Archive of Our Own ^beta

It's a quiet day in the Society's library, and Peter Benjamin Parker is hiding.

Hiding from O'Hara, mostly, because he doesn't want to go back to his dimension, not yet.

And he's hiding from Ham, who he owes a hell of a lot of money from their last poker table (and, well, he's beat yet again), and from Gwen, who he's sure has the wrong impression of him about... everything.

And Peter B, whose kid he scared by being all scary and scarred, he's sure of it, and Miles, who gives Pete the feeling that he's done something wrong and he doesn't know what— oh who is he kidding, Miles reminds him too much of Robbie, and Pete can't handle it, can't have good conversations with the kid without mixing the two up and running from his problems... coward— and he's hiding from Peni because little kids scare him, and he's hiding from Felicia, who's probably wiping her hands of him right this minute, and MJ, god MJ…

Pete hates to admit it, but he's overwhelmed, and it doesn't feel good at all.

But none of the spiders who know him ever come to the Society's library. They're too good for that— if there is studying to be done, they won't be doing it in costume with constant distractions nearby.

Besides, the books housed on the bolted metal shelves aren't really books, so much as they are manuals, with detailed descriptions of all the possible canon events, potential villains one might encounter... oh, and the history and function of the web shooters that Pete has no need for, and several volumes of every registered spider, with the first volume dedicated to deceased spiders.

There aren't any history books.

Not that it would matter, as all of their histories are scrambled, and most haven't taken place yet— or took place so long ago that they don't matter anymore.

Pete only just got in the register.

He arrived two weeks ago, right after he went to visit Robbie for the last time. His parents had made the choice, all on their own, to send Robbie to live upstate in some bushwash health colony to see if he could get better, but Pete knows the truth. He couldn't stay behind to see the look on Robbie's sister's face when she eventually found out what happened, and he'd fled.

He'd missed picture day, so they put him in with no face to match a name.

Or, more accurately, he'd avoided picture day, and consequently ended up in the library. No one had come looking for him, so Pete had stayed put, and when he'd heard one of the spiders casually mention World War 2, he'd nearly heaved all over the manual he'd been reading.

A second one?

The thought that the war looming on the horizon might consume them, might be a repeat of everything his uncle ever told him about... the more he'd thought about it, the more possible it sounded. 

No one could give him a straight answer at lunch, all either too uncomfortable or just as confused as he was. He'd thought of May. He'd thought of Doc Ock.

Ham had jokingly elbowed him and changed the subject to something less bad, but still a sore subject, and the conversation had swung around to Pete's mask, and why he never removes it.

Gwen had joked about wrinkles being cool now. Pete had doubted that, and still doubts it, though not because he thinks they're uncool, but because he seriously does not expect much to have changed over the years in terms of beauty. Well, not as drastically as what Gwen describes.

Why, he could hear it clear as day how many jokes were made about Peter B's unkempt hair and sagging gut. Pete had been only a little jealous— not many men in his time got enough daily nutrients to grow a gut even half the size of Peter B's.

Besides, Pete had wanted to say but never had the chance, the only lines marring this face were made by a knife and a man so furious he'd started and never planned on stopping. It sends hot curls of shame through Pete's body just thinking about it, about how the scars on his face are his fault, how he'd goaded that fight into existence.

Too cocky.

Pete shakes his head, attempting to and for the most part succeeding at clearing his head of anything related to his lunchtime freakout. It'd been mostly internal, but that didn't make it any less of a freakout, the kind where he'd realized that these people he thinks of as his close friends don't think the same of him.

Peter B is like his uncle, or maybe a father figure, or something— Pete has yet to really find a role that fits— and Peni has always been like a little sister to him, Gwen too, more or less, but instead of them being one big family, well…

They are one big family.

Pete is the black and white ornate knocker they've installed on the family home's front door, some sort of parlor trick to show to new friends. He's a collectible, a vintage album, a trinket they carry around not out of love or reverence but out of a sense of amusement.

Pete knows Gwen's favorite color— it's bright, smashing pink, the kind of pink that screams at you. Gwen still thinks he's old beyond his years, because he's from 'a time before time'. Pete has a list of Ham's favorite, oh what were they called, onomotapeias? He knows Ham's top 10, easily (Wham! is a classic).

Ham still thinks Pete's colorblind. 

And there's the other thing: color.

Pete slips into his usual spot, the corner of space between two shelves where he shouldn't fit but does anyway, so long as he doesn't care about his legs, or blood flow, or leaving. No one has ever found him here, or really looked to begin with, and the cool metal never heats like it should, always grounding him when the freakouts hit.

And he should be allowed to freak out.

Pete can see color just fine.

He can see MJ's bright red hair, how gorgeous it is when the sun decides to show and splits the clouds like Moses in Egypt. It's as red as a tomato, and he tells her that plenty. Of course, she's gotten real tired of it, but he can't stop now.

And Robbie, Robbie's wardrobe had been a whirlwind of dizzying color. He had his purples down to a science, and his yellows under lock and key. Everything looked good on Robbie, the contrast of his dark brown complexion to the popping shirts in his closet always seeming to turn heads. It'd made Pete proud to be friends with Robbie.

And every morning, he wakes and he sees in the mirror the ugly reds and pink-whites of skin tearing itself apart in self defense. He sees a thick gray line cutting through his lip, and deep purple bags under his eyes, and zigzags of ashen white cuts, and the tiny lump near his eye where the lens' of his goggles cracked and embedded the glass so deep that the skin grew over without a second thought.

The remnants of his fights with Octavius, his near death experience with The Sandman, his fights with the cops, thin scratches not quite gone from Toomes' and his claws, the scars from his brief entanglement with agent De Wolfe permanently etched into his cheeks where his thumbnails had gripped, Felicia's nails only a little longer than his— all of it, streaked in reds and pinks and grays, exposing blue-green veins and yellow bruises, some older ones already going purple.

He'd had to sit down on those nights and stitch his face up in the storage closet atop the Bugle.

The doctors in Noir York work for the mayor. The mayor works for… for the friends of Germany. 

'A second one?'

Pete tends to avoid greens these days, preferring the unchanging blacks of his outfit. He has other clothes in his closet. In fact, he now owns all of Robbie's wardrobe too.

But if Pete can't wake up and choose to wear all black every single day, he may go back to bed and never wake up for fear that everything he's ever held dear might just simply slip out of his control. It happened to Robbie. It happened to Uncle Ben.

Anyway, moral of the story is that he can see color.

And Pete had made one off-color joke, that day in the parlor of a different May, trying to lighten the mood so that maybe it wouldn't all come crashing down on him.

Fact of the matter was that he'd left his city defenseless, the people without their savior. Miles had needed help, but Miles hadn't been, isn't living through a famine so immense that Miles' history books had called it the Greatest Depression, and Pete had been desperate to get home before bad got worse.

He'd made the joke for himself. If he hadn't, he'd've gotten up and left.

They think he's a damn private eye, but he'll take the fall for that one— he's not sure how they'd react to his reality, so he'd made up the lie on the spot that day in Different May's basement. He'd not been sure that they'd… approve.

Now it's more of a game of not correcting them.

They believe anything he tells them about his time, and therein lies the problem— he digresses.

But Peni and Ham regularly quiz him on colors that he can see perfectly fine.

It's like they don't know him at all.

