call me ruki!

“oh, i’m sorry.” she seemingly dissolves, hunching her shoulders, mouth stretching into an embarrassed grimace with a dash of a strained smile. “i was looking for someone else, i didn’t mean to—“

just then, peter turns the corner to come to a stop at your side. “do you need help carry—oh.” he shifts to show less of his naked chest, the last thing he was expecting was company from a neighbor. “ohhh, hi.” he acts like he’s caught in the act, and you look to him coolly for an explanation. once again, out of the trio, you’re the only one that’s comfortable, regardless if you can feel a breeze from the fact you’re not wearing any bottoms. there was absolutely no question about what the two of you had just done. “um, this is…” a tense hand gestures to the blonde in the doorway. “this is - sabrina.” he glances at you. “she lives in my building.” a significant heat rises to his cheeks, humiliation written all over him. a grin creeps onto your lips, the kind that stems from the humor of the situation. the hem of the hoodie sleeve finds a way in between your teeth, toying with it as you exchange a silent conversation with him. after a silence, sabrina subtly inching away, you turn to her.

“we were too loud—“

you’re interrupted by a firm hand on your upper arm, hooking you and leading away from the entrance. “okay-thank you for stopping by-i’ll see you at the mailboxes-okay, goodbye.” smoothly, he pulls you in as he pushes the door shut, hanging his head as his splayed hand remains against the metal. you can’t help but scoff, slithering up from behind him to drape yourself on his back. a single nail digs into the plump skin of his rotator cuff, dragging down in a line through the flesh.

“you were a little nervous back there, tiger. is she one of your girls?”

he flashes you a resentful eye from over his shoulder. he turns, luring you further into the apartment when he walks back towards the bed. “no.” he responds promptly, and with an air of pretentious self-righteousness. it’d be insulting if you didn’t know him. “that’s not - no.” he shakes his head, coming to sit at the edge of his bed with a bounce to a stop. the heel of his hand digs into his eye to fidget. “she’s just… a girl in my building.” the hand comes down, and he picks at a callus on his palm.

“oh, c’mon.” you roll your eyes, lulling your body over to stand between his legs so he has to look up at you. habitually, your grip gravitates towards his curly flop of hair, grabbing hold of it. he blinks in an innocent peer up at you. “you don’t have to say anything to me, we’re adults.”

his shoulders tense, voice defensively heightening, “i’m not seeing anyone else.” somehow, he knows that’s a scarier confession to make, but he took the risk anyway. your smile falters.

“oh.” you release him. when you drop your arms, the sleeves fall past the tips of your fingers. suddenly, you feel like getting some air, but you conceal that vulnerability when you show him your back, walking towards the pile of your clothes. “at least her crush on you makes sense.” you pick out your pants, stepping into them n sliding them on, “it’s too bad though.”

he replies, a little too hopefully. “what is?”

you smirk at him from over your shoulder. “that you’re a nutcase.” he can’t help but wryly smile, dropping his head to shake it. folding your arms in front of you to pinch the hem, you lift to peel the hoodie up and off of you. he sneaks a glance at your naked back.

“you’re leaving now, aren’t you?”

you sigh. “now that i’ve marked my territory.” you find yourself talking to make him feel more comfortable - you don’t like it.

“what about the food?”

you pull on your top. “i’ll be back for it later.” he doesn’t believe you. for a final good-bye, you elegantly slide into a sit next to him, your body lounging n taking up the space. “you’ll be alright without me, spider.” a hand cups his cheek, guiding him into you to kiss his other one.

“are you?”

you sit back. you search his features. “am i what?”

your gazes meet. “seeing anyone else?” the idea of the question puts a twist in your stomach, and an instinct to hightail it out of here. if you are or aren’t, you don’t want to be asked about it.

“i’ll call you.” you promise - an empty sound to the both of you, and with it you depart. . . .

you don’t see him for a couple days, and you know for all of his virtues, he still can’t trust you. it’s why when you’re out as black cat without your hall monitor he shows up to make sure you haven’t relapsed.

“nice night, huh?” he comments, restrained. meeting you on a rooftop is nothing new, swaggering towards you like he’s about to catch you red-handed. he stops before his chest meets yours, but you side-step him like a dance.

“upset because i haven’t called?” you taunt, circling him like prey. “or am i not cleared for field work?”

“i’m not your keeper.” he says resentfully but without conviction.

“you’re out here because of me. afraid i’ll forget all your lessons? i heard there’s a new museum, why don’t i head there before opening and see if it gives me an itch?” through careful strain, your annoyance still seeps through, stepping up to him when he turns just to challenge him. he visibly deflates, letting go of whatever anger he thought he had.

maturely, he explains as he gestures, the visors glued to the ground, “i know that trying the whole good-guy act has been an… adjustment.”

“don’t act like you’re here because of that, spider. you’re too smart to play that card.”

“what do you want me to say?” another layer of his incredulousness wafts over you, you barrel on, talking over him.

“quit the mentor charade, it’s a bad look for you.” you say it to hurt him, to strike at what you dislike the most: being his pity case goodwill project. you might as call yourself a stray cat that’s been caged. if he didn’t know you, he’d think you’re being remarkably calm about all this - so he plays a different card.

“seemed to work on you before.” at the sudden and suggestive mention, you’re taken aback. indignant at first, you scramble for a comeback, but your rare surprise has left your mouth more agape than you’d like to admit. he challenges you this time, the corner of that visor tilting up to make sure you know he’s got his eye on your reaction.

like old times, the kind where you’d run and he’d chase you, and you’d let him get close as a trophy… you take just one more step, inches away from him. your gaze searches his emblem, the one you used to pour over before you knew what he looked like underneath. it’s a quiet moment shared under the moonlight, tempers cooling, and his head lulls in a mirror to yours, like he’s waiting to slot into a kiss that hasn’t been taken yet. your eyes meet the white tear-shapes of his visor. it’s your turn to speak without conviction, “you don’t wanna play that game with me, spider - not tonight.” the empty threat hangs in the air.

he’s too quick to snuff it out anyway. “it’s the only thing we can agree on.”

you shake your head with a sigh through your nose and a smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “i always end up back in your bed.”

“well, let’s go to your place this time.” . . .

somehow, you’re back in his atmosphere, intoxicated until you’re lulled into a domestic complacency you’ll feel nauseous about later. for now, you’ll enjoy pretending to be a trophy after playing hard-to-get. head falling back, your jaw slackens, seeping out moan after moan when spider-man’s got his hand in your hair, pulling you back like it’s a leash. neither of you undressed what you couldn’t afford to, staying in uniform is less complicated than fucking as people - as normal adults. straddling his lap, he’s sat up, an arm around your waist while the other reaches up from behind to wind in your hair. desperate to grasp something, your claws dig into the windpipe at his neck, but pain simply can’t be induced.

you move together as one, his arms flex n swell around you when they guide you down, and there’s a burn in your thighs when you fight against his strength and his weight to lift yourself up in a hover. “should i… should i call you something? other than your name?”

scoffing, you peel your heavy eyes open one by one. sometimes he has a way of endearing you. “what’re you talking about, spider-man? you don’t wanna play pretend with me?” you muse condescendingly, adjusting your grip against his throat so you can lure him closer to you. less than an inch away, you recycle hot breath with each other and his grasp on your hair softens.

“‘pretend?’” he questions naively.

“yeah, not to know each other.” times like this, you remember his intimidating, boyish inexperience. it’s not so bad now, even rewarding him with a peck against the felt of his mask. “asking me questions like that—about what to call me—ruins it. i just wanna have fun.”

“o- okay.” hastily he tacks on, “cat.”

again, it’s too sweet not to taunt, chuckling through your nose until you feel his pace shift. picking up speed, and adjusting the angle of your hips for you with the arm around your waist… it very quickly reminds you he’s not some kid anymore. his hand splays against your back, supporting you when you arch it, talking to the ceiling, “oh, that’s right, spider… that’s it - right there, oh, fuck. right there…” you exhale. the exposed cleavage in your suit swells, the dull moonlight casting through the window catches on your sheen of sweat, glistening your skin like jewelry. your colleague drinks it all in, holding you up by your waist like you’re nothing, spider-strength making a limp doll out of you when he bounces you on him. his tip hits that perfect spot inside of you, the one that makes you all hazy n hot.

he was afraid to say anything else, but when you keep talking him through it, encouraging him with all your pretty noises, it’s like he steps into his persona. “that’s it, right?” he regurgitates one of your phrases to dip his toe in the water. “right there? you sure it’s right there?” his tone’s shifted, evolving from tentative experimentation to blatant cockiness. you bite hard into your grinning lower lip, lulling forward to splay your hands on his cheeks, long nails casting shadows over his visor like you’re locking up some prey. “don’t tell me you’re about to cum already.”

“no.” you challenge. “been waiting for you to fuck me like a man, spider.”

“cat.” he growls. that super strength is so effortless, you squeal in thrill girlishly when he lifts you up off his lap—letting you clutch his face to your chest—only to land you on your back. “you know, this suit must be filthy.” it rakes a genuine open-mouthed laugh out of you, playfully hitting his emblem.

“are you stalling? afraid you can’t handle me?” you taunt, suspending your legs on either side of them, heavy heels weighing them down as they bob from the ebb n flow.

“well, in other circumstances i’d say i’ve handled you before just fine.” he rises to the opportunity, and uses the reminder of your legs to wedge his hands under your knees n hook your ankles over his shoulders one by one.

“we’ll see about that.” just as you finish the sentence, you trail off at the sight of him sitting on his haunches, the full suit on him with the waistband tucked under and out of the way. seated fully inside of you, he palms your hips firmly, jerking you n taking you with him when he leans back. it shoves a choked sound out of you, but nothing compared to the symphony that plays from the orchestra of your open mouth, his grunts, and the marriage of your sexes. his fingers dig into you, yanking you up n letting you drop down in a way that strokes your guts so good you don’t even possess the brain power to warn him you might squirt. “talk back one more time and i’ll stick a vibrator to your clit.” somehow, the idea of that webby mess around your sex wasn’t so revolting, but you know it was just another one of those empty promises.

peter's brows pull together, still unsure, and then he's throwing his head back in ecstasy, sputtering a string of 'baby's that echo off the walls. your mouth latches onto the flap of skin where his organic webs spurt from, and you watch him intently as he comes undone beneath you, a mischievous smile forming on your lips.

"that nice?" you ask, pulling away briefly, hand still tugging and squeezing.

then, a second later, breathless and strained, "god, this is so weird," he chokes out, gripping the sheet. "but 's g-good... sososo good. don't stop."

you giggle against him, and the vibration shoots up the length of his arm. your tongue dances across his skin, alternates between flicking and sucking the flap, and you can feel his forearm pulsing. throbbing. shifting under your tongue like it's preparing for release.

when you glance up at peter, he's already looking up at you, leaning back on his elbow. his jaw is slack, chest rising and falling in rapid succession, and his eyes flicker from white to black intermittently. you quicken your pace, sucking his wrist and stroking him in tandem, all while holding his gaze.

briefly, you pull off to encourage his release. "you're so close, baby. let go for me."

a few more licks and tugs later, peter comes violently. he releases all over your hand. wet and thick and warm. his wrist follows next, shoots out webbing in quick succession, and lands all over the room before covering you in one final spurt.

peter falls against the sheets with a huff, too far gone to be embarrassed by the state of the room. you pump him a few more times before you retract your hand, then settle on top of him, straddling his waist.

"how do you feel?" you ask, licking the spend off your hands.

he blinks an eye open, still panting. "used," is all he says.

you laugh, lean in close to his ear. "well, get ready to be 'used' again because i wanna try something else," you say, voice low and teasing, "and... i can already feel you getting harder. you liked that, admit it, pervert."

peter turns his head, rolls his eyes. "no comment."

he'll never admit it, but you know.

『••✎••』

The hug in the cafe had ended too soon, but it lingered like static on Peter’s skin for the rest of the day. You hadn’t asked a hundred questions. You hadn’t pulled away or looked at him like he was broken. You’d just… held on. And when you finally stepped back, you’d said:

“Text me if you need another one. Or coffee. Or silence. Whatever.”

Then you’d packed up your books, shot him a last, small, reassuring smile, and walked out of the cafe, leaving Peter alone with the salt shaker and a warmth spreading through his chest that had nothing to do with the lukewarm coffee.

