Chapter 1

Meet Cute

Peter found himself in an unfamiliar room, half naked with a dry sock in his mouth. On the upside, the sock was his dried up tongue. He wasn't restrained. He wasn't wearing his mask which… was a very, very good thing. But he was half naked from the waist down, clothed in only one of those full-body doilies they dished out at hospitals.

Did they still do that? He hadn't been to one in longer than a year, but what if they changed the rules in that year? And now anyone who was admitted needed to bring their own robes or it would get charged to their bill? He could barely even afford rent, much less hospital bills-

He stopped himself. Priorities.

A pneumatic hiss signaled the doors to the room opening – Peter had it pegged as some sort of laboratory that had been emergency cooped as an examination room. Luckily, he wasn't on an examination table getting dissected by Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman because an alien had laid eggs in his throat. As far as he knew.

When he heard footsteps he noted their pace and sound – couldn't have been Torch – he would have flown. Couldn't have been Ben Grimm, he would have sounded like a granite golem. And it couldn't be Reed, because he had the creepy habit of stretching his head into a room while he multitasked doing God knew what else. Peter's stomach fell at the thought of it being Sue – because who else could it be? He was half naked and unmasked with all of his Zoro-like confidence gone and replaced by his lack-of-an-old-costume blues, and she was a pretty blonde who'd given him comfort in his fantasies beyond nightmares of getting evicted from his apartment. She was the nicest blonde he knew, so of course it was Sue.

Peter stayed the course in staring at the ceiling like an inmate on death row when he saw a splash of blonde hair enter his peripherals. He looked down and saw… Sue.

Sue had shrunken.

Apparently he wasn't the only one having an off day.

It obviously wasn't Sue. Probably obviously. Probably-probably, but knowing the stuff the F4 got up to… no, it couldn't have been. Peter was staring and blinking at her; the resemblance was there. Or maybe to him, all blondes looked alike and he was The Hair Color Bigot ™, since Sue looked like Gwen Stacey, and Gwen Stacey looked like that one female punk rock singer he didn't like, but couldn't help but dreaming about every once in a while of her in his lap and her tongue down his throat

Priorities, Parker…

What set this particular blonde apart from any of them, aside from being funsized, was… actually that was about it. She was barely tall enough to peer over the gurney. Peter blinked down at her. Long, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, horn rimmed glasses. She looked to be half his height and a few years younger than him at least, but she stared up at him with the expression of an old college professor. If college professors were little girls who were too small to properly rock the scientist get up that they wore. The oddness of the situation was like a mask in its own right.

Peter's mouth opened before he could truly process what he was saying. "So, come round here often?"

"I live here," she responded. That was good. Usually he couldn't get most blondes to give him the time of day, anymore.

"Beggars can't be choosers, I get it. Economy's rough." He pointed at himself with a smarmy look on his face. "I live underneath a bridge." He left out the part about it being a building that was owned by his best friend's father, and paid for by his best friend, his best friend's girlfriend, and only occasionally by himself, because it was far more likely he was going to be finding another bridge in the Bronx to sleep under. Sometime soon.

The girl looked unamused. Her face was so untouched by anything, nearly porcelain perfect, Peter wondered if she wasn't just an animated doll with a voice. If Ben Grimm could walk around like someone had put a bunch of octagon bricks together and the Hulk could look like the Jolly Green Giant's steroidal younger brother, and Peter himself… could crawl on walls, not exactly the most spectacular thing but it was still fairly freaky, who's to say someone hadn't bippity boppity boo a life-sized doll into becoming a real girl?

"…Peter Parker," she said, and for the first time Peter noticed she was holding a clipboard. "Spider-Man."

Peter blinked and turned this way and that, wildly. "Where?"

He thought he saw a ghost of a smile on her face then, before she looked down at the clipboard. "You almost died today."

That sounded about right. Peter nodded along. "It's a semi-daily occurrence, give or take."

"You also tried to kill my Uncle," she said.

