Work Text:
Peter had a slight spring in his step as he finished clearing up the remains of a semi-successful experiment the scientists that he worked with had performed. There were dirtied test tubes filling multiple racks, small piles of spatulas, and dead batteries littered across the surfaces. But, whilst he would normally complain half-heartedly with the other 'intern', he seemed to be perfectly content with his chores.
"You got something planned?" one of the scientists, a woman called Samantha, asked as she smiled coolly at him. "A girlfriend? Boyfriend?" Peter laughed as he carried a tray of beakers towards the sink.
"No, no. Nothing like that." Samantha hummed quietly. "Promise." In reality, he'd finally gotten a proper lead on a series of break ins (they were, however, fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things) after he managed to get his hands on a piece of CCTV footage the night before. But he hadn't told Matt yet. And once he'd confirmed that the evidence was actually useful, he couldn't wait to reveal it. But he couldn't tell Samantha that, for obvious reasons, so instead, he said, "I'm meeting some friends I haven't seen in a while. They go to college on the West coast so…I don't see them much." She nodded.
"You didn't go with them?" Peter paused, the water rushing from the tap and spraying up the sides of the sink.
"I…didn't have the money for it," he replied hesitantly. "And the scholarship they gave me…was only a partial one, so it wasn't very helpful. But I didn't apply to the same place anyway."
"MIT?"
"Something like that," he laughed out. Samantha turned back to her paperwork and soon, Peter was hanging up his lab coat inside his locker and swapping it for a raincoat. Then, as he took the lift down to the ground floor lobby, Peter tugged his battered phone from his pocket and pressed on Matt's contact.
It rang for a few seconds before the man's voice crackled through.
He said: "Peter. What can I do for you?" Peter grinned, swiping his key card on the way out.
"I…have a lead," he whispered dramatically. Matt muffed loudly. "You know those break ins we were looking at a few nights ago?"
"A quiet night," Matt emphasised.
"Whatever, man. The guy's still a criminal, and therefore, he's my business. Anyway, there's CCTV footage of him running down some street with a duffel bag. I got enough to figure out where a hide out would probably be, so…"
"You want me to help?" Matt supplied.
"Bingo."
"Sure, why not?" Peter celebrated silently and ignored someone frowning at him. "I was actually going to call you anyway." His face fell. He asked,
"Why?" Almost tripping on a crack in the pavement, Peter barely heard Matt's reply.
"I have something for you. Or, well, Bucky owed you something." He frowned.
"What?" Peter went over what the man had just said before realising what he was talking about. "No way," he breathed out. "Seriously?"
"That man keeps his word, Pete," Matt replied. Peter's mouth fell open and he quickened his pace a little. "So, I'll come and help you get that robber, but you're going to have to call around to my office first."
"Absolutely," Peter announced. "I will be there in ten minutes." Once he'd hung up, Peter took off.
He sprinted through the post-work crowds, almost falling a few times as people didn't seem to understand basic sidewalk etiquette and stopped walking directly in front of him, or they let their dog wander off ahead and Peter tangled his legs in their lead. But, after dodging a young girl with a massive balloon, Peter skidded to a stop in front of Matt's office building. Hurrying up the stairs, he banged on the door and winced as a woman answered with her eyebrows raised dramatically.
"Uh…" he stammered out. "I'm meeting Matt?" She stared at him blankly, glancing over the yellowing bruise on his chin and the mess his hair had become before stepping back and letting him in. "Matt Murdock?"
"Are you a client?" she asked carefully. "You might need to book an appointment instead." It was Peter's turn to stare as he blinked dumbly.
"No…no, I'm a friend," he blurted out. "Is he here?" She nodded.
"He's in his office, but I think he's on the phone with someone." Peter squinted his eyes in confusion and listened for any conversation echoing from behind the door and instead heard muffled laughter. Then, his face fell.
