Chapter Text
A superhero is in her diner and he’s doing the dishes. The mask covers his whole face. She wonders about that mask more and more these days. If it’s comfortable. She wants to say it. If you took it off, wouldn’t you be able to breathe more easily? She thinks about his face, probably too much. Lying in her bed, she imagines him with brown hair and hazel eyes. All she really knows are his lips, and she thinks about those too.
She wants to say it.
Don’t you trust me?
But that’s not fair to him. He’s never promised her anything. (The truth is, she’s told him far too much. All her hard-kept secrets just tumble out whenever he’s around. And she – she doesn’t even know his name.)
She takes a breath and focuses on drying the dishes he hands her instead.
“I actually talked to someone in class today,” she says.
“Voluntarily?”
“Under duress, of course,” she smiles just so, “anyway, that girl told me about a pair of headphones she can’t afford. She said the only thing keeping her from stealing it is Spiderman.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. She’s actually scared of you. It’s unbelievable.”
He whirls around. “Why?”
She flicks the towel in his direction.
“You’re just a dude.”
“A normie?”
He bursts into laughter, like he made some great joke. MJ rolls her eyes.
“Yeah. I bet you have the most basic white boy name, like Ted or something.”
Spiderman shakes his head.
“That’s a serial killer name.”
“Okay. Fair criticism. It’s gotta be something like Gary. Or Norman. Or Peter.”
And at that, Spiderman freezes. MJ is so startled by it, she almost drops the plate she was drying. The strangest things set him off, make him act weird. What did she say wrong this time? They were just joking around. But that sometimes he goes so still, like he’s going somewhere else in his head. No matter how happy he seems, he could slip away any moment. It breaks her heart a little bit every day.
“Haha,” he says eventually, but it sounds very forced. “Probably look like a – Norman.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know,” she says, trying to find the thing to say that will get that look off his face again. “But I can guess. High chance your hair is brown.”
His reaction does not disappoint. He reels back.
“What – how do you know that?! Did you see it?”
“I’m psychic,” she says slowly.
He just keeps staring at her, as if he was taking her completely seriously.
“No, idiot,” she adds, almost fondly, “most common hair colour in the US.”
That gets a him flustered.
“The point is you’re completely regular,” she says. “Most regular guy I’ve ever known.”
“No, no, no.”
“Why? Cause you’re special? Because you can bench-press a bus? Cause you have sticky fingers?”
She circles him to grab a fork, but makes sure he can see her smile.
“No,” he says emphatically. “I’m just… weird. A weirdo. Probably.”
“Because you never take that stupid hat off?”
MJ gestures to his stupid mask.
“That – it’s not a hat.”
“It’s on your head. It counts.”
He’s so close, she could reach out and yank it off right now. She would be quick about it. But that’s not –
That’s not trust.
He’s looking at her, she can tell, but all she can see are those blank white eyes holes in the mask. All she wants in that moment is to look into his eyes, to see him looking at her. It’s so empty, and it’s a lie, and she wants to know so badly.
Suddenly, she can’t stop herself.
“What’s your name?”
He heaves a sigh. And maybe he’s caught in the moment too, because normally he would quip or misdirect, but instead he says, like it’s painful: “I don’t have one.”
“Bullshit,” she says, a little more serious than she means to, “what do people call you?”
“Spiderman.”
He’s drawing into himself. She’s losing him again. Every day, he’s there and not there, cheerful and tragic, satisfied and starving.
She should stop. She should let him get away with it. Then she could have his soft laughter again. But by now, it’s almost a need. To know him, really know him. By now, it’s almost a wound.
“But you weren’t born Spiderman, were you?”
She says it as gently as he can, but he still flinches like she stabbed him. He’s about to bolt, so she grabs his hand. She almost curses herself for it. As if that could ever keep him here.
If she doesn’t stop pushing now, he might not come back for days.
“Don’t tell me you never had a dream. Before all this.”
