Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
Liquid laundry detergent from rows of crushed containers coated the floor, making it too slick to brace for impact on. Peter opted for hanging onto one of the two remaining walls of the now obliterated bodega instead, and he launched off of the wall and over Man-Wolf's head as the beast charged for him. Too many civilians were still in sight, perhaps numbed from the constant craziness that is New York City— they watched as Spider-Man and Man-Wolf tussled, neither gaining a foot as the bodega crumbled around them. If he could only get his hands on that ruby—
“Peter?”
“Mm? I’m sorry?”
“I asked if you would come with me this afternoon?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, and MJ’s fork clanks against her now empty plate of waffles. She pushes around the last strawberry slice in melted whip cream and pauses as she brings it to her mouth, eyeing Peter with one brow arched.
“Were you listening?”
“Yeah, I was. I’m sorry, though. I didn’t sleep much and I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
A waitress stops by their booth on her route and refills Peter’s mug with lukewarm coffee, and she takes his empty plate and the maple syrup pitcher from the table. The clank of dishes rings through the otherwise quiet diner, each table keeping conversation hushed over orange juice and fresh bacon.
“Is it about your super-secret job?” She asks as she chews her strawberry. Peter sips his coffee.
“Uhm, yup. You know how it is.” He laughs it off, stretching as he places the mug back on the table. “But yeah, I can come with you this afternoon.”
MJ rests an elbow on the table and tucks her chin into her palm, eyeing him still. Her fuzzy white cardigan stands out against the red diner booth behind her. The tip of the black dahlia petal of her necklace pokes out beneath where the hem meets the first button, but the silver chain sort of blends into her gray turtleneck.
“When you picked up the phone this morning, I told you not to pressure yourself into coming for breakfast if you were too tired.” She drums her fingertips against her cheek.
“No, no, I just need a little more caffeine and I’m good,” Peter insists, and he mirrors her with his own head now supported by his bent arm on the table. “So, where is it again?”
“The protest this afternoon against Wall Street? It’s…at Wall Street,” she huffs playfully, and Peter ducks his head down out of his palm before he sits back in the booth and places both hands on his thighs, laughing at himself.
“Right, yeah. That makes sense.”
“It’s supposed to be silent, but you never know how these can get, so I thought I’d ask you to come. It’s better to go with a buddy and all that.”
Peter downs the rest of his coffee and plucks a few napkins from the edge of the table that are so thin the dangling diner light shines through them. He wipes his mouth as MJ takes out her wallet.
“I’ve got it covered,” he says, gesturing towards her wallet with his free hand. “Who was your protest-buddy before? Am I your last resort?”
MJ laughs as she slides a couple of bills out anyways, folds them and tucks them between the napkin holder and salt shaker. “No, you’re not my last resort. I’d tag along with a group of people I didn’t know very well, if they were going. If not, I didn’t go at all. Usually people I’d meet online.”
“No one from school?”
“I don’t talk to anyone at school much, aside from the decathlon team. Uhm,”
He shouldn’t have asked that, but thankfully the waitress saves him with the bill.
“So you took off work for this?” Peter asks as he scribbles his name, changing the subject. It was Saturday, which also happened to be when there were amazing breakfast deals at this diner.
“My coworker needed an extra shift, so I gave it to her.” She grins cheekily and they both rise from the table and make their way towards the entrance. “It worked out perfectly.”
“It did,” Peter smiles, unwittingly goofy, and holds open the diner door so that they can step through.
“I’ll be there at 12, and I’ll text you when I’m on the way,” he says. “I’ve gotta run some errands first, otherwise I’d come with you now.”
“Okay,” she replies, but she doesn’t walk away.
“Okay,” he repeats, unmoving as well.
A stocky customer exiting the diner almost smacks Peter in the face with the door, which he now realizes he was blocking. That finally prompts him to turn and go on his way, but not without waving goodbye to MJ once more. How long had they stood there?
