Chapter Text
“WHAT THE FUCK- WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUcK!” Peter swore; his voice cracking somewhat due to how high his emotions were running. He was staring at the giant screen that signified the exact moment in which his life came crashing down around him before turning around, adjusting himself on the lampost he was currently perched on.
“Hey!” someone in the crowd shouted. He tensed as he scanned the crowd for any hope that they wouldn't believe what they were shown.
“I- I didn’t…” he started, raising his hands in front of him defensively as the murmurs and chatter began to spread amongst the mob. He scratched his neck as the volume began to increase.
“Please I didn- I didn't do that!” he tried to shout over the growing energy of the crowd. His spidey sense flared as he ducked his head forward; the burrito narrowly missing the back of his head and flying forward into the crowd. He turned around indignantly to ask who threw that but didn't quite get the chance to do so before his senses flared again.
He turned to see what it was before getting smacked in the head with a soda. He sputtered and covered his face with his arm before scanning the crowd once more.
He locked eyes with MJ.
Her face was a mixture of emotions, he couldn't really tell from this distance. She was looking around at the crowd and back to him.
‘This is bad this is bad this is very bAD’ his thoughts screamed at him
He barely dodged a ball of tinfoil and in the process slammed his face directly into a bag full of groceries.
‘I have to get out of here’ he shook his head of the debris and the stray food before leaping from his perch on the lamp and swinging off.
Peter landed on the fire escape of his apartment. His breathing heavy and his senses in overdrive.
“What am I gonna do ohmygod I'm screwed” he muttered to himself sliding down the wall and sitting down.
He stared at the horizon; the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky warm colors that on a normal day; would be beautiful but he couldn't help but compare the bright oranges and reds to the flaming garbage pile that was his situation.
He looked down at his hands.
The red and black synthetic fibers woven carefully together that intertwined under his web shooters. He sighed, clicking his wrists together and watching the braces turn into nothing more than matching bracelets.
Peter couldn't exactly tell how long he had sat on the fire escape but by the time he managed to crawl into his bedroom window the moon was well across the sky already. He looked at his phone and watched as the messages came rolling in by the hundreds.
27 missed calls
99+ texts from may, ned, MJ, and happy.
The most notable of which was the one from MJ that was currently sitting atop his vast collection that read “Call me”.
He stared at it for a moment before putting his phone down and plugging it in. he laid down on his bed not bothering to change out of the suit. The events of today came crashing into him like the train he was hit by the week before.
‘-one 16 year old, peter parker-’ he winced.
So this was it huh? He thought to himself. It doesn't quite feel like it. Like a bad dream that had been bothering him for awhile just got a new addition. He sighed.
Never mind he thought as the weight settled in and constricted around his heart. His breath hitched and caught in his throat.
What are you gonna do? What would tony do? At the thought of his late mentor he let the heavy breath he was holding go. It was shaky and alarming at best, at worst it let all his vulnerabilities known to the world and was a very clear sign outside of the pain in his eyes that he was definitely about to cry. He stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth so he wouldn't do such a thing. The familiar pain welling up in the back of his throat before subsiding. He let out another shaky breath and closed his eyes
In the dead silence of his room he could hear snippets of the TV from the living room outside. That meant that may was awake. He internally groaned.
As much as he loved his aunt there was no way he'd be able to look at her right now. So instead of doing anything that'd alert may to his presence he laid there. In silence and listened.
“The death of one Quentin Beck today was revealed to supposedly be responsible by Queens local presence, Spider-Man; who had previously been seen around neighborhoods and city corners rescuing civilians from peril and offering a helping hand..” He shut the sound out of his head. He didn't need a reminder of today's events.
He spent most of the night staring into oblivion wondering where exactly things went wrong. The moonlight came and went; his room slowly lighting up with the morning sunrise.
His throat sore with all the heavy breathing and the wheezing, maybe even from the small amount of crying he had done because of the painful realization that the world thinks im a murderer and everybody knows who I am and- and an-
He screams something incoherent into his pillow.
Everybody knows... The thought echoes in his mind.
Everybody knows…. They know…. They're… gonna find him… gonna find his friends… his family…
They're in danger. The thought creeps up on him further.
Just by knowing you, you've put your friends, your family, everybody who even knows your name. Is in danger.
no . no no no no no. his mind yelled over the noise. His thoughts hissing and boiling over with an intensity he hasn't experienced. His mind flashes back to Prague, the bridge with MJ and the events following.
Anybody who knows is in danger. He said before heading off and making new enemies. Who now have his identity, he added.
