Warning: This chapter contains Minor Character Death.

::

"Are your bones hollow?"

Peter looked up from his second check of his rubber bullets as the elevator they rode rose up another level. "Why would my bones be hollow?"

"Don't spiders have hollow bones?"

"... No. But I hate to say I know where you're coming from."

"Boo," Wade booed.

"You boo. Spiders have exoskeletons and despite 'skeleton' being in the name, it's still an outer shell. Like with crabs and stuff. You should've asked me if my skin was crunchy instead."

Wade slowly reached out to poke at a part of his face that wasn't covered by a mask and goggles. Peter slapped his hand away.

"Dude, you think I could've hidden the fact that I've had an exoskeleton this whole time? I've literally bled out on Dom's couch!"

"You can be a slippery, slimery, wriggly worm when you want to be, living your life composting like you've got all the time in the world."

"Worms are non-arthropod invertebrates."

"Gesundheit."

"They've got no exoskeletons or bones."

"Pick a fucking struggle."

The red, pixelated number above the sleek panel of buttons steadily climbed higher. It wasn't often he saw missions where contractors waltzed into high-rises in the daytime, but this building had recently sold under bankruptcy with floors barren from the probable liquidation of all their tech—

"But you're so light and flippy," Wade told him, the tinted windows at their backs shining with the early afternoon sun. "Are you sure you aren't built like a bendy straw?"

"The way my bones break? Full of marrow."

A thirty-seven lit up as their elevator slowed to a stop on their floor. Except the stop was more like a pause and after a moment it shook back to life; the digital screen sputtered and glitched, and the elevator continued to rise.

Peter stared. "Pool?"

"Yeah?"

"That was our floor."

"Yeah." Wade smacked his lips, which was pretty impressive under his mask, and planted both hands on his hips. "Is it just me or—"

"No, the elevator's definitely going faster."

"Goodie! I've always wanted to be shot out through a roof in a contraption built by a man who's obsessed with chocolate and has dentist daddy issues."

Peter scoured around the floor first at all the corners, any divots, maybe cracks anyone wouldn't care to miss. There was no carpeting to lift up or any strange marks in plain gray epoxy and his eyes raked up the walls—forty-one, forty-two, forty-three—and checked the walling, maybe cracks, any divots, all the corners, here.

A lens bubble the size of a dime.

Two things happened at once.

As he reached for one of his friend's guns to nail the back right corner with a metal bullet, a katana tore into the panel and jolted the elevator to a screeching stop on the fifty-sixth floor.

They whipped around in tandem and pointed at each other with twin shouts— "What did you do?!"

"I shot a camera," Peter said as he moved his finger towards the new hole in the ominously still death box. "What did you do?"

Dorothy remained in the steel guts of the inner elevator wiring and Zbornak was halfway out her sheath, just in case. Wade clapped his hands together and positioned himself beside the carnage like it was his turn to present at the Annual Mercenary Symposium with his katanas being the highlight of the event.

"First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to attend this humble meeting—"

"Last time I was stuck in an elevator like this I was on a field trip in DC and my friends almost died."

A beat.

"Wild."

"So wild."

"Who the fuck takes America's youth to DC? To show them monuments built by slaves?"

"Y'know if you put aside the whole killing thing, you'd get along great with this girl I know."

Electricity sparked from the panel and the sound of creaking metal signalled the end of their usual chatter. Their eyes met from behind their respective lenses for no more than a second before Wade ripped Dorothy out of the wall and planted himself under the locked hatch on the ceiling just as Peter used him as a springboard and hefted up, boots landing on black-padded shoulders in one smooth jump. As much as he wanted to web himself up and dangle upside down by just his soles, Blue and Spider-Man couldn't be in the same sentence unless the word "wasn't" stuck between them. Or "totally thought he was a cool guy but he had no relation to."

But him and Wade knew the drill. This wasn't their first rodeo, and every assignment he hoped that it wouldn't be their last.

Red gloves locked themselves over double knotted shoelaces as Peter punched the door clean off its hinges—

prickle

"Hold on!"

He grabbed the edge of the opening and used the leverage to propel himself towards the mass of thick cables, grasping and hoisting them until both his and Wade's bodies were clear of the box. In those few feet the screeching only grew louder until whatever brakes it had cut loose and dropped, swooping past all fifty-six floors before it crashed in a heap of scrap and dust.

Wade, dangling from around his ankles, blew a raspberry down at the carnage.

Peter started their descent back to floor thirty-seven. "You totally said we'd be done before my shift."

"And I was supposed to live in a house in a factory while sugar-shaker snow fell into my gumdrop yard that violates the HOA guidelines I didn't sign up for, so we're both not getting what we want today."

::

Peter burst through the back door that led straight into the kitchen, hopping on one foot as he tried to undo the double knot on the other.

