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--🕷--
It might have been the setting chill of the November night air, or the way that every police siren in the city managed to fade into the same hum in the back of his mind. Regardless, Peter Parker was intimately aware of two things; first, despite the advice of everyone around him, he'd been pushing himself too hard, and now his body was paying the price. And secondly, when he was low on sleep, he was apparently incapable of making anything but the idiotic decisions. So of course he was swinging over the streets of lower Manhattan on a biosynthetic cable less than a half inch wide, it was probably the worst choice possible in this state. Or at least it was in the top five. Still, it wasn’t like his exhaustion was entirely his fault. Dressing up in a spandex spider-suit every night and swinging as far across the city as he could definitely wasn't helping his situation, but he hadn’t asked for the sudden uptick in B&Es across the city to line up with midterms. Or the deadline for submitting his thesis topic. Or Aunt May’s old brownstone needing renovations. At least he'd finally quit taking pictures for the Bugle, but selling his selfies to Jameson like some sort of old-school OnlyFan had never been a huge time sink.
So yeah, his plate was pretty full, a pattern he was more than familiar with, but for once he legitimately couldn’t take anything off of it. So, he’d just have to manage. It was fine, really. He could sleep next month. Or next year. Or when he was dead. Dealer’s choice.
Peter mostly had muscle memory to thank for the thwip of another web shooting outward as he reached the peak of his arc, ensuring that the moment he hung weightless over the rooftops below remained just that. He moved on autopilot, his instincts and webs the only things keeping Peter from becoming a red and blue splat in a piss-soaked alley. They were enough to compensate for his lack of focus, but he still stumbled as he touched down on the roof of the nearest apartment complex, courtesy of his aching muscles and their want of a break from a long night of patrolling. The rooftop in question was lower than he would have usually chosen to stop on, but despite it's tenant access door, it was completely empty. Which, after closer observation, made perfect sense, given that the smattering of mismatched patio furniture congregating around the center was sitting under a broken light, and the lack of coverage had left the nylon fabric of the chairs smelling slightly moldy. That, and it was pretty goddamn cold. Sometimes Peter forgot that normal people didn't spend more time outside of their apartments than necessary once the weather hit a certain point. The only signs that anyone had seen the space in the last week were the array of cigarette butts lying in an old puddle by the door to the building's stairs. It was fairly gross, but it was an ideal place to stop and calculate his next move. Despite the spike in property crimes across the city, all of the bigger threats in his rogues gallery had been laying low. Maybe he had the approaching holidays to thank, or maybe someone was planning something. Or maybe he was just programmed to get paranoid whenever any of the Six were quiet for too long. Pavlov would be so proud.
So, he could either wait for the familiar curse of Parker Luck™ to catch up with him, and let the next big plot from Fisk, or Norman's next escape attempt from the raft, or more likely someone entirely new catch him completely off guard, or he could stick his nose where it didn’t belong and go hunting for trouble. Except he didn’t actually have any leads to go off of; no petty thieves muttering any cryptic half finished messages while sneaking out of broken windows, no news headlines reporting missing scientists, nothing. Maybe he could swing by the docks, see if there was any more organized criminal activity happening, or maybe he would stop by Hell’s Kitchen, see if Daredevil had noticed anything weird, or—
—Peter jolted upright, spinning to his left seconds before his body processed the shouts coming from down the alley. "Oh my god, stop it!" , one voice cried out, high and shrill and rushed. He rolled from the ledge of the rooftop, fingertips barely clinging to the brick facade as he tensed to lunge through the dark, towards the girl, whoever was attacking her, towards—
Towards, as it turned out, absolutely nothing. The scene along the sidewalk at the end of the alley wasn’t one of a passerby struggling against yet another mugger, or some creep in need of a serious lesson in what “no” means, but of three girls stumbling out of a dingy bar, all leaning over the same phone. The first, likely the one who’s shout had caught his attention, squealed, while the second shrieked “god, it’s so cute, I’m gonna die!” His shoulders deflated. God, he couldn’t believe his spidey-sense had gone off over a video of a kitten playing with a corgi, or whatever saccharine sweetness had gone viral this week. But maybe they hadn’t gone off for nothing, maybe he was still needed here? He could swing down from the side of the building, say hi, and at least make sure the group got to the nearest subway station in one piece? Besides, outside of the Daily Bugle’s distribution list, who didn’t get a kick out of meeting New York’s one and only friendly neighborhood Spiderman? But before he could make a move, the decision was taken away from him by an uber driver pulling to the curb, a cheerful voice introducing himself, and a less than seamless departure as the group of friends laughed and fumbled into the backseat of the car. As the vehicle pulled away, the buzzing in Peter’s ears became more clearly recognizable as the rush of adrenaline that came with any surprise, and mortifyingly, not the familiar tingle of an extrasensory ability. Great.
