five of wands
It was around 9:00 pm that night when Peter had finally located the last of his belongings and finished packing his bag. Tossing the strap easily over his shoulder, he moved to pick up his backpack: a task made considerably less manageable with his still-healing hand. Finally, with all of his stuff collected, Peter turned to make his way downstairs, only to freeze at the sight of Kat in the doorway.
“Going somewhere?” she raised a single eyebrow and Peter felt his heart sink once more at the lack of her usual warmth.
“Yeah,” he breathed, defeated, “back to my apartment.”
He moved forward, aiming to slip past her, but the smaller girl stepped sideways to block his path.
“You’re leaving?” And for just a moment, Peter thought he saw genuine hurt cloud her eyes.
“I’ve put you through enough,” he explained, attempting once more to make his way out of the room, only to be stopped by a hand on his chest.
“And? You think that gives you some sort of fucked up permission slip to give up?” Her face was stern and her voice felt like a shard of glass piercing his skin.
“I am not giving up,” he insisted, but his voice still reeked of defeat.
“Yes. You are. Just like you did seven years ago. Just like you did when my-” she stopped herself, but Peter was too angry to care what it was she had to say.
“Listen, you don’t know anything about me,” he spat through gritted teeth and pushed her aside, making no effort to conceal the sound of his footsteps as he flew down the stairs and out the front door.
“Yeah, clearly I don’t. Some hero you are, endangering a random girl and then dipping when things get messy,” Kat called, trailing after him into the snow. He whipped around, ditching his bags on the ground and stalking towards her until their faces were mere inches apart.
“Messy? I lied to you so I could crash at your house-”
“So you could protect me from the danger you put me in-”
“Do you know how disgusting I feel? I was a total creep which by the way, you agreed with, and here you are begging me to stay-”
“Oh, why don’t you soak it in Parker, it’ll certainly be the last time a girl begs for you. You know I don’t even know why I bothered at all, obviously, Mr. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man can’t bear feeling a little bit uncomfortable-”
“You are unbelievable, you know that?” Peter rolled his eyes and a sharp chuckle made its way past Kat’s lips.
“I am unbelievable? You have endangered me-”
“On accident-”
“Not to mention my eighty-six-year-old grandmother, and now you’re just abandoning what you’ve started when you know full and well that Spider-man is the only thing that can keep us safe,” she continued, hands flailing about as she spoke.
“Kat-”
“And you’ve got me actually defending you, God I can’t believe this is real-”
“Katherine!” Peter reached out to grasp her shoulders only to jerk back in surprise at the pain coursing through his hand. Her demeanor changed immediately, eyes growing wide before scanning for the source of his pain. Upon catching sight of his mangled hand she let out a gasp, tentative hands reaching forward as a question left her mouth.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Nothing. I just bruised it is all,” Peter supplied, suddenly unable to meet her eyes.
His sharp intake of breath betrayed him as her hands, delicate and light, moved to check the damage.
“Peter, this is broken. We need to get you to a hospital or something-”
“No!” He quickly pulled his hand from her grasp. “No hospital. I can’t- How am I supposed to explain this without…”
“Without telling them you’re Spider-man,” Kat finished with a sigh. The two stood like that, in silence for a moment. Still inches apart, but neither remarked on the position. In fact, Peter didn’t even feel flustered at the closeness. Something in his chest felt lighter with Kat so near, even with the residual anger from moments before. It was like having her so close just felt right.
“I used to be a Girl Scout,” Kat said finally, breaking out of her trance.
“That’s cool.”
“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes. “What I mean by that is we learned to set broken bones, as part of our first aid training. I’m probably pretty rusty, might need a YouTube tutorial or two, but I don’t really see any better options.” Peter looked taken aback.
“I’m not a craft project, I don’t think you can just DIY this sort of thing.”
“Okay, so then we go to the hospit-”
“No. Look, I heal ridiculously fast. I’ll be fine,” he reassured.
“Peter, it doesn’t matter how fast you heal, if you don’t set the bones they won’t heal correctly.” He groaned in response.
“Come on Tiger, let's get you fixed up.” And though her tone was begrudging, Peter thought he glimpsed a hint of a smile as she turned away to re-enter the house.
Peter sat uncomfortably on the countertop of the downstairs bathroom as he waited patiently for Kat to return with the First Aid Kit. When she finally did, she was fully engulfed in a video tutorial on her phone, nose scrunched as she focused on each step. Peter looked at her then. Really looked at her. He watched the way her hair fell around her face. The way she stopped every so often to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. He noticed her eyes. Not just her brown irises, but the smudged eyeliner that decorated each eyelid. She was pretty he realized with a start. Beautiful even.
He tore his eyes from her face the second she looked up from her video, interesting himself with the mauve shade of the hand towel beside him.
“Alright, give me your hand,” Kat ordered.
“What, just like that? You’re not gonna wear gloves or anything?”
She stopped, as though considering the question. “Do you want me to wear gloves?”
“I mean… Maybe?” Kat rolled her eyes but dug through the box beside her for a pair of latex gloves nonetheless.
“Kay, now gimmie,” she said once more indicating his hand. Peter extended it tentatively. She took it gingerly in her own, gently pressing down, whispering quiet sorrys each time he winced.
“Looks like it's broken in three places,” she said, tone apologetic.
“Great,” Peter bit sarcastically. She raised her eyebrows at his tone before speaking again.
“I’m gonna snap the first one back now, okay?” Peter only nodded, looking away.
“One. Two. Three,” she counted and Peter opened his eyes when nothing happened, looking back at Kat with curiosity and relaxing a fraction.