Peter didn’t really have any errands left to run, he’d gone grocery shopping the night before, but Spider-Man had much to do today. He planned to comb through pawn shops for a knife coated in pure silver, and catch up on damage control on the streets. Last week, the night of the bodega-werewolf-fiasco was taken advantage of by many a wrongdoer who were just waiting for an opportunity it seemed, biding their time for a night where Spider-Man was too distracted to pay them any mind. The streets were particularly rough the week after he had been holed up with sickness, so he knew this was coming, but the onslaught of crime at this level after a single night of absence was unprecedented.
The world in general wasn’t the same after the blip, this was a given. But it was growing more and more difficult to tell— would it be this bad if there were no Spider-Man to regulate the streets where the authority's hand could stretch no further? Or, did his presence drive some sort of reactionary current running under the veins of many who were teetering on the edge? Perhaps it has always been there, and it’s only that he sees it now because of Spider-Man.
J. Jonah Jameson is convinced that it’s his fault, and it’s becoming harder and harder to resist that sentiment every day. Never-mind that he started all this because he knew, deep down, that people out there needed help— and he could help. He could.
But it’s been night upon night upon night with Man-Wolf, and now a family’s bodega is in shambles. There’s a chance John Jameson is suffering within that beast, and the entire city is on edge. He has to do more.
He has to do better.
He really has to, because silver knives are surprisingly difficult to find. Silver and gold are hard to come by anywhere in these pawn shops, at least anything useful due to the state of the world post-blip. After the massive surge in looting died down directly following the Snap, thousands of people pawned their silver and gold. It would be assumed half the population disappearing into thin air would redistribute resources, like Thanos promised. But in a culture where the wealth is already hoarded, finances spiraled. Finances were still spiraling. Mountains of silver and gold were melted down, and weapons were stockpiled. When the population was restored, then came the need for fifty percent more silver and gold than had been necessary for five years: gifts, class rings, technology, the list goes on. But Peter didn’t need necklaces or clip on earrings, he needed a damn knife.
Finally, at his fifth pawn shop, Peter finds one. A decorative dagger with a gaudy handle and equally bedazzled sheathe, but the plaque reads that the blade is one hundred percent coated in silver. The shop is crowded by shelves and a little stuffy, but mostly it’s that the carpet smells weird. Peter doesn’t ask any questions.
“Hey,” he starts, and the bald man behind the counter says nothing. “How much for the sparkly knife?”
The dagger is larger than he’d like it to be, but at this point, he’ll take it.
“Three hundred.”
“Three hundred?"
“That’s what I said,” the man grunts.
“Do you have any smaller blades, preferably covered in silver?”
“Nope.”
Peter runs a hand through his hair and scans the store once more. The dagger is propped on a plastic shelf behind the counter, thankfully, because at this point, he’s desperate enough to snatch it and run. He shakes the thought out of his head and leans on the counter. The owner’s gaze tells him not to, and he retracts his hand, nervously adjusting his backpack strap across his chest.
“How about one-fifty?”
“Nope.”
“Can I pay for it in installments?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? This is a pawn shop!”
“Somebody’s already reserved it, kid.” The man’s upper lip disappears under his mustache as he smiles, laughing to himself. Peter supposes this is what little entertainment the man gets throughout the day.
“You could've answered with that in the first place,” Peter grumbles. He storms out of the shop without another word. He doesn’t have time for this, he doesn’t—
Someone down the block shrieks, and Peter bee-lines for the alley outside of the pawn shop. Wearing his suit under everyday clothing was second nature at this point, he just hopes his sweater and jeans are still here when he returns for them. He’s not sure what provoked that scream as he sprints down the street, but his sixth sense is screaming along with it, so it must mean imminent danger.
New Yorkers spread out on the sidewalk as they notice Spider-Man barreling down the path, and some follow, having also heard the shriek. Peter rounds the corner to find a woman clinging onto the window outside of the fourth floor window of an office building, who knows how she even got there— that didn’t matter.
“Oh, my God!” A taxi driver steps out of his vehicle and points at the woman, who is quite literally dangling by her fingertips against the cream brick wall. Peter scales the wall and wraps one arm around her shins as the scattered crowd applauds below, and the woman immediately releases the window and climbs inside of it as he guides her in. He waits for her to sit up to ensure that she's unharmed, his red and white mask peeking over the window into the dull office.
