Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every weekday morning at approximately six am, Peter Parker gives himself precisely five minutes to regret all of his life decisions.

Today, he gives himself six.

Then, morning mope complete, he pries himself out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom to wash off the sweat and grime from the previous night’s activities as Spider-Man. It feels gross to wake up blood-stained and gritty, but May would be suspicious if he frequently took showers at 2am.

Last night’s savage cat attack had been bordering on ‘2am emergency shower’ territory. Peter winces as he examines his blood-crusted arm. The poor little demon had been more scared than angry when Peter plucked it out of a storm drain, but its tiny little claws still managed a shocking amount of damage. He’s had fights with drunk MMA enthusiasts that hurt less, Peter thinks wryly, poking at his new scabs. Mostly healed, although it’s hard to tell through bleary, not-quite-awake eyes. 

At least the kitten’s owner had been friendlier than her pet. The young woman had been very grateful, and excessively huggy. She’d even offered to take him home and ‘play nurse’ for him. He still isn't sure why she'd looked so disappointed when he assured her that he had bandaids at home.

He continues his cursory inspection, prodding at his ribs. They’re fine, and he heaves a giant (blessedly pain-free) sigh of relief. The past few weeks have been hard on them, and he was beginning to wonder if they’d ever stop aching. 

In the past 14 days alone, he’s been side-swiped by a train, then punched in the ribs by the person he’d been pulling out of the way of said train (and then hugged fiercely by that person, pummeled some more, tightly re-hugged, and, finally, wept on as he tried to find a place to bring them without dooming them to a lifetime of medical debt or involuntary incarceration). He’s been kicked repeatedly by The Punisher wearing steel-toed boots. He was hit with a galvanized steel beam while saving someone’s St. Bernard from a fire. The beam hadn’t actually gotten him in the ribs—he hadn’t been able to see over the dog’s massive head, and had tripped on the curb on his way out. 

The flaming beam had definitely been a 2am shower event. When May had woken up asking about what the burning smell was, Peter said something about the neighbors and popcorn. At least sleepy-May wasn’t coherent enough to ask why the neighbors (who went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 5:00 like clockwork) were burning popcorn that smelled like melting spandex and singed dog hair in the middle of a Tuesday night.  Or why Peter had dog drool all over his face and neck. He can still smell the dog slobber when he wears that mask, even though he’s washed it three times since.

The shower shrieks to life and Peter winces, hopping around naked (and more than a little cold) while it takes its sweet time heating up. It’d be nice if the horrible sound signified more than a sad trickle of water pressure, but unfortunately, the only thing it’s good for is waking up May after a night shift. At least she doesn’t have to set an alarm.

Except May isn’t puttering around in the kitchen by the time he finishes his shower and gets dressed, which is unusual. Though maybe not so unusual… given, well, everything. He knows she’s been having difficult shifts at work, which have been leaving her more exhausted than usual. Peter tries to be quiet while going through the morning routine, although he misses her presence.

Between her night shifts and Peter’s homework schedule, they only really get to talk to each other in the morning. He’s missing her distracting presence today especially, because he’s dreading going to school this morning. He just knows that Harry’s going to be annoyed that Peter didn’t respond to (or even read) his texts all weekend. And then that weird thing with Liz on Friday… He had the distinct impression ‘running away and saying they could talk later’ was not the lasting solution to the problem he wanted.

That, and this was the week that… well, this is just going to be a tough week.

It isn’t until the coffee is made (much stronger than Peter likes it, but not as strong as May does, if her good-natured ribbing is to be believed) and Peter is munching on some plain toast that he sees the repurposed coffee bag he’s been using as a lunch sack lately sitting in the fridge with a post-it note stuck haphazardly on the side.

She must be having a really rough time if she didn’t even plan on waking up to say good morning at all. Peter’s usual sandwich and apple are in the bag, though, so at least she had enough energy to pack him a lunch. And to leave a note that says ‘Laundry today! Your room is starting to STINK!’ with a smiley face scribbled below it.

Peter pauses by her door on his way out. He wants to poke his head in and at least do their ritual hug for ‘good luck’, but he can hear her snoring and doesn’t have the heart to wake her. Instead, he loads his backpack and pours his coffee into a thermos along with some ice and enough sugar to make it palatable. Then he heads out the door to begin the fifty-three minute commute to Midtown School of Science and Technology. 

Harry is waiting in ambush near Peter’s locker.

“Peter, my buddy, my pal, did your shitty old phone finally bite it?” His tone is light, but he can’t entirely hide the underlying hurt. Harry never can.

Peter sighs. The only way out of this particular conversation is through.

