Peter Parker walked with his hands shoved in the pockets of a jacket that had seen better winters, head down, shoulders tight. The city hummed around him—car horns, chatter, the distant wail of a siren—but none of it was for him.

A paper coffee cup trembled in his grip. The rent was due in three days. He had sixty-two dollars to his name.

Then the air changed.

A whoosh overhead, close enough to ruffle his hair. The distinctive thwip of something cutting through air at speed. The snap of fabric catching wind.

He looked up.

A figure arced across the gap between buildings—a blur of white and gold against the gray sky, trailing something that caught the light like spun sunlight. She twisted mid-air, kicked off a fire escape, and launched herself higher, the motion so fluid it looked like falling in reverse.

Peter froze.

The coffee cup slipped from his fingers and hit the pavement with a wet thump.

The city didn't stop. Nobody looked up. Nobody noticed.

But Peter stood there, mouth slightly open, watching the empty sky where she'd been.