Chapter Text
The cargo van was equipped for many scenarios.
Lugging around a six-year old wasn’t one of them.
Of course, this was hardly an ordinary six-year old. Wasn’t even a six-year old. Not really.
Frank took his eyes off the road long enough to check the second row in the rearview mirror.
The kid looked absolutely scrawny, sitting there in the middle of the bench seat. His splayed legs barely reached over the seat cushion. He was playing quietly with the seat belt across his lap. Should have been in a car seat, really, but Frank didn’t exactly carry one around these days.
The ridiculous red onesie pooled around the kid like somebody had tried to swaddle him in a circus tent. Frank had shoved his guns and ammunition boxes as far to either side as possible, but they still occupied the empty seats and half the footwell.
At least the kid hadn’t demonstrated his sticky-hands.
“You good?” Frank asked, looking back at the road.
“Yes, sir,” a little voice answered.
“You feelin’ any different?”
“No, sir.” A pause. “How’m I supposed to feel, sir?” He was surprisingly articulate for his age, if a little shy. Who would have thought.
“I don’t know. Tingly, or some sh—stuff.”
The kid considered that with complete sincerity.
“Like a tummy ache?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Voodoo magic crap. Look, just tell me if you start feeling… weird.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You ain’t gotta call me sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’d I just say?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“And you don’t need to apologize, either.”
“…Sorry, sir. I mean… sorry. Um… sir.”
The kid went back to fiddling with the seat belt.
God, he was tiny.
Frank could tuck him under one arm like a basketball if he wanted to. Difficult to believe an hour ago he’d been a masked vigilante springing off walls, cracking jokes between mile-a-minute chatter like he was the patron saint of the Energizer Bunny.
“What’s your address again?”
A small intake of breath, and then the kid launched into what was obviously memorized speech. “Twenty Ingram Street, Forest Hill, Queens, New York. I live with my aunt and uncle, Ben and May Parker.”
Frank hadn’t bothered reaching for the GPS the first time he’d asked. He knew Queens like the back of his hand. Born and raised there.
So had the kid, apparently.
Had they ever crossed paths in a bodega? Passed each other on the sidewalk, both out of costume? Frank doubted it. Even with the mask hiding his face, the kid couldn’t lie or act for shit. He would’ve gone all bug-eyed and stammery. Probably would’ve followed Frank down the block to stop him from snapping the neck of every stray puppy he came across.
Bleeding-heart fool. Red would love him.
Frank turned onto a quiet street lined with rows of narrow homes. Years’ worth of potholes scarred the asphalt, but the postage-stamp lawns were trimmed, the hedges neat. Peaceful suburbia.
Of course the kid lived somewhere like this.
It was well past evening. Most of the windows were dark, the cars tucked into skinny New-York drives. He twisted in his seat to count mailbox numbers.
“That one,” said the kid—Peter, apparently. He pointed at a narrow duplex with dark siding, white trim, and a scruffy patch of grass the city generously called a lawn. Lights glowed inside. A blue Toyota Corolla and a Kia occupied the driveway.
Frank pulled up to the curb.
He left the engine idling and turned around as he unbuckled.
“All right. Stay here. I’m gonna go talk to your aunt and uncle. Tell ‘em what happened. Don’t touch the keys. Don’t touch the guns. Don’t touch the ammo boxes.”
The kid’s eyes looked enormous in his pale, round face.
“Can I touch the window?” he asked.
Frank did a double take—was he giving him lip?—but no, the kid was serious, big brown eyes inquisitive and bright.
“No. Keep the windows up. They’re bullet-proof.”
“Why?”
“To stop bullets.”
“Why?”
Because people shoot at me when I shoot at them, Frank wanted to say, then thought the better of it. Last thing he needed was the kid bawling in his backseat.
“Just stay here. Don’t move.”
“Can you put on the radio?”
“The ra—…fine. Here.” He slapped the dial. “Dam—darn thing doesn’t work half the time anyway.” Staticky music sauntered from the speakers. It was stuck between channels and skipping. “There. Now stay. Here.”
He hauled himself out before the kid thought to ask him why the radio station didn’t work.