“Sorry I didn’t message you back,” he apologizes as he digs through his locker for the book they’re reading in English. They’re supposed to do a live reading today of some passage or other that Mr. Finkley finds particularly moving. Peter just hopes he doesn’t get called on. He didn’t get enough sleep to pretend to care about Holden Caulfield’s problems.

“Then are you mad at me for some reason?” Harry asks. He throws a dramatic hand across his forehead. “Did I insult you in some deeply hurtful way?”

He’s practically swooning into the bank of lockers, and Peter has to duck out of the way to avoid headbutting him when he withdraws victorious with a battered copy of The Catcher in the Rye in hand.

“No, Harry. I was just… busy, okay? I’m sorry.” Peter hopes that’ll be the end of it, but Harry trails after him as he heads towards class. He sighs. They both know Harry’s first period is on the opposite end of the building.

Harry pouts, obviously not ready to drop the topic. “You were busy all weekend ? Didn’t have a single spare minute to acknowledge your oldest friends’ messages?”

“I think Ned’s my oldest friend, actually. And I started hanging out with MJ for like a week before we did,” Peter teases. “We can talk later, okay? You’ve been late to Chem too many times already this semester.”

“You keep track of my tardies?” Harry holds a hand over his heart. “You do care.”

“Of course I care, Harry. Now go. I don’t want to hear you pouting about getting detention or having to do Saturday school or whatever the penalty is now.”

Flash walks by and snickers, because apparently telling your friends that you care is some sort of admission of weakness. Peter shakes his head, trying not to let it get to him. After Ben, he promised he’d never let his feelings for the people he loves go unsaid. Just in case. Flash’s parents probably never tell him they love him.

But then, neither does Harry’s dad.

At least Harry seems grateful to hear it from other people, and to say it in return. That puts him miles ahead of Flash in Peter and MJ’s definitive ranking of “obnoxiously rich kids” that attend Midtown High. MJ says they’ll eat Harry last, when the time comes.

Peter, thankfully, does not get called on to read yet another excerpt of an irate Holden Caulfield lamenting about the state of humanity. Instead, Mr. Finkley keeps looking at Peter. He probably thinks Peter must identify with Holden’s loss of a beloved family member — and  his subsequent directionless anger at the world. Peter might be able to relate, if he wasn’t so busy actually trying to do Ben’s memory proud.

He does his best to shrug off the awkward scrutiny as he tries to subtly work ahead in his other classes. At least it cheers him up a bit to hear Flash read (with utmost sincerity) a passage raging about ‘all the goddamn phonies.’

Unlike Harry, Ned and MJ are obviously making an effort to take it easy on Peter this week. They crowd in on either side of him during lunch, making light conversation over his head while he does math homework to keep himself occupied.

The distraction from thinking about Ben is nice, but honestly, Peter needs every spare second of homework time he can squeeze in. The more time he spends doing his homework while he’s actually at school, the less time he has to dedicate to it at home in the evenings, and the more time he has available to help out Aunt May and go out and help people as Spider-Man. 

After Ben died, he’d briefly let his classwork slip. Saving people had felt like the only important thing — until he’d realized how much more stress his lowered grades were causing May. He’d cut back on patrols, and vowed not to let his duties as Spider-Man interfere with school again.

But then one night, a semi-crash involving a truck carrying some nasty pharmaceutical precursors resulted in a massive spill in a low-income neighborhood. The area was on his route as Spider-Man, and he might very well have been able to prevent it if he hadn’t been stuck at home finishing a stupid proof that he’d procrastinated on like an idiot. 

So now he’s back to trying to juggle both. Any available free time is dedicated to homework and studying. Those scattered minutes at lunch or on the bus buy him a few extra minutes to go out in the evening and save people from burning buildings, or take down overly aggressive assholes in mascot suits.

“So, Peter,” Ned clears his throat and nudges his arm, leading Peter to suspect that Ned has been trying to get his attention for a few minutes. “I heard that Liz is looking for you.” The accompanying eyebrow waggle was entirely unnecessary, in Peter’s opinion.

“Ugh, I thought we were done talking about her, like, a year ago,” MJ groans, then winces at the reminder of the date.

Peter had a massive crush on Liz during freshman and sophomore year. He pretty much carried a torch right up until Ben died. Then the infatuation had shriveled up under the weight of grief, and Peter decided he didn’t have time for crushes, anyway.

It had been a relief for MJ, who hated the other girl. The feeling was very much mutual, if the icy chill that descended on a room whenever the two were forced to work together was any indication.

