#Peter got the most ominous SEEN notification of his LIFE

[hemlock-dreams]

Could bounce a quarter of that dat Spidey ass

You're so right OP.

--- Prequel to the last post--

Just a man sending a very innocent snapchat to his boyfriend, location tagged.

Or

How Wade was tricked into focusing on the merch, only to get whiplash from Peter's double-katana tramp stamp.

[momentofmemory]

fictober - day twenty

Prompt #20: “You could talk about it, you know.”

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe - Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Netflix Marvel (Daredevil)

Warnings: Religious Imagery

Characters: Peter Parker & Matt Murdock, Quentin Beck (mentioned)

Words: 2177

Author’s Note: set immediately post the spider-man: far from home mid credits scene (so, spoilers). this is a stand alone, but assumes peter & matt have met before and so could live in the same universe as my day 16 fill.

>>Heartbeats on Pier 81

Peter’s face is broadcasted over all of New York, and losing his secret must feel a lot like dying to his mind because Peter sees his life flash before his eyes. Unlike death—and he would know—it’s not the past that he sees, but all the futures he’d hoped for disappearing.

He doesn’t remember much of what happens next. MJ tells him to run, so he does; Happy texts him that May is safe, so she is; a man throws a rotten tomato at his face, so he swings higher. He keeps swinging, as fast and as high as he can, until he leaves Queens and its familiarity behind. He doesn’t stop until he reaches the edge of Hell’s Kitchen, and only then because when he drops onto Pier 81 he runs out of buildings to leap on.

Peter walks all the way to the end, anyway, then hops over the chain rope fence that separates the walking area from the edge. With nowhere further to go, Peter slumps down and lets his legs trail over the side, greyish water snapping at his feet.

The pier’s not in the shape it once was, thanks to the Blip. The wood creaks ominously under the force of the river’s tides, chains hang limply on the deck instead of around cargo or attached to moored boats, and warehouse-sized shipping containers sit in various stages of rust and disrepair. The important feature in Peter’s mind, however, is that there’s no one around.

He hasn’t had a chance to install Karen in his new suit yet, so it’s quiet as he checks his phone and discovers seventy-three missed calls, one of which is from the New York Times, and a notification informing him that #SpideyParker is trending on Twitter.

Peter looks out over the Hudson and drops his phone into his lap without unlocking it. After a moment, he pulls his mask off and breathes in the unique smell of algae, salt, and diesel oil that only a river running through New York can create.

The tide is high, so the river is flowing out to the north. In a couple of hours the tide will lower and start flowing south, and then a few hours after that, back to the north again. The Hudson’s weird like that: consistent only in that you know it will change.

Peter’s always identified with it in that respect.

He’s not sure how long he stares at the water, thinking about everything and nothing, but it’s still not quite dusk when a lithe shadow drops down behind him. His Peter Tingle doesn’t so much as fizzle, so he doesn’t bother turning around or reaching for his mask.

Not that the last part matters anymore.

It’s probably not healthy, but after Mysterio he’s started relying on sight less and less, so he knows who his visitor is from the sound alone.

“I didn’t know it was legal for Daredevil to be out in the daytime,” he says, the crinkle of leather in Matt’s costume instantly recognizable. “There goes the internet conspiracy that you’re actually a vampire.”

Daredevil hums noncommittally, then lowers himself to the ground beside Peter.

“Spider-Man’s in Hell’s Kitchen, so it seems like a lot of theories are being broken today.” He drops one leg over the edge, bending the other in front of him and resting his elbow against it. “Thought I’d join in on the fun.”

“If you’re looking for fun, you could definitely do better.”

“True, but I’m guessing you can’t.” Matt hesitates. “If you want, I thought you could… Talk. About it.”

Peter leans his head back against a wooden post and closes his eyes. “You know?”

“I’m blind, not deaf.”

It’s stupid, because he knows the news is everywhere by now, but hearing it from another super hero makes it feel so impossibly real.

Matt shifts beside him. “Even if I were both, though, Foggy contacted me the second the broadcast went live. He’s pretty determined we’re going to be your legal team.”

