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It starts with curiosity.
Well, curiosity and procrastinating his chemistry homework. Some things never change, no matter how spidery you get.
Aunt May is out on a late shift and it’s not right to snoop but something draws Peter forwards, one leg after the other. Kneeling beside her bed, May’s makeup box flicked open, he stares into it and doesn’t quite know what he’s feeling.
Curiosity, that’s all, Peter tells himself, hand reaching out almost of its own volition, as if the mascara brush and the lipstick is the flame to his moth-like heart.
His first attempt is dismal. In the bathroom, leant so close to the mirror above the sink that his breath fogs up the glass, he tries to be delicate. His heart is beating so fast that his mascara blots and smudges and his lipstick is Joker-esque. He grabs a handful of May’s wet makeup wipes and scrapes it off of his face. Peter feels - ripped off. He’s not sure what he’d wanted out of this but… But now I know, he thinks. I can’t do it.
He shoves the makeup box back into its spot, closes the lock, and lies in bed over the covers, thinking about so much that the bees in his brain buzz too loudly to distinguish the individual thoughts.
Are you really going to give up after one try? A snarky voice that sounds like MJ pops up in the back of his mind. That nagging feeling is back.
Aunt May won’t be home for hours.
Come on, Peter psychs himself up. What’s the harm?
His second attempt is done with the aid of a makeup tutorial on YouTube. He moves painstakingly slowly through the video and although he doesn’t quite have the same makeup brands that they recommend, it turns out… It turns out…
Peter drags his fingers across the image of the person in the mirror. Pretty, he thinks, on instinct, like a reflex arc. I’m pretty. Peter swallows and in doing so, he notices his prominent Adam’s apple, spoiling the image. He puts a hand over it to hide it, tilting his head to see his side profile.
Who are you?
A nagging phantom pain that he hasn’t realized he’d been holding onto loosens slightly. It’s the type of pain that you grow around, like a root adjusting to a rock in the soil. When it’s your normal for so long, you forget that the pain isn’t supposed to be there. You adjust.
“This was a mistake,” Peter realizes, wide-eyed as he looks at himself. He can’t go back from this. Not now that he knows how sweet the taste is, not now that he wants to be the person he sees in the mirror. “Curiosity killed the cat.”
—
Despite knowing that it’s a doomed endeavor, Peter still tries to deny this new side of himself. He doubles down on his schoolwork, the Aca-Dec team, and his Spider-Man patrols. He stays out until 4am every night, not wanting to think, not wanting to experience those minutes before sleeping when he is alone with his thoughts and can’t help but be drawn back to visualizing that box of makeup in May’s cupboard.
He’s tired, overworked, and he wants to feel It again. He wants to see that Peter again, to be that Peter. This time, he finds one of May’s blouses that he likes, a silly leopard print one, and slips it over himself. He does his makeup - light and natural - and stands in front of the bathroom mirror.
Peter doesn’t like how the shirt sags at the front, showing what he’s missing. He swallows, rummages back into her closet, and comes out with a skin-tight shirt.
This one feels better, like he can imagine that he’s just a very flat-chested… Flat-chested what? The thought stumbles over itself.
A flat-chested girl?
Something pings like an alert in the back of his brain. There is a door ajar and the light that spills out is so sweet yet so dangerous.
Peter slams the door shut, tears the shirt off of himself, scrapes off his makeup, and studies for his physics exam.
He’s not a girl. Peter can’t be. He’s Spider-Man.
Spider-Man is not a girl.
—
It’s in the idle moments that the thought reasserts itself.
Between his first cup of coffee in the morning where he imagines how he might drink while wearing lipstick. When he sees Pepper’s high heels in Stark Tower and idly wonders how long it would take to learn to walk in them effortlessly. When Aunt May buys him a new nerdy t-shirt for his birthday and Peter opens the wrapping paper, something stupid and young and so hopeful that wants to see a skirt there instead.
“Are you okay, kid?” Mr. Stark asks when Peter almost spills a beaker of hydrochloric acid all over himself, distracted as he thinks about how hormone replacement therapy would interact with a super serum. Hypothetically, of course! Just in the name of science… “You seem distracted - tired. You’re not going out on patrols on weeknights again, are you? I will check the logs! Don’t think I won’t!”
“Aah, no, er, just, ah-” Peter bangs his head against the lab’s countertop. “Kill me.”
“Language is hard,” Mr. Stark says in commiseration. “Hungover, are you? I know I was at your age.” He smirks and then frowns, thoughtfully. “Go easy, alright, kid? I don’t need your hot aunt getting on my case about you, alright?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Stark.”
Peter has never felt so relieved to lie by omission. There’s no way that Mr. Stark is ever going to learn about his identity crisis.
—
“Peter,” May says, breaching the topic over dinner with a kind yet cautious smile, “I noticed that, er, some of my makeup has gone missing? Well, not missing, but used up?”
Peter blanches. He laughs, chaotically, “How weird! Are you sure you didn’t use it yourself?!”
