Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There are certain things Bailey has come to accept about herself over the last twenty years.

She will never remember to charge her headphones until the battery warning starts chirping directly into her ear. She is physically incapable of studying in her apartment when her roommate is home because every noise from the other side of the room immediately becomes more interesting than whatever she is supposed to be learning, and anything scheduled before eight in the morning requires a minimum of three alarms and an amount of caffeine that probably isn't advisable for someone pursuing a career in healthcare.

And, apparently, she is destined to spend several dollars a week buying sandwiches she doesn't want.

“Number five, please,” Bailey says automatically, digging through the bottom of her bag for her wallet. “Extra pickles, and can you smoosh it really flat?”

The words leave her mouth with such practiced ease that she doesn't realize what she's done until Mr. Delmar turns away from the counter.

Her hand stills inside her bag. “Shit.”

Mr. Delmar glances back at her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She finally locates her wallet wedged beneath two highlighters, a packet of gum, and enough loose pens to stock a small office, pulling it free with a sigh.

It's too late now.

Technically, it isn't. She could stop him, tell him she's changed her mind, and Mr. Delmar has known her long enough that he wouldn't particularly care beyond probably giving her some half-hearted shit for it.

Instead, Bailey watches him make the sandwich. Turkey, cheese, lettuce and tomato, followed by a frankly offensive amount of pickles.

Then he wraps the whole thing up and, with the sort of violence Bailey has never entirely understood but has been specifically requesting for years, presses both palms down until the sandwich is almost comically flat.

She hates pickles.

Not in the normal way people dislike certain foods, either. Bailey doesn't simply prefer sandwiches without them. Pickles are disgusting. Pickles contaminate everything they touch with pickle juice, which means taking them off accomplishes absolutely nothing because their horrible little vinegary ghosts remain behind.

“Anything else?”

Bailey blinks. “Uh, yeah. My usual, too.”

Delmar gives her a look. She ignores it.

By the time she steps back out onto the sidewalk, her bank account is several dollars lighter and two wrapped sandwiches are tucked inside the paper bag dangling from her hand.

It's stupid. She knows it's stupid.

She has been doing it for as long as she can remember, which isn't even entirely true because Bailey distinctly remembers a time when she didn't do it. She just can't seem to pinpoint when the habit actually started.

The Number Five simply exists in her life.

Sometimes she catches herself before ordering it. More often than not, the words are already coming out before her brain catches up, and then she's standing there with a sandwich she doesn't want and that same strange, inexplicable feeling that not buying it would somehow be worse.

Like she's forgetting something.

The thought makes something unpleasant twist beneath her ribs. Bailey shoves it away.

She's been studying for almost five hours and her brain has turned to mush. That's all.

Her pharmacology notes are probably permanently burned into her retinas after staring at them in the university library all afternoon, and she's fairly certain that if anyone asks her another question involving beta blockers tonight, she's going to walk directly into the East River.

Somewhere shallow, preferably. She doesn't want to die. She just wants to make a point.

The station is blessedly warm when Bailey descends underground, though the stale gust of air blowing through the tunnel as she reaches the platform smells like hot metal, damp concrete, and something she decides not to investigate too closely.

Her train arrives less than two minutes later.

The doors slide open, and Bailey steps aboard, immediately noticing how unusually empty the car is for this time of evening. There are only a handful of other passengers scattered around. An older woman with two shopping bags tucked between her feet, a man in a suit staring blankly at his phone, somebody asleep beneath a Yankees cap near the opposite end.

And Spiderman.

Bailey nearly walks straight back out. Not because she's frightened. It's just-

Spiderman.

Spiderman is sitting on the fucking subway.

The doors slide shut behind her before she can properly process the sight, leaving Bailey standing stupidly in the middle of the car with one hand curled around a metal pole.

He's sitting several seats down. Slumped might be a better word for it.

His head rests against the window, his arms folded loosely across his stomach and his legs stretched slightly in front of him. The bright red and blue of his suit looks distinctly less impressive beneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights, smeared with dirt and dust in several places, and there's an ugly tear along one shoulder exposing something darker underneath.

One of the white lenses over his eyes is scratched.

Unable to stop herself, Bailey stares.

Spiderman's head turns, his lenses suddenly snapping wide.

Bailey immediately looks away.

Great. Fantastic.

She's been on public transportation with New York's resident superhero for six seconds and has already managed to make it weird.

She shuffles farther into the car and takes a seat several spaces away from him, setting her bag between her feet.

Spiderman has turned back toward the window, but something about his posture has changed. He isn't completely slumped against the glass anymore. His shoulders have gone strangely rigid, and his fingers curl against his thigh like he's bracing himself for something.

Maybe he thinks she's going to ask for a picture. People probably do that.

Does Spiderman take pictures with people? Does he sign things? What would Spiderman's autograph even look like?

Bailey forces her attention toward the advertisement across from her. Something about dental implants.

Fascinating.

Her gaze slides sideways again. He's breathing strangely.

Not badly enough that Bailey would call it respiratory distress, but deeper than normal. Deliberate. Controlled. The sort of careful breathing people do when moving their ribs hurts.

She knows that breathing.

She's spent enough time in clinical placements watching people insist they're perfectly fine while their bodies very clearly disagree.

There's dried blood near his hip. Bailey's stomach drops.

He's hurt.

She glances around the car as if somebody else might have noticed and volunteer to deal with the situation instead.

Nobody does. Of course nobody does.

Bailey looks back at Spiderman and something inside her pulls. It's an odd sensation, sudden enough that her brows furrow.

She doesn't know him. Obviously. She's never met Spiderman.

She's seen him, sure. Everybody in New York has seen Spider-Man at some point, even if it's only a distant streak of red and blue swinging between buildings. Her friend Ned has been borderline obsessed with him for years and still is, considering he sends Bailey articles every few weeks whenever the vigilante does something particularly ridiculous.

But Bailey has never spoken to him. There's absolutely no reason the sight of him sitting there alone should make her chest hurt.

And yet, she gets up. Spiderman notices her movement immediately.

His head lifts as she crosses the few seats separating them, and his whole body seems to tense when Bailey lowers herself into a seat beside him, leaving one empty space between them.

“Hey.”

Spiderman stares at her. Up close, he looks worse. There's another rip along his thigh, and what looks suspiciously like dried blood has darkened the fabric around his ribs.

“Uh,” he says, his voice catching slightly. Then he clears his throat. “Hi.”

For some reason, that throws her. Bailey isn't entirely sure what she expects Spiderman to sound like. Deeper, maybe. More superhero-y. Whatever the hell that means.

He sounds young. Around her age, probably. And weirdly nervous.

“You okay?”

“Yep.” Bailey glances pointedly at his side. Spiderman follows her gaze as if he's forgotten what he looks like. “Mostly.”

“Mostly isn't usually what people mean when they say they're okay.”

“It's like...” He seems to consider it. “Seventy percent okay.”

This makes Bailey smile. “That's not very reassuring.”

“Sixty-five?”

“That's worse.”

“Right. Sorry.” His shoulders move with what might be a quiet laugh, only for one hand to drift immediately toward his ribs.

Bailey notices. He notices her noticing, and his hand drops.

“I'm fine,” he says quickly.

Bailey arches an eyebrow at him, though she doubts the effect translates particularly well when directed at somebody whose entire face is hidden behind a mask.

“Sure you are,” she says, letting her gaze drift pointedly over the torn fabric at his side. “You look like you got hit by a bus.”

“I didn’t,” Spider-Man replies immediately, sounding almost offended by the accusation.

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

There is a short pause before he shifts against the window, one shoulder lifting in what might have been a shrug if the movement didn’t seem to hurt him.

“It was more of a van.” Bailey turns slowly to look at him again. The white lenses of his mask narrow just slightly. “...That was a joke,” he adds.

For half a second she only stares at him, caught somewhere between concern and disbelief, before a laugh slips out.

“Okay,” she says, shaking her head. “Good to know you can still make terrible jokes. That probably bumps you up to, what, seventy-two percent?”

“Seventy-three, actually.”

“Wow. Incredible recovery.”

“I heal fast.”

Something about the dry way he says it makes Bailey snort, but the laugh fades quickly when she catches the way his hand returns to his ribs almost unconsciously, pressing there for a moment before dropping again when he realizes she is still watching.

He really does look exhausted.

Not simply tired, either. There is a heaviness to the way he sits, as though every part of him has been dragged downward by gravity twice as strong as everyone else's. Bailey has seen that same look on patients coming off long nights in the emergency department, on classmates after clinical rotations, even on herself after particularly miserable weeks at school.

The strange pull in her chest returns. It bothers her more this time.

Not because she is worried about Spiderman. That part makes enough sense. Anyone with working eyes and a halfway functional conscience would probably be worried about a bleeding superhero slumped against a subway window.

It's the familiarity of it that doesn't.

She has the abrupt, ridiculous urge to reach over and push his hand away from his side so she can check the injury properly.

The thought comes so naturally that Bailey almost does it. Her fingers twitch against her thigh before she catches herself.

Jesus. What the hell is wrong with her? She barely knows the guy.

Actually, she doesn't know him at all.

Bailey clears her throat instead and looks down at the paper bag resting between her shoes, mostly because it gives her somewhere else to direct her attention. The top has folded inward during the walk to the station, but the smell of bread still escapes faintly through the paper.

Her own sandwich sits inside. So does the other one. The stupid one.

Bailey stares at the bag for a second too long. Then she looks at Spiderman.

He has let his head fall back against the window again, though the subtle movement of his chest suggests he is still trying not to breathe too deeply.

Her eyes drop to the bag once more.

No. That's ridiculous.

She bought the sandwich because she always buys the sandwich. There is no cosmic significance attached to deli meat.

Still, she reaches down and pulls it out.

Spiderman turns his head at the sound of crinkling paper, his lenses shifting toward the wrapped sandwich in her hand.

“What’s that?”

Bailey looks at him flatly. “A sandwich.”

“I can see that.”

“Then I feel like this is going really well for both of us.”

His lenses narrow again, and she has the inexplicable sense that he is making a face beneath the mask.

“I meant why are you giving it to me?”

“Because you look like you need it.”

Spiderman immediately starts shaking his head, pushing himself a little straighter despite the obvious effort it costs him. “No, no. I can’t take your food.”

Bailey glances down at the sandwich in her hand. “It’s not mine.”

