Chapter Text
An alley. Her back to the wall. In and out. In and out.
Her mind was split in two, going in between who she was, and who she was trying to keep alive. She paced the length of the alley, trying to separate her own thoughts and feelings from the most personal feelings of her host’s.
Try as she may, it was nearly impossible. Because all of his thoughts and feelings and worst fears were hers too.
Seclusion. Loneliness. Heartbreak. Holding onto a name that was slowly fading into oblivion. Becoming not yourself, but a thing. A wonder. A marvel.
A mutation. A monster.
In and out. In and out.
She had to move. She couldn’t stay in this seclusion much longer, especially as Peter’s memories of seclusion started to bleed into her own. She got out of her alley to walk through the street, but had to be careful so that she didn’t bump into the crowds of people dressed head to toe in red and blue. People talking, crying, saying prays for their hero.
She kept her hood up, her red hair tucked safely out of sight beneath her jacket, her face glued to the pavement. She couldn’t focus on the noise around her, the ringing in her ears as someone’s thoughts got too close to hers.
She kept her mind to herself, reigning it back quickly whenever it strayed a little too close into someone else’s thoughts. Her abilities had evolved, so much, in such a way that simply terrified her if she thought too hard about it. She could take this whole crowd prisoner with one simple thought. The entire hospital could bend to her will should she wish it.
But she didn’t do that. Because he was in there, fighting for his life. Fighting for his life because he thought that she was worth saving.
In and out. In and out.
Jean’s eyes stung with tears as she watched the crowd. They loved him. They were crying for him to make it out of there.
She had put him there. This was her fault. All of it.
Jean blinked the tears away. Peter’s body couldn’t take any of her weaknesses. He needed her right now.
In and out.
Jean tried not to pry, for once. Since Sarah had been taken (it still felt like a punch in the gut), she really hadn’t give two shits about who she possessed or what she saw in there. She hadn’t realized it, but humans had somehow become tools for her. An easy process to get to where she needed to go.
Peter wasn’t a tool. He wasn’t someone to play with, Jean felt with a pang of guilt. She was really trying to keep Peter’s thoughts to himself, allow him some semblance of privacy while she took possession of his body.
But Jean would never admit it, but the sheer intensity of her powers were so new that she slipped from her control, especially as the exhaustion of staying awake to keep control over Peter started to weigh down in her bones.
There was so much loneliness in Peter’s mind. It took her breath away as she felt everything he did. How had Peter survived such a tragedy? He had lost… everything. His family, his mentor, his friends, the love of his life.
The world had forgotten him. And he just… kept giving. And giving. And took nothing for himself. And gave and gave and gave. Until there was nothing left except Spiderman and false names and Peter Parker had become just a name in the back of his mind.
Peter Parker had been erased. Did… did all that actually happen? Was there truly a point when the entire world knew Spiderman’s true identity?
Was there a point when Peter was loved unconditionally? And it all just… vanished?
She saw the woman that had changed everything for her. Aunt May, the one in Peter’s mind. She saw Tony Stark, in a haze of panic as Peter cried and begged that he didn’t want to go as his body turned to dust. She saw his friend, Ned, growing up together and giving Peter his happiest memories. Only for all of that to disappear overnight in a mind numbing sickness of longing and watching from afar.
She saw MJ. The glow Peter saw her in. The pain he felt when she said she didn’t love him.
A pang struck her, straight through her heart. She assumed that it was Peter’s heartbreak, and not her own.
Jean gasped as those feelings flowed through her. Her back slid against the brick wall until her knees were pulled up. Her elbows rested on her knees, and she gripped at her red hair. She couldn’t stop the tear that escaped her eye, quickly swiping it away and taking deep breaths before she fell apart.
How?
How?
The world didn’t deserve Peter Parker. Jean didn’t deserve to be saved by him.
It should’ve been her who had died by that bullet. It should’ve been her bleeding out on the floor in that cold room filled with nothing but death and cruelty. After everything she had done, to this city, to Peter, he had no good reason to save her.
But she also felt, in the deepest crevices of his mind, that he felt that she was worth saving. That he had meant what he said.
“You have me.”
He meant it.
Jean heard the shouts of the doctors from Peter’s subconscious as his breathing had become shallow and erratic. She forced herself to calm down and breathe deeply, to slow down her mind and allow his heart rate to even out and continue to keep his body working.
She wiped away the tears from her cheeks.
Jean probably could’ve let Peter’s mind go sooner than she did. She had been keeping him alive by breathing for him, making sure his heart stayed beating, but he wasn’t just any normal human. He was a human with greatly accelerated healing and now was just waiting to wake up.
But Jean hesitated. If she were being honest, she was scared of letting him go. She was running away from this city as soon as Peter was healthy enough to support himself. And then what? Would she ever see him again? Would he remember her for how he looked at her in his mind? Or would she just become another scratch off his villain list?
Perhaps the scariest thought of all, the one that made her hesitate in letting his mind be his own once more… would she be as important to him as he was to her?
It frightened her, letting him go. Setting him free. Allowing his body and the hospital workers to take over what she was entirely in control of. When she was in control of his mind, she knew that he was safe. As soon as she let him go and left… he wouldn’t be hers anymore.
Wait… hers?
That thought startled Jean back. What did that mean? Why did she feel like they shared something special? Like they were… they were just two halves split apart and brought together by loneliness and an deep understanding for one another.
That thought scared her enough to give her the ability to free his mind.
Peter woke up with one thought sounding through his mind.
Goodbye Peter.
He slowly blinked. He grimaced as he frowned in confusion. That was… Jean’s voice wasn’t it?
Goodbye? What did she mean… goodbye? Why was he hearing her voice like she was right next to him?
The next thought he had, as he began to stir, was that his skin pricked as he sensed that he was not alone in this room. And he knew exactly who was in the room without even looking at him.
…and Peter wasn’t wearing his mask.
He supposed that he and Frank were about to become real good friends now.