Chapter Text
When a man’s broken body is under Evan’s hands is when he feels most at home. The thrill of fists raining down on soft, brittle skull, the adrenaline, like a drug. Like the finest of ecstasy, the most expensive line of coke he’s ever done.
It’s why he doesn’t mind being a super hero most days: when your body only ever feels right in motion—bruised, split knuckles, racing pulse, lungs burning—it’s easy to understand why being Spider-Man fits him better than anything else. The violence doesn’t feel senseless when it has a reason. It quiets the noise in his head, funnels all that restless, ruthless energy into something sharp and clean, sheathed in red and blue and intricate lines of delicate black.
He’s mid-swing over the city when he hears it. Shouting, screaming. A fucker with a knife to a poor old idiot’s throat. It’s in a liquor store, of all places, and Evan would laugh at the fucking absurdity of a mugging in a liquor store of all places, if it was absurd at all. But withdrawal’s a little bitch that deadbeat dads don’t like to suffer, lest they think about beating their wives and kids to pieces, so they keep the places in business. And damn good business, too, if the cash register is anything at all to go by, or the cashier screaming his bloody arse off.
Evan doesn’t think. He never does. The web snaps out, yanking the mugger off his feet, and Evan lands hard and fast, the impact sending shock waves flying up his calves, his knees, his thighs.
He’s throwing punches before he can think straight, and the guy struggles, but Evan’s better, stronger, faster. He has the little bitch on the ground in ten seconds flat, and Evan's panting and smiling under his mask. He feels blood trickle from his mouth. He relishes in it, in the feeling of feeling.
The mugger lifts up his knife, certainly to get Evan in the heart; but the thing about dying is that it’s for humans, and when Evan is wearing the mask he is something more.
He dodges, and the man is fast enough for the knife to tear through the elastic of Evan’s suit and slash through the soft flesh of his forearm
Evan hisses. “Little bitch,” He spits, tying up the man’s hands together and calling the cops. He sends the grateful, spluttering idiot he saved on his way and turns to survey the place, expecting it to be cleared out.
It’s not, though. There’s a single figure, leaning against the counter and watching it. The boy’s expression is blank and beautiful and bored, and Evan needs to do a double fucking take, because what the hell is Barty Crouch Jr. doing in a goddamn liquor store at ten in the evening?
He almost gasps when he sees the bastard, his surprise heightened by the lack of Crouch’s characteristic smirk. He also almost hisses, Crouch, you little fucker, get out.
But he isn’t sure super heroes associate themselves with gone-cases like Barty. Then again, Evan is not a super hero.
He sure is secret, though. And he can’t go around letting smug little shits like Crouch know who he is, so Evan tells him, in his best good-boy voice, to get the hell out.
Barty smirks, and oh, there it is. Evan suddenly feels more at home with grabbing Barty and flinging him out the shop.
He waits with the mugger until the cops come and thank him, which is when he starts feeling like a damn fraud: because, really, Evan’s not a super hero. He’s a piece of shit with a red and blue excuse to be violent.
He is the antithesis to everything a hero should be, and most days, he doesn’t let it bother him.
Can’t let it bother him.
But, oh, on days when wide eyed, bruised people look up at him like he’s the reason they’re alive, he wants to grab them and shake them and tell them that some days, he feels like such a sorry excuse for a human being, and on most days, he feels like barely that, too.
*
“You’re home late.” Pandora says drily, as if he makes a point of coming home late every day.
Which he does.
“Yeah?” Evan replies. “That what gave you the bitch pass?”
“I’m always using it. What’s up with you, Spidey?”
“I’m going out for a run.” He tells her. Pandora’s his best friend; possibly the most important person in his life, but there are some things you don’t tell anyone. The feeling he gets after a night out is one of them.
He grabs his phone and headphones from his room, changing out of his suit and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, despite the cold outside.
The moment he steps out of their shared apartment, he breaks into a run, feet pounding on cement, breaths stuttering furiously.
The only song that plays plays on repeat, violins swinging to a crescendo before the same words play, over and over:
Where were you when I was lonesome?
Locked away with freezing cold
Someone flying, only stolen
I can’t tell, this night’s so cold
I don’t wanna swim the ocean
He runs faster, sweat dripping coldly down his neck, his throat, his temple.
