Archive of Our Own

Work Text

November 3, 1933

8:21 am

Betty Brant flagged him down as soon as the elevator doors creaked open, practically bouncing in her seat. Peter hadn’t seen her that animated since what had happened to Robertson, which was the only reason he slowed enough for her to corral him to her desk with frantic hand gestures. She leaned forward in her seat, red lips curled in a smirk. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Johnny Storm?”

Peter frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but it also sounded like something out of a pinup magazine. “Who?”

Betty rolled her eyes. She looked good today: Hair curled, lipstick on, wearing a smart brown suit that made her look as intelligent as she was. Robertson’s loss had hit her hard; they were close, had worked at the Bugle together since Betty finished high school. Peter found it in himself to be glad she seemed to be doing better. “Jonathan Storm? Spokesman, model, actor extraordinaire? Haven’t you been to the movies lately? He played the Rawhide Kid. Eugene and I saw it last weekend. It was so much fun.”

Peter grunted. “Haven’t had the time.”

Betty sighed, but she knew him well enough by now to not be surprised. “Well, maybe he’ll give you a private performance, considering he’s waiting for you in your office right now.”

“What? Why?”

“Beats me, sugar.” Betty turned back to her typewriter, but not before throwing him a wink. “But if the opportunity arises for you to ask him for an autograph, you’ll go ahead and take it, won’t you?”

It was Peter’s turn to roll his eyes as he shoved his way through the bullpen, Betty’s laughter tinkling at his back. When he reached his office, he swept the door open quickly enough that the interns milling around didn’t have more than half a second to gawk inside, and slammed it closed just as fast. Then he took a breath, tossed his bag onto the couch by the wall, and turned.

If Jonathan Storm was the movie star Betty said he was, he looked the part: Hair like spun gold in perfect curls atop slender features, with eyes bluer than the Hudson in midsummer. He wore a tan coat and a flat-brimmed hat, perched against Peter’s desk with his shoulders hunched up around his ears. He jumped when the door slammed, eyes darting up to meet Peter’s.

For a moment there was nothing but silence, Storm staring at Peter and Peter looking impassively back. “Um,” Storm said, blinking his too big, too blue eyes. “You’re—Peter Parker?”

Peter shrugged off his own coat and threw it onto the couch next to the bag before moving around Storm to his desk. “Normally I’d ask what a dame like you is doing in a place like this, but”—he cast a glance up his guest—“you’re not exactly a dame, are you?”

Storm flashed a weak smile. “I can be, if you want.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. Storm turned beet-red.

“I mean. I’m. I didn’t mean that.” Storm huffed and shoved out a hand. “Johnny Storm.”

Instead of taking it, Peter picked up the stack of memos Betty had left on his desk. He busied himself leafing through the top few pages, knowing Betty would come bothering him about them soon enough. “What can I do for you, Mr. Storm?”

“Johnny,” Storm said, instinctive. He dropped the hand. “I need your help.”

Call from M. Murdock, 10/02,

one of the memos read, in Betty’s neat, slanting handwriting.

Returning on Kingpin trial. Requests a phone back A.S.A.P.

“I’m not a talent agent, Mr. Storm.”

“No, it’s not— Have you ever heard of Victor von Doom?”

City Hall exposé pushed up to Wednesday issue, piece on economy moved back to next Friday, by executive order of JJJ. Ask Ned if help needed.

“The physics professor at Empire State?”

“That’s the one. He’s a friend of a friend—or he was, anyway.” Storm hesitated, voice wavering into uncertainty. “I—I think he’s in cahoots with some very bad folks. And I think he’s planning something that’s going to hurt the people I care about.”

Peter flicked his eyes up. Storm looked nervous, fingers twisting in his coat, but the set of his mouth was stubborn. “And how does that involve me, Mr. Storm?”

Storm pulled a rolled-up copy of the

Bugle

from his breast pocket and smoothed it out on Peter’s desk.

THE END OF THE GOBLIN: A CRIME LORD FALLS

, the headline read. Front page, above the fold. “This was you, right?” Storm pointed to the byline. “P. Parker. You reported the story on the Goblin’s gang falling apart. You reported the

Spider’s

story.” Storm looked at him, intent, the weight of his gaze leaving Peter nowhere to go. “There’s no way you could have known all these details unless he told you himself. He’s one of your sources, isn’t he? The Spider-Man. He trusts you.”

Peter kept the surprise off his expression, but it was a close thing: The pretty-boy had more in that golden head of his than would appear upon first impression. “It’s called reporting, kid,” he shot back, leaning into the harsh edge in his voice. “Not all of us have everything handed to us.”

Storm’s mouth tightened, but he pressed on, pulling another newspaper out of his coat and tossing it down next to the first.

RENOWNED SCIENTIST EXPOSED AS NAZI EUGENIST

. Peter’s fist clenched, unconsciously, at his side. A month later, and the sight of it could still make him sick.

“Your name’s not on this but the disclaimer at the beginning makes it clear the article wasn’t directly written by the author himself, and I recognize the style.” Storm raised his brows at Peter, as if in challenge. “This was you, too, right? The ghostwriter on this article. You were the reporter who exposed what was being done to those people on Ellis Island.”

Peter looked down at the name that was on the byline.

By R. Robertson.

“One of them.”

Almost immediately, Storm softened, the defiance falling away from him as if in apology. “Yes, I—I heard about what happened to Mr. Robertson. I’m sorry you lost a friend.” He hesitated; when he spoke again, it was almost a plea. “Everyone thinks Victor is just a brilliant scientist, and he is, but—he’s

dangerous

, Mr. Parker. He’s going to hurt people, if he hasn’t already. But you can expose him. You can

stop

him.”

Peter looked from the newspaper to the third memo in Betty’s stack.

Remember to sign condolence card for Mrs. Robertson,

it read, the script a little more careful than usual.

Suzie will bring card & donations over on Sunday.

“Mr. Parker?” Storm was looking at him with so much hope it was almost desperation. “Will you help me?”

Peter took a breath and pushed the newspaper back across the desk. “I’m sorry, Mr. Storm, but I’m not a private eye; I don’t take on clients, and I don’t meddle in people’s personal affairs.” He dropped the stack of memos into the wastebin by his desk, most of them unread, and wove around the stricken-looking Storm to grab his coat off the couch. “If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with a lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen that I really can’t miss. I trust you can see yourself out.”

Storm gaped at him for a moment; then his mouth snapped shut so fast Peter could hear his teeth click. For a moment he looked at Peter as if betrayed, blue eyes glittering like ice. Then he pulled his coat tighter around himself and swept out of Peter’s office, leaving his copy of the paper with Robertson’s name on it behind.

November 7, 1933

11:42 pm

Peter had never cared for the juice joint scene; he hadn’t before he was bitten by a cursed spider in a warehouse full of stolen treasures, and he didn’t now, sitting in a private booth at the back of the busiest speakeasy in Flushing. But the people he found himself associating with—first Hardy, then Moon, and now “the Defenders,” as they insisted on calling themselves—seemed to enjoy their bathtub gin and forty-proof moonshine more than Peter’s preferred venue of a hot cigarette on a cold rooftop, so here they were, at the table Moon always kept in reserve for them at her establishment, bent over a map of New York City on the table.

“He’s been running operations in Midtown again, going back to his old haunts.” Jones tapped a finger against the map, Hell’s Kitchen circled in red. “It’s where he came up as a bootlegger. If I were a betting woman, I’d say it’s where he’ll return to rebuild his empire.”

Peter hummed. “Hell’s Kitchen, huh?” He directed his next words to Murdock. “I didn’t think

the Devil

tolerated criminal masterminds in his territory.”

Murdock’s face was stone underneath the hood covering his eyes. “I don’t,” he ground out. “Which is why I’m going to end Fisk as soon as I get my hands on him.”

Rand snorted, pushing a hand through his floppy yellow curls. “Good luck getting past the forty coppers enforcing his house arrest.”

“Danny’s right,” Cage rumbled, in his thick, deep voice. “Fisk’s hands are tied while he’s on trial. We should focus on the men he’s got in the streets while we can. We can do some real damage to his operation, if we play our hand right.”

Murdock snarled. “I don’t want to do

damage

to his operation, I want to

end

it.”

“Well, you’re not going to end anything running straight at him like a bat out of hell,” Jones retorted, dry. “We dismantle his network first, take all those resources out of his hands.

Then

we move on the Kingpin. Unless you want to be back here in three months, doing this all over again?”

Murdock’s mouth twisted, but he didn’t protest. Cage and Rand exchanged glances. “Why don’t we take a breather,” Cage suggested. “We’ve been going at this for hours. I, for one, could use a drink. Parker?”

Peter shrugged. “I’m here as a favor to you, Cage. You want a break, we take a break.”

“Ugh, thank god.” Rand arched into a stretch, shoulders straining against his suspenders as he reached his hands above his head. Peter didn’t miss the appreciative way both Jones and Cage eyed the strip of exposed skin under Rand’s rumpled shirt. “Sitting still for so long doesn’t jive with me.” He hopped to his feet, shaking out his curls. “I’m gonna nab some water. You cats want anything?”

Peter gave him an unimpressed look. “We’re in a speakeasy, and you’re drinking water?”

Rand rolled his eyes. “I live clean, Parker; it helps keep my chi flowing. But I’ll get you anything you want.”

“Forget it,” Peter said, pushing himself to his feet. “I don’t trust anyone who talks about his

chi

to order my drink for me.”

Moon greeted him with a bright, easy smile as Peter slid up to the bar, waving off another patron to make her way over to him. He would never understand how someone who had been through what she had been through could still smile like that at a bastard like him. “What’s shaking, P?”

The other barkeeps glanced Peter’s way, suspicious. Peter pulled his hat low over his eyes and wished for his costume. “I appreciate you keeping a table open for us.”

“Anything for you. Bourbon?”

“On the rocks.”

Moon turned to pull a bottle of the top-shelf stuff off the wall, dark hair swaying down her slender back. Peter watched her prepare his drink with idle interest. Moon was a beautiful woman, as snappy as Felicia but as kind as Mary Jane. Once upon a time Peter might have asked to take her out; but that was before Osborn, and before Octavius. Now he was just glad she tolerated him enough to top his glass off with an extra fifth before sliding it across the counter to him.

The bourbon slid like liquid fire down Peter’s throat. Moon’s stuff wasn’t like the rotgut and swill Peter had to wade through at most other speakeasies, some of it harsh enough to take the paint off a tin can, others barely more than barley water. Hers was smooth and clean, the real deal; it came from being the best whisper sister on this side of the river, sweet enough to charm any supplier and tough enough to make sure none of them ripped her off.  She smiled, pleased, as he hummed in satisfaction. Then she leaned in, dropping her voice. “Here on…

Spider

business?”

Peter flicked her a sharp look. “Not while I’m out of the mask, please, Miss Moon.”

Moon’s eyes twinkled. “Sorry.” She didn’t look remotely apologetic.

Peter sighed and swallowed another mouthful of his drink. “The club is doing well.”

Contentment washed over Moon’s expression as she looked around. Even for a Saturday night, the place was packed to the gills, flush with pretty broads in sparkly sheaths dragging their men out onto the dance floor. Peter needn’t have worried about his secret leaking out: Between the dull roar of voices and the jaunty music of the live band, they were about as safe as they could be from any potential eavesdroppers. “What can I say?” Moon drawled, grinning. “Club Silk stays in the black. In no small part thanks to you.”

“I like to drink, Cindy, but I don’t like to drink that much.”

Moon rolled her eyes. “Obviously I meant you saving me from the sweatshop and giving me the chance to do something with my life. I would be ashes on the bottom of Ezekiel’s shoe right now if it weren’t for you.”

Peter’s jaw tightened at the memory. The dusty, dangerously overcrowded factory that Peter had pulled Moon and sixteen other girls out of had gone up like a matchstick in the dry heat of summer, burning so hot and so fast that he had seen the smokestacks from a mile away. With the doors locked during working hours and the fire escapes long since rusted away, the workers inside hadn’t stood a chance. Moon had been the only one to stick around after she had gotten out, lingering outside with soot streaked up her face and second-degree burns on her arms, helping to get down the girls Peter kept pulling out of the windows and lowering to the sidewalk. He managed to save seventeen of them, but four didn’t make it out. And they said the Triangle Shirtwaist fire was supposed to have changed things.

Peter cleared his throat and threw down the rest of the drink. “All I did was pull you out. You made something of your life all by yourself.”

Moon smiled at him, sweet. Her eyes shifted over Peter’s shoulder. “Evenin’, Jessica.”

Jones slid onto the empty stool to Peter’s right. “Whiskey, please,” she told Moon, with a long-suffering sigh. “Make it a double.”

Moon obliged, fetching a tumbler and filling it with a generous pour before pushing it over. “You know, I’ve never met a dame who drinks whiskey before.”

Jones grabbed the drink, downed half of it in one swallow, and grimaced as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yeah, well. I’m not sure if you can really call me a dame.”

Moon batted her lashes. “I think you qualify.” She winked at the both of them. “I’ll leave you to your business. Give me a holler when you want another drink, alright?”

Peter watched as she sauntered over to offer the whiskey to two men sitting with their girlfriends at the other end of the bar. Jones huffed into her drink. “If Murdock doesn’t pull his head out of his ass by the end of the night, he’ll find it stuck up there, permanently,” she muttered. “Courtesy of yours truly.”

Peter pulled his eyes away from the slim cut of Moon’s dress to take in Jones, hunched over the bar. Moon was right: Jones wasn’t like other women, at least not any of the women Peter knew. She was foul-mouthed and unapologetic, and as blunt as a mallet to the head. Not to mention the inhuman strength—but that was a trick that seemed to become more common by the day in this city. “I take it Murdock’s not the only complicating factor in your life at the moment, Jones.”

Jones’ eyes narrowed. “And by that you mean…?”

“Cage

and

Rand?” Peter snorted. “Just because Murdock’s blind doesn’t mean I am, too.”

“Oh.” Jones relaxed into a shrug. “What can I say? We’re having fun.”