So, fine. Definitely nothing. He haphazardly crawled back over the lip of the rooftop before collapsing into the nearest musty chair. One thing was for sure, if he couldn’t tell the difference between a high pitched noise and an actual threat, he was in no shape to go anywhere near Hell’s Kitchen. Or, well, anywhere. As his head tipped back against the creaky plastic backrest, he couldn’t help but wonder what Aunt May would say to him. Well, once she got over the whole “so yeah I’m actually Spiderman” of it all. Honestly, she probably wouldn’t say anything, she’d just give her signature disappointed stare that managed to leave him lecturing himself far more efficiently. With powers like those, it was no wonder he’d spent years mastering the art of hiding everything he could from her. But that was an emotional quagmire to tackle another day. Or preferably, never. Right now, Peter thought as he sunk further against the mildew stained patio furniture, lashes fluttering behind the lenses of his mask, he just needed to close his eyes for a second. Maybe five. He’d be fine to start his patrol again in no time…
--🕷--
"-ome on Webs, you gotta wake up, ain't no way Optimus Prime and his Autobots are gonna believe I just found you like this."
The voice cut through Peter’s muddled brain like glass. If that glass happened to find itself slowly gliding through a jar of cold molasses. This metaphor had definitely gotten away from him. He groaned, internally lamenting that two seconds wasn’t even a record for his train of thought completely derailing. Couldn’t the universe at least wait for him to be conscious for ten minutes before his brain decided to stop working?
“Oooh, thank fuck, he lives! Spidey, seriously, you can’t play with a girl’s heart like that, what are you even doing up here? Sure, some of us can walk off a little light hypothermia like it’s nothing but a long night of ice play, but I doubt that’s your kink. Shit, can spiders thermoregulate? Are you secretly half spider under there? Yellow really wants to know if you’ve got fangs or extra eyes, but between you and me, I don’t think he could handle knowing for sure. Yellow’s kind of a little bitch like that— yeah, I said what I said, what are you gonna do about it? Ugh, see what I have to deal with? Could he be more rude?”
Peter grumbled, and raised a palm to his forehead. He felt like he’d been hit by a freaking truck, and the worst part was, he wasn’t even sure why. God, he just wanted to go back to sleep.
“‘S not that cold,” he managed, “besides, the suit’s got a heater in it..”
The voice—no, the person the voice belonged to, hummed, before shifting and plucking Peter’s hand from the armrest he’d been clutching. His instincts said to pull away, maybe do a backflip and say something hopefully witty but, more likely mildly irritating, before swinging away, but this guy’s hands were stupid warm. Like, hot chocolate after a warm shower because your heater decided it felt like working for a change at the end of a bad day warm. “Yeah, I hate to break it to you baby boy, but I’m pretty sure your heater’s broken.”
Oh. Well, that probably explained why he felt so out of it, and why his fingers were shaking against the leather of the gloved hand still holding his, only—Tony had helped him design this suit, and they’d gone over the heating functions at least a dozen times more than they’d needed to, there was no way it had broken. Unless he’d forgotten to charge it. When had he last charged the suit? What day of the week was it even? Why was he still just sitting here?
Despite his body’s protest, Peter hunched forward and tried to blink himself awake. If he was going to be cold and exhausted and miserable, he might as well do it in his own worn-out apartment on his own worn-out mattress. He’d just have to remember to kick himself for passing out where anyone could find him later. At least this time he’d gotten lucky, and whoever had woken him up wasn’t a threat. Peter looked up, a “thanks for, um, being cool about the vigilante passed out on your roof and all, I’m good you can head back to your apartment if you want” forming on the tip of his tongue, when—well, when he made eye contact with the lenses of a bold red and black leather mask, along with a red leather tactical suit adorned with more knives and pockets (probably concealing more knives) than he would ever know what to do with. For crying out loud, the guy had an honest to god pair of katanas strapped to his back , and somehow , his Spidey Sense hadn’t gone off once . Slowly, Peter pulled his hand away from the… hero? Villain? Rookie vigilante startup? No, the guy seemed way too well armed for that last one. Maybe he was still asleep, and the guy was just someone his brain had made up? Regardless, his suit wasn’t one Peter recognized from any database he’d accessed, and if Peter had half as much sense as he did recklessness, he would have taken that as a cue to walk away slowly and never look back. But then again, if he had half as much sense as he did recklessness, he probably never would have started dressing up in spandex and fighting street crime in the first place.
