Reckless

Nothing happens, and Gwen is grateful for it, because she doesn't wake him up after an hour. Peter sleeps like a dead person. Gwen is careful not to leave the apartment, true to her word, and even though she fields several calls from work, noisily heats herself up some soup in the microwave and even drops a textbook on the floor at some point around eight-thirty, Peter hardly even moves. The only indication he is even alive is the rise and fall of his chest and the occasional snore every hour or so that always manages to take her by surprise.

Now that she is sitting here in her apartment with all this quiet, alone for all intents and purposes, she has finally reached some version of calm again. She will not and does not go to the dinner her mother wanted to have with Captain Johnson that night—Gwen wonders if it went on without her, and wonders how it went if it did, and what exactly they decided to reveal to her brothers. Gwen wonders how she would have reacted if she were told by two civilized adults at the dinner table rather than two partially naked, flustered people she barely even recognized in the foyer, but she figures it wouldn't have gone over well either way.

Maybe it's better, that she discovered it sooner. Now they can't sugarcoat it with her or pretend it's anything different than what it is, which is just flat out disgusting, in her opinion.

Given some time to think, she knows at the core of the matter she is being a little unkind to her mother. Her father is dead, after all. And it isn't fair to wish her a lifetime of loneliness to somehow keep the ghost of him preserved on the living room couch. But much to her mother's disappointment, she was and always will be a daddy's girl, and this feels like the worst way for her mother to go about replacing him—she grew up with this man, this man that her father risked his life with and drank an occasional beer with and let his kids call "uncle" as a joke. Of all the men in the world, of all the men in New York, why Captain Johnson?

Gwen normally flicks on the television when she's eating in the apartment, and even though Peter could probably sleep through a hurricane, she doesn't want to push her luck. She props up the textbook because it's better than staring at the wall or staring at him, which she has found herself doing all too frequently in the last few hours.

It's true, what he has told her about his freakish healing abilities, and even though she has known that she has never gotten to see it in action before. Looking up every hour or so it seems like someone has wiped a magic eraser on his face, like the kind her mother uses in the kitchen to wipe marks off the walls. There are some places, like on his arm and just above his eyebrow, where the cuts have healed, the skin somehow gluing itself back together, but there are still some telltale remnants of crusting blood. The bruises fade into blacks and blues and yellows until there is nothing at all.

She wishes everything else in life were so simple, so fast and uncomplicated. She thinks maybe she and Peter are trying to act that way each other right now. Nobody has come close to tipping the fragile balance of their conversations by mentioning the past, or the glaringly large amount of time that they have spent ignoring each other. It's like trying to put a band-aid on a bullet wound, and she can't blame him because she is just as much at fault as he is.

Maybe they should never talk about it. Maybe if they bring it up it will only remind them of everything they have lost, of everything they still have to lose. But what's the point in pretending if she remembers every time he so much as walks into a room?

He moves just slightly in his sleep for the first time and Gwen braces herself, but he doesn't wake up. One of his fists curls around her sheets and his eyebrow twitches. She wonders what he's dreaming about.

Before she can wonder too long, though, she hears the doorknob twist. In the few milliseconds she has before the door opens, she freezes, imagining several unrealistic scenarios—a burglar? Waltzing up to the fourth floor? Or her mother?—or worse, Captain Johnson himself?

But then she sees a flash of red hair in the doorway and remembers with immeasurable chagrin at her own stupidity that she had invited MJ to watch a movie with her tonight after dinner, and it is, in fact, nine-thirty in the evening, just as they had planned.

MJ's eyes are like moons. "What—is that—a boy?"

"Um, yeah," Gwen whispers, hoping MJ will take the cue and quiet her own voice, but she doesn't. MJ's cheeks flame indignantly and she looks between the boy on the bed and Gwen and back again.

"That's Peter Park—mmmf!"

Gwen has never clamped a hand over someone's mouth before, and she thinks MJ will be too surprised to fight back, but without missing a beat MJ opens her mouth and bites down on Gwen's hand, hard.

"Shit," says Gwen, moving her hand away as she shuts the door. "What was that?"

"I'm from Queens, what the hell did you expect?" MJ says, wiping off her mouth and looking, to her credit, a little bit embarrassed. She recovers quickly and says, "Now tell me, what—is he doing—in your apartment?"

"Um," says Gwen, scrambling for some kind of excuse.

"You're sleeping with him?"

Gwen's face burns and she clutches her arms to her chest defensively. "Of course not—"

"I'm failing English because you're sleeping with a boy from our high school?"

"We're not sleeping together!" Gwen stammers. "And you're not failing."

"I will be in another week, thanks to him!" MJ exclaims, and Gwen can tell by the set of her jaw that she is not exaggerating, because MJ rarely gets this worked up about her grades.

"Okay, okay. Let's just. Let's go downstairs for a second and—"

"Open that door—I'm gonna kill him—"

"Hold on," says Gwen, blocking the door with her body. "Just hold on for a second, would you?"

