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There is a gun pointed at his head.
In Peter’s life, there’ve been several instances where a gun has been pointed at his head; or his leg, or his lung, or his heart. Multiple occasions. Different people. This time, however, he knows he’s not going to actually die, so while his breath still catches at the sight of a pistol at his temple, he forces himself to stare forward blankly.
“You’re being stupid, Peter, when I know you’re not,” Beck says, bored, but the underlying rage in his tone has disappeared. Not at all. “If you don’t fix this-- Peter, I swear to fucking God-- if you don’t figure out how to find a way to get that money, the barrel of this gun will be inside your mouth.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, quietly, but he really wants to punch the bitch in his face. It’s not like he actually will, but it’s worth mentioning.
Beck stares at the center of Peter’s forehead, like all he wants is to pull the trigger. Do it, he wants to say, smiling. I fucking dare you. Do it. But Peter is too valuable, and he’s too weak. So nobody will do a thing.
“Yes, sir,” he says again, but louder, instead.
“Damn straight,” Beck scoffs, then he turns heel, shuts up, makes his way to the door, and slams it behind him.
Peter takes a deep breath, blows it out, crushes the piece of paper in his hand, and chucks it against the wall.
The note is a taunt, sent by the people he’s supposed to be stealing the money from; some rich asshat-- Wilson, maybe?-- who’s done too much to deserve the cash anyway. It read, in excruciatingly neat handwriting, What’s the point of breaking in if you can’t even get past the alarm?
It’s not like Peter really has a choice, regardless, and he won’t be getting any of what cash he attempts to grab tonight, but at least he isn’t stealing from an innocent.
It’s not much, but it’s something, and he’ll take it.
He didn’t want to do this job in the first place. Truly, if he talks about beginnings, Beck hadn’t been like this at the start, either. He’d been kind and funny and smart. He joked with Peter about random shit when he’d found him sitting in the back of a McDonalds, and Peter, still facing the brunt of the crash after so many months, had been susceptible to almost anything. So when Beck offered to pay for his food, Peter said, sure. And the next time he offered. And the next time.
And then when he said he was getting low on cash, and told him, Peter, I hate to ask this of you, I really do, but if you work this job with me, we’ll be alright, he ignored his horrible gut feeling and said yes. And then Peter had left the group home.
Really, it was an idiotic, stupid decision. But Peter had made a lot of idiotic and stupid decisions around that time; this was just another to add to the still-growing list.
He’s still stuck here, however, and no matter how much he regrets it, he still has a job to do. Beck won’t know if he gets it done or not till tomorrow; Peter, however, gets panicky when he cuts it too close, so after he throws on his gloves and hat, he’s out the door within minutes regardless.
It’s already pitch black outside. It’s almost surprising that Beck had been out; as much as he preaches about being a badass, he’s not out at night often, at least when he comes to see Peter. Something must’ve really pissed him off to get them here.
He doesn’t really want to know what.
The way to the house is quick. He’s able to swing there between alleys, and this late, there’s really no one of importance out. In this part of the neighborhood, the only ones who would truly be suspicious of him would be the ones who were also doing highly illegal activities. What a small world.
It’s an obnoxious mansion in a horrible part of town. Truly, to Peter, the placement makes no sense, but it makes his job easier, so he isn’t complaining.
Beck told him the other guy who’d tried this went in through a back door, and obviously, that hadn’t worked too great, so Peter ops for a window. There are plenty to choose from, but he picks one closest to the safe room. While there isn’t one that leads right to it, there’s one right next to it that isn’t a bedroom, and he thinks that’s convenient enough.
Most of the time, houses like this have alarms on the windows, but this one doesn’t. He slips in silently, and when his feet hit the ground, the first thing he sees is the obnoxious amount of gold in the room. From the shimmer of the paintings to the shit on the desk, he could’ve got a months worth of meals from just this. But Beck had explicitly told him not to touch anything else, so he keeps going.
The door creaks open, and he winces, but there’s nothing in the hallway. He puts his hand on the gun on his belt anyways. It’s only tranquilizers, but it’s a habit he hasn’t been able to break even after he got his powers.
