Chapter Text
“Rents due on the first, every month. Don’t be late,” Peter’s landlord called gruffly over his shoulder as he walked out of the apartment.
“Okay,” he said to himself and turned to set his paltry box of belongings on the sink.
Peter Parker took a deep breath and turned to really examine his new apartment for the first time. It wasn’t exactly the most pleasant apartment he’d ever lived in, but luckily for him it was small enough that he could see it all from where he stood. The walls were white, but seemed to have sustained some amount of water damage resulting in ugly markson most of the walls. He looked down at the Murphy bed on one wall and tried to ignore the brownish stain at the foot of it. That’s what sheets were for after all, right? There was a…well worn desk under the only window in the apartment. It would work, he supposed.
He glanced out the window and down onto the snow covered street and while the hustle and bustle outside heartened him, it was a fleeting feeling. He heaved another sigh and tried desperately not to think about how the apartment reflected on where he was at in life. He pushed that thought away only for other intrusive thoughts to push their way in. Peter clenched his hand into a fist as he thought, unwillingly, about all the people in his life that had been hurt in some capacity by association with him, or Spider-Man for that matter. Unwilling to allow these thoughts to keep him down, Peter forced himself to think about this as an opportunity. His identity was a secret again and one he would guard with far more zeal than last time. He would never again let his carelessness cost other’s their lives. That was something he could do as Peter Parker, the rest he’d do as Spider-Man.
Peter ran through the to-do list in his head and it was daunting. The first unfortunate side effect of being forgotten, among many, was the loss of any records of his education. He had been a good student, for the most part, but now he simply wasn’t a student. He viewed that as a mixed bag; on one hand he could take this opportunity to reinvent himself as the student he had always strived to be, but on the other he had lost all of the good aspects of his college application.
The second item on his list was to make a new suit. He had already lost access to any of Mr. Stark’s tech after Damage Control seized those assets. Most of what remained had been destroyed trying to get everyone back to their own universes. He had managed to make it out with his web shooters and a handful of web cartridges. He had invented the web fluid himself, so that was just a matter of obtaining a chemical or two and some glassware. He felt the loss of the suit, the tattered remains of which were at the bottom of his box, more keenly because of what it represented to him. The death of the naive Peter from just a few days ago. The peter who thought he could have it all. He felt like Icarus, the kid from that old Greek myth, who had thought himself invincible and been burned for his arrogance. Well, that and he wasn’t very good at sewing, his first suit was mostly just old clothes he had layered. He supposed it was lucky he had so much newly free time.
The third item and the one that he was least looking forward to was finding a job. This was by and large the most important item on his list. Where was he going to find a place that would hire a 17 year old kid who had nothing to put on a job application.He had seen a couple of help wanted signs in the neighborhood, but he wasn’t sure if any of them would be enough to cover much more than rent. Tomorrow, he told himself, he’d start applying tomorrow. He also told himself that he would buy sheets and stuff tomorrow.
He walked back down to the entryway of the building and grabbed May’s old suitcase which he had stuffed full of clothes. Making sure to grunt appropriately at what should have been a fairly heavy suitcase and “lugged” it upstairs. Once in his apartment, he walked to his closet and set the suitcase down on its side and unzipped it. He flipped it open pulled out a pair of sweatpants, he stared for a moment at his school’s faded old logo then blinked hard several times and shook his head to get rid of the memories. He changed into the sweats and pulled on an old sweatshirt, he rolled up another old sweatshirt into a makeshift pillow then stood and walked over and turned the old radiator on. It was only his first night, but he already suspected that winter here was going to get cold.
He walked over to his bed, rolled sweater clenched tightly under one arm. He laid down and tucked the sweater under his head. He fell asleep trying, and failing, to not think of Ned and MJ.
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Three weeks later.
“Parker! What are you doing? Table six’s order’s up, come on, you’ve gotta be faster than this!” Mr. Ricci, Peter’s new boss shouted from his place back in the kitchen.
“Sorry, Mr. Ricci sir,” Peter apologized hurriedly, as he set his tray down and quickly set the plates on it. He lifted the tray and balanced it on his left hand before walking through the door to the front of the restaurant.
