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Jeff’s on patrol, parked on a street corner and begrudgingly admitting that Foam Party’s coffee might not be all too bad, when his personal cell chimes with a text. He technically shouldn’t be getting distracted on duty, but between the chaos of Brooklyn over the past few weeks and Miles choosing to stay away at Vision, he’s not feeling too guilty about it.
Huh, unknown number.
Jeff blinks once, twice, and then turns to the computer on his dash.
A brief check confirms that this is in fact a text from what the PDNY calls ‘The Spideyphone.’ It seems to check out; it’s a prepaid cell phone, Brooklyn area code, and the info that comes from the number is always legit, usually sent into the local tip hotline. It’s either actually Spider-Man, or a very dedicated fanclub-slash-neighborhood watch.
Absolutely none of that explains how ‘Spider-Man’ has his personal cell number.
It doesn’t really bear thinking about right now, though. The new kid does a lot of weird shit the old one didn’t; different powers, different look, different MO, different attitude.
As he’s pulling onto the road, reaching for his radio to call it in, from the very depths of his soul, Jeff sighs.
.
Spider-Kid’s waiting for him, squatting about fifteen feet in the air on the alley wall, scrolling through his phone like it’s just another Tuesday because apparently gravity is relative to these people. The ‘goons’ are indeed webbed up as promised, flattened against the side of the building beside Spider-Man, flailing impotently against their restraints. Oh, great, he’s gonna have to touch the web-stuff. He hates touching the web-stuff.
“Hey, Officer!” Spider-Man calls when he spots Jeff, making an attempt to lower his voice that gives up the ghost almost immediately.
“Hey, Spider-Man,” He responds warily, hands resting on his duty belt. “You wanna tell me what’s going on here?” On the authoritative vocal range of Cop-Voice to Dad-Voice, the question’s definitely more Dad-Voice than he’d like but he can’t really help it. This Spider-Man is young, enthusiastic and idealistic and jumpy, and Jeff can't help being a dad, or at least, being protective.
Besides, they all–
Jeff knows some of the officers who saw Peter Parker’s body, has seen photos himself. He was just a kid, fresh-faced and bright, skull caved in and ribcage completely shattered. He can take a hypothetical, moral stance on vigilantism all he likes, but when it comes down to it, Spider-Man is New York’s son, and they’re not going to let another kid get killed. Not while Jeff’s on the force.
Spider-Man at least has the decency to sound sheepish, as he replies, “Armed robbery. Well, they tried, at least. I was, uh, in the neighborhood.”
“Right,” Jeff says, just as he hears the shuttering of cell phone cameras behind him. Oh, great, wonderful, an audience. At least some of them might be witnesses.
Spider-Man getting the suspects down on the ground where Jeff can arrest them is the easy part. A couple more squad cars show up to cordon off the area, start taking witness reports and checking for nearby CCTV cameras they can pull footage from. Now this, this was part of Jeff’s Spider-Man Problem. Dealing with criminals, yeah, that’s all well and good, but handing crooks over to the cops is meaningless if Jeff’s not giving the DAO a case it can prosecute. ‘Because Spider-Man said so’ does not hold up in a court of law.
To his credit, Spider-Whiz is actually sticking around longer than Jeff’s come to expect from these vigilante types, perched on top of a squad car as he talks to one of the other officers, describing something with elaborate gestures, the eyes of his mask comically wide.
Jeff wanders over when it looks like he’s free, arms crossed over his chest. “So, you were ‘in the neighborhood,’ huh?”
Spider-Man blinks at him. “Yes, sir. I do live here.”
“Uh huh,” Jeff says, skeptically. “That doesn’t explain how you knew that I was. And, how you got my personal phone number.”
Spider-Man laughs nervously, pitch creeping up. “Well, you see, the thing about that is–”
And he disappears.
Jeff curses under his breath. He’s pretty sure the old Spider-Man couldn’t do that.
.
The situation only gets stranger from there.
The thing is, the more he talks to the kid, the more he realizes that he is so young, maybe Miles young, wears the same kind of shoes over the suit, is gangly and loose-limbed in the same way, not quite grown into himself yet. He says weird shit like, “Sir, this is my emotional support Brooklyn,” that just makes absolutely no goddamn sense to Jeff. He’d probably know what a Finsta was, if Jeff could be bothered to ask him.
He also seems to have an uncanny knack for knowing when Jeff’s on duty, and the texts are getting downright familiar.
It’s all so weird.
.
He’s young, but he’s Spider-Man, and it’s far too easy to forget that he hasn’t always been, that knowing how to be Spider-Man isn’t just some instinct that comes with the powers.
It’s two in the morning and Jeff’s feeling testy, exhausted as he sees off the ambulance and turns back to the crime scene, ready to crash from the adrenaline high of keeping someone from bleeding out. It never gets better. Sometimes it seems to get worse.
Spider-Man seems to be in a similar state, actually standing on the normal ground for once, shoulders slumped and fingers tapping a nervous beat against his thighs. Blood doesn’t show up well on the new suit, but he can see it creeping up the sleeves of the kid’s jacket, soaked in where he’d held his hands over the stab wound, frantically trying to keep the victim alive until the ambulance arrived.
The kid seems to seek him out in the crowd, wandering over and making a valiant attempt at polite cheeriness when he says, “I figure you guys can take it from here?”
It’s not his proudest moment, but Jeff’s professionalism goes right out of the window, and he finds himself snapping, “Is that all we are to you? A personal cleanup crew? You find the messes, shoot a few webs, and call us to deal with the rest?”
