Chapter 71: Unexpected Offer IV

He was late, he was so late!

Peter was running toward the train station, the vague outlines of his teacher and friends being visible in the distance.

Why the hell did he get the time he was supposed to be there wrong?! He thought he wouldn't have to be there for at least another 5 minutes!

Oh man, Aizawa was gonna kill him!

Damnit, he should've written down the time he had to be there!

"Parker! Why the hell are you late?! We're about to leave!" Aizawa barked just as Peter made it to the group, suitcase in hand and a box in the other.

If he told him why he was late, he'd actually murder him.

"I… had cookies in the oven." Peter chuckled, opening up the box in his hand and showing the freshly baked cookies inside. "I kinda thought I'd be early but I got the time mixed up and I uh… brought some for everyone, worked really hard on them."

Aizawa glared even harder, his friends snickered in the background.

"Why did you bake cookies?" The man growled, Peter letting his friends grab some of the cookies out of the box.

"I wanted to get better at baking! It was an important day so I made important cookies! Got some of you." Peter pointed to the two cookies that looked like a cat, Aizawa scoffing and looking away.

At least before he fished them out and began eating them.

"Whatever… You all have your suitcases, right?" Aizawa asked, getting a nod from his students. "Alright, you may go now, and good luck."

Guess this was it! Peter couldn't help but chuckle a bit as he put the now empty box into his backpack.

His friends hugged, saying how they'd text about their internships before everyone went onto their separate trains.

As he held his suitcase with his MK.2 suit, Peter couldn't help but appreciate the quiet ride that passed.

Seriously, no one bothered him at all! No one recognized his uniform or how he won the sports festival or anything! Peter just had to be thankful for that.

By his guess, it was about an hour before he finally reached Hosu. Peter looked at the directions on his phone as he stepped off the train.

Looking around gave him a small sense of nostalgia, for some reason. Looking at the random food stands and shops and just… everything reminded him of the bustling New York streets.

Hopefully, Hosu was like New York when he got to swinging. Getting used to swinging in different cities was such a pain.

Peter walked through the massive industrial city that was Hosu, making sure to take in its sights and different faces as he made his way to his destination.

Something about it felt… down to earth, he guessed. A good place to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

Quickly, his trip through the city landed him in front of a normal-looking building. No signs or anything like that, just… a regular-looking office building.

Looking at it, the only thing setting it apart would be the purple, gold, and white color scheme it seemed to have going on.

Just in case, Peter rechecked the address on his phone a few more times to see if he was in the right place before taking a deep breath.

This was it! Big moment for him.

Opening the door and stepping through, Peter was only met with a pitch-black lobby.

What?

"Uh, hello?" Peter called into the darkness, not getting a response. "I'm he-"

And just then, his spider-sense began screaming in his ears, pointing him toward some unseen danger in the darkness.

Instinctively, Peter flipped out of the way of an unseen figure crashing onto where he just was. Peter had to roll out of the way of a kick that cracked the floor once his feet hit the ground.

Peter shot a few webs at the silhouette, whoever it was easily ducked out of the way before kneeing him in the face faster than he could react.

First of all, ow .

Second of all, what the actual fuck was happening? Like, what the fuck?!

The boy pushed the figure away as his head spun, quickly turning around and shooting a web at a random table and flinging it at his attacker.

If he was expecting it to actually do anything, it sure didn't.

The shape jumped into the air and smashed the table with an ax kick, sending splinters of wood and making Peter shield his eyes.

He could barely listen to his spider-sense right now! It was just a bunch of noise that drowned out his senses and told him about some danger he already knew was there!

Again, the figure crashed onto the ground and cracked the floor, kicking Peter across the room before he could even react and onto a wall.

Jesus man, he shouldn't have gone on an internship.

God, did his body hurt now.

Peter slid off the wall and onto the floor, the boy trying to bring air back into his lungs as the figure approached him from the darkness.

And then the lights turned on.

