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Peter has never been good with money. That's the truth.
It has only been gotten worse since he began college. With his major being one of the most heavy-hitting, time-consuming, budget-tightening chores of his life — plus, the entire other, vigilante thing — it's been harder than ever to be on time. It doesn't help being an continuous, intensifying, and worsening ordeal, basically boiling down to act as a torture method not even the DODC could manage to score with a kid like him. They're assholes, not monsters.
His landlord, though... he's a whole new kind of thing.
Without getting too much into the nitty-gritty of things, it's safe to say Peter will move out as soon as he possibly could. But if the way any of this business is going is anything he could judge by, that might as just well be never.
He was perching atop a building overlooking his main target — the New York City Hall — when he suddenly heard (and, mostly: felt) footsteps thump from behind him, faintly growing closer in a striding pace.
Peter quickly pulls the mask back down and chomps on the last bites of his sandwich, but stays squatted down to avoid noting his prepared, taken notice.
"How are you doing, Web Head?"
That familiar, deep, gravelling voice. Peter huffs whilst finally straightening his knees, up to a stand again.
"Just fine."
Frank nods solely, squinting towards the horizon. "What are we doing tonight?"
"Just scouting," Peter says, slowly, not to stammer — "We're, uh... keeping watch. They're passing the bill tonight, so there shouldn't be any problems other just... riots, maybe. Which isn't our problem," he cuts himself quickly, noting a silver flicker behind Frank's eyes.
Frank sucks silently at his teeth, resettling the gun against his rib. "Yeah," he grumbles, completing the latest steps out of the distance between them.
It takes another moment or a few, where Peter hangs midway from a boxlike conduit and watches in half-terrified, half-impressed immersion as he continues to somehow pull out more weapons, one after another, from his black case of professional arsenal, before he remembers the entire reason why this night is a scout and not another legit mission again.
"Oh, shoot!"
But once it's already out and verbalized, he can't suck it back in — Frank has already noticed.
"What is it, Web Head?"
"I, uh..." running his palms over the scratchy surface of his suit, Peter finds himself awkwardly shouldering towards and away from Frank, the running thought in the background of his mind being to consider whether to leap away without question or to wait out and explain everything. "I have to pay my landlord."
There's a beat of silence that passes in the air, without saying anything. And then, just as Peter expects from Frank to either bust out laughing or to start yelling another lecture at him, Frank just — huffs, and glances back at his gallery at hand.
"You telling me the most popular superhero in New York is still paying rent and taxes? Why, our government is fucked, after all."
It'd be a sham to say Peter isn't somewhat genuinely caught in headlights by that. "I'm still just a guy under this suit, you know that, right?"
"Yeah," Frank snorts deeply. "Just another guy who can punch trucks and deadlift buildings. That guy?"
Peter is momentarily quiet again, mostly to keep his bashful pride at that. "Thanks," he says, but the stammer threatens to return, so, to hide it, he quickly adds: "But it's a problem. I already have a hard time paying him in time, and he told me that if I can't pay him by next time, the right way, he'll kick me out and sue me."
Frank snaps quick at it. "Sue you? For what, saving his fucking life every day?"
Peter shrugs. "I don't know, man. All I know is that if I'm not home by ten minutes, I won't have a home anymore. So, can I — ?"
But he already knows the answer.
Somewhat.
Because Frank, as is taught by time and noticeable by performance, has that tell that he's probably not even aware of, himself; every time he hears something that has the potential to make him wild out, twist out a certain expression, he has that... fleeting smirk in his face, owning up to a twitch in his left eye. It's more than ominous, and somewhat comforting, after a while. But, today — not a great clause to his case, clearly.
"What are you gonna do about it?"
But that sounds like a threat. Like he's on the side of the landlord.
"Uh —"
"Are you gonna sue back?"
"That... wasn't in my plans, no —"
"No, I gotta tell you something," Frank says, suddenly, then promptly leaves his concurrently-unfolding stash of weaponry to close the gap, grab him by the side of the shoulder and staring deep into the widening retains of his digital network frame, "You're listening to me, right?"
