in technicolor

Brett got to the station and was met with the goddamned cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

There was no Joseph in sight, but there was a younger, carbon copy of Senator Jim Morita standing in one corner raising hell in a small sea of eye-searing yellow while the leader of the sticky-plastic blue crew on the other side of the pen shouted at an officer and pointed violently at him. Brett didn’t quite have time to figure out what that was all about before Maynard was grabbing his arm and dragging him through a veritable ocean of painfully colored blazers into the Captain’s office. The door closed and Brett found himself in a circle of crossed arms and heavy brows.

“Debate teams?” he found himself asking. Everyone looked at him piteously.

“Academic Decathlon,” Ellen corrected. “The best and the brightest of this very fine city.”

The sarcasm was strong in this one.

Several people started to yell outside and were met by a series of bellowing officers to put that shit down.

“I need more context,” Brett said.

“All those nerd-children out there are lucky to be alive,” the captain informed him and the group at large, “It is my understanding that some college board members came along to watch their competition today. And someone, who is now sitting in Interrogation Room 5, decided that he was still unhappy that his kid didn’t get into Columbia as planned. Decided that he was going to set that record straight with a hired team of gunmen to help Mr. Coleman from Columbia’s board of admissions reconsider.”

Fucking rich kid parents, yo.

Brett’s mom had been so happy he’d graduated highschool she’d cried for weeks. When Fogs had gotten into Columbia, his family had been thrilled, but he’d had to pop around the corner to grab Brett and bring him over to help him explain to the Nelsons why the fuck their kid was doing College 2.0. They just weren’t getting it. What the hell is grad school? Is it like a certification thing? Why do you need that? Columbia is very good, yes?

“Thankfully,” the captain said, tearing Brett away from fond (were they though?) memories. “Our friendly neighborhood Spiderman just so happened to be present at this gig and just so happened to disarm five gunmen and set off a fire-alarm before our guys even got the call.”

“Weird place for Spiderman to be,” Brett noted out loud.

The pitying looks came back.

Oh, no.

The captain bowed his head.

Oh, fuck.

“He’s in room 3,” the captain said, “And his principal has more political connections than everyone in this entire building combined and he—and I cannot emphasize this enough—is a minor. So the next few hours are going to proceed with absolutely zero leaks. This boy, God help our souls, did our job for us and we need him to give a statement and we are going to do everything in our power not to fuck up this kid’s life because he’s better at our jobs than we are, do you all understand?”

A chorus of bobbing heads, followed by Ellen timidly raising a hand. The captain stared at her coldly.

“Sir, are we not charging him with executing vigilante justice?”

The captain continued to stare at her coldly.

“If he was two years older, Detective Hernandez, then yes. We would. But, things as they are, I am hesitant to arrest a sixteen-year-old child when there is a greater opportunity that we can talk him out of this before he gets in too deep. Any other questions?”

Brett had one.

“Is he sixteen, or sixteen-adjacent?”

“Sixteen and two months, Lord help us. You may proceed without parental presence. Mahoney, you got a way with kids, you’re on point with Spidey. Brewer, you’ve got our other friend.”

Brett opened the door and immediately regretted every decision that had ever led up to this point in his life. He valiantly did not slam it closed and pass the buck. He walked in and closed the door behind him and tried very hard not to respond to the fierce fucking look the second tiniest teenager in the world was giving him.

He had one of those eye-searing blazers on over his suit. His suit had seen better days, now that Brett was up close enough to tell.

He opened his mouth and the kid snarled at him.

In any other circumstances, the floppy hair and big brown eyes might have been sweet. Right now, they told the story of a kid learning how to cut a bitch.

Brett sat down and leaned back in the chair. The kid pressed himself flat against the wall. He was no dumby, this one. One of the “best and the brightest” in his class after all. Brett looked him over and thought that what he really could use was an extra meal or two.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Thirsty? I can get you a coke or a water or something?”

The boy didn’t let up on his snarl. It seemed kind of familiar, now that Brett was tuned into it.

Oh dear god, say it ain’t so.

“Maybe coffee?” he offered.

“Cut the shit. Read me my rights. I want a lawyer.”

Someone had briefed this child on exactly what to do in this situation. And Brett had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly who that horn head was.

Brett sighed and looked down at the folder in his hand.