"Right. I'll just…knock," he told her and strode over, his head hanging. Matt opened the door before Peter had to chance to 'alert' him and the man's grin grew rapidly at the twisted expression he saw. "I hate you," Peter muttered once the door shut, but he couldn't help smiling.
"I couldn't stop myself," Matt explained humorously. "You ready to see it?" Peter laughed.
"I'll literally kill you if you don't show me right now." The man chuckled and turned away, reaching for a large box that he'd shoved on top of a filing cabinet. "How'd you get it?"
"Turned up outside my door this morning before work," Matt replied. Peter hesitated.
"You trust that? What if it's a bomb?"
"I would've heard it." Peter made a strange sound before reaching gingerly for the case. Matt shrugged before adding, "And I already opened it."
Nodding, he eased open the lid and his mouth fell open at the mask looking back at him.
Bucky had clearly had some more input in the design on the new suit as the mask was much more like a helmet, with a face-shield building up the front section that had been thinly covered in a deep red, and heavily textured leather of some kind. But where the plates connected there were exposed, metal ridges running up the face. The eyes were still the same but helped make a more conservative feel to the expression the mask made as the comical side to Spider-man seemed to relate quite heavily to the movement of the eyes. Peter paused, thinking back to his old suit that Tony (he hadn't even mentioned the man in a short while) had given him. It was a contrast to the costume he held now. Peter hesitated to describe it as a uniform, but with the padded back and chest plates and the bulkier silhouette created from the Kevlar and fabric mix, he truly felt that Bucky understood what he wanted to achieve.
His first make shift suit was laughable, no matter how fond he was of the outfit, Peter could admit it was a pathetic attempt. And Tony's design understood Peter's friendly nature, and how deeply it connected with how he personally responded to the crime ridden streets; even he could admit that. But the connections it had…to the ferry, and to Tony and what Peter had been made to do in that costume meant that the image was tainted. When he'd finally told Matt that Tony was no longer in the picture after so many years, they kept a conservative approach to his new suit and only removed the excessive tech imbedded within the fabric. But what Bucky, and probably Matt (Peter only believed that Matt had some involvement in this suit because of the heavily armoured areas) had created was almost perfection.
Over the past few months, Spider-man's involvement in the 'underground' of New York had been reported widely and he'd taken the new perception on board. It didn't help anyone trying to claim that these were just rumours when Peter's fighting style had begun to switch and his presence across the city was no longer just defined by the snarky jokes he made while patrolling, but by the wounds treated by first responders. And now, his suit reflected it. The red was darker; the blue was less obvious. It was built to withstand brute force.
"What do you think?" Matt asked carefully. Peter glanced up with his mouth slightly ajar.
"It's brilliant."
"Yeah? Thank God."
"Matt! You shouldn't say things like that," Peter scolded humorously. He laughed softly. "This is incredible though. Thank you."
"Well, this is what happens when you get shot," Matt replied easily, leaning back in his seat. "This won't exactly stop bullets all over, but…there are plates inside. And they're flexible. The helmet was my design; Bucky wanted the armoured sections."
"I thought you had some say in this," Peter pointed out. "What did Frank put in?" he asked with a laugh. Matt shook his head, a broad grin on his face.
"You are yet to invade his apartment covered in blood."
"Ah. There's still time." Peter snorted loudly. "No, I'm serious though. Thanks for this. I've been needing an…upgrade."
"No problem, kid." There was a slight pause before the man spoke up again. "So, shall we get this serial robber then?"
They stopped by Matt's apartment after successfully avoiding Karen's questioning so that the two men could change into their uniforms. And soon, breathing in the smell of fresh fabric that had hadn't been bloodied yet, Peter was crouched on the corner of an apartment block with Matt listening out for anything interesting just behind. There were a few warehouses set back from the street in front of them, and a couple of personal garages lined the alleyway. Any one of them could belong to the robber. And Matt would be able to figure out the actual target.