Well, he can't really blame them. These days, he feels like nothing more than a shadow.

And now he's gone and run off, and he's hiding away. Just great.

He knows deep in his heart of hearts that one of these days O'Hara is going to come take the watch back, shove him off to his own world. Really, Pete should be thrilled at the idea of going back, of slipping on the new goggles he'd acquired and resuming the role of The Spider-Man, haunting the night, notably avoiding the apartments in uptown Noir York because he knows which FBI director likes to spend his time there, and he knows that uptown is no place for people like The Crime Master or The Goblin.

It would be so easy to just leave this society, to claim that he'd never been there to begin with. No one wants to visit Noir York anyway.

He should be thrilled, because his city needs him, and being away this long has probably raised some eyebrows.

But he can't leave yet.

The shiny plastic-wrapped sandwich in his pocket rustles as he pulls it out, having stashed it there in his mad dash from the cafeteria to the library. He'd forgotten about it in his haste to get out, but now he realizes just how hungry he is, and he peels back the plastic to give the bland cafeteria food a second try.

He lifts his mask up just to his nose.

He bites.

He chews.

He swallows.

Hm.

At length, he decides he doesn't like it, but beggars can't be choosers, so he finishes it off and stuffs the plastic back into his pocket as best as he can with his limited mobility.

When the overhead electric lights— still so strange to him, though he understands that they'd be more common nowadays— flicker off due to lack of motion, he leans forward on his knees, bracing his feet against the shelves, and with his head on his arms, he allows himself a nap.

**

The dream he has is vague, but horrifying nonetheless.

His skull is outside of his body. His skull is inside his body. His skull is outside his body, but his head is held up anyway, and it's all MJ's fault, and why can't she put it back, and why did you do this to me?

When he looks in the mirror, his reflection shows terrified brown eyes set in a chiseled, panic-stricken face with a bandage in the center of its forehead.

Robbie.

He twists, and MJ is blonde now, smiling. She says something, something unnerving that Pete doesn't remember, and then she's not blonde, she's ginger, no wait, now she's a brunette, now she's a man, now she's a woman, covered in blood, eyes open in shock, now she's Pete.

Robbie stares at him once more.

His reflection of Robbie sighs, eyes popping out of his face as he lowers himself into his hands. The voice that comes out of his mouth is distant, and watery, like he's talking on a stage and listening to it from down the block, and the foreign Robbie-Peter voice wails "Why don't you ever listen to me?!"

Anger bubbles in his heart, threatening to spill out. Pete doesn't remember who he's angry at. There are tears in his eyes, but he doesn't know if he's really crying or if it's all in his head.

Robbie continues. He screams, "They're not good for you, Pete! Something's up with them, with it, but you don't ever listen to me!"

In his dream, his nightmare, or maybe not in his dream, his eyes begin to close, and he has to struggle to keep them open. Nothing in his head shows clearly, and he stumbles around, eyes aimed down, unable to see, unable to do anything. His eyebrows hurt. His head hurts.

When Pete violently jerks his head around to try and see where the hell he is, his dream becoming less of a dream and more of a fight, his own head collides with the metal shelving unit, and he's startled out of his… dream, and back into his personal hell.

He takes that back. Felicia Hardy's bedroom is his personal hell. Ellis Island is his personal hell. JJ Jameson's office is his personal hell, and Ben Ulrich's apartment is his personal hell, and—

A glowing red insignia suddenly fills his mind's eye, round and sharp all at once as it pulses, flashing like a siren.

Danger.

Pete's eyes, groggy as they are, snap to attention at the sound of the library door opening.

The lights flash on, blinding him, and he ducks his head into his lap as his goggles do little to prevent spotting. Maybe if he stays like this, the person who came in will leave after finding nothing of interest. They'll wander the assortment of metal shelves, searching maybe for the register, or the bookcase full of reports of missions gone by, looking for records or something. They'll find it, and they'll check it out and leave.

They'll pass right by Pete— and Pete's real good at blending with the shadows, even if this newfangled sterile lighting leaves little shadows for Pete to take cover.

He thinks of Robbie. He thinks of Robbie sitting, surrounded by strangers who did nothing wrong, kidnapped for the crime of existing within their own skin, held in a cell below a lab where they knew nothing good would happen.

He thinks of Robbie during the procedure. He thinks of Robbie, trapped.

Pete feels trapped right now.

But moving could mean exposing himself, and exposing himself means questions being asked, and questions lead to people wondering if he's really alright. And, well, his revolver is snug on his hip today, loaded, the safety off. His trigger finger's only this side of itchy.

The last thing he needs is to shoot himself in the leg by accident.

He can't part with it for even a day, but carrying a non-registered weapon around in the Society might be cause for alarm, especially since O'Hara's got a stick up his rear so long he's practically spitting splinters.

He can't be found.

And if he is… then the person who finds him can't leave the library.

He knows how good at keeping secrets other spiders are— hell, they take their masks off in the Society building, he knows they're no good at secrets. If some blabbermouth finds him and gives away his hiding spot, Pete will have to go home.

Goodbye three square meals and electric heating, hello conscription and eventual death by grenade. He's no good dead, but he's worse off in prison, and he'd heard about what happened to the pacifists during the first war.

Aunt May would be worried sick, Pete would be off the streets, The Spider-Man would be unmasked, and Noir York would fold in on itself like a flimsy match, burning all the way down.

There are footsteps, he realizes, footsteps on the linoleum— when he'd arrived, they'd been replacing the carpeting; apparently web fluid doesn't mix well with carpet fibers— and Pete hurries to yank his mask back down over his chin, pulling his gloves on tighter. He's covered in black from his hat-covered head to the soles of his boots, but the stark contrast of the chrome library only makes him more visible.

In an effort to reduce visibility, Pete sheds his coat and hat before scaling the wall behind him until he can safely crouch on top of a shelf. An eagle-eye view is what he needs most, and while the shelves don't give him a good view of the rest of the library beyond the other shelves, at the very least he's less visible than before.

Provided, of course, that no one looks up.

He hears a second person enter the library, and then a third.

Well now, that doesn't sit right.

Pete's breathing becomes slow and shallows, barely a puff of air from his lips as he watches the frame of the door over the top of the shelves open one more time, close soundlessly, and lock.

A voice carries over, one that Pete knows well.

Miles.

"Y'know, I could just wait outside— you probably don't need four people to find a book, and—"

"Come on, Miles, it's fine, it's a library, you love libraries! And I know you're curious too."

Gwen.

They're barging around the shelves, thank the heavens, slower than snails on molasses. Must mean they're being careful to find whatever it is they're looking for.

"I'm just saying, if we were supposed to be here, why did we have to sneak around? We could've just taken the elevator! And why is the door locked? This feels like the setup for a horror movie… but no biggie,"

"Relax bruv—"

New voice. Pete can't place it. Vaguely European, for sure, but he's not too sure where in Europe the accent is from exactly. 

When he listens back in, Gwen is speaking again.

"— Miles, you were the one who brought it up, I just… got curious too. I mean, don't you want to see what he looks like under the mask?"

"He… probably looks like Peter B. They all kinda look the same to me."

Pete can hear the playful eye-roll in Gwen's words as she follows up with, "Of course they would, you just joined— I promise, once you get to know them, they're like day and night,"

"… Right, right, day and night. Whatever you say."

