Chapter Text
Heavy clouds loom in the thick, tar-black sky as it weeps upon Peter’s umbrella. He trudges along the puddle-laden sidewalk, keeping his head down, gaze to his boots full of rainwater. Each step produces a soggy squelch, taunting. The streets and houses around him are silent, as if deserted.
The familiar silhouette of the estate begins to appear in the distance, surrounded by an iron fence and rose hedges.
Peter has seen it dozens of times before… yet this time, it feels unusually foreboding.
This is the last time he sees Miguel.
Some part of him mourns the prospect: throwing away the product of countless days spent together, in every sense of the word, despite their differences — despite Peter’s sworn duty as a hunter. To MJ.
He has been able to ignore it for a while.
He no longer can.
He continues forward, unease hunching his shoulders. The stone walkway of the estate finally presents itself, flanked by rows and rows of apple trees. A fruit crunches beneath Peter’s feet as he ascends it.
He closes his umbrella, shielded from the rain by the porch. He rings the doorbell.
A moment later, the hefty wood cracks open. Two amber eyes, tinted by lavender heart glasses, gaze up at him.
Lyla.
“Peter,” she says, opening the door fully. Her smile does not hide the dark circles under her eyes. “Here to see Miguel?”
Peter nods.
“Come in.”
The hall is dimly lit by a chandelier. Beyond it, shadows swallow the space — hundreds of unused rooms, somehow never growing dusty.
The first time Peter stepped foot in here, he’d been terrified, clutching his pistol and poorly-shaped beliefs. Now, he only feels safe, secure within these tall walls and with two of the people who know him best in the world.
It's suddenly hard to swallow, an acute wetness forming in his eyes.
If Lyla notices, she doesn't mention it. She leaves him to his own devices, disappearing into an unlit room.
Peter’s feet move of their own accord, and he finds himself in the library. Miguel is there, perched on the fireplace’s mantel, eyes glued to the window. It casts a gray light upon his irritatingly handsome face.
At first, he doesn’t notice Peter enter. Then his ears twitch at the sound of footprints, and he looks down.
The vampire jumps from his perch, landing in front of Peter.
“Pete,” he says, taking in the other’s disheveled appearance. “I didn’t think I would see you again so soon.”
“Me neither,” Peter says as that gaze takes him apart, leaving him feeling raw. “I need to talk to you.”
Wait.
We should start from the beginning.
Alright. His name is Peter B. Parker.
When he was fifteen, his uncle Ben was killed right in front of him by a vampire. Rough, he's aware. And for the last twenty-two years, he’s been one of New York City’s only vampire hunters.
You probably know the rest: he killed a few blood-sucking monsters, fell in love, got married, made some dicey money choices, killed more monsters — but maybe too much because his marriage got testy.
His bones aren’t what they used to be, and MJ has left him, seemingly for the last time.
Long story short, Peter’s been down on his luck.
He should’ve known it wasn’t about to get better.
It actually starts with a missing girl. Lyla Lee.
One gloomy day in April, her mother comes to their office, frantic and distraught. She screams that her daughter was gone when she came home last night, and that she believes Lyla was kidnapped.
Or rather, seized… by a vampire.
Jess hands the woman a tissue. She’s always been the compassionate one in this job, able to lug about the heavy work while shielding the victims’ families from the brunt of it.
“Calm down, Ms. Lee,” she murmurs, gentle. Her face is a picture of sympathy.
Meanwhile, Peter is quiet, leaning against the filing cabinets. He is exhausted, having stayed up late last night with too many beers and memories of a certain redhead.
She's been gone for a month.
He listens with furrowed brows, trying to concentrate. It’s been strangely busy at the office as of late. Their establishment handles all kinds of cases, but the thing that separates them from the rest is their vampire hunters. They are strong and capable, specially selected from thousands after years of grueling training. Peter joined when he was sixteen.
By seventeen, he had his hunter license.
People bustle in and out as they try to solve their cases, cross-referencing evidence and interviewing witnesses. Everyone seems to be running on empty.
“Ms. Lee, please tell us what makes you believe it was a vampire,” Peter interrupts. Jess winces at his bluntness, but they both know she had to get to it eventually. “I don’t mean to be insensitive — we want to help in anyway we can — but people go missing all the time. Doesn’t mean a vampire did it.”
Horrible, vile people exist in the world, Peter reasons. Not all of them are vampires.
Sometimes, he wishes vampires were all they had to deal with.
