Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
Kate’s in the middle of making trick arrows when Peter comes swinging into her room through her window, exclaiming her name. Her training kicking in, Kate grabs the recent trick arrow she’s assembled, and crouched into a fighting position, scanning the window behind him for any potential threats. “What?” she asks. “What is it?”
Peter, still in his costume, pauses before he raises his hands. “Oh, no no no, there’s no—I’m fine, this isn’t, like, a mission or anything.” Kate’s grip on her trick arrow loosens, but she hesitates. Peter pulls out his mask, revealing his injury-free face. “Kate, I’m fine. Seriously.”
After another moment of hesitation, Kate lowers her guard.
Then grabs a small screwdriver and throws it at him.
He catches it with his spidey reflexes, and gapes at Kate. “What was that for?”
“Giving me a heart attack,” she says, but she’s not angry at him, not really. “So, what is it, Spiderboy?”
“It’s Spider-man,” he murmurs with a boyish voice and a boyish scowl. Then, he blinks, and looks back up at Kate. “And, it’s, well…” He scratches his neck. “I sort of maybe probably asked MJ out.”
Kate’s brain short-circuits. “What?”
“Well, it’s more like she pressured me into asking her out, but, uh—”
“What?”
He blinks. “Didn’t you hear me? I said—”
Kate bursts into a girlish squeal and envelopes him in a hug. He squirms and tells her to quit it, but that makes her hug him tighter. “Finally!” she says, releasing him and patting his shoulders. “Oh my god! I have been waiting for for ever !”
And she has.
Peter was one of the people who disappeared in The Snap. Him along with MJ and Ned. Her heart broke when it happened. Peter was one of the truest, closest friends she has, and for five years, she, like everyone else, believed him to be dead, and tried to move on.
But then one day, half of the people of the world that had disappeared returned, him included. And she found him still in high school, still with that stupid dorky face and those puppy eyes.
It would be better to say that they’re now as close as before. But that wouldn’t be telling the truth. Because despite it all, Kate’s lived five years without him. She’s an adult now—as hard as that is to believe—and he’s still, well, a kid.
Plus, he missed out on a lot. Love-problems, school-problems, live-problems. There are aspects of her he hasn’t come to know or understand yet.
And as Peter’s face turns more solemn, more sad, she thinks he might be thinking of the same thing too. “Heh, yeah,” he says, a beat too late. “Same here.”
His smile is bashful, his blush prominent.
Kate squeezes his shoulders.
He may have missed out on a lot, but now that he’s here, that won’t happen anymore. Not on her watch.
Letting go of him, she claps her hands and rubs them together, like a scheming villain. “So! Where are you gonna go? What are you planning on wearing!” She gasps. “Are you gonna buy her flowers? Or chocolate? Oh, oh! Do both! Unless she’s allergic to chocolate. Wait, can people be allergic to chocolates, or is that just a dog thing?”
Peter blinks at her. “Uh… the amusement park, a shirt, probably, probably not, and…” He frowns. “Yes, I think?” Kate beams, and begins to ask him about his wardrobe and the clothes he has (or rather, the lack of clothes he doesn’t have) when Peter stops him. “Wait, wait, Kate, that’s not why I came here.”
“Oh?” She blinks.
Peter cringes. “I mean, yeah, I wanted to tell you, obviously, but it’s also…” He takes in a deep breath, and forms his mouth into an o as he lets it out. “I sort of told her someone was coming along too.”
Kate frowns. “That doesn’t sound like much of a date. Who’s coming with?” Is it Ned? He’s awesome, but he’s always been too thick-headed to make a good wingman… Kate catches the look on Peter’s face. “Pete, did you… lie to her?” He cringes again. She smacks his arm. “What the hell, dude?!”
“I don’t know, I panicked!” He throws his arms wide. “I was scared she’d turn me down, so I told her it was just a casual, hanging-out-between-friends thing!”
“I thought you said you asked her out!”
“I did! But then I thought, ‘Wait, what if she doesn’t like me like that?’ and then I was running my mouth, and…” He gestures to her. “Now she thinks the three of us are hanging out together.”
Kate sighs.
She sighs again.
“Goddamnit, Parker…” She walks over to the couch and slumps into it. How can someone with such a high IQ be so dumb? “I mean, it’s fine, it’s cool, just hanging out is cool. It doesn’t have to be a date or anything…”
But when she looks at him, her heart turns tender. Because despite the five-year gap between them, she still knows him. Knows when he wants something but is afraid to say it. So she sighs for what feels like the hundredth time. “Alright, no worries, I can figure this out?”
“How?”
To be honest, she’s got no idea. But she’s not about to tell him that. So she crosses her arms, and brainstorms. Peter sits down next to her, tense, still not used to her apartment. Or maybe he’s nervous. “So,” she starts. “You told her it was a date, then backed out, and now she thinks it’s just the three of us, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I can just, I don’t know, disappear half-way through, and then you can spend some time with her.”
Peter frowns. “MJ’s, like, super observant. She’d probably notice.”
Would that be such a bad thing? she wants to ask him, but instead brainstorms even more.
Then, she gets an idea. A very stupid idea, but one that might actually work. “What if we get another person on board?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, we get someone else to hang out with us!” she explains, her eyes widening with the beginning of a smile. “That way, we can split up and it wouldn’t be weird!” Oh, she can see it now. Peter offering to go to the ferris wheel with them. Then Kate lying and saying that she can’t because she’s terrified of heights, but insisting that Peter and MJ go on their own, while she and this other person go on another ride. “Ned! I can be with Ned, and you guys can, you know…” She gestures towards him, not wanting to state what he would possibly be doing if left alone with a girl he likes.
Peter’s face falls. “Ned can’t go. He has work, remember?”
Ah, right. She’s forgotten about his part-time job as a Starbucks employee, or, as he’d like to call it, a coffee wizard. “Who are we gonna call then?” She thinks, tapping her foot against the floor. “Clint?” Peter makes a face. “Aunt May?” Peter shakes his head. “Uh… how about we check Craiglist?”
“I don’t know if you should trust the people there.”
He’s got a good point. Which leaves no one. Absolutely no one. Not a single person could help them pull off this ridiculous date-not-date. Nada.
Except…
“I think I know someone who can help,” she says.
Peter’s face brightens. “Who?”
An assassin. A former Widow. A super hot girl who she secretly has a crush on. “A friend,” she says instead.
In other words: Yelena Belova.