Chapter Text
The first mistake was the wallet.
Peter knows that now.
At the time, it seemed simple enough.
The man had been drunk, loud, and careless— standing too close to the curb outside a bodega, arguing with someone on the phone. Jacket unzipped. Wallet practically waving hello from his back pocket.
Easy.
Peter had drifted past like he always did. Head down. Shoulders slouched. Just another skinny kid cutting through the crowd.
Two fingers. A tug. Gone.
Perfect.
He’d made it half a block before the shouting started.
“HEY—HEY, YOU—!”
Yeah. That.
Peter didn’t run right away.
That’s rule one. You don’t bolt unless you have to. Bolting makes you visible.
Bolting turns accidents into hunts.
He turned the corner instead. Walked faster. Melted into the flow of people.
The shouting followed.
“STOP—SOMEBODY STOP THAT KID—!”
Okay. So. Bad judgment call.
Peter sighed and ran.
---
The street was already against him.
Morning traffic clogged the intersection, horns blaring, engines coughing. People swerved around him as he sprinted, some yelling, some just startled. He cut between two cars, slapped a hand on a hot hood for balance, vaulted a low fence without breaking stride.
Behind him, heavy footsteps. At least two men now.
Not just the wallet guy.
Great.
He darted into an alley that smelled like piss and old oil, skidded on wet concrete, barely caught himself before face-planting into a dumpster.
Pain flared in his wrist. He ignored it.
Left. Right. Through a gap between buildings barely wide enough for his shoulders.
A hand grabbed the back of his hoodie.
Fabric tore.
Peter twisted hard, elbow flying back on instinct. He felt it connect with something soft and heard a startled grunt.
“Sorry!” he called, genuinely.
He shot forward, lungs burning, eyes already tracking vertical options.
Running sideways only works for so long.
Up is better.
---
He hit the fire escape at full speed and took it three steps at a time. Metal screamed under the weight. Someone below tried to follow and immediately slipped, swearing loudly.
Peter grinned despite himself.
“Maybe stick to the stairs!” he offered helpfully.
He vaulted the railing, caught the next ladder, and hauled himself onto the roof with a practiced twist that sent a spike of pain through his shoulder.
Something shifted wrong.
He hissed, but didn’t stop.
Stopping is how you get caught.
He sprinted across gravel, leapt a gap that was a little too wide, and barely caught the opposite ledge with his fingertips. One finger bent wrong.
White-hot pain.
He bit down on the inside of his cheek and climbed anyway.
By the time the men reached the roof he was already gone, dropping down the far side and disappearing into a maze of back staircases and half-connected buildings only he seemed to understand.
He didn’t slow until his chest hurt and his vision tunneled.
He didn’t stop until he collapsed behind a row of industrial vents, breath tearing in and out of him in ragged bursts.
The city went quiet again.
Just like that.
---
He waited a long time before checking the wallet.
That’s rule two.
You don’t celebrate until you’re sure you’re alone.
He pried it open with fingers that shook more than he liked.
Inside: forty-two dollars. A credit card. An ID.
Peter frowned.
“…huh.”
He’d expected less.
He considered, briefly, taking the credit card.
Then he imagined cameras. Alarms. People who hunted with paperwork instead of fists.
Nope.
He took the cash, tucked the wallet back into his torn hoodie, and climbed down three levels to drop it into a mailbox on a quieter street.
He wasn’t a monster..
Just hungry.
---
Food was harder after that.
Word spreads fast on the street when someone runs. People watch corners more closely. Hands guard pockets.
The bakery dumpster was locked. The grocery store had a guard today. The Chinese place tossed everything straight into sealed bags.
By noon, his stomach hurt enough that he stopped joking about it.
He finally got lucky with a half-smashed sandwich behind a deli.
He ate it crouched behind a stack of crates, chewing fast, eyes never leaving the alley mouth.
A stray cat watched him from a trash can lid.
They stared at each other.
“Don’t judge me,” Peter muttered around a mouthful of bread. “I’m recycling.”
The cat blinked slowly.
Fair.
---
By mid-afternoon, the shoulder he’d popped on the roof had stiffened into a deep, ugly ache.
He tested it experimentally. It moved. That was good.
It just… moved wrong.
He shrugged and immediately regretted it.
“Later-problem.” he told himself.
He climbed anyway.
Because climbing was how he stayed alive.
---
The next bad time came around dusk.
He was crossing a familiar roof when voices drifted up from the alley below.
Too close. Too many.
Peter froze, belly flat against the tar.
Three men. One with a bottle. One with a cigarette.
The smell hit him first.
Smoke.
His muscles locked without asking permission.
The man laughed, harsh and mean, and flicked ash onto the ground.
Peter backed away slowly, carefully, keeping low.
Then a loose stone shifted under his palm.
Clinck.
All three heads snapped up.
For one horrible second, they all just stared at each other.
Then one of them squinted.
“Ey,” he said. “Ain’t that the kid from this mornin'?”
Well.
Shit.
Peter ran.
---
This time, he didn’t joke.
This time, he didn’t take risks for fun.
This time, he ran because he remembered exactly how hands felt when they held you down.
He ran until his lungs burned and his knee buckled and his shoulder screamed.
He ran up, not sideways.
He ran until the city thinned and the rooftops got higher and the people got fewer.
He collapsed behind a billboard as the sun bled orange into the skyline.
He lay there shaking, breath coming too fast, staring at the darkening sky through a smear of grime.
His hands hurt.
His knee hurt.
His shoulder really hurt.
Good.
Pain meant he’d gotten away.
---
Later, when the city softened into evening, he sat on the edge of a tall building and munched on a bruised apple he’d saved.
Below him, the street moved on like nothing had happened.
It always did.
Peter swung his legs and watched the lights come on, jaw working slowly.
Tomorrow, he’d avoid that neighborhood.
Tomorrow, he’d be smarter.
Tomorrow was far enough.