Chapter 4

Connect the Dots

The rest of the night at the apartment of Osborn-Stacey (dot-dot-dot Parker) went by slowly. The rain rolled in around twelve with staggering thunderstorms, and everyone in the building had more or less moved on to their own business. Someone getting taken away in cuffs wasn't abnormal in the city, much less the neighborhood - what was abnormal was that it had happened willingly. However, even that only amounted to a couple of whispers because the person in question was nearly a ghost to the area. No one had known Peter Parker, and the people that used to no longer did.

Harry dealt with that in that in his own way. Gwen was more apt to sit in silence and pretend Peter was dead to her.

It was all Peter's fault, obviously. He'd waltzed into town with a Hollywood smile and a brand new motorcycle like nothing and nobody but him had changed. Always late on the rent, but was never honest about why.

Harry didn't care about the money. He could have, would have foot the bill, but Peter always seemed to have some better place to be. It was as if he had some place more important than the friends who'd been ready to bury an empty coffin with his name on it, and put it next to the man and woman who had raised him while keeping track and care of the responsibilities he'd left behind.

Harry was busy trying to make it make sense.

"'I was drinking'," he repeated Peter's words to himself, walking went from the hallway out of the apartment, to the bathroom, to the living room, kitchen, and everywhere in between.

It was somewhere between a quarter past one, or half past two. The rain beat the pavement loud enough to act as a backdrop to tick of the clock in his and Gwen's room as it inched along.

Gwen watched him from the couch. Harry was grateful for her, but not enough to stop. He was just alright enough; his brain itched, his head still swum and his nose still throbbed as a reminder that Peter - Peter - had kicked the ever loving stuffing out of him. Harry wasn't even mad. In another life, if things were better between them, he would have been happy, relieved, and even proud. But it was the obvious lie that he had told straight to all of their faces that bothered him the most.

Harry thought he knew Peter, that a single year couldn't have changed years of friendship. But he had been different ever since Ben Parker had been murdered. That at least made sense. What he had to go through and do after would change anyone. But not only had Peter just up and left one day, but not once had he tried to talk about it or shed a tear for the woman who'd been a mother to him. It was like he didn't even care.

What was worse was that it made sense. Harry's own father had changed in the same way after Harry's mother had died. None of it should have made any sense... but it was scary just how much it did.

Harry shook his head, trying to ignore the pain. There was no way Peter would ever end up like Norman Osborn. The Parkers had been too good a family to him.

"I've never seen him even drink root beer. He wouldn't even have a champagne when we graduated, you remember that?"

Gwen was all knees and shoulders and elbows, looking like a tight ball of well kept-anger that was just as loud as she was quiet. She moved to the recliner they had bought together and curled up on it. Seeing it, Harry thought about the lawn chairs Peter had gotten for the two of them with the money he'd scraped together before he'd disappeared. They'd been nearly all the furniture in the place at the time. And Harry had thrown them in storage.

She scratched and pried at the little pillow on it. Her thighs were exposed from the little negligée she wore, the barest joke of panties disappearing between them. It was a nice sight, but for once, Harry didn't have a mind for it. It was obvious she didn't either.

"I don't know a thing about him anymore," she said, nearly spitting the words out. The disgust in her tone whenever Peter came up never failed to surprise Harry. "He left, Harry. And to do what? While his aunt was-"

"-He didn't know," Harry tried to say. Even he knew it was a weak argument.

She glared at him. "Don't defend him, you always try to defend him, Harry. He doesn't deserve it," she said, her mouth in a quiet sneer. "He left May. That poor old woman- You saw her, Harry- May was worried to death and he never came back."

The itch in Harry's brain got worse. Part of him was talking and he could hear it. Another part of him listened while another part of him talked to the other part that was listening… it was like a skit from a cartoon, just a bunch hims in his head rattling on and solving nothing while a camp formed in favor of his best friend, and others just wanted to drop him like Peter had everyone else and cow tow to Gwen's side of things.

He thought of the baseball bat he had charged Peter with, in the dark. "I know him. You do too. Why would he leave?"

"No, we knew him. He's changed- he didn't even care. He won't talk to us, he barely even looks at us- he's always somewhere else."

"I can't blame him…" Harry muttered.

Gwen's sharp blue eyes stabbed at him. "What?"

Part of Harry wanted to say nothing and brush it off. But that was the old him, the weak part that his father had written off as a disappointment. The new part, the one that had come into being after Peter disappeared, the one that had charged him with a bat thinking he was an intruder, scowled at Gwen. "I said, I can't blame him, Gwen."

Gwen threw the pillow to the side. It landed on a dresser in the corner. She was sneering at him, now. "Excuse me?"

"You're always breathing down his neck-"

"-And for good reason! He's a flake!" Gwen snapped. She counted her fingers like she hated them. "He's never on time with the rent, he's never around, I've never even seen him go to the cemetery, he hasn't even gone to the fucking house! And now he's a fucking drunk- Peter doesn't care."

She was right. It was Harry that had called him a flake, first. It was a joke, because loser was too strong, too harsh a word for his best buddy. Gwen had been the one to call Peter a loser.

Harry didn't care about the rent. It didn't matter. Peter was the only reason he'd even made it into college. The only one who hadn't written him off as a lazy trust fund sponge when that was all he'd ever been. Peter had believed in him more than his own father had.

