Laws of Salvation

by neptunestars

Summary:

Daredevil was peeking over the lid at him, looking supremely disappointed even with most of his face covered.

“Hi,” Peter says, because he’s polite, “I’m just resting.”

“You smell like blood and dumpster oil,” Daredevil responds, and then jumps in said dumpster to help him out of it.

-

In which Peter finds a mentor, grieves another one, and befriends a Russian who somehow remembers his name.

Notes:

I took canon and threw it out the window, then made Daredevil beat it up some more with my laptop. A mix of MCU, comics, and my own ideas - hope it’s enjoyed!

Chapter 1: Good Riddance

Peter had lived in Hell’s Kitchen before, when he was little, back when his parents were alive and happy and safe. He doesn’t remember much of it, except that it only had one bedroom and he had a high chair at the table, and his dad would feed him food and call him a King because he was higher up than his parents when they sat in their own chairs.

That was back when it was considered a special treat to go visit May and Ben in Queens; back when Queens was his version of high society and Hell’s Kitchen was home. His mom would take him to synagogue sometimes and they would have Shabbat dinners on the Friday’s that they could afford meat, and some Sunday’s Peter’s dad would go to the church down the street and on others he would read textbooks instead.

That’s really all he remembers of them, in the end. Their religions and a vague layout of the apartment and the low timber of his dad’s voice. He never tells people that, though. Never even really talked about it with May. When people asked him what he remembered, he told them the green of his dad’s eyes or the brown curls of his mom’s hair - details he only knew because of pictures that hung on his wall. And then even those faded as he grew up in Queens, as he became Ben and May’s nephew instead of Richard and Mary’s son.

He’s back in Hell’s Kitchen, now, but he’s no one’s son this time. He is no one at all.

His apartment reflects that. A barren and rickety place, with wind that sneaks in through the walls and the windows and mice that scurry somewhere below. He’s got nothing hanging on the walls, nor a TV or anything else of vanity. There’s a couch he found on the side of the road and a coffee table that he’d bought for 5 bucks at Goodwill and the bed and mattress that were already there when he moved in.

He’s got clothes, at least, and a hell of a pile of blankets. Things he had gotten by creeping back into his and May’s apartment in the dead of the night. Had filled one of her old chests with stupid, sentimental things he couldn’t find in his heart to leave behind - photo albums, her engagement ring, Ben’s camera, Tony’s glasses - and then stuffed it in the back of the closet in his apartment, to be opened at a much later date.

He’d also grabbed their squirrel fund of money hidden under the floorboards in the kitchen. Six thousand dollars and some change. Peter had tried his best to stretch it out, but it was getting close, now. He had to pay rent and buy a new first aid kit; enough food for his metabolism; cheap online college classes; an identity. He had picked up odd jobs, ones that paid too much for work that seemed too simple, and tried not to listen in to what he was helping with. It wasn’t easy, becoming a cog in the crime machine. But then he went out as Spider-Man after and tried to get justice for himself.

And then he was three months into his exile, eating a sandwich on the roof of his apartment building. November, and the heat inside wasn’t working, but it was far from the coldest he’d ever been, and so he was managing. There was food in the pantry and new sheets on his bed and he’d even went out and bought some cleaning spray for the couch, so now it only smelled like bleach and his blood and not all that plus cats, too.

He was still putting off going back inside, though, because for all that there was now something like comfort there was also a hell of a lot of loss, and Peter was getting so exhausted of his routine, the homework and wrapping himself in a mountain of blankets and the general loneliness that came with it. And anyways, his suit had a heater but even Tony couldn’t make it soundless, and the quiet buzz of the air made his senses go haywire, so he only used it if he was high on some building, hiding away from civilization (like now). Until those moments, he suffered through by wearing two pairs of thermal underwear and by taking a couple shots of whiskey, which really did nothing for him with his metabolism but did warm him up.

Ah, alcohol. If only Tony could see him now.

This is all to truly explain how Peter came to this point; mask rolled up to his nose, a half eaten and smushed sandwich in his hand, heaters loud against his ears, sitting at the edge of a rooftop in the depths of Hell’s Kitchen - Daredevil scaring the shit out of him in a moment so ridiculous it felt like a movie scene.

“Spider-Man,” a deep voice says, and it takes a minute to register (damn you, suit heaters) and then Peter actually, genuinely screams.

He will never admit it. He will also never admit that he threw his hands up and his sandwich goes flying, lost to the sky. He feels more emotions watching a pigeon snatch it out of the air than he has about anything else in months, which is probably why he actually scowls at Daredevil.

“Dude,” Peter says, “My sandwich.”

Daredevil is a tall guy, with ropes wrapped tightly around his arms and knuckles. The red leather get up is a little much, but then Peter can’t really talk - the devil horned helmet kind of completes the look, just like Peter knows the way the eyes move around in his mask freaks people out too. He’s muscular, too, more muscular than Peter himself, but then Peter is definitely younger than this guy and half-starving most of the time, so that’s kind of an unfair comparison.

Peter sees all this and comprehends it but is really, really stuck on the sandwich. Sue him. He’s hungry and he’s been patrolling in the cold for going on five hours now and Delmar had given him his sub for free and he’d swung it all the way back here from Queens, man, from Queens. That’s a trek and a half. And some fucking nocturnal pigeon just steals it? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.

Peter doesn’t say any of this, obviously, because he’s not an idiot. He knows people around Queens talk about how young he seems (his shitty interrogation from when he was 15 actually haunts him) and he’s not trying to add more fuel to that fire. He’s already heard about twenty million speeches about how he’s too young to be doing what he’s doing and none of them have worked yet, so he’s a little tired of hearing them, and Daredevil, as cool as he is, is known for having a pretty strong moral compass (no killing, only near-death maiming, which, what?) and Peter’s pretty sure he wouldn’t support a minor as a vigilante.

“You’re in my territory,” Daredevil basically growls, stalking closer to Peter’s side of the roof.

Peter does not bother moving away. Daredevil can try to push him off the rooftop if he wants, but Peter will just stick to it. “I live here,” Peter says all slow, the way Flash used to talk to him when he found out Peter’s first language was Hebrew and not English. He feels like an asshole, but… the guy hasn’t apologized for scaring Peter into dropping his sandwich, so fair game, he thinks.

“You live in Queens,” Daredevil says, and it’s more like a sneer than anything, like Queens isn’t basically a gold-plated kingdom compared to the absolute disaster that is Hell’s Kitchen.

Peter can’t help but roll his eyes under his mask. “I used to, but now I just patrol there. I live here. In Hell’s Kitchen. Like you.”

Daredevil stops the slow prowling he was doing, mouth twisting. “You can’t live here.”

Okay, now Peter’s hungry and exasperated and just plain annoyed. He pulls his mask back over his nose. “Unless you can find me an apartment in Queens for less than a grand, I’m stuck here, man. Sorry to break the news or whatever.”

Daredevil’s whole stance seems to change; less like he’s about to fight and more loose, his hands falling from fists at his side. “A grand?” He asks, incredulous, “In New York? Are you living in a closet?”

Fair question, actually. Peter thinks about saying No, my building just has so many code violations that it’s probably on the verge of collapse and it’s so obvious that my landlord has to advertise cheap, under the table rent or else he wouldn’t have any tenants at all.

He does not say this, mostly because Daredevil would probably find this against his morals or whatever and beat up Peter’s landlord, who, unfortunately, although a sleazeball, accepted Peter’s expired ID with barely a glance and pays the water bill himself. It’s a terrible deal and also too good to let go of, so Peter just shrugs.

“Basically,” Peter confirms, “So I can’t leave, but I really do only patrol in Queens. Honest. I’m not, like,” he makes quotation symbols with his fingers, but seriously Daredevil’s eyes are so well covered with that mask it’s a wonder he can see at all, “Taking over your territory.”

He has the distinct feeling that the man is judging him. “You think you could take over what’s mine?”

Peter throws his hands up. “Is this game of thrones?”

Daredevil tilts his head. “I don’t know that game.”

“Man, what-“ Peter cuts himself off and makes himself take a long, deep breath, the way Ned used to tell him too. “I’ll keep fighting bad guys in Queens, and this can be my resting place, alright? My spiderweb, if you will,” Peter cringes at that as he says it, Jesus Christ, what is wrong with him, “Or whatever, just ignore me.”

“I can do that,” Daredevil says, and then takes a running leap and jumps off the roof and onto the next and so on, until he becomes a speck in the distance before disappearing from view entirely.

“I can do that,” Peter mocks under his breath, and then, still mourning the loss of his sandwich, goes inside to burrow under his blankets and eat a protein bar.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

It turns out that Daredevil could not, in fact, ignore Peter, although Peter is self aware enough to admit that this time it may actually be Peter’s own fault.

He is in a dumpster.

How Peter got to be in this dumpster is a story that is both incredibly heroic and terribly embarrassing. To make a long story short; he’d overheard intel about the 109 street gang staging a weapons deal on the border of Queens, and how the weapons were crazy expensive and also just crazy in general. Obviously, he’d gone after them. What was another arms deal after that disaster with Toomes back in high school?

Big mistake, buddy. Massive. He’d underestimated his opponents, had taken his time beating up a few of them and missed the magic gun they had been hiding behind their back. They’d gotten a clear shot on him and he’d been able to turn before it hit his entire back, but it did hit most of his left arm and neck, and it genuinely felt like his actual soul was on fire.

He could smell his flesh burning. It was incredibly unpleasant. And then one of them shoved a knife into his thigh, which - thank you, random gangster! - brought him back into focus and gave him enough energy to web up the remaining men, take the magic gun and crush it between his good hand and the brick wall, and swing back one handed to his apartment.

Except he had not managed that last part, actually. Which was why he was bleeding and burnt in a dumpster. And why Daredevil was peeking over the lid at him, looking somehow supremely disappointed even with most of his face covered.

“Hi,” Peter says, because he’s polite, “I’m just resting.”

“You smell like blood and dumpster oil,” Daredevil responds, and then jumps in said dumpster to help him out of it.

It’s painful, but he’s had worse, so he sucks it up and lets himself be dragged down streets without much complaining. His vision goes spotty for a minute and when it comes back they’re standing in front of a familiar door; Daredevil pulls a tiny knife out of a pocket from his ankle and jiggles with the doorknob until it unlocks.

“Oh great,” Peter says, a little delusional from the bleed leaking out of his thigh and the burns that blister against the cold air, “I’ve always wanted to do some casual breaking and entering.”

“It’s not breaking and entering if it’s your own apartment,” Daredevil’s voice isn’t its usual growl, sounds more amused than anything. He dumps Peter on a couch that Peter recognizes vaguely as his own.

“Of course you know where I live,” Peter mutters, and rolls more on his right side, trying not to aggravate the burns, “And how to get into my apartment. Even though we’ve met once.”

Daredevil sniffs. “Basic lock picking.” He does not mention how he knows where Peter lives. “Where’s your first aid kit?”

“Under the sink,” Peter sighs, and is grateful to his past self for not leaving out anything of importance. No pictures, no items, only a grocery list taped to the fridge and a couple biochemistry research papers on his coffee table. Nothing identifiable. Not that it matters anyway. There’s nothing to identify; he doesn’t exist. Not really.

Daredevil sets the first aid kit right on top of the research papers and then crouches down beside him, stays completely still for a long moment, and then flips open the first aid box.

“I can do that,” Peter says, awkwardly and a little unsure, “This really isn’t bad enough for you to be here. Not that I don’t appreciate it! Just, uh-“

“Relax, kid,” Daredevil says, and damn, he still sounds amused, even as if he flips through the box, grabbing bandaids and creams alike, “I’m here. Need a breather before I go out again.”

It is the lamest excuse in the history of excuses, and yet Peter lets him get away with it. Maybe because he hasn’t really spoken to anyone since his confession to Rhodey on the compound roof three months ago; maybe because he hasn’t been touched gently since he was held between MJ and Ned four months ago. A lifetime ago, it feels like.

Daredevil takes his gloves off, the leather peeling. “They, uh, have other blood on them already. Wouldn’t want to mix yours up with that.” His hands are as pale as his face, nails clean and knuckles permanently bruised. They look like Tony’s had.

He’s pathetic. A vigilante that beats people up so badly they beg for death is stitching his leg closed and Peter feels like he’s about to cry. This is life. Really, Peter thinks, thanks mom and dad. This is what really makes it.

He closes his eyes and leans his head back and tries very hard to not think about the needle going through his skin. It doesn’t even hurt, not really, isn’t comparable to half of the injuries he’s suffered, but Daredevil is gentle as he threads the needle through flesh, pausing between each stitch to ensure that they’re even. He’s giving Peter more care than Peter gives himself; Peter’s usually too tired to bother with stitches, usually just holds the skin together while he wraps it with gauze and deals with the ugly scar in the morning - if it’s bad enough that he needs stitches, he’s always rough with it. It’s hard to give yourself them, especially with all the blood. There’s no time to be pretty with that sort of thing, he’d always thought, but then here was Daredevil, stitching him up with the precision of a plastic surgeon, hands steady and stained with blood.

“Where’d you learn to fight?” Daredevil asks, casual as anything as he pulls the thread tight.

Peter hands him the scissors to cut the end off. “I didn’t. Self taught.” He thinks about Natasha, and the way she had called On your toes! across the airport at him, and Ben, who used to hold up his palms and say one two-two one, Pete. “Mostly.”

Daredevil pauses in his act of putting supplies back into the kit. “Didn’t you work with Stark?” Peter hears the question unasked; why didn’t he train you?

“He was busy,” Peter says a little evasively, a little defensively. The loss of Tony feels fresh still, more than a year later, an open wound gaping for the world to see.

Daredevil just hums, pulling out cream and gesturing to him. “You’re gonna have to pull your suit down a little.”

Peter hesitates. He doesn’t know why. As annoying and mysterious as the guy is, he’s still a hero. Sort of. And not like he was asking Peter to take his mask off or anything. For the stitches on his leg, the man had just pulled apart the cut on his suit so he wouldn’t have to expose himself, which didn’t give any sign of being a creep.

“At least let me help with your neck,” Daredevil says, all patient. “You can do your arm yourself, but twisting around to get to your neck will just make it worse.”

“Alright,” Peter agrees reluctantly, and pulls up his mask to his nose, letting out a soft hiss as it pulls at the smoldering skin under his ear.

There’s silence as Daredevil applies the cream to his neck, his touch feather light. Peter blinks hard and tries not to think about May’s bloody, shaking hands holding his face in her last moments.

“You’re young,” Daredevil says, in that abrupt way of his.

Peter thinks about denying it, then decides that’s too much work. “I guess. Younger than you.” That was probably rude. Whatever. His neck hurt.

Daredevil’s lower face doesn’t change. “High school?”

“No,” Peter says, shifting against the couch. He thinks he got more blood on it. Damn. He’d just used his new cleaner on it the other day. “I’m in college. Live alone, work. All that.”

It’s not even a lie, which makes Peter sad. He can’t believe he actually misses having a curfew and his aunt on the other side of the wall and analyzing The Great Gatsby in AP Lit, but he does. The college classes he takes online are boring. His job is boring. Living alone is boring. Being a 17 year old adult is boring, boring, boring.

“What about you?” Peter asks, just to even the playing field, even though he doesn’t really care. Ned would be freaking out about this, though, and Peter from two years ago would be too. “You got a day job?”

“Something like that,” Daredevil tells him, still so mysterious and annoying, and Peter rolls his eyes under his mask. Then the man gets up and washes his hands in the sink, and it looks ridiculous, the devil pulling back on his still-bloody gloves next to a couch with a bunch of yellow daisies patterned over it that it takes everything in Peter not to laugh. He doesn’t get how the man’s so serious all the time.

“Look,” Daredevil says, and his mouth twitches, like that’s the funniest thing that’s been said all night, “I know you’re not a kid. But you need training.”

And now Peter is stuck between saying fuck no, he’s not making friends (look how well that did him last time) and also agreeing because yeah, he does need the training, he knows that. He’s been… okay so far, and honestly that’s a small miracle, probably more thanks to his Spidey sense and webs than anything else. He knows how to throw a punch and his flexibility makes it hard for people to hold him, but really it’s only a matter of time. Bad things happen to him. Parker Luck, Ben used to say. May used to tell him he just a pessimist, and Ben would always put his hands up, say, well, you’re the witch here.

“I don’t have money to hire a trainer,” is all Peter says, which is true.

Daredevil throws the burn cream at him, which Peter catches before he’s even properly comprehended that it was flying at his face at all. “I’ll train you,” says Daredevil, his voice low again. “No money. Just a promise you’ll put effort into it. That you’ll… be safe.”

There’s got to be a catch. But then, so what? Peter’s got nothing to lose, not anymore. Only himself, and he won’t be around for long enough to do that if he keeps almost dying in weapons deals. “I can promise to try.”

Daredevil acknowledges this with a nod. “Wednesdays, at 11? There’s a gym not far from here. Called Fogwell’s. No one will be there then.”

“I know Fogwell’s,” Peter says in agreement. And he does. His family’s old apartment had been right across from it. He remembers how loud it was on weekends, when they would host tourneys. The way the lights flickered all the time and his mom’s black boots by the door.

Daredevil pauses at his response, then shrugs. “Alright,” he says, and then goes to the window by the couch and climbs out of it, and then he’s just gone.

“So weird,” Peter mutters to himself. He presses the symbol in his chest to loose his suit and begins the slow process of spreading the salve across his arm. He doubts it’ll scar - burn marks never really do on him, for some reason - and his neck is already feeling better, especially once he gathers the strength to wobble over and stuff his face with a couple frozen waffles.

He climbs into bed in nothing but boxers and prays his stitches don’t pop in the night and stain his new sheets. He can see streaks of lavender starting to show in the sky, evidence of morning coming, and closes his eyes. It’s Sunday. That’s the day of rest, he thinks his dad told him once. And he really, really needs it.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Daredevil is already at Fogwell’s when Peter gets there, sitting cross legged in the middle of the ring in the darkness, hands curled on his knees.

“It’s like you’re trying to be a cliche,” Peter says, and means it even more when he sees that the guy is dressed in his old costume - the all black ninja-esq ensemble, his hands wrapped in white tape.

Daredevil doesn’t move from his position, just half nods at the spot across from him. Peter sighs and then sits, trying to mimic the weird hand pose the other guy’s doing.

“We’re going to meditate first,” Daredevil tells him, and Peter makes a face under his mask. He feels too antsy to sit still any longer - for today’s job, he had been given an all black suit, a gun and holster to put on his waist, and a door to stand silently and dead still in front of for seven hours - and he hasn’t meditated since… since May was alive. Four months, then. Nearly five.

But Daredevil doesn’t say anymore so Peter doesn’t seem to have much of a choice. He closes his eyes and tries not to think. It’s next to impossible.

Some guy in a pizza shop down the block just burned his hand on the stove. A cat scavenges for food in the alleyway over. There’s a couple having sex in his old apartment building and a kid wailing from a nightmare on the floor below. He tries to tune it all out and focus on something else. The sound the pigeons make as they scuffle on the roof. But then that just makes him mad about the pigeon who stole his sandwich, so he gives up on that too.

If May was here… well. If May was here, Peter probably wouldn’t be in this gym at all. He’d be patrolling in Queens, would make it home to their apartment by midnight because it was a school night. Maybe he would call Happy, or text MJ, or play Call of Duty with Ned. He would have May check over his anatomy homework. Fall asleep to the sound of Real Housewives playing in the living room, because May never worked on Thursdays so she would stay up and fall asleep on the couch, and Peter would throw a blanket over her before he left for school in the morning.

Peter peeks open an eye. Daredevil hasn’t moved. He sighs and closes them again.

He’s glad, at least, that he’d been done with his shift by 7pm. He had no clue what exactly he was guarding behind that door, but with how much he got paid to stand there he would guess it was nothing good. They never gave him details for why he did the things that he did. It was mostly muscle work, anyways, just standing somewhere and look threatening enough that no one would try anything, but it was unnerving to do regardless.

He’d gotten the job by accident. Some panhandler on the street had said anyone who could beat him in a pull up contest would win twenty bucks. And hey, twenty bucks is twenty bucks, and Peter’s strong, and he looks like it too (especially with how bruised up his face and knuckles had been that day), when he’s eating enough. So he’d beaten the guy easy, and another guy from the crowd asked if he needed a job, and Peter, who has either lost all survival instincts or was just altogether desperate to a point of insanity, said yes.

They asked if he could shoot a gun, and he said yes. Ben had taught him the basics of it when he was a kid, took him to the range once every couple weeks after that. Better safe than sorry, he used to tell May, but all that practice couldn’t stop someone else’s bullet from bleeding him out on the pavement.

Peter shakes his head, hard.

Anyway. So he had what Ben taught him and also that time he went on the one singular mission with Natasha and had to use her gun (a .38, tiny thing, but when he’d shot it, it’d blown a hole straight through his targets knee, bone fragments all over the place), and that seemed like enough. They asked if he had a gun and he said no, so they gave him one. They asked if he had a suit and he said no, so they gave him one of those too.

It wasn’t a bad gig; he didn’t have to talk to anyone, didn’t have to pretend like he wanted friends. He hadn’t had to shoot anyone (yet), and he was only hired as muscle half the time. The other half they just made him unload boxes and other heavy things that didn’t even make his muscles strain, just felt like a nice warm up before patrol.

He was probably like the lowest level in some gang or something. Probably. Peter wasn’t stupid, but what choice did he have? It had landed right in his lap like a gift from God or whoever was up there, and Peter wasn’t one to be ungrateful, so he took it. He made money and he survived. Well, he survived financially. The other part - mentally, physically - was harder to do.

Speaking of, he was getting really tired of this meditation. This was not going to help him survive physically. Mentally maybe, if he did it right, but… he didn’t, so it was useless.

He peaked open an eye and yelped. Daredevil had inched so close to him that their knees were almost touching.

“Dude!” Peter exclaims, scooting back.

“You need to be more perceptive with your senses,” Daredevil tells him, perfectly calm.

Oh. Well, that made more sense. The way Daredevil tries to teach him things is so creepy, though. But he is a devil, not a professor. Well, he could be actually, as his day job, but after this experience Peter very much doubts that.

“I tried,” Peter counters, ignoring how it comes out sounding like a whine, “But it’s too much to hear everything all the time. I would’ve if I knew you were going to do that!”

“You need to always be prepared,” Daredevil says, standing up. “How much can you hear?”

He thinks about lying, but throws that to the side pretty quickly. People online used to say that Daredevil’s hearing was what made him so powerful. That if you needed help he would come running before the first scream was even fully out of your mouth.

“A lot,” Peter admits helplessly, clambering to his feet too. “I haven’t really tested it. But I can hear that woman screaming five blocks from here. And the apartment on the upper left across the street is watching Star Wars.”

“Listen again,” Daredevil tells him. “To the woman.”

He does. She isn’t screaming anymore, just panting. There’s the sound of a fist meeting a face or some other part of a body and the guy who had been trapping her against the wall flops to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. Another woman is talking to her; she’s wearing a leather jacket, Peter can hear the way it crinkles, the same sound that Ben’s used to make.

“I have a friend watching over Hell’s Kitchen for us tonight,” Daredevil tells him. “She’ll keep it safe for the next few hours.”

“Another vigilante?” Peter asks. For a second, he’s a kid again. He’s not alone.

“Jessica Jones,” Daredevil confirms, “Don’t call her a vigilante in front of her though. Not her type of thing.”

Well, if Peter had his own private investigator firm and people only called him a vigilante he would be annoyed too. He knew Jessica Jones through the papers, remembered Kilgrave haunting New York and the petrified look on May’s face. Ben had brought her to the gun range nearly every other day until the news broke that Jessica had killed Kilgrave, and May had looked up at the TV from her crossword and said Good riddance.

“Why didn’t he just get arrested?” Peter had asked Ben, and he’d been young still, maybe barely ten and already world weary after the loss of his parents five years before.

Ben had said, “Some people are bigger than the law,” which was probably not the best thing to tell a ten year old, especially as a cop, but Ben had always been heartbreakingly honest, “Sometimes the nicest thing you can do is put ‘em down.”

Peter hasn’t met anyone he’s had to put down, yet. Hasn’t run into anyone like Kilgrave. He hits the rapists extra hard though, goes for their faces and sometimes if he’s feeling particularly vicious he’ll aim for their groins, but for the most part he tries to stay calm. He used to dream about killing Skip, when he was younger, but that was a long time ago, and the pain from it feels distant and cold. Had almost killed Green Goblin for May; probably would’ve if it hadn’t been for the other Peters.

“Is she killing people tonight? Jessica?” Peter clarifies, not really finding it within himself to care much either way. He can still hear that girl crying in the alley. She’s scraped her knees, he thinks.

Daredevil pauses. “No. She doesn’t… she tries not to. No killing in my neighborhood.” Then he throws Peter tape and tells him to take his gloves off and wrap his hands.

Peter does, follows Daredevil’s instructions with half an ear and instinct as he folds the tape over his knuckles, but mostly he’s thinking that the rumors are true. Daredevil really doesn’t kill people, which is weird cause, well, he’s the devil, but also, Peter thinks, pulling from his knowledge of Catholicism from Ben, the devil is supposed to torture the people in hell, right? Can’t kill them twice, or something.

What’s he know, though, really. Peter’s the worst Jew ever (expected, since his mom died so young, and he’d had no one else to teach him) and Ben and his dad had been Catholic and May had been spiritual, which drove Ben up the wall and then some. Peter wonders if Daredevil is religious. Maybe he’s actually the devil.

Peter would not be surprised. The guy is freaky. Just appearing all the time out of nowhere, like a ghost.

Okay now he’s scared. Daredevil is staring at him silently, his head tilted like it always is. Great. Great. Peter got into his own head and freaked himself out, what’s new? Teenage anxiety literally just transformed itself into his Spidey sense, which isn’t going off, he reminds himself, he’s safe. And Daredevil is not an actual devil.

Probably.

“Okay,” Daredevil says, and his voice is gentler, not as growl-y. “Let’s start with stance.”

So they go over how to stand for thirty minutes. Peter was expecting to be bored but it’s actually kind of fun, especially when they switch to learning how to fall. Peter didn’t know you were supposed to fall a certain way, but now that he knows, it’s turned into a game in his head to figure out which way is the best way to get hurt the least.

“Good,” Daredevil tells Peter as Peter slams into the floor, hip first. Peter laughs, because of course he’s good at falling.

“Tell me if you’re hurting,” Daredevil demands, but it sounds more worried than like an order. “The minute it hurts, we stop.”

“I’m fine, Double D,” Peter says, bouncing back up, and he is. He feels like he’s learning again, back in a classroom - his favorite place to be.

The devil’s lips twitch at the nickname. “You can call me Red. I know Daredevil is a mouthful.”

Then he throws Peter to the ground a couple more times.

“So is Spider-Man,” Peter agrees, only panting a little, “Some people say Spidey, I guess. That’s not as cool as Red, though.”

“We’ll work on it,” Red says, with the seriousness of someone who thinks that finding a good nickname is as important as the training they’re doing.

Red spends the rest of their time going back over stances. The best way to stand for each punch, how to not lose balance when you’re kicking, which way to lean into a punch for it to do the least damage. It’s cool. Peter didn’t know there was so much science behind fighting, but then he really hadn’t known much about fighting in general, so that makes sense.

At around one, they finally stop, and Peter’s surprised to find himself out of breath. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on his webs to move around before he wasn’t using them anymore.

Daredevil passes him a water bottle. “Drink,” he orders, and Peter, absolutely parched, downs the whole thing in one go. “Your burns are gone.”

Peter squints. “I’m not going to ask how you know that. But yes.”

“If they were still there, you wouldn’t be here,” Red says, like it’s obvious. Peter doesn’t buy it. There’s gotta be some other, devil-voodoo way he knows. “You heal fast too?”

“Yeah,” Peter confirms, because he’s pretty sure everyone can guess that one with how quickly he bounces back. “You can’t?”

“Unfortunately not,” Red says, all dry, like it’s something he really does mourn. “Would make my life helluva lot easier.”

“It’s a blessing,” Peter agrees, rolls his mask up to his nose for fresh air, “My suit doesn’t have Kevlar, or anything. Basically just spandex. If I didn’t heal fast I’d probably be dead because of it.”

Red taps his foot against the floor. It reminds Peter of when he was in band and they had to find some hidden pattern to base their beat off of and they all sounded terrible for a minute before they collectively decided to just go with the same beat the drummer was on. And God. Peter had been in band, Jesus Christ. That felt even less real than lying on the floor of an empty gym with Daredevil.

“My suit is thick,” Red gives, “One time I got shot in the head, point blank, and I’m still here.”

Dude. Red is actually the devil. Who the hell survives a gunshot to the head? Peter scoots a little farther away. He is not ready to be taken down to the fiery pits just yet.

“What happens when you get stabbed?” Red asks, like he isn’t a deeply disturbing individual.

The question does change Peter’s focus though. “I know how to sew.”

“What if you had a suit that had protection built into it?” Red rolls his head to the side, so he’s facing Peter’s own. He looks human like that, all lazy and loose. “No more sewing. No more stab wounds.”

“Let’s focus on fighting first,” Peter tells him, mostly because he already owes the Devil a favor for the training and he has very little interest in giving the guy his soul for a new suit, as nice as not being stabbed would be. “Are you patrolling tonight?”

Red doesn’t move his head from staring at Peter. It’s only slightly unnerving. It kind of reminds him of Natasha. “No. It’s quiet. I think word got around that Jess was out.”

Peter lets his eyes fall shut. The sounds of Hell’s Kitchen wash over him. No one is screaming. He hears a pigeon land on the roof and doesn’t even get mad. If this is meditation, it works a lot better after he’s sweated things out than before.

“You’ll sleep well tonight,” Red says surely, like he can see the future of Peter’s good rest or something. “Go home.”

I have no home, Peter thinks. He says, “Next Wednesday?”

“11, sharp,” Red says, which is a good dismissal, so Peter slips out the side door and climbs the wall of the gym so he has a higher area to jump off of. Then he’s swinging, and it feels like flying a little bit instead of the falling it has been.

He has an acquaintance. It’s perfect. And he’s learning how to not die (slightly less perfect, for reasons he doesn’t want to think about). On the other hand - he’s learning how to keep people alive! That’s good, he knows that much, even with Ben’s voice echoing in his ears.

He’s in such a good mood that he opens his computer and turns on Star Trek when he gets back. If he closes his eyes hard enough, he can almost pretend like he’s in Stark Tower, nodding off on the common room couch with the movie playing and Tony’s laptop keys clicking in the background.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Friday rolls around, and Peter, bored to tears at work - hired muscle this time, standing menacingly in front of a door with his gun at the front of his waist - decides to break his own rule and listen to what’s happening inside the room he was guarding.

Which led him to dressing up as Spider-Man that night and having to beat up the very people he worked for, because he could hear them discussing moving up from the weapons dealing to human trafficking.

And look. Peter’s morals had shifted with time and experience and, in the matter of complete honesty, the need for a decent paycheck. He hadn’t known what or who he was working for and convinced himself that ignore was bliss and it couldn’t be that bad because the streets weren’t any worse than usual, but then he was an idiot, so that was on him. And weapons dealing was bad, of course it was, but… well, that’s what the vigilantes of New York were supposed to stop anyways, and weapons would be around regardless, so he thought it was just a necessary evil.

Human trafficking, though. That was out of the question. That wasn’t even in the realm of possibility of things he would ever be able to defend. The minute he heard the words come out of a mouth, his ears sharp, Peter had closed his eyes, had leaned his head back against the door and breathed.

Goodbye, money, Peter mourned. Goodbye slight job stability and being able to work weird hours and still afford his rent and a decent amount of groceries and not having to do taxes.

So he beat up his employers and kicked them pretty hard because really? Seriously? He didn’t even make jokes the whole fight, he was that mad.

“Goodbye, name brand cereal,” he said at the end of it, webbing the last guy to a wall.

“Weird outro,” the guy slurred, and Peter gave him grace, because he had hit his head pretty hard.

Then Peter rooted around the warehouse and took some cash before he called the cops. Blood money, but money all the same, and Peter couldn’t afford to be picky, not anymore.

At least with everyone arrested, he got to keep the suit and gun. He added them to his treasure chest of hidden things in his closet the next day, and then he got to work submitting applications.

It was… humbling. Fast food places didn’t want him; most retail stores or nice restaurants were a train ride away, and Peter didn’t want to spend money on a metro pass or waste the webs he would need to swing across the city everyday. He did it the old fashioned way after a day of online rejections; printed out his resume for a dollar at the local library (with all his previous experience completely falsified, every reference put down just a fake number), and went into every place he could along ten blocks to try and hand it to a worker.

A guy at bodega said he would hand it along to the owner; a girl at an apothecary nodded approvingly at him. He took these as good signs. But it wasn’t until the sun had begun to set that he had any real luck.

A bar, of all places, which Peter only even attempted out of pure desperation. He still existed on paper; his ID put him at a fresh 21, the age he would be if he hadn’t been blipped out of existence. He didn’t look quite as young as he used too, either. The past few months had hardened him to someone rough around the edges, with a five o’clock shadow and messy hair, because he couldn’t be bothered paying to get it cut. He had grown a few inches and the food he had been able to buy had filled him out decently, although he was still skinnier than he ought to be.

The place was near empty, but it was a Monday and early evening, so he wasn’t surprised. The bartender looked up when the bell rang at the door, and then went back to wiping down the bar.

“You look a little young,” she said to him without looking up as he came closer, and yeah, fair, because even with all his new roughness he was still only 17.

Peter, prepared, pulled his ID from his wallet. “Young but legal.”

She shrugged at him and didn’t even bother looking. “It don’t matter here, kid. What can I get you?”

“A job interview?” Peter asked, and that was surprising enough she glanced up, brows raised. “If you’re hiring.”

“Hell,” she sighed, and tucked a graying piece of her hair behind her ear. “You been a bartender before?”

“I’m a fast learner,” Peter responded, leaning against the bar, and passed over his resume.

She snorted. “Paper ain’t mean shit. What happened to your face?”

Peter flinched. He’d forgotten about the cut above his eyebrow, held together by butterfly tape, that he had gotten in the early hours of the morning stopping a mugging. Wasn’t very professional of him. “I ran into a door.”

She looked unimpressed. Glanced down at where his knuckles rested against the bar; bruised and cracked to shit. “Sure,” she drawled, and Peter flushed, tucked them into his pockets. “Alright.”

“Alright?” Peter echoed.

“My name’s Josie,” she told him, rolling the sleeves of her flannel up her arms to reveal skin covered in tattoos. “I can teach you to bartend, if you’re as quick as you say. My daughter’s pregnant, I’m gonna need someone to cover me soon.”

“I am,” Peter nodded, hardly believing his luck, “Quick, that is.”

“So you make drinks, you take orders, and,” she gave him a look, “You break up fights before they destroy my bar.”

“I can do that,” Peter confirmed.

“Go wash your hands,” she told him, “And then let me show you how to pour shots.” Then she took his resume off the tabletop and crumpled it, throwing it in the trash can, and pointed him toward the sink.

So Peter had a job again, and again, he thanked whatever the hell was up there that practically threw the thing in his damn lap.

It wasn’t as easy as standing in place for ten hours, but Peter certainly enjoyed it more. Mixing drinks reminded him of chemistry, and the formulas for them stayed in his mind just as easily. He finished his training quickly with reluctant praise from Josie and got his schedule, which she warned him was subject to change at any time. Peter didn’t care, not when he was making a steady wage and decent tips from the people who came in.

Josie threw a black collared shirt at him on Monday, and he was officially in it then. No one said anything about his age, nor did they question the marks that never really left his face, and as long as he didn’t come in with actively bleeding knuckles Josie didn’t bother asking questions.

This all leads up to him being late for his weekly meeting with Daredevil, who he’s still scared of but now slightly more scared of Josie, so he can’t find it in him to feel to guilty about making the man wait for fifteen minutes.

He’s meditating again when Peter gets there, once again in complete darkness and so still he looks like a statue. Peter creeps down beside him and copies the pose, closing his eyes and trying to empty out his mind.

It’s been a good week, all things considered. Lost a job and then gained one, and Josie’s paying him under the table too, so still no taxes, and she hadn’t even asked for his last name. He stopped a human trafficking ring before they could even start, threw some pieces of human garbage in jail, and rescued three kittens out of trees, which he needed after all the darkness and uncertainty. He’s more tired after the full shift he’d just worked, but still too jittery to really be able to meditate, and Daredevil puts him out of his misery after only another ten minutes, standing up in a smooth motion.

“You smell like alcohol,” Red tells him, and Peter’s sure his nose is wrinkled under the mask.

“Yeah, sorry,” Peter stands up too, twisting his back with a crack, “I had the closing shift at the bar I work at tonight, couldn’t leave early.”

Red just hums. “Let’s see what you remember.”

They go through stances and falling again, although much quicker. Peter has to actively remember not to let his feet stick to the ground so that he can actually fall, because Red isn’t quite the level of strong that could keel Peter over without the element of surprise.

“Good,” Red nods, “Let’s move to blocking.”

Peter appreciates this lesson even more than the last. He’s been letting the bad guys through his defenses much easier recently, with his instincts going to protect sensitive areas like his stomach and back instead of his face, which leads him looking rough the next day. With Red’s help, he learns to instinctually raise his arms a certain way to block different hits with a minimal amount of pain, fists open and then closed. They mix in the blocking with stances, and Peter’s surprised with how noticeably it helps him adjust to his center of gravity and levels of defense.

“People aim for the soft parts of you,” Red explains, moving Peter’s arms into formation with a gentle grip, “Your stomach, your face. Usually you can only protect one area at a time, so they go for the places that are open.”

“I haven’t been shot or stabbed all week,” Peter says proudly, lifting his chin.

Red shakes his head, but the twist of his mouth looks amused. “I can smell the blood on your face, though.”

Peter can too. The spandex just sticks to it, makes him smell like straight iron, but that’s nothing a shower, some food and his suit in the laundry won’t fix. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Head injuries can be even more dangerous than stomach or other organ ones,” Red warns, and aims a harsh jab with his elbow at Peter’s face, which Peter blocks with the meat of his forearm, wincing heavily. “They can be permanent, long lasting.”

Peter knows that, he’s not stupid. But. Well, he hasn’t really been thinking about that recently. A couple black eyes or a bad headache from blunt force wouldn’t impact him as heavily as a knife to the stomach would, at least not in short term. Peter couldn’t afford to miss work because he caught a stray blade to the gut instead of a concussion, which took a hell of a time to heal.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Red stops his assault, letting his fists fall to his sides, “I get it. How about we try to protect all of you, instead of focusing on just one thing?”

“Man, I only have two hands,” Peter sighs, but then follows as Red puts him through the wringer for the next hour, running him through drills that make his teeth hurt and ribs smart. Red doesn’t want to hurt him, but he also doesn’t want him to get hurt, so there’s a tough middle ground that gives Peter bruises instead of cracked ribs. Peter doesn’t really care about the pain, doesn’t complain about it at all, but Red’s real strict about it, says his one rule is that Peter’s got to tell him when it hurts.

So when Peter let’s out a little, “Ouch,” when Red hits the same spot on his upper ribs three times, the man stops instantly, hands Peter a water bottle and gestures for them to both sit down.

“You did good today,” Red tells him, voice warmer than usual, “Next week we can start on the actual hitting part, since you’ve got most of the basics down. Your left leg is a little weak, though.”

Peter grins. “Thanks. I, uh,” for a moment, he remembers the apartment crumbling, his legs crushed under stone, May in his arms and tears in his eyes and the way he hadn’t even noticed he was limping until his doppelgängers were pulling him away from Green Goblin, “I hurt it a while ago. Just phantom pain, I’m pretty sure.”

“It doesn’t sound broken,” Red agrees, and Peter decides not to ask how the fuck he can hear Peter’s actual bones. Peter’s hearing is good, but not that good, and he’s grateful. What he already has is overstimulating on good days and unbearable on bad ones; he doesn’t know how Daredevil can stand that and worse.

“So,” Red says conversationally, “You work at a bar.”

Peter gives him the side eye from under his mask. “Yes,” he draws out carefully, “Please don’t stalk me to my workplace.”

At that, Red actually lets out a chuckle. “Finding your apartment was an accident, Spider-Man, not a normal occurrence. I promise. I truly know nothing about you otherwise.”

“How did you do that?” Peter asks, curious, and rolls over on his side to stare at the man. “Find me, I mean.”

Red hesitates.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Peter adds hastily, and then, “But, like… just so I know, so that bad guys don’t follow me home too.”

“Bad guys,” Red repeats, deadpan, and then admits, “There’s a woman who lives on the floor below you. She used to date a man who liked to take his anger out on her. I put him in the hospital and he went to jail for a while, but he’s out on parole now. I stop by and check on her once a week, just listen in. And I heard your heartbeat. Recognized it pretty easily. Your heart, it, uh, beats real fast. Faster than anyone’s I’ve ever heard.”

Peter lets out a breath. That’s reassuring; he had been worried that his Spidey sense wasn’t working, that it hadn’t told him that Daredevil had followed him home. “I’m a mutate. Everything about me runs faster than normal people. Heartbeat, healing, all that.”

“I assumed,” Red shrugs against the ground. “It didn’t sound like you had a heart murmur or anything concerning, just familiar. But I don’t actively try to listen for you. So no dropping by your bar, don’t worry.”

Peter closes his eyes. “Thanks.” He can hear heartbeats, too, if he really tries. If he focuses hard enough. He’d heard Tony’s, the day it stopped, loud as a jackhammer even through his Iron Man suit and surrounded by other heroes. Heard it fade away.

After, whenever he was particularly anxious, he would listen to May’s heartbeat. It was always steady, healthy and strong. She ate organically and she was young, all signs for a long life. It had reassured Peter, then. When she had died, he hadn’t been able to bear to open his senses and listen to the sound of it fade. He placed his fingers against the pulse in her neck instead, but he’d still heard it stop regardless, like time had frozen over.

He hadn’t listened for heartbeats since. Didn’t think he could. It felt like a curse, at this point, but his whole life did, so what’s it really matter.

Peter shook the thought away. No point in it. Drowning in his grief wouldn’t make it go away or solve any of his countless problems. There was nothing he could do to change it; he let himself feel the pain, for one second, two, then stopped the process altogether.

Red is staring at him again, anyways, that creepy head tilt and no other movement. Peter is reminded of being dragged down to hell and has to stop himself from inching away.

“I work too,” Red says abruptly, words too loud.

“I mean yeah,” Peter says, clueless, “Vigilantism doesn’t really pay well, right?”

Red clears his throat. “I meant, I, uh,” he pauses, brings a hand to rub at his forehead over the mask, “I work in criminal justice.”

Oh, Peter thinks. Oh. This is Daredevil, trying to even the scale. He knows something so Peter deserves to know something too. How moral of him; how stupid.

Then he laughs. “Ironic.”

Daredevil sighs. “I’ve been made aware.” It’s a stark reminder that this man lives a real life, one where he probably has family and friends and people who know who he is under his mask, a secret identity that isn’t secret with the people he trusts. It makes Peter shut his eyes tight before he can open them again, hit by a sudden wave of grief for the people who knew Peter and Spider-Man as one entity, people who are long gone, now.

“Well,” Peter injects cheer into his voice, makes sure to sound teasing, “You deal with bad guys in daylight and at night. That’s like a double full time job. Put it on your resume.”

“I have a CV, thank you,” Red says loftily, like Peter has any idea what the difference is, “Unfortunately, I don’t think putting rapists in hospitals would get me hired anywhere worthwhile.”

“Hire yourself,” Peter suggests, and is surprised when he lets out a genuine laugh, “You can have a vigilante business. Make your own hours, pay your own check-“

“Take donations from victims?” Red interrupts dryly, “Steal money from the corporations I take down?”

Peter’s heart thumps painfully. He imagines it skipping a beat; remembers the way he had rooted around in the warehouse that week before and counted out a pile of bills to tuck in his suit. Then he remembers the piercing pains of starvation and how his wounds refused to heal from it, and he feels a little less guilty. All he wanted was to survive. He’d thought that he would have to live off the stolen funds from the warehouse for weeks before he would find a job - finding a place at Josie’s was a fluke of luck so far-fetched that Peter never could have imagined it.

He’s been quiet a minute too long, but Red doesn’t say anything. “Yeah,” Peter says after another beat. “Maybe a necessary evil.”

It’s honest of him. Maybe too honest. His morals are - bad, now. Or not bad, but all mixed up. Not the straight shot they used to be, and admitting that he thinks it’s okay to steal feels absurdly wrong, and hypocritical too, especially when he goes after thieves in alleyways, but. Well. He’s got bigger things to worry about, probably.

“If it’s necessary,” Red says, voice even, “And it’s not hurting anyone, then I don’t see an issue.”

Peter feels a rush of gratitude at the gentle reassurance. It blocks his throat and makes his eyes sting from the force of it, and he swallows it down. Life’s been so heavy recently. He just wants the weightlessness of being a teenager back.

“That’s why we’re starting with the basics,” Red says a little gruffly, “Blocking, dodging and perfecting your stance are all things that make it so you don’t get hurt as easily.”

Peter’s always hurting. His body hasn’t stopped aching since he was fourteen and waking up from a spider bite, shaking and sweating and raw. It’s chronic now, set deep in his muscles and flowing through his blood and eating him whole.

But Red says he doesn’t have any heart defects, so maybe it’s all in his head. And that just means it’s another thing he can’t let himself think about. Something he had to let go before it consumes him.

“Thanks,” Peter tells him, and he means it genuinely, but it comes out so empty. He’s so empty, and he doesn’t want to be, and there’s someone in front of him who’s kind of like a reluctant mentor, and he’s scared. He knows what happened to the last one, but Daredevil is different, he thinks. Red’s been around longer than anyone, survived impossible things and still standing tall. He doesn’t seem human, not in the same way Tony had, with his bad heart and near-death experiences every other year.

He’s reluctant. But.

He wants to keep learning. And Red’s a good teacher, and that’s enough. It has to be.

“Get some rest, Spider-Man,” Red tells him, and Peter’s trying to be good at listening, so he does.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Sunday comes, rare rays of sunlight bursting through the December cold, so Peter dons the suit and swings around for awhile. He stops a couple muggings, but doesn’t call the cops for most of them. Living in the sort of poverty he does now has softened him up - he directs the minor criminals to FEAST, or sometimes a church. Some guy leaves a bodega without paying for his sandwich, so Peter just forks over $4 of his own money to pay for it instead. He even helps a cat down from a tree.

It’s a slow day.

He heads back to Hell’s Kitchen when the sun starts to set, the sky glowing orange as he swings by it. Thinks about eating dinner - ramen, probably - and then maybe finishing up the essay he’s been putting off for his English class. Go to bed early; he’s got a 10am shift in the morning, instructions to wear his new shirt and try not to look to bruised up this time, Parker, fuck, at least tell the other guy to avoid your face.

That would literally get him laughed off the streets, but fine, whatever. He’s patrolled long enough today, he’s hungry, he’s ready to sit on his newly cleaned couch -

Daredevil is sitting on his roof with some lady next to him.

Peter sighs.

“I still have three more days before I’m supposed to see your ugly mug again, Red,” he says, swinging down to land lightly between them.

Red doesn’t twitch, but the lady next to him flinches so hard she nearly pitches forward. Red grabs her by the back of her leather jacket, ignoring when she hisses at him in protest.

“We need your help,” Red admits, turning to look at him. “You probably know more about super soldier serum than we do.” It sounds like it pains him to admit it.

“Must be serious if you’re out in daylight,” Peter jokes, fiddling with the web shooters on his wrists, “I thought you light on fire in the sun or something.”

“Probably know more about HYDRA than us, too,” the lady adds, sparing an amused snort at Peter’s quip. She’s thin and her short black hair makes her look even more pale than she probably is, and the scent of whiskey is strong as she sticks a hand out toward him. Her grip is firm, unyielding. “Jessica Jones.”

“Nice to meet you,” Peter says, still confused. “Spider-Man.”

“We’re working on a nickname,” Red says with a wave of his hand, like that’s the important thing happening.

Jessica rolls her eyes. “Can you help us, Spider-Man?”

Peter crosses his arms. “I need a couple more details-”

Red tilts his head and holds a hand up. Peter would be more offended if he wasn’t now aware of Red’s super hearing.

“We’ll tell you when we get there,” Red’s all matter of fact when he says it, and then he’s off, jumping from rooftop to rooftop before Peter can protest. Jessica shrugs at him, then, with a running leap, follows behind. It’s like she’s flying, but not staying up for long.

Peter follows them, but only because Red still has a lot of fighting to teach him. He can’t get out of it by dying over some mysterious mission, it won’t be that easy.

They stop by the docks, because it’s always the docks, and crouch down behind a massive pile of wood. “Okay,” Peter whispers, “Now can I know?”

“That gun that burned you two weeks ago, it had some sort of power source in it, right?” Red waits for Peter to verbally respond before he continues, “We’ve been hearing chatter about some… groups wanting to put that source into living beings.”

“We don’t know if it succeeded or not, but better safe than sorry,” Jessica adds, making a face at her own words, “And you were in Germany, I remember. You were on Stark’s side, fought a bunch of super soldiers? You guys won.”

