Chapter Text
They weren’t famous, not in a way that could actually matter. Lower than B list celebrities. They had, maybe, twenty loyal fans combined between the two of them (which was a complete lie, honestly, Harley could hear Abby correcting him in the back of his mind “two million isn’t a small number, Harley Joseph”.) that followed them on multiple social media platforms. They hadn’t declared their inevitable arrival back to New York City to begin recording season three but, well, Harley didn’t know what he should have expected when their studio was literally part of Stark Industries.
The paparazzi were vultures.
“You have literal twigs in your hair.” Abby muttered, her face pinched in a tight scowl and fingers rubbing through her own messy, strawberry blonde waves.
Harley did, in fact, have literal twigs in his hair. “Well why did you have to push me into that bush?” He ducked his head down to see his reflection in the awards cabinet placed by the door to their studio - Listener’s Choice Award 2019, Unmasked season one and then never repeated again - to get a better look at the damage the paparazzi and Abby’s elbows had incurred.
Abby snorted and elbowed him again - they were like knives, pointy and sharp and Abby wielded them with all of the finesse of a girl raised with an older brother unafraid to mess with her. She had to duck considerably less than he did to see her own reflection side by side with his. “Technically,” She hummed, fingers rubbing under her eyes and over the darkening bags Harley knew were from the plane ride (and then direct taxi trip to the studio). “That guy from TMZ stepped on my foot and I stumbled into you and the bush broke your fall.”
He would love it if a bush would break Abby’s fall for once. Ruin her perfect hair and maybe snag a bit on her new bomber jacket. Split it down the back and spill feathers and stuffing everywhere. It would only be fitting, he thought, if she had to deal with it every now and then.
Harley’s vindictive streak was short-lived when Abby winced, though, her ankle twirling in the empty air in front of them. “Did that asshole hurt you?” Harley knew how he sounded - gruff, angry, tight. He was her older brother, her big brother, and years and years of beating up guys that dared mess with Abby Keener meant that he had honed his skills down to a pinpoint. One glare was usually all it took for most guys to leave her alone but, every now and then, one would slip through the cracks. Would dare him to lose his temper.
TMZ guy was only the most recent case.
He would happily punch TMZ guy in the face.
Maybe TMZ guy could be the next one the bush caught. Abby snorted, her green eyes flicking from his face to her slowly rotating ankle. “Chillax, Hulk. I can handle myself.”
She could handle herself. Still, Harley offered her his arm to lean on and Abby took it without complaint. “I really don’t mind punching that guy.”
“Do you even know what that guy looks like?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t be too hard to find.”
Abby’s fingers curled over his forearm and she squeezed, just enough pressure to assure him that she was fine and that her ankle would survive. Good, Harley thought, Gwen would do much worse to him if he went on a murder spree because of a TMZ reporter. Maybe. She would at least threaten it and, honestly, Gwen could be scary when she wanted to be. “Where’s our welcoming committee?” Abby straightened up, tucked her hair behind her ears and narrowed her gaze around the empty entry way.
It was a good question. Harley had wondered the same thing. Typically, a member of the Stark Industries security team would be waiting for them the moment they stepped out of their taxi to push the vultures away and then pass them off to another in the entryway. But this time there hadn’t been anyone. No Happy Hogan to greet them with his kindest grumpy frown, no Tony Stark loudly announcing their arrival the moment they walked through the doors, not even a Gwen Stacy tapping her foot impatiently against the carpet because they were five minutes late, honestly is the south just not punctual?
Harley didn’t like unusual things.
Sure, he liked poking and prodding and searching for answers as much as the next person, but he didn’t like unusual. The entire staff that he worked with (aside from Abby) seemed to be governed by very specific rules. Happy Hogan followed Tony Stark around like a shadow unless he was told any differently but he did everything with the sort of intensity and focus that Harley admired from a member of a security team. Gwen Stacy was the office cryptid - somehow she had all of the information they needed exactly when they needed it. Harley had never seen her come or leave the studio and was partially convinced that she lived there in some hidden corner he had yet to be given access to explore. Eddie Brock was always later than Harley or Abby, his excuse being the pesky, perpetually late, New York transit system. But he always stayed much later than any of them and, even if he was the world’s worst procrastinator, put his best step forward on every episode.
Harley wasn’t one to believe in signs or fate or anything so bold and disgusting. But he wasn’t an idiot. Sure, the studio was protected by the best security system and staff that money could buy, but his boss was Iron Man and Tony Stark invited a lot of… unsavory attention.
He’d still take a supervillain over the paparazzi.
“Maybe they died.” Abby even went as far as imitating a cartoon ghost, lips in a small o and fingers curling in her best attempt at creepy. “Or quit.” She dropped her hands and shrugged.
Harley snorted on a laugh and tugged his messenger bag closer to his side. “I’m going to drop this in the office.”
“Oh! Take mine too!” She lopped it off her shoulder and over his empty one.
He grunted under the weight. “You can bring it in yourself!” He yelled at her retreating back.
Abby beamed and her knee bent much too far in order to exaggerate her limp. “But I’m injured.” She pouted, green eyes wide and her bottom lip stuck fat and poking out.
Harley rolled his eyes but let her walk away. Abby hadn’t slept on the plane or in the taxi, first in fear of flying and then in fear of New York City taxi drivers. Harley had, at least, passed out on the way in from Tennessee. She was, most likely, on the hunt for a cup of coffee that she would happily ruin by dropping several pounds of sugar into before chugging it all in one go.
Harley and Abby had separate offices connected by a door that they, typically, kept open. Abby’s was to the right, her door decorated with a bright pink sign with her name written in glitter glue - a present from Tony’s daughter, Morgan, once she had decided that Abby was her idol. She kept her office in organized chaos, an empty fish tank in the corner gathering a film of dust over the water she had left in it over the winter, a dock for her laptop to connect to three computer screens, a window which refused to actually do anything aside from let in the light of the morning. He dropped her bag on her office chair and flicked his fingers against her solar powered Olaf from Frozen bobble head on the window sill before making his way into his own office.
If Abby’s office was organized chaos then Harley’s tended to look like a hurricane had hit it at any time of the day. He had cleaned it out before he left, but Gwen had been stuffing mail into his box since the day before they had traveled back home and it was quickly overflowing onto his desk. Where Abby had three screens Harley had four, one for his email, one for the blog, and the other two for research purposes. Contrary to belief, Gwen was the researcher for the show but Harley did most of the heavy lifting. He had a corkboard that would be stuffed full of pictures and leads and connected together with different colored strings (because Harley always wanted to be one of those detectives in movies with a board like that) but was, mostly, empty for the time being (aside from the pseudonym of their current focus). His cactus was looking a little wilted but Harley knew it would perk up the moment he watered it again.