"Hi Ms. Granny!"

"Evenin', sweet pea. Got some dishes piled up when you get the chance," she replied as she puttered around the fryer.

"Yes, ma'am!"

He switched boots as he pushed through the swinging doors where Weasel and a couple of mercs at the end of the bar turned to the noise with unbridled amusement. The latter more so than the former.

"Ten minutes late," his boss drawled as he poured a line of shots.

"Only ten minutes late," Peter corrected as he elbowed his way into the break room. After fighting his shoelaces for another solid five seconds the boots came off first, then his hoodie, then his jeans, and with his ear to the growing hubbub and his spidey-sense perked at the ready like a deer on the look-out, he slipped out of his Nu-Suit, turned it inside out, and jumped back into his jeans as he shoved the suit into his backpack in exchange for a plain brown shirt to toss a flannel over.

The dagger came out of its hidden pouch like butter and he set the hilt between his teeth as he tugged up his left pant leg to buckle its holster around his calf. The blade strapped in easy, an action done a hundred times before, and he let blue denim curtain it from view as out came the scratched up Desert Eagle with the Hello Kitty sticker he'd have to get replaced soon. Cleaned, safety flipped, loaded with rubber bullets, it slipped into the back of his waistband, another puzzle piece slotted in the picture that was Ferret: Dish Boy Extraordinaire.

It was an easier name to live up to than all his other ones.

He tucked his backpack into its usual cubby and plucked his waist apron from the hook by the couch and as he tied it, he took one last look at himself in the half-length mirror by the door. It cracked at the edges and smudged with notes and phone numbers collected over the years and still, it was a teenager who stared back. And unlike when he started out months ago—it had been just over six months now—he melded in with cheap wallpaper and the retirement home couch and the stains on the floor that not even bleach could scrub out.

He leaned forward at the sight of a green gem sitting innocently on his chest and tugged at the thin gold chain and dropped it through the collar of his thin cotton shirt. When it settled against his skin and left no obvious bumps, he bounded into the bar just as some of the girls hauled off trays full of drinks.

"Reporting for duty, Mr. Weasel!" He chirped.

"Every time you open your mouth another gray hair sprouts on my head."

"At least you're not going bald."

"God fucking forbid," Weasel muttered as he slid out a box from one of the shelves beneath the back bar and tossed it beside the Gold Card machine where Peter promptly took out a pair of disposable gloves, clorox wipes, and untaped the pocket knife stuck on the side of the machine. "Weren't you just out with Dickpool? I thought he'd show up with you."

"He would've but we got back way later than we thought and I bolted the second I could. He should be in later." The disposable gloves—the cool ones that came in black—snapped onto his hands in a perfect fit and he reached into the box to pull out the first turned in Gold Card. Amelia Aertzsen, pristine condition. Like with all the other turned in cards, he wiped it down to remove any traces of fingerprints and assorted viscera. "It wasn't a bust, though. They knew we were coming and tried some weird Home Alone-Sawish traps on us and when we got past them all they pissed their pants while begging not to get shot."

"And you didn't let him get shot."

"Who do you think I am?"

"Hey, one day your High School Musical ass might roll up with a bag full of heads and a bag full of related trauma, and all I ask is that you tell me beforehand so I can physically prepare myself to not drop a fat one when you do."

The used wipe dropped into the small trash can at his feet and the knife popped to scratch off the printed name until it was nothing but peeled paint and metallic dust. Then he snapped it into as many pieces as he could before his fingers lost purchase on the itty bitty sizes, and tossed it down into the can too.

"Never going to happen."

He knocked on the bar wood just in case.

"Yeah, I know," Weasel sighed. "And my pants are saved for another fucking day."

Peter grinned and pulled another card from the box. Lev Despotovic, smeared in rust.

As much as he enjoyed the juggling act that was his life, the downtimes spent in the gaps were almost re-energizing enough to make him taunt life for more. Almost. Because he knew better than to actually do it because life would probably turn around and kick his ass so hard he'd be in a different area code. But the idle chatter while he wiped Gold Cards, the stories he got to listen to while he washed dishes in the back, the muted shots at shooting ranges, the fresh air he breathed when he hauled trash bags to the dumpster at the end of the alley...

They were small things. Passing moments.

He wouldn't trade them for anything.

Weasel sidled back over. "Does mohawk look like he wants to sell me something?"

Peter tossed bits of Lev into the can and ran a cursory look around the bar. "Oh, definitely. And I don't think it's Girl Scout Cookies."

"Dammit."

"But if it is, can you get me Tagalongs?"

"Shut the hell up."

"Two boxes, please!"