Peter huffs out a laugh, running his hands through his hair. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

“His best friend’s a lawyer that spends his nights bloodying his fists on criminals’ faces. I think our firm crossed that line long before you came along.” Matt tilts his head, probably listening to something seven blocks away or something, then carefully takes off his own mask. “But legally speaking, no. None of us have any reason to oppose your case. If anything, you could argue I have a vested interest.”

“Oh.” Peter bites his lip. “Even after…”

He trails off, looking at Matt’s face. He’s seen it before, of course, during the many times he dragged Ned down to the firm to get help with civics homework, but there’s something different about seeing him fully suited up without mask.

It feels honest, somehow—like all of him is on display, but in a good way.

Peter’s own exposure doesn’t feel so good.

He doesn’t know if Matt can tell he’s been staring, but the other man clears his throat. “After what, Peter?”

There are so many things Peter could say about what he means by after. The all-consuming terror he feels for the safety of his family and friends, now that his identity is exposed. How he’d thought he finally had his life back together, only for it to be ripped away so completely and utterly he no longer knows whether he can even go home anymore. The way people looked at him with naked fear or unbridled anger, and how he’s so afraid he’ll never be their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man ever again. That he never asked for it, but he technically really does have access to a billion dollar surveillance network, and it’s probably super illegal and wildly unethical.

But it’s Daredevil he’s talking to, not May or Ned or Happy or even Tony, so he says the one thing that’s been eating away at him for days: the one thing only another vigilante could understand.

“I killed him.”

The words feel disgusting sliding out of his mouth, like his throat and lungs are coated in tar instead of air.

“I didn’t mean to,” he adds, suddenly desperate to let Matt know he didn’t, he didn’t, “but the drones were firing everywhere and I had to stop them, and I—I wasn’t paying attention to where the blasts were going as long as they weren’t hitting me.”

He chokes off, unable to continue. He’s terrified to look at Matt’s face now, afraid of the horror he’ll see.

But Matt just turns the Daredevil mask over in his hands, fingers running almost reverently across the seams. “I think it would be helpful if you started over from the beginning.”

It feels like sucking mud out of his chest at first, but slowly Peter reveals everything that had happened in Europe: Nick Fury showing up in his hotel room, the glasses and Stark’s legacy, the mind screw he’d gone through in Berlin. The train, the fight in London, the fake story Mysterio had created—the one he’d told to Peter, and then the one he’d told to Times Square. Quentin Beck’s body lying on the bridge, pupils constricted and lungs frozen and heart silent.

“…I can’t even bring myself be sad that he’s gone,” Peter finishes, staring into the lens of the mask in his hands so he doesn’t have to look at Matt. “I just feel guilty it had to be me.”

Daredevil doesn’t say anything at first, and Peter thinks he might drown in shame.

Finally, the other man clears his throat.

“As a lawyer,” Matt says, placing his mask on the pier between them, “I can say unquestionably that what you’re describing would be considered self-defense in a court of law. Any jury worth its salt would clear you of charges in under an hour.”

Peter swallows. “And as a fellow vigilante?”

Matt turns his head towards the river, tongue darting out briefly as if to taste it. “Did I ever tell you about the time I threw myself into the Hudson?”

Peter blinks at the apparent non sequitur. “You went in there willingly?”

Matt snorts. “Not exactly. It was early in my career, before I even had a suit. It was the first time I took on Fisk.”

Peter stills—Matt didn’t usually like talking about anything to do with the ex-mob boss.

“I was… angry. Stupid,” Matt says. “Fisk killed someone I cared about, but I wasn’t really interested in justice. I just wanted something to punch. So I tore through a bunch of his men until I found one that knew something; got directions to a pier where he might be at. Pier 81.”

Peter starts in surprise, and suddenly the abandoned shipping containers he’d passed seemed to have a lot more weight to them.

“It was a trap, of course.” Matt’s fingers ghost across his lower abdomen, so lightly Peter thinks he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

“And that’s when you jumped in the river?”

“No.” A sigh, and Matt’s hand drifts back down to the wooden slats. “No, that’s when I killed Nobu.”

Peter—Peter doesn’t understand.