“I don’t know!” Spider-Man exclaims, voice cracking, “I just know the saving people part! Peter was supposed to teach me what to do after, but he–”
The kid cuts himself off, taking in a sharp breath, and Jeff almost breaks down right there, because it’s the same sharp, hiccuping sob that Miles used to give when he was up all night with a bad bug, curled up with a bucket by the bed, Jeff and Rio rubbing his back and stroking his hair to get him through the pain, murmuring I know baby, it’s okay, it’s okay, praying for him to get some relief, some sleep.
“I know,” Jeff says, voice thick. He doesn’t know what he knows, but he says it, blind, murmured reassurance. “It’s okay. You did the right thing, you’re doing the right thing.” He claps a hand on the kid’s shoulder softly. “I’ve got it from here. Go home.”
Spider-Man shakes under his hand, a fine tremor, and he looks like he’s going to say something. In the end, he just gives a shaky nod, ducks out from under Jeff’s hand, and disappears into the night.
.
“Weird question,” Spider-Man begins, and Jeff sucks in a breath, because this is either going to be something wildly unpredictable and emotional, or yet another reference to some internet joke that he doesn’t understand.
“Shoot,” He replies anyways, because Spider-Man is sitting on top of his squad car as they watch the crime scene clean itself up around them, and this is just sort of Jeff’s life now.
“Do you know where I could get butterfly stitches? I couldn’t find any at Rite Aid.”
Jeff’s heart stops in his chest. “Are you hurt?” He asks, whipping around, looking the kid up and down and trying to spot any injuries beneath the suit, any hint of pain or blood.
“No, no, no!” Spider-Man reassures, hands waving frantically. “I mean, I was, but I dealt. Youtube tutorials, you know? Just trying to uh, stock up.”
“If you’re hurt, you should go to a hospital,” Jeff hisses.
The kid wilts slightly at his tone, but still musters a laugh. “‘Spider-Man’ isn’t really a job that comes with health benefits. Besides, it wasn’t really serious enough for a hospital, I just need some supplies to deal with small stuff at home.”
Abruptly, it occurs to Jeff that when Spider-Man takes off the mask, he is an actual kid, with school, and homework, and a home, and is wildly, furiously angry at the parents that are letting their child throw himself headfirst into danger without a parachute.
“You don’t have anyone to help you at home?” He asks sharply, “Because if you’re hurt, you can come to me, you can always stay–” Rio wouldn’t mind, he can take the sofa, Miles might not even mind if he slept on a pallet on his bedroom floor, hell, Jeff wouldn’t even make him take off the mask–
“No!” Spider-Man says, back on the defensive. “My parents are great. They’re the best. I just don’t want to worry them with this stuff.”
After a long moment, Jeff sighs. “My wife’s a nurse. I’ll, uh, see if I can get some supplies from her, get them to you the next time I see you.”
Spider-Man lights up, clearly grinning behind the mask. “Thank you, Officer Davis!”
He shakes his head. “Well, if you won’t tell your parents about this, you need to have someone out there looking out for you.”
“Hey, that’s what I’ve got you for,” the kid teases, and Jeff raises an eyebrow.
“Isn’t it the middle of the day? Why aren’t you at school?”
Spider-Kid’s eyes go wide, the perfect picture of innocent guilt.
“Well, you see–”
He vanishes.
“Oh, come on!”
.
Jeff shows up to crime scenes, and Spider-Kid’s always waiting, plastered to the side of a building, somehow giving the impression of a beaming grin despite the mouthless mask. It’s the same aura of self-satisfaction that turned Jeff off the old Spider-Man, had been ticked off by the arrogance of the One and Only Spider-Man, Here to Save New York, Never Mind the Incompetent Cops.
Now though–
Jeff thinks he might get it. There’s something infectious about this new Spider-Man, his constant, unrelenting, utter delight with being himself. He’s always checking up on the people around him, witnesses and gawkers and would-have-been victims, he’s always finding something to joke about, something to laugh at. He is fiercely, unerringly protective of Brooklyn, and Brooklyn is rapidly becoming very protective of him.
Jeff watches him swing off into the distance, a whoop echoing behind him, watches him run up a vertical skyscraper and do a flip for the hell of it, and he sees this spark in him, and it’s incredible. Jeff knows better than most what it means to take on a mantle, to accept the burden of duty and identity that comes with it, and to love that duty with your whole being.
Spider-Man is a good kid, Jeff thinks, and he might just grow up to be a great man.
.
“Miles?”
“Mhmm?” Miles glances up from his plate, mouth full.
Jeff sighs, regretting the question before he’s even asked it. “What’s a… ‘Finsta’?”
Miles groans, swallowing before he says, “Oh my god, Dad, where did you even hear that?”
Rio snorts the way she always does when Jeff tries to understand The Youth via Miles, but he presses on anyways. “Oh, you know, around.”
Miles just raises an eyebrow – he’s learned that from his mother, oh dear – but eventually says, “Look, it’s like, ‘fake Insta’. It’s an Instagram that’s fake.”
“What’s fake about it?”
“It’s like,” Miles says, but trails off, nose scrunched in deep thought. “Okay,” he starts again, “You know how Spider-Man has an official Instagram?”
“Sure,” Jeff replies, having not known this at all.
“Well that’s his Rinsta – his Real Insta. He posts official stuff there, it’s like, a cultivated image. The one that his secret identity has, where he posts stuff that’s just for like, his real-life friends, stuff he wouldn’t want people to associate with Spider-Man. That would be Spider-Man’s Finsta.”
“Ah,” Jeff says, utterly uncomprehending. “So, uh, Spider-Man uses Instagram?”
Miles rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling, him and Rio both looking so, so fond. “Yeah, sure, but he’s more active on Twitter.”