How Can She Help?

Later that night, Uncle Ben ended up being declared dead when he arrived at the hospital, breaking not only Peter's heart but also that of his Aunt May and those close to him.

Peter was now back at home since he couldn't stay at the hospital, and several police officers were questioning Aunt May to see if anyone had animosity with Uncle Ben, to which she shook her head. They also showed her a sketch of who's likely the suspect of the person who shot Uncle Ben.

"Do you know this person?" A police officer asked, and Aunt May shook her head as she held a piece of tissue against her nose. Peter saw how red her face had gotten from crying profusely after hearing the news about Uncle Ben.

Nodding in understanding, the police officers ended up asking her a few more questions before leaving. Before they left, Peter asked if he could have the sketch, and the police officer gave it to him without thinking anything about it.

All the necessary details about the suspect were written on the paper, but before Peter had gotten the chance to view it, Aunt May had gotten up and walked over to him. Seeing this, Peter put the piece of paper into his back pocket before giving his aunt a warm, comforting hug, which only allowed her to cry even more.

Peter continued to hug her while an angry expression appeared on his face. staring off in the distance. He promised himself that he would find whoever shot and killed Uncle Ben, and he would bring him to justice.

...

The next day, right after Peter woke up and showered, he walked to his room and sat on his bed. Pulling something out of his jeans pocket, Peter saw a paper of the suspect with all his details written at the bottom of the paper.

Apparently, the man was white, had short, dark hair styled into a mullet, though his eye color was unknown. But apparently, the man had a long scar on his right forearm. He was last seen dressed in a dark blue light jacket with sleeves rolled-up, blue jeans, and black shoes. He most likely carried a Smith & Wesson, judging by the bullet casing found on the scene.

"Dark hair, mullet, a long scar on the right forearm, Smith & Wesson..." Peter listed off the things that would make it easiest to recognize him since he could just change his clothes at any time he wished.

Getting up off the bed, Peter paced throughout his room to memorize these identifiers, as he planned on using his abilities to search for people that matched this description. The only problem was, "How am I going to find this person in a big city like this? It's like a needle in a haystack..."

In the midst of his thoughts, Peter heard that he was getting a phone call from someone, and without thinking, he answered it and heard Cindy's voice through the phone. "Hey, Peter... How are you holding up?" Peter could hear the concern in her voice, along with the phone's bandwidth filter.

Putting his phone to his ear, Peter sat back down on the bed and answered, "I'm... fine."

On the other end of the call, Cindy was in her room, hanging from the ceiling by her bare feet. All around her room were several sketches she made over the years, and there were also some rock band posters hanging on the wall from the bands she liked to listen to.

"Is that so...? I talked with my brother yesterday... He said that he was looking for us before..." Cindy didn't dare to continue further and waited to hear Peter's voice.

"I... see. So, what did he say?" Cindy heard in Peter's voice that he wasn't very interested in hearing what her brother said about their little stunt yesterday, but was being polite. Cindy just went along with it and told him, "Well, he knew it was me because of the way I was dressed, but he didn't know about you. Thankfully, he said that he will let that slide if I don't do it again, which I'll most likely will anyway..."

"Hmm..." Peter still tried being polite, but his attention was caught somewhere else, thinking about something else. Cindy sighed inwardly before saying, "Listen, Peter. I apologize for what my brother did last night, preventing you from seeing your uncle right away. I can't even imagine what you're going through, but if there's anyway I could help, just name it."

When Peter heard this, he shook his head and sighed. "I'm not angry at your brother; he was just doing his job as a police captain. And, as for you helping, it's not something that could be fixed. I don't think there's anything that you can do to... help..."

Before Cindy had called Peter, he wondered about how he was going to find the suspect who shot and killed his uncle, but it was going to be very hard to find him in a populated city like New York. However, an idea came to mind as he thought about what Cindy could do.

"Actually, there is something that you can do..." Peter replied, causing Cindy to land on the floor with a serious face. She wanted to help Peter in any way she could, so she assured him, "Yeah, I'll help you. What do you need."

"Do you think that you can bring me a police radio?"

"A police radio...?"

...

The next thing Cindy knew, she, with her backpack on her back, had entered the police station that her brother had worked at. In the lobby, there was a police officer guarding the entrance, hidden behind bulletproof glass.

Cindy had been here a couple of times before, so she knew the officer at the window. "Hey, Mr. Martinez." She waved to the police officer with short black hair and brown eyes.

"Hey, Cindy. Does your brother know you're here?" Mr. Martinez asked, to which Cindy responded with a nod. "Yup, I called him before I arrived here. He should be expecting me."

Checking quickly to confirm this, Mr. Martinez was given the okay and guided Cindy into the building, and she could now see an office where the police officers, detectives, and other people who worked here were working tirelessly to complete their unsolved cases.

