Chapter Text
It was no surprise that Petra’s manager sent her home early. The lunch rush at the restaurant had been surprisingly light and she was the most recent hire. It didn’t seem to matter how bad she needed the money or how desperate for hours she was. Still, the job was worth it to her. It was close to her apartment, within walking distance. The free meal helped a lot too, especially with her enhanced metabolism. And, the money wasn’t so bad even if she wished there was more of it.
She pushed open the door of the restaurant and began the short walk back to her apartment. She pulled her headphones out of her bag and put them on, hoping that the music would help drown out the sounds of the city that were amplified by her sensitive senses.
It was a peaceful walk, as peaceful as a walk could be at 3:00 on a Tuesday afternoon in New York, until it wasn't.
Petra could tell there was a disturbance on the sidewalk before she gotten very close. Ahead, a group of pedestrians had gathered in a circle, blocking her view of whatever was happening. She pushed her headphones down so that they hung around her neck and hurried closer, changing from a brisk walk to more of a jog. Her sense of danger began to grow. Her spider-sense was warning her that something was about to happen. Most New Yorkers would just walk past a small scuffle, so whatever it was seemed like it must be serious if a group was forming.
Petra stepped to the side to dig in her bag so she could change into her suit. She dug to the secret pouches on the side that would hide her mask and suit. Her webshooters were already around her wrists, disguised as chunky bracelets. She rarely went anywhere without them.
Her suit was there in the pouch where it belonged. The next pouch that usually held her mask was less promising. It was empty. She’d been fixing some of the stitching on the side of the mask after it had worn out and must have forgotten to put it back in her bag.
“Fantastic,” Petra thought.
If she didn't have her mask then she would need to keep any interventions on the side of plausible for a normal person. No webs and no extraordinary feats. Even so, she pulled up the hood on her hoodie, hoping to obscure her face at least a little bit. She wasn’t going to take any chances with her identity, not after all that she had sacrificed at the Statue of Liberty four years ago.
People were standing still, seemingly in shock. They held their phones with shaky hands, filming whatever was happening at the center of the circle. Her spider-sense began to tick even louder. She heard murmurs from the crowd gathered around as she pushed her way towards the front of the crowd.
“Can’t believe it”
“Thought he was different”
“So… brutal”
When she saw it, she too paused in shock, but for a different reason than everyone else.
“What the hell??” she thought.
Spiderman was fighting a random guy. Fighting was the wrong word; it was more of an inhuman beating of the man. His arm moved with almost surgical precision, making contact with the man’s body again and again with enough power to break bones.
That wasn’t what had made her pause. She'd seen plenty of terrible fights during her time fighting as a vigilante. She’s seen some of the worst that humanity could do to itself. What had made her pause was that she knew that whoever was behind that mask was not Spiderman.
She knew because she was Spiderman.
“J. Jonah Jameson is going to love this,” Petra thought. She didn’t have enough time to let that thought linger. She needed to figure out her next steps.
One thing that she’d learned in her years of fighting was that it was much easier to get a hold of a situation if you took in the whole scene before you jumped in. She’d been able to prevent herself from getting ambushed on a few occasions by doing this.
“Ok Petra, is it just Spiderman or are there more guys involved?” she wondered.
She started from the people that were to her right taking in their appearance and making a judgement about whether they could be involved. Everyone appeared to be regular New Yorkers, working class people that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was, until she noticed a girl and a guy on the edge of the circle.
On the outside, the girl appeared stone faced, but Petra knew by her face that the girl was seriously upset. She’d know that face anywhere. It was MJ, and beside her was Ned.