The Lost and The Found
The cry for help that Peter heard while contemplating Flash came from a woman who Peter found crouching in the middle of the sidewalk, crying, moaning what sounded — vaguely — like “Why won’t anyone help me?” He looked around as he approached, but his spider-sense, which had become increasingly attuned to threats and thieves, noted nothing. Dropping down carefully beside the woman, who split an irritated part in the sea of pedestrians flowing both ways down the sidewalk, he spoke to her, gently.
“Miss? Are you okay?” He placed a hand on her shoulder.
Impossibly, she sobbed harder. “He— open— second— only a— second,” she choked out.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I can’t understand you. Were you hurt? Did someone do something to you? Who was it?” Peter begged, a little frazzled. He’s not bad at handling people who are overcome with emotion, but he’s still not very good at it. He hopes it’ll come with time because right now he feels a bit useless. Why couldn’t he sense the person who did this? He definitely needed to work even harder on sharpening his sixth sense.
She continued to sob, unintelligible words and near-sentences coming out in between cries.
“Spider-Man!” Flash called out.
Flash? Peter thought. He followed me here?
Peter, disguised in his Spider-Man suit, turned slightly to face Flash. Unsure of what to say, he nodded once in acknowledgment of Flash’s yell, followed by a small, apologetic shrug as he tipped his head toward the crying woman.
Flash appeared, too, to be out of words, as well as out of breath from running after Spider-Man. He was clearly star-struck, eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly. It was weird for Peter, who hadn’t yet met anyone he knew as Peter Parker while he was out as Spider-Man. It was weirder that this was Flash Thompson, who always had something to say, whether it was right, wrong, or objectively unfunny. Flash blinked hard, then pointed at the ground beneath Peter and the woman.
Peter looked and saw papers strewn about the sidewalk. He picked one up. There was a picture of a scruffy orange cat wearing a beaded cat collar, the beads arranged into a repeating pattern of eyes, the same bright green as the cat’s own eyes, the word “MISSING” emblazoned above the picture and “Sedrick” below.
“Miss, is this your cat?” Peter asked, gentle as ever.
The sobs tapered off, the woman clearly working to regain her composure. “Yes,” she eventually replied. “He’s been missing for two days, but I only had the time to get these fliers printed out today.” She punctuated every few words with a sniff or a gasp but continued on. She looked at Peter, eyes pleading, “He’s all I have. I know he’s just a cat, but he’s all I have. It’s been such a shitty week and then I accidentally left the door open for a second too long and he slipped out and I couldn’t find him. And then I finally got these fliers and some douchebag bumped into me and they went flying and I just couldn’t handle it.” She turned, her face coloring.
“Hey, that’s okay,” Peter said. “I’ll help you look for your cat. I can walk you home and then put up the fliers, and I’ll make sure to keep an eye out.”
A shuffling of papers pulled Peter’s attention to Flash, who had crouched down near Peter and the woman, accumulating a stack of fliers in his hands. Flash saw Peter looking at him and also reddened but continued his task.
Sedrick’s owner nodded and allowed Peter to help her stand up. Eyes darting over to Flash, Peter hesitated, grabbed a handful of fliers off the ground, and turned to follow her home.
“Thank you,” the woman whispered.
“It’s what I do,” Peter responded, an embarrassed laugh escaping in a huff of breath.
They walked in silence, interrupted by the occasional sniff from the woman and scuff of Flash’s shoes against the pavement, the only indication to Peter that Flash had followed them, as he was resolutely not looking back. They stopped in front of a stout walk-up.
“I’m Sol,” Sedrick’s owner said, after a beat.
“Hi Sol, I’m Spider-Man,” Peter replied. Sol giggled, while Flash scoffed slightly as if it were an uncontrollable reflex. Peter was just glad the woman — Sol — was no longer crying. “Go home, it’s going to get dark soon. I’ll —” he glanced at Flash, “I’ll get those fliers up. If your cat shows up, I’ll bring him back to you.”
“He knows his name. It’s Sedrick,” Sol said, sorrow pulling at her features. Peter saw her eyes begin to glisten again but she only turned, opened the door to her building, and left without another word.
A thought, one that had been recurring in Peter’s mind lately, popped up again.
What the hell is up with Flash Thompson?
