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How could you breathe new air when your body felt like a dying thing?
When Jean let go and Peter’s own breath returned to him, spiked adrenaline and elation carried him through the next few days. With the inhibitor crushed beneath his heel, a joyous fire surged through his bloodstream as his human and arachnid DNA intermingled. The organic webs were softer yet thicker than his mechanized web fluid, deducting a bit of violence from his work and keeping bad guys extra secure. Plus, they weren’t as gross as he’d initially thought. Instead of relying on tech, which could malfunction or break in a fight, he now relied on himself.
He’d figured that since he’d finally married the two clashing sides of his identity, his body would reflect his newfound emotional equilibrium. His headaches would disappear. The agony in his wrists would ease up. His jaw wouldn’t ache from constantly clenching his teeth in pain. He took Detective Dewolff’s insistence on resting with a smile, secretly thinking he’d be swinging through the streets again in no time.
But a week after leaving the hospital, he still jolted awake in a cold sweat each night, his tendons pulled as taut as wire. One wrong move and they’d snap. He kept a scrap of leather under his pillow to bite down on so he wouldn’t scream. This, of course, only heightened the soreness in his jaw.
The pain rarely persisted all night. In between waves, Peter downed Advil and took deep breaths. By dawn he could usually stand. By sunrise he could walk. But that wasn’t good enough. The nights always teemed with crime. What was he supposed to do? Plaster his face on the TVs in Times Square and make an announcement? Sorry, no more muggings and street fights past midnight. Spidey can’t handle it. He’s not fifteen anymore, ya know!
“I don’t get it,” he said hoarsely one morning, gripping the bathroom sink with sweaty palms and staring at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror. His head throbbed, and the room swung around him. “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do.”
That very same day, he collapsed in the flower shop from sensory overload. The array of pungent floral scents clashed with the fried food truck outside and the rotting garbage a mile away. Clinking coins and the harsh sound of traffic and the clatter of five dozen conversations only heightened his distress. One moment he was selecting a rose bouquet for May’s grave and the next he was immobilized, every little sound, smell, and sensation shouting discordantly in his brain. He came to with the cold tile pressed against his cheek. A worried, glasses-clad face peered down at him. Ned. “Dude, Peter, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Peter sat up too quickly, then winced. He thought about rejecting Ned’s outstretched hand, then recalled Dewolff’s stern responses that came after Peter turned down help. He took Ned’s hand and stood.
The recognition had died from Ned’s eyes after their initial handshake. Peter had since learned that memories only returned to Ned in brief moments, then slipped away again, like dandelion seeds on the wind. He couldn’t remember Peter Parker, but he could perform their handshake, clap Peter on the shoulder, or offer a smile typically reserved for close friends. The body always remembers, even when the mind doesn’t.
Outside, a car backfired. Peter flinched. Phantom pain tingled in his chest.
“Sorry, it’s nothing,” he tried explaining when Ned questioned him. “It’s just that that car went off and it kinda sounded like…” He made a gun motion with his hand.
Ned’s eyes widened.
Shit. He’d given away too much. Before Ned could say anything, Peter grabbed his flowers and bee-lined for the door. “Gotta go. Catch you later! Uh, don’t overdose on energy shots!”
He stumbled into the apartment, his senses fried from too much input. He asked E.V. to run a scan as his wrists flared up.
~
Now, he crouched in front of May’s grave, pressing his forehead against the cool, glossy stone. He struggled to breathe: like his lungs were alive, but the rest of him wasn’t.
“That better not be your rattling breath I hear,” a low voice behind Peter made him jump. “Dying now, after I saved you from death’s door? That would just be cruel.”
“Jean?”
“You recognized my voice.” She gave a wry smile. “I’m blushing.”
Her auburn hair was tied back; Peter assumed she wore Sara’s scrunchie. She wore an oversized leather jacket and combat boots. The twilight shrouded half her face in shadow, the other half in soft orange light.
Peter stood. Despite himself, he brightened and returned her smile. “It’s good to see you!”
She raised an eyebrow. “You better not be making fun of me.”
“What? No! It’s always nice to see a friend.”
