tryingmybest4

He remembers when suddenly their afternoons in the park or at the library looking at books on astronomy became piling into one of the couple's apartments or the Watson’s condo, pretending not to notice the whispering amongst the adults. He remembers MJ and him continuing to run amok, playing hide and seek in the Watson’s kitchen instead of their favorite playground.  

Peter held a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut tight as he waited for the footsteps to pass. 

“Gotcha!” a voice cried as a little hand reached to lift up the cloth that hid him from sight. A bundle of curly hair ducked down to join him under the table, MJ with a twinkle in her eye and smug smile looked at Peter triumphantly.

 “You cheated!”

 “No, I didn’t-“

“Yes you did! Your eyes were open when you were counting!”

”Nuh uh!”

“YUH-“ Peter’s eyes went wide as MJ slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Shush, I hear…” MJ began to say as Peter noticed heavy footsteps getting closer.

”They aren’t coming here.” He said barely muffled by her hand, only to be shushed again as the steps didn’t pass but instead enter the kitchen.

“Listen Ben, I think you’re going about it wrong-”

”Really I couldn’t tell?” Ben said, knocking on the table as he passed by the fridge.

Richard doesn’t stop, “What if it does run that deep? What if you get caught up in their mess? You’ll get hurt and-” he stopped speaking suddenly. “Peter, Michelle, come out.”

MJ hit Peter with a look far meaner than any six year old should be able to give.

“We can see your iron man shoes, Peter.” Ben said exasperated.  Peter and MJ slowly emerge from the table, “Go play in Michelle's room, yeah?” Richard said, moving to nudge the two out the kitchen.

A month or two later, in the harsh cold of Queens winter, Richard and Mary would drop off Peter with May and Ben.

“We got an important business trip, baby. Real boring adult stuff so you get to stay with May and Ben for the weekend, ok?” Mary said as she fussed with his jacket.  “And bright and early Monday morning we’ll be right back here to pick you up, I promise” she swore, kissing his cheek gently. “Now, why don’t you go ahead and set up in the guest room.”

She lied.

Monday morning came and little Peter was happily eating his Fruit Loops while watching his PBS cartoons when a knock came at the door. Peter leaped off of his chair and dashed to the door only to find Officer Watson and Michelle waiting. Peter's face fell a little before brightening again, “Hi.” 

“Hey, Peter. Is Ben awake yet?”

“I’m right here, Philip.” Ben said, appearing behind Peter. “Peter, go show Michelle the new spoon you got.” 

Peter took Michelle’s hand, dragging her to the kitchen to present the new Iron Man spoon that came with his Fruit Loops. Ben waited for the two to start arguing over who’s spoon was better: Peter’s Iron Man or Michelle’s Captain America before turning his attention to his friend. His friend who was supposed to be working right now, not standing outside his door, “What’s wrong?”

Turned out Philip Watson was in fact working. He was doing his job in informing the last living relatives of Richard and Mary Parker that the couple had passed away in an unfortunate plane crash. 

An unfortunate plane crash that left no survivors.

An unfortunate plane crash that had yet to reach the news.

Ben looked his oldest friend in the face and knew why Philip was the one delivering the news. Not because he was an officer who was available to do so but rather because it was now clear that Richard had been right.

For months Richard had been trying to convince his brother and childhood friend to leave the force like he did. That the corruption ran further down than any of them had imagined. That corruption wasn’t an issue that could be fixed from the inside as they had been so naive to believe when starting this career. 

Now Ben stared at Philip, his brother in everything but blood, and watched as the man who stood up for him his entire life began to cry. Grief and shock began to find home in his stomach as he looked at his friend and distantly heard the giggling of two children. Two children, ignorant to the message that was just sent out to their family. 

Richard Parker tried his best to save his family. First by doing “the right thing” and becoming a police officer. Then by handing in his badge and begging his brothers to do the same. Richard had known something that he wasn’t supposed to. Something that made him turn away. Something that got not only him but his wife and several others killed as mere collateral. 

Of course, Peter didn’t know that then. All six year old Peter was told was that his parents had died in a plane crash and that he would be staying with May and Ben now. 