The herstory of Liz and MJ was long and complicated. According to legend, they’d been best friends right up until the summer after second grade. But then, at a pool party, one had called the other a ‘poopy butt-head.’ Hair had been pulled, hands had been thrown, eyes blackened.

They’d been enemies ever since.

When they’d gotten their letters of acceptance from Midtown Tech, they’d both been glad to finally be free of the other, then horrified to learn the other was going to attend. Neither one had been willing back out and let the other win, so here they were — years later, in a different school district, and still at each other’s throats.

“Yeah, she said she wanted to talk about something after school on Friday, but I had to get home, so,” Peter shrugs, frowning as he catches an arithmetic error in his homework. He grabs his eraser, determined to correct it before he forgets.

MJ cackles and Ned gapes.

“You brushed Liz off?” Ned asks, aghast.

“You brushed Liz off!” MJ practically howls with laughter.

“Oh,” Peter blinks. “I guess I did.” 

He takes a bite of his coffee-ground dusted apple and gets back to work.

Peter’s free period is not nearly as productive as lunch, but then it never is. Peter doesn’t have lunch with Harry, after all.

Harry’s usually late, and Peter takes the precious extra minutes of productivity to get through a few stoichiometry problems. The assignment isn’t due until next Monday, but Peter doesn’t think he’ll be able to get himself to focus on them at all later in the week, and especially not over the weekend.

“So,” Harry whispers loudly as he crashes into the chair next Peter’s. The librarian gives them a sharp look, and he shoots her a charming grin. “Did you even read my texts at all, or…”

“No,” Peter admits and pushes the chemistry book aside. Harry needs his full attention, and Peter owes it to him for being a shitty friend about text-etiquette.

“At least you’re honest,” Harry smiles affectionately. “I was asking if you wanted to come over for a sleepover on Friday.”

Harry is the absolute worst with dates. It’s an indisputable fact, now. He’d been neck and neck with Ned, but this was all the proof Peter needed to set him on the first place pedestal.

“Uhm, I don’t know. Friday isn’t… isn’t great for me,” Peter says, reluctant to say no straight to Harry’s hopeful face. If he hints at it, maybe Harry will remember and rescind the invitation on his own. “May might have plans, you know…”

“God, Pete,” Harry laughs, and Peter loses all hope for subtlety. “What are you, twelve? Making plans with your aunt, jeez. I’m sure she’d be happy for you to have your own life.”

“I’ll check,” Peter huffs. He doesn’t like it when Harry talks like that, like spending time with his aunt is something Peter should dread doing. Like he’s a baby for loving his only remaining family-member.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Harry presses, “we can hang out, have pizza, watch those scary movies your aunt won’t let us when we’re at your place —”

“It was 2 am, there was a lot of screaming, and you wouldn’t turn the volume down,” Peter interjects, feeling compelled to defend May’s honor. It’s not that she hates horror movies; she just isn’t a shitty neighbor.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry waves. “Well, my place doesn’t have grouchy neighbors with paper-thin walls, so my point stands.”

Peter rolls his eyes.

“Think about it? Ask her real nice when she’s in a good mood?” Harry says, using his best puppy-dog eyes. Peter has a hard time resisting, even if MJ says Harry looks like a total douche-bag when he makes that face.

“Sure, yeah, I’ll try,” Peter mumbles. He doesn’t like lying, but he doesn’t want to reject Harry outright or make him feel bad.

Maybe he can ask MJ or Ned to gently remind Harry. It might be awkward, since neither of them have any classes with him this semester. But Harry actually does check his texts, so maybe it could work.

“You’re an absolute gem, Petey,” Harry simpers and bats his eyelashes, making Peter laugh and lightly shove him. The librarian clears her throat at them, and Peter blushes furiously, making Harry laugh uproariously until he gets them both kicked out.

Peter doesn’t get any homework done while they’re hiding from hall-monitors in the darkened (and supposedly locked) auditorium, but sneaking around whispering with Harry does make him feel a little bit lighter.

At least until he remembers that he’s going to have to find a way out of the sleepover. Which, in turn, reminds him that Friday, well — 

Friday is the anniversary of Ben’s death.

When Liz corners him after school this time, she does so quite thoroughly. And literally.

There’s no way he can leave without actually pushing her out of the way, and while Peter may have been a little rude when he’d practically run away last week, he’s not ‘shove a girl out of his path’ rude.

“Uh, hi Liz,” Peter says carefully. Maybe he can just… wall-crawl away without her noticing.

“Hi Peter,” she replies. She’s smiling, but her tone is strained. Her eyes are uncomfortably focused on his.

