Chapter Text
Would it be easier to just disappear?
Would it be easier to just go?
Would it be easier to just… stop?
Peter exists aimlessly for a long while, the grief suffocating and the loneliness even more so.
There is no easy remedy for the grief. There is one for the loneliness.
But he can't let himself get too close. Can't allow himself to let someone in, to know them, to be known, to love and to be loved, only to get them hurt.
He can't stand to get anyone else hurt.
Peter gives up on his dream of MIT. He gives up on the future he built in his mind with MJ and Ned. But he doesn't give up on Spider-Man. Doesn't give up on himself. Doesn't give up on life.
It would be so easy to. To succumb to the dark thoughts that drag him down, luring him to drown and disappear.
It would be easier to disappear.
It would be easier to go.
It would be easier to stop.
But when has he ever chosen the easiest route? When had he ever let himself become complacent enough to coast?
He can't.
There are too many people to live for even if they don't know he is. Too many people to live for because they sacrificed too much to keep him alive. He can't scoern their memory like that. He wouldn't.
So he will live, damn it. He will live even if it kills him.
It hurts to stay in Queens so he doesn't. Gets himself a job as a car mechanic in Albany that pays enough but not enough to get his own place.
He uses the computer in the library to join a Facebook group for UAlbany students looking for off-campus roommates.
He can't afford to be too picky but he also can't afford to risk his secret. He is enough just having a roommate at all.
He refreshes the page a third time when he his eye catches on what looks like the perfect offer.
Harley Keener
Looking for a male roommate.
Hey! I'm Harley. I'm a first-year Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering major and my prospective roommate for my 2 bed/2 bath apartment just transfered, so I'm looking for a new roommate to take over the 12 month lease ASAP. $659/month + utilities, 910 sq ft, 12ftx10ft room, in-unit washer/dryer, 15 minute walk from campus.
DM if interested!
Peter immediately sends him a message.
Peter Parker: Hi! I'm Peter. I just moved here from Queens and am currently taking a gap year before going to UAlbany next fall, but I've got a full time job at Alfonzo's Auto Repair and am hoping to make some roots in Albany before I start school. I was actually looking to study Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering! I went to a STEM school and am very ineterested in mech design, robotics and automation. You'll have to let me know what you think of it.
Peter doesn't know if he's hamming it up too much, but when he gets a near immediate response, the relief washes over him.
Harley Keener: Hey Peter! You lucky fuck. We didn't really have many advanced STEM programs where I grew up so I'm extremely jealous. I did have a remote mentorship with someone in the industry but I'm excited to get actual hands on experience in school.
Harley Keener: So, you're interested in the room?
Peter Parker: Very. The pictures you had on your post look exactly what I'm looking for and I've got the money to put down a deposit and first month's rent.
Harley Keener: omg perf. thank fucking god. you would not BELIEVE how stressed ive been trying to find a new roommate. that's what i get for letting my Ma connect me with one of her bookclub friends kid.
Peter Parker: oof. do i want to know?
Harley Keener: let's just say he came here following his dick and not his heart.
Peter Parker: ah. a girl?
Harley Keener: guy actually.
Harley Keener: you got a problem with that?
Peter Parker: no no no ofc not.
Harley Keener: i'm just fucking w you. i saw the pride pin on your bag in your pfp. i don't like to make assumptions but i at least knew you were ally enough. which, just putting it out there now, i'm gay and now that i'm not in bumbfuck tennessee i'm gonna want to explore the wonders of dating and other things if u know what i mean soooooo,.,,.
Peter Parker: lmao no worries! i've got a night job that keeps me out in the evenings most nights.
Harley Keener: you have a full time day job AND a night job? dude you're gonna burn out and die.
Peter Parker: don't worry!! i was doing the same kind of job while i was in high school and survived just fine.
Harley Keener: if u say so. but if they find ur burnt out corpse in our apartment i'm gonna be the prime suspect
Harley Keener: i hope i haven't scared you off
Peter Parker: the opposite actually :)
Harley Keener: want to come tour the place and see if you wanna sign those papers for real?
Peter Parker: i'm off at 5:30 tomorrow. that work for you?
Harley Keener: perf
Which is how Peter finds himself stripping from his grease covered coveralls as he rushes to not be late the next day.
