Chapter Text
Peter really thinks he is doing a good deed.
It starts with good intentions—he promises himself that, at least.
He could never have anticipated what it would curdle into.
He really, truly couldn't have.
Right now, he's stuck in a corner booth of a dingy coffee shop, mostly just sitting, chewing on a stale bagel, and staring out at the foot traffic through a pane of plexiglass.
The plastic is smeared with a toddler's sticky handprints—hundreds of little cloudy whorls left behind by a kid who keeps shoving his fingers into a mouth full of spit and painting the window like a canvas.
Peter stares blankly at the little guy, who happens to be wearing a Spider-Man tee plastered with crusty spots of dried boogers and drool.
Peter offers a tired, lopsided smile.
In response, the toddler wedges a fist into his mouth, pulls it out with a wet pop, and blows a raspberry.
A string of spitz bubbles at the corner of his lips in a thick, opaque paste.
The mother swoops in, snatching the kid away with a flurry of half-hearted scoldings and an apologetic grimace shot straight at Peter.
"Oh, no! It's totally fine," he lies, but she’s already too overwhelmed to linger or chat with a stranger.
He's alone again, instantly regretting buying this brick of a bagel.
It tastes like the driest grade of corrugated cardboard.
Still, he'd feel guilty throwing it away—though if he brings the rest home, it'll just sit on the counter until it sprouts a fuzzy blue ecosystem.
And giving it to someone on the street makes him feel like an absolute jerk; homeless people aren't living garbage disposals for the stuff he doesn't want to eat.
So, his only logical option is to suffer through it and chew.
And then, the shop's brass bell jingles.
His head snaps up, heart hammering, desperately hoping for the dark, messy curls he’s been dreaming about.
His stomach plummets in that familiar, sickening freefall of excitement and terror.
Instead, he catches a glimpse of auburn hair, and his gaze instantly drops back to his plate.
His nose twitches on instinct, cataloging the scent out of miserable habit.
MJ smells like rich, bitter coffee grounds, old library paper, and the clean ozone of a New York summer rainstorm.
It’s a scent he could pick out blindfolded, in the middle of a warzone.
Sometimes he swears he can still smell it lingering on his thin, yellowed pillowcase if he presses his face hard enough into the cotton.
He knows it's fading—that she's fading from his life—but hope is a stubborn, stupid thing.
The girl who just walked in doesn't smell like MJ.
But her scent is distinct, hitting the back of his throat with a jarring clarity.
She smells like that cheap, lurid pink industrial soap from subway station restrooms or fast-food joints—the kind he’s occasionally resorted to smearing under his arms and across his neck in a desperate pinch when he smells like sweat and can't afford a bar of actual soap.
It's slippery, faintly chemical, and mixed here with the musty tang of laundry that never quite dried properly in the sun.
His lips downturn, a sharp pang of pity hitting his chest.
The girl must not have consistent access to soap.
Or worse, to water at all.
He notices, too, that she’s wearing an enormous sweatshirt layered right over a knit sweater—which makes zero sense, considering the suffocating heat outside is currently plastering his own t-shirt uncomfortably to his spine.
She smells like trapped heat and stale sweat, too, but he can't get a good look at her face.
She has the massive hood pulled down tight to her ears, with only a few coarse strands of that rich auburn hair peeking out.
She is hunched over, curling in on herself, desperately trying to take up as little space in the world as possible.
He instinctively checks his pockets for any loose change, wondering if she has enough for a proper meal.
His fingers brush against pocket lint and a piece of stray gravel he must have tracked in from a rooftop.
Dead silence.
Not a single coin.
Then, he freezes mid-movement, his gaze snapping back to her as the hair on the back of his neck stands on end.
Something in the air just shifted—a micro-vibration, a sudden, electric twitch that makes his spidey-sense quietly hum beneath his skin.
He scans the room, but there’s nothing overtly abnormal.
Just her, picking up a black coffee and a wrapped tuna sandwich, shuffling toward a table tucked away in the darkest, most secluded corner of the shop.
She doesn't even pull out a wallet to pay, he notes.
Maybe she knows the owners, he reasons.
Maybe they take pity on her, or maybe she settles her tab on the way out.
Still, it feels off.
She radiates a visceral kind of tension.
She smells and tastes like pure stress—like something wounded, burrowing deep underground to hide.
She hoists her heavy backpack onto her lap, hugging it against her chest like a shield before tearing into the sandwich in massive, desperate bites.
Her sharp blue eyes dart frantically around the room, ricocheting from face to face.
The coffee is scorching—he can tell just from the faint steam curling off the rim—yet she chugs it in rabid, scalding gulps, barely flinching before she reacts.
