InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "The rampant narcissism"

Peter Parker (is definitely not Spider-Man) (__spiderman) wrote in avengers_logs,
@ 2018-03-04 13:14:00

Entry tags:

-complete, frank castle, peter parker

Who: Peter Parker and Frank Castle
What: A first meeting, of sorts.
When: March 4th, early evening
Rating/Warnings: Green

Peter stretched his arms over his head as he jumped down from the fire escape and landed in the alleyway on his toes. He was getting much better at balancing himself when he landed from a height so he didn't wobble. He thought that a superhero who wobbled was definitely not one that people would look up to. Yesterday, he'd seen kids playing in a park with pretend weapons and they were being the Avengers. There was a kid standing on the top of a climbing frame shouting about being the God of Thunder and Peter had kind of wanted one kid to pretend to be him. But he wasn't famous enough yet.

And if he lost his balance every time he dramatically jumped into a fray he never would be, except maybe as a meme and no one wanted to be that.

He rubbed his hands over the mask that still covered his face and told Karen that he didn't need a play-by-play of where he'd made mistakes in his most recent run-in with would be law-breakers. Not all of the weapons that Toomes had been spreading over the black market had been rounded up and he was reeling from some kind of plasma blast that had sent him flying in a not-so-graceful arc into the underside of a bridge. He was pretty sure flailing wildly like he had done when he was on the way down had done nothing to slow his descent. If the coppery tang that had flooded his mouth was any indication, he'd at least split his lip.

"No, Karen," he said for the second time, "I don't need you to tell me what I could have done better right now."

"I'm sensing several injuries, though they do not appear to be serious. Shall I contact your physician?"

"No! We've had this conversation before. You don't need to call anyone, especially for bruises. That will go away on their own."

He kicked a nearby dumpster and then reached behind his head to release the mask, tugging it off and revealing a messy mop of brown hair. He lifted his hand to his mouth again and touched it gingerly. Yeah, okay, that hurt. Damnit, there was no way May wouldn't notice a split lip. He kicked the dumpster again. It slid down three feet with a slight dent in it.

Oops.

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coffee_and_ammo
2018-03-04 02:35 pm UTC (link)

It had pleased Frank to know that everything in this version of New York was pretty much the same as the one he'd left. Except for the new absolute awareness he had of shifting time and inter-planetary wars. He could have done without that.

It had been days now. Days of pulling himself back together, stuck in the limbo of wondering if he needed to be Frank Castle or if he could slink back into his newly acquired and CSI approved quiet life.

Fuck it, he was always going to need to be Frank Castle.

He hadn't found his van yet, but so far all of his secret hideaways had turned out all the guns and ammo he needed. And clothes. And things. Bits and pieces. An empty dog bowl- he'd kept that, packed it up and taken it with him.

The door to this hideout was almost off it's hinges, and Frank hadn't expected to find anything of his still in here. Broken glass crunched under his boots, the light didn't work, it's was dreary.

Hair prickled on the back of his neck at the sound coming from the alleyway behind him. Movement. And then a voice. A kids voice. Frowning, Frank picked his way back towards the door, peering out into the dim light, eyebrows shooting up at the sight that met him.

Spider-Man. Yeah, Frank had read about him. He'd seen YouTube videos. There was a sub-Reddit for him. And right now he seemed to be having a conversation with himself, or a Karen? Not his Karen, presumably. This seemed like one of the things she would have told him about.

"You've got to be kidding me-" Frank muttered under his breath when the mask came off. The kid had to be about twelve! What the hell was he doing? Ruffled and injured and fighting crime and also a goddamn kid!

Frank pinched the bridge of his nose. The whole world really had gone to shit.

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__spiderman
2018-03-04 04:01 pm UTC (link)

Peter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end a moment too late. He'd already taken off his mask and therefore his only choice was to web away or web the guy in the face but either way it was likely that he would already have been seen. It was too late to pull the mask back on and his bag had to be around here somewhere so he just needed to find it and be on his way and hope that no one would believe a dude (who looked like he was built like a non-suited supervillain, how was that even possible?!) who said that Spider-Man was a teenaged boy. And who hung around in alleyways?

Other than him, of course. But then he didn't hang around in them, more... changed in them. Which he recognised was dangerous but it was not like many people could get an actual hit on him anymore. He was too fast.

He turned around to look at the person properly. The man - who was much taller than Peter himself was, and could probably ever be - was pinching the bridge of his nose and looking generally like he was done with the world.

"Uh-" Peter started eloquently, "I- uh- hi."

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coffee_and_ammo
2018-03-06 08:32 am UTC (link)

Frank lifted his eyes to look at the bedraggled kid standing before him. It hurt that little bit inside him that was still a father, to think of one of his children standing where this boy was.

