Pure Panic
Sighing, Peter got out of his cleaner clothes and pulling the torn, worn clothes back on. He was not about to go dumpster diving in the new(...ISH) stuff.
Honestly, he's not expecting to find much. Queens, New York isn't exactly a haven of rich bastards that would happily chuck salvageable tech into the refuse.
But he has to try. Because unless he magically gets loaded in the next couple of days, he really won't have enough to buy extra parts if his suit gets wrecked.
And Peter knows it will eventually. There's no doubt about it.
Making his way out of his room (god, when did that dusty thing become his?) he trudged into the main room before slowly clambering up the wall and out of the window (he should probably remove the broken glass jutting out of it. That would be a nasty cut to have to suture with no sutures).
Surprisingly, it wasn't as cold this afternoon as it had been all the other days. A slightly warmer Spring breeze tickled his face as he vaulted over the fence.
(It seemed he was already getting into a routine, huh.)
If he was honest, Peter had vague experience when it came to dumpster diving. What to do, what to look for, what to avoid.
May (the very thought of her sent a pang of longing through his chest) and him had gotten into a deep ditch of poverty after Ben's death, where they were really struggling to make ends meet.
May had resorted to dumpster diving for Peter's clothes and for food, even.
Peter refused to let her do it without letting him help.
So he picked up a couple of things.
So, he knows he's looking for mechanical parts...
Best to locate some tech shops and skulk around there for a time.
And maybe he could have a good look in some fast food joint's dumpsters. They always chuck out stuff that's fine into big bins, right?
Peter should probably try a smaller tech shop. If he went straight for something like Apple, he'd probably get caught in no time.
But then again, they'd only just released the Apple TV and the 3rd generation iPad... And StarkTech had gotten way bigger than them at this point.
Still. Peter couldn't risk it, no matter how tempting it was.
As he slipped into an alleyway beside a repair shop, Peter warily looked around to make sure nobody was looking or watching before he exhaled and hoisted himself up onto the dumpster roof.
He inhaled sharply before getting to work sifting through the useless stuff on top, looking for anything he could use.
By the end of it, he had knocked out the capacitors in an old radio, dismantled a broken laptop for the CPU, RAM, and ROM (he could reprogram the ROM if he got a hold of something to do so), and nicked a WiFi router to see if he could fix it up and give himself WiFi for Karen.
After putting everything in the flimsy plastic bag and praying to whatever God was out there that it didn't break, Peter hopped down off the dumpster roof and tried to inconspicuously walk out of the alleyway.
He ended up passing by a Burger King and remembered that he was thinking about dumpster diving for food. He'd not exactly been doing his metabolism any favours, only eating basically a sandwich every other day, and he was famished.
The Burger King didn't seem too busy, and from what he could see through the windows, the employees seemed to be more busy with their... Nokia bricks or whatever the hell kind of ancient phone build that was.
So he quickly slipped down the Drive Thru and behind the building before busying himself with nabbing as many fresh-looking burgers as he could (super)humanly carry.
Peter stuffed some of them into the plastic bag, but he kept a couple out so he could eat them on the way back to the fire station.
He snuck back round to the building front as quickly as he could, but he wasn't looking and then he bumped into-...
Happy.
Tony's bodyguard/chauffeur/whatever he was. Peter hadn't super talked to him. Happy was slung with babysitting him (sort of) when he was fighting Cap and stuff in 2015, but they weren't super close!
Why didn't his Spidey sense go off? Why was Happy Hogan here? He looked a hell of a lot younger- Why was he HERE?!
Peter could feel his heartbeat pick up as the bulky man in front of him turned round to face him.
He glanced into the windows of the Burger King surreptitiously and-
Fuck. Fuck, shit. Oh god. Why him. Of course Mr. Stark is in the damn fast food restaurant.
Why else would Happy Hogan be here?!
Shiiiit.
"Watch where you're going, kid," he could hear Happy say to him, but he wasn't exactly zoned in right now.
