Gacha God: Painting the Town (ch. 11) (Patreon)

"I don't want you going anywhere near that kid, MJ. He's dangerous," Mary Jane's mom stressed to her, sitting her down in their living room. Her mom was covering her bruises up with makeup. She had gotten pretty good at it, Mary Jane reflected. The foundation matched her skin tone, and it covered the black eye up pretty well. However, the swelling gave away that it was still there. The same for the bruise on her jaw.

When she was younger, Mary Jane loved helping her mom put on her makeup. It made her feel like a makeup artist for a movie star. Now, she wondered how much of those times had been covering up evidence. A decent number. Because the reason why Mary Jane was so good with makeup was she got used to covering up her own bruises.

"He helped us," Mary Jane defended, knowing exactly who she was speaking about.

Her mom gave her a stern and sharp look, "He put your father in the hospital, Mary Jane. They had to wire his jaw shut."

"Good," Mary Jane spat out, her hands curling into fists. She felt guilty even as she said the word. The emotions were messy and complicated. It… it wasn't like she didn't love her dad. She did, for better or worse. But that didn't mean that she was horrified by what had happened to him. How many times had she wished for that exact thing? For someone to step in and put an end…

It was scarier than she thought it would be. Sebastian was scarier than she thought he was too. But not necessarily in a bad way.

The look that her mom gave her grew harsher, "Your father has his faults, but he's still your father." She said, a sigh in her voice.

"And one of those faults is hitting you when he has a bad day," Mary Jane shot back, digging her heels in. She wasn't wrong. She believed that. She was not in the wrong here -- her dad hit her mom, wrecked the house, and was going to beat her. She wasn't wrong for taking satisfaction in him getting his ass kicked. He deserved it. He deserved it a thousand times over. "Do you still even love him? What about a divorce?"

There was pain in her mom's eyes, Mary Jane saw. Because she did still love him. Like she did. As much as it might hurt, they had to cut him loose. It could just be her and her mom. She was expecting a call from the talent scout that she impressed -- she could start bringing in the money. They didn't need him to stay.

When her mom failed to answer, Mary Jane continued, "I love him too, Mom. But that's not a reason to let him-" her voice started getting thick despite her attempts to remain in control. Tears shine in her mom's eyes before she closed the distance and wrapped her arms around her in a hug. Mary Jane leaned into her shoulder, returning the hug and taking a breath to gather herself.

"I know, baby," her mom whispered. "I know he's not the man I grew up loving. And… I'm so sorry that you had to grow up with that. I'm just…" she trailed off and Mary Jane found herself in the position of comforting her mother as much as she was comforting her. "I don't know what to do, baby. Philip always brought in the money. I haven't had a job beyond waiting tables since you were born. And he wasn't always bad. He had his good moments."

He did. Taking her to the park. Learning how to braid her hair. All the bedtime stories. That's what made it so hard.

"He's at the hospital right now, MJ. He looks awful. That boy broke his jaw and bruised his ribs -- the doctor thought someone had tried to kill him!" Her mom muttered, "He lost his insurance, so we have to pay out of pocket. It's… he… Mary Jane, I want you to stay away from that boy. Far away. I-" her mom started, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. Her mom went still, giving Mary Jane the chance to escape her grip. Getting up, she headed to the door just as her mom called out, "Don't answer it."

Mary Jane didn't listen, choosing to swing the door open and, as if he were summoned like the devil himself, Sebastian was on the other side of the door.

It wasn't like her mom was wrong about Sebastian being dangerous. However, she had no idea how dangerous he really was.

The first time she met him, he conned his way into her school without missing a beat, where he then proceeded to rob the boy's locker room just before the invasion and get into a fight with Flash. Sebastian practically radiated an aura of danger around him. And that was still true now. Perhaps more so than ever.

Sebastian has dark black hair that was borderline shaggy and unkempt like he couldn't be bothered with it. His eyes were a bluish steel gray that made her want to shiver every time he looked at her because of how sharp his gaze was. His mouth had a small diagonal scar at one edge of his lips that split apart because of the cocky smirk he wore. He was handsome. Not in a boyish high schooler sort of way, but handsome in a manly way. He was pretty tall too, standing at six feet or so.

And he was fit. Very fit. Broad shoulders and his long sleeve shirt couldn't hide his defined arms. Which carried a duffle bag.

"I come bearing gifts," Sebastian informed, holding the duffle bag out for her to take. Her brow furrowed before she took the duffle bag, finding that it had a surprising amount of weight to it. Grabbing one of the zippers-

"What the fuck, Sebastian?!" Mary Jane shouted in a stage whisper before poking her head out to see no one else was in the hallway to the apartment building. Grabbing Sebastian by his shirt, she pulled him inside her home before slamming the door shut. She dropped the duffle bag and rolls of hundreds spilled out from the bag. "How much money is that?"

