Work Text:
The apartment was barely an apartment.
The walls were thin enough that Peter knew his neighbor’s favorite TV shows, his other neighbor’s exact sleep schedule, and—unfortunately—more about the couple upstairs’ relationship than he had ever consented to. The sink leaked in a rhythm that sounded like it was trying to Morse code him something. The heater made noises like something large and deeply disappointed was dying inside the wall.
It was home.
Or at least, it was the place Peter Parker went when Spider-Man was too tired to stand upright. Same thing, technically. Probably. He was not going to unpack that. He had already unpacked enough things this week and most of them tried to punch him.
His suit hung over the back of a chair, still stained in places he had decided not to look at too closely. There was a whole list of reasons for that. One of them was “laundry is a future Peter problem,” which was usually code for “I will think about this guilt later.”
Maybe he should switch to black. Daredevil did it. Black suit. Cleaner. More practical. Less obvious when you failed to dodge in time.
He stared at the bloodstain again.
Yeah. Great idea, genius. Because the problem was definitely visibility.
The news droned on in the background with live footage of Karen Page’s trial. Another disaster with too many flashing cameras and too many people pretending this was all normal.
Until Matt Murdock, attorney at law, showed up on live television in the middle of Karen Page’s trial. Of course he did. Leave it to Daredevil to be dramatic.
Peter tried to focus on the broadcast. He really did. He had every intention of being a responsible, emotionally stable person about it. But the last few months had not exactly been a gentle romp through New York’s ongoing commitment to chaos. Dealing with the AVTF alone had been enough to make “sleep” feel like a rumor people spread to be funny.
He was half asleep when Matt started speaking. Which, in hindsight, felt like a terrible time for his brain to decide this was important information.
Matt stood in the middle of the courtroom full of chaos like none of it was aimed at him because he said the three words that made Peter forget how to breathe correctly for a full thirty seconds.
Shouting filled everything. Judges trying to reclaim control, lawyers talking over each other, Fisk somewhere in the mess sounding like he always did when something stopped going his way, like volume could force reality back into shape.
Peter couldn’t decide if that was impressive or insane. Well, he wouldn’t be able to decide if he could think straight, which was currently problematic. Because Peter heard all of it in pieces.
None of it stuck.
“I am Daredevil.”
Peter didn’t even hear the full sentence at first. It registered as a sharp pressure behind his eyes. He heard himself say “No,” but it didn’t feel like speech. More like a reflex misfiring.
Just for a fraction of a second, something else tried to surface with it—
a man on a stage, a microphone, cameras flashing on an obviously bruised face, that eventually led to—
Peter didn’t let it finish forming.
The news anchor kept going, voice too smooth for what was happening on screen. The footage jittered as cameras fought for the best angles. People in the apartment building down the hall were laughing at something, completely unrelated, like the world wasn’t currently in free fall.
Something in his ribs complained when he stood up without noticing. Peter ignored it, as per company policy.
Matt kept talking. Still steady. Still calm.
Peter stared at the screen waiting for it to correct itself. There had to be a correction. Some kind of follow-up explanation. A twist. A reveal that made it make sense again.
None came.
The cane moved instead as he tossed it, spinning through the air. It hit the wall, bounced off, came back, and landed clean in his hand.
“Oh, come on,” Peter said softly. His fingers curled against nothing.
There was a buzzing in his ears. He didn’t even know when it started.
He tried to think of something useful. Something grounding. Something normal.
May would’ve said something about—
No.
Mr. Stark would have tried—
Not that either.
Peter cut his thoughts off so fast it felt physical.
Matt was still talking. People were still shouting.
The TV light flickered across the room in uneven pulses, washing over the Spider-Man suit hanging on the chair. Blood still on it. Still there. Still something he hadn’t dealt with yet because there was always something else to deal with first.
His brain tried to connect that to this.
It didn’t fit, but it tried anyway.
Peter swallowed.
His mouth tasted like metal and ash.
“What are you doing,” he said, but quieter now.
The air in the apartment felt too tight, like the walls were listening even though they absolutely weren’t.
His brain, annoyingly loyal even now, still tried to insist:
he didn’t say that
people don’t just—
The thought broke in half.
Because Peter had seen what came after.
The television continued. Peter didn’t process anything. It all came through like sound through water—distorted, irrelevant, just noise layered on top of something else his brain had already decided mattered more.
He pressed his hands against his eyes to push out the thoughts of what comes after the “big reveal.”
May in the kitchen.
May laughing at something on TV.
May asking him if he was eating enough.
May's blood on his hands and the sound that came out of him afterward not really being a sound anymore.
His vision tightened around that memory. “No.”
He didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“No, no, no—”
His fingers curled so hard into his palm it hurt, which was useful in a way. Pain was still something that made sense.
Matt was still somewhere on the screen. The world didn’t care. Everything just kept moving forward like it hadn’t noticed it was broken.
“Matt, what have you done?”
