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Okay, maybe Peter was stalling. He’d been stalling for four years to talk to Ned and MJ, it could wait a few more hours. As he texted Stephen from a nearby rooftop, cautiously offering his name to yet another person who’d forgotten him and met with zero recognition, he had the realization that he’d never told Frank. The man had seen his face—seen him nearly bleed out, carried him to the hospital, stayed by his side in spite of every wall he’d tried to put up—and still didn’t know his name. Did it really matter if someone knew ‘Peter’, when the name had been expunged from every record, with no way to track him down? It basically meant nothing. He wouldn’t broadcast it to the whole world or anything (not again, never ever again) but it couldn’t hurt to be Peter again, could it? How else was he meant to have friends, to be anything outside of Spider-Man and keep the monster from consuming him?
When he reached Frank’s place, he deftly avoided all the traps this time, only to find that Frank wasn’t home—if you could even call such a place a home, living in a boat. Not that Peter had any room to judge, considering the state of his apartment. He didn’t really want to know what Frank was doing instead, because he’s almost certain it was something he wouldn’t approve of, so he did the less than legal thing of breaking in to wait. Sure, Frank wouldn’t be happy with him, but Peter wasn’t exactly happy about the killing either, so. Tough luck.
Peter was respectful enough to not poke around the cupboards of family photos, at least. He knew that heartbreak well, even if it’d shaped him differently. Sometimes when he saw Frank, he silently thanked the Peters from beyond that stopped him from crossing that line into killing, because he didn’t know how far gone he would’ve been now, especially with his mutations. At least Frank still had his humanity, he’d seen it first hand; Peter wasn’t sure he would’ve had his own, after he almost became more spider than man.
While he refuted the claims on the news, he was still a little bit of a menace, so he ended up settling down with a bowl of reheated chili as he waited, mask thrown aside. Frank’s cooking still wasn’t great—in a way, Peter was just saving him from having to eat more of his own questionable food—but it was more edible than the last time he’d been offered something the guy made. It’s almost good if you cover it in enough cheese. He really should invest in more normal hobbies.
Peter wasn’t sure what gave away that there’d been an intruder, but his heightened senses picked up on the way Frank’s pace changed outside the door, slowing as he readied his gun. He’d locked up behind him but the latch was undone once more, hinges creaking in protest, followed by careful steps down toward the kitchen where the enhanced human was still eating chili. He was probably less concerned that he should be, knowing how trigger-happy Frank could be, but his trust was rewarded when the man rounded the corner and froze in place, immediately lowering his gun.
“Kid,” he said with an exhale, some of the tension easing from his shoulders, “what the hell are you doing?”
Not a kid, Peter wanted to say. Then again, it’s not like Frank knew what else to call him. It was still weird, being exposed like this, even if they’d already had this reveal. “I wanted to talk,” he said instead with a shrug.
Frank studied him, still dressed in his Spider-Man suit, eyes narrowing with a new accusation. “Did you swing here? Why the fuck are you already back to your spider shit, you were just—” He stopped short at the sudden tightness in his throat. It’d only been days since he was released from the hospital, which had been preceded by days of unresponsiveness, and mutated or not, the kid was still human to his core, you don’t just get over being shot that quickly. He almost died, he couldn’t even breathe without Jean’s help, so why was he not resting? What could possibly be so important that he had to come all this way?
“I’m fine,” Peter insisted anyway, just as he had to Stephen. “I’m taking a break, I promise, there was someone else I had to talk to, and he just only knows Spider-Man, not… me.” Saying so seemed to pain him, so it wasn’t all that comforting to hear.
It’s an interesting distinction, though, to know he was visiting Frank as himself, not as Spider-Man. There was a clank of a utensil being dropped into a now empty bowl, breaking the tense silence that followed his words before he continued;
“I could get a taxi or something back if that’ll make you feel better, but you’d probably have to pay for it, ‘cause I don’t have that kind of money,” he offered, tone lighthearted as if he was joking. Unfortunately, there was some truth to that.
Frank had slowly made his way across the room throughout this conversation, discarding his gun. The idea of getting too close with one now made his stomach churn with a guilt that refused to be quelled. He fell into the chair across from the boy, trying to make sense of him. Eyes flick to the abandoned bowl, an opening into conversation: “Did you really come here to talk or just to steal my food?”
“It was to talk, but you were taking too long to get back. You really should get a recipe book or something, if you want to make something that actually tastes like food,” Peter easily deflected with another joke, putting on a smile.
The smile that was returned to him was wry, not falling for that bullshit. “What are you running from, daffodil?"
Ouch. Not necessarily unwarranted, or wrong, but still rude. “I just thought you deserved some answers. I can’t tell you everything, but… I owe you that much.”
