move you to my room, okay?” She whispers. “But I’m not as strong as I used to be, y’hear? I need your help.”
Peeling away the blankets, Spidey leans on her as she guides him down a short hallway to her room. Hurriedly, she tucks him tightly into bed, before rushing out and retrieving any missing blankets.
“How long are you going to be, Doris? Carol’s been carrying this shepherd's pie for five blocks, honey!”
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist! I’m comin’!” she calls back.
“Ok, you need to be as quiet as possible,” she addresses the buggy lenses tucked snugly between her duvet and pillows, “And absolutely no wall-crawling! I’ll be back in an hour or so to check on you. Got it?”
“Mmf.” Spidey huffs into the sheets.
Good enough. Doris nods, then shuts her bedroom door to go greet her esteemed guests.
“Bingo!”
“You don’t shout ‘bingo’ in rummy, Carol.”
Half a shepherd’s pie later, Carol stretches out in the kitchen chair, a confident smile accentuating the wrinkles on her face. “Don’t matter, Louise, I won .”
Louise puffs into her wine glass, thin eyebrows raised as she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” she mutters before getting up out of her seat. “I’m going to the bathroom, you ladies don’t wait up for me.”
“Sure, Chinese checkers next?” Carol adds. “Doris?”
Doris shifts, nervously watching Louise hover in the hallway entrance that led to the bedroom and bath. “Yeah, of course.”
While they were two separate rooms, Doris can’t help but worry if she remembered to close the door to her bedroom completely. Louise is a notorious sneak, after all. She can easily explain away the torn wallpaper as water damage, but an entire superhero who is just coming out of an impromptu hibernation would take a whole other excuse entirely.
“Oh-kay, be right back,” Louise trills, and she disappears into the hallway.
Stepping out of the bathroom, Louise eyes the closed door to Doris’ bedroom with a sneaky grin.
A week ago, over a game of mahjong and a few too many glasses of wine, Doris had bragged that she had just bought a swanky new vanity, “ one that would even make Marilyn Monroe jealous ” she said.
Better than Marilyn’s, huh? Well, Louise would be the judge of that. Just a quick peek, that’s all.
Quietly, so as not to alert her friends down the hall, she nudges the door to the bedroom open…
Doris and Carol drop the colorful beads as a scream rings out through the apartment.
“Louise! I can explain--” Doris suddenly calls out. Carol watches Doris get up out of her chair, sending it screeching across the linoleum tiling, and frantically rush down the hallway.
Louise is standing in the bedroom’s threshold, eyes blown wide at the huddled mass laying prone in Doris’ bed. “There’s -- He’s -- Sp-Spi --” she tries to stammer out.
Carol comes bounding down the hallway next, almost crashing into Doris, and finishes Louise’s sentence. “Spider-Man?!”
“Please keep it down! I have an explana--”
“Th- That creep !” Louise shrieks, gripping her handbag in a tight fist, “Stalking old ladies now, huh ? Laying in wait like some kinda --”
“Please! Please be quiet!” Doris interrupts Louise’s fit of righteous anger, setting a placating hand on her fisted handbag. “He’s not stalking anybody! He’s sleeping! ”
Louise makes an indignant noise. “ Sleeping? Doris, you’ve seen the news! Why haven’t you --” she suddenly fumbles to unlatch her handbag, “I’m calling the police!”
“Louise, shut it! Listen to me!”
“Oh, what? You’re going to tell me you’ve started running some sort of outlaw BNB now? Is the Punisher cozying up to some hot cocoa in a closet here somewhere?”
“He’s not dangerous! I know, I thought the same thing! He’s just a kid who got hurt and I’m tryin’ to help him! ”
“Lou, I think we should hear her out,” Carol pipes up. During their shouting match, she had somehow slipped by them and moved to the hero’s bedside.
Doris breathes a sigh of relief. And one quick explanation later, she finishes, “So in short, I’m goin’ to watch over him until he’s fully recovered.”
Spider-Man was half-awake now because of the commotion, turning his head to nuzzle deeper into a nearby pillow.
Carol starts, “So, how long is this...'hibernation'... supposed to last?”
“I don’t know, he was awake earlier, but was confused and made a fuss tryin’ to walk everywhere.” Doris anxiously fiddles with the covers, pulling them snug under the mask’s jawline. “Hence the, uh, wallpaper thing,” she mumbles.
“I still don’t trust that mutant as far as I can throw him, though,” Louise scoffs from the doorframe.