Yes sir, these are the people he'd just been plotzing around with earlier, the same gaggle of teenagers… and an addition.

He can hear the way Gwen gets cagey and defensive whenever one of her beliefs is questioned— she'd told Pete that she'd been working on it with Spider-Shrink, but he's not sure how much of that is true— and he can hear the way Miles tries to diffuse the situation with some passive language, always eager to assure people that he means no harm even in times when he should mean harm.

Miles is a good guy; Gwen… Pete's still a little on edge with the younger spider, though he's got enough sense to know he shouldn't be.

There's also the new voice. British, maybe. The shelves are tall, but Pete can see spikes sticking up over the top of one, shining and dipped in… something dried.

Something red…

But he can't focus on that.

He needs to get out.

Pete slowly crouch-walks along the top of the shelf, careful with the placement of his feet as he guides with his hands, and any potential noises he might make. About halfway across the first shelf, he webs his coat and hat up to where he is, and drags them along. Sure, he must look on the sus, but that's only if people actually see him in the first place.

If only he could turn invisible like Miles.

But no, the Goddess had insisted that organic webbing and migraine-inducing spider senses were the best route to take.

Pete needs to get out of this Society.

He needs to get out, and then he needs to chuck his watch in the Hudson, and then he needs to tell his aunt the truth, and then he needs to find something to smoke, go to bed, and sleep for a full 13 hours.

Not for the first time, Pete wonders if O'Hara actually thinks that people would be willing to steal books from this library.

Putting a watch shut-down signal in the walls for this room feels like a dilly move if he's honest. And what, pray tell, had O'Hara's plan been for when a horribly uncomfortable all-black Spider-Man came running to the library to escape it all?

He can't open a portal now, and the longer he waits, the more likely he'll be noticed.

Pete sighs into his mask and pauses on top of the shelf where he is. He's on the east side of the room, right on top of the shelf of registered Spider-People A-O, when he needs to be on the north side of the room.

The P shelves are across from him, and he notices pretty quickly that the footsteps of Gwen and company are getting closer.

Maybe if he tries hard enough, no one will see him?

"— I mean, he never takes it off," Gwen says, her voice getting loud enough to reach Pete's ears even with her lowered volume.

"Maybe it's part of his face?" A fourth, unfamiliar voice pipes up, and the group enjoys a soft laugh together before falling back into tense silence. "If what Miguel said is true, there must be someone out there with a mask for a face,"

"And you think this bloke is the one in a billion?"

"I don't know, I've never met him."

Pete pulls his jacket and hat over his lap and then pushes them as far down the line of shelving units as he can, as close to the door as they'll go.

Who the hell are they bumping gums about anyway? Some poor guy who never takes his mask off? Sure, it's smart, he'll admit, to go looking in the registers for whoever it is they're looking for, but it doesn't make it good.

He'd hate to be who they're looking for.

He hears them get even closer, and silent as a cat (though not nearly as graceful) Pete leaps forward from his shelf to the first P shelf, flattening himself against the metal with his arms tucked under his stomach. It's double wide, luckily, as are all of the shelves in O'Hara's nightmarish library, and bolted to the floor as well.

He's sure that, had he not been bitten by that spider, he'd've missed the landing and fallen 12 feet to the floor on the other side of the shelf.

Whether or not the sudden black flash actually caught anyone's attention is up for debate, but Pete simply prays that none of them caught on, and makes his body as small as he can.

Thank the old spider goddess he left his clunky hat/jacket combo elsewhere, otherwise he'd be a goner for sure.

Pete rolls his head to the side, peering over the edge where he sees the top of Gwen's head bobbing along, blonde hair shining enough to make the older spider start developing a headache.

Miles follows close behind, still in his spider suit from lunch, sporting a brand new mustard stain on the front that's barely hidden by his jacket.

Clinging to Miles like a rat in a trap is a spider that Pete's seen around from time to time, if only because he'd come in here a short while ago to study up on the most common Spider-Man enemies. He's a newer spider, Pete thinks, and that's about all Pete knows of him— well, aside from the just incredible hair, but everyone knows about that.

He'd sat at the table next to Gwen and talked her ear off, but Pete hadn't learned his name.

He watches the three of them barge around, thoroughly searching every shelf as they go, until someone tells a joke and a deep, bellowing laugh fills the room.

His ears guide him to the fourth member of their party who is severely lagging behind.

The fourth fella is much taller than the rest, walking on some modern platforms that look nothing like the ones from Pete's time. They're too futuristic.

When the boy— it is a boy, Pete thinks, but these days it's hard to tell— knocks his fist against the shelf, Pete jolts, violently twisting his head to look straight up at the ceiling as his heart pounds. His face floods with warmth, no doubt turning his scarred cheeks a blotchy pink.

Pete doesn't recognize him.

Well, the mask obscures the features, but the mask itself is kippy, not something Pete would miss or mistake for something else. He hadn't been eating with them at lunch; he's togged to the bricks— Pete is 100 percent sure he would've noticed if he had.

His heart pounds faster in his chest, sweat pooling under his mask.

When he risks peeking out over the edge again, his heart leaps into his throat, jolting his entire body as his eyes lock with the paper white peepers of Spikes, who is staring right into his soul.

Spikes flashes a jaw dropping orchid color.

Time stands still, and Pete stares, stares, warmth creeping through his arms, his hips, his feet.

Time stands still.

When the orchid disappears, Pete's heart takes a dive to his toes, and a bumping bass line electrifies every nerve in his sad excuse of a body.

The others haven't noticed that their friend hasn't caught up. Maybe if Pete plays his cards right, Spikes will keep his trap closed and let Pete get out without a fuss.

He should've never come here. This place is all wet, damned corner he's backed himself into.

Spikes watches Pete for a while longer, head tilted like he's examining the poor man. He keeps a cool air of confidence, like he's got places to be, and he watches as Pete's heart crawls through his skin and skips on down to where he's standing. Briefly Pete wonders if Spikes' time is accepting of fags, but he then remembers that he's not here to scout for friends, or find new arms to fall into when the sun sets.

War is coming.

Robbie is as good as dead.

Crime Master's left big shoes to fill, but fill they will. And Felicia… he can't remember the last time he's seen her. Maybe she's a lump behind the garbage, lifeless and folded like so many others, too damned gone.

He should be home, preventing what's to come, not running around playing cleanup crew—

Spikes' head tilts back to a straight position and suddenly the whites of his mask widen until they cover a good portion of his head. Pete recognizes immediately that he's the type to talk with his hands, and he tears his gaze away just as Gwen rounds the corner. Too afraid to see what those fingers might say.

"Hobie!" she calls pausing to clear her throat. "There are, um, a lot of Peter Parkers in here. We need your help."

Spikes— or is it Hobie? Pete's not sure. For all Pete knows, it could be a nickname— gives Gwen a thumbs up, waiting until she's gone back behind the shelf to give Pete one last look.

Pete's not sure what it is exactly that's happening behind the whites of the mask, what kind of assumptions are being made, or conclusions being jumped to, but he doesn't want to stick around to find out.

The moment Spikes starts walking toward his friends, Pete leaps to the ground and takes off at a sprint. The library door, locked though it may be, is surprisingly flimsy on its hinges, and comes off easy enough.

It's fine. It's all swell.

