Welcome back! For new readers, this is part 2 of a series. I would suggest reading the prologue Fated To Pretend before reading this fic. However, I will post a summary later for those of you who really don't want to read the prologue.
Michelle finally got it together just long enough for them to leave the office and head over to the car. As if on purpose, the school bell rang just as they got out the door. Aunt May tried to shield her from the oncoming rush of teens. Michelle couldn't stomach the idea of being seen by her peers and having this event define her story in their eyes forever, even to those who already knew her.
Her family didn't deserve any of it. In trying to resist tears, she pulled herself into a panic where she was just choking back emotion. Trying to gasp air in quietly, she wanted to relieve her lungs before the sorrow could reach her eyes. She couldn't start crying again. If she did, she wouldn't have the control needed to leave.
Feeling a gradual burn on her skin as though the eyes were radiating heat onto her, Michelle realized there was nothing worse than the feeling of being witnessed in her grief. Looking up to see who was staring, Michelle mistakenly made eye contact with some of the last people she ever wanted to see. Flash and Liz were by their lockers talking when they turned to inspect the source of the growing whispers in the hall. She felt helpless in their stares. People were clearing a path in the hall for her when they saw her face. She wondered if she looked as broken on the outside as she felt on the inside.
"Eyes down, Michelle," Aunt May told her quietly. Michelle realized she was right. Focusing on her feet made this easier. As they made their way through the hallways, Michelle felt like she couldn't breathe until they reached the car.
Peter ran out of Calculus like he was on fire. With the students bustling about, raving over Spider-Man, people were lumped together much more than usual. He didn't even try to avoid hitting people as he ran. The hallways flew past him as he realized he was running too fast for his usual self, but that consideration didn't last a second. Having to grab the door frame to stop himself, Peter scanned the entrance to the principal's office before bursting in unannounced.
"Where are they?" he demanded. Principal Morita, though looking slightly concerned, was not amused.
"They left."
"Where did they go?" With the way the principal crossed his arms, Peter knew this was going to take time. He couldn't spare the chance to catch up with Michelle and May. He had to race time to be able to reach them.
Once again, he raced too quickly through the halls to the locker section that held his suit. With the halls crowded, the students were still at their lockers. Since he hid his suit under the lockers, Peter would have to wait for them to leave.
Catching Flash's attention, Peter didn't startle this time as he approached.
"What are you doing here, Parker?" he asked, though this time the question didn't seem confrontational.
"I'm grabbing something for Ned," he lied quickly, out of breath. One of the taller students next to Flash went back to his point.
"Just when I thought she couldn't look any worse-" Peter was just waiting for them to close their locker doors and leave, staring at his feet and trying to stay off their radar. Flash didn't find a reason to pick a fight and Peter wasn't going to give him one. It didn't even register with him that Liz was standing right there. In fact, he didn't even know what they were talking about.
"You're not funny," chimed Liz in a stern voice.
"Did you see her though? What a trainwreck." He started laughing. Even Flash looked a little stunned.
"Dude!" Liz snapped. The boy only got louder, just as Peter was finally understanding.
"She's plain on a good day but she looked possessed just now. Did you see her, Flash?" the stranger continued. "What was she even crying about? Did someone take her book or something?"
Knowing now that the kid meant Michelle, he wasn't able to grasp what he was doing until he saw the blood on the stranger's face. He didn't even understand what he was doing until he watched the blood coming out of his face. Peter could only stare before looking to the others for help explaining what happened. Liz and Flash were staring back at him like he'd been possessed.
Just before he could figure out whether he wanted to apologize for punching him or if he should just tell him he deserved it, he saw Principal Morita in the hallway. Clearly, he'd followed Peter all the way from his office.
Peter was pretty sure he'd never heard the man raise his voice that way before.
There was a certain kind of physical pain that came with grief. It was soothing to focus on that ache, because it would always be easier to face than the emotion. The pain Michelle felt after holding her breath for so long, the ache in her eyes from crying, the soreness of her throat from calling for her father. It was better to feel that pain than to repeat what happened in that hospital room.
Michelle almost wished she'd never seen him like that. David looked peaceful, as though he hadn't felt a thing. Still, he wasn't the bright happy man he had been before. He was cold and still, lonely. She never needed to see him like this, but it was her own fault for insisting on saying goodbye.
