anger
He’s angry, he's so fucking angry. His blood smokes inside his veins and his bones crack like glow sticks so he's lit up from the inside, and all that energy, it’s gotta come out somehow.
So, he fucks shit up. He goes to a houseparty, spends an hour or so pretending to enjoy the sweaty mess of bodies and B.O that everyone else is, then slips upstairs. He’s trying to find an empty room when he just can't fucking take it anymore.
He kicks the first thing he sees. It sends a hole as big a football into the cabinet. That's the final, snapping string, and then he’s at it, destroying everything, ripping it apart like an animal. Is that this new Peter? Is that what the spider turned him into?
“Nice,” a voice interrupts him. Peter freezes and looks up, suddenly scared. He feels like a child again caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
It’s just a girl, in a short dress, leaning against the doorframe.
“I, uh—”
“I don’t care,” she says, and walks towards him, “about any shitty excuse you're gonna come up with. Rage is rage. That's okay.”
“Is this — your house?”
She snorts. “fuck no.”
He swallows. She looks at him.“I’m Jane. Nice to meet you.”
“Peter Parker, he says back, and shakes her hand, like this is something more professional than it is.
--
Jame is fun, very fun. She’s smart and dangerous and lives like it's her last day on earth.
Peter experiences 4ams like never before, at all-night burger places, dancing on the dew-wet football field, eyes burning as much as the sun coming up the horizon, high on acid that, if he's honest, does not have as much of an effect on him as he pretends. Peter likes to pretend.
They get into trouble a lot. Disturbing lectures, labs, doing experiments they probably shouldn't be doing while drunk. But, Peter doesn't really care anymore. He feels like he belongs, with her.
They kiss, messily, hot and wanting, not like Peter ever imagined his first girlfriend’s kisses would be like. They fuck on the second night they know each other, and it feels wasteful. It also feels free.
After, she rolls over and goes to sleep, he sits up and stares at the wall.
Sometimes he thinks that he could be gone, and Jane wouldn't even notice, not for a second. But that's just the way she works, she flies around on her own volition, doesn't care about anyone or anything except the next night and fun.
--
They’re at a club, once again, and the feeling of Peter's been thinking about recently come bubbling up, and he can't even stop himself.
“So, I was thinking a round of drinks, then we go mooch off those rich fucks in the corner,” she nods her head where a group of well dressed people are sitting in the VIP, four bottles of open champagne in front of them.
“Jane,” he says, loudly.
She turns back to him, eyebrow raised in question. “What? You've never had a problem with that stuff before.”
“It’s not that,” he tells her, and takes a deep breath, “this isn't working for me.” There’s a moment before she comprehended what he’s said.
Then, she does and it all snapped into place. “What? I'm the one who showed you all this! This entire world, and you wouldn't have experienced anything if not for me." It's true. She took a boy having a bit of a mental breakdown and made him laugh.
He shrugs. “Yeah, but I'm going through something, and this is unhealthy for me.” Oh god, hear how grown-up he sounds?
She shakes her head. “Okay, whatever. See you later, Parker.”
“Yeah, Jane. That was fun.”
She turns back to him, and smiles, a little, like real people do, and says. “It was, Peter. Good luck with...everything.”
And then she’s gone, into the crowd. Jane’s a special type of person, he’ll never meet anyone like her ever again. And he was right, she doesn't care whether he’s there or not, there be a Peter Parker after him, and one after that, and one after that.