That earns a pause. His head tips slightly to one side. “You stole a sandwich?”

“What?” Bailey blurts, looking back at him. “No!”

“Hey, I’m not judging.”

“I bought it.”

“Okay, so technically that makes it yours.”

“No, it-” Bailey stops, already hearing how stupid this is going to sound before she even explains it. “It’s complicated.”

Spiderman goes very still. For some reason, that only makes her feel more self-conscious.

She could put it away. She probably should put it away, because there is absolutely no reason to explain one of her stranger habits to Spiderman of all people.

Then his stomach growls. The sound is loud enough to carry over the rattle of the train.

Bailey presses her lips together, trying not to laugh. “Just take the sandwich.”

“I can’t eat somebody else’s dinner.”

“It isn’t somebody else’s dinner.”

“But you just said it isn’t yours.”

“Because it isn’t.”

“Then whose is it?”

Bailey opens her mouth, pauses, and then lets out a frustrated breath. “Nobody’s.”

Spiderman stares at her.

“Okay. That sounded insane.”

“A little.”

Bailey sighs and lowers the sandwich into her lap, smoothing one thumb over the folded edge of the wrapper while she tries to figure out how to explain something that has never made much sense even to her.

“There’s this deli I go to,” she says after a moment. “Delmar’s. I’ve been going there basically my entire life, and for some reason, whenever I order food, I order this too.”

Spiderman doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is quieter than before. “Why?”

Bailey shrugs, though her fingers tighten slightly around the sandwich. “I don’t know.”

He is watching her closely now. She can feel it even without being able to see his eyes.

“It’s stupid,” she continues, giving a small, embarrassed laugh. “Half the time I don’t even realize I’ve done it until Mr. Delmar is already making the thing, and then I feel like an asshole telling him to stop, so I just buy it.”

“What kind?” The question comes quickly enough that Bailey glances at him. Something about his voice has changed. She can’t quite place what.

“Turkey,” she says slowly. “Cheese, lettuce, tomato. Extra pickles.”

Spiderman doesn’t move. Bailey lifts the sandwich slightly.

“And it has to be smooshed really flat.”

Still nothing. Her brows draw together.

“Spiderman?”

His head jerks faintly, almost as if he has been pulled back into the subway car from somewhere else entirely.

“Sorry. Yeah.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

He does not sound remotely okay.

Bailey studies him for another second, but the mask gives her nothing beyond the faint widening of the lenses.

“Do you hate turkey?”

“No.”

“Pickles?”

“No.”

“Then congratulations.” She holds the sandwich toward him again. “Today is your lucky day.”

This time he doesn’t refuse immediately. His hand lifts slowly between them, gloved fingers hovering beneath the sandwich for just long enough that Bailey almost wonders if he has changed his mind.

Then he takes it. “Thanks.”

The word comes out so softly that Bailey’s teasing smile falters. It sounds strange.

Not awkward, exactly, but heavy. Like she has handed him something far more important than eight dollars’ worth of bread and turkey.

“Don’t get emotional on me,” she says. “It’s just a sandwich.”

Spiderman lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Yeah.”

Bailey leans back in her seat, trying very hard not to stare while he turns the wrapped sandwich over in his hands.

For a moment neither of them says anything. The train shudders beneath their feet as it rounds a curve, throwing pale reflections across the dark windows.

Spiderman looks down at the sandwich again. “So what do you usually do with them?”

She settles farther into the hard plastic seat. “Give them away, mostly.”

“To who?”

“Whoever is around.”

He turns toward her slightly. “Whoever?”

Bailey shrugs. “Friends. People from class. There’s this older guy who sleeps near one of the stations I use, so if I see him, he gets it.” She hesitates, remembering another occasion with slightly less dignity. “I gave one to a pigeon once.”

Spiderman’s head snaps toward her. “You did not.”

“It was being aggressive.”

“You gave an entire turkey sandwich to a pigeon because it threatened you?”

“You weren’t there.” His shoulders begin to shake and Bailey points at him. “That bird had intent.”

The laughter that escapes him is quiet and a little strained, but genuine enough that Bailey finds herself smiling along with him.

It feels strangely easy. That’s the part she notices.

Talking to strangers has never exactly been difficult for her, but there is usually a particular rhythm to it. A polite distance, some awareness that both people are still deciding what version of themselves to present.

She doesn’t feel that with him. She feels like she skipped a step somewhere.

The thought settles uncomfortably in the back of her mind as she watches Spiderman pick at the edge of the wrapper without opening it.

“Aren’t you going to eat it?”

His hands still. “Oh.”

Spiderman looks around the mostly empty subway car, then at her, then pointedly toward the ceiling as though hoping an answer might be hidden up there.

Understanding hits her a second later. “Oh. The mask.”

“Yeah.”

Bailey bites back a smile. “Right.”

He shifts awkwardly in his seat. “It’s kind of difficult to eat through fabric.”

“I would imagine.” Bailey laughs softly and turns away, angling her body toward the opposite side of the car. “There. I won’t look.”

There is a pause behind her. “You don’t have to do that.”

“You’re hungry.”

“Promise you won’t look?” The question is so oddly hesitant that Bailey’s expression softens before she can stop it.

“Promise.”

Fabric rustles beside her. Bailey keeps her eyes dutifully trained on the advertisement across the aisle, learning considerably more about dental implants than she ever intended to know.

The sandwich wrapper crinkles. A few seconds later, Spiderman makes a small, muffled sound. Bailey presses her tongue against the inside of her cheek and waits until the subtle scrape of fabric tells her the mask is back in place before she turns around again.

The sandwich is already half gone and he’s looking down at the remaining half. “Can I ask you something?”

Bailey lifts one shoulder. “Depends how invasive it is.”

“Why do you keep buying it?”

Her smile fades slightly. “The sandwich?”

“Yeah.”

Bailey looks down at the paper bag resting beside her feet. “I told you. Habit.”

“I know.” Spiderman hesitates, fingers tightening around the wrapper. “But if you don’t like it, and there’s nobody you’re actually buying it for...why not stop?”

That question lands differently. Because Bailey has asked herself the same thing more than once.

She traces the edge of one fingernail along the seam in the paper bag before answering. “I’ve tried.”

Spiderman says nothing.

Bailey lets out a breath through her nose, already regretting how weirdly personal this conversation has become. “It feels wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “That’s the problem.”

The train rattles beneath them, filling the silence for her.

Bailey looks toward the black window opposite their seats and catches her reflection staring back at her, pale and distorted beneath the fluorescent lights.

“Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there?”

Spiderman is quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”

“It’s like that.” Bailey folds her arms loosely over herself. “Like I’m standing in the room and I know there’s a reason I’m there. I know I’m forgetting something. I just...” She gives a small, frustrated shrug. “Never remember what.”

The words leave an uncomfortable weight behind.

She laughs softly, trying to shake it off. “God, that sounds completely insane when I say it out loud.”

Spiderman doesn’t laugh. Instead, his voice comes out strangely gentle. “No. It doesn’t.”

His head is still angled down toward the sandwich in his hands. Something twists in her chest again. Before she can ask why he suddenly sounds like the saddest person alive, the train begins to slow.

Bailey glances through the window and recognizes the station pulling into view. “This is me.”

Spiderman’s head lifts immediately. He looks toward the platform and then back at her. “Oh.”

There is something in the single word that makes Bailey hesitate. Disappointment, maybe. Which is ridiculous.

They have known each other for all of fifteen minutes.

She gathers her bag anyway, slipping the strap over her shoulder as she stands.

“Well,” she says, looking down at him, “try not to get hit by any more vehicles tonight.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“And maybe actually go home instead of doing whatever superhero thing you usually do.”

“Alright.”

Bailey gives him a look. Spiderman’s head dips as the train slows to a stop.

She steps toward the doors as they slide open, but something pulls her attention backward before she can leave.

Spiderman is still sitting there. Still watching her.

And suddenly that same strange ache rises beneath her ribs again, sharper this time.

He looks tired. He looks hurt. He looks alone.

“You should let somebody take care of you sometimes, you know.”

Spiderman freezes when Bailey pauses at the threshold. She has no idea why the next words come so easily.

“You can’t keep taking care of everybody else if nobody’s taking care of you.”

The moment the sentence leaves her mouth, something inside her shifts. Not a thought and not quite a memory.

The subway disappears. For one impossible second, Bailey is somewhere else entirely.

Blue walls. A desk crowded with wires, discarded screws and half-finished electronics. A backpack dumped carelessly on the floor.

Someone sits on the edge of a bed in front of her, shoulders hunched while Bailey stands between his knees.

'Hold still.'

A boy laughs beneath his breath. 'I am holding still.'

'You’re literally vibrating.'

Warm hands settle briefly against her hips. Brown curls spill across a forehead she cannot quite see.

And then the subway crashes back into focus around her. Bailey sucks in a sharp breath, one hand catching against the edge of the door to steady herself.

Spiderman still hasn’t moved. His mask lenses are wide.

For a strange, suspended second, they simply stare at each other.

Someone behind Bailey mutters impatiently.

Bailey blinks and steps onto the platform. “Sorry.”

The warning chime sounds almost immediately.

“Goodnight, Spiderman.”

He seems to have trouble answering. The word leaves him in a rasp. “Goodnight.”

The doors slide shut between them. Bailey remains where she is as the train pulls away, watching the red and blue shape disappear into the tunnel.

Only once it is gone does she realize her heart is pounding.

“What the hell?” Her fingers press against her temple.

Blue walls. There were blue walls. She is certain of that. And someone had been there. A boy?
She squeezes her eyes shut and reaches for the image again. The harder she tries to grasp it, the faster it retreats, leaving behind nothing but the irritating certainty that there had been something there a second ago.

Bailey opens her eyes again. “Cool,” she murmurs under her breath. “That’s not concerning at all.”

She starts toward the stairs. Her phone is already halfway out of her pocket when another thought occurs to her.

Ned. Oh, he is going to lose his fucking mind.

By the time Bailey reaches street level, she is already typing.

'you will NEVER guess who i just met'

She hits send. His typing bubble appears almost immediately.

Bailey smiles and pockets her phone, deciding she can leave him in suspense for at least until she makes it to her bed before answering.

She makes it halfway down the block before something lands behind her.

Bailey screams. Not loudly.

Okay, loudly enough that a man walking his dog across the street turns to look.

She whirls around, gripping her phone like it might somehow become a viable weapon if she believes hard enough.

