Oh, it's funny how {the warning signs can feel like they're butterflies}
August 4th, 2016
10:58 AM
Jessica wakes up to a bucket of water being poured on her head.
She shoots straight up, coughing and spluttering. Water runs down her face and arms, drenching her clothes and her hair. The blankness of sleep had been replaced by the freezing liquid and an unyielding, burning anger.
Jessica jabs a finger in the direction of the person who did this, the person standing a good two feet away from the couch. “I’m going to break your fucking kneecaps.”
Peter Parker, wanted fugitive and twelve year-old asshole, shrugs. Completely unafraid of her wrath. “You weren’t waking up. And I texted you.”
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s like six in the morning……..” Jessica trails off, catching sight of the clock which does not say six and instead reads 10:59. Asshole woke her up right before eleven. She redirects her glare to Peter, standing up from the couch and cracking her joints. “How the fuck did you get in here?”
The door is not broken for once and she’s actually proud of that. It is, however, unlocked and cracked open. And it had not been like that when she came back last night.
Peter tosses a bobby pin from hand to hand, slipping it into his pocket. “I have my ways.”
Jessica scowls at him. She’s already regretting this. “Let me go put some goddamn dry clothes on. Don’t touch anything.”
“I brought bagels!” Peter calls after her, the grinning asshat holding a bag of what does indeed smell like bagels. “And coffee!”
Jessica makes a rude gesture that children should never see and slams the bedroom door, soaking wet and starting to shiver.
Asshat. Absolute asshat.
He must annoy his enemies to death.
Ten minutes later, she’s dressed and giving Peter stink-eye over her whiskey and coffee concoction, Peter simply eats his bagel, wide-eyed innocence as the cream cheese-covered cinnamon bagel disappears into his mouth. His dog, a giant blob of black fur with a neon green collar, is devouring a bagel, an Iron Man squeaky toy forgotten beside them.
Jess points at the dog. “What is that?”
“Max.” Peter scratches the dog’s scruff. “I found him at a murder scene yesterday, so I kinda accidentally adopted him.”
Poor dog.
Having to live with that nightmare child.
Max finishes his bagel and looks up hopefully at Peter for another one, whining slightly.
Peter pats him on the head. “No.”
“All right,” Jessica sighs and takes a swig of her mug, wiping her mouth with her long sleeve shirt. “Time to get down to business.”
Peter perks up. “To defeat the Huns?”
Fucking child.
Jessica ignores him as she grabs her laptop and walks to her desk, taking a seat in the chair and opening her computer. Peter slings himself across the red chair, folding himself like a freaky human pretzel.
Jessica frowns at him as she logs in and pulls out a file from her desk. “Show off.”
“I did this before I got my powers,” Peter argues, “The powers just...helped.”
“Uh-huh.” Jessica cracks her knuckles and types in her password. “And how long ago was that?”
Peter leans back, bending his body in a way that it should not bend. “Well, I got bit in March, but I didn’t really start using them until April, soooo.”
“Bit?” Jessica stares at Peter, hands paused over the keyboard. “What do you mean, bit?”
Please be something normal. Tell me you got your powers from illegal scientific experimentation. Tell me something believable. Tell me something that’s not completely crazy.
Please don’t be Rand.
Peter completely blows her hopes to smithereens. “I got bit by a spider.”
He says it casually, like it’s normal to be bit by spiders and suddenly gain the ability to climb walls and shoot webs out of his wrists.
Speaking of which….
“That thing,” Jessica snaps her fingers, pulling up a picture of the webs that she had managed to find after countless hours of searching. She shows Peter her computer, the small kid leaning off his chair to peer at the screen. His eyes widen in recognition. “Are your webs anything like it?”
Peter shakes his head and Jessica slumps. Goddammit. “Nah. My powers are just the super-strength, the senses, and the sticky wall stuff. His webs are organic; they come from him. Mine are from my web shooters. Made ‘em myself.”
Jessica blinks.
He willingly created a weapon that linked directly back to being a spider?
Furry.
“His webs are more weapons than mine; his are acidic or something. I got burned when he webbed me with them.” Peter rolls up his sleeve, showing Jessica a healing burn on his arm. Looks like a giant blister. “He’s got venom too, I think. Those claws definitely had something on them.”
Jessica bites her lip. “Okay, so it’s got its own arsenal of weapons. Which is great. We know anything else about this thing?”
Peter stares at the ceiling. “It’s a human.”
“It’s a what?”
“He’s human,” Peter explains, “Found out yesterday. Right after I found Max.”
Max barks.
If it’s human, then…
“He’s got a motive,” Jessica realizes, ditching the computer for the files on her desk. She thumbs through them, pulling out a sheet of paper and brandishing them at Peter. “Do you know anything about these people? Did he mention anything?”
Peter reaches out and takes the paper, reading and going slightly pale.
It’s a list of people who died from the attack at Metro Gen.
