Lying Heart

Gwen's voice on the other end of the phone is raspier than usual, but the sound of it is precious to him, like something that belongs to him—he's the only one who ever hears her voice this way. Hearing her say hello is such a relief that for a moment he can't even remember that he's supposed to talk.

"Gwen," he says, "it's uh … it's me."

He hears a sharp intake of breath. Several seconds pass before he hears a very quiet, "Peter?"

That feeling rises up in his chest again—the throat-tightening, fist-curling feeling that makes the back of his eyes burn. There are a million more appropriate things for him to say, but the only thing that comes out is, "Can I come over?"

"Yes," she says, and he can tell that she's been crying, that she's started all over again. "Yes, please, come over."

"Is, um—right now? Is right now okay?"

"Yeah, right now's good, right now's perfect," she stammers.

"Okay," says Peter, "I'm coming over right now." He stares at the spot in his closet where he usually hides his suit. He'd be more concerned about the time it will take to make a new one, but without his abilities it's significantly less of a concern than it would usually be. Right now it's only inconvenient because it's going to take him forever to get to Gwen's.

"I'll be here," says Gwen.

"It might be a little while. Something … I'm not really sure. I have to talk to you about some stuff, a lot of weird stuff, with the robots and OsCorp and—in the meantime, I'm coming on foot, so it's gonna be a little while," he says again, "if you don't mind waiting."

"I'll be here," she says, firmer this time. Peter may be overanalyzing, but it seems to him like her way of apologizing for shutting the blinds on him over the weekend.

Peter tells Aunt May where he's going. She offers him the car, but he doesn't want to drive—he keeps thinking of the recent attacks, and how the people in cars were sitting ducks, and now that he doesn't have even a hint of his abilities working he decides he would rather be safe and underground and spare himself the anxiety.

The F train takes forty minutes to get to Manhattan. Peter usually takes this opportunity to doze, but he stays wide awake, feeling oddly vulnerable. He never used to be jumpy on the train, even way before his abilities, but now that he has been stripped of them he suddenly feels as if everyone can take one look at him and tell he is an easy target. He takes quick, careful glances at everyone in his particular subway car. Everyone looks pretty subdued. Rush hour has long since passed, and besides, most of the traffic would be headed in the opposite direction.

It takes a little while to hike to Gwen's apartment as well. He lets the doorman search his bag—he has nothing to hide this time—then enters the lobby, to use Gwen's elevator for the first time.

"Parker? Is that you?"

Peter swivels in the lobby to face Richard.

"Hey," he says awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

"Man, I don't know where you've been or what happened to you, but the whole school's been talking about it. What the hell went down?" asks Richard.

"It's … a long story," Peter says carefully. He knows he needs a better excuse than this, especially before he goes to school tomorrow. Otherwise there is always the small chance that someone will see the holes in his story and match them to the disappearance of Spiderman over the last few days, and that's the last thing Peter needs. But right now he's so thrown off by the unexpected appearance of Richard—thrown off, and angry, even, because Peter imagined that he was still important enough to Gwen that she wouldn't be seeing Richard tonight, under the circumstances.

"Come on, man," Richard presses. "What happened? Did you, like, run away or something?"

"What?" Peter scowls. "No, I didn't run away—"

"It's just, Gwen's been bent all out of shape," Richard says, looking somewhat defensive. "I don't like seeing her upset." He looks down at his immaculately tied shoes. "You know, I didn't really think you knew each other all that well, and here she was, like, freaking out. She never even mentioned you before."

Peter purses his lips and tries very hard not to be offended.

"We both just … really love science," Peter says by way of explanation.

"Whatever, man," says Richard. Peter takes this as a cue to head toward the elevator. "Don't bother trying to see her, she's not home. I just went up and her mom said she's out studying at a coffee place somewhere."

Peter's back is turned to Richard, so he allows himself the tiniest of smirks. Once he has composed himself, he says, "Oh, I didn't realize. Maybe I'll catch her tomorrow."

"Yeah," says Richard, looking justifiably suspicious. "You know. At school."

"Or I'll just swing by here after," says Peter as casually as he can. Maybe he's trying to push the golden boy's buttons just a little bit, maybe he's just trying to rattle him in the only petty way he can think of. To Peter's satisfaction, it works—Richard's eyes narrow at him in response.

"Gwen and I are studying tomorrow."

Peter nods. "I'm sure the two of you get a lot of studying done."

Richard laughs an airy, impatient kind of laugh. "What's your problem, man?"

Peter puts his hands up. "I don't have a problem."

Richard looks like he's going to snap back at Peter, but a few moments later he straightens up and seems to compose himself, playing the role of the better man. "It doesn't matter," he says slowly, almost smugly, as if he is talking to someone much less experienced than he is. "Gwen and I are dating and I trust her."

This is all the confirmation Peter needs that Richard considers him a threat. And for some reason this makes him feel exceptionally pleased with himself.

Once Richard leaves, Peter takes the elevator up anyway, knocking at the door. He hears feet scurry to the door, hears a declarative yell from one of her little brothers that the guy who doesn't know how to eat branzino is here, hears the familiar click-clack of Gwen's high heeled boots before she swings the door open so fast that her loose hair flies behind her back.