Somehow Peter had a guess as to who her uncle was. Maybe it was the blonde hair, blue eyes, and the fact that she rolled her eyes the same way Sue did when referring to him. "Have you met your Uncle?"

And then Peter was sure she smiled, just a little. "I don't blame you. I prefer to call him Uncle Johnathan. He hates it when we call him that."

"Duly noted," he said, but paused. "I… did I really do that?"

She let out a heavy sigh for someone her age and walked away from him. Peter had to put it anywhere between too young to be old, and too old to look that young. There was a table and chair, off out of his vision that she set the clipboard on. She pulled out the chair and sat in it, all the while Peter was a little disappointed that Reed hadn't hooked up some kind of floating chairs in the place. If you were a real life Stretch Armstrong and your wife was… Ms. Invisible-Construction, he supposed that something like that wouldn't be necessary.

"You were under the influence," she said, kicking the chair, with her in it, over to his gurney. Peter bit his tongue to keep from making a joke. So he made another one.

"Oh, I hate being under the influence. It's really heavy and I don't hit the gym as much as I should." She stared blankly at him for a moment, as if telling him to stop talking. Far be It from him to not disappoint a blonde, but he did anyway. "So, how long did it take you to be able to sit in a chair without having to hop in one?"

The girl exhaled. Peter's lip quirked. Getting under people's skin had always been an unfortunate knack of his, along with his mouth, and he hated himself. Harassing children now, Parker? he thought. No wonder why you can't get a date…

"I'm told that when by the time I was one, I had sufficient enough capabilities to move and stack books to… 'help' me," she said, straining at 'help'.

"Hey, so did I," Peter nodded along, lying through his teeth. "So which books we talkin' here? Barney, Big Comfy Couch? Where the Wild Things Are?"

There was an edge to her voice as she responded. "Textbooks," she said.

"Huh," Peter said. "So, what, fairy tale anthologies?"

She blinked. "You are absolutely insufferable. I can see why my uncle hates you."

A small part of Peter felt ashamed that he'd just been insulted by someone younger than him. The rest of him laughed, momentarily forgetting that he was half-naked, in front of someone younger than him, and had almost been eaten alive by his costume – which had been an alien that may or may not had been planning on using him like a skinsuit. "Thank you," he said with what he was sure was the exact opposite of a handsome, boyish smile. His lack of appointments in his itinerary said as much…

She visibly refrained from rolling her eyes. "My name is Valeria," she said, putting a hand to her chest and speaking with dignified poise. Peter suddenly had the impulse of holding a toy over her head and making her jump for it. "Valeria Richards."

"What a coincidence," he said, smiling. "I'm Thor."

"No, you're not."

"You got me," he said. His smile disappeared, replaced with a frown. "Reed and Sue don't have a kid," he said. "I mean, I assume Sue, because-" and he gestured at her, and it was her turn to frown.

"…They didn't."

"Thought so. And unfortunately for them, I've known them for a bit. And in between that and getting fastballed to another planet, I never saw any chance for Sue to drop one out. No offense."

Rather than looking offended, she just looked at him. Or through him. Her hand to her chin and her elbow on her leg, it was like a doctor looking at a patient with severe psychosis. That last part was likely a judgement call, but Peter, having a sufficient enough background in the scientific method as he did, had the unnerving feeling he was being observed. Inspected. Studied.

"She 'didn't'," Valeria agreed. "Not yet. Not… here."

Peter's mind fast walked along at a leisurely and he responded in less than a second, his eyebrows raised. "Huh."

Valeria nodded, apparently thinking they had found some common ground. "Yes. 'Huh."

"So did a Tony Stork dip out of the Negative Zone to drop you off?" Peter asked, biting his cheek. "Why doesn't anyone ever get me anything…?" Valeria looked at him, rubbed her forehead, and then left. Peter called after her. "Do me a favor and ask for some men's boxers? XL! Normally I wouldn't mind if you got them for me, but I don't want to be put on any lists!"

Only the pneumatic hiss of the door answered him.

