Chapter Text
Peter walks up to the dirty storefront, mentally preparing himself for rejection. This is the sixth place he was applying to and the first five did nothing to boost his confidence before showing him the door. He glances through the grimy window, trying to get a peek at how many people were going to witness this, but it’s so filthy he can’t see anything.
‘Maybe if they won’t hire me as a bartender they could hire me as a cleaner at least,’ he thinks to himself, a smile slipping through his negativity.
This has been the longest Sunday he’s had in years. He’s been falling behind on rent lately already, but his landlord is pretty understandable about it. He hasn’t been too late yet, so he’s not getting kicked out. That is until he just got fired from the cafe he worked at. He missed too much work for classes and Spider-man emergencies and they finally got tired of it. If he didn’t want to be evicted by the end of the month, he had to get a new job, and fast.
He pushes open the unkempt door to Sister Margaret’s Home for Wayward Children and musters the confidence to walk over to the bar.
The man standing behind the bar doesn’t notice him immediately, but rather lightly scrubs at the glass he is holding. In the absence of the bartender’s attention, Peter pays more attention to the room around him. He feels the eyes of almost everyone in the room staring at him. His spidey sense prickles at the nape of his neck. He can tell that it’s not telling him that he’s in critical danger, but instead that the people around him are deadly. After about two minutes of waiting for the man, he turns and scowls at Peter. Peter tries to start his pitch to the greasy man standing behind the bar, but he interrupts him.
“What do you want? You don’t seem like the type who’d be here,” the bartender comments, looking him up and down.
“I’m- uh, looking for a job?” Peter blurts out.
“Are you asking me?” he questions, squinting his eyes.
“What? No. You’re hiring, I saw it, and I need a job,” he responds, slightly caught off guard.
“I thought I made that harder so regulars wouldn’t find it,” the man grumbles to himself, “Whatever, I really don’t care. Why don’t you go apply to that cupcake shop down the street? That seems a bit more your speed.”
“I am capable enough to work in a bar, if that’s your concern. I have experience serving and working a register, and I’m not grossed out by much these days,” Peter huffed.
The bartender sighs. Already beginning to make his way around the counter, he lifts up the swing gate and steps through. It slams behind him, heavy metal crashing into the metal of the lock. He approaches Peter, trying and failing to look intimidating because he is nearly half-a-foot shorter than him.
“You got a close relationship with the cops?”
“Does that matter?” Peter asks, surprised by the randomness of the question.
“Man, this is a mercenary bar. Of course that matters. Most of these guys kill for a living and we give them the jobs.”
“Right, sorry, forgot about that part. To answer your question, no. I don’t know any cops and don’t care particularly strongly for them.” Peter feels guilty thinking of Ben, but then he thinks of all the dirty cops he has had to deal with during child trafficking deals. Besides, the cops don’t love Spider-man that much. They only recently stopped shooting at him whenever they arrived on the scenes he was at.
“Fine, you can have the job, I guess. You look like you need it anyways,” he draws Peter out of his thoughts.
“Hey! I mean, thanks, man, but rude…”
“Be here tomorrow at 5:00 pm and I’ll show you how to make a few popular drinks before we open. You’ll get paid $12 an hour plus tips, first paycheck next Sunday if you’re still alive,” the man drones like he’s said it many times before he adds, “Oh, and my name’s Weasel.”
“Tomorrow sounds good, Weasel. My name is P-”
“I don’t want to hear that. It’s,” he contemplates his word choices, ” better in this line of business to use a fake name. You really don’t want me or our clientele to know who you are.”
“Got it. In that case, I’ll come up with something for tomorrow.” Peter stutters uncertainly.
“Yeah, whatever,” Weasel waves him off, already walking around to the other side of the bar.
Peter stands there, waiting to see if there is anything else that Weasel is going to say. When he finally looks at him again, he seems slightly surprised he’s still there.
“You can leave. We’ve already got people here so I can’t train you and I’m not serving you because you look like a fucking disney prince twink and I don’t want that energy in this bar, so, just get out.”
He shoos Peter towards the front door, ignoring his confusion.
“Uhm- okay?” Peter stumbles through the door and onto the sidewalk.
‘I guess that went well enough,’ he thinks to himself as he begins his walk back to his shitty apartment. ‘Now I shouldn’t get evicted at least.’
Nearly 10 minutes into his walk, Peter feels his spidey sense at the back of his neck again. He hurriedly ducks into a nearby alley before pulling off the clothes covering up his suit. He knew it was risky to wear the suit to Sister Margaret’s, but he didn’t have time to run home if he was going to meet Daredevil for patrol on time.
His web hits the wall, covering his sweatshirt and sweatpants and attaching them to the wall for later.
