Chapter Text
Monday, February 4th, 2013
Peter had made… a very bad decision. Aunt May said she’d ground him for a week if he got home later than 9:00 pm again, so he’d cut through a dark alley and now he’s going to get mugged.
Only just as the two guys are advancing on him with their switchblades, they suddenly stop, eyes going wide, and full on sprint the opposite direction.
Peter, who’s poor 14-year-old heart is about to pound right outta his chest, whirls around to see what horrible thing could have scared them off.
Instead of a rabid dog or some sort of alien or monster (it could happen! There were aliens now!), Peter sees a woman probably in her 20s, wearing a long purple coat he thinks is called a duster, over a black vest and light pants and really high black boots. She kinda reminds him of those horse riding people that do those fancy tricks with them, actually. Definitely not something to be scared of.
Especially after she smiles at him, all soft and pretty with little curls of brown hair escaping her braided bun thing and-
Uh-oh. Ohhh, no. ‘Curse you teenage hormones! Isn’t MJ and the librarian enough for you?!’
Completely oblivious to Peter’s unfortunate instant-crush-syndrome, the woman asks him, in a very pretty British accent,
“Are you all right there? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“Uh.”
‘Brilliant, Parker! Words! Use words!’
“Um, I’m- I’m fine, thank you, miss-ma’am, ma-am, miss? Um…”
Peter is only able to keep from smacking himself by the charmed look that comes over the nice lady’s face. She chuckles (oh nooo) and walks closer to him, a street light glinting off something on her lapel (see, he knows words!) and catching Peter’s attention.
It’s a black, hunched-over bird sitting atop a horse chest piece, about twice the size of a quarter. Something about it niggles at Peter’s brain, like he’s seen it somewhere before, but he’s distracted when she speaks again.
“Do you live close by? I can walk you to your street at least, criminals around here know better than to bother me or someone with me.”
Her smile gets a little… sharper, like a cat that just saw a mouse. Peter’s common sense suddenly comes flooding back as he realizes that it is in no way normal for two good-sized men with knives to straight up flee from a single, (seemingly) unarmed woman. Peter swallows nervously and takes a step back, cursing his stammering as he answers,
“Oh, no, I’m- I’m fine, ma’am, thank you, it’s not far, I can uh, I can make it fine, this was just a stupid mistake, I don’t normally go through dark alleys but May said I was grounded if I got home after 9:00 again and I have a field trip on Friday that I really don’t wanna miss cause it’s at Oscorp and they’re the coolest right after Stark Industries but they’re not allowing field trips right now cause the Avengers are staying at the Tower right now and I’m just going to stop talking.”
Peter sucks in a deep, sorta-calming breath after his impromptu ramble and casts an anxious glance at Purple Coat Lady. She looks… concerned, and slightly confused, but not upset at his refusal. After a moment, she turns to look at the end of the alley behind her, and oh, there’s a man there, wearing… a top hat? The street light shines from the side at him, so with the distance it’s hard to say what else he’s wearing besides ‘long black coat, dark pants and vest, white shirt’, but there is no mistaking the shape of a top hat. And a cane, but Peter thinks it might just be for show, because he doesn’t limp or anything when he walks up to them.
“Found yourself a stray, have you sister dear?”
Purple Coat Lady rolls hers eyes at her… brother? And turns back to Peter.
“If you’re certain you can make it home safe, I’ll leave you here then. I think Jacob and I have a meeting scheduled with those two thugs.”
‘Jacob’ grins and tilts his hat further over his forehead, managing to look cool in a way Peter knows he’ll never achieve.
“Right you are, Evie. Here, kid.”
Peter and his horrible reflexes barely manage to catch the surprisingly heavy business card flicked at him. It’s black with some sort of red curvy/pointy symbol on one side, and a phone number in white on the other. Peter looks up to find that both of them are gone. Confused, he rushes to the end of the alley he came from and looks up and down the street, but there’s no sign of his Lady in Purple Armor.
“… Okay, this has been really weird, Aunt May’s never gonna-“
Peter freezes. Oh no.
“I’m almost late!!”