"A million. I think. I couldn't be bothered to count it," Sebastian stated, offering an uncaring shrug of his shoulders like a million dollars was crap he scraped off of his shoes. Mary Jane gaped at him, and even her mom, who had gotten up to throw Sebastian out on his ear, froze.

A million dollars. That was an incredible amount of money. A life-changing amount of money. And he was just giving it to them? When he offered to cover the money, at the very most, she'd thought he'd help cover rent. Not drop a million dollars in their laps like it was nothing.

"You couldn't be bothered to count?" Her mom stressed, walking over and snatching the bag up to look inside it. Her face paled when she saw the bundles and bundles of money. More than she had ever seen in a single place. It looked like something Mary Jane had seen out of a movie. "And you're just giving it to us? For what? Why?"

Sebastian shrugged, "Because I don't care about currency. It's a social construct that society agreed to agree upon to establish the value of what amounts to monopoly money, and I decided not to participate."

What? "Why not?" Mary Jane was compelled to ask, and she got a grin sharp enough to cut glass in response.

"Because I'm a contrarian douchebag," he told her without a hint of shame. That's something that Mary Jane noticed about him. He had no shame. It was something about how he carried himself and he had put a name to it -- Sebastian had faith in himself. It was something more than just confidence. It was faith. Belief. It enabled him to say what he really thought, and when you heard it, you knew he really meant what he said because he wouldn't say it otherwise. He wouldn't swallow words to spare someone's feelings, he wouldn't lie about his opinions.

There was something alluring about it.

"What do you want us to do for this money," her mom questioned, an edge in her voice. One deadly enough to kill.

Mary Jane looked at her mom, who held the money with white knuckles. "Mom, he-" Mary Jane started, but Sebastian spoke up.

"I dunno, spend it? Look, I don't care about money. If I want another million dollars, I'll just go get another million dollars. Easy peasy," he said, making a face like he couldn't understand why her Mom was digging her heels in. However, that just made her eyes narrow into slits.

"Where did you get this money?" Her Mom pressed, and Mary Jane had to admit, it was a pressing question. Where did he find a million dollars?

"The Russian Mafia, but you don't have to worry about them. They're all dead or in comas. Or in jail, I guess. Should be on the news by now, I think," Sebastian stated, his tone frank and casual. Mary Jane's jaw dropped at the admission. He stole it from the Mafia? And they were all gone? "Audacity took care of 'em. So, they aren't exactly in a position to look for the money, even if they could try to find it."

Her mom was right, Mary Jane was forced to admit. Sebastian was dangerous. Not in a teenage highschooler kind of way -- he didn't roll up with a fast car, sell drugs, or casually dismissed the police. No. Sebastian was something else entirely.

Sebastian was like a house fire. Something fundamentally intense that burned out of control and with a breeze blowing in the wrong direction, he could take everything down around him. He was unlike anyone she had ever met. He was a hero -- he saved the city from an alien invasion and he fought a god. He got involved when he heard her father abusing her and her mom. Now he ripped through the Russian Mafia, killing people from the sounds of it, and dropped a million dollars in their laps like it was a snow globe from a novelty shop.

Sebastian was absolutely 100% dangerous. But he wasn't dangerous to her.

While her mom sputtered, starting to hand the money back, but Mary Jane stopped her, "Thank you, Sebastian. Really."

"Eh, said I would do it," Sebastian dismissed the praise easily. "And I would report the money to the IRS in doses. Set yourself up as some kind of self-employed whatever. So long as it looks like it all checks out, then it shouldn't cause any problems." He advised, but her Mom wasn't done. Even a million dollars couldn't change the fact that she didn't like Sebastian, she saw. No matter what he did, she wouldn't forgive him. Even if it was for the best. Even if it meant they had everything that they needed.

"Are you just going to give out millions of dollars to random people on the streets? For nothing?" She pressed, not at all buying it. It was because she didn't know Sebastian. She thought he was lying.

He tilted his head in response as if he was considering it, "There's an idea." He decided and Mary Jane could practically see him thinking whatever idea he came up with. An idea that involved handing out millions of dollars to random people. Mary Jane wasn't even sure she wanted to know. "I'll get back to you on that. Anyway -- if you need any more cash, then let me know. I'm going to hang out with Peter and Ned -- you coming with, MJ?"

"No," Her mom answered for her.

