Chapter Text
Peter felt himself wince as light bled through the curtains. Lying still, he thought about moving. But there was a haze in his mind that made it feel like too much effort. So as he continued lying on the bed, he slowly realised that there was a strange weight pressed against him.
It felt warm and comforting even though he couldn’t identify it. So, seeing no harm in I,t he wrapped an arm around the weight. To his surprise, as he did, he felt the weight press in closer against him.
Eventually, however, Peter heard an alarm go off. Fighting the urge to let out a groan, Peter flailed an arm in the direction he thought the alarm was coming from. Until finally, Peter felt his hand hit something.
“Urgh… what the hell?” A groan slipped out of the warm mass as it snuggled up to Peter. A groan that finally made him open his eyes. Looking down at the source, Peter was surprised to see Gwen’s blue eyes staring up at him. And slightly below those eyes was a frown.
“Peter, why’d you just hit me?” Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Peter stared down at Gwen. Still breaking his brain out of the fugue of sleep, it took him longer than usual to realise what she had said.
“Oh! No, I’m sorry, Gwen, I didn’t mean to. I was still, well, what I mean is—” Peter’s rambling was cut off by Gwen pressing a finger against his lips, a small smirk on her lips as she did.
“Jeez, you’re so easy to mess with.” Peter felt the worry melt away at Gwen’s teasing smile. However, almost as quickly, it came back as Gwen’s face shifted into a teasing pout, “Although you’re not off the hook for slapping me awake.” However, when Gwen moved off of Peter, her face warped in pain, “Fuck!”
“Gwen!” eyes widening, Peter grabbed Gwen by the shoulders, rougher than he’d meant to, but unable to register that, “What’s wrong? Oh shit, last night!” Jumping backwards, Peter pulled the blanket off of Gwen, revealing that she’d started to bleed through her bandaging.
“Crap, I’ll go grab more bandages so we can swap them.” Darting out of his bedroom, Peter left Gwen alone. “C’mon, where’s the bandages… I had them last night!” Scrambling through the cabinets of his and Harry’s shared apartment, Peter searched desperately for his stash of bandages.
“They can’t be gone, I only filled them up the other day.” muttering under his breath, Peter missed the yawning figure of Harry emerging from his bedroom. “C’mon… where are they…”
“Ooooh…” covering his mouth with a hand to stifle his yawn, Harry stopped to stare at Peter with confused, blurry eyes, “Peter? What’re you doing?”
Freezing his frantic search, Peter slowly turned to face Harry, “Oh, hey Harry, I was just uhh…” Peter’s eyes darted around the room as he tried to think of an explanation. “I was just, uh, looking for biscuits?” Peter shrugged as his eyes finally met Harry’s confused stare.
“Biscuits? Aren’t they just in the cupboard?” Harry’s eyebrow raised as he pointed towards the apartment cupboard. Smiling awkwardly at Harry, Peter walked over to the cupboard and grabbed a box of biscuits.
“Thanks, Harry, I’ll be in my room if you need me.” Smiling awkwardly at Harry, Peter slowly walked backwards before darting back into his room.
“Man, he can be weird sometimes…” Harry muttered under his breath before starting his usual morning ritual of coffee.
Slipping back into his room, Peter’s mouth dropped when he saw Gwen sitting up in his bed with a sticky hand pressed against her side.
“Shit, Gwen!” Darting forward, Peter threw the box of cookies onto his desk before replacing her hand with his own. Ignoring how horrifying the feel of bloodied flesh was against his hand Peter looked up into Gwen’s cloudy eyes, “What the hell happened! Where are the bandages from last night?” desperately fighting the urge to yell Peter pressed his hands tight against Gwen’s gaping wound before his eyes darted around the room to look for some sign of the dirty bandages.
“I dunno… I just felt something sticky when you left…” Gwen was tight-lipped as she spoke, the pain of the gaping, likely infected wound, clearly making talking a struggle for her.
“Ok… well I couldn’t find any bandages—” pausing mid-sentence Peter leant back to grab his webshooter out of his bedside table, lifting it to Gwen’s eyeline Peter strained a smile,“Ok so it’s not the best fix but I’ll use some webbing to hold you together while I go out and grab some proper bandages ok?”
