Archive of Our Own

Peter wakes up shouting, hair slick with sweat and sheets ripped clean in half, and it’s about then— if he had to pick a specific point for it, looking back on the crapshoot with older, wiser eyes— that he probably should’ve given up on the entire day as a whole. 

Instead, he rolls sideways out of bed, kicking at the mangled sheets that have wound themselves around his legs, staggering for balance and barely managing to find enough of it to stumble himself a few steps backwards, away from the sticky heat of the nightmare. 

Hungry. 

It takes Peter about three more seconds to fully awaken, another two to process the butchered sheets in front of him, and one more to slump, hands braced on his bare knees and head bowing as he lets out a long, tired exhale. 

He stands there for a moment, eyes screwed shut, focusing on slowing his heart rate and batting off the sensation of lingering terror that’s become increasingly familiar over the past few weeks. The fear. The hunger that burns just under his skin and scrapes against the inside of his bones in his sleep most nights, like he’s persisted for so long on such a shitty nocturnal rhythm that his body is actually starting to reject the REM cycles he occasionally tries to put it through. 

Until the nightmares had started, Peter had only felt…hungry, like this, once before. Eight months post-spell, when May’s leftover cash and his own meager savings had finally run out and he’d— stupidly— blown his entire paycheck on ingredients for his dwindling supply of web fluid.

It felt like death, Peter remembers. The hunger. Gnawing at his insides, fogging up his brain, shortening his breath. He’d underestimated his strictly-necessary caloric intake he needed to function at even half-assed Spider-Man activity levels, and had passed out in an alleyway. He’d been sure— not for the first time in those eight months— that he was going to die. He very nearly did. 

Peter forces his eyes open. 4:48 A.M., the digital clock on his nightstand blinks. 

There’s an open sleeve of crackers on the counter of his kitchenette, just under the pinned news clipping cutout of May Parker’s smiling face, and Peter pads his way over and paws for them blindly, shoving three into his mouth at once and barely pausing to chew before he’s pounding the remaining four. He drinks two glasses of water, and then another. 

Then he grips the sides of the kitchen sink, fighting hard to keep himself from going for a fourth. 

Something’s wrong. 

It’s the fourth time Peter’s woken up dripping sweat, yelling, having shown his own bedsheets who’s boss, in half as many weeks. If the pattern keeps up any longer, he’s going to have to seriously consider investing in chainmail linens. 

It’s the flu, maybe. Probably. Peter can barely remember what civilian-type sickness feels like at this point in the game, he’s been so long and so far removed from the distribution spread of ordinary, run-of-the-mill illness. But he does feel— dizzy. Slightly feverish. Hungry. 

He shakes his head more firmly to clear it, ignoring how all that does is compound the vicious throbbing in his temples, and bends down almost reflexively to reach an only slightly trembling hand towards his suit from where he’d left it in a pile on the hard floor the night before. 

The sharp edges and details of the nightmare are already fading, blurring into dark, foggy shapes that linger at the edge of his subconscious as Peter blindly stuffs his feet into the legs of the suit and tugs the rest up his torso. 

Shapes and sounds and colors and that gnawing, scraping, burning hunger. 

Silently, easily, Peter heaves open his window and hops up onto the sill. He flicks his wrist, exhaling the dregs of the dream roughly out through his mouth and hoping that somehow the filter in his suit is sensitive enough to pick out and contain the bad juju. 

“They’re bad dreams, Parker,” he mutters to himself, impatient, ignoring how unconvincingly he stumbles when landing on the roof of the neighboring apartment building. He smacks himself on the side of the mask once, twice, in quick succession. “Eighty percent of the world suffers. Tighten up.” 

And for the first time possibly ever, Peter’s brain must take the good advice offered, because his next landing is steadier. Peter’s chest loosens, and he’s already reaching out to shoot the next cord of webbing, to fling himself towards the imminent sunrise. 

The wind rushes around his face, eardrums thrumming, and as he whips his way across the city, Peter knows deep in his strangely achy bones that he’s fine, not because the evidence points in any particularly hopeful direction, but because he has to be. 

People need him.

They’re just nightmares.

He’s survived much worse. 

---

His day gets worse before it false starts its way towards better— the Tarantula attempts to slice and dice his way through the tourist-packed Guggenheim, and by the time Peter manages to get the guy straightened out, he’s missed both his morning lectures and a meeting with his TA. Whatever good vibes and stale cracker fumes he’d been running on since five in the morning have been pissed out of him three times over by lunch, and he collapses wearily into a chair at the first random corner bodega he stumbles across like a man half-crazed. 

