TW: mentions of death, mentions of trauma.

Y/N's P.O.V

"So, who's this new man in your life that we're hearing all about?" Liam smirked, making me chuckle and shake my head as I leant against his desk, looking at him and Robbie.

"He's my best friend from high school. We got back in touch a few months ago." I nodded.

"It's always the best friend from high school." Robbie teased, making me playfully roll my eyes.

"The main thing is, does he make you happy? Because you know that we have to crack some heads if he doesn't." Liam joked, making me laugh again as both boys cracked their knuckles.

"There's no danger there. I've been the happiest that I've been in a long time, because of him." I admitted as I looked down and bit my lip.

"Ohh. Is Y/N...in love?" Robbie gasped dramatically. I looked at them.

"Maybe, I don't know. I know that I love him, but it's too early to say yet if I'm in love with him." I chuckled, making both boys raise their eyebrows at me.

"In other news, have you guys seen that Spider-Man is back?" Liam asked.

"Don't let Mr Jameson hear you celebrate that, he's furious about it." I sighed.

"Where did he even go? I mean, five years is a very long sabbatical." Robbie chuckled. I shrugged and tried to maintain my ignorant stance.

"I don't know. Maybe he had shit to sort out." I fake-theorised, making both boys nod at my theory.

"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" our eyes widened as four men walked into the office and fired their machine guns into the ceiling, making us all scream and get down quickly.

"Woah, woah, what the fuck is going on?!" Mr Jameson exclaimed as he ran out of his office.

"Shut the fuck up, do as we say, and no one will get hurt. We're here for Y/N Y/L/N." my eyes widened as one of the gunmen uttered my name. I choked, my heart virtually stopping as I looked at Robbie and Liam to see them looking equally as shocked.

"She's over there! Take her, just leave us alone!" Mr Jameson yelled as he pointed at me. My eyes widened further as the gunmen rushed towards me.

"Oh, you asshole." Liam spat at Mr Jameson as the men rushed to us.

"Get the fuck off of me." I snapped, struggling against the men as they grabbed me and hauled me up.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch. Do as we say, and you'll go back to your pathetic little life at the end of the day." He returned as he pushed me into Mr Jameson's office.

"What's more pathetic than taking hostages at a fucking newspaper?" I mocked. The gunman scowled before throwing me down onto the carpet, making me groan as I landed harshly. I looked up at him.

"What the fuck do you even want from me?" I spat.

"Let's just say that we have creative differences. So, you're going to rewrite the article in which you said that Queens would be better off with Spider-Man." He nodded. My eyes widened.

"That's what this is about? Are you fucking crazy, I wrote that article half a year ago." I scoffed.

"And then Spider-Man shows up again, after five years. After your article. Hardly a fucking coincidence." He spat.

"Oh, it most definitely was." I nodded.

"Are you going to do it? Or am I putting a bullet into your head?" he snapped as he raised his gun and pointed it at me. I gulped, my heart jumping and my anxiety shooting up at the gun being held so close to me. I sighed and stood up before lowering my shaking hands to Mr Jameson's computer.

"Come on, Peter." I whispered, my head just about reassuring the rest of me with the knowledge that he'd show up at any moment.

My fingers danced against the keyboard, finishing the article that the gunman had demanded that I change as he stood next to me, gun poised to shoot me at any moment.

"Done." I mumbled as I stood up straight. Suddenly, a window in the main office shattered and Peter flew through it in his Spider-Man suit, making people scream as he landed. My lips curled into a smile.

"You guys are meant to be in the newspaper, not writing it." Peter teased as he immediately used his webs to snatch the gun from one of the men. He pulled on it, making the second gunman groan as the gun collided with his face. I screamed as the gunman who was with me took the opportunity of Peter being distracted to grab me and put the gun to my head as he led me into the main office. Peter knocked down the other two men before looking at me. His white eyes widened.

"Fuck." He gulped.

"I'm getting out of here, Spider-Man, and you're going to let me. If you try to follow me, the girl dies." He spat, making me wince as he started to pull me along. I gulped and looked into Peter's eyes as the man pulled me along.

"You're going to be okay, Y/- I mean, ma'am." He stuttered.

"I know." I reassured, forcing a smile onto my lips as the gunman opened the door to the stairs and shoved me through. Small groans left my lips as I continued to try and get out of the man's grip, but to no avail.

"Tell me something. What were you hoping to achieve by making me rewrite the article?" I spat as he wrestled me up the stairs and to the roof.

"Isn't it obvious? These past years without Spider-Man have been amazing. I can't tell you how much money I've made from thefts and robbing banks, all because no one has been there to stop me. Then suddenly, some stupid bitch form Queens' most read newspaper writes an article about Spider-Man and he comes back again six months later, after years of silence? No. Your new article is the start of us getting rid of him again." He explained, making me yelp as he opened the door to the roof and shoved me onto the top of the building.

"You can't seriously think that one article from some reporter made him come back." I scoffed.

"I do, actually. Because we've been watching you, Miss Y/L/N. We know who you are, and we know who he is." He nodded. My eyes widened, my heart plummeting at his words. What the fuck did he mean by that? Nothing good, that was for sure.

"What are you talking about? I gulped and tried to continue pleading fake ignorance. His lips curled into a sickening smirk as he looked at me.

"You'll see." He nodded.

"I hate to break up this party, but, you know, you do have a hostage." I cried out again as the gunman tightly wrapped his arm around my neck, keeping me against his body as he spun around so that we were facing Peter.