He gets halfway down the hall before he finds what he assumes is an empty room (it's not, but he doubts Spider-Chair is going to care about him opening a portal in the middle of her nap).

He realizes too late that Gwen and her friends had been looking for him, because how many other Peter Parkers in this place don't take their masks off?

What a fool.

And, ah, dammit, he's left his coat in the library, right where Gwen and her goons will eventually find it. They'll know he fled like some kind of coward, that he ran right right out.

And, ah, dammit, his hat. His eyes water under his mask— if he never sees that hat again, he'll be worse off for it.

And Pete still can't shake that feeling he'd had when he'd locked eyes with… with Spikes, his heart had flown, is still flying, leaping wildly among his ribs like an animal desperate to be let out of its cage. Pete's been in love before, sure, but he's never felt the urge to sit down with someone on a rooftop, at dusk, and watch the world grow dangerous with them as their bond forged. Spikes had seemed like the kind of person you like more when it's just the two of you.

Somewhere along the line, Spikes' piercing gaze had gone searchin' for his soul, and found it among the clutter. Without even lifting a finger, Spikes had seen the poor, terrified version of himself who keeps his mouth shut not because he has nothing to say, but because without sealed lips, his heart would come spilling out of his throat and land at his feet in all its beating glory. He'd seen the Pete who loves a little too loud, and worries a little too much, and is still, at heart, a damned fool.

He might find Pete's hat and coat.

Pete doesn't dwell on it.

He dives through the portal.

**

Spider-Chair?

More like Spider-Snitch.

Pete hears the portal opening outside of the dingy mudroom he calls an apartment before he sees it. The silence in the air grows thick right before it happens, and the way it pulses makes for a very distinct sound— distinct enough that Pete's hand snakes toward his hip a second before he realizes what's going on.

Whoever's decided to come pay him a visit couldn't be bothered to leave well enough alone?

Pete'd been having a swell time since he'd arrived back in Noir York, actually.

He'd learned of the untimely demise of Robbie's sweet sister, plugged full of lead by a Crime Master wannabe. Felicia'd come and gone, his old flame now nothing more than a spark. She couldn't even look at him.

And, of course, the news never stops running.

Pete can put up with the worst end of the demanding scale, but there comes a point when writing articles about the dangers that The Spider-Man poses just doesn't do it for him.

Ben Ulrich would be outraged, Uncle Ben would be outraged.

Pete can't stop being The Spider-Man— so he does the next best thing, and fakes the death of Peter Benjamin Parker, maiming his double so well that all agent De Wolfe could find were the spare cheaters he'd dropped and the press badge he'd left, evidence of a crime that never happened.

S'not as if that pig's buddies down at the big house are gonna miss him.

But all that aside, the last thing Pete had expected is visitors, and visitors from other dimensions would not have crossed his mind even a little bit.

After all, he'd gone through with his plan, and tossed O'Hara's watch right in the Hudson the second he got back. No more portals, no more spiderverse, no more hiding.

He's retired of that anomaly stuff, and he's aware he'd been there for three-ish weeks at most, but that'd been more than enough time to learn which of his… friends actually knew him, and which ones just saw the black and the white, and wrote their own story.

Things had certainly changed between their first meeting to their last, and Pete isn't about to try and force things back to the way they were.

He'd tried, alright? He'd tried to be The Spider-Man for O'Hara, to hang out with other spiders and live in their commune. He'd given it a whirl, and it hadn't fit, and now he's got a duty to fulfill.

Visitors will only get in the way.

Peering from the window in his little shoebox apartment— a luxury, though after weeks at the Society it feels less and less true— Noir watches as a cat leaps from the alley directly across the street from him, and then there's a strong, pearl, swarm, pulsing loudly where the cat had been.

Pete remembers the portals being that same color when he'd first been stolen from his city, before the Society had come into play, back when he'd met Miles. Pete'd noticed pretty quick that the watches, while decades more advanced than the watches of his time, had the same setup as the collider, only at a microscopic scale.

From what Peni had told him during their brief interaction, the collider could open up every dimension at once (or at least six or seven at a time, and when she'd said this Miles and Gwen had groaned, but Pete forgot to ask what that was all about) and could bring a lot of people through while staying open for hours.

Or, that's what it'd been designed for.

The watches, on the other hand, could only open up one dimension at a time, and stayed open for about ~45 seconds, enough time for one person to cross through.

In simpler terms, the collider was a big ol' ferry shepherding a hundred folks… from the mainland to Ellis Island and back again, and one of these watches is more like a little rowboat. Same function, different scale. 

Pete will admit, he is incredibly impressed.

But Peni had also mentioned, Pete remembers as he draws his trusty revolver, that O'Hara had put some modifications on the watches. All the portals started white— O'Hara made them orange somehow (Pete didn't, doesn't understand it, but little few in the Sociey understand the mechanisms of his time either so he's never lingered on that).

If the portals ain't orange, you've got one of two things on your hands: stolen technology, or outsiders. Sometimes both.

Pete's bet is on the first.

He waits, watches from his window as someone steps out of the portal and into his grimy little world. He spots the platforms first, followed by the muted reds and blues, and then the spikes.

It's that damn pip with the spikes, oh he should've known.

Pete lowers his convincer and shoves it back in the holster, switching the safety back on as he does so before pulling the edge of his vest over the grip. He moves from the window before Spikes can bother to spot him in the glass, and it's here that he must make a decision: answer as The Spider-Man, or answer as Peter Benjamin Parker, a man who is supposed to be dead.

His mask, his suit, it's all hidden away. He wouldn't have time to grab it, not now, but Spikes might recognize him without his mask on, might give away all of Pete's secrets to any nosy neighbors with all of his red-blue flashiness. It's a rock and a hard place, or something akin.

But… Pete's tired.

Loathe as he is to admit it, he takes the easy way out.

Spikes, Pete had guessed back when they'd first locked eyes, isn't an idiot.

He finds Pete's cave pretty easily, having likely found his address in the spider registry. Pete wonders, briefly, if Spikes was disappointed to see that his photo slot had been blank, and… and then his mind wanders into dangerous territories of what if the kid's desperate to see how you look under the mask, and oh, that's not right.

That's not right at all. 

For all he knows, Spikes is here on some kind of mission O'Hara sent him on.

Maybe his watch broke, and that's why his portal's gone white. He'd have no reason to visit Pete for any real reason, but if he's coming over to get the scoop from the local Spider-Man, well, that'd make the most sense.

Any other reason feels too self-indulgent to gain any long-term real estate in Pete's mind.

His apartment groans as a gust of wind blows through his street, and Pete uses the creakiness to mask his footsteps as he crosses from his perch by the window to the paperboard mat by the door. Through the peephole, Spikes flashes a muted shade of yellow, then green.

They're not quite the grim shades of colors that haunt Noir York, not contrasting quite enough.

His body must be compromising.

Again, Pete wonders what he's doing here.

When Spikes' knuckles rap against the door, Pete's hands fly down his body, smoothing out the lilac of his sweater vest and feeling for the set of keys he'd left in the front pocket of his corduroys. It's a mindless habit— something about Spikes makes Pete nervous.

He's quickly reminded of their brief staring contest, and he almost doesn't open the door, but Peter Benjamin Parker is nothing if not a good host. Or rather, before his untimely demise on 6th. 

He cracks the door like his uncle taught him to (never open it wide enough to get their barrel through, and keep himself out of knifing distance), peering out at Spikes.