“Sure,” Peter said, sardonic. “I’d tell you to be careful, but to be honest, I don’t think you’re the one who needs to watch out.”

Jones smirked, as if that were a compliment. “What about you, Parker? I didn’t peg you as the type to pal around with socialites.”

“Cindy Moon isn’t exactly a socialite.”

“Obviously I don’t mean her, pretty as she is.” Jones raised her brows at him. “Johnny Storm ring a bell?”

Peter stared at her. “What do you know about Johnny Storm?”

“He came to my office a few days ago, looking to take me on as a private eye. Dropped your name an awful lot. Seemed to think that knowing a big-shot investigative journalist would get him through the door with me.” Jones cocked her head. “He was right, but it wasn’t for the reasons he thought.”

Peter thought of golden hair and big blue eyes, desperation in his office. “He’s just some naive actor.”

“Well, sure,” Jones agreed. “But he’s a naive actor with money to throw around. Unfortunately for him, I don’t really have the time or the not-fighting-Kingpin energy to be taking on any new clients right now, or else we might have been in business. I can’t say for sure if he was on to something or just paranoid, but that von Doom character he described did sound interesting enough to be worth my time.” She eyed him consideringly. “You know, I have to admit I’m surprised you turned him away.”

“I thought you knew me better than that, Jones.”

“I do,” Jones said. “Which is why I thought you’d jump at the chance to get back into Felicia Hardy’s good graces again.”

Peter’s gaze jerked up. “What?”

“Don’t you know? Johnny Storm is one of the biggest investors in the Black Cat. Not officially, of course—can’t get any dirt on that squeaky-clean image of his—but that club is what it is because of him.” Jones’ lips curled. “I’m sure that if you were to take care of him, he wouldn’t mind putting in a good word for you with the Cat herself.”

She doesn’t want to see you. Not now. Not ever,

Lippy had told him, pointed, inside the ruins of Felicia’s apartment.

She got hurt because of

you

.

Peter’s hand clenched around, tight enough to crack his glass. “What’d you tell him?”

“I told him I’d consider it.” Jones’ dark eyes watched him, knowing. She always was far more perceptive than she let on. “Should I tell him I’m done considering?”

Peter closed his eyes and remembered a soft hand on his face, cool against the heat of the swelling and the bruises.

Go to sleep,

in her low, gentle voice, raspy with affection.

You’re safe now.

He downed the rest of his drink. “Leave Storm to me,” he said. “I’ll take care of it. Then we can focus on what really matters: Putting Kingpin behind bars.”

Jones tilted her glass to him. “I’ll drink to that.”

November 8,  1933

5:44 pm

It was raining by the time Peter left the

Bugle

offices, the kind of cold, slick rain that turned New York into a labyrinth of steam and shadows in the night. The city was notorious for this kind of weather in the uncomfortable time between fall and winter, when the air couldn’t quite decide how cold or damp it wanted to be just yet. Moon always complained that it made her tired, and Betty fussed because the downpours ruined her curls, but Peter liked it. It was like a cloak to him, the dark and the wet. The Spider-Man was at home in the shifting world the rain created.

He was almost to the door of his apartment when footsteps ran up behind him, hard and fast. Peter’s instincts took over; the next thing he knew, he had his would-be assailant pinned with an arm to the throat against the wall of the nearest ally. It was only when a car rumbling by in the street cast a brief strip of light over the man’s face that Peter recognized the river-blue eyes and birdlike cheekbones. “Storm?”

“Get

off

me!” Storm shoved at him; Peter regained his senses quickly enough to let himself be shoved. “What is your

problem

? First you throw me out of your office, then you turn Jessica Jones off of me, and now you attack me in the street?”

Peter frowned at him. “You shouldn’t run up behind people in the dark.”

For a celebrity with a reputation for being vapid, the glare Storm sent him was almost impressive. “Why’d you do it, Parker?” he demanded. “Why did you tell Jessica to drop my case?”

Peter raised a brow. “No one tells Jessica Jones to do anything, especially not me. I

asked

her to drop your case because I decided to take it instead.”

Peter could practically see the hostility drain from Storm’s face. “You did?”

Peter took a step back. “We could stand here and discuss it in the rain,” he said, measured. “Or we could go to the diner down the street that serves a perfectly decent blueberry pie.”

Storm had the kind of smile that changed his entire face. Peter had only ever known a handful of people with smiles like that. “Lead the way.”

The Lucky Scoop was the kind of mom-and-pop diner with portions that could feed a family of four and endless refills on coffee, free of charge. Liz had a smile ready for Peter when he walked through the door, tired but genuine. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Petey Parker himself. What’re you doing back here, Mr. Bigshot Journalist? I’d have thought you’d outgrown this place.”

Storm glanced sidelong at Peter, delighted. Peter coughed and rolled his shoulders under his coat. “Still serving bottomless coffee?”

“You betcha.”

“Then I’ll never outgrow this place.”

Liz’s gaze slid over Peter’s shoulder. Her eyes widened. “Sweet heavens. Is that the Rawhide Kid with you?”

Ah, right,

Peter thought, dry, as Storm grinned and lifted a hand.

Movie star.

“Evenin’, miss.”

Liz flushed. “Oh my god. Hi. It’s so—I’m such a fan. Would you mind if I got an autograph?”

“I’d be delighted.”

Liz hurried out from behind the counter and offered Storm her pad and a pen with trembling hands; Storm graciously took both and scrawled his signature on the topmost page. Liz took the pad back, beaming. “Sit anywhere. I’ll be right with you.”

Storm followed Peter to a booth in the back, shrugging off his overcoat before sliding into the seat. He was dressed down in a pair of slacks and a white shirt with the top button undone, exposing the delicate ridge of his clavicle; his hair, undone by the rain, flopped in messy curls over his forehead. Peter had to look away to wrangle down the sudden—

something

—that welled in his throat. “You get accosted by adoring birds in every establishment you visit, Storm?”

Storm shrugged, cheeks pinkening. If Peter didn’t know better, he’d think the other bashful. “Not every establishment. What about you? It seemed like you knew her.”

“We went to secondary school together.”

Storm’s eyes crinkled at him. “You know, somehow I have a hard time believing you were ever a kid.”

Moon had once told Peter that his deadpan could level cities. He aimed it at Storm now. “Do you want me to show you my baby pictures, or do you want to tell me about your professor?”

Storm sobered at the mention of von Doom. “You really mean it? You’ll help me expose him?”

Peter sighed. “Show me what you’ve got first.”

Storm reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a large yellow envelope, damp from the rain. He undid the metal clasp and shook out the contents, scattering newspaper articles and loose sheets across the table. Peter watched him scramble rearrange the papers with an unimpressed expression. “If this is your idea of evidence, Storm, I’m not sure if this is going to be worth my time.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Storm grabbed one of the clippings and shoved it across the table. “Here. This is one of the earliest ones I could find.”

Peter raised a brow down at the article. It was a

Sunday Times

puff piece, barely two paragraphs long. “‘Empire State Physics Professor Wins Peace Foundation Grant For Particle Research’?”

“The Peace Foundation is a research and philanthropy consortium based in Switzerland,” Storm said. “They mostly work in humanitarian aid; the foundation only gives out two scientific grants a year. Last year—the year this article was written—I met the grant recipients. Neither of them were Victor von Doom.”

Peter shrugged. “So the author mixed up the grant sponsor. I’ve seen sloppier work make it to print.”

“No, she quotes von Doom directly. He told her the Peace Foundation gave him that prize.”

“Embellishing your accomplishments might be embarrassing, but it’s not exactly a crime.”

Storm shook his head. “No. He wasn’t lying about getting the money.” He planted a crumpled packet of paper in front of Peter: An application for a lab space at Empire State. “He opened his lab two months later. He had the money for it. But why did he lie about where it came from?”

Peter raised his brows. “Hmm.”

“And look at this—” Storm laid out two more pieces of evidence: Another set of papers and a slightly longer article from the

Globe

. “December fourteenth, 1932: Twelve homeless people go missing from the Society of Saint Gregory shelter on Doherty Street. No one cared enough to do anything about it, but the reporter interviewed some of the shelter’s regulars, and they swore up and down their friends didn’t just wander off; they were taken. December seventeenth, 1932: Von Doom reports recruiting twelve volunteers for his trial in his research notes. The demographics details he recorded on his new subjects matched the descriptions of the missing vagrants exactly

.

Coincidence?”

Peter frowned down at the papers. “Where did you get these?” He paused. “Recruiting study subjects is also, shockingly, not illegal, by the way.”

“Those people were never heard from again, Parker,” Storm scowled. “They didn’t show up at other shelters, their bodies weren’t found frozen in Central Park—nothing.” He huffed. “I have more. People who got in Victor’s way who had their whole lives fall apart around them, big financial transactions with companies that only popped up a week or two beforehand, lunch meetings downtown with known war profiteers—”

“Storm,” Peter interrupted. Storm stumbled to a stop, irritation flashing across his expression.

“What?”

“You just called him Victor,” Peter said.

Storm’s eyes widened. “I—”

Liz stopped by their table. “You boys ready to order?”

Peter took in the unsettled flush rising up Storm’s neck. “Blueberry pie for my friend,” he told Liz, “and just coffee for me, please.”

Storm started. “Oh no, I—”

“House pie and a cup of joe, coming right up.”

Peter waited until Liz had gone before leveling his gaze on Storm. “Like I told you before—I’m not a PI, Storm. I’m sure as hell not an attack dog you can bait to do your dirty work, either. If this is personal, I’m—”

“It’s not!” Storm sucked in a sharp breath and pushed a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I—I admit I know him. Von Doom. I—” He sighed, shoulders slumping. “My mother died when I was four. My father was an alcoholic who got on the wrong side of the Italians. My sister Sue raised me—and when she and Reed Richards fell in love, he raised me, too.”

Peter’s brows lifted. Once upon a time, he might have called Reed Richards one of his idols: A brilliant physicist, chemist, and engineer—and, from what he had heard from Aunt May, who had spoken to him once or twice at her socialist rallies, an unfailingly kind man.

“Von Doom was his—I don’t know, his colleague, his partner. His friend. They worked on all of their big crazy ideas together, and he was always around—in Reed’s lab, in our kitchen. He was—well, kind of a gammoner, to be honest, but nice enough. At least to me. He’d even go out of his way to talk to me every now and then. I thought it was because he liked me and wanted to look out for me, but…”

Peter found himself tensing. “But?”

Storm sighed. “He was just madly in love with Sue and trying to win her over.”

Peter relaxed, frowning. He didn’t know why the idea of a slick, egomaniacal genius hanging around a teenage Storm in a tiny New York apartment kitchen had him so bothered, but it did. “Still sounding awful personal to me, Storm.”

“Hold on, just—when I was seventeen, Reed and von Doom had a falling out. It was bad, really bad. Sue told me it was because they couldn’t agree on how they wanted to do their research together.” Storm’s eyes hardened. “But I found out this year it was because Doom wanted to experiment on people before they knew it was safe, and Reed refused.”

In his memory, Peter saw Otto Octavius in his chair of mechanical arms, picking living, breathing human beings apart like scrap; Robbie’s empty eyes, unseeing. “Is that why you came to me? Because—”

“I knew you’d get it.” Storm let out a breath. “You’d understand how important this is.”

Liz arrived with a pot of coffee and a plate bearing a slice of blueberry pie the size of Manhattan Island on it. She set both down on the table and flashed them a smile. “Enjoy, boys.”

Storm looked down at the pie and swallowed. “So? What do you say?”

Peter considered him for a moment: Still wet from the rain, so much more hope and determination in his eyes than anyone in this hardscrabble hellhole of a city should be able to have. He sighed and reached for the coffee. “Alright. Show me the rest of your evidence.”

November 9, 1933

4:51 pm

On the list of the greatest buildings in New York, it was Peter’s personal opinion that the Baxter Building rated pretty high. It rose against the Manhattan skyline like a beacon of light, sleek and modern and diamond-like in the sun. Peter stood on the sidewalk, neck craned up, and wished he could climb up the side. Then he sighed, returned his gaze to ground level, and entered through the lobby.

The Storm-Richardses lived on the top three floors, above the research facilities, recreational centers, and after-school program for gifted children that filled out the rest of the tower. Storm buzzed Peter up and was there in the foyer when the elevator doors opened. He was in his undershirt and suspenders, and the grin he flashed Peter was bright enough to light up the room. “Hi. Come in.”

Peter stepped out of the elevator and felt his eyebrows inch upwards. “This is where you live?”

“Oh—” Storm glanced behind him with an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah. Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”

The Baxter penthouse was one of the most beautiful places Peter had ever seen in his life. The floors were shiny, lacquered black, and the walls were rich mahogany, crowned with gold. Luminous landscapes hung on the walls in gilded frames, but the furniture itself was elegant in its simplicity. A grand piano, so finely polished Peter could see his own reflection in it, sat on a raised dais near the floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened onto the balcony. At the other end of the room, Peter could see the kitchen, and beyond that, the hallway that led to what he assumed were the bedrooms and bathrooms. The entire space made Peter think of a decadent chocolate wedding cake.

“It’s all Reed’s, of course,” Storm said, as they stood looking at the piano. “His family is real rich, you know, old money. His parents were both pretty old when they had him; when they died, he was still a kid, so his aunts and uncles thought all the money his parents left him should go to them and sued for it. His inheritance was locked up in a legal battle for years. When he and Sue met, he was broke and had been since he was a teenager. He lived with us for the first few years that they were going steady. Then a few years ago, his lawyers finally won, and, well—here we are.”

Peter glanced at him. “You live here, too?”

“I do. I tried moving out a few times, but—it upsets Sue when I try to leave. She’d never say it, but it does.” Johnny scrubbed a self-conscious hand through his curls. “Anyways. Maybe I’m just not good at leaving home.”

“Johnny? Who ya talkin’ to out there?”

Heavy footsteps thudded from the kitchen. A brick shithouse of a man emerged from behind the divider, a platter of sandwiches in hand. He was tall and broad, in a threadbare brown suit that looked like it had had a lifetime to become accustomed to his wide shoulders, with close-cut brown hair and surprisingly sharp eyes. Those eyes landed on Peter as he joined him and Storm in the parlor. “Who’s yer new friend, runt?”