He dodged the rag half-heartedly chucked at his face and watched his boss slink over to the group hanging out behind the pool tables. It was kind of wild thinking about it—everyone always talked about how, well, Weasel-y he was. Anxious, over-caffeinated, twitchy like a mule and nothing like the dealer he actually was. He couldn't take pain like the rest of them and compacted into the smallest possible size in the furthest corner of the room the second things went off the rails which was admittedly, respectively, average.

But everyone moved their boots out of his path and broke to the sides like a parting sea that he navigated with sure steps and smudged glasses. Peter didn't know what it was like at all the other places that ran their businesses under the table, but if it was like the movies where the only thing that got you anywhere was rough and tough machismo, he was glad he didn't have to adapt to that. Mr. Weasel got respect by being fair and honest and strict as anything when it came to the handful of rules he drilled into every new face at the bar.

Respect demanded respect in return no matter the face it wore, he learned the very first day on the job. And when he tried his hand at it with bright smiles, his best jokes, and kindness (always kindness, May made sure to remind him), it got him something like that too.

Mercenaries respected Ferret more than the media respected Spider-Man. He didn't like thinking about that for too long.

In the middle of scratching through the third card, one Thema Kubiak with a spider-web crack offset to the left, the front door swung open and Manuel's voice carried on the first call-out of the night.

"Check in!"

"Man, you gotta announce me like that?" Replied the would be client, and Peter's fingers paused their quick snapping of thin metal. He recognized that voice from a little while back and didn't think he'd ever really hear it again, so he turned his back to the Gold Card machine and made a show of fiddling with some of the supplies stashed for new card prints. He focused on the wary footsteps that trailed from the entrance to the usual client seat until a weight settled at the machine's front and center.

—

And when the dude turned around, he smiled that easy, polite smile that would get any granny to coo and pinch his cheeks.

"Hi, the name's Ferret," he said as a pocket knife slipped easily into his gloved hand. "Here to paint a name?"

Aaron Davis stared at him for all of three seconds before he pushed himself out of his seat. "Uh-uh. No way."

The kid blinked. "No way what?"

"What are you even doing here? How old are you?"

"What are you, a cop?"

Aaron twitched and stared at him some more. No fake ID in the world would get this kid a bottle of alcohol unless he was at the seediest place alive and well, Sister Margaret's was in the running no contest. If he walked past him in the street he'd think he was on his way to study in a library, not do whatever the hell it was he was doing here.

But he lowered himself back onto the stool against his better judgment. "Fine," he bit out. "But just 'cause I'm here doesn't mean I'm okay with it."

"Got it."

"I mean it."

"Crystal clear."

Christ.

Listen, Aaron was trying to get back on the straight and narrow. Sort of. Kind of. Getting busted trying to get some of that Chitauri tech was bad enough and Spider-Man getting thrown into the mix was a shit cherry on a shit sundae, but better to get caught by a spider than the devil; he'd saw the kind of things that happened to the ones who fucked around in Hell's Kitchen and fuck, did they find out.

But he wasn't up to that type of shit anymore. Swear. Yeah, the weapons were a low point after his ten month stint for larceny but he was trying, alright? Not so much then, a little bit more now. It should count for something.

"So if you're not here to make a card, what can I do for you?"

Aaron refocused on the kid, another wave of unease hitting the back of his shoulders. At least he didn't look kidnapped, but maybe that was just Stockholm Syndrome.

snap snap snap

Whatever he was breaking behind that machine came apart quick and clean.

"I'm here to talk to someone named Weasel 'bout some things." He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and glanced around. Guess every type of bar was full on a Saturday night. "He your boss or something?"

"Yeah! He's a bit busy right now, but I've got general run on the every day when he's not around. You don't mind, do you?"

Aaron didn't really think he had a choice, and Ferret probably knew that too the way he smiled and peeled off his gloves, pulling them inside out from the wrist and wiped his hands with some green-tinted sanitizer.

"Purchase, deal, or trade?"

"Uh, purchase?"

"Fits in a folder, duffle, or car?"

"Folder. Wait. What the hell you got that you need a ca—"

Ferret crouched down and out of sight, ignoring him completely. "Initials used, date of purchase, and proof of purchase, please."

"A.D. and... the twenty-fifth? Of March." Aaron pulled out the card his contact handed off for this identification assurance thing. He'd thought this was organized when he first went through this channel, but he didn't think they had their entire shit together. "Or whatever two weeks ago from today was."

The rustling of papers was faint, and he had to strain to hear it through booming conversations, a low-singing radio, and the clack of pool balls every which way he turned. Was everyone else here cool with a kid getting wrapped up in all of this? If they were, the least they could've done was hire one that didn't look like he had a curfew.