Spiderman straightens quickly. “Whoa, sorry!”

Bailey stares at him, one hand flying to her chest. “Jesus Christ!”

“Sorry.”

“You dropped out of the sky!”

“I technically swung in from-”

“Do not finish that sentence.”

Spiderman stops. “Right.”

Bailey takes a second to make sure her heart is not actually going to launch itself through her sternum before lowering her phone. “What are you doing here?”

“I, uh,” He looks down the street, then back toward the station, and for the first time Bailey gets the distinct impression that New York’s resident superhero has absolutely no idea what he is doing. “The sandwich,” he says at last.

Bailey blinks. “What about it?”

“You gave me dinner. So I figured...” He gestures vaguely in the direction she had been walking. “I should walk you home.”

Bailey stares at him. For a second she is convinced she has misunderstood.

“You followed me off the subway because I gave you a turkey sandwich?”

“When you say it like that, it sounds weird.”

“How else am I supposed to say it?”

He seems to genuinely consider the question. “Spiderman heroically escorts innocent civilian home after receiving vital nutritional assistance?”

Bailey snorts before she can stop herself. “Vital?”

“I was really hungry.”

Spiderman falls into step beside her as she starts walking again. Bailey lets him.

She isn’t entirely sure why, though refusing an escort from Spiderman on principle seems like the sort of decision that would get her mocked mercilessly by everyone she knows if they ever found out.

Besides, the company isn’t unpleasant.

They walk beside each other without the usual awkwardness Bailey expects from someone she has just met, his stride automatically shortening to match hers as they move down the sidewalk.

“You do this often?” she asks after a moment.

Spiderman turns his head toward her. “Do what?”

“Walk random women home in full spandex.”

His head snaps forward again. “This is not spandex.”

Bailey bites back a smile. “Sure.”

“It’s a highly advanced synthetic material.”

“That sounds exactly like something someone wearing spandex would say.”

Spiderman makes a wounded noise beneath the mask. “I made this suit. So I know what it’s made out of.”

That actually catches Bailey’s attention. “You made it yourself?”

He hesitates before nodding. “Yeah.”

Bailey glances over him again, taking in the segmented fabric, the webbing patterns, the mechanisms built around his wrists. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Means you’re probably super smart.”

Spiderman nearly catches the toe of his boot against a raised section of pavement and Bailey turns toward him, startled. He recovers quickly enough that anyone else might not have noticed.

“Was that offensive or something?”

“No,” he says quickly, lifting one hand to rub at the back of his neck. “No, I just…people don’t usually ask about the suit.”

“Well, the suit is more interesting to me than the web thing.”

Spiderman stops rubbing his neck. “The web thing?”

Bailey lifts one wrist and his lenses narrow instantly.

“Don’t.”

She makes the motion anyway. “Thwip.”

“Please stop.”

The laugh that escapes her feels embarrassingly easy.

Spiderman turns his head away. For half a second Bailey gets the odd impression that he is smiling beneath the mask.

She has no idea why that makes her smile wider.

They continue walking. After another block Bailey realizes they have fallen quiet.

Usually silence around people she doesn’t know makes her uncomfortable. She feels obligated to fill it, dragging out questions about classes or jobs or whatever else seems socially acceptable until she can escape.

This silence doesn’t require anything from her. It simply settles between them. Easy and familiar.

Bailey’s smile fades slightly. There is that feeling again. She doesn’t like it.

“This is me,” she says once her building comes into view.

Spiderman looks up at it. “Nice.”

Bailey gives him a dubious look. “It really isn’t.”

“Oh.”

“My roommate is great, but the apartment itself is about four building-code violations held together by landlord-special paint.”

He laughs quietly. “Sounds about right.”

Bailey climbs the first step toward the entrance before turning back toward him. “Thanks.”

Spiderman’s head tilts. “For what?”

“Walking me home.”

“Oh.” He shrugs like it is nothing. “You fed me.”

“Guess we’re even.”

“Yeah.” Something about the way he says it makes the word sound much heavier than it should.

Bailey reaches for the door. “Take care of yourself, Spiderman.”

“You too.”

She hesitates. That strange sense of familiarity still sits stubbornly beneath her ribs, and looking at him now brings back the absurd feeling that she is leaving something unfinished.

Bailey ignores it. “Safe swinging.”

Spiderman’s head jerks slightly. Then his lenses crease slightly. “Goodnight, Bailey.”

Her hand stills on the door. Her name sounds strange in his voice. Not wrong, but the exact opposite. Too right.

Bailey turns back toward him slowly. Spiderman stiffens almost immediately.

“I- You told me your name,” he says, the explanation coming out awkwardly fast.

Bailey frowns. She must have.

Somewhere between the subway and here, probably. Her brain is running on caffeine and academic despair at this point, so it is entirely possible she has already forgotten half of their conversation.

“Right.” She pulls the door open. “Night, Spidey. Maybe use the subway again sometime. Very advanced technology. No thwipping required.”

“I hate you.”

The words leave him so naturally that Bailey stops. Spiderman stops too. For one strange heartbeat, neither of them moves.

Because Bailey knows what comes next. She has no idea why, but her mouth opens before she can think better of it. “No, you don’t.”

The world shifts to sunlight. To a hallway. A boy walking backward in front of her while Bailey tries not to laugh. 'I hate you, Bailey Bee.' 'No, you don’t.'

Bailey grips the door harder as her breath catches.

Spiderman is staring at her. “What?” he asks carefully.

“Nothing.” She shakes her head, trying to clear the strange pressure gathering behind her temples. “Just déjà vu.”

His shoulders drop, the movement so small Bailey almost misses it. Something about it hurts.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I get that sometimes.”

Bailey studies him for another moment, trying to figure out why those words sound almost like an apology.

Then she forces a small smile. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Bailey steps inside and lets the door swing shut behind her. She makes it halfway up the first flight of stairs before stopping. On impulse, she looks back through the narrow glass panel.

Spidernan is still standing exactly where she left him. He hasn’t swung away. He isn’t looking down the street.

He is staring at the door.

Bailey frowns. Then her phone begins vibrating violently in her hand. She looks down to find seven messages from Ned.

'WHAT'

'WHO'

'BAILEY'

'YOU CANNOT SAY THAT AND DISAPPEAR'

'HELLO????'

'DID YOU MEET A CELEBRITY'

And then, because several years at MIT have apparently done absolutely nothing to cure him:

'WAS IT SPIDERMAN'

Bailey laughs. Some of the strange heaviness in her chest finally loosens. She starts climbing again, already typing.

By the time Bailey gets upstairs, Spiderman has been temporarily pushed behind thoughts of pharmacology, Ned’s impending nervous breakdown, the milk she forgot to buy this morning, and whether her roommate has eaten the leftovers Bailey specifically told her not to touch.

Later, though, lying beneath her blankets with the room dark around her and strips of city light bleeding through the blinds, she finds herself thinking about him again.

Not Spiderman, but the boy. The one she can’t remember.

Bailey stares at the ceiling.

Brown curls. She thinks there were brown curls.

She closes her eyes and searches for the blue bedroom again. Then the words surface.

Bailey Bee.

Her eyes open. Nobody calls her that.

Her friends call her Bailey. Bay, mostly, whenever they bother shortening it. Her mother used to call her Bails when she was younger, and Ned occasionally does the same whenever he is trying to annoy her.

But Bee?

Bailey rolls onto her side. Something sits there, just beneath the surface. She can feel it in the most infuriating way possible, like a word balanced on the tip of her tongue that disappears the second she actually tries to say it.

There is something she should remember. Something important. Someone important.

Bailey reaches for it. For one tantalizing second she thinks she almost has it, then the feeling slips away. She is left staring into the darkness with no idea what she was even trying to remember.

Bailey lets out a tired breath and drags the blanket higher over her shoulder.

It is probably nothing. Exhaustion. Stress. Too much caffeine.

She has class tomorrow. Ned is going to interrogate her about Spiderman until one of them dies. Her roommate is going to complain about the missing milk.

Those are manageable problems. The strange hollow feeling that has followed Bailey home from the subway is not. So she does what she has unknowingly been doing for the last two years.

She leaves it alone.

-

Three months pass before Bailey sees Spiderman again.

Not that she is counting. She would like that noted for the record.

There is absolutely no reason to count the number of days since one weird subway ride with a masked vigilante who inhaled a sandwich she didn't want, walked her home, and subsequently triggered two increasingly concerning episodes of déjà vu that she has done an admirable job of refusing to think too hard about.

So she isn't counting.

She just happens to know it has been three months because the subway incident happened two days before her pharmacology exam, and that particular academic trauma has permanently carved the date into her brain.

Completely different thing.

She sees him sometimes, obviously. Everyone in New York sees Spiderman.

There will be a flash of red passing between buildings while Bailey is walking to class, or some blurry video circulating online after he stops a robbery in Brooklyn, and Ned still sends her every remotely interesting Spiderman-related post he comes across despite having considerably better things to do at MIT.

Bailey has not told him everything about that night.

She told him she met Spiderman on the subway. She told him about the sandwich because there is absolutely no universe in which Ned would ever forgive her for withholding that particular detail, and she reluctantly admits that Spiderman walked her home afterward.

She does not mention the blue bedroom or the boy. She definitely does not mention Bailey Bee.

Those details remain firmly filed under Things Bailey Will Deal With Never. It's a surprisingly crowded folder.

Still, every now and then, she finds herself looking for him. Not intentionally. At least, that is what she tells herself.

If she hears sirens somewhere nearby while walking home, her attention drifts upward before she catches it. If something red moves in the corner of her vision, she looks. Once, she spends nearly thirty seconds staring at a red plastic bag caught against a fire escape before realizing what she's doing and promptly deciding she needs more sleep.

She also keeps buying the sandwich. That part isn't new. What is new is the irritating little thought that sometimes arrives with it now.

Maybe he'll need it.

He never does.

The Number Five continues its usual rotation through classmates, friends, the older homeless man near the station, and one particularly enthusiastic construction worker who had accepted it without asking why some random nursing student was offering him lunch.

No pigeons receive another one. Bailey has learned from her mistakes.

Then, on an otherwise completely unremarkable Wednesday night, she finds Spiderman bleeding outside a Duane Reade.

At this point, she is beginning to suspect that bleeding might simply be his natural state.

