Elenagilbertluvr

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

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

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

hypothetically, its eyes might turn entirely black.

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

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

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

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

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

a typed schedule is taped beside the door.

dr. bruce banner

advanced theoretical physics

office hours: tuesday and thursday, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

peter checks the time.

4:47.

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

he knocks twice.

“come in,” bruce calls from inside.

peter opens the door.

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

he looks up from the paper he is grading.

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

peter steps inside and closes the door gently behind him.

“thank you, professor,” peter replies.

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

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

bruce’s eyebrows lift.

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

“from where?” bruce asks.

“the hallway.”

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

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

the answer peter prepared still catches in his throat.

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

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

“just ned is fine.”

the pen stops above the page.

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

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

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

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

a narrow device circles his forearm. 

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

the question leaves him before he can reconsider it.

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

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

“this?” bruce asks.

peter nods.

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

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

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

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

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

he looks down at the device again.

“does it get rid of him?” peter asks.

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

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

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

“then what does it do?” peter asks.

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

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

peter watches the light pulse once beneath the cotton. 

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

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

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

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

the words remain between them.

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

“hypothetically,” he begins.

bruce inclines his head. “hypothetically.”

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

bruce doesn’t reach for the blank paper again.

“what kind of mutation?” he asks.

“genetic.”

“as are most mutations.”

peter traces one finger beneath a line in his notebook.

“nonhuman dna introduced into a human organism.”

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

peter hesitates.

“arachnid,” he answers.

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

“what kind of arachnid?” bruce asks.

“does the species matter?”

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

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

bruce remains still.

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

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

“and then it doesn’t,” bruce says.

it isn’t phrased as a question. 

peter tightens his grip on the edge of the book.

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

bruce reaches for his pen but does not write anything.

“how difficult?” he asks.

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

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

“heartbeats become distracting,” peter finishes.

“painful?” bruce asks.

“sometimes.”

“headaches?”

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

“possibly,” he corrects.

bruce’s gaze lingers on his face.

“what else?” the professor asks.

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

“heightened aggression,” he says.

rain presses more heavily against the windows.

“general aggression?” bruce asks.

“defensive.”

“toward threats against the organism?”

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

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

bruce turns the pen once between his fingers.

“territorial behavior,” he observes.

“not exactly.”

“protective behavior, then.”

peter says nothing. bruce waits.

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

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

bruce’s pen becomes still.

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

“yes.”

“does he remember them afterward?”

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

he looks toward the window.

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

each sound arrives separately. each one demands his attention.

bruce notices the direction of his gaze.

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

peter turns back toward him. “hypothetically?”

“of course,” bruce replies.

“a few months.”

“and the aggression?”

“more recently.”

“has the subject injured anyone?”

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

“no.”

“come close?”

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

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

“yes,” peter answers.

bruce looks down at the untouched paper beside his hand.

“you mentioned physical changes,” he says.

peter’s shoulders tighten. “did i?”

“you said certain traits were becoming more pronounced.”

“right.”

bruce waits again.

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

“the eyes change,” he says eventually.

“how?”

“the pupils expand.”

“from adrenaline?” bruce asks.

“past the iris.”

bruce’s expression remains carefully neutral.

“the sclera?” he asks.

peter nods.

“entirely black?”

the question is quiet. peter closes the textbook.

“hypothetically,” he says.

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

bruce leans back.

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

peter looks at him.

“an inhibitor.”

“for the mutation?”

“for the increased expression.”

“without suppressing the beneficial traits,” bruce says.

“ideally.”

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

peter doesn’t ask how he knows. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

social isolation as environmental pressure?

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

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

peter rubs his thumb against the worn backpack strap.

“hypothetically,” he answers.

something close to amusement touches bruce’s face.

“hypothetically,” bruce repeats.

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

“why this variable?” bruce asks.

peter follows his gaze.

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

bruce nods once. “they can.”

“some spiders do too,” peter says.

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

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

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

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

“and then?”

“then the subject spent an extended period alone.”

“how extended?”

peter’s fingers tighten on the backpack strap.

“four years,” he answers.

bruce’s gaze lifts.

“without meaningful social contact?”

the question settles too close to the truth.

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

he thinks about you.

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

“mostly,” he says.

bruce looks down at the pages again.

“this inhibitor suppresses everything,” he observes.

peter nods. “that was the idea.”

“was?”

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

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

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

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

selective regulation.

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

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

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

bruce rests one hand lightly over the papers.

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

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

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

it feels like the beginning of an answer.

—

the headaches begin with queens.

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

nothing about it should make pressure gather behind your eyes.

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

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

you never remember what.

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

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

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

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

the pain strikes before the sentence is finished.

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

a rooftop beneath a summer sky.

red fabric moving beside you.

a young voice laughing.

you turn toward him.

his face is missing.

not blurred. not hidden beneath a mask. missing.

there is only sunlight where his features should be.

the memory collapses before you can speak.

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

you lower your hand. tony notices anyway.

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

he waits until the meeting ends.

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

“headache?” tony asks.

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

“just tired,” you reply.

“you slept nine hours.”