Peter didn’t understand. He didn’t understand when May and Ben sat him down on the couch and explained it to him. He didn’t understand at the funeral when Michelle refused to leave his side. He didn’t understand until months had passed and suddenly he was no longer just a spectator in his own life. He understood when he looked around his room. Not the guest room, his room. He understood when he noticed how every toy and book he had ever known was now here in May and Ben’s apartment.

Peter was thirteen when he was filled in on the rest and he was thirteen when Uncle Ben died.

Now at sixteen Peter can confidently say somewhere in the mess of all that is when he became what Ned and MJ like to call, “An Overprotective Asshole.”

A sixteen Peter could also confidently say that super strength is… something.

Incredibly valuable when fighting crime, incredibly inconvenient when doing literally anything else.

Peter was proud of how far he’s come since getting his powers, around 80% of the time he had it under control. There were mistakes here and there, for example when May tells him that two vigilantes showed up to tell her that he’s Spider-Man. Let’s say that while this conversation happened Peter was holding a glass of water and reflexively clenched his hands into fists. 

“Don’t move, I’ll be right back.” 

That would result in Peter being surrounded by broken glass and having shards embedded into his hand. 

Peter sighed, let his head fall back and listened as May rummaged through her supplies to find some tweezers. She came back in some busted flip flops and laid out a towel over the mess for him to step to safety. 

“My hero.” he huffed as he waddled over to where she was standing next to the trash can. He held out his hand and she got to work pulling out the glass from his hand. She was one her twelfth piece when Peter asked, “They didn’t hurt you did they?”

“Nope.”

“Threaten you?”

“Nah. Stay here, I'm going to grab my glasses.” 

“Did they mention anyone else?”

“No, but again they may have just decided not to.” May called back from her room. She came back and started to pick at his hand again. “I imagine if they knew more, they wouldn’t tell me after seeing how I responded to you being Spider-Man.”

“Mhm” he let her continue to clean up his hands for a few minutes before he tilted his head, “Your alarm is going off in the other room. Let me grab my jacket.”

May jolted up, “God damn it.” She ran around the house throwing random shit into her purse. “You don’t have to walk me.” She muttered.

Peter didn’t bother answering that nor the fifty variations May muttered as he jogged with her to the hospital. The second he dropped her off he texted Ned and MJ to meet him at the park near MJ’s house. 29 minutes into hanging off the monkey bars, they walked up to him.

“I love you dude but like a little more of a warning would be nice. You know my Lola likes to know when I’m going out ahead of time.” Ned said as he dropped down onto the bench beside the bars, computer in hand. 

“I know, I know. But this is important.” Peter filled them in on May’s meeting. “The fucking audacity on these people. There are criminals all over New York that they could be stopping or therapists they could be seeing but no instead they show up and fuck with my life.” Peter ranted as he paced on the monkey bars. 

Ned looked disturbed as he opened his MacBook, “If you don’t want people to notice your Spider-Man maybe stop walking all over play structures.” -Peter jumped off the bar silently- “They found May, right after you left, right after she got off work?” 

Peter nodded quickly, putting bobble heads across the globe to shame.

“That is perfect timing. Too perfect. Not only do they know you but also where you live and they know your routines.”

Peter turned towards MJ, “I blame you. You said they wouldn’t be able to find me.”

MJ yawned from where she was trying to gain momentum on the swings, “I said that under the assumption that they only had what you told them to go off of. I didn’t think they were going to go digging to find you. What’s important now is figuring out what you’re going to do in response.”

Peter huffed  and started picking at the mulch,“I need to make sure they don’t tell anyone, obviously.”

Ned hummed unconvinced, “In theory, you shouldn’t be worried about that. I mean if they went searching for you to convince you to stop, then I doubt they're going to sell your address to criminals you know. Kinda counterproductive, to do all that and then just bring the fight to you.”

“Can we all agree it’s safe to assume that if Luke and Jessica know, the other two probably do as well?” Peter asked.

“Well I mean, Daredevil was the one to clock you right. He started this whole mess so I doubt he doesn’t know. And then you said Castle seemed to believe it right? I don’t see why they wouldn’t know.” MJ said slowly as if Peter were a stupid five year old, earning herself a fist full of mulch thrown at her head.