May needed her own time to see him. Despite her immediate flight reaction, Michelle didn't rush her. Just like herself, May was losing everyone. Besides, May had to make more arrangements on her behalf with the doctors. Being that they had no extended family, Michelle was technically the only one able to make decisions about these things. Even then, they couldn't let her have too much command because she was a minor. With her brother away, May seemed like the only reasonable decision maker around to do the paperwork.
Besides, Michelle was too numb to say much. She just meditated on the physical pain she was feeling, drifting further and further away from this room or her own heart and focusing on the comforting ache. Meditating would get her through everything when compartmentalizing couldn't.
It felt like hours before May finished. On her way out, Michelle didn't fail to notice the hospital that treated him was the same one where her father was operated on. It was too far away from his job for that to be a coincidence.
This was a mistake.
In Peter's defense, he didn't even know he was going to punch that kid. He'd sworn off defending Michelle ever since she asked him to. This time it was personal, though. It took Peter a lot of time but he eventually convinced the principal to let him go home. Peter had his suit packed, ready to head home, when he saw Ned in the hall.
"May called while you were in detention," Ned explained. Peter pulled his phone out to check his calls. There were five missed in the time he was in the principal's office. "What's going on? She says you have to stay at my house tonight."
"No. No no no," he chanted like a mantra as he called May desperately. Peter wasn't going to sit on this all night. He was responsible for this. Peter felt he should have known, that he should have told Michelle everything about Oscorp. He'd been through this kind of loss and he couldn't let Michelle go through it alone.
"Ned, I will meet you at your house but I have to go find May."
"Peter, what's going on?" Ned asked, concerned. "You've been acting weird for weeks now."
Peter sighed, realizing he hadn't moved yet because he was partially frozen by the predicament of really reaching Michelle. She wouldn't want to see Peter and he didn't know how to get Spider-Man anywhere close to her with May around. "I'll cover for you but you have to tell me what's wrong."
Peter suddenly realized Ned's concern. Peter had spent so much time focused on Michelle and the robbers he'd ignored the rest of his life. Including Ned. Straightening, ending his rush, Peter accepted that he didn't have a solution to this problem yet and needed to ask for help. "I think something happened to Michelle's dad. They called her to the principal's office and Aunt May came over. I don't know where either of them are anymore. I can't help them if I can't find them."
Though it wasn't as though he'd ever forgotten, Peter had a perfect friend in Ned. Peter was on the edge of breaking down and it was like Ned just immediately understood what he was feeling. This was hitting too close to home and the first person he would turn to was missing. Aunt May couldn't be here to comfort him and Peter had forgotten what it was like to face loss alone. He didn't want Michelle to feel like this. He knew what it was like to lose yourself in a deep pit and he didn't want her to have to face that sort of loss at all.
"We'll keep calling," Ned said, extending his hand to carry Peter's backpack for him. Peter reluctantly handed it over, knowing Ned was right to stop him. "May will pick up eventually. If anything happened, Michelle probably wants to be alone."
The car ride in traffic made May angsty, but Michelle couldn't feel the time pass anymore. Michelle didn't even ask where they were going when she got in the car. The only thing she wanted was to get away from the hospital.
"Does Vincent know?" she asked after a long silence.
May sighed. "No. I called, but there are few regulations on how to best inform him. I figured I should talk to you first."
"They won't let you speak to him directly?" Michelle asked, finally straightening up.
"Possibly. With things like this, though," May paused for a bit, trying to collect herself. "They prefer to tell them in private because it would be too hurtful at visiting hours. Especially in public."
"I don't want a stranger to tell him." They stopped at a light. May regarded her solemnly.
"He will have support. They give him privacy. Someone to talk to. They might give some leeway when we visit." May froze up before slowing the car down. "Is that it? Do you want to go see him today? We could turn around."
"No," Michelle said, changing her mind. "They can tell him." She thought about what it would be like to visit him. Michelle didn't like to show emotion in such a public space, so she imagined the discomfort of her and her brother both falling to pieces around the other inmates and their families. They were both far too reserved for that. She needed to spare her brother her own experience.
"We can visit him tomorrow."