Nobody had won in Germany. That had been a shitshow from the moment Tony had appeared in his apartment and was properly fucked by the time Peter was dropped back off three days later. All their hands were stained red from it. Rhodey, falling and falling and colliding with the ground; Wanda’s scream of pain from Vision’s sound waves; the weight of the cargo on Peter’s back, threatening to crush him whole. The Accords and the Iron Man suit in Tony’s lab with a gash through the heart the same size of Steve’s shield.

“No super soldier is the same,” is all Peter says after a long moment, struggling to climb out of his memories. “I think it depends on who makes ‘em.”

Like JB, whose metal arm is cool and all, but his real strength is with guns and precision. Or Natasha, who was all agile and twisty and sharp, the sort of danger that can blend in. Or Steve, who was just Steve, because really, how do you describe the literal Captain America?

“You both have powers, don’t you?” Peter asks, more rhetorical than anything. Red’s basically admitted to the super hearing (and jury’s out on whether or not he’s the real devil) and there’s no way Jessica’s weird flying-jumping thing is anything less than supernatural.

“Abilities,” Jessica and Red correct at the same time.

“And I didn’t get mine from HYDRA, kid,” Jessica says darkly.

“Me neither,” Red agrees, his head tilting again.

“Mine aren’t from HYDRA, but they aren’t from anything good either,” Peter tells them, because it’s the truth and he doubts they really care. “I got them from A.I.M.”

“Stark’s rival company?” Jessica snorts, which is a better reaction than he was hoping for.

“He never knew,” Peter says honestly. He never asked, and Peter never offered, and it was another one of their secrets they didn’t talk about. “Where’d you get yours from?”

But Red interrupts before Jessica can do more than give him a considering look. “Tragic backstories later, rescuing possible innocent adults and children now, please.”

“Children?” Peter asks, his heart speeding up.

“Two,” Red says, pulling the battons out of his waist band, “One adult. She’s enhanced, I’m not sure about the kids.”

“The kids will be less likely to be scared of me,” Jessica points out, which, yeah, fair. She’s not wearing any sort of costume or armor or mask, just a jacket and a scarf. “If they’re enhanced and scared, though, I’ll need help.”

There’s not enough time to plan out anything else, Peter guesses, because Red starts sprinting toward a warehouse. Peter climbs up the side of it, onto the roof until he reaches the window on the ceiling. He waits.

Then Red kicks the door in, so he guesses that’s a signal, and promptly jumps on the window and falls through it. There’s no one under him, though, and he makes it look graceful (he hopes) as he lands on all fours. There’s a kid, standing alone, in a corner, and the other kid is sitting behind the adult in another corner.

“Hey,” Red says, and his voice is real gentle, his hands out stretched, “Let us help you guys, alright?”

There is a long silence. Jessica is slowly inching to the child who stands alone.

The enhanced adult is dressed in all black. Her eyes dart side to side. It looks like she’s on drugs; she’s sweating something bad, and her whole body is shaking. “No one can help us,” she says finally, Russian accent strong.

And then she is kicking at Red, leg flying. For a moment, Peter is captivated by the sight of their fighting. It looks like a dance, ebbing and flowing to soundless music. It looks like the way Clint and Natasha had fought at the airport. In tune and so far apart.

“Spidey!” Jessica barks, and Peter snaps back, rushes forward to try and slip behind the Russian woman to get to the child she’s still half-shielding behind her. The woman shrieks at this, a loud, desperate sound that grates at Peters’s ears, and pauses beating up Red long enough to kick Peter hard in the ribs.

“Triple count of child endangerment,” Peter tries to quip, but it comes out more like a groan. She’s definitely enhanced; that kick had been powerful enough to crack a rib, if not break one completely. Peters had enough of them to know the feeling intimately.

“You are no child,” the woman growls at him, dodging a rough punch from Daredevil. Jessica is slowly leading the child across the room outside, as quietly as possible. Peter catches only a glimpse before Jessica lifts the kid up on her hip; a little boy, dressed in the same black clothes, his eyes confused and scared.

It’s this fact that makes Peter dart forward and sweep at her legs, rough and mean in a way that he tries not to be. The woman falls hard without a sound of pain, and the child behind her - this one a little girl, with blonde hair in a bun at the base of her neck - runs forward, diving at Peter’s own shins.

“Hey!” Peter exclaims, more out of instinct than anything, and stumbles back. “It’s okay, it’s alright-“

He hasn’t fallen on his ass yet, so this child isn’t enhanced, just protective and terrified. She doesn’t even seem to be hearing him.

He crouches down, catches her wrists in the gentlest grip he possibly can, stumbles through saying, “Vse normal’no,” It’s okay, “Spokoystviye, pozhaluysta.” Calm, please.

He hasn’t spoken Russian in years. Not since he was 16 and following in Natasha’s shadow, her teaching him the basics as they staked out their mission. He’d butchered the pronunciation then and he’s sure he’s butchered it now, but hopefully the message was understandable regardless.

The woman, seemingly shocked by Peter speaking her language, doesn’t notice when Red throws a baton at the wall behind her, which rebounds off and hits her hard in the back of the head. She seems to shake for a long moment before collapsing down against the floor, legs twitching and head pointed toward him still, her gaze unwavering even in pain.

The little girl still seems absolutely petrified of him. It’s the mask, Peter thinks, and curses himself for choosing a fucking spider as his costume. The giant eyes blinking at her probably seem like something out of a nightmare. He needs Jessica back in here, but she’s still outside with the boy from what he can hear, and it seems like the girl is more skittish anyway.

Cursing under his breath, Peter says, “Red, would you mind turning away for a moment?” He shoots webs at the adult’s feet and hands, securing her to the ground.

“Spidey,” Red says, and it sounds like a warning, like he knows what Peter is unsure of himself.

But Peter doesn’t have time for warnings, not when he can hear sirens coming closer and this kid might bolt. “Red,” he says again, and now he’s giving the orders.

Red sighs, but turns toward the wall all the same.

“Privet,” Peter greets, and then lifts a hand up and peels off his mask with a singular fast motion. “Pozvol’te mne,” he hesitates, grasping for the last word, “Pomoch’.” Let me help.

Peter lets go of her wrists and lets her stare at him for a long moment. Her eyes don’t glimmer; there’s no visible emotion. Then her little face relaxes, her shoulders lowering and fists unclenching. She’s got a cut above her eye that bleeds down her face, bathing her in red. She’s so young.

“Da,” she whispers at him, glancing anxiously at the woman on the ground behind her, “Pomoshch’.” Yes. Help.

But the woman isn’t even looking at the girl anymore; she’s staring at Peter, her eyes as wide as tennis balls, pupils dilated. She looks as if she has seen a ghost; as if she has seen something holy. Peter is… perhaps, worryingly unconcerned. She’s obviously dangerous, obviously some sort of enhanced Russian, obviously an enemy, and yet.

What could she do? Escape, and then tell her Russian friends that Spider-Man was a pale boy with curly brown hair and a cut across the bridge of his nose? That was probably half of New York. Peter didn’t exist, not anymore. He had no one left to protect. He had taken off his mask to help this little girl, and the multiverse hadn’t exploded. There was no giant rip above his head letting in the monsters that kept him up at night, no (visible) blood on his hands or doppelgängers at his shoulder.

And then the woman speaks, and his opinion changes so quickly he stumbles back.

She says, voice shaking, “Petyr.”

Chapter 2: Ohio, Belarus, Moscow, Kyiv

Summary:

Yelena, smiling, asks, “You believe in God? Are you his devil?”

Matt’s jaw tightens, once, then relaxes. “Occasionally.”

Yelena clucks her tongue. “Ah, there was no God in the Red Room. There was only the Widows.”

Peter thought Red would take offense to this, but instead he just shrugs. “Is there a difference?”

Notes:

Trigger Warning for canon-typical violence; the Red Room, human trafficking, violence, assault, etc

Also, timeline, what timeline?

Peter meets JB on a rooftop somewhere by Pier 84, when the sirens had gotten too close to stay in the warehouse and snow had flurried enough that Peter was shivering in his suit.

Jessica and Red had followed him in silence, holding a child each, both of who were asleep on their hips. Peter was carrying the enhanced woman over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and had struggled to text on his phone one handed, but had made do.

JB was there before them, standing still with an expression like stone. In a hoodie and jeans, with snow falling on his hair, he looked almost ordinary; until you spotted the metal hand that was flexing at his side.

“You graduate from rescuing kittens to kidnapping?” JB asks, but moves forward to grab the woman from Peter all the same.

Peter relinquishes her with no small amount of relief. “Something like that.” He gestures to Red and Jessica behind him. “Got two kids.”

“First time seeing you in a year an’ you’re already dropping a family on me?” JB teases, voice light. His eyes, though, are worried as they stare at Peter and take in the people behind him. “Coulda came by for dinner first.”

Last time Peter had seen JB was the night of the final battle, sitting next to him and Sam Wilson in the waiting room at the Wakanda hospital. They’d all known Tony was dead by then, but everyone was there anyways, urged by Shuri and Stephen to get medical attention for their various bumps and bruises. Peter had refused to see a doctor, and JB had argued with the nurses for twenty minutes to get them to leave him alone.

Sam, who was sitting at Peter’s left, had laughed at Peter’s dumbfounded expression. “That’s Bucky for you,” he’d said, “Too protective for his own good.” As if the three of them hadn’t destroyed half an airport fighting each other months - or years - before.

Regardless, they’d stayed with him until Rhodey came for him, Pepper a ghost by his side. JB had grabbed his hand and squeezed as Peter sobbed at the sight of them, the metal cold against his overheated flesh.

“Wouldn’t want to interrupt your and Sam’s date nights,” is what Peter jokes back, feeling unsteady at the invitation. The truth was that he didn’t know how much they would remember. Didn’t know if the spell had just made Peter’s face blurry and his name transform into Spider-Man or if it had erased the event from their minds entirely.

“Somethings are more important than that,” JB says, shifting the woman in his arms. He laid her down on the snow, watching as she blinked blearily. He looked up at Red and Jessica. “I’m James. Those kids enhanced?”

“James Barnes?” Jessica questions. Peter nods at her, and, acquiescing, she adds, “Guess I know why we’re meeting you, then.”

Red sighs. He doesn’t introduce himself, but he does move to stand next to Jessica. He’s stiff. Angry. Peter doesn’t know whether that’s aimed at him or not. He’s too worried to focus on it. “They’re not enhanced. They sound the same as normal humans.”

“Freak,” Jessica mumbles, wrinkling her nose. It sounds fond.

“They’re Russian,” Peter emphasizes, watching as JB’s brows shoot up. “I know. And the woman’s definitely enhanced. She broke my rib.”

“Of course she did,” JB says, and puts his metal hand on her slack face, pushing it gently back and forth. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Because Natasha had destroyed the Red Room and freed all the girls seven years ago. After she’d done that, her and JB had spent a year destroying HYDRA bases, blowing up labs, and wreaking general havoc around Russia. They’d left nothing but a trail of bodies and exploded buildings in their wake; there had been nothing left to salvage. No one left alive.

Peter gives a quick version of this to Red and Jessica, trying to catch them up to speed. “HYDRA’s gone. Wiped out. Natasha and JB took care of it years ago.”

“We didn’t leave any survivors,” JB says, with a confidence that Peter wished he possessed. “Crushed ‘em all. If she’s really enhanced…”

“You must’ve missed something,” Jessica sounds unimpressed. “Missed someone.”

“Maybe,” JB agrees, but he doesn’t sound like he believes it. Peter gets it. JB and Natasha had been more than just spies, more than just assassins - they were HYDRA’s greatest creations. No one knew how to destroy an organization like that the way they did.

Jessica shifts the kid on her hip. “So, what?” She turns to Peter, mouth curled. “You called Barnes here to take a look at this Russian lady?”

Beside her, Red looks at him. Peter stares back, considering. He can see it in Red’s stance; he won’t say a word about what he heard if Peter doesn’t bring it up first. He will keep Peter’s secret.

If Peter had the time to cry, he would now. As it is, he swallows, and says, “There’s more.”

Bucky stands back up from his crouch. “Of course there is.”

“She,” Peter jerks his head at the woman on the ground, “Knew who I was.”

Bucky stares at him. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Jessica echoes, with feeling.

“No one knows who I am,” Peter says, his voice low and urgent. He’d been trying to stuff his feelings down since he’d first heard his name from her lips, but now the fear is crawling up and making a home beside his heart. “No one alive, at least.”

Well, Rhodey knew, because Peter had broken into pieces three weeks after Stephen erased everyone’s memories and Rhodey had found him on the roof of the compound and just looked at him and Peter had confessed to it all right then and there. He doesn’t even really count Rhodey as alive, though, not really. Peter hasn’t seen the man in person since, but on the news he’s a shard of who he used to be, face sunken and voice hoarse without Tony at his side.

And Rhodey knew who he used to be. Not whatever Peter had transformed into now.

“Are you sure?” JB presses. The snow is sinking into his dark hair, clinging to his eyelashes like tears. “Not a single person?”

“No one,” Peter repeats. JB looks doubtful, and so does Jessica, but Red has his head tilted, all quiet, like he’s considering the truth of it. In the manner of needing to be believed, Peter lets himself open for a moment. Lets himself be honest. “I have no family and no friends,” he sounds like a robot. He doesn’t want to think about this. “I’ve got a job under a fake name and I do school online, man. I’m basically a ghost.”

Peter doesn’t look at Jessica or Red for their reactions; makes a conscious effort to tune out their breathing and heartbeats. He focuses on the man across from him instead.

There’s no pity in JB’s gaze, only understanding. He would know better than anyone what it means to not exist, Peter guesses. “Alright. So who did know your identity?”

No other questions asked. “Tony and Natasha,” Peter says. Happy and May and Ned and MJ, but they were gone now, in some way or another.

Red finally speaks, the usual growl in his voice suspiciously absent. “Barnes, you know I’m the last person who would speak negatively about Nat,” he starts, and Peter does a double take, confused; he hadn’t known that Red knew any of the Avengers at all.

JB nods his head before Red could finish. “I agree. If this woman is Russian, Natalia mighta known her. It’s probably how she knows who you are.”

Well maybe that would be plausible if Stephen didn’t perform a spell that made everyone forget Peter, Peter thought. He didn’t even know how to say that, though, nor did he particularly want to. His identity was his alone, now. His past was something he clutched onto with a desperation that bordered on madness.

Peter stares at the woman on the ground, cataloguing her face. There’s something familiar in the slope of her nose, the curve of her jaw. He’s interacted with someone who had shared her features, he’s sure of it, but he couldn’t put his finger on who.

“You see it too?” JB asks quietly. Peter guesses he’s been quite a beat too long, been staring for a noticeable amount of time.

“I don’t know,” Peter admits grimly, and then looks up, hears his heart thump in his chest, “Look, I can’t tell you why, or any details, but there is no feasible explanation that could solve how she knows me.”

Now JB looks pitying. “Natalia wouldn’t have betrayed your secret unless she thought it was absolutely necessary, kid.”

“This isn’t about her,” Peter denies, frustrated and scared and feeling like he’s on the edge of a cliff, staring down into the darkness below. “This isn’t possible. Strange did magic, okay? That - makes me hidden. Unknown. Even if Natasha told this woman, she shouldn’t remember.”

“The wizard?” JB asks, “Wait-“

“Don’t ask me questions,” Peter is desperate, and he’s begging, and he glances up at the sky, terrified he’s going to see monsters raining down, “Please, I’ve already said too much.”

Red steps forward, his warmth radiating into Peter’s side. “We can regroup later,” he says firmly, “Your partner’s nearly here.”

“You called Sam?” Peter asks, aghast.

JB just nodded and reached forward to take the child from Red’s arms. “I’ll need his help carrying these three to a safe house, won’t I?” He asks, not seeming sorry in the slightest. “I’ll text you in the mornin’, Spidey. You got my number.”

Peter hesitates. “What if-“

But JB cuts him off. “I’m guessin’ Natalia gave you the phone you called me from?”

Peter scuffed his foot against the ground. The phone was a light weight in a pocket at the back of his ankle - StarkTech, small and nearly indestructible.

“Thought so,” JB snorts, “So if anything, I know you got Barton’s number. Call ‘im if you can’t get me.”

Well, Peter can’t argue with that. JB was right, anyways. There were only three numbers in the contacts section - JB’s, Clint’s, and Natasha’s own.

“If you’re ever in over your head,” Natasha had said, pressing the phone into his palm, “No judgement, no questions asked. Promise me.”

Peter had promised, not really meaning it. But that’s when he had been young and convinced he could take on the world, naïve and spoiled in the love around him. He likes to think that he’s grown up since. Gotten a little wiser, a little more realistic. The proof of it is present with the man standing in front of him; Peter had texted JB, admitted to needing help.

911, he’d texted, Roof @ P84

And a message had been sent back within moments; K.

A man of many words, James Barnes is not.

He’d shown up, though. Peter thinks that’s what matters.

“Go,” JB tells him, “Or else Sam’ll make you come for a check up.”

“I’m staying,” Jessica says, moves forward to press a foot on the woman’s chest. “At least until Cap comes.”

Peter thinks about it, but really he doesn’t want to deal with Sam Wilson’s mothering. He feels overwhelmed already by the events of tonight; the snow is messing with his senses, too, making everything feel fuzzy and unreal.

“Come on,” Red nudges him, a soft brush, “I don’t live far from here. They’ve got it.”

An exchange, Peter thinks, again. This has become a pattern for them now. He’s so scared and he’s so numb that he doesn’t feel anything at all.

With a muttered goodbye to Jessica and JB, Peter jumps after Red. He follows him along the rooftops, too tired to swing. Red’s right, anyway, because they come to a stop only ten or so minutes later on a moderately high rise building, partially lit up by a neon purple billboard. It gives Peter a headache just looking at it.

“I hope you get a discount for that monstrosity,” Peter tells Red as he pushes open the roof access door.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Red says, in that mysterious voice he does, and leads him downstairs.

The man’s got a big apartment, even by New York standards, although there’s a startlingly amount of empty space. Sparsely decorated, there’s a couple couches, a coffee table and a rug, and some frames hanging from the wall with art too abstract for Peter to make sense of.

“Didn’t know you were loaded, Red,” Peter makes himself tease, feeling too vulnerable, his emotions still lingering between them. “Can’t even make sense of those paintings.”

“Huh?” Red asks, sliding past him and toward the kitchen, which was absurdly large and had a couple mugs in the sink.

“Your paintings,” Peter repeats, gesturing toward the walls. He lets himself fall onto the couch, tilting his face against the headrest. It’s soft, even through his mask; Peter can tell these couches certainly weren’t picked up from the side of the road like his own. “The ones that take up half your walls?”

Red snorts. “Oh, those. I can’t make sense of them either. My best friend picked them out.”

MJ loved art. She used to drag Peter to museums, sit in front of paintings for hours and hours and stare at them while Peter stared at her. “You can tell a lot about someone by what art they like,” she had told him once, “Like a window to their soul.”

“You’re my favorite piece of art,” Peter had told her, and she had laughed, said he wasn’t smooth, but Peter hadn’t really been joking, and maybe she could tell because she kissed him extra sweet.

Peter shook his head. It’s been a long night. Getting lost inside his memories was dangerous. There was a reason he never did it.

“Does he know?” Peter asks, accepting the mug that Red hands him, “About all this?”

Red sits down beside him, close enough that their shoulders brush. “Yeah. He doesn’t, uh, love it.”

Peter doesn’t know what that’s like, not really. Tony had been the one to make him an Avenger, and Natasha had started fighting even earlier than him. Ned was his guy in the chair and May and MJ both understood the emotions he wasn’t always good at verbalizing. No one had ever made him try and stop being Spider-Man, except for maybe Tony when he had taken away his suit.

“It’s not only him that knows,” Red offers up, taking a sip from his mug, “We run a business together with someone else, and she knows. And uh, Ka- she says that the media calls my friend group ‘The Defenders?’” It comes out like a question. He shrugs. “Yeah, well, they know too. A couple others.”

Peter says, “That’s a big circle,” and he doesn’t mean to be rude, and it’s not like he can talk anyway, what with the way that every hero at the final battle had seen his face before it was all erased, but that feels distant now. Especially when no one knows him now; he refuses to count that random Russian chick.

“I know,” Red agrees, not offended in the slightest, “Feels too much to me, most days. Get worried.”

Peter takes a sip from his mug. Irish coffee, he recognizes, and it’s warm and comforting as it slides down his throat. “I guess I’m lucky in some ways then.”

Red doesn’t even have a TV, Peter notices. There’s one of those old radios in the corner instead, antennas high, like it actually gets used and it’s not just there as decoration. It’s strange, but then a lot of things about Red are strange.

“You can sleep here tonight,” Red tells him, all quiet, like he knows it’s a big thing to offer, “Snow messes up your senses, right?”

“Yeah.”

Red confides, “Mine too. ‘S fine, Spidey. You can leave before I wake up.”

Peter thinks about it. He’s so tired and the warmth of the coffee hasn’t helped that, even with the caffeine, and he really does want to close his eyes. The snow makes everything feel muted; he knows he’ll sleep well. Red’s apartment isn’t far from Josie’s, either, and Peter keeps extra clothes there, could go straight without stopping at his own apartment.

He thinks of all of these things, but it’s one thought that stands out; Red had heard that woman call him by his name, and he hadn’t said it once. Not in front of the others, and not even when they were alone. He’s waiting for Peter to say something first. He cares, Peter thinks, really cares.

“Okay,” Peter agrees, “I’ll stay.”

Red smiles at him, and it’s a soft thing. He doesn’t look like the devil now. “Take my bed. Don’t argue - I need to stay up and do some work anyways.”

Peters too tired to argue at all. “Okay,” he agrees again, mindlessly. It’s not mindless when he says, hesitantly, “You can call me Peter.”

Red presses his shoulder against his, firm instead of the brush it had been. “Alright, Peter. I’m Matt.”

Peter remembers how JB prayed in the waiting room, a lifetime ago, when no one could answer him when he asked where Natasha was. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, he would mutter, over and over, until Clint Barton came out at Pepper and Rhodey’s heels, and JB got an answer that made him have to put his head between his knees and focus on breathing.

JB and Natasha had known each other in the Red Room, which Peter knew from brief stories and also the dump of the SHIELD files, some fifteen years ago. And then they found each other again - and then Natasha lost JB in the snap and JB lost Natasha before he’d even realized she was gone, and Peter isn’t really sure what they were, except for something with care and respect and some type of love.

Peter thinks about this because he’s had a dad, and he died, and he’s had an Uncle Ben, and he died, and he’s had a Tony, and he died, and now he has a Matt, and he’s alive, and there’s a pattern here. He doesn’t know if he wants a Matt. Not when he’s still grieving the loss of Tony in a way that bowls him over some nights, makes him crouch in front of the Iron Man murals and wail for a man that was barely even present in Peter’s life when he was alive.

He’d been present enough, though. Present enough that he was a victim of Parker luck, as Ben used to say. Dead and gone.

“Hey,” Red says, drawing him back. He sets his mug down on the coffee table and places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s just me and you.”

He remembers May. She loved him, in the end. Of course she had. He imagines her now, yelling at him for being so stubborn. Let yourself be loved, she would say, let yourself be cared for.

So Peter takes the last sip from his mug and agrees. “Okay.”

Red - Matt gives him clothes. Tells him he’s welcome to keep his mask on, but he should be in comfort otherwise. So Peter accepts, changes into a shirt with ‘Columbia’ across the front and sleep pants so soft they feel like silk. And then he climbs into Matt’s bed and it actually is silk, which makes him laugh.

He can hear the snow falling. The sound of Matt flipping pages in the living room and the wind blowing against the window. It’s calm. Peaceful.

He falls asleep. He doesn’t dream.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

JB’s sitting at the kitchen table when Peter slides open the window to his apartment, quiet as can be. Not quiet enough, though, because the man looks up from where he’s reading the newspaper, eyes crinkling with a smile.

“Hey, kid,” he greets, taking a sip from his mug, which has a picture of cartoon Gandalf across the front.

Peter drops into the chair across from his, crossing his legs up. He’s a little cold, even though he’s in layers still - the spider suit is covered in sweats and one of Ben’s old police academy hoodies, worn and soft. His mask still covers his face, but he rolls it up to his nose to steal a sip of JB’s coffee.

“You still want that bagel?” Sam hollers from the kitchen, obviously fighting to be heard over the jazz that’s playing.

“Make it two,” JB hollers back, grinning brightly. He looks happier, Peter thinks. There are children’s drawings tucked in the window sills and Peter can see paintings covering the hallway walls. Beautiful paintings, too, and what looks like old music sheets and printed poetry.

“Nice place,” Peter tells him, ‘cause May raised him to be polite, and also ‘cause he means it. It feels warm, here.

“You should see the bedroom,” JB tells him earnestly, “Got a Monet across our bed.”

“Wait, what,” Peter says, but then Sam’s walking in with plates down his arms like he’s a damn waiter.

“Fuck!” Sam says, and flinches at the sight of Peter, plates wobbling. He pitches forward and barely manages to slide everything on the table. “Jesus, fuck, when did you get here?”

“Like a minute ago,” Peter tells him, “Wait, JB, do you mean a real Monet-“

JB claps his hands. “Eat up, Webs, gotta be a strong spider!”

Peter decides he doesn’t want to know. He eats his bagel.

Sam stares at him. Squints and tilts his head in a very Matt-like gesture. “Do you have venom?”

“Dude,” Peter says, with feeling, “I wish, that would be so fucking cool.”

JB nods in agreement.

“Christ,” Sam says, “There’s two of you.”

He turns down the jazz music and brews Peter coffee. Makes fun of JB for still reading the physical copy of the newspaper. Heats up a pack of pop tarts and gives Peter one, and Peter eats it, peels off the crust and eats that last.

“Alright,” JB says, after he’s eaten three plates of eggs, a bagel, a muffin, three cups of coffee, finished his crossword, and yelled about Wilson Fisk. “Time for work.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Stack your plates, Barnes. Spidey, walk us through exactly what happened on Sunday.”

JB stacks his plates. “Jess already told us, Sammy. Ain’t needa make the kid live it again.”

“It’s fine,” Peter lies, and he tells them. Lets himself go into greater depth than Jessica probably had - talks about how the woman fought, which leg she used to kick him, the white scar he had noticed on her wrist and the way the moonlight had reflected off of the red shine of her hair. He tells them about talking to the kid in Russian, how the boy was standing alone and how much calmer he was, how much more trusting he had been, and the way the woman had looked at Peter before she had said his name.

By the end of it, Sam’s massaging his forehead like he’s got a headache. “You remember a hell of a lot, don’t you?”

Peter shrugs.

“Probably remembers more than I do ‘bout anything,” JB says, a weak grin going along with the weak joke, “Natalia taught you Russian, kid?”

Peter admits, “A little.”

JB hums. “Didn’t know you two were so close,” he taps his metal fingers against the table, the sound echoing and quiet, “She kept you a secret.”

“She kept a lot of things secret,” Peter shoots back, “And no,” he’s exhausted, doesn’t know how to explain, “We weren’t close.”

They’d gone on two missions together. The airport in Germany and the disaster in Midtown that shall never be fully explained. He’d talked to her at Stark Tower, once or twice, when it was pouring rain and thundering and May had been on night shift anyways, so he’d just stayed the night. Those nights feel like a dream, and sometimes he thinks it was. She’d been a criminal, then, but that had never stopped her. And Tony had let her crawl back into his home like a kicked dog, and Peter watched from the hallway once as they threw kitchenware at each other, screaming the whole time. It’d been the most emotion he’d ever seen out of Natasha, and not altogether surprising; Tony knew how to push buttons, even spies with so many personalities they couldn’t keep them all straight.

“She gave you my number,” JB says this like it means something, which, yeah, it probably does, “Seems like something.”

Helpless, Peter shrugs. “I was young when I started out,” it’s a confession, maybe, because he’s still young, still feels like the kid he used to be, sometimes, “I think she connected with that, related or something. I don’t know. She was nice to me.”

“Nice,” Sam repeats, laughing. “Nat?” But it’s said with an aching sort of fondness, because Sam had been on the run with her for years with Steve, knew her probably better than most people.

“Always,” And he’s telling the truth, but then he genuinely only had met her a couple times, so what did he know? “She watched out for me. Kept me safe. I was in over my head a lot, scared to tell Tony half the time. Think she knew that.”

JB’s gaze is far off. “She was like that with the other girls.”

Peter pauses.

“She would take their punishments,” JB adds, “Except she was real smart about it, always made it seem like it was for her own gain. Only the real little girls, though. She didn’t try to protect the other ones. Survival of the fittest, that’s a thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam’s all casual about it, like this is a normal conversation, “Like natural selection. Don’t know if it fits in this case.”

Peter, ever the scientist, says, “Meh.”

“There was this little girl that followed her just ‘bout everywhere. Blonde thing,” JB squints at the ceiling as if it’s his memories that he’s trying to call into focus, “Biggest baby face I ever did see. ‘Cept she went on a mission with Nati, and Nati came back, an’ she didn’t. An’ then I never saw her again.”

Well. Peter blinks. “That’s… not the same woman who knows me, right?”

“Nah,” JB’s face clears, “They got completely different faces. I forget the blonde’s name. Bet Barton knows, I should ask-“ Sam reaches behind him, toward the counter, and writes this down as smooth as a ritual, “I know I remember this new one, that redhead? Must’ve trained her myself. Her Russian sounds like mine. American.”

“She’s a bad fighter,” Peter says honestly, “No offense. Me and Double D took her down after five minutes.”

JB shrugs and picks the muffin crumbs off his plate. “Never said I was good at training, did I?” He lets out a bark of laughter, “Think I taught half of ‘em bad on purpose. Just to see if I could.”

Sam slides the paper back to the counter, now covered in notes of things JB has just said. “You better not half-ass watching my six,” he threatens, “I’ll set Redwing on you.”

“Not the bird,” JB gasps. It’s nice to see him joke, Peter thinks. Nice to see him as carefree as he seems now. All soft with Sam. All accepting of himself.

“Back on track, please,” Peter raps his knuckles on the table, “You said her Russian was strange. You talked to her?”

JB nods. “Yesterday. She didn’t have an accent or nothing. I don’t sound American when I speak Russian. She just speaks all weird. The grammar ain’t right.”

“Your grammar sucks in every language,” Sam cuts at him, voice tilting.

“I could make it sound nice, if I wanted too,” JB says, and his Brooklyn accent changes to something posh, something like Liz Toomes or Flash’s. Peter wrinkles his nose. “I can sound anyway I want too, Sammy.”

“You know I was just teasing,” Sam says, all grumpy at being proven wrong. “Finish your story.”

JB goes back to his normal accent. Depths of old Brooklyn and army drawl says, “She didn’t say much. I told her I thought we got all the HYDRA bases, and she sprouted that damn quote at me. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. That bullshit.”

Bullshit, Peter thinks, what bullshit. It’s not fair. He sounds like a child so he doesn’t voice this, but he thinks it real loud. Angry. It’s not fair for Peter, not fair for his (nonexistent) heart problems or his (very existent) head problems, and it’s not fair for JB, who spent six months in a healing ice chamber in Wakanda and a year and a half and some change trying to deprogram the parts of his brain that told him he was never going to be more than the weapon HYDRA made him into.

But none of this shows on JB’s face. “I told her I was sorry. That me and Nati hadn’t found her, and she looked real confused. Didn’t say much else,” then he considers, “I asked her questions ‘bout the kids. Did they have their vaccines, what blood type were they, did she know if they’d been experimented on. She knew some of the answers, not all.”

“That’s helpful, actually,” Peter’s serious. It means that she’s probably not their mother; means that she hasn’t been around them for long enough to know these things. That could mean these kids were only recently kidnapped; or it could mean they were raised seperately from her but still by HYDRA. He was trying to be optimistic.

But Sam confirms his thoughts with a couple words. “We did a rush DNA test. None of them are related. And the kids were willing to talk.”

“I let them play with my arm,” JB says smugly. Who knew he would be a child whisperer? Peter guessed seeing a guy who looked half-robot would’ve impressed him as a kid, too.

“Girl’s called Polina,” Sam continues with the practiced ease of ignoring his partner on a daily basis, “She wouldn’t talk to us, we had to get Sharon Carter to come in, sweet talk her in Russian.”

She wouldn’t talk to us, Sam says, and Peter hears what he really means; she was scared of the grown men.

“Sharon did an exam. Evidence of human trafficking,” JB confirms, and there’s no joking tone anymore. Just a darkness that lingers in the shadows of his face and the twitch of his trigger finger. “Polina said she’s from Esso. Tiny village in Russia, real rural. Not unusual for children to wander into the woods and never come back. She said tourists come by for directions a lot. She was telling a man how to get to a trail, and then she was waking up in a basement.”

Peter closes his eyes. “Does she know how long?”

“A year,” which is both better and worse than Peter had hoped for, “She met the redhead three months ago. Said her name was Nadia.”

Nadia. Peter mouths the name, lets it become familiar against his tongue, the same way his name had rolled against her lips.

“The boy only got picked up two months ago,” Sam adds, “He’s older. 10. Remembers more. Isak, he’s from Norway.”

JB interjects, “Knows less Russian than you, Spidey.”

Not that that’s hard, Peter thinks.

“He hadn’t been sold yet,” Sam says quietly. “Just said that they picked him up and they’ve been,” his lips curls, and his next words are jumbled, pushed out, “Making him watch movies, practice on dolls. Things like that. He met Nadia and Polina last month, they’ve all been together since. Nadia leaves sometimes, he says, but always comes back looking beat up, so he doesn’t think she’s happy about it.”

Peter makes himself breathe. He thinks of being 8 and the way he had began to flinch when he heard Skip’s voice. When hearing Einstein started sounding like a curse instead of a nickname. Hands on him and hands off him and Skip’s gaze locked on his, even as they pushed him into the backseat of a cop car, hands cuffed and metal shining in the summer sun.

“HYDRA, you think?” Peter makes himself say, voice hoarse.

“Sounds like it,” JB stands up and goes into the kitchen, places his dishes in the sink, blase as can be. “The Red Room, if we’re bein’ more specific. They used to make the girls watch pornos, you know? Had the girls and boys shower together after. And they’d all stand there, and the water would be cold, and no one wanted to do anything, but you’d have too. Because that’s what was expected.”

Peter thinks about Natasha telling Tony I’m sorry. And how Tony had scoffed and said You’re always something. And how Natasha had said All I have left is sorry. And then how she had thrown a spatula at him, because Natasha was a lot of things, but she was always violent.

Sam just sits there and listens to JB talk, blank faced, as if this isn’t the worst thing he’s ever heard. He’s a vet, Peter knows. And he knows that Sam was in the Raft. Remembers when the torture allegations came out after Steve had staged a prison break. He thinks about how Sam had been put into prison by the same country he was fighting for. The land of the free, Peter thinks, what a fucking joke.

“What’s going to happen to them?” Peter asks over the sound of JB scrubbing dishes into the sink. “Polina and Isak?”

“Isak will go home to his family,” Sam takes over, steeping his fingers, “I’m sending a friend of mine to rent an apartment near him, keep an eye. Polina… she’s going to need more time. Sharon’ll watch over her for a while. Help her recover. Then, maybe, back to Esso. It’s a harder case.”

“Because she’s Russian,” Peter concludes. And so is HYDRA. Sending her back into the same country of people who took her in the first place perhaps wouldn’t be the smartest idea.

“And because she was trafficked,” JB says, bringing over three glasses of water. “You don’t just get over somethin’ like that.”

Peter remembers when he was a kid, and the city would put those sponsored messages on the sides of buses, across the screens in Times Square. Speak up, they said. Tell someone. In reality, no one ever wanted to hear it. Peter became intimately aware of this as he spoke his sermon in court, telling the jury about the way Skip’s fingers burnt against his skin. He’d asked if May and Ben could wait outside, because he didn’t want them to hear. The disgust on the jury’s faces had been enough.

Peter hasn’t thought this much about Skip in years. Sitting in that courtroom feels like a lifetime ago. And yet he understands what Bucky means. There was no conscious thought toward the man, but sometimes, even now, Peter flinched at the sight of boys with platinum blonde hair, avoided patrolling along the street that Skip had lived on. Subconscious decisions that impacted him, and he had, at the very least, been able to communicate eventually to get help.

That little girl was stuck in a country she didn’t know, surrounded by men who didn’t speak her language, and Peter feels sick.

“Sharon took Polina back to her place,” JB adds, gentling at whatever shape Peter’s mouth had twisted into. “Sharon, she’s Peggy Carter’s granddaughter. Steve’s girl, co-founded SHIELD.”

“So she’s safe,” Peter tells more than asks. “And Nadia?”

Sam shifts in his chair. “She’s still at the safe house. We’ve got people watching over her, no chance she’s leaving, but we don’t know what to do with her. She’d be escaping out of prison in a day, unless we send her to the Raft.”

“No,” is ripped out of Peter’s throat. “No.”

“Trust me,” Sam’s eyes are shadowed as he says it, and he doesn’t react as JB grazes a hand against his cheek as he sits back down, “She doesn’t deserve that place. Not sure anyone does.”

“Except the fuckers who are trying to rebuild HYDRA,” JB rebutes, his grin sharp. “They ain’t as tough as you were, Sammy.”

“Alright,” It’s easy for Peter to agree, “So what do we do?”

“Get her to talk,” Sam offers, “Not sure how.”

“We just gotta figure out who she was to Natalia,” JB tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. It bounces back immediately, and he blows on it, irritated. “If she’s safe, then we can throw Spidey in there, they can talk, peace and kumbaya, the end.”

Peter can’t help but laugh. JB reminds him of Tony, which he can never say out loud, because he’s sure JB probably wouldn’t take it all that well, but it’s true regardless. They’re both so brash, so dry and sarcastic. The hole of loss beats steadily in his chest, a constant and familiar pressure.

“I doubt Natasha left journals for us to go through,” Peter points out.

JB shakes his head, a quirk to his lips. “You’d be surprised,” all mysterious, and Peter rolls his eyes, wonders why everyone is bringing out their inner-Matt today, “Naw. We can just text Barton.”

Ugh. “Ugh,” Sam echoes Peter’s thoughts, nose crinkling. “He’s so… Barton.”

“Didn’t he kill like, thousands of people? Murder spree after the snap?” Peter asks, and listen, he’s not judging, but also, he’s maybe judging a little, just because Natasha had survived the snap too, and did he just leave her alone the whole time to fight drug lords instead?

“He’s better now,” JB waves a hand dismissively. “And he loved Natalia. Knew her better than anyone.”

Peter can’t argue that.

“I don’t like this,” Sam says anyways, voice low as he twists in his chair. “People change in five years, Buck.”

“Look who you’re talkin’ to,” JB says dryly. “I don’t like how Nadia knows Spidey’s name, so we got’ta deal. Sorry, doll.”

“Just for the kid,” Sam compromises, “Then we only see him on holidays.”

“Holidays?” JB despairs, like they’re fighting for custody, “What about if we’re in the same place?”

“He gives me the creeps, man,” Sam insists, “The heebie-jeebies, the chills, the-“

Peter tunes them out and roots around in his sweatpants until he pulls out his phone, which now also has Matt’s number, and Jess’ too. He swipes past those and clicks on the contact labeled Clint.

Need 2 talk, Peter types, Bcz Nat. Thurs?

2200 Roof @ Saraghina.

Bed Stuy? Peter types back.

R u fucking stupid, Clint responds.

Peter winces; See u then!

“Too late,” he tells Sam, a little apologetically, “I just did it. Hope you guys are free Thursday night.”

Sam tries to slam his head into the table. JB slides his hand into the space between right before it hits, and grins brightly. “I’ll cancel my puppy yoga class.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter gets to Fogwell’s before Matt for once, and takes a seat where he always does, closes his eyes and sets his hands on his knee.

He’d had off from work today. Slept in and knocked out as many of his online assignments as he could; he was on track to graduate a year early with a degree in economics, which was altogether quite useless but May always told him his undergrad didn’t matter if he went to grad school. He didn’t really know what he wanted to do; had dreamed about majoring in biochemical engineering at MIT, but that was a long time ago. He didn’t have a steady enough schedule to be able to go into class daily for labs, so he chose a soft science instead. And anyways, he had no idea what he wanted to do anymore.

Whenever he thought about biology now, all he could focus on was the radiation he knew pumped through his own body. He couldn’t help but wonder how chemicals would react if he spilled a drop of blood or lost an eyelash, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it, either.

So he’d finished his work easily, ate an early dinner, and spent the last hours of daylight and early hours of the night swinging around Queens and Midtown, stopping whoever was brave enough to face the cold and commit crime anyway. Mostly business men and women walking home from work and being dragged into an alleyway for their wallets, but Peter always got there fast, even with the light sprinkling of snow. He didn’t call the cops on all the muggers, just the ones with guns - the others all gave him the same story. It was cold out, and they needed money for food, or a night in a hotel so they wouldn’t freeze to death on the street. He did his usual routine, directing them to a nearby church or the organization May used to volunteer at, FEAST, and made them promise to call for him next time they needed anything.

The snow was falling heavily by 10 so Peter had made his way to the gym early, heaters off - he didn’t want to double impair his senses. It was warm in Fogwell’s, even sitting on the cold mat, and Peter let himself float for a long moment, the emptiness coming easily. Meditation didn’t feel out of reach anymore, just hard to grasp, harder to hold onto. That was okay, Peter thought. It was already getting better, and wasn’t that something?

He still hears when Matt arrives, not overtly in the zone he knows that the other man oftentimes gets into. Peter didn’t think he’d ever reach that level of pure nothingness. He would always be aware of his surroundings. It wasn’t even a conscious decision.

“Snow?” Matt asks knowingly, tapping one of the horns of his helmet. “You can stand up. I meditated this morning.”

Peter bounces to the balls of his feet. “Yeah, it was making everything sound weird.”

“It does that,” Matt agrees mildly. How he isn’t freezing to death in his leather get up, especially with the bottom half of his face and neck uncovered, Peter has no idea. He definitely looks a bit red from the cold, which at least makes Peter believe he’s maybe human after all. “Alright, let’s review.”

Back to blocking and stances and falling they go, until Peter’s sure he’ll have some decent bruises in the morning. It’s a good kind of pain, though. It feels rewarding, like he’s doing something right, and not in the vaguely masochistic way he used to feel when he would get hurt after May died in street fights.

“Alright,” Matt says finally, reaching down to help Peter to his feet, “Your footwork is better than I expected. Your, uh, sixth sense helps, I’m sure. We should focus more on your hand to hand combat.”

Peter nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, I only know stuff from like, YouTube.”

Matt breathes out of his nose and ducks his head, hiding a smile. “Back to the basics, then.”

Matt decides that they should start with boxing, since it’s the most straightforward fighting there is, and teaches him how to jab, how to twist his fist and create enough space to keep punching without getting hurt himself.

They practice on bags, first, because Peter’s scared he’ll accidentally lose control of his strength and punch Matt’s face off. Eventually, though, they move back into the ring, and Peter just makes sure to keep half his focus on the man in front of him and half his focus on not winding back before he punches too much.

They switch to uppercuts, which Peter thinks are just as cool in real life as they are in the movies, and then work on hooks and crosses, too. Matt’s good at boxing, swims through the motions like it’s as easy as breathing. “I grew up on this,” he tells Peter, dodging a sloppy hook, “My dad was a boxer, and we couldn’t afford a babysitter, so I always came here.”

In return, Peter offers, “My uncle was a cop, so he taught me to shoot before I was even taking Algebra.”

Matt laughs at that, but he doesn’t call Ben irresponsible or anything, which Peter appreciates.

“So you would just go and watch your dad fight everyday?” Peter asks, curious now, “Like, after school?”

Matt’s mouth twists into a smirk. “I watched him until I couldn’t anymore,” all mysterious, because what the fuck does that even mean, but Peter’s used to it, so he just rolls his eyes.

Matt lands a hard punch to Peter’s ribs, and Peter dances back on light feet in response, not letting himself react. “Good,” Matt praises, and there’s a beat of silence, and then he says, “You find anything out about those kids?”

Well, he took his time before he asked, and Peter’s thankful for that. Needed some normalcy. But it’s back to business, understandably, and anyways Matt had been the one who had found out about the trafficking in the first place, and who let Peter stay in his apartment after, so he deserved to know.

“They’re safe,” Peter tells him, and breaks the hand to hand combat rule to aim a kick at Matt’s legs, but Matt just jumps over it instead, “The boy’s back with his family, the girl has some recovering to do before she can leave too.”

Matt’s lips are a line. Angry, at that, because he knows what it means. “And the woman?”

Peter steps in and jabs at Matt’s neck. Retreats when he blocks it before Peter can even finish the move. “You ever take an Anthropology course, Red?”

Matt snorts. “I was a philosophy major in undergrad. Half of my classes were Anthropology.”

“Well, we’re watching this film in my class right now,” Peter tells him, leans back against the ring ropes. “There’s this tribe in East Africa called the Masai. All the men are warriors, right?”

“Right,” Matt says, taking a seat in the middle of the ring, legs sprawled.

“And so they spend half their lives fighting and protecting their village and each other. Then they retire, yeah, they need sons to continue that tradition on,” Peter takes off the boxing gloves, pulls at the Velcro with his teeth, “But some of the men don’t have children. They live anyways, you know, but then they die, of old age or whatever, and the village leaves their bodies out in the fields for the vultures, and no one speaks their names ever again. They’re forgotten, because that’s the punishment for not continuing the lineage.”

Matt’s just looking up at him, head tilted.

Peter sits beside him, lets their knees brush. “And the men who do have sons, their names are spoken through folktales forever. They get laid to rest underground, so nothing can take pieces of them above,” Peter pauses, and Matt’s still looking at him, so Peter looks up at the ceiling, at the window that’s nearly covered by snow. “Anyways, my point is that those men, the ones who get forgotten, they were still warriors. They were still people, right, even if they didn’t have sons? But the Masai don’t see it that way. Either you’re a father or you are nothing at all.”

Peter looks at where his and Matt’s knees are brushing against each other. Matt’s dark red leather and Peter’s neon blue spandex. “That’s what happened to me,” he admits for the first time, voice quiet, all other sounds muffled by the snow, “My identity got exposed, and my family got hurt, so I fixed it. Instead of being a warrior and a father - myself and Spider-Man - I made myself into just a warrior. No one remembers me and no one knows me, that’s my punishment for being Spider-Man.”

Peter doesn’t look up, because he’s scared, and vulnerable. “I could’ve given up Spider-Man. Made everyone forget him instead, and I could live as just Peter Parker forever. But,” he pauses. It’s shameful. It’s true. “Either I’m Spider-Man or I’m nothing at all.”

He’d always had such a hard time being just Peter. At his core, he was a double orphan who would never stop grieving his own life, the one he could have lived if things were different. Peter Parker wasn’t weak, far from it. But he didn’t have to be anyone at all when he was Spider-Man. When he was dressed in his suit, he got to be someone who saved everyone who needed it. Spider-Man didn’t have problems, he had no identity nor being outside of what he was so busy accomplishing. There were no expectations then, not when he was swinging through the air.

Matt taps his knee against Peter’s. Voice low, he says, “In ancient Egypt, the worst punishment was being forgotten. Like your Masai. You know, the, uh, artwork the Egyptians did? I went to this museum, once, and there was this one wall that archeologists carved out from the funerary pyramids, and it was filled with old drawings of the people buried there. Except there was one spot where someone had come back and chiseled away one of the drawings, so that no one would know who they were in the future.”

Peter looks up at Matt, finally, but Matt’s the one looking away now, his head tilted toward the sky. “I ran my fingers along the wall, and I felt it. The absence of whoever he was. And how much rage and pain the person who chiseled him out must have been in to do such an awful thing. But it didn’t work, you know?” Matt turns his head, now, tilting at Peter, “He still existed. I know he still existed. He was still someone.”

“I could feel him, under my fingers,” Matt half-smiles at him, kinda sad looking, and reaches out, taps Peter’s knee with his knuckles, “Just like I can feel you.”

Peter closes his eyes. When he opens them, Matt is still there. It’s not a dream. Someone is next to him, and he exists, and he’s understood.

He wonders how different his life would have been if he had met Matt earlier. If he would have taken Tony’s spot before he was there to occupy it. Well, occupy it as much as Tony had been able too - half heartedly, badly. Peter thinks that Matt would have occupied it better.

He doesn’t know how to be a son. Doesn’t know if he needs someone to be his dad, not anymore. He’s never really had one, but Matt kind of acts like how he imagines one’s supposed too. With care for Peter. With no judgement. Which is funny, Peter thinks, because the man hasn’t even seen his face, and Peter hasn’t seen his either, and he’s still unsure about whether or not he’s really the devil. And yet.

And yet.

Peter sets his head down on Matt’s shoulder, slow and careful. It’s the first time he’s touched anyone gently in months. It feels like years, though. Maybe he’s a little touch starved. He can feel his heart beating, beating, and it’s overwhelming, especially with the snow - so he listens to Matt’s instead.

Steady. Calm. Just like Matt is. It’s healthy, Peter can tell. And there’s no green goblin here to destroy Matt’s apartment building. He’s safe. They’re safe.

“You still exist, Peter,” Matt lays his head down on top of Peter’s, feather light. “I would never leave you with the vultures.”

And, well.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

JB and Sam are already on the roof and arguing by the time Peter and Matt make their way to Bed Stuy, stopping a couple petty crimes along the way, including saving a dog who had run straight in front of a cab. Matt had pet the thing aggressively on the head and told it suicide wasn’t the answer. Peter still wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.