“Uhm, hi,” Flash says, the awestruck look on his face once more. It’s… no, Peter wasn’t't going to think that right now. He’s Spider-Man right now, talking to a random teenager who he definitely doesn’t know and is absolutely, like, three or four years older than, at least. Actually, how old should he make other people think Spider-Man is? 18 or 19 seems young for a superhero, even though it’s older than 15. How would he even make people assume he was a certain age? What do people think already? Wow, he’d gotten off track — Flash was standing in front of him, a stack of crumpled missing cat fliers in his hands.
“Hey, kid,” Peter immediately cringed. Was he trying to be 20 or 50? “Thanks for helping out.”
“Yeah,” Flash breathed, cleared his throat. “I mean, it seemed like you had your hands full.” His voice came just a bit closer to the Flash that Peter knew.
Peter laughed. “I guess so. Hey, if you want to help out some more —” Flash’s eyes widened again, “— Why don’t you take a few of those fliers and put them up? You can help me spread the word, keep an eye out for Sedrick. You could get some of your friends involved. This girl clearly cares a lot about her cat.” Peter wasn’t actually sure who Flash’s friends are, but he was almost always with someone at school.
Flash nodded rapidly. Peter waited. Flash didn’t say anything else.
“Okay, well, —” Peter began.
“Wait!” Flash interjected, then blushed. Peter thought, He looks… no, he still wasn’t going to think that. “Can… Could I get a selfie? With you?” Flash was shuffling his feet around, not looking directly at Peter’s face. Peter thought that he’d never get over how different this Flash was from the Flash he knew at school, or even the old Flash, his Flash. He’d never seen this Flash.
“Yeah, man, of course,” Peter said, casual and collected, confident in a way he didn’t really feel at that moment.
After taking a quick selfie (during which Peter noted, with satisfaction, that he was a few inches taller than Flash; Flash used to tease him for being so small), Peter shot a web out towards a building and threw himself back among the rooftops of New York City.
***
Pictures of Spider-Man hanging up missing cat fliers showed up on Twitter. Missing from these tweets was a photo of a teenager, whose smug smirk did not cover the earnest excitement on his face, standing next to Spider-Man, who held a hand up for the camera, a stack of fliers held against his palm by his fingers that weren’t busy making a peace sign.
***
Peter didn’t keep up with what was written about him, either in the news or on social media. At first, this was because he didn’t know anyone had bothered to write anything about him. Then, after a few weeks of going out as Spider-Man, he caught wind of fear-mongering tabloid headlines and misinformed tweets. There were even YouTube channels that used him as clickbait, red circles in the video thumbnails and all. He realized very quickly that he wouldn’t be able to influence public opinion other than by continuing to do his thing and being good at it (and getting better), so he avoided the tabloids, unfollowed some accounts on Twitter, and began ignoring the increasing number of Spider-Watch YouTube channels.
That night, though, Peter looked up Spider-Man. Deliberately. He skimmed a couple of articles, perused YouTube channels. Then he opened the Twitter app on his phone. Searching “Spider-Man” brought up hundreds of tweets. He was certainly no Thor or even Daredevil, but people had begun to notice him. He had been working in New York for almost three months, going out near daily. As he scrolled past photos, fan accounts, hate accounts, and thirst tweets (which, really? He could be anyone under that mask. Anyone!), he wondered whether he wanted the attention being a superhero brings. In the end, it didn’t matter what he wanted — Peter could never give up Spider-Man. He stopped scrolling only when he came across an account with the display name flash ❤️ spidey.
Peter just stared for a moment, mind blank, before clicking on the account. It definitely belonged to Flash Thompson; the profile picture was a little image of him reflected in one of those rounded mirrors found in pharmacies and other shops. Peter looked at the tiny reflection of Flash for… longer than he would admit to anyone, including himself. He eventually did move on to the tweets. Some of them were mundane comments on life at Midtown or other personal musings, but there were many more retweets about Spider-Man sightings, as well as fanart (fanart? Spider-Man has fanart now?). There were even some tweets that Peter would swear were about him. About Peter Parker, that is, not Spider-Man. They’re snarky, of course, but they don’t include his name. They also made Peter feel something he chose to ignore. He wasn’t sure if this, looking through Flash’s Twitter, wasn’t his plan all along when he went online that night. Maybe it was. Peter scrolled back to the top of Flash’s tweets, reading his tweets from that afternoon.
flash ❤️ spidey @flash_bang
#SpiderWatch spidey seen near 65th and queens! swung away suddenly
6:27 PM
flash ❤️ spidey @flash_bang
i CANT BELIEVE THIS
6:27 PM
flash ❤️ spidey @flash_bang
he swung RIGHT OVER MY HEAD!!!
