Guess who!

Chapter 3

CJ felt like an imposter. Standing beside Peter as their grandmother spoke with his Aunt May, offering her condolences. Staring at pictures of a man they had only seen once, when he was on the ground covered in blood. Dying. 

CJ didn’t feel like they should be there. They barely even knew Peter, when it came down to it. They had spent— what? A few collective hours in each other’s company? They didn’t even qualify as friends with that sort of resume. 

But trauma bonds people. CJ knew that better than most. And how were they supposed to deny him when he asked for them to come, personally? When he called their phone and could barely squeak out the words: 

“Funeral on Friday. Please come.” 

When he had never once let go of their hand. 

They knew what he was doing. They fulfilled several very important categories for his mental health just then— they were a peer the same age as him, someone at least a little familiar, and someone who was there and went through the high-stress situation with him— even if only partially. They had both been the only ones to see the light fade from his uncle’s eyes, the two closest to the moment of tragedy. He was latching on to that, onto not being the only one who went through that night’s events. 

It would wear off eventually. Peter would lean on his real friends after a short while longer, they’d grow distant again. Maybe, if they were lucky, they would remain friends— but not inseparable as they were just then. 

“I’m sorry.” 

The soft apology made CJ jerk in surprise, startled out of their melancholy thoughts. They turned their head, to see Peter staring blankly at the casket being lowered into the ground. The majority of the ceremony was over already. 

“What?” They croaked, confused. “What in the world are you apologizing for, Peter?” 

“What I said on the rooftop,” he whispered again. “You were right. We’re kids, and our… new abilities, they aren’t toys. I know that now.” 

“… If we’re talking about that stupid fight we had,” they started slowly, eyes roaming to make sure nobody was close enough to overhear their hushed conversation. “Then I’m sorry too. You’re also right. We can’t ignore this, we can’t just pretend we’re still normal. And… I’m gonna take a risk and speak for both of us when I say that I don’t want to go through that again,” they took a sharp breath, trying to keep their composure. “I never want to watch someone die in front of me like that ever again.” 

“I let him down,” Peter breathed, even CJ’s newly heightened hearing being barely enough to pick up his words. He nodded roughly. “Never again. Truce?” 

“No,” CJ wrapped an arm around his shoulders in a sideways hug. “No need for a truce. We’re on the same side, so how about a partnership instead?” 

Peter clenched his eyes shut tightly, his breathing getting rough again for a long moment. “With great power, like ours, comes great responsibility,” he whispered to them. “We need to do better.” 

“We will,” they promised. “Together.” 

“Together.” 

—*—*—*—*—*

“Arachnid and Black Widow!” 

“Not a girl, name’s already taken, and…” CJ tilted their heads a little. “Arachnid isn’t bad, but I don’t know. Doesn’t feel right.” 

“Right, uh,” he blinked. “I was willing to be Black Widow, but you’re right. That’s probably copyrighted right? She isn’t even in New York most of the time, would that count?” 

The two teens were on yet another rooftop, lounging with their backpacks being used as cushions and papers spread out around them as they set up plans for their new idea. Vigilantism. If it was good enough for kids in Gotham, it was good enough for them. The Gotham kids didn’t even have super strength, surely that meant CJ and Peter had a leg up on them. Right? 

“Brown recluse doesn’t have the same ring to it,” CJ admitted, sighing. “And shortening it to ‘Recluse’ sounds more like an insult.” 

“If I was by myself, I’d just be lazy and go with Spider-Man,” Peter admitted with a groan. “Naming is not my strong suit. And that doesn’t leave room for you, we can’t go around calling you Spider-Them,” his head popped up to nail them with a wide-eyed gaze. “Can we?” 

“Absolutely not.” CJ shot down, deadpan. “Spider-man’s not bad. We’ll go with that, I’m sure I’ll find a good name to match it eventually.” 

Peter sighed, returning to his sketches. They had agreed on a mixture of both their favorite colors, red and blue, with some black for accents. 

