fic recs!!!

The sun has begun to set, and the adults have settled in; he feels — in his heart — like he is only playing at adulthood, thrust too fast upon him. The men with crow’s feet and worn voices trade cigarettes and stories over wine, and laugh about days past that feel like dreams. Beer and wine sweat down their glasses in the heat.

Shanks has a habit of being romantic about things like this, about the old days, and so he regales his dueling partner with stories of the Oro Jackson.

Dracule is not listening.

No, his attention has been robbed.

He so suddenly feels like a boy, eyes lit up like two gilded coins in the sun. Behind you, the guitars swell.

You are wearing white. You are laughing — there is wine spilt down the front of your linen dress, and your hair is wild from the heat. You are playing with the children, waving them away from you like fruit flies drawn to your sweetness. They tug at your skirts and hang onto your boots, and you are not bothered, and Dracule feels like someone has reached into his ribs and squeezed. He is bothered. Shanks sees it.

You see it.

Through the crowd — through dancing brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles, through skirts and flags and cigarette smoke and plucked strings of the guitars — you meet his eyes.

You so suddenly understand the croon from the woman on stage, singing of young love.

He is handsome.

Terrifyingly so.

His eyes are gold, like the cross that hangs from his neck and rests against his sun-warmed skin. His shirt is loose, unbuttoned, draped open to the navel. Long legs cross over one another, and you know he is tall. His boots are pristine: deep red leather that has been cared for, much like the coat draped across the back of his chair with embroidered peonies. His hair is dark, and it falls in untamed, wild waves against the back of his neck. He is beautiful, really — and he stares.

You stare back.

Then the moment is gone as quick as it comes, bisected by divided attention.

The children cry your name, wondering why you’ve stopped waltzing with them balanced upon your shoes.

Shanks elbows Mihawk. The redhead's gaze darts back and forth, and for a moment, he wonders what his acquaintance sees.

The crowd swallows you both up, like the sea, and time spins on.

It is summer in the South Blue. He is twenty-six years old.

He is older. He has a new title. Marine Hunter.

There is anger in his heart, and a grudge that sits in his belly like a stone. He thinks it may sink him someday, may drive him mad — but Shanks is a consistent force against that fate. It feels, at times, that he is righted on a path after crossing blades with the young pirate. His new proclivity for distrust burns; it bleeds out of him in strikes of steel. Shanks handles it well, volleys and spars with the anger, until it is nothing but a split sky on an empty island.

Their friendship is strange, but it is all he has.

Shanks and wine.

The Festival d’Vendemmia.

A cork pops. Someone laughs. A breeze ripples the colorful flags hung high across the plaza. There is applause around the band in the corner of the plaza, and the swell of something slow and yearning begins in a tongue he knows.

The music stirs a memory of home. It feels like looking through warped, foggy glass. He remembers a voice. His mother, maybe? It does not matter. He will not sit here in the evening air and begin reminiscing like the others. That road is long, and he does not have the patience to walk it.

He drains his wine as Shanks chatters on and on.

It stains Dracule’s mouth red.

There is a tap on his shoulder.

His head turns, dark lashes rising. He smells like citrus and salt and something metallic — copper, or blood, you’re not sure. It doesn’t matter. Not when he is so beautiful up close. His nose is long and straight and sharp, and those eyes have the same gilded edge to them as five years ago. He looks a bit more grown up, with a beard creeping up his chin. It suits him.

You stand there, with wine-stained fingers, and cradle the glass decanter. You’re wearing white.

You, the beautiful one. The girl he thought about for years after the fact — with the children hanging on our skirts.

Dracule feels as though he’s been caught on the back step. He feels like he missed a parry, as his blade has slipped from his hands. He feels vulnerable. This close, you can see him for all he is — sweat-stained and exhausted, worn from hours of dueling in the dunes. He feels like a boy, and you look like a woman. Beautiful. Your mouth moves, but he is too busy gazing at your wine-stained lips.

Dracule is staring.

Shanks blinks between the two souls, and for once in his life, he shuts up. His brows climb slowly as the moment stretches on, curiosity burning brighter than the setting sun.

“I asked,” you finally repeat, the corner of your mouth twitching, “Would you like another glass?”

Shanks perks up. Dracule silences him with a pointed look.

He offers his glass. You fill it with a pour that is more than generous.

His eyes burn against your skin. You make a point of ignoring it, only giving in when you move to return the glass to his hands. Your eyes connect with his, and as he reaches, you pull back.

Mihawk’s brows pinch.

“You have been here before,” you state plainly; it isn’t a question, “But you’re not from here.”

“We’re—”

Dracule glares at Shanks. Shanks shuts up. He raises both hands in surrender and leans back in his chair.

“We’re merchants.”

“Is that so?” you lilt as you tilt your head, narrow your eyes, and accept the lie as payment for the wine.

His fingers brush yours. The contact burns. It feels dangerous, like him. Your eyes linger as distance grows. You flit away into the crowd, smile traded for small talk as you fill glasses and chat with townsfolk. Dracule cannot look away. Shanks can’t either. The future Yonko’s grin is peeled from ear to ear as he shakes his head, sips his beer, and leans in.

“Undone by a pretty thing, Mihawk?” Shanks chortles, “Perhaps if I wore a white dress, you would allow me a win in our next match.”

He pauses with the glass only inches from his lips and fires back: “Enough.”

Dracule sips and swears it's the best wine he’s ever had.

It is summer in the South Blue. He is twenty-seven.

Shanks lounges beside him, a bottle dangling between his fingers. The straw hat on his head is pulled down over his eyes. He has been in his cups since they arrived — for a while, they did not speak. For a while, all that moved between them was the drunken sway of Shank’s hand to lyricism in a language he did not speak.

The wine is as good as Dracule remembers. The music, too, and again he remembers something far away and twisted in thorns. It’s barely there, a memory that feels important. He thinks it must be his mother, because what else is worth remembering?

Shanks snores softly, and Dracule finishes his wine, and the moon hangs high.

The Festival d’Vendemmia.

The two pirates have been here for a while now — at their usual table — and the children have retired. There is no more swordplay with sticks, jumping rope, or games of tag. The air has changed. The lanterns burn bright against the stars in the sky, and the lights strung across the plaza cast shadows across the couples dancing slowly beneath them.

Tangles of movement. Steps forward and back, and hands in hands. Nose to nose. Fingers bunched in fabric, bodies pressed against one another. Intense.

He sees you, then — finally.

Your laughter burns as some lanky, baby-faced boy sweeps you across the plaza; Dracule’s fingers twitch against his glass. It is empty. Has been for a while now. You move with grace, floating with less sticky, syrupy movements than the other dancers, a testament to your interest in your dance partner. It soothes something in him to think you’re humoring something. The boy's hands stay idle on your waist. Appropriate. You lean close, say something, and you both laugh.

It strikes Dracule that you’re teaching the boy to dance.

You catch his eyes at that exact moment.

You blink, apologize to Tomas, and step aside.

Dracule’s palms start to sweat the moment you come to a stop before him.

You look him over. His beard is clean, lining his jaw. His hair is longer than last you saw him, and he is wearing a hat. The brim is wide, and the material is a red that’s so dark it’s nearly black. It hides his eyes in the shadows. His coat is draped across the back of his chair. That same gold crucifix rests against his sternum amongst chest hair, and the rolled cuffs of the linen poet’s shirt fall loosely around his forearms.

His eyelashes are long.

He is beautiful.

For a moment, you stare at one another.

Then:

“You lied.”

Dracule’s stoicism betrays the inner war within him.

“Did I?” he rasps.

You like his voice.

“You did, Marine Hunter,” you breathe, letting your eyes wander; your hands fall to your hips, and he feels a bit like he is being chastised. Then, your lips quirk. You smile. And Dracule swallows a roll of something warm in his belly. It is not anger. It is not annoyance.

It is new.

“The lie about being a merchant was clever,” you lean, hip popped, “I may have believed it, had I not seen your bounty poster a month later.”

“Ah.”

Your smile grows. No, blooms. Like a peony, petaled and soft. You look to his companion, and amusement dances in your eyes. The sleeping, red-haired one has a bounty poster, too. You’ve seen it. You and the girls in the vineyard trade whispers when new, dashing bounty posters are hung in the town square. During the wine harvest, in the late summer heat, you pick grapes off the vine and snack on the fruit in the shade, and you speak in your mother tongue about what it would be like to be whisked away by some handsome, dangerous stranger.

You kept his bounty poster — Dracule Mihawk’s — like it was for your eyes only. Ripped it right from the board, tucked it into the pocket of your skirts, and treasured it. It sits in your bedside table, tucked in a book of poems.

He looks much better in full color; living and breathing.

You hold your hand out.

He stares at it.

“Well?” you ask.

His gilded eyes narrow. “If you are seeking beri to keep my identity some sort of secret, I am uninterested—”

Your brow quirks in silent admonishment. He catches it, stops himself, and lifts his chin. His eyes narrow imperceptibly for a moment, the microexpression measuring your intention. He does not catch your meaning.

You turn your eyes toward the plaza.

Mihawk balks.

“I do not dance.”

“You are a swordsman, aren’t you?” you ask, challenging him, “A duel is a dance of sorts, is it not?”

“Perhaps,” he lazes back, “But it is not the bachata.”

Your grin grows. He didn’t think it possible, and there you go: wrinkling your nose and creasing the corners of your eyes as you beam at him. For a moment, you spy him wrestling with something close to a smile. He rolls his jaw, and you mimic the movement. You are teasing him, like he isn’t a man with a bounty and a reputation. Dracule crosses his arms.

You mirror him.

Shanks snores. He startles a bit at the sound, mumbles something, and settles back into the lull of his drunken nap.

Your smile twists into something wry as you look away, eyes fleeting across the plaza.

“Fine,” you concede, not meaning it at all, “I will find another partner.”

Dracule’s eyes narrow. His fingers twitch toward his empty glass. You notice.

“The young man by the fountain has been watching you since you stepped away,” he drawls, his attention piercing through the crowd. The man is blonde. He has a loose smile. He is chatting with friends of his; they’re all boyish and drunk. Your expression sours when you turn to look.

“He can keep watching,” you retort.

“Uninterested?” Dracule spars, his brow quirking.

It feels unfair when you drag your eyes down his chest, then back up to his face; you’re making your stance clear — you favor him — as you murmur, “Incredibly.”

Dracule’s jaw feathers. His eyes peer past you. “…Who is he?”

“A waste of our air,” you bitterly scoff.

Dracule sucks his teeth. He exhales, shoulders tense. He’s waffling. Wavering. His eyes flick to Shanks — fast asleep — and then to you. Then, again, back to the man who’s chewing his thumb and staring at your backside through the crowd.

Your eyes follow Dracule’s. You scowl. It is the Flemming’s son. Their eldest. The one your father keeps insisting is a nice boy. You know how these talks go. You’ve seen the men in your family sow this exact seed: he’s a nice boy from a good family; he would make a good husband, a better father. It is how marriages go here on this tropical isle.

Especially when the Flemming boy is set to inherit the only other vineyard on the island aside from your family’s.

But that isn’t why you have such a dislike toward Filip, no. It’s much worse. His father has always occupied some sort of political office on the island. He is a radical devotee of the Five Elders, never once challenging law or doctrine that maims the spirit of people, their culture, their livelihoods, or their land. They seem to have that man — and his son by proxy — by the balls. And you? You were educated. Well-read. Your own father always joked that the island’s News Coo knew you by name.

Opposites do not attract. Not when your own ideologies are already dangerous. Not when you help the others on the island print pamphlets and stuff them into wine barrels set across the Grand Line, distributing revolutionary manifestos. Art. Poems. Anything, really, forbidden by the World Government.

“He seems keen on you,” Mihawk rumbles, jutting his chin out to gesture to the gaggle of boys clapping the man on the back. There’s apprehension, though, in his expression. Dracule cannot put a finger on why you seem so displeased with the attention.

“Is he a scorned lover of yours?” the swordsman drawls, head tilting.

“Calling my propriety into question?” you drawl back, head tilting the opposite way, “How bold of you, Mihawk.”

Oh, this is dangerous. You spar with words — as if that were a duel. You dance around the question, redirecting, like you’re balancing a blade on your tongue. It is impressive, and Dracule’s usual stoicism cracks for a moment. The corner of his mouth ticks upward before it’s schooled back into its usual position.

“You know my name,” he states — attempting to feign boredom as he uncrosses his legs, “And yet, you have not given me yours.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I’m asking now,” he rumbles as he stands to full height; he towers over you as he grasps his coat and swings it over his shoulders. He moves like a shadow, and large palms reach up to adjust his hat. He kicks Shanks' boot to rouse his compatriot from his drunken stupor.

You suck your teeth to stop yourself from leaping at the opportunity. You roll your jaw and fend off a smile as you notice he is trying very hard to do the same. Your chin is raised defiantly. “You know, they generally advise girls against giving their names to pirates.”

His eyes narrow. You’re still teasing. Shanks, bent over his knees and rubbing his temples, laughs.

“If I do not know your name,” Dracule pauses pointedly before he murmurs, “How will I write you?”

Oh, your smile. It’s worth making a fool of himself, certainly, because Shanks does not let him live it down, not the entire way back to the docks.

You gave him a smile before walking to your usual spot in the back.

Bucky was debriefing you all beside Thor as you tried your best to pay attention, but the doors flew open and behind Sam four people in blue and white suits gathered in.

When the aircraft landed this is the last situation Johnny Storm and the Fantastic Four expected to be in.

They were here for one reason and one reason only, to defeat Doom. But they were brought into the conference room and immediately spotted you.

The one who made them the Fantastic Five. The one who Johnny Storm loved so deeply, he never quite moved on.

Johnny wasn’t sure what to do. He was looking right at you. You were wearing clothes he had never seen before, and your hair wasn’t curly like it so often was.

People were introducing themselves all around the room, but he didn’t hear any of it.

He couldn’t speak, you said your name, the name he used to call you, the name he used to whisper at night. The name he proposed to. Your eyes were still so bright, the same way they were before he lost you.

Then his eyes went to your left hand.

That was not your ring. That was not the ring he had spent months carefully curating. And it couldn’t have been, because he buried you in it. The entire room was spinning.

Sue’s face was laced with concern and yours with confusion.

“Johnny,” she whispered softly, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of you, “Johnny it’s not her. She’s not from our earth.”

He took a deep breath. “Sue, what do you mean?” His breath became more ragged as he looked you up and down, eyes falling to where your body leaned against the brunette man standing beside you, “Sue it’s her.”

His voice cracked, and you couldn’t help but feel some sort of guilt crawl up your throat.

“Johnny, we knew this. That there are different variants in different universes,” Reed said from beside them, he took a shaky breath, “we knew this would be a possibility.”

You reached for Peter’s hand, suddenly uncomfortable about the conversation being had about you.

Johnny’s hands went to his hair, pulling anxiously, “yeah— yeah Reed you said that, but you didn’t say she would be right here, or that I would have to — have to look at her.”

Sue stepped in front of him, placing both her hands on his biceps, “Johnny, she’s from this earth. Not ours, she’s not her, I’m so sorry.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

Johnny was trying to breathe, but it sounded more like he was gasping for air.

You weren’t sure what to do, Peter’s hand gripped yours tighter, an anxious habit he had. You looked to Bucky and Sam for some sort of help, some sort of explanation, but they were just as confused as you.

The large rock man approached Johnny’s side next, splaying a hand gently across his shoulder blades, “Johnny, let’s get some air, yeah?”

Johnny nodded quickly, needing an exit from the situation.

He murmured his apologies through his gasps for air. Ben guided him out of the conference room, gently closing the door behind him.

All eyes turned to Sue, who was looking at you with a look in her eyes you have seen over a million times at this point in your life, you know it because you see it in yourself sometimes when you look in the mirror. Her eyes were filled with grief.

She shook her head, trying to plaster a smile across her face, “I’m really sorry, it’s just a bit weird for us.”

Bucky huffed a laugh, “yeah we could say the same.”

Reed placed a supportive arm around his wife, “we lost someone, um back on our earth,” he said your name softly, Sue squeezed her eyes shut when he did, “she um, was Johnny’s fiancée when she passed. So it’s just weird seeing you here… like this.”

Bucky cleared his throat, stepping forward with Sam and Bruce.

You tried to bite back the tears that sat behind your eyes. You’re not sure if it was embarrassment, discomfort or what. But a chill climbed up your spine the second Reed spoke and it was sitting at the base of your neck like it belonged there.

Bucky began continuing as normal, Reed and Sue peeled their eyes from you and started participating in the group conversation.

“You okay?” Peter leaned over with his arms crossed over his chest, whispering just to you.

“That was weird,” Yelena says under her breath in a sing-song voice next to you.

“Yelena,” Peter warned.

You sighed, leaning against him, “I’m okay, just feel off, I don’t know.” You shrugged.

He unfolded his arms and slipped one over your shoulder, “I could imagine.”

You leaned further into him, trying to focus on the complexities of the challenge ahead, and not the weight on your chest.

The meeting carried on and plans were arranged on how to handle the situation that the Fantastic Four came all the way to your earth for.

You excused yourself as soon as the meeting was concluded. You couldn’t sit in that room with them for another minute. You pushed the door to your shared room open before promptly flopping onto the bed.

Peter softly closed the door behind himself, “I’m going to be completely honest with you here, this feels like uncharted territory.”

You huffed a laugh into the bed, “it’s definitely new.” Your voice was muffled by the comforter.

You felt the bed dip where Peter sat beside you.

You turned your head so that you were looking at him. He gave you an unsure smile.

”Is it weird that I feel bad?” You asked quietly.

He sighed, “I mean, you have nothing to feel bad about, but I’m definitely not surprised you do.”

You smiled at him.

“I don’t think your empathy came from your dad, I’ll just say that,” he smiled down at you.

“Ain’t that the truth,” you replied.

“But… at the same time, I think he was just better at hiding it than you are,” he added.

You sighed, you knew he was right. Tony Stark was many things, and an empath didn’t seem like one of them. But to the people that knew him best, he cared deeply.

You twisted your body so that you were now sitting shoulder to shoulder with Peter.

“Well, hi,” he said softly.

You smiled at him again, “any ideas on what to do when you meet someone from a different universe that claims you’re their dead lover?”

Peter let out a real laugh at your bluntness.

You laughed, but still maintained a look of frustration, hitting him in the bicep. Which probably hurt you more than it hurt him, “Pete, I’m being serious.”

He was still laughing, “I know you are, I just don’t think there’s rules written out on what to do here. Not that you’re known for following the rules anyway.”

You smirked, “if I followed the rules, we wouldn’t have dated,” recalling the time in high school when your father forbade you from seeing Peter.

Peter nodded, “yeah, I know, you like to bring that one up whenever I try to get you to follow rules.”

You smiled at him for a moment.

”Is it crazy if I go to talk to him?” You asked, breaking the momentary silence.

He shook his head, “no.”

You leaned over and kissed his cheek, “love you.”

He smiled, trying to hide his blush that still crept up his neck whenever you showed him any affection even after nearly ten years of being together, “love you more.”

When you first started “talking” in high school, you had expected the blush. But now, all this time later, you loved that he was still so affected by you.

You hopped off the bed and headed out to talk to Johnny.

You found him by himself on the roof. You’re not sure what brought you up here, but something guided you here.

He was bent over the railing, calmly looking out at the skyline. You took a moment to look at him before approaching him. You wondered what you were like on his earth if you were still you. Clearly not if you were a member of their team, and you were into blondes. You wondered if you were smart, if you had any family.

You shook your curiosities away. Exhaling sharply, you moved to stand beside him, also leaning on the railing.

He didn’t turn and look at you when you made your presence known.

“I’m sorry about that, that must have been a lot for you,” you said quietly, nervously fiddling with the sleeves of your hoodie.

You turned your body to face him, and he slowly lifted his upper half off the railing to mirror you.

“An empath in every universe, I see,” he said calmly, there was a ghost of a smile on his face, “you have nothing to be sorry for.”

You gave him one that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

You’re not sure what was possessing you, but you reached out and took his hand in yours. He seemed perplexed by the sudden touch. You swore his breath caught, his eyes glistening lightly.

Johnny stared down at your joined hands for a long moment.

His thumb rubbed absentmindedly across the back of your knuckles before he seemed to realize what he was doing. He let go immediately, almost embarrassed.

“You sound just like her,” the words were barely above a whisper.

A sad smile tugged at your lip again, “I guess that's the multiverse for you.”

He laughed through his nose, “yeah.”

Silence settled between you. It wasn't uncomfortable anymore, that feeling had passed. But it was a weight above you both, it made the air thicker.

“I haven't heard someone say her name in her voice for almost three years,” he admitted shyly, “or I guess, your name… in your voice.”

You looked down, “I’m really sorry.”

“You keep apologizing,” he searched your face.

“I know,” you shrugged, bringing your hands back to your sleeves to keep fidgeting.

“You don't owe me one.”

Another pause.

“When she died,” Johnny swallowed hard, “I kept thinking there had to be a universe where we ended up together. Not in the literal sense. I didn’t exactly know of the multiverse yet.”

His eyes found yours again, “it’s just… overwhelming. Seeing you here, with him, alive. I’m sorry for how I reacted.”

“I would imagine it’s rather odd,” you tried to find a way to lighten the situation, you were like your dad in that sense, but in this situation, you decided to go for connection, “when I lost my dad, I thought the whole world was over. And for a while… it was. But if the roles were reversed, and I walked onto your earth and saw my dad standing there?,” you shook your head, “let’s just say I think you had a a rather calm reaction.”

For the first time all day, Johnny Storm actually smiled.

Although he had calmed down, it was still a strange adjustment for the entire team. Johnny still caught himself staring every now and then. And you could feel the eyes of the other Fantastic four members whenever you walked into the training or meeting room.

Sometimes he'd walk into the kitchen and freeze because for half a second your laugh sounded exactly like hers and he had to remind himself that you weren’t his.

Sometimes you'd catch him looking away the instant you noticed.

Neither of you mentioned it, nobody did. It was silently and unanimously decided that it was better not to talk about it.

Over the following weeks the Fantastic Four integrated into the team surprisingly well.

Reed spent most of his time with Bruce arguing over dimensional energy signatures and the pattern of Doom’s movements.

Sue and Yelena were getting along as sisters would and Ben became Sam's gym partner.

And somehow through all of the stress, Johnny became your friend.

Not because he wanted you to replace anyone, but because he found that you were impossible not to like.

You were sarcastic enough to keep up with him, stubborn enough to challenge him, and compassionate enough to understand when he'd occasionally go quiet.

Peter was the first to notice it, mostly because he was always paying attention to you. And all three of you fell into a rhythm of friendship. The type of rhythm you couldn’t remember your life without.

The three of you sat on the roof one evening sharing pizza.

“Johnny, keep your pineapple bullshit as far away from ours as possible,” you had, gesturing offensively towards his half of the pizza.

“Dude, aren’t you from New York? Do they allow that in your New York?” Peter added.

Johnny chuckled, “you haven’t even tried it.”

Peter scoffed, “don’t have to.”

Johnny turned to face you. “See? I guess that’s why you're marrying him and not me.”

The joke landed awkwardly. Johnny's smile faltered as you and Peter turned to look at each other.

“I'm—”

You interrupted with a grin, “and don’t forget Peter actually does the dishes.”

Peter looked absurdly proud, “I do.”

Johnny rolled his eyes so dramatically Ben could probably feel it from three floors down, “well that’s just unfair. Peter is what the people of your earth call, a simp? I believe that’s what Joaquin called you.”

Peter looked offended, but the tension dissolved into laughter.

Unfortunately, normal never lasted.

Reed's scanners picked it up first.

Victor von Doom wasn't simply trying to conquer Earth-616. He was using fragments of collapsing universes to build something impossible.

A machine capable of stitching realities together. Reed spoke in circles around everyone in the room before realizing he was strictly using science terms.

“He wants to erase every universe that doesn’t fit his… master plan,” Bruce said in the meeting room.

“Was that it dumbed down for us regular folks?” You asked, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

“Says the MIT grad and her MIT grad fiancé,” Bruce quipped back.

“It was for me and Alexei and Quino, okay?” Yelena corrected, gesturing vaguely, and rolling her eyes.

Joaquin threw his hands up in defense, making Sam smile.

You huffed a laugh, but when you looked around everyone’s smiles quickly faded as they processed the severity of the mission.

The mission took you to the center of three collapsing realities. The most fucked up part of the whole thing was that it was actually beautiful.

It was like the most intense sunset you had ever seen with the northern lights somehow sparkling through it all. What quickly wiped that vision of beauty away was the smoke and the screams.

Sue nearly collapsed holding together an entire collapsing bridge long enough for hundreds of people to escape.

As Peter looked around, he saw Johnny looking at you again.This time he was checking to make sure you were alright.

Honestly, he didn’t mind. Because he knew how you were, you were just like your father. Willing to make the sacrifice for the greater good. But Peter couldn’t lose you too.

So whatever it may be, an old habit, the need to subconsciously keep some version of you safe, Peter didn’t mind that Johnny protected you when he couldn’t.

Doom managed to escape you that day. You’re not sure how he did, but you knew he was calculated, that much you had all learned. But for now, the collapse of reality was delayed.

You were all cooped up in an abandoned building near the incursion point.

You were helping Yelena rebraid her hair when Peter sat down on the ground next to Johnny.

Johnny looked over at Peter as he sat.

Peter exhaled, keeping his eyes on you across the room, “thanks.”

Johnny’s brow furrowed, “for what?”

Peter turned to him, holding his mask in his lap, “for watching out for her.”

Johnny stared into the small fire burning between them, “I don't even have to think about it. It just… happens.”

Peter smiled knowingly.

After a moment he added quietly, “if she was even half as amazing as she is here, then I get it.”

Johnny let out a slow breath, “I couldn’t… save her.”

Peter nodded, he didn’t press further, he simply sat with Johnny in his grief.

The final battle took place inside Doom's reality fortress.

Everything collided and somehow everyone fought separately.

Peter swung through collapsing platforms trying to reach you.

You were trapped between two buildings. Fighting between two of Doom’s accomplices, barely holding on. And then a massive fracture opened beneath your feet.

Reality itself cracked apart… and you fell.

Peter fired two webs. Both dissolved before reaching you. He let out a scream that could’ve been heard in space.

You didn’t scream. No. You couldn’t. You simply gasped before realizing you were falling to your death. Your stomach flipped as you came to the realization that the webs were out of reach.

Just as you closed your eyes, something hot encompassed your wrist. He caught you just before you disappeared into the void.

Your eyes shot open and met his.

“Johnny!” You breathed out in a panicked tone.

“I’ve got you!” He yelled back, pulling you up and nearly throwing you both over the side of the crack in the ground.

Peter swung and landed where you both laid on the dirt.

Johnny pushed himself up on his forearms, gasping for air before standing upright. Peter’s hands moved to your back, gently coaxing you up as you tried to catch your breath.

The thick combat suit you always wore was completely burnt through at the wrist, but you didn’t care.

Just as you all stood up, time stopped. The ground shook beneath you as Doom fell. The incursions began to separate and go back to their natural realities.

You saw Sam and Bucky hug in the distance, Yelena smiling at Alexei, it was over. You won.

You all piled into the quinjet and made your way back to the New Avengers tower.

The thing about saving the world that you never got used to, was the after. Your whole life has revolved around saving the universe for months, and just like that, it’s over. You always found it hard to go back to normal.

You were slipping out of your combat suit and sitting on a table while Bruce patched you up.

Peter found Johnny sitting alone on one of the landing platforms overlooking the city skyline.

Cheers could be heard in the distance, alarms blared, fireworks went off. The city, and the world, were safe again.

His hand was flexing, as he rotated his wrist that had been lazily wrapped before excusing himself to get some air.

Peter sat beside him, “looks like I owe you another thank you.”

Johnny looked over.

Peter swallowed, “you saved her,” he looked out over the city again, “I missed.”

Johnny smiled sadly.

Peter laughed shakily, sniffing and trying to will his tears away, “I thought I was going to lose her.”

Johnny stared at the skyline glowing beneath the setting sun.

Peter looked at him.

Johnny's voice was quiet, “I couldn't save her,” he blinked once, “on my earth. We uh, we were the fantastic five once you know?” Peter nodded, smiling at Johnny.

“She was so amazing,” he shook his head fondly, “but uh, she took the risk, and she saved the day. But I couldn’t get there. And by the time I did, well uh, it was too late.”

A small smile crossed his face, “I'm just happy I could save her here. That there’s a universe where she gets to live and be loved, even if it’s not by me.”

Peter understood immediately.

Peter reached over and squeezed Johnny's shoulder, “I owe you everything.”

Johnny shook his head, “I could say the same to you guys.”

For the first time in years, the ache in his chest stopped feeling like an open wound and felt more like a scar. It didn’t feel debilitating.

That night, the teams shared a mountain of takeout boxes and bottles of whatever liquor you could find.

The laughs rang through the tower in a way that felt familiar and homely. Peter held a beer in one hand and your lower back in the other.

You fiddled with the ring on your left hand as he conversed with Reed about something you hadn’t caught.

Your eyes wandered to Johnny who was across the room laughing with Bucky.

You couldn’t help but smile.

The next morning, hangover and all, it was time to say goodbye. It ended up being more tearful than anyone had expected. In the past few months, you have all grown so close, you felt more like one team than two. Whether it be trauma bonding, or just the attachment, you’re not sure.

When you finally got to Johnny, he smiled nervously, unsure where to start, so you did.

“Can I hug you?” You asked tentatively, voice small.

He looked confused, “um, yeah, sure.”

You closed the distance between you in two small strides, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressing your head against his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry I’m not… her,” you said against him.

He let out a wet laugh, nuzzling his head against yours as he held your upper body tightly, “you truly have nothing to apologize for.” He took a shaky breath, “in fact, this has been more healing than you know.”

“You know, if it were me, which I guess it was in some weird way, I would want you to be happy,” you spoke quietly.

You felt him tense lightly at that.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” you pulled out of the hug, taking his hands in yours softly, “I just have to say it. If— if Peter were to lose me, I would want him to live his life for me, not stop it,” you swallowed nervously, “I would want him to feel love and happiness, take the trips we always talked about, laugh with his friends. I would want him to live for both of us.”

Johnny smiled at you sadly, “god, yeah. That’s something she would say.”

You huffed a laugh, “when you get home, just try it.”

