1
New York is a nerd with a Kick-Me sign on its back.
The rest of the world may need heroes, Johnny thinks, but New York on its own needs them more, what with it being a veritable flame to the moths that are villains and aliens and evildoers with no backstory good enough to justify their actions.
It's one reason why, when he got his powers, the first place he wanted to protect was the city that never sleeps because it keeps getting bodied. Another reason is, duh, it's where he lives. It's where the Future Foundation is, and where his sister Sue, her fiancé Reed, and their lovable dick of a friend Ben reside. It's where you can find the best damn pizza in world, and the Mets, and where Sex and the City and F.R.I.E.N.D.S were filmed. Sure, the weather is terrible and the pest population is a heinous syndicate all on its own, but there's something disturbingly charming about the steaming, wafting stench of trash when the weather's hot after the rain, or the way pigeons divebomb tourists to steal their hotdogs without fear.
New York is nice, once you get used to it. Johnny loves the place.
But one thing he most certainly does not love about it is a certain high-flying, crime-stopping, quippy asshole in spandex.
"Hey Flamebrain! You missed the show!" Spider-Man hollers, defying gravity by swinging upside down and clocking one more criminal on the back of the head with an open-palm smack that has the guy doing a 180 and crumpling to the ground forehead first.
Johnny keeps himself aloft while aflame, giving the menace his nastiest scowl yet. Yes, crime-fighting can get dirty, but does Spidey have to be so shitty about it? Why is he so shitty about it? He could have just knocked the guy out.
"Where's the fun in that?" Spidey laughs, because apparently he said that one out loud. Johnny curses under his breath. Spidey does a mid-air barrel roll before landing on a crouch on top of a lamppost like a freakin' Cirque de Soleil gymnast, head lolling at him in what seems to be amusement. Damn his athleticism, and damn his shitty attitude.
"It's not supposed to be fun, you whackjob!" Johnny squawks indignantly. "You gotta at least be decent!"
Spidey drops his gaze to peer at the criminals, five of them, all unconscious or incapacitated by webs. One of them yells expletives at them. Spidey keens.
"Doesn't look like a decent lot to me, matchstick!"
There are sirens in the distance, and Johnny continues to glower as Spidey does a backflip that should have ended in a layover and several fractures along his legs and thighs, but gets cut short by a string of web that transfers his momentum into an arc that has him swinging across the street and into the distance. Johnny begrudingly admits that it's a cool maneuver. Damn him!
"So long, Torchy!" he yells, whisking away.
And the nicknames too. Damn those nicknames. They grind Johnny's gears.
"At least stay for the cops, asshole!" he yells back, but the masked man is gone by the time the police arrive. Evidently, they're also on the lookout for the vigilante, because Spidey didn't sign the Sokovia Accords like Johnny did, and whatever crime-fighting the guy does is also considered illicit activity.
--
Back at the Baxter Building, Johnny stews. If you put a pot of shabu-shabu on his lap it'll cook.
"Careful not to ruin the upholstery, Johnny," Reed says, not looking up from the island where he's got a bunch of papers spread out but smelling the subtle burning smell in the air anyway.
No amount of poking and prodding from Sue or egging from Ben could make him admit how embarrassed he felt being one-upped by Spidey, so he continues to sulk, and in turn radiate heat like a laptop on a leather seat at its wit's end.
He tries to make insulting nicknames in his head to call Spidey the next time they cross paths, but he's terrible at puns and isn't as witty. Damn his smart mouth! How the guy forms the most natural and clever responses in any situation should be considered part of his powers. It's downright criminal.
If only he could find some dirt on Spidey. He's known of vigilantes of less renown be brought down by some sussy background check or such, having ties to this or that shady organization, taking bribes, or even being involved in crime themselves. But no such rumor has ever circulated around Spidey. In fact, on the ground, Spidey's considered a damn saint. A hero for the people whose lives aren't important enough to matter to the big leagues.
The Bugle is so out of touch with the people's sentiments when it comes to Spidey that they're doing a great job running their paper to the ground, coming out with the same kind of vitriol each week that it's getting real old, real quick. It's a personal vendetta at this point. But that also means that even the most, experienced, wily and nosy reporters have got nothing on Spidey, who remains as elusive as ever--
He sits up suddenly and stops his thoughts short to start a new one, brain cells rubbing together excitedly.
What if he was the one who went out and looked for evidence of how terrible Spidey is?
He's not particularly good at sleuthing, but he can at least keep up with Spidey should he turn tail and run, or rather thwip away. He's also excellent at blending in. He's learned a lot over the few months since his family turned super, about how to dress inconspicuously, knows how to avoid the slew of Johnny stans he's managed to win over.