He owed him a little benefit of the doubt, didn't he?

"Harry-" seeing his face, Gwen's softened. "I don't know what his damage is, but he isn't the person we used to know."

Harry didn't say anything. He walked to the kitchen with a groan. He could hear himself thinking as though he was a separate person – he thought he'd already gotten used to the side effects. Maybe the dosages weren't working… maybe building up a tolerance and getting diminishing returns, and that was how he'd just been utterly demolished in the fight with Peter... Maybe the stuff had stopped working entirely…

He thought of the bat again.

Peter had spent a long time trying to teach Harry was to change the way he thought. It was rich coming from him, but at least he'd only meant in the academic sense. How he thought about problems, why things worked the way they did and what would happen if one thing, some foundational circuit had been changed. What then, what if?

To Peter it was as easy as breathing. To Harry, it was never more obvious that Peter was a different sort of animal. He weaved through and tuned into math and science and almost everything like some kind of acrobat. He was a savant until it came to people, talking, and how to fit in. It was a wonder he hadn't been in college before they were in highschool together, but thank God for that. Where would Osborn be without Parker?

Harry couldn't abandon him. Not like he'd apparently abandoned all of them, even the woman who had raised him.

He shook his head. "No. No that's not true- you saw just as much as me how he was after Mr. Parker died. Something changed, Gwen."

From the kitchen, he could see Gwen work her jaw. She couldn't refute that. Peter had grown cold, had shut down even Eugene Thompson's and his cronies years long target on him. But to May, Peter had been so attentive and protective. It was almost desperate. Like he was fighting off the world to keep it from her. Harry had seen the same thing in his father, before his mother had died.

"Every check of his went to her. All his free time was with her, Gwen. You remember that." Gwen looked down as he spoke. "So how could he have just left on a dime like that? Why?"

"…I don't know, Harry," she said, after a long, long minute. "Maybe he got tired of it- maybe it was all an act. You think I haven't thought about that too? She was like his mother."

"And Ben Parker was like his father," Harry countered. "When he died, May was all Pete had. Do you really think he would give her up if he had a choice?"

Gwen looked at him wide eyed. Eyebrows up, mouth open, she almost looked like an angry bird of prey. "What do you think happened, Harry? You think it wasn't his choice?" she said, and got up. She stormed over to him. Even with her legs shaking, Harry backed away. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of her anger like Peter. He doubted he'd have the control to stay his hand like him either.

"He came back with a motorcycle. He came back before he went to see her. He didn't know, didn't even care to ask. He was smiling."

Harry shook his head. "Maybe he was afraid-"

Gwen barked a humorless laugh and shook her head. "Okay. For argument's sake, let's go with your idea-"

"It's not an idea, it's a hypothesis-"

She snorted. "Yeah, okay," she said. "Fine. What would make him leave?"

Harry didn't want to be angry at her. She was making that difficult. "You mean you didn't think about it?" he asked, and Gwen glared at him.

"Harry he attacked you- I haven't been able to think of anything but that!"

"I'm fine," Harry said. To his own ears, he sounded just like his father. Wherever he was. "You said you thought of this before, but you didn't think of why Pete left?" She didn't answer. "He never argues with us. Especially not you. Not a single time Gwen. If he didn't care, why would he just accept it?"

Her nostrils flared. She looked up, then down. "I... I don't know."

"The Parkers were the most important thing to him. They were all he had, Gwen. He loved them more than anything. You know that."

She shook her head and turned to go back to the chair. Harry saw her eyes welling up. It wasn't only Peter that cared about the Parkers, they both had. Ben and May had been special to them too. Gwen had a right to be angry, May was more of a mother to her than her own mother was. And for Harry, the Parkers were what his family had been, once; before his mother had passed.

At the end of the day though, they weren't the ones that lost them. Peter was. Harry couldn't bring himself to believe that was by choice.

"So what is it?" Gwen muttered. "What do you think his reason could possibly be?"

Harry pulled a beer out from the fridge. He popped the cap to the glass bottle like it was weak plastic, and sighed. "Pete's stubborn- always has been. That's why Flash and his boys never left him alone. He didn't know how to back down. But… with us, he never even tries. And he doesn't drink, Gwen. That's what bothers me. He reads books like other people party- that's his idea of fun. Math is alcohol to him. Nothing about this makes sense."

Harry looked at the bottle. Part of him laughed a cackling laugh. "And then- even when his grades started to slip because of his job, every check went to Mrs. Parker… every check. Why would a guy like that just walk out?"

Even when he brought the bottle up to his lips, Harry never drank. His brain itched again. The voices of his thoughts bickered with each other and Harry was in the middle of them all, a lone party to a round table of inner-circle shouting.

He thought about the bat again. Peter had hit him like he was trying to hurt him. That was rich. Harry wasn't the one to abandon them all… But it made sense. Peter had changed after Ben Parker died. He'd become so protective of May. But also of the two of them. Peter had attacked so viciously because he thought they were in danger.

What could have happened to change him like that? Where could he have learned to fight, and why?

The itching stopped. Harry realized the bottle was paused at his mouth. He was staring at Peter's room and the rain was pouring down. Gwen was calling his name- she was right in front of him, shaking him. She was crying and he didn't know why. Tinnitus rung in his ears, and his lip felt wet.