Ferret popped back up—actually popped like he moonlighted as a whack-a-mole—his floppy brown hair bouncing against his forehead that he tried to blow away from the corner of his mouth, and handed over a folder he dug up from somewhere under there. The little tab highlighted in orange with his given initials and the purchase date, and after a quick scan of the paper card handed over to him, he handed it over in turn.

"Tell me if everything looks good and it'll be the straight eight-fifty you signed off on."

Aaron laid it out in front of him.

Three handwritten letters of recommendation in three obviously different forms of handwriting, and a sticky-note stuck on the top of each with the 'employers' they were attached to along with phone numbers and emails that would reach real people and would trace back to legal businesses. The sticky-notes were in thick-line graphite, messy and pointy and couldn't quite keep a straight line on unlined sheets. His record he wouldn't be able to scrub, not with his cop brother knowing each and every infraction he'd had since he was sixteen, but his own employment record was now filled in with short stretches of work he could pad into a new resume, and paperclipped to a brand new passport was a brand new official ID that he couldn't get renewed fresh out of the box.

But behind all of that, there were other sheets with sticky-notes written in a lighter, neater hand. A list of places he could apply for. Rehab services. Food banks. A quick checklist of what he could do to get back on his feet if he was off them.

"I can't let you see Miles anymore."

A bucket of ice water dunks down his spine, or close to it. "You're not fuckin' serious. You can't just—I—J, he's my fuckin' nephew—"

"And you're a criminal!" His brother snaps. "A long. Running. Career. Criminal." He's still got on his stupid uniform and that stupid badge and he takes off his stupid hat, running a hand over his head. "Look, get your shit straight. Get a job, then keep that job because I'm not going to keep telling my son that the reason why his Uncle couldn't make it dinner was because he won't stop getting locked up."

Aaron keeps his mouth shut, his trembling hands flush against his sides.

"I love you, A." J says with those damn, stupid, sad eyes. "But we both know that it can't keep going like this."

"Yeah." Aaron cleared his throat and closed the folder shut on the bar top. "It's all good."

As he reached for the money, Ferret spun towards one of the clear fridges behind him—

"You a beer guy?"

"I mean, I'll drink a Miller."

—and plucked a bottle from one of the upper shelves. He popped off the cap with the flick of his thumb and set it on the bar in the center of a little square napkin.

"Hey, hey, hey." Aaron pointed at the offending bottle. "How you gonna explain this one? You work the accounts and now you're gonna tell me you work the bar too? I know that shit's mad illegal."

"Work the bar? I'm not sure what you mean." Ferret's face split into a pearly white grin too bright in the dim and neon where all around them, mercenaries lurked with their loaded guns. "You had a beer you couldn't open and the dish boy helped you out. That's all."

This kid couldn't be more than a few years older than Miles. Probably in high school, maybe did some sports, could be in an after-school club. But he stood in the middle of this bar like he belonged here—and he did. On liquor-sticky floors, in smoke-filled air, around people who could kill him; somehow, he did.

Ain't that fucking spooky.

A mousey-looking guy walked around to the back of the bar and slammed down two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies by the register. Tagalongs.

Ferret's mouth dropped in ecstatic disbelief.

"Mohawk's name is Sovann and he told the Girl Scouts in his building he'd peddle at bars and dispos."

"That's so smart."

"Still coming out of your paycheck." The man jerked his head somewhere towards the back. "Tad's bitching about putting more stock on the pool."

"On it. After though, I'm getting through a load of dishes before I get back to cards."

"Then you better double it before rush in a couple hours," he said as he shooed Ferret away with the flap of his hand. When he disappeared through the swinging doors, the newcomer looked at Aaron through thick-rimmed glasses. "Weasel."

"Davis," Aaron returned. His gaze trailed down to his bottle and the drops of condensation that ran down the sides. "Uh, so that kid."

Weasel huffed and started thumbing through the cash. "Fought that battle, lost that battle. Just a fact of life at this rate." At the end of the stack, he squinted. "You know that beer isn't free."

Aaron tossed over another five.

Ferret swung back into visibility with a beat up ladder under his arm that he maneuvered with a surprising amount of agility, dodging server girls and the odd body as he kicked it up behind the stools and began scaling it before all four of its feet even hit the ground. The mercs around him scooted out of his way to make more room.

"Hey, Tad!" He called as he swung a leg over the top step and sat, the movement jostling the uneven metal legs. "What's that new bet you got?"

Aaron turned to the bar owner. "Is that safe?"

"Are you OSHA?"

"Two-hundred on Betty White!" The Guy Who Was Probably Tad shouted. A resounding groan circled the bar.

"You're so fucking lucky Wade ain't here to kick your ass."

"Only reason why he's doing it now's 'cause Wade ain't here to kick his ass."

Ferret caught the clanky tin box Weasel chucked up at him and used the chalk inside to lean over and write on the board.