He shut his eyes for a second, opening them and letting himself get used to brightness as the figure chuckled and crouched down to meet his eye.

Ruby eyes stared at hazel ones, an amused smirk on her face as her snow-like hair fell in front of her face before she pushed it away.

"Shit, brat! Looks like we have a lot more to get through than I thought! Wasn't expecting you to get so fucked right there!" The woman laughed, Peter couldn't help but groan.

Mirko stood back up, putting a gloved hand on her hip and extending another one out to Peter.

The boy groaned again, taking her hand and stumbling back onto a standing position.

The shorter woman looked up at him and grinned.

"Looks like we got some work to do, huh? Let's get to it, brat!"

A small sigh escaped him at that. Peter rubbed his eyes as he went to pick up his discarded suitcase.

He was so tired.

Maybe he should've stuck with vigilantism.

...

You know, Peter expected a lot of things today. Like, a lot of things.

Wasn't like he knew what he was getting into when he accepted an internship offer from Mirko, the number 7 hero in all of Japan.

Whose whole deal was that she didn't do teams! That and kicking people.

It's not like he could compare notes with her old sidekicks about how she'd be or anything, right?

So, what had he expected? Honestly, he thought he'd go through a receptionist or something and then meet up with Mirko to go do some wacky hero hijinks like stopping bank robbers and getting cats down from trees.

You know, professional hero stuff like that!

But that wasn't what happened.

What did happen was that Mirko beat him up the second he walked through the door.

"Uh…" Peter began, picking up his suitcase and looking over the room, his eyes landing on some of the cracks on the wall and floor.

On the walls were several newspaper clippings and photos depicting Mirko doing hero things, from what looked to be her first villain fight to when she broke into the top ten.

Again, his eyes trailed down to what was left of the table on the ground, wincing as he looked at the splinters.

Breaking a table in her lobby probably left a bad first impression, right? It probably did.

Even if she was the one who kicked it into a million pieces. He wasn't trying to piss off Mirko by pointing that out.

Mirko snorted, looking over the splinters and waving a gloved hand.

"Don't worry about it, kid! What's furniture for if not to spice up a fight, am I right? It's always better when you have shit to throw around!"

Wow, he honestly didn't expect that as an answer! He didn't know what he was expecting anymore, honestly.

All he knew about Mirko was that she was strong, seemed to like dealing with the smaller type stuff like him, that she hated working with others and that she might be a bit crazy.

Given the fact that she was always grinning in every fight she was in, that was probably the case.

How can someone so short be so scary?

All in all, he liked how… similar she was to him when it came to hero work and stuff, you know? And to add to that, they're both acrobatic fighters who bounce all over the place!

Maybe they weren't so different.

"I-I guess?" Peter shrugged, walking over to the shorter woman with his suitcase in hand. "Oh! I'm uh, Peter Parker by the way! You… probably already knew that but… yeah."

Man, who knew working under one of the top ten heroes would make him so awkward? He barely knew what to say right now! Man, he probably looked like an idiot!

"I know who you are, Spider-Boy! Middle school vigilante who got forced to go to UA, right? Might be skipping over your tragic origin story but I don't much care about that shit. C'mon, follow me to the guest room so we can get to work."

The woman began walking down a hall that led deeper into the building, Peter simply following after her.

A small part of him wanted to make conversation, you know? But a more rational part of him said that Mirko was kinda scary so he should be quiet.

As they went up the stairs and onto a second floor, he couldn't help but wonder the same thing he's been wondering about for the last few days.

Why the hell did she send him an offer? Wasn't her whole thing that she didn't do the teams or something? He knew he could learn a lot under her, but that didn't answer his question.

As he followed her through the hallways, Peter couldn't help but notice how every single part of her building had some white, purple, and gold on it.

Guess it was for branding or something.

Along the way, he spotted a few photos with what looked to be a teenage Mirko aggressively playing volleyball and even some of her having a few drinks with what looked to be Hawks and Edgeshot.

Huh, who knew they were friends?

...

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