Guess who!

Guess Who!, Chapter 2

Yeah, no. It wasn’t all fine in the morning, it was better than all fine. 

Which was suspicious. 

CJ narrowed their eyes on the ceiling, which was far too clear. They could count all the different popcorn-like pops in the paint from where they laid in bed. Slowly, the preteen reached up to feel the area around their eyes—Nope, they didn’t sleep with their glasses on. They could actually fucking see without them. 

What. The. Hell? 

“Answer your phone, Cj! Answer it, answer it! Answer your phoooone!” Cj groaned at the familiar ringtone that bellowed out from their fliphone. Reaching only their hand over to grab it, they carefully clicked the answer button and held the phone up to their ear. 

“...yes?” 

“Have you gotten up yet?” That voice was unfamiliar. Or was it? Cj wracked their mind for a minute before memories of the day before flooded them— right. Peter. 

“No, I’m busy wondering why I don’t need my glasses to see my ceiling,” they droned. “I’m not a morning person, Peter, I wouldn’t normally even be awake right now let alone out of bed.” 

“You need to get up. If my hypothesis is right— oh, try not to break your phone. I already broke my alarm clock by accident.” 

“What in the world are you even talking about?” Cj groused grumpily, conceding to the fact that their day had to start now, whether they liked it or not. So they slowly swung their legs over the side of their bed and stood up. And they blinked. No, yeah, not a trick of the mind. Everything was so sharp, so clear, so defined. “How the fuck do eyes just get this much better over night?” They wondered aloud— before turning to fix their bed and stopping. “That’s weird.” 

“What? What happened?” Peter asked, clearly listening very carefully to whatever Cj was doing. 

“My blanket is torn in half,” they answered, bewildered as they reached out to pick one half up and inspect it… only, the cloth stuck to their hand immediately and Cj’s rapid shaking did nothing to dislodge it. “... it’s too early for this shit, and even I know that static cling doesn’t work this way. Peter, what’s that hypothesis you mentioned?” 

“Well, remember the spider that bit us both yesterday?” 

Cj, shameless literary nerd and comic book geek that they were, instantly saw where this was going. They groaned. 

“You cannot be serious.” 

—*—*—*—*—*

“Look, try this!” Peter, also without his glasses, smiled impossibly wide before going over to the nearby dumpster and listing it almost vertical with one hand. Cj wrinkled their nose. 

“You almost touched a roach,” they pointed out. Peter jumped back in brief fright. Unfortunately this meant that he let go of the dumpster, sending it hurtling back to earth and making a loud bang echo through the alley they were in. The two kids shared a wide-eyed look at the racket and fled— they could hear the people who lived in the apartments to either side of the alley coming out to see what had happened. Nonetheless, Cj did copy him as soon as they found another relatively safe alleyway. 

Their eyes nearly bugged out of their skull when they also lifted the entire, very full, dumpster with one hand. 

“Holy shit.” 

Peter’s grin widened. “So it really did affect us both equally!”

“Holy shit. Also, shame on you,” Cj carefully lowered the dumpster before waggling a teasing finger at their newest friend. “Even I know that the scientific process calls for more tests than this before a conclusion can be reached. Have you figured out anything else we can do?” 

Peter shrugged. “Between school and now, haven’t really had the chance. By the way, how was school for you?” 

Cj, remembering the entire day-long struggle against a sensory overload, shuddered. “Too loud, too bright, too many smells. You?” Peter grimaced. 

“Same. We’ll have to figure something out about that,” he raised his hand to his chin in thought. Cj instantly shuddered again, bringing out a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer. They first used it on themselves, then passed the bottle to Peter. 

“We just touched a New York City dumpster with our bare hands, have some sense of hygiene,” they reminded Peter, who winced and quickly removed his hand from his chin. He accepted the hand sanitizer gratefully, and even rubbed some on his chin for good measure. It burned their noses, but that was better than getting sick. Especially when they had no idea how their apparently newly-mutated bodies would handle illness. 

“... wanna try climbing this wall?” Peter asked once he was done purging himself of bacteria. He was pointing to one of the ninety-degree angled walls that were shielding the alleyway. Cj tilted their head, considered where their powers had come from, and then grinned menacingly. 

“Race you to the top!” 

“Woah, hey wait! We don’t even know if we stick yet!” 

“My hands stuck to a quilt this morning, a brick wall is so much more of an ideal surface to cling to,” Cj told Peter as they rolled their shoulders and got ready. They sent the boy another challenging smirk. “Unless you’re scared of losing?” 