Ned clicked his teeth at the,“ Peter stop with the mulch. What we need is to match the energy. We all have our theories about who Daredevil is, but we agreed to leave it alone cause it was the nice thing to do. Right, MJ?”

The girl shrugged while Peter and Ned shared a look, “MJ, how much digging have you done?”

She tilted her head side to side, “I don’t know. Enough to have a couple of leads.”

She had way more than just a couple of leads.

“MJ, what the fuck is this?” Peter breathed out beside a shell shocked Ned.

The trio had found their way to MJ’s condo just a few blocks away from the park to see MJ’s notes on her “couple of leads”. “It’s just a few notebooks.” 

Ned opened the notebook closest to him with the amount of added pages and notecards glued; it was thicker than a textbook. “MJ, there are at least twenty notebooks here.”, he said as he gently moved the wide cardboard box around to get a good estimate.

“Yeah and this is just Box One. Box Two is in the back of my closet with what will be half of Box Three.” MJ huffed hoping on to her bed.

Peter nodded. It was always best to nod whenever MJ was working so aggressively on something. “How can you afford- how long- what are you telling your parents?”

“Dollar tree, since you started Spider-Man-ing, and my parents don’t care, it's my money and the books are surprisingly cheap.” MJ said as if she didn’t just produce enough information to finally put Manhattan’s most notable vigilantes in jail.

Criminal records, sightings, timelines, known powers, suspected powers, allies, enemies, casualties, common fighting patterns, suspected secret identities, civilians whose prescience overlaps with vigilante work; all of it was here. “MJ…” -Peter sighed genuinely tired- “How the fuck did you get all of this?”

”You’d be shocked to find out how much of this is public information.”

Ned rubbed his forehead aggressively, “We agreed to leave it alone.”

”Technically I didn’t agree to shit, you two agreed and I just stood there.” 

Peter thumped his head against her bookcase, repeatedly.

MJ continued,  “Bitch about it later. What’s important is that I am like eighty-three percent sure I know where we can start tracking down Daredevil.”

——-

For the first time in what felt like years, Matt felt like his life was going smoothly. Not good and certainly not great, but nothing terrible was actively happening in his personal life and that was better than nothing.

Now, Matt was self-aware enough to know that because things were looking up, something was bound to happen. 

So when he heard a heartbeat coming from inside his apartment, he was mildly concerned. The heartbeat is fast , too fast to be Jones, too fast to be Luke. Matt takes a breath before stepping  inside, and pulling off his coat, “I didn’t know Spider-Man does house calls.”

“Oh, I- I thought that was the new vigilante custom, my apologies.” Peter Parker said from where he was rummaging around in Matt’s pantry. “Go ahead and call up the rest of your group.”

“It may take them a minute.”

“I have time.”

Having found what smells like the graham crackers Foggy left behind, Peter made himself at home on Matt’s couch, flipping through the channels on the small TV Karen insisted Matt needed.

Matt walks into his room and the sound of plastic packaging being ripped open makes him feel all of his thirty-six years. He liked to think that he was relatively fair to the youth; he wasn't one to get aggravated with Foggy’s cousins and nephews for just existing like other adults do. But Peter’s presence in his apartment was making his blood fucking boil.

He takes a deep breath, ‘It's fine’ he thinks to himself quickly sending off texts to the others. It doesn’t even take twenty seconds for his phone to go off, “How the fuck are you so bad that a teenager can find you, Red?” , the automated voice reads out and it takes all Matt's strength not to throw the damn phone out the window.

Twenty minutes later and everyone is in Matt's living room. Luke is quiet as he takes in just how young the kid looks in real life. Micro had provided a photo but it was a couple years dated, definitely pre-superpowers. In the photo the kid looked scrawny, pale, a mop of brown curly hair on his head and big glasses to match his equally big brown eyes. The kid on Murdock’s couch was clearly the same kid, curly hair and yes the same eyes even with the glare he was shooting Frank. But he was less scrawny, more lean and while the photo wasn’t of him standing, he was clearly much taller than he was before.