No, instead of doing anything reasonable, after a too long minute of staring, Peter finally asked; “So, who exactly are you?”
The man tilted his head to the side in a way that was way less threatening than his weapons collection would suggest. “Er, what would you say if I told you I was Santa Claus?”
“I’m pretty sure I’d tell you you’re about a month early.” Peter deadpanned. On some level, he knew he was being an idiot. Bantering with unknown entities usually ended with something (literally) blowing up in his face. Yet, he couldn’t help but relax. Especially when the stranger before him chuckled in response.
“Oh, yeah you definitely haven’t heard of me. Cause let me tell you, I’ve been accused of a lot of things; insubordination, tax evasion, lecturing a cocaine kingpin on his environmentally destructive practices for long enough that he offed himself— yes, he definitely did it because of the lecture, not the thumbscrews, no one asked your opinion —sorry just ignore them, where was I going with this again? Oh, right! Yeah I’ve done a lot of questionable things, but coming early ? No one’s ever accused The Pool™ of that, if you catch my drift—”
“Nevermind, please stop talking.”
Peter didn’t actually expect him to stop, so of course, he did. He also wasn’t expecting to be disappointed, so of course, he was. He probably also should have had some follow up questions about the way-too-casually dropped torture infobomb, only—either Peter was hallucinating, or the eyes of his mask had managed to blink . So that settled that, he was definitely still asleep, and there wasn’t actually anything to worry about. Now he just needed to wait for the part of the dream where Mysterio showed up and made the good people of New York think it was raining like, acid puppies or something. At least he wasn’t back in high school, and he still had all his clothes on. But was The Pool really the best fake superhero (supervillain? Super morally ambiguous knife guy?) name his subconscious could come up with?
The Pool (seriously, The Pool. That didn’t make any sense, his costume wasn’t even blue!) tilted his head to the side, and Peter could almost feel the hair on the back of his neck rise like he was being assessed. Was this what lucid dreaming felt like? He'd have to remember to Google that once he woke up.
“Seriously, Webs," the Pool interrupted, "do you need help? Not gonna lie, this is nice, but guys like you don’t typically have patience for guys like... well, you know?”
“No, no, I’m great, this is actually probably the most I’ve slept since Yom Kippur.”
The mask blinked again. Somehow, it seemed less weird the second time. “...The most you’ve slept...since…”
“Yeah, hey pro tip, don’t try fasting on a super metabolism, you just pass out on your couch all day and end up having to go on patrol wearing a neck brace.”
It was strange, being watched by anyone for this long without being lectured about his existence as a public menace. Or thrown against a building. Or both. The longer the scene played out, the less it felt like something Peter's brain was capable of crafting. Everything was too still. Almost calm. Even the way Pool sighed was weirdly gentle. Or maybe that was just his brain's way of making him let his guard down before he wound up with a sword through his stomach and woke up in a cold sweat. Dreams were weird like that. "You know you can take a break baby boy, right?"
Before he could think about it, Peter laughed. "Actually, I really can't. You know, Thanksgiving's coming up, lots of people out of town, ergo lots more break-ins, so lots more patrols—"
"Oh yeah I forgot that's a thing."
"Break-ins?"
"Thanksgiving. Don’t look at me like that, I'm Canadian, we've got our own lies about our relationship with indigenous peoples to keep track of. And on that ever so uplifting note, we are gonna relocate dat ass from this premium real estate like it’s the 1800s. Or the 1950s. Or—you know what, I can tell this joke isn’t landing, so let’s just get you out of here."
“Out of...What? Where—what?” Peter fumbled as his apparently Canadian new imaginary friend stood upright. He might have had more questions, but it was hard to remember. If he did, they all died on his tongue when Pool grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet like he weighed nothing.