“We don’t keep coins any size, or bills under five,” the kid at the counter robotically recites once Peter rallies himself enough to go order, not looking up from his phone. “If it’s not exact, it’s a tip.” 

“Seriously?” Peter snorts, digging in his pocket for a fiver. 

Rather than answer, the kid just holds a hand out for the money, eyes still glued to his game. Peter slaps a ten into his palm, hungry enough that he barely even hurts about it, before making a beeline back to the farthest table. 

He’s so engrossed—in his (admittedly) delicious sandwich and the whisper-shouting match he’s engaged in with the DODC phone tree—that when Ned walks in, he’s caught completely unawares.

Not that Peter could’ve been caught awares, because to be caught awares he would’ve had to know that Ned was back in the city in the first place. Back in the state. He hadn’t posted anything about MIT graduation. Peter had assumed— 

Peter doesn’t know, what he assumed. 

He hangs up his phone. 

“We don’t keep coins any size, or bills under five,” the counter kid informs Ned, who hasn’t noticed Peter. “If it’s not exact, it’s a tip.”

“That’s a racket,” Ned says in a mildly amused sort of voice, sliding his wallet out of his jacket pocket. He glances halfway toward Peter as he reaches for the chip stand to grab three bags and throw them onto the counter. 

Peter ducks his head, turning back to his table with his heart hammering hard in his chest. Determinedly, he glares a hole through his plate.

“Pay with a card, then,” the kid huffs. Then, more brightly, “whoa, is that Elmer’s Odyssey?” 

Ned laughs, though at what, Peter can’t see. “Yeah,” he says, holding something in his wallet out to the kid. “One of my school teams helped with their systems and engine overhaul last year. Wicked cool, right?” 

“Awesome,” the kid says reverently, handing back whatever it is. And, more politely than he’d asked Peter, “you want those to go?” 

Something aches, deep in Peter’s chest to match the muted twinge still tugging at his bones. Against his better judgment, he chances another glance at the counter, where Ned is standing relaxed, thumbs in his pockets as he waits for his food. 

He gives Peter a friendly nod, eyes lingering on him for less than a second before they’re sliding to the corner box television set. Somehow, Peter manages a polite smile before returning to his staring contest with his sandwich. 

It’s a standoff, though Peter is sure that Ned’s not aware of the suffocating atmosphere inside the store, or the nervous sweat beginning to bead at Peter’s temple the longer they sit there, existing in each other’s worlds. 

You’re gonna forget who I am. 

…what? 

Peter shuts his eyes, fighting off a wave of sudden dizziness and gripping the side of the table for support. 

When he opens them again, the bell above the door has already tinkled merrily, and Ned is gone. Peter scrubs a hand down his face before getting unsteadily to his feet, balling up the rest of his sandwich wrapper as he goes and chucking it in the bin next to the door. 

Something is wrong. 

Peter shakes his head, shakes it off, and starts to make his way home. 

Call it growth, that he’s too rattled to even pull out his phone and attempt a google search of Elmer’s Odyssey. 

---

He gets distracted on the way by a mugging-in-progress, in broad fucking daylight and with an actual nine millimeter held to a thirteen-year-old’s chest, and the whole thing pisses Peter off well enough that even having taken care of the guy in less than a minute, he spends another half hour swinging around, looking for other creeps who need their dental work rearranged. 

Finding none, he ditches the suit and catches the M, daring to think idealistically about his chance of sneaking in a twenty-minute nap before his shift starts in an hour. 

“Parker!” he hears a shout when he’s about two blocks away from his apartment building, and Peter twists, alarmed, only to find Mrs. Bianchi waving him over frantically from her shop on the side street, already scowling as she gestures to the sidewalk next to her with her cane.

Smiling for what feels like the first time all day, Peter jogs lightly across the street towards her. 

“How you doing, Mrs. B?” he asks. “More car trouble?”

“You know there isn’t,” Mrs. Bianchi waves him off with a weathered hand and a sniff. “Whatever magic lever you pulled down there—”

“Readjusted the alignment.” 

“—it’s doing just fine. Been fine for weeks. I’m never taking it down to Castor’s again. Bunch a money-grubbin’, pants-shittin’ tire shysters. I told Sofia, I told her: ‘you quit taking the van down there, Pete’s got us fixed.’ Rolled her eyes at me, the smartass.”