Bailey has just finished a clinical placement that runs several hours longer than it was supposed to, which isn't technically anyone's fault but feels like it should be. Her feet ache, her hair has been twisted into the same increasingly unstable bun since seven that morning, and the faint smell of hospital-grade disinfectant has worked its way so thoroughly into her scrubs that she's fairly certain she could set them on fire and the smoke would still smell sterile.

She needs toothpaste. That is the only reason she stops.

Her roommate used the last of it that morning and had apparently decided the appropriate replacement for actually mentioning this was to send Bailey a picture of the empty tube.

So Bailey is inside the pharmacy at nearly eleven at night wearing navy scrubs beneath an old coat, staring at an entire wall of toothpaste and trying to figure out when brushing one's teeth became complicated enough to require twenty-seven varieties of the same product.

Whitening. Sensitive whitening. Enamel strengthening. Whitening plus enamel strengthening.

In the end, Bailey reaches for whichever one is cheapest, tosses it into the basket hanging from her elbow, and adds ibuprofen, two cans of soda, and a bag of sour gummy worms she has no legitimate need for beyond having survived the day.

She is standing in line when something crashes loudly outside. Everyone in the store looks toward the windows.

Bailey closes her eyes. Of course something happens now.

She has been awake for sixteen hours, somebody cried on her during placement, she has eaten half a granola bar and a cup of terrible cafeteria soup, and all Bailey wants to do is go home, shower until she stops smelling like chlorhexidine, and sleep so deeply her roommate has to check for a pulse in the morning.

Another crash sounds outside and the cashier sighs.

Someone near the entrance moves closer to the window, and Bailey catches a glimpse of two men running past outside.

Then something red swings into view and her exhaustion disappears almost instantly. She steps sideways, trying to see through the glass.

A man barrels across the sidewalk clutching what looks like a purse while Spiderman drops down behind him, lands in a crouch, and immediately has to jump sideways when the second man swings something at his head.

Bailey leans farther. The cashier clears his throat. She looks back to find he's staring at the toothpaste in her basket.

“Sorry.”

Bailey pays quickly enough that she nearly leaves without taking the bag, doubles back with an embarrassed apology, and steps outside just as the entire situation appears to be ending.

One of the men is stuck against the side of a parked delivery van with enough webbing across his chest to make movement a fairly distant possibility.

The second is sitting on the pavement with both wrists webbed together, loudly insisting that Spiderman has violated several of his constitutional rights while the vigilante stands over him.

“You stole a seventy-year-old woman's purse,” Spiderman points out.

“I know my rights!”

“Great. You can tell the police all about them.”

“You can't just glue people to things!”

“It's actually a tensile polymer, but-”

The man starts shouting again.

Bailey stops walking. There it is, that voice. She knew it was him the second she saw the suit, obviously. There aren't exactly multiple Spider-Men running around Queens. But hearing him again does something strange.

A little spark of recognition travels through her before she has time to reason with it.

Warmth. Familiarity. Relief.

Bailey frowns at herself.

It has been three months. She has spoken to this person once. Her brain needs to get a fucking grip.

Spiderman turns away from the shouting man just as police sirens begin approaching from somewhere nearby, and that's when Bailey notices the blood.

There is a tear through the fabric covering his left forearm.

Not a catastrophic injury by any means, but the cut beneath it looks deep enough that blood has worked its way down the bright red material and begun dripping from his fingertips onto the pavement.

Apparently, three months have done absolutely nothing to improve his self-preservation instincts.

Bailey doesn't even realize she has started walking toward him until one of his mask lenses shifts in her direction, then both widen as he recognizes her.

Immediately.

She doesn't know why that gives her such a stupid little jolt of satisfaction.

Spiderman straightens as Bailey stops a few feet away and lifts one eyebrow. “You know, this is becoming a concerning pattern.”

For a second, he doesn't answer, just keeps staring in her general direction. Then something in his posture loosens. “Hey.”

His voice sounds almost surprised. Bailey shifts the pharmacy bag against her wrist. “Hey again.”

Spiderman glances down at himself, as if checking which concerning pattern she might be referring to, and apparently settles on the blood dripping steadily from his arm.

“It looks worse than it is.”

“That line probably works better when you're not actively dripping on the sidewalk.”

His head dips toward the small red spots appearing near his boots. “Huh. I hadn't noticed that.”

Bailey stares at him, then at the thin trail of blood making its way down his glove. “That is somehow worse.”

“What is?”

“The fact that you didn’t notice.”

Spiderman glances down again as though the injury has become mildly inconvenient only because she has pointed it out. “It’s not that bad.”

Bailey has spent enough hours around patients who insist on exactly the same thing while actively dripping bodily fluids onto hospital linens that the phrase barely registers anymore. She shifts the pharmacy bag higher on her wrist and takes another step toward him, ignoring the way his weight subtly moves backward in response.

“Sure,” she says. “And I’m sure the sidewalk appreciates the donation.”

The police sirens drawing closer from the next block seem to remind him that he is technically still standing beside two criminals he has attached to public property, and his head turns briefly toward the street before Bailey catches the movement.

“Don’t.”

He looks back at her. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You were about to leave.”

“I was looking at the police.”

“While edging away from me.”

Spiderman looks down at his feet, apparently discovering that she is right. “I can do two things at once.”

“Clearly.”

A laugh escapes him, soft and reluctant, but it falters when the movement pulls at his injured arm. Bailey catches the reaction despite how quickly he tries to disguise it, and some part of her immediately shifts from mildly concerned passerby to the same mode she falls into on placement whenever somebody starts insisting their pain is a three while gripping the side of the bed hard enough to turn their knuckles white.

“What happened?”

“One of them had a knife.”

Bailey glances past him toward the two men. The one webbed to the delivery van has moved on from threatening legal action to shouting at the other about whose fault the entire thing is, while his accomplice contributes nothing useful from the pavement.

“And where is the knife now?”

Spiderman points upward. She follows the gesture and spots it several feet above them, cocooned in webbing against the side of a streetlamp.

Bailey looks back at him slowly. “Why?”

“So nobody steps on it.”

There is enough sincerity in the answer that she cannot even make fun of him properly. “Okay.”

His mask lenses narrow, which Bailey has already learned is about as close as she is going to get to being glared at, and she has to fight a smile.

The fact that she already recognizes that expression should probably concern her more than it does.

Three months ago, she had known absolutely nothing about him beyond the obvious. Now she apparently knows what he looks like when he is offended, which jokes are going to make him laugh before he actually does, and that any sentence beginning with I’m fine should be disregarded immediately.

It is a ridiculous amount of information to retain about someone she has only spoken to twice now.

Bailey tries not to think about what that says about her and, instead, she reaches toward his arm. Spiderman withdraws just enough that her fingers close around empty air.

She looks at him. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you move?”

He glances at the distance between them, caught in the act. “Reflex.”

That answer gives her pause. Not because it is particularly surprising. A masked vigilante probably has good reason not to let random people grab at him.

Still, something about the quick retreat bothers her.

Bailey lets her hand fall instead of reaching again. “Fine. You can either let me look at it, or you can keep bleeding through your suit until you decide that admitting you need help is less embarrassing than passing out somewhere.”

“I’m not going to pass out.”

“That was the part you chose to argue with?”

He seems to think about it. “Maybe.”

Bailey gives him a flat look. After a moment, Spiderman exhales and holds his arm out.

The surrender is reluctant enough to be obvious, but Bailey chooses not to comment as she takes his wrist and turns the injured side toward the streetlight.

The second she touches him, a strange quiet settles over her. It is nothing like the memories.

There is no sudden image, no voice breaking through from somewhere she cannot reach, no sharp sense of being somewhere other than the sidewalk outside a Duane Reade at nearly eleven at night.

It is simply easy. Her hand settles around his wrist as though she has done it before.

The fabric has been sliced cleanly for several inches along his forearm, the wound beneath it long but thankfully shallow enough that she does not immediately start considering whether the nearest emergency department would admit a man who refuses to provide a name or remove his mask.

“You got lucky,” she says, carefully rotating his arm. “It doesn’t look especially deep.”

“I told you.”

“You told me it was fine. Those are different statements.”

“It is fine.” Bailey looks up at him. “Sorry. Mostly fine.”

“That’s what I thought.”

His arm is warmer than she expects beneath her fingers. Bailey tries not to dwell on that either.

She releases him long enough to fish the receipt from her pharmacy bag, folds it over twice and presses it into his palm.

“Hold pressure.”

Spiderman looks at the paper, his head tipping to one side. “You get bossy when you’re tired.”

The comment lands oddly. Not enough to be alarming, but enough that Bailey’s attention catches on it.

“I don’t think you know me well enough to know that.”

There is a tiny hesitation before he answers. “Educated guess.”

Bailey studies him, but the mask offers nothing useful.

Everything is starting to feel strange tonight because she has been awake since before sunrise and survived most of the day on hospital coffee and spite.

“Stay here,” she says, releasing his arm.

Spiderman immediately looks suspicious. “Why?”

“Because I’m buying actual first-aid supplies.”

“You don’t have to do that. Seriously, it’s going to heal.”

“And until it does, it’s an open wound that was made by a knife carried by a man whose hygiene I am not prepared to trust.”

He opens his mouth but stops when Bailey points at him. “Stay.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“Then I’m sure this will be very easy for you.”

She turns toward the pharmacy before he can come up with another argument.

The cashier barely reacts when Bailey walks back in, which feels like a personal insult considering she has now entered his store twice in under five minutes while Spiderman and two immobilized criminals remain plainly visible through the windows.

“Forgot something?” he asks.

Bailey grabs a packet of gauze from the nearest shelf. “Apparently.”

His gaze drifts through the window. Spiderman is still where she left him, the folded receipt pressed to his arm. The cashier nods once and returns to whatever he was doing.

Bailey decides New Yorkers deserve more credit for their adaptability.

She adds antiseptic, tape and a small pack of dressings to her basket, briefly considers Steri-Strips, sees the price and decides the enhanced healing Ned has told her about can contribute something useful to this situation.

When she steps back outside, the police have arrived.

One officer is attempting to free the first man from the side of the van while another questions the elderly woman whose purse has been recovered. Spiderman has shifted several feet away from the scene but has, somewhat miraculously, remained in place.

He lifts his injured arm when he sees Bailey. “Stayed.”

She looks at him. “Do you want a sticker?”

“Do you have one?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Then don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Bailey snorts and gestures toward a low concrete planter outside the pharmacy. “Sit down.”