She’s terrified, he realizes.
Scared to the bone.
But of what?
Is someone tracking her?
Is she running?
Her clothes hang off her frame like a disguise.
The neckline is stretched out, the cuffs are frayed, and the seams are warped from relentless use and aggressive hand-washing.
Hand-washing.
The thought hits close to home.
He does the exact same thing in his cracked bathroom porcelain ever since his washing machine gave out and he refused to spend rent money on a repair when those parts could be repurposed for real technology—gear that could actually protect the city.
His own clothes usually got by.
They smelled a little weird sometimes, but they were mostly fine.
He leans forward by a fraction of an inch, his nose twitching again, the fine hairs on his arms standing on end as he takes in the details.
Flat sneakers, worn down to the foam, held together by frayed, snapped laces.
Her hair is greasy at the roots, hastily twisted into a loose bun in a crude attempt to mask it.
Her lips are split so severely that when she takes an oversized bite of the sandwich, the skin tears.
A thin line of crimson beads down, dripping straight into the black coffee, which she drinks down without a second glance.
He watches that single red drop trace a path across skin that is paper-thin and pale.
Her knuckles and cheeks are raw, chapped by relentless exposure to the elements.
Looking at her, Peter reaches a quiet, sinking conclusion: this girl doesn’t have a home to go back to.
And it worries him down to his bones.
She looks far too young to be navigating this city alone.
He likes to believe the best in people—he really, truly does—but New York is a brutal place, and for a kid like her, the streets are a trap.
He watches as she devours the rest of her sandwich, aggressively wiping the crumbs away with the frayed cuff of her sleeve before draining the last bitter dregs of her cup.
She slips out the door without paying, yet none of the staff bat an eye.
She vanishes into the afternoon air as though the devil himself were snapping at her heels.
Peter glances down at his own half-eaten, cardboard-dry bagel.
He can’t just leave it sitting on the table, but in good conscience, he can't just sit here and let her walk away into the abyss either.
He sweeps his gaze upward, checking for the coffee shop's security cameras, silently praying they're either grainy enough to be useless or outright broken.
Stuffing the remaining half of the bagel deep into his jacket pocket, he slips out the door after her.
He keeps his pace measured, hanging back just far enough so he doesn’t trigger any alarms or look like some creep tailing a kid down the sidewalk.
She walks with her shoulders pinned to her ears, white-knuckling the straps of her backpack.
He doesn't have to guess why; he knows that bag is holding the entirety of her world.
The sun is dipping low, painting the concrete in long, amber shadows, and he can already tell the bagel in his pocket is going to turn into a warm, depressing sludge.
He tracks her a few paces back, trying to look like just another aimless pedestrian so he doesn't spook her into a panic.
She’s either a minor fleeing a bad home or a failing social services system, terrified of drawing any eyes.
Kids don't run into the dark unless the light behind them is burning too hot.
Or maybe she’s barely legal, an adult on paper, and running from something far worse.
Either way, the last thing he wants to do is corner her.
She’s already spent.
She cuts through a maze of narrow alleys with a strange confidence, weaving through shortcuts Peter can't quite map out.
Maybe she’s heading for a specific shelter, though she doesn't strike him as the type who would trust the crowded, bureaucratic city ones—and anyway, he knows there aren't any legitimate outposts in this immediate neighborhood.
Maybe she’s making a break for the subway; a lot of the displaced find temporary, freezing refuge down on the platforms when the night gets too cold.
He honestly doesn't even know why he's still trailing her.
His own apartment is a ghost town, waiting for him with its piles of laundry and grimy floors.
He wears the same rotation of clothes week after week because he refuses to spend cash on a new wardrobe when every spare dollar is funneled straight into his gear.
Well, he could technically afford it if he budgeted, but the tech always wins.
Upgrades come first.
The city isn't going to save itself, and building web-shooters and lenses keeps the quiet in his head at bay.
He survives on instant ramen, usually forgetting to even boil the water, just crunching the dry brick raw while his teeth protest the abuse.
His body is a wreck of dull aches.
He finds himself harboring a subtle, invisible limp wherever he goes, fighting off sudden waves of lightheadedness just from standing upright—a direct, dizzying consequence of spending too much time upside down, glued to brick walls and concrete ceilings.
His body is a tapestry of deep, bone-deep bruising that really ought to be causing internal bleeding—and honestly, on bad weeks, it does.
Sometimes he pisses blood, but he brushes it off.
It’s fine.
He’s fine.
His body hurts, sure, but he’s adapted.
He’s had to.