Spikes looks smooth, dressed down in his civies (a ratty old coat and a pair of thick, fleece slacks) with nothing but his mask left to identify himself. He's an intimidating fella, that's for sure, but no more intimidating than O'Hara or Ms. Drew.

Spikes nods in greeting, and when he presents his hands to the jury, showing the palms of his suit, web-slingers left at home, Pete steps aside to let him in. He doesn't know this guy, and he probably shouldn't trust him, but he's… like him.

His senses tell him to trust Spikes, and Pete would trust Peter B. in his apartment, or Miles, so…

Maybe not Gwen, but he's sure the feeling's mutual.

And, whether he likes it or not, these streets aren't too safe for anyone, least of all some punk in bright red garb, coat or no coat. Pete follows his gut and steps aside.

Spikes waits for him to shut and lock his apartment door before he moves deeper inward, taking in the main room with a sigh. Pete chooses to ignore that.

He chooses to ignore a lot actually— like how Spikes' eyes have widened since first seeing Pete's bare face, and how the air has become thick with Spikes' newfound burning passion to ask about the scars, and the age, and the glasses, and everything in between.

Spikes probably knows better, Pete thinks, than to ask, but the questions will stay on his tongue anyway.

Pete is intimately familiar with the feeling.

But, like he said, he chooses to ignore it.

"Were you followed?" he tosses out. Spikes shakes his head, and Pete's goddess-given spider sense doesn't go off, so he chooses to believe that Spikes isn't lying.

Pete offers Spikes something to drink, choosing to put the topic of why he's here to the side for a bit so he can focus on getting to understand who this fella is. Clearly he's not on a mission at the moment, or he'd be in a bigger rush, so Pete at least knows that much.

He puts a pot on, rifling through his bare cupboards for a bottle of something strong enough to help pretend the coffee is anything but half-dust. He vaguely remembers webbing a bottle of some of Felicia's good hooch to the back of the cupboard, but after a minute of searching, he resigns to hoping Spikes doesn't have a problem with germs, and pours from his own flask.

While he pours, he puts on his best impression of Peter Benjamin Parker, (former) Daily Bugle photographer, working man of the 1930s.

Spikes says nothing as Pete shuffles around his kitchenette, preparing a pot of coffee to go with what little he has of his whiskey, doesn't comment on his boots. Spikes probably understands that you've gotta be ready to scuffle, ready to flee.

Pete gets the impression that Spikes understands a lot.

"Sorry about the scarcity, I'd offer you a little more, but…" Pete says solemnly. He doesn't have to explain himself; he's sure some of the history books in Spikes' universe have taught him plenty.

He moves to the little table he's tucked into the corner of the room to set their drinks.

His threadbare couch with the snipe burns in it hosts Spikes languid body, and Pete takes a moment to appreciate his Morticia Addams-esque easiness before he hunches his shoulders to his ears and tries to pretend that Spikes ain't watching his every move.

Spikes is easy on the eyes, no doubt, but his silence is starting to get under Pete's skin. He takes up residence on the table's accompanying chair.

There's no sound, save the muffled hubbub of downstairs neighbors settling down for the evening, and tin cans getting a little too comfortable rumbling down the street even in all this snow they're having.

Spikes doesn't accept the offered drink, doesn't take his mask off. Pete can hear his heart pumping blood, his eyes deafening with every blink, the desperate gurgling of his stomach.

It's not usually so bad when he's all on his own, just Pete in his shoebox trying to pass the time with Ulrich's treasure hunt of a hidden-evidence-system, or marking off the calendar in anticipation of the draft. His radio barely works, but he turns it on every day to hear where they're flying— the talk of yellow stars, enforced curfews… and tension in Poland, Denmark, Holland.

No real threat of invasion, but it seeps into his bones nonetheless. He briefly recalls Edderkoppen when he hears of the strife with Norway, thinking of the striped spider stumbling in the cafeteria after a drunken night and throwing up all over Pete's coat.

He tries not to think too hard about the Society— it's better this way.

But he's not all on his own tonight.

With his radio on the fritz due to the recent bout of bad weather, the silence is even heavier. Pete is almost afraid to breathe.

Finally, Spikes lowers his feet from the arm of the couch— Pete realizes that the dents worn into the arm aren't from his guest, but from his own feet, and warmth floods his frigid cheeks— and pulls his mask right off.

This rotgut is not worth choking on, Pete thinks.

He chokes on it anyway.

Spikes is, in a word, gorgeous.

Pete is at a loss for words, and he precariously wipes the liquor dribbling from his lips on the back of his brown jacket sleeve, watching as Spikes' eyes meet his. They're a deep black, just like his hair, which shoots out at an impossible size from his head in a style that's new and refreshing to Pete's tired eyes.

There's metal in his face, more metal than Pete's ever seen (and he'd seen what Octavius did to his captives). His lips, painted a deep plum the color of the foggy night sky, pull back into a smirk when he catches Pete staring.

Pete is ashamed, at first, and he turns away, heat flooding his eyes.

Of course Miles and Gwen sat him down and taught him all the right terms about… about same sex couples and race and the mixes of masculinity and femininity in the modern world and all that. Of course they did, and he's glad.

But that doesn't mean that Pete knows how to deal with his own feelings in regards to that.

He knows that, as Peter B. puts it, he's "bi-curious" or something similar. His fling with De Wolffe hadn't been nothing, and neither had his thing with Felicia.

But it doesn't mean he likes other people knowing. He's pretty sure Spikes has an inkling, and that's enough to set him on edge. That, and of course the fact that he has a visitor at all… well it's all starting to get on his nerves.

Then again, it's hard to stay mad at someone so slamming.

Spikes' eyes scan the room fully, taking in the bare walls and the creaky cot with the thin mattress and ratty blanket, and the chipping paint, and the dusty floors.

He hums, "Right nice place you've got up 'ere."

Pete isn't sure if the kid's yanking his chain or not. He puts money on 'not'. "Well it's no Carlyle, but we make due."

Spikes cocks one impeccably sharp eyebrow and spares a glance around the room again. "We?" he asks, likely wondering how Pete would be able to fit a roommate in here, let alone himself.

But Pete doesn't need to bother with an answer as Ding-Ding slides his way out from under the couch.

Ding-Ding is still dirty, so Pete calls him away before he can get any of his cat-dust on Spikes' nice pants. "Sorry 'bout the mess," he says at length, careful to keep his voice low, "Wasn't expecting any visitors."

Spikes shrugs, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. "Not really a home without a bit of a mess's the way I see it... a little dust is cheddar in my book,"

"Cheddar?"

"Brilliant. Aces. Great." Spikes goes to the trouble of leaning into the growled R and hard T on the last word, doing his best impression of Pete's Noir York accent. It earns the little rebel a chortle from Pete's tired lips. Spikes purses his lips. "Your mouth must be real knackered, this shit's not fun to say your way. Great. G-reat,"

"… You get used to it," Pete sighs, resisting the urge to smile. When he smiles, his scars split, and the last thing he needs is to bring attention to them right now.

While he's on the subject— there's simply no way he's going to get used to Spikes.

He's dazzling, pulled right from Vogue with the articles still attached, dancing across his skin like tattoos.

Spikes flashes a neon blue, and Pete decides that he's done enough dilly-dallying; if he waits any further, he's gonna lose his nerve.

