Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter isn't sure why his feet led him to the door of the coffee shop. Not today, at least.

They swept him up from the couch once his hands were done writing the piece of paper in his hands. It seemed his body had made a plan that his mind had not been present for, and now the café doors loomed over him. His feet had gone cold in his shoes and his hands worried the already crinkled paper.

Lines that he didn't even know that he had written were leaving his chapped lips as he rehearsed them. He wasn't there, not really anyway, but he ran his mouth in the cool New York air.

It's now or never.

He's not sure where that voice came from, but it urged him on nonetheless. The bell chimed and then he was inside.

There, in all her coffee-barista glory, stood the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was laughing and chatting with an elderly man that she was serving, and for whatever reason Peter found himself somewhat relieved that her back was turned towards him.

Then she was facing him. Her smile fell, and Peter felt his heart go with it. She waved awkwardly and he lifted his hand timidly to do the same. He was about to smile back and offer a hello before a voice behind him beat him to it.

The bell chimed again. "Hey!" called a boy who breezed right past Peter.

"One sec," she nodded at the boy as he took a seat at the counter. She made her way across from Peter and fixed him with her dark eyes. "Can I help you?"

Wow. Wasn't that a question? There were a million and one different things that she could help him with, but instead, his muscle memory started off of the sheet in his hands as if it had been waiting for this moment for years.

"Hi, my name's Peter Parker, and I..." he trailed off. This was a horrible idea. He probably looked so stupid, so stupid holding that damned piece of paper in his hands like sheet music.

She raised her brows. He realized that he still hadn't answered her.

"And I would like a coffee, please," he finished.

"O-kay, no problem, Peter Parker," she chuckled at his awkwardness and went to go get a donut for her friend. Peter cursed under his breath.

He mentally slapped himself upside the head again. If this kept going the way that it was going then his brain was going to be covered in bruises by the time he left the café.

"Donut for my fellow Engineer." Peter perked up at this.

"Oh. Wait, what?" the boy asked, startled from whatever he had been so invested in on his phone.

"MIT, they're the Engineers, the mascot," the barista clarified.

"Oh! Right right right, I should probably know that," he realized, remembering now.

A pang of sadness shot through Peter's chest. How bittersweet was that?

"Look at you with the school spirit!" The cheeky smile was back in full swing.

"Tell anybody and I will deny it," the girl threatened and swung herself in the direction of the backroom to get Peter's coffee.

"Ah," the MIT kid sighed in a joking defeat. He returned his attention back to his phone.

Peter looked on in awe. Here were his two best friends, sitting in a coffee shop and vibrating with the excitement that came from being a nerd who was just about to start their first MIT school year. He wished that he could be celebrating with them.

But wasn't that the point of coming here? Telling them what had happened, risking the probability that they would write him off as crazy but praying that at least one tiny little ounce of them would remember something? Anything?

The lid snapped onto the tiny styrofoam cup.

"Peter Parker?" the barista called gently. When he didn't respond, she called again, this time a little more urgently.

Peter whipped his head around as he was broken out of his trance to find the cup sitting next to the cash register.

"Your coffee?" she reminded.

"Right, yeah." He lunged forward and was about to grab the cup but stopped himself. He didn't want this visit to be over just yet.

"So, um, you excited for MIT?" he tried to ask casually. Luckily for him, though, she didn't seem to mind the eavesdropping.

"Oh. Uh, r- yeah." She seemed more so startled by the question, and then by the answer that she discovered within herself.

"Yeah, actually, which is weird because I never really get excited about things. I kind of expect disappointment-"

"-'Cause then you'll never actually be disappointed?" Peter offered helpfully. "Right?"

"Yeah, right." She looked at him inquisitively. "I don't know, it just kind of feels different this time for some reason."

Hope struck up in Peter's chest when she started searching his face, seemingly as if she were trying to remember where she might've seen him before. He couldn't help the small smile that leaked out the side of his mouth.

A moment of eternity passed while they just stood there, thinking. One glance at the coffee cup later, though, and it was all over.

"Right! Uh-" Peter started digging around in his pockets for his wallet, but only came up with a handful of crumpled bills. He decided to start again, maybe by just asking her out this time? 

"What I was-" Peter started but abruptly cut himself off.

The barista tucked her hair behind her ear as she took his money and placed it into the cash register, revealing the band-aid above her right eyebrow. He immediately felt bad as the memory of how she got it came rushing back to him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concern obvious in his voice.

