Chapter 50: Peter Parker Walks Straight Out of the Tutorial Zone and Into a Boss-Level Flirt
My name is Peter Parker. I graduated from high school not long ago.
After graduation I took a part-time job at the Daily Bugle. The pay wasn't great and the editor made a point of getting his money's worth out of every hour I was there.
And then yesterday evening, an unwelcome notification arrived.
He fired me.
The stated reason was cost reduction and operational efficiency. Rational restructuring.
No income. Back to looking for work. On top of everything else.
People hear the name Spider-Man and they think street hero, neighborhood protector, whatever else the papers say. But the moment that suit comes off, I'm just another person worrying about rent. An ordinary person who stutters when he tries to talk to a girl he likes.
Today, though, might be the exception.
This morning I helped a woman being hassled by some guys outside a corner store. Turned out she was Matthew Lawrence's assistant. After we talked for a bit, Ms. Eleanor Ross offered me a job on the spot.
Eight hours a day. Fifty dollars an hour. Part-time schedule, worked around whatever else I have going on. The company covers meals during shifts, overtime gets paid, and there's a commuting allowance.
But the thing that actually got to me was the company dorm.
Clean hallways. Private shower. Utilities included. Compared to what I'm currently paying for, this place was on another planet.
Ms. Ross also mentioned that if I performed well, the compensation would keep going up. Long-term, housing allocation and a six-figure annual salary were described as realistic targets.
The moment I let myself imagine what that life would look like, I felt something I had not felt in a long time. Something like momentum.
And with a job like this, I finally have something worth saying to Mary Jane.
Peter Parker was standing in the Umbrella lobby, holding the freshly-issued work uniform against his chest, trying to contain his expression, when someone addressed him from nearby.
"Peter Parker?"
A woman stepped out of the passing foot traffic and stopped in front of him.
Peter looked up.
His gaze did not travel where it was directed immediately. His enhanced senses, the ones he had not asked for and had been working around for some time, registered the situation in full before his brain finished processing the appropriate response. He corrected himself after a second or two and met her eyes.
"Hi. Yes, that's me."
"Hi Peter. I'm Angela Hill. I'll be your team leader here." She gave him a warm smile. "Mr. Lawrence specifically asked me to look after you. So if you have questions about anything while you're getting settled, just come find me."
"Got it. Thank you."
They stepped into the elevator together.
The doors closed.
The lobby's background noise disappeared.
They were the only two people in there.
The ride up produced the particular kind of silence that enclosed spaces produce when neither person wants to be the first to speak. Peter was aware of the faint scent of her perfume in the enclosed air with the heightened sensitivity of someone whose every sense had been remapped by a radioactive spider bite. His enhanced senses were, in this specific context, not helping him think clearly.
He had very limited experience with this kind of proximity. The girl he'd been carrying feelings for since before he had any clear understanding of what feelings were had spent years treating him like a fish she was keeping in reserve. You could not say they were close.
"Peter." Angela broke the silence pleasantly. "Where did you graduate from?"
Peter came back from wherever he'd been. "Midtown High School."
Her expression shifted into something that looked like a genuine surprise.
"That's where I graduated too. Five years before you." She turned toward him slightly. "We're alumni. Small world."
"Really?" The knot in his chest loosened by a degree. "That is a coincidence."
By the time the elevator opened, Peter felt considerably less like he was being processed.
Angela led him to a workstation that had been organized in advance. Clean desk, everything in order.
"This is your spot. I tidied it up earlier. Decent enough?"
Peter looked at the desk, then briefly at Angela, who was standing beside him with the particular quality of warmth that made people feel noticed rather than assessed. He was not used to this. In school he had been the quiet one, the one people walked past or occasionally made a point of walking past loudly. The girl he liked had barely acknowledged him. He had built his sense of himself around the assumption that he was mostly invisible to people, especially people in this particular demographic.
He was aware that all of this was running through his head over a tidy desk and a small kindness, and that this was a lot to assign to a tidy desk and a small kindness.
"It's great. Really. Thank you."
"Stop holding the uniform." Angela nodded toward the far end of the floor. "Bathroom's around the corner. Go change. When you're back I'll walk you through the actual work."
Peter went and changed.
When he returned, Angela was sitting at the workstation directly next to his.
"You're... right there?"
"I'm a team leader, not a department head. I don't get my own office." She looked at him with the particular amusement of someone enjoying his reaction. "Is that a problem?"
"No. No. I just..." Peter made a gesture that did not resolve into a complete sentence.
Angela stood.
"Before we start, one thing." She stepped toward him, reached up with both hands, and straightened the tie at his collar, which had been sitting at an angle.
Her face was very close.
The warmth from her breath crossed the few inches of air between them and reached his chin.
Peter Parker went entirely still. Something approximately the color of a fire alarm visited his face at high speed.
Angela noted this with the internal satisfaction of someone who had found something exactly where they expected it.
She kept her expression neutral, returned to her seat, and began explaining the work.
Angela did not particularly need to understand why Mr. Lawrence had asked her to make this specific person feel sufficiently welcome that he'd be reluctant to leave. It was not her business to understand. She had been given an objective and she was meeting it.
Also, she privately admitted, there was something genuinely enjoyable about the situation. A person this straightforwardly, sincerely flustered was not something you encountered in this line of work.
She allowed herself one internal observation before returning her full attention to the job.
Peter Parker, she thought with some satisfaction. You just walked out of a beginner's zone and straight into the final boss.
Meanwhile, the target of this assessment was cycling through what had been, in approximately the past fifteen minutes, an inventory of his blessings.
Mr. Lawrence, Peter thought with great sincerity, for giving me this job. I genuinely cannot thank you enough.
Ms. Ross, for introducing me to this company. Words fall short.
Without the two of you, I might have lived my entire life without knowing that a person like Angela Hill existed.
[System: +2,000 points. Peter Parker is profoundly grateful for the employment opportunity you have provided.]
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