The chance to run his mouth had been just what Peter needed to get his mind to jog out of the clogged gutter it had been in. But in the silence after Valeria left, it continued to walk. And then it was jogging, and then then running. And then full blown sprinting. He could sprint fairly fast, too. Alien battle royale planets, alien costumes, alternate universes and late rent. Somehow, in that sad way his life did, it all made sense. Things that weren't supposed to be his problem and almost didn't have to be, but somehow he'd managed to stumble ass-over-teakettle into them just to enjoy the spectacle of it all…

He assumed it was 'alternate universes'. Time travel, he had enough faith in Reed and Sue to keep that under lock and key, although most if not all of his exposure to it had come from making case studies from movies as his degree on quantum physics had come from a cereal box, and being as qualified as a college dropout, he was less certified than a certified quack to make any assumptions about anything except for one thing: he was still going to be late for rent. Again.

And like that, time rewound for him in a miasmic backtracking of his own thoughts that he couldn't help, and couldn't help but hate.

His day had started as his days usually had, once he returned from Battleworld, ostensibly a WrestleMania themed planet. He woke up groggy and tired and twitching and feeling like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep. He had broken his alarm clock at some point, and his room was empty. Harry hadn't thrown his things out, just put them in storage. Peter just hadn't had the guts or gumption to get them out of storage. Or maybe the delusion. Not when he probably wasn't going to be sticking around much longer.

He'd been gone for an entire year. Disappeared, was a better word. Up-up-away with no bird, plane, or man in the sky. To everyone in his life he had just walked out. And when he had suddenly come back with a painted on smile, fresh, spiffy clothes, and a well-rehearsed story of where he'd been… it hadn't exactly gone over smoothly.

The story had necessitated the borrowing of a motorcycle whose owner was… not going to need it anymore. Peter hadn't stolen it, just… 'borrowed'. He would have worried he was on a slippery slope if he had the luxury to care but a year away from home had changed his priorities a little. The clothes on his back were his amazing new suit he'd gotten as a parting gift from Battleworld, and probably the best thing about the entire affair. Like a trophy, rather than a consolation prize. Almost worth it, but almost became not-quite when he'd gotten back to his old life.

He'd spent a night and a day rehearsing and getting used to riding the motorcycle before he had saddled up to his and Harry's apartment, and knocked. Gwen answered the door and punched him in the face.

After making sure it was him, of course. It didn't hurt him. Couldn't have, and Peter rolled with the punch so she wouldn't hurt herself but… the girl really knew how to bait a hook, knuckle first.

As it had turned out… they had thought he was dead. Everyone had thought he was dead. And with good reason – there'd been no letters, no calls, no sightings. He'd been the photographer for New York's least vigilante who'd made a lot of big and small and slimy enemies over the last couple of years. His name was in the paper for any gutter-jockey literate enough to string a few letters together. Gwen had asked her father to scour the city for him; Harry had tried to use what few connections he had with his father's money to find him. Even the Bugle had put his name in the paper on and off for nearly half a year.

Nothing.

And Aunt May…

Peter convinced them all that he had just wanted to 'see the world'. He'd been sheltered, and college was 'stifling'. Ben had died and that he just wasn't the same anymore. H blamed himself. He wanted to 'really practice his photography skills' because he was totally going to 'go pro' with it. That was 'his dream'. He'd made enough money freelancing that he'd bought a Harley and… there had been so many lies that had come out of his mouth so easily. But now he was back, and… he checked out for the rest, not even wanting to be present for his own lie.

He'd gotten so good at it in the five odd years since he'd been Spider-Man that he didn't need to think about it. And the grave was already dug so deep he didn't even consider trying to climb out anymore. But he was a good liar. And somehow, he'd convinced them to put him up. He'd blown all of his money on the bike, but he was good for it. If they needed a ride, he'd give them one – to wherever. He'd help out with the rent. Once he got gas money. Everything was okay. He sounded like a damn drug addict. A flake.

