Mutant
Peter’s running out of duct tape. The hole in his gut has stopped oozing blood and instead started to ooze a clear, thick liquid. A Google search tells him that this is normal for wounds this size, that it’s just his body trying to disinfect the region or something, but it doesn’t bring him any peace of mind. He’s got fucking spider in his DNA, how is he supposed to know if this is normal? Nothing about him is normal, it never will be again. Mutant freak. He’s barely a step above a monster.
Peter’s hands shake. His left hand is worse, it twitches nonstop while his right just quivers gently. He distantly thinks that he should really get a handle on that, it doesn’t really seem normal anymore.
The sound of Peter’s phone buzzing startles him nearly to death. It lights up from where it landed on his bathroom floor after he dropped it while cleaning his wounds, the bright white light throwing the red toilet paper in the bin next to it in sharp contrast. Peter groans as he bends to pick it up, absently throwing some clean paper towels on top of the mess in his garbage can to hide the carnage.
Expecting a weather alert or some other mundane, mass message, the text that pops up on his lock screen surprises Peter more than it should. He hasn’t received a personal text, other than the bland birthday wish from MJ, in.... fuck, who even knows how long. What Peter had been expecting even less, though, was a text from Flash fucking Thompson.
Flash: MJ says if you don’t show for the next AcaDec meeting you’re out. Here’s the itinerary for Friday. (image.png attached)
Peter’s heart drops to his stomach. MJ is so pissed that she won’t even text him. He fucked up so bad. Why the fuck is Flash the one she is making text him? Is she so pissed that she sent his bully just to fuck with his head?
Peter’s thumbs twitch violently across his cracked screen, his left thumb nicking itself on a sharp edge as he types out a shaky response. He really has to get his hands checked out.
Peter: thanks. tell mj i’m sorry
The response comes back almost immediately. Peter is on the edge of a panic attack.
Flash: Why’d you skip again anyway? Finally figuring out you’re too stupid to play with the big dogs?
Peter is torn between throwing up and snorting at the absurdity of Flash’s insults. It’s like he’s not even trying.
Peter: just wasn’t feeling it. i’ll be back next week
Peter stares at the screen for the next three minutes, tapping on it blankly each time it darkens and tries to turn off. No response comes in. Peter throws his phone onto his bed and cries.
---
Peter spends the next three days feeling like a failure. Not like he doesn’t spend every day feeling like one, but these three days were especially hard. The gash on his stomach has finally started to close, notwithstanding the thick line of scabs that Peter keeps ripping off. The glistening pink skin underneath just looks so pure, so innocent. Peter wishes all of him looked like that.
His grades have started to take a nosedive. He’s made it to every class this week, which is starting to become a feat within itself. Staying awake, though… that’s another story. Even Mr. Harrison was getting frustrated by him.
Worst, though, is Flash. The guy has been relentlessly bugging Peter, even to the point where Ned noticed.
“Peter, what’s up with you and Flash lately? He’s more up your ass than usual,” Ned groans as Flash yells yet another mindless insult at Peter as he skates past the pair down the hall. Peter just shrugs. Opposite to Flash, Peter hasn’t been feeling very talkative lately. It’s not like he’s mute or anything, talking just takes a lot of energy. Energy he doesn’t have. Energy May can’t afford. Energy he doesn't deserve. “Seriously, this is getting out of hand.”
Peter wishes he could agree, but part of him has been enjoying the attention from Flash in a sick, twisted, fucked up way. It’s not like Peter enjoys being bullied, but Ned has been so caught up in Betty lately and MJ has been giving him the silent treatment since AcaDec Tuesday. Flash’s stupid, only-mildly-soul-crushing insults are honestly a step up from the entirely soul-destroying pain of being completely and utterly ignored.
Ned seems to take his silence as an excuse to pull out his phone, chuckling lightly under his breath as his thumbs fly across the screen. Peter resists looking at the screen, knowing it’s likely Betty planning yet another adorable outing for the two. As much as he’s over the moon for his best friend, Peter is desperately jealous. Whether he’s jealous of Ned or Betty is a question for another time.
Shockingly, it’s Peter’s phone which buzzes next. He quickly pulls it out of the pocket of his hoodie, the removal of the weight making his entire body feel jittery and uneven as his other pocket remains heavy with the weight of his web-shooters. Peter knows he’s probably just paranoid, but he doesn’t keep his web-shooters more than one zipper away ever since last prom.
Flash: You know, it’s far less entertaining to fuck with you if you don’t respond.
Peter snorts out a shocked laugh. Ned flashes him a surprised look, probably because nobody (including himself) has heard Peter laugh in who even knows how long. Flash never fails to surprise.