Peter bites at the bottom of his cheek to keep from laughing as she turns, gesturing for him to follow after her around the corner to the other side of the shop. “Got something for you,” she announces, eyeing him slyly. “Never say I don’t spoil all you rotten twenty-somethings.”

Rows of flowers greet them under the west-side canopy, pink and yellow and purple and all sorts of colors that Peter knows, from what could probably be considered significant industry experience at this point in his career as a double-ditched orphan, are the natural-grown kind.

Peter raises his eyebrows. “Pretty sure it’s not Sunday yet, Mrs. B. You need Sof to take you to another one of those early-onset dementia screenings? I think I saw a sign on my way over here.” 

Mrs. Bianchi looks up at him severely from where she’s begun gathering pale pink blooms, and Peter grins, shifting his backpack on his shoulder. “These aren’t for any of those hundred guardian angels you’ve got, kid. Can’t you smell ‘em? They’re goddamn fragrant. They’re exquisite. No, these are the type of flowers you give a girl. A live one. You’ve met a live girl before, I assume?” 

Smile dropping, Peter squints at the absolutely ordinary looking bouquet of flowers and says, “Um.” 

“You’ve met one,” Mrs. Bianchi grumbles, reaching for the cellophane. “Smart, brooding ass like you? They’ve certainly met you, even if you’re too set on pigheadedness to notice.” 

Weakly, Peter says, “I’ve met girls.”

“Or a boy,” Mrs. Bianchi quickly tacks on. “Boys like flowers, these days. Sofia tells me boys like flowers. About damn time they stop making each other miserable and start shelling out, I told her.” 

Peter looks at her, openly amused. Taking this as a confirmation, she shoves the finished bouquet at his chest and, successfully steamrolled, he accepts. 

“You give those to a pretty someone, Parker,” she orders. “Boy, girl, elephant, I don’t give a fuck one way or another.” She notices him reaching for his wallet, and waves him off impatiently. “Keep it. Probably all wet, anyways. You just give ‘em out, and you have a drink, and then you have yourself some fun, hear? Don’t let me see those depressing-ass eyebags until Sunday. Sofia says you were a fine lover, don’t see why everything’s gotta be such a goddamn production with you young people these days—”

Peter blanches, fumbling with the flowers. 

“What?” he wheezes. 

“You heard me,” Mrs. Bianchi barks as she swats at him with her cane. He easily dodges. “Youth! It’s wasted on the young. Quit your moanin’ and have a go at someone. Before your creaky old hips are the only things out of alignment.” 

“Good god,” Peter breathes out, scrubbing a hand down his face. With some effort, he gathers himself. “...thanks, Mrs. B. For— whatever this was. Truly.” 

“Sarcasm is unbecoming,” she informs him shrewdly. “Have yourself some fun, Parker. And get the hell outta my sight.”  

Peter doesn’t need telling twice.

---

He’s still shaking his head in incredulity when he reaches the sidewalk leading up to his apartment complex, some of the lingering dread from the morning prickling in his gut again at the thought of sleep as he reaches for his keys before he’s halted in his tracks by a guy balancing a—frankly, worrying—number of cardboard boxes in his arms, unsteadily making his way up the walk toward the door. 

Reflexively, Peter steps forward to help, heaving the two topmost boxes into his arms just as the entire stack begins to tip sideways. 

“Thanks, man,” the guy says gratefully, balancing the precarious tower with his now-free arm. “Sorry, guess I overshot. Parked illegally and thought I could one-trip it.” 

“It’s no problem,” Peter says simply, tucking the flowers more securely into the crook of his arm to prevent them from being crushed. “That lot’s a bitch in the afternoon.” 

“You have a car?” the guy asks hopefully. 

Peter snorts. “Yeah. It’s parked right next to my superyacht.” 

Box-guy laughs, a little harder than the joke probably deserves, not that Peter minds. He’s got dark hair. An easy smile. Not that Peter notices. 

“Sorry,” the guy recovers with a grin. “My girlfriend’s the one finishing moving in. That’s her stuff. She doesn’t have a car and I’m— I dunno. Worried, I guess.” He grins at Peter, who smiles. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Peter agrees, taking a few steps forward to reach for the door. “But I’ve got a friend down the street with a van, if something goes down and she ever needs a ride. Real clunker. Can do forty on a good day. Invasive questions about your sex life guaranteed.” 

“Perfect,” the guy nods, seriously, stepping past him. “Gotta be a bit perverted to thrive in this city, I’ve always said.” 

“Absolutely,” Peter agrees. And, May’s training kicking in, if rustily, “you local?” 

