Controlling Chaos: A MCU SpideyPool Fanfic, Issue 04: Peter HAS a Life

fanart by leopardkora

Peter had very little money and he needed to stretch every cent as far as it would go each month.  He cut corners, found bargains, and still too often went without.  But one thing he didn’t go without–no matter how tight his finances–was lunch out with his friends twice a week.  These lunch dates had become routine since graduation, and they were pretty much the only chance he got to see everyone.  It was well worth the drain to his budget.  As he approached their regular table, Peter looked around to see who was there today.

The usual crew, consisting of Peter’s childhood friend Harry Osborn, his college friend Krissi Loewe, and her boyfriend Evan Christian, were all present.  Sometimes lunch was just them, but frequently there was also a rotating crowd of friends, and by “friends”, Peter meant Harry’s friends.  Between work and his Spider-Man gig, Peter didn’t have time for making new friends  himself.   While he liked some of Harry’s friends, others he couldn’t stand.  Take for example, Randy, who had invited himself along today, Harry’s friend of a friend and coworker.  Randy was definitely one of the people who hung around Harry that Peter couldn’t stand.  Peter tolerated a lot for Harry’s sake.

Harry Osborn had been Peter’s best friend for the last ten years, and he was nearly the opposite of Peter in every way.  Harry was tall, 6’1”, with a solid athletic build and classic Hollywood “Robert Redford” good looks, whereas Peter was 5’9” only on tip-toe, had a slight build, and could be called “nerd cute” at best and “unnoticeable” at worst.  Harry was also outgoing and well-liked; Peter without his Spider-Man mask was either an unnoticed wallflower or a tossed about object of bullying.  And to top it all off, while Peter had a dead-end temp job, was crippled with student loan debt, and could barely manage renting a crappy studio apartment, Harry was incredibly wealthy.  Harry’s father was Norman Osborn, inventor, owner, and CEO of the bio-chem giant, Oscorp.

Peter and Harry were nothing alike and by all rights should have wanted nothing to do with each other, but back in middle school they had met up once outside of school and bonded over a mutual love of Star Wars and classic Captain America comics.  And from then on, the improbable pair had learned they a number of unexpected things in common.  They had both lost their parents when they were young.  Peter lost both his mother and father when he was a toddler, and then he lost his uncle Ben in high school.  Harry also lost his mother when he was very young, and while his father was still alive, he was emotionally absent and hardly around.  Peter and Harry had bonded through their mutual love of Peter’s Aunt May.  She, in turn, adored them both and treated both boys as if they were her own sons.

Throughout high school, they acted more like brothers than merely friends, and Peter trusted Harry with everything.  Everything, that is, except his secret superhero identity.  That tiny little secret was the one thing Peter held back.  In part, Peter knew that anyone who knew his secret identity could be in danger.  But more than that, while he trusted Harry, Peter did not trust Norman Osborn.  So Spider-Man was kept secret from his best friend, and Peter continued to suffer from the strain of keeping his secret identity had added to their friendship for the past five years.  But even though things were a bit strained at times, Harry still met up with Peter twice a week for lunch.

Sitting across from Harry at the table was Peter’s other best friend, Krissi Loewe.  She was vibrant and vivacious, had curves that should have their own danger signs, and she intimidated Peter immensely.  On his first day of college, she had rescued him from being hopelessly lost.  She then adopted him as her pet freshman and continued to look out for him, even after she graduated.  She was now an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a fact that Peter only knew because of his own secret life.  He had run into her several times as Spider-Man while she was working S.H.I.E.L.D. ops.  He was grateful to find that she was as interested in looking out for Spider-Man as she was in looking out for Peter.  It was through her efforts that Spider-Man’s real identity was kept out of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hands, as she had agreed to Spider-Man’s request for privacy.  And that was just another reason why he loved her so much–she was willing to do that for Spider-Man, not knowing she was also helping out her friend Peter.

Krissi had been dating Evan for as long as Peter had known her.  Evan was a pro-skater, which was just about the coolest job Peter could think of, and on top of that he was a good-natured, boy-scout sort of guy who reminded Peter of Steve Rogers for some reason.  He and Krissi were pretty much perfect together and if Peter didn’t like them both so much he’d feel incredibly jealous and nauseated by the pair of them.  As it was, he was only somewhat jealous and nauseated, and mostly happy for them.

On the other hand, Randy Newman did make Peter feel legitimately nauseous.  Peter didn’t know him very well, and the little he did know painted Randy in a highly unfavorable light.  He gave Peter the creeps.  He was one of those preppy dude-bro types in a sharp business suit and frosted hair who acted as if everything he said was amazing and that he was entitled to anything and everything.  Peter kept expecting that at any moment Krissi would rip him a new one.  He was actually looking forward to the inevitable smackdown.  So far she had refrained, and Peter had to wonder at her uncharacteristic restraint.

