𝐝𝐞𝐣𝐚 𝐯𝐮, peter parker

xxxiii. almost had it all?

chapter thirty-three
almost had it all?

    PETER HAD barely any time to comprehend before the Black Cat sprung her attack. For some reason, the same senses that told him to dodge a bullet (or that there was a huge ass spacecraft in the sky) didn't seem to register enough to allow him to dodge the swipe her claws took. He was only glad his suit was made of metal, otherwise he'd be in a far different position afterwards. They sparked, raking across his chest and making his breath hitch in realisation.

    He managed to scramble back away from the second swipe, eyeing those claws that glinted like daggers.

    He didn't understand many things about this situation. 

    He didn't understand━first of all━what he stole from Felicia to have her so claws out (pun intended) at him right now. Second, he didn't understand what had made her so vicious. She was always a forward person, with strong opinions and an even stronger resilience and stamina━and while she intimidated him in school, she was never vicious. This desperate, dark side didn't make sense.

    But what he didn't understand the most, was what she was doing here.

    Felicia didn't Blip. That's what he was told. That was what Nina told him, what she was told. She didn't Blip, and survived the next five years, getting older while the rest of them were stuck in an intermission that felt less than five seconds. They searched for her. Nina called her best friend constantly, visited her mother's apartment only to find it empty, Peter searched as Spider-Man━they went looking for Felicia, but she might've been nothing more than a ghost. She didn't want to be found, and that hurt Nina━made her crumble, and if Peter wasn't so confused as to why Felicia seemed to be his age, having not grown older by a day (as if she had Blipped after all), he would be angry. Because if she did Blip, he couldn't understand why she hadn't come back.

    "Whoa, hey!" Peter dodged another strike, twisting his back over into a flip to gather some distance between him and the Black Cat. "Hold on! I don't know what you're even talking about."

    "Aw, don't play dumb for me," Black Cat caught him by surprise yet again, swinging her leg in a perfect arc that struck Peter right across the jaw. He let out a grunt of pain, hitting the concrete of the complex roof. "Believe me, it's not a good look. Neither is stealing," she smirked behind her mask, "trust me, Spider━" she darted away before he could get a grab at her, pushing himself back onto his feet. Felicia grabbed the drainage pipe locked down the roof entrance, holding onto it like she was a spider herself, "━it only works for the best of us."

    He really didn't want to hit a girl, nor did he want to hit his crush's ex-best friend, but Peter was beginning to get a feeling he might have no choice in the matter.

    "How about we have a nice long talk about this?" Spider-Man squared his shoulders and his footing, getting ready. "I'm sure there's all been some misunderstanding. Could be someone else, I am hard to recognise. You know, some people even forget the hyphen. Don't think I can't hear it, there's like this little gap between Spider and Man when people say it right."

    "Huh, funny━" Black Cat leapt off the side of the building, right over Spider-Man's head. Her feet landed on his back, using it like a spring board. He hit the ground yet again, face first. "Almost makes me want to go on that date you just asked."