Chapter 1
Wearing a skirt was...odd. It was one thing to mentally question their gender, another to use neutral pronouns in their own mind, but to actually dress against their birth gender? That was fucking terrifying. Then again, the skirt looked kinda good on them. As a guy, their thin legs had made them appear weak, even after the spider bite turned their scrawny limbs into lean muscle, but in a skirt long and pale fits.
And who knew that flowy, slightly loose shirts leave a person wondering what was under them? They had heard May complain about shirts not stretching over her chests right, and MJ would go off onto a rant about the misogynistic nature of clothing companies just to get a teacher to forget they had assigned homework the night before, but that didn’t mean Peter had thought about how it would fit someone with a flat chest. Or, more specifically, they never thought of how it would fit them.
They sway their hips, copying what they’ve seen women in movies do when in a new dress, and the sway of the skirt seems almost hypnotizing. They’ve never had something so soft and free, a complete opposite to the slightly stiff jeans they had always preferred. The shirt sleeves slightly puff in the center, hiding the muscle mass that never seemed to fit them quite right.
If they were being honest with themselves, they weren’t sure which version of themselves was the right one anymore. The spider bite had made them look more masculine, with sharper edges and definition that made it apparent that they were a he. One the other hand, this outfit makes them look like a she, soft and delicate in ways they had never fully been before.
That’s not to say a man could only be masculine, or a woman could only be feminine, but they hadn’t imagined that they could go beyond the rules. For some reason, gender roles didn’t matter for everyone but them. MJ had admitted to wearing men’s boxers to bed, or to lounge around in, and they hadn’t seen anything wrong with it, because why did it matter what MJ wore for herself? Same thing when Ned told them that he liked to wear make-up. He showed them how he did it, and Peter was still amazed at how straight he got the “wings” on his eyeliner without messing up or poking out an eye.
However, this “do what you will” attitude had only applied to others. It’s not like they had some childhood trauma that would make them hold so strongly onto these gender roles, he couldn’t remember whether his parents had cared about them, and May and Ben had made sure they knew that they could be whoever they wanted and wear whatever they wanted, so there really wasn’t any reason to so scared of a damn skirt, or a flower covered shirt.
Then again, they were a fairly well known hero. It would be hard to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man when they didn’t identify as a man, and they sure as hell didn’t want to come out as their alter ego. Then again, coming out as plain old Peter was terrifying. Their friends probably wouldn’t care, but what about Aunt May, or Mr. Stark? He could very well take away the suit, or the brand new internship they had only officially set up two weeks ago.
And what about the Avengers as a whole? Sure they didn’t give a damn about what the Rogues would think, not after how Captain Jackass treated Mr. Stark, but that didn’t mean a harsh reaction wouldn’t still hurt. No matter their issues with the man and his “team”, they had been their childhood heroes, and personal arguments within the team were already making it shitty to work together, they didn’t want to be the cause for a second “Civil War” as Twitter has taken to calling the last shit storm.
So, although they haven’t felt this happy and at peace for a while, maybe this outfit should go back to its rack. Sure, they’d never find something quite the same, but why risk the great life they’ve been building just to get that sense of wrongness that will occasionally pop up to stop. Their life is worth more than their gender expression, right?
They get the skirt, and the shirt, and bury them deep into their closet, hidden far better than their suit had ever been.