“W-what?”
He’s stammering again. On the defensive. We’re on the same team, she wants to tell him.
“Come on,” she sounds more relaxed than she feels. “I’m sure when they asked you in kindergarten what you wanted to be when you grew up, you didn’t say man-sized spider. Am I wrong?”
“Funny.” He chuckles darkly. “But no. I don’t have a dream.”
She lets go of his hand.
“Everybody wants something,” she points out.
“Yeah, well. If you want too much, you don’t get to keep anything at all.”
There it is again. Whatever self-loathing, hideous secret he is keeping from her, he lets her see just enough to know that it’s shattering.
They’ve both put down the dishes. She has him close now, but she has to tread carefully.
“That’s… bleak. Sounds more like the kind of thing I would say.”
“You can’t call dibs on pessimism.”
It’s just petulant enough that she sees her opportunity to turn this around.
“I do now. That’s identity theft, Mr. Spiderman. You better give it back.”
Gotcha. He must be smiling under that mask.
“Fine, fine. You can have it back,” he says softly. “I’m all sunshine and rainbows.”
“Thank you,” she says, then pauses. “But if I had to bet on it, I’d say you’ll do it again in a minute.”
He lets out a short laugh. She squeezes his arm once. They’re on stable ground again.
She should let it go now.
“Did you… Did you ever let anyone know who you are? That you’re Spiderman?”
Immediately, he goes still again. The terrible kind of quiet that whisks him away to a place of pain. She shouldn’t have said anything. She doesn’t have to know. She can have him at a distance. At least that way, she can keep him on the side of fine.
“A long time ago,” he says quietly. “It was great, it was the best. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
There and not there. Cheerful and tragic. Satisfied and starving. It makes sense, in an awful Spiderman way.
“I’m sorry,” she says, matching his tone of voice. “It doesn’t have to be that way again. You can… You can trust me.”
He’s still again, but he turns his hand to reach for her fingers. He must be looking at her. For a moment, she is sure he is going to tell her. He is going to let her in.
Then, the window shatters.
He whips around, toward the front of the diner. It’s the Doc Ock copycat that he fought last week. The metal arms, thin and protruding from his back, are a weak imitation of Doctor Octavius’ technology, but he was still much harder to fight than the average mugger. And now he’s here, bursting into the bubble of Peter Parker’s happy little life.
That’s not right. There is no Peter Parker. How could he have forgotten that?
How could he have been so endlessly stupid? Of course. He should have seen it coming a mile away. Nothing good ever comes without an avalanche of misery following close behind. How could he have ever forgotten the cut on MJ’s face in the aftermath?
“Spiderman,” the copycat snarls. “I believe we have unfinished business.”
Quickly, he flips over the counter, trying to keep his attention, away from MJ.
“Seemed finished to me,” he says lowly.
The guy is looking at him. Good. Keep it that way.
One of his metal arms twitches, sparks coming off. It’s malfunctioning. Peter can’t even tell if that’s a good thing. Another arm swings at him and Peter ducks out of the way.
He can tell MJ is moving behind him. Hopefully running away. Right?
(How could he have forgotten how happy she was, free of him?)
Peter aims a web at the copycat’s face, but he catches it with one of his metal arms. He shouldn’t have let him escape the last time, when he found him wreaking havoc on a lab in the city.
“Watch out!” MJ shouts.
Peter’s spider sense is already in action, instinctively throwing himself to the ground as something is hurled toward him. It was one of the corner tables, ripped from the ground by a metal arm.
It misses, but a cry of pain rings through the diner. For one long-stretching second, he doesn’t realize what happened.
MJ.
He explodes into a whirl of motion, leaping off the ground toward that amateur’s chest. He climbs around him and out of range of the metal arms and starts to slam his fists on the motor driving the arms. After a few moments, he hears a satisfying crunch and a flicker of electricity goes through the metal arms before they fall limb.
