Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Peter had been avoiding this coffee shop for weeks. It had been the one he went to daily right up until the end of the school year, just before summer, but then the barista he'd befriended had asked him out on a date, and he'd really only seen her as just that: a friend. He let her down gently and ran off before anything else could be said, and he hadn't looked back, absolutely terrified of disappointing anybody, and yet it seemed that it was the only thing he knew how to do these days. It was a doomed sort of existence.

Now, though, as August drew to an end just a day ago, the beginning of senior year already on the horizon, Peter needed his daily hits of caffeine again. They'd been the only things keeping him running before, and he'd been hardly able to function most of the summer vacation, so he'd resolved to keep his head down and power through the social awkwardness of speaking with an ex-friend who he'd rejected, merely for the sake of his lifeblood.

Dragging his feet, an action that had become strangely characteristic for him quite a while ago now, he pushed open the old door of the coffee shop, a flake of chipped blue paint coming loose under his touch, and he braced himself. He braced himself to find her standing there, behind the counter of the quaint shop, looking— he didn't know how she'd look. Depressed? Bitter? Not caring at all? Peter didn't know. Each of them would've been equally as bad as the other. Peter didn't want people to be mad at him, or sad because of him, or entirely unswayed by his presence or lack thereof. He wanted to be the object of their affections. He'd wanted to tell her yes, just to have the feeling of warm arms around him, but he couldn't force himself to love her. He couldn't force himself to love a woman, no matter how much he wished he could.

He didn't find her there. She wasn't behind the counter, and she wasn't cleaning tables or rummaging around in the backroom. Instead, in her place, was someone entirely new. Peter couldn't help but notice the scars and calluses that marred his hands, almost certainly from work in a laboratory or garage, and yet Peter could also tell that the boy was only around the same age as him, despite all the marks suggesting years of work longer than Peter had even lived.

With a forced casualness, Peter walked up to the counter, though he knew it didn't work. Still, he did his best not to acknowledge it, and he leaned against the counter. If anyone saw him slip just slightly, no one commented on it. "So, uh… What happened to the girl who worked here before you?" His voice was so incredibly strained, Peter almost winced at the sound of his own voice.

The barista turned to face Peter from where he had been, cleaning the worktop all of the coffee machines were on, and grinned. "Oh… So it was you, then?" he asked and Peter blinked. Noting his confusion, he only grew more mischievous. "The others on shift—they were tellin' me that the girl before me asked out a regular, got turned down, and turned in her two-week notice the next day. 'pparently, the guy high-tailed it as quick as he could an' never came back. And then ya walk in here, lookin' like someone's holding a gun to ya head and askin' about her."

"I'm not slick, am I…" Peter muttered, mostly to himself. It was ironic how much of an open book he was when he was Peter Parker because Spider-Man was the world's biggest act—chatty, happy, and hopeful, when Peter was anything but. He needed to work on that; the inability to act as Peter Parker part, of course. Nothing could be done about his mental state. "Look, she and I, we were… She was my best friend—my only one, actually. I felt safe with her, but I never liked her like…."

"Like that?"

"Yeah. Like that. Don't get me wrong, she's a great girl, and I totally hopes she finds someone who likes her the way she liked me because she deserves that, easily, it's just…. she's…"

"Just not ya type?"

"Yeah. Just not my type. Plus, it's probably not the best idea for me to be in a relationship right now anyway. Life's just been so…"

"Busy?"

"Yeah," Peter confirmed. "Busy." He felt as if the barista had taken the words directly from his mouth. He knew exactly what Peter meant even if he didn't himself, and it was unnatural. Not uncomfortable, not at all, but certainly unnatural.

They fell into a content silence for a moment before the barista broke it. "So, no friends, huh? Surely, ya've got at least one."

"Nope," Peter said with a shrug. "Most people either don't know I exist or hate me."

"Well, not anymore," he said simply. "We're friends now."

"We are?" Peter asked, not challenging him, but simply not believing him.

The barista grinned and put on an overly dramatic expression. "Ya aren't gonna leave me lonely and friendless too, are ya?"

Peter's mind was getting more and more blown by the second. He didn't understand how a man such as this didn't have everyone in his presence wrapped around his finger because Peter certainly was.

"Yeah…" he continued, seeing the surprise in Peter's eyes. "I'm new in town, and, obviously, school don't start for another couple days yet, so I haven't exactly had anyone to befriend… Except the weird guy in the back booth. He doesn't try to talk to me, but he just… stares. He's so…"

"Yeah, that's Dennis. He was in my AP chem last year. He's very…. Dennis is very Dennis. Does that make sense?" Peter asked, though he continued before he could get in an answer. "Yeah, it makes sense. As long as you don't let him follow you home, then you're fine."

"Huh?" the other man interjected, entirely caught off guard.

"Listen…" Peter started, completely ignoring both the sheer wildness of his previous statement and the reaction to it, "I have a weird request for a drink. Your manager and your logic alarm bells will probably go "Woah, don't do that, that's gonna freaking euthanize an elephant, you definitely shouldn't give that to a guy who hardly weighs 55 kilos on a good day," but I need you to ignore that, okay?"

Slowly, the barista nodded. "I've heard some weird shit in the two weeks that I've been working here. Shoot."

"I need you to give me fifteen espresso shots in one cup," Peter stated simply. As he watched him absolutely blanch, he assured the other man, "I can survive it, I swear. I've been drinking it for years. I have a fast enough metabolism that regular coffees don't do it for me, and I don't sleep much."

"Huh?" the man repeated.

"I'll pay for all the shots, obviously. So that would be $22.50, but, well, we're friends, aren't we? So I get the friends and family discount, right? That takes it down to $11.25, a much more reasonable price—"

"Down it in one and it's on the house," he said suddenly.

This time, it was Peter's turn. "Huh?" Peter was mostly shocked at the fact that he was actually agreeing to this. However, he collected himself. "Free? Yeah, sure. I'll chug it." Ah. The wonders of what poverty does to you.

Immediately, the barista set off to work, utilizing all four of the espresso machines at once to maximize speed. Peter waited patiently until he was handed his coffee concoction that was certainly going to kill anyone but him, and he looked at the barista, who raised an expectant eyebrow at him.

Peter grabbed the cup and blew on the drink to cool it for a moment, and, without hesitation, began to drink. It burned his throat, especially with how cold Peter ran at this time of year, but he paid it no mind, instead focusing on the warmth filling up his body, slowly heating him up from the air that had steadily been growing colder for the last few weeks. He ignored the bitter taste that he had grown so used to by now and slammed the cup down on the counter when it was drained.

"Holy shit," the barista breathed, a shocked chuckle escaping his lips. "Ya actually did it."

"You expected me not to?" Peter quipped in return.

"Promise I don't need to call ya an ambulance or somethin'?"

Peter scoffed, "In this economy? I can't afford that, and I doubt a barista could, either." Harley rolled his eyes but said nothing, and Peter glanced down to his watch. "Oh, crud! I gotta get to work!"

Just before he scrambled off, Harley called, "Hey! Can I get your number?"

Peter quickly stumbled back to put his number into Harley's phone, and then he was gone like the wind, making sure he wasn't late to his shift at Delmar's. Delmar was really nice, but Peter could only be late so many times before it started becoming an issue.

On his lunch break, he checked his phone. There was a message.

Unknown
I never got ya name (08:16)

Peter
Peter. Peter Parker. (12:32)
You?

Unknown
Harley Keener.

Peter saved the number.

***

The wind whittled endlessly past Peter's ears, a feeling he had grown so used to in the past three years of being Spider-Man, a feeling he grew entirely dependent on. Spider-Man was an irrevocable feature of Peter's being, and he was almost certain that if he had to stop, he'd surely die.

Suddenly, his eyes locked onto two figures clad in red seated on the edge of a roof, chattering away, and he redirected his route to them without hesitation. He always did, every time he saw them. Spider-Man's friends were the only things keeping him going.

"Hey, guys," Peter greeted when his feet hit the roof. As someone tackled him into a hug without a second to spare, giving him a playful noogie that he'd fallen victim to so many times before, he was prepared, merely grunting at the weight of the man twice his size, swatting him off. "Watch it, Wade!"

"Baby boy!" Wade exclaimed, stumbling back with an unrestrained chuckle. "It's been years!"

"It's been three days, Wade. Calm down," Matt scoffed, shoving Wade slightly, though he couldn't hide his grin. "Have fun without us, Spidey?"

"Yes, actually, I'll have you know," Peter challenged. "I finally had my coffee again and I met a hot guy. So, really, this is the most uphill life has been in, like, twenty years, so…"

"You weren't even born twenty years ago," Wade pointed out. "You're an infant."

Wade and Matt knew Peter was a teenager the very second they met the boy. There was no hiding his youthful energy and internet references that they, both being well into adulthood, did not understand in the slightest. However, beneath the hallmarks of teenage life, there was a darkness no boy who was born after 2000 should even dream of having. Peter had experienced far too much pain and suffering in his short life. They knew that, even if they didn't know exactly what he'd gone through, and they knew that they were some of the only good things Peter still had. Peter had no idea if it was even possible to thank them enough for what they'd done for him. He still tried every day.

"Exactly," Peter responded, and despite the fact that both of them were wearing masks, Peter knew without a doubt that they both rolled their eyes at him.

