Chapter 2
Pinks and oranges color the city in a tint of pleasantry and tranquility, the setting sun giving its last spark of effort to keep her people under her protective glare, as once the shadows envelop the streets and the alleyways melt into brick walls, the lurking underground comes out to play. Though, with the sinking day and the encroaching dark comes other entities. Entities that have slaved away with no guiding light, pushing themselves further and further to get better and better. Entities that channel their thrumming rage to find its release through hurling fists and pained grunts.
The vigilantes now run rampant throughout the towering grid of New York City, a movement that’s spread far and wide across the nation, as various other countries find themselves fit with street-running uprisings of their own. None, however, compare to the original, with its vigilantes spanning across the entire metropolis, every corner and every nook under the watchful eye of a myriad of different righteous forces. One such crime fighter is widely known as Spider-Man. The Spider or Arachnid were monikers reserved for those deepest in the underground, those who feared that saying his name more than once would simply summon him to the very shadows they presided in. The same people who refused to mutter a word in Hell’s Kitchen with the knowledge that the Devil was always listening, always lurking and slinking along behind them.
Spider-Man, the Spider, Arachnid to civilians and to enemies. Webs, Asshat, Menace to those he’s seen with. Mostly a deadly, hulking mercenary that never stops running his mouth or a vicious, silent man adorned in red and horns that portray his reputation on the darkened streets. Though, sometimes the wall-crawler can be seen dragging the world’s strongest woman out of bars, dumping her flask into the bushes, or walking the Punisher’s dog, Max, through the streets in broad daylight, adorned head to toe in his suit.
Because of this, Spider-Man’s head was protected with the lives of the entirety of the New York City vigilante population. And yet, even without the devotion, the Spider didn’t make a name for himself just by being a back marker or a bystander. He has the strength of hundreds of men combined, he can climb walls and listen to a drug deal happening three blocks away, Spider-Man can see figures lurking in the shadows even before Daredevil can send out a warning. He has the bizarre ability to act before the threat even activates and he’s somehow trained himself to move with the litheness and silence of his blind mentor, trained himself to be entirely undetectable by external forces, assuming they don’t possess the detecting abilities of his aforementioned mentor.
As well known as Spider-Man is, his personal identity is entirely unknown by citizens and fellow vigilantes alike, as is his age. Fifteen-year-old Peter Parker knows that if any of his nighttime friends allies knew just the fact that he isn’t even a legal adult yet, it would spread around the vigilante community like wildfire, and he’d have a swarm of concerned, furious adults demanding he stop his extracurricular crime and focus on “being a kid,” as he’d been told the first time his identity was revealed after the whole Mysterio situation.
So, Peter—Spider-Man—knows that his true identity, were it to ever be revealed, could be catastrophic to the current flow of the vigilante community, and Queens could potentially be left unguarded in the time it takes for him to sort out the issue. He supposed he could ask Purple Hawkeye to watch his post for a bit, considering the fact that she’d be the least likely to mind leaving her part of the city since Hawkeye (the original) will probably already have it under wraps. Plus, she would definitely want an excuse to avoid the whole topic of youthfulness in crime fighting, as she’s only 18-years-old, and while she may be an adult, she still started at 17, and the other vigilantes will take the chance to discuss with (and/or scold) her over the matter if she comes too close too soon.
Regardless, Peter would prefer to keep his identity hidden from anyone. If not for the reason already stated above, then for the reason that his current living situation isn’t exactly… a desired association with a kid his age. What, with him living alone having earned his GED and attaining emancipation after being placed in foster care. All in all, best case scenario, Spider-Man stays known only as Spider-Man and Peter Parker stays known as the random kid who works at the Daily Bugle, with the only evidence of his existence being the neat print of his name under every featured picture of Spider-Man.
The bell above the door chimes as Peter enters the dimly-lit corner market, a couple dollar bills in hand as he moves to the first-aid section, titled as such by a crooked sign hanging from the ceiling, missing one of its tethers. He scans through the prices and kits, choosing the one that has the materials he uses most often that is still within his price range. Peter moves to the counter, removing the measly bills from his pocket and placing them on the counter together with the medkit as the cashier wordlessly begins to ring it up.
The bell above the door chimes as Peter exits the dimly-lit corner market, walking the sunlit streets hastily in hopes of making it back to his apartment in time to get his suit on by sunset and be out of the window by last light. As he walks, Peter puts his hood up and his head down, keeping up the facade of a normal kid trying to make it through the bad part of town in hopes that he doesn’t have to pretend like the muggers he knocked out had done it to themselves, just so the cops wouldn’t have to look into how such a young kid had done so on his own. Speaking from experience.
He keeps his eyes trained on his busted sneakers with their untied shoelaces as he scuffles past various alleyways, barely batting an eye at the people camping out in them—homeless people, groups of teenagers, the occasional patrol cop—until one conversation a few streets up catches his ears.