…he looks like a teenager, Luke wouldn’t even think twice if he saw him in Harlem. 

“How’d you find me?” Matt finally asks as he tries to take away the flask Jessica starts to pull from her coat.

Peter smacked his lip, “Believe it or not, Micro isn’t the only one who can find people.” Snapping another cracker in half he continued, “I was going to show up to his house to really catch your attention, but he has a family so I decided to be nice.” Peter shrugged as if he was just asked about homework and not the address of someone the authorities couldn’t even track down. 

“Share my location with anyone?” 

The kid had the nerve to shrug again. “Not yet. But if I see any of you near my aunt again, I’ll leak enough information to get all of you sent to the Raft permanently.”

Jessica didn’t even flinch- now pulling out a second flask hidden in her coat much to Matt’s disappointment- “Yeah? And what happens when they decide to throw you in there with us, Spider-Kid?”

The kid's face broke into a genuine smile, all teeth and dimples in view, “I know a guy.”

Frank doesn’t like that at all, “You trying to tell me someone with that much weight in the government knows you’re a kid and has just been sitting on that info? Someone you think you can trust?” He turns to look out to the neon billboard, “Let me tell you kid, they are just waiting to use you. They've been trying to make another Captain America since the guy went in the ice and you think they just let you exist?” 

Peter can practically feel the look Luke and Jessica share. The moment they told Ned about Peter’s ability, he immediately started working on finding all the unreleased info on what exactly happened with the two adults. It looks months to get through all the security, only to find that the scientists were so damn paranoid they didn’t even write their shit down. But even that was enough to know that the two were considered “failed experiments”, closely monitored but quiet enough to let it slide…at least unless Peter decides to point it out. 

“I would love to see them try and stop me.” 

This kid. “You been to the Smithsonian recently?”

The brat starts eating again, “Uh huh.”

“You see what they did to Isaiah Bradley?” 

The kid flinched. Good.

“Paint him like a good soldier, huh? War veteran turned willing lab Guinea pig. You’re smart enough to realize it's bulllshit. Bradley had one of the best records and they still tortured him for thirty years and he doesn’t even have a fraction of your ability.” 

“That’s enough.” Luke said. “You can’t keep doing this. What? Go to school all day, do your homework till it gets dark and then stay up all night roaming the streets? What happens when you get hurt?”

The kid rolled his eyes and started picking at the small tears in Matt's couch, “I have enhanced healings, at most takes me like six hours to get back up to speed. And lets just say I do quit yeah? All the people I save end up getting hurt, everyone knows all the supers are in Manhattan. I am all we've got out here, crime would spike so bad the good cops would be overrun immediately.”

”Their job is to cope with it.” Matt said clearly unamused. 

“Rich coming from you.” Peter said looking at him with the most distinct what-the-fuck look.

”I’m not a minor.”

“Yeah we can tell. Getting real slow with your punches, Daredevil, must be the old age. Also, you all are talking about me, aging to let you handle it. What? Like how you’re handling Fisk?”

The room was silent. Two months into Fisk’s mayorship and the Anti-Vigilante Task Force was in full swing. The citizens were sick of it, everyone was expecting the vigilantes to come back ten ties harder and get those vicious cops off their streets, but it had been practically silent. Except for Queens. The Task Force were in the borough for all of two days before Spider-Man beat the shit out of them for trying to stop him from aiding in a hostage situation. All the hostages were rescued unharmed and the perpetrators were expected to spend five months in the hospital. The Task Force hasn’t stepped into Queens since and Fisk refused to speak on it.

At that point the civilians had been trying to give the vigilantes the benefit of the doubt as to why they weren’t doing anything about Fisk. But for Spider-Man, the newest of the vigilantes to handle the situation quicker than Daredevil? Harlem’s Hero? The Punisher? 

The people of New York aren’t very happy with their vigilantes right now.

“Yeah, exactly.” Peter pointed at Matt “You put him in jail; he got out.” He turned to Frank, “You’re over here judge, jury, executioner and yet when people are being wrongfully convicted and beaten in the streets by the police.” Peter looked around mockingly. “You-” he rounded on Jessica “you aren’t in the streets as much as us bt ou had a pretense underground. Nowadays people got give a fuck, they set up their trafficking rings, blatantly commit crimes and just walk around.” He turned to Luke “…your own community is turning its back on you, on all of you. And you want me to stop? Abandon the people like how you all did? That stupid warehouse was the first time you’ve even sighted in months, years,I-“ he cut himself off.

