Chapter 4

"I'm going to walk you home." I declared once I'd finally made my way through the crowd of students and caught up with M.J.

She groaned in response. "Why do you suddenly feel the need to walk me home Peter?"

"I've always felt the need, I've just never acted on it until today." I explained, feeling the need to prove to her exactly how important this was to me by making my voice as genuine as possible. "It's dangerous out there, you know."

She looked me dead in the eyes, not believing a word I was saying. "You're not going to walk me home." She stated definitely while shaking her head.

"I'm going to walk you home." I repeated, just as definitely as she had. I do believe I had her convinced, or at least given up because she only sighed at my antics. And so it was decided that I was going to follow her home, since she never made any other commands. Instead she toddled along my side while I toddled along hers.

We made our way toward the subway, walking through the streets of New York. I decided to tread lightly ahead with some jokey small talk. "So, how's everything with you?" I asked, for a moment pretending that we were the sorts of friends who asked each other how we were.

M.J. was still obviously annoyed with me and she shot me a glare. But in a moment of what I assumed to be miniscule compassion, she decided to go along with it. "Swell." But before I had a chance to celebrate, she added, "Until you showed up, now I'm just annoyed." Maybe I should have my spider senses checked, as I seemed to have just mixed up compassion with devious intent, a bit of a long shot to say the least.

I refused to be discouraged however. A perfect diversion, I thought. I had just steered the conversation into something the subject had an interest in to forget about the previous interaction — the subject's interest in this case being to insult me.

"No, I don't think so." I countered. "I think I showed up, and you're annoyed, but I don't think those are correlated. Which is an important distinction to make."

"I think those are correlated, because I am very much annoyed with you."

I put on my evidently false tone of concern. "You're starting to sound like a conspirator. Not everything is correlated, M.J." I gave her a crooked smile, like I'd just instilled some knowledge in her, which I knew would make her incendiary at the least.

But before she had a chance to bring down the apocalypse, before she had a chance to reply, before anything at all had a chance to happen, a loud cry from the alley we were just passing was heard and a threatening voice came with a "shut up!" in response.

I had to think fast. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and caused all my senses to calm, which in return made me focus. I could feel every sneeze, every path or probable yawn. Every turn, every escape, every stain or possible mishap that could set everything falling into pieces came and they all came cascading into my conscience. Three people, one was a victim of course, the others not so much.

M.J. ran. Unfortunately, not quite in the direction I had wished she would.

"Don't run to the scene!" I despaired to myself in a hushed panic, seeing as the damage was already done and M.J. was running into the alleyway toward the two large men.

It did give me a chance to get in character however, so not all was lost. I passed the corner, out of M.J.'s sight, and once I had made sure none of the few people on the street were paying attention to me, I slid my mask on. Once I'd gotten that out of the way I was free to get in the suit as quickly as I possibly could without having to mind anyone else.

With a quick locking of my bag to the wall where no one could reach it, I webbed my way upward the roof of the building, figuring I should arrive from a different point than where Peter had last been seen. Frankly, there was a whole art to this double life, an art which had gotten more complex lately than ever.

Thankfully, no gunfire had been heard as of yet, which was a small comfort to my rising nausea. As I gazed over the border of the building, down toward the scene, I prayed they didn't have guns. To my immediate horror however, one of the men was pointing a very much existent gun at M.J., whose hands were stretched out in front of her. "You need to put your gun down." M.J. was saying breathlessly.

I'll put his gun down, I thought in anger. I'll put him down.

In one motion I shot my web so that it latched itself onto his hand holding the gun and pulled it toward me with as great force as I could. Whoops. Turns out his whole body came with him and he was now hanging like he'd just bungee jumped from the top of the building into this alley. Not one of New York's top tourist attractions, but I was quite content with what I'd achieved. Before the other guy could do anything, I shot my rapid-fire web at him in copious amounts until he was soaked in it while the hanging guy kept yelling.

To finish my work of I secured the hanging guy with some extra web to make sure he wouldn't drop and henceforth did the same to the other guy. I allowed myself to take a breath and register the danger to be over before I made my way down toward M.J. As I lowered myself in an upside down position, slowly making my way toward her, I noticed that the original victim was nowhere to be found. It's what I usually call a runner. As soon as the danger is over, they disappear out of nowhere. I was used to them. And in all honestly, I often found those cases a relief. No excessive hugging, no crying to be comforted or thank you's to be welcomed. Clean break. And since it's already honesty hour, I can share that I would in fact probably be a runner myself.

I turned back to an upright position while I descended onto the ground next to her. All she did was stare at me, mystified at what had just happened, before she finally managed to snap out of her trance. She glanced at the ground, to my surprise looking mildly uncomfortable. "So…" She began, sinking her hands into her pockets slowly. I stared at her just like she had at me.

The thought hit me that I didn't have a clue how I was possibly going to get out of the suit and then return as Peter Parker immediately without it being blatantly obvious to M.J. what was actually going on. Or making myself, Peter that is, seem like an absolute asshole. Although on second thought, that ship had already sailed. As Peter Parker was nowhere to be seen evidently.

"Thanks, I guess." She mumbled then, and I took it wholeheartedly. At least there was no excessive hugging. I take that back, please let there be excessive hugging.

But no hugging came out of her, instead she awkwardly began, "…I'm heading to the subw—"

"You don't need the subway." I interrupted in a sudden surge of confidence, how odd it felt that our roles were reversed. With a yelp from her I slung us away from the alley in a flash. I swung us across the city, very much enjoying acting like the heroic champion I didn't typically get to feel like around Michelle. I decided there and then that if I couldn't make Peter a hero in her eyes, I was going to make Spider-Man everything Peter had always wanted to be, in that way, at least one part of me could be content.