“Your name is Peter, right?”

“Lawyer.”

“Peter, we haven’t even started talking. Let’s just take a minute to ease up.”

“Lawyer.”

“Bud, we haven’t charged you with a crime. This is just talking.”

“Law. Yer.”

Goddamn.

“You want us to call your mom, Peter? Would that make you feel better?”

The kid extracted himself from the wall and leaned both his elbows on the table. The right one was just skin and scabs. The material of the blazer had been completely ripped through, as had the material of the suit. The mask had been confiscated.

“You know what would make me feel better, sir?” Peter asked, low and dangerous.

Brett was pretty sure he knew.

“A lawyer?”

“Ding ding ding. I’ll wait.”

Brett sighed and left the room. Maybe this one needed to sit for a little while before they tried to do anything with him.

“Brett, you shithead, he doesn’t have a mom,” Ellen scolded in the hallway.

Ah. Good to know. Would have been even better to know before he went in there and insulted the fuck out of the goddamned Spiderman.

“What’s he got then? And who’s his lawyer? I get the feeling we ain’t getting through this one without the guy being on speed dial.”

“He’s got an aunt.”

“Got an uncle, then?”

Maybe this was one of those man-to-man conversations teenage boys seemed to respond to.

“Uh. Had an uncle. Guy was murdered a year and a half ago.”

Shit. Shit.

“Aunt’s name?”

“May Parker. Her husband was Peter’s biological uncle. Kid’s parents up and vanished. Suspected deceased around ten years ago.”

Motherfucker. Did they all have to have tragic backstories? Was that a pre-req to vigilantism? When would they get a simple ole violent asshole, high on brain smashing?

“Call the Aunt and get the lawyer’s number. None of this shit is going to be easy.”

Two hours in and Peter wasn’t budging. He’d tucked himself into the wall again and had apparently had a nap in Brett’s absence. At least it looked like a nap from the cameras. He’d wrapped his arms around his knees in the chair and hadn’t moved a muscle. He didn’t move when Brett walked in with a can of Pepsi.

He set it on the table and pushed it the kid’s way.

No response.

“You feeling chatty, yet, kid?”

No response.

Very uncharacteristic of the friendly neighborhood Spiderman. Emphasis on the “friendly.” According to the principal and his bevy of ducklings, Peter was a mishmash of too nice and too dumb and too honest and too nerdy to have been involved with any of this. They all insisted that there had to be some mistake, Peter wasn’t Spiderman, and even if he was, he’d saved their lives. Where was the crime in that?

It was very hard to make a fuckload of kids understand that Peter wasn’t in trouble even though the police were trying to question him.

They all heard “we just need to take his statement” as “we’re going to waterboard him until he gives up the ghost” and freaked out all over again and, despite their principal’s best efforts, refused to leave the station until their compatriot was able to leave with them.

Talk about solidarity, damn. Brett’s highschool classmates would have left him to die in an alligator pit if they could have. Hell, they’d have stuck around to watch.

“You’ve got some really good friends, Peter,” he noted. “They’re staging a sit-in on your behalf.”

Peter showed no emotion at this.

“Lawyer,” he said instead, muffled by his knees. “Matt Murdock or Franklin Nelson. I’ve got their numbers memorized.”

Ah.

Because of course.

“Franklin’s a friend of mine,” Brett tried. The kid lifted his head to stare at him harshly over his knees. Didn’t believe him for a second.

“Good. Call him.”

Brett almost laughed.

“We’ve been neighbors since we were six years old, believe it or not. He used to have even stupider hair.”

“Mr. Nelson’s hair isn’t stupid. Take it back. And call him.”

Oh. Touched a nerve there. Interesting.

“Nah, I’ve seen every iteration of his hair, trust me. It’s pretty stupid.”

Peter’s brow lowered and Brett could tell he was clenching his jaw.

“I’ll stop talking shit if you start talking to me, Peter,” he offered.

“You call my mom?”

Ouch. Nasty. Fair, but nasty.

Brett cleared his throat.

“We called you aunt to get your lawyer’s number.”

“You got it?”

“Well, yes. She’s freaking out, Peter. Obviously—”

“It’s fine. She’s used to it. Call my lawyer.”