He dropped his bag by the foot of his desk, kicked it underneath the wood and sunk down happily into his chair, rubbing at his forehead.
Sure, Harley had slept, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still feeling the jetlag from the flight back to New York.
Truth was, Harley wasn’t the biggest fan of New York City. It was funny, if anyone had asked Harley when he was a kid where the one place he wanted to visit in the world was he would have shouted New York City from every rooftop. It was lively and loud and he could be anyone in New York. The city had music and magic and literal superheroes! What wasn’t there to love? Truth be told, Harley had lived his childhood under the false impression that just because he had met Tony Stark once that he wouldn’t have to work hard to recement himself as part of his life. After all, one winter helping Tony Stark win a fight against bad guys had meant the world to him. But arriving in New York after high school had taught him a rather harsh truth - just because it mattered to him didn’t mean it mattered to Tony.
Which wasn’t to say that Tony was mean or anything. It just meant that Harley had needed to work his ass off to get to where he was now. With an award winning podcast hosted by Stark Industries.
New York was… New York didn’t live up to his expectations.
It was busy and loud and constantly on the verge of a world ending attack as most of the superheroes based in the United States housed themselves in the state.
He didn’t consider it home, was the thing. It had been years that Harley and Abby had spent the majority of their year in the city and Harley still couldn't bring himself to look at the tall skyscrapers and call it home.
The front door clanged open, a mess of reporters and the noise of flashing cameras filling the air until they abruptly fell silent, Eddie’s muttered swears taking up their spot effortlessly. “Fucking pieces of shit.” He mumbled and hissed between gnashed teeth and Harley pursed his lips to keep from laughing too loudly at his friend’s annoyance.
Eddie Brock wasn’t the tallest man, an inch or too taller than Harley was and with a severe angry face. He was bulky around the shoulders, stocky in his frame, and almost perpetually scowling. His floppy sandy brown hair looked deflated by the sheer frustration of his morning and Eddie, half asleep as he always was when he finally wandered into the studio, attempted to unsuccessfully lean against Harley’s open door to catch his breath. He stumbled in sideways, yelled a particularly vulgar swear, and straightened up with a look of utter betrayal at Harley lounged in his chair. “What the fuck, man.” He deadpanned.
“Howdy, Eddie.” Harley saluted him with a pencap.
“Howdy,” Eddie mocked with a curl of his lip. “Didn’t feel like warning me about the shit storm out there?”
“Why deprive myself of such fun?”
Eddie pulled back the elastic he always wore around his wrist and shot it at Harley’s forehead. It hit with a smack and bounced onto his desk. “I didn’t miss you.”
He spun on his heel and walked away, probably in search of coffee in the studio, just like Abby had been. Probably in search of Gwen, if Harley were to put a finger on it. He supposed he should have been more concerned, too, but sitting down had only reminded him of how tired he was and looking at his empty cork board had only proved to him how behind he was in terms of research. “Liar.” Harley muttered and snapped the rubber band on his own wrist - Eddie would, inevitably, find ten more in the course of the hour. Harley would probably collect several more. He was making an Eddie rubber band ball to gift him with when the show inevitably came to a close.
He stretched his arms high over his head and relieved in the crack of his spine. “Sorry for the lack of a welcome wagon.” Gwen Stacy was the complete opposite of all of them - where Harley was the least put together person he knew, Gwen was the most put together person he had ever met. Not a hair looked out of place, her makeup always made her look moments away from stepping onto a runway and, for a woman that could murder him in twenty different ways, she never wore heels under three inches tall. He had even seen her literally chase down a lead in six inch heels. He had never considered himself attracted to a woman until then. Not that Gwen wouldn’t destroy him if ever given the chance. She smiled, her lips pulled into a line of sparkling red, and knocked her silver bracelets together. “We’ve been busy.”
“We already have leads?” Still, Gwen was truly one of his best friends and she wrapped him in a tight hug the moment he got within arms reach.
“Stark let slip our focus this season to the press.” Gwen scoffed and tugged her tweed jacket down sharply from where it had dared rise from it’s spot hovering above the line of her skirt. “As you can tell, they’ve been vultures ever since.”
“They makin’ things easier or better?”
“Both, if you could believe it.” Gwen snorted and tugged at a strand of his hair. “Spidey’s a fixture in New York, even if he hasn’t been active for years.” Expertly, she guided him from his office to the round table - affectionately coined for the fact that the table was round and Abby had been going through a Merlin phase their first season - three rooms away and stuffed him in a chair beside his sister before he could even think of saying no.
“Gwen, we just got back,” Abby groaned, a pile of torn sugar packets by her elbow and another quickly following suit after she upended its contents into the swirl of her already too light coffee. “Do we have to talk shop right now?”
“You just got back,” Gwen corrected with her best stern teacher voice. “Eddie and I have been working on this thing since you guys decided who to focus on this season.”
Harley swiped a sip of Abby’s coffee and winced at the sugar water taste of her coffee. She wouldn’t even finish it, he knew. Really, Abby liked having something to do with her hands and ruining coffee was easy and accessible (and drove Tony insane whenever he saw it so, really, good on her). “Find anything good?” He asked around the tingling in his tongue from the melting sugar against his taste buds.
Abby snickered.
Eddie was the one who answered, pulling back another rubber band and launching it at the ceiling. He caught it on it’s way down, and smiled brightly at Gwen’s stink eye. “Mostly stories, ya know? No one knows where the guy disappeared to.”
“Don’t rumors say he’s dead?” Abby, always the one to point out the more mauldin of chances.
“Didn’t rumors say Hawkeye had been a HYDRA agent?” Harley countered. “We don’t base the show off rumors.”
“That’s exactly what we do.” Abby rolled her eyes at him. “A rumor is just a fact that hasn’t been proven yet.”
“Regardless,” Gwen waved her hands between the two of them, effectively cutting off whatever sibling squabble that was bound to begin - again. “We need a game plan. As of episode one, we don’t actually have much more to go off of except witness statements.”
“So episode one can be witness statements.” Abby sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, lips pursed in that way they always did when she was thinking up a solution to a problem they had just been presented with. There were many reasons why Harley admired his sister, her ability to think on her feet was one of them. “We fill in the story from there.”
“Could we get Tony on?” Harley ducked the elastic Eddie shot in his direction. “He mentioned having a few run-ins with Spider-Man when he was still active.”
“Oh he had more than a few run-ins.” Gwen huffed and rested her hip against the wooden table. “Tony Stark is literally my least favorite person on this case.”
“The guy’s keeping secrets left and right. He knows way more about Spider-Man than he wants to let on.” Eddie agreed with a loud scoff. “He literally had to okay the topic but is keeping secrets.”