Biting her lip, Gwen gave Peter the tiniest motion of her head that could still be considered a nod, “Great. Hold still. If I miss this, it could rip some skin.” Sliding his webshooter onto his free hand, Peter lined up the shot, ignoring how his tongue slipped past his lips as he did.
Pulling away from Gwen, Peter studied the bandaging approximate on her side, “Well, it looks as good as web bandages ever do… I wish I could do better but it seems we’re out of bandages…” trailing off, Peter looked around his room for a moment, “I guess we finished them off last night. Don’t know where those went, though.” Peter continued muttering under his breath.
“No that doesn’t matter I need to go grab some more.” reaching forward Peter softly took Gwen’s hand in his own however the lack of response made it clear to him that she’d fallen asleep, “Don’t worry I’ll be back soon. Although you must have been in more pain than I thought if you fell asleep again” letting go of Gwen, Peter took a small step back before turning to leave the room.
But stopping at the door, he turned back to whisper even though he knew she wouldn’t hear it, “ I’ll tell Harry I’ve gone out, so if you just stay in here, he shouldn’t bother you. ” And with those final words, Peter left Gwen alone.
Gwen didn’t know how much time had passed when she finally awoke from her sleep, and much to her dismay, she could feel something seeping from her side. Raising a surprisingly weak arm to her stomach, Gwen winced as her side squelched under her hand.
“That fucking asshole…” angrily muttering under her breath, Gwen held her hand against her side before throwing the doona off of her. Wincing again, Gwen sat up on the bed while doing everything she could to ignore the pain.
Gwen moved to rest her hand on the bedside table, but missed. “Shit!” falling off the bed, Gwen couldn’t help but swear in pain as she felt something stab into her back. Continuing to swear under her breath, Gwen pushed herself onto her hand before reaching behind her back to try and see what was stabbing her.
Pulling back her hand, Gwen saw the glint of orange plastic. “Fuck I forgot about that…” lifting the orange pill bottle to her eye, Gwen squinted at the circular pills inside. Popping the cap off, Gwen shook a single pill out onto the palm of her hand.
“It seems normal…” Looking at it, Gwen couldn’t see anything wrong with the pill. It seemed like every other pill she’d ever seen. There was nothing to indicate these would do what Murderdock had claimed.
But also nothing to indicate it wouldn’t. But then, who’s to say she wasn’t just sick, either? There was nothing that had happened to Gwen so far that proved Murderdock’s claims about her vanishing powers.
Her mental anguish clear on her face. Gwen glared down at the pill bottle. While she didn’t trust Murdock, he’d prided himself on never actually lying to her. He got some sick glee in his ‘code’.
“Fuck!” Without even thinking about it, Gwen threw the small orange bottle over her shoulder. Pulling her legs in close, Gwen wrapped her arms around her legs before resting her head on her knees.
“Fuck… can I risk it?” Letting out a sigh, Gwen tried to ignore the flurry of images her mind imagined. Her powers suddenly disappearing mid-fight. Her spider-sense growing increasingly erratic, or the fine control she had over her strength disappearing.
Peter is getting injured because of her. A massive lizard monster shrinking into the form of her best friend.
Sure, it was all in her head. She was just imagining the worst-case scenarios. There was no reason to think any of those things would happen. Telling the truth for years to set up one massive lie is exactly what Murdock would do.
And she didn’t even notice her powers going wack till Murdock brought it up, so it’s probably just like breathing. As soon as your attention’s brought to it, it stops working properly.
Gwen tried to tell herself that at least. It didn’t get rid of the voice in the back of her mind, but it at least got rid of the images torturing her.
Lifting her head, Gwen turned to grab the bottle off the bed. As much as she wanted to just fling it into the Hudson, she couldn’t. Sure, Murderdock was a piece of shit, and sure, it could all be in her head, but Gwen wasn’t willing to take that chance.