Blood trickled off his mouth and fell on the floor. "Oh."

"…arry! Harry!" Gwen grabbed his face and made him look at her. Harry took a drink, and tasted blood. "We're taking you to the hospital, come on."

He, gently, pried her hands off his face, as though he were handling a kitten. Her hands were so soft and delicate. He didn't want to break her. She was important. His head was quiet, and the itching was gone, and he felt like he had just passed a test on his own, for once. "I'm fine," he said. "I was thinking."

"Harry- the hospital-"

"I'm not going to the hospital," he said, sounding like his father again. "You know I hate needles. That too-clean smell," he made a face. "I'm fine, Gwen. And I think I know, now."

She frowned. "Know what- about Peter? Harry I don't care about-" she stopped herself, because it would have been a lie. Harry knew that, and she did too. "That asshole isn't more important than you, Harry."

"…Not to him, no," Harry said.

Gwen pulled back, almost sounding startled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He set Gwen's arms by her sides, and walked to the ruin that was Peter's room. They'd barely tried to clean it, but neither could stomach being in it for long. The lock on the window was broken somehow and it refused to shut, and the holes in the walls would be a bitch to repair. "I don't think Pete thinks he's more important than anybody."

Harry picked up the bat. The handle was deformed from how tightly he had held it, because he'd thought someone was a danger to them, too. "Pete does care," he said, hefting the weapon. "He came in here ready to put me in the hospital because he thought we were in danger. He screamed for us like he thought we were going to die."

He looked back at Gwen, who just looked tired, angry, and lost. "When Mr. Parker was murdered, the only way he could help Mrs. Parker was by working for the Bugle. By getting pictures of…"

She answered a few second later, her voice just above a whisper. "…Spider-Man," Gwen finished. Her shoulders fell.

"He lost an internship with the Connors just to provide for Mrs. Parker. Just to get pictures of the webhead. He got blackballed from that industry for that- he's dead to the Connors, Gwen. Because he chose the money- money for May over their secrets."

"What are you saying, Harry?"

Harry took a swig as he hefted the bat in his hand, tossed it, rolled it, and caught it. "I'm saying that Pete put himself in a lot of danger to take care of the woman who raised him. While we were partying or studying, that's what he was doing. And his name was in the newspapers, on websites, if people wanted to know who was getting the pics of Spider-Man, all they'd have to do is look."

He looked Gwen in the eye. "And the second all those guys, the Avengers, the mutants, even Spider-Man- the second they disappear… Peter does too. Ain't that funny?"

Gwen went to sit down. Back in the chair, Harry made sure she was alright. He sat across from her. "You think- no. All this time, you think he was-"

Harry nodded, his jaw flexing. "I think the only way he could have gotten pictures of Spider-Man that no one else could, is if he knew where he'd be. I think they had some kind of deal. Who knows why, maybe the guy wanted his name in lights. But I think Peter was the easiest target for everyone that Spider-Man had pissed off and the only reason he wasn't dead was because Spidey was around."

Gwen deflated in her seat. She covered her face. "God…"

"It makes sense, right? How he was always so protective around Mrs. Parker. How he'd disappear when shit went down- to go talk with Spider-Man and make sure May was safe. Because she was always safe when he was around, Even though she couldn't fucking stand him."

Gwen was silent.

"But it gets better," Harry laughed. "Because Spidey goes, Pete does too. Must have told him something was gonna go down in whatever clubhouse he was a part of with the Avengers and everyone else. Warned Pete he wouldn't be around to keep May safe and to skip town. Fast."

Gwen scowled. Harry could see he was making sense to her, and that made her angry. "Then why didn't he take her with him? Why didn't he tell anyone- why didn't anyone come after May, then?!"

Harry thought about it. "Heard my dad talking, once. Back when that Goblin freak was around and people thought he and Spidey were working an angle. Word is, they pissed off big people, old and dangerous ones. Maybe the mob…but Spidey had saved one of their own. Old dude, Forreli I think his name was, and his daughter.

"As for not telling anyone… the less people know, the better, right? But my dad was laughing at that. Thought it funny that 'murderers thought they had honor'. Maybe- I don't know. Maybe the webhead struck a deal with those guys, had them keep an eye on May for him… for Peter, if something ever happened." Then something Harry hadn't considered came out of his mouth. "…To keep an eye on us too."

Gwen didn't say anything. Suddenly, Harry couldn't sit still anymore. He got up, paced a circle around the apartment. "That's why Peter was gone. That's why he was so protective of May, why we didn't see him a lot. Had to get far away from her- from all of us."

Maybe it was where Peter learned to fight, too. That was how he'd gotten into the shape he was in that had Detective DeWolf making eyes at him – they'd all seen it. Peter, who'd been the bookworm to end all bookworms, had become the exact opposite. All so he'd be able to handle himself if something happened, and the scars on his body made it obvious that something had.

Harry went to the window that overlooked the street; the same one he'd watched DeWolf cart Peter away like he was some kind of criminal. It was all clicking into place for Harry, and he'd never hated himself more.

How could he have lost faith in Peter Benjamin Parker?

