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Peter first heard about the game from Wade and Matt.
An oppressive heat wave has settled over the city. Ordinarily, heat tended to ramp up petty crime and assaults. People got heated quickly, aided by the sun beating down or the heat leeching up from the sidewalk. But now? It was too hot to do anything .
It was too hot to even think for too long.
The summer was finding them more often than not settled up high, chatting more and more often about the mundane. Matt was getting an influx of pro bono work; word was getting around that you wanted him in your corner if you were fighting the big guys. Wade was struggling with his contracts. He accepted two in a night, not noticing that while the city names had been the same, it was in two different states. On opposite sides of the United States.
It was unusual of Wade to get his contracts mixed up, so Peter knew the heat was even starting to get to him.
This was how he learned that Wade was from Canada.
He did not appreciate this heat.
He’d shoot it if he could, he said.
One night, while lamenting the lack of action and bemoaning the sticky air, Wade mentioned a game some of the night crew used to play, years ago. “Protect the Mayor” he called it.
Peter asked what it was, interest piqued.
“A game we used to play- started when Danny mouthed off one night. Said if the mayor was ever kidnapped, the Defenders should handle it. Said they were more effective,” Matt explained, his head swaying back and forth, following a music only he could hear.
“So?”
“So he said it in front of Wade and Barnes. And it escalated from there.”
Yeah, Peter could imagine how quickly, too.
“So what’d you do?”
“Well, we normally had a volunteer. A couple of years it was Colleen Wing, Karen once- it doesn’t matter. Someone volunteered to be the mayor. The first defending group was chosen at random- dice roll, coin toss- depending on who and how many teams were playing that year. The first team got twenty-four hours to hide their mayor and set up their defenses- after that, everyone else was free to track, attack and capture at will.”
Made sense, but… how did you win a game like that?
“You won if you kept the mayor in one place for seventy-two hours. That’s pretty much it. We haven’t played in years because no one can give up time to be the mayor anymore,” Matt’s head drooped sadly in response.
It sounded fun.
But more importantly, it sounded like something to do.
“I bet I know someone who would play the mayor,” Peter offered. Wade’s head snapped towards his, attention finally caught. “You two let the players know. The game is back on.”
Ned agreed, as Peter knew he would, because it sounded like literally the coolest thing to ever happen to him.
Peter was offended at first. Because the coolest thing to happen to Ned SHOULD have been that his best friend was Spiderman.
Ned consoled him by saying that of course that was the coolest. When Ned said the coolest, Peter should assume that he meant coolest ASIDE from his best friend being Spiderman. Peter won that by default.
Comforted, Peter allowed this, and let Matt and Wade know that Ned was game to be mayor.
Thus, the ground rules were laid out:
- The Mayor must be kept in good health at all times.
- This included food, hydration, socialization and entertainment.
- If you lose The Mayor you are required to give the team who has obtained them 24 hours to plot and set up their best plan.
- GPS trackers are not allowed. Have some respect for the game.
- The Mayor cannot give hints to his favored team. (So don’t even try that shit, Parker.)
Team Red won first possession by dice roll, and spent most of their twenty-four hours preparing Matt’s apartment for defense. They were trying to make the experience easier on Ned, who had been to Matt’s apartment before. Wade refused to offer up his own home, and May had gently suggested that they move Ned elsewhere when they first began to set up in Peter’s living room.
Their last hour was spent debating whether or not Matt was on the right team.
“He was a Defender FIRST,” Danny roared over the phone, Matt holding his burner between himself and Wade, allowing the two of them to listen.
“Yeah yeah, stop complaining. Red made his choice- his nickname is LITERALLY Red, duh,” was Wade’s argument. Which Peter thought was totally fair. It made sense to him, at least.
“Sorry, Danny,” Matt offered, sounding not at all apologetic. More expletives exploded over the phone line, Matt and Wade crouched together and snickering at Danny’s expense. So caught up they were that they hadn’t even realized their last hour was up.
Matt’s front door clicked open and Team Red collectively froze. It was so audacious, so bold, that all they could do was watch as Frank Castle strolled in and over to Ned. Ned was frozen as well, mouth open in shock at the casual appearance of the Punisher in the flesh. Frank tipped his chin in greeting to the three of them, leaning down to pick Ned up and tuck him under his arm. And then, he walked out.
Matt’s phone hit the floor with a clatter. Danny asked if everything was okay.
Matt and Wade’s karma was instantly thrown back at them as they had to explain- twice, because Jessica wanted to hear it again, how they had just watched Frank Castle walk out with their Mayor.
Peter texted Ned, because while Ned had been informed that Castle was playing, it was one thing hearing it and another thing seeing it. And an entirely different thing to be picked up and carried out by it.
Ned texted back to tell Peter that he was fine. He was freaked out at first, sure, but Mr. Castle had this great dog with this great head and he was now best friends with this dog.
Peter was immediately, intensely jealous.
Ned lasted 56 hours with Frank Castle. Castle was playing on his own. He didn’t need no fuckin’ team he’d said, and he’d be damned if he won with one. He was explaining this to Ned when the other lone player broke down his door.