Storm’s entire expression flipped on a dime, going from pensive and bashful to annoyed teenager in less than a second. “

Ben.

I told you to stop calling me that.”

Peter swallowed down his smirk and held out a hand instead “Peter Parker,

Daily Bugle

.”

The man—Ben’s—eyebrows rose, but he took Peter’s hand. “

Daily Bugle

, huh? You interviewin’ Johnny about his movie?”

“Actually, he asked me to—”

“Do an interview, yup!” Storm’s hands landed on Peter’s shoulders, and he found himself being pushed toward a door on the other side of the parlor. “And now we’re going to go downstairs to talk to Reed. See ya never, Ben!”

“Wait, why’re ya talkin’ to Reed if it’s for—”

Storm shoved Peter through the door and into a stairwell. The door swung shut behind them, swallowing Ben’s voice with it. Storm coughed.

“Sorry,” he said. “That was just—Ben. He’s a big lug. No subtlety whatsoever, you get it.” His hands were still on Peter’s shoulders.

Peter pointedly removed himself from Storm’s grip and turned to raised an eyebrow at him. “There a reason you lied to him about why I’m here?”

Storm grimaced. “I wasn’t

lying

, it’s just—Ben’s a lot to deal with. He asks too many questions and second-guesses everything. No point in wasting both our time explaining everything to him, is there?” He started down the stairs before Peter could press it further. “Come on. Reed’s lab is this way.”

Peter followed Storm down a flight and through another door into a wide-open loft, the ceilings low but the windows high. Every single surface in the lab was crowded with beakers and tubes, flasks of brightly colored liquids bubbling over open flame, stacks of onionskins weighed down with random rocks, pencils and pens and notebooks stuffed with papers. There was what looked to be an engine by the left-hand wall, half of its insides ripped out and sitting in neat piles surrounding it. It was undeniably chaotic, but Peter got the sense that there was a certain order to things that only the master was privy to.

“Reed?” Storm stood with his hands on his hips. “You in here?”

A tousled head of salt-and-pepper hair emerged from behind the engine; a moment later, the man it belonged to stepped into view. He was tall and thin, attractive in a kind of distinguished, angular way. “Johnny? What do you need, son?”

“Reed, this is my—uh, this is Peter Parker, from the

Bugle

. He was wondering if he could ask you some stuff about someone you used to work with?”

“Oh—well, certainly.” Peter watched as the man picked his way across the room, wiping off his palms with a grease rag. He beamed at Peter as he held out a hand. “Reed Richards. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Parker.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Richards.” Peter rummaged in his knapsack and came up with a pen and a pad. “I was wondering if you could answer some questions about your ex-colleague, Victor von Doom?”

A strange expression came over Richards’ face. He glanced at Storm. “Johnny, did you turn him onto this?”

Peter’s eyebrows crept upwards. Storm looked torn between exasperation and anger. “Reed, will you just hear him out? If there’s anyone who can get to the bottom of whatever Doom is up to, it’s him.”

Richards sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker, but the truth is, I’m not convinced Victor is up to anything. He is a brilliant man; troubled, yes, but brilliant. His greatest care in the world is his work. He would never get involved in anything that would compromise it. I’m afraid Johnny has been a bit paranoid about the whole affair.”

Storm’s mouth twisted. Peter glanced at him, considering. He turned back to Richards. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Richards, I’d like the chance to come to that conclusion myself.”

The tight expression on Storm’s face eased. Even Richards seemed to relent. “Fair enough, Mr. Parker. Come, sit. Let’s talk.”

Richards led them to a cluster of mismatched chairs and footstools around a small table by the windows. They sat. “Go on then, Mr. Parker,” Richards said, folding his long-fingered hands together on the table. “Ask away.”

Peter cleared his throat. “You and Victor von Doom worked together after you both graduated from Empire State University, is that right?”

“Yes. We had been friends while we were in school together, both obsessed with quantum mechanics and unwilling to comply with the stuffy rigmaroles of academia. It was Victor’s idea to start a laboratory together after we graduated.”

“But you had a falling out.”

A shadow fell over Richards’ face. “Yes. Like I said, Victor is brilliant. But he can also be…obsessive. The more we learned about the fundamental units that make up our plane of existence, the more certain he became that there were others like it, perhaps even an infinite number of others—other planes, other universes. And he became convinced that there were planes where those who once dwelled in our universe transitioned to after they died.”

“Was he right?”

Richards sighed. “We tried to test his theory for years, but in the end, it’s impossible to truly know; I’m afraid our understanding of the universe, both physical and otherwise, isn’t quite at the point where we can determine whether or not there truly are planes of existence besides our own. But Victor didn’t see it that way. He began to work on a—a machine, of sorts, one that vibrated molecules at varying frequencies, in an attempt to phase them between planes. I confess I don’t know much about it—I had already begun separating my work from his at that point—but Victor was certain he had some success with it. He…he became adamant about recruiting human subjects to experiment with his machine on.”

“And that was it?”

Reed winced. “Not quite. I—well, I had already decided that I was going to leave, but I was still worried he would…anyways. I reported him to the university board. They suspended his grant for six months. He only barely managed to hang on to the laboratory by shuttering the phasing project. We haven’t spoken much since.”

“Until the gala,” Storm said, pointed.

Peter raised his eyebrows questioningly. Richards sighed. “We ran into each other at the Scientific American fundraising gala. Some…tense words were exchanged.”

“Threats,” Storm cut in, expression rocky and stubborn. “Some

threats

were exchanged.”

“Johnny—”

“You know what he’s capable of, Reed!” Storm burst out. Peter got the sense that they had had this conversation before. Many times. “You were the one who told me what he did to that baron, back in Latveria. And his own girl, before he came here. And Henderson, at ESU, when he tried to block the cyclotron the two you were trying to get funding for—and Sue, when—”

“Johnny.” Richards’ voice went from patient to hard as stone in an instant. Storm’s mouth snapped closed. Richards took a measured breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker, to not have anything more significant for you. If I knew of any wrongdoing, please trust that I would tell you. But I truly don’t believe that Victor would do anything that might compromise his work.” He stood from the table. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to mine. It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can chat again someday.”

Peter watched as Richards hurried off. Storm remained perfectly still beside him, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Peter looked down at his notes. He’d written a surprising amount, for how short the conversation had been.

Storm cleared his throat and unfolded himself from the table. “Sorry,” he said, not meeting Peter’s eyes. “I’ll walk you out.”

Peter followed Storm back up to the penthouse. A woman in a smart blue suit was standing over the sofa, speaking to Ben. She turned as Peter and Storm emerged from the stairwell. “Johnny, I picked up those chocolates you like from the—oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”

Storm gestured to the woman. “Parker, meet Susan Storm, my sister. Sue, this is Peter Parker, from the

Daily Bugle

.”

The woman—Susan—eyed Peter appraisingly even as she shook his hand. She was beautiful, with neat platinum curls and piercing icepick eyes; Peter could see how not one, but two genius physicists had fallen for her. It was uncanny, how much she looked like her brother. “The

Bugle

, huh? How do you and my brother know each other?”

Peter glanced at Storm, whose expression had shuttered again. The pretty-boy, airheaded movie star who had gone out of his way to seek out an investigative journalist because a man who used to be a friend had threatened his family. Peter flashed Susan a smile. “Just interviewing the Rawhide Kid himself, ma’am. But I was just on my way out.”

“Oh,” Susan said. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr. Parker.”

Storm looked almost stunned as he walked Peter to the elevator. Peter waited until they were both in the cabin and the doors had shut before turning to him. “Look. I can’t promise you anything. I can’t even promise that I’ll feel the same way tomorrow. But for now: I’ll look into von Doom. See if I can find anything worth digging up.”

All of the tension bled out of Storm’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he sighed, reaching up to scrub at his curls. “Really. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

Peter tucked his pad back into his bag. “I’m not doing it for you, Storm.”

“Right. As it should be.” Storm paused. “I’m sorry Reed wasn’t much help. He still feels guilty for, you know. Stealing Sue from von Doom. He’ll never say a word against the guy.”

“I’ve never needed my job to be easy for me to do it, Storm.”

Storm grinned. The elevator opened onto the glossy lobby. Storm hesitated as Peter stepped out. “You’ll keep me—I mean, I know it’s not your job, but if you can—you’ll keep in the loop?”

Peter’s first instinct was to pull back, to remind Storm that he was not here to hold anyone’s hand. But then Peter actually looked at him, at the bashful grin and bluebell eyes that half the birds in the city seemed to be in love with, and felt his resolve slip, just for a second. “Fine,” he said, and didn’t trust himself to say anything more.

The way Storm beamed at him as the doors slid closed was almost worth it.

November 16, 1933

12:31 am

Almost.

It was raining again, like usual; like always, it seemed, these days. Peter crouched on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Savings Bank in his mask and costume, watching the window of the Polish diner across the street. Water streaked across the lenses of his goggles and soaked through the fabric of his headgear, coalescing in a steady stream down his back.

In the diner, Victor von Doom sat across from a short, squirrely man in a pinstriped suit, eating a plate of potato pierogies. He was taller than Peter had first imagined him, with a head full of thick, dark hair and square, chiseled features. He wore a green velvet suit jacket with patched elbows. Peter hated him a little.

He had been tailing von Doom for going on six hours now, since the man had left his office on the Empire State University campus for the evening. Peter had watched him buy cigarettes and a soda pop at the convenience store, had watched him drink three glasses of whiskey at a pub while reading a newspaper, and was now watching him eat a midnight meal with a man who seemed unpleasant, to be sure, but hardly a criminal mastermind. The Spider-Man had stopped a mugging three blocks over just to alleviate the boredom, but that had been almost an hour ago, and Peter was beginning to wonder just what it was he was doing here.

Both of the men stood. Von Doom clapped his dining partner on the shoulder, a friendly gesture. Then he shrugged into his overcoat and emerged from the diner, into the pouring rain.

Peter followed von Doom the mile and a half back to his brownstone. He watched von Doom unlock his front door and disappear inside, just for the hell of it. Then he turned towards home.

His apartment was cold when Peter climbed through the window, and smelled like mildew from the rain. Peter made his way to the bedroom, stripping out of his costume as he went. He flicked the light on, dumped the pile of wet leather and kevlar in the basket, and went to his desk, to the journal that Mary Jane had given him with the dates pre-stamped in the corners of the pages. It sat open on the pages of notes he had scrawled over the past week, each of them saying essentially the same things:

November 10: Lectured in the morning, laboratory in the afternoon. Pub on 154th street until midnight, then home. Watched until 3am, but no movement.

November 11: Laboratory all day. Dinner with male, white, early 40s, red hair, short, tall, thin. Home. Watched until 3am, no movement.

Man = Philip Masters, chemist, out of work. No criminal connections as far as can be told.

November 12: Laboratory all day. Straight home. Watched until 4am. No movement.

November 13: Lectured in the morning. Met with male, white, mid 40s, blond, buzzcut, broad, heavy for lunch at Italian restaurant, 35th and Pleasant St. Pub afterwards for drinks; companion left at 7. Home at eleven-thirty. Watched until 3am.

Could not determine identity of companion.

November 14: Laboratory. Left at eleven pm, drove to the pier. Picked up male, white, dark hair, medium length, sharp features, wealthy. Dropped him off at Mandarin Hotel. Home. No movement.

Could not determine identity of companion.

November 15: Lectured in the morning, laboratory in afternoon. Met with Masters again for lunch. Home. No movement.

Peter picked up a pen and wrote, on the page marked for November 16:

No. change.

He underlined it once, then again for good measure. Then he tossed the pen aside and fell back onto his bed, all of his breath leaving him in a frustrated huff.

Von Doom was a sleaze, that much was true; and he was as unnervingly committed to his work as Richards had said. But Peter had met old biddies down in Chelsea with nastier habits.

Storm,

he thought, staring at the ceiling.

What have you gotten yourself into?

November 20, 1933

1:02 pm

To say that the set of

Cheyenne Country

was representative of the American west was a stretch. What was meant to be the wilds of Arizona was instead a massive dirt lot in Long Island, blanketed in a layer of densely packed sand, with a few graying cacti and a handful of dust bunnies to sell the scenery. Still, despite the lackluster vista, the lot was buzzing with activity, actors drifting about in exaggerated costumes and makeup, production assistants running back and forth at a much more frenetic pace. Peter caught the attention of the first beanpole in an oversized sweater and newsboy cap that he saw. “Where can I find Johnny Storm?”

“Uh—” The boy squinted around the set. “He should be gettin’ his face painted in the costume department.”

“Thanks, kid.”

The “costume department,” as it turned out, was a half-rusted trailer in the back of the lot, crammed with crates of props and racks of gaudy clothing. Storm sat on a stool in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror leaning up against one wall while a girl in a skirt and frock with perfect rolled curls dusted his face with powder. She took a step back and narrowed her eyes, pink-painted lips twisted in a thoughtful frown. “There. I can’t even see it anymore, Johnny.”

Storm exhaled, touching his fingers to his face. “Thanks, Dorrie. I don’t think I could handle Leibowitz’s yelling if I turned up to film with another big fat blemish on my—” His gaze caught Peter’s in the mirror. “Peter?”

“I hope it’s alright I stopped by,” Peter said.

“Of course!” Storm jumped out of his seat and twisted around, making his way through the clutter toward Peter. He was dressed in a ridiculous denim jacket with fringe running up the arms, a tin star pinned to his lapel like a child’s approximation of a sheriff. “I just wasn’t expecting you, is all. Do you have an update on the”—his voice dropped—“you know?”

Peter glanced over Storm’s shoulder to the makeup girl, watching them curiously as she arranged rows of lipsticks. “Actually, I came here to talk to you about that. Do you mind if we go somewhere a little more private?”

Storm blinked. His eyes looked even bluer against the denim of his jacket. “Sure. It’s my lunch break, anyway. Fancy a bite? There’s a really great deli a block over. They have killer pastrami.”

