IV
Throwing on the suit made him realize he had a few problems. And by a few, he meant the dozens of scratches, scrapes, and holes in the suit. He knew his homemade suit would get worn down eventually, but he hadn't expected needing to repair it this quickly. Maybe he could take a page from Daredevils playbook?
Yeah, that would have to work.
He took off the suit and threw on some loose black sweatpants and a black long sleeve workout shirt before putting the suit back on. It was a little bulky and awkward, but he was going to have to make it work.
Crime seemed to be pretty popular tonight, and he left quite a few people webbed up with notes for the police stuck on them. It still felt a little odd to be back out doing street level crime stopping again. He helped the same old lady that he’d helped right around when he’d stopped the Vulture, and she remembered how much he had enjoyed the churro that she’d bought him so she bought him another one as a thank-you.
He almost cried when she gave it to him. It was nice to have someone remember something about him from before.
Thanking the old lady, whose name was apparently Susan, he climbed up a fire escape to eat the churro on the roof. There was only one more bite left when he heard a small scuffle a few roofs over, so he threw it in his mouth and quickly tugged down his mask before swinging over.
There was a girl maybe two or three years younger than him sitting on the edge of the roof, brown eyes red from crying. She held her phone in her hand like it was her lifeline, and kept typing and deleting messages. He made sure she could hear his footsteps so she didn't freak out by him appearing out of the darkness. Her head whipped up when she heard him.
Peter came out of the darkness with his hands at his sides, trying not to look intimidating. It wasn't too hard, given his suit was kinda funky looking from the sweatpants underneath.
“Can I sit with you?” He asked, and she hesitated for only a moment before nodding, so he continued. “Are you okay?” He asked as he sat down next to her, and she just started crying harder, so he tried a different angle. “Do you want to tell me what's wrong, or do you just need someone to sit with you?” She sighed, wiped off her face with her shirt, and took a few breaths before responding.
“I came out recently to my parents, I’m bi, and they did not take it well. I don't know what to do. Do I just act like nothing happened and pretend to be straight? The whole reason I came out was so I could hang out with my girlfriend and now they don't even want me to go to the same school anymore because they hate her so much. They told me that it was wrong and gross for me to have a girlfriend and that I should be ashamed of myself. I never should have said anything to them. I knew they were homophobic, I just really wanted them to accept me you know? They're my parents. I don't know. I thought they would be ok with my sexuality for some reason, but I was so wrong. So, so wrong. What should I do?”
Oh. Oh no. He knew how this felt. How many times had Flash insulted him or called him homophobic slurs? Too many times to count.
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Yeah,” she responded, still sniffing but he could tell her interest was peaked.
“I'm bi too.” Her eyes widened at this, and he took that as his signal to continue. “I was lucky enough to have my aunt, who was my guardian, and friends who supported me, but some of the kids were brutal at school. So I kinda know what you're feeling, and I bet your girlfriend gets what you're feeling too. Have you talked to her about this?”
She held up her phone. “I'm trying to, but I just don't know what to say. How do I tell her I messed up this badly? I just wanted them to accept me and now I've messed everything up.”
“If you can't type it, call her. Or even better, talk to her in person. Girlfriends, boyfriends, and friends, they should support you, especially if you make a bad decision, or even a multitude of them. Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on sometimes. And wanting your parents to accept you? That's human. We all want to be accepted; to be loved. There's nothing wrong with telling your parents or with you, the fault lies with their inability to accept their child's sexuality.”
She nodded along, and they sat in silence for a little while as she pondered his words.
“You're right; I should talk to her in person. Thanks for this, I really needed it.” She said, her voice now barely audible, but somehow more confident. He smiled under his mask.
“That's what I'm here for. Do you want me to swing you to your girlfriend's house?”
She smiled and nodded. “My girlfriend is a huge fan of yours though, she might ask for a picture and an autograph,” she warned him.
“That's cool, I've never given an autograph before!”
She looked at him weird. “Aren't you like an Avenger or something? How come you've never signed an autograph?”
At this, he sighed. “I used to be really self conscious about the whole superhero/vigilante gig. Thought that if I started signing autographs it would make me seem pretentious.”
She laughed, but didn’t dignify that with a response.
“Hey, what time is it?” He asked, thinking it couldn’t be later than one.
“Four in the morning”
“Really? Damn, I really need to get you to your girlfriend's house before I pass out. Can you give me an address?”
The only other person he’d swung around was MJ, and she had just screeched the entire time. It had been hilarious. This girl must have loved roller coasters though, because she just oohed and ahhed the entire way there, seemingly starstruck by the experience.
Her girlfriend freaked out upon being told that Spider-man had swung her girlfriend to her house. He took pictures with them, apologizing for the state of his suit and how awful he looked. They told him that was nonsense, his torn up homemade suits were iconic apparently.
When he left soon after, happy in knowing that she would feel even a little bit more confident and comfortable with herself.
He slept better that night than he had in a long while.
-----------
Peter was freezing. Why had he agreed to this? Why had he thought this would be a ‘fun learning and bonding experience’ with Mr. Cage? He and Luke were sitting in an abandoned building at two in the morning for a stakeout of a few of the people who'd gotten away when they’d taken down the arms deal. Normally, Peter would have just webbed them up and left a note for the police as to what they had done. But, Mr. Cage explained to him that it was more productive to follow and observe in hopes that they would eventually lead them to other criminals. That made sense, he supposed, but he had never really followed organized crime before so it hadn't really occurred to him. He usually stopped crimes like muggings and robberies, as well as the occasional battle against aliens/people from other dimensions.