“I…” Ms. Lee blinks in surprise before answering. “I'm positive it was a vampire, sir. Ever since my husband left us, Lyla’s been obsessed with the undead. She spends days researching them in her room, not eating or talking to me… it must have something to do with this! I found this in her room.”
She reaches into her purse and pulls out a bloody handkerchief, smoothing it out on the table.
Navy blue with maroon embroidered edges. The blood hasn’t completely stained the cloth, allowing a small logo of a spider with hollowed out eyes and teeth to be visible.
Peter has never seen anything like it. An odd sense of fascination overcomes him, not unlike the first time he set eyes on MJ.
While he stares, Jess shakes Ms. Lee’s hand. “Thank you so much for coming to us with this. We’ll be in touch.”
Jess hands the woman their card as she walks out, then spins in her chair to look at Peter.
“I’m assigning this case to you, Pete. That cloth is your first piece of evidence. Get to work.”
Peter does. That afternoon, he takes the blood-stained handkerchief to Gwen Stacy — a promising intern that the forensic serology team recently picked up — who analyzes the stain.
“It’s definitely vampire blood,” she tells him. “Someone powerful, but… specific cells are decomposing quicker than others, sort of similar to consumption. They’re going to die. Soon.”
Peter runs a hand through his graying hair. “How long do they have?”
This adds a new, complicated element to the case: depending on Gwen’s answer, his window of opportunity to find Lyla — and whoever took her — will be shortened.
“Not entirely sure, but… I’d say five to six months.”
Not a giant setback, he thinks.
It's a well-known fact that vampires can live centuries, even millennia, without showing any signs of aging. The longer they live, the more powerful they become.
There are only so many ways they can die: a stake through the heart, being exposed to sunlight for more than two minutes, or… disease, inflicted by an outside source.
“Is there any way you can tell me whose blood it is?”
Gwen shakes her head. “I’m afraid not, sir. The DNA's not in our system. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, don’t be. You’ve helped a lot, kid."
The next day (with her mother’s permission), Peter searches Lyla Lee’s room.
It's like any other teenage girl's room, so clues are few and far between. Thankfully, he does find some — Lyla’s computer is gone, but sticky notes and journal entries remain.
She writes of an unknown, mysterious man.
They met one night, about two months ago, at an art museum. They'd been studying the same painting — Young Man with a Skull by Frans Hals. Peter notes to look that one up later. She details their meet-ups since then.
She never says his name, but she does describe his appearance multiple times. Towering over her by three heads, broad shoulders, tan skin, and dark, slicked-back hair...
Sharp canines.
Scanning the flowery stationery, Peter easily gathers this: the man is a vampire, racked by a disease — one that humans can’t contract.
It’s unheard of in human epidemiologist circles. There is no wonder why — its symptoms are horrific, yet unique to the undead.
Another journal entry reads as follows: I want to help him. It's the least I could do after the kindness he’s shown me, and if I were to be honest, I’ve come to regard him as a friend. But how? Where would I start?
The last entry is from a week ago, words as abrupt as Lyla's disappearance: He’s agreed to let me study him.
The next pages are blank.
All Peter has to do is figure out who the man is.
He keeps Lyla's journal and examines it for days, attempting to read between the lines. He's at his apartment, turmoiling over Lyla's iteration of their seventeenth meet-up, when MJ calls him for the first time in a month. He picks up the phone without looking at the number, too absorbed in the journal's pages.
"Peter," MJ says, voice raspy and sweet.
Peter slams the journal shut, then winces. He gently sets it to the side.
He grips the phone and brings it to his ear, feeling embarrassingly giddy. "MJ, hey!"
She laughs. It makes something flutter in Peter's chest. "Look, I wanted to talk, but I realize it'd be better to do it in person."
He inhales, light-headed, when he realizes what she's suggesting.
"Wanna meet up?"
They agree on a cafe in town, and Peter is ready and out of his apartment in ten minutes. He debates bringing Lyla's journal, then decides to hell with it, tossing it into his bag. He can re-read it on the walk there.
MJ shows up in a deep blue, auburn hair curled softly around her shoulders and lips looking lush and pink — no, orange under the cafe's yellow lights.
Peter hates that that's what he notices first, so he averts his eyes to the menu and orders some drink he's never heard of.
"How are you?" she asks when they find a table. She folds her hands neatly in front of her.
"You want me to be honest?"
MJ smiles, and Peter is glad he's already sitting down because it turns his legs to jelly. "Always," she says.