“I’m telling you, man, this auction will be one of a kind. Like, once in a lifetime type of thing.” The trepid, hushed tone of this voice immediately set Peter on edge. “They’re selling muts and weapons of all kinds for the best prices. Boss needs us to be there, he wants us to grab anyone and anything worth taking.” Peter sneers at the term. “Muts” are what the underground calls mutants or enhanced individuals. It’s supposed to intentionally be a play on the word “mutt,” reflecting their true feelings on the matter. He immediately makes his way into the nearest alley to get ready to eavesdrop and, if it comes to it, follow this group.
Slipping the medkit into his hoodie pocket, Peter quickly leaps—perhaps a bit higher than the average human should—to grab the edge of the fire escape platform, muscling himself up to begin climbing the stairs two at a time to reach the rooftop. Once above, he navigates to where the voice is now explaining to the other man something about their crime circle’s latest gossip. Man, does this guy ever stop talking? Not that Peter can say much without being a hypocrite, nor is he complaining because it makes his tracking a hell of a lot easier, but dude, shouldn’t they be, like, all business or something?
Anyway, as Peter arrives at the roof directly above the bogies’ alleyway, he settles into his perch, content to just listen until he hears something else in relation to this apparent auction or anything otherwise helpful. For a while, the man just talks about the budding relationships among their little group, but eventually he trails off, giving an opening for the other guy to finally speak.
“Wait, so this auction… how big will it be? I bet the night crew is already all over this trail, and if it’s something big, information is going to travel all over, all through the boroughs, including the ones under the watch of the Devil and the Spider.” The man pauses, leaning in to whisper to the other man, “and right now, we’re still in Queens. That means the latter can be listening to our conversation right the fuck now.” Peter froze, waiting for his perch to be called out, before the man continued, “we need to leave.”
The first guy agrees with the sentiment, if the rigorous nodding of his head accompanied by a sharp, fearful intake of breath means anything. And then they’re off, walking as fast as possible while retaining a publicly acceptable pace. Peter sighs, knowing he’s in for a long night of tracking and gaining intel, and stands from his seat atop the roof. He drops down and follows the two men inconspicuously, weaving through the customary New York crowd at a distance, watching them discuss in hurried whispers lost to the wind and jumbled among the thousands of other conversations happening in their vicinity.
Walking for twenty minutes, the men suddenly turn onto a side street, and Peter has to quickly duck behind an alleyway corner as they suspiciously glance around before committing to their destination. Peter, now in a much less crowded space, follows the sound of their footfalls, stopping just before the near-vacant side street and scaling the wall after ensuring there were no cameras or people nearby. Now dark, even if one did see him, they’d likely just pass it off as an illusion in the shadows.
Once again comfortably atop a building—though shorter than he generally prefers, only three stories—Peter follows them, keeping out of sight of the street dwellers and away from the edges of each roof he hops. The men’s rushed steps begin to slow as they approach a large, industrial warehouse, long since abandoned according to the broken windows and faded paint on the grimy brick walls that once detailed the business. Waiting for a few moments after the men enter the building, Peter drops from the roof he’d stopped on and darts across the street, nothing but a shimmer of the shadows, as he begins scaling the five-story wall at a blurred pace.
Peeking through a broken window, Peter sees the two men from before speaking with others in the group, surrounded by around twelve other total people in the warehouse, sans them, locked in their own heated discussions. He can hear them discussing the aforementioned auction that had first caught Peter’s attention.
A girl in the group of five speaks up, “I don’t know, man, I heard it was supposed to be kept entirely under wraps until they had the entire stock. They’re still lacking the expected amount of muts, so they had to postpone the auction.” Peter narrowed his eyes, taking a mental note. If they need more enhanced individuals, the amount of kidnapping cases on Jessica’s desk is about to grow tenfold. He’ll have to warn the others about this tonight if he sees them.
“Yeah,” the blabbermouth from before starts, “there’s no set date anymore, but apparently potential buyers have started outing muts they personally know in order to speed up the process, they’re all getting impatient.” How long have they been planning this for people to already be getting impatient? And how has this gone under their noses this entire time? Obviously, it’s been long enough for the criminals to get comfortable enough to talk about it near a public, crowded street.
Suddenly, a man from the group of twelve people that were uninvolved in the conversation speaks up, evidently the leader of this subgroup.
“Listen up,” he calls, silencing the room, “the boss wants us back at the hub by tomorrow night with all of our gear, he’s going to send us out to find any mutants that could bring him a nice sum of money at the auction.” The listeners start talking animatedly, excited for the manhunt that is sure to happen. Peter feels a lump in his throat and a hum in his mind, these people are sick.
“That means we aim especially for the powerfully enhanced ones. Think of what powers would make them powerful assets for the big money groups like HYDRA. Powers like those held by Spider-Man.” Oh, Peter is definitely going to throw up. Were these people going to go after him, specifically? Or was that just an example?
Suddenly, the group below cheers, excited for the new challenge, as if the people they’re going to be hunting were mere dogs. As they dispersed, resuming their conversations in much more pleasant contexts, Peter hastily climbs to the roof, sprinting back to his flat. He needs to tell Daredevil.