He webs the man’s flesh and bone arms behind his back and jumps over him, doesn’t care anymore.
“MJ,” he yells.
She’s sprawled on the ground, the wooden table still pressing down on her. Softly groaning. He’s down by her side in an instant, lifting the heavy weight off her.
“MJ,” he breathes, “I’m so sorry.”
She pushes a hand against her head.
“Ugh,” she says. “It’s -”
She waves her free hand around.
“It’s whatever. I’m- okay. Mostly. Probably. Bad fall. But you got him. So that’s good.”
Not good enough. They both know it. He’d gotten arrogant and worse than that, selfish. Christ, he was about to tell her his name. How utterly idiotic. People knowing his name will only bring problems. But this is something he can fix. Something to finally do right, even after getting it wrong so many times before.
He hovers around her, hands in the air, but he knows he shouldn’t touch.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s going to bruise, probably.”
That’s what you get. Cuts and bruises. He has to stay away from her.
For now, he stays. He gets her a pack of cold peas from the freezer to put against her ribs. She insists she doesn’t need an ambulance.
She’s going to be fine. He knew it from the very start. She doesn’t need Spiderman and she certainly doesn’t need Peter Parker.
He slinks away before the cops show up.
Spiderman doesn’t show up at the diner again. A man who may or may not be named Peter Parker does. He beats himself up about it the whole way there. And then the whole way back. But while he’s there – close enough to know she is fine – he feels less empty than anywhere else.
He gets better about it. This time, he doesn’t talk more than the usual pleasantries. He keeps to himself in his corner booth, bitter coffee to burn his tongue.
Recognition flickers in her eyes every time he shows up, but it’s a vague, absent thing, her glance glossing over him almost immediately. He is nobody to her now, which is just the way it should be. A stranger twice over. A crossed-out mistake.
And he shouldn’t. Each day, he tells himself he won’t. But he does. And his heart starts racing every time she calls him Peter Parker.
Of course, this isn’t Peter Parker. It’s a diner regular. A mild-mannered customer, perfectly polite and awkward when he isn’t. An npc in a video game.
No. He doesn’t need a name.
But he gets one, because he was stupid enough to give it to her. It feels like he handed it over. Here, it’s for you, please keep it safe.
He wants to run out and hide whenever he remembers she can see his face. He isn’t used to having a face anymore and all of it – his lips, his eyebrows, his ever-hopeful eyes – must be giving him away.
At night, he puts on the mask with relief. Nobody can take it off, they can’t see, because he will protect his secret with his life. Not that it’s much of a secret now. Not that it matters. But he has nothing left to lose except for this and maybe what he is most afraid of is that someone will take off that mask only to find that there is absolutely nothing behind it, just air. That he is nobody. Not a real person. Just grief. And regret. And so, so much loneliness. Shaped and built by a tattered badly sewn suit.
Sometimes, he stays still in the middle of a dark alley, when every last of his instincts is telling him to get away, and takes the punch. He beckons the bruises closer, don’t be shy, and begs them to stay. Let me have something. Something real.
It’s – it’s not fine. He’s not fucked-up enough to believe that it is, but –
Something to remind him of his ribs, right there. Triceps. Swollen cheekbone. He can’t be sure of anything else.
He goes out at night and knows a single thing – only real people hurt. What else can he press his teeth into?
There are worse kinds of pain and he forgets about those too if he gets in the fray and finds someone to punch hard enough.
He goes out at night and there is no more heartache. No pathetic metaphorical thing.
Only real can touch him now. Until he sees her behind the counter, smiling at something someone else said. Little corner booth, free of pain. Can that be?
She never comments on the bruises, but she does frown. Sometimes, she’s a second away from asking but thinks better of it.
No. No one ever pulls him back by his shoulder and says that’s enough, kid. No one to hide from who would say, you’re too young for this.
Too young? Not anymore. And just human enough for it.
