Spider-Man Imagines I

Just Close Enough (Part One) | Peter Parker [TH]

You left the corner store, turning back only to wave at the cashier. He was a very lonely, large man that loved his family enough to talk about them for hours when all you wanted was a turkey deli sandwich, a bottle of Cherry Coke, and a bag of cheddar cheese potato chips.

"Thanks again," you called out.

"Have a good night!" he said back. His New Yorker accent was one of the thickest you have ever heard.

"You too."

Now in the cool outside, you let your eyes wander across the line of buildings covered in faded, chipping paint and fences coated in rust. You just happened to live in a neighborhood that required taking a stroll through alleys.

The alley that you usually took had a group of teenage boys playing basketball and smoking cigarettes. They didn't seem harmful, but you obeyed your parents commands and steered clear of anyone on the street. Quietly, you fumbled for your pepper spray.

If you couldn't get through the basketball team's alley, you could try the one behind the dollar store - where the manager tended to smoke everything illegal in the world. Or you could take the long way, all the way down the main street, loop around the bank, and walk all the way back. That would take an hour. Or you could take a new alley, one that could contain anything.

You took the new alley.

Other than a few rats munching through trash bags, you were alone. The ground was slightly wet and covered in piles of mysterious, gross smelling garbage.

A stray cat hissed at you as you walked by the dumpster. You jumped, turning your head to glare at the grey animal with matted fur and fleas. It arched its back, blinked, and moved on.

You watched it go, still trying to catch your breath.

You looked back down, pulling your pepper spray out of your purse and holding it in your hand.

Just in case.

Before you went to move on, you saw a Jansport backpack leaning against the dirty dumpster. You paused.

It was a nice backpack, a navy one that looked brand new. You looked around you, checking to see if you were alone.

The nice part of you wanted to pick up the backpack and look around for the owner. It looked like an expensive backpack and not something someone purposefully fills with drugs or weapons or bombs or even leaves out in the middle of a random alleyway.

But this was Queens and going up to random strangers wasn't the safest thing to do. At all.

You squatted down and picked up the backpack. Unzipping it, you saw a couple of notebooks and some clothes stuffed inside. Nothing too out of the ordinary. You closed it, feeling wrong for snooping through it.

You stood up, backpack in your hands, and looked down both sides of the alley again.

A soft thwip! and the sound of feet smacking against the ground made you whirl around one way, heart in your throat and eyes bulging out of your head. You were going to get mugged or shot or killed or stabbed-

You gasped.

Spider-Man landed softly in the center of the alley. He stood up, brushing his hands across his arms and chest. He smacked his palm at the center of his suit and the whole thing deflated around him, like he was shedding a layer of skin.

He was walking towards you now, his head down, feet stepping in a graceful, almost dance-like manner.

He was going to see you-

You hurriedly backed away and ducked under a particularly large pile of stinky trash bags. Between the sound of rats crawling around you and the smell of week old, molding garbage, you were more than uncomfortable.

Spider-Man pulled his mask off, revealing a huge pull of wild, brown curls that couldn't be more messy if they tried. He had pale white skin, from what you could see in the dark alley, and he rubbed his eyes tiredly before shrugging his arms out of his suit and shaking of off the top of his body until it hung from his hips.

Was he getting naked? You burned red, forcing your eyes away, your mind screaming gross! gross! gross!

You stared at the backpack. Why were you still holding it?

Meanwhile, the hero had just realized his backpack had vanished from where he had stored it earlier. "What? Where's... where's my backpack? Oh, crap!"

Your head snapped up again. Spider-Man was standing in his boxer shorts, suit in hand, other hand in his hair. He looked all around, panicked.

Oh no.

You didn't even think. You stood up, backpack in hand, and gaped. A sound of confusion choked its way out of your throat and you strangled a little bit, making Spider-Man turn around and look at you.

You were surprised.

He was a boy. A young boy, barely older than sixteen, with big brown eyes that looked like they could never be anything except for kind. He stared at you like a deer in headlights, unsure of what to say or do.

Then his eyes fell to the backpack.

"H-Hey! That's my backpack!"

You looked down at it then back at him. Then-

You turned around and ran.

"Hey!" he shouted after you. "Stop! Thief! That's my backpack-"

You kept running, unsure of why you were and why you were still holding the stupid thing and why you wouldn't just stop and explain it to Spider-Man that you were just about to give it to him when he shouted and scared you-

"Hey, stop, lady! That's stealing!"

You wanted to stop but you didn't, and he stopped following you pretty quickly, and so you ended up back in your apartment, holding the backpack that was full of Spider-Man's clothes and stuff.

You tossed it on the floor with disgust, absolutely shaken up and terrified of that you had done.

He was going to think you were a thief. You were a thief. You stole Spider-Man, a good guy that saved people every day and arrested robbers (like you). He was going to find you and probably take you to jail.

Also, horrifyingly, you had left him nearly naked in an alleyway, no clothes to change into.

And you had Spider-Man's backpack.