6:27 PM
flash ❤️ spidey @flash_bang
is it just me or is he hotter in person
6:28 PM
Peter choked on air. Flash really loved Spider-Man, apparently. Peter thought again about the fact that he could be literally anyone under the mask.
There was one more tweet from that day, sent about two hours later.
flash ❤️ spidey @flash_bang
he’s definitely hotter in person
8:21 PM
Peter closed Twitter.
***
The day after running into Sol (and Flash) on patrol, Peter was drifting off in physics. He wasn’t particularly tired or anything, but he had read this chapter of the textbook last month and did all the associated work because he was bored in another class, which now meant he was bored in this class and didn’t have any distractions left. Ergo, he was drifting off in class.
“But—” Flash’s indignant voice unpleasantly pierced Peter’s haze.
“Flash, this answer isn’t a debate,” their teacher, Ms. Warren, cut Flash off.
Peter heard the rustle of Flash’s clothes as he sulked into his seat a few rows ahead of Peter.
“Mr. Parker, are you paying attention?” Ms. Warren questioned him sharply.
“Uh, yeah, of course,” Peter said, focusing on the board. Another rustle of clothes as Flash turned to face Peter. After a second, he answered the question and began to zone out again.
“Exactly,” Ms. Warren said, satisfied. Peter caught Flash scrutinizing him before he turned back to face the front of the room, sulking once more.
***
After class, Peter stood at his locker. Ned had just left to go to next period, but Peter was lagging behind for no particular reason. Hey, he fights crime after school and still maintains a perfect GPA, he was allowed to be sluggish sometimes. Someone walked up to the locker next to him but made no moves to open it, so Peter closed his and turned to face them.
The person standing behind his locker was Flash. Of course. It seemed like his life lately was Flash Thompson and Spider-Man, with the rest of his friends and family, responsibilities, and hobbies taking a back burner. Well… that wasn’t actually true, but with how much he thought of both Spider-Man and Flash it might as well have been.
“Do you get off on showing me up?” Flash said without preamble, a sneer on his lips.
Back to the fixation, Peter thought. He didn’t say that. He did say, somewhat tiredly, “I’m not trying to show you up, Flash. I didn’t even raise my hand. You know Ms. Warren calls on people at random.”
“‘At random,’ my ass. You always answer questions after me. You’re trying to make me look bad.”
“Really, Flash, I’m not. Maybe I answer after you because your voice puts me to sleep and I need to do something to wake up.” It was a weird comeback and really didn’t make sense, but Flash turned red nonetheless. Peter looked at him for a moment, while the same thoughts as he had on patrol were pushing their way to the front of his mind. How did Flash still look … like that … when he was angry? “Well, if that’s all, I have to get to class,” Peter said and strode away with as little haste as possible while still rapidly putting distance between (his thoughts about) Flash and himself.
***
Continuing the theme of his life revolving around two things (Flash Thompson and Spider-Man), Peter was walking home from school the same day as the locker-side confrontation when he had to suddenly step out of the way of a door that swung open in front of him seconds before Flash stumbled through it, looking furiously at the large shopkeeper who was forcing him out.
“Why should anyone care about shopping local when ‘local’ doesn’t give a shit about them!” Flash yelled heatedly at the shopkeeper.
“Flash?” Peter said.
Flash spun around, glare fixing quickly on Peter. “What is it, Parker?” he snapped.
Peter glanced at the shopkeeper still standing in the door with an expression that was getting more sour with every second Flash lingered on his doorstep. “Come on, let’s go,” he seized Flash’s arm and dragged him down the sidewalk.
Peter grabbed Flash harder than intended. Flash had to pull a few times to release himself from Peter’s grip, which he only managed because Peter realized what was going on, released his hold, and moved to grab onto the straps of his backpack instead. Flash looked at Peter, expression inscrutable beyond a narrowing of his eyes.
“Why are you here?” Flash asked, finally, electing to ignore how strong Peter’s grip was.
“I feel like I should be asking you that. This is the way to my apartment,” Peter responded, pointing down the road without removing his hands from his backpack straps.
“I never see you walking this way,” Flash said, almost accusatory.
