Chapter Text
Peter is particularly good at screwing up.
No. That’s not quite right.
Peter is used to screwing up, screwing himself over, and being screwed by the world at large. All in increasingly creative, increasingly violent, ways.
So far as he has been able to map out, it usually begins with a slight inconvenience; shifting into a semi-permanent migraine, and snowballing into a potentially world-ending cataclysm that he’s forced to deal with before dinner. Repeat and rewind until he’s left aching and bruised, with nothing in his wallet but air, and three new holes in his favourite jeans.
And that’s just Peter Parker’s screw-ups.
Spider-man’s woes are a whole other kettle of fish- is that how you use that phrase? It’s kettle something, but the only kettles Peter has ever encountered are the boiling kind, and he doesn’t much fancy trying a kettle-boiled fish. Plus, most of his encounters with kettles have been all kinds of yuck. The kettle over in Wade’s apartment is filled with about ten different cultures of mould. At least two of them as of yet undiscovered. Plus limescale. Can’t forget the limescale.
Peter flexes his grip on the lamppost and tries to regain some semblance of focus. The strands are flimsy, concentration slipping through webbed fingers. He’d rather be eating boiled fish than dealing with whatever this is.
Really, truly, what did he do in a past life to be faced with yet another murderous psychopath?
The sun is beginning to set, and rays of amber cut across the skyline like fractured glass. A flock of pigeons fly overhead, mottled feathers gleaming in the half-light as they circle a skyscraper. The sight itches something in Peter’s photography brain, his fingers singing at the thought of a camera, and it’s all he can do into the fabric of his mask.
If only there was never a car crash. If only there was never a fight. If only Scorpion wasn’t whimpering on the ground, skewered clean through with a goddamned samurai sword.
It isn’t even five. He hasn’t eaten in hours. He hasn’t slept in days.
Peter wants to weep.
He clears his throat and thwips his way down to the ground. Finds his balance amongst the rubble and bracing his hands on his hips.
A nearby ‘stop’ sign groans ominously as the twisted metal sways a little too far left. Held in place by spite and the broken moped that’s crashed into its side.
“I know some people like their kebabs sizzling and stick-fied – stickified? – but us Queen’s folks have always preferred our street foods fried and…” Peter grimaces beneath his mask, glancing over to a still-smouldering overturned car with a conspicuously scorpion-shaped dent in its door. Phrasing, Parker, phrasing. “Okay kebabs are nice but we prefer hotdogs. Hot but not on literal fire. And pork! We like pork, and lamb and stuff. Not human.”
He makes it three steps closer.
Scorpion’s whimpers settle heavily in the air, so honest that Peter’s gut twinges in sympathy.
“Though some guys are pretty suspicious when it comes to their meat-” and ain’t he glad Wade isn’t around to hear him say something like that. “-Oh god, I hope I haven’t eaten dog. Or horse. Or human. Admittedly less likely – cannibalism is a no thanks even with the big bads… I hope? – but there’s always a chance and please tell me you’re not fighting for cannibalistic rights because I think I’ve hit my cannibalism quota for the day. As in there is no quota. Just realllly don’t wanna deal with it.”
This time it’s not a wail but a creak, as Scorpion does his best to crawl away from his would-be-murderer. His nails are shorn down to the quick from his awful scrabbling; fingers leaving bloodstains in their wake, dull red on sun-bleached tarmac.
Peter flexes his own fingers in muted anticipation. Grimaces, again, because how could he not? Big bastard man or not, Scorpion deserves a prison cell, not a VIP spot in new guy’s personal torture chamber.
And speaking of the new guy… Man-who-stabs (hyphenated because hyphens are cool) does nothing. Just watches Scorpion’s weak limbs shake with his face angled away from Peter.
He’s dark-haired, wears dark clothes, didn’t flinch when Peter dropped down behind him, and likes throwing people into cars. That’s about the extent of Peter’s knowledge of this guy.
And the stabbing thing, new guy likes stabbing things a little too much to be healthy.
