Chapter 4- a montage
“You’re a stupid kid, you know?” A soft voice spoke up as a woman carefully turned an apple around in her hand, inspecting it despite how perfect it looked.
“That’s pretty harsh criticism from a stranger in a grocery store,” CJ deadpanned, rolling their eyes as they continued looking through the produce for actually-ripe avocados. Their grandmother wanted to make fresh guacamole, but didn’t have time to go shopping with the toddler being a handful at home and cleaning to be done. Luckily, the local supermarket wasn’t far down from their neighborhood, making it an easy walk for the extra-spry, post-superpower CJ.
The woman hummed, putting the apple back as if she had never planned on getting it anyway. “Even a simpleton can check security cameras and see you lifting a dumpster with your bare hands, showing off to your little friend,” her voice was barely a whisper now, assuring nobody else would hear her even as CJ froze with their hand about to grab a plastic produce bag.
Already chocolatey-brown eyes darkened nearly to that of coal, darting over to scan the woman with cold calculation. This was a danger CJ was better suited to handling, unlike gun violence and muggers. They could fight with words, with information. Mind games.
They were practically raised on mind games.
The woman’s mouth twitched as if she wanted to smile, but held back. She twitched one hand, drawing CJ’s attention to it just in time for them to watch as the woman’s hand changed. Healthy peachy-white turned sallow, then alabaster white like paper, before shifting darker to match CJ’s light tan, and then darker still until it was a dark cinnamon shade that was exactly like their grandfather’s. Fingers lengthened, shortened, at one point the woman even lost a pinky as it became the stump of an amputated limb before reforming. Then, a mere three seconds after the show started, it stopped. The woman was whole and had the same hand to match the rest of her body again.
CJ stayed silent.
“The world may be more open to mutants than before, but that doesn’t make it safe. If you’re going to galavant around and practice your skills, do it somewhere safe. A private house, a school,” her mouth twisted into a weird amalgamation of a smirk and a grimace, “for people like us, or at least an alleyway with no functioning cameras. Still, we must support our youth where we can. I have disposed of the footage for you already, but I cannot spare any of my time keeping an eye out for you going forward. Watch your own back, from now on.”
CJ’s gaze tracked the woman as they soundless bagged a few avocados. The shapeshifter simply turned to begin walking away, before casting another look back at the preteen and smiling.
It wasn’t a very kind expression. Proud, smug, and all too confident that she knew exactly what CJ was all about.
“I like your eyes though. Sad as it is to see one so young already so jaded, it’s good to know you aren’t as much of an idiot as I first thought.”
CJ stayed in the produce section long enough to be sure the woman was gone… hopefully. If she could shape shift, there was really no guarantee that she hadn’t just chosen a new form and doubled back around to watch them. So, CJ decided to trust their instincts. And, well, their normally good instincts were further boosted by their ever-helpful (if confusing and temperamental) Spidey-Sense. Focusing inward, they were just barely able to tell when a tiny buzzing in the back of their skull cut out.
The watching eyes were gone.
Letting their shoulders drop just a hint, they plopped their avocados in the grocery store’s hand basket and continued down the isles. The subtle tingle of being watched never returned, even as they checked out their purchases.
Well, they thought to themselves, scared of even thinking too loudly after that interaction. At least it seems like she only saw me, and thinks I’m a mutant with super strength. Didn’t mention climbing, so hopefully that wasn’t captured. Strength by itself is a dime-a-dozen power, nobody will be seeking me out anytime soon based on just that. And besides, now Peter and I have something we can already fix before it becomes dangerous.
Before they put on a mask they meant, but didn’t dare to even think of in concrete terms.
—*—*—*—*—*
“… is now a good time to mention that I hack our school computers on a regular basis?” Peter asked sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. CJ just blinked at him, uncomprehending for a long moment.
“Excuse me?”
Peter nodded, looking even more shamefaced and starting to blush. His hands started to gesticulate as he spoke as a testament to how embarrassed he was getting.
“Yeah, well, the school computers always block the good websites. And not just games, I mean the good research sites are blocked just because they discuss ‘adult topics’,” he used very heavy finger quotations for emphasis there, “like Mutant rights and history, advanced biology and biochemistry scientific journals, the sex offender list—“
“I don’t even want to know why you need access to that at school, Pete.”
“—and it never hurts to run background checks on your teachers.”
CJ took a deep breath, processing that somebody could apparently be more paranoid than them. “How do you even run background checks? We’re twelve, I barely know how to research my own ancestry. And even then, it cuts out after my great-grandparents and I run into a brick wall.”
“… Uncle Ben was a police detective,” Peter whispered, suddenly sober and somber. The wounds were still fresh for both of them. “He taught me a couple tricks they use in the precinct, and I learned some of my own stuff when I started teaching myself coding and the basics of hacking.”
He was clearly leaving out some important details, but CJ wasn’t going to push. They merely nodded.
“Okay. Then, I’ll scope out some areas by taking a different pathway home and to our meeting areas every day. Any alleyway with security cameras I’ll mark on a map, and we’ll try to get you access to their camera’s servers in case we need to override or delete footage later. Alleys without any cameras will be clearly marked, too.”
“And we’ll have to practice with our Spidey Sense,” Peter chimed in, nodding. “I didn’t realize it might be able to pick up people watching us. Maybe we can train it—ourselves?— to sense cameras, too.”
