Work Text:
how to introduce yourself to neighbors
how to introduce yourself to neighbors old people
“What’s up?” asks Ned. They’re in physics, but it’s still passing period, so Peter’s spending time on Google like the efficient part-time student, part-time hero he is.
“I’m looking up how to introduce myself to the other New York vigilantes,” Peter says quietly. “Just in case Spider-Man ever needs some extra help.”
After the Vulture, Peter’s been reconsidering the whole Lone Ranger thing he has going on. Now, it seems more advantageous to have some help that can easily reach him in the city. He started planning on how to reach out to some other local superheroes while lying in bed early this morning, staring at his top bunk and trying not to remember how it felt to be crushed and drowning.
“Cool,” Ned says, peering at Peter’s phone. He’s browsing a wikiHow page.
“‘Spend time outside,’” Ned reads. He shakes his head. “Spider-Man’s always outside.”
“‘Have a party.’” Peter scrolls up, saying, “I don’t think May wants me inviting stray vigilantes over to the apartment.”
“‘Introduce your kids to the new neighbors.’ Well, you can do this one if you ever figure that egg-laying thing out.”
“Ned!”
“Dude, wikiHow sucks. Why are we even looking at this?”
“Oh, hey, this one might work,” Peter says, just before the one minute bell rings.
Ned hurries back to his lab bench, and Peter tucks his phone away. He leaves the wikiHow page open, though, so his phone now reads:
“Bring sweets!”
——
One day, when Peter was seven, he really wanted to make cookies because they looked so yummy in Alice in Wonderland . Aunt May and Uncle Ben weren’t exactly the patisserie-baking type, but they could follow the instructions printed on Nestle chocolate chip bags. Ben was in charge of the wet ingredients, while May helped Peter measure out flour and salt and baking soda. At one point, Peter dumped all two and one-fourths cups of flour into the bowl, and the resulting cloud of white powder swallowed his entire face. May panicked, shouting at Peter to “Close your eyes and stop breathing!” while Ben laughed and grabbed for his camera. In an album somewhere on their bookshelf, there’s a blurry photo of Peter, face dusty and white, staring owlishly at the lens while May flutters over him.
The chocolate chip cookies came out black on the bottom, but Ben just scratched the burnt parts off with a fork, and they ate them anyway. Peter doesn’t remember how they tasted.
Peter isn’t making chocolate chip cookies today. He’s making spicy Mexican hot chocolate cookies because they sound cool, and he wants the other vigilantes to think that Spider-Man is cool. He wants Spider-Man to make a memorable impression, so it’s go big or go home, and Peter is not going home until it’s his May-mandated bedtime.
Peter learns that he likes baking, since baking is basically just chemistry, except he can improvise without worrying about being burned by strong acids. And he doesn’t have to wear safety goggles.
The kitchen smells like cocoa powder and cinnamon. Peter is generous with the spices because there is so little else he can be generous with. He doesn’t have enough of anything for anyone.
After wrapping May’s kitchen towels around his hands, Peter carefully pulls a tray of cookies out of the oven. They look perfectly round and cracked. He burns the shit out of his tongue when he tries one, but he doesn’t think they taste bad.
Then again, Peter is a fifteen year old with a super metabolism. And he’s grown up on Aunt May’s cooking.
Well, it’s too late now. Hopefully, the thought will count more to the vigilantes he forces his goodwill on. Peter shrugs, starts cooling the batch, and goes to do homework. After Mr. Stark helped reaffirm Peter’s desire to stay close to the ground, Peter’s been much more focused on school work. If Peter’s gonna be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, he damn well is gonna be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man with a perfect GPA. Vigilante antics won’t get him into MIT.
Aunt May is working late today, so Peter eats leftover glass noodles for dinner. He washes out the styrofoam container the takeout came in, fills it with twelve cookies, and leaves three on a covered plate for May. He hopes she’s pleasantly surprised.
Then, Peter’s suited up and leaping out of his bedroom window. Spider-Man is in the city.
After swinging around Queens a couple times, walking people home, and helping some kids get their kickball out of a tree, Peter heads over to Hell’s Kitchen to see if he can bump into his first target.
Peter’s met Daredevil a couple times, but he hasn’t formally introduced himself. In fact, Daredevil’s the only other New York vigilante that Peter has actually met, since Daredevil seems to have an issue with Spider-Man intruding on his territory.
Which is rude, but Peter won’t blame him for it. After all, Spider-Man is kind of a total noob compared to Daredevil.
That doesn’t mean Peter’s happy about Daredevil roundhouse kicking a mobster away from him and then saying, “Go home.”
It was nice the first four times, but not anymore.
So, when Daredevil emerges from the shadows this time, Peter holds up his hands and blurts out, “I know what you’re gonna say, but before you tell me to go home, let me do something first.”
