Work Text:
They told you to stop being delusional.
“He’s dead,” they said. “Stop making this hard on you. On his friends. On his Aunt May.”
You believed that too, once. Peter died a long time ago when the accident happened. You weren’t there and they spared the details, but that just meant there were gaps to the story. Conspiracy theories weren’t your thing, nor did you easily fall into hoaxes, but for Peter you’d believe just about anything.
It started with your water bottle. The last you heard of it, Peter had it before he ‘died.’ Nobody knew what you were talking about when you asked about it after the accident. They said they didn’t see a water bottle, not the bright pink one with stickers plastered all over it. He borrowed it that day because he forgot his and you lent him yours, but suddenly it was up and was gone? No. And no one in their right mind would steal a water bottle from a dead guy.
That one was a little hard to believe, sure, but there’s more. Little notes appeared on your window sill, on the fire escape. You found them one day, mistaking the glue for spider web. The notes were in his handwriting, addressed to you. It might have been a stretch but it had to be him. It was too coincidental to not be him.
So, you one day up and decide to go to the one place you’d find him. Your hideout. The getaway from everything. Really, it wasn’t anything special. A maintenance shack at the school that the groundskeeper always left unlocked for some reason. You and Peter used to always hide there after school for an hour playing chess, or cards, or doing other things.
It was weird being back there, now that you’d graduated. You showed up after hours, where you were sure you wouldn’t be disturbed. The campus was empty, quiet, eerie as you made your way to the shack. True to your word, you found the padlock unlatched. The groundskeeper really believed no one would look twice there and most wouldn’t, but you and Peter weren’t most people.
You pulled open the shack door and stepped into it. “Peter?”
There seemed to be more spider webs than before. The groundskeeper usually had the weekends off but this was something else. You shivered at the thought of all sorts of creepy-crawlies lingering around.
The door closed behind you, leaving you in darkness. You whirled around, finding nobody there. It couldn’t have been the wind, there was none. You turned around and rattled on the doorknob to no avail. Someone locked you in there.
Turning back around, you pressed your back to the door and sighed. You smacked your head against the door in grief, only to jolt at something on the ceiling.
A man, in costume, attached himself to the corner of the shack. You chalked it up to some parkour skill, clearing your throat. “Hello?”
“Peter,” he said. His voice was a strange warble.
You thought back to how you entered the shack saying that out loud. “Yeah, sorry. I thought someone else would be here. Didn’t mean to, uh, disturb you.” You smacked your palm over the door. “Someone locked us in.”
A moment passed before he spoke up. This time, his voice held some clarity and a tinge of familiarity. “I am Peter.”
You had your doubts. “Sorry, but I think I’m here for a different Peter.”
“Peter Parker.”
Your brows perked up. “Yeah, him…” Your heart skipped a beat. “Peter?”
Like you said earlier, you’d believe just about anything at this rate.
The man pushed off the wall and landed on the floor a few feet from you. You peeled yourself off the door and walked over to him. He was in some red and blue costume, adorned with web designs. A spider insignia in the middle of his chest caught your attention.
He stayed still but you knew it in your heart that it was him. You hugged him and he returned the hug stiffly. He felt weird, almost tingly. You pulled away, smiling brightly.
“I knew you were alive.” You looked at the mask. “I want to see your face.”
His arms dropped to his sides and he nodded. You bit your lip, stepping into his personal space. Pinching the mask, you slowly lifted it up. Shock and confusion overcame you, then a morbid disgust.
Hardly a sliver of the mask had lifted before spindly legs encroached on his neckline. You shrieked and stepped back, pulling the mask completely off as you did. Spiders. So many spiders. They crawled on top of one another, spilling out of the suit as it deflated to the floor. They crawled right toward you. Trying to back away, you tripped and fell on your butt.
Spiders crawled up your legs. You kicked your feet and swiped at your legs, panicking. Any you wiped off were replaced by more. Somehow, someway you couldn’t explain by science, they merged together, forming some excuse for hands the half your legs down. The creepy, spindly legs of theirs tickled you in the worst way possible.
“You’re not Peter Parker,” you cried. “What the hell are you?”
“But I am,” it assured. This amalgamation of spiders spoke. Spiders that all worked together to mimic Peter’s voice in a strained warble. “I thought you missed me. Don’t you love me?”
You shook your head erratically, smacking the spiders off your legs but they reformed. They held you down, unable to kick them off. "No. No! You're some freak- or freaks."
The spiders hummed collectively. Soon, they were all over you, morphed above you in some vague shape of a man. They grabbed your wrists, keeping you from hitting them. A few spiders fell off from the mass onto your chest, only to crawl off and remerge with the rest of the hive. They hummed, disappointed. "Fine. You will learn to."
You screamed at the spiders consuming your vision. All you felt, heard, and saw were spiders.