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It was almost midnight when the noise started. It hit Peter right in the auditory cortex, quiet, insistent, whining but somehow also melodic, in the upper ranges of his hearing. He paused his patrol for a moment on the side of a building and closed his eyes to listen more carefully. It was probably out of reach of most humans, but a few dogs barked in the distance. He followed the sound, swinging above the late-night streets, still alert for any signs of trouble.
It was coming from a warehouse by the docks in Hell’s Kitchen. The Devil’s territory. Peter hadn’t met Daredevil, and he was pretty sure he wanted it to stay that way. Sure, he admired the man (was he even a man? The jury was out on that one) for his alleged takedowns of mob bosses, and the Bulletin had mentioned something about ninjas, which Peter thought was seriously cool, but come on, he was scary. Like – really scary. In a way that your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man was resolutely not. And never would be, thank you very much.
For all that the papers seemed to like the Devil better.
For that reason, he tended to stay away from Hell’s Kitchen. Queens was enough for him. No spooky devil people there. Only spider people and lizard people and… rhino people and… well, yeah. Queens was definitely enough for him to handle. Possibly too much for him to handle.
He felt his thoughts spiralling away from the whistling, which was really rather loud now, and into a minor panic that he’d got in over his head.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
Which was silly, really. He was only a few blocks away from where he usually patrolled. But somehow that was beyond the pale. Crouched on the roof of a nearby building, sticking to the shadows, he dragged himself back to the moment.
Whistling. Loud. Bad. Why? And how to stop it?
The spidey sense prickled on the back of his neck, just enough to tell him a predator was there, not quite enough that he was worried, although it had been wrong before.
“Hey, kid,” a deep, growling voice behind him said. He spun around. Behind him were only deeper shadows, but he thought he knew where this was going. “You know anything about this infernal noise?”
That wasn’t expected. Kinda nice, actually – he wasn’t being told to scram, get out of my city, begone, Spider-Man. Kid, though? Was he that obvious? Maybe that’s where the tingle had come from. It wasn’t always nice to be observed.
The voice detached itself from the shadow and grew horns. He couldn’t see the colour in the dark, but he could just tell that in light they would be blood red. Someone was dramatic.
“No. Uh. Mr. Daredevil, sir. It’s why I’m here, though. I’m, uh, investigating. I followed it.”
“Right. In that case, go home.”
Ah, there it was. “But I can help.”
“Kid, you’re fifteen. This isn’t your job.”
“What? No! I’m not fifteen! I’m an adult! It’s Spider-Man, not Spider-kid. Anyway, I’ve been doing this for ages, I really can help.” Also how did he know? Creepy.
“Uhuh.” The Devil wandered over to the edge of the roof and sat, one leg dangling over the edge, the other pulled up to his chest, chin resting on the knee. “You smell weird,” he said.
Oh, okay, personal much? Also, just ignoring the fact that Peter could be a threat, turning his back, acting all relaxed. Insulting! Hadn’t he seen the Bugle’s accounts of what a menace he was? Not that that was true, or anything. Still.
“I showered today! You’re what, worried I’ll alert the bad guys with my terrible stench?”
“Relax, kid. I’m not saying you smell bad, just... weird. I don’t recognise it. And you sound weird too. Your body. It’s like someone turned you up past max.”
“You can hear my body? Past the noise? What, like my heartbeat?” The voice crack at the end there really wasn’t helping his case. Maybe he should try and make a modulator for his mask. Couldn’t be too hard. He’d liberate some op-amps from the next electronics lab, play around with them.
The Devil made a noise that might have been an affirmative, and tilted his head. “I didn’t mean to insult you or anything. I just can’t get this damn whine out of my head. It’s driving me crazy. You sure you don’t know anything about it?”
This was not what he’d been expecting at all. The guy just sounded tired. And very, very human.
“I heard it from Queens, an hour ago. I don’t think anyone without enhanced hearing could pick it up.”