Daredevil pauses mid-step. He’s climbing over the side of the roof, so Peter’s words make him freeze in some absurd athletic pose that makes him look less like a devil and more like a gecko.
Peter walks over, sticks himself to the side of the building, squats down so that his eyes are level with Daredevil’s, and says, “Hi, I’m Spider-Man. Do you want some cookies?” He holds out the styrofoam container.
Daredevil stares blankly.
He says, “…Can we have this conversation on the roof?”
“Oh, yeah, of course! Sorry.”
They relocate the conversation to the roof.
“Sorry about that, I just— You know, I realized that I never properly introduced myself to you, so I thought tonight was a good night to do it. Sorry. Cookie?” Peter tries again. This interaction is definitely not going how he planned.
“I don’t really like sweets,” Daredevil says. “Thank you, though.”
“Aw, come on. Just try one?” Peter pops open the lid of the styrofoam container and presents his cookies to Daredevil. He even widens his eyes, hoping Daredevil can read earnestness out of the white lenses of his mask.
A long pause.
Daredevil sighs audibly and then plucks a cookie from the box. Peter cheers internally.
Daredevil sniffs the cookie, takes a small bite, and then spits. He starts coughing.
“What’s in that— poison?” he chokes out.
“Cayenne,” Peter says, abashed.
Daredevil nods and continues coughing.
Peter feels pretty bad now. And kind of embarrassed. Will Daredevil let him pat him on the back? At this point, probably not, and Peter shouldn’t risk it. He’s about to apologize and excuse himself from this disastrous social interaction when Daredevil straightens up and holds out his hand.
“Thanks, I’ll take them,” Daredevil says.
Peter blinks. “But— but, you can’t eat them,” he says. He hands over the box of cookies anyway.
Daredevil takes the box, rubbing his gloved fingers against the styrofoam, and says, “I’ll distribute them to my enemies.” Then he leaps off the rooftop and parkours away.
Peter watches him go, wordless.
Then, he says to himself, “I think that went well.”
——
“Mr. Stark, can I use your kitchen?”
“Uh, sure, Pete,” Mr. Stark says over a screen of holographic paperwork. “Wait— are you going to take apart the toaster. No taking apart the toaster. It’s been through enough.”
“I’m not gonna do anything to the toaster,” Peter says, offended. “I just need you to help me with a baking experiment, that’s all.”
“Baking?” Mr. Stark squints. “I didn’t know you baked. Is Aunt May passing down her walnut date loaf recipe?”
“Nah, my stuff has more sugar in it.”
“Well, if you could work in a fast-acting, nonlethal poison that will conveniently debilitate me for the next three weeks, I would be supremely grateful,” Mr. Stark mutters.
Peter shoots him a disapproving look. Mr. Stark sighs.
“Sorry, Pete,” he says. “Just tired of all these meetings over the Accords. General Ross Is being a huge pain in the— butt.”
“You can swear, Mr. Stark.” Peter says as he heads out of the lab. “I’m fifteen, not five.”
“Really? That’s news to me.”
“Don’t make me burn down your kitchen. ‘Cause I will if I have to.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
Forty-five minutes later, when Mr. Stark is reaching for his coffee, Peter shoves a warm, spicy Mexican hot chocolate cookie into his hand instead. Mr. Stark looks at it like he’s never seen a cookie in his life.
“Try it,” Peter says.
Mr. Stark turns the cookie over twice, takes a bite, chews, swallows.
“Huh,” he says, “That’s not bad. Surprisingly good, actually.”
“Really?” Peter says, elated.
“Really,” Mr. Stark says, dipping the cookie into his coffee cup and then shoving the rest of it into his mouth. “Now get back to science-ing. You’re my corporate slave, not my personal chef.”
Peter rushes away to monitor web fluid 2.7, which is refluxing in its designated fume hood. However, he also turns around every thirty seconds to glance at Mr. Stark and see if he’s surreptitiously spitting the cookie out.
He never is. Instead, he’s always absurdly focused on his holographic screen.
Peter doesn’t mean to spy, doesn’t want to betray Mr. Stark’s trust, but Peter is incurably, superheroically nosy. Also, his eyesight is spider-enhanced.
That Sunday, Peter doesn’t learn a lot of science, but he does pick up a lot about what some congressional military leaders want to do with the Sokovia Accords.
Vigilantes are mentioned a scarily large amount of times. So is the Raft.
——
Peter is kidnapped for the first time on Monday.
Well, it’s not technically kidnapping. Peter wouldn’t call it kidnapping. Is it kidnapping if a lady who you think looks familiar but don’t actually recognize cuts you off as you’re walking to your train, tells you you’re a suspect in her investigation, and then drags you to her office in a sketchy building on a mostly abandoned street?