"Yeah, it doesn't really hurt anymore," she answered quickly as if she had already said that line about a thousand times. Which, Peter assumed, she had.

She closed the cash register. "Is there anything else?"

Peter's lips tightened in an effort to hold himself together and lightly shook his head, more so to shake the tears away than anything else.

"No," he finally voiced, throat suddenly feeling hoarse. He tucked the paper safely away in his back pocket. "Thank you."

"No problem," she assured him.

Peter looked around again, glancing at the Filipino with his donut and taking in his best friend for the last time, at least for a while, before making the quick decision to leave.

"Well I'll, uh, see you around," he finished, cinching their encounter with a hurried chord, and all but ran out the big glass doors.

Within the second he had disappeared out of sight from inside the café window. There he left her, extremely confused and with questions unanswered.

"Bye," she mouthed the barely audible word, fingers doing a little wave even though he couldn't see it.

Maybe the mysterious boy would return and she could interrogate him then. Maybe he would go down in her memories as just another weird-ass New Yorker, straight off his rocker. Who knows? Certainly not Michelle Jones.

"Hey, MJ!" the guy behind her called, looking up from his phone again. "Check this out!"

"Yeah Ned, for sure. Just gimme a second."

Ned shrugged. "'Aight," he conceded, content to show her once she was ready for a quick break.

MJ continued to stare the way Peter had left for just another second. The snow was light and it was starting to get dark. She surprised herself yet again with the silent I hope Peter got home okay from the back of her mind. She rationalized it with just worrying for her fellow New Yorker and gave her head a quick violent shake.

Then she was looking at whatever it was on Ned's phone and her busy thoughts melted away. 

Almost.

Her hand stayed tight around the broken pendant of her necklace.

~

Chapter Text

Peter nearly slipped on the ice just in front of his apartment building. He had practically run the whole way there from the café twenty blocks away, which was almost an entire mile.

At least he knew that he'd be getting his steps in when he... monitored her safety from a distance in a definitely not-creepy way.

Still, he could not believe that he had just done that. That was crazy and borderline psychotic of him, to even think that he could handle something like a close encounter with his used-to-be best friends. He was stupid sometimes, stupid stupid stupid .

But MJ had looked so beautiful. She was perfect, just like she always was. Peter had noticed her curiosity in him. Or, at least, that's what he told himself he saw. He wasn't actually sure.

He just missed her. He needed MJ, so badly right now. He needed her to hold him close and let him sob into her lap. God only knows how many times he had done that before all of this had happened. Especially now that his Aunt May was gone.

That was the first thing he thought of when he shoved open his crappy apartment door. How the only reason he was even in this apartment was that his last remaining parental figure had died. She was gone . Just like everybody else in his life.

He missed Ned, too. He wanted to use his best friend's shoulder to cry on while he was upset. When Peter saw him and MJ at the café, he was relieved to see that they still appeared to be friends without him. It made him sad to think about how much he could talk to them and hang out with them. What was he missing in their lives? What was going on with them? Were they okay? Did they have any memory at all of the things that had happened to them due to Peter's double-life as Spiderman?

Peter threw his bag down onto the floor next to his bed and found himself unable to resist the urge to flop into it. Luckily enough, through all of this, May still had Peter in her will as her sole beneficiary, so when he took a deep breath from his pillow the sheets smelled like her. It was his little bit of comfort left in this great big world.

May had left him plenty of money in her will for him to afford a better apartment than this one, but it was at a pretty good base spot so that he could easily walk to school, the Bugle, and be Spiderman without having to stray too far away from home. If you could even call it that.

Peter was saving the money in order to pay for college. At least, that's what he was telling himself. He knew that the real reason was that he didn't want to spend her money. Peter knew that May would want him to live more comfortably, or at least in an apartment where the radiator worked, but Peter just could not bring himself to do it. For the most part, he just kept it stowed away for an emergency, like when he inevitably had to pay some outrageous hospital bills after trashing his body Spidermanning, or when he needed new sewing supplies.

Tony left him a pretty big share, too. He had also given Peter some fancy tech and free lab access (and even had it subtly stated in the will that he could get a lab built for himself, pro-bono, courtesy of Stark Industries) but Peter had been too shy to take advantage of that, especially now. He kept Stark's money stowed away too, and threw both Tony's money and May's money into a savings deposit with a decent interest rate.

