#sandman!reader

“—makes the best aloo tikki, so I can totally show you where his stall is sometime if you want. Sorry, what’s your name again?”

Your mouth goes dry when he finally stops talking to stare expectantly at you.

“… [Y/n],” you mumble, thoroughly surprising yourself.

He repeats your name back to you. “Cool! If you ever need anything, I’m literally just a desk away.”

You don’t answer this time, choosing instead to close your eyes and bury your face in your arms once more. You’re so tired.

—

Pavitr Prabhakar, despite your best efforts, is your shadow for the rest of the day. He introduces you to his best friend Hari Oberoi, discreetly points out his crush Gayatri Singh to you when she glides by, and attempts to drag you to the aloo tikki vendor after school lets out. You are only able to shake him off with the excuse of having tuition, and even then, he offers to walk with you (probably just to hear himself talk some more).

By the time you finally get home, you feel like you’ve returned from war.

“Beta, is that you? How was your first day?”

“Fine.”

“What?”

You speak louder, entering the kitchen. “Fine, Ma.”

Ma eyes you critically but turns back to the dinner cooking on the stove. “How are the teachers? Are they as good as Mr. Oberoi said?”

“Yes.” You pull out a chair from the table and collapse into it, breathing in the mouth-watering air until your lungs are fit to burst. “He has a son named Hari, by the way.”

“Really? He never mentioned a son.”

You shrug.

“Where’s Papa?” you ask, as you hadn’t seen his shoes by the door when you came in.

The spoon in Ma’s hand scrapes loudly against a pan.

The silence stretches, a tight and fraying rubber band. You straighten in your chair, eyelids not so heavy anymore.

“… Ma?”

She turns around. You swallow as she seems to look straight through you. “Papa’s in a meeting with Mr. Oberoi right now,” she says. “You’ll see them after dinner. Someone is coming by to pick you up.”

“But I have homework,” you say. “How come Mr. Oberoi wants to meet so late?”

“I don’t know,” Ma tells you sharply. You wince and look down, fiddling with the buttons of your new uniform. “But he’s done so much for us, and he probably has a good reason for it. You’ll find the time for homework in between.”

Wordlessly, you nod. Ma brings the food to the table, and you watch as she serves you and then herself, your hands clasped tightly in your lap.

The food does not smell as good anymore.

—

You tell Pavitr that you’re from a small village north of Mumbattan. He is overjoyed by the information.

“Me too! Well, I moved here when I was seven, but wow! We have so much in common,” he gushes in between bites of his lunch. “The big city’s a lot different, isn’t it? I didn’t like it at first, but now it’s like I was always meant to be here.”

You hum blandly and swing your legs, the backs of your shoes hitting the brick wall the three of you are sitting on. Why Pavitr strongarmed you into eating lunch with him and Hari is still a mystery to you, but you do know that it’s starting to get very hard to say no to the guy. Disappointing him leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Hari cocks an eyebrow at you. “Not hungry again?” he questions, gesturing at your untouched plate.

Heat rises to your cheeks. You shake your head. “You want it?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want it?”

“Oh. Well,” Hari drags out the word, then grins. “If you insist. No wasting of food, and all that.” You roll your eyes as he takes your plate. “Thank you for your generous donation.”

Pavitr reaches over you to partake in the donation as well, only to receive a slap to the hand.

“Ow?!”

“Drama queen. You haven’t even finished your own plate yet, Pav.”

“I just wanted a taste!”

“We all got the same thing for lunch!”

“Yeah, but the lunch lady doesn’t like me for some reason. What if I got less spices in my sabji?”

“You think the lunch lady unspiced your sabji specifically to spite you?”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility!”

Hari gazes up at the sky and groans. “I can’t believe you’re one of the top students here.”

You eye Pavitr, who pouts and shovels the rest of his food into his mouth. Indeed, you’d have a hard time believing it too, if it wasn’t for the fact that his name is consistently at or near the top of the list when test grades are posted, as well as the fact that he’s never gotten a question wrong in class.

(As opposed to you, who is quickly becoming the bane of your science teacher’s existence.)

“I’ve been blessed with a good memory,” Pavitr defends. “And anyways, are you not worried about [Y/n] here?” He fixes you with what seems to be a concerned look. “I’ve only seen you eat lunch twice in the past few weeks! What about malnutrition?”

You open your mouth and shut it several times, face burning. Why is he so nosy? “I … I-I have stomach issues,” you eventually hear yourself telling him, because the other answer – that your digestive system has the nasty habit of turning into sand without warning – is a one-way ticket to a government lab. “And it’s kind of embarrassing, so could you not talk about it?”

“Yeah, Pavitr, don’t butt into people’s business,” Hari chides.

Pavitr splutters. “But you also –” he starts, only to cut himself off when he makes eye contact with you. A guilty expression crosses his handsome features. “… Ah. Sorry. I won’t bring it up again.”

“Okay,” you say. Then, as an afterthought and just to be polite, you add, “I forgive you.”