The girl keeps walking at such a punishing pace it feels like she’s trying to hike right out of the five boroughs, and a brief, paranoid thought crosses his mind: has she noticed him?
Is she deliberately trying to ditch him?
His ribs start to protest with a dull, throbbing ache.
He isn't used to covering this kind of distance entirely on foot.
Usually, when he’s moving across the city, his feet get a much-needed break from the pavement.
In fact, he glances down and realizes the sole of his left shoe has completely given up the ghost, flapping loose with every step.
He’d actually shed the useless piece of rubber blocks ago while a startled pedestrian stared, pretending not to notice.
He just needs to catch up to her.
Talk to her somewhere neutral where she doesn't feel cornered, just to make sure she's not going to freeze or starve.
The sun has finally dropped, swallowing the last bruised streaks of twilight, and the autumn air is turning sharp and cold.
He watches as she abruptly pivots left, stepping up to the curb to stare out at the rushing stream of headlights.
The passing cars wash her face in intermittent flashes of gold and white, casting an almost haunting, ethereal glow over her features.
She is strikingly pretty—a detail that only tightens the knot of dread in his stomach.
She stands in silence, her blue eyes tracking the blur of vehicles with a desperate, calculating intensity.
That prickling static at the base of his neck flares up again, sharp enough to sting, pulling all of his focus right back to her.
Is the alarm in his head going off just because she’s terrified?
His spider-sense doesn’t usually react to mere fear, but maybe...
A car abruptly pulls over to the curb right in front of her.
An older man leans across the passenger seat, his hand thick with dark hair, gesturing to converse through the window.
Or at least, Peter assumes they're speaking; from this distance, he never actually sees the driver's mouth move.
The itch at the back of Peter's neck morphs into a full-blown burn.
He watches the girl's hand drift toward the car door handle, and his body preempts his brain, moving entirely on instinct.
"Hey, wait!" he yells out, his voice cutting through the traffic.
The thought of this vulnerable kid getting into a stranger's car on a deserted stretch of road makes his blood run cold.
She doesn't even glance back at him.
Her eyes remain glued to the vehicle, her brows furrowed in a blank, glassy stare.
Peter's neck flares hot again.
He breaks into a dead sprint, ignoring the chorus of agony screaming from his bruised ribs and aching joints.
He lunges toward the car, grabbing a solid grip on the top of the half-rolled-down window frame before the driver can hit the gas.
He knows he can wrench the door open or hold the chassis down with brute force if things go south, or throw his own body in front of the bumper if it comes to that.
He cannot, will not, let a kid walk blindly into a nightmare.
At the sudden commotion, the man’s head and the girl’s head whip around in synchronized, unnatural unison to stare at him.
A cold drop of dread hits Peter's stomach.
Something is wrong.
Something is deeply, fundamentally wrong here.
"What do you want, kid?" the man snaps, his voice flat, while the girl stays entirely, hauntingly silent.
Peter swallows hard, forcing himself to bypass the driver and lock eyes with her.
"Sorry," he breathes, his pulse hammering in his ears. "Do you... do you actually know this man?"
"She knows me," the man cuts in quickly, his tone flat and oddly devoid of any natural inflection. "Now, go away. It’s late."
Peter forces himself to keep his voice level, careful not to sound hostile.
The last thing he wants is to trigger a violent reaction with the girl trapped in the crossfire.
"I'd rather hear it from her," Peter says, keeping his focus locked on the passenger seat.
The girl stares straight ahead, her expression completely vacant, not even bothering to blink as Peter leans closer to check her face.
The warning static at the nape of his neck has spiked into a nauseating, unbearable pressure.
Every instinct he has is screaming at him to rip the door open and haul her out into the street.
"Kid, she doesn't wanna talk to you. Walk away before you find yourself in real trouble," the man spits, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as the engine revs and the car shifts into gear.
Peter plays his final, desperate card.
"Try it and I'll snap a picture of your license plate right now," Peter lies, his voice hard and steady, keeping his eyes on the girl to anchor her. "The cops will have your car flagged before you even hit the next block."
Her face is a mask—neither stressed nor calm.
It’s deeply, chillingly unnatural, especially compared to the raw panic she’d radiated just minutes ago.
It's as if someone reached in and wiped her mind clean with a damp cloth.
Did this guy drug her? Peter wonders, a cold sweat breaking out across his back as he counts the seconds and realizes she still hasn't blinked once.
Some kind of neuro-toxin?
Mind-control tech?
It’s entirely possible in this city, if only he—
The driver’s face contorts into a mask of sudden, vicious rage, making Peter flinch—before the man's expression abruptly shatters into utter confusion.
The driver blinks hard, looking around the empty street like he’s just woken up from a dream.