Peter hesitated. He had wanted to get this over quickly, but—the idea of Storm sitting across from him eating a pastrami sandwich in that ludicrous outfit was somehow too good to pass up. “I could eat.”

Storm beamed. “Great.” He glanced back at the girl. “Tell Liebowitz I’ll be back at two, Dorrie?”

The girl merely shrugged. “It’s your funeral, Storm.”

Peter raised an eyebrow, but Storm just sighed and grabbed his arm, dragging him out of the trailer before Peter could press it. “Ignore her,” he muttered. His fingers were still looped around Peter’s wrist. “This movie has been hell to make. It’s got everyone on edge.”

Peter’s eyes flicked down to where Storm was still holding on to him. Storm flushed up to his ears and hastily released his hold. “That Liebowitz sounds like a real piece of work.”

Storm shrugged. They fell into step beside each other, making their way off the lot. “He’s hard-boiled, for sure, but—I’d be nothing without him, you know? So I guess I can’t complain.”

Peter frowned. He couldn’t imagine Storm being nothing without anyone’s help, never mind some two-bit jackass who didn’t even like his actors taking lunch breaks. “You like this? Doing these movies for a guy like that?”

Storm ducked his head. “I do,” he admitted. He flashed a smile Peter’s way, almost bashful. “It sounds real dumb, I know, but—they make people happy, you know? They help take people’s minds off things. Every other minute of the day, there’s not enough money, not enough time, and not enough space to go around. But for the hour that they’re at the cinema, people can take the time to just enjoy themselves, to watch a story and have a laugh. That’s gotta be worth something, doesn’t it?”

And Peter, against all the odds, found himself smiling. “Yeah. I’d say it is.”

They found the deli—a place with a string of Jewish names in the title, which was how Peter knew it was a good one—ordered their sandwiches, and sat in a booth by the window. Storm crunched into a pickle. “So, what’s shakin’?”

In the deli’s fluorescent lighting, Peter could see Storm miles better than he had outside, and while the kid still had a face like a painting, he looked…worn. Shadows under his eyes, a pallor to his skin. Like the shiny luster that so many people depended on him to have was being slowly scrubbed away. Peter opened his mouth and meant to tell Storm that Richards was right—there was nothing to von Doom, and there likely never would be. What he said instead was: “You look tired.”

Storm blinked. He looked almost as surprised as Peter felt. “I—sorry? I mean—yeah. I’m a little ragged.

Rawhide Kid

did so well that Leibowitz is expecting another home run with

Cheyenne Country

, but it’s a much bigger flick, and he’s driving us all into the ground trying to make it in the same amount of time.” He laughed, self-conscious, scrubbing at his carefully gelled hair. “I was actually looking forward to my first weekend off in forever, but I forgot I promised an associate of mine I’d go to her club reopening this Saturday.”

Peter took a bite of his sandwich. Shit. It really was good pastrami. “Oh?”

“Yeah. We’ve been in business together a long time. She got hurt pretty bad a few weeks ago and had to close down her place while she recovered, but she’s on the up and up again and I promised her I’d be there for her first night back in the business.”

Peter stilled. “This club,” he said, slowly. “It wouldn’t happen to be the Black Cat, would it?”

Storm perked up. “You know it?”

If Peter closed his eyes, he could still see her—Felicia, silver hair in silver moonlight. He swallowed past a suddenly dry throat. “I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s a great place,” Storm proclaimed. “All the stars in the city will be there.” He hesitated, a sudden blush rising up his cheeks. “Hey, you—you wouldn’t wanna go, would you? With me? To the opening night?”

Peter tilted his head and flashed the most winsome smile in his arsenal, the one that could charm even J Jonah Jameson into cutting him a break. Storm’s eyes lit up like the sky on a clear summer day. “You know what?” he said, savoring the words. “I’d love to.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