“Thank you,” she exclaims, breathless. She pulls her hair out of her face and her fingers are scraped raw from the brick, large indents noticeable where she was clinging to the thin metal of the window pane as well.
“I’ve gotta run— get your hands checked out, okay?” Peter says, and she just nods, visibly shaken.
“You have a nice day!” He calls as he swings away, and someone below says it back, followed by assorted whoops and cheery shouts.
He’s not three blocks away when he spots a rusty silver car going haywire, the traffic light dangling above the street blinks red but the vehicle is nowhere close to stopping. From his position atop a small building, Peter can see the intersection and all the streets below. What would have been a crash becomes nothing more than a traffic inconvenience, thanks to Spider-Man.
Two blocks down, a hold up at a restaurant in broad daylight. They were getting so bold these days.
“The police are booked getting ready for the protest,” the restaurant owner explains as Peter webs the attempted robber’s hands to the counter as he sits on the stool. “Who knows when they’ll be here.”
Oh, shit, the protest!
“What time is it, sir?” Peter asks, antsy.
“11:50, Spidey,” the owner answers.
Peter webs the robber’s hands again for good measure before bolting for the door.
“I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go.”
The owner laughs and exchanges glances with the perpetrator, who is glaring without malice.
He needs to make it all the way back to the pawn shop for his clothes, then head for Manhattan, he’ll only be a little late, it’s fine— is that office building across the way on fire?
What are these, office buildings or death traps? Peter thinks as he pulls civilians from the sixth floor of the burning building, one by one lowering them to the ground from the window before he moves on to the fifth floor to do the same. He’s sweating more than he ever thought he could despite the insulation in his suit, thank God it isn’t summer time, he can’t imagine doing this mid-July. The fire doesn’t appear to have spread onto the third floor, but he enters through the window and checks around, just in case. When the fire department arrives, he swings to the tallest building he can find and removes his mask to breathe— he needs to look into better fabric for filtering toxins and smoke. He can’t afford the same stuff his Stark suits were made of, so experimenting with each upgrade as he goes along now will have to do.
He remembers he has his phone on him, and finds two missed calls from MJ and five texts.
It’s already past 1 p.m.
“Hey,” he says when she picks up on the first ring, attempting to not sound breathless.
“Hey, where are you— are you okay?”
The absence of noise in the background on her end is a good indicator that the silent protest must be going smoothly. “I’m okay, I’m sorry, I got caught up in a meeting-thing with my job,” he lies. I basically just ran a marathon up and down an office building. I wish I could tell you about it.
“Oh, sorry for freak-texting you,” she laughs. “I’m a little on edge. Everything’s fine over here, but something feels off, y’know?”
“I’m sorry, I’m on my way,” Peter sighs into the phone.
“I’ll see you.”
MJ ends the call, and Peter slides his phone into the sleeve he sewed into his right calf, hidden by his boot. If there was one thing he learned to invest in carrying his phone on his person as Spider-Man, it was investing in those military-grade phone cases. Turns out, they’re not a sham.
Man-Wolf took big, sweeping motions as he attacked Peter, but it was more erratic this time. He could duck and lunge up into Man-Wolf’s chest if he wanted to, but he risked losing his head in the process. Did the crack in the ruby cause the werewolf side to act wilder now? It was near impossible to combat him. Man-Wolf was rampaging through what was left of the bodega at this point, completely ignoring the owner as he stomped around the counter. He proceeded to throw the cash register at Peter, which he easily dodged—until the werewolf threw the actual counter at him next, and the corner caught Peter right between the ribs . Same dance, different setting, only this time all kinds of civilians were involved. Man-Wolf hunted him down in the middle of the city, and now all this— how can he ever repay this store owner? How can he—
It’s been ten minutes at the least, but the pawn shop is nowhere in sight. That’s when Peter realizes he’s been swinging in the wrong direction, lost in thought over the night at the bodega. He quickly pieced together that it was a full moon, and that Man-Wolf was not gone at all. By the next full moon, he’ll have a silver dagger, or a shuriken, something he can throw at the werewolf long enough to take it down so that he can remove the ruby like Doctor Strange said. Eddie Brock, who was unexpectedly caught up in the mess at the bodega, informed Peter that a werewolf’s weakness was silver (thanks a lot, Strange), but Peter has no intention of firing a gun at John Jameson. Spider-Man doesn't just shoot people, wounding him long enough to take him down would suffice. He’ll need to do it in a private place in case Jameson reverts back to human when injured, or if the silver doesn’t work at all and Man-Wolf rages harder than ever before—
The sound of four, no— five cars piling on top of one another causes Peter to turn around mid-swing yet again, at this point he’s swung in a full circle around the block towards anywhere except for the pawn shop where his clothes were stashed on the roof. It was far away enough so that Peter could hardly hear the crash, and he soars past buildings as fast as he can, hoping and praying that no one was crushed instantaneously.