"And then the wallcrawler swings back into town along with everyone else. His connections probably got Pete the bike- but no one told him about May," Harry said, and as he spoke, the bottle in his grip strained as if its neck would break at any second. "No one could tell him because no one knew, because they were all gone with the webhead. So, Pete found out on his own… And what could he possibly do? He's been all smiles because that's all he has, Gwen. He doesn't even have us anymore."

Harry waited for Gwen to speak. Honestly, he was proud of himself. The pieces fit, they made sense. There was no way that Peter would ever be the kind of scumbag that Gwen thought he was, that Harry himself was afraid Peter was. This was the only possible explanation.

He turned when Gwen stayed silent, expecting to see the gears turning in her head. She was smarter than him, she could make sense of it, or refute it, or something. But…

"Gwen?" he asked, going over to her. She stopped him, keeping him at arm's length. "Gwen, what-"

Gwen was shaking her head and breathing deeply to herself as if something had clicked into place for her, too. She stood up, walked around a bit, trying to blink tears away that Harry saw, but didn't really understand. She gnashed at her fingernails as if the skin underneath itched.

"No," she finally said. "No, that's... that can't be it, Harry. No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Harry demanded. "Gwen it's Pete we're talking about!"

"Yeah, it's Pete," she repeated with a mocking smile. "Pete, who sold the Connors down the river for money. Pete, who abandoned the woman who raised him and never even visits her fucking grave. Pete, who all this time he hasn't tried once talk to m- talk to us. He abandoned us!"

She was in the kitchen now, gripping the air and ripping at it, like things on a shelf to tear down. "May died thinking he would come back for her, Harry!"

Harry hung his head. "I know."

"She asked me- she asked me where he was before she died. She prayed for him."

"I know."

"And now you want me to believe, even for a fucking second, that this was all his plan? All because he cared for her so goddamn much that he would leave her thinking he was murdered and dead in a ditch without so much as a fucking letter?!"

"What else would it be, then?" Harry spat, stalking over to her. He was taller, had packed on impressive muscle, but Gwen wasn't afraid. George Stacy hadn't raised a wallflower, and she knew Harry. Or thought she did.

"I don't know," she said, not even bothering to look him in the eye.

"Come up with something better then, Gwen. Come on. Make it make some sense. Pete chose money over the Connors for May. He put his life on the line to provide for her. He wouldn't have just up and left like he had without a damned good reason, and you fucking know that. I should have known that!"

Harry beat his chest like a war drum, and for just a moment, it shook her. She backed away from him. "What, Gwen? Do you really want to think that he's that big of an asshole? A scumbag? It's Pete, Gwen!" he spat. "Peter!"

She swallowed, and it was like she pressed an off switch. Her ruddy face turned cold, and the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes just froze over. "I don't fucking believe this…" she muttered. "No. No, no. Everything I've done…" she muttered so quietly that Harry wasn't even sure he had heard her right. What had she done?

"You're taking his side after everything he's done? After he nearly put you in the hospital?"

"A side? You think this is about taking sides…" Harry said, grounding his teeth. He tried to calm down. "It doesn't make sense, Gwen. None of it. Peter had to have a good reason."

"And what if you're wrong?"

Harry looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Then I'll be wrong, Gwen. It won't be the end of the world, but at least I won't have given up on him!"

Gwen nodded at him so coolly it was eerie. "Sometimes, Harry..." she said, moving over to their bedroom door, "people aren't as good as we think. Sometimes their 'good reasons' are just bullshit things they tell themselves. Sometimes they lie and keep lying because they just don't know how to stop."

The door slammed shut behind her. Harry let it. This wasn't their first fight, and even though the other parts of him were crowing loudly to rip the door off its hinges for the way she was talking to him, talking about Peter, he didn't. She just needed time to cool off.

The door opened again not five minutes later. Gwen was fully dressed, shoes on, brown overcoat billowing as she walked to the door without even a glance in Harry's direction. There was a bag on her shoulder, clothes hung out as if they'd just been shoved in. Despite that, she looked dressed for a night out in town. Without him.

She didn't even bother looking at him. Her phone was more interesting to her as she swiped, flipped, and dialed. It was obvious she wasn't planning on staying the night.

Harry's voice was tired as he asked, "Where are you going?" though it was obvious by his tone he wasn't too broken up about it. He wondered, in the now-silent meeting of minds in his own mind, if they were breaking up.

"Wherever I feel like," Gwen said.

She checked her pockets for her keys, spare phone, and wallet. Her face was disturbingly unbothered. It was like they hadn't been arguing, like she hadn't been crying minutes ago and worried he needed to go to a hospital. Harry didn't know how she could just turn it all off like that. Maybe he wasn't the crazy one.

"To my father's, maybe. I don't know."

Feeling something in his hand, Harry looked down to see the bottle had broken. He didn't blink as he walked over to the counter, swept the glass and beer onto it, and set the rest down.

He pulled another out of the fridge and said, "Alright."

Gwen visibly twitched at his apathy. She flashed him a pretty smile, but it didn't meet her frigid blue eyes. "Make sure to ask Peter about your 'hypothesis' the next time you see him," she said, looking him up and down, but looking through him at the same time. "Hopefully he doesn't almost put you in the hospital again."