Brett cocked his head at this little ball of fury. The Peter the ducklings out front had described very much did not jive with this Peter and this Peter very much did not jive with Spiderman.

“Why’d you do it, man? Could have waited for the police.”

“Y’all are pigs. Lawyer.”

“Is that what they say in Queens, Peter? Or did you hear that from one of your buddies?”

Peter shoved his knees off the chair and sat, spine straight, rigid.

“That’s what they said at my neighbor’s fucking funeral, after one of your guys unloaded six bullets into his chest, detective. He was fourteen. Smoking some pot. Apparently, that’s a death sentence for a black kid these days. So you’ll understand why I’m not hot on chatting with you. Maybe stop murdering my friends first. Lawyer. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

Well. It wasn’t like he was wrong.

Peter’s aunt was pissed and she was making that very clear to Ellen in the bullpen. Fogs wasn’t happy either. He, however, remained dead calm and tipped his chin up at Brett as they made eye contact across the room. He touched May’s elbow and strode forward to meet him.

“Giving you a hard time, Brett?” he asked once they were face to face.

“Boy’s a daydream wrapped in a nightmare, Nelson. You teach him that?”

“Peter has a right to representation.”

“Peter hasn’t been charged with a crime.”

“Great. Let him go then.”

“Unless he talks, Peter may be charged with a very big crime, Fogs.”

They had reached a stalemate.

“Brett, it’s either me or Matt and you know how Matt likes to get loud when there’s drama to be had. You really want your department to end up in the news for violating the rights of a minor?”

Fuck, no. And the farther Matthew Murdock stayed from this station, the better. Brett did not growl at Foggy, but it was a close thing.

“Aunt can’t come in.”

“She won’t.”

Foggy entered the room and it was like all the tension fell out of the kid’s body. The door closed and Brett thought that he heard muffled crying.

He felt pretty solidly like shit.

While Foggy talked to Peter, Brett went over to go deal with the shrieking nutjob in Room 5. Dude was working himself up and throwing shit at the interviewer. Brett wasn’t surprised. Anyone with the money and audacity to shoot up a school function because his entitled son didn’t get into the school he wanted was bound to think that he was the one being inconvenienced here.

Angry Suburban Dad didn’t understand why the fuck they weren’t charging Spiderman for, well, existing mostly. He wanted Spiderman charged for everything under the sun, including assault on his own person. When asked how exactly, Spiderman assaulted him, he made up a pretty fantastic story about the kid trying to choke him out.

Peter, two rooms over, wasn’t tall enough to choke this guy out the way he was describing. He’d have had to shove the guy onto the ground to do it the way Angry Dad claimed he had, but Angry Suburban dad didn’t know or care how garottes or choking worked, nor did he want to hear that the red marks on his neck were a result of his angry flushing.

He’d just launched into a fascinating story about how it was really Spiderman who’s hired all those guys when Foggy stepped out and signaled to Brett that they were ready to talk.

Brett sat down and read through Peter’s rights and the kid didn’t look up at him once. Foggy had to prompt him gently for him to give a verbal confirmation that he’d had his rights read to him.

“Pete, just before we get started, you wouldn’t happen to have twelve grand at your disposal, would you?” Brett asked.

That got the kid to look up at him.

“What?”

“We got all these gunmen saying they were promised twelve grand. Guy next door is claiming that was you who promised them that. Is that a possibility I need to look into, big guy?”

Peter didn’t know he was being won over, bless his heart, but the look he gave Brett was just about comical.

“Uh, I’m a scholarship student?”

“So that’s a ‘no,’ then?”

“Yes, sir.”

Brett raised an eyebrow and looked at Foggy who shrugged lightly. All respect, now, huh Mr. Parker? Lawyers were amazing.

He leaned forward on the table.

“Alright, let’s revisit my earlier question, then. Why did you jump into that mess, Pete? Why not wait for the cops?”

Peter leaned slightly against Foggy. He didn’t want to make eye contact again.

“It would take too long,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“I call the cops all the time. Wait for them to get there most of it. It takes a long time.”

That? Was entirely true. Spiderman put in calls to stations all over the city, like he said, all the time. After most confrontations. If he waited there until they got there, yeah. He’d have a pretty damn good idea about how long it actually took for the officers to show up.

“Did you think these guys were going to start shooting soon, then?”