"Yeah," Mary Jane answered for herself, making her mom reach out and grab her wrist. She squeezed down hard, sending a message with her eyes that Mary Jane heard loud and clear. The message being 'absolutely not.' "I'll be over in a bit."

"Cool," Sebastian responded, looking between her and her mom before correctly assuming that it wasn't any of his business. With that, he turned around and made his way out of their apartment, closing the door behind him with a clock. They waited in silence for a moment before Mary Jane looked to her mom.

"No. No, absolutely not. Mary Jane -- he just brought us money from the Mafia," she stressed, where he got it completely outweighing the fact that he gave it to them. "I don't trust him. He's going to want something for this," she stressed, painting a pretty clear picture what she thought that something would be. And it wasn't an unfair thought. She thought the same on the bus ride over.

All the same, Mary Jane shook her head, "He's not like that, Mom."

"He's a teenage boy. Yes, honey. Yes, he is," her mom shot back, giving her almost a pitying look that she thought differently.

"No, he's not," she stood her ground. "He had a screwed up childhood or something, but he told me that giving us this money -- a million dollars -- is completely separate from wanting to… you know," Mary Jane argued and, in hindsight, she realized that, perhaps, wasn't not the best point she could have made.

"And you believed him?!" Mom sputtered, her eyes going wide like she couldn't possibly believe that she would.

"Kinda," Mary Jane defended. "He's not like other boys, Mom. He's different!"

Mom looked like she was having vivid flashbacks of once throwing the same words back at her own mother. Probably about Philip. She set the money to the side and Mary Jane took the moment to gesture to it with a pointed expression, as if to say, 'See? Look at the evidence.' "Okay -- I'll admit that he's a little different from a normal teenager." Okay, that was some progress- "I'm still forbidding you from seeing him."

"Mom!" Mary Jane protested, wanting to throw her head back and groan.

"He brought money from the Russian. Mafia! It's lovely that he gave it to us, MJ. It is. If he really doesn't want anything for it, then he's one of the most generous souls on this planet. I'm thankful, MJ. I am. I know it sounds like I'm not, but I am," Mom continued, reaching out and having her hands on her cheeks, forcing Mary Jane to look at her. "I'll be thankful until my dying day. But I want you to stay away from that boy, Mary Jane. He's trouble. He's dangerous. Nothing good could ever come from you hanging around him, even if he doesn't want anything from you. Do you promise me that you'll stay away? I can't have anything happening to you."

Mary Jane swallowed an argument, knowing that it was pointless. A sigh escaped her even as she went for a hug with her Mom, wrapping her arms around her.

"You won't see me with him, Mom. I promise."

…

"I don't think MJ is coming," Ned remarked before tilting his head back to take a bite out of the greasiest slice ever created -- pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms. Perfection on a plate.

"I don't think her mom likes me very much," I agreed. That was fair. From the outside looking in… well, I imagined it was quite the sight.

"That's totally lame," Peter echoed through a mouth full of his lame as shit tofu and veggie pizza. I didn't even know it existed. He insisted that his Aunt May had convinced him to give it a try, and it made him a believer. I thought it made him a fucking heretic and he wouldn't be converting me. We watched Independence Day on the living room TV, the three of us on the couch -- it had seen a pretty big resurgence considering the aliens. "She wasn't happy with the money?"

"Seems not," I answered, taking a bite out of my own slice. That reminded me, "How much did you two want from the haul? I snagged over ten million," I asked, and Peter nearly choked on his heresy. Good. He deserved it.

There was a lot more than that in terms of drugs. Not really sure what I was going to do with them. The weed would probably be smoked by me at some point. Cocaine when I needed a bump to stay awake for some reason. I’ve never done mushrooms or LSD, though. Heroin and meth though -- that shit would fuck your entire life up, and I wasn't interested in putting any more of that stuff in my veins. I could try selling it, I guess. But I think it would be better served as bait for something.

"Dude… can I have a million dollars?" Ned asked and I nodded.

"You can have two. Or five. Peter can get the other five," I decided, indifferent while Peter still made choking sounds. I think that bite was actually going to kill him. I liked Peter, but actions had consequences and he needed to pay for what he's done in the name of good food. Choking to death on his own mistakes was about as ironic a death as he deserved.

Peter was shaking his head, “I… that… that's like, dirty money. Should we really take it? We should give it to the police, right? It’s evidence,” He muttered, proving that he wasn’t choking at all. How unfortunate. He didn’t exactly seem comfortable with the idea of taking dirty money. Moral hangups, or something.

I didn’t know what to tell him, “You don’t have to take it if you don’t want it, but money is money, Pete. If you feel guilty for using it, then… redeem it, or something?” I offered, not really understanding the issue. I didn’t care about money. It just didn’t have any value to me, but it wasn’t like I was blind to its benefits. “Use it for something good.”