Weeks go by. He collects bruises like little red riding hood collects flowers. (I never meant to stray from the path – I never – he thinks of pale faces and the way it felt when their eyes went dim -) He can’t feel them at all when he sees hers heal. She’s – this is good. He can’t have her hurting.
Trying to escape the pull to the place without pain is an exercise in futility. Is it better as a stranger, from a distance? The lie you keep telling yourself. She never walked to school with me, she never kissed my broken knuckles, she never held my hand in the dark. Lie better.
Someday. Someday soon, he’ll have the strength to set this delicate thing on the ground without complaint and to walk away from it.
It pulls him apart just a little bit. He tries to make up for every bad decision, to pay the city back, but it never feels like enough. And it’s never sincere again because he’ll always be back the next day, is not going to be but will be. If she knew – the MJ from before, the one who blew away – she would yell at him. Either fix it or break it properly.
Separate the halves and let it go.
Let it go.
Walk away.
And it’s after a hard day that he decides to do it. Until sunrise, he pulled people from a burning building and barely made it out before it collapsed. Did overtime at work. He is bone-tired and he wants to go home. But he can’t keep lingering on the doormat of a place he doesn’t have the key to anymore, it’s creepy and doesn’t help anyone. It’s time to grow a spine and here is his resolve: One last time. Just once. For real, this time around.
The diner is deserted when he shows up. No costumers and no one behind the counter. He spins around to check if the sign in the door is turned to closed, but it’s not. Then he hears it – something like a quiet gasp. He inches closer in the direction of the sound instinctively.
Yeah. Restrained but elevated breathing. It grows into sobbing soon enough, breath after laboured breath. But that voice – it’s – it has to be –
Without thinking, he makes his way around the counter and opens the door to the backroom. MJ. It feels like his heart stops. Her head in her hands, her shoulders hunched, she’s – in pain.
He’s still not thinking when he steps inside.
“H-hey,” he stammers out, “are you okay?”
She startles. Her eyes widen when she sees him.
“Oh. Oh my god. Sorry. Be with you in a -”
She wipes at her eyes.
“No, no, no,” he says and steps a little closer. “I just – you seem – sad. Is everything – I mean – what’s wrong?”
“Ha,” she smiles vaguely. “You sound just as awkward as- never mind.”
She rubs at her arms and avoids his gaze. He wants to step closer, but he’s well aware that he can’t do that anymore. It wouldn’t make her feel better.
“It’s Spiderman,” she says then.
“What?!”
“Why I’m… sad.”
It’s like a punch to the gut. He tried to stay away from her and somehow he still –
“Spiderman… hurt you?” he rushes to say. “How? What did he do?”
“Run into a burning building and not come out.”
“What?”
He has a feeling he’s repeating himself, but confusion is clouding his mind. What’s going on?
“Didn’t you see the news this morning? Spiderman saved a bunch of people from a fire and no one has seen him since.”
“Oh. But. He’s a- well, he’s a superhero, right? I’m sure he’s fine.”
He wouldn’t put it like that, usually, but he’ll say anything to her if he thinks it would help.
“Doesn’t mean he’s invincible.”
And isn’t that the truth? Peter almost laughs, but cynicism won’t help her either.
“And this isn’t – it’s not what you think.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not hero-worship, or whatever… I’m not a groupie. I know him. Knew him, I guess.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t think she would care. She hadn’t known Spiderman for long and most times he showed up, it was trouble.
“I… I Imagine it must be hard. Knowing him.”
She whips around, sudden anger sparkling in her eyes.
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I know he hurt you.”
The anger dims out. She’s tearing up again and turning her head away. She doesn’t want him to see this. She hates being vulnerable in front of strangers.
And Peter Parker is a stranger. But Spiderman is not.
It’s leaving that hurt her. He got it wrong before and maybe this isn’t the right choice either – but she’s crying and he just – he can’t do this anymore.