A flat look.

“They started shooting as soon as they came in.”

Brett blinked.

“And you were already ready to go? What, you wear that thing under your clothes every day?”

The flat look remained. Peter wasn’t playing that game. Foggy didn’t try to coach him either. Brett sucked in a breath.

“Okay, pal, here’s what we’re going to do. You give me a play-by-play of everything that happened over the last couple hours, and then you have a talk with my captain about this whole vigilante thing you’ve got going on, and then you go home. Easy as that. No charges if you’re happy to suffer through quietly. What do you think?”

Peter leaned closer to Foggy and looked up to him for the answer. Foggy leaned over and whispered to him. Peter studied the table and chewed his lip for a second before nodding.

“My client will agree to your terms,” Foggy said for him.

Thank Jesus.

“Alright, bud. Let’s start with the morning. When did y’all leave for the competition?”

Once you got past all the briefing and animosity, Peter was a sweet kid. A really good kid. An infuriatingly good kid.

He was fucking sharp, too, with a killer memory. He could tell Brett everything from the size of the door entrances to the auditorium, to the color of the pants each shooter was wearing. He remembered exactly how he’d taken down four of the five guys, the last one he said he thought maybe had caught shit from one of his AcaDec compadres with a chair. He remembered the man screaming in Room 5 because he wore a hideous tie and a mint green collared shirt, and Pete and his buddies had been making jokes about it.

He knew exactly fuck all about guns, though, which Brett was trying not to find endearing. It was hard because his descriptions of them were like how someone would describe a dog.

“Like this big,” Peter said, gesturing with his hands, “And kinda gray. Not black, like gray. Really noisy.”

“Do you remember if it was semi-automatic? Or did these guys seem like they had ammunition with them?”

Peter stared at him owlishly, then up to Foggy, then back at him.

“What makes it semi?”

Bless him, he didn’t know what the fuck gun was shooting at him, just that it was shooting.  

“Have you ever shot a gun, Peter?”

The kid lit up at a question he had an answer to.

“Wade took me to a range once, but he said I’m never allowed to go back, ever again.”

“Wade?”

Foggy intervened and said that Wade was a family friend.

“Wade is good with guns then?”

“Yeah, he was in the army. In Canada.”

Canada.

Brett looked at Foggy. He shrugged again.

“Guy’s Canadian, man, what else you want? Peter’s a shit shot, is the point he doesn’t know he’s making.”

The kid was honestly insulted and hurt.

“I’m not that bad.” Foggy patted him sympathetically.

If that was Foggy’s response, and Foggy’s ability to use a gun was in the negatives on this scale they were using, than Peter must be allowed near firearms never.

Peter’s reason to Spiderman out was pretty straightforward: they were shooting at me and my friends and all those important VIP folks in the corner, and y’all take an age and a half to get on the scene, so I just dealt with it.

Technically, he’d been acting in self defense as he was, in fact, one of the be-blazered minors there for a nerd competition. The fact that he’d brought his suit with him was also kind of miracle, because he admitted that he’d considered shoving it in his locker before he left for the bus. But, he said, Mr. Stark and him had had a talk about treating very expensive, advanced equipment with respect, and Peter did not want to have a repeat of this talk, as, according to him, it had taken eons.

Then the guy in Room 5 started screaming loud enough that they all could hear it through the walls, and Peter’s trust in Brett started to crumble a little bit.

Because, suit and enhancements aside, Peter was sixteen years old and the man in that room was threatening to kill him and anyone related to him, which, importantly, were some of the people sitting in the bull pen. Foggy pulled the kid closer to him and assured him softly that the guy was bluffing. Talking big to puff himself up. Peter nodded, but Brett could see that he wasn’t convinced.

He glanced at the door and leaned forward a little bit.

“That guy is going to jail for a very long time,” he promised Peter. “He might not get out before he’s a very old man. He’s trying to make himself feel better right now. In a few hours here, he’s not gonna have the time or the resources to lay a finger anywhere near you or anyone else out there ever again, okay?”

He got wide eyes and a little nod. Brett waited until the shrieking guy was escorted to a different room, out of earshot of their own and the bullpen before he stood up.

“I think we’re done here, Mr. Parker. Thanks for your cooperation. What’s going to happen next is—”

“Can I see my aunt?”