MJ shakes her head. "Gwen, if you're finally getting some action, that's all well and good, congratulations, but I am going to kill him, right after I force him to log on to our damn discussion board and post his part of the assignment—but I swear to god after that he is done."

The door cracks open behind Gwen and she stumbles back as her weight shifts.

"Peter," says Gwen.

Peter blearily looks between Gwen and a very furious, beet-red MJ. "Uh. Hey."

"You," is all MJ manages to splutter, pointing a finger at him.

Peter steps out of the doorway and Gwen scoots out of his way, trying to think of some way to smooth over the situation, but judging by the way MJ's shoulders are quaking and the befuddled look on Peter's face, she can't really think of anything to say to prepare either party.

"I'm Peter," he says, extending a wary hand out to MJ.

For a second Gwen is afraid MJ has forgotten how to breathe. There are muscles on her face twitching that Gwen has never known to twitch before, and she is staring at Peter's hand as if he is offering her two-day-old roadkill.

"I know you're Peter," says MJ through her teeth, "but you apparently forgot who I am, but who can blame you, when you haven't been to class in a week?"

Peter's face seems to register some sort of recognition. "Uh—are you in my English class?"

"Yes, and now I'm about to fail it, thanks to you!"

It takes a second for Peter to understand, and once he does retracts the hand he was offering and awkwardly puts it at his side. "Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. You're Mary, aren't you?"

"Mary Jane," she says angrily, "and if you think you're gonna continue shacking up with my best friend while you're murdering my GPA, you've got another thing coming!"

Gwen can't help the slight amusement she feels when Peter backs away from MJ and stares at Gwen helplessly, his face more mortified than it has been since his awkward, gangly high school years. "No, wait, what?" he manages.

MJ has turned her attention away from him now, and is straightening out her shirt and pulling loose hair out of her face. She looks at Gwen and takes a breath to compose herself. "I rented that movie, we can watch it tomorrow." She touches Gwen's arm and stares at her meaningfully, green eyes blazing. "And don't you dare put out until he finishes his homework."

They watch her until she walks down the hall and the door to the stairs slams behind her. There is a painfully long silence in which neither of them can look at each other. Gwen wants to burst out laughing, but she is afraid it might insult Peter in some way. She doesn't want Peter to misinterpret her and think she is aghast at the idea of them being together, but god, right now the awkwardness of it seems to be saturating the air.

"Thanks for your help back there," says Peter wryly, breaking the silence.

Gwen shrugs, releasing a breath. "Kinda sounds like you deserved that one."

They finally look at each other, and she is surprised to see how close his body is to hers—with her back turned to him she didn't even realize he had only been inches away for the whole conversation. Normally he turns away first, so she looks at him in anticipation of it, but he doesn't. The space between them seems charged and demanding and Gwen surprises herself by looking down at her shoes, feeling a weird pressure in her chest that she hasn't felt in a long time.

"What time is it?" says Peter.

"Oh, it's, uh." Gwen checks her watch. "Around nine-thirty."

Peter breathes out through his teeth. "You didn't wake me up."

"Nothing happened, I didn't have to," says Gwen.

Peter doesn't say anything, just stands there with his back leaning up against the closed door. His eyes are level with the wall across from them as if his thoughts are far from where the two of them are standing. She can't really tell if he is mad at her or not, which is an uncertainty she isn't used to. Peter is usually like an open book to her—even if they didn't share such a heavy, tangled past with each other, his face is especially traitorous in that he seems to have a hard time pretending otherwise when he is agitated. He has always been jumpy and expressive without meaning to be.

He isn't that way now. Just quiet and different and separate.

"I better head out," he says softly.

"I figured."

"Thanks for—"

"Yeah, yeah," she says, shrugging him off with what she hopes is a lighthearted smile, because she doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't know why, but in the aftermath of these moments where they are weirdly vulnerable and open with each other she is always embarrassed, as if she has given too much of herself away in too short of a time.

He looks like he's going to walk away, nudging his foot forward. "Maybe I'll see you around this week?"

Gwen shifts her weight onto her other foot. "Sure," she says, not quite believing him. She thinks about telling him that her mother has informally invited him to dinner again, then decides not to before the thought even fully crosses her mind. "Be careful."

He laughs lowly. "You always say that."

She doesn't know how to answer him, so she watches him cross the hallway and jerk open the door to his apartment, thinking that the reason she always says it is because she is always the one getting left behind.

Owen's face is as white as a sheet when Gwen walks into work the next morning. Not for the first time, they are the only two people in the lab, being the only early risers of the group, so she immediately asks what is wrong.

"Nothing," he says, pulling at the collar of his shirt.

She looks around the room, just to make sure that they're alone, then she sets down her bag and approaches him. He can barely look at her, his eyes flitting from the floor to her face to the counter in rapid succession.

"Are you sick or something?"

"No," he says, his voice low and miserable.