He nodded slowly, “I think I will.”

You parted from him with one final squeeze of his hands, making your way back over to Peter.

You slid your arms around his waist and he held you tightly against him.

You waved goodbye as they all piled back in their ship.

“Well,” Peter looked down at you, “now that we saved the universe… again, I guess it’s time to plan a wedding.”

You laughed, wiping a stray tear that had fallen, “that’s what Pepper is for.”

He laughed at that, squeezing you a little tighter, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

You smiled up at him with glossy eyes, “me too.”

The Fantastic Four disappeared into the sky, the engines of their ship becoming nothing more than a distant hum before finally fading completely.

You stood on the landing platform long after they were gone.

Peter was beside you, his arm wrapped securely around you.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded slowly, “yeah.”

You looked down at the ring on your finger. Then back toward the sky.

“I think he’ll be okay,” you said, thinking out loud.

Peter followed your gaze. “Yeah,” he agreed softly. “I think he will too.”

He had come to your universe carrying the weight of losing you. And he was leaving having saved you.

Maybe, in some strange way, that was what the multiverse had given him.

For the first time since the Fantastic Four had arrived, the strange ache in your chest finally began to fade.

You weren't her.

You never would be.

And Johnny didn't need you to be.

You were you.

Tony Stark's daughter.

Peter Parker's fiancée.

Yelena's best friend.

An Avenger.

Three months later, the Baxter Foundation officially reopened its dimensional research division.

Reed insisted it was purely scientific, but Ben insisted it was because Reed was incapable of leaving anything alone.

The first time the Fantastic Four returned to Earth-616, it was nearly a year later and you were waiting for them in the lobby of the New Avengers Tower.

Johnny stepped off the platform first.

His eyes found yours immediately, “hey, Stark. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

You smiled, “hey, Storm.”

He opened his arms and you laughed and walked straight into them.

When you pulled away, Johnny looked down at your left hand, “wedding plans yet?”

You smiled, “unfortunately.”

He shook his head, “oh poor Parker.”

You swatted his arm, making him laugh.

Peter appeared behind you, sliding an arm around your waist, “why poor me?”

Your wedding day arrived far sooner than you expected, as people always say it does.

The ceremony was small by Stark standards. Which meant there were still approximately two hundred people there.

You stood at the end of the aisle, your father's old wedding band tucked safely into a sewn pocket of your dress.

Peter stood at the other end and the second the doors opened and your eyes met him, he was crying.

Pepper held your arm tightly, smiling so big it had to hurt her, “I’m so proud of you.” She whispered before taking the step to walk you down the aisle.

You laughed through your own tears.

“Seriously?” you mouthed to him.

He shook his head, laughing as he wiped his eyes.

You reached him and he immediately took your hands.

“You look so beautiful,” he whispered, his smile was almost goofy.

“You're crying,” you said, crying yourself.

He laughed, leaning closer, “I love you.”

Your smile softened, “I love you.”

And as the ceremony continued, you glanced toward the front row.

Yelena was crying and Bucky was pretending he wasn't.

Sam was smiling and Thor was absolutely sobbing.

And then you turned back towards Peter.

Because this was your life. This was your universe. This was your story.

And when Peter slipped the ring onto your finger, you realized that perhaps the strangest gift the multiverse had ever given you was the reminder that life was precious precisely because it wasn't guaranteed.

Peter leaned down and kissed you as everyone around you erupted into cheers.

You laughed against his lips.

And somewhere beyond the stars, in a universe you would probably never see, Johnny Storm was learning how to live again.

Not because he had forgotten her.

But because he finally understood what she would have wanted.

And in the strange, infinite expanse of the multiverse, that was enough.

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Tags (all): @ilocuras24 @nyxmoretti @kmc1989 @destinyg237 @qardasngan

rain has weakened to a fine mist, gathering in your hair and along the shoulders of your coat. students move between buildings beneath umbrellas, stepping around puddles that reflect the old stone facades and pale afternoon sky. somewhere near the library, a bicycle bell rings twice before disappearing beneath the scrape of shoes and the low rush of conversations.

peter walks quickly.

not impossibly quickly. just fast enough to make it clear that he does not want to be caught.

“peter,” you call.

he does not stop.

you follow him down the library steps and across the courtyard. your shoes strike the wet pavement harder than they need to, splashing cold water against the hems of your jeans.

“you’re making my headache worse,” you shout.

that stops him.

peter turns beneath a red-leafed maple near the edge of the path. rainwater slips from the branches overhead, darkening the shoulders of his jacket. students divide around you without paying attention, absorbed in phones, conversations, and the rush toward their next classes.

“go back inside,” peter says.

his voice stays low, but you hear the strain beneath it. his fingers close around one of his backpack straps as though he needs something solid to hold.

“tell me the truth,” you demand.

peter looks past you toward the physics building. “you don’t want it.”

“you don’t know what i want.”

his mouth tightens.

“i used to,” he replies.

the words settle between you, quieter than everything moving around them.

you take one step closer.

“who was i to you?” you ask.

peter looks toward the library instead of answering. his attention jumps between sounds—the scrape of shoes, the squeal of bicycle brakes, a name shouted across the courtyard. the sensory overload presses tension into every line of him. his shoulders remain raised, his jaw fixed, his eyes moving toward disturbances no one else notices.

“somewhere quieter,” you say.

peter’s gaze returns to yours. “what?”

“you can hear all of them.”

something shifts across his face.

you do not know how you recognize that either. you only know the crowded courtyard is hurting him, and the certainty arrives with the familiarity of something you have done before.

you lead him toward the physics building without waiting for agreement. a narrow service courtyard sits behind it, enclosed on three sides by brick walls and mostly abandoned during the rain. only the muted hum of the ventilation system reaches the space, accompanied by water dripping steadily from a rusted gutter near the overhang.

the campus noise dulls there.

peter remains beneath the shallow roof while you stop several feet away. rainwater darkens the pavement between you, gathering in the uneven places before spilling toward the drain.

“better?” you ask.

he gives a small nod.

you fold your arms against the damp chill. “the inhibitor is for the spider dna.”

peter looks toward the wet pavement.

“yes,” he answers.

“because you’re losing control.”

“sometimes.”

“because you’re alone.”

peter looks up sharply.

you think of the notes you glimpse on bruce’s desk. hormonal expression intensified by prolonged isolation. increased territorial response. heightened aggression surrounding perceived threats. the handwriting has been peter’s, though you did not know that when you read it.

“bruce didn’t tell me,” you explain. “i read the margin before he covered it.”

peter’s shoulders lower by a fraction.

“it isn’t that simple,” he says.

“then explain it.”

he leans back against the brick wall. the backpack remains hanging from one shoulder, the bottom of it pressed between him and the damp bricks.

“the spider changed more than my strength,” peter says. “most of it stayed balanced for years. human hormones, human instincts, spider traits. everything regulated everything else.”

“until now,” you say.

peter turns his face toward the rain beyond the overhang.

“until i stopped…” he begins.

the words trail away. his fingers flex once at his side before curling into his palm.

“being around people,” he finishes.

“you’ve been alone for four years.”

his silence answers.

the ache inside your chest deepens. it has been there longer than the headaches, longer than the dreams, an absence you have spent years mistaking for restlessness.

“why?” you ask.

peter laughs quietly, but the sound breaks before it becomes anything real.

“because no one remembers me.”

you stare at him.

water continues dripping from the gutter, striking the pavement in the same place until the sound begins to feel like a clock.

“what does that mean?” you ask.

peter looks down at his hands.

“there was a spell,” he says.

the rain seems louder.

“people found out who spider-man was,” peter continues. “it destroyed my life. it hurt everyone close to me. i tried to fix it, and i made everything worse.”

his fingers curl more tightly against his palms.

“the only way to stop everything was for the whole world to forget peter parker,” he finishes.

your breathing slows.

the sentence should sound impossible. it should make you laugh or demand evidence or accuse him of lying again.

instead, it settles into the empty places inside you as though it has always belonged there.

“including me,” you say.

peter does not answer.

“including me,” you repeat.

“yes,” he replies.

the word almost disappears beneath the rain.

pain begins building behind your eyes, but you force yourself to remain still.

“what was i to you?” you ask.

peter closes his eyes. a drop of water slips from his hair, following the curve of his cheek until it disappears beneath his jaw.

“you were tony stark’s daughter,” he answers.

“that isn’t what i asked.”

“you worked with the avengers.”

“peter.”

“you knew spider-man.”

“peter.”

his jaw trembles.

“stop,” he says.

you take another step toward him. “tell me.”

“i said stop.”

his voice strikes the brick walls harder than he intends. you stop, but you do not retreat. 

peter pushes away from the wall. his backpack slips from his shoulder, catching at his elbow before he pulls it free and drops it onto the dry strip of pavement beneath the overhang.

“you want me to tell you?” he asks. 

his breathing has changed. each breath enters slowly, held too long before it leaves. the rhythm seems deliberate, like he is trying to restrain something with nothing but air.

“yes,” you reply.

peter looks at you. anger sharpens his expression, but grief keeps breaking through it. neither one manages to hide the other.

“you were everything,” he says. the words leave him rough and unsteady.

your throat tightens.

peter drags one hand through his wet hair and turns away. he makes it two steps before stopping near the edge of the overhang, where rain begins striking the toes of his shoes.

“you were the first person i looked for when i walked into a room,” he continues. “you were the person i called when something went wrong, and when something went right, and when nothing happened but i wanted to hear your voice anyway.”

his hands close into fists.

“peter,” you murmur.

he turns back too quickly.

“you asked,” he says. the words hold an accusation, but not one meant for you. the anger has nowhere useful to go, so it enters his voice and makes every syllable sharper.

“you wanted the truth,” peter continues. “the truth is that i remember everything.”

rain blows beneath the overhang. cold droplets catch against his face, but he does not seem to notice them.

“i remember how you take your coffee,” he says. “i remember that you hate when people leave cabinet doors open. i remember that you steal food off my plate after saying you aren’t hungry.”

your head pulses. peter steps closer.

“i remember you falling asleep in the workshop while you waited for me to come back from patrol,” he continues. “i remember carrying you upstairs because your dad would complain if he found you there in the morning. i remember the first time you kissed me and the first time you told me you loved me and every stupid argument we had because neither of us knew how to apologize without making a joke first.”.

“i remember all of it,” peter says. “and you look at me like i’m someone you passed in a hallway.”

the words catch at the end.

you step toward him. peter retreats until his back meets the wall again.

“i’m not blaming you,” he says.

“it sounds like you are.”

“i’m not.”

his voice rises.

a door opens somewhere inside the physics building. footsteps cross the corridor beyond the brick wall before fading toward the stairwell. peter’s head turns toward the noise. he listens until the person moves beyond whatever range his instincts consider dangerous, then forces his attention back to you.

“i know you didn’t choose this,” he says. “that’s the worst part. you didn’t choose to forget me. you didn’t choose to wake up one morning without knowing there was someone missing. you didn’t choose any of it, and i’m still angry every time you don’t remember something.”

his face twists around the admission.

“i hate myself for that,” he says.

the anger collapses into something rawer.

“i hate that it hurts when you don’t know my name,” peter continues. “i hate that some part of me still expects you to smile when you see me. i hate that i keep thinking if i stand close enough or say the right thing, you’ll look at me the way you used to.”

you cannot move. peter presses the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“and i hate that i want you back,” he says behind them. “because you have a life. you’re safe. you’re happy, or you were before i walked into that office and ruined it.”

“you didn’t ruin anything,” you say.

peter drops his hands.

“you’re standing in the rain with a migraine because i couldn’t stay away from you,” he snaps. “how is that not ruining it?”

“because something was wrong before you came back.”

“you didn’t know that.”

“i felt it.”

“that doesn’t mean—”

“i missed you,” you interrupt.

peter becomes still. your eyes burn, but you refuse to look away from his.

“i didn’t know your name,” you continue. “i couldn’t see your face. i didn’t know what i had lost, but i missed you every day.”

his mouth opens. nothing leaves it.

you press one hand against your temple as the pain grows sharper.

“i kept looking for you,” you say. “in every room. in every memory that didn’t make sense. i kept waiting for someone, and i didn’t know who.”

peter shakes his head.

“you can’t say that.”

“why?”

“because you don’t remember.”

“then help me.”

“i can’t.”

his answer comes too quickly. 

your anger rises through the pain.

“you won’t,” you correct.

peter’s expression hardens.

“there’s a difference.”

“is there?”

“yes.” his voice cracks against the word. “because i already tried,” peter says. “i found you after the spell.”

the rain presses harder against the courtyard. 

you lower your hand from your temple.

“what happened?” you ask.

peter looks away.

“you looked happy.”

“so you left.”

“you were safer.”

“you don’t get to decide that.”

“someone had to.”

“no,” you say. “you decided you had to.”

peter’s jaw tightens.

“you don’t know what happened,” he replies.

“then tell me.”

“everyone who knew me got hurt.”

“that wasn’t your choice either.”

“it became my responsibility.”

“and what about mine?”

peter looks at you.

you cross the remaining space between you, stopping near enough that you can see raindrops caught in his eyelashes.

“you decided i was happier without you,” you say. “you decided i was safer. you decided forgetting you was something i could live with.”

“you were living with it.”

“i was surviving something i couldn’t name.”

his eyes flash. peter turns away and drives his fist into the brick wall.

the impact cracks through the courtyard. mortar fractures beneath his hand, falling in pale pieces onto the wet ground. several bricks split through the middle, the damage spreading outward from his knuckles.

peter stares at the wall. his breathing becomes shallow.

“that,” he says, “is why i need the inhibitor.”

you look at the fractured brick and then at his hand. the skin across his knuckles remains unbroken.

“you’re angry,” you say.

“i wanted to put my fist through the building.”

“because i told you that you were wrong?”

“because you’re right.”

his eyes remain fixed on his hand.

“because i left you,” peter continues. “because i spent four years telling myself it was noble when really i was scared.”

his fingers shake when he draws them away from the wall.

“and because you don’t remember me,” he adds.

the confession leaves quieter than everything before it.

“i know it isn’t your fault,” peter says. “i know that. but i remember loving you, and you don’t. i remember what your voice sounds like when you say my name half-asleep. i remember what it feels like when you reach for me before you wake up. i remember standing in front of you and promising i would find you.”

his shoulders fold inward.

“you don’t remember any of it,” he whispers.

you move closer.

peter steps back, though the wall leaves him nowhere to go.

“don’t,” he warns.

“you keep saying that.”

“i could hurt you.”

“have you?”

“not yet.”

“that matters.”

“not enough.”

you stop within arm’s reach. rain drips from the edge of the overhang between you in a steady silver line.

“you caught me before i fell,” you say.

peter’s throat tightens.

“instinct.”

“you stood between me and the door.”

“instinct.”

“you let go when i asked you to.”

he looks at you.

“that was you,” you tell him. “not the spider.”

“you don’t know that.”

“i know you.”

pain moves across his face.

“you don’t remember me,” he says.

“my body does.”

the admission stills him.

you lift your hand slowly, giving him time to move away.

he does not.

your fingers settle around his wrist. his pulse beats beneath your thumb—slow, powerful, controlled by something not entirely human. the rhythm should frighten you. instead, relief moves through you.

peter watches your hand.

“every time you touch me, something comes back,” you whisper.

his eyes lift to yours.

“and every time, it hurts you,” he says.

“losing you hurts more.”

his face folds around the words. the anger leaves first. tension drains from his mouth and shoulders until only the grief beneath it remains.

you slide your hand down until your fingers meet his.

peter doesn’t close his hand. not yet.

“let me choose,” you say.

his fingers move carefully around yours.

the world opens. memories return without mercy.

peter teaching you how to swing from a web line while your father shouts from below.

peter eating cereal at midnight in the tower kitchen.

peter sitting between your knees while you stitch a cut near his shoulder.

peter smiling when you tell him you love him.

peter crying at the statue of liberty.

peter promising.

peter leaving.

then his face returns.

dark eyes. soft mouth. brown curls slipping between your fingers. every smile, every worried crease, every expression you spend four years grieving without understanding.

your knees weaken.

peter catches you.

the arachnid instinct moves first, fast enough that you never begin to fall, but tenderness follows it. one arm circles your waist while his other hand supports the back of your head.

“i’ve got you,” he says.

you remember those words.

you remember all of them.

your hands rise to his face. peter stops breathing. his features remain clear beneath your palms. 

“i can see you,” you whisper.

his eyes close. tears slip free before he can hide them, warm against your thumbs.

“you remember?” peter asks.

“yes,” you reply. the word breaks into a sob.

peter pulls you against him.

you bury your face in his neck, arms locking around his shoulders while four years of absence collapse inside you. his body shakes beneath the wet jacket. he holds you too tightly for an ordinary person, not enough to hurt, only enough to prove that he is real.

“i’m sorry,” peter sobs against your hair. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.”

you clutch the back of his jacket.

“stop leaving.” the words come muffled against him.

his arms tighten.

“okay,” he replies.

you pull back enough to see his face.

“don’t say it unless you mean it.”

peter looks at you. his eyes are brown, tearful, terrified, but open in a way you remember only from quiet rooms after midnight, when he became too tired to hide what he wanted.

“i mean it,” he says.

you search his face, tracing every feature the spell has kept from you. your thumb passes beneath his eye.

“you’re still angry,” you murmur.

peter lets out an uneven breath.

“not at you.”

“i know.”

“i wanted you to remember so badly,” he admits. “every time you looked at me, i kept waiting for it. and every time you didn’t…”

his gaze drops.

“it felt like losing you again,” he finishes.

you touch your forehead to his.

“then be angry,” you tell him. “just don’t disappear.”

peter’s hand rises to the side of your neck, his fingers resting beneath your hair.

“i love you,” he says.

the words come out rough, stripped of everything except the truth he has held alone for four years.

“i never stopped,” he continues. “i tried. i thought i had to. but i loved you when you walked away from me in that coffee shop. i loved you every time i saw you and didn’t say anything. i loved you when you didn’t know me.”

his thumb brushes beneath your ear.

“i love you now,” peter says, his voice trembling. “even if you wake up tomorrow and forget again. even if none of this stays. i love you.”

your eyes burn.

“i remember,” you whisper.

peter closes his eyes. the answer breaks something open in him. his forehead presses more firmly against yours as another tear travels down his cheek.

“i love you too,” you say. “i think some part of me always did.”

you kiss him.

for one second, he does not respond.

then his hand cups the side of your face, and everything familiar returns—the careful tilt of his head, the breath he takes against your mouth, the way his thumb rests beneath your ear.

the kiss carries the anger neither of you knows where to put. it carries four years of missed mornings and empty rooms, every word peter swallows while watching you live without him.

then it softens.

his mouth moves against yours with the aching care you remember. his other hand settles against your waist, holding you close while rain continues falling beyond the overhang.

someone opens a door across the courtyard, catches sight of you, and quietly closes it again.

when you pull away, peter keeps his forehead against yours. his breathing moves warmly across your lips.

“your dad is going to kill me,” he murmurs.

you laugh through the tears. the sound makes his mouth curve, though uncertainty remains in his eyes.

“he already forgot you once,” you say. “you can survive him remembering.”

peter’s smile falters.

“what if he doesn’t?”

you brush the wet hair away from his forehead.

“then he gets to know you again,” you reply.

peter looks at you for a long moment.

behind him, water continues slipping down the broken brick. the campus moves beyond the courtyard walls, filled with footsteps and closing doors and hundreds of lives continuing without knowing yours has shifted back into place.

peter bends to retrieve his backpack.

before he can straighten, you catch his hand. his fingers close around yours without hesitation this time.

“you’re coming with me,” you say.

peter glances toward the path leading out of the courtyard. “where?”

“home.”

fear flickers through his expression. you squeeze his hand.

“you promised you’d stop leaving,” you remind him.

peter looks down at your joined fingers.

“right,” he murmurs.

you lead him out from beneath the overhang. the rain has almost stopped. only a fine mist remains in the air, softening the old buildings and turning every distant window pale with reflected light.

peter stays beside you.

he does not let go.

—

your father doesn’t remember peter when you bring him to the compound.

tony waits inside the workshop with his arms folded and two gauntlets visible beneath the sleeves of his shirt. pepper stands near the door, pretending her presence is not meant to keep him from doing anything reckless. bruce arrives ten minutes earlier and occupies the stool beside the main workbench, the green light on his inhibitor blinking steadily.

peter stops at the threshold.

the workshop recognizes him before the people inside it do.

friday’s security grid pauses around his face. one of the old robotic arms rotates toward him, then settles as though recalling an unfinished task. a drawer near the back wall unlocks without instruction.

tony notices. his attention moves from the open drawer to peter.

“that’s new,” he says.

peter looks toward you.

you take his hand.

“his name is peter parker,” you tell your father. “he’s spider-man.”

tony’s jaw tightens.

“i know who spider-man is,” he replies. “i don’t know him.”

the words hurt peter. you feel it in the way his fingers loosen, preparing to release you before you can choose to stay.

you tighten your grip.

“you did,” you say.

tony looks toward you.

“the spell erased him,” you continue. “not just his identity. him. every memory connected to peter parker.”

pepper’s face changes.

she steps closer, eyes moving over peter’s features.

“you’ve been in our kitchen,” she says quietly.

peter swallows.

“a few times,” he answers.

pepper’s brow pulls together. “you hated the blueberries in the pancakes.”

tony turns toward her.

“you remember that?”

“not exactly,” pepper replies. “i remember making something different.”

peter’s eyes shine.

tony watches him.

“why didn’t you come back?” he asks.

peter’s shoulders fold inward.

“i did,” he says. “you didn’t know me.”

tony’s gaze drops briefly to your joined hands.

“and her?” he asks.

peter looks at you.

“she was happy,” he answers. “i thought leaving her alone was the right thing.”

“it wasn’t,” you say.

“i know,” peter replies.

the quiet that follows feels different from the silence inside bruce’s office. this one is crowded with things your father cannot remember and peter cannot forget.

tony approaches.

peter’s grip tightens around yours. his heartbeat slows.

you look toward his face. brown still fills his eyes, but his pupils widen as tony closes the distance.

“he isn’t a threat,” you murmur.

tony hears you.

his mouth twists.

“comforting,” he remarks.

peter breathes out slowly.

tony stops in front of him.

“you’re the kid from queens,” he says.

peter’s throat moves around a swallow.

“yeah,” he answers.

tony studies him with the same attention he gives damaged machinery—looking for the place where the shape in front of him fails to match what he expects.

“i built you a suit,” he says.

“more than one.”

“you hacked one.”

“technically.”

“technically,” tony repeats.

something flickers across his face.

a workshop.

webbing across a chair.

a teenager talking too quickly while alarms scream overhead.

the memory vanishes before tony can catch it.

he presses two fingers against his temple.

“i hate magic,” he mutters.

“you’ve said that before,” peter replies without thinking.

tony looks at him. peter lowers his gaze. the corner of your father’s mouth lifts despite himself.

“yeah,” tony says. “you might be the kid.”

he does not remember enough to hug him. not yet.

instead, he turns toward bruce.

“banner says you’re becoming more spider,” tony says.

peter’s attention snaps toward the professor.

“i didn’t say that,” bruce replies.

“you used, like, seventeen more syllables.”

“that doesn’t make your version accurate.”

tony gestures toward peter’s face. “eyes?”

peter becomes very still.

you step closer to his side.

“black when he feels threatened,” you explain. “or when someone he loves is threatened.”

tony looks at your hand in peter’s.

“that seems inconvenient.”

“that’s why he went to bruce,” you say.

bruce removes peter’s folded diagrams from a leather bag and places them on the workbench.

“he’s designing a selective inhibitor,” bruce explains. “something to regulate the increased expression without suppressing the traits that allow him to function.”

tony studies the papers.

“no blood work?” he asks.

peter shakes his head.

“no tests,” he answers.

“paranoid.”

“careful.”

tony looks toward him.

“good answer.”

he pulls one of the diagrams closer. peter watches his eyes move over the receptor map.

“this section is wrong,” tony says.

peter steps forward before he can stop himself.

“it isn’t wrong.”

“you’re using a static response threshold.”

“because the baseline changes.”

“exactly. so static is wrong.”

“unless the device recalibrates continuously.”

tony looks up.

peter points toward the lower margin.

“it’s there,” he says. “adaptive feedback loop.”

tony follows his finger.

silence passes.

“huh,” your father murmurs.

peter shifts his weight.

tony pulls a stool toward the workbench with his foot.

“sit down, kid,” he says. “your handwriting is terrible.”

peter stares at him.

“are you helping?” he asks.

tony uncaps a marker.

“don’t make it weird.”

peter looks toward you. the hope on his face is fragile enough that it hurts to see.

you smile, and he sits.

—

the inhibitor takes three weeks.

bruce refuses to design it without safeguards. your father refuses to let bruce install safeguards he cannot improve. peter refuses all testing that requires storing a genetic sample, though he eventually allows bruce to monitor his heart rate and hormone levels through a temporary sensor placed against his skin.

you spend most evenings in the workshop with them.

the work develops a rhythm.

bruce recalculates receptor targets while tony builds the casing. peter rewrites the feedback algorithm every time new information forces him to change an assumption. you keep coffee near your father, tea near bruce, and food within peter’s reach because he forgets to eat whenever the equations begin making sense.

the first time you slide a sandwich toward peter without asking, his hands become still above the keyboard.

“what?” you ask.

peter looks down at the plate.

“you used to do that,” he says.

you lean against the workbench beside him.

“you used to forget lunch.”

“i still forget lunch.”

“exactly.”

his mouth curves. he reaches for the sandwich.

the memories continue returning in small pieces.

peter reaches for a chipped mug in your father’s kitchen, and you remember buying it because world’s okayest dad is printed across the side.

he sits at the end of the couch, leaving the exact space beside him where you always curl against his shoulder.

he hands you the screwdriver you need before you ask.

you steal the pickles from his sandwich.

every small thing restores something.

sometimes the memories hurt. sometimes they make you laugh.

sometimes peter stands alone near a window, staring out at the city with the quiet expression of someone still waiting for the world to take everything back.

you learn not to ask whether he is all right. instead, you stand beside him.

the first serious episode happens on the nineteenth night.

tony tests the inhibitor’s power supply while bruce monitors the feedback loop. peter sits on the edge of the examination platform with the unfinished device secured on the back of his neck. it resembles bruce’s inhibitor, though smaller and slimmer, built from dark metal with a narrow red line running beneath the casing.

you stand beside him with one hand resting near his knee.

“baseline is stable,” bruce says, studying the monitor. “sensory response is elevated, but the regulator is compensating.”

tony adjusts a setting on his tablet.

“increasing output by five percent,” he says.

the inhibitor vibrates softly against peter’s neck. his fingers tense.

“how does it feel?” you ask.

“quiet,” peter replies.

the word carries wonder.

he looks toward the workshop door.

“i can still hear the ventilation system,” he continues. “and the elevator. but it isn’t…”

peter closes his eyes.

“it isn’t inside my head,” he finishes.

bruce records the response.

tony lowers the output.

the power cuts out.

darkness drops across the workshop. emergency lights ignite a second later, painting the room in red.

peter moves before anyone else.

he pulls you from beside the platform and places himself between you and the door. his body lowers into a defensive stance. black covers his eyes before the backup generator completes its first cycle.

“peter,” you say.

he does not answer.

something strikes the outer hallway. metal bends. tony’s gauntlet forms around his hand.

“that wasn’t the power,” he says.

the workshop door tears inward.

three men in tactical gear enter beneath the emergency lights. the first carries a weapon built from stolen stark components. the second lifts a sonic emitter toward bruce. the third looks directly at the inhibitor secured on peter’s neck.

they have come for the research.

the sonic emitter activates. the sound exists beyond the range of ordinary hearing.

peter feels it everywhere.

pain tears through his skull. the world fractures into violent frequencies—the weapon’s pulse, the attackers’ heartbeats, your sharp intake of breath behind him.

one man aims toward you. the spider takes control.

peter crosses the workshop before the weapon fires.

his hand closes around the attacker’s throat and drives him into the wall hard enough to crack the reinforced panel. the weapon falls. peter catches it with his other hand and crushes the metal casing without looking.

the man claws at his wrist.

peter tightens his grip. his face is empty. his eyes reflect the red lights.

“peter,” you call.

he does not hear you beneath the emitter.

tony fires a repulsor toward the second attacker. bruce ducks behind the workbench as the pulse strikes the wall above him. the third man lunges toward peter’s inhibitor with a blade.

peter turns.

the blade never reaches him.

he catches the man’s wrist and bends until bone snaps beneath the glove. the scream cuts through the sonic frequency.

something in peter’s expression changes. not satisfaction, recognition.

prey is hurt. the threat remains alive. his body intends to correct that.

he throws the man across the room. the attacker strikes the floor near your feet.

you step back. 

peter sees the movement.  the first man has recovered enough to lift the fallen weapon toward you.

peter is on him before tony can fire.

he pins the attacker beneath one knee. one hand grips the man’s jaw. the other braces behind his skull.

you know what he is about to do.

“peter,” you shout.

his hands tighten, and you cross the room.

tony reaches for you.

“don’t,” your father warns.

you pull free.

peter’s head snaps toward the movement. black eyes fix on you. his breathing is slow, body held in the terrible stillness before violence.

you kneel in front of him.

“look at me,” you say.

the attacker gasps beneath his knee. peter’s gaze flickers toward the sound.

you place your hand against his cheek.

“not him,” you tell him. “me.”

his skin burns beneath your palm.

“he threatened you,” peter says. the words barely sound like him.

“he can’t hurt me now.”

“he tried.”

“i know.”

peter’s fingers remain locked around the attacker’s head.

“let him go,” you say.

his jaw tightens.

“peter.”

the black surface of his eyes reflects your face.

“you stop when i ask,” you remind him.

his breath catches.

“you always stop.”

peter releases the attacker.

the man collapses against the floor, coughing. tony fires a restraint disc that expands around his wrists and ankles.

peter remains kneeling. 

the rage leaves him too quickly.

his body begins shaking as the black recedes from his eyes. brown returns around the pupils. horror follows it.

he looks at his hands.

“i was going to kill him,” he whispers.

you keep your palm against his face.

“but you didn’t.”

“i wanted to.”

“but you stopped.”

peter’s eyes lift to yours.

“because you were here.”

“yes.”

his expression breaks.