He made his way over to the table and called cheerfully, “alright you two, I’ve got penne alla bolognese for you, sir, and gnocchi alla sorrentina for you, ma’am.” He placed the plates in front of the two middle aged patrons, there for their once monthly date, and wiped his still clean hands on his apron. A habit he had already picked up in just three short weeks of work.
“Is there anything else I can get you,” Peter asked, hands resting casually on his hips.
“No, everything looks wonderful, Peter,” the man replied genially. It just happened that he had already ingratiated himself with some of the regulars.
“Yes, dear, perfect as always,” the woman added.
“I’ll come by in a bit to check on you,” Peter said, then turned and walked to the back towards the kitchen.
As it turned out, getting a job was easy. The first place Peter had walked into with a help wanted sign, a little Italian restaurant in his new neighborhood, had hired him with almost no questions asked. The work was easy and the pay was enough, for now as long as he was working almost full time and eating a meal or two at the restaurant. His boss, Mr. Ricci, was an older Italian man who had zero tolerance for slackers, his word, but was nice enough to feed Peter at the end of a shift. It was lucky that Peter came by the skills for being a server naturally. He had a good memory and no trouble winding his way through the occasionally very busy little restaurant, even with a tray full of plates.
His coworkers were nice too, but were all a lot older and not so interested in the life of a teenager. Well, there was one exception, Gwen was around his age, a pretty girl he thought was around his age. She had long straight blonde hair held back from her face with a black headband, something she always wore, Peter noted. Gwen had the air of someone from a well to do background and she wasn’t super talkative, but then again neither was Peter.
Peter’s shift lasted for another few hours and as soon as he was handed his tips for the night, he hurried out the back door into the alley. He grabbed the beat up old road bike he had bought at a pawn shop nearby, as he went out the door, mounted it and headed for home. Peter dismounted the bike at a jog as he arrived at his building and unlocked the door with his bike held awkwardly to the side. He stepped into the entryway and carefully maneuvered his bike through the doorway then ran up the stairs to his apartment which he quickly unlocked. His bike was leaned carelessly against his bed as he stumbled around trying to get out of his work clothes. This was followed by him stumbling around trying to get into his new suit, which still didn’t fit quite right, and then putting loose clothes on over his suit. He grabbed his thrifted backpack and shoved a protein bar into it before he shouldered it. He pulled open the drawer on his desk and grabbed a couple spare web cartridges and noticed that there were only a few remaining. He had managed to buy some glassware from his old school for a fair price, but the chemicals he needed were not so cheap or easily found and there was a lot of waste when he synthesized new fluid. Which he was working on, but it wasn’t a high priority. That meant tonight would have to be a short “shift”.
He gave himself a once over to make sure there was no suit peeking out then left and locked his apartment before doing the same as he left the building. He forced himself to walk a couple of blocks before he turned into an alley that he thought was especially dark. Hunched over in the dark between two dumpsters, he stripped off his outer layers and shoved them in his backpack. Peter pulled his mask on and performed some cursory stretches before leapt onto the nearest fire escape.
He made his way to the roof of the building he was on and perched on the corner overlooking the street. Peter pulled out his phone and opened the police scanner he had downloaded.
“North this is Smith on foot at a 10-34S requesting back up,” his phone relayed the somewhat garbled, but definitely panicked radio call.
“Come on,” Peter said to his phone, “where are you. Say where you’re at.”
“Smith this is North what’s your 10-20.”
“Jangmi jewelry at 44 W 47th St!” The officer almost yelled his last message, but Peter hardly noticed. He was already in motion, running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop as he made his way to the Diamond District.
When the buildings started to get taller around him he leapt to the middle of the street and began swinging instead. It took hardly any time to get there this way and he soon found himself stuck to a high window looking down on the crime in progress.
He could see the officer hiding in the cover provided by his cruiser pinned down by the combined fire of the three people from inside the store. It didn’t seem like they were using anything other than pistols, which Peter thought was kind of them.
With a powerful jump he leaps across to the building with the robbers. Or were they burglars? He still wasn’t certain of the difference, maybe they would know, they were the ones doing weren’t they? He thought about how to tackle the situation and felt predisposed towards a stealthier approach. That led him to crawling around the building almost frantically searching for a back entrance. After far too long he found the door he thought was most likely a back entrance and grabbed the handle, a firm twist later and he was sneaking through the back of the store. The stealth part of his plan was nearing its end and he could feel his pulse quicken in anticipation of the fight.