“It’s too bad we can’t just merge into one person like a cartoon to fight crime. That would make things so much easier,” he groused. “And we still have to learn how to fight. I don’t know about you, but my only experience in that area is on the losing side.” 

CJ ran his words through their head a few times, something about them setting off alarm bells. Something was important there, but wh— 

“That’s it!” They surged up onto their feet, mouth stretched ear-to-ear in an ecstatic, beaming smile. “Oh, you beautiful genius! The prophesied prodigy! Modern day Einstein, my beloved Peter Benjamin Parker,” they rambled without taking a breath, earning a bewildered stare for their efforts. 

Peter merely watched his newest friend continue to wax poetic for a while before he got impatient to hear what they had actually come up with. 

“I’m guessing you found a name?” He fished, earning their eyes— with pupils blown wide— settling on him again. 

“Spider-Man!” They exclaimed. Peter held up a hand, eyebrows crinkling. 

“Woah Woah Woah,” he protested, even more confused now. “That’s my name. Get your own.” 

“No, you beautiful little idiot!” CJ knelt down in front of him, placing their hands on his shoulders to give him a good shake. “We can be the same person! Think about it, if one of us slips up and gets suspected of being Spider-man, all we have to do is have the other one show up and make it look like it’s impossible for us to be him. And with everyone knowing I’m not a man, nobody will easily guess that I’d willingly call myself one,” they leant back, gesticulating wildly as they continued to explain. 

“We have the same height and build, and with a little practice I bet we can even sound identical too! We’d need to fully cover our heads to hide our hair, but a full body suit was what we were aiming for anyway. We can be each other’s alibis, and make it harder to guess our identities, and keep each other from being overworked! Our powers are the same too, it’s a perfect plan!” 

“Step one of a successful plan is to never call it a perfect plan,” Peter quipped instinctually. And then his brain caught up with what CJ had actually said. Once it all processed, his own eyes blew open wide and he leaned forward to grab their shoulders. They grabbed his again in return, leaving them staring into each other’s eyes with open-mouthed, squeaky enthusiasm for their newfound solution to their, previously unknowingly, biggest problem. They tried shaking one another at the same time, leading to them doing a weird kind of swaying side-to-side, both of them rocking on their knees as they clung to each other joyfully. 

“We’ll be Spider-Man!” Peter cheered. “Oh holy fudge-crackers, if we can pull this off we might even be more mysterious than Batman!” 

CJ threw their head back with a thunderous cackle. “After a fair bit of practice? Not even the world’s greatest detective will be able to figure us out,” they agreed, their smile turning into a predatory smirk. As Peter had found out pretty quickly, his fellow mutate was competitive. Dangerously competitive. If they considered fooling the Bats to be a challenge, they would take to it with a perfectionist’s zeal. 

And heck, who was he kidding? He was just as bad, and this newfound freedom offered by his new powers only helped release those daredevil tendencies he had really always had. His poor health and lack of confidence had heavily stunted it, making him not take many risks in the past. But now? Oh, the thrill that the idea of pulling the wool over the heads of older and more experienced heroes gave him was intoxicating.   

So, they made a schedule. As much as Peter wanted to just make a costume out of sweats and jump right into the action, CJ tempered him with logic. They needed something more protective and unique. Something they could make from scratch, to avoid people tracing the purchase of a specific pair of store-bought sweatpants and pulling up footage of them buying the things. 

Okay, so maybe they watched too many crime shows. They were educational. Better safe than sorry, anyway. 

That wasn’t the only reason they had to wait, though. While CJ joined the sewing club at school and Peter got taught tips from his aunt, they also had to learn enough about each other that they could pass themselves off as the same person. That meant adjusting both of their voices until they came up with something that both of them could manage easily, a voice that they could do identically, something that still managed to sound natural for both of them. It was still difficult despite them having similar vocal ranges from the start, but they were eventually able to work out a good prototype. 