Max’s only reaction was to tilt his head, intrigued at the appearance of James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier was even scarier up close, but he flashed a friendly, almost charming smile Ned’s way before he started the beat down on Castle.
Were fights always this loud?
Ned watched as Castle and Barnes exchanged blows back and forth. Max gave a half hearted ‘boof’ in defense of his owner, but then seemed to decide that he was more interested in nudging aggressively at Ned’s hand for more pets.
The time it took for Ned to be distracted by Max was the time Bucky needed to get the upper hand, and before he knew what was happening, Bucky’s gleaming metal hand was in front of his face.
“If you don’t mind, Mister Mayor,” he drawled in a thick Brooklyn accent. Ned let himself be guided to his feet, before Bucky gestured to the door. “Time’s a tickin’.”
Well, how could he refuse such a polite request?
“Are you sure he’s going to be okay?”
It was unusual for Sam Wilson to call Peter, but given the circumstances, he should have expected it.
Ned was beside himself meeting Captain America 1 and 2. Bucky had taken Ned home to Steve, figuring if there was one way to keep Ned in good health, it was introducing him to Mister America himself. Steve was on a baking kick that had netted Sam as well. Ned was predictably overwhelmed.
“He’ll be fine,” Peter promised Mr. Wilson over the phone. He could hear Ned croaking the beginnings of questions only to stop himself in the background, while Steve repeatedly offered him a molasses cookie. “But isn’t this kind of cheating? Now I know where he is.”
Sam scoffed over the phone. “Steve and I ain’t playin’ this game, kid. Besides- well being comes before winning, right?”
“Right,” Peter replied over Matt and Wade’s shouts of “Wrong!” from behind him. “Thank you for checking in, Mr. Wilson. I appreciate it,” Peter added, because May had raised him right, competition or no.
“Sure thing, Pete,” Sam replied, before he hung up.
Yeah, Ned would be just fine.
There was a murky period in which the Defenders, Frank Castle, and Team Red all stormed the Cap house at once. No one could say that they hadn’t gotten their 24 hours because at no point did anyone really have “possession” of the Mayor.
At least Mr. Castle had brought Max, though.
Team Red succeeded and squirreled Ned away into one of Wade’s many many hideouts. Matt was stationed on the roof, straining for any footstep or cough out of the ordinary.
Peter was pretty confident. Wade was like, SUPER good at hiding when he wanted to hide. And Matt was REALLY hard to sneak up on. Like, they FOR SURE had this one in the bag.
It was this confidence that allowed Peter to take a selfie- as Spiderman, of course- with Ned.
Ned put it out on Twitter, as was his right. He couldn’t meet all of the supers without having SOME kind of proof.
Peter retweeted it from his Spiderman account and put his phone away, ready to settle in for the final 72 hours of the game.
“You know that I am LITERALLY a PI, right?”
Jessica’s drawl was brutal. So uncaring. So casual.
It shamed Peter right to his very core. Danny Rand was crouched over him, apologizing over and over and patting Peter’s head and shoulder. He may have been something of a joke among the night crew, but there was absolutely nothing funny about what his chi could do.
Luke Cage was sitting on top of Wade Wilson, who was lamenting into the floor how easily they could have won. Matt was spitting mad but being held at bay by one of Jessica’s deceptively dainty hands.
“One selfie- it was one selfie,” Peter spoke into his hands. “How- with one selfie- did you find us?”
“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you,” was Jessica’s only response. Peter wasn’t entirely sure she was joking. She hauled Matt by the scruff of his neck, bodily tossing him towards Luke Cage who corralled him in his arms and kept him in place. “On your feet, Mayor. We got work to do,” Jessica strolled past with a wave of her hand.
“Bye, Peter,” Ned offered with a wave of his own as he followed after Jessica obediently.
Danny Rand gave him one last apology pat on the head and hopped to his feet as well, trailing after Jessica and Ned like a puppy.
“Gonna bite,” Matt warned Cage, who looked down at him with a withering expression Matt could not appreciate.
“Bulletproof, Murdock. You know that. Even the kid knows that. Your teeth aren’t gonna do shit.”
Matt ruminated on this for a moment. “I could still try,” he reasoned, his head twitching this way and that. As if he were looking for a weak spot he could exploit. Unless he planned on biting Luke Cage’s eye, Peter was sure they were at an impasse.
“Mayor’s in our care now, Murdock. You gotta give us our 24,” Luke replied easily as he unfolded himself from his seat on Wade’s back. Wade didn’t budge, only beat his fist softly against the ground while cursing the “kids and their damn selfies.”
“I ain’t givin’ you shit,” was Matt’s response, kicking his feet wildly where Luke held him a good foot off the ground.
Wade rolled over and threw his arms open dramatically. “Give ‘im here, Cage. Go hide your Mayor so I can kick your ass proper tomorrow,” he requested. Luke looked slowly from Matt to Wade, then seemed to decide yeah, this was fine.
“I’mma kick your ass tomorrow, Luke. You’ll see. Ooooh just you wait- I’m gonna figure out how to bite you,” Matt threatened as he was passed into Wade’s capable hands. Luke gave Peter another pat on the shoulder as he passed.