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

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

“that’s worse.”

“you’ve been getting them a lot.”

“i’ve had three.”

“you’ve had seven,” he corrects.

your mouth closes. tony raises his eyebrows.

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

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

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

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

“absolutely not.”

“that sounded like a challenge.”

“it was a refusal.”

“same thing in this family.”

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

“i’m fine,” you insist.

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

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

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

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

“they’re just headaches,” you murmur.

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

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

“fine,” you concede.

his grip loosens immediately.

“tomorrow,” tony says.

“next week.”

“tomorrow.”

“you’re impossible.”

“it’s genetic,” he replies.

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

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

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

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

“you always do that.”

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

you turn.

the hallway is empty.

—

bruce finds nothing.

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

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

tony leans closer to the monitor.

“you said normal too quickly,” he accuses.

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

“normal is suspicious.”

“only to you.”

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

you rub the small adhesive mark near your temple.

“so i can go?” you ask.

“not yet,” tony answers before bruce can.

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

“have you noticed any triggers?” bruce asks.

“lack of patience.”

“helpful,” your father mutters.

you look toward the rain crawling down the glass.

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

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

“queens.”

your father’s expression changes.

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

bruce notices too.

“anything else?” he asks.

you hesitate.

“spider-man,” you answer.

the name feels strange in your mouth. 

not unfamiliar, but the opposite. too familiar.

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

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

“i see it,” bruce replies.

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

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

you close your eyes.

red gloves.

a hand reaching for yours.

the view from somewhere too high above the city.

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

“flashes,” you admit.

tony straightens. “flashes of what?”

“i don’t know.”

you open your eyes. both men watch you.

“they disappear too fast,” you add.

“memories?” bruce asks.

“they don’t feel like mine.”

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

that is what frightens you.

—

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

you know the story everyone knows.

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

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

you wait until evening to ask.

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

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

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

he keeps his attention on the repulsor.

“the internet,” tony replies.

“seriously.”

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

“you recruited him from a video?”

“there were several videos.”

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

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

“did you know who he was?” you ask.

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

“the kid wore a mask,” tony answers.

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

“i’ve made worse decisions.”

“not many.”

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

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

“what’s this about?” he asks.

“it doesn’t make sense.”

“most of my life doesn’t make sense.”

“you don’t trust anyone.”

“i trust people.”

“you ran a background check on my dentist.”

“he had bad reviews.”

“yeah, for parking.”

“patterns matter,” tony says.

you slide off the workbench and lean against it instead.

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

tony looks down at the repulsor.

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

your chest tightens.

“you don’t remember.”

his jaw shifts.

“i remember recruiting him.”

“do you?”

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

he doesn’t take it.

“dad.”

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

“what was her name?”

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

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

“i don’t know,” he admits.

you lower the wrench.

“what did he look like?”

tony’s gaze shifts toward yours.

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

“i don’t know,” he repeats.

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

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

“hey,” tony says. “sit down.”

you hear him, but the workshop has already disappeared.

you are somewhere else. somewhere smaller, warmer.

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

“look at me,” he says.

you try. the memory won’t allow it.

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

“i’m right here,” he murmurs.

your chest breaks around the sound of his voice.

then the workshop returns.

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

“what did you see?” tony asks.

you try to answer. the memory is already slipping.

“someone,” you whisper.

—

the dreams worsen after that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

sometimes you wake with tears already cooling against your temples. 

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

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

you begin keeping notes.

red sleeve.

web pattern.

rooftop.

coffee too sweet.

“you’re staring,” pepper says.

you look up from the notebook.

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

you close the notebook halfway.

“thinking,” you reply.

“dangerous habit.”

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

pepper smiles faintly before glancing toward the page.

“more headaches?” she asks.

you nod.

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

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

her hand stills.

“from where?”

“everywhere.”

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

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

“him?” pepper asks.

you nod. pepper considers that quietly.

“does he feel familiar?”

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

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

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

“what?” you ask.

“nothing.”

“that wasn’t nothing.”

she presses her lips together before looking at you.

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

your pulse stutters.

“about spider-man?”

pepper’s gaze shifts toward the window.

that is answer enough.

—

peter returns to bruce’s office the following tuesday.

he nearly doesn’t.

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

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

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

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

the building is louder in the afternoon.

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

he presses two fingers against the base of his skull.

the headaches start there now.

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

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

bruce appears in the doorway.

“ned,” he greets.

peter pushes away from the window.

“professor,” he replies.

bruce steps aside.

peter hears your heartbeat before he enters.

he stops.

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

four years disappear.

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

then he remembers.

you don’t know him.

peter keeps one hand around the doorframe.

“something wrong?” bruce asks.

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

he enters.

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

the breath leaves you. peter hears it.

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

he knows he should leave.

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

“you’re early,” bruce tells you.

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

“did it work?”

“for now.”

bruce closes the folder beside his elbow.

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

the name makes peter’s stomach tighten.

you look at him more closely.

“ned,” you repeat.

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

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

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

“have we met?” you ask.

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

“i don’t think so,” he says.

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

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

that makes it worse. 

peter forces himself to breathe.