“what happens when you aren’t?”

the question reaches something deep enough that you cannot answer immediately.

behind you, bruce disables the sonic emitter. tony secures the remaining attackers. emergency lights continue pulsing across the workshop, turning peter’s face red and then dark in repeating intervals.

you take both his hands.

“then we keep working,” you say. “we make the inhibitor better. you learn other ways to come back.”

peter stares at your joined fingers.

“and until then?” he asks.

you move closer.

“until then, you stop being alone.”

—

peter moves into the compound two days later.

he argues at first.

the apartment is paid through the month. his things fit in three boxes. the city needs him closer to queens. every excuse arrives too quickly, rehearsed through four years of refusing to need anyone.

tony listens while tightening a screw on the inhibitor casing.

“great,” he says once peter finishes. “guest room is down the hall from hers.”

peter looks toward you.

“that wasn’t—”

“temporary,” tony interrupts. “banner says isolation makes you homicidal. i’m prescribing communal breakfast.”

bruce glances up from the monitor.

“that is not what i said.”

“close enough.”

peter’s mouth opens. you take his hand, and the argument fades.

“temporary,” peter says.

tony returns to the inhibitor.

“sure, kid.”

the first night, peter sleeps on the floor beside your bed.

you wake at three in the morning and find him sitting against the mattress with his knees drawn up, staring toward the window. the city glows beyond the glass, quieter from this height but never silent enough for him.

you reach over the edge of the bed.

“there’s room up here,” you murmur.

peter turns his head.

“i’m fine,” he says.

“you’ve been awake for two hours.”

his eyebrows lift.

“how do you know?”

“you tap your fingers when you’re trying not to move.”

peter looks down. his hand rests against his knee, index finger striking the fabric in an uneven rhythm.

“right,” he murmurs.

you lift the blanket.

“come here.”

he hesitates. not because he does not want to, but because he does. too much.

you recognize the fear now—the certainty that comfort is something borrowed, that every good thing has an ending already waiting inside it.

“i’m not going anywhere,” you say.

peter looks toward the floor.

“you don’t know that.”

“neither do you.”

“that’s not comforting.”

“it isn’t supposed to be.”

you extend your hand.

“we never knew what happened next,” you continue. “not before the spell. not now.”

peter studies your fingers.

“but i know you’re here tonight,” you say. “and i know you.”

his hand closes around yours. you pull gently.

peter climbs onto the bed and lies beside you. the mattress shifts beneath his weight. for a moment, he remains on his back, staring toward the ceiling while rain begins tapping softly against the window.

you move closer.

peter lifts one arm before you reach him.

habit.

you settle against his chest, resting your cheek over his heart. his arm closes around your waist, and his other hand finds yours beneath the blanket.

neither of you speaks for a while.

the room continues living around you. rain whispers against the glass. the air conditioner hums softly. somewhere down the hallway, one of the floorboards creaks beneath your father’s footsteps.

peter’s body goes rigid. his heartbeat slows.

you lift your head.

black spreads across his eyes.

“peter?” you whisper.

his gaze fixes on the bedroom door.

“someone’s outside,” he says.

you listen.

your father mutters to himself in the hallway, probably returning from the workshop at an hour he will later deny.

“it’s my dad,” you tell him.

peter’s shoulders remain tense.

“i know.”

the black remains. you reach toward his chest and stop before touching him.

“can i?” you ask.

peter looks at your hand.

he nods.

your palm settles over his heart. it beats too slowly beneath you. controlled, watchful, waiting.

“you’re safe,” you whisper.

his eyes fix on your face.

“you’re safe too,” peter replies.

“i know.”

“he was near the door.”

“he lives here.”

“i know.” the words sound strained.

you move closer until your forehead rests near his chin.

“nothing is threatening us,” you say.

peter closes his eyes.

when he opens them again, brown has begun returning around his pupils.

“i hate this,” he admits.

you trace your thumb over his shirt.

“the eyes?” you ask.

“the part where i look at someone i love and think about what i’d do if anything touched them.”

you stay quiet. rainwater moves down the window beside the bed, catching distant lights in broken lines.

“what do you think about?” you ask eventually.

his jaw tightens.

“you don’t want to know.”

“you’re still you when you think it.”

“it doesn’t feel like me.”

“then let me remind you.”

peter turns toward you. the black fades completely. 

you touch the side of his face.

“you stop when i ask,” you say.

his eyes search yours.

“you came to bruce because you were afraid of hurting someone,” you continue. “you designed an inhibitor because you wanted to protect people without losing the part of yourself that saves them.”

your fingers move into his hair.

“you spent four years alone because you thought it protected us, even when it destroyed you,” you add.

his mouth trembles.

“that wasn’t the spider,” you tell him. “it was you making a terrible decision for a good reason.”

peter covers your hand with his.

“what if the inhibitor doesn’t work?” he asks.

“then bruce adjusts it.”

“what if it gets worse?”

“then we handle worse.”

“what if—”

you kiss him.

his question disappears against your mouth.

peter exhales shakily before pulling you closer. his arms settle around your waist, careful despite the strength inside them.

when you draw back, his forehead remains against yours.

“you’re not doing this alone,” you whisper.

his eyes close.

“i love you,” peter says.

the words sound different now. not like a confession, like something returning to its place.

you press your lips against his forehead.

“i remember,” you reply.

peter’s hold tightens.

outside, rain continues washing over the windows. 

inside, his breathing gradually matches yours.

—

the finished inhibitor rests on peter’s neck.

the casing is dark enough to disappear against the red fabric, interrupted only by a narrow line of white light that changes to amber whenever his hormone levels begin rising. bruce calibrates the sensory threshold. tony builds three redundant power systems. peter writes the adaptive software himself.

the device does not cure him. it does not erase the spider.

it quiets the electrical current inside walls until it becomes background noise again. it lowers the ache behind his eyes. it creates distance between a threat and the instinct to destroy it.

most importantly, it gives him time to choose.

the first morning he wears it outside, you stand with him on the roof of the compound.

the sky brightens slowly beyond new york, darkness softening into blue along the horizon. the city stretches beneath you, windows catching the first light one building at a time.

peter rolls his neck.

“still strong,” he observes.

you lean against the concrete ledge beside him.

“devastating news for the criminals of queens,” you reply.

peter smiles.

the wind catches his curls and pushes them across his forehead. he wears his suit beneath an old sweatshirt, mask tucked into one pocket. the inhibitor gives a faint pulse against his neck.

“how does it feel?” you ask.

peter looks toward the city. a siren moves somewhere downtown. traffic gathers along the bridges. birds lift from the roof of a neighboring building, turning together above the morning streets.

“quieter,” he says.

you study his face.

“too quiet?”

peter listens for another moment, then he shakes his head.

“no,” he replies. “just enough.”

you take his hand. the movement is easy now. familiar.

neither of you has to think about it.

peter looks down at your joined fingers.

“i thought i had to choose,” he says.

“between what?”

“being peter or being spider-man.”

you move closer until your shoulder rests against his arm.

“you’ve always been both.”

“bruce said something like that.”

“bruce is smarter than you.”

peter looks offended.

“academically debatable.”

“he has seven doctorates.”

“i didn’t say i’d win the debate.”

you laugh. peter watches you with the quiet, disbelieving softness he still wears whenever happiness catches him unprepared.

“what?” you ask.

he shakes his head.

“nothing.”

“that isn’t a nothing face.”

“you remember my faces?”

“all of them.”

the smile fades slowly from his mouth. you turn toward him. peter’s eyes shine in the early light.

“even before i remembered,” you say, reaching for his hand, “something in me knew you.”

his fingers close more firmly around yours.

“your body remembered,” he murmurs.

“my heart did.”

peter’s breath catches. you reach up and touch his cheek.

“even when i couldn’t see your face,” you continue, “i knew someone belonged in the empty space.”

he leans into your palm.

“me?” he asks.

you smile.

“you.”

peter kisses you beneath the rising sun.

the city continues waking around you. horns sound below. wind moves between the towers. the first warmth of morning settles across your face while the inhibitor pulses once against peter’s neck and goes still.

somewhere behind you, the rooftop door opens. tony steps outside carrying two mugs of coffee and a third filled with tea.

he stops when he sees you.

“seriously?” your father asks. “at sunrise?”

peter pulls away, though his hand remains around yours.

“good morning, mr. stark,” he says.

tony holds out one of the coffees.

“you take too much sugar, right?”

peter stares at the mug. your father’s expression tightens as though he does not understand where the knowledge comes from.

peter accepts it carefully.

“yeah,” he whispers. “i do.”

tony looks between the two of you.

a fragment of memory shifts behind his eyes.

a teenager in the workshop. a red suit folded across a table. laughter from beneath an overturned chair. your hand resting in peter’s while tony pretends not to notice.

the images disappear before they fully form.

this time, something remains.

tony pats peter once on the shoulder.

“don’t make me regret the guest room,” he says.

peter looks down into his coffee to hide his eyes fill with tears.

“i won’t,” he replies.

your father hands you the tea.

“he will,” tony says. “statistically.”

peter releases a wet laugh.

the rooftop door closes behind tony as he returns inside, leaving the three of you with the morning.

peter stands beside you, coffee warming one hand and your fingers threaded through the other.

the headaches have not disappeared entirely.

his senses remain sharper than any human’s. the rage still lives somewhere beneath his skin, no longer denied and no longer given permission to decide what he becomes. some memories return slowly. others may never return to anyone except you.

four years cannot be undone by a device on his neck or a kiss beneath the sunrise. 

but peter is no longer trying to erase the parts of himself that frighten him. you are no longer searching every room for a person without a face.

the city knows spider-man.

you know peter parker.

and when he steps onto the edge of the roof, he looks back. you remember every time he has done that.

every promise, every goodbye, every return.

“come home,” you tell him.

peter pulls the mask over his face. the white lenses turn toward you, bright against the red fabric.

“i will,” he promises.

then he jumps.

the web catches somewhere beyond the roof, carrying him out over the waking city. sunlight flashes across the inhibitor on his arm before he disappears between the buildings.

you watch until the line swings empty.

this time, the space he leaves behind does not feel like loss.

it feels like waiting.

and you know he comes back.

hypothetically, an organism altered by arachnid dna might begin expressing dormant traits years after the initial mutation.

hypothetically, prolonged social isolation could destabilize the balance between the organism’s human endocrine system and its altered genetic material.

hypothetically, the resulting increase in sensory perception might cause migraines, insomnia, irritability, and episodes of defensive aggression severe enough to override conscious judgment.

hypothetically, its eyes might turn entirely black.

peter rehearses the questions until they no longer sound like a confession.

he writes them in the margins of a borrowed physics textbook, disguising molecular pathways between notes on quantum mechanics and field equations. he removes anything that sounds too personal. changes my hearing to auditory sensitivity. changes when someone threatens a person i care about to during a perceived territorial threat.

by the time he reaches empire state university, the questions look almost academic.

the physics building is quieter than the rest of campus in the late afternoon. most of the students have already left, leaving the corridors filled with the low hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional closing door. rain gathers against the tall windows, turning the brick courtyard outside into blurred shades of red and grey.

peter stands outside dr. banner’s office with both hands wrapped around the straps of his backpack.

a typed schedule is taped beside the door.

dr. bruce banneradvanced theoretical physicsoffice hours: tuesday and thursday, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

peter checks the time.

4:47.

late enough that there should not be many students left. early enough that approaching him will not look unusual.

he knocks twice.

“come in,” bruce calls from inside.

peter opens the door.

bruce sits behind a desk crowded with papers, three open textbooks, and a ceramic mug filled with pens instead of coffee. equations cover the whiteboard behind him, some written neatly in blue marker and others added in black at angles that suggest they occurred to him halfway through something else.

he looks up from the paper he is grading.

“office hours are almost over,” bruce says, setting his pen beside the page. “but you have a few minutes.”

peter steps inside and closes the door gently behind him.

“thank you, professor,” peter replies.

bruce gestures toward the chair across from his desk. “which class are you in?”

peter sits without removing his backpack. “i’m not.”

bruce’s eyebrows lift.

“not officially,” peter amends, rubbing his thumb across the frayed edge of one strap. “i’ve watched a few of your lectures.”

“from where?” bruce asks.

“the hallway.”

bruce studies him for a moment before leaning back in his chair. the old wood creaks beneath his weight.

“all right,” he says. “what’s your name?”

the answer peter prepared still catches in his throat.

“ned,” peter replies. the name hurts more than he expects.

bruce reaches for a blank sheet of paper. “last name?”

“just ned is fine.”

the pen stops above the page.

peter forces himself not to shift beneath the silence. bruce looks at him, then places the untouched paper aside without asking again.

“what can i help you with, ned?” bruce asks.

peter opens the textbook across his lap. several loose pages sit between the chapters, covered in cramped handwriting and hastily drawn molecular structures.

before he can begin, the cuff of bruce’s left sleeve shifts as the professor reaches for his mug.

a narrow device circles his forearm. 

matte black metal rests flush against the skin just below his elbow, interrupted by a thin strip of green light that pulses once before dimming. the design is too specific to be commercial and too clean to be improvised. peter recognizes the spacing of the contact points, the biometric sensors embedded beneath the casing, and the careful absence of anything that might inhibit movement.

the question leaves him before he can reconsider it.

“can i ask what that is?” peter asks, nodding toward bruce’s arm.

bruce follows his gaze. instead of covering the device, he rolls his sleeve back another inch. the green line brightens beneath the office lights.

“this?” bruce asks.

peter nods.

“it’s an inhibitor,” bruce replies. he says it plainly, as though explaining a wristwatch rather than something designed to hold back enough gamma radiation to level the building.

peter leans forward despite himself. “you built it?”

“i helped,” bruce says, turning his wrist until a small display becomes visible along the inner edge. “a few people contributed.”

peter does not have to ask which people. the precise machining carries traces of stark design, though it is quieter than anything tony usually builds. functional rather than theatrical.

the thought of tony settles beneath peter’s ribs before he can stop it.

he looks down at the device again.

“does it get rid of him?” peter asks.

bruce’s expression changes almost imperceptibly. his thumb rests against the edge of the inhibitor, not activating it, only acknowledging its presence.

“no,” bruce answers. “it isn’t meant to.”

the radiator beneath the window clicks as it cools. outside, a gust of wind sends rain scattering across the courtyard, forcing two students beneath the narrow awning near the building entrance.

“then what does it do?” peter asks.

bruce lets his sleeve fall, though the green light remains faintly visible beneath the fabric.

“it suppresses the physiological cascade that brings him forward when i don’t want him to be,” bruce explains. “it gives me enough time to make a choice.”

peter watches the light pulse once beneath the cotton. 

he expects something different. a cure, a restraint, a prison locked around bruce’s arm. instead, the device looks almost ordinary. something bruce puts on each morning with his watch and removes when he sleeps.

“i spent a long time trying to get rid of him,” bruce says, folding his hands loosely on the desk. “i thought becoming one person meant erasing whichever half frightened me most.”

peter looks up. a small, tired smile touches bruce’s mouth.

“turns out i was already one person,” bruce adds.

the words remain between them.

peter lowers his attention to the textbook, pressing his palm flat against its open pages.

“hypothetically,” he begins.

bruce inclines his head. “hypothetically.”

“if someone wanted to design an inhibitor,” peter says, choosing each word carefully, “but didn’t want to suppress everything the mutation gave them, would the same principle work?”

bruce doesn’t reach for the blank paper again.

“what kind of mutation?” he asks.

“genetic.”

“as are most mutations.”

peter traces one finger beneath a line in his notebook.

“nonhuman dna introduced into a human organism.”

bruce’s face remains neutral. “what kind of nonhuman dna?”

peter hesitates.

“arachnid,” he answers.

the radiator ticks again. bruce glances once toward the closed office door before returning his attention to peter.

“what kind of arachnid?” bruce asks.

“does the species matter?”

“if you want a useful answer, it usually does.”

peter looks toward the rain-streaked window. “a spider.”

bruce remains still.

peter continues before the silence grows heavy enough to become suspicion.

“hypothetically, the mutation initially increases strength, reflexes, healing, sensory perception, coordination, and adhesion,” peter explains. “the subject adapts. everything remains relatively stable for several years.”

“and then it doesn’t,” bruce says.

it isn’t phrased as a question. 

peter tightens his grip on the edge of the book.

“the sensory traits begin increasing first,” he says. “hearing, smell, visual processing. normal environments become difficult to tolerate.”

bruce reaches for his pen but does not write anything.

“how difficult?” he asks.

“multiple conversations become impossible to separate,” peter answers. “electrical currents are audible through walls. subway brakes can be heard from several blocks away. heartbeats…”

he pauses, choosing the least revealing version of the truth.

“heartbeats become distracting,” peter finishes.

“painful?” bruce asks.

“sometimes.”

“headaches?”

peter nods before remembering the conversation is supposed to be hypothetical.

“possibly,” he corrects.

bruce’s gaze lingers on his face.

“what else?” the professor asks.

peter looks down at the diagrams hidden between the textbook’s chapters.

“heightened aggression,” he says.

rain presses more heavily against the windows.

“general aggression?” bruce asks.

“defensive.”

“toward threats against the organism?”

peter’s thumb moves along the edge of the page.

“or people it has bonded with,” he replies.

bruce turns the pen once between his fingers.

“territorial behavior,” he observes.

“not exactly.”

“protective behavior, then.”

peter says nothing. bruce waits.

peter hates how good he is at that. no pushing, no accusation, only a quiet space that becomes harder to hide inside the longer it remains open.

“the response is disproportionate,” peter admits. “the subject doesn’t just want to stop the threat. it wants to eliminate it.”

bruce’s pen becomes still.

“does the subject remain conscious during these episodes?” he asks.

“yes.”

“does he remember them afterward?”

“everything,” peter answers. the word leaves too quickly. 

he looks toward the window.

students cross the courtyard beneath umbrellas. their shoes strike wet pavement. a bicycle chain rattles near the rack below. somewhere on the floor above, someone drags a chair across tile. the elevator motor strains behind two walls, carrying three people toward the lobby while one complains about an exam and another unwraps a piece of peppermint gum.

each sound arrives separately. each one demands his attention.

bruce notices the direction of his gaze.

“how long has the sensory increase been happening?” he asks.

peter turns back toward him. “hypothetically?”

“of course,” bruce replies.

“a few months.”

“and the aggression?”

“more recently.”

“has the subject injured anyone?”

peter presses his thumb into the side of his index finger.

“no.”

“come close?”

the bar mirror flashes through his mind. black eyes. a stranger’s throat beneath his hand. the pulse beating there.

peter remembers how easy it would have been. how little pressure he would have needed. how the man’s friends froze around them because something in peter’s face told them he was no longer the smaller person in the fight.

“yes,” peter answers.

bruce looks down at the untouched paper beside his hand.

“you mentioned physical changes,” he says.

peter’s shoulders tighten. “did i?”

“you said certain traits were becoming more pronounced.”

“right.”

bruce waits again.

peter looks at the green light beneath the professor’s sleeve.

“the eyes change,” he says eventually.

“how?”

“the pupils expand.”

“from adrenaline?” bruce asks.

“past the iris.”

bruce’s expression remains carefully neutral.

“the sclera?” he asks.

peter nods.

“entirely black?”

the question is quiet. peter closes the textbook.

“hypothetically,” he says.

bruce sets the pen on the desk. for several seconds, neither of them speaks. the office continues around them. rain moves down the glass. the radiator releases another soft metallic click. the clock near the whiteboard advances with a nearly inaudible movement that sounds much louder to peter than it should.

bruce leans back.

“what does the hypothetical subject want?” he asks.

peter looks at him.

“an inhibitor.”

“for the mutation?”

“for the increased expression.”

“without suppressing the beneficial traits,” bruce says.

“ideally.”

bruce’s attention drops to the textbook. “you brought something with you.”

peter doesn’t ask how he knows. 

he opens the cover and removes the loose pages, smoothing them once against his knee before placing them on the corner of the desk.

protein structures cover the first sheet. receptor pathways fill the second. the third contains a proposed model for suppressing hormonal expression without interfering with neuromuscular function. equations crowd the margins between tightly packed notes, sections crossed out so many times the paper has gone soft beneath the graphite.

bruce does not reach for them immediately. instead, he watches peter.

the office settles around them. somewhere down the corridor, a classroom door opens, followed by the muffled conversation of students filtering toward the stairwell. the sound fades as quickly as it comes.

only then does bruce pull the first page toward himself. he reads without interruption.

peter watches the movement of his eyes instead of the equations. they slow at the receptor diagrams, pause over the endocrine pathways, then stop entirely at a paragraph written smaller than everything around it.

social isolation as environmental pressure?

bruce turns the page. then another. he doesn’t skim; he studies each line as though the order matters. eventually, he places the stack back on the desk with the same care peter used setting it down.

“you wrote these,” bruce says. it is not a question.

peter rubs his thumb against the worn backpack strap.

“hypothetically,” he answers.

something close to amusement touches bruce’s face.

“hypothetically,” bruce repeats.

the expression disappears almost immediately. he taps one finger beside the note about isolation.

“why this variable?” bruce asks.

peter follows his gaze.

“social species change under prolonged isolation,” he explains. “hormones shift. sleep cycles change. aggression can increase.”

bruce nods once. “they can.”

“some spiders do too,” peter says.

bruce reaches absently for the ceramic mug beside the papers before remembering it is filled with dry-erase markers. he studies it for a second, mildly disappointed, before returning it to the desk.

“what made the hypothetical subject consider isolation?” he asks.

peter watches rain bead along the edge of the window frame.

“because nothing else changed. the mutation was stable,” peter continues. “for years.”

“and then?”

“then the subject spent an extended period alone.”

“how extended?”

peter’s fingers tighten on the backpack strap.

“four years,” he answers.

bruce’s gaze lifts.

“without meaningful social contact?”

the question settles too close to the truth.

peter thinks about the apartment. eating dinner over the sink because there is no one to sit across from. waking to an empty room every morning and returning to one every night. listening to ned’s voice through the wall of a coffee shop without stepping inside. watching mj leave work beneath someone else’s umbrella.

he thinks about you.

your window lit high above the city. your silhouette passing behind the curtains while peter remains crouched on a rooftop three buildings away, telling himself that seeing you alive should be enough.

“mostly,” he says.

bruce looks down at the pages again.

“this inhibitor suppresses everything,” he observes.

peter nods. “that was the idea.”

“was?”

peter’s attention returns to the device beneath bruce’s sleeve.

“i don’t want to get rid of it,” he admits. “the mutation saved the subject’s life. it lets him help people. it lets him reach places no one else can and hear things no one else notices.” his finger follows one of the pathways he has drawn. “it isn’t bad,” peter continues. “just parts of it.”

“the parts that make him stop feeling like himself,” bruce says.

peter looks up. bruce turns the third page around and taps a smaller note peter has nearly crossed out.

selective regulation.

“this is where i’d start,” bruce says.

peter leans forward. “because it leaves the rest intact?”

“because the mutation isn’t necessarily the problem.”

bruce rests one hand lightly over the papers.

“don’t build an inhibitor to erase part of yourself,” he says. “build one that lets you stay yourself.”

peter does not realize he has been holding his breath until it leaves him.

for the first time in months, the hypothetical does not feel impossible.

it feels like the beginning of an answer.

—

the headaches begin with queens.

not the place itself. you have been to queens often enough that the borough should not feel different from the rest of new york—too many cars pressed into streets too narrow for them, voices rising from open storefronts, apartment windows glowing above laundromats and corner markets.

nothing about it should make pressure gather behind your eyes.

still, every time the word appears in a mission report, pain settles beneath your temples.

it starts as a pulse. then a tightening. then the brief, disorienting certainty that you have forgotten something important.

you never remember what.

the first time it happens, you sit beside your father in one of the conference rooms at the avengers facility. a holographic map of the city hangs above the table, blue light washing over scattered files and half-empty coffee cups left from the morning briefing.

“queens took the worst of the damage,” sam says from the opposite side of the table, moving two fingers across the projection to enlarge the eastern edge of the city. “but emergency crews have most of it contained.”

your father hums without looking up from the tablet in his hands.

“friendly neighborhood spider-kid got there before the fire department,” tony remarks.

the pain strikes before the sentence is finished.

you press two fingers against your temple, pretending to study the map while something bright flickers at the edge of your vision.

a rooftop beneath a summer sky.

red fabric moving beside you.

a young voice laughing.

you turn toward him.

his face is missing.

not blurred. not hidden beneath a mask. missing.

there is only sunlight where his features should be.

the memory collapses before you can speak.

the conference room returns with a suddenness that makes your stomach turn. sam is still talking. rhodey taps a pen against his legal pad. your father has moved on to complaining about property damage as though the last few seconds never happen.

you lower your hand. tony notices anyway.

his gaze shifts from the tablet to your face. it lasts only a moment, but you know that look. he has worn it since you were old enough to climb onto his workbench and young enough to believe the arc reactor was a night-light built especially for you.

he waits until the meeting ends.

the others file out in pieces, carrying tablets and cold coffee with them. sam pauses to speak with rhodey near the door. your father remains where he is, one hand resting against the edge of the table while the hologram dissolves into pale fragments between you.

“headache?” tony asks.

you pick up your phone, though there is nothing on the screen worth reading.

“just tired,” you reply.

“you slept nine hours.”

you glance up at him. “are you monitoring my sleep now?”

“friday monitors everything,” tony answers, as though that somehow improves the situation.

“that’s worse.”

“you’ve been getting them a lot.”

“i’ve had three.”

“you’ve had seven,” he corrects.

your mouth closes. tony raises his eyebrows.

“friday,” you say toward the ceiling, “betrayal is an ugly color on you.”

“i’m sorry,” the ai replies, sounding not remotely sorry.

your father circles the table and stops beside you. the sharp smell of coffee clings to his shirt, mixed with metal and the faint smoke that follows him from the workshop no matter how many ventilation systems he installs.

“banner’s gonna looking at you,” tony says.

“absolutely not.”

“that sounded like a challenge.”

“it was a refusal.”

“same thing in this family.”

you slide your phone into your pocket and move toward the door.

“i’m fine,” you insist.

his hand closes lightly around your upper arm before you pass him. not enough to stop you by force. just enough to make you stop yourself.

when you look back, the humor has left his face.

“you don’t have to be dying for me to worry,” tony says.

the words land more gently than you expect. you look toward the empty chairs and the abandoned coffee ring someone has left on the table.

“they’re just headaches,” you murmur.

“then banner tells me they’re just headaches.”

you exhale through your nose. arguing with your father becomes pointless once fear works its way beneath the sarcasm.

“fine,” you concede.

his grip loosens immediately.

“tomorrow,” tony says.

“next week.”

“tomorrow.”

“you’re impossible.”

“it’s genetic,” he replies.

you leave before he can see the reluctant smile pulling at your mouth.

the hallway outside is quiet, emptied by the end of the briefing. sunlight stretches through the tall windows in pale rectangles across the floor, interrupted by the long shadows of support beams and potted plants someone keeps replacing after every attack.

you make it halfway to the elevator before the pain returns.

this time, there is no rooftop. only a voice.

“you always do that.”

young, warm, amused. close enough that for one impossible second, you expect to feel breath against your cheek.

you turn.

the hallway is empty.

—

bruce finds nothing.

he runs the scans twice, then a third time because your father stands behind him with both hands braced against the back of his chair, staring at the monitors as though suspicion alone might force them to reveal something useful.

“neurological activity is normal,” bruce says, enlarging an image of your brain while you sit on the edge of the examination table. “no swelling, no lesions, no abnormal electrical patterns.”

tony leans closer to the monitor.

“you said normal too quickly,” he accuses.

“that’s generally what people want to hear,” bruce replies.

“normal is suspicious.”

“only to you.”

the lab continues around them while they argue. machines hum beneath the counters. a centrifuge turns softly somewhere behind you. rain taps against the high windows, blurring the compound grounds into dull greens and grey pavement.

you rub the small adhesive mark near your temple.

“so i can go?” you ask.

“not yet,” tony answers before bruce can.

bruce gives him a tired look, then turns back to you.

“have you noticed any triggers?” bruce asks.

“lack of patience.”

“helpful,” your father mutters.

you look toward the rain crawling down the glass.

“sometimes places,” you admit. “certain words.”

bruce reaches for a tablet. “what kind of words?”

“queens.”

your father’s expression changes.

you notice because you have spent your entire life learning the small differences between every version of his silence. this one is brief, but not empty. something passes through it—confusion, maybe, or the uncomfortable recognition that a piece of information has failed to settle where it belongs.

bruce notices too.

“anything else?” he asks.

you hesitate.

“spider-man,” you answer.

the name feels strange in your mouth. 

not unfamiliar, but the opposite. too familiar.

the ache begins behind your eyes before you finish saying it. you press your thumb into your temple and wait for the room to steady.

“there,” tony says, pointing toward you as though bruce might have missed it. “that.”

“i see it,” bruce replies.

he steps closer to the examination table and lowers his voice.

“what happens when you hear his name?” he asks.

you close your eyes.

red gloves.

a hand reaching for yours.

the view from somewhere too high above the city.

someone sitting beside you on the floor of a workshop, knees drawn up, face turned away before you can see him.

“flashes,” you admit.

tony straightens. “flashes of what?”

“i don’t know.”

you open your eyes. both men watch you.

“they disappear too fast,” you add.

“memories?” bruce asks.

“they don’t feel like mine.”

that’s not quite true. they feel more like yours than most things do.

that is what frightens you.

—

the question about spider-man settles into the back of your mind and refuses to leave.

you know the story everyone knows.

your father recruits him before the fight in germany. he gives him a suit built with technology advanced enough to make several governments deeply uncomfortable. he brings him into battles beside people with decades of training. he trusts him with civilians, with missions, with you.

but he doesn’t know his name. at least, that is what he claims.

you wait until evening to ask.

tony is in the workshop, bent over the open housing of a damaged repulsor. music plays quietly through the speakers, though he has paused the same song often enough that it hasn’t reached the final verse in nearly an hour.

you sit on the edge of the workbench beside him, moving a screwdriver out of the path of his elbow.

“how did you meet spider-man?” you ask.

he keeps his attention on the repulsor.

“the internet,” tony replies.

“seriously.”

“seriously. the internet has everything. cat videos, conspiracy theories, teenagers committing felonies in homemade pajamas.”

“you recruited him from a video?”

“there were several videos.”

you watch his hands work. he removes a narrow strip of scorched wiring, places it beside the tools, then reaches blindly toward you.

you pass him the pliers before he asks. his fingers close around them automatically.

