pufferfish
Peter would not stop apologizing to anyone. Everyone. To every body, animate and inanimate, which would listen. At first, Miles and the others thought it was the shock, but after he’d apologized to Dr. Banner for the fifteenth time in not even that many minutes, they kind of started to realize it was something more than that.
“Maybe he’s got anxiety?” Tats Spidey whispered conspiratorially to Miles, Gwen, and Peter B. once Miles’s wrist was stabilized. Gwen had wound extra web around it just to be sure. She’d also started, perhaps subconsciously, to put her body between Miles and Peter, and Miles was kind of flattered that all his friends were violently protective of him, but it was getting old fast. He was more than capable of dealing with all this on his own.
“Maybe he’s got the guilt complex,” Peter B. whispered back.
“Oh, no, maybe it’s the complete lack of self-esteem; maybe he’s the poor sap who got the brunt of that one,” Tats Spidey offered.
Gwen asked both of them if they’d ever considered professional help. Tats Spidey was proud to say he had a therapist who he generally saw once a month, but lately once a week because of recent ‘regression.’ Peter B. said he didn’t need anything like that.
In front of them, Dr. Banner told Peter that if he apologized one more time, he was going to muzzle him. So Peter apologized for apologizing.
Miles didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d obviously failed to take into account in his imagination of Peter that every Spiderman everywhere was a disaster human, just in different shapes and forms. It would have been too convenient for him to have gotten the only normal Peter.
Dr. Banner tried to get Peter to talk more about what had been happening to him with Doc Ock, but Peter just kind of stared at him blankly. Then started apologizing all over again. Dr. Banner whacked his clipboard against his forehead slowly throughout this.
Apparently, Peter couldn’t remember so well.
This determined and many vitals taken, Peter was finally allowed to sit up and talk to the others again while Banner took a blood sample. Peter did not like the blood sample. Actually, it turned out, he didn’t like the needle, but was too anxious to look away from the needle and basically, just set himself up for more panic, punctuated of course, by a steady stream of ‘I’m sorry’s.
Never meet your heroes, Miles scolded himself.
Even Mr. Stark could not calm Peter down, which was surprising to everyone in this verse because, they learned, he’d been calming Tats Spidey’s anxiety for the last ten years or so. He was a champion Spidey tamer. In this verse. And possibly in this verse only.
“Listen, buddy, if you’re freaking out over this, I’m not sure you’re gonna handle outside very well,” Mr. Stark observed patiently.
Peter went stock still. Banner removed the needle from his arm and taped a piece of gauze over the hole. Miles thought he looked kind of smug when he took his sample away without Peter’s notice.
“What’s happening outside?” Peter asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Peter B. told him. “Not a damn thing. Not a thing in the world, hey, you have an MJ yeah? You want to maybe talk to her? Will that calm you down?”
Peter’s horrified gaze went to him.
“I’m dead,” he said with his hands. “Dead, dead. Gone. Perished. Worm food. I’m not supposed to be here—if MJ sees me—if she found out, she’d freak.”
Worse than you, pal? Miles thought not. Gwen shoved him but she couldn’t hide her smile.
“You want my MJ?” Tats Spidey offered. “She’s hell impersonated.”
“You love MJ,” Tony Stark scolded him.
“Yeah, when she’s not trying to maim me, or when she’s calling me an idiot, or telling Ned all my secrets. I love that MJ.”
Wow. Okay, dysfunctional relationship alert.
“Okay, maybe not MJ, then, you want to maybe see your aunt?” Peter B. tried.
“May? What. WHAT, NO.”
“Woah, woah, woah. Breathe, man. Breathe. Air in, air out. Forget it, we don’t gotta see no aunts. None.”
“They’ll target her, they always target her,” Peter said, ensuring that Peter B. understood him by shaking the shit out of him.
“Who’s they?” Tats Spidey asked while those two tango-ed. Peter stopped to stare at him like he was a moron.