"Hopefully." Harry raised the bottle to her. "I'll do that. Have fun."

She opened the door, stepped through it, and closed it quietly. And then she was gone, her footsteps echoing away at a steady pace.

What Harry saw before she left burned itself into his mind. He wasn't mad at her as a result. She hadn't been looking at, she couldn't. Because all that anger, and frustration, rage… it was at herself. But he was too tired to wonder why.

Harry paced for an hour afterward. Then, sat and drank. And by the time the sun was up, he was nursing a lukewarm bottle of beer and wondering how his night had turned so bad. An alarm from Peter's room went off hours later. Harry walked on tired legs to find that the clock was crushed, but still working, somehow. The time blinked in red, and he saw the numbers flashing through a broken mirror opposite it.

Cold air sifted in from the window that now refused to close, its latch broken, and rain lightly pattered on the fire escape as Harry unplugged the clock, took a seat, and put his head in his hands. Questions started to pop up in his head as the cacophony of his thoughts grew louder, and louder…

One of the thoughts stood out to him, and he wanted to laugh.

Where was Peter now?

It was around three when Jean DeWolf barged into her dark, tiny one-room apartment, overlooking Brooklyn's upper west side with rainwater pouring off her head, and the taste of mint in her mouth.

She stumbled, looking for the light, and when she turned it on, she half-considered going back to sleeping in her car. The place was dingy, tacky – just the way she liked it. With three different colors of paint between four different rooms, and wallpaper straight out of the 70s, the kitchen lit up in dark scarlet and jumped to a muted mint color in the living room. It was just her speed, but now she couldn't stand the sight of it.

There were old takeout boxes in her piled high garbage can, and a forgotten sandwich in a little baggie was on her single, small table with its one seat, sitting there like it was waiting for her, tapping its foot and sucking its teeth like a disappointed mother.

She felt pathetic. She was pathetic. It was all pathetic. There was no way she could bring company home to this, much less a man.

She ignored her thoughts in only the way a disciplined mind could – with spite and misery. Jean DeWolf didn't want to think tonight.

Not about the last ride she had given, or the last call that had taken her to the apartment of Norman Osborn's son, and George Stacey's daughter. Or the nephew of a dead man, the ghost that had blown into town with as much drama than a daytime soap opera. Peter Parker. The name flashed in her mind with his face.

Peter fucking Parker… Then came his body, his hard, scarred body… and the puzzle pieces that it made fall into place like broken mirrors arranged to form a finally cohesive reflection. And what she saw in that reflection made her want to…

She tore off her shoes and left them by the door, walking inside her apartment proper wearing a damp dress shirt and soaked socks on her way to the bathroom, leaving noise and footprints in her wake.

He was looking at you, one errant thought whispered, tickling her mind. Maybe liked what he saw? And oh, wasn't the feeling likewise…

Jean tore off her shirt and through it out the bathroom door. Then came her pants, and everything else. She tore off the scrunchie that kept her long, brown hair in a ponytail and let it land wherever the hell it wanted, and then she hopped into the shower to wash away all the dirt, grime, and stupidity off of her. But it wasn't working.

Jesus, it was like he was sculpted out of wood.

She tried scrubbing harder.

Just couldn't keep your hands to yourself, could you, Jeanie? You twisted fucking freak… Did it feel good? It did, didn't it?

Cheap body wash soap suds built up in her hands and Jean spread them across her body. Her breasts felt heavier than usual, her back tired after the long day. She wanted to crumple in a big pile, her mind foggy but still too clear for her liking. She wished she hadn't given up drinking, or smoking, or anything that could distract her. But those had been decisions made when the resident Bug in Red and Blue wasn't around to save her skin whenever it seemed like she was about to bite the big one. Now that he was back in town and wearing a spiffy black one piece, she felt the urge to drink herself into oblivion again. But she wouldn't, because that would mean missing a beat and seeing him again.

Could have just licked all those scars down, tongued his pain away… That would take my mind off things.

She preferred the red and blues, and that was the honest truth. It was patriotic, there wasn't enough of that, these days. And showed more of him off, too. Black was handsome, and a little too slimming... but red and blue was just… classic.

Jean remembered how good he looked when it peeled off of him. There had been this bust up a couple years back, now… one with the Lizard, the one that had tainted the Connors' name, and the wallcrawler had been all dirty, dusted up and damaged. Helpless but to show his body off like a violent strip tease like he needed someone to take care of him and the tuft of his chocolate brown hair that poked out of the top of his damaged mask.

Brown hair. You dumb bitch. It smelled good, didn't it? Could have gripped it and breathed in all night…

She moved the soap suds lower, pushing them down with effort over her breasts and slim but gaining stomach. She wasn't a teenager anymore, not even an old twenty. The pounds were gaining and piling on with the years and wrinkles but she tried. She kept fit, even though the only people that looked were men either too stupid to get a clue, or ones who'd gotten the wrong clue and didn't think she'd be interested. And both could only see her in her heavy overcoat.

Do you think he likes the smell of it? All of your old cigarettes and drinks and sweat up in that old thing. Keeping him nice and warm.

She grunted, pushing the suds lower, but paused. The water stung her skin a bright pink, her face ruddy and her body pulsing. Her feet shifted, and her legs felt weak.

