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“Heard you’ve got a shadow,” DeWolff said as soon as he picked up.
Peter winced. “I knew it would get around sooner or later.”
“I gotta ask, you know that. Is this the same girl responsible for trapping thousands of people in a bubble two weeks ago?”
“Would you believe me if I said no?” asked Peter.
“Depends,” said DeWolff. “Is it the truth?”
Peter sighed. “No. It’s her.”
“Okay,” DeWolff said slowly. “And I’m assuming you’re gonna tell me you have everything handled next.”
“She’s not a bad person, detective” said Peter. “She’s just been through a lot.”
“That’s not you telling me you have everything handled.”
Peter huffed out a laugh. “You have nothing to worry about,” he told her. “I have everything handled.”
“Perfect, all I needed to hear,” said DeWolff. “Glad to know you’re back on your feet, Spider-Man.”
“Glad to be back,” he said, smiling.
“I don’t understand why you’re angry—“
“Because, Jean, you can’t just jump into someone’s head like that—“
“What else was I supposed to do?”
Peter sighed. “Can you at least get out of this guy’s head first?”
The would-be mugger in front of him rolled his eyes with all the attitude of a teenage girl, and then slumped over.
Jean, back inside her own body, stepped over to his side. “Aren’t you gonna web him up?”
“What the fuck?” said the mugger, waking up and looking around the alley. “How did I—where’s my gun?”
Peter held up the gun he’d unloaded and crumpled like tissue paper once Jean had tossed it to him. “This thing? Good luck making it work again.”
The mugger gaped at him. “How did you—“
“The cops will be here soon,” Peter said. “I don’t suppose you’ll—“
And look at that, the guy was making a run for it. Peter webbed him to the wall before he could step foot outside the alley.
“—stay put,” he finished.
The guy struggled against the webbing, but it held fast. “Man, I didn’t even do nothing!”
“Yeah? Got a license for this weapon?” Peter asked him.
The mugger glared at him. “Fuck you,” he spit out as the sirens became audible.
“I’ll take that as a no,” said Peter. “Let’s go,” he said to Jean as the police car pulled up outside of the alley.
“Is that detective tracking you?” Jean demanded while they swung away. “You never had time to call the cops.”
“E.V. sent out a message when we got there,” Peter said. “Look, I know you don’t trust the government—“
“For good reason—“
“—and I agree with you, alright? But I trust DeWolff. I’ve been working with her for years.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like her,” Jean told him.
“No,” Peter ceded, setting them both down on a rooftop, “it doesn’t. Look, Jean, we need to talk about what happened back there.”
“He was going to shoot you,” said Jean.
“I could’ve talked him down,” Peter argued.
“Well, I wasn’t willing to risk that,” Jean shot back. “So I fixed it.”
“All I’m asking,” Peter said, “is that you think it through before invading a person’s mind like that.”
Jean made a frustrated sound. “I thought you of all people would get it.”
“Get what?” Peter asked, a bit helplessly.
“Do you remember what you said when I asked you why you became Spider-Man?” Jean asked.
“Yes,” said Peter. “When you have the ability to stop something bad from happening—“
“—you have the responsibility to use it,” finished Jean. “Why doesn’t that apply to me?”
“That’s not—“ Peter groaned, frustrated. “I—okay. What I didn’t add was that part of that responsibility you have is deciding when restraint is necessary. You can’t—strip people of their agency on the off-chance that they might commit a crime.”
Jean raised her eyebrows. “So I should just let them hurt people before I stop them?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying—“
“Then what are you saying? Because from where I’m standing, it seems like the only difference between us is that you think what I can do is—is worse than what you can do.”
Peter closed his eyes. It was moments like these that made it so very clear he was not equipped to be the support system for a teenage girl that had lost everything, not when he could barely keep himself afloat. He’d been kidding himself to think that he’d be enough.
“Maybe this isn’t working,” he said.
Jean took a step back. “Are you kicking me out?”
“No,” Peter rushed to say. “No, I told you you could stay with me as long as you wanted. Just—the patrolling together. Maybe we dial that down.”
