Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Bianca gets the call, she’s in her pants, squatted in front of the fridge. It’s only just hit 80 outside after a suffocatingly hot day in court, so she’s ready to lie topless on her unmade bed watching whatever shit ABC sit-com and eating sliced mango until her laptop becomes too hot to bear anymore, at which point she might take a cold shower. Or she might lie in the dark, contemplating her life choices and listening to the drone of the Long Island Expressway. Both equally unappealing, yet unfortunately likely.

Getting down to NY-Pres to talk to Spider-Man?

“Spider-Man?” she asks and almost laughs, but she’s tired. Tired in that summer way, but also tired in that way that’s less tired and more existentially exhausted, a rare honest answer to the question “how are you” in a life slowly running down the drain.

“Yeah,” comes the reply from the receiver, and he doesn’t elaborate.

“What do you need me for? He’s Spider-Man, I’m not sure what help I’ll be?

“Nah, not what the Captain’s been saying,” Marcus drawled, “From what I’ve heard we talking Spider-Kid, Spider-Boy, whatever. This building in Flushing, Tombstone hideout I think they reckon, collapsed on his head, and the kid can’t remember his own name. Captain, he wants you down here.”

She find herself thinking a couple times a day at least that things seem made-up; laughably so, but they’re so far down this line of history that Queens’ favourite vigilante being, what, a teenager? seems just to be the next logical thing.

“Sure,” she sighs, as if it was a choice. Technically she wasn’t on call, and technically she was an only an informal consultant, but you don’t really say no to the police. Plus, if Spidey really was a minor, she would not want him facing the wrath of the NYPD on his own. “Tell them I’ll be there in half-an-hour, and email details if you have any.”

So that’s how she’s tailing a cop down a hospital corridor on her Friday night, in a pantsuit liberally doused in perfume and touting a handbag trying desperately not to look like an overnight bag.

“Think Spidey might have some fans here,” Marcus waves his hand around, pushing open a door to an otherwise unassuming narrow corridor, save for two tall white men of unknown affiliation stood either end of a door at the far end. “Either that or SHIELD is taking this much more seriously than we were expecting.”

She nods, neither agreeing nor wanting to weigh in. In this part of the building, the beating heart of a working hospital is inaudible, and she has to strain to be able to hear the sirens of incoming ambulances, let alone the familiar hum of the street outside.

“We need you to get him to talk- a next-of-kin, address, anything that can get the ball rolling for investigations. And, uh, yeah, the FBI and SHIELD both want in on this, but since you’re our consultant, the Captain wants you talkin’ to us and only us- if anyone gives you trouble have them get him on the phone, no matter the hour. He’ll be round in the morning. First thing.”

“You said on the phone- he can’t remember his name? Do we have a diagnosis?” Bianca pokes her chin out, trying to switch back to professional mode and not get too put out by how unorthodox all of this was becoming.

“Some kinda amnesia.” She resists to urge to roll her eyes at that. “The doctor’s been in and out so ask them. But yeah, I heard he was out of consciousness since they brought him in until lunchtime today, and when he woke up he was really confused… Really confused. So we got nothing, besides prints, and we’re not holding out for a match. Which is why we got you.”

“Lunchtime today?” she picked out the wording, and went ahead and asked the question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to, “When was this warehouse collapse?”

“The 109th responded 2am this morning.”

She checks her phone, still clasped in one clammy hand. It was nearly 8pm; almost 18 hours had passed before the NYPD had alerted social services that they had a child in custody. Her presence and expertise was an afterthought.

“So he’s been without supervision or legal aid since then?”

“We ain’t charged him yet- though ’s only a matter of time. And yeah, since we couldn’t get his name, we wasn’t sure he was a minor. But now the FBI and SHIELD are involved- and it’s only a matter of time before the DODC and Homeland Security stick they noses in too- guess the Captain thought it was good to do things by the books.”

She’d heard horror stories about this sort of thing. Kids can disappear and the system is too overwhelmed to care, and all that’s left behind are whispers and acronyms.

“Breaking the Sokovia Accords is a felony, and Spider-Man ain’t registered. On top of that, the collars on property damage and numerous assaults would go a ways to getting the precinct back on the City’s good side, up our arrest rate, the works. Then there’s the publicity the 107th’d get from unmasking a vigilante who’s evaded the feds and the force for years. So this means a lot to the Captain. No pressure.”

They’re outside that guarded door now, and she swears the uniformed men are sneering at her. She thinks she recognises them from the precinct, but right now they’re straddling the line between uniform and plain clothes, and she wonders if they’re private security. No badges, no IDs, no company logo. Marcus flashes his badge in their direction and gestures to her.

“Bianca Browne, State Office of Children and Family Services. She has full clearance."

Their expressions don’t change, but she’s worked alongside cops long enough to know they don’t.

Despite the sign on the door deigning the room for “Resident Training”, she opens the door to find a relatively normal looking hospital room. A window with a slightly obscured view of the park a few blocks away takes up most of the back wall, and there’s a table in the corner stacked with books and what looks to be dummy body parts. And then there, in the bed, is her charge.

She was expecting him to be in the suit.

But there, in that bed, it isn’t Spider-Man. It’s a boy- definitely a boy; he’s tiny. He’s white- Bianca has a funny feeling she already knew that, but seeing him in person is something else- with a crop of curly brown hair stuck to his forehead and neck with sweat. One arm is in a soft looking sling, and the blankets are folded neatly at his abdomen, as if someone had taken the care to do so and he hadn’t moved since. A nasal cannula snakes its way across his face, and there’s an IV in his arm, but otherwise he doesn’t look that bad for a previously comatose head-injury patient.

The next thing she notices is the cuff that attaches his other wrist to the railing of the bed. It’s no normal cuff- it’s had a green LED embedded in it and is a lot thicker than the normal ones, with no chain attachment. It attaches his left hand to the railing too neatly, as if made for this expressed purpose. She composes her face, trying not to let too much anger leak out onto her brow, and spins on her heel, looking to where she expected Marcus to be in the doorway.

Only he wasn’t there.

She looks back at Spidey again. He’s so small on that bed, so pale, a million miles from the red and blue that announced itself on the 7pm news.

She scowls.

“Hi Spider-Man,” she announces, possibly quieter than she otherwise would. Part of her doesn’t want to wake him. “I’m Bianca Browne, I’ll be your child protection caseworker. You’re at New York-Presbytarian Hospital in Queens, and I’m here to help the hospital find the best course of treatment and help us get in touch with your family.”

To her surprise, the boy moves his head ever so slightly and squints his eyes open.

If she’d been much further away, she’s not sure she would have noticed he moved at all. But all of a sudden, when she meets his glazed eyes, he’s the only person in the world.

She tries not to let the surprise leak out onto her face, giving him a big, nervous smile and pulling an ugly chair round to his bedside.

“The hospital is pretty sure, but you’re a minor right? You’re under 18? You’re not in trouble, it’s important we know so we can protect you.”

He pauses for a moment, and if though she’s only known him a few seconds, the full range of emotion that pans across his face in minute detail with such childlike openness means Bianca knows the answer before he makes a tiny, hesitant nod.

“Ok, then I’m in the right place. I’m here to help.” She smiles, more for her own sake than his- she realises she’s really nervous. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t part of your case sooner, but I’m here to make things go as smoothly as possible from here onwards. I’m not sure what the police have told you but you’re not expected to answer questions until you have legal representation or a parent or guardian present; and even then, you don’t have to answer anything if you don’t want to. So basically, don’t worry about them, they’re meanies,” Bianca smiles, though her heart drops when the boy’s eyes close again.

“I know you’re tired hun,” she goes in for the save. “But I need to ask you a few questions so we can get the ball rolling.” Marcus’ phrasing rolls off her tongue too easily, and she realises an idiom like that was probably parroted straight from the Captain in the first place. Airs and graces weren’t Marcus’ style.