Yeah. Peter doesn’t think so either.
But he’s still not gonna tell Aunt May about it.
The lady leaves Peter standing by the door and collapses into a chair behind an extremely messy desk. Papers fly. Pencils roll. Everything smells like alcohol.
“Uh, ma’am,” Peter says. “Am I in trouble? What investigation am I a suspect in?”
The lady holds up her index finger and then goes rustling around her desk drawers. She pulls out a tall glass bottle, takes a sip, and shrugs. She pours herself a drink.
Peter wonders if it’s too late to leave.
The lady says, “I’m not gonna give alcohol to a minor, but you are allowed to sit.” She jerks her chin towards the fragile-looking wooden chair opposite her.
Peter sits. He‘s still puzzled over why this lady feels so familiar.
And then he figures it out.
“You’re Jessica Jones!” he says. “From, like, the news and stuff!”
“Yeah,” Miss Jones drains her glass. “And you’re Spider-Man from YouTube.”
Peter freezes.
“Wh-What?” Peter’s having a heart attack. This is what a heart attack feels like. “I mean— no. No, I’m not.”
“Uh, yes, you are. I’m a PI,” Miss Jones says. “And you sound like a cartoon chipmunk on uppers. It’s distinctive.”
Peter is very offended, but he’s too scared to say anything about it. He’s panicking. He feels naked, vulnerable. He wants to spit out another denial.
Instead, what he says is “…Please don’t tell anyone.”
Miss Jones shrugs and kicks her feet up onto the desk. “I’m not in the business of outing thirteen year olds.”
“I’m fifteen,” Peter says.
Miss Jones shrugs again. She pours herself another drink. They sit quietly for a little while and stare at each other.
Eventually, Peter says, “So...why am I here?”
Miss Jones blinks, then appears to remember that she hasn’t told Peter shit.
“Right,” she says. “I need your recipe for those spicy Mexican hot chocolate cookies.”
Miss Jones digs around her desk drawers until she finds an official-looking document and a cracked fountain pen. She flips the document over so that it’s blank side up, and then she hands both pen and paper to Peter.
She tells him, “They go well with whiskey.”
——
While taking a break from his old-fashioned soft pumpkin cookie dough, Peter texts Mr. Stark, asking, do chocolate and whiskey go together?
He mixes for a couple minutes before his phone screen lights up.
Yes
But don’t try to test that experimentally or I’ll tell Aunt May
k thx , Peter replies. Then he adds, how r accords things?
Not great. May have to cancel Stark Internship Sunday this week.
:(
Also, it may be prudent for a certain mutual friend of ours to lie low for a while. Just in case some politicians get jumpy.
:((((((((
——
Peter’s heading home from another failed cookie taste test with Daredevil when he spies movement out of the corner of his eye. Someone’s following him.
Peter clutches his cookies to his side and does a fast barrel roll halfway through his swing, making a sharp left turn and darting away from Queens. Peter is not leading any stalkers home. May does that enough for the whole Parker household.
Hmm. Maybe Spider-Man should start walking Aunt May home more often.
Anyway, Peter’s doing his best to ninja his stalker away, but then the stalker starts talking.
“Whoa, hey! Wait up! Spider-Man, right? I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Peter swings faster.
“No, wait! Daredevil told me about you! And Jessica Jones, kind of! I’m a superhero, too!”
Peter stops swinging and lands on the closest streetlight. He turns around. There’s some blond guy running after him in the streets. He doesn’t look like a superhero; he’s wearing a three piece suit. But his smile is nice, so he’s probably safe.
And if he isn’t, well. Peter feels like he could take him.
Peter jumps down from the light as the guy straightens his tie. He holds out his hand.
“Hi, I’m Danny Rand, also known as the Immortal Iron Fist. Nice to meet you!”
Mr. Rand shakes Peter’s hand very enthusiastically. His fist is not made of iron.
“Um, hi,” Peter says, “nice to meet you, too. I’m— Spider-Man, as you obviously already know.”
But Mr. Rand has already noticed the styrofoam container Peter is holding to his side. “Hey,” he says. “Is that more cookies?”
“Oh— Uh, yeah. They’re old-fashioned soft pumpkin cookies,” Peter says, opening the box so Mr. Rand can see. “But Daredevil said I put in too much cloves so— “
“They smell amazing,” Mr. Rand says. “Can I try one?”
“Sure?” Peter wonders if Mr. Rand was the type of kid who took candy from strangers in white vans.
Mr. Rand shoves an entire cookie in his mouth, chews, swallows.
“Wow!” he says. “These are great!”
“Really? ‘Cause I was worried about the pumpkin to egg ratio, and the recipes I based this off of all use pumpkin that doesn’t come from a can, so, like— And that was even before the cloves thing got Daredevil all sneezy.”