His gaze travels from the planter to her. “This feels like a doctor’s appointment.”

“You’d probably be a terrible patient.”

Spiderman mutters something under his breath but sits anyway. Bailey takes the space beside him, setting the pharmacy bag at her feet before opening the first-aid supplies. Their knees nearly touch, and she has to shift sideways to give herself enough room to work.

“Give me your arm.”

He holds it out this time without complaint. She peels back the torn edge of his suit and wets a piece of gauze with antiseptic. “This might sting.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Every patient says that.”

“I’m not your patient.”

“At the moment, you sort of are.”

His lenses narrow. “Do I get the little paper bracelet?”

“No, but if you’re difficult enough, I can find you a gown with no back.”

That gets a startled laugh out of him. Bailey smiles and presses the gauze to the cut.

His entire arm jerks. “Jesus.”

Spiderman stares at the gauze like it has personally offended him and she pauses. “I thought you’d had worse.”

“I have.”

Bailey shakes her head and goes back to cleaning the wound, hiding the smile pulling at her mouth.

He manages the rest with considerably more dignity. Mostly.

Every time the gauze catches against a tender spot, his fingers flex against his knee, but he seems determined not to give her anything else to mock.

Bailey lets him have that victory.

“Hold still,” she murmurs when he shifts. He does instantly, and the ease of it catches her off guard.

For a split second, another voice overlaps with his breathing again.

'Hold still.' A laugh. 'I am holding still.'

Bailey’s fingers stop. The memory does not fully form.

It hangs there for less than a heartbeat and disappears before she can make out anything beyond warmth and the vague outline of someone sitting in front of her.

She exhales slowly. She is too tired for this tonight.

“You okay?”

Bailey looks up. Spiderman is watching her now.

“Yeah. Long day.” The lie is weak enough that he probably hears it. To his credit, he does not call her on it.

She reaches for the fresh dressing and starts securing it over the wound instead.

Oddly, he seems to know what she needs before she says anything. When Bailey shifts her grip to wrap the bandage beneath his wrist, he rotates his arm without being asked. A second later she reaches for his elbow and he lifts it automatically.

Bailey notices the pattern after the third time.

“You’ve done this before.”

Spiderman’s head tilts. “Been bandaged?”

“Had someone patch you up.”

Something changes in the way he sits. “Yeah.”

That answer should be obvious. Of course someone has treated his injuries before. He gets thrown through walls for a living.

Still, the strange familiarity returns when Bailey slides one hand beneath his wrist to stabilize it and he relaxes into her hold without hesitation.

She nearly asks who. Instead, she winds the bandage around his arm.

At some point her fingers slip lower, and when she looks down, she realizes she is no longer holding his wrist. Her palm is resting against his.

Neither of them moves. Bailey cannot explain why the contact feels so normal. She cannot explain why Spiderman’s hand has gone slack in hers instead of pulling away.

She releases him first. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Bailey busies herself with the tape before her brain can decide to make the moment more significant than it deserves.

“Keep this dry,” she says, securing the end of the bandage. “And change it if it bleeds through.”

“I will.”

She looks at him, eyebrows raised.

“I will,” he repeats, sounding more convincing this time.

“Good.”

Bailey packs the unused supplies back into the bag and leans away to inspect her work.

Spiderman turns his wrist experimentally. “That’s actually really good.”

Bailey blinks. “You sound surprised.”

“No, I didn’t mean-”

“You thought I was going to wrap your whole arm like a mummy or something?”

“I was going to say it looks really professional.”

“Sure.”

“I was.”

His increasingly defensive tone finally makes Bailey laugh. Something about the sound seems to relax him too.

By now, the police have started clearing the street. The purse has been returned, the suspects are being loaded into separate cars, and whatever urgency had surrounded the scene is draining away.

Bailey should leave. The toothpaste in her bag has officially taken longer to acquire than several of her clinical procedures, and her roommate is probably beginning to suspect she has been kidnapped.

Spiderman should leave too. Presumably, New York has not stopped committing crime merely because his arm is wrapped in pharmacy gauze.

Neither of them seems particularly eager to move.

He glances toward the bag at her feet instead. “So what did you come out here this late for in the first place?”

Bailey nudges the toothpaste box into view with the toe of her shoe. “Apparently we’re experiencing a dental emergency.”

Spiderman looks at the brand. “That one’s not very good.”

Bailey turns toward him. There is no joke in his voice. “You have opinions about toothpaste?”

“Everyone should.”

“It’s just toothpaste.”

“It has an important job,” he keeps arguing.

“So does toilet paper, and I don’t have brand loyalty.”

“That’s different.”

“How?” He actually seems to consider answering. Bailey watches him struggle with it for a moment before laughing. “You’re such a nerd.”

The words leave her mouth without thought and a strange beat passes as Spiderman’s head turns towards her. Then his shoulders loosen and he looks away.

“Yeah,” he says. “Probably.”

Something about that tiny reaction catches at Bailey. It is not enough for another flash. She refuses to chase it.

Instead, she reaches into the bag for the sour gummy worms and tears them open. “Want one?”

He looks at the packet. “Can’t. The mask.”

Bailey nods solemnly. “Tragic.”

“I’ll survive.”

She pops one into her mouth and settles back against the planter, chewing as she watches the last police car pull away from the curb.

The silence that follows should be awkward but it isn’t.

She has never liked the first stages of knowing people. The small talk, the careful testing of boundaries, the constant awareness that neither person knows yet whether they actually like the other.

With Spiderman, she keeps forgetting those stages are supposed to exist. It feels like walking into a conversation halfway through.

“So,” she says eventually, looking out toward the emptying street, “do you ever actually stop?”

Spiderman turns slightly. “Stop what?”

“All of this.” She gestures vaguely at the suit, the street, the last traces of webbing still clinging to the van. “Do you ever take a night off?”

“Sometimes.”

She rolls her eyes. “That sounded convincing.”

“I do.”

Bailey glances at him. He is staring straight ahead now.

She considers leaving it there. Instead, she asks, “What do you do when you’re not doing this?”

The question makes him visibly more guarded, and Bailey realizes too late how it sounds.

“I don’t mean who you are,” she adds. “I’m not trying to get your name or your address or anything.”

“Oh.”

“I mean normal things. Like, do you watch movies? Do laundry? Stand in grocery stores getting irrationally angry about cereal prices?”

Spiderman relaxes a little. “Yeah. Normal things.”

Bailey smiles faintly. “Huh.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never really thought about it.”

“About cereal?”

“About you being a person.” He slowly turns his head toward her. Bailey winces. “That sounded terrible.”

“A little.”

“I know you’re a person.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean, people don’t really see that part.” Bailey gestures toward him. “They see you swinging around on the news or stopping robberies. Nobody thinks about you getting tired enough to take the train home.”

His attention drops to the bandage around his arm. Bailey watches him pick absently at the edge of the tape. “Probably better that way.”

“Why?”

For a while, the only answer is the distant sound of traffic. Then he shrugs. “People like the version that always shows up.”

Bailey waits.

“The one who doesn’t get tired,” he continues. “Doesn’t mess up. Doesn’t need anything.”

There is no self-pity in his voice.

Bailey looks at him for a long moment. “That sounds miserable.”

Spiderman glances over, the lenses covering his eyes squinting questioningly.

“The guy you’re describing,” she clarifies. “He sounds exhausted.”

The laugh that leaves him is sudden enough that Bailey startles. It is warmer than the muffled little sounds he has been making all night, and for a moment it changes him entirely. He sounds younger, lighter, less like the person New York sticks on shaky phone footage and more like-

The sidewalk disappears.

Yellow light fills a kitchen. There is flour on Bailey’s hands and something burning badly enough to smell through the room. Someone beside her is laughing. A shoulder bumps hers.

A woman calls from somewhere nearby. 'What did you two do?'

Bailey turns toward the boy beside her and the memory collapses.

Her hand rises to her temple before she can stop it.

Spiderman’s laughter cuts off. “Bailey?”

She blinks hard as the pharmacy window comes back into focus.

“I’m fine.” His mask lenses narrow immediately and Bailey almost laughs at the irony. “I know. Bad choice of words.”

“What happened?”

Bailey lowers her hand and stares at the gummy worms in her lap.

She considers lying. Instead, maybe because he is still technically a stranger, she finds herself telling the truth.

“Déjà vu again. It’s like…I get these weird flashes of memories I’m supposed to have but don’t really have.”

His posture changes. Not dramatically enough that she could accuse him of anything, but enough that Bailey notices.

“What do you see in them?”

“A kitchen this time.” Spiderman says nothing, so she continues, trying to hold onto the image while it’s still fresh. “There was flour everywhere. Something was burning. Somebody was laughing.”

His gaze shifts away from her. Bailey studies the side of his mask.

“You’re being weird now. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“It’s okay. I was already pretty weird before.”

“That is unfortunately true.”

His shoulders lift in a tiny shrug. Bailey waits for more but gets nothing.

She could push him. Part of her wants to, but a much larger part is suddenly exhausted. So she looks away again.

“Forget it.”

“Bailey-”

“It’s fine.”

He says her name like he wants to argue. She saves him the trouble.

“It’s fine, really. I don’t even know why I told you.”

The words come out more quietly than she intends. A second later, something nudges her shoulder and she glances sideways.

His shoulder is resting lightly against hers. “I’m sorry,” he says.

What exactly he’s sorry for, she doesn’t know. Bailey studies him for a moment before sighing. “You owe me coffee.”

His head turns. “What?”

“Emotional damages.”

A laugh slips out of him. “That’s extortion.”

“Take it up with my lawyer.”

“You have a lawyer?”

“No. I don’t.”

He pretends to wipe sweat from his masked forehead. “Phew.”

Bailey smiles. “Coffee,” she repeats.

He hesitates. For some reason, the request seems to unsettle him more than the antiseptic did.

Then he nods. “Okay.”

“It’s a deal.”

Spiderman lifts his bandaged arm between them. “Do I have to bleed first?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“Good.”

Bailey gets to her feet and gathers her pharmacy bag. He stands a second later.

“You should go home,” she says.

“I was going to say the same thing.”

“I’m not the one who got cut with a knife.”

“You’ve been awake for like sixteen hours.”

Bailey pauses. “Did I tell you that?”

His entire body seems to stall. Then he gestures toward her scrubs. “I meant you look tired. Tired enough to have been awake for that long.”

