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There are days when Peter thinks that he is so invisible that he will blink and disappear by accident, and not a single person in the world will care or know.
There are other days when he's in the Spider-Man suit, when he’s being dogged by cameras and mobs, that he thinks about disappearing on purpose.
Either way, he can feel the lines between Peter Parker and Spiderman get blurrier every day, and sometimes he wonders what happens if he just leaves the Peter part behind forever. Most conversations he has these days are over the counter of coffee shops anyways, and when he’s in the suit, people at least occasionally ask him how his day is going. He’s learning to be okay with the silence, but when he goes for days without speaking to anyone as himself, he finds it's harder to remember that he had a life outside of the suit. Some nights he cuts the silence with unintentional sobs that reverberate through his tiny, echoey studio apartment, but that’s just something he will learn to be okay with too.
Even if he really wanted to, which he doesn’t, not yet- he can’t ditch Peter Parker. Peter Parker is in love with MJ and hasn’t been able to tell her yet, Peter Parker has a future at MIT where he and Ned find the next great math theorem or build a real AT-AT walker, and Peter Parker is the only person alive who knows how much his Aunt May cared about every person she passed on the street, whether they deserved it or not.
So, none of this is within his experiential zipcode- he thinks he will process much later the fact that he’s been to space before he’s had to steal a couple of granola bars from a corner store- but as long as he can see Ned and MJ, see how normal and safe their lives are in the moment, he can cope.
However, functioning completely alone at 18 years old requires some extra leg work on his part. It’s at the end of the second week that he decides if global amnesia is going to be a long term side effect of saving the world, he needs a permanent roof over his head. This, coincidentally, is a result of MJ’s never ending common sense and exasperation.
It starts like this: he holes up in an Avengers safe house the night after Strange casts his spell, finding himself locked out of Happy's bachelor pad. One week in, the house is fast running out of supplies, and is also bound to be discovered the second any one of his former teammates crashes through New York- he's pretty sure the space is supposed to be for a quick rest and recovery, not for extended stays from teenagers who for all legal purposes, no longer exist. He has eighty dollars to his name, four sweaters, three pairs of jeans, sneakers, a supersuit, and one handwritten letter explaining to the only two people that still matter to him how he needs them to remember who he is or he might as well fuck right back off to space and just wait to run out of oxygen.
On the second day, he works up the courage to walk to MJ’s donut shop, and even walk in. She isn’t working, but he orders a coffee anyways, and leaves a good tip.
On the third day, he doesn’t go back because he takes straight hits to the ribs from a bank robber with crazy technology that leaves him reeling, spending the night trying not to puke from the pain because it’ll only be him who has to clean it up in the morning.
On the fourth day, he puts on the sweater he knows MJ likes (she refuses to say it, but he’s caught her sneaking glances, and when they Facetime sometimes before school, she’s suggested more than once that he wear it), combs his hair, rehearses the letter over and over in his head, and walks in a slow flurry of snow through the doors of the shop, carefully closing them behind him
And it’s like being hit by a train all over again, seeing MJ leaned up over the counter talking to Ned, both of them laughing about college like they weren’t facing life or death odds less than a week ago. He thinks she is radiant, like a glowing nebula lighting up the place despite its dusty lightbulbs, shitty pastries, and watered down coffee, even though she’ll do her best to say something sarcastic. He just stands there, staring, as he watches Ned gesture over to him to tell MJ she has a customer. She rolls her eyes and turns towards the register, and even then, he’s rooted to exactly where he stands, his mouth glued shut.
She clears her throat. He tries to speak, and nothing happens.
“Hey, what can I get for you?” It’s all professional. Emotionless and transactional, 100%.
“I- I’m Peter Parker,” he says, kicking himself for the stutter and the stupid, stupid spark of hope that saying his name out loud somehow changes things.
“Cool. Nice to meet you, Peter Parker. Do you want something?” She doesn’t remember and she won’t remember, because magic doesn’t offer up loopholes for bad decisions, and magic doesn’t care that he feels like he might cry.
He’s about to launch into his speech, and then he thinks about how easy MJ and Ned’s lives are right now, with MIT mixers and the rest of senior year on the horizon, and then he thinks about how he can't drag them into his mess again, and just orders a coffee instead.
She turns around to grab his latte, and he feels his heart sink like a pound of stones as she goes to ring him up, expressionless. If he doesn't say something now, he might never say anything to her again. He shakes his head, popping the easiest question that comes to mind, hating that they've been reduced to this- small talk at an outdated donut shop, when he should be completing their triumvirate at the end of the counter, cracking jokes and worrying about the state of the Decathlon team once they graduate.
“Are you excited for MIT?” He knows she is, knows she is thrilled at the idea of being surrounded by true academia and cobblestone roads, knows that the MJ standing in front of him will not betray any of this information to the stranger she thinks he is.
“What?”
“Sorry, I, uh, just heard you talking when I walked in. MIT’s sick.”
“Oh, yeah,” oddly, she gives him a soft grin, “I guess it’s pretty cool.” He smiles back, unsure of how to proceed when all he wants to do is wrap his arms around her, walk over to Ned and talk to him about something inconsequential. “I hope this is good, but no promises, Peter Parker,” she says, handing over his coffee. Hearing his name come out of her mouth twice in the ten minutes he’s been here is a euphoric high he will carry with him for days.
“Well, you know if you expect disappointment,” he starts, a stab in the dark at something of the past they so recently had ripped away from them.
“...you’ll never be disappointed,” she finishes slowly, her mouth quirking into a smile. “I always say that.”
“It holds up,” he says, taking a sip of the coffee, “Best mediocre coffee I’ve had all day.”
She lets out an actual little laugh at that, gesturing to the menu. “There’s way more ways to be disappointed in here if you come back sometime.”
It’s not flirting, but it’s something. It’s not the apathy or cool exterior she would normally give to someone she doesn’t know, and he’s pretty sure her customer service skills are close to nonexistent. He feels like he’s spent the past four days gasping for a break, and this tiny conversation is a gallon of fresh water in the middle of a drought.
He waves goodbye, glances at Ned, who hasn’t looked up from his phone once, and resolves to come back to the shop for the small chance that MJ and Ned figure out how he fits into their lives.