“That's right sweet cheeks, we're off to Casa Deadpool, and—what? No, I'm not going to tell him that what the actual fuck is wrong with you, ya degenerate? Ugh, anyways! You are so far out of it I'm amazed you're not seeing pink elephants, or whatever boring and totally PG Disney approved hallucinations your contract allows, which leaves us in the horrifying situation of me having to be the responsible one, and I've got an oversized sofa and a heated blanket with your name all over it, my eight legged friend. Okay, so it doesn't actually have your name on it. Just your face. Well, your mask. It's pretty awesome actually—"
The Pool—maybe Deadpool? For some reason, that name seemed more familiar, but he couldn't quite place it—kept talking, but Peter had completely stopped listening. He started walking, one arm pressing across Peter's back and half holding him up by the shoulder, and—okay, this was starting to feel more like something his subconscious might actually create. It was just the product of a different set of frustrations, ones that had been neglected for… a while.
So yeah, Peter had been alone for a while. More than a while. Fine, about two years now, but who was counting? Besides, his life was complicated, and it wasn't like he was going out of his way to make new, meaningful relationships with anyone.
(It hadn't always been like this, though. He didn't use to go out of his way to drive everyone away from him as fast as possible. And for a while, he'd been lucky to have some incredible people in his life. There had been Gwen, and the way she had dominated everyone on the academic decathlon team, and how she'd never cut him any slack when he'd been late for study sessions, even if he had the perfectly good excuse of having to take care of a swarm of mutant murder rodents in the sewers; murder rodents! In the sewers! What was he supposed to do, not shower four times before showing up around civilized company? There was how she’d rolled her eyes at him after chem lab, after asking in her coy, playful way if he had a date for homecoming, and he'd obliviously replied "nah, I'm probably gonna skip it to be honest. Ned just got the latest Halo remaster so we were probably gonna play that?" There was how she'd stopped him by his locker the next day and told him that he was taking her to the dance, and he needed to be at her place by eight. How she'd kissed him breathless behind the bleachers, and in the back of run down movie theaters, and on her balcony in the rain after she'd demanded he stop hiding things from her. And then there was how she refused to let him apologize for the accident, how she'd stared him down in the hallway of the hospital, practically daring him to feel sorry for her as she struggled to stand. How she's wheeled over to him after PT and said "you know I'll always love you, Pete, but I think this has been as much adventure as I can handle," and how she wanted to still be friends and somehow actually meant it. It was no wonder she was off at Berkeley, figuring out just how she planned to change the world.
Then there was MJ, and how for all her warm laughter and dimples, she was practically hard wired to never back down from a challenge. When Flash Thompson had made Peter's suffering his primary objective, and jock bravado was the only tool he had to cover up what was some extremely obvious in hindsight self loathing, MJ had responded by cornering him in the cafeteria and promising to make it her personal mission to guarantee that no girl at Midtown High would ever consider dating him again. When she'd decided to drop out in their first year of college to focus on auditions, and Peter had expressed his concern about what felt like such a risky choice (he might have used the word mistake), she'd turned that same fire on him and stopped talking to him for three months. Three months of radio silence, and then one day he received a letter that smelled like her perfume, containing a handwritten note reading "look who won the jackpot, Tiger~" and a front row ticket for the opening night of her first Off-Broadway show. She'd welcomed him and his tasteful (read: small) bouquet backstage to congratulate her as if no time had passed at all, or more like that passing didn't matter much in the long run. To MJ, of course her success was a guarantee, she'd just been waiting for Peter to catch up. And it was one thing for her to use her powers of incredible intimidation against high school bullies or childhood friends, but then when Peter had been wrapping up his senior year, and he'd been torn between grad school interviews and his new internship at Stark Industries and so many secrets, and he and MJ had just broken up again but she'd still insisted on spending time together because their friendship still mattered to her, he'd just been a terrible boyfriend, and he'd just made her pause their movie for a third time while he took a call from the lab to go over some anomalies in a simulation they were running, and she'd decided enough was enough. She took his phone from him mid-sentence, and explained in no uncertain terms that contrary to all available evidence, Peter did have a life, and since it was movie night he wouldn't be picking up his phone again, and that if his presence in the lab was so vital that a simulation couldn't run without his input, they should probably consider hiring him for a more permanent position. She didn't even flinch when Peter, dumbstruck, told her that she'd just hung up on Tony Stark . She just shrugged and hit play, and—well, there was a reason Mr. Stark still made sure to see everything she was cast in, even after breakup number three.
