What is it with old ladies...
The world fades in and out around Peter, crashing over him in waves of nauseating sound and pain. Numbness and dizziness from the shock work through his system like a meandering drug. Some moments he’s lucid, breathing through the pain and biting back the urge to scream or worse. Chills come and go with the stabbing, itching feeling coming from each of his healing injuries. Peter’s right leg aches and burns as the bone and skin mend themselves as best they can. Meanwhile, his ribs may as well be frozen in a jagged glacier hidden deep under his skin.
Other times, Peter feels so far away from his own body, his own mind, it’s something closer to the time that Dr. Strange literally pushed him out of his own body — which, while cool at the time, thinking about in his current state does so not help with the whole dissociation and brain fog thing.
When the world begins to settle in around him as the pain recedes (as much as it can, at least), Peter is barely aware of how much time has passed. He isn’t sure just how long he’s been sitting crouched in the back of the alley, coiled tight against the sticky ground and rough brick walls. The only hint he has to the changing hour is the way the sun is slowly starting to scrape over the horizon. No longer the near pitch black it had been when he first made his way to whatever alley he’s currently holed up in, now the sky is filling out in blues and pinks over the rooftops. It’s clear it’s barely dawn, but it’s just enough to make Peter hope the warmth from the sun will be able to ease the bone-deep chill that has been creeping in.
The brightening sky highlights his various bruises that are visible past the borrowed clothing. The cuts and bruises feel better, and the mild scrapes and road burns are long gone. Only issue with the alleviation of his worst issues is that it makes it easier to notice all of the other complications of his situation. His returning feeling and awareness means he can unfortunately feel the way the now damp fluffy socks curl around his already cold toes or the way his sweat-soaked hair plasters itself to the back of his neck and makes his forehead itch. Peter's lungs still protest every inhale weakly, but it’s honestly nothing compared to the absolutely empty pit that his stomach has become. He can’t even remember the last time he got to eat a full meal in all of the craziness that came to his universe. The gut-twisting hunger pangs wracking his abdomen manage to add insult to injury, literally.
Peter knows he needs to get out of the freezing cold as soon as possible, and preferably somewhere he can find food. It’s unfortunately easier said than done when each breath of crisp air makes it so much more tempting to call it quits and go to sleep right there and then just to be able to dream of fireplaces and fuzzy blankets.
Mustering what strength he can dredge up, Peter pushes off the brick wall with the hand not holding his things to stand on wobbly legs. Really, Bambi could put him to shame at this point. In a competition between the fearsome Spider-Man and a newborn fawn, the little woodland prince would win in a landslide even without opposable thumbs. Peter is ready to be laughed at by all of the bugs, rats, and pests hiding in the alley for his pathetic show.
His sigh (and accompanying groan) echoes lightly down the alley as he gathers his suit in both arms. It’s no longer folded nicely, now more accurately resembling the mess of bloodied and torn swath of fabric it really is. An unfortunate assessment that makes Peter distantly think, ‘ mood ’, in response. The lack of mask in the mix is disheartening. He knows the suit is probably salvageable to a degree considering it already lacks a lot of the tech of his old suit, but he would have done anything to be able to fix that mask and the tech housed inside rather than start from scratch. Even if he can’t be Spider-Man right now, he knows it isn’t something he can just let go of entirely. Not with everything that’s happened.
Running a loose inventory through his sluggish, distracted head, Peter notes the tears in the gloves and deems them unwearable considering the non-existent palms. A shame, considering the numbness that has been slowly creeping up his fingers since he uncurled himself from the wall. The gloves are set aside before he runs his finger along the cracking in the soles of the suit’s boots. Deep crevices and splits run across the bottoms of both shoes, sharp enough that it’s entirely possible they would slice his skin if he tried to wear them even with the fuzzy socks acting as a barrier. He deliberates only for a moment before deciding they were worth the risk and sliding them on top of the socks and under the sweats anyway — Peter would rather suffer cuts and cracked heels than frostbitten toes. The only other things in moderate working order are his web shooters, and even then he’d just barely qualify them as that. One is almost entirely empty by the looks of it while the other has just a fraction left. Visually, both seem fine and it doesn’t seem worth the waste to ensure their general functionality. The last set survived a small moon being dropped on him so he would like to think the Stark tech is probably fine.