“You got Spidey and the Devil, man,” Sam’s saying when Peter and Matt make it up the fire escape and roll onto the roof two minutes before the clock hits ten, “Just let me go home, I’ll make those little cakes you like, even-“

“It’s fuckin’ Clint,” JB’s unimpressed with the negotiations, arms crossed. The fingers of his metal arm glint. “You’re scared of Barton, Sammy, really?”

Petulantly, Sam mutters, “I’m not scared.”

“Lie,” Matt chimes in, but he says it in his scary Daredevil voice, all growl, and yeah, silhouetted against the moonlight, he looks pretty intimidating, so Peter doesn’t even judge (that much) when Sam lets out a yelp of surprise.

“Fuck!” Sam curses, and hits JB on the shoulder, he’s nearly bent over laughing, “You - fucking, fucking creepy ass mutants-“

“Mutates,” Matt and Peter correct at the same time, which Peter finds a little surprising, he never would’ve guessed that Matt hadn’t always been as scary as he was.

Guess that’s confirmation he’s not actually a born devil. Damn. That would’ve been cool.

“Whatever,” Sam snaps, and hits JB again, because he’s still laughing, “Jesus, the devil and his mini, you two are too damn alike.”

“Mini,” Peter scoffs, “I’m not that much shorter than any of you.”

Matt, in all his creepy hearing glory, says, “Hi, Clint.”

And there’s Clint Barton, materializing out of the shadows of the roof like he had teleported there or something, his expression stormy. In dark pants, a quarter zip, and a puffy jacket, he doesn’t look too threatening, but it’s the way that he carries himself that gives him away. Like nothing could knock him down; and his hair, cropped close to his face - military cut.

“Red,” he nods at Matt, and Peter despairs, of course the two of them knew each other, of course they did. “Wilson. JB.”

JB gives a crooked smile and strides forward, pulls him into something like a hug. “Kids doin’ good? Laura?”

“Yeah,” Clint says gruffly, but grips JB back all the same. “Lila says you owe her knife throwing practice, JB, you little shit.”

“Oops,” JB backs away, his face the picture of innocence. “She’s grown. Heard you got an apprentice, anyway. Girl Hawkeye?”

“Just Hawkeye,” Clint tells him, but there’s a smile on his face, soft and proud. “Two of us now. Name’s Kate. She’s,” he points his chin toward a rooftop on their left, “Watching over us now, actually.”

“You thought we were going to kill you?” Sam asks, incredulous, hands in the air, turns to JB and says, “He’s got a fucking sniper on us, Buck, you see what I mean now or what.”

“She’s not a sniper,” Clint defends, shoving his hands in his pockets, “She’s got a bow and some real good eyes. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” Sam repeats, voice high. “That’s all, are you-“

Clint sighs. “I’m not gonna kill you, Sam. Weren’t we cell buddies down the Raft? When we weren’t being tortured, I mean.”

“Clint,” JB warns sharply at the same time Sam says “Fuck you.”

Clint just shrugs. “Was a long time ago.”

“Not for me,” Sam reminds, and his voice cracks, like he’s trying not to cry. Peter looks away. He doesn’t know what happened at the Raft, doesn’t know if he ever will. Ross stepped down after the torture allegations got leaked anyway, and there must’ve been enough proof to stop the Accords from passing because of it, but Peter didn’t know much outside of that. That was Sam’s pain; Clint’s and Wanda’s and Scott’s. He wouldn’t intrude on that.

After a long moment, Clint, grudgingly, admits, “Guess not.” JB taps his foot, like he’s waiting on Sam’s apology for him. Awkwardly, Clint tries, “Your screams weren’t as annoying at Lang’s?”

“Dude,” Peter says.

Clint claps his hands and runs with the distraction of Peter’s voice. “You’re the one who texted me. Natasha’s little spider friend.”

“I’m not little,” Peter says indignantly, then flushes, because that’s exactly what a little person would say, “Whatever. Yeah.”

“Catch me up,” Clint says, “Me and Kate are heading to the farm tomorrow morning, don’t take long.”

Peter rolls his eyes but complies, allowing Red to jump in and better explain Nadia’s fighting style, since he fought her for longer than Peter had. JB tells Clint about his talk (interrogation) with her and the way she refused to say much, and Sam explains the kids and everything that happened to them.

“Pause,” Clint holds a hand up, “You gave the little girl to Sharon Carter? Really?”

“What’s wrong with Carter?” JB asks, shoulders raised, “Ain’t we see how sweet Stevie was on her, way back when?”

“Nothings wrong with her, Buck, honest,” Sam reassures, and then, a little quieter, rushes out, “She’s just got her own agenda, so I took Polina from her after you left and gave her to Daisy Johnson instead.”

“Good choice,” Clint nods.

“You what?” JB asks, aghast.

Peter says, “Who even is that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam continues, rocking on his feet, “She’s safe, they all are. It’s fine. That’s not why we’re here.”

“What?” and now Clint’s the one confused; he fiddles with his hearing aids, as if blaming them for what he just heard, “So I don’t get to shoot human traffickers?”

“We ain’t in Hell’s Kitchen, Devil, Clint can do whatever he damn pleases in Bed Stuy,” JB says, sounding exhausted, as Matt opens his mouth in outrage, “Shoot as many as you want, Barton, don’t matter to me. We needa know how Natalia knew this Nadia woman.”

“Nadia knew my name,” Peter adds on before Clint can ask, and he doesn’t even sound desperate for answers anymore, just empty. “And my face. Only person that knew that was Natasha.”

Clint’s squinting at him, arms crossed. “I know you,” he tells Peter, and Peter forces himself not to flinch, even when Clint winces harshly, reaches up to rub his forehead. “I know so many stories about you. There are… pieces, missing.”

“You don’t even want to know,” JB says. That coming from the tortured assassin veteran obviously means something, so Clint takes a step back, shaking his head roughly. “Focus. Nadia?”

But Clint’s already frowning. Bad sign. “Nah. Never heard of a Nadia. How old did you say she was?” Then he turns to JB, asks, “You ever find a Dottie? Tasha talked about her.”

“I can give you coordinates to where they made me put the bones,” JB offers, and Clint sighs, mutters something about should’ve known.

“Early twenties, probably,” Sam tries to pull them back on track.

“She’s too young for Tasha,” Clint tells them, steadfast, “They kept the older girls away from the younger ones, said it would trigger latent maternal instincts, or somethin’. And anyways, I know all of Tasha’s girls, she never had a Nadia. Nadezhda?”

“Bless you,” says Peter.

JB snorts. “No, kid. That’s Nadia’s non-Americanized name.”

“Last?” Clint asks, and pulls out his phone, presses his thumb against the key pad and begins typing.

“Isak - the little boy - told us that she said it was Trovaya,” Sam says warily, “Don’t be mad, Spidey, we didn’t tell you because-“

“It’s not true,” JB cuts off bluntly. His hair is beginning to gain flecks of white from the snow again, stark against his black hair. “Don’t think it is, at least.”

Peter thinks about asking why not, but he’s pretty sure he already knows. He feels validated, at least. Knew he recognized something about her face. They must have too; and, like Peter, they had no idea who it was they saw.

“Alright,” Clint says, sliding his phone back into his pocket, “I texted Tasha’s sister. She’ll probably respond soon. Maybe. Possibly.”

Sister, Peter thinks. He hadn’t known. Judging by Sam’s face, he hadn’t either.

“She never mentioned,” Matt says quietly, though not sounding personally offended, just hurt and grieving all at once.

“She only ever told me,” Clint says, and it’s not a brag or anything, just a fact that Peter had already guessed. “Maybe Wanda eventually, I don’t know.”

“The blonde girl,” JB snaps his metal fingers, wincing at the sound, “With the baby face.”

“She’s still got the baby face,” Clint mock confides, grinning, “I gave her your number, Mini Red, she’ll reach out.”

Peter wasn’t sure about that new nickname. “So you can’t tell us anything?”

“I’m useless,” Clint agrees.

Peter stares at him. Puppy eyes are harder when you have a mask on.

They work anyways. “Tasha’s sister grew up in the KGB, too,” Clint sighs, reaches up to rub his hand over short hair, “She’s around your Nadia’s age. If she’s from the red room, there’s a big chance ‘Lena knows her.”

That’s some depressing family history, not that Peter can really talk.

“She’ll know her,” JB agrees, shifting on his feet. “I’d say there were only, eh, ten girls?” He looked at Clint, who nodded, before continuing, “Ten girls in each year who made it through training. If they’re close in age, they will know.”

Clint just shrugs. “‘Lena likes her secrets. Wouldn’t expect her to be to honest ‘bout much, especially not Tasha.” And Peter understood, because he was the same way; guarding the identities of his family like a wild cat, hissing and scratching at anyone who came close without permission.

“I trained the two of them,” JB admits, although that was a bit of an open secret, “Natalia more than, what did you say? Lena? The little blonde. Natalia was closer to my age, easier to teach. Lena could trust me.”

“Or she could hate you,” Peter points out awkwardly. “Think you’re HYDRA.”

“Bah,” JB says, and holds up his arm, “I don’t have that star on me anymore. Vibranium!” He knocks on the metal, which is solid against the flesh of his right hand, “I’m different.”

“Just because you go by JB now doesn’t mean you don’t still look like the Winter Soldier,” Clint deadpans, his words more considering than harsh.

“I’ve gained muscle,” JB pouts, putting his arm back down, “White Wolf now.”

Sam pats him on the head.

“Her name’s Yelena,” Clint tells them, “Katie-“ Before he can say another word, an arrow spins through the air so quickly that Peter barely even sees the blur of it. It lands a centimeter from Clint’s boot-covered foot, and though he doesn’t flinch, he does lift a middle finger up toward the direction it came from. “Jesus, fuck. Kate,” he emphasizes, and when no arrow comes for his body again, continues with a roll of his eyes, “Is friends with her, I’ll have her put in a good word.”

“I’m going to tell her to shoot you,” a girl’s voice says. Peter focuses on it, tilts his head forward like he’s following it, and traces it to a building a block down, a girl breathing evenly on a fire escape. She’s got an ear piece in, he can hear the buzz of the tech; Clint’s got one too, tucked under the loop of his hearing aids.

Clint doesn’t respond, probably because he’s pretending like he’s not in contact with her at all, but his lips do twitch into a smile. “They both have homicidal tendencies,” he says cheerfully, “And love me. Common ground.”

“Ew,” says Kate’s voice. She sounds young.

“As long as she doesn’t put that homicidal tendency to us, I’ll take it,” Peter shoves his way in. Trying to pay attention to two conversations from different places is giving him a headache. “Until then, what do we do with Nadia?”

There’s a drawn out silence, like everyone’s waiting on the next person to offer to take her in. Finally, begrudgingly, Clint proposes, “How about I take the little girl? My wife would be able to help, and I got kids. She’ll feel safe. You said she’s not enhanced?”

“Just traumatized,” Sam confirms.

“Then it’s fine,” Clint contends. “It’ll be good for her to be away from civilization. Me and Kate are heading to the farm anyways, I got space for another body. She’s not afraid of dogs, is she?”

No one answers that last question, because how the fuck would they know, honestly,

“And Nadia can stay with Daisy,” Sam picks up, nodding alone, “You know, that could actually work.”

“Well, I’m not really a birdbrain,” Clint jokes, and he grins, bright and honest, before it fades. Some old inside joke that none of them understand, Peter guesses.

“Nah, you’re all ears to suggestions,” JB throws back, taking the pause and twisting it into something new. His smile is open and teasing.

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint says, rolling his eyes, but his mouth is twitching as he adds, “Wrap it up, Captain Hook.”

Under his breath, so quiet no one could hear unless they had enhanced hearing, Matt whispers, “Remind me to tell you a really funny joke in a couple months.”

Fucking weirdo, Peter thinks, but taps Matt’s wrist in acknowledgment all the same.

Clint and JB are still going at it, trading jabs and references that Peter struggles to follow, even though he’s pretty sure he’s watch every old movie ever thanks to MJ’s obsession with them.

“Alright, alright,” Sam finally interrupts after JB loses it and starts calling Clint really old-timey names like Fat-head, “We’ve got a solid plan, a good lead. Clint, why don’t you come with us to where we’re keeping Nadia, and I’ll have Daisy and the little girl meet us there. Make the switch easy.”

Clint agrees with no hesitation, even though Peter can hear Kate yelling at him about it in his earpiece.

“Actually,” JB shifts on his feet, looks down and back up again. Oh no. “I got Nadia moved before tonight. Just to be safe.”

“You what,” Sam says.

“She’s completely safe,” JB rushes to explain, scratching at his hair; snow flakes have begun to melt against his scalp. “You know, for a Russian assassin. She’s atta friend’s apartment, he’s keepin’ an eye on ‘er-“

Cling, apparently noticing JB’s shiftiness, asks suspiciously, “What friend?”

There is a long stretch of silence. Then JB says, “Wade. Wilson.”

Silence. Everyone is struck dumb. Then they’re all screaming at each other, even Kate through the ear piece, but it’s Matt’s voice that rises above the others as he shouts, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter’s not allowed to meet Wade Wilson (On Sam, Clint, and Matt’s insistence) nor is he allowed to meet Daisy Johnson (JB’s real strict about that one) so Peter goes home instead.

He’s tried to argue at first, because he’s an adult, damn it, (well, almost, but they didn’t know that) but Matt puts his foot down, all serious and with his voice in a rasp. “Not about you being a kid or not,” he’d told him in the corner of the roof as the others all argued on the other side, “Wade’s a fuckin’ mess, Peter, he’s not all there in the head, I wouldn’t even go if I didn’t have too.”

“Well why do you have too?” Peter had asked, flushing when he realized it came out sounding childish and whiny.

But Red just smiles at him, grasps his shoulders all gentle, “He listens to me. We’ve known each other a long time. And Daisy, I’d rather you avoided, okay? She’s a nice girl, powerful as anything, but from what I’ve heard,” and Red’s face kinda twitches the way it does whenever someone says Natasha’s name, so Peter has a pretty good guess on who told him the rumors, “She’s not good at minding her business. Likes knowing things. Identities, one might even say.”

“Alright,” Peter had groaned, and it made him feel a little better when he could hear Clint and Kate arguing through the ear piece about the same thing, with Clint not budging either. Maybe Peter should be a little freaked out by that - everyone knows that Clint is Kate’s mentor, so what’s it mean that Matt is treating Peter in a similar way - but he’s kind of accepted it now, he thinks. Almost.

Anyways, Clint and Kate are actually having it on, whisper-yelling at each other and everything, which looks funny because it makes Clint look like he’s yelling at the air.

Peter hears Kate say, “You’re not my dad,” and Clint respond with, “Oh, please, Katie,” and does his best to focus his hearing back to Matt’s heartbeat instead, because he felt like that was far too much of a delicate conversation to intrude on.

Clint wins, which Peter knows because Kate shot at him again, the blade of her arrow grazing his ear and nicking the top of it. Clint touches a finger to it that comes away bloody, and then barks out, “Benched, Katherine,” loud enough for JB and Sam to look over at him, and Peter hears a faint, “Go fuck yourself, farm boy,” before the earpiece erupts into static.

Peter thinks about this the entire time he swings home, trying not to laugh out loud each time he remembers the offended and bewildered look on Clint’s face. He can’t believe he’s never run into Kate before, or Clint for that matter, but Peter does tend to stick to Queens and Hell’s Kitchen. Bed Stuy isn’t far at all - closer to Queens than Hell’s Kitchen is, actually - but maybe Peter was subconsciously leaning away from it, hearing the rumors of an Avenger taking down the Tracksuit Mafia and deciding it really wasn’t his business.

Peter slides into his bedroom window. It’s only moderately warmer inside than out, and he changes immediately into long pajamas before surrounding himself in a cocoon of blankets. Also, Peter thinks, perhaps a little darkly, he’d never really fit into the Avengers, didn’t really belong at all.

They’d had, like, one fight as a real team, and they won except Tony died and Natasha had been dead so they kinda lost too, and then everyone had just split up. Half went far - Banner and Thor in New Asgard, Carol off world, Scott Lang and Hope Van-Dyne on the west coast, which Peter sort of considered off world too. Another portion went a little off the walls - Wanda had just surrendered the town she captured, last Peter had heard, and he saw a clip of Pepper punching a paparazzi the other day. Then there was that whole awful thing with King T’challa dying and his sister Shuri taking over his mantle after a brief stint of grief-stricken madness, but Peter’s been there, so he cuts her some slack.

The last portion stayed close. Stephen still lived down Bleecker Street, which Peter avoided like the plague. JB and Sam fought the government (per usual) before settling back in Brooklyn. And then Clint (and Kate) alternating their time between his family’s farm in Iowa and taking down crime in Bed Stuy. What a fucking mess, honestly. Peter had made it his personal mission to never run into any of them, yet here he was, closer to them now than he had been when they knew his name.

He’s spent a long time being scared. It hasn’t really left him in years, just like the pain that makes his bones creak when he gets out of bed in the mornings. He’s still scared, but there’s something different about it now, he thinks.

He’s got some sort of support system, maybe. Sort of. People who are trying to help him, keep him safe. It’s a weird feeling mostly because Peter stares at the ceiling and wonders why this is happening now. Wonders why no one had helped him back then, six months ago, when he was drowning beneath the weight of his identity and the exposure that came with it.

It’s bitter. He can’t stop thinking about it regardless. Where was Matt and his incredible hearing, when Peter struggled to find May beneath the rubble? Where was JB and his metal arm, when Peter could have used his help lifting blocks off of her bleeding body? Where was Sam, when he could’ve caught her before she got crushed?

It’s not their fault, Peter reminds himself. It’s no one’s fault except his own. He’ll never forget that. He’ll blame himself for the rest of his life, because at least he’s alive to do that, and not six feet under frozen ground, decomposing beside Ben’s old bones.

It’s maudlin. Peter wrinkles his nose at himself and watches the water stain on the ceiling. He swears it’s grown bigger.

Anyways. The Nadia issue should probably be taken more seriously than it has been, but Peter just… can’t. Obviously it’s a problem, and he knows he should be more stressed about it, should be picking at his nails till they bleed and bouncing off the walls. He’s not responding the way he knows is appropriate, but he’s just so tired, and what is HYDRA compared to Thanos?

Peter’s had whole planets thrown at him. Watched Tony get stabbed and then came back to him healthy and alive and then dying all over again minutes later. Lost five years of his life, and his girlfriend, and his best friend, and had his hands covered in his Aunt and Uncle’s blood. It won’t wash away no matter how hard he scrubs or how many cats he rescues from trees.

He’s survived a lot. More than most people, probably, and it’s not really fight that keeps him going, he’s not motivated by much. It’s just guilt. He gets to live and his aunt and uncle don’t and that’s on him, and he can’t bring them back, so might as well live his life since they gave up theirs for him.

Some Russian girl doesn’t scare him. She can remember his name but if she wanted to hurt him then MJ or Ned would be dead already, and jokes on her, Ned’s moving to Massachusetts for MIT and MJ will be in London by June (Peter reads all their mail, sue him, why even leave valuable stuff like that in front of a door?) and there’s no evidence left that they knew him at all, no one will believe her.

Peter has no one left for them to hurt, no one except himself. He won’t let them win with their stupid mind games or whatever. Anyways, the way Nadia had protected the little girl, Polina… she didn’t seem like the type to do Peter harm without reason.

Never underestimate a woman, Natasha tells him in his head, waving a red-painted nail at him, Only fools do that.

Guess we live in a planet of fools, Peter had responded, dancing away from her index finger.

And Natasha had said, Don’t be one of them, squinted her eyes at him until he had nodded earnestly enough in agreement.

Well, fine, he told his memories. He’ll treat Nadia like the killer she is. And he’ll treat her like the woman she is too. There’s a balance, Peter thinks, and resolutely ignores Ben’s voice in his head, saying, “Sometimes the nicest thing you can do is put ‘em down.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Friday comes and goes with no text from Natasha’s sister, snow coming down so heavily that Josie tells him to just stay home. Matt texts him that night and tells him it’s not a good idea for either of them to go out tonight, either, that the snow has mixed with hail and it’ll be too much on their senses. He also tells Peter that they accomplished the trade off of Polina and Nadia with minimal damage. Peter, worried, had asked if one of the girls had gotten hurt or fought - in response, Matt sent, No, I just meant that I only cut off two of Wade’s fingers and I thought I would take at least four.

Not his business, Peter reminds himself, shaking his head, and just said Well that’s good! in response, unsure whether or not to be concerned. Hopefully this Wade guy was able to get his fingers re-sewn on or something. Peter would feel bad if some random man was permanently fingerless because Matt was like an angry cat about protecting the woman who knew too much about Peter.

The snow slows down the next day, and Peter spends all of daylight swinging around Queens, trying to make up for what he missed, even though he’s freezing and has to take twice as many breaks to find a tall building to turn on his suit heaters. Crime is slow, unsurprisingly due to the cold, but Peter does have a snowball fight with a group of high schoolers and saves at least twenty kids from getting hit by cars who were swerving from black ice. A successful winter patrol, he decides, even though coming back through his window and not finding May curled up on the couch, mug in her hands, felt vaguely like getting punched in the stomach.

Then the sun was setting so Peter hurried to Josie’s, bundled up in all the winter gear he could find for cheap at Goodwill, and prepared for his 5pm to closing shift. Closing was just whenever Josie felt like it, although more and more she’s just been leaving the building as a whole and letting Peter deal with it all, which is as nice as it is stressful.

Today’s one of those days, he guesses, because Josie watches tv from a booth while Peter works for the first two hours before she gets up and says goodbye, leaving him a 100% tip on her tab. “This is literally your bar,” he tells her, shaking his head but pocketing the cash all the same, “You don’t have to pay, much less tip when you’re already paying my salary.”

“Christmas bonus,” she winks at him, then spies the Star of David hanging from a chain around his neck and corrects in barely a beat, “Hanukkah bonus!”

“Get out of here,” he says, smiling all the same, “I’ll hold down the fort.”

“Ah, you always do, kid,” she slaps a hand on the counter, raps her knuckles, “I ain’t never been worried about you.” Then she leaves, whistling merrily out the door, and as soon as she’s gone at least four different men scamper up and beg him to change the channel, or give them the remote, or anything, man, please.

Peter glances behind him, snickers when he notices she’s had the last episode of Game of Thrones playing on repeat for two hours, and switches one screen to a basketball game and the other to the evening news.

Peter turns around to a, “Thanks, man,” from a big, buff military looking dude with a scruffy beard and dark eyes, “My, uh, friend would’ve cried if he had to listen to that dragon lady die one more time.”

Peter grins, leaning forward. “Worst scene in television history,” he agrees solemnly. “What can I get you?”

The man has a cut across the bridge of his nose and a black eye that looks only half healed. “Two whiskeys. Neat.”

Peter takes it on the rocks himself, but he also needs something to dilute the rotgut liquor he buys exclusively. Josie was no fine dining, but she would kill him if he started serving customers Ten High.

“House?” Peter asks, feeling himself go through the motions now. Barely 9 and he was tired, but it was a Saturday, Josie’s second best day of business, and he wouldn’t close early just because his eyes were a little heavy.

“Daniel’s, if you got it,” The man tells him, and Peter keeps his customer service face on, even though internally he’s rolling his eyes. It’s a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen; yeah, they have Jack Daniel’s.

He pours a generous amount, prints a receipt and hands it over, and then he’s caught in a flood of men and women wanting ridiculous drinks to argue over politics with, so he spends the next two hours having to look up recipes to drinks he’s never heard of. It’s kinda fun, takes his mind off of everything, and there are a decent amount of regulars there who ask him how his classes are going, if he’s applied to grad school yet, all that. They leave good tips, but Peter also just enjoys talking to them.

It’s nearing 12 when the military man comes back up to the bar and requests whiskey neats again, although this time, rolling his eyes, he says, “Woodford Reserve, if you have it.” He hands over a different card, too, adds, “My friend’s gotten spoiled recently, says he wants better whiskey.”

Peter laughs and acquiesces, running the card and then handing it back before he starts to make the drinks. “I’m not sure if I’d classify Reserve as much better.”

The man raises his brows. “You got lotta experience with drinkin’?”

Peter’s phone buzzes from where it rests by the sink. “I’m not as young as I look,” he responds, distracted; no one texts him consistently enough to do so on a Saturday night; even Matt had yet to respond to Peter’s last message. “One sec.”

He picks his phone up.

Rooftops are so silly! 1109 Fulton St, yes?

Peter can’t help the grin that stretches across his face as he responds, Working. Sunday?

At 2000. We will have dinner! Press the buzz. Unit 4!

Dinner, Peter rolls over in his head. Shakes it out. He forwards the message to JB and Matt, and then turns back around.

“Sorry,” Peter apologizes, pours as quick as he can, “Gave you a little extra for the wait. You have a good one.”

“Thanks, kid,” the man says, nods at him, “Good luck with that girlfriend.”

The guy walks away before Peter can respond, so he wipes down the bar, sighing. If Peter is smiling at meeting with another KGB assassin the same way people smile at texts from their girlfriends, well. He really needs a new hobby.

The guy leaves him 40 on a 45 tab, though, so Peter guesses it’s not all bad, even if Peter feels like he’s reached his limit on superhero interactions for the week.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter presses the buzzer on a walk up apartment building in Bed Stuy the next day, feeling especially conspicuous in his costume.

He wore sweats and a hoodie over his suit again, only his mask looking out of place over his face, and JB, standing behind him, looked like a normal civilian, had even worn gloves to cover his hands. It was Daredevil who stood out the most out of the three of them, arms crossed and tapping his foot, clad in his red leather get up, complete with the horned helmet.

“Why couldn’t you have worn the black outfit,” JB hisses at him, judgement in every syllable.

“This keeps me warm,” Red sniffs at him, “And if Nat’s sister is anything like her, I would prefer to go in bulletproof.”

Well, that’s not worrying at all.

An old woman’s voice barks at them from the comm system; “Shut your damn cobs already, who you here for?”

“Uh,” Peter says, squinting at the list of names down the side and reading off the one attached to Unit 4, “Hailee Renner?”

The door unlocked with a click. Red wasted no time, waving his hand at them to follow him in.

“You would be the first to die if this was a horror movie,” Peter informs him seriously.

“Spidey,” Red says, pausing as he leads them up the stairs to look back at them, “I would never die in Bed Stuy.”

“I feel like I should take offense to that,” a girl’s voice hollers out the window above them, and Red, appropriately spooked, books it up the stairs, Peter and JB on his heels until they reach a door. It swings open before any of them can knock. Horror movie, Peter thinks, holy fuck.

“Hey,” says a girl with long, curly black hair and dark eyes, “I’m Kate, come on in. Leave your Bed Stuy hate at the door, Devil.”

“Impossible,” Red says, sounding like he actually means it, and flinches away from the elbow Peter tries to throw at him.

She leads them to a living room, which has the nicest couches Peter’s ever seen in his entire life, and when he sits down it feels like he’s sinking into an actual marshmallow. “Oh my god,” Peter says, “What the fuck.”

Matt, looking ridiculous as he too sinks into the couch in full red leather, says, “Rich people couches,” as if it’s the worst slur he could possibly think of.

“Sorry for the fake name on our unit, that was probably confusing,” Kate tells them, sitting on the couch across from them, curling her legs under her body, “There was this whole thing where the mafia found who I was because they saw my name on it before, so-“

“You let the mafia follow you home?” Matt asks.

“Wait, you’re Kate Bishop?” JB says in the same breath.

Kate flushes. “It was a long time ago, okay? And yeah, I decided to skip out on the farm this week. I’ll be there over Christmas anyways.”

Matt stiffens and relaxes in one second, and that’s all the warning that Peter gets before another woman prances in, her mouth in a closed lip smile.

“It was not long time ago, Kate Bishop, it was not even a year,” the woman says, sitting down beside Kate, though she spreads her legs apart and leans back, all casual, taking up space. “And you just stayed to keep me company.”

Kate makes a face at her. The woman makes a face back.

Then Kate sighs, pushes a strand of black hair behind a pale ear. “This is Yelena. Natasha’s little sister.”

“Hello!” Yelena says, waving a hand lazily. She’s shorter than Kate, though not by much, and her blonde hair is braided around her head like a crown. While Kate wears a large sweatshirt, shorts, and fuzzy socks, Yelena has obviously dressed up, in dress pants and a flowing silk top and tiny black heels. The differences between them are stark, but Peter watches as Yelena’s knee bumps into Kate’s, and how Kate doesn’t move away from it.

“I know you all, do not worry,” Yelena says, smiling in an absent sort of way. Then she looks at her JB and her grin sharpens. “Privet, Yasha.” Hello, James.

JB just leans back into the couch himself, looking perfectly at ease. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.” Peter watches his trigger finger squeeze on air three times and then stop abruptly.

“I have not seen you in a while,” Yelena half-echoes, “20 years?”

JB shrugs. “Dunno. Don’t remember half of it. Had my brain all up in that damn mixer.”

Yelena watches him for a long moment, her gaze sharp. She reminds Peter so much of Natasha he can feel the sting of it in his chest. He doesn’t know how JB is surviving, nor how Clint doesn’t fall apart everytime he’s around her.

“Ah, shame,” Yelena says, and it sounds carefree, especially when she kicks her legs up on the coffee table, “So then what are you here for?”

Kate, who Peter assumes is either babysitting Yelena or moderating this discussion as a whole, mutters, “Legs, ‘Lena.”

Yelena takes her legs off the table. “Clint told me it was something about you,” she looks at Peter now, and her stare is a lot more intimidating, “And my Natasha. Yes?”

“Kind of,” Peter says, and then he tells the story again, for the millionth time. Matt chimes in a couple times, and JB far more, but the base of it doesn’t change. “She said my name,” Peter explains, and Yelena says, “Well, I don’t know your name,” and Peter glances at Matt, who nods in him in confirmation. She was telling the truth.

He carries on the story anyway, even though he’s suspecting it’s a bust now, with no other leads to how the woman would possibly know. It’s not until JB says, “Her name is Nadia,” that there is finally a reaction. Yelena blinks, once, twice, three times, and then says, “Pardon?”

“Nadezhda,” JB repeats, which Peter still thinks sounds like a sneeze, but whatever. “Trovaya.”

Yelena says, “Huh.” There’s a moment where she just stares. Then she brings her hands together, claps once, and says, “Dinner must be ready, let us eat now.”

Kate stares after her as she leaves the room, then sighs and stands. “Come on,” she says, and they follow her into the kitchen, where Yelena is spooning something into bowls. “She’s not terrible at cooking.”

Less than a glowing endorsement, but Peter used to dumpster dive, so he won’t complain.

They settle around the table like the most awkward family dinner in existence, and Yelena and Kate pass around bowls and silverware. Peter has to stifle a laugh when he looks down and realizes that the esteemed dinner is Kraft Mac & Cheese.

Peter has no sense of survival and eats immediately, humming in approval. That wins him a smile from Kate and matching frowns from JB and Matt, who haven’t touched their own pasta. “It’s not poisoned,” Yelena promises, and oh, right, Peter thinks, Russian assassin. Oops.

They eat in silence. Peter keeps making eye contact with Kate and they’re both trying not to laugh at all the damn quiet posturing. Seeing Daredevil eat Mac and Cheese is so fucking funny that Peter debates pulling out his phone and taking his very first picture on it to document the occasion, but right when he’s about too, Yelena sets down her fork.

“It is a long story,” she warns, and reaches over to grab a bottle of wine from the middle of the table before settling back down. “Not very happy.”

“You’re saying that to me,” JB says, and flexes his hand on his fork, which crumples into a ball of metal.

“Aw,” Kate says sadly, “I just bought those.”

“I thought you were leaving this all behind, Yasha,” Yelena continues, like no one else has spoken, “The war, the fighting? No?”

JB doesn’t look up from his bowl. “Got some years left in me.”

“One hundred and counting,” Yelena agrees, and pulls the cork out of the wine bottle with two fingers, “And how much of that do you remember? Nadia? Me? Natashka?”

JB meets her gaze. “Depends on the day. You followed Natalia around. Belarus, before they shut it down. They took her to Moscow, I trained her there, but not you. You were separated. They never told me why.”

Yelena just watches him. “She loved me. After Ohio, she nearly shot Dreykov.”

“Ah,” JB nods, “Love. Unforgivable offense.”

“Yes,” Yelena’s mouth curves into a smile, like she’s recognized an old joke, “Where did I go?”

“Kyiv,” JB tells her. He says it confidently, but Peter watches him, sees his trigger finger twitch, the joints of his metal fingers tilt sideways, “Ukraine. The last place she would look. I… I was there. Once.” He puts his head in his hands and rubs above his eyes. “Fuck. I don’t know.”

“You do,” Yelena prompts, “Do not let them take it away.”

Peter wants to tell her to stop. That this game isn’t fair to him, not when he’s finally accepted that he may never know everything he did. But he won’t step in just yet, because JB is still answering, and if he was in too much distress Matt would hear it in his heartbeat and signal Peter, and also because they still didn’t know anything about Nadia.

JB groans. “You did ballet. Your feet were bleeding.”

“You tried to help me bandage them,” Yelena tells him, takes a bite of her pasta, “They whipped you for it.”

“I barely felt it,” JB dismisses, “There were other girls. Two. I don’t remember their names.”

Yelena isn’t offended. “You didn’t remember mine. Oksana. And Nadezhda.”

Peter’s not surprised that JB knew Nadia. He guessed it was a possibility, they all had, just didn’t want to say it. Not when he was doing so much better. Not when he had accepted who he was and built himself into someone better; when Sam was the only one who could call him Bucky, and everyone else stuck with JB. A step forward.

And then Peter came and screwed it all up.

Peter makes himself blink hard enough that his eyes water. No point being self deprecating at dinner, he thinks. Don’t cry on the mac and cheese.

“Who was she,” Matt asks, and it’s not his Daredevil voice, he knows that he’s nothing compared to what Yelena had gone through, but it’s something almost there, like staying human is taking effort. Peter wonders, briefly, if Matt heard Peter’s heart stutter in his chest at Yelena’s grilling. If that’s why he finally spoke.

Yelena leans back in her chair and looks at him, taking a big sip of wine from the bottle, “This costume is a bit, eh? How do you say, Kate Bishop?”

“Really fuckin’ weird?” Kate offers helpfully.

“Extravagant!” Yelena agrees, smiling, “You believe in God? Are you his devil?”

Matt’s jaw tightens, once, then relaxes. “Occasionally.” Peter remembers the Bible that had laid on Red’s coffee table, the front cover worn and frayed.

Yelena clucks her tongue. “Ah, there was no God in the Red Room. There was only the Widows.”

Peter thought Red would take offense to this, but instead he just shrugs. “Is there a difference?”

Peter thinks of Natasha’s fight driving her until the end, and the faith she held in herself, and how Peter repeats the few lessons she had taught him as if they were gospel. Of Nadia fighting like a feral animal to protect the little girl in the warehouse and the exhaustion in her eyes when they laid her on the snow.

Yelena sighs, a quiet sound, sending a piece of blonde hair fluttering. “I suppose not.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Yelena says, “Ugh. Fine.”

“My Russian was off, you know? Coming from America. I had an accent,” Yelena wrinkles her nose, “Ohio, the worst of them all. The other girls called me a Pindos.”

Kate admits, “I have no idea what that means.”

“Don’t got a real translation,” JB tells her, “Just real rude to Americans.”

“Meh,” Yelena says, “I was not American, I did not care. I missed Natasha, they all knew so. And watching Arthur every morning before school and Kraft Mac and Cheese. They could not steal it from me, though, eh? It’s good?”

Peter looks down at his bowl, which he’s taken maybe three bites of, because somehow Yelena had managed to screw up literal stove pasta. “Really good!” He confirms. Gives a thumbs up and everything.

Matt kicks him under the table.

“I was so not good at ballet, either,” Yelena groans, leaning her head on a fist, “They say I had two bad feet. Ugh. This girl, Nadia. She made me run around with books on my head. I could not stop until they did not fall. It fixed my dancing, they said, I only had one bad foot instead of two.”

Kate pushes her water glass over to Yelena, a silent encouragement. “You seem pretty graceful to me.”

“Well, we grew up,” Yelena says fairly, “My Russian got better and my English got not as good. I remembered Ohio. Natashka. But I remembered it differently, I don’t know.” She pauses. “I was better at fighting than Nadia.”

This means something, but Peter doesn’t know what. He hadn’t read about it in the SHIELD files leak, and it wasn’t like Natasha had given him her whole life story.

Yelena drinks the water, then fills up the cup with her wine. “They would have made me kill her, I think so. Except that she was smart, very smart, and they had another girl with brain like hers. Ying, that was her name,” Yelena pauses, “Nadia killed her, so they made her take that place. Scientist.”

Peter imagines, in another world, doing science with this Nadia. She knew him, somehow and someway; he thought about being her brother, or her best friend, or superhero partners. Something stupid and childish; something neither of them got to be.

“Yasha came to train us. They wouldn’t let you play with Nadia, do you forget?” Yelena asks, mostly rhetorical, “She was too special. She was my favorite, still, because I never would have to kill her. That’s back when they were still doing psychological conditioning, you know? Before they…”

Kate pours another glass of wine.

“They switched to chemical conditioning, I do not know who made it, do not ask,” Yelena says, and Peter can read between the lines; she doesn’t know if her closest friend created the drug that took over her brain, “I was scared until I wasn’t. Oksana freed me when I killed her, that’s how Natasha found me. Nadia must have made the chemical agents that freed our minds.”

Well, Peter thinks, this is all great stuff, someone should write a god damn movie, but it really doesn’t answer his questions.

“Yes, your life’s sad,” JB says, slouching in his chair, “You’re milkin’ it, and I got somewhere to be.”

“You,” Yelena points at him, “Are so annoying. I will skip the boring part, like how I killed the Red Room, and saved Natasha’s life, and the world-“

“And yet you’re still so humble,” JB teases.

“Nadia was not there, in the sky. I maybe thought that she’d been lost when we exploded it,” Yelena ignores him, carrying on with a worryingly straight face, “Natashka told me she had stuff to do, and she was an Avenger, she avenged, no? I let her go. She came back after, but she was not with you, Yasha, like I thought.”

It comes rushing to Peter, all at once. “She was with me. And Tony.” Maybe this does make sense.

Yelena nods. “She called me on her telephone and told me she was avenging for the future. I told her she sounded like, ugh,” she looks at Kate, who shrugs at her, obviously not understanding where she was going with it, “In her brain? Like when you are thinking a lot?”

“Philosophical,” Matt offers, and Peter remembers how he’d admitted about it being his major when he was in college only days ago. It makes him look down at the grain of the table and smile, feeling like a little kid for knowing something about the Devil that no one else at the table did.

“I do not know, it sounds right,” Yelena takes another long sip of her wine, “Ah, well, I told her she was in her thoughts, eh, too much. That she should come home and we can just do fighting and she will not have to think so much. There is a lot for us to avenge, in Russia! What is in New York? Aliens?”

Peter can’t help but laugh. She’s right, in some twisted up sort of way. She also sounds more like a little sister in this moment than she has in the rest. Begging for her sister to come home to her; bargaining for her return.

Yelena’s face turns sad, the smile lines disappearing from her cheeks. “She said she has family. Here, in New York City. And business, always business. Maybe both, eh? I told her, well, you can have that in Russia. And she sends me a photo, and hangs up on me!”

“What photo?” Peter asks, but his stomach sinks because he already knows.

“It was Tony Stark and some boy, I do not know. They were smiling in some sort of lab. I texted her, I said, why the hell are you in a lab again? Are you getting experimented on? And she said she was working, she was fine,” Yelena stops. There’s a long pause before she continues, “I asked who the child was. I thought maybe Stark’s son, they looked alike, I think. I cannot - cannot remember his face. Or his name.” A troubled look passes over her face and is gone as quickly as it appeared.

Kate puts a gentle palm over Yelena’s hand. Peter thinks Yelena might stab her, but instead, her shoulders seem to drop, the line in her forehead disappearing. “Remember what Clint told you,” she told the blonde, her voice soft, “It’s normal not to remember everything. Look at JB.” Kate winks at the man, though it looks like a plea for him to go along with it more than a smooth motion.

JB gives Peter a look, and yeah, Peter feels like an actual dick, but come on. Is he supposed to trust this assassin with the fact that no, this amnesia isn’t a side effect of her chemical conditioning, it’s a side effect of the magic that a wizard performed on the world?

Okay. Yeah. Now that he says it, it sounds way worse.

“It is fine,” Yelena says, pulling her hand out from Kate’s in one quick motion, “They looked happy, I don’t forget that. I said she was leaving me to play science with Americans? She said, Lena, you are so smart, you are the best, and if you ever need help, the two of them will always be your minions.”

They all stare at her. Peter squints so hard that his mask squints with him.

“Do you think we are all Pindos?” JB asks dryly, taking her cup of wine and draining it.

“Useless, you cannot get drunk,” Yelena sniffs at him, steals the glass back to refill it, and then admits, with a roll of her eyes, “Ugh, you chased me-“

“‘You got me,’ Lena,” Kate corrects.

“You chased me,” Yelena repeats, scrunching her nose at Kate’s exasperation, “Fine, fine. She told me, Lena, when you get into trouble, you call these two, they will always help you. Especially…”

Especially Peter.

She couldn’t finish the quote because she didn’t know Peter’s name. So the spell did work on enhanced Russian spies - it just, for some strange reason, hadn’t worked on Nadia.

“Especially the name of the boy,” Yelena finally says grumpily, “I forgot. But I say, ok, Natalkush, come home to Russia. And she says not yet, but she has an address for us to look at it, so we go. In Rostov,” she says this towards JB, who nods in apparent recognition, “Russia. A lab. I thought this is so easy, Natasha is treating me like such a baby, there is no one for me to even kill!”

Matt coughs into his hand.

“Except there was a girl,” Yelena reveals, ignoring the obvious disapproval, “We found her in the clothes room! Nadia, I found her. She was so scared. I send the other girls away to collect the lab things, the science, because I don’t know these things, I am not smart like that, like some of the other girls.”

She says this with complete acceptance, like it’s something as solid as fact. Peter isn’t sure he agrees. This whole story may be hard to follow and excessively long, but Peter can still see the intelligence in her words.

Yelena twists her long braid around her fingers. “We talk on the floor. Long, long talk. How I am sorry for blowing her up. And she said she has been in Rostov for a long time. They did not use chemical conditioning on her, because it could mix with all the other chemicals in the lab, I do not know, science things. She asked if-“

Yelena stops. She stands up and collects their dishes, places them in the sink, and then gets a proper wine glass from a cupboard and fills the thing damn near full. Then she says, “She asked where Oksana was. I said to her, she is dead. And she said, your sister? I told her, alive. She blew up the Red Room with me. I asked her - Nadia - if she would come back with me and my girls. And she said, yes.”

There’s a But here, of course there is. If there wasn’t, Nadia wouldn’t be in his life at all.

Yelena’s eyes change in an instant. She shrugs and she seems to retreat into herself as she says, “It was a trap. Half of my widows, they died. Nadia and I got out, and I knew we would be too, uh, obvious? I told her we needed to split apart, and she was scared. She’s a scientist,” she repeats, quiet and soft, “She asked how to find me, but I had no home. I said she could go to my sister.”

“Natasha never mentioned she had a sister,” Matt says, and he doesn’t say it cruelly, but Yelena flinches anyways. “If Nadia had asked for a Yelena’s sister, no one would have known.” Matt means that it wasn’t her fault. It’s hard to hear that.

Stiffly, she says, “She was still alive then, eh? Anyway, I think of that, so I show her the photograph Natasha had sent me, of Tony Stark and the boy. I told her their names. I said she could go to them and they would help her. They would save her, ugh, like they helped my sister.”

Well. She’d found Peter, even if it was seven years too late and Nat and Tony were both six feet under.

“Natasha never brought her up,” Yelena adds, an ultra depressing end, “I thought Nadia had just died. She was so not good at fighting. You cannot hide with science, I thought, not really.”

Peter would beg to differ. He hid under his mask everyday. But then, he guessed it still hadn’t been enough. Magic had been what hid him for good.

Kate breaks that sad ending with a sullen, “You’ve never mentioned Nadia to me.”

Yelena hits her on the back of the head, though it seems more fond than anything. “I am so busy keeping you alive, Kate Bishop.”

“When you’re around,” Kate sniffs.

Yelena circles back around to Kate’s first statement. “Most times I just think about my sister. There is no room in my brain for more, ugh, feelings.”

Peter gets that. He tries to think about one loss at a time; May, usually. If he thought about the rest it would consume him.

Kate crosses her arms. “Don’t bring up Natasha just to get out of me calling you out.”

Alright, try to steer this conversation back on track. “So, you’ve never seen Nadia since that day?”

Yelena, not moving her gaze from Kate’s stare, confirms. “Never. Tasha and Yasha destroyed HYDRA after, anyways.”

So Peter knows how Nadia knows who he is, but he doesn’t know how she still remembers. It’s not possible, it shouldn’t be possible. If she remembered - who was to say that other people didn’t too?

Aw, damn. He might have to stop avoiding Bleecker Street and face his problems like the legal adult that he’ll be in like, nine months.

Still, when Peter says, “That’s helpful, thank you,” he means it. “I’m sorry to bother you, Yelena. I appreciate it.”

He’s polite. He’s especially polite to scary Russian assassins who grew up in the KGB.

Yelena gives him a soft smile. It’s the same closed-lip type that Natasha used to give him, and for a moment it takes his breath away. “It is nothing. I am sorry I forget your name, it is so rude of me.”

Okay, Peter’s an asshole. He’s even more of an asshole when he says, “Don’t worry about it!” and ignores JB’s scathing side eye at him. Oh well.

He gets his penance, anyways, because Yelena spends the next thirty minutes interrogating him on the various species of cats he’s saved from trees in the past year, and how he got his powers, and why he chose a spider, and why did he wear spandex and not armor like Daredevil?

Matt says “Thank you,” which just makes Peter roll his eyes, because whatever, and then Yelena’s all over Matt with questions next, why he’s got horns and has he ever head butted someone so hard his horns got stuck in them?

All in all, Peter thinks as Matt tells a story of the time he tortured a guy for information with a shoestring and a slice of cheese, this is what he will consider a successful mission. He’s not dead, Matt’s not dead, JB’s not in the depths of a flashback, and they got information on Nadia without needing to fight Yelena to the death for it. Hooray! Good enough for the night! Good enough for Peter to be able to sleep without anxiety keeping him up the entire night.

And by the time they finally leave, Peter’s got Kate’s number in his phone (“Call me for whatever, Clint’s half deaf and terrible at hearing his ringtone”) and JB even clasps a firm hand on Yelena’s shoulder, which is his version of a running hug, so Peter’s pretty content. Matt’s looking a little antsy, and Peter isn’t surprised when he only spares a quick goodbye before he’s jumping to the next rooftop, disappearing in seconds.

JB says, “Man, that guy is so fucking weird.”

“I like him,” Peter declares, lining up his web shooters, “He’s funny.”

“Nati thought so too,” JB says dryly, and Peter’s already in the air, turns back with a squawk of surprise at the information and almost slams into an apartment building.

Ugh, Peter decides, he doesn’t want to know.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter spends all of Monday and Tuesday catching up on his classwork and picking up shifts at Josie’s, so by the time his shift is coming to an end on Wednesday night, he seriously debates if he has the energy to meet with Matt at the gym.

The military guy is back that night, the one who’d assumed Peter was texting his girlfriend, but he was ordering beer this time, watching the game above the bar. Easy drinker when he was alone, and Peter was relieved, because even though it definitely wasn’t as busy as it was on weekends, the regulars who showed up on weeknights liked the type of drinks that take time to make.

The guy’s nice, though, so Peter doesn’t mind that he sits kinda near to where Peter works, even though he gets annoyed when people do that on weekends. He’s polite and he asks Peter how his classes are going, the sort of simple questions Peter doesn’t mind answering. And while the lessons from Matt on blocking have definitely lessened his injuries, they haven’t stopped them entirely; when Peter comes in with a black eye on Tuesday, the man hadn’t brought it up once.

An hour from close now, and Peter’s entire body is aching, his stomach is growling loud enough he can hear it over the speakers, and he can feel a migraine growing behind his eyes. He doesn’t have work tomorrow, just a class online, and he’s looking forward to being able to sleep in. If he finishes in time, he knows he needs to try to go to Bleecker Street. Be all responsible and what not.

“Hey, kid,” the military man says, his voice gruff. “You alright?”

Peter slides on his customer service smile, although it feels a little shaky. “Just been working too much I think, all good. Can I get you another? IPA, right?”

“Just my tab is fine,” he says, brow furrowed, “Know you’re closin’ soon.”

Peter turns to print his receipt, laughing. “I’ll be here for a while longer, sir. Old Shelley over there,” he tips his head to a woman with gray hair in a booth, reading a book and sipping on a vodka tonic, “She doesn’t leave till I do.”

The man shakes his head, bemused. “You’re better than I am for not kickin’ her out. What’s your name?”

Peter thinks about hesitating, but decides it doesn’t really matter. Half the regulars know him by now, it’s no secret. “Peter.”

“Aye,” the man says, a smile crossing his face, “My name’s Pete. Thanks again.”

He goes before Peter can do more than snort, once again leaving a fifty percent cash tip behind.

Peter tucks it into his bag and gets back to wiping down the bar. He might as well get to closing while Old Shelly finishes her chapter.