Peter groaned into his pillow. He was an adult now. With responsibilities . It was stupid, bullshit if you asked him.

Peter rolled over, the smell of May's perfume still clinging to the air and wrapping him in a shroud of comfort that he so desperately needed. He felt tears culminating in the corners of his eyes and squeezed them shut in an effort to keep them from falling, but all he managed to do was push them to fall down his cheeks.

Peter felt the ghost of May's arms around him. He mistook the light breeze through his apartment window as her hand weaving through his hair, and the city below him as her whispering in his ear and telling him that it was going to be alright.

Peter took in a shuddered breath and tried to collect himself, but the world refused to let him give himself a much needed (and much deserved) break.

So Peter failed to put himself together enough in order to get out of bed and be somebody and instead opted for curling in on himself and trying to keep his mournful sobs quiet enough so as to not disturb his neighbors.

Through the smell of his own tears, Peter's heightened senses picked up on the smell of pizza making its way upstairs from the floor below him half an hour later and reminded him of the interview he had tomorrow.

He had gotten himself a 1977 Puch Newport/Maxi moped for a whopping $600 off of the internet for this specific purpose. All Peter wanted was a job and a way to get around the city fast that wasn't by swinging, so why not knock out two birds with one stone?

Peter needed the money from this potential new job. He was making some money from Jameson, but with him, he was living paycheck to paycheck. Tony and May's money were being entered into his bank account slowly, as per the laws that come with gaining a sum from somebody's passing. So, while Peter wasn't blind to knowing that he would probably be a millionaire in the near future once all of that money finally found its way into his accounts and gained interest, he was currently unable to buy groceries because he needed to cover the cost of gas for his moped.

Wow, what a way to distract Peter from his misery.

He had never really been... poor before. He had always had enough money. There was always food on the table, heat in the vents, and a Spiderman suit folded and tucked away in his closet. Now, though, his cabinets were empty and his fridge was scarce. Now, he would wake up in the mornings to find frost crusted on the inside of the windowsill. Now, he was watching YouTube videos on his very limited data plan to learn how to sew red and blue spandex.

What a life Peter Parker lived.

What a life Spiderman lived.

Hence the new job. Peter needed a salary he could depend on. He wanted to make the money that he earned from working with Jameson his extra money. Those cheap checks were supposed to be bar-hopping money, not that he was even old enough to drink. His work as a freelance photographer should be a side job, just like it would be for anybody else. So that was his goal.

Use the moped as little as possible in order to save on gas money. Get the job at Joe's Pizza, and if not there, he'd try another place. Then, he'd have to find a store with a better deal on lycra so his wallet didn't suffer every time he went outside.

Peter didn't realize that he had stopped crying until he started again, thinking about how impossible this all seemed without anybody to be there for him.

The smell of pizza wafted under the door into his apartment, and Peter's stomach growled. The boy looked at his sad excuse for a kitchen counter through blurry eyes to find half a loaf of bread on it.

Peter's throat closed up as he choked on another sob just thinking about his food situation. Or lack thereof. He shoved his face back down into the pillow and wriggled underneath the covers, barely getting his shoes off before tucking his socked feet in too.

Peter grabbed his phone to check the time. It was only 6:30, and yet the soon-to-be college student couldn't think of anything better than passing out right then and there in his ratty-ass bed with the ratty-ass mattress cover he could feel through Aunt May's cotton sheets.

Peter felt bad soaking them with his tears, but tonight, there was nothing that he could possibly do to keep them from falling.

He was so close, so close to drifting off when he heard the sirens. The hair on Peter's arms stood up, and all of a sudden he had goosebumps that weren't because of the cold.

All of a sudden he was wide awake, and he couldn't think of anything other than ripping off the warm sheets and throwing on his suit.

So he did, and he checked the police scanner on his phone just to make sure he was going to the right place before he slid his window the rest of the way open and slipped out.

The cold winter wind bit through his thin spandex as he swung across the city and slid through rooftop snow. It was odd, not having a heater built into his suit anymore.

But it didn't matter. He was on the chase now, and he was only a few blocks away from the action. When he got there, he forgot about the air. He forgot about the wetness soaking through his socks. He forgot about his loneliness, if only for a few moments.

Every punch numbed him a little more.

~

Chapter Text

Strange’s spell erased everyone’s memories of Peter Parker. They forgot all about what’s-his-face, and if someone were to look him up online they would find nothing of import.