And that had been two months ago. He'd become a ghost to the place since then, a transient presence in the room rather than a roommate.

The previous night, when she thought Peter couldn't hear, he was pretty sure he'd heard the word flake come from their room. He'd laughed before jumping out the window headfirst. It was their room because Harry and Gwen had become an item during their months of mourning. Icing on the crap-cake.

His spider-sense said that the springs would start creaking, because that was a danger to his mental well-being, and he always made sure to hit the bricks. And then it went off like Gwen was just trying to piss him off, so he'd left. A few hours later his costume sprang to life and tried to eat him.

Speaking of other universes: maybe in some of them, he was actually having a worse time. That possibility brought a smile to his face.

When the doors opened again, Reed stretched his head and neck through, all the way to the gurney where Peter lay. Peter repressed a shiver. A year on a planet with the guy and he was one of Peter's extra favorite people in two worlds. But the stretching thing was, for him, what his skittery-spidery-creepy-crawly thing apparently was for other people. He doubted he'd ever get used to it.

Reed had grown a full beard to go with his hair, making him seem more 'college professor' than 'Hey, I have a hot, young wife and super powers, what do you got', but since no one ever asked Peter what he thought, he kept that to himself. Mostly. It was a good look, and he could only hope to have something like it when he got older – cool beard or a hot wife, or a building all to himself with rent never being an issue, government funding, worldwide respect… either, any, all, would have been be good.

"Spider-Man," Reed greeted, as if Peter's mask were still wearing his face.

Peter's voice was flat. "Jig's up, Reed," he said. "Sue's mini-me released an expose on me."

"Oh," Reed said. "If it's any consolation, we- Sue and I, at least- already knew."

Peter wasn't surprised, but he was disappointed that his thin hope that two very smart people hadn't background checked him hadn't held up. Part of him felt a little betrayed, a little cranky – a little angry all at once… but he trusted them, had spent a year with them all, Reed, Sue, Ben – even Johnny. They had fought together, survived together, and there were worse things than having people you trust know your name. Like having your favorite pair of boxers, that doubled as your socks, shoes, jacket, shirt, super suit, and hair net one day try and body snatch you and then dumping them and being next to naked.

"Don't worry Reed," Peter said with a tight-eyed smile, "It's not,"

"We've finished running the tests."

"Tests? You ran tests on me?"

"Of course we did. You're a family friend," he said, without pause or emphasis, as if it were just a fact, "We'd spare no expense for your safety."

Something in him must have really needed to hear that, because Peter couldn't help but exhale. He felt a little awkward. "Not that's- that's not what I mean," he said. Realizing how long it had been since he'd had a conversation with a friend – a friendly friend, anyway – he barely had enough socially dysfunctional tact to tack on a, "…Thanks. Just don't stick me with a bill," he added. "Did you- find any… eggsin me?"

Reed stared grimly at him. "Yes."

Peter nodded. He had expected that. He closed his eyes. He was going to die. "Oh, kismet…"

"With your metabolism you should really be eating a lot more," Reed continued. He had a straight face on but Peter could still see him smiling. "Two isn't enough for someone your age and needs. You need more protein."

"On my budget, I need more greens," Peter said, rubbing his thumb, fore, and middle fingers together. He sat up. "Thanks for the heart attack. I'm going to tell your wife you psychologically bullied me."

"Please don't."

The rest of Reed's body joined in like a stretchy dullahan. Peter averted his eyes. "So, no eggs? No pathogens, parasites?"

Reed's smile faded, replaced with the professionalism Peter expected of a scientist. "Just abnormally high levels of stress and fatigue," he said, giving him a steady, searching look, like he was inspecting him for something. Like Valeria had. "The latter, some we traced back to the… organism. But the stress, the fatigue…" Reed looked at Peter like he actually concerned for a friend, and Peter realized that it wasn't a look you could get or give while wearing a mask. At least, not when the giver was playing along with your delusions of having a secret identity. "If you don't mind me asking: are you doing alright?"

Peter didn't answer at first.