Two hours later and Peter’s lands in Fogwell’s, somehow earlier than Matt, even though it’s definitely halfway past eleven and barely even snowing tonight.

He lets himself slump down until he’s laying on the floor, and lifts one hand to text Matt. U alive?

Be right there, Matt texts back all proper, because he’s such an adult or whatever.

Peter stares at the ceiling and wonders when his life turned into whatever it is now. That line of questioning always makes his head hurt worse, though, so instead he closes his eyes and thinks about the last time it had snowed like this, all soft and flurry-like and gentle.

Last December, he thinks, the last peaceful month of his life - right before his identity had been exposed in mid January. It had seemed like a dream then, and it does now too, that happiness like a faraway feeling. He and MJ went on those stereotypical New York winter tourist dates, which she pretended to hate but secretly loved, ice skating in Central Park and paying a ridiculous amount of money for hot chocolate in Times Square. He remembers the way the snow had looked in her hair and the way the Dahlia necklace he had gotten her glittered in the fading sunlight, and the way she had tasted like their overpriced hot chocolate and maybe peppermint too. Why do you taste like peppermint, he’d said, stupid and smiling, and MJ had flicked him on the nose and called him a dork, her voice warm and fond.

He misses her with an ache so deep it burrows like an animal into his bones. Talking to her again when she didn’t recognize him was unimaginable, so he never went into her workplace again - but he did follow her home like a creep sometimes, when she closed and it was late and raining. He made sure she didn’t see him, didn’t even let himself listen to her heartbeat or the sound of her voice. Seeing her was enough, Peter told himself. She was alive. She would stay alive if Peter just kept staying away.

He’s so tired, still. He’s been putting off the things he shouldn’t be. Internships, for one, even though he hates his major, or applications for grad school, if he even wants to do that. Sleeping, too. It’d been easy after dinner with Yelena and impossible since, and the bags under Peter’s eyes were starting to look like he’d gotten punched instead. And food, which he had, but preparing it felt like the biggest chore in the world.

Which is why Peter actually sits up when Matt walks in a couple minutes later, carrying two boxes of pizza and a water bottle in his full Daredevil get up.

“Dude,” Peter says wondrously, “Did you pick that up?”

Matt snorts. “Yes, Peter. I got a discount, too.”

“Really?”

“No,” Matt laughs, settling down on the ground beside him and opening the boxes, “I had them deliver it to my apartment. Picked it up on the way here.”

Peter gives Matt the stink eye, which is unfortunately lost under his mask, and then dives for the food. One cheese and one pepperoni, and even though Matt forces Peter to drink half the water bottle before anything else, he gets through a solid six slices in like ten minutes.

“You’re like a dumpster,” Matt says.

“Dude,” Peter takes another slice, offended.

Matt pushes the water bottle toward him again. “No fighting today, okay? I can hear your bones creaking.”

Peter stops chewing for a long moment. That is so gross, he thinks. Also; he wonders what they sound like.

“And your hearts beating slower than normal,” Matt frowns at him, “Are you sleeping enough?”

“Yes,” Peter lies. At Matt’s deadpan look - as deadpan as a look can be when you can only see someone’s mouth and jaw - he adds, “I’ve just been stressed is all.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Matt asks, sounding completely sincere. “I went to law school, you know. Got pretty good at dealing with stress.”

That makes something in Peter’s mind shift, but he doesn’t remember what. He doesn’t know law, but he remembers May talking about how her friend, who’s a defense attorney, still shudders in horror when she talks about taking the Bar exam.

“Law school,” Peter repeats dryly, “I kind of get it, actually.”

It’s a cheap shot, mostly because Peter’s just avoiding Matt’s offer to listen. What’s he supposed to say? I don’t know what to do with my life or my future, I don’t have enough time to do anything, some Russian knows my name, I’m an orphan two times over, and my best friend and girlfriend have no idea who I am.

It sounds insane no matter how he tries to spin it, so he doesn’t even really want to try.

Matt doesn’t push him. “Sometimes the system needs a little shove. Drink some water.”

Peter finishes the water bottle.

“We’ll just work on senses, tonight,” Matt tells him, “Your hearing. How do you hear specific things?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know. When I got my powers, it was a lot. Too much. So I just started focusing on one specific thing, and then it got easier. I block everything else out.”

If Matt had his mask off, Peter was sure his eyebrows would be raised. “You block everything out? Completely?”

“Yeah,” Peter closes the empty boxes and stacks them up, lining the edges, “‘Cause they thought it was just bad anxiety, you know? My, um, guardians. So they taught me all these tricks and stuff from books they read about it. Like, to count my fingers and stuff, five things I could hear, touch, whatever.”

Matt obviously doesn’t know, if the twist of his mouth is any indication. “I forget how young you are sometimes. We didn’t talk about anxiety when I was a kid.”

“Old man,” Peter teases, ignoring the sharp sting in his chest at the name he used to sling at Tony and Happy both, “Well, I guess it kinda worked. I just focus on one thing now. Like, whatever’s right in front of me. It doesn’t hurt that way.”

“Okay,” Matt says, leaning back on his hands, “What about when you’re fighting? How do you avoid multiple attackers?”

“My Spidey sense,” Peter says, like, obviously, “Sixth sense. It tells me when to move or when something’s wrong.”

But Matt doesn’t seem particularly impressed. “Is it absolutely reliable?”

Peter starts to say yes. Then he remembers how May died because he knew something was wrong, but not what exactly that wrongness was.

“Most of the time,” he says evasively.

Matt sees right through him. “Not good enough. You’re doing more harm than good by blocking out so much, Peter. I know it’s overwhelming-“

“Do you?” Peter asks, and he doesn’t mean to sound angry, he’s just so tired, “It hurts so bad, Matt, the headaches make me want to die, okay? And hearing everything all the time, I’d go crazy, hearing all the problems I couldn’t solve.”

“You have to hear it all,” Matt’s all insistent, “It’s dangerous not too. There are ways to manage it. For it not to hurt. You know I can hear your bones, kid, I do understand. I can hear more than that. Your blood too. I know that you drank some whiskey at work today and all you’ve eaten is the pizza. I know that you use rose body wash. Unscented shampoo?”

Peter nods, feeling struck dumb. And ashamed by the accuracy of his life, things that he hadn’t even realized. He’d poured the wrong whiskey earlier, had just drunken it instead of throwing it; the rose body wash had been the same one that May had used to keep on the shelf in their bathroom; his bones never stopped creaking and popping, as sure as the fact that his body never really stopped aching.

“I get it,” Matt says, and he sounds truly sympathetic, no pity apparent, “We can start small, but we do need to start. I told you I would train you. Knowing your enemies is the first step in being able to fight them.”

He tells Peter it’s like meditation, but lets him stay lying down on the floor. “You don’t need to hear everything right now. Can you imagine that the way you’re blocking everything is like putting a, uh, bubble around yourself? All you’re going to do it poke the tiniest hole into it. Not even a block radius, okay? Just the building across the street.”

Easy, Peter thinks. He’s done this before. He pokes the bubble in his mind anyways, and it feels more in his control this way. The sounds filter in. It’s loud. Before, he would focus on the loudest ones and blur the rest out, but Matt hadn’t told him to do that, so he didn’t.

Matt must spot his flinch at the sudden noise, because he says, “Think about snow falling around in your bubble, now. Not a lot. Just enough that it dulls things.”

Peter does, and the relief is instantaneous. He can still hear it, but it’s muffled. Quiet. Not headache inducing, but not the pure silence he’s made himself used to these past couple years.

“Oh,” he says, and he hadn’t realized how much his hearing being blocked was doing to him until this moment. He feels like something has been pushed back into place, right where he’s supposed to be.

Matt smiles at him. His teeth are strikingly white. “See what I mean?”

Peter grins back. “I feel better.”

“Because you aren’t as paranoid,” Matt says pointedly, “You can hear what’s around you. You don’t have to worry about waiting till they’re too close.”

“Maybe,” Peter says, even though he means definitely, because he’s still 17 and bad at admitting when adults are right.

“In the nicest way possible,” Matt says, “You need to go home, Peter, and get some sleep.”

“It’s barely been thirty minutes!” Peter protests, sitting up from his spot on the floor. “I want to learn more!”

“And you will,” Matt’s voice is even and calm, almost soothing, “I can’t teach you anything if you pass out from exhaustion.”

“Whatever,” Peter grumbles, “I’m fine.”

Matt stares at him. Peter wonders if maybe his powers are also like super seeing, or xray vision, or something. There’s seriously no way he can see through his mask otherwise. “How about this? I’m going to, uh, bust a ring with a coworker of mine. Drugs. Bunch of the guys just got out for gang rape. You can come, if you’re careful-“

“Yes,” Peter interrupts, “Yes, yes, yes-“

“-And,” Matt continues severely, lifting a finger, “If you promise to listen to me. I’m serious. If I tell you to do something, you do it, no questions asked. Understood?”

Peter doesn’t like listening, especially not to adults who think they know better than him - and he’d loved Tony so much, but the man was a master of talking down at him, making him feel small and insignificant even though he knew what he was doing was just as important as what the Avengers were - but it didn’t seem like Matt was meaning it in that way. He was a good guy, and he respected Peter, and wanted him safe, and mostly, he listened to Peter too. He trusted Peter.

Peter could trust him back. The devil already had his name. What was his loyalty, in the grand scheme of things?

“I understand,” is natural as it comes out of his mouth, and it’s the truth, too, “What coworker? Is it Jessica again?”

Matt shakes his head. “No. Jessica’s strong, she’s good, but she doesn’t have the training for stuff like this. You’ll, uh. You’ll meet him when you get there. Friday night, warehouse district. You know 34th street?” When Peter nods, he continues, “Past that, second building on the right. Listen for my heartbeat.”

“…I don’t know your heartbeat,” Peter says instead of acknowledging the directions, embarrassed that he was apparently so obvious.

“Lie,” Matt tilts his head, horns tipping to the side, “I know yours too, Peter. It’s telling me that you need to sleep. Go. I’ll text you.”

Loyalty, Peter thinks. He goes.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

By early Friday evening, he’s finally well rested. He’d spent pretty much all of Thursday sleeping and most of Friday on school, only pausing to respond to Matt’s texts, most of which were reminders to eat and drink water. Peter would be annoyed if he wasn’t a little touched.

He’s jittery, though, hasn’t gone out as Spider-Man since Tuesday and he feels it. His bones have been especially aching this week, the way they do when he doesn’t keep himself moving the way he’s supposed too, and he knows from experience the only way to make it better is by being active.

Still, he makes himself eat a big dinner and even clean his apartment, stretches out his limbs while listening to a lecture he was behind on, and practices his blocking. He wants to do well - especially in front of Matt’s mysterious coworker.

By the time the night falls, Peter’s crossed from nerves to something like calmness, and he doesn’t feel as much anxiety as he swings toward the address Matt had told him. When he’s close, he imagines himself in the bubble again, and this time pokes a slightly bigger hole than before. He makes it snow as quickly as possibly in his mind, doesn’t want to deal with a headache from it all tonight, and Matt’s heartbeat is immediately loud and clear in his ears. He feels it as if it’s pumping through his very own veins. There’s another heartbeat beside him, much quieter, and Peter guesses that’s the coworker.

He crawls the last couple buildings, afraid that the webs will be too loud, and lands quietly behind Matt’s tall figure, half illuminated in the light from the moon.

“Hi,” he says.

“Fucking-“ a voice says from the ground, and Peter looks down to where a man is clambering up, evidently surprised, “Are you teaching him your fucking ninja skills too-“

“Aw,” Matt says, sounding sweet as candy, “You said I have skills!”

The other man straightens up. The first thing Peter notices; the amount of guns he’s carrying on his person, hidden all over his body, is overwhelming in Peter’s ears. He can hear their gears shifting, and focuses harder on Matt’s heartbeat instead. The second thing he notices - the skull that’s spray painted onto a black vest.

The third - it’s fucking Pete, the military guy from the bar who always overtips.

The fourth - Pete, the military guy from the bar, is not Pete at all.

“Spider-Man, this is Frank,” Matt introduces lazily, waving a hand between them, “Frank, Spider-Man.”

Frank fucking Castle gives him a firm nod. “I’d shake your hand, but both o’ mine got guns in ‘em.”

“That’s fine,” Peter says, and damn he’s glad that he’s started taking after Matt and changing his voice in his suit to an octave lower. “You two been here long?”

What a small world, Peter thinks, and then shoves Pete/Frank out of his mind and focuses on the god damn mission.

“‘Bout two hours,” Matt says, pulling the sticks from his belt, “Frank’s been here for-“

“Six,” Frank finishes, “Had to see what we were dealin’ with. Forty men, give or take. Another five on the perimeter, they were wheelin’ in some sort of lab gear earlier.”

“No people?” Peter asks, feeling vaguely ill that he even has to ask. “Girls?”

“Naw,” Frank denies, flipping the gun in his right hand. Then he glances to Matt, “He know about the-“

Shortly, Matt replies, “Yeah.”

The gang rape, Peter remembers Matt saying. The men who did it getting out and going straight back to crime. He clenches his fists, feels the tension gathering in his shoulders.

“Red ain’t work with me unless I swear not to kill any of ‘em,” Frank says, obviously irritated, “Fuckin’ stupid, half of ‘em are repeat offenders, but-“

“System makes the world turn,” Matt tells him, with the tone of someone who’s said the same thing about twenty million times, “You don’t have the right to kill anyone you want.”

“You and your god damn system, Red,” Frank snipes at him, “You want the men who raped that girl to live? The men who sell these drugs to kids to live?”

Exhausted, Matt says, “I’m not debating with you right now, not again. I want them to live, but only after I beat them so bloody they’ll be vegetables for the rest of their lives. How’s that? Violent enough for you?”

Frank looks at him for a long moment. Then he sighs and tucks one of his guns into his waistband. “Alright. I’ll kneecap ‘em.”

“As long as you don’t kill them, do whatever you want too,” Matt says, calm as can be, “They should be miserable. Death would be too kind.”

That raises some interesting questions about Red’s ideology that he’s never really thought of before. Peter didn’t really know why he didn’t kill people, other than the fact that he thought it was wrong. That it was a line you couldn’t come back from. He remembered what Ben had told him - that some people needed to be put down for the safety of everyone else - and he couldn’t begrudge people like Jessica Jones, because Kilgrave was someone who truly had no chance in being held by a prison. Still, Peter thought, he’d met Jessica. He’d seen the shadows in her eyes and the paleness of her skin and the way she stunk of whiskey and vodka, like it was all she had for every meal. Killing him had changed her.

Or the torture he had put her through that changed her. Peter guessed it wasn’t so black and white.

Regardless, Matt’s words swirled around Peter’s head as Frank double checked how many rounds he had. Death would be too kind. Yeah, Peter got it. Beating them so badly that they had to live in pain and useless for the rest of their lives? He could get behind that.

“Spidey, you and I are going to deal with the men on the outside as quietly as possible. I don’t want you getting caught in a shoot out inside if they hear us and have time to prepare,” Matt says, twisting his wrists.

“None of us are getting caught in a damn shoot out,” Frank corrects, rolling his eyes.

Matt doesn’t even bother responding to him. “I’ll cut the power and we’ll head in. Frank’s got our six, and he’ll come in if we need him.”

Peter eyed Frank doubtfully. Yeah, the dude was a good tipper and seemed nice enough, but also he was the Punisher, and Peter didn’t think he was imagining how him and Red had gone through an all out turf war over Hell’s Kitchen a couple years back. It’d been all over the news; J. Jameson, specifically, used it to highlight the dangers of vigilantes.

But… Peter was supposed to trust Matt. He was trying too, at least.

So he just nods. Matt asks, “Is that alright?”

“Oh, yeah,” Peter says, “Sorry, I nodded, didn’t realize you weren’t looking at me.”

Frank snorts at that, but Matt shoves him as he opens his mouth to say something. “Let’s go.”

Taking out the guys outside is easier than it should be, but Peter’s not one to gift a horse in the mouth. The five men are stationed far enough apart that Peter can web them up quietly and have the next one not even notice until they’re webbed up too. Matt seems content with lurking in the shadows as Peter takes care of all the guys, his head tilted toward the inside.

“Twenty men on the first floor, another ten or so on the second,” Matt whispers when Peter lands next to him, his voice barely above a breath.

“The other ten?” Peter whispers back. He’s too wired up to check on it himself, careful to only have the familiar tiny hole poked into his mental bubble. Enough to register threats and noises; not enough to count heartbeats.

Matt’s mouth is a tight line. “Basement level? They’re around some sort of, uh, source in the basement, it’s pulsing. I can’t get a clear view.”

Well that’s concerning, but Peter’s fought an alien in space, so he just nods. “We focusing on the first floor?”

“Frank’s got the second,” Matt confirms. “We’ll check the basement last. Doubt they’ll come up.”

Peter hums, and they creep toward the entrance. The doors closed, but there’s a small window above it, so Peter climbs up the wall and peeks in. Half of the guys have guns, but they all look pretty relaxed, conversing with each other or fiddling with their phones. Peter wants to watch a little longer, but then Matt says, “Time!”, And promptly kicks the door in.

Peter sighs.

He guesses that Frank shot the fuse box at the same time Matt kicks the door in, because the lights go out as if coordinated. There’s a moment of confusion inside, as the men seem to stumble at the sudden darkness, and then Peter’s eyes adjust, and he sees Matt roundhouse kick a guy in the jaw, and the sound of teeth flying is enough to scare the other men into shouts and fights.

One of them yells, “The Devil!” And it turns into a madhouse of shooting, which Peter has to avoid by jumping onto walls and holding on the ceiling. He doesn’t know how Matt’s ducking under bullets, but he fights like he’s dancing, flowing through movements as easily as breathing.

Peter makes himself focus and tears his gaze away, toward a man below him instead. He webs the guy’s gun and attaches it to the ceiling, then drops down onto his shoulders and wraps a thigh around his neck. The man doesn’t even have the breath to scream, and Peter tightens his leg until the man begins to collapse. Then Peter jumps off and is onto the next, his heart beating steadily in his chest.

This is familiar, the fighting. He finds it’s easier, too, with his senses opened the way Matt taught him; he can listen to both his Spidey sense telling him to move and his other senses telling him how to block. His sense blares, and he ducks in a second, avoiding a bullet to the head by a shred of space. He hears the sound of the gun, and it’s jammed, a bullet stuck and the man holding it curses and then Peters there, punching him hard in the inner wrist and making him drop his weapon. Peter crushes the gun under his foot at the same time he aims a punch to the side of the guys head and he crumples, landing hard on the leftover metal beneath him.

It’s a blur, and his blood is singing in a way it hasn’t in months, or years. Since the final battle a year ago, when fighting was breathing and surviving was the only thought on his mind, a mantra of I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive. There were so many monsters to fight, just like the men he’s surrounded by now. It’s overwhelming in a good way, a stark difference to the usual one-on-one fights that Peter participates with in back alleys of Queens.

Distantly, he hears Frank’s voice from the roof, a mutter of “Guy to your right, Red, that gang-rape,” and then Matt is grabbing a man by the back of neck and saying, “Kian Sanley?”

“No,” the man gasps, but it must be a lie because Matt lays into him, punching him so hard Peter can hear the bones being crushed into his face, his nose cracking in two.

Peter twists sideways, webbing a guy that’s trying to sneak up behind Matt down to the ground. The man reaches out for his gun and Peter stomps on his wrist, closes the hole in his mind bubble for a moment so he doesn’t hear the sound of it, and then opens it again. A man to his right gets a hook to the jugular and goes down spluttering, and to the left, Peter kicks out a leg and hits some guys shin so hard he feels more than hears it crack.

Peter turns to Matt for a split second, just to hear Matt growl, “She was 16,” and snap the man’s ankle out from under him, but the distraction is more than enough; his Spidey sense blares, and Peter moves sideways a moment too late, a bullet grazing his shoulder and tearing through his suit. Peter flinches, because it fucking hurts, but he doesn’t stop, because he’s fine, he’s always fine, at least he’s not on a planet in outer space watching Tony get stabbed in front of him; at least Matt’s okay.

And Frank definitely is too, because as Peter turns toward the man who just shot him, the man falls backward on the floor, blood pooling beneath him. “Fuck,” Peter says, because the guy’s got a hole in his head and there’s chunks around him, gray and all that remains of his once-intact brain. “Fuck.”

He’s seen dead bodies before. He’s held them as they died; Ben, his blood covering Peter’s hands, burrowing under his nails; Tony, his gaze vacant; May, her lungs drowning by the very liquid that once ran through her veins. It’s nothing new. This man was shot cleaner than any of the deaths Peter’s witnessed first hand - and yet.

And yet Peter doesn’t have time to freeze. He blinks and he’s back, and there’s one man left standing, staring in horror at where Matt’s still beating up the one guy. Peter walks up behind him and punches him in the conveniently unguarded back of the head, and he falls like a puppet with his strings cut.

The man - Sanley - that Matt’s pummeling looks unrecognizable. His eyes are already swollen shut, his jaw is tilted awkwardly, his nose caved into his face, and his right wrist and all the fingers on his left hand are mangled and hanging limply. His ankle is at an angle it definitely shouldn’t be at and his head is bleeding, and Matt seems to come back to himself when the man finally goes unconscious. Then he drops the guy unceremoniously, and Peter winces at the sound of his head hitting the floor again.

Absently, Matt says, “He’s alive,” and pulls at the fingers of his gloves, which are dripping red. He tilts his head and frowns, his entire face twisting as he says, “Frank!”

Frank’s heartbeat moves closer and then he’s stumbling into the room, footsteps heavy. “Ain’t sorry, Red. Your kid’s bleedin’.”

Matt’s head snaps to Peter, frown taking on a more worried look instead of angry as he moves closer. “You okay?” He asks, placing a hand on Peter’s good shoulder, “Bullet didn’t go through, right?”

Peter shakes his head, willing his voice to come out steady as he responds, “Just a bad graze, went a little deep. I’ll be fine.”

Frank taps one of his guns against his thigh. The skull symbol on his vest taunts Peter now, a reminder of death he hadn’t taken as seriously as he should’ve. “You’re lucky. If you didn’t move when you did, bullet woulda went straight through your heart.”

“Good thing I moved, then,” Peter jokes weakly, shrugging. It’s not the first time he’s nearly died, but it is the first time someone’s been there to take care of him in the after.

Matt seems to tell that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, because he says, “Frank, we’ll talk about this later-“

Frank mutters, “Altar boy.”

“-And Spidey, good job on your offense, you seem fine other than the graze,” He continues, which Peter realizes with a start is true; his face hadn’t been hit once, and only his thigh is aching from a stray kick that he hadn’t been able to cover. “You took out the top floor, Frank?”

“Yeah,” Frank confirms, stepping over the bodies that littered the floor and trailing a hand along the left wall, “Got most of ‘em in the knees or wrists, should pass out from blood loss but won’t die if we call the cops soon. Where’s that basement?”

“You’re the one who saw the blueprints,” Matt grumps at him, although he does spare a second to smile at Frank when he shares the news of the nonfatal injuries he inflicted. Peter, meanwhile, tries to silently figure out why Matt wouldn’t look over the blueprints with Frank, especially if they had staked out the place for hours together.

“I told you they ain’t very clear,” Frank snipes, irritated, “There’s a crack in the wall or somethin’. To the left?”

As Matt moves over to help Frank find whatever secret button they’re looking for, Peter looks around the room. The first floor is more barren than he thought it would be, although an entire wall is lined with guns and knives, hanging from nails like some fucked up artwork. There are boxes lined against another wall, and Peter goes over and opens one up, sense of caution be damned, and finds piles and piles of files and what looks like lab notes. He picks one up off the top.

Shipment 215, 20-3-2012
9th & Oak
100k KRYO: [Redacted] tested - Failure to comply. Phase 2 re-drawn, Dr. CV on next testing.
- As poison YES, Unable to contain in other weaponry

Peter grabs another file, hearing quiet conversation between Matt and Frank in the background as he flips through pages.

Shipment 444, 13-1-2016
3rd Ave, E. Harlem
237k KRYO: [Redacted] tested - Failure to comply. Phase 2 complete: Dr. LO to 3.
- Working in bullets; insert in ARs as Phase 4

Peter stares in confusion, setting it down and flipping through another file, and then another and another. They all follow the same sort of guide, lab reports written with the least amount of information possible, most of it so heavily redacted that entire pages were just blank or colored in black. This wasn’t just the work of a street gang, Peter could tell that much - and while the Jagged Skulls and Dogs of Hell we’re working together in this warehouse, even them uniting wouldn’t be able to pull together this amount of complicated science.

Street gangs were so dangerous because most of the time, all they did was buy weapons and distribute them. They didn’t know the full extent of what the weapons did or where they came from, were just invested in the money aspect, which caused things to get out of control. Peter’s noticed the new weapons on the street - it was hard not too, when the reason he even got to know Matt was because a superpowered gun had left Peter burnt and bleeding in a dumpster - but he hadn’t realized how truly sophisticated it was. He’d been in pain so long that it’s only now, as he flips through blueprints for guns and chemical screenings for the mix of science and super natural elements, that he realizes the pain he had felt when his neck and arm burned wasn’t the normal rate it would have been before.

Frank’s voice breaks through his thoughts, calling, “Mini-Red!”

“I still don’t like that,” Matt says, arms crossed, “But come here, Spidey, we found it.”

Peter sets the file that he’s currently holding down like it’s a bomb. He needs to either light these on fire or figure out a way to take them back to his apartment, because something is very, very wrong.

“Guys,” Peter says, making his way over, “This isn’t right. The information in these boxes… they shouldn’t have left it out so easily.”

Frank shrugs, but even he looks uneasy. “Probably didn’t expect to come up on mine and Red’s radar. Was a coincidence we found ‘em, anyways.”

That sets alarm bells ringing in Peter’s head, and his voice cracks as he asks, “What do you mean?”

“I was plannin’ on killin’ those rapists when they got out,” Frank says with an ease that suggests this is not out of the ordinary, although Matt huffs with irritation, “Followed ‘em for awhile an’ they led me to one o’ the guys in the Jagged Skulls, who led me here.”

Too easy, Peter thought. Maybe he was being paranoid, maybe, because really, Frank must’ve had to follow his marks for days to end up here, and that wasn’t easy. Still, the hair on the back of his neck was standing, and Peter let the hole in his mind bubble expand a little larger, made the snow falling in it a little lighter.

“There’s less than ten men down there,” Matt tries to soothe, evidently hearing Peter’s unspoken paranoia, “We just need to be careful of the lab shit, I can smell chemicals. Then we’re done.”

“Pizza at Red’s,” Frank says, and presses into the groove in the wall that’ll open up the basement stairs, “On him.”

Matt snorts, but doesn’t have time to deny it as the wall slides open on silent hinges. Creepy, Peter thinks, then makes his mind shut up, because this is no creepier than that weird girl with the huge eyes and antennas poking out of her head that he worked with when he was in space.

The lights are still on as they walk on silent feet down the stairs; backup generator, probably, the LED lights glowing from where they seem built into the stairs. The walls are white and stark and there’s a faint scent of bleach covering the chemicals, which makes Peter wrinkle his nose. The upstairs of the warehouse had been unassuming in comparison to what they walk into now.

Peter has time enough to register several tables covered in half-filled glass beakers and a wall covered in writing before he’s ducking down as a shot ricochets where his head had just been. There’s no place to hide, not in the openness of this lab, so Peter accepts that and darts forward, going old school and tackling the man who had just pulled a gun on him.

They grapple on the floor for a moment, the man’s white lab coat momentarily covering Peter’s vision, and then Peter grabs him by the forehead, lifts his head up, and then slams it down hard enough that he loses consciousness.

Matt seems to be fighting three men at once, both who are also in lab coats, but is holding his own just fine; Frank uses the butt of his gun to slam into the spot above a man’s ear, sending him tumbling in a heap to the ground, and then grips another guy’s wrist to pull him closer and wrap a thick arm around his neck until he slumps to the ground too. Then he goes over and helps out Matt, and they fight with the sort of shared violence that’s hard to stomach.

There’s one more man near Peter, but he doesn’t seem interested in fighting; instead, he’s pouring beakers of chemicals onto papers in one of the iron sinks, sending shreds of files smoking into the air.

“Isn’t the first rule of lab safety to handle chemicals with care?” Peter asks, grabbing the man by the back of the neck. The man doesn’t say anything, just lifts his arms up to try and grab Peter’s wrist, which doesn’t work.

“Stick to science,” Peter says wisely, then slams the guys head against the very sink he’d just been leaning on. The guy slumps, unconscious, and Peter turns on the sink to wash down the small fire that was still eating the files in the sink.

“What is this?” Matt asks from behind him, which Peter takes with grace, because Matt did say he went to law school and hadn’t majored in a STEM, so he probably had no clue what any of this was.

Peter wanders around the small room, squinting at the chemicals in the beakers and on the hot plates. “It’s a drug lab, but… these components don’t work together.”

Frank and Matt both stare at him.

“Okay,” Peter says, accepting the impromptu science lesson he’s about to give, “So, you can make meth with, like, over the counter stuff, right? Cold medicine and whatever. That’s why it’s such an epidemic. But you need some chemicals, like Muriatic Acid, or Trichloroethane. You gotta be careful with those, because too much can be deadly, and too little can be deadly, so you need the perfect amount of everything.”

“I’m not going to ask why you know how to make meth,” Matt mutters.

Peter shrugs. “I was curious. Anyways, so there’s some parts of chemicals that are measured with exactly the right amount needed to make meth, like in this beaker-“ he points to one that’s half full, a clear liquid bubbling, “But then there are some that aren’t for any drug I’ve ever seen before.”

“You know all the ingredients to every drug on the street?” Frank asks, and he sounds like he’s actually asking, not teasing.

“A decent amount,” Peter admits, “Not all, I guess. Look, see this silver mess? It’s Technetium. Radioactive. There’s no reason it should be mixed with Ammonia, it makes no sense from a scientific standpoint.” But the liquid is pulsing, like how Matt described, and there’s a shimmer to it that doesn’t seem very natural at all.

Matt’s head tilts toward the stairs. “Cops are a couple minutes out, we need to go.”

Peter turns back toward the wall with the notes, flicking his eyes over them as quickly as he can. Chemical compositions, research papers about biomedical sciences, a study of what looks like Banner’s DNA, which is public in his thesis - and there, a note in the top corner, handwritten and sprawling; Nadia V.D. needed for further testing, last complying specimen.

It’s a trap, Peter thinks, the thought rebounding in his head, and he curses, tears the paper off the wall and tucks it into the pocket on his suit by his phone. “We need to go,” he says, urgent and hurried, “Take off their lab coats and bring them outside, come on.”

Frank and Matt listen without question, stripping the men and carrying two each, one over each shoulder. Peter lifts the last three, not even feeling the weight, and carries them up the stairs, dumping them outside the main entrance they had used to bust in only an hour before.

“Cops are a minute out,” Matt warns, and Peter runs back to close the door to the lab and then he’s back again, and him and Matt and Frank disappear up to the rooftop they had met on right as a multitude of cop cars and ambulances pull to a stop, lights and sounds blaring.

One of the cops - a woman, with a metal arm - picks up the smell immediately, tells everyone to get people out of the building, and they do, paramedics rushing with stretchers and cops carrying out gangsters like brides.

“This one’s dead,” Peter hears when he expands his senses, and the woman responds, “Leave him, get out the living.”

“Daredevil,” Peter warns right as the last cop walks out, “Cover your ears.”

And to Matt’s credit, he does so without hesitation. Peter forces the hole closed in his mind, but his ears still ring as the building blows up, fire shooting into the sky and lighting up the world. For a moment, it’s silent, and then the screaming starts as debris begins to fall, wood planks and iron flooring deafening. The smoke invades Peter’s nose and he coughs, once, twice, before he gets a hold on himself enough to hear Frank saying, “Let’s go, we need to go.”

Matt seems far more out of it than Peter is, enough that when Frank grabs one of his hands he holds on tightly, following him down the fire escape and through back alleys. The moon illuminates them, and Peter watches as Matt’s gloves, covered in his victim’s blood, leaves smears along Frank’s own arms as he holds on for guidance.

Five minutes in and Matt loops an arm around Frank’s neck and Peter’s shoulders and they half-carry him for another fifteen minutes, and now Peter’s starting to feel the weight, his own ears still ringing and nostrils burning and throat coated in regret, and it’s a mercy when they arrive in front of Matt’s building.

“You better pray to your God that none o’ your neighbors are awake,” Frank says, all harsh and mean, but his gaze looks vaguely worried as they start up the stairs to Matt’s apartment.

“God’s listening,” Matt says, sounding a little delirious, and He must be, because they don’t run into anyone on the way up. Frank lifts a chain from around his neck and inserts the key that hangs on it into Matt’s front door, and it unlocks with a near-silent sound.

They dump Matt on the couch, where he groans lowly, and Frank hurries to fill up a cup with water from the sink, thrusting it into Matt’s waiting hands. “12 o’clock,” he says softly, which Peter doesn’t really get, but his brains going so slow he’s not really getting anything at all.

There’s a long, long silence as Matt gets his bearings back and Frank fills up two more cups for himself and Peter. Peter takes it with shaking hands, trying not to touch the blood that’s smeared on it from Frank’s hands.

Finally, Matt says, “Pizza?” And Frank smacks him on the thigh, says, “Shut the fuck up,” and then picks up the landline on Matt’s counter and orders four pizzas and a ginger ale, promising an extra tip for fast delivery.

Then he sits back down at Matt’s side, and says, “What the fuck was that.”

Peter, who feels a bit as if he’s been floating for the past hour or so, is pulled harshly back down to earth by the question. He remembers stepping on a man’s wrist, and the way Frank’s bullet went through that other man’s head and the way his brain matter spilled out, and the way that building had lit up, and finally felt the still-bleeding graze on his shoulder.

Then he pulls his mask up to his nose, leans over the sink, and pukes up everything he’s eaten in the past 48 hours.

Frank’s hand is a warm weight rubbing on his back. “Get it out, kid,” he murmurs, “It’s okay now. You’re safe,” and he’s good at the reassurance, makes Peter feel all young again until he remembers that he’s not safe, he never will be safe again, and he throws up again, and it’s painful, all bile and burning him up.

He heaves a couple more times, but nothing else comes up. His stomach’s empty now, and somehow he’s still hungry. Frank passes him the water cup and he accepts it gratefully, swishes it in his mouth and spits out the last of it, leaving only a vague taste of ash behind.

“Sit,” Frank tells him, and Peter does, because he’s too tired to think on his own. He collapses next to Matt, and for a long moment it’s quiet except for the sounds of Frank running the water and getting all of Peter’s puke down the drain, and Matt’s breathing.

Then Matt says, voice low, “Come here,” and Peter wants to hesitate, he’s petrified all over again, but Matt holds out an arm and Peter can’t help but fall into it. He sticks his face into the spot between Matt’s neck and shoulder, feeling warm and safe and comfortable. Matt holds the back of Peter’s head, making soft shushing sounds until Peter stops shaking.

He should probably feel embarrassed, but he just can’t. It would take too much energy, too much time. And anyways, he’s comfortable here, even when Frank comes over and wraps his arm in gauze, careful to not rip his suit off anymore or ask him to take it off further.

It’s only when the doorbell rings and Frank pulls his vest off and replaces it with a sweatshirt that Peter finally calms down enough to pull away. Matt lets him, but keeps a hand on his back, rubbing circles gently. It reminds him of May, a soft memory for once, so he doesn’t make Matt stop.

Frank drops the pile of pizzas on the coffee table, hands Peter the ginger ale, and then settles in the couch across from them. “That was a shitshow.”

“Could’ve been worse,” Matt says, opening a box and grabbing a slice. “We’re alive. I didn’t even get stabbed or lose my hearing again.”

“I bought you pizza, Red, stop bringin’ that shit up,” Frank says, rolling his eyes and grabbing a slice himself. “Shoot a guy once and he gets all superior ‘bout it-“

“You shot me in the head,” Matt stresses, not pausing as he hands Peter an entire pizza box.

Well, that’s the answer to Peter’s old question about that scenario. Unsurprisingly, he now has about twenty million more questions about the event, all of which he decides to bring up at a later point.

“An’ look, you’re still here to fight with me!” Frank says cheerfully, “That explosion was somethin’ else.”

Peter nods, ignoring how his voice comes out hoarse as he adds, “It was way too big for the contained space it was started in.”

“Red, parts of the fire looked purple,” Frank describes, and Peter guesses Matt must’ve put his head down and not been looking when it went off, “Wasn’t right, not normal.”

Matt nods thoughtfully. “How’d you know it was going to happen, Spidey?”

“Partly an educated guess. That many chemicals together will always create an explosion, and with how secretive it seemed, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of alarm we set off when we went down,” Peter swallows his pizza, taking a long sip of ginger ale. He already feels better, the calories and soda settling his stomach. “Also, um, there was a note about Nadia, I think. Either they know we have her, or it’s a crazy coincidence. I’m leaning toward the first.”

He takes the note he salvaged out of his pocket and hands it to Matt, who hands it straight to Frank. Frank reads it aloud, his brow furrowing. “This the girl you and Jones found?”

Matt hums in confirmation. “Think so. Don’t know how she’s involved in street gangs, though. Natasha’s sister says she trained with Nadia in the KGB, years ago.”

“This is more than street gangs,” Peter says, and sets down his food, back to feeling vaguely nauseous with nerves. “Even the files I was reading on the first floor? Weapons and lab stuff, real complicated. And it was dated pretty old, like, ten years ago, on some of it.”

Matt rubs his head, which makes the horns of his mask move sideways. “Natasha and Barnes took down HYDRA.”

“There are other organizations,” Peter says anxiously, leg bouncing, “I mean, I got my powers from A.I.M on a school field trip. And Hammer Industries took over the weapons dealing for the US Military when Tony stepped down. Plus, that one Russian guy got pretty close to making an Iron Man suit a while ago, Ivan something. Vanko, I think.”

“The government will do just ‘bout anythin’ to hide the illegal shit they do,” Frank adds darkly, and his trigger finger twitches the same way JB’s always does, “Killed my family for less.”

Peter forgot about that. Feels like a bit of an asshole, but maybe it’s for the best - he probably would’ve said “Sorry for your loss” or something else stupid and meaningless if he had remembered.

“Great,” Matt says, sounding absolutely exhausted, “Another conspiracy, a Russian spy, and a new drug and/or weapon on the street.”

“Merry Christmas,” Frank says dryly.

Peter mutters, “Happy Hanukkah to me.”

Matt decides, “We need to talk to Nadia.”

Notes:

Was reading old comics and fell in love with Bucky having a really thick NYC accent, sue me. Also, JB? Hell, yes. Subtle hints of Sam and Bucky dating, and Bucky stealing Sam art and music? Hell, yes.

I’m an archeologist. I specialize in ancient bones, people, not drug sciences. Don’t judge Peter’s whole science spiel too harshly!

I love Yelena, I love Kate Bishop, I love every side character who finds their way into this fic. Ignore the mess of the timeline and me creating my own canon. Nadia is NOT an OC;) Enjoy!

Chapter 3: The Street Women

Summary:

“They were not street women in lab,” Nadia says seriously, “They were just mine. They speak no Russian-“

Softly, Daisy corrects, “They did not speak Russian.”

“They did not speak Russian,” Nadia repeats, “Until I did my experiments. Then they speak Russian,” she scratches idly at the scab on her wrist, “After experiments, they did everything I tell them too.”

Notes:

Trigger warnings for the usual: canon-typical violence & everything Red Room (prostitution, experimentation, etc).

Also - Sam discusses the racism he’s dealt with at depth, because he deserves too, dammit.

Eight days and several screaming fights over the phone with Daisy Johnson later, Peter is finally given clearance to meet with Nadia.

He’s not allowed to bring JB or Clint, nor even Yelena or Kate, only himself and someone to take him back home if he was too emotional after to do it himself. He chooses Matt, for what he assumes are obvious reasons, and Matt insists on it taking place at night, because he refuses to even be in the same vicinity of Daisy without his mask on.

This creates another screaming fight with the woman, one that Matt promptly takes over by snatching the phone out of Peter’s hand and yelling straight nonsense into the speaker until Daisy gets so mad she hangs up. She does move the meeting from 3pm to 8, though, which Peter takes as an agreement.

So when the next Saturday dawns after a long week of Matt’s training, Frank’s planning, and JB’s worried texts, Peter feels no small amount of relief. It’s finally almost over, he thinks. He’s almost done.

“I can’t drive you home,” Matt tells him from the rooftop across the address that Daisy had sent him, a cute and unassuming walk-up in Harlem, the sidewalk layered by barren trees that are covered in Christmas lights.

Peter gives him a look, one that he knows Matt can actually see, since Peter doesn’t have his mask on. “No one has a car in New York, man, I wasn’t expecting one.”

Matt snorts. Then he turns away from where he’d been staring at the street and lifts a hand up, lays it gently on Peter’s head.

No suit for Peter, not today. Tonight he is only himself. In jeans and a plain grey hoodie, he looks like he always does; ordinary and a little beat up, a thin cut still healing along his cheek from a fight he’d gotten into the night before.

It probably should’ve been scarier, showing himself to Matt. But then Matt already knew his heartbeat, the way his bones sounded and his blood flowed, and there was little more intimate than that. Peter’s face didn’t seem like as big of a sacrifice as his name had been.

And Matt’s gloved hand is kind as he holds Peter’s head, rubbing a thumb through his curls. “Come right back out when you’re done,” he tells Peter sternly, “No staying around Daisy longer than you need too.”

Peter can’t help but roll his eyes, although his mouth is twitching in a smile. “Yes, Matt.”

Daisy doesn’t know he’s Spider-Man, or at least she shouldn’t. As far as she knows, Peter is just a boy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, who Nadia had formed a quick and trustworthy connection with. She wouldn’t be in the room when they spoke, Peter had been assured, although he knew her listening in was more than likely.

This is what he reminds himself as he takes the fire escape down from the roof and crosses the street toward the apartment building, his steps light in the snow. He needed to talk to Stephen, still, probably, but he’d avoid that till his last breath if he could, mostly because he knew Stephen had loved him, and that staring into his unrecognizing eyes would be another shard into Peter’s heart, the same way it had felt when MJ didn’t know him either. Until then, he decided, he would try to figure this out himself. Well. With Nadia’s help, at least.

He knocks on the door to the second floor, stuffs his hands into his pockets so no one can see that they’re shaking, and taps his foot as he waits. One minute, two, and then the door opens a sliver and an eye stares at him, squinted in suspicion.

“Um,” Peter says, “Hi?”

“Ugh,” a woman’s voice says, and the door opens just enough that Peter can squeeze himself through. Then it’s closed sharply behind him, the snap of it audible and loud against his ears.

The woman in front of him is… pretty, all things considered, in an objective sort of way. Tan skin and dark eyes framed by long lashes, and black hair that’s cut just above her shoulders. He thinks he sees a streak of purple in it as she shifts on her feet, crossing her arms and staring at him with a brow raised. “I’m Daisy.”

“Peter,” he says, sticks out a hand. She shakes it, firm but not too hard, and then lets go, gestures to a doorway behind him with a nod of her head.

“Nadia’s in there,” she tells him, her voice raspy and low, “You hurt her and I’ll kill you.”

Well, at least she’s upfront about it, Peter thinks. He loves a woman who’s honest. Reminds him of MJ and Natasha; of Yelena, too. Of May, maybe.

“I rather like living,” Peter replies lightly, and hopes that answers good enough as he turns around.

The door opens on silent hinges as he turns the knob. A kitchen, he registers. Homey and old style, with a little table and an even smaller countertop, a candle burning above it. He closes the door behind him.

She’s making something by the stove, her back to him. He sits down at the table and watches as she moves, head resting on a closed fist. She’s brewing coffee, he sees, watching as it drips into one mug, then another. She drops six sugar cubes and three creamers into one of the mugs, and Peter has to suppress a smile at that.

“Here,” she says finally, her accent strong even in just a word, and hands him the mug of black coffee, “To you.”

“Spasibo,” Peter says, wrapping his cold palms around the warmth. Thank you.

She sits across from him, in the chair he had left alone for her - the one that put her back to the wall and front toward the door he had walked in through. She smiles at him, soft and unsteadily, like she’s still learning how.

She looks… better. Certainly healthier than when he had first found her in that warehouse - she’s gained a little weight, her face looking less gaunt and more full, though her cheekbones still protrude outwards. Her hair is a little longer, curling at her shoulders, and her bangs fall just below her brows, which are just as dark red as her hair. Her eyes are the greenest that Peter’s ever seen, and the wideness of them makes her look younger than Peter’s sure she is - probably in her early or mid 20’s, like Yelena. Unlike Yelena, however, who constantly gave a general air of danger, Nadia seemed completely unthreatening in plaid pajama pants and an oversized black hoodie that covered her hands and spilled halfway down her thighs.

Peter remembers Natasha’s words now more than ever, echoing in his mind - only fools underestimate women. Don’t be a fool, Peter.

“I’m Peter,” he tells her, cautiously, “Petyr. Do you remember me?”

She takes a long sip from her mug. “Sometimes.”

Well, Peter can work with that. “In a good way?”

She shrugs.

She reminds him of how JB had been in the airport, all quiet even in his snark with Sam. Like he didn’t trust himself to speak. Didn’t trust his own words, his own brain. It had taken years to get the man to the chattiness he displayed now, and even that depended on his good and bad days.

It’s fine, he tells himself. Peter has nothing but time. He’ll be stuck in this limbo of his own creation for the rest of his life.

“I talked to your friend about you,” he switches the subject, watches as her eyes narrow at him, “Do you remember Yelena?”

She stiffens, and then melts as quickly as anything, like that could hide it all. “Sometimes.” But there’s a glimmer in her eye that hadn’t been there before, a shining at the familiarity.

“She wants to see you,” Peter continues casually, “But your handler is being strict about your visitors.”

At this, Nadia frowns. “Daisy is not handler. She is friend.”

Peter’s not sure if her broken English is an act or not. Natasha’s words echo, like they always do.

“Well, she said no,” Peter shrugs, “Yelena’s okay. Well, sometimes.”

“Why sometimes?” Nadia asks, leaning forward.

Peter copies her movement. “Why do you know me?”

She scowls at him, and leans back.

Peter smiles at her. Then, because he’s not evil, he reveals, “She’s sad, sometimes, because she misses her sister.”

“Natalia,” Nadia says, and she says it real slow, like it’s taking her a lot of effort to string the letters together. “Where is Natalia?”

“Dead,” Peter tells her, like it’s not a caving loss in his own heart. “For two years, now.”

Nadia blinks at him. Then she takes another sip of her coffee. “Oh.”

They sit in silence for a long moment. Then Nadia, curious still, says, “But Yelena is okay? Most of times?”

“Yes,” Peter agrees, although he’s not sure about that, “She has friends.”

Nadia repeats, “Friends,” like it’s a word she’s never heard before.

“Like family,” Peter indulges, and then says it in Russian, “Sem’ya. Family. But not with blood.”

She furrows her brow. “Polina? Isak?”

“Sure,” Peter says, “They can be your family. You watched out for them, didn’t you?”

“Sure,” she echoes, “They are friends. Little friends. Okay?”

Peter nods. “They’re okay.”

“I thought,” Nadia tells him, looking serious, “I know they are okay. Because they went with you. Petyr.”

Peter closes his eyes until he feels the tears retreat. He remembers the way Natasha’s own voice had curled around his name, gentle and sweet. A lifetime ago. Not that long at all. Never again.

“Yes,” he agrees softly, “They’re okay. Nadia. What happened?”

She sets her mug down. “Everything,” she tells him, voice quiet. “All.”

She does not speak again.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

A couple hours later finds him curled on Matt’s sofa, familiar in its softness. “How much was this, be honest,” Peter calls toward the bedroom, where Matt is grabbing Peter pajamas.

“Too much,” Matt says dryly, throwing Peter sweats and a shirt and heading toward the kitchen, “But anything else would be hell on my skin. Hot chocolate?”

“Only if it’s Irish,” Peter says, and ducks into Matt’s bedroom to change. When he comes out, Matt is sitting on the sofa, still in his Daredevil costume and holding two mugs.

“So,” he says as Peter settles beside him, “It didn’t go well, I’m guessing.”

Peter sighs and takes his mug, the sweetness of the chocolate and the burn of the whiskey flowing down his throat. “It went about as well as I expected. She needs time.”

Matt doesn’t waste seconds on reassurance. “And how long will it be before whoever lost her comes looking for her?”

Exhausted, Peter says, “That warehouse proved that they know we found her. All we can do now is wait.”

Matt, unsurprisingly, does not approve of this. “It’s not safe.”

Peter leans his head back. “What do you want me to do, Matty? She’s trained against torture, nothings going to make her talk. Besides, she’s safe with Daisy.”

Matt’s mouth curls at that, but grudgingly, he admits, “I know. I’m just, uh, worried. For you, and for the streets. If they’re making more guns like the one that fried you-“

“I know,” Peter agrees. “It’s concerning. But we have no leads, and she’s traumatized. She needs time, Matt. We owe it to her.”

They’re going in circles. They’re both worried half out of their minds and it’s making them snappy and Peter rubs at his head, feeling the pain of a migraine building behind his eyes. He’s lucky that Josie’s Catholic and doesn’t open the bar until six on Sunday’s; plans to spend the day sleeping in Matt’s bed while Matt goes to church and God knows what else as a normal civilian.