However, Venom wasn't a someone. They were a something.

Eddie was gone. They had just been sipping on a beer in a random bar when he just... disappeared. Somehow, though, Venom knew that he wasn't actually dead. He had probably just been zapped back to their dimension. Maybe it was a completely different one.

Either way, they were alone. When Venom felt the pull of reality they got startled, frightened even, and tried to latch onto the table to keep themself and Eddie anchored. Obviously, they hadn't thought that one through.

The plan worked a little too well. While they weren't able to keep Eddie in this dimension, they had managed to leave a little bit of themself lying on the bartop. They were comforted to know, at least, or rather assume, that the rest of them was with their host.

But this little bit of Venom was feeling awful.

Eddie wasn't here, which meant no suitable host, which meant body-hopping until they got to another decent one. Maybe, though, there was another Eddie Brock here that he could find. Maybe that spider guy on the news could help them.

They wouldn't be able to do anything for a while though. Not like this, not in this shape. They were going to need to hibernate and plan before they did anything else. Alas, Venom was never one for patience.

They leaped up from the polished wood, the black smudge now soaking into the startled bartender's arm.

It was so weird. Venom didn't want to do this, to bond with somebody other than Eddie. Anne was different, she was their friend, but this... This was a stranger. Already Venom could feel that he wasn't a strong host. If they were in their full, all-powerful glory, they would've burned through them within the day.

They looked into the new host's mind to look for information. They always thought that it was courteous to learn the name of a host before they inevitably killed them.

Something was wrong, though. He had already settled down from the disappearance of the man he had been serving and carried on wiping down the bartop.

Venom started searching for something, anything about the drinks he had served Eddie. The memories were dissolving quickly.

The host casually clicked off the TV with Spiderman still on it. That was worrying.

They frantically started shuffling through the host's mind to look for something about Peter Parker. They came up empty-handed.

What was this? What was going on? What was happening?!

Venom felt their own panic rise in their host's chest but couldn't bring themself to care. They missed Eddie. They wanted Eddie. If they were powerful enough they would have encompassed the bartender's form immediately just to scream into the wind.

Instead, they settled for giving their host a panic attack. He started hyperventilating, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He sank to the floor and curled up into a ball.

Eddie Eddie Eddie, Venom sobbed into their shared headspace. The man jumped, nerves frayed by this sudden onslaught of haunted voice.

When their host passed out from the stress, Venom went with him.

~

Chapter Text

Eddie Brock sped across Manhattan on his motorcycle. The wind whipped in his leather jacket and bit at the skin on his knuckles. His helmet was strapped tight to his head, a reflective visor lowered over his eyes.

He turned a sharp corner and slid into the Daily Bugle parking garage.

He had taken a job there recently, just about a month ago as a reporter. Naturally, he was hired immediately, because if there was anything J. Jonah Jameson appreciated it was a good scandal.

He had initially intended on only briefly staying in New York. He was there to solve a case as an undercover reporter set to "expose" Spiderman. Personally, he thought that the work that the young hero had been doing was incredible. It was helpful, feasible, casual, and most importantly, in the best interest of the people. He stopped muggings, robberies, and assaults of all sorts. His work was honorable, and Eddie only wished that he could be something like that, do something like that. Instead, he did his public service covering the Brock Report and exposing corporations that he believed needed exposing.

So here he was, at the Daily Bugle, taking the elevator to floor 46. The top floor. That was a very high floor.

Eddie strolled super casually to Jameson's secretary's desk. It totally wasn't obvious that he was avoiding looking near the windows, and neither was the totally not-nervous expression on his face.

The secretary raised her eyebrows at him from behind her monitor as he dropped a stack of files on her desk. Eddie ignored it.

"Hey, Betty," he greeted calmly. Betty scoffed at him.

"Hey Eddie," she smiled at him. She liked Eddie. He was a good person, she had decided. She was an exceptionally young secretary-slash-journalist at age nineteen, and she appreciated the respect he showed her nonetheless. New York had too many creepy and entitled people in it. 

Betty Brant had spent her entire high school career looking up to him and his work as a reporter. She used to dream of being on the Eddie Brock Report as one of the featured aspiring reporters. Let's be real here, she still did. Too bad it seemed that Eddie had thrown in the towel on that one, what with settling down with this newspaper. Now she was blessed by the presence of her childhood idol every weekday from eight AM to five PM. The best part, she thought, was that he kind of had to answer to her. It was ironic, to say the least.

