Work Text:
Patricia put her hands together, gloves torn and tattered but good ones all the same. They were the leather kind, an upgrade from the cotton knit that she’d had last year before they got stolen out from under her.
She could still remember that first winter after the Blip, when the rest of the universe came back and the entire world shifted again.
Patricia hadn’t had any family that Blipped– you needed family for that to happen– but it still changed things, more people roaming the streets in those hellish first few weeks and a sense of community that Patricia kinda missed.
She’d never had a lot but when half the world was gone, no one had enough. Not enough to be stingy about sharing, not enough to think only about themselves or constantly wondering
Get a hold of yourself , she thinks to herself– a phantom feeling of penance in the back of her mind from the nuns who used to teach her when she was young. Maybe that’s why she was here now, huddled over a trash can fire and actively trying to warm her hands before the cops showed up and ran them out. Here she was, thinking life was better for her back when half the universe was gone.
It was a cruel thing to wish, crueler still to believe that the past five years had been objectively better for her. Patricia had still been just as without a home then as she was now, the overcrowding of the shelters and the influx of Blipped pushing the ones who had already been left behind even further in the back.
No use in crying about the past , she could hear in the back of her mind– an old adage that one of the nuns used to tell her as some form of comfort.
It hadn’t been particularly comforting then and it wasn’t especially comforting now, Patricia just rubbing her hands together and trying to rid herself of the guilt and the cold she can feel that seemed to sink right down to her toes.
“You doing alright?”
Patricia instinctively moves away from the warmth of the fire, any voice that seemed to directly give attention to her being a voice that she didn’t trust.
“Hey– hey wait.”
“No trouble,” she says with a handwave, grabbing at the coat that’s seen better days and holding on to it as she starts to walk away. Her heart skips a beat when someone lands right in front of her.
It’s Spider-Man , the bright blue of his suit so jarring against the dark and dingy alley that it makes her eyes hurt. He immediately puts his hands up, as if he was trying to calm her.
“Hey, hey, hey, I don’t want any trouble,” Spider-Man says softly. “I was actually wondering if you were in trouble.”
Patricia just gives him a look, eyeing the mask of the person in front of her– hearing him laugh under his breath.
“Yeah, okay. Stupid question,” he says, mostly to himself as Patricia takes him in.
It is a new suit, or so she thinks– one of the few things that she enjoyed in this life being in keeping up with the Avengers and their gossip.
Back when she used to have a place to rest her head that wasn’t constantly damp, back before the Blip and her life came crumbling to pieces, she used to spend her money on the gossip rags that she’d find at the local bodega. Iron Man having a secret love child with Captain America, aliens coming to earth and impersonating Black Widow, any conspiracy theory or piece of gossip you could find– Patricia ate it all up.
It gave her then boring life something interesting to look into, to chew through the gossip of what the Avengers were supposedly doing that had nothing of consequence to it. Patricia would overhear her then coworkers talking about the Sokovia Accords and the damages that the city was still reeling from after the Battle of New York but that wasn’t the stuff that Patricia cared about.
That wasn’t the stuff that made life fun .
Patricia could still remember the day when she first learned of Spider-Man, his first big “break” in her mind being the disastrous split of the Hudson ferry a few years before the Blip.
That had been just one bright moment in her life before she lost her house, the gossip and the television coverage of Iron Man coming to save such a thing being the last thing she was able to see on her own television before it was repossessed.
It’s odd, to have a former Avenger or whatever he was nowadays standing in front of her– much less in a suit that she didn’t recognize.
He seems to notice that she’s staring, motioning down towards himself as he says, “You like it? It’s new. Still a little uh, fresh if you know what I mean.”
“Fresh?” Patricia asks despite herself, feeling an old flare of curiosity that she absolutely shouldn’t.
She had more things to worry about now than she ever did back then, more pressing matters to worry about than Bob in Accounting would judge her for reading a US Weekly on her lunch break.
She finds herself still completely absorbed as Spider-Man laughs and says, “fresh’s a weird word, yeah. I just made it.”
“You make your own suits?” Patricia asks, Spider-Man seemingly tensing at that.
“I… do,” he says, sounding unsure in a way that doesn’t make sense to her. “Um. Yeah, I do. It’s– you like it?”
Patricia looks at him up and down, holding back a laugh as Spider-Man does a little pose for her– extending out his leg and then popping his hip to the side.
“It’s flashy,” she finally settles in, Spider-Man laughing again as he rights himself.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” He jokes with her, the thought occurring to Patricia that this is the first conversation she’d had with someone that didn’t involve kicking her out of a place in a long while.