A smile spreads across his face again, wide and sunny, and you suddenly have a vested interest in the ticking of your watch.

This is bad.

—

“This is very good,” the Doctor says as you lay on the exam table. “What do you feel?”

“Everything,” you grit out.

There’s sand in your guts, in between your ears, crawling down your throat. You grip your father’s hand, and he squeezes it back just as tightly, the pressure many tiny prickles that somehow register in your wreck of a body.

“I’m sorry, beta,” Papa whispers as the Doctor types something into his data pad. “But it gets worse before it gets better, doesn’t it?”

You groan. You’re not so sure.

“A fully activated X-gene complex,” Mr. Oberoi says. “You’re very lucky, [Y/n]. Who knows what would’ve happened if it remained only partially activated?”

“Based on the progression of the images I took,” the Doctor answers, mechanical arms clicking as they loom around him, “their vital organs would have turned into sand before the completion of this … soul molecule, as I call it.”

(In other words, you’d be dead.)

Mr. Oberoi makes a strange, noncommittal noise. “That would’ve been terrible, yes?”

“We can’t express our gratitude enough,” Papa says fervently. “Thank you, Mr. Oberoi. Thank you, Doctor. We’re forever indebted to you both.”

“Not forever. Just for as long as we discussed.”

“O-Of course. Thank you.” A pause, then, “My child will be safe the entire time, as you promised?”

“As long as they follow my instructions, very little will be able to harm them.” You hear the man walk over to another part of the room, followed by the dry rattle of pills in a bottle. “Now, I have several things to discuss with just the Doctor and your child, so if you don’t mind? There is a driver waiting for you outside the building.”

Your father seems very reluctant, as he takes a minute to let go of your hand. You can’t help but try to reach out, but the discomfort is too great, and suddenly your arm is nothing but a pile of sand by your side.

It takes a moment to process the loss. When it finally does, you retch.

Papa gasps and scrambles to catch the few grains spilling over the side of the table. “Oh –!”

“It’s alright,” the Doctor assures. If anything, he sounds delighted. “They should be able to put themselves back together. Such is the beauty of their mutation.”

Mr. Oberoi approaches your side. “Go ahead, [Y/n]. Show us what you can do.”

“It hurts,” you say, biting your bottom lip so hard that it would’ve bled if you could. You’re barely holding the rest of you together as it is. When you breathe, you can feel specks of you falling from your mouth. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

They watch you struggle on that table for hours, it seems. But you eventually put yourself back together. All by yourself.

—

You get an unprecedented week of excused absences from school and stay at Oberoi Industries to adjust to your new body. Your parents are allowed to visit you at the end of that week. After that, Mr. Oberoi restipulates the conditions of your family’s contract with him, and you start working for him on the weekends and on Mondays and Fridays after school.

As for what your job entails –

“It’s like you’re new to this or something. Is this your first day?”

You scowl, molding your arm into a sledgehammer and heaving it at Spider-Man. It’s true that you still need practice controlling your sand, but the one-sided banter that comes with it is quickly getting old.

Spider-Man easily dodges and comes up behind you. His fist shoots through your back and out of your abdomen.

You look down as he chuckles nervously.

“Whoops.”

Sneering, you twist around and punch him down the street. He tumbles and flies over the tops of several cars (some abandoned, most still holding irritated commuters) before flipping himself right side up again with his webs, quickly swinging his way back to you.

“Can we bring this fight to the top of a building or something? We’re holding up traffic!”

“Shut up!”

He gasps, kicking a piece of your shoulder off. “Wow, that’s the first thing you’ve ever said to me! Now we’re getting somewhere!”

Using the web of telephone wires above the two of you, he propels himself upward and onto the roof of an apartment building. You have no choice but to follow.

“So, what’s your deal, anyways? ‘Cause it seems to me that you have a loooot of pent-up aggression, and I was just hanging around when you decided to try to kidnap me,” he calls out. “We can talk about your feelings if you want to! I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man for a reason.”

Hanging around. Hanging –

Is he making puns right now?

“I told you to shut up!” you shriek, sand spitting everywhere.

“Sheesh. Okay.” Spider-Man zips over to a nearby water tower. Hanging upside-down in front of it, he crosses his arms. “… Is that helmet an accessory, or is it part of your face? No judgement; it’s cool either way.”

Oh, you want to break this guy like a twig.

“It’s part of my face,” you snap, and with a grunt, you throw yourself forward with a spiked fist at the ready.

That is a grave mistake.

Spider-Man pulls himself up and out of the way, and you hit the water tower, splintering the wood like paper. Water gushes forth.

You stumble back, anger immediately crushed by panic. Half of you falls off and lands on the roof with a wet slap. Try as you might, you can’t pull the sand back to yourself; the muddy parts of you are sluggish and messy, and the water washing over it just makes it worse.

Avoid water if you can help it.

Shivers crawl up your body as you drag yourself to the edge of the building.

Through the haze, you vaguely hear Spider-Man splashing towards you.

“Wait,” he exclaims, sounding worried, “are you going to be okay?”