CJ took out a notebook, jotting down a few ideas vaguely enough that it would be inconspicuous to the casual observer, but with enough detail for them to hopefully still remember the original meaning later. “Another skill for development— get Peter good enough at hacking that he can move up to something more secure than a public school’s child lock.”
“I’ll give you a crash course sometime,” Peter promised, double checking to make sure CJ didn’t actually write down exactly what they said aloud. Satisfied, he stretched his arms over his head until something popped. “How’s gymnastics?”
CJ told him. They were able to get enrolled in both gymnastics and a boxing class, despite their grandparents trying to sway them towards something more traditional like karate or jiu jitsu. Boxing started that weekend, and their entire family was supportive… but weren’t very subtle about their suspicions that they would drop out pretty quickly. Their family clearly had higher hopes for gymnastics, which wouldn’t start for another two weeks.
Honestly, CJ didn’t understand why nobody had more faith in their ability to tank a hit. They’ve done it before.
Similarly, Peter actually did manage to get into a jiu jitsu course and a sewing class.
Perhaps not the best or most exciting of starts, but he needed more time to focus on solving their security camera and transportation issues. He already had a notebook that was a third of the way filled with theoretical formulas, practice blueprints, and materials lists. It was only two days after their decision to be Spider-Man, but they were already immersed.
—*—*—*—*—*
“Catchphrases?”
“Let’s not. Stick to puns and pissing people off, we’re both good at that apparently.”
“I apologized for that!”
—*—*—*—*—*
“A little deeper.”
“Like this?”
“Why do you sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
“… I just finished watching that news clipping of Batman and Robin fighting Mister Freeze, and wanted to sound calm but intimidating like him. Hey, do you think Mister Freeze is secretly the cheesy action-flick actor Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
“I think you should stop trying to copy villains, that’s the opposite of our goal here.”
—*—*—*—*—*
“Do you think Poison Ivy would like us? I mean, we’re part spider now. And spiders, like, protect plants right?”
“What happened to not trying to copy villains, CJ?”
“I’m not suggesting we copy her! It’s a theoretical question! Do you or do you not think that Poison Ivy will be less inclined to attack us because we’re part spider?”
“Finish teaching me how to do a backflip.”
—*—*—*—*—*
CJ’s eyes widened, their hand snapping out to stop Peter’s. Most of their suits were done, except this. The most important part. The piece de resistance. The finishing touch. Their masks.
“If we stitch it this way, the eyes will slightly follow our facial expressions,” they whispered as if in awe of their own sudden realization. “If we squint, the lenses squint. It will help with filtering out visual data, but also…”
“Allow our expressions to partially transfer over onto the mask!” Peter finished their sentence with a wide smile. “That will make it easier to appear non threatening to victims, and to even get our sarcasm across when we’re taunting a criminal! Perfect!” He gave CJ a high-five, and both of them returned to their hand-stitching with renewed vigor.
—*—*—*—*—*
“Okay,” CJ stood hunched over a large map of Queens, scanning over it for imperfections. “Red dots indicate alleyways with security cameras. Red dots with a green circle around them indicate that you are already connected to their servers and can alter video, plain red dots are unable to be accessed and more risky since we can’t guarantee the ability to erase video in time. green dots have no surveillance at all. Blue dots have decoy cameras that don’t actually record anything, but deter most criminals.”
Thwip!
CJ’s head swiveled at breakneck pace, trying to locate the source of the sudden noise only to find… a string? No, it was taut in mid air and stretched across the room. One end led to Peter’s newest secret contraption (he wouldn’t tell them what his solution to their transportation issues was, saying it was too experimental to count on just yet). Following the string to the opposite end showed that it led to the wall, where it…
Where it stuck in a small fanning of webbing. CJ’s eyes widened slowly as their brain seemed to fully register what they were seeing at the sticky speed of molasses. Slowly enough that they could almost hear their neck creak like a rusty hinge, they turned their head to lock eyes with Peter.
“Still too thin to hold our weight,” he was muttering to himself, seemingly unaware of CJ’s stare as he scribbled what had to be adjustments to his formula.
“Webs,” CJ breathed in awe, finally catching Peter’s attention. “You made us webs.”
His smile was small, insecure, but blinding.
“Almost,” he agreed. “But we’ll have webs before we hit the streets. Good enough to hold our weight even as we swing from buildings,” he strummed the web like a guitar string. “I just need to fix the tensile strength. This isn’t good enough. But I’m almost there, I can taste it.”
“You’re a fucking genius, Peter Parker. A fucking genius.”
—*—*—*—*—*
Two months turned into three, the scope of what they were trying to do as two pre-teens with full schedules slamming them into reality. Three months turned into a very tense four, but that was all they could handle. Even CJ was feeling the strain, a weird humming under their skin that begged for them to move.
To get out there, to fight, to help.
A humming they could have sworn they had smothered years ago, the last time their hero complex was allowed to come out to play. But now, with Peter and the whole Ben incident and their million plans encouraging it? CJ felt their own old dreams slowly bloom to life again.
It was terrifying.
But with Peter by their side, with them sharing everything they learned with each other? It felt possible in a way it never had before. Like their dream was perfectly in reach now.
They could both throw a decent punch, and bob and weave with the best (note; the intermediate-est) of boxers. Who would have guessed that both of them actually had a natural talent for it? And not just boxing, no. They both picked up gymnastics and jiu jitsu just as smoothly, breezing past the beginner stage and settling into intermediate faster than either of them could have hoped.
It was time. Four months in, a solid character crafted. Foundations laid.
It was time for Spider-Man’s debut.