It’s nice, she thinks as she shrugs. “Depends. You want to be seen, Spider-Man?”
“Not so much,” he says in a tone that sounds unmistakably sad, something off-putting about it as he shakes his head. “Anyway, you never answered my question?”
“About your suit?”
“About you ,” he says meaningfully, Patricia self-consciously bringing the edges of her coat closer together. “You doing okay?”
Patricia just stares at him again, Spider-Man continuing.
“I just mean– there’s a FEAST shelter, not too far from here,” he says gently, as if she was someone who would spook easily. It would be unnerving if she hadn’t reacted the way she did at first.
Patricia may not have a place to call her own anymore and hadn’t for awhile. Didn’t mean she forgot what it was like to be around everyone else .
“They got a few beds there. Warm. Dry,” Spider-Man says, motioning to the snow lightly falling to the sky. “Closed roof.”
“Usually a wait list for those things,” she says, thinking of her previously unsuccessful attempts to try and get into some of the shelters around the city.
“Not at FEAST,” Spider-Man says adamantly, Patricia watching as he extends his hand out to her.
“You gonna swing me over there?” She asks incredulously, an unmistakable thrill in her voice at the possibility as Spider-Man just laughs.
“I was just gonna walk with you there, but I can, if you want,” he says kindly, something about his tone telling her that if she really wanted to– he would .
Patricia considers it for a moment before shaking her head, taking his arm instead as Spider-Man gently brings her arm around.
He’s not much taller than her and far too skinny but there’s something solid about his presence– warm, not unlike the fire he was leading her away from.
“Maybe not tonight,” she says as Spider-Man takes her hand into his– their arms looped together as he leads her into the direction of what she can only imagine is FEAST’s closest location.
“Next time,” he says meaningfully, a little flip in her stomach at the idea that Spider-Man would want to check in on her again.
Patricia knows that he’s just doing what he does– taking care of the city in a way that made him different from the rest of the Avengers.
She didn’t expect that she would be included that– tonight, or ever.
Patricia lets herself get carried away in the moment and with his strong grip as they walk in tandem with each other.
It wasn’t often that Patricia got the feeling that someone was looking out for her.
It was a nice change, for once.
Fatima frowned, looking down at the drain below.
It was the first day of warm weather in months , the first day that she had a chance to bring Kia out with her to play. Mateo had complained over and over and over again that she was keeping Kia all to herself.
“You have to bring Kia out!” Mateo had complained loudly over the video call, Fatima frowning as she held Kia in her arms.
She was special, bought by baba for her .
Fatima didn’t like to share.
Mateo didn’t even come out to play today, Fatima squatting in front of the drain down below.
She should’ve never brought Kia out, no matter what Mateo said. Because now Fatima is here and Kia is down there , pressing her lips together and forcing herself not to cry.
She’s not a baby after all.
Fatima sees a shadow up above her, looking up then squinting because of the sun– only for her vision to be blocked by a flash of red and blue.
“Hey,” Spider-Man says as he lands beside her, mirroring her position into a squat. “What we doing over here?”
“Kia’s down there,” Fatima says simply, pointing down to the street drain before bringing her hands back to her knees.
Spider-Man’s head shifts from her, to the drain, then back to her before he asks, “Kia?”
“She’s part of a rare find in a blind box series,” Fatima says as if that explains it, watching as Spider-Man tilts his head to the left. “It’s very important than you find her.”
“Kia is…”
“Very important,” Fatima repeats, her frowned deepening as she peers into the drain.
Spider-Man mirrors her movement once more, hearing him make an oh sound when he sees her just as she does.
“Okay,” Spider-Man says, Fatima looking up at him. “I can do that.”
“You can?” Fatima asks, eyes shifting down to how terribly far Kia is compared to where they are before looking back up at Spider-Man. “It’s dirty down there.”
“Nothing a little soap can get out,” Spider-Man says as he hops up, bracing himself to lift the grate up.
Fatima wrinkles her nose up from the smell that wafts up to greet them, hearing Spider-Man make a sound in the back of his throat before saying, “Maybe some bleach too.”
Fatima presses her hands across her mouth and nose to avoid the smell as Spider-Man crouches down, body half down into the grate as he looks up at her.
“I’ll get Kia and be right out, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
Fatima shakes her head as Spider-Man nods once, saying something to himself under his breath before he disappears– Fatima looking up and seeing her baba coming up to her.
“What are you doing?” He asks, Fatima covering her mouth and nose still with one hand and pointing down to the drain.