You could have kissed him, you know. It would have made sense. That was flirting, in case your old ass forgot what that was like.

Like the rest of the city, she thought the wallcrawler was dead or gone along with the Avengers and the rest of the happy freaks. She'd dealt with that notion the same way she had with others, in the past – a stiff drink, a moment of silence, followed by several more drinks at her lone, pitiful table. But then he came back, blowing into town like a brisk wind. And with him blew Peter Parker.

Fuck. I could think of a few places he could come and blow.

Her fingers danced through the suds, pinched at the soft, pudgy fat right above her snatch and kneaded at the scant hair there. She'd always wondered what the wallcrawler liked in a woman. She wondered a lot, in her lonely little apartment. Probably not a woman old enough to be his aunt- or his mother. Even from the beginning she knew from his voice he was either young, or youthful, and in either case, she couldn't keep up with him, but not so young that it'd be strange to just… wonder.

I bet even if you grabbed as hard as you fucking could, you couldn't make a dent in those thighs of his… but you, oh, he could grip you and squeeze your pudgy, soft ass like desperate fucking dough, Jeanie. Wouldn't that be nice?

She just didn't know he'd be so young. When he'd first showed up four years back, all this time... Jean could still remember the shy little boy hiding behind his Uncle's legs. Her head hit the wall trying to knock the picture from her mind. She hated herself.

He's old enough now. Could call you 'mommy', since you still want to call him 'Baby'.

And then her fingers dove in, plunging deep to fuck and bruise all of her thoughts out.

Jean left the shower long after the water went cold. It was good for her, made her mind straighten out a bit. But her legs were jelly, her cunt was sore and throbbing, and her face was hot. She slipped into a large bathrobe and fell into her creaky bed, her face facing her closed window as the rain fell. She lay there looking at the gold and wet lights of the streetlights.

She gave him her coat, had told him to come by if he needed anything… Anything? What the fuck was she thinking? It was an invitation she had meant, but hadn't meant to say out loud. It just slipped out.

But, if he did come around, maybe…

Her crotch simmered needily, and her fingers slipped back between her legs. Her eyes closed, and her mind finally had a face to go beneath that mask. She tore at herself, feeling sick and perverse – a dead man and woman's nephew, the only child of a dead man's dead brother. And she'd felt him up, sniffed and pawed at him like a desperate bitch in heat, had eye-fucked him like a drunk skank.

She deserved to be spayed, neutered, and locked in a cell with a cone around her neck and a cage around her cunt. But the cell would be with him, and he could just… tear off that cage with that strength of his. That power. Because he hadn't shied away from her, had he? Had he enjoyed it?

He was like a statue, and in the cool night air his nipples had been so hard, his body so chiseled… he hadn't even cared. She could have done it as much as she wanted, could have probably just jumped him right there beneath the streetlight and had him fuck the last fucking year of frustration out of her desperate snatch and fill her with those brass balls of his-

The thunder and her own pillows muffled Jean's moans. She managed to slip beneath the covers, wondering if he really did like the coat. At least it would keep him warm. She'd gotten wet enough without it.

Peter Benjamin Parker was Spider-Man. Jean fell asleep wondering where he was now.

It was around three when Anna Watson finally decided to go to sleep. Even despite the rain she'd stayed up in her quiet, modest home, watching reruns of shows older than her while posted up on her couch downstairs. On routine, her eyes drifted to the lonely and abandoned home across the street.

The neighborhood felt emptier without the Parkers. The rain didn't help matters. It was through some twist of fate that Anna had been asked to look after the home after May had passed. Anna thought this had been a mistake; she hadn't been brave enough to be a proper mother, and everything she'd learned on being an aunt had been lifted directly from the older woman's notes. But May had been a kind, smart woman, and she had owed her so much.

"Keep the home ready for when Peter comes back."

Who was she to deny her dying wish?

May had been so sure. When everyone assumed her nephew had been killed in an alley and dumped in a ditch somewhere, she had kept waiting. When she couldn't wait any longer, Anna carried that torch for woman and waited for her.

Out of habit she found herself posted up by her living room window to keep an eye on the Parker home – when she wasn't dropping in and make sure everything was in working order. The insurance and kind donations of time and money by the Osborn's and Stacy's that contributed to the property still being up and running, so the least Anna could do was make sure the cobwebs didn't build up.

And then one day, as sure as a late sunrise, the Parker's prodigal nephew had strolled into town.

This was a bit after the upset of the city's superhuman population had come back to the Big Apple. Anna had heard the noise through her own little grapevine before she'd seen the cause of it: Peter Parker himself.

Even after he hadn't shown as much as a shadow on the doorstep of the home left to him, Anna had kept her commentary to herself. May had faith in that boy right up until the end, and Anna had watched him grow up. Whatever had happened… there were some things that just couldn't be faced right away, no matter how strong you were. Anna, in her years despite being younger than May, knew that from experience.

She knew there was no way the sweet boy that Ben and May Parker had raised wasn't dealing with something just like that to keep him away. Guilt had a nasty habit of only doing awful things to good people.

So, Anna waited. Her niece, Mary Jane, who had gone off to live in the city and to attend college, had problems with that. She was not a fan of the idea, of the rumors she'd heard, but she didn't understand. She was young, and would come to get it when she got older. It wasn't her responsibility to understand yet.