He takes another long sip of his hot chocolate. The snows falling much heavier now as mid December grows closer; tomorrow will be the first day of Hanukkah. Peter’s first time celebrating completely alone. He’s trying not to think about it.

“I’m sorry,” Matt says sincerely, and leans his head toward Peter until he pokes him gently with one of the horns of his helmet, smiling when Peter laughs, “Take your time. It’ll work out. My, uh, friends are going to keep an ear to the ground just in case.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else,” Peter tells him warmly. Matt’s care overwhelms him sometimes, but in moments like these, it feels like a weighted blanket, comforting on Peter’s aching knees. “Thank you.”

“Go to sleep,” Matt tells him, “You need your rest.”

Matt’s silk sheets are so comfortable they feel like sinking into a cloud, and Peter would feel guilty about stealing his friend’s bed if he didn’t know that Matt was going to spend pretty much all the night as Daredevil and part of the morning hours before church with Frank Castle. Peter didn’t really understand that, and he wasn’t even supposed to know about it, so he never bothered asking, but he thinks he sees something sometimes, when Frank worries about Matt a little too much or when Matt grins at some snarky insult Frank directs at him, his smile all sharp and real.

Not his business, he reminds himself, not until it makes Matt upset, and then it is his business. That’s the thought he falls asleep too; when he wakes up the next morning to sunlight streaming through the window, the clock beside him reads 10:30. Peter ambles into the kitchen and finds a note next to the stove in Matt’s messy handwriting; Happy Hanukkah, Peter. Latkes waiting for you in the fridge.

Peter grins, his cheeks flushing in happiness. He hasn’t had latkes in years, not since Ben had been alive to make them - May knew they were out of her very limited cooking skills - and it’s with bated breath that he heats them up and stuffs one in his mouth, melting against the counter at the familiar taste. It tastes like home. Like Ben and May dancing around the kitchen and like his mom bouncing him in her lap at temple and like the year MJ and Ned had surprised him with three huge stockings full of Gelt, the best chocolate coins he’d ever had. Like now, in Matt’s kitchen.

He scribbles under Matt’s own chicken scratch; Love you Matty, thank you.

Then he shoves the note away from him before he can overthink it, eats the rest of the potato pancakes, and changes into his spider suit.

People are in holiday spirit now, yelling up at him to wish him a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year. He helps an old woman cross the street to avoid her slipping on ice, and she pinches his cheek and says, “Toda, yald .” Thank you, sweet boy.

Yes, always, Peter responds, “Ken, tamid,” and the woman laughs, delighted, and pulls a little bag of gelt out of her purse and shoves them in his hands.

“You are every Jewish grandmother stereotype ever,” Peter informs her seriously.

“Sheket,” The woman says, laughing, so Peter guesses she doesn’t really want him to shut up that badly.

Later, at Josie’s, several people come up to him while he’s bartending and offer to buy him a drink. “For Hanukkah,” they all try and cajole, and Peter always says, “How about you put that drink money toward a bigger tip instead?”

When it slows down a bit, Peter wipes down glasses and leans against the bar to watch the tv above it, where Wanda Maximoff talks on a news station about what it means to be Jewish. “My brother and I celebrated every year,” she says, and he can hear a hint of an accent under her words, a glimmer of a life that won’t disappear. “After, Natasha celebrated with me. Clint, too. There should be no hate in anyone’s hearts today. The Avengers accept every religion completely.”

Distantly, someone in the crowd below her shouts, “Did you celebrate with those fake kids of yours?” and Wanda’s heard the heckling, of course she has, and for a moment she freezes. Then she smiles.

“Happy first night of Hanukkah,” her voice gentle, “Laila tov.” Good night.

Peter sighs and turns to grab a man a beer.

“Poor girl,” says Frank as he sits down in front of Peter, “First holidays without your kids are always the hardest.”

Peter doesn’t stop moving. He doesn’t want to let Frank know who he is, instead moves to pour him a whiskey neat. “Sorry for your loss, man.” Clueless.

Frank blinks, like he hadn’t even realized he said anything at all. “Thanks,” and nods toward Peter’s chest, where his mom’s old Star of David necklace swings from its worn chain, “Happy Hanukkah.”

Peter smiles at him. “I’m just excited for the food.”

Frank laughs. “Ain’t you supposed to be lightin’ candles or somethin’ right now? What you doin’, working?”

Peter shrugs. “Doing it alone kinda sucks. Figured I’d skip it this year.”

But when he goes home later, he pulls the ancient Menorah out from his chest of treasures in the back of his closet - everything he had rescued from his and May’s apartment - and lights a candle, watches it burn as he sings quietly under his breath.

“Ima,” he says to the flame, begging for his mom in their native tongue, “Give me strength.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Nadia already has the table set with coffee by the time Peter gets there the next day, shaking snow from his hat and ignoring Daisy’s glaring look as he closes the kitchen door behind him.

“You are cold,” Nadia asks, looking unsure. “Drink? Warm.”

“I’m okay,” Peter tells her, but drinks greedily from the warmth of the mug, even though the black coffee is incredibly bitter against his tongue.

“Colder in Russia,” she tells him, and it almost sounds like a tease. “Freezes my science.”

Peter nods in understanding. “Your experiments, yeah. My old school didn’t have heating one year. I had to restart my bio project like, five times. So annoying.”

“What is bio project?” Nadia asks, her eyes gleaming.

“Biology. Like, studying living things,” Peter watches her, “You’re good at it, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she says simply, “I change people.”

Well, there’s the confirmation that she did come up with the chemical conditioning Yelena had spoke about.

“But then I change them back,” she adds, and she looks confused, “It’s not right.”

Gently, Peter says, “It is. You helped people. Yelena.”

This makes her relax again. “Oh,” she says, relieved, “And Oksana?”

A lump in Peter’s throat. He remembers Yelena’s story. “You helped Oksana, yes.”

Nadia lifts a hand and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It makes her seem strikingly young. “She is gone.”

“Yeah,” Peter sighs. He guesses she does remember some things. “Yelena was… changed. She hurt Oksana before Oksana could change her back.”

“But she is back,” Nadia insists, “Yelena back, is back.”

Peter nods quickly. “Yelena is back, Nadia, you’re right. She’s okay now. With friends, remember? Like sem’ya. Family.”

“I remember,” Nadia confirms. She sips her own coffee, which is half gone. “Sometimes sem’ya. You have that? Friends?”

Peter swallows. He doesn’t want to tell her. A part of him is petrified that she will run back to whoever was holding her before and spill all of his secrets. Another part of him knew she would never trust him if he doesn’t trust her too. “Yes. I have friends who are like family. A brother, sort of.”

“Brother,” Nadia says. “Like Yelena’s sister.”

“Natalia,” Peter agrees, the Russian name sounding right against his tongue. “His name is,” he pauses. Breathes. “It’s Matthew.”

“Matthew,” Nadia repeats, rolling her tongue over the T’s. “Matthew.”

“Yes,” Peter says, a little terrified but mostly just sure in his decision, “He’s older than me.”

She’s silent for a long time. It feels like she’s measuring him up. Then she says, “They told me. Long time ago.”

“About what?” Peter asks, calm in the knowledge it has nothing to do with him, because he’s only recently gained Matt as his own.

“I have sister,” she confides, whispers like they’re little girls at a sleepover, “A sister. Big one.”

“Really?” Peter whispers back, terrified to break the spell.

“I never meet her,” Nadia tells him solemnly. “Meet her? Met?”

“Met,” Peter helps.

“I never met her,” Nadia says, smiling when she fits the words together right, “Only photographs. Papers.”

Peter feels a piece of himself cleave in two. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Nadia asks, and there’s a smile on her lips as she says, “She is still my sister. Even though I don’t met her.”

Peter says, “Have not.”

“Even though I have not met her,” Nadia corrects effortlessly. “Sem’ya.”

“Sem’ya,” Peter repeats, “Tell me about her.”

But Nadia is done for the day. She picks up her coffee and retreats into herself and does not speak again.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Wednesday night has Matt bringing Sufganiyot to Fogwell’s, carrying the box with a care that Peter had been hard pressed to believe existed.

Peter stuffs his face with two of them at once, tries valiantly not to spray Matt with the powder sugar that covers the donut, and thanks him happily all at the same time.

“Eat with your mouth closed, you heathen child,” Matt chides, “Were you raised in a barn?”

“In Hell’s Kitchen, actually, so basically,” Peter responds cheerfully when he’s swallowed down the jelly filled sweet, grinning brightly. “Thanks, Matt.”

“Halfway done with Hanukkah, how do you feel?” He asks, reaching out to ruffle Peter’s hair, which is free from his mask.

“Super full of amazing food,” Peter tells him, flopping down on the floor, “Also, tired. Food coma.”

“You’re learning to kick today,” Matt tells him, “Have a food coma next week.”

Peter’s never going to complain about learning to fight, so he bounds up with a grin, pushing the box of baked goods and his mask into a corner of the ring.

Per usual, they go through a quick round of the basics before moving onto the new lesson. Peter learns how to position his foot in a way that won’t break his bone, how to curls his toes so he won’t crack them, and how to position his ankle so he won’t snap it. Then he’s taught Matt’s legendary roundhouse kick, plus the simple ups and downs that he already mostly knows, and Matt spends an hour trying to teach him how to do that flying Ariel kick Peter’s seen him do.

“Why is this so hard?” Peter pouts after he slams into the mat for the eleventh time, his shoulder aching from the impact. “I did gymnastics as a child, you know.”

“No, you didn’t,” Matt catches the lie easily, shaking his head in amusement. “You don’t have enough trust in yourself. Mental block, kiddo.”

“I trust myself fine,” Peter grumbles, and then falls on his shoulder again, so he guesses Matt maybe does have a point.

They move onto sidekicks and back kicks, which sort of makes Peter feel like a horse, but whatever. Then Matt gives him a quick anatomy lesson on which legs bones are easiest for Peter to break on other people - he learns to aim for the knees and shins - and how to sweep peoples ankles out from underneath them. Once he’s gotten a hang of those, Matt teaches him how to incorporate them seamlessly into his boxing technique, making it as smooth as possible.

By the end of it, Peter’s able to hold his own against Matt for an entire ten seconds, which is a crazy leap from the measly four he had been sporting for the past month before. Even Matt’s grinning at him, his teeth shining in the darkness, pride sinking in his smile lines.

“Good,” Matt says, and seems to really mean it, clasps a hand on Peter’s shoulder and uses it to pull him into a tight hug. “I’m really proud of you, you know that?”

Peter squirms, but he’s smiling all the same. “I know, Matt.”

Matt lets him go, laughing. “Eat another donut.”

Peter drags the box back into the ring and sits down beside Matt in the middle, their ritual as common as breathing. He hands Matt his own Sufganiyot, says, “You have too,” and breaks into laughter when the powdered sugar sticks to Matt’s mask, his nose and cheeks speckled with it.

“What do you want for Hanukkah?” Matt asks when Peter finally calms down, sounding genuinely curious.

“Well, mostly I just get presents on Christmas,” Peter explains, “My guardians weren’t Jewish, just my mom was. But they tried, you know, I had Jewish friends growing up and stuff, that’s how I still speak Hebrew. We lit the menorah and stuff but we decorated the tree too and lit the Yuletide log and everything.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Matt says blankly, and then, “But what about this year?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know, man. I’m good. I have everything I could want.” He shoves a shoulder into Matt’s, embarrassed at his honesty.

Matt just hums. “How are your classes going?”

“Ugh,” says Peter, and shudders, which should be answer enough. “What do you want for Christmas?”

Matt says, “A new stick.”

“Man,” Peter sighs, “I really do not get you sometimes.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Thursday, and this time Peter stops at a coffee shop and orders two of the most sugary drinks on the menu, both with ridiculous names, although his without peppermint. He slips through the door and hands Daisy the green tea he’d grabbed for her, grins at the slight widening of her eyes, and goes into the kitchen, door slamming behind him.

“Napitok,” Peter says, handing the cup to Nadia at her spot by the wall. Drink. She stares at it, eyes narrowed. “No poison.”

“Coffee?” Nadia tries, lifting up the cup and sniffing at it. “Safe coffee?”

“Kak-to tak,” Peter confirms. That’s about it. He sips his own first.

She follows, hesitantly, and when she doesn’t drop dead she takes a longer drawl, her eyes widening. “Pukka.”

“I don’t know that one,” Peter tells her. “Pukka?”

“Good,” she translates, taking a sip, “Best.”

“Well, I’m glad you like it. Is the peppermint okay?”

She smacks her lips at him, and smiles shyly when he laughs at it.

“I guess so,” he nods. “Tastes like Christmas, I’ve been told.”

But she shakes her head. “No Christmas. Just science.”

Hm. “I celebrate Hanukkah,” Peter tells her, lifts the chain up around his neck, “And I’m a scientist.”

She leans closer to squint at the pendant on the necklace. “They do not, um. Cancel? Together?”

“Coexist,” Peter translates, “I guess that depends on how you look at it. Do you believe in God, Nadia?”

“I like red,” Nadia says, “Color red. Not Christmas.”

Peter accepts the subject change with grace. “My favorite color is red too. Why is it your favorite?”

“Blood,” she tells him, “Like Ying. She was red. And it made me learn science.”

Peter can’t even find it in himself to feel disgust, only pity. Nadia had killed simply as a means to survive. She knew she hadn’t been a good enough fighter, but she’d had a decent enough mind, and she’d clawed her way to secure a spot of safety at the top.

“I’ve made a lot of people red,” Peter tells her, and leans in, smiles at the way she stares at him, “You can’t scare me, Nadia. Stop trying.”

Nadia says, “Matthew.”

But Peter was expecting this, so he just smiles. “Your sister.”

They’re at a stalemate. Then Nadia takes a sip of her coffee, and the moment is broken.

“I have not like peppermint,” she tells him, frowning.

“Do not,” he corrects.

“I do not like peppermint,” she echoes, “No Christmas taste. Disgusting.”

“Loud and clear,” Peter tells her honestly. “What do you like?”

Her expression is heartbreakingly open when she admits, “I do not know.”

“That’s okay,” Peter says, shrugging, “We can find out.”

But she’s tired, shoves the empty cup back in his direction and hides her face in her arms. She doesn’t move, even when he throws away their cups and leaves out the door, hinges creaking noisily behind him.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

There’s a tiny menorah on Matt’s counter that Friday, six candles waiting to be lit and sung too. Peter pretends not to be touched and Matt pretends like it’s nothing.

“I feel like it’s kind of sacrilegious to light these with you as Daredevil,” Matt says from Peter’s side. Peter hasn’t asked Matt to show him his face, because it doesn’t really matter. Matt knows him better than anyone alive right now; the new him, at least. Finding out if Matt has brown or blonde hair wouldn’t change that. “Also, I’m Catholic.”

“I know,” Peter laughs. “But you might be right. I’ll do it after you leave to patrol.”

“Sorry,” Matt says, not sounding that sorry at all. He moves to get his hot chocolate from the microwave, passing the mug to Peter after he’s taken a sip. “How’s work?”

“Fine,” Peter shrugs. There’s the balance; Matt knows Peter’s name, his face and his story and that he’s a bartender, but has no idea what bar he works at. “People are generous with their tips this time of year. I think I’m gonna buy myself a new first aid kit.”

Matt despairs, “Save your money, just use mine.”

Peter takes a long, slurpy sip of hot chocolate in retaliation.

“How are classes?” Matt says, snatching the mug away from Peter.

“Fine. Boring.”

“Well, you did choose Economics,” Matt says, snorting, “Almost as bad as communications.”

“Okay, Mr. Philosophy,” Peter is unimpressed, raising an eyebrow to show that. “I dunno, though. How’d you pick philosophy?”

Thoughtfully, Matt says, “I’m really good at overthinking.”

Peter sighs.

“Also, I knew I wanted to go to law school,” he adds, slightly more seriously, “I, uh, like helping people-“

“Illegally,” Peter butts in, waving a hand in Matt’s general costumed direction.

“Legally,” Matt emphasizes, “I needed help when I was a kid, you know? But I couldn’t afford it. I prayed someone would help me. So I thought, you know, might as well be that someone to a kid.”

Peter stares at him and can’t help the smile that curls over his lips. Daredevil is scary, but Matt is simply Matt. Even in the costume, red leather glinting, there’s a gentleness to the set of his shoulders, a kindness in the curve of his jaw. Peter thinks about saying - you are that someone. To me.

But he only admits to emotions when they’re laying on the floor of Fogwell’s, or when the snow is packed heavily enough that nothing else can get through, so Peter takes that thought and shoves it deep into his mind, to be protected and squared away until it’s safe to speak.

“Well, I don’t know what I want,” Peter says. “Is that bad?” He feels like a kid again. If this was him of last year, he would be at MIT, studying biomedical engineering, or biochemistry and physics. He would know what he wanted, would accept it. But he’s not the him of last year, and all of that feels so far away now; feels like the him of the past.

“No,” Matt assures him, “My business partner used to threaten to drop out of law school and run his family’s butcher shop. He only stopped when he passed the Bar.”

“I wish my family had a butcher shop,” Peter says moodily.

Matt laughs and walks toward the roof stairs, Peter trailing closely at his heels. “You can ask people, Peter. For help. You know you have friends who do different things, right?”

Peter… kind of forgot about that, actually. He’s used to having a small circle, and then not having one at all. Even before, there hadn’t been much job diversity around him; Ben, a cop (who hated his job), May as a nurse, and Ned and MJ, both high school students like him. He’d followed Tony, if anything, with his original plan of MIT and majoring in some sort of hard science.

But now he has so much more, and so much less, too. Peter hums and watches as Matt tightens the straps that held his billy clubs in place. “You don’t think it’s weird if I ask people?”

“Nah,” Matt says, “Everyone loves talking about what they love.”

Then he tells Peter not to eat too many matzo balls, ruffles his hair, and reminds him to light the candle. Peter watches him disappear through the rooftop door, his shoulders tightening and fists clenching.

Man, Peter thought, he wondered if he looked that intimidating doing normal stuff.

Probably not.

He goes ahead and eats too many matzo balls.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Seven candles, and Peter is sitting in Jessica’s office - which is just the living room of her apartment, which might be even worse than Peter’s - and having a staring contest, one that has been going on for two minutes and thirty seven seconds.

His eyes are watering behind his mask. She rolls her own and then looks away to take a swig from the whiskey bottle on her desk.

“When Matt asked me for a favor,” she says dryly, “I wasn’t expecting his kid to come asking for an internship.”

Peter blinks at her. “You’re a really bad detective if you think I’m his son.”

“It’s a metaphor,” she mutters, “Or whatever.”

“Also I’m not asking for an internship, per se,” And Peter has no idea what per se means but it sounds good, so, “I was just wondering if I could shadow you or something.”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” Jessica waves her bottle at him, “You’d be good at investigating, kid, maybe even great. Because you’ve been doin’ it for half your life anyways,” she makes a little spider with her hands, crawls her fingers along her desk, and laughs at the widening eyes of his mask.

“Exactly,” Peter agrees earnestly, “So I’d be even better if you taught me.”

“Probably,” Jessica shrugs, but her voice is serious when she asks, “Do you want seeing the worst in people to be your whole life? ‘Cause you already have to deal with that when you’re Spider-Man and beating up criminals, and being a private eye isn’t so different from that.”

“Oh,” Peter says, because hm. He hadn’t thought about it like that, not really. Mostly he’d just thought about how much he loved puzzles and how good his hearing was and how easily he picked up languages and thought well, might as well put that into something useful. Figures that Jessica had to put a damper on things.

Jessica takes pity on him enough to say, “Look. Come back in a couple months, I’ll take you on a case or two, alright? But I don’t want you to be spending every second of your time working.” She squints at him. “I’m bein’ thoughtful, and whatever.”

Thoughtful or not, Peter thinks as he swings over to Brooklyn, he is not any closer to finding out what he wants to do.

In the manner of staying on Sam’s good side, Peter puts clothes over his suit (leaves the mask on) and climbs the stairs to Sam and JB’s apartment building like a normal person, even knocks on the door all gentle and polite.

JB is the one who swings it open, raising an eyebrow at Peter but stepping aside and gesturing for him to come in all the same.

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me weird, Barnes,” Peter says, “That sweaters the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

It is pulsating with lights so bright that Peter has to look away, and it looks like it’s covered in fuzz balls and yarn and cat hair. JB just snorts. “Tradition, kid.”

Peter follows him to the living room, where Sam is wrapping presents on the floor. He rolls his eyes when he sees Peter, but there’s a certain fondness behind it, so he doesn’t hesitate to sink into their couch.

“He knocked on the front door an’ everything,” JB says, sounding a little proud.

“Don’t be smug,” Sam snaps, “Glad he’s behaving like a normal damn human. Pass me the tape.”

“He is right here,” Peter protests.

JB passes Sam the tape. “It’s good you stopped by, actually. Wanted to tell ya in person that we’re leavin’ for the next week.”

Peter pouts beneath his mask, and is surprised to note he’s actually disappointed by the news. “Why?”

“Spending the new year in Delacroix with my family,” Sam says, carefully folding around the edges of what looks like a mini Captain America shield, “Louisiana. Thought I’d take Buck to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve.”

Ugh. That’s adorable. “You could take him to the ball drop here,” Peter offers.

But it’s JB who wrinkles his nose at that, head shaking. “Naw, I’ve been so many times, kid, you don’t even know. Delacroix’s real peaceful. Quiet. I like it.”

Peter says, “Boring,” and crosses his arms. He doesn’t really mean it. He’s been to quiet places before - the compound, once, and the Stark’s lake house for Tony’s funeral - and it’s always nice to be able to expand his hearing and listen to just the sounds of the earth. Not as overwhelming when no one is screaming for help.

Sam doesn’t seem offended, regardless, just amused. “We’ll be back on the second, don’t you worry.”

“Not worried,” Peter says.

“Well I am,” JB admits. With his hair growing out and his offensively ugly Christmas sweater, it’s hard for Peter to take him too seriously. “Daisy said you’ve been talkin’ to Nadia.”

“Well, I told you what me and Red found at that warehouse,” Peter points out, “Wasn’t a secret that I needed to talk to her.”

“You didn’t tell me nothing ‘bout Frank Castle bein’ there,” JB leans against the fake fireplace, scrunching his nose.

Peter’s glad the mask covers up his angry flush. “Wasn’t really important. He helped me. Anyway, you wanna know about Nadia or not?”

“Quit it,” Sam says tiredly, “Both of you. Buck, you know Spidey can look after himself. Spidey, you know Buck worries.”

JB says, “Tell me ‘bout Nadia,” which is as close to an apology as Peter knows he’ll get, so he complies with only a small sigh of exasperation.

“She looks healthier,” he offers, “It’s slow going. She’s not that good at English.”

JB asks, “Or is she jus’ pretendin’ not to be?”

“That’s a possibility,” Peter agrees, “It doesn’t matter. Can’t make her talk, we knew this would take time.”

He kinda wants to ask JB how long it took him to come back from his brainwashing, but assumes that’s a little too insensitive, even for him. Still. He’d like a timeframe, because if it’s longer than six months, he’s going to be a fucking man and go talk to Stephen.

“It took me, what?” JB turns to Sam, who pauses in his quest of tying an intricate bow with ridiculously thin ribbon to offer, “Three years? Four?”

“Give or take,” JB nods.

Peter is horrified into silence. Like, yeah, he has time, but that much time? With how severe Peter’s curiosity is? Literal torture.

At Peter’s obviously stunned silence, JB adds, “But I was chemically conditioned for 70 years. An’ put in Cyro.”

Somehow, horrifically, that actually does make Peter feel better. Then he feels bad, and winces, says, “I’m sorry, JB.”

JB just shrugs, like he’s used to it. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s just good at hiding. “Spent a year runnin’ from Steve, then another destroying HYDRA with Nati, an’ another gettin’ my brain fixed up in Wakanda. Wasn’t all bad.”

“Plus five years as dust, six months helping me get my shield back, and a year and a half living normal as can be,” Sam adds, not looking up from his ribbon monster creation. “Long road.”

“Good destination,” JB teases, but he sounds heartbreakingly sincere. Sam graces him by looking up and smiling something soft at him, steady and sure.

“Well,” Peter interrupts the moment, because they’ve gotten wildly off track. “Sam, how’d you know you wanted to be Captain America?”

Sam sets down his ribbon monster. “Oh, Jesus.”

“I’m Jewish,” Peter says helpfully.

“Alright,” Sam ignores this and claps his hands together instead, “Short version?”

Peter thinks about Yelena’s excessively long story time and shudders. “Yes. Please.”

“I joined the Air Force, joined Pararescue, fought in a war, and watched my partner explode next to me,” Sam recites this as if from a simplified script in his mind, eyes blank, “That made me retire, earn my doctorate, work as a counselor at the VA.”

There’s a pause for breath long enough that Peter interjects. “I’m sorry.”

Sam just shrugs. “Then I’m on a run one day, right, and Steve laps me, we get to talking, and we’re friends, and then him and Natasha show up at my door, and,” he blinks. “Well, you don’t close the door on Captain America. So I’m back in. Chasing this guy around,” he nods at JB, who just grins, “And becoming a fugitive. Get lightly tortured, escape, fight in a big war, die for five years, come back to the future.”

“I’m not sure I can follow this guide,” Peter says hesitantly, pulling on the fingers of his gloves.

“You already halfway have,” Sam tells him absently, “I’m not done,” he pauses, tilts his head at Peter, “You’re not black.”

“Um,” Peter says, “No?”

“Me being black is important,” Sam says, leaning back on his hands, “Usually we get erased from shit. History books, whatever. When Steve gave me the shield, well,” his mouth twists into a mean shape, “Maybe part of me didn’t want it. Everyone acts like America wasn’t built off the blood of my people. Like there’s not this big, shameful stain all over the government and the cops.”

JB looks down, his fingers twisting together.

“Wasn’t Steve’s fault he was born a white guy,” Sam laughs, but it comes out a little forced, a little unhappy, “He’s a good guy, Steve. He just doesn’t think things through all the way. We’d just gotten back from five years in exile. Don’t think the world was ready for a black Cap on top of that.”

Peter thinks about Luke Cage, and the way he sticks strictly to Harlem. The outrage in the government when T’challa had revealed how advanced Wakanda really was. Shuri being Queen now and the scrutiny that followed.

“They’d rather a black Cap than a murdering white one like Walker,” JB says, and it comes out like he says it all the time, like it’s something he’s got to remind Sam about every morning. “You’re overqualified.”

“It doesn’t matter if I was fucking George Washington reincarnated,” Sam snaps at him, “I’m still fucking black. You’re damn right, I’m overqualified. Got more experience in me than Steve did when he first started, but it doesn’t matter.”

Peter says, “It matters. To the people who mean something, at least.”

Sam takes a deep breath. “I don’t know, kid. My point is… I chose to be Captain America because I couldn’t not. Especially after I tried to let it be, and Walker desecrated it the way he did, just. I couldn’t have it covered in any more blood.”

Horribly depressing. Peter tried to channel his inner MJ, with all her advanced political opinions and genius brain, when he says, “So, you have your job because you want to make a difference?”

Sam looks conflicted. He goes back to fiddling with his ribbon monster. “Man, hell if I know. It’s not about difference, not really. I’m just sick of all this bullshit. I mean, a giant alien snaps his fingers with a bunch of stones and we all disappear and get saved by time travel, but somehow the cops still have time to question me if I’m walking with my hood up?” He shakes his head, one hand clenching against his thigh. Repeats, “It’s bullshit. I want to make things fair again.”

Peter considers this. Fair. His own life hasn’t been very fair either, but that’s by unlucky circumstance - not the color of his skin. There’s a difference and a similarity and a grey area all at once, but Peter thinks he gets the gist of it. Sam’s fighting for equality, for opportunities; for the real American Dream, not the bastardized, impossible feat it’s been made into.

MJ would be writing all of this in her notebook, hand going a mile a minute to keep up. It’s this thought that makes Peter want to learn more about something he knows he’ll never know enough about to truly understand. That doesn’t mean he can’t try, though.

“How do you hold it, though?” Peter asks, thinking about Tony’s glasses and Beck’s hatred, the weaponry of the Iron Man suit and the way the Iron Spider suit was modeled just like it, “Even when it’s covered in blood?”

“With steady hands,” Sam answers, “And an understanding that while you can’t wash it all away, not when it’s decades deep, you can fight to keep it clean while it’s in your grasp.”

Peter thinks of Tony’s weapon designs and the bombs that had destroyed Sokovia all those years ago, creating Wanda Maximoff as a whole in the wreckage and smoke. She’d emerged, covered in the blood of her parents, and it was Tony’s invention of Ultron that ultimately killed her brother years later, too. And yet she’d turned out gentle, kind, even. A terrified teenager. And mad, a little bit, at the end. She’d let go of holding that Jersey town hostage, so… Peter would give her the grace that was long overdue.

He also thinks of his own suit, the one Tony had made him. How it protected him, covered in his ashes, and the glasses Tony had left him too, which were more destruction than filled with the life he had been given again. They’d been the catalyst to the end of his life as he knew it, anyways. Even if they were Tony’s last present. His last goodbye.

Peter hums. “What about you, JB?”

JB looks up and stops trying to pull his own fingers off. “Huh.”

“Why’d you decide to be White Wolf?” Peter asks, patient as can be.

JB doesn’t take longer than a second to answer. “The hell else was I gonna do?”

Peter stares at him.

JB rolls his eyes. “I’ve been fightin’ my whole life, kid. Don’t know how to do anythin’ else. ‘Cept maybe raise goats,” which raises questions Peter doesn’t even know how to begin to ask, but whatever, “Wasn’t real good at that either. Anyways, think I’d be bored without some action. Plus,” and he shoves Sam’s shoulder with his own metal one, making them both rock from the force of it, “Made a promise that I’d keep an eye out for Wilson, here.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” Sam says, beginning to wrap a new present; this one, a black widow plushie. He’s gentle with it, presses a thumb into the top of her head before he starts to cut the paper around her.

“So you chose your job because you were already good at it?” Peter questions.

“Simple as that,” JB agrees, “But I wanted to fight for somethin’ good for once. Somethin’ right. Knew Sam wouldn’t steer me wrong. He hasn’t yet.”

“No pressure,” Sam mutters, taping a messy corner of the wrapping.

“Well,” JB considers, “I did have to listen to Walker call Steve his ‘brother’ after you gave up the shield-“

“I got it back,” Sam hissed, “And I donated it, okay, I didn’t give it up-“

“You handed it to the Smithsonian-“

“You were born before the Civil Rights Act was even written,” Sam finally loses his temper, throwing his hands up, “For a shield that’s supposed to symbolize freedom, it sure wasn’t stopping black folks from getting segregated!”

JB seems to deflate at that. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, turns back to Peter to say, “I read this book, an’ it says that white people forget their privilege. Which I do, but I’m trying to be better. Also, I forget most things, so that doesn’t help much. Sam got it back anyways. The shield. An’ I was just kiddin’, but it’s not a good joke. We’re all damn lucky to have Sam as our Cap.”

“Duh,” Peter agrees, mostly just glad they’ve stopped fighting. “So, what I’ve got from this is that I can’t really relate to either of you.”

“C’mon,” Sam complains. “You’ve been dusted too, in that battle too-“

“Okay, but,” Peter struggles to explain his thoughts, “Those were just things that happened to me. You guys chose your jobs because they’re intertwined with who are you, like, as people, in your core.”

“Well, who are you?” Sam asks, in his counselor voice, “At your core?”

An orphan, two times over. A son, though he barely remembers being one, and a nephew. A kid from Queens, a child from Hell’s Kitchen. Jewish, or Catholic, or spiritual, or all at once. A scientist and a bartender, Tony Stark’s intern, MJ’s boyfriend, Ned’s best friend.

But, mostly; he is no one at all. He is bones and flesh and blood that somehow still pumps through his veins. He is a body that sits on rooftops and stares at walls and goes through the motions enough that they become automatic.

“I just want to help people,” is what comes out of Peter’s mouth instead, a plea he’s been repeating for as long as he can remember.

“So why not do that?” Sam asks, and tries to tie another bow with ribbon, the time a pretty teal color. “You could shadow me at the VA, if you wanted.”

“Jess says that I shouldn’t make my whole life doing what I do as Spider-Man,” Peter repeats.

JB chuckles. “The day anyone follows Jessica Jones’ advice is the day the world caves in.”

“She’s not so bad,” Peter defends, because she isn’t, she’s nice in a gruff sorta way, and he can tell she cares about Matt, and also May had liked her on Tv, once upon a time.

“She’s a survivor,” JB says, like that explains it all. “I dunno, kid. She’s been through some shit, real shit. Think she spends half her days not convinced any of it’s real.”

“So do I,” flies from Peter’s mouth, and it’s true, of course it’s true, but he certainly hadn’t meant to say it. He glances out the window, notices how it’s starting to get a little darker; it’ll be nearing early evening, soon, and Peter wants to get back to Matt’s before he leaves for the midnight service at his church, but he’s still got another stop.

“Before you fling yourself out the window,” JB says, lifting a hand, “At least promise me you ain’t gonna enlist in the military.”

He was pretty sure that the military tested your blood or else he definitely would have joined by now. It’s kind of disappointing. Everyone always talks about how they found families there, and Peter really needs one right about now. “Why not?”

“Jus’ trust me,” JB rubs at his forehead, “I was drafted, didn’t even wanna go. Fuckin’ miserable. An’ look where it got me.” He holds up his metal arm and taps a shining finger to his head, smile grim.

Peter looks to Sam, but Sam’s just got his eyes closed. Then he says, “They never found all of Riley. My wingman, who got blown out of the sky,” there’s a grief in Sam’s eyes, twenty years old now and still looking raw to the touch, “He was the only good thing that ever happened to me there. Same country and government I fought for ripped off my wings and threw me in the Raft. Tortured me there as if they hadn’t been the very ones who taught me to withstand it.”

Peter shudders.

“No military,” JB repeats, “No falling off trains.”

“I got hit by one a couple months ago,” Peter says, “I didn’t fall off!”

It takes Peter another twenty minutes before they let him leave after that tidbit of information, and he’s cranky enough from the mothering that he jumps out the window, ignoring Sam’s distant yell of, “The door is right there!”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Yelena lounges on Kate Bishop’s sofa with her usual air of mystique, although she is still dressed in ridiculously nice clothes, her nails perfectly painted and hair flowing like a waterfall down her back.

“Clint says it’s a bad idea to put me and the little Russian girl in the same house,” she explains casually, twirling a knife around her knuckles, “I haven’t celebrated Christmas since I was a little girl, it matters little. Also, Kate Bishop says she’ll come back early.”

Depressing.

“I do not understand your question,” she squints at him, “You know I am still an assassin, yes?”

“Yes,” Peter says, long suffering, “But how did you choose to keep being one? After, um, you know.”

“After I escaped mind control, destroyed the Red Room, and lost my sister?” Yelena finishes, her lips twitching. At Peter’s sheepish nod, she says, “I’m good at killing people, yes? I was almost the best.”

Sounds familiar. “JB said that he stayed a hero ‘cause he’s really good at fighting.”

Yelena doesn’t do anything as trivial as shake her head, but she does flick her knife open and closed, the pattern continuous and fast in her disapproval. “Kate took me to that museum, the one that Yasha is in. He did things before the military, eh? Before the fighting, he was someone.”

“The Smithsonian,” Peter recalls, and then, “I knew you didn’t call her by her full name all the time!”

Yelena winks at him. “Shush. Ah, Yasha fights because he’s used to it. He’s good, yes, but there are other things he is good at. Strategy. Politics. Language.”

Peter hadn’t thought about that, either. JB had gotten his memories back from before HYDRA - the memories of his family, his childhood, the before-war. He still struggled with all the memories from while he was in HYDRA, mostly because they weren’t really his memories at all, but the Winter Soldiers. But if JB did remember the things in the before, and the things like fighting and languages from HYDRA, there were a million different things he could have done instead of being the White Wolf.

Yelena flips the knife closed. “I’ve been a lot of people. That’s what being a spy is, that’s why my sister has so many names, have you noticed?”

Natalia, Nati, from JB, his memories of her drawn from their time together in Russia in the KGB. Natasha, from Yelena, her Americanized name because that’s where they had been happy; Natashka, sometimes, a Russian nickname. Tasha, from Clint, childish and loving and old. Nat, from Sam and Matt and Peter and everyone else, because that was the shared piece in both of her names.

“But here,” Yelena taps her heart, and then her head, “I am still me, even with all my names. I know things that help me fit into missions better. Every part of me is, ah, what did Natasha say? My ledger is stained red. It drips red. Everything I know, every piece of me, is a Widow. An assassin. Does that make sense?”

“Well,” Peter considers, “Kate takes you to the Smithsonian. And you make Mac and cheese and Clint says you guys have a dog.”

Yelena smiles at him, a soft thing. “You are a smart one, little spider. No Widow, but maybe something near. Yes, Kate helps me. I have things I enjoy. It helps that New York City is not Ohio. And the dog,” Yelena makes a face, nose scrunching, “That thing is Katie’s. Ugly, smelly thing.”

“Clint said you named him.”

Yelena scowls. “Perhaps. Kate Bishop was calling him Pizza dog. Unacceptable.”

Peter wishes the dog was here. He loves dogs. “Okay, sorry, we don’t have to talk about pizza dog. So you decided to stay an assassin because you’ve been doing it your whole life?”

Peter doesn’t know about that logic, but then Yelena is an enigma who nobody can really relate to, so he decides to let it be. She had a point, anyway. Natasha had been raised the same as Yelena, and when she had defected to SHIELD, she stayed a spy until the day she died, tricking Clint into surviving and letting her go. Even JB couldn’t understand that, not when for the first 20 or so years of his life he’d been a boy whose biggest fights were brawls in back alleys.

Yelena taps a nail against the hilt of her knife. The neon red is stark against the black of the weapon. “I suppose. Kate has me help her with private investigation business. Sometimes. She doesn’t like it when I kill people, but what is the point of keeping someone alive when all they do is steal money from their own cancer nonprofit to buy gold plated toilet seats?”

That seems oddly specific. Peter does not want to know. Except he does. He’s not asking.

“But I take baking class,” Yelena adds happily, “It is fun. Just not as fun as killing people, eh?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Peter says hesitantly, and scoots a little bit farther from her on his side of the couch, “I’ve never killed anyone.”

Yelena stands up and walks to the bookshelf, heels clacking. “People say killing someone changes you, but I do not even remember the first person I killed. It doesn’t matter. They’re dead regardless, that’s what Mother used to say, if you don’t do it then someone else well.”

“Or time will,” Peter offers, “Or an accident, you know, natural causes. Does it have to be murder?”

“If it wasn’t, then what would the point of me existing be?” Yelena laughs, running her fingers along the spines of the books, “I am who they made me, yes? Always, even with the new things I have come to enjoy. Kate. Mac and cheese. Pizza dog. They do not take away the blood. I do not need them too.” She pulls a book off the shelf and strides over to hand it to him, face solemn. “The sooner you accept yourself, the sooner you can be who you are meant to be.”

Peter looks down at the novel in his hands. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Frank is lying down on a rooftop in Harlem, staring through the scope of his rifle toward a building a mile or so away. “Jess said you would be droppin’ by,” he says as Peter makes sure to take heavy, audible steps as he comes to stand behind him.

“Frank, how come you’re doing this for your job now?” Peter asks, tilting back and forth on his heels.

“My entire family got murdered in front o’ me,” Frank grunts, not moving his gaze, “I got revenge, justice, whatever the hell. Tried to get a normal job after, but,” he pauses. “Some people are just meant to kill, kid.”

Peter thinks on that. More likely, he thinks people are just too traumatized to do anything but kill.

“One batch, two batch,” Frank mutters, shoulders relaxing, “Penny an’ dime.” He pulls the trigger. The release is almost silent, but Frank hums in pleasure, so he must’ve hit his target.

He looks up at Peter with hooded eyes. “Whatever you do, do not join the god damned Marines.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Matt comes clambering down the roof access stairs just as Peter swings through the window, and they both snicker at each other before falling into the sofa.

“So,” Matt drawls, “What’d you figure out?”

“That all my friends are severely traumatized,” Peter says seriously, “And probably should not be working at all.”

Matt grins. There’s blood on his teeth; he must’ve been hit in the face at some point during patrol and busted his cheek. “Rent money waits for no one, Pete.”

“Well, I definitely know that,” Peter thinks back to that short stint when he accidentally worked for a gang before taking it down as Spider-Man. Not his best moment. “I’ll figure something out, I guess.”

“You have time,” Matt assumes him, gets up to spit in the sink. “You lighting the last candle?”

Peter nods. “After you leave for mass, then I’ll go back to my apartment.”

Matt sighs but doesn’t try to convince Peter otherwise. He takes a sip of water and then goes back to the couch to hand the glass to Peter. “Finish this while I grab something.”

Peter does, because Matt’s mothering has been especially severe with the cold weather and he’s too tired to deal with it, the heavy snow making everything feel muffled and heavy.

Matt comes back out with a medium sized leather box, walking slowly to the couch and sinking down beside Peter. He takes his gloves off, too, although there doesn’t seem to be much blood staining them tonight.

“There’s a latch,” Matt says, frowning as he fumbles with it for a long moment, “I just can’t, uh, tell where - ah. Got it.”

He spins the box toward Peter, says, “Happy Hanukkah,” and opens the lid.

For a moment, Peter doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. It’s all dark blue and dark red fabric, and then he puts his hands up and lifts up the top piece, and it’s tangible, then. It’s a mask, he realizes, and a suit. The colors are like a darker version of his own, as if he was bathed in shadows and kept from the light. There’s a spider stitched across the chest, padding along the knuckles and shoulders, a firm material along the chest and stomach that Peter recognizes as bulletproof.

“I know Stark made you your suit,” Matt says softly, “He was good at making weapons. It’s served you well. But things, they, uh, shift. Change. You’re the weapon, now, Peter, and this,” he taps the new mask that Peter holds in his hands, “This is your protection.”

Helplessly, Peter says, “Matt-“

“You don’t have to accept it,” Matt rushes to add, “I know it might be too soon. Consider it, though, because it’s yours, no matter-“

Peter cuts him off by pushing the box to the side and wrapping his arms around the man in front of him, hooking his chin over Matt’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and pretends like the mask he has on isn’t sticking to his face from hot, happy tears, “Thank you.”

Matt’s palms rest gently on Peter’s back, soothing circles tracing slow and steady. “There’s nothing to thank me for.”

No, Peter thinks, there is everything in the world to thank him for.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Sunday afternoon is bright even with the snow; May would have danced around the apartment, singing about it being a White Christmas. As it was, Peter woke up with a smile on his face, even though his apartment was in below freezing temperatures and he could hear his neighbors doing holiday cocaine on the other side of his wall.

This doesn’t even dampen his good mood; Drugs for all, Peter thinks happily as he pulls on sweats, a red sweatshirt that he’s pretty sure is Matt’s, and a fraying pair of gloves. Then he thinks, wait, no. Drug recession for all! Much better.

He has a new suit. Matt got him a new suit.

Life is good.

He forgets that most coffee places aren’t open today, so instead he makes the trek to Harlem (not as bad with webs), finds himself a Chinese restaurant and picks up a small feast of food, all his favorites plus other things he’s never tried. In for a penny, in for a pound, and then he walks the last ten minutes to Daisy’s walk-up, nose already red from the cold.

He knocks and waits for a long minute, then knocks again. The door swings open then, and there’s Daisy, but she doesn’t look all terrifying like she normally does. Her hair is in a bun at the top of her head, her skin is pale, cheeks flushed, and a blanket is over her shoulders like a cape, which half-covers flannel pajama pants and what looks like a man’s sweatshirt.

“Ugh,” she says, voice nasally, “You didn’t say you were coming by today.”

“You sound terrible,” Peter informs her cheerfully, and ducks under her arm to go inside, “The flu?”

“I don’t get sick,” she denies grumpily, closing the door behind him, “I’m just… a little congested.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. She sniffles.

“Come on,” Peter sighs, opening the kitchen door with his hip, “You should eat something. There’s more than enough for three.”

She sniffs again, but bee lines for a chair to collapse in at the table, slumping into the back of it. Nadia, washing dishes in the sinks, doesn’t jump at the sound, just switches off the water and turns to stare judgmentally at Peter and Daisy both.

“Hey, she’s your handler,” Peter tells her, setting the bag down.

“Not handler,” Nadia tells him, a familiar argument, and grabs plates and utensils before he can even ask. “What is this?”

“Chinese,” Peter lifts up the boxes, hands Daisy a container of Da Lu Main. It would be good on her throat. “Do you like chicken?”

“I think yes,” Nadia says cautiously, her hands fluttering, like she wants to help but doesn’t know how. She settles for handing Daisy a spoon for her soup.

Peter gives her a container of sweet and sour chicken and a bowl of red sauce. “You can dip the chicken in this. It’s good.” Then he gives her rice, too. Everyone likes rice. He thinks. It literally tastes like nothing.

But she doesn’t start eating, just stares at it suspiciously, even as Peter takes out his own Kung Pao Beef and shifts the bags onto the counter so he can sit down without his vision being impaired. Peter takes a bite of his first, chews it and makes sure his throat bobs when he swallows. “I watched them make it,” he tells her.

She waits another two minutes, evidently to see if Peter or Daisy drop dead, but when they don’t, she dips the chicken into the sauce and begins eating slowly but steadily, closing her eyes in enjoyment.

She doesn’t seem sick like Daisy, looks mostly the same as the last time he’d seen her. The only difference was that she wore jeans and a short sleeved tee shirt, which showed off lean if slightly muscular arms and a multitude of scars that blemished her fair skin. They weren’t the type made from knives; they looked like they came from burns, as if she’d held a hot object to her skin until it blistered. More likely, Peter considers, that she had spilled chemicals on herself.

She also had a circular scar around her left wrist, stark enough that it looked as if it was a cut that was reopened every day. Peter didn’t have to guess on that. He’d read the SHIELD files when Natasha had released them all those years ago, read Agent Carter’s file on Dottie Underwood, who was one of the first Widows and led them to one of the first known Red Rooms - how the girls were trained to sleep with one arm wrist cuffed to their bed, always, every night and without fail.

It made him feel vaguely nauseous. They had been girls, just girls. Just girls in the sense of just children. He couldn’t even begin to imagine MJ as blank and emotionless as these women, couldn’t imagine her locking up her wrist before she curled against him in his bed. But it could’ve been her, for all that he cannot imagine it - so many girls lived it.

“Good,” Nadia says, oblivious to his thoughts, “We had chickens.”

“Really?” Peter asks, intrigued, “Not in the sky version of the Red Room, I’m sure.”

Nadia looks at him strangely, and then lets out a bark of laughter. “We do not raise them, Petyr. I do my science on them. Eh, experiments. And then on cows. And,” she pauses, brow crinkling, “The one that people have for pets. They love it.”

“Sobaki?” Daisy tries, voice hoarse. “Dogs.”

“Da!” Nadia says, nodding, and then, “Sorry. Yes. And then monkeys. Ugh. The one like us.”

Peter remembers evolution, or at least the evolution he had been taught in freshmen year. “Chimps.”

“Chimps,” Nadia repeats, “If all live, I try on humans. But,” she adds, taking a bite of chicken, “Usually no. Chickens we keep close. I do many experiments, I need many chickens. The rest, they get for me later.”

Daisy’s face doesn’t change, so Peter fights to keep his expression even, too. He knows that many scientists have skewed views on morals and that despite the code of ethics they’re supposed to follow, few actually agree. Still, hearing this from Nadia - it’s strange. She’s a scientist in a way that he never could be. It’s her entire life. She doesn’t even realize that what she’s done is, perhaps, morally wrong.

Peter doesn’t want her to feel judged; he knows it’s not her fault. He tries to be completely casual when he asks, “Do the humans usually live?”

She lifts up a hand and tilts it back and forth. “Meh. We are not chimps, I tell. But sometimes we are when experiments work, I think. Sometimes they die. The humans. But they are just humans,” she shrugs and takes a sip of coffee, “There are billions.”

Peter has to tuck his head down at that, because he knows he won’t be able to school his expression blank. It’s too similar to Thanos’ ideology. That humans, and living things as a whole, are expendable. That only the strongest survive. It’s not true. It just comes down to luck.

But how would she know that? She’s alive because she’s strong enough to survive inside the KGB, strong enough to have the brutality to kill the Ying girl and steal her space to secure her life. But then that means nothing, not really. Because it was pure luck that Ying was the only other scientist they had. Pure luck that there weren’t more to overwhelm Nadia when she had taken her chance.

He wouldn’t tell her that. Not when she’s in her mid twenties, somehow still alive even with HYDRA as ashes and the Red Room in pieces around Russia, even when she’s terrible at fighting and therefore should be expendable to the KGB. It didn’t make sense for them to keep Nadia alive. She was a threat to them, if anything. Why?

Peter knows from Matt and JB’s stories that Daisy is smart enough to be questioning the same things, but she’s beyond casual as she takes a sip of soup and then asks, “Well, do me and Petyr count as ‘just humans’ to you?”

It’s weird to hear that name come out of someone’s mouth who isn’t Natasha, or, now, Nadia, but Peter rolls with it, keeps his gaze on the redhead across from him.

She’s slowly decimating her way through the chicken, dumping pieces into the sauce between each bite. “No.”

No sign of impatience in her tone, Daisy prompts, “Why not? There are billions of us.”