“Everyone. Always. Goblin. Ock. Fisk. The Jackal.”
“Who the fuck is the Jackal?” Tats Spidey asked. Peter B. and Peter stared at him in twin mute pity. Tats Spidey was intimidated in the face of their silence. “Are they…a mutant dingo?” he tried.
“Oh, honey.”
“Aw, kid.”
“Actually, no. I don’t like this vibe. Y’all shut up. I can’t hear you.”
It was determined that Peter was functional, not presently dying, but also highly anxious and dead set on going back to confront Doc Ock back in his and Miles’s verse like some kind of massive, interdimensional moron. Miles asked Gwen if she thought he could sell the guy on ekay or something. To which, naturally, she responded, “You mean ebay?”
No. No, he didn’t.
This was exhausting. Everything was exhausting.
Tats Spidey at least pitied him. He gave him a hug with his hands in the pockets of his lab coat like a giant bat and it made Miles laugh a little.
“Why don’t we do this,” he said, “You guys leave Blondie with me and my guys for a little while and figure out what the next steps are. We’ll dose him up with some anti-anxiety stuff and I’ll tie him down at my place if he starts looking a little pale. When you guys figure out if we need to chase Doc Ock or whatever, then you’ll have my team for it. It’ll be quick, we got enough people to put down a rebellion at this point.”
“Can you guys just swap for forever?” Miles asked him, breaking out the puppy eyes. Tats Spidey laughed and ruffled his hair.
“No can do, Itsy. Little Spidey would eat him alive.”
Yeah, fair.
Peter was upset and distracted by this turn of events, but mostly upset because he’d somehow decided without anyone else’s input that, not only did he need to go back home and fight Doc Ock to the death, but Miles was in grave danger and needed round the clock protection from the very same Doc Ock. He used the phrase ‘like a baby bird,’ and it was hard going not to be offended. Peter B. and Gwen tried to come to Miles’s rescue by assuring Peter that Miles was just as capable a Spiderman as anyone else, but Peter’s anxiety was Very Loud.
It practically radiated off the guy.
He got himself up, then puffed himself up and told Peter B. to move aside. The tone in the room dropped.
Tats Spidey came the rescue. He inserted himself between the two taller Peters and cheerfully told Peter that they had plenty of crime to fight in his verse, if he needed to get the jitters out. He then produced an immaculate checklist of all the people he was currently at war with, ranging from a shedload of local gangs to a crimelord operating out of Russia. He didn’t give Peter time to talk over his own nattering away of all the other Spiderman things he had to do on top of dealing with those guys. Like, he’d volunteered for another charity gig for the Avengers and had a whole hospital of sick kids to visit, not to mention he was working with some other local vigilantes to gather intel for some kind of plot involving a turf war and he had to remake Little Spidey’s suit from an incident that weekend and her little sister insisted that it be even pinker this time. He couldn’t very well disappoint a nine-year-old, now could he?
“My aunt wants to wax her floors, dude; have you ever waxed a floor? Ain’t fun,” he said, waving at the others to escape while they could, “Gotta move all the furniture. I told her we should just pay a guy to do it, but she’s been watching more DIY stuff on Youtube and cannot be stopped. Hey, you any good at drywalling by chance?”
They escaped.
“Holy shit, I’m the most stable Peter Parker,” Peter B. whispered once they were safely back in his verse. MJ appeared to have gone to bed. The couch looked sad and lonely without her.
But yeah, no. Seriously. Peter B. might actually have been the most stable Peter Parker. And that was saying something because Peter B. wasn’t stable or normal in any sense of the word; the only thing that separated him from going completely off the rails was the fact that he was tired all the time and didn’t have time for people’s bullshit these days.
Gwen sighed.
“Well, at least he’s safe now,” she said. Then looked at Miles. “Why’s he so freaked out about Doc Ock?”
Miles wasn’t so sure.
