Lying Heart

In this moment Gwen looks so vulnerable and exposed, letting the question linger in the air between them, waiting for an answer as if she knows she won't get one. A few moments pass, with Peter looking at her and feeling rather stricken by the question, and Gwen finally letting out a breath as if she's been holding it for a long time. She juts out her lip slightly, in some acknowledgement that the question was out of line, and turns her head back to the computer screen.

"I didn't take that a long time ago, I took that last month," says Peter. "If that's—I mean, it wasn't a 'back then,' it was December."

She doesn't say anything for a long time, and Peter wonders if he has said the wrong thing—if in the moment of her vulnerability he has somehow managed to further upset her. He stands there uncomfortably, the camera still in his hands, trying desperately to think of anything he can say to fix it.

Gwen speaks first. "I broke up with Richard."

"What?"

She doesn't say it again, knowing full well that he heard. "A few weeks ago, actually."

Peter feels the blood draining out of his brain with a selfish kind of relief. A sharp breath somewhere between a sigh and a laugh escapes him. "I—I'm sorry?"

She shrugs.

He isn't sure if she wants him to ask what happened, isn't sure if she wants to talk about it at all. He thinks that if they were just friends, the way that they claimed to be, of course he would ask for the details, ask if she was alright, ask how she was feeling about it. But they aren't just friends, which is something he really has to face in moments like this, when he is standing he torn about what he's allowed to say next.

"After that thing on New Year's," she says, pursing her lips. "Well."

Peter swallows. "I pissed him off, Gwen," he admits. "I mean, he came around telling me to back off, and I—I might have—it's not like he just punched me for the hell of it," he stammers, both feeling incredibly guilty for potentially causing the breakup and wrecking Gwen's chances at being happy and safe and away from the mess Spiderman has caused, and incredibly stupid for defending Richard.

"It wasn't just that," she says, her eyes still trained on the computer, flitting through the pictures they took the other day. He can tell she isn't really looking at them.

Peter isn't sure why he asks, but when he sits back down on the couch, careful to keep a healthy distance between the two of them, he says, "Then what was it?"

She looks up at him as if the question surprises her. She takes a breath as if she means to answer it right away, then seems to backtrack, to change her mind. Finally what comes out is a simple, "I didn't love him."

The words seem to suck all the air of the room, as if they are in a vacuum. Peter can almost feel the pressure of it ringing in his ears. There are a thousand hidden meanings between the words I didn't love him, but the one that is the loudest, the one that he both hopes for and hates, is the idea that she can't love Richard because she loves him.

"That's—well." The instant Peter opens his mouth he wonders what possessed him to do it, when he has nothing at all helpful or relevant to say. "And it's all been—good?"

His awkwardness has at least earned him a small smile. "Yeah," she says, nodding. "I'd feel worse about it. But he's already been hitting on my friend MJ, like, big time, so. He'll be fine."

They fall into an uneasy silence. Peter almost wishes one of her brothers would fly through the door and interrupt them and give Peter an excuse to leave, because he can sense the next few minutes are crucial ones—the kind that always end disastrously for him. He clears his throat and looks back at the computer.

"That one's decent," he says, pointing to a picture of what appears to be half of his face and a part of his shoulder.

"No, it's not." Gwen turns to him. "Can we talk? Is it okay if we talk?"

"We are talking."

She furrows her eyebrows in frustration. "I mean, talk, Peter."

His tongue feels thick. "Okay."

Ironically, almost a full thirty seconds of silence follows their agreement to talk. Although Peter has a fairly good idea of what this conversation is about, he doesn't want to be the one who initiates it, just in case he is wrong. Gwen's jaw is set, her lips a tight line and her eyes focused very deliberately on a couch cushion, as if she is either suddenly afraid to speak, or can't decide how to say it.

"If this—if this whole thing hadn't happened," she says finally. "You know. Spiderman, and my dad, and everything else."

She pauses, and looks up at him to make sure he is following her. He nods slowly.

"Would you still—would you have even wanted to be with me?"

Peter has to divert his gaze somewhere else because he doesn't want to see her eyes, which he knows are wide and hopeful and waiting. He closes his own eyes for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say, the right kind of half-truth. "Gwen," he starts.

"It's just hypothetical. I'm just asking."

No, she isn't, and they both know it. But Peter thinks of that night, New Year's Eve, when Gwen was sobbing in his arms. He thinks of how from the very start of this promise he made, all it has done is hurt her—he can still hear her words echoing as if they are stuck in the confines of his skull for eternity: You ruin me.

It's not fair to her. It never has been. While Peter can handle his own misery over the situation, he has never quite come to terms with the misery he knows he is causing her by constantly pulling away. He doesn't want to be the reason for her pain anymore, even if it means he has to bear the burden of breaking his promise.

He has known this moment was inevitable, has known it since that night he held her in Flash's apartment, so when he finally commits to it, it isn't as nearly difficult to express as he thought it would be.

"Of course," he finally says, so quietly that he thinks she might not hear him. "Of course I would. That's … you shouldn't have to ask me that."

It doesn't seem to make her feel any better. She accepts his answer with a quiet posture that doesn't suit her very well, doesn't seem like the Gwen he knows at all. She absent-mindedly traces the keyboard of the laptop and he sees her nails are all bitten down to the skins of her fingers. He watches them, wondering what other parts of her have changed, what he hasn't let himself notice in the past few months of avoiding her. He wonders if he has changed, too. He wonders if either of them could ever be the same people they were when they first met.

