I will never understand you, Peter Parker.

Meet and Greet

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Meeting your neighbors is not as easy as it looks in the movies, as Johnny quickly finds out. Most of his neighbors are proper adults, with jobs and families and no free time to chat with the guy next door, so, much to Johnny's dismay, he doesn't see much of them.

Fortunately, meeting Ms. Lambert, the elderly lady with neon green glasses who lives across the hall is easy. She's in her apartment all day, every day, and was ecstatic to invite Johnny in, telling him about her son, the landlord, the bodega owner across the street, and everyone in the hall they live in. She's something of a gossipmonger.

Before seeing a single other person's face, Johnny knows about Sadie Williams pouring salad on the ground in the middle of the hallway because she was so sleep-deprived she didn't realize she was holding the container upside down, and Ravinder Moore, who got the entire building evacuated last January after he accidentally made mustard gas while cleaning the kitchen.

While heating hot chocolate, Ms. Lambert tells him about Hope Bell's new boyfriend, whom she met after she stepped on his foot when she tripped on the subway and Ezra Roger's newspaper hat that he's worn to and from work every day for the past week.

There are more names than Johnny could ever hope to remember — most of them years older than him, and not exactly friend material — but the stories are nice, and Ms. Lambert makes good company for an old person.

She sets the hot chocolate on the table, rambling on. "And that Parker boy who lives next door to you?" She makes an exaggerated 'yikes' face. "I don't even want to know what his problem is."

"What do you mean?"

"He always comes home all bruised up, like he's getting into fights," She says. "One time Sadie told me she found bloodstains all over the floor in front of his apartment when she went to drop off some mail that got mixed up, and when she tried to ask him what happened," Ms. Lambert leans in like she's telling Johnny a secret. "He told her he dropped a textbook on his toe! All those brains and he couldn't even come up with a decent lie! I think he's in a gang."

Johnny swallows the last of his drink. "I'll try to steer clear."

She snorts. "That won't be necessary."

"But didn't you say—"

Ms. Lambert shushes him. "He's not dangerous. He is a very sweet boy. Random gang violence aside." She scoops the empty mug off the table. "Helps my granddaughter with her math homework when she comes over on the weekends." Because that makes sense, Johnny muses. Who wouldn't want a potentially homicidal maniac hanging around their kids?

"So he's here a lot?" Johnny questions.

Even if this neighbor is exactly the type of person Sue warned about when Johnny moved out, he has exactly one neighbor his age— assuming the textbook is for college— and he's not about to ruin the chance to spend time with someone interesting over some legally dubious hobbies if he's not actually dangerous.

She flips the mug over and sets it in the dishwasher. "He shows up here and there. Doesn't keep a schedule, but he's got a routine in his own weird, disorganized way. I haven't seen him around in a few days, but he'll pop up eventually."

Ms. Lambert shoos him out of the apartment when she gets a call from her son, making him promise to come visit. Agreeing, Johnny rushes out the door before it slams in his face.

How very polite.

The walk back to Johnny's apartment is excruciatingly silent, aside from the sound of his feet dragging across the carpet, begging for someone else to come out. Living in the Baxter Building — around Reed's rambling, Ben's shouting at the television, and Sue poking her head in and out of every room, materializing in the corner when you least expect it — meant that Johnny had spent the last four years in a whirlwind of noise. His apartment is comparatively silent.