“She said that she wanted to end Daredevil,” he said, “So I assume that means she wants to end me, too. I wish Peter remembered more; when he was in the In Between, he said something about it being a trap and it definitely was, but if the plan was to catch me, then why was she using him to broadcast to all of us? She said something about making other Spiderman into her ‘toys,’ but I dunno if that means she wants to study them or uh, torture them the way she tortured him.”
“If she’s trying to pull other Spidermen out of their verses to keep them in yours, that’s bad. Potentially catastrophic, actually,” Peter B. thought out loud. Gwen raised an eyebrow at him.
“Because we’re all so important,” she said.
Peter B. squinted at her.
“Gwen, know that I’m not trying to be a dick here, but yeah. We are actually. Hella important. Think about it, how many people do you save on the daily? Per week? Like, on average?”
Gwen pursed her lips. She didn’t like where this was going. It sounded like the start of some kind of old-man knowledge drop.
“Two a night or something. Bad weeks, maybe five or so,” she finally said.
“Right, now think about it like this,” Peter B. said with his hands, “You save a mom. Single mom; dad up and left the kids. You know who else you save that night? Baby 1, 2, and possibly 3; you throw one good punch and now they are no longer facing a life in foster care. That’s four lives, girl. And that’s not even counting all the folks and ideas and like, wider impact things relying on that person being about to do what they do best. ‘Cause if that single mom is, say, a nurse or a 911 dispatcher, those are hundreds of additional lives you’ve saved. And it goes out; those circles get bigger and bigger.
Little folks do big things. People like us, we have a huge impact, it’s just hard to see sometimes. So yeah, I know we’re all various types of fuck-up, but we’re also stupid important in our verses. Doc Ock takes one of us out of commission for a day, a week, maybe even just the one hour that really matters, and we’re talking hundreds, if not thousands of lives affected. Probably for the worse.”
See when he said it like that, Miles could totally see why Peter was freaking out.
“So we need to find her,” he said.
“We need to find her, now,” Gwen amended.
“Not now,” Peter B. said, “Let’s think ASAP. We’ve got covers to keep. Miles, you missed school again, didn’t you? Not good. Suspicious. We need a few days to reestablish a cover, but also to make her feel safe. Put her at ease.”
“And then what?” Gwen asked.
“Then we ambush her and make her talk,” Peter B. decided.
“Okay, how do we do that?” Miles asked him.
Peter B. thought about it.
“Maybe we just give her exactly what she wants?” he said.
“Which is?” Gwen pressed.
“Spiderman and Daredevil.”
Ganke was painfully suspicious of Miles’s return home. He poked at him through the bars of the bunkbed and asked him if he didn’t have something more important to be doing than homework. He did not. Well, not really. Keeping a cover was just as important as doing Spiderman work in a lot of ways.
It wasn’t all dull times, though. Hilariously, Peter had discovered that he could send Miles text messages from Tats Spidey’s phone. It didn’t work for Tats Spidey (he’d tried and was offended by the lack of success), but it worked for him, and he sent Miles a running commentary of the misery he was currently enduring in the ‘verse with the weird Spotify,’ between all his pleas to be allowed to protect him.
Miles screenshotted the in-between bits so that he could show Gwen and Peter B. later.
They read things like:
PP: we are revarnishing a floor?????
PP: I don’t know how to do this?? Miles, this May is crazy, she does not care that none of us know how to do this.
PP: apparently we’re doing it anyways? Even though all of these labels seem to me to suggest that this will not work. No one’s reading the labels but me. Why are they like this? You can’t just pray for floor varnish and hope it works out.
PP: oh, nvm, we’re not praying. We’re putting salt around the house, my bad. That’s normal. We have to purify the space. Yes, of course, how could I have misunderstood.
PP: Miles, have you heard anything from Dr. Ock? Because WE SURE HAVE
PP: oh my god, she’s (he’s? They’re?) horrible in every universe. This one tried to kill the little Miles over here ☹ He’s so small, he called me such bad names why is everyone so grumpy??