In the meantime, Anna stayed waiting by the window with a warm drink in her hand for Peter to finally come home.

Then, he finally did.

She only saw it by chance. She was on her way up the stairs, but stopped to spare one last look across the street as another matter of habit. She shuffled down the steps, looked through her curtains and window and the rain while something told her to look at the front door.

There was Peter. Soaking wet in the downpour like a cast out dog with a heavy coat, He just… stood there right at the doorstep. A light flickered over him, but he didn't move. His hand raised to knock, but he didn't. Anna watched the rain beat down on him for a long minute, maybe two, before he opened the door and finally went inside.

She let go of a breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding, looking at the front door to the Parker home for a long moment. Afterward she smiled, and told herself that she'd go 'check on things' at the house again in the morning. It had almost been a week. She needed to make sure the lights were still on.

And, maybe, she'd bring over a hot meal to make sure the place was still warm.

Sue doubted she'd ever get used to the Negative Zone.

Despite the scientific curiosity that came with being in a different dimension, at best it was like being in a funhouse, full of mirrors that were just slightly off. It was dreamlike and had its own rules when you weren't paying attention. Colors were never consistent shades, and sometimes to her own eyes, they changed. You could go left and end up right if you weren't careful.

It felt wrong being there in a factual, but almost believable sort of way. The sort of wrong that popped up if someone tried to tell her that five plus seven was eleven, or thirteen. A simple mistake like that, or like being told that she and Reed had a daughter together.

She'd offered to stay behind in the Negative Zone to gather information after their last rally there. What they had found had been… a surprise. And when that surprise had reformed in the shape of a blonde girl that claimed she was the daughter of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, Sue had gotten her first dose of that wrongness.

It wasn't a malicious wrongness, but it was subtle. Five plus seven equaling eleven, an off-color shade of paint on an otherwise uniform wall, a piece that didn't fit the machine kind of wrong. And its name was Valeria.

Sue wasn't the only one that felt like this, either. She didn't know what to feel – she was a mother? What?

But that feeling that said, "No, I'm not," seemed to be felt by not just her, but Ben and Johnny, and even Reed. And she wanted to know why. It wasn't her duty as a scientist, it was an instinct to point out the things that didn't fit… but it seemed as though she'd missed some exciting moments in her absence as a result.

"It was alive?" She asked Reed, watching him stroke his beard as he stood over her readings of the Negative Zone. He'd arrived just a minute prior, said hello, hugged her- and then offhandedly remarked that Peter's- Spider-Man's costume was a living, breathing thing. Maybe to him that wasn't a bombshell, but Sue didn't bother hiding her surprise.

The rip in reality that led to the Negative Zone left an ozone-like flavor in Sue's mouth, and Reed must have tasted it too as he smacked his lips.

"Is alive," he said, not looking away from her notes.

Sue waited for him to continue. He didn't. "…Is he alright?" she asked, knowing that sometimes, with that malleable brain of his, sometimes her husband's thoughts could get lost in the deep trenches of his cerebral wrinkles.

"Oh, yes. Of course he is," Reed said, as if it were obvious. "It's Peter."

Sue frowned. "That's a dangerous line of thinking, Reed."

Reed made a noise, agreeing with her after a moment. "He knows we would be there for him," he said, and made a face. "Only-"

"-Only?"

"Hm. No, he isn't."

He went on to explain the bags under Peter's eyes, and how his body had been producing a chemical cocktail of fatigue that should have given him a heart attack – between the adrenaline, dopamine, he had been wired. His eyes showed his lack of sleep, but his body's unique physiology sought to adapt to that to get him to sleep. But it didn't work. He had been vitamin deficient and almost malnourished, and had all the signs of someone approaching a breakdown.

Reed's voice was detached. The part of him talking to Sue was entirely separated from the part of his brain processing the notes on the Negative Zone she'd prepared for him, placed in front of him.

"I offered to help him. He declined, of course. When a young man is at his age, he wants to handle everything on his own. Even when he shouldn't."

Sue knew why, of course. Or at least, could guess. When they all returned from Battleworld, the first thing Peter had done was stomp a footprint in the street they'd been teleported to in order to get home as fast as he possibly could. To see the woman who raised him that he'd told them about for an entire year.

He'd told them so much about May Parker that in a way that kept his identity secret, that they knew how much he'd cared for her, and while Peter become family to them, so did May.

Thanks to her own morbid nosiness, Sue had found out later that same day that May Parker had passed away months prior.

Reed's words were like a smack to her face. Peter had been good to them- he'd saved them, fought with them, had confided in them all. But instead of being there to comfort him Sue had been wrapped up in her own ghost-chasing, ignorant to the strife of one of the most important people to their family.

"Valeria had an… interesting commentary about it," Reed said, and the mention of the girl got Sue's attention.

"Valeria," Sue said. Her tone made it sound accusatory, as though she wanted to say, "You let Valeria around Peter?" which wasn't far from the truth.

Reed seemed to sense that. He looked tired in the way that only a father could. In another life Sue would have laughed at the sight. "Yes. She had been insistent on meeting him. It seems that her knowledge of her Earth is quite comparable to ours, barring a few individual details. Minor things."

