Why are you here?!
Peter returned to his apartment the next morning-only to hurriedly fill a bag, and change his clothes before disappearing. By ‘disappearing’ he really meant climbing back out of the window-now with his coat adorning his suit.
He only came back because it was freezing, and Karen was worried. Karen might have been a very….aggressive A.I. when it came to fighting-instant kill was her favorite method after all-but she had taken the time to coax him into coming home, even though he was sure that he was coming home to a lions den, she still tried to convince him as he was resting his burning muscles, that he would be alright if he went home, even just to grab clothes.
He was sure that Beck-or whichever machination was waiting to trick him would be there. There wasn’t any sign of anything-and Karen claimed she saw nothing but the heater putting off electronic signals.
He didn’t stay long, just in case.
While he was swinging along, being threatened with her wasting energy on the suits heater of all things, Peter’s phone went off. He had landed, expecting-or possibly hoping that it would be a spam call-or a scammer trying to sell him things. It was all it could be, couldn’t it? It was only-five thirty-oh shit. He’d have to find somewhere to change soon-he was supposed to be over to babysit-er-’hangout’ with Miles at six.
Is it really a good idea to go over to his house, and watch him when he might be under attack at any moment?
No. It wasn’t, but he was Benjamin Parker to them, and Benjamin Parker wasn’t going to leave them alone when they might be vulnerable. Maybe Beck-or whoever had done it wouldn’t go near them. Maybe they were just after Peter.
He still wasn’t comfortable with leaving them alone and defenseless-it wasn’t like he could get another hero to help him. He was alone. He needed to spread himself out as evenly as possible-and this was part of it. He was stupid enough to get himsel envolved, and now he needed to pay for it. Someone might hurt them if he didn’t start protecting them now. He was just going to watch Miles tonight, stay far away from where he’s been spotted so far-at least until he figures out what he needs to do, and gets it done-and then-then when everything goes as planned he can come back to his new normal life.
It never goes the way Peter intends it to.
His thoughts were cut off by the sudden trilling of his phone in his coat pocket. He landed-lightly as possible on the roof of the nearest building, grunting with the pain that tried to shoot up his legs.
The name that lit up his screen made his stomach churn. He watched-for a few minutes at least, before the name disappeared into a missed-call notification. How many times had he received a call from that number? How many times had he called that number when he was alone, and crying his eyes out and had noone else to go to? trying to feel better? Peter didn’t want to think about it. He didin’t want that number to be calling him at all. It never answered, and it never was supposed to again. It shouldn’t ring. And it shouldn’t leave him messages.
It left him many, many messages. None of which he could bring himself to listen to, or to delete.
It was just Beck again. That’s all it was, Beck trying to manipulate him, just because he could and he wanted him dead, and for some reason he was the main target-even though if Beck was alive he shouldn’t remember ever meeting him-or anything. Stephen’s spell was supposed to have made sure of that.
How-there wasn’t anyone exempt from the spell. Otherwise it would have never worked, and-and someone would have found him by now. Someone other than Beck-or the mastermind behind this whole trick was.
Maybe he left something behind with his name on it-not that anything was unaccounted for-and they figured it out from there.
He was pretty sure he had everything-there was nothing he’d replaced in his apartment.
Maybe they’d been watching his apartment for a long time, and they just saw him-Spiderman crawling in through an alley window like an idiot.
He liked the idea that someone had been watching him day in, and day out, without so much as him feeling or hearing them about as much as he liked the idea of being hit by a train again, and opening all the wounds that were left over from Beck’s….betrayal. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he had mistakenly trusted the man-and he-and everyone else got hurt.
He couldn’t let that happen again. His phone went dark and he pocketed it. He didn’t have time to think about this. He could think about it when he had the time, and right now he did not. The only thing he had time for was swinging across the town, and finding somewhere safe to change on the way.
So he did. He changed in the dark of an alleyway, stowed his bag, and sprinted on his dead legs across town. He got there on time-surprisingly enough, and tried to forget his troubles. Okay-so he shouldn’t have been trying to forget his issues, but in the moment it felt like the best idea to just push back his worries, and focus on this selfish little moment he was having with a family that wasn’t his.
So, maybe he shouldn’t have pushed back his worries at all. He should have been putting all of his effort into fixing what was happening right then. He should have been figuring out how to stop Beck-and how he figured out what happened, how he remembered him, and if he needed to be ultra aware of how he would expose, and ruin him this time. How long his meek upper hand would last, and how long he would be able to tell trickery from reality? Would he even be able to tell if anything was real in an hour-or a day? He saw that illusion-it looked so real-Beck’s death sounded, and looked, and felt so real. How did he plan on winning again if he’d only dealt with small petty crimes? How he would ruin his life again? Would Peter even survive if noone was there to stitch him back together? He should have been worried about all of that. He was worried about all of that.
But he couldn’t help trying to push it to the back of his mind when he saw their door. He’s not quite sure how he even ended up knowing that household-or when he went from a stranger in the building over, to a person who could be trusted to watch their child. Either way the homey feeling that seemed to grow when he walked to their apartment was welcome. It made him…made him kind of miss May-not that he didn’t usually miss her. He never stopped missing her. He never stopped feeling guilty for what he brought onto her either-but Miles-and his family were loving-and kind, and close-and he missed that.