"Well, let me be the first to say that I have no idea what you're doing in my house," he says through a laugh, forcing the ha out of his throat the same way he'd forced himself into that little corner in the Society's library.

Downing the last of his coffee, he leans back in his creaky chair and gives Spikes a onceover as he shrugs out of his old brown jacket. Spikes does the same, and their two outer layers kiss on the floor. Peni once told him that "red exudes confidence, it's why all the spiders wear it!". He'd figured she'd meant that it was a good way to ward off potential threats, but he sees now that she meant it literally— it's a confidence booster. The red— he guesses it's more of a salmon, really— of his shirt sends electricity through his skin. 

Spikes, devilishly handsome as he is, has the upper hand here in terms of hops. If Pete wants to get the low down, he'll need all the confidence he can get. He's not above playing dirty.

If kids like Spikes and his crew can go around snooping for facts about Peter Benjamin Parker, then Pete can do the same.

He levels with Spikes, looking down the bridge of his nose as the lanky teen (can't be older than Pete, if he's guessing right) seems to only get more comfortable.

Ding-Ding pads over to Spikes; traitor.

"So," he starts. The words feel funny in his mouth— he hasn't spoken to another person in a while, it seems. "Why don't we start with names?"

Spikes doesn't say anything.

In that case, Pete will go first. "The name's Peter— but you probably already guessed that,"

"'Course I did, there's loads of you blokes back at Miggy's place. Too many, if you ask me." It's a joke, if the smile on his face is any evidence. He pauses, turning words over in his mind and letting it show up on his rather expressive face. Pete hadn't expected that. He also doesn't expect the flashing red before it happens, and is subsequently left with spotting vision. "… still, no zebra-types aside from you— well, guess that one didn't last long— and any pal of Gwen's is a pal of mine—"

"Even Ham?"

Spikes grins. "Especially him. I can get behind a man who doesn't believe in logic,"

"Did'ja get around to seeing him in action?"

"Natural born superstar's what he is."

Pete doesn't point out how easily Spikes danced around the question of what his name is, but he definitely doesn't ignore it. Age-old trick, borrowed from May: if someone dodges a question, just ask it again.

Grab a crowbar, pry them open— if they really want to keep it a secret, they'll find a way around it, and if they don't, they'll crack like a coconut.

"So, what do they call you? Can't keep saying 'Spikes' in my head, now can I?"

"It's that kind of mindless conformity that gets people killed, y'know,"

"Well then, I guess I just plain don't wanna."

Ding-Ding meows. Spikes slides his hand over Ding-Ding's head, and the cat begins to rumble like a tin can on the road, purring loud enough to reach Pete's ears from afar, and an uncanny warmth fills his heart as the whole room sort of expands and contracts, breathing life into the shoebox with just one little animal's happy sounds.

Pete, surprised at how little he minds as his cat fully ignores him, adjusts his glasses, and wonders where to go from here. Again, Spikes has dodged his question, and Pete's not gonna press on that topic any more.

Well, as May used to say, his best option is probably forward.

"Now, if you and your... pals are gonna go rummaging around for my information, I think it's only fair that you tell me what exactly you're doing in my dimension. It's not safe 'round here, Spikes."

Spikes sighs, long and loud, causing Ding-Ding to leap away and disappear elsewhere. He sighs twice. "It's not really that fun when you say it out loud, bruv— the name's Hobie."

Well, that answers one question, and not the other. So Hobie wasn't a nickname. He'd been expecting Hobie to be a nickname for another Peter, maybe a Miles.

He gives the teen in question yet another onceover, not by any means forgetting just how handsome he is, and how strange Pete is to have someone so gorgeous just casually existing in his home.

It does make sense that Hobie would somehow break the mold.

He reminds Pete a little of his aunt.

Maybe he's also a socialist—

The red circle reappears, the insignia bright and flashing in Pete's face as a warning for… something. Something intense.

The last time it flashed like this, Felicia'd gone and faded, and he's seen nothing but snatches of her since.

Intensity.

Hobie is suddenly very, very close.

Pete's never been claustrophobic (there have been incidents, but he digresses), but here, now, with Hobie pressing in close to the point where Pete couldn't run even if he tried… it's a lot easier to see why some people are.

Claustrophobic, that is.

Pete gulps thickly and his gaze rises to meet that of Hobie's, who peers curiously down at the older teen.

Hobie is striking.

Pete is… no, scared isn't the right word. He's electrified. It's the same feeling he had, laying on that bookshelf— not one of fear, per se, but of… interest. Hobie is interesting, from the metal in his face, to the boots on his feet, to the way his hair magically fits under the mask.

It's all very new to Pete, very new indeed, and now Hobie is within inches of Pete's body.

It was easier when there'd been a couple feet of vertical space between the two.

At length, after Pete is nearly overwhelmed with the urge to know what happens next— like he's listening to a radio talk show and the caller's just explained the tragic discovery of his wife's affair, and boy does that anecdote make him feel silly— Hobie reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls out Pete's hat, unharmed and in one piece. How it had fit in the pocket to begin with, Pete doesn't know. He guesses it's something similar to Ham's pockets. Maybe one and the same.

He places it on Pete's head with a low, "Surprise," before he retreats to his spot on the couch.

Pete lets out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

It's… it's his hat. His beloved, foolishly important hat.

He pulls it from his head and stares into the gray bowl, noting that his many photographs are still tucked into the inner band (secured with what Peter B. had called a 'glue gun'), undisturbed.

Hobie's not the type to snoop.

But, then,  if Hobie's not the type to snoop… well, Pete can shrug it off as loyalty to Gwen. Pete'd taken Robbie over to Ellis Island even though he hadn't been too inclined to snoop. Doesn't make him any different.

"I… thank you… Hobie." He tests the name out on his tongue and decides he likes it a lot. "You don't know what this means to me."

Hobie doesn't, and he never will.

In Pete's hat is the only place where Robbie's pinched expression of hatred for mankind's faults, and his broad smile that even the sun envied still lives— the last of his freewill.

Taking his hat off had been a mistake, and not one Pete's likely to repeat.

He hugs his hat closer to himself than he means to, and one of Gwen's 'polaroid's bends and leaps out of the hat, fluttering to the floor like some kind of dead bird. He remembers taking this one with the disposable camera Peni had gifted him from her world, one that had confused him to no end.

It's a horrid little thing, all blurry and dark, but if he squints, he can see Mary Jane, and Aunt May, and… and his face, blurred almost to the point where he might guess the accident had never happened.

It dawns on him that Hobie has yet to visibly react to Pete's face.

His stomach churns at the thought, his flight instinct that he'd spent years suppressing finally kicking in, yet not enough to overpower his desire to stay, to find out why.

And then, of course, like clockwork, he remembers again that Hobie is a stranger in his world, and while Pete would love to get to know him better, he first needs to know what on Earth Hobie's intentions are.

"Hobie… I hope you know that I still think very highly of… of Gwen and Miles. I know they... had their reasons for doing that. I know why they'd be curious, but you... I'm still in the dark as to why you were there, why you're… here," Pete starts, choosing his words carefully.

Hobie tenses. A newspaper clip of a headline stating tragedy and uncertain times flashes across his face, the word 'uncertain' typed in the boldest news font Pete's seen in a while.

Definitely not anything Jameson would pick.