And there was Harry, who all logic dictated he should have never seen again once he started private school, but who somehow insisted on keeping Peter in his life for movie nights and impromptu science experiments. Who counted sleepovers at the humble Parker house as his favorite place to be, despite living in a literal penthouse. Who once upon a time had been his best friend. Who Peter hadn't recognized his crush on for what it was until everything between them was broken, maybe beyond repair. Harry had left him dazzled by his ruthless efficiency in everything from running the Model UN, to navigating social situations that still left Peter befuddled. And there was the way his fingertips had grazed over Peter's at a typical over-the-top Osborne style birthday party, and it's more rambunctious after party, complete with a game of spin the bottle that they were too old for, the nerves of the feelings he wasn't willing to admit to only calmed by the beers they were too young for. He'd laughed when Peter blushed, even harder than Gwen had from her throne of confiscated pillows to the side, and assured Peter in the most condescending way possible that it was okay to be nervous. He was, after all, “in the face of greatness” . So what was Peter supposed to do after a statement like that, not take the bait? Not make out with Harry in his swanky living room while his girlfriend wolf whistled at them? No way, not a chance. When the party ended, the kiss was never spoken of again, and that was fine. They both had bigger things to worry about anyway; like rare genetic diseases, and fathers going mad, and surrogate father figures trying to murder you and your girlfriend and half the city, and watching said father figure get locked away… all things considered, it was no wonder Harry had all but abandoned all semblance of his old life. Peter hoped Europe was treating him better. For Harry, he hoped for a lot of things.)
One by one, he'd let them all come closer than he should have, and one by one, he'd found a way to break them all. At least MJ had been lucky enough to get away from him with only six months worth of resentment for always being Peter's "second priority" and a fourth (and final) breakup for her trouble. Plus, as much as he hated to admit it, she wasn't wrong . Spiderman was always going to be his first priority, no matter what else was happening in his life. So, sure, a little distance was good. Or at least, it was safe. And it wasn't like he was alone alone. He had friends—if you counted his boss. And he had his...he wouldn't call them relationships , but, flirtations? Maybe he read too much into most of them, but honestly, who wouldn't be a little enthralled at the way Felicia ran circles around everybody? And Johnny probably wasn't flirting with him any more than he flirted with everyone, but whenever they crossed paths it was fun to pretend, alright? And come on, who didn't swoon a little when they got the chance to fight with Captain America? And—look, it was kind of hard to spend almost every night from the time you were sixteen, swinging around the city in nothing but spandex, surrounded by other absurdly attractive people wearing mostly spandex, without realizing a few things about yourself. Namely, that even if it wasn't obvious at an initial glance, Peter Parker absolutely had a type; strong willed, completely out of his league, and (physically or emotionally), more than capable of kicking his ass. And figment of his subconscious mind or not, if the muscles on this guy were anything to go by, he was checking all the goddamn boxes .
So maybe it was shallow. Like, kiddie pool in a drought levels of shallow. It was one thing to wax poetic about his ex-lovers and ex-almosts and their strength, those were his friends. Those were the relationships that made him into the half-baked man he was today, with real feelings and everything. This was someone who, while warm and solid and maintaining an oddly comfortable grip around Peter's shoulders, his subconscious didn't even give a face. Then again, as far as most of his current associates were concerned, he didn't have a face either. And hopefully he never would.
Peter blinked, coming slightly back into the present. He and Mystery-Pool were on the ground level of the alley. Strange, since he couldn't really remember if they'd taken the stairs or not, but that was dream logic for you. He was still talking—something about "who the hell decided they needed to add cgi buttholes anyways? Like James Cordon isn't nightmarish enough without one, amirite?" . If his brain had given Mystery-Pool a face, Peter bet it would have been an amazing one. Like, half Roman warrior God, half Ryan Reynolds, or something. Seriously, what sort of cosmic law was there that dictated the correlation between heroism and hotness, and what sort of cosmic joke had thrown him into the mix to throw off all the data? Peter shook his head. That wasn't the point right now. This wasn't about his own deep-seated insecurities. This was about his clearly lonelier-than-he'd-realized brain, and Pool, and his stupid huge biceps, and the heat of his body against Peter's side, hotter than a normal person should be, and the way his arm felt as it flexed away, his hand moving to Peter's wrist, two fingers pressing gently into the groove along his veins, and—
Pool was in the middle of saying something about how Hollywood needed to give up on musicals, since they were never going to be able to top Mamma Mia anyways, when Peter's jaw made the unfortunate decision to unhinge itself. Before he could think, let alone stop himself, he interrupted what was undoubtedly a very tasteful tangent about how Meryl Streep could step on Pool anytime, with the absolute height of wit and intelligence;
"Jesus Christ you're ripped," Peter blurted, "do you think you could bench press me? You know, um, for science?"