“Huh. Means I haven’t been imagining it getting louder. Should have got here earlier, but I was held up.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a trap. Warehouse belongs to the Russians. There are at least twenty, maybe as many as thirty people in there, lots of guns, some knives. I’d usually be able to tell more but that noise is scrambling everything. I don’t usually care for team-ups but in this case, Spider-Man? Ignoring the fact that you’re a child and I really don’t feel comfortable with that fact, you might just be the edge I need. They’re most likely expecting me, and they’re expecting me disoriented. This noise feels targeted. I don’t know how you usually work. Any ideas?”
Wow, already being asked for a team up! From the king of ‘I work alone’! Things must be bad. “If you go in loud, I could sneak in a window and web them up while they’re distracted?”
“Mmm. Variation on that could work. Web them up?”
“I have webs. They come from my web-shooters. You know?” he did the movement. “Thwip thwip?”
The Devil looked unimpressed. “If you’re sure. You mentioned enhanced hearing. Any good in the dark?”
Now, there was something he could do. “Better than average.”
“Good. We both go in quiet, I’ll go low, take out as many as possible before they notice me. When they do, you do your thing. Your priority is whatever’s making that sound. Remove that and they seem pretty unprepared. Stay hidden. Meet back here. Any questions?”
Peter shook his head, then thought for a second. “Wait- how will I know when they’ve noticed you?”
The Devil only looked at him and smiled. Or at least, bared his teeth. They flashed, too white, in the darkness. “You’ll know.”
With that, he slipped off the roof and into the shadows once more.
Showoff.
Stealth was of the essence here. Peter couldn’t afford to let them know Spider-Man was in the area, so no obvious swinging over to the warehouse. He ran around the roof until he was as close as he could get to the other building, then crawled down to floor level. Keeping to the shadows, as quiet as he could, he crept around to a wall that was mostly angled away from the light and crawled up to the high window. It was shut.
They were all shut.
Parker luck strikes again.
He couldn’t break it, not quietly. He peered inside. There were maybe ten guys in white coats gathered around a large machine, a load of others in darker clothes scattered around the building. Those were the ones with the guns. Peter could count fifteen. It was a big warehouse. They were spread out, but it was still intimidating.
The lights went out.
Peter heard some of the guys swearing, stumbling about. It wasn’t dark enough that he couldn’t see, his eyes were pretty good in the dark (Thanks again, spider bite), and anyway, the moon was full tonight and enough streamed through the windows that he could make out most of the goons. More importantly, the noise coming from the machine meant it would be easy to pinpoint. He tried vainly pulling at the window with his sticky hands. It wasn’t opening that way. There was another window on the other side of the building; the same side as the moon, so his shadow would be thrown across the room. That would spoil his earlier stealth.
He was pretty sure it was also shut.
Super strength had to exist for a reason, right? Giving up on being entirely subtle, he pulled harder, upside down, legs braced against the wall above the window. The catch gave way and the window swung open, with enough force that it broke the supports and he ended up squashed, back to the wall, knees bent, with the window still stuck to his fingers.
The noise was significantly louder with the window open.
He walked up the side of the building, deposited the pane of glass on the roof, then crawled down to peer back through the hole he’d created. One of the goons screamed, and gunshots started to go off. He crawled in, up to the ceiling, then across to position himself directly above the machine. And the guys in the lab coats.
Why would you wear a white lab coat in a warehouse? It wasn’t a uniform, or… well, yeah, it kinda was, but it had a purpose. A purpose in a chem or bio lab, or a hospital. Somewhere you might get something nasty spilled on you, or burnt, or something. And they were meant to stop contamination. This wasn’t right. Goons with guns? Dirty warehouse? Trap for Daredevil? These guys weren’t even playing with the machine any more, just standing round looking like they wanted to run and hide, and all the engineers Peter knew used blue ones anyway. Engineers wanted stains to stay hidden, not stand out as much as possible. And blue ones tended to be more durable. It felt like these guys should be engineers. That machine wasn’t like any piece of scientific equipment Peter had heard of.
God, he was such a nerd. Fixating on the colour of the lab coats while Daredevil was over there getting shot at.
He used a strand of web to lower himself to the ground, directly behind one of the lab coat guys with hair similar enough to his, stifled his yelp with at webbing gag, grabbed him, and reeled them both up to the ceiling again. It was times like this that he really felt like his namesake.
He put a finger to his lips, then stole the guy’s coat.
