II
Peter was ecstatic that he knew Daredevil's identity. It wasn’t like he could go tell Ned, but he knew Ned would have freaked out over this so he just had to be excited for him. It was hard to try and be positive about his whole situation, but he was doing his best to do just that and be positive because that's what Ned would have wanted. Breakfast was once again eggos but he mixed it up this morning and had apple juice instead. (it was on sale, ok?) Peter thought about what he could do today. He didn’t have another training session with Matt/Daredevil until tomorrow, so it was a patrol night for Spider-man, but what could Peter Parker do in the meantime? He really didn’t need to study more for his GED test and the spidey suit was as good as he could get it with his limited budget. Maybe he would check on his friends today.
He put on what had been MJ’s favorite sweatshirt of his and set out for the shop where she worked. When he arrived he ordered coffee and a donut so he would have an excuse to stay longer while he ate.
“I like your sweatshirt,” MJ said when she handed him his donut.
Peter smiled. “Thanks” He knew he stayed a little too long drinking his coffee after that, but Ned had walked in not long after he got there and he just couldn't bring himself to leave just yet. Eventually he managed to drag himself out of the shop and decided he should go grocery shopping because he couldn't live off of eggos forever. He was going to end up getting scurvy like a pirate or something. Why did groceries have to be so expensive though??? Blackberries were like $5 a container so fresh fruit was out of the question. So was fresh meat because that was also crazy expensive. He settled on getting a large bag of dinosaur chicken nuggets because they were high calorie and fairly cheap, good for someone with an enhanced metabolism who needed a shit ton of calories a day just to function let alone go out as a superhero every night and a low budget. He got a bottle of vitamins (he really didn't want scurvy) and a few other things before he began his walk home.
On the way back to his apartment though, he heard something in an alley and decided to investigate. It wasn't like he had anything else to do today besides put away his groceries. When he walked in the alley though, there was nobody there. As he turned around to leave though, he nearly jumped out of his skin at the cat sitting not two feet away from him. It was a cute cat, with gray hair that looked like it would be fluffy if it wasn't so matted. There was no collar on it and it was slightly underweight. He couldn't just leave it there, so he sighed and grabbed the cat before he ran to a petstore to spend more of his rapidly diminishing cash stash on a stray cat. After procuring a litter box, collar, and some cat food, he was finally ready to go back to his apartment.
He decided he was going to name the cat Moss and spent the rest of the day playing with them. Since he had forgotten to buy toys he just made paper airplanes out of his used GED practice papers to entertain her until it was dark enough to go out as Spider-Man. He used to go out in the daytime as Spider–Man too, but he
Swinging around Queens in his homemade suit made him think back to when he had first started out as Spider-Man in just a blue and red sweatsuit and web shooters that he’d cobbled together during class. Always just looking out for the little guy, wanting to be an Avenger more than anything. He’d gotten what he wanted in the end, but then he’d lost everything and now he was back to square one. Well not quite, it was a fresh start for Peter Parker but Spiderman is alive and well and still needed by the community. He swung around for a few hours, stopping crime until he was exhausted and crawled into bed, suit still on.
At noon, the sun had moved at just the right angle so it streamed right between his blackout curtains and the wall and right into his eyes. He groaned and tried to roll over to go back to sleep but misjudged where the edge of his bed was and rolled right onto the floor. Great. What a great start to the day. Moss padded over to him and meowed next to his ear until he got up.
“Alright alright enough already i’ll get your food”
Moss’s only reply was a loud meow
*
When Peter swung into the gym that night Matt was waiting for him like usual, but this time he was wearing the red armor DD suit instead of the old black suit he wore while teaching Peter fighting skills.
“Are we going somewhere?” Peter asked.
“Yeah there's a big gun sale going on about ten blocks from here. We could use the aerial support if you're good with that kid.”
“Yeah! Wait– we? Who else is going to be there?”
“Just some friends,” Daredevil replied with a smile. Well, Peter thought, that was frustratingly vague. He followed Daredevil out onto the roof anyway and managed to keep up with his parkour with his webs, but damn this guy was fit. He was going to have to request a few lessons on how to do that in case his web shooters ran out of fluid or something and he still needed to be able to keep up with Matt. When they got there they met up with a very muscled bald man, a woman who looked like she hadn't slept in three weeks who reeked of alcohol, as well as a well manicured blond man who was currently leaning on a very annoyed woman with a katana.
“Kid, this is most of the gang. In order, they'd be: Luke, Jessica, Danny, and Colleen.”