Beck had said it was a door with three locks on the side, and just as Peter’d thought, it was right next to the room he entered through. The locks break quickly. When he opens this door ever so slightly, it doesn’t squeak. He takes one step, then another, before he pulls it open all the way.
And then a bullet blows right past his head.
Another one comes in an instant, and he takes a step back before whipping his head over to see who's shooting. He throws a web, whips his wrist back, and within moments, the gun is in his hand.
“Jesus, dude,” he says, leaning against the doorway, acting like his heart isn’t beating too fast. “Hello to you, too.”
In response, Wilson-or-something shoots another two bullets. From a different gun. Peter dodges both times, but they’re getting closer. Shit.
He holds his hands up in surrender, but walks slowly forward, closer to the device in the corner of the room, right next to where Wilson is. He shoots another web, keeping Wilson’s wrists on the wall next to him. “Warm welcome. I gotta take this though, man. Sorry.”
Wilson bares his teeth, struggling to pull his arm out of the web, but he keeps glaring, as though he knows something Peter doesn’t. Unfortunate. “Fuck you.”
“Damn.”
Wilson just cusses him out again. Peter takes that as his cue to leave.
He opens the door swiftly, and really, he should’ve been smarter about it, but the blare of alarm comes on full force. And, right after it, a shot came at his face. Right as he moves out of the way, there’s one coming for his shoulder-- and from dodging the other, he gets right in its path.
“Shit,” he hisses, before whipping his head around to see the fucker who took the shot in the first place.
Three security guards, three very-definitely-loaded guns.
The burn in his shoulder is ever-present, but he shoots two webs at two of the men right next to each other, throwing them at one another. The third keeps shooting at him, but in the next instant, Peter’s able to get out of the way, shoot, and pin the other to the wall.
He’s out the window from the next room in seconds. The alarms are still blaring behind him, and some kind of police or something will be there within minutes. The air is cool, but the wind bites at the open wound in his shoulder, and he groans before making his way back across town. He hasn’t gotten shot in a while; if it wasn’t so painful, he probably would’ve forgotten what it felt like to swing around with a hole in his shoulder.
But he hasn’t. And he’d hoped he wouldn’t be reminded any time soon, but here he is. All for some stupid fucking device.
Really, if Beck had just taken the pictures he’d shown Peter and gotten the supplies to build it, Peter could’ve had it done within hours. But Beck’s never asked, and he doesn’t care enough to offer.
He hates doing this. Hates being the one to fuck everything up-- to steal things and give them to someone who’s probably worse than whoever had it in the first place. But he’d promised.
Back when Beck wasn’t an asshole, he’d gotten into some shit with the law. He’d been helping Peter for months at that point; paying for lunches, giving him advice, keeping him company. He didn’t know about Peter’s powers yet, but he knew he was good with the kind of help Beck needed. And he’d begged.
And then Peter agreed.
It only got worse after that. After they’d fixed Beck’s first screw-up, Beck had sworn he’d never ask Peter for anything else. Thanked him, over and over and over. Told him how much he appreciated him.
But then it happened again, and Beck asked again, and Peter agreed again. Once his powers were thrown into the mix, it only got worse. Peter hadn’t even meant for Beck to find out in the first place; he’d gotten a huge scrape when they were out together one time, and Peter wasn’t able to hide it fast enough. Beck had insisted on helping.
When he’d seen the skin stitch itself together, he’d looked up at Peter, and he looked so terrifyingly happy.
As he got closer to Beck’s apartment, he paused for a minute outside to check on his shoulder. It won’t have made much progress, but if Beck sees it, he’ll beg Peter to stay under the guise of ‘watching over him.’ A bold-faced lie. Beck likes to probe; for as much as Peter degrades him, he’s relatively smart, but even this is out of his league.
That doesn’t stop him, though.
He tears a piece of fabric off of the corner of his shirt, puts it over his shoulder, and opens the door.
Beck’s apartment is rather big. It’s horrendously dirty, but that’s his own fault; he never actually sets a time to clean. He leaves the device on the kitchen counter and makes his way to Beck’s room.