"You're miserable, kid, really," Matt teased.

"So!" Wade began in a singsong tone, "about that boy you mentioned?"

If one thing was true about Wade, it was that he loved to gossip.

Peter shrugged. "You remember when that girl asked me out? Well, turns out she quit her job, like, immediately afterwards. And, well, I went back today and her replacement is this southern guy. He's my age, too."

"Ooh! Baby boy has a boyfriend!"

Peter huffed out a laugh. "I've never met a man who gives off less gay vibes in my life. I don't have a chance."

"Don't put yourself down, Spidey, I'm sure—" Matt began, but Peter interrupted him easily.

"This isn't me being all self-deprecating, Matt," Peter assured him. "I've genuinely never seen a man straighter. I told him that the girl "just wasn't my type," and, by some miracle, he didn't pick up on the implications of that."

"Oh," Matt responded in understanding. He had experience with oblivious straight men.

Wade decided to whisper exaggeratedly, "You can turn him, baby boy, you can turn him gay," and Peter couldn't help but burst into laughter, the other two following in his giggles. He laughed until his belly hurt, and then he laughed some more just for the fun of it. As he calmed, slowly but surely, he knew that this moment was where he felt most at peace in this world, where he felt like nothing else could hurt him. And then he heard the shot of a bullet, the wailing of sirens somewhere deep in the city, and he was pulled back to reality as the three scattered.

***

Peter grumbled in intense displeasure as he crawled into his apartment through the window, twisting a bruise in a way that it certainly wasn't pleased to be. Here, all grace was abandoned as he allowed himself to simply topple to the ground with a distinct thud and grunt, lazily tugging his mask from his skin as he lay on the living room floor. He tossed it away without a second thought, fabric catching on the corner of the TV he hadn't plugged in in three months.

The room was pitch black and dead silent, much like the rest of the apartment, empty of any life apart from Peter and the spider hiding in the moth-eaten curtains. It had been like that for quite a while now—ever since May went into hospital and didn't come back. It was lonely and it was hard, so hard, but he pushed through. He wasn't the one having the hardest time right now, not by far. Having to pick up a job at his favorite sandwich shop and not turn the lights on or charge his phone before it was at 5% so he could afford to pay rent, even at the discounted price the kind landlord was giving him, somewhat aware of his situation, was bad. Of course it was. But May was wasting away in a hospital bed, a tumor the size of a softball growing on her spine, too risky to remove. Peter would survive his issues. He dreaded to think that she wouldn't.

He got up and stalked through the apartment without turning on the lights, incredibly grateful for the fact that he'd picked up on spider's trait of enhanced vision without having to have quite so many eyes. No lights meant less bills, and less bills was always the end goal nowadays. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that this must be what adulthood felt like. It was easier than he expected. Annoying, though. Deeply annoying.

In the bathroom, he turned around and looked over his shoulder, messing with the back of the suit's neck until he finally managed to get a grip on the zipper and pulled it down, freeing himself from his spandex prison of vigilantism. It was always a relief to be out of the suit because, as much as he loved being Spider-Man, the thing was tight and Peter wasn't all too fond of that fact. He stumbled over to the pile of laundry in the corner beside the long-unused bathtub and dug out a hoodie and some sweatpants, snuggling into them.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he paused at the threshold, watching the darkness. He looked down the hall and stared at the door at the end of it, hung just inches ajar, but it was enough to tempt him in this state, running on caffeine and the adrenaline of patrol, banged up and ready to lie down and die. He approached as if at any moment, a wild animal could jump out and rip him to shreds, even though he knew there was nothing of the sort. The only way he could be hurt in that room was emotionally.

His hand settled on the doorknob just for a second, feeling the somewhat rusted metal cold against his palm, and, for just a moment, he hesitated. He knew that what he saw was almost certainly going to destroy him in a way he'd so valiantly managed to put off from the very moment she was whisked away. He was going to destroy all that effort. It was all going to be for nothing. Still, he pushed forward anyway, ignoring all the thoughts in his mind telling him that it would be an inherently horrible idea to do so.

He opened the door. Fingers trailing from it uselessly, he stopped breathing. It caught in his throat as if it was being blocked off. He couldn't breathe. Not like this. Not when he was seeing May's bed empty, every surface covered in the finest film off dust. He'd hoped that maybe he fabricated every memory of the last few months. He hoped that when he opened the door, he'd see her sleeping soundly in her messy sheets, cheeks flush with the color of life, but no. He knew it was foolish. May was lying in a stiff hospital bed, skin dull with pallor, wrinkles of discomfort sharp on her face, dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in decades. Peter had seen her like that just hours ago, after his shift. He didn't know why he even tried to think that it was all somehow a trick of the mind, a sleep deprivation-induced fantasy—or rather nightmare.

His legs almost felt too weak to hold up his own weight as he stepped inside despite his better judgment, blinking harshly a few times until he could get a better view of the environment. He waited until his eyes had adjusted enough to see every speck of dust on the surface of her dresser, every crack in the paint of her windowsill, every moisture stain on the old wallpaper. He needed to see all of it, and he needed to see it right now. Alone. In the dark. Empty. He needed to see it right now, in its truth. He did it to maybe try and foster the hope that she would return. Somehow, it only made him more certain that she wouldn't.

As if in a trance, he slumped over to her bed and lay atop the comforter, head lolling to the side in order to stare at her nightstand. On top of it, there was a lamp with a bulb that had blown years ago and never been replaced, a pile of books with worn dust covers, and a small clutter of pictures propped up haphazardly in their frames with off-brand Blu Tack and whatever else could be found. One was of four people hanging around at a lake on a sunny day: May, Ben, Richard, and Mary. His parents and his aunt and uncle were splashing around in the lake, in their early twenties and having the time of their life.

One of the pictures had five people in the focus. It was May, Ben, Richard, and Mary again, but, this time, there was a baby in Richard's arms. They were at a crowded restaurant. There was a cake on the table with a singular candle in the center. It was Peter's first birthday. He was giggling in the picture, holding his hands out to the camera as if he was trying to grab it as May took the selfie. His mouth was covered in food, but no one seemed too bothered by the mess.

The third had just May, Ben, and Peter sitting around a Christmas tree with a pile of presents. It wasn't towering, not on May and Ben's income, but despite that and his young age, Peter still vividly remembered the day. It was the first Christmas after his parents died. He'd been grieving his parents so deeply ever since it happened. It was the first time he felt truly happy since the accident. How could he forget it? He even got a Superman action figure. He'd always loved comics. Two years later, when Iron Man made his debut and kick-started the idea of superheroes truly existing, it was safe to say that Peter promptly passed out like a distressed woman of the French aristocracy in the eighteenth century.

Peter smiled. He smiled so widely, wider than he had in his own home since May landed in hospital. Then he began to cry. He cried so hard, knowing that there was such a large chance he'd never be permitted to make memories like that again, that he'd never have the opportunity to. He'd made so many memories with her—she'd been his rock ever since the beginning, especially after Ben died—but suddenly none of it felt like enough, even if he couldn't have done any more.

He sobbed into her pillow and sobbed even harder when he realized that it still smelled like her perfume, pulling it close to his chest as he wailed, wounded-sounding bawls ricocheting off of the walls of the barren apartment, unable to disturb anyone but Peter himself in its emptiness. If the neighbors couldn't hear him through the paper thin walls, that was.

Peter didn't remember when, but he fell asleep eventually, tears drying in a salty film over his cheeks. Maybe it was at 2 a.m., or maybe it was at 4. Either way, it didn't matter all too much in the end.

***

When Peter woke up, he found himself bent at the waist and draped over the kitchen counter, and suddenly he remembered why he didn't sleep anywhere but his bed. Because it almost always resulted in a late night sleepwalking trip. He didn't know why, but, quite frankly, he didn't care. He just wished it would stop already, because dealing it was the highest inconvenience right now. However, he brushed off his frustration in favor of straightening his back, loosening up all the stiff areas from his unconventional sleeping position with snaps, crackles, and pops that could rival Rice Krispies. Not even being Spider-Man could help him when it came to the fact that sleeping bent over a counter did not do wonders for his back.

As he glanced over to the calendar pinned up on the wall, he realized that it was still on August and today was September 2nd. He'd forgotten to flip it over yesterday. When he did it now, he sighed, knowing today was going to be a busy day. He had to visit May, do last minute checks on school supplies, fit in a late shift at Delmar's, and do a sweep patrol. He never liked busy days. At least it would be made easier with coffee and a bit of willpower, not that Peter had much of it left these days.

He didn't get changed before he left, ultimately deciding that his hoodie and sweats was a suitable outfit to leave the house in, and he simply slipped his shoes on, keys held between his teeth as he tried to awkwardly insert it into the lock still trying to pull his shoes on. A part of him acknowledged that trying to pull on sneakers with the laces done up was probably the dumbest idea he'd had all week, but, well, he wasn't ready to give up yet—plus, the entire point had been to avoid undoing the shoe laces to only do them up again once more.

By some miracle that he probably didn't deserve, the key slotted into the lock just as his shoe popped into place, and though he did hit his forehead on the door in the process of the situation, as he straightened up and stepped out of the door, he considered it a good thing nonetheless because he was out of the door in record time. Or, at least, he would've been. If his phone wasn't on his nightstand. He had to run back inside to get it, and although it barely cost him fifteen seconds, he still let out a sigh of helpless disappointment.