“Spider-Man went to go get Kia,” she says, her voice muffled and wrinkling up her nose from the smell– seeing the look of confusion on her baba’s face.
“Spider-Man? What–”
He’s cut off when Spider-Man seems to crawl his way back up the grate, Fatima making a disgusted noise in the back of her throat as she backs away– the smell reminding her of the time Mateo’s tia burned something in her kitchen.
“Euch, that was– you keep this little guy safe, alright?” Spider-Man says as he lifts himself up, Kia in hand.
Kia looks… gross, Fatima eyeing her up and down before looking at her baba.
“I have some gloves, Spider-Man,” her baba says, Spider-Man awkwardly standing and holding Kia in both of his hands.
“Thank you,” Fatima says to Spider-Man, watching as he turns back to her. “For getting Kia.”
“You’re welcome,” Spider-Man says before he coughs, making another sound in the back of her throat. “I’d give Kia a wash too.”
“She’s a special edition,” Fatima says, hearing Spider-Man laugh as her baba comes up, gloves adorning his hands.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he says as he delicately hands Kia off to her baba, Fatima watching with rapt attention.
“Thank you, Spider-Man,” her baba says, making a face– probably from the smell.
“Anytime,” Spider-Man says easily before catching himself. “Actually, probably not any time. I’d rather not have to go swimming in the sewers.”
A beat.
“Again.”
Her baba doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that just as Fatima doesn’t, Spider-Man shaking his head before sending a hand up.
“See you later,” he says before swinging off, Fatima watching him as he does.
“Let’s clean Kia up, okay? She had an adventure today,” her baba says, still holding Kia out in front of her.
“Okay baba,” Fatima says as she follows him back to their apartment building, eyes looking back up to where Spider-Man had swung off to.
“I don’t know…”
“Come on, man,” Spider-Man says, extending out the box of pizza to him. “It’s kosher and everything.”
Justin raises an eyebrow, eyeing the box and then back to Spider-Man as he smirks.
“Spider-Man’s Jewish?”
“It’s shabbos and I’m out here hanging with you, what do you think?” Spider-Man counters, Justin frowning since that didn’t really answer his question. “Anyway, you’ve been coming around this synagogue for the past few weeks. Figured you were.”
Justin stares at him, eyeing him up and down.
He’s right , for one but that doesn’t make him feel any better– wondering if Spider-Man moonlighted as a stalker as Spider-Man waves the pizza box in his hand.
“Come on, man. I know you’re hungry.”
“How do you know that?” Justin asks as he carefully takes the pizza box that’s extended out to him, Spider-Man taking a seat next to him on the park bench that Justin’s been sitting at for longer than he’d like to admit today.
“I’m very observant,” he says in an odd tone, Justin looking at him out of the corner of his eye before opening up the pizza. His stomach grumbles of its own accord, the smell alone pushing him forward as he grabs a slice.
He is hungry, trusting Spider-Man at his word as he takes a bite– closing his eyes in relief at how delicious it is. It’s the warmest meal he’s had in awhile, though that had more to do with his own refusal to take the next few steps needed to walk into the synagogue than for any other life problems.
It’s not his fault that his own relationship with religion– and thus his father– had taken a turn in the past month, summoning the courage to show up and make peace only to take the coward’s way out and sit on this park bench instead.
He thought he was far enough away that no one of his family or his friends would be able to recognize him.
Justin hadn’t counted on Spider-Man being one of the few people to notice.
“This is… wow,” Justin says as he chews his food, shaking his head and looking over to Spider-Man. “You got a whole pie for me?”
“It’s just a small,” Spider-Man says with a snort, nodding in the opposite direction. “Sal owes me a few favors.”
“You want one?” Justin asks, hearing his mother’s voice in the back of his mind as he motions to the box.
“You need it more than I do,” Spider-Man says, something itching at the back of his mind that that also wasn’t an answer.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t share,” Justin says meaningfully, the white eyes of Spider-Man’s mask studying him for a moment before he takes the bait.
“Yeah, alright. If you’ll just,” Spider-Man says, motioning to the pizza and to his gloved hands. Justin laughs, separating out a piece and handing it over– Spider-Man taking it and then lifting up the bottom half of his mask to take a beat.
“Aw man,” he says, mouth garbled full of pizza as Justin takes another bite. “ This is the good stuff.”
Justin just chews his food, the two of them falling into a companionable silence as they eat.
The gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach grows a little weaker, now that he has food in it– his mind more freed up with the possibility that he should get up and do something.
