After the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker had the chance to restart his life and start fresh. But without his family, friends, mentors or fellow Avengers, his life began to spiral into darkness.
His new neighbour however, seems to make that dark...
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"Hey! You stay safe okay? Message me when you get home!" I yelled out after my favourite regular had left the club the same time my shift had finished.
"Oh don't worry about me, I'll rip off their heads before they even touch me!" She yelled out in her thick European accent, laughing and punching the air a few times before I turned around to walk home.
Tonight she was wearing a Hamilton t-shirt and a leather jacket with doc martens and multiple silver bracelets. And she was actually wearing proper jeans tonight. She usually wore these frayed denim shorts to the club despite it being the middle of Winter. I asked her why she never wore warm clothes and she told me that she couldn't feel the cold anymore because where she was from, the temperatures were even worse. I can't imagine anything being worse than a Winter here on the East Coast, but then again, I hadn't been anywhere outside of America before.
As much as I wanted to listen to music on my walk home, I kept my headphones in my bag so that I could keep my wits about me for the next twenty or so minutes. I've read stories about people being attacked from behind because they didn't hear the person approach them because of songs in their ears. And with this whole beheading gang thing going on, I couldn't risk my life over some Anderson Paak, Nat King Cole or Foo Fighters.
I remember reading an interview from Tony Stark saying that he met Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters once and made a bet that he could power an entire concert with just an Arc Reactor; and he did. Ever since then, Foo Fighters have been a staple in my playlists.
I made sure that I walked the paths that had the most lighting, had my phone location switched on and walked briskly from one side of the park to the other. Of my solo walk home, there were three parts with varying degrees of safety.
1) Walking from the club, to Central Park. This was a pretty easy walk because it was only a few blocks. It was well lit, in a wealthy neighbourhood and the crime rate was significantly lower than the rest of New York. There was a drunk guy out the front of our club who was yelling something towards me tonight but he was too drunk to do anything drastic.
2) Walking through Central Park. As much as it was isolated and not populated with people whatsoever, I knew that I was mostly just speed walking through and making sure to avoid any potential people I might come across.
3) Walking from Central Park, home. This was the part that scared me the most because East Harlem was not a safe area to live in. In fact, I think we had one of the highest crime rates in the whole fucking city. Now add in the fact that it was like 2 in the morning and I was all alone - that would be enough to scare any woman. This was a walk I did all the time since moving here but for some reason, knowing there were murderers running around made the walk all the more frightening.
Reaching better lighting and now being surrounded by apartment buildings (that would be able to hear me scream if need be), I walked quickly down the road towards my place, seeing a group of drunk men out the front of a closed bar on the opposite side of the street to me. It was obvious the establishment had closed and they weren't wanting to end their night out so they were loitering out the front.
"Ayo sexy! Can I get your number?!" I heard a man shout out, causing me to promptly ignore him and keep my head down as I walked.
"Hey, I'm talking to you lady!" He yelled again, this time jogging across the road towards me.
My heart rate began to rise and I slowly put my hand in my pocket to where I had my emergency switch blade. I usually had my fake car key looking taser attached to my house keys for protection but I figured I would use a proper blade to threaten a potential head decapitator before using the taser. Otherwise it would look like I was threatening them with a key to a car that didn't exist.
I hadn't taken my medication in several months now either, so if worse comes to worst, I could rely on my insanity to get this mother fucker away from me. It's worked before, it could work again.
"Hey! Sorry, you're just like- Hot as fuck... Can I get your Instagram or something baby?" He hiccuped, his speech slurred and his eyes barely open.
"Oh uh, no sorry I need to get somewhere," I said before stepping around him and continuing on my walk.
"Aw nah come on, just gimme your Insta and I'll fuck off," he whined, walking after me a few steps behind.
I was busy walking quickly away when I felt him slap my ass and chuckle to himself, which infuriated me to my fucking core. I took out my switch blade and spun around to threaten him to back off, surprising myself when the blade almost sliced across a second man's arm.
He had the hood of his jumper up and without seeing his face, I assumed that he was most likely a friend of the original drunk man coming over to overpower me. Maybe that was the situation these gang members used to isolate their victims, pretend to hit on them whilst they're friends came over to corner them.
"Both of you better fuck off right now!" I yelled, holding my knife in my hand menacingly.
The man in the jumper was facing away from me and looking at the drunk man, standing in between us as if he were the gang leader or something. I held my knife in front of me and walked backwards slowly, not wanting to turn around and have my back towards them yet.
I saw that I had in fact injured the man with my blade, his jumper now torn and dark blood beginning to seep through the green material. Fuck, I hope this counts as self defence if it ever goes to trial in a court of law...
Suddenly, the hooded man shot his arm out in front of him and the drunk one quickly flew backwards towards a nearby telegraph pole, his arm now covered in a white string like consistency.
"What the fuck!" He yelled, trying to move from the pole but failing due to his arm being attached to it; being attached with what looked like... Spider webs...
"Wait!" I called out, grabbing onto the wrist of this potential Maybe-Spider-Man. He didn't turn around to look at me, he just grunted a quick 'don't worry about it' in a deep and husky voice.
"Tell me who you are," I said gripping his arm tighter with my hand and pulling him towards me before he tugged back.
I had devoted months of my life to finding out whether or not Spider-Man was retired or dead and here he is, saving me a mere few blocks from where I lived. He wasn't only still alive but he was still out saving New York from crime. This is incredible.
I took several steps backwards to put some distance between us, shocked that he had yanked his arm away so roughly. If this really was the infamous Spider-Man, why was he so gruff? And within a blink of an eye the hooded man flung his arm upwards and another white string like material shot out from his wrist, propelling him high into the air. He swung from telegraph pole to telegraph pole, building to building before he shortly disappeared into the night sky.
Standing frozen in my spot, I clutched my knife tightly in my hand with shock, fear and bewilderment because from what I had just witnessed...