I could practically see Peter’s mind wrapping itself around the idea. He wanted the money. He just wasn’t comfortable taking it because he felt like it broke some rule or went against a moral or something. He only needed a little nudging to push him into taking it, and that seemed to do the trick. “Uncle Ben’s truck has been dying for a while now…” He muttered mostly to himself.

Ned was already making a list of all the things he was going to buy. “I’m going to seriously upgrade my hardware. If I’m going to be the guy in the chair, I can’t be held back by bad internet.”

Peter picked up where he left off, “I could buy the tools that I need. Maybe I could start designing stuff…” he trailed off, still skittish about using the money for anything that he would deem for personal benefit. Then he glanced at me, “Do you know what you’re going to be doing now? Who's the next bad guy we’re taking down?”

“Some guy called Armand Tully, a slum lord in Hell’s Kitchen that needs a talking to. And I’m thinking of robbing every bank in America and giving all the money away. I also need to track down who was trying to buy those people down at the docks and deal with that. If we keep an eye on the underworld in New York, I’m sure we’re going to find plenty of people to deal with,” I remarked, finishing off the pizza by folding the crust in half and popping it in my mouth.

Ned and Peter shared a look. “One of those things was a little different than the others.”

“You’re going to rob banks? Like, all of them?” Peter echoed, his brow furrowing as he gave me an odd look.

“It's an idea that I’m kicking around,” I admitted. “I don’t care about money, but other people do and it feels like a lot of the cash in the world is in the hands of people that don’t need it. I’m going to do something about that,” I decided, knowing that it was going to be a long-term project. That was fine. I would find smaller projects to work on.

“Okay, we’re just going to put a pin in that,” Peter decided, sounding like he needed time to process that. “But, more importantly, look! You’re on the news,” he informed, shoving a phone in my face. He was right and he wasn’t, technically.

The Bulletin had picked up on the fact that every single place that was hit last night was owned by the Russians. He didn’t outright state it to avoid getting hit with a slander lawsuit, but he insinuated it so heavily that it was pretty clear what he thought. It was a little early to tell, but online, people were having an absolute field day. A lot of ragging on the cops. A lot of fear-mongering that an ‘unknown freak’ had attacked a bunch of people. The fact that a number of the places that I attacked were fronts hadn’t been released yet, so they thought I was attacking normal people too.

People didn’t really have a lot of sympathy for mobsters though. Or Russians. So, the overall reaction that I got from a lingering glance on the phone was ‘good riddance.’

“The Media is suppressing that it's you, though,” Ned agreed. I could practically hear the capital M in the world Media.

“They’re probably waiting on word from on high on what to do,” I echoed the agreement. Shield certainly knew it was me. My me's did pretty well avoiding cameras for the most part, but I couldn’t do anything about satellites except go underground. They would know, and a handful of eyewitnesses would know as well, but they were suppressing the information from the larger public. It wouldn’t last forever. Word was already getting out. So, the reason why they were suppressing that it was me who attacked the Russians was anyone’s guess.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Peter asked, sounding like he thought it should bother me. At least a little.

I offered a shrug, “Meh.” I gave my take on it. I did what I set out to do -- the Russians were gone so they couldn’t come back for their stolen stuff. Peter opened his mouth to say something but decided better on it when we heard keys jingling in the lock. We looked over to see it was Ben.

“Hey kids,” he said with a slightly strained smile, closing the door behind him. “So, how much would it cost me to get you all to clear out for a couple of hours? May’s getting back for work and I wanted to surprise her with a date night,” Ben said, making Peter perk up.

“We were already about to head out, right guys?” Peter decided, not wanting to take money when he just became a millionaire. I nodded my head, grabbing a last slice of pizza as I stood up.

“Enjoy your date night, Mr. Parker!” Ned said, giving a wave goodbye and judging by the thankful look we got, he was glad to be rid of us. He was either in the dog house or a romantic. Time would tell which one, I suppose. Once we were in the hallway, Ned spoke up, “So, I’ve been thinking about how we would, you know, investigate stuff. Like bad guys. The Russians were mostly offline, so there wasn’t a whole lot I could really do with them.”

I had a note from a past future me that told me that most of the information that had been acted upon came from Shield agents that were in the field. Ned wasn’t wrong about that. The stealth drones that Peter was trying to make would have filled that need, but they seemed to be proving difficult to produce, much less in the potential numbers that we would need.

“I’m thinking we could learn from someone that, like, investigates people for a living. Like a police officer,” Ned continued, making me cock my head.