TAD - 200 - WHITE, B - 95 YEARS OLD

He turned back to the rest of the room. "Who else? I know some of you have that gambling itch you won't go to therapy for!"

A woman with blue hair and a chicken bone hanging out of her mouth snorted and raised a hand. "Fifty on the guy with the hair from Big Time Rush."

"What the fuck is a Big Time Rush?"

BRIE - 50 - MASLOW, J - 26 YEARS OLD

"Any takers for the undertaking of other potential life un... takers?" Ferret pointed at one of the tables. "I recognize that thinking face, Ambrose! Are those betting thoughts?"

The merc in question sipped at his glass of neat dark liquor. Fingerless gloves wrapped around his knuckles and he sat back in his skin-tight tank and light wash jeans.

"Yeah, I got a bet," he said. "No one's gonna be happy 'bout it, though."

"Insider trading," someone muttered.

"Your info that good?" Weasel piped up as he went to fix a tray of shots.

"Depends. I heard a fire's gonna get set under someone's ass and it's not gonna stop even if the city burns down with it. 'Course, it's usually bullshit posturing, y'know. All talk, no dick. But I'm hearin' it more an' more, so I'll see if I can make chump change on a pipe dream." Ambrose lazily raised his glass. "One hundred on Spider-Man."

snap.

Aaron looked up at the sound and saw the chalk in Ferret's hand in two pieces.

"That's fucked up," said someone with a mohawk. "The Girl Scouts love Spider-Man."

"It ain't me that wants the little bastard dead. I saw him haul a hotdog stand down near mine when one of the wheels broke and then fixed the wheel right after. He's alright."

Weasel used a rag to mop up one of the shot glasses he overfilled, his head down and oily blonde hair swinging over his face at the motion. "And you don't know who's after him?"

"Nah, everyone knows not to fuck around with that supe shit." The merc shrugged and downed the rest of his drink. "But all I heard was that Spider-Man pissed off someone heavy at Ryker's and we're all 'bout to find out what that means."

Ferret's lips thinned. His face had lost all of its cheer and shadowed over, not just because it was under harsh colored lights, and Aaron probably would be upset too if he was a Spider-Man fan; a lot of the kids in the neighborhood adored him, Miles included. It sucked to hear that someone was after his ass, but that was the kind of thing you sign up for when you run the chance of having every criminal you web up your own personal enemy.

But still Ferret leaned over, knuckles as white as the chalk dust across them, and wrote.

AMBROSE - 100 - SPIDER-MAN - ? YEARS OLD

::

Peter woke up warm.

"What time is it?" He mumbled into the fin of an IKEA shark.

"Time for you to get a watch."

"Have a watch."

"Then why are we having this conversation?! Sometimes I think you start arguments just to talk to me and it's just not a way to keep this relationship sustainable. It's every day with this: I go to the office, I hate my boss, I punch in the numbers—there's so many numbers. They should make a place to keep all of them."

"Spreadsheets."

"Excel or Google?"

He groaned and lifted his head just enough to blink against the sunlight, the bottom half of his face still smooshed into blue fuzz. The scent of pancakes fully hit his still-groggy brain as he dragged up his arm to blink at the old, battered watch he forgot to slip off before crashing.

10:47 am.

"Excel." He ignored the 'Bill Gates fanboy' muttered from the kitchen and wrapped his arms around the shark and squeezed its little polyester heart out. "I slept until brunch."

"Like a caterpillar digesting in its cocoon. Melting into salsa." Wade flipped a pancake on a tower already stacked ten high. "Bug soup."

Peter sank further into the couch. Last night was fine. Really. Just another typical night at Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls where mercenaries ran free and rumors said that someone out there was making moves after Spider-Man's head because they got locked up at Ryker's where Adrian Toomes was serving a life sentence.

Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

He rooted around for his phone when it buzzed from somewhere under his head.

May: Can you pick up some eggs on your way home? [10:48 am]

Me: {salute emoji} [10:48 am]

May: {red heart emoji} [10:49 am]

He couldn't just waltz up to Ryker's and ask to see the guy who tried to hijack a Stark plane, they'd think he was crazy or worse—a true crime podcaster. Toomes knew who he was and had known for months now, but he guessed that Spider-Man being targeted didn't mean Peter Parker was associated. He could've been biding his time, planning things out and gathering allies, but could it be one of the people who used to work with him? Most criminals he'd left to the police wouldn't make it on the waiting list for a place like that; it was for high-ranking gangs and mobs, terrorist-adjacents, the mean street elites.

Now that he was thinking about it, wasn't that guy trying for an arms deal on the ferry sentenced to Ryker's too? What was his name again?

Wade traipsed over with two mismatched plates of steaming pancakes and kicked back on the already-occupied couch.