Michelle nodded, done wishing that her brother was in a different situation. They were all trapped where they were and Michelle was done hoping that anything could change. She felt as though it was wise to make her father's recovery mark the last time she felt hope for something so close to a miracle in its sheer impossibility; it was time to reign in her dreaming.
"May, none of it is true," Michelle whispered.
"What?"
"My father was not an addict," she asserted quietly.
"I know that. I just don't know how this happened." Unlike Michelle, it was very clear that in some limited capacity May really believed this was real. Michelle supposed that if she had never met Spider-Man, she would have to believe it too. "He said he threw the medication away."
"They can't just get away with lying like that."
"Who knows, sweetie? Maybe it was the pain. Maybe he just-"
"He knew he couldn't."
"He might have found some. I'm sure he didn't think it-"
"He didn't," Michelle countered, raising her voice. May clammed up, but she didn't get angry. Dialing herself back, Michelle sighed and tried to regain her composure. "I'm sorry, May. I didn't mean to yell."
May simply waved away her concerns, "So where do you want to go? I'll take you anywhere." While Michelle wanted to consider other options, find some way to escape, she knew she couldn't abandon May's side and hide away.
"Home," Michelle decidedly weakly, settling for reality. "I just want to go home."
Peter was crumbling under the stress at Ned's house while his friend was doing his best to keep him together. They were building a Lego Sandcrawler, the latest in collector lego sets that his older cousin had passed down to him. A few pieces were missing, but Peter and Ned were never picky. They did their best to keep their conversation on anything other than their current endeavors, but occasionally a thought would come to Peter and he'd rear the conversation back to May and Michelle.
"Maybe he's just sick," Peter posed. Ned gave him a knowing look. They both knew they weren't supposed to be talking about it. Peter wanted to stop himself but couldn't. "They could be at the hospital right now. I should go." Peter stood and picked up his backpack for the third time since they arrived, convincing himself to run on after them.
"If they were at the hospital, Aunt May would have had you meet them there," Ned pointed out carefully. "You just have to wait. She'll call you back." Peter didn't know exactly how Ned was picking up on his panic, but he gave him credit for always being able to read him.
It wasn't a surprise either, just a mystery. Peter met Ned years before Peter's parents passed away. The Parkers had just moved a few neighborhoods over to be closer to Uncle Ben. Ned was there for the good before the bad. Best of all, he was the only friend that stuck with Peter when he turned into a brat during his grief. He attacked everyone. He lashed out on his friends just out of spite, due to his facing a lot of conflicting feelings surrounding his grief at the time. Ned took it all when he had to, and stood up for himself when it was necessary. He forced Peter back into a mold of the person he was.
So it was not at all surprising that he was able to tolerate Peter's anxiety now. Ned went back to building the Sandcrawler, clearly expecting Peter to join him. With a reluctant sigh, Peter nodded and threw his backpack down again, resigned to stay. Michelle didn't need him, she needed to be alone.
As Michelle opened the door to her apartment, May asked Michelle if she wanted to be alone. The real answer was no but Michelle asked her to leave, her words betraying her again. May mumbled a few words about calling her brother before leaving. Michelle drifted into the apartment like a ghost. Looking around the place, it felt ...empty. The Jones' apartment was usually very clean but with her father sick it had gotten very messy. They were in the middle of sorting it out, so there were boxes everywhere. The half that was clean felt very foreign to Michelle now because it didn't feel anything like their home anymore.
Going into her room, Michelle expected she'd feel more comfortable in her safe space. Walking in though, she only felt empty and alone. Standing within the confines of her once sacred space, Michelle realized a trend. Whenever a small discomfort came, an anxious thought followed.
This time, it came to her mind that she'd never have her father's company again whenever she felt lonely.
Before she could start crying again, she wandered back out of her room hoping to settle her mood. Turning the hallway, she saw the door to his room.
Unable to help herself, she went in. It had been some time since she needed to be in his room. Neither of them spent much time home unless they had to. Michelle preferred the library and her father preferred visiting friends. Neither of them needed each other's constant presence to feel like they were close. Even when they were home, they just coexisted in a room, engaging in their own separate activities. It was comfortable and made sense to both of them and Michelle never once had to explain herself to him. Her father was the only one who understood her that way.