“sorry,” he says.

“for what?” you ask.

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

“nothing,” peter replies.

your gaze remains on him.

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

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

peter looks up.

you rub the edge of the page beneath your thumb.

“so i’m imagining them,” you say.

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

“it’s what my father heard.”

bruce exhales softly through his nose.

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

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

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

the radiator beside him clicks. you flinch.

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

peter is out of his chair before thought catches up.

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

“easy,” he murmurs.

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

peter stops breathing. bruce notices.

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

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

you stare down at your joined hands.

a memory flashes behind your eyes.

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

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

peter goes still.

bruce leans closer. “what did you see?”

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

“i don’t know,” you whisper.

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

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

“i’m sorry,” he says again.

you watch him.

“you keep saying that.”

his mouth closes.

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

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

peter nods before the request is finished.

“yeah,” he replies. “sure.”

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

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

“wait,” you call.

peter stops with his hand on the frame.

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

“ned isn’t your name,” you say.

peter’s shoulders tighten, and he looks back.

“yes, it is,” he lies.

pain pulses behind your eyes.

“no,” you reply. “it isn’t.”

his hand curls around the doorframe.

“you don’t know me.”

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

peter looks at you for another second.

then he leaves.

—

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

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

“who is ned?” you ask.

he finishes writing a comment before looking up.

“a student,” bruce replies.

“you said he isn’t in your class.”

“he isn’t.”

“so he isn’t your student.”

bruce caps his pen and rests it across the exam.

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

you close the office door behind you.

“about what?”

“i can’t tell you that.”

“because it’s confidential?”

“because it’s his.”

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

“he knows me,” you say.

bruce folds his hands over the folder.

“he reacted to you,” he replies.

“that isn’t the same thing.”

“no.”

you wait. bruce does too.

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

“you know who he is,” you accuse.

bruce’s gaze remains steady.

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

“is he dangerous?”

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

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

“what way do i mean?”

“malicious.”

you look toward the rain-streaked window.

“that wasn’t reassuring.”

“it wasn’t supposed to be.”

you turn back.

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

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

“why do you think it did?”

“because i know him.”

bruce doesn’t answer.

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

queens.

spider-man.

red gloves.

rooftop.

a boy without a face.

bruce reads the list without touching it.

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

“i remember,” bruce replies.

“do you remember who he was?”

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

“no,” he admits.

“does that make sense to you?”

“no.”

“then why is everyone acting like it does?”

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

bruce studies you.

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

“this doesn’t feel ordinary.”

“no,” bruce agrees. “it doesn’t.”

you close the notebook.

“tell ned i want to speak to him.”

bruce reaches for his pen again.

“i don’t think he’ll agree.”

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

a faint smile touches bruce’s mouth.

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

“don’t insult me.”

—

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

she knows something.

he considers never going back.

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

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

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

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

you sit inside bruce’s office when he arrives.

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

peter stops in the doorway.

you lift one of the cups.

“coffee?” you ask.

“i’m fine,” peter replies.

“you hate black coffee.”

the statement leaves before either of you can examine it.

peter’s fingers tighten around his backpack strap. 

you look down at the cup.

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

bruce watches from behind his desk.

peter hears the slight change in your heartbeat.

“i don’t hate it,” he says.

you look at him again.

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

peter cannot move.

a memory flickers through your mind.

a kitchen after midnight.

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

his face vanishes before he turns.

you press your fingertips against your temple.

peter takes a step toward you.

“don’t,” you warn.

he stops. hurt crosses his face.

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

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

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

“i do.”

“i don’t have answers.”

“you have at least one.”

peter remains by the door.

you place both cups on the sill and rise.

“what is your name?” you ask.

“ned.”

“no.”

“you don’t know that.”

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

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

“that isn’t how this works.”

“it can be.”

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

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

you notice.

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

peter looks at bruce.

bruce meets his gaze without offering rescue.

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

“i should go,” peter says.

you cross the space before he reaches the door.

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

the contact sends a memory through you.

the statue of liberty beneath a broken sky.

blood along peter’s cheek.

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

“promise me,” you beg.

“i promise,” he says.

you lose the rest.

your grip tightens.

“you promised me something,” you whisper.

peter’s face drains of color.

“let go,” he says.

“what did you promise?”

“please.”

“what did you promise me?”

a door slams in the hallway.

peter reacts before anyone else.

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

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

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

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

bruce rises from his chair.

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

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

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

“ned,” bruce says.

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

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

another memory cuts through you.

peter standing between you and a collapsing wall.

peter carrying you through smoke.

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

not for the first time.

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

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

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

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

“look at me,” you tell him.

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

“there is no threat,” you say.

peter’s breath catches.

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

“i know bruce.”

peter’s gaze flickers toward the professor.

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

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

he steps back.

“i’m sorry,” he says. the words sound exhausted.

you look at him.

“peter,” you repeat.

his eyes close.

“don’t.”

“that is your name.”

“not anymore.”

“what does that mean?”

he grabs his backpack from the floor.

“it means i can’t be here,” peter says.

he leaves before you stop him.