Oblivion - Peter Parker

Chapter One

There were worse ways to make money, I reminded myself as I ducked again. Duck, duck, uppercut. I could've been working in one of those fast food joints where everyone is severely underpaid for the shit they put up with. Duck, duck, uppercut. Or I could've been stuck in a stifling office, getting coffee for assholes and never living up to my full potential. Duck, duck, uppercut.

How had the bosses not yet caught onto my fighting style? It was a simple sequence, more of a performance than an actual fight. I didn't need to do the fighting; I could wipe out any of my opponents with nothing more than a blink. My own boss grinned at me and I took it as my cue to begin.

Duck, duck, uppercut, left hook and blink. My opponent was on the floor, groaning, and I let a wicked grin cross my face. "I told you not to take this fight."

"And I told you," he started in a thick Russian accent. "I told you..." But he trailed off, the words falling from his tongue before he could project them. His bloodied head fell to the side and his eyes closed. For a moment, I thought I really had killed him. But then his chest began steadily rising and falling. Thank God.

The buzzer sounded just outside of the fighting ring and the Russian's boss ran in. He looked at his man, bloodied and laying on the floor, and then at me. At first, his face was set in a hard glare. But then it twisted into something like I was a kid who was in desperate need of help. Well, he wasn't far off, at least. "Say, how would you like to make more money than you could ever dream of, kid?" He asked in a thick Brooklyn accent. It was more for the aesthetic than real.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know, Mr Malach. I dream pretty big." This wasn't the first time he had offered to buy me. And I doubted it would be the last.

A mocking laugh left his lips and he clapped his hand against my shoulder. I barely felt it, like a fly landing on my skin. "I like you, Kid. And with the right management, you could go far. Do you really want to be fightin' under a sandwich shop for the rest of your life?"

The rest of my life. That could've been anywhere between five minutes and eighty years, if I was lucky. I would probably die before I made it out of the rings.

I met my own bosses eye over the top of Malach's head. He had a green wad of cash in his hands, waving it around in front of the other bosses. As soon as I started towards him, he started counting the cash, taking out my small cut. Malach opened his mouth to say one more thing to me, but I walked off, ignoring his final attempts to win me over.

The moment I reached him, my boss handed me the cash. A smaller cut than I was used to. "Mr Waldi," I started as I counted the cash again. This had to be a fucking joke. "Where's the rest of it?"

"You were too slow, kid. I told you to make this quick and clean. It wasn't quick or clean so you've got a smaller cut. Which reminds me, your rent is due today." He held out his hand and I handed over the cash I had just made.

With all of my money gone on rent, I trudged through the basement and climbed the stairs, up into the sandwich shop. I lived in the apartments above the sandwich shop and got a pretty impressive view of Queens. I could see every other sandwich shop and pizzeria in Queens and, if I concentrated, my high school.

High school. Midtown School of Science, to be exact. That was why I had to dodge so much in my fights. If I came in with a black eye, Peter, Ned, Harry and MJ would only worry.

They had no idea what I did for money. They had no idea that I was in a one bedroom (a room that also acted as a bathroom and a kitchen) apartment above where I fought. They had no idea I lived through the Blip.

Yeah, that's right. I lived through the Blip. I was twelve at the time, living in Rochester, England. It was the middle of the school day and Tommy Philips and I were secretly trading Pokemon cards behind the bushes (we both had reputations to uphold). But Tom began turning to dust before I could get my hands on the shiny Charizard he claimed to have (that was a complete lie). Most of the school had been turned to dust. The teachers that remained ushered us home, where I found more piles of dust in my parents favourite chairs. I couldn't touch it; I had to leave it alone until they came home, which they never did.

For a while, I was able to live off of the food we had left in the house. Cold beans for breakfast, eggs for dinner and nothing in between. I was a skinny little thing back then, legs like twigs ready to snap. It was a wonder they didn't snap. After three months of living at home, I had to take whatever money my parents had left for me and go elsewhere. I could stay in that house.

So, I hopped on a plane and flew to New York. My mum had always wanted to move out here. Claimed she had some sort of history. I never understood it. But I used my parents savings and stranded myself in New York.

I had no money for food or shelter. There was nothing I could do but rely on human kindness. Turns out, people are dicks. When I couldn't get any food where I was, I started walking. I walked and walked until I was outside a small sandwich shop in Queens, where the owner was posting a Wanted! Help around the shop - Will pay $3 an hour.

Now, $3 an hour wasn't a lot. It was barely enough to keep me fed. Certainly not enough to stop my curiosity about the fights.

One afternoon, when the shop was particularly quiet, I crept down to the basement and watched my first fight. It was brutal, blood and chipped teeth flying everywhere. But I couldn't look away. These Men, some the sizes of great apes, were beating the shit out of each other for money. I was loving every second of it.

My powers started coming in when I was fourteen. I would wake up behind the bins with a multitude of scratches all over my face. But I didn't think anything of it; I was living in the alleyway behind the sandwich shop, after all. I was using the money I saved to try and get into Midtown School of Science.

I was walking to work, tying my apron around the front, when these boys, no older than me, approached. They pulled at my apron and tried to reach into the front for the change I might've kept there. All I had to do was blink and the two of them were on the ground, scratches covering their faces.

This happened again in the shop. But this time, we were being robbed. I desperately wanted to break the guys arm. I blinked once, twice, and his gun was on the floor, his arm unusable.

One of the bosses, making his way through the shop toward a fight, saw the entire thing unfold. He approached me, offered me a job fighting for him three nights a week in exchanging for a room above the shop and regular meals. I was an idiot if I didn't take it. So, I said yes and began training. Every night after school and during the weekends. We trained until I was bigger than most seventeen year old boys. But I didn't need the training; I had those goddamned powers. I taught myself to control them, to not accidentally rip apart everyone on the street. I got good, Avengers level good.

"Carter!" Someone pounded their fist on the door to my apartment, breaking me out of my trance. "Visitor for you in the shop!"

Huh. I didn't usually get visitors. Most of my family hadn't come back from the Blip and I sure as hell didn't tell any of my friends where I lived (I worried that Peters aunt would offer their apartment to me and Peter would see who I really was, what I could really do.)

Swallowing down the nerves, I trudged towards my apartment door and threw it open. Waldi had a deal with the owner of the sandwich shop and all of his fighters lived above it. Some claimed Waldi was cheating by having us fight in the same ring we trained in. If only they knew how right they were.

Down in the sandwich shop was a blonde man, about as big as I was. I recognised him instantly. My great aunt had pictures of him in her old photo albums, from his days in the war. He tore into a sandwich, the healthiest one the shop had, and scanned the floor.

"That guy," said Clare as he lit his cigarette. That was another thing about the fighters, we only ever used our last names.

Captain America had come to see me. Captain fucking America had come to see me! A teenager from bloody Rochester! This had to be a joke of some kind.

On the off chance that this wasn't a joke, I advanced. I ran my hand through my dirty blond hair and pulled out the chair opposite him. His eyes snapped up from the sandwich as I sat down. And then things got awkward. What were you supposed to say in these situations? I couldn't just stick my hand out and say 'Hey Mr America, how are you today? My great aunt was your dead ex girlfriend.'

No, I had to be smooth about this, sensible.

But Captain America spoke before I did. "Lochlan Carter?" He raised his eyebrows and I found myself nodding. "I'm Steve Rogers and I'm here to offer you a job."