"Is this the article pitch for Wednesday?" Betty asked, knocking the folder on the desk. For as successful as he was, Eddie Brock was not an organized fellow.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah," Eddie confirmed, nodding his head a little bit.

"Okay," Betty said gently. Eddie's fear of heights was painfully obvious to her and anyone else with eyes. When she had found out that he had transferred here she had already made sure that there would be an office space available for him towards the middle of the room. "Make sure to have it all done and typed up before you leave tonight."

Eddie nodded and returned the smile. She jerked her head in a gesture that meant that he was dismissed back to his desk which he made a beeline for the moment he was given the opportunity.

He sat down in his desk chair and started up his computer. Once his files were all pulled up and his sources were on the screen he took some deep breaths to right himself before he began.

It didn't take long for Eddie to lose himself in his writing. His fingers flew across the keyboard, and he was finished with the revised draft by noon.

Eddie sat back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. He couldn't keep himself from grinning. This was just another shitpost of an article, just the kind that J. J. liked to snap up the moment that it landed on his desk. He pressed print and went to punch his code into the keypad. All of a sudden a boy, who couldn't have even been twenty, burst into the office from the direction of the elevators.

The boy was thin with curly brown hair. He was drowning in his sweater and button-up and camera gear and bags. Eddie counted at least three; MIT themed backpack, a duffel bag, and a boxy over-the-shoulder purse that was stuffed to the brim full of papers. Not to mention the camera bag and camera slung over his shoulders. He actually didn't seem too different from himself, Eddie thought.

There was something about him, though, that he just couldn't shake. His brows knit together as his eyes followed the photographer to Betty's desk.

What was it?

"Hey Miss Brant!" he called out while he was still halfway across the room. She looked up at him and the smile returned to her face.

"Hey, Pete!" she greeted. They quickly began a conversation and Eddie accidentally found himself trying to catch snippets of their chat. The only things he heard were random bits like pictures and Spiderman . Nothing too noteworthy, he decided.

The two laughed at a joke one of them made and Betty waved Peter into Jameson's office. The boy shouldered his many bag straps and hurried off into the room with a thank you. A loud "PARKER!" was shouted at the boy when he flung the door open.

Eddie stared after him, a bit confused. There was something about this kid that he was missing. His face seemed vaguely familiar, but it might've been because he'd seen him around the office sometime before. And, if his detective skills told him anything, he was a Spiderman photographer, so it was no wonder the name struck him as familiar.

"I know, he's a looker, ain't he?" said a voice from beside Eddie.

He glanced over at the person who said it. He was an older guy, probably about ten years older than Eddie and in his forties. He had this weird look on his face as he examined Peter through the windows into Jameson's office. Eddie thought he looked like a Kyle.

"He turns heads everywhere he goes, man. There's just something about 'em."

Eddie's confused look quickly turned incredulous at the man's audacity. Peter was a boy . This was a grown-ass man over here, talking about him in a way that nobody at his age should be talking about somebody at Peter's.

Eddie was just about ready to smack this creep show upside the head before Peter was rushing out of the office and back into the hallway with the elevators. The guy beside him took a sip out of his coffee mug and headed back to his desk after a quick, "mmm, mmm, mmm !"

Eddie's eyes stayed wide as he processed what had just happened. That was disgusting . Men were disgusting. Eddie icked out, shivers, tongue, and all while he inserted his code into the printer and waited for his article to come out.

Swinging by his desk he grabbed a paper clip and stuck the article together and in one swift motion, he had it laying on Betty's desk.

"Here you go," he informed her.

"Okay, thanks Eddie," she appreciated. She pulled a sticky note off one of her many pads and scribbled something on it in blue pen before attaching it to the article and handing it back to Eddie.

"I'll enter the submission into the book and then you can go in and give it to Jameson."

Eddie nodded. "Okay, no problem."

He waited a moment while Betty added the review of the article to Jameson's schedule. When she was done she buzzed him in and nodded him off towards the door behind her.

Eddie thanked her before knocking out of courtesy and waited for the bellowed, "COME IN!" to sound through the glass door before actually entering.

"Hey, Brock! What do you have for me today? Better make it quick 'cause I'm only giving you three minutes before I'm kicking you out."

Eddie laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, hey Jameson." And then he began his pitch.