He did end up texting you that night. Once. Just an awkward “thanks again” at 7 p.m. before patrol. You’d replied with a simple thumbs-up emoji and a photo of your pet judging a half-eaten ramen bowl. It was normal. Stupidly, perfectly normal. And it kept him going through another night of swinging past the places that used to mean something—Ned’s old apartment building, the bodega where MJ used to steal his fries, the rooftop where he and May used to watch fireworks.

Little did he know that three days later, just as he was sulking about the past once again, he’d run into you again in his own apartment.

It wasn’t even a plan, and he hadn’t texted you first either. You had texted him—ranting, as if you had known him for years. You were near the library, and your laptop had died, and since you seemed so stressed about completing your upcoming paper that was due soon, he’d—with a surge of desperate impulsiveness—offered his outlet. He hadn’t invited anyone to this place, this tiny, subsidized room that was supposed to be for a student but was really just a place to sleep in between patrols. He hadn't thought it would ever happen.

So, in a panic, he’d spent the twenty minutes it took you to get there frantically tidying: shoving things into drawers, using his web shooters to clear the mess of dirty clothes piled by the dresser, and spritzing the room with a borrowed can of air freshener that now smelled like chemicals mixed with despair.

Now, currently, you were perched on the edge of his worn-out couch with your laptop open, murmuring to yourself about a dead hyperlink in your research paper. You weren’t intimidated by the starkness of the room. You hadn’t commented on the single mattress on the floor or the precarious stacks of old textbooks. You’d simply found the outlet, plugged in, and made yourself at home in the quiet space he’d carved out of the world.

Peter stood by the small kitchen counter, pretending to make tea he had no intention of drinking, just watching you. He was struck again by the sheer, profound normality of it. The domesticity. The way you tapped your computer with impatience, the soft sigh you gave when the link finally worked. It was like a scene from a life he’d only ever seen in movies—a life he could have had, maybe, if the world hadn’t erased him.

“Peter?”

He jumped. He still wasn’t used to hearing his name directed at him, especially not from you. He turned, the teabag in his hand dripping forgotten spots onto the counter.

“Yeah?”

You pretended not to notice the drips. “Could you pass me my book? Please? It’s the big blue one.” You gestured to your stack of books near the door.

He grabbed it, the heavy hardcover a familiar weight. Quantum Mechanics and Its Implications. He flipped it over, and a small, printed-out sticky note on the back cover caught his eye. It was a quote, typed in a neat serif font: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein.

Peter felt a dizzying sense of vertigo. He’d seen that quote before. He used that quote.

He remembered sitting in Mr. Harrison’s class, senior year. Flash was making some snide comment, and Peter, buried in a book, had muttered the quote under his breath—a silent mantra for himself. Of course, Mr. Harrison, a massive Einstein buff, had overheard. He’d made Peter write it on the board, a mortifying experience that had ended with him getting a rare, approving nod from the teacher and a week of dealing with Flash calling him “Little Einstein,” along with being sung the theme song of that stupid child’s TV show anytime he walked by in the hall. Man, was he glad he didn’t have to deal with him anymore.

Still, regardless of the memory, it wasn’t a famous Einstein quote. Not really. It was obscure, one Peter had found in a biography; However, the chances of you randomly printing it out and sticking it on your book…

The floor seemed to tilt beneath his feet. He walked back to the couch, movements slow and deliberate, and handed the book to you.

“Thanks,” you said, taking it without looking.

Peter sank into the rickety armchair opposite you, the teabag long forgotten. He watched you read, but in his mind he was back in that classroom. He saw you a few rows ahead, diligently taking notes. He saw you glance up when Mr. Harrison called him to the board. He saw the ghost of a smile on your face as you watched him write—not of mockery, but amusement? Appreciation?

A minor moment in his eyes, a forgettable blip in the chaos of high school. But this sticky note must have been printed later. After. The thought ricocheted around his skull with stunning clarity: you hadn’t just known him. You hadn’t just remembered him. You had proof of him. A piece of him that was now your proof, sitting right there in his apartment, surviving the spell.

And you didn’t even realize.

The room was quiet, save for the soft hum of your laptop fan and the distant wail of a siren. Peter stared at you—at the way the light from your screen illuminated the focused line of your jaw, the way your fingers curled around the spine of the book. He saw so much more now than the quiet girl from history class. He saw a person who had held onto a piece of him, however small, without even knowing its true value. A person who had been handed a cosmic puzzle piece and had simply stuck it on a book because it resonated.

He had been so focused on what he’d lost—Ned, MJ, May, the life that was stolen—that he’d never once considered what might have survived. Not in the world, but in other people. He’d assumed the spell was perfect, absolute. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was like a shattering mirror, and some people, like you, had picked up a shard and kept it?

What if that mirror could be mended? Reverted? The thought was so terrifying and brilliant it almost knocked the wind out of him. He didn’t have the sling ring. He had no idea where Strange was, or if he’d even help. But maybe… maybe he didn’t need the spell broken. Maybe he just needed to find the other pieces of the mirror. The other people who might have their own sticky notes, their own faded photographs, their own ghost of a memory.

He had a lead. A tiny, fragile, tangible lead. Sure, there was the chance that you could’ve just bought a bunch of inspirational sticky notes from the dollar store. But… he knew. He felt it, deep in his bones, in that same place where the tingling of his spider-sense lived.

And truthfully, even if you had just bought the sticky note, he still had you.

He had a friend. At least, he hoped he had a friend.

Peter stood up so abruptly that the legs of his armchair scraped against the cheap linoleum floor. You looked up, startled.

“Everything okay?”

He ignored the question and moved to your side of the coffee table. He didn’t touch the book again. He just sat close enough to draw your attention. Which, of course, worked. You looked at him—really looked at him. He must have looked like a wreck, with his sleep-deprived eyes and trembling hands.

“Did we ever talk? In high school?” Peter started, then stopped, licking his lips. He felt bad asking this, because he genuinely couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to hurt your feelings by not remembering something you might have. “I know we weren’t in the same friend group or anything, but…”

He trailed off, leaving the question hanging in the air.

You considered it, your head tilting to the side as you accessed your mental archives. It was a strange expression, one of genuine concentration, as if you were trying to recall a very specific, long-forgotten fact.

“Not really, no,” you said finally. A tiny pang of relief went through him, followed immediately by a wave of something that felt suspiciously like disappointment. “But… I was aware of you. You know how it is.”

But peter didn’t know how it was anymore. At least, not for the past year. He had spent so long being the only one who knew about himself.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.” He looked away, feeling the familiar sting of being a footnote in someone else’s story. It was an old feeling, one he’d had long before the spell, when he was just a scholarship kid with a secondhand backpack. But now, it was amplified a thousand times.

You must have seen something in his expression, because you elaborated, a small, self-deprecating smile on your lips. “I wasn’t exactly the queen of the social scene. I mostly kept to myself—my books, my music. But I saw people. I watched them. You were… a notable presence, Peter Parker.”

You said the name again, so casually. Every time you did, it felt like a tiny reset button for his soul.

“You were always running,” you continued, your gaze distant, lost in memory. “Literally always. Either to the library, or out of the cafeteria, or down the hall with your backpack half-unzipped. Nice to know why, now,” you added with a dry glance at him. “I always thought you just had terrible bladder control.”

A startled laugh escaped him, a raw, rusty sound he didn’t recognize as his own. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like that—genuinely, without an undercurrent of grief or exhaustion.

Your smile widened a little at his reaction. Encouraged, you kept going. “You were also one of the smartest kids in our year too, but you never flaunted it. You’d just… know the answer when nobody else did. I remember that day in Harrison’s class, when he made you write that quote on the board…”

Peter’s heart hammered against his ribs. Here it was.

“He was so thrilled to have a kindred spirit in the class,” you said, your voice soft. “And you looked so embarrassed, but you also… stood a little taller after that. I don’t know. It was just a small thing. But I remembered it.”

You paused, then looked down at the book in your lap. You ran your finger over the sticky note, a thoughtful caress.

“I found that quote later, when I was looking up stuff for another paper. It stuck with me. That idea that persistence matters more than genius. Felt… relevant, I guess.” You shrugged, a little self-conscious. “So I printed it out. It’s been on my notebooks ever since. I have a whole collection of them.”

Peter stared at you. At the casual, unthinking way you laid out the evidence. A small thing, you’d said. A memory. A quote that resonated. To you, it was just a personal quirk, a habit of collecting inspirational snippets. To him, it was a holy relic. A piece of a world he thought had been completely atomized.

You had no idea. You had absolutely no idea that your little habit, your quiet appreciation for a moment in a classroom, was the only thing anchoring his existence to the rest of humanity.

He felt a surge of something so powerful it almost bowled him over. It wasn’t just gratitude. It was… awe. For the small, unnoticed ripples a person leaves behind them, the ways in which they touch other lives without ever realizing it. He’d spent so much of his life trying to be significant, to make a big, loud difference as Spider-Man. He’d never once considered the quiet, enduring legacy of just… being Peter Parker.

A legacy you had somehow preserved without even trying.

“Peter?” Your voice pulled him back from the brink of that existential chasm. “You’re staring again. You okay?”

He blinked, focusing on your concerned face. He realized he was leaning forward, his hands gripping the edge of the coffee table so hard his knuckles were white.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You have no idea how okay I am.”

He pushed himself to his feet, the sudden movement full of nervous energy. He started pacing the small length of the room, from the counter to the window and back. The tiny apartment felt like a cage, and at the same time, like the entire universe was contained within its four walls—all centered around you and your sticky note.

“You know,” you said, watching him with a tolerant, slightly amused expression, “for a guy who can stick to walls, you’re surprisingly jittery.”

“I’m not jittery,” he retorted, a little too quickly. “I’m… processing. You’ve given me a lot to process.”

He stopped by the window, looking down at the street twelve floors below. The evening rush was starting, a river of red and white lights flowing through the concrete canyons. Down there, he was nothing more than a shadow. A rumor. Up here, with you, he was as solid and real as the scuffed floorboards beneath his feet.

He turned back to face you, that single thought crystallizing in his mind with blinding clarity.

“I wish things could’ve been different,” he said, the admission feeling heavier than any building he’d ever lifted. “I’m starting to think I really missed out.”

Your teasing expression softened into something more gentle. You leaned forward, propping your chin on your hand, your forgotten research paper glowing softly beside you.

“On what, a life of petty drama and crippling student loan debt?” you asked, your tone light but your eyes serious. “Trust me, you didn’t miss much.”

“No, not that,” he said, shaking his head. He took a hesitant step closer. “I mean… high school. Being friends with you. Not having my head so far up my own… you know… that I didn’t see the smart, funny girl sitting two rows ahead of me.”

The words hung in the air, surprisingly intimate. He saw the way your posture changed, the slight shift of your shoulders, the flicker of surprise in your eyes. You hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t expected to say it.

You looked down at your laptop for a second, a small, almost shy smile touching your lips before you looked back up at him.

“Peter Parker,” you said, and there it was again—that name, anchoring him. “Are you trying to tell me we could’ve been friends?”

“I’m trying to tell you we should have been,” he corrected, a quiet intensity in his voice. He took another step, now standing right in front of the coffee table. “You’re the only person in the entire world who knows my name. And I never even bothered to learn yours.”

A new silence settled, different from the others. This one wasn’t filled with grief or confusion, but with a budding, terrifying possibility. Peter’s gaze dropped from your eyes to your laptop, and then to the textbook on your lap. Your name was printed in neat block letters on the spine, next to your student ID.

He’d seen it a hundred times in the halls, on attendance sheets, on the spines of your notebooks. But he’d never really seen it.

Because he never really saw you.

But he did now, with a sudden, jarring clarity. He saw everything: the worn texture of your pants, the dent in your favorite water bottle you’d brought with you, the way you’d unconsciously started chewing on your pen cap. It was an overwhelming flood of sensory information, and he had to fight to keep from being swept away.

You didn’t seem to notice his sensory overload. Instead, you met his gaze, your own expression unwavering. “Well,” you said, closing your laptop with a soft click that echoed in the tiny room. “It’s a good thing we have all the time in the world to make up for it, then.”

It was a simple statement, but it felt like a promise. A vow. The words settled over Peter, warm and heavy, like a blanket he hadn’t realized he was shivering without.

All the time in the world. A world where he was real. A world where someone knew him.