“What’s, uh, what’s up?” Peter fiddles with his backpack strap. He does not like the vibe she’s giving off; it’s making his Spidey-senses tingle uncomfortably. He sends out a wistful hope that MJ will show up and pull Liz away by her hair.

“You’re a real sweet guy,” she answers. Peter doesn’t know how to respond to that non sequitur, so he ends up just swallowing loudly and looking around to see if anyone else is in the hallway.

“Yeah, you are,” Liz continues as if he’d denied the compliment, which Peter thinks is really, really strange. It’s like she has a whole thing rehearsed, and he’s here ruining it with his dumb questions and his awkward silences.  “You’re sweet and you’re smart, and you’ve gotten real cute, Peter Parker.” 

She’s looming even closer now, still talking in that weird, forced voice. When he’d had a crush on her, he’d liked that Liz was taller than him. Now Peter feels claustrophobic, caught between her body and the wall.

“Th-thanks?” He’s pretty sure everything she said was a compliment, but honestly it feels more like he’s being threatened.

She lets out a fake-giggle, which Peter hates. He had categorized all of her laughs when he’d had a crush on her and this matches up with precisely none of them. Why is she even making that sound?

Then she leans down and presses her lips against him and Peter freezes.

Mostly, because he somehow did not see it coming. It’s… maybe not the worst feeling, because at least Liz’s lips are soft and she smells nice, but he doesn’t really like it. She could have asked first.

He’s not sure what to do next. Will he hurt her feelings if he pushes her away? Or is it weird to let her keep kissing him if he’s about to turn her down? He’s still trying to figure it out when he hears MJ and Harry coming. He’s still too shocked to do anything but stand there, wide-eyed and rigid, as the two of them round the corner. At least they’ll be able to help him, he thinks, desperately.

They just stand there and gape. MJ looks furious, cheeks going red and mouth setting into a hard, flat line. For a second Peter thinks she’s going to save him and rip Liz off just like he’d fantasized about earlier. Instead, she turns on her heel and marches away. Harry stares for a fraction of a second longer, before his shoulders droop and he’s slinking off, too.

Peter’s not sure which is worse.

When Liz finally stops trying to move her lips against his, Peter ducks under her arm, evading her grab for him.

“Uhm,” he stutters as he backs away, “I’m really flattered, but um— ” He can’t find his words and it feels like he’s got asthma again and he’s got to catch up to MJ and Harry and tell them what really happened. “I don’t really think I want to do that again. Like, ever.”

He runs.

He ducks into the bathroom, splashing some water on his face as he lets what just happened sink in. It was… fine. It’s not a big deal. People kiss each other all the time. It was just awkward. Awkward and very, very unfortunate that MJ and Harry showed up at the worst possible time. He takes a few more breaths, gathering himself. Okay, it’ll be fine. He can fix this. 

They’re both gone by the time he emerges to look for them. He’ll text them when he’s on the train home. He doesn’t know what to say, and his hands are trembling. When he sits down and pulls out his phone, they’ve already started texting him.

MJ: What the Actual Fuck?!
MJ: Were you secretly laughing at me at lunch??
MJ: Told me you’d brushed her off but just making plans to makeout?
MJ: I wouldn’t have even been that mad if you didn’t lie about it!
MJ: We were trying to be nice because it’s almost the anniversary and you turn around do this shit? I’m going to say it: you’re mourning in unhealthy ways
MJ: Do better Parker FFS

The last one makes him wince.

At least she’s already making excuses for him. He doesn’t think he can fix it over text, especially with the betrayal still fresh, but he knows it’ll be worse if he doesn’t say anything at all.

Peter: I’m really sorry
Peter: I’ll explain what happened tomorrow
Peter: promise

He doesn’t know if he wants to read what happened typed out like that, anyways.

Harry only sent a couple, and somehow it’s so, so much worse than MJ, even though she’s usually the one who knows just where to cut to really hurt.

Harry: guess i kno y u dont want 2 hang on fri
Harry: have fun bro :)

“Fuck,” Peter mumbles, earning a glare from a woman holding the hands of two toddlers. She’s on public transit, he thinks, looking away. That’s hardly the worst thing those kids are going to hear.

Peter: It’s not like that, I swear
Peter: I’m not hanging out with her on Friday, I promise
Peter: I’m sorry, man. We’ll hang out soon

He can’t exactly ask MJ to text Harry about what day Friday is, now. He’ll have to tell Harry himself. At least the crippling awkwardness of telling Harry why he didn’t just say what he was doing on Friday will distract his friend from asking about the weird Liz thing. It’s… not a great bright side.