“Does he know who the guy is?” Harley found himself asking amidst the circling discomfort in his stomach. If Tony knew and was keeping the information from them then… then Harley didn’t know what he would do. Tony was the bank behind the show, he wasn’t the draw.
“No,” Gwen shook her head. “I’m inclined to believe him on that one. I think he wants to know as much as all of us.”
“Okay,” Abby dipped her finger into her effectively ruined coffee and sucked the liquid from her fingertip. “So he’s annoying, we all already knew that about him. If he doesn’t want to be on episode one to talk then he doesn’t have to. Do we have a solid story without him?”
“Maybe.” Gwen conceded, her fingers drumming on the table as she thought. “Harley, what’s the angle you’re looking to paint here? Friend or foe?”
It was a good question. In their first season they had worked on the Winter Soldier case, diving deep into James Barnes in ways that no documentary series had ever dared. Harley had fought tooth and nail to present Barnes as the human he was rather than the weapon he had been turned into. He had done the same with Hawkeye the year before, dragging himself out to Iowa to interview child services agents long retired and circus performers that had known him as the half deaf scrawny kid. “The entire point of this is to show the people listening that these heroes are people. Good, bad, in between.” He wouldn’t risk that message just because the public was excited to see them dive into Spider-Man’s story. “I say we go wherever the story takes us.”
--
The last time anyone had seen Spider-Man was after an intense battle in Times Square. It had destroyed buildings, billboards, anything that had been placed there was collateral damage. As with most things that happened in the world lately, there were news reports on the events with exclusive cell phone footage to pan over the destruction. No one had died, there were minimal injuries to innocent parties. It should have been a success.
Except that no one had seen Spider-Man since.
The last shot anyone had ever gotten of the hero was him being quickly bundled up in the arms of the Human Torch and rushed away.
Harley had stared, and stared, and stared at the image until it was burned in the back of his eyelids, imprinted forever so that if he even shut them he could see everything the cellphone footage had caught. A limp hand, hanging in the wind, a patch of brown hair, a pool of blood that Reed Richards conveniently managed to tamper with enough that even if law enforcement wanted to they wouldn’t have been able to test it.
He had jotted it down in his notebook - pocket sized and stuffed full of notes, ideas, thoughts and episode drafts. Reed Richards, and possibly the entire Fantastic Four, could have been aware of Spider-Man’s identity. It was a shaky lead, at best, but Harley had created an entire show on shaky leads. He tapped his pen against his lips and narrowed his gaze into heavy lidded eyes, idly swaying his chair.
Abby was in her office next door, her door open and headphones on, listening intently to what Gwen lovingly referred to as their listening public.
There wasn’t much to go on for the first episode.
Unfortunately, Spider-Man was going to be their toughest case to crack yet. James Barnes had an entire history written about him - a hundred years between his birth and his life as the Winter Soldier. Years of back-logged information, linked intrinsically to Steve Rogers so much so that his story was told alongside Captain America’s whenever it was brought up. Information on him, on the soldier he was before everything, was easy to get their hands on. Hawkeye, Clint Barton, had been more difficult, if only because of the nature of his job. Still, when Natasha Romanov had dumped all of SHIELD’s files on the internet during their collapse she had also dumped all of his files on the internet. There was a fair deal redacted but redacted was easy to work with.
There was nothing on Spider-Man.
The tricky part of investigating a hero with a secret identity was that pesky secret part of the entire deal. There wasn’t a single bit of personal information on Spider-Man that Harley could find. Without an identity he could only tell half of the story.
Still, he had something even if it wasn’t as much as was ideal.
Spider-Man had been active for just about six years. He was, as far as most could tell, actually a he (but god forbid, Harley would apologize left and right if he had assumed incorrectly simply because of a moniker the hero may not have even chose), at the time Spider-Man had stopped he had been five foot six and, apparently, in the middle of a noticeable growth spurt which meant that he was young. The majority of witnesses agreed that he was from New York - born and raised - which, while it didn’t help narrow down his list, did add some depth to his character. He had a wicked sense of humor, but could be downright terrifying if he ever wanted to. His enhancements seemed to include speed, strength, possibly precognition, webs (maybe? The jury was still out on that one), and the ability to climb walls.
He had started in 2012, a few months after the Battle of New York, in a much less impressive suit, debuting on YouTube channels and across social media. He helped little old ladies cross the street, saved cats from trees, stopped car accidents and store robberies. Spider-Man was well loved. Harley was hard pressed to find anyone that didn’t like him.
Aside from the Bugle but Harley wasn’t about to call anything Jameson put out reliable or unbiased. He tapped his pen against his lips and narrowed his gaze at the corkboard.
There was so much to do and Harley was starting to feel the pressure of the promised season creeping up his spine.
“Who are you?” He asked the expertly shot picture - the only thing, aside from a name, on the brown cork. Spider-Man was mid-swing in it, fingers pressed in the now iconic spread he had been shown to use - almost like he was… pushing a button….
“If pictures start talking back, remind me to dock your pay.” Tony didn’t knock. Tony Stark never knocked. Still, he wore a smile behind his cocky self-assured glaze he always wore, hands stuffed in his pockets and suit coat thrown haphazardly over his shoulder.
Tony very rarely paid the studio a visit, choosing, instead, to leave the majority of the podcast business to those younger and more experienced. His name was on the door, though, and he did take a large percentage of their proceeds in fees alone. So Harley figured he was allowed a visit or two unannounced. “If pictures start talking back, it would make my job a lot easier.” Harley muttered absentmindedly.
There were a number of things he would ask Spider-Man if his picture talked - a long list full of things he had carefully organized in his mind and ready to go. If they ever found him and got him to sit for an interview Harley wasn’t sure that he would be able to hold himself back in a professional manner. Abby would have to conduct the interview which, really, was a bit of a tragedy. Abby had horrible interview skills. “You guys really jumped into it, huh?” Tony was trying for nonchalance, dark eyes hidden behind his signature red glasses and rolling back and forth on the heels of his feet.
Harley observed him - it was part of what made him good at his job, Harley noticed small details and pried at them until they fell apart. Tony was nervous and fishing for information which, really, was never a good thing for any of them. The last time Tony had been nervous was moments before Steve Rogers had stormed into their office mid-first season and demanded they stop digging into his childhood best friend. “Why are you nervous, old man?”
Tony didn’t flinch - Tony Stark never flinched - but his hand did jerk, just a little, from where it was reaching up to fix his glasses. “You really are a reporter, aren’t you?” Harley shrugged. He didn’t see himself as a reporter - investigator, storyteller, maybe - but others had slapped him with that label for years. He had gone to school for journalism, after all, a thing that had bothered Tony to no end. What good were journalists, the older man had yelled, when science was the real way to change the world?