“What are you, like, fifteen?” Frank asked, exasperated. And he was sure he could have thought of a better introduction than that. “I’ve read about you,” he added. “I saw your stuff on YouTube. I didn’t realise-“ well, no, he wouldn’t have. With the whole secret identity thing. He’d never been one to jump on that bandwagon. Didn’t appeal to him. He wanted men to know who was killing them. But that wasn’t the point.

Frank glanced down the alley to make sure no one was going to happen upon them and give them anymore unnecessary issues. Then he stepped out of his doorway, frowning.

“And Stark lets you go around doing this? He knows how old you are, right? Of course he does. Piece of shit-“ he muttered the last part under his breath, sweeping his fingers through his hair. “I’m Frank, by the way. Castle.”

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__spiderman
2018-03-06 09:09 am UTC (link)

“Sixteen,” Peter responded as if that extra year made everything better, as if that made him no longer a minor running around catching cars, bad guys and swinging precariously throughout the city. He rubbed his hand through his hair and looked around for his backpack. It was nondescript, just plain black because they were cheaper to get hold of and a lot sturdier. He needed cheap and sturdy: the number of times that his bag got stolen from an alleyway when he was out trying to do the right thing and help people was ridiculous.

He’d started webbing his bags to walls, but sometimes he was gone for more than two hours, so the webbing tended to dissolve and then his bag was free game again.

At least people thought he was a man, not a teenager. That was the positive that Peter was taking from this. And then the man - who introduced himself as Frank Castle - mentioned that he knew Mr Stark and Peter’s shoulders suddenly slumped in relief.

Okay, that meant that this guy was okay to talk to.

“I’m Peter,” he said, holding his hand out before changing his mind and retracting it before reaching out again. Don’t shake his hand too firmly he reminded himself, “Peter Parker. It’s nice to meet you.”

Now he was on a roll. “Mr Stark found me when he needed some help against Captain America because of the Accords, but now I’m not entirely sure that was the right thing to do because the Accords got Mr Stark arrested recently which means that they’re not as easy to use as he thought or, um, maybe they’re not as user-friendly as they were meant to be? But now I’m kind of an Avenger, but kind of not. But I will be once the Accords are all sorted out.”

He tilted his head. He knew the Avengers. He didn’t know Frank Castle. “Are you, um, how do you know Mr Stark?”

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coffee_and_ammo
2018-03-09 10:18 pm UTC (link)

Frank's eyebrows raised again. At least the two of them could telepathically agree that the extra year made no difference at all.

He reached out his hand to shake Peter's, not pulling it back when Peter did, his hand hovering awkwardly in the air between them. "Peter. Uh, yeah, Frank. Still Frank." The kid had a good grip. Which wasn't surprising, really.

Frank had done a lot of reading since he'd arrived here. He'd read about the Accords. He'd caught up on the shenanigans with the Avengers. He'd read about all of them. But obviously nothing had mentioned how old Spider Man was. This stupid fatherly instinct in him was kicking in hard, though. Goddamn, what was that?

"Oh, yeah, I don't know him. I just read about you all. I had no idea you were a kid. I can't believe how goddamn irresponsible he is-" Frank huffed, his fingers running through his hair again. "You're- kid, you're bleeding," he tagged on, gesturing to his own lip to point out the now re-opened wound. "No super healing powers, no?"

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__spiderman
2018-03-10 07:19 am UTC (link)

The raised eyebrow made Peter squirm on the spot a little bit. He knew that all of the other Avengers - or at least the ones that he'd fought with - and against - thought he was just a kid. Even Mr Stark thought he was a kid but at least Mr Stark saw the potential that Peter knew he had to be something awesome and be just as great as the others. Or something. He swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck when the handshake was over, eyes falling on where his backpack had fallen from the wall, nondescript, by the opening of the door where Frank had appeared from.

Okay. Well, it didn't look like he'd be changing anytime soon so he'd just have to pick it up and take it home and hope that his English homework hadn't been too crushed.

Why did everyone keep calling Mr Stark irresponsible? It wasn't irresponsible; he'd given him a suit which had so many cool gadgets and Karen. What more could he ask for? Other than to be an Avenger, of course, which Mr Stark was insistent would be a thing eventually but wasn't just yet and that was the most frustrating part of the whole thing because he was ready now.

"I- uh-" he touched his lip and then ran his tongue over it, wincing a little at the sting. "No- I fell off a bridge. Stopped myself with my face. Must have bitten through it." He looked at Frank with a boyish grin, "That would be awesome though, right? Super healing powers? I'd never have to lie to my aunt about how I got a bruise- when Captain America dropped a bridge on me I had to lie, which I don't really like doing and-" He realised he was rambling and cut himself off, looking down at the ground and rubbing a hand through his hair again. "Sorry."