Bailey narrows her eyes. “That was almost rude.”

“Almost?”

“Very close.”

He rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. They stand there another moment before Spiderman nods in the direction of her building.

“I can walk you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I'd feel better if I did.”

The answer is immediate. It does something stupid to her chest. Bailey looks away before he can somehow notice that.

“Fine,” she says, starting down the sidewalk. “But if you pass out on the way, I’m leaving you there.”

He falls into step beside her.

This time, when the silence settles between them, Bailey does not even think of the missing urge to fill it. She only notices how naturally his pace matches hers. How familiar his presence feels at her side.

And how, after three months of occasionally looking up whenever something red crosses the sky, she is suddenly very glad she found him again.

-

By the third time Bailey runs into Spiderman, she has stopped pretending she never thinks about him.

She still refuses to call it looking for him, because that sounds significantly more pathetic than she is prepared to be, but there are only so many times a person can catch herself checking rooftops on the walk home before the argument starts losing credibility.

It has been almost four months since the Duane Reade.

Long enough for the weather to turn properly warm, for Bailey to finish another semester of nursing school, and for the cheap pharmacy gauze she wrapped around Spiderman's arm to become one more absurd little detail she occasionally remembers at inconvenient moments.

She wonders if he changed the dressing like she told him to. She wonders if the cut scarred. Most annoyingly, she wonders about the coffee.

He owes her one. That had been the agreement.

Admittedly, there had been no discussion of when, where, or how a masked vigilante was supposed to deliver on a coffee debt when neither party possessed a way to easily contact the other, but Bailey considers that a logistical failure on his part rather than hers.

She had supplied the medical care. The least he could do was figure out the rest.

For the first few weeks afterward, she half expects him to materialize whenever she leaves campus late. It becomes embarrassingly easy to convince herself that any movement above the street might be red and blue if she catches it quickly enough, and once she actually stops beneath a fire escape because something swings overhead only to discover a pair of sneakers tied together by their laces hanging from a telephone wire.

Eventually, Bailey decides Spiderman has either forgotten the whole thing or, much more reasonably, has an entire city to worry about and cannot be expected to keep track of every random nursing student he makes promises to.

She tells herself she doesn't care. Then she gets annoyed every time she catches herself caring. It's a deeply productive cycle.

By early summer, school has consumed enough of her life that the whole thing begins settling into something manageable. Spiderman becomes less a person she expects to encounter again and more a strange story threaded through the year: the subway, the sandwich, the pharmacy, the inexplicable flashes of memories that occasionally accompany him.

The flashes continue without him, too. Not often, but they arrive just frequently enough to keep her from dismissing them completely.

A song drifting from somebody's open car window once leaves her standing motionless at a crosswalk with the sharp impression of someone badly singing the chorus beside her. The smell of burnt toast in her apartment brings a brief image of a kitchen table that isn't hers. One afternoon, a boy in one of her lectures clicks a pen repeatedly until Bailey nearly turns around to tell him to stop doing that before she breaks his fingers, and the familiarity of the irritation is so strong that it takes her several seconds to remember she has never spoken to him before and is currently sitting in a crowded lecture hall.

There is never enough. A color. A laugh. Brown hair. The sensation of knowing someone whose face refuses to exist.

Whenever Bailey tries to push deeper, her mind seems to retaliate by wiping the whole thing clean.

Tonight, she has considerably larger problems. The first is that she has just watched someone die.

Not for the first time, but that qualification does not help nearly as much as Bailey wishes it did.

Her clinical rotation has put her in an intensive care unit for the last several weeks, something she has been looking forward to since she began nursing school. ICU has always been the goal in that abstract, ambitious way careers exist before someone actually starts doing them. She likes the complexity of it. The precision. The fact that tiny changes matter and noticing them matters even more.

She likes having something useful to do when everything around a patient is going wrong. What she likes considerably less is the part nobody can teach properly in a lecture hall.

The family had been there, and that is what stays with her.

Not the alarms or the numbers collapsing across the monitor or the quiet shift in the room when everyone realizes there is nothing left to fix.

His daughter had been holding his hand. Bailey spends the entire subway ride home thinking about that hand.

She doesn't cry, even though she almost wishes she would. Crying would at least give the feeling somewhere to go.

Instead, it settles heavily beneath her sternum and follows her through the front door of the apartment, where she finds her roommate asleep on the couch beneath a blanket with the television still murmuring quietly in front of her.

Bailey stands there for a moment. She could wake her.

Her roommate would wake immediately if Bailey said her name. She would sit up, make room, and listen.

Bailey knows that. She also knows that explaining the day out loud would make it real in a way she cannot handle yet.

So she quietly turns off the television, pulls the blanket higher over her roommate's shoulder, and retreats to her bedroom.

That doesn’t even last seven minutes.

The walls are too close. Her clothes smell like the hospital. The faint rhythmic pulse of somebody's bass through the neighboring apartment’s wall is beginning to line up far too neatly with the beeping monitor Bailey is trying not to hear anymore.

She changes out of her scrubs, pulls on an old T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, then climbs out onto the fire escape with a can of soda she doesn't particularly want and her phone tucked into her pocket.

The night is warm enough that the metal beneath her feet still holds traces of the day's heat. Queens stretches around her in uneven layers of brick, glowing windows and rooftop water towers, the sky above it washed grey-orange by the city until only a handful of stars manage to fight their way through.

Bailey sits on the landing with her back against the brick wall, one knee pulled toward her chest. She has been there for maybe twenty minutes when something lands on the roof above her.

Her head lifts slightly. The sound is light, too light for somebody simply walking around up there.

Bailey goes very still when there is another soft scuff against the roof. Her heart speeds up for reasons she immediately decides are embarrassing.

Listening to that small flicker of hope in her chest, Bailey leans sideways and looks up toward the roofline. “Are you lurking?”

A red mask appears slowly over the edge of the roof, and Spiderman peers down at her upside down.

For several seconds, neither of them says anything. Then Bailey looks at the can in her hand, just to look anywhere else, before speaking. “Is this what you do instead of texting people?”

His lenses widen slightly. “I don't have your number.”

“Whose fault is that?”

He disappears from the ledge. A moment later there is a soft thud on the fire escape one level above her, followed by another as he drops down to Bailey's landing.

He looks considerably better than either of the previous times she has seen him. That is the first thing she notices.

No blood. No torn section of suit large enough to reveal an alarming amount of whatever lies underneath. No exhausted slump suggesting he has just lost a fight with gravity.

His suit is scuffed in a few places, but Bailey is beginning to suspect that may simply be its natural condition.

She lifts her soda in greeting. “Wow. You're not bleeding.”

Spiderman glances down at himself as if verifying the claim. “I know.”

“I'm proud of you.”

“Thanks. It’s a really big moment for me.”

The ease of the answer pulls a smile from her despite the day she has had. Spiderman seems to notice, and his head tilts.

Bailey looks away before he can ask anything about it. “You still owe me coffee.”

“I know.”

That gets her attention. “You remember?”

“Of course I remember.”

Something about how immediate the answer is catches at her, and Bailey looks over again.

Spiderman has settled on the railing across from her, leaving enough space between them that she doesn't feel crowded but not so much that it resembles avoidance. One foot hooks loosely around the lower bar while his arms rest across his knees.

He looks comfortable.

“I figured you'd forgotten,” she admits. “It’s been a while.”

“I've been busy.”

“With crime?”

“Mostly.”

Bailey nods solemnly. “Understandable.”

He huffs a laugh. For a little while, neither of them speaks and the quiet is different from the silence inside her apartment.

There, it had seemed to press against her. Here, with someone sitting several feet away who apparently has no interest in making her explain herself before she is ready, it loosens around the edges.

Bailey takes a sip of soda. Spiderman looks out over the street.

She wonders if he’s here because he just happened to see her or because he’s been looking for her. That thought arrives so plainly that she nearly asks.

She doesn't.

It would be easier to assume this is another coincidence. Three meetings in almost a year. Queens is enormous, but Spiderman patrols it all the time, so not impossible for it to be just by chance.

“What were you doing up there?”

His head turns. “On the roof?”

“No, in space.”

His lenses narrow. Bailey smiles faintly.

“I was passing through.”

“Passing through my building?”

“I wasn't in the building, I was on top of it. Very different legally.”

“You have a suspicious amount of knowledge about trespassing law.”

“I get yelled at a lot.”

Bailey can imagine that. She glances up at the roofline, then back toward him. “So you just happened to land up there?”

A pause follows, not especially long, but long enough. Spiderman's shoulders lift in a small shrug. “Pretty much.”

Bailey studies him while he pretends to study the street. She lets him have the lie.

It is a strange thing to recognize, considering how little she knows him, but she has learned that pressing too hard makes him retreat. She saw it at the pharmacy, the way every question that came too close to something personal seemed to pull a door shut behind the mask.

Bailey has no idea what is on the other side, but she is increasingly certain something is.

“You look tired. Did something happen?”

The comment catches her off guard. “I always look tired.”

“No, you don't.” Her expression changes before she can stop it. Spiderman seems to hear the problem a second after the words leave him. “I mean, I’m sure you don’t look tired every day. But yeah, you looked tired all total of the three times I’ve seen you. Definitely only the three times.”

Bailey raises her eyebrows. “Careful. I’m going to start thinking you're stalking me or something.”

“I'm just going to stop talking now.”

“Probably safest.”

He folds his arms. The ridiculousness of him managing to look embarrassed in a full mask nearly makes her laugh.

Nearly, before the heaviness from earlier pushes back in. Bailey rubs one thumb along the cold side of her soda can.

Another minute passes, maybe two. A siren wails several blocks away, briefly making Bailey's shoulders tighten before the sound fades in the opposite direction.

“You don't have to tell me,” he says eventually.

Bailey looks toward him. He is still facing the street.

After a moment, she lowers her gaze to the can between her hands. “Someone died today.”

The words sound flat. Spiderman remains quiet and Bailey appreciates that more than she expects.

“He was old,” she continues after a moment, because apparently part of her feels the need to justify why it shouldn't bother her. “Really sick. It wasn't unexpected. Everyone knew it was coming.”

She can hear how clinical she sounds. That irritates her, and her fingers tighten around the aluminum.

“His daughter was there.”

Spiderman shifts slightly, but he still doesn't interrupt.