What good was a scientist without anyone to tell them the things that needed fixing, Harley had argued.
Tony hadn’t had much to say after that. He let out a sigh, nothing more than a deflate of his shoulders and puff of air, and dropped into the chair opposite Harley’s desk. “This one’s personal, kid.”
“For you and all of New York.” Harley said dryly and clicked out of his notes before Tony could lean over and see them.
Financial backer, yes, but Tony would get the story the same way as everyone else - by listening. The less involved Tony got the better for their story. “You know, I almost recruited him?” Tony leaned back in the chair hard enough it creaked, a balancing act on two legs. “Back with the whole…” he waved his hand in the air.
“Epic boy band break up?”
Tony’s lips twitched into a small smile. “Yeah…” It was a little funny how, after years, Tony still didn’t like talking about it. The Avengers had been short lived, or at least the original team had. Captain America had become a beacon for those refusing to sign the Accords and register themselves with the government - a patriot representing the will of the more revolutionary American citizens (depending on who you asked) and Iron Man had chosen order, law, rules and regulations. Something that, years before, would have seemed completely out of character for Tony Stark.
Harley, though, thought it was more of a question of morality and ethics. He had worked with both of them, after all, and even if he wasn’t what he would call friends with Steve Rogers they were… friendly. Rogers was a soldier - he had accepted collateral damage as something that couldn't be avoided. He had been firmly rooted in the next fight, the next target, the next bad guy. He thought like a soldier - he had seen countless die and held many for their last moments but, in war, you couldn’t simply stop and yell at the other side that you needed a break. They didn’t care. They would keep coming. Rogers worked off the assumption that everyone needed to be mourned and avenged. He fought for all of those that he couldn’t save.
Tony, though, Tony was a bit of the opposite. Tony worked for the individuals. He didn’t believe any one person was expendable. He didn’t like collateral damage. He wasn’t a soldier, he had never had to be a soldier. Tony Stark had entered the superhero game because he could, but also because he had seen a growing need to do something to stop all of the destruction around him. He was rooted in the past - rooted in avenging those that had died because of his actions.
Honestly, if the two of them had just talked Harley was pretty sure they would have been able to find a common ground.
Far be it for him to say that, though.
“He was all over the internet,” Tony laughed, drawing Harley from his thoughts. “This spider-kid with enough strength to stop a car speeding down the highway from crashing into a loaded bus. No one injured, including him.” Harley had seen that video, too. It was rather impressive, but the world was full of impressive individuals.
“And then he just ran away.”
Tony shrugged, as though leaving after saving a life wasn’t that big of a deal. “I worked with him a few times.”
Harley’s shoes clattered to the ground from where he had been resting them atop his desk. “Everyone knows Iron Man teamed up with whoever he wanted to.”
“Just listen, will you.”
“Then talk.”
“Were you always this impatient?” Harley rolled his eyes. Tony hadn’t known him his entire life, he wanted to remind him, but only for a short portion. He had fallen into Harley’s life and then flown out of it in a blaze of destruction and heartache. Sure, he had sent Christmas presents but what good were presents when Harley was a lost and lonely kid? “Fine, talk, whatever.” Tony mocked his eye roll with an exaggerated one of his own. “We worked together a few times, usually whenever shit went down in New York.”
“What was he like?”
“A fan.”
“A fan,” Harley repeated sardonically.
“Can you blame him?” Tony smirked but carried on before Harley could actually do anything of the sort. “Yes, Keener, he was a fan. Talked a lot, started in this terrible eyesoar of a suit and then, bam, overnight got into something more high tech.”
“Maybe he has a sugar daddy.”
“Maybe.”
“I was joking.”
Tony shrugged. “I asked him where he got it from and he said he made it. Said he made everything. All of his tech, all of his webs -.”
“They’re not organic?”
Tony screwed up his face as though the option had crossed his mind briefly. “I thought so, at the beginning, but no. Spidey… once you got him talking he wouldn’t stop. If Richards hadn’t come along I’m pretty sure I could have gotten his name, address, birthday and social security number out of him without even trying.”
“So that’s two times Reed Richards got involved to protect his identity.” Harley hummed. “Think he knows who he is?”
Tony snorted. “Richards? No, that oaf knows nothing.”
“Isn’t he technically smarter than you?”
“And what does he do with those brains? Go to space and get infected with some alien gene to make his friend a giant rock.”
“You sound jealous, Tony.”
“Hardly.” He let his seat flop forwards, though, so that his elbows were leaning on Harley’s desk, face uncomfortably close to his computer screen. It lit up the peaks and curves of wrinkles and, not for the first time, Harley found himself uncomfortably aware of Tony’s age. “Listen, Spidey was the best of us, Harley. He took the secret identity thing seriously.”
“Are you telling me not to do this?”
He needed to know. If Tony wanted them to swerve and chose someone else Harley was pretty sure he didn’t have much of a choice - Tony was their financial support, he was the name slapped onto the beginning and end of each episode. It was his network. “I’m telling you to be… mindful? No, that’s not the right word.” Tony stared into space and Harley could watch the gears grinding in his head as he searched for what he was trying to say. “He means a lot. To New York. To the little guy.”
“He saved a lot of people.”
“He deserves his story to be told, Harley.” Tony licked his lips and dropped a hand onto the wood of the leverage himself to a standing position. “But he deserves it to be his story.”
--
“What’s his name, again?” Harley asked, fingers drumming on the steering wheel of the car Gwen had rented him for the months they would be in the city recording. Driving in New York was as much of a nightmare as he remembered it being, but it was nice to have a convenient mode of transportation. Plus, he thought, running his hands over the leather interior, Gwen had good taste in wheels.
“Ryan Matthias.” Abby sang to the tune of Call Me, Maybe and pointed at the coffee shop across the street. “He said we could meet him at his cafe.”
Harley hummed, waited for a quick break in traffic, and swung open his door, nearly clipping a biker in the process. “Fuck off!” The man yelled back at him, like he hadn’t been riding a bit too close to Harley’s car to begin with.
Good old, New York.
He pressed the green button on his recorder and slipped it into his jacket pocket, running his thumb over the smooth plastic. “Ready?” Abby nodded and led the way. Once inside and sitting at the table, Abby would start her own recording. Harley’s was for anything that anyone said when they believed they were off the record. Sure, it was a bit underhanded, but no one ever asked him to be upfront about things. It wasn’t his fault if none of them had ever paid much attention to what reporters did aside from the occasional Law and Order rerun on TNT.