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coffee_and_ammo
2018-03-10 06:17 pm UTC (link)

"You fell off a bridge-" Frank nodded his head, as though that were a completely normal thing to hear. "Uh-huh. Okay. But you don't have super healing powers? And...and Captain America dropped a bridge on you-" he pinched the bridge of his nose again. "Of course. Yeah. Of course."

Frank had read all about it, watched the news clips, but now he was looking at Peter standing here, small and vulnerable, it wasn't so much weird but a little disturbing. That coming from him-

"Don't apologise, kid. You got nothing to apologise for," he took a breath, looking around the alley, catching sight of the bag as well. He hadn't noticed it when he'd gone in...

"This yours?" he asked, gesturing to it. "Look-" stupid, dumb, fatherly instinct. "You wanna...change or something? I'll walk you home." Not that Frank thought Peter needed his help, or that he couldn't look after himself on the streets, but he just couldn't bring himself to leave. Or let Peter go alone.

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__spiderman
2018-03-11 05:19 pm UTC (link)

“No, no I don’t have super healing powers but sometimes I really wish I did. I’m just… really hard to hurt for the most part, I mean, today aside,” Peter was rambling and he knew it, but it was exciting to be able to talk to people about his secret and know that it wasn’t going to come back to haunt Aunt May, or himself. It was exciting to know that there were other people who had also been punched in the gut by the timeline and now were living this weird sort of double life where some people they knew understood what was going on and others didn’t. And it was exciting to know that slowly, bit by bit, he was expanding his superhero social circle. This guy didn’t look like a hero, but then what really did a hero look like? He knew outside of his suit he didn’t look like much of a hero either.

He wet his lower lip, grimacing again at the taste of blood and knowing that he’d have to explain this one to Aunt May in glorious technicolour detail because that was how his life was ever since she discovered him changing out of the suit. They’d instigated a rule about knocking for a reason, but it was her house, so he guessed it had to be her rules. He wondered how different things would have been if he’d taken Mr Stark up on his offer to live upstate, he would have had his own room and access to all the training stuff and he would have been an Avenger.

Peter Parker, Avenger.

He rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “I- uh- I should probably change outta this, yeah,” he mumbled. “Or at least stick something on over the top of it so I can get home. You don’t- I mean you don’t need to walk me ‘cause I’m- I’m just going to Queens, it’s not too far.” He did get the feeling though, that he might not have a choice about being walked home. “I’ll just-” He gestured with his hand, slipping past Frank and ducking inside the open door, snagging the bag with his fingers.

Once inside, he just tugged his clothes on over his suit and re-emerged, his bag forgotten inside.

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coffee_and_ammo
2018-03-16 08:49 pm UTC (link)

There was absolutely nothing assuring about Peter being hard to hurt, and Frank was sure that his expression was saying exactly that. There was literally nothing that this kid could tell him that would be assuring. He was good, Peter, he was good at what he did, he was certainly reasonably in control of whatever powers he possessed, and he had a big heart. Frank had, as he'd said, watched the videos. He'd read up on all of Stark's friends and enemies. But absolutely none of that was going to keep Peter safe. Stark wasn't a god.

He took a step to the side to let Peter get to his bag, leaning himself against the wall beside the doorway. A smile tugged on Frank's lips, though, huffing out a chuckle. "Queens, yeah? S'where I grew up," he replied. "I know it's not far, but-" he turned his head away to look down the other end of the alley, as though Peter needed more privacy than a wall and a door to change.

"-I really don't mind. I got nowhere else to go right now. And-" and? Frank highly doubted that Peter was going to get beaten up or mugged on the way home, it really wasn't far. He just- wanted to make sure. "Should you really be out on your own, anyway? You don't think there's enough people out round here fighting crime?" Frank looked up, habitually, but he knew he wasn't going to see the red shape it was looking for. "You should be like- worrying about homework, and girls. Or boys," he shrugged. He was a modern man. "Let the grown ups worry about this shit, kid. Come on. There's still gonna be ass- uh, bad guys to catch when you graduate. From college."

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__spiderman
2018-03-25 09:23 pm UTC (link)

Peter realised a moment after he stepped outside that he'd forgotten his bag and ducked back inside, grabbing the first backpack he saw, swinging it onto his back and hurrying back outside.

"I- I guess?" he said. "I- I mean I worry about homework and stuff too." He shifted and rubbed the back of his head with a small smile. "But- If I don't do something then the bad stuff I coulda stopped is on me." And it was something he believed wholeheartedly. He had the power to do something, so he should do something.

He shifted how the bag was sitting on his shoulder and zipped up his hoodie, tugging his sleeves down over his hands and looking once again every bit like the teenager he was. "Are you sure you wanna walk me home? It's-" he wet his lower lip and smothered his wince. "It's not far." If they left now, he'd even get home before May had time to curse him out for being late.

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