“No. That attack-” Peter hesitates, then pushes onward, “That attack, it didn’t feel like it was targeting anyone in particular. It just felt like the thi- He was just doing it for the chaos of it all.”
“But why Metro Gen?” Jessica takes back the paper. “Why not somewhere else? Somewhere way more important than a hospital? Like, I don’t know, Avengers Tower?”
Why the fuck would you attack a hospital in a city full of other opportunities?
“Well, what if it’s for symbolism?”
Jessica looks up sharply at Peter, staring at him. “Explain.”
Max is chewing on his toy.
Jessica is going to fucking steal that dog.
“Well, Metro Gen is a really big part of Hell’s Kitchen, right?” Peter gestures with his hands, fingers wiggling. “It was the site of the Fisk bombings, it dealt with the, um, Punisher stuff. And then there was the whole cover-up that happened last December, where that kid killed his dad and these kids were being drained.”
“Yeah,” Jessica nods, before she realizes what Peter just said. “Wait, how do you know about that?”
Because Jessica had learned about it from Matt and he had been the one to discover it.
Peter fidgets with the long sleeves of his hoodie, which is absolutely riddled with holes. “I-I like knowing things. My aunt-she used to work at Metro Gen. She wasn’t there when it happened, but we learned about it from a friend of my uncle’s.”
“The cop,” Jessica eyes Peter. He’s being honest, but not that honest. He’s not saying everything.
Which is fair.
“Yeah,” Peter swings his foot. “That uncle.”
“Hmmm.” To Peter’s obvious relief, she doesn’t press the issue. Instead, she focuses on what Peter had been saying before. “So you think that our freaky horror movie monster went after Metro Gen because it’s a significant part of Hell’s Kitchen?”
Peter shrugs. “S’where the Punisher first appeared in public eye. It’s where Daredevil was last seen in 2015. It’s a place shrouded in mystery. It’s also a place where a lot of people learned things they weren’t supposed to know.”
So it’s not the people; it’s the place.
Jessica taps her pen. Takes a sip of whiskey/coffee. Thinks to herself.
“Fuuuck.”
“Same.”
Jessica tosses her pen at Peter. He catches it, twirling it around his fingers. “What about that Shocker asshole? Why’d it attack that night?”
“Lights attracted him,” Peter theorizes, “He probably, like, appeared for the first time and the laser show caught his attention.”
“Then, when he appeared, Trigger-Happy annoyed him with the weapon and he killed him.” Jessica sums up, raking a hand through her hair.
Peter blinks. “Hey, why were you lookin’ for me that night?”
“‘Cause someone hired me to find you and I thought I should find you first before you were carted away to be the next Area 51 resident,” Jessica responds, taking a sip from her mug.
Wait.
Shit.
Her eyes widen and meet Peter’s, whose mouth is open in realization.
Too fucking large of a coincidence.
She’s an idiot.
“ Mother of fuck,” Peter breathes out, face stark with realization. He’s sitting slightly normally on the chair. “ Who was that guy?”
“I'm too hungover to make out what you’re saying, but I’m pretty sure the first half would make a nun wash out your mouth with soap.”
“Like you're a saint.”
“Still don't like you,” Jessica mutters under her breath, hands searching through her file to grab the lone piece of paper she thought she wouldn’t need.
Because.
What would a creepy scientist who’s obviously out for Spidey have to do with murderous human/monster rampaging around New York?
And just Hell’s Kitchen too.
It’s specifically only been seen in Hell’s Kitchen.
She holds up the piece of paper triumphantly. “His name’s Curt Connors.”
“Curt Connors,” Peter repeats, hands steady at his sides. “D’ya think he’s got anything to do with...that?”
Jessica smirks. “Might as well see.”
“Is this how you do your job?”
Before Jessica can slap him or make a dry and witty remark, Peter sits up straight. “Can you turn up the police scanner?”
Jessica does, turning up the small dial of the scanner she did not steal from the 15th Precinct.
“-Dispatch, we have a 10-13. Repeat, we have a 10-13. We have an unknown person attacking the-”
It fizzes out for a moment.
“Repeat, we have a 10-10. Unknown enhanced being is attacking and highly aggressive. Civilians are in the area. Two officers are down. Repeat, two officers are-”
Jessica twists to face Peter, but he’s already half-dressed in that tattered Spider-Man suit. In the shitty lighting of her apartment, she can see how badly that thing was damaged.
It’s not going to offer any protection.
“Peter-”
“It’s a lead, Ms. Jess,” Peter insists, pulling the mask half-way down his face. “I gotta go help before he hurts anyone else.”
He opens the window. “Please don’t lose Max.”
And then he’s gone.
Jessica glares at the fluffy, innocent puffball that somehow got the misfortune of belonging to a reckless, moronic, guilt-complex ridden twelve year-old. “He’s going to die.”
Max tilts his head and whines.
Jessica drags a hand down her face and groans.
A phone number is dialed.
“Hey, Luke? You might wanna get your ass out here.”