He quickly climbs up the fire escape in the alleyway and races across the rooftops, trying to find the cause of his senses going off. They lead him to a nearby street, almost completely empty. Strange for this time of day, but not too odd.
The wind whistles around his slim yet muscular frame covered in spandex and kevlar. He still needs to thank DD for setting him up with Melvin to get a new suit. As much as he loved his iconic homemade suit, it provided little protection. Spandex was much cheaper than kevlar and he’s too broke to afford better materials. His new suit was still mostly spandex, but there was at least a little more protection. He needs the flexibility that the old suit provided him and sacrificed some of the security the new material would give.
He glances down at the scene, taking it in before diving into the fray. There are 4 men and a woman. She looks terrified and on the verge of passing out. Peter quickly notes the gun in one man’s hand and the outlines of them in the waistbands of the other 3. They are practically surrounding the woman, leaving her with no way out and slowly getting closer. The man holding the gun off to the side is standing in front of her and talking. He must be the most experienced one of the group.
“Why don’t you come with us, honey. These streets are just so dangerous and you could use someone strong to protect you,” the man holding the gun purrs as he waves it around threateningly.
“I agree, she does need someone to protect her. I can take that job off of your hands, though!” Spider-man swiftly swings down to the street level, getting between the leader and the woman to stop any cheap, quick shots.
He stumbles back, obviously surprised about Spider-man showing up out of nowhere, but he hastily recovers from his shock and trains the gun on Peter. Peter can hear the other three reach for their guns, so he shoots out a web in each of their directions, jamming their guns and sending them flying.
The final man grunts in anger and pulls the trigger on the gun, still aiming at Peter. Just as he goes to dodge the bullet, he remembers the woman standing behind him. If he moves, she will likely get hit. As much as he doesn’t want to get shot, he has a healing factor and she doesn’t.
‘Fuck, this is going to hurt,’ Spider-man thinks to himself.
The shot pierces his skin, right below his ribcage. The cold metal drills all the way through his body, falling to the ground on the far side. A gasp escapes him while he staggers backwards.
‘I will never get used to that,’ he groans internally.
One of his hands immediately reaches to put pressure on the wound. He feels the sick feeling of a wet, warm liquid coating his hand, but he just pushes harder.
With his free hand he shoots out a web, knocking the gun out of the man's hand and sticking it to the ground. He launches another one at the man with more force than necessary. The man flies backwards, hitting his head on the ground. He doesn’t even try to get back up, likely unconscious. Peter would feel guilty about that later, but for now he has to get home and to his first-aid kit. Besides, this man was trying to kidnap an innocent woman.
‘Hey, where did she go?’ Peter whips around to find her.
He sees her sprinting down the street, racing away from the crime scene and the injured hero.
‘Rude. I take a bullet for her and she doesn’t even stay to make sure I don’t die on this random street,’ he grumbles in his mind.
He lifts his arm to web to the building nearby so he doesn't have to walk home, but as soon as his arm leaves its position at his side, his torso throbs and he feels more blood gushing against his hand. He pulls his hand away and promptly shoots webbing at both where the bullet entered and where it exited.
He slowly shuffles into the alley he changed in earlier, pulling out the vial of solution to dissolve his webs. He douses the concoction on them and quickly pulls his clothing over top of his suit, ensuring none of the red or blue stick is visible. As he begins his short walk to his apartment, he pulls out his burner phone to send a message to Daredevil. He’d be pissed if Peter stood him up for patrol again without at least a text.
Once he gets home, Peter pulls the first-aid out from under his bed and begins pulling off his many layers. The enervation from getting shot is beginning to take a toll on him as the adrenaline drains away. His vision begins to swim, fading in and out, but he manages to peel the top half of his suit (because prior to popular belief, it is not a onesie) away from his wound and toss it into the laundry bin across the room. He pours some of the web-clearing solution onto the opening before wiping rubbing alcohol around and in it. He hisses in pain at the burning sensation, but continues dabbing it on, ensuring the whole thing is clean.
He pulls out sterile gauze from the medical kit and presses it against the wound, to help slow the bleeding. Last time he got an infection from stitching a gunshot injury closed and he is not risking that again.
Feeling the blood slowly leaking out of him stop due to his healing factor, Peter takes a minute to slump back against his bed and thinks, ‘God, I always forget how much that hurts.’
After resting, he goes to stand up, but immediately falls back to his knees and nearly faceplants. The dizzy feeling he had earlier was back in full force. He slowly pulls himself up into his bed, trying his hardest not to agitate his injury.
No longer having enough strength to get up, he just lays his head down onto his pillow. It doesn’t take long for him to pass out, with the dazed and shaky feeling overtaking his mind. He just hopes that he’ll feel better when he wakes up and can get some food.