So sliding the bottle into her pocket, ignoring the pain that shot through her as she did, Gwen slowly lifted herself back onto the bed. “Whew… god that hurts…” air slipped past Gwen’s lips as she pressed a hand to the wound in her side.
Closing her eyes to rest against the bed, Gwen hears Harry shout something, but can’t make out what exactly he said. Suddenly feeling tired, Gwen let herself fall asleep, confident in the thought that Peter would wake her up when he got back.
“C’Mon Morrie! I’ve got things to do and places to be! I can’t deal with all this water!” Leaping from one side of the street to the other, Peter narrowly avoided a hammer made of water flying towards him. “Seriously, man! I get that you gave up on being a productive member of society, but some of us got stuff to do!”
Peter frowned under his mask as Hydro-Man continued to not only refuse to rise to his taunts but even show his face.
Leaping over a car thrown at him, Peter caught it with his webs before continuing to try and provoke the supervillain. “Did I hurt your feelings last time when I joked about your watery smile? Is that why you’re staying all monstro-mode?”
Landing on the side of an apartment building, Peter paused to think of another taunt, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Hydro-Man hurled another mass of water at him. Not quite managing to dodge this one, Peter spat out water as he swung closer to Hydro-Man.
“Ptew! Damn, Morrie, I thought we had an understanding! No water in the mouth! Man, I must’ve pissed you off last time!” Bouncing between buildings, Peter tried to look for something he could use to solidify Hydro-Man. Cause if he continued to refuse to show his human form, Peter’d struggle to knock him out.
“C’mon, man! Gimme a face to hit! This isn’t any fun unless—Whoah!” Uncharacteristically losing his sense of balance in mid-air, Peter felt himself suddenly fly in the opposite direction he had jumped. Just narrowly missing a wall of solid water, a wall of water that his spider-sense seemed to miss.
“What was that?” muttering under his breath, Peter, distracted from his fight with Hydro-Man, looked to see what had made him move. But as he looked around, he couldn’t see anything. “That’s strange.”
However, Peter’s attention was dragged back to the water monster by the sound of crackling electricity. Looking back, Peter saw Hydro-Man start spasming wildly, jumping towards him, Peter was stopped almost instantly by a sharp pain shooting through his head. Flinging an arm wide, Peter fired off a webline, pulling himself away just as a large structure fell from the sky.
“What the—“ whatever it was Peter was going to say was lost as the wind around him suddenly kicked up. Turning and shielding his eyes from the glare of a spotlight, Peter watched as a helicopter landed in the middle of the street.
“Ah, Spider-Man! Thanks for stepping in and looking after our… wayward friend for us…” Stepping out of the helicopter with a confidence that betrayed his advanced senses, Matt Murdock smiled at Peter.
“Matt? What’s with all of this?” Peter couldn’t help the confusion in his voice as he looked from Matt to the armoured men that followed him out of the helicopter. Striding forward,- Matt slowed to a stop next to Peter.
“Well, these are just some friends of mine, Spidey. A private militia of sorts that’ve been helping out with the transportation of violent metacriminals.” sauntering forward, Matt rapped his cane against the structure holding Hydro-Man, “That’s what happened here, you see? Our friend was being transported back from Oscorp to the RAFT and decided to get a bit rowdy. I’m grateful you kept him in place long enough for us to swoop in.”
“Wait, Oscorp?” Frowning under his mask, Peter started striding towards Murdock, but was quickly cut off by a pair of armoured men. “Oi! What’re you two doing?”
“Ah, calm down, gents, it’s just Spidey. He won’t hurt me.” Smirking Matt used his cane to push down the closest man’s guns before walking forward, “We’re good friends.”
Side eyeing the guards, Peter crossed his arms, “Yeah, I guess, although what do you mean he was at Oscorp? Why was he being moved from the RAFT? That’s a bit dangerous, isn’t it?” slowly creeping towards Matt, Peter’s eyes tightened under his mask as his gaze darted between Matt and his men.
As he did, the goons slowly stopped what they were doing and, in impressive synchronisation, began to aim their rifles as one. But before any of them got their rifles above waist height, Matt spoke up with an outstretched hand to them.