“Go away!” you screech, kicking a lump of mud at him.

In a strange, belated stroke of fortune, you manage to hit him square in the face. The vigilante sputters and pauses to wipe the gunk away.

You grip the edge of the parapet and look down at the alley below.

You’ll cut your losses.

With hardly a look at Spider-Man, you gather up the driest fragments of yourself and rip them away from the rest, diving down the side of the building in a cloud of sand. A bangle shoots through you, useless.

Pressing into a single layer, you dive underneath the cars packed onto the road. Every single particle of you trembles. You try to clear your mind; as long as you have your soul and the footage, you’ll be fine.

—

“You keep losing.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you choose this game?”

Pavitr’s face remains pressed into the carpet as he mopes. “Because I won’t win if I stop trying.”

“Fifty. Straight. Wins.” Hari gets up and stands over Pavitr. He plants a foot on his back and raises his fists to the ceiling. “I am the carrom champion!”

A long, muffled sigh. “I thought I’d have better luck today” – Pavitr grabs Hari’s foot and pulls him to the ground – “aha! Got you!"

“Ow! Hey!”

Arms and legs flailing, the two tussle around for a few seconds until Hari’s in a headlock, and that’s that.

“[Y/n],” Hari reaches for you in an exaggeratedly choked voice, “help me.”

You stay in your crisscrossed position on the floor. “It’s Pavitr’s birthday, not yours,” you reply solemnly.

Hari’s face falls at the same time Pavitr’s brightens.

“See, bro? That’s a true friend right there,” Pavitr states, roughing up Hari’s neatly combed hair with his knuckles. “Nice to know I have some support while my other friend beats me fifty games in a row.”

“That’s how you know I’m a true friend. I don’t let you win out of pity,” the other boy wheezes.

“Another round?”

“Fine, fine.”

“Kids? The cake’s here!”

All three of your heads snap towards Maya aunty’s voice.

“Cake first,” Pavitr decides, letting go of Hari.

He leads the way to the kitchen, followed by Hari and then you, where Maya aunty has already taken the cake out of the box.

It’s a beautiful cake. Large, too, ideal for a nice, thick slice for each of you and then some, slathered in buttery periwinkle frosting and lined with candied cherries and whipped cream. Written on the top is “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAVITR” in red icing.

“It’s perfect, Aunty,” Pavitr gushes as his aunt sticks fifteen candles in between the letters.

“You get the same one every year, Pavitr,” she replies, though the crinkles at the corners of her eyes betray her amusement.

After lighting the candles, you, Hari, and Maya aunty sing happy birthday to him. You feel a little awkward singing – you never really sing, much less in front of other people – but the joy coming off Pavitr in waves as he holds in his laughter makes you mind it less somehow. Hari is a lot louder than you and way more purposeful about being off-key, anyway.

Pavitr blows out all but one of the candles. He cuts out a piece of cake and feeds it to his aunt, then gets another piece for Hari.

When it’s your turn, he hesitates.

“Are you sure you can eat this?” he asks quietly.

You look at the chunk of cake, with its soft frosting and fluffy red velvet crumb, and you suddenly ache for it. “Yeah,” you lie, because you know that it will end up in the trash later, dry and undigested.

Pavitr grins and lifts the cake to your mouth. You take a bite, and even though the taste is dulled to almost nothing, you know that it’s unbearably delicious.

“Whoops. There’s some on your face,” he says, and before you can even register it, he’s swiping the frosting from the corner of your mouth and smearing it onto your nose instead.

Your heart jumps. “Oh.”

Pavitr laughs.

“Okay, our turn.” Hari cuts a piece of cake and pushes it towards Pavitr. “Say ah, birthday boy!”

“Ah – mmph.” Pavitr scrunches his nose as Hari smushes the dessert across his mouth and cheek. He licks his lips and considers the taste, nodding satisfactorily. “Mmm.”

After Pavitr’s gotten his share of the cake and washed the frosting off his face, the four of you have dinner. Maya aunty is exceedingly modest about her cooking, but it’s obvious that she spared no effort in making sure everything was perfect. Pavitr and Hari scarf down everything they can fit onto their plates. You manage to take a few tiny bites of the rice and milder dishes.

It’s the best meal you’ve had since you moved to Mumbattan, and it’s not because of the food.

When the driver from Oberoi Industries comes by to pick you up for another appointment with the Doctor, it’s already quite late at night.

“You sure you can’t hang out here a little longer?” Pavitr asks while you gather all your things at the door.

“No, my curfew’s pretty strict,” you say.

Truth be told, you wish you could just blow off the appointment and stay in the cheerful little bubble of the Prabhakar home forever, but you need to refill your medications and make sure you’re not falling apart. It’s also the weekend, which means that you’re on the clock to record yourself getting a beating from Spider-Man.

“Aw. Then I guess I have to release you,” he quips, letting you out the door. His voice softens. “Thanks for coming, [Y/n]. It means a lot to me.”

You shuffle your feet, then look back up at him. “Thanks for inviting me,” you say, and you mean it. “I had fun. Happy birthday.”