Putting it on as he lowered himself to the floor again, and taking his mask off (a risk, he knew, but it was dark and the best disguise he had right now was looking like the back of the guy’s head), he took his victim’s place by the machine and wandered over to inspect it.
It was definitely more than a glorified speaker. Looked kinda steampunk. He had no idea what its main purpose was; the noise seemed to be a side effect to something. It was coming from somewhere inside.
There weren’t any obvious buttons or switches, so he slid a hand into one of the gaps (stupid, stupid) and felt something move past his glove.
Something organic.
Very stupid.
Oh, so stupid.
He yanked his hand out again.
Was- oh, God- was the noise coming from something alive? He shivered. Machinery, he could deal with. This was something else. Something most likely screaming. He had no idea how to make it stop.
He made sure no one was watching then slipped his mask back on and webbed himself back up to the scientist on the ceiling.
“If I take this gag off you, you’re going to stay nice and quiet for me, right?” he whispered in the guy’s ear. There was a silent, terrified nod. “I just have a couple of questions, then you can go right back to your life. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
He ripped the gag off. The guy stifled a squeak. He was young, probably early to mid twenties. Peter thought everyone above the age of 17 was old, of course, but this guy looked barely out of college. If that. Didn’t mean he was going easy on him though.
“What’s in that thing?” he asked. The guy made to speak. “Uhuh.” He held a warning finger up. “Whisper the answer, little fly.”
“Alien substance.” That answer was... not unexpected. Not after the past few years.
“How do you stop it screaming?”
“Screaming?” The guy sounded confused. Huh. So they didn’t know it was making the noise.
How could anyone not know? It was starting to give Peter a headache. He wondered vaguely how Daredevil was handling it. A scream in the distance and a fresh round of gunshots said he was still alive, at least.
“What are you doing to it?”
“Energy research,” the guy said. “It has these amazing electrolytic properties that we’re only just beginning to understand. It could revolutionise energy storage!”
“So what? You’re trying to milk alien goo for battery fluid?”
The guy had the gall to look offended.
“Don’t come after me! Student loans are a bitch! I’m only here because it seemed like a cool project and they pay well. I mean, who lets recent grads play with alien substances? This is the first time we’ve turned it on. I hadn’t realised we were hurting it, I swear! I mean, it’s just goo. I hadn’t even realised it was alive!” The guy seemed to be genuinely panicking.
Oh, well, at least he was staying quiet enough. None of the other scientists seemed to have noticed him missing.
“If you want to make amends for this serious breach in ethics, fancy helping me help it?”
The guy nodded. Good.
“Remember, I know your face.” Peter fished around in the pocket of the coat he was still wearing. Sure enough, there was a wallet. He flipped it open. “And your name and address. Try anything funny and I’ll find you and… let’s just say student loans will be the least of your worries, Mr. Jake Burke.”
He slipped the wallet back in the pocket and shrugged off the coat as he spoke. “I’m going to let you down. You’re going to turn off whatever the machine is doing to that poor creature. I’m going to watch from up here. And then, once you’ve turned it off, I’m going to find my friend and let him know just how helpful you’ve been.”
There was another strangled scream from one of the darker corners of the building, as if on cue.
“You’ll appreciate that, I’m sure.”
The guy nodded frantically, eyes wide. Peter poured some of his web dissolver over the guy, then reeled him down quickly. Once he was on the ground, Peter scanned the area for signs of his partner in vigilantism. Thing was, none of this science stuff was even illegal. Morally terrible, but aliens didn’t exactly have rights. These guys weren’t doing anything they could get sentenced for.
Another scream indicated Daredevil’s position.
After the initial round of chaotic gunshots, with a couple of enthusiastic interludes, they had actually died down. Sense had taken over – pointless to waste bullets on something you couldn’t see when you were more likely to hit one of your teammates. Luckily for Peter, they seemed fixated on the man fighting them and didn’t think to look up.
He was just in time, too. The noise seemed to have got the better of Daredevil and the goons had decided that dog-piling him was the way to go. Peter started webbing them off him. When he didn’t get up, Peter webbed him up too.
Ah, there were the gunshots. Nice, predictable.
He hoped Jake was getting on with his job. Nothing for it now, poor guy was on his own.