Miraculously, no one is dead. But two are unconscious, and the vehicles are so convolutedly twisted and piled into a corner of the intersection, it almost looks as if a cruel giant had reached down and crushed his toys in a fit of rage. Peter assesses the situation—he has to untangle this carefully, and quickly. Suddenly, an idea strikes him. He begins to shoot webs at the cars and string them along the sides of nearby buildings, angling them all upwards to alleviate weight on the bottom of the pile while stabilizing it at the same time so the cars don’t tumble like Jenga blocks when he removes the passengers, which is the top priority. Because of the stabilization, he’s able to remove the two unconscious civilians trapped on the lowest level first. An ambulance has already arrived, and firefighters follow when Peter has made it to the second automobile, but they can only watch as he meticulously crawls along the cars retrieving people one by one. A fifteen passenger van that belongs to some local tutoring program is sandwiched in the middle of the pile up, and he pulls the children out and carries them each to the ground: one passenger, two, three—there must be a way to make this more efficient, mustn't there?
Ah!
“Hold on, kiddos,” Peter says as he leaps off of the side of the van. This is going to eat away at most of his web fluid, but it’s quicker this way, and it’ll hopefully distract the students in the midst of the chaos. With precision, Peter sprays webbing up towards the open door of the van, and they splay out as they expand upwards creating a hammock of sorts. He does it again and again, weaving the webs to form a safe slide down to the ground.
“C’mon guys, it’ll be fun,” he beckons, and the two children peeking out from the door exchange wide eyed looks before the first little girl bravely slides down the silvery webbing. Peter takes her hand and stands her up when she’s close enough to the ground so that she doesn’t land on the asphalt, and repeats the process for each child.
“High five!” Peter says, and the last boy smacks his outstretched hand and giggles with zeal. Hopefully, Spider-Man has turned this day from a traumatic accident into a fun rescue that they can remember for the rest of their lives.
The driver trapped in the front can’t reach the slide, so Peter retrieves her and the last two individuals trapped in the cars above before finally detangling the metal wreck itself. Some of the webbing at the base was coming apart, so in a rush he suspends the top two vehicles in the air from buildings with new webs before lifting the empty fifteen-passenger off of the two at the bottom, which are severely crushed.
At this point, the emergency workers have tended to all of the victims appropriately, with at least three ambulances having taken off for the hospital. A crowd had gathered to gawk in amazement as Peter picked the cars apart, until at last, every automobile was lined up in the blocked-off street and ready to be claimed.
“Okay,” Peter heaves, exhausted. He hasn’t recovered from the heat of the fire in the office building, honestly. He’s dehydrated as hell— that’s his issue.
“I tried to prevent more damage to the cars, but y’know,” he announces as he waves to the cluster of victims by the remaining ambulance.
“Thank you Spider-Man!” A handful of the kids call out, and the adults follow suit. The crowd on the opposite sidewalk bursts into a round of cheers, and Peter half salutes as he debates between swinging away or walking out. Peter doesn’t think he can make it another minute without water, and there’s a restaurant right across the street, so in he goes. He finds it empty, until all the employees and patrons filter in behind him— they’d stepped out of the restaurant to watch him handle the gigantic wreck.
“Can I get you anything, Spider-Man?” The bearded manager asks enthusiastically, and Peter slides into the nearest booth.