Peter glanced over, grinning at the new feeling of the armoured plates shifting against his muscles, and watched as Matt's face twisted up intently.
There was a moment before Peter asked: "Is there anything?" The man frowned.
"Maybe. I thought there was only one guy."
"What?"
"There are a lot of people down there." Peter scrunched up his face underneath the mask and glanced down at the graveyard they'd apparently found instead of a street. There wasn't even a cat prowling along the walls.
"Where?" Matt's jaw twitched. "Is there…a secret entrance? Or…" The man frowned.
"I don't know. I can't hear anything that would…suggest that, not from here. And they're being too loud to hear anything around them." Peter hesitated before asking,
"Should we go and see? How many are there, anyway?"
"Over twenty. And…I'm not sure that this just a series of burglaries anymore," Matt replied uneasily. "We might need some back up for this one."
"Do you know which building they're in though?"
"Third one down." Peter glanced over, shrugging at the rusted entrance he could see through the growing darkness. And there was a neon light was taped above a small door that flickered dramatically every few seconds. "There could be a hidden room: the entire warehouse sounds empty." Then, he added, "Of people, I mean," a moment later.
"I can get inside through one of those windows; I'll keep high and get a good idea on what's in there. Sound good?" Matt hesitated at first before he nodded once and Peter dropped off the side of the building.
Swinging himself across the alleyway, Peter stuck himself to the side of the warehouse so that he could quickly figure out a way to open one of the windows. Finally, the glass popped loose and swung inwards. Peter slipped inside.
Instantly, he was met with darkness, but once his senses had adjusted to the lack of light (which happened within a second) he could see stacks of crates surrounding a collapsible table. But, he wasn't like Matt: he couldn't sense what was inside those boxes. So Peter crawled across the ceiling, keeping an eye on the space below whilst trying to figure out where those people were hidden. The suit stretched to his movements comfortably. Then he finally found his answer. Nestled in the back of the warehouse was a small office that was completely enclosed with the door locked; Peter could hear the chain clinking as a breeze blew through. And, when he focused, he could hear the mechanical whirring of an elevator.
Peter obeyed the limit of his task and backed away as quickly as he had come in; pushing his way back through the window. Pausing, he dropped down to the ground and darted across the alleyway. He clambered up the side of the building Matt was still perched on top of and said,
"There's a lift inside; the people should be underneath the warehouse. But there's only crates inside." The man nodded stiffly. "Are we going in?"
"No. I'm going back home, and you're going to patrol somewhere else," Matt told him. "We'll need someone else with us," he added.
"Who? Frank?"
"Frank? Yeah, you don't want to work alongside him."
"I'm not some stupid kid, you know?"
"If you're against killing, you don't want him. Jessica is a better option. Even Wade." Peter let out a spluttering laugh.
"Wade? That guys a mercenary!" he blurted out.
"Retired, apparently," Matt said. "If you want Frank, you ask him yourself. You are an adult." Peter stared at him before nodding.
"Okay."
"How's the suit, then?" Peter glanced over and grinned underneath his new mask.
"It's good, yeah. Moves well; I can crawl on ceilings so…that's good. Thanks again," he replied. Matt huffed quietly.
"It was about time you had a new one anyway." There was a moment of silence. "Okay. Go on then, swing around; go to work, and if you want to sort this warehouse out-"
"I'll find someone," Peter blurted out. Matt nodded. "I'll call you when I do." The man agreed quietly, attention still primarily on the people he could undoubtedly hear moving around beneath the floor.
Then, Peter was swinging through the streets of New York, flipping dramatically and plummeting towards the ground before catching himself moments before impact. Someone called out to him, saying something about his new suit and Peter felt a smile blossoming across his face. A small flash from below caught his attention and he swung deliberately low; he could practically touch the crowds beneath him. Peter waved at a few people, pointing at their cameras before a distant shout made him quickly change direction and he flung himself off into the night.