What is he doing? What is he doing? This is bad, so bad, and it can only get worse, and Peter doesn't know how he ended up right back where he was…months ago? A lifetime ago. He should never have gone back to the diner. He shouldn't have asked for her number. Above all, he should never, never have kissed her.

(But he's so glad he did. He wouldn't trade it for anything, wouldn't take it back again, not even if the entire universe was unwinding around them for the dozenth time.)

Spider-Man is a blur of colors ricocheting through a bi-chromatic world. Peter is a mess of dullness sparking with explosions of thoughts and questions (and foolish, destructive hope). Together, the two parts of himself collide across the city like a pinball as Jameson's accusations ring through his head like fireworks scattering his night sky—as the feel of MJ's hand on his neck, the heat of her lips, burn through him like a bonfire.

He noticed. J. Jonah Jameson has noticed the absence of Peter-Parker-as-Spider-Man. That's dangerous. It's worrying. It's enough, all on its own, to send Peter into a self-destructive spiral because if the media still guesses, still discovers, still unmasks him, then what was the point of all the sacrifices, the losses, the pain, the loneliness (May) for?

Those are the kinds of thoughts he should be focusing on. They're very important, very rational, top-priority, red alert kind of stuff, and a real hero would think of the greater good and set aside selfish desires and be responsible for the power he doesn't deserve.

But. What Peter is really thinking, what's occupying almost all his braincells, is the idea that if Jameson can notice an absence…then so could someone else. Someone who should have countless pictures and text threads and call histories and sketches (she only ever showed him a couple, but she blushed when she did so he knows there were more) and…and an ache in her heart to match his own.

(Someone who wants him close and draws him in and looks at him so invitingly and lets him kiss her as if he never almost got her killed.)

I'll find you and I'll tell you everything, he promised, and in that moment, hurt and still raging but defeated and so stupid, he'd been telling the truth (or thought he was). Only after, when she smiled at a stranger and confessed to being excited about MIT instead of expecting disappointment (Something's different this time, she said, and the only thing that changed is him, no longer present to drag her down with him and make life harder), and she didn't hurt anymore, well, that's when Peter became a liar as well as a ghost.

But if she guesses (remembers) on her own…that's outside of his control, right? That's not his fault. MJ's smart and perceptive and sees him in a way no one else ever has, and she said she'd figure it out again (she promised, and unlike him, MJ is unflinchingly honest), and maybe…maybe she will.

And maybe when she does, Ned will too. Maybe they'll both remember Peter, and maybe they'll both hug him again, squeeze him between them until he remembers what it is to be warm and the colors come back and he can finally breathe without pain.

And then maybe another bad guy will come after him and they'll be between him and the danger and there will be a collision and they'll promise they're okay (I just need to catch my breath, Ned will say; it's just a scratch, a bump, MJ will promise) and he'll have to hold them in his arms whispering desperate (useless) apologies while the light fades from their eyes and their bodies grow so cold it chills the marrow in Peter's bones and he'll have two more graves to visit alone.

His fault.

Peter misses a grab for his webline and falls through the air. Crashing in a tumble of limbs atop a rooftop, he sprawls out on his back, breathless and gasping—not from the sudden drop or too-quick landing, but from the images stamped in technicolor over every inch of mind.

Ned—still and silent, stained crimson.

MJ—small in death, fragile in brokenness, blue with the same cold that afflicts him.

And Peter, gray and lonely, fading into a ghost, into nothing, unable to ever save enough people to make up for the lives he's cost.

His hand shakes when he pulls out his phone (thankfully with no new cracks from this latest stumble) and calls one of his scant contacts.

"Hey, Peter, what's up?" Ned asks. So cheerful. So defenseless.

"Hey, man, I know we were supposed to meet up tomorrow night for nachos and Legos, but I, uh…I picked up another job. I'm not going to be able to make it after all. Sorry."