Peter just about managed to apologize before absolutely booking it down the street in the opposite direction. Was he even going the right way back to the fire station?
Fuck, he didn't care. He needed out. His insides were roiling and squirming with so many uncomfortable feelings and he felt like he was going to be insanely sick.
Peter wished he had his suit, or his web-shooters, fuck, why did he take them off?
He felt sick. He felt iller than he ever had, iller than after the bite.
God, why did he have to see Mr. Stark?
The last he saw of him...
The last he saw, he'd let him down. He died on Mr. Stark's watch. And it was all his own fault.
Fuck. He was gonna be sick.
Peter didn't even know where he was going, but he soon came to a skidding stop, lurching beside an alleyway before upchucking bile violently onto the pavement.
He stood there for a moment, dry-heaving, before managing to come to enough to compute the hand on his back and the concerned female voice asking him if he was okay.
"...-e you okay? Do you need help? Lila, don't poke him-"
What the hell was up with his Spidey sense lately? Either that or he was just feeling so ridiculously bad that he didn't notice the low hum he could feel now.
He finally pulled himself together and looked up to see who was talking to him, but it was useless. His eyes were swimming with tears and everything was blurry anyways.
"Do you have a phone? Do you have a parent we can call?" The lady said again (Peter nicknamed her Concerned Mom. He also needs to work on his nicknames).
Peter let out an embarrassingly pitiful sob and shook his head.
"Oh, dear, uh," Concerned Mom fumbled for words.
"You look like a hobo," a little girl's voice reached his ear. "Why do you look like a hobo?"
"Lila!" Concerned Mom reprimanded her daughter sharply. "I'm- just, sorry, ignore her, she's a little minx sometimes."
A boy somewhere next to her scoffed. "She's not wrong, though."
"I swear, Cooper, shut your mouth," Concerned Mom threatened vaguely.
Peter scrubbed his eyes as free of tears as he could, and his eyes finally managed to focus on the woman and children in front of him.
The woman in front of him was looking at him worriedly, with a hand still on his back and rubbing soothing circles, and using her other hand to hold onto who he assumed was Lila.
Concerned Mom had thick, brown, wavy hair that went to about below her shoulders, and warm brown eyes.
"Are you okay?" She asked again.
Peter exhaled, taking his shaking hands away from his face. "..I'll be fine," he managed, nodding slowly. "I'll, uh, I-I'll be okay."
The Concerned Mom in front of him and her Judgy Children(â„¢, patent pending) didn't exactly look like they believed him. "Okay... Well, at least let me get you some water or something, honey. You can't possibly be enjoying the taste of bile in your mouth."
Peter hadn't exactly been all that bothered by it until she brought attention to it. He smacked his lips, grimacing.
"...you don't, uh, you don't have to?" Peter tried, but he could tell from the way Concerned Mom was looking at him that she wasn't exactly going to take no for an answer.
"Nonsense! Come on. We were heading to a little cafe anyways. Momma needs some damn caffeine." She said, gently shifting her hand to get his shoulder and get him moving.
The little girl - Lila, if he'd heard right - was seemingly intent on boring holes into his head with her eyes as they walked. Peter was beginning to get uncomfortable. Just when he was about to open his mouth and say something to her, she opened hers and said, "You look scruffy."
Peter blinked, unsure what to say, and just immediately defaulted to "Thanks?"
Lila tilted her head curiously, before frowning. "You're weird."
And then she looked at her mom and began yapping incessantly to her as they entered the cafe.
Now that they had headed into a public establishment, Peter was beginning to feel extremely embarrassed about the way he looked. He had specifically dressed in his messier clothes because of what he had set out to do - he still limply clutched the plastic bag in his left hand - and honestly, maybe Lila and Cooper were right. He must look like a real hobo.
Concerned Mom turned to him and her children. "Go find a table, yeah? I'll get what everyone usually has and I'll get this young man-"
"-Peter," Peter interrupted automatically, before blushing like a beet. "Sorry, um, I didn't mean to- uh, interrupt you, or anything!"