As soon as he was down the stairs and out on the streets, he had his destination set in his mind, and nothing was going to deter him. He'd gone without coffee for far too long, and he could once again get it without shame. Was drinking enough coffee to have him on the verge of the shakes for hours even with his metabolism daily an incredibly bad habit? Absolutely. There was just one issue, though: Peter did not care with the slightest inch of his being. And so he slunk through the streets, passing around adults on their way to work in the morning with a practiced ease, almost as if he were liquid. Whether it was thanks to skill or luck, Peter wasn't sure, but he arrived at the coffee shop without a single person yelling at him to watch where he was going.

"Back for another monstrosity or are ya just here to see lil ol' me?"

Peter whipped his head around to the counter and grinned widely when he saw that it was Harley. "Do I have to pick just one?" he asked with a laugh, pulling out his wallet. Harley immediately started on his ungodly amount of espresso shots.

"Nah. Ya do gotta pick a favorite, though. Me or the coffee?" he asked. "Oh, and if ya pick the coffee, I'm keeping the kids in the divorce."

Peter snorted, fishing out a pair of five dollar bills and a handful of loose change. "Keep the kids. I only care about the ring," he joked.

"Ya wound me, sweets. Don't ya love Sadie and Sienna?"

Peter could only giggle as he replied, "I was only ever in it for the money."

"God darn, wish we'd gotten a prenup now! How could you?" he exclaimed, only plucking one of the bills from Peter's hands as he slid the to-go cup across the counter. "Keep the change."

Peter grabbed it, stuffing the extra money back into his pocket. "Look, I gotta run—busy day, you get it. See you later?"

"Ya know it," he responded, and Peter started to walk away. Just as Peter was exiting, he called out. "Hey, Pete?"

"What is it?" he asked as he turned, somewhat caught off guard.

"I woulda picked the coffee too. Ya ain't the only one who takes caffeine consumption warnings as a suggestion." And then he turned to the next customer and Peter stumbled away, doubled over and hardly keeping his coffee stable. When he composed himself, he realized he'd been walking in the wrong direction.

Next on the list, visit May.

***

Peter could hear the insistent beeping of heart monitors five blocks away. He could hear the screaming of a birthing mother from four blocks away. He could hear the crying of her baby from three. From two blocks away, he could hear the clattered panic of nurses and doctors responding to a code blue. From one, he could hear someone being told their wife was dead. When he walked through the hospital doors, he could finally hear May's ever-weak but still present heartbeat, even if it meant straining his ears, and his deepest anxiety left him. His senses dialed back just a hint. He was able to ignore the wails on the other side of the hospital as he headed up the stairs to May's ward.

The hospital had never been a great experience for Peter. With his enhanced hearing, not only was it overwhelming, but it was ever so slightly traumatizing. You could only hear someone's heart stop so many times before it got to you. You could only hear a parent's or a spouse's or a sibling's or a child's mourning keens so many times before it got to you. You could only hear undeserved death sentences so many times before it got to you. Still, Peter pushed through. For May. He couldn't leave her alone here, even if he felt like he was going to throw up every time he came, knowing what he'd hear.

"How is she, doc?" Peter hadn't even realized that he was standing with May's doctor, just outside of her room. Well, clearly he had, though entirely unconsciously. He was freakishly good at doing that—doing things without his brain being wholly aware of it. Whether it was a hidden talent or a debilitating affliction, though, Peter wasn't quite sure.

"She hasn't gotten any worse in the last few days," he offered, but Peter knew what the but was from the look on his face. Peter finished for him.

"But she hasn't gotten any better, either." The doctor only nodded in confirmation. "Well, nothing is better than a negative, isn't it?"

The doctor allowed himself a wistful smile as he looked at Peter. "That's the kind of mentality you need to get by in a place like this, kid. You'd make a good doctor."

Peter laughed just a bit, shaking his head. "Oh, never. I'm scared to death of hospitals. I threw up in my mouth a little while I was getting the subway over. Working here would just be straight masochism, honestly." Peter paused, watching the doctor intently. "Don't give me the pity look. I'm just not too happy about being in a place where people are dying and I'm helpless to stop it. I'm here because I want to be. I'm here because I want to spend time with my aunt, even if that means dealing with the fact that the place reeks of death more and more every day."

Slowly, the doctor smiled. "How about I stop holding you up and let you go spend some time with her, then?" With a nod, Peter turned and entered his aunt's hospital room.

When he did, softening the noise of the shutting door as best he could, she was sound asleep, brows creased in just a hint of discomfort but otherwise entirely peaceful as she lay unconscious. She was sleeping more and more as the days passed by, and Peter wasn't sure whether it was a good or bad sign. On the one hand, sleep was exactly what her body needed for the energy to fight her cancer, but, on the other hand, progressively needing more and more energy meant that she was getting weaker and weaker, needing more energy to do the same things she could've done effortlessly a few years ago.

Peter took his seat beside her and sighed as he ran his hand over her head, hair having been lost to chemo treatments long ago now, taking in every line of her face. He wished that there was something he could do to save her, but he knew there was nothing. None of Spider-Man's powers could heal the sick, brute force and webs wouldn't fix May no matter how much he wanted them to. Spider-Man was just a street-level vigilante with too much determination and powers that were never meant for him. He was no miracle worker—he was no god.

Sleepily, as she came to, May tilted her head into Peter's palm, seeking out the warmth. It was understandable, too. May had always ran cold, just as Peter had even before the bite, and the hospital blanket did not look like it did much in the realm of keeping people heated. "Pete…" she murmured, prying open her eyes to look at him. She struggled to focus her vision on him for a moment but she managed in the end, and Peter could tell that the lights in the room were giving her a headache. Still, May would go through any amounts of pain to see Peter.

"Hey, May… I can't stay long, but I've got a few hours before my shift starts…"

And they flowed into conversation just as naturally as they always had. May and Peter had always been on the same wavelength, never finding themselves at a shortage of things to say, and Peter knew that they always would be. Peter told May about Harley, about his friends (who happened to be a pair of fully grown men in red leather, but May didn't need to know that part), about everything, and May told Peter about how the nurse down the hall tripped and fell straight into the trash can and how one of the other cancer patients had got their niece to sneak in a bottle of champagne (all the while subtly urging Peter to do the same thing with a large grin), but eventually, as all good things do, it ended, and Peter had to leave for his shift. He didn't want to leave. He never wanted to leave her side again.

***

The air, as fresh as it was (then again, in New York City, was any air fresh?), tasted stale in Peter's mouth, and he rolled his tongue around in his mouth uncomfortably. He took it as an omen, one that meant today would be utterly miserable. Because today marked the first day back at school after 10 delicious weeks of summer break, the first day back to being alone and slightly bullied for seven hours a day, five days a week. He was alone for most of the summer break too, of course, but at least he didn't have Flash hanging off of him just to tell him that his shoes looked particularly pathetic that day, despite the fact that it was the same pair of shoes he'd been wearing for years. Harley wouldn't even be on shift this morning, given that he'd also have school, which meant Peter would be having his coffee without entertainment this morning, just as he was getting used to it. Or so he thought.

Then, just as he was approaching the coffee shop, he saw someone leaning beside the door, and he only just managed to process the fact that they were there before they threw something directly at him. He caught it instinctively, and their grin only grew wider. "God damn. Some reflexes ya got there, Pete." It was Harley, take out coffee cup in hand. Harley had thrown a ring pop at him. "Ya said ya wanted the ring in the divorce."

For the first time that morning, Peter smiled. "Unfortunately, I didn't bring you the kids," Peter joked.

"Eh, it's fine. They'll find their way back to papa somehow," he dismissed, following Peter inside when he walked through the door to buy his coffee for the morning. Unfortunately for him, since it wasn't Harley behind the counter, Peter had to pay full price for his drink, which meant he cut back to only seven shots. He'd go broke if he had fifteen at full price daily. "What school do ya go to anyway?"

"Midtown Tech," he responded as he fished ten dollars from his pocket.

Harley took it from Peter before it could reach the counter, swiftly replacing it with his own money. The barista took it before Peter could complain, making Peter's drink with little more than a concerned glance. He wasn't paid enough to care about a customer's rash decisions. "Oh, same," Harley responded. "The guy taking care of me got me in—given the… disreputable reputations of my old schools, he's really the only reason they even took one look at me."

"The guy taking care of you?" Peter asked, now thoroughly distracted from the fact that Harley had just forcibly paid for his drink. He wouldn't pry if Harley didn't want him to, of course, but that didn't mean he couldn't ask.

Harley nodded. "It's sort of a… mentor/mentee typa situation. My parents are still alive, don't worry bout that (well, I actually dunno about my dad, but he don't matter)—it's just that he could mentor me a little better if I weren't, y'know, in the middle of buttfuck nowhere Tennessee, so he offered to move me up here and take care o' me."

"Sounds like a pretty cool dude," Peter commented.

Harley nodded in agreement. "Yeah, great guy. As ethical as a business owner can get, really. Funny, too."

"Oh, that's why you act like $10 dollars is chump change," Peter realized. "You mooch off your fancy business owner mentor."