PP: Matt is so OLD. HE’S GINGER MILES WHAT WHAT WHAT
PP: HE IS NOT FRIENDLY. HE THREATENED TO END ME JUST NOW. I didn’t even say anything????? The other peter says he’s just like that sometimes but that is not an ANSWER MILES
At least Peter’s anxiety was entertaining. Miles eventually gave in to Ganke’s prodding and swore him to secrecy, before verifying with him that he really did want to see the texts Miles kept smothering his face in his pillow for. He warned Ganke that he would never again look at all his Spiderman gear in the same light, but Ganke was resolute.
He was not disappointed.
They waited four days. Four days of Peter suffering. Four days of organizing on everyone’s parts.
But then the evening arrived and Peter finally, finally got to come home and he spent a full five minutes suffocating Miles in a grateful hug while the others looked on.
Tats Spidey had lent him a suit. It wasn’t quite as fire-engine red as his own. Tats Spidey had also amassed a small army. He and his three other Spideys stood by with the addition of Dave, now in full Daredevil suit, Mr. Murdock in his Daredevil suit (although Miles wasn’t sure he’d call it a suit), and Wade bringing up the rear with his signature swords sticking out of his back.
Gwen didn’t show for a long minute. She said she wouldn’t. She said that it was going to be a timing thing on her part and they needed to reach out to her when Doc Ock showed. It was very important that they did it then and only then.
The last to arrive to the party on a rooftop a good two miles away from the warehouse was Matt. He turned up with his helmet and zeroed in almost instantly on Peter. They both noticed each other and went still for a second before surging forward and colliding into a hug which involved a whole lot of patting and rocking and wet-sounding laughter.
Then, when they collected themselves, Miles introduced Matt to the crew.
His lip twitched in the corner of his cheek and Peter clapped a firm hand on his shoulder.
“They’re real,” he confirmed at Matt’s grasping back at him in horror.
“My god, Red, it’s you when you were young and hopeful,” Wade chimed up from behind Dave.
“I think the description you’re looking for is ‘dumb as a fuckin’ rock,’ but let’s go with that,” Mr. Murdock called behind him.
Matt’s mouth dropped open in offense.
“Do you hear this? Is that me?” he asked Miles. Miles swallowed his snicker and confirmed. “Wow,” Matt breathed. “What an asshole.”
“Hey, come say that to my face, little man,” Mr. Murdock barked over the folks in front of him this time.
Matt’s face did something complicated and Peter replaced the hand on his shoulder with an elbow so he could kind of drape his forearm across Matt’s chest.
“We don’t need to do that,” he said casually.
“We do,” Mr. Murdock called.
“We don’t,” Dave called from beside him. Mr. Murdock shoved him and asked him what he was thinking, they had an image to keep up. Little Spidey asked what it was, and Mr. Murdock was offended enough to hiss at her. She got all up into his space, and he fled to Dave’s other side. She followed.
“Wade, make them stop,” Tats Spidey groaned over the commotion going on back there. Wade was busy having the time of his life. He’d coaxed Bitsy over to take selfies with him in the back of their group. At Tats Spidey’s call, however, he stood up straight and moved to tower over Mr. Murdock (and Dave and Little Spidey by proximity) with his hands on his hips.
“Redthew. Stop this nonsense,” he commanded.
Mr. Murdock tipped his head up to him.
“No.”
Wade deflated.
“I tried, Pete, you see? He’s just out of control.”
Mr. Murdock grinned in Tats Spidey’s direction, so proud of himself.
“I’m out of control,” he assured Tats Spidey. Tats Spidey stared between the two of them with flat eyebrows.
“Neither of you are funny,” he said.
“We’re hilarious, Red, come here snookums, we’re not wanted here,” Wade said.