Just a quick summary of the article that he pulled out of his ass. It was some random bullshit about how Stark Industries was working with this company for whatever reason, but Jameson seemed to fall in love with the idea.

"That's great Brock!" Jameson practically screamed as he pulled the smoking cigar out of his mouth. Eddie was pretty sure that smoking inside of a building was illegal but he shut his mouth and took in the ill-advised praise.

"Wait! I just had the best idea!" Jameson proclaimed as if he had just had the best idea. "What if you did a piece on, get this, Spiderman !"

If Eddie's jaw wasn't attached to his face it would've been on the floor. There was no way he was gonna-

"Take down Spiderman! Take him down! Show the city what a menace he really is!" Jameson looked like he had the whole world figured out. Eddie's eyes were wide as he kept rambling.

Eddie didn't really realize that he had interrupted him until he was already talking. "I'm sorry sir, but just one quick question. Why?" he asked, "Why me? Why not just do it yourself or have somebody else? That Peter kid seems to-"

"No, Eddie, I want you on the story. I would do it, but I'm a busy man and Parker's not a reporter." He stopped. Eddie felt the oncoming doom of another great idea.

"I just had ANOTHER great idea! What if I had you AND Parker tag-team this story! He's gotta be close to the Spiderman with all those pictures he takes, and you would be perfect for taking him down! Maybe even discovering his identity ! Parker owes me a favor anyway as of five minutes ago, and it's nothing he hasn't already offered to do.” Jameson paused, shrugged. “Also as of five minutes ago."

Eddie felt a little frightened by the man in front of him. He was crazy, absolutely mental. Eddie had the thought of maybe doing a bit on the Daily Bugle for the Brock Report when he was done with his piece here and laughed at the idea. Too bad there wasn't actually any incriminating evidence on the company or Jameson. He was just insane.

"So, whaddya think?" Jameson asked confidently, expecting something along the lines of, "I think it's perfect! You're such a genius, Jameson! You've got Spiderman this time!"

But since Eddie wasn't that weird, he only stuck with that first part.

"Wow, Jameson! That's- That's great!" Eddie forced out a chuckle. He cleared his throat. "Just- uh, when do you think that you'll want the story done?"

"I don't care!" Bullshit. "Just as long as you get it in by March sometime, I'll let you keep your job. I need all the dirt you can get on the Spiderman in order to make the city see his pure intentions." Ah. There it was.

"Yep, that sounds- that sounds fair!" Eddie tried to give his most convincing fake smile, but it just came out looking pained. "When do we start?"

"Not sure yet. How about tomorrow? You and Parker can get the story set up and figure out how you're going to go about it. Do we got a deal?!" Jameson decided, excitedly. 

"Yeah, for sure," Eddie agreed, but his voice fell flat. He just kind of wanted to get out of there.

"Alright, now GET OUT OF MY FACE AND GET TO WORK!" Jameson shouted, still grinning, so Eddie knew that he wasn't trying to sound like a bi-polar asshole.

Eddie flashed a weak smile and scurried out of the room and back to his desk. Once he got there and was resituating himself, he accidentally caught Betty's eye from across the room, who gave him an apologetic smile and returned her gaze back to her computer screen.

Eddie knew that he looked sick. He knew that the whole world thought he was sick. It was just that the pitying looks that he got from everybody crushed his already floundering ego, even though he knew that they were just trying to reassure him. Maybe even make him feel safer, better. Saner.

Eddie sighed. At least he wasn't hearing any voices yet.

~

Chapter Text

Peter ran his way through the top floor of the Daily Bugle, desperate to drop off the new Spiderman pictures so that he could get to his interview at Joe's Pizza. He was already going to be late to JJ's office, and he really didn't need to lose his freelance job and not be able to put his new Vespa-thingie to use.

So here he was, bags and bags of things strapped to his body as he frantically scrambled to Jameson's door.

"Hey Miss Brant!" Peter called out across the office. It felt odd calling Betty by her last name, especially since she literally used to date his best friend, but he figured that since she didn't really know him they should probably call each other by their formal address. That, and the fact that she was now also kind of his boss.

"Hey, Pete!" she called back. Well, you can't win every battle.

"What's up?" Betty asked Peter casually. Her eyes sparkled and her lips were pressed into a light smile. Peter coming over to talk to her was easily one of the highlights of her day. She saw him as this sheepish thing, who always seemed a little too nervous to meet her eyes. Betty tried not to read into it too hard, but it was difficult with the boy being so cute and attractive. She had also always found him to be quite familiar, as crazy as that sounded. She just played it off as his sweet demeanor charming her into butterflies.