“First of all, how are you feeling? 1 to 10? Any pain?” His diagnosis was still an unknown to her, but it seemed like the right place to start. Indeed, he opened his eyes again, and said something very soft through cracked lips.

“Sorry, can you speak a little louder? Do you want me to get you some water?”

She had to strain to hear, and was momentarily grateful for this eerily quiet corner of the hospital, so she could just about make out what Spider-Man was trying to say.

“S’bright.”

“It’s bright?” She looked up at the fluorescent bars, then back at the boy, who’d closed his eyes again. “The lights are too bright. We can sort that, let’s just find a switch.”

There didn’t seem to be an obvious switch by the door, and Bianca was reluctant to check outside and have to face those stony-faced guards again. She went to check out the other option, pulling a supplies trolley back from the wall, when the door opened and a professional-looking woman with high cheekbones and a pristine ponytail announced herself.

“What are you doing?” she accuses. Even without looking, she can feel Spider-Man flinch at the sudden noise behind her.

“Trying to find a switch,” she says hurriedly but with a softer tone than the one she was addressed with, and looks up at the florescent bar in the ceiling, as if it were on her side, “For the light. He… He said it was too bright.”

“Oh,” she says, still stony-faced. She walks to the adjacent wall and flicks off all but one of the lights, leaving the room in a low, eerie glow. Her face looks softer now, and Bianca’s not sure it’s entirely down to the lighting.

They both look back at Spider-Man, and is glad to see his eyes have opened again, and he’s watching them both with slightly less strain on his face.

“Better?” she asks, but it’s not really a question. All the same, Spidey’s mouth tugs into a weak, one-sided smile, and she’s satisfied.

“And you are?” the woman asks then, unlocking the slim tablet she’d brought in with her.

“Bianca Browne. I’m his assigned social worker.”

“Dr Li. Head of Neurology, and Mr Doe’s doctor for tonight.” She paused, and then added, as if in concession, “That wall is a fake wall, it wasn’t always there, hence there are no electrics in it. The residents didn’t need as much room to train when the hospital cut its funding to teaching.”

She turns her attention back to her patient, but Bianca doesn’t mind. She'd rather not be the one subject to Dr Li's scrutiny right now.

“You’re one important John Doe,” she mutters. She seems to be leafing through his notes on the tablet, and muttering things under her breath.

“OK, how are you feeling?” Her eyes flick up to the monitors by Spider-Man’s bedside, and judging by her lack of reaction, they’re OK.

The boy groans as a reply, almost sarcastically, and Bianca remembers Spider-Man’s habit for quipping and has to restrain a smile.

“You’re responding extremely well given your condition, and you’ve improved a lot since you came in,” she says, pulling over a wheeled stool to the opposite side of the bed. “Dr Park who was with you earlier thinks this is to do with an enhanced healing factor. I am not going to ask you if you have a mutation as if you tell me you do, I am legally required to report it to the relevant bodies,” her eyes flash, “But mutant or not, please know if you have any concerns about your course of treatment, you can take it up with myself or your social worker.”

Spider-Man still seems pretty out of it, eyes barely open now, but from where she’s stood on the other side of the bed, it looks as if he’s trying his best to hold Li’s gaze. The stare is quite intense, and Li is surprisingly the first to break it after a few seconds, placing her tablet aside and beginning to examine his face and neck.

“First things first, we can remove that sling. We got your new X-rays back and your fractures have healed really fast, so you don’t need it.” Li seems to pick her words carefully, and enunciates them in a way that in any other situation might have seemed patronising, yet Spider-Man seems gravitated toward her, almost leaning forward as she spoke. Bianca pulls the chair back round and sits down, which seems to please Li, and her shoulders relax and she pushes herself over on the stool to retrieve a pair of scissors from a cart in the corner of the room.

“So you don’t have to move your head, we’re going to cut the sling by your collarbone,” she points a finger, hovering over where she means. “You won’t feel anything, of course. Is that OK?”

He makes a small movement that looks almost like a nod, then seems to change his mind momentarily.

“Y’s,” he mumbles. Li reaches over and carefully slices through the material in two curt snips, then smooths out his hospital gown.

“Ms Browne, can you pull the other side through behind his neck? Slowly is good.”

“Sure,” she leans over and does so, slowly and carefully. Spider-Man is warm- she can feel the heat radiating off his neck as she threads the sling between his skin and the bedlinen.

When she’s done, she looks up at Li and says, “You can call me Bianca.”

Li smiles, and it’s genuine this time, even a flash of teeth. “Then you can call me Grace,” she says, but it’s directed at Spider-Man.

Sure enough, she goes in for the kill.

“What can we call you?”

“Mmm… Ben,” he gets out, closing his eyes momentarily.

It’s always that same ache on her chest, just above her sternum, like someone’s pressing down there. Bianca should be used to this by now- Ben is a common name. But Spider-Man… Spider-Man, after all the years she’d watched him, wishing he’d been there for Ben, for her Ben…

She wasn’t sure if it was a sign, or a slap.

“Ben, like Benjamin? Do you have a last name?” Li doesn’t seem to notice Bianca’s reaction.

He mumbles something incoherent but somewhat insistent, repeating Ben a few times but the rest of the words slurring into something Bianca couldn’t make head nor tail of. She guesses from the way Dr Li’s attention shifts back to the scissors in her hand that they’ll just stick with Ben for now.

“It nice to meet you, Ben. Now, we’re going to cut through the splint here,” Li points, and doesn’t ask for permission this time, instead cutting at the three bands that held the splint together.

Ben jerks, and for a moment, Bianca thinks the scissors nicked him, but it seems impossible- Dr Li seems to think so too, as she pulls the splint back quickly to assess the damage. No sooner is Bianca about to reach in and inspect his arm closer does he jerk again and begin shaking, eyes rolling back in his head as the monitors start to beep in alarm.

“He’s seizing,” Dr Li says, and Bianca’s heart drops. Li is a flurry of activity, slamming a button on the wall before kicking her chair back and lunging for one of the carts where she pulls out a syringe and a vial, while Bianca feels helpless watching this hero, this fragile kid, knock his head into the backboard of the bed.

She goes to hold his free hand, but no sooner has she wound two fingers in his palm does he squeeze involuntarily, and Bianca bites down on her tongue to keep from screaming. Li’s putting something into the IV and as quickly as it started, Ben relaxes against the pillow again, and Bianca’s fingers are freed.

A nurse rushes in as Dr Li is checking vitals, though the shorter and balder of the two guards from outside is hovering close behind, as if the nurse were the one acting as a guest to the hospital. Li’s brows knit together when she glances up and sees this.

“Please let my nurse do his job, sir,” she says through gritted teeth, and the sir is positively dripping with contempt. Then she addresses the nurse, and thankfully the uniform drops away into the corridor as she barks her instructions; “Nurse O’Connor, crisis averted, but he seized again, so I’ll need more diazepam in that cart if you could. I also need a finger splint, and if you can check in with Dr Lowenstein about putting pressure on the right people to get this cuff removed from our patient, that’d do his recovery a world of good, because I now have to treat lacerations on his wrist on top of a major brain injury.”

Li has removed the nasal canula and is administering extra oxygen via a bag, ignoring the flustered nurse and keeping her eye on his monitors. Sure enough, there are angry red marks around Spidey’s wrist where he’d pulled against it during his seizure. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to have broken the skin, even though he’d resisted enough to bend the frame of the bed slightly.

Bianca just sort of stands and sways for a while, trying not to focus on the ebbing pain of her fingers. Li finishes administering oxygen and reattaches the nasal cannula, and the nurse scuttles back in with Li’s requests, blissfully unaccompanied this time.

“Here, pull your chair over,” Grace instructs Bianca, and Bianca’s not going to refuse. She wished she could rewind the night and start over, maybe stay a little mentally checked out from this one. Her fingers hurt, and it annoyed her that they did; she was supposed to be here for the kid, and this was an important kid, and instead she was close to crying over her stupid finger.

