The mask always felt different.
Not Spider-Man's familiar red-and-blue, not the smooth shadow-hugging Dusk mask, not the brooding, almost suffocating intensity of Prodigy—this one was looser, lighter, with an edge of swagger built into it. Ricochet didn't brood. Ricochet didn't agonize over the moral weight of every decision. Ricochet smiled—grinned, really—because that's what people expected a cocky crook-for-hire to do.
Peter knew the mask wasn't just fabric—it was the attitude. Ricochet was a street rat with style, the guy who always had an angle, always knew someone, always had something up his sleeve. If Spider-Man was about hope, Ricochet was about hustle. And tonight, hustle was exactly what he needed to deal with Delilah.
She was leaning against the hood of a black sedan when he found her, arms crossed, expression unreadable except for that faint smirk that told him she was already sizing him up. She wore unusual combat gear—a violet and silver bodysuit, and boots that could break bones. She had the kind of body language that told him she could kill him in under a minute if she wanted to.
"About time," she said, not looking at him as she straightened. "Thought you street punks were faster than this."
Ricochet tipped an imaginary hat. "Sorry, doll. Had to make sure my manicure was dry before I came running to your rescue."
Her smirk twitched. "You think I need rescuing?"
"Oh, I don't think you need it. I think you want it. Big difference."
Delilah shook her head but didn't argue. "I've got a lead. The two freaks—one pale as a corpse, the other built like a tank—have been making the rounds for Black Tarantula. Picking up muscle, moving shipments. Word is they're not subtle about it."
Peter filed away the physical descriptions. He didn't need to pretend ignorance about who they were—he already knew. Bloodscream and Roughhouse. Dangerous on their own, nearly impossible as a team. But Ricochet couldn't sound like a guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of every powered criminal in New York. So he played it cool.
"Sounds like a party. You got a location?"
"Warehouse in the Lower East Side. My contacts say one of them will be there tonight. Big guy—Roughhouse. The pale one? He's a ghost. Shows up, disappears. Creeps people out just by standing in the room."
Peter adjusted his goggles, giving a lazy shrug. "Creepy sells these days. Alright, let's go window-shopping."
The stakeout wasn't glamorous.
They were perched on the roof of an old tenement across from the warehouse, crouched low behind a rusting HVAC unit that groaned every time the wind hit it. Below, trucks came and went, headlights sweeping across cracked asphalt. Men with guns stood at the entrance, each one looking like they'd failed the audition for a bad action movie.
Delilah had binoculars. Ricochet had his enhanced vision and Spider-Sense, though he had to pretend it was just sharp eyes and good instincts.
"See the guy with the red cap?" Delilah murmured.
"Yeah."
"He's a runner. Been in and out three times in the last half hour. He's moving more than just packages."
Peter hummed. "Cash?"
"Maybe. Or drugs."
They fell into silence again, the kind of tense quiet that came from two predators waiting for the right moment. Peter found himself studying Delilah in his peripheral vision—her posture was perfect, her breathing steady. Even at rest, she looked like she was ready to spring into action. He'd fought enough trained killers to recognize the type.
He also recognized something else: she wasn't entirely focused. There was an edge to her, a faint distraction behind the eyes. Maybe still rattled from her encounter with Black Tarantula. He could use that later.
A black van rolled up to the side entrance. The side door slid open, and a figure emerged—tall, thin, and moving with a kind of predatory stillness that made Peter's skin crawl even before his Spider-Sense whispered danger. Bloodscream.
Even from a distance, he looked wrong. His pale skin seemed to drink in the light, and his long fingers twitched like claws at his sides. The guards stepped aside without a word, letting him drag a bound man out of the van. The man was struggling, but weakly—like he'd already been drained.
Delilah's jaw tightened. "That's him. Bloodscream."
"Cheery guy," Ricochet said lightly.
"He's dangerous," she said, tone sharp enough to cut. "You don't let him touch you. Ever."
Peter made a mental note to keep up the act of learning things from her. "And here I thought I was irresistible."
She didn't smile. "I've seen what he does. People don't come back from it."
Bloodscream disappeared inside the warehouse with his prisoner. Delilah shifted, like she was ready to make a move right now.
"Hold it," Ricochet said, holding out a gloved hand.
"You're not seriously suggesting we wait."
"I'm suggesting we don't rush in blind. That guy screams 'trap.'"
"I don't care if it's a trap. I want him."
Peter tilted his head, giving her a slow, lazy grin. "And I want a beach house in Maui, but I'm not charging in to take one."
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't argue. That was good—meant she was willing to listen to reason, even if she didn't like it.
They tailed Bloodscream when he emerged twenty minutes later, moving in the opposite direction from where they expected. Peter kept his distance, letting her take point while he kept his senses wide open.
That's when the world tilted—his Spider-Sense went off like a fire alarm.
"Down!" he hissed, shoving her aside just as a shadow dropped from the roof of a nearby building.
Roughhouse hit the pavement like a meteor, the concrete cracking under his weight.
"Surprise," the Asgardian-descended enforcer rumbled, baring his teeth in a grin that was all malice.
Delilah was on him instantly, fists slamming into his torso with the kind of force that would have put a normal man in the hospital. Roughhouse barely flinched.
Peter didn't have time to watch—Bloodscream had doubled back, moving faster than a human had any right to.
"Well, this just got cozy," Ricochet muttered, flipping backward to avoid those clawed hands.
Bloodscream hissed, a sound like steam escaping from a crack in the earth. "You'll bleed for me, boy."
"Yeah, see, I'm trying to cut back on blood loss. Bad for the complexion, I hear."
The next few minutes were chaos. Delilah fought Roughhouse like a woman possessed, hammering him with every ounce of her superhuman strength. He countered with brute force, shrugging off blows that would have shattered steel beams.
Peter kept Bloodscream occupied, using his agility to stay just out of reach, peppering him with thrown discs—Ricochet's signature weapon—whenever he got too close. He had to keep his rhythm unpredictable; one slip, one misjudged dodge, and Bloodscream would have him.
They were holding their own… barely. But when headlights swept the alley and half a dozen more of Black Tarantula's men piled out of a truck, Peter knew the odds had shifted.
"Party's over, doll!" Ricochet called to Delilah, already moving toward the fire escape.
She didn't like it—he could see the fury in her eyes—but she broke off from Roughhouse and followed. They scrambled up the fire escape and onto the rooftops, vanishing into the shadows as shouts echoed below.
They stopped three blocks away, both breathing hard.
"We've been sold out," Delilah said, not accusing, just stating.
"Wasn't me. I didn't know the plan's details until now so had to be the information guy who tipped you off."
Her eyes narrowed. "Probably, I'll deal with him another day. I don't run from a fight."
"You have to when the fight's unwinnable," Ricochet shot back, then softened it with a grin. "But hey, silver lining—we know where they go when they're not breaking faces."
She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded once. "Fine. You got a plan?"
"I always have a plan. Step one—get a tracker on one of them. Step two—follow the trail and hope they split up. Step three—profit."
Her mouth twitched in something that might have been amusement. "Alright, Ricochet. Let's see if you can actually deliver."
Peter just smiled, the mask hiding the sharper calculation going on beneath. He wasn't just delivering for her—he was here to figure out who Norman used to frame Spider-Man and clear his name.
And if it meant playing the role of the fast-talking crook a little longer… he could live with that.