“West Bronx, up ‘til the blip. Then Boston. Back for a while. You?” 

“Queens,” Peter says, smiling tightly as he nods. The two of them step into the miraculously functioning elevator, and box-guy nods his appreciation at Peter for sticking it out. 

“I’m Adel,” the guy says. 

“Peter,” Peter supplies. 

“Well, thanks for the hand, Peter,” Adel says with a good-natured smile. “Pretty sure those are full of like, highly fragile earthenware from Michelle’s sophomore year, avant-garde-type period. You’d probably never see me again if I’d dropped it.” 

Peter’s heart skips a beat at the (frustratingly common) name, then resettles. He forces a soft huff of laughter. “No problem,” he promises, again. 

The elevator doors slide open and Peter steps quickly through them, only to freeze dead at the sight that greets him. 

Fuck.

Because in front of Peter is Ned Leeds, crouched over a mountain of bubble wrap there in the open doorway of apartment 413. 

Ned Leeds, cursing steadily under his breath as he digs through the layers, one foot planted in the hallway and the other in the—apparently rented, no-longer-empty— apartment two and a half doors down and across from Peter’s. 

Ned Leeds, frustrated expression morphing into an easy smile when he notices the two of them picking their way down the hallway. 

Well, Adel, picking his way down the hallway. Peter has apparently chosen to cosplay as a living statue, standing there rooted to the spot. 

“At fuckin’ last, dude,” Ned laughs at Adel, straightening up to come relieve one of the boxes from Peter’s arms. “And friend,” he adds, appreciatively, before doing a slight double-take. 

Peter is still frozen. He’s— he’s physically fighting against the concept of movement, actually. 

“Whoa,” Ned smiles, recognition flashing in his eyes as he shoulders his half of Peter’s burden. “Small city, I guess.” 

Ned’s lost his jacket since their chance encounter a few hours ago, thick-rimmed glasses glinting in the piss-poor lighting of the apartment hallway and his entire self so…here. So…directly in front of Peter, breathing in his same air and existing in this space, this singular space of Peter’s that he somehow managed to build without the structural, load-bearing support of Ned Leeds. 

Peter is for a moment overwhelmed, by the sheer number of details he’d already forgotten. The faded scar on Ned’s fourth finger. The indiscriminate way his smile still tugs at the corners of his mouth, polite or genuine or anything in between. 

“What?” Peter tries to ask, voice cracking. He clears his throat. “I mean, uh. What?” 

Ned raises an eyebrow. “That was you, right? The emo dude at Doreen’s?” 

Something is wrong.

Peter blinks hard against the sudden wave of increasingly familiar dizziness that washes over the entire field of his vision, momentarily blurring Ned and Adel’s faces. It takes everything in him not to stumble sideways, not to drop Michelle’s box of fucking— earthenware, onto the dingy but very, very hard wooden floor below them.

Michelle. 

Michelle. 

No, Peter thinks. Refuses to think. 

Like he’s done it a million times before, he offers Ned what he hopes is a normal, if tight-lipped, smile. 

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t—” he coughs suddenly, around nothing but a sudden flood of his own saliva. “Didn’t recognize you, man.” 

“Yeah, no worries,” Ned laughs. “You and that sandwich looked, like, fairly intimate? You a friend of Delly’s, or…?” 

“He’s Peter. Picked him up outside,” Adel supplies, setting his own box against the wall and brushing off his hands as Peter shakes his head. He takes over Ned’s job of sifting through the bubble wrap. “And don’t call me that. Especially in front of the company.” 

“I’m just, across the hall,” Peter hears himself say, raising a hand to point vaguely toward his own door. “416.” 

Ned’s face lights up. “Dude, for real? You’ve gotta come tonight.” 

Peter opens his mouth. Closes it. Cocks his head, slightly as he shifts the box in his arms. “Tonight?” he asks, voice a touch strained. 

“Housewarming party,” Ned nods appreciatively with a lopsided grin, and it’s so achingly familiar that Peter’s head actually pangs. He plays it off by setting his own box on the ground. 

“Right,” he says, collecting his thoughts as he straightens up. Trying to, at least. “Yeah, uh, maybe. What time?” 

“Eight,” Adel says. “But your hosts aren’t real big on things like, you know. Punctuality. So I’m telling people it’s a soft eight-thirty.” 

“Guy gets stood up once,” Ned jokes, rolling his eyes good-naturedly at Peter, like the two of them are sharing an inside joke. Peter’s stomach twists.

“It was traumatic,” Adel tells them, grinning. “A traumatic stand-up.” 

