InsaneJournal

Spider-Man probably should have expected that criminals in Vallo would have magic at their disposal. In a world where walking down the street had him encounter four or five different types of sapient species, it made sense that even the criminals would have magic at their disposal.

“You know, if I had magic, I sure wouldn’t be wasting it to rob banks,” Spider-Man said from where he was hanging on the ceiling. “Can’t you think of something better to do with that? Like birthday parties?”

He easily dodged the garbage can one of the would-be robbers threw at him, and tried not to think too much about how much force it needed in order to imbed itself into the ceiling like that.

One of the other robbers was incanting something, and he didn’t waste any time webbing his mouth closed. “Oh no, I’ve seen The Craft,” he said, and sure that that robber was out of the way, he turned to the one who’d thrown the garbage can at him.

He didn’t see the one whose mouth he just webbed shut pointing pull a wand out of his coat and point it at his back.

Kate had mostly put her vigilantism aside since she showed up in Vallo. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to play the hero - she was basically Hawkeye Jr. now and she was so proud of that fact - but she was doing her part with the Defense Teams. She worked her own shifts and picked up extras whenever the need arose. She was just taking a break from heroism, especially after the chaos that her Christmas had been; she’d barely even recovered from that when she got here.

She was glad she’d taken that break! It had given her time to form bonds - with Mobius, Natasha, Tony, Yelena (once she remembered her), even Dr. Strange, Wanda, and Loki. But most importantly, of course, Elsa. It was a little bit of a weird fantasy come true, at first, but as they’d settled into their relationship, it had become more grounded in reality. In a good way, the best way. And if she’d jumped right into crime-fighting, she probably wouldn’t have that bond.

Lately, though, she couldn’t deny she was getting more restless, and she needed to do something about it. So, after kissing her girlfriend goodnight, she grabbed her police scanner and went looking for trouble. Because why not, right?

The magical bank robbery they were talking about sounding concerning, but not enough to put her off. She changed into her Hawkeye suit (Vallo had been generous to her), slung her bow across her chest, and off she went.

She hadn’t expected to see Spider-Man, but she didn’t have much time to marvel at the webslinger. Seemed she’d showed up just in time - one of the robbers, mouth webbed shut, apparently wasn’t going to let that stop him from enacting a little magical revenge. She pulled an arrow out of her quiver, took aim, and quickly let it fly, piercing right through the wand and knocking it out of the incensed magician’s hand.

“Watch your back, Spider-Guy!” she called out.

“It’s Spider-Man,” Spider-Man said. Better to nip that in the bud before everyone in Vallo started calling him Spider-Guy or Spider-Boy or whatever other names they decided to give him.

He glanced toward the thud of the arrow hitting the wall, and then toward the voice, and started a little when he realized it was Kate from the Network. Except that it was Peter who knew who Kate was, and not Spider-Man, and if his voice suddenly dropped an octave into an obviously fake one, well, that was just Kate’s imagination. “Thanks for the assist, Arrow Girl,” he added, finishing webbing the robber he’d had his attention on to the wall.

Yeah, Kate wasn’t about the secret identity life. Every one of the Avengers was known by their full name back home, so there was really no sense in making any attempt to hide hers. And around here, too? Nobody cared. There were all sorts of heroes here, and their help was welcomed, not scorned.

“Hawkeye if we’re going with superhero names,” she replied with a grin. She was well aware of who he was, but if he didn’t want to out himself, that was up to him. Funny he hadn’t already seen the previous Peter Parker outing himself - which had also been no big deal because most of the people around here knew.

She stepped forward to pry the arrow out of the wall and restock it in her quiver. Tony Stark had seemed willing to make her as many as she wanted, but she wasn’t going to let a good arrow go to waste regardless.

“Hawkeye? Really?” He dropped down from the ceiling, doing a flip in the air so he landed on his feet, and then peered at her through his mask. “The Hawkeye I know was a lot older. And, you know, more manly.”

“He’s my partner,” Kate clarified. “It’s a new thing, so.” She shrugged. There wasn’t really anything she could do to prove it without Clint here to back her up, but that was fine. She didn't need him to believe her. “You been crawlin’ around here long?”

Hawkeye didn’t really seem like a partner kind of guy, but then, it wasn’t like Peter really knew the guy. He’d seen him a couple times, but most of what he knew about Hawkeye was what everyone knew about Hawkeye because of the media. So sure, if he wanted to team up with a woman who probably wasn’t much older than Peter was and show her the ropes, Peter could believe it.

“Well, looks like you’ve got the shooting arrows part down,” Spider-Man said. And then answered evasively, “I’ve been here for a while. Speaking of, I think you and I should probably clear out of here before the police show up.”

The police would no doubt appreciate the help, but that didn’t mean that they’d be able to act like they appreciated the help.

Right, yes, evacuating might be best in this situation. The police had seemed fairly appreciative when Kate was working with Clint, but then again, that was with a known, big-deal Avenger. It had softened the blow of her taking down the tree in Rockefeller Center - although not so much that it had stopped being on the news afterwards, for days leading into the new year. This wasn’t that, but yeah, still. Randoms at a crime scene might not please the police all that much.

So, she followed Spider-Man’s lead outside, and once they’d gotten a good distance away, she turned to him again. “Want a taco or something? I’m starving.”

Walking down the street in his Spider-Man uniform felt… well, strange, especially with how many people turned to follow his progress down the street. He would have much prefered to be swinging from the buildings above, but he wanted to get to know Kate a little better, especially if she was a crime fighter too, and he didn’t think they were at a point in their friendship where he could just grab her and swing to wherever it was they were going. So walking it was. Even if it did involve a lot of stares.