Slinging the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen over his shoulder, Peter made his way across the roof to the window he’d come in.
The roof.
The roof could work. He just needed to make sure the guy was okay then he’d go back in and check on Jake.
It turned out he wasn’t okay. Bleeding from a dozen places, but seriously from his leg. Some webbing bandages as first aid, staunch the wound. Pressure. “Come on, wake up!” he muttered, over and over again.
A phone, piece of paper, anything. Something that could give him someone to call for help.
Come on.
Anything.
He started frisking the guy’s suit, searching. Where would he keep something like that?
Ah. There. By the holsters. Phone. Wow, who still had a flip phone? Burner, Peter assumed. Like in the movies. Cool!
Focus.
Contacts. First one. FN.
He dialled, and it only took three rings to pick up.
“Matt, it’s 2am. This had better be good.” Another tired voice. Also a name. Oops. It wasn’t like it was an uncommon name, though. Wouldn’t be enough to identify him. Out of respect, he’d try and forget it. Also out of fear, but that’s another question entirely.
“Are you Daredevil’s friend?” he tried.
The voice on the other end of the phone let out a stream of expletives. As good a confirmation as any, Peter supposed. Then a “Who is this?”
“Spider-Man. He’s been stabbed in the leg, among other things. We’re on the roof of a warehouse by the docks. This is a temporary solution, he needs to be moved. Mostly cause the goons who stabbed him are gonna come looking.”
“Fuck. Right. Spiderman. I’ll make some calls, see if there’s anyone in the area who’ll be more help. Actually, you’re the swingy one, aint ya? Can you move him?”
“Yes… yes.” Peter could do that. Probably.
“Bring him to this address,” he rattled it off as Peter began to weave a sort of sling so he could have both hands free to swing across the city. “It’s near Clinton Church, head towards that if you need a landmark. I’ll be on the roof.”
“Got it, thanks,” Peter said, and hung up.
The man was pretty heavy for his size (not as tall as expected), but when you can throw buses and hold up a building, one guy is nothing. He was awkward though. Big and floppy and rigid at the same time. All angles that didn’t seem to bend in the right directions.
Once he was sure Daredevil wasn’t going to die on him immediately, Peter took off across the rooftops. Big church. Big church.
There.
He arrived in record time. Swinging was an awesome mode of transport. Maybe he should start an independent ambulance service. The man from the phone (FN, apparently) had just arrived on the roof in question, out of breath and in his pjs, when he came in to land. He thought about trying a quip, but this really didn’t feel like the time.
“I’m Foggy,” FN said. “Bring him inside.”
There was a roof access door, which led to a surprisingly spacious apartment. “Floor, here.”
Peter dumped his charge unceremoniously but gently on the floor.
“Shit, Matty, what have you got into this time?” the man (Foggy?) sighed. Then he went into a room that was presumably the bathroom and came out with the biggest first aid kit Peter had ever seen. “You know how to stitch someone up?” he asked Peter, who nodded, uncertain.
He’d done it to himself on occasion, instructional videos propped up on the bathroom sink, but never to anyone else. Foggy had already started to strip the armour off with practised ease. Peter wondered how many times he’d done this. He left the helmet on, presumably for Peter’s benefit.
“Nurse is on the way, she’ll be here very soon. You get started on the smaller cuts. I’ll keep pressure on the leg, don’t trust myself to do anything more drastic. So, what happened?”
“Uh, did he tell you about the noise?”
“Only five thousand times.”
“Well, we found it. Alien screaming, people are experimenting on it.”
“How did you end up working together?” Foggy turned out to be a calming influence when he wasn’t swearing. The question was a nice distraction from the blood.
“He came up behind me on the roof opposite the warehouse. Told me to go home. Then he said I smelled weird. Then he asked for help.”
Foggy hummed.
“I could hear the noise too. Enhanced hearing from the spider bite.”
“Spider bite? Seriously?”
“Uhuh. He said he thought it was probably a trap, but they wouldn’t be expecting me. It wasn’t.” He finished, seeing Foggy’s expression. “A trap, I mean. They didn’t even realise it was making any noise.”
“He’s still an idiot.”