"Now, are we going to do this the easy way, where I take the girl back and hand you into police without any trouble, or the hard way, where I have to push you off of the roof, and web you to the side of this building for the entirety of Queens to see so that I can get the girl to safety?" Peter asked, putting his hands on his hips as he waited for the answer.

"Go fuck yourself, Spider-Man." The man spat before starting to lean us back over the edge of the building. My eyes widened, as did Peter's white ones as we both realised what was about to happen.

"Y/N!" he yelled as he sprinted for me. I screamed out as the man's body leaning back sent us both over the edge. But just before I could fall, Peter's hand grabbed mine and pulled me back onto the concrete before firing a web at the man so that he fell but quickly attached to the side of the building. I sighed in relief, letting Peter wrap his arms around my waist as I hugged him tightly.

"Thank you, Pete. Fuck me, I thought that I was about to nearly die." I gulped.

"You know that I'll always catch you." He reassured. I sighed and gave him a small smile, but it disappeared as I remembered what the gunman had said.

"Y/N, what's wrong?" Peter asked, making me look into his eyes as he cupped my cheek with his spandex-covered hand. I sighed and bit my lip.

"The man said that he knew who I was, said that he knew who you were, and alluded to knowing that there's a connection between us." I admitted. Peter's white eyes widened slightly and he looked over the edge of the building, at the man who was still hanging to the side of the building by Peter's webs.

"I'm sure that he just said it to scare you, I'm sure that he didn't mean anything by it." He shrugged.

"I don't know, Pete. Something very specific to say in the name of scaring me." I gulped. He sighed and looked at the man again.

"At any rate, that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you're safe. Come on, let's get you off of the roof." he nodded. I returned it, though my mind was still racing with questions and butterflies of anxiety were still fluttering in my stomach at the idea that there was something deeper going on than just some thugs wanting Peter dead for the sake of profit. The question was if we'd figure out what that was in time.

I sat at the island in my kitchen, my eyes glued to my screen as I tried to finish my most recent article for work. Though my mind was more preoccupied with what had happened with the thugs, and more specifically, what they'd said. I sighed and bit my lip, my mind racing as I replayed the words that the thug had spoken. We've been watching you, Miss Y/L/N. We know who you are, and we know who he is. His words carried big implications, including that they knew exactly who it was underneath the mask. Meaning that they knew who Peter was, and that was very fucking bad. I gulped and closed my work down, knowing that I wouldn't be able to focus again until I had answers as I got Google up. I bit my lip, my fingers hovering over the keys but refusing to press down just yet as I debated whether or not this was a good idea. After all, doing this, whilst important, would trigger my own trauma. I knew that I had to do it, though. I took a deep breath and started to type, the words 'Sixteen-year-old Queens girl Michelle Jones killed by thugs' making their way into the search bar. I took one last deep breath before clicking 'enter'. Immediately, my screen filled with dozens of articles from when MJ had been killed, each title more click-baity and outrageous than the last. I scanned my eyes across them, the titles ranging from simple enough 'Queens girl killed when school bus attacked' to 'Shock as Spider-Man fails to save girl from home turf'. I clicked onto one, my eyes darting around the screen as I started to read the article. I bit my lip and desperately tried not to cry at the fact that every article was like reliving seeing my best friend die, but I knew that I had to do my research if Peter and I were going to figure out who the thugs who had taken and threatened me were. My eyebrows furrowed, my heart starting to thump more harshly in my chest as I read one of the sentences:

The men arrested in connection with Michelle Jones' death and Y/N Y/L/N's kidnapping were Aaron Tucker and Leo Davis. The two men were out on parole for unrelated crimes when the incident took place, and are thought to have long standing connections with infamous criminal and recognised supervillain,-.

The article cut off, making me groan as I saw the ever-more-annoying 'pay ten dollars for the full story' button. I rolled my eyes and sat back, though I sighed as I continued to stare at the screen.

"Hey, babe." I looked over my shoulder and gave Peter a small smile as he walked towards me.

"Hey." I sighed again as he hung his arms over my shoulders from behind. He leant down and pressed his lips to my head, though he slowly pulled away as his eyes saw what was on my laptop screen.

"What are you doing, baby...?" He asked slowly. I shook my head and bit my lip.

"Torturing myself, apparently. I don't know, Pete, just, something feels off with what happened at work today. The thugs coming to take me, and then claiming to know who I was and who you were. It really didn't sit right with me, and I can't shake the idea that they could be linked to MJ's death. So, I googled the article written after she died, and saw this." I nodded as I pointed to the sentence that had intrigued me. Peter looked over my shoulder at the page, his eyebrows furrowing the more that he read.

"Huh. Weird that they make you pay to find out who the supervillain is." He mumbled.

"It's what tabloids do, but yeah. Whoever the guys were who took MJ and I, they knew someone who's been fought by a superhero in the past, possibly you. And what the thug said today, I don't know. It just really rattled me, and honestly made me think that they're the same people. It's been almost six years, but I don't think that they're done with us yet." I shook my head. Peter nodded and stared at the screen, his still furrowed eyebrows and expression made from stone telling me that he was getting just as concerned as I was.

"You're right, this is all too suspicious, especially how much of a problem they had when I came back. It feels like something deeper is going on here." He spoke.

"I think so too. The fun part is trying to figure out what that is." I nodded, making him sigh and return it as he continued to look at the screen.