"I don't mooch. He gives me, like 2,500 a month and I don't even ask for it," Harley insisted. "I need somethin' to do with it. Might as well spend it on my only friend's coffee."

Peter's jaw dropped. Harley assumed that it was because that was a ton for a seventeen-year-old's allowance (which he knew it was), so he paid it no mind. But no. Peter's jaw dropped because that was five times his rent. It was almost quadruple what he earned working full-time at minimum wage. Peter's jaw dropped because Harley got four times what Peter made working himself to the bone by doing essentially nothing, and he didn't even seem to want it. Suddenly, he realized that he and Harley were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum—Peter was chin-deep in poverty and Harley was the ward of a businessman who clearly had bottomless cash to spare.

He was only brought out of it when his coffee was set on the counter. Despite how hot it was, Peter immediately took a deep swig from it as if it were a flask of liquor. Hopefully the caffeine overload would have a similar effect to alcohol in this situation. Harley laughed. Peter gave an expression somewhere in the middle of a grin and a grimace, and the grimace was only half from the bitterness of the coffee. The other half was from the sheer mix of emotions that he didn't have the time nor willpower to untangle right now.

"Jeez, Pete. Ya make a habit o' drinking coffee like it's a bottomless martini?"

"If I find out one more shocking thing about your life, I'm gonna need a bottomless martini," he scoffed, walking out of the door and shrugging for Harley to follow him as he chose his favorite option—ignore his emotions in favor of getting on with his day. Even if that day included hell on earth.

"So mean to me…"

***

Peter and Harley's conversation drifted on playfully all throughout their journey to school, but it didn't stop the ever-growing dread from making an appearance in the pit of Peter's stomach as they edged closer. School was a nightmare for Peter. All day, he watched Ned and MJ go about their lives as if he'd never been in it all the while having Flash down his ear like a particularly grating song that he just couldn't quite get out of his head. Oops. Nope. Peter was going to vomit.

"Give me like five seconds!" Peter said quickly, dashing into an alley to vomit into a trash can that smelled vaguely of pee, pennies, and rotting food.

Peter didn't know why, but in the face of fear in his day-to-day life, especially in relation to school, he felt the unavoidable urge to abandon all the food in his stomach. May had once told him his mother used to do the same thing, though it didn't make him any more appreciative of it. Food was expensive, and he had a metabolism faster than Captain America's. He couldn't exactly afford to be vomiting up his breakfast every other day. Maybe he should just start skipping it.

"Peter? Pete—" Harley called out, stumbling into the alleyway. When he saw Peter, he paused before walking up beside him, rubbing Peter's back gently. "Oh, Pete… Are ya all right?"

"Yep. Great. Fine. Used to it," Peter grumbled between dry heaves. Finally, when he stopped gagging, he righted himself. "If you couldn't tell, I don't like school."

"All this cause of school? An' it happens often?" Harley asked sympathetically.

"Eh. Varies," Peter said, wiping the corner of his mouth with a grimace. "Let's just… get going. We'll be late if we don't hurry up."

Peter started off again, and Harley couldn't help but look at Peter so deeply concerned. If he vomited just from the thought of going to school… it couldn't be that bad, surely, could it?

***

"Hey, Penis! Finally got yourself someone who actually tolerates you?"

The voice, nasally and snobbish as ever, was as grating against Peter's ears as a knife, and suddenly Peter regretted not letting that building crush him like the bug he was—that and all the many, many other near death experiences he'd dealt with through his years as Spider-Man, especially after everyone came back from the blip. The world was in chaos in the initial months, and it still had yet to fully calm to what it had once been.

Peter kept his head down, doing his best to simply tug Harley past without much fuss at all, but Harley wouldn't stand for it. He stopped dead in his tracks, placing his hand on Peter's shoulder to keep him just as still. Peter was pretty sure he was ready to sob before the first bell had ever rang. He didn't want to deal with the backlash he'd get from Flash for this. It was only the first day back at school after two and a half months of being completely gone from it. He knew he'd be struggling to adjust for weeks, and Flash hounding him was only going to make it worse.

"What did I just hear ya call Pete?" Harley asked, leaving Peter's side to get far closer to Flash, subtly backing him into the wall behind him. He hadn't quite noticed yet. He was more focused on being an asshole.

"Harley— Harley, don't," Peter tried, but his words fell on deaf ears, neither of the two boys paying any sort of attention to him. They were locked in a stalemate.

"I called Parker over here Penis. What're you gonna do about it, country boy?" Flash scoffed in reply. He wanted to step forward, to get in Harley's face, but he realized that there was no room to. Harley was already in his, and he cowered like a puppy with his tail between his legs the moment he realized that this was a losing battle.

"Harley, drop it!" Peter tried more insistently, but it was to no avail.

"Listen here, ya self-righteous son of a gun, I don't care who ya daddy is, my family could buy out your entire bloodline and it wouldn't leave a scratch in the bank account," Harley sneered cracking his knuckles. "But that doesn't matter, does it? What I'm gonna do to ya, it won't be costin' me a—"

"Harley! I said stop!" Peter had grabbed Harley by the collar of his shirt and yanked him away from Flash without breaking a sweat. In fact, he overestimated how much strength Harley had on him—there wasn't all too much size difference between the two, even if Harley was slightly bigger, but the boy's sheer confidence made him seem like he could take much more than he could in reality—and he sent Harley toppling to the ground. Harley stared up at him in a slight daze, and Peter caught his breath. He hadn't realized that he'd been somewhat hyperventilating when considering the consequences of Harley's actions. His voice was much quieter now. "I said stop…"

Flash bolted the very second he came to his senses and realized that he was no longer cornered, but Peter didn't care. In fact, he was quite grateful for it. No Flash was far better than a highly antagonized Flash. After a moment, Harley climbed to his feet and stared at Peter, still somewhat bewildered. "Peter… I'm so sorry, Pete, I dunno what came over me. That was— I was so outta line."

"It's… It's okay, Harley. I know you didn't mean any harm," Peter assured him.

"I swear, I've never even—"

Harley was cut off by the warning bell ringing. In the very same moment, Peter locked eyes with a pair of people in the crowd of students. They were gone as he blinked, and he was sure that it was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, but it didn't make it any less affecting. A familiar feeling bubbled up in his chest and threatened to close up his throat, and Peter looked away before Harley could notice it.

"You need to go to the main office for your schedule, right? It's literally straight down the hall, right at the end," Peter explained quickly. "I should probably get to my first class—I'll see you later, okay?" And Peter was gone in the blink of an eye.

He hid in the bathrooms to cry his eyes out for the majority of first period. He hoped whichever teacher he had (he hadn't bothered to look at his schedule quite yet, and, frankly, he didn't want to at all; not in a state like this) didn't mark him as absent, otherwise he would be entirely screwed over. He couldn't afford an after school detention when he had work not even half an hour after the final bell rang.

He was sitting in a school bathroom and crying while thinking about work.

God, Peter was pathetic.

***

Peter was certain he'd be the first to deny that his life was anything but dramatic and more than a little bit miserable. Days like this—i.e., every day—were prime examples of that. Peter spent the entire day school day moping every second Harley wasn't plastered to him (the two were only connected due to the fact that Harley physically banned Peter from moping) then went straight to work once he finished school. He finished late and he pulled his suit out of his bag as if it had been there all day because it had, and he started his patrol right as crime started to ramp up for the night.

It was a usual routine, and Peter had no gripes with it. He'd been working like that since he first got his job at Delmar's, and there hadn't been a single change in schedule save for the sporadic off-day since. However, being Spider-Man, specifically due to the secret identity clause of the job description, led to some less than desirable encounters now and then. Negative? Not this one. But, God, Peter would've chosen to have had it never happen it all if it were optional.

He'd been following his instincts rather than a route, going wherever his senses led him, and, eventually, his ears picked up on the familiar racket of a scuffle beginning in the back-alleys of the city. He immediately began to make his way over to separate it when he finally recognized that familiar southern twang. It was Harley's voice, unmistakably. It didn't take any more encouragement to get Peter moving at twice the speed towards the situation.

When he did arrive and he saw the variables at play—Harley and a man much larger than him holding a knife to his throat, jaw already nicked—Peter wasted no time on his usual banter, his preferred foreplay for arresting criminals. He moved faster than he ever had before, tackling the criminal away from Harley and webbing him down in a way that would leave his joints particularly painful if he stayed in that position for long.

After stepping away to admire his handiwork, taking deep pride in the way the criminal's thrashing only got him further stuck, and in a much more uncomfortable position, too, he turned to face Harley. He didn't know what he was expecting to see, but it hadn't been this, despite the fact that it made perfect sense. Harley was staring at him the same way he had when Peter had (accidentally) thrown him to the ground, wide-eyes in a mix of awe and apprehensiveness.

"Holy— You're Spider-Man…" Harley muttered under his breath, tilting his appraisingly. "I figured you'd be more… monstrous and spidery, given how you've been described to me so far."

Peter laughed. He couldn't help but laugh. Harley was good at making him laugh. He was glad switching voices was so natural to him because Harley would've instantly recognized him otherwise. "Sounds like the people you hang out with aren't my biggest fans," he joked.

"Yeah… The guy I live with, Anthony, he's called—"

"God, he sounds pretentious," Peter groaned.