Uh. Will the aunt refuse to let him talk to the captain?

“Let me check on that.”

“Can you tell her I’m okay, at least? She says I give her ulcers.”

Yeah, he could do that.

Brett then stood through the most awkward meeting in his life as the captain tried to turn his “don’t do drugs” speech into a “don’t fight crime” one.

Besides all the other issues with this situation, the “don’t do drugs” speech was intended for eight-year-olds, not sixteen-year-olds, and the captain could not, for the life of him, figure out why Peter was not laughing at his corny Disney jokes and comparisons.

All he got was a dead-eyed stare.

“Captain America told me that nine out of ten cops are incompetent shitheads.”

Uh-huh. Because of course he did. Captain, what exactly is your rousing comeback to that?

“Well, maybe in Captain America’s time—”

“And Mr. Stark and Double D and Cap never agree on anything, by they all agree on that.”

Uh-huh, say more, child. The captain was faltering and Brett needed to store this memory, full and complete, in his heart for the next time he got dressed down for some petty shit.

“Well, Stark and Daredevil aren’t exactly pillars of the community, Peter.”

“So, I’m supposed to ignore Captain America telling me I’m doing a good job because you told me to? He doesn’t lock me in rooms for a million hours, sir. He tells me bad jokes without all this other stuff. “

“Peter, you are young, and I understand that you want to make a difference—”

“I am making a difference.”

“Right. I’m not saying you aren’t. I’m just saying that there is a system in place for—”

“I call you guys when I’m done making a difference, almost every time too. Wade always tells me not to, but I do it anyways.”

The captain paled.

“Wade, as in Wade Wilson?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

Brett found that he had two expressions to describe this situation and they were “sweating bullets” and “shitting bricks.” He hadn’t realized that family friend Wade was fucking Deadpool, but somehow, the kid’s lack of concern was feeding into his own.

Wade Wilson had tried to teach this boy how to use a gun and had been so horrified with the results that he’d banned the kid from using them for life. That, in Brett’s new fucked up perspective, was a good thing.

“Peter,” the captain said, clinging to the vestiges of the role of Good Cop, “If you’re going to do this crazy thing, then you at least have the right to choose who you’re going to do it with. And Deadpool? Son, that man’s trouble. He’s—”

“My friend.”

“No, he’s just making you think he’s your friend, Peter. He’s using you.”

“For what?”

“For—”

“It’s a trick question, I know what. It’s friendship.”

“He tell you that?”

The captain was almost panting in his desperation to steer this conversation somewhere productive at this point. Peter hummed.

“No, he didn’t tell me that. But sometimes he shakes me really hard and says if I ever do that again, he’ll kill me himself. That means he’s worried. Because we’re friends and my aunt says I give him ulcers, too. Are we done here? I want to go home. I’ve got homework and Mr. Stark has to yell at me for half an hour and there’s only so many hours in a night, sir.”

Foggy was smug and Brett was ignoring him and the non-shitty coffee he was holding out to him.

The station was the quietest it had been in days with its new lack of blazers.

“C’mon, Mahoney, it’s coffee. I have not poisoned it. It is not a bribe.”

Fat chance, Nelson.

“I just wanted to thank you for treating my client with such respect and sensitivity.”

You client is causing my captain to endure an identity crisis as we speak.

“Brett.”

Ugh.

He took the coffee and his coat and followed Foggy’s gleeful grin outside into the freezing air. Fogs was beyond pleased with himself and with Brett. Peter had gone home. There had been zero coercion. Zero violence. Not even a hint of media presence. The kid only had to deal with his buddies now, and apparently, he had already convinced them that he’d stolen the Spiderman suit during his internship and it had done all the work for him. No, he didn’t think the real Spiderman would mind.

“He’s a good kid,” Foggy said.

“He’s a fucking stupid kid,” Brett countered.

“I think he likes you, Brett. Pete’s a good ally to have. He’s even funny once you get to know him.”

“He thinks Deadpool’s his friend, Fogs. That’s trouble.”

Foggy laughed.

“Well, if you ever saw them together man, you’d know that Wade would kill an army for Peter. He does try to keep some distance there, if it helps with the heartburn.”

Brett blew out a cloud of air.

“Take care of him, Fogs.”

“Will do, detective.”