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It was hard not to watch birds fly.
They were everywhere, after all, from the city to the trees. They treated the sky as the ground we walk on, and humans are so jealous a beast. We wish nothing more than to have the wings that others soar on. We wish nothing more than to touch the sun.
Peter Parker, to many, was like the sun himself. He did not need wings. He flew upon the silver lining, and he treated the sky like a dear friend. He didn’t have many of those these days. Best to cherish those he had, even those who were rather persistent.
“Just once. I promise, I’ll take care of it,” came the voice in his head. If nothing else, she’d certainly taken him up on his offer of always being there to speak to. This conversation being one he was having as he swung from building to building faster than sound. Quite fitting for what she was currently requesting.
“That’s not really my concern, Jean,” he said (thought?) back to her. “My body’s tough and I’m sure I could take any… damage you might accidentally do to it, but you gotta know that swinging is hard. Like really hard. It took me ages to get the hang of it, and no offense to you but I’m worried you’ll hurt yourself more than anything.”
“That’s the thing though,” she replied. He already knew how she was going to continue, as it was the same line of reasoning she’d tried to convince him with the past several times they’d had this conversation. It was a few times. “You’ve already gotten the hang of it. That’s the hard part done. Your body, your mind, will remember those things even when I’m borrowing them. I’ll know how to do it instinctively.” The word ‘borrowing’ was more mumbled than spoken, as if she knew how outrageous this request was.
“Okay, let’s just say you’re in my body, right,” he said, amazed he was actually entertaining the thought. She had that effect on him, he’d come to realize. “You’re swinging, you’re swinging, like I’m doing now, but oops! You miss a building. The web you shot goes flying past it and now you’re plummeting to the ground. Splat. Little spider on the pavement. I can take it, I’m sure of that, but won’t you feel the pain of hitting the ground?”
“I’ll feel the rush of the wind while I’m flying.”
“Swinging,” he corrected. “And that’s not what I asked. Will you feel the pain if you hit the ground?”
A pause.
“It’ll be worth it to see the birds up close. It won’t kill me, anyway, probably just shock me out of your body. And, well…” Would it be embarrassing to admit this? Maybe if she was talking to someone else. Someone who made her feel alienated and alone. Peter was not that. “… I’ve been practicing, and I think this could help.”
“Practicing what?”
A telepathic bite on her psionic lip, and her eyes closed shut as if he could see her. “How to fly. I’m trying to use my powers to move myself through the air so I can fly, but it’s been a challenge. I can barely lift myself off the ground. I know it’s different to how you fly—”
“Swing.”
“—but you’re so used to shooting through the sky that it’s like second nature to you. If I could feel that, get into that mindset, it could help. Maybe.” This was partially true. It would also be partially true to say she just wanted to try it.
The girl had always wanted to fly. She never hated her powers, despite how she was treated because of them, but flying was different. Moving things with one’s mind or touching your deepest thoughts was the work of devils and witches. To fly was the realm of angels. People could look up and see not a bird or a plane, but a hero dancing through the wind and riding on clouds. They could see wings. And deep down, she wanted wings.
Wings that could touch the sun.
Peter thought for a moment. Her reasoning was understandable, and he could empathize with the desire to get better at using her abilities. He thought back to how he was when he first got his powers, or hell, how he was when his mutations began. To not know your own strength or to hear and feel every scream and whisper down to your bones. It was overwhelming. Jean had her sister to guide her telepathy, but flight? She was a bird stuck on a branch. The spider would have to be as her feathers.
“Okay,” he conceded, landing on a low rooftop. “If I say yes, how does this work? Are you gonna fully hop into my mind? Am I gonna black out and flash forward to me splattered on the ground?”
“I’m not actually sure.” The response didn’t fill him with confidence. “You’re different from everyone else. Your mind is stronger. It’s built out of tougher stuff, and whenever I’m inside you it’s like there’s something else there. Something trying to push me out or wrestle control from me. Is that your, what was it? Peter tingle?”
“Spider-Sense,” he’d come to call it. His cheeks went only slightly red at the old name.
“Right. It senses me and subconsciously pushes me out. So I think, if we want this to work, you’ll have to remain conscious. Fight against your own subconscious while I remain in control of your body.”
“So I have to stay conscious to remain unconscious. Okay. Yeah. I’ve dealt with weirder.”
“I don’t doubt that. Are you ready?”
“No, but when has that ever stopped me?”
“I’m serious. I’ll only do this if you’re really okay with it.”
“And I was joking. I’m all yours, Grey.”
A deep breath, and a deeper one. He expected it to be instant, like Jean snapping control of his body away from him, but it was more gradual. He drifted further and further away while staying rooted on the spot. She filled his body out like hot liquid filling a bottle. She flowed through every nerve, made his hair stand on end, touched parts of him he didn’t know were there.
The Spider-Sense buzzed loud, crawling towards the girl who had just landed on its web. One leg and two and three and eight were upon her in an instant and its fangs came inches from her neck. She paused, and it watched. The spider did not know what went through her head. It looked at her face with its dark and darker eyes and the girl stared back. She seemed calm, if frightened. Resolute, if unnerved. Her breathing was unsteady and her eyes wouldn’t blink. Why was the girl here? Was this a threat, was she danger? Force her out, it thought to itself. Leave this place. She does not belong here, she does not belong. She may bring harm to our web.
No, the spider assessed. It felt an arm on its back. The boy it had protected all its life, the boy whose life was the sole reason for its existence.