“Friend, huh?”
“What, too soon?”
“I guess it beats being your oxygen machine.”
Peter fiddled with the red roses in his hands. The petals darkened with their proximity to the center, like a fresh wound. “I never got the chance to thank you.”
“You saved me first.” She joined him by May’s grave, her shadow falling over the grass. “I’d be a real asshole not to return the favor.”
She held flowers in her hands, too. White lilies. Little dew drops on the petals glistened like tears. “Looks like your aunt gets a lot of love.”
He always replaced the flowers at the first sign of wilting. Fallen petals from years of bouquets decorated the grass around her headstone, layered on top of each other like bruises. “Yeah.” He ran a finger over the embossed letters of her name. “Are those for Sara? I didn’t know she had a grave here.”
“She doesn’t. At least, not yet.” Jean surveyed the cemetery, her eyes falling upon the headstones. “But she will.”
Peter tilted his head. “Why here? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“This city killed her,” Jean choked. She swept her bangs into her eyes. “I want people to remember. I want the city to remember.”
She stepped back, blinking away tears. Peter understood.
With his new heightened senses, he could hear every scrap of paper on the wind, the smattering of footsteps on every sidewalk, the electrical hum from every skyscraper. He recalled the crowd outside his hospital window, and the way their cheers mingled with the bustling noise of the city itself. New York City was a living, breathing thing.
He nodded to Jean. “You don’t need a mind to remember.”
As if on cue, a wave of pain split his skull. He winced, fumbling to find his sunglasses in his pocket. What, was even twilight too bright for him to handle?
“You okay?” Jean brushed her hair behind her ear. The sunglasses didn’t dull the brightness illuminating her right side, but rather, softened the harsh edges so her face naturally emerged from the darkness. There was an artistic term for that, right? What did MJ call it? Chiaroscuro.
God, he missed MJ.
“I’m okay.” Peter rubbed his temples. Another wave crashed over him, and he stumbled. To his shock, wetness blurred his vision. It wasn’t even sunset. The pain seemed to return earlier each night. Maybe one day it would come and never leave. Maybe his life would become an endless blur of blood and tears and nausea from the cocktail of over-the-counter pain meds in his system. He’d finally let himself be Peter and Spider-Man, but would the pain stop him from being either? He’d spent his whole life being one or the other. He wasn’t ready to be nothing.
He grabbed May’s headstone for balance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jean stepping closer. His cheeks burned. He hadn’t meant to start breaking down in front of her. Instinct told him to run, as he had from Ned in the shop. But something– desperation, or loneliness, maybe, kept him still. Jean was a friend. And you couldn’t keep friends if you locked yourself behind an impenetrable wall. Arguably, being withholding had started this entire mess in the first place.
“I lied to you just now,” Peter said, standing upright. “I’m not okay.”
“Duh. Is the gunshot wound giving you trouble? Honestly, I would’ve killed that guy if I were you.”
“Frank’s a good man. Uh, kinda. Once you get to know him.” The pain subsided enough for Peter to unclench his jaw and relax his shoulders. “It’s not the main problem, but it’s definitely annoying me. Small potatoes, as a friend of mine would say. But I can hear every gunshot in the city now, and things that sound kinda similar. I keep getting this weird phantom pain. It’s stupid because I’m over it. I don’t care that Frank shot me. Uh, don’t tell him that.”
Jean shrugged. “It’s like you said. You don’t need a mind to remember.” She flipped up the collar of her jacket. “The body will do it for you.”
Peter glanced at her. Deep purple shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes. Pain lines were etched into her face. She stiffened when she saw him looking, but she didn’t run. They were both defying the same instinct.
“Metzger didn’t get far with me,” she murmured. “But all that forced jumping…”
He noticed a pill capsule sticking out of her jacket pocket. “You’ve been having headaches, too.”
“Yeah. And…whenever I feel a chill or hear the rattling of an air conditioner, I freeze up.” She averted her eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about Sara, dying in the chair beneath that stupid vent.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Jean watched the sun disappear behind a cloud, touching the scrunchie in her hair. She was just a kid. She didn’t deserve any of this.