Running her fingers through the books on his shelf, she remembered teasing him for his taste in literature. Though he was a clean man, his room never reflected it. The place looked like he had purposefully torn it apart, but that wasn't anything new. There was a certain soothing feeling within the chaos and Michelle drank it all up into her lungs, thirsty for any remaining connection to him.
Michelle could only focus on the smell. The room smelled like his cologne and she really resented that. It made it harder for her to keep it together. Sitting on his bed and hugging a pillow to her chest, she found the right spot to collapse into herself.
In flashes, Peter felt the memory of time spent in a large stadium, barely full. The air was saturated with the smell of burnt sugar and fried meats. Never one for junk food, he tried his best to swallow the lump of hot dog in his throat, bearing the unpleasant feeling that was coming from his stomach. It was his second hot dog, but he'd always told his uncle that he could eat three without getting sick. Living with him now made it a whole lot harder to hide that he had been lying. His mom and dad were sticklers about health. He was used to the idea of free range meats and organic salads for school lunch. He had never tasted soda, always holding a preference to juice. If he was feeling crazy, maybe even flavored sparkling water.
He was an obedient child. If his parents said no junk food then, even if it cost him dearly, he did not eat junk food.
Hence his uncle's tease "I bet you'd get sick if you ate anything they sell here."
To which a foolish seven-year-old version of himself answered: "I can eat three all by myself."
Four years later, even now that Peter was Ben's ward, Ben was enough of a prankster to hold him to his word. So here Peter was, on the second hot dog, willing himself to swallow again.
Then there Peter went, to the nearest trash can on their walk out of the baseball stadium, vomiting violently just twenty minutes after successfully achieving his goal. This, two days after his 13th birthday, became the most embarrassing day of Peter's life. At least at the time, it was.
It was the first moment in which Peter realized he was dreaming. Still, the dream did not release its hold on him and simply changed the scenery.
Suddenly, he was in Ben's old house. The place was quiet, Peter wandered around, wondering how long this dream would last. Turning the corner, he saw a teary eyed May, wiping away at her eyes in the mirror and trying to put on her makeup. "I'll be right out, Peter."
Even in a dream, his first instinct was to run to Aunt May whenever she looked sad. Peter almost forgot she cried for months after Ben died. He hardly ever saw her. She'd leave notes around the house. Wandering back down the hallway, he found a few on the fridge reminding him of the day's event: the tour.
Peter startled from his dream to find he had been wrestling against his sleeping bag. Checking to see if he'd woken up Ned, Peter started trying to figure out what the plan was. It was clear he couldn't just sit and wait anymore. He was used to having a plan. Even if he was wrong, he always knew exactly what he wanted to do next. Only this time, the only ideas he had were selfish.
Deep down, in the worst part of himself, Peter wanted nothing more than to lull himself back into the illusion that things could be normal, because believing that Oscorp did this to Michelle's father made him think he had failed her after all this time. Her family was crying out for support and Peter was busy telling Michelle she shouldn't steal.
He couldn't have that sitting on his conscious. Before he could spin back into his own mind any further, he got up and looked for his bag. Clarity came to him: Michelle didn't need him, but maybe she did need Spider-Man.
Michelle woke up in her father's bed confused for a moment as to how she got there. She had the momentary bliss of forgetting the day's events before they all came back to her. In fact, this was the third time this happened in the past few hours. She would go back to sleep just for the chance of forgetting again.
Her momentary confusion set her up for startling when she heard a tap on the covered window. Approaching, she realized she knew just who it was before she even opened the curtain. She smiled a sad smile, because while she was happy to see her best friend, she knew this would just cause her to break down again. She opened the window and immediately she felt his arms wrap around her.
Michelle normally willed away that feeling of safety that came with his embrace, but she needed it today. She needed someone who made her feel safe. Even if it meant holding onto a tiny sliver of hope, she needed someone to collapse into so she could cry until the horror subsided. He was that person for her.
A/N: I had so much writer's block approaching this chapter that I just had to push through, with the help of a few great people. Thanks to yesshirtbert for beta-ing this chapter for me while Splendid_Splendont is away. Thanks to her again as well as :idicores for actively motivating me through my writer's block. Thanks to Piddling Golem for finally convincing me to post this.
I really hope you guys liked this. A deleted scene should be posted for this on my fic tumblr (link in my profile) soon.