Because it wasn’t the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen on the screen. Daredevil was a symbol. A problem. Someone in a suit doing impossible things.
No. This absolute idiot had brought it all back down to the mundane and made himself… human. A person. Someone with an apartment somewhere in this city. Someone with people who cared about him.
Someone who had just made it very easy for the city to aim in the right direction.
He couldn’t see Karen Page on the screen anymore. What if she was already—
No. Don’t do that. Don’t start listing graves before they exist.
The TV kept going.
Something about charges. Something about release. Something that should have sounded like relief but couldn’t.
Peter let out a laugh that didn’t connect to anything in him. “Great,” he said. “Cool. Yeah. Love that. Fantastic timing, honestly.”
He stood up.
Sat back down like his legs had given a second opinion.
Then stood again, too fast, head rushing in response. Breathing wasn’t working correctly. It felt optional, like something his body had stopped prioritizing without telling him.
“You fucking idiot,” he said, but it didn’t land like anger. It came out thinner than that.
Peter’s brain started running ahead of him.
Karen going home.
Someone watching her.
Someone waiting.
Someone deciding she was leverage instead of a person.
Stop it.
That’s not helping.
“What happens when they follow her,” Peter said anyway, already too far into it to stop cleanly. “What happens when they grab one of his clients—”
His voice snagged.
People get hurt.
People die.
Because of him.
Because of what he does.
Because once the world finds out—
His eyes drifted without permission to the suit hanging over the chair.
The Spider-Man suit still sat there, the thing that made him responsible for outcomes he could never fully control.
“No.”
The word came out quieter this time. The thing behind it didn’t have a name he liked thinking about. It had a skull shape in his memory anyway.
“No,” he said again, sharper now, like volume could push it back into place.
His hand was already moving before he decided it should.
Habit.
Or reflex.
“I am not doing this,” he said, but it didn’t sound like conviction. The mask went on anyway.
“Absolutely not.” The web-shooters clicked into place on his wrist. That sound was worse than it should have been.
“Peter, don’t you dare,” he muttered under his breath, not sure who he was talking to anymore.
Silence answered him.
The kind of silence that usually meant Peter Parker was about to do something incredibly stupid.
Then—
“Yeah.”
A pause.
A tired, collapsing kind of surrender.
“Okay.”
He looked at the screen one last time.
Matt stood alone in the center of it all.
“You absolute idiot,” Peter said softly. The web shot out the window.
THWIP.
Halfway through the swing, it hit him.
Frank Castle.
And if Frank heard Matt Murdock had just lit himself up on national television— Peter’s stomach dropped before the thought finished.
“—Oh God.”
The wind stole the rest of it. He didn’t slow down. Didn’t have to decide to go faster.
He just did.
“Please,” he said, barely sound at all now. “Please don’t let Frank hear about this first.”
Post-Credits Scene
Peter was approximately three blocks from the courthouse when his spider sense went off. A very specific flavor of danger that his brain had unfortunately learned to categorize as: Frank Castle.
Peter changed direction mid-swing and landed on a nearby rooftop.
Then immediately looked back over the edge.
Then back at the man standing there.
Then back over the edge again, just to make sure there wasn't another rooftop he was supposed to be on.
There wasn't.
"Frank."
Frank Castle looked up from the grenade launcher. "Kid."
Peter stared. "Okay, so. I had a whole speech prepared about how we are not going to make this worse."
Frank adjusted the launcher. "Mm."
"But I didn't realize I was going to have to start with the phrase put the grenade launcher down."
"Not using it on people."
Peter blinked. “No, of course you aren’t using it on people. You regularly don’t hurt people.”
Frank just pointed over the edge.
Peter looked (again, like he hadn’t just looked), saw a crowd of people, then looked back at Frank. “That doesn’t help.”
Frank somehow made a one-syllable word sound judgmental.
"Wall."
"What?"
“Wall.”
"The courthouse wall?"
"Yeah."
"THE COURTHOUSE WALL? With people on this side trying to get in, and people on that side trying to keep them out? THAT WALL?"
Frank frowned. "That's what I said."
Peter put both hands over his mask. "Oh my God, Mr. Murdock has the worst taste in friends."
"You're his friend."
Peter huffed out an almost laugh. "That is making my point not yours."
Frank shrugged. "Still true."
Another silence.
Then: The web shot out and the launcher disappeared.
Frank looked down at his empty hands. "Really, kid?"
"Frank. I am genuinely asking this. Did you think I was going to let you blow a hole in a federal building with people literally standing right there?"
Frank thought about it. "Maybe."
Peter stared. "That answer was somehow worse than yes." He shook his head. "Okay. New plan."
Frank was quiet.
Peter relaxed.
Frank reached into his coat.
Peter immediately tensed up again. "If that is another gun, I swear to God—"
It was another gun.
Peter rolled his eyes, and THWIPPED the gun out of Frank’s hands. "That wasn’t the plan."
"I know your idea of a plan. You're gonna talk."
Peter opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"That is offensive but accurate."