Everyone in the New York super hero circle knows that Daredevil doesn’t kill, and Spider-Man more than most. It’s the one thing Matt’s warned him about constantly; always telling him to be wary of his strength and his temper, of the immense importance of giving someone a second chance, and that no matter how evil a person may seem, there’s still a spark of hope in there that he has no right to stamp out.

It’s one of the reasons Peter looks up to Matt so much, despite his brutality, because it’s a mindset none of the other vigilantes or even Avengers share.

“No—no who?” he says, voice strangled.

“Nobu. Nobu Yoshioka.” Matt ran his teeth over his lower lip. “He was a member of Murakami’s faction of the Hand. He also had a kyoketsu-shoge that he was very good at using. …I should probably be dead because of it.”

Peter pales, thinking of all the scars he’d seen on Matt’s torso in the past. He doesn’t like where this is going. “…Why aren’t you?”

“It was a lot like what happened with you and Mysterio, actually.” Peter flinches and looks down at his hands, red in the light of the sunset. “We were fighting; well, at that point I was mostly just trying to survive. I deflected one of his blades without paying attention to where it would ricochet, and it shattered a lamp above him. The sparks caught his robes on fire.”

A shudder runs through Peter, equal parts sympathy and horror. “You couldn’t have known.”

“No, I couldn’t have,” Matt agrees. “I also found out later that he came back to life, making it a moot point.”

Peter’s stomach attempts to turn itself inside out at the thought of having to face Mysterio again, but Matt seems to notice his discomfort.

“Don’t worry. My priest says I can’t recommend that method as a standard way of finding absolution.”

Peter offers him a shaky laugh, and Matt continues.

“I didn’t murder Nobu by any legal definition that night,” he says, “but I went into the situation with a lot of hate, and with the intention of killing someone else. I think that made me more of a murderer than any physical action I could’ve taken.”

He turns towards Peter, his eyes staring vacantly just over Peter’s shoulder. “I don’t think that’s a sin you’re carrying.”

Peter bites his lip, wanting to believe him but unsure how. “But I didn’t try to save him.”

“Clinton Church has confession hours right about now if you’re seeking penance.” There’s a smirk in Matt’s voice, and Peter can’t help but roll his eyes at the man’s persistence. “But if not…”

Peter looks up expectantly.

“If not, then I would ask you this: why don’t you want to kill?”

“Because that’s not my call.” Peter doesn’t have to think about it. “And because I think there’s always the possibility of redemption, for anyone.”

“Anyone, huh?” Matt tilts his head, then smiles. “Your heartbeat is steady.”

Peter frowns, then his mouth widens into an oh.

Anyone means him, too.

Peter pulls his legs up and rests his head on his knees. “Is using your human lie detector skills to make a point really all that ethical?”

“Foggy’s not here to stop me, so yes.” Matt picks his mask up. “But I don’t need it to prove your heart’s in the right place.”

Peter stares at him, expression suddenly so fishlike he’d blend right in with the Hudson.

Then he rapidly yanks his own mask over his face to hide the blush creeping up his neck. He coughs and blinks as the eye lenses readjust to the fading light. “Is that uh, is that your advice as a lawyer or as a vigilante?”

Matt laughs and shakes his head, sliding his mask into place. He stands and offers Peter his hand.

“It’s as a friend.”

[the-martyr-of-love]

Jeff The Killer: Come Over

“Excerpt from local news paper, ominous unknown killer still at large. The spree of gruesome murders continues as authorities…”  

Piper scrolled past the Facebook article after reading the first few sentences and continued aimlessly scrolling her feed to find something to peak her curiosity. She often did this, sat alone in her basement bed room, procrastinating doing meaningless tasks she deemed more important then the ones at hand, such as work or school.

Her bedroom was a regular sized room with a double bed pressed against the wall in the middle, with her computer desk to one side and her make-up desk to the other. The walls and ceiling of the room were painted in a distasteful bright red which gave the room a heavy unnerving feeling when basking in it for too long. There was only 1 window in the room, above the make-up desk covered with an old dirty curtain which hasn’t seen the washing machine in years. You can only see the ground level of the driveway from the window where occasionally one of the dozen people who live in the house would walk by. The window was old and cracking, common for windows for basements in the foundation of a home.