“Ohh, boo. Mutant or not I think he’s absolutely adorable,” Carol smiles into the mask lens that weren’t hidden by the downy pillow. “Can I stick around and help?”
Doris nods, “Of course. Louise can too if she behaves. Lou?”
Louise pauses, sharp eyes narrowing from behind pointed bifocals. “Fine,” she spits. “But if he bites me with his weird spider-fangs of his I’m going to thwack him into next week.”
Peter comes to awareness gradually.
Peter thinks he must be in heaven. The last thing he can clearly recall is the feeling of dirt and concrete and it being so, so cold , who let it get so cold?
And then nothing.
He must have died, right? Everything feels floaty and weightless and he can’t really focus his eyes. Everytime he moves his head the world swirls like a lollipop.
He ate something, he knows that. Something sweet, maybe? No, bitter? Peter can still taste it on the back of his tongue. Can you even eat in heaven?
Who knows. But he’s so blissfully warm -- so different than the feeling of ice boring its way into his heart -- that this must be heaven.
And oh god , Peter thinks, heaven is full of Aunt Mays .
(If he was more conscious, Peter probably would have been worried at that revelation. But through his sleepy haze Peter is just glad for the familiar comfort.)
At first there was only one, he thinks, then two, then three. Three Aunt Mays! His eyesight is still fuzzy, so he isn’t completely sure -- but they run their hands over his mask the same way May does to ruffle his hair, and their ocean-and-linen-smelling perfumes are so familiar that he doesn’t question it.
Hours later Peter continues to improve. Thinking is still like slogging through molasses, but like someone flicking a lightswitch on, he finally comes to complete awareness realizing that he’s wrapped in a fluffy duvet and seated at a kitchen table, a fan of cards gripped tightly in one glove.
And all three Mays are looking at him expectantly.
He clears his throat.
Peter immediately sees that no, these ladies aren’t, in fact, his Aunt May, and unless heaven looks like a 60’s-era kitchenette he’s definitely not there. Peter looks back down at the cards in his hands for clues and finds none. Has he been semi-conscious this entire time?
“Go fish…?” he tries.
The old ladies across the table widen their eyes from behind their own fans of cards.
Peter groans and uses his free hand to hold his head. The floatiness from before has traded places with a splitting headache, but he keeps his composure.
“Uh...wh’ts going on?” He grits out. “Oh jeez, please don’t tell me I got kidnapped by the Golden Girls …”
The woman to his right barks a short laugh, the sound bubbly and genuine, and her pearl necklace and matching earrings jangle with the movement. “Ha! You’re awake! Well, awake-awake.”
The woman opposite of her sneers over her glasses, “About time.”
“Are you feelin’ alright, sweetheart?” The last one asks, her voice thick with Southern drawl.
“Err... I have a headache? But it’s no biggie.” She gives a short hum and leaves the table to fumble around in a kitchen cabinet. “What… How did I get here?”
“Doris said she found you passed out in her flower box after that flash-freeze we had a few days ago,” the lady in the pearl earrings explains, “She brought you inside to help you. My name’s Carol,” she waves, then gestures to the across the table to the lady staring daggers at him, “And that’s Louise.”
“Oh. Uh, okay.” It’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened to him . “Thanks? Wait, did you say days ? I’ve been here for days? I’ve been here for days and I’ve been playing -- ”
Peter looks down at the cards in his hand again. “-- Go Fish the entire time?”
“Poker, actually,” Louise corrects with a sly smile she tried to hide with her fan of cards, “You were lousy at it, too.”
Spider-Man booes, “Ohh, that’s fair, playing poker with a semi-conscious man.”.
Doris reappears at his side, a bottle of ibuprofen in hand. “Oh hush, you were the one who asked to play, remember?”
“I did?” Peter wriggles his other arm free of the blanket to take it. He raises his mask a bit and pops a pill into his mouth. “I don’t even know how to play poker.”
Louise scoffs. Doris places a hand on his masked head to get his attention, “You hungry at all? We still have some shepherd’s pie left.”
“No thank you, I really need to get ho --” A bowl is planted in front of him. “...I’m guessing that wasn’t a request.”
“I’m not about to send you back to your momma hungry,” she replies, her gentle tone leaving no room for refusal.
Spider-Man’s mask eyes drift between the ladies. His spider-sense is silent -- even when he made hard eye-contact with the old lady that obviously had something against him -- and they hadn’t taken his mask off. Honestly, if this gaggle of Golden Girls wanted to beat him to death with their purses they would’ve done so already.