All he has to do is follow the guy after a crime, actually leave the scene for the cops to clean up instead of staying to give a report and then turn full pursuer. He thinks he can pull it off. He just needs the right get-up. He already has a general idea on Spidey's possible hideout. He always seems to go southwest, but doesn't go past the Sanctum. He's read about how Spidey used to head to Queens, but now has his home base somewhere else.
He looks online and digs up some more sightings, to do some triambulating or whatever it is Reed calls it when you want to pinpoint a certain location. Reddit notes a significant change to Spidey's movement and behavior ever since that incident months ago with the exploded building in Long Island. That's on top of the whole Thanos fiasco and the blip. And the Avengers, and Tony Stark's death. Can't forget those. Wait--was he even an Avenger? Like, for real? Or was that just razzmatazz to distract everyone?
From there he starts to hatch a plan in his head. Yes, he thinks, a smirk forming on his lips. He can catch Spidey unawares the next time something illegal happens that draws the masked vigilante's attention, and get some answers to his burning--pun not intended--questions.
--
From a random passerby's perspective, Matt looks like a regular, visually-impaired guy on the way to work, careful in his steps, stopping a few times to make sense of his surroundings with his cane to figure out where to go next.
He's usually confident in his stride on the way to work, not just because of habit turning into muscle memory—he's walked the streets of Hell's Kitchen since he was a kid—but also because he sees the world in his own way, enhanced senses and all that.
But no, confident is not the look today. it's because the night before, he'd dealt with the beginnings of a cult-like sect who just happened to also be trafficking arms at the edge of the Kitchen. He did his best to nip the group in the bud as the Devil, by taking down its leader before they became an actual problem. Said leader happened to have hired mercs for protection, and they managed to escape, which is why, waking up that morning, Matt ached as though he went through a human-sized pinball machine. He has a wobble to his gait and his whole back feels strapped to a wooden board.
When he has visible injuries, Matt can usually pass it off as him being clumsy due to being blind.
Without them, Matt goes to his second best excuse—that he got plastered the night before.
He hasn't pulled that one out of his pocket ever since Foggy tried to stage an intervention with Reverend Father Paul and started slipping him AA pamphlets in court.
Enough time has passed, so maybe he can blame the juice again.
He plays up the hangover as he walks into the office, but nobody really pays attention to his arrival. Foggy's leaning back against Karen's desk, moaning about certain files he needs duplicates of for the DA's office. Karen's leaning by the door to the meeting room, peering back into the reception room and watching someone tinker with the old photocopier she'd bought off an auction. Matt only has to step into the room to know exactly who it is.
Peter is on his knees, waist deep in the photocopier. How he's managed that, Matt doesn't know.
He doesn't reek like a dumpster this time, which normally would be a good thing, but now Matt can pick up on other things, like Peter's detergent—Tide—and his choice of soap—the cheap, homemade ones from Marmie they sell off the bodega at 48th—and something synthetic and rubbery on his skin? All wrapped around a distinct, heady scent of sweat. It floods Matt's space in an instant, assaulting him and—
Huh.
Matt instinctively steps back, caught off-guard by the sudden, all-encompassing presence of Peter.
It's ... distracting, to say the least.
Ever since Matt has met Peter, he doesn't think he's ever met anyone else who's been as stimulating to his senses. It always puzzled him.
Peter always ran hot, which was to say, a cause for concern at first, but Matt quickly pieced together that the man must have ridiculous metabolism. Because of his standing temperature, Peter easily stands out in any crowd, like a beacon of heat and light. Peter's heart also beats fast, all the damn time, a constant tapdance on Matt's eardrums. Again, another cause for worry—on any normal person it would be a sign of overexertion or a serious heart condition. But days of quiet observation has led Matt to believe that God just made him that way, gave Peter a human-sized rabbit heart and somehow made it work.
Not only that, but Peter's whole body thrummed with energy, like he was a rubber band pulled taut, almost to breaking. Like he could snap at any moment and unleash all that pent up power in an explosion. Matt has been waiting for that every day, but Peter, as usual, is all smiles and contagious positivity, showing nothing to suggest that he's an unstable person.
Matt can't wrap his mind around the guy, which makes him wary, but also endlessly fascinated.
Peter stands up and stretches, and Matt could just feel the play of sturdy muscles on his back.
Christ.
Peter is especially distracting today.
"That should do it, I think," Peter chirps. "You can throw the rest of that stuff out." He must be referring to the pile of junk next to the machine.