"Same old, same old, you know," Peter laughed a little, but it was still a bit strained as he tried to catch his breath. "How about yourself?"

Betty chuckled at the sightly display of Peter Parker's disheveled hair, crooked sweaters, and the ridiculous amount of bags. "I'm just fine, thank you. So, what do you have for me today?"

"Just some more pictures. I got a couple of good shots of the mayor's speech yesterday about her Kitchen gentrification plans because I know Jameson's going to want to tear that one apart, and I got a couple of-"

"Spiderman pictures?" Betty quirked an eyebrow and raised the corner of her mouth. She and Peter knew full well that those were the only kinds of pictures that Jameson really cared about, but it didn't change the fact that Peter was still a great photographer when it came to other things as well. Betty wouldn't mind being assigned the gentrification article, either, if Jameson wanted to follow through with it. It would be a missed opportunity if he didn't, not that Betty thought he wouldn't, because (believe it or not) the Daily Bugle wanted what was best for the people rather than the city. That's why Spiderman was a menace in Jameson's book, and since gentrification was almost equivalent to a crime to nine out of ten New Yorkers, it was to the Bugle , too.

Peter's eyes fell towards the ground as he exhaled a sharp laugh through his nose. "Yes," he breathed, breath finally caught back in his lungs as his heart rate slowed and his adrenaline worked its way back down to a normal level.

Betty checked her computer screen. "Well, the good news is that he's got an opening right now, so I should be able to weasel you in in just a second."

"Sweet!"

"Okay, I'll let him know that you're here then," Betty informed the boy as she clicked something into her keyboard.

"Not so sweet."

They both chuckled at that. Peter didn't mean for it to slip his lips, but that was fine. He was kind of glad that it had. He missed feeling like he had friends. Betty waved him off towards the door, not wanting to hold him up any longer, and Peter thanked her as he shuffled over to the office and made his way inside.

"PARKER!" Jameson screamed from inside his office, and Peter let the door swing shut.

"Do you have the pictures?!" Jameson accused, whipping the cigar out of his mouth as he asked. Peter was pretty sure that that was illegal, smoking inside of a public building, but since he kind of depended on his job as a freelancer to survive, he elected to ignore it.

"Yep, always. I've got some of the mayor at her speech yesterday, and the new construction project downtown, and-"

"NOBODY CARES, PARKER! YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW!" Jameson shouted. "Now, do you have the Spiderman pictures that I pay you for?!"

"I- wow, okay," Peter blinked. "Yeah I do, here they are, just give me a minute," Peter said as he shuffled through his box purse trying to find the envelope with all of the pictures in it. It didn't take long, though, before the envelope was ripped out of his hand and torn open as Jameson inspected his most recent work.

"Lookin' good, Parker. How much do you want for them?"

Peter considered that for a moment. He was kinda poor, and Christmas was just around the corner, so he kinda needed the cash- oh wait.

He didn't have anybody to buy gifts for.

He was sad, sure, but the realization was kind of funny. He literally had nobody in his life. Do you have any idea how much money he was going to save this year? Peter suppressed a laugh. He figured that it would've been inappropriate.

"Three hundred, at least," he demanded. "Please."

Jameson fixed Peter with his creepy eyes as he seemed to pick apart his entire soul as he thought about the proposition. "Alright," he finally conceded, "three hundred. I've paid more for less." Jameson lifted his hand, about to dismiss him from his office before he paused.

He noticed a hole in the collar of Peter's sweater, only kind of showing off the white button-up underneath. Jameson's eyebrows knit together oh-so subtly as he started to take a better look at Peter.

There were multiple holes in his sweater, and there were patches on it that undoubtedly covered more. His jeans looked old and faded like he hadn't gotten a new pair in forever and the hem was starting to fray. The cuffs of Peter's undershirt were roughed up and less white and more cream. His nasty Skechers looked as if the soles had worn out ages ago, and his laces needed badly to be replaced. He probably washed his hair with Suave. He even had a Sony camera, for Christ's sake!

He's poor , concluded a little voice in the back of his mind.

Jameson felt himself have an entire midlife crisis in the two seconds that the realization took. The man was a little embarrassed that it had taken him this long to figure it out.

