Peter sat on the broadcast antenna at the very top of the Empire State Building, his legs dangling over the dizzying drop of the Manhattan skyline. He unwrapped a deli sandwich, the foil crinkling loudly over the howling wind. He didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, Cindy quietly crawled up the spire and dropped down onto the narrow metal beam beside him.
Just like with Mysterio, Cindy knew exactly where to find him. After all, who else would just sit perfectly still on the highest lightning rod in New York City?
"Want one? I bought extra."
Peter picked up a second foil-wrapped sandwich and held it out. Cindy stared at it for a second before gently taking it. She didn't unwrap it. She just held it in her lap, peeling at a loose edge of the foil, her chin resting against her chest.
She sat there in absolute silence for a long time. Finally, she spoke.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," she said quietly. "You didn't do anything wrong. You got there exactly when you needed to. Gargan is a monster. If you hadn't shown up, I wouldn't have been able to stop him."
Peter shook his head. He told her she had held her ground against a guy built to fight tanks. Getting tossed around by the Scorpion wasn't a failure; it was just physics. But Cindy kept her head down.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Peter appreciated it, but he didn't feel like a hero right now. He felt exhausted. "You're welcome. But honestly? I didn't just go after him because it was the right thing to do. I went after him because I was terrified."
He gripped the edge of the antenna. "I constantly worry about the people I love. Uncle Ben, Aunt May, Gwen, Harry. Keeping them safe is a full-time job in my head. When Jarvis told me Gargan was at your front door... I realized how incredibly vulnerable you are. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't exactly leak-proof. If Gargan knew where you lived, he could figure out who I was. And if he figured out who I was, he'd go to Queens."
Peter looked down at the city lights. He had been completely consumed by rage. Gargan was the most vile thing he had fought since Carl King. If Cindy hadn't shouted at him to stop, Peter knew exactly what would have happened. He would have kept slamming the Scorpion into the concrete until there was nothing left to slam.
"I don't know what S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to do with him," Peter continued, his voice steadying. "But you don't have to worry about your family anymore. Emma Frost did a deep scrub on his brain. She wiped every single trace of our identities. He can't investigate us. He can't even form the thoughts necessary to connect the dots."
Emma hadn't just erased memories, either. She had ripped the vault of Gargan's mind wide open. She handed Peter the exact intelligence he had been hunting for. She gave him the name of the man funding the whole thing and proving his theory was correct.
The Kingpin.
And the man who supplied the Chitauri tech. The man who engineered the Scorpion armor.
Otto Octavius. Doctor Octopus.
But Otto wasn't the problem Peter needed to solve right this second. He looked over at the silent girl sitting next to him.
"I waited up here for you because I knew you weren't okay," Peter said softly. "Back at the house... when you stopped me. What were you thinking?"
Cindy pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging her legs tight. The wind whipped her dark hair around her mask.
"I wasn't thinking anything," she admitted. Her voice sounded incredibly hollow. "I never know what I'm supposed to do. My parents told me to get good grades, so I studied. They told me I needed extracurricular credits, so I went to the Osborn Tech Expo. Then that spider bit me."
She looked down at her gloved hands. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't know what to do with the powers. So I let my parents decide. They told the government. S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up at our door, and they told me to join them. So I did."
Peter listened quietly. He fought because he chose to. Even a monster like Carl King chose to be evil. But Cindy Moon was just drifting. She had no anchor, no inherent drive. She was the kind of kid who stared blankly at the chalkboard when the teacher asked what everyone wanted to be when they grew up.
"My dad said we shouldn't kill people," Cindy sighed, her voice trembling slightly. "He said Gargan wasn't worth it. So I told you to stop. I just followed his rule. But Gargan was going to melt my mom. I didn't actually know what I wanted to do in that moment." She leaned her head on her knees. "At least with S.H.I.E.L.D., they give me direct orders. They tell me exactly what to do."
"That's no way to live, Cindy."
Peter shifted on the metal beam to face her. "There has to be something you actually want to do. You like reading, right? I always see you with a Charles Dickens novel, or a Brontë book in the library. We got bitten by a radioactive spider. Maybe we don't have all the answers right away. But you have to start figuring out what makes you happy, and what makes you miserable."
Peter offered a small, encouraging smile. "Maybe you should start by doing something you actually want to do, even if your parents wouldn't approve of it."
Cindy scratched the back of her head. Something her parents wouldn't approve of? Would she have been happy if Peter had just killed Gargan? No. That wasn't it.
She looked at Peter. She had been following him like a shadow since the introduction on the tower. He always seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He always showed up when people needed him. If Agent Coulson asked her right now why she followed Spider-Man, her answer wouldn't change. Because he's kind.
She envied him. Not because he was a successful hero. Because he actually had a compass.
"Could you take your mask off?" Cindy asked suddenly.
"Ah," Peter chuckled, reaching for the fabric at his neck. "Revealing my secret identity. A classic act of rebellion."
Peter pulled the red-and-blue mask over his head, letting the cold wind hit his face. He looked at her, offering a gentle smile. Cindy stared into his eyes. They were dark brown, almost pitch black in the night sky.
"When I grabbed your shoulder back there..." Cindy murmured, leaning in slightly. "I couldn't see your eyes through those white lenses. I didn't know how you were looking at me."
"How am I looking at you now?" Peter asked softly.
Cindy still didn't know what she wanted out of life. She didn't know if this was going to make her happy. But it was definitely something her parents wouldn't approve of.
She leaned forward, wrapped both arms around Peter's neck, and kissed him.
It was clumsy, sudden, and entirely desperate. A second later, she broke away. She stared wide-eyed at his stunned face, her own face flushing violently. She immediately looked away, staring hard at the New Jersey skyline.
"Uh," Peter blinked, completely paralyzed. "I... was not expecting that."
"I just... I just wanted to say thank you!" Cindy blurted out, her voice pitching up an octave.
"Maybe... maybe we could change into normal clothes?" Peter stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Grab a coffee at a bodega down there and just talk?"
Cindy didn't answer. She violently yanked her mask down over her face, stood up, and leaped off the Empire State Building like she was diving away from a live grenade.
Peter sat there alone on the spire, watching her swing frantically into the night.
"Or you could just run away," Peter muttered to himself. "That works too."
He let out a long breath, staring at the empty space beside him. "Alright, Parker. It's getting late. Go home and give Uncle Ben and Aunt May a hug."
Peter pulled his mask back on. He crouched on the edge of the metal beam, coiling his leg muscles to dive off the spire.
Suddenly, the air in front of him violently hissed.
A shower of bright, golden sparks erupted out of thin air. The sparks quickly expanded, tracing a massive, burning circle that hovered completely unsupported in the sky. The scent of ozone and burning incense flooded the wind.
A man stepped out of the portal. He wore a heavy blue tunic, a billowing red cloak that seemed to twitch of its own accord, and had stark gray streaks at his temples to match his neatly trimmed goatee. He floated effortlessly above the drop, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring dead at Peter.
"Peter Benjamin Parker," the wizard said, his voice echoing with absolute authority. "We need to discuss the fact that you just tore open twenty-three localized multiverse rifts in a single minute."