“Yeah, I don’t usually go straight home every day. My aunt needed help with something today, though, so here I am.” If Flash was wondering where Peter went instead of going home, he didn’t ask. “You?”
“What? Oh, right. I’m, uh, putting up some fliers.” Flash held aloft a rolled bundle of Sedrick’s fliers from the day before. His gaze dropped to the ground. “That guy back there didn’t want me trashing up his storefront, or something.”
Peter wasn’t sure why his heart raced a little bit, but it did. He was surprised that Flash was actually hanging up the fliers (but that’s not why your heart’s racing, is it, Peter?). He thought that, after the shock of meeting the superhero he has a fan account dedicated to wore off, Flash would dump the fliers. Peter wondered where Bully Flash and Spider-Man Fan Flash intersect, and why he only ever got to meet Bully Flash. He wondered if Old Flash was somewhere in the mix, too. His heart beat even faster (Stop!).
“I could help you put some up,” Peter offered. He spent over an hour the day before doing the same thing, what was another however-many minutes?
Flash considered him for a second. “Okay, Parker. I’ll walk you home. We can put them up on the way.”
The walk to Peter’s apartment was more amiable than he’d expected. At first, it was undeniably awkward; there were a lot of pauses, during which neither Peter nor Flash knew how to fill the silence. It didn’t help that it was still weird for Peter to be around a Flash without a million things to say. Despite having multiple classes and decathlon practice together, they hadn’t talked for more than a couple minutes at once since they were 12, and never one-on-one. Tentatively, they approached subjects where they could find some common ground; they both still liked horror movies of any quality, apparently. Flash still made so many dumb jokes. He needled Peter a lot (but that never really changed); he didn’t meet Peter’s eye and wink now, but he still smirked, hiding it by turning his head away. The quips that would usually set Peter’s jaw instead set something alight in his belly. It wasn’t butterflies — definitely not butterflies. However, he couldn't deny it felt pretty damn similar, even while it was burning a hole in his chest.
When Peter’s building came into view, he checked his phone.
“Oh, shit,” he hissed.
Flash looked bemusedly between Peter and his phone. “You good, Parker?”
“Sorry, I was supposed to be home a while ago,” Peter said, nerves seeping into his voice.
“Right, you said — your aunt.”
“Yup,” Peter stopped in front of the door to his building.
Flash glanced up at the building and back at Peter, though his eyes quickly slid to somewhere just to the right of Peter’s face. Peter thought (hoped?) for a moment that Flash might ask to come up, maybe offer to help with whatever it was May needed. Peter opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say, so he just looked, mouth poised for speech, at Flash, while Flash looked at the space next to Peter’s head with his own lips set into a line and a furrow on his brow.
When it was apparent that Flash wasn’t going to be done any time soon with the internal argument he was clearly having, Peter jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the building. “I really gotta go,” he said.
Flash’s face smoothed out at Peter’s voice. “Yeah, of course. Tell May I say hi.” His tone completely devoid of its usual smug bravado, he turned and left just as abruptly. While Peter opened the door, he saw Flash stop and turn to look at something. Not at Peter, but at something down an alley. Peter headed upstairs.
Later, during a break from preparing pounds upon pounds of food to make up for the fact that F.E.A.S.T.’s kitchen was currently unusable, Peter looked up from his phone and said, “Hey, May, I almost forgot — Flash says hi.”
“You guys are talking again?” May smiled. He never told her about Flash’s behavior over the past few years. There were only a few times it really got to him, anyway.
“Yeah, a bit, I guess.”
“That’s nice. He was a good kid. So funny, wasn’t he?” She got up from the couch and went back to the kitchen.
Peter only blushed in response. He wasn’t sure why.
***
That night, when Peter was in bed, restless from a day without Spider-Man, he grabbed his phone. Unlocked it, opened Twitter, found @flash_bang in his recent searches. He hadn’t cleared them.
flash ❤️ spidey @flash_bang
reunited ❤️ sedrick.png
5:54 PM
Peter didn’t know what to do other than smile. Attached to the tweet was a photo of Sol. She was beaming, cuddling a very scruffy Sedrick with one arm while her other hand held up one of the missing fliers, except someone crossed out MISSING and wrote FOUND above it. It was corny, exactly like Flash’s jokes, and painfully cute.
You thought it, his mind accused.
Yeah. He couldn’t avoid his thoughts that time. Flash’s tweet was cute. Sue me, he thought. There was no response.