2
Peter left the hotel freshly showered with a full stomach. He had been glad to wash off all of the grime that had built up during his escape, from the explosion and from all of the tight, cramped spaces he had forced himself into. It was a weird feeling, being full. The Red Room had fed him, but they had never given him quite enough to satisfy his metabolism, so the morning buffet had truly been the best experience of his life.
He wanted to spend the day exploring and getting to know the city, but he still had so much more to do for him to consider himself safe. He still needed to find himself an apartment, and hopefully, the one he had spotted on his way to the hotel had not been snatched up yet. He was pretty hopeful though, it was only nine am so he doubted anyone would have taken a look just yet.
Remembering the way, Peter began walking back to the street where he had spotted the sign, he wasn’t too well-versed in the crime statistics in the area so he hoped the place wouldn’t be getting robbed every other day. He doubted a robber would get past the front door anyway, not with his training, but it would be nice to not have to deal with getting his shit taken almost immediately after buying it.
On his way over, he began to wonder if he would need a car, the traffic in New York seemed to be never-ending, so if everyone else had a car then surely he needed one too? He would check out the public transport first, but it wouldn’t hurt to get one anyway in case he needed a quick getaway.
Mentally adding it to the list of things that needed to be done, Peter realized that he had arrived at the apartment. Double-checking his pockets, making sure that his fake ID was still there, he walked into the building and greeted the receptionist.
“Hi, I was wondering if that empty apartment is still available?” The receptionist looked up, already looking as if she was done with the day, and pressed a button on her phone before shooing him away to sit in a chair by the elevator.
Assuming that somebody was coming to talk to him, Peter took the seat and looked around. The place wasn’t too run down, it was pretty nice actually. With the white walls, marble floors and the potted plants. The only problems with the building were the small cracks in the ceiling and the broken elevator, but his enhancements wouldn’t make that a problem anyway. Peter could see himself living here.
“I heard you’re interested in our empty apartment. You look about twelve, Kid,” A man in a three-piece suit said, already having assumed he was being pranked.
“I’m not twelve, but yeah, I’m interested,” Peter had done enough undercover ops that this would be a piece of cake, all it was going to take was a little bit of lying and the apartment would be his. He had come up with his cover story as he was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. If anyone asked, he was a college student living off of mommy and daddy’s money.
“If you say so,” He sighed, “I don’t have the time for the back and forth, the rent is three thousand dollars a month, no pets, no parties, you want the place?”
“Please,” The man, whose name Peter still hadn’t learnt, ushered him into an office and took a seat behind the large desk. Sitting opposite him, Peter waited for him to speak.
“Here are the contacts to sign, and here is where you’re going to send the rent each month, there’s a two-month deposit so right now you owe me six thousand dollars until next month,” he said, sliding over a stack of papers.
Peter was a little shocked to hear what he was already paying out, but he didn’t have the energy to go apartment hunting so he would have to make do and just not think about how he was already six grand down. He could always steal more money anyway, it’s not like Aldrich Killian would notice.
He quickly signed the papers and handed over the check he had also signed, (he didn’t have a phone yet so he needed some way to send over money for an apartment).
David, Peter read from the name plaque on the desk, grunted and threw over the keys, ushering him out of the office without a thank you and slamming the door in his face. Huffing, Peter made his way up the stairs to his new home. He was a little apprehensive as to what he would see, David hadn’t offered to let him take a look around so he was a little convinced he would open the door to find a pile of dead bodies or something. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, the apartment was pretty basic, a joint living, kitchen and dining area, two bedrooms, one bathroom and a small balcony. It was a nice place and Peter was grateful to have already found somewhere to live so quickly after arriving in the city. With the amount of homeless people he had already encountered he knew it couldn’t be easy.