May lays a hand over Peter’s, which is now trembling on the table. “I don’t wear my crimson red lipstick often, love. Just… it’s fine if you’re using it, but would you prefer if I bought you some of your own?” At Peter’s steadily greening complexion, May says, slowly, “Or if that’s embarrassing, I could give you some money to buy your own?”
Peter lets out a hacking laugh. He squeaks, “Sure!”
May nods, easily, squeezing his hand. “Is there a different name you want to go by or different, er, words or anything?”
Peter shakes his head quickly. “Nope!” He squeaks, again, like a door hinge in need of some WD40.
“Alright, baby, I’ll leave you some money on the kitchen counter, okay?” May lets go of his hand and kindly moves the conversation along. “Now, tell me about this MJ girl again, you’re sure you’re not dating? As in, you’ve double-checked?”
“May!” Peter groans in embarrassment. “Oh my god, no! We’re just friends!”
“Okay, okay, but let her know she’s invited to dinner!”
—
It is out of pure desperation that Peter asks MJ to help him go makeup shopping. To which, she immediately replies that she doesn’t wear makeup and has no clue about it.
She then recruits Ned who is surprisingly well-versed on the subject, citing that he has four older sisters and has been a makeup practice mannequin ever since he was three years old.
“What kind of look are you trying for?” Ned asks, easy enough, as if Peter looking for makeup isn’t a sign of the end-times. “Natural? Goth? Er, artsy? Glitter?”
“Are those the categories?” MJ asks, curiously. She taps her chin, thoughtfully. “Peter would look good in glitter.”
Peter, now flushing bright red, explains the natural look he’s trying for, and is summarily led around Sephora by the hand like a lost toddler. Ned hmm s at Peter’s fairly meager budget but through a combination of using the clearance bins, deciding that Peter’s skin is clear enough that he can live without concealer, and the sacrifice of glitter (much to MJ’s dismay) they leave the store with a proper haul.
“Do you need help learning how to apply?” Ned asks, as they walk around the mall looking for the LEGO store to gaze longingly at the builds. Peter freezes, unsure of how to explain that he’s been practicing makeup in private for months. “Also my mom said we can’t buy any more LEGOs until my birthday.”
“Your mom is a taskmaster,” MJ quips. “No LEGO? What is this, the gulag?”
Ned rolls his eyes. “Just because you don’t see the joy in LEGO, MJ, doesn’t mean that LEGO doesn’t see the heartlessness in you!”
The two friends turn to Peter, who is frozen on the spot.
“Peter, are you okay?” Ned frowns. MJ pokes him on the shoulder. “Earth to Peterrrr.”
Peter whispers, closing his eyes to avoid their expressions, “I’m a girl, guys. Er, sorry.”
“Sorry?” MJ pokes him until he opens his eyes. “There’s nothing to be sorry about being a girl. Don’t be stupid.”
Ned takes a few seconds to process the information before a defiant glint in his eyes asserts itself. Phew, looks like he won’t be losing his friends in one fell swoop. “Do you have a name yet?”
“She could be a girl called Peter.” MJ says, casually. “It’s metal.”
She. Peter hasn’t even begun thinking of himself as she and his friends have already seamlessly picked it up. His eyes prick with grateful tears whilst his stomach curdles with nausea and anxiety.
“Peter for now,” he says, picking himself back up and starting the long walk to the LEGO store. “And I don’t need help with the makeup, I’ve got that sorted.”
—
The first time Peter wears makeup to school, Flash ends up with a black eye. Those things are most certainly related and tells him that MJ really needs to work on her anger issues.
The second time Peter wears makeup to school, he brings a baby names book. Nothing really fits.
The fourth time Peter wears makeup to school, he gives himself the space to imagine that he is a girl. Despite her better judgment, she rather likes it.
The twentieth time Peter wears makeup to school, she wears a skirt for the first time. MJ complains incessantly about the plaid and the color even though she has the fashion sense of a depressed bagel. Ned asks how it feels to spin in a skirt and Peter gives him a demonstration.
The thirtieth time she wears makeup to school, she forgets she is wearing it. She forgets to be self-conscious. She just is.
The first time Peter wears makeup in the lab, Tony reminds her that she can’t reapply in the lab due to the chemical danger and that she needs to use less contour. He then proceeds to infodump for forty minutes about cytokines and their influence on nanoparticles in his latest Mark.
—
“Er, May?”
“Yes, baby?” May pauses eating her breakfast, looking a little harried as she will soon be running late for work. “If this is about your Spider Woman costume, the sewing machine should be fixed sometime this week. I’m sorry that I don’t have the time to check it out today…”
“No, it’s um, not about that. I can fix the sewing machine, anyway!”
“Baby, you need to focus on end of year exams,” May tuts.
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree,” Peter sighs. She asks, casual as could be, “If Mom and Dad were having a girl, did you know what they would have called her?”
“They did have a girl,” May says, gently. “But I know what you mean. Let me think.” She squeezes her eyes shut and thinks so loudly it’s almost audible. “I remember Mary told me this… June, I believe, after her grandmother.”
“June,” she says, thoughtfully.
—