“Hey, calm down, guys. Like I said, Pe—Spidey is a friend. No need to get violent, in fact, I’m sure Spidey’s just leaving.” The slip of the tongue shocked Peter so much that he involuntarily took a step back. The ghost of a smile that flicked across Matt’s lips, one that Peter almost could’ve sworn was a trick of the light, made it clear that he was supposed to hear the slip of the tongue.
The threat. As that was all it could be was clear, if Peter stayed, Matt was going to go public with his identity. Peter didn’t know what the hell he’d done to piss Matt off enough for this, but he could tell he wasn’t going to learn it here.
“Yeah… I guess I can leave this to you then…”
“Yes, that’s good, Spider-Man. We’ll have to catch up sometime. Spider-Woman, too.” Ignoring the flash of anger that shot through him, Peter swung off without saying anything. As he did, he missed Matt ‘watching’ as he swung away, his smirk widening further and further as he swung.
Landing on the window of his room, Peter ripped his soaked mask off his face as he quietly slipped inside, “God, that gets disgusting when it’s wet.” muttering under his breath, Peter threw his mask onto his desk before placing the plastic bag he held in his other hand next to it.
However, he wasn’t quiet enough. As before, he could do anything else, the blankets on his bed began to shift.
“Urhg… Peter? Is that you?” Yawning more than talking, Gwen pulled the blanket off her head and stared at him with bleary eyes.
“Uh yeah, I’m back.” Reaching into the bag, Peter pulled out bandages with a shaky smile. “With bandages!” rolling her eyes at Peter, Gwen winced as she shuffled back on Peter’s bed and rested against his headboard.
“That’s nice…” Gwen’s speech was slow as she closed her eyes.
Freezing in place, Peter cocked an eyebrow at his girlfriend. “Hey, wakey wakey. I need to replace those bandages for you.” Walking forward, Peter helped Gwen move into a position where he could get to her side.
“Nrgh!” wincing, Gwen side-eyed Peter, “C’mon, Spidey, I thought you were supposed to be good with your fingers?”
Letting out an awkward laugh, Peter met Gwen’s eyes as he slowly wrapped the bandages around her stomach, “Well, to be fair, I’m good at as very specific motion with my fingers. Anything other than that, I’m less good.”
“Tch…” rolling her eyes, Gwen suppressed another wince as Peter started applying pressure to the bandages. Looking around the room for something to distract her, Gwen’s brow furrowed as she looked outside. “Peter?”
“Yup?” focused more on applying the bandages, Peter mindlessly responded to Gwen.
“Why’s the sun setting?” Gwen’s tone turned accusatory, “How long were you out? Did something happen?” Peter’s eyes darted to Gwen for a moment before rubbing the back of his neck.
“I may have had a run-in with Hydro-Man before I made it to the store. Just slowed me down a bit.” As Peter spoke, however, he looked away from Gwen, and his voice shook ever so slightly. Something that Gwen picked up on.
“What else happened, Peter?” Fighting another wince, Gwen gave Peter her best disapproving look. One that made him melt immediately.
“I ran into Daredevil, too. He said some weird stuff. But you shouldn’t worry about it. You need to focus on getting better.” Peter thought his words would prove to be enough and let Gwen move on. But to his surprise, the exact opposite happened, and Gwen jolted upright.
“What? Daredevil did something? What did he do?” Gwen’s eyes went wild as they darted around the room, as if looking for something.
“Whoah whoah, calm down, Gwen. It…” Peter trailed off. Part of the reason he had taken so long was that he thought better when he was swinging, and he remembered what Gwen had told him about the Matt on her earth, so he knew what she’d jump to if he told her what Matt had said. But Peter didn’t want to assume the worst of Matt; it was entirely possible that it was a slip of the tongue. He’d barely seen the other hero since he’d gone to jail, so who knew what was going on. But Peter didn’t have as long to think about it as he thought he did, as Gwen started glaring again.
“Peter…” Gwen’s voice was low and a clear warning, “What did he do?”
“Well, he just—” Again, Peter tried to just blow off Gwen’s worry, but it was to no avail.