Before he could stop himself, he took the final step around the coffee table. He didn’t think. He didn’t calculate. He just moved, closing the last few inches of space between you. He lowered himself onto the couch beside you—not too close, but close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from your arm, close enough to smell the faint scent of your shampoo.

“Is this code for you needing another hug?” you asked, your voice light, but he could hear the slight tremor beneath it.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “This is…”

He trailed off, at a loss for words. He turned to face you, one arm resting along the back of the couch, his body angled toward yours. He could see every fleck of color in your irises, the way the light from the lamp caught the tiny hairs on your cheek. He’d never been this close to you before. Not in high school, not when he’d knocked your books over, not even when you’d hugged him in the cafe.

This was different. This was… deliberate.

“Peter?” Your voice was barely a breath now.

He could only stare at your lips, at the way they parted slightly as you said his name. He felt a pull, an undeniable force that had nothing to do with spider-powers and everything to do with the lonely, desperate yearning that had been clawing at him for a year.

But he knew. He knew that a year of solitude didn’t magically disappear because someone knew your name. He knew that the grief was still there, a raw, gaping wound that would take a long, long time to heal. He knew that you were still a virtual stranger, that he was still a basket case with more baggage than a cargo plane, and this was only the fourth time you had spoken more than two sentences to him.

He also knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that you were important. Not MJ important, not Ned important, but Peter important. A new kind of important, one that was still forming, still taking shape, but no less vital.

And he knew he couldn’t screw this up. So instead of closing the distance, instead of acting on the impulse that was screaming at him to just feel something real, he reached for the book with the quote on it. Because at the end of the day, it was the thread that connected you. A small thread that was holding him together.

— Taglist —

@marcspectorondeeznuts , @fawnsoveru , @kuro-mimi , @jupiterandjunoandmars , @daniiibananiii, @jjxaya , @superbpoisonpath , @lazy4teen , @sarkastic1515 , @finshythgurl , @madscamp02 , @miakxn , @angstylittleb1tch , @verco , @ornemagicwand , @obsessedromancereader , @nicolelikestoread

Imma need to invest in an excel sheet with all these tags 😭

『••✎••』

The small campus cafe was crowded as usual, the air thick with the scent of burnt espresso and toasted bagels. Peter sat across from you at the tiny corner table near the window, his hands wrapped around a paper cup that had gone lukewarm ten minutes ago.

He’d spent the last couple of days quietly memorizing your schedule—not in a creepy way, just careful observation from rooftops and hallway corners—until he found the perfect window: right after your morning lecture, before the lunch rush really hit. This was the moment.

You were exactly where he hoped you’d be, highlighter poised over notes, earbuds half in, that familiar stack of books balanced on the chair beside you. Sunlight filtered through the glass, catching the edges of your focused expression and making the whole scene feel strangely peaceful despite the storm raging inside his chest.

He’d barely slept since the sidewalk. Two nights of all-nighters—one spent swinging through the city in a blur of red and blue, the other hunched over his laptop and the single physical yearbook he still kept hidden in the back of his closet. The one that should have shown his photo, his name listed under the science club, the decathlon team, even a blurry candid from homecoming. But when he opened it under the harsh glow of his desk lamp, the pages were wrong. Clean. Empty of him.

Every reference to Peter Parker had been scrubbed. Group shots where he should have been standing between Ned and MJ now showed gaps or different faces. The honor roll list skipped his name entirely. Even the faded ink of teacher signatures in the margins seemed to skip over the kid who used to fix the AV equipment. It was like the universe had gone back with a giant eraser and redrawn the year without him in it.

And yet… you remembered.

You’d said his name like it was the most ordinary thing. Like he’d always existed in your world the same way he existed in his own memories. The contradiction had kept him awake, heart hammering with a hope so sharp it hurt. He couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t let you go.

Now, sitting here in the noisy cafe, he could feel it through his spider-sense—the subtle tension in your shoulders, the way your pulse had picked up just a fraction when he approached. Confusion. Concern. A quiet wariness, like you were trying to figure out if the guy from your old high school was having some kind of breakdown.

You were kind-hearted; he could already tell from the soft way you’d checked on him yesterday. Introverted, too—preferring the quiet corner and your books over the louder tables full of laughing groups. And of course, if the organic chemistry textbook wasn’t already a sign in itself, you were intelligent but in a steady, thoughtful way that felt different from his own chaotic, hyper-focused genius.

It’s why he had to be strategic about this. He knew if he started rambling about spells and multiverses and everyone forgetting him, you’d politely nod and find an excuse to leave. He had to start with something he could prove. Something undeniable.

He took a steadying breath and leaned forward slightly so his voice wouldn’t carry.

“What if I told you… the world is different for me than it is for you?”

Your highlighter paused, leaving a small pink streak on the white page. You slid your earbuds out, giving him your full attention. The concern was back, knitting your brow. “Different how?”

Peter’s gaze darted around the cafe before landing back on you. He lowered his voice even more, a near-whisper. “You see that salt shaker over there? Next to the napkin dispenser?”

You glanced at it, then back at him, a little bemused. “Yeah…?”

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he flicked his wrist in the smallest, subtlest motion. A thin strand of webbing shot out from the web-shooter hidden beneath his sleeve—fast, precise, and nearly invisible in the bright cafe light. The strand caught the salt shaker, lifted it smoothly into the air, and deposited it gently right in front of you on the table.

Your eyes widened. The highlighter slipped from your fingers and clattered onto your notebook.

Before you could speak—before you could laugh it off or call him crazy—Peter leaned in closer, his voice urgent but soft.

“I’m Spider-Man.”

The words hung between you for a heartbeat. Your lips parted, but no sound came out at first. Instead of the scoff or nervous laugh he’d half-expected, you stared at the salt shaker now sitting innocently in front of you, then back at his face. The wariness in your expression shifted—still concerned, still confused—but there was a spark of something else now. Openness. Curiosity winning out over disbelief, at least for the moment.

The noise of the cafe faded into a dull hum.

“Peter… what—” you whispered.

“No one else remembers me,” he cut in, the words tumbling out in a desperate, messy rush. It was the most important part, the core of everything. “No one. My best friend, Ned? He doesn’t know who I am. My… my girlfriend, MJ. She thinks I’m just a random, friendly neighbor. My aunt… May’s…” He choked on the name, the grief raw and fresh as the day it happened. “My aunt is gone, and it’s like… It’s like I was never her nephew.”

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, hot and stinging. He hadn’t let himself cry about it, not really. There hadn’t been time. There was always a car to stop, a cat to rescue—something to keep him moving, to keep the silence at bay. But now, sitting across from the only person on the planet who knew his name, the dam finally broke.

“I exist. I’m right here. But to everyone else, it’s like I was erased.”

He looked at you then—truly looked at you. Not as a clue or a potential solution, but as a person. A person he had sat behind in history class. A person he’d never bothered to know. A person whose quiet existence had somehow, miraculously, survived a cosmic rewrite.

“I’m sorry,” he added, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry I’m unloading this on you. It’s just… it’s been a year. A year of… this. And then I randomly run into you, and you say my name like it’s nothing. I just… I have to know. Why you? Why is it you remember when the people who loved me most… don’t?”

Silence stretched for so long that Peter was sure you were going to get up and walk away. He braced for the polite rejection, the slow, careful retreat. He’d scared you. He was a freak.

But you didn’t move.

Instead, you reached across the table, your movements slow and deliberate, and gently picked up the salt shaker. You turned it over in your hands, fingers tracing its cool glass surface as if it held all the secrets of the universe. Your focus was absolute.

Then you looked up, eyes clear.

“Okay,” you said. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t disbelief. It was acceptance. A starting point. “Okay. I believe you.”

Peter’s breath hitched. He stared, utterly poleaxed. That was it? After everything he’d just confessed, after the impossible demonstration… you just… believed him?

“You… you do?” he managed to croak out.

“Kinda, sorta,” you affirmed, setting the salt shaker down with a soft click. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m honestly still processing the fact that you snatched a salt shaker with a… spider-string thingy. But I believe that you believe it. And honestly?” You gestured vaguely between the two of you. “This entire situation is so far outside my understanding of the world that I’m more inclined to believe the weirdly intense guy from my high school is a forgotten superhero than I am to ever understand organic chemistry. So, yeah. I believe you.”

He didn’t realize you were being sarcastic, a little, until the ghost of a smile touched your lips. It was so genuine, so unforced, that it brought back a flood of memories of MJ—of the way she’d looked at the world, at him, with that same dry, sharp humor.

Your gaze softened as you took in his tear-streaked face, the raw grief etched around his eyes. Pity. He used to hate pity, but coming from you, it didn’t feel condescending. It felt like… empathy.

“Do you want a hug?” You asked softly, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it over the hiss of the espresso machine. “You look like you could really use one.”

Peter flinched. Physical contact. It had been so long. His last real hug had been May. Since then, any touch was accidental, fleeting—a bump on the subway, a handshake when re-introducing himself to his best friend. It all felt like being touched through a thick pane of glass.

But you were just… there. Offering. Like the kind of person who gives their umbrella to a stranger in a downpour. It made him wonder why he never really noticed you in high school, why he was always so wrapped up in his own drama that he missed the quiet kindness radiating from the girl two rows ahead.

“Yeah, actually,” he whispered, the words catching in his throat. “That… that would be nice.”

You stood up without a word, walked around the tiny table, and put your arms around him. It was awkward—you half-bent over him while he sat, your books and bag taking up the spare chair. It wasn’t a perfect embrace. But it was warm. And it was real.

He rested his forehead against your shoulder, the worn denim of your jacket scratchy against his skin, and for the first time in a year, the crushing weight of solitude didn’t feel like it was going to break him.

He felt your hand awkwardly pat his back in a gentle, rhythmic motion. He took a shaky breath, inhaling the faint scent of your laundry detergent and old paper from your books. It was grounding.

For the first time since the world forgot him, Peter Parker no longer had to carry it all alone.

Even if you only believed a sliver of the impossible truth right now, that sliver felt like the entire world.

—Taglist —

@marcspectorondeeznuts, @fawnsoveru, @kuro-mimi, @jupiterandjunoandmars, @daniiibananiii, @katsukisgrippers,

I tried my best to tag everyone who mentioned wanting part 2 💖

『••✎••』

His face changed in an instant.

The easy, half-apologetic smile Peter had been wearing—sorry, my bad, let me help—froze, then cracked. His brown eyes widened, pupils blowing out like he’d been hit with a flashbang. The color drained from his already pale cheeks, leaving the faint acne scars and the sheen of nervous sweat stark against his skin. His mouth parted, lips forming a silent what? before any sound could escape.

You blinked up at him, crouched on the grimy New York sidewalk, one hand steadying your precariously tall stack of books, the other hovering over the scattered ones at your feet. The world kept moving—the rumble of the subway beneath the pavement, the wail of a distant siren, the shuffle of pedestrians flowing around the two of you like water around stones. But in the sudden, suffocating vacuum between you and him, all of that noise simply dissolved.

"Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry," he’d been saying just a second ago, a familiar, breathless rush. He’d bumped into you—a classic traffic jam on the sidewalk—and your world had tipped sideways. Physics took over. Textbooks on organic chemistry and literary theory splayed out across the concrete like a fan.

He remembered you. He was sure of it. You sat two rows ahead and one to the left in Mr. Harrison’s history class. You never spoke, but he knew you were one of the smartest kids in the room, your hand perpetually in the air while he was usually trying to calculate if he had enough web fluid for patrol later that night. He’d seen you in the halls—a quiet, focused presence that never seemed to intersect with the chaotic orbit of himself, MJ, and Ned.

You smiled, a small, polite curve of your lips as you both reached for the same copy of The Great Gatsby. Your fingers had brushed.

"It’s okay, happens all the time." You had said, gathering the last book and tucking it into your stack. Then you looked him in the eye, a brief, friendly glance of acknowledgment, and said the words that had just short-circuited his entire nervous system.

"See you around, Peter."

And just like that, the universe tilted on its axis.

You’d pushed yourself to your feet, adjusting your bag, giving him another polite smile before turning to merge back into the river of people on the sidewalk. The moment was over—a simple, forgettable bump with a vague acquaintance from high school.

Except it wasn’t.

Wait.

His lungs seized. The name echoed in the hollow of his chest, a ghost of a sound, but it was the most real thing he’d heard in an eternity. Peter. Not "hey, kid" or "that guy" or the frustrated sigh of a landlord who never knew his renter’s name. Peter. Said with the casual familiarity of someone who had always known it.