Her clothes were sprawled out all over the room, which mainly consisted of underwear and leggings. The room held the scent of a cheap no name brand Febreze like product and the stench of body odor occasionally mixed into the smell.  

She opened a new tab and went to Tumblr to see if there was anything worth surfing there. After a few seconds of being on her newsfeed, a notification sound sliced the silence in the room and her eyes filled with light as she finally had something else to do, rather than mindlessly surfing. She received a Facebook message from her ex boyfriend Peter. He asked if he can come over again tonight with a winky face.

Peter had repeatedly lied and deceived her countless times, but this did not bother her. As much as she enjoyed putting others through pain, she enjoyed being in pain just as much. They still slept together plenty after “breaking up” but Piper dare not tell a soul. She was being abused and she knew it. On one occasion he came over and made her do an entire college level essay of over 8000 words and as a reward he throat fucked her and dumped all his semen down her throat into her stomach. Afterwards she was crying in her bed and asked him to stay the night, he simply walked out with his newly finished essay and empty balls and said “Nah I want to wake up in my own bed” and walked upstairs without even a thank you.

Piper pondered before answering the message. Piper told her friends that she was going to start living life for herself after the break up and didn’t want a man to be the main focus in her world. This was just one of the many lies she told the people around her to make herself seem like a dependant strong willed person. She often showed the world this strong side of herself only to indulge in the exact opposite of what she told her close friends and loved ones, to keep life interesting and fun. To Piper people’s feelings were nothing more than a poorly made sauce that clouded the flavor of what she can truly get out of a person. Manipulation was like breathing for her and she did it with such grace and finesse even the most strong-willed person would succumb to it eventually.

She messaged him back saying “Yeah in a bit, I’m going to clean my room and do my dishes and shower first.”

A classic message she sent to everyone before they come over. As she sent the message another notification popped up and her eyes focused on the new person who graced her with attention.

“Hey! we are still hanging out later right?”

Piper let out a deep sigh and closed the chat box without alerting that she read the message.

Blake was told by Piper, that he was Piper’s best friend and did anything for her. It was extremely evident that Blake had feelings for Piper, but she would never admit it. Blake after all was the man she was seeing while still with Peter and she used him as a scapegoat to break off the relationship. To achieve this sense of freedom in which she never felt before. Blake and Piper shared many intimate and deep experiences and told each other their deep and dark secrets. Blake never understood why she would hangout more often with a person who abused her than with someone who was eternally on her side. Piper hated those deep conversations when hanging out with Blake. She had to fake empathy and understanding when in reality she could not have cared less about how he felt.

She enjoyed surrounding herself with people who struggled with addictions and mental illnesses as a sick fetish. It was attractive to her. It was easy to groom these people into a false sense of security and have access to their heads as if strings were attached to her fingers and she made them dance.

Piper had many guys like Blake in her life, and it never dawned on her the severe impact messing with people’s feelings have on a victim. As a woman she lived and played the roll of the victim easily countless times to justify her cruel and manipulative habits.

She opened the chat box once again and wrote “Sorry I have plans tonight :/” Promises to her had less value than the penny and she did not mind creating and severing them at will. Blake responded instantly with a sad face and said,

“Oh I really needed to see you tonight, you promised….”

Piper rolled her eyes to his response and said, “Well I changed my mind.” And that was the end of that, promises can be severed as long as you say you changed your mind.

Piper was about to get up and start organizing her room for Peters arrival when a loud bang was heard outside her window. Instantly she jumped and swung her head around to look at the window. She could see nothing outside at the ungodly hour of 3 am and instantly felt a tinge of fear. She quickly dove towards the window and pulled her curtain shut, as she often did when she got scared. She shook the feeling of fear off and proceeded to pick up her underwear from the floor.

20 minutes went by and she found herself back on her computer and her room still was a pigsty. She was scrolling through her Tumblr feed for the millionth time when the noise came again, but this time louder and with more impact.