"He is pretentious. Pretty sure he's also convinced that you're out here to, I dunno, implant spider eggs in everyone and take over the world as some weird spider god or something," Harley scoffed. "…Well, maybe I'm bein' a bit dramatic, but, y'know, he thinks ya've got a weird motive."

Peter shrugged. "Ah, well. Can't win everyone over. On a serious note, though, you're, like bleeding."

"I am?" Harley asked, lifting his hand to his jawline. The tips of them came back red with warm blood, and he merely let out a small, "Huh." This reaction did not satisfy Peter.

"I've not got any bandages, but, y'know, my webs work for closing up wounds for a couple of hours. More than enough time to stop the bleeding until you get home," he explained, clearly implying that he wanted Harley to let him web up his wounds.

Harley smiled, slightly caught off-guard. "Really? That would be, ah, really nice, actually, if ya don't mind."

"It's no problem," Peter assured him, swapping out his usual web cartridge for a much smaller one. All his webs worked perfectly fine for wounds, but he'd engineered a variation on the fluid that worked a little better. It dried to being entirely unsticky in a few seconds, it could be peeled off without much effort, and it stayed much longer than most of his webs. Then, he webbed Harley in the jaw with it, stopping the wound from bleeding out any more.

Touching the webs as they dried with an almost ginger manner, Harley laughed, "Oh, he'll kill me for this. I can hear him now: "Don't talk to Spider-Man, Harley, he might try and stick ya in his web and dissolve your insides with his venom.""

"Mm. Well, lucky for him, there's not enough meat on those bones for me to munch on," Peter joked.

"Hold up, hold up, genuine question—two, actually. For scientific purposes. One, do ya have a web? Two, do ya have venom?" Harley questioned.

"No venom. That would be, like, crazy. I do make kind-of webs sometimes, though. It's more of just a hammock constructed of webs, but, well, a web is a web."

"A web is a web indeed—" Harley was cut off by his phone ringing. He answered it, and, after a few seconds, he scoured the skyline with his eyes, hanging up the phone. "I gotta run. Somehow, some way, he knew."

Peter knew what Harley meant. Anxiously, he hopped up on a wall and listened hard, focusing on his spider-sense, trying to locate where their watcher was—and yet he found no one. "Yeah, you should, uh, probably go. Not a fan of being watched by people I can't find."

"Yeah, I get that, I get that. Uh, bye!" And Harley scampered off into the night.

A weight was lifted off of Peter's shoulders knowing they got through the entire interaction without Harley figuring out his secret identity. God, he hoped that was the last close call he had to deal with, or he'd go gray before he turned 18. Peter prowled for a while longer, attempting to see if he could find the man who'd been watching them, but his search was in vain. Eventually, he left too, swinging home and leaving the darkened streets of the city devoid of life entirely.

***

Peter suddenly remembered why being a vigilante—especially without help—was generally considered a very, very bad idea. He was impressed that he hadn't thought it up in any of his other dramatic near-death events, but then, he'd been thinking about whether civilians were safe, whether there was any serious property damage, whether his mask was still in tact. Here, in the middle of this field a half hour out of the city, Peter was alone and no one but him could get hurt. He had nothing to distract him from the fact that he willingly made the choices that led him here.

Peter was quite literally staked into the ground—there was a piece of wood going through his mid-section and straight into the soil beneath. Blood was slowly dripping down the wood. Peter could technically lift himself off of it if he wanted to, but he really didn't. He'd bleed out in five minutes flat, and the much more preferable situation was to simply not do that. Instead, he did his best to bend himself in a way that he could get his phone from his pocket without bleeding everywhere. When he succeeded, he allowed himself a weakened cheer before calling Matt.

It didn't take any more than three rings for him to pick up the phone. When he did, he didn't seem panicked or even unsure. It was normal for Peter to occasionally call him when patrolling, whether that be to corner a particularly finicky criminal or to help with a minor wound. Peter never really got seriously injured all too often, and when he did, he refused to involve Matt or Wade. But, right now, it was kind of a necessary evil.

"What's up, Spidey?" Matt greeted, sounding as if he was in a fight of his own.

Peter wanted to scream when he opened his mouth. He didn't let himself, though. Doing that would only make it worse, and it would spiral on. Plus, incoherent screaming wouldn't exactly help Matt find him. "I don't mean to interrupt or anything, but, ah… Theoretically, how fast could you make a half hour drive if you really tried?" Peter questioned, gritting his teeth.

"Kid, I can't drive. I'm blind."

"I didn't ask you to drive, I just asked you how fast you could make it," Peter pointed out, resisting the urge to snap at Matt. Peter often found he got irritable when bleeding out—rightfully so, though, if he had anything to say about it, given the hole in his abdomen.

Matt huffed in a manner just softer than frustration. Peter might've found it akin to the way a father would sigh lovingly when interrupted by their child if he remembered anything much of his own. "About… an hour and a half, maybe, if I was running."

"Great, great… Yeah, I can last that long before I bleed out—" Peter spat sarcastically, more to himself than to Matt. Frankly, he hadn't even realized that he'd said it out loud at all.

"Spidey, what happened?" Matt exclaimed, entirely caught off guard. He'd expected Peter to have gotten stuck in one place or another, nothing serious. He hadn't expected bleeding out to be a possibility of the situation.

Peter shrugged, and he winced when it moved him wrong. "A villain kinda sorta led me out here and put a fence post through my stomach," he admitted as if it were normal.

"Shit, Spidey. I'm, uh, I'm on my way. I'll be twenty minutes, okay? Also, in the meantime, why do you sound like this is normal for you?"

Peter could hear Matt running. He was probably going to hijack a cab or something, considering the fact that he thought he could get there in twenty minutes. "It kind of is normal," Peter admitted. "Well, the stake part is new, but life-or-death situations? Those… they're pretty regular for me. I just do my best not to involve you or Wade."

"Kid, you can't— Where are you? Coordinates, directions, anything, just—"

"I dunno? Just… find me." Peter muttered, slowly sending Matt his location. Thank the gods for location sharing. He was steadily growing more and more unable to deal with the pain of being impaled, even if he focused his mind anywhere but on his pierced midsection. "Listen, Matt… It's about time I go hibernate until there isn't a chunk of wood through me, okay? If I'm unconscious when you find me, I promise I'm not dead."

"Kid, Spidey, no. Don't go to sleep, kid, that's quite literally the worst thing you could do—"

Peter hummed, dropping his head back, limp. He cut off the call, and lifted his mask above his nose. Then he was out like a light.

Peter wasn't exaggerating when he said he was going to hibernate. Whenever he was grievously injured in one way or another, his body completely shut down until it was sure he was safe, and he could do absolutely nothing about it.

It made it incredibly easy for his mask to slip too far as he went limp.

***

When Peter woke up, it was midday. He could easily tell from the way the sun outside was bright enough to fry his eyes the very second he opened them. Immediately, he balled them shut and threw himself onto his side, colliding with the back of the couch. He cried out in agony, curling up into a tight ball. If the wound wasn't still bleeding before, it definitely was now. Matt immediately clattered into the room with none of his usual grace. "Spidey, oh my— sit still, you'll only hurt yourself more," Matt instructed, grabbing Peter's shoulder and stopping him from tucking himself into any tighter of a ball.

The noise Peter made was deeply wounded, and Matt could only sigh in response to it, offering the small comfort of his hand on Peter's shoulder, until the boy—very gingerly— was able to uncurl and lower himself onto his back once again. He lifted his hand to rub the light out of his eyes, but after a moment, he paused. "The fact that I don't have my mask on really shouldn't make a difference since you're blind, but for some reason I feel like it really does," Peter said, too defeated to care that his identity had been revealed.

"It would," Matt agreed, "if I didn't already know your heartbeat. If I wanted to find your civilian identity, I would've done it months ago, Spidey."

"Peter," he told Matt without hesitation. "My name's Peter. Parker."

Matt paused. "…You didn't have to tell me that, Peter. I wouldn't have gone looking, whether I wanted to or not," he said tentatively.

"I know," Peter confirmed, "but, well, I know your identity. And I do end up crashing here, like… a lot. And I eat your food, too. You deserve to know my name. You've earned it."

Slowly, Matt laughed. He grinned wide and squeezed Peter's shoulder. "Well, if anything… I'm glad you trust me enough for that, Peter."

"I called you while I had a wooden stake through my stomach. I literally trusted you with my life. Did we ever really doubt that I would trust you with my identity? I just didn't find a good time to bring it up until now."

"Never doubted it for a second," Matt agreed, amused as he settled down on the arm of the couch beside Peter's head.

Peter completely melted, and he relaxed into the couch until he was certain he filled ever crevice of it. "Nice couch…" he murmured, attempting to press deeper into it. Despite it being a couch, this was nicer than his bed back home—there, the mattress was thin and springy and stiff, but this couch was thick and spongy and it sagged quite a bit under Peter's weight, but it only made it better. "Anything vital hit?"

"The stake nicked your stomach, I think. But not too much damage. With your healing factor, the outside wound will probably close up within the week, and any internal damage within the month," Matt assured him.

Peter hummed thoughtfully. "I could probably go back to patrols after the outside is—"

"You aren't going on patrol until it's fully healed—externally and internally," Matt instructed, "otherwise, you'll just hurt something again."