Maybe Li sensed her frustration, because she guides Bianca down into the chair gently and gets to work on splinting the finger.

“Before you leave, let’s make sure we get this looked at properly. I just need to organise it… I’m sure we’re both on the same page about not wanting it to get out about how this happened.”

Bianca looks over at Spider-Man then, lay in bed, perhaps looking a little paler now. Ben. Part of her didn’t want to find out his identity- there must be another way of doing this- but she knows finding his next of kin, hopefully a parent, is the best shot they’re going to get at getting him out of this.

“Sorry about being so curt earlier. There were a lot of cops in and out earlier, as if he wasn’t in a critical condition.”

“It’s fine.” She tears her gaze from Spider-Man to smile at the doctor, and to her surprise Dr Li returns it, if not a little forced, all teeth.

There’s a pause, the silence occupying some strange duality of awkward and comfortable.

“Do you work with them?”

“Who?”

“The cops.”

“Sort of.” The dull pressure from the splint is weirdly helping ease the pain a little. “I’m still a social worker, they just bypass the usual route sometimes. Which is a good thing most of the time ‘specially considering how long it took them to get me down here this time.”

Li hums in acknowledgment, and Bianca thinks she may be holding her tongue.

She decides it’s her turn to ask the questions.

“What’s his diagnosis? You said he has a brain injury?”

Dr Li pauses. “He has what we call a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. TBI can range from mild to severe, and given the length of his comatose state and his amnesia, he would have originally been in the severe category, which doesn’t have a positive outlook. But his progression- his responsiveness and motor function- are incredible given his initial prognosis. I’m really hopeful he can make a relatively full recovery, but the next few hours are crucial.”

“And the seizures?”

“A side effect. So is the confusion, the light-sensitivity- I’m sure you noticed his dilated pupils- and the slurred speech. The seizures aren’t as bad as they seem, and they’ve been very short, which means it hasn’t stopped oxygen getting to his brain.”

“And when you say full recovery, you mean for a regular kid.”

Li sighs wearily, and Bianca saw her mask slip for a second.

“We have really high hopes for his mutation. Probably too high. But you never know, this morning we were expecting permanent brain damage, and now…”

The silence has become uncomfortable again.

“I don’t normally commit to one patient like this, but his room is so cut-off from the rest of the hospital, so to keep his identity a secret and give him the best care… the people here owe him a lot.”

“He does a lot for this city.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence while Li finishes up the splint, and Bianca tries to ignore her breath on her arm and watches the rise and fall of Ben’s chest from across the bed.

“You’re all done. I’ll contact someone about getting it looked at properly, but it looks like just a small fracture and some bruising.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. Look, I… I have to step out to make a call, but if we’re both going to be here all night, then do you want a coffee?”

Dr Li didn’t look up from where she was tidying equipment back into the trolley, but Bianca doesn’t feel as ordered round as she should when the reply comes, “Black, two sugars, please. The cafe on the mezzanine should still be open.”

She leaves her bag behind, taking only her bank card and phone. She doesn’t greet the uniforms as she leaves, and certainly does not offer them coffee.

Nancy picks up after two rings.

“Nancy, hey, it’s Bianca.”

“I know gurl, we have caller ID here too y’know,” was the reply, and although she doesn’t grace it with a laugh, Bianca finds a small smile curving at the sides of her lips she cradles the phone closer to her ear. “It’s late, you good? What’s up?”

“You still do work with that mutant advocacy charity right?”

“REPresent? They prefer enhanced, but sure, I got you. What’s this about? You need someone in your corner because I can send my best associate right now, hands down I’ll call her and she’ll be there babygirl.”

“Maybe in the morning, babe, but thank you, I appreciate it. No, can you get one of them folks from the charity to contact me? Listen, I’ve got a kid with powers here and the cops are hovering and I’m scared they’re gonna take this kid away. And I don’t know his name or how to get hold of anyone for him, so if he get disappeared then no one’s gonna know until it’s too late.” Bianca immediately starts to up her pace, and guilt sets in across her forehead like an ache. Nothing’s going to happen while she’s buying coffee, she tells herself.

She’s still taking the stairs though, because she doesn’t feel like running into anyone right now, and she doesn’t want the call to drop.

“I got you,” comes the reply from down the phone, but the enthusiasm has spilt from her voice, and she just sounds weary. Work’s been on top of her lately, but once things calm down, Bianca owes Nancy dinner somewhere, no work allowed. Or so she tells herself, but like every struggling New Yorker she knows, she has a shopping list of unkept promises like that these days.

“I’ll make sure they send someone in the morning,” she continues, “And I’ll send over Sarah. Not sure you’ve met her, but she’s good, and her specialism is family law, so there’s that.”

“You’re the best,” Bianca mumbles, because she’s on the mezzanine. It’s empty, but no way as enclosed as the stairs, and given the fate of New York’s favourite hero might hang on this conversation, she’d rather it stay private. “I owe you. Look, I gotta go, but-“

“We’ll meet up soon, don’t worry about it. It’s late babe, please make sure you’re taking care of yourself a’ight?”

“Same to you.”

“One day at a time.”

“One day at a time,” she echoes.

Those words are still ringing in her head when she places coffee down on the side table next to Dr Li to nothing more than a nod of acknowledgment. She scrolling something rather fervently on her tablet, every now and then typing something out, her nails, though cut short, making a tap tap tap on the illuminated screen. Spider-Man, for his part, seemed to be out of it again.

Bianca may as well make a start on the unending paperwork this case was no doubt going to cause her. She would leave asking about the referral document for now, she thought, giving one last glance at Li typing a particularly long paragraph, before digging her work laptop out of the overnight bag she’d tucked under the chair to Ben’s bedside. She could always get started on a first report, or some notes to write it with later.

For a while, the tapping of a tablet screen and the own tapping of her keys was enough to dissuade discomfort from the air, and she was even momentarily glad of the air conditioning, though the harsh lighting made her eyes itch.

She started with the form, but so much of it- referee name, child’s address, parents’ name, even child’s name, really- was unknown, and a form of “UNKNOWNS” seemed almost as useless as a blank form.

At any rate, that wasn’t what she’d been brought here to do. Apparently, she was playing detective for the Detective, finding out as much as she could about the boy behind the mask so that charges could be brought against him. And while she wasn’t keen on that idea, she was sure in this case Marcus and the captain wouldn’t be sitting on their laurels while she sat with a sleeping head-trauma patient- it would serve both her and Spidey well for her to get that information first.

There are nearly 600 high schools in New York, and that’s going on the assumption that Spidey even is a high-schooler- he could be a short, gangly college student, or a middle schooler filled out by mutant powers at a stretch. But she had to start somewhere.

At first she trawled Google Maps to pick out schools around Flushing, browsing social media and school websites in search of something serendipitous; photos from a sports team, an awards ceremony, workshops, anything. She had to keep glancing back at Ben; despite being such an extraordinary person as Spider-Man, lay in that hospital bed, Bianca was hard-pressed to discern one white teenager from another.

After frustrating herself through a few soccer photos from College Point where the boys seemed to be cookie cutters of each other in their helmets and shoulder-pads, she gave a huff and angled the screen away from her for a few moments, rubbing her eyes.

It was so quiet, she could almost forget she was sharing the room with two other people. The noise from the monitors has melded into the background of her mind, and she only looks up when Spidey gives a quiet huff, or Dr Li’s tapping stops for a moment, normally while she reads something or checks on Ben’s vitals.

She sighs, and rubs her eyes again, hoping the mascara she’d put on this morning was long gone from her lashes. New York summers were suffocating, but that didn’t mean she wanted to escape them by spending her night in an air-conditioned hospital.

If she could be anywhere right now- realistically speaking- it’d be the fire escape on her building. She like to sit out when the night got cooler and listen to downstairs’ TV, smell cigarettes and weed and take privy in other people’s lives, letting herself sink into their problems instead of her own. Or maybe the roof- someone kept homing pigeons a few buildings over, and she liked to watch them come and go, reminded why New York, in all its quirks and oddities, was home.

