Chapter Text
The situation begins like most situations Peter deals with begin, with a couple of no good cops.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Peter says, striding forward quickly. He doesn't have his mask on right now, so he can't go straight to punching unfortunately. "Let's leave these ladies be, fellas. What's with the hasslin'?"
One of the cops steps slightly back from the trio of women he'd been crowding, broad and with a thuggish air that contrasts his sharp police regulated haircut and pressed uniform, the image of a 'respectable' cop. Not that there is such a thing, shown as clear as day in how one of the women has taken to gripping one of her heels in a tight grip, sharp end pointed towards their aggravator in defence. Rightly so, Peter thinks.
The other cop, who had been standing slightly back from the scene, scans Peter up and down, as if looking for something to excuse being hostile to him. Ha! Peter snorts mentally with not a small amount of spite, and wishes him luck in seeing Peter's Judaism in his oh so offensive shirt and suspenders, like a Star of David is going to be engraved in one of the buttons. People like this always think they can tell, but outside the derivative stereotypes they never can. Finding nothing, the man visibly reigns his expression to be more polite, grinning conspiratorially at Peter. It's obvious the man has already put him in the "ally-in-hatred" box, which could be useful to manipulate him with, but mainly just fuels the rage and want-to-punch urge that Peter feels. This cop is more shrewd looking than his partner, though equally as sharp in dress, and Peter just knows he fancies himself the brains of their little operation.
"I'm sorry for the confusion, sir." The rat cop says, all false contrition. "But maybe you can't see so well with your glasses. Look again, there are no ladies here." He spits the last words with a vitrial emphasis.
Peter furrows his brow, and looks over the women again. Now the cop has pointed it out, two of the women are quite tall, even mentally subtracting the height the heels give them, and one of two has a slight but noticeably muscled physique not found in most women. The third, smaller, one holding her shoe as a weapon doesn't have the curves he would expect to see in the type of dress she's wearing. All three are wearing enough makeup that the original angles of their face could have been manipulated any way they pleased. Briefly, Peter wonders how makeup works in the dimensions that have more than a linear scale of colour to deal with, much harder, he reckons (but much prettier too, Peter thinks, pondering on the bright lips of the people he had seen walking the streets).
Still, Peter thinks, they're obviously dressed that way because they want to, whether they're mannish women or womanish men he doesn't think they deserve to get harassed for it.
The women are looking at him wearily now, same as they were the cops, so Peter deliberately relaxes his stance slightly to put them more at ease.
"Look like ladies to me." He says easily, and— taking advantage of their moment of confusion as he, a regular looking white man, disagrees with them— slips between the aggressor cop and the three, quickly ushering them away from the wall he'd had them pressed against. "I can take them home from here though. You were right about my eyes, I only just realised they live near me, I really should get a new prescription." He hurries the women along, stopping to let the short one get her heel back on but all but running otherwise. "Have a nice night, officers." He says over his shoulder.
"Can you dames run in heels?" He hisses to the ladies, who thankfully all seem to have caught on to what he's doing and are striding as fast as their dresses allow.
"Of course." One of the taller hisses back, the unmuscled one, her voice rich and full like a singer. "This isn't our first rodeo."
"Say," the shorter says, her voice high and breathy (whether it's her natural or because they're walking so fast and she has comparatively smaller legs, Peter doesn't know) "I haven't seen you around before. Where do you frequent?"
Peter steals a glance over his shoulder, the police aren't behind him but he isn't going to take that as a cue to slow down just yet. "I don't think you ladies and I occupy the same scene, if you know what I mean. I'm a private investigator though, so I work with all types. And I'm Jewish, so I know what it's like to have the cops up my ass."
"Just a regular good Samaritan, huh." The third, and muscled, woman says doubtfully, voice deep but still femininely modulated.
"I like to think I am." Peter answers truthfully. "I try to do right by my neighbourhood, and you ladies aren't hurting anyone so I have no quarrel with you." He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. "Those cops however…"
"Pigs." The breathy voiced woman says, distain clear in her tone. Peter can already tell who the fighter of the three is, she's light-haired where the other two are dark, and her face looks familiar even though Peter can't remember where from. So is the singer-voiced woman, now he's thinking about it, but less so than the little spitfire.
"Can we slow down slightly?" The apparently only unfamiliar woman asks, peering over her shoulder. "I feel like I'm going to break an ankle and they've not followed us at all."
"Aren't you an athlete, Liz? A runner, even?" The singer-voiced woman asks with an ironic tone, but still slows her pace.
"Not in heels!" Apparently-Liz whines. "And that's why I need my ankles intact!"
"We're near my place anyway." Peter interjects also slowing, and he can hear the humour in his own voice. "Do I know the two of you by the way?" He asks, gesturing between them. "Out of those beautiful dresses I mean. You look familiar."
The two exchange glances, shrugging. "I don't think so." The spitfire blonde offers. "You may know of my father, he used to be a police captain before he quit because of all the corruption."
"The mark of a good police officer." Peter nods. He thinks he remembers reading about the guy in the news, perhaps she just looks a lot like her pa. "And you?" He asks the singer-voiced women.
"Not a clue, tiger." She answers blasé. "I don't recognise you at all."
"Hm." Peter hums, investigative mind whirring, and comes to a stop. "This way, please." He says, gesturing to the building that holds his flat. "I've got bread and jelly if you want something to eat."