Gwen doesn't want to press him any further, because if it is something personal that he doesn't want to share, she would rather not pry it out of him. She doesn't want to know personal details of Owen's life—not because she doesn't care, but because she would feel inadequately able to comfort him, because he clearly wants more from her than she will ever be willing to give. She sits down, casting him one last wary look, but resolves not to mention it again.

Until his eyes flit over to the mouse cage and linger there.

She follows his gaze and asks, "Where are Bonnie and Clyde?"

Owen's face almost crumples. "I …" He mumbles something Gwen can't quite hear.

"What?"

He wriggles uncomfortably in his seat, a breathy, strangled noise escaping him. "I'm a total idiot, Gwen, I shouldn't have—aw, man. Aw, jesus. I just. You can't tell anyone—"

"Tell anyone what?"

Owen's posture turns ram-rod straight, and he closes his mouth and shakes his head at her.

"Tell me," says Gwen, feeling inexplicably afraid. "Tell me what happened, tell me right now."

Owen doesn't move for a few seconds, but finally, with a stricken sort of resolve, he reaches into his open backpack. There is something square and plastic inside—a cage. "Don't … freak out," he says, carefully keeping it level as he can as he props it up on a lab table.

Gwen peers on the inside. At first she frowns, wondering what Owen's possible motives would be for stealing the lab's pet mice, but then she gets a closer look at Bonnie and Clyde and "mouse" might be the last word she would use to describe them.

She opens her mouth and a horrified squeak escapes her and Owen leaps to his feet and says, "Don't freak out, Gwen, I said don't freak out—"

"What did you do to them?" Gwen demands, pointing a shaking finger toward the cage.

Bonnie and Clyde are now indistinguishable masses of fur and grotesque muscle and bone, as shapeless as dough. To make it all the more horrifying, they're still moving around and making little mouse titter noises as if nothing is wrong with them. She has never seen anything more inexplicably disgusting in her whole life, which is a feat, seeing as she has three younger brothers.

Owen buries his head in his hands. "I injected them with the—well, that night Julie and I were working, she had a serum ready to go before we did the technical trials, and the technical trials were a success, and you know how Bonnie has that tumor, so I—I guess I just thought—"

"Owen," says Gwen lowly, "does anyone else know about this?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know what to do."

Gwen opens her mouth to say something, but she is so astounded by the grotesqueness of their little bodies that she is struck dumb and staring at them. It looks as if every time they move she can see their muscle fibers shifting and reorganizing under their skin. It reminds her of playing with Play-Doh as a little girl.

"I should tell someone, shouldn't I?" says Owen. "Oh, god. I'm going to get fired."

"Did it work?" she can't help but ask.

Owen blinks up at her. "What?"

"The parts of Bonnie's brain that were damaged by the tumor—did they actually grow back?"

Owen shakes his head again. "I don't know," he says, "I was going to check, but then—then this happened."

Either Bonnie or Clyde looks up and makes an especially loud tittering noise in Gwen's direction. She cringes.

"This is pretty gross."

Owen laughs, a painful and jarring noise that seems to cut through the silence of the lab like a knife. "Yeah, it is pretty gross, huh."

Eventually Owen puts them back in his backpack. Gwen doesn't ask him what he is going to do with them, or if he is going to tell the higher-ups in the lab. She doesn't ask him anything else to do with it at all. But she can't help but wonder if, for all its awful drawbacks, this serum Julie created actually worked—and what it would mean if Connors got his hands on it.

When she gets up to leave, she walks over to Owen. "Maybe—maybe don't tell anyone about this," she says, unsure why.

Owen searches her face. "You think so?"

She nods. Something foreboding stirs inside her. She shouldn't be involved with this, in the grand scheme of things these two mice shouldn't even matter, but for some reason she can't shake off this feeling that whatever just happened is bigger than the both of them. "Yeah. For now. I think so."

Owen nods at her solemnly, and that's the end of the discussion. She packs up her things and leaves. Only after she hits the streets does it occur to her that maybe she should have asked Owen how much of that serum exists—if it was in the lab the whole time, and if Julie ever really meant to use it. Would anybody notice if it disappeared?

But she squelches the thought. If the guy who broke-in had any of that serum, they would know by now. Connors couldn't hide that kind of severe mutilation if he tried.

And besides, Gwen has other things to worry about right now. She has a mountain of homework, a discussion section of freshmen chemistry students to lead, all of the issues with her mother, and on top of it all, a certifiably insane ex-boyfriend in a spandex suit who seems to be toying with death every other night.

She forgets about the mice easily. She wishes she could forget about everything else.

Updating from a hotel room on my way to Nashville for the weekend! Trying to get famous and stuff. I'd say it's for my love of making music and the arts and all that mumbo jumbo but really I'm hoping I'll get just famous enough that I'll bump into Andrew Garfield somewhere fancy where famous people go, like maybe the IHOP in LA. Obviously he'll see me and forget all about Emma Stone, because as a British man he will appreciate my passion for country music and foods nobody who wants to live past the age of twenty five should eat.

I'm so glad I have my whole future organized so neatly like this.