Pav smiles.

As you walk down the steps and towards the sleek black car parked nearby, you find yourself wishing that your parents had been able to come to the party. They would have enjoyed it, you’re sure, and they would have gotten along well with Maya aunty. Maybe they would’ve remembered what it was like to actually be happy.

You miss home.

—

It’s Tuesday night and your parents are arguing again.

“He’s taking advantage of us. You know this.”

“And what can we do about it? Huh? After the accident, we didn’t know if [Y/n] would even survive. We should be thankful that Aadi had connections to Mr. Oberoi and his technology.”

“Do not give him credit. Aadi” – Ma seethes out your uncle’s name – “is the one who brought [Y/n] to the factory in the first place. This whole ordeal is his fault! He’s the reason why my child is suffering and why our life is like this!”

“He isn’t the one who caused the explosion!”

“That factory was never safe to begin with! Neither of you should’ve been working there!”

Peeking around the corner, you see Papa throw his hands up. “Ah, so it’s somehow my fault as well, then?”

Their voices grow louder, and you unstick your feet from the floor, softening them to creep silently back into the hallway and into your room. You crawl into bed and wrap your pillow around your ears.

For as long as you can remember, your parents have been soft-spoken, nonconfrontational people. They rarely fought before the move. Now, this same conversation happens every other day and ends the same way every time: no resolution, just yelling until one of them storms off to cool down in their bedroom. What starts with Mr. Oberoi and the contract veers into a bitter tangle of what should’ve been done and whose fault it is for how things have turned out.

You, of course, are at the root of it all.

The noise seeps in through your pillow. You uncover your ears and lay flat on your back.

For a moment, you contemplate texting Pav or Hari to distract yourself. But you never initiate a texting conversation, and to do so randomly and this late at night is bound to raise some unwanted questions, so you quickly discard the idea. Besides, after what happened today, you’re not too keen on speaking to Pav.

Your gaze slides over from the ceiling to your window. The curtains are drawn, dark and heavy. You don’t exactly feel like you’re in your own body when you get out of bed to push them open a crack.

Outside, Mumbattan is just as awake as you are. City lights twinkle in rows and columns, urban stars that flush out the blackness of night. When you open the window, sirens whine in the distance. There are people laughing on the street two floors below.

The sight of that world, moving, oblivious, fills you with something frantic. You close the curtains again and slip through them in a thread of sand, heading straight up to the roof.

The air is warm and thick as you fly from building to building, letting motor memory take over. It’s a poor decision to make; if you had paused for a moment to think about where it would take you, perhaps you would’ve just stayed in your room.

Because the next thing you know, Oberoi Tower is looming in front of you, tall and unobstructed by the rest of the city.

You skid to a stop. A single thought comes together as your body does, burning hot as it crawls into your throat and scorches your tongue behind your teeth. You let it out.

“I HATE YOU!” you scream at Oberoi Tower. “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”

For as long as you can, you scream at Oberoi and the Doctor and the rest of Mumbattan. You scream at them for making your parents fight, for taking you away from your home, for taking away the rest of your humanity. You scream until your voice gives out and your throat feels brittle.

Then you crumple onto the filthy roof. There is no relief as you sob; you don’t have any tears to cry out.

“… Excuse me?”

On instinct, your skin hardens and your hands curl into fists. You force yourself to still, lifting your head to peer up at Spider-Man.

He glances around, then squats down to your level to return your gaze.

“Hi,” he says gently. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you say. You tell yourself that you’re not here to fight him. “Just had a crappy day.”

“How so?”

“Don’t you have bad guys to take care of?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Well, can you leave me alone anyway?”

“I’m afraid not.” Spider-Man reaches out to pat your shoulders. “You’re important to me. I mean, not in a personal sense! But in the sense that I protect Mumbattan’s citizens, and you are a completely random citizen of Mumbattan who I want to help.”

You hug your knees to your chest. “Whatever.”

Glaring at the ground beside you, you hope that he takes the hint that you’re not in danger and that he should leave. He doesn’t.

After a few minutes, you shoot him an irritated glance.

He raises his hands. “I was just thinking that maybe you’d want to talk about it or something. Sometimes it’s nice to vent to somebody on the outside.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, I’m also not comfortable just leaving you alone on top of a random building in the middle of the night. Some of the villains around here can fly. It’d be super easy for them to just pluck you up like some sort of giant, freaky, predatory bird, you know? I’ve seen it.”

You scoff. “Not that easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” you mutter, scooting back so you can stretch your legs out and put more distance between you and the masked hero. “I’ll be fine. Leave me alone.”

“I’m serious! This isn’t the safest part of the city. I can swing you back home when you’re ready – I’d feel better knowing that you got back home safe and sound.”

The thread snaps.

“Can you stop that?” you bark. “Just stop.”

Spider-Man blinks. “… Stop what?” he questions, sounding a little hurt. “I’m just –”

“Doing your duty? Whatever. It’s so annoying. You’re always acting so good, and like you actually care. I bet you’ve never done a bad thing in your entire life. Everything comes so easily to you.”