It was a surreal feeling, having his own apartment, Peter had never even thought he would make it out alive, never mind having his own apartment, somewhere to call home, the feeling was almost overwhelming. He had never lived on his own before, he didn’t know how to cook, how to clean, how to buy groceries. As cruel as they were, the Red Room had taken care of him for half of his life and he didn’t know how to move forward. But he had to learn and he had to make do, nothing in the entire world would ever be enough to make him want to return to the Red Room. he finally had a chance to be his own person and he would be a fucking idiot not to take it.
Hearing his stomach gurgle, Peter decided now was the perfect time to learn how to buy groceries and cook, and maybe even learn the subway system. He had heard a passerby talk about what a disgrace it was on his way over to the apartment so he wasn’t looking forward to it. He still didn’t have a phone either, so finding a store was going to be a challenge in the big city, but he had been through harder. A grocery store had nothing on him.
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He was wrong. After finally finding the Walmart after an hour and thirty minutes of wandering around and trying to catch the right train, he was thrown right back into the deep end thinking he had finally made it out. Who decided to make grocery shopping so complicated? He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be buying, never mind where the stuff was. In the end, he gave up and started throwing things that looked edible in the cart and when he was finally done, he wasn’t even sure he would be able to turn any of it into a meal. But he thinks he did an okay job for the first time.
He received a few weird looks from the people around him, it must’ve looked a little odd to see a fourteen-year-old kid grocery shopping on his own. It didn’t help that he looked five years younger than he actually was either.
After nearly having a heart attack at the checkout when he saw the total, Peter left the store and decided to forgo taking the subway home. That thing had been a nightmare without ten bags, never mind with them. He flagged down a cab and gave the driver an address down the street from his apartment, just in case he was some type of secret agent sent to spy on him. He knew that was a ridiculous thought, but he could never be too careful after the things he had just done.
Hearing the cab driver’s foul mouth, screaming at the traffic, was one of the most entertaining things Peter had witnessed in a very long time. But it had to come to an end as the man parked by the address given to him. Peter threw twenty bucks at him and hopped out of the car, trying to grab all of the bags in the least suspicious way possible, waving off the driver’s offer to help and waited until the cab was out of sight before heading over to his place.
Not hearing anyone nearby, he ran up the stairs as quickly as he could, not being bothered to take his time and give any lurkers the chance to jump out at him. On his way up he couldn’t help but wonder if he was supposed to introduce himself to his new neighbours, he was sure he had heard somewhere that it was the normal thing to do, but the idea of him being wrong and completely embarrassing himself made him want to shrivel up and die. He would wait to see if anyone introduced themselves first.
He slammed the front door closed and hurried to put the groceries away. Whilst he was trying to find a Walmart, he stumbled upon a second-hand tech store where he had bought an almost new phone and the materials to build a computer. He could have just bought one, they had plenty, but he hadn’t had any projects to work on since he was twelve when he built his web shooters. It would give him something to focus on other than the chances of the Red Room finding out he’s still alive and hunting him down.
He laid out all of his supplies across the table (thankfully the apartment had been furnished, he wouldn’t even know where to begin with that) and immediately got started on the planning, letting himself get lost in the familiarity of it.
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By the time Peter had finished the blueprints and built the base layers of the computer, it was already six pm and his stomach wouldn’t stop rumbling. He had put off cooking anything since he got home, he didn’t have a clue what to do and decided on something simple that not even he could fuck up. Pasta and cheese.
He searched for the instructions and took out everything he needed, a pot, water, pasta, and cheese. This can’t be that hard, Peter thought.
He was proven wrong, he didn’t have a clue what al dente meant and why all of the recipes said to wait until the pasta was at that point to take it off the stove but what he did know was that it was pissing him off. He also did not have a cheese grater like the websites said he needed, so he had to settle with just using a knife to slice the cheese as small as he could. Now, he was great with a knife in many ways, but slicing cheese was decidedly not one of them.
Placing the bowl of slightly burned pasta with blocks of cheese on top, on the table, Peter took a look around the kitchen. He had made a gigantic mess. There was water all over the floor, uncooked pasta in the sink from where he had dropped the bag, cheese all over the counter and dirty dishes all over the place. At least he didn’t start a fire. Taking a bite of the first meal he had ever cooked, he immediately decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. But at least he had done it.