Mr. Murdock allowed himself to be wrapped up in Wade’s arms. Both he and Wade stared prissily at Tats Spidey who seemed to be graduating to new levels of done-ness. Peter B. levels of done-ness.
“I should have drowned both of you last year while I had the chance,” he decided.
“Alright, alright, that’s enough," Peter B. called. He must have finally gotten the signal from Gwen that she was in position on her side of things. “We’ve called you all together here to stop a mad woman from ruining everyone’s lives. We appreciate all y’all coming out on short notice, and we’re gonna appreciate everyone’s patience. This is a going to be kind of piecework deal.”
The plan was that Peter and Miles were going to go back down to the lab. They were going to replace the computer Peter B. had stolen and log in to Doc Ock’s account. They were going to send her a skype message from Peter, saying that he’d woken up and was desperate to go back to sleep. He would say that some other Spidermen had shown up and he didn’t understand what was going on.
Then he’d wait. And he’d try calling her, and would just so happen to turn on and leave on the computer’s webcam while he did , so Doc Ock would be able to tell that it was indeed Peter who had come back to her lab. She’d get real interested, but then Matt and Miles would show up, claiming that Peter had to come with them. Spidermen from all over where showing up and now other Daredevils too, and they needed to get everyone out of the lab before Doc Ock came back.
That should get her rapt attention. So she’d high tail it back and have everything she’d ever wanted in front of her. All these Spidermen and all these surprise Daredevils, and then one of the Spideys would get her monologuing so they could all get a handle on what the fuck she was trying to do here and then they’d take her down, take her lab down, destroy all her data, call the police, and clear out.
Given Matt’s posturing last time, it was likely that she’d bring back-up with her this time, which was hopefully going to be no problem since there was precisely two million of them.
And then they had Gwen’s thing, whatever that was.
“Alright, babies, you heard the man,” Wade announced to Team Red when Peter B.’s last ‘capeesh?’ had been answered. They all hustled around to face him. “Chain of command is as follows. Tall, not-blonde Pete is first. Itsy follows. Who wants third? Red, not you, don’t even try.”
“I want it!”
“Alright, going to Little Spidey. Going once—”
“I volunteer!”
“Whoop, Pete’s entered the ring; go on, partner. What’s your justification?”
“I am older than twenty and I’m nominating Wade Wilson for third in command.”
“Traitor,” Little Spidey shrieked.
“Oh, Petey, I’m so flattered.”
“Vetoed by seniority,” Mr. Murdock—or Red? Everyone seemed to call him Red—announced.
“He nominates me!” Little Spidey informed the group on his behalf.
“Red, we already discussed this, you have no vote. That’s what happens with you leave the state. Everyone else, all in favor of Deadpool for third?”
Tats Spidey, Louis, Dave, and Bitsy’s arms went up. Red and Little Spidey crossed their arm and huffed. Wade graciously took the floor again.
“The people have spoken. That’s Tall, Non-blonde first, Itsy second, and me third. Meeting adjourned. Non-Blondie, Team Red is ready for action.”
They all took different paths to the warehouse, so as not to rouse suspicion with a parade of red suits headed down south. Tats Spidey and Little Spidey broke off from their group and the troop of three Daredevils broke apart to go hurtling down the sides of buildings before disappearing into the darkness of the street. Miles went with Peter.
Peter was so happy to be back home in his NYC and he was so happy to be web-slinging alongside Miles. They swung past each other in long, pendulum arcs. At the crest of his arcs, Peter let himself fall for barely a second before sending out the next line.
It was unnecessary. A type of flourish or luxury.
Miles did that, too. The little drop at the top held within it a moment to see, to really, truly appreciate the height and the lights of the city. It didn’t last long enough to take a breath, but it felt like one anyways.
He liked to think that the leaps they took on the way down south that night were a kind of sigh of relief.