“That’s not true,” he says quietly.

“Prove it.”

“I can’t.”

“Then leave me alone,” you say. You know that you’re being mean. You can’t stop yourself, and you don’t care.

The vigilante regards you thoughtfully, big, white eyes staring into your own until you turn away with a scoff.  

“I’ll leave you alone if you answer my question,” Spider-Man finally says.

“Okay, fine.”

“My Spider-Sense –”

“Your what.”

“It’s a danger detector in my head – anyway, it’s going off right now.” He points at his head with both hands. “It’s been going off since I met you. I checked and it looks like this building is abandoned, so I can only assume that you have something to do with” – you stand up, and he sputters – “hey, where are you going? Am I correct?”

“No,” you say, walking away.

“I don’t believe you,” Spider-Man protests, even while you look for a normal way down. “You have to be honest or it doesn’t count.”

“You just don’t like my answer.”

“I don’t like your answer because it’s not the truth.”

“It is the truth.” The door leading into the building is locked. You step closer to hide the doorknob and quickly unlock it with your thumb, and once you’ve opened the door, you look over your shoulder to see Spider-Man standing in the same place where you had left him. “And even if it wasn’t, it’s none of your business. I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Not even yourself?”

Your face pinches into something sour, and he sighs, loud enough for you to hear across the distance you’ve put between the two of you.

“I’m sure you have people who care a lot about you,” Spider-Man says. “You can talk to them, you know?”

“Not really.”

“They might understand more than you think.”

“I doubt it,” you say.

With that, you start down the staircase, leaving Spider-Man behind to huff and puff.

Because you know that he’ll try to follow you home, you split yourself into tiny threads once you’re far enough into the building and escape through several different floors and windows. It’s a hassle and you’re annoyed the entire time, but it’s better than walking the streets alone, even if there’s a masked menace watching from the rooftops.

He’ll probably stress out once he realizes you’ve slipped under his radar. Good. It’s what he deserves for acting like he knows you.

—

“Alright. This is an intervention.”

“What do you mean?” you reply stiffly.

“You’re well aware of what I mean,” Hari says, sitting across from you. “You and Pav.”

At the mention of his name, you look away, crossing your arms.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but it’s been one week, and both of you are acting weird, and I’m getting tired of it.”

“I’m not acting weird. He’s acting weird.”

Hari’s dark eyes narrow. The deep frown on his face suddenly reminds you of his father, and you squirm.

“I saw your face last Friday when Pav was talking to Gayatri,” he states. “It’s not too hard to connect the dots.”

Your jaw clenches. Hari has never bothered to mince words; this subject is no exception, it seems.

“Look.” Hari leans forward and keeps his voice down. “I’m his best friend, so I know everything about him. Pav’s had a crush on Gayatri for two years. He’s talked to her a total of three times, and the first two times, he totally botched it.”

“He didn’t botch it last Friday,” you mumble.

“Exactly!” he exclaims, then coughs and lowers his voice even further. “Exactly. Do you remember what he was like after he was done talking to her?”

This conversation is making you more miserable by the minute.

You shrug despondently. “I dunno.”

“I asked him how it went, and he said it was good.”

“Good, then.”

Hari sighs in frustration. “No, listen to me. You don’t understand how Pav functions. If he still had a crush on her, he wouldn’t have shut up about that conversation for the rest of the day. He would’ve been floating down the hallway and asking me how to ask her out. But he was almost normal about it.”

He’s trying to make a point, but it completely eludes you. “What are you saying?” you ask.

“I’m saying you have a chance,” Hari says, “because I don’t think he likes Gayatri anymore.”

Your shoulders tense.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” you insist, a vague sense of panic rising up from within. “He’s always liked Gayatri.”

“Well, something’s changed since this weekend, and it’s not Gayatri. In my professional opinion, I think Pav’s starting to realize that he likes you.”

You get up from your seat.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“You two can deny it all you like, but I’m right,” Hari calls after you. You cringe and hide your face as you hurry out of the cafeteria. “I’m right!”

Chest tight, you push past the stream of students heading in the opposite direction and make a beeline to the library. It’s on the other side of the school, so walking there gives you plenty of distance from Hari and plenty of time for his words to hurtle around at light speed in your head.

You have a chance, because he doesn’t like Gayatri anymore.

Hari doesn’t know everything, you think with gritted teeth. People don’t like Gayatri Singh for two years and then suddenly move on to a nobody they’ve only known for four months. Gayatri is classy and smart and pretty, and she doesn’t have a freakish alter ego who fights Mumbattan’s beloved Spider-Man three days a week. Of course Pav still likes her. You’re not even in the equation, and you’re angry that Hari even brought it up.

Turning the corner, you smack face-first into another body.

“Sor – oh.”

Pav rubs his forehead as he stares at you, mouth forming different words that are ultimately left unsaid. You grip the straps of your backpack and look away.