"No problem. We'll reschedule." Ned heaves a heavy sigh and Peter can picture him (alive, well, happy and safe) sagging in his seat, smiling at his Lola, facing a mountain of homework he procrastinated on without Peter there to remind him and MJ to settle them to task. "Probably best, you wouldn't believe how many essays they expect this semester. That GED route is looking better all the time."

"You can do it," Peter manages through the Death Star-sized lump in his throat. "You're going to nail the essays and then do the same at MIT."

"Ugh, let's not talk about college yet," Ned says, but Peter can hear the smile in his voice. "Anyway, I'll catch up to you in a bit, yeah? Have fun on your job."

"Good luck, Ned," Peter says.

His phone goes dead (but Ned's alive and it's an even trade).

"Goodbye," he whispers to the night.

His lips still tingle with the feel of MJ's kiss (but he's Spider-Man and a tingle is a warning is the foreknowledge of disaster is the opportunity to avert disaster before it happens and he can't ignore that).

Peter huddles into a ball, lets his mask soak up his tears, and shakes with the cold.

For some reason she can't remember, MJ signed up for a photography elective this semester. It's not her medium, she doesn't enjoy it, but without really realizing it, she never quite drops it either. Which means that on top of looming finals, MJ finds herself tasked with helping pick out photos for the yearbook (well, she's one in a committee of people with the task, so it's not especially pressing, and yet, she hates giving less than her best so here she is).

It's strange. At first, MJ applies herself with the barest minimum of effort as she flips through the digital pictures. But as the years pass in pixels and colors, she finds her attention zeroing in on the glimpses of her class. There's the five year gap, of course, and the fact that they're supposed to be finding enough pictures of both the blipped kids and the non-blipped seniors, but that's not what grabs her and makes her start searching with intention.

MJ hates pictures of herself (not in a phobia, paranoid sort of way, just in the usual way of not caring to see her face awkwardly smiling for posterity she doesn't care for), but today, for some reason, she searches out the pictures of herself. And with every shot, every clumsy pose, every candid, she finds herself growing more and more confused.

For most of her life, MJ's worn a mask. She knows it (she chose it, the only way she knew to not care about how out of step she felt with kids her own age). What she didn't know until now is that somewhere along the way…she let the mask go.

In freshman year, she sees herself looking out at the world through a carefully blank expression and a thick lock of hair intentionally placed every morning between herself and everyone else. Even when she started joining clubs at her dad's insistence, her hair always hung heavily over her eyes, a mask that made her feel a bit safer, the removed distance her way of controlling the world around her.

But then sophomore year, junior year, the pictorial evidence proves that that lock of hair got pushed back behind her ear more and more often. It thinned. MJ appeared more frequently in photos, on the edges of groups, her and Ned usually near each other, sometimes wearing their mustard yellow Decathlon jackets, a curious space always between them no matter how thin her mask became (and MJ knows about the mask, but she forgot, somehow, that she still, even now, keeps a strange distance with Ned, her best friend).

It's the pictures of the first semester of their senior year that confuse MJ the most.

The mask is gone.

She began braiding her hair back (when? why? she doesn't remember a conscious decision at all) and faced the world head-on, without the veil between, but it doesn't make any sense because she knows just how big a change that is. She knows how scary that would be for her. Something would have had to motivate her, inspire her, even, to get her to strip her hard-won defenses away. And nothing happened last semester. Sure, there was that summer trip to Europe, and the danger that had followed them from country to country, but…then she'd come home. And…and then…then everything was the same. It's still the same.

(Isn't it?)

And whatever it is, whatever made her brave enough to try something new and stronger, it's gone now.

MJ looks up from the computer screen to the mirror hanging on her bedroom door. Her reflection stares back, a thin lock of hair that hangs over her eyes fluttering with her exhales. She nearly laughs at herself when she realizes that her hand trembles as she reaches up to tuck that stubborn bit of hair behind her ear.

She doesn't recognize the girl staring back at her (she looks nothing like the bold, smiling person in these earlier pictures). It's not the same. It's different. It's weird.