“The Purple Duck.” Abby read off the awning - a bright plum thing with an even brighter yellow duck in a top hat painted, shown to be serving an empty coffee cup with a pot full of dark liquid. “Cute.” She pointed at the painting as they passed under it.
“Corny.” Harley amended for her and pulled the handle on the door before she could reach it.
Abby chortled and poked him as she walked by, her notebook tucked under her arm. They had the same smile, Harley knew that much from years of family pictures. Him and Abby looked like siblings, but where Harley had thankfully taken after their mother in looks, Abby had borrowed specific things from their father. They both had his smile, for one. Abby had his green eyes, though, as well as the same curve of her cheekbones and splash of freckles over her chin and shoulders. Harley knew, objectively, Abby was an incredibly attractive southern girl but in his eyes she was still a scrawny five year old sneaking into his bed at night and pressing her cold toes to the middle of his back just to get him to squirm.
She marched up to the counter, bypassed the line at the door earning herself more than one annoyed glower, and leaned over to the barista. “Hi, we’re here to see Ryan Matthias?”
“Oh, you’re the Unmasked guys.” The young girl said, a hint of awe in her voice. “I love your show.”
Abby smiled, sickly sweet but genuine. “That’s so great to hear. I’m Abby.”
“Jenny.” The barista’s cheeks colored a lovely shade of pink and she ducked her head. “Give me a moment, I’ll just go grab him from the back.”
She disappeared and Harley stared at the pastry display. They certainly looked delicious. “You should have said something.” Abby elbowed him as she said it.
“Why?”
“She’s a fan.”
“You handled it.”
Abby rolled her eyes in time for a big, burly man to exit the back room. His arms were covered in sleeves of tattoos, his face handsome in the type of way John Cena was handsome. Harley straightened his back. “Hi! Ryan?”
The man smiled and it pulled his face in a curious way. Suddenly he looked less like John Cena and more… next door neighbor. “Yes! Hey! Hi!” His hand was firm and strong when it gripped Harley’s and, for his credit, he didn’t change his grip when shaking Abby’s. It was a good tell, in Harley’s mind, to see how an interviewee responded to his little sister. “Grab a seat and I’ll be right over.” He waved them off and disappeared to help at the counter.
They found a table in a back corner, bathed in artificial light and a flower arrangement in the middle of the table. “Doesn’t look like the owner of a coffee shop named The Purple Duck, does he?” Abby noted absentmindedly, shrugging out of her coat and draping it over the back of her chair.
“Don’t you always tell me not to judge a guy by the way he looks?”
“I said,” Abby corrected. “That you should broaden your horizons on the types of guys you date. Not that you shouldn’t judge a guy by how he looks. How else would he pass the aesthetic test?”
Harley rolled his eyes at her. “You know, looks don’t always have to be the first thing that draws you into someone.”
“Let me know when something other than looks draws you into a guy.” Abby settled into her seat with a wide, beaming smile and flipped open her notebook. “What do you know about the fire this guy was stuck in?”
Harley allowed her to change the topic, all too happy to have an excuse not to talk about his rather pathetic love life with his younger sister. “Gang assissination gone wrong. It was a drive-by that hit a gas tank and set an entire block on fire.”
“How many casualties?”
“Three. Daniella Vasquez, Tate Richardo, and Pricilla Bennet.” Harley had pictures of them hanging up on the corkboard in his office, stamped in the middle with a bright yellow sticky note to remind himself to say their names during the recording. They were the victims, after all. Too often true crime podcasts immortalized the killers and trivialized the lives they had taken. Harley refused to be one of those podcasts. “It should have been a lot more.”
“Hey, sorry, for the wait, guys.” Ryan appeared in a swirl of an apron. “Is out here fine to record?”
Abby pursed her lips, there was more she had wanted to say but she, wisely, kept her silence. “Out here is perfect.”
“Cool!” He pulled out the seat opposite her and dropped into it with a puff of exhausted air. “I don’t want to leave the girls to run the show themselves.”
“Are y’all always this busy?” Harley asked absentmindedly, as Abby searched her bag for her small, hand recorder.
“Lunch rush.”
“Ah.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop and thanked Abby’s organization skills for how quickly she managed to pull out her recorder. Harley considered himself many things - attractive, a mildly good ranch hand, and a great investigator. He didn’t consider himself anything close to a people person.
“Do you consent to being recorded?” Abby asked pleasantly.
Ryan barely stifled a laugh. “Would I have called you guys if I didn’t?”
“It’s for the record.” Harley said it, perhaps, too harshly.
“Yeah, man, I consent.” Ryan laughed as he said it, though, and leaned back comfortably in his seat.
“Great.” Abby hadn’t stopped smiling, even if it was a bit strained around the edges.
The green light clicked on and Harley felt something like ease settle into his bones. This he knew. “If you wouldn’t mind stating your name for the record?”
“My name is Ryan Matthias.”
“How long have you lived in New York?” Abby asked, her pen clicking against the page of her notebook softly enough that Eddie would be able to edit it out easily.
“Oh,” Ryan clicked his tongue. “My whole life. I actually own this shop.” He gestured to the room around them, probably hoping for the shameless plug.
“That’s great!” Harley played off his enthusiasm in a way that had Abby pursing her lips tightly together to avoid cackling in his face. “That’s awesome. Has it always been your dream?”
“Yeah, man,” Ryan chuckled deep in his chest. “It’s been in my family for generations. When my grandparents wanted to retire, I jumped at the chance to take it over.”
“A good, old fashioned family business.” Abby smiled indulgently.
“Yeah,” Ryan scratched at his chin. “It’s great.”
Harley nudged Abby’s foot with his own under the table, a nonverbal cue to get to their actual line of questioning. “But this isn’t the original shop, right?”
Ryan swallowed. “No, no,” His face drew long, a bit tired, and eyes distant. He blinked. “We had to rebuild after the fire.”
“How old were you?” Harley asked softly, sympathy curling in his gut. He didn’t have to like Ryan Matthias to feel sympathy for him.
“Fifteen.” Ryan swallowed again, reflexively.
“Can you tell us what you remember?” Abby prompted as gently as she could.
Harley remembered, then, why he always took her along. As much as he liked working with his sister, Abby was fundamentally better with people than he could ever dream of. She could read people like Ryan Matthias better than Harley could ever dream of and she took what she learned and ran with it like no one he had ever seen before. “I was babysitting my little sister,” Ryan said after a moment of silence. “And had just put her to sleep, you know? I don’t think she was actually sleeping but as long as she was in her room mom and dad couldn’t rag on us.”
Harley knew that feeling well. “I get that.” They shared a look of older brothers who had experienced similar things in childhood.
“I know what the cops said happened.” But? “But it felt like a bomb had gone off.”
“What did the cops say it was?”