By the time he gets home, Peter just wants a hug and a nap. He shuffles through the door, weighing the pros and cons of getting his homework out of the way, versus just going to bed right now. He might be caught up enough on homework to justify a few hours of sleep before heading out on patrol…

May is sprawled out on the couch in a way he knows will make her back ache later, frowning at something on her ancient and overheating laptop. He greets her with a tired smile as he makes a bee-line for his room. She doesn’t look like she’s in a hugging mood.

“Hey kiddo. Going to do your laundry, I hope,” she calls as he passes.

Peter wants to groan. He wants to say ‘Later!’ but he can’t do that. Not now, and not this week especially. So instead, he forces a cheerful, “Of course!” Once he makes it to his room, he leans against the closed door, letting his head thunk against the wood as his bookbag slides heavily to the floor. His shoes wind up on either side of the room, kicked off more violently than strictly necessary.

That’s it. That’s his one minute to pout.

With a sigh, he starts to attack the mountain of dirty clothes strewn across his floor. He tosses everything in the hamper, stripping off his (admittedly ripe) bedsheets. One more heavy sigh, and then he forces his face back into a pleasant expression as he opens his bedroom door. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t wake up with you this morning,” May says when he walks by to get to the washing machine (an olive green monstrosity that dates back from the Mid-Pleistocene, at least). “I was just so wiped.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Peter smiles, more genuinely this time. “Thanks for packing me lunch. How was the coffee?”

“A little weak.”

Peter does groan this time, a loud, exaggerated thing. It’s allowed — part of the lighthearted routine they’ve built up. May likes to tease him about being a robot child, threatening to take him to the doctor’s office if he doesn’t act like a teenager at least some of the time.

He shoves the laundry in, carefully measures the detergent because the dinosaur of a washer is a finicky asshole, and winces at the scream it emits when he turns it on. “One day,” he calls over the squeal of the pipes as the washer fills, “I will make a satisfactory pot of coffee.”

“But it is not this day,” May jokes back, setting the laptop down. “Come here,” she pats the couch cushion next to her. “I haven’t seen you all day and I’ve got to head in early tonight.”

Peter gratefully flops down next to her, letting her pull him into a sort of side-hug and run her fingers soothingly through his hair. “Bad day?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says and doesn’t elaborate. She waits for a moment but doesn’t press.

“That’s rough, buddy.”

Peter loves that he doesn’t hear a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She just lets him feel, and doesn’t force him to justify himself to her. He nods, then nods off, coaxed to sleep by May’s nails against his scalp and her faintly floral scent.

He wakes up in the dark. May’s gone.

“Shit,” Peter mumbles, wiping the saliva off his cheek. “Shit, shit.” He hauls himself up, stumbling to his room to suit up for patrol.

So much for getting in an hour or two of homework… He’ll have to somehow make up for the lost time tomorrow. And that’s going to be tricky, since he’ll be kept busy putting out the fire Liz’s kiss set on his relationships with Harry and MJ. It’ll be fine. He’ll figure out what to say to them, do the damage control, and maybe he’ll luck out and he won’t get too much new homework tomorrow.

Peter puts the Spider-Man suit on inside out. He swears a little as he peels it off and pulls it back on correctly, then dives out the window.

“Do better, Parker,” he mumbles to himself, and sets off in the direction he hears screams.

Chapter Text

On Mondays, Frank gets coffee with Micro.

The whole ritual is agonizing. Micro does his best imitation of a functional, normal human being. Frank keeps his grunting and snarling to minimum, trying not to make the barista too uncomfortable.

He’s not too successful today, given the way she keeps nervously looking over at them. Frank blames Micro for this, at least in part, because the other man is vibrating so hard he’s rattling the hippie shit in the windows. That’s unfortunate, as it’s usually his job to keep Frank calm in this herb-scented tea-slash-apothecary-slash-coffee shop. If Frank had a happy place, this would be its direct opposite, but Micro insists that it’s the best option. He isn’t entirely wrong. It’s quiet, low-traffic, and there’s always a seat open where Frank can watch all entry points.

If only it reeked less of roses and lavender.

Or, if that wasn’t possible, the obnoxious botanicals would do their job and calm his friend the fuck down.  

“What’s up, Micro?” Frank grumbles, his own leg bouncing furiously in sympathy. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the barista stirring extra lavender syrup into his ‘calming sencha latte.’ He’d tried to order his usual black coffee, but the barista (the same panicked, mousy looking young woman he sees every time he comes here) had suggested the tea concoction instead. Not one to be intentionally rude to service workers, Frank had grunted his acquiescence and has watched its creation with extreme diligence ever since.

She better not be trying to poison him.

“It’s David,” Micro corrects him mildly.