Why do the new villains never like crochet or colouring? Peter would pay real dollars to sit across from a masked madman and make origami giraffes for an afternoon. His blood pressure would probably thank god for the momentary reprieve it would give him. Though Man-who-stabs would probably just make ninja stars out of paper and cut people’s throats, just to be contrary. And because God has decreed that neither Peter nor Spider-man are ever allowed a holiday from the madness.
Peter should probably get back on track.
“Oh come on now,” he calls. “Don’t leave me hanging here. We can swap recipes – preferably not cannibalistic – and make a thing out of this! I’ll look after the human shish-kebab you’ve prepped, and you can grab yourself a nice hotdog – all the works – and a jail cell to cool off in. It’ll be an annual thing. Potluck every…” He hesitates, wracking his brain to remember if he’s visited his aunt yet this week. That’s pretty much the only way he can keep track of his days now. “Wednesday, every Wednesday.”
He takes a careful step around the invisible perimeter that guards the two villains – safe to say Man-who-stabs qualifies as villainous, ten out of ten stabbing, would not be stabbed again.
Hot embers from the crash singe the soles of his feet through his suit, and he ignores the faint burn. A splash of aloe vera when he gets home and he’ll be good this time tomorrow, so long as he gets a meal or three into his poor stomach. Considering fasting monks have eaten more in today than he has in the last weeks… maybe he’ll have itchy feet for a few days. No harm no foul. Not the issue he should be hyper-focusing on right now.
Metal warped and bent by heat, the moped finally gives into the inevitable. Splitting in half and pulling the poor ‘stop’ sign down with it. A cloud of dust and broken glass rises into the air as it collapses with a rotten groan, and grit flies past the lens of Peter’s mask like a swarm of small mosquitoes. Fruit flies maybe. They’re small and annoying enough, even if they don’t feast upon his blood.
“Don’t suppose you’d willingly give yourself up, stranger? They’re offering a discount on cells right now: spend six inside and you get two months for free. Peps are practically throwing themselves my way to get the deal. I’ve never been so popular.” He dithers, jaw twitching when Scorpion’s whimpers start up anew. “I wouldn’t be terribly opposed to us all just… calming down and sashaying down the road to the precinct.”
Well less sashay, and more drag yourself, guts and all, in Scorpion’s case. But Peter thinks it would be a little insensitive to point this out.
Finally, Man-who-stabs turns his head.
And wow, he’s hot.
Shocking really, because Peter’s rogue gallery is more focused on middle-aged, angry madmen with so many issues they could fill three of Stark’s warehouses and then some. And scientists. Strange really, that a chemistry major attracts scientists. Positive charge meet negative charge and kiss! Or fight. Considering Doc Ock and Connors and… Peter would prefer fight actually.
He blinks a few times and recalibrates. Returns his attention to Man-who-stabs.
The second – and more professional, so sue him – takeaway is that the newest murderer on the block is younger than expected.
Regardless of the thin lines beneath his eyes, he can’t be all that much older than Peter. Fine features heavy with probable exhaustion – the same kind that sits heavy on Peter’s shoulders. He’s not all that tall, an inch shorter than Peter, maybe, with a wiry form that hints at hidden muscle. Perfect for speed and stealth and… well… stabbing people.
Not that Peter would ever stab someone, but the point still stands. He hops onto a lump of concrete and stares down at Man-who-stabs.
There’s a cheap patch pressed against one of the man’s eyes. More into his eye really, with how small it is. It’s clearly intended for a child, the string pulled so tensely behind the man’s ears that Peter worries it will snap clean off and take the poor guy’s other eye out. Then he’d have to wear double eyepatches, and that would look Daredevil horns level of stupid. Or a blindfold- could just wear a blindfold.
“If you behave yourself the cops won’t be too mean! Probably. Though I am really the worst example when it comes to cop and vigilante relations and maybe we should go ahead and get you a lawyer because attempted murder is attempted murder, and always get a lawyer regardless. Villain or otherwise-”
Peter drops from his perch and takes another step closer. Close enough that Scorpion could reach forward and curl his finger around Peter’s ankle. Scorpion doesn’t, and Peter doubts he even realises Spider-man is standing in front of him.