She looks back at Spidey, asleep now, and imagines him swinging past her building, as free of gravity as those birds. It’d be cruel to coop him up. Was that what they were going to do?

She turns back to her computer with a renewed vigour.

She resorts to The Bugle Online. She hates herself for it and it feels like an unnecessarily desperate move, but it really was the place for anything Spider-Man. She opens a few recent articles, but she was more interested in the older ones, where Spidey had still had on the homemade suit, in the hope that a younger, more inexperienced hero would make a mistake that might give something away. The damn site forced her to whitelist them on her adblocker, and every page she visited had a rotating banner advertising J. Jonah’s new podcast, the man’s face sneering at her on timer.

As it should happen, it also had an autoplay video advertisement too, and Jameson howled full volume out of her speakers, making Li jump and Ben stir.

“Sorry, sorry...” she said, panicking for a few seconds before resorting to just closing the tab. The next tab was still a Bugle page, and Jameson smirked at her.

She roots in her bags and plugs her headphones in, just in case.

There’s a video embedded in the page that looks like it might be from a traffic camera, and Bianca’s chest tightens. Of all the reasons this job might have been hard, she wasn’t expecting this. It’d been over two years since she’d lost her Ben, but it still hurts.

She hits play.

She has Google Maps open in another tab, and tries to plot every Spider-Man sighting to see if there was a pattern. She knows enough about data bias to know it’d be much more reliable if she had the smaller incidents to plot too, not just crimes big enough to catch The Bugle’s attention, but beggars can’t be choosers.

After a couple hours of dropping pins in Queens, there’s no discernible pattern to locations that could pinpoint an area Spider-Man might live in. Or there is, but it’s far too broad- a strip of pins runs from as far as Bayside all the way across virtually all of Queens and Brooklyn, then across to Manhattan (he seems fond of the Queensboro Bridge, the pins stack on top of each other there), never going much further north than Washington Heights but otherwise encompassing the whole of Manhattan too. So all she can really get from that is that he lives in New York, somewhere.

She does note however that he’s exclusively active between 4pm and midnight on school nights, with a few outliers- notably the Staten Island Ferry incident. It refreshes the idea of a teen superhero in her mind, and suddenly she has so many questions. Does his family know about this, about Spider-Man? Did he have a family even- maybe he was a foster kid? She can’t imagine letting a kid go out and fight crime as a parent, but as a social worker she’s all too acutely aware of how easily kids can fall through the cracks.

At least it seemed he did attend school, given the hours. And that one time he didn’t- she remembered the reports of people hearing Iron Man chew out Spider-Man for what happened with the ferry, and at the time she’d thought it a little unfair- Spider-Man was always fighting against his odds, and Tony Stark flying in to save the day one time and giving Spider-Man flack for not being able to handle it seemed arrogant to her. No one had gotten hurt, and the infamous image of Spider-Man holding the two sides of the ferry together had been meme’d to death on Twitter within a few days.

Iron Man chewing him out made more sense now if he was skipping school to hold a ferry together, she supposed.

She goes back to the videos then, watching them on low volume with closed captions on. One after another. She’s moved to Youtube now, which is worse as she often has to scrub through the video to find the date stamp, if there is one at all; and they’re not as neatly categorised as they are on The Bugle.

“SPIDER-MAN STOPS CAR CHASE – QUEENS – NEW VIDEO MARCH 2018”. “The Spider Man: Best Fails of May 2017”. “What Happened to Spider-Man??? Spidey’s New Suit”. “NOT FAKE | Spider-Man Takes Down Armed Criminals At Rockefeller Centre! | Superhero Today Exclusive”. “blessed compilation of spidey straight vibin for 19 minutes 32 seconds”. She’s not even sure what she’s looking for at this point.

Until she sees it.

“…He talks to himself. Do you think… Do you think he’s like Tony Stark, Iron Man, y’know, with the virtual assistant?”

Bianca didn’t really mean to say that out loud, but now she has, she looks over at Li for her input. The other woman looks at her without moving her head, making her look stern from underneath her eyebrows, and Bianca almost tells her to forget it. Only then, Li itches her nose, and uncrosses her legs.

“I know he tips the police off about crimes very quickly, and I’ve never seen him use a phone, so it stands to reason there’s at least a hands-free device, in the mask maybe? …Oh.” Li seems to have come to the same conclusion Bianca had. “The paramedics cut the suit at the scene, and the rest got removed by the emergency team. It might not be in good shape.”

“But there’s a chance, right? Where would the suit go?”

“Normally, it’d be in a closet in here somewhere, or in the garbage. But this isn’t exactly a normal ICU room, and I doubt anyone would have thrown out a Spider-Man suit, even one paramedic shears had had their way with. Plus, like I said, this place was crawling with cops before Dr Park brought the hospital board down on them, so I’d say, best bet is it’s with them, the NYPD.”

“Hm,” Bianca thinks, and without thanking Li, she sets her laptop aside, not bothering to close it, and retrieves her phone.

“Won’t be a second.”

She goes to the stairwell again, and calls Marcus. He doesn’t pick up, so she reluctantly calls the precinct phone, the one she knows connects to the desk of one mousy-looking cop who looks like he votes Republican and leaves bad reviews on Yelp.

She’s never rang it in the night, when she assumed a different set of cops were on duty, but she really shouldn’t have been surprised when it wasn’t the whiny voice of Detective Scheving.

“Yello’, this is Detective Harrison, who’s speaking?” Detective Harrison spoke with a distinctly Southern lilt that put Bianca on edge, but she tried not to let it shake her as she put on her best phone voice.

“Hi, it’s Bianca Browne, I’m with CPS, I work with Detective Marcus Adebayo? I was wondering if he was there?”

“He ain’t ma’am, but surely I can help you?”

I guess so…” It wasn’t ideal, but at least like this she could request an information to come to her first, rather than Marcus. “I’m on the Spider-Man case. The doctor said his suit might have been taken as evidence, but I think it might help us identify Spider-Man. We think there’s a hands-free headset in the mask, Bluetooth or something. Can we take a look at the mask? If there’s a phone in there then we can call previous numbers and see if we find any contacts for Spider-Man.”

“Oh, I see what you’re doing. All righty, I doubt that high-tech piece of kit is going to be allowed out of the station but I can certainly get it out of evidence and see what’s amatter with it, see if we can’t get ourselves a next-of-kin.”

“It’s high tech?”

“Yeah, took a look when it came in, definitely got all sortsa circuitry in there, dread to think what it’s for. Paramedics sliced through most of it, but not the mask probably, right? Stands to reason you just pull the thing off… Hey, know it’s not really my place, but I heard he’s just a kid, that true?”

“I can’t say sir, but if you do manage to get into the mask, could you call me first? I couldn’t get hold of Detective Adebayo so I think he might have ended his shift, but I’ll be at the hospital all night. I’d appreciate it, sir.”

“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am, I ain’t making no promises. Have a nice night now.”

“Thanks,” she said, and hung up. Something about his tone at the end made her wonder if he was thinking twice about helping a non-cop, but hopefully her story about Marcus going off-duty held steady and she was his only available contact when he did find something. If he found something, that was.

Returning back to the hospital room, she realises she's really no further than when she’d started.

--

It’s nearly 1am when the air begins to roll around them and the skies outside open to drench a sweaty New York in a summer storm. If she was home, she’d be hearing shouts of joy right now, a too loud laugh from outside on the hot tarmac, in what feels like a relief from a long dry spell. But she’s not- it’s just her and Li and Spider-Man, and the rain drowns out all other sounds.

Bianca hasn’t looked up from her laptop for a while. She’s abandoned work-work, and is looking for more clues, restless after not having heard back from Detective Harrison about the mask.

“Has he ever saved you? Just… You seem pretty invested in this.”