Frank waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, he realized it was up to him to ask, to decide how much he was willing to pry. He knew it shouldn’t be his business, he shouldn’t care, but it was hard not to at this point. Infuriatingly so. “The girl,” he prompted.
“Jean, or…?” Peter knew who he was really asking about, but still looked for an out.
There was a deep sigh. “Sure, tell me about the voodoo kid. You know where she is?”
“No. I don’t really know if she knew where she was heading, but she texted me once. Told me to keep breathing.”
“Of course she did,” Frank laughed, gruff and humorless, before crossing his arms over the table and leaning forward. “And that girl you said you didn’t know?”
It was impossible to avoid, he knew that.
“It wasn’t completely a lie. I knew her in another life, but she forgot about me, and time changes people.” Peter wanted so badly to believe that MJ had changed enough to no longer be the girl he loved, so that this could be easier, but he’d watched her videos with Ned for years, sat in their apartment and got to meet her again. There’s still so much of her there, the parts that he loved. Loves. But she still wasn’t his MJ, because she didn’t love him back.
“What, like, when you were kids?” Frank ventured to guess.
“No, it’s… complicated. Magic.”
“Magic?”
“To clean up a mess I made, the whole world had to forget who I was. That was the only way, and Doctor Strange did it.”
“Jesus, kid, how do you fuck up enough to have that as your only option?” Especially when Spider-Man seemed so good. Frank couldn’t fathom it.
Peter asked himself that same question countless times. He knew every step he made and still questioned why he’d been such an idiot. He pushed onward, forcing himself to talk about it—he was going to have to with Ned and MJ, this could be practice.
“My identity was revealed, and with it, accusations of something I didn’t do. I did a lot of stupid, stupid things to try to fix it, but it only made things worse, and… I lost the only family I had left because of it.” He was screaming at himself internally not to cry, to get through it. Even after all these years, he still felt like he was back in the debris, holding her and begging for an answer every time he thought about it. When was the last time he’d been able to talk about her to someone that wasn’t looking through his mind? The floodgates had finally opened; “She was trying to help me, she believed in me, and she died because of it. I- I heard the moment her heart stopped. Then Damage Control found us, believing I was to blame, and gunned me down for it.”
A tension had been building in Frank with each moment he spoke, but the last part made him go rigid, jaw clenched. Peter could hear his teeth grind, grimacing a bit at the sound. Still, he persisted.
“By the time they had her funeral, no one knew who I was anymore, so I wasn’t invited.” He reached for his mask, hand balling into a fist around it. “I know you think the mask is stupid, that it makes me a coward. I really thought that I could keep people safe if they didn’t know me. MJ was only put in danger again because one person could see inside my mind and knew how much she meant to me. So maybe it’s useless now, because we’re in a world where Peter Parker doesn’t exist, but I can’t give it up.”
Frank slowly leaned back, taking it all in. Is this what it meant to befriend someone, to hear their tragic backstory? He wasn’t inclined to share his own, but it didn’t seem like Peter expected him to. He just didn’t know what kind of words a friend could offer to that. I understand? Only partially, he knew loss well, but there were powers beyond that here. You’re not alone? It was corny enough to make him want to gag. He was no role model, and a kid like that deserved a better shoulder to cry on than his. “You’re not a coward,” he finally settled on saying. He’d said as much in the hospital as well, calling him brave for his (idiotic) sacrifice (that wasn’t supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to get hurt, Frank took that shot to protect him, she was in his head, he was just trying to help—). For a moment, it looked like he was going to argue, but instead, he just hung his head. So, Frank acknowledged the other thing he let slip, echoing the name, “Peter Parker.”
Peter’s head snapped up, letting go of his mask as a hand flew up to quickly wipe at his eyes. “That’s me,” he admitted with a weak chuckle. “Don’t go, like, telling the world or anything, but I figured you should know.”
“Peter,” he said again, as if trying it out. He hadn’t been planning to ask, even if he wanted to, but he was glad to know. After getting a nod, he cautiously tried, “Pete?”
“I don’t mind,” the young man shrugged, a small smile forming even if it still carried sadness. “It’s just nice to hear again.”
“Did we know each other? Before?”
“No,” Peter was quick to assure, but since he knew that was probably hard to trust, he added, “I think that’s why it’s easier to tell you. I don’t have to worry about whether you remember or not.” He said it before he really thought about it, but now that he did, it made sense. He didn’t have to worry about getting false hope or walking a fine line, carefully picking his words around things he wouldn’t want to be remembered. Frank was a neutral party, and somehow, that felt safe.