Ben, when he was alive, hadn't talked much about his problems – aside from jokes at his own expense. Peter had refused to do anything less. No need to go around making his problems into someone else's just because he wasn't strong enough to shoulder them. And he was plenty strong – maybe not lift a mountain strong like some green giants, but he was strong enough to handle his own problems, on his own.

"I do mind, Reed," he said. "Because if you ask again I might break down crying and tell you what it's like waltzing back into your life after disappearing for three-hundred and sixty-six days. And I might just beg you to either suffocate me right now, or let me sleep on your couch. So please don't ask again."

Reed frowned. "Son, you know you're always welcome here-"

May Parker had made a habit of admonishing Ben, and then Peter when he'd taken his Uncle's place as the man of the house, about 'Parker men being some of the stubbornest, prideful asses on the eastern seaboard'. She had been exactly right. Peter snapped back quickly, and a little too hotly. "No," he said, his jaw set. "I'm fine."

But he wasn't, because suddenly, the nights without sleep, tacked onto the nights with too little, made him realize just how tired he was. How human and chock-full of limits he was, despite being strong. How without the mask on, his personal reality was that much closer, and that much more of a thing he wanted to be away from at the moment. Back on Battleworld, back anywhere where he didn't have to be himself and he could be Spider-Man – something that became a bit difficult when you didn't have a mask anymore.

Peter tried to relax. It took so much effort that, even as his shoulders slumped, he felt worse. He didn't meet Reed's eyes. "I'm- I'm fine, Reed, thanks. Just, ah… adjusting to life after vacation."

Disbelieving silence. Peter didn't care for it, so he filled it in. "So. What's it like have a kid?"

Reed adjusted to the change in topic well enough. Peter appreciated that. "It's been interesting. Children had always been a point of discussion for Sue and I-"

"Too much information, Reed. The less I think about what you two do when no one else is around, the better."

The older man smiled. "Well, it's been… a change," he said, and then his expression dwindled.

"Ah," Peter grunted. "Didn't want one, huh?"

Reed answered, but didn't answer. He was smart like that. "I wasn't expecting the baby to be capable of talking so soon," he returned. "Valeria told you the circumstances, I assume?"

"Not really. I'm guessing it's science stuff above my eighth grade expertise. That's your wheelhouse, not mine. But if you ever want to talk mock volcano science exhibits, I'm your man."

"Perhaps that's for the best…" Reed murmured to himself, a slight frown on his face, as though Peter weren't there. Another thing Peter appreciated about him: the guy could talk to himself in a crowded room. "You really should give yourself more credit, son. Self-deprecation is only good in tiny doses."

"Doc, I don't tell you how to work your marriage, you don't tell me how work my neurosis." Peter laughed, but that didn't last. "So what's next? Am I clear to go or are you going to play Patient Zero with me and torture me with hospital food and your bedside manner?"

Reed put his hand to his beard, thinking. "If Sue were here, she'd insist that we keep you as a guinea pig," he said with a slight smile, but the flat delivery made Peter wonder. "And to watch over you.".

Peter gave him a warning look. Reed then explained, to little effect, "You are not well, son. Your body is one thing, but your mind-"

"Is a terrible thing to waste, I know!" Peter cut him off, quickly. "Between you and me, I'm glad your wife isn't here. Don't worry, I promise to start hitting the books as soon as I get home. Who's to say education stops when you flunk out of college, right?"

"Peter-"

Peter took a deep breath. He had to wrestle with something dark and ugly in himself to garner up the guts to even ask – his pride. Aunt May had been right. "Look, I hate to ask you this, but…" he swallowed. "You think I could borrow some clothes? I had kind of banked on never needing a spare Halloween costume because of Geiger's lovechild over there and I don't really feel like trapezing around Manhattan with the boys hanging out, if you know what I mean."

Reed sighed. "Of course. Though, God willing, you may not need to."

"Oh, a biblical Hail Mary," Peter said, rolling his eyes. "I've been making those plays a lot lately. Still watching the end zone to see if they worked."

