Work Text:
New York was never a quiet city. Peter supposed that every city was loud in its own way – people in Orlando could sleep through hurricanes, Nashville had its music, Austin had its street vendors, and God forbid anyone with functioning ears move to L.A. – but New York was different. Maybe it was because there was no rhyme or reason to the continuous flow of noise. Maybe it was because the eddies of sound that built up between the skyscrapers carried up to the rooftops in just such a way.
Maybe it was because his head was splitting open from all the sounds around him and he could pick out every individual noise hundreds of feet below.
He stumbled back from the rooftop edge, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of screaming sound, and staggered through the door to his attic-slash-makeshift-penthouse. His fingers scrabbled for the noise-canceling headphones hanging over the door, slipping them on before his knees buckled from the strain.
The world went quiet. Quieter, at least. He was able to think again, and the first thing he thought was ow.
The second thing he thought was that his eardrums hadn’t threatened to burst this time. Progress.
“E.V., log field test number three-thirty-five,” he said. “Failure.”
“Sorry, Peter.” If he didn’t know the tones he had programmed into E.V., Peter would have guessed that there was a hint of sympathy in her voice. “Notes?”
“Marginal improvement in hearing, and, uh, organic webs seem to work fine. Still really loud, though.”
“Understood. Would you like to begin working on prototype three hundred and thirty-six?”
Peter plucked out the experimental inhibitor chip in the back of his neck and replaced it with a standard one. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. If he was going to figure out how to make an at-will partial inhibitor, one that kept the webs and enhanced strength without overloading his brain on sound, he was going to need another coffee.
“E.V., can you put in a coffee order at Mel’s?”
“I cannot. Mel’s has been closed for over two hours.”
He blinked. “E.V., what time is it?”
“Three twenty-seven.”
“No, it’s not, it’s already dark out.”
“Three twenty-seven in the morning.”
Peter definitely hadn’t programmed reproach into E.V.’s tonal data, but it seemed she got along just fine without it. He yawned.
“Alright, let’s just call it here for today.”
“Tonight.”
“Whatever. Wake me up at seven.”
He dragged his feet over to his bed and collapsed into oblivion.
Ding, ding, ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding, ding, ding.
Peter woke up to an alarm. Not his usual alarm – that was five minutes of the most annoying chimes he could find, followed by a Klaxon siren in case he slept through it. This was different. This was the other alarm, the soft one at a dog-whistle pitch that only he could hear. It was the proximity alarm, programmed to set off whenever someone in E.V.’s criminal database was near the building. The only time it had been triggered before was when Scorpion had gone on a rampage three blocks down from the apartment. Even so, that was only proof that there were no false alarms.
Peter sat up, groaning and rubbing his bleary eyes. “E.V., who is it?”
E.V. pulled up a picture on the center screen. It was a grainy feed from a CCTV camera, and it was zoomed in on a man waiting at a crosswalk.
“Jacob Handell, age thirty-five. Arrested five years ago for grand larceny and two cases of assault. Sentence was commuted, most likely on account of connection to current attorney general Roy Handell. Would you like a report of his record?”
Peter sighed. Maybe he was wrong, and this was a false alarm. It would be the first time, but there was a first time for everything.
The light turned red, and the white crossing sign flickered on. The man didn’t walk. He looked directly at the camera and waved.
Peter’s heart skipped a beat. “E.V., where is this?”
“Right outside.”
The man was still standing there. Peter watched as he turned and walked down the street, toward-
Toward the apartment.
Peter scrambled for his web shooters, quickly hiding them under the sleeves of an old and ratty jacket, and ran out of his room.
He slipped into a supply closet on the first floor, leaving the door slightly ajar so he could watch the front door and elevators. If the man never showed up, Peter would have no reason to worry. If he did, then Peter would tail him. If worst came to worst, it would be a one-on-one against a normal human, and Peter liked his chances. The man might not know his face. He might even be here for some completely unrelated reason.
He watched as people came in. An old man in a blue suit and tie, a mother pushing her son in a stroller, a young woman with deep red hair. No sign of-
There. There he was. Jacob Handell. Moving toward the elevators with the other three. Peter slipped out of the closet and followed him in, right behind the red-haired woman. The man pressed the bright yellow button for the third floor, and Peter breathed a small sigh of relief.
All of a sudden, the hairs on his neck stood on end. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but he trusted his instincts enough to follow Jacob Handell out of the elevator and onto the third floor as the doors closed behind him.
Peter looked the man over as discreetly as he could, trying to find any concealed guns or knives or, hell, even a phone, but as far as he could see, Jacob had nothing on him at all. What kind of idiot walked around in New York City without any kind of self-defense equipment? This guy didn’t look like a martial artist.
The man stopped halfway down the hall and turned to Peter with a smile on his face.
“Made you look.”
And with that, the man gave a jolt as if waking from a long spell of sleepwalking.