“Right,” Peter says again, suddenly shivering against the chill racking up his spine and fighting very hard to resist the urge to vomit. “Well, I’ll be there, hopefully. Or—not. Maybe not.” 

Adel raises an eyebrow. Ned squints at Peter in a politely confused sort of way. 

“Sorry,” Peter recovers, taking a step back towards his apartment and shoving a thumb behind him. “Just, I have work. A job. I work at…a job. And it’s— it’s weird hours, sort of? So I’ll stop by, if I’m off in time, but…” 

“Oh,” Ned nods immediately. “Yeah dude, no pressure. Just, you’re welcome to drop in, if you want. We’ll have drinks and…probably not as much food as we should, to be one hundred percent honest. We have…way more debt than we do money.” 

Peter nods. The chills are already receding, leaving him with nothing but a small tremble in his fingers, which he fixes by quickly stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. 

“Cool,” he says, with a small nod, before turning jerkily and all but fleeing the scene. 

Then he lets himself into his own apartment with fumbling fingers, pulls on the suit for the third time that day, and throws himself desperately out the already open window. 

---

Forget who you are? What are you talking about? 

It’s okay. 

I’m gonna come and find you. 

---

Something is wrong, but not wrong enough that Peter isn’t standing— so stupidly, stupidly standing— outside apartment 413 at 8:50 p.m., pretty-person flowers in hand and reconsidering…most of his life choices up to this point, in all honesty. 

He’d actually already decided, out swinging and through his shift and then again, after tugging back on his street clothes and popping half a cap of Tylenol for the ache still scraping at his bone marrow, that yes this is stupid, and yes this is dangerous and yes, you should have walked yourself back up the hall about six minutes ago, but—

Peter will have to see them eventually, right? He’ll have to see her, if she is her, if they’re somehow, inexplicably and inconceivably, here. 

For how long though, exactly? A few months? A year? How long does it need to be, for Peter to need to consider moving, transferring, starting over again—

The door swings open and Peter jumps, caught. 

“Yo!” Adel smiles, stepping back to welcome him into the inviting, warmly-lit apartment. His voice lilts in a charming, only slightly tipsy way. “You made it.” 

Peter forces himself to smile. “Yeah, uh. Guess so.” 

“Make yourself at home, and thanks for the flowers,” Adel says, gesturing sweepingly at the room as a whole as people mill around, chatting warmly. “Is what I would say, if I were one of your hosts. But I’m not. So— grab a beer, I guess, and…” his brow furrows. “Sorry, I’ve got no clue where the vases ended up, so you’ll have to keep those alive for the next ten to twenty minutes, because I think Ned ran for more drinks, and I lost MJ. If you see her, shout me.” 

And— that’s it. MJ. The confirmation Peter hadn’t needed exactly, but still hits his gut like a sandbag. 

“Cool,” he croaks, for what has to be the thirtieth time that day, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. “Yeah, um. I’ll try to catch one of them. Thanks, man.” 

With a nod and a smile, Adel is gone, slipping easily away and into a pack of what Peter assumes are college friends, but could very well be anyone, for all he knows. 

Co-workers. Extended family. Hell, the people from upstairs. Peter’s not as great a mingler with kids his own age as he is with the Mrs. Bianchis of the city, these days. 

He gets by, of course. Goes out, if the mood striking happens to coincide with a quiet night for the crooks and Kingpins of NYC’s underworld. Even manages to get wasted sometimes, when the drinks are free.

Peter’s just…tired, most of the time. All the time. 

Always so goddamn tired.

His head is hurting again, and the dizziness is back, but his beer burns just this side of hard enough to keep him steady on his feet, so Peter knocks another swig of it back and begins to stroll the apartment, stepping carefully, still unsure how to tell if he’s living in a dream. 

There are still unpacked boxes, shoved under tables and tastefully covered with blankets, but as a whole the entire place is— cozy. Comfortable. Infused with the type of warmth that Peter still hasn’t quite managed to capture in his own single bed-bath, despite the hodge-podge of thrifted lamps and abandoned furniture he’s managed to collect over the past four years. 

His eyes catch on a Lego X-wing, tucked deeply into the far corner of the bookshelf, and Peter can’t stop the reluctant smile that tugs at his lips. 

“No one was supposed to see that,” a sheepish voice sounds from behind him. 

Peter quickly pivots, nearly spilling his drink all over Ned’s front. Ned takes a reflexive step backwards, barely managing to save his shirt but looking up with a friendly smile, regardless.

