Chapter Text
His hospital room is bright; the smell of antiseptic makes him nauseous. The lightbulbs above him feel like spotlights aimed straight at his eyeballs, mercilessly stabbing into his skull and scooping up the mush inside. His enhanced senses are at it again. He'll have to get used to this if he wants to live without the inhibitor. He's learned his lesson, it won't do any good to hide himself away.
Peter's turning into a slightly stronger spider, so what? It's not like he's doctor Banner, whose mind is always battling a monster.
Doctor Banner.
The Hulk.
Jean.
Peter blinks, focuses on the present. He's alive. He's with Frank.
"Where's Jean?" he asks.
His voice sounds different; he's hearing intonations he never noticed before. Two streets away, a kid is crying. His ice cream fell. His mother promises him a new one, but only if he smiles. People are chanting near the hospitals. They repeat one of his names. Spider-Man. They call him a hero. There are two heartbeats in the room, one of them is his.
Frank rolls his shoulders, playing it cool as if Peter can't see his red-rimmed eyes. He taps the side of his head. "She just left. She was using her magic mojo to keep you alive. Got into your brain and all, forced you to breathe."
"Oh," says Peter.
Suddenly, he isn't thinking about bright lights or headaches or gunshot wounds. He's thinking about a girl who just learned her sister died and who's all by herself. It's wrong. He told her he'd be by her side and, already, he failed. He tries to sit, discovers that it isn't as hard as he expected. Gingerly, he pokes at the bandages around his chest and shoulder. It's sore, but the wound is almost closed. Looks like his senses and strength aren't the only aspects of his physiology to have been enhanced.
He sees Frank move, hears fabric shuffling, then feels a warm weight on his shoulder.
"Hey, take it easy. She said she'll stick around."
Peter smirks. "First you cry, now you're my nurse?"
Frank, of course, glares. "Shut up, you damn brat. Tear up your stitches, see if I fucking care."
"But you do care. You were crying over me earlier."
Frank looks away. "Piss off."
They fall silent for a moment. It's deceptive: there's no such thing as silence for Peter, not anymore. For a minute or two, he listens to the hospital staff chatting between themselves, to the boy who just got another scoop of chocolate ice cream, to the mother who gave birth in the maternity ward. She's crying. Her baby is breathing. Life went on while he was sleeping.
Jean stayed.
He smiles. Frank, being Frank, side-eyes him, obviously disapproving of any show of happiness.
"She told you she'll stick around, yeah?" Peter asks, looking up at the window.
Frank shrugs. "That's what she said. Kid could have lied though, she's a runaway. And a witch. A runaway witch."
Peter shakes his head. "She's not a witch. She's just a kid."
He looks down at his hands. Most of the scabs and bruises have faded away. He remembers reaching up, trying to touch Jean's cheek, only managing to twitch. He recalls telling her not to run too far. He didn't think he'd die then. He couldn't have died without breaking his promise to her. To be there, to support her. Nobody else would do it.
She stayed.
Peter didn't fail her. She's still there. He can still help.
"Goddammit kid," says Frank, with an exaggerated shudder, "stop smiling like that, you give me the creeps."
Peter's body feels odd. He's sore, his muscles hurt, but he's also filled with energy and a determination he hasn't felt in several years. His strength has more than doubled since he removed the inhibitor at the back of his neck. He's probably about to go through another phase of breaking doorknobs and accidentally crushing coffee cups, like he did when he first got his powers. He'll have to adjust his fighting style. It'd be too easy to punch someone's head off with his current strength; he has to be careful.
His apartment building is still standing, which is a real treat after the last couple days. He walks in, glad none of his neighbors are in the lobby to ask questions about his bruised face or his hospital jacket. Frank kept the suit for himself; Peter'll have to visit him to get it back. That idea, the thought of going outside and seeing someone else, doesn't seem insurmountable. Social interactions no longer feel impossible.
That talk he had with MJ...
It wasn't good. It was horrible. It broke his heart.
It also opened a door he'd left closed for all these years. He's still in the middle of that realization. His mind's all messed up and he's dead tired, but he's almost sure he's made progress. MJ has her life, she's got a boyfriend who may or may not be a douche. Peter still loves her and that love may never fade, and yet, he's fine with it. There's no desperation, no dream of her recognizing him, no fantasy about rekindling their relationship. He's fallen back down to earth and, sure, the crash was painful, but at least he's standing on his own two feet.
He's ready to start a new life. It's terrifying.
Good thing Spider-Man doesn't scare easy.
First things first, he's got to find Jean.
He thinks about his options while the elevator goes up. Frank said she's somewhere in the city. Peter's still got that facial recognition software active and, as long as he doesn't drop hints to the police, it won't do any harm to check it. If Jean stayed in New York, she won't be trying to hide. It'll only take a day or two to find her, then...
...then Peter'll figure something out.
Nodding to himself, he leaves the elevator and reaches into his pocket. He remembered to pick his keys and phone from his suit before he left, not trusting Frank with either of them. Peter's got a tight budget as it is, he doesn't need to give the Punisher access to his almost maxed out credit cards. Knowing Frank, he'd use them to buy guns. Illegally, of course.
He pushes his door open and, by reflex, walks toward his computer, fully intending to find Jean.
"They discharged you early," someone says.
Peter whirls around, narrowing in on the source of the sound. There's a girl sitting cross-legged on his mattress. Her clothes are torn, her hoodie is covered in blood. Her hair is bright red, untied and falling in waves over her shoulders. Their eyes cross. He can feel his jaw dropping, just as he can see her start to shrug.