He crawled on the ceiling until he was ten feet from them and lowered himself carefully to the floor.
“Hey, fellas, I was in the neighborhood and saw you working and had a question that’s been bothering me,” Peter said with excessive casualness.
“Shit, it’s Spider-Man!” One of them shouted.
“Shoot him,” another yelled. Peter’s tingle went off, he really needed a new name for that, and he felt the familiar almost pulling sensation that made him want to move in one direction.
“Guys come on! I just had a question,” Peter called in mocking admonishment as he leaned right away from the first shots then leapt forward in a dive and landed on his hands which allowed him to spring feet first at the ceiling where he stuck, for a split second, before launching at one of the shooters that had been too slow in aiming at him on the ceiling. The impact audibly winds the man and Peter makes sure to grab his gun as he rolls forward still holding the man and throws him out the already shattered window. There is a loud thud and Peter can hear the man groan outside. He feels the tingle again and knows to jump back deeper into the store just before more gunshots ring out.
“I just wanted to know the difference between a robber and a burglar!” Peter shouted. The two remaining shooters answered with another hail of bullets. He hid for a second behind one of the cases and tried not to lament how much he missed the different web shooter modes he no longer had.
He took a deep breath, stood up quickly, and shot a thread of web at the jewelry case behind one of the remaining thugs at the front of the store and gave it a quick yank. The case slammed into him knocking him to the ground. In that split second Peter noticed the other thug look over at his coworker. Or whatever, co-robber? He shot a short blast of web into the man’s face then vaulted the case in front of him and landed near the man with a case between them. Peter reached forward and grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him over the case. He threw him through the same broken window and was satisfied to hear he had landed on his co-robber. His tingle instructed him to dodge left and as he did so a gun fired and he heard the shot whiz to his right. He leapt backwards into a pair of tight back handsprings and landed just behind the final robber.
The man swung his gun in Peter’s direction, but a light kick to the gun flung it ten feet across the room and into one of the few remaining unbroken glass cases. He winced then looked down at the robber.
“So, now that you’ve got a second, what’s the difference between a robber and a burglar,” he asked in a light tone.
“Go to hell,” the robber spat.
“Fair enough,” Peter replied and crouched down to heft the man over one shoulder.
He stepped through the shattered door carrying the man like a sack of potatoes, ignoring his continued insults, and walked to drop him on the pile of his co-robbers.
“I was in the neighborhood and saw you. Thought you could use a hand,” Peter called at the officer who was now peeking over his cruiser at him.
“Th-thank you,” the officer replied in a shaky voice.
“Oh it was no big deal, but I did have a-,” he started to say, but was cut off.
“I called for backup, they’re on their way and we’re supposed to arrest you. Get out of here,” the officer said in a much firmer voice.
He sighed and said, “alright, thanks for the heads up. I’ll see you around.” Peter went to jump into web-swinging, but stopped. “I almost forgot! I broke a doorknob in the back to get in there.”
He actually left this time, leaving the officer standing dumbfounded, as more police cruisers pulled up lights flashing.
He made his way to the top of one of the taller nearby buildings to regroup and check his scanner. Once at the top he sat down at the edge of the building and pulled his mask up over his nose to air out for a bit. He pulled out his phone to check the time and huffed at the realization that it only took about 15 minutes for him to wrap that whole robbery up. The scanner was silent for several minutes while he sat there and when it finally made the call about a car being stolen Peter was hungry enough to realize that he had left his snack in his backpack.
“I’ll get it after this one,” he mumbled, then stood and stretched before he took off running along the building and leaping into the air.
It was nearly two in the morning by the time Peter made his way back to the alley and yanked on his clothes. With a groan of happiness he opened and ate the snack bar as he walked out of the alley and towards his bed.
He plopped down onto his bed, exhausted, but burdened with the knowledge that he could not yet go to sleep. Reluctantly he pulled out the GED prep book he’d been using for the last few weeks and flipped it open to the section about what to expect from the third of the four tests he would need to take to get his GED.
He studied for an hour and a half, fueled only by the knowledge that he worked in the afternoon and would be able to sleep in. The book didn’t even make it to the battered nightstand, one found at the curb for the garbage men to take, before he fell asleep and it fell half open to the floor.