Man-who-stabs’ eye snaps up to meet Peter’s. So fathomlessly dark that it pierces clean through him. There’s no rage in his gaze, which is a little off-putting for Peter, especially considering the brutal stabbing that’s currently occurring. He’s used to Mysterio’s showboating, Rhino’s easy rage, Ock’s calculating madness-
This? This isn’t anything like that.
This man is a blank slate. A new ballpark, and not one that he’s entirely sure he likes.
“But semantics are semantics and we can talk and walk. The station awaits, right?”
Peter’s hand jerks down. A line of webbing thwips through the air and slaps against Scorpion’s skin, between the broken edges of armour. Scorpion lets out a terrible scream and rolls half onto his front. As much as he can manage with a sword through his ribs.
His back arches, tail flailing through the air to smash through a car window, and it must hurt like an absolute bitch but there’s webbing pressed against his wound. Pressure that isn’t a rod of solid metal. He’s still bleeding – obviously – but Peter’s given him time. Convinced the blood that it’s better to stay inside of Scorpion’s body.
Man-who-stabs’ gaze drops to the convulsing villain, and he blinks, slowly. Or maybe he’s winking, but Peter doesn’t think so. He’d like to think that murder isn’t really the sort of thing people wink at.
“Sword,” Man-who-stabs says, voice slow and thick with an accent that Peter can’t place. “Return it.”
Hark! He speaks!
Peter leans his hand on his hip and channels Aunt May’s disappointed look thirty twotm. Wagging his finger through the air and very aware that he’s at the epicentre of Man-who-stabs’ unerring focus.
“People who stab people don’t get their stabbing implements back, you know! Timeout is all that awaits you. Timeout and a nice little webby cage to stop those murder-y impulses of yours, all courtesy of yours truly.”
Man-who-stabs’ clicks his tongue, expression shuttering as he glances out over the absolute destruction that he and Scorpion have managed to wreak on the poor street. A few brave – stupid – civilians have popped their heads up over the broken doors and windows. A couple even shelter behind cars with their phones out, filming Man-who-stabs with all the enthusiasm of a hybristophiliac let loose on a prison yard.
Idiots, Peter thinks. A little fondly, because they’re his idiots.
With the amount of phones he’s seen flickering in his periphery, he knows that Jameson will have plenty of proof that someone new is making a spectacular – and bloody – debut. The bastard will have a field day with the latest menace and somehow, he knows, Spider-man is going to take the flack.
He lets his muscles bunch up beneath his suit. Taking another, pointed, step past a still-whimpering Scorpion and forcing Man-who-stabs to focus on him instead of nosy civilians.
“So how are we gonna do this,” he wonders, “the hard way or the easy way? Please say easy, I’m delicate.”
He folds his fingers into a fist.
Waits.
Man-who-stabs meets his gaze and raises one hand to his chest. Peter carefully doesn’t move, breath caught in his throat as he braces himself.
Fingers twist together.
His spidey sense tingles.
A sign is made, thumbs hidden from sight and four fingers raised to the sky, the rest folded over each other in a pseudo-ball and-
“Talk too much.” Says the man. “No stealth.” A brief flash of a smile on pale lips; gone so quick Peter’s convinced he imagines it. “Like you want to be caught.”
“What do you mean ‘be caught, huh-?”
- he’s gone.
Peter blinks – once and then twice and then again for good measure.
He presses his weight back into his heels, swinging his head from side to side in search of the man who’s just managed to disappear into thin air without Peter’s spidey-sense completely shitting itself. A mild tingle is one thing, teleporting like this should have sent his senses haywire. It should have provoked more of a reaction.
He meets the gaze of a random woman as she crawls out from behind a car, and it’s all he can do to shrug and shake his head. A little relieved when she looks just as befuddled as he feel.
The man isn’t invisible, and he isn’t somewhere nearby – Peter would know. He’s just straight up… gone. Like he was never here to begin with, just a product of Peter’s overactive imagination.
(And he just had to be insulting before he left.)
The sword has also pulled a disappearing act, Peter realises absently. Leaving its victim’s blood to spill past Peter’s webbing.
Scorpion begins to scream.