Peter let himself in to his apartment. He strolled in, putting his bag on the chair. Then he stretched, and sighed. Ten in the morning on a Sunday. Captain Stacy cleared. No bloodshed in the secret wars of the spies. Yep, he was on his way towards the end of the weekend with no permanent harm. Then he noticed the quiet.

Harry was watching the television, had a game show on, but it was still too quiet. "Hey Harry, what's up?" he said.

"I sure hope you've been soul searching," Harry said without looking at him, "and I sure hope you found one."

"What do you mean? About last night?"

Harry just shook his head. "I can't believe it, man, I had you figured all wrong." He still wouldn't look at Peter.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked. "I brought your clothes back in good shape, didn't I?"

"Good thing it's just you and me here, Parker, 'cause I understand that sometimes there are things that a man's gotta do. But MJ, she'd have your eyes out by now."

"What happened, Harry," Peter said, feeling his stomach drop.

"Well," Harry said with a deep sigh, "after MJ found Gwen sobbing her eyes out in the women's restroom and spent an hour talking her down, we went to Perkins and had some coffee and talked for another couple hours, then we took her home and MJ spent the night there just in case you showed up for round two. And for future reference, the next time you decide to wreck somebody, leave MJ and me out of it, okay?" There was a cold anger in his voice. Still he did not look at Peter.

Oh no.

The scent at the nightclub.

Ask Parker.

"I gotta go," Peter said quickly.

"I guess you do," Harry said as Peter dashed out the front door.

xXx

Peter hopped out of the car at the Stacy residence and walked up the stairs. Mystique had been leaving here last night. Peter at that moment wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk away, leave the Stacys behind, move back in with Aunt May, abandon everything Mystique had touched. "But this is bigger than me," he murmured to himself. He straightened his shoulders. "This is about what is right, and about pain dished out in my name. I gotta come clean."

He knocked on the door, every nerve on end, already feeling pain before he met their eyes. He could only guess what had been said and done by the creature wearing his face last night…

John opened the door, and he almost flinched when he saw Peter. Peter saw that he had a black eye and a cut on his lip.

For a moment there was silence, then Peter said "Please give me a chance to explain."

John turned from the door and walked into the house. Peter followed, closing the door behind him. John walked into his study and sat in his chair. Peter stood in front of the desk.

"Last night," Peter said, "a master of disguise took my form. While I was trying to find her, she impersonated me and talked to Gwen, then came here. I saw the disguise artist leaving the house and followed her. She won't be back. But I don't know what she said or did while she looked like me. This is the same one who impersonated Gwen to drug you then impersonated you at the museum. I knew about her, from a past encounter, but I couldn't just come out with it. Now she's done her best to wreck my life by attacking people I care about. Please believe it wasn't me last night, that I didn't do or say the terrible things that this person who looked like me did or said."

There was a long moment of silence, and for Peter he felt like he was in freefall in the dark with no idea what the bottom of that long ugly silence held.

"When this began," the captain said slowly and deliberately, "I asked you to trust me, and to help me. You did both. Now you ask me to do the same for you."

"Please," Peter whispered, tingling with pain. "Please believe it wasn't me that did whatever she did."

He nodded. "At some level, even last night, I knew it wasn't you. You don't drink, or do drugs, or any of those other nasty behavior altering activities. In my time on the force I think I saw it all. But last night…" he shook his head. "It was positively eerie. You knew things, said things." He trailed off. "I choose to believe that wasn't you. Both of us know what it's like to do things… alien to our nature," he said, and they both thought of a certain amulet. "I had suspected it was a backlash of sorts from the Wings of Needless Sorrow."

"This feels a whole lot worse," Peter said. "Now the hard part is convincing Gwen. That witch said something to her, something terrible, and I don't even know what."

"Gwen just told me that you broke up with her," the captain said softly. "That's all she said. But her friend was here all night, and just left twenty minutes ago. I suspect that's good for you. She did not look at all pleased."

"I have to face her," Peter said. "I have to sort this out."

"She's in her bedroom, Peter," the captain said, pulling out his pipe and tobacco. "Good luck to you."

"Thank you, sir," Peter said. "Did you hear the good news about Brilhart's capture of the perp?"

"That I did, and the subsequent escape," the captain said, "and I think I don't need to know any more about it."

"Just glad justice was served," Peter said, and he headed for the stairs.

John thoughtfully packed his pipe.

xXx

Peter knocked lightly on the door.

"I'm not hungry," came a weepy voice. Peter braced his nerve.

"It's Peter," he said.

It got very quiet on the other end.

"I don't think we have anything to discuss, Parker," she said in a voice made from the ice of frozen tears.

It took every ounce of courage the young man possessed not to turn around and walk back down the stairs. "We need to talk, Gwen," he said.

"I think we already did," she said.

"That wasn't me," he said. "That was the same master of disguise that impersonated you to your father, your father to us, then me to you."

"You don't think I could tell the difference?" she snapped.

He leaned his forehead against the door. "Actually I was sort of hoping you could," he said in a small voice.

There was a pause, then the door opened. Peter was shocked at her appearance; her face was pale and blotched with red, her eyes puffed and bright with tears, her hair in ruins. He had never seen anyone in such total abject grieving.

"That's the Peter I know," she said in a voice hoarse from sobbing.