A frantic, desperate energy seized him. He couldn’t let you go. He couldn’t let you walk away and vanish back into the faceless crowd, leaving him to wonder if he’d finally, truly lost it.

"Wait!"

He shot forward, a burst of speed that felt more like a spider’s leap than a human’s jog. He caught your arm just above the elbow. It was a gentle touch, barely any pressure, but you stopped instantly, turning back to him with a look of surprise, your brow furrowed. Your books wobbled in your arms.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat in a silent room. He leaned in, not caring that he was blocking the flow of foot traffic, that a businessman had to sidestep him with an annoyed grunt. All that mattered was your face, your confused eyes, and the five letters he needed to hear again.

"Wait," he repeated, his voice raspy, thin. "What… what did you say?"

Your confusion deepened, a small line creasing between your brows. You glanced from his wild-eyed face down to where he was still touching your sleeve, then back up again.

"Uh…" you hesitated, clearly thrown by the intensity of his reaction. "I just said, ‘see you around’?"

"No, before that. The… the last part." He could barely breathe the words out. Please. Please say it again. Let him know he wasn’t hallucinating, that the loneliness hadn’t finally cracked him open.

You blinked, slow and deliberate, as if trying to decipher a foreign language. A flicker of something like concern crossed your features.

"Peter?" you said, his name a soft, questioning thing in the city noise. "Are you okay?"

The world shattered around him.

It wasn’t a question of how. He didn’t care how. Not yet. The sheer, overwhelming fact of it crashed over him like a tidal wave. The weight of a year’s worth of invisibility, of nonexistence, suddenly lifted. Air rushed into lungs that had been starved for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to breathe. A tremor ran through his entire body—a violent, shuddering release of tension he hadn’t even realized he was holding.

He didn’t answer your question. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare, his grip on your sleeve slackening until his fingers just brushed the fabric of your jacket. He was looking at you, but he wasn’t seeing a college student with a stack of books anymore. He was seeing an anchor. A lighthouse in a fog that had swallowed him whole.

A shaky, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips—a broken sound that held the ghost of a sob. He stared at you as if you’d just handed him the entire universe, piece by precious piece.

You, completely unaware of the magnitude of the moment—of the dam you’d just broken—just stood there. You took in the dazed look, the trembling hands, the way he was looking at you like you were a miracle.

And you just looked… concerned. Worried for the weird guy from your old high school who was currently having some kind of meltdown on a public sidewalk.

"Peter," you said again, a little firmer this time, reaching out a hesitant hand. "Seriously. Are you alright?"

And he was. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was more than alright.

Slowly, you lean down. Press your lips to his outer thigh, an inch or so above his bruise. There’s a tremor in his breath. The touch of your lips is barely there, and you make it even lighter as you move a little further down, where you know it hurts. You mean to soothe the inflamed skin. Gently coat it with the affection he so desperately needs but never asks for.

He says your name. A quiet, tender little sound, always carrying an unmistakeable tinge of relief. He basks in it—the simple act of him speaking it out loud, and you looking at him with recognition. You’re alive and you know him. That alone is a blessing, but when you do things like this—coming to his side like you belong nowhere else, laying your eyes and hands on him with such pure affection, kissing where his body is most battered and sore—

He can deny himself all kinds of comforts. He can’t deny himself you. He’s tried, all right. Telling you you deserve someone who isn’t constantly worn down and banged up and broke and will show up on time—or at all—for something as simple as a date. You wouldn’t have it. He thinks, sometimes, he should keep trying. For your sake.

He’s both grateful and ashamed he doesn’t find the strength.

His head falls back against the washing machine with a small thud, swallowed by the sound of its mechanism and his drawn-out sigh. He cradles the back of your head, mirroring the gentle hold you have on his leg. You have lowered your hand to his midthigh, and the angle you’re bent at is awkward, but it’s more than worth it to keep brushing your lips over his abused flesh. It’s so unfair. So fucking unfair how the person least deserving of pain has to—chooses to endure it on a daily basis. So unfair that you can’t take it all away, even if it would mean you had to feel it for him.

His touch becomes the slightest bit more firm, guiding you to lift your head. Your eyes meet, briefly, as he takes your face with both hands and pulls you close. He wants your lips on his, all of you in his arms, and you give him both, melting into him completely.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into your mouth, on each trembling breath in between kisses. “I love you. I love you. I’m sorry.”

You hear both so often, they’re starting to become one and the same. You only kiss him harder, press yourself further into him, bury your fingers in his hair. It’s dirty again. The floor is hard and cold. Your body aches too, even if its battles are only with sleep deprivation and the twist of worry for him between your ribs that flares and wanes, but never really leaves. It’s fine. It’s all fine, as long as he keeps letting himself have you. Few things terrify you more than the day he might decide you’re better off if he stops.

“It’s okay,” you whisper on his lips. Then again, as you tuck your head into his neck. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

But it will be, one day.

It has to.

******

There is the girl with the colour-coded notes. The guy who has mastered the art of sleeping with his eyes open. The couple in the second row who spends more time staring at each other than at the board.

And, of course, the guy three seats down who has been wearing the same grey hoodie for four lectures in a row. You are beginning to think it is no longer a hoodie and has simply become part of him.

Not that you can judge. The coursework at ESU is no joke. You are probably overdue for an everything shower yourself.

You have just started mentally rearranging your evening around it when Dr. Banner walks into the lecture hall.

He carries a coffee in one hand and a stack of papers tucked beneath his other arm, looking exactly as tired as a man teaching university students at what might as well be the crack of dawn has every right to look.

You have known him for years. Sort of.

Bruce Banner had been one of your father’s closest friends. At least, that is what everyone has always told you. 

You met him a handful of times growing up, usually at some formal Stark event or during one of the rare stretches when your father remained in the same country for longer than a week.

Tony Stark loved you. You know that. He just had had a remarkably inconvenient way of showing it.

Most fathers worried about scraped knees and report cards. Yours worried about terrorist organizations, alien invasions, kidnappings, and whether someone might use you as leverage against him. His solution had been to keep you hidden, guarded, and, more often than not, somewhere far away from him.

He had called it protection. You thought it was something closer to parenting by wire transfer.

It is difficult to blame him completely. Protecting the world had left very little room in his schedule for school recitals or remembering to call his own daughter. Then he died saving it, which made staying angry with him significantly more complicated.

The Stark name comes with unwanted attention, several buildings you never ask to inherit, and enough public speculation about your life to keep Wikipedia editors employed for decades.

People have opinions about everything. Your clothes, your degree, your water bottle, whether Tony Stark’s daughter is doing enough to continue his legacy.

Apparently, choosing ESU over MIT is worthy of the front-page news, and attending university without inventing the next clean energy breakthrough on the side is considered wasted potential.

Still, you have never been ashamed to carry his name.

Dr. Banner is one of the few people at ESU who rarely treats you differently because of it. Which apparently means assigning enough reading to ruin your weekends.

“Morning,” he says.

A scattered chorus of greetings answers him in return, none particularly enthusiastic.

Bruce sets his coffee on the desk and begins connecting his laptop to the projector. The screen flashes blue, then black, then displays his desktop background for several long seconds before he manages to pull up the lecture slides.

“Today, we’re continuing our discussion on cellular responses to gamma radiation—”

The door at the front of the lecture hall creaks open.

Every head in the room turns.

A guy stands in the doorway, slightly out of breath.

Messy brown hair. Faded jacket. Beat-up backpack hanging from one shoulder. He looks around your age, although the dark circles under his eyes suggest he has not slept properly since middle school. You wonder if you’ve ever looked that exhausted.

“Sorry,” he says, slightly out of breath. “Am I late?”

Bruce glances at the clock. “By approximately seven minutes.”

The stranger nods as though this is better than he expected. “Okay. Not terrible.”

Bruce stares at him. The guy stares back. A few people begin to snicker.

Bruce reaches for the attendance sheet on his desk and skims down the page. He checks the second page. You already know everyone who should be present is here. You count the backs of everyone’s heads often enough that you’d notice if someone swapped places.

Bruce’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

The stranger’s hand tightens around the strap of his backpack. The movement is small, but it catches your eye. 

There is a pause before he responds.

“Maynard.”

“Maynard,” Bruce repeats.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a last name, Maynard?”

Another pause.

“Also Maynard?”

Someone near the front chokes on a laugh.

Bruce removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “So your name is Maynard Maynard.”

The stranger gives him a small nod. “My parents were big on consistency.”

You press your lips together to suppress a laugh of your own. This guy had to be joking, right? 

Bruce lowers his hand and looks at the attendance sheet again, as though Maynard Maynard might have appeared while he wasn’t looking.

“So you’re a new student?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess?” Bruce looks like he could use a second coffee. It’s not even 8:30.

The new guy just shrugs.

Bruce studies him for a moment. His eyes narrow behind his glasses.

“Huh,” he finally sighs. “Well, either the registrar forgot to update my attendance list or you wandered into the wrong classroom.”

Maynard glances at the lecture slide behind him. “Cellular responses to gamma radiation?”

“Yes.”

“No, this is the right one.”

Bruce gives a tired shrug, apparently deciding that the possibility of an unidentified student infiltrating his lecture is not worth delaying the class any further. “Alright, then. Take a seat.”

Maynard turns toward the rows of students. His eyes find yours almost immediately. They stare at you with a softness that disappears before you can decide what it is.

You glance behind you, half expecting to find someone standing against the wall. Obviously, no one is there.

When you look back, Maynard has lowered his eyes and started climbing the stairs.

He makes it three steps before walking directly into the corner of a desk.

“Sorry,” he mutters to the student sitting at it. Then, inexplicably, he looks at you again.

Your eyes narrow this time. The new guy is weird.

Maynard continues up the stairs, this time paying considerably more attention to the desks in his path. There are several empty seats scattered throughout the back rows, but he ignores all of them in favour of the one right beside you.

Of course he does.

He slides into the chair with practiced ease, shoulders relaxed, backpack tucked neatly between his feet. If not for his entrance, he might have disappeared into the room entirely.

You stare at the empty seat on his other side. Then at him. Then back at the empty chair.

He follows your gaze.

“Oh.” His hand starts reaching for his bag. “Did you want me to move?”

“No.” You’re not entirely sure, to be honest.

“Okay.”

“I’m just wondering why you sat here.”

His eyes flick briefly toward you before darting back to the ongoing lecture at the front of the room.

“It was empty,” he replies quickly.

“So are twelve other seats,” you point out, folding your arms across your chest.

“I like the back.”

“And how would you know that?” you ask. “You’ve never been here before.”

“Maybe I have a feeling about it.”

“A feeling,” you repeat.

“Good acoustics.”

You raise a skeptical brow, looking around the enormous lecture hall.

“I’m really passionate about sound distribution,” he says earnestly.

You hold his gaze for a moment. He gives you an awkward smile.

It is not a particularly convincing smile, but there is something unfairly disarming about it. Maybe it is the way one side of his mouth lifts slightly higher than the other. Maybe it is the faint crease that appears beside his eyes.

Or maybe you are more tired than you thought.

At the front of the room, Dr. Banner clears his throat. “Whenever the two of you are finished discussing the architectural merits of the lecture hall, I’d like to resume teaching.”

Several heads turn in your direction.

You blink. You hadn’t even noticed the lecture had stopped. That never happens.

“Sorry,” Maynard says, sinking lower in his chair.

Bruce’s eyes remain on him for a second longer than necessary. He clicks to the next slide. “Gamma radiation is most commonly associated with cellular damage,” he continues. “But under very specific conditions, exposure can trigger an adaptive response rather than cellular death.”

Beside you, Maynard pulls a notebook from his bag. Not a laptop. An actual notebook. The cover is bent, the corners are frayed, and more than half of the pages appear to be held together by hope. He flips it open and starts rummaging through his backpack for something to write with.

You return your attention to the front. That is, you try to.

Maynard checks one pocket. Then another. Then the front pouch. His movements become increasingly frantic.

You watch him turn his bag upside down beneath the desk. A charger, two granola-bar wrappers, a crumpled receipt, and what looks like a sewing kit tumble into his lap. No pencil though.

“Are you moving in?” you whisper.

“Not intentionally,” he groans.

You reach into your own bag and hold out a pencil. His eyes settle on it, then shift to you again. For some reason, the simple gesture seems to catch him off guard.