When she looks up at him it is clear that she is wondering something similar, and that one look from her is all Peter needs to know the irrevocable truth about the two of them—it doesn't matter what they endure, or how it changes them, because there is something deep within him that stirs just at the thought of her and he knows he will never feel this way about another person for as long as he lives. He doesn't want to. He can't believe that something this immense, this overwhelming, could ever happen more than once in a lifetime.

"I just wish …"

She has no intention of finishing the sentence. Peter just sits there and lets the words dangle for a moment.

"I know."

He leaves Gwen's apartment around four-thirty. They never really finish talking, which is fine, because Peter knows what will happen if they ever finish that talk, and he doesn't know how ready he is to let himself love her. It almost feels as if he takes this slowly, eases himself into breaking this promise a little bit at a time, it will somehow make it less of an unforgivable act.

When he thinks about it, though, it is probably much worse that he is so aware and conscious every step of the way, so that he really can't blame the circumstances or the hormones or anybody but himself.

This time he remembers to meet Fisher to go skating, and it turns out there's a construction site that's been slightly abandoned due to recent snow in the city that has a bunch of random, large objects strewn around in a manner just perfect for aimless teenage boys with skateboards.

"So why was that Richard kid beating up on you, anyway?" asks Fisher, slightly out of breath on top of a half-built structure they just climbed.

"Huh? Oh. You mean New Year's." Peter watches his feet dangle off the ledge and says, "Mostly because he was drunk."

"But also for that girl, right?"

Peter doesn't like anyone referring to her as 'that girl,' so he says, "Gwen, yeah."

"She seemed pretty pissed."

"Yeah, well."

"You got a thing for her or something?"

Peter looks at him somewhat incredulously. Sure, it's been awhile since he's had a friend outside of Gwen and Aunt May, but this feels oddly like an interrogation more than a casual question.

"She's cute," he says noncommittally. He knows that if he flat out denies it he'll look like an idiot, but really, Peter doesn't know this guy well enough to even scratch the surface on his relationship with Gwen.

Fisher raises his eyebrows. "That's an understatement."

For the first time since Peter met him he feels a genuine pang of dislike for Fisher. He grits his teeth to stop himself from saying anything he'll regret, but he has the distinct impression now that Fisher is trying to goad him in some way. Or maybe this whole thing with Gwen and Richard has just set him so on edge that he considers anyone a threat. He tells himself to let it slide, to stop being so jumpy. This is just normal interaction between friends. Of course it's foreign to him, he spends most of his spare time hanging out in a kitchen with a woman in her sixties who still thinks meatloaf is an acceptable dinner option.

"She single?" Fisher asks, smirking slightly.

Peter clears his throat. "Not sure. You should, uh. Ask her."

He probably couldn't shove his foot further in his mouth if he tried. He stares down at the ground, a good twenty feet below them. He is about to heave a weary sigh and say it's getting dark and he should go home, but just then Fisher unexpectedly startles, veering his whole body around and smashing into Peter with so much force that Peter goes flying off the railing.

He can't help it—his first instinct is to throw his hands out and catch himself. His fingers only latch onto the wood for a fraction of a second before he remembers, and ruefully lets himself continue to fall.

Most of the impact hits his left shoulder and he cringes, letting himself lay on the ground for a moment.

"The hell, man?" Peter calls up.

"Shit—shit, I'm so sorry," Fisher calls back down. "I thought I saw—I don't know, man, I thought I saw a bee coming at me and I just flipped."

Peter considers the complete and total implausibility of this. What seventeen-year-old boy who frequently shreds his knees on half pipes is scared of a bee? Also, what would a bee be doing buzzing around Brooklyn in the middle of one of the coldest Januarys the city has ever seen?

"Are you okay? Shit, Parker."

He hoists himself up. "Yeah," he says, taking longer to stand than he really needs. He sincerely doubts that Fisher noticed that hiccup where Peter's fall nearly stalled, but just in case he did he needs to make this look as convincing as possible.

"I'm coming down," says Fisher, grabbing his board and climbing down the same way they climbed up.

Peter rolls his shoulder. He's fine, really, but it doesn't make him any less annoyed. What if he didn't have these crazy reflexes and healing abilities? What the hell was Fisher thinking was going to happen when he went berserk twenty feet in the air?

"I'm really sorry," Fisher says again once he's closer to Peter.

Peter can't quite help the scowl on his face. "It's fine, it was an accident," he says.

"Your shoulder?"

"Fine," says Peter. Then he sets his board on the ground with a crash and stops it with his foot. "Look, man, it was nice hanging out and all, but I have to get home. It's my turn to make dinner."

Fisher nods. "See you around."

His shoulder still twinges as he heads off into the dusk. On the subway ride home he can't help his mounting annoyance at Fisher, not only for potentially shoving him to his demise, but for his comments about Gwen. Fisher might have had his back that night of New Year's Eve, but that doesn't mean Peter owes him anything. He won't be meeting Fisher out in Brooklyn again.

Friday, man. Friday. Every week I think it's just never gonna happen, and then. I just. I just. Friday, man. It's FRIDAY. I wish I were a better person, but the idea of 48 hours of not watching other people's children is, like, the best thing since sliced bread right now.

Also, I'm five or six chapters ahead of everyone else on the writing bits, which is fun because I totally get to predict the days of the week people are going to hate me for something, and next week ... well.

Friday. God bless Spiderman. God bless us all.