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Peter Parker had an issue. A few, really, but today one decided to reer its ugly head more than usual. The damp, humid, and miserably thick air of New York's springtime clung to his skin like glue, tacky with sweat along what feels like his entire body. He sits on the top of his apartment building—a place he definitely isn't supposed to be, but he wanted to feel the wind, however awful it may be, on his skin, not over poorly sewn spandex—and the hair that isn't flowing wildly with each gust of air sticks to his forehead. His senses make everything so much worse, all the more unbearable and nauseating, but he can't convince himself to leave. He especially can't, when he looks down at the ground and thinks of how enticing the concrete looks. Peter can't help it, really. Anyone with any semblance of emotion would feel the same way he does right now, he's sure.
In a city full of millions of people, he feels awfully alone, and he can't do anything about it. He has no birth certificate, he has no licenses, no identity. He can introduce himself as Peter—a bland and normal name, not original enough to make a difference or to be remembered—but friendships are fleeting and fickle and he can't make them, because there's no point. He's been erased from the narrative (for good reason, a voice mocks him, cruel and yet so right), he has no past. He rents from the one blessed landlord in his beautiful city who doesn't check for IDs. Doesn't ask for a bank to withdraw from, doesn't ask for proof of life, only for twelve-hundred flat at the beginning of every month. Thus, trying to make friends would be useless; he'd be a danger to them, and… worse, almost, they wouldn't be MJ, and they wouldn't be Ned.
So, naturally, he stares at the bustling city below him, at the concrete paths and walkways bordering the busy street. He stares, and he thinks what if? What if he fell off, right here and right now? What if his skull cracked on the concrete, and he bled out in the street?
No—his right-mind calls, and it isn't because the thought isn't tempting, no, it's because it's utterly illogical—your spider-sense wouldn't allow it. You'd move on instinct. Even if you didn't, your healing factor wouldn't let you die. Are you stupid? Are you?
He wishes that grating voice wasn't right, but he knows it is. Yes, he wants to say, I am stupid, I'm so stupid and this is all my fault and I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, as if apologising will do anything now. As if apologising will take all of his idiotic mistakes away from him, as if it'll bring his aunt May back, the love of his life and his best friend back, his mentor back. As if it'll make the world remember him, see him as more than the persona he gets more and more tired of each day.
He loves being Spider-Man. He loves Spider-Man as a concept, he loves all of the good he does. He loves when a thief takes an old woman's purse, and he grabs it back for her, because her smile warms the emptiness in his heart. He loves when he saves the little guy, the average person he sees on the street, and he loves so awfully much that he can inspire so many people. His favourite thing, though—a selfish thing, a cruel thing—is that they recognise him. Not as Peter Parker, or even as a human being, sure, but at least he has some… perverted sense of an identity. A farse it may be, but at least he has a name. A recognisable name, an unforgettable name.
So, despite how tired he might be of… all of it, Spider-Man and himself as a whole, he's unfortunately doomed to this life. Doomed to stare longingly at the concrete, but do nothing about the ache in his heart. Instead of focusing too heavily on his yearning, he drags his gaze (albeit hesitantly—so hesitantly, like it physically pained him to do) to the horizon line. Tall buildings crowd his vision, and the clouds are heavy, grey and as thick as the air, moments from drowning the city in a thunderstorm. He takes a staggering breath in, forcing a smile onto his face. It doesn't quite reach his eyes, and he's sure if anyone knew him they'd know it was fake—but no one does, no one can, so it's no worry at all.
His thoughts are interrupted by his phone buzzing in his pocket.
For a moment, a long and terrifying moment, he thinks maybe, maybe someone texted him. Maybe Ned or MJ woke up this morning, and they remembered him, and they decided to text. He deludes himself with this, every time his phone buzzes or he gets a stray notification every now and again. Because… well, as improbable as it was, hope still resides in the deepest pit of his heart frozen in time, and he's always been an optimist, even at his own detriment.
His hand shakes as he pulls his phone from his pocket. His phone was one of the last remaining things he got from Stark Industries. The then-newest model of a Stark phone, but it's a few years outdated now. Still works fine, so he doesn't care.
He taps the screen, and it lights up. It lights up to an admittedly probably creepy to any outside perspective picture of MJ and Ned, one taken from Ned's Instagram page he still follows to this day. He couldn't… bring himself to unfollow neither Ned nor MJ, albeit now on a different account. A burner, because his previous one—the one once filled with memories and love and so many pictures where he existed—had automatically disappeared when everything else regarding his name did. It's like the page hadn't existed to begin with.
On his screen sits a singular, lonesome, notification. Ned went live! it says. Peter's hand shakes as he clicks, a guilty pleasure as it's the only way he can see into his best friends' lives now. MJ doesn't ever go live, doesn't like being in the camera at all, but these… small moments, she allows it, if only to indulge Ned. And in each of these horrible moments, horrible aching moments, he falls in love with her all over again. Parasocially, now. Distanced. Unfamiliar, in the way MJ has her hair tied up in a way she never had previous. Terrifying, in how she turns to talk to her boyfriend with such a radiant smile on her face. The same one she used to look at him with—or, no, that's not right. Peter studies it a bit further, then; he pushes his phone closer to his face, despite it being unnecessary with his enhanced vision, and he notices something. MJ's smile isn't as authentic as it had been back then. She's happy, for sure, but the lines that used to crease her face with how often a grin would split it aren't as defined as they were. And her eyes, there's a… confusion to them. Searching, or lost, or like she's digging for something.
He doesn't let it get to him. He doesn't let the hope he's been so desperate to kill grow stronger in his heart. He definitely doesn't dare to think that maybe she remembers him—or remembers his absence, or knows that something's missing, or—or something, anything at all. He doesn't, because he can't. The moment he goes back down that pipeline, his life will be over. It almost killed him last time, last time he dared to think that maybe she remembered him based on a microexpression. He'd tried to introduce himself, and… then she ignored him in favour of Ned. They were strangers, and he couldn't say anything. Couldn't admit anything he promised, because that moment was the exact one he realised they were better off without him. Safer. Happier, too, no doubt.
He shuts his phone off. He can't listen to their laughter any longer. Can't stand to see their smiles, and their friends, and their existences without him. The concrete's call echoes louder, and yet he still has to ignore it. His city needs him. The truth is his to carry and the weight is his to shoulder. Up until the day both those things ring untrue, he'll stay stubbornly put no matter how desperate he gets. No matter how much everything hurts.
After all, it's his responsibility.