“Like interns?” I voiced, considering it.

“I don’t know. What do interns do?” Ned asked, blinking at me, and I wasn’t entirely sure either. I just knew that the word intern and indentured servant were interchangeable.

“It's like an apprentice. I think. That doesn’t get paid, or being a paid intern wouldn’t be such a big deal. And I don’t think a cop is going to teach us how to investigate bad guys, Ned,” Peter pointed out as we headed into the elevator. “We could go to an ex-cop, maybe. Or a private detective.”

“That last one sounds like it would work,” I remarked, watching the floors tick down. “But we would probably need to look into a sketchy one. I don’t think a legit private detective would let a couple of teenagers follow them around and watch them work.”

Ned nodded in agreement, “They’d totally think we’re planning to become their competition or something.”

“Totally,” Peter agreed as we arrived on the ground floor. “We’ll have to sign something like a non-compete. But we’re minors. Can we even do that?”

“I say let's just go with a sketchy PI and pay them a lot of money to let us learn without asking any questions. It’s New York. You can’t throw a stone without it hitting someone sketchy,” I pointed out and Ned took out his phone to start looking for Yelp reviews on private detectives. Naturally, he went for the low-rated ones.

In theory, I didn’t really need to learn how to investigate things. Not when I had time travel at my disposal. However, I didn’t want to rely on the Time-Turner when I didn’t have to. That just felt lazy. And it wasn’t like I was clicking my heels in joy at the prospect of offing myself to minimize my impact on the timeline. If I had a better option available, why not take it?

We left the lobby of the apartment building, joining the flow of traffic. We really didn’t have a destination in mind. At least, not until I took the Golden Scarab out of my pocket and fused the two pieces together. The beetle shot up into the air and took off flying, making Peter and Ned gape at it.

“So cool,” Ned muttered under his breath, his search forgotten as we made our way after the Golden Scarab. My tracker glued on it told me that it picked a back alley not that far away from us, so that was convenient. We made our way towards it, idly chatting the entire way. They were both excited at the prospect of getting a more involved hand in heroics.

Ned was talking about the upgrades he was going to make for his computer -- graphic cards, monitors, a chair that had lumbar support. Gamer chairs were shit, apparently. Which led to Peter talking about the upgrades that he could make to the tech that Ned bought even as he talked about getting a 3D printer that would make creating things a thousand times easier for him. The first thing that they wanted to make were AT's, naturally.

It got me thinking as we approached the Cave of Wonders, and the two gushed about it as we entered. Peter started talking about layering dimensions -- that, I knew a bit about, but when he started rattling off the math involved, thats when he lost me. Not long after, we arrived at the Wonders part of the cave.

“Dude…” Ned breathed as I entered without missing a beat, his eyes sweeping over everything -- the weapons, the guns, the money, and lastly the drugs. The two of them both crinkled their noses at them. That’s the school brainwashing them about how drugs were terrible and blah blah blah. How could you know drugs weren’t for you if you never tried them? Drugs were basically vegetables. Except way better.

“This is where I keep all of my stuff,” I spoke up, grabbing a duffle bag of money and tossing one to Peter and Ned. “There’s a million dollars, I think. Ballpark sum,” I added before I headed over to the special items I kept in storage. Such as the Ultra Divine Water, and the three remaining doses of the serum that I had gotten by murdering past me's in a time loop. “And I want you guys to know that this is just an option on the table.”

I held up the syringes and Peter recognized them, even if he did look a bit puzzled that I had three. “This water is what you made the serum for, Peter. A cup full of it won’t turn you into Captain America, or anything, but at the very least it’ll double what you can bench, at least in my experience. It’ll hurt like hell, though. A fire in your blood kind of pain that makes you wish it had killed you.”

I had about sixteen cups left of the Divine Water, but I didn’t really mind sharing. Ned and Peter were friends. If they wanted to sweat out their bad genes, then the option was on the table.

At the mention of pain, Ned instantly lost interest. “Uh, thanks, Sebastian but no thanks. I’m good with how I am,” Ned said with an easy-going smile. Peter, on the other hand, I could see the yearning in his eyes. He wanted it. To be more than what he was -- a scrawny, acne-riddled teenager. There wasn’t anything wrong with wanting to be more than what you were, just like there wasn’t anything wrong with accepting yourself as you are. There wasn’t even anything wrong with shortcuts.

“I… may take you up on that,” Peter admitted, eyeing me up for a second before he looked down at himself.

“Just let me know when,” I told him, setting the doses of serum down before I snatched my own duffle bag full of money. “Come on, let's go see what the city has to offer.”