Yeah, Peter was tired. Sure, it’d be nice to go to school and come home and Ned do homework, sleep, and repeat. But everyday there is someone screaming for help and no response unless Peter shows up. 

“I’m not arguing about this anymore, cause at the end of the day you won't do shit. You’re not going to tell anyone and you’re not going to hurt me. What you are going to do is leave my family alone.” The kid became deadly serious, “I can’t have vigilantes hanging out on the rooftops near my apartment. I can’t have you in my apartment. Can’t have you near my aunt or my friends or Delmar’s or my school or anywhere else. Stay out of Queens, keep my name out your mouths. Because if you harass my aunt or bring people to my home-“ he stopped. 

Jessica has seen a lot of hurt kids. What with work and work. This kid wasn’t all that different. Fist clench, back straight, head down, fair covering his face, voice trembling like he’s physically resisting the urge to lash out. Angry kids were easy to deal with normally, angry kids that could throw her through a wall (probably multiple walls) were not. A quick glance at Frank and Luke told her that they were on the same thought. 

Tori and Teddy are like the heads of the Next Gen. Way before they even became a couple they were the older cousins, they were respected and looked up to by the rest of the Next Gen, their just a power duo.

(I think Tori has like a two to three year distance between her and Dominique, and then I think that Dominique is kind of like the eldest of all the kids. So basically the next gen is Tori and Teddy, no kids born for the next 3 years, then Dominique then everyone else)

Tori and Dominique both grew up heavily in Veela culture. I can’t remember if I’ve said it on the blog or just thought about it alot but I think that they both were sent to Beauxbaton for a couple years for the equivalent of muggle elementary and then transferred to Hogwarts.

I think Tori ( because she is so Veela-like) perhaps got bullied and harassed. I’ve seen a lot of people dive into the implications of being Veela or part-Veela so I won’t get into it too much but Idefinitely think that she had her fair share of just straight bullying. 

Now a little bit of a switch up but stick with me. Imagine with me, that the Weasley family is a fallen noble house (maybe even ancient).

The house fell maybe during the first war or a little prior due to blood supremacy; they were clipped out the pureblood scene when they were just a little too loud. 

Now the house has fallen and post-secondary wars the Wizarding World in Europe is trying to rebuild itself. 

Tori (in my head) would take advantage of that. 

Listen, we've seen the Weasley family kind of get treated like shit because of their relationship with muggleborns and their financial situation and their lack of political influence. In theory if they were to rebuild the house there would be no better time than postsecondary war.

But I don't think that they do. Molly and Arthur are happy just to be with their family. All of the Weasley siblings we know of , except for Percy, are (for lack of a better word) free spirited non-socially conforming people yk. Bill is a curse-breaker, Charlie works with fucking dragons, the twins opened a joke shop and Ginny is a quidditch icon. I doubt they give a fuck about social status in the sense of regaining former political power. Especially because they all seem to have had it kind of easy. I mean yes we know they get comments about their finances and whatever but like…Weasleys are tough as shit, they'll just beat the shit out of you and call it a day.

Percy though is an exception, Percy did want to be in the Ministry. He was attempting to climb the ranks but I think after the war…after Fred’s death, he does not care, at least for the next few years.

I think Tori does care. I can see a world where Tori is getting harassed because she is part-Veela and I mean lets be real there must still be Death eater sympathisers at Hogwarts and Ican only imagine he fucking target the next gen had on their backs. I don't think that it's an issue for the other kids because well they have each other to rely on and the older cousins aka Tori and Teddy who as the eldest set the standard of like hey we are not meant to be fucked with. 

I think Tori and Teddy both faced heavy harassment for being half-blood and fought back. I think the two of them were perpetually in detention simply because they refused to sit there and take it.

