Marvel – I am Spiderman

Felicia threw the bundle at his chest.

He caught it, because spider-reflexes, and she was already climbing through to the fire escape with a backpack over one shoulder and her hair tied up in a way that meant she'd been working. She only tied her hair up when she was focused. The rest of the time she let it do whatever it wanted, which was usually everything.

"Open it," she said.

He opened it. The fabric in his hands was dark red and it wasn't polyester. It was heavier, denser, with a weave he could feel under his thumbs. Carbon mesh. And under the red, a black layer that felt like it could stop a knife.

"You made me a suit."

"I didn't make anything. I stole the materials and had someone put it together." She sat on the railing and crossed her arms. "The red is ballistic fiber. Military-grade, same stuff they line tactical vests with. The black under-layer is carbon mesh. The eye lenses are Stark Industries optics, don't ask me how I got those."

"You stole from Stark Industries."

"I liberated from a Stark Industries warehouse in Long Island City that had poor security and a guard who took long bathroom breaks." She shrugged. "They won't miss two lenses."

"What if they do?"

"Then Tony Stark can take it up with my lawyer."

"You don't have a lawyer."

"I have your uncle's advice column. Close enough."

Peter held the suit up. It was sleek. Deeper red than his current one, with thinner web lines picked out in black and eye lenses that had a faint gold tint. The spider on the chest was smaller, cleaner. The whole thing looked like what his suit was trying to be and couldn't afford to be.

"You can't keep fighting in polyester," she said. "You got clipped by a wing and your ribs cracked. Through the suit. That shouldn't happen."

"The polyester blend has served me well."

"The polyester blend has holes in it and I can see your skin through the left shoulder."

He looked at his left shoulder. She was right.

"Put it on," she said.

He pulled his suit off on the fire escape because modesty had stopped being a thing between them after their first night and Felicia had seen everything there was to see. He pulled the new suit on. The legs went on smooth. The torso was snug, tighter than his old suit, and the carbon mesh under-layer sat close to his skin.

Felicia dropped off the railing and walked around him. Slow. Looking at the seams, the fit across his shoulders, where the fabric bunched. Her fingers found the seam at his ribs and tugged it flat.

"Reinforced panels here." She pressed her palm against his side, over the ribs that had cracked during the Vulture fight. "And here." Her hand slid to his lower back where a bruise from a fire escape railing had taken two weeks to fade. "...and here."

Her hand moved to his stomach and flattened. Her fingers spread across the mesh and she was standing close enough that he could smell the leather of her jacket and the cold air she'd carried in and underneath that whatever she washed her hair with.

Her hand stayed on his stomach. She wasn't checking the fit anymore. Her thumb moved once. Slow.

He caught her wrist.

"You're doing that on purpose."

"Doing what?" She grinned. Teeth and bright eyes and her wrist warm in his hand and she didn't pull it back.

He held her there for a second. Two. The fire escape was cold and his neck still had the bite mark from three nights ago and her hand was on his stomach and his pulse was in his ears.

He let go.

She stepped back. Rolled her shoulders. Professional again.

"Turn around."

He turned. She checked the back panels, tugged a seam at his shoulder blade, pressed her knuckles against the spine reinforcement.

"Bend."

He bent forward. The suit moved with him. No pulling, no bunching at the waist.

"Stretch up."

He reached for the fire escape above. The mesh expanded with his arms and the ballistic fiber layered over it without binding. His old suit would have ridden up over his stomach. This one stayed.

"The web-shooters," she said. "Show me."

He held up his wrists. The new suit had reinforced housings for the shooters that locked into place with a quarter-turn.

"I added something." She took his right hand and pressed a panel on the underside of the shooter housing. A small compartment popped open. Inside, folded flat, was a set of lockpicks. Thin, precision-machined, five pieces nested together.

"In case you need to break INTO somewhere for once," she said. "Instead of just crashing through walls."

