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A reflection is a fickle thing. One day what you see is perfectly fine and the next you think you see a monster. Changes that happen so quickly can easily alienate the image of oneself, and the sense of what you are and what you're supposed to be conflict.
In most social sciences the idea of identity is built from three perspectives:
- Who you see yourself as.
- How others perceive you.
- The social groups you belong to.
The issue for Peter is simply that he has all three of these as Peter Parker, but it conflicts with what he was born as and partially raised as. And these days he wears another mask over it. He had been trying to fit into a shape he wasn't gifted to be and he cursed the universe for it every single day. It was his biggest comfort to be the outcast as well as it was his biggest enemy. He refuses to face his reflection if he is able to, too bad that New York has so many reflective windows he likes to swing between.
There were days where he looks into the mirror and just sees the nerdy teenage boy he is. Either that or the unmoving eyes of the Spider-Man mask staring back at him. Most of these days he is entirely okay with it.
Other days he looks into the mirror and sees the changes, sees the emotions, and feels like nothing but a hollow shell housing a monster that is only tamed by him being scared of what he would become if he allowed himself that freedom.
Tony and May will say that he is scared of something he never was or will be. Somewhere Peter knows it isn't a conscious decision to pull his punches. It has always been in his nature. He never wants to hurt anyone on purpose, much less kill them. He is inherently a good person, even when his reflection tells him he isn't.
It doesn't help the doubt and the anxiety from settling deep inside his stomach any time the more spider-like habits show.
It doesn't help him from sometimes feeling so angry at the world and all that it has given him before he turned eighteen that he feels like ripping it apart.
Before there was Peter, and before there was the mask of Spider-Man there was another mask he used to wear.
Peter Benjamin Mary Parker was born Petra Benjamin Parker, and until he was eleven he had lived by the idea that he just wasn't like the other girls.
The decision to go by Peter hasn't been an easy one, not even when May and Ben had been so understanding as he was sitting at the dinner table, sobbing while confessing to feeling like he was lying to himself and to others. He has known it himself for ages, but to speak it out loud and admit it to himself was a huge step. Ben and May had helped him change documents, save up for any needed fees, and even take a look into starting hormone blockers at the very least, and see what would be possible as he got older.
While he could finally drop the mask of being a girl, he was still left with the idea that he was an impostor.
The bullying he has received doesn't help, the fact he was figuring this all out while also still trying to see how he could handle grief just made it such a difficult situation. His high intelligence makes him too analytic and overly aware of his own emotions and his own behaviour, and thus even from a young age he had always been stuck inside of his head. With that constant gnawing doubt that never settles.
He has build his entire identity on reflections. Reflections in others, reflections in actions, in art, at the odd moments.
He sees a little of himself in Ned. The nerdy interests, the excitable nature and the unwavering loyalty. He sees a little of himself in MJ. The snark that comes out when he's comfortable, the deeply seated trauma that has always made him feel different, growing up too early.
He sees a little of himself in May.
At first it was a difficult thing to admit, but he knows it now. He knows how it reflects, how even if they're not bound by blood they're family. Why Ben ended up with her, and what Peter has taken from her when growing up. He sees it in the way he refuses to back down, in how he pretends he is okay, how he refuses to be a burden. He's stubborn, he can admit that.
But in the rare moments where he stares at his reflection and feels comfortable with himself he can see her ability to love, to help others — no matter who they are or what their background is. He sees her smile staring back at him, and also a gentleness that he refuses to pass off as just being feminine. It wasn't — isn't. A toxic thought process to begin with. It is always just so Aunt May to him.
He sees the reflection in his favourite heroes when he was younger. He sees it when he looks at older pictures and can feel the excitement rise of being at the Captain America exhibit, how his small face had stared back at him by the glass housing the artefacts. How he sees his longer hair braided with bows at the bottom, and looked and saw the small Steve Rogers pre-serum and thought that was better than what he looked like then. How post-serum Steve always made him feel envious.
It doesn't anymore, all of that is past tense, but a little of it was still there in his reflection and sometimes in the choice for the t-shirts or the flannels he wore as he never left that part of him behind. The army-green thick linen jacket with a small Avengers patch is still hanging at the back of his closet.
He sees it in Tony, even if the man doesn't know. If it wasn't clear from when he was at the Stark Expo. Which Tony doesn't know. Tony also doesn't quite know he works for Stark Industries as a young-talent intern in the program. Tony only knows him as a diversity hire and as Spider-Man. Two separate people.
It's where his division in his identity becomes the biggest gap yet the closest he has ever been to uniting them. Outside of Ned and MJ knowing, and aunt May finding out on accident one night, Tony Stark does not know.
Peter isn't planning on telling him either, even if it becomes harder the more the man is prying. Peter knows Tony is trying to desperately unmask Spider-Man. More out of concern for his safety than anything else, yet Peter is so scared what happens if one and one become two. He has never dealt with that.
Who Peter Parker is, is the Stark Industries intern, and he still sees himself more as the nerdy boy who just happens to have a power and lives by Ben's last words. That with great power comes great responsibility. Ben hadn't known, couldn't have, but it is everything Peter lives by these days.
The social perception of Peter Parker is simply that he is a loser with few friends. To his friends he is seen as a lovable dork of a friend who is willing to give up a lot. To his aunt he is seen as her whole world and the one thing she has always been scared about messing up but couldn't have been a better parental figure for. To Tony Stark and his colleagues he is seen as a boy wonder with a brain that may overtake some of the current leading scientists one day with a bit more experience on his hands.
The social groups Peter Parker belonged to was his trio of misfits that were scolded for being too nerdy and smart at the school for the nerdy and smart people. He was a nobody, nobody important. At SI he didn't really have a social group to be seen as a part of, maybe being the one person to stand out. And he hates it.
The fact that these levels already seem to conflict make Peter a social enigma, and he is more than aware of it and tends to weaponise it to keep his other activities a secret. Most of the time he succeeds, but he knew there would always come a day where he messes up. and sitting here in front of his bedroom window staring out at New York he could already analyse that the lines have become blurry and the moment may come sooner than later.
He has a choice. And he isn't going to make it.