I don’t wanna fight the tide
I don’t wanna swim forever
When it’s cold I’d like to die
The air is chilling, and it stings his bare knees and calves, his naked arms and his face.
What was that, my sweet, sweet nothing
I can’t hear you through the fog
If I holler let me go
If I falter, let me know
His breaths burn up in his lungs, are the ghosts of breaths when they come up through his mouth. Just like he is the barest of imitations of a human, his breaths are the palest of mimicries of life.
When it’s cold I’d like to die
I don’t want to swim the ocean
I don’t want to fight the tide
It’s on nights like these; freezing, meaningless, lonely nights when he can’t make head or tail of who he is, what he is, nausea rising in his stomach, bile creeping up his throat.
The music fades out just as he doubles over and vomits into the bushes.
He stays folded over for a long moment after, palms braced on his knees, breath ripping in and out of him.
Evan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and straightens, spine cracking faintly. His arm throbs where the knife caught him earlier, the sting sharper now that the adrenaline’s finally slunk off. He presses his fingers over the gash, wincing at the sting.
“Get it together,” he mutters to no one.
He starts running again, and a few blocks blur by. Ten more. The river comes into view, black and glassy and inviting.
He stops at the railing and leans over it, watching his reflection warp and shatter in the water below. Mask or no mask, it’s the same problem: he never quite recognises himself. Too sharp around the edges, too hollow in the middle.
The husk of a boy, a ghost of a human.
Pandora will be waiting when he gets back. Probably pretending she hasn’t been pacing. Probably pretending she doesn’t notice the way he spirals on nights like this. A painful feeling tugs at him; guilt, maybe. Maybe gratitude. Probably anger. Probably resentment. It's all he ever feels.
“Tomorrow,” he tells the river quietly. “I’ll try to be better tomorrow.”
It’s not a promise. He doesn’t trust himself with those. People like Evan are born to break promises and bones.
It’s just a direction; somewhere to aim the next step, and the one after that.
Evan turns and jogs back, the air suddenly more breathable.
*
The next morning is even colder, and Evan half considers not going to school, but despite all his big talk, he actually likes school.
Wishes he could say the same about Pandora, though. Pandora, who is currently whining about how much she doesn’t want to see Mulciber’s face first thing, to which Evan replies that she’s seeing his face first thing, which should be an upgrade from Mulciber, but she just wails louder and shuts her eyes again.
Well.
Go figure, he supposes.
Eventually, though, he does get her up and (resentfully) about, and they leave the apartment together.
It’s been a few months since this new living arrangement; Pandora’s grandmother, her guardian, had died then, leaving seventeen-year old Pandora with a large inheritance and a very small number of places to go indeed.
Social services didn’t care about a girl that was turning eighteen in just a few months, so she bought the apartment and has been living there for the better part of seven months.
Evan moved in with her about three months ago, after it all got too much to bear—the screaming and the cut-downs and the lack of love.
Better to have nothing but the clothes off his back than a few extra pairs of socks and sorrow.
Evan’s always been grateful to Pandora for letting him live with her, and he hopes that she actually wants him there, because he is far too selfish to move out until she physically throws him out the door.
“Aren’t you English lit nerds getting your partners for your project?” Pandora asks Evan, the English lit nerd in question, as they get into Evan’s car.
She is, in fact, right. The project is an extremely important one, accounting for nearly twenty percent of their final A-level grades.
Their teacher, Mr. Flitwick, has yet to disclose what said project entails; although that will also happen today. “Yeah,” Evan replies. “Hope I get Evans or Bones. They’re the smart ones.”
Pandora pinches his cheeks as he turns right. “Aww, Evan, you’re the smart one,” She coos.
Evan wrenches his face free from her treacherous hands. “Must you,” He mutters grouchily.
*
As Evan walks in the English Literature room, Lily catches his eye, waving brightly at him and settling down in the desk next to his.
“Hi, Rosier!” She says. If there could only be one word to describe Lily Evans, it would be, without doubt, bright.
Everything about her, from her shining emerald eyes to her glossy mass of red hair to her perfect skin and winning smile, is dizzyingly, brilliantly bright.
If another word could be used to describe her, though, it would be meticulous.