Peter, as worried as he was that their powers were somehow limited to super strength and very inconvenient sticking to household items, bristled at the challenge. He walked up next to Cj, making a show of cracking his knuckles. Cj just chuckled when he only managed to pop one of them. Peter got into position, carefully placing his hands on the wall so that all of his fingertips made perfect contact with the bricks. Analyzing his form briefly, Cj copied him. 

“On the count of three,” Peter announced. “One, two… go!” 

The first couple of feet was understandably awkward as the two preteens fumbled with the strange feeling of just… sticking to a vertical wall. And then to the fact that their feet somehow also stuck to the wall despite being in both socks and shoes. But soon enough they both shook off the oddness of it all, shooting elated grins to one another before the competition once again burned bright. Eager to win, they took off up the side of the wall— Peter was in first for a little while, only for Cj to overtake him. And then Cj fumbled over a slightly askew brick, and Peter pulled forward again. 

It ended in a tie and two laughing kids on a rooftop. 

“That! Haha, was crazy!” Cj managed to say between hysterical giggles as they leaned on Peter. He was leaning on them too, laughing just as hard. 

“We have to be, like, twenty stories high!” He exclaimed, flailing his hands to illustrate his point. “I used to have this, like, really bad fear of heights too. But today it didn’t bother me at all!” 

Cj stayed quiet, and the two of them just sat there and admired the view for a while. Cj, ever the over thinker, was the one that broke the solemn moment. 

“We can’t tell anybody about this.” 

“Wait, what?” Peter straightened up, turning to face his fellow mutate. “What do you mean? This is great! We don’t need glasses or inhalers anymore, we’re super strong, we can climb walls!” 

“Peter,” Cj frowned. “Yeah, it’s super cool, but what do you think happens to mutants who come out into the public eye?” They stared at Peter, not even allowing him to speak before they cut him off. “And don’t you dare correct me that we’re ‘technically mutates, not mutants’ because the general public won’t see any difference. People who are different are hated for it, and I don’t know about you, but I have a family I have to protect from things like that,” they fell quiet and wrapped their arms around their knees. “It’s just… it’s just my grandparents and me and my three younger siblings now. My sister just turned two years old a few months ago. I— that kind of atmosphere isn’t good for kids. And my grandparents don’t need that extra stress. And, Oscorp! What if they find out how we even got these powers? What if they were making the spider to do things like that? How can little kids like us handle a giant like Oscorp?” 

“I’m not little,” Peter weakly protested, earning a deadpan stare. 

“We’re literally the same size, Peter. We’re small. And we’re kids.” 

“Yeah, but!” Peter began waving his hands around again, this time in frustration. “But we’re kids who can lift several hundred pounds with one hand like it’s nothing! We can crush metal and climb vertical structures!” He frowned at them, eyebrows furrowed and low over his eyes. “I do have a family I’m worried about too, for your information. My aunt and uncle. They’re all I got. And we’re struggling, and this could help! Nobody would expect a little guy like me to be so strong, I bet I could put on a mask and enter a fight or something and win some extra money for us!” 

Cj threw up their hands. “Were you not listening to me? That’s so risky! What if someone caught you? Those kinds of fights can’t be legal if they’d let someone like you compete!” 

Peter growled. “Oh come on, Cj! You might be content continuing to be the tiny little nerd, shoved around and forgotten on a whim, but I’m not!” He shoved himself up to standing. In his fiery anger, he completely missed the shocked and betrayed look on Cj’s face. “I finally get something good to happen to me, and you only see the negatives. Well, I’m not gonna be the pushover anymore Cj. I won’t tell anyone about where our powers came from or anything, since that’s not just my secret anymore,” he clenched his jaw. “But I’m not gonna pretend they don’t exist.” 

“Peter—“ they tried. But Peter just turned and crawled back down the wall, not letting them get a word in. And Cj sat there, mouth slightly agape, and continued to hug their knees. 

“Answer your phone, Cj! Answer it, answer it! Answer your phoooone!” 

Click. 

“Yeah, grandpa? … no worries, I’ll grab some milk on the way home. Yeah, I still have the pocket money you gave me— no, I’m fine. I… just had a fight with a friend. No big deal.” 

—*—*—*—*—*

It was a big deal. See, Cj understood Peter’s argument. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have been on the streets a week later busking. They sat on the ground, a smaller-size tongue drum sitting in front of them on a towel. Thankfully, they had been able to afford it a couple years ago after a teacher helped them sell some of the jewelry they made. 