“Hey!” he says after a full thirty seconds have passed, putting his hands on his hips. “I thought Hari was helping you with something.”

“He wasn’t much help,” you mumble, stepping to the side.

He seems surprised. “Really?”

You shake your head. As you try to walk past him to finally enter the library, Pav grasps your shoulder and moves to block your path.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

You swallow dryly.

This is the kind of weird you and Hari have noticed this week. In fact, Pav had texted you this exact same question last Friday night, following an unprompted conversation he’d initiated just ten minutes before you had snuck back into your bedroom. You’d waited a bit and then replied that you were fine. Just tired. The answer had appeared to satisfy him then, but when you got to school on Monday, he asked you again and it was in a way that sounded like he thought you weren’t doing fine. You had given him the same answer.

Now here he is, asking that question for the third time, and part of you is afraid that he knows.

“Fine. Just tired.”

“I see.” Pav looks slightly disappointed. “You should get more sleep.”

“I know.”

“If you ever need to talk about anything, you know you can talk to me, right?”

Weird. “… Yeah.”

He nods slowly, brow furrowed, and – oh, he’s patting your shoulders. You’re suddenly struck with a sense of déjà vu. “You’re important to me, so I just wanted you to know that I’m here to listen if anything’s bothering you.”

Even weirder, you tell yourself desperately, even as his words plunge deep into your soul and make your mind go fuzzy. “Okay,” you reply, Pav’s hands leaving spots of warmth as he draws away. “Thanks.”

He smiles, and all you see is kindness. “No problem. That’s what friends are for, right?”

You didn’t know that the word could mean so much to you and cause so much pain at the same time until now.

“You’re …” The words almost make you choke, but you take in a breath and force them out with a firm honesty. “You’re a good friend, Pav,” you say, then duck away and rush into the library.

You hate yourself.

—

Gayatri begins hanging out with the three of you. You don’t see her on a daily basis, as she has her own friend group and a busy modeling schedule, but it’s enough that you get to know her a little better. She’s mostly what you expect – very warm, very personable and quick-witted. When you follow her on social media, you learn that she’s also an avid meme enthusiast and shares at least five of them on her story every day.

You think that she and Pav have something going on. Hari disagrees.

(“They just have compatible personalities,” he says.)

(“Which makes them dating more likely,” you say.)

(“Please. As if Pav would last one day keeping that a secret from us.”)

Eventually, Gayatri invites you, Pav, and Hari to try out a new Italian restaurant after school. Pav can’t go because of … well, he doesn’t really specify and leaves in a hasty manner, and Hari has tuition classes, so it ends up being only you and Gayatri who board the bus to Lower Mumbattan.

“I want to try their pasta alla Norma,” she tells you while you’re buried in traffic on the bridge. “Here, look at the menu.”

You gingerly take her phone and scroll through the appetizers and main dishes. Over time, you’ve learned that you can hold drier foods the longest, so you point out the focaccia and Gayatri seems to approve.

“Oh, focaccia is sooo good,” she exclaims. “Good choice.”

You share a small grin with her. You do like Gayatri, even though you envy her sometimes.

Your thoughts are interrupted by a passenger’s scream.

“The building!”

A shadow falls across the bridge. When you look towards the front of the bus, the sand around your soul suddenly contracts.

It’s like something from a movie. Slow-motion. A giant building tearing away from the cliffside, blocking out the sky. A collective pause as everyone holds their breath in disbelief.

Then chunks of stone and metal begin to rain down, and the dead silence erupts into chaos.

Gayatri’s phone flies out of your hands as the bus lurches forward, a monstrous tremor shooting up from the ground and through your body. You catch yourself on the back of the seat in front of you and push yourself into a standing position. Around you, people are crying and screaming and praying and banging against the windows and throwing themselves against the doors.

Someone shakes your shoulders.

“The emergency exit,” Gayatri yells, pointing at the rear window.

Her eyes are wide, panicked, but determined. Trembling, you follow her to the back of the bus.

The handle for the emergency exit is jammed. Both of you jostle it, pull at it, push the window, but it doesn’t budge.

“We need to break the window,” you mutter. “We need to –”

There’s a devastating crunch behind you.

You and Gayatri whip your heads around, and the mayhem around you increases tenfold as the bus tilts forward and you stare down into the void below.

Gayatri lets out a choked gasp. “Break the window,” she tells you, banging her fist against the glass with a renewed vigor. “We can’t die. I don’t want to die!”

Your gaze shoots upward towards the roof vent. Clarity hits you like a punch to the gut.

The bus has a ventilation system. You could escape right now – duck under the seats and turn into a cloud of sand while everyone’s distracted, squeeze through the vent and leave. And even if you didn’t, you’d more than likely survive anyway. When the dust settles at the bottom of Mumbattan, you could gather yourself up from in between the twisted metal and debris, from in between the mangled bodies.

You’re not trapped here. You’re not going to die.

The bus tilts further, and you glance over at Gayatri. She’s not crying, but her eyebrows are pinched together, and her breaths are heavy as she continues to hit the window.