Pete hadn't understood Hobie to be a quiet guy, but then again, he'd also been completely enamored by him the very minute he laid eyes on him, and then he'd made tracks when he'd realized his… friends were trying to bypass his code of conduct (mask remains on), and, well… he hadn't had much time to get to know the fella.

Hobie has a stoney look on his face— it may be Pete's inability to tell expressions apart from smiles and frowns, but the edge-of-seat feeling returns.

At long last, he realizes that Hobie is just also being careful with choosing his words.

"… Gwendy's my best mate, Parker, and... Miles is promising," he says slowly. "They're just… real keen on knowing why you ran, is all. I'm your middle-man, and hat-deliverer. And as for the library... would you believe it if I said I'm real int'rested in knowledge?"

Pete can see the walls slowly building between them, each brick climbing higher and higher. The next words out of his mouth will either weaken them or strengthen them, and Pete's not sure he wants the latter to happen.

Despite how little he knows of the guy, he… he likes Hobie, doesn't hate his company, or at least what he's experienced of it so far. He should push Hobie away. But Pete doesn't want to.

He sighs, long and loud.

"Look, trouble follows me— a lot," Pete continues, an oomph sound leaving his lungs as Ding-Ding leaps into his lap, "And… and you know what comes next for me, here, in this city."

Hobie doesn't say anything.

Pete takes this as his sign to keep going with his rambling. After he'd run from Hobie in the library, and he knows it sounds stupid, but… he feels like he owes him an explanation.

"I… don't want them to get too close. I don't know you very well, but I don't want you gettin' too close, either. You seem like a fine young man, and the last thing I want is another person gettin' hurt 'cause of me. I… ran 'cause the bond... well, the bond wasn't actually that solid, and... and I've been meaning to get the hell out of the Society for a while now. I know they meant well, but seeing them go… prying was all it took, really, to know I didn't need to stay."

And you're one hell of a looker, and I got flustered.

And… scared.

But that's Pete's way of living— afraid. Afraid and indignant, and, and angry.

So, so angry.

Pete gets the feeling that Hobie lives the same way, but he digresses.

Hobie takes all of this in, mulling over Pete's confession of looking for any excuse to leave behind all of the other spiders that he's grown fond of because he's a coward who's got too much on his plate, and he's a coward who's afraid of losing people he loves, and he's a coward who went looking for the worst in people and wielded it as his way out, and he's a coward— he takes it all in the same way a road sister takes in trash; silently, and always wondering what the next move should be.

Eventually, after Pete is pretty sure Hobie understands everything he's just blurted— and oh there is definitely a better way he could've explained himself, but that's a thought for another time—, Hobie's lips slowly stretch into one of the most handsome smiles this side of Harlem.

"True anarchy, right on," he says, dark eyes glinting with something akin to a laugh dancing among the whites. The word fact flashes behind Hobie in big, bold Garamond (now that's a Jameson font), and in a posh accent, he adds, "I too am anti-establishment. Kindly, fuck the man. Cheers, and all that. "

It is a little bit funny.

Pete grins before he remembers that it's not polite to bare all your teeth around others— not that smile— and he returns to brooding.

For now, he can pretend Hobie explained why he'd been snooping with Miles (after all, maybe he's just following his friends mindlessly, but… Hobie doesn't seem the type to do anything mindlessly).

He tucks the photo of his family back into his hat and places it on his wobbly little table. "Socialism is my preferred drink, but when in Rome… well, anyhow, now that we've got that little boondoggle out of the way, let me remember where my manners are again; I'm Peter, but my pals call me Pete. I'd welcome you to Noir York, but I hope to God you're not planning on stayin' long. And please, never mention me to anyone outside these walls— I'm supposed to be dead."

He briefly takes off an invisible hat, and Hobie chuckles wryly at his dumb joke. 

"I'll say, I didn't expect the color," Hobie says, peering curiously at Pete.

"Most people don't. It's the mask."

A desire to find his mask and pull it on, just to keep Hobie from seeing his scars, tugs at his heartstrings— but he's come this far. It… does he need to hide from Hobie?

Pete clears his throat. "... Now then, I've got a question, if you don't mind my asking—"

"Let's hear it,"

"— if you hate the hypocrisy, and the lying, and the, the… the grooming... why do you stay?"

Hobie mulls this over, turning it around and around in his head for a bit. Pete can see it in his eyes, the hard thinking, the picking and choosing of his words to make his stance as clear as possible.

It's… fascinating, sort of.

Finally, it comes out: "Simple." Hobie's sincerity mixes dangerously with his lightheartedness, and he stares at the door to his left. Pete can tell the answer is going to make his head hurt. "'Know thy enemy' and allat. How'm I supposed to take down Miggy if I don't know how his bleedin' system works?"

Pete considers this.

Actually, it doesn't make his noggin hurt as much as he'd thought it would.

In fact, it makes much more sense than any other reason Pete would've expected Hobie to give.

Pete's never gotten far enough into his own system to understand it— that was always Ulrich's job, Felicia's job, never Peter's. But he understands the concept.

He allows a smile to settle on his face, and almost at once the air in the room releases, like the dust after a building's gone and blown itself up. The tension dissipates and there remains Hobie and Pete, and Ding-Ding, sitting in Pete's cramped apartment, simply basking in the glow of Pete's oil lamp.

Hobie hasn't pointed out Pete's scars, his age, his old-fashioned place, or the cut of his jib— and it's all Pete can do not to burst into tears, God he's so afraid.

A sigh, deep and proud, bursts from Pete's lips, and he feels a sort of exhaustion settle into his skin, like soot from another deadly payout, or the smog from the harbor, and he moves back to his kitchenette in search of a refill.

Hobie follows him, leaving Ding-Ding and his short-lived protests on the couch.

They move together well in the crammed space, despite it all. Even as it's Hobie's first experience in the 1930s, and in Pete's home, he flows under and over Pete like a river in patchwork pants, never once touching... accidentally. Hobie is purposeful with every step he takes, every move he makes.

He helps Pete get what he needs, and then he goes the extra mile, offers to fry him an egg.

"Since I'm in your home and allat," he explains, "… s'least I can do."

Pete snorts, a little taken aback, but moves out of the way to give Hobie the room he needs to follow through on his promise.

Hugging his hat to his chest, he notes, "I thought punks kept to themselves— do you mind if I smoke in here?— y'know... harden your heart to keep that cruel mistress of a world out,

"I don't mind, s'long as you let me light up in 'ere too," Hobie says, a laugh just barely brushing his words, "and nah, bruv, punks are community." He flashes Pete a grin that leaves his host weak in the knees. "Help your mates or prepare to lose 'em, yeah?"

That… hadn't ever really occured to Pete before.

Community… sure, Pete has his friends— had— and his family, but in Noir York, the rule has always been 'kill or be killed'. It was like that one flick Peter B. had shown him in his own universe, the one about the… Lord and the rings or something, the one where the woman said that those who do not wield swords can still die on them.

It's… an old memory, so he's not certain if those were the exact words (he's still waiting for the book to come out) but he feels they hold true to Harlem, even if his Aunt May won't listen.

Pete doesn't really have a community.

Maybe that's why he can't stay in the Society.