“did you know who he was?” you ask.

the movement stops. only for a fraction of a second, then he continues.

“the kid wore a mask,” tony answers.

“you gave classified stark technology to someone whose name you didn’t know.”

“i’ve made worse decisions.”

“not many.”

tony looks up at that. you hold his gaze, waiting.

behind him, one of the robotic arms shifts a tray of tools to the opposite side of the room. the low music starts again, filling the silence with guitar before tony pauses it again.

“what’s this about?” he asks.

“it doesn’t make sense.”

“most of my life doesn’t make sense.”

“you don’t trust anyone.”

“i trust people.”

“you ran a background check on my dentist.”

“he had bad reviews.”

“yeah, for parking.”

“patterns matter,” tony says.

you slide off the workbench and lean against it instead.

“you brought spider-man into our lives,” you say. “you trusted him around me.”

tony looks down at the repulsor.

“apparently,” he replies. the word is quieter than the rest.

your chest tightens.

“you don’t remember.”

his jaw shifts.

“i remember recruiting him.”

“do you?”

he reaches for another tool, finds nothing, then looks at the empty space beside his hand as though the absence surprises him. you pick up the wrench near your hip and hold it out.

he doesn’t take it.

“dad.”

“i remember the apartment,” tony says eventually. “i remember talking to his aunt.”

“what was her name?”

the question hangs between you. his eyes narrow, not at you but at something beyond your shoulder. searching.

you know that look. it is the same one he wears when an equation refuses to balance.

“i don’t know,” he admits.

you lower the wrench.

“what did he look like?”

tony’s gaze shifts toward yours.

the workshop feels suddenly too large. every monitor continues glowing. every machine remains where it belongs. still, the air changes around the question, thinning until the smallest sounds become clear—the cooling tick of metal, the ventilation system moving overhead, rainwater slipping through gutters outside.

“i don’t know,” he repeats.

this time, the pain arrives hard enough to make your vision darken. 

you catch the edge of the workbench. your father is beside you before the wrench strikes the floor. one hand closes around your elbow while the other steadies the back of your neck.

“hey,” tony says. “sit down.”

you hear him, but the workshop has already disappeared.

you are somewhere else. somewhere smaller, warmer.

someone crouches in front of you, both hands holding yours between them.

“look at me,” he says.

you try. the memory won’t allow it.

his face is a blur against the light, every feature erased except the shape of dark hair falling across his forehead.

“i’m right here,” he murmurs.

your chest breaks around the sound of his voice.

then the workshop returns.

you are sitting on the floor with your back against the workbench. your father kneels in front of you, one hand cupping the side of your face.

“what did you see?” tony asks.

you try to answer. the memory is already slipping.

“someone,” you whisper.

—

the dreams worsen after that.

they come every night, pulling you through moments without beginnings or endings.

you sit in the passenger seat of a car while someone drums nervous fingers against the steering wheel.

you share cold noodles from the same carton on a rooftop.

you stand in a bedroom decorated with model kits and old science posters while rain strikes the fire escape outside.

you dance badly in a kitchen while someone laughs into your shoulder.

every memory holds the same absence. a boy whose hands you know, a voice your body recognizes before your mind can place it, a face that disappears whenever you turn toward it.

sometimes you wake with tears already cooling against your temples. 

sometimes you wake with your hand reaching across the empty half of the bed.

by morning, the details fade, but the loss remains. it follows you through breakfast, through meetings, through long afternoons spent pretending to read while your gaze drifts toward doors for no reason you can explain.

you begin keeping notes.

red sleeve.

web pattern.

rooftop.

coffee too sweet.

“you’re staring,” pepper says.

you look up from the notebook.

she stands across the kitchen island with one hand wrapped around a mug of tea. morning light catches in her hair and in the thin steam rising between you. she looks tired, though she always hides it better than your father does.

you close the notebook halfway.

“thinking,” you reply.

“dangerous habit.”

“you’ve been spending too much time with him.”

pepper smiles faintly before glancing toward the page.

“more headaches?” she asks.

you nod.

pepper circles the island and sits beside you. she does not ask to see the notebook. she waits, tracing one finger along the rim of her mug while the coffee machine hisses behind you.

“do you ever feel like someone is missing?” you ask.

her hand stills.

“from where?”

“everywhere.”

the answer sounds ridiculous once it exists outside your head. you look toward the windows instead, watching clouds move between the towers beyond the glass.

“i keep having these memories,” you continue. “except they’re not complete. there’s always someone there, but i can’t see him.”

“him?” pepper asks.

you nod. pepper considers that quietly.

“does he feel familiar?”

“more than familiar.” the ache builds beneath your ribs, not your head this time. 

“it feels like i loved him,” you admit.

pepper’s breath catches so softly you nearly miss it. when you turn, she stares down into her tea.

“what?” you ask.

“nothing.”

“that wasn’t nothing.”

she presses her lips together before looking at you.

“sometimes i feel like there are things i should remember too,” pepper says.

your pulse stutters.

“about spider-man?”

pepper’s gaze shifts toward the window.

that is answer enough.

—

peter returns to bruce’s office the following tuesday.

he nearly doesn’t.

the inhibitor design waits in his backpack, changed in twelve places since their first conversation. he removes the global suppression model, isolates the endocrine pathways associated with sensory amplification and aggression, and recalculates the dosage until the numbers blur beneath another sleepless sunrise.

bruce has written three comments in the margin of the paper peter leaves with him.

none ask who he is. peter decides that is why he returns.

he arrives at 4:32 this time. a student is already inside the office asking about an exam, forcing peter to wait near the window at the end of the hall.

the building is louder in the afternoon.

a professor lectures behind the wall to his right. two students argue quietly near the elevator. someone on the floor below drops a metal water bottle, and the sharp impact travels through the building hard enough to make peter’s jaw tighten.

he presses two fingers against the base of his skull.

the headaches start there now.

pressure beneath the bone. heat moving behind his eyes. every sound gaining a sharper edge until the city seems to exist inside his head rather than beyond it.

the office door opens. the student exits with a stack of papers clutched to her chest. she passes peter without looking at him.

bruce appears in the doorway.

“ned,” he greets.

peter pushes away from the window.

“professor,” he replies.

bruce steps aside.

peter hears your heartbeat before he enters.

he stops.

the rhythm is familiar enough that his body recognizes it before thought can interfere. steady, slightly quickened by the stairs, accompanied by the rustle of paper and the scent of rainwater drying in your hair.

four years disappear.

for one impossible second, peter expects to step inside and find you waiting for him the way you used to—one leg folded beneath you, his coffee cooling beside your hand, a complaint already prepared about how late he is.

then he remembers.

you don’t know him.

peter keeps one hand around the doorframe.

“something wrong?” bruce asks.

“no,” peter replies. the lie sounds thin.

he enters.

you sit in the chair across from bruce’s desk with your notebook open against your knee. one of your father’s old hoodies hangs loosely around you, the sleeves pushed above your wrists. you look up when peter crosses the threshold.

the breath leaves you. peter hears it.

he hears the sudden acceleration of your heartbeat. the minute movement of your fingers against the page. the swallow that catches in your throat when your eyes settle on his face.

he knows he should leave.

instead, he stands beside the door with rain dripping from his jacket onto the floor.

“you’re early,” bruce tells you.

“my father tried to follow me,” you reply, though your attention remains on peter. “i took the scenic route.”

“did it work?”

“for now.”

bruce closes the folder beside his elbow.

“this is ned,” he says, gesturing toward peter. “he’s been consulting with me on a research problem.”

the name makes peter’s stomach tighten.

you look at him more closely.

“ned,” you repeat.

“hi,” peter says. his voice breaks slightly around the single syllable.

your eyebrows pull together. pain flickers across your expression, and your hand rises toward your temple.

peter takes one step forward before catching himself.  the movement is small, but you notice anyway.

“have we met?” you ask.

peter’s throat closes. he knows the correct answer. the safe answer. the answer that keeps the spell intact and you alive and the world exactly as it is supposed to be.

“i don’t think so,” he says.

silence settles over the office. bruce looks between you. you don’t move.

“right,” you murmur. the disappointment in your voice does not make sense.

that makes it worse. 

peter forces himself to breathe.

“sorry,” he says.

“for what?” you ask.

he has no answer. for lying, for surviving when you lost him, for every promise you no longer remember he made.

“nothing,” peter replies.

your gaze remains on him.

peter feels it even after bruce gestures toward the second chair. even after peter sits with his backpack trapped between his ankles. even after you return your attention to the notebook on your knee.

“the headaches have become more frequent,” bruce says, turning one of the pages toward you. “but the neurological scans still show no structural abnormalities.”

peter looks up.

you rub the edge of the page beneath your thumb.

“so i’m imagining them,” you say.

“that isn’t what i said,” bruce replies.

“it’s what my father heard.”

bruce exhales softly through his nose.

“tony hears whatever gives him permission to build something,” he observes.

a smile touches your mouth. peter’s chest aches.

he remembers that smile against his lips. remembers causing it across dinner tables and rooftops and the back seat of happy’s car while your father complains from the front.

the radiator beside him clicks. you flinch.

the pain enters your expression before your hand reaches your head.

peter is out of his chair before thought catches up.

he crosses the office as you fold forward, one hand gripping the edge of bruce’s desk. peter closes his fingers around your wrist while his other palm settles against your shoulder.

“easy,” he murmurs.

your body relaxes. not gradually, immediately. your hand turns beneath his and closes around his fingers.

peter stops breathing. bruce notices.

you notice a second later. you hold a stranger’s hand, except it does not feel strange.

peter’s palm fits against yours with the unbearable familiarity of a habit. your thumb rests beside his knuckle. his grip has already adjusted around the small scar near your finger without needing to look at it.

you stare down at your joined hands.

a memory flashes behind your eyes.

christmas lights strung badly across an apartment ceiling. warm fingers linked through yours. laughter against your cheek.

“you taped it to the sprinkler,” you say.

peter goes still.

bruce leans closer. “what did you see?”

you look at peter. the memory disappears before you reach his face.

“i don’t know,” you whisper.

peter releases you. the loss of contact hurts more than the headache.

he retreats until the edge of the desk presses against his hip.

“i’m sorry,” he says again.

you watch him.

“you keep saying that.”

his mouth closes.

bruce removes the sensor from your temple slowly, though neither of you remembers him attaching it.

“ned,” bruce says, keeping his voice even, “could you give us a minute?”

peter nods before the request is finished.

“yeah,” he replies. “sure.”

he reaches for his backpack. one strap catches beneath the chair, and his hands shake when he pulls it free.

you watch him reach the door. something inside you panics.

“wait,” you call.

peter stops with his hand on the frame.

the word has surprised you as much as it has him. you search for a reason to keep him there and find nothing except the deep, shapeless certainty that letting him leave is a mistake.

“ned isn’t your name,” you say.

peter’s shoulders tighten, and he looks back.

“yes, it is,” he lies.

pain pulses behind your eyes.

“no,” you reply. “it isn’t.”

his hand curls around the doorframe.

“you don’t know me.”

“that doesn’t mean i don’t know when you’re lying.”

peter looks at you for another second.

then he leaves.

—

you return to bruce’s office three days later without telling your father.

bruce sits behind his desk with a stack of exams spread around him and the green light of his inhibitor pulsing beneath his sleeve.

“who is ned?” you ask.

he finishes writing a comment before looking up.

“a student,” bruce replies.

“you said he isn’t in your class.”

“he isn’t.”

“so he isn’t your student.”

bruce caps his pen and rests it across the exam.

“he’s someone asking questions,” he says.

you close the office door behind you.

“about what?”

“i can’t tell you that.”

“because it’s confidential?”

“because it’s his.”

you approach the desk. peter’s diagrams no longer sit in view, but one corner of a page protrudes beneath a folder. you recognize the handwriting from the brief glimpse you had during the last meeting—tight, slanted, impatient wherever equations begin fitting together.

“he knows me,” you say.

bruce folds his hands over the folder.

“he reacted to you,” he replies.

“that isn’t the same thing.”

“no.”

you wait. bruce does too.

you understand suddenly why your father hates discussing anything with him.

“you know who he is,” you accuse.

bruce’s gaze remains steady.

“i know he doesn’t want to be identified.”

“is he dangerous?”

the green light beneath bruce’s sleeve pulses again. he considers the question longer than you expect.

“not in the way you mean,” he answers.

“what way do i mean?”

“malicious.”

you look toward the rain-streaked window.

“that wasn’t reassuring.”

“it wasn’t supposed to be.”

you turn back.

“why did my headache get worse when he walked in?”

bruce’s attention drops briefly to the notebook beneath your arm.

“why do you think it did?”

“because i know him.”

bruce doesn’t answer.

you place the notebook on his desk and open it to the first page.

queens.

spider-man.

red gloves.

rooftop.

a boy without a face.

bruce reads the list without touching it.

“my father recruited spider-man,” you say. “he built equipment for him. trusted him on missions. let him into the facility.”

“i remember,” bruce replies.

“do you remember who he was?”

bruce’s expression changes. it lasts less than a second. still, you see it.

“no,” he admits.

“does that make sense to you?”

“no.”

“then why is everyone acting like it does?”

the question leaves louder than you intend. your voice strikes the office walls and settles beneath the rain.

bruce studies you.

“sometimes the mind protects an absence by making it feel ordinary,” he says.

“this doesn’t feel ordinary.”

“no,” bruce agrees. “it doesn’t.”

you close the notebook.

“tell ned i want to speak to him.”

bruce reaches for his pen again.

“i don’t think he’ll agree.”

“then tell him i’ll keep coming here until he does.”

a faint smile touches bruce’s mouth.

“that,” he observes, “sounds like your father.”

“don’t insult me.”

—

peter returns the next tuesday because bruce sends him a photograph of the revised receptor model with three words beneath it.

she knows something.

he considers never going back.

he spends half the night crouched on the roof opposite the physics building, watching the dark office windows while traffic moves below. the city is too loud. sirens overlap across three boroughs. a couple argues through an open window six floors down. someone in the next building snores badly enough to change rhythm every few minutes.

beneath all of it, peter hears his own pulse. slow. wrong.

the spider doesn’t like fear. it converts fear into readiness, grief into vigilance, loneliness into an environmental threat the body must survive.

peter leaves the roof at sunrise. he returns during office hours anyway.

you sit inside bruce’s office when he arrives.

this time, you occupy the chair beside the window with two paper cups on the sill. your notebook rests closed in your lap. late afternoon sunlight breaks through the clouds, catching on rainwater left along the glass.

peter stops in the doorway.

you lift one of the cups.

“coffee?” you ask.

“i’m fine,” peter replies.

“you hate black coffee.”

the statement leaves before either of you can examine it.

peter’s fingers tighten around his backpack strap. 

you look down at the cup.

“i don’t know why i said that,” you admit.

bruce watches from behind his desk.

peter hears the slight change in your heartbeat.

“i don’t hate it,” he says.

you look at him again.

“you drink it when you’re tired,” you reply slowly. “but you put too much sugar in it when you think no one is watching.”

peter cannot move.

a memory flickers through your mind.

a kitchen after midnight.

peter standing beside a coffee machine in a shirt that belongs to your father, pouring sugar into a mug while you watch from the doorway.

his face vanishes before he turns.

you press your fingertips against your temple.

peter takes a step toward you.

“don’t,” you warn.

he stops. hurt crosses his face.

“not because i don’t want you near me,” you add. “because i need you to stop deciding what i can handle.”

peter looks toward bruce. the professor adjusts a stack of papers that doesn’t need adjusting.

“professor banner said you had questions,” peter says.

“i do.”

“i don’t have answers.”

“you have at least one.”

peter remains by the door.

you place both cups on the sill and rise.

“what is your name?” you ask.

“ned.”

“no.”

“you don’t know that.”

“my head hurts every time you lie to me.”

peter’s expression tightens. “then stop asking.”

“that isn’t how this works.”

“it can be.”

“for you, maybe.” your voice softens. “you’ve had four years to decide what this is,” you continue. “i’ve had headaches.”

the number catches between you. peter’s breath stops.

you notice.

“four years,” you repeat. “why did that matter?”

peter looks at bruce.

bruce meets his gaze without offering rescue.

the building shifts around the silence. pipes move behind the wall. footsteps cross the corridor. a phone rings in another office and stops after the third tone.

“i should go,” peter says.

you cross the space before he reaches the door.

your fingers close around the sleeve of his jacket. peter freezes.

the contact sends a memory through you.

the statue of liberty beneath a broken sky.

blood along peter’s cheek.

your hands clutching his wrists while the world tears itself open behind him.

“promise me,” you beg.

“i promise,” he says.

you lose the rest.

your grip tightens.

“you promised me something,” you whisper.

peter’s face drains of color.

“let go,” he says.

“what did you promise?”

“please.”

“what did you promise me?”

a door slams in the hallway.

peter reacts before anyone else.

his head turns sharply toward the sound. every muscle in his shoulders hardens beneath your hand. his heartbeat slows until each beat arrives with measured force.

black spreads across his eyes. brown disappears first, then white.

within seconds, his eyes become entirely dark, reflecting the office lights like polished glass.

you release his sleeve. peter steps between you and the doorway.

bruce rises from his chair.

“there isn’t a threat,” bruce says, keeping his voice low.

peter does not respond. his head tilts by a fraction as he listens beyond the office. the student responsible for the noise laughs nervously, apologizes to someone, and continues down the hall.

the danger does not exist. the spider does not know that.

“ned,” bruce says.

peter’s jaw tightens. the false name does not reach him.

you look into the dark surface of his eyes and see your own reflection.

another memory cuts through you.

peter standing between you and a collapsing wall.

peter carrying you through smoke.

peter’s eyes turning black when a weapon lifts toward your father.

not for the first time.

you step around him. his hand catches your wrist. not painfully, instinctively.

you turn your hand beneath his and close your fingers around his.

“peter,” you say. the name enters the room. 

peter’s grip loosens. his face changes around it, fear breaking through the predatory stillness.

“look at me,” you tell him.

his head turns. you move closer until your reflection fills his eyes.

“there is no threat,” you say.

peter’s breath catches.

“you don’t know that,” he replies, his voice lower than before.

“i know bruce.”

peter’s gaze flickers toward the professor.

“i know this office,” you continue. “i know the student slammed the door because the hinges are terrible, and i know you don’t want to hurt anyone.”

black begins receding from his eyes. brown returns around the pupils first, followed by the whites. peter releases your wrist as though the contact has burned him.

he steps back.

“i’m sorry,” he says. the words sound exhausted.

you look at him.

“peter,” you repeat.

his eyes close.

“don’t.”

“that is your name.”

“not anymore.”

“what does that mean?”

he grabs his backpack from the floor.

“it means i can’t be here,” peter says.

he leaves before you stop him.

Some days he walked the streets in civilian clothes instead of swinging. He would buy a coffee he didn’t drink and sit on a bench near the apartment building where she used to live, just to see if the ache changed when he looked at the windows. It never did. Other nights he forced himself to go home early and lie on the mattress in the dark, staring at the ceiling while his senses picked up every creak of the old building, every distant siren, every heartbeat on the floor below. He would stay like that until the numbness set in, then get up and put the suit back on. Moving was better than stillness. Stillness let the memories in.

Tonight the sense sharpened suddenly, a bright needle of awareness dragging his head left. Four blocks west. High. Moving with purpose and almost no sound.

He was already in motion before the thought finished forming. Movement was another coping mechanism. As long as he was swinging, he didn’t have to sit still with the hollow place in his chest.

The building was older limestone and iron, the kind that still employed a night watchman who fell asleep at his desk by midnight. Peter landed on a neighboring rooftop first, staying low, letting his senses map the space before he committed. Through the open third-floor gallery window he could already hear the soft, precise sounds of someone working—metal on glass, a quiet electronic hum, the occasional shift of weight on polished floors. No alarms. No raised voices. Just focused, unhurried competence.

He dropped down to the narrow ledge outside the window and looked in.

You stood in a shaft of moonlight like the room belonged to you, the black catsuit fitted to every line of your body as if it had been painted on. One gloved hand rested lightly on the glass display case while the other held a small laser cutter that hummed against the lock. The jewel inside—an old European sapphire the size of a quail egg set in platinum—caught the light and threw blue sparks across the sharp planes of your cheekbones and the curve of your mask.

Peter stayed on the ledge longer than he needed to, just watching.

There was something almost graceful about the way you worked—no wasted movement, no nervous energy. You weren’t rushing. You weren’t even particularly quiet in a fearful way. You simply existed in the space as if the idea of being interrupted had never seriously occurred to you. His spider-sense remained calm. No immediate danger. Only the steady, unhurried beat of your heart and the faint clean scent of your skin under the leather, something sharp and cool like night air after rain.

He finally stepped through the open window.

The soft thwip of a web against the frame announced him, but you didn’t startle. You didn’t even look up right away. You simply finished the cut with a soft click, lifted the glass, and plucked the sapphire free like it was a piece of expensive candy. Only then did you glance over your shoulder, slow and deliberate, as if you’d known he was there the entire time.

“Well,” you said, voice low and velvet-smooth, touched with amusement. “Look what the city dragged in.”

Peter dropped to the polished floor a careful ten feet away, arms crossing over his chest. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Usually the people I catch mid-robbery at least pretend to be startled.”

You turned fully toward him, tossing the jewel once and catching it with easy grace. The mask covered the upper half of your face, but your mouth curved in a slow, knowing smirk that was pure trouble.

“Everyone in this city knows who you are, Spider-Man. Some of us just pay closer attention than others.” You held the sapphire up so the moonlight fractured through it, letting the blue light play across your gloved fingers. “And this is coming with me. It’s pretty. Some things don’t need a better reason than that.”

He took a slow step closer. His elevated senses kept cataloguing everything without permission—the soft creak of leather when you shifted your weight, the steady rhythm of your pulse, the way the city light caught on the edge of your mask. No fear. No spike of adrenaline. Just calm, almost lazy confidence, like he was an interesting interruption rather than a real problem.

“Put it back.” he said.

“Or what?” You tilted your head, the smirk widening just a little. “You’ll give me the big speech about justice while dangling from a web? Threaten to leave me for the cops? I’ve heard it before, webhead. From a distance. You’re much more interesting up close.”

Peter’s jaw tightened under the mask. “You’ve been watching me.”

“Hard not to. You make a lot of noise for someone who thinks he’s subtle.” You took a single step closer—not enough to crowd him, but enough that he could feel the faint warmth radiating off your body. Your voice dropped, softer, almost intimate. “I’ve got to say… the real thing is better than the blurry photos.”

He almost laughed. It came out as a rough sound in his throat. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet here you are, still talking to me instead of swinging away.” You took another half-step closer, close enough now that the clean, cool scent of your skin under the leather reached him clearly. “Most heroes would’ve already tried to take me in by now. Started the big moral lecture. You haven’t. I’m starting to wonder if you actually like the conversation.”

His spider-sense flared—not danger, exactly. Just you. The proximity. The way your heartbeat stayed calm while his had started to pick up without permission. When you reached up as if to tap two fingers against the center of his chest plate, he caught your wrist before the touch could land.

“Don’t.”

You didn’t pull away. You just looked at the place where his gloved hand circled your wrist, then back up at his masked face. The teasing didn’t drop, but it softened at the edges, turning into something more deliberate. Seductive and testing.

“Careful, Spider,” you murmured. “Keep holding on like that and I might start thinking you like the company.”

He released your wrist a second later than he should have. You twisted free with practiced ease and stepped back, giving him a little two-finger salute that somehow managed to feel both mocking and inviting.

“Fine. I’ll play nice for one minute.” You moved toward the open window, graceful as smoke, the sapphire already disappearing into a pouch at your hip. At the sill you paused and glanced back over your shoulder, that same slow smirk still playing at the corner of your mouth.

“Try not to get too bored without me, webhead. I’d hate to think I was the most exciting part of your night.”

And then you were gone—out the window, up the rope, vanishing into the dark like you’d never been there at all.

Peter stood alone in the empty gallery for a long time after, listening to the fading sound of your heartbeat until even that disappeared into the noise of New York. He should have followed. He should have webbed the pouch and ended the night the way every other night ended. Instead he stayed on the ledge and let the cold air sting his lungs, counting the seconds until the ache in his chest felt ordinary again.

Movement. Exhaustion. Silence. Those were the tools he had left.

Tonight they weren’t working as well as usual.

He swung home the long way, forcing himself to take every possible detour, cataloguing rooftops and fire escapes and the occasional late-night walker until the sky began to lighten. When he finally dropped through the skylight into his apartment he didn’t bother turning on the lights. He sat on the edge of the mattress with the mask still in his hands and stared at the wall until the numbness returned.

He told himself the encounter meant nothing. A thief. A one-time interruption. He would not see you again.

He already knew that was a lie.

A few weeks had passed since the night in the gallery

The rain had stopped earlier in the evening, but the city still smelled like wet concrete and cold metal. Peter had been swinging for hours, forcing himself through the same circuits he always did when the quiet got too loud. Midtown to the village. The village to the bridge. The bridge back uptown. His shoulders burned. His lungs ached in the cold. His spider-sense stayed at a low, constant hum, picking up every distant heartbeat, every shifting shadow, every scent the wind carried. It was exhausting. It was also the only thing that kept the memories from settling too deeply into his chest.

He almost ignored the familiar signature when it brushed against his senses again—bright, deliberate, already half-recognized even though he still didn’t know your real name. Almost. But the hollow place under his ribs had been worse than usual tonight, and the idea of another stretch of empty rooftops felt unbearable. So he changed course.

He found you on the roof of a jewelry exchange in the diamond district, crouched beside a ventilation unit that you had already forced open. A slim black bag sat open at your feet. In your gloved hands were a pair of diamond cufflinks, the stones catching what little light made it through the clouds. You turned one over slowly between your fingers, studying the way it reflected the city, as if deciding whether it was worth keeping.

You didn’t look surprised when he landed ten feet away.

“You’re getting predictable,” you said, voice carrying easily over the residual drip of rain from the rooftop edge. “Or maybe I’m just getting better at knowing where you’ll be.”

“Maybe both.” He stayed a careful distance away, arms loosely crossed, watching the cufflinks glitter in your palm. “Those look expensive.”

“They are.” You held one up so the diamonds caught the light. “Old money. Excellent cut. Not the biggest stones in the building, but the prettiest. Sometimes value isn’t the point.”

Peter’s increased senses catalogued everything without his permission: the soft creak of your catsuit when you shifted your weight, the steady, unhurried beat of your heart, the faint clean scent of your skin under the leather and the residual rain. No fear. No spike of adrenaline. Just calm focus, like he was an expected interruption rather than a threat.

“You could have taken the bigger pieces,” he said.

“I could have. I still might on the way out.” You slipped one cufflink into the bag and kept the other in your hand, turning it slowly. “But I wanted these first. They reminded me of something. Or maybe of someone. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.”

He didn’t know what to do with that honesty. It sat between you like a third person on the roof. He stayed where he was, listening to the distant traffic and the quiet drip of water from a nearby pipe, trying not to let his gaze linger too long on the way the city lights touched the side of your mask.

“You’re still looking at me like I’m a problem you haven’t solved yet,” you observed after a moment. “That’s fine. I’ve been a problem for better men than you.”

“I’m not trying to solve you.”

“Good. I’m not a puzzle.” You tilted your head, studying him through the lenses of your mask. “You, on the other hand, still look like a man who’s been apologizing to himself for weeks. Maybe longer. Want to tell me why, or are we going to keep pretending this is about the jewelry?”

Peter’s throat tightened. The automatic deflection rose and died before it could leave his mouth. Something about the way you stood there—open, unapologetic, not asking him to be anything other than what he was—made the usual walls feel thinner than they had in a long time. His spider-sense stayed quiet. No danger. Just the steady presence of you, and the way the cold air carried the faint scent of your skin every time the wind shifted.

He looked out over the city instead of at you. The lights blurred a little.

“Someone I loved forgot me,” he said after a long silence. The words came out rougher than he intended. “Not a spell I can reverse. Not amnesia with a cure waiting somewhere. The whole relationship was just… erased. Like it never happened. She looks at me now the way you’d look at a stranger you might have shared a class with once. Polite. Distant. And I’m the only one who still remembers what it felt like to be hers.”

You didn’t speak. The only sounds were the wind and the occasional distant siren.

“I keep waiting for it to stop hurting,” he continued, quieter now. “I thought if I just stayed away, if I kept moving, if I exhausted myself every night until I couldn’t think straight, it would get quieter. It doesn’t. Some nights I can still hear the way she used to say my name. Some nights I walk past places we used to go and I have to stop myself from looking for her in the windows. And the worst part is that she doesn’t even know what she’s missing. She just… moved on. Because for her, there was nothing to move on from.”

His hands had curled into loose fists at his sides without him noticing. He forced them open again.

“I don’t know how to carry it,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to be the only one left holding something that heavy. So I stay out here. I count the lights still on. I catalogue every scent the wind brings so my head stays too full for the memories. And some nights it almost works. Most nights it doesn’t.”

The silence that followed was longer this time. You turned the remaining cufflink over in your fingers again, slow and thoughtful, the diamonds flashing faintly.

“That’s a brutal kind of loneliness,” you said finally. Your voice had lost most of its usual edge. Not soft, exactly. Just quieter. Honest. “Most people in this city would kill for a clean slate. You got one you never asked for. And you’re out here every night trying to outrun the fact that you’re the only one who still remembers the version of the world that included her.”

“Yeah.”

“And talking to a thief on a roof at three in the morning is somehow better than going home to the quiet.”

He almost smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Something like that.”

You were quiet for another stretch of time. Then you stepped closer—not close enough to touch, but close enough that he could feel the faint warmth radiating off your body through the cold air. You held out the single diamond cufflink you had kept in your hand.

“Here,” you said. “Consolation prize. It’s not going to fix anything. It’s not going to make the quiet any less loud. But it’s pretty. And sometimes having one small, solid thing that belongs to you and no one else is better than nothing.”

Peter stared at the cufflink. The diamonds caught the city light and threw tiny fractured sparks across your glove.

“I’m not taking stolen goods.” he said, but there was no real force behind it.

“Then consider it a gift from a concerned stranger who happens to have sticky fingers and a flexible definition of ownership.” You pressed it into his palm when he didn’t reach for it. Your gloved fingers lingered against his for a second longer than necessary. “You don’t have to carry it alone every night, you know. Sometimes it’s okay to let someone else sit on the roof with you. Even if that someone would still leave with the rest of the shiny things the second you turned your back.”