She tore her gaze from the sky, and Peter could see her crushing her memories to dust. “I’ve been putting flowers in every graveyard I see. When she was alive, she didn’t just exist in one place, in one mind. Why restrict her now?”
“That’s beautiful,” Peter murmured. “She was lucky to have you.”
“I’m not gonna let it happen,” Jean asserted. “I’m not gonna let her be scrubbed from existence. The way…I was.”
“Hey,” Peter offered lightly, “I can see you.”
A ghost of a smile flickered on her face. “Likewise. But you kinda look like shit.”
“E.V. thinks I have fibromyalgia.”
The words hit him harder the second time he heard them aloud, but he couldn’t cry. He was too exhausted.
Jean blinked. “Shit.”
“Exactly.” Peter realized he was twisting the bouquet of roses; the petals fell like drops of blood. He hurriedly placed them on May’s grave before he did any further damage. “I mean, she’s not one-hundred percent sure. But it makes sense. It can be caused by sensory overload, extreme stress, overexertion…” He gave a wry chuckle. “I really screwed myself up these last few years.”
“That really sucks,” Jean said. “But at least you’re still here.”
“Am I?” he shot back. “I can’t be Spider-Man in this condition! I can’t be Peter either. I’m just a mess of headaches and pain who can barely get out of bed, let alone live my life. Let alone save the city.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“What?”
“You’re just gonna give up? After all of that?”
“Hang on, that’s not exactly what I–”
“You’re still here,” she enunciated each word through gritted teeth. “Alive is alive, never mind the condition. If I had Sara beside me right now, and all she had was fucking fibro, that wouldn’t even matter. Because she’d still be alive, and she’d still be Sara, just like you’re still Peter, you dumbass–”
She broke off. Furiously, she wiped her eyes. Peter stood immobilized.
“Here,” he said gently. “You’re crushing the lilies.”
He knelt on the narrow plot of land beside May’s grave. “Her headstone could go here, if you want. May would’ve loved her.”
Jean placed the lily bouquet on the grass. She nodded.
“I know you’re right,” Peter murmured. “It’s just…”
“Hard? Welcome to the club.”
“Yeah, there is a club. Okay?” Peter plucked a rose from the bouquet and raised the stem. “Here’s to not enduring everything alone?”
She rolled her eyes. But after a few moments, she took a lily and knocked it against his rose. “Cheers. I guess.” She rubbed a silky petal between her fingers. “I can tell you’re still brooding.”
“Takes one to know one, right?”
“What would you say if a little kid with fibro came up to you and was like hey, I wanna be just like Spider-Man when I grow up? Would you seriously tell them no?”
“Of course not!”
“What would you say, then, wise guy?”
“I’d tell them that anyone can wear the mask; it’s just a matter of responsibility. Sure, they’d need to make some accommodations, maybe adjust their tech and methods of fighting and take more rest breaks, but…” He paused. “Oh. Man, you’re good.”
“Yep.”
“I can tell you’re still brooding,” he countered. “Do you wanna come with me to pick up more flowers?”
“You just bought flowers.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure we have time to hit a few more cemeteries. Where do you still need to go?”
She eyed him. “You’re gonna help me?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re an enigma. You know that?”
“Says the one who’s been scrubbed from public records.” He tensed. But she chuckled.
“We should get sunflowers,” he said as they left the cemetery. The sun peered over the horizon, casting the sky in a brilliant blaze of pink and orange.
“For a gravesite?”
“I had a friend who loved black dahlias,” he said, thinking of MJ’s necklace. “She liked that they were unconventionally beautiful. Sure, maybe sunflowers are weird for a cemetery, but good weird.”
She nodded reluctantly. “I like that they always face the light.”
“I’ve been trying to do that myself.”
Jean snickered. “Peter Parker, you are so corny.”
“Hey, but I’m happy,” he said. And he found that in that exact moment, he meant it.
“We should get some bleeding hearts, too,” Jean said. “Nothing wrong with flowers that thrive in total darkness.”
He smiled. “You’re absolutely right.”