November 22, 1933
9:21 pm Peter had almost finished buttoning himself into his double-breasted suit jacket when the sound of the buzzer grated through his apartment. He sighed and temporarily abandoned his efforts to straighten his bowtie in favor of answering the door. Storm stood on the other side, hands clasped loosely behind his back. His eyes widened as he took Peter in. “Peter. Hi. You look.” He swallowed. “Sharp.”If Peter looked sharp, then Storm was…something else altogether. He cut a sleek silhouette in a dark navy London drape suit, the shirt underneath as crisp and white as fresh snow, un undone bowtie hanging loose in a single strip of silk around his collar. His golden hair was gelled back from his face, accentuating the high rise of his cheekbones, the startling blue of his eyes. Peter swallowed. “Right back at you,” he said; then, nodding to the undone tie, “Should I do that, too?”Storm’s lips curled into a smirk. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Peter, but you’re not really devil-may-care enough to pull it off.”“I hope not,” Peter muttered. Storm laughed and let himself into the apartment, leading Peter by the elbow over to the mirror.“Here.” Storm reached up and pulled loose Peter’s bow, then re-tied it with sure, deft movements, his fingers soft and cool at Peter’s throat. When he was done, he stepped back and grinned up at Peter with a brightness that Peter thought could rival the sun. “You look like a real dollface, Parker.”“Sweet talk won’t get you anywhere, Storm.” Peter offered his arm. “Shall we?”~*~The Black Cat speakeasy on its reopening night was a snapshot of New York at its most glamorous, in a year that seemed destined to be grayed out at the edges. Women in silk dresses and satin gloves, crystal tassels in their ears and hair, trailed about on glittering heels; men in dark, dapper suits and clean white smiles leaned against the bar, nursing glasses of whiskey and gin.Storm led Peter to a table in the corner, removed enough from the dance floor to offer a semblance of privacy. A waiter in a smart black waistcoat approached them immediately, apparently recognizing Storm on sight. Storm winced a little as he glanced at Peter. “I should have made sure before we came, but you do drink, right?”Peter flashed him a smile. “Like a horse.”Storm laughed. “A sidecar for me, please,” he told the waiter. “And for my friend…”“Bourbon on the rocks.”“Coming right up, sirs,” the waiter said, before vanishing back into the crowd.Peter glanced around, taking in the celebrities and socialites whirling around the floor, the band playing swing music, liquor flowing anywhere he cared to look. They had passed by two guards on their way in with sharp, merciless faces, the kind of men that the Spider-Man wouldn’t have looked twice at before clocking if he’d come across them in the streets. Then he looked at Storm, a Greek illustration come to life, a soft smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he watched the hubbub around them. “You know,” Peter began, “I wouldn’t have really taken this to be your kind of scene.”“Oh? What would you have taken to be my kind of scene?”The water returned to set their drinks on the table. Peter lifted his brows at them. “Somewhere less frowned upon by the law?”“Oh.” Storm laughed a little. “It helps get crowds to the theaters, believe it or not. Audiences like a star who invests in the people.”Peter snorted and took a sip of his drink. It was good; strong. “Be straight with me, Storm,” he said, because he had Storm here and he had never been one to beat around the bush. “Von Doom. Are you on him so much because you really think he’s funding his experiments with dirty money? Or is there something else?”Storm was quiet for a moment, stirring his cocktail. “It’s both,” he admitted, finally, after almost three weeks of beating around the bush. “I’ve known—I knew Victor for a long time. He hid it well, but…the marbles aren’t all there, you know? And not in the way that means he isn’t smart. He is. He’s brilliant. But I think that’s part of it. It makes him…dangerous. He thinks he should be able to do whatever he wants. That he has a right to the world, to other people. I saw the way he treated Sue. The way he treated Reed, too…and me. Like we should belong to him just because he loved us.” He looked up at Peter. “He’s obsessed with his own ideas, Peter. He’s going to hurt someone over them, I just know it. And my family—they’re all I have. I can’t risk anything happening to them.”Peter watched him for a moment. “Storm,” he said, finally. “It’s not your job to make sure nothing bad ever happens to the people you know.”Storm quirked a brow at him. “Rich, coming from you, Mr. Parker.” At Peter’s questioning frown, he sighed, voice gentling. “I could smell the guilt on you the minute I walked into your office. You blame yourself for what happened to Mr. Robertson.”Peter stiffened. “That’s different,” he said. “I’m—” The Spider-Man . Someone whose job it is to protect people. Someone whose job it was to stop Octavius. “You’re…?” Storm shook his head, smiling softly. “You’re completely the type. Anything bad happens, it’s your fault. Just because you’re a reporter, doesn’t mean you’re clairvoyant, yeah? You have to learn how to forgive yourself.”Peter stared at him. He felt a little dumbstruck; he felt a little warm. “How are you—like this?” he blurted out. “In a city like this? At a time like this?”Johnny smiled, a sunflower. “I’m just lucky,” he said. “I’m a real looker, so my life has been pretty good, which means I don’t have any excuse to be anything but optimistic.”A laugh burst out of Peter’s chest, startled and genuine. He hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. “You’re something else, Storm.”Johnny grinned and raised his drink to his lips. That’s when Peter spotted it: The flash of silver hair at the edge of the dance floor, winking in the dark of the room. He twisted around in the booth, tracking the hair as it made its way through the space. He couldn’t see her face, but there was a moment when the dancers parted and he caught sight of her dress, backless and floor-length and white. Suddenly there was a knot in his throat.“Peter?” Johnny’s gaze had gone from playful to concerned. “Are you okay?”Peter swallowed. “Dandy,” he said. “I just—have to do something. I’ll be right back.” He left Johnny blinking wide eyes at him and shoved his way through the crowd, half-running to follow the trailing white dress. It drew him away from the bar and the dance floor, down a narrow hallway that led toward the storeroom. At last, Peter caught up to her and reached out, brushing her elbow with his fingers. “Felicia—”Felicia Hardy turned, and Peter’s heart leapt into his throat. A white porcelain mask covered her face, sleek and expressionless, with only two elegant slits to let her eyes shine through. The sight of it sent a shiver down Peter’s back. His chest ached with something that was part longing and part regret. “Felicia.”“Hello, Peter.” Felicia lifted a hand to touch gloved fingers to her mask, like she couldn’t help it. “Do you like my new look?”“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I’m so, so sorry.”Felicia exhaled, soft and low. “I know.” She reached out to brush her fingers against his cheek, the barest touch of silk. “I was angry at you, Peter. I was hurt, and I was scared, and I took it out on you. Then I heard what happened to Robbie Robertson, and I…I’m sorry, Peter. I shouldn’t have pushed you away.”“You were right to.” Peter closed his eyes against the memory of the Crime Master’s snarl, his knife held to Robbie’s throat. Back off , he’d said, vicious and gloating. Or I’ll kill him like I killed your cat-loving floozie. “I was too late to save Robbie. I was too late to save you. I’m always too late to save anyone.”Felicia sighed. Her hand slid down to rest on his chest, against his heart. “One of these days, Peter, you’ll get over that martyrdom complex you like carrying around so much.” She tilted her face up towards him. “Then you’ll see that you’re the best thing to have happened to this city in a long, long time.”Peter swallowed. He reached up to curl his fingers around hers. “You saved me, Felicia,” he told her. He had wanted to say it to her for a year. “You know that, don’t you?”Felicia laughed, light and brittle. “I do, tough guy.” Her white mask winked in the light. “But I think that misty glow is gone now, don’t you?”
That’s what I’m good for. Late nights, when the mood lighting and the booze give everything a misty glow. I don’t look so good in the daylight.
Peter closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. “Never,” he said.They stood like that for a while, sharing breaths as the canary accompanying the live pianist sang something sweet and melancholy in her satiny voice. At some point, Peter opened his arms, and Felicia stepped into them; and they swayed, while the girl on stage mourned over the stormy weather that had taken over her life since her man walked out of it.Eventually, the song ended. Peter stepped back and let Felicia draw her hand away from his chest. “Can I see you again?”He got the feeling that if he could see Felicia’s face, she’d be smiling at him, just a little. “I’m sorry, Peter,” she said. “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. I need…I have to figure out how to be alone, for a while. I’m done being the girl men throw away in the middle of the night.”Peter closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the forehead of the mask. “But call me sometime, won’t you?”Felicia’s voice was warm. “Only if you sit by the phone and wait.” She patted his cheek, fond. When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.Peter turned back toward the club. For a moment, he thought he saw the flash of coattails and blond hair, disappearing around the corner; but when he emerged from the hallway, there was only the same crowd of flappers and sheiks, all attentive on the band. He returned to his table to find Johnny turned toward the stage, watching the performance with an almost single-minded focus. “Sorry about that,” Peter said, sliding back into the booth. “Had to say hi to an old friend of mine.”“No problem.” There were two more cocktails on the table. Johnny wouldn’t look at him. “Listen, I’m going to go see if that bird over there wants to dance, yeah? Order whatever you want, it’s on me.”Peter frowned as he watched Johnny get to his feet. There was a strange tension to his shoulders, at odds with the sunshiny disposition Peter had come to associate with him. Had something happened in the time since Peter had gotten up? “Storm,” he began, are you alright on the tip of his tongue—but Johnny pushed forward onto the floor without letting Peter speak, leaving Peter to stare after him as he was swallowed by the crowd.  November 25, 1933
12:32 pm Peter called Johnny three days after the Black Cat reopening. He had been following von Doom for over two weeks, and in that time, the man hadn’t so much as spat at an urchin. It was time Peter let Johnny down easy. He just didn’t know why the idea twisted at him so much.They met at a diner on Fifth Street owned by a sweet old Ukrainian couple, because Peter had been watching von Doom eat pierogies for half of November and now he had a hankering. Johnny smiled when he climbed out of his cab, but it seemed half-hearted, somehow, compared to his usual beam. They sat in a booth at the back of the restaurant, away from the windows. Johnny claimed he wasn’t hungry, but there were shadows under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days, so Peter ignored his protests and ordered him a plate.“So,” Johnny said, toying with the salt shaker. He hadn’t looked Peter in the eye since they sat down together. “Did you find something on von Doom?”The words were there, ready on the tip of Peter’s tongue: Your brother-in-law was right. There’s nothing to von Doom. You’re just paranoid. But he couldn’t make himself say them. Somehow, in the time since he had walked into his office to find Johnny Storm waiting for him, the kid had gotten under his skin, turned him soft. He sighed. “I wanted to say thanks, first. For inviting me to the juice joint the other night. It was a good time.”“Oh.” Johnny finally looked up at him, surprised. “You don’t have to thank me. Honestly, you probably did me a favor.” He cracked a smile, brittle. “Too many birds to choose from can be a curse as much as a blessing.”Peter laughed. “Sure.”“Anyways.” Johnny swallowed. “I’m sure you would’ve gotten an invitation eventually, even if it wasn’t from me. I didn’t know you and Miss Hardy knew each other.”Peter stilled. “Who said we did?”“I—” A faint flush rose up Johnny’s neck. “When you left and didn’t come back for a while, I went looking for you. I saw you and her, talking. You looked… close.”Peter hesitated. He felt inexplicably reluctant to admit to Johnny what Felicia was to him. There was a tightness in his stomach, almost like guilt. He thought of Johnny sitting across from him in the club’s low lighting, forgiving Peter for the things that haunted him on behalf of the universe. He thought of Jessica smirking at him over her whiskey, saying I thought you’d jump at the chance to get back into Felicia Hardy’s good graces again. The ironic thing was, Felicia hadn’t even asked how Peter had gotten into her club. So Peter had never really needed Johnny after all.“We were involved,” he said, finally. “It was a complicated relationship.”Johnny nodded. He stared at the salt shaker as if it could tell him the future. His shoulders were tight under his suit jacket. “Is that why—I mean, is that why you agreed to come with me? You wanted to see her?”It should have annoyed him, the question; Peter should have scoffed at how Johnny sounded like an insecure housewife and moved the conversation on to the business at hand. But he was stuck on that sick feeling, growing with every second that Johnny avoided meeting his eyes. He forced himself to push past it, to clip his words so that the guilt didn’t soften them. “Does that bother you?”Johnny frowned, but he didn’t take the bait. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just thought we were going together, as chums. I wish you would’ve told me you just wanted to see Felicia.”Heat crawled up the back of Peter’s neck, leaching into his cheeks. Christ. He was a grown man, a reporter , for chrissake, and the goddamn Spider-Man besides. Why was he flushing like a kid caught sneaking candy before dinner? “We’re not friends, Storm,” he said, short. “You came to me because you wanted me to investigate someone. I wasn’t aware sharing a social life was a part of that.”It was a lie, bad enough to make the self-respecting journalist inside Peter shrivel up a little. Why would Johnny have invited him to a glamorous club reopening for any reason other than a social one? But Johnny wasn’t used to seeing through people like Peter was. His eyes hardened, and before he even started to speak Peter could already tell that this was not a conversation that was going to be kind to either of them—“Jonathan?”The voice that cut across the diner was smooth and rich, and, worst of all, familiar. Peter’s spider-sense had slick dread trickling down his back before he even turned. Victor von Doom stood next to the booth behind theirs, polished as could be in his green velvet suit with his overcoat draped over one arm, eyes fixed on Johnny. It was the first time Peter had seen him up close.Johnny had frozen in his seat. “Victor,” he said, a little atonal, like he was having trouble remembering how to speak. “What—what are you doing here?”Von Doom looked from Johnny to Peter and back again. “This restaurant serves the best pierogies in the city.”Peter fought the urge to close his eyes. Does this man have to eat his goddamn pierogies in every shack on the face of the earth? Von Doom glanced at Peter, briefly, before returning his attention to Johnny. “It’s been a while, Jonathan.” He said Johnny’s name like it was supposed to be funny somehow. “How are your studies progressing? History, was it?”Johnny flushed. He cleared his throat. “I left school, actually.” His voice was even, but fingers had curled into fists on the table. “I’m an actor now.”The corner of von Doom’s mouth tilted upwards. “Of course. The Rawhide Kid , wasn’t it? I’m sure Reed and Susan are so proud.” His eyes flashed, lips curling. “Even if it does appear that you are following more in Benjamin’s footsteps than in theirs.”Johnny’s eyes turned to ice. “You keep Ben’s name out of your mouth.”“Or what?” Von Doom’s smile was nothing but silken pleasantry. “He’ll sic his little crew of Yancy Street gangsters on me?”Peter relied on his quick instincts for his life, but nothing could have prepared him for Johnny Storm flying out of his seat and punching von Doom, clear across the face. Von Doom’s head snapped to the side. Peter jumped to his feet and hauled Johnny back. “Storm!”Johnny stared at von Doom, chest heaving, face pale. Von Doom touched his fingers to his bloody lip. He looked at Johnny with an expression that Peter could have only described as amused. “Well,” he said. “I suppose even the baby of the family learns to walk eventually, doesn’t he?”Johnny started forward, but he didn’t get far against Peter. “I know what you’re doing, Doom,” he snarled, struggling against Peter’s grip. “You won’t get away with it for much longer. I’m going to expose you, and when I do, you’ll rot in jail for the rest of your life.”Von Doom’s brows rose. An old man in a grease-stained apron hurried out from the kitchen, waving a serving spoon threateningly in Peter and Johnny’s direction. “I will not tolerate thugs in my restaurant!” he shouted in a thick Ukrainian accent. “Leave immediately, or I will call the police!”