“Uh, water please,” Peter exhales through his mask as he presses his ear to the cool table. Yeah, he’ll just lay his head here for a minute. He can spare a minute.
A different waitress places a glass of water with a long straw on the table in front of him.
Oh, a straw. That’s thoughtful. He peels the hem of his mask off of his neck and slides the straw underneath and gulps the water way too fast, triggering a cough.
“What time is it?” He asks, gasping.
“It’s five past 2,” the manager says, and Peter shoots up from the table.
“I’ve gotta go, I’ve gotta go like right now,” he waves to everyone in the restaurant, who respond in kind, and he darts out the door.
Twenty minutes back to the pawn shop for his clothes, thirty minutes or more to Wall Street, even more time if he wants to run home and restock on web fluid. He won’t make it until—
His phone rings, he must have turned the ringer on out of habit when he checked MJ’s messages earlier.
“MJ,” he breathes when he answers.
“Hey, I’m just—are you coming? I think I’m going to leave.”
“I’m on my way, there was just this crazy car accident and—”
“Oh my God, is everything alright?”
“It’s alright, yeah, everyone involved is safe too, but I’m coming as fast as I can. I think I’m twenty minutes away. But you should leave if your gut is telling you too, okay?”
“Yeah, I will.”
It’s not very quiet on the other side of the line this time considering it should be a silent protest. Peter hangs up the phone and sighs again, hunched over where he sits on the sloped rooftop.
Peter Parker probably won’t make it to Wall Street this afternoon, but Spider-Man will.
🕷🕷🕷
Something is definitely wrong at Wall Street, aside from the obvious, but Peter’s not sure what. It looks as if multiple groups with their own agenda eventually arrived one after the other, likely after the crowd who intended to silently sit in the shape of what must have been a bull in front of the New York Stock Exchange to make the message clear. The multitudes of people appear far too disorganized, the bull shape disheveled from where Peter could see where he was perched against the side of the building. He couldn't find MJ from this distance, there were so many more people than either of them anticipated— was that an unironic biker gang made up of accountants occupying the far right of the street? Peter chuckles as he scans the area, three clusters on the opposite side are arguing with each other over who knows what, and it looks like it could get serious at any moment. He dials MJ, and she picks up on the last ring.
“Hey, I’m here but I don’t see you, did you leave?” Please, please say you did.
“No, I’m still here, I can’t see you either. I’m center-right of the human bull if you’re coming out of the Stock Exchange,” she describes, and Peter thinks he can spot her, but it’s hard to tell from how high up he is.
From the advantage of this angle, he realizes the issue. Whoever was the first aggressor amongst the civilians no longer mattered because of the shape of the street, the biker gang on his right were blocking the road and the aggression on the left made it so that the mass of people in the center were trapped. It was an enclosed area, so if things got ugly for one group, it was going to be ugly for everyone.
The police presence wasn’t helping. There were too many officers called in already from all over New York City, and as more groups showed up unannounced, more police were summoned to the area. Civilians who had no idea a protest was taking place were meandering around out of curiosity, also trapped in the middle.
The aggression on the left end was too close to going over the edge, too many cops on that corner looked ready to pounce—
“I’m looking for you,” he tells her, and hangs up once again.
Peter scales halfway down the wall and crawls around the corner before crossing as much of the front of the structure as he can on all fours before he has to come down to ground level. Just as he’s about to reach the crowd on his left, someone shouts above all the others, he can’t tell who, but fists are flying— three or more are throwing down at the back end, causing bystanders to flee, and the police and one of the largest men with a giant red beard Peter has ever seen are going at it at the front. He has no idea who these people are, but if he doesn’t de-escalate, the entire street could fall apart.
“Hey! Hey now,” he shouts, and the presence of Spider-Man draws attention across the crowd. He slides himself between the officer and gigantic man and pushes them apart, and they soon realize there’s no use in resisting.
“Let’s not fight, we’re all protesting Wall Street and corruption together, right?” He laughs and looks around the swarm of people, expecting smiles and cheers.
“We’re not protestin' Wall Street,” the red-bearded giant says, befuddling Peter.
“Oh, well, okay then. Whatever it is we’re doing, we can do it without getting violent, right?”