Peter: sorry that i don’t like being insulted
His fingers hover over the send button, questioning whether he should press it. Is that too harsh? Is he being sensitive? Why is Flash even texting him again, this makes no sense. He’s never texted Peter before last night. Maybe this is just a new way to torture him.
Peter shakes his head before holding down the delete button.
Peter: would you rather i tell you to fuck off out loud instead of in my head next time
Peter hits send before he can chicken out. Because he will chicken out.
Flash: >:|
Peter can’t hold in his giggles this time. It’s so bizarre that Flash still uses old-school emojis, especially with the guy’s obsession with Instagram lives and Twitter.
Ned looks at him like he’s grown another head but still doesn’t ask Peter anything. He doesn’t seem to care.
---
Other than some half-hearted insult swaps with an annoyed Flash, the rest of Peter’s day goes by as bleakly as every other one.
Peter finds himself sitting at his usual lunch table with Ned and Betty, MJ nowhere to be found. White noise boxes Peter’s ears in as he watches himself watch Ned and Betty, blinking blearily at the happy couple while he tries to stay awake. He devoured his school-provided lunch within the first minute he got it, leaving the grease-stained plastic tray discarded by his right elbow.
A sharp pain in his gut wakes Peter out of his fog. He twitches almost imperceptibly in his seat, hands coming to cradle his stomach. The teen sprints out of the cafeteria, moving faster than he has as Peter in weeks. His beloved single-stall bathroom is across the building, yet Peter can’t bring himself to examine the wound anywhere else. He stumbles down the halls in a haze, breathing filling his ears while the fluorescent lights pierce his retinas and make him squint painfully at the tile floors. His shoes squeak against the linoleum, sounds of scuffling and chattering growing louder and louder as Peter shuffles past herds of loitering freshmen. He finally makes it to the safe haven of his bathroom as the noise buzzing through his head reaches a fever pitch, slamming and locking the door behind him as he rips off his zip-up hoodie and tucks his shirts beneath his armpits. The duct tape has started to peel at the corners but remains sticky across the quivering expanse of Peter’s abdomen, ripping little hairs from his skin as Peter tears it away. A groan forces itself from his throat and Peter hastily shoves the sleeve of his hoodie into his mouth with one hand to stifle the noise as his other hand continues to peel the tape away.
Red, irritated skin gives way to the pinky-white scar tissue forming on his stomach. Peter watches in horror as the scabs drop from his skin unprovoked, falling to the tile below him as he watches his skin knit itself back together. It seems that the burst of energy his body sucked out of the cafeteria lunch jump-started his healing, but was not quite enough to push it into the speed category. His skin slowly pulls itself over the shiny pink gash to form a bridge of bright white scar tissue.
Peter watches in horrified fascination, never having the chance to watch the process before as it always moved too quickly for him to process it. Detached, Peter watches himself dig a finger underneath the new skin before it can fully seal itself. He bites down hard on the hoodie, a blinding white-hot spark of pain, causing him to rip his finger away. The skin deflates as his finger escapes, quivering for a second before gluing itself down. It’s like his cells have a mind of their own. It’s like he’s possessed. Peter can't stop staring. He watches in a trance as his hand returns to the gash, this time just holding the skin apart. Not intruding, not pushing, just holding it there. Peter wonders how long it would take for the skin to just knit itself together over his finger, as if it were nothing more than an obstacle. He wonders how long it would take if he went another few days with nothing to eat. He wonders how long it would take for it to stop altogether.
The pain grows unbearable as the voices in Peter's head start to calm down, receding into background noise. Peter removes his hand from the wound, watching it heal before focusing on just his stomach. Peter doesn't know when it happened, but the skin seems tighter. He sees a stretch mark or two, making bile rise in the back of his throat. Is he being too selfish, still? Does he need to cut back more? This can't be right, he can't be gaining weight. But yet, his stomach feels soft beneath his shaking hands, hints of rolls hiding within the creases of his sides. Peter wants to curl up in a ball hide, he's so revolted by himself. How can he be so self-absorbed, so gluttonous as to think he's starving when he looks like this? He just has to try harder, he knows he can do it. He can be smaller, he can take up less space, he just needs more time. God, he wished he didn't. Sometimes Peter wishes time would just stop. Maybe he just wants his time to stop. He doesn't think about it too hard.
He looks into the bathroom mirror in front of him. He sees his worst nightmares reflected back at him, his gut protruding selfishly and his hands shaking weakly. No hero looks like this.
Peter removes the hoodie from his mouth as he lets his shirts drop down over his bare stomach, deciding that his freakish skin will protect him well enough without another coat of bandaging. He shoves the duct tape and bloody gauze deep into the trash can, ripping paper towels from the dispenser until they are covered in a thick layer of scratchy brown paper.
The bell rings and Peter goes to class.