He closed his fingers around the cufflink. It was small and cold and solid in his hand. His increased senses registered the faint residual warmth from your glove, the precise weight of the metal, the tiny imperfections in the setting that only someone looking this closely would notice.

“Why do you keep showing up?” he asked quietly.

You shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe I like the view. Or maybe I like watching the great Spider-Man pretend he doesn’t enjoy the company of someone who doesn’t need him to be okay. Either way…” You stepped back toward the edge, bag already slung over your shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not promising I’ll stop taking the pretty things just because you look at me like that.”

You dropped off the side of the building into the dark without another word, leaving him alone on the roof with the single diamond cufflink still pressed into his palm and the fading sound of your heartbeat in his ears.

Peter stayed there for a long time after you were gone. The wind moved across the rooftop. The city kept breathing below him. He turned the cufflink over between his fingers again and again, watching the light catch in the stones, until the sky began to lighten at the edges.

He told himself he would throw it away.

He didn’t.

He put it in the small inner pocket of his suit, right against his chest, and swung home the long way, counting the lights still on across the avenue and trying not to notice how much quieter the hollow place under his ribs felt with that small, stolen weight resting over his heart.

When he finally got home, he sat on the fire escape outside his apartment instead of going inside. He stayed there until the sun came up, replaying every word of the conversation, with the cufflink you gave him in his hand.

A few weeks later he took a bad hit near the docks. The fight near the docks had gone sideways faster than Peter expected.

One of the enhanced enforcers had caught him with a heavy metal pipe across the ribs hard enough to drive the air from his lungs and send him skidding across wet concrete. He had finished it—barely—the damage was done. Every breath felt like someone was pressing a heated blade between his ribs. Blood had soaked through the side of his suit in a dark, spreading stain. His spider-sense kept flickering with residual adrenaline, too sharp, too loud, picking up every distant shout and the heavy slap of rain that had started falling again in thick, cold sheets.

He needed to get off the street.

He webbed himself up the side of the nearest warehouse and over the edge of its roof, looking for any kind of cover. The best he found was a wide metal overhang on the far side of the building, half-collapsed but still solid enough to keep most of the rain off. He dropped down under it with a barely controlled stagger and sank onto a low concrete ledge, one arm pressed tight against his side. The cold air stung the open scrapes. His vision swam for a second.

He was still trying to slow his breathing when a soft scrape of boots on wet metal sounded from the opposite end of the overhang.

Peter’s head snapped up, body tensing despite the pain.

You stepped out of the heavier rain and under the shelter like you belonged there, black catsuit glistening with water, a slim bag already slung over one shoulder. You froze for half a second when you saw him, clearly not expecting company, then let out a quiet, almost amused breath.

“Well,” you said, voice low and laced with that familiar teasing lilt. “This is unexpected. Didn’t realize someone had already claimed the only dry spot for three blocks.”

Peter stared at you through the lenses of his mask, still half-convinced his spider-sense was playing tricks on him. “You’re… not here for me.”

“No.” You glanced out at the sheets of rain hammering the open rooftop beyond the overhang. “I was cutting across the roofs to get out of this. Lucky me, I get free entertainment instead.” Your gaze dropped to the dark stain spreading across his side. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re leaning like your ribs are trying to crawl out of your body and your suit is turning a very unflattering shade of red.” You stepped fully under the overhang and crouched a few feet away, setting your bag down on the concrete with a soft thud. “That’s not fine, Spider. Even by your standards.”

He watched as you unzipped the bag and dug through it with practiced efficiency. Not a dedicated first-aid bag—just the kind of compact, well-stocked emergency kit a professional thief might keep for the nights things went wrong. You pulled out antiseptic, gauze, medical tape, and a small pair of scissors, then looked at him again, one eyebrow arched beneath the mask.

“Shirt off,” you said, the teasing still present but quieter. “Or at least get the top of the suit out of the way so I can see what I’m dealing with. Unless you’d rather sit here and bleed dramatically for the aesthetic.”

He should have refused. He should have told you he could handle it himself and waited for the rain to ease. Instead he reached up with careful, stiff movements and peeled the upper half of the suit down to his waist. The cold air hit the bruised skin and open scrapes immediately. A low sound escaped him before he could stop it.

You hissed softly through your teeth when you saw the damage—deep purple-black already blooming across his left side, several long scrapes still seeping blood.

“Christ. You really don’t do anything halfway, do you?” You moved closer, kneeling between his knees so you could reach him properly. The space under the overhang was narrow. Your shoulder brushed his thigh as you settled. “This is going to sting. Try not to web me to the wall in retaliation.”

It did sting.

The antiseptic burned like fire across the open skin. Peter’s jaw locked. His hands gripped the edge of the concrete ledge hard enough that the material creaked. Your gloved fingers worked with careful precision—cleaning each scrape, pressing gauze into place, wrapping the medical tape with firm but gentle pressure. Every point of contact was amplified by his enhanced senses: the faint warmth of your hands even through the leather, the soft sound of your breathing so close to his chest, the clean sharp scent of your skin mixed with rain and the sterile bite of the antiseptic. He could hear the exact rhythm of your heartbeat. Steady. Focused. A little faster than usual.

“You’re surprisingly good at this,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“Don’t sound so shocked.” You glanced up at him, the corner of your mouth lifting. “I get into my fair share of scrapes. Comes with the job description. Unlike some people, I actually pack supplies instead of just hoping for the best.”

“I usually just tough it out.”

“I’ve noticed. It’s very heroic. Also very stupid.” You secured another strip of tape, your fingers lingering for a second longer than strictly necessary against his side as you smoothed it down. “There. That one should hold. Try not to stretch too much or you’ll open it again and I’ll have to start over. And I charge extra for second attempts.”

Neither of you spoke for a while after that.

The rain hammered against the metal above you in a constant, heavy rhythm. Distant thunder rolled somewhere over the river. Under the overhang it felt strangely private, like the rest of the city had been temporarily edited out of existence. Peter kept his eyes fixed somewhere past your shoulder, but his senses refused to ignore how close you were—the way your knee pressed lightly against the inside of his thigh as you worked, the soft brush of your sleeve against his arm when you leaned in to tape a particularly awkward angle, the quiet concentration in your breathing.

You finished the last of the bandaging and sat back on your heels, but you didn’t move away immediately. Your hands rested lightly on your own thighs, still close enough that he could feel the heat of you.

“You’re allowed to lean on someone, you know,” you said eventually, voice lower than before, the teasing softened around the edges. “Even if that someone has a flexible relationship with other people’s property and only happened to be in the same dry spot by accident.”

Peter’s voice came out rougher than he intended. “I’m not good at that.”

“I noticed.” You tilted your head, studying him. “You don’t have to be good at it tonight. You just have to sit still and let me finish without arguing for once.”

He finally looked at you then. The lenses of your mask reflected the dim light, but the shape of your mouth was softer than usual. Not purely teasing. Not sharp. Just present. His spider-sense stayed completely quiet. No warning. Only the overwhelming awareness of how near you were, how the rain had plastered strands of hair to the side of your neck, how the cold air kept stealing the small shared warmth between your bodies.

You reached out to carefully adjust the edge of one of the bandages where it had started to lift, your gloved fingers brushing lightly against his bare skin. The touch was brief, practical… and still somehow lingered in the air after you pulled your hand back.

“There,” you said, quieter now. “You’re not going to bleed out on me. Try not to pick another fight for at least twelve hours. I’d hate to have to patch you up again so soon. My rates go up for repeat customers.”

Peter swallowed. His side still ached, but the worst of the sharp pain had dulled under the bandage. The hollow place in his chest felt strangely quieter too, as if the simple act of letting someone take care of him for a few minutes had eased something he hadn’t realized was still clenched tight.

“Thank you,” he said.

You shrugged one shoulder, already packing the kit back into your bag with neat, efficient movements, though the usual sharp edge in your voice had softened. “Don’t thank me yet. I might still change my mind about sharing the dry spot if the rain lets up. Or start charging you for the gauze.”

But you didn’t leave.

You settled onto the concrete ledge a careful foot away from him, knees drawn up, watching the rain fall in heavy silver sheets beyond the edge of the overhang. Peter stayed where he was, half-undressed, bandaged, and more aware of another person than he had allowed himself to be in months. The silence between you was different now—charged, intimate, almost gentle. Every so often the wind would shift and carry the faint scent of your skin to him again, and his senses would light up with it like a live wire.

You both sat like that for a long time, listening to the storm, neither of yoy in any hurry to return to the wet, empty city waiting just beyond the shelter.

The weeks turned into months.

Winter deepened. The city grew colder, the nights longer. You kept finding each other—sometimes on purpose, sometimes by the strange gravity that seemed to pull you both toward the same rooftops at the same hours. The banter stayed sharp. Your moral flexibility stayed intact. You still took what you wanted when the opportunity presented itself. He still tried (and usually failed) to stop you, but the silences between the words had started to feel less like empty space and more like something shared.

Peter’s overwhelming senses made every meeting louder than it should have been. He could track the sound of your breathing from three rooftops away. He could smell the faint trace of your perfume on the wind long after you had gone. He could feel the exact moment your pulse changed when he landed near you. It was maddening. It was grounding. It was the only thing that sometimes made the hollow place in his chest feel less empty.

He used the time deliberately.

He forced himself to sit with the memory of MJ instead of outrunning it. He went to the places they used to go and let the absence hurt until it became ordinary. He stopped swinging until his shoulders burned every single night. Some nights he even slept. He wrote things down in a notebook he kept under the mattress, fragments of conversations he still remembered, the way her hand had felt in his, the sound of her laugh in a crowded room, and then he read them back until the words lost some of their power. The grief didn’t disappear. It simply stopped being the only thing he could feel.

There were nights when the weight of it still crushed him. Nights when he sat on a random rooftop and let the tears come because there was no one left to see them. On one of those nights you found him without being called. You didn’t speak. You just sat beside him until the worst of it passed, then left a single stolen earring on the ledge as a silent reminder that you had been there.

He kept the earring.

The face reveal happened on a night when the wind was bitter and the sky was clear enough to see stars between the buildings.

You were both sitting on the edge of a high-rise in the financial district, legs dangling. Peter had taken a glancing blow to the side of the head earlier; the edge of the mask was torn just enough that the cold air kept finding the cut.

“You’re still bleeding.” you remarked.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not.” You turned toward him fully. “Take the mask off. Let me see.”

He hesitated. The mask was the last barrier. Once it was gone, there would be no pretending this was still just Spider-Man and a thief who crossed paths.

You waited. You didn’t push. That, more than anything, decided him.

He reached up and pulled the mask off in one slow motion. The cold air hit his face like a slap. For a moment he couldn’t look at you. When he finally did, you were already removing your own mask with the same deliberate care.

The face beneath stopped him cold.

It was sharp and striking and completely unfamiliar. No recognition, no shared history, but beautiful in a way that made his breath catch in his throat. High cheekbones, a mouth that looked like it was made for smirking, eyes that held the same sharp intelligence he’d already grown used to hearing in your voice. His enhanced senses catalogued everything at once: the exact shape of your lips, the way the city lights caught in your eyes, the soft flush the cold had left on your skin. For a few seconds he just stared, completely caught, like the rest of the city had gone quiet.

You were a stranger. And somehow you had already become the only person in the city who knew the shape of his grief… and the first person in a long time who had made him forget, even for a moment, how heavy it was.

You studied him in silence for several long seconds.

“So that’s what you look like under all the webs.”

“Disappointed?”

“No.” You tilted your head. “You look like someone who’s been carrying too much for too long. It suits you better than the mask, somehow.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. The wind moved between you. Somewhere far below a train rattled along its tracks.

After a moment he spoke, voice quieter than before. He hesitated, the words sitting heavy on his tongue, then pushed them out anyway.

“…Peter,” he broke the silence. You looked up at him, confused. “My name is Peter Parker.”

He watched your face carefully, like he was still deciding whether he’d done the right thing. When you didn’t pull away or laugh, something in his shoulders eased just slightly.

“I… wanted you to know,” he added, softer. “Just you.”

You didn’t look surprised. Just thoughtful.

You were quiet for a few seconds, eyes moving over his face as if you were memorizing it. Then a small, almost private smile touched your mouth.

“Peter,” you repeated, testing it. “It suits you better than the mask too.”

You hesitated then, the usual sharp confidence softening into something more careful. The wind tugged at a few loose strands of your hair as you looked at him, really looked at him, and seemed to come to a decision.

“You told me yours,” you said quietly. “So…”

And you tell him your name.

It left your mouth softer than most things you said, almost like you were offering something you didn’t hand out easily. Peter’s eyes stayed on yours the entire time, and the way he repeated it back—slow, careful, like he was committing every syllable to memory—made something warm and unexpected settle in your chest.

“It suits you,” he said after a moment, voice low. There was no teasing in it. Just quiet sincerity

The two of you stayed like that for a little longer, names now known, masks still off, the cold night air moving between you. The city felt farther away than usual.

“I’m not her,” you said eventually. “I can’t be. I won’t try to be. And I’m still going to take the next pretty thing I see, even if you’re standing right there. I need you to understand that before this goes any further.”

“I do.”

“Do you?” You searched his face. “Because the way you’ve been looking at me lately… it feels like you’re waiting for me to become something softer. I’m not going to. I like who I am. If that’s a deal-breaker, say it now.”

Peter looked at you—really looked. The grief over MJ was still there, heavy and familiar. But for the first time it didn’t feel like the only thing in the room.

“It’s not a deal-breaker,” he responded. “I don’t need you to be softer. I just… need time. I’m still figuring out how to carry what happened. I won’t touch anyone else until I’ve faced that. Not even you.”

Something complicated moved across your expression. Then you nodded once.

“Okay,” you answered back. “Then we wait. I’ll still be on the roofs. And when you’re ready, if you’re ever ready, you know where to find me… Peter.” He shivered at the way his name rolled out of your tongue.

You put your mask back on first. He followed a moment later.

You left him there with the wind and the city lights and the first real possibility that the hollow place in his chest might one day hold something else.

Spring came slowly.

The meetings continued. The tension thickened with every one of them. Peter’s senses made it almost unbearable at times—he could hear the soft catch in your breath when he stood too close, could feel the heat of your body even through layers of leather and kevlar, could track the exact rhythm of your heartbeat like it was a second pulse inside his own chest. He started noticing the way your voice dropped when you were being honest, the way your fingers flexed when you were resisting the urge to touch him, the way the air between you felt charged enough to spark.

He was falling. He knew it. The realization came in pieces over weeks—small, quiet moments that stacked on top of each other until the truth was impossible to ignore. He liked the way you never lied to him. He liked the way you stayed. He liked the way the grief felt less like drowning when you were nearby.

But he still waited.

He waited until the grief no longer felt like the only thing defining him. He waited until he could think about MJ without the sharp, breathless panic. He waited until the idea of touching someone else no longer felt like a betrayal of a memory that only he still carried.

It took months.

The night everything finally shifted, it was raining again.

He found you on the same East Village rooftop where you had once patched him up, standing at the edge with your back to him, watching the storm move across the skyline. You didn’t turn when he landed.

“You’re early.” you commented.

“I know.”

You glanced over your shoulder. “Something different about you tonight.”

“Yeah.” He pulled the mask off. The rain hit his face immediately. “I think I’m done waiting.”

You turned fully then. For a long moment you just looked at him, rain running down the lenses of your own mask. Then you reached up and removed it as well.

“You’re sure?” you asked. The question was quiet, almost careful. “Because I meant what I said. I’m not going to become someone else for you. I’m still the woman who takes what she wants and doesn’t apologize. If you need a saint, keep looking.”

“I don’t need a saint.” He stepped closer. The rain was cold; the space between you was not. His enhanced senses were almost overwhelming—your scent, your heartbeat, the soft sound of rain hitting your suit. “I just need the person who’s been sitting on roofs with me while I figured out how to carry the rest of it. If that’s still on the table.”

You studied him for another long second. Then the corner of your mouth lifted.

“It’s on the table,” you said. “Has been for a while. I was just waiting for you to notice.”

He kissed you.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful. It was months of loneliness and grief and the slow, deliberate choice to let something new exist alongside the old wound. You made a small sound against his mouth and kissed him back just as hard, fingers fisting in the fabric of his suit, body pressing flush against his like you had been waiting for permission that was finally, fully given.

When you finally broke apart, both of you were breathing like you had run miles.

“My place,” you said. “Not because I’m soft. Because the rain is freezing and I want to take my time with you without an audience of pigeons.”

“Lead the way.”

Your apartment was high up, open floor plan, windows looking out over the glittering wet city. The moment the door closed behind you, the last of the careful distance between you burned away—not into haste, but into something heavier and more intentional.

Peter pushed the residual rain from his hair. You did the same. For a long moment you just looked at each other without masks, without rooftops, without the city listening. Then you stepped in close, close enough that he could feel the warmth of your body through the damp fabric of your suit, and rested your forehead against his.

“Still with me?” you asked quietly.

“Yeah.” His voice was already rough. “I’m here.”

“Good. Because I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I want to go slow. I want to feel all of it.”

He kissed you—soft at first, almost reverent, mapping the shape of your mouth the way he had once mapped the skyline. Your hands found the edge of his suit and began working it open with careful fingers. He returned the favor, finding the hidden zipper at the back of your neck and drawing it down in one long, deliberate pull. The leather parted. Warm skin. The soft curve of your spine under his palms.

His enhanced senses were already starting to sharpen beyond the usual. Every brush of your fingers against his skin sent sparks up his arms. He could hear the exact moment your breath hitched. He could smell how wet you already were. He could feel the heat of you like a living thing.

You bit his lower lip gently and smiled against his mouth when he groaned.

“Still pretending you don’t like this?”

“I stopped pretending months ago,” he murmured. “You know that.”

“I do. I just like hearing you say it.”

The rest of the suits came away in stages—gloves, boots, the main pieces peeled down and discarded in a damp heap near the door. You wore nothing underneath except a scrap of black lace. He hooked his fingers in the sides and dragged it down slowly, watching the way your thighs tensed, the way your breath hitched when the cool air of the apartment hit wet skin.

You were already soaked. The scent of your arousal hit his heightened senses like a drug—warm, musky, purely you. His mouth watered. His cock ached, every nerve ending already oversensitive.

“Jesus, Cat…”

“You can look all you want,” you said, voice husky. “But I’d rather you touch. And I’d rather you take your time. We’ve waited long enough for this.”

He guided you back onto the bed and followed, settling between your thighs. His hands stroked up the soft inner skin of your legs, thumbs brushing higher until he parted your folds and could see how wet you already were. You were flushed a deep pink, glistening. He dragged one finger through the slick heat and watched your stomach jump. Then another. He worked you open slowly, learning the angles that made your breath catch, the pressure that made your hips roll up to meet him.

“Talk to me,” he said quietly, eyes on your face. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” you answered, already a little breathless. “Just you. Don’t overthink it.”

When he finally lowered his head and licked a long, slow stripe from your entrance to your clit, the sound you made nearly undid him. You tasted like rain and want and something darker. He settled in like a man who had been starving for exactly this, tongue working steady circles around your clit while two fingers slid inside you, curling, searching. Every sound you made, every flutter of your walls around his fingers, every shift of your hips was magnified by his senses until it felt like the entire world had narrowed to the space between your thighs.

“Right there! Fuuck, Peter, don’t stop—”

He didn’t. He licked and sucked and fucked you with his fingers and tongue until your thighs started to shake around his head. When you cum the first time it was with a broken cry, pulsing around his fingers, flooding his tongue. He worked you through it until you were trembling and oversensitive, then pressed a soft kiss to your inner thigh and looked up at you.

You were already wrecked—cheeks flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling fast. The sight of you like that, open and wet and still looking at him like you wanted more, made something low and primal tighten in his gut.

“Come here.” you managed.

He crawled up your body and kissed you, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. Your legs wrapped around his waist. His cock slid against your soaked folds and the sensation was so intense his vision went white for a second. He had to stop and breathe through it, forehead pressed to yours.

“You okay?” you whispered.

“Yeah. Just… everything’s louder right now. You feel like too much in the best way.”

“Then take what you need.” You kissed the corner of his mouth. “I’m right here.”

He reached down, guided himself to your entrance, and pushed in slow—inch by inch, watching your face the whole time. You were tight, hot, and so fucking perfect. The heat of you around him was almost overwhelming. When he finally bottomed out you both went still, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.

“Okay?” he asked again, voice strained.

“More than okay.” Your hands slid up his back. “Move. And don’t you dare hold back just because you’re still carrying the rest of it. I can take it. I want all of you.”

He started slow—deep, measured thrusts, learning the angle that made your breath catch, the rhythm that made your nails dig into his shoulders. The careful control lasted longer than he expected. You met every stroke, hips rolling up, soft sounds spilling from your mouth that his senses caught and amplified until they felt like they were vibrating under his skin.

“Harder,” you eventually demanded, voice rough. “Peter—harder.”

Something in him shifted.

The careful human restraint began to fray. His eyes darkened—first the usual warm brown deepening, then the color bleeding outward until both irises and sclera were pure, solid black. The arachnid part of him had taken over. His thrusts grew deeper, stronger, more instinctive. His spider-sense flared not with danger but with pure, overwhelming awareness of you—your heartbeat racing against his chest, the slick heat of you clenching around him, the scent of sex and rain and you filling his head until thought became secondary to sensation. His movements turned more animal, more driven. He gripped your hip hard enough to leave marks and drove into you with a low, guttural sound that didn’t sound entirely human.

“Fuuck—yes—” you gasped, arching under him, staring up into those solid black eyes. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”

He couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. The arachnid part of him had taken the reins—heightened strength, heightened need, the primal drive to claim and keep and feel. He fucked you deep and relentless, the wet sound of skin on skin filling the room, mixed with the rain still pattering against the windows and the broken, desperate sounds spilling from both of you. Your breasts bounced with every hard thrust. He leaned down and took one nipple into his mouth, biting just hard enough to make you cry out, and felt you clench around him in response.

“Peter—god, you’re—”

“I’ve got you,” he growled against your skin, the words more instinct than thought, black eyes locked on yours. “I’ve got you. You’re mine right now.”

“I’m yours,” you agreed, breathless, nails raking down his back. “Keep going. Don’t you dare stop.”

He could feel the second orgasm building in you—the way your walls fluttered, the way your breathing turned sharp and desperate. He slipped a hand between your bodies and found your clit with his thumb, rubbing tight, relentless circles in time with his thrusts.

You cum with a cry that cracked in the middle, pulsing hard around his cock, thighs locking around him. The sensation of you clenching around him was too much. The pleasure coiled tight at the base of his spine and then snapped with almost violent intensity.

When he came, it hit like a shockwave—hot, overwhelming, spilling deep inside you in long, shuddering pulses while he buried his face in your neck and groaned your name like a prayer. At the exact same moment, thick strands of web shot from both of his wrists in uncontrolled bursts, sticking to the sheets on either side of your head and the headboard behind you. He couldn’t stop it. The release was too intense, his body too oversensitive, every nerve firing at once. He kept cumming in long, helpless waves, more webs spilling from his wrists with each pulse until the bed around you was a mess of white strands and the two of you were tangled in them.

He collapsed against you, still trembling, still buried deep, webs still faintly dripping from his wrists. His breath came in ragged, uneven pulls against your neck. Slowly, as the last aftershocks faded, the solid black drained from his eyes, the warm brown returning like ink washing away in water until they looked human again.

For a long time neither of you moved.

Eventually you started laughing—quiet, breathless, delighted.

“Well,” you said against his shoulder, voice still shaky. “That’s new.”

Peter made a mortified, still-half-feral sound into your neck. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”

“I could tell.” You tugged gently at one of the webs stuck to the headboard, then reached up and gently brushed your thumb under one of his eyes. “Your eyes went completely black. Like… all of it. They’re back now.”

He blinked, still a little dazed. “Did they?”

“Yeah. It was intense. In a good way.”

He slowly, carefully eased out of you and rolled to the side, pulling you with him so you were half on top of him, tangled in the webs and the sheets. His hands stroked slowly up and down your back, grounding both of you. The feral edge was fully gone now, leaving behind something softer and almost stunned.

“You okay?” he asked after a while, voice quiet and raw. “I didn’t… I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No.” You lifted your head enough to look at him. In the low light your eyes were soft, warm, a little amazed. “You didn’t hurt me. That was… a lot. In the best way. You went somewhere else for a minute.”

“Yeah.” He brushed damp hair from your face with careful fingers, still slightly sticky with residual web. “My senses get too loud sometimes. Everything becomes instinct. I tried to stay careful, but once it started I couldn’t—”

“Hey.” You caught his wrist gently and pressed a kiss to the center of his palm, right over the spinneret. “I liked it. I liked you. All of it. The careful part and the not-so-careful part.”

He stared at you for a long moment, something vulnerable and open in his expression. Then he pulled you closer, tucking your head under his chin, one hand stroking slowly through your hair while the other rested warm and steady on the small of your back. The webs still clung to the bed around you like a strange, private nest. Outside, the rain kept falling in soft sheets against the glass.

“I know i’ve said this to you before, but i’m not going to fix what’s broken,” you said quietly against his chest after a long, comfortable silence. “I know that. I’m still going to take the next pretty thing I see. I’m still going to make choices that would make a better person flinch. But I can be here while you carry it. If you want me to.”

Peter’s arms tightened around you. He pressed a slow kiss to the top of your head, then another to your temple, then one more to the corner of your mouth when you tilted your face up to him.

“I want you to,” he said, voice low and certain. “I want this. Whatever it is. Even if it’s messy. Even if you’re still you and I’m still… me.”

You smiled—small, genuine, a little sad around the edges—and kissed him again, slow and thorough, webs and all.

You stayed like that for a long time: tangled together in the ruined sheets and the sticky white strands, listening to the rain and each other’s heartbeats, neither of you in any hurry to untangle or move or return to the version of the world that existed beyond the windows. Every so often Peter’s fingers would stroke absently along your spine, or you would press a quiet kiss to his collarbone, or one of you would murmur something soft and half-asleep that made the other smile against skin.

The grief over MJ was still there—would probably always be there in some form—but for the first time in months it no longer felt like the only thing in his chest. There was room now for this: the weight of your body against his, the residual heat of what you had just done, the strange comfort of being wrapped in his own webs with someone who had seen every frayed edge of him and stayed anyway.

Outside, the city kept moving. The rain kept falling. And for the first time in a long time, Peter Parker fell asleep without dreaming of the woman who had forgotten him.

He dreamed of sharp smiles, flexible morals, the soft sticky pull of his own webs, and the steady sound of a heartbeat that matched his own.

the bell above the café door chimed softly.

peter didn’t look up.

he had learned that if he looked at every customer who walked in, he’d only end up disappointed. every few hours he’d convince himself that maybe, just maybe, someone would remember him.

no one ever did.

instead, he kept reading the same page of the physics textbook he’d been pretending to study for the last fifteen minutes while, through the reflection in the window, he watched her.

she looked… okay.

happy enough.

a little tired.

she laughed at something on her phone before ordering coffee. good. that was all he needed. he could leave now.

except he didn’t. because he’d told himself that every day for the past month.

just another five minutes. just until she leaves safely. just…

then the chair across from him scraped against the wooden floor.

peter froze.

“…hi.”

he slowly lowered his book.

reader smiled politely, almost apologetically.

“hi.” his brain completely stopped working.

she wasn’t supposed to be here.

she wasn’t supposed to even notice him.

she folded her arms on the table. “you’ve been following me for weeks.”

peter’s heart nearly stopped. “…i’m sorry?”

“you heard me.”

“i- i think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“no.” she tilted her head. “it’s definitely you.”

peter forced an awkward laugh.

“i think i’d remember following someone.”

“you’ve changed hoodies six times.”

his smile faltered.

“you alternate between three backpacks. you’ve started buying coffee from places you clearly don’t like because they’re on my route. and yesterday you spent forty-three minutes pretending to compare cereal brands.”

peter blinked. “…how do you know it was forty-three?”

she gave him a look. “because i was timing you.”

silence.

then she sighed. “i let it go the first week.”

peter considered jumping through the nearest window.

“the second week I assumed you were gathering courage to ask me out.”

his ears turned scarlet. “what?”

“the third week I realized you weren’t actually trying to approach me.” she leaned back. “so now I’m curious.” another beat. “you don’t seem dangerous.”

“no.”

“you don’t seem creepy.”

“…thanks?”

“you actually look guilty… so.” she rested her chin on her hand. “why are you following me?”

peter stared at her.

every answer he wanted to give sat painfully behind the one he couldn’t.

because you’re my best friend.

because i promised your dad.

because i couldn’t save aunt may, but i can make sure nothing happens to you.

instead. “i think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

she smiled. “there it is.”

“what?”

“you’re lying.”

peter swallowed.

reader reached for her coffee when the waiter placed it down.

she took one sip before speaking again. “you know…” her voice softened. “i was trained by natasha romanoff.”

peter almost groaned.

“she spent years teaching me how to spot surveillance.” she pointed casually toward the window. “you always stay where you can see exits.”

peter blinked.

“you never let anyone stand behind you.”

another blink.

“when you think i might’ve noticed you, you start reading.”

his eyes drifted to the textbook still open in front of him.

“and,” she continued, “you scan everyone’s hands before you look at their faces.”

peter slowly closed the book.

“…old habits.”

“military?”

he smiled faintly. “no.”

“former shield?”

“…no.”

“hired by someone?”

his stomach tightened. “…no.”

she studied him for a long moment.

then something shifted in her expression.

not suspicion.

sadness.

“you know…” she murmured, “it’s strange.”

peter looked at her.

“i feel like…” she frowned. “…i should know you.”

his breath caught.

she looked embarrassed by her own words. “that’s weird, right?”

“…maybe.”

“i’ve had this feeling for months.” she laughed quietly. “i’ll see someone wearing a red hoodie and think, there you are, and then…” she shrugged. “it’s never who I’m looking for.”

peter had to grip the edge of the table to stop his hands from shaking.

“you have one of those faces.”

“my face?”

“it feels…” she searched for the word. “…familiar.”

neither of them spoke.

finally, reader smiled. “anyway.” she stood, grabbing her cup. “I don’t know why you’re following me.”

peter lowered his eyes.

“but i don’t think it’s because you want to hurt me.”

“…no.”

