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Chapter 17 — The Outing
Saturday dawned soft and gold over Queens, and the Parker kitchen already smelled like toast and optimism.
"Peter left early," Aunt May said as she set a steaming glass beside Sylas.
"Which is good. Fresh air. Friends. And you," she added, tapping the rim of the milk like it might scold him if he refused, "are drinking this. It helps you grow."
Sylas grinned around the mug. "I'm five-ten."
"Then it helps you grow up," she said, unbothered. "Food first, heroics later."
He didn't argue, May had that way of turning nagging into a hug, Across from him, the second chair sat empty.
Ben had ducked out for errands, and the house felt a size too big without Peter chattering at it.
"You boys look stronger lately," May noted, eyeing him with something between pride and suspicion. "Gym class finally working?"
"Must be all the… uhh… vitamins."
"Eat," she said, but she was smiling.
He gulped half the milk, set the glass down. "I'm heading out too today. Might be late."
May brightened immediately. "Good! Go, laugh, be sixteen while it lasts."
"Need some cash?"
"I'm good," he said, meaning it, The Shadow Dominion's vault was… comfortable. "I'll text if plans change."
He finished breakfast, kissed her cheek, and slid into his sneakers. "See you, Aunt May."
"Be safe," she called after him. "And hydrate!"
The door shut. The neighborhood yawned awake.
---
Old Bench, New Day
The park had that just-washed gleam to it the grass still jeweled with dew, the fountain gossiping to itself.
Sylas cut through the shade toward the long bench where they'd agreed to meet and blinked in surprise.
Missy was already there, legs crossed, sun painting copper through her hair.
"Morning," she said, standing. The white shirt, the pale denim, the easy confidence she looked like an ad for summer.
"You're early," he said. "I thought I had the monopoly on punctuality this week."
She wrinkled her nose. "Your reputation precedes you, Mister Habitual 'I'm Almost There.' I decided to test physics and arrive before you."
"Ladies' privilege," he said, hands raised in surrender. Then, because it was true: "You look great."
Color dusted her cheeks. "Thank you. Come on. We've got a full day."
Two suited drivers waited by the curb, cellophane-crisp and anonymous. Missy slid into the backseat; Sylas followed, suddenly unsure where to put his hands in the presence of people who likely ironed their souls.
He went for small talk. "So, weekend agenda?"
"Question first," she said, opening her bag and pulling out a folded newspaper. "Have you kept up with the news?"
"Which part?" he asked. "Tony Stark outing himself again or—"
"Not Stark." She passed him the paper, tapping the front page. "This."
OSCORP ANNOUNCES BREAKTHROUGH GENE THERAPY — 'A CURE FOR EVERYTHING'
Sylas's grin cooled a few degrees. Oscorp, always a coin flip between miracle and nightmare.
Missy watched his face. "I'm not anti-science. I'm anti-using-people-as-lab-rats."
"Same," he said. "If a fix needs a sacrifice, it's not a fix."
She flipped the page. "There's more."
He scanned the lower fold and felt his stomach tighten. Underground Black Market Raid Dozens Dead or Injured.
Blurry stills captured shadow and chaos; someone had found and leaked footage no one should've had the guts or stupidity to record.
Descriptions were useless: "male, about five-ten, black gear, masked," but the words WANTED FOR QUESTIONING sat bold as a brand.
He kept his expression bland. "People love conspiracies."
Missy nodded, lips pressed. "Sometimes the conspiracies love them back."
He set the paper in his lap and froze at a tiny box jammed into the bottom corner of the page like an afterthought.
MYSTERY 'SPIDER' SAVES ELDERLY PEDESTRIAN — TRUCK CRASHES, DRIVER STABLE
Three lines, no photo, and the kind of tone newspapers used when they couldn't decide between mockery and awe.
A red-suited blur had reportedly grabbed a man out of a crosswalk; the truck veered into a closed restaurant. Miraculously, no one died.
Sylas smiled 'Nice'
---
Across the River — A Rooftop Brag
On a squat building not far away, Peter stood on a water tower catwalk and held the paper up to the sun like it was holy.
"Yes!" he crowed to the pigeons. "Front page, well, corner, but still front page! Spider-Man!"
His echo came back three seconds later and he high-fived it anyway. Then the grin faded and he tucked the paper away.
"Okay. Less truck crashing next time," he told the city. "More saving, less breaking."
He swung off, already looking for chances to prove it.
---
"So?" Missy asked. "Thoughts?"
"On Oscorp: big promises, bigger warning label," Sylas said. "On masked vigilantes and leaked videos: welcome to New York."
"Translation: sit down, shut up, and let the boardrooms eat each other."
"Translation: some fights happen above our pay grade," Sylas said lightly. "We can still do something down here."
"Like what?"
"Like… be decent to the people in front of us," he said. "And not post crime footage for clout."
Her mouth kicked up. "Look at you, Mr. Ethics."
"Please don't tell anyone," he said. "I have a reputation."
They let the conversation drift after that. Missy teased him about his chronic lateness; he clowned about her secret billionaire princess energy.
Between the jokes, the car ate strip after strip of manicured boulevard until the driver eased to a stop at a set of gates that screamed old money without using words.
Sylas peered out the window, Green, A lot of green, and flags.
"Is this…"
"Yup." Missy's eyes sparkled. "Welcome to my not-so-secret plan."