"You can't— You aren't my dad," Peter huffed defiantly.

"I'm not," Matt agreed. "I still give a shit about you, though, so I absolutely am going to do that anyway."

Peter frowned, complaining, but his defiance fell on deaf ears. Instead, Matt said, "I'm ordering us takeout. Have a nap."

"…Thai?"

"Sure, kid. Thai," Matt agreed.

Peter would happily have a nap (as much as he didn't like them) as long as it meant he could have Thai.

Just as he shut his eyes and went to sleep, he felt a blanket being laid over him, and he knew that by the time he woke up, he'd have a plate of warm food in front of him, and there was nothing more appealing.

***

They were not even three weeks into the school year, and Harley was already off for a day. It was safe to say that Peter was not very fond of that fact, given how Flash was essentially hanging off his arm and yelling insults directly into his ear canal, as he had been the entire day. Of course, Peter had been absent before now, but with Peter's line of work, that was to be expected, wasn't it? No one could blame him if he took a day or two because he'd been impaled straight through the stomach, especially since Matt wanted Peter to take even more time off—a week, at least, he'd said.

Harley, however, was not a vigilante. At least, not to Peter's knowledge. The possibility of Harley being a vigilante, no matter how small, did terrify him quite a bit. Though Harley was great, the man clearly had some issues that often went unchecked and resulted in violence. If Harley became a vigilante, there was a very good chance that the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would have to start protecting New York's criminal underworld from the man. Peter wasn't particularly fond of that thought. Either way, the point of the train of thought was clear: Harley had absolutely no excuse to not be here.

When Peter had texted him during first period when he'd realized that Harley probably wasn't just late anymore, that he wasn't going to come in at all, Harley had simply told Peter that he was "doing something" and he would "see him tomorrow." Yes, Peter was skeptical about all of this. What was Harley doing that he couldn't give Peter more information about? Was it crime? Was he a stripper in disguise? Probably neither. Peter was coming up with humorous solutions for the fun of it. How could he be so sure he'd see Peter tomorrow? Was he watching Peter, seeing that the boy was in perfect health and would be there at school to see Harley the following day? Being skeptical was fun, Peter decided.

Overall, it wasn't that Peter didn't trust Harley, but Peter didn't trust Harley. Though, in his defense, he did simultaneously trust Harley. He trusted Harley, of course he did, but Harley was acting weird, and Peter wanted to get to the bottom of it, and he had not a clue how. He'd rather know what Harley was up to so he really could trust him in the future. Was that how people felt about him (when he still had friends other than Harley, that was)? No, surely not. Actually…

"Penis, don't fucking ignore me!" Flash whisper shouted, punching Peter in the side and drawing him out of his thoughts.

Peter flinched. It hurt more than it should've done, given that his wound was still healing, but if it hadn't have been, Peter wouldn't have flinched at all, so, really, the universe worked in his favor and allowed him to have a regular human reaction for once in his life. After coming to his senses, he looked about, trying to figure out what had happened, and his expression immediately switched from curious to bored the second he saw Flash's face. "Oh. You," he muttered, looking down at his notebook. It was dead empty. He looked over at the notebook of the girl next to him. Her page was full. He reluctantly glanced back over to his other side. So was Flash's. Oops. At least this class was probably below his pay grade when it came to biology, AP or not.

He began to scribble random notes about the general subject of the lesson to busy himself while ignoring Flash. As much as he liked not writing notes on things he already knew, he was sure the teacher had given him at least 4 warning looks and may very well have spoken directly to him while he was in his zoned out state, so writing notes was really all he could do to achieve silent forgiveness.

People were talking around him. It was pissing him off. Flash grabbed his arm and said something that Peter promptly ignored so hard that he didn't hear it at all. "Don't touch me, Flash," Peter huffed, shrugging him off. His skin tingled uncomfortably where Flash had been touching it. He hated that. Distantly, as Flash did it again, and Peter told him just a bit more bitterly to stop touching him and removed him a bit more roughly, Peter heard the teacher scolding the both of them, telling them to stop bickering. Notes. Peter had to write notes. Peter's spider-sense was going off. It made him want to rip his own skin off. People were getting louder. The teacher was shouting now. They wouldn't go quiet.

Peter wished Harley was here. If Harley were here, he'd swap seats with Peter so t least he didn't have to deal with Flash. He'd give Peter his jacket because Peter had told him that he liked the fabric on the inside of it and he remembered because Harley remembered everything he thought was important, and Peter was important to him. Peter really, really wanted Harley here. Flash was getting louder, and Peter really, really needed to get out of here because Peter was really, really about to either cry, hyperventilate, or scream at the top of his lungs, and he wasn't quite sure which.

Peter got to his feet on instinct just in time to miss Flash moving to yell inches from his face, seemingly never getting bored of being ignored, and he stormed out of the room just like that. Maybe, in all the chaos, the teacher didn't notice him leaving. That would be nice. Then he wouldn't get in trouble for going out of class without permission. He doubted it, of course, given the fact that he was pretty sure he made quite the ruckus getting up, but still, he could hope for the best. That was the only way his head wasn't going to explode.

He left the school. When did that happen? He didn't know. He didn't remember walking to the door and he didn't remember opening it and he didn't remember walking out of the grounds, but here he was now, walking down the street, unsure whether to lose himself in the constant buzz of the city or his own thoughts. Both had their positives. Peter liked the hum of the city. It was a constant in his life, especially as Spider-Man, since, with his hearing, he always heard it even when other people thought it was silent. He couldn't escape the city, and he didn't want to. But he liked his thoughts. Thoughts were what everyone needed to stay sane. Was a man with no thoughts really a man at all, or just a sack of meat with some bones holding it up? Peter was inclined to believe the latter.

Then again, the risk of spiraling never ended well. Last time…

Peter could hear the steady hum of hundreds of thousands of car engines layered over one another. It created a symphony of sorts—the deep growl of the motorcycle engine was the bassline, the steady drone of an SUV was the melody, and the smoother, gentler hum of a high-end sports car was the harmony. Peter would tell Harley about all of this one day. Maybe. If Harley ever knew Peter was Spider-Man, he would tell Harley about how cars were music and magic and everything in between. Harley liked cars. He hadn't told Peter that, but Peter knew from the way he talked about them. Harley didn't have a car yet—he didn't think he'd need one until college, at least—but he messed with his mentor's cars (yes, plural, Peter was impressed too) all the time, much to his chagrin. Harley was the world's best mechanic at seventeen, Peter was sure.

Peter could hear the chatter, a lovely amalgamation of indiscernible words blending into a buzz of a thousand different pitches. He could hear the beep of a reversing truck, the ding of crossing lights turning from red to green, the novel little cha-ching sound Delmar's cash register made whenever it opened to have money put inside. Peter could hear keyboards clacking and cameras clicking and he could see them flashing but not at him and—

Peter collided straight with someone's back. He didn't even have time to sticky himself to the ground so he wouldn't fall before he was already on his ass, and they didn't even notice, and the overwhelming feeling of stress and anger and everything wrong that had been slowly ebbing away the more he disconnected from everything but what he wanted to exist began to bubble up like a pot boiling over. Face contorting into something of an upset scowl, Peter scrambled to his feet. The entire sidewalk was blocked by paparazzi. If Peter was in his Spider-Man suit, he would've just swung over them. But he wasn't in his Spider-Man suit, so he'd have to go around it. But he couldn't do that, no, because walking on the road would be a death sentence, superhuman or not, and on the other side was an even larger crowd of civilians trying to get a mere glance of whoever the press was fawning over this time.

Can't go over it, can't go under it, can't go around it, got to go through it.

Peter might've found his mental reference to a nursery rhyme amusing if he hadn't just elbowed a journalist out of the way. The man was fine, of course—Peter would never purposely harm someone—but he was certainly ruffled over the fact that Peter had just knocked him out of the way of what apparently would've been a perfect picture. People were yelling at Peter as he made his way through the crowd, but, frankly, he didn't care. He hadn't thought through how he'd deal with the fact that this was probably the most crowded place he'd ever been in when he was already overwhelmed, but Peter's solution was just to knock them like dominoes. Use them to push over their peers to make everything a little less crowded and more spacious.

He thought that just maybe he'd found relief when he made it out of the crowd, only to realize that it was a complete circle, and he had to do that all over again. There was someone in the center of the circle, of course, but Peter didn't care to look who. He was just preparing himself to start barging again but someone grabbed him by the shoulder and he didn't know what they were saying to him but they were saying something and they were probably pissed and they were probably at least raising their voice but Peter wasn't sure but, either way, Peter decided that the appropriate reaction was to yell back.

"Oh, fuck off! In case you haven't noticed, you're blocking the entire fucking sidewalk with your congregation of "loyal fans" and paparazzi, and it just so happens that there are exactly two ways that I can get to my apartment and one of them is blocked off because some jackass super villain that the fucking Avengers couldn't be bothered dealing with decided that it would be funny to burst the pipes going along the entire road, so this is the only way I'm getting home to cry and, unfortunately for you, you aren't god's gift to humanity, so I'm fucking sorry but I am not going to deal with you acting like you're better than all of us when the only reason that you got where you are is privilege and connections and luck that you really don't deserve, so don't fucking talk to me like I'm dog shit on the bottom of your designer blood-money shoe and fucking let go of me because I'm a minor and I will scream pedophile if you don't!"