“Sorry,” Peter says quickly. “Sorry. Kind of jumpy, I guess.” 

“I noticed that earlier,” Ned says mildly. He gestures to the X-wing. “You seen ‘em?” 

Peter hesitates, opening his mouth then closing it. In truth, he hasn’t thought (much) about Star Wars, outside the occasional quip to another mask or a perfunctory dusting of the figurines on his dresser, in years. 

“A bit,” he finally says. “When I was younger I was kind of…” he pauses, mentally calculating the necessity of a lie. “Actually, no. Yeah. I was, uh, pretty into them. Way past the point where it was like, cool. To be into them, honestly.” 

Grinning, Ned tips his drink towards Peter. “Respect.” 

Peter snorts, taking another sip of his drink to save him from the ensuing silence, and all at once, it hits. 

A full-body tremor rolls through him, muscles spasming as he gasps, pitching slightly forward and barely managing to save his drink for the second time. He can already feel the sweat beginning to bead at his temples, down his back, in the pits of his arms and in every other sweat-producing part of him. The ache is overwhelming, in his bones, in his stomach, the hunger—

“Whoa man,” Ned’s alarmed voice somehow manages to reach his ears, and a second later someone’s grasping at Peter’s arm and side, steadying him. “You good?” 

Something is wrong. 

Something is wro—

“I’m kind of warm,” Peter practically pants, stumbling forward a step as Ned holds him steady. “Sorry. Is it warm?” 

“Same, dude,” Ned says immediately, because that’s the kind of person he is, if Peter can still be right about things like what kind of person Ned Leeds is, four years and a lifetime later. “Was just thinking about how much I was cooking. My room’s through the hall. I’ll pop a window.” 

Peter manages to find his feet somewhere along their walk down the short hallway past a few curiously-staring guests, and, cautiously, it seems, Ned allows Peter to disentangle himself from his supportive grip on his arm. 

He’s already running the episode in his mind, generating options for how to play off the sweat beading at his brow, when he comes face to face with— himself. 

Spider-Man, taped and pinned neatly across the entire breadth of a large, four-by-nine corkboard. Spider-man, mid-flip and mid-punch and mid-getting-his-shit-rocked, ten times over. A near hundred masked faces, photos, sticky note drawings. Most of them taken by Peter himself, and passed anonymously on to Jonah, before, seemingly, being copy-pasted onto a print pdf and cut into these neat litttle rectangles. 

Peter opens his mouth and then closes it, dumbly. He finally manages to say, “whoa.” 

“Oh,” Ned snorts as he lugs the window open, then perches himself on his own desk and sets his drink to the side. “Yeah. MJ calls that our post-bacc. I guess it’s a…little serial-killer-esque, now that I’m really looking at it. Don’t worry, we’re normal.” 

Transfixed, dreamlike, Peter takes a step closer to the board as if to touch it. “What are you looking for?” he thinks he asks. 

For the first time all day, Ned doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he picks his drink back up and takes a long sip. “Why?” He looks at Peter curiously, voice even. “You know him?” 

Like a hole in the head, Peter wants to say. He shakes his head instead, reaching up to wipe some of the still-beading sweat from his forehead with the back of his jacket sleeve. “Doesn’t everyone?” 

“Yeah,” Ned mutters, and if Peter didn’t know better he’d say there was a tinge of frustration to it. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” 

Peter glances at him, side-eyed, and Ned shrugs. “Guy’s a ghost. You’re looking at eight months of work, and if we’re pushing a record for anything, it’s dead-fuckin’ ends. If MJ wasn’t so—” Ned cuts himself off, a slight wrinkle appearing on his forehead. “Sorry. Anyone ever told you you’re like, easy to talk to?”  

Peter, who has never once in his life been called easy to anything, smiles like the stretch doesn’t feel like chewing broken glass. “Can’t really say so, no.” 

“Well, consider it said,” Ned sighs. He glances out the open doorway toward the living area, where loud peals of laughter are just beginning to sound. “I should probably get back and like, host. You’re welcome to hang out, or, if you need to dip—” 

“Hey.” 

Peter turns slightly towards the new voice, startled, and it’s—

Her. 

It’s her, but it also isn’t. Her hair is loose around her face, the quirk of her eyebrow familiar as she quickly sizes him up, but when MJ cocks her head at him, there’s a lack of…something, that Peter used to remember. A stiffness she no longer holds in her shoulders. 

She looks surprised, to see someone else in the room besides Ned, but quickly recovers. 