“It’s a pencil,” you say.

“I know,” he murmurs, staring down at it again.

“I promise it won’t bite. You don’t need to be so suspicious of it.”

Maynard glances up. "I'm not suspicious."

"Then what's with the hesitation?"

He smiles faintly. "I'm just not used to people giving me things."

He takes it carefully, making sure his fingers do not touch yours. “Thanks.”

“You can keep it.”

He raises his eyebrows. The response is so immediate that you almost laugh.

“It cost like eighty cents,” you add. “Try not to make it sentimental.”

“Right. Sorry.” He looks down at the pencil in his hand. His thumb brushes over the eraser at the end once before he begins writing.

You turn back to your laptop, although your attention keeps drifting sideways.

His notes are surprisingly neat. Not colour-coded or meticulously organized, but quick and precise, filled with abbreviations and tiny diagrams. He keeps up with Bruce easily, sometimes writing down the next point before it appears on the slide. It seems that Maynard Maynard is very passionate about gamma radiation.

Bruce reaches a slide covered in chemical equations and turns to face the class. “Can anyone explain why the altered cells remain stable despite the continued production of reactive oxygen species?”

Silence drapes over the room. The girl with the colour-coded notes suddenly finds her keyboard fascinating. The guy in the grey hoodie lowers his head as though hoping camouflage might activate.

Bruce waits. His eyes sweep across the lecture hall before landing, inevitably, on the unfamiliar face beside you. “Maynard.”

Maynard stops writing. “Yes?”

“You’re new.”

“That’s what people keep telling me.”

A few students laugh.

Banner crosses his arms. “Why don’t you take a guess?”

Maynard glances at the equation. For the first time since walking into the room, the uncertainty leaves his expression.

“The mitochondrial pathways are compensating,” he says. “The cells should be collapsing under oxidative stress, but they're redirecting the excess energy into tissue regeneration instead. It's not really stable.” He pauses. “It's more like… tearing a piece of paper while someone tapes it back together at the exact same speed. It never actually falls apart, but it never completely heals either.”

The room goes quiet. 

“Theoretically,” Maynard adds quickly, as though remembering that he is supposed to be guessing.

Bruce’s smiles, looking impressed. “That’s correct.”

Maynard nods and returns his focus to his notebook.

You lean slightly closer to him. “You sure you need the good acoustics back here? You obviously know your stuff.”

He keeps his eyes on the page. “I read ahead.”

“You walked in looking like you didn’t know what class this was less than an hour ago.”

“I read broadly.”

Bruce continues the lecture, but you stop pretending to take useful notes. The stranger beside you is either lying about nearly everything or is somehow the most accidentally suspicious person in New York. Possibly both. 

For the remainder of class, you keep an eye on him. You notice a few things. 

He writes with his left hand but catches the pencil with his right when it rolls toward the edge of the desk. He reacts before it actually falls, fingers closing around it without his gaze leaving the board.

When someone a few rows in front of you sneezes, Maynard flinches a full second before it happens.

When Banner mentions Stark Industries’ early research into clean-energy conversion, the pencil stops moving between his fingers.

And whenever he thinks you are not paying attention, he looks at you.

Not in the usual way though.

You know what it feels like to be stared at. Being Tony Stark’s daughter means strangers have spent most of your life trying to decide whether you resemble him, whether you deserve his money, or whether you possess any hidden trauma they can speculate about online.

Maynard does not look at you with curiosity. He looks at you with familiarity. It feels much more unsettling.

By the time Banner dismisses the class, you have learned precisely three things about cellular responses to gamma radiation and approximately seventeen things about the stranger sitting beside you. Most importantly, he is terrible at pretending not to watch you.

Students begin packing their things. Maynard closes his notebook and holds the borrowed pencil toward you.

“I told you to keep it,” you say, shaking your head to refuse it. “I have a lot more.”

“I don’t want to take it.”

You raise a brow. “You entered a class you may or may not be enrolled in under the name Maynard Maynard, but taking an eighty-cent pen is where you draw the line?”

“I have principles,” he murmurs.

“Do any of them involve using your real name?”

His fingers tighten around the pencil. The awkwardness in his demeanour fades, something guarded appearing in its place. “Maynard is my real name.”

“Sure.”

“It very well could be.”

“But it isn’t.”

He studies you. You study him back. Up close, you notice a faded bruise along his jaw, mostly concealed beneath the curve of his cheek. Another yellowing mark disappears beneath the collar of his shirt.

You glance at his knuckles.

Scraped. Fresh enough that the skin hasn't fully closed.

Maynard follows your gaze and quickly curls his fingers into his palm.

“Boxing,” he says.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You were looking.”

“I look at everyone.”

“I know.” The words leave his mouth too easily.

You go still. He isn’t wrong. You do look at everyone. But the certainty in his voice catches you off guard, like he's stating a fact he's known for years instead of something he noticed over the past hour.

He seems to realize his mistake at the exact same moment.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” you ask, pushing your chair back as you pack your things.

“Nothing. I mean, you seem observant.”

“You met me fifty-five minutes ago.”

“Fifty-eight.”

You stare at him. He closes his eyes to avoid yours.

“Which is not helping,” he mutters.

“No,” you sigh. “It really isn’t.”

Your new classmate is saved by Dr. Banner before he has the chance to invent another terrible lie.

“Maynard.”

You both turn towards the front.

Bruce stands beside the desk with the attendance sheet in his hand. “Could you stay for a moment?”

Maynard glances at you. There it is again. That brief, instinctive look, as though he is checking whether you are safe before allowing you out of his sight.

You sling your bag over your shoulder. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re going to need it, Maynard Maynard.”

His mouth twitches. “You can just call me Maynard.”

“I would rather not call you anything.”

The smile disappears as quickly as it came. Something in his expression makes you feel unexpectedly cruel. You push the feeling aside and head toward the stairs.

You make it all the way to the door before slowing. Not stopping, exactly. The lecture hall has excellent acoustics, apparently. Or maybe you're simply making excuses to listen.

“You're not on my attendance list,” Bruce says.

“I know.”

“Are you enrolled at ESU?”

Maynard pauses before answering. He seems to do that often. “Technically?”

Your steps become impossibly slower.

Banner lets out a tired breath. “That is not generally a word people use before saying yes.”

“I’m sorting out the paperwork.”

“And in the meantime, you decided to attend my lecture.”

“I heard you were a good professor.”

You glance back. Maynard stands in front of Bruce’s desk with his shoulders slightly hunched, looking less like a mysterious criminal mastermind and more like a teenager who has been called into the principal’s office.

Bruce studies him with the same faint crease between his brows as before. “From whom?”

Maynard hesitates. “People.”

“What people?”

“Science people.”

Banner stares blankly at him.

Maynard shifts his weight. “And, you know. You’re famous.”

Banner glances down at his own hands, then back at Maynard.

“There it is,” he says. “That’s usually what appears first on my faculty evaluations.”

Maynard winces.

Banner studies him for a moment. “Most spend the semester waiting for me to turn green.”

Maynard gives a small shrug. “I’ve seen worse.”

At some point, you've stopped pretending you're on your way out. One hand rests on the door handle, but you make no attempt to open it.

Maynard quickly adds, “On the news. I’ve seen worse on the news.”

Bruce is still watching him with that same faint crease between his eyebrows. The expression isn’t unkind though. You decide that Bruce Banner truly has the patience of a saint. Or perhaps that is simply what happens when a person has spent enough years worrying about turning into a giant green rage monster. Eventually, an unidentified student wandering into your lecture becomes a comparatively minor inconvenience.

“Bring me proof of registration next class.”

“I will.”

“And identification.”

Maynard grimaces. “Is that mandatory?”

“It became mandatory when you told me your name was Maynard Maynard.”

You leave before your curiosity convinces you to linger for any longer.

—

By the time you step outside the building, the morning air has lost most of its chill. Students crowd the pathways between buildings, carrying coffees and complaining loudly about assignments they have known about for several weeks.

You check the time. Three hours until your next class.

Normally, you would head to the library. Today, the promise of the leftover takeout waiting in your refrigerator wins out.

Your apartment is only a few subway stops away from campus. It is smaller than anything most people expect a Stark to live in, which is part of why you chose it. 

The building does not have a doorman, a private landing pad, or windows capable of withstanding a missile strike. 

It does have rent that makes you question the economic stability of New York City, but that feels almost normal.

You cross the courtyard and pull out your phone.

Three missed emails. One reminder that your tuition payment is due. Four separate headlines containing the words STARK HEIRESS, all of which you ignore on principle.

You clear the notifications without opening them and continue toward the subway.

Maynard should leave your thoughts somewhere between campus and the station. He does not.

Instead, your mind keeps returning to the way he looked at you. Not interested. Not exactly.

People look at you with interest all the time. They look at your last name, your bank account, and whatever expression happens to be on your face when someone mentions Iron Man. You recognize curiosity. You recognize greed. You recognize the particular brand of badly concealed pity reserved for the daughter of a dead Avenger.

Maynard’s expression had been different.

He had looked relieved. That is what bothers you.

Relief implies expectation. Expectation implies he knew you would be there.

You nearly miss your train while thinking about it.

“Great,” you mutter, slipping through the closing doors at the last second. “Now I’m profiling strange men on public transportation.”

An elderly man glances at you from the nearest seat.

“Not you,” you assure him.

He moves his bag closer to his chest.

The ride home is uneventful, which in New York generally means no one starts a fight, releases a wild animal, or announces the impending end of the world. 

You stop for coffee on the way to your building and manage to convince yourself that Maynard is probably just awkward. Very, suspiciously awkward, but awkward nonetheless.

When you arrive, you notice the elevator in your building is still out of service.

A handwritten sign has been taped over the doors.

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Someone has added NO YOU’RE NOT underneath it in red marker.

At least someone corrected the misinformation.

You make the trek up the stairs. By the fourth floor, the coffee no longer feels worth carrying. By the fifth, you have mentally composed an email to your landlord containing the words negligence, legal action and I know people, although the last one feels embarrassingly close to something your father would have said. You decide to scrap the unwritten email.

You push open the stairwell door with your shoulder. 

The hallway is a mess.

Boxes cover more than half of it. Some are sealed neatly. Others are taped haphazardly. A rolled mattress leans against the wall beside a small wooden desk. There is a chair with only three visible legs and a cardboard box with several old labels aggressively scratched out. In one corner, someone has written MAYBE KITCHEN? in black marker.

The door to the apartment across from yours is wide open.

Someone is finally moving into 6B.

You have been enjoying the empty unit for the past three months. No neighbour means no complaints when you play music at questionable volumes, no awkward small talk while unlocking your door, and no one noticing how frequently you order enough takeout for a family of six during exam seasons.

You suppose it was too much to hope the vacancy would last forever.

A crash sounds from inside the apartment, followed almost immediately by a muffled, “I’m okay.”

You raise an eyebrow just as someone backs through the doorway carrying a stack of boxes high enough to hide most of his face. All you can see at first is a faded jacket, beat-up sneakers and a mess of brown hair above the cardboard.

Then he turns.

Your heart sinks to the soles of your feet.

Maynard’s eyes meet yours over the top box, and he freezes so suddenly that the stack shifts in his arms. One box slips sideways, but his hand shoots out before it can fall, catching it so quickly that, for a second, you wonder whether your eyes simply failed to keep up.

A second later, it is balanced securely against his hip as though nothing happened.

Neither of you speaks.

You look at the box, then at him, then past his shoulder into the open apartment across from yours. Maynard follows your gaze before his eyes drift to the small brass 6A fixed above your door. Something complicated passes over his face.

“Oh,” he says.

You stare blankly at him.

He attempts a smile. It is the same awkward smile from class, but somehow worse now. “Hi.”

“No.”

His smile disappears. “No?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You do not get to say hi like this is a normal coincidence,” you say, fuming.

Maynard adjusts the boxes in his arms, shifting the weight against his chest. “People live across from other people all the time.”

“You appeared in my class this morning under a fake name.”

He furrows his brows. “It’s not fake.”

“Your name cannot be Maynard Maynard.”

“You don’t know that.”

You gesture between his open apartment and your own door. “And now you live across the hall from me.”

“I moved in yesterday.”

“You were not here yesterday.”

“I started moving in yesterday.” He tries to correct himself.

“There were no boxes yesterday,” you state firmly.