The same door from before opened. In came Valeria. She was wheeling in a machine on wheels behind her, and that struck Peter as an odd, neat little anachronism, considering he'd seen floating machines in the building before. It was still visibly high tech, affixed with enough buttons and lights and metallic shine to make Peter's tinkering brain shiver in orgasmic glee before he noticed it held something.

There was a lower tray with a spare set of clothes on it, and there was a dip at the top, in the center. Hardy looking clasps like metal talons fit to hold something, even as that something was slotted into a chamber that led to the inside of the machine. Behind it trailed a cool smoke, so it was obviously meant to store something. And through the space between Valeria's arm and her waist Peter could see what he hoped was very, very unbreakable glass, because through it was a transparent cylindrical object filled to the brim… with the alien pretending to be his clothes.

Peter's eyes narrowed. "Reed, buddy," he said, staring at the ink inside the machine, "Did you want me to teach your kid how to finger paint? Because all you had to do was ask…"

"No," Reed said.

"Alright good. Another question."

"Yes-"

Peter looked at him, too tired to do anything more than lazily ask, "Are you insane?"

"No."

"Kismet…"

Valeria spoke, but Peter barely heard her. "From what we've found this organism is-"

"-Alive?" Peter said with a raised brow. "Yeah, figured that."

"Symbiotic," she corrected, looking up at him from her stature, but speaking like he was a student with failing grades. "Commensalistic in nature, Mr. Parker. More or less."

"More or less?"

He was ignored. "From the tests we conducted, we've found that it benefits you as much as you benefit it."

Peter didn't need a crash course in what it did for him, aside from keep Mr. Sandman away. "So I'm more than food, great. Maybe an exercise routine, or a roommate, or a chestburster chamber-"

Valeria spoke with enough urgency to surprise him. "-You're its host. It will die without you."

"That's what I'm afraid of, since it already tried to kill me."

"From the tests we conducted, it was trying to… bond with you, for lack of better word. It appears to only be able to go so long without a suitable host, and when it finds one, it must bond with them."

Peter grimaced. "Like a mating cycle? You're telling me this thing was bad touching me because it was tired of waiting?"

"There is a child present…" Reed said.

"She went there not me," Peter said, pointing fingers.

"He did it first! And I am not a child!" Valeria shouted, and for a not-child, she sure whined like a kid.

Reed rubbed his eyes, looking as though parenthood had snuck up on him too soon. "That is a somewhat accurate assessment," he said, though to which of them Peter wasn't sure. "We have reason to believe that the suddenness of it was born out of panic – a very living reaction to the thought of death."

"Or separation anxiety," Valeria added.

"I can imagine what that's like," Peter said. He stared at nothing – the nothing inside the inky blackness of the creature that had worn him like a suit. Turnabout was fair play, after all… somehow that kept his mind from wandering. Kept it centered and focused, away from his out-of-mask problems, away from reality – though on nothing so pleasant he could really enjoy it anymore.

The whole of him KNEW what this little intervention was for, and four fifths of that whole was against it. The last bit was remembering how convenient it was to never need to do laundry anymore, or sink his funds into webfluid reagents, or having to never worry about getting chomped on by bedbugs, or how nice it was to have infinite pocket space on his person so he could actually keep his wallet on him. How it responded to his thoughts, kept him warm on cold mornings and cold nights… how even after coming back to Earth more or less alone even in an apartment with his friends, he hadn't felt that way. Hindsight really was 20/20.

He breathed in very slowly when he realized he was having a flashback sequence of his fond times with H.R. Geiger's wet dream. "So it thought it was going to die and tried to force its way into my pants and in my pores," he said, voice flat as he tried to keep his own interest dead and buried. "Great. Fantastic. Now what."

"I think you should take it back," Valeria said. As she did, the goo in the container pressed itself to its transparent prison, like it was listening. The entire machine shook a little.