Li’s just making conversation, but it seems like such a personal question to ask, especially after hours of basic small-talk and long periods of silence. It threw Bianca off guard. She finds herself wondering how long Li had been in Queens- she definitely wasn’t from New York City, or even the state, judging by her accent, and how she held herself in a way that told Bianca she hadn’t let the city wear her down yet. Maybe the bluntness was a little refreshing. It made her realise how personal Spider-Man was to Queens- like the familiar strangers on the subway, he was part of the background of the city that you didn’t notice day-to-day, until something changes.

Bianca finds herself thinking about every time she’s ever cried on the subway. It was a lot, when she first started her placement in industry. She didn’t grow up in the right neighbourhood to ever have had the privilege of being naïve, but the realities of the social services system was something entirely on its own: a churning horror, a window into post-capitalist America, bureaucratic torture of families systematically stripped of their voices, and Bianca would cry on the L-Train, haunted by names and faces that sounded so much like her own.

She’d cried again after Ben passed. She had three days compassionate leave, then she had to go back to that job, the one Ben had pushed her to stick out. He’d been proud of her. He’d thought she was doing good. And in exchange, she took a half-day holiday for his funeral.

Li’s still waiting for an answer.

It’s the late hour, it’s the hypnotic hum of the rain against the glass, the steady beeping of the machines at Ben’s bedside, the glow of the laptop screen and the bedside lamp. It’s even the suspension of disbelief, the space she’s been thrown into so unexpectedly; a guarded hospital room with Spider-Man and an uptight doctor. Whatever lie Bianca wants to tell herself to justify what she tells Li next.

“No. But he could have been.”

Li waits. She knows there’s more. She allows the pause, an intake of breath.

Bianca hadn’t felt listened to like this in a long, long time.

“My brother was killed about a week before Spider-Man showed up. He was shot in the back at a junction near Corona, and then a week later on the same street Spider-Man stopped a car crash, and it was all over Twitter. And like, I was grieving, and I wanted to be hurt and feel let down, but I watched the damn video of Spider-Man stopping these two cars and then all this joy on these people’s faces afterwards and I just… It was hope. He wasn’t there for my brother, but he was there for these strangers, and all the people of Queens since. My people, people like me, in an everyday kind of way, not just in a “greater good” way like the Avengers. He just made me believe in the world and in the goodness of people, in a time when I really needed it.”

She runs a hand through his hair tenderly as she talks, and he almost seems to curl into it. She doesn’t want to look up to look at Li and face her judgement, so she stays focused on Ben. This Ben.

Even asleep in a hospital bed, he finds ways to save her, she thinks, and her chest aches.

“He did save my brother,” comes an unexpectedly vulnerable voice from the other side of the bed. Now Bianca allows Li her privacy, and stays focused on Spider-Man, tangling her fingers through his hair.

“We didn’t see each other very much, even since we were small. Our parents died and he was just... so bitter about it. And he was enhanced, so it wasn’t as if that bitterness would just fizzle out eventually in the way it does. He had this big vendetta, ways to get back at people, for killing our parents, for abandoning him and I, splitting us up, foster care… All of it. I don’t even know the full extent of it, but he almost killed himself and a lot of people in the process. Only Spider-Man stopped him, and he’s on the Raft now. I can’t see him, and I don’t hear from him.”

Li laughs then, and it’s so unexpected that Bianca can’t help but look up. She’s crying. It’s not immediately apparent in the low light, but when she smiles awkwardly at Bianca, it’s wet and sad. She doesn’t know what to say that’ll make it better.

She feels guilty for a moment realising the ache in her chest has lessened whilst listening to Grace.

“I'm ashamed to admit it now, but I was so angry at Spider-Man for a long time. Because… he had powers too, but he was doing so much better. People loved him. But that was a long time ago. My feelings have changed now.”

She looks up at the door, where on the other side there are two men guarding the door with weapons. They’re not here to protect Spider-Man, and Li knows it.

They lapse into silence again, but it’s different this time. The air feels cleaner, in a way that isn’t down to the hospital disinfectant or the pouring rain.

She just sits and watches Spider-Man for a while. Li notes that he hasn’t seized since the last time, which was good, and all the sleeping was probably beneficial to his recovery. At one point, his stomach rumbles, and the pair chuckle quietly to each other while Li busies herself hanging another IV bag. Bianca’s surprised to find she’s not hungry, and she’s not really keen from moving from this room, so she doesn’t offer to get anything for Dr Li either.

She must have dozed off at some point, because she wakes up to the same scene, but the rain has stopped. Her laptop is hot on her lap, and she closes it.

Spider-Man is awake. He’s muttering something under his breath as he fusses with the covers. Bianca says his name softly, and the fussing only worsens- when he starts tugging at his IV she has to put a hand over it gently to stop him. He jumps back, and she’s sure the only reason he doesn’t end up stuck to the wall behind him is his wrist, the one that’s still restraining him to the bed, pulling him back with a clatter of metal.

“Ben, calm down. You’re OK. Can you tell me what’s the matter?”

“’M P’t’r… need t’… Store. Male be mad,” though he might have also said “Maybe mad”, though neither were much help.

“No one is mad, Ben. You’re poorly. I need you to stay calm hun, OK?”

“Need t’ go to the store, pr’mised.” Li finally rouses from the chair on the other side of the bed, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable in the soft light of the lamp. She’s quick to action, checking the IV and the monitors at his bedside. Even Bianca can see his heartrate is elevated.

“He’s confused,” she croaks, throat dry with sleep. She knows she doesn’t need to explain more to Bianca- Li can see the gentle way in which Bianca tries to soothe him, making sure not to touch him again.

“Why do you need to go to the store? Who did you promise?” She wants him to feel heard- it might calm him- but watching him struggle against his restraints again hurts to watch.

“May! May!” It’s a name. May.

“Ben, you’re in hospital. May won’t be mad with you if you don’t go to the store, I'm sure she'll understand. What did you need to go to the store for? I can go for you.”

“Eggs... Eggs... and tortillas,” he grumbled, and for a moment he looked so earnest Bianca wanted to laugh. He'd calmed down though, and that was what had mattered.

“Eggs and tortillas, OK,” she echoed back to him, and that seemed to soothe him. She carded her fingers through his sweaty locks while he muttered something to himself, words that blurred into one another on his breath. She'd wondered if she could get this “May"'s surname out of him but the moment of lucidity had passed, and he rolled his head either side for moment before closing his eyes again.

She looked up at Grace, and smiled.

“There aren’t a lot of stores near those warehouses, are there?”

Grace caught on quickly, her eyes widening and her lips parting in a little “o”.

Bianca jumps into action, setting her laptop away under her chair and snapping a picture of Ben’s face, savouring how peaceful he looked before shooting Dr Li a conspiratorial grin. “If the bodega staff can ID him then we can hopefully retrace his steps.” They might not be able to offer much, perhaps the first name they already had or CCTV footage, but it was a foothold.

Grace only smiles in reply, but it’s a good smile, a hopeful gleam in her eye, and Bianca suddenly doesn’t want to leave the solace of this quiet hospital room. He may be a superhero, but right now she and Grace are protecting him, and leaving this room seems like a violation of the trust they've built.

Or maybe that’s all in her head. Her phone buzzes with a notification from her rideshare app and Bianca tears her gaze away to look at Ben one last time.

---

The taxi is loud. The driver is listening to what she thinks might be the news, only it’s in a foreign language- Mandarin, maybe- and takes the puddles now scattering College Point Blvd with no hesitation, filling the cab with a rushing sound from the undercarriage. She’s slightly glad she’s no sharing this rideshare, thanks to she can only assume the early hour and the horrendous weather, and that the driver doesn’t make conversation either.