“No, these are really good. You could sell these! Actually...” Mr. Rand trails off. He takes the box of cookies from Peter and holds it up to the streetlight, examining it from different angles.
“...Mr. Rand?” Peter says.
Mr. Rand nods to himself and asks, “You know who could really use some sweetening up?”
“Who?”
Mr. Rand takes Peter to a club called Harlem’s Paradise. Peter’s never been to a club before. It’s a little overwhelming. It smells like adults, and there are lights flashing everywhere.
Peter sticks close to Mr. Rand as they navigate towards the bar top. Some people give Peter’s Spider-Man suit a second glance, but they turn away pretty quickly. It’s obvious that vigilantes aren’t a rare sight around here. Or maybe skintight bodysuits with full masks are normal clubwear. Peter doesn’t know.
“Hey, Luke,” Mr. Rand says as he sidles into a bar stool. Peter sits down next to him and then looks up at the bartender for the first time.
Holy shit.
“Hey,” the real actual Luke Cage, Hero of Harlem, says. Then he catches sight of Peter and adds, “Danny, this is an eighteen and over club.”
“But he’s Spider-Man!”
“I— I’m an adult!”
Mr. Cage gives Peter a look. “You sound like a cartoon chipmunk,” he says.
Peter deflates, and Mr. Rand laughs until he notices the look Mr. Cage is also shooting him. Mr. Rand coughs and sits up straighter.
“Luke, you must be wondering why I brought Spider-Man here today.”
Mr. Cage doesn’t confirm or deny anything.
“Well, it’s because we— “ Mr. Rand gestures at both Peter and himself “— have a business proposal for you.”
Peter doesn’t know where the “we” is coming from. He’s here because he needs to reuse that styrofoam container if no one wants it.
“How would you,” Mr. Rand says, “like to be the exclusive vendor of Spider-Man’s homemade desserts?” Mr. Rand drops Peter’s box of pumpkin cookies onto the bar top with a flourish. He spreads his arms and gestures to the cookies with dramatic flair.
Mr. Cage crosses his arms. Mr. Rand beams. No one says anything.
The second-hand embarrassment is strong with this one. Peter is embarrassed.
“This is a nightclub,” Mr. Cage finally says, “not a bakery.”
“It could be a bakery if you wanted it to be a bakery.”
“No, Danny.”
“Why not? I think it’d be good for the club. A little bit of sugar to spruce things up could raise profits!”
“…How are you still a billionaire?”
“Due to my peerless business acumen. And a large inheritance.”
Peter rests his chin in his hands and just listens to the back and forth. Before meeting all the Manhattan vigilantes, Peter had wondered how such different people managed to work together so well. But now—
“I get it!” Peter says, pointing at Mr. Cage. “You’re the mom friend.”
Mr. Cage and Mr. Rand take a break from bantering to stare at Peter. They exchange a glance.
“...No,” says Mr. Cage.
“No, yeah, you totally are! You’re the mom, Mr. Rand is the youngest child, and Daredevil and Miss Jones are the salty older siblings who’re always arguing. That’s why you guys work!”
“We don’t have a dad?” Mr. Rand asks.
Peter thinks about it.
“I could be the dad if you want?” he says.
“No,” Mr. Cage says. He takes one of Peter’s pumpkin cookies, and tells him that if he ever needs help, he can come find Mr. Cage at the club during the day. During non-operational hours, Mr. Cage specifies. And then he chases Mr. Rand and Peter out of his club.
“Well, that was a bust,” Mr. Rand says. “Sorry about that, Spider-Man.”
“It’s okay,” Peter says. And it is. Peter’s just happy that he got to meet the actual Luke Cage. The actual Luke Cage took one of Peter’s cookies. Luke Cage, Hero of Harlem, invited Peter back to his club if he ever needed help.
It’s a great day. And that’s even before Peter runs into the dog.
After pushing the rest of his pumpkin cookies onto Mr. Rand, who accepts them with a cheerful “That’s dinner then,” Peter’s walking to the former Avengers Tower so that he can remember where Mr. Cage’s club is in relation to it. He’s just turned onto Columbus Circle when he feels a wet nose press into his palm.
“Ah!” Peter yelps, and the dog cowers. He’s skinny, grey and white with a dirty choker chain on. Peter instantly falls in love.
“Oh, no, no, no,” Peter says, crouching down. “Sorry, puppy, you just surprised me.”
Peter pulls out a Pup-Peroni dog treat and places it in his palm, holding his hand out to the dog. The dog slowly creeps forward, then lips the treat out of Peter’s hand. Peter takes this opportunity to carefully pat the dog’s head. The dog responds to this touch very enthusiastically, wagging his tail and shoving his entire body into Peter’s hands.