Letting her mask fall back over her eyes, MJ spins in her chair and looks toward the shelf with all her sketchbooks, lined up chronologically, some of them neater than others, a few barely more than loose sheaves of paper haphazardly placed between rubber-banded covers. She hates looking back over her earlier work. It either depresses her (she used to draw so much more; when did she lose all her inspiration?) or embarrasses her (sure, everyone has to grow up and mature, but not everyone has such glaring proof of their own previous weaknesses and flaws and fears).

With another glance to the picture on her screen (MJ and Ned, side by side with a person-sized gap between them, Ned smiling wider than she's seen from him in a while and herself relaxed and easy, actually laughing), MJ rises and picks out a sketchbook from the year before. It feels battered and threadbare, the covers barely able to close, pages nearly falling from them (so much thicker and well-used than the sketchbook she began with the new year).

When she lets the cover fall open, all she sees are blank pages. Not every page (there are quick impressions of sights from Europe, sketches of Ned, a few profiles glimpsed people-watching, some dizzying drawings of what looks to be the city from a high vantage point that she doesn't remember ever seeing to jot down), but enough that this sketchbook should look nearly pristine. MJ flips through the papers, holds them up to the light, dusts her fingers over the tiny initials she puts to every drawing. Here, though, her signature hangs on white pages, tiny black breadcrumbs to show just how much is missing.

MJ looks from the black and white pages to the colorful photos on her laptop, feels her heart pattering in her throat at a million miles per hour, and tries not to have a panic attack.

Peter visits May's grave. He doesn't know her favorite flower. That seems like something he should know, like vital information he should have learned on a Mother's Day or a birthday or just any random day. Now he'll never know and that fact hits him like a thunderbolt sent from Mjolnir itself so that he falls to his knees over her buried coffin and nearly shakes apart.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. It's all he ever says to her (it's never enough).

Before he leaves, Peter makes himself look over the rest of the cemetery, tries to make himself imagine what it would look like for there to be two additional headstones here, one for Ned, one for MJ. Squeezing his eyes shut, Peter promises himself (promises May) that he won't let that happen, not ever, no matter what it costs him, and then he walks away.

He sold more photos. It's become such a painful pleasure that Peter wonders if he's secretly a masochist. The articles Jameson uses the pictures for are so critical, so over-the-top vindictive that Peter would laugh if there wasn't a grain of truth underneath it all (he is a menace and he has a trail of bodies to prove it).

Spider-Man doesn't have to take breaks now, not when it's photos of him in action that bring in money enough to not have to sleep out on the streets (though he does rest, sometimes, when Rhino gets in a lucky blow, or Kraven gets in too many hits before Peter outthinks him, or some random burglar surprises him). So he keeps busy. He branches out (just not to Hell's Kitchen; the last thing he needs is Daredevil taking umbrage at him intruding on his turf), hits more places, starts to actually talk to people until he actually has contacts (like a grown-up; like a real hero) that call him when gang action picks up.

He's putting down roots, he thinks. He didn't, before, when MIT was a dream on the horizon and Boston was calling his name. But now…well, now, NYC is his future and his punishment and his privilege (his responsibility), and gradually, bit by bit, Peter carves out a routine for himself.

(And if, sometimes, he starts swinging in a certain direction, if he sits on a rooftop where he can see an ordinary diner, if he feels so cold and longs for a cup of hot chocolate, well, even Spider-Man probably gets a fifteen every once in a while.)

His phone sits in the hidden pocket of his suit, a brick that seems to get heavier every day. Occasionally, Peter pulls it out and looks at the contacts that matter.

Ned.

MJ.

Ned texts him, complaints about homework, news about sci-fi shows, questions about how he's doing, when he has time, how many jobs he's picked up, is he okay.

MJ…well, she doesn't text. Not a lot.