"Your butt's going to bend my spine," Peter grumbled.

"My ass might be fat but it's also voluptuous and you should be honored."

Wade passed over the plate with the hyper-realistic painting of a pair of Ruddy Ducks. They were already smothered in butter and maple syrup imported straight from Quebec—the pancakes, not the ducks—and Peter's mouth watered to the threat of drooling as he balanced it on the arm rest with one hand and snatched off the top of the stack with the other.

"Hoe don't do it."

Bare-handed, Peter shoved the entire pancake into his mouth.

"Oh my god."

"Dude, the Griddle King earns his crown yet again," he said through bits of fluffy goodness and arguably the best syrup he'd ever had. "This is so much better than Bisquick."

"The Griddle King will not hear the names of cheap rival kingdoms in his own domain."

"Apologies, my liege."

"The Griddle King accepts your apology and will look the other way from your besmirching of a pancake's honor, so you better not wipe your grubby little hands all over my upholstery because you've forgotten the existence of forks. The utensil, not the place where vampires are born." Wade dug into his own stack and cut his pancakes into perfect, spearable triangles because he was a civilized breakfast enjoyer. "Why were you so confused that you woke up for brunch? Don't teenagers usually wake up around this time?"

"I guess, but I don't usually sleep this long unless I'm dead tired or healing."

"Are you dead tired?"

"Not really."

"Healing?"

"Not this time."

"So you're spiraling because Spider-Man got put on the dead pool."

Peter shoved another pancake and his mouth and tried not to pout. Wade was so annoying when he was right.

A hand came down and tousled his head, thick scars catching against his bedhead and turning it into a rat's nest. "Don't worry about it too much, Petey, the pool's just some dumb fun. Wease had my name on it for years before I became Cancer McCancerface and he still paid up on the bi-annual dead pool flush."

"Ambrose seemed pretty sure, and you know he's not the type to listen to rumors."

"Ambrose, shmambrose, unless he's The Lunatic Fringe himself I'd let him do his own thing," Wade waved off. "But if you're still worrying about it, Dead and Blue can go out and poke around for some info. I've gotta restock on some stuff—you know when you lose your guns in the ocean and even though you remember the exact spot you dropped them there's pretty much no shot of getting it back? So that's on the list along with some minor suit repairs, but after that we'll kick the shit out of anyone who's even thinking about picking up the spiderswatter."

And Peter was warm, again.

"Yeah," he smiled. "But less shit-kicking, more info gathering."

"Ugh, fine. You're such a tent pole in a sinkhole." Wade chewed. "Up to anything fun today? Study group? Tuba practice?"

"I'm not in band anymore but I used to play the trumpet, thank you very much. But I'm just going to hang out with my Aunt the rest of the day. I've been kind of busy lately, so it'll be nice to chill before school tomorrow."

Another buzz hit the couch and Peter dug for his phone between the couch cushions with his non-syrupy hand.

Ana {snake emoji}: Youre new gears reddy. Let me kno when you want it. [11:01 am]

Me: i can pick it up now if ur free! thank u ms. ana! [11:02 am]

"Actually, I'm going to pick up some new gear I got for Blue. Do you know Ms. Anaconda?"

"One time she bit me and tore off the muscles in my neck with her teeth. I've been in love with her ever since."

::

Armed with his backpack and a heavy string bag that bounced against his hip with every step, Peter walked back to his apartment in the super early afternoon. Queens didn't slow down in the middle of a Sunday, but there was something about the cool, pollen-filled air that made him want to lay down on a rooftop in the middle of the day and just. Photosynthesize. Maybe he'd do some homework on top of their apartment building one of these days with a blanket and everything.

He opened the door to his building and held it out for Mrs. Figueroa whose plants he managed to keep alive when she went to visit family for a month before he stepped through the threshold, but then it was like

suddenly,

something's

w r o n g.

Peter's breath shallowed in his chest. His heartbeat quickened in his ears. The world moved in slow motion, submerged in melding colors and softened edges and it dizzied him to move his head but he pushed through it, pulled his feet forward, ran, ran, ran past the elevator and up the stairs and leapt two, three, four steps at a time around and around, a square circle of stacked walkways in a building full of heartbeats and crying and laughter and people, people lived here, people grew here, people—

There was no one in his hallway. His apartment door was just barely cracked.

His mouth moved, one syllable, three letters, a question. His mouth moved, he knew it did. He can't hear himself speak.

Then he was at the door and his eyes landed on the knob. The lock was broken. The frame had slivers of fractures.

Copper curled in his nose.

He pushed through the door, strung muscles on silent feet as he crammed through the smallest opening and shut it behind him with a sweating palm. The bags on his shoulders slipped down to the floor and it was a mess; May would tut at him to never clutter the entryway so their shoes stayed in neat lines, guests could come in and out without tripping over the stray heel and, and. And.

