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Peter counts twenty-four versions of himself looking back at him. Twenty-four of his hideous junior year photo, all blown up to twenty-four times his size. And maybe two thousand people below, glaring at him, filming him. Starting to yell.
A lot of them are running away. A mother falls with her little boy in her arms, she’s so desperate to get away.
So he’s not exactly thinking straight when he jumps down into the crowd and makes a beeline for MJ.
“Peter!” she’s saying. Not bothering to use Spider-Man anymore. Then, “Peter, get out of here!”
And he’s next to her and he sort of grabs her arm without thinking it through. Then he’s stuck there, because people are closing in. A thousand phones. They start to brush up against him and MJ. MJ looks at him with this gut-wrenching, primal panic. Peter’s not tall enough to see over them, so the cluster of people could be endless, he doesn’t know. Everyone’s talking, saying things Peter can’t make out through the clanging in his ears. Louder. Someone makes a grab for him–
His sixth sense takes over before he can attempt anything consciously and he’s tossing MJ onto his back, slinging a haphazard web, flying out of there, someone trying to clutch at his ankle, kicking them away, hoping he hasn’t broken their wrist in his panic.
The nearest rooftop isn’t far enough away from the screens and the crowd, the murmuring, the yelling, the thundering crowd. He keeps swinging. The web takes him too far to the right and he clatters against a glass wall. There are office workers inside the building who jump at the sound. They start to rush for their phones. He scrambles for a grip on the glass and leaps off, away, back into the street, where the newspaper vendor he gets dailies from stops and stares up at him with eyes bright with fear.
“Oh my God,” MJ breathes behind him. It’s quiet enough that she must have been trying to keep it to herself, forgetting his hearing.
Peter can hear everything. All over the city, the people talking. Talking about him. The people who now know to put Spider-Man and Peter Parker together. Who don’t know they’re being sold a lie. J Jonah Jameson ranting through their phones. Angry people. Scared people.
“Peter,” MJ says, “Stop, we have to stop.”
Rooftop. Nobody can see it from the ground. Still, he can hear everything. His hands are free as he lands and sets her down; he puts them over his ears. No use.
May’s face appears on his HUD. “May Parker is calling.”
“Oh, God, I can’t–what if it’s tracked, what if–Karen, decline–decline the call.”
MJ has her hands braced on her knees like she’ll throw up. Peter thinks he’s on his way there.
“Betty Brant is calling. Ned Leeds is calling. Flash Thompson is calling.”
“Okay, I can’t take calls right now, it’s not safe, everything’s–”
“Call from an unknown number. Two calls from an–three–four calls from unknown numbers. Would you like me to–”
“No, decline call, get rid of all the calls.”
The sun is so hot, it’s sticky. MJ goes to him. Peter thinks she’s trying to say something. The HUD is clogging up his vision, making his eyes strain from the faces popping up on the display when he’s just trying to look at MJ, MJ who understands, MJ who knows he wouldn’t–
“Fifty-three calls from unknown numbers. Nine calls, twenty-six texts from Ned Leeds–”
“Shut up shut up shut up–”
“Peter, what’s going on?”
“Everyone’s calling me, they’re all trying to–God, my display’s all–”
His chest feels like it’s being crushed. The shouting and screaming is rising to a crescendo across New York, and he’s got nowhere to go.
“Peter,” MJ says, “Peter, Peter. Stop. Tell her to stop the alerts, is that it?”
“Would you like me to stop informing you of calls, Peter?”
Peter hums for yes. MJ’s hands are over his on either side of his face.
Finally, the pictures of the people he loves fall away, and it’s just her. Just MJ.
He looks at her for a long time. Her hair is windswept. When he looks at her, he thinks he sees fragments more than a whole person.
“MJ, what do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do we
do,
though?”
He realises they’re on the ground only as she gets up. Now she’s standing over him like an exhausted parent over a tantruming toddler. “Why would I know? You’re the superhero, Peter. You’re the Avenger.”
“I’m not a real Avenger,” Peter corrects on autopilot. “It was for, like, an hour.”
