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Peter’s heart lurches and starts to race.
A phone call at 2 am can’t be anything good.
In his panic to answer the phone, he doesn’t think about trying to not wake up El. As he practically falls out of bed in an attempt to reach his phone, the movement wakes up El.
He looks down at his phone and sees the name of the calller.
Neal.
As if it wasn’t bad enough already.
His already panicked state increases, and he has to try a few times before he successfully presses the button to answer.
"P-Peter, Peter help!" Neal's voice is shaky, filled with fear, and it sounds as if he is out of breath, maybe like he’s running for his life.
"Neal? What’s wrong!?" Peter asks, his own heart racing as he frantically climbs out of bed and pulls a pair of sweatpants over his boxers. He picks up the nearest shirt, but doesn’t put it on, unsure how to do so while holding the phone to his ear.
Elizabeth follows him out of their bed, and wraps a robe around her pyjamas.
"Please, Peter!" Neal begs. “It’s gonna get me. I don't wanna die! I’m too young and handsome to die! I never even finished high school!”
Peter runs downstairs with El on his heels, clearly having heard the screams over the phone.
"Neal, What's happening? Talk to me." Peter pleads.
The sound of a blood-curdling scream is heard through the phone's speakers before the call cuts out.
As horrifying as the scream was, the deafening silence that follows is even worse
Peter practically flies down the remaining steps and grabs his car keys from the hallway table using an acrobat move that would look much more natural if Neal had done it.
He climbs into the driver’s seat of the car, and El slides into the passenger seat beside him.
"Hon, you can't come with me. This could be dangerous." Peter tells her as he impatiently taps on the steering wheel, torn between going to the rescue of his friend and making sure his wife stays safe.
“I'm coming with you.” El crosses her arms across her chest. “I can’t just stay here and let you and Neal deal with this on your own. He’s my nephew. If anything has happened to him, I need to know.”
Elizabeth is stubborn.
It is one of the many things that Peter loves about her.
And he knows her well enough to know that once she makes up her mind, nothing can change it. It would be easier to spend a year in New York City and not experience any alien attacks than it would be to change her mind.
"Fine.” He doesn’t want to waste precious time arguing. “But you need to wait in the car while I check things out."
Elizabeth agreed with that.
Peter doesn’t bother staying under the speed limit, he drives as fast as he possibly can safely, and thankfully doesn’t get pulled over.
After what feels like a long time but was actually closer to five minutes, Peter and El finally pull up to the house.
El reluctantly stays in the car. As much as she would like to be at the centre of the action, she is not a trained FBI agent like her husband, and doesn’t want to put Peter or Neal in more danger by inserting herself into a situation in which she can’t help.
Still, she can’t help herself. She gets out of the car and slowly, carefully makes her way towards the house.
Gun in hand, Peter takes the steps one at a time. He goes as fast as he can while making as little noise as he can.
When he tries to open the door to Neal’s apartment, he finds it unlocked. A quick examination reveals that the lock isn’t damaged.
Hiding against the wall, with his gun at the ready, he slowly pushes the door open.
It makes an ominous creaking sound as he does.
He makes a mental note to tell Neal to tell June so that it can be fixed. That sound belongs in horror movies, not apartment doors.
Gun raised, he scans the room for danger.
The room is completely empty.
No one is in it.
Not even Neal.
Peter carefully walks in, each step making more noise than it should as he looks around the area again.
It’s pretty easy to see everywhere but the bathroom and closet due to the open design.
He still doesn’t see anyone, but he does see something.
On the floor in the living room area is a broken lamp.
Neal keeps this place clean and tidy, the only reason Peter can think of for a broken lamp is that there must have been a struggle.
He steps closer to investigate, and what he sees makes his heart pause in his chest and his blood run cold.
Near the bed is a pool of red.
He can’t be sure it’s blood, with the lamp broken it’s a bit dark, but in the moment he can’t think of anything else it may be.
His detective brain follows the clues.
Whatever happened probably started in the bedroom.
If what was on the floor was blood… Peter shakes his head, not letting the thought finish.
So Neal probably got attacked in the bedroom, and made his way into the living room, presumably while trying to fight off his attacker, where one of them knocked over the lamp.
He quickly inspects the rest of the apartment, but it appears the trail has gone cold, he can’t see any more evidence. No more broken items, no open doors, no… no blood trail.
Peter walks out of the living room, making sure to walk around the glass.
He walks into the dining table, and doesn’t see any more clues.
"Neal?" Peter calls out, hoping against hope that Neal is still there, that he isn’t on his way to a secondary location with a serial killer or an old enemy.
There is no reply.
Peter feels his breathing quicken as he considers the possibility he may never see his spidery friend again.
Suddenly he feels a weight on his shoulders. A weight too light to be a normal human, but too heavy, and too warm to be a ceiling fan.
At first Peter panics, what if this is whatever or whoever hurt Neal?
But then he relaxes, he knows this weight.
There is only one conman in the world who is this light. Unless there is another he doesn’t know about?
Peter looks up to see Neal's frightened face looking down at him.
"Neal! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Peter exclaims.
He grabs Neal's legs to make sure he doesn’t fall off his shoulders.
"I'm so glad you came to save me!" Neal exclaims. “I would have been toast without you! And not the good kind!”
"What do you need me to save you from?" Peter asks, looking around the apartment again for any sign of danger.
He can’t see any danger. Maybe it’s an invisible enemy? Nah, it can’t be, right? Right?
Of course it could be, in a world where Batman visits Agent Jones a suspicious amount of times, anything is possible.
"It's in the bedroom." Neal whispers, shaking in fear.