Maynard hesitates for half a second. “I moved the invisible ones first.”

You say nothing, momentarily too offended by his audacity to form a response.

He closes his eyes briefly, as though replaying the sentence and finding it just as bad the second time. “That sounded better in my head.”

“I doubt that,” you mutter, looking past him into the apartment.

It is mostly empty. A small couch sits on the floor beside the window, still wrapped in plastic. A half-built shelving unit leans crookedly against one wall. On the kitchen counter, there is a bag of white bread, a jar of peanut butter, and exactly one mug.

The place does not look staged. Honestly, it barely looks inhabited. You’re not sure whether or not that should make you feel better.

“When did you sign the lease?” you ask.

“A little while ago.”

“How long is a little while?”

“A few days.”

“In New York City?”

He shrugs. “I got lucky.”

“And it just so happens that your luck landed you across the hall from me?”

His grip tightens around the bottom box. “I didn’t know you lived here.”

You decide his answer came too quickly for your liking. You fold your arms across your chest. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“My name is on the buzzer downstairs.”

“I didn’t notice. I was distracted.”

“By what?”

“The stairs.”

“It looks like you’ve survived them several times already.” You gesture to the boxes scattered across the floor. The hallway was spotless when you left for class this morning. Now they’re everywhere, and he doesn’t look like he broke a sweat.

“They’re very distracting stairs.”

He has to be lying. People notice the name Stark. It’s almost impossible not to.

They notice it on credit cards, reservation lists, and packages left outside your door. They notice it even when you wish they wouldn’t, usually right before deciding they want an autograph, an investment, or access to something your father left behind.

And yet Maynard expects you to believe he signed a lease directly across the hall from Tony Stark’s daughter without so much as glancing at the buzzer.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Do you usually sign leases without checking the neighbours?”

“I was more focused on whether the ceiling leaked.”

“Does it?”

“Only in one corner.” Maynard shifts the boxes against his chest. “Look, I’m not after your money.”

You go still. “I didn’t say you were.” 

“You were thinking it.”

He was right. You were.

“Well, I wasn’t,” you lie. “Besides, I think you’re out of luck.”

He blinks.

You shrug. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t keep stacks of cash hidden in my apartment.”

He looks offended. “I wasn't implying you did.”

“Good. Because that would be a terrible business plan.”

Up close, you can see the bruise along his jaw again. It looks darker in the hallway lighting. There is another faint mark near his temple, partly hidden by his hair.

Whatever he does in his spare time, you doubt it’s boxing. Not the type of boxing you’re familiar with anyway.

“Are you following me?” you ask.

Maynard nearly drops the boxes again. “What? No.”

“You showed up in my class, sat beside me, and moved across the hall all in one day.”

“I didn’t move here today,” Maynard says.

You rub your temples. “That is not a denial of the rest.”

His expression tightens. “I’m not following you.”

“Then why did you sit next to me?”

“I already told you. I like the back.”

“For the acoustics,” you quote, rolling your eyes.

“Exactly.”

You consider adding another bruise to his face. “That was a joke.”

“I thought we had established it was a deeply held academic preference.”

“And you kept staring at me.”

“I wasn’t staring,” he protests.

“You walked into a desk.”

“The desk came out of nowhere.”

“It was bolted to the floor.”

“They’re getting smarter.”

Despite yourself, a laugh slips out.

It is barely more than a breath, but you can tell Maynard hears it. The tension leaves his face so quickly that it catches you off guard. For one brief second, he looks at you with such open fondness that the laugh dies in your throat.

And there it is again. That look. As though your laugh is familiar. Like he has heard it a thousand times and spent far too long waiting to hear it again. Like it belongs to a memory you do not share.

His smile fades the moment he notices you are no longer smiling back.

You school your face. “You keep doing that.”

He frowns. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like that.”

Maynard’s gaze drops to the floor between you. “I’m sorry.”

The apology is so quiet that it unsettles you more than any denial could.

You slowly uncross your arms. “Do we know each other?”

His head lifts. For the shortest moment, hope flashes across his face. Bright, immediate, and gone before you can make sense of it.

“No,” he says. The word lands too carefully.

You study him, waiting for the awkward smile or another ridiculous excuse, but this time he does not look away.

There are people who can lie without blinking. Your father had been one of them. Tony Stark could stand in front of a room full of reporters, tell them an airborne weapons platform was a weather-monitoring satellite and make half of them feel stupid for questioning him.

Maynard is not that kind of liar.

His shoulders are too stiff. His mouth presses into a thin line. His eyes hold yours with the intensity of someone trying very hard not to say anything else.

He is lying. You just do not know about what.

A door opens at the far end of the hallway.

Mrs. Wen steps out of 6D carrying a small bag of recycling. She pauses when she sees his open apartment door.

“Oh, good,” she says, facing Maynard. “You found your key.”

He glances at her. “Yeah. Thank you for your help. It’s been a long day.”

“It’s not even noon,” she points out.

“Long morning.” He corrects himself with a kind smile.

The older woman turns her attention to you. “Your new neighbour is very polite.”

You sigh. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

She nods, looking at Maynard approvingly. “He carried my groceries upstairs earlier today.”

You look at Maynard. He shrugs. “The elevator’s broken.”

“It has been broken for six days,” Mrs. Wen tells him. Then she turns back to you. “You never offered to carry my groceries.”

You swallow a groan and smile sweetly. “Mrs. Wen, I carried them upstairs on Tuesday.”

She squints at you. “Did you?”

“And last Friday.”

Mrs. Wen’s brow furrows.

Maynard clears his throat. “She probably helps so often it all blends together.”

You stare at him, momentarily stunned that he has chosen to back you up.

Mrs. Wen looks between the two of you with far too much interest. “You two know each other?”

“No,” you say.

“Yes,” Maynard says at the same time.

You shoot him a glare.

“From class,” he adds quickly. “We met in class.”

“This morning,” you clarify.

Mrs. Wen smiles. You know that smile. It’s the same one she gave you when the barista at the cafe across the street started making your order before you even reached the counter.

“Well,” she says, “now you can walk to school together.”

You wonder if you could get away with strangling a senior citizen. Probably not.

“We will not be doing that,” you say firmly. Maynard opens his mouth. You point a finger at him. “Do not agree with her.”

He closes it again.

Mrs. Wen’s smile deepens. “Very nice.”

She continues toward the stairwell, taking her recycling with her.

You pinch the bridge of your nose as her footsteps fade. So much for relying on Mrs. Wen as a credible witness when Maynard’s stalking inevitably ends you both up in court.

The faint rip of cardboard draws your attention back to him. The bottom of the lowest box is beginning to sag beneath its contents.

“You should put those down before the bottom gives out,” you say warily.

“It’s fine.”

The cardboard tears a little farther, allowing the end of a lamp cord to slip through the opening.

Maynard glances down at it. “Still fine.”

He turns toward his apartment, but the weakened cardboard gives way before he reaches the door.

A corner of the box splits open, spilling books and loose tools across the hallway. The lamp remains wedged inside for a fraction of a second before its weight tears through the remaining cardboard. It slips base-first toward the floor, the exposed bulb following behind it.

Maynard’s hand shoots out.

He catches the lamp by its metal stem just before the bulb strikes the hardwood.

The movement is almost too fast to follow. One moment, the lamp is falling among the scattered books. The next, it hangs securely from his hand, the glass suspended only inches above the floor.

A wrench skids toward you, and you step aside before it can strike your ankle.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

Maynard slowly straightens, still holding the lamp.

You look at the mess scattered across the hallway, then at the unbroken glass in his hand. “How did you do that?”

His gaze follows yours. “Do what?”

“Catch that.”

“Reflexes.”

You shake your head. “That was not just reflexes.”

“It felt a lot like reflexes.”

“It looked like you knew the lamp was falling before the box even opened.”

“The cardboard was tearing,” he responds dismissively.

“So you caught a glass lamp without looking?”

“I looked,” he insists.

“For half a second.”

“Apparently, that was enough.” He places the lamp carefully on the small wooden desk beside the wall, giving you a small smile. “You’d be surprised what people can do under pressure.”

“I once watched my father redirect a nuclear missile through a portal into space,” you murmur. “My standards for surprising are unusually high.”

The amusement at your shock leaves Maynard’s face. Something quieter takes its place. It’s not pity. You have seen enough of that to recognize it immediately. 

It’s grief.

Your fingers curl at your side.

Very few people have earned the right to look like that when you mention your father. Friends. Family. The people who fought beside him.

Not a man you met a few hours ago.

“What?” you ask.

Maynard blinks, and the expression disappears. “Nothing.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And that.”

He crouches beside the torn box and begins gathering the books scattered around his feet.

You glance down.

Most are science texts. Physics. Biochemistry. Electrical engineering. A battered GED preparation guide from a few years back sits among them, its spine cracked open to a page filled with pencilled calculations.

None of them has his name written inside.

You crouch before you can talk yourself out of helping him, picking up the nearest book. A photograph slips from between the pages.

You reach for it.

He gets there first.

His hand closes over the photograph before you can see more than a flash of red and gold.

Your eyes meet his. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

You huff. “You have got to learn another word.”

“It’s just a picture.”

“Of?”

His fingers curl around it. Something protective settles over his expression. “Someone I used to know.”

The answer is honest. You can tell because it sounds nothing like the others. 

You look at his closed fist.

Red and gold could mean anything. An old Iron Man postcard. A newspaper clipping. Some cheap piece of Avengers merchandise. You wouldn’t be surprised if half the city owns something with your father’s face on it.

That does not explain why Maynard looks like the picture in his grip hurts.

“Your apartment is across the hall,” you say. “Your class schedule apparently matches mine, and you own mystery photographs you refuse to explain.”

He sighs. “I know how it looks.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“Bad,” he admits.

“Extremely.”

“I promise I’m not following you.”

“You already promised your name was Maynard.”

“I never promised that.”

You roll your eyes. “That is not the defence you think it is.”

He tucks the photograph into the back pocket of his jeans and gathers the remaining tools. You hand him the wrench that had almost taken you out earlier.

“I’m going inside,” you say, finally turning away from him.

“That’s probably good.”

“And I’m locking my door.”

His mouth twitches. “Also probably good.”

“If I see you lurking outside it, I’m calling the police,” you warn him.

“I won’t lurk.”

“And if for some reason, you decide to climb through my window to rob me, I’m calling the Avengers.”

The amusement leaves his face. Just for a second. You almost miss it.

“The Avengers?” he repeats lightly.

“I still have a few numbers,” you admit.

That is not entirely true.

You have Pepper’s number. Happy’s too, although your last conversation ended with him scolding you to stop sending suspicious packages to his office simply because his security team “needed the practice.”

Most of the Avengers are scattered now. Retired, missing, dead, or otherwise unavailable to handle your disputes with weird neighbours.

Maynard doesn’t need to know that though.

“I’ll make note of that,” he says.

You turn toward your apartment and slide the key into the lock. As usual, it refuses to turn. You jiggle it once, annoyed.

“Lift the handle first,” Maynard says behind you.

Your hand stills. Slowly, you look over your shoulder. He is crouched beside the ruined box, gathering the last of his books.

“What did you say?”

“The handle.” He keeps his eyes on the floor. “Lift it while you turn the key.”

“How do you know that?”

He glances up. “Old locks stick.”

You face the door again, lift the handle and turn the key twice.

The lock clicks open.

A prickle runs across your skin.

You look back at him. “You guessed the exact trick to my front door?”

Maynard rises, the remains of the torn box hanging from one hand. “Lucky guess.”

“You’re having an unusually lucky week.”

Maynard shrugs, the torn remains of the box still hanging from one hand. “I saw the superintendent do it yesterday.”

“Mr. Kowalski hasn’t been above the second floor since his hip surgery.”

You know no one else has touched the lock, either. The Stark security system monitors every attempted entry, and it would have alerted you if so much as an unfamiliar fingerprint brushed the handle.

Maynard is lying directly to your face. Every sensible instinct tells you to go inside, lock the door, and start hunting for a new apartment. You’ve been playing with danger for far too long.

But curiosity keeps you rooted to the spot. You have no idea why you are still humouring him, only that every terrible excuse makes you want to hear the next one.

Maybe curiosity really did kill the cat.

“Someone else, then,” he says.

“Who?” you demand.

“I don’t know.”

“You watched an unidentified person unlock my apartment?”

His eyes widen. “That sounded a lot worse than I meant it to.”