Lost in thought, Peter hadn’t heard Harry ask him a question.  Harry waved his hand in front of Peter’s face.  “Earth to Peter?”

“Hmm?” Peter murmured.  “Sorry, just spacing out a sec.  What’s up?”

“I was asking, how’d your date go?” Harry demanded, exasperated.

Krissi smiled brightly.  “Do tell.  We want all the details.  Was it great?”

Peter picked at his sandwich and replied morosely.  “Great, yeah.  If you can call it great when I got stuck in traffic and showed up fifteen minutes late.” And by ‘traffic’ he meant fighting as Spider-Man.  “I was tongue-tied and not in cute way, put my foot in my mouth solidly no less than three times, and she said she never wanted to see me again.  So um, yeah.  Great.”

Randy snorted his soda and choked with muffled laughter.

“Ouch.” Evan winced.

Peter shrugged helplessly.

Harry sighed.  “Peter, what are we going to do about you?  You’ve been a disaster in the dating scene ever since Gwen broke up with you.  Have you even had a second date with someone since?”

Peter shamefully shook his head.

“I don’t get it,” Harry continued.  “You hooked up with a hottie like Mary Jane in high school and scored Gwen in college.  You’ve had these two amazing girlfriends.  Why are you still so awkward around women?”

Randy looked doubtfully at Peter.  “You’ve actually scored ‘hotties’?”

“Awkward with anyone in general,” Krissi interjected, ignoring Randy’s rude commentary.  “Our Peter is shy with pretty much everyone.”

Peter flushed and didn’t answer.  Krissi took pity on him at his distress and shifted the conversation away.  When he was Spider-Man, Peter could throw out quips and smartass remarks all day long, but as soon as the mask was off he was awkward-nerd Peter Parker, and he had no idea why his two lives were so different or what to do about it.  Why did the mask allow him to be himself?

When lunch had ended and the group was breaking up to go their separate ways back to work, Peter was surprised to find Randy was still standing beside him as the others were leaving the diner.

“Something I can help you with?” Peter asked him.

Randy waited a moment, making sure that the others were down the street, well out of hearing before he responded, “Actually, I think I have something that I can help you with.”

Peter raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

Randy continued, “Life can be pretty hard for ordinary folk like us, right?”

Peter nodded, not at all sure where this was going.

Randy pulled him close and whispered conspiratorially, “So sometimes folks like us could use a little boost.  A little something that could make an ordinary person into someone extraordinary.”

“There’s something that can do that?”  Peter asked, mostly because it seemed Randy was expecting him to say something.

“Oh yeah,” Randy chuckled.  “I know a guy that can make that happen.” Randy paused and looked around, making certain the other people on the street weren’t paying them much mind before he pulled a small vial from his pocket.  “This here?  Makes people around me want to do what I say.  Like, completely, they fall over themselves to obey me.  Really comes in handy when making deals with other companies.  With some of this, I’ve moved up the ranks in Oscorp in record time. Or,” he leered and winked, “through the ranks of the local sorority house.”

He slipped the vial back into his pocket, and resumed walking, grabbing Peter’s arm and yanking him along.  Peter couldn’t help but gape in horror, though thankfully Randy seemed to think his expression was one of amazement.  “I know,” he continued.  “Without something like this, plain folks like us would never have a chance to be around someone like Harry, but now I’m totally in his inner circle with the movers and shakers and this is just the start.”

“How does it work?” Peter asked.  He hated playing along with an asshole like Randy, but he wanted to get more information.  He wasn’t sure he believed Randy, but if it was somehow true, if whatever was in that vial did compel people to obey, then Spider-Man needed to put a stop to it.

“I don’t know,” Randy shrugged.  “I just know that it does.  For about an hour, give or take a few minutes, I have these powers.  It’s the best high money can buy, and thanks to this little bottle, I’ve got a lot of money to use!”  Randy chuckled.

Peter laughed weakly along.

Grinning, Randy asked, “You interested?”

“Yes,” Peter said honestly, but his interest was only in how to get rid of such a drug.

Randy handed him a business card.  Peter looked at the card in his hand.  It had only a single address on it, printed in small black letters against the sea of bright white paper.

Randy then instructed, “Go here, sit in the last booth, and order a pastrami sandwich.  When you do, say that you hear the pastrami sandwich is very good here.  Exactly like that.  When the time comes, say you want something that’ll get other people to do what you want.  Got it?”

Peter nodded, making plans in his head to find the drug dealer.

 

“But the alpacas will feel left out….”
Will you focus already?!
“Why?”
Because we’re at the end of the chapter…
And it’s time for us to do the end of the chapter bit.
“But I’m not even in this chapter!”
You are now.
“Oooh…by commenting on the fact that I’m not in this chapter, I am now a part of it?”
Very meta isn’t it?
Embrace the paradox.
“Sweet!”