The motion light above the shrubs clicked on as he walked up the path. A garden gnome stood beside the last paver, proudly holding a little flag that read WELCOME TO OUR HOME!
Frank knocked with the side of his fist. He waited thirty seconds, then knocked again, harder, growing impatient.
It had been a long day.
A long fucking day.
His ribs still ached from getting hurled into a concrete wall an hour earlier. Instinct and experience told him at least two were bruised, if not broken outright. Kevlar was good for stopping handgun rounds. Less good with bludgeoning. Tonight, he’d been thoroughly bludgeoned.
Just as he lifted his fist to knock again, the door creaked open. A young woman peered between the gap. Her hand was still on the deadbolt. The other hand was braced protectively over the downy head of a newborn swaddled against her chest. Her eyes looked tired.
“…Can I help you?” she asked.
Frank frowned. “…Is this the Parker residence?”
She looked confused. “Um, no, this is the—no, this isn’t them.”
“This is Twenty Ingram Street?”
“…Yes?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a kid—or, uh, young man named Peter? Brown hair, brown eyes, skinny, talks a lot?”
“No.” By now the woman’s caution had simmered into slight impatience. “Look, it’s late, and she’s been keeping me up all night. Are you lost? Can I call the police for you?”
Frank laughed. He couldn’t help it. “I don’t think they could help with this. Sorry for wasting your time. I hope she lets you sleep tonight.” He nodded at the swaddled infant and began his retreat down the steps.
“Wait.” The woman pushed the door open a little wider. “I think the Parkers were the previous homeowners. The house was sold after a death in the family a couple years ago. We moved in not too long after.”
Of course. The kid was practically a baby. Just because he remembered living here as a wee tot didn’t mean he’d stayed here growing up. But he didn’t seem to have any other clear memories past this age.
And that had been one hell of a conversation to figure out after Frank rounded the corner, rifle shouldered, and nearly tripped over a half-naked Spider-Man (Spider-Kid) climbing groggily to his feet in the middle of a wrecked warehouse, drowning in what remained of his costume.
A whirlwind ten minutes had followed: Frank charging out of the warehouse as it collapsed around them, Spider-Kid slung over his shoulder, a constant shouted refrain of “I don’t know!”s as Frank interrogated him and dodged burning wreckage.
“Thanks for your help,” Frank told the woman. He climbed back into the van.
“Who was that?” Peter asked.
“No one. Nice lady.” Frank started the engine. “She’s, uh. Said your folks were out of town and she was house-sitting.”
Alarm crept into the kid’s voice. “They left without me?” And hurt, too. Great.
“Nah, it was a last-minute kind of thing. They’ll be back soon. They asked me to take care of you for a while.”
“How long?”
“Until they get back.”
“When?”
Frank twisted the dial up. “How about we listen to music for a while?” Instead of the choppy noise he expected, smooth pop flowed from the speakers. “Well, look at that. Radio’s working now.”
“I fixed it,” Peter said.
“You fixed it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“The antenna was loose. I fixed it.”
“Did you get out of the van?”
The kid’s voice became defensively meek. He shrank back into his seat and clutched the seatbelt with both hands. “I rolled the window down and leaned out. I didn’t get out of the car. I promise!”
“I told you not to touch the windows.”
When the kid didn’t answer, Frank twisted in his seat, scowling. “Hey? You hearing me?”
He stopped short. The kid had both hands clapped to his ears, and his eyes were scrunched up tight.
“It was too loud,” he mumbled miserably. “Screechy. It hurt.” To Frank’s horror, his bottom lip trembled. “I’m real sorry, mister.”
Frank spun around in his seat and slapped the radio off. Silence filled the van’s interior.
“It’s okay. Just stay put when I tell you, all right?” Without meaning to, he found himself slipping into the same tone of voice he’d used with Lisa and Frankie. Gruff and direct, but not mean. You had to be serious with kids. Show ‘em that you mean business when you give orders for their own safety. But not cruel. Never cruel.
He shook away the memories of his children. Their voices piping up from a different backseat, from another lifetime. Happier times.
He cleared his throat.
“Hey kid, you hungry?”