Her heart instantly sunk to her chest as the realization that the noise was not the wind started to creep in. It was 3:20 am, there was no reason for anyone to be near her window, let alone in her driveway. She spun in her chair to face the dark creaky window and stared at it for a few seconds. She thought about running upstairs to tell her father but didn’t want to wake him from his deep slumber. She ruminated over the possibilities of what made the noise and just as she was about to push the fear out of her mind the window shattered inwards into hundreds of pieces and a cold winter wind gushed into the room, sucking all the heat out in a heartbeat.

Piper’s brain didn’t register what happened until all the shattered pieces lay still and quiet on the floor. Her heart rate increased and her eyes dilated so large that it seemed she was on some sort of drug. She dug her hands into the armrests on her chair, about to leap up and run out of this now nightmare of a room but before she had time to lift herself from her seat she heard a voice.

“Don’t move a muscle!”

The voice was low and raspy but with enough power to tell that whoever was behind it meant what they said. In that instant a figure flew into the room legs first almost impressively swift and landed in front of the make-up desk.

Piper gazed up at the person, or what she thought was a person now standing in her cold glass filled red room. It was wearing black dress pants and dress shoes and a white hooded sweatshirt with deep dark brown stains which she realized was dried blood. The outfit of this thing was the least of her worries as soon as she caught a glimpse of its face.

Its skin was impossibly white with a wrinkled leather like texture and its eyes were so yellowed that they appeared to be rotting inside its skull. The most terrifying part of this thing’s appearance was its mouth. It had a large permanent smiled etched into its face which spread impossibly from ear to ear as it focused its’ eyes upon her.  

She knew that word-craft wouldn't work here. Just as people's feelings meant next to nothing to her, she knew her words would have no effect on the beast that stood before her. Her lips twitched as if to try to manipulate her way out of the situation, like she had done countless times through out her life but stopped herself. She knew it was futile, even though lies and manipulation flowed so smoothly through her mouth, they were meaningless in the eyes of true evil

After what felt like an eternity of staring at this creature, Piper found that now would be a good time to scream as loud as she could. Just as her mouth was about to open to let out a blood curdling and desperate scream, the thing moved at blinding speed and covered her mouth with its long white fingers.

“Shhhhhhhhh, don’t want to wake up daddy now do we?”  

Its hand was grasped unnaturally tight around her mouth and she could now feel that the skin had the exact same texture as cheap leather. It kept its hand over her mouth staring into her eyes with an inhumane animalistic stare. If the putrid eyes 3 inches from her face wasn’t enough for her to pass out, the stench that emanated from its hands could do the trick. The smell of metallic blood and rotted flesh made her start to cry as the creature slowly released its grip from her face.  

Piper stayed sitting, shivering from the intense fear she just endured and the cold merciless winter air that kept pouring into the room. It started moving its hands towards the pockets of its dress pants and slowly pulled out a large blood-soaked kitchen knife.

The sight of the knife allowed Piper to find her voice again and was about to scream only to be silenced by the other hand crushing her throat in one squeeze. She lay in her chair twitching as this thing climbed on top of her holding the knife high into the air.

“Its late, you should be in bed”

Piper just laid their twitching and closed her eyes, for she couldn’t accept that this was reality and tried to escape into the comfort of her mind.

“Here let me help you, now, Go To Sleep!”

With its hand still crushing her windpipe, Jeff slowly traced the knife on the side of her face until it found its mark in the middle of her forehead. He started twisting the knife back and forth playfully to savor every moment in pure ecstasy. Once he realized he couldn’t help himself anymore, he slowly started to press the knife in between her eyelids and then with one powerful swift thrust, he drove the knife straight into her skull. All that was heard was a satisfying crack as the blade disappeared into the cranium of the cadaver once know as Piper. With her throat crushed she wasn’t even granted to opportunity of a last breath before she died.    

Jeff ripped his trusty knife from out of the dead girls’ skull and licked the knife pridefully with purpose. He glanced around the room with a look of disgust on his face until his eyes fell upon the computer screen. A chat box was flashing, and the message came from a Peter.

“So, can I come or what?”

Jeff rolled the chair with Pipers body to the side and leaned over to the computer screen.

“Come over” Piper replied

As Peter saw this message, he glanced at his clock that read 3:30 am and didn’t bother to answer. He leaped up to drive over to her house in the icy winds of the night.