The Pool froze. Peter froze. Time itself froze and Peter hoped like hell this was the part of the dream where the walls of the alley turned into pumpkin bombs and he woke up. Or that he'd just imagined speaking altogether. He was seriously considering slapping himself across the face to see if it would help speed things along, when The Pool seemed to jerk back to awareness.
"So I'm gonna need you to repeat that— yeah, no I'm pretty sure I'm not having a stroke thanks— but, it kinda sounded like you just said—"
"Yeah no, I'm trying to forget I said it too."
Pool's mask blinked again and—yep, it had gone back to being unnerving again, cool. " Christ in a crack house , as if those icicles you call fingers and that sad excuse for a pulse weren't enough for anyone to know you're really out of it... Trust me sweet cheeks, if you could see under here, you wouldn't be saying that."
"I don't see how that matters," Peter shrugged, again without thinking, "besides, you've got a really hot voice."
And on that note, he found himself immensely grateful for his own mask, as there was no way his own face wasn't as red as his suit. He couldn't feel the heat flushing his cheeks, but still. It was definitely there. Maybe this was going to be the dream where he actually managed to die of embarrassment, that would be something new. Exhausted, he stumbled forward, face planting back against Pool's chest. The smoky, somewhat metallic scent on his suit flooded Peter's senses, and screw it. If he was stuck in the dream where he didn't have a filter, he was at least going to try and enjoy it a little bit.
Dream-Pool groaned. He might have muttered something under his breath that sounded remarkably like "Baby Boy, you're gonna kill me…" but Peter wasn't paying attention. At least, he wasn't, until Pool gripped him again by the shoulders and crouched over to look him in the eye. Lens? Did it actually matter? Jesus, this guy was tall.
"Alrighty Webs, come on, stay with me just a little longer, here's how the rest of tonight's gonna play out; we're gonna get in the taxi, and go somewhere safe , then I'm gonna bury you under like, a dozen blankets and prop you up by a heater and hey, hopefully come morning you can forget any of this ever happened, sound good?"
"Wait, what?" Peter mumbled, before his attention was drawn towards the hazy lights at the end of the alley. Only, they were at the end of the alley, and the taxi was pulling up to the curb beside them. That was some seriously good timing, Peter legitimately couldn't remember the last time he'd found a cab this easily. The door opened seemingly on its own, and he was ushered into the cramped backseat. Maybe cramped wasn't the right word. His apartment was cramped. And musty. And smelled weird. But even pressed between the closed door and the solid mass that was The Pool, he was comfortable. Cozy even. Like he could pass out right here, even though it would be ultimately redundant. When was the last time he'd let himself relax this much while conscious? He couldn't remember.
The last thing Peter heard before slipping under was The Pool proclaiming "Dopinder, my guy! Look, the sooner you get the heat going back here, the better all of our nights are gonna be, you feel me?" And he was out.
--🕷--
The thing was, even if his academic record didn't always reflect it, Peter knew he was smart. Like, really smart. Sure, he hadn't been valedictorian, and he didn't leave undergrad with any significant honors, but that was par for the course when half your study time was spent handling everything from petty street crime to full scale assaults on the city. He'd designed his web fluid and the mechanism to shoot it with when he was just fifteen, had refined it over the years to the point that it's very existence got him into grad school. He'd spent most of his undergrad experience sneaking into whichever labs he could, running chemical analysis on whatever new weapons were being thrown at him or at New York that week, and synthesizing counter-agents whenever possible. He got an internship at Stark Industries thanks to his research on spiderwebs, research that was strong enough to make up for his generally lackluster grades (which were easy enough to blame on a fictitious case of test anxiety), and had managed to hide his secret identity from Tony freaking Stark for four months while using the man's computers to streamline his web shooters even further. So, as he stared at the ceiling of an unfamiliar apartment from underneath a pile of weighted blankets in an unfamiliar bed, the events of the night before washing over him in waves of disbelief, the only thought running through Peter's mind was that he had no excuse for his unfathomable stupidity.