She hadn’t closed her eyes but her mind had certainly wandered elsewhere, still full of fog from her nap at the hospital, because she's startled when the driver turns to look at her expectantly and she finds they’ve stopped right outside the bodega. She feels ridiculous tumbling out of the low car onto the sidewalk, but the driver doesn’t comment, nor gives gives a reply when she thanks him for the ride, so she shuts the door and lets him speed off northbound up the carriageway.

Raj's Groceries is pretty unassuming, if not strangely placed in this remote end of Flushing. She tends to think of anything north of the Whitestone Expressway as being part of College Point, but this isn’t neat rows of houses: it’s a bus depot, an impound lot, the inky expanse of the bay beyond the warehouses, and then this brightly lit bodega, stood almost by itself.

She doesn’t loiter, as it’s beginning to rain again. The bell above the door chimes as she enters, and she squints her way over to the till, a headache forming in the fluorescent light.

The cashier is an older man with a heavy moustache and even heavier eyebrows, reading a paper written in Gurmukhi.

“Hi! This might be a bit weird, but do you recognise this boy? I think he came in here late last night.”

She shows him the photo on her phone, a kid in a hospital bed, and that surprises him. But after considering the photo for a moment, he shakes his head.

“No.”

“No? Definitely not? He would have bought eggs and tortillas maybe?”

“Definitely no. We didn’t sell any eggs last night.” When he sees her face fall, he adds, “Sorry.”

So that was it, she guesses. She purchases some energy drinks, prepackaged sandwiches and vegetable bhajis for her and Dr Li, finding herself wishing she was back in the hospital already.

She doesn’t want to loiter inside the store, so she stands outside, and immediately regrets it. It’s starting to rain heavily again, and the rideshare app says she’ll have to wait 13 minutes for another cab at this hour. The wind whips through the plastic bag the cashier gave her, and rain streaks her phone screen with rainbows until it stops working reliably and she’s scrubbing it over her shirt in frustration.

There’s an alleyway with a dead end between the bodega and the brick building next door, full of wheely bins and god knows how many rats, but she ducks into it all the same, the bodega wall offering some semblance of shelter from the driving rain.

The rideshare app says 15 minutes now.

She shivers even though it’s not cold. On a regular Friday, she’d probably be in bed right now, though not asleep. The dozing part of her is there, in her bed, listening to the Expressway, but after the bright lights of the store, that’s now a very small part of her.

She’s about to give up and call a real cab when she’s started out of her cocoon by a clang! coming from part way down the alley. Then there’s a metallic thunk and the unmistakable sound of a half-full metal waterbottle rolling across the floor. She eventually sees it as is catches the light of the streetlamp, and she follows its path back to a backpack, half-stuck to the wall with something glistening.

She has to blink the rainwater from her eyes a few times to check what she’s seeing, because yes, the backpack is stuck to the wall. The webs are layered over each other but they look like they’re degrading, hence the bag hanging lopsided, one of the straps knocking the metal of the bin in an erratic rhythm.

It’s his. It’s got to be his.

She tries not to be squeamish as she tugs it down- the webs are surprisingly strong and it takes some effort to get it off without having to touch them. She picks up the water-bottle too (those things aren’t cheap) and slots it back into the netted pocket on the side.

It’s a sturdy backpack, canvas and pleather, built for carrying a lot of stuff- which, good, because the thing was heavy. She has to put it and her bag of snacks down on the ground, which she feels a little bad about once she sees all the textbooks inside- sure, they were already damp at this point, but she feels bad about making it worse sticking the bag on the wet ground.

There’s a cell in the top pocket. It’s pretty upmarket- Stark brand- and dead, unsurprisingly, given it’s probably been here 24 hours already. There’s no doubt a passcode on it, but there's a fingerprint sensor on one side. If they can get it charged, then there’ll be their contact sorted. Bianca's heart soars at the thought.

Then she finds a battered bank card for a Mr Peter Parker, and she panics for a moment until she pulls out the ID. It’s him- albeit a little younger and wearing glasses. His name is Peter. He was either more aware than they thought, or less, dependent on his intentions giving her and Grace a fake name. The ID was for Midtown School for Science and Technology in Astoria- she hadn’t checked that one, she’s only been going through ones near Flushing, and that line of inquiry had been short-lived at that. Wasn’t Midtown a private school? She’s not sure she would have guessed that- Spider-Man seemed too down-to-earth to attend private school, but she was having her preconceptions challenged today.

The contents then are pretty standard school backpack stuff then: AP textbooks, a copy of The Great Gatsby, an empty Tupperware, a cereal bar, a crisp packet, and a school hoodie. There’s also a pair of jeans and a t-shirt stuffed in a ball at the bottom, that Bianca feels she needs to fold before returning them into the bag, even though like the rest of the contents of the bag, they’re damp by now. And, if she’s not already certain this Peter is definitely Spider-Man, right at the very bottom of the bag are two vials that contain, according to the label, “Web Fluid 2.4.1”.

She holds the bag to her chest in the ride back to the hospital, not caring as water pools in her lap. She’s wet anyway, her hair beyond ruined from the humidity. She thinks the cab driver is doing his best to help her dry off, because he’s blasting the heater even though the dash says it’s 68 degrees outside. Which is sweet, she guesses, but it’s only serving to make her sweaty.

The hospital feels busier than when she left, but only for as long as it takes her to direct herself to the back staircase and up to the training rooms on the third floor. From there, it’s almost empty, and it’s like she can see the light at the end of the tunnel. They’re going to get Spidey out of here, and by the time the Captain of the 107th arrives to press charges at dawn, they’ll be long gone from the resident training room.

“Why have you got my kid’s backpack?”

It took a moment for Bianca to realise she was the one being addressed. She was so wrapped up in her head, excited to get back to Dr Li and Ben- no, not Ben, Peter- that she hadn’t taken notice of the two men coming towards her.

She still had the backpack clutched to her chest, as if a child itself. A hand comes into her field of view, gesturing at it, and she looks up to find herself face-to-face with a bedraggled-looking though immaculately-shaven man in a t-shirt and jeans. For a second, he seemed familiar, and Bianca wondered if she’d forgotten to pay the fair in the cab. Then her tired brain caught up to her, and she realised she’d nearly walked right into Tony Stark. The Tony Stark.

He looked mad.

He wanted the backpack?

Bianca had been awake probably 17 hours or so now, having done a full day’s work, meeting one of her heroes, having a heart-to-heart with a stranger, then running around Queens in the rain. She felt she could be excused for not being quite on top of her game. Which is why all that came out of her mouth, was, rather bluntly, “What?”

Stark’s face softened a little, as if he realised this. She doubted he did, but it was wishful thinking after she’d just embarrassed herself in front of a man powerful enough to ruin her life before she could get back to the hospital room.

“The bag. Where did you get it?”

“It’s Spider-Man’s.” That didn’t answer the question. She’d just realised Stark wasn’t alone- just behind him was Marcus, and he looked pissed. Bianca wondered if he was mad at her for not alerting him about the break in the case, but technically she hadn’t found out anything yet. For all he knew, she hadn’t even looked through the bag. She didn’t know Spider-Man’s full-name, or what school he went to...

“I know, I bought it for him. Where did you get it?”

Bianca looked between Stark and Marcus, panicking slightly. Stark likely had the power to get Peter out of this mess; or he was the one who brought the DODC here, he was behind those security guards and the cuff… Didn’t Stark write the Accords? Then again, Peter wasn’t in a much better place with the NYPD. Wait, did Stark say he bought Spider-Man a backpack?

She momentarily thought about running, but she wasn’t sure she’d get very far in flats, especially when she was up against a New York cop and Iron Man.

Stark followed her eyes as they darted between the pair and put his hands up placatingly. If Bianca was in a better state of mind, she might have found it condescending.

“I’m trying to help him.” It’s so earnest, not at all the Stark pizzazz Bianca is used to seeing on TV.

“Your tip with the mask got a hit, just not the one we were expecting,” Marcus piped up, eyeing Stark with a hint of disdain. “It’s got some kind of AI in it, and the mask gassed Detective Harrison and then apparently called Tony Stark,” Marcus gestured, “Who came down to the station claiming he knows Spider-Man and demanding to see him.”