The metal air settled on his tongue and he wanted to spit it out.

ba-bump... ba-bump... ba-bump...

He opened his mouth again as his body pulled itself to the sound—the kitchen, his voice squeezing out in a strangled croak.

"May?"

He loved their little kitchen.

Ben was never much of a chef and ever since he was young, they both agreed to let May down gently whenever she tried to prove that there couldn't be two culinarily-inept people in this household. And whenever she tried a new casserole or meatloaf or one-pot meal, he and Ben would stomach as much as they could until May herself couldn't finish her own plate and when she stood defeated by the phone ordering take out, Ben would slip him a bit of candy with a wink and a small, secret smile. He never thought about cooking himself when he got older, probably operating on the assumption he'd be just as bad because who else would he have gotten the gene from?

But now he was fifteen and meal-prepping and May would wrap an arm around his shoulders and laugh about how they'd had a chef in the family all along and he'd save their meals one properly roasted vegetable at a time.

He had so many memories here, most of them with May.

And it would be this one that would haunt him until he ended with a bullet in the middle of his chest.

"Hey, baby," May smiled, pale-faced, blood in her teeth. She sat slumped against the dishwasher with a kitchen towel to her side, bright red seeping through her fingers and over each and every gold ring she put on for the day. "You're.... You're home."

Knives scattered on the counter stop, appliances scattered, blood. So much blood. Around her, and around the body he stepped over to collapse at her side.

"May? May, May, I'm here. I'm so—I'm—" Peter laid his hands over hers and applied the lightest pressure, and he flinched at the quick intake of breath she sucked in. "Your phone—did you already call—?"

"First... thing the asshole broke..."

"Then I'll—!"

"Don't bother, baby," she murmured. "You know how... Y'know how expensive an ambulance gets."

Peter sat, hypnotized by his hands soaking in dripping red that blurred more and more each passing second. He wanted to tell her that the first aid kit under his bed could fix her up, make her better. One of his first paychecks paid for the biggest one he could find that he kept stocked for every emergency from shots to stabs to slashes and he could sew her up—he would hate explaining how he got so good at it, but he could sew her up. He could put her back together. He could help her get better and she'd be alive and they'd put this all behind them tomorrow after she got help—

Stomach wounds could bleed out in as little as two minutes, but she'd been here longer. So much longer.

Too long.

(Too late.)

He felt like his head dunked underwater, and every breath he took, he was drowning.

"We'll get you help some oth-other way. I don't know why that guy—"

"That guy? He was... He was nothing..." She tipped to the side and he caught her, slowly—so slowly—righting her back up again. "Sorry, didn't... Sorry..."

"It's okay. We're okay. We're okay." He sniffed, and warmth seeped into his jeans. "Right, May?"

"Yeah. Knocked on my ass... that's all."

He fumbled for his phone and swiped the screen again, again, again, crimson smudged on AMOLED making it harder to tap any of the buttons. But he managed. He had to.

"Hello, heart. To what do I owe— "

"It's May," he sniffed, a shaky breath rattling out of his lips. "Mom, it's May, and she's—she's—"

The air shifted and crackled and split and he was nauseous. That made sense, seiðr always knocked him on the wrong side of the tightrope, but May stretched out a trembling hand with a cut on the palm and brushed his cheeks just under his eyes. When they came back wet and shiny, he scrubbed his face with his sleeve, and it was clear again.

"Oh, May," Loki breathed out. They crouched at Peter's side, squished between the island and a cupboard door, their eyes quick lightning bolts as they took in all of the scene. They reached up, tucking a lock of tangled brown hair behind her ear as they tried for a teasing smile that was already crumbling at the edges. "In a spot of trouble, are we?"

"You know me, life... of the party."

He couldn't rip his eyes away, couldn't stop his vision from tunneling. "Do you know any spells? Anything that could help? I have my first aid kid—there's everything in there and I can, I'm sure we can find, I know we can—"

Loki squeezed his shoulder in the same instance May's free hand wrapped loosely around his wrist, and he ground his teeth together to stifle the hiccups climbing up his throat. The vague awareness of the dead body behind him sat at the back of his head, one of the kitchen knives jutting out of his chest. He'd used it yesterday. To cut up some meat for a stir-fry.

"I'm so sorry," Peter whispered. "This is all my..."

May shook her head, one grand heave of her head to tip to the other side. "No—"

"They came here for me. They came here for you because of me."

"You do what you... have to. Out there. People don't like that. 'S not your fault."