Once we'd gotten to her apartment building, and M.J. had in a somewhat drunken manner stumbled in through the window, it dawned on me how relieved I felt at seeing her safe and whole in the comforts of her own home again. It made me frantic, the relief I felt.

"You're an idiot for running into that back alley!" was the first thing I blurted out once I'd stepped inside after her. I wanted to make her feel bad about what she had done, prevent her from doing any such thing again.

"It's my responsibility, spider-guy." She said, her confident self being back with full force. She sat down on the armrest of her couch. Her words threw me back a little. There was very little room for me to argue that point, seeing as it's my own.

"You know you can just call me Spider-Man like most decent people do." I proposed instead.

"Nah, doesn't really sit right with me." She explained casually. "Maybe if you grew a bread." Her suggestion was confronting, and she leaned forward slightly, eyes fixed on their target. She had me just as nervous as I could imagine her intent was, and she smiled smugly.

"Maybe I do have a beard, how could you possibly know?" I contradicted, briefly wondering if her challenging manner could be interpreted as flirtatious or not. But I didn't dare make any assertion.

"I'm just going to have to see for myself." She declared smoothly. In one swift movement later, she was stood right in front of me looking very much like M.J. commonly does. Her trademark flannel on, hair hanging where it usually hangs, which is really where the whole problem of declining control sets of in the first place. Before I had any chance to get used to her close proximity, if I ever could, her hand was already on the hem of my mask.

"No!" I exclaimed and grabbed hold of her arms to stop her from moving so much as a centimeter more than she already had.

"What?" She inquired. She looked stumped. "You're not going to show me who you are?" She asked, sounding more shocked than I had expected her to.

"Well, that would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of the disguise wouldn't it?" I jeered, still with her wrists in my hands. M.J. seemed downright offended at my lack of cooperation, and I let her. This was one of the very few things I was absolutely certain of. No one got to look beyond the mask. Except for the ones who already had.

"Who are you?" She pushed in a murmur, letting her curiosity replace the offence she had previously felt.

"I'm…" I began, unsure what I could say to satisfy her. "Someone entirely different. I don't think you'd like him a whole lot." Which at the moment, seemed fairly true, how could M.J. like me after having seemingly abandoned her a second time. My mood plumed at that thought, leaving me feeling empty.

She looked annoyed while she searched my face. "You do realize the only thing separating you are spandex, right? People have had inner conflict over bigger things. Get over yourself." She snapped. I wasn't sure if her annoyance was leftovers from me refusing to tell her who I was, or something more recent…

"It wasn't the suit who tore that guy away from he out there, you do realize that, right?" She fiercely pointed out the window in the general direction of the crime scene. Her features turned soft and genuine, "It was you." She said.

I watched her curiously. She made it sound so simple, and she didn't just make it sound simple, she made it feel simple. I let my mind notice that we were face to face. Close. I let her move closer, let her hands slip up toward that consecrated hem. I let her tell me she wouldn't lift the whole mask. I let her promise.

Her mouth was now pretty close to mine. I tried and failed at holding back a gulp. "This could never happen." I whispered underneath my breath.

"I know." She whispered back, closer than she'd ever been to the, now bare, lower half of my face.

"It's too dangerous."

M.J. smiled and rolled her eyes. "I know." She whispered with a small hint of sarcasm. "You have to protect me from the face of danger."

I would have laughed had I not been under a minor hypnosis. Eventually I breathed out a distant, "Yeah…"

"Maybe you should tell that to Peter." She continued. The words hit hard and my hypnosis lifted like all gravity was lost. I backed away from her and she frowned confusedly.

I suddenly felt very twitchy, like I couldn't really focus on one thing. The guilt I felt had risen to the surface again. "Yeah, I'll talk to Peter about that." I assured her, appearance now of utmost vigor. "He probably has a lot on his mind. But I'm going to tell him he needs to check where his priorities lie." I rambled while fidgeting badly.

"Yeah, you do that." M.J. humored me with an amused tint to her expression. "And tell him he needs to stop wearing those geeky t-shirts that say things like, 'Why can you never trust an atom? They make up everything!' It's getting a little carried away. Unhealthy, even."

I stopped in my tracks. "You don't like science t-shirts?" I realized subsequently that I was sounding judgmental in the middle of my crisis. "I should go." I stuttered and left that same way I had come and leaving her mouth hanging open, without a chance to reply.

Once I was home again in my darkly lit room I got a chance to look at my phone that had been inside my bag, taped to a building for an hour or two. Eventually, when I'd gone through and replied to all of Ned's propositions and queries and the likes, I read a text Michelle's just sent me.

Where did you go? You just disappeared.

I was sat at my bed, everything around me was either a dark blue shadow or yellowy orange from the streetlights and I was staring at the text. The heroic act from before had worn of and I felt more like Peter Parker than I'd ever felt before. Fuck Spider-Man, I thought. I told myself, I begged myself and I promised myself that if I could do it in spandex, I could in fact do it without.

A/N:

Did you like or dislike anything? Have any general thoughts?

Today has been a pretty shit day indeed and I could really use some feedback. I went to a driver's lesson and my bully from high school, from five years ago, was there. He hopefully didn't notice me but talked to my driving teacher briefly and they seemed on pretty good terms, he seemed so utterly confident. And my driver afterward said something along the lines of, "He's a funny guy." To which I didn't know what to say. I wanted to scream HE'S GARBAGE. But I couldn't. The rest of the lesson I couldn't concentrate on anything and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Anyway, I don't typically write very long author's notes but I just felt the need to put this out somewhere for some reason.

17 August 2017