As Cindy was walking through the building, she quickly spotted a police radio sitting on a desk near a large pile of paperwork, and as she was walking toward it, she quickly glanced around the room with her eyes but did not move her head. Walking near the radio, she swiped it before turning it off quickly. The only reason why or how she knew to turn it off was because her brother would often come home and his police radio was loud, so she found out how to turn it off.

Quickly storing it inside the cuff of her sleeve without showing any reaction, Cindy went and saw her brother inside his office, and he was currently talking on the phone with someone. Mr. Martinez opened the door and allowed Cindy to walk in before sitting down in one of the chairs near his desk.

Cindy's brother, Albert, had gestured his hand and told her to wait a moment before looking away and continuing on with his conversation. "I assure you, Commander, that everything is under control. Our officers are working diligently in their cases... Yeah... right, but Commander..."

As Albert was too busy on the phone, Cindy used this time to place her backpack on the floor before putting the police radio in her backpack and closing it up. When Albert went to see what the noise was, he saw Cindy opening a blueberry muffin wrapped in clear plastic.

"Alright, Commander. I will make sure our officers work faster to solve those cases... Yes, I will... goodbye..." Albert then placed the wired phone back in its holder before looking at Cindy with a certain look. "So, why are you here, Cindy? Are you here for your friend? If you are, I'm sorry, but I can't tell you anything."

Cindy shook her head and explained "why" she was here. "No, I was actually worried that you might arrest him after being seen with me graffitiing the alleyway wall."

Albert looked at her with an incredulous gaze and asked, "Do you really think that I would do that, especially after his uncle had died just yesterday? No, Cindy, I am not going to arrest your friend. Like I said last night, if you don't do it again, I won't arrest anyone. That goes for him, too. So, if you want to help your friend, tell him not to do anything he shouldn't."

Cindy didn't actually believe that Albert would arrest Peter by being an 'accomplice' to her stunt; she only said this as a lie to cover up her reason for being here, which was to steal a police radio. However, it does beg the question of what will happen when Peter gets this radio. Will he use it to find his uncle's killer, and if so, what will he do after he finds him?

Cindy didn't know or want to know the answer, but she shook her head to rid herself of the thought. "Alright, I'll tell him to be careful. That's all I wanted to ask." Cindy got up out of the chair and was about to leave before she was asked a question by her brother. "Cindy, do I have to worry about your friend? Peter Parker?"

After a brief moment, Cindy sighed and shook her head. "No, you don't. He has me, after all." She then left Albert all alone in his thoughts.

...

After leaving the police station with the police radio in her book bag, Cindy walked over to Peter's house. She was able to find out where he lived thanks to him giving her his address. However, when she arrived at his house, she had to sneak around the back before climbing up the walls and knocking on his outside bedroom window.

She could see Peter sitting lying on his bed looking at some paper until he heard her knocking. "One second," Peter placed the paper on his bed before walking over the window, pulling the bottom half up, and allowing her to enter his room.

Once inside, Cindy placed her book bag on his bed and took out and handed over the police radio to Peter, who had thanked Cindy after receiving it. "Thank you, Cindy. This means a lot." He then walked over to his desk and pulled out a tool kit, using some tools to open up the police radio.

Cindy watched this and wondered what he was doing. He explained, "The police have GPS trackers in their radios so that when an officer needs backup or for whatever reason, they'll track it. If the police notice that one of their radios is missing, they will check this GPS tracker..."

Peter paused while taking out a certain microchip out of the police radio, the GPS tracker, before placing it down on his desk and putting back the police radio together again, this time without the GPS tracker.

Continuing where he left off, "...and they will begin tracking it." Peter then picked up the microchip with tweezers and placed it in a small baggie meant for screws or things of the like. Then, he took a small, personal hammer and smashed the microchip, smashing it into small pieces, but they were all contained inside the bag.

"There, they won't be able to track the police radio anymore. And thankfully, with how old this radio is, the GPS tracker has only pinged every half hour. And when you left the police station, it only took you how long to get here?" Peter asked, and Cindy responded, "Only ten minutes. But I did run all the way here as fast as I could."

Nodding, Peter knew that there was no way that the police could ever find out where their police radio had gone. And there was no way for Cindy to get caught stealing it because before she grabbed it, she checked for the locations of where the cameras were, and so when she picked it up, the police radio was actually hidden behind several piles of paperwork, which hid her taking it. Not even to mention that Cindy didn't react at all when she picked it up or placed it in her sleeve, thus appearing innocent.

Their plan has more than likely worked, and the police will never find out what happened to their radio. Even so, Cindy remembered what her brother had told her about making sure Peter didn't do anything he shouldn't, so she couldn't help but ask him,

"Peter, what do you plan on doing now that you have that radio?"

...