“Huh?” Jacob said. “What the hell? Where am I?”
Peter’s hair stood on end again, but he knew it wasn’t the spider-sense this time. He had seen that before.
“Hey, kid. I’m talking to you. Where am I?”
Peter had to get back to his apartment fast.
“You’re in an apartment complex in Queens. Look, I’m really sorry, but I have to go-”
“Queens? I was just on Staten Island. Don’t you try and pull a fast one on me, kid, I’ve seen a thing or-”
Peter was already running. He had to get to the apartment before she found whatever it was she was looking for. He threw open the stairwell door, leaping up the steps four at a time until he got to the floor just below the rooftop. He dashed into his room and found…
Nothing. There was no sign of tampering with his tech, no mess from a rapid search, no signs that anyone had been-
“Hey, I’m over here.”
Peter whirled around, web shooters firing at the figure on his bed before he could think. One hand was pinned against the wall, the other against the bedframe. She yelped in surprise, jerking her arms before realizing they were stuck.
“Gah! Jesus Christ, Peter, don’t do that! Honestly, I save your life and this is the thanks I get?”
Peter’s mouth moved before he could stop himself. “I think I was the one who saved you there, so it was the least you could do.”
“The least I could do was let you die,” Jean grumbled.
“Yeah, about that,” Peter said, mind finally catching up to his mouth. “What are you doing here?”
Jean shrugged. “Honestly, dunno, but I’m tired of sleeping in homeless shelters. You got a spare bed?”
“You mean besides the one you’re sitting on? Nope.”
“Hmm. Shame.”
There was a long, pregnant pause.
Peter cleared his throat. “So, you gonna find somewhere, or…”
Jean smirked. “What do you mean? I’ve got somewhere right here.” She patted the bed – when had her hands come loose? – and lay back on it with a content sigh. Peter could feel himself flushing an uncomfortable shade of red at the implications of that statement, and-
“Oh, no, no, no,” Jean said. “I never said I’d be sharing this nice, soft bed. You get your own.”
“I did!” Peter squawked. “And you’re taking it!”
“Not my problem. Get an air mattress.”
“You get an air mattress!”
Jean raised an eyebrow. “I can’t afford one. You think I wear this ratty old hoodie by choice?”
“An air mattress costs maybe fifteen dollars.”
“I have maybe three.”
“I will buy you an air mattress if you get out of my bed.”
Jean smiled broadly. “You’d do that for me?”
God, Peter had missed this. This kind of easy banter, the sheer physical and emotional closeness of being near someone who knew who he was. What he wouldn’t give for this to replace the last four years. Four years of bone-deep pain as he watched the world move on so easily without him.
Jean’s smile faded. She got up from the bed, red hair falling down her back, and drew him into a hug. She had been reading his mind, Peter realized, and if anyone else were to do that, he would be terrified. He was terrified, but for a different reason.
He wrapped his arms around Jean and squeezed tight, just to make sure she was real, to make sure she wouldn’t go anywhere. She couldn’t. He couldn’t afford that. She was all he had left.
Well, isn’t that just sad. I’m not much.
It took him a while to realize that she hadn’t actually said it, that there was no faint rumbling in her chest to accompany the process of speaking those words.
Don’t worry, Peter. I’m not going anywhere.
A single tear slipped out of his eye. “Why?”
Why what?
“Why… everything? Why are you here? Why are you staying? Why do you care?”
He felt a strange tugging sensation in his head, like someone was dredging through his brain. Suddenly, by no effort of his own, he remembered a white room, a vent, a promise, and a bullet, all in excruciating detail. His own words echoed in his head.
‘You have me.’
‘You have me.’
‘You have me.’
You’re all I have left.
“Well, isn’t that just sad?” he whispered. “I’m not much.”
Agree to disagree.
He bought the air mattress.
He ended up sleeping on it.
Peter woke up to a rattling sound all around him.
He sprang up from the mattress, looking around for the source of the noise and-
Jean. Jean was curled up on the bed, twitching and crying and shaking like a leaf in the wind. Peter was there in a heartbeat, frantically checking to make sure she wasn’t hurt by the shaking of the… everything all around them.
There was no blood, there were no bruises. She was, physically, alright.
The room kept shaking. He grabbed her hand, unsure of what to do, and the sound grew quieter. Just a little.
He squeezed her hand, stroking his thumb along her palm, and the room calmed down the tiniest fraction. It wasn’t enough.
Screw it. It was his bed anyway.
He climbed into the bed, wrapping his arms around Jean, tucking her face into the crook of his shoulder, and feeling the shuddering room settle into an easy rhythm in time with their breaths. It acted as a kind of white noise while he dozed off with her in his arms. She smelled like lemon and peppermint and old car freshener. She was there. She wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was he. She had saved him before, and now it was his turn to chase the monsters away.
The world was quiet.