“Oh, I always want tacos,” Spider-Man answered. “Like, seriously. If I ever say no to that, I think it’s safe to assume that I’ve been replaced with a skrull. Know any good places around here?”

“Yep! Follow me.” Kate did, in fact, know where to find good tacos. She’d made it one of her many missions not too long after arriving in Vallo to find the best food establishments. They were about a block from Rocko’s Tacos currently - a hard-to-miss (but somehow still often overlooked) little restaurant with a roof intricately built to resemble a sombrero. It was probably offensive, but they had some of the most delicious messy tacos she’d ever experienced.

They were there within five minutes and Kate gestured grandly when they stopped in front of it. “Welcome to Rocko’s!” She grinned over at him. “Fair warning you’ll probably have to take the mask off to eat. Unless there’s some kind of system you have to eat through it.”

She wouldn’t question it if that was the case. She also wasn’t going to force him to reveal himself before he was ready, and if that meant he just yanked the mask up past his nose that was fine, too. But she couldn’t resist teasing a little. It was what she did.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,” Spider-Man assured her. “This mask is very high tech. Eating’s never been a problem.”

He revealed this high tech secret a couple minutes later, after he’d ordered his nachos and was handed a cup for his pop, by pulling his mask up to reveal his mouth; he grinned at Kate.

“You do this often? Fight crime and come for tacos, I mean?”

“The fighting crime part is…a revival,” Kate decided. That seemed like an appropriate word for tonight. She had only just started getting involved with the Tracksuit Mafia via Clint over Christmas, but it wasn’t new, exactly. “Totally eat tacos on a regular basis, though. Taco Tuesday is very serious business.”

“Very serious business,” Spider-Man agreed. “I’m actually pretty sure it’s our civic duty to participate in Taco Tuesday. I bet you those bank robbers didn’t.”

“And that’s why they got caught,” Kate asserted with a grin, before she took another big bite of her taco. She could picture Nat rolling her eyes if she’d said that line in front of her; she’d have to remember to use it next time she convinced Black Widow to let her come out patrolling with her.

“So, what’s it like living at the Sanctum? Is it just like…all magic, all the time?” It certainly seemed that way back in New York. She remembered hearing about some magic crazy going on over there when she and Clint were beating up tracksuits.

Peter took a bite of his own taco. “I mean, not all the time, but…”

The question sunk in, the full weight of it permeating his brain, and he stopped chewing. His mask was just lenses and fabric; his eyes didn’t change with his expression, and so Kate wouldn’t have seen his eyes widening. “But I wouldn’t really know, since I don’t live there. Who said I lived in the Sanctum? I don’t live in the Sanctum. You must be thinking of Dr. Strange, which is weird, because we don’t look anything alike. I don’t even know any magic, outside of card tricks and quarters.”

He’d gone through an unfortunate phase in middle school where he’d tried to teach himself stage magic; Ned and Aunt May had gone along with it. His classmates had been kind.

Whoops, that hadn’t been a fully brain-vetted thought that emerged. Kate had told herself she wouldn’t force him to out himself, and she didn’t want to, but really, what would be weirder? Trying to backpedal out of this or just being like ‘yeah, dude, I know your secret’?

She decided to just go with the latter, giving him a serious look and meeting those spider-like lenses that covered his eyes. “Okay, look. I wasn’t going to mention it, and I won’t say anything to anyone else if you’re not ready, but the last Peter Parker that was here?” She knew he knew about that; she’d seen Captain Marvel telling him on the network. “He kind of spilled the spider-shaped secret. So, Vallo knows. Or at least a good chunk of the Outlanders.”

Peter stared for a moment as he tried to wrap his head around what she’d said. After everything he’d gone through to keep his identity a secret – everyone had forgotten Peter Parker existed – it was more than a little shocking to find out that another him from a different universe had just told everyone who he was. Well, who he – the other Peter – was, but also, by extension, who he was. Who they were.

Betrayal. Except not really.

And he couldn’t deny that this was… well, a much better scenario than back home. Back home, his identity being revealed had ruined the lives of everyone close to him. Not just by supervillains, though that had been a risk, obviously. But by his reputation, by the lies that had been spread about him, by the scrum of the press. There hadn’t been any of that here. Everyone had just gone along with it.

Everyone at Fight Club had gone along with it, he realised suddenly. He wondered how many of them had known who he was. He dropped his taco and buried his face in his hands.

“Does that mean that everyone at Fight Club knew, and they just let me go along with it?”

“Maybe?” Kate shrugged. She wasn’t overly familiar with the Fight Club crowd. She’d gone a few times, but she hadn’t turned into the regular she’d originally envisioned herself to be. It was fun, but she didn’t particularly relish getting beat up for no reason on a monthly basis. At least if she jumped back into dealing with criminals, she was hopefully doing some good.

That was probably some backwards-ass logic, but well, it worked for her.

“I can’t say for a fact everyone knows, but they might. I’m just saying, if you don’t want to hide, you don’t have to. But if you do want to, I won’t say anything.”

Peter sighed, and sank back into his chair, a heavy sigh escaping as he looked up at the ceiling. “I guess it’s not as bad as when everyone back home found out,” he said at last. Maybe it was because most people had something weird about them here, whether it was magic or superpowers, or being a minotaur. He was hardly the only person with superpowers back home, but it was still more rare.

Also, no one here thought he’d murdered another superhero from another dimension here. That probably had something to do with it.

“That’s the spirit,” Kate replied, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder. For her, this kind of thing wasn’t a big decision. She had been talking about Clint and Hawkeye since the day she arrived. But it was a bigger decision for Peter, and at least now he could go into it knowing he had all the information.

“In the meantime, eat another taco. You’ll need your strength to go beat up more bad guys.”

With that, she took another big chomp from a fresh taco herself and winked at him. Seemed like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.