Spider-Man: Duty and Loss Chapter 5: Freind part 2

(3 months before)

The first time she had seen the homeless person that was sleeping on her bench she had instantly become suspicious. Hiding her presence and scanning the park she had noted no traps, or surveillance in the area. She looked around for a few more minutes before she finally went up to the bench and nudged the person.

"Mmm."

The man stirred slightly before finally turning over slowly to look at her. She gave him a calculated look, but in the end confirmed the he was just a homeless person that had stumbled upon her bench and was using it to sleep on.

His hazel eyes were mesmerizing as he looked at her not saying a word. They locked eyes and continued to stare at one another waiting for the other to talk first, but after a while of waiting and seeing no movement to talk or let her sit down Natasha finally spoke up.

"This is my seat."

Her voice was as cold as usual as she talked to the person in front of her. Finished with what she wanted to say the man finally nodded slowly and sat up from the bench and scooted over. Nat having enough room to sit down now, slowly lowered herself and pulled out the small sandwich she had packed herself.

No words were said between the two as they continued to sit there. Seeing that he wasn't going to do anything, not even leave, Natasha didn't bother him and continued to eat her sandwich, the silence that settled between the two of them was actually nice she thought.

After a few minutes with only the sound of birds and insects she finished her sandwich and turned her head towards the homeless person. Her eyes scanned him once again now with a better look at his body frame and figure.

Like other homeless people his clothes were tattered and frayed, with a large amount of water damage and rips everywhere. The clothes were too baggy for his body and from his hand, that was just visible, it could be told that he was skinny, possible malnourished.

What truly surprised her was when she caught a glimpse of his face. Although his body belayed that he was probably her age or older, 18 or up, one fitting for an adult, his face told that he was actually younger. She couldn't quite tell as she was only staring at the side of his face, but it looked like he may have been 15 or 16. His shaggy brown hair covered the rest of his face.

After a little while she caught herself and stopped starring at him, she had finally deemed him a non threat and didn't continue to bother him. Although he was young and homeless her heart didn't move much. Sure she was shocked to run into such a young homeless person, seeing as he could be picked up by child services at any point, but she had seen many horrors of the world.

Hell she had been through so much in her 18 years of life and this wouldn't be the saddest thing she had seen. Thinking back to the Red Room that had put her through such matters she subconsciously reached and placed her hand over her abdomen, a sad look passing across her eyes.

After an uneventful hour where neither of them spoke to each other Natasha finally stood up moved to leave, walking a few meters away from the bench she sent one last glance towards the bench and saw that the person had laid back down and was going back to sleep.

'That was interesting' Those were her final thoughts as she left the park and headed back to Avengers tower. She would have some missions to complete most likely when she got back.

(Present)

Their relationship had progressed a lot further since that day, over the last 3 months they had started to talk to each other and usually spent the hour talking before she had to leave. Sometimes of course he wouldn't be there but if she went in the morning he would generally be asleep no matter what the weather.

She had come out one day when it was raining and he had been there as if the pouring rain wasn't real at all, all he used to defend against the cold were some newspaper scraps. Of course at the time Nat growing slightly fond of their little friendship had brought an umbrella and used it to shield the both of them till it died down.

From an outside perspective it may not seem that they were that friendly to each other as their talks usually consisted of small talk and a lot of silence, but it had gotten to the point that she would bring her leftovers for him to eat, this was caused because one time his stomach had grumbled loudly while she was eating a sandwich next to him. The next time they met after that she had brought some leftovers from the fridge in the tower. Though Peter had refused it the first time shocking Natasha with a reply 'I wouldn't want to impose' after a while of her just leaving the food as she left, Peter got the message and just accepted the food offered.

Most of the time the two of them talked about nothing in particular and never asked each other personal questions, this was one of the things that Nat liked about Peter. She didn't have to worry about him realizing that she was the Black Widow of the avengers and all the problems that came with her background.

Nearly all the people she talked to knew she was one of the best assassin's in the world and some even knew more information, she couldn't relax around them and always kept up a wall towards them, basically the same thing they did to her. With Peter she could just sit quietly and have small talk, it was many times greater than any relaxation she tried before.

She wouldn't go as far to say that 'she opened up' to him, or 'could be her true self in front of him', but it was close. It was because of this though that she had gotten into the habit of coming to the park every other day. The small smile hat graced her lips as she finally caught sight of the bench was proof of that.

In the back of her head she contemplated using some of shields resources to look up her new talking buddy, she had by now heard his full name, and a small part of her wanted to know how someone only 15 had wound up on the streets. But she would have to think more on that latter, for now the small talks they shared was good enough.

Chapter end