“I need to call my mom,” MJ says, going for her phone, and something in Peter snaps.
He surges up and grabs her wrist. “Don’t. What if someone tracks you, they know you go to school with me and Decathlon and Venice, Mysterio, he’s probably leaking stuff and–”
“Peter, although I’m no longer announcing calls I have to notify you when one is patched through.”
Peter lets go. “Oh. MJ. I got a–I’m taking this.”
“You just told me not to take calls.”
“It’s–”
And the city’s shouting fades.
“There you are, kid.”
Peter sucks in air. “Tony. Hey! Hi, Tony, hi.”
He sees relieved recognition on MJ’s face. She sinks down onto an AC unit.
“You blocking calls?” Tony says. “Good. Smart. I can patch through.”
He’s almost like he always is, except with this edge to his voice, a tightness to the exhale that follows.
Peter runs his hands over his masked head. “Tony, I don’t know what to… I’m, like, on a roof–”
“I know, I’ve got your location. You’re a little spider-themed pin on my map, do you know that? Very tasteful.”
And somehow, Peter’s laughing. And maybe crying a little bit at the same time.
“There he is,” Tony says. “I am on you, kid, I’m in the car as we speak. We’re putting together a little game plan. It’ll be on a platter for you by the time I get to you.”
“That sounds good,” Peter says, trying to sound put-together and positive but sounding like he’s about to weep instead.
“Real good. All good. Fantastic.” Now Tony’s doing that thing he does when he knows Peter’s upset and tries to emanate comfort via word-vomit. Peter can literally hear the moment when he checks himself and continues with “Can you get to the Compound? Karen’ll plot you a route. Once you’re there, you’re home free. No surveillance.”
“I think I can.”
“Atta boy.”
“Can I bring MJ? And–” his panic leaks out a little. “Oh God, and Happy and May, and Ned, are they okay? Have you heard from them? Are you getting them out too? People will figure out they’re connected to me.”
He swears there’s the tiny red blink of a security camera pointed at this roof.
“Already there, kid. They’re all on their way too. Happy’s on full Forehead of Security Mode. And sure, bring the girl along, why don’t you? Pepper’s in the car with me right now as well. Say hi, Pep.”
Pepper takes over and says, “I’m already drafting a statement for you to look over, Peter.”
“Thank you, Pepper,” Peter says, breathing. Just breathing. Getting it back in check. Trying not to crumble, at least until he reaches the Compound. “You’re the best, you’re really the best.”
“I’ll get there when you do,” says Tony. “Gimme a ring if you need anything more, okay?”
“Yes. Okay. Yeah.”
“I’ll be right there to meet you.”
“Yeah.”
He must not have sounded very convincing, because Tony carries on. “I’ve got the freaking Avengers on dial, bud. I’ll fix it.”
“Yeah.” But Peter can’t help but– “Tony, you don’t…”
“I don’t–hm?”
“Think that–the stuff everyone’s saying–”
Tony’s on to him before he can finish the sentence.
“Now that is one of the rare times you’ve said something genuinely preposterous to me, kid. I know more than anyone that the news can be some bullshit. Of course you’re not–Christ, of
course
you’d never–”
A pause.
“Look, just get to the Compound so I can let you have it for even implying I would believe this crap.”
“Yeah. I will. Thank you. So much.”
“I’m breaking the speed limit, okay? So start swinging. I want to see you.”
“Swinging.”
The swing feels endless. MJ, it turns out, isn’t a fan of it in the first place, and Peter’s ducking and weaving to avoid anything that looks like a camera and leaping miles above anyone who might try to take a photo. He stays far enough from the ground that he can’t see any more faces. The noise is there, still, but MJ’s breathing sometimes takes precedence in his focus.
Peter can’t think. He can’t entertain any of the thoughts pressing at the back of his mind. He thinks if he did, he’d just stop swinging and… just stop swinging. Just stop. And fall, maybe.
Please please please please let May be safe. And Happy, and Ned, and everyone at my school, and Tony and Pepper.