"Yes, sir," Peter quacks.
Frank nods out. "I'll tell you what you're gonna do, alright? You're not going to give him the money."
"No?"
"You're going to tell him that if he's gonna sue, you're gonna retaliate. And if he does go ahead with that threat, you're gonna pull out your secret weapon..."
Peter's breath hitches: "What — ?"
"A lawsuit of your own."
Peter breathes down. "Oh."
Frank chortles, shallowly but darkly. "Yeah."
"So..." Peter thinks it all over, "I'm going to get a lawyer..."
"Nah," Frank snaps away, now walking back to his opened suitcase of sniper rifles and smoke bombs, leaving Peter quite literally hanging off the boxy pipe-system, "No lawyers, Web Head. I know a guy."
It's the morning after the scout, and (just for good measure) Peter slept outside.
He was both thankful and lucky there was no rain or a storm of any kind that night, which is espically pathetic when you consider the seasonal pique being just around the corner. Because, yeah — he really did just risk his entire electric equipment being shut for good, in the smack dab of an ongoing secret undertaking against the former mayor of the city, just because he's couldn't catch on to a good lawyer in time.
But that's not the full truth.
That's because Peter knows that even Frank vetoed him, he'd still be too scared to get a lawyer, anyway. He just hopes that this one is good enough for the job.
That's espically more of a demand when Peter thought over the implication of it all; the logistics.
Because if Peter gets a lawyer from Frank, he has to present himself as Peter. That means that both Frank and this lawyer will have to know that Peter is Spider-Man, plus where he lives. Besides — what could be the reasoning, if that lawsuit indeed goes forward? 'My client can't pay you back in time because he's too busy getting beat up in girls in cat-suits and bad guys with machine-guns'?
However, none of that came to worry Peter.
Not because it isn't worrying, but because he hasn't got the time.
Instead, he's too busybodied on catching a train from Manhattan to Brooklyn, where Frank and that lawyer of his have said to have met him over the next day while the sun comes up.
He's already fully-rooted within the echoing, cavernous depths of the abandoned subway station where Frank opened shop long before he even joined him, when he notes a passing whistle of white paint in the distant, faded light in the end of the tunnel.
Awakening ajolt and pacing up a bit quicker, before eventually unbecoming of his sleepiness and gaining speed to a proper jog, it's not long until that familiar face shapes out of the darkness, flashing with the gritting lights as they whisk screakily alive.
"Hey," Peter says, glancing around whilst attempting to catch his breath, "You called me here?"
Frank hums in confirmation, hissing to come face-to-face with him. "Yeah. Nothing mission-specific, just... what we talked about."
Peter feigns enough ignorance to pass an emerging smile as a confused twist of the lips, "Oh... right! I totally forgot about that!"
"It's fine," Frank says, nodding. "Web Head — meet Red."
And then Frank steps away to allow his spot to be emptied and retaken, now by a different man, but still a vigilante. This one is painted blood-red, an owner of devil horns, and seems quite awkward, if the reading of his body language can be any be of any use in this situation.
But that would be an entirely different thing — weren't it for the fact Peter already knows Red.
Because 'Red' is actually just Matt Murdock: his lawyer from a few years back.
Back when everybody still knew Spider-Man as Peter Parker, who was sued by everyone and their mother about everything bad that has ever happened in the world past 2023. Back when May was still alive. Back when he had MJ, Ned, and the other two Peters.
Yeah, that far back.
"Uh..." Peter says, deliberately fixing his lens his place, not to let them whir and narrow then widen. "Hey."
Red nods, a sharp smirk out of one side of the mouth. "Hey," he answers, in an exact match, and that voice manages a shiver to run through Peter's spine. Weren't Strange's curse done for good, he could've think that was said in exact mocking — to show his understanding, his complete sense to this entire situation.
"You're... the lawyer?" Peter tries to sound suspicious, but at this point, he can't help but simply be in disbelief.
"I seem to be," Red says, causing Frank to huff quietly to himself, all the way from the other side of the florescent-caked room. "Frank said you needed one."