“She'd been there all day.” Bailey stares through the fire escape bars toward the street below. “Kept talking to him even when he wasn't really responsive anymore. She told him about her kids. Some vacation they were planning. Just...normal stuff.”

Bailey swallows. Her voice stays steady.

“When everything started going wrong, she just held his hand.”

The image returns with horrible clarity. A small hand wrapped around an older one.

“I know that's part of the job. Obviously. People die. Especially there.” She lets out a quiet breath. “I just thought I'd be better at it.”

Spiderman turns his head. “At what?”

“Not taking it home.”

For some reason, that seems to bother him. Not her admission, but the idea itself. Bailey watches something in his shoulders change as he scoots off the railing and turns to lean against the brick beside her.

“I don't think that's something you get good at.”

She gives him a tired smile. “Very encouraging.”

“No, I mean...” He rubs the back of his neck, catching himself halfway through the familiar movement and letting his hand fall again. “Maybe you get better at knowing what to do with it. But if somebody dies in front of you and it doesn't affect you at all, that seems worse.”

Bailey considers that. The answer is more thoughtful than she expects. Then again, she doesn't know why she is surprised.

She has already discovered that Spiderman has strong toothpaste opinions, understands tensile polymers, makes his own superhero suits, and apparently has enough scientific knowledge to argue the semantics of wound healing while actively bleeding.

There is a whole person under that mask. That is becoming increasingly difficult to forget.

“You sound like you have experience.”

The words come gently and Spiderman goes quiet. Bailey immediately wishes she hadn't said them.

His hands lace together between his knees. “Some.”

That's all he gives her. She doesn't ask who, and instead, she simply nods and lets the silence settle again.

A breeze pushes warm air through the narrow gap between the buildings, carrying the smell of somebody cooking several floors below.

Bailey presses the cool soda can against her forehead. “I don't think I'm supposed to care this much about all of them, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because eventually I'm going to burn out.”

“Maybe.”

She lowers the can. “Fantastic.”

Spiderman gives a quiet laugh. “Sorry.”

“You are truly incredible at emotional support.”

“I wasn't done.”

Bailey gestures for him to continue. He seems to regret having demanded the opportunity almost immediately, because he takes a second to gather whatever thought he is trying to turn into words.

“I just think...” He looks down at his hands. “Caring isn't the part that really hurts you.”

Bailey waits. He is quieter when he continues.

“Thinking everything is your responsibility does.”

Spiderman does not seem to realize how ironic it sounds coming from him.

The moment stretches. Then Bailey says, “That is an insane thing for you to say.”

His head lifts, his lenses doing that squinty thing again.

She points at him with the soda can. “You tried to leave a knife wound untreated because you had superhero things to do.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I-” He stops, looks down at his bandaged-free arm, as though the scar might provide assistance from beneath the suit. “It just is.”

She laughs before she can stop herself. It comes out tired, but real. “Excellent argument.”

Spiderman seems pleased enough by it that she catches herself wondering if that had been the intention.

“You're a hypocrite.”

“I've been called worse.”

“I believe that.”

“Wow.”

“But you're probably right.”

That quiets him. Bailey looks out over the street again.

“I know I can't fix everything,” she says. “I don't think I even want to. I just hate feeling useless.”

“You weren't.”

“You weren't there.”

“No.” Something in his voice changes, making Bailey glance sideways to find he is looking at her now. “You said his daughter was there.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were there too.” Spiderman shifts one shoulder. “Maybe there wasn't anything left to fix. Doesn't mean being there didn't matter.”

Bailey stares at him. A brief sensation brushes the edge of her mind. The feeling of sitting beside someone while rain hits a window.

Bailey closes her eyes briefly. When she opens them again, Spiderman has moved slightly closer. Not enough to crowd her, but enough that his knee is now within reach of hers.

“You okay?”

She nods. “Yeah. Mostly.”

The reference takes him a second, then his lenses crease. “That's not very reassuring,” he quotes her own words back at her.

“I’m sure a very wise person once told you that.”

Spiderman laughs softly. The ache in her chest has not gone away, and she does not expect it to, but it feels a little less sharp than before. More like something she can carry.

Bailey nudges his boot lightly with her socked foot. The gesture happens without thought.

Spiderman looks down at the contact sharply and she almost pulls her foot back.

“You know,” she says, “you could've just said hi instead of lurking on the roof like a criminal.”

“I was deciding whether to bother you or not.”

“You've interrupted me twice while I was trying to get home after school. I think we've moved past worrying about that.”

“That sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“Most things you do sound bad when accurately described.”

He lowers his head, shoulders shaking. Bailey smiles.

For a while, they talk about nothing important.

Spiderman asks how nursing school works, and Bailey explains the increasingly sadistic schedule in enough detail to make him wince. He seems genuinely interested in the clinical side of it and knows enough science that she catches herself slipping into terminology she normally has to simplify for people outside the program.

He follows easily. At one point she mentions an arterial blood gas and he asks a question about compensation that makes Bailey turn toward him in disbelief.

“You know what respiratory compensation is?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

His entire body seems to remember the existence of the secret identity at once. “I read. A lot.”

“You're such a nerd.”

He makes an offended sound. “You are literally sitting outside at midnight talking about arterial blood gases.”

“Because I'm in nursing school.”

Bailey begins explaining exactly why it does not make her a nerd like him, only for Spiderman to interrupt with an unnecessarily specific correction about carbonic acid buffering that turns the discussion into an argument neither of them actually cares about winning.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Bailey realizes she is enjoying herself. Not in the muted way she sometimes enjoys being distracted, but actually enjoying herself.
Her shoulders no longer feel like they are carrying the hospital home with her.

The city continues moving around them. Windows go dark one by one. Cars become less frequent. Somewhere nearby, someone laughs loudly enough for the sound to carry between buildings.

Bailey checks her phone eventually and swears.

Spiderman looks over. “What?”

“It is one-thirty in the morning.”

He glances upward as if the sky might confirm the time. “Huh. I didn't realize.”

“Neither did I.”

That feels significant for reasons Bailey refuses to examine.

She gets to her feet, stretching until her back cracks unpleasantly. Spiderman stands too, his attention immediately dropping toward the fire escape ladder.

“I should probably let you sleep.”

“Probably.”

Neither moves. Bailey folds her arms.

“So.”

“So.”

She gives him a look. He shifts his weight. The problem becomes obvious at exactly the same time to both of them.

They still have no way to contact each other.

Bailey should leave that alone. There is something safe about coincidence. If they only see each other when New York decides to throw them together, neither of them has to admit they want anything beyond that.

Apparently, Bailey is tired enough to stop making sensible decisions.

“You still owe me coffee.”

Spiderman laughs softly. “I do.”

“And at this rate, I'll be thirty before you manage to deliver it.”

“I could bring coffee.”

“When?” He pauses. Bailey raises an eyebrow. “Exactly.”

“I don't exactly have reliable office hours.”

“Seems inefficient.”

“Crime is unpredictable.”

“Excuses.”

Spiderman turns his head toward the street below, and Bailey can practically see him arguing with himself despite the mask. Finally, he reaches toward a small compartment hidden along the side of his belt.

Bailey watches curiously as he pulls out what looks like a cheap black burner phone.

Her eyebrows rise. “You have a phone.”

“I have several.”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“They're for emergencies.”

“Sure.”

Spiderman simply holds it for a moment, then looks at her. “This would be stupid.”

Bailey leans against the railing. “Probably.”

“I mean really stupid.”

“You sell it well.”

He ignores that. “If something happened to you because-”

The words stop. Bailey's amusement fades when the realization hits. Spiderman wants to stay. Spiderman also seems convinced staying is dangerous.

She watches him grip the phone. “I'm already involved enough to have patched you up on a sidewalk.”

“That doesn't mean-”

“And if I see you bleeding again, I'm still going to help.”

“Bailey.”

“You saying my name like that isn't going to make me suddenly become reasonable.”

Something about the sentence affects him. His head dips. For a second, Bailey thinks he might leave.

But then he unlocks the phone. “Okay.”

She blinks. “Okay? It was that easy?”

“Don't make me reconsider.”

Bailey reaches for her own phone. The exchange is surprisingly mundane.

He recites a number while Bailey adds it to her contacts, and she pointedly ignores the fact that her pulse is behaving as though something much larger is happening.

When the contact-name field appears, she looks at him.

“Spiderman?”

“Probably.”

“That feels boring.”

“Please don't put something weird.” Bailey smiles and his lenses narrow. “Bailey.”

“I'm thinking.”

“That is exactly what I'm worried about.”

She types. SPANDEX.

Spiderman peers over and Bailey turns the screen away. “Too late.”

“Whatever you wrote, change it.”

Bailey locks her phone and slips it into her pocket. “No.”

The expression beneath his mask is impossible to see, but Bailey can practically feel the exasperation rolling off him.

“I already regret this.”

“No, you don't.”

The words come easily, but they make both of them stop. Bailey's smile fades.

There is no flash of a memory this time. Just a strange certainty that they have stood in this exact place before, metaphorically if not literally.

Spiderman looks at her for a long moment. Then his shoulders soften.

“No,” he says quietly. “I guess I don't.”

Bailey stays by the open window until the red and blue shape disappears beyond the buildings. Then she climbs inside and pulls out her phone.

A new number. An actual way to reach him.

Bailey stares at it for longer than she wants to admit. Eventually, she forces herself to plug her phone into the charger beside her bed and finally crawls beneath the blankets.

For the first time since leaving the hospital, Bailey closes her eyes without seeing an old man's hand held inside his daughter's. Her last thought before sleep is considerably less devastating.

Spiderman still owes her coffee.

-

Bailey discovers that Spiderman is, in fact, capable of honoring a coffee debt exactly nine days later.

Not that she has been counting. Again.

She has simply been alive for all nine of those days and therefore happens to know how many of them there have been. That is completely different from counting, and anybody suggesting otherwise can mind their business.

It is a Tuesday night, warm enough that the roof of Bailey's building still holds some of the day's heat beneath her legs as she sits cross-legged near the low brick ledge with half of her life spread out around her.

At least, that is what it feels like.

There is a textbook open beside her, another balanced precariously beneath her notebook, three different colored highlighters scattered across the concrete, and an entire stack of flashcards she has been pretending not to hate for the better part of an hour. Bailey has already rewritten the same sentence twice because her brain apparently stopped absorbing information somewhere around the words acute respiratory distress syndrome, and she is beginning to suspect that continuing tonight is less studying and more an elaborate form of self-punishment.