"I don't know what this other person said while looking like me," he said, "but this is the real Peter, and I love you. These last few months with you have been great. You are the highlight of my days, beautiful."

"Even like this?" she said with a helpless gesture.

"All I care about," he said, taking her hand in his, "is who you are inside. Right now, seeing you in pain is what's killing me, babe. I didn't do this, but you thought it came from me so I feel responsible. I wish there was a way I could turn back the clock and stop that witch from impersonating me. But I can't. Whatever she said is wrong, baby. This is real. This is me. And I love you." He risked a hug.

She did not resist him, but she didn't embrace him either. He stepped back, feeling a bit awkward.

"Maybe he wasn't you," she said softly, "but he could have been."

"What do you mean?" Peter said.

"He said I was dead weight, that I was just slowing you down, that I was boring. You think I don't notice, Peter? You think I can't tell when you take a break from whatever we're doing to go to that other place, to become your other self, when you look like you're a hundred miles away? You think I can't tell that you walk faster than I do and have to work at slowing down when you're with me? You think I don't know when we're walking through the park and you are something else and then you have to remind yourself you aren't alone? Peter," she said, "it wouldn't have hurt if there wasn't any truth to it. And it's been harder for me to be forced to face that, to face that I'm limiting you, than it would be to face that you're a stupid man."

Peter could find nothing to say, words utterly deserting him. He was defenseless.

"I love you," she said, touching the side of his face, "and that's why this hurts so bad." Tears welled up in her exhausted eyes. "The thing that was trying to be you told me to go back to my friends last night, and when I did they were there for me. You never are, Peter. When anything happens, when it's important, you're somewhere else and I have to face it alone. You don't deserve to be limited, and I do deserve to be with someone moving more my speed. I'm sorry, Peter. I don't know if this is the end of us or not, but I need some space for a while. I need to think things through."

"Sounds like you already have," Peter managed, staggering, unbalanced.

"I don't even know you," she said, her voice quiet and devastating. "When this happened to my father, this weekend, I saw a side of you I never knew existed. You're showing me what I want to see. Every time I trust that façade I'm hurt when it isn't the whole picture." Tears forced her to stop for a moment. Then she went on. "I love you too much not to notice. I love you too much to let it go on. And I have to think about myself in all this. If I don't know you, then I can't trust you. If I can't trust you," she said, "then a master of disguise can tear out my heart."

Peter's throat was swelling, hot fierce tears pushing the back of his eyes. "Yeah," he managed. Then something cold and dark came through him. Enough of this. Enough pain.

"I have to go," he said. He quickly turned, was down the stairs, and out the front door.

Gwen sat on the floor. In her hands was a locket, a locket with no pictures.

xXx

"She had her fun," Peter snarled under his breath, his rapid steps carrying him along the path in the park at good speed. "If I ever meet her again, if that shape shifting creature ever comes under my power, we're gonna have a tiff." Then his eyes shut as the pain swelled through him again. "That's not fair. She couldn't have done this if things between me and Gwen were good. There was a weakness, she just stepped on it and it went from a crack to a snap. Damn her." He heaved a sigh. "Damn me too."

Hey honey, I can run up the wall and shoot webbing out of my wrists. Wanna tango on the ceiling? How hard would that have been to come out with?

"And you shut up too," he muttered to his thoughts.

At least Harry and MJ found her sobbing in the bathroom. No shoulders for you to cry on, strong flippant type.

"Did I say enough already?"

Who ya gonna call? Strange, or Ramsey, or Logan? How come you don't have any normal friends?

"Because I have stupid voices in my head that send me out flying through the trees at two in the morning," he whispered savagely to himself.

Ooh, getting personal now. Okay, have it your way. Time to call Kravinoff?

"No," he whispered to himself. "No, I'm not gonna freak out. This is hard. Relationships are. It isn't over yet. She wants time and space. I can give her that."

And then what? What's gonna change? You gonna give up wall crawling and squirreling? You gonna get an eight to five job, commute home and watch tv while she has a career? You gonna slow down for her? Cause she's not gonna speed up for you, pal.

"Pal?" Peter muttered. "Great. The voices in my head call me 'pal'."

Question stands.

"Shut up," Peter muttered uneasily. "Give her some credit. You never know how she'd take the spider ghost in me."

Really?

Peter let out a deep sigh. He walked up into the gazebo and sat down, looking out over the park. Tears welled up behind his eyes.

No more of this sissy crap, come on. Take it like a man. Tears are for weenies. You really broken up over this? Let's go flying. Find some girl who does want a little spider ghost in her.

"No more macho crap," he whispered. "Maybe I'll just have to go it alone."

You'll always have me.

"And you wanted me to stop crying. I wish I had real friends."

I call it like I see it. Hey, we should get you a new date. Let's go back to the pad and watch the Nature Channel.

"Ouch."

Better than peroxide, some whippin wind. Let's get moving. Come on. You'll feel better.

Peter stood. Yes. Like it or not, he was a mover, and a body in motion can sometimes outrun its sorrow. It was a short trip to the alley, and he left his clothes in a bundle behind a dumpster. Then he was up the wall and moving, wrapped in his protective mesh.

One way or another, the decision had been made. The spider ghost was more important to him than Gwen. Time to get his money's worth.

"Out for a Sunday stroll," he whispered to himself as he hissed through the air from one tree to another.

The tears were absorbed and diffused in the pale eyes of his mesh mask.