Bianca wants to laugh at the thought of the Spider-Man mask gassing Harrison, but Stark’s gaze is steely.

She straightens up.

“I’m his social worker, Mr Stark. I’m trying to get in contact with his next-of-kin and source him legal representation as we believe he’s a minor. I found the backpack by retracing his steps to a bodega near the site of the warehouse collapse that brought him here. Any information in here is really important to his treatment, as well as getting him in touch with his family.”

“You’re a social worker,” Stark says, and he seems to collapse into himself with relief. He doesn’t seem to know enough about social workers if he had that reaction but as it seems he no longer sees her as a threat, Bianca’s not going to argue. “Can you take me to him? I need to see him.”

She wants to question his motives, check Peter’s going to be alright with him but she doesn’t. He seems genuine- scarily so- and if Bianca’s honest with herself, she doesn’t have the guts to stop Tony Stark from getting what he wants.

Marcus doesn’t protest as she leads him down the corridor to the resident training room. The guards at the door go to stop them, until Stark comes into the light pooling outside the door and they seem to recognise him, and they stop, letting the trio enter the room.

Bianca’s heart skips when she sees Grace, who in turn smiles and stands. Her tablet is on the nightstand, and she has one hand on Peter’s arm, protective against the newcomers. The grip tightens when her eyes move to behind Bianca, where Stark and Detective Adebayo have just come through the door.

“Dr Li,” Bianca says, finding herself breathless even though they’d only walked a hundred foot or so, “I found his bag. And Tony Stark.”

Grace reserves a satisfied smile for her, but it’s short-lived, as she turns to the two men with the same commanding presence she’d used on Bianca only a few hours ago.

“It may not look like it, but this is an Intensive Care Unit. Unless you’re here about removing the cuff then my patient is very sensitive right now and needs a calm environment to best aid his recovery.” Li’s eyes flash, and she’s staring right at Stark.

Bianca wishes she had that kind of confidence.

Stark however, pays absolutely no mind. He blinks at Grace, and then seems to clock who’s in the bed and before Bianca can stop him, he’s at Spidey’s side, grasping his free hand, feeling his forehead, whispering to him.

Everyone is taken aback by the sudden change of attitude. It feels like the start of a joke- a doctor, a social worker and a cop watch Tony Stark press a light kiss onto a teenager’s hand in a dark hospital room at 4am.

“Is he your son?” Li blurts out, and Bianca laughs, because god, if she wasn’t thinking it too. Stark, however, isn’t fazed.

“If it’ll help him get out of here quicker, then yes. What’s wrong with him? He’s enhanced. I have specially trained teams who’ll help him. And why is he cuffed?” Stark rounds to look at Marcus, eyes blazing, and Bianca is pleased to see Marcus shrink back slightly, though he doesn’t apologise.

“Mr Stark, Spider-Man has what’s called a traumatic brain injury, a type of head injury that requires constant monitoring. It was serious but his seemingly superhuman healing is giving us cause for hope. But still, he’s confused, sensitive to light and sound and he’s been seizing, though I think we may be over the worst of that. TBIs are serious though Mr Stark; as his doctor I can’t advise moving him except under very special circumstances.” She’s still holding Peter's arm, so the two are close, either side of the bed, and something unsaid seems to pass between them. Grace cares about Peter, but she knows gong with Stark might be a better option than letting the NYPD and all other manner of bureaucracy catch up with them when the sun rises.

“We’ll find a way, Dr…?”

“Li. Grace Li.” She holds her hand out and Stark grasps it, smiling tightly. He then taps the side of his glasses and Bianca sees the HUD light up his face.

“Hey FRI, babygirl, get ahold of Dr Cho and her team for me and let’s work out a way to get a Spider-Kid with a moderate TBI into their care. If there’s a way of staying in New York, setting up a room at the penthouse, let’s do that, it’s a long way to the Compound… And FRI, contact Happy, tell him to tell May we found him,” he mutters. Then his eyes focus again, and he’s turned back to where Bianca and Marcus are still hovering in the doorway.

“You,” he points at Marcus, “You need to get this cuff off him. Now.”

“I can’t do that Mr Stark. Spider-Man is wanted for questioning by multiple agencies including the NYPD, and his track record shows him to be a potential danger. Removing it could cause harm to come to medical and law enforcement, as well as yourself and Mr Browne here.”

“Buddy, look at him, does he look like a threat to anyone?” Stark gestures. Bianca slips her splinted finger in her pocket, which Li notices, smirking fondly. “I wasn’t asking. You’ll take it off, or I’m removing it- and you- by force.”

Peter took this opportune moment to stir, and Stark’s attention turned solely to him. He doesn’t see Marcus tap twice on the door behind him, or for it to open and Marcus to gesture to the guards.

“Hey kid,” Stark coos, and Bianca find herself smiling even as she positions herself closer to the bed, away from where the guards in the doorway are unsheathing their firearms. Peter’s eyes close again but he’d looked at Stark, his mouth twitching and muttering something unheard by everyone but the man at his bedside.

“Tony Stark, I’m going to have to ask you to put your hands where I can see them.”

Stark, in reply, presses another kiss to Spider-Man’s forehead, and gets up from where he’s knelt by the bed, turning slowly to face the doorway again.

“Hand’s up!” Marcus shouts. Bianca and Grace throw their hands up on instinct, and suddenly Bianca’s heart is in her throat. Stark may be a genius, but she’s not convinced he knows how much danger her and Grace are in as women of colour. He’s Iron Man, they’re collateral.

And the kid. He seems lucid now, but barely. He looks like he might be panicking, like he wants to do something, and she watches him press two fingers into his palm, then strain at the cuff holding him fast against the side of the bed.

Bianca’s heart is pounding in her throat. The room is suddenly so small, and their only way out is blocked by the two guards, whose uniforms in this new context seem uncannily like riot gear. Marcus is pointing his pistol at Stark.

“I don’t want any trouble, officer. Spider-Man here hasn’t yet been charged with a crime and his doctor isn’t concerned with him posing a risk to her or Ms Browne, right, Dr Li?” he asks, without turning his head. Grace nods, then realises he can’t see her and responds with a loud “Yes”.

“I just want him to be moved to a facility that can better cater to his unique needs. He’s 16.” His finger twitches, and Marcus notices, tensing and flicking his safety off.

“Mr Stark, you just threatened a police officer. Step away from the bed and keep your hands where I can see them.”

“He’s 16, he goes to school, he likes Star Wars and geeky Lego sets, and he currently has a brain injury.” It unnerves Bianca that Stark is audibly panicking, his voice wavering. “He’s really smart, he takes loads of AP classes and…”

Bianca doesn’t hear the end of it, because there’s an almighty crashing sound and suddenly the window and part of the wall is missing and Adebayo and the guards are on the ground, held down by- was that Iron Man? She thinks a gun might have gone off, because there’s a ringing in her ears and dust from the ceiling in her hair, but Tony Stark has a tight hold of her arms and is telling her to get the kid.

She doesn’t need to be told twice. Stark places one knee on the bed and uses a repulsor glove that's appeared on his hand to slice round the cuff with unnervingly expert precision, so Bianca is free to pick up Peter carefully. Grace takes off the heart monitor and pulls out the IV in one swift movement that doesn’t seem to cause him any pain. Bianca then bundles the blanket around him and supports his head as she lifts him, wishing somewhat that Stark had chosen Li for this task, even though logically she knows Grace is not as strong as her.

No sooner has she got Spider-Man in a bridal carry is she lifted into the air by the Iron Man suit.

She might have screamed were it not for Peter settled under her chin, and Grace clutching her arm. She holds onto Peter for dear life as they exit the building through the hole in the wall and her feet move further from the ground below. The metal of the suit is strangely cold against her back, and the sound of the suit’s repulsor boots fill her hearing as they climb higher into the sky.