“Our apologies, sir.” Peter tossed a five-dollar bill down on the table and grabbed Johnny by the elbow. “Come on.”Peter dragged Johnny out of the diner and down the street, away from the staring eyes that had just witnessed the Rawhide Kid clock a physics professor in the nose. It was only when he was sure that they were no longer being watched that he threw Johnny down the first alley offering a modicum of privacy and jammed a finger in his chest. “ What ,” he hissed, “was that? ”Johnny squirmed away from his touch, scowling. A curl had escaped from the sculpted shape of his hair and flopped over his eyes; there was a pink flush, rising up his neck. “It was a warning, obviously,” he snapped, glaring at Peter like this was somehow his fault. “So that bastard knows he won’t get away with whatever he’s planning.”Peter had to suck in a breath to quell his fury. “That’s right,” he said, too fast, too loud, voice rising with his anger. “It is ‘whatever it is he’s planning,’ because in case you forgot, we don’t know what that is yet . Not that we ever will, now that you’ve so kindly given him a heads up about us looking into him!” He whirled away, unable to look at Johnny anymore, unable to stomach his naivety and his recklessness. “That was careless, Storm, and more than that, it was stupid . Men like von Doom, when they cry assault, coppers actually listen. You could lose everything. You could be locked up.” He scoffed, swiping a frustrated hand through his hair. “A pretty face like yours? You wouldn’t last a week behind bars.”Johnny bristled. “You don’t get it, do you? Didn’t you hear how Doom was talking back there? Sneering about Reed and Sue, about Ben. Ben used to be a pilot, did you know that? But he and Doom never got along. Doom started rumors that Ben had ties to the Yancy Street gang, and like you said—when someone like Doom talks, people listen. Ben lost his job because of that. That, back there? That was Doom, gloating .” He stared at Peter, furious, beseeching. “Can’t you see? Can’t you see what kind of a man he is?”“And showing him your hand solves anything?” Peter demanded. “Storm, do you ever fucking think before you act?”Johnny flushed, twin points of color high on his cheeks. “I wouldn’t have had to,” he spat, “if you could just do your job and find out what he’s up to!”“Do my job?” Peter laughed, harsh. “Storm. I’ve been doing my job. For the last two goddamn weeks, I’ve followed von Doom day in, day out. I’ve poked around his lab, questioned his students and colleagues, looked into his associates. I know when he eats, when he sleeps, when he shits. Do you want to know what I’ve found? Nothing . He’s a professor, Johnny, and a scientist; that’s it. Your brother-in-law was right. There’s nothing there.”“No,” Johnny said. “You’re just not looking hard enough—”“I’ve looked, Storm,” Peter growled. “Harder than you ever have. I’m not wasting my time on this anymore.”“Peter, come on!” Johnny’s voice rose with frustration. “Your friend got his brain drilled into by a degenerate with a degree who nobody suspected. Can you really not see this?”Peter saw red. “Don’t talk about Robbie,” he snapped, fast, before he could think about it. “What happened to him is nothing like what’s happening here.”Johnny’s throat worked. “Peter,” he said. “You’re going to regret this if you don’t see this through.”Peter took a step back. What was he doing here? Standing in an alleyway in the middle of the day, arguing with a pretty-boy who didn’t know two shits about chasing down the truth, whose hardest part of his day was getting his makeup girl to cover up a spot for him. He had a real job to do. Fuck, he had two real jobs to do. How had he gotten so caught up in Johnny’s drama?“You’re on your own, Storm,” he said.  His own voice was so cold he barely recognized it. “You want to kick up a fuss, make yourself feel important? Fine. Go ahead. But I’m done caring about it, and I’m done caring about you.”Johnny flinched back as violently as if he’d been burned. For a moment, he just stared at Peter, pale; Peter thought he would have looked less stricken if he had been slapped. “Fine,” he said, finally, barely a whisper; then, louder, angry now, “Fine. I’ll stop him on my own.”Johnny turned and stalked away from Peter, out of the alley and back into the street. Peter watched as he pulled his coat tight around himself, shoulders hunching against the late-November chill. When he spoke again, his voice was low, almost too quiet to hear. “Thanks for nothing, Peter,” he said, flat; then he lowered his head and let himself be carried away by the rushing crowd, leaving Peter standing alone on the sidewalk.  November 30, 1933
9:46 pm “Alright.” Jones capped her marker and threw herself back into her seat. She kicked one booted foot up over the other and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s it. I’m calling an official time out, which will end when and only when we find out what’s got the stick so far up Parker’s ass and how to get it out.”Peter glared at her. “Have you always been this elegant, Jones?”“I’m with Jessica,” Rand said, though he at least had the grace to look sheepish. “You’re obviously in a mood, Pete. Did something happen?”“And after you’ve been so upbeat lately,” Cage drawled. “Well, upbeat for you, anyway.”“Nothing happened,” Peter snapped. “Can we get back to what we’re here for? Putting down the murderous criminal mastermind we’re all sticking our necks on the line to take down?”For the Defenders’ final meeting before moving on Kingpin, Jones had chosen an abandoned construction supply warehouse on the north side of the docks. The five of them sat around a fold-up table Cage had brought with him, all of their plans spread out between them, surrounded by crates upon crates covered with grimy dust sheets. It was vast and drafty and smelled like limestone and chalk, which would usually have all been pluses in Peter’s book, but at this moment he was beginning to miss Club Silk. At least there he had direct and immediate access to booze.“You’re lying,” Murdock said, flat. They were all in their costumes tonight, and dressed to the nines in his blood-red trench coat and eerie eyeless mask, Peter could see how people mistook him for the Devil in the dark parts of the night. “Don’t get me wrong, Parker: I don’t really give a shit about your personal life. But I know for a fact that Jessica isn’t going to let up until she gets what she wants, so. Do us all a favor and give her what she wants.”Jones cooed. “You really know how to sweet-talk a gal, don’t you, Murdock?”“Is it Felicia again?” Rand tilted a knowing smile Peter’s way. “It’s always trouble with the dames with you, isn’t it, Parker?”Peter ground his teeth. He was getting real tired of other people talking about his relationship with Felicia at him. “What’s up with your sudden gossip obsession, Jones? You joining my aunt’s Sunday afternoon book club?”Jones tilted her head, eyes glinting. She always did that—looked at people like she could see right through them. “It’s Johnny Storm, isn’t it?” At Peter’s furious silence, a smug smirk spread across her lips. “I knew it. You never could resist a pretty face.”“I swear to god, Jones,” Peter seethed.“What happened?” Rand asked, sympathetic. It made Peter want to punch him in the face.Cage grinned. “Did he realize you’re an old square and dust out for someone who could keep up with his movie star lifestyle?”People always said Peter had a temper. He deserved a prize for so constantly proving them wrong, as evidenced by the fact that Jones, Rand, and Cage were all still breathing. “I really,” he ground out, “ don’t. Want to talk about this.”Jones waved a hand. “Save the hangdog face, Parker. There are better things to be blue about than an empty head with a pretty face.”“Right,” Cage chuckled. “Plenty of fellas in the sea, if that’s what you’ve got a hankering for.”Peter’s jaw worked. He should have stayed quiet, let Murdock corral them all back on topic; he wanted to rip one of his gloves off and throw it down as the opening salvo to challenging Jones, Rand, and Cage to a fight to the death. What he said instead was, “He’s not an empty head.”Jones raised her brows. “What was that?”“Storm,” Peter said through his teeth. “He’s not. An empty. Head.”Jones stared at him for a moment. Her entire face changed in an instant. “Hold your horses,” she said, sounding awed. “You didn’t actually fall for him, did you?”Murdock groaned, loudly, and dropped his head into his arms.“For chrissake, Jones!” Peter exploded. “I’m not sleeping with Johnny goddamn Storm!”Rand looked unimpressed. “Not with that attitude, you’re not.”“Okay, okay.” Cage waved one of his huge hands, shaking his head in amusement. “As much fun as we’re all having here, I’m pretty sure we’ll send both Parker and Murdock to the madhouse if we keep this up any longer. It’s getting late. We should all try to get some rest. Tomorrow is an early day for us.”Jones winced. “Can you really call it tomorrow if it’s actually three in the morning?”Rand looked solemn. “A noble time for a noble task.”“Also when the guards change shifts at Fisk’s central base, but sure.” Murdock pushed back from the table and stood. “Don’t be late.”Jones saluted, then made a face when she remembered he couldn’t see it. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Big Red.”Peter left the unholy trio to pack up and swung out alone, toward one of the safehouses he kept in Manhattan. The night was sharp and cold, but full of restless energy, like the buildup of electricity right before a storm. Or maybe it was just Peter, with the itch under his skin. Sometimes he wondered if the spider that bit him had been particularly restless, because he could never seem to sit still these days, always looking for the next hit of adrenaline.It was half past ten by the time he arrived at his safehouse, a bare-bones room in a tenement whose landlord he had saved from a loan shark once. He tried to do as Cage suggested and grab a few hours of shut-eye, knowing he’d need it to go up against Kingpin, but he couldn’t. He kept seeing the hurt twist of Johnny’s mouth, kept hearing Jones’ voice. You didn’t actually fall for him, did you? It wasn’t even like that. Peter wasn’t afraid to admit he tangled with men every now and then, but he preferred his partners, of any sex, to be on his level: Grounded to the earth, able to handle the darkness that seemed to follow him anywhere he went. Felicia had been like that, more than capable of handling his darkness with all the darkness of her own. Cindy had survived years of indenturement and come out made of silver and steel; even beautiful Mary Jane, who his Aunt May kept dropping not-so-subtle hints about, knew how to roll up her sleeves and get her hands dirty to make ends meet. Johnny Storm was a movie star, for god’s sake. He had curly-haired birds to do his makeup for him and dressed like a cowboy for a living and signed autographs for adoring fans. How could Peter take him seriously? How could he stain someone like that with his touch?Peter wore his uncle’s old airman uniform to go to war on the streets of New York and almost always had blood between his knuckles. Johnny was a princess who lived in an ivory tower. Jones was delusional if she thought there could be anything between them. You have to learn how to forgive yourself, Johnny had told him.It was two fifteen in the morning when Peter climbed out of his window and began swinging, as fast as he could, toward the Baxter Building. When he landed on the sidewalk, he stuffed his mask and goggles inside his coat, then fumbled on his glasses and ruffled his hair in the hopes it might distract from the rest of his ensemble. Then he found the nearest payphone, dialed the number Johnny had given him for updates on von Doom, and waited, and hoped.It took two more tries, but eventually a click answered from the other end of the line. Peter held his breath, praying it wouldn’t be Susan or Richards, or god forbid, that big lug Grimm—“Hello?”Peter let out the breath he’d been holding. “Storm,” he said. “It’s Parker. Can you let me in?”There was an excruciating moment of silence. “Peter?” Johnny repeated, incredulous. “What are you—it’s late.”“I know. Can I come up?”“You’re here? ”“Outside,” Peter said.Another pause, even longer this time. For a moment, Peter thought Johnny would turn him away. Then, barely a whisper: “I’m not—decent.”Peter rolled his eyes. “I don’t care if your hair’s not perfect, Storm. I just—I want to see you.”The sound of Johnny sighing whooshed over the line. “Fine. Just—don’t freak out, okay?” The line went dead.Peter huffed as he hung up the receiver. He had taken down crime lords and cannibals, and Johnny Storm thought Peter couldn’t handle seeing him without powder on his nose.The penthouse was dark when the elevator let Peter out onto the floor. Johnny met him in the foyer and ushered Peter through the parlor and kitchen and into the hallway beyond. He pulled Peter into the third bedroom on the left, locked the door, and whirled around to face him. “What are you doing here?”Peter stared at him. The curtains had been drawn over the French doors in the parlor, but here, in Johnny’s room, moonlight spilled through the uncovered window, illuminating the sharp planes of his face. Thick, dark blood congealed at his hairline; Peter could see where it had trailed down the side of his face before he had wiped the majority of it away. A nasty scrape glistened wet and raw on Johnny’s cheekbone. His left eye was starting to swell.Johnny swallowed, but he lifted his chin, defiantly meeting Peter’s gaze. “Well?” he snapped. His voice was rough, like he’d been shouting. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here at two in the morning or not?”Peter pushed forward, ignoring Johnny’s startled yelp as he fell back against the door. He took Johnny’s chin, careful not to hold it any tighter than he needed to, and turned it into the light, cataloguing the smaller scrapes that littered Johnny’s cheeks and jaw, the ring of bruises blooming around his trachea. Like someone had ground his face into the dirt, then gripped him by the throat. Something dark and ugly, unfathomably vast, unfurled in Peter’s stomach. “Who did this to you?”Johnny scowled and pushed Peter’s hand away. “I’m fine, Peter,” he snapped, eyes hot. “Besides. I thought you were done caring about me.”Peter swallowed. “Come on.” He took Johnny by the wrist and led him over to the bed. “Do you have rubbing alcohol?”Johnny hesitated, then nodded toward the ensuite bathroom. Peter left him sitting on the bed and closed the door of the bathroom behind him. He had to take a moment to grip the sink in his hands and swallow down the rage building in his throat; then he found the tin box marked with a red cross in the cabinet behind the mirror and rejoined Johnny in the bedroom.Johnny flinched at the first touch of the alcohol-soaked pad to his exposed scrape, but he held himself impressively still afterwards as Peter methodically cleaned every cut on his face. He watched Peter work with luminous blue eyes, worrying his lower lip; it was only when Peter rose to throw away the bloodied pads that his hand shot out, grasping at Peter’s wrist.“Peter.” Johnny’s voice was barely a whisper. “Why are you here?”Peter looked down at him. He set the trash aside and, against his better judgment, reached down to stroke a thumb along a bruise that was beginning to form on Johnny’s cheekbone. Johnny shivered as if he couldn’t help himself. “I came to apologize,” Peter admitted. “You helped me, Storm. With something I had been struggling with for a long time. You didn’t deserve what I said to you. How I treated you.”Johnny swallowed. Peter watched his Adam’s apple bob in his slender throat. “Is that all?”Peter brushed Johnny’s hair back from his eyes. “Tell me who did this to you.”Johnny exhaled, unsteady. “I was mugged,” he said.Peter resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “No you weren’t.”“Peter—”“Muggers don’t push their victims’ faces into the ground, and they don’t choke them out,” Peter snapped. “Johnny. Tell me the truth.”Johnny’s jaw worked. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “They had—scarves, tied over their faces. But they had a message for me. Said pretty boys like me shouldn’t stick our necks where they don’t belong.”Peter stilled. “Von Doom.”Johnny laughed, brokenly. “Who else, right?” He looked down, fingers knotting together. “I guess I don’t have to wonder whether he ever really cared about me anymore.”Peter’s fingers itched to curl into fists. Too late, said the voice in the back of his head. Always too late to save the ones you— “He’ll regret that,” Peter ground out. “Trust me.”Johnny rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth curled upwards. “You’re a reporter, Peter, not some crusading avenger. If Victor can hire men to beat me up in the street, I don’t think there’s much you can do.” He pulled on Peter’s wrist, tugging him closer. “I told you the truth. Now it’s your turn. Did you really come all this way just to apologize?”Even bruised and bloody, Johnny was beautiful in the stark light of the moon, so pretty it almost hurt to look at him. Peter drew in a deep, even breath. “I did.”Johnny blinked at him. “Because I would be okay with it, if you came here for something else,” he said. “More than okay with it.”Peter fought the urge to close his eyes. “Johnny,” he said, soft. “I can’t give you what you want.”    “Why not?”“I don’t do well in relationships,” Peter said. “I have…enemies.”Johnny’s brows rose. “Enemies? You?”“Yes.”Johnny barked out a laugh. “Peter, you’re the biggest curmudgeon I’ve ever met. Who are your enemies? Rival reporters at other papers? I think I can handle a couple of muckrakers.”“It’s not a joke, Johnny,” Peter said.The smile faded from Johnny’s mouth. “You’re serious.”“Yes.”There was a moment’s silence. Johnny released Peter’s wrist. “The excuse you’re giving me is that you have too many enemies to be in a relationship?”Peter sighed. “It’s not an excuse.”“You could just say it, you know,” Johnny said hotly, suddenly angry. “That you’re not interested. I’d take that over a cop-out any day.”“Johnny—”The sudden sound of gunfire erupted in the distance, audible even over the sounds of the cars on the street. Peter’s head whipped toward the window as his spider-sense whined in his head. “ Shit. What time is it?”“What?” Johnny frowned, glancing at his watch. “Half past three—” Goddamnit, Parker. “I have to go.”Johnny’s expression twisted. He looked away. “You do.”And Peter—Peter wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to cradle that sharp chin in his hands and find out if those lips were as soft as they looked. But he couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Storm.”He turned and ran, leaving Johnny alone in the dark of his room.The assault on Fisk’s base was already well under way when Peter swung onto the scene. “Finally!” Cage roared, punching through the outside of the main building. “About time, Spider!”“Yeah, yeah.” Peter broke the jaw of the nearest thug and drew in a deep breath. “What did I miss?”  December 7, 1933
2:53 pm
“…remains behind bars while the valiant officers of New York squirrel out what remains of his nefarious network. The next phase of his trial will move forward in the new year, with the soul of the city on the line…”