Concerned Mom shrugged, smiling slightly. "It's fine, don't worry about it," she reassured. As an afterthought, she added, "I'm Laura."
Then she turned to her children again. "As I was saying, I'll get Peter a bottled water."
Cooper grunted eloquently in acknowledgment before scampering off to the nearest empty table and slinging himself into one of the seats. Lila followed close behind, and Peter slowly trudged after them, sighing.
Quite literally as soon as Peter's butt had touched the seat and he had set down his bag, Lila was introducing herself and her brother loudly. "Hi! I'm Lila! I'm seven!" With seven fingers in Peter's face for emphasis.
"That creature thing is Cooper! He's ten!" She exclaimed, giggling, as she pointed right in Cooper's face, who groaned and smacked her hand away.
"Get your fingers out of my face, motormouth." He grumbled, sinking further into his seat and staring out of the cafe window.
"Am not a motormouth! I'm gonna tell Mom you're being a loser-meanie-face. And then you'll get in trouble!" Lila whined, pouting petulantly and folding her arms.
"Don't you dare! I was gonna try and convince mom to buy me Lego today! She won't if I'm not being g-"
"Oh my God, shut up, the pair of you," Laura interjected exasperatedly, sliding into the spare seat with a tray, and Peter was glad she had. He wasn't sure how much more bickering he could take. "I'm sure Peter doesn't want to hear you two having an argument this afternoon."
Peter flushed again, shrugging loosely. "I-I mean. I don't mind, really."
Laura fixed him with an incredibly deadpan look. "Yes you do. Everyone minds. Anyone who doesn't mind childish quarreling is insane."
"Not my fault Coop called me a motormouth," Lila said sulkily, and Laura shot her a look before passing her a juice box off the tray. She immediately lit up and ripped the straw off the back.
Laura handed Cooper a Pepsi, and then Peter a bottled water.
"Thanks, Mrs. Laur- I mean. Uh. Just Laura," Peter fumbled, busying himself with cracking open the seal of his water.
"Don't worry about it, kiddo," she shrugged nonchalantly. "Couldn't just let a kid vom on his own and then not have water with him. You seemed really upset, though. Something happen?"
Peter looked down at the table, fidgeting with the bottle lid. "Nah... Probably just ate something off," he lied. He could see Laura's brow furrow disbelievingly, but she let it slide.
"Uh huh," she hummed, taking her own flat white off the tray and sipping it.
"No dessert, Mom?" Cooper asked disappointedly, and Peter mentally thanked him for saving him from Concerned Mom.
"Cooper, you know we'll be having dinner when we get back to the apartment," Laura chided, shaking her head. "If I bought you and Lila cake, you'd not eat it! And you know you and your sister are murder for that."
Peter took this moment to have a drink of his water and wash out the taste of bile from his throat. Why did he get so freaked out after seeing Happy and Mr. Stark? Surely it isn't all that strange for Tony to be at a fast food restaurant in New York?
Maybe it was the shock. It was probably the shock.
"-e taken home? We've a car not too far from here," Laura offered, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Huh? Say that again?" Peter asked, blinking like a deer in headlights.
"Do you wanna be taken home?" She repeated, "We've a car not too far from here."
Peter immediately felt a sharp stab of panic in his chest. He didn't have a home for her to take him to. "Um, no thanks, I can get home just fine myself," he said, quickly getting up and getting his stuff together. "Thanks for the water though!"
"No, really, it isn't a bother-" Laura began to say, but Peter was already practically bolting out of the cafe with his flimsy plastic bag and his water.
The air had significantly cooled now, since it was becoming evening. Peter shivered slightly, wishing he had a bike or a quicker way to transport himself. Would have been lovely to accept the car ride, but it would raise too much suspicion if he told her to go to a street with no houses on it.
Now he had to start on his way back.
So he could finally begin to make sure his suit was ready for Spider-Manning.