And just like that, the violent prickling at the back of Peter's neck vanishes into thin air.
"What the hell?" the man mutters aloud.
At the exact same second, the girl violently shoves Peter back from the window and scrambles out of the car, tearing down the pavement on foot.
Peter stumbles, recovering his balance just in time to watch her vanish into the gathering shadows.
"Hey, wait!" he shouts, breaking into a run, catching brief glimpses of her auburn hair flashing under the flickering amber glow of the streetlights.
And then, without warning, she stops dead and spins around.
Her blue eyes flare wide, her face twisted in a snarl of raw, unadulterated fury.
And then... his head explodes.
It feels like someone is branding a hot iron rod directly against his temples, burning through his skull.
He’s in his old bedroom.
Aunt May walks in, her long hair falling over her shoulder as she sits down on the edge of the mattress and—
He blinks, violently dragged back to the asphalt.
The street snaps into focus.
The girl is still standing right in front of him, her head tilted at an impossible, sickening angle.
Did one of his migraines hit him out of nowhere?
They have been getting worse lately, blooming behind his eyes without warning.
Or... or did she do that?
"How did you do that?" she demands, her voice cracking with youth, dripping with a volatile mix of terror and blinding rage.
Peter blinks, staggering under the residual ache in his skull.
How did he do what?
She looks downright terrified now, stumbling back three hasty steps into the brickwork of the dark, narrowing alleyway.
His stomach drops.
He's cornering her—the exact opposite of what he wanted to do.
He slowly raises both hands, palms out in a placating gesture, but she flinches back as if he’d just thrust fire into her face.
She bares her teeth with an animalistic snarl, and snap—he’s yanked out of reality, flat on his back in his old bedroom as Aunt May smiles down at him.
He blinks hard, the vision dissolving like smoke.
He's back in the freezing alley.
A stiff, battered alley cat crouches a few feet away, watching them with unblinking yellow eyes.
Right.
Okay.
There is zero doubt left in his mind—she is 100% the one doing this.
"Okay, okay, please just listen," he rushes out, keeping his voice soft and steady. "Please. I don't know who you are, and I don't know what's going on, but I swear on my life I don't want to hurt you. I just want to help. I promise."
She lets out a harsh, bitter bark of laughter, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
"Oh, yeah? To help me?" she mocks, venom dripping from every syllable. "What, want me to hop into one of your windowless vans?"
"What? No! I don't—I don't even have a car!" He cringes, knowing how ridiculously pathetic that sounds, but he can practically feel the electric spike of her stress. "I just... if you'd come with me—"
"I don't want to come with you, I'm fine, so just fuck off," she snaps, her blue eyes darting toward the street like she's about to bolt.
Then she freezes, staring at him with a sudden, calculating shift before violently shaking her head as if chewing herself out.
"Alright. Okay, I get it, it's fine," Peter says, softening his stance and backing up an inch. "I just want to make sure you're safe. I won't force you to do anything."
"Then move the fuck out of the way, genius," she snarls, baring her teeth again.
He immediately steps aside, clearing the path to show she's free to go.
She breaks into a dead sprint, and his instincts kick in—he instinctively shifts to block her path.
She hisses like a cornered feral cat.
They almost collide, and suddenly the asphalt vanishes.
The suffocatingly sweet smell of Aunt May's lavender perfume floods his senses, blinding him for a heartbeat before he’s slammed back into the cold brick of the alley.
"Stop doing that!" she shrieks, breathless and shaking.
"I'm not doing anything!"
They stare at each other in a charged, breathless silence
Slowly, cautiously, Peter raises his hands again.
"My name..." he starts, taking a slow breath. "Is Peter Parker. I swear to god, that's my real, legal name."
"Oh, and shouting your government name to a stranger in a dark alley definitely doesn't make you sound like a serial killer," she fires back, her voice shaking.
Yeah.
Fair point.
"Before you decide to walk away," Peter presses on, ignoring her sarcasm, "I have an apartment. There's dry ramen. There's a bed. And you are free to walk out the door the second you want to. But... maybe we can figure out whatever the hell is going on with your... whatever this is, and why it's reacting to me."
She stands frozen in the shadows, staring at him in dead, suffocating silence.
And then, she turns her back and starts walking away.
Alright.
He... he tried.
Peter lets out a long, defeated sigh, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets only to instantly regret it as his fingers squish into the ruined, mashed-up remains of the bagel.
Awesome.
Just fantastic.
"Are you coming or what?" her voice cuts sharply through the quiet, echoing off the brick walls. "I don't know where your gross apartment is, government-name. Hurry up."