Nadia pauses, her fingers dripping in red sauce as she turns to look at them, eyes wide and confused. “No billions of you. Only one Daisy, only one Petyr. I would not do science-“ she stops, makes a frustrated sound, “I would not do experiments on you and Petyr. You are no human. Mother would not like it. It’s, eh, broken the rules.”

“Breaking the rules,” Peter corrects thoughtlessly, and spares a quick look at Daisy. He wouldn’t be surprised if she put the pieces together on who he was after that, especially with what Matt said about her figuring out identities. To his surprise, though, she looks even paler than before, and her hands grip onto the soup container so tightly that her fingers turn white. He nudges her ankle with his foot under the table, and she jolts.

“Breaking the rules,” Nadia echoes, nodding, and goes back to her chicken. “Da. Maybe other scientists did that, I do not know. But I was to work on humans only. No one special.”

“Special?” Peter asks, because although Daisy isn’t strangling her soup anymore, she’s also stopped eating it completely.

“Special like Daisy,” Nadia says, and it’s a good thing the redhead’s so focused on her food because Daisy closes her eyes at this, her forehead crinkling, and Peter watches as a singular tear slides down her cheek. Then she wipes it away, opens her eyes, and he almost thinks he imagined it completely. “Special like Yasha. I fix his arm, one time. That was all. I say, can I have his blood, you know, and they hit me so hard I tasted my blood for weeks.”

She admits this like it means nothing. As if being hit is a normal response to a child asking a question about something they were groomed to study.

“Where did you do your science, Nadia?” Daisys asks, passing her the rice, “Were there other people?”

Nadia pours the leftover red sauce over the rice, shoving the empty chicken platter to the side. “Ukraine in beginning. When I was child with Yelena. Then, Oymyakon in Russia. So cold, too cold. It messes up my experiments. Siberia, to fix Yasha’s arm. Tiksi, in Russia. For when more humans for experiments. Then Moscow. Where Yelena’s sister was.”

All extremely isolated places, places where Peter knew the temperatures dropped far below zero daily. He wonders, ridiculously, how her chickens survived. Then he realizes they were kept inside with her, and the other animals and humans were probably dropped off to her. Half hysterically, he thinks, like DoorDash.

“Siberia, there was people,” she pokes at her rice like she’s trying to remember it all, “But Yasha was not the same Yasha that taught fighting when I was child. They take me away fast. Tiksi, I had my humans. The experiments. Mother said they, eh, street women?”

Prostitutes, Peter thinks dully, women who wouldn’t be missed.

“They were not street women in lab,” Nadia says seriously, “They were just mine. They speak no Russian-“

“They did not speak Russian?” Daisy corrects, gently, like she does it often.

“They did not speak Russian,” Nadia repeats easily, “Until I did my experiments. Then they speak Russian,” she takes the last bite of her rice, scratching idly at the scab on her wrist, “After experiments, they did everything I ask them too.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter had left almost immediately after Nadia’s confession - not that she knew it had been - citing a headache and that Daisy needed to rest. Daisy didn’t protest; in fact, he was pretty sure she played up her illness, apparently too tired to pretend to be unbothered anymore.

Since pretty much all of his friends celebrated Christmas, he spent most of the rest of the day in his apartment before going in for a shift at the bar around 7. Josie had tried to say it was fine, but Peter shrugged her off. He didn’t celebrate, and Josie did. She deserved to be with her daughter and have a night off.

Everyone that came in that night got absolutely wasted, even when he cut them all off one at a time. The reason why was pretty clear - they were spending Christmas in a bar instead of with their families, which was pretty damning. Misery loves company, though, and the cash tips started rolling in after Peter mentioned he didn’t have family to spend the holiday with either.

Monday is significantly colder, both in temperature and general emotion. The bar was closed until New Year’s Eve, which Peter said he couldn’t work (Spider-Man would be busy that night, after all; crime always picked up on holidays like those) and he was too chilly to move from his mountain of blankets on the couch.

He was thinking about wearing Tony’s suit under the one Matt had made for him, just because he could probably use the heaters during the winter if nothing else. It wouldn’t be sustainable during summer, of course, but for now…

And, just maybe, Peter didn’t think he could bear to let go of his old suit just yet. It had been Tony’s hands that had created it, after all. The same hands that had saved the world; the same hands that held onto the stones that burnt his heart to a crisp, body half gone inside a suit meant to last forever. Tony was gone, Peter had accepted that a long time. There would always be a part of him that missed him, though. A chunk of his lungs removed, and when he breathed too deeply, got a little too comfortable, Tony’s absence made sure to make itself known.

He didn’t want to think about it anymore, so he made himself stop. Climbed out of his blankets and made himself look at his new suit again, running reverent fingers over the careful stitching and heavy fabric. Matt must’ve measured him while he was sleeping, which Peter decided not to feel creeped out about, because he’d tried it on earlier and it fit like a glove, just as seamlessly as Tony’s suit did.

He thinks about going out and patrolling and then decides against it in the name of being productive. He makes a list of people to ask about their job, which isn’t very helpful, since he’s already asked pretty much all of his like five friends and unless he asks his boss (bad idea) or the criminals on the street (even worse idea) he might be at his wit’s end. It’s fine, he’s not even 18, but he’s stressed, okay, he doesn’t want to live in this stupid apartment and get second hand cocaine residue in his lungs from his neighbors or whatever.

The logical side of his brain tells him that is not how drugs work. The emotional side tells logic to shut the fuck up.

Peter’s not sure which side wins, because he decides to just give up completely and watch a movie on his laptop instead. His couch doesn’t smell like blood anymore - well, not as much, because Matt makes him go to his place when his injuries are actually bad - and there’s no mice skittering across his floor, so he decides to take that as a good omen and settle in to rot.

It’s several hours later when he hears a familiar heartbeat jump into range, bouncing from rooftop to rooftop. Peter can’t help but smile at it; he puts on his new suit and scrambles to get onto his roof before Matt arrives.

He gets there right as Matt lands, and skids to a stop in front of him, placing his hands on his hips like Superman. “So. How am I looking?”

Matt’s silence for a moment. There is a sound like he’s sniffing the air before he tentatively tries, “Not injured?”

Peter deflates. “Yeah, I’ve been good, that’s not the point. Do I look lame? I look lame, don’t I, the dark red makes me look like a wannabe Daredevil.”

“Oh!” Matt exclaims. Then he laughs, “I don’t think anyone will compare you to me. For one, you don’t have horns.”

“Maybe I should get some,” Peter says slyly.

“And two, the massive Spider I know is embroidered on your chest is a pretty good marker,” Matt continues dryly.

“Matt,” Peter says seriously, “Did you sew this yourself?”

Matt snorts. “No. Can we sit down? Got my knee busted a couple blocks ago.”

Peter holds the bridge of his nose between his fingers. They sit down on the edge of the roof, with Peter, per tradition, nearly leaning over the side.

“How’d job hunting go?” Matt asks, but by the twitching of his lips, Peter’s sure he already knows.

“Terrible,” Peter complains anyway, “Jessica told me not to make fighting people my whole life, but then JB told me that’s exactly what he did and he turned out fine-“

“Debatable.”

“-And then him and Sam argued about racism for like, twenty minutes, and all I really got from that was not to join the army-“

“A responsible adult,” Matt sighs dreamily.

“-And Frank said the same thing, like, the army thing, not the racism thing, and then I tried to talk to Yelena but I think she psychoanalyzed me instead of the other way around, and now I’m even more confused than before!” He throws his hands up, panting, “I don’t know what to do, Matt. Like, with my life. My future, and stuff.”

Matt’s face turns serious. “Well, what have you done so far?”

“I interned at Stark Industries,” Peter offers, although saying he was an actual intern was stretching it pretty far. “I went to a STEM school for high school.”

Well, at least for the three years of high school he had actually attended.

“And did you like it?” Matt asks, not questioning his wavering voice.

And Peter thinks, of course I liked it. And then he thinks. Well.

Well.

Matt, who has never truly judged Peter once, just nods at the non answer. “You need to try the humanities.”

He digs around in the thigh pocket of his suit and hands Peter a business card - or shoves it into his chest.

Then he jumps off the roof they’re sitting on.

“Dude,” Peter says sadly, “You could’ve just taken the elevator.”

Matt doesn’t respond, so Peter turns his focus to the card.

Nelson, Murdock, & Page
Attorneys at Law & Private Investigation
186 E. 2nd St.
NYC, NY

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter thinks about that card for all of Monday night, all of Tuesday, and wakes up thinking about it Wednesday too.

He picks up two new coffee monstrosities on the way to Harlem, thinking idly as he walked the last couple minutes (once again, suffering through the subway) to Daisy’s apartment.

This was just a really, really strange coincidence, he decides. He’d never even met the Nelson & Page parts of the firm, only Mr. Murdock, who defended him valiantly both in court until they won and out of court when he ‘accidentally’ hit an entire wave of paparazzi with a sweep of his cane. Peter doesn’t remember much of all that, though. So many of his memories from then are blurry and faded, like records that have been played one to many times. MJ had said it was the trauma when he told her about it; Ned, ever the supernatural enthusiast, said it was probably an alien or something. May told them all to shut the fuck up, because she could hear them talking in the living room from her bedroom and it was 3 in the god damn morning.

He spares a moment to miss them. Just a moment. Then he focuses back to his feet on the snow, the cold in his face, and the warmth of the coffee cups against his palms.

He has to bang on Daisy’s door with an elbow, and she opens it before he can do it more than twice. She looks better, kind of, still a little flushed from sickness and her hair a little tangled but not wrapped in a blanket cape, at least.

He keeps his elbow out so that the tea that he was holding in the crook of his arm was visible. She looks at him, at the tea, then sighs and widens the entrance, snatching her cup from him as he passes by.

“Thought you were done,” she tells him, sipping slowly, “After Christmas.”

“I told Nadia, and I’ll tell you,” Peter shakes his head, trying to get snow out of his hair as he walks backwards toward the kitchen, “She can’t scare me. I’m never done.”

Before the door swings shut, he hears Daisy mutter, “I said that too, once.”

Nadia is sitting on top of the table, swinging her legs over the side. She looks over at him and smiles, holds a hand out and clenches it shut.

“You’re getting spoiled,” he tells her, and hands her the coffee all the same. “This one has caramel in it, no peppermint. Try it.”

She watches him take a sip of his first, but try it she does. A slow smile spreads across her face, something secret and new. “It is cold. Why cold?”

Peter clambers his way up to sit on top of the table too, their knees touching for a brief moment as he gets situated beside her. “It’s called ice coffee, most people just don’t get it when it’s already cold out,” he takes a sip of his own hot coffee, “Plus, you’re Russian. Can never be too cold, right?”

“Right,” she nods importantly, taking another long sip. “But in lab - in my lab, we had only hot coffee pot.”

“Did you drink it black?” Peter asks, and at her confused look, “No sugar or milk?”

She leans toward him at this question, incredibly earnest as she answers, “We have no sugar in my lab. Milk, yes, for strong bones. I never mix it before. I drank same drink every day. And then-“ she cuts herself off abruptly, leaning back.

Peter knows by now that it’s better to let her speak on her own time. He doesn’t push, just follows her first line of information instead. “What did you drink everyday?”

She waits to answer, as if for another question, and when he says nothing else her shoulders sink and she says, “Coffee, one cup in morning, one cup of oatmeal, coffee, rice and - and,” she stops, frustrated, and points to the apples on a tray by the fridge.

“Fruits?” Peter tries, “Vegetables?”

“Rice and vegetables,” Nadia nods, “Water, one fish, pills. Every day. When I fix Yasha, I have chicken. Little bit of chicken. But then nothing. It never changes, okay?”

She goes back to nursing her coffee. Peter feels his head start to pound. He already has to eat more than a normal person thanks to his enhanced metabolism, but even if he wasn’t a mutate, what Nadia described wouldn’t be nearly enough for a child, much less a growing teenager and eventual young adult. Looking at her this closely, he can see the evidence of it; her wrists are still bony, her arms still thin, and her cheekbones protrude from her face. She’s all sharp edges.

They had given her the amount of food needed to survive, but not to thrive. His questions remained unanswered - why would they spare even that to keep her alive?

“Nadia,” he’s gentle with it, like he always is with her, “Did you have, um, guards? People who watched you?”

“Guards,” she repeats, the new word rolling on her tongue. “They watch me for long time. Not people. Not like Yasha had. Eh, in ceiling, they see me. I talk to them, but they have not - do not talk to me.”

Cameras, then. But no guards. Peter’s not naïve enough to wonder why she didn’t escape sooner, not when it’s clear how heavily they conditioned her not too. The isolation, he’s sure, didn’t help. She probably didn’t believe there was a world outside of her lab at all - until her human experiments started to stay alive and speak to her.

“Mother say that I am good,” she continues, and she puffs up at the memory, smiling in pride, “That I am best of scientists. And I say, Mother, let me make Yasha’s arm better,” she pouts then, “But she say no. That I am best at real science. She say that Yasha does not need to be best, that I can do science and make everyone the best.”

The chemical conditioning. A need to impress whoever this Mother was. JB, and his strange connection to all of these little KGB survivors who viewed him as some sort of savior, protector, brother, even though Peter is sure that he was in the depths of Winter Solider mindset for most interactions.

“How did you do that?” Peter asks instead. She sends him a doubtful look. “Hey, I’m a scientist too.”

“You are not looking like it,” Nadia tells him, eyebrow raised.

“Is it the black eye, or the split lip?” Peter jokes, pointing at his injuries as he says them. That, at the very least, makes her crack a smile. “I am. I went to school for it.” He tries to think of a way to explain to her, to make her believe and understand. “Did Mother ever make you do things to prove that you should stay a scientist?”

For all that Nadia struggled with putting together words herself, she was remarkably good at understanding others. “Eh, it was all science,” she shrugs, then amends, “I kill Ying to become scientist? Is that prove?”

“Proof,” Peter corrects, “Yes, good.” Well, his wasn’t nearly as intense as murder, but whatever. “To go to my school, I had to show proof that I was good at science too. I took a lot of tests, did a lot of projects, and I had to create something, do research. Um, research is used to help with making experiments better.”

Nadia nodded seriously. “In my experiments, when my first human die fast, I make it better and the second human die more slow, that is research?”

Well. Technically. “Yes,” Peter squeaks, hating his life, “Or like how we are trying lots of different coffees before you pick your favorite.”

“Car-a-mel,” Nadia sounds it out slowly, “And ice.”

“That’s your favorite for now, it could still change,” Peter points out, then scrambles to get back on topic, “Anyways, for my project, I chose to research how trauma from a plane crash impacts blood coagulation and hemostasis.”

She looks a little lost. “I am smart in Russian. Very smart.”

Peter’s heart burns in sympathy. “I know, Nadia, I know,” he says fiercely, “I’m sorry that I’m not fluent. We can talk about something else-“

“No!” She interrupts, shaking her head so hard that her short hair nearly smacks Peter across the face. “I learn. All of it. I know little words. Hemostasis, ah, how blood stops. You teach me the rest, you tell me about research. Your research.”

Peter can’t help but smile at her drive. He’s not surprised she knows some of the words - science can be hard to translate, and he’s sure she’s at least had access to some research papers over the past twenty years, at least in the manner of learning. For the things she doesn’t know, he takes out his phone and goes to the Stark translater app.

Tony Stark, saving the day again.

It’s a long, long process. Peter had chosen a difficult project, after all, even when he was fourteen. He had wanted to get into Midtown so badly that it literally made his bones ache. The topic he had chosen was, admittedly, perhaps a little on the nose - Ben had rubbed his forehead when Peter had explained it anxiously in the kitchen, bouncing on his heels.

Kid, he had said, and then he’d held Peter to his chest, a hand cradling his neck.

May had said, Sometimes it’s better not to know at the end, and Peter hadn’t understood then, not really. He wanted to understand everything about his parents, wanted to be close to them always, to sink into the blood that ran through his veins because it was their blood too, the last piece of life that was left of them.

He struggled to remember them, but he remembered the pain of their deaths as clear as if he had been the one dying beside them. He doesn’t regret his childhood project, not even when he’d had Ned hack files upon files and agencies upon agencies to find any details at all about the crash.

He never found any, not that it mattered. His parents’ were buried in closed caskets, and he never got his answers. Instead, he dedicated himself to studying the most common injuries and causes of death that occur in plane crashes, praying that, at the very least, they went quickly.

He doesn’t explain this to Nadia, only goes over the science. Slowly, they make their way through everything Peter remembers - he can’t believe it’s been almost four years, nine if you count the Blip, since he’d gotten into Midtown - and talk over the ways that blunt force trauma would impact the human body and wounds they sustain, ones that would bleed heavily before the body focused on the blunt trauma instead. He talks himself in circles sometimes, but so does Nadia, who occasionally gets too excited and begins to ramble in Russian so fast that Peter cannot catch a word.

“Krovyanoye skapleevaniye,” Peter sounds out, the syllables rolling unnaturally against his tongue.

“Ugh,” Nadia says, apparently in agreement at his poor pronunciation, and then, like a show off, says perfectly, “Blood conglomeration.”

“Ugh,” Peter echoes, though more teasing than anything. “You’re getting good.”

“I learn science,” Nadia’s eyes gleam happily. “Also-“

“I am learning science,” Peter corrects, now on a mission to help her learn. He feels like a dick now, for ever assuming that she was faking the broken English in the first place.

“Also,” Nadia emphasizes, “It is krov, for blood, you say krav. That means, um,” she uses her hand to trace the edge of the table.

“Edge,” Peter offers, and when she nods, he tries again, “Krovasos?”

She sighs. “You call me a vampire.”

Damn. Natasha had the patience of the saint to be able to teach him the amount she did, apparently.

Peter decides to move on. They’ve been talking science for at least a couple hours now, although he’d left his phone on the counter when he’d gotten up a bit ago to make more coffee, so he hadn’t a clue about the time.

“So you know my project now, yes?” Peter asks, leaning back into his chair, which he’s moved into for comfort against his back, “It’s good?”

Nadia, who hasn’t moved from her position on top of the table, tilts her hand. “For child, yes.”

“I was 14,” Peter reminds her, rolling his eyes, “But fine, fair enough. I got into my school, full scholarship, everything. It’s, um, like a college prep school, so you can choose to like, ‘major’ in whatever project got you into the school. My best friend was computer science, my girlfriend was forensics, it was-“ he stops suddenly. He’d forgotten who he was talking to. When he looks at her, though, she’s just staring at him, smiling and leaning forward as if she’s holding onto his every word.

“Daisy says she tries college,” Nadia tells him, then says, “Tries? She did it before, not anymore.”

“Tried,” Peter tells her, “Past tense usually means words end with a D.”

Nadia nods. “She tried college. She says it is not a place for her. A major-“

“Like a speciality. Like how you’re really good at science.”

“You’re really good at science,” Nadia echoes back at him. “Forensics, that is science? Is computer a science?”

“Forensics is the science that tells you how things happened the way they did. Like, we found you and the children together, and we didn’t know if you were family, so we took your blood to check. We followed steps and made sure we were right through science,” Peter explains. He hesitates, thinks about immediately explaining what computer science is, and then decides otherwise, “My girlfriend was really good at figuring stuff out. She wanted to be, um, a lawyer. To help people who get treated unfairly.”

Nadia mouths several words, but, in an act of kindness, doesn’t ask any questions.

“And my best friend, he could hack just about anything. Get any information he wanted, it just came to him through technology,” Peter continues, forcing his voice to stay steady, “If you can find somewhere to break in, though, that means you can find out where you need to put extra protection. That’s computer science.”

Nadia hums. “I maybe can do forensics. It is like, a detective?”

Peter laughs. “Where did you hear that word?”

“I talk to Daisy,” Nadia sniffs, and then, much quieter, “I watch television.”

He stifles a smile into his coffee mug. “You want to be a detective?”

“I am good at finding things out,” Nadia shares, “I am good at blood and science. I… I know what a girlfriend is!”

Strange thing to focus on, but what does it matter. At least Peter wouldn’t have to explain that one - he hopes that Daisy gave her the birds and the bees talk or whatever. Then he feels like a dick, remembers Natasha’s medical files and testimony against the KGB, her face when she talked about Clint and Laura’s kids.

He really hopes that Nadia only knew what a girlfriend was through whatever cop show she was watching and not through some weird KGB science thing.

She answers that inner question quickly when he doesn’t audibly respond, murmurs, “One of my humans told me. Number seven, Anylah Bosko, 206 months old, 167 centimeters, she says - said she was Polish. Street woman, but Oymyakon is in nowhere.”

Peter grabs the pad of paper and pen that Daisy keeps on the counter for grocery lists, and writes down Anylah Bosko, 17. He commits her name to memory. Then he looks back up at Nadia, a motion to continue.

Nadia reads the name he’s written upside down, but does nothing except let her eyes linger. “Mother said Number 7 was dirty, dirty street woman. I must shower each time I touch her, Mother said. Number 7-“

Peter can’t take it anymore. “Anylah. You can call her by her name when you’re with me, Nadia. I won’t tell anyone.”

Nadia doesn’t move a muscle. “Anylah had, eh, disease, at 180 months. From being street woman. Chla - cha -“ she makes a noise, all back up in her throat, “Khlamidii.”

Chlamydia. A treatable disease. A curable disease, even. Peter put his hands under the table against his thighs, because he couldn’t keep his fingers from twitching in rage.

“My humans have their room away from mine, okay? With locks. I press one button, and they fall down, cannot hurt me. But,” her nose scrunches, “I did not press button at Anylah. She listened to me. She shower too. She did not look dirty.”

Peter, suddenly, desperately, hopes that Natasha and JB didn’t destroy all of HYDRA, because Peter wants to finish burning it himself.

“She talk lots,” Nadia expresses this by holding a hand high above her head, stretching so far that her shirt rides up a little before she relaxes back down, “As much as Yelena. As much as you, Petyr.” Peter laughs softly, and lets her continue on, “I did not understand her. I speak Russian, Ukrainian, maybe English. No polish. She teach me.”

“She taught you,” Peter tries to correct, but his voice comes out too sad; it was a tragedy for everyone around. Nadia’s teachers; the Winter Soldier, this absent Mother woman, a kidnapped teenager, and now Daisy and Peter and a cop show. What a group.

“She taught me, yes,” Nadia accepts, “I wake her, and she said Dzien dobry every time. Good morning. I did not understand for so long. I thought she was, ah, wrong in the head, like how Mother says she was wrong in the body.”

Anylah, Peter thinks, grieving a girl he will never know. Number 7, Nadia had said, and that’s all he had needed to hear.

“My experiment works,” Nadia concludes, “Meh. Half. She does not speak Russian when I say, but she does other things. She speaks English. Only in end, before expiration. She tells me that someone will find her. And I say, who? You are a street girl, Number 7. And she says, you know, my girlfriend, my love. She’s waiting.”

She’s waiting. She’ll be waiting forever. Grief is a limbo, Peter thinks, one that you can barely escape with closure, one that you never will escape without it. His parents have been dead ten years, and he still sees them everywhere.

But Nadia does not understand this. She just shrugs and finally moves down to sit in the chair across from him, tapping her nails against the table. “Research notes, yes? Number 7 did not speak Russian. Number 7 did do everything else I tell her too. Number 7 speak English to me, but I do not know if she knew how too before. Number 7 expired after 6 minutes under serum,” Nadia sighs. “Maybe she was too dirty. I tell Mother she must bring me clean one for Number 8. Number 7, ugh, failure to comply.”

Nadia sounds genuinely disappointed in her experiment failing, despite the fact that she had admitted to having some sort of odd camaraderie with the girl. Peter thought he didn’t have it in him to be surprised anymore, but he thought wrong.

He’s talked to victims before. He volunteered at the Domestic Violence shelter with MJ only last year, and he deals with at least two rape or attempted rape victims every night as Spider-Man; he’s even talked Tony down from a panic attack and talked to the kids at the homeless shelters who were kicked out for being gay. He’s heard women suffering from DV talk well about their relationship, have watched as they leave the safe houses and walked straight back into their abuser’s rotten arms. He thought he’d seen it all; had understood it all.

Nadia has broken every single belief he’s probably ever had. His belief in Nat and JB destroying HYDRA; his belief in Stephen’s spell made to make everyone forget him; his belief in humanity, for how could anyone raise a girl to act like this, and how could she not see it was wrong?

He knew he was being unreasonable. It wasn’t Nadia’s fault that she had known nothing but brutality her entire life and been made to think it was simply the way of living. It wasn’t Nadia’s fault that the Stockholm syndrome was effecting her so badly it made her hardly recognizable as salvageable at all. None of this was Nadia’s fault, none of it. She was the brains, sure, but in the same way that JB had been nothing but violent hands; someone else in control of their belief systems, of their morals and who they were as human beings.

“The serum that made her listen to you only lasted six minutes?” Peter makes himself repeat, probing for answers she never wants to give, “Is this the science that Mother said would make everyone the best?”

“Not everyone,” Nadia wags a finger, but she’s smiling, like it’s funny, “Did not make Number 7 the best, eh? Or Number 8. Or Number 9. Or Number 10. Or-“

Peter tunes her out as she keeps counting. He knows he needs to try and get these dead girls’ names from Nadia. To give them some sort of peace, headstones lying all together if they had no family or friends left behind. They had been nothing but unwilling sacrifices for a cause that Nadia herself doesn’t understand.

At least that’s confirmation that she had been the one to introduce chemical conditioning to the girls of the Red Room. He’d already known, really. She’d basically said so. But at least now he knew - and could assume that this serum is how she got mixed up in a crate with two children. It explained why she was being looked for, by HYDRA or whatever other organization that wanted the serum for their own.

Speaking of… that made him think of the note in the warehouse lab that him, Matt and Frank had found, and the mess of chemicals and papers that didn’t fit. Peter nearly hit himself - it suddenly all felt obvious.

“Nadia,” he interrupts her count, wincing as she glares at him, “I’m sorry, please listen. What happened to the girls - to the failed experiments? How did they… expire?”

“I think painfully,” Nadia hypothesizes bluntly, “Yes, many cried. Some did not. Number… hm. 19? She says - said her brain was on fire. She last much longer than others, so I thought how silly, and then she dies, I look at scans, and her brain is ash!” She shakes her head, “Number 20, her brain was no ash, but her blood, yes. Burned her skin! It smell so bad, for days.”

Priorities, Peter thinks deliriously, and then, fuck.

“You solved the burning, though,” he says, because he knows she did, of course she did.

“Yes,” she affirms, “It takes forever. Many other problems too. No more burning inside, but-“ she taps one of the largest scars on her left forearm, one that spreads around her elbow and nearly up her shoulder, “Burns outside. If it gets on your skin, okay. Nothing I can fix,” she shrugs, and Peter watches the burnt flesh ripple with the movement, “Science has, um, cost. It is not so bad. You put IV into arm, and then pump serum, it is fine. Otherwise, eh, you must have the steadiest hands in Russia!”

The scab around her right wrist, the one from handcuffing herself to her bed the way she had been taught, is open again. Blood drips so slowly down her wrist that she doesn’t notice it at all.

“What would happen,” Peter says, “If someone made weapons with that serum. Guns that shot it as a blast.”

“Your skin will burn,” Nadia responds, voice full of easy conviction. “It will hurt. It may kill if it gets on lots of you,” she leans forward, tucking a piece of red hair behind her ear, which is pierced once and adorned with a simple silver star earring. “Do not be scared, Petyr. You are special, it will not hurt you as much, that is why Mother was always so mad.”

Petyr lets out a jilted laugh, touching his fingers to Number 7’s name on the notepad. “I’m more worried for my friends, Nadia.”

“Ah,” she says, nodding, “Yes. Okay, how is this. There is always only one paper of my notes, okay, Mother makes me promise. When Yelena makes me run away, in Moscow lab? She takes all my notes with her. I never see them again.”

“She is your friend, yes, your friends are safe.” The drop of blood from Nadia’s wrist crawls up her thumb. She looks down at it, and then sucks the liquid into her mouth.

He looks at her, feels his brows pulling together before he can stop them.

Her throat bobs as she swallows it down. “Do not look so scared, Petyr. It is only blood.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

He wears his new suit to Fogwell’s that night. The things he talks to Matt about are too dark; he doesn’t want to stain Tony’s suit with Peter’s rage.

But Matt knows Peter’s anger because it is his own. The new suit is snug, loose in the areas he needs to have flexibility in and tight in the spots that are covered with bullet proof fabric. He feels safe in it. Hidden.

He can’t hide from Matt, not emotionally nor physically, though - Matt is already standing and waiting for him in the ring when Peter slips through the window, landing on light feet across from him.

Matt’s body looks tense; coiled up, his fists clenched. “You’re upset.”

“Yes,” Peter says honestly, feels as the tension of the day begins to escape his mind and bleed into his muscles instead.

“You don’t want to talk about it,” Matt states, his head tilting.

“No,” Peter tries to shake out his fists, the surge of energy making his heartbeat pound against his chest, “Not yet.”

Matt exhales. One long, endless breath. His entire body seems to relax. “Alright,” he says, “Attack me.”

Peter can’t stop his voice from cracking when he responds, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But Matt has full trust in Peter, just like he always does, when he says, voice steady in absolute certainty, “You won’t.”

And then Peter’s fist is connecting with Matt’s stomach, and they’re off. And they aren’t Peter and Matt anymore, nor Spider-Man and Daredevil, just two boys with a violence that threatens to consume them, fighting fire with fire and burning each other and themselves along the way.

It’s dirty, and cheap shots are thrown with no hesitation. Matt catches Peter’s upper thigh, the spot he’d been stabbed in so long ago, which didn’t heal right because he’d worked a fourteen hour shift only two hours after it happened, and Matt knew that, knew it still ached at sudden pressure - so Peter, gasping, catches Matt with a hit to the ear, which has him stumbling back because his hearing is so enhanced that Peter knows Matt was able to hear every fiber of Peter’s gloves as they made contact. Matt hits Peter’s ribs, which are still sore from when he’d cracked them two nights before, and Peter kicks at Matt’s ankle, which he’d sprained last week.

They know each other intimately, in a degree of closeness that Peter doesn’t truly understand until they’re making each other bleed. He feels dizzy from it, the ordeal of being known to the point of pain, and they’re warring again, spinning and jumping and fighting so quickly that Peter thinks if he was watching from the outside, he would admire the two of them, see their violence as a dance instead of a war.

It’s not clean or neat or a fight that follows any sort of rules. Matt knows about twenty million different fighting styles and he uses them all, but Peter has memorized the moves of Avengers and he uses those in response, letting Nat guide him as he wraps his legs around Matt’s neck, letting Clint pull him through as he bends backward and jumps off, pushing Matt forward by the hips.

He stumbles, and laughs without turning back toward Peter, and it’s a deep thing, heavy and a little mean. “Do you feel better, sweetheart?”

“I haven’t made you bleed yet,” Peter tells him, raising his shoulders, “So no.”

Then Matt turns to him, mouth still open in a half smile. His teeth are covered in red, like he’s taken a bite out of something living and breathing. “Are you sure?”

Peter’s breath catches in his throat. It’s not enough, he thinks. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, only his heart is still pounding and his fists are still clenched and his knuckles aren’t sore enough, so he flies forward and then they’re fighting again.

He couldn’t describe it to anyone if they’d asked, not after that. He lost all reason and all he could hear was Nadia’s voice, saying, It never changes. Saying, Yelena has the only copy of my notes. Saying, It is just blood, Petyr. A whisper of a voice dominates it all; Anylah, a last prayer - My love. She’s waiting.

He doesn’t notice when Matt stops fighting and just starts avoiding his fists instead. He’s becoming lost in his memories, photos flickering past his eyes so quickly he could barely tell what was real. Was any of this real? Was he still in Beck’s simulation, after all?

“My heart,” Matt’s voice filters through the rest, repeating the same words, over and over. “Listen to my heart.”

It takes a long, long moment before he manages it. The familiar sound wraps around his body like a blanket, and he’s pulled back into himself, finally stopping the senseless punches he’s been throwing all over the place. Matt’s hands are holding his wrists with a grip that is so gentle Peter could pull out of it without any effort at all.

Peter sniffles without meaning too, and then Matt is holding his neck and bringing him close, cradling the back of his head like he’s something precious. Peter doesn’t have the energy to hug back. He just stands there, limp and unmoving, as Matt holds him so tightly it’s like he’s the only thing that’s stopping Peter from breaking into a million pieces.

Peter isn’t crying. He doesn’t have time for it, not again, so he just closes his eyes instead and lets himself float for a long moment, content in the knowledge that Matt will protect him while he’s not present. The fighting had been good. He had needed it, desperately and terrifyingly, but he had needed comfort too. He didn’t know how to ask - but then Matt always knew before Peter even had the chance to think it first.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says into Matt’s shoulder. “I should’ve avoided your head.”

“I’m glad I didn’t re break your ribs,” Matt acknowledges in response, which is the closest thing Peter will get to an “It’s okay.” Matt does him one better, anyways, a second later. “You smell like Nadia.”

“That’s creepy, man,” Peter complains, but doesn’t try to escape Matt’s hug for another minute, “What’s she even smell like?”

“Flower scented body wash. Daisy’s, I think,” Matt considers, “Coffee and dish soap. Metal. Blood. Uh, chemicals, don’t know where she would’ve gotten those from.”

“She lived in chemicals for her whole life,” Peter points out, stepping away from Matt’s warmth, “Maybe that’s just her now.”

Matt hums in agreement. “It does smell old. Like skin. What did she say to you?”

“Nothing I should have found surprising,” Peter sighs. Then he rolls his eyes at himself, because he sounds just as mysterious as Matt always does. He needs more friends. “I think it’s best to keep you two separate. She, um. She struggles with seeing people as people. She kind of… it’s like, life is an experiment to her. I don’t think anyone has ever mattered to her.”

Matt’s lips press into a line. “She doesn’t have a tie to humanity.”

“I dunno,” Peter tries to articulate, “Her humanity is all about surviving. That’s all she’s ever had to do. Nothing else. That does something to a person.”

Matt’s quiet for a long time. “I knew someone like that, once,” he reveals, his voice heavy, “I thought I could fix her too.”

“What happened to her?” The words are ripped from Peter’s throat, although in a whisper, like he’s scared to talk too loudly and scare Matt’s openness away.

Matt presses a hand to his heart, like it needs pressure to be held together. “She died.”

Peter blinks. He doesn’t know why he had never thought about why Matt never mentioned any friends or girlfriends other than his business partners or fellow vigilantes. “Oh.”

Matt makes the sign of the cross, quickly, and then says, “Almost took me with her, too,” despite this, there’s a small smile on his face, like even almost dying in her presence had been worth something. “Those type of people, sweetheart, they can’t be fixed. They don’t want to be.”

Peter ignores the nickname, even though it makes his heart burn with the pain of missing Aunt May. “I don’t want to fix her.”

“Change her, then,” Matt corrects seamlessly, “Because she can’t go around killing people in the name of science. Something’s got to give.”

Peter sits down, leaning against the ribbons that lined the ring. “Daisy’s helping her. I am too. She’s doing better. It’ll take time, come on.” Then, feeling bad for asking, but doing it anyways, “Didn’t it take time with the girl you knew?”

Matt sinks down beside him. “It’s complicated. She, uh. She tried to change me, at first. I didn’t see her for nearly ten years after that. Then I tried to change myself when she came back, but, uh, I couldn’t in the end. Lost her again. And then in the end, well. I like to think we accepted each other.”

“When you were dying?” Peter adds, trying not to sound incredulous.

“I think she must have shielded me,” Matt says absently in response, “That’s why I survived and she didn’t. That was acceptance. She knew that there was only one place she could go where I wouldn’t follow.”

Death. Matt wouldn’t follow her there because she’d given her life for him not too. Following her would be a betrayal, a waste of her sacrifice. Peter could read between the lines. He didn’t know this girl’s name, but he felt, suddenly, as if he knew her.

“Well,” Peter says quietly, “Ten years might not have changed her, but a month has already been enough to shift Nadia. But I’m still sorry.”

Matt doesn’t acknowledge the condolences. “So you aren’t upset about Nadia.”

“I am,” Peter assures, “I’m just more upset about Yelena.”

He explains what Nadia told him; how there were only one set of her notes and that Yelena had them last, and now weapons were flying around doing the same damage that Nadia predicted they would.

“Okay,” Matt says at the end, holding a hand out, “I don’t want to say it-“

“Then don’t,” Peter mutters.

“-But I’m going too anyways. Look, if Nadia said that the serum would burn your skin at every stage of it - as in, it would burn you even if it didn’t work and it would burn if it did - than how do we know that whoever is making these weapons has actually figured out the correct formula?” Matt asks, tilting his head, “Is there not a chance that this is just, I don’t know, the absolute first beginning stage? That they just mixed up a similar set of chemicals?”

“Maybe,” Peter admits grudgingly, “Except that Nadia is a genius for even combining the chemicals she did. I don’t know how anyone would replicate that without her notes - which would have the formula for the final and complete stage.”

Matt sighs. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I know Nadia’s brilliant. But-“ he presses forward, ignoring Peter’s groan of exasperation, “But, it took her, what, fifteen straight years to develop it? And she worked on it every single day from what you’ve told me. How many people did she experiment on?”

“In the hundreds,” Peter mumbles, “I think. Maybe more.”

Matt whistles. “Christ. Alright, so fifteen straight years and hundreds of bodies later, and the serum she finally made not only had side effects, it also had a cure.” He shakes his head, the horns hitting the ribbons above him. “There is no feasible, logical way that anyone could truly replicate that.”

“Exactly!” Peter bursts, “That’s why they use her notes!”

“Or,” Matt suggests, “They don’t have her notes, they have almost nothing, which is why they’ve been putting the serum into weapons and selling them to random criminals!” he reaches over and taps Peter hard on the side of the head, “Think, Peter. You’re smarter than this. If they - HYDRA, or whatever other organization - actually had Nadia’s notes, what would they do with them?”

Peter’s brain feels fuzzy from lack of sleep and the stress of the past six months. He makes it focus anyways. This is not the time to be having a mental breakdown. “They would…” he closes his eyes, and there’s the answer, right in front of him, “Oh. They would be creating an army if they actually could control people like Nadia’s notes say. Or start a war by taking over Congress or something.”

Matt smiles. “There you go.”

“So… they don’t have Nadia’s notes?” Peter asks Matt, as if he has all the answers in the world. “Yelena didn’t sell them, or go back to the KGB, or something?”

“I doubt that very much,” Matt remarks, “Yelena loved her sister more than anyone. You know that. Do you think she would betray Natasha’s memory by voluntarily re joining the KGB?”

“No,” Peter denies, feeling his face flush with shame. “I just… I thought-“

“Yelena destroyed the Red Room to free the other girls,” Matt reminds him, “Do you think she would betray herself by selling the very thing she tried to hard to destroy?”

Peter ducks his head. “I know I wasn’t being logical, Matt, I get it. I just, like, I don’t know. I got… scared.”

Admitting to such a thing is beyond foreign. He didn’t let himself feel scared. It just wasn’t practical. Sad, fine. Annoyed, angry, none of it mattered. But to be scared would crush him. It’s been a long time since he let himself feel scared. When Tony died, it had been nothing but sadness. When May went, Peter had fueled by rage for months. It was only now that Peter even thought of this new word.

The truth was that he was scared every fucking day. It never went away. But it could be covered by something else, some other emotion that would take the edge off. The last time he had felt pure, unbridled fear was when he had turned to dust in Tony’s arms, feeling every single of his atoms disappear one by one. To this day, no pain has ever compared.

Until now. Because Peter is an orphan twice over. And he’s got a community now, kind of, people who care about him and who he cares about too, and it hurts everyday he wakes up happy. The guilt eats him alive. Nadia remembering him is a reminder of every failure of his life. He was scared and he had jumped to conclusions and blamed Yelena, and hadn’t she already gone through enough?

It wasn’t like he had confronted her, or said anything to her face, but it was the matter of the thing, he thought. Thinking it all was a betrayal to a woman who was probably more well adjusted than he was. Who had been nothing but kind to him.

“It wasn’t her, of course it wasn’t her,” Peter groans, burying his face in his knees, “Fuck, Matt, fuck, I don’t know why I even thought it at all.”

Matt cares for Peter. Peter knows this. He feels it against him even now, the custom and gifted suit soft against his skin. But when Matt speaks next, his voice is rock hard. “You’re letting your emotions lead you. It needs to stop. Your anger is dangerous, Peter,” and he doesn’t sound scared of Peter, or wary- it sounds like a warning. “So is mine. I understand. You need to be logical.”

“I usually am,” Peter protests, because he is, this was one mistake out of a million good choices.

“You’re lucky that you had enough sense to come to me first,” Matt argues, “I know you’re young, Peter. Let me help you. If you keep rushing to conclusions, letting your emotions preside over the truth,” he shakes his head, his hand going to that same spot on his heart, “It never ends well.”

Peter knows that Matt’s thinking about the woman he loved, the one who never changed. Matt must’ve nearly died because he put his love for her first instead of acknowledging the truth of her nature. Peter wants to argue that it isn’t like that. He has no one to do that for.

Then he realizes that he’s just done it, not for anyone else, but for himself. Peter was so used to seeing the worst in people that he’d jumped to conclusions. He let his grief take over.

Peter has no idea how to express this. “Okay,” he declares finally, “You have a point. I’m sorry. Really, really, really sorry, Matt.”

Matt seems to melt immediately, wrapping an arm around Peter’s neck and pulling him in for a side hug. “I’m just worried about you, kid. You always smell like Nadia and whiskey and blood, you know that?”

He did not know that. “I’m guessing that’s not how I smelled when you first met me.”

“You smelled like cocaine and whiskey and blood back then,” Matt says casually, “I’m still deciding which is worse.”

Peter knew his neighbor’s cocaine was drifting through their vents or something. Vindication! They hadn’t moved out; Nadia must just have a heavier, more unique scent. The whiskey, well. Peter drank the rotgut, bottle shelf stuff when he had to deal with a a particularly bad wound, that had yet to change. The blood was the same story.

“You don’t need to worry,” Peter lies, smushing his face into Matt’s shoulder.

“I always worry,” Matt says, voice honest, “About you, about Jess, about Frank, everyone. But you especially. You have to stop making decisions in your life as if you don’t actually exist to suffer the consequences.”

“Technically-” Peter starts.

“Vultures,” Matt snaps at him. “I told you I would never let the vultures touch you. Let me keep my promise.”

And, well, what else is there to do but agree?

He tries not to think about Nadia, watching the world go by from Daisy’s window, her mysterious sister lingering along her thoughts; tries not to think about the weapons on the street made of a serum that should’ve been destroyed years ago; tries not to think about the grief that is holding him hostage, his Aunt and Tony and Nat like devils on his shoulders.

He still thinks about it, but it doesn’t matter. In the end, he’s here, Matt’s arm around his shoulders and the familiar smell of blood in the air. That has to be enough.

Notes:

This chapter got away from me so badly that it ended up being 120 pages… so I split it into two chapters, which is why the total chap count changed ;)

Per usual, side characters become main characters in Peter’s life (see: Daisy Johnson) and the mystery behind Nadia continues!

Matt is, of course, the best brother in the world. Also, may have accidentally made Peter being Jewish a big part of this story. Oops?

Hope you all enjoyed x

Chapter 4: Anylah, Elektra, Maria, Lincoln

Summary:

Peter is 8 years younger than Nadia and he feels like he’s staring down at his little sister instead.

He blinks and he’s holding Morgan Stark’s tiny hand at the edge of the lake house dock, Tony’s arc reactor floating away from them, and then he blinks again and Morgan turns back into Nadia, who has one hand around her coffee and the other curled into the sleeve of her sweater, like she can hide from their fight.

Peter braved the insanity of New Year’s Day in the city to make his way into Harlem. The subway was the worst it had ever been, the line at the coffee shop took twenty minutes, and by the time he was making his way to Daisy’s walk up, he was already ready to go home and spend the next three days with his hands over his ears.

Alas, he had a drink carrier with three full cups and a bag of donuts, so he knocks on Daisy’s door, waiting only a minute before she’s opening it.

She looks like a normal, healthy person today, Peter notes with no small amount of relief. Seeing her sick had been jarring. She’s back to her usual tan, though, with her short hair in curls and wearing a purple Henley and dark jeans. If it wasn’t for the gun tucked into her waist band, he wouldn’t look at her twice on the street.

But he does see the gun in her waistband, and he has seen the videos of her using her powers, so as it is, he is very careful not touch or brush against her as he slides inside, exhaling at the sudden warmth.

“Hey,” he says, holding out the drink carrier, “Feeling better?”

She takes the green tea cup out and holds it close to her chest. “I was never sick,” she insists, then, quietly, “Yes.”

He smiles at her. “It’s the tea. How’s she doing?”

Daisy shrugs, keeping her voice down as she says, “The same. She’s bored. Needs some more social interaction, probably. There’s only so many times I can play monopoly, Peter.”

Peter tries to keep himself from laughing. “I know. Hopefully it won’t be for much longer, I think we’re getting closer.”

She sips at her tea, expression distant. “Tell me if you need help, okay? I don’t know how you got involved in this, and I won’t ask, but don’t get in over your head.”

“I appreciate that,” he says, and he does, but, “I know how dangerous HYDRA is. Trust me. Anyways, I’ve gotten in contact with Daredevil through Jessica Jones, and he’s been a big help.”

Daisy wrinkles her nose. “Ugh.”

Peter really has to try not to laugh at that, remembering how Matt had said Daisy spent so long trying to uncover his identity - and still hadn’t figured it out.

“You’ve got a shiner there,” She says shrewdly, tapping at her eye. “Daredevil isn’t dragging you too deep into this, is he?”

He’s gotten better at fighting since training with Matt, no doubt about that, but New Year’s Eve had been rougher than usual. He’d been lucky that Kate and Yelena were in town to keep watch over gangs who would try and use the excitement of the night to smuggle their deals in, but it’d still been hell on his senses as he tried to figure out whether he’d heard a gunshot or just a firework, if a woman was screaming in happiness or in pain. Keeping the hole in his mental bubble wider than normal made him distracted, and he’d let several juvenile hits through his defenses while trying to focus on ten things at once. He’d turned in earlier than he was expecting too, around 2, and covered his face in blankets until his head stopped pounding out of his skull.

Still, he hadn’t eaten yet, hadn’t even sipped on his coffee, and he needed something in his system for his super healing to work. That left him with a pretty bad black eye today, and a couple ribs that ached beyond the way they usually did. Peter rubs the back of neck awkwardly. “I’m fine. It looks worse than it is, you know, didn’t get enough sleep. Anyways, the sooner we figure this out, the better. I’m getting tired of taking the subway every other damn day.”

The deflection seems to work, because Daisy rolls her eyes in response. “Should I start paying for you to take a cab, huh? You wanna be spoiled?”

“I don’t even want to imagine how much that would cost,” Peter shudders, dead honest. “You just have that much money?” Then he looks around her apartment which, despite not being in the very best area, is large enough that it has a living room, a kitchen down a long hallway, and a staircase that leads to at least two bedrooms upstairs, since he can’t assume Daisy and Nadia are sharing. Daisy’s apartment is sparsely decorated, but for New York - or maybe just to Peter - it’s practically a mansion. “Nevermind.”

She places a finger over her lips, pretending to shush him into secrecy. Then her mouth twitches and she admits, “I’m more criminal than hero, kid.”

Peter resents that. He’s pretty sure he’s barely two years younger than she is, but whatever. “You’re telling me being a vigilante doesn’t pay the bills?”

She laughs at the sarcasm and waves him off. “Nah, but hacking terrorists and stealing their blood money sure does,” which Peter is suitably impressed by, mostly because he’s considered it for literal years but has always been a little too scared to end up on someone like Tony’s radar again, “Go talk to Nadia.”

He sticks his tongue out at her, feeling very mature, but listens to her anyways, heading down the familiar hallway and hip checking the kitchen door open.

Nadia is sitting on the floor this time, in the big space between the bar counter and the fridge, her back against the cabinets below the sink. She’s wearing clothes that Daisy must have picked up from the children’s section of some thrift shop - pajama pants covered in pink hearts and a shirt that reads Chelsea Prep Middle School - and her hair is loose around her face, which Peter can barely see, as she’s half hidden by the book she’s reading.

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.

Peter sighs and sits down on the floor diagonally to her, his back against the cool fridge door.

It had been one of MJ’s favorite books, once upon a time. Ned used to say she was weird, that it was too sad to be considered a favorite. MJ said any book that was banned meant that it had to be read before it was too late. Something about power and control. He’d read it, of course he had, and it hadn’t been easy. It reminded him just a little too eerily of all the human trafficking that was overtaking the city, or of the girls that stood at the corner in the dark of the night, skimpily dressed and shaking as their pimps drove slowly by to see if they’d had any customers.

He’d told MJ that, and she’d just looked at him the way she always did, her eyes squinting and intelligent. You’ll never have the power to stop it, she’d told him, reading his mind as she so often did, But you do have the power to make it better.

He shakes his head to be free of the memories of her, and slides Nadia her coffee across the floor. Iced coffee with cinnamon and apple syrup. Festive, but not as strong as peppermint.

She sets her book on her lap, dog-marking a top corner to save her place, and then takes a drink of her coffee. “You have tried this?”

“I watched them make it, and drank mine first,” Peter tells her, lifting up his own hot black coffee.

“Not coffee,” she rolls her eyes the same way Daisy does, exaggerated and long, “The book. You read it?”