“Aw, you’re a good boy, aren’t you? Yes, you’re such a sweet puppy—“ Peter checks the tag on his choker chain “—Max.”
Peter picks Max up and holds him like a baby, swinging with one arm towards the little vet clinic that’s always willing to check if lost pets are chipped. They owe Spider-Man a couple favors; he’s helped them retrieve at least six geckos from their ceiling vents.
Peter hugs Max a little bit more tightly. He’s taken to being airborne really well, just lying on Peter’s shoulder and panting. Peter hopes the vets will be able to help him find Max’s owner.
His owner must be kinda weird, though, to put a skull tag on such a cute dog.
——
Mr. Stark manages to salvage Stark Internship Sunday, but Peter notices the darker-than-usual circles under his eyes. This Accords thing is really taking a lot out of him. Peter tries to limit his questions to a rate of three per minute, so Mr. Stark can relax a bit more.
Maybe Peter can convince him that they need a scheduled nap time? There’s a lounge near the lab that looks like it has a really comfy couch in it.
But, before Peter can slip this suggestion into the conversation, FRIDAY alerts Mr. Stark that he has received an urgent message from Colonel Rhodes.
Mr. Stark swipes it onto his holographic screen. His eyes drift down the page and then go wide. His mouth thins, and he suddenly looks even paler than before.
“Sorry, kid,” he says. “Looks like we’ll have to cut science time short this week.”
“Mr. Stark—“
“I’ll have Happy come pick you up in ten minutes. Don’t do anything crazy this week, Pete. Grey area, remember? And for Aunt May’s sake, keep your head down.”
Mr. Stark hurries into the elevator. Peter is left alone in the lab.
The message Mr. Stark received from Colonel Rhodes is still open, hovering above his desk. Peter glances around before quickly walking over and skimming the entire thing.
Then, he staggers backwards and collapses onto his lab stool.
“Holy shit,” he says. “I have to tell Ned.”
——
“They can’t do that! You’re Spider-Man!”
“Apparently, they can, and if the Accords pass now, they will.”
“Fuck. What the fuck.”
A long pause.
“…Ned, if they take me away, will you look after Aunt May for me?”
“Don’t say stuff like that, Peter. No one will let the government take Spider-Man away.”
“But no one knows what the Accords are actually like! I mean, I supported the Accords until a couple of hours ago! Mr. Stark fought all his best friends for the Accords! And now they’re— they’re—“
“Politicians are weasels, dude. You can’t trust anything they say.”
“— I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I have to— go underground or something— fake my own death— “
“Peter. Peter. Calm down. If the only problem is that people don’t know what the Accords are really like, then all we have to do is tell everyone what they’re really like.”
“And how do we do that?!”
“It’s the age of the Internet— We launch the rebellion on social media. I’m your guy in the chair, dude. This is what I’m here for.”
“Okay— okay, cool, thanks, guy in the chair. Happy to have you on the team.”
“But, Peter— I can run a social media campaign for you, but there’s only so much fifty-thousand notes on Tumblr will do. You need some actual adult help.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah, I know some actual adults.”
——
“Miss Jones!” Peter calls, bursting into her office. Miss Jones is sitting with her head down on her desk. She rolls a little bit, so Peter can receive the full extent of her hangover glare.
“Sorry,” he says, recoiling. “But I really need your help!”
“What,” Miss Jones says into her hair.
“It’s about the Sokovia Accords,” Peter says.
“No.” Miss Jones buries her face back into her desk. “Get out.”
“Please, Miss Jones!” Peter feels like he might actually start crying. “Please, you’re the only vigilante I know who even works in something close to law enforcement— No one in the government is listening to Mr. Stark— and if the Accords pass the way they are now, the government will take me away from my aunt and put me in a maximum security prison on a boat somewhere, and— and they’ll plant alien eggs in me just to see if I can survive an alien baby popping out of my chest. I don’t want an alien baby to pop out of my chest!”
Peter can’t breathe, so he bends over, like he’s still that asthmatic kid who can’t run a mile in twenty minutes. Then he starts feeling dizzy, so he lies down on Miss Jones’s carpet and curls up on his side.
It smells like alcohol and chocolate.
Footsteps. Then Miss Jones is dropping down on the floor next to him.
“Deep breaths,” she says.
Peter tries to take deep breaths. He counts the crumbs on the carpet.
“…I really do need help with this Accords thing, Miss Jones,” Peter gasps out.
Miss Jones hesitates, and then she says, “I don’t really do stuff like that, kid.”
“Oh.” Peter swallows. He takes another deep breath.
He knows he should probably leave now and stop wasting Miss Jones’s time, but he still can’t manage to get up off the carpet. Everything is too heavy.
