Peter Parker woke up early to volunteer at the F.E.A.S.T. Center. Aunt May ran the floor here, and Peter helped out whenever his schedule allowed. Walking through the main hall, he immediately noticed the crowd. There were significantly more homeless people seeking shelter today than there had been before Wilson Fisk went to prison.
It made a grim sort of sense. The Kingpin's empire had provided a twisted structural backbone to New York's underworld. With him locked up, the power vacuum had triggered gang turf wars, displacing innocent people in the crossfire. The NYPD didn't have the manpower or the inclination to handle the fallout—half the precincts were still clearing out Fisk's bribed cops, and the good ones, like Captain George Stacy, were stretched too thin. The Avengers, meanwhile, were too busy dealing with global threats to worry about street-level displacement.
Peter couldn't fix it all himself. If he were Superman or The Flash, he could probably clean up the entire city before lunch. Unfortunately, he was just Spider-Man.
Pushing through the swinging doors into the kitchen, Peter spotted his aunt. "Hey, Aunt May."
May wiped her hands on a dish towel, a tired but warm smile breaking across her face. "Oh, Peter. You didn't have to come in today. You just started high school; you should be focusing on your studies. Mr. Li and I can manage the shelter."
"I finished all my homework last night. You know me," Peter said, leaning against the stainless steel prep counter. "Speaking of, where is Mr. Li? I didn't see him out front."
May's smile faltered, a knot of worry forming between her brows. "It's actually a bit strange. Martin hasn't been in for two days now. If he doesn't show up today, it'll be three. I called the precinct, but they said there was no record of anything happening to him. If he doesn't turn up soon, I'm going to have to ask George to look into it personally."
"I'm sure he's fine, Aunt May," Peter said, keeping his voice light to reassure her. "Is there anything I can do to help right now?"
May pointed toward the commercial ovens at the back. "The new volunteer is baking cookies. Why don't you go see if she needs a hand distributing them?"
Peter nodded and walked toward the baking station. The air grew thick with the smell of toasted sugar and melting butter. A girl with silver hair pulled back into a simple ponytail stood at the counter, wearing an apron with a cartoon black cat printed on the front. She flipped a hot baking sheet over with expert precision, dropping a perfect dozen cookies onto a cooling rack.
She set the pan down, turned around, and locked eyes with Peter. A familiar, entirely too smug smirk spread across her face.
Peter stopped dead in his tracks. His brain flatlined. "Felicia? What are you doing here?"
Felicia Hardy tilted her head, feigning innocent surprise. "What a weird question. Why wouldn't I be here? It makes perfect sense."
Watching Peter stand there with his jaw practically unhinged, Felicia couldn't hold back a laugh. She grabbed another tray and slid it into the oven. "Alright, stop standing there like an idiot and grab a plate. You're already here, so you might as well make yourself useful."
Peter blinked, shaking off the shock, and walked over to grab a stack of paper plates. "How many did you bake?"
"Five cookies per person," Felicia said, wiping a smudge of oil off the metal counter with a rag. "I checked the headcount with the floor manager, cross-referenced it with the flour inventory in the pantry, and ran the math. Excuse me." She slid past him, her shoulder brushing his, to grab another mixing bowl.
"I didn't realize the floor manager shared your last name," Felicia noted casually, her eyes on the dough. "Is she your mom? She's incredibly sweet."
"Aunt," Peter corrected, keeping his eyes on the cookies he was plating. "My parents... died in an accident. She and my Uncle Ben raised me."
Felicia's hands stopped moving. The playful teasing vanished from her face. "Peter, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
Peter offered a small, easy smile. "It's fine. Really. It was a long time ago."
They fell into a comfortable rhythm after that, loading up plates and carrying them out into the main hall. The smell alone was enough to draw a crowd. Freshly baked wheat, warm butter, and caramelized sugar—it was a rare, undeniable comfort for people who usually didn't know where their next meal was coming from.
After the cookies were gone, they spent twenty minutes trying to fix the static on the old cathode-ray tube TV in the lounge. Peter was halfway through diagnosing a faulty coaxial cable when Felicia simply smacked the top of the plastic casing twice with the heel of her hand. The picture snapped to perfect high-definition clarity instantly. Peter just stared at her.
Just before noon, Peter felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the encrypted text. It was from Jessica Jones. Harlemprecinctjustgotremodeled. PowerManbrokeoutofholding.
Peter caught Felicia's eye across the room. She gave a microscopic nod. Message received.
Peter walked back to the kitchen and told Aunt May he had suddenly remembered a massive history project he needed to finish. Two minutes later, Felicia made her own polite excuses. May looked disappointed that neither of them could stay for the staff lunch, but waved them off with a smile.
Five minutes later, Peter was crouched behind an exhaust unit on the shelter's roof, pulling his spare fabric suit out of his backpack. He yanked his shirt over his head.
"You know, changing out in the open doesn't really count as a private space."
Peter jumped nearly a foot in the air, spinning around while clutching his suit top to his chest. His spider-sense hadn't offered so much as a whisper. Because she wasn't technically a threat, his early-warning system had completely ignored her.
Felicia sat casually on the edge of the roof's parapet wall, her legs swinging over the alleyway below. She had already changed into her skin-tight Black Cat leather.
"I am entirely sure you weren't sitting there when I took my pants off," Peter said, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Who knew a boy could take longer to get dressed than a girl?" Felicia laughed, leaning back on her hands. "Nice abs, by the way."
"I'll take the compliment," Peter muttered, quickly pulling the mask over his face and snapping his web-shooters onto his wrists.
Felicia stood up, stretching her arms above her head. "It's going to take me way too long to parkour across town. Mind giving me a lift?"
Peter walked to the ledge, firing a test line into the masonry of the adjacent building. "Assuming you don't mind me grabbing your waist..."
"I don't mind at all," she purred, stepping right into his personal space.
Spider-Man wrapped his arm tightly around the Black Cat's waist and stepped off the roof, plunging into the concrete canyon before firing a web-line that violently snapped their momentum forward. They swung high over the midday traffic, charting a direct course for Viper Security.
"So, the plan," Felicia shouted over the rushing wind. "The big guy causes a massive ruckus, and we slip in the back to rescue all the poor souls they're using for human experiments?"
"Luke Cage isn't just a guy with super strength," Spider-Man called back, banking hard around a glass office tower. "They're the Defenders of New York."
Peter tightened his grip as they crested the arc of the swing. He couldn't help but realize that if he didn't keep his guard up, he was going to end up wrapped entirely around the Black Cat's little finger.
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