“Nice flowers,” she says, eyes dropping down to Peter’s hands and back up again. 

Peter, who’d long forgotten he was holding them, starts. “Oh,” he says, intelligently. “They’re a, housewarming gift.” 

He holds the flowers out towards her, and after what feels like an infinite beat, she reaches out to accept them. Their fingers brush, and Peter quickly drops his hand back to his side. 

“Friend of yours?” MJ directs at Ned, eyebrows raised.

Ned shakes his head. “Adel found him.” 

MJ nods, like she isn’t surprised. “I’m, uh, MJ,” she introduces herself, smiling politely but genuinely. Peter is struck by— the ease of it. Her even, steady gaze makes him fidgety. He looks away, nodding once. 

“Now it’s your turn,” she says when he doesn’t respond, sounding slightly amused. 

“What?” Peter asks, praying that he’s not sweating through the collar of his shirt. 

“To like, introduce yourself,” MJ tells him. “That’s generally how—” she gestures her free hand between them— “this, goes.” 

“Oh,” Peter’s voice cracks. “I’m just a— neighbor, from across the hall.” 

He can feel the weight of Ned’s puzzled gaze on him, but MJ just raises her eyebrows, sniffing at the flowers. 

She shrugs, gesturing with them to Ned. “Friendly neighbor.”

Peter chokes on his beer. 

“Sorry,” he manages to recover after a moment of hacking, as MJ grins. He points in the vague direction of his throat. “Wrong— tube.” 

“Happens,” she nods, clearly making fun of him, then looks over at Ned and gestures over her shoulder with her chin. “Sima’s here. She’s asking for you.” 

“Oh,” Ned says, brightening. “Great. Yeah, coming.” 

He sidles past Peter and MJ, out towards the main room, and MJ gives Peter one last sweeping glance. “Gonna go put these in some water,” she tells him, holding up the bouquet. “But it’s nice to meet you, neighbor.” 

Peter nods, smile tight, and then she turns to go, leaving him there with nothing but a pit in his chest, a chill down his spine, and a conspiracy board plastered with his own eyes staring down at him menacingly. Peter turns back to face it, taking a deep breath before he tips his head back, eyes finding the ceiling before he lets them fall shut. 

He lets out a weighty sigh, brain whirring. 

Something isn’t wrong. 

Everything is. 

---

He aches. All throughout the next fifteen minutes he spends at the party before slipping out the front door, watching Ned and MJ out of his peripheral vision as he attempts to make half-hearted conversation with MIT transplants and even some recent ESU grads he should probably recognize, Peter aches. 

Ned, clapping a loudly laughing friend on the back, smile wide and eyes glinting. 

Ache. 

MJ, dahlia necklace swinging as she leans down to whisper in a pink-haired girl’s ear where she sits on the couch, the two of them snorting in uniform amusement at something or someone when she stands back up.

Ache. 

Adel’s fingers, gentle as he combs them softly through MJ’s hair and murmurs something unintelligible.  

And it’s probably about time for Peter to go. 

He doesn’t say anything to announce his departure, but he does falter at the door, this particular wave of dizziness so strong that he actually has to catch himself against the door frame with his forearm, feeling suddenly faint. With a great effort, he manages to pry the door open and slip out into the hallway. 

Peter leans back against the wall, dropping the hand holding onto the lip of his cup down to his side, and breathes. In for four seconds. Out. An old trick of May’s, one that kept him tethered in the immediate aftermath of the spell when the overwhelming, all-encompassing panic got too overwhelming and all-encompassing. 

What are you doing? 

He can still hear the murmuring and music of the party inside, and could probably pick out individual voices if he focused hard enough. He actively chooses not to, picking instead to shove off the wall and stumble towards his own apartment.

I don’t know. 

The police scanner on his nightstand is crackling when he lets himself through the door, and Peter immediately crosses the room to silence it, setting his cup down next to the stand, careful to avoid dripping on the old postcard of Ben’s he keeps propped up there. Confused, he pulls out his phone to check why he hasn’t received an alert, only to find it dead.  

Shit. 

A tripped power line, the radio crackles when he fumbles to switch it back on. Suspicious activity near the tower. 

Peter’s spine prickles, gooseflesh spreading from the pit of his stomach until he’s covered with it, near-violently shivering even as he begins looking blearily around for where he’d left the suit. 

Vision blurring, he spots it, lying atop the radiator. He takes a shaky step forward, feeling suddenly bloodless. 

Something is wrong. 

He takes another step, distantly aware he’s swaying on his feet. 