He went to see her, the day after their kiss (he promised, she was expecting him to drop in during her shift). She smiled to see him, and didn't let him pay for his hot chocolate, and when he told her that he'd gotten a regular job, she was so happy for him (relieved because she's more caring, worries more, than she wants anyone to know). He told her he might be away for a bit, and she said she understood, and when he left, he called on every bit of strength he learned from Captain America and the Avengers, every bit of pretense he picked up from Mysterio, used every ounce of resolve he's ever had to find inside himself—and he didn't cry.

This is for the best. It's what's best for her.

So she doesn't text often because she thinks he's busy (and he is, there's so many supervillains, he has no idea where they all come from) and because she's slammed with schoolwork and preparations for graduation in a month and MIT in the fall. He's careful to text her back if she ever reaches out (he was MJ's first boyfriend, he remembers her telling him that, shy and bashful and clumsy, and he thinks he is the first boy she remembers kissing, and he won't ruin this all at once for her; he'll let distance and life and college do it for him), but he never texts her first. Never calls her.

Though he thinks about it, constantly.

In fact, he holds whole conversations with her while he's patrolling. It used to be Karen that he talked to, and then Ned, his guy in the chair, and then MJ too, all of them with him even when they couldn't follow him into the line of fire (not that it mattered; he always brought the fire back to them). Now, it's imaginary MJ. MJ the Mirage, he calls her (because that's all she ever was, isn't it, their relationship tainted by Spider-Man even before the end of their first date, in London, then in New York).

"I really miss you," he tells her.

"It's better this way. You'll be better without me," he promises (hopes he's lying; knows he isn't).

"I hope you're happy," he says, wistfully, when he stares at the diner from afar and imagines walking in there (but never for long, he can't risk giving into the temptation). "I hope you get everything you deserve."

That's just not him.

So he's Spider-Man, and gradually, bit by bit, Peter Parker fades into the mask, a gray ghost beneath the brilliant sapphire and crimson of the superhero, a fading remnant of a life erased from the universe by magic too powerful for him to ever tamper with again.

And eventually, he stops dreaming (and the colors fade entirely).

"Have you heard from Peter lately?" Ned asks.

MJ looks up from the coffee pot that remains stained brown no matter how hard she scrubs at it. "About what?"

"About anything." There's a frown on Ned's face that sits wrong on his features, unfamiliar. Worried. "He barely texts at all anymore. I don't think I've talked to him in, like, three weeks. And he's always too busy to hang out."

A pit opens in the center of MJ's stomach. "I haven't seen him for a while," she admits.

She noticed, of course, his new distance. How could she not? The night after their date at the zoo (the night of her first kisses), she dreamed of things she never let herself imagine before, laughing dates and heated kisses and swapped clothing and always having someone who wanted to hear about her days. And then, none of that happened.

"But he got a new job," she reminds them both. "And come on, we both know he needed it."

They exchange a quick look, both of them thinking of the threadbare quality of Peter's coat, the way he's always hungry, the hollows in his cheeks, the bruises he can never fully hide.

"I know, it's just…" Ned plays with the sugar packets she shoved his way when he insisted on black coffee (he thinks it's more becoming of a future MIT student and nothing MJ says can convince him otherwise). "He always…he seemed really lonely. Didn't he?"

MJ's been studying for finals, writing essays, getting her housing situation in Boston worked out, picking up extra shifts whenever possible (looking through all her old sketchbooks, comparing photos and sketches and memories, listing out things that don't make sense, silhouetting blank holes in her memory). She's texted Peter, when she misses him and can't distract herself from it anymore, but her attention has been divided.

It takes Ned and his unfamiliar frown to jolt her into admitting what she's been avoiding.

"Guess he found new people to hang out with," she says.

Ned lets her words hang between them until she can hear the unlikelihood of them herself.

"He's hurt a lot," he says when MJ frowns and drops her gaze.

"I know."

"And he wasn't in school. Did he ever tell you why he had to get a GED?"

"No. You?"