He’s been away from his family for too long– been away and kept himself away despite the lies that he’s told himself.
He should do it, he thinks as he glances over to Spider-Man– seeing how utterly blissed out he is in the slice of pizza in his hands.
Justin laughs.
Maybe have another slice first.
Michael stands outside the QCC building, shifting his weight back and forth.
This was fucking embarrassing, the worst thing he could possibly think to do for the second time. He’s failed his GED– twice now. The third and final time that he’ll be allowed to take it before he’ll have to wait another year to try again.
Michael thinks he’d rather continue getting paid under the table at Angelo’s than have to deal with the embarrassment of another failure, much less having to wait another year to try again.
He’s almost convinced himself to step away when the thought of Anita and their baby girl in their shitty sublet apartment reminds him that he needs this. He needs a job, a good job– thinking of the job his uncle mentioned about being a janitor at P.S. 147. They had a couple positions open since a few of their guys retired and Michael knows it would be just the thing to help get out from under the sublet.
They’d still have to move to his ma’s place but at least then it would be temporary, just until they had more to go on than the couple hundred they have stashed under their mattress.
All that stands between him and that job was a GED, kicking his younger self for dicking around when he was in school before he finally dropped out.
“You’re a good kid, Mike but you need to take this seriously,” his guidance counselor had said at the time, Michael less concerned with taking anything seriously and more about getting out of there when half the universe fucking disappeared.
He’s regretting that decision now, the bustle of the people around him a constant reminder that his short-lived sense of invincibility after half the universe turned to dust disappeared around the same time all those people came back.
Some of the kids he’d been in class with had graduated college by now, a part of him secretly wishing that he’d been one of those who’d just fucking disappeared. Half his family would be five years older but at least he wouldn’t have made the stupid fucking decision to quit school– for no other reason than half the universe was gone and none of it seemed important.
It was important to him now , important that he got his shit together and more important that he tried– thinking of Ms. Bev and how she’s tried and tried to help him.
“You okay, man?”
Michael startles, looking to his left and seeing someone he vaguely recognizes– the guy nodding to him before saying, “Michael, right?”
“Yeah,” Michael responds, the glimmer of recognition coming back to him. “Peter Parker.”
Peter smirks. “That’s me.”
“Alliteration,” Michael says, one of the few things he remembered from his Mrs. Ingall’s English class coming back to mind.
“Hard to forget,” Peter says with an indecipherable expression on his face, Michael looking at him curiously as Peter continues, “building closed or…?”
“No,” Michael replies, feeling that same flood of embarrassment before. “No, I just– I need to…”
He trails off, realizing how and why he knows Peter– looking back at him. “You’re back here?”
Peter grimaces, adjusting the hold on his backpack. “Yeah, I uh. Didn’t pass the first time.”
“Oh,” Michael says, feeling somewhat better that he wasn’t the only one as Peter continues.
“I didn’t show up. Twice ,” he says, voice filled with regret. He winces as he says, “Last time I can take it before next year.”
“Me too,” Michael offers immediately, wondering why he would when he doesn’t know the guy next to him. There’s something disarming about Peter though, Peter cracking a smile before he laughs.
“Ms. Bev’s gonna give us an earful,” he says, as if they were both in on some joke– Michael inexplicably feeling a little better about the situation.
“Yeah, she will.”
“She’ll help us out though. She’s good with that,” Peter says, looking at the double doors. “You ready?”
He’s not, but he feels a little better about the prospect of facing Ms. Bev again with someone else who’d failed the test.
He follows in after Peter to the QCC building and into class, noticing his backpack is half-zipped and a flash of red inside of it that Peter quickly zips up.
It’s not until he’s on his way home from that class that he wonders why Peter showed up to the class at all, if he only failed because he didn’t show up to take the exam.
Michael wonders but then lets it go.
He’s got a test to study for.
Hannah wiped some sweat away from her forehead with the back of her hand, blowing out air as she heaves the bags of trash in her hand into the trash can.
This was the worst part of her job, aside from dealing with Jerry overall. He constantly complained about the customers, about her work ethic, about how she wasn’t any better than the girls who used to work for him during the school year.
“When they come back, you’ll be out, you hear me?” He would rant and rave, Jimmy the cook always rolling his eyes when he was out of earshot.
“One of those girls went to college,” Jimmy would say, Hannah offering a smile as Jimmy continued. “And the other just stopped showing up one day.”
“I don’t blame her,” Hannah had said at the time, Jimmy laughing at that as she took out the newest batch of donuts from the back and put them out for display.