“You’d think we could, Spider-Man!” A nasally man shouts, the voice is coming from closer to the center of the fringe crowd. “You’d think we could, but you’re a murderer! So who knows!?”
Peter rolls his eyes under his mask. “Okay, okay, we’re not doin’ this right now. I’m not a murderer. There’s alotta people trapped in this crowd, and it needs to stay peaceful so that everyone stays safe. Okay?”
He must find a police captain. The officers managing this crowd are a mix of power hungry and bored or anxious, and he can’t wait around for another outburst to take place.
“If you aren’t a murderer, take off your mask!” The weaselly man screeches.
“Yeah, Spider-Man, take it off!”
Peter nods to the large man and the nearest officer before he climbs the wall again, ignoring the dissenters so he can inspect the opposite side of the crowd. He decides to web his way across the buildings, the street is long and narrow and the motorcyclists were farther away than they appeared.
“Hey fellas,” he calls down to the bikers as he approaches them. “Can I help you?”
“Can we help you?” The presumed leader shoots back, met with guffaws across the gang.
“I’m just scoping the crowd out from up here, and your bikes are causing a huge plug in foot traffic. Everyone in here is kinda trapped, so if you could rearrange your bikes— I absolutely love the whole biker gang thing by the way, I wish I could pull it off guys, truly, but it’s just not my look— anyway, that would be great. I’m not asking you to leave, just clear a path, yeah?”
“Because you asked so nicely,” the leader says heartily, which somehow elicits laughter once again. He wonders if these guys just laugh at everything the man says.
However, Peter didn’t anticipate that the sound of so many motorcycles revving at once would strike fear into the nearby crowd. The shockwave of surprise spread throughout the sea of people and into the center where those sardined in couldn’t see the bikers at all, and a handful of them sprinted forwards, pushing those at the edge into the barrier guarding the Stock Exchange. The police at the front immediately assume the building is being rushed, and those shoved at the barrier are not met with kindness. Peter soars over the crowd and leaps over the barrier to where the officers are, drawing their attention to himself.
“What’s up!” He exclaims brightly. “The finance-bro-biker-gang just revved their engines and gave everyone a spook— you might want to check them out by the way, I’m not sure how you allowed this many motorcycles to clog the streets like this— but everything is fine. You guys need to guide this crowd and make them feel safe. Work on dispersing it. This is clearly too chaotic, I’m calling the protest over.”
“You’re calling the protest over?” A familiar voice challenges from behind a lanky policeman. Two officers step aside, and Captain Dewolff strides towards Peter with an unreadable expression, despite the fact she's smiling.
“Yeah, I am,” he repeats. “I scanned the crowd from above, and there’s way too many people. I’m sure most of them don’t have permits anyways.”
Captain Dewolff’s face is unchanging, red, lobbed-off hair sharp as her stern chin, unmoving as she is.
“Alright,” she announces. “We’re calling it off.”
The sound of motorcycles fades into the distance, and Peter realizes the biker gang has decided to take off unprompted. This clears the street on his right, and the crowd naturally decongests in response. Captain Dewolff announces through her megaphone that everyone needs to go home. Considering how the demonstration successfully lasted for a few hours before it was ruined, there’s not much dissension when it’s declared over.
“The crowd grew unruly,” the captain says, glancing at Peter.
“You should control your trigger-happy deputies, Dewolff,” Peter says. He’s not in the mood to be playful anymore, even if Captain Dewolff is easily the officer he respects the most.
“I've got a lot on my plate,” she challenges. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Wouldn’t I? Check the paper tomorrow morning, and you’ll see just how many extra helpings I can stomach.”
“I see,” she says, smiling but sincere. There’s always something a little devious about her, yet she still commands respect and authority from her position. Peter trusts her. Today might’ve gotten out of hand, but there’s only so much a regular person can do with a crowd like this.
That’s what Spider-Man is for.
“I’ll see you around,” he says, and he salutes as he takes off for the wall. He wasn’t able to find MJ, but now that people are tapering out on either side of the street, he calls her once more.
“Hey, where are you?”