He should have known it was going to be a bad night for patrolling the moment he stepped out of his window. He'd stumbled in his first few steps, almost missed the landing on his first swing (and had the nerve to blame it on not being warmed up yet ), and despite the crime wave he knew was happening in the city, he'd only found a few places where he was actually needed. And one of those places was when he ran into the same kid trying to pry windows open with a crowbar three times. And he didn't even recognize him the second time! At least that time, he'd gotten a chance to speak with the kid before he ran, and dropped him off at a decent youth shelter. (Once upon a time, he would have webbed the kid up and left him for New York's "finest" to take care of, but once upon a time, he'd also been a stupid teenager who'd trusted the police not to shoot on site. So sure, maybe the kid was just gonna turn around as soon as Peter left and head for house number four, enough people did, but maybe he was just desperate and needed help. Spider-Man could do that much, or at least he could offer to talk it out. It was an offer enough people were happy to take, given that they weren't involved in more serious organized crime or gang activity, which conveniently served as a really good signal that he needed to keep an eye on the city's bigger players. Ergo, nowadays he only called the NYPD if there literally was no other option.)
So yeah, it had been a weird night from the start, and he hadn't done himself any favors leading into it. So what if sleep deprivation was a powerful enough tool for destroying a person's reasoning skills that it was literally defined as torture by the Geneva Convention? He knew that, and he'd still done it to himself. He should have gone straight home the moment he touched down on that rooftop. He should have gone home halfway through his patrol, after stopping the same kid from breaking his third window of the night. Hell, he should have checked a freaking weather report, seen that there was a cold front blowing through overnight, and stayed home.
It would have been one thing if it was just the lack of coordinating though. If it was just the impaired focus, or the fact that half his senses decided to stop working for the night. But he had fallen asleep. In the suit. On a public access rooftop. A cold lump of dread ran down his throat as he imagined all the ways last night could have gone South. For crying out loud, he'd been woken up by a man in red leather, armed to the nines, complete with a freaking pair of katanas—who just walked around wearing a pair of katanas? —and hadn't noticed until the guy was six inches away and Peter was looking directly at him. Who was he? Everything about him physically screamed threat , and Peter had been entirely vulnerable. He physically cringed as he recalled climbing into the back of a taxi to an unknown destination with him, hadn't he watched any episode of Criminal Minds ever? Aunt May had taught him better, right? It shouldn't have mattered that Peter's danger instincts hadn't triggered. It definitely shouldn't have mattered that his mystery man had brought him somewhere safe and in one piece. Or that despite every line of his body, from his coiled posture to the iron grip of his arm locked around Peter's shoulders, screaming that he was a living weapon, he'd somehow left Peter more at ease than he'd felt in months. Or that he'd made Peter want to laugh more than he could recall in years. No one wore a mask without having a damn good reason, and Peter had gone along and trusted him without thinking, without having a single clue as to what his reason was.
But if he was being honest with himself, his mystery man's unknown motivations were only a symptom of the real problem; He'd made himself the easiest target imaginable, and anyone could have found him; SHIELD, Hydra, The Hand, literally anyone with a cell phone camera and a thirst for fame. And for all he knew, the man in red hadn't been the first person to find him up there. Maybe someone had taken off his mask, how would he ever know? Well, other than a few million notifications and missed calls from a terrified Aunt May and old acquaintances who wanted to pretend they were best friends and the ever-growing list of people who wanted him dead and maybe his ex-boss claiming that he was going to sue him for fraud as the cherry on top. And Peter, being the incredibly smart guy that he was, had left his phone in his apartment before patrol. Both of them; his old dinged up Samsung that was still chugging along but just barely, and his far more durable burner he used for his night job.
Peter raised a hand to his cheek, seeking tactile reassurance; his mask was still in place, thankfully, and it didn't feel like it had been shifted around. Not if the thin sheen of sweat adhering it to his skin was anything to go by. But he wouldn't ever really know, would he? What he did know was that it was late enough in the day that traffic below was bustling with it's typical pent-up New Yorker rage. That three apartments down the hall, a radio crackled with static while it's owner slapped the box in an attempt to get the signal back. That above him and to the left, there was a small leak in the building's pipes. And that if his senses could be trusted, he and the stain on the ceiling were completely alone.