The apartment building isn't anything special, but there doesn't seem to be any roaches or mold so that's a plus.
He finds the apartment and knocks on the door gently, waiting awkwardly with his backpack stuffed with dirty fabric.
When the door opens, the last person he expects is someone he recognizes.
He didn't get to talk to the other teen at Mr. Stark's funeral, the two of them feeling extremely out of place and suffering from their own grief, not feeling up to socializing at a time and place like that.
"You must be Peter," Harley says.
Peter realizes he was staring and nods, taking Harley's hand and shaking it.
"C'mon in. There's not much to see but hey! For thirteen hundred, it ain't bad at all."
The apartment is exactly as the photos and the diagram showed it to be and Peter feels something in his gut that it's right.
But he's hesitant.
Harley's got a connection to Mr. Stark somehow. A connection to the life that Peter lost. It could be dangerous to even have this connection, no matter how distant.
His Peter Tingle usually warns him of danger, but now it's insisting safety.
"Where do I sign?"
Harley grins. "I'll get that sent over to you."
Peter has a measly amount of belongings but is a master of dumpster diving and manages to find a bug-less mattress, blankets big enough to act as a fitted sheet and comforter, a dresser, and a desk. The amount of things people just put outside when they're moving out and give up on selling them is amazing.
As for clothes, there was a woman on Facebook Marketplace getting rid of her exes stuff and he happened to be just about Peter's size. They're a little big on him but he doesn't mind it at all.
Most of the money that he's made at Alfonzo's goes to his groceries, knowing that to satiate his enhanced metabolism, he needs more than the usual recommended calorie count.
Of course, he can't draw his roommate's attention to it, so he's got the food he keeps in the kitchen and then a chest full of non-perishables to bulk up on in his room. There is a lot of beans and rice in Peter's forseeable future. Having a secret rice cooker does feel a little ridiculous but hey, bathroom sink water is no different from kitchen sink water. (Right?)
Peter's never lived with anyone except family and hasn't lived with someone since May… so it's been different.
Harley isn't loud persay, but most people are to Peter. The building is next to a intersection so the sounds of the city serenade him to sleep (of which he gets little).
And for the first time since he's been forgotten, Peter finds himself letting someone in. He convinces himself that he has to. That being aloof and silent would raise suspicion more.
But there's a difference between being cordially friendly and binging TV with Harley after his shifts, being his sous chef when he's meal prepping, doing chores together and rewarding themselves with a mug of ice cream (because Harley is a mug hoarder and they have way more mugs than bowls).
Peter is finding a friend in Harley, someone who has ties with his past but isn't connected to it. Not the way Happy is or Ned or MJ. He's just… a guy. A guy who happened to have known Tony Stark and who doesn't make it habit to mention that fact. A guy who wears stupid bucket hats to keep the sun out of his eyes and who is extremely particular about how to dry dishes and prefers his fishsticks with honey mustard and not ketchup.
It's things like this that Peter forgot about. Little details about a person that makes them real. Things he knows that makes their relationship tangible.
And that's terrifying.
Because that means that now he can't disappear, go, stop.
He has made roots. For the first time since he started running from his past, his home, that he starts to feel like he's found somewhere that is his.
He finds that when he goes into Alfonzo's, he actually talks with his coworkers. Margarite who loves to talk about her nephews and nieces, Joe who is doing auto repair to get by while he works on his sci-fi novel, Lewie who grew up with cars and wants to work with them 'til the day he dies.
Most of them are twenty years his senior and they don't fill the hole that was left by May and Ben and Happy and Mr. Stark and his parents, but they make their own space in his life.
Margarite brings Peter tupperware of leftovers and Joe sneaks Peter flashdrives of pirated movies and Lewie gives Peter what he calls wisdom from an old man and what Peter knows is concerned advice from someone who cares enough to care.
Peter doesn't want to disappear. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want this to stop.
He wants to stay. He wants to live. He wants…
Well, what he wants is to have them back. But he can't. So what he wants instead is to let people in without the fear of hurting them or getting them hurt or losing them entirely.
And that's something only he can do for himself.
It's scary to not be scared.
But he thinks he can get there.
Of course, things can't be that easy.