“i think…” she said quietly, “…you’re making sure i’m okay.”

his throat tightened.

“i don’t know why.”

neither do i anymore, he almost admitted.

she took a step away before pausing. “if you’re ever done hiding…”

peter looked up.

“…i’d like to know your name.” she smiled one last time as she turned towards the door.

she already had one hand on the café door when she heard him.

“wait.”

reader turned around.

peter was already regretting it.

his chair had scraped loudly against the floor, every eye in the café briefly drifting toward him before returning to their own conversations.

he swallowed.

she waited. “yeah?”

peter had rehearsed thousands of conversations with her.

none of them started like this.

“i…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “this is going to sound weird.”

a small smile tugged at her lips. “i’ve had a weird afternoon already.”

right.

she’d just confronted her own stalker.

“right.” he laughed nervously.

“i guess… i just wanted to say i’m sorry.”

“for following me?”

he nodded immediately. “yeah.”

“and?”

“and…” he looked down at the floor. “i wasn’t lying when i said i don’t want to hurt you.”

“i know.”

“i know that’s not enough of an explanation.”

“no.”

“but it’s the only one i can give.”

reader watched him for a long second. there was something painfully sincere about him. not charming. not smooth. just… honest.

like someone carrying a weight he wasn’t allowed to put down.

“so…” she asked softly. “does this mean you’re going to stop following me?”

peter hesitated. “…yes.” the word almost hurt. “if that’s what makes you feel safe.”

she noticed the way his shoulders slumped after he said it. like he’d just lost something.

her expression softened. “i didn’t say i felt unsafe.”

his eyes lifted to hers.

“i said i noticed.”

“oh.”

“you’ve had plenty of opportunities to do something.”

“i know.”

“you never did.”

“…no.”

“you actually scared away a guy who was following me last tuesday.”

peter blinked. “…you noticed that too?”

she laughed. “i notice everything.”

of course she did.

natasha would’ve been proud.

peter smiled despite himself. it was small. real.

reader noticed that too. “you smile like someone who doesn’t do it very often.”

his smile disappeared almost immediately. “…guess not.”

silence settled between them. comfortable this time.

then peter spoke before he could convince himself not to. “i know this is… probably inappropriate after everything.”

she raised an eyebrow.

“but…” he inhaled deeply. “would you maybe…” his voice almost cracked. “…want to be friends?”

the question hung between them.

reader stared. “friends?”

“i know.” he laughed awkwardly. “it sounds ridiculous.”

“you’ve been secretly following me for a month…”

“…yeah.”

“…and your solution is friendship?”

“when you put it like that….”

“it sounds insane.”

“it really does.” he buried his face in one hand. “i’m sorry. i should’ve just let you leave.”

she couldn’t help smiling. “no.”

he looked up.

“i’m glad you didn’t.”

peter blinked.

she stepped closer. “can i ask you something?”

“anything.”

“why me?”

he froze.

thee answer was so easy.

because you were my best friend.

because i fell in love with you when we were fifteen.

because every science project somehow became an excuse to spend another afternoon together.

because your dad used to pretend he didn’t know we kept sneaking into the lab.

because i still know exactly how you take your coffee.

instead.

“you seemed…” he searched for something that wasn’t a lie. “lonely.”

reader’s smile faded just a little. “…that’s a surprisingly accurate observation.”

peter’s heart sank. “i know what that’s like.”

she looked at him differently then.

not with suspicion. with recognition.

like she’d found another person carrying invisible things.

“i don’t usually make friends with strangers.”

“i figured.”

“but…” she reached into her tote bag and pulled out a small notebook. tearing off a page, she scribbled something before folding it once then she placed it in front of him. “my number.”

peter stared at it as if it might disappear.

“i have one condition.”

he looked up.

“no more following me.”

his stomach twisted. “…okay.”

“if you want to know whether i’m okay…” she smiled. “you ask.”

peter let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “…okay.”

“and if i catch you watching me from another rooftop.”

“i won’t.”

“peter.” the name left her mouth so naturally that they both froze.

silence.

reader frowned. “…why did i call you peter?”

his entire body went still. “i…”

she blinked rapidly. “i don’t even know your name.”

peter couldn’t breathe.

she shook her head, almost laughing at herself. “sorry. that’s… weird. it just slipped out.”

neither of them spoke.

finally, she smiled again, smaller this time. “so…” she tilted her head. “what’s your name?”

peter looked at the folded piece of paper with her phone number.

then back at the girl he’d loved since he was fifteen.

the girl who had just called him by the name the universe had stolen from him.

he smiled.

this time, it reached his eyes. “…peter. peter parker.”

she repeated it quietly, as though testing how it felt. “peter.” something in her chest stirred. a feeling with no memory attached.

only warmth.

only home.

“…it’s nice to meet you peter parker.”

peter nodded. “it really is.”

and for the first time since doctor strange’s spell, he wasn’t introducing himself to a stranger.

he was introducing himself to someone who, somehow, had almost remembered.

You didn't know what you had expected when you walked into his mess of an apartment. More so than usual, enough for you to sense the abnormality of webs upon webs coating his furniture. Stepping into what seems to be a genuine crime scene, it's as if the culprit was one massive spider that decided to make its hive in Ned's apartment.

"Ned?" You call out, worry raised in your tone as you look around—catching no sight of him through the thick layers of webbing. His large monitor screens are all left online, files left unclosed on the window tab, with no sign of their user.

You're one step away from the monitor, tempted to call the cops when you catch sight of crumpled papers upon papers scattered on the wooden floors beneath the desk. Brows furrowed, you crouch down, brushing away the loosened cobwebs coating the papers. They are— letters.

Your first instinct as your fingers trace over his handwriting, paper crumpled at the edges, is to leave it alone as it's most definitely personal—before your eyes catch sight of your name. No—you weren't imagining it. The letters were most definitely, addressed to you.

Hey! It’s Peter, your Peter.

Earlier was bad. Like, really bad. I can't believe I said 'Oh no!' to your face, like what kind of idiot does that as their first impression? Well, technically that wouldn't be our first meeting, though I doubt you'll remember me. I was anything but smooth on all the other occurences either.

Just talking with you in the hallway and carrying your boxes—I nearly forgot myself. I still can't decide if it's a curse or some cruel joke of a blessing that you moved into my apartment complex of all places. It's like the world's trying to tell me to just say the truth.

I should be going out there and telling you this instead of writing this stupid note or letter, but a letter should come in one of those fancy envelopes, so I guess I should call this a note? Anyways, I'm getting off track.

I miss being with you, and I’m so scared I’m starting to forget how it iswas between us, and talking to you again like everything was normal just—I had the urge to sit down and write to you, before I did anything stupid. So I could talk to you, in some way, without hiding behind 'Ned'. How stupid can I be, using Ned's name, like was that seriously all I could think of? I don’t know if this note will be worth anything by the end, but I think it’ll hurt worse if I just let what happened simmer in my brain.

I miss you so, so much. It feels like it's killing me sometimes, and I don't know what to do with myself now that you're here, so close to me, for what could be a really long time. I don't know what hurts worse, being apart from you or this, and I don't know what I'm going to do. You'd know what to say, and I wish you could tell me. I miss you ordering me around. I just miss you.

Love, Your Peter.

Your heart thumps painfully against your ribcage, fingers tightening over the crinkled edges, digging deeper into the forming lines. What kind of sick joke was this? Had he known you for longer—since before you moved into this apartment?

His strange reaction when he had bumped into you in the hallway for the first time reformed in your memory, the intensity of a stranger that came off as more than usual awkwardness.

"Sorry for bumping into you—" You huff, a cramped smile peeking through the many boxes you're carrying. "Not my best line of sight right now."

Past the boxes, is possibly the cutest potential neighbour you've ever seen. With wettened curls drooping over his forehead, a towel draped around his neck, in his grey sweats and baggy hoodie—this stranger looks like a dream. Or maybe you're just in desperate help to ease the load on your arms that carries your entire future life in this new apartment complex.

"What are you doing here?"

You blink, stunned by his sudden interrogation. That was—not what you expected. You run faces through your mind, anyone you may have accidentally pissed off in the last four years of your university life, but his doesn't come to mind at all. You would remember that face.

Especially if he's staring at you like the existence of you in this cramped hallway was a signal that the world was collapsing on him and his perfect curls.

"Uhm, I live here?" You answer, shuffling the boxes awkwardly between your two palms. "Well, starting today—I do."

Your words register slowly for him, and you feel it in the strain of your arms under the boxes, as the fact that you're his actual neighbour slowly kicks in to his senses.

"Oh." His lips part in genuine anguish. "Oh no."

"Yikes." You wince. "That's a warm welcome."

He's panicking. The cute stranger looks like he's one miscalculated breath away from passing out in the hallway, and you're in no position to assist him when you're clearly winded yourself.

"No—I didn't mean—" His voice stutters, catching at the tail-ends and running out of breath. "Oh, this is not how it's supposed to go."

"No, I don't think I've ever caused genuine pain to a neighbour just from my mere existence." You snort, offering a lighter tone. "Though Margeret may disagree."

His lips quirk up slightly, involuntary even if he has no idea who Margeret—your old neighbour, is supposed to be. "No, I'm sorry. That was rude of me." He tries again, voice sincerely apologetic. "Can I please help you with the boxes to make up for it?"

You open your mouth to brush off his request, but the boxes tilt right as you make another forward step. "Fine." You oblige. "Just don't start spreading rumours about me taking advantage of your kindness. I really need a new start here."

"Had personal experience with that?" He raises a brow, almost teasing—softer than he had been earlier in his initial shock. His hands come up under your boxes, brushing over your fingers almost tentatively.

The warmth of his touch lingers for a second longer than it should, but you're too focused on the relief of the heavy weight being lifted off your palms as he carries it into his own arms, clearly handling the boxes with more ease than you had.

"Ask Margeret." You shrug, rolling your shoulders to ease the cramping. "Thanks..."

His lips part and close, realising he's supposed to introduce himself. It takes him awhile to gather the syllables of his name, before he offers it. "..Ned."

"Thanks, Ned." Your smile deepens, and he stares at you long enough, gaze tracing over the curve of your lips for it to teeter towards awkward.

He keeps doing that, registering your presence as something otherworldly, as if it was the last thing he expected in his path. Maybe the complex has few new tenants to explain his abnormal reaction.

"Oh, my door's 13B."

"What—oh, right!" He blinks, still looking stunned and turning with such an abrupt motion towards the direction of your new studio—and somehow, you're fond of it immediately.

Fond of Ned, even if your arrival seems to have jumbled his senses into a frenzy, and you have only known him for approximately four minutes.

Hey, it's Peter again!

It's two in the morning, my ribs are aching from Scorpion, and talking with you in the laundry room was easily the best ten minutes of my life since everything changed. My smile refuses to be wiped and it's been nearly an hour, and I can't sleep cause I'm thinking about you. You genuinely work better than painkillers, and I love you. I love you so much that I have never wished so desperately...

I wish I wasn't Peter Parker. That I wasn't the person who took your love for granted, who reassured you that I'd always make it back to you and that I'd help you remember. I can't even protect the people I love, not without ruining their lives just by letting them in. Being able to keep you safe from me, is the only reason that's enough to keep me from barging in and fulfilling my promise. From reminding you of what I used to mean to you, and what we used to be. I am a coward, but I can only hope that I won't be a selfish one. I've created enough reasons for why I can't stand being me, but I refuse to list another which involves hurting you.

That's enough for tonight. I just wish that if the universe ever gives me the chance to make things right, without making everything else much much worse, I just want you to know that I would never take anything for granted ever again. Over anything. Over pineapple on pizza, or the supremacy of rock bands, or the Lego pieces I stuffed under my bed, or me being Spiderman. I miss you so much, and I hope you're having a better night that I am.

Love, Your Peter.

“Ned, are you okay?” You ask, watching as he limped forward towards the washing machine, one hand gripped right at his ribcage.

Your own batch is tumbling along, and you're seated cross-legged across your machine as he slumps forward to sit right next to you, hand going towards the cover of the conjoined machine beside yours.

“Peachy.” The crinkles of his eyes deepen, tossing you a wayward smile with a barely concealed wince. “Tripped and slammed into the washing machine yesterday.”

“That’s like the third time this month.” You raise a brow, expression contorting in concern.

“Is it?” He chuckles self-deprecatingly. “Must be really off my game.”

“Of making amends with the washing machine?” You tease.

“Yeah, I suppose.” His smile softens, gazing up at you.

He does that a lot, go soft at the edges, as if he’s peeling back something fuzzy over his expression—and revealing something honest.

"My advice is to make an offer." You whisper conspiratorially. "Throw in your most favourite shirt or something, and the laundry gods will be kinder on you."

He snorts, and it feels strangely familiar to talk to him this way, under the dim lighting of the flickering lamp, surrounded by the scent of detergent. You barely get to see Ned as is, not like you're expecting a practical stranger to make up much of your socialising hours, aside from the quick friendly nods and occasional 'how's your day's' when brushing past each other in the hallway.

He's a busy guy, and the laundry mat has become a sacred space where the two of you existed in each other's worlds for just a few minutes, till the timer runs out.

"I don't really have anything of mine that'll please the gods." He whispers back.

"I could give you something." You shrug non-comittally.

His gaze widens, staring at you as you dig around in your inner pocket, before tugging something out. One of your favourite scrunchies in hand, you offer it to him.

"Here." You gesture. "Just toss it in with the pile, I guarantee you that the gods will leave you alone."

His gaze flickers between the scrunchie in your hand to you. He's about to say something, brows furrowing together in brief conflict, but chooses not to divulge as his hand reaches for the scrunchie. You note the bruises forming along his knuckles as his fingers loop around the silk, and your lips press together further in concern.

By the time your gaze meets his, he's already turned his head and placed the scrunchie gently on top of his pile of clothes. When he sets the settings and presses the button, the machine runs smoothly, beeping along with yours as his clothes begin to turn and tumble without fault.

"Wow, you really do make everything better." He mutters to himself.

Your smile softens. "It's just a scrunchie."

He shakes his head loosely, his curls falling to his forehead before he turns back to face you. His gaze pours over your features, the crinkles in the corner of his hazel eyes so soft in the dimmed lighting. "No, I think it’s you."

Peter here!

I just wanted to say happy birthday to the smartest, beautiful, kindest, most awesome human to ever exist! I ran out of other big words, but you make up the whole dictionary of synonyms for amazing in every language possible. I’m really sorry I couldn’t be there, you have no idea how sorry. I have many other things to be sorry for, but this week, that’s definitely going top of the list. I should really stop with these letters, but I really wanted to give you a proper wish just this once.

It kills me that I can’t celebrate with you, and I know you’d end me yourself if you remembered my promise with the camera. You always did like the grain. You still look absolutely beautiful even without it. I’m so proud of you—for being you, and existing, and just killing it out there in the world. I did something a little sad, and not even close to what you deserve, but I bought a cupcake from Delmar's earlier, and I even have the candle right in front of me.

I wish for you to live the most happiest, fulfilling life, and that danger will never come close to you. I wish that you will achieve everything you've ever dreamed of, and that you'll have people who will look after you and love you just as much as I do. I wish—that you'll live a life worth remembering.

I love you, and I think this will be my last letter. I think it'll be nearly impossible for me to let you go, but I think it's time I accepted that for you to live the life I wished for, I have to try.

I love you, Your Peter.

P.S. Sorry, just had to add this in one last time. You're always beautiful, and I'm not saying this because I only get to see you from a distance, but because I don't think I ever got to tell you that enough.

"Ned?" Your voice croaked out. "Is that you?"

You hear shuffling, before his left shoulder peeks out from the doorframe, slowly entering into view as he takes the lower step into the laundry room. He's staring down at you as if you've handed him an atomic bomb, and you're a sure mess, nose stuffy and eyebags swollen from crying.

"Hey." His soft call is close to making you lose it. "I didn't know if you wanted me intruding on your—"

"Date with the washing machine?" You huff, amusement dry as you turn back to look at your tumbling laundry. "By all means, join in. This current option isn't really doing it for me."

You spot the turn of his lips into a smile in your peripheral vision, before he eventually drops his weight beside you. His knee brushes against yours, and that contact registers like lightning to your senses, before he pulls back to that appropriate distance he always sets between the two of you.

You have no idea why it frustrates you so, even if you have nothing you should expect from him. Your gaze drops to his hand resting over his knee, bouncing slightly with a restless energy—and you spot your scrunchie over his wrist.

Your breath shortens, pulling your attention to his face only to find him already looking at you with unbridled concern.

"You okay?" He asks gently.

Your lip trembles, and you steady yourself as much as you are able. "Fine, just a real shit week."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." He's honest, you can hear it even without really looking him in the eye. "If you want, you can rant to me. I'm a real good listening ear. No mouthing off, just a still statue for your needs."

Your lips quirk up slightly at his attempt at minimising his presence, without even knowing how much it mattered to you that he came in here—or that he stood by the door for a solid ten minutes before you called him out. That he didn't leave, even if any normal stranger would.

"It's my birthday." You shrug, wiping at the tearstain at your cheeks. "And I just lost my job."

His lips part, brows pulling together—but he doesn't interrupt you.

"I was supposed to have a party today, and my college friends cancelled last minute." You mutter weakly. "Not that we were super close, but close enough that it mattered, y'know? I wasn't their first pick, or anyone's for the matter, so it really shouldn't have come as a surprise."

"No, you're—" His voice raises almost in frustration, and you meet his gaze. His Adam's apple bobs up and down, and his tone softens into an admission. "You're definitely my first pick."

Your laugh bubbles out of you, finding his statement absurd. "For what? You barely know me."

"I know you're extremely kind." He starts. "That you'd offer your favourite scrunchie to a stranger just to please the laundry gods. That you're funny, and beautiful—and my first pick for who I'd always want to run into."

You stare at him, unable to suppress your shock. He just called you kind, and funny, and beautiful—things people who've known you for longer hasn't thought to mention in years.

"That's—the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me in awhile." You confess, licking at your lips. "Thank you, Ned."

"It's only the truth." He presses. "I shouldn't be the only person to see that, and I know I'm not the only one who does."

"I don't know." You shrug uselessly. "My birthday hasn't even ended, and I feel completely unseen in my own life. I know it's a stupid thing, but I wish I had someone to take my picture, at least to comemorate that I've completed another spin around the Earth or something."

"You could use my camera." He offers almost instinctively.

"You have a camera?" You blink, before a slow smile spreads across your lips. "Of course you do. Do I need to be a tech-savvy to use those too, secret hacker?"

You're no stranger to the many monitors that crowd his apartment, courtesy to the many curious glances past the few times he's left his door ajar, into the premises of his own studio of what looked to be a completely different realm.

His smile deepens. "No, you just need to press two buttons. I could teach you how to work it out."

"You're into photography?" You ask.

His expression stiffens, thoughts trailing off. "Yeah, something like that. My aunt used to love taking physical photos, and I sorta inherited that trait. There was someone—who used to love using my film camera too. So, yeah—I guess I have some experience."

"You could teach me photography." You offer, almost tentatively. "Not just for the sad, lone birthday picture, I mean."

"Oh." He stares at you, and you see it then. Conflict—a pure, unmasked internal battle. "I—I don't know if I'm the right person."

You shrink slightly, less confident than you had been a few seconds ago. This really wasn't your day. "Right, sorry. I know you're a really busy person."

"No, I—" He winces, jaw clenching tight. "I would really love to. It's just that I'm—"

He pauses, staring at you with a nearly broken expression. Your brows furrow together, waiting for his answer—heart thumping in what could only be anticipation. Rejection is close at hand, and you hate that you find yourself waiting still, for something different. For him to fulfill something even you couldn't quite understand.

"Busy." He eventually settles on, voice trailing off in defeat.

You can't take it to heart. You don't allow yourself to, because disappointment is the last thing you wanted a taste of on a day like this. Ned was still nice enough to sit down here with you while you moped, and you shouldn't expect anything more. Even if you liked him, and the crinkles in the corners of his warm, brown eyes, and the sweet sound of his voice—more than you'd ever admit to yourself.

"That's not very creative." You mumble, presenting him with a weakened attempt of a smile. "I gave you that excuse, thief."

His own softened smile rises to meet yours, equally shattered. "I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to you."

You know he means it, you just don't know why your heart churns so painfully when you hear those words coming out of his mouth. You don't know if you have faith in promises lately. You haven't believed in those for a really long time.

You don't know how many letters you've gone through, flipping through confessions scribbled in secrecy, of mind-spells, and magic, and vigilantes—a life you don't even remember to be a fraction of your world.

A loud crash resounds behind you and you instinctively rise, tripping over your feet—almost frightened, lashes wet at the corner of your eyes when you turn and see Ned. No, Peter—dressed in a black tank-top much too short for his defined torso and… Juicy Couture pants?

He’s clearly disoriented, and you’re not sure if it’s the chronic migraines he usually gets—or something heavier he keeps hidden past the pile of letters that’s just spilled everything. You can barely look at him without feeling like you’re going to burst at the seams, and he hasn’t even noticed your presence in his apartment.

“What is this?” Your voice eventually breaks through.

His head snaps up, expression scrunched in tension—and he freezes. That same tentative smile he always tossed to you, always sweet and somehow all-too-knowing, locks in place as his lips part—assuming you’re talking about his outfit. Or the state of his apartment, there’s just too much about him that you could never quite put a finger on.

“Wrong laundry basket.” He huffs, churning out an attempt of a laugh to play it off. “Fell asleep in the laundry room, and I didn't even think to take a look at what's inside. I promise I'm not a thief.”

“Stop.” Your stern expression is caught by him immediately, and his attempt of a smile falters. Slowly, your hand raises the letters to his line of vision. "Peter."

His gaze snaps to the letters creased between your shaking fingers. You can't remember what breathing looks like, especially not when his own chest stutters visibly beneath the tank top, as if all the oxygen's been sucked out of him.

He knows, that you know.

"Oh—no." He whispers weakly, because that is the only appropriate thing to say. You’re struck with déjà vu, back to the first time you ever crossed paths with him in the hallway, when he had looked you with so much pain—one you couldn’t decipher.

He takes a step forward towards you, both hands raised with his lips parting to come up with an explanation. You instinctively take a step back, not on purpose, but the distance you've created lands all the same.

He flinches as if you've struck him, his expression shattered to pieces of that raw agony you've felt slip up from him once or twice. That same gaping sadness beneath his gaze, that he always covered up with a bandaged smile meant more for show.

"I'm sorry." His voice breaks weakly, hands clenching into a fist before dragging back down to his sides. "I didn't mean to scare you. Oh god, this was not how this was supposed to go."

"How was this supposed to go?" You echo back to him. "From your letters, it didn't seem like you were ever going to tell me."

It didn't mean to sound accusatory, but you're high on the precipice of a reality broken to pieces, and you're unsure if you're left alone in apartment with an actual lunatic, or with a truth you weren't suppose to discover.

"No, I—" He sucks in a breath, desperation seeping into his tone. "I swear I was going to, but then I found you and you looked so—"

His hands that have begun to brush through his curls fall flatly to the sides, defeated. "So peaceful—and safe. I felt so selfish to take that away from you. To drag you back into my world, knowing that all you'd face was danger or worse."

"And the truth is that hurt the people I love." He admits, his eyes squinting together as something wet flickers over his lashes, and you can tell he believes it. This so-called truth he tells himself. "Nothing good comes out of being close to me, and I couldn't lose you."

"I had to be okay with it." His gaze meets yours, broken. "Not being in your life will always be better than a world without you in it. I had to protect you, somehow—even if it meant leaving you alone."

"It was easier before you came." He huffs out, pained. "To keep a distance before I saw you everyday, just out of reach. I can't count the amount of times I nearly told you. I was just afraid, that if you didn't remember me, I don't think I can—live with hearing it. I'm a coward, and I took the only path I knew, which was to pretend. Like everything was fine, and that seeing you from a distance was enough."

You see it, the way his brain registers his actions as protection, but you don't feel protected. You feel isolated, locked out of your own memories and faced with a man you're supposed to know, someone your body is pleading for you to recognise past the fog in your brain.

“Listen—whatever worked worked, and I can’t remember.” You breathe out, exhale shaky from your lips. “I can’t remember what we had, but I know myself. I don't let people make promises to me, not unless I trust them so much that I—If you promised you’d find me, that you’d help me remember.” Your fist clenches tighter around the letters. "You should've known that I'd never be okay with leaving you alone to deal with this—"

"How could you know that?" He snaps.

You blink, stunned.

"I mean—you never had a normal life from the moment you met me." He goes on. "You never experienced a life without hoping I'd make it back home safe, without looking over your shoulder when I became the world's public enemy, or having to deal with stitches and blood and worrying about survival—instead of school!"

"You don't see the difference but I do." He confesses. "You're living a good life now, and I already screwed it up by entering it again."

"Peter." You cut him off, nearly pleading. "Stop it."

His jaw locks, lips clamping shut before he lets out a huff, one closer to a panic attack than frustration. "I'm sorry." He mutters, clenching his jaw. Something wet pries behind his lashes, and he runs his palms over them, covering his face. "I don't want to fight."

Your heart cracks a little, because there's something so heartbreakingly earnest in the way he says it, as if he's beating himself up over a million thoughts you can't uncover. Your steps inch closer, almost instinctively your body knowing the rhythm at the sight of a distraught Peter before you even have the chance to piece together the 'why'.

"We're not fighting, Peter." You reassure him, your hands tentatively lifting to rest atop his palm.

He freezes, unable to comprehend your touch. You peer through the gaps of his fingers, and find his gaze staring back at you, fractured and pained.

"I knew something wasn't right." You sigh. "I felt it this whole time. Like there was an absence of something—someone important. It gnawed at me, that emptiness, and it nearly drives me insane some nights."

He recognises the feeling, you know he does with the way his expression draws tighter—in understanding, in regret.

"I wish you came to me." You whisper. "I wish you told me, so you wouldn't have to go through this alone."

His lip trembles, as if he never expected you to hear the truth and stay. As if you'd pick the exit over him, when he clearly needs you now.

"If I had promised I'd be there for you, you should've let me keep that promise." You scold gently. "Even if it meant starting over. You’re not meant to deal with life alone, much less one as heavy as yours.”

His gaze is shaken, staring at you with his pupils blown wide. Waiting for reality to hit, or for you to take back your words—but you remain. You stand there, close enough for him to feel you. You don't falter.

Something in Peter gives—shatters completely, and it’s a mere blink before his arms are completely wrapped around you, squashing you into his chest. His fingers are shaking, trembling—a relieved exhale pressed against your shoulder blade before he buries himself deep into the crook above your collarbone.

“I missed you.” Wet tears pool at your skin. “So, so much. It felt like I was dying a little inside every single day, knowing I wasn't keeping your promise. I couldn't—I really tried letting go and it didn't work, not when you mean everything to me."

"I know you don't remember me or what happened between us but—" His voice shakes, muffled from his tight hold. "I love you and I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for everything.”

You can't answer him, not with the words he wants or deserves to hear with full honesty backing it, not without the memories you used to share. Yet, the hold of him is familiar, the way you run your fingers through his curls like memory work. His entire body caves in deeper to your touch, as if he’d been waiting this whole time since your arrival to let himself fall into you.

"From the first day I saw you." You admit. "I felt like I was meant to know you, Peter. I wouldn't have given you my scrunchie if it didn't mean something, if I didn't want to tie myself to you in some way."

Pulling back slightly so he meets your gaze, you find yourself mesmerised by the familiarity of him, the way his gaze pours over you automatically as if memorising you is all he wishes to do.

"I want to get to know you, Peter." You confess. "And I want to do it without you pushing me away, pretending like my life is happier without you when laundry nights are what I look forward to the most, because of you."

His breath halts, short-circuiting with your words. Something bright and warm bleeds into his face, and you recognise it to be happiness. Genuine, unconditional relief—before his forehead presses against yours, his lashes fluttering to a close as he embraces you.

"I can do that." He mutters softly. "I'll do anything you ask me to."

It's nice, to be held so tightly and finally feel whole. To have that gap in your chest you've never truly stitched up fade into something mind-numbingly warm and fuzzy, in the arms of the one person your body still commits to memory, past even some stupid mind spell.

“Also.." You murmur, still wrapped in his embrace. "Seriously, what is this outfit?"

A surprised chuckle escapes his lips, a little wet-sounding as he clears his throat. "I wasn't lying about the laundry mishap. I swear I don't dress like this normally."

You hum. "I don't know, I kind of like it."

The silence stretches for a brief second. "I'll buy more if you want me to."

Either way, you’d started trying to avoid that gnawing feeling in your chest. Besides, you were growing out of the phase where going to every party and meeting every person you could fascinated you. Maybe one day that deep, dreadful sinking would go away. Maybe it would stop appearing at parties, on every birthday you turned a year older, on the small amount of dates you’d gone on where the feeling got so strong it made you nauseous.

Today, though, was an exception. You’d graduated this past summer and moved back to New York with MJ and Ned, and they were determined to throw one last party with all the college friends that had wound up back in the city, too. 

Well, Ned was determined. You and MJ were lukewarm about the whole thing. 

Which is why you were in your—abysmally small—bedroom, working through this line of code that you were pretty sure was going to get you fired from your shiny new job if you didn’t figure out why it wasn’t working, with your door open to the noise beyond. It was to keep an eye on MJ and Ned, you told yourself, even as you eyed all the swaying people around the TV you’d just spent fifty dollars on from Facebook Marketplace. Ugh, you should have moved it before. If they broke it, you were totally making Ned buy you takeout for a week.

You went back to work, thankful everyone seemed to be too preoccupied with the party to worry about the weird girl staring at her computer screen on her bedroom floor. You couldn’t figure this out. It was driving you crazy. You were sure it had worked yesterday evening, and then when you’d come into work this morning it was all wrong and every single test you did didn’t fix it and you were going to throw your computer—

A knock on your open door. A cleared throat. “Um, hey.” 

You looked up.

A guy around your age stood in your doorway. The first thing you noticed about him were his eyes, wide and expressive, looking at you as if you were the one who’d shown up in his bedroom. But…reverent too, almost in disbelief. He was looking at you like he’d never seen a girl before. 

But he was cute. And something about him…

He seemed familiar. 

“Are you okay?” he asks you. His gaze starts to bounce around the room the second you meet it, avoiding your eyes. “You looked, um, mad?”