"Well... pretty bad, actually."
He wants to take it back when MJ's entire being dims.
"Oh." A small frown pulls at her lips.
He laughs and hopes it doesn't sound as forced as it is. "It's not like it's your fault or anything! Not that you said it was, just— don't feel bad because it's my problem, not yours— and I'm not trying to brush you off, I really appreciate seeing you like this—"
"Peter."
She places a hand on his. It's warm and comforting and immediately abates the static in his mind. He stares.
MJ's cheeks turn mauve and she wrenches her hand away, as if burned. Peter does the same just a second too late.
"Sorry," she says, brows furrowed.
Their drinks arrive. Peter's isn't all that bad — just a little too sweet on his tongue.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, they move on to safer territory.
"So how's work?"
"Great," he provides. "Work's great. I'm working on a case now, in fact — I'd love your input."
MJ nods. As Peter explains what he knows, he is reminded of nights long gone, when they still lived together. He would ask for her perspective on whatever case he'd been assigned.
Nostalgia and hope wage a war inside him, muddying his thoughts. Why couldn't they have worked it out? Gone to bed together angry, but woke up the next morning eager to reconcile—
MJ is pointing to a line in the journal. He forces himself out of his revere, tuning back in to her words.
"That Frans Hals painting, I read that it's actually a Vanitas allegory—"
"Wait, what?"
"The painting, Young Man with a Skull by Frans Hals? It's a Vanitas painting. They make you think about death, about mortality. Like — life is temporary. Either way, it's a beautiful piece—"
Peter zones out once again. He sifts through her words. For some reason, they intrigue him.
The painting was mentioned an absurd amount of times in Lyla's journal, so much so that even MJ noticed. He just assumed it was her favorite painting.
Is there something more to it? Some clue that'll help him figure out where she went?
Or better, who that man is?
Peter discovers his first solid lead less than twenty four hours later.
He gets frustrated and begins peeling the backing of Lyla's journal. It'd probably get him in trouble if anyone at the office found out, but it ends up revealing a paragraph, purposely concealed.
Hobie Brown + Miles Morales. Married since the 1600s, now own a bookshop together (5th Ave behind the bakery). Rendezvous at Conan’s every Fri night.
Since the 1600s? Peter thinks.
Vampires.
He sets out and searches Fifth Avenue high and low, including behind the bakery.
No bookshop.
In defeat, he buys himself a donut. “Might as well,” he mumbles, mouth full of sugary dough. He continues his search with renewed energy.
Conan’s turns out to be a small bar, squeezed in between a laundromat and a convenience store. It’s only open Tuesday and Friday nights.
Peter comes back that Friday and enters the establishment at nine o’clock sharp. He orders a scotch and keeps a lookout for couples. He expects it to be boring — these kinds of things tend to be.
However, thirty minutes into the night, this happens—
Two men, dressed in matching suits (and rings), enter the bar. They don't look a day over twenty, eyes bright and hair neatly shaped.
They look... human, to say the least. Peter is about to dismiss them when the bartender greets, “Hey, Hobie! Miles, how you doin’?”
“Good to see you too, Randy,” the taller of the two responds — presumably Hobie. They stop to chat and order before taking a booth near the back.
Peter waits one minute, two. Then he books it to their booth.
Offering his hand, he says, “Hobie Brown, Miles Morales. I’m Peter Parker.”
Hobie gazes at the hand in incredulity. Miles seems mostly curious.
He realizes what he probably looks like to them: some rando interrupting their date. For no good reason.
“Sorry,” Peter says and means it. He retracts his hand. “Detective and licensed vampire hunter. I’m with the city.”
Hobie tenses. Miles’ expression closes off. They lean back, away from him.
“Did you need something, Peter Parker?” Hobie drawls. His face is blank, betraying nothing. Peter decides to be blunt.
“I was recently assigned a case investigating the disappearance of a young girl named Lyla Lee. I have reason to believe that the two of you knew her and where she went… or who took her.”
“Even if we did know, why would we tell you?”
Peter tries not to feel offended. “Kid, if you don’t tell me now, you could get yourself into a lot of trouble later. I’m not accusing the two of you of anything — but things could quickly go sour.”
“It’s not what you think,” is all Miles says.
“We don’t rat people out, mate,” Hobie says, smiling dismissively. “Bother someone else."
Miles moves to follow his husband from the booth. He stops, looking at Peter. He fidgets with the ring on his hand.