They all got to the warehouse and were faced with its recently boarded up, poorly patched entrance. Peter shivered and both Peter B. and Tats Spidey instinctually tucked in close to him for support. It was kind of cute. Miles kind of wanted to know what would happen if you called their name. Would they all twitch at once or had they already adapted to their new monikers?
Finally, Peter took a deep breath and stepped out of the Peter huddle to plant a foot into the pile of rubble. It crunched and he swallowed hard.
“Hey, Tats, what did the 0 say to the 8?” Peter B. suddenly blurted out.
Tats Spidey answered immediately with “I dunno, B, what did the 0 say to the 8?”
“Nice belt.”
Little Spidey made a soft dying noise and hid in Louis’s side. He shook a little in silent mirth. Peter’s lip twitched and his shoulders relaxed a fraction. He let out another, faster breath, and then ducked through the space between a few of the caved in boards at the warehouse entrance. He and the backpack he’d borrowed from Tats Spidey disappeared into the dark.
“Hey, no, I got one,” Tats Spidey announced with a hint more volume.
“Go on,” Peter B. said, also just a little louder than necessary.
“What do you call a seagull that flies over a bay?”
“I dunno, what?”
“A bagel.”
“Oh my god,” Little Spidey whimpered.
Miles’s phone lit up with a text.
PP: Bagel?? Now that’s just embarrassing.
PP: In safely. Headed down. Dark as hell, watch your step.
Miles relayed the text and before he knew it, Matt had broken away from the group and slipped through the crack after Peter like a cat. He jerked forward after him, but a hand caught the back of his suit and he looked up to see that it was Wade.
“He’s good, Itsy. He’s just going in to guide his buddy down safely.”
Wade let go of his suit and stood back. He was much more gentle than he looked.
Fifteen minutes in and another text arrived.
PP: found the lab. Power’s out. Matt’s trying to find a switch.
“Unexpected hurdle,” Tats Spidey noted.
“I can jump it?” Bitsy offered.
Jump it?
Tats Spidey deferred to Peter B. without success.
“I dunno what you’re talking about,” Peter B. said.
“He’s got an electricity thing,” Tats Spidey explained. Bitsy held his hands about six inches part and they sparked with blue light. Peter B. was intrigued. Miles remembered that he and Gwen hadn’t been there when he’d delivered a similar shock to Fisk.
“You have it too, kiddo?” he asked Miles.
“Yeah.”
Peter B. hummed.
“Alright, one of you goes down. If you can’t get it going, we’ll send the other. Pick between yourselves or rock, paper, scissors for it.”
Bitsy looked at Miles for a long moment.
“They’re your friends,” he said.
Miles wanted to hug the guy. He resolved to later. He hopped forward, but a hand caught his elbow gently before he got through the crack in the boards.
“I’ll be your guide,” Red said.
Red was way more chilled out without his teammates to antagonize him. He didn’t talk much, but he did instruct Miles to hold onto his elbow like he was the blind person in their duo, and he moved comfortably through the dark, although every couple of yards or so, he stopped and drew Miles in close to him before using one of his billy clubs to tap on things. He’d go stiff for a minute, then he’d ease up and press on.
“What does that do?” Miles finally asked once Red said they’d reached the stairs and ladder.
“Echoes,” Red said. “Can’t see, so gotta listen. Helps me figure out where things are.”
That was so cool.
“Are you like a dolphin?”
Red laughed loud and happy and the sound made Miles jump at first, but really, it was an (almost) empty warehouse. They didn’t have to be worried about running into anyone by Matt and Peter.
“A dolphin, yeah, I’m like a fuckin’ dolphin,” Red mumbled in delight, tapping gently on the stair rail. “Gotta remember that one. Stairs or ladder?”
Huh-uh. Miles learned from his mistakes.
“Stairs, please.”
“Ah, I was hoping you’d say that.”
“Why do you have a dog if you can hear like a dolphin,” Miles asked. It was much easier to go down the stairs, even if it was a little scary to not know where exactly your foot was on them. They made a grating, hollow sound with every step, no matter how carefully he set his foot down.