“Oh!” You laugh a little at yourself. “I’m just doing some work. I’ve been told I look mad when I can’t figure something out. I don’t even realize it.” But who had told you that? It wasn’t your family, or Ned or MJ. But someone had told you. Who had it been?

The guy shifts on his feet. You realize he’s holding a bouquet of flowers, which is a weird thing to bring to a party, but you find it charming. He squints his eyes at you, but the corner of his mouth is lifting like he wants to smile. It makes something in your chest flutter. “You’re doing work during a party?”

He’s teasing you. You feel yourself smiling back. “Yes, I am. Super important work, I might add.”

“Oh, yeah?” He leans a shoulder against your doorframe, eyes on yours now. 

You can’t look away. 

“Yep. Keep an eye out because I’m gonna dethrone Spider-Man from the first page of the Daily Bugle tomorrow with my amazing work on debugging this finance app that only has three hundred downloads. Really groundbreaking stuff.” 

He smiles fully, now. It makes you feel triumphant, nervous, and warm. “That’s awesome because I love—What’s the name of the app?”

“Financipply” Stupid name. From the doubtful look he sends you, he agrees.

“That’s perfect because I love Finacnipply. Can’t wait to see you on the front page.” You roll your eyes, but you laugh. You both do, his shy and small, as if he hasn’t done it in a long, long time. As if he shouldn’t be laughing at all. But his eyes are bright. They turn towards the floor as your laughter dies, shy.  “So what can’t you figure out?”

And you just can’t stop looking at him. You motion towards your computer screen vaguely. “Just this code. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s just not working.” 

He takes a small step forward. “Do you think…Can I…look at it?”

“For real? You code?”

He shrugs, one hand in his pocket. Adorable. “I…dabble?”

“Are you sure about that?” 

Another flash of a smile. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright then. Knock yourself out.”

He comes to sit next to you on the rug you found at the thrift store a couple blocks away, rubbing his palms over his jeans and looking intently at your computer screen. He smells like clean laundry and the rain the city had earlier in the day, and he’s looking at your code like he actually understands it. “Oh wow. Cool.” He scrolls through it a couple times, up, down. You’re entranced by his profile, so close.  He stops to type. “Did you try this?” 

You blink. Look at the screen. “Oh my gosh, no.” A simple line edit. You know when you see it that it’ll work. “Holy shit. You did it. Holy crap. Thank you. You’re, like, awesome.” 

“It was nothing.” But he's ducking his head with a blush.  “Seriously.” 

“What’s your name, anyway? Since you saved me from getting fired.”

“Um, May..nard.” 

“Maynard.” It sounds wrong. You’ve never had that thought before—that someone’s name is wrong. But it’s a sure feeling in your chest. The one you have when you know your code tests are going to work, and when you decided you wanted to move back to the city. It’s really the only feeling you trust anymore. 

“Yep.” He leans back on his palms, and your eyes run down his arms unconsciously, tracking muscles and veins. You have a brief, overwhelming urge to curl closer to him, to run your hands down his biceps, to take his hands into yours and trace the lines of his palms. And it feels normal, to have that feeling. So normal, your body almost starts moving on its own accord. But his voice breaks you out of it. “So, is this what you want to do? Program apps?” 

You tell him that your dream is to work on developing video games, and he nods like it makes complete sense and gets you to tell him that you’d love to make a game based off of Star Wars, which makes his eyes light up in a way that has your breath catching. 

And that’s how you end up talking to a cute boy on the floor of your bedroom for an hour, about Star Wars and your favorite video games and what got you into them in the first place. He makes you laugh, and talking to him is so easy. It’s hard to believe you just met him now and not in high school. He would fit right in with MJ and Ned. You can almost see it for a moment; the four of you hanging around the diner MJ used to work at before college, laughing and teasing and studying. The image is so visceral that for a moment it feels real. 

You’re just about to invite him over sometime because you’re so sure that they’d love him and that you want to get to know him better, when there’s a crash from the living room. 

Both of you turn, and your face immediately drops. That better not have been your TV. 

You sigh. “I need to go make sure nothing important is broken.” You almost add on a desperate wait for me, but he’s already standing up and holding out a hand for you. 

That would have been too weird to ask for, anyway. Right? 

You let him pull you up. When your hands touch, it’s almost as if the warmth radiates from his calloused fingers, grips your heart, and drags it all the way down to your toes. He lets go quickly, as soon as you’re on your feet, but you stand there for a moment, disoriented. Feeling like…feeling like you’re right where you need to be. But also like you’ve forgotten to do something. It pulls at your brain like a grocery item list you know you were thinking about five minutes ago, but no matter how far you reach, you can never remember what it was. 

It shouldn’t bother you this much—you’ve been feeling it since you went to college. It hung over you during orientation, and move-in day, and every visit home. It reaches you in dreams, and weirdly, whenever Ned shows you the thousands of videos he gets of Spider-Man swinging across the city. 

But you’d never felt this close to grasping it before. You can almost see an image in your brain, faded around the edges like an old photograph, a word floating just on the edge of your consciousness. 

“You okay?” He’s asking you. Maynard. God, why does that name sound so wrong to think?

He looks about a second away from grabbing your hand again. 

You want to let him. 

But you hear MJ’s voice from the living room, firm in the way she only uses when she’s annoyed, and you know that your TV is probably done for. Maynard seems to be able to sense it too, because he urges you to go. 

And your TV is broken, thanks to some idiot and his friend who decided to start play-fighting for no reason. He gives you a twenty from his pocket, but you can’t even focus. Your mind is too busy playing back your night. Warm brown eyes, messy curls, soft smiles. You end up just waving it off—but you keep that twenty—and rushing back to your room to find Maynard. 

Only, he’s not there when you return. 

Your laptop is closed and placed at the foot of your bed. On top, the bouquet he showed up with. 

You stand there, in the middle of your tiny room, touching your fingertips to the carnations and grieving. 

Grieving for what? You keep asking yourself. Why do I feel this way?

But you can’t figure it out. It stays, stays, stays. 

Later that night, his face comes to you in your dreams. It’s younger, unburdened with the sadness you’d seen lying underneath. He’s laughing, bright and beautiful, and he’s looking at you. You’re on a rooftop somewhere, both of you golden in the sun, and he’s saying your name with a fondness that notches into your spine. 

I love you, he says, and he means it. It’s in his eyes, in the way his expression melts into softness, in the way he traces his fingers across your shoulder and pulls you into him. 

Peter, your voice sounds just as yours does now, weighed down by adulthood. You run your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, and there’s a peacefulness in your body that you know you haven’t felt in years, even through the haze of the dream. I’ll always love you.

You feel the press of his lips to your hair, the curve of them as he smiles.

You wake up. Gasping, gripping the thin sheets of your bed, sweat gleaming on your collarbone. 

Peter, your mind whispers to you in the dark.

“Peter.” You murmur it into the moonlight shining across your floor, to your heart beating against your ribcage, to the knot in your stomach that finally releases. 

“Peter.” You say again. Taste it on your tongue, certain you’ve said it a thousand times, in a million different ways.

“Alright, Spiderman. There’s a bank robbery going on at 30th Avenue. Suspect is—uh, hello? Is this thing on?”

Peter laughs, already swinging through the tall buildings of New York City, zipping and flying through them faster than you can even say ‘Spiderman.’ While one arm is busy slinging out webs from building to building, his other arm holds onto a thick communications radio that looks like an amateur concoction of a walkie-talkie accompanied with old thick wires he found in a junkyard.

“Yep, I hear you loud and clear,” Peter says from his end. “I’m already a few blocks away. What does the suspect look like—”

“Spiderman? Hellooo?” Your voice cuts him off in a burst of static that makes his ears ring. “Ugh—is this radio even working? Are you still there?”

He needs to make a mental note to figure out a way for your voice to come through clearer—and preferably not through a brick of what feels like a tenth-century sad excuse for a cellphone that he has to clutch every time he wants to talk to you.

“I’m here!” Peter shouts through the mic, swinging around a corner.

“Ah! There you are!” you say, sounding like you’re smiling, if only Peter could picture what you looked like. “Missed your voice for a second.”

Peter’s face flushes under his mask.

“Detecting a sudden increase in body heat—specifically around the facial region—and a spike in heart rate despite no intense physical activity being performed—”

“Shut up, Evie,” Peter mumbles, hoping you didn’t hear him from the other end of the line.

He hadn’t gotten around to fixing the background noise integration yet, so the shitty microphone attached to the radio picks up almost everything. He hears you laugh on the other end, and he has to force down the rapid thumping of his heart before Evie calls him out on it again.

“Are you blushing, Spiderman?”

“What—no!” Peter immediately interjects, landing on top of a tall building on 30th Avenue. His eyes scan the windows of the bank directly across the street. “Just tell me what the suspect looks like, alright?”

You chuckle again. “Okay, the suspect is tall, wearing dark clothing, and probably handsome—if it weren’t for the ski mask covering his face.”

Peter rolls his eyes underneath his goggles.

“Now’s not the time to play around,” he says, already swinging through the entrance as innocent bystanders and employees run out in a panic.

He swings above the crowd in a perfectly prone position mid-air until he lands on his feet in the center of the bank. He doesn’t need your comms in here—he can handle whatever gets thrown at him at this point. His ears tingle with a warning that tells him the enemy is to his left. He turns his head to that direction, and…

“Spiderman!” A tall man in dark clothing and a ski mask holds up a rifle, pointing it directly at Peter. “You’re dead, kid!”

“Oh, jeez,” Peter says, slowly raising his hands in surrender.

“Oh, and I forgot to mention,” your voice statics through. “He’s heavily armed.”

“Yeah, good comms,” Peter scoffs sarcastically.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” the man shouts, pointing at the radio in Peter's hand. “Is that a bomb? Drop it!”

Peter furrows his brows, glancing at the object in his hand. A bomb? Seriously? The radio really looks that bad?

The man’s grip on the gun tightens, holding it in a way that lets Peter know he has clearly never held a gun before in his life. The panic among the people remaining in the building surges at the sight of the weapon, everyone shoving past each other toward the entrance.

“Come on, man. Don’t shoot—there are innocent people in here!” he tries to interject.

“Innocent dead people soon, if you don’t put that weapon away!” the man barks back.

“The police are on their way,” you explain, serious this time, through the radio. “Take care of that gun now, or he’ll start shooting like a madman once he sees the sirens. You have less than two minutes.”

“Okay,” Peter says. “Time me.”

“Starting now?”

“Starting now,” he confirms before switching off the radio’s microphone input.

The man takes the loud clicking sound as a threat, his finger hovering over the trigger with every intention to shoot—but Peter moves faster.

Extending his left hand, a thick layer of web covers the muzzle, trapping any potential bullet in the barrel. The poor man doesn’t even have time to react before Peter webs the gun, yanked it out of his hands, and tosses it aside. Just as the man turns to make a run for it, Peter pins his ankles together with a thick strip of webbing, sending him face first onto the floor before securing his wrists behind his back with another band of webs.

From where he still stands in the center of the room, Peter unclicks the microphone. “You got it, Static?”

He can practically feel you rolling your eyes at the stupid nickname. “That was fifteen seconds. Good job,” you applaud. “And are you seriously still sticking with Static? I hate that nickname.”

Peter chuckles, scanning the area for any signs of injuries, but finds none. The police finally arrive, pulling up with sirens blaring as they assess the crowd and begin scouting the area with weapons drawn. Seeing the suspect already bound by webs on the floor, they immediately move in with handcuffs.

Knowing the police will take it from here, Peter zips out of the building as if the entire fight—if you would even call it that—was just a quick pit stop.

“Well, that’s just what I’m gonna have to keep calling you, because your voice always comes through staticky,” he says, the wind picking up through the microphone and making it harder for you to hear him. “Unless… you wanna give me your actual name. Then maybe I can call you that instead.”

You pause at the other end of the radio, the silence between you filled only by the harsh wind and the snap of spiderwebs on his end.

As Peter swings his way back to his apartment, his heart pounds wildly in his chest with anticipation.

This isn’t the first time he’s teased you to get you to give up your name, and you’ve asked for his name more times than he can count on his fingers.

“Very funny,” you muse from the other end, your voice drawing out with a teasing tilt. “I could say the same thing to you.”

Peter smiles, landing on his apartment rooftop with a huff. “I don’t know—I think I like the way Spiderman rolls off your tongue.”

For the very first time since you two found each other through a stroke of pure luck—when Peter spent a night building a radio to hijack police comms and accidentally connected to you, a woman doing the exact same thing—you find yourself completely at a loss for words.

He doesn’t even know where the sudden boost of confidence came from to blurt out a flirtatious comment like that. Maybe it’s the suit, or maybe it’s that flutter of excitement he gets every single time he talks to you.

But that confidence slowly teeters away the longer you stay quiet. He grimaces, feeling like he overshot his mark big time.

Finally, he hears a slow draw of breath from the other end.

“That’s a shame,” you tease. “I would’ve loved to hear the sound of my name in your voice.”

Peter sucks in a sharp breath, his body tensing as your words travel down his spine and straight to his heart. It was the way you said it—that sultry little rasp that even the static couldn’t mask. An awkward silence takes over the both of you, and for once, Peter is grateful for how poorly he configured this radio, since he can use it as an excuse for a faulty mic.

“Dramatic increase in heart rate detected. Body heat has increased an additional two degrees, and your suit—specifically around the groin region—appears to be tighter. I am also detecting a heightened state of arousal—”

“Evie!” Peter barks suddenly. He hears your laugh come through the other end, and the sound definitely doesn’t help his situation at all.

“Got you to blush twice today.” You taunt. “I think that’s a record, Spidey.”

“I wasn’t blushing,” Peter lies. “Anyway—enough of that. Are you seeing any other criminal activity in the area?”

You hum, and he hears a faint clicking noise on your end. “Nothing,” you say. “But what’s the rush? You’re given the opportunity to relax. You should take it, considering how hard you’ve been pushing yourself.”

Peter hops onto the ledge of his building and starts idly pacing back and forth, smiling under his mask as he holds the radio close to his ear. “Aw, you don’t have to worry about me. I have Evie for that.”

You blow a raspberry, and Peter’s smile widens.

“Yeah—well, Evie is an artificial intelligence. She can only care so much. Plus, she can’t make as many good jokes as I can.”

Peter’s tongue pokes the inside of his cheek as he kicks a tiny stray pebble off the ledge, watching it fall ten stories to the ground. “Are you getting jealous of my assistant now?”

A garbled noise leaves your lips, and he chuckles as you stammer over your own words.

“God—you’re so full of yourself, aren't you?” you huff. “I’m your partner—so it’s only natural for me to look out for you.”

“We’re partners?”

“Haven’t we been this entire time?”

Peter pauses, glancing up at the sky, where the orange sun is starting to set behind several towers of buildings.

Partners. He hasn’t had anyone he could call a partner since everything happened—since he made the whole world forget who he was. He hasn’t had a real, caring partner since… them. Ned and MJ.

And now, after all that time spent in solitude, he’s finally found someone to call his partner again. Someone he’s never even seen, whose name he doesn’t even know. All he knows about you is that you’re smart—smart enough to build a radio and link up to his frequency—and that you live in New York. He could’ve passed you on his way to buy groceries, or seen you on the subway. Hell, you might even live in his building. Maybe you’re even that girl he accidentally swapped laundry with the other night.

“Spiderman? You still there?” you ask, snapping him out of his daze.

Despite your usual spunky attitude, in that moment, you sound so… small. Like you don’t want to hang up, even if there aren’t any crimes to report.

“I’m here,” he breathes, his voice coming out softer than he expected. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You smile at that. He can hear it. “Okay. Good.”

The microphone picks up shuffling noises on your end—judging by the sound, he pictures you rolling over in bed and getting comfortable.

“How about we play a game?” you ask before the radio falls into silence again.

Peter raises a brow under his mask. “A game?”

“Yeah—every time you complete a successful mission, we trade a fun fact about each other.”

He hums, taking a seat on the ledge and letting his feet dangle over the edge. “Okay, sure. And since I just finished one—does that mean the game starts now?”

You chuckle softly at his enthusiasm to play along. “Sure. Want to go first?”

Peter cranes his neck back to look at the sky. Although neither of you has ever brought it up, he has a feeling you’re both on the exact same page when it comes to secrecy. Neither of you wants to give away too much and blow your identity, but you share just enough to keep things interesting.

And by letting him go first, it feels like you’re giving him the chance to set the tone.

“Hm. Let me think.” He rubs his chin through his mask. “Okay—I’m ready. My favorite coffee is a hot Americano.”

You snort. “The first fun fact you want to share is your coffee order?”

“Hey—coffee can be fun!” Peter interjects. “Now tell me yours.”

A little laugh escapes you, and he can hear you shaking your head. “Fine. I get an extra-hot almond milk latte, with one pump of sugar-free vanilla, one pump of regular hazelnut, and two scoops of vanilla bean powder.”

The white lenses of Peter’s goggles widen, and he lets out a brief, disbelieving laugh. “Oh—so you’re pulling my leg because I started us off with a lame fun fact? Is that it?”

“What?” You giggle along. “I’m not! That’s my actual order—especially on chilly days. You should try it sometime.”

Peter imagines it: a girl—a pretty one, judging by your voice and personality—ordering that ridiculous concoction at a coffee shop while the barista rolls their eyes at how long it takes to recite. For some reason, the visual warms his chest.

“Sure. And I’d tell you to try a hot Americano—but based on the order you just gave me, I don’t think you’d like it very much,” he jokes.

You chuckle. “No, probably not.”

Silence fills the space again, and Peter kicks his legs over the edge of the ledge, trying to think of something to say before he loses you.

He clears his throat. “So, uh—”

“Can I ask you something?”

You both talk over each other, and his face warms with embarrassment. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Okay,” you continue. You let out a shaky breath, and he instinctively braces himself for whatever you’re about to ask. “I’ve noticed that your receiver is always on. Do you forget to turn it off?”

Peter pauses, confused by the question. “No. It’s on twenty-four seven—just in case something happens, you know?”

You hum softly. “I get that. But I guess what I’m trying to ask is… don’t you have other things in your life to worry about, instead of fighting crime behind a mask?”

Peter stays quiet for a moment.

In truth, there’s a bigger reason he keeps the radio on besides his duties as Spiderman. He could easily listen in on reported crimes just fine without your help, but he keeps it on twenty-four seven in the hopes of hearing your voice ring through—just in case you might… need him.

There have been several nights since meeting you where he tosses and turns in bed, reaching for the radio to see if your receiver is on. It usually isn’t during consistent parts of the day—meaning you’re either at work or in class. It’s usually off at night, but sometimes around three in the morning, he’ll see your receiver light up and you’ll call in, your voice completely wide awake, proving you can be a real night owl.

Ever since meeting you, it feels like he finally has a friend to talk to. The worst part of it all is that he doesn’t even know your name. And he can never meet you, no matter how badly he wants to.

Peter finally found someone he cares about—and he isn’t going to risk losing you.

“I… I guess I do,” Peter says, trying his best to tread carefully. “I always keep an earpiece in, just in case something happens. You can never be too careful.”

You hum again, and Peter knows that answer wasn’t enough to buy it.

“And I guess I also keep it on… just in case you ever want to talk.”

Shit, Peter curses to himself. If his half-assed answer just now wasn’t enough to make you switch off the line, this one definitely takes the cake. You’re quiet on the other end, and each passing second makes him want to do you both a favor and turn it off himself.

“In that case,” you speak softly, “I’ll keep my receiver on in case you want to talk to me.”

His heart stutters in his chest, feeling as though all the air has been sucked straight out of his lungs.

Peter hasn’t felt this way since high school. He’s grinning ear to ear—a smile so wide it hurts the muscles in his cheeks. He lets out a chuckle, a raspy, disbelieving sound at the realization that there’s a chance you might feel the exact same way about him.

“Don’t say that,” he says before he can stop himself, trying to inject some humor to cover up his flustered state. “You’re gonna get annoyed with me.”

“Who’s to say I’m not already?” you joke back.

And for the first time in a long time, Peter feels like the happiest man on Earth.

He looks up at the sky, watching birds fly across the orange hues as he kicks his feet like a high schooler who just scored a date with the prettiest girl in class. His heart is racing so fast in his chest and he feels so giddy that he’s actually surprised Evie hasn’t called him out on it yet.

He wants to make this last—to say something, anything, to keep this moment from ending.

Suddenly, a series of sharp beeps emits from your end of the radio. It's a sound he knows all too well, a reminder that duty calls before anything else.

“Oh, God,” you mutter quietly.

Every hair on Peter’s arms stands on end. He leaps to his feet, ready to launch himself toward whatever is happening. “What is it, Static?”

“There’s an alarm triggered at Grand Central Terminal,” you explain. “NYPD comms just flagged it—there are a bunch of hostages. It looks bad, Spiderman. Multiple armed men have barricaded the main concourse.”

Peter wastes no time, shooting a thick web line toward the nearest building and flinging himself into the sky. “How many hostages are we talking?”

“At least fifty. Commuters, staff—they were trapped during rush hour,” you answer, the clack of your keyboard clattering over the staticky connection. “I’m tapping into the security feed right now. They’re holding guns, and… it looks like there’s a heavy grade explosive right in the center, attached to the information booth.”

The wind roars through Peter’s mic as he accelerates through the air. “How much time is on the clock?”

“I’m trying to zoom in—eight minutes,” you say. “They’ve blocked all the major exits with deadbolts and wired the perimeter. It looks pretty half-assed, Spidey. If SWAT breaches the doors, or if even a piece of rubble hits that rig, the whole thing will blow.”

“Alright, no breaches,” Peter takes a mental note, his mind racing through entry points as the massive arched roof of Grand Central comes into view. “You’re my eyes in there, Static. Find me an entry point that skips the doors.”

“The skylight above the west balcony has an old grate,” you reply instantly. “It leads directly into the ventilations—high enough to keep you out of sight, but close enough to drop in.”

“Got it,” Peter replies, landing silently on the glass roof. He peers through the skylight, his eyes adjusting to the interior where dozens of terrified people are huddling on the floor, held at gunpoint by masked men with automatic rifles.

Right in the center, duct-taped to the information booth and blinking with a harsh red timer, sits the bomb.

“Okay, I’m in position,” Peter breathes through the radio. “Time me?”

He hears a soft click on your end, signaling that your timer is already running.

“Be careful, Spiderman.”

He tucks the radio against his thigh, securing it with a thick band of web.

Peter moves exactly in the direction you tell him to—he wedges his body into the dusty vents, moving with the practiced speed of an arachnid that takes him from point A to point B in the blink of an eye. He slowly lifts the grate, the poor thing held up by only a flimsy screw, and sets it down softly beside him to avoid any loud noises.

He lands gently right in the center of the terminal—but his plans for discretion don’t last when a hostage looks up and yells, “We’re saved, everyone! It’s Spiderman!”

Immediately, all the armed threats spin around, several barrels abandoning the hostages to point straight at the man in the red-and-blue suit.

“Oh,” Peter smiles. “Making my job a lot easier. Thanks.”

Before giving them the chance to shoot, Peter fires off thick strings of web into every single barrel, clogging up the firearms. With every weapon bound, he tangles the web lines together into one big knot and yanks them all out of their hands.

The guns crash into each other in a tangled mass of spiderwebs and steel. With the firearms rendered completely useless, he tosses the mess aside to focus on the men—who are now charging at him with combat knives and sidearms.

Peter quickly makes short work of the pistols, disarming the men with his webs before a stray bullet can even graze the bomb. One by one, he takes them down, firing webs with every intention of keeping them bound and completely immovable.

When Peter gets down to the last guy, slinging a thick web to pin him flat against the wall, your voice rings out from where the radio sits tucked against his thigh.

“SWAT is moving in—mind the doors and tripwires!”

“Shit,” Peter curses, whipping his head toward the exits—but it’s already too late.

The SWAT team breaches fast, shouting and gesturing for the hostages to run. Panic surges through the crowd, and every frantic step from the civilians echoes like thunder in Peter’s ears. One misstep, even one piece of falling debris, could set this entire place off. Peter snaps his head back to the bomb. Four minutes remain on the digital clock, but suddenly the numbers freeze—and a sharp high pitched frequency fills the room.

It’s quiet to everyone else, but to Peter's heightened senses, it might as well be an air siren.

“Wait!” Peter shouts, turning to vault himself away before the bomb sets off.

But it’s too late.

“Spiderman! Get out of there!” you cry out through the radio—right before a brilliant flash of red and white blinds the entire building.

Pressure and heat slam right into Peter’s chest, throwing him backward through the air and showering him in flying stone like a ragdoll. Glass shatters overhead, raining down thousands of sparkling fragments as the information booth detonates into a massive cloud of fire and smoke.

Peter crashes hard against the far wall, the impact knocking every last drop of air from his lungs. He coughs up blood, staining the inside of his mask, before sliding down a broken slab of marble. He wheezes violently as dense gray smoke fills the room. His ears ring loudly, drowning out the shouting SWAT officers, the screaming crowd, and the creaking support beams above.

Evie’s voice sings in his ear like a taunt.

“Detecting bone fractures near the lower hip. Internal bleeding. Labored breathing—”

Then, your voice comes cutting through the static.

“Spiderman! Answer me!” Your voice cuts in and out, and despite being crushed under rubble with smoke filling his lungs, he reaches for the radio at his thigh.

He lifts it with a trembling hand, and his heart stops. It’s broken, snapped open with electricity sparking near the wires.

“Please—are you there? Spiderman! Check in!”

“Time, Static,” he manages to croak out.

Even through the static, the sheer panic in your voice is unmistakable. “The ambulances are on their way. Just hold on for a little longer—”

“What’s the time, Static?” he repeats with a wet cough.

You suck in a sharp breath. “Four minutes and twenty-three seconds. Now save your breath and stop talking!”

“Peter,” he croaks, coughing up more blood.

“W-what?” you stammer through tears. The sound makes his chest hurt more than the slab of concrete resting heavy on his ribs. “You’re breaking out.”

“Our little game—remember? Every successful mission, we exchange a fun fact,” he wheezes, fighting for air. “My name is Peter Parker.”

A broken, sobbing gasp escapes you. He glances down at the radio, watching the little light that indicates his microphone is working flicker in and out.

“Static? Are you still there?”

“I can’t hear you, Spiderman.”

The blue glow of your television screen is the only source of light in your dim apartment. Outside your window, New York City keeps moving, but inside, time feels like it has been frozen for seven agonizing days.

On the screen, a news anchor stands outside Queens Hospital Center, her face grave under the studio-lit broadcast.

“…we return to our top story tonight regarding Spiderman,” the reporter’s voice echoes through your quiet room. “It has been one week since the explosive incident at Grand Central Terminal that left the vigilante in critical condition. Authorities and medical staff at Queens Hospital Center have kept tight-lipped about his recovery.”

You pull your knees tighter into your chest, your fingers trembling as they wrap around a lukewarm mug of tea you haven’t touched.

“In a shocking turn of events earlier this morning, hospital administrators confirmed that Spiderman is no longer in their care,” the reporter continues. “According to sources, when attending nurses entered his private room to adjust his IVs and monitor his severe injuries, they found the hospital bed empty. There is no security footage explaining how or when the injured hero managed to slip past guards, leaving NYPD officials baffled—and deeply concerned given the extent of his internal trauma.”

Your eyes widen, and you press a hand over your mouth as a shaky exhale spills past your lips.

He woke up.

He survived.

You keep watching, waiting to see if the reporter will expose his identity. A part of you is already annoyed that these attention-hungry journalists would stoop so low now that he’s been admitted to a hospital. But another part of you desperately wants to know—because you felt like that might’ve been what he was trying to tell you over the radio right before the line cut out.

A heavy breath escapes you when the reporter doesn’t mention a name, and the broadcast switches to a story about local stray animals. You’re not even sure if the sigh you let out is one of relief or frustration.

You glance over at the radio resting on the couch beside you.

Your receiver light blinks green—it has been on this entire time.

For the past seven days, you’ve been sleeping with the radio clutched in your hands in hopes that you’ll hear his voice one more time. Even as you walk through the hallways of your university, moving from lecture to lecture, you keep an earpiece tucked in your ear so you won’t miss him if he calls.

A few more days pass, and you’re sitting at your desk with heavy eyes. A lamp at the corner of your desk emits a warm glow over the pages of your notebook. You feel like you’ve been awake for days, running on far too little sleep and not nearly enough caffeine to keep you going.

Your head rests heavily in your palm. A quick glance at the clock tells you it’s 3:41 in the morning.

With a tired sigh, you start to push your chair back—but the sudden sound of familiar static stops you in your tracks.

A sound that is usually so grating to your ears suddenly sounds like heaven.

You quickly scramble back to your desk, your hand swiping up the radio and lifting it to your ear.

“Hello?” you say, your heart racing. “Hello? Is someone there?”

The static cuts out for a second, and you pull the radio back to check the lights. Both indicator lights are glowing green, showing that you—and whoever is on the other line—are connected. The static crackles through again, and you press the receiver tight against your ear, holding your breath as you wait for them to speak first.

“—atic?”

That voice—so familiar, so gentle—rings out. You feel your heart leap straight into your throat. You’ve been waiting for days to hear him again, but you aren't prepared for what to say now that he's actually here.

“Sta—t—ic,” Peter’s voice cuts in and out before suddenly coming through crystal clear—clearer than the very first time you ever connected with him. “This is Spiderman. Are you there?”

Your heart swells with a profound wave of relief. Tears prick at your eyes, spilling down your cheeks before you can even stop them.

“Oh my God,” you breathe, your hand trembling as you press the radio against your forehead. “You’re okay. You’re here. Thank God. I—I thought I lost you. I was keeping up with the news, and when they said you fled the hospital—I hoped you were okay. I’ve been waiting for your call all week. I—”

“Hey, hey,” Peter coos softly on the other end. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve been here the whole time. I’m not going anywhere.”

You hear him rustling around on the other line, the soft friction of sheets sounding like he’s lying in bed. The thought of him resting comfortably in his own room rather than trapped in a sterile hospital bed makes your heart melt.

“Where have you been?” you ask, your voice cracking as you wipe a stray tear from your cheek. “Why didn’t you call sooner?”

“I know, I know… I’m sorry,” Peter says softly, his breath catching in a faint, painful wince that he tries to cover up with a dry laugh. “My suit was pretty much trashed, and the radio got crushed in the blast. It took everything in me just to crawl over to my workbench, and a few more days to rebuild the transmitter from scratch.”