He peers around the alley as he stuffs the web shooters up under his hoodie sleeves and onto his wrists. The ground, walls, and streets around him are covered in grime and windblown trash as far as the eye can see. Bricks are caked in layers of smog and what he really hopes isn’t blood. Judging by the lack of hallmark signs, even the homeless don’t seem to like this particular alley all that much. It’s too narrow and to be safely used for cutting through when going around town, which probably has something to do with the lack of signs of life (... unless that really is blood). If there’s any place to dump a super suit and hope it won’t get found, this is probably about as good as it gets. Peter tries to convince himself that this is fine and he can hide the ruined suit here.
It still takes a lot of convincing.
No matter what he tells himself, it still hurts to hide his suit inside the black dumpster. It was supposed to be Peter Parker who disappeared, yet Spider-Man is the one who has to be literally thrown away?
Hefting himself up for leverage, he shoves the suit in among the leaking and putrid trash. Once it’s hidden between the varying bags, all smelling equally of rot in a way that turns his stomach more than he thought possible, Peter pushes himself back out of the dumpster where he’d been practically dangling halfway in. His feet crash to the ground with far less grace than he would usually have. It’s understandable, considering his current state, but it still means that one of the sharper bits of broken sole stabs into the arch of his foot. Peter lets out a tiny yelp, doubling over in a way to grab his foot that aggravates his still healing ribs. He thinks for a minute that there’s probably some allegory or life lesson to be found here in his pathetic situation, but he’s too busy trying not to wither in pain to think that hard on it, thank you very much.
He forces himself to shuffle on battered feet to the mouth of the alley. The morning sun actually reaches him there, and it’s not enough to push back the chill that had crept in overnight but it is enough to feel something. Warm rays do their best to combat the slight breeze that’s slipping by, and he pretends for a second that the rosy numbness in his cheeks will be gone soon enough.
Basking in the sunlight, he peers out the mouth of the alleyway back toward the direction he came from (he thinks, he’s a little turned around since there’s nothing recognizable so he can't be sure — he seriously needs to make his way back to the city proper). The change in light is harsh on his eyes as he squints back and forth, up and down the road. Sounds from the slowly stirring city trickle in as he tries to figure out where he is. It’s a low level of sound for the city; there’s a constant whir of electricity, the discordant melody of the people who never sleep, subways and cars that rumble by in the distance, all over-top of the sound of wind moving between buildings.
The relatively calm din of the morning is interrupted by a startled cry further down the street. Off in the direction he had been traveling originally comes another yelp, protests in a high and raspy woman’s voice cut off by hushed and garbled curses from one much deeper. Peter is moving before he even processes it, feet carrying him as fast as they can on battered and bruised legs. He sees them, a man crowding a woman down the other side of the block and across the street. The man is may as well be twice the woman’s height, her old frame stout in stature and forced to bow even further under the man struggling with her for a massive purse. He’s stuck trying to wrestle it out from under her jacket where it’s pinned, the gun in his hand like an afterthought forgotten in the struggle. Still, it makes Peter push himself to move faster and speed up his aching crawl across the pavement.
His steps stutter, however, when he hears the man yell before dropping to the pavement. By the time he crossed the street, the old woman had slipped an equally over-sized taser out of her purse that left the would-be mugger twitching and groaning on the concrete. “Chingada madre, culero,” the woman spits down at the man. Peter’s Spanish may be rusty, but he’s still pretty sure that what she said isn’t exactly the type of PG language he would expect from an elderly grandma-type. She hisses more insults that Peter doesn’t quite catch in the quick stream of words and he thinks that’s probably for the best.
Peter slows down as he walks up to her, his hands held up as he slouched as much as he could without his ribs protesting just to try and be as unassuming as possible. He speaks softly but just loud enough to carry down the sidewalk to where she stands a few yards away as he asks, “Ma’am? Are you alright?” The way she whips around to face him makes him glad he’s still a good distance away. She brandishes the biggest taser Peter has ever seen and wields it like a billy club as she glares at him through her surprise. He takes a second to imagine picking that out in the store from an aisle filled with a variety of medieval weaponry before adding it to what may very well be a secret arsenal hidden in her body-bag sized purse. For such a small woman, she seems to have a corner on jumbo-sized everyday things.