Lily is extremely meticulous. From her neat handwriting and always-on-time assignment submissions to her top grades and guaranteed admissions to either half of Oxbridge.
It’s one of the things Evan loves about her: she is absolutely unstoppable.
And it isn’t that Evan doesn’t get good grades, or that he’s directionless. It’s that everything he is; Lily is ten times that. She is driven and clever and hardworking beyond measure, and for all her faults, she is incredibly kind.
Some days, Evan thinks that she’d be a far better super hero than him, she’s got both the super and the hero bits covered.
“Hey, Evans. You excited to know who you’re with for the project?”
Her face falls. “No,” She says surreptitiously. “Honestly, I’m scared I’ll end up with a shit like Avery or Lestrange.”
Evan smirks. “It’s alright. It they give you any shit, I’m sure the others and I will figure out a way to put cow dung in their bags.”
Lily grins just as Mr. Flitwick enters.
“Good morning, class. You’ve had a good weekend, I take it?” Flitwick says jovially. “Today’s class is very important, so I’ll just get right to it. As you all are aware, I will be giving you the details entailing our project. And I reiterate, this contributes to twenty percent of your final A-level grade for English Literature. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Flitwick.” They all echo. Lily eyes Evan from the corner of her wide eyes.
Just as Flitwick is about to speak again, the door to the classroom is thrown open, revealing one out-of-breath Barty Crouch Jr.
Evan feels that familiar twinge of annoyance he always feels when he sees Barty, and he turns to Lily with a roll of his eyes.
“Does he always need to make an entrance like that?” He mutters to her.
“I’m sure he does.” Lily whispers back, amused. “Why? What is it to you?”
“It’s annoying.”
“No, it isn’t.” Unable to keep the mirth from her voice, she continues. “You just need to find reasons to dislike him.”
“I do not!”
Evan is appalled by the idea that there isn’t already an abundance of reasons to hate Crouch. He’s annoying, bratty, self-serving, arrogant, smug… the list goes on, really. For days and days.
“Mr. Crouch.” Flitwick says, distaste evident in his voice. “Please take a seat. You’re late.”
Barty flips Flitwick off while the old man’s back is turned and moves to sit next to Regulus Black.
Evan resists the urge to pull out his own hair as Barty grins at him smugly. And what ever for, Evan doesn’t know. Evan’s sure he just keeps that shit-eating smile on his face because he’d be far too ugly without it.
His mind wanders back to last night, Barty at the store, whiskey in hand, blank and unmoving.
Despite himself, he thinks that he might be wrong about Barty being ugly after all. He can’t help but stare at the lines of his cheeks, the sharp, deliberate cut of his jaw.
Barty catches him and winks. Evan’s head snaps back so fast he gets whiplash. Annoyance at Crouch flares inside him, but he tamps it down with hopes of not looking murderous during his last class of the day.
“The project will be an analysis on any one author of classic literature,” Flitwick is saying. “You may pick one of your choice, but make sure it is well thought out, well researched and well explained. I except you to go deep into how your particular author’s life shaped their works and ideals. I want originality and I want you all to choose very wisely.
“I’m going to read out the pairs I have made. A warning; these are final and cannot be changes unless under extenuating circumstances. Moving on; Mr. Black, with Miss Bones. Miss Prewett is with Mr. Weasley, Miss Evans is with… hold on a moment…” Flitwick squints, trying to read the words.
Lily turns to Evan with horrified eyes. “Fuck.” She whispers. “What if…”
He places an arm on her shoulder as Flitwick says, “Ah, yes. Miss Evans and Mr. Lupin.”
Lily sighs so hard Evan can feel her breath on his arm. She turns to Remus, who gives her a thumbs up and a bright smile, her eyes shining.
“Oh, thank God.” She mutters.
“Alright, moving on. Mr. Longbottom with Mr. Diggory. Miss Burbage with Miss Vance, and finally… Mr. Rosier and Mr. Crouch! Is everyone clear with the pairs?”
Evan feels his eyes widen. No, no, not him. Anyone but him.
Barty’s chair scrapes back loudly as he leans back and stretches his arms. He snickers. “Looks like we’re married now, sweetheart!” He calls.
Evan’s jaw locks. He’s not sure how he’s going to survive this term.