I will never understand you, Peter Parker.

All On His Own

The trees sway in the wind, leaves rustling to fill the silence left in the wake of a speechless Spider-Man. Even with the mask fit snugly over his face, Johnny can see his jaw hanging open, and the lenses of his mask widened in shock.

Johnny takes a good look at the kid under the tree, tears streaming furiously down his face. "What did you just say?"

"He stole my mom!"

That seems to snap Spider-Man out of his trance. "Johnny, I need you to take this kid to the police precinct and file a missing report. Somethings wrong."

Johnny crosses his arms. "Is that just a gut feeling, or is it because someone dressed up as you to mom-nap?"

"Johnny, this is not the time," Spider-Man seethed.

Raising his hands in surrender, Johnny steps toward the boy. "Sorry."

"I have to look into this." Spider-Man shoots a web toward a building towering over the sidewalk. "Rain-check on dinner?"

"We can reschedule." And with that, Spider-Man disappears, flying off into the horizon. Johnny turns back to the tree.

"Hey, kiddo." Glaring at him with dark eyes, the kid sniffles, grabbing his ankles and tucking them closer to his chest. "Can you come with me? I'm going to take you to the police, they're going to help you find your mom."

The boy scowls at Johnny's outstretched hand. "You let Spider-Man go."

"He didn't do it. I know that's probably very hard for you to understand right now, but I'm going to find who did." Hesitantly, the kid reaches for Johnny.

"Okay, that's great. We're only a few blocks away." Johnny settles for a loose grip on the kid's wrist, keeping him from getting swept away in New York foot traffic, while not trapping the boy. "What's your name?"

"Oliver." He sniffs. "My mom calls me Oli."

"Okay, Oli. We're gonna help you."

The boy gives Johnny an unimpressed look, delving into silence for the rest of the walk. Johnny might have forgotten he was there if it weren't for the distinct flopping sound where his shoes slammed against the pavement. His shoes were bright red and looked too big for his feet, adding to the clumsy, toddling walk as the kid stomped across the sidewalk.

Buildings crawled past, towering over the police station as it faded into view. Johnny ushers the boy inside, waving at the receptionist. "We need to file a missing report."

"Spider-Man stole my mom," Oli informs, chin trembling.

The receptionist— Janet, her name tag reads— raises an eyebrow, looking shockingly unfazed by the declaration, and waves over an onlooking officer. "Officer Davis will take care of that with you."

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"And you're sure it couldn't have been your friend?" Davis leans forward on the white table, navy uniform slumping against the surface.

"No," Johnny insists. "He couldn't have. I was with him for hours. He never left my sight."

Burying his face in his hands, Jefferson Davis offers Johnny a tight smile. "Alright. I'll look into it, put out a word for a Spider-Man impersonator, and file a report for the kid's mom."

"And what about Oli?"

"I can't give you details about that. He'll probably be placed with relatives, so he'll be safe while we see if anything turns up."

If. The word turns something in Johnny's stomach. It's more than possible that she'll will never be found, and that Oli will live his whole life without a mom.

"I'm glad someone's looking out for him," Johnny grits out, nodding tersely.

"I'll see you out, Mr. Storm." He offers a hand as Johnny pushes out of his seat, leaving the chair jutting away from the table. "I hope the press doesn't get wind of this. Between you and me, I'm kind of a Spider-Man fan."

Johnny awards the officer with his best paparazzi smile. "I'll pass the message on." He pushes the door to the precinct open. "Have a good night, officer."

"You too."

Johnny trudges down the sidewalk, getting a glare from a man who pushes past him when his sulking doesn't match the hectic speed of the rest of the crowd.

He'd been excited to hang out with Spidey; the man gets so busy, that he rarely has free time to spend on Johnny, and even though he got a few hours with his best friend, it wasn't enough. So of course, when it finally seems like Spider-Man's schedule is clear enough to hang out with Johnny, something goes wrong.

It isn't fair, even if Johnny knows he sounds like a whiny little kid when he says it.

Jamming the key into the lock of his apartment, Johnny swings the door open. Logically, he could have stayed out for longer, but now that he knew had firsthand experience of how much better crime-fighting was when he got to do it with Spidey, things would seem duller than they had the first time he'd gone out alone.

He slumps on his bed, scrolling through his phone sulkily. No one's here to call him out for acting like a child if they weren't here to see it. That was the whole point of this, right? To be able to have the freedom to behave the way he wanted without someone else breathing down his neck.

He sits there for hours. Eventually, something next door slams into the wall next to his head, and the owner shouts indignantly. He hits the wall back. His neighbor must have a nasty temper because he slams the wall again with a strangled shout.

Johnny frowns. Now that he's gone and done it, he's not actually sure about living on his own. It's less freeing and more lonely than he expected. Maybe it's just an adjustment.

Or he just needs to make more friends.