Her stance loosens a little when she takes a second to look at him. “Dear, I just about lit you up like a Christmas tree in Union Square,” she says in a thick accent. She sighs as her shoulders slump and she completely relaxes in front of him before putting the absurd cattle prod for a taser back in her Tardis of a bag. Peter takes his chance to walk a little closer to her, hands still held up slightly in spite of the oddly lingering ache in right shoulder. He thinks it should probably be healed by now, but he also knows he was beaten and battered worse than a fried fish on a stomach that’s beyond empty so he can’t act too surprised about it.
The woman’s eyes dart back to the man as Peter comes to a stop beside her, her look dark as she mouths something at the man again that’s undeniably another insult. She seems to have a vast repertoire that she seems all too happy to use. Peter has to hold back a small laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation, clutching his ribs as he glances at the man now passed out yet still twitching on the sidewalk. Looking back to the woman, pulling her gaze up as well, he asks, “I’m going to move his gun away. Is that okay?” He’s had plenty of experience talking to victims in situations like this but the woman just raises an eyebrow with a mirthful smirk.
“Sure, chico, whatever makes you feel better.” Her eyes had a little more light in them, the same way the sun was slowly crawling higher in the sky and making the street just that much lighter. Peter supposed it was a bit odd to try and act the same he did as Spider-Man when he was just civilian Peter Parker now that the two were separate again — especially considering the way he must look right now.
Peter smiles as gently as he can in response before moving to grab the gun. It sits loosely in the man’s hand where he lays crumpled on the ground (Peter doesn’t want to know how many volts that taser must be because he doesn’t want to think about how there’s not a chance in hell it’s legal because that has to mean grandma managed to buy or upgrade an illegal taser and… that’s just way too much right now). The gun itself is just a small handgun, typical for on the streets, but he still treats it delicately as he releases the magazine and tosses it in the garbage can on the corner before pulling back the slide. He checks for anything in the chamber, just a single round he shoves in his pocket as he thinks of what to do with the rest of the weapon. If he was Spider-Man he could just break the whole thing entirely and be done with it, but that would be suspicious for normal-everyday-boy Peter Parker. And, unfortunately, Spider-Man was left behind in an alley to bide his time so there will be no gun breaking any time soon.
When he realizes he’s just been staring at it and giving an inanimate object a funky look for what can probably be deemed as ‘way too long’, he gives up for now and does that cop-show thing where they shove it in the back of their waist band. It’s shockingly uncomfortable and cold against his skin, but also kind of works like an ice pack on his still somewhat bruised lower back.
Looking back at the woman, he asks her, “Will you be alright? Can I walk you anywhere?”
Hemming and hawing for just a second, she responds with a lighthearted clap on his shoulder. “You know what, chico? You can walk me to my store — it’s not far and I could use the company.” Unfortunately, the shoulder she slapped happened to be the right one, also known as the one that still hurts from being recently divorced from its socket, so he’s a bit too dazed to keep her tan hand from grabbing his wrist. The wrist on the same arm. Because the universe just sucks like that.
Peter realizes something before she can drag him too far. “Ah, wait!” He tries to keep both the pain and exhaustion out of his voice as he asks her, “Do you have a phone I can use? Just to call the cops to let them know that guy is there.” When she stops to give him a blank look he pauses as well. “I, uh, don’t have my phone on me…?”
After a moment of silence, the woman suddenly openly laughs. It’s a deep, genuinely amused laugh that interrupts her words. “La policía? You want me to call the cops here ? Ay,” she crows. Her chuckles echo down the empty street. “They won’t do anything — certainly not anything good anyway!” Peter doesn’t understand exactly what is so funny but he’s too tired to even begin to parse anything beyond the bare minimum. She shakes her head, stifling more laughs. “No, no. Just leave him be. Someone else may come along and deal with him, and if not at the very worst he’ll go about his day. You have the gun and he doesn't, so I would say that’s good enough, chico.”
She hefts her bag without ever letting go of his arm and goes right back to pulling him down the street. Trying to regain some sense of normalcy, he asks her, “Are you sure you’re not hurt in any way?” It’s more than a bit hypocritical considering the way his shoulder protests being dragged and his ankle protests each step, but it has to be asked. When all she does is shake her head again, Peter lets the topic drop. With only a glance back to the man fading in the distance, he surrenders himself to being toted along.
