"Death Rider Billy"

every three months he'll post and in the author's note there's some shit like "sorry this took a while, i got shot seven times :/" or "i know it's been a minute, i literally got hit by a bus and then stabbed in the leg, but i'm all good!" or sometimes ned would log in and post with a note "hey i'm a friend posting on the author's behalf, they're healing from severe hypothermia but promised an update, so here it is!"

and the fic just gets increasingly more popular for the author notes alone. a good handful of the comments are something along the lines of "i'm not even in the star wars fandom, i'm just here to see if the author is good" or "every update i cheer for another day the author gets to live at this point"

and any reader who is a native new yorker kind of pieces together that holy shit the author might be spider-man because the timeline adds up, and they just fully embrace it. spider-man will stop a robbery and the guy behind the counter will ask when the next chapter will be up. spider-man returns a stolen backpack to a girl and she'll tell him that he "really got poe's voice down so well, it's really impressive."

ned thinks it is hilarious. mj finds out about the fic from twitter, to peter's absolute horror, and changes peter's contact name to "friendly neighborhood ao3 author". but the worst thing to happen is after an avengers battle where peter took a pretty big hit and ends up in med-bay. and during a press conference, when someone asks how spider-man is healing, tony just drops "spidey won't be down for too long. the star wars fic will be updated within the week, probably."

"Sorry, I don't mean to offend--"

Which of course, I brace for hell, since he is around 60, and i am a gangly cryptid that people usually struggle only to find the right slur to apply to. But i dutifully keep my work voice and go "nah nah, don't worry, what can I do?"

He hits me with "Are you--uh, I've been saying 'thank you ma'am' but are you... okay with that? What should I call you?"

And i live in a small conservative pocket within one of the most liberal states in the US, so my experience in public is varied. People have guessed, they've gone with she, he. they, they've awkwardly avoided it, but no stranger had ever asked me.

So i panicked and chuckled. This felt kind of like walking into a fake tumblr post. I said "Oh, you can call me whatever you want, its fine."

Any cis person would probably sound a little insulted. i knew i was confirming some kind of gender fuckery, but giving him the out that he didn't have to change anything. Fucker kindly smiles though, and like. Pounces. Asks, much more confidently, "But would you prefer sir? What are your pronouns?"

He's on script now, I'm astral projecting to a different plane where i'm a bug on a well lit microscope and my throat's a little tight all the sudden. I say, "Oh. I uh--I use they/them."

I use they or he, but 'they' is the language curveball. I know this, which is why i usually just let people use whatever. He nods, and I choke out (because its been a bad bad day, autoimmune flare pain on top of record high patient numbers) "Thanks. No one... has ever asked me. Have a good day."

He told me the same, I booked it, because the dim room was hiding watery eyes but not for much longer. Got it together in a nearby closet (ha) and moved on.

Came back later on in the evening because I had promised to visit when his wife was there earlier in the day. She's sweet, he's sweet, I do my usual spiel, he avoids any 'ma'am' studiously, but on me going to head out again, hits the dilemma of having no polite substitute for 'ma'am' or 'sir' that isnt gendered in some subtle way, and he's fucking trying, but this is not second nature obviously.

So what comes out is "Have a wonderful night, Them!"

Beaming, proud, right next to his extremely confused wife, who he seems to have not outted me to (nice) who now thinks he's probably having a stroke (funny, but not nice lmao)

You don't know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.

You don't know if someone is irritated with you, so you'll be extra generous and self-effacing.

You don't know how much is expected of you at work so you'll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.

Personally I filter it out 95% of the time because I don't like potentially unpleasant surprises, but it's a completely valid tag, and vilifying people for using it in the way it's supposed to be used because readers haven't read the description ain't it, folks.

The author chose not to warn for content, or Archive Warnings could apply, but the author has chosen not to specify them.

Chose not to warn: you can have anything you like in this fic

No warnings apply: you are to the best of your ability sure that there are no archive warnings that apply to this story