“Four!” The bone snapped back into place with a vicious crack and Peter bit down to avoid screaming.
“Does that feel right?” Kat asked, concern lacing her tone.
“How to fuck am I supposed to know that Kat?” Peter demanded.
“I don’t know, they’re your bones.”
“You’re the one who watched the stupid tutorial, you tell me,” he spat, sinking back in defeat at the hurt look on her face.
“I’m sorry, it’s just fuck that hurt,” he sighed only to shoot back up when Kat snapped a second bone back into place. This time, the cry escaped his lips.
“Sorry,” she winced. “It's just you were distracted, so it seemed like a good time. Besides, only one left.”
She smiled softly up at him, and despite the nearly unmanageable pain in his hand, Peter allowed one in return.
“How about this. You tell me a story, that way you aren’t thinking about it,” Kat suggested, stroking the back of his hand gently with her thumb. Peter snorted.
“What kind of story?”
“Any story, doesn’t matter,” she shrugged.
“Aren’t you the writer?” Peter asked, cocking his head to the side.
“Screenwriter,” she corrected. “Besides, I can’t come up with a story and fix your hand at the same time.”
“I don’t know any stories,” Peter complained, his head falling back against the mirror.
“So tell me something real. Like, how did you become Spider-man?” she asked, genuine curiosity creeping into her tone.
“Radioactive spider, duh,” he answered quickly and Kat shook her head.
“That’s how you got your powers. How did you become Spider-man?” she prompted. Peter was silent for a minute, deep in thought.
“My Uncle Ben,” he started. “He was a great man. Better than I’ll ever be. There was a robbery and he tried to intervene. He was stupid-”
“He sounds brave,” Kat cut in, eyes now glued to his hand.
“Yeah, he was that too. Anyways, the last thing he ever said to me was, ‘with great power, comes great responsibility’.” It was as though something in Kat’s demeanor seemed to shift at the words and suddenly she was the Kat from before again. The defensive girl in the front yard. Angry and sad. Before Peter could utter another word, he felt the third and final bone snap back into place.
Kat moved so quickly, he barely processed her departure, ripping off her gloves before stopping, back turned in the doorway to speak once more.
“Wrap it yourself. There’s gauze in the First Aid Kit.”
And then she was gone.
Kat was asleep when Peter finally finished fixing up his hand. He paused a moment in the doorway upon catching sight of her, hair spilling into her face, glasses still on, and a hand draped across the page of her book. Moving as quietly as he could manage, Peter removed the book from her grasp, marking her page with an old receipt left crumpled on her nightstand. He crouched low, carefully untangling her glasses from her hair, pausing at the sight of her eyes and cheeks which were tinted red and swollen. She had been crying. Peter let out a shaky breath, hand still hovering above her face. He considered tucking some of those stray hairs behind her ear, but decided against it and settled for folding her glasses neatly on the nightstand and switching off the lamp.
The following morning, Peter was out the door before Kat had woken up for the day. Despite their bickering the previous night, he left a note on her nightstand promising to return soon, accidentally smudging the ink with his sleeve in his haste to exit the house.
He took his time as he walked to his destination, stopping to purchase flowers on his way. Gwen had always loved daisies, and Peter resisted the urge to shove them into his bag, carrying them by hand to preserve the easily crushed petals. He never much liked the cemetery. Still, he visited at least once a month to replace the flowers on her grave. Sometimes, he came without reason or flowers. Simply because he was lonely. Or because he missed her. Gwen. Oftentimes it was her he thought of when he sought out a reason to keep going. To keep being Spider-man. Knowing that it's what she would have wanted.
As he reached the tombstone with her name etched on it, he settled down beside the mound of earth slightly elevated from the rest of the grass.
“Hey,” Peter started softly, “been a while hasn’t it.” He chuckled in spite of himself, but it was bitter rather than joking.
“I miss you. God, fuck- I miss you a lot.” He took a deep breath before laying down beside her grave, head beside her tombstone.
“I just really wish I could talk to you right now. Everything feels so hard without you here.” Peter imagined Gwen laying beside him. Imagined she would attempt to smooth out his creased brow, claiming she was wiping his worry away. He imagined that she would ask him what was wrong. What was bothering him? She didn’t. He answered anyway.
“There’s this girl.” He started and the Gwen his head teased him for countless empty promises to never love again. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“It’s not like that though. At least I think. Whatever, it’s complicated. The thing is, I feel like I’ve done something to her. Well, Spider-man has at least. She just seems so angry at me, at the world really, but me especially, and I just don’t know what to do.”
Ask her, idiot. The voice rang out in his head and he could hear Gwen laughing at him. Just be upfront, and normal.
“Yeah, but she’s not like you. It’s not that easy,” he mumbled. Anything can be that easy Peter. Besides, how would you know, you haven’t even tried. He only groaned and buried his face in his hands.
“Not even here and you're still smarter than me. How do you do it Gwen Stacy?” he asked smiling, and a gust of wind cut through the graveyard, ruffling his hair. It encircled him briefly, before moving away, dispersing into the city.
“Almost forgot,” Peter added, sitting up and reaching for the flowers by his side.
“For you, my lady.” He presented the bouquet to the headstone with a flourish, before clearing out the old, wilting daisies from last month’s visit for the new ones. Sighing deeply, he stood, collecting his bag and the dead flowers before turning back for a final look.
“See you next month. I love you,” his voice cracked on the last words and he almost surprised himself with how fresh the pain seemed to feel in that moment. Still, he turned away, brushing a stray tear from his cheek and making his way back to Kat’s.