“It was this big explosion.” He mimed it with his hands. “I could feel it under my feet - it was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was like the building was going to collapse in on us, you know?”
“That must have been terrifying.” Abby hummed sympathetically.
Harley stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Now, you and your sister. You’re okay, right?”
Ryan ducked his head, rubbing at his neck self consciously. “Yeah, yeah, we both survived. It was lucky no one died, actually. We were at the top floor in this building, it should have burned us up from the inside.”
“Do you mind telling us how you got out?”
Ryan’s laughter stumbled out of him, bright like the sunlight outside and Harley felt his cheeks redden at the realization that he was laughing at him. At his question. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
He shrugged, teeth digging into the corner of his tongue. “We were just…” Ryan pushed on before Harley could say anything more. “Huddled on the fire escape. I was hugging Maddie, my sister, and I just remember praying, man. I couldn’t see anything beyond the smoke. I could hear the sirens but I could also hear the shooting and…” Ryan’s chin dropped against his chest, fingers idly toying with the edge of the flower vase between them. He was frowning, gaze firmly stuck in the past. He heaved a deep, shuddering breath.
Abby’s hand brushed against his fingertips, gentle and sympathetic. “If it’s too hard to tell -.”
“No, no,” Ryan shook his head, blinking the past away. “It’s okay. I just… I need a second.”
Abby’s toe buried itself in Harley’s shin and he shifted, just a bit in his chair. “Take as long as you need.”
He could imagine it, even if he wished he hadn’t. When Harley’s father had left it had been up to him to tell Abby that he was never coming back, even if he hadn’t been able to accept that fact easily himself. Their mother had been almost catatonic with shock and grief and the sudden realization that she was now responsible for two young children on her own. There were plenty of nights where their mother was at her second job and Harley had been responsible for piecing together a dinner for him and Abby - ramen, mac and cheese, sometimes they would only split a bag of buttered popcorn between them. He had never had the thought of I’m going to die until Iron Man crashed into his garage, but Harley knew that was only because he hadn’t been given enough time to think it. He was ten, he was dragged into a fight he didn’t understand, and the only thing he could think of was the pink watch on Tony’s wrist and how Abby would have no one to watch over her with him gone.
“I can’t tell you guys the amount of people that have told me that what happened wasn’t real.” Ryan said softly, urgently.
Harley could, actually. Recounting the details of Tony Stark needing his help over Christmas break had led Harley into a trap of epic proportions. Rose Hill was a small town and Harley Keener was inconsequential. He was full of fantastic stories and the type of kid who was just smart enough to be annoying. He was picked on, degraded, told he was lying and lying and lying. In fact, he thought with a sideways glance at Abby, his sister was the only person who had ever believed him on face value alone. “We won’t.” She said with the same conviction that she had had at five, chin stuck out and jaw set and green eyes glaring holes into the boys from Harley’s school that had pushed him down. She said with the same power that she said get lost.
Harley swallowed past the overwhelming feeling of affection towards his sister and Ryan leaned closer, eager for the fact that someone was willing to listen to him and believe him without anything other than his word. “You guys gotta understand.” He begged them with his eyes, too used to defending his position to remember that they were already on his side. “Everyone talks about these enhanced people - the Avengers, the X-Men, whatever - like they’re this pinnacle of god or the devil or something. But this guy…”
He trailed off with a smile that spoke words. “Yeah?” Harley prompted. It was the same look on Ryan’s face that had been on Tony’s in the studio. Awe, perhaps, hero worship, absolutely. Maybe a tinge of something else that Harley simply didn’t understand.
“He was different.” Ryan implored.
“How?” Abby demanded gently.
Ryan’s tongue flicked over his thin lips. “He was one of us.”
Harley had seen that before too. It was all over interviews - Spider-Man was one of the people he worked to protect. He empathized with the general public, stopped small robberies, and got to know business owners. He was human in a way the others - like the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four - weren’t. “How did you get out of there, Ryan?”
Ryan’s eyes drilled a hole in the side of his face. “He landed on the railing, light as a fucking feather, man. I still don’t know how he did it cuz he was like, solid. Like you and me.” He laughed around a snort, but it wasn’t a humorous one. It was a laugh of amazement, the laugh of someone that knew they wouldn’t believe the story themselves if they hadn’t lived it. “He just… He told me to hold onto Maddie real tight and when I said we couldn’t leave cuz, ya know, shock and shit, he told me without hesitation that if we stayed, we’d die. And then he didn’t give us a choice. The… The floor started shaking beneath us, and the building was going down, but he just grabbed me around the waist and it was… it was like flying. Like the wind went from hot to chilled, and he set us down real gentle on the sidewalk across the street.”
There was something about how Ryan was speaking about the encounter, something that nudged at Harley’s chest that he couldn’t put a finger on. He had heard countless stories at that point of heroes doing what they did best. In their first season Harley had heard a detailed account of how the Winter Soldier had literally torn off the door of a speeding car to save a woman from her kidnappers. Just a year earlier he had been told a tale of Hawkeye throwing a ballpoint pen into the muzzle of a gun in order to stop it from blowing a guy’s head off. What Spider-Man had done wasn’t anything… special. So he had saved some kids from dying. It was basically getting a passing grade in your fourth grade english class - something to be proud of but nothing that would really shock anyone unless their kid had been noticeably struggling.
“Did he say anything else?” Abby asked, her voice bouncing off the swirl of thoughts traveling through Harley’s mind.
"Just that he had to go,” Ryan shrugged. “Like there were other people to save and like… he wasn’t wrong. The entire block was on fire.”
There it was, Harley thought. There was the reason for the prickling on the back of his neck. “He saved the entire block?”
“He damn well tried to. Look up the reports, man. None of us should have lived but only three died.” Ryan laughed, that same amazed hero worship laugh from before. “Spidey deserves better than what he was put through for saving some people.”
--
“You,” Gwen said the moment they got back to the studio, finger perfectly straight and nearly poking his eye out. Her heels made them the same height, an impressive feat for someone naturally as short as Gwen was.
“Me?” Abby innocently asked, even going as far as to raise her hand. Or perhaps she was raising her hand to twist her hair into a loose bun on the back of her head - either way, she did both.
Gwen waved her off. “Not you. Not yet.”
“Not yet?” Abby raised an eyebrow but pushed no more, taking her cue to duck into her office.
Harley wanted to duck into his office. He was already exhausted and they had only interviewed one person. If it was any indication of how the rest of the show was going to go Harley might consider actually quitting his job and picking up a new career path. “I didn’t do it?”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“A… both?”
Gwen snorted and poked his cheek - hard. She took pleasure, Harley was sure, in watching him rub it in offense. “The blog.”