After choking down as much of the meal as he could, Peter got right back to his project, deciding he could leave the clean up until he was finished, and completely forgot about the rest of the world as he stuck his head in between the pieces of metal.
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Regret was the first thing Peter felt when he woke up, face down on the table with indents all over his upper body from where he had been lying across his computer parts. He wished he had cleaned up after he had eaten. Going to sleep in a dirty kitchen was not going to be a new habit, he thought, as he stood up and stretched. He began cleaning up and felt dread as he realized he was going to have to cook again at some point. Last night had been a disaster he wasn’t excited to recreate.
As he was cleaning up his mess, he began to realize how quiet it was living by himself. There was no shouting, no gunshots, no screaming, not even any whispering and it was weird. For his entire life, there had always been another person around him no matter where he was and even though he didn’t talk to the people around him often, there was still a comforting feeling knowing they were around. But he didn’t have that anymore and he had no choice but to get used to the quiet.
Not wanting to burn his kitchen down, Peter ate a packet of blueberries for breakfast. It wasn’t enough to satisfy his metabolism but it was all he had the energy for. He guessed it was his fault for staying up so late working on his computer but he was just so excited for it to be finished and finally have something that he had built for the sole reason of just building it and not for some ulterior motive.
As he went to get ready for the day, Peter slapped himself in annoyance, he didn’t have any other clothes than the ones he had been wearing for the last three days. He was starting to smell. That left another thing to add to his never-ending list of things he needed to do. With no other choice, he had a quick shower, only washing with water (because he forgot he had to buy hygiene products and they didn’t appear out of thin air) and got dressed in the same clothes before leaving his apartment when all he wanted to do was spend the day doing nothing for once.
As he was walking to the subway station, his eyes caught sight of a flier. Taking a closer look he noticed that it was for a school, Midtown High. Ever since he was young he had wanted to go to school. He had always loved learning but all he ever got at the Red Room were a few second-hand textbooks, they didn’t believe that anything was worth learning unless it was going to help their cause, meaning that his ‘school’ only consisted of history, a little math, and combat and weapons. He was never given the chance to learn anything he was interested in. He pockets the flier and continues his walk to the station, deciding to think about it when he gets home.
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Peter didn’t exactly have any experience in picking out and buying clothes, he was used to all-black combat pants, shirts and boots, so trying to choose some normal pants and hoodies wasn’t the easiest thing he had done but he got there in the end and left the store with enough outfits to last him until he had the energy to go through that again. On his way home he had the bright idea to pick up some hygiene and cleaning products, not wanting this morning’s show to happen again, and gave himself a pat on the back for even remembering that that was something he needed.
Entering the subway station, a gigantic building catches his eye, the Avengers Tower. Peter assumed all of the Avengers lived there, which didn’t seem like a good idea, letting the enemy know where you are most of the time was just asking to be attacked, it was like inviting the opposing side into your home. But what did Peter know? He wasn’t a superhero, maybe they were doing that on purpose.
If the Avengers did live there, then there was a high chance Natasha Romanoff was there too. He briefly considered sneaking in and letting her know that the Red Room was still active, that she and Clint Barton didn’t take it down like they thought they did; he quickly brushes that thought off. He wanted to be selfish for once in his life and if the Avengers were to find out about his existence then he may not get the chance to live the life he had been dreaming of for seven years.
Once Peter got home and threw his shopping bags into the corner of the living room, telling himself he would put them away later, he took the flier out of his pocket and read it over. He wanted to apply, it seemed like a great school where he would get amazing opportunities. But he didn’t want to put anyone else in danger if he was tracked to the school. But then he remembered his earlier thoughts, how he wanted to be selfish every now and then and give himself the chance to live a life he didn’t think he would ever get.
With that now in mind, he opened up his now completed computer and loaded up the website, taking down the number and giving them a call.