Settling In
That Monday, Peter entered the Stark Industries building, cold, hungry, and tired, getting ready to begin running for coffees, paperwork, and whatever else his superiors requested. The most difficult part of this was how his already empty stomach became all the more obvious in the presence of the food he was delivering. All he could think about during his shifts was lunch where he could get a meal that would last him until the next day, or his next paycheck, whichever was closer.
It wasn't until he entered and signed in that he realised today was one of the rare few days where he was working under someone who sometimes gave interns a chance to work on some projects - with supervision - between coffee runs. Peter tended to be allowed to work on these projects more than other interns as he's proved to be one of - if not the - most capable, this does cause some resentment amongst his peers but he handles it as he doesn't have to interact with them much.
Peter fondly reminisces on the first time he helped in the labs, he hadn't been assigned to assist yet but the project just so-happened to have an error that caught his eye, only just returned from a coffee run and placed the to-go cup on the desk within arm's reach of his superior. The scientist had furrowed brows and his fingers were tapping forcefully against the desk. Peering over at the tech, Peter noticed a small mistake in the wiring. Even so, he had felt hesitant at pointing it out, not wanting to come across as insulting or intrusive, Peter hovered for a moment, though the scientist seemed too focused on his work to notice him.
"Uh... sir?" Peter weakly spoke, receiving nothing but a grunt for recognition.
"Your, uh... wiring is wrong," Peter cringed, he stated that way too bluntly.
"What?" That had got his attention, the scientist turned to Peter, an incredulous look on his face, possibly offended that an intern would try correct him like that.
"I just noticed that you seemed to be having a problem and I looked and saw that your wiring doesn't look correct!" Peter desperately tried to correct how disrespectful he sounded.
"I highly doubt that, but just for the sake of things, where do you think I went wrong?" The man crossed his arms, watching Peter closely as he picked up the tweezers to point at the machinery as he spoke.
"Uh... here, the coil isn't set properly, and the wire is meant to connect over here otherwise a loop is created which would make it overheat pretty quickly if it could otherwise run. The main reason I think it's not working is due to this wire, here, being connected to the central processing unit instead of the drive. Also, just a suggestion, uh, you should probably add a fan in at some point, though you probably thought of that already," Peter ended, putting the tweezers down and looking up at the older man.
Surprise was written across the man's face, a moment of silence held between them - ignoring the bustle of other scientists surrounding them.
His expression grew cautious, "We'll test that now, then," he stated, turning back to his project and changing the wiring to fit what Peter had described.
And as Peter said, it worked just fine - with the help of a fan.
This had been the start of Peter being allowed to assist in projects, not only for this gruff scientist but occasionally for others around the R&D department. He still did the same work as normal interns, just now he would sometimes stay behind a bit whenever he got extra lab time.
Speaking of staying behind, Peter got held up a bit before lunch and had all but run to the cafeteria, hoping they hadn't gotten busy yet, otherwise the portions would start to get smaller. Arriving at his destination, he saw how the lines were full, a few fast-eaters already getting up to leave and the hustle and bustle starting to die down slightly. He had missed the first crucial minutes of lunch and now had to settle for less-than-average sized portions.
Waiting in line, he took what he could and looked around the room, most tables filled with chatter, he spied a mostly empty one at the back and went to sit down, being reminded all too much of his lonely high school years.
Picking up his backpack, Peter started walking back to the street, out of the dingy alleyway he had changed out of his Spider-Man costume in. Spider-Man had stopped two muggings, - in which he had gained a few bruises - a drunken fight and a gas-station robbery in his time patrolling. He had gone home, got in his suit, and been patrolling right up until he had to go for his shift at the bar, only pausing to have a burrito bought for him by an old lady he had aided in walking across a busy street - which is his saving grace as he'd hopefully heal right before the bar opens due to this act of kindness.
Due to it still being light outside, there wasn't as much crime as he would like, which is a confusing statement to make but when there wasn't anything to stop, Spider-Man had nothing to do but sit on rooftops and freeze. And so, he decided to end patrol a little early, it was a quiet afternoon and he wasn't too far from the Hellhouse.
In what felt like minutes, Peter was already knocking on the creaky old doors of the bar and heard the same sound of movement as the last two times, clutter being moved, the lock turning and then he was face-to-face with his boss.
"You're a bit early," Was the only greeting he received as Weasel moved to let him in.
"I was pretty close by, didn't realise how close," Peter put his backpack in the backroom like last time and turned to help set up the bar. He didn't know how to feel about how easily he had settled into the routine, as if he'd been doing it for years.