Peter wanted nothing more than to sleep and hope this was all a bad dream. However it seemed that that wasn't an option.
He got up, his muscles aching from laying still all night.
He grabs his phone off the nightstand and scrolls through the plethora of notifications from yesterday. They're all noise to him. The words entering his sight but not actually registering. He reads “call me” over and over and over for what feels like forever before decides that that's enough and settles on patrolling.
Or trying to patrol. He doesn't get too far; maybe a mile or two before he can't bring himself to go further. The bag he brought with him seemingly weighing him down, even if it was just spare clothes plus his wallet and keys.
3 ½ pounds never felt heavier in his life.
His stomach growls. Oh… he thinks.
I'm hungry
Well No shit- he sighs before dipping into an alleyway as spiderman and emerging peter parker.
Not like it's do much he'd still have to hide his face, considering everybody knows it now. He pulled the hood on his jacket up. It was fairly cold so it wasn't like anybody would notice. He sighed. Making his way down the sidewalk, keeping his head fairly down as he made his way through the crowds.
It was about 20 more minutes until he had found his way to anything he'd be able to get down with how much anxiety and stress he's under nearby, partly because he got lost and second to the fact that he couldn't exactly tell where he was. He walked in, and got in line. He wound up getting a bagel and sitting by the corner out of sight of the windows.
He eats small portions, thinking about recent events and what he's going to do. If he can even do anything.
“I just want my life back…” he whimpers quietly as he stares blankly ahead. A head of curly brown hair and the familiar sound of an energetic voice reach his senses. Peter had barely gotten through half of his bagel before his quiet afternoon gets interrupted.
It’s his friends
Peter leaves before he has a chance to mess things up, once he's out the back exit and back onto the sidewalk.
The past day or two feel like a slow, slow burn reminiscent of the pit in his stomach before he turned into dust. He sighs.
If he's being honest with himself the only part that's really getting to him is how so obviously lost he is looking for a way out of it.
He walked aimlessly around town for a while, thinking about the life he had before his break was hijacked, before his identity made itself known, and before the war that traded him and his mentor like cards on a table.
What a fucked game.
He stopped on the corner of a street to check his phone. Booting it up he noticed that the texts in his phone made themselves known by slowing it down so much he could barely do anything. Clearing them until it could run even slightly normally the words of his friends hit his eyes before he could avert hem.
MJ yesterday
I swear to god peter where are you
Ned yesterday
Dude where'd you go? May says she didn't see you this morning so we assumed you were patrolling but there hasn't been any sightings today.
MJ yesterday
Nerd; if you don-
Peter didn't get to finish reading the text before his phone began ringing. He stared down at the caller id, breathing softly and the noise in his head returning.
Hesitantly he answered; putting the phone up to his ear he started.
“Hello?”
“ Dumbass! ” he winced; maybe he deserved that. The pain in his ear coming to a sharp and abrupt peak for disappearing.
“Yeah… I- I know…”
“ Do you know how worried we’ve all been?! ”
“MJ-”
” Don't ‘MJ’ me parker, we thought you got taken by the government to be locked up or experimented on! ”
“Ah…” he paused ; which MJ took as the perfect opportunity to continue
“ Oh my gOD peter… ” she trailed, after a little bit he heard a sigh come from the other side of the phone.
“I- Im… I'm ok, I think” he says, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket.
“ Where are you pete. Your aunt says she hasn't seen you ” that part confused him until he remembered that he didn't exactly see her either. He blinked.
“Im by the cafe on the corner of 5th. Do… do you want to talk?” he asked, scratching his head
“ Y-... yeah… that'd be great pete… I'll be there in a second .”
The call ended. He pulled his phone away and stared at the end screen before it pushed him over to the lock screen. He stared at the photo of ned and him posing with their freshly finished lego millennium falcon. The memory put a smile on his face as he remembered just how much of a mess it was to put together.
“Ned where’s the last corner piece?” he asked, searching the piles of sorted brinks they had laid out to make it easier.
“It should be there”
“No it isn't”
“What do you mean it isn't we sorted through everything. Twice”
“It's definitely not here” he said searching amongst the other light gray lego pieces that they'd sorted into piles, maybe it was dropped in one of the piles while they were building.
“What do you mean ‘it's definitely not here” ned said looking over to the now empty pile of corner pieces, his tone growing more panicked as he noticed there weren't any left.
The room descended into mild chaos as they scoured the carpet of peter's room, looking for the missing piece.
They never quite found it so they replaced it with a different corner piece from the box of stray legos in the corner, so now their model had a very bright and distracting neon pink in the back end of the set but it wasn't something they couldn't fix by painting over it so in the end they did figure it out.