"I think she should be potty trained first," he said, and she glared at him. Peter rolled his eyes. "Of course you do. Insanity obviously skips a generation. What?"

"This creature is obviously intelligent-" she started.

"No it's not. I've had plenty of ensembles that respond to my thoughts and dry and clothe me before I can even step out of the shower. And I've had just as many zippers try to eat me."

She continued as if he hadn't said a thing. "And it is – debatably- not hostile, only desperate," she said, looking at him with an expression he couldn't place. "If it was, you would not be here right now as it would have acted much, much sooner. It is alive, and you brought this… symbiote here," Valeria said, taking a step to him. "Take responsibility for that. Or don't."

As she said that, it was as if a cold, fiery pit had been lit in his stomach and every strand keeping all the weight he'd been carrying above it, had broken. The collision noise of it falling down, down into the cold feeling in his chest, was his own voice. "Listen, kid," he said, jaw clenched, sneering a smirk at her as she frowned at the word, "I've had a long year, alright? And the last thing I need to hear today is anything about responsibility from someone who probably considers puberty to be stranger danger."

His voice was hard and his muscles were tense. But then he was suddenly tired and wired, both too sleepy and too awake. Peter couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a good night's sleep but for the life of him, and knew it wasn't the 'suit's' fault. "I have enough problems to deal with without having to worry about that thing trying to wear me and the people around me like suits."

Valeria swallowed. It took her a moment to reply, shocked momentarily into silence. She looked up at him with resilient, icy blue eyes that felt older than who they belonged to. "Then don't worry. Because it won't happen. So why not take some of those problems away? At the very least, you won't have to worry about clothing. Or your webfluid."

It sounded like she was trying to deal a drug to him. Peter stared at her, wondering, and she smiled lightly at him. "How-" he bristled, wondering how she knew about his webfluid. "…Right. 'Science stuff'."

In that moment, Reed placed his hand on Peter's shoulder. It was the closest thing to Ben's presence that Peter had felt in a long time, and even then it was a distant, distant second place, but Peter recognized the meaning behind it. Appreciated it. He got control of himself, realized that maybe Reed was right – maybe he wasn't well considering… everything going on. Maybe the last thing he wanted to do was blow a gasket at the daughter of the only people that could tolerate him. The people that he trusted and who, for some reason, trusted him.

Maybe, if only he'd managed to drag his other friends to an alien planet and spend a year with them. Harry, Gwen – especially Gwen – everyone would just be kumbaya. Maybe May would-

"Just… think it over, son. We're not trying to tell you what you should do," he said, and Peter wondered if he'd momentarily forgotten that half of his 'we' was his daughter who was younger than Peter himself – though probably still smarter – and it was mostly her trying to sell him on it. But if Reed was backing her… Then Sue probably was, too. "Only that you know the depth of the situation."

His grip on Peter's shoulder turned firm, and he looked him in the eye, but Peter didn't return the gaze. His voice was quiet. "You're young, and I know what it's like to want to deal with things on your own terms-"

"-I bet you do," Peter said.

"This could benefit you."

"It could also kill me, Reed," Peter said softly.

Reed's expression was one Peter refused to place, because if he did, it'd end up in the large vat of 'worried' that Peter already had a surplus of. "You're doing a better job of that on your own, son," he lifted his hand. "It is a living thing… and it is attached to you. You could benefit more from that than being alone, now. Keep that in mind.

"…Just think it over."

As he said that all Peter could think of was a tombstone he desperately wished he didn't know anything about. He set his jaw, but didn't say anything. Reed left the spare clothes, collected Valeria with a fairly skilled 'dad-look' that got even her to walk in lock-step with him, wheeling out the symbiote in tow.

Peter thought about it, about everything. All he wanted to do was not think, and decided the best place to do that would be elsewhere.

So he got dressed and left.

A/N: Happy New Year. This is an idea that's been kicking in my head for a long time now. Proof of concept, at the very least, though the concept has changed a good bit from what it used to be. This will have at least a LITTLE smut in in. Quelle surprise.