“Micro,” Frank replies, just because he likes the way David wrinkles his nose when he does. “Why the hell are you so twitchy today? It’s making me twitchy, and that’s making the barista twitchy, and we could all use a little… less… twitching.”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah,” Micro nods. Which isn’t a damn answer, except then he goes digging around his battered messenger bag and hands Frank a thick file.

“Take, uh, take a look at that, will you?”

It’s an in-depth dossier of some corporate R&D Engineering asshole, fittingly named Kevin White. Frank isn’t shocked at the detail, although he’s slightly impressed that Micro even bothered. The man is shockingly bland. He pays his taxes on time, enjoys his steak medium-well, and volunteers as an assistant coach for a local school’s lego robotics club. There is nothing of interest about him at all, and Frank’s starting to wonder why Micro’s wasting his time with this — until he turns to the last section. He catches the first three sentences and abruptly shuts the folder. Just in time, too, because Small, Neurotic, and Mousy is almost at the table with their drinks.

Frank takes several deep breaths, letting them out slowly. He can’t have one of his explosions at Micro, not in front of the barista. It would call attention to them and they’d have to find a new place to meet, again . And he’ll never admit it, but Frank is starting to feel comfortable in this one. Also, he’s pretty sure he’d give the poor girl a panic attack, and he isn’t that kind of asshole.

Mostly.

He tries not to be that kind of asshole.

Couldn’t Micro have given him some warning about what he was giving to Frank? True, files from Micro were always at least somewhat disturbing. He only brought them to Frank if the person had done something that actually warranted Frank’s particular brand of justice. But this—

“Thank you,” Frank grunts, a little too forcefully, when his foaming mug of lavender-scented tea is set in front of him. It’s a welcome distraction. He tries to smile at the barista, but the tug of his lips feels wrong. He’s certain it’s more of an unhinged grimace than anything pleasant. The look on the girl’s face confirms his suspicions.

Fucking Micro.

Frank wants to shout at him, ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. He catches the barista’s eye. He takes another deep breath, and takes a sip of his tea.

He doesn’t spit it out, but it’s a near thing. The lavender is powerful, and he’s not sure how he feels about this ‘sencha tea’ business. A comment about how he’d go chew on a suburban garden if he wanted to taste this shit is on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows the remark, and the tea, down. Someone made this for him, after all. This was made specifically for him, by someone who thought, for whatever reason, that he would enjoy (or at least benefit in some way from) it.

Tentatively, he tries another small sip. It’s very slightly less offensive, now that he’s prepared for it.

Still wishes it was coffee, though.

It takes Frank a minute to realize that Micro is staring at him. Right. The file. 

“So I take it you’re not a big fan of Leo’s lego robotics coach, huh?”

Micro lets out a heavy breath through his nose, which Frank interprets as a humorless laugh. 

“I’m not sure if I’m more impressed that you haven’t already torn out of here to bludgeon someone to death, or that you actually remembered which of my kids is into lego robotics.”

“Yeah, well,” Frank shrugs, and takes another sip of the bafflingly foul-yet-intriguing tea. It’s a good way to keep from having to respond immediately.

Despite the fact that the Lieberman family has decided, for some inexplicable reason, to adopt Frank fully into their ranks, it’s still a sore point between Frank and Micro. Just because Sarah flirted with him that one time. Usually it’s water under the bridge, an honest mistake made by a woman who thought she was a widow with a man who was overly invested in her family’s safety without explaining why. Micro needs to get over it, move on.

Or, it just might be that Frank still feels guilty. It’s so hard for him to tell what’s genuinely going through other peoples’ heads and what he’s just projecting on them.

“Figures at least one of them would be a total fuckin’ nerd,” Frank says at last, trying to dissipate the tension.

“Yeah,” Micro replies with a half smile. He’s tense, but of course he is; Frank would be tearing the world apart if he knew that sort of man had been anywhere near his kids. Hell, he’s all knotted up just knowing that sort of man was near someone else’s kids. “Figures.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Frank grunts, trying to be reassuring.

“Thanks.”

They sit for a long time in not-quite comfortable silence. Frank is torn between contemplating how he’s going to rip Leo’s lego coach to pieces and contemplating why the hell he keeps drinking more of the tea latte. It’s like the oral equivalent of a train wreck. He just can’t look away.

By the time they’re leaving, Frank has lost his leg bouncing and nervous tics. Instead, he feels very focused on the task ahead of him.

“Thanks for the recommendation,” he tells the barista, giving her a hefty tip. “I feel much calmer now.”

Micro’s intel makes tracking the bastard down almost too easy. 