“So I take it you haven’t told the girl then. MJ, was it?” He’d just said her name, but in Frank’s defense, he’d also said a lot of other daunting things that he’d been focusing on.
Peter winced, drawing back. It had been in this very room she’d told him she didn’t love him. It’s not like he blamed her, she was right—she didn’t know him. Those words still played over and over in his head, haunted his dreams, making him wish he threw that paper away long ago.
“She figured it out while I was dealing with Jean, but she doesn’t remember.” Put nicely. “I still need to talk to her more, I just…”
“You’re scared,” Frank said bluntly.
“...Yeah.”
“So you’re talking to me instead of her.” Again, not a question.
Peter frowned. “I thought we were having a moment here.”
“We are not having a moment. We have never had a moment.”
Lies, through and through, but it made Peter smile again just like he did on that hospital bed when he caught Frank crying, peering in through the crack in his carefully crafted walls. He would still deny that forever, of course, but they both knew the truth.
“We were totally having a moment.”
“Fuck off, Pete.”
The childish giddiness faded to something softer at the nickname, Peter once again ducking his head down in defeat. “I will talk to her. Just not today.” He could only handle talking about these things so much, but he promised Ned they’d talk about the whole Spider-Man thing so he had to follow through. He couldn’t keep them waiting again. Maybe tomorrow, then. After he had a good, long cry and let himself catch some sleep, hoping the nightmares would be to a minimum.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” Frank just huffed, it didn’t make a difference to him. He wished Peter a happier life but things don’t just work out that way. He won’t pretend to understand this magic shit apparently cast on the entire world, erasing one boy from existence in all ways except the one that mattered most: he was still here. He was alive. Frank really, really wanted him to stay that way. Any personal attachments aside, New York was better for having him.
Peter just fidgeted instead of responding. This new dynamic was… weird, to say the least. It was difficult to navigate outside of the fights and the arguments. Frank would probably be carrying that guilt with him for the rest of his life, that same feeling kept him from wanting to get too close. Wasn’t being close to him a death sentence? Amy was a fluke in the best of ways and he’d still never see her again, because she was safe that way. Peter had been so close to just being another corpse he’d see when he closed his eyes, and he hadn’t even known his name then. It felt like a warning, and yet that spider freak had taken it as a chance to sneak past his defenses (literally) into his home (literally) and make himself comfortable in Frank’s life. Every indication showed that it shouldn’t be comfortable. He can’t rationalize why he’d come back except for the fact that he was Spider-Man, Peter Parker, a man with an impossibly large heart in spite of everything that could’ve led him down the same dark path of the Punisher or worse.
“Did you have enough chili?” Frank asked, instead of voicing any of the twisted sentiment that ran through his mind.
“Yeah,” Peter exhaled, trying to put himself back together. “Thanks.”
“Still need me to call you a ride?”
“You don’t have to do that, I was just joking—”
“It’s either that or I’m driving you myself,” Frank challenged. “I shouldn’t have to be the one to remind you that you got shot.”
“I know, but I heal a lot faster, I barely feel it anymore!”
“Peter.”
That finally got him to deflate. “Fine, but I'm not letting you drive me. Just—what about…” Peter trailed off, gesturing to his suit. He didn’t exactly want to be giving out Spider-Man’s address.
“I’ll deal with it.”
• • •
“This is humiliating,” Peter complained, practically swimming in the clothes Frank had thrown at him. He hated how small it made him feel, more like the kid he kept being referred to as. He hated even more that it reminded him of the time Tony had taken away his suit, leaving him with tourist clothes and a similarly stern talking to. Hands shoved into the pockets of the large sweatshirt he now wore over his suit, he gripped his mask, keeping it hidden as they walked down the stress to a far less concerning address to hail a taxi to.
“Good. You can do that walk of shame all the way back to wherever the hell you’re staying and get some rest,” Frank responded gruffly.
“I thought you weren’t going to tell me what to do.”
“I lied, get over it.”
They stopped at the designated corner to wait for Peter's ride, where he kicked at loose pebbles. He didn't want to admit that Frank was right, because then he'd go back to doing nothing and feeling useless. He just hoped Detective DeWolff would actually call him if he was needed, but he knew she was worried too.
He heard the approaching vehicle before he looked up, glancing to Frank instead only to find him staring back. There was a far-off look in his eyes, his expression pinched with holding back some emotions that Peter got the feeling weren't actually about him. He knew better than to ask. Frank seemed to blink out of it moments later, clearing his throat just as the car stopped with a stranger behind the wheel. Peter missed Happy.
"Don't die, kid," Frank blurted out as he reached for the door handle.
Peter lingered for a moment, internally mourning the fact a hug probably wouldn't be welcome, before offering the best smile he could muster. "Wasn't planning on it."