Peter scratches his head. “Yeah. Year or so ago, I think. You don’t like the coffee?”

“Coffee is good, enough about coffee,” Nadia snipes, tapping the cover of her book incessantly, “You like?”

Peter gives up. “It’s sad. It’s hard to read about. Did you finish it?”

“Da,” she says dismissively, then, “Ugh. Yes. Two times. I read it once in English and Daisy gets me it in Russian. Now I read again in English. Learn new words.”

Peter barely stops his brows from raising in surprise. The novel is a hard one to follow, even for a native English speaker. Nadia making such a great effort was unexpected, since she seemed largely unbothered by her broken English before. “What’d you think of it?”

She looks down at her lap, tracing the image on the front cover with a steady finger. She outlines the woman’s white face covering, and then her red dress, before she finally speaks. “I think it is sad, like you say.”

He waits for more, but she doesn’t continue. Softly, he asks, “Does it remind you of how you were raised?”

“No,” she says sharply, and then, “Yes. I do not know. We did not have baby. Not like in book. That is not our… our-“ she groans, struggling for the word, “Not our purpose.”

Yes, Peter knew the Red Room made sure of that. Their final ceremony before a Widow graduated, as Natasha’s file had proclaimed. Nadia was old enough that she had probably been victim to the same thing.

“What was your purpose?” Peter asks, voice even.

“The opposite,” Nadia says, and smiles slightly, so she must’ve just learned that word from her book, “We kill and things they tell us to do, we do. Lots of killing. No baby, not ever.”

“Okay,” Peter says, “So in your book, the women are forced to have children. Just like you are forced to do what they tell you?”

“Forced,” she muses, and her tapping stops abruptly. “I force experiments to do what I say. I am like them.”

“No, Nadia,” Peter bites back immediately, shaking his head so hard it hurts, “You’re not. You were forced to do it all, too. But you saved everyone, didn’t you? You made the cure?”

She’s silent for a long moment, though her expression remains twisted and confused. “I was not - Mother did not say no cure. She say what I have to make. Serum. That is all.”

So maybe subconsciously, Nadia had realized it was wrong - or maybe there was a story about one of her other human experiments that she hadn’t told Peter, one that had gotten through to her. Regardless, it was clear that she had convinced herself she wasn’t directly disobeying - they had never told her not to make a cure, although that was most likely because they never imagined her doing something so humane after a life without humanity.

“Alright,” Peter says easily, not wanting to make her more distressed, but needing to ask, “Nadia, what happened after you and Yelena split up?”

She stares at him. Then she holds up her book. “In end, they do not say what happen to Offred. Happened. They say she is part of history. When her world fall apart, yes? That is what matters. Not her.”

Softly, Peter says, “I think that she matters, too. That she played a big part in taking down-“ he searches his brain for the word; the details of the book swim around his mind. “Gilead.”

“It does not matter,” Nadia insists, waving the book at him, “It is about world. It keeps going.”

Peter feels his thoughts stutter to a stop. If Matt were here, he would have heard the way Peter’s heart picked up a painful beat in his chest. He knew what Nadia was saying; the world went on without her. Why does she matter at all?

And in a turn of events so bizarre he has to rub the spot over his heart, he tells her, “She still matters. She still exists, no matter how small,” and because he isn’t sure she’s hearing it, he adds, “You exist, Nadia. You are a part of the reason that all those girls you saved still exist, too.”

She blinks at him, heavy and bleary eyed, and then drops the book back to her lap. “I do not know how world changes, Petyr. Ukraine, I was 7, Moscow, maybe 25 when Yelena find me. That is lot of time. Too much of time.”

18 years in isolation. Peter remembers the way JB still marvels at the television when he thinks no one is looking. He cannot imagine.

“You were confused?” He prompts.

Nadia takes a sip of her coffee. “There was so much cars. They made sound. And so much humans, so much. I could not see, almost. It was bright. The, ah, explosion. And the day. I do not know how to hide. I run.”

“They found you,” Peter finishes. He thinks of his own sensory overloads, which are at least all made up of things he knows, things he understands. Nadia didn’t have that luxury.

Nadia nods wryly. “I do not run fast. I am scientist. I try fight, but it have been so much time. No use. I am glad I gave Yelena notes. She protect them. I cannot.”

“Who did you try to fight?” Peter asks, feeling so close that his fingers brush against the knowledge.

Nadia doesn’t even seem to realize how much she is giving him. “HYDRA, I think,” and then, her English perfect, she says, “Cut off it’s head and two more shall take its place.”

Peter’s Spidey sense doesn’t tingle. He doesn’t move, just watches her stare back at him.

She cracks a smile. “They teach me to say that in every language. Almost every. The big ones, all perfect. Useless.”

“Useless,” Peter agrees, though he still feels slightly uneasy. He opens the bag of donuts and slides it over to her.

She picks up a plain glazed one with the edges of her fingers. “HYDRA was not big. Yasha got almost all, I hear them say so. They do not know who I am. I be quiet and do what they say,” and then she scowls, mouth tightening, “They say they need more widows. A little girl comes. Polina.”

The girl that Nadia had been fighting to protect so hard in the warehouse.

“I can do nothing to help little girl,” Nadia says, and it would sound casual if the donut wasn’t crumbling in her death grip of it, “They send me to lot of places. They… sell me. I am bad at being spy. Bad at fighting. They say, ah, but I am pretty.”

Peter feels like he’s going to throw up. He pushes the entire donut bag closer to her.

“I say to them, one time, Mother hate street woman. I do not want to be street woman,” her lip wobbles, “They say Mother is gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter tells her, and he is, even though he doesn’t quite understand this mysterious figure in her life, nor does he particularly like her, but what does it matter? She had been someone to Nadia. That’s enough.

“She was not my real mother,” Nadia tells him. “She was not nice.”

Peter shrugs. “That doesn’t stop it from hurting.”

“Yes,” Nadia agrees dully, “Hurting so much.”

He wants to ask about how she remembers him. Wants to ask if anything happened out of the ordinary in the same time frame he had disappeared. But he can’t. Because Nadia must have disappeared in the snap and instead of coming back free she had come back to her prison, likely without the knowledge that time had passed at all. He aches in empathy. He won’t push again.

“Well,” he tries, “That’s why we have donuts. They make us hurt less.”

She crooks a smile at him and takes one, biting in. Then she spits it out all over the floor.

“Blood,” she splutters, “…Sweet blood?”

Peter sighs and stands up to get a napkin. “Strawberry jam, Nadia. We’ll get there.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

“This is Karen Page of Murdock, Nelson & Page speaking, how can I help you?” A sweet voice says from his phone’s speaker.

“Hi, Ms. Page,” Peter says, swinging his legs over the roof’s edge, “My name is Peter Parker, I was referred your business by a friend and was wondering if you were taking internships anytime soon?”

Peter really, really hopes that she doesn’t ask what friend referred him.

“Oh!” There’s the sound of something hitting a desk, a muffled whisper, and then, “Sorry, yes! We’re looking for an intern who’s interested in the law aspect, not private investigating.”

“I am,” Peter tells her, then adds, “Interested in the law.”

“Are you familiar with the basics?” Ms. Page asks him, although she still sounds kind, “Have any experience?”

Well, he has experience with breaking it, but he’s not going to say that. “I have more of a science background than a humanities one, I emailed you my resume earlier today? I do have a general, um, knowledge, though.” His resume is completely and utterly made up, but what’s he supposed to do? He’s got Josie’s on there and a fake number for the Stark internship, and that’ll have to do.

Ms. Page hums. “Why do you want to learn more about the law, Mr. Parker?”

“Peter is fine,” he tells her, and is glad she can’t see the face his face is burning over the phone, “I just want to help people.”

There’s a moment of silence. He think he hears a man’s voice ask Ms. Page something, but she doesn’t respond to him. Finally, she says, “We can pay you minimum wage, now that we’re taking on real cases, and in food. No overtime unless you volunteer, and you get as many sick days as needed. I assume that you’re willing to learn how to use a braille printer?”

Peter feels his heart jump. “I already know how,” he admits, “I watched a YouTube video.”

Ms. Page laughs. “Alright. Can you come by tomorrow, around noon?” She pauses, and there’s a little bit of chatter, before she says, “I’m told I sound too eager - Foggy, shut up - so how about this. Peter, we’d like to hire you. Please send over your availability at your earliest convenience and we’ll set up a testing run for a week, see how you do.”

Peter’s grinning so wide it’s hard to keep his voice steady. “I can come by tomorrow, and I’ll send you my availability, thank you, Ms. Page. I really, really appreciate it.”

“Karen is fine,” she says warmly, “We’ll see you tomorrow, Peter.”

Then she hangs up, and Peter spends a solid minute jumping around the roof in excitement. He hurries back to his phone when it alerts a text notification; it’s Matt, who’s simply said, Heard you’ve got some good news to share. Are we still on to meet at mine before the warehouse bust?

U r so creepy, Peter types back quickly, How did u know? And ya, urs is fine.

You use too many abbreviations, Matt replies after a considerably longer moment, Frank and Amy might join us.

Who’s Amy? Peter writes, deciding to let Matt off the hook for his creepiness for a long moment.

Frank’s daughter, Matt says, Don’t ask. Probably won’t see you tomorrow.

I thought she died??? Peter types, confused, and then, I thought u just confirmed our plans? Wdym u won’t see me?

I did, Matt responds, and nothing else, so Peter gives up and goes downstairs to change into his uniform.

Josie is helping him behind the bar tonight, kind of has too with how much business has picked up with everyone still celebrating new years, and he doesn’t have a spare moment to ask her about changing his schedule for what’s genuinely hours.

By the time ten rolls around, he’s itching to talk to her, getting tired of customer service and the new faces, ones who sneer at him and throw coins at his head like he’s not a person at all. He misses the regulars, even the weird ones, like that one guy who can fit forty two olives in his mouth, or the kind of annoying ones, like Old Shelley, who won’t leave until he does.

So it’s a relief when Frank slides into his now usual spot at the bar top, lightly shoving some drunk asshole off the stool. The guy falls to the ground, and his friends help him back up, but one look at Frank’s bruised and scarred face makes them hastily retreat.

“Hey, Pete,” Peter greets, doing his best not to stumble over the fake name, “You want your weekday usual?”

Frank nods. “You look busy enough, kid.”

“Whiskey neat isn’t trouble,” Peter tells him, but he’s already handing the man a beer, trying not to sound too relieved at the break of hard liquor. The smell is beginning to burn against his senses.

Frank twists the cap off, then casually elbows a guy in the stomach who seems to be trying to order a drink. The guy goes back to his booth, and Peter pretends not to notice.

“You ain’t look like the mess you usually do,” Frank tells him, squinting, “You do somethin’ different?”

Peter shrugs, put his hands against the bar and leans on them, his shoulders twinging at the moment of rest. “My face isn’t beat to shit. That’s probably all.”

Frank’s expression gets all stormy at that. “Yeah, it sure ain’t.”

Peter rushes to add, “It’s from my self defense classes. I’m a slow learner,” because Frank’s face is making the same worried twist that Matt’s does sometimes, so Peter admits, “Got my first day at an internship tomorrow, trying to look professional.”

“Shit, you ain’t ever try that hard for me, honey,” Josie’s voice says from behind him, and Peter turns guiltily, standing back up straight.

“I knew it’d be love at first sight with us, Jo,” he jokes weakly, and at her raised eyebrow, sighs, “Been busy, couldn’t tell you. It’s just during the day. I can take closing shifts.”

“I don’t want you overworkin’ yourself,” Josie says sternly, drying a glass with a rag, “I’ll cut your hours if I start seein’ shadows under your eyes like I used too, you hear me?” At Peter’s nod, she softens, moves forward to grip his shoulder with a weathered hand, “I’m proud of you, honey. You ain’t meant to be workin’ in this bar forever.”

“Aw, Josie, I love your bar,” Peter tells her earnestly, “You’ll never get rid of me.”

“God help my soul,” she sighs, and then moves back, her emotions done for the day, “Get that man another beer, Peter. What internship is stealin’ you?”

“Sorry, Pete,” Peter says sheepishly, turning around to hand the man another bottle, his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. To Josie, he calls, “A law firm!”

Frank seems to choke on his beer.

Josie frowns from where she’s handing a man his change, “There’s only one of those around here, ain’t there? You’re tellin’ me you’re working for Murdock, Nelson and Page?”

“You know them?” Peter asks incredulously, and then spares a glance to Frank, who still seems to be choking. “You good, man?”

“Went down the wrong pipe,” Frank gets out.

“‘Course I know ‘em,” Josie hollers over the sound of Frank’s coughing, “Surprised you ain’t served ‘em. They stop by at least once a week.”

Peter shrugs. He remembers Murdock from his old life, in a kind of bleary way, all fuzzy and with the tell-tale signs of dissociation, but he’d never met Nelson or Page, so maybe he had served them and just didn’t know. “Probably would’ve been awkward if they hired their bartender for legal help, anyways.”

Josie shakes her head at him. “Anyone can tell you’re smart by lookin’ at you, Peter. Well, if they look past all your damn bruises and shit.”

“Most people don’t,” Peter informs her, then leans forward and takes a guy’s order, which is a cocktail so fruity that even Peter, who has an insatiable sweet tooth, makes a face of disgust.

Josie runs the man’s card as Peter hands him the drink, and then he leans back again, arms crossed in front of him. “Haven’t I served just about every regular? You sure I haven’t seen them?”

“They would’ve scooped you up as soon as they heard you smart-talk, so I’m pretty sure you ain’t never served ‘em,” Josie tells him, and then reaches around to give the man his card back, who takes it with a loud sip from his cocktail and a muttered appreciation. “Nelson got longer, blonde hair, kinda hippy? I’d say Page was the prettiest damn person I’ve ever seen, but that’d be a disservice to Murdock.”

Frank snorts at this and gestures for another beer. Peter twists the cap off and adds it to his tab without a word. “That’s not really helpful, Josie, I hate to say, although I’m glad you feel comfortable enough with me to be open-“

He laughs and ducks as Josie swats his head in response. “Oh, quiet. Just meant Page is all model, long legs, that. Murdock’s got that whole dark and wounded shtick goin’ on. Don’t know which one of ‘em brings home more girls - or boys. They sure are open, if you wanna talk about that, Peter.”

“Never with you,” Peter says seriously, ducking another attempted hit at his head, “I don’t think I’ve seen them, you’re right.”

“Pete’s stopped by with one of ‘em a couple times,” Josie tells, nodding her head at the man who’s watching their conversation like it’s peak television.

Frank flinches at that, his bottle clacking against his teeth. He sets it down. “Maybe.”

“Drinking ain’t a crime,” Josie says it to him like she’s said it a million times, her voice monotone, “You know Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is over, ain’t ya?”

“Fuck you,” Frank says, though it lacks the poison Peter’s heard before. He makes eye contact with Peter and says, voice in an exaggerated whisper, “Josie pretends she knows everythin’ about me.”

Well, Peter thinks, that’s not that weird, Frank having drinks with Murdock and Page. He remembers their firm had taken on Frank’s case, all those years ago, and then Jessica’s too. It’s part of the reason May had picked them, as their good history with vigilantes. He is pretty sure that they had lost the Castle case brutally, but what does he know? Peter was still friends with JB and Sam, and they’d lost that war against Thanos the minute Natasha and Tony died, so he can’t do much judging.

“Bartenders see all,” Josie teases, and then they’re both distracted when what seems to be an entire construction crew comes in, rowdy and demanding shots and beers, and by the time they can talk again it’s been two hours and they’re closing, everyone except Old Shelley gone - this week, she’s reading a romance.

“Murdock‘s good people,” Josie says seriously as she wipes down the bar, “So are Nelson an’ Page. I give ‘em free drinks, if they end up comin’ in while you’re working, alright? They helped my daughter out over the summer,” she scowls, “Get a restraining order from her piece o’ shit ex.”

Murdock hadn’t let May pay him for helping Peter. Pepper had done so anyways, although it had been discreet - she’d paid for the road to be repaved in front of their office space, for the stairs to be re-carpeted and the floors cleaned, for mountains of new ink cartilages for their printer to be delivered anonymously to their door along with a stack of various coffee shop gift cards.

“You didn’t have to do that,” May had argued, although extremely half-heartedly, looking especially frazzled as she served Pepper a cup of tea in their kitchen.

Pepper, in her clean pantsuit, had looked supremely out of place sitting at their rickety table, which was covered in a myriad of unpaid bills. She had been perfectly casual in her response, sipping daintily on her tea, “It’s not even a speck of dust out of the Stark fortune, May, I promise you it was no trouble. Besides, think of it as helping all of Mr. Murdock’s future clients. A safer area means easier access for those in need.” She had winked, and then, when May put her head down, knocked half of their bills off the table and into her purse. Peter had known they would paid off by the end of the day.

“Page wouldn’t accept a dime, she was the one who blackmailed him into accepting the court order, I think,” Josie continues, counting up the register, “Well, she said blackmail was illegal, called it, damn, ethical convincing? Some fancy private eye bullshit. It worked, so I ain’t complaining, an’ now my daughter’s safe.”

Peter, from where he’s been delegated to putting the chairs up on the table, says, “I’m glad to hear that. Just, um, wondering, your daughter’s ex, if he’s not in jail, do you know where he is?”

Josie wags a finger at him. “You’re not tricking me, mister. Anyway, you know that firm’s all connected to a hell of the city’s vigilantes? Daredevil took care of the sonuvabitch real fast after the case. Far as I know, fucker is still breathing out of a tube at Metro General.”

Peter hums at that. He tries not to think about how he’s vaguely disappointed that Daredevil got to the man before Spider-Man could.

“If they ain’t pulled the plug on him, yet, that is,” Josie adds, “Hope he’s in pain, wherever he’s at. Page, Murdock, Nelson, even Daredevil, hell, they’re the real deal, Peter. Got my Gabby her justice. She’s got the scars to prove it, too.”

So by the time the next afternoon rolls around, Peter’s more excited than nervous about his internship. It’s a little nerve wracking, re-meeting his own lawyer, but he’s already re met half the avengers now, so he’s got some practice. Anyways, Daredevil vouched for them, and Josie, and so did Frank (even if it was as his alter-ego, Pete) and Peter trusted their opinions. Murdock hadn’t steered Peter wrong before.

He puts on his nicest jeans, a collared shirt and a soft knit sweater that had once belonged to Ben, and then he made his way to the office, light steps disrupting the mid January snow.

Karen Page is a sweet woman, and matches Josie’s description to a T. She’s pale and beautiful, long blonde hair swinging as she gives Peter a tour of the office, her heels clacking against the carpet. Despite this, there’s a weariness to her voice and a heavy look in her eyes that Peter recognizes easily, and her fingers nails are bitten to stubs, her exposed wrists riddled with healed scars. She’s been through the wringer, that much he’s sure of. It makes him like her even more.

“Your resume said you interned at Stark Industries?” Karen asks rhetorically, placing a thin hand against a copier machine that is groaning and creaking. “I don’t know what type of science you do, I’m a writer, but it’s all connected? Right?” She sounds a little desperate. “Our copier is haunted, Peter, it’s possessed. If you can fix it, I will love you forever, you won’t even have a week trial, this will be your confirmation-“

“You’re going to scare him away,” a man’s voice complains from behind them, and Peter turns. It’s Nelson, judging by the shaggy blonde hair and easy smile. He holds out a hand, and Peter shakes it firmly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Parker. I’m Foggy Nelson, you can just call me Foggy.”

“Peter’s fine,” Peter tells him, and then turns back to the possessed copier, hands on his hips. “I’m a biochemist, Karen, but I’m not half bad at engineering. I’ll try my best.”

“Ah,” another voice says, “Your best is good enough.” And Peter turns, caught off guard, because that voice is familiar, that heartbeat is the same one Peter has fallen asleep listening too, that breathing is the same even sound that Peter has sparred against-

Murdock leans against the door frame beside Foggy, his suit wrinkled and hair tousled, red glasses glinting and long red cane resting in the crook of his arm. “Hello, Mr. Parker, it’s nice to meet you. Matt Murdock.” He sticks a hand out in Peter’s general direction, smiling coyly.

Peter blinks. Then he strides over and clasps the man’s hand so hard he could almost hear the bones grinding together. “Pleasure. Call me Peter.”

“Matt, then,” offers Daredevil, “Why don’t you try your hand at the copier, and then Foggy can teach you how to read briefs.”

“Matt has court today,” Foggy interjects, “Though you wouldn’t be able to tell by his outfit. Jesus, did you sleep in that? Karen, do you still have hair gel in your desk? We cannot send him to defend Justin Meagher’s son looking like a hooligan-“

“A hooligan,” Matt repeats incredulously, following Foggy out towards Karen’s desk, where Foggy has begun to root around in her drawers, “Have you been spending time with Brett’s mother again?”

“Karen,” Foggy groans in exasperation, and Peter peeks out from behind the door to see Foggy holding up two separate bottles of whiskey, both half-full, “This is not professional!”

“Hair gel is in the third drawer!” Karen yells back sweetly, not moving from her spot by the copier to look at what Foggy had found in the other room. She hits the machine with the palm of her hand twice. “Can you take this on, Peter? You might want to take a while, briefs are boring, and Matt won’t be back in time to show you how to use the braille printer, that’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

Peter tries not to be stuck on the fact that his mentor/best friend has just revealed his entire identity and is fighting his business partner over hair gel in the next room. “Sure, Karen, I don’t mind. You have a tool box?”

Karen goes to grab one, and Peter gets to work dismantling the ancient machine as much as he can with his hands. Distantly, he can hear Matt trying to convince Foggy to give him a swig of whiskey in exchange for letting him put the hair gel on.

Well, at least he knows Matt’s the same person in and outside the suit, with all his ridiculousness and bargaining.

He should probably process this more, but instead he puts in his headphones and accepts the tool box from Karen, and slowly begins to pull tangled wires apart.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Peter’s waiting in Matt’s apartment for two hours, lounging on the couch in a stolen pair of sweats and hoodie, by the time the man gets home, the lock clicking behind him.

“You mother fucker,” Peter says, not moving from his spot.

Matt groans and pulls off his tie, dropping his bag on the coffee table. It’s strange to see him standing in the apartment without his Daredevil suit on. Feels like an imposter, almost, which is stupid. “Hi, Peter.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t punch you in front of Karen and Foggy,” Peter sniffs.

Matt takes off his jacket and unbuttons the top of his shirt before collapsing beside Peter on the couch with a huff. “Are you wearing my clothes?”

“No,” Peter lies, “Stop changing the subject!”

Matt rolls his eyes, which Peter can actually see now, behind the red sunglasses, “Surprise.”

“Okay, you have to tell me,” Peter asks, “Are you-“

“Yes,” Matt sighs, like he’s said it a million times, “I’m really blind.”

Peter blinks at him. “Well, obviously,” he says, confused. “I was going to ask if you used like, echolocation or something.”

Sure, he’d thought Matt had weird super-seeing X-ray abilities, but that was before he’d realized Matt was Mr. Murdock. Faking being blind didn’t seem his style, and anyways, his other senses definitely more than made up from his lack of one.

“Oh,” Matt says, and he sounds confused too, “Uh, I don’t know. I can’t see like you can, but sounds bounce off of things, helps me imagine an area, I guess. It’s not perfect.”

Peter thinks about how Matt had said that he’d watched his father fight until he couldn’t. How Matt hadn’t known that Peter was wearing his new suit that one time, or how he said he hadn’t gone over the blueprints with Frank. How Peter had handed him the note written about Nadia and Matt had handed it straight to Frank, who had read it aloud.

“Makes sense,” Peter says after a moment, “Can you tell me who Amy is now?”

Matt stills. “That’s it? You don’t want to know anything else? You believe I’m blind?”

Peter gives him a weird look, then says, “I’m giving you a weird look, just so you know. If you want to tell me more you can, and yeah, I believe you’re blind, what kind of question is that? You’ve still got a brain, don’t you? A body? Not being able to see doesn’t stop you from using the rest of what does work.”

Matt’s mouth twitches. “Most people would disagree.”

“Well, most people are stupid,” Peter considers, “I get it. I’ve, um, been in pain since I was 14. Chronic. Tony said my bones grew too fast when I got the spider bite, left me with aches. Doesn’t stop me, though.”

Matt’s full on smiling then, but all he says is, “Amy and Frank will be here in half an hour, if you want to put your mask on. I’m not. They know who I am.”

And Peter trusts Matt, and Matt just revealed his identity, so Peter doesn’t put the mask on. Instead, he asks, “How was court?”

They keep up a steady stream of chatter for the next half hour. Peter tells Matt about his first day - he had fixed the copier, to Karen’s loud cheers, and reading briefs with Foggy had been boring but enlightening - and Matt complains about court, and the judge, and the jury, and life as a whole.

It was nearing nine by the time Peter heard the door unlock again, and he stiffens from where he’s lying against the couch, half his legs now resting over Matt’s lap, but he doesn’t move or reach for where his mask is sitting on the coffee table.

There’s Frank, in his usual Punisher gear, looking the same he did at the bar the night before, and the girl beside him must be Amy. She’s older than Peter for sure, maybe mid twenties, with long, curly blonde hair and a vest with a skull on it like Frank’s, although hers is spray painted pink instead of white.

“Brought dinner, know your ass didn’t eat,” Frank grunts, rounding into the living room, and then stops. “Kid?”

Peter waves. “Hi, Frank.”

Frank blinks and sets down the massive bag of what smells like Mediterranean food on the coffee table. He glances down at the Spider-Man mask that’s still resting there, then back up at Peter. “Damn,” he whistles, “Fuckin’ coincidence.”

“That’s what I thought first time I realized it was you at Josie’s,” Peter agrees, “Wanna make me a plate?”

Amy makes her way to Frank’s side, although her breathing is significantly heavier, and she’s carrying a large pack against her back and heaving a giant duffle bag across Matt’s floor. “Fuck you, Frank, I could’ve carried the food-“

He flicks her on the forehead. “You made it, now eat.”

Amy glares at him and drops the bag off her shoulders onto the ground carelessly. “I hope all your guns broke.”

“Then you’d be fucked too,” Frank says cheerfully, and rips open the bag of food, “Amy, meet Peter. Peter, Amy.”

“Hi,” Amy says, hands on her hips, “Are you the reason I had to lug 100 pounds of ammo up Matt’s stupid stairs?”

“Why didn’t you just take the elevator,” Matt asks casually, accepting the plate that Frank hands his way, piled high with food.

“You told me it was broken!” Amy whines to Frank, rubbing her forehead with her hand.

Frank cackles. “You shouldn’t just listen to everything I say, kid.”

Amy takes her plate from him, her mouth in a line. “I hate you,” she says, and then sits on the sofa beside him anyways.

Frank doesn’t eat, just opens the duffle at his feet and pulls out one gun at a time, checking and pulling at different parts of it.

“Not at the table,” Matt complains, and Peter wonders if he’s hearing the near-silent clicks of the mechanics in the gun or just smells a sudden influx of gun power or what, “We agreed, Frank-“

“You tried to get me to agree and I didn’t say nothing,” Frank corrects, not pausing in his inspection, “You ain’t lettin’ me stake out the place before an’ you told me to bring the kid, least let me do this.”

“I am 24 years old,” Amy pouts, “Matt’s barely older than me.”

Both Matt and Frank make disturbed faces at that, mouths twisting. Then Frank says, “I’d say 10 years definitely counts as older.”

Matt nods. “I was giving you curfew five years ago,” he tells her, brows raised, “You thought I was older then.”

Amy’s face turns bright red. “I was stupid then.”

Peter stays silent but curious. Matt had called Amy Frank’s daughter, and while he could tell they weren’t blood related, they certainly shared their dry, sarcastic humor and apparent love of skulls and guns. He wasn’t sure where Matt fit into all of this - especially the part about him giving Amy a curfew - and he was wary of intruding on a memory, so he takes a big bite of rice and keeps his mouth closed.

“Aw, you’ll always be that sixteen year old to me,” Frank teases, although his voice sounds more fond than joking, and the way he touches her shoulder gently a moment later confirms that.

“Well, that sixteen year old killed someone,” Amy says loudly, as if reminding Frank she was no innocent teenager, “And I’ve killed a load of people since. Can you tell me what we’re doing now?”

Peter collected information and hoarded it to his chest. Amy had met Frank when she was sixteen, which would have been seven years ago, right about the time Frank Castle had disappeared and then reappeared on the map. Matt had said he’d given her curfew five years ago - Peter assumes that means the three of them had survived the snap and lived together. He isn’t sure, though, has no real evidence to back that up - him and Matt never talk about the snap. For Peter, because it would mean he would have to talk about returning to an older, dying Tony, and for Matt - well, Peter never asked, and Matt had never offered.

“Long story,” Matt sighs, and unbuttons his shirt completely, then stands up to grab his suit from the chest in the corner of the living room. “I got some intel that this gang has some Russians in it, ones who joined only a couple of days before we found some trafficked Russian kids.”

“Turk told you all that?” Frank asks, not sounding altogether surprised.

Matt shrugs, running his hands along his billy clubs, like he’s looking for flaws. “I bullshitted knowing more than I did. He gave me the rest.”

Man, Peter wishes he had a criminal insider.

“Okay, so what?” Amy asks, and takes a gun out of Frank’s hands, flipping it between her palms. “I know you won’t let us kill them, Red. You wanna kneecap? Traffickers deserve helluva lot worse.”

Matt’s knees creak as he stands up and heads to his room to change. “Torture, actually.” His voice is only slightly fainter as he continues from behind his sliding door, “Amy and Peter, you two are going to keep everyone contained until Frank and I go through and get all the information we can.”

Peter is absurdly happy that he’s not expected to torture anyone and sinks into the sofa, his body releasing tension he didn’t even realize he was holding onto. It’s not that he couldn’t do it, because he knew he could. That was the problem, really. He knew that if it was for the right reason, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt someone irreparably. That still scared him. He was a jumble of mixed up parts that didn’t match, angry and kind and all contradictory. He wasn’t ready to face it or accept it, not the way Matt had.

It seems like Amy, for all her big talk, agreed, because her shoulders sank and the line on her forehead cleared. “That’s easy, Matt, if he’s Spider-Man he could’ve done it alone. Why am I really here?”

Frank takes the gun she’s spinning back and hands her a new one in its place. “You got somewhere else to be?”

Grumpily, Amy checks the magazine and then slides it back in, clicking the safety on. “My bed.”

“Peter needs friends his own age,” Matt answers in that bluntly honest way of his, sliding open his bedroom door and walking out fully dressed, holding his helmet in his hands. “So do you, Amy.”

“Hey,” Amy and Peter both complain at the same time.

“Nadia doesn’t count,” Matt adds as Peter opens his mouth, apparently already knowing what his protest would be, “Neither does Daisy.”

“Whatever,” Peter mutters sullenly, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, whatever,” Amy echoes, “We don’t need friends during work.”

But six hours later, Peter could not disagree more.

They’d taken control of the gang pretty quickly, mostly because it was obviously in disarray and completely unorganized. While this could be a good thing - they all had different information - it was also a bad thing - because they all had different information, most of which did not correlate with each other or make sense. Matt had been losing his patience for the better part of the last four hours, and it was Frank who was being the voice of reason and convincing him that they should get all the information they could regardless.

For Amy and Peter, it was even more boring. At first, they’d stood by the door, his arms crossed and Amy with her guns out, but after an hour they were starting to get tired and after two they gave up and sat on the floor against the door, playing rock paper scissors with each other. By hour three, a couple of the criminals were teaching them to play sticks with their fingers, and by hour four, the ones who hadn’t yet been tortured (or the ones who had and somehow stayed conscious) started exchanging stories and folk tales they had grown up on, like some fucked up group therapy.

As loathe as he was to admit being wrong, Amy was his saving grace. They gave each other side eyes at the particularly strange stories the criminals shared, worked together to beat another duo at finger sticks, and he felt safer knowing that she was beside him, an array of guns at her fingertips. At first, the screams and cries and begging of the men being tortured was jarring, since the walls weren’t particularly thick, but it quickly became more of a background noise than anything.

“Just pretend they’re pigs,” Amy had advised him early on, “We’re at a meat factory waiting for our bacon.”

That had made Peter hungry, which probably wasn’t an appropriate response the the blood that was leaking from under the floor, so instead of pretending they were pigs, Peter accepted that everyone being tortured was so evil that they couldn’t even really count as living beings at all.

Somehow that had worked better, and six hours later they’re here, surrounded by half dead men, most of who were unconscious from blood loss or some sort of forceful trauma, Peter wasn’t really all that curious to find out. Frank and Matt had just taken in the last man, but his screams had yet to start up.

Amy leans her head back against the door. She looks just as she did in Matt’s apartment; unconcerned and almost bored, though her curls are frizzing from the humidity of the tiny room and she’s got a split lip, and there’s a speckle of blood staining her vest. The red blood looks almost artistic, splattered against the pink paint. “So,” she says, not looking up from where she’s staring at one of the guns in her hands, fingers tightening and then loosening on the grip of it. “I’m guessing you know the full story on why the two of them are doing this?”

“Guilty,” Peter admits. He’d rolled his mask up to his nose two hours ago, when the heat of spilled blood was making it stick to his nose. He’d feel more exposed if pretty much all the men on the ground around him weren’t slowly dying. “I don’t know if it’s smart to tell you here.”

Amy reaches out a boot-clad foot and pokes one of the guys in the head with it. He doesn’t even twitch. “They’re all out of it, but I get what you mean. Better safe than sorry.”

Peter sighs. “I wish I could tell you now. I need a new perspective.”

“Give me your number,” Amy suggests, “You can text me after. I don’t have much going on.”

Peter raises his brows at her, but types his number into her phone all the same. “I thought you were busy.”

Amy waves a hand. “I’m not meant for college, and Frank won’t let me join the military, so,” she shrugs. “Plus, I’ve never hidden my face when I do this type of shit. I don’t have much of a normal future.”

“He told me not to join the military too,” Peter tells her, “I’m in college though. Why don’t you hide your face?”

“The only person I have to protect can protect himself just damn fine,” Amy says, and, like clockwork, the screaming starts up. “I don’t have anyone else.”

She says it with the sort of casualness that comes from excessive time after grief. The same sort of casual way that Peter tells people he’s an orphan. Of course it impacts him, of course he misses them, but that doesn’t change what it is. He understands her in a way most people probably don’t, even though she says nothing else about it.

“I didn’t have anyone either,” Peter tells her, “Then I met him,” he nods at the door, where they can vaguely hear Matt’s hoarse voice yelling at his victim, “And more people through him, and now I’ve got a hell of a lot of people around me.”

“Isn’t it scary?” Amy asks, and then she laughs it off. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Terrifying,” Peter says, and makes himself laugh too, as if that makes it any less true. “I want to swing away like, all of the time.”

“Why don’t you?” She asks, genuinely curious.

Peter pokes the guy in the head with his own boot. When he doesn’t move, Peter admits, “Where would I go that Red wouldn’t follow?”

Amy lets out a real, loud cackle at that, one that makes the men stirring on the edge of consciousness flinch. “You’re right. Nowhere’s far enough,” her gaze goes a little distant as she taps a finger against the skull on her chest, “Frank didn’t have to follow me physically. I heard his voice in my head every damn day I was away from him, saying, you know, You really want this, kid? And all I could think about was no. All I really wanted was him.”

“So you came back,” Peter finishes.

“Well, I would’ve,” Amy corrects, “But he called me at school, once, and all he said was my name. I was on the first bus back.” She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, stains it red with blood she doesn’t realize is streaked across her wrist, “I dunno. You get violence in you and you find someone who gets it and then you never really let go. No school, no military, that just means I’ll spend the rest of my life doing this.”

“You don’t mind that?” Peter wonders.

“You’ll spend the rest of your life wearing that, won’t you?” Amy counters, gesturing at his costume, “What’s the difference, really?”

“I don’t know,” Peter admits, “I guess that I could take off my mask and be someone new. Leave Spider-Man behind.”

Amy laughs at that. “Nah, you couldn’t.”

Well. She was right, kind of. Completely. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to stop. Had mostly accepted the fact that he would probably die as Spider-Man rather than live a long life as Peter Parker. But at least he had the option; Amy didn’t.

“I used to want to be a marine archeologist,” Amy says wistfully, twirling a curl around her index finger, “I thought the ocean seemed so peaceful. And history, the past, it’s all gone. It couldn’t hurt me.”

And then she had met Frank, Peter finishes in his head, and she had lived a life of violence with him instead, and had found more comfort with that than she had with peace.

“I’ll hurt you, you fucking bitch-“ slurs one of the men on the ground, his words nearly incomprehensible because of the way his nose has been busted nearly into his face.

Peter and Amy level the same look at the man, unimpressed. He hadn’t been one of the guys they’d played games with, that much Peter could tell. And he wasn’t Russian, so any interest Peter might have had faded away as quickly as it appeared.

“You do that, buddy,” Amy says pityingly, tapping the butt of her gun against her thigh. “Try and speak normally first, okay?”

“I will kill you,” the man gurgles. He’s spitting up blood. Peter leans away; that smell always lingers, it’s disgusting, mixed with saliva and bile and all the gross body liquids he doesn’t want anywhere near him. “I will… I will rape-“

And then the guy’s whole face is gone, blown straight off his neck, basically, since Amy has just shot him point blank in the head. “Oops,” she deadpans, expression innocent, “Forgot to put the safety back on.”

Peter stares at the brain matter across the floor. It smells rotten. It looks like how it did in the warehouse, all gray and mushy, like oatmeal made with bad milk. He wrinkles his nose at it. Then he looks away.

“Anyways,” Amy continues, not clicking the safety back on, “I decided it’s better to be focused on the present, you know? Like, yeah, I’ll never have a normal job, but I have a dad now, and my own room.”

Weakly, Peter says, “What part of the city do you live in?”

“Usually Hell’s Kitchen. My room here is pink,” she winks and taps the pink skull on her vest again, “But my room upstate is blue, and Frank put these glow star things on the ceiling. If I squint, they kinda look real. You ever been out of the city?”

“I’ve been to Europe,” he offers, although none of those memories are particularly pleasant.

Amy shakes her head. “That fancy shit don’t count. I mean, like, country, American country. The south, the west?”

“I’ve never left New York,” Peter admits, not willing to count the DC trip as anything but a complete disaster, since he’d spent about 98% of his time there as Spider-Man.

“We should leave sometime,” Amy tells him, and closes her eyes. Peter keeps his own open so that she doesn’t have to worry. “Not forever or nothing, just so you can see what I mean. Montana’s real nice, but I guess that’s more north. Nashville, too. Any place where the world just stretches on, none of the buildings like here.”

Peter can’t imagine being somewhere without the high rises. He feels like without them he wouldn’t be himself; he couldn’t swing from suburban houses. Still, the quiet that Amy was describing sounded nice.

A groan of pain leaked through the door behind them, a gunshot, and then another scream.

Amy smiles. “Yeah. Won’t leave forever.”

She regales him with another tale of the south, this time about Mississippi, which he seriously doesn’t believe is a real place, and has started describing her first timing meeting Frank - in a bar (unsurprising) in Michigan (the fuck he was doing there?) - by the time the man himself opens the door behind them.

He’s absolutely soaked in blood, his hair stuck to his forehead from the weight of it, but none of it seems like it’s coming from his own body. His eyes are hard, like they always are, and the butt of his gun is bloodier than the grip of it, like he’d used it as a third fist against the men - which, knowing Frank, he definitely had.

“Bust,” Frank says, tucking the gun into the holster at his thigh. “You two fine?”

They barely finish nodding when Matt limps out, looking just as dirty but altogether unharmed, only exhausted. He’s been on his feet for going on seven hours now; it wasn’t surprising. And in that tight leather, too, the mask biting into his face and the sensory overload of that many different types of blood sinking into his skin - Peter would have been crying hysterically. As it is, Matt leans just barely against Frank’s shoulder, tilting his head toward them.

“They’re fine,” Matt says after a second, in which Peter’s sure he’s listened to their heartbeats, “Amy, I thought I said no killing.”

Frank does a double take, and then finds the dead guy on the floor, the one without a face. “Huh,” he says absently, “How didn’t we hear that?”

“You were probably kneecapping the last guy at the same time she was… well,” Matt trails off, sounding disappointed, “Amy, we’re going to have a serious talk about this when we get home.”

Amy pouts and clambers up from the wall, finally clicking the safety back onto the gun. “He said he was gonna rape me.”

There was a short silence. Then Frank says, “Good job, honey,” and Matt says, “Let’s go home,” which is his equivalent of, “I’m too tired to argue and I love you so I’ll put my morals to the side, but don’t take this for granted.”

Amy holds out a hand for Peter, who accepts it and lets himself be pulled to his feet. He didn’t know how Matt had never mentioned her before, but then Matt was good at keeping certain things quiet, and it wasn’t like Peter didn’t keep secrets too.

By the time they get back to Matt’s place, the sun is rising and Peter is half asleep on the sofa, Amy singing softly in the kitchen where she’s brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Frank leans against the window, sipping from the first cup she made, looking soft and clean from a shower. Matt’s taking one now, although much longer - he’d been significantly bloodier than Frank, and with his senses as strong as they are, Peter wouldn’t be surprised if he was scrubbing his skin raw to get the iron smell out.

He lets himself drift until Amy sits beside him, handing him a mug of coffee that only smells a little bit burnt. Matt pads out of his room, no glasses or cane in sight, clad in sweatpants and no shirt.

“You forgot somethin’,” Frank grunts from his spot at the window, moving to sit on the same sofa he had the night before.

“Someone stole my softest Columbia shirt,” Matt says airily.

Peter, clad in said soft Columbia shirt, hides behind his coffee.

Amy presses her lips together to hide a smile. “Frank’s wearing it.”

Frank rolls his eyes and passes his mug of coffee to Matt, who slouches down on the cushion next to him. “Too cold to be in anythin’ but a hoodie. Rest of you are damn stupid.”

Well, maybe. Peter’s a little chilly but in a good way, the way that makes him feel a little more awake and not overheated, and Amy’s changed into long basketball shorts and a tank top, but she’s got a blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a cape.

Matt shrugs, which makes the scars that litter his chest ripple across his skin. “Was fucking hot back there, Frank, I know you were sweating.”

“Because you smelled it, freak,” Frank bites, not sounding particularly disturbed. “And only ‘cause all that blood was stinkin’ up the room.”

“Well,” Amy drawls, pulling her legs underneath her, “Was it worth it?”

Peter makes himself focus, lost momentarily in the comfort of unfamiliar domesticity. “Yeah, what’d you find out?”

“I told you. Bust,” Frank sighs, “Didn’t find out anythin’ worth shit. Not for you, a’least, Peter.”

“Mostly just intel that’ll help Frank and I take down a couple street gangs that have been dirtying the city,” Matt agrees, and drains the the last of the coffee, handing the empty cup back to Frank.

Peter feels his heart sink in disappointment. “The Russians didn’t say anything?”

“Naw,” Frank stands with a groan to get more coffee, raising his voice so that they could still hear him as he went behind the counter, “Low levelers. Said they remembered Nadia bein’ there one day and gone the next. Whatever was left of HYDRA fell apart after she disappeared.”

“Some of it’s still around, if we found that note about her at the warehouse,” Peter points out.

Amy, who still doesn’t know the full story but seems to have picked up the bare bones, says, “People can’t just disappear.”

Peter scratches the back of his head. “Uh, unless there’s magic involved, but as far as I can tell, Nadia’s completely human.”

“Fair,” Amy admits grudgingly, “But I mean, there’s always a trail. Trust me. I was basically a ghost when I met Frank-“

“And those assholes still found you fast,” Frank finishes gruffly, his expression dark as he re joins them on the couches. “Kid’s right. We shoulda pressed harder.”

Matt makes a face at that, his eyes cloudy and unfocused as he stares to the left of Peter’s head. “Please. I broke every single bone in that one guy’s right hand. That’s twenty seven, Frank, you know that-“

“I know that,” Frank growls.

Amy says, eyes wide, “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“-And the only other thing he could tell us was what their old base looked like in Russia. Useless, that’s what he was. Couldn’t have pushed any harder,” Matt continues fiercely.

“We could’ve broken his left hand,” Frank counters sullenly.

“You shot him three times and he passed out!” Matt throws his hands up, exasperated, and then groans at the movement.

For all their arguing, Frank is quick to push gently at Matt’s chest, laying him flat against the sofa. “God damn, Red, relax.”

“Language,” Matt retorts weakly, but relaxes all the same.

Peter decides to ignore all of this and instead asks, “What’d the base look like?” Not his business, he tells himself firmly.

“What’s it matter,” Amy complains, leaning her head back against the couch. The bags under her eyes are so dark they look like bruises. Peter wonders if she ever sleeps at all, for all that she spoke about loving her bedroom. “It’s old, no one’s there, it’s in Russia. Can we focus on the new intel that’s actually going to affect the city?”

“It matters because it’s something I don’t know about,” Peter tries to give her grace. It’s hard. He’s barely known her for a night and she reminds him so much of MJ, with her sarcasm, and Ned, with his worry, and even Yelena, with her violence. There’s a comfort he feels with her that should be terrifying but instead only gives him a headache. “I need to know everything.”

Matt puts his arm over his eyes as if that’ll actually do something. “He said it was in Saint Petersburg. Hidden under, uh, some shop or something.”

“Populated places are better hide outs,” Frank interjects, “More noise, less chance of standing out.”

Peter thinks of Nadia hiding out in Daisy’s apartment in the middle of Harlem, watching the world pass her by from the upstairs window, and wonders if she had felt the same way listening to a city bustle above her in Russia. He pushes the guilt away; she has Daisy, she has him, and she’ll be free the sooner he figures this all out.

“He said it was one of their last hide outs, one of their newer ones, but it hadn’t been meant for comfort, so,” Matt doesn’t risk shrugging, but he does wave his hand in a so-so gesture, “They put Nadia in, uh, in a storage closet. She disappeared in the snap, but it didn’t matter, she didn’t even realize because the hide out hadn’t changed when she returned.”

Amy’s nose scrunches. “Fuck, that’s inhumane.”

“It’s HYDRA,” Peter sighs, not altogether surprised. “But I’m guessing they didn’t fit the kids in the storage closet with her.”

Frank shakes his head, taking over the story. “Nah. Said they moved her into some dead scientists old lab. Her and the kids slept there,” his mouth twists in anger, “On the floor. Said they handcuffed ‘em to the desks at night. Fed ‘em twice a day,” he lets out a bark on unamused laughter, “As if that was supposed to make it better.”

Well. Peter understood why Matt broke all 27 bones in the man’s hand and why Frank shot him three times. He probably would have done the same; and by Amy’s tense shoulders, she would’ve done worse.

Still… “A lab,” Peter muses, twisting the string of his sweatpants around his fingers as he thought, “Nadia’s a genius, she could’ve escaped using anything in there in a couple of hours. Why stay for-“ Peter thought back to how long the little girl had admitted to being in captivity for, “A year and a half? And make two children suffer through sexual abuse while she was being sold herself? It doesn’t make sense.”

“We still don’t know the full story on why she agreed to make the cure for the original chemical conditioning serum,” Matt points out tiredly, “Maybe something happened, something traumatizing. I mean, it was bad enough that they moved her from Tiksi to Moscow, even knowing that the Red Room as a whole was at risk.”

“So why didn’t they kill her?” Frank asks in that usual blunt way of his. He turns his gaze to Amy, who’s trying her best to follow a story she doesn’t know. “Kid, if someone ruins an op you’ve spent your whole life workin’ on, an’ basically signs your death warrant with it, whaddaya do?”

“Shoot them in the head so they can’t say anything else,” Amy answers like it’s obvious, “If I got time, then torture them, and then kill ‘em, you know, make them pay.”

“Exactly,” Frank nods, “They had her notes, they didn’t need her anymore, so why?”

“They weren’t done with her,” Peter offers, which he already guessed, “Maybe she was working on something new. But… she had just gone against them, they had to know that. Why would they trust her to do anything?”

“Either it was important enough to risk it,” Frank starts.

“Or they had something to hold over her,” Matt finishes, breathing out.

But Amy offers a third, much worse idea. “Or both.”

Peter puts his head in between his knees and tries to breathe and think at the same time. He’s so close that he can feel it. It’s a puzzle but he’s missing the most important pieces, the ones that connect everything together. Think, he tells himself, think.

“She let herself be held captive for a year and a half to have access to an advanced lab,” Peter says slowly, “She probably knew there was only one way to escape that would be safe for her and the kids, but it was slow going.”

“Science is your fort, sweetheart,” Matt encourages softly, and Peter holds onto the warmth he feels at Matt’s belief in him, tries to surround himself with the confidence. “Don’t forget that she’d already been working on whatever the project was when Yelena found her in Moscow.”

Peter sorts through every conversation he’s had with Nadia. He thinks about her love for coffee and the meals that never changed. Her disregard for humans and how she couldn’t hold onto admitting that her experiments were people. Her obvious care for Peter and for Daisy and their conversations in the kitchen. Something nags at him; the slope of her nose, the high cheekbones, the way they had discussed his old science project about blood and the way she had asked if it was possible to shrink sick cells in an injury.

“She said she has a sister,” Peter reveals, trying to keep his thoughts in order, a headache forming behind his eyes, “And that she didn’t know much about her, but…”

It’s right there, the answer. He sees a flash of the final battle in his mind. He’d met so many heroes then that they blur in his mind, faces joining together.

It’s just out of reach, but it’s there.