“It’s alright. She can be here. I want her here,” said the boy, and he smiled as the sun did.
The spider was uncertain. She was not danger? She was not a threat?
The boy shook his head, and the spider looked back. The girl’s eyes remained on it, unwilling or unable to look away. On its own, perhaps it would’ve attacked. Perhaps its fangs would’ve found her throat and perhaps its venom would make sure it was safe.
But the spider did not fight for itself. It fought for the boy, and if her presence was what he desired then its fangs and its venom would be as her shield. And so with a reluctant gaze it did crawl away, leaving the boy and girl alone on the web that cradled them.
And then she breathed, and he breathed. She moved his arm, and he moved his arm. Every thought she had, every beat of her heart, every taste on her tongue were his now too. She felt him as deeply inside her as she was in him.
This…
… is strange.
My thoughts…
… are yours. And yours…
… are mine.
To say they were synced would be an understatement. They were intertwined, bonded. It was symbiotic. And they felt so warm together it was as if they were on fire.
Turn around, said one voice to the other. Let yourself fall.
Will you catch us?
I’ll catch you.
They closed their eyes, and in as dramatic a fashion as Spider-Man always did, let themselves go loose. Gravity pushed them over the edge, and they rocketed towards the earth like a bird with clipped wings.
Then a third voice guided their hand up, and before they knew it a web had linked them to a nearby building. The spider would not let them touch the ground. The pendulum swing propelled them forth with such speed it nearly terrified the girl, but she felt the boy’s arms behind her, clinging so closely that she knew she would never fall.
The swings chained naturally after that, and the onlookers of beloved New York could never tell that the inside of their hero’s mind was calm and storming and burning all at once. To them he was as he always was, and the girl felt in her a swell of love for them that she knew belonged to the boy.
One child looked at them as they swung low, waving so frantically it seemed as though his arm would come off. “Hi Spider-Man!” he yelled as they passed.
They were compelled to turn back, the spider guiding their next swing as their eyes remained fixated on the child. Their right hand came up to their brow, three fingers straightened out into a faux salute. “Hey kid!” came the voice of the hero. They smiled as the sun did, and though it was hidden behind the mask, the child knew it was there.
Birds flocked to the red-blue blur as if treating the figure as a dear friend. Reflections on glass towers could scarcely keep up as they shot by. Together they danced through the sky as those below walked the streets, and they couldn’t help but look up at the one soaring on invisible wings.
It was hard not to watch them fly.
The sun was passing below the horizon when finally they ended, bathed in golden light on the same rooftop they had started on.
Their breathing was quick and unsteady, the rush still fresh in their minds (mind?) and unable to shake away the adrenaline. Their body never stopped burning. Sweat clung to their shared frame and made the tight spandex suit rather uncomfortable on the skin. The skin itself felt as a cloud did, and the girl struggled to part with it.
One, two, three seconds passed and they unlinked from each other. Their minds cooled, and the hot liquid named Jean poured out of Peter and left him feeling just a touch more hollow than he was before.
He stood still in silence, unsure whether he should be the first to speak. His mind felt quiet, but he could still feel her inside, if not quite as deeply as she was just now.
“Thanks,” was the first word that echoed from her in his head.
“Uh,” he struggled. How was he supposed to respond after that? “Yeah. No problem. So… do you think that helped?”
“In what way?”
“Your flying. Do you think you’re in a better mindset?”
“Oh, right.” She almost forgot that was her excuse. Why couldn’t she form a thought? “I think so. It helped in a lot of other ways too, I think.”
“Like?”
Should she tell him this? How would he take it? The words formed before she could decide whether to keep them to herself. “The shape of your mind feels a lot more defined to me now. I feel like I can trace it with my finger.”
“I think I understand,” he said. She thought he was just being polite, as he usually tried to be. “I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s like… thinking of you makes me feel warm inside now.”
“Tingly?”
“Ha,” he chuckled. “Yeah, I guess. You’re my new Peter tingle.”
The words stunned her. What was that supposed to mean? It was just a joke, she assured herself. Surely. One of Peter’s quips that she wasn’t meant to take seriously.
“Um, sorry if that sounded weird,” he tried to affirm.
“No, yeah, no. Not at all.”
A silence.
“So, uh…”
“Hm.”
A longer silence.
“Anyway, um. It’s getting late. I’m sure you’ve got… other stuff to do,” Jean said, the sound of her thoughts quivering in his head. He didn’t mind the sensation.
“Of course, yeah, yeah. Plenty of… Spider-Manning left for the night. And then dinner. I’m starving.”
“I’ll, uhh, mind call you again. Later. I’ll try to catch you when you’re eating maybe. We can eat together.”
“That sounds great. And don’t think I didn’t catch you saying ‘mind call.’ I knew it would catch on.”
“Oh, shut up, Parker,” she snapped, but he could feel the laughter she held back.
“You’ll have to make me, Grey.” At this she giggled, and ‘giggling’ was not something Peter ever expected to hear out of her. He was glad he could make her laugh like this.
“Okay. Well. See you around.”
“Yeah. See ya.”
And then she left, leaving the hollow in Peter’s mind even deeper, like a patch of web with a hole cut out. He reserved that spot just for her. The spider noticed her absence and wondered when she would return. It would be glad to be her wings once again.
For Jean’s part, her mind felt hotter than ever it was, burning so brightly she could barely think of anything other than him. She knew plenty of methods to cool it, to calm herself down and bring her back to earth. But she liked being in the sky, and she liked touching the sun.
She could think of him for just a bit longer.