Miss Jones leans back against her desk, knocking her head against the wood with an audible thunk, and stares at the water-stained ceiling.
They breath together for a while.
Then, Miss Jones lets out a gusty sigh and says, “Do you take orders.”
“What?” Peter says, confused. “Uh, not well?” he tries.
“No,” Miss Jones squints. “Do you take orders for baked goods.”
“Oh!” Peter is embarrassed. “Oh, um, I can?”
“Okay,” Miss Jones says. “I want two dozen hot chocolate cookies and some of those pumpkin things, too. And whatever else I need to get through the day.”
“Uh— sure,” Peter says, sitting up.
Miss Jones stretches her arms, cracks her neck, and says, “Congratulations. You’ve officially hired a PI to help you with your Accords thing.”
Peter resists the urge to hug her. He feels like she wouldn’t like that.
Instead, he blurts out, “Ohmigod, thank you.” Then he adds, “But, I thought you said you didn’t do stuff like that.”
“It’s fine,” Miss Jones says. “I know a lawyer.”
——
“—So that’s basically what Miss Jones’s lawyer was able to find out about the Accords. Without Mr. Stark’s proposed revisions, General Ross and his council will be able to treat all heroes— or even just anyone with powers— as their personal soldiers. They’ll keep us in this maximum security prison called the Raft, and they’ll be free to— I don’t know— cut us apart or poison us and do any experiment on us in the name of research. There aren’t any regulations or oversight about what’s going on in the Raft. We don’t even know how many people they’re holding there right now.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful,” says Mr. Rand.
“Right?” Peter says.
“How haven’t we heard of this before?”
“They were really hush-hush about it. They introduced the Accords as a set of supervisory mandates for internationally active superhero teams and didn’t show anyone the actual documents until they needed congressional approval. That was a couple weeks ago.”
“But that’s not fair!” Mr. Rand exclaims.
Mr. Cage is quiet.
“Someone launched an anti-Accords social media campaign on Tumblr, but it hasn’t really caught on yet,” Peter explains glumly. “That’s why I wanted to get you guys involved. Can you do anything to help stop the Accords? I don’t want to be experimented on in a max security prison for the rest of my life.”
Peter drops his head onto the bar top. Mr. Cage slips his hand in between Peter’s forehead and the marble before he can knock his brains out on the counter.
“We’ll help,” Mr. Cage says. “And if Jessica and her lawyer are on the case, then you don’t have to worry so much. They’re the best in the business.”
Peter nods into Mr. Cage’s palm.
Mr. Rand starts typing furiously on his phone.
He says, “I have three point two million followers on Instagram, and they’re all gonna hear about this.”
It becomes a meme within the hour.
Actually, Mr. Rand’s original rant about the Accords is less of a meme and more of a call-out post that got bitten by a radioactive think tank. But, it has the same effect. Everyone is threatening to swarm the streets and overrun the White House to protest the Accords, though no one’s really sure how serious most of the posters are.
It still makes Peter feel better.
Mr. Cage monitors Twitter, where #RaidtheRaft is trending. Peter is on Tumblr, consolidating information about how to protect yourself from pepper spray and officers trying to arrest you during a protest. Mr. Rand is doing a Q&A on his Instagram story.
After forty-five minutes, Mr. Rand sighs and slumps onto the bar top, saying, “I’m getting a lot of noise from young activists and college kids, but that’s it. Thaddeus Ross and the higher ups won’t be threatened by them. We need some rep from other demographics.”
Mr. Cage nods thoughtfully. “Maybe we should get the Punisher involved,” he says.
“The— The Punisher?” Peter swallows nervously. He‘d been kind of a mess when the Punisher appeared very bloodily in the public eye, but even then he’d been depressed, not deaf. Peter’s heard of what the Punisher does. “Isn’t he a little bit too, um, serial-killing mass murder-y?”
“You would think, right?” Mr. Cage snorts. “But it’s a part of his charm. He has a secret cult following among some of the police officers and the military. He’s their guilty pleasure.”
“Uh...”
“Right! The Punisher might work. Spider-Man, do you think you could get in touch with him?” Mr. Rand starts scribbling an address onto a napkin.
“Um...” Peter’s sweating. A lot.
“Don’t worry, Spider-Man. He has a soft spot for kids.”
“I’m not a kid!”
“Try that again when your voice stops cracking, kid.”
——
Peter is kicked out of the club and sent off to contact a murderous vigilante. Why that’s not an eighteen and over job, Peter will never know.
The address Mr. Rand wrote leads to a rundown building weirdly close to the rooftop where Peter meets Daredevil for cookie taste tests. Peter tries to summon the joy he felt when Daredevil finally approved of his lemon princess cookies to garner the courage to knock on the door.
