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After the beating his body has taken consecutively for three days - both literally and metaphorically, Peter thinks that he should be able to focus on some pain other than the one behind his eyes when he finally pulls off the mask and is blinded by how bright the world is without his cracked lenses fogging his vision. They burn from the sheer exhaustion of staying open and the tingling of unshed tears, every blink feeling like a blissful reprieve as he carries himself to the couch. His feet might be numb but he knows himself well enough to know they are sore as well and won’t carry him through to the bedroom.
His apartment smells. Not in the way his suit does – sweat and blood and sewage and beer – not the way he would expect like water left too long in the sink and life that hasn’t been allowed to escape through an open window, damp and mildew. Instead, it smells acidic and warm - heat still prickling the air like someone had cooked not too long ago. It would be comforting if it didn’t pull at his gut and force him to bear the painful brunt of his own guilt.
He promised MJ dinner. He promised her a date.
But somewhere between work and Spider-Man and trying to squeeze a few hours into study, and owing his group the half of his project that he definitely hadn’t forgotten about, and then rounding it all out by falling into the Hudson (again) after being tailwhipped by a speeding vehicle that he thought he had a good enough webline on, the time must have slipped his mind.
His face turns into his couch cushions, hoping that if he hides from the smell, he might be able to hide from the feeling but it’s too late and it whispers to him again.
Doing too much. Doing it wrong. Not doing enough.
Sometimes, when it gets real bad, Peter struggles to remember it could ever be good.
It was easier in the before. Back when he was just Spider-Man. It was harder to let people down when all they knew was the mask. The webs were all that he needed, they decided who he would be.
(And in times like this, he conveniently forgets how his chattering teeth and his gaunt limbs weren’t helping anyone either until Frank shoved a three day old sandwich in his hands and grunted at him until he ate, telling himself that the only person he was letting down in that moment was Peter - who according to the rest of the world didn’t exist.)
It wasn’t as if he had no guilt back then either. He had it by the bucket loads, but he could hide some of it behind his righteousness and use the rest of it chasing atonement. However, now that he is twenty-five and meant to be grown well past those sort of immaturities, he can’t quite find the will or ability to run from it, only pitifully groaning when the couch shifts next to his legs and a hand goes into his hair.
There is some kind of bliss in the long nails that scrape his scalp, even if they’re accompanied by a small noise of disgust.
“M’sorr.” He murmurs into the couch.
“Yeah, bet you are. Smacking into a billboard will do that to you.”
Huh. He couldn’t remember that one. Maybe he should check his class notes before he fell asleep, if he had a concussion, he wasn’t sure they would be legible.
He turns his head so that his mouth wasn’t covered by the cushions. “Sorry.” He corrects.
“Because you’re gross or because you missed the date?”
“Both.”
“Alright.” MJ says without a moment’s consideration. As if it’s easy. As if they hadn’t fought for nineteen months to get the words out before. As if now they’re just so well versed at this. “You’re forgiven.”
A beat.
“I didn’t make anything good anyway. Just fridge pasta.”
The words are so blase as she shrugs, filled with her usual nonchalance as if her levity doesn’t stab him right through the heart.
‘Fridge pasta’ is something her dad made for her growing up. Other variants of it included fridge curry. Fridge fry up. Fridge charcuterie. Everything in the fridge - half cut onions, zucchini, half eaten chicken, would be poured out and sauteed with a can of tomatoes or butter or olive oil and then stirred through pasta with a crack of black pepper and chilli oil as garnish.
Apparently it was a saviour to her wallet during college, meant that she knew how to use up every single last ingredient, turn it into something edible. When she introduced it to Peter one night during their rocky year of reconnection, she proclaimed it was the kind of thing that May would probably like. He couldn’t remember May ever exhibiting that sort of efficiency in the kitchen, his memories of her and the stove coated in the smell of smoke and clouded by a whole lot more.
For so long, Peter was the only custodian of his own memory - no pictures, no documents, no one to share in it with, just himself and a tendency to get a hit to his head a lot. The few pieces of his old life he still had came in the shape of clothing and items he’d stolen from the wreckage of Happy’s apartment - the accuracy of their history withered with time and blurred at the edges. For a while there was no one to correct him if the date was wrong or points told out of order.
‘Fridge Pasta’ became a fan favourite for him, because it invited him into something solid. Memories that he could ground himself in because they weren’t his own. If MJ said it was something May would like then he believed her. It made his aunt tangible in something beyond her gravestone and the beliefs he carried with him everyday. It made Peter a part of someone’s history because MJ had brought it from her kitchen to his.
He rolled on to his side with great effort. MJ’s hand slides out from his hair and down to his arm. Her back is a welcome warmth against his shins and her silhouette blocks the light, softening it into a halo around her. The dimmed brightness doesn’t hurt his eyes as much, but does lodge a lump into his throat.
Fuck, he loves her.
How did he get so lucky?
How could he think about running from this again?
(Easily. A voice whispers. It would be better. She would be happier. It would be selfish to stay and selflessly selfish to leave again.)
“I didn’t change your sheets. I thought that might be nice to roll into after a long shower, but considering the day I think you’ve had–”
“I really don’t wanna shower.”
“Figured.” She half smiles. “Why ruin a good thing?”
A question he asks himself every single day, and having her turn it around on him gives him something to focus on – a purpose away from the mask and the guilt and the running. A reason to stay.
“M’gonna though.”
Because MJ deserves a boyfriend who will show up when he promised and he couldn’t give her that, so at the very least, he could give her one that was slightly hygienic and not a health hazard to share a bed with.
She cracks a smile, something small and soft that dimples her cheeks and has her eyes twinkling. He can only hope that she hadn’t been crying because she won’t ever tell him that honestly. “You’re tired. You won’t be able to stand.” She pokes his cheek, only grinning wider when he moves with it, too tired to fight whatever mood she’s found herself in. “I’m not saving you if you drown yourself.”
“Yeah, you but you’ll be here if I don’t.” He doesn’t add the question on like he might have in the past. Back when they weren’t bad but uncertain and unsteady, and every moment he got with her was an unearned blessing and he couldn’t be sure if each new mistake was going to be the one that sent her away for good. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“Atta boy.” She laughs, poking his cheek again. “Because I was gonna make you shower anyway, but the choice is important.”
“Oh.” Peter hums. “So like… You actually did change the sheets, right?”
“Oh, no.” As she shakes her head, a few strands of hair fall loose from her bun and graze her cheeks. Seeing so much red cutting through her skin had once panicked him, now it sort of looks a lot like home. If he was allowed to call it that. Her mouth hangs open like she doesn’t want to say the next part, tongue darting out to wet her lips. Her eyes look away from his momentarily. Nervous. “I only got here like fifteen minutes ago…”
“Why…?” He presses.
“One of the housewives was on live, and I—”
Peter immediately barks out laugh, uncaring of his probably broken rib and the bruise that’s definitely blossoming under the road rash.
Maybe she’s given the role of doting girlfriend the same kind of attention she would any other, read into the subtext and found that their compatibility would be better if they were both impunctual and forgetful disasters. Maybe her guilty pleasure has turned into a full grown obsession and he should scold Flash for ever introducing her to it if he wants to keep her attention on him. Whether the admission is true or not doesn’t matter to him.
The only important thing is that he loves her.
For a single moment, that’s motivation enough to avoid the creeping whispers, to keep him in place and carry him over to the next.
"I'll change them while you shower!"