And then there was body language to take into consideration. And personality— that one was easier, as both found they grew more comfortable and snarky behind a mask. All they needed was a little fine-tuning in that department, thankfully. Body language was harder, as they had to study each other and consciously stop bad habits that might give them away. 

CJ even convinced Peter to look online and do improv exercises with them, so they could both master thinking on their feet. 

By far the biggest challenge ahead of them, though, was the fighting aspect. They were starting with… 

“Does kicking a bully in the balls count?” 

“No, CJ.” 

“Damn. Then no, I got nothing.” 

…Absolutely no experience between the two of them. Peter’s idea to practice their dodging first was what made them aware of another ability of theirs, though. Namely, their aptly-monikered ‘Spidey-Sense’ that warned them of incoming danger. That was a relief for both of them to discover, for sure. And yet, dodging still meant nothing if they couldn’t land more than a few good hits of their own. 

“I can sign up for gymnastics and self defense classes and share what I learn,” CJ suggested, tone hesitant and dubious. “But even if you join classes too and we teach each other, it’ll take a while for us to make progress.” 

Peter nodded, frown deeply embedded on his face. “We’re gonna have a full schedule. Sewing, buying supplies, training… I don’t have the patience to wait years though, and we can’t skip school just to focus on training all day long.” 

CJ sighed. “We’ll have to wait until at least summer break then, that’s when we can make excuses to stay out all day and practice. In the meantime, we can sign up for clubs and classes to keep us in shape and start getting basics built up. And to practice our acting and create a character for Spider-Man that we can both turn into our second personalities.” 

Peter groaned, sprawling backwards to lay spread-eagle on the rooftop they were on. Glaring up at the clouds, he could feel every inch of his skin buzzing with the need to… just DO something. Start moving. Stop crime. He needed to make up for failing Ben, for thinking he could use his new powers to goof off and be irresponsible. 

He needed to fix his mistakes. 

Cj, hands on hips even as their brain continued to whirl with ideas and problems and solutions, felt very similarly. Gazing down at their newest (and yet somehow closest) friend, they bit their lip. Just looking at Peter, it was easy to see his impatience. If they tried too hard to stall, he would just get angry eventually and run off to do something stupid. 

Heaven knows they had experience with people like that already. 

So, CJ let out a deep sigh. “Give us two months, Pete,” they held up a hand when his head shot up to look at them. “I’ll sign up for gymnastics and self defense classes, you’ll sign up for some kind of martial art. Tell May it’s to feel safe or something. Maybe gymnastics too, so we can spend less time teaching each other. I’ll work on sewing our costumes, and you find a solution to our transportation issues.” 

“Transport… oh!” Peter sat up, eyes wide. “Of course! The Bats in Gotham get around with grappling hooks and motorcycles and stuff, and Iron Man can fly. There’s no way we can protect all of Queens on our feet!” New purpose in mind, he clenched his hands into fists and nodded. “Two months, and I’ll have a prototype of something worked out for sure! We can meet up once a week to teach each other what we learned, work on fighting, test our powers… and then what?” 

“And then,” CJ started out, taking a deep breath. “We start small. Spider-Man will make his debut helping out with small things here and there; cats Stuck in trees, bike thieves, nothing too violent. But… doing little patrols like that should be  some experience of its own, yeah?” 

Peter felt his shoulders relax almost immediately. The idea of a set timeline, of a plan for him to work on, immediately helped soothe the itch under his skin. Soon. He’d build the foundation now, and then start making a real difference. 

Soon. Very soon. 

He startled when he felt a cool hand settle on his shoulder, brown eyes widening as he noticed that CJ had come to kneel by him. Looking into their eyes, he watched as they gave him a crooked grin. 

“Don’t forget about me, now. We’re in this together, remember?” 

Peter couldn’t stop himself from beaming back at them. Of course; he wasn’t alone. He made a mental correction to his earlier thoughts; 

Soon, they would start making a real difference. Both of them, side by side. Queen’s very own friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.