Maybe it was selfish of him to be around them at all-he shouldn’t put a family in jeopardy at all, regardless of his own feelings.
It was too late to think about that. He was busy trying to play ‘super people’ with Miles, without getting his fingers smashed between the action figures. For someone who was supposed to be the good guy, Miles was sure instigating a lot of violence between ‘normal man guy’ and ‘Henry’. He’s still not sure where Miles got those dolls-but they hit just as well as any of the other colorful plastic figures he adorns his rooms with.
Miles took a second long break from trying to break Peter’s-er Benjamin’s fingers with ‘Henry’. “You’ll never guess what happened to me on the bus today.” Peter-Benjamin raised an eyebrow.
“What happened?” Miles gave him a tired look.
“I said guess Benjamin. You have to guess.” Peter sighed.
“You ate a piece of gum you found on the floor.” Mikes grimaced, before shaking his head.
“No. I’m not even crazy-so I wouldn’t do that.”
“Then what did you do?” Miles’s face started twisting into a smile.
“I saw Spider-man.” Peter raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure he didn’t pass any buses today-especially not an elementary bus-he was pretty sure he was still asleep in a dumpster. At least he didn’t have to fake surprise.
“On-on the bus?!”
“Yeah-he didn’t see me though, because I have to sit on the outside of the seat-but I saw him.” Peter tried to remain cooly-excited for Miles. But he was trying to remember the events of the day-it felt like one blur that had numbed it’s way inside of his head. Had he passed a bus? Or a school-or really anything? He wouldn’t know, he’d been kind of focused on the whole possible-life-ending happening soon.
Maybe it was an illusion.
Didn’t matter, it made Miles happy.
“And-and it was cool, because he can pick up whole cars-and swing everywhere-and that looks so fast-but my Dad says that he’s a bad guy-because he does hero stuff, without a badge-but I’m pretty sure he’s still a good guy, because he beats up weirdos.” Vigilantism pretty much guarantees that people will hate him, regardless of what he does. He still had to save them anyway.
“Uhuh.”
“But I don’t know any weirdos, so I don’t know if there's any good ones.” Not really, none of the people he fought were good weirdos. They were criminals. Murderers, people who hurt themselves on accident, and didn’t know how to fix it.
Okay, maybe some of them were good weirdos.
“That makes sense-uhm, why don’t we pick up the uh-the guys, and go draw or something?” He made a face at the idea.
“I drew a lot before you got here-but I guess, I could make more art today.”
“M’kay, then let's make more art.” And they did. They moved to his kitchen table, and Miles drew a picture of Spider-man that he claimed looked better than any of Peter-er, Benjamin’s own art would ever be.
It’s such a shame you’re living a lie-and these people are starting to trust you so much. It’s going to be horrible when your web of lies falls apart, and they hate you because you tricked them.
It wasn’t a trick. He was Peter Benjamin Parker now. That’s how it was. Spider-man wasn’t going to let this fall apart, he was going to fix this as soon as Miles’s parents came back, and he was done here, he would drag his sorry self off to a dumpster-or an all-night store to try and figure out what to do next-because right now? He’s got no clue.
He was trying to reheat the dinner Miss Morales pre-made for Miles, and trying to keep up a mild conversation with Miles. At least they were, until there was a knock at the door. A knock that absolutely made his bones ache with the thoughts of him, coming here-knowing who was here? Made him nauseous.
Miles hopped up from his chair, with an excited-and hopeful shout of ‘Uncle Aaron came?!’, and before Peter could stop him, he had darted out of the kitchen, and towards the front door. By the time Peter caught up, Miles was balanced on a bump in the rug staring through the peephole with a frown.
“That’s not Uncle Aaron. I-Benjamin?” Peter went to shoo Miles away from the door. His Spider sense gave him a good taste of who was behind it. When he peered through it, he was sickingly accurate.
Oh no.
What-how-who-
Didn’t matter.
He knew he was there, he could hear him trying to manipulate him into opening the door again-into getting caught with no hands at all-instead of his upper-hand he had held onto earlier. ‘Kid’ and ‘Pete’ and persistent knocking-how did he know he was there-it-what was he supposed to do without showing off who he was? Huh? All he could do was drag a confused Miles back to his room, and sit and try and stay quiet-even though he could hear someone trying to convince him on the other side of the door.
“Benjamin-is that your Dad?”
“No-just hold on a minute, and he’ll go away.” Peter’s phone started to ring from across the house. Somewhere in his coat pocket it was ringing away, probably hoping to draw him close to the door to trap him-and Miles-and maybe even Miles’s family and he wasn’t going to wait for it to happen. He was going to sit back there, tense as possible, until he left-or Peter was forced to do something else.
Eventually the knocking-and the calling stopped. Peter was still cautious to leave the room-even after he had left-even when he could hear the oven timer going off.
He made it out eventually.
Problem was that now he needed a plan to explain to them-without letting them know about his secret life-that they needed to protect themselves.
Maybe if he left them alone Beck would too and stick to him only-maybe break the villain trope of hurting everyone he knew and just go after him.
No. He wasn’t dumb enough to risk it.
He’d just have to come up with a plan while he fed Miles. It shouldn’t be too hard.
God this was going to be horrible.