Joint Custody
"I need you to help me move."
Felicia was pacing the water tower rim when he got there. Grappling hook in her hand, coiled, shoulders rigid. The catsuit was on but the domino mask was pushed up on her forehead, which he'd never seen her do. Her eyes were green and tired and she'd been here long enough that the grime was back on her gloves.
He landed on the tank. "Move where?"
"My loft. The Maggia found it. Someone on Rosetti's crew has been asking around Chelsea, showing photos of the building. A girl who works the coffee cart on Twenty-Third told me yesterday." She stopped pacing. "They know where I live. I need to clear it out before they get there."
"Okay."
"One job. Professional. You carry boxes. I don't need a speech about going to the police or finding a shelter or whatever heroes tell people when they're losing their apartment."
"I wasn't going to give you a speech."
"You were thinking about it."
"I was thinking about how many boxes."
She looked at him. The mask pushed up on her forehead made her look younger, or maybe that was the eyes. She'd never asked him for help before.
"Four duffel bags. Pre-packed. Some paintings in bubble wrap. My father's things."
"Let's go."
Her building was on West Twentieth, six blocks south. Walk-up, fire escape zigzagging up the brick face, rooftop access door with a padlock on the outside and a deadbolt on the inside. She took the padlock in fourteen seconds. Peter counted. The pick between her thumb and the side of her forefinger, the tension wrench in the other hand, her wrist rotating twice, and the deadbolt popped with a sound like a coin hitting a jar.
Fourteen seconds and she was inside. Her father had taught her that too.
The stairwell was narrow and dark and smelled like old carpet and the Thai place on the ground floor. A radiator on the second-floor landing clanged. She moved fast, quiet on the balls of her feet, and Peter followed. His boots stuck to the carpet in places. Hers didn't.
Third floor. Three locks on her door. She did the first two in seconds. The third, she stopped. Hovered her hand over the knob.
"Trap mechanism. Razor wire behind the plate. If you turn the knob without disarming it you lose fingers."
"How many fingers?"
"Two. Maybe three if you're slow about letting go."
She pressed the plate in a sequence, top then bottom then left, and the lock opened. She turned the knob and the door swung into a dark room and she stood in the doorway for a second before going in.
One room. High ceiling, water stain in the corner, exposed brick on the back wall. A window that looked out on Twenty-First Street. Mattress on the floor with sheets that had been slept in, a wardrobe with the doors open and clothes hanging crooked, a folding table with a hotplate and a mug. Three paintings leaned against the wall in bubble wrap. The duffel bags were lined up by the door. Pre-packed. She'd been ready to run for a while.
The room smelled like old brick and the faint chemical edge of turpentine and underneath both of those, her shampoo. The bottle was on the folding table next to the hotplate. Same scent he'd caught on the water tower last night, under the leather, under the November cold.
Peter stood by the door while she moved through the room. Fast, practiced. Wardrobe emptied in maybe a minute, clothes into the last duffel bag, hangers left on the rod swinging. Paintings picked up by their frames, carried to the door two at a time. She checked under the mattress, pulled out an envelope thick enough to have cash in it, put it inside her jacket. Went back for the shampoo. Left the hotplate.
The room emptied around her. Walls and a water stain and a window.
She stopped at the windowsill. A mug. White ceramic, chipped at the rim, faded logo he couldn't read from across the room. She picked it up. Held it with both hands. Put it back down on the sill and straightened it so the handle faced the window.
"That stays," she said.
He didn't ask.
She went to the door. Looked at the room once. Four seconds, maybe. Her eyes went around the walls and the mattress and the water stain and the window and the mug, and then she walked out. She locked the door from the outside. All three locks, the trap included. Her hands went through the sequence with her back to him.
They carried everything down the fire escape. The van was on Twentieth Street, stolen probably, back doors unlocked, moving blankets on the floor. She'd planned this part too. Duffel bags first. She tossed them. Then the paintings. Those she carried with both hands and set down against the van wall carefully and when one of them slid and the bubble wrap crinkled she caught it and straightened it and her hand stayed on the frame.
"Where will you go?"
"I have places."
"Places or place?"
She closed the van doors. "I have places, Spider."
A man walked past on the sidewalk eating a sandwich that was disintegrating as he went. Lettuce on the concrete. He didn't notice. He kept walking and the sandwich kept falling apart and by the corner it was bread and optimism.
They went up instead of down. They were sitting on the building's ledge with their feet hanging over Twentieth Street and the van with her life in it was parked below them and the November air was cold and there was a cut on her forearm where the stairwell latch had caught her on the way down. Thin line below the elbow, beading red.
"You're bleeding."
"Am I."
He pulled a web-shooter cartridge from his pouch. Cracked it. She held her arm out without being asked, which was new.
He peeled the catsuit sleeve back. Her skin was cold. The cut was shallow, just a graze, and he pressed web-fluid along it and sealed it and it set warm and tacky against her arm. She had a scar underneath the fresh cut, older, white, running parallel. He didn't ask about that either. His fingers traced the line of the graze and she was watching his hands.
"You're gentle for someone who punches people."
"You're still for someone who headbutts people."
She laughed. Short, surprised out of her. Her shoulders dropped and her mouth opened and the sound was small and rough. She covered her mouth with her other hand and then pulled the hand away and the laugh was gone but her mouth was still open.
Their faces were close. His hands were still on her arm. Their breath was white in the cold between them.
"If you kiss me I'll push you off this building."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good."
"I was going to wait for you to kiss me."
Her breath caught. Her eyes dropped to his mouth. Came back up.
"...Asshole."
She didn't move away.
Her shampoo was under the leather and the cold. The same one from the bottle on the folding table, the one she'd packed in the duffel bag. The cut on her arm was sealed and his hand was still on her forearm and her pulse was in his fingers, fast, faster than her voice.
The wind blew a strand of her hair across the gap between them. It caught on his mask, near his jaw. She reached up and pulled it free and her fingers brushed the fabric over his chin and she pulled her hand back slowly. Somewhere down the block a bar was playing something with too much bass. The van was on the street below them with her father's paintings in it and the mug was on a windowsill three floors down.
He finished sealing the cut. Let go of her arm. The cold came back where his hand had been on her skin.
"Same time tomorrow?"
She was looking at the skyline when she said it. First time she'd asked to see him again.
"Yeah."
"Don't be late."
"I'm never late."
"You were late tonight."
"You were early."
"That's the same thing." She stood up. Grappling hook out. "And Spider?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for the boxes."
She fired the hook. Swung out over Twentieth Street, legs tucked, the cable catching streetlight. She turned her head as the arc carried her and her eyes found his across the gap and held for a beat and then the building took her.
Second time. Two nights in a row.
Peter sat on the ledge. His hands smelled like web-fluid and the faint cold of her skin under it. The sandwich guy was gone but there was a trail of lettuce on the sidewalk leading to the corner. An orange tabby was sitting in a window across the street. Same one from last night, or a different one. Hard to tell with tabby cats.
His phone buzzed in his pouch. Text from Cindy: you smell like leather and someone else's shampoo. we're talking about this.
He put the phone away.
The lettuce was still on the sidewalk. Nobody was cleaning it up. It would be there in the morning, wilted and rained on, and somebody would step over it on the way to work and not know where it came from. Peter didn't know why he was thinking about lettuce. The wind was cold and his hand still held the heat from her arm and the pinkie from last night was still there too, underneath.
He swung home.