A shaky breath leaves his lips. “With the radio broken, I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to find you again. I spent all this time rebuilding it—I even fixed the signal integration so both our voices would come through clearer.”

You let out a wet, teary laugh. “So that’s why you sound like that.”

You can picture him grinning on the other end. “A lot better, huh?”

That familiar, teasing tilt in his voice sends a wave of butterflies straight to your stomach. A soft laugh escapes you, and he chuckles in return. Then, as if savoring the sound of your joy, he breathes out softly.

“I missed hearing your voice.”

Your feet carry you over to the comfort of your mattress, and before you even realize it, you’re collapsing onto your bed, kicking your feet like a giddy, hopeless romantic.

“I missed hearing you, too. You’d better not let that happen again. If I can barely handle losing you for a week, I definitely can’t bear losing you forever,” you say, trying to pass it off as a joke, but the tremble in your voice betrays you.

Peter’s grin widens where he lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I’ll make sure to be extra careful from here on out, just so you don’t lose me.”

You smile into your pillow. “Good.”

A comfortable silence settles between you two—not the awkward kind from when you first met, but a warm one, wrapping around you both like a blanket despite the distance. You set the radio down on the empty space beside your pillow, and he does the same. With the microphone improvements, you can hear his steady breathing on your end, and he can hear yours.

“Were you able to hear anything I said... the last time we spoke?” Peter asks softly.

You shake your head, the friction against your pillow rustling over the mic. “You were cutting out too much.”

He pauses, the soft sound of sheets shifting as he pulls his blanket up over his shoulders.

“It was about our game—the fun facts one,” he says, his voice careful, like he’s walking on eggshells.

You couldn’t catch much before the line broke down completely. Pet... That was all you had managed to hear. But a deep feeling in your gut tells you that whatever he said was a precious piece of himself—a piece he wanted you to have in case he didn’t make it.

You hold your breath, waiting to see if he’ll offer it up again.

“And since I completed a successful mission,” he continues, swallowing hard. “I thought I’d continue with that trade.”

You brace yourself, your heart clawing in your chest as you wait for the confession—for him to finally drop his guard and lay his identity on the line, just like you plan to do with yours.

Peter draws a slow, quiet breath.

“Do you… have a boyfriend?”

You blink.

The silence stretches for a long second, the sudden change in direction catching you so off guard that your mind does a hard reset. Of all the things you expected him to say—a big secret, a superhero revelation, a tender confession about his life—that was not on your bingo card.

“What?” you squeeze out, your voice squeaking slightly.

Over the line, Peter clears his throat awkwardly, a sudden rustle of sheets betraying how fast he just sat up to bury his face in his hands.

“O-or girlfriend! Sorry—I shouldn’t have assumed! I mean, you don’t have to answer! It’s just—it’s a fun fact! A personal fact! That’s how the game works, right? You tell me something, I tell you something… or—”

A helpless, snickering laugh bubbles up from your chest, breaking off his ramble.

“Spiderman,” you giggle, burying your blushing face deeper into your mattress.

“Yeah?” he yelps, sounding like a man standing on trial.

“No,” you answer, a wide grin spreading across your face. “No boyfriend. No girlfriend.”

A long, almost dramatic exhale breezes through the speaker, followed by the soft thud of Peter flopping back down onto his mattress.

“Oh, thank God,” he mutters, trying to keep it quiet enough so the microphone doesn’t catch it—but you hear it anyway. “I mean… cool. That’s cool.”

You snort. “Okay. You know how the game goes. Now it’s my turn to ask.”

“Do I have a girlfriend?” he prompts.

You shrug, taking the opportunity to tease him. “Or boyfriend. I don’t judge.”

A playful scoff leaves his lips, and you can already imagine him rolling his eyes. He’s quiet for a few seconds, making you think he’s just too flustered to answer. But when his voice comes through shaky, almost hesitant, you feel an unfamiliar tug at your heart.

“I—um… I used to have this girl,” he murmurs. “We were dating for a while—but it didn’t work out.”

The tone of his voice sends a shiver down your spine. He speaks like a man who’s been broken again and again, carrying a profound heartache you couldn’t even begin to measure. A small, selfish twinge of jealousy tugs at you, but you know it’s not your place.

“What happened?” The words spill out before you can stop them.

Peter sucks in a sharp breath, and you wince with regret for pushing too far.

“Well, that’s something you’re gonna have to ask the next time I complete a successful mission,” he says, trying to ease the tension with a playful tone, and you’re more than happy to fall right back into it.

You roll onto your back, looking up at your bedroom ceiling. Across the city, Peter does the exact same thing.

“Deal. But let’s not jump back into all that too soon, okay? Whatever crime happens out there, let the police handle it,” you say, pulling your blanket up to your chin. “I just want to keep you all to myself tonight.”

You want to slap yourself for how ridiculous you sound. He just opened up about a painful past relationship, and you immediately turn around and sound like a clingy girlfriend.

But Peter laughs—a full, rich sound that doesn't sound at all like he just survived a traumatic experience a week ago. It’s a laugh that never fails to make you smile.

“Usually, I’d oppose the idea of ignoring crime,” he says softly. “But for you? I’ll stay. For as long as you want me to.”

You smile, nuzzling your nose into the soft fabric of your blanket. “Good. Goodnight, Spiderman.”

“Goodnight, Static.”

And for the remainder of the night, neither of you switches the radio off, letting the quiet and comforting sound of each other’s breathing lull you to sleep.

It’s a brand new day, and Peter is running around New York getting his errands done. Laundry run, check. Grocery run, check. The last thing on his list is to pick up some flowers for Aunt May.

Right next to the small bodega where he always buys his flowers sits a busy coffee shop.

The front window is large enough to see everything and everyone inside—which is exactly why he has to do a double take at the person standing near the cashier.

He stops dead in his tracks, causing a hurried pedestrian to bump into his shoulder.

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles, but the man just shoots him a dirty look and keeps walking.

Standing inside the coffee shop is a face that’s all too familiar—someone he hasn’t seen in a long, long time.

Ned.

Peter’s feet are moving before he even realizes it. He hovers near the entrance, stepping aside for a few exiting customers before pushing the door open. Slipping into an empty seat near the front, he watches Ned chat with the barista. But Ned isn’t alone.

He’s standing next to a girl—a pretty girl, at that. And one he doesn’t recognize.

Peter smiles to himself, a swell of pride washing over him seeing his best friend doing well, and scoring a pretty girlfriend to date.

“And for the missus?” The barista holds up a paper cup, pen hovering over the cardboard as she waits.

You glance up at the menu board, though you don’t really need to. You know your order like the back of your hand.

“Can I get an extra-hot almond milk latte with one pump of sugar-free vanilla—”

Peter’s heart stops.

“—one pump of regular hazelnut…”

That voice. That familiar, sing-song cadence he hears every night through a staticky radio. The last voice he listened to when he nearly died just a few weeks ago.

“And two scoops of vanilla bean powder,” Peter mumbles to himself like a mantra.

“…and two scoops of vanilla bean powder?” you finish, flashing the barista a harmless, innocent smile.

The barista gives you a disbelieving look, and you chuckle awkwardly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. The movement gives Peter a clear view of a small earpiece nestled right inside. Everything playing out before his eyes matches the picture he’d built in his head—except for you. You being this stunning was far beyond anything he could have imagined.

The barista finally finishes jotting your order down, and you and Ned turn to search for an open table. Peter holds his breath, watching your easy smile and the natural way you interact with his once best friend.

The pang in his chest is a feeling he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. Two people he cares about more than anything... so close, yet entirely out of reach.

His heightened spider-sense gives him the ability to hear almost anything, even from across the room. Yet right now, the ringing in his ears and the heavy thumping of his heart drown out every other sound. You and Ned approach an empty table with only a single chair, but you glance around and spot the unused chair across from Peter.

“Hey,” you smile politely—a soft, courteous tone reserved strictly for strangers, not your partner in crime. “Are you using this chair?”

This is it.

Finally, for the first time, he can introduce himself to you properly. He could bring both you and Ned back into his life with a single, simple greeting.

Hi, I’m Peter. Peter Parker. The guy you’ve been talking to over a flimsy radio these past few months.

Peter looks up at you, completely frozen where he sits. Your smile fades into a faint frown when he hesitates. Then, your eyes flicker briefly to the earpiece resting in his ear—identical to yours, worn for the exact same reason.

Just in case either of you calls in.

Before he loses you, Peter clears his throat. His hand subtly moves up to scratch his ear, hiding the earpiece with his knuckles before slipping it into his palm. When he finally speaks, he deliberately drops his voice a few pitches deeper—adding a slight rasp for good measure.

“No, go ahead.”

That polite smile returns, and you pull the chair away from his table. “Cool, thanks.”

You slide the chair up to the table you’re sharing with Ned, and just like that—unaware that you’ve completely flipped his world upside down and inside out—you fall right back into conversation with him.

The barista calls out your order with your name, and the sound of it is like music to his ears.

He repeats it quietly under his breath. It sounds natural, like a name that was always meant to be spoken in his voice.

Peter squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t reveal his identity to you. Telling you his real name that night—when he was trapped under rubble and bleeding out—was just a lapse in judgment brought on by desperation. But now that he’s here, looking at you and his best friend in broad daylight, he knows he can’t risk letting you into his world.

Anyone who knows Peter Parker is Spiderman is a person bound to be lost. And Peter can’t afford to lose you.

Yet as he watches you sit across from him, tossing your head back with a laugh that is painfully familiar, it feels like he’s already lost you anyway.

“So, tell me more about this party.”

“Well, it’s a housewarming party,” you explain, tucking your hands into your pockets as you walk through the night streets of Queens. “Two of my friends moved into an apartment recently—so we’re celebrating tonight.”

Peter hums, leaning back in his chair and staring mindlessly at his screens. He folds a piece of paper, fiddling with it as his mind wanders to who those friends could be. Ned? And if so, he wonders who else he could be moving in with—if not him.

“That’s… cool,” he finally answers in an indifferent tone.

You round the corner, the sounds of the bustling city nightlife picking up on your microphone. “Yeah. And since I’ll be busy socializing, I won’t have my receiver on all night. But I’ll try my best to check in with you.”

Peter huffs a laugh through his nose. “I’m a big boy. You don’t need to check up on me.” He glances at the window. “I’m more worried about you, though.”

You step aside for a pedestrian who’s rushing past. “What for?”

Peter pushes himself out of his chair with a grunt, stepping up to the small window and looking down at the city street below. “Well, you’re a woman walking all by yourself at night. I hope your friends at least know where you’re at.”

You chuckle, pulling open the door of the small corner grocery store and being welcomed by a soft bell jingle.

“Don’t worry your head, Spiderman. If I constantly worry about my well-being just because I’m a woman, then I’ll never get anything done in this city.”

You’re greeted by a frail, older lady behind the counter, and you offer her a polite smile as you walk past. Making your way to the coolers in the back, you weigh your options between beer and seltzers.

“Do you think two cases of Budweiser is enough?” You ask Peter.

The bell chimes again, and a large man with a dark hoodie pulled over his face enters. You glance at him, and he holds your stare. You look back down.

Peter’s cackle draws you back in. “And you’re drinking?”

You can’t help but grin at the worry in his voice. Grabbing two cases—one in each hand—and shutting the refrigerator door, you head to the front counter. “Yes, because I’m an adult and should be enjoying myself. And you should be, too, Spiderman. It’s Friday night.”

A bitter smile dances on his lips. He should be enjoying himself—a night out with you, instead of being cooped up in his apartment, worrying about you getting wasted at a house party surrounded by men your age with grimy hands and bad intentions.

You set the cases on the counter, and the lady begins to ring you up. The man in the dark hoodie falls in line right behind you, holding just a pack of gum in his hand.

“Okay, I gotta head out. I’ll check in with you later tonight—”

The lady at the front counter has her attention locked on the man behind you, and she sharply gasps, ducking down immediately. Your head whips around, and you find yourself face to face with the black metal of a handgun.

“You know Spiderman?” the man before you asks in a deep gravelly voice, finger poised right above the trigger.

A pathetic, broken sound escapes you. You still have Peter on the line, and you hear the sudden panic in his voice the minute your microphone picks up your heavy breathing and whimper.

“Static? Who is that? What’s happening?”

“You must be mistaken,” you raise your hands in surrender, shoulders timid, as a bead of sweat rolls down your temple. “I—I don’t know Spiderman—”

“Bullshit!” the man shouts, backhanding you with the grip of the gun.

You cry out in pain, your body collapsing hard onto the floor as your hand flies to your cheek. Your earpiece falls out, Peter’s voice ringing out loudly in sheer panic. The man huffs an incredulous laugh as he crouches down to pick it up and lift it to his ear.

“Tell me your location—where are you? I’m coming—!”

“103rd Street,” the man answers with a grin. “That’s where your little lady is at—on the floor, bleeding outta her lip.”

The wind whips loudly through the earpiece, audible even from where you’re prone on the ground.

“Don’t lay a fucking hand on her,” Peter’s voice crackles through the wind and speaker. “What do you want from me?”

The man only chuckles, turning the small earpiece in his fingers, unfazed by the threat of a friendly neighborhood superhero.

“That’s the thing with people like you who try to play hero,” the man says, his tone dripping with bitter resentment. “You stop guys like us, but what you fail to realize is that we aren’t the bad guys at all, Spiderman. While you sit in your fancy little apartment, the rest of us are out here fighting for scraps just to survive—and it’s people like you who keep stopping us.”

He looks down at you, lying on the cold floor with a trembling hand pressed against your bleeding lip.

“We’re just trying to eat,” the man spits into the receiver. “So if a guy like me has to take a little collateral to get your attention, or to get a quick payday—that’s not evil. That’s just survival. There’s a lot of money on your head, Spiderman. Money that can help an average person like me tremendously.”

The sharp thwip of a web fires through the speaker, followed by the harsh gust of the open night sky.

If it were anyone else being held hostage, maybe Peter would extend the courtesy of hearing him out. But he’s not holding just any person. He’s holding you—the only person Peter has opened his heart to in years. The only voice he looks forward to, the one that gives him hope to push through to a brand-new day. Right now, there isn’t a single shred of restraint left in Peter’s mind—not when your life is on the line because of him.

“I don’t give a shit about your excuse,” Peter spits, whipping around a sharp corner as he flies onto 103rd Street. “If you hurt her again before I get there, I swear to God—”

“It’s too late, Spiderman.”

From high above, Peter spots the grocery store below. The white lenses of his mask widen as he peers through the large front windows, catching sight of you scrambling backward in fear, hands raised in surrender.

The man above you stands straight and lifts the gun. Peter’s eyes lock onto the finger resting against the trigger. With one launch off the side of a building, he catapults himself straight through the glass windows.

The explosion of glass shatters in time with the gunshot. As the bullet travels through the barrel of the gun, Peter collides into the man, sending him flying sideways and the gun tilting upwards. The bullet hits the ceiling, the fluorescent lights exploding with electricity as the roof panel falls. You quickly scramble away so it doesn’t hit you.

Peter sends the man flying from one window to another, rolling around on the pavement outside until he lands on top. There is no amount of webs he can use to convey his anger—so he settles with his fists.

One punch after another, one hit after brutal hit. Blood flies out of the man’s face, tainting Peter’s suit with red. It splatters across his knuckles, and he delivers a hit so violent that it sprays right over the white lenses of his mask.

“Spiderman, stop!”

You shout, but the ringing in his ears is louder.

Tears prick at his eyes behind the mask as he continues raining down punches. The man lost consciousness long ago, but Peter isn’t done. He can’t rest knowing anyone who threatens to hurt you is free to walk these streets.

He can’t rest until he knows, for certain, that you’re safe from danger.

He cocks his fist back one last time, with every intention of putting this guy down for good—until your body crashes into his, your arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders. His arm freezes mid-air, suddenly weighing a ton.

“Stop! It’s over—it’s done,” you try to reassure him but your voice comes in a panicked and rushed tone. Sirens sound in the distance. “The police are coming.”

Peter looks around, his chest heaving.

Several bystanders have stopped to stare, hands covering their mouths after witnessing such a brutal act by a man who was supposed to be a savior to all.

He curses under his breath, one arm wrapping tightly around your body.

“Hold on,” he says, before slinging a web to the highest point of the building next to you and launching you both into the night sky.

You bury your face in his chest, legs wrapped tightly around his waist as you hold on to him for dear life. You’re too terrified to look down. So instead, you glance up at the man holding you—the very man you’ve dedicated your life to assisting these past few months.

He doesn’t look like the friendly Spiderman you see on television or in the newspapers.

Blood lays over his mask like a veil, and you can feel his heart racing against yours from how tightly you’re holding him.

He doesn’t say a word until he finds a discreet alleyway. Then, finally, he sets you down gently.

Your eyes don’t leave his face even as you release your grip on him. You stand in front of him, eyes wide and lips parted as you stare at the man you’ve been dying to meet for what feels like years. But while this is your first time seeing him, it isn’t his first time seeing you.

There are so many things you wanted to say, but none of them come out. You never expected your first meeting to be like this—under circumstances where he tarnishes his reputation and your face bloodied and bruised.

“I…” your voice wavers, desperate to say anything, terrified he might swing away at any second.

Peter swipes his bloodied hand against his thigh to clean it before stepping forward, gently cupping your face in both hands. The lenses of his mask are so expressive, shifting with every furrow of his brow. Even behind it, his expression is wrecked.

“Look at what he did to you,” his voice cracks, sounding so broken, like it’s all his fault.

You huff a soft laugh, resting your palm over his knuckles as you lean into his touch. “If I’d known I was going to see you tonight, I probably would’ve worn more makeup.”

You try to joke, but he doesn’t laugh. His thumb gently brushes over the torn skin at your cheekbone, then down to your busted lip.

“I can’t believe you’re right here,” he breathes. “And I’m holding you.”

Peter should get your injuries fixed up, take you somewhere safe, or even take you home, but doing that means he’ll have to say goodbye—and he doesn’t know when he’ll give himself the chance to be this selfish again.

For the first time in years, it feels like he’s found salvation. After everything, he tries to convince himself he deserves this—even if it's just for a few minutes.

“You know what I look like,” you smile painfully. “Yet, I still don’t know a single thing about you.”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek to keep from breaking down. “I’m sorry.”

You step closer, your hands slowly finding the hem of his mask resting around his neck. With trembling fingers, you slowly lift it up—giving him every opportunity to pull away if he wants to—holding your breath as you raise it over his nose. Brown curly hair decorates the nape of his neck.

As you try to tug it up higher, his hands find your wrists, gently stopping you. “I can’t.”

With a quiet nod, your hands fall back down to his cheeks, cupping them softly. Your thumb traces the curve of his cheekbone, his jawline, and the plump of his bottom lip.

The press of your thumb against his lower lip makes his breath hitch. He closes his eyes, leaning into your touch—the first grace of warmth he’s felt in forever.

His white lenses open again, and his gaze drops to your lips—bruised, bleeding, and parting softly. The tension between you two suffocates him, and without waiting another impatient second, Peter tilts his head down and kisses you.

His lips press against yours, gentle and soft. And when you return the kiss, he feels like he’s in heaven. He takes his time with you, his lips exploring yours and savoring the quiet sweetness of the moment. Your hands are warm against his cheeks, and his hand finds your waist, respectfully holding you close as his heart beats as one with yours.

You kiss until you both run out of breath, finally pulling away to rest your foreheads against each other.

Peter shuts his eyes, breathing in your scent. “I wanted to do that from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

“I am detecting a sudden increase in heart-rate and body warmth—”

“Shut up, Evie.”

You chuckle, your teeth catching your bottom lip while heart beats wildly in your chest.

“A successful mission,” you smile up at him. “You know what that means.”

He chuckles at that, the sound sending butterflies to your stomach now that you’re hearing it up close for the first time.

“You’re right. You go first.” He prompts.

You tell him your name, but he doesn’t react the way you thought he would after hearing it for the first time. He smiles—almost boyish, with kiss-swollen lips. It feels as though he’s known your name all along.

Peter repeats it softly. “It’s beautiful,” he says.

Warmth fills you from head to toe. You were right. You loved hearing the sound of your name in his voice.

You tilt your head, leaning in until your nose grazes against his. “What’s yours—”

Frantic footsteps echo just outside the alleyway.

Peter’s senses tingle and reverberate through his entire frame. Everything in his body is screaming at him to do one thing: run.

Two people turn the corner, and he freezes at the sight.

“Oh my god, there you are!” Ned shouts frantically, catching his breath. “We were wondering why you weren’t answering our calls—then someone at the party said there was an accident happening on 103rd Street—which is where you were going—and wait, is that Spiderman?”

Standing right behind him is MJ.

“You scared us!” she yelps, running to you with a hug. You turn around with a weary smile and a relieved sigh.

“I’m okay, you guys shouldn’t have left to come find me. It was dangerous back there, and yes,” you motion behind you, “this is—”

Peter doesn’t even let you finish. He pulls his mask down and, without another word, zips up and out, moving through the dark like a ghost in the night. All the warmth vanishes like the gust of wind he leaves behind as he disappears into the air.

“God,” Ned breathes, the three of you standing dumbfounded in the alleyway as you watch him disappear around the corner. “See! It’s like I told you, MJ! He’s like Peter Pan—if you really believe in him, he’ll show up!”

“Okay—you know, your fanboying really freaks me out,” MJ says, making a face. She looks back at you. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay—”

A shudder passes through your body.

My name is Peter Parker.

“Peter,” you whisper with a sudden realization.

📝 first time writing for peter parker kinda nervous !! "all these things that i've done" by the killers was on repeat while writing this. for the first time in a while, i've had a lot of fun and passion writing a marvel fic again, and i hope you can feel it when you read this fic. if you've made it this far, as always thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. interactions are always appreciated, I love reading every bit of them! I do not have a tag list. to get notified for fic updates, please follow @notify-superbassbuck and turn on notifications.

⟡

the first time sero hanta ever decides to show up early, he’s stuck waiting at a theatre with an angry bakugo at his side.

not to say the fiery blond isn’t usually angry. but this time said anger comes with heat: he’s grinding straw between his molars so hard plastic cracks between his teeth. his feet tap like it’ll make time go by sooner. it doesn’t.

“i’m gonna kill that damn shitty hair.”

“we’re the ones who’re thirty minutes early.”

“shut the fuck up.”

dumb dog sero hanta does as he’s told. katsuki stews a little longer, neck rash red, phone clicking locked & unlocked till he decides he’s had enough—or till the anger reaches his bladder. “‘m going to the bathroom, watch my shit.”

katsuki doesn’t bother waiting for a reply. his hands shove in his pockets as he makes his way to the bathroom, phone tucked firm between sero’s palms. sero hanta knows better than to hold it with anything less than an iron grip. but then it buzzes—& almost cartoonishly, the phone hops & skips before settling between his fingers

sero sees the notification before he can pretend otherwise.

mine🫀: mina and i are otw

mine🫀 : hope we’ll make it. this girl can NOT drive.

sero muffles a snort. the text holds truth, mina cannot, in fact drive. he recalls the time she picked him up to go to the beach and—wait.

is that text from y/n?

he’s quick to take a picture, send it to the ‘inBESTigators 🕵️🔍’ GC. before he can even close his phone & resume playing saint, kiri’s response comes in.

ripped riot 🔥: could be a typo

ripped riot 🔥: like ‘mine’ could be short for miner

pikachu ⚡️[replying to ripped riot 🔥] : are we deadass

sero’s about to type a response of his own before the familiar heavy steps of steve maddens sag at his ears. katsuki’s back, jaw tight & angrier than ever.

further investigation will have to wait.

BAKUSQUAD CASE FILES — CASE STUDY #3.

observed by — denki kaminari

‘when the fuck did bakugo get funny?’

⟡

autumn break means thanksgiving shopping & black friday sales that make twelve dollar products drop to eleven ninety-nine. denki’s shopping for snacks, kiri needs energy drinks & you’re here for produce. katsuki is here because you all need his membership to get into costco.

something isn’t right.

& denki’s not talking about how the price of cheetos have somehow gone up. he’s talking about the fact that katsuki stands firm behind you, hands in pockets as you show him fruit. that’s fine—bakugo’s always been able to tell which apples are good & which aren’t.

but no apple evaluation requires katsuki to lean in that close.

and denki’s pretty sure there’s nothing funny about granny smiths either.

so why the fuck are you giggling ?

kaminari’s eyes flit to katsuki’s. if he was any other classmate, he’d say katsuki was bored. lips tight, eyes neutral, jaw slack. but denki’s no other classmate. he recognizes that twitch in his brow. the bob in his jugular.

katsuki is pleased. at least, denki thinks—no, swears he is. but just to be safe, he chooses to call in an actual katsuki expert. kirishima’s fatass is trying yet another free sample. for the sake of peace, denki chooses not to comment & instead goes straight to business.

“yo, kiri—i’m not seeing stuff, right? is bakugo not smirking and making y/n laugh??”

kirishima, in true fatass fashion, responds with a mouth filled with mini tacos. “I down’t see ‘t”

“bro. chew.”

“I don’t see it,” kiri gulps. “don’t you think we should respect their privacy?”

“we’re at a costco??”

but kaminari drops it. if the katsuki expert himself says there’s nothing, there’s obviously nothing.

right ?

BAKUSQUAD CASE FILES — CASE STUDY #4.

observed by — literally everyone

‘katsuki and y/n are definitely dating. oh, and kiri’s getting kicked from the group chat.’

⟡

mina ashido is not playing around.

the rest of the gang isn’t either. kaminari’s flipping through a scrapbook titled ‘PHOTOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCE.’ sero’s screenshotting group chat messages that sound too fond to not be affectionate. kirishima’s got his laptop open, looking over ‘evidence spreadsheets’ he swears aren’t empty.

but they are. and mina, rivaled only by sherlock himself, notices.

“kirishima, cell B-4. what’s written in there ?”

“I—uh, cell? what do you—“

“aha—” mina shuts her book. she’s towering over eijiro now, hands on her hips & glare so sharp it melts kiri like—well, acid.

“you’re not really doing anything.”

sero lifts a brow. kaminari gives the stink-eye.

“matter of fact…” mina continues, “you haven’t done anything. compiling evidence. listening in on on their convos. you haven’t done anything we’ve asked you to.”

“yeah,” sero quips. his phone’s in his lap now. “matter of fact, you always had some excuse about why you couldn’t.”

“matter of fact,” denki joins, “you’re always trying to deny evidence. talking about us ‘being delusional’.”

oh, kirishima’s in trouble now. blood in his jugular. tar in his throat. “I—“

mina can’t make up what happens next.

The door opens. It’s katsuki—not surprising—they’re literally all seated in a circle on the mat in his dorm. plans to hang out & just chill today—the usual. kiri is bakugo’s roommate. getting in isn’t a fuss.

but you’re right beside bakugo.

and your finger’s in his belt loop.

mina blinks. you haven’t noticed them yet. you look all calm and pretty, lashes low, eyes glued to your phone screen. your finger’s looped around the belt-hole like you’ve done it a thousand times before, and—

is that katsuki’s hoodie?

“what the fuck are you losers doing here?”

kiri’s already scrambling to defend the situation—something about she & the others showing up an hour early, he didn’t know, don’t blast us all—but mina’s not listening. she’s wondering if the refractive index of light is so strong it somehow made it look like katsuki gave your hand a light squeeze before tapping your hand off his jeans.

you’re still quiet behind him. hair all cute, jam-pink cheeks, fawn freckled & doe-eyed. kiri and katsuki are going back and forth. sero’s joined in. kaminari’s farted because he thinks no one will notice.

“y/n, is that bakugo’s hoodie?”

you can hear a pin drop. and another fart from kaminari.

“no, it’s—“

“it’s mine.” katsuki steps forward, hands in pockets & posture lazy like he didn’t say something scandalous. “got a problem, pinkie pie?”

“i could never.”

katsuki hums. he tugs you gently by the palm, door clicking shut behind him with the kick of his shin. he trudges toward the group, right hand in his pocket, left in yours—and he murmurs a quiet sit in your ear before doing a once-over.

“what’s all this?”

“evidence.”

“homework.”

“not evidence.”

tongue click. “evidence of ?”

“the refractive index of light.”

“you and y/n dating.”

“not you and y/n dating.”

“uh-huh,” katsuki picks up a photograph. he recognizes the scene: you’re tucked in his side, showing him something on your phone while he leans too close to be considered casual. you’re giggling here. cute.

he pockets it. “you guys are a bunch of fuckin’ idiots. and you—“ he turns to kirishima,

“no, no bro listen,” kirishima’s palm rests on his neck, an apologetic glance in your direction before he answers, “I did try to get them to leave you guys alone. they wouldn’t listen!”

“aha! so you were a traitor!”

bakugo glares. mina shrinks.

a muffled giggle pierces the silence. then a snort. & now you’re full on laughing—

“oh my god,” you sniffle, “you guys know we were literally gonna tell you, right?”

“tell us when?” sero speaks up, long moved away from kaminari. “it seems kiri here already knew about it.”

bakugo grunts. “why do you idiots think you’re here?”

oh.

bakugo takes a seat beside you. sero’s avoiding eye contact. kaminari’s avoiding the cheetos. mina bites her lip. you’re leaning over katsuki’s thigh now, photo evidence flip-book in your hands. you’re pointing out familiar photos while laughing & shaking your head, and bakugo’s looking back with a gaze so soft that mina doesn’t know how she didn’t see it sooner.

“i think we owe you two an apology.”

katsuki’s got his fingers twisting your knuckle. “y’think?”

sero, mina, and denki all look towards each other.

“we’re sorry.”

“for what?”

“for stalking you guys.”

“and not trusting that you’d tell us.”

“and being idiots.”

katsuki hums, satisfied. but he’s not done yet. he leans back on his palms before gently poking your hip. “should we forgive ‘em?”

“maybe. if they can send some of these photos.”

bakugo nods, turns to mina. “you heard the missus.”

“girl, take the whole book. like—seriously. omg.”

you hug it towards your chest, and mina can tell bakugo’s fighting a smile.

“right. and since you guys know now, you can all leave.”

the three protest. kiri interrupts. “i think it’s for the best. it’s been a long day.”

“that includes you, shitty hair.”

“huh—what?! this is my room too!”

“don’t care,” katsuki tugs you up with him, grip gentle, palm flat against your back as he steers you towards his bed.

“and didn’t ask,” he glances over his shoulder, “all of you, out.”

signs, end.