“I hurt you,” he amends lowly.
Let her be angry rather than sad. He can take it. Anything would be better than this.
She stills. Shock, relief and then anger flicker across her face in an instant. She’s so damn smart, of course she got it immediately.
She takes a vague step in his direction, but then she gains certainty. He braces himself, not sure if she would slap him when she throws her arms around him and says right next to his ear: “You idiot.”
He laughs shakily and presses into her. She’ll be so mad at him in a second, but for now he can have this. It hurts to be recognized like this. She knows him but she doesn’t know him.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” she whispers. “Cute café weirdo.”
“Huh?”
“Shush.”
Finally, she lets go off him and steps back. She crosses her arms, the anger back now.
“How could you do that?” she asks.
To me. She doesn’t say it, but he hears it ever so clearly. How could you do that to me?
“Wherever I go, I make things worse. I bring it with me. The chaos. You know.”
He says it quietly, truthfully. He still sees it flash before his eyes, how she was sprawled under the table, and so long ago now, the gash on her face on the worst day, the way she was crying when he told her.
But MJ isn’t having it. She never was.
“Oh yeah, I know all about your self-centred pessimism, but if you opened your eyes to reality for once –”
She’s in his space now, jabbing a finger at his chest.
“You were there, you saw it, that Dr. Octopus impersonator hurt you because of me -”
“He hurt me because he was a lunatic or I don’t know, maybe he had daddy issues, but guess what – you’re not actually responsible for every single person on earth -”
“I am. I am.”
He doesn’t actually have any argument for it, but he has to say it.
“You realize that’s insane,” she says.
He takes a deep, bracing breath.
“With great power -”
“Sure, you’re powerful, but you’re just a guy. You know that, right? You’re human too.”
Her voice has gone soft again. Go back to mad, he thinks. I deserve it.
“Bit spider,” he says and smiles for just a second.
“Mostly human,” she murmurs.
What does that mean? Weakness. A hundred flaws to make up for.
A burden off his shoulders. (He felt normal when she knew. For a single beautiful week.) And something more than the fists and the fires and falls.
Ribs, triceps, cheekbone. He’s more than that too.
Her hand comes up to his face and he is everything her fingertips touch.
“Come on, MJ,” he says quietly now, arguing a case he already lost. “I did you a favour.”
“It wasn’t a favour. It was a choice. Mine. You took it from me.”
She thinks it was a choice, her choice, but really it was a promise, one he broke. I promise I’ll fix this. But he’d come into her café that snowy day and realized there was nothing to fix, only something to break.
“I didn’t think you’d care,” he says.
Not anymore.
“You’re so stupid,” she says.
He hears both the smile and the tears in her voice.
Can I go home now?
“I thought it was- I thought it was because you didn’t care,” she says quickly.
Tell me when you see me again.
“No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong. I care. So much,” he says.
I love you. He can’t say that. Not now. She wouldn’t want to hear it. But maybe he can say something else. Will you go out with me? Will you see me again? Will you say my name like I’m a real person?
She’s in his face in an instant and her nose knocks into his and she’s gone again. He flinches – then he blinks. What?
He touches his lips absently, as if he can feel out that brief touch. Did she just – kiss him?
“Oh sorry -” She’s turning red. “I didn’t mean – I just thought maybe -”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I- You just – Can I -”
That one’s a revelation.
“Can I?”
She nods and he leans in again. Right here, right here. She’s holding his face again. Not a part of him will fade away.
He tilts into her touch, presses little kisses against her skin. Something formed and full and broken. Someone looked at. Someone with a name. Someone who exists in someone’s heart.
The warm spot, the good deal. He doesn’t think about deserve. A chance to pull instead of push. A chance to stitch two halves together. A chance to do better.
Maybe he’ll tell her. Maybe someday soon. Maybe she’ll never remember. He doesn’t know. All he knows is this – it will be okay.
He’s home.