“Hi, I’m Peter”
“Hi Peter,” the four of them said with varying levels of enthusiasm. They sounded like they were at an AA meeting and Peter almost burst out laughing. Matt brought him back down to earth with the reason they were there.
“Alright, the container that has the weapons is the third one on the right. There's 30 guys protecting it. We’re going to get into position around the edges just out of their line of sight. Then we’ll send in Luke first because he's bulletproof and will draw their fire away from us so we can attack from behind and take them out. Do I need to remind anyone that lethal force is not an option unless it is absolutely the only option?”
“Red, do we look like Castle or DP to you?”
Matt grimaced. “Good point, lets go guys”
They spit up, circling the shipping container. Luke ran out of the shadows and started taking down guys to draw fire toward himself, and boy oh boy that definitely worked. Bullets were everywhere. It was deafening, but Peter couldn't waste time thinking about it. Everyone was going in so he swung down and started webbing them up, narrowly avoiding bullets, punches, kicks, was that an RPG?!? It felt good to be doing bigger superhero stuff again. Even though he loved the whole ‘looking out for the little guy’ thing he had going on, big firefights like this were a welcome adrenaline rush. But with the six of them against 30 guys, it wasn't long before something went sideways. Danny was hit first, with a bullet to the shoulder. He tried to keep fighting, but punching was kind of hard when your arm wasn't working, so Peter swung over and tried to pick up his slack. It worked pretty well, and soon all the guys were out for the count. The gang regrouped around Danny and started arguing about who should make the phone call to the police until Matt just said enough and walked a few feet away to make the call. With all the noises around them, nobody noticed the grenade until it rolled onto Peter's foot.
“GRENADE” Peter yelled, and everyone dove away as Peter picked it up and threw it as hard as he could away from them. It didn't go very far through the air though before it exploded, knocking him out with its force.
Peter woke up a few hours later on a surprisingly comfortable couch that smelt like blood. He heard someone–Matt probably–tell the others he was awake. He slowly opened his eyes and a kind looking woman with gloves on told him her name was Clare and he shouldn't try to move. He nodded in agreement. Moving did not feel ideal right now. Danny was sitting in a chair opposite him with a bandaged shoulder and a sling.
“Hey kid,” Clare started, “do you have anyone I need to call and tell them you're ok?”
“No, I don't have anyone anymore,” Peter responded. He couldn't even find the energy to cry about it anymore. He was just bone deep tired. The last thing he saw before he fell back asleep was Clare reaching down to ruffle his hair.
“You've got us now kid”
—-----------------------
When Peter finally fully regained consciousness, it was dark but there were some sort of purple and blue flashing lights coming from somewhere. He sat up and winced, having forgotten that he had been hurt and looked at his surroundings. The apartment was pretty big for New York standards, but there were barely any lights and those that were there were not currently in use.
There was a big window on one wall where flashing lights were coming through from a billboard across the street. No curtains anywhere in sight. How did this guy sleep? Danny was still in the chair he had been in before, but he was fast asleep now. Standing up was painful, but not as bad as it could have been because most of the damage was already gone. (thank you, lovely healing factor) His ribs had probably been cracked in the explosion given that it hurt to breathe, but everything superficial had already healed. You’d never know he almost got blown up. He made his way over to the countertop and found a note there waiting for him in very messy handwriting.
Peter-
There's food in the fridge. I know you’ll be hungry since your body had to heal itself so much, so help yourself to whatever you want. We will be back at 5:30. -Matt
Jeez, his handwriting was worse than the notes Peter jotted down while he was in the lab. He had to read it a few times before he understood what Matt was trying to say. Then he stopped himself, because judging Matt for his handwriting was kind of an awful thing to do. Matt was pretty damn good at what he did as Daredevil, so who cares if he doesn’t have pretty handwriting. Maybe Matt was a doctor. Doctors always have terrible handwriting.
After a little more snooping that just confused Peter even more, because this had to be the oddest apartment he’d ever been in. He made his way over to the fridge and upon opening it, he was flabbergasted. Dude had to have been a health nut with a side of crazy, because half of the things in the fridge were organic, farm fresh, never processed foods, but then the other half was beer. And not just a few, but many beers. Peter had never been more confused in his life over someone's fridge, but he shrugged it off and reached for some fruit (gotta ward off the scurvy) and found some bread that looked like it had come fresh from a farmers market on the counter and popped a few slices in the toaster. There was some butter on the counter that said it was homemade from goat milk, which sounded cool, but also really expensive so he only used a little. By the time he made his way back to the couch to eat the little meal he had foraged for himself, Danny was waking up.