They’re going the same direction Peter had set off toward in the first place. Only difference is that before he stumbled on the two the sun was just barely peeking from beyond buildings. Now, instead of hiding behind rooftops it’s out in the sky, even if it is just barely clearing the low roofs of the buildings around them. He recognizes it as some kind of residential area even if he doesn’t recognize the neighborhood itself (or at least, mostly residential maybe?). It stalls Peter’s thoughts for a moment, to realize that there’s somewhere in New York he doesn’t know well enough to at least have a general recognition. Maybe he wound way up in the northern part of the Bronx? He was never up there super often… but still?
His thoughts are cut off when he hears her say, “Pick your head up, chico, we’ll be there soon.” Peter didn’t realize just how weighed down his movements had been by his equally bogged down headspace. His head is heavy and his muscles are shot as he trudges along behind the woman. He never even noticed that few people here and there have filtered in around them, signaling the real start to the morning.
When she finally tugs him to a stop they’re at the door of a glass storefront. It’s a smaller building, only one level and hardly takes up any space on the block, but it seems all the more welcoming for it. Through the glass, Peter can see small tables and booths before a counter of empty display cases. Above the glass front is a broad, hand painted sign covered in faded lettering that reads ‘Reyes Panadería’ with a smaller ‘Baked Goods and Pastries’ underneath. The idea of food alone is enough to make his mouth start to water. While he had been distracted, the woman had unlocked the door. When she pulls it open a rush of warm air hits him straight on. The heat of it may as well have its own gravitational pull with the way it drags him inside behind her.
Inside, the smell alone is like heaven. It’s a mix of sweet and savory alike that fills the store, all lit up in soft lighting. The mild light eases a pain behind his eyes just slightly that he hadn’t even really noticed until it ebbed.
The woman motions to one of the booths to the side with a soft smile and wave of her hand as she walks toward the counter. Peter feels awkward as he slowly shuffles over to it, but when he sits he’s too comfortable to care anymore. His leg may be better than it had been but it still aches , aggravated by all the walking he’s done since waking up in that clinic, so it feels understandably amazing to just… sit .
He lets out a content little sigh as he sinks further into the plush vinyl cushions that has the woman look up at him.
“Hijo, te ves…” She seems to cut off her own thoughts with a sigh of her own and a shake of her head. “How do you feel about helping me get the food ready?” When she pushes open the kitchen doors, holding them open as she waits for his response, the smell of heaven rushes out. He thought that the floor of the store smelled good, but the kitchen is another plane of existence entirely.
Peter’s stomach has been empty for far too long. He can distinctly remember a moment when they were all on the Statue of Liberty where he wasn’t sure if it was the Lizard or his stomach that growled. He’s still not entirely positive one way or the other, but considering the Lizard ended up being right behind him a second later he figures that’s probably indicative enough of the true culprit. All Peter really knows is that his stomach is the emptiest it’s been in a very long time with the amount of healing his body has been doing in the past 24 hours. Almost every inch of him burns and itches to some degree from the way his injuries have been healing over and over in the same spots for the past day or so. Even then, it isn’t enough that he can’t push through it.
When she sees him perk up she smiles more. As he pushes himself back out of the booth (already mourning the loss of the comfortable seat) she pushes the double swing doors open wider as a way to motion him to follow her. He walks in to see her already hunched over the small ovens. The kitchen as a whole isn’t the largest and some of the appliances are very obviously outdated, but it’s comfortable just like the rest of the bakery in that sweet, well-loved and worn-in way.
Remembering why she invited him in, he tries to ask, “What can I do to help, ma’am? Could I -” but she cuts him off with a shake of her hand as she swivels to face him again from across the small room.
“Enough of the ‘ma’am’. Please , hijo, just call me Abuelita. My name is Abuelita Conchi, but anyone who knows any better just calls me Abuelita.” She has a fond exasperation to her tone that Peter doesn’t exactly think is directed at him.
She slings a pink apron his way across the metal island counter that he flails a bit to catch when it falls short. A thin hand points toward the fridge as she explains, “Now, just grab one of the trays from the cabinet up there. I swear, that boy has no thought for how tall he’s gotten, shooting up like an Ivy weed and no remorse for putting things up where frail old ladies can’t get them.” Peter chuckles at her rambling, not a clue who she’s talking about but amused nonetheless. The apron is placed on the counter before he moves to open the cabinet. He hisses, however, when reaching to pull open the cabinet door above his head pulls on his side and moves his ribs a bit too much. It’s quiet enough that he doesn’t think Abuelita heard, but he moves quickly and grabs it before he can push any other injury too far.