“I hate the blog.” Harley had always hated the blog. Eddie had thought it was a fantastic idea to put it together, Harley wasn’t sure why that always translated to him running the damn thing. It didn’t bring in nearly as many listeners as they had previously hoped and mostly was fueled by users asking after their personal lives. Rarely, very rarely, they managed to get a few good leads from their page but, mostly, it served as just another annoyance in Harley’s already busy life.
“You’re running the blog.”
“No,” It was Harley’s turn to be dramatic. He even tossed his head back with his groan. “Gwen, I don’t want to.”
“And I don’t want to be your glorified personal assistant but, here I am.”
“You literally get paid way more than any of us.” Harley muttered petulantly. “Why can’t Eddie run it? It was his big idea.”
“Eddie will get us permanently banned from any website we put him in charge of.”
Good, Harley wanted to say but he wasn’t actually sure that Gwen wouldn’t just cut him out of the equation entirely. “One day a week.” He begged for, instead.
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Abby can run it on Wednesdays and Fridays.”
“Hey!” Abby yelled, indignantly, from her office. “Don’t volunteer me for things.”
“You love the blog.”
“Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you get to make my decisions for me.” He stuck his tongue out at her and she responded with her middle finger.
“I don’t care which one of you runs it,” Gwen admitted with a weary sigh. “Just figure it out.”
--
“I’m not giving up my Friday’s to run the blog.” Abby insisted for what had to be the twentieth time. Harley had bribed her into accepting Wednesday responsibility but for episode drops Gwen was insisting it was Harley that ran it. Something about community engagement, blah, blah, blah. “I have things to do on Fridays.”
Harley’s eyebrows rose in abject shock. “Like what? Paint night?”
“Yes, actually.” She mocked his expression with her own and shoved his face away from hers. “Just have Eddie run it.”
“Gwen might actually murder me if I let Eddie run it.”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
She had a point. Gwen always did work better at forgiveness than she did permission. Harley chewed on his lip and thought his options over. He didn’t want to run the blog but, he had to admit, it did at least give him something to do while in between episodes and investigation notes. It was organized in a way his office wasn’t and, sometimes, it could be fun. Sometimes. “This it?” He asked as Abby pulled him to a stop, her phone vibrating in her hand to alert them that they had made it to their destination.
Abby sucked in a deep breath and tucked a wayward hair behind her ear. “Judy Tran’s little part of suburbia.” She confirmed and nudged his elbow with her own. “Got your recorder on?”
“It’s been on this entire walk.” It had been. Harley had cleared the memory card and made sure it had full charge before they left the office. It had been clicked to record ever since they left the studio behind several blocks. “Yellow house?”
“Blue.” Abby pointed to the one she was speaking of, blue with a small garden out front, a crab apple tree hanging over the walkway. “Oh my god, she has an actual apple tree.” She stopped in front of it, chin pointed up towards the sunset sky. “Do you think she’d mind if I took one?”
“Abs, those aren’t -.”
She didn’t wait for him to finish, plucking one of the small, tiny apples from the tree and cradling it in her hands. “It’s a baby, Harls.”
“Eat it,” He goaded with a devilish smile. “I dare you.”
Abby narrowed her green eyes at him and, as though to show him just how serious she was, and never one to back down from a dare, bit into it with her slightly crooked teeth. “I win.” She said triumphantly and Harley pressed his lips together to keep himself from laughing.
Abby’s smile faded into pure disgust and she gagged once, twice, three times before spitting it out on the pavement. Her hand clawed into his forearm as she doubled over. “What the fuck -!” She gasped out between grunts of disgust.
Harley, shaking with mirth, struggled to keep her upright. “Why did you eat it?”
“What did I just eat?” She moaned.
“Hi!” Their heads snapped up in unison. A woman, short, stout, and older stood in her doorway, face creased in bemusement. “Can I help you?”
Abby’s cheeks were fire engine red. Harley tried to pull himself together for the sake of his professionalism. “Hi! Are you Judy?”
Recognition sparked. “Are you Eddie?”
It was Abby’s turn to laugh, though it was distorted with her grunts of disgust. “Harley, actually.” He left her on her own, stumbling forward and holding out his hand for her to grip with her own. “Eddie said we’d be coming around?”
Judy smiled and, when she smiled she looked ten years younger. “Of course, of course!” She squinted over his shoulder to Abby - trying to unsuccessfully wipe her hand gently over the her lips and stop herself from gagging. “Hi! Hello! Come on in!” She waved them through the door.
Abby straightened up, shoulders squaring and head tossed back for just a moment. She shoved past Harley in the entryway, sharp elbows and all and eyes promising a revenge she probably wouldn’t follow through on. “Hi! Judy?”
“That’s me!” Judy’s house was clean on the inside, organized and perfect. It was full of mismatched furniture, reminiscent of Harley’s own home growing up. The type of place a single mother raised her kids. Patched together with whatever was cheapest. There didn’t have to be a perfect color scheme to make a comfortable home for a kid to grow up in. She had family pictures covering the walls - a timeline of her son growing older by the days. “Why don’t we set up in the kitchen?”
Judy was a gracious host, pouring them homemade lemonade and fresh baked cookies before sitting down herself. Abby got along with her the same way she got along with everyone, asking about her son’s school performance, talking about Judy’s job at the bodega her parents owned. “Do you mind if we get started?” She slid into casual conversation expertly.
Judy sat back in her chair, hands steepled in front of her on the table. “Not at all.”
Abby’s own recorder sat on the table in front of them and her finger pressed the record button hard enough for the little green light to pop on. “Do you consent to being recorded?” Harley asked the routine question the same way he always did - stiff, professional.
“Yes.” Judy smiled as she talked. Judy was all smiles, actually. If Harley didn’t know any better he would think that was her only emotion capable of producing, but she had looked annoyed when she had thought they were just some tourists stealing crab apples off her tree.
“Judy, how long ago was it that you met Spider-Man?” Abby asked softly.
“It was…” Judy drifted as she thought. “Ten years ago, now. I think.”
That would make her son… thirteen. “What exactly happened?” Abby asked in the same, attentive voice as she had been speaking the entire visit.
“As much as you feel comfortable saying.” Harley tacked onto the end with a helpless shrug in his sister’s direction.
Judy waved her hand between the three of them. “Of course, of course.” She paused, head tilted to the side and dark hair brushing against her cheeks as she thought. “I was sleeping when they broke in.”
Harley wet his lips. “Broke in?” He ran his finger over the edge of his glass, the condensation beading on the tip of his thumb and starting a slow, lazy drag down his skin.
Judy sighed, “Yes,” She began, “I was sleeping in my son’s room. He was three, then, and afraid of the dark, so I guess I just fell asleep in the chair in his room. I heard this crash, like glass breaking, and immediately called the police.” Judy spoke in clear, clinical terms. It was obvious she had told the story many times before.