“Hey Peter! How are you feeling?”
“I'm ok, I guess. I have a really good healing factor. How are you doing?” Peter responded, wolfing down his ultra healthy toast.
“Yeah, I'm just peachy. Besides, I'm the Immortal Iron Fist, dying from a bullet to the shoulder would be kinda lame you know?”
Peter did not know. In fact, Peter didn't have a clue what Danny was talking about. “I'm sorry you're immortal? And your fist is iron? Can you maybe elaborate on that?”
Danny laughed. “Sorry kid, I forgot DD didn't tell you much about the rest of us. I trained at K'un-Lun and became the Iron Fist by learning to focus my chi, but my fist isn't actually iron. It glows though. I had to fight a dragon too.”
“You fought a dragon?!? That's so cool dude!”
The door to the apartment opened and the rest of the gang walked in right as Danny said, “I like you, everyone else just rolls their eyes when I tell them that.” Everyone collectively groaned as they realized Danny had been telling Peter how he got his abilities.
Jessica walked over, stood next to where Danny was sitting, and crossed her arms. She looked like she was about to scold a dog that had ripped up the files she’d been working on.“Danny, the first thing you tell everyone you meet them doesn't need to be your full autobiography,”
“He asked!”
“I actually kinda did ask him”
Jessica just gave him a look that said ‘Peter if you continue encouraging him I'm kicking you both out’ and walked away. It was then that he noticed someone new was in the room. This man had shoulder length blonde hair and had his arm slung over Matt’s shoulders. He smiled when Peter noticed him and walked his way, dragging Matt along with him. Matt was wearing red tinted glasses that did fit his face nicely, but they were really dark. How was he able to see out of them? Also, why was he wearing them inside? Kind of a weird fashion statement. Maybe the glasses were Matt's version of the white lenses on his spidey suit. The could serve as a filter for all of the extra things his eyes picked up on and tone them down a little.
“Hi, I'm Foggy, Matt's boyfriend! Do you like chicken alfredo?”
“Who doesn't like chicken alfredo?”
“Matt doesn't like it actually, he only eats bland food. I learned how to cook specifically because he doesn't make anything that's not insanely bland.”
“I can taste everything that's touched the food, all your processed crap is disgusting and overwhelming.”
“Yeah, yeah, you say that but then you can drink Karen's coffee without complaint. And that stuff is so gross I don't think it can actually be qualified as coffee,” Foggy said as he headed toward the kitchen and started preparing the aforementioned chicken alfredo. Matt was laughing as he sat down next to Peter on the bloody smelling couch.
“Are you feeling ok?”
“Yeah I have a really good healing factor, so I'll be right as rain in a couple days. Thanks for helping patch me up though.”
“Anytime. You're sure you're fine though? Grenades are no joke, I don't want you to drop dead on my couch.”
“I’ve been hit with more powerful grenades from much closer,” Peter responded, thinking about the night May had died. “And I was healed up not too long after.” Matt nodded in acknowledgement, though he looked slightly more concerned. “Does Foggy need any help cooking? My aunt was a terrible cook, so I know my way around a kitchen”
“I'm sure he wouldn't object to some help, the rest of us cannot cook at all so usually he’s designated chef and the rest of us are on clean up duty.”
“Ok,” Peter said, and headed over to the kitchen to offer his assistance. Foggy was delighted to have another person in the group who didn't nearly burn down the building when trying to boil water, and immediately put him to work making the alfredo sauce. He was hilarious, and Peter was having fun cooking alongside him, making dumb jokes and laughing at the stories Foggy told. Peter hadn't had this much fun since before May died at least, maybe even as far back as before he himself had died. When they were done cooking, they had enough food to fill a buffet for a King, or a handful of enhanced people.
“Alright my ragtag crew of vigilantes,” Foggy announced, “the food is ready, please proceed in an orderly fashion to grab what you want.” Everyone practically jumped up and rushed over to the food table. Peter decided he was going to avoid the stampede and went to grab a glass of water before grabbing his food on his way back to the couch and coffee table area. All the seats were already taken up, so he plopped himself on the floor next to the coffee table and started wolfing down his meal. Matt, Foggy, and Jessica were sitting on the couch, and Luke was sitting in one of the chairs. Danny tried to reclaim his chair but Colleen kicked him out so he came over to sit next to Peter. Clare had left after grabbing a tupperware container of food to eat, citing that she needed to get to work. The food was gone within minutes, and soon everyone was just talking and laughing. Maybe he would be alright after all, with these people who could support and help him through his grief over losing his old life forever.