He laughed. It came out louder than he meant it to. Felicia looked at him and the performance dropped for a second. Her mouth softened and her eyes lost the sharpness and she looked younger and pleased.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't get sentimental." She took the backpack and slung it over her shoulder. "The fiber is rated for blades, not bullets. And the mesh won't stop anything heavier than a .22. Don't be stupid."

"When am I stupid?"

"Tuesday. You were stupid on Tuesday."

"What happened Tuesday?"

"You fought a guy on the Williamsburg Bridge and hung upside down for six minutes." She poked his chest. The spider emblem. "I was watching."

"You're always watching."

"Someone has to."

She left by disappearing over the edge of the railing without looking back. He heard her grappling hook catch two buildings over.

He stood on the fire escape in the new suit. It fit differently. The weight sat on his shoulders instead of his hips and the mesh moved with him instead of pulling when he stretched. He tested a web-line to the building across the alley. Swung once. The suit held. The landing was smoother because the knee panels absorbed the impact instead of transferring it straight into his joints.

He dropped to the alley floor. Climbed back up. The wall-crawling worked fine through the new material. His fingers stuck clean.

He opened the lockpick compartment. Five picks nested together in a space smaller than his thumb. He closed it. Opened it again. Grinned.

Liz was at his locker before first period.

Leaning against the one next to his with her arms folded and her books held against her chest. Her chin was up. She'd come here to say a specific thing.

"You never answered," she said.

He knew what she meant. The movie. Friday. The invitation he'd walked away from without saying yes or no because he'd been juggling three other conversations in his head and Liz had asked at the exact wrong moment and he'd let it sit for two weeks.

"Liz..."

"If it's no, just say no." She was looking at him straight. No performance, no casual lean to make it look like she didn't care.

"It's not no."

"Then what is it?"

"It's- I'm complicated right now."

"Complicated how?"

He opened his mouth. He should have said school, or the Bugle, or being busy. He should have given her an excuse that was polite and let her walk away with her dignity intact.

"There's someone," he said.

She watched him.

"More than one someone, actually."

It was out before he could stop it. The truth, raw and stupid, standing in a Midtown High hallway at seven fifty in the morning with lockers slamming around them and someone's sneakers squeaking on the floor and Liz Allan's eyes going wide.

He winced.

She stared at him for two seconds. Then she laughed. Open, genuine, surprised. Her hand came up to cover her mouth and she laughed through her fingers and it was the real laugh, the one from the cafeteria that rearranged her whole face.

"Peter Parker." She shook her head. "I did NOT see that coming."

"Yeah, I- that came out wrong."

"Did it?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. She was still laughing.

"It's not- it's complicated."

"You said that." She straightened up. Adjusted her books. The laugh settled into a smile that was warm and a little disbelieving. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay." She started walking. Three steps. Then she looked back over her shoulder. "When your life gets less complicated, I'll be around."

She walked away. Her ponytail swung and her sneakers were quiet on the hallway floor and she didn't look back again. She passed Flash near the water fountain and Flash said something to her and she said something back and she was smiling.

Harry showed up with a granola bar.

"Was that Liz?"

"Yeah."

"What'd she want?"

"She asked me out."

Harry's hand stopped halfway to his mouth. The granola bar hung there.

"She asked YOU out."

"Yeah."

"And?"

"I told her I was complicated."

Harry stared at him. Then he bit the granola bar and chewed and looked at the hallway where Liz had gone and looked back at Peter and his face was carefully blank. Harry had liked Liz since sophomore year. Peter knew that. Harry knew Peter knew that. Neither of them said it.

"Good talk," Harry said, and walked to first period.

Peter watched him go. Harry's shoulders were stiff under his backpack and he didn't look back.

He closed his locker. The lock clicked. He stood there thinking about Liz laughing and Harry's stiff shoulders and Felicia's hand on his stomach and Cindy's web ring fading on his wrist and MJ in the guest room calling his house home.

If you counted Gwen. He didn't count Gwen. Gwen was his friend and his lab partner and that was all it was and the fact that he was thinking about whether to count her meant he should stop counting.

He went to first period. The new suit sat against his skin under his clothes and it fit.