Whoever it was stumbled back in shock, and Peter muttered, "Fucking thank you," incredibly bitterly under his breath, and as he stormed off, ready to barge through the crowd once again, they parted like Moses at the Red Sea and Peter took the opportunity to not touch anyone because he was pretty sure he'd have a breakdown if he did.

Peter was shaking. Not a single part of his body could stay steady and he wasn't quite sure whether it was from being incredibly overwhelmed or incredibly, incredibly angry because god knew that he wasn't one to usually act like that, but either way it didn't matter because Peter didn't know how far out he was before he collapsed into an alley and screamed at the top of his lungs, high and loud and ear-shattering and blood-curdling, until he couldn't scream anymore, and he just started to weakly sob, not much sound other than gasps for air coming from between his tears. God, Peter wished Harley was here. It would be so embarrassing, so fucking embarrassing to sit here, crying after yelling at the Tony Stark and essentially saying he needed to get his ego under control, and his weird little protégé was there, too—Prince, as the people of the city so love to call him—and God, Peter hated that boy. Peter hated how he had everything and Peter had nothing and Prince didn't even seem swayed that he did have everything. He tolerated Tony Stark most days because even though he had an ego high as the sky, he donated to charities and worked in green energy and saved lives, so his definite narcissism could be forgiven, but Prince? What was he doing? Nothing.

"Well, you put on a right show out there. Y'alright?"

Peter recognized the voice. No, he didn't. He didn't know anyone with a British accent. But he knew that voice. He couldn't. He glanced up anyway. "Oh, go die," Peter scoffed quietly, wiping his tears.

Prince sat down beside him, resting against the wall. "Seriously, mate. You looked like you were gonna burst into tears," he reiterated.

"Oh, I wonder why," Peter didn't want to deal with this right now. He was not in the head space to deal with this right now.

"So… Not a fan of Iron Man?" Prince asked helplessly, unsure what to do with the situation. It didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

Peter huffed, rubbing his stinging eyes. "Not a fan of Tony Stark, even less of a fan of you."

Prince winced. It was clear that comforting people wasn't his strong suit to begin with, and he certainly didn't know how to comfort someone who seemed to think he was Satan incarnate. "Is there, uhm… Did I—"

"You got lucky. That's what you did. You got lucky, and you got on the rich guy's good side. You got everything while everyone else who could be just as smart as you, if not more, have to work with less than nothing because the rich want to keep the rich richer and the poor poorer," he snapped. And then he felt guilty because, looking at the way Prince's head dropped into a regretful nod, for the first time, he knew he was human too. If it was anyone else here with him, anyone who weren't born with the power of the world in their palms, and Prince was in the same position as Peter was right now, Peter would feel just as mad at them for him and he did all the other geniuses who didn't have what Prince did. If it was any other way, Peter would be on his side without question. And yet it wasn't. He wasn't. He still resented him.

He could sense the way Prince drew his lips together into a tight line as he took a deep breath, even though he couldn't see his face. "Yeah… I met a guy recently who's done a really good job of proving that to me," he admitted. "You know, even before I met Tony—because we aren't related, like, at all—I was fairly well off, and so was everyone around me. None of us were rich, but none of us had to worry about money for bills or food or— but he does. He stretches himself thin—and he's only seventeen—working full-time on top of high-school, too, just so he can afford coffee (God knows he needs it), and I'm honestly pretty sure he wasn't eating nearly as much as he should've been because of it. He hasn't said anything but, but, you can just see it. Everyone can see it."

"Mm. Sounds like we'd get along well," Peter joked, though the humor in his tone was stained by bitter regret and jealousy. "Maybe you should introduce me to him."

"Maybe. Then again, you might as well be complete opposites. He's pretty much a profession de-escalator, and, well, you…"

"I'm not normally like that. Even when I do get overwhelmed and emotional and… that's new," he muttered.

Prince nodded. "Well, eventually all the anger that you build up from not screaming at people needs to come out some way, right?"

"Yeah, right," Peter responded, snorting slightly. Slowly, he got to his feet, and Prince followed.

"Feeling better?" he asked and Peter thought for a second.

"Well, I'm not on the verge of tears anymore, so… It's only because I got to prove a point to an oblivious rich boy."

"Yeah, fair. Well, uh… Get home alright, alright? Can I… uh…" Prince's hand hovered awkwardly over Peter's shoulder.

Peter looked between Prince's hand and his face, shadowed by his hood. Peter wondered what was under there. "No idea. Do it and see how I feel. Either I'm fine and you live or I'm not fine and I slap you."

Prince patted Peter's shoulder. Peter slapped him.

"Ow! Sorry," Prince said, quickly pulling his hand back.

"Oh, don't apologize. I'm fine," Peter insisted. "I just felt like slapping you. Just to remind you that I still resent you."

Prince stared for a moment, then he nodded. "Fair," he repeated, and Peter could hear the amused smile in his voice as he walked off. He was… tolerable at best, even if Peter hated him. Peter followed soon after, though in the opposite direction.

In the middle of the night, just as Peter was about to fall asleep, his eyes flew open in realization.

He yelled at Tony Stark.

In front of dozens, probably hundreds of paparazzi.

Paparazzi that are always starving for a good story.

Always starving for pure drama.

Especially if it could create lots of discourse.

Because that meant even more drama.

Peter was, in every sense of the phrase, abso-fucking-lutely fucked.

***

Peter wasn't going to get up. He had fully decided that he'd die here, lying in bed and refusing to face anyone ever again. It was seven—or was it eight?—in the morning, and he knew he had to get up at some point, but did he really? Yes. Of course he did. Was he going to? Now that was the debatable fact of the situation. Getting up was something he'd been procrastinating for the past… a while. And of course he'd come to the conclusion that he simply wouldn't. Of course, as he stood up, he knew he would because Peter was a weak-willed man and he knew he'd be in very deep trouble if he skipped school without a reasonable excuse.

And, well, much to Peter's chagrin, his school certainly wouldn't view "I yelled at the richest man in the city in front of too many paparazzi to count and now I can never leave my apartment ever again" as a valid reason as to why he couldn't make it to class. So, of course, he had to pull on some clothes and get out of the door so he at least had the time to get himself a coffee to prep for this daytime nightmare.

He bothered with breakfast even less than usual. It was a very good thing indeed, too, because all he had in the cupboards was a box of week-stale off-brand Cheerios. They would've tasted like sand in his mouth, no matter how soft the stray pieces in the bottom of the box had gotten with age. He needed coffee. He needed caffeine to function. He needed a hoodie. He needed a mask. He needed something that would hide his face. He got a hoodie and walked out of the door (making sure to double check that it was properly locked, just in case someone decided to sell out his address to the paparazzi), and suddenly he was on the highest alert he ever had been.

Everyone on the streets was a potential enemy, whether they could see his face or not. Every car that stopped near him set off his spider-sense, even if they were just caught in a red light or letting someone cross the road. Everything was out to get Peter, and he couldn't do anything about it but hide because he'd brought this upon himself.

The bell on the door chimed as he walked in, and he winced at the mere concept of bringing attention to himself. His hood was pulled so far over his face that not a soul could even dream of seeing his face, and he still lived in fear. Rightfully so, apparently, because someone immediately tackled him. He quickly realized that it was a hug and not an attack, but still, he wriggled helplessly against his captor. "Pete!" Harley exclaimed, pulling back and holding Peter up by his shoulders. His toes just barely hit the floor even when he went onto his very tiptoes. It put pointe ballerinas to shame. "What did ya do?"

"I didn't mean to!" Peter complained, scrambling in an attempt to get Harley to put him down. "I was, like, exploding. Mentally."

"Have ya even looked at your phone? Everyone in school is havin' a complete meltdown!"

"How do you think I feel…" he muttered.

"Seriously, though, Pete. Have ya even looked at your phone? The Bugle is—"

"Oh, the Bugle? The Daily Bugle?" Peter asked, jaw dropping. Peter, as Spider-Man, had a very deep-rooted hatred for the Daily Bugle, and J. Jonah Jameson in specific. "I knew they were desperate but jeez. I thought I was below their pay grade. All they talk about is Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man."

"Pete, ya cussed out Iron Man. A random seventeen-year-old boy cussed out Iron Man, the genius billionaire superhero, and told him to get his ego under control. Every news outlet in the country is jumping on this— Hell, news outlets in Europe are eatin' this up," Harley explained. "The British, Peter! Even the British are talkin' about ya right now! They're comin' for ya, Peter, the British!"

Peter blanched. "And I thought maybe just the smaller papers was bad— The Bugle? You're sure?" Harley nodded. "Oh… Kill me, Harls. Kill me."

"No can do, Pete," Harley sighed, finally setting Peter on his feet and rifling through his wallet to pull out some money—clearly, Harley paying for Peter was steadily going to become a routine. "C'mon, get ya coffee, we gotta go."

Peter stared mournfully at the exit for far longer than he needed to and took the money from Harley, going up to the counter and getting his coffee. He tried to drag out the walk from the coffee shop to school as much as he could, but, alas, it got to the point where Harley grabbed Peter by the arm and dragged him along. He hated this so, so very much, and he would absolutely be using Harley as a human shield until everybody forgot he existed again.