“You think?” You shake your head in exasperation.

Maynard presses his lips together. “I’m going to stop talking now.”

“That may be the smartest thing you’ve said all day.”

You step inside your apartment before turning around one last time to face him.

Maynard stands in the hallway amid his scattered belongings, looking as though there are a thousand things he wants to say and not one of them is safe.

You tighten your grip on the edge of the door. “Stay away from my apartment. I mean it.”

“I will.”

“And stop watching me.”

Something passes across his face. Pain, perhaps. It vanishes beneath a small nod. “I’ll try.”

You narrow your eyes. “That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

“I know.”

You finally close the door, lock it, and throw the deadbolt. After a moment’s hesitation, you slide the security chain into place too.

Silence settles over the apartment.

You remain there with your ear pressed to the door, listening as cardboard scrapes across the hallway. Something heavy, probably one of the books, hits the floor, followed by Maynard muttering under his breath.

Sounds normal enough.

You should walk away, heat up your lunch, and stop wasting what limited time you have before your next class. Instead, you turn and lean toward the peephole.

The fisheye lens warps the hallway beyond it.

Maynard is still standing outside his apartment. He has not returned to gathering his belongings. He is not even looking at the mess scattered around his feet.

He is staring directly at your door.

Your pulse quickens. Whether it is fear or curiosity, you cannot tell. Probably both. Either way, allowing the conversation to continue for as long as it did suddenly feels less amusing than it had in the hallway.

As though he can sense you watching, Maynard slowly lifts his gaze.

His eyes settle on the peephole.

You jerk backward.

“Absolutely not,” you mutter to yourself under your breath.

You retreat into the kitchen.

The apartment is secure. Far more secure than it appears, anyway. The locks are reinforced, the windows are alarmed, and the innocent-looking panel beside the thermostat contains enough Stark technology to alert three different emergency services if someone so much as breathes incorrectly near your front door.

Happy insisted on installing it after you moved out of the compound. You had called it excessive.

He reminded you that attempted kidnappings tend to alter a person’s definition of excessive.

Neither of you won the argument.

You carry your coffee to the counter and set it down. A thin stream has escaped beneath the lid, soaking through the cardboard sleeve.

With a sigh, you rub your temples.

Your new neighbour has a fake name, knows how to open your lock, and looks at you as though he has spent years missing you.

Weirdly, that last part bothers you most.

The sensible thing would be to call someone.

Happy, perhaps. Or Pepper.

Possibly the police, although explaining that your neighbour is suspicious because he has unusually fast reflexes and an unsettling amount of knowledge about faulty lock mechanisms may not inspire an immediate response.

You settle for something slightly less invasive.

Retrieving your laptop from your school bag, you open the ESU student directory. The search bar blinks expectantly.

You type MAYNARD MAYNARD.

No results.

“Shocking.”

You delete the second name and try again.

Three Maynards appear.

Maynard Ellis, a graduate student in economics.

Maynard Rivera, a retired faculty member.

Maynard Cook, whose profile picture suggests he graduated approximately twenty years before you were born.

None of them has messy brown hair, freckles, or an apparent allergy to telling the truth.

You search the course roster next.

Nothing.

You try every variation you can think of—MAYNARD M., M. MAYNARD, new transfers, exchange students—but there is no record of him anywhere.

You close the laptop.

Whatever his real name is, you will find it eventually.

After class, though. Unlike him, you are actually enrolled here.

—

By the time you leave campus that evening, the sun has already disappeared behind the skyline.

Your final lecture ends shortly after five, but an unexpected meeting with your academic adviser keeps you on campus longer than planned. Then your lab runs nearly two hours over because one of your partners insists on measuring everything in ounces.

You explain the metric system twice.

On the third attempt, you consider allowing natural selection to take its course.

It is nearly nine when you finally step outside.

The campus is quieter than usual. Most of the surrounding buildings have emptied, leaving only a handful of students crossing the courtyard beneath yellow pools of lamplight.

Your phone vibrates in your hand.

HAPPY: Dinner Sunday. Pepper and Morgan want to see you.

A second message arrives before you can answer.

HAPPY: That wasn’t a request btw.

You smile despite yourself.

YOU: I’ll check my schedule.

You put your phone away. 

You will be there. You always are. Happy knows that too. He simply likes pretending your attendance requires negotiation.

As you approach it, you notice the subway entrance closest to the chemistry building has already been gated off for overnight maintenance. According to the sign zip-tied to the railing, it closed at eight.

Of course it did.

You decide to walk to the station you used that morning, even though it is several blocks farther away. It usually stays open later, and the route is your usual one despite the shuttered cafes and darkened storefronts lining the way.

You make it two blocks before noticing the footsteps behind you. Not because they are loud. Because they match yours.

You stop outside a closed bookstore and pretend to examine the display. The reflection in the glass shows two men about twenty feet behind you.

One of them is tall and broad beneath a dark coat. The shorter one wears a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

Neither appears particularly interested in the bookstore window.

You start walking again.

A few seconds later, footsteps resume behind you.

You try to calm yourself down. They could just be headed in the same direction. New York is crowded, even after rush hour. 

Although, it doesn’t help that Maynard Maynard has already spent the day encouraging levels of paranoia you would normally consider unreasonable.

You pick up your pace toward the station. Hopefully if there are enough eye-witnesses around, they’ll back off.

The footsteps follow.

At the following intersection, you cross without waiting for the light. When you glance at the dark reflection of a parked car, both men are crossing behind you.

Your hand slips into your bag and closes around the compact security device clipped inside.

To anyone else, it looks like an ordinary key fob.

It is not.

One press alerts Happy’s security team. Two activates the emergency beacon sewn into the lining of your jacket. Three releases enough voltage to make whoever is touching you reconsider every choice that led them to that moment.

You have never needed to press it. You would prefer to keep it that way.

The street ahead narrows between two construction sites. Temporary fencing blocks the pavement on one side, while scaffolding casts the other into shadow.

You do not enter it. Instead, you stop beneath the brightest streetlight and turn around.

The two men stop too, a few feet behind you, but still too close for comfort.

“You’re really not being very subtle,” you call out, hoping your voice sounds steadier than you feel.

The taller man glances at his companion before looking back at you. “We just want to talk.”

“People who want to talk usually start with ‘hello.’” You tighten your grip around the fob. “They don’t follow someone for three blocks.”

“We know who you are,” the shorter man says, his voice thin and nasal.

“That makes one of us. I have no idea who either of you are.”

The taller man takes a step closer.

You raise the key fob between you. “Before you continue, this is a Stark Industries personal defence system.”

Technically, it was manufactured by a Stark subsidiary nearly five years ago and currently has fourteen percent battery life, but they do not need to know that.

The man stops, his gaze dropping to your hand.

“That what we’re looking for?” he asks his friend.

“No, you idiot,” the nasally one responds. “That’s the shit that electrocutes you.”

The taller one smiles. You dislike that immediately.

“We heard Stark left behind more than money,” he says.

“A billionaire with assets other than money? Incredible detective work. Did the internet tell you that?”

“He left systems,” the shorter one says, closing in behind his friend.

Your amusement fades. “What systems?”

“Systems you can access.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. People will believe anything if Tony Stark’s name is attached to it.

There are no more secret networks waiting for you to inherit, no hidden weapons vault only his daughter can open. Anything your father left behind has already been catalogued, dismantled, or locked down by Pepper, Happy, and enough lawyers to populate a small country.

These two are idiots. Unfortunately, idiots can still be dangerous.

You let out a short laugh, sharper than you intend. “My father has been dead for years. Whatever you think he left behind, you’re welcome to submit a request through Stark Industries’ legal department like everyone else.”

The shorter man in the baseball cap moves first.

You press the button on the fob.

Nothing happens.

You press it again. This time, the indicator flashes red: INSUFFICIENT CHARGE.

You stare at it. You had assumed fourteen percent would be enough to prevent at least one kidnapping.

Apparently not.

The man’s hand closes around your wrist.

You drive the heel of your shoe down onto his foot and slam your free palm into his nose.

He releases you with a shout.

The taller man lunges.

You duck beneath his arm and shove the useless security device into your pocket. Your elbow connects with his ribs, but he barely reacts. One hand catches the back of your jacket before you can get away.

The fabric jerks tight across your throat, cutting off your breath. You claw at the collar as it digs into your skin, but every attempt to pull free only makes it tighten further.

A strand of white webbing shoots down from somewhere above and splatters across the man’s face.

“What the—”

He is ripped backward so violently that both feet leave the pavement.

You stumble forward, bracing your hand against the nearest wall, and dragging in a breath as the fabric around your throat finally loosens.

The man in the baseball cap reaches inside his coat.

A second web catches his wrist and snaps his arm against the construction fence. A third seals over his mouth before he can shout.

Spider-Man drops from the scaffolding a heartbeat later, landing between you and the two men in a low crouch, one hand braced against the pavement.

You have seen him before. Everyone with an internet connection has seen Spider-Man.

Blurry phone footage. News reports. Edits of him fighting monsters from outer space. Entire conspiracy threads dedicated to determining whether there is more than one of him, whether he is secretly an alien, and whether the white lenses of his mask can actually blink.

They very much can.

The eye lenses narrow as he looks at the men.

“Following women at night?” he asks. “Really? That’s what we’re doing now?”

The taller man claws at the web covering his face.

Spider-Man rises. “You know, there are much easier ways to embarrass yourselves. Karaoke. Improvisational comedy. Cryptocurrency.”

The man in the baseball cap swings his free arm.

Spider-Man leans back. The fist passes an inch from his face.

“That was almost very threatening,” he quips before catching the man’s arm, turning, and webbing both of his wrists to the fence.

The taller one finally manages to pull the webbing away from his eyes. He charges at the vigilante.

Spider-Man does not even turn around. 

His hand shoots backward, catches the man by the front of his coat, and uses his momentum to flip him onto the pavement.

The impact rattles the temporary fencing.

You wince.

Spider-Man glances over his shoulder at you. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Your hand is bleeding.”

You look down. A shallow cut crosses your palm, probably from catching yourself against the rough brick wall. You hadn’t noticed it. “It’s fine. Just a scratch.”

“You should clean it when you get home.”

“Thank you, WebMD.”

The white lenses widen slightly. Then he laughs.

The sound catches you off guard. He sounds much younger than you expected. Not like some gravel-voiced vigilante speaking through a modulator, but breathless and almost boyish behind the mask.

The man on the pavement groans.

Spider-Man turns back toward him. “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

“I’m going to kill you,” he grunts.

If you could see his face, you were sure the hero would be rolling his eyes. “See, that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes people not want to help you up.”

Sirens sound several streets away.

Spider-Man webs the taller man’s wrists together and secures him to the construction fence beside his companion. He gives each strand a sharp tug, apparently satisfied when neither of them moves more than a few inches.

Then he turns to you. “Besides the hand, are you sure you’re not hurt?”

The question is quieter than everything else he has said.

You touch the tender skin beneath your collar. Your throat aches, and your heart is still beating hard enough to make your hands tremble, but you are standing. Breathing. Neither of which had felt guaranteed a minute ago.

“I’m fine.” Your voice comes out rough. You clear your throat. “Thanks to you.”

His shoulders loosen slightly. “Okay. Good.”

For a moment, neither of you says anything. The two men struggle uselessly behind him while sirens wail somewhere in the distance, growing steadily louder.

Spider-Man glances toward the end of the street before looking back at you. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

The offer is kind. Probably.

Still, your father spent years teaching you that colourful, high-tech masks did not automatically make someone trustworthy. According to Tony, even the best heroes could be reckless, secretive, and catastrophically bad at explaining themselves. 

You knew he spoke from experience.

You lower your hand from your throat. “I appreciate the rescue, but I can manage from here.”

“You were almost kidnapped,” Spider-Man protests. “And whoever sent them might have sent someone else.”

The thought wipes away what little humour you had managed to find in the situation.

The vigilante seems to notice. His voice softens. “I’m not trying to scare you. I just don’t think you should finish your usual route alone.”

You look at him. “My usual route?”

He goes still.

The distant sirens continue to approach.

“I meant this route,” he says after a beat. “The route you’re currently on.”

“You said I usually take it.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Your gratitude does not disappear, but caution settles beside it. You narrow your eyes slightly. “How would you know that?”

He shrugs a little too casually. “I just guessed.”

“You guessed that I regularly walk down this particular street?”

