Chapter Text
68th Jay Street Bar Brooklyn – 10 PM - 2020
The sign outside said Nail & Spa but it seemed too late for a nail salon to be open. Regardless, Peter had seen Yuri walk into this place, so he changed into his street wear, and climbed down the side of the building. Standing outside he could see inside, and it wasn’t anything fancy, just a regular bar. He wasn’t sure if he was ready, but the way Yuri acted he knew she needed someone tonight, and that someone wasn’t going to be Spider-Man. Taking a deep breath, he walked in and headed straight to the seat next to her.
“This seat taken?” Good ol’ Parker charm should it.
“Beat it.”
Or not. He pulled the stool anyways and sat down. He cleared his throat and in octave lower spoke, “Not even for your old partner ‘Spider-Cop’ ?”
Yuri had been looking down and swishing her drink around, but that did make her stop. She didn’t look up. He could see her head turn towards where he sat. “You’re not wearing your suit.” It was barely a whisper, especially in a bar where there was so much ambient noise, but he heard her.
Continuing with the deep voice, “I’m off duty right now.”
She finally met his gaze, and he could tell she was shocked. She looked at his hair, almond brown, in need of a haircut. Focused on his eyes, a light hazel, still held some innocence but they had seen better days. He looked young, almost too young. She had known him for almost a decade, how old was he back then? Was it actually him?
She was still transfixed on him when the barkeep came by asking if he needed a drink.
“Rum and coke, hold the rum.”
Yeah, it was him. She had wanted to see who he was back when she had taken him to hospital after he had been pummeled by the Sinister Six but had kept herself from doing it. It would’ve been a huge breach of privacy and could ruin the trust they had built for years, but here he was now in front of her.
“Are you old enough to drink?”
He almost choked on some of his coke. “Are you asking for my ID? I’m 22 actually.”
She was still staring at him, no doubt doing the math in her head. Yuri turns back to her drink and sips some more. “Did you come to lecture me? Never had a kid do that to me before.”
Peter chuckles. His drink arrives and he takes a small sip. “I thought that maybe you could use a friend right now.”
“I could use a drink.”
“And you don’t have to be alone for that.”
“Are you going to babysit me?”
“Yuri… I don’t want to tell you that I know what you’re going through, but I just want you to know that you’re not going through it alone. Let me be here for you.”
“You’re right, you don’t know what I’m going through. We might’ve been there at the same time but those were my men, that was my squad. And they were there because of me. It was my responsibility to bring them home. Instead, I had to call their families to tell them they weren’t coming back.” She drank more of her drink and waved at the barkeep to bring another.
Peter could still think back to Lt. Drake. The man had a Spider-Man watch that was given to him by his son. A son that was going to grow up without a father now. The whole squad had their own individual stories that he wasn’t privy to.
“My aunt passed away just a few months ago actually. I’m an orphan and my aunt and uncle took me in. When I was a teen, my uncle was killed and so it was only me and my aunt. She basically raised me.” Yuri took pause at that, but she didn’t interrupt him. “She was one of the victims from that Devil’s Breath. You might think it’s not the same? Because that was a virus and not something I could control. But something you don’t know is that as a civilian I worked for Otto. I was his lab assistant. And every night I think to myself why didn’t I notice earlier that something was going on? That he was changing.”
Yuri briefly forgot her own pain, or maybe seeing Spider-Man like this, without the mask, made it all too real. “That’s not your responsibility though. He made his own choices. I’m not responsible for Hammerhead, but I am responsible for my men.”
He ignored her and continued. “I was there for my aunt’s final moments. She still had time to live if she would take the antiserum, but the only vial of antiserum we had was the one I had taken from Otto and it was needed to make more copies. If I gave the dose to my aunt, then everyone else would continue to die until they could recreate the cure. Yuri, I had the cure for my aunt in my hands and had to see her die instead.”
She could see his eyes were beginning to water. She didn’t know what to say. His aunt was his family, everyone else was pretty much strangers to him. Would I save my family or save the city? She was raised to serve and protect, her father was a cop, and her grandfather was a cop. But even she wasn’t sure she could put family first. She knew she couldn’t since she had just attempted to kill Hammerhead instead of bringing him to court. She was brought out of her thoughts when the man turned to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“I know that we aren’t in the same situation, but I know that after the funeral I wished I had a friend who I could tell both sides of the story." Don't think about her right now. "My name’s Peter, let me have a drink with you Yuri.”
She had almost shot Hammerhead that night, but Spider-Man had stopped her, and now Peter Parker had stopped her from going down a different path.
She got demoted to lieutenant after coming back from her leave, but she continued to work for the NYPD. From then on, she would sometimes get a drink with Peter after work. Sometimes he’d call her in the middle of the day and ask if she was up for lunch and they’d split a pizza on the roof of the precinct. They were more than coworkers now; they were genuine friends.