She taps the end of her pen against her notebook. The sound irritates her almost immediately, so she stops.

For some reason, the irritation lingers. There is something familiar about it. Not the pen itself, but the urge to tell someone else to stop clicking one.

Someone who does it constantly. Or used to.

She stares at the pen for a moment, trying to catch the thought before it slips away.

A soft thump sounds somewhere behind her. When Bailey turns, Spiderman is crouched on the other side of the roof.

He has one hand braced against the concrete and the other curled carefully around a cardboard drink carrier containing two coffee cups, which makes the entire dramatic superhero landing considerably less impressive.

He straightens and the coffee remains miraculously upright.

“No way.”

Spiderman glances down at her. “What?”

“You actually brought it.”

“I said I would.”

She just smiles and shifts enough to clear a space among her notes.

He crosses the roof and lowers himself beside her, careful not to step on any of the scattered papers. Bailey watches him set the drink carrier down between them with an amount of concentration that feels excessive until she notices thin strands of webbing stretched across both lids to keep them in place.

She points. “Is that really necessary?”

“It was either that or get third-degree burns while swinging.”

“Fair.”

Spiderman reaches for one of the cups and holds it toward her. Bailey accepts it automatically, then looks at the label.

Her expression changes. “Vanilla latte with oat milk.”

“Yeah.”

She looks at him. Spiderman goes very still.

Bailey looks back down at the cup.

No question this time. No moment where she wonders whether she told him at the pharmacy or during their late-night conversation on the fire escape.

She knows she didn't.

Bailey drinks coffee often enough that plenty of people know her order. Her roommate does. Ned probably still remembers it despite living in Massachusetts now.

But Spiderman should not.

She runs one thumb slowly over the cardboard sleeve. “Lucky guess?”

There is a pause. “Very lucky.”

Bailey almost laughs. He is such a terrible liar.

It should bother her. Maybe, a few months ago, it would have. Now she only takes a sip.

The coffee is exactly right. Something warm spreads through her that has very little to do with the drink.

“Good guess.”

Spiderman relaxes beside her. “Glad you like it.”

Bailey looks down at the other cup. “What did you get?”

“Coffee.”

“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”

“Black.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Of course.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you look like someone who drinks black coffee.”

He turns toward her. “You can't see my face.”

Bailey smiles into her cup. “Don’t need to.”

There is distant traffic below, music drifting faintly from an open window somewhere nearby, an occasional horn sharp enough to carry several blocks, and the steady hum of air-conditioning units from the surrounding buildings.

Up here, she almost feels released from the bustling city below. Bailey has always liked roofs for that reason.

She takes another sip and looks out across the uneven line of buildings. Spiderman settles beside her in a way that feels strangely normal.

That feels new somehow. Not awkwardly new, just different.

Nine days ago, they exchanged phone numbers. Apparently, somewhere in the process, they also crossed an invisible line Bailey hadn't realized was there.

She does not feel the need to justify his presence anymore. Neither does he.

“So,” he says after a while, glancing toward the mess of paper spread around her, “are you studying or sacrificing stationery to some kind of nursing-school god?”

“At this point, I'm open to either.”

“What are you working on?”

“Respiratory failure.”

His head tips toward the notebook. “Fun.”

“I'm having an incredible time.”

Bailey passes him one of the flashcards. He takes it carefully between gloved fingers, reading the question on the front.

“What are the primary causes of type one respiratory failure?”

She groans. “Stop.”

“You made the cards.”

“I made them for myself.”

The mask lenses narrow with unmistakable challenge. “Then answer.”

“Fine.” She sets her coffee down. “V/Q mismatch, diffusion impairment, right-to-left shunt and hypoventilation.”

Spiderman flips the card over. “You are correct.”

“I know.”

“And humble too.”

“I have spent six hours on this.”

“That might explain the hostility tonight.”

Bailey reaches for the next card, but Spiderman picks it up first. She narrows her eyes. “Are you quizzing me now?”

“You clearly need supervision.”

“You are literally wanted by at least one newspaper.”

“Unrelated.”

Despite herself, Bailey lets him continue. He reads another question, then another, and somewhere around the fifth card she realizes he is not stumbling over the terminology. At all.

He pronounces everything correctly, including several terms most people outside healthcare would probably prefer not to attempt.

Bailey answers the next question, waits for him to check the back, then studies him more closely.

“You know what half of this means.”

Spiderman's hand stops halfway toward another flashcard. “I know words.”

“Those are very specific words.”

“I already told you, I read.”

Bailey snorts. “Right. Forgot about that.”

“People do read.”

“You know entirely too much for somebody whose formal education, as far as I know, could've ended in middle school.”

She can tell he’s grimacing behind the mask. “That would be concerning.”

“So?”

He turns the flashcard over in his hands.

She found it again. The boundary. She recognizes it more quickly now.

Bailey could push. She could remind him that he already knows things about her he should not know, that he somehow bought her exact coffee order and knows enough biology to follow a nursing-school study session without blinking.

She could ask the obvious question. Do I know you?

The words have been sitting in the back of her mind for months. Tonight, for the first time, Bailey stops pretending she doesn't know the answer.

Yes. She did. Somehow.

At some point, she knew him. She is suddenly sure of it in a way she cannot explain.

Not because of the coffee alone. The coffee is only one more thing added to a pile that has become impossible to ignore.

Her name in his voice. The way he knows when she is tired. The way his jokes feel familiar before she hears the punchline. The fragments of rooms and hallways and laughter that arrive whenever he says something a little too close to whatever existed before.

The way he looks at her sometimes, even through a mask, like seeing her is both the best and worst thing that could have happened to him.

Bailey knew Spiderman. Or whoever he is underneath all of that red and blue.

She doesn't know how. She doesn't know when. Most importantly, she has absolutely no idea why she cannot remember.

That should terrify her, and it does, a little. But sitting here with warm coffee between her hands while Spiderman carefully avoids meeting her gaze, Bailey finds that curiosity is not the strongest thing she feels.

She likes him. That is somehow simpler.

Whatever happened before, whatever has been taken out of her head or buried deeply enough that she cannot reach it, the person sitting beside her now is someone Bailey likes having around.

And, unless she has completely lost the ability to read another human being, he likes being around her too.

“You're staring,” Spiderman says.

Bailey blinks. “I wasn't. I was just thinking.”

“That doesn't make it less creepy.”

Bailey gives him a look over the rim of her coffee cup. “Read the next card.”

He studies her for a second longer, before he does exactly what she asked.

Bailey lets the question go. Not the flashcard question. She gets that one wrong and immediately blames him for distracting her.

The other question. The enormous one.

She leaves that where it is, for now.

They spend the next hour sitting on the roof. Spiderman proves to be infuriatingly good at quizzing her because he refuses to accept answers that are only half correct and occasionally asks follow-up questions Bailey never wrote down in the first place.

“You know,” she says eventually, snatching a card out of his hand after he asks her to explain the difference between acute and chronic respiratory acidosis, “this was supposed to make studying easier.”

“I think it's working.”

“I liked you better when you were bleeding.”

“That feels unethical for a nurse.”

“Student nurse.”

“Oh, right. Different standards.”

Bailey kicks the side of his boot lightly.

He laughs. The sound no longer triggers a memory, and she is grateful for that.

Tonight, she does not want pieces. She wants this.

The warm roof beneath them. The pile of notes. The coffee he somehow knows she likes. The stupid little arguments that feel like they have existed much longer than nine months.

Somewhere along the way, Bailey shifts closer without noticing. Not enough to lean against him, but enough that their shoulders brush whenever one of them moves.

The city grows darker around them while windows wink out one at a time.

Eventually Spiderman sets the last flashcard down. “You got that one right three times.”

“You're a very strict tutor.” Bailey laughs and starts gathering the scattered notes into something resembling a stack.

Spiderman helps without being asked, collecting the cards and tapping their edges against the concrete until they line up neatly.

It is such a mundane little thing that Bailey almost misses how much it affects her.

Spiderman, sitting on her roof, organizing her flashcards. It should be absurd, but it feels like something settling into place. A space being filled.

Bailey's hands slow. She has spent the last few years feeling off in a way she has never managed to explain properly.

Not lonely, exactly. She has people. Her mother. Her roommate. Ned and even MJ, even if MIT has made seeing them more complicated.

Her life is not empty, but there has been this strange sense of absence threaded through it. Like she is saving a seat for someone who never arrives.

She used to think it was adulthood. People change. Friends move. Childhood ends. Maybe everyone walks around with little empty spaces left behind by people and things they have outgrown.

Except the emptiness feels different when Spiderman is here.

Bailey looks at him while he attempts to force several flashcards back into the box she has already overfilled.

The certainty arrives quietly.

That space is his. Or it belonged to him once. Maybe both.

Spiderman notices her looking and pauses with a card halfway into the box. “What?”

Bailey shakes her head. “Nothing.”

He narrows his lenses. “You've been weird tonight.”

“That's rude.”

“True, though.”

Bailey smiles. “Maybe I'm tired.”

It doesn’t take much longer until Spiderman stands. For some reason, seeing him do it makes disappointment arrive before she can stop it.

He catches that too, she is almost certain.

His head tilts. “I should go.”

“Yeah.”

Neither sounds particularly enthusiastic. Bailey looks down at the notes in her lap.

“Do you have to?”

Spiderman stills. Bailey almost takes it back.

Then he looks toward the skyline. “No. Not right now.”

Something inside her eases. He sits again, just like that.

Bailey makes room beside her even though there was already enough. Spiderman settles back down. Their shoulders touch fully this time.

Bailey doesn't move away and neither does he.

She looks out over Queens and drinks what is left of her now-cold coffee.

There are still questions. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.

She wants to know his name. She wants to know why he knows hers like he has been saying it for years. She wants to understand how someone can disappear from a memory while leaving behind all the feelings attached to him.

She wants to know why he seems so afraid of letting her get close when every choice he makes brings him closer anyway.

Bailey asks none of it. For once, not knowing doesn't feel unbearable.

Spiderman sits beside her, staying even though he doesn't have to. And Bailey realizes that whatever they used to be, whatever impossible thing her mind refuses to give back, doesn't have to be the only thing they are allowed to have.

Maybe she knew him before, she is certain she did. But she knows him now too.

Not his face and not his name. Just him.

For tonight, that is enough.