Cj made some pretty good jewelry for a kid, it was always a hit with teachers. They also made decent cookies and cupcakes, and would sell them to teachers and other parents by the dozen during the summer. They were a natural born entrepreneur, and used every ounce of their seller’s instinct to both help out at home and save some extra money for themselves. It was easier to earn an income as a minor when you busked— even if it was illegal, it was usually easy to outrun the officers that chased them off and avoid the fine. Most officers wouldn’t fine a kid for illegal busking, anyway. 

Today was better than usual. People were apparently in the mood for some nice, calming music from a tongue drum. Pocketing the rough hundred dollars in change, Cj tucked their drum under one arm and rolled up the small towel with another. That was good enough for them, especially since it had taken quite a lot of practice to feel comfortable playing the drum again. That new super strength was no joke, they had broken so many trash cans during their practicing— but at least they made the effort to un-dent them too. Feeling pretty happy about the day in general, they looked around at how dark it had gotten and decided… what the hell? They had their new powers giving them a little extra confidence to walk the city after dark, and decided to go on an adventure to a nearby bodega that they knew sold their favorite drinks. 

It must have been later than they thought, the cashier giving them an odd look right as their grandmother called to check up on them. 

“I’m fine. No, I’m on my way home, I just stopped by a bodega. Did you need anything? Eggs or butter? I didn’t spend all the allowance you guys gave me yet,” it was mostly a lie. Their grandparents would have never allowed them to busk, let alone stay out so late. So… they may have said something about wanting to practice their drum somewhere that it wouldn’t wake up the toddler of the house. 

They had just hung up and started to make their way up to the cashier with their drinks when the door slammed open. Cj looked over their shoulder, only to grimace and turn back to the short line ahead of them. 

Figures they’d run into Peter. The two of them hadn’t even spoken since their argument the week before, and Cj was already ready to mourn the friendship that had never gotten the chance to properly form. 

Checking out and forking over a depressing amount of money for the two bottled smoothies, Cj readjusted their grip on their drum and left. A new patron roughly pushed past them, making Cj yelp and drop their drinks in favor of making sure their instrument didn’t get damaged. 

Grumbling under their breath about rude New Yorkers, the kid bent down to pick up their only surviving smoothie and continue on their way. 

They barely got to the end of the block before the gunshot sounded. 

Suddenly devoid of their previous worry, they dropped both their smoothie and their drum as they booked it back to the bodega. The same man as before pushed past the doors again, this time with a gun in full view. Seeing a short but gender ambiguous person rushing at them, the man raised the gun—

—pointed straight at Cj. 

They froze, eyes wide and body stiff. All they could see for a long moment was the dark, endless muzzle of the pistol as it stared them down. The man scoffed. 

“Just some brat…” he muttered before pushing past Cj and running off. 

Adrenaline pumping and not wanting to dwell on the fact that they just froze, regardless of all their new powers and strength and speed they just froze like a scared rabbit, Cj swallowed down their fear. Peter was in there. Peter had still been in there when they left. 

Pushing through the quickly gathering crowd, Cj entered the bodega to blood. 

A sea of it, it seemed. So much blood. 

And a crying, panicking Peter in the middle of it all as he tried to press down on the man’s gunshot. 

He’s saying something, Cj distantly registered as they watched the older man’s mouth moved. 

Too much blood, they thought. Too much. Too much blood, again. 

They had frozen, and someone was dying because of it. Again. 

Cj didn’t realize how illogical that was in the moment. They hadn’t even run into the gunman until after the shot was fired, their freezing had nothing to do with this man’s life. But it sure as hell felt like it did. 

They didn’t remember the next few minutes. By the time their brain caught up, Cj was kneeling next to Peter despite getting blood all over their jeans. All memory of their argument was forgotten as Cj tore off their soft jacket, turning it inside out and pressing it over Peter’s hands. The boy caught on, moving his hands and letting Cj help him try to slow the bleeding. Even if all that changed was Cj gaining a newly ruined jacket. 

No words were spoken. Not between the two kids. Only Peter spoke, and when he did it was just to plead for his uncle to live. A plead that went unheard, as the ambulance that arrived shortly after declared him dead on scene. 

Cj held Peter, not even realizing when a rare good hearted citizen quietly set Cj’s tank drum down next to the two of them. Cj stayed next to Peter even as they gave their statements, refusing to separate from him in his shock. Cj even stayed next to Peter as they called their grandparents to report why they were late. 

Cj sat next to Peter as the police drove them to his house, and waited there in silent support for both him and his aunt until their grandmother came to pick them up. 

“... how are you, hon?” Their grandparents would ask that very night. Cj would just shrug. 

“I’m fine. Promise. Just… tired.” 

They didn’t sleep that night. 

—*—*—*—*—*