She holds Spider-Man, and squeezes her eyes shut.

It’s only a short flight, about thirty seconds, though it feels so much longer. Iron Man sets them down at the edge of Corona Park, and Bianca is finally allowed open her eyes, to breathe, hungrily gulping down the fresh morning air. Peter moves against her as her chest heaves, and his warmth brings he back to herself. She adjusts her grip on him, hoping she hadn’t bruised him more than he already was, and looks over to where Grace seems to be gathering her senses too. She has the backpack, only she seems surprised with that fact herself.

It’s still early, so Bianca is surprised to see the night is already beginning to move to a cool blue as dawn nears.

The helmet of the Iron Man suits flicks back, revealing an uncharacteristically apologetic look on the face of the billionaire inside. She honestly hadn’t even realised he was inside it, thinking he was still back at the hospital.

“Sorry, that wasn’t how I was anticipating that to go.” He’s looking at the doctor, but Grace is too in shock from flying out of the side of a building to chastise Stark for endangering her patient. They’ll laugh about that look later, her and Grace, but for now they stay silent.

His gaze moves to Bianca and Peter then, gaze softening. It hasn’t quite clocked for Bianca that she has Queens’ own Spider-Man nestled into her shoulder, semi-awake still. He’s surprisingly light, considering he’s probably all muscle-mass, and his cheek is clammy against her chest. The cuff (part of the bed railing attached) is still glowing and there’s a small pool of blood in the crux of his elbow from where the IV had been pulled out.

Stark moves towards them, folding back the arm of the suit so he can run the back of his finger over Peter’s cheek, and push his hair off his face. He squints up at him, and smiles, and Bianca can hear Li’s sigh of relief.

Bianca doesn’t need telling- there’s an unspoken agreement between them that she should pass Peter over, so she does, carefully, the way one would hand a baby back to its parent.

“Thanks for the assist ladies. My people will be in touch," he says, and Bianca gets the feeling he would have saluted them were it not for the teenager bundled in his arms.

The helmet flicks down again, and that's all the notice they get before Iron Man is taking off again.

“So, I guess my shift’s over,” Grace sighs as Iron Man rounds the building at the end of the block, disappearing from view. She's still holding Peter's backpack.

“Not looking forward to trying to fill out the paperwork on this one. My supervisor isn’t going to believe me that Iron Man flew off with a child in my care,” Bianca moaned, and she wanted to put her head in her hands.

“Me neither,” Grace laughs wearily, probably thinking about the massive hole in the side of New York-Presbytarian she’d been involved in creating. Bianca’s thinking about how to comfort her when suddenly Grace reaches for her and she’s holding Bianca’s arm lightly, and her heart flutters. Bianca’s on the comedown from a sleepless night, her colleague pointing a gun in her face, and jumping out of a window in Iron Man’s arms, and she feels like shit, but as the sunrise begins to soften the doctor’s face in a warm glow and her lungs fill with the morning air, she finds she’s glad she’s there.

“Hey, you wanna get breakfast?”

---

There’s a wanted man on her fire escape.

Or boy, rather.

She’s not sure how long he’s been out there, but Peter looks pretty comfortable, his legs sticking through the railings, swinging lazily in the morning air as he taps the ground to some imaginary tune. He’s not in the suit, but jeans and a t-shirt that sticks to his back with sweat- but the sweat that comes from it still being 77 and humid out, not the type that stuck his hair to his head back in the hospital.

It’s only been a few weeks, but he looks so much better.

When he sees Bianca at her window, he waves, and it becomes apparent he’s here for her, if it wasn’t already. She crawls out the window and onto the fire escape, joining him on the floor when he doesn’t move from his spot. It’s only just dawn, and she’s still in her pyjamas, wishing she’d brought her coffee out here with her. At least she’d taken off her hair wrap.

“How did you find me?”

“Mr Stark did a very thorough background check on you,” came the reply, and Bianca’s eyebrows shot to her hairline, so he backtracked, “I mean, the information was secure, I’m just… he doesn’t know I’m here, I… He does it to everyone... I... uh... I wanted to thank you.”

Now that he’s lucid, she can take him in properly. His eyes are dark, and his pupils are thankfully both the same size now, His gaze has an intelligence to it, and a bit of a mischievous glint when he mentions Stark not knowing he was here. He’s still so far from how Bianca thinks of Spider-Man, even with the weeks of adjusting to the knowledge that Spidey was a high-schooler, but he’s much closer than the sick kid in bed she saw when she met him.

“You don’t need to thank me,” she smiles, though she wants to know why he feels like he does.

“Mr Stark says you looked out for me. I appreciate it.” He paused. “It’s… It’s hard to be so out of control of your circumstances. I’m lucky I have these powers, and I can protect myself and, y’know, try to help other people, but… sometimes, like the other week, things just get really serious really quickly, and you just feel like some scared kid again… it’s nice to know you have people on your side when that happens.”

“Sure.” Bianca smiles. “I would have done it for any kid in my care, but especially for you, Peter. What you do as Spider-Man means a lot to people round here, and I’d hope that anyone you put your trust in would show you the same respect and reverence you show the people of Queens.”

He blushed.

“Yeah, about that, you’re… You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

Bianca decides not to tell him she’d come home from breakfast with Grace after the incident to Stark’s personal security guard and an airtight NDA on her doorstep. Stark did warn them his people would be in touch. “Of course not, hun. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“And please don’t tell Mr Stark I was here.”

“We’re not all superheroes, hun. Even if I wanted to snitch on you, I don’t have Tony Stark on speed-dial,” she winks, and Peter chuckles.

“I think you’re better than a superhero. I, uh... I dunno how much you looked into me, but I lost my parents when I was pretty young, and, um, no offence... uh... social services weren't really great for a while. They didn't think I should get to live with my Aunt and Uncle, even though they're pretty much the best people ever. So, uh, I guess what I'm saying is, I know this could have gone a lot differently if you were just, uh, doing your job or whatever. So really, thank you," he smiles, but shyly this time.

"That's sweet of you to say Peter. But of course, your secret's safe with me."

“I talked to Dr Li too. I’m glad I at least was the reason for you guys meeting each other,” he laughs.

Bianca tries not to blush then, wondering how much detail Grace had gone into on their relationship. They’d had a lunch date yesterday, at a little hole-in-the-wall place near the hospital, then met up again after work to wander through Corona Park together and drink takeout hot chocolate by the Pavilion. They were taking it slow, sure, but Bianca would agree with Peter- she was glad he’d brought them together.

“And I know Mr Stark can be… a lot. But he appreciates you too.”

This teenager shouldn’t be making excuses for Stark, but even though the man himself had never checked in on her, she did seem to avoid arrest and a dressing down from her boss far too easily, and glances between her coworkers told her someone with a lot of sway had had something to do with it. Not that it matters what anyone at work thinks: she's handed her notice in already, and it's only two more weeks before she starts with REPresent.

For her part, what happened that night has stayed between her and Grace for now, and the picture she snapped for the guy at the bodega is long gone from her phone.

“Anyway, I should, uh… get going. Before Mr Stark notices I’m gone. He’s been pretty intense recently, I haven’t left the house in like, forever. To be fair, they have two APBs out on me, so…” he grins mischievously as he gets up, and Bianca mimes clipping him round the ear. “Thanks again though.”

“Anytime. Take care of yourself, OK, Peter?”

He’s halfway down the stairs when she calls out.

“Hey Peter?”

“Hm?”

“If you ever need a hand, or an ear… You know where I am, OK?”

He smiled, a beaming smile full of genuine gratitude. “Thanks Ms Browne.”

Then he jumps off the fire escape onto the wall, and does a flip, arching gracefully through the air before landing perfectly on the tarmac of the street below. Bianca nearly has a heart attack, but by the time she has the presence of mind to yell at him, he’s disappeared down the street.

She smiles.

"You're welcome, Spider-Man."