wrong number, sorry! ~ irondad & spiderson

CHAPTER 12

Sunday, around 5:15pm

Peter let himself fall onto his bed. He was still wondering if that Daredevil guy really was the 'friend' Deadpool talked about. If he was, good, Spiderman might have a new ally, maybe a new friend. If he wasn't, not so good, and Spiderman would have to be very, very careful.

But, now the boy was hungry. Not that it was anything new, but he still had to eat something. And he knew exactly he should rather spend at least part of his money on food than only the bills, he surely could find a cheaper apartment and not starve. But that might take a while, and to be honest, Peter wasn't so sure how long he had until the next rent pay was due, and even less sure was he if he had enough money to pay it.

In that exact moment, the door bell rang, making Peter jump out of his thoughts, and, onto the ceiling. Quickly, he let himself fall back down onto the bed and rolled onto the floor. From there, he jumped back onto his feet and ran to the front door.

When he opened it, he saw the familiar face of his landlord.

"H- Hey Mr. Johnson! I- I thought rent was due in only about a week?" Peter greeted the older man nervously.

"No Peter, it was due today, I've told you last Sunday, haven't I?" Mr. Johnson said, slightly concerned-

"Oh- I must've forgotten then Can't you give me just one week? Please!" Peter pleaded.

"I'm sorry kid, but I can't keep paying half the rent for you. I can give you until tomorrow, but if you don't have the money, you'll have to go," the landlord said with a sad little smile.

"I- Alright, I- I guess I should've known it would come to this some day. Thank you f- for letting me stay here for so long, Mr. Johnson," the boy responded, truly thankful for what the older man had done for him in the past.

"It was nice having you around here. I hope you have somewhere to stay at?" Mr. Johnson asked, concerned for the teen's wellbeing no matter what.

"Uh... Yeah, I have some friends I can stay with," Peter lied, forcing a fake smile onto his face.

"That's good," Mr. Johnson answered, oblivious to the truth. "Come around when you're done with packing your stuff to give back the apartment key, will you? You know where to find me."

"Yeah! I'll see you later, Mr. Johnson!"

"Bye Peter!"

With a slight smile, the Peter's landlord went out of the door and downstairs to his own apartment. Peter waited for a couple of moments, the fake smile still planted onto his face, before he silently shut the door and slid down the wall into a sitting position.

He cried and cried for what seemed like hours, but wasn't more than maybe twenty or twenty-five minutes. This apartment was probably the last thing he had left of his aunt and uncle, aside from the couple of pictures standing on his nightstand, and now, it was gone.

Ignoring everything around him, Peter started packing his school stuff, his laptop, the last rests of food and other small necessities into his backpack and a second bag. He packed a couple of clothes, not that he had many, too.

That didn't take him a lot of time. Peter was done after less than an hour. He decided to stay for the night and on Monday, after school, he'd get the stuff, give back the key and then try to find a place to stay at for the time being. He didn't want to bother his landlord more than he already has, and he couldn't go to any of his 'friends', not that he had any to go to. So, the 'staying at a friend's' was nothing but a lie.

So, Peter put on the suit for probably the last time in this apartment, and swung off into the night. Just as the night before, there weren't any crimes in sight, so he went onto the nearest flat roof in sight, sat down on its edge and his legs dangle.

From up there, it all seemed so peaceful, but Spiderman knew exactly how untrue that was. He's gotten hurt enough times to know how bad some people were. Though, he still knew there weren't only bad people. He's experienced a lot of kindness in New York, too, not only bad things. But with time, there were more and more bad things happening, and much less good things.

Peter knew that from first-hand: first his parents died, then Uncle Ben, then Aunt May, Ned left him and the Avengers were chasing him. Though he's still got the group chat - hopefully - his school 'friends' and his vigilante 'friends'.

That was actually the moment the boy realized, how much he's gone through in his life, how young he still was and how little people he actually trusted enough to open up to them - to be exact, none.

He sighed and let himself fall back and closed his eyes. For a moment, everything was fine. That was, until the flashbacks came back. Memories, nightmares, and other scenarios, of what could go wrong in his life, his mind had made up when he had a particular bad time or was nervous.

Peter sat up and tugged his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. Just shortly after, sobs began shaking the 15-year old. He didn't dare to scream or yell or whatever way his mind wanted to let all the pain out that's been stored in the back of his head, always pushed back with more pain if it wanted to flood out.

But now, there was no more he could push it back with, so he let a part of it out. It seemed a lot, for he cried for what must've been hours, again, but to Peter, it was just a small fragment of the stored up pain.

-

In all the time he sat on that roof, he didn't notice the two people spying on him through a window, waiting for whatever move he was gonna make. But the only move he made, was to get back up on his feet after one or two hours and swing back to his apartment.

[A/N I'm probably gonna upload every Saturday (at least I'll try to), remind me if I forgot :)]

[A/N 1/02/2022 1,1k reads?? Holyyy shit biscuit!-
Thank you guys so much! :D]