Peter rolled his eyes. The takedown of one of the most ruthless gangsters in the city’s history, and the radio broadcasters treated it like one of his aunt’s stories.It had been a week since the attack on Fisk’s base of operations. Peter had come out of it alive, but barely able to walk; Murdock, Jones, Cage, and Rand hadn’t fared much better. They had all spent most of the past few days lying low, letting the police root out the last of Fisk’s lieutenants while they nursed their wounds. But despite his broken shoulder, fractured clavicle, shattered kneecap, lacerated calf, and bruised ribs, Peter felt only relief when he thought about the fight that he and the Defenders had undertaken for the soul of the city. They had gone to war with a force of evil, and they had won.The night of the takedown had also been the last time Peter had heard from Johnny. He’d called the Baxter Building at first, more times than he’d care to admit; but Johnny never answered, and during the times that Susan, Richards, or Grimm picked up, Johnny was never home. After the first few attempts, Peter had stopped trying. If Johnny wanted to ignore him, so be it. It was for the best, anyway: Johnny needed someone who could be as open and honest with him as he was with them. Peter wasn’t that person.Gingerly, Peter rolled off his bed and turned the radio off. He found his bag and his glasses, made a cursory attempt at fixing his hair, and began the slow trek down to the lobby.Raymond Warren had been keeping Peter’s building respectable since long before it had been Peter’s building, and Peter suspected that he’d be there long after Peter was gone. Peter found him sitting in a chair in the lobby, feet propped up, reading a newspaper. “’Evening, Mr. Warren.”“’Evenin’, Peter.” Warren rustled his newspaper. “Have you seen this? ‘Caped Crusaders Dismantle Notorious Gangster’s Criminal Empire.’ A buncha kids in costumes took down Wilson Fisk himself! Crazy times we live in, huh?”“It sure is hard to believe,” Peter drawled.“Oh, I nearly forgot.” Warren stood and hurried over to the desk. “A dame dropped by for you last night, real looker of a gal. She left her name for you, told me to ask you to give her a call when you got a minute.” He handed Peter a slip of paper. “You got real luck with the birds, don’t you, Petey?”Peter looked down at the note. In elegant penmanship at the top, it read, Mr. Parker— Please give me a call when you get the chance, followed by a number and a signature: Susan Storm. A chill shivered down Peter’s neck. “Can I use the phone, Ray?”“Sure; right over thattaway.”Peter hurried across the lobby and dialed the number on the note. The call was picked up on the first ring, like someone had been waiting by the phone. “Hello?”“Miss Storm,” Peter said.“Mr. Parker.” Susan let out a breath. “Thank you for calling.”“How can I help you, Miss Storm?”“It’s Johnny,” Sue said. A cold lump of dread coalesced in Peter’s stomach. “He hasn’t come home for days. I didn’t know who else to call.”Peter saw Johnny, bruised and bloody, sitting alone in the moonlight. “When was the last time you saw him, Miss Storm?”Sue breathed in, shaky. “It’s been…nearly a week, now. It was the first, I think; that was the last time any of us saw him. He was in a rush to get to the movie set and left without breakfast. When he didn’t come home that night, I phoned his director, but he said Johnny hadn’t even been in that day. We’ve called up all his friends and searched all of his favorite spots, but Reed, Ben, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”Peter’s heart beat fast and unsteady against his ribs. “Do you have any idea where he might have gone? Maybe—maybe somewhere he likes to hide when he’s upset?”“We’ve checked everywhere ,” Sue said, voice breaking. “The police think he’s just on a bender and will come home when he’s ready, but—I always know where he is, Mr. Parker. Johnny can be reckless and irresponsible, but he always, always tells me where he is. Something’s happened to him. I know it.”  It makes him dangerous, Johnny had said of von Doom, trusting, earnestly, that Peter would believe him. He thinks he should be able to do whatever he wants. Peter swallowed, feeling like something had lodged between his ribs. “I’m going to find your brother, Miss Storm,” he said, as steadily as he could. “And I’m going to bring him home.”~*~It took Peter three guesses and a very startled custodian, but he found the window of Johnny’s bedroom and stuck his fingertips against the glass to push it open. He climbed inside as quickly and as quietly as he could, knowing that, with his luck, it was only a matter of time before the custodian he’d nearly given a conniption alerted someone to the masked man crawling around the outside of the Baxter Building. The room looked different in broad daylight, less a shadowy trap Peter had made for himself and more just an ordinary place, where an ordinary person slept. The bed was unmade, sheets rumpled, and there were a few articles of clothing scattered on the floor, an undershirt and socks and a pair of suspenders. The desk was the busiest part of the room: One side was heaped with combs and powders and hair pomades, and the other with journals stacked haphazardly against each other, folders and envelopes bursting with papers.Peter swooped down on the desk and tore through the papers, looking for something, anything that would tell him where Johnny had gone. He remembered, with a fierce flash of guilt, the carefully kept evidence that Johnny had laid out for him in the diner that first night, when he had convinced Peter to take on his cause. Why hadn’t he ever taken a closer look? Why couldn’t he have just believed Johnny when he had the chance?Something caught Peter’s eye, sending a whine through his spider-sense. He snatched it out of the mess he’d made of Johnny’s desk and held it up. It was the December 1932 article from the Globe about the twelve vagabonds who had gone missing from the Saint Gregory’s shelter, the same one that Johnny had shown Peter in the diner; only there was a list of addresses scrawled on the side that hadn’t been there before. Most of them were crossed out, but one was circled, emphatically: 221 West 15th Street, in the heart of the seediest part of the Meatpacking District.A gasp yanked Peter’s attention up and to the door. Susan Storm stood in the doorway of the bedroom, eyes the size of dinner plates. For a moment, they just stared at each other—and then, out of seemingly nowhere, she had produced a hefty-looking umbrella and was holding it in front of her like a bat. “Who are you?” she demanded, voice rising. “And why are you in Johnny’s bedroom?”“Ma’am.” Peter held his hands up, placating. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help find your brother.”Realization filtered into Susan’s expression as she took Peter in. “Good lord. You’re the Spider-Man.”“I think I may know where your brother might be,” Peter said, fast. “But I have to go, now, if I want a chance at bringing him back alive—”“Wait.” Susan lowered the umbrella. “Just—stay right there.” She dashed off, leaving Peter blinking in her wake. Half a minute later, the sound of thundering footsteps echoed down the hall, and Susan returned with Richards and Grimm in tow. “We’re coming with you.”“Absolutely not. I can’t risk—”“Don’t give me that malarkey,” Susan snapped. “He’s my brother.” She drew herself up, curls trembling with determination. The family resemblance had never been stronger. “Now, tell me: Where is he? ”~*~Peter gave Johnny’s folks the address and told them to meet him there with whatever they could find in their carnival funhouse of a home to use as weapons. He briefly considered calling the police as he swung through the city, but got rid of the thought just as quickly: Coppers in New York were as useless as they were corrupt, and they had already brushed off one opportunity to do right by Johnny. No, Peter would take care of this himself.221 West 15th Street was an old canning factory, long abandoned by the looks of it. Peter perched on the roof of the slaughterhouse across the street and watched for any signs of guards or hired arms. A week ago he would’ve laughed at the idea that von Doom had a gang of thugs-for-pay at his disposal, but that was before he had wiped the blood from Johnny’s golden hair in the middle of the night. He wasn’t taking any chances.It was dead quiet in this part of the city, like not even the rabble dared raise their voices. A pitch-black Bentley pulled up in front of the factory, engine rumbling quietly. Peter rolled his eyes. A clandestine mission to the Meatpacking District to rescue their kidnapped little brother from a nefarious scientist, and the Richardses couldn’t have picked a less conspicuous car?Peter swung down toward the street and lit down on the roof the Bentley. Richards jumped about a foot in the air when Peter peered upside-down at him through the windshield. “Are you going to sit there all night?”Richards hastily killed the engine as Susan and Grimm tumbled out of the car. Susan took in the factory’s skeletal remains with apprehension twisting her elegant features. “Why did you bring us here?”Peter sighed. He flipped off the roof and landed on the road. “A week ago, your brother was assaulted and threatened by men who I believe were hired by Victor von Doom,” he said. All the color drained from Susan’s face. Richards looked like he’d been punched. “I found this address on an article Storm kept of twelve people who went missing a year ago. He thought von Doom was responsible. If he thinks von Doom is operating out of this factory, I wouldn’t put it past him to come here looking for proof.”“Johnny, you goof,” Grimm breathed, looking up at the factory. “What’ve ya gotten yerself into?”For a moment, Peter thought Richards would protest, deny everything like he had the day Peter interviewed him in his lab; but he only turned to Susan, distraught. “He came to me, Susan. He told me he suspected Victor of being up to something terrible—but I brushed him off. I told him he was being silly, that he didn’t know Victor like I did—”Susan smoothed a hand over Richards’ shoulder, shushing him. “It’s alright, Reed,” she said. Her voice was steady, but Peter could hear how afraid she was. “We’re going to find him. And then we’ll all start listening to him more.”“Stay behind me,” Peter instructed, turning toward the factory. “And if I tell you to run—run.”The factory, as impressive as it once might have been, had been abandoned for so long that even the boards nailed over the entrance had started to rot. Peter tore through them as easily as if they were wet paper and led his companions onto the factory’s assembly floor. Machines that had once churned proudly as part of the American war effort now rusted quietly into oblivion. The air was thick with dust and the taste of things gone by.Alarm sang sharp through Peter’s head a second before a burst of bright, multicolored lights spackled the high ceiling of the factory above them. Susan pointed to the balcony overlooking the floor, where the factory foreman would have stood in the plant’s glory days. “There!”Peter shot a line to the balcony and levied himself up, ignoring Grimm and Richards’ shouts of protest as he left them behind. He landed on the railing and balanced there for a moment. A set of textured glass doors separated the balcony from the rest of the upper floor. What had once been the offices of the foreman and factory owner had been gutted, leaving the space bare and open. Peter could just make out the shape of some enormous machine, with a cage in the middle and two churning engines, roaring furiously on either side.And then, in the blink of an eye, something flickered inside the cage, blurry through the glass. At first it was just the silhouette of a person, almost transparent; then it flickered and solidified, and Peter realized it was Johnny, bent over on his knees, screaming with his hands over his ears.Peter didn’t think, just moved. The next thing he knew, he had shattered the doors in a shower of jagged shards and shoved his way through, fists clenched. Victor von Doom, in his green velvet smoking jacket with the patched elbows, stood over a control panel set a safe distance back from the machine, wearing a welder’s mask to protect his face. The wind of the engines drew the tails of Peter’s coat into a frenzy around his knees. “Von Doom! Shut it down!”Von Doom turned. His eyebrows rose behind the mask. “The Spider-Man,” he said, with an incredulous laugh. “My, my. How unexpected.”Johnny lay curled on the floor of the cage, arms wrapped over his head, golden curls whipping wildly over his forehead. He looked like a picture that hadn’t been developed all the way, translucent and half-there. Peter called out to him, but Johnny didn’t so much as flinch at the sound of his own name. “What have you done to him?”“Don’t worry, Spider-Man,” von Doom shouted. There was madness in this voice, a wild, dangerous glee. How could Peter have ever thought that Johnny was wrong? “When I’m through with him, young Jonathan will be the first member of the human race to have traveled to another plane of existence. He’ll be a trailblazer, just like he’s always wanted.” Von Doom’s hand moved, and Peter saw that he was slowly pushing a lever to its max. “And I’ll finally be able to see my mother again.” A sociopath scientist with mommy issues? , Peter thought. What is this, the variety hour? He reached von Doom in two long, furious strides and clocked him square across the welder’s mask, putting enough force into it to send von Doom crashing into a stack of empty crates. Then he whirled on the control panel, stomach sinking at the sea of switches and dials.“Johnny!” Richards, Susan, and Grimm had finally made it to the upper floor; they climbed through the remains of the door and stared at von Doom’s machine in shock. “Dear god in heaven. Victor, what have you done?”“Richards!” Richards’ gaze swung toward Peter. “Can you turn this thing off?”Richards hurried to join Peter by the control panel. “My god,” he breathed, as he read the various labels and gauges. “He did it. He actually built a molecular destabilizer.”“Can you turn it off or not?”“I—yes. Yes, of course.” Richards’ hands began to fly over the panel. “It’s not so different from the one we built back in school, only this time there’s a capacitor and a photon accelerator—of course, to control the destabilization process—”Richards flipped a series of switches across the panel before reaching for the lever and slamming it back down. The engines sputtered and whined, then slowed to a stop. Peter ran for the cage and, ignoring the padlock, hooked his fingers around the bars and tore the door off its hinges. He fell to his knees, reaching for Johnny. “Johnny—”Peter’s hands passed through Johnny like he was already a ghost. His blood turned to ice. Johnny uncurled, slightly, and looked up with bleary eyes. “Who are you?”“Johnny!” The only warning Peter got was the sound of pumps clattering across the floor before Susan was pushing him aside, reaching for her brother. “Miss Storm,” he said, catching at her, “wait—”Susan’s arms went through Johnny like he was vapor mist. She stumbled, skidding onto her knees. Horror dawned on her face as her gaze rose slowly to take Johnny in. “Johnny?”“Susan, get back.” Richards was staring at Johnny without a drop of color in his face. “He’s not stable. It’s dangerous to be near him.”“What’s wrong with him?” Grimm demanded.“He’s been…untethered.” Richards looked suddenly ragged, like he had aged ten years in the blink of an eye. “Victor did it. He actually managed to phase something between dimensions. Someone .”Johnny blinked at them, hazy, like he wasn’t really seeing them. Peter’s hands clenched into fists. “How do we reverse it?”“I…” Richards swallowed. “I don’t know. Johnny is halfway between worlds… It may be that only he can bring himself back.”Johnny’s eyes lit on his sister. “Sue?”“Johnny.” Susan reached for her brother, then hesitated at the last second. “Honey. Can you hear me?”Johnny’s eyes were glassy and unfocused, fixed somewhere over Susan’s shoulder. “I can see him, Sue.”“Who, baby?”“Pa,” Johnny said. Susan drew in a sharp breath. “He’s right over there. I think he wants me to come over.”“Reed,” Susan said, brokenly, reaching blindly back. Richards was at her side in a second, letting her grip his hand tightly in hers. Peter could see the back of the cage through Johnny, as if he were a film negative. Something real, fading into nothing.“Our father died when we were very young,” Susan said, voice shaking. “Johnny never talks about him, never.”The dots connected in Peter’s head. “Richards,” he barked. “You once told Johnny that von Doom believed there was an alternate plane where people from our world go when they die. Just now, he said that he would finally be able to see his mother again. Is it possible—?”“That Victor managed to phase Johnny to the afterlife?” Richards laughed, but not like he found it funny. “God. If you had asked me that an hour ago, I would’ve called the notion ridiculous, but now…” His brow furrowed. “How do you know that I told Johnny that?”“Johnny.” Grimm got down on his broad knees on Susan’s other side. “Kid. Look at me. You gotta stay with us, okay? Don’t go crossin’ over to the other side or nothin’. We need you here, okay?”“Ben,” Johnny said, barely a whisper. Grimm leaned forward, encouraging, but Johnny was fading, fading fast; the color had started to bleach from his golden hair, his blue eyes. “I gotta—it’s my pa, Ben, he’s waiting for me…”Sue made a choked noise, one hand pressed over her mouth. “Johnny, son,” Richards said, desperate. “Please. Stay with us.”Peter’s hands curled into fists. No, he thought. No. The world was as cruel a mistress as they came and it had taken almost everything from him, but not Johnny Storm. Not him, and not like this.Sue buried her face in Richards’ neck, like she couldn’t bear to watch the last moments of her little brother’s time on earth. Peter took a deep breath, reached for the seam of his mask, and carefully pulled it away.Susan, Richards, and Grimm’s startled gasps were nothing compared to the way Johnny’s eyes widened. It was the first time since Peter had pulled him out of the cage that he looked truly present. “Peter?”“Yeah, dollface,” Peter said, voice rough. “It’s me. Surprised?”Johnny gaped at him. All of a sudden, it was a little harder to see the room behind him; it was as if the sudden revelation had shocked some of the substance back into him. “You’re the Spider-Man,” he said, dumbly.Peter laughed a little. His heart beat wildly against his ribcage. “I am.”Johnny’s mouth opened, then closed. “That…explains some things, actually.”   Peter reached forward and hovered his hand in the air, right above where Johnny’s would have been if he were solid. “Remember what you told me, that night at the Black Cat? You were scared von Doom was going to hurt somebody. That he was going to hurt your family.”“I remember,” Johnny said, faintly.