It was nice. A nice moment of blissful ignorance away from the still flaming trainwreck that was his situation. He sighed.
The whole scenario felt so far away now. It was a moment of calm that Peter had gladly accepted.
Shortly after, MJ turned the corner.
“Hi” he greets as she makes her way closer to him. MJ doesn't say anything and instead chooses to wrap him in a quick, and over-faster-than-it-started-hug .
“ Explain yourself ”
He did explain himself… sorta
On the roof of the small cafe they had met up at, Peter had gone through the events of days past, starting after the doctored video of him in london. To which MJ had gladly pointed out that ‘people are already debunking it online, so you've already got a ton of people backing you up’ which did in fact make him feel a little bit better.
“They still got my identity out” he says, staring at the now setting sun. “I can't change that”
“Yeah…” MJ trails, the silence settling in and the warm late afternoon air hugging their skin.
“Remember what I told you back in Europe?” he asks, turning his head to look at her. She pondered for a second before responding.
“That you were spiderman?”
“No after that, when we got to the hotel,” he said, messing with the sleeves on his jacket. “Before I left to find beck” he added on.
There was a moment of silence before “...that anybody who knew was in danger?” she said turning her head to look at him, leaning back and supporting her wait with her arms against the rough texture of the concrete roof.
He nodded.
“I mean… you guys experienced it first hand back there.” the thought of his friends getting hurt or even worse dying; because of him did not sit well in his stomach.
“Back in the vault, with the drones, and… how Quentin…” he swallowed “Targeted you guys for just knowing about me?”
“It's going to be like that for everyone now…” he tore his gaze from hers as he stared back out to the horizon line.
“It's just so… hard… you know?” a pregnant pause had made its way into the conversation.
“It’s not like we can control that now.” she starts
“Besides,” she continues, “If we ever do get into a lick of trouble, I can trust my good ol’ friend spiderman to get us out of it” she smiles
It's obviously contagious so he does too, just the smallest amount.
“Yeah…” he nods ” you can”
So they sat there, waiting for the tension to disappear for for someone to say something. Something that eventually somebody had gotten to.
“Do you ever get scared peter?”
“I-...Huh?” he asked, trying to make sure he heard that correctly.
“I asked if you ever got scared,” she said adding on with “watching you in battles, both online and in person you seem so much like a different person”
“I-... what do you mean i'm not following”
“You’re more confident and sure of yourself when you're spiderman” she elaborates further.
“Oh!” he laughs, for the first time in what feels like forever “I actually don't know what i'm doing most of the time. There's an AI in my suit that helps me out though. So i'm not totally on my own in figuring things out”
“What about that other suit you had… the black one. It didn't look like you can fit a bunch of tech into a cotton ski mask” MJ said. “You fought that magma monster perfectly fine. Well it was fake but we thought it was real at the time and-...” she pauses,'' You get the idea”
He smiles, the warm feeling in his chest returning, having forgotten about his predicament, “yeah.. All I really had was an earpiece then but i guess your point was made”
The sun was most the way gone now and the sky was beginning to darken.
“It’s so late and I'm definitely not going to make it home in time” MJ frowned
He opened his mouth before she cut him off
“No I am Not Swinging again.”
He closed his mouth
“That's… thats understandable yeah..”
“I’ll handle it on my own, thank you though…” a little silence passed.
“Maybe some help getting down though” she added.
“Of course of course! Yeah here…” he stretched out his arms as MJ clung herself to him.
“You ready?” he asked, he felt her nod against his neck.
He dropped from the building; MJ’s grip increasing as they fell. He shot his arm out sticking a web to a lamp post, slowing their decent. At the final grounding of them hitting the floor, MJ took her precious time in detaching herself from him.
“I’ll… see you?” he asked as the night sky began to take over the bright colors that were there once before
“Yeah…” she agreed “You’ll see me” she smiled.
Peter swung home after very stealthily trailing behind MJ to make sure she got home safely. Not really bothering to change into the spider suit because everybody knows who he is now, and there's really no point in hiding the separation of those two identities now.
It was part way through his trek home he realizes that the only thing he's eaten today was a barely toasted bagel. Partly because his stomach yells at him again and he cant help but stop at the scent of the sub sandwiches by his school. He lands on the sidewalk, takes his bag, and pulls his wallet out. Theres $6 in there and he decides that ‘he’d very much like to buy something right now indeed’ and ends up having to walk home but at least he has a freshly toasted sub and a warm feeling in his stomach when he climbs through his window and collapses on his bed. Feeling at least a little better about the whole situation.