I think Tori is bitter because of course this harassment isn’t just little kid petty ignorant bullshit, this expands into the grander political/social scene. Her family is beloved by half the Wizarding community sure, but they are seen as Harry Potter's sidekicks. The other half would kill them if they could get away with it. 

I think Tori looks around and sees that yes the war is over but ignorant purebloods still hold power. They still have their elite clubs and balls and still shoot down laws that could make change, I mean yeah a lot of people died or went to Azkaban but that was just Death Eaters, they are plenty of blood supremacists that couldn’t be convicted because well they haven’t done anything. They just refuse to let half-breeds into any important position of power *shrugs* voting against something isn’t illegal.

In theory the Weasley House could be great and as the eldest Tori is in a position to make it great. 

Tori Weasley looks at the snobby pureblood society and decides I am going to get in there and change it for the better or die trying.

Give me Tori Weasley who in her 5th year walks into Flitwick's office for her consultation on her future career paths with notebooks filled with information on Wizengamot, all the pureblood families, pureblood customs, etiquette, niche traditions, clubs, events, everything. Information on every level and subsection of the Ministry. 

Tori Weasley who works her ass off to be the top student of her year, before because she simply was competitive but as she gets older she is intentionally trying to stomp on every highly-tutored pureblood who thinks they have an advantage. She wants to be the best with no room for discussion and she is.

Give me Percy Weasley who is watching his niece grow up to be a mini him. She always had his tendencies even when she was at Beauxbaton, obsessed with rules and wanting to know everything. She looked up to him. But now, Christmas of her 6th year, 16 year old Tori was like looking in a slightly distorted mirror. She rallied her cousins and siblings, yelling at them if they were too loud or bumped into her, messing up what she was writing.

Percy warned Tori of greed and ambition and how blinding it could be. But Tori just had to respectfully shut him down. Greed? Ambition? Yes, yes she could admit she could find satisfaction in always being right but at the end of the day this wasn’t about her, this wasn’t for her.

This was for the family.

Tori didn’t want a position of power for herself.

She wants to rebuild the House of Weasley into a respectable name, politically, socially, and financially. She wanted to form allies with other like minded Houses like the Abbots, and wanted to formally politically oppose blood supremacy. 

She wanted their seat back in Wizengamot.

As the eldest she had much to gain from this, yes, she would be the head of the family… but she’s always been the head of the family. She gave the generation before her something to fight for during the war, she gave them something to live for after the war, she gave her generation a reputation to use for when they were at Hogwarts so that their years could be easier. And she would be giving all of her success to the next generation as well.

Tori is greedy and ambitious, yes, I mean you definitely won’t see her handing over the position as Head of the family to just anyone but so long as it benefits the family…

She starts her plan the second that she leaves HogwartsI think Tori is someone who becomes incredibly famous because of her efforts. I mean incredibly intelligent, beautiful, witty, and well known through coming from families that fought in both wars, I think she is set up to become a media darling. 

Photos of her arguing passionately in Wizengamot make it on the front page and that is where she gets her start. 

I think she grows into a name that is so well known that before she gets a seat in Wizengamot she’s already building connections.

I like to think that Tori is incredibly successful, that she reestablishes the House of Weasley and garners more respect for the House of Prewett. Tori is making political moves shutting down underhanded oppression and advocating for different communities. Tori is at every event, every ball, every club. And I mean even the ones whose crowds are primarily made up of blood supremacists. Why does she go? Because you never know what you’ll overhear. Why is she even invited? Because her name is too big in the Wizarding World to not be invited. 

I think Tori Weasley is the youngest member of Wizengaot ever, becoming the official representative of the family and taking up the seat for the family at age 22.

I think everyone is incredibly proud but I think Arthur is the most proud. I think he never held a passion for politics or House matters but I would imagine that he is old enough to remember what it was like when the Weasley name was respected and we know that he lived through the disrespect that the Ministry put them through after the first war. 

I imagine a seat in Wizengamot pre-first war used to be a symbol of status and respect because you have to fight your way to be an option to fill the seat and you have to be elected by your fellow Wizengamot members to actually take up the seat. Losing your seat in Wizengamot must feel devastating so to see it be regained, not only is personally satisfactory but also feels like a symbol of true progress.