He’s probably asleep, but Peter knocks anyway. Beck had insisted time and time again that if Peter is able to find whatever he needs, he’s supposed to tell Beck immediately. As for why, Peter doesn’t know-- once he leaves, Beck’ll go right back to sleep.
The more Peter thinks about it, the more he hates the answer, so he ignores it.
The door opens quickly, and there Beck is, standing in all his sleep-deprived glory. For all the threats he makes, he really doesn’t look that intimidating; he’s only a bit taller than Peter, and as of recently, he’s lost a bit of muscle.
“Peter,” he says, quietly, like his name is soft-- like it is supposed to be spoken delicately. He barely says it like that. “You got it?”
“Yeah, sir.”
A smile grows on Beck’s face.“To hell with that name. You really got it?”
“Of course I did.” For you. Whether I like it or not.
Within an instant, Beck’s pulling him close to his chest, grabbing his back and holding him there, so there are no inches of space between them.
Peter could’ve sworn that his heart stopped the moment Beck’s hands landed on him, but he struggles to keep it beating steady, to take a deep intake of air and blow it out.
Beck stays there for a moment. He doesn’t move. Peter can feel the smile, can feel breath on his neck, hot and sticky, and he wants to push away, to wash the feeling of Beck’s hands off of him. He wants to point out the contrast-- you were threatening me with a fucking pistol three hours ago. What the hell?
What the fuck?
But he can’t, and he won’t. So he stands right there and he takes it.
Finally, Beck pushes away, and that smile is still on his face. Peter smiles back, tight-lipped and tense, but it gets his point across.
His shoulder is throbbing, as though he could feel his heartbeat right there. Faster than it should be.
“Thank you, Peter,” Beck nods, once, then twice, as though setting his thoughts in stone. “Thank you so much.”
He smiles again. Says you’re welcome like he means it. When Beck doesn’t say anything else, he waves, and he’s walking back towards the door. He turns around, spares one last glance, and Beck is still standing there, watching him leave.
Peter smiles again, and walks out.
The moment the door shut behind him, he lets out a slow breath, watching the air form in front of him, and whispers, “Shit.”
—
There’s the second part of the internship convention today.
It’s ages sixteen through twenty-one, but Peter was able to pull it off last week, and forge some documents well enough to make it seem like he was in high school-- the same place he knew Ned would be going to next school year. Beck doesn’t know he’s here. Even though it sends a pang of fear down his spine, it also makes him smile a bit.
When he’d come before, he genuinely didn’t think anything would come of it; it was worth the shot, though, and when he’d gotten the callback, he’s fairly certain he’d almost shit his pants.
Tony Stark and Norman Osborn.
Two of the biggest names around; Mr. Stark far more, of course, but both were popular. For both his history and his present; Stark’s got a shit ton of- well, a lot. Money. Power. Smarts.
Osborn’s got all of Oscorp-- while, again, it doesn’t compare to Stark Industries, it’s got something to it that just freaks Peter out. Not in a normal way. Just a way that he really needs to find out what the fuck goes on in there.
Stark has everything broadcasted. All the time. Whether voluntarily or not, half of his life is all over the internet, so there’s less for Peter to assume; Osborn, on the other hand, is entirely secretive. Peter knows it’s not because nobody cares, because they do. He just never does the things that matter inside of Oscorp. It’s somewhere else.
And Peter wants to find out why.
He also needs some cash.
He won’t stop helping Beck. He wishes he could, but for some reason, he can’t walk away.
This is the next best thing. Weird hours, moderate pay. It’s practically ideal.
Which is exactly why it seems too good to be true.
Peter isn’t someone who’s marginally lucky. After his parents, after Ben, after all the shit with the foster system; he, despite his better judgment, just assumes things will fuck up- majorly- all the time.
So he’s trying something new with this. He’s changing things up. Looking at it from a different perspective. Peter, for one, is proud of his attempts at a change of pace. Pat on the back.
He pushes open the door before he turns on his heel and leaves.
At first glance, everything seems about the same as Monday, except for the stark- no pun intended- lack of people. Before, there’d been around four hundred people in this room.
Today, there are twenty.
Peter would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared out of his fucking mind.