"No." Ned meets her eyes. "Do you know where he lives? Because he never mentioned it to me. And he never came over, no matter how many times I invited him. We always met at some neutral location."

"So did we." MJ hesitates before confessing, "He walked me home once. But…I didn't invite him in."

"He wouldn't have gone," Ned tells her consolingly (had she sounded like she needed consoling?).

"What…" MJ pulls out her phone and tries not to feel sick at how long it's been since she's texted him. The last text on their thread is from him (he always replies; never initiates). It's almost two weeks old.

Sure, there are pieces of her life missing, but has she really been that distracted?

"Do you think he's okay?" she asks. Her voice shakes.

Ned is quiet too long. "I think we should find out," he finally says.

"He signed up for a library card," she says. "I know some of those librarians really well. Maybe they'll give me his address?"

Blinking, Ned stares at her. "Okay. I was thinking we'd just text him or call or something, but, yeah, your idea is way cooler."

MJ rolls her eyes to hide the heat in her cheeks and (before she can think herself out of it) calls Peter.

It rings and rings and rings. No voicemail (how did she not know that?).

She calls again. And again. This time, he answers.

"MJ?" He sounds panicked. Terrified. "Are you okay? What is it? What's wrong?"

"Peter, hey." She sends Ned a look that probably resembles Peter at his most deer-in-the-headlights (though she'll never admit to it). "How…how are you?"

"I'm… Are you okay?"

Her brow furrows and MJ turns slightly away from Ned, who's trying to listen in. "Yeah, of course. Why? Why would you think I'm not?"

"I…" She recognizes the laugh as the one he forces when he's lost inside his own head (he made the same laugh a lot that night she and Ned ran into him at that Thai restaurant). "You just…called. A lot."

"I haven't heard from you in a while. Ned and I were worried."

"Oh."

She doesn't know what to do with that oh. A single syllable, but it's heavy enough to crush mountains.

"Are you?" she asks. "Okay?"

"Yeah. Just…I've been busy. With, you know, my new job."

MJ puts him on speakerphone and lets Ned lean in over the phone on the counter between them. "You never said what it was."

"It's…actually, you know what, I'm kind of at work right now, so maybe I could call you back? Or text you?"

"Peter." MJ and Ned look at each other, both of them helpless, stuck. "I miss you," she blurts.

There's a crackle over the phone (she thinks it's a gasp, or a sob; something that would have made her embarrassed if Peter were in front of her rather than who knows where).

"Can we see each other?" she pushes on. "Please? I can come to your place after you're done with work." Ned's wide eyes alert her to just how forward that idea is, and MJ blushes and adds, "Ned could come too," ignoring his frantic head-shaking.

"Oh. I…"

"Please, Peter."

"When do you work next?" he asks quickly. "I can drop by."

When Ned nods, MJ says, "I'm working right now. You think you have a few minutes to hang out?"

"Not…" Peter takes in a shaky breath. "Tomorrow?"

"Okay. I work the evening shift."

"I'll see you then."

"Bye, Peter."

A long pause, then, so softly she nearly misses it, "Goodbye, MJ."

"Do you think he lives on the streets?" she asks when the call disconnects. "Or with people who hurt him?"

"I don't know," Ned says. "I just…I think we should find out."

"You think he'll let us?"

"I think he's lonely," Ned says again. "Maybe that will be enough."

Sudden anger spins through MJ (anger at herself, for not worrying more; at Peter, for not confessing more; at Ned, for making her think of this at all when she already has enough on her plate) as she turns back to the dishes. "You think he'll let us help him? Because I don't. I think he's coming tomorrow to say goodbye forever. And I think he's going to walk away and never look back and we'll never hear from him again and we'll never know why and all his promises won't mean anything."

The coffeepot she's been trying to clean shatters in the soapy water. MJ stares down at the basin where glass pieces reflect back pieces of her reflection (her mask hangs over her face, intact enough to hide the watery state of her eyes).

"What promises?" Ned asks from behind her.

MJ doesn't answer (she doesn't know).