Peter starts to walk in there with Neal still on his shoulders. But Neal vehemently disagrees with that. He leaps off of Peter's shoulders, back to his spot on the ceiling.
"That's where you were hiding?" Peter asks incredulously. He should have known, ever since Neal exposed his secret spider like abilities, Peter rarely sees him on the ground, he much prefers the walls and ceilings.
"Yes. This is my only territory right now." Neal growls, with a glare towards the bedroom.
Peter sighs, sometimes he wonders if Neal is more spider then he admits.
He returns to the bedroom and looks around again.
With the film of adrenaline starting to fall from his eyes, he now sees things for what they are.
The red liquid on the floor isn’t blood like he first suspected. Upon closer inspection it appears to be some kind of soup.
Peter looks up at the ceiling. A habit that he needs to start ingraining in himself now that Neal is his friend.
He sucks in a breath as a giant spider catches his eye.
Nope.
Peter isn’t going to deal with this.
This is not anywhere in the contract he signed when making Neal his CI.
He goes back into the dining room where Neal is still on the ceiling.
"You want me to kill that?" Peter asks, pointing in the general direction of the bedroom.
"No!! That could be my great aunt! Just catch it and release it. Like what you are doing with me. You caught me and soon you will release me." Peter can see that Neal is anxious. He always rambles when he is.
"I'm not catching that!" Peter exclaims. “I ain’t going anywhere near that thing!”
When El doesn’t hear any gunshots or yelling, she carefully and silently makes her way up the staircase.
She sighs in relief when she hears both Peter’s and Neal’s voices. They sound afraid, but unharmed.
Confused about their conversation, and willing to wait any longer, she opens the door. She can’t help but laugh at the sight that greets her.
Neal is hanging upside down on the ceiling, and Peter is standing on the table, holding a magazine as a weapon, with his gun holstered.
If they were any younger, she’d suspect them of playing that ‘the floor is lava’ game. Although, Neal may still be in that age range.
"What's going on here?" She asks.
Both of the men looked at her guiltily.
"Peter was meant to save me but he didn't." Neal says with a pout.
"You didn't say it was a spider." Peter replies in an exahberated tone.
"All this for a spider?" El asks.
"Hey. Last time I got bit by a spider it almost killed me, and now I’m not even completely human anymore." Neal knows he has a good reason to be scared of them.
"Okay, okay. I'll deal with the problem." El shakes her head with a smile.
"Don't kill it!" Neal quickly added.
Elizabeth picks up a cup and a piece of paper.
She stands on the bed, puts the cup under the spider, and the paper between it and the ceiling, successfully trapping the spider.
She steps out onto the balcony and releases it.
"There we go. You boys are safe now." El tells them with a teasing smile.
Neal jumps off the ceiling.
"Thank you so much El. I don't know how I’ll ever repay you. But I’ll think about that tomorrow, right now I'm gonna go sleep in one of June's spare rooms." He says.
"Why can't you sleep here?" Peter asks as he gets down from the table.
Neal looks at him like he iqs crazy. "The spider could come back. I need Moz to do a full apartment inspection for me, but he won't be back until tomorrow."
Peter and El share a look.
"You can stay in our spare room." El tells him. “No need to bother June at this time of night.”
"I can’t impose on you like that." Neal shakes his head.
"Neal. Please, do it for my peace of mind. You really scared me with that phone call.” Peter admits. It’s difficult to talk about anything resembling feelings, but it would be more difficult to not know Neal is safe, so Peter does what he has too.
Neal smiles sheepishly. He may have been a tad dramatic.
"Fine. But I should probably clean up this mess first, I don't want to leave it like this for June to see in the morning." Neal tells them.
Peter and El help him clean up what turned out to be tomato soup, and the broken lamp, then the three of them start to leave.
Just as they are about to walk out the front door, Neal runs back upstairs.
He comes back down a couple minutes later wrapped in a red and gold blanket and holding 3 spider plushies. One is black, one is pink, and the last one is purple.
"Really? After what we've been through, are you going to sleep with spiders?" Peter asks.
Neal glares at him. "These are not just spiders. They are my babies."
Once in the car, Neal curls up in the back seat with his plushies and blanket.
They only drive for a few minutes when Peter notices that Neal is being oddly quiet.
Too quiet.
Conmen are like toddlers, when they are too quiet you should probably be concerned.
"Is he okay?" Peter asks his incredibly knowledgeable wife.
Elizabeth turns around and smiles at the sight of Neal fast asleep, cuddling his plushies.
He looks so young like this.
They arrive at the house and El decides she wants to be the one to carry Neal inside.
Surprisingly Peter doesn’t argue.
She is happy he didn't. She never got to carry Neal when he was going by Peter Parker. When he was just a sweet, small child. But now she can attempt to make up for that.
As she lifts him into her arms, she makes a promise to always be there for him, no matter what. She’s not going to lose her nephew again.
As she lifts him up, she is shocked by his weight. Peter was right. Neal is unnaturally light.
"Is he eating enough?" Elizabeth asks.
"Yeah. He is eating all the snacks I give him and always eats lunch." Peter informs her.
Elizabeth frowns. Peter is keeping a good eye on him, but now she will do so as well. Neal needs all the love and support he can get.
She takes Neal upstairs and places him on the bed. She tucks him in, making sure that he is all comfortable. Then El places a soft kiss on his forehead and Peter ruffles his hair.
El and Peter stand for a moment at the bedroom door, smiling at each other. They are so happy to have such a wonderful spider in their lives. With one last look, they leave a peacefully sleeping Neal.
THE END