“No, Peter.” Climbing out of bed, Gwen repeated herself, “What. did. Murdock do. It’s a very simple question. That I need you to answer.”
Surprised by just how aggressive Gwen was getting, Peter jumped to his feet, “Hey, Gwen, calm down, you’re gonna hurt yourself if you keep moving. We only just put the bandages on.”
But Gwen ignored Peter. She kept walking forward until she was close enough to grab Peter surprising tightly for someone who’d been bedridden around the shoulders.
“Peter. I know you trust the Daredevil of your earth, but I’ve told you about mine. He was a monster, and if he knew in any way about your Daredevil, he would not hesitate to pretend to be him. So if he said something that could even be misconstrued as a threat, you can’t hide it from me.” There was no way to describe Gwen but begging as she stared into Peter’s eyes.
As much as Peter didn’t want to, he grabbed the back of his head with a sigh and told her, “He had a slip of the tongue. Started saying Peter instead of Spider-Man. But he caught himself before he got more than a letter out anyway, so it’s nothing to worry about.”
“I fucking knew it.” Jumping to her feet with a snarl, Gwen threw an orange pill bottle to the far side of the room before pulling her costume back on.
“Hey, hey, what’re you doing, Gwen?” Scrambling to stand in front of Gwen, Peter held out an apprehensive hand, “Where’re you going? You’re still injured. And the simple fact of that means that something’s wrong with you.”
“Get out of the way, Peter, I’m not risking that bastard doing anything to you.” Pulling on her mask, Gwen tried to push Peter out of the way. But Peter held fast and managed to keep the weakened Gwen in front of him.
“Gwen, I can’t let you just run out to go after another superhero. A slip of the tongue doesn’t mean he wants me dead.” Spreading his arms wider, Peter tried to stay between Gwen and the exits to the room.
Tilting her head at an angle, Gwen stared over Peter’s shoulder rather than look at him. “Peter…” Gwen trailed off, almost like she wanted to say something but couldn’t bring herself to. But after another moment, she took a deep breath and continued, “I need to take him out. I can’t tell you why because you won’t believe me. But I just need you to trust me so I can throw him back in jail.”
“Gwen, there’s nothing for us to go after, though. Sure, he said—Urgh!” Suddenly, all Peter saw was darkness as he felt his body crumple to the ground.
Floating in an empty void, Peter’s mind felt like it was drowned in molasses. Feeling something press against his lower body, Peter looked down. To Peter’s muted shock, what looked like the void around him was slowly climbing up his leg, absorbing it into the shadow around him.
Gingerly, Peter tried tro move his consumed leg, and while he could feel it move, he couldn’t see it moving. It simply faded into the shadows of the void around him. Confused by the strangeness of what was going on around him, Peter could only watch as the void continued to slowly creep along his body.
Adding to it all, as it moved along his body, a strange buzzing began in his ears. He could’ve almost thought it was his spider-sense, but there was something wrong with it.
Something alien.
But even with that strangeness, something was sticking in Peter’s mind, something important that he couldn’t quite remember. The malaise that drowned his mind made it difficult to think, and it was made even harder by the increasingly loud buzzing.
But finally, Peter’s attention was pulled away from that by the void reaching his mouth. Unlike before, Peter could feel the void over his mouth, a suffocating feeling that made his body burn. Lifting his hands, he tried to rip it away, to save himself from the abyss that tried to swallow him.
Pulling at it, Peter could feel it coming away and stretching. Yet no matter how hard or how far he pulled, he couldn’t get it off. Yet still he continued trying, even though his body disappeared into the void and the buzzing grew louder and louder, Peter kept pulling.
Until the buzzing suddenly shifted to what sounded like a voice that Peter couldn’t make out, as the void finally came away from his face. In the same instant, the void disappeared and Peter jolted upright, “Hurgh!” swallowing down air, Peter stared around his empty room and after a moment of silence, Peter realised what he’d forgotten about in his dream.
“Gwen!” Wasting as little time as possible pulling on his mask, Peter leapt out of his bedroom window and swung into the night to look for Gwen.