"Peter," she says, grabbing his hand and dragging him inside before he can even react. She makes a beeline for her room, shoving past her brothers and shooting compulsive worried glances behind her at Peter as if she is afraid he might disappear. She practically pushes him into her room and slams the door behind them.

Then they stand there. There is a good six feet of distance between the two of them. Gwen leans against the door, her hand still on the knob, her breathing as choppy and uneven as someone who has just finished a marathon. Peter stares at her as her face crumples in various stages: first it's her eyes, which seem to dart from his shoes to his face to his mid-section back to his face, searching him, making sure he's real; then it's her nose, the way it scrunches just the slightest bit, as if she is desperately trying to ward off tears; then it's her entire complexion, the redness in her cheeks, the way she can't stop her lip from quivering downward, until finally she takes a step forward and takes a deep, resolute breath of air.

"I'm sorry, Peter," she bursts unexpectedly, "I'm so sorry. I should have—I shouldn't have—last Sunday, what I did to you, I—"

"Gwen," he says, startled at her sudden upset. While he is relieved beyond words that she isn't mad at him anymore, he didn't come here for an apology. He takes her outburst as permission to take a few steps toward her, to bridge the gap. "You had every right. I was such a dick, I can't even believe I—"

"No," Gwen cuts him off. "No."

She turns her back on him then, and it's clear that she is trying to collect herself and doesn't want him to see. He doesn't say a word. In the past he imagines how he would have stepped toward her, how he would have pulled her close by her shoulders, how he would have held her and contained her so she wouldn't fall apart.

"It's just that I—of all people—I should know better," she says in a small voice, without turning around to face him. "My dad. Every day he left for work, and even if I was so mad at him I wanted to scream, I told him I loved him. Every day. Because I always knew—that if something happened to him, and the last thing I said to him was—"

Peter feels all the blood rush out of his face. "Gwen," he interrupts, because he is so overwhelmed by this that he can't think of anything else to say. He hates to think of her worrying about him, hates to think that the thought of him reminds her of the father she only very recently lost, hates to think that he is the cause of so much pain in her life when honestly all he has wanted is to keep her alive, to keep her safe. He doesn't want to serve as a constant reminder of all the pain and loss she has endured. He can't handle the burden of that guilt on top of the guilt he feels for everything else.

"You know," Gwen presses. "You have to know that I—that I didn't mean it, that I—"

"Gwen, I know, of course I know, and I knew back then," Peter insists. "You and me," he says, instantly cringing at his choice of words. He stares at her, trying to find the words to express himself, but grasping at nothing but dead air between his ears. "We're not just—of course I wouldn't think that just because of one fight—"

"But that's just it," she says, finally turning around to look at him. She isn't crying, but she looks close to it; her eyes are red-rimmed, as if she has cried plenty of times in the last few days already. "It was so stupid, it wasn't even worth being mad anymore, and then you—" She stops mid-sentence, mouth slightly agape. "What on earth happened to you, Peter?"

Peter looks away from her, toward the window. He clears his throat. "I, uh," he starts, less than eloquently. He presses a hand to his forehead, trying to focus, trying to think of a way to explain this without sounding completely and totally pathetic, because just the thought of waking up powerless in those restraints makes his throat tighten up again. "Well. It was. It's just. Sorry," he stammers, looking up at her just fleetingly, and the lingering hurt in both of their eyes is so raw that he thinks that maybe they're both just one tiny disaster away from losing their minds.

"Hey," says Gwen gently.

He supposes it's meant to calm him down, to make him feel comfortable or safe, and the problem is it's working. The problem is that he wants to tell her everything, wants to spill his guts out and tell her how awful he feels, not just about the shame and the fear he has endured the last few days, but about everything he has done to her.

But he can't. It's not fair to her. She told him once that this wasn't his job, wasn't his responsibility, and the same is true for her. She can't be the one he runs to when he needs someone to pick up the pieces. He knows in his heart that it's wrong.

"We can just sit here," she says. He looks up and sees she is sitting on her bed. Her eyes are wide and understanding and patient. He stands there, feeling lost, wondering how he even got here in the first place. "We can just sit here for now, you can tell me later."

"Alright," he says, almost without awareness. His feet seem to move of their own will toward her and he sits beside her, feeling the mattress give way slightly under their weight.

Gwen shifts slightly, leaning against the pillows on the headboard, and Peter follows her. Their bodies stretch the length of the bed and they're half-laying, half-sitting side by side. There is only about a foot of distance between them, but Peter lays there, his whole chest aching for her, and it feels like a thousand miles.

They lay like that side-by-side for a long time, listening to each other breathe, until it happens: he doesn't know whose hand moves first, or who even initiates it, but their fingers intertwine and lock. For the first time since he left his captor's basement, Peter closes his eyes and feels some form of okay again.

I had to let them be cute for like a second.

Also it's a shame you don't earn money writing fanfiction, because I'm seeing the movie so many times that I'm basically broke. Like, I heard they earned 35 million their opening weekend, and I'm pretty sure I'm responsible for at least 34 million of that. It doesn't help that I bought myself a Spiderman fleecy blanket and matching water bottle. I just. Need to hide my wallet somewhere. I wonder if they make Spiderman wallets!

NO. Somebody stop meeee.