"If I had just— "

"You don't need to take care of me, baby." She swallowed, and the grip on her side started to go slack. "Ben and I took you in, this little brown-haired boy with glasses too big for his face and his lungs full of asthma. You'd just lost your parents and you were so small I..." She drew in another long few breaths; the seconds went faster. Her heartbeat didn't. "We didn't know what we were doing, we didn't know if we were going to do right by you, but we knew how much we love you and we couldn't mess this up. You're ours, always will be." Cool fingers cupped the side of his face. "Look at you." Tears welled in her eyes. "Ben would be so proud."

Choked, cut-off sobs wracked Peter's body as Loki took him into their arms. Their hands locked around slight shoulders, a grounding presence that weighed like heavy stone, ever the perfect poised prince that could not show weakness to the masses. They were a regal statue, a monolith of self-possession—

"What I wouldn't kill for... a glass of good merlot right... right about now."

—a god who couldn't stop losing, and losing, and losing.

An abrupt laugh spilled out of their mouth, a small wet thing. "I would not prescribe that remedy for this particular occasion."

May pouted, but it looked more like she was clenching her teeth. "You're no fun."

"I am plenty." Their hand engulfed her smaller one, and for all the frigidity that wove through their skin, they hoped they were warm for her. "I will take care of him, I promise you that against all the stars in the universe."

"You'll take care of each other. You'll, You'll keep each other safe." She coughed, spurts of blood dribbling down her chin. "Happy, healthy, home. What... What do you think, Lokes? New York isn't so... so bad, is it?

Loki's throat closed up. Patches of ice crystalized around their feet.

"Peter?" May said, her voice faint and feather-light. "Peter, baby, listen to me."

Peter swiped his sleeve across his face again, smearing tear streaks and her blood on his cheek that began to dry into dark brown flakes. "Ye-Yeah, Ma-May?"

"You have a gift. You have power. And with great power... there must also come great responsibility."

That was exactly what Ben said when he bled out, too.

"I know," he rasped.

"And Loki, you'll... stay? Won't disappear again?"

"Of course, my dear," they murmured. "You will always have my word."

"I love you, May," Peter told her through red-rimmed eyes and the quiet, constant shattering behind his ribs.

"I love you, too," she grinned. "Just let me catch my... catch... my..."

And Peter could only watch as his world slowly stopped turning.

::

It was a sunny day in Queens when Maybelle Parker was lowered into loosened earth.

The air was only slightly chilly and the sun beat down rays soaked in by his black suit, new and neatly pressed with leather oxfords that were too stiff around his heels. Loki stood next to him with her chin held high and her hair combed slick into a tight knot at the base of her neck. Her dark leather coat hung down to her shins, shrouding her pitch black silhouette as she held on to her son's shoulder and on his other side, Ned. His hand was tight in his, sweaty and shaky and constant.

The only things keeping him from floating away.

Poor Peter. He can hear in pockets of conversations across the cemetery lot. His parents, his uncle, his aunt now, too. But he's got his mom now. His real mom, didn't you hear? Gone for most of his life, back fast enough to keep him out of foster care. I hope she loves him. I hope it's real. He's so young. He's just a kid. He's strong. He'll make it.

It must be so hard to keep having to live through this.

Peter bent his head and bit through his cheek to keep his tears all to himself.

He stood, unmoving like his soles were glued into the grass, until it was only him and Loki in front of her grave. The headstone would come in a few weeks down the line and he hoped it would be just what May wanted. She wouldn't have liked anything fancy or frilly, but he didn't know much about headstones. Ben took care of Richard's and Mary's, May took care of Ben's, Loki took care of May's.

One after another after another.

"We will find the one who dared to do this," Loki swore as they continued to stare at the rectangle of upturned dirt. "And when we find them, they will grovel at our feet for such a foul, senseless murder of one who did nothing but live a good life."

"It was Spanner."

She jerked and looked to the side. "What?"

"Spanner brought the bats. They had blood on them already; one of them broke on my shoulder. And May killed him with the knife he tried to use on her." Peter looked up. His head was almost too heavy for his neck and his eyes stayed glassy, shadowed. Encased in puffy, swollen skin that had not gone down once in the last few days. "Spanner did it."

Loki gently turned him towards her and held his face, her moon and her stars cautiously cradled between her two palms. "What else do you know of Spanner?"

And unbeknownst to her, unseen, unheard even in the planes of her years and crafted seiðr, the pit of ice that had been growing in Peter's chest—from the man at the docks to the goon's frostbite around his neck to the teenager in the burning building to May— finally reached what was left of his heart, and consumed.

"He worked for Kairo Green."

::

Me: i forgot the eggs. [3:31 am]

Me: i'm sorry. [3:31 am]

Me: come ba

Me: dont g

Me: i can't

Me: i'm so sorry. [3:34 am]

Me: i love you. [3:34 am]

Me: will you tell ben i love him too? [3:35 am]