“We can agree on that.” A new voice. Peter looked up. A woman had just come in, also in her pyjamas. All these adults running around in the middle of the night at a moment’s notice – must be nice to be Daredevil. “Came soon as I could. Spider-Man?”
“That’s me. Obviously. Uh.”
“I thought you’d do neater stitches.”
What to say to that? ‘In my defence, I’ve never used them in earnest on anyone else before?’ he settled with “YouTube knowledge,” which was somehow worse. “But my aunt’s a nurse.” Why did he say that? Why did he say that?
“Oh my God, you’re a child!” Foggy said.
Why was everyone saying that tonight? Come on, he was a super hero. Vigilante. Thing. Not a child.
The woman closed her eyes for a second and looked supremely put upon, then asked about the web bandage. Peter poured some of his web dissolver on it before she could do anything.
She sighed aloud that time. “What’s in that stuff? Pouring probably corrosive chemicals over an open wound. With youtube stitches. I can’t any more. I just can’t.”
Apparently she could. Because she did. Also, they weren’t corrosive, thank you very much.
Daredevil woke as she was finishing up. By that, Peter meant that he groaned and moved his head.
“Nice nap there, buddy?” Foggy asked.
“Fogs, why am I… Spider-Man?”
“Yeah, well,” Foggy said. “I want to talk to you about that. I’m so proud of you for accepting help, but really?”
“I know, I know. I didn’t want to, but I’m pretty sure he would have followed me anyway.”
“Sorry, what are you talking about?” Spider-Man asked.
“Just the fact that you’re fifteen and I’m an evil idiot child vigilante enabler,” Daredevil said.
“Wait, what? Fifteen?”
Peter glared at Daredevil. Foggy glared at Daredevil. The nurse lady glared at Daredevil.
“We’re all glaring at you. Lots of very nasty looks from all around you,” Foggy said. Peter glanced at him in surprise at the narration. “I wasn’t going as young as that. Eighteen, maybe.”
“Nah, he’s definitely no older than sixteen. The hormones around that age, am I right? Bit awkward to tell cause his body’s so weird. Fifteen was a guess, but he confirmed it.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that you knew this and you willingly brought him into danger. Danger that, I might add, he rescued you from. That you thought was a trap. It might as well have been!”
“I can take care of myself!” Peter protested. “And he’s right, I would have gone in anyway. I’ve been doing this for ages.”
“Not helping your case.”
“Good work, by the way,” Daredevil said, and it gave Peter a warm, tingly feeling inside. “I heard you with that scientist. It was a good plan.” Aww.
“Did it work?”
Why was he asking the guy who’d just been passed out and given stitches? Was he really that insecure in his own abilities?
“Well, the noise has stopped. For now. We’ll need to set up protection for him though. Jake Burke, right? That was a brave thing he did.”
“I hope he’s okay. I had to leave him alone to get you here and…”
“I really appreciate it. Glad you were there.”
“We’re all glad you were there,” Foggy said.
“Right, if that’s settled, I’m leaving,” the nurse lady said. “I’m sorry if I don’t give you my number, Spidey, I’m already inundated with idiots and you mentioned your aunt, so you can get your own medical attention. I’m not even going to try and get you to stop, I’d imagine you’re just as stubborn as this one and I’ve bashed my head against that wall enough. You’d better get going too if you’re going to get some sleep before school tomorrow. Although why do I even…?”
She left, still rambling.
“She’s amazing,” Peter said.
“She is, isn’t she.”
Peter glanced at Foggy, who motioned him to go. “Don’t worry, I’ve got him now. I will give you my number. Call if you get into any legal trouble.” He handed over a business card.
Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law.
Peter looked questioningly at the masked man lying half naked on the floor. Foggy nodded. “What I’m guessing you’re thinking, I’m gonna go with yes. Now go, get out of here. School.”
Peter stopped for a second half way out the window. He’d never told anyone this before, not even his aunt. But these people were different. They understood. They deserved a little of his trust. “I’m Peter,” he said, before ducking out onto the fire escape.
Foggy sighed and puttered over to Matt. “You’re exceedingly lucky you don’t have a concussion right now. What were you thinking?”
“In my defence, it was really loud. And I did ask for help.”
“That you did, buddy, that you did.”