"Are you sure? I didn't expect you to actually disembowel the thing," Karen asks, dubious.
Peter makes a show of lifting his arm and dropping his pointer finger down at the copy button. At once, the machine revs, chokes a little, and then starts making the telltale screeching sounds that means it's duplicating the files shoved in its chute.
"It works!" Foggy throws his hands up and then claps Peter on both shoulders, shaking him. "Oh my God, Peter. You are a miracle worker!" Foggy's already hovering excitedly over the freshly baked copies of their last case files, ready to be delivered to the DA's, while Karen chuckles at his ridiculous little jig around the machine.
Peter rubs the back of his head and Matt feels his face and heat up.
"Thank you for your service," Matt says as a way to announce his presence. Karen turns her head to him, Foggy remains preoccupied, and Peter jumps, both with his body and his heart rate.
"H-hey Mr. Murdock, it's great to see you," Peter says. Matt takes note of the drop in his voice and the change in his behavior.
"Wish I could say the same," Matt quips, waving his palm over his face, and when no one laughs, he snorts. "Because I can't see. Not that it's not great to—the blind guy makes bad blind jokes before coffee."
He tries his best to smile winningly, which earns him a laugh from Karen, at least.
He inclines his head in the general direction of Peter's voice without making it seem like he knows where everybody and everything is. "And it's Matt. I've told you that a bunch of times already."
"I know," Peter ducks his head. "It's just, it's hard to say when your this bigshot lawyer and all."
"Peter, you call Foggy, Foggy," Karen points out, sounding amused.
Matt slowly raises an eyebrow at him. Peter's face warms again.
"I do, do I? Huh," Peter trails off. "Shit, sorry about that, Foggy." Foggy's too engrossed in watching the copying come to its end to realize the implication.
Matt leans on his cane a bit and tilts his head. "So what brings you here?"
"I, uh, I was just dropping by to say hi, actually," Peter answers. "And then I saw Karen kicking the photocopier and thought I should intervene, you know, before the cops get involved," he throws a playful grin at Karen, who drops her jaw at Peter for narcing.
"Peter," she interjects, "was just telling us how he was going to a job interview today. He actually looks clean, for once." When Peter squawks at him, Karen giggles. "You do!"
"He does," Foggy finally chimes back in. "Matt, you should see him. He looks very handsome today."
Peter sputters.
"He's got his shirt buttoned up and everything, and his curls are tamed. And those biceps—"
"—okay, that's—
"Really?" Matt quirks his lips, and he finds satisfaction in hearing Peter's heart rate pick up and sensing his face flush. That's one mystery solved, then. That explains the rich and clean scent.
Still distracting.
But less confusing.
"Well, I'm sure you're going to do great," Matt says seriously.
"Thanks, Mr—Matt."
"Mr. Matt. I think that's a step in the right direction, Karen, don't you think?"
Karen laughs, and he's beginning to think that they both enjoy seeing Peter get teased.
"What job are you applying for?" Matt asks. Peter shuffles in place.
"It's this tech company, nothing too fancy, they just work on the city systems, you know, machines and stuff. DXC. I'm sure you've heard of it—"
Matt's blood suddenly runs cold.
"Oh! Peter, isn't it about time that you—"Karen looks at her watch.
"Oh, cripes, I—" he digs into his pocket and fishes out his phone. "Yeah. Running late. I gotta go!"
Matt wants to ask more questions, sit Peter down and do an interrogation, but he's already halfway out the door when he throws back a "see you later, alligators!" and whisks off.
Matt stands there, jaw tight, but trying not to let it show that anything was amiss. Peter's already gone, so there's no use trying to say anything else.
He makes his way to his office and sits on that tidbit of information Peter shared for a bit, fingers pressed together in front of his face as he leans forward in his desk. He doesn't pay attention to what Karen and Foggy are whispering to each other as they hover outside his door.
"He's all ... brooding all of a sudden."
"I know that face. You know how he can almost always tell when someone's attractive? I think it just occured to him that Peter's smoking hot, and he's floored at how he hasn't noticed it before."
"That's a great theory, wow."
No, Matt isn't paying attention. Instead, he's trying to wrap his head around the fact that Peter's applying for a job at DXC.
A company that used to be on the verge of bankruptcy but is now thriving amid the perpetual chaos of New York.
That's after Union Allied, or what used to be Union Allied, absorbed it and turned it into a subsidiary.
If Peter does great in the interview like he said, then he's soon going to be working for Union Allied. That is, indirectly working for Wilson Fisk.
The man right now is behind bars, but who knows what would happen to Peter there?
For some reason, the idea makes Matt's gut churn.