You grit your teeth. What are you even thinking?

“[Y/n], I think –”

“Move,” you order. Then you shove her and the nearby passengers down, form your arm into a pickaxe, and swing it at the window.

The window shatters just as the bus tips over the edge.

With a gasp, you stretch out to grab the bridge. Your sand finds purchase on a piece of road that juts out, but the weight is too much, and the asphalt crumbles with your arm as the bus begins to plummet down towards the earth.

There’s a moment when you simply float.

You’ve dived off buildings in Mumbattan many times, and the act of falling, you find, is always the same. There is, first, the decision to jump. After that is the actual jump. But right before you begin to fall, there’s an instant in which gravity forgets your existence. The air wraps around you, and you simply float.

In that very moment, you close your eyes.

Gravity remembers you soon after. When you open your eyes again, the wind rushing past you, you register a small, bright spot of red in the distance.

A web shoots past you and grabs the bus. It jerks to a stop in mid-air. You don’t, so you tumble back into it through the broken window. Grabbing the edge, you stare up at Spider-Man as he dangles from the bridge.

Gayatri shouts your name. You bite your lip and tear your eyes away to meet hers.

“Gayatri,” you manage, afraid of what she’ll say, “I … I –”

“Are you okay?” she asks you.

You gawk at her. The bus drops another foot, preventing you from answering right away as you hang on for dear life.

“I’m all right,” you tell her once the bus is still again. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not hurt.”

Good. That’s good. “I’m going to go up,” you say, “to help Spider-Man. It’s going to be okay.”

Gayatri frowns and nods.

You disperse into a haze of sand, climbing up the web towards the bridge. Once you reach Spider-Man’s hand, you jump to the edge of the hole and reform.

Now it’s your turn to be gawked at. “[Y/n]?” Spider-Man wheezes, even as he strains to lift the bus up.

“Let me help,” you demand.

He gestures over his shoulder. “I’m fine – Inspector Singh – he’s down there with a kid –”

Turning your head, you spot Gayatri’s father in the middle of the road, a child in his arms while debris slams into the ground around them. Without wasting another second, you fly towards them.

Right as you reach the two, a black and red blur scoops them up and dashes through you. You immediately match their pace and form a veil over them. Pieces of concrete and glass dig into your sand as buildings collapse, but you focus on the bodies beneath you, breathing and alive.

You can see Spider-Man just up ahead. He’s managed to pull himself up onto the bridge.

Before you can call out to him, something smashes onto you from above.

When you break out of your daze, you realize that you’ve been buried underneath a chunk of building.

“Is everyone okay?” you hear someone say in English. You put yourself together as the kid and Inspector Singh answer an affirmative. “Hey, are you okay?”

You realize that the suited guy is talking to you. Vision adjusting to the darkness, you notice that he looks, strangely, like a different version of Spider-Man. “Oh,” you croak, picking out a shard of glass from your back. “Yes, I’m okay.”

“Can you help me lift this, then?”

“Yeah.”

The two of you work on pushing the rubble out of the way. “If you weren’t covering us, I dunno if we would’ve made it,” Spider-Man Two says. “Thanks.”

You shrug, flustered.

“Miles!”

Light floods your senses as someone helps push the piece of building up and away from you. You’re met with a third Spider-Man variant. The eyes are all the same, you realize.

Nearby, Inspector Singh gets up with a grunt. He adjusts his glasses, then smiles slightly in response to all of your questioning glances.

“Sir,” Spider-Man Two says, lifting the child into his arms.

Inspector Singh merely nods. He looks past the four of you, and he quickly stands up. “Gayatri,” he murmurs.

You watch as Gayatri runs into her father’s arms.

As they talk, the original Spider-Man comes up to stand beside you.

“So,” he says, and you flinch even though he makes no move to hurt you. “You’re the Sand.”

You shift your feet. “Yes.”

“I had a feeling.”

“How?”

“We’ll need to talk about it later,” he says, perking up as Gayatri waves the two of you over. “In any case, I’m glad you’re unhurt after all this. You realize you’re a hero now, right?”

“I’m not a hero,” you say.

Spider-Man just laughs. He claps a hand on your back as the two of you walk towards Gayatri and Inspector Singh.

“I’ve heard that before.”

—

Mumbattan is in a state of chaos for the next few hours, as a black hole forms underneath the bridge and a bunch of other Spider-People appear out of nowhere to contain it. Spider-Man’s friends go off somewhere, leaving him to help out with damage control and finding survivors. You join him after calling your parents (who are perfectly fine if not slightly hysterical), and it isn’t until after dark that the two of you are able to talk in private.

“What did you want to talk about?” you ask Spider-Man, legs dangling from the roof of a building. You can see the collapsed bridge from here, illuminated by lights as the city continues to work.

Spider-Man jumps onto the parapet and sits down next to you, crisscross style. “Several different things,” he replies. “It all points back to you, though.”

Understandable. Well, your connection to Oberoi Industries is severed for sure once your face shows up in the news, so you might as well tell him everything.