A golf course spread in perfect arcs of fairway and sand, as orderly as a math problem and twice as smug. A pair of clubhouse attendants straightened at the sight of Missy, the way people did around people whose parents could buy their businesses for fun.
"I've never—" Sylas began.
"I know," she said. "That's why I'm teaching you."
He raised an eyebrow. "This doesn't secretly end in a polo shirt and a loan application, does it?"
She laughed and leaned closer. "You wanna hear the real reason?"
"Always."
"My dad said—and I quote—'I won't stop you from dating him, but if that boy wants to be my daughter's boyfriend, he has to beat me at golf.'"
Sylas stared, then grinned slowly. "That's either adorable or diabolical."
"Both," she said sweetly. "He's a menace with a nine-iron, but I've watched him for years. He has told. You're a quick study. Give me some weekends and I'll turn you into a problem he didn't plan for."
He looked out at the sunlit course, at the flags nodding like they were in on the joke. "So… this is Rocky training. If Rocky wore soft spikes."
"Exactly." She plucked a driver from a bag, the cost of a used car, and brandished it like Excalibur. "Lesson one: don't swing like you're fighting the course. You and the ball are… collaborators."
"Do collaborators bleed?"
"Only your ego," she said, handing him a glove. "Left hand. Then show me your stance."
He obeyed, awkward at first, feet wrong, shoulders wrong, grip painfully wrong. She corrected each piece with patient taps a nudge at the elbow, a gentle push at the hip, a fingertip rolling his knuckles into place.
"Head still. Eyes here, Slow back, Smooth through."
He took a breath, let the world tighten to a white dimpled dot… and swung.
Thwack.
The ball leaped, rode the air like it remembered it had wings, and landed shy but straight down the fairway.
Missy clapped, delighted. "Okay, prodigy."
"Beginner's luck," he said, stunned and pleased.
"Or you're coachable," she said. "Which, as it happens, I like."
They hit through a bucket, then another. He learned when to trust his hands and when to shut his brain up; she learned he was less swagger than sarcasm and more sincerity than he let on.
Between swings, they swapped little truths: favorite movies, worst cafeteria lunches, teachers who were ninjas disguised as bored adults.
When he chunked a shot into a bunker and swore under his breath, she bumped his shoulder. "Relax. Sand is just… inconvenient beach."
"Beach tries to drown you."
"Then be taller," she said. "Back foot. Open the face. Commit."
He did, The ball popped and floated out, kissed the fringe, rolled to a stop three feet from the cup.
"You're kidding," he said.
"I'm not," she said proudly. "See? Coachable."
He glanced at her, at the heat in her smile, and wondered how long he'd been starving without realizing it.
They took a break in the shade of the clubhouse patio, lemonade sweating down the glass like it had somewhere better to be.
Missy pulled her phone; Sylas pretended his wasn't vibrating with shadow-network pings about the leaked black-market video going viral.
She slid the folded paper back across the table, finger tapping the wanted blurb again. "You think the guy in black is a monster?"
Sylas held her gaze. "I think monsters don't call the cops on the operations they wreck."
She tilted her head. "You say that like you know."
"I say that like I read," he deflected, and took a drink.
He did know. He also knew the cameras he'd missed were an amateur miracle; real operators didn't record crimes unless they had a death wish.
Someone had wanted that footage out. Someone wanted a masked boogeyman trending.
Fine, let them trend him. He could wear ten faces if he needed.
His eyes flicked to the corner box again, to the red blur with the big heart and the messy collateral. Keep your head up, Pete, he thought. Learn fast. The city doesn't forgive slow.
---
Meanwhile: The City's New Favorite Whisper
Somewhere in Manhattan, Spider-Man tossed a web and swung between two sun-splashed towers, heat lifting off the asphalt below. He stuck to a ledge to read the little article again just to be sure it was real then tucked it away, cheeks aching from the grin he couldn't kill.
A cabbie leaned out his window and shouted, "Hey, Spidey! Try not to wreck any more restaurants!"
"Working on it!" Peter called back, mortified and secretly thrilled.
He fired a line, launched, and the city caught him like it always would if he learned how to treat it right.
---
By late afternoon, Sylas's swing had gone from "mugging the ball" to "almost respectable."
Missy watched him line up one last shot on a short par-three and folded her arms, pretending to be stern.
"This is the audition," she said. "Imagine my dad's smirk, Erase it."
He laughed, settled in, and swung. The ball flew straight, hopped, and spun to a stop an arm's length from the flag.
Missy whooped. "That smug smile? Gone."
"Remind me again why I'm signing up to duel your father in his natural habitat?"
"Because you like me," she said, so matter-of-fact it took his breath. "And because you're brave enough to say yes to ridiculous things."
He looked at the cup, at the line between where he'd been and where he was going, and nodded. "Then line up the rematch, Coach."
"After a few more lessons," she said, standing and tipping her cap, "we'll wreck his leaderboard."
"Responsibly," he said. "Minimal collateral."
"Minimal," she agreed, smiling in a way that felt like it could restart hearts.
They walked back toward the car, the course behind them humming like a satisfied machine.
Somewhere, Oscorp's lab lights burned later than they should. Somewhere else, a video of a shadow in a black mask ticked upward in views and speculation.
And somewhere between all of it, two brothers were growing into the shapes the city would require of them one in red and blue, public and loud; one in black and quiet, teeth bared only when necessary.
For now, though, Queens had a simple headline:
Boy meets girl, Girl brings clubs, Boy learns fast.
The rest could wait until Monday.
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