Frank follows him home from a business dinner, starting at a distance and slowly hemming him in. Kevin dodges and weaves, taking less efficient routes home as he tries to lose his tail. Frank expected as much, but he’s still irritated as they start to edge too close to Daredevil’s territory for comfort. Time to wrap this up.

They’re still a few blocks out from Hell’s Kitchen when Frank manages to corner Kevin in an alley. It’ll be most efficient to make this look like a mugging gone wrong; despite the oversaturation of masked heroes in New York City, very few of them waste their time with petty street crime.

Kevin realizes very quickly that he’s trapped. He fumbles his wallet out with shaking hands, tossing it to the ground between them.

“T-take it,” he whimpers.

“I think you know that’s not what I’m here for,” Frank informs him. His jacket mostly obscures the white skull, but it falls open as he takes another step. When Kevin catches a glimpse, all the blood drains from his face.

Frank smirks, but there’s no humor in it. “Not so fun when you’re the one cornered and helpless, is it?”

Kevin begs for mercy. That’s fine. Standard, even. Kevin offers him money.

Frank decides to do this one without the gun.

He starts with a hard blow to the ribs, to keep Kevin from screaming too loud. He’s just getting warmed up when he catches a glimpse of red out of the corner of his eye.

Fuck.

The shade is too bright to be Murdock. And if it were Murdock, Frank wouldn’t have seen him coming.

Spider-Man, then.

Little Red is a persistent thorn in Frank’s side. Despite the enhanced strength and incredible reflexes, the masked vigilante can’t fight worth a damn, a failing that Frank takes ruthless advantage of. He would have killed the annoying fucker ages ago, but that crosses a line that even he isn’t quite ready to cross. Instead, Frank makes a point to be brutal when beating the punk down, in the hopes that he’ll stop sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.

But no matter how hard Frank hits, no matter how broken and beaten he leaves the vigilante, the little cockroach always, always pops back up.

“Not in the mood for your shit tonight,” Frank grunts.

Kevin is on the ground looking up at him, eyes nearly swollen shut already. It’s a pathetic sight, but not even close to retribution for what he’s done. Frank regrets his decision not to just shoot the fucker, and regretting even more that he’ll have to kill him before he suffers like he deserves. It costs him a precious few seconds to unholster his gun and aim, and by the time he has it levelled at the perv’s head it’s already being yanked from his grip.

Obnoxious.

Expected, but obnoxious.

“Don’t you have something better to do than annoy me, Spider-Man?” Frank sneers. The red-and-blue bane of his existence is adhered to the side of the brick wall, well out of Frank’s reach. The gun dangles in a decidedly unsafe way from Spider-Man’s fingers, as if he’s disgusted to even touch the thing.

“Don’t you have better things to do than beat salarymen to death in dark alleys?”

Which —

“He’s not a salaryman,” Frank snorts. “His ‘bonuses’ are more than his employees make in a year.”

It’s not the point, but it grinds Frank’s gears to see people painted as the victims when they’re clearly not .

“Shitty manager then, sure,” Spider-Man shrugs, shifting around for an opening to dart in and rescue the fucker. “But last I checked, that’s not a capital crime. Even if we are going full ‘eat the rich,’ I’m pretty sure there are better, and might I say more tasteful, targets —”

“Cut the shit,” Frank spits. “This living skid-mark,” he grabs Kevin by the hair and shakes, viciously, “is a monster. He hurts people.”

“Whatever you think he did, I can help you make sure he pays the consequences, but—”

Frank laughs. Spider-Man lets out a little hurt noise, but valiantly, annoyingly, continues.

“ —but, you don’t get to play judge, jury and executioner!”

Frank laughs even harder. He can’t help it. Frank gave up playing ‘judge’ and ‘jury’ a long time ago, when he realized his ability to make those sorts of calls was well and truly fucked.

It’s a drop in his guard. Spider-Man uses the pause to try to shoot a web, but Frank knows his tells and manages, barely, to dodge.  Kevin, the optimist, is halfway down the alley on his hands and knees when Frank grabs his ankle and drags him back. He positions himself so Spider-Man can’t web him up without getting the bastard, too.

They’re in something of a stand-off until the other vigilante launches himself at Frank, realizing that he won’t be able to rely on his webs. In terms of Kevin’s continued survival it’s not a bad idea. Frank had just been thinking about just killing the guy first, and then figuring out his escape from the web-shooting pain in his ass.

In terms of his own well being, well. It’s not the best decision Spider-Man’s made about his personal safety. At least Frank assumes so. Now that he thinks back he’s never seen Little Red make what he’d call a good decision in that regard.