"Parker, I'll tell you what. It's the holidays, so it only seems fair that you get a Christmas bonus too. Lord knows you work harder than most of those dopes out there, and they're making a hundred dollars a day!"

Peter knew that he looked scared, but he was too stunned by the direction that this was going to care.

"Four fifty," Jameson finally decided.

"W-What?" Peter asked. He was dumbfounded. Was he really saying what he thought he was saying?

"Four hundred and fifty dollars. That's what you're getting for these pictures." Jameson scoffed as he said it. The words tasted disgusting in his mouth. His heart was out for the kid, this kid who looked poor as shit, but his greedy conscience was snapping its little crab claws at him to keep his money. In his wallet. Where it belonged.

"That's- That's awesome! Is there a catch, is there something that you want me to do? I can try new Spiderman angles, I can get more, maybe even a short interview with him if you want me to, I can-" Jameson cut Peter off. The kid was vibrating with the excitement of having enough money to cover this month's rent.

"No, Parker, I don't need you working harder. Well, I wouldn't be against it, you know that we're always looking for more Spiderman dirt, but I'm giving this to you because you've already done your job."

"Well, can I at least do something ? You usually don't even think about giving this much to me, I just want you to know that I'm grateful!" Peter insisted. Jameson restrained himself from pinching the bridge of his nose. Even though that sounded like the most generic thank you from any child ever, Jameson knew that he meant it. Somebody just raised him right.

"Okay, if it'll get you out of my office, you owe me a favor. Now shoo! I've got work to do!" the older man shouted, but it didn't deter the younger one. He still managed to work out a slur of thank you's as he ran out of the office with a huge grin plastered on his face.

He was so excited that he almost didn't notice the tingling at the nape of his neck, his spider senses telling him that something was slightly off . He was so excited that he almost didn't notice the feeling of eyes watching him as he sprinted towards the elevator doors.

Almost.

~

Chapter Text

Peter's scooter poot poot pooted through the streets on his way to Joe's.

He had left his house extremely early, intent on getting there on time despite his Spiderman duties and his little side quest at the Daily Bugle. Now he was glad that he had, after the handful of muggings and assault attempts that the boy had to stop. He was barely going to be on time.

Peter walked into the pizzeria the moment the clock on the other side of the wall struck the hour. A breath of relief slipped past his lips, and he allowed himself five seconds of composure before he made his way to Mr. Aziz sitting at one of the corner tables.

"So, cuttin' it close, eh?" Mr. Aziz raised his eyebrows at Peter. Peter winced. This was going to need a lot of salvaging.

"Yeah, sorry sir, i-it's just that traffic got caught up when Spiderman started showing up." At least that wasn't a complete lie.

"Oh, yeah yeah, I get it," Mr. Aziz nodded his head. "The bastard's made me late to so many birthday parties and family things. Y'know how it is."

He couldn't lie, he was a little taken aback by the outright bash on his character, but nodded along with him anyway. In any other situation Peter would've tried to defend his honor, in the third-person of course, but he really needed this job.

"Yeah, uh, what a nuisance," Peter attempted. Aziz seemed to buy it.

"Yeah. So, anyway, it's Peter right? Peter Parker?" Peter nodded. "Okay. So, Peter Parker, what're your qualifications for this job?"

-*-

Aziz told Peter to wait for a call confirming his job title as a pizza delivery boy, but he assured the kid that he had it. He just had to look at the schedule and put him on the payroll first.

It was easily the best news that Peter had gotten in ages. He couldn't wait to finally have enough money to spare on his textbooks (though he figured that he could probably just illegally download a PDF file of the books that he needed from somewhere on the internet). He didn't want to feel like he was wasting his few, precious dollars when he bought the more expensive, better tasting hotdogs.

Peter had to physically restrain himself from skipping his way out the door when he left. His grin was stretched from ear to ear, and he just knew that today was going to be a good day.

That is, until, the sirens started wailing and he saw the black smoke billowing up towards the sky.

Screams of "Somebody! Somebody help!" rang throughout the air. Peter knew that it was selfish of him, but his mood deflated a little. He really wished that that building had chosen any other day to catch fire than this one.

Always the hero, though, Peter sprinted into a back alley and tore his sweater and jeans off to reveal the suit underneath. He whipped the mask out of his backpack and pulled it over his head, and he was off towards the chaos where people were starting to call for Spiderman by name.

Today was going to be a long day.

~