***

It was the 30th of September. Peter thought things were looking up. Peter thought that nothing else major would happen this month. Wasn't him being staked enough for the universe to be content with his pain for the month? No. No, not at all. He simply had to have it worse than he already did. And this wasn't even physical pain, this was just incredibly fucking stressful.

Peter was swinging through the city with Matt and Wade in his ear on the comms they'd recently acquired for when they decided it was group patrol night, bickering over one inconsequential thing or another. Peter paid them no attention, more focused on his patrol than childish quarreling. Then, with the sound of a gunshot, Peter paused. "Shut up, guys," he instructed.

Neither listened.

"Shut it, you two!" he then shouted, not afraid of quickly escalating. "I hear something."

That was when the pair went silent. Peter focused his ears entirely on the origin of the noise.

"…stop me without your suit, Iron Man! What're you gonna do now? We've got the place surrounded!"

"Possible active hostage situation," Peter explained, beginning to swing towards where it came from. "Tony Stark is involved unarmed and the building is supposedly surrounded. Converge on 5th and do your best to keep up. If it comes down to it, aim for non-lethal shots but do what has to be done to keep civilians safe."

"You got it, baby boy!" Wade responded eagerly, and Peter took Matt's grunt of recognition as agreement, too.

But, no matter how calm he was on the outside, his insides did not match up in the slightest. They tossed and turned in a way they only could when completely and utterly freaked beyond belief, and Peter wasn't quite sure why. He didn't give any more or less of a shit about Tony Stark than he did any other civilian. So why was he freaking out at the prospect of him being held hostage? Why was he beyond freaking out at the prospect of him being held hostage?

When Peter reached fifth, and he could see Matt and Wade hardly a few meters behind, he didn't stop for them. He slowed, of course, knowing expecting them to run across roofs with the speed of his swings was asking for far too much, but he simply assumed they would follow, and they did. And Peter approached the noise as fast as he could manage without having Matt and Wade lose him or fall too far behind.

And then they arrived, and they landed on the building beside it. Peter held back Matt and Wade, stalking forward to survey the situation. They weren't lying when they said they had the place surrounded. There had to be at least twenty of them all around the perimeter of the building, spread evenly but not too thin, though there was probably even more. Hopefully, as most were, they were dumb enough not to look up.

"Try and take down some of the perimeter guard—quietly. Don't let them figure out what's happening until they're already caught," Peter instructed. "I'm going inside. When I give the signal, come in whether you're done with the guards or not."

With a nod of understanding, they dispersed. Peter quickly scaled the wall until he was at the highest window of the hall, which was probably about three stories high, and watched through the glass. Inside, he saw that there were far less criminals inside. Probably only four or five, if Peter had the full view, which he seemed to. That meant that they were more focused on preventing an escape or a rescue than getting their hands dirty, which probably also meant that they planned to make quick work of the job. Peter's eyes locked onto Tony, who seemed mildly agitated on the outside, though, if Peter pulled his hearing to listen to the man's heartbeat, he was three seconds away from calling an ambulance for a heart attack.

His gaze followed Tony's directly to the reason that he'd been so worried. Peter didn't like that reason much—he didn't like the fact that it was his reason and he didn't like the reason itself. Prince was sitting there, almost entirely helpless, tied in rope with a pistol held to his temple. He didn't want to give more of a shit about Prince than he did any other civilian, so why did he? As he'd said during their previous encounter: Peter still hated him. He was tolerable, but he still hated him. So why did he care about him?

Prince flinched as the man holding him pulled the trigger, but nothing gory became of him. They were playing some fucked up game of Russian roulette, it seemed. As if the game wasn't fucked up enough when everyone was willing to put their lives on the line for the thrill of it. Peter had to put a stop to it before the bullet ended in Prince's skull. So, with all the grace of the spider he was named after, he slid open the window and dropped down to the balcony above the ballroom Prince was being kept on without making a sound.

His steps were light as air, as if he was floating along, until he was hardly half a foot away from the captor's back, and both him and Prince were still entirely unaware that Peter was there at all. Then, slowly, Peter moved. He prepared himself and made sure he got the positioning absolutely flawless, otherwise it could end in his position being compromised or worse—Prince's brains being blown out. In very quick succession, Peter grabbed the gun and pinched the base of the captor's neck. The man fell limp, unconscious in Peter's arms as he caught him and the gun fell into Peter's grip without a sound.

Prince tried to turn around, but Peter quickly stilled the boy with a tight grip on his shoulder, refusing to allow him to turn. "Stay still," Peter whispered. "Sudden movements in the peripheral vision can draw attention, and we want as little attention on you as possible. Hopefully, everything will be dealt with before they even think of paying any attention to you."

Slowly, Prince nodded, staring up at Peter almost curiously as he untied him, gently setting the rope on the floor. He gently patted Prince's shoulder for a second before looking back over to the scene beneath. The criminals were clearly inexperienced, only having power in numbers and not skill. This would be easy. He strode to the other end of the overlook, crouching on the railing far from where Prince stayed, perfectly unmoving. Then, still in the middle of his speech, the villain went dead silent. His mouth had been webbed up.

"Oh, jeez, were you not finished? Sorry not sorry, but, uh, unfortunately, criminals don't get to finish their narcissistic speeches. In fact, I think you'll find that you have the right to remain silent," Peter said, grin thick in his voice, and when the criminals suddenly turned all their attention to him, he leaped from the balcony and activated his comms. "It's go time, guys."

They all descended like vultures on him, and Matt and Wade both burst into the building with just a handful of guards following, guns blazing. The trio worked in synchronization, directing bullets away from the innocent attendees of what Peter could only assume was some form of charity gala, but in all the chaos, he made the mistake of not looking up until his spider-sense went off. That was when he saw it. One of the criminals had managed to separate off and get back onto the balcony. His gun was pointed at Prince. The boy couldn't back up any further, already backed into a corner. The criminal's finger was over the trigger.

Peter shot a web and locked it onto the highest surface he could reach. Without a heartbeat of hesitation, he swung as fast as he could and used the momentum of the swing to kick the guy in the stomach. All Peter meant to do was knock him off balance so he'd drop the gun and get in a position where Peter could web him up easily enough. But the window he fell into had a weak latch. With the force of it, it broke. And the window opened. And he went through it. And he fell. Twenty-five feet, it had to be, at the least. And he hit the ground. He landed on his neck. Peter could tell from the way he heard a large plane of bone shatter and a longer, thicker bone snap clean in two, followed by a large, sickening thud. The skull, the spinal cord, and then the rest of him. Just like that. His heart stopped beating the second his head hit the ground.

And everything was silent. No. It wasn't silent. Peter could hear the way Matt and Wade were catching their breaths after finally taking down the last enemy and Peter could hear the way cars whizzed by, unaware of the body under the window, and Peter could hear the way Prince unsteadily stepped towards him, unsure of what to say, and Peter could hear the innocents fretting between themselves, completely oblivious to the death that had just occurred, and Peter could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears so loudly he almost flinched with every beat. He wanted to it to stop. All the blood had drained from his face, and he wasn't breathing. He was as still as ice, and his blood was running about as cold as it, too.

"H-Hey. Hey, mate, look at me," Prince tried, reaching out to Peter. When Peter stepped back, beginning to shake, he pulled his hand away. "It wasn't your fault, alright? It wasn't your fault."

"I killed him," Peter whispered, hardly audible. "I killed him, I heard him hit the ground, I killed him. He hit head first, I know he did. I heard his skull shatter and his neck snap and I did that, I killed him…"

Peter was backing up until he was pressed against the railing. He gripped onto it so hard it began to crack and splinter beneath his grip. Prince didn't know what to do. He had no idea what to do with someone who was freaking out over the fact that they just committed murder. He didn't even know Peter. How was he meant to comfort a vigilante that had never met him before? He wasn't.

"Oi! Hey, you two—yeah, the ones in leather! Spidey's— I dunno, he's not doing great up here, and I dunno how to fix him!" Prince called over the edge of the balcony. It caused a ruckus, considering that Prince really did not talk in public, which Peter would come to realize in a month or so, but most of the ruckus was caused by Matt and Wade rushing to Peter's side. As soon as they were there, Prince backed off, knowing they could probably do more for Peter than he could.

Matt began to speak to Peter in hushed words as Wade asked Prince about what happened. "Hey, hey, kid, listen to me, you gotta let go of the railing. You gotta let go for me, kid. You're gonna hurt yourself if it breaks."

"I killed him, Matt, I killed him, he's dead, he—"

Gently, Matt reached forward and pried Peter's fingers from the railing as carefully as he could as he spoke, "You made the right decision, Spidey. Someone was going to die either way, and making it be Prince who survived is the best thing you could've done."

"No, no, Matt, I could've— I could've—"

"No. You couldn't have, Spidey. It sucks, really bad, but there was no way everyone was making it out of that alive. Aren't you glad it was Prince who survived?" Matt asked.

"I… I mean, yeah, I am…"

"So don't beat yourself up, okay? You did the right thing." Slowly, Peter stumbled forward until he fell limp in Matt's arms, still shaking just a hint, and he knew he'd be sleeping in Matt's apartment tonight. He wouldn't be able to handle being alone.