Peter takes a deep breath. He knocks.
After a long minute, the door slowly creaks open and— “Hey, you’re Max’s dad!” Peter says.
And he is. The man staring down at Peter from behind the door is the guy who came to pick Max up from the vet two weeks ago. Peter recognizes his haircut. It’s a cool haircut.
“How is Max? Can I see him?” Peter pleads. Max’s dad hesitates for a moment and then opens the door a little wider. A grey blur immediately tackles Peter to the sidewalk.
“Good boy, Max!” Peter says, laughing and rubbing Max’s ears with both hands. “Who’s a good boy! You are! You are!”
Max repeatedly licks Peter’s masked face. They roll around on the doorstep until Max is lying on his back, his front paw braced on Peter’s chest, while Peter leans over him and gives him firm belly rubs.
After three minutes of focused belly-scratching, Peter remembers that he actually came here on official business. He reluctantly tears his eyes away from Max.
Max’s dad is still standing in the doorway. His arms are crossed, face neutral, like it’s totally normal for friendly neighborhood vigilantes to show up and play with his dog.
And maybe it is. The Punisher could like dogs. Peter doesn’t know.
“Hey, sir?” Peter says. “Do you know if the Punisher lives around here? My friend gave me his address, but I think I got lost.”
“What do you want the Punisher for?” Max’s dad says.
“Social media politics,” Peter shrugs, petting Max’s flank absentmindedly. “And to keep me from being dissected in some max security prison in the ocean somewhere.”
Max’s dad looks at Peter. He seems like he’s considering something.
“You’re not lost,” he finally says.
“Huh?” Peter is scratching behind Max’s right ear.
“I’m the Punisher.”
Peter freezes.
“What?”
The Punisher invites Peter in, saying that if Peter wants to make out with his dog, Peter should have the decency to keep it off his streets. Peter follows, because his higher brain functions haven’t fully recovered yet.
The Punisher sits Peter down in one of the dirtiest kitchens he’s ever seen. He notices that the Punisher sits between him and every possible exit, yet the Punisher is somehow also closer to the kitchen knives than he is.
Peter starts taking lots of deep breaths.
The Punisher whistles sharply, and Max pads into the kitchen, too. He sits down next to Peter. That helps a little.
“What social media politics shit are you here for then,” the Punisher says.
“H-Have you been paying attention to the Sokovia Accords, sir?”
The Punisher shrugs.
“The way they’re written right now— They threaten all of us with conscription and experimentation and imprisonment. All of us. All heroes.”
The Punisher leans forward dangerously and says, “I’m not a hero. I ain’t got superpowers.”
Peter flinches and tries not to hyperventilate. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times before finding his voice.
“But— But, you’re still working on keeping your neighborhood safe. So, in this context, you are a hero— a vigilante, sir. That’s how the Accords are written right now,” Peter says. He takes a deep breath, holds for two seconds, and launches into his speech. Peter rehearsed this in front of Mr. Cage three times before coming out to find the Punisher, so he thinks it’s pretty good. Which is good, because the Punisher seems less than impressed with him.
“The people pushing the Accords right now don’t want to keep everyone safe,” Peter looks the Punisher in the eye. “They want to keep everyone controlled. They want to keep vigilantes like us under control, so they can use us to hurt whoever threatens their power. The Accords as they are now aren’t about supervising heroes and protecting people. They’re about consolidating power in the hands of a small group of people, so they can use us to build private armies that target the people we want to protect.”
The Punisher looks at Peter solemnly.
“So, we need your help.” Peter finishes. “Because if we don’t speak up for ourselves and our neighborhoods, then no one will.”
The Punisher is silent for a long, long time. Peter’s heart feels like a hummingbird. Max presses his chin onto Peter’s knee, and Peter pats him on the head.
Finally, the Punisher says, “What do you need me to do?”
Peter breathes a sigh of relief. “Just a statement,” he says, “explaining why you oppose the Accords as they are now. You could post it online or— I‘m not sure if you have social media actually— you could tell the local news or something?”
The Punisher makes a statement.
It’s an effective statement. Very bloody. And it happens on live TV, so everyone is now very aware of what the Punisher thinks of the Accords and how they’ll affect him. Everyone also knows how the Accords will affect the politicians who pass them, since the Punisher very explicitly described how he would inflict these effects on those politicians.
Support for Mr. Stark’s Accords revisions grows by the hour.
Peter doesn’t see the Punisher’s statement live because no one his age watches TV news anymore. But, he does watch the clips that are posted online. In all of them, eighty percent of the video is blurred out. Half of the words that leave the Punisher’s mouth are bleeped. It’s very impressive.