Frank is man enough to admit that Spider-Man is stronger, more flexible, and has better reflexes than he does. But he barely knows how to throw a punch, and, worse, he seems to spend just as much effort trying not to hurt Frank as he does trying to take him down. Frank has never been one to turn down an advantage. The fight is turning quickly in his favor, but while he’s thrashing the stubborn asshole, Kevin is crawling away. Again. Frank tries hitting harder, but the annoying thing about Spider-Man is that hitting him feels a lot like hitting a brick wall. He does take damage, but short of going for fatal injuries, Frank isn’t going to be able to put him down fast enough to prevent Kevin from escaping.

“You wanna know what that bastard did?” Frank pants.

Spider-Man stops trying to pull his hair out for just a moment.

“See, he’s a real stand up guy, our Kevin. Volunteers, ya know, as a coach for kids. Finds the ones who feel real lonely, gives ‘em a person they feel like they can confide in, a friend you know? Makes ‘em feel real special. Then he gets them alone, like parents always say not to be, corners them so they can’t run away, and then...well...am I painting a clear enough picture for you Little Red?”

He can tell he’s gone far enough when Spider-Man starts loosening his hold.

“But you’re fine with that, aren’t you?” Frank drives the point home, “I mean, that’s the kind of guy you’re out here protecting, isn’t it?”

“I-” Spider-Man’s voice cracks. “That’s— I’m not...”

Spider-Man’s chest catches on a breath. Then he turns on his toes and flees .

It’s so unexpected that Frank can only gape, watching as his form shudders in a very familiar way even as his webs catch and propel him away.

Was he just— did he just make Spider-Man cry?

Overly idealistic, small-statured, cracking voice Spider-Man.

Oh fuck, Frank thinks.

Spider-Man is a kid.

Chapter Text

Peter almost cried in front of The Punisher.

No scratch that, Peter did cry in front of him. He’d managed to hold in the sobs until he’d webbed himself away, but the first tears had eeked their way out of the corners of his eyes while he was still standing in full view of Frank ‘I Get to Murder People Because I’ve Decided I Have the Moral High Ground’ Castle.

Sure, the mask theoretically would have hidden it, but The Punisher seems like the guy to have a sixth-sense about that sort of thing. Peter’s weeping probably fed him somehow. Maybe that was why he was so mean; his only sustenance was the tears of the guilty. 

Or something like that.

He felt sick to his stomach—he’d just left that man to die. All because he couldn’t hold it together. It made sense. He knew The Punisher only went after really bad scumbags. He’d started to see red himself when the vigilante started to explain. Peter had felt gross just being cornered and kissed by a pretty girl; the idea of a trusted adult—

He’s yanked from his thoughts by a tortured screech of tires, and swings out to save a one-eared mutt from traffic. He lets it chew on him a little longer and a little harder than he ordinarily might. Peter’s new hobby is identifying dog breeds, but other than ‘medium sized’ he can’t get a read on this one. Maybe it’s because his vision keeps blurring while he inspects it. Other than the arm-chewing habit, she’s pretty sweet. Lots of tail wagging, no growling. No tags, either, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s been feeding her. He drops her off (along with a make-shift water dish) on the balcony of a woman who lost her old rescue dog several weeks ago. She’s been crying a lot. He hopes they find love and healing together. Or, if it’s not love at first bite, that she knows a good no-kill rescue she can bring the mutt to.

Peter spends the rest of the night throwing himself into being a Friendly, Neighborhood Spider-Man. He can’t think about Frank Castle and his victim. Was the guy really the victim? Surely that title rested with the kids he’d hurt bad enough to get The Punisher coming after him. Ugh. This is why Peter focuses on helping people, not doling out punishment. 

By the time he gets home and flops into bed, he’s exhausted and shaking. He stares at the ceiling for what feels like hours, and when he finally dozes off he has dreams about shadowy figures cornering him in the hallway near his locker, grabbing him, taunting at him. The entire time, The Punisher laughs, saying he’s getting what he deserves. 

He wakes up an hour before his alarm, and lays in bed regretting everything for an hour and five minutes.

May’s still asleep by the time Peter leaves. Today, it’s a relief. She would know exactly what to say to make him spill his guts. Maybe not the excruciating details, but at least his feelings about them. It would make him feel better in the end, but he has no desire to have a breakdown on the subway or show up to school with red, puffy eyes.

It’s bad enough that The Punisher knows he’s a crybaby; he doesn’t need the entire school knowing, too.

One of the benefits of being Spider-Man is that it really puts his daytime problems into perspective. The Liz kiss feels like no big