"At this rate, I may have to start paying overtime," Weasel muttered as they began unstacking chairs. Peter chuckled quietly to himself, knowing he wouldn't have heard the sarcastic comment if not for his enhancements.
"Ferret, whilst it's on my mind, circle the third name down on the Dead Pool,"
"Hey, the name stuck!" Peter grinned, already walking over to the ladder, despite not technically needing it.
"Yeah, yeah," With a wave of his hand and a roll of his eyes, Weasel returned to his chairs.
As customers started piling in their loud voices filled the room and their bodies surrounded the bar, taking up most of the stools, where Peter would usually be terribly anxious, Ferret felt right at home, letting his own voice join the collective noise. He watched the room as people made, won, and lost bets, celebrating and moping side-by-side and drinking to their hearts' content,
"Hey, you new around here?" One merc asked, leaning over the bar.
"Yes, sir," Jokingly saluting the man as he paused drying glasses, "I'm Ferret,"
"How'd that Weasel find a young thing like you?"
"I found him," Peter grinned, as he picked up another freshly washed shot glass.
"Uh, huh," He threw a look at his drinking buddy, "How long you been here?"
"This is my third shift,"
With a huff of laughter, the man leaned over to his friend and whispered, "Bet this boy won't last two weeks,"
The other guy laughed with him, whispering back, not so quietly, "Two weeks? I'll bet you one," Already moving to get his wallet out.
Of course, Ferret heard what he said and rolled his eyes, slightly annoyed that he was being underestimated. He could bet these two wouldn't last a single shift as a bartender in the Hellhouse, nevermind three. Don't get him wrong, he enjoyed his new job but last night the amount of puke and shattered glass he had to clean up was just ridiculous. All because a few customers had a small brawl over who was paying their shared tab. It was comical when Ferret forgot he was left as the one to clean it up, the first one to throw a punch had been so drunk he'd stumbled and knocked himself and his opponent into another drunk, and soon half the establishment was throwing hands and shot glasses.
Shaking his head, he got back to work, he had heard multiple other bets being made on how long he'd last at this job and there would undoubtedly be more.
Despite these less-than-pleasant comments, most of the customers were friendly, enthusiastically describing the most peculiar jobs they'd been on - usually after they got a bit drunk. Ferret would load a tray with drinks and weave through the room, placing each down and stopping to chat or listen to bits of the unbelievable stories that were told. One man tried to convince a table of other drunk mercenaries that he'd rode a shark to get to a private island to complete a job - and it had worked!
Of course, a lot of the stories that were told were just a little too detailed for Ferret to sit through but he managed. He laughed, cringed, and gave sympathy, being led through an emotional roller-coaster by some, they might not have the most articulate of vocabularies but they sure told a story well.
The patrons seemed to like him - Weasel even commented so - enjoying his reactions to their retellings and what one drunkard tried to explain in his own skewed way was that it was refreshing to see and interact with someone so ordinary while he smiled at the room full mercenaries. Like a mouse happily scurrying amongst hungry alley-cats.
A dark analogy but Ferret took it in stride.
Soon, the end of his shift was looming, Ferret almost didn't want it to end, he enjoyed his time at the bar and he especially enjoyed that further into the shift he got, the bigger tips he received as he warmed up to the hardened customers who all seemed to have large amounts of blood money from their jobs.
As he and Weasel closed the bar, wiping tables, stacking chairs, sweeping the floor, they talked.
"You seem to be getting pretty comfy here,"
"What'd you mean?"
"You were all jumpy and shit like two days ago, usually it takes people months to calm down enough - and they're usually felons,"
"Oh, uh, I guess I'm just not bothered by their jobs,"
"Huh..." Ferret assumed this was the end of the conversation before Weasel spoke again a few minutes later, "You been in a job like this before?"
"Nope, only had like four other jobs before and they've all been fast food or tech,"
"Tech? You know code?"
"Yeah, a decent amount, not loads, but I like building stuff," Ferret knew he shouldn't reveal much about his personal life so decided to be pretty vague.
"I'm guessing that's how you found this job?"
"Kind of,"
"Question - why didn't you just get another fast-food job or something? Why work here?"
"These seem like the type of questions you should've asked at the job interview,"
"Shut up, you know I'm not professional,"
"You bet you aren't,"
"Stop avoiding the question!"
"Well they pay barely anything and wouldn't be time flexible, I have an unpaid internship and some other spontaneous responsibilities that come first and take up most of my days," Well there's 'not sharing his personal life' thrown to the wind. Ferret internally grimaced.