The three pause, glancing between themselves, him and the building. Peter abruptly realises that they have no reason to trust him enough to get in an enclosed space with him. For all they know he's just luring them up to murder them. He sighs, the wariness is good but also really saddening, the saying goes once bitten twice shy and all of these girls have been bit before.
"Here." He says, reaching into his inside jacket pocket to bring out a gun and twirling it so the handle faces the ladies. "If I give you trouble go ahead and shoot me. It's loaded, you can check." It's unlikely the bullet will ever reach his flesh because of his spider-sense, but it should give them a peace of mind.
To his surprise, Liz steps forward to take it and check the chamber instead of the spitfire, he'd thought that having a police officer pops would make her the automatic choice, but he's just met the women so perhaps Liz is a world-class marksman as well as a runner.
"Yeah, alright." Liz says, clicking the chamber closed. "I could have some bread and jelly."
Peter hums again, pressing down the handle and slamming his shoulder into the door with a loud thud to bypass the sticky latches.
"It's an old building." He explains to the slightly bemused looking ladies as he holds the door for them.
They don't talk as they make the trek upstairs, but Peter can feel the women giving each other looks behind his back, and he gets the feeling that they're still not entirely sure that he's not just going to murder them as soon as they get in his apartment. He's briefly glad that he's stored away the other-dimensional cube, it wouldn't do for them to walk in and it just to be sitting on the table. He'd fainted when he first gotten to Miles' world, before he got better at picking out objects in the beautiful but blaring visual noise, and it took him a while to be able to navigate. Depth and perspective feel different in colour somehow, and although that isn't as much of a problem with the rubix, it's still sure to freak them out at how alien it is.
"Just here." He says holding up a hand, and fishes the key out his pocket. He touches the Mezuzah as he enters and idly kisses his finger as he holds the door open for the others. Only the singer-voiced woman also touches the Mezuzah as she passes through, distractedly, as if she's done it a million times before. Peter smiles slightly, it's always nice to meet another Jewish person, especially one that he hasn't by some miracle already been introduced to (perhaps that's where he's met her before, one of the many introductions to a cousin of a husband to a hairdresser, but that doesn't feel exactly right either.)
"I've only got water, unfortunately." Peter says, bustling into the kitchen, he takes down a tall glass, a mug, and a beer glass, the only drinking receptacles he has in the house. "My tea and coffee stores are at my office." He says, twisting his old, leaky tap to the side and holding with a firm hand so the water runs in a steady stream instead of sputtering bursts, the damn thing resists getting fixed so he's resigned himself to the manoeuvre every time he pours a drink.
"That's fine with me, Mr…?" Liz says leadingly.
"Parker." Peter answers. "Peter Parker." He slides the tall glass over to her. "And you?"
"Mrs Osborn, Elizabeth Osborn."
"Oh." Peter says in surprise, something like dread curling in his belly. Has he welcomed a relative of the Goblin in his home? Has he given her the gun she will kill him with? "As in…"
"Norman Osborn, yes. I'm married to his heir."
"Oh!" Peter says in surprise again, this time with relief. He's heard the heiress isn't too bad. "Harrie-"
"Harry Osborn, yes." Elizabeth interrupts, tilting up her chin like she's daring him to say something. "I took his last name, which isn't exactly traditional but Norman wanted the name to continue and I don't come from a particularly powerful family." She shrugs. "It suited me fine and Norman was just relieved that Harry was finally showing interest in a 'man' for once." She rolls her eyes at the word.
"Ah." Peter said. To him it sounds like extraordinarily good luck to find someone with the same 'problem' and pair up, but there are three people with the same 'problem' in front of him now, so maybe it's a lot more common than he once assumed. Something twists in his gut at the thought, like a hopeful butterfly trying to spread its wings, but he squashes it down to deal with later. "It's good you found each other, then." He nods, handing the remaining glass and the mug to the singer-voiced woman and the spitfire blonde respectively. "And your names are…?"
"Mary Jane Watson." Replies the singer-voice woman. Peter's eyes widen, but he wrestles control over his features before Mary Jane can notice. She's his wife in at least two other dimensions, no wonder he recognises her! And no wonder he couldn't place her, when they'd so briefly met in the dining room he'd been so focused on the woman's astounding hair colour that he'd barely looked at her face.
"Miss Stacy." The spitfire adds, and smiles slightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I haven't chosen a name yet." This time Peter is more prepared and he keeps his face open and honest as recognition sings beneath his skin. The Spider-Woman he'd met, Gwen, that's who this woman is. He didn't recognise her in grey scale, Gwen had always somehow been more vibrant than the other Spiders, her colours almost bleeding into the air around her as she walked, but still? How hadn't he recognised her at all?
He knows how, shame filling him abruptly. He hadn't expected his universe's version of them to… to be so accustomed to being hassled about wearing dresses, putting it kindly. (G-d, he doesn't even know the kind words to use for people like them. He knows a lot of words, but which ones would they want him to use and which ones are like calling him a…)
(He cuts himself off before he can even think the words that Nazi's hurl at people leaving Temple)
"Nice to meet you Elizabeth, Mary Jane, Miss Stacy." He says over his racing thoughts, nodding at each and giving them a soft smile. He automatically goes into his 'acting natural while the client is crying in front of him' face, except it's him who feels emotionally thrown. "Let me go and get you that bread and jelly I promised you."