It wasn’t the worst summer job she could have, not when the air conditioner at her foster home didn’t work. The last placement hadn’t even allowed her to work, all the hard earned cash that she’d saved up magically disappearing the night before she was moved.
It grated on Hannah but there was no use fighting it– it was only the persistence of her social worker that kept her from running away to begin with, Marlena getting her case at the start of the Blip and being just as determined to keep her until she aged out.
“You’ve been given a bad hand,” Marlena would say anytime Hannah would remind her that she’s been in the system since she was three years old– that the universe disappearing and coming back again didn’t mean shit to her when she’d always been unwanted. “But you got a good future.”
It was Marlena who was constantly pleading with her to stay in the system until she was twenty-one, something that on the bad days Hannah genuinely considered.
If she got to stick around with Marlena as her case worker, it might not be so bad– the brochures and the talks that Marlena gave about the transition places available to her not sounding nearly as terrible as some of the homes she’d lived at through the years.
But there was always the chance that Marlena would be reassigned once she turned eighteen, Hannah refusing to trust the system that had fucked her over for far longer than it had ever benefited her.
This job at Peter Pan’s might not have been the best place, but it was leagues above anything else that she’d ever been able to work for– comfortable and in a nice enough part of town that the tip jar was actually full.
And, since Hannah was the only one willing to work for as many hours as possible, she got to keep most of it.
Trash duty might have been a shit part of it but all things considered, Hannah took what she could get.
She’s wiping her hands together when she can hear someone coming up behind her, instincts rushing forward as he says, “give me your money.”
“Got nothing,” Hannah says as she whips around, reaching for the knife that she has hidden on her underneath the awful mint uniform.
She doesn’t get the chance to use it when the guy in front of her is suddenly whipped up into the air, a scream coming out of him that’s cut short when she sees him webbed up to the other side of the alley.
“Are you okay?” A voice asks, Hannah still in a protective stance when she sees that the voice is none other than Spider-Man.
The webs make sense , she thinks to herself, breathing heavy as she glances from him to the guy who just tired to stick her up.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says warily, glad that Spider-Man had intervened but not particularly trusting of him anyway. Hannah never really gave a shit about the Avengers or whoever else, not when she had enough problems of her own.
Not when any of them could ever solve those problems for her.
“Is he dead?” She asks, seeing the guy– and his mouth– webbed up, Spider-Man immediately shaking his head.
“No! No, I don’t– no,” he says immediately, Hannah still backing up towards the door. “Knocked out, maybe but his heartbeat’s still going.”
Heartbeat? Hannah wonders, thinking she’ll have to look up just what the hell Spider-Man could do– even if she was completely disinterested in finding that out now .
The last thing she needs before she ages out is to get involved with the cops or any kind of trouble, nothing that’ll keep her from getting the freedom that she desperately craves.
“Are you okay, though? You’re not hurt?” Spider-Man asks, Hannah eyeing him up and down.
“I’m okay,” she says, seeing the tense way he’s carrying himself. “Are you okay?”
Spider-Man seems to short-circuit then before his shoulders relax, laughing before he stands up straighter.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m– I’m okay.”
It feels awkward for a beat, Hannah looking from him to the guy who robbed her then back to Spider-Man once more.
“I gotta…” she trails off, motioning to the backdoor of Peter Pan’s. Spider-Man looks up at that and then seems to freeze once more, Hannah thinking he’s almost glitching as he looks to where he is.
“This is… you work at Peter Pan’s?”
“Yes,” Hannah says warily once more, Spider-Man shaking his head a few times as he puts his hands up.
“Sorry, just– be careful, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, something odd in his voice– like she’s missed something in the conversation as he looks at where they are once more. “Thanks.”
Spider-Man lets out a sharp laugh, scratching the back of his neck before saying, “Yeah, uh. Don’t mention it.”
He mutters something else under his breath but Hannah doesn’t care to find out what it is, taking that as her opportunity to walk back into the safety of the backroom of Peter Pan’s.
“You doing okay, kid?” Jimmy asks as soon as the door closes behind her. “You were out there for awhile.”
“Yeah,” Hannah says, shaking off the weird interaction. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Jimmy looks like he doesn’t believe her but Hannah doesn’t care to correct him– going to wash her hands and rid herself of what just happened.
She wouldn’t have ever expected to be one of those people that got a run-in with Spider-Man , but it’s not like she was anyone special.
Hannah shrugs it off, already deciding to disregard this as just another weird thing in her life.
It was weird, but Hannah’s lived through worse.
Getting a hand from Spider-Man would make for a great story someday.