"Well, I'm not flexible either,"
"Yeah, but the bar's only open at night, and sure sometimes I have responsibilities during the night but I can put them off a little more at that time cause there's other people who are available then,"
"Okay, and what are these 'responsibilities' you're being so cryptic about?"
"That's super personal stuff,"
"Y'know I could find everything about you from everything you've already told me and less?"
"I'm realising that now but I'm sticking with keeping this specific thing private,"
"Alright then,"
There was another pause in conversation.
"Hey, back on that topic of you building, you'd be up for helping me from time-to-time with fixing my tech? I'm good at coding and fixing bugs but it takes me forever to figure out physical problems - I'd pay you extra,"
"Yeah, sure, definitely!" Ferret enthusiastically agreed.
After finishing up, Ferret headed out with a, "See you Thursday!" and got as far as he could from Hell's Kitchen before Peter changed into Spider-Man.
He kept his backpack on him, swinging past a rooftop two blocks from his apartment, webbing his backpack to the inaccessible roof.
Spider-Man swung from rooftop to rooftop, looking out at the skyscrapers, wishing for nothing more than to let himself go and be free to plummet as he wished with adrenaline coursing through his veins and wind hitting against his body before throwing a web out to make himself arc upwards once more, doing flips and tricks mid-air as we yelled out whoops and cheers.
The more he thought about it, the more tempting it was. Weasel was a fair boss and let Ferret pocket most of the tips he received but he had been planning to save his money, not wasting it on extra food, but oh how tempting it was. Soon Spider-Man felt the longing to swing in the air outweighed his logical thinking and before he could properly convince himself otherwise, he was leaping off the building, headfirst shooting downward, enjoying how the breath was pushed out of his lungs as he did just as he had longed to, swinging as high and low as he could, almost hitting multiple skyscrapers as he let go of his caution. It was always so easy to relax as he swung through the city.
Not long after his spidey-sense spiked at the back of his neck, causing him to make a sharp turn, swinging from stray cranes, balconies, and streetlights as he boosted himself upwards to search for the trouble, hearing a scream, he directed his attention to the direction of the commotion, identifying it to be a twenty-four-hour open store, he swung through the doorway, quickly assessing the situation.
The classic store robbery. There were three masked men, one pointing a gun at the poor older guy running the register as the second fiddled with the register for a moment, struggling until he managed it, and the third was pocketing as many items as he wanted from the shelves.
Spider-Man quickly webbed the gun away from the first robber, making it skid across the floor. The second man finally opened the register and was hurriedly scooping money into a bag, the third had stopped in his tracks before deciding the best course of action was to run at the webslinger. He easily dodged the slightly bigger man, the employee gasped from the corner he was huddled in. Cursing himself for stupidly wasting energy his energy as he had to repeatedly dodge the third man. He had been paying most of his attention to the third and so the first man - who previously had the gun - caught Spider-Man off-guard with a punch to the ribs as Spider-Man had misunderstood his spidey-sense, thinking it was alerting him to an incoming swing from Robber Number Three™.
Ouch, that would be a nice big bruise.
Spider-Man stumbled to the side, quickly recovering and only catching the tail end of a kick coming his way, he stuck himself to the roof and webbed the third's feet, quickly turning his attention to the first who was scrambling for the gun which was halfway under a display.
He webbed the ankle of the man, pulling him away from the weapon, the robber rolled over, clawing at the webbing. Realising it was futile, the man tried to reach for the gun once more, somehow managing to get it in his grasp before Spider-Man pulled him back.
The first robber shot at Spider-Man, lodging bullet holes in the ceiling and occasionally one of the products on the highest shelves.
Spider-Man easily dodged, his sixth sense working overtime as one bullet is shot after another. Due to Spider-Man's lack of sleep, food, and energy, he wasn't up to his usual standards and he was embarrassed to say he was slightly struggling with these three regular old robbers.
He webbed the front of the gun and dropped from the ceiling onto the swinging man, webbing him down. Turning to the third with his feet still stuck to the floor, who had kneeled down and started cutting at the webbing with a knife. Spider-Man turned to web the knife, only narrowly dodging it at the same time the second robber - who seemed to have finished scooping up the register money - finally got together enough courage to attack Spider-Man. He bashed into the man as he leapt to the ceiling, giving him a fright that caused him to tumble over.
Quickly webbing up the last of the robbers, Spider-Man dragged them all to the wall of the store and webbed them to it, where the poor employee could see them easily, and confiscated their money bag, turning to the cashier who looked on in amazement.
"Here, are you alright with sorting that back in the register alone and calling the police?" He received a quick nod in response.
"Have a good one, sir!" He spoke as he jogged outside, already reaching out to web himself away.