It has the same spider emblem that was on the bloody handkerchief.
“It’s none of our business," he says, "I promise she’s safe. Miguel’s unreasonable, sometimes, but… he's not a monster.”
He takes his leave.
Peter sits, listening to the murmur of outsiders trying to piece together what happened.
The man's name is Miguel.
And he… isn't a monster?
Of course he is, Peter wants to scream. He’s a vampire!
Then he thinks of Hobie and Miles. The way they seemed to quietly and steadily care for each other. To love each other.
They wanted to mind their own business and have a nice night out, and Peter ruined that. Some part of him says it serves them right. Some other, stranger part of him feels bad about it.
They seemed so human-like.
Time is running out.
It's been two weeks since Ms. Lee first visited their office. She comes again, face tear-stained, and asks if they've made any progress in finding her daughter.
This time, Peter is the one that has to look her in the eyes and shake his head. He is the one that has to see the hope crumble in her face and be replaced by despair.
The enigmatic Hobie Brown and Miles Morales have disappeared off the face of the Earth, no longer showing up at Conan's. Peter is running on two hours of sleep. He hasn't heard from MJ since the cafe.
Almost as a last resort, he visits the art museum where Lyla and Miguel first met.
Spotless walls and floors. Paintings that both confuse and amaze Peter. He finds himself in front of Young Man with a Skull by Frans Hals.
It really is a beautiful piece.
The boy, dressed in a cloak and a feathered bonnet, gestures dramatically to the viewer. He holds a skull in his other hand. He almost seems distracted, looking to his left instead of ahead.
Peter thinks he understands why Lyla liked it so much.
Yet there's something weird about it. A white triangle in the top right hand corner.
His eyes drift to the frame. The triangle extends, leaving a shadow.
It's not part of the painting.
Peter makes sure no one is looking his way, then reaches out to the painting. He pulls, and the triangle becomes bigger, transforming into a rectangle.
It's an index card, titled My Estate.
Below, in an unfamiliar, elegant script, is an address.
Peter doesn't tell anyone where he's going — not Jess, not MJ… nobody.
The address is uptown in a neighborhood Peter rarely visits, both in work and in everyday life. It's full of huge mansions and sprawling gardens that probably cost more than his entire existence, so... yeah.
Miguel's estate isn't much different.
Rain pours down, thunder sounding faintly in the distance. Peter pulls his hood over his head.
The estate is fenced in, but doesn't seem to have any cameras or further security, so Peter climbs over it. He lands in the wet dirt, groaning. Something cracks when he sits up.
"I'm fine," he mutters to no one, and stands.
Apple trees are lined up in rows and frame a stone path leading to the estate's enormous doors. The doors are guarded by gargoyles, carved from obsidian. Similarly, an obsidian fountain sits to the right. It emits crimson-tinted water, as if fresh blood.
The estate itself towers over Peter, covered with roses and moss, gray and aged. Intricate ironwork spans the windows — designs of bats and spiders spinning webs for you to easily get lost in. The grounds are silent but meticulously kept.
Nothing moves.
Peter clutches his pistol. He breaks out in a cold sweat.
Why does he feel so nervous? Why is his heart beating so fast?
He forces his right foot forward, then his left. Repeat. Right, left, right, left.
He makes it to the massive ironwood door. It's slightly ajar.
He pushes it open slowly, but it still creaks, announcing his presence. Inside is pitch-black. He's terrified of what he might find in here — or who.
He smoothes a hand down his chest and breathes.
Calm down, Pete, just calm down.
Once ready, he switches on his flashlight. It cast a narrow beam of light, revealing little — rococo walls, odd vases, wood planks that creak beneath Peter's boots. A vast staircase.
He forgoes going upstairs unless he has to. Lightning strikes somewhere to his left. He turns and sees an open door to a study with a window, letting in light. Rain patters against the glass.
Peter approaches it cautiously.
The study envelops him in the rich, musty smell of old books. He can't see anything other than the glow of the window, gentle and alluring. Almost ethereal.
He stares into it, a hypnotizing calm overcoming him.
It's gone in a second.
The door behind him slams shut.
His flashlight flickers before shutting off. He points his pistol aimlessly. For a few moments, the only sounds are the rain and Peter's own, panicked breathing.
Then a deep, velvety voice resonates in the room.
It sends a sharp shiver down Peter's spine, one he remembers even ages later.
"You've finally arrived... Peter Parker."