Sue was well acquainted with the story Valeria had given them, and how it hadn't seemed like the entire truth. But when a girl comes out of a tumorous pocket dimension to claim she's the daughter you never had, and she's here to make sure that you all stay alive- what sensible super heroine doesn't shelve her disbelief, at least for the time being?

"It turns out all of them were right, Sue," Reed said, more emotion bleeding into his voice as he finished up looking at her notes. "That Council of… Reed Richards, and Valeria. I'd hoped the suit was similar to other reports I'd seen – man-made instead of alien… But Valeria called it a 'symbiote'."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Yes," Reed said without pause. "It seemed to be easily cowed by Johnny, but beyond that the sheer scope of it was… worrying. It is self-replicating, healing, extremely adaptable, and the ability to store items in a pocket dimension of its own. I can see why Peter thought it was the 'best tuxedo ever', until it tried to eat him…"

"It what?"

Reed blinked. "I didn't lead with that, did I?"

Sue's molars scraped each other. "Not at all."

Reed then gave her a truncated version of the other events that she'd missed. Peter had come to them for help, and in pain. The suit was crushing him, penetrating into his skin like full body acupuncture, and controlling him. Johnny had been the only one to free him with a liberal application of fire – and fortunately Peter himself made away with only minor burns.

Sue was pacing to process that, but what Reed said next made her next pop as she turned to him. "…And so, Valeria thought it wise to advise him to keep it."

"What?" Sue said so quickly it came out as a hiss. "That thing almost killed him and she thinks it's a good idea to keep it around?"

Reed narrowed his eyes in thought, and stroked his beard again. "She had a good basis for saying so-"

"-It could have killed him, Reed!"

Reed looked at her. His expression looked worried. "Sue, it's quite likely it was the only thing that was keeping him functioning. The readings we did, the amount of exhaustion and stress built up in his body would have at the very least put even Peter in the hospital. It was as though he hadn't slept in weeks, to say nothing of his mental state. I almost considered asking Charles or Ms. Grey for a favor."

Sue took a step back. "If he was that bad, why didn't he just come to us for help?"

"He's a young man, Sue. You wouldn't understand."

"Bullshit," she snapped. "I nearly raised Johnny myself, I know what young men are like, Reed."

"You did a good job with Johnny. And your father was there for the both of you. But Peter is different. You look at him and see what he lost. He doesn't want to burden us."

"How would it be a burden? That's insane!" Reed said nothing, and her shoulders sagged. "Did you at least get him to stay?"

"No. I invited him to. Valeria explained how the symbiote had acted out of fear- it required him to live, but needed a closer relationship with its host – a commensalistic, entirely aware one. Fearing he was going to leave it, it clung to him out of desperation."

"Like a spooked cat," Sue ventured.

"Exactly. Shortly after that, Peter left, and-"

A device on Reed's wrist began to beep. He pressed a button and a holographic screen came up. Sue recognized the image of the Baxter building and its entry points easily. One of them, the one she knew was Peter's favorite window, was blinking with a red spider icon.

"…He's back," Reed said. A different noise sounded, and Reed blinked. "…And he just took the symbiote."

"You left the alien that almost killed our friend just lying around?"

"No. Valeria did. She wrote a note." Reed produced a post-it note from his suit and showed it.

"That's-"

"Yes, one of the ones Spider-Man would leave, originally. Hers bore a striking resemblance to it." Sue knew Reed was building toward something. Her own brain was turning. But he'd already found it out. Perks of an elastic mind. "I wanted to see what she would do. Thus far, her insistence on meeting him, her knowledge of him and that… symbiote, shows she has-"

"-Experienced this before," Sue finished. Her eyes went to her notes.

"Yes. She has stake in this, Sue. For whatever reason, she has a vested interest in either Peter, the symbiote, or both."

Sue picked up her notes, poured over them, and grabbed a single page. Suddenly she felt tired. "The negative zone shows temporal anomalies. Not just one, or two, or small ones. Big ones. And a lot. It's like someone restitched it together."

"It's a pocket universe to ours. The Council agreed to as much."

Sue grunted. "So nice they're around to help for once. When does 'The Council' ever agree to anything?"

"Very rarely," Reed said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's hard to believe they're versions of me."

Sue smiled wanly at him. The other versions of Reed varied across the spectrum of emotionally unintelligent to near-robotic in terms of emotional and situational awareness. Obviously, she had won the jackpot. "I could sleep a lot better at night without their help…"

"We won't be accepting their help for much longer."

"Good."

"But if they're right, and for the sake of argument I won't consider them wrong, then any sign of damage to the negative zone is a damage to ours."

Sue picked up what he was saying. "Valeria is from a different timeline to ours. That's how she knows us. Is that why she feels-" she stopped herself from saying 'wrong', because it was still her technical child she was talking about. "'Off'?"

Reed didn't say anything for an uncomfortable amount of time. It was only seconds, but Sue never knew him to pause for so long. "…No," he finally said. "If what The Council says has any merit, then it's a lot worse than that."

Before he could go on, another beep came up, this time on both of their wrists. It was a sound Sue had come to hate. A tinny noise, closer in sound to Moonlight Sonata than Beethoven's Fifth, beeped out. She shared a look with her husband.

The Interdimensional Council of Reed Richards was calling.