He stumbles when he hits the ground. He tightens his arms around MJ, makes sure she lands gently, and she keeps an arm around him when she’s steadied herself.
The Compound feels suddenly quiet. The noise is gone, but Peter is far from at peace.
Distantly, a car engine roars.
He turns to MJ and says, “I snapped at you, I’m sorry. And I know you didn’t want to swing anymore.”
His voice comes out quieter than he’d intended. It almost feels like he should whisper now there’s nothing to shout over. Or just in case someone’s listening in.
How safe is the Compound really?
“Let’s make it from now on,” she tells him with a weak smile.
A low-slung Audi races down the driveway and screeches to a halt twenty feet from them. Peter feels his knees loosen.
Out of the driver’s door flies Tony, in old jeans and a sweatshirt, the stuff he wears when he’s sitting out on the porch and watching the lake like an old man, not Tony Stark attire, and it’s just–that’s Tony. There’s Tony. He beelines for Peter. Peter’s just standing there. He thought he’d run, but he can’t move.
MJ’s hand is at his back. “Look, Tony’s there,” she says far too gently.
Peter thinks about execute them all. He doesn’t want to but he does.
Tony’s there now, in front of him, and his ubiquitous sunglasses aren’t there, and his eyes aren’t I’ll fix it, they’re I don’t know what the hell to do any more than you. You start to realise that more and more the more you grow up. The adults don’t know what to do either, they’re just the ones who have to pretend they do.
Tony looks at him as if trying to see into him. His hands come up and grasp Peter’s arms, like he thinks Peter will keel over. MJ takes this as her cue to move away; in his peripheral vision, Peter sees her going to Pepper, who’s sitting with the car door open and a hologram in front of her. She’ll be safe now.
She’ll be safe.
Peter’s breathing a lot again, too much. Then Tony’s reaching for his mask, to take it off, and for some reason Peter backs away.
“Hate to say this, Underoos, but the gig’s already up,” Tony says.
Peter’s pulse roars in his ears.
He tries to say, “Yeah,” but it gets caught in his throat and oh no.
He reaches for the mask himself. Tugs it over his head. He doesn’t bother to check his hair with a hand like he usually does because it gets all crazy when he takes it off. What’s on his face is far more embarrassing.
Tony is watching him probably in the way people watched that Banksy get shredded. Say something, Peter wills him, but what? What is there to say?
Eloquently, Peter says, “Jesus.”
Tony nods as if it’s Gospel.
And Peter tumbles forwards and into his chest, and Tony’s arms open up and clasp around his back with desperation, with grounding strength.
There they are.
Peter blows an I’m-trying-really-really-hard-not-to-cry raspberry into Tony’s shoulder.
“There is a frankly ridiculous store of ice cream in the Compound kitchen,” Tony blurts. “Mostly pistachio. Back when Bruce was in his Professor Hulk stage, he had a massive thing for anything green.” He rubs a hand up and down Peter’s back. “Think we have some phish food too, for you. All the ice cream in the world for you, okay?”
“Okay,” Peter hiccups.
“Still got that room set up for you. I mean, it’s probably gathering dust, but what are cleaning bots for if not for, you know, devouring all that sweet, sweet dust? Wow, that was weird. Forget I just phrased that sentence like that. Hey, there’s a workshop we can get up to no good in. Weird gadgets galore. And you’ll get a wing for all your buddies to stay in, you’re welcome.”
“Everyone knows,” Peter whispers. “I can’t make it go back. Everyone thinks I’m this murderer.”
“I will punch out anyone who thinks that, kid. That’s a promise.”
“You can’t,” Peter laughs, sniffing, “Because it’s everyone.”
Then he has to blink past his tear-blurry vision because over Tony’s shoulder something glowing and golden has just appeared, somehow?
It takes a moment for Peter’s brain to recognise it.
Through the portal steps Doctor Strange, irritatingly well-groomed in his blue robe. Peter taps Tony’s back and they both swivel to see him. The portal snaps shut, leaving sparks momentarily on the tarmac.
“Peter Parker,” he says, “We meet again.”