“It’s near the university.”

“There are at least a dozen streets near ESU.”

He shifts his weight. “This one seemed the most likely.”

“Based on?”

“General geography?” he offers, tilting his head to the side slightly.

You fold your arms, and his head tips back with what looks suspiciously like resignation.

“I promise I wasn’t following you,” he says. “I was just patrolling.”

“It’s convenient how you just happened to be passing by when I needed help.”

“Well, that is usually the point of patrolling.”

You stare at him.

He stares back. Or you assume he does. The mask makes it difficult to tell.

You try to hold onto your suspicion, but the breathless defensiveness in his voice makes it difficult. A reluctant smile pulls at your mouth. “You’re strange.”

“That’s harsh coming from someone who tried to bluff two kidnappers with a dead key fob.”

You glance down at the device still clenched in your hand. “How did you know it was dead?”

“You pressed it three times.”

“Well, it does have a three-button activation sequence.”

“Maybe. But I saw it flash red.”

You’re bewildered. “You could see that from the scaffolding?”

He pauses, as though he’s contemplating how much he should share with you. “Not to brag, but I do have excellent eyesight.”

“Even through the mask?”

“The lenses definitely help.”

You study the shifting white lenses more closely. “Who made them?”

“I did.”

“You built the suit yourself?”

“Mostly.”

Now that no one is actively trying to drag you into an unmarked vehicle, you allow yourself a proper look at him. The red and blue material hugs his body, patterned with white webbing that stretches across his chest and shoulders toward the black spider emblem at its centre.

It doesn’t look homemade. But then again, neither did your dad’s suits, which had definitely been manufactured with his own two hands. Every seam appears deliberate, and the lenses move with an expressiveness no store-bought mask should be capable of.

“You did a good job,” you say.

The lenses widen. “Oh.”

“Why do you sound surprised?” Your brows furrow with confusion. “It’s an honest comment.”

“I guess I just wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

“Why not?”

His posture changes almost imperceptibly. A slight tension in his shoulders. A careful pause before he answers. “No reason.”

That retreat is unnervingly familiar.

Maynard seems to do the same thing whenever he says more than he intended. The comparison sends a strange unease through you.

“Have we met before?” you ask.

Spider-Man becomes completely motionless.

For half a second, the street seems quieter. Even the men straining against the webbing fade into the background.

Then he tilts his head. “I think you’d remember meeting Spider-Man.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s adjacent to one.”

Red and blue light begins to flash against the buildings as the first police car turns onto the street.

Spider-Man looks toward it. “I should go.”

“You’re abandoning me now?”

“You told me not to walk you home.”

“I also don’t particularly want to explain how two criminals ended up webbed to a fence by myself.”

He gestures toward them. “Tell the police your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man handled it.”

You laugh. “That sounds rehearsed.”

“It’s branding,” he says, one of the lenses closing fully to shoot you a wink.

He fires a web towards the roof of the building adjacent to where you were standing. The strand catches somewhere above, and he bends his knees before springing into a powerful jump.

He disappears over the edge of the roof.

You stare after him while red and blue lights spill across the pavement.

Being rescued should not leave you with more questions than being kidnapped.

⸻

The police keep you for nearly forty minutes.

You answer questions, decline an ambulance, and make the mistake of mentioning that your father’s old technology may have motivated the attempted kidnapping.

That results in three additional officers arriving.

While one of the officers takes your statement, your attention keeps drifting toward the dark sedan parked a few feet from where the men cornered you. Its engine is still running, and the rear passenger door hangs slightly open.

You had not noticed it during the struggle. Now, it is quite obvious where they had intended to take you.

The windows are tinted deeply enough that you cannot see inside. You cannot stop imagining that door closing behind you.

By the time they allow you to leave, Happy has called six times.

You do not know who notified him. Possibly the Stark security system you had tried to activate earlier. Apparently fourteen percent was enough to alert Happy that something was wrong, but not enough to activate any of the protocols that might have actually helped. How convenient.

You answer as you walk. “I’m fine.”

“Where are you?” he demands through the phone.

“On my way home.” 

“Stay where you are.”

“Happy, I’m five minutes away from the station. I’ll call you as soon as I get there,” you reassure him.

“I already sent a car,” Happy says. “It’ll be there soon.”

Your eyes drift back to the sedan at the curb. The open rear door. The dark windows.

Your stomach tightens. “No car.”

“What do you mean, no car?”

“I mean I’m not getting into one tonight.”

His voice softens immediately. “Kid—”

“I’ll take the subway. There are police everywhere, I’ll be alright,” you say. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

Happy is quiet for a moment. He understands before you have to explain it.

“Call me as soon as you get there,” he says at last.

“I will.” You hang up and make your way toward the station.

The subway ride is mercifully uneventful. You choose the busiest car, take a seat near the doors and spend most of the journey watching the dark windows for reflections that linger too long. No one pays you any attention. No one follows when you transfer lines, and by the time you emerge onto your street, your pulse has finally begun to settle.

The walk from the station is quiet. You keep one hand around your phone and the other tucked inside your coat, fingers resting against the security fob. It might have been useless tonight, but it still felt comforting against your fingers.

When you reach the entrance to your apartment building, you call Happy.

“I’m here,” you tell him as you unlock the outer door.

“At your apartment?”

“At the building.”

He sighs. “That isn’t the same thing.”

“It’s one broken elevator away.”

“Stay on the phone until you’re inside.”

You roll your eyes, although he cannot see it. “Yes, Happy.”

Movement above the building opposite yours catches your attention.

A red-and-blue figure crouches at the edge of the roof, nearly disappearing against the dark brick. Had he not shifted, you might never have noticed him.

You stop with one foot inside the doorway.

Spider-Man followed you home.

“Everything okay?” Happy asks.

Your gaze remains fixed on the rooftop. Spider-Man raises one hand in a tentative wave, as though being caught watching your building is only mildly embarrassing.

“Apparently, I had an escort.”

Happy falls silent for half a second. “What does that mean?”

“Spider-Man followed me home.”

“He did what?”

The volume of his voice forces you to pull the phone away from your ear. Across the street, Spider-Man points toward it and tilts his head, silently asking whether something is wrong.

You give him a flat look.

“Go home,” you call out.

Happy makes a strangled sound. “Are you talking to him?”

“You told me to stay on the phone.”

“That did not mean confront the masked vigilante who followed you to your apartment.”

“He also saved my life.”

“And then followed you home.”

“Yes, Happy. I’m aware of the mixed signals.” You rub your forehead. “I’ll call you once I’m upstairs.”

“Keep me on the—”

“I’ll be five minutes.”

“Three.”

“Goodbye, Happy.” 

You end the call before he can renegotiate and send him a quick message promising that you are safely inside the building. Technically, half of you is.

When you look up again, Spider-Man is no longer on the opposite roof.

A flash of red and blue drops into view. Your hand tightens around the door as a web catches somewhere above the street, carrying him in a smooth arc toward your building. He lands several storeys above you, one hand and both feet fixed against the brick.

You stare up at him. “That is not going home.”

“I wanted to make sure you got inside safely.”

“I told you not to follow me.”

“I know.”

The easy admission catches you off guard.

He does not offer another questionable explanation about patrolling or advanced hearing. He remains where he is, keeping a comfortable distance between you.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “After what happened, I didn’t feel right leaving you alone.”

Some of your irritation slips away despite your best efforts. It would be much easier to remain suspicious if he sounded defensive. Instead, he sounds tired and painfully sincere.

Your father’s warnings remain in the back of your mind. Masks conceal more than faces. Good intentions do not automatically make someone harmless. Tony had known plenty of heroes who meant well and still left destruction behind them.

But without Spider-Man, those men would have forced you into the waiting car.

You release a slow breath. “Thank you for helping me. Truly. But you can’t make a habit of following me home.”

“I won’t.”

Despite yourself, you smile. “I’ll send you a gift basket as thanks, provided you leave me alone afterward.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “I don’t need a gift basket.”

“I guess that saves me a trip.”

He still does not move.

You tilt your head. “This is the part where you leave.”

His attention drops to your hand. “How badly are you hurt?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“It’s still bleeding.”

He’s right. You tug your sleeve lower with your uninjured hand, hiding the blood and bruising. “I promise it looks worse than it feels.”

Spider-Man’s posture changes. The humour disappears from him so abruptly that you notice the difference even from the ground. His fingers press into the brick, and the white lenses narrow into sharp slits.

“They should’ve been webbed to something taller,” he mutters.

“It’s okay. The police have them now.”

“That doesn’t mean—” He stops and forces some of the tension from his shoulders. “Good. That’s good.”

You study him. “You seem awfully angry for someone who met me less than an hour ago.”

“I get angry when people are hurt.”

“People generally, or me specifically?”

His head turns toward the street.

“People generally,” he says after a moment.

You do not believe him. There is something far too personal in the way he keeps looking at your injured hand, as though seeing them hurts him more than it should.

He starts crawling higher.

“You keep trying to leave whenever I ask a reasonable question,” you call after him.

“I have somewhere to be.”

“Patrolling?”

“Yes.”

“Somewhere that isn’t directly above my head?”

He pauses. “I wasn’t stalking you.”

You roll your eyes. “That’s what the other one says.”

Spider-Man straightens against the wall. “What other one?”

“My other stalker.”

“I’m not your stalker.” He sounds genuinely offended.

“He would probably say that too.”

Instead of leaving, Spider-Man shoots another web above the entrance and lowers himself until he is hanging upside down a few feet from you.

“You actually have a stalker?”

“Apparently, I have two.”

“I’m not—” He stops, visibly reconsidering the argument. “Who is the first one?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because someone following you after what happened tonight seems worth caring about.”

The sincerity in his voice takes some of the edge from your response.

“My new neighbour,” you explain. “He showed up in one of my lectures this morning, used an obviously fake name, then somehow moved into the apartment across from mine before I got home.”

Spider-Man goes quiet.

“That does sound bad,” he says eventually.

A tired laugh escapes you. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. You just remind me of him.”

“I’m not sure whether I should be offended.”

“It’s nothing specific. You both have a habit of saying too much and then becoming noticeably worse at lying.”

He shifts slightly on the web but does not answer.

The amusement fades as you glance toward the glass door at your back. Saying everything aloud makes the day sound worse than it had in your head: Maynard in your lecture, Maynard across the hall, Maynard knowing how to open your lock.

Your fingers tighten around the edge of your sleeve with your good hand. Without noticing, you press your nails into the centre of your palm.

“Don’t do that.”

You look down.

Pale crescents have already formed beneath your nail.

“Do what?”

“That.” Spider-Man gestures toward your hand. “You do it when you’re scared.”

Your fingers slowly uncurl. “How do you know what I do when I’m scared?”

His head lifts sharply.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. Traffic hums at the far end of the street, and somewhere above you, an air-conditioning unit rattles in its frame.

“You were doing it earlier,” he says.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You might have been.”

You shake your head. “I wasn’t.”

His hand tightens around the web. “It’s a common stress response.”

“Did you also learn that from WebMD?”

He has no answer. Behind the mask, you can almost feel him searching for one.

The longer the silence lasts, the more the unease beneath your skin grows. Maynard had looked at you the same way that morning, as though he knew things he had no right to know and could not decide how much of himself to reveal.

“I should go,” Spider-Man says.

“Of course you should.”

He fires a web toward the roof but hesitates before allowing it to pull him away.

“Always double check that you’ve locked your doors.”

“I have a Stark security system.”

“You also had a Stark security key fob.”

Your eyes narrow. “Good night, Spider-Man.”

A quiet laugh comes from behind the mask. “Good night.”

He disappears over the roof.

You remain in the doorway for several seconds, staring at the empty brick where he had been. Then you step inside and allow the door to swing shut.

Your uninjured hand is still open at your side. The small crescents left by your nails remain visible in your palm.

You have done that for as long as you can remember. Pepper used to notice and gently uncurl your fingers without saying anything.

Tony noticed once too.

You had been fourteen, waiting backstage at a Stark Industries benefit while a security threat delayed the event. Your father had crouched in front of you, taken your hand, and tapped the marks in your palm with one finger.

You’re going to puncture your own hand doing that, kid.

No one else knows about it.

No one else should.

a/n: thank you so much for reading part one! this fic somehow grew far beyond what i originally planned, so i decided to split it into four parts!

comments, likes, and reblogs are always appreciated <3