The pain has his head woozy again, blood rushing in his ears and spots in his vision as he tries to watch her putter about the kitchen around him. Abuelita mumbles to herself here and there (he thinks it’s to herself, it’s hard to make out right now over the different kinds of woosh and thump thump alternating in his head currently). At some point, she walks over with a plastic bag pinched closed with a blue twist-tie that’s filled with chilled breads and cookies and shoves it in his stalled hands in exchange for the empty tray he’s been holding loosely. He zeroes in enough to hear her repeat, “Eat, I say. Go eat. You look about ready to keel over right here.” Peter realizes what she means and starts to panic a bit, gently pushing the bag back to her.
“Ah, no — I mean, it’s alright. I can’t pay you right now, so, really, it’s alright.” He’s so ravenous that he’s practically foaming at the mouth, but he doesn't want to take her food when he doesn’t can’t actually pay her for it.
She gives him an unimpressed look in response before pushing them back at him with a look of finality. “I told you, they’re just leftovers. Never get bought much anyway, so I would rather they get eaten before they’re too stale to eat at all.” Now Peter feels bad for an entirely different reason because apparently she had been talking to him when he was… zoned out. “Besides, call it even for dealing with that… pendejo … on the street earlier and taking that pan down for me since I can never reach it when I need it.”
Peter tries to retort, “But I didn’t —” but she cuts him off again.
“Don’t worry. Nobody in this city does anything for free and I’m happy to call it even — and if anyone says they are doing something for nothing then they’re lying to your face,” Abuelita huffs. Her eyes have aged in that moment in a way that Peter hasn’t seen yet that morning and he finds he doesn’t think it suits her. The woman is a force, something obvious in the small amount of time that he’s interacted with her. She’s kind but certainly tough where it counts (he’s still glad that the taser is somewhere in her purse that’s hidden under the front counter). Her sudden cynicism and nihilistic warning isn’t quite what he expected, but he can’t pretend to know her.
Peter can’t really pretend to know anyone anymore, though, can he.
The bag of food is heavy in his hands as she spins away back to the other side of the metal island. Abuelita fiddles with rolling pins, paper, flour, dough, and he catches her flitting back and forth between the ovens, fridge, and counters. All the while, she talks over his own empty silence. “This city eats people like us alive. I moved here for my son, and he’s the only reason I’m still here. You can’t trust a soul in this town,” and here she looks at him harshly and Peter flinches in reflex. “Really, you shouldn’t just follow a stranger — what if I was a cannibal? Or one of those usual psychos around here!” She sniffs haughtily at him as she pounds a ball of dough into the counter probably a bit rougher than she should be. His pounding head follows the rhythm like a metronome.
He takes a few steps back to lean on the doorway of the room, accidentally bumping the swing doors open a little in the process but she doesn’t react. “You can’t trust anyone but even if you did you can’t give yourself up to them either. Too many times people in this town turn around and — snap!” She snaps her flour coated fingers and Peter flinches mindlessly again. “They go right back and bite the hand that kept them comfortable and well fed.” Her vitriol felt personal and her voice echoed off the metal around them.
Peter wasn’t sure what was happening anymore. For a few reasons really. He didn’t actually know what she was talking about (this felt super personal and he isn't exactly qualified), but mostly his head was spinning and his leg and ribs ached in a way that was distracting to his already foggy train of thought.
“My grandson is just like you, rushing in to help without a second thought.”
Peter doesn’t think that sounds much like him right now. He tried to help and he couldn’t do anything.
It seems to be a recurring theme.
The bag in his hand hangs loose but it feels like it may as well weigh a few tons as he slips off the door frame a little, but Abuelita still doesn’t look up. She keeps rambling on, her diatribe flowing endlessly from the little kitchen as Peter slinks back out toward the front with his hand cradling his head.
Peter makes it to the door without tripping over his own feet, spinning around in the too-bright light of the morning to look for a direction to go. He doesn’t see the way her eyes follow him through the window of the kitchen doors but the feeling still sears itself into the back of his head for the rest of the morning.
As he picks what he thinks to be the direction of the city’s main districts he can barely hear her mutter, “I wish he would learn this city eats boys like him alive.”