Slowly, Peter sat up, and realized the sweat sticking his spandex to his skin wasn't limited to his mask, courtesy of a Golden Girls sweatshirt he couldn't remember putting on. (And if his foggy mind could vaguely recall the feeling of strong hands sliding down his forearms, tugging the sleeves down and checking if his hands had warmed at all, well—it was just wishful thinking.) As he regained his bearings, he wasn't sure what he expected the rest of the room to be like; he wasn't even sure if it belonged to Red-Pool, or if he was trespassing, though the spiderman blanket at the top of the pile pooling around his waist probably answered that. But even without the blanket adorned with little cartoon versions of his mask that he would never see a single royalty for, he wondered if he would have been able to guess if this room belonged to Pool. The walls were in decent shape, except for a few bullet holes here and there, though he suspected that the posters tacked up by Hello Kitty thumb tacks were hiding the worst of the damage. It was an eclectic mix of posters too, ranging from a beat up, extremely creased Call of Duty poster that looked like a freebie that came in the game's package, to an oversized (possibly original) Rent poster featuring the original cast, to what had to be pages torn out of magazines, ripped edge and all, with cartoon characters on them. Notably, there were no mirrors. What furniture there was existed in a variety of shapes, from the leather ottoman covered in duct tape, to what might have been a bookshelf, if it wasn't shoved in the corner half unfinished, to what was possibly at one point a rolling TV cart straight out of the seventies, but had been set up besides the bed as a makeshift nightstand. He'd been trying to ignore it for a while. Or, more accurately, he'd been trying to ignore the note sitting on top of it, in between what looked like a bottle of aspirin and an unopened water bottle.
With a deep breath, Peter forced himself to unclench his jaw and lower his shoulders. Giving himself an aneurysm wasn't going to make whatever threats or blackmail the page contained go away.
The note was strangely small in his hand, written on lined paper and carefully folded, with a drawing of a spider on top in red pen. As he unfolded it, Peter was greeted by a crude, chibi drawing of himself and Red swinging over the city together. The next fold exposed another copy of chibi-spidey and chibi-pool sitting next to a pile of tacos, and the next a rendering of the duo riding on the back of a unicorn, complete with a crayon rainbow. In spite of himself, Peter couldn't help but chuckle. The lost fold revealed the actual note, in scrawling scratchy handwriting;
Webs!
Fun fact, did you know that spiders can't handle cold weather? Yeah, something about thermoregulation and slow glycerol buildups and a bunch of other science words that google understands way better than me. So I'm onto you, secretly half-spider man! But don't worry, your secret is safe with me~
By that, I mean all of them. Tempting as it was, I didn't look under your mask. Super-bro code and all that. I might have more issues than One Piece but I'd never out another mask like that. Yellow can bitch about it all he wants but Yellow's a ho and for once Whitey's backing me on this.
Anyways you were pretty fucked up last night, so. I stole the painkillers from the X-Thems a while back. If you metabolize like a normal person, you should probably skip them. If you're more of a Cap type, maybe take 3. You can thank me later. Or never. Whatever works for you.
-D.P. (~￣³￣)~
Peter blinked. He reread the letter, then checked it again. Then before he knew it, he was laughing. Genuinely laughing . What was he supposed to think? This was supposed to be the part of the story where his notorious Parker Luck struck him down, where his fears of some overwhelming threat were confirmed and his hands started shaking all over again. This was supposed to be when his mystery man came crashing through the door yelling “psych!” with a sword in one hand and like, a grenade launcher or something in the other. And maybe his Aunt tied to a chair or something for good measure. He wasn’t supposed to get reassurance and Wolverine-grade aspirin. He wasn’t supposed to be able to fuck up this badly and wake up the next morning and be… okay.
Once Peter felt like he could breathe again, he gingerly removed the sweatshirt from his suit. As he haphazardly folded it, leaving only Bea Arthur's face and about half the text for "stay golden'' visible , he wondered if he should keep it. The paranoid side of his mind argued that it was the smart choice, that maybe even through his suit he'd left skin cells or hair somewhere on it, something that could be used to identify him, but really Peter knew he was looking for excuses. He didn't want to give up the soft grey fleece yet, not when it felt like safety. Before he could think about it again, he set it on top of the deconstructed shelves.
The window was unlocked, and the unit was in the back of the building, facing the alley. Not unexpected for another mask, and definitely more convenient for him. After checking that his mask and gloves were in place one more time, and one last look at the apartment, he slid the window up and climbed out. As he pushed the glass back into place and swung away, Peter couldn’t help but feel that there were only two possible outcomes to this; either everything in the last twelve hours had been a violent misunderstanding, and just like so many people before, he and Pool would meet again and Pool would try to kill him within the week, or he had just genuinely met an ally. A possible friend. Which meant he would find a way to ruin his life too.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
--🕷--