Peter’s still pretty scared of the Punisher. But, if he just thinks of him as Max’s dad and the guy who did Peter a big favor by demanding that the government revises the Sokovia Accords, then everything is a lot kinder and easier.
Peter is good at compartmentalizing. It’ll work out.
Peter bakes Max some peanut butter dog treats shaped like bones. Peter bakes Max’s dad some chocolate biscotti. He packs them into a gift bag, writes a note, drops the bag onto the Punisher’s doorstep, knocks until he hears Max barking, and then swings away as fast as he can.
——
At this point, Peter’s mobilized most of New York’s vigilante population against the Accords, which means that Peter’s mobilized most of New York against the Accords. Public outcry is thunderous. The East Coast’s congresspeople are all quivering in their mansions, waiting to be overrun by angry New Yorkers holding signs with their city’s vigilantes printed on them.
Except for Spider-Man. Spider-Man is not a big symbol of the anti-Accords movement. This is mostly due to how Spider-Man doesn’t have much of an online presence, besides the infinite gallery of Spider-Man fail videos and Spider-Man pet rescue videos on YouTube. He’s also the newest hero of NYC, so it appears that most vigilante fans have collectively decided to keep him out of the Accords business.
This is something that Peter’s definitely not frustrated about at all.
So, now Peter spends most of his free time browsing raid the Raft memes, baking sweets for the vigilantes he’s recruited to keep him undissected, and very intentionally not panicking.
Spider-Man does his regularly scheduled neighborhood work, and if any tabloid reporters try to chase him down with questions about his fellow vigilantes and their statements on the Sokovia Accords, he climbs up the tallest building available and swings away when he’s out of sight of the cameras.
Mr. Stark told Peter to keep his head down. Peter will defer to Mr. Stark in this case because he doesn’t do politics, and he doesn’t want to screw anything up.
Also because Miss Jones, Mr. Cage, Mr. Rand, and Daredevil won’t include him in the plans they’ve been making about galvanizing the city against the Accords.
Meanies.
But, yeah, Peter doesn’t really do politics. Peter’s a teenage vigilante with a STEM bias. He can’t vote for anything except Midtown’s student council and what theme he wants for prom. So, he thinks he should be forgiven for spending more time studying intermolecular forces than the US government, which directly leads to him not even knowing that the Accords have been rejected in favor of extensive revisions under bipartisan oversight until Mr. Stark calls him while he’s doing a physics problem set.
“Really? Really really?”
“Yup, really really. Good job staying close to the ground, kid. The Spider-Man kitten rescue compilation video on YouTube was just what we needed to convince Congress not to lock all vigilantes into a maximum security facility.”
“Ha ha, Mr. Stark. But, really, thank you. I definitely did not want to spend the rest of my life trapped on the Raft. Thanks, Mr. Stark. You really saved me.”
“…No problem, kid. By the way, Stark Internship Sundays are back on starting this week. And let’s do that movie night you’ve been hinting at, too, just to celebrate. I’ll have Happy pick you up at noon Saturday. We can watch the security footage of the raid— I’ve heard it’s fantastic.”
“Wait, what? What raid?”
“You haven’t heard about this? One of the facilities Ross prepped for pre-Raft containment was raided right before Congress met. The whole building got trashed. Everything just— destroyed. Millions of dollars in damages. Really showed Congress how prepared Ross and his groupies were for supervising angry vigilantes— God, I hope someone took a picture of his face—“
“Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Who raided the facility?”
“Huh, I thought you’d know. It was all over Instagram. Four pretty famous New York-based vigilantes. They’ve teamed up in the past, too. You ever bump into them, Pete? I think the public calls them the— Pete? Peter? Did you just hang up on me? This kid, I swear, Rhodey—“
Peter bursts into Mr. Cage’s club. Everyone freezes. Miss Jones is picking at her bruised knuckles. Mr. Cage is handing Mr. Rand one of Peter’s pumpkin cookies. The last guy, who Peter decides has to be Daredevil, is staring at Peter. Well, he would be if he didn’t have a bandana wrapped around the upper half of his face.
They all look a little tired, but overall pretty uninjured for vigilantes. Peter inwardly sighs in relief.
Outwardly, he says, “Holy crap. Did you guys storm a superhero containment facility? Without me?!”
Miss Jones and Mr. Cage exchange a look. Mr. Rand shifts his weight from foot to foot.
Daredevil says, “...No.”
“What the fuck! I can’t believe you guys!” Peter resists the urge to stomp his foot. Then he decides to do it anyway. They already think he’s a fetus— He can’t possibly make it worse.
“Children shouldn’t swear,” Daredevil says. Mr. Rand nods in agreement. Miss Jones swigs her whiskey, and Mr. Cage stays quiet.
Peter throws his hands up and storms off.
Nobody gets any sugar that week.