“I’m on the far left—my left, facing away from the Stock Exchange, where the bikers exited— did you know bikers were coming? I didn’t. I have no idea what’s going on.”
“I ended up all the way on the right, some random crowd of people wearing red shirts got in beef with the cops.”
“Oh, God.”
“Meet me back at the diner, okay? I wanna get outta here.”
“Okay,” she sighs, and disappointment tinges Peter as he stares at his blank phone screen, call ended.
Peter needs his clothes. Really he needs to head home, he smells like smoke and sweat and he’s going to run out of webbing at any minute. But he’s let MJ down enough today, and he’ll be damned if he does it again . He crosses the Manhattan Bridge in record time and mad-dashes for the pawn shop. He stored his backpack on the roof having learned his lesson from many a stolen bag left in alleyways in highschool. Peter’s officially out of webs two blocks away from the shop, and he takes to the rooftops so that Spider-Man isn’t seen crawling directly above from the sidewalk. He’s just about to change when the bell to the door tinkles and a familiar voice thanks the owner on his way out, and Peter can’t help but peek over the roof.
Flash Thompson is strolling down the sidewalk, unwrapping something bedazzled from its brown protective paper and examining it as Peter stares, gobsmacked.
There’s no way. No way. The dagger.
Without contemplating his next move, Peter crawls down the alley and pops out in front of Flash, to which Flash yelps and stops in his tracks.
“Spider-Man? Oh my God, hey!”
“Hey,” Peter answers with a half-hearted wave. He’s at the end of his rope, completely unsure what to say next. “Uhm, whatcha got there, kid?”
“Oh,” Flash lights up (he’s such a dork) and twirls the dagger in his hand. “This is an antique knife, or— well, dagger, from India. I got it for my dad’s birthday.”
Come on, his dad’s birthday? Peter groans. Whatever miniscule sliver of hope there was at obtaining this weapon, it was long gone now.
“You alright, Spider-Man?”
“Yeah, oh totally— I’ve just had a long day. Cool knife, dude. I’ll see you around?”
Flash could not look more elated if he tried to, Peter’s sure. “Yeah— yeah I’ll see you around, Spider-Man! So are we like, are we buds now? Is this a buddy thing?”
Peter attempts to shoot webs towards the building across the street out of habit, but he’s empty. He doesn’t answer Flash, opting for mystery as he politely salutes and awkwardly darts back into the alley, scaling the wall just in time before Flash can follow and track which direction he climbed in. Peter tears off his mask and gloves as he flops onto his back on the hot cement rooftop, gathering himself. Get dressed, meet MJ, what else does he need to do— smell better? Yeah, smell better. He can’t walk back into the diner like this. Once he’s dressed and on the ground, Peter finds the nearest magazine stand and snatches up the first fashion magazine he sees. There's gotta be cologne or perfume samples in these things, right?
He’s in the middle of aggressively rubbing the third sample he's found on the side of his neck when someone taps him on the shoulder, and he drops the magazine with a shout as he startles.
“Peter, what on earth are you doing?”
He whips his head around to find MJ, perplexed and amused and beautiful and—
“Uhm. I want to smell good?”
MJ laughs and crouches down to the cement, picking up the fallen magazine. “You smell like smoke and Chanel number five.”
“I’ve had a long day,” he sighs. “There was a burning building and a huge car crash and I’ve been running around and I just didn’t want to smell like shit when I came back to the restaurant to see you.” Peter wipes the sweat off his brown with his bare palms, but that doesn’t do much so he tries again with the sleeve of his sweater.
“I understand,” she says, smiling. Before Peter can stop her, she reaches into her tote bag and pays for the magazine he ruined.
“This day didn’t really go as planned for anyone,” she continues, voice flat, but she’s still smiling. “Do you wanna see a movie, maybe? To take our mind off things? I think we deserve to relax.”
“Yeah,” he breathes, and it seems like MJ is holding out her hand as she gestures away from the magazine stand, he can’t be imagining it. He meets her eyes once before looking back at her waiting, upturned palm. He could just, he should just— right? Shouldn’t he?
Instead, Peter steps around her, and MJ stuffs her fist into the pocket of her cardigan. “Yeah, I’d like that,” he says.