He had quickly discovered that stakeouts were not his thing after his toes started to feel like they were going to fall off. Even with the big blanket that Mr. Cage had brought for him, having already anticipated Peter's lack of forecast knowledge, he still felt like he was going to freeze to death.
Luke handed him a granola bar. “Thanks Mr. Cage,” Peter managed to get out between shivers.
“Kid, are you ok? It's cold, but not nearly cold enough for you to be shivering like this,” Luke asked, looking mildly concerned.
“Um, yeah, I'm fine, it's a spider thing. I really don't do well with the cold.”
“Shit kid, why didn't you say something? You really didn't need to come along, I just figured it would be good for you to experience more of the vigilante lifestyle that doesn't involve beating people up!”
“Sorry,” he replied sheepishly.
“You've got nothing to apologize for, I'm just concerned for you. How have you managed to be Spider-man and fight crime through the winters if you're like this?”
“Mr. Stark put heaters in my suit, so it wasn't a problem really until now.”
“Huh. You two were close then?”
“Very,” Peter says quietly, and doesn't elaborate.
“I'm sorry for your loss, that must have been hard for you.” Peter nods in thanks and tries to subtly wipe away the tears forming before they can fall too far. Luke throws his arm over Peter's shoulders for a side hug. They stay like that until there's movement on the street below. A truck pulls in and another one of the guys who had escaped from the docks jumps out, opens the back, and starts pulling out crates of weapons. Luke and Peter scramble to their feet, the former pulling on his mask as he does so.
“Lets go get some bad guys”
*
Two hours later, Peter stumbles back into his apartment, bloodied and hurting, but feeling good about the 30 or so bad guys he and Luke had just put in jail. His mood is instantly killed when he sees the eviction notice on the door. He knew it was coming, of course, as he didn't have any way of making money without a social security number, birth certificate, or any legal document needed to get a job, but he was hoping that he would be able to stay for a few more weeks at least. He threw the paper on his counter and passed out before he could think about the implications of it too much. That was a problem for after he woke up and his wounds were at least partially healed.
Unfortunately, sleeping for the next ten hours did not solve Peter's problem. In fact, it really only makes it worse as he now only has four days to pay his rent with money he does not have, or be homeless. After counting his small stash of rapidly diminishing cash and coming up with only $96, he has to face the reality that he's going to be homeless very soon. Well, at least he didn't unpack most of the few things he owned. It only took him a half hour to pack everything up, as he only had three boxes worth of stuff. Peter put on his mask and went hunting for a place to live for his foreseeable future.
He found a nice roof that would work for wintertime. It had a greenhouse that would keep out the elements and was fairly inaccessible to the general public, so he could stay here until it got warm enough for people to make the trek up and plant things.
Then he realized the time. Oops.
He was definitely going to be late for his training session with Matt.
*
A few weeks later, Peter knew Matt could tell something was wrong. Since he hadn't been eating much, he’d lost even more weight and therefore had lost strength, agility, and his senses were not doing too great. Matt had been trying to teach him how to control his enhanced senses and use them to his benefit, but that had gone out the window when his hearing had gone down so much that his hearing was barely better than an average persons.
“Peter, are you sure you're ok?” Matt asked hesitantly. They were training again, and Matt had just hit Peter with a punch that he definitely could have dodged if he had been at full strength.
“Yeah, I'm fine, you didn't hit me that hard.”
“That's not what I meant kid. You've been slower lately and I can tell you've lost weight. What's going on?”
“It's nothing.”
“You know I can tell you're lying right?”
“Figured it was worth a try.”
Matt leveled a flat glare in his direction. “Tell me,” he said, and his tone left no room for argument.
Peter sighed. “I got evicted from my apartment because I don't have enough money to pay rent. It's kind of hard to get a job when you don't exist anymore. When the spell went off, I knew that everyone I knew would forget me. What I didn't count on was being erased from every system there is. I don't have a social security number or any formal paperwork at all, so I am unable to work, and therefore unable to pay for rent.”
Matt was taken aback by this. “So you're homeless?”
“Yeah.”
“Kid, why didn't you tell me this? I can help you.”
Peter laughed humorlessly, shaking his head. “I'm cursed.”
Matt's face scrunched up in confusion. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Everyone that gets close to me dies or leaves. It's better that I'm alone, nobody else needs to get hurt because of me” Peter replied sadly.
“Peter, you don't need to worry about me, I can take care of myself.”
“So could Mr. Stark.”
Matt sighed and looked upward, shaking his head slightly. “I can't leave you to live on the streets when I can help you. You're clearly not eating enough, and that's not only a danger to yourself, but to all of us who are fighting with you. Come back to my place, Foggy will make you some food, and you can crash on our couch.”
“But-”
“Nope. You're sleeping on my couch for the foreseeable future. No arguments from you will be taken into consideration.” And with that, Matt dragged Peter onto his feet and towards the exit.
Foggy was delighted upon being told that Peter would be staying with them, but lost some of his enthusiasm when he was informed that this was because Peter had been homeless for weeks now. He soon got to work on some chicken parm for the three of them. Peter went to go help him but was quickly stopped by Matt, who told him that he needed to shower before he could go anywhere near the kitchen.
After getting out of the shower and putting on the sweatpants and t-shirt Matt had left out for him, Peter walked out into the living room where the TV was playing the news while Matt and Foggy cooked in the kitchen. What caught Peter's attention though, was the person on the news. Harley Keener. Peter remembered Tony talking about him oh so long ago. That wasn't even the worst part though. The worst part was the headline at the bottom.
Stark Industries heir Harley Keener to hold press conference about the future of the company