“Well, I got news for you, beautiful,” Peter said. “You stopped him. He’s not going to hurt anyone anymore—not your family, and not anyone else. All you have to do now is come back, okay? Come back and be with your family.” There was a feeling in his stomach, like the weightlessness at the very precipice of a swing. “Come back and be with me.”Johnny blinked at him. Slowly, but unmistakably, his eyes went from glass-translucent to blue again, his hair from shadowy wisps to golden curls. “You’d want that?”“Yes, darling.” Peter lifted a hand and curved it in a mimicry of a touch around Johnny’s cheek. With his heightened senses, he could just feel the slightest echo of body warmth, like an exhale against his palm. “You were right: I have to learn how to forgive myself. I want to be happy, Johnny.” He cracked a wry grin. “You wouldn’t deny me that by dying on me, would you?”Johnny’s hand solidified into flesh and bone, warm and soft, under Peter’s fingers. Relief rushed through Peter, nearly overwhelming, as he watched Johnny Storm return fully to the land of the living once again. He pressed his cheek against Peter’s palm and gave him a tired smile, eyes shining. “Selfish,” he admonished, gently.Peter barked out a laugh. “You should know by now, Storm,” he said, curling his fingers in tangled golden hair. “I’m a cad, through and through.” He hauled Johnny in and kissed him, with everything he had.Kissing Johnny was like kissing the sun itself, pure sunshine flooding through Peter’s veins. His mouth was searingly warm against Peter’s own, his lips exactly as plush as they looked. The soft, hitching gasp he released when Peter pressed his thumb into the nape of his neck made Peter want to haul him close and keep him forever.“Alright,” Grimm grumbled. “I’m glad yer not dead ‘n all, but I didn’t need t’ see this.”Peter and Johnny broke apart, Johnny’s eyes crinkling as he laughed. “Ben,” he said, fond. The faux-disgruntled expression on Grimm’s face didn’t last a second against Johnny listing forward to press his forehead against Grimm’s shoulder. “You came for me.”Grimm’s mouth trembled. He lifted one huge hand and coaxed it, gentle, over Johnny’s hair. “‘Course I did, kid.”Sue let out a sob and threw her arms around Johnny, squeezing him tight. Johnny laughed, reaching up to pat his sister clumsily on the back. “Oh, don’t cry, Sue, I’m alright.”“You’re such an idiot, Johnny,” Sue sobbed. “Don’t ever do that to me again, you hear?”Reed smiled, watery, and laid a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re alright, son.”“Well, well, well.” Peter whirled around, putting himself in front of Johnny and his family, even before he registered von Doom staggering to his feet. His green velvet jacket had torn, but the welder’s mask was still in place, eyes glittering dangerously through the window. “If it isn’t the picture perfect family portrait. This was always what you wanted, wasn’t it, Reed? Susan and Jonathan to yourself? Me, out of the picture?”“Victor,” Reed said. There was a warning in his voice that Peter hadn’t thought he’d be capable of. “If you ever come near my family again—”Von Doom barked out a laugh. “A threat? From Dr. Reed Richards himself? It is a whole new world.” He took a staggering step forward and, before Peter could react, threw himself upon the control panel and slammed the lever up. “But not to worry—everything will be different, soon enough.”The machine roared back to life—but this time, instead of the steady pulses of color the engines had let off before, the room filled with sharp spikes, so bright they seemed to stab at Peter’s eyes. “Victor, no!” Richards yelled, even as Peter’s head was flooded with warnings of danger. He didn’t think, just moved, grabbing Johnny in one hand and Susan in the other. They let out near identical shrieks as Peter threw them over his shoulder. “The accelerator hasn’t been calibrated, you’ll blow the whole thing!”“Reed, we gotta go!” Grimm shouted. He hauled Richards to his feet as the machine began to shake so violently the floor trembled with it. “Damn it all to hell, this place is gonna fold—”“There!” Peter made a beeline for the attic window, blocked off from the world by a few hastily nailed boards. “Follow my lead!”Grimm’s footsteps thundered behind Peter as he dragged Richards with him. “Spider, I don’t think—we’re on the second floor, for chrissake—”“Just trust me!” Peter yelled, as the whirring of the machine reached fever pitch. The last thing he saw, when he glanced back over his shoulder, was von Doom standing in front of his machine, arms spread; then he faced forward again and threw himself bodily through the window, shattering the boards and the glass with a sickening crunch.Both Johnny and Susan screamed. Peter cleared the window, threw them both upwards, and shot out five lines so fast his hands blurred. The last line was for himself as he tumbled down toward the junkyard surrounding the factory. He swung up and onto the outside of the adjacent building, just in time to avoid impalement on a pile of rusted rebar.An explosion ripped through the air, blowing out every window in the factory in a burst of multicolored light. Peter winced as the sound of it reverberated through his eardrums, so loud and deep he could feel it in his sternum. For a moment, white-hot flame, tinged blue at the edges, plumed out of the factory’s broken windows, lighting up the Meatpacking District in a torrent of dancing shadows. Then they receded just as quickly, leaving behind nothing but a ringing silence and dirty black smoke, rising toward the sky.Peter coughed and waved the smoke out of his face. He squinted through the debris filling the air at the four shapes dangling from various buildings surrounding the factory. “Everyone present and accounted for?”A chorus of hacking and groaning answered him. “I gotta say,” Johnny’s voice said weakly, through the smoke. “I’m a little impressed we’re all alive.”Even with the fallout of the explosion drifting down around them like a thick, filthy snow, it didn’t take long for Peter to find his footing and cut Johnny, Susan, Richards, and Grimm down. Johnny sagged almost immediately, face pale. “Hey,” Peter said, urgently, steadying Johnny’s waist with one hand and thumbing the line of his jaw with the other. “You alright?”“Johnny, your hands!” Susan reached for Johnny’s arms and pushed up the sleeves of his shirt. Peter saw red: Johnny’s wrists were encircled in livid rings of fresh bruises and half-healed scabs, some still bleeding. He remembered that Johnny had been missing for a week—that he had been held in an empty, rotting old factory for a week.“He needs medical attention.” Richards placed a steadying hand on Johnny’s back. He met Peter’s gaze, hesitant. “Do you…?”Peter looked down at Johnny. His fingers tightened, instinctively, at the thought of letting Johnny go—but he knew himself, and he knew what happened to vulnerable people when they were near him. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll help you get to your car.”Johnny’s eyes fluttered, woozy. “Wait,” he mumbled. “What about Victor…?”Peter looked up at the thick, tarry smoke still streaming out of the factory’s entryways. “Don’t worry about Victor, Storm,” he said. “What we need now is to get you home.”Peter saw the four through the junkyard and back to their Bentley, still parked, surprisingly, at the side of the street. He opened the back door and lifted Johnny through, making sure to shield his head. Johnny grinned up at him. “Strong,” he noted, with a ghost of a laugh. His face was drawn and pale, but his eyes were almost mirthful.“Sure am, dollface.” Peter stroked a thumb gently along the high cut of Johnny’s cheek. The kid had a bone structure like a sparrow. “I’ll see you real soon, okay?”The smile fell from Johnny’s face. “What? Aren’t you—?”“You’ll make sure he’s alright?” Peter cut him off, directing the words to Susan, sitting on Johnny’s other side. She raised her brows at him.“I always have, Mr. Parker,” she said.“Wait,” Johnny said. “Pete—”Peter closed the door, chest aching. He met Richards’ gaze through the driver side window. “Call me if you need me, won’t you?”Richards nodded at him, solemn. “I’ll hold you to that, Spider-Man.”Peter pulled his mask back on and shot out a line. The last thing he saw before he swung away was Johnny’s eyes staring out at him, blue in the moonlight.  December 15th, 1933
7:49 pm The Christmas markets were in full swing in Union Square, lighting up the street with their cityscape of twinkling lights. Moon laughed as she hung off Peter’s arm, radiant with delight. “I’ve never been to anything like this before,” she confessed, grinning up at him. “Last year I was too busy getting the club off the ground, and the year before that, well. You know.” Her eyes lit up. “Pete, look! Tree ornaments!”She dragged him over to the stall and picked up a blown-glass globe, decorated with rainbow cranes. “Pretty, huh?”Peter looked down at it and saw the attic of the canning factory, filled with flashing colors. “Tacky,” he said.Moon rolled her eyes. She picked up a lacy bronze ball inscribed with golden suns instead. “What about this one?” She grinned at him, sly. “It’d make a fine present for Johnny Storm, don’t you think?”Peter stiffened. “Who’s that?”“Oh, please,” Moon scoffed. “Jessica told me everything.”Peter’s eye twitched. “ Jessica has an awfully big mouth these days.”“Apparently, you talk about him like he’s the sun,” Moon continued, as if Peter hadn’t said a word. She waggled the ornament. “Making this little trinket particularly appropriate, no?”The ornament glinted in the market lights, simple but elegant. It was perfect. Peter swallowed. “I can’t,” he said, stoic. “I haven’t seen him in a week.”Moon’s brows shot up. “I thought”—she leaned in, voice dropping—“ the Spider pulled off a very daring and heroic rescue of him a few days back?”“The Spider did,” Peter allowed. “But I was late, as always, and he was hurt. I haven’t—” He scrubbed a gloved hand over his face. “I haven’t worked up the nerve to see him since.”Moon heaved a sigh. “Oh, Peter ,” she said, pityingly. “You’re so stupid .”Peter looked at her, affronted. “I want you to know I gave up a very promising stakeout to be here.”“The most beautiful boy in New York has been waiting for you to visit him in his recovery bed for a week, and you’re here looking at Christmas ornaments with me?” Moon landed a faux-punch against his arm. “Was your head always this empty, or did that come with the cursed spider bite, too?”“You were the one who wanted to come here!”“And now I want you to go to your princess in his ivory tower and beg him to love you and your cold, dead heart.” Moon grinned at him like the absolute scoundrel she was. “Unless you don’t want to know what it’s like to have the Rawhide Kid in your bed?”Peter paused. Then he took the ornament from Moon and turned to the stall merchant. “Could I get this wrapped up, please?”~*~Peter tapped two knuckles against the outside of Johnny’s window, light, but Johnny still jumped before whirling around. Surprise, Peter mouthed, maskless, through the glass.Johnny’s brow furrowed. He moved across his room and boosted the window open, then stepped back to let Peter crawl inside and hop down. He looked good, Peter noted. The color had returned to his cheeks, even if there still were shadows under his eyes. His wrists were wrapped in thick layers of clean white bandages.Johnny pulled the window back down and turned, arms crossing over his chest. “You’re alive,” he said, short. “I was starting to wonder.”Peter winced. “I deserve that.” He took a breath. “I’m sorry, Johnny. I was…scared.”“ You were scared?” Johnny’s voice rose. “I was held and tortured for a week by a man I once considered family, who then tried to send me on a premature jaunt to the afterlife. I was rescued by the most notorious vigilante in the city, only to find out that said vigilante is the grumpy, brooding reporter I’ve been trying to give my heart away to for the past month—who then left me, without so much as a forwarding address, right after I had just seen the ghost of my goddamn father beckoning me from beyond the grave —”“Hey, hey.” Peter gripped Johnny by the elbows, rubbing soothing circles with his thumbs. “I know, okay? I know. Breathe.” He tugged Johnny closer and leaned their foreheads together, taking a moment to revel in simply sharing the same air. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”Johnny scowled, but there was no heat behind it. “That’s not what I want an apology from you for.”Peter laughed, soft, and touched his fingers to Johnny’s face. “I’m sorry for rescuing you from certain death and then swinging away into the night, too.”Johnny grinned, fond. There was so much affection on his face it made Peter hurt a little. How could someone, in this day and age, be comfortable being so vulnerable? “That’s more like it.”Peter fumbled for his belt and pulled out the brown paper package he’d stowed there. “This is for you.”Johnny gasped, mocking. “A present? Mr. Parker, you shouldn’t have.” He broke the string and smoothed away the paper. His eyes lit up as he held the little bronze ball and its winking cascade of suns up into the light. “Peter…”“It reminded me of you,” Peter said.“Peter Parker,” Johnny murmured, soft. “You’re a sap.” Then he drew Peter in and kissed him, like it was the last kiss he’d ever get.Peter snaked his arms around Johnny’s waist and tugged him close, so that they were pressed together. He was soft and warm in Peter’s hold, so warm, and his mouth was wet and hot and everything Peter had guiltily imagined in the dead of night. He sighed, low and wistful, against Peter’s lips, and that was it—Peter was gone. “Can we—?”“Yes,” Johnny said, immediately. “Yes, yes, please—”Peter slid his hands under Johnny’s thighs and hefted Johnny into his arms. Johnny groaned, loud, and wrapped his long legs around Peter’s waist. They stumbled back and tripped onto the bed. Johnny rose onto his knees and shucked off his shirt and slacks, so that he was hovering over Peter in nothing but his undershirt and briefs, driving Peter crazy. “Get that stupid costume off, please.”Peter quirked a brow even as he sat halfway up to shuck off his trench coat and kick off his boots. “Awfully rude way to talk about a costume that saved your life.”“Yes, well, now it’s getting in my way.” He undid the buttons of Peter’s bulletproof vest with deft fingers and began pushing it over Peter’s shoulders. “Off, off with your head.”Peter shrugged out of the vest and flung it across the room. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an odd duck, Mr. Storm?” Johnny just grinned and reached for him, but Peter caught him at the last second, fingers curled gently around Johnny’s wrists. “How are these doing?”Johnny huffed in exasperation. “Seriously, Peter?”Peter smoothed his thumb over the bandages and looked up at Johnny. The cut near his temple from when he had been attacked by von Doom’s thugs was just beginning to heal, scabby and thick; Peter knew just by looking at it that it would scar. He reached up and pushed Johnny’s floppy yellow hair back from his eyes, then curled a hand around the nape of Johnny’s neck. “Does it still hurt?”Johnny looked back at him, infinitely tender. “No, Pete,” he murmured. He curled his hands loosely on either side of Peter’s jaw and leaned down, eyes heavy. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”Peter let Johnny kiss him for a moment, sweet and slow. Then he wrapped his hands around Johnny’s waist and flipped them, pressing Johnny back against the mattress. Johnny let out a startled laugh. “Ooh, Spider-Man,” he purred, eyes crinkling. “I like it when you go monkey-man in bed.”Peter barked out an incredulous laugh. God, how did he ever get so lucky? He ducked down to bite at Johnny’s slender neck. “Do your sponsors get to hear you talk like this?”Johnny made a helpless noise and let his legs fall open, cradling Peter’s hips between his thighs. “No,” he said, breathless, as Peter nipped at his collarbone. “Only you.”“Good,” Peter murmured, before capturing Johnny’s mouth. “Let’s keep it that way.”~*~Peter woke to a mouth full of blond curls and the sound of rain, gentle against the window. Johnny stirred at his side and rolled over, burying his face in Peter’s neck. “I’m not going to be able to walk for a week.”Peter laughed into his hair. “That a complaint, Storm?”“Far from it.” Johnny tilted his gaze up to meet Peter’s. His eyes were soft and kind, far kinder than Peter deserved. “You’re not gonna tuck tail and run on me now, are you, Parker?”Peter slid a hand up Johnny’s back and tangled his fingers in down-soft curls. “You’ve got me for as long as you want me, Storm,” he promised. “But…”Johnny sighed. “But?”Peter swallowed. “I’m a—a vigilante, Johnny,” he said. “The Spider-Man. The things I’ve done, the people I make enemies of—” He thought of killing the Vulture in May’s apartment, crushing Octavius’ metal arms while the monster of a man shrieked and wailed. He couldn’t imagine Johnny, with his smile like sunshine, anywhere near all of that ugliness and grime. “It’s not something you want in your life.”For a moment, Johnny was quiet. Then he tipped his face up to press a kiss against Peter’s chin. “Maybe not,” he said, quietly. “But I’ve seen my fair share, Peter. Maybe one day I’ll tell you about it. But for now, trust me when I say I can handle myself. And that I know when I’ve had enough.” He slid a hand between their bodies and scratched, lightly, at Peter’s stomach; Peter growled and reached down to grab Johnny’s wrist in his fingers. “And right now, I definitely haven’t had enough.”Peter brought Johnny’s wrist up to his mouth and kissed it, right over his pulse. “Alright,” he said. “I concede.”“Good.” Johnny yawned, slow. “Listen. Reed wants to take us all to Alaska in January, if you can believe it—he says there’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime solar flare and he wants Ben to fly him as close to it as possible because he thinks he can use it for this everlasting fuel idea he’s been chewing on. But after that…my movie comes out in February.” He grinned up at Peter. “You have any interest in escorting the Cheyenne Kid himself to his premiere?”Peter raised his brows. “You’d really want me there? Won’t people talk?”“Sure,” Johnny said. His eyes glinted up at Peter. “But I’m not afraid.”Peter looked down at Johnny, eyes like starbursts in the bars of moonlight falling through the window. “No,” he agreed, leaning down to press his lips to golden hair. “I’m starting to think you’re not afraid of anything.”

THE DAILY BUGLE
JANUARY 27TH, 1934
PLANE OF WEALTHY INVENTOR GOES DOWN OVER PACIFIC OCEAN, HOLLYWOOD STAR ON BOARD

"RAWHIDE KID" JOHNNY STORM AND FAMILY MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD