Lying Heart
Chapter Two
That night Peter is scaling buildings, unconsciously headed toward Gwen's, when the unthinkable happens: he runs out of biocable webs. He raises his arm, anticipating the shift in the wind and the jerk at his core that always comes with another slinging, but nothing happens.
At first he thinks he is dreaming. He is not this stupid, and besides that, a warning light goes on when he's running low. He is not this stupid.
He is also falling, and very quickly at that.
"Ohhh, no. Oh, jesus. Shit, shit, shit," he mutters. The street is approaching at an alarming rate. People are looking up, shouting, pointing. He can practically see their faces, he's so close to the ground. He flails, feeling foolish, feeling humiliated, but oddly not feeling at all afraid.
He lands with an unforgiving thunk on someone's fire escape.
For an indiscernible amount of time he is stunned. He lays there, the wind knocked out of him, staring up at the sky. Thinks about how it's a shame that nobody can see the stars in New York. Wiggles his fingers to make sure they're still working. Hears sirens in the distance, and knows without any doubt that they are approaching because they are after him.
A light flashes in his face. For a moment he thinks he's been caught, but then he realizes it's a camera. One of the building's residents has taken a picture of him sprawled out here like an idiot, and he can't even move to do anything about it.
He opens his mouth to say something, to tell them to quit, but he still can't quite breathe. That is, until he feels a hand touch his mask—suddenly the air comes rushing back, and he throws himself to his feet, knocking the stranger off balance and hurtling their camera off the fire escape in the process.
"Aw, screw you, man," the stranger complains. There are cop cars below them now. The stranger grabs his arm and yells, "I got him! He's up here!"
Peter wrenches his arm out of the man's grasp. The lights below him are so bright and blinding that he is completely disoriented for a moment. His first reflex is to shoot a web at the nearest tall building, but then he remembers how he got into this mess in the first place. He backs up on the fire escape to give himself a few steps' worth of a running jump. The police yell something at him from a megaphone. Peter hurls himself forward with all the strength he has left and barely makes it to the building on the other side, then scrambles up as fast as he can while the bullets kick the brick wall all around him.
He makes it to the roof and runs and jumps until he finds an empty alley. Then he hides in the darkness like a coward for hours. His mind is racing, and sitting still in the dark for so long is sheer torture knowing he could be out on the streets, so he occupies himself with thoughts of Gwen. He wonders what she's doing now. He wonders if she thinks of him often. He wonders if she'll go bowling with Richard, if not this week then the week after that, or the week after that. He wonders about her until it feels like she has burned a hole into his brain.
When he finally gets up his whole body is aching, in places he wasn't even aware existed. He finds some old clothes in a dumpster and changes into them, knowing that there's no way he'll be scaling any buildings to get home tonight. He sneaks in around three in the morning, peels off the old clothes and throws them away, then lays on his bed sleeplessly, feeling the rest of the ache creep into his bones until the morning light.
"Peter?"
He must have fallen asleep, because he awakens with a painful jolt to the sound of Aunt May banging on his locked door and turning the knob frantically.
"Peter? Peter, are you in there?"
"I—I, yes, yes Aunt May," he manages. He checks the time. It's past eight.
"Are you alright?"
"1—" Oh, God. He can't get up. "Just. Just a second, Aunt May."
"Open the door," she pleads.
He barely manages to suppress a groan, trying to peel his unwilling body off the mattress. Just raising his head feels like pushing a wall of bricks forward. Little by little he manages to hoist himself up, swinging his legs to the floor, balancing himself on the bed stand until he has enough balance to walk.
"Peter?"
"Coming," he says, as evenly as he possibly can.
He unlocks the door and she swings it open, tears in her eyes. "Peter," she says, shuffling in the doorway, unsure what to do with herself. She looks him up and down, raises her arms as if to embrace him and then thinks the better of it.
"I'm, um," he says, his entire face turning red with the effort to lie, "I'm just feeling a bit under the weather today …"
"Yes, yes, of course, I see," she frets, stepping past him to walk into his room. "You lay down."
"I'm sorry I overslept," he says. It occurs to him that her reaction was way over the top for him simply sleeping in too late, and yet again he feels the nagging suspicion that she knows something—but how could she, when he was so careful not to leave any traces around the house? Besides, even if she knew he was Spiderman, she couldn't have known about the fall last night. The only picture was destroyed, and the police would never have released details like that.
She purses her lips. "You hardly ever miss any school, one day won't hurt you."
He doesn't mention that he's falling behind in most of his classes. She fidgets nervously, smoothing the covers over him, patting his hair, staring at him for too long.
"You're sure you'll be alright here by yourself all day?" she asks.
He nods as enthusiastically as he can manage. "I'll be fine, Aunt May, I'm sure it's just a 24 hour thing."
She stares at him hard, but after a few moments she nods. "You're probably right," she says quietly. She says she'll bring him up breakfast, but he falls asleep again, waking up to find cold toast and a glass of milk on his bed stand. He stares at it for a moment, then rolls over and goes back to sleep.
Around eleven he finally wakes up, starving and alert. He grabs the toast and wolfs it down, wondering how long it's been since he has eaten. He walks down the stairs still in his boxers, the ache in his body somewhat dulled, and proceeds to eat anything within reach. He makes it to the table with an armload of food when he sees the headline to the local section of the paper laid out on display: Spiderman plummets from the sky! Poser or the real thing?
Peter freezes in his seat.
The article goes on to quote all too many witnesses to his embarrassing incident, and even includes the photo that he thought was destroyed of him laying on the fire escape. He was right that there were no quotes from the police, but everyone else had plenty of things to say. There was, of course, speculation as to whether he was the "real" Spiderman, as apparently less-abled posers were patrolling the streets dressed as him for the thrill of it. People were discouraging the dangerous phenomenon, and while Peter agrees, he is all the more humiliated by the spectacle. He'd made such an idiot of himself that other people couldn't even believe it.
He pushes the paper away from him, thinking of Aunt May's reaction this morning. He hopes that if she knows the truth, she never says anything. He also knows that this means he needs to move out of this house as soon as he graduates. He hates to worry her, but more than that, he hates to put her in harm's way. And if he ever does anything as stupid as he did last night, it will only be a matter of time before his enemies can put a name to the face behind the mask.
He gets to school in time for fifth period. He's early for once, sliding into his seat before even most of the class has arrived. His teacher raises an eyebrow at him and he smirks a bit at her surprise.
The smirk slides off his face when he sees Gwen stop short in the doorway. She stares at him, looking slightly taken aback. The moment only lasts for a second. Then she walks through the room, breezing past him to sit down. Peter looks down at his notebook, pretending to concentrate on an empty page.
"You missed second period."
She's talking to him. He's not sure whether or not he should turn around, but he's turning around before he can really even think about it. The instant he does he regrets it. Her posture is tense, her jaw set angrily.
"Under the weather," he mumbles.
Gwen's expression clearly indicates that she doesn't buy it. "What the hell happened last night?"
Peter can feel the tips of his ears burning. "I don't know."
"You don't know—?"
"I hope you've already opened your lab guides to page 74, we're running a bit behind this week," says the teacher, pointedly looking at Peter and Gwen. "Find your partners and get started."
Gwen turns away and so does Peter. When fifth period ends she already has her books in hand. She abruptly gets out of her seat, looks at him and says, "You are not invincible."
Peter opens his mouth to say something, but she walks away before he can.
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