“’Cause she’s my darlin’,” Red said. He didn’t appear concerned with making a ruckus on the stairs. Very unlike someone else Miles happened to know. Someone who preferred helmets and ladders. “And she gives me a break sometimes.”
“Does she smell bad to you?”
“Ehn. She used to. I got used to it, though. Gave her more baths, too.”
“Is she old?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a little old lady, bless her. Her sister’s mission in life is to drive us all out of minds.”
“She has a sister?”
“She does indeed, I’ll introduce you when we get back up to the surface.”
“How come my Matt’s so bad at this?” Miles couldn’t help but ask after ten minutes of navigating without having gotten stuck or having to stutter even once.
“Not sure. Probably hasn’t had to play guide before. Might also be distracted by you and your Peter,” Red said. “You probably sound and smell good to him, so he keeps checking on you to make sure you’re alright.”
Woah. Weird.
“That’s creepy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Do your Peter and Miles smell good to you?”
“No, not really. Sorry, I’m not explaining it right. It’s not exactly ‘good,’ it’s more like warm? Not sure. It’s hard to describe. We don’t experience things the same way, me and you.”
“That’s really cool.”
Red huffed another laugh.
“Yeah, I guess it is a little cool,” he said. He pulled Miles’s hand gently so that he took the last step down.
Huh. Another thing Red didn’t have in common with Matt. He was almost humble.
Miles knew when they made it to the lab door because he could hear Matt cursing softly inside. Peter sounded like he was trying to describe the wires in a fuse box without much success. Red stepped up into the lab and told Miles to mind the stair, then unhooked his hand and went over to try to figure out what the other Matt was doing.
“Miles?” Peter asked into the dark.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said holding out his hands and moving towards the fussing going on in the closest corner. His fingers bumped against something firm and it moved out of his way. A broad hand came up against the small of his back and moved him forward and then the same hand and its twin caught ahold of both of his own.
“Right here,” Red said, laying his fingers onto a set of switches.
There. Okay. He relaxed his shoulders and reached inward for the Spidey Sense. It rang back at him and zipped up and down his back. Made him shiver. The hair on his neck stood up.
Good. Now count.
The Spidey Sense went up his back into his neck.
One.
It jumped down to the middle of his spine.
Two.
Up. Three.
Down. Four.
Up—Now.
The sparks were blue. They lit the fuse box up. A beat later, a humming noise started up and the lights started flickering. They stabilized and revealed both Daredevils staring straight up at the ceiling above the fuse box and Peter with his backpack off and his chin resting patiently on top of the computer tower that had once lived in it.
“Well, I think that’s our cue to scram,” Red said. He turned his face in Peter’s direction and cocked it slowly to the side.
“Take it easy, kiddo,” he said, “There’s scarier things in the world than this gal. You’ve been through one of them already.”
Peter gave a little smile.
“Thanks, big guy,” he said. “Good to know the threats come from a place of love.”
Red scoffed.
“I’m a teddy bear,” he said. He grabbed the back of Matt’s helmet and gave him a push towards the door and waved Miles over to follow. “We’re gonna go play in the riot shields now, if you need something, just give us a holler.”
Play in the what now?
“I already played in the riot shields,” Matt whined.
“Well you’re gonna play again,” Red snipped.
Miles looked over his shoulder and waved at Peter. He missed it, though. He’d dropped his face towards the ground in front of the tower.
“Hey, Peter,” he said. Peter looked up at him and gave another little smile of acknowledgement.
“You’re my hero.”
Peter’s face kind of crumpled for a moment, but he pulled himself together, clenched his jaw and nodded. Then he looked back up at Miles, standing in the trapezoid of florescent light in front of the little lab.
“Copy that, Spiderman,” he said. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
He almost sounded like he believed it, too.
He pulled the mask on. Miles followed suit. Then he turned around and stepped back into the dark.