He gives Hobie a slow nod, as if that could possibly express everything he's ever felt about Hobie's casual expression of fondness for his friends, and when his lighter doesn't work, Hobie offers his own, like they're old friends, like lighter fluid doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Hobie has no problem leaning into Pete's personal space. He had no problem coming to Pete's world, no problem pounding on his door, no problem carrying his hat across time and space, no problem staying silent about Pete hiding out in the library, no problem.

Pete can't remember the last time someone kept a secret for him.

Of all the lights in Noir's grim world, it's the flame from Hobie's zippo that first draws Pete's attention to the agitated color-specked gizmo strapped to his wrist.

With his reefer clamped between his teeth, he murmurs, "Nice watch you got there... how'd ya get O'Hara to sign off on that color, figured the man was all about uniform,"

"Didn't," Hobie says, his flame being the bridge between their snipes, a sweet kiss for two paper-rolled lovers. He pulls away before Pete wants him to. "Made it myself,"

"Aces."

"… Where's yours?"

Pete shrugs. "Bottom of the Hudson, I'd wager. Maybe halfway to Jersey, even." When he smiles at the thought of O'Hara's fancy watch floating through a dimension where it should not be, in a river it was not designed to fall in, to a state where it'll probably never be found, he can feel Hobie smiling too, Pete's kitchenette becoming a clubhouse where children go to giggle.

They pull from their smokes, filling the kitchenette with that familiar tar-esque scent, until Hobie coughs and puts his out on the sole of his boot.

"Mm, they say these things'll kill you," he comments, making himself at home in Pete's cupboards, likely in search of something to help the bite of Noir York soften at the edges. "Cancer sticks, they call 'em,"

"Sounds like a hell of a way to go," Pete sighs in response. He can't imagine that dying a slow death by cigarette is somehow worse than sticking around for the great war that his… friends told him about. He takes another drag, and on the exhale he adds, "Doctor's haven't said anything yet, what's your excuse?"

Hobie shrugs, finding the booze that had pulled a vanishing act on Pete earlier. "Live fast, die young, I s'ppose,"

"Sounds grim,"

"Takes one to know one, bruv," Hobie quips, and it sounds natural coming from his lips, as if they've been friendly all along.

Pete isn't sure how Hobie does it— be casual, he means— but he'll take what he can get. The fella's easy on the eyes, and makes Pete feel a little less alone.

He shouldn't stay too long, though.

Pete stamps out his cigarette on the bottom of his boot, same as Hobie had done, and he runs a hand down his face. "Well, now, this has been gasser, but I don't wanna keep you from anything," he says, casting his gaze down at Hobie's watch again. He briefly wonders if Hobie really only came to return his hat, but he throws the thought away immediately— to indulge in fantasy is to be left disappointed time and time again.

But Hobie must see him looking. He stares at his own watch as if he'd also just noticed it. "Wouldn't be too difficult to get you one of these, if you want." It's yet another thing he says so casually, and Pete has to wonder if he lives life as easily as this all the time. "Miles, Gwendy, that tiny freak in the mech, they all miss you, mate, would be a shame if you never saw them again,"

"Oh, I wouldn't wanna impose,"

"It's no big, just gives me more reason to steal from the regime, yeah?"

Pete sighs. He might as well. "... If you insist—"

"Brills," Hobie interjects, already setting his dusty glass down on the counter.

Pete suspects that maybe this is the real reason Hobie came to visit, though the idea that Hobie would ever need Pete's permission to do something sends a tingle down his spine, and not in the spider-sense way.

Hobie fiddles with the watch on his wrist, then the hem of his civvies, then the metal in his face.

Pete figures that if Hobie's going to let the conversation die, Pete's going to be the one to resurrect it.

He starts slow. "… You got anywhere to go, later… tonight?" he asks, lighting another reefer. Sometimes he forgets that it's ever day in this world of his, what with the sky constantly clouded over with the thick smog of fear and expectancy. He gestures widely to his shoebox. "It's not much, but you could stay the night… if you want."

Hobie looks suddenly as though he's been hit between the eyes by one of the Crime Master's throwing knives.

Maybe he shouldn't have offered. Maybe it's rude in Hobie's universe, or he's gone and assumed that Hobie doesn't have a place to stay, and that's a, um… what had Gwen called it, a micro aggression? Maybe.

Pete wishes he'd kept his trap shut, just let their words die, and he ambles aimlessly out of the kitchenette, not waiting for an answer.

Ding Ding yowls at him, as if sensing how easily he'd… 'fumbled the bag', or whatever the saying is. And by fumbling the bag, he means he went and pulled a brodie, tryna make Hobie his friend. He has this 21st century slang down to a T.

Miles would be proud, probably, if he could hear Pete now.

But, that aside, he doesn't get very far before Hobie is throwing himself against Pete's back, causing them both to stumble forward onto the couch.

Pete's glasses fly off, luckily, and avoid being crushed beneath Hobie's bruising tackle, and he manages to twist himself to at least hit the springy thing with his neck intact.

Hobie's already shouting a "sorry!" mid-laugh, following up with, "Initiating my mates is all that was." Pete doesn't think it counts as an excuse, but he's willing to let it slide.

"That's one hell of a way to do that, I guess," Pete huffs, "Nearly broke my face."

"Listen, babes, hate to say this, but it looks like someone's already done that, yeah?"

Pete scowls, but he knows neither of them mean it. "I take it back, get outta my house."

Hobie is still laughing.

He's still laughing, and it sounds aces to Pete's ringing ears, like the crooners at Felicia's old speakeasy— or what was left of the Black Cat when last Pete checked. It's been a good minute since he's wanted to go back.

Hobie gives Pete a good, long clap on the shoulder, saying, "Well I gotta make like an egg, really only came to return the hat." He pulls his mask back on.

Pete's sad to see him go, if he's honest; he won't lie, he knows a looker when he sees one. They only make one Hobie Brown every other century or so, and Pete'll be… sad if he doesn't see Hobie again soon.

More than that, though, Pete thinks that maybe Hobie is the first spider he's met who knows.

He doesn't realize how much he wishes he had one of Hobie's watches right now so he could find the bastard after he leaves, and it hits him like a loose car, too late for him to avoid it, that Hobie... came looking for him.

Hobie came looking for him, and he just asked.

He didn't sneak around behind his back, he didn't try to bypass Pete's hard-built walls, he just… popped up. He left well enough alone, didn't try to know things he ought not to know.

He's a good fella, that's for sure.

Pete offers Hobie one last chance to stay, but Hobie shrugs it off, saying that he can't leave his dimension for too long. "You understand," he murmurs, the eyes of his mask sagging.

A blip of newspaper flashes being Hobie, but Pete can only read the headline: Local Man Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place.

"Well, if your watch business isn't just a trip for biscuits, I'm sure I'll be seeing more of you and your spikes soon enough."

It's as much of a goodbye as Pete's willing to offer in these trying times.

He doesn't walk Hobie to the door— instead, he watches Hobie fiddle with his watch, open a portal in the middle of Pete's apartment, and while Pete holds Ding Ding down to keep his grasshopper of a pet from accidentally glitching out of existence, Hobie gives Pete the smallest little wave, flashing a bright, uncanny pink before diving through the white light.

Hobie disappears, but the portal remains.

It changes from white to beige, and letters appear— Times New Roman, a rather new font, but one that JJJ's been hating from the get go— spelling out a single phrase:

You ever need a place to hide, you know where to find me— 138.