Jean leans back against the wall. "Aren't they worried you'll sue them? If I were a hospital and Spider-Man walked in, I'd force him to rest. You've got some intense fans, you know? Some of them'd avenge your death with blood."
He doesn't fully process her words. "You're here," he says, dazed.
"I am," Jean replies, slowly, and perhaps a bit tentatively. "That's okay, right? You told me not to go too far, so I thought-..."
She shakes her head. Her lips are twitching. Peter can see the skin around her eyes tighten.
"...I can leave, if it's a problem," she tells him, and he knows she means it. If he missteps, she's gone.
He raises his hands, trying to be placating but not knowing how to comfort her. "It's not a problem," he says, before she runs away, "I wasn't expecting you here but-... that's good. I was going to look for you anyway, so it saves me a couple hours."
Jean glares at him, which he doesn't understand, until she says: "It'd take longer than a couple hours. I'm not that easy to find."
She really is, but he can't tell her that if he wants to stay on her good side.
"I have my ways," is all he says before he turns his back to her and locks his front door.
While she can't see his face, he allows himself a small smile. He's happy. No, he's relieved. Jean gave him the opportunity to keep his word, and he owes her for that. She could have run from the city, hopped on a bus and left him behind, but she believed him. She listened.
"Your apartment still sucks, by the way," says Jean, instantly obliterating any good feelings he had about her.
Peter flicks on his light, flinches at the brightness, and decides to live the rest of his days in the dark. "That's because you haven't seen Frank's place. A wrong step there and one of his traps'll crush you. Or behead you." He tilts his head, "or both. Honestly, probably both."
Jean plucks a dry fleck of blood from her shirt. "A wrong step in your place and I'll fall through the floor."
"Frank's not much better."
On those wise words, he leaves her to sulk in the main room and makes his way to the kitchen. His stomach, which tends to be demanding in the best of cases, feels like a bottomless pit. If this increased appetite's permanent, he might have to grab a new programming gig to pay for groceries. Since he's adding Jean-keeping to his expenses, he might have to grab two new programming gigs. At least he won't be bored while he recovers.
He looks into the living room, in which Jean is still sitting, still dropping flecks of blood on the floor.
"You hungry?" he asks her.
She sighs, which is a full body affair and strongly reminds him of his own teenage years.
"I guess," she mutters.
"Alright," Peter says. He opens his fridge. Stares at its contents. Glances back at Jean. "Well," he clears his throat, "I have Chinese takeout I can reheat, a protein drink, a bottle of milk," he wrinkles his nose, his enhanced sense of smell picking up on a rotten scent, "-scratch that, no milk. I've got Chinese takeout and a protein drink."
"How old is the takeout?" Jean asks, sounding bored.
"Huh," he says, counting the days in his head, "less than a week, I think."
She pokes her head into the kitchen for the sole purpose of glaring at him judgmentally. "Yeah, no way I'm eating that."
It seems taking care of a teenager is more complex than Peter first thought. He stares at the back of his empty fridge, briefly overwhelmed by the situation. Then, he shakes his head and slaps his cheeks with both hands. He's got this. No one else will do it, and Jean needs him. He will be the twenty-two year old parental figure of a traumatized sixteen year old, and if he can't be a father figure, at least he can feed her.
Peter closes the fridge, grabs his phone and checks his bank account. He's got thirty-three dollars left from his last contract, a veritable fortune.
"There's a deli nearby," he tells Jean, "their sandwiches are pretty good."
Jean's shoulders relax as she considers his offer, visibly relieved she doesn't have to pick between the protein drink and the week-old takeout. Peter's a bit offended. He wasn't going to force feed her expired food, he isn't a monster.
"Do they have ice cream?" she asks.
He nods. Ice cream will hurt his meager budget, but she's a kid who lost her sister for the second time. He can give her that comfort, at least.
"Yeah. It's in the frozen aisle and it's off-brand, but they've got a few options."
It doesn't take any more convincing for her to stand and dust off her pants. "Sure, let's go."
"Wait," Peter says.
Immediately, she narrows her eyes. "What? Changed your mind about me freeloading?"
Just like that, she's back on the defensive. He has to handle her carefully, which he has no idea how to do. Maybe pointing out the obvious will do the trick, if it doesn't offend her. It's been far too long since he's had a proper talk with a teenage girl.
"That's not it. You're covered in blood."
"Your blood," Jean points out, which was very much not Peter's point.
"Yeah, but still."
She frowns at her hoodie. "It's New York, why would anyone care about a little blood?"
Peter sighs. "Just give me a second, I'll get you something..."
He goes to rummage in his refurbished dresser. Laundry's one chore he does regularly, and he's got plenty of options, but in the end he picks his best shirt. It's a re-release of Iron Man's very first piece of merchandise, red with a white circle in the center. Jean looks at it dubiously, eyebrows twitching. Seeing her standing still, Peter shoves it her hands.
"Get changed, we don't want the police called on day one because you showed up to a bodega covered in blood."
Jean's eyes are piercing when she asks: "So this isn't a one time thing? I can stay more than one day?"
It's easy to forget how young she is. Her voice's shaking, she's just a kid.
"Yeah," says Peter, "and I'm a hungry hungry spider, so hurry up and get changed. Please."
Jean sighs but, after a brief staring contest, turns on her heels and steps into the cramped bathroom.
"Your shirt's lame," she tells him, before closing the door.
"My shirt is great!" he yells back.