“Science that would take Nadia a long time to figure out,” Peter murmurs, “Not chemistry, not biology…” Fuck. He needs to do research.

“I need to…” he rubs his head again, and then feels the soft weight of a hand rubbing his back, Amy making soft shushing sounds with the motion.

“You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm,” she jokes, “Take a nap. You can try again later, it’s been a long night.”

“You know it’s bad when my kid is bein’ smart,” Frank snipes, but he’s smiling at Amy all soft and proud. Then he pokes Matt in the stomach, hard, and says, “You and Peter go to bed. I needa take Amy home.”

Matt doesn’t argue, just rubs at the spot Frank hit him. “Text me in the morning.”

“Aw, Red, you miss me already?” Frank drawls, and it sounds a little too much like flirting, which Peter does not need to hear, thank you, so he turns to Amy and tells her to call him if she ever needs anything.

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” she tells him, but promises to call all the same.

Frank clasps him on the shoulder and Amy puts on a sweatshirt and they’re gone, with Frank only complaining a little about carrying their bags of guns himself, voices disappearing as the elevator carries them away.

“C’mon,” Matt yawns, and Peter follows him like a duckling, curls up on the opposite side of the bed and watches as Matt breathes beside him, even and steady. “Go to sleep, Peter.”

“My brain won’t stop thinking,” Peter whispers, even though the sheets are soft and his head is sinking into the memory foam pillow and his eyes are getting really heavy.

“Listen to my heart,” Matt whispers back, “Only think about that.”

So Peter does. He counts the beats until he can’t count at all because the sound has filled his every sense and nothing exists except for the comfort that comes from someone who feels like a brother and a dad and a best friend all in one.

He falls asleep to that thought, and dreams of nothing except the sound of a heartbeat. There are no redheaded woman here, no Russians and no blood and no science. There is only peace.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

The next morning is hectic; Peter’s forced into one of Matt’s old suits and shoved out the door pretty soon after, and it’s a mad dash to make it to the office on time. He gets there before Foggy but after Karen, who raises an eyebrow at his flushed face.

“Good morning,” she says, sounding more like a question.

“Hi,” Peter says, trying not to pant, “Sorry I’m late.”

“Foggy and Matt never get here on time, you have nothing to worry about,” she waves his apology off, and then pauses, lifts her head up to squint at him and ask, “Do you know how to use a camera?”

Peter offers, “I take pictures on my Uncle’s, sometimes. It’s nice. Why?”

“Perfect,” Karen declares, then grabs her coat and pushes him back toward the door, “You can use my digital today while I talk to some witnesses, then.”

They make their way into Bed Stuy, where a building is still lightly smoking, a hole puncturing the entire upper floor. Karen tells him she got hired to find out if it was an accident - a gas explosion, the cops claimed - or something more sinister - to which Karen mutters something about ninjas. Peter thinks about being concerned, but Karen walks like she’s dangerous and he can hear the mechanics of the gun in her purse, so instead he darts off to take pictures of the block and the people watching.

He spends most of his day like that, stopping for a quick lunch of a sandwich in a bodega (Karen’s treat) and by the time the sun is setting, Karen looks much more satisfied in herself and in her work, declaring the case nearly a quarter done.

She tells him not to bother going back to the office, says that he can just go home. It’s not a far walk, but Peter tells her he’s going to take the subway to a friend’s, so she orders herself a cab and gets in with a strict order that he better be safe and careful and not all beat up at work in the morning.

Peter… appreciates it, kind of. Mostly he just nods along and then he really does take the subway, pulling Matt’s suit jacket over his nose and trying to inhale the man’s old scent instead of various drugs and moldy food. It works well enough that his head isn’t pounding too badly by the time he gets off, and the remaining ten minute walk to Daisy’s apartment feels quick - especially when he stops and grabs a tea and two hot chocolates, deciding to be responsible and not have Nadia up all night thanks to sugary iced caffeine.

Daisy lets him in easily when she spots her tea, taking an immediate sip and leaving him to elbow the door shut behind him. “Amazing,” she raves, her eyes a little bit red, “Gods bless you, Petyr.”

Peter squints at her. “Did someone take over your body?”

“No,” she cradles her teq close and leads him down the hall, steps silent on sock-clad feet. “I’ve been up for two days straight, is all.”

Nadia doesn’t look up from her book from where she’s reading it in her usual seat, but Peter’s relieved to see it’s just Percy Jackson instead of another depressing, controversial classic.

“You look like it,” Peter tells Daisy, sliding Nadia her hot chocolate, which she catches without moving her gaze. “Your eyes are bright red.”

“Thanks,” Daisy says sarcastically, collapsing into her usual chair, “I’m doing a favor for a friend. Need to grab some of Stark’s old prosthetic designs, but his A.I. is vicious. It’s been harder to hack than the god damn pentagon.”

Peter can’t stop his lips from twitching. Good old FRIDAY, he thinks fondly. Times like these are when he misses KAREN the most, but even his sweet A.I. had disappeared from his suit after the spell. “Why the old designs? He has a hell of a bunch of new ones for sale.”

“Yeah, for people who lost their limbs in normal accidents, with like, cars and wars and stuff,” Daisy rolls her eyes, “I need to see how he designed Barnes’ arm.”

“Your friend is HYDRA,” Peter’s unimpressed.

“Literally the opposite,” Daisy retorts, the exhaustion making her tongue loose, “We had to cut off his arm because of this alien bullshit, I don’t know. He’s struggling with all the arms we’ve made him so far. Thought we could try something different.”

Bless Peter’s bleeding heart. “Get me paper,” he tells her, “I’ll draw the blueprints for you. There’s no way you’ll get past Tony’s firewalls.”

“How-“ Daisy starts to ask.

“I was an intern at Stark Industries,” Peter tells her, “In R&D and biochemistry. I can help.”

Daisy doesn’t doubt him, just goes to grab him paper, which really shows how tired she must be.

“You could’ve helped,” Peter says after a moment, taking a sip of his hot chocolate.

“Bah,” Nadia says, lowering her book to meet Peter’s eyes, “Why I care for some man?”

“Because Daisy cares for him?” Peter tries, “And you want her to be happy?”

“Losing hand is nothing,” Nadia waves absently, picking up her cup and making a pleased face as she takes a sip, “He be one of my experiments, then he complain.”

“Good thing you don’t do experiments on humans anymore,” Peter says cheerfully, “Because humans are real people who exist and have families, remember?”

“Yes,” Nadia agrees with a pout, “Real people.”

Peter hesitates. She seems to be in a good mood today, and he doesn’t want to ruin that. So instead he says, “I talked to Clint the other day. He says Polina is doing well.”

Nadia sets her book down completely, giving him her full attention. “She is at farm?”

Peter nods, “Yes. Look, I, um, have photos, if you want to see?”

In response, Nadia moves to sit in the chair beside him, leaning forward in anticipation as he pulls out his phone. Daisy must have shown her one before, because she doesn’t blink at the small screen, though she does squint as he opens up his text messages.

“He sent me these a couple days ago, see?” Peter tilts the phone toward her, “January 24.”

Clint’s message is simple, the way they always are; How’s KT? Is our house burnt down? Pol’s doing well, Laura’s been teaching her how to ride the horses. Lila’s tried to get her to play soccer with her and Coop, but Nate and her just wrestle the whole time instead.

Pics or it didn’t happen, Peter had texted back, Kate’s fine, house is standing. When will city see u next?

Vday, Clint writes, U little shit.

And then there’s three attached images, which Nadia clicks on as soon as she’s done reading what Clint had texted.

The first is Polina sitting on a horse, her smile wide and face half-covered in a helmet. Clint stands beside her, squinting at the camera, a hand resting lightly on the horse’s neck. The next is more candid, taken right as Polina and a teenage girl - Lila - throw flour at each other, bowls forgotten in the background.

But the third is what makes Nadia take the phone from him to bring it closer to her face; it’s more of an outline of Polina than anything, her blonde hair shining as she stares at the night sky above her, farmland stretching for miles around. Nadia touches the screen with her fingertips, her smile shaky but real.

“Ah,” she sighs, “Polly wanted stars for forever. She say, in Esso, she see them every night.” She sniffs, and Peter pretends not to see her wipe her eyes. “She is happy.”

“Yes," Peter agrees, taking the phone back as Nadia hands it to him, evidently finding the image too painful, “Very happy. Clint and his family all speak Russian, too. She’s not scared.”

They’d learned for Natasha, Peter knew. He couldn’t help but wonder if they felt the same ache speaking it that he did; if their pain was a thousand times worse, mourning an aunt, a sister. Maybe they were just glad to help someone like Nat. A piece of her, almost.

Nadia’s shoulders relax even farther. “I am not scared also, Petyr. Even if you speak Russian very bad.”

“Hey,” Peter complains, “I’m learning!”

She pats his head awkwardly. “You need practice much more.”

“I already speak two languages,” Peter grouses as the kitchen door swings open again, inviting the whirlwind that is a laughing Daisy Johnson.

She sets down a pile of blueprints, scans, and colored pencils in front of him. “I speak five. You both need to catch up.”

“You are not very good at Russian,” Nadia says snottily, “That does not count.”

Daisy makes a face at her, but concurs. “Four. Still more than two.”

“Nadia’s English is better than both of our Russian combined,” Peter combats, looking through the mess in front of him. “My Hebrew’s getting a little rusty again, too.”

“Shalom,” Daisy says the one word she knows, sitting in the chair beside Peter to look at the scans too, as if she can read his mind through them. “Do you see what’s wrong with the prosthetics he’s already had?”

Peter tilts the scan with the most recent date. The amputation had been clean, at least, that much he could tell, but it was a significantly less amount of loss than JB’s entire arm; this man had only lost his hand up to below his elbow. “You implanted the cybernetic nerve connections?”

“Our scientists and doctors worked on it for weeks. It was a bitch,” Daisy confirms, tapping the inner elbow of the scan, “His brain signals could move the elbow, but it’s the hand and fingers he has trouble with.”

Peter hums. “The neural link for that would be tougher to work with. You were able to get an anchor system in though, that’s surprising.”

Daisy tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, looking embarrassed. “That was me. I thought fusing it into the leftover bone would at least make it so he could still feel the weight of it - less phantom limb pain, right?”

Nadia speaks up from where she’s staring down at one of the notebooks that Daisy had dropped, squinting, “This is not right,” she flips the book to show them an equation, one that takes up several pages as Peter flips through. “Bad math.”

“Agreed,” Peter says after a moment, putting two scans next to the third page of the math, “Daisy, what power source are you guys using?”

“We’ve tried bioelectric conversions, an old Soviet compact power cell, and we’ve nearly recreated a miniaturized arc reactor,” Daisy lists off quickly, as if that makes what they’ve tried better. At his dumbstruck expression, she scratches her head nervously. “I told you we’re stuck.”

Peter can’t stop himself from rubbing his forehead. “And I’m guessing none of those worked past a couple weeks each?”

Daisy shakes her head. Peter’s not shocked; bioelectric conversions were meant for normal prosthetics, not advanced ones, and the Soviet power cell idea had obviously been a wild guess from whatever scientist had stared at JB’s old arm from HYDRA, likely with only a blurry YouTube video as reference. The miniaturized arc reactor was laughable; no one had recreated it before, and Peter doubted that anyone ever would. Tony had been a genius, genuinely probably the smartest man in the world, for all that he tried to joke and hide about it.

“Well,” Peter sighs, “We used Wakandan tech to make JB’s new arm. Vibranium-based energy that King T’challa had brought over personally, actually.” Peter hadn’t met him, but Tony had let him help design the new arm, even when Peter had questioned why they were doing it in the first place, since JB was a fugitive and all.

“I know what it’s like to be a weapon when you don’t want to be,” Tony had answered absently, spinning a hologram design in the air, “Also, I need to melt his old shit down and toss it in the ocean.” Peter had been confused then, but by now he knows the truth; that arm had been covered in Tony’s parent’s blood, and all Tony wanted was it gone.

“We don’t have Wakandan contacts,” Daisy admits, tearing Peter from his memories. “And, well…”

Peter couldn’t help but wince. Queen Shuri was still grieving. No one would bother her anytime soon; it’s not like she would want to help a country that had failed to find a cure for the illness her brother had died from regardless.

He could try external charging, he guesses, maybe some sort of maintence system, but that wouldn’t be sustainable in the long run, and anyways, Peter didn’t want the guy to feel like a robot. Maybe he could play around with their Soviet power cell idea…

“Yasha did not always have new arm,” Nadia says, flipping to a blank piece of paper in the notebook and beginning to sketch with a pencil, “He has HYDRA arm before.”

“It was a mess, though,” Peter points out, still half-considering if asking a man to plug his arm in while he slept would be ridiculous or not, “His neural link was all fucked, and he couldn’t remove the arm at all.”

“Da, that was how it is meant to be,” Nadia doesn’t pause at her sketching, though the unspoken name calling is strong in the tone of her voice, “They clean his brain, Petyr, no link then. No Soldat with no arm.”

“Oh,” Peter blinks, deciding he deserves her unspoken name calling after all. He’s stupid. “They charged it, didn’t they? Plugged him in between missions.”

Another way to control him; give him an arm that would be useless without a charging cord that only they had. Peter had thought it too inhumane to suggest for Daisy’s friend; he hadn’t thought about the fact that HYDRA was known for their inhumanity.

Nadia just nods. “Yes, plug him in. Long, ugly cord,” she wrinkles her nose, then considers, “I fix it. Fix him. After, he is not be plugged in again.”

“Was not,” Daisy corrects, “How’d you fix him?”

Nadia looks toward Peter, disregarding Daisy entirely but answering her question all the same. “I put serum on power cell,” she tells him, showing him her sketch, a rough rendition of a metal arm and its parts, “My serum, before it was finish. He did not have skin, so,” she shrugs casually, “Did not burn him. Hard, because I tell metal what to do, not human. I say, take, ah, energy? Take energy from air and world so arm never dies.” Nadia’s talking as if she hadn’t changed science as Peter’s known it his whole life; as if she hadn’t told a non-sentient object to do her bidding and it actually had.

To create chemical conditioning for humans was one thing; to create it for literal machines was another. Both were so far out of the realm of possibility that Peter had never even truly considered them as options at all.

“How big was the battery?” Peter tries to focus, tells himself he can nerd out later, “Did you flatten it, wrap it around the arm?” Peter would’ve made it into that star design, he thinks. It was so showy and obvious that no one would expect it there.

“No,” Nadia blinks at him. She pinches her fingers together. “I make it small.”

Peter blinks back at her. “That… isn’t possible.”

It’s not. It’s really, really not. Even Tony, with his miniature arc reactor and all his genius, had been stuck with a fist sized pulse in his chest and iron ribs to support the weight of it. An old-school Soviet power cell, even compact, wouldn’t be able to be smaller than the length of his shoulder to his elbow without breaking down completely.

But apparently the rules of science don’t apply to Nadia, because she looks seconds away from stomping her foot in frustration at his apparent stupidity. “Mother tells me to learn to make things small, she gave me picture of tiny man, so I learn! I made it size of, of,” Nadia reaches out and grabs a pen, uncaps it and points at the ball point, “Of this, okay? I put in his, ugh,” she throws down the pen and points at her inner elbow, “Here. It works, keeps serum inside. No more plugging in.”

Daisy, who seems to only understand the bare bones of science, seems to be shocked. “Nadia, you told a machine what to do.”

“And changed the literal atoms of ancient technology,” Peter adds faintly.

Nadia just looks confused. “You make ground open,” she tells Daisy, and then turns to Peter, who spares a second to worry about his identity being revealed, but Nadia just says, “You are Petyr.”

“I don’t know if that’s as cool as making the ground split open,” Peter laughs.

“Cool,” Nadia insists. “Much cool.”

“Very cool,” Daisy corrects, “Don’t change the subject.”

“I am not!” Nadia denies, scowling, “It is science, okay? It is me.”

That’s a great description if Peter’s ever heard one, honestly. She was right; Nadia wasn’t just a scientist, she was science. The science she did wasn’t just for research, it wasn’t just a job - it was life as she knew it. The things she was told to do weren’t suggestions, they were orders. Not even just orders; it was a way of living. Why wouldn’t she do what she was told? Of course it made sense. What didn’t make sense was why her handlers told her to make the things she did. Chemical conditioning, fine, that made sense with their agenda. Shrinking things? No.

“That’s awesome,” Peter tells her, trying to make his voice upbeat, “You’re really smart, Nadia. How long did it take you to figure that out?”

“Ugh, six years for serum? I do not know. Making small, shorter,” she doodles half heartedly on the notebook paper, “Two year? Objects is easy. It is harder with-“ she stops speaking abruptly, eyes widening for a moment before she blinks and they’re back to normal. “I will nap.”

She pushes away from the table and flees out the kitchen before Peter can do anything more than open his mouth. Him and Daisy stare at the swinging door, faces twisted in confusion.

“She didn’t even finish her hot chocolate,” Peter says incredulously, “That was six bucks.”

“I just want to fix this stupid arm,” Daisy complains, slumping into her folded arms on the table.

“She’ll help you, I’m sure. If not, I can make a temporary charging port until Queen Shuri and her country rejoin society,” Peter waves away her worries, dragging the notebook that Nadia had been scribbling in closer to him.

She’d been drawing… bugs. Spiders, ladybugs, bees and butterflies. A horizontal ‘Z’ - maybe a connection of atoms, Peter thinks. It looks strangely familiar. He bites his lip until he tastes blood, frustrated at his mind for failing him.

“She probably just needs some rest,” Daisy tries, although it’s clear she’s just being polite. “She liked the hot chocolate, though.”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees absently. He stands up and works on getting his winter coat back on, zipping it up to his chin. “I have to go anyways. Hey, Daisy?”

“Yeah?” Daisy asks, piling up the scans into something almost neat.

“Be careful,” Peter warns, and taps the bottom corner of Nadia’s notebook, where she’s drawn a thick skull with six curling patterns beneath it, a strange sort of monster.

Daisy sucks a breath of air in through her teeth when she catches sight of it. “Fuck,” she says, sounding exhausted to her very bones.

Fuck, indeed, Peter thinks as he walks out the door.

Because Nadia had scribbled HYDRA’s symbol without even realizing she was doing it at all.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

“I didn’t like it,” Peter says, dropping the worn copy of Frankenstein into Yelena’s lap.

“Of course you didn’t,” Yelena says wisely, looking unfairly put together for three in the morning on a Wednesday. She’s in pajamas, at least, although they look so expensive that she could wear her heels and probably still fit right in at the fanciest restaurant in New York. It helps that she’s slightly tanned - Kate had said she was working a job in the Bahamas two weeks before, lucky mother fucker - and that her hair is braided neatly over her shoulder, eyes bright despite the late (or early) hour.

Peter feels lackluster in comparison, per usual. He hadn’t been able to sleep, put his mask on but hadn’t bothered changing into the whole suit, instead donning Hello Kitty pants and a shirt that was probably Amy’s, because it said some weird pun about death to all Barbie’s and liberation to feminism.

His feelings are confirmed a couple seconds later when Kate pads into the living room and stifles a snicker at the sight of him, taking a seat beside Yelena. “Did you time travel to 2014 and rob an emo chick?”

“That is strangely specific,” Peter tells her, collapsing into the sofa across from them, “And no, fuck you very much. I just came to give Yelena her book back.”

Kate looks down at said book and nods in sympathy at him. “She gave you the whole speech too, didn’t she?”

“He said he did not like it,” Yelena frowns.

“You didn’t even like it at first,” Kate rolls her eyes, “You said it was depressing and vaguely homoerotic which doesn’t even make sense, since they’re not both human.”

“And Frankenstein is like, part of the Doctor,” Peter adds, “They’re the same person.”

“You’re getting it,” Yelena grins, “You are so close.”

“She said the same thing to me,” Kate interjects unhelpfully, “I was not so close.”

“You were living it,” Yelena mutters, “So is he.”

Peter’s lost. “Wait, are you saying I’m gay for myself?”

Kate cackles.

Yelena, long suffering, asks, “Why are you this?” She waves at his body, although her eyes don’t waver from his, which means she’s really just staring at his mask.

“Because I’ve got abilities,” Peter says, tired, because he’s said this same spiel to a million different people by now, even if half of them are dead or don’t remember it, “And I’ve got a responsibility to use them right, you know?”

“So you can say you feel responsible?” Yelena asks, leaning her elbows against her knees, “For what bad people get away with?”

“I guess. Sometimes people get hurt, like, um. They get hurt in the middle of my fight with someone.”

“And when you’re, ah, stopping the bad people,” Yelena continues delicately, “You want to get justice for the people they hurt? Revenge?”

“Well,” Peter says, “Yeah.”

Justice, Revenge, Avenge… it was all the same, at the end of the day. Anger and the places he could put it.

“So. Spider-Man causes problems, but then he fixes them, and he has a responsibility to protect people, but he puts them in danger too.” Yelena smiles blandly at him. “Does that sound familiar, little one?”

Peter stares at her. She stares back serenely.

He dives out the window.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

He’s in Matt’s apartment, cooking dinner while Foggy and Karen argue over game of thrones at the bar top. It’s comfortably warm, and the air is filled with spices from the small feast him and Matt have been working on for half the day.

“Sansa’s my favorite,” Matt interjects from where’s he’s washing dishes, and that sets Foggy and Karen off on another tangent, their voices slightly covered by the simmering of the stove.

Peter grabs the towel off the counter and hits Matt on the shoulder with it playfully. “You can’t say that right after Foggy said Daeneyrs was the rightful Queen of the seven kingdoms.”

Matt grins, all sharp edges, and snatches the towel back to dry a glass plate. “That’s exactly why I said it.”

“You are evil,” Peter says, and takes the next washed plate from Matt, drying it and placing it with the others.

“A, uh, little,” Matt agrees, “Soup’s almost done. Casserole shouldn’t to be reheated if we eat now.”

“You are so weird,” Peter tells him fondly, and then takes the soup off the stove and the casserole out of the oven, plating a healthy amount onto the plates that Matt laid out for him.

“You’re the best,” Foggy says, pausing his argument to accept his full plate with a glowing smile, “Maybe we can hire you as our personal chef instead of intern.”

“You can barely afford me as your intern,” Peter snipes, and then hands Foggy a fork all the same. He doesn’t mind, really. He’s getting experience and he gets to hang out with people he genuinely likes and Foggy and Karen have never once pushed on why he has to get paid in cash instead of through a bank account like a normal adult. Besides, he makes enough at Josie’s to get by, and when he doesn’t have enough food or not having heating in his apartment gets a little too unbearable, Matt always seems to know without Peter having to say anything, and insists on having Peter sleepover, usually with some sort of terrible excuse so that Peter can’t deny on the basis of refusing to accept charity.

It’s nice, being cared for. A sentence he’d never thought he’d ever be able to admit too, but look at him, adjusting and everything. He even accepts Foggy and Karen’s compliments on the food with only a small amount of embarrassment, hoping his cheeks haven’t turned too red.

Matt pinches them, though, ignoring when Peter flails and smacks him in the head defensively, “You’re growing up so fast, you know that? First it’s dinner for us, then it’s for your kids-“

Karen reaches over and hits Matt’s ear. “You’re gonna scare him off-“

“It’s okay,” Peter laughs, lifting up a leg to lightly knee Matt in the stomach, “I’ve known Matt’s weird-“

Matt makes a wounded sound and finally lets go, placing his now free hands over his heart, “Peter-“

“How’d that arson case go, Karen?” Peter interrupts, knowing from experience that once Matt starts with his dramatics, it’s nearly impossible to get him to stop. “Did it turn out to be the landlord?”

“Electrician,” Karen sips on her beer, “Accident, too. I almost felt bad having to call the cops.”

“If he didn’t make a mistake that killed an elderly man and two cats,” Foggy says.

“Well,” Karen drums her fingers on the counter, “If it had just been cats…”

“You are so fucking evil,” Foggy informs her, but Peter, who has now witnessed Karen’s hatred of cats firsthand, just snorts.

“Murderess and yet me not liking cats is what’s unforgivable,” Karen says airily.

“Well, Wesley deserved it,” Foggy argues, and they’re off again, bickering like siblings who fight just to have a reason to speak.

“Got Valentine’s Day plans?” Matt asks pleasantly over the racket, taking a bite of casserole.

Peter shrugs. Then, “I shrugged. Not really. Might go see Clint, he’s coming back. Maybe Nadia, but she’s been in a mood recently. Josie said I could come in if I wanted to.”

“Take a day off,” Matt tells him, “You’re exhausted, I can hear it. An internship, a night job, a, uh, another night job, and solving a mystery on the side would be overwhelming for anyone.”

Peter grins. “It sounds like I’m a stripper.”

“I’m serious,” Matt sighs, and takes another bite, swallowing before he adds, “At least don’t go to the bar. You’ll smell like perfume for days.”

“The tragedy,” Peter mocks, but he knows what Matt means. The smell is overwhelming all the time; Valentine’s Day would be about a million times worse. “I’ll go to Harlem, then. If Nadia’s not up for anything, I’ll just hang out with Daisy.”

Matt wrinkles his nose; it makes his glasses tilt. “I don’t know how you’re friends with her.”

“She’s funny,” Peter protests, knowing it’s a losing battle, “Smart. She’s been through shit.”

“We all have,” Matt grunts, “But fine. Go hang out with a Russian and a spy.”

“Daisy’s retired,” Peter says, for the hundredth time. “Admit it, you just want me out of the apartment.”

“Literally the exact opposite,” Matt says flatly, and Peter knows he’s telling the truth, because Matt’s protectiveness has reached absolutely ridiculous levels since Peter had fallen asleep in his bed and woken up screaming from a nightmare, that night they did the op with Frank and Amy. “Feel free to stay home,” he says casually, and Peter pretends like he doesn’t choke on happiness at Matt referring to his apartment as Peter’s home, “I’m staking out one of those street gangs with Frank.”

Peter blinks. “On Valentine’s Day.”

“…Yes.”

“You, Matt Murdock,” Peter emphasizes, “Are spending Valentine’s Day with Frank Castle.”

“Okay, I can see why that sounds bad,” Matt considers, head tilting, “But-“

Gleefully, Peter interrupts, “Is he going to bring only pink guns? Are you having a picnic? Do you think he’ll bring wine?”

“What’s this about a picnic with wine?” Foggy interjects suddenly, apparently (thankfully) not hearing the rest of their conversation.

“Matt’s being wined and dined tomorrow,” Peter says smugly.

“Tomorrow, as in Valentine’s day, tomorrow?” Foggy asks incredulously.

“Who is wining and dining you on Valentine’s Day?” Karen leans forward, swiping Foggy’s beer.

“Peter’s just being a little shit,” Matt says, “It’s a work thing.”

“I don’t know about any work thing,” Foggy raises his eyebrows.

“With Frank,” Matt adds. There is a silence. “Remember?”

“Right,” Foggy rushes weakly, “Right, right. Work thing, can’t believe I forgot about that.”

Damn. Foggy had no idea that Peter knew about Matt’s secret life and was trying to cover for him - Peter curses Matt inside his head. He can’t expose how he knows Daredevil without also admitting to being Spider-man, which means no more getting to tease Matt about his kind of date thing with Frank Castle. Matt definitely knows how to play chess, the mother fucker.

“No, I kinda see it,” Karen says, on her seventh beer now and apparently oblivious, “It’s that whole enemies to -“

Foggy smacks w hand over Karen’s mouth. Weakly, he says, “Frank and Matt are enemies because, uh, they got in a fight at Starbucks!”

Man, Peter almost feels bad. “Starbucks?”

“Yeah,” Foggy nods strongly, and he must really be getting into it, because he adds, “They spilled each others drinks, but then, uh, some guy tried to take Frank’s dog? So Matt’s defending him. Him, as in Frank.”

Matt facepalms.

“This is the same Matt who says that chain coffee shops lead to Lucifer’s living room?” Peter asks.

“This was before he thought that,” Foggy lies smoothly, “This is what made him say that.”

“And now Matt’s defending a,” Peter has to pause, or else he’ll start laughing, “A dog-napping?”

“It was a very cute dog,” Foggy has fully accepted the stupidity of his story by now, and really, it’s almost admirable. “Matt always knows. He has good taste.”

Matt takes off his glasses, sets them on the counter, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t know,” Karen says, finally fighting off Foggy’s hand, “Sounds like a meet-cute to me!”

“Thank you,” Peter says, and slams his hand on the counter in appreciation.

“Yeah,” Matt echoes. “Thank you, Foggy.”

Foggy says, “The casserole was very good, thank you.”

After Foggy and Karen left, a good hour later and once they’d help put away the dishes, Peter curls into the side of the couch and watches Matt lay out his Daredevil costume with reverent hands.

“I was just teasing. About Frank. I know it’s not a date,” Peter says quietly, trying not to disturb Matt as he runs his fingers along the seam of his suit, searching for some imaginary rip.

Matt sighs, his hands pausing. “It’s kind of a date,” he admits, “I, uh. I told you about how I lost my girl, didn’t I?”

The one who had tried to change Matt; who had given her life in exchange for his, crumbling under a building and no body to be found. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Matt says heavily, “She was it for me. Never met anyone else like her, and honestly,” he shrugs, his hands going back to scanning his suit, “Never will. I’m just fine with loving her for the rest of my life.”

It reminds him of May, who had worn Ben’s wedding ring on top of hers until the day she’d died. No one would ever hold her attention the way he had. He thinks part of her was happy to see her late husband again, even if it meant leaving Peter behind.

“Then the snap happened,” Matt says, and yeah, it did, “And it was just me and Frank raising Amy. I don’t know, Peter. You kinda gotta love someone after that.” He laughs. “Except I love Elektra, and Frank’s always gonna be married to Maria, so where does that leave us?”

Elektra, Maria. He places their names in that spot in his chest next to Anylah; experiment number 7. Names he’ll never let himself forget.

“It leaves you with a hell of a lot of love leftover,” Peter says honestly, “There’s nothing wrong with feeling a certain way for more than one person.”

May, who would always be married to Ben, but who deserved to smile with Happy. Clint, who would never be able to let go of Natasha, but still held a family of his own in the other palm. JB and Sam, who would always be Steve’s best friends, but also their own people, too.

Matt leans forward to ruffle Peter’s hair, laughing as he squawks in mock outrage. “When did you get so smart, huh, sweetheart?”

“It’s like that story you told me, about the Egyptians,” Peter says, “They carved away his image, but we can still see what’s left behind. Can’t we?”

Matt squeezes Peter’s shoulders. “Of course we can.”

“Good,” Peter says, “So I’ll protect you from the vultures too. And I bet if Elektra were here, she’d help me out.”

Matt’s face softens. “There are no vultures in this apartment, Peter,” he says quietly, “We’re safe.”

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

Daisy lets him in on Valentine’s Day morning, wearing all black clothes and looking somehow generally even more emo than usual. The tray of drinks he’s carrying, along with the bag of donuts, is held like a badge of honor - which it is, since he waited in line for nearly an hour for it.

“Aren’t you festive,” Peter tells her, sighing heavily. “You would not believe the morning I’ve had.”

“I think mine was more hectic,” she says, amused, and snatches the green tea from the tray, “Sit in the living room. Nadia’s still asleep, and the kitchen’s a god damn mess.”

“Still asleep?” Peter repeats, baffled. It’s nearing eleven, perhaps early for some, but Nadia got up every morning at 7am, like clockwork. “Did she catch your sickness?”

“I wasn’t sick,” Daisy says grumpily, leading him to the living room and collapsing onto a love seat with a groan. “Nothing to catch. No, she saw a show where they partied all of Valentines Day.”

“Tell me you did not take her clubbing,” Peter asks, horrified, and sinks down into the sofa across from her.

Daisy rolls her eyes so far back in her head he actually loses sight of them for a second. “No, idiot. She just stayed up all night instead. Drank a lot of my vodka. Played music really loud. Ugh, destroyed my kitchen, basically, nothings even edible. How are you a scientist who can’t bake?”

Peter sets the donuts and Nadia’s drink on the coffee table, taking a long sip from his own cup before he answers. “In her defense, she did only have the same three foods for the first twenty five years of her life.”

Daisy wrinkles her nose. “Oatmeal?” At Peter’s nod, she snorts, “HYDRA’s so predictable. God, the oatmeal was awful, though, they really wanted to sell that evil stereotype, I guess.”

Peter pauses. “You’ve had oatmeal from HYDRA.” He thinks back to the way she had clung to her soup container and the single tear she had shed when Nadia was recounting how people with abilities were tortured. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

Daisy just shrugs, looking supremely unbothered. “It was a long time ago,” and Peter thinks about calling bullshit, and then he remembers that Nat and JB had destroyed HYDRA a long time ago; it only felt recent to him because he had been blipped. “Seriously. 8 years, I think? More, kind of,” she shakes her head, “Time moved differently, where I was.”

What was with superhero’s and being so mysterious? Peter seriously needs to work on this. “Um, you look really young, though. That’s why I made a face and stuff.”

If he had to guess, he would’ve said she was 20, maybe a year or two over. Her eyes are hard, lacking the usual wide-eyed excitement of new college students, but otherwise she looked the part. Daisy smiles at him. “I’m 27. Not that old anyways, but thanks. Yeah, it’s part of my abilities, I think.”

“That’s so cool,” Peter says, leaning forward, “I didn’t know that was a superpower. Are you like, immortal? Do rich people try to steal your skin?”

Daisy laughs, so he guesses he’s not being too offensive. “I don’t know if it’s a superpower. It might be through my, uh. My mom, she was a mutant. Worked in healing, slows down your aging, I don’t know. I’m not immortal and yes, actually, my mother did try to steal my skin once.”

“I have so many questions,” Peter feels like he has stars in his eyes. Then he leans back. “But I will maintain a respectful distance and ask none of them.”

Daisy grins at that too. “If you give me a donut, I’ll let you ask exactly one.”

“Take as many as you want,” Peter offers, waving a dismissive hand, and as she picks, he tries to think of what question to ask. He doesn’t want to push her, not when it’s obvious she’s healing just as much as Nadia is, although obviously from different things.

In the end, he chooses the simplest one in the world. “Why is your apartment so empty?”

She raises an eyebrow at him and chews on her donut. Blueberry. Swallows, takes a sip of tea. “I’ve lived a lot of places. Didn’t feel like decorating just to take it all down.”

“But you’ve been here for a while,” Peter protests, “Since, like, last September. That sounds creepy, sorry, I’m not stalking you. My girlfriend just thought you were cool.”

“Your girlfriend has good taste,” Daisy says approvingly, “You’re right, it has been a while. Then I don’t know, I don’t have an excuse. Other than I still have rooms in three other different places.”

Peter pushes jealously down. “Three?” He repeats. He’d had his room at May’s and that was it. He’d stay in one of the guest bedrooms when he slept at Stark Tower, never the same one, and other than that, he’d spent more than his fair share of nights on Ned’s floor and a couple others beside MJ in her bed.

He’s never had multiple places to call home before, though. If he did he wouldn’t know what to pick. Why had Daisy decided to stay here, in New York, instead of places that were waiting for her return?

“I think so,” Daisy confirms, “I lived with my team in a big, um, house, pretty sure my room is still there, and then I bought an apartment in LA in cash a couple years later. And I have a house.”

“A house,” Peter echoes, trying not to bounce in his seat, “In this economy?”

Daisy takes a sip of her tea. “It’s not on earth, kid.”

“You have a space house?” Peter questions, mouth dropping, “You’re not that much older than me, Daisy.”

She doesn’t dignify that with a response.

“Honestly,” Peter insists, “If I had survived the blip, we would be almost the same age!”

“I know your ass is stretching that,” she deadpans, “Yes, I have a space house.”

“Do you miss it?” Peter asks, “Why did you leave?”

“Sometimes,” Daisy tells him, “Because I thought that peace would make me better, but it just felt like limbo. I thought people would make it better. But New York feels like limbo, too.”

“I don’t miss space at all,” Peter tells her honestly, “Daisy, no offense, but, are you even trying to live?”

She squints at him. “Wow.”

“I don’t think you go out, like ever, I’m pretty sure the only people you talk to are me and Nadia, and your apartment is the saddest, emptiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m saying that as a guy who only has one fork and one spoon,” Peter lists off on his fingers, trying to sound tough, although that’s quickly ruined by his ending. “No normal person would be willing to take in a brainwashed Russian super spy, okay?”

“She’s barely a spy,” Daisy grumbles, “She’s the clumsiest person I’ve ever met. And I speak Russian. And I talk to other people, Peter.”

“Consistently,” Peter stresses.

Daisy takes a violent bite out of her donut. “Fine, I don’t. What’s it matter? You two are fine.”

“Traumatized orphan teenager,” Peter points to himself, “And traumatized brainwashed Russian scientist who has killed hundreds of people,” he points toward the ceiling, where Nadia is sleeping upstairs, “Are not fine. You need normal friends, Daisy. Good people. And we need to decorate your apartment. And maybe take you clubbing.”

“I draw the line at clubbing,” Daisy warns, but doesn’t disagree with apartment decorations, “I have normal friends. They’re just. You know. Growing up.”

Peter does know, actually. He thinks of Ned, going to MIT, and MJ, in London. Look at them, growing up and out, and him, left behind, because they didn’t know him at all.

Still. “You’re a grown up,” Peter tells her confidently, “You own a house. And an apartment. You pay a mortgage and stuff? I bet you even have a credit card.”

“Wow,” Daisy says again. “You’re right about that. Doesn’t matter. My friends, they’ve all gotten married. Had kids, families. White picket fence, the whole nine yards.”

“Why didn’t you?” Peter asks. His coffee is getting cold.

“Oh, well,” Daisy says, and the sadness in her is bone deep, like she’s been grieving for a hundred years and it’s become a part of her very being, “I wanted too, once. Just once. His name was Lincoln.”

Peter takes the name and tucks it deep into his chest, right next to where Number 7’s real name rests. He will hold them close.

“I loved him more than anything. He was perfect,” Daisy says softly, her eyes fluttering shut, “He was the most annoying, stubborn man I’ve ever met. Strongest morals in the world,” then she blinks, and her voice is hard again. “He’s dead, and so are his morals, so.”

“Thou shall not kill?” Peter quotes.

Daisy nods. “He wanted to be a doctor.”

Peter’s heart aches in sympathy. “I don’t know what to say.” Daisy wasn’t like Matt, who was still raw from the pain of losing his girl all those years ago. She didn’t want advice, or pity, or for Peter to make a promise.

She was just used to it. “Just remember his name,” she says simply, and then, as soft footsteps walk above them, “Ah, Nadia’s awake. She should be down after her shower.”

Peter can remember his name. Lincoln, beside Anylah, beside Elektra and Maria. His heart beats with the knowledge of them.

Peter drops his voice to a whisper. “How is she when I’m not around?”

Daisy doesn’t have to think long. “Less talkative. She pushes at me, tries to get me to snap, I think. But she’s not so bad. Watches a lot of tv, reads a lot of books. We practice English together, sometimes.”

“Her English is getting better by the day,” Peter praises, completely genuine.

“Thanks,” she says, cheeks red, “I think you’re a bigger help with the things that matter, though. Talking about her trauma with someone who isn’t scared of her, I don’t know, it helps. I’ve never met a female victim who’s more comfortable with a man than with a woman before her, though, I’ll tell you that.”

“The everyday events matter just as much,” Peter promises. Then, carefully, he picks a technical truth to share, “I’ve known Natasha a long time. Yelena, too. Nadia feels comfortable because of that, I think.”

Daisy smiles. “What, you’re family friends with Black Widow?”

“I interned at Stark Industries,” he reminds her, “I met her there. Took a liking to me.”

“Now I’m terrified of you,” Daisy says, though her lips twitch.

She really had no idea. Peter couldn’t help but think that Matt had been wrong about her. Or maybe he had known her before she’d gone through what she’d gone through - maybe she’d been curious back then, eager to see the world. But now she has a house in space and an exhaustion in her that never seems to leave. She’s made herself a prisoner of her very own life.

“Don’t be,” Peter says, because for all that he is Spider-Man, he is nothing compared to Quake. “Nat was nice. People just weren’t used to see a woman fight better than a man. Everyone made her into some sort of scary assassin, but,” he shrugs, “She was just Nat.”

Just Nat, sitting on his twin bed and telling him how she’d wiped the cameras of any evidence that could connect Peter to his alter ego. Just Nat, making him hot chocolate in Stark Tower at three in the morning, even though she was a fugitive on the run. Just Nat, the only person that Peter had ever seen make Tony cry. Just Nat, her watching his six as they decimated HYDRA agents together in a secret base by Midtown. And just Nat, her bloody knuckles mixing with his bleeding thigh as she stitched him up after, music blasting in his bedroom so that his neighbors wouldn’t hear his groans of pain, her mouth a constant movement as she tried valiantly to distract him.

Peter wishes he had known her better. She’d been patient with him, hard when he needed her to be and soft otherwise; he saw a lot of her in Matt. There was a comfort to it, a familiarity to the way he smiled.

Daisy runs her fingers in circles around the rim of her cup. “My, um, adopted dad was her handler when she was part of SHIELD. Her’s and Barton’s. He doesn’t talk about them much. Nothing personal, at least, it’s always their fighting. In my head, I don’t know, I just - well, I was part of SHIELD too, for a while. The two of them just never felt real to me. Like stories. Fairytales.”

“They were real,” Peter assures, remembering the steadiness of Natasha’s hands as she held together the pieces of his leg, “They are real,” and he remembers Clint, offering to take the traumatized little Russian girl home on top of his four kids, wife, and dog with no hesitation. “I’m sure Clint would be happy to talk to you.”

“Maybe,” Daisy says, but she’s gone distant, he can see it in her eyes. “My dad is better without any sort of SHIELD in his life.” And before Peter can point out that Daisy had been an agent too, and no father would be happier without their daughter, she was wrong - Daisy looks up and says, “Good morning, Nadia.”

“Good morning,” Nadia echoes, circling the couch to sit on the same sofa as Peter, though several feet of space remained between them. She’s still too skinny, still too pale, and her wet hair makes her look particularly sickly, especially with the giant sweatshirt she’s practically drowning in. Still, as she reaches for her coffee and the sleeves roll up, the wound on her wrist looks less red.

“No peppermint?” She checks, raising her brows at him.

He shakes his head, amused. “None. I promise.”

He’d gone with an iced chocolate mocha instead, and by the way she smiles, he thinks it was a good choice. “Better than the caramel?”

“Maybe,” she considers. “Both. We will test.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Let’s see how much I make at work tonight before we spend $30 on two drinks.”

“You work in science?” Nadia questions, tucking her feet beneath her, “Like me?”

“I’m still in college. Do you remember us talking about that?” He waits for her to nod before he adds, “I’m not a real scientist just yet. Right now I go to school and I bartend.”

He doesn’t say, I don’t know if I even want to be a real scientist. He doesn’t say, I think I’m ruined and so are you and I have to let science go and you’ll never be able to. He doesn’t say any of it all.

“Jake is going to bar lots in my show,” Nadia tells him. She’s not in the mood to talk science today, it seems. “Do you see him?”

Daisy hides her smile behind her cup. “Nadia’s been watching Brooklyn 99 before bed.”

Ah. “No, but the bar I work at is kind of shitty,” Peter tells her, smiling when she frowns, “I just need the money.”

For all that Nadia was a genuine in scientific discovery, her forced isolation made her clueless to just about everything else. Peter doubted she’d been anywhere other than what she’d told him and a couple safe houses across New York - she’d certainly never been to a bar, or a club, or anywhere filled with so much noise. Peter was sure the amount of people would overwhelm her. He guesses that Daisy had yet to tell her that the shows she enjoyed so much were fake.

“Yes, money,” Nadia nods, “Daisy shows me places where people work. Job.”

Flatly, Peter says, “Did she.”

Daisy looks perfectly innocent as she leans forward to take another donut. “At three in the morning, Peter, we even wore wigs. No one was awake to see.”

“New York is literally called the city that never sleeps,” Peter puts his head in his hands, rubbing hard at his eyes. He can almost feel a stress migraine forming. “Daisy, if you worked for SHEILD, than you of all people know how dangerous HYDRA is.”

“You don’t know anything,” Daisy snaps at him, voice rising, “We were careful. She needed fresh air, she’s been living in this house for a month now without leaving! Do you think I can’t protect her? Do you even know who I am?”

Nadia is looking between them, seemingly struggling to follow along with how quickly they’ve delved into fighting, her brow furrowed in concentration.

“It’s not about whether or not you can protect her,” Peter snipes back, because of course he knows who Daisy is, remembers seeing her save people on Youtube all those years ago, “I know you can, it’s just not safe-“

Daisy stands abruptly, her fists clenched at her sides. “I refuse to keep her isolated the same way she has been for the past 25 years! She’s suffered enough, I can keep her safe-“

Peter can almost feel the way his blood starts to sing, the same way it had before him and Matt had fought so viciously. For a moment, he thinks about letting it take control.

It’s the memory of Matt’s bloody teeth that makes Peter take a deep breath instead, forcing his voice to stay steady as he interrupts, “You are not the only person involved in her life,” Peter struggles to keep calm, digging his fingers into his thighs, “If they saw her with you and are watching your place then I’m fucked, Daisy, did you think about that? I visit every other day, they could have followed me home!”

She seems to waver for a long moment, and though she doesn’t sit down or quiet her tone, it at least sounds more unsteady as she says, “I can keep you safe too.”

“And my family?” Peter snaps, and it’s harder to stop himself from yelling now, as his thoughts turn to May’s body, broken in his arms because he’d brought monsters home, “My friends? I visit Clint Barton’s apartment all the time, and guess who’s watching over the little girl that Nadia was protecting when we found her?”

Matt and Foggy and Karen, Kate and Clint and their dog. Even Frank and Amy and Jess and Yelena, JB and Sam - they were all fighters, sure. They could and have survived worse. But if these mystery enemies were experimenting with chemical conditioning, knew who Nadia was, who’s to say they couldn’t leak the spray through the vents? Or spray perfume, or douse a vase of flowers in it? Unlikely, yes! Impossible? Nothing was impossible, Peter knows that too damn well.

The blood drains from Daisy’s face. “It was one walk.”

“That’s all it takes,” Peter tears his hands through his hair. “You can’t protect twenty people at once! I don’t want to isolate Nadia, not again, but there is a reason for it! We don’t even know who is targeting her!”

“We’re close to finding out,” Daisy argues, “You just said it!”

“I’m close to finding out, maybe, maybe, except I have to work to pay rent, and go to school, so I don’t have a million free days like you, and you can’t even babysit right!” He’s being mean. He knows he’s being mean. It doesn’t stop him from saying, “My brother is fucking blind, Daisy! Blind!”

Okay, and that’s not really fair to Matt, what with his senses and all - realistically, Foggy and Karen were in more danger, and they could actually see - but it was the principal of thing. Daisy needed to understand that there was more to everyone than a base level understanding. Not everyone was like her. Some people were helpless.

Nadia, sitting on the couch, looks very small as he gestures toward her, her eyes wide and confused. It doesn’t seem like she’s recognized all the words they’re saying, but enough to know it’s bad.

“What’s one more month of isolation to someone who’s had it as their norm for 25 years?” Peter asks quietly. Maybe it’s not morally right. He can’t bring it in himself to care. “What’s two more months of isolation before freedom compared to dead?”

Fuck, and maybe he’s being dramatic and maybe he’s not, because it’s fucking HYDRA who made Nadia, who kept her for years after Natasha destroyed their organization, who was somehow still operating or something along those lines, even now. It’s HYDRA and a secret lab in a warehouse and Nadia’s research and the note in the corner about her; Last complying specimen.

He’s so fucking scared, still, that he’s shaking. He lifts a hand up when Daisy opens her mouth to speak, palm trembling. “Don’t. I need - God, I don’t know. I need to go.”

He turns and sets his cup on the table, gentle as can be, because he doesn’t feel in control, not right now. And there’s Nadia staring up at him, silent and still, looking impossibly young, impossibly frail.

He feels so old. He feels like he’s looking at a child genius in a woman’s body. Natasha had acted like a big sister to him, once upon a time, but Nadia, despite being part of the Red Room, had no shared traits with the woman. Peter is 8 years younger than Nadia and he feels like he’s staring down at his little sister instead. He blinks and he’s holding Morgan Stark’s tiny hand at the edge of the lake house dock, Tony’s arc reactor floating away from them, and then he blinks again and Morgan turns back into Nadia, who has one hand around her coffee and the other curled into the sleeve of her sweater, like she can hide from their fight.

“Petyr,” she tells him, “Mne zhal'.”

The anger does not rush out of him at her apology, but it does abate. “I’m sorry, too,” he tells her, and finds that he means it. He can’t stop himself from placing the back of his hand against her cheek, reassuring himself that she’s warm and alive.

Then he leaves and doesn’t look back. He has a mess to fix, after all.

Notes:

Oops. Side characters always become mains in my fics, guys. Actually an issue???

Yes, Daisy’s friend (& adopted dad) without the arm is Coulson. I love her (even though she’s such a mess).

Amy is Amy Bendix, specifically from The Punisher tv show, season 2! Would absolutely recommend watching it if you haven’t, she’s a gem, & I always thought she & Peter would be such good friends.

I’m surprised no one has guessed who Nadia is yet! Glad I can still surprise/confuse people;) Hope you all enjoyed<3

Notes:

This is a prequel to my fic ‘Echoes of Him’, but you don’t need to read that to understand this one. This is meant to provide a background to how Matt and Peter got as close as they did in that story!