Whatever expression there had been on Jean’s face was completely wiped away. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go back to that shithole you call an apartment, then.”
“How’s the kid?” asked Frank.
Peter shook his head. “Struggling,” he said. “I’m fucking it up, Frank.”
Frank laughed, the asshole. “I doubt that,” he said. “Or she’d be gone.”
Peter flopped back to lie on the rooftop they sat on.
“Careful,” Frank warned.
“I’m fully healed,” Peter told him. “No more stitches to rip.”
“Damn healing factor,” Frank cursed. “I’d kill for one of those.”
“Please don’t,” Peter said mildly. “I’d rather avoid a round two.” And then, because Frank’s guilty face looked a hell of a lot like he was constipated, he added, “We both know I’d win, anyways.”
“Fuck off,” Frank said, with no heat. “So what’s the issue with the kid?”
“We disagree on the moral quandaries that come with her abilities,” Peter said.
“Huh?” said Frank.
“She possesses people too quickly. Doesn’t give them the choice to make the right decision for themselves.”
“Ah,” said Frank. “And you came to me for advice?”
“No,” said Peter. “You’ve just been tailing me for the last three hours, so I figured I might as well put you to use.”
There was the constipated face again. “Look, I didn’t know you were already fully healed, alright?”
“I’m not mad, Frank,” said Peter. “You’re following me ‘cause you care about me—“
“I will shoot you again,” Frank threatened.
Peter laughed. “No, you won’t,” he said. “Do you have any advice for me?”
“You wanna know what I would do?”
“Why not,” said Peter. “Hit me with it.”
“I’d let her fuck up,” said Frank.
Peter stared at him. “That’s it? That’s your advice?”
“She’s gonna make mistakes,” said Frank. “You can’t keep her from that, nobody can.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be. Kid, she froze half of Manhattan.”
“She’s not dangerous—“
“She is,” said Frank. “You gotta know that. I jumped the gun that day, I admit that. You said she was about to stand down. So I guess now you gotta decide whether you still trust her to make the right decision.”
Peter groaned. “Is it bad to say I kind of miss when nobody knew who I was?”
Frank let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark. “Y’know, you never did tell me that story.”
“Maybe another time,” Peter said, clambering to his feet and wincing as several bones creaked. Not in high school anymore, indeed. “I gotta go finish a conversation.”
Frank grunted. “Good luck, kid.”
Jean was packing her bag when he came home. She looked up as he slipped through the window.
“Hey,” he said, taking off his mask.
“Hey,” she replied.
He jerked his chin towards the bag. “You’re leaving?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Before you decide,” Peter said, “can I say something?”
Jean’s brow furrowed. “Okay.”
“First off, I’m sorry,” he told her. “I don’t get to decide when you do and don’t use your powers.”
“Oh,” said Jean, with a touch of surprise.
“But,” he continued, bracing himself, “you shouldn’t get to decide for everyone else, either.”
Jean nodded. “And I understand that, Peter, but for the last year, the only person I’ve been able to rely on is myself. So when you ask me to trust a stranger to make the right decision…”
Peter was quiet for a moment. He’d been thinking about her powers as a responsibility, about all the people she could hurt without meaning to, about all the ways he needed to teach her to be careful.
But he’d spent the better part of the last few years learning what happened when you put your life in someone else’s hands. They weren’t that different, the two of them.
“I know,” he said. “And I don’t think you can just decide to trust people because I told you to.”
Jean looked at him carefully.
“But I also don’t want you thinking you have to handle everything yourself anymore,” he continued. “You don’t. Do you trust me?”
She grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
He smiled, a bit surprised himself. “Perks of taking a bullet for someone, I guess.”
“Don’t make it a habit,” she said. “So what’s the solution here, you want me to take my cues on whether to jump from you?”
“How about you listen to your own judgment, but if I tell you not to jump into someone, you listen to mine.”
Jean considered it. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “I can deal with that. If you promise not to get mad at me for saving your life again.”
He raised his hand in an oath. “I swear it. Does this mean you’re staying?”
Jean rolled her eyes, and began unpacking her bag.