Something is—

Darkness. 

---

Tap. Tap tap. 

Peter blinks once, twice. 

Tap. 

His face hurts. 

His…everything, hurts. 

Still blinking slowly, Peter peels his cheek from the floor. He tastes blood, and reflexively runs his tongue over his teeth, checking for any missing. They’re intact. 

His nose, then. 

Tap, tap, tap. 

Distantly, he registers the noise as coming from his front door. Gentle, insistent knocking that picks up again every ten or so seconds. Peter swipes gently at his nose, and his fingers come away crimson. White-hot pain shoots up his still-reverberating skull. 

Great. 

Tap. Tap tap. Taptaptaptap. 

“Jesus,” he grumbles, pulling himself shakily up to his feet and staggering towards the door. He wipes roughly at his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, trying hard not to black out again from the dizziness the flash of pain reawakens. 

Roughly, he wrenches the door open. “Sorry, can I help—? Oh.” 

MJ takes a startled step backwards from where she’d clearly had her ear pressed up to the door. Peter is aware that his mouth is still parted in surprise, but he’s frozen. He wishes, suddenly, that he’d been a little more thorough with the blood, because MJ’s eyes travel the entire length of his stained shirt, lingering a little too long at his collar, where he can most feel it, sticky and wet against his skin. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I was just…” she trails off, eyes flitting over his probably bruised face as Peter continues to stare at her, mouth agape. Her face shutters into a carefully neutral expression. “Ned said you’d seemed sick, earlier. Not our business, but— I said I’d go check.” She shrugs. “Neighbors, right?” 

His grip on the door handle is tight enough that the metal gives slightly beneath it, but Peter forces himself to nod. She needs to leave. He needs her to leave. 

“Right,” he says, dropping his gaze. “Sure. Uh, thanks. But it’s—I’m…fine.” He gestures self-deprecatingly to his nose, trying to play the thing off with a half-laugh. “Tried to change a light bulb. Fell off the chair. Stupid.” 

MJ squints at him, cocking her head slightly to get a better view over his shoulder and into his apartment. Peter shifts his weight, not-so-subtly blocking her line of sight. 

“Looks bad,” she says.

“It’s nothing,” Peter returns.

“Looks really bad.” 

“It’s really nothing.” 

She squints at him again, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. She’s still wearing her dress from the party, but has also donned a zip-up Mets hoodie that hangs open in the front. The boyfriend’s, probably, unless a truly incomprehensible shift in her attitude towards organized sports has somehow occurred as a result of her four years among the scientific elite. 

“Are you trouble, Peter Parker?” she asks bluntly. Peter stiffens, and she rolls her eyes, correctly guessing his aversion as she crosses her arms over her chest. “There’s only one Peter on the mailbox list, Jumpy. Wasn’t hard to figure out.” 

Peter says, heart hammering, blood still tacky against his lips, “I’m not trouble. Just a guy.” 

“Just a guy,” she parrots, seemingly unsatisfied. “A guy who fell off a chair.” 

“Your neighbor’s an idiot,” Peter smiles tightly. “My condolences.”

MJ nods, then says, taking another step back towards the hallway, “...alright. Cool.” 

Peter blinks. “Cool?” 

She nods. “Cool. We’ll see you around, neighbor.” 

Practically slumping in relief, Peter says, “see you around.” 

She turns to go, but at the last second turns back, expression unreadable but eyes glinting with something familiar. “Nice lamps, by the way.” 

Peter feels his brows furrow. “Thanks,” he says uncertainly. “And thanks for the, uh, party, earlier. That was— great. Super…fun.” 

MJ inclines her head. “Thanks,” she parrots back, matching his nonchalant tone and shrugging. “We rage.” 

Peter huffs out a laugh, and the smile she gives him as she really turns to go feels different. More genuine. 

It doesn’t hit until Peter’s stripped off his shirt and is standing there scrubbing at the blood with freezing cold faucet water, replaying the entire interaction through his heavy, dizzy head, what she’d meant. 

Nice lamps. 

MJ’s and Ned’s apartment is, presumably, lit at the baseline level in the same way as his. Which is to say, with shitty added-after-the-fact LED wall sconces, hanging no more than four feet in the air. With Peter’s enhancements, the shine of them is too harsh at night, and they’re ugly to boot. It had taken him less than a month after moving in to start collecting the lamps.  

There’s also no world in which he’d need to stand on a chair to reach a single one of them.

Peter grips the sides of the sink, head bowing as he screws his eyes shut. 

Fuck.