“Second time hurts worse,” was all he offered Peter before he was following the rest of his team out the door.
It was not comforting.
The 24 hours were up. It was time to go hunting.
Ned had sent Peter a final text letting him know that Jessica had forbidden him from communicating with Peter after the 24 hours. She was suspicious that the memes they were sending back and forth could be some kind of code. Ned had tried to promise that he wouldn’t cheat like that, but Jessica had merely stared at him, cold and lifeless, until Ned had agreed to her terms. Ned wondered if she did that fairly often or if it was just easier to start throwing cars.
Ned said he would definitely throw a lot of cars, if he were as strong as she was.
Ned had also assured Peter that he shouldn’t be worried about him. Danny Rand was super nice and not at all like any of his other night crawling crew, and while Luke Cage was a little intimidating, he was also a super nice guy who seemed weirdly stable.
An alarm went off on Wade’s phone, and Peter pulled his mask back down over his face. Ned would be fine, he knew. But now this was a matter of pride.
They searched high and they searched low.
They ran into Bucky in an old warehouse they sometimes used for inter-team meet ups. Even if he had any clues, he wasn’t giving them up. That was fine, Wade said. They didn’t need no help.
Peter thought maybe they needed a little help, and was met with such a fierce look from Matt and Wade that he was immediately cowed. No, of course they didn’t need any help. They had Wade, who was a super pro at finding people who didn’t want to be found, and they had Matt, who was basically a sniffer dog.
Peter was faced with another severe jaw from Matt, but this time he had Wade on his side who slapped the back of Matt’s shoulder and spread a hand towards the city. “Go find him, boy!”
Matt sneered at Wade in response, but he jumped down from his perch to get back to the hunt. He did want to win, after all.
After the first 24 hours, Wade started to get serious.
At 48 hours, they ran into Frank Castle peering through a scope into Jessica Jones’s office. He gave each of them a turn to see her at her desk, tipping back a tumblr with a few fingers of whiskey and her feet up on her desk.
It was such a brazen display of confidence that they all had to take a moment to admire her.
Then, Wade slapped his chest. “We’re going directly to the source, boys,” he declared.
Jessica leaned back with an elbow propped against the back of her chair and greeted them with a look of disdain when they entered. “Day left,” she remarked. As if they didn’t know.
“We’ll find him,” Matt promised.
“You won’t,” Jessica shot back with a lazy smile.
“Don’t suppose there’s anything I could offer you to give up your teammates, Jones?”
Whoa. Wade was hardcore.
Jessica’s lip curled. “Not a fuckin’ chance, Wilson. Not after what you did,” she replied through her teeth.
Peter’s mask eyes widened further as he looked back and forth between the two. It was like a tennis match, only there was a good chance the players would attack each other.
Wade put a hand to his chest and the other over his mouth. “Me? Why, I never. What could I have ever done do you, Miss Jones,” his voice had taken on an airy quality with a drawl Peter figured was supposed to be reminiscent of a Southern belle.
It was decent, he had to admit.
“My BOOTS, Wilson! Don’t tell me you forgot about that already,” Jessica’s fist hit her table and Peter heard a crack. He didn’t see anything, though, and Jessica didn’t acknowledge it. “You fucked up my good pair with your tar and feather bullshit and I had to get new ones. You know how long these shits take to break in? Too fuckin’ long for me to be replacing a pair I only had for a year and a half,” she grabbed her whisky bottle and poured herself another few fingers. “You’re going down, Wade Wilson. Now get the fuck out of my office.”
They went.
They searched low and they searched high.
Peter stopped at Frank Castle’s newest hole to give Max attention and offer an exchange of information. Castle agreed, because Wade suspected he had a soft spot for Peter.
Castle did not have a soft spot for Peter, he claimed. Castle just needed someone to take his dog out. He told Peter that none of his contacts had spotted any of the other Defenders, and that Jessica was still in her office. She’d even met with a client. She was treating this like she’d already won.
Peter gave Max one final, vigorous belly rub, and left.
They were no closer to finding Ned than they had been 60 hours ago.
Ned texted Peter at the end of the 72nd hour. He told Peter he was sorry that his team had lost but it had been really fun to play, and could he please come and get him from the location he was sending Peter now.
Peter relayed the location to the other players in the game and they set off, miserable.
The location was a McDonalds with empty apartments above it. Danny Rand had bought the space months ago as his own hidey hole, despite Colleen telling him that proper vigilantes did not use their names and bank accounts to procure such commodities.
A McDonalds.
Ned had been hanging out above a McDonalds with Danny Rand and Luke Cage, and they had won.
Danny explained proudly that he was the one who had selected the hiding spot, which was a major blow to everyone’s egos.
Never underestimate your opponent, Matt had told him once, eons ago.
No matter how stupid their smile is.
Ned deemed the experience one of the best in his life. He’d gotten to meet like, a metric grip of vigilantes and one really great dog. He’d taken many pictures that he would cherish and not show anyone at school. (Yeah, right.) And he’d already volunteered to be their mayor for the next round.
It would have to be over winter break, though.
Ned and Peter did have exams to take.