"Oh," Peter says, and for some reason he has problems recalling even a tiny piece of information he would've otherwise spilled to all listening ears around, "Yeah, I do. Landlord problems."
Red hums. "Yeah," he says, hissing at his teeth very lightly, almost imaginably so, "Very common these days. I'll see what I can do for you, Mr...?"
And when his voice trails off politely, Peter quickly steps in to complete:
"Spider-Man."
"Web Head," Frank fixes from the corner.
"Or that," Peter instantly chokes, watching Red step around him.
"You know," Red says, his head downed, voice pitching down as his thoughts deepen, "You really remind me of someone."
Peter could've sworn his heart stopped at that. "I do?"
"Yeah. Something about your voice — your way of speaking."
"Is it?"
Red pauses, then. "I think I know what that is."
Peter's heartbeat begins to reset, now playing dangerous chords of anxiety along a harmonious symphony of legitimate, grounded, widow-making dread. "Do you?"
"Yeah," Red says. "You're —"
But just as quick as he comes to it, his head snaps away; it comes a mere millisecond before Peter's own senses light up, firing hot flames and blaring red sirens, down towards the rest of the way.
"Did someone follow you, Web Head?" Frank asks, suddenly appearing to step around the both of them with the final tweaks of his sniper cracking into place.
"No," Peter answers quickly, "Nobody, it's —"
"He's right," Red interjects, causing Frank's movement and entire poise to slow; then, halt to a complete stop. "There's nobody there. Just a rat."
Frank's flashlight turns on just in time to focus on the ground, made up of small stones and pebbles, upon of which scatters a sizable rat just past the entrance of their station. Once he's holed up into the next hole, Frank unloads and unequips everything, begins sighing his lungs out, and back to usual stand he goes.
"Next time this happens," he exhales, coming right up between them, "Let one of your ear-works warn me ahead of time, alright?"
"Just right," Red quips, and Frank simply glances him before walking off again.
Once he's away again, Peter finally found the breath he was holding; just in time to let it go off like a forgotten loaded bomb. "Woah, man. You're really good with this stuff, huh?"
Red lets a small smile show, which gradually grows bigger and wider as the meaning of Peter's words finally sink through. "I'm a really good lawyer, too."
It's later that day, by noon, when Peter (Spider-Man) sits down with Red (Daredevil) atop a low corporate skyscraper in order to think over a pen and paper.
It has become an apparent problem when, surprise-surprise, that same troubling matter Peter was avoiding that entire day comes back to bite him in the ass:
The identity problem.
Basically, Daredevil doesn't know Peter is Spider-Man, despite the fact that Peter knows that Daredevil is Matt Murdock. And since Daredevil doesn't know who he is working for, he doesn't know anything: nothing fulfilling enough to fill paperworks of information, credentials, and government information, without giving away his identity for the sake of the lawsuit.
That is without even considering the actual contents, though.
There's a wall between the plaintiff and the lawyer, but also the plaintiff and the defendant.
The landlord can't know Peter's Spider-Man. That's simply not an option.
Peter decides to bring it up before Daredevil, then, because that's really where this case starts and ends if all fails.
"Hey, Daredevil? Can I ask you something?"
Daredevil pauses, humming curiously against the wind. "Shoot."
"You don't know who I am, even if you — think you do. But... this case needs my real identity, right? To know where I live, who I am, what I do? Wouldn't committing to this lawsuit force me to reveal myself to my landlord?"
Daredevil pauses his scribbling over his own notebook, which Peter notes to be full chockful of braille sections, mostly in the form of different bumps made by another, different, special pen. After that, he just pully puts it to the side, catching the ledge within the spot between the both of them.
"Well," Daredevil says. "If push doesn't come to a shove, Spider-Man, it's safe to say you wouldn't."
Peter is, simply told, just confused at that. "I wouldn't? Really?"
Daredevil hums, then nods. "Trust me."
For the current truth, in the reality of things, though, Peter mostly fills everything with a 'John Doe' synonym, just so 'things fill up'. Alright, maybe there's a bridge in the spectrum ranging from 'shady crooks pretending to be lawyers so they can money-launder' and 'vigilantes who know legal talk'. Either way, Peter is running out of both time and options, so judging anyone is not a realistic virtue for the moment.