So you do. You tell him that you’re a mutant, that your X-gene was only partially activated almost a year ago in a factory explosion. You tell him that Nalin Oberoi sponsored your family to move to Mumbattan so he and his doctor could trigger your mutation fully and use it to record business partners and your fights with Spider-Man. You tell him about the broken contract because you revealed your identity, about the jobs and money that your family will not have anymore, and that you have absolutely no clue what will happen now.

And his reaction is … stunned. Indignant. He asks about Nalin Oberoi several times, but he also asks if you have a safe place to stay. He presses a fist to his mouth in thought, then exhales. You almost worry, having never seen him so still, but when he speaks again, his voice is calm.  

“All right. Well, that explains a lot, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t seem comfortable in your own body when we first met,” he says. He leans back on his hands, hair ruffled by the warm breeze passing through. “Like it wasn’t yours.”

The fact that he had sensed that so early on doesn’t surprise you anymore. You’re still not comfortable in this body, not yet. You wonder if you ever will be.

“I don’t know if it’s mine anymore.”

Spider-Man shakes his head harshly. “It is yours,” he replies firmly, and you stiffen with surprise when he grabs your hand, the rough fabric warm on your skin. “I got my powers by accident, too, but I’m still me.”

Your eyes widen. “You were in an accident too?”

“Yeah – er, sort of? I got bit by a radioactive spider …” he slumps forward a bit, “which sounds super lame compared to surviving a factory explosion – not that you getting exploded was cool or anything, because that was extremely not cool!”

“It wasn’t. But I guess it’s a cooler origin story than a bug bite.”

You smile. Spider-Man chuckles sheepishly.

The two of you sit quietly, looking out at the night-washed cityscape of Mumbattan. The familiarity of this situation does not escape you; neither does the fact that despite everything, you feel much, much better now than you did then, like a wound that’s finally been cleaned out. A second chance. Maybe you and Mumbattan will be okay.

After a long while, you hear Spider-Man take in a deep breath like he’s about to say something.

You wait.

And wait.

Eventually, he hangs his head. “Sorry,” he says. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“What is?”

“Well, I know your secret identity now.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I … am considering telling you mine.”

You blink rapidly, baffled.

“What?” you reply. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Given what I now know about you, and about myself … it might actually be for the best.” Observing you, he seems almost shy, and his fingers squeeze around your hand just the slightest. (Oh, he’s still holding your hand.) “That is, if you’re okay with me telling you.”

“You trust me?”

“You’re my friend,” he says. “Of course I trust you.”

That’s a weird thing to say, you think, to someone who’s tried to throw you off a building several times. But logic says nothing of whatever fluffs up in your chest at his words. You don’t have many friends, and trust is hard to come by when you’re a mutant.

“Okay,” you say.

His eyes crescent as he lets go of you. “Great,” he chirps, though he’s betrayed by the slightly higher pitch of his voice. He reaches up to hook his thumbs underneath the edge of his mask before pausing. “Er … please don’t freak out, okay?”

You nod and hold your breath.

—

“Just for the record,” Hari announces seriously, his head popping out from behind the giant paper bag of snacks as he catches up to the rest of you, “I don’t care what our school said about you. You’re totally badass.”

You can’t help the smile that tugs at your cheeks. “Thanks, Hari.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“He’s just excited to see the X-Mansion,” Pav jibes, elbowing Hari with a grin. “Suck-up.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Gayatri says. “They’re heroes. And so is [Y/n].”

“I’m not –” You meet Pav’s narrowed eyes and correct yourself, straightening your posture as you fix your gaze upon the enormous building just a few meters away. “Not a real hero … yet. But I’ll try.”

Your parents join the four of you inside the X-Mansion, hauling one too many bags for your dorm room. For a moment, all of you look in awe at the interior, the marble floors, the furniture; you watch mutants your age milling about without cowering or hiding, and you feel … safe.

Hari lets out a gasp and clutches his hair. “No way. Is that an original photo of the X-Men with the Fantastic Four?!”

As Gayatri and your parents follow him to the wall where the photo is, you take the chance to turn to Pav. He is already looking at you, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth, and your cheeks warm at the sight.

Without a tip from Spider-Man, you and your parents wouldn’t have known to contact the Institute so early on. A little encouragement from Maya aunty and Gayatri’s father went a long way as well.

Of course, you will miss your friends. But maybe that is a blessing in itself, that you have friends to miss, and that they are good ones.

“Pav?”

“Yes?”

The words lie heavy on your tongue. You let them loose with less fear than you would have before. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me,” he replies. His hand brushes yours, and then he gently takes your hand. His eyes skate across your face, and he must find something good, because his shoulders relax and his smile widens. “Just meet me on the right side, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And – and remember to call!”

You laugh. Pav only looks a little bashful before it’s overtaken by his usual sunniness.

“Yeah, okay.”

The two of you join everybody else in front of the photo. You look up at the group of heroes on the wall, larger than life within the wooden frame, staring into the camera and at you. Your fingers interlace with Pavitr’s and he squeezes in return.