Still, Abby reached out and clasped her hand over Judy’s fingers. “Oh god,” She played up her Tennessee accent, drawing slowly over the vowels. “Did you see the guys?”
“No, no.” Judy pat the back of Abby’s hand with her own gently. “I stayed up there with my boy and just prayed they wouldn’t come upstairs.” She heaved a deep breath, a small smile toying at the corner of her mouth. “There was a knock.”
A knock? “A knock?” Harley repeated the moment he thought it. What sort of robbers knocked?
“A knock,” Judy chucked, her eyes dancing with mirth. “On my son’s window.”
What? He mouthed to himself. Abby shrugged in his direction, the two of them thinking the same questions. “That’s not terrifying.” Abby muttered, sarcasm dripping from her words.
Judy tossed her hair with a laugh. “Trust me, I was prepared to fight to the death.” She reassured. “It was right at the top of my baby’s bed.”
“Was it the intruder?” Harley toyed with the edge of his napkin as he asked it.
Judy gave him a funny look, almost as though she was shocked he hadn’t caught onto it yet. “No.”
“Who was it?” Abby prompted slowly.
Judy looked between the two of them, her eyebrows creased. “Spider-Man.” Her tone said it all - how had they not already come to that conclusion? Harley wasn’t sure he had an excuse, or that Abby had one either, aside from the fact that masked heroes knocking on windows on a third story window above a kid’s bedroom weren’t normal occurrences in Tennessee. “Anyway,” Judy shook her expression back into a smooth, gentle smile. “Spidey got there well before the police.”
Abby swallowed and blinked to herself. “What happened? What did he do?”
“Well,” Judy tugged on a strand of her hair. “I let him in after realizing who it was. I won’t ever forget her voice.” She had that far away quality to her voice again, like Ryan had, like Tony had, when recalling the events of the past.
They would get stuck there if Harley didn’t try to pull them out. “Why not?”
"He sounded like my brother.”
It was a clue, Harley could feel it. If only he knew how it was a clue. “How so?” Abby pressed.
“Young,” Judy said slowly, thinking over her words carefully. “But strong.” She nodded to herself. “My brother’s in the army so he has this… commanding presence to him.”
Young.
Stong.
Commanding.
Harley shifted in his chair. It felt like something, like something that he should recognize but wasn’t. He licked his dry, chapped lips. “Did he scare you?” He shrugged at the confused look Abby shot him.
Judy, immediately, shook her head. “Oh no, no.” She implored. “Spider-Man was my son’s hero. He was like everything Iron Man wished he could be.”
Wouldn’t that be funny for Tony to hear? Harley could imagine it in his mind - Tony Stark scoffing loud enough that everyone at the dinner table could hear it and tease him mercilessly about. “What happened next?” Abby asked around the commercerating smile they shared.
“He made sure we were okay,” Judy softly painted the picture for them. “Held a finger to his lips and disappeared downstairs.” Harley could imagine it, if he allowed himself. A terrified, young single mother, cooped up in her son’s bedroom while a literal superhero told her to be quiet and disappeared to confront the person that had broken into her house. “I heard him with the robber.” She tacked onto the end as an afterthought.
Harley blinked. “How did it seem to go?” No one had mentioned, yet, watching Spider-Man interact with everyday bad guys. The supervillains - the Vultures, Goblins, of it all - everyone had images of.
“I’ll remember it…” She trailed off, her eyes dropping down to Abby’s hand covering her own. “I’ll always remember it. He just…” This was one of those times where silence was greater than words to encourage a witness. Abby squeezed her hand in her own and smiled, softly, gently. “He said, this isn’t what you want to do.”
Harley’s jaw dropped, for a moment, before clicking shut. “How did that go over?” He asked numbly. Negotiation hadn’t been one of the skills he had found online for Spider-Man. Sure, there were stories but there were all types of stories. There always were.
“At first it didn’t seem like it was going well, but… I heard him mention us upstairs. There’s a little kid up there. He’s scared. He just wants somewhere safe to sleep.”
“Oh wow.” Abby sounded the way Harley could feel - heart pounding, eyes wide, something glossy and amazed on her face.
“What did you think of that decision to mention you guys?” Harley questioned.
Judy laughed. “I thought he was crazy. The only thing that's keeping us safe was us being quiet.” She shook her head sardonically. “You’ll never guess what the man said, though.”
“What did he say?”
“Me too.”
--
The official story, if anyone were to ask for it, was that Spider-Man had died in that final battle in Times Square. There hadn’t been a funeral, no official unmasking, nothing that Harley could find to support the official narrative. Which was… frustrating. To put it simply.
It would have been easier, perhaps, if Spider-Man was dead. At least then Harley would have something to base his investigation off of instead of just stories. He sighed, a giant puff of breath from his nose, and mused his dirty blonde hair, shuffling his notes a tad too aggressively on the wooden table they kept in the recording studio. Abby was already wearing her headphones, big puffy bright pink things clasped over her ears. Eddie was to his left, typing quickly on his computer and shooting Gwen looks through the window she was watching them through.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Abby asked, holding her phone in front of the two of them, waiting patiently for Harley to look over at her and strike a pose for her instagram followers. She smiled indulgently and snapped the photo - two shades of each other pressed almost cheek to cheek, siblings in every single way they looked alike.
Harley frowned. “I don’t even know if he’s more than a… tall tale.”
“There are pictures. So, like… someone existed.”
“I know that,” He did know that but Harley wasn’t dumb. The lack of information was grating on him. He could look at as many pictures and videos of Spider-Man as he wanted, until he saw concrete proof that the man had even existed; everything else was just… circumstantial. How could it have been so easy, he wondered, to disappear? In the age of technology it should have been impossible. “I don’t know, Abby.”
“It’s too late to change gears.” She pointed out unhelpfully. “Maybe we’ll stumble onto something interesting.”
“Or maybe we’ll stumble onto nothing.”
“As wonderfully optimistic as this conversation is,” Eddie interjected, his expression smoothly amused flitting between the two of them. “Are we ready to record?”
Gwen knocked on the glass, her thumb held up to the roof. Harley nodded and pulled up his own headphones, snug over his ears and drowning out the noise around them. “Let’s do this.” Abby smiled confidently.
“We’re recording in,” Eddie started counting down, timed perfectly with the countdown on his computer screen. “Three… two…” The one was silent, a finger held out in front of them.
The On Air sign flashed gold.
“Good morning, everyone!” He said into the microphone, smile firmly in place and the thrum of the story building into a tsunami in his veins. “I’m your host, Harley Keener.”