Peter wraps his gloved hands around the warm bowl of meat and potatoes.
“You got Netflix?”
“They did this same joke on Drake and Josh!” Spidey exclaims. “And they say my funnies are rehashed…”
“Drake and Josh?” Carol echoes, turning away from the I Love Lucy rerun to face the masked hero smushed in between the three ladies on the couch.
“Yeah!” Bowl cradled in his lap, Spider-Man gestures at the screen with his spoon. “They did this exact bit on Drake and Josh -- but with sushi, I think. It was a Nickelodeon show.”
Spider-Man shakes the blanket off his shoulders to place the empty bowl on the low coffee table. “Anyways, thanks for the food. And, uh, not calling the cops on me.” He stands up, facing the old ladies who had helped take care of him.
“Leaving already?” Doris asks.
“Yes ma’am,” Peter answers, pulling his mask back down over his mouth. “Sorry about your wallpaper -- trust me, I’ve been there. You would not believe the things I broke when I first got these powers.”
“Oh, don’t you worry none,” Doris adds, standing up to meet the vigilante’s eyes. “I’ll get maintenance to cover it.”
Peter starts for the balcony door.
“Ah-ah, where do you think you’re going?” Doris gently grips his elbow. “We leave by the front door in this house,” she admonishes.
“W-Well--” Peter sputters.
“You’ll give us all a heart attack watching you leap off a railing,” Carol pipes up. “An elevator ride won’t hurt you any.”
Carol and Doris both push a stammering Spider-Man to the condo’s front door, Louise following loosely behind.
Doris spins him around, placing her hand on his shoulders. “Now, what did I say you need to do as soon you can?”
“Uh, go see Reed Richards about the sleepy-sleepy thing?” he replies. Which, to be fair, is a good idea. Cold’s never bothered him before, so it would be helpful to see how he could avoid something like this in the future, though he can already feel Johnny teasing him for becoming a spider-popsicle on some elderly woman’s flower bed.
Doris nods pointedly, “And you make sure ya momma knows you’re alright, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And -- oh!” Doris broke off contact and hurries to her knitting basket, pushing balls of yarn and needles aside. “Take this.”
She pulls a knitted green beanie over his masked head. “It’s...August still?”
“Not for long it ain’t,” she pats the side of his cheek.
Carol mirrors her actions, producing a cute, light scarf from her purse and wrapping it around his neck. “This too, sweetheart.”
Spidey paws at the scarf around his neck -- oh god, Johnny’s gonna never let him live this down -- before looking expectantly at Louise.
Louise quirks up an eyebrow at their stares, “What? He’s right, it’s August you old ninnys.”
Spidey sighs in relief. “Okay, well,” he opens the door, “Thank you for helping me out, dunno where I’d be right now if it wasn’t for you ladies.”
After saying their goodbyes, all three women watch as Spider-Man awkwardly shuffles down the hallway. He gives a stiff, embarrassed wave while waiting for the elevators before finally stepping into and disappearing out of sight, brushing past a few baffled passerby.
As soon as the doors closed, all three ladies rush back inside the apartment and out onto the balcony. And after a minute or so of waiting…
THWIP!
A red-and-blue blur shoots upwards into the sky, a strong line of silk suspending him in the air like an elegant puppet, the gifted scarf flapping violently in the rush of wind.
And on the crest of his launch, he lets go of his web-line, allowing him to float weightlessly for a few moments -- moments he uses to wave to his three awed spectators on the concrete balcony below -- before releasing a second webline and zipping out of sight.
Days later, Doris is busy re-wallpapering her living room wall when she hears something smack lightly outside her balcony’s door.
Tossing back the curtains, she discovers that a plant had been placed up against the glass. It looks freshly bought, the plant hadn’t even been transferred out of its little plastic pot and the identifier stick is still poking out of the black soil.
She wipes the sweat from her forehead and slides open the door to pick it up.
Chlorophytum comosum “Spider plant”. Perennial, needs bright to moderate sunlight, the tag reads.
She snorts as it all clicks into place. Doris brushes back a few of the long, striped leaves to reveal the scribbly note webbed to the side of the plastic pot.
Scrawled in big letters are the words THANK YOU written in a glittery gel pen, signed with a sloppy drawing of a spider-logo.
Smiling, Doris shuffles over to the pansy box and places her new spider plant on the balcony’s railing, and over the clamoring ambiance of New York she distantly hears the soft thwip, thwip of her houseguest fading back into the city.