After this is all said and done, Peter returns to his apartment.
It's in the form of a little closet stuck within the depths of a crumbling building in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan, owned by a foreign man named Mr. Ditkovich.
He's... more than a little harsh, Peter would claim.
If raising prices by the hitched brackets due to 'insufficient usage of electricity', 'overusing of window', 'suspicious activities regarding appearance', that'd be it.
Truth be told, the incorrect delay of payment might just be the first time Mr. Ditkovich had a real reason to raise the prices, and do so legally. Maybe that's why he's latching so hard unto it. That'd make sense, much more than just hating Peter's guts more intensely with the winter coming around. Like a really grumpy, down-low werewolf.
Either way, he does seem to be as sharp-sensing as one, since the second Peter just put one feet over the rug-decorated threshold of the so-claimed lobby, he senses a certain shadow-figure holding out presence just around the corner; inopportunely, just where his apartment happens to be positioned at.
"Peter," Mr. Ditkovich drawls, a blank slate as expression, tight-shouldered as ever. "I've wanted to talk to you, y'know?"
"Yeah," Peter says, "Same as I."
Then, off his landlord's reaction, he fishes Daredevil's letter out at lighting speed, before any sort of reaction can be mustered in response.
He watches intently as Mr. Ditkovich takes the letter, a bit shell-shocked, and begins running it over and around; and then, just he begins unfolding it, Peter quickly jumps:
"This is a potent lawsuit from my lawyer, Matt Murdock," he says, instantly knowing he did the right thing, if the way Mr. Ditkovich's eyes go wide at the mention of that name. "According to him, and to the Real Property Law: section 238-a, you can't kick me out to due to insufficient funds as long as they're still delivered under the timeframe of at least 5 days thereafter. However, actually... there's another thing, too."
Peter takes the letter, flips it, then returns it back-handed:
"According to the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, you cannot raise my rent without rewarding specific details to local authorities with each 'necessary' hike, like a difference in offered resources. And even then, you have to do it up to 5 precent, and with local rate of inflation, 10. Otherwise, you might just land some serious prison time out-of-state. Not a good situation for your entire building's monopoly, is it?"
Mr. Ditkovich is frozen in place for a moment, his hands prickling the letter in place. His eyes are stuck unto the letter like glue, but only the title is afforded to him; the rest is left unfolded.
"Well," he says, gulping away — then, is already handing Peter the letter back, "You have 5 days, Mr. Parker. Don't be late."
"Thank you," Peter says, smiling, pretending not to watch him out of the corner of his eye as he walks away, and disappears up the stairs in a doddering step.
Peter unlocks the door and enters his apartment, closing the door behind him with a thump. Handling himself empty out of all necessary components — mostly the contents of his backpacks and the leftover contents in his hands — he walks towards the window and picks the landline that's sitting ideally across the drawer-cabinet.
He dials a number, and lets it ring out until another voice picks up the call.
"Yeah?"
"Frank?"
Silence on the other side; then, Frank, sounding impressed or rather surprised: "Web Head. How it's going?"
"I, just... wanted to thank you. Thank your lawyer buddy, most of all. I don't know his number."
(But he does know his name.)
"That's just fine. I'll be sure to pass on the message."
Frank then gives him some of the core details for the next mission, something about a midnight defense heist against one of the top government officials' secret bunker stash or whatnot, but Peter doesn't really listen. Not because he's disrespectful about it, but because the hollow warmth of relief has just began to wash over him. It might have been a small problem in the overview of things, but it was continuous enough to legit earn him annoyance. Now, with it gone, the missions could only be more efficiently-executed once again.
"Hey, Frank?"
Once that explanation's done, the commotion on Frank's side of the call returns. "Yeah?"
"Tell Red I know him. He was my lawyer once."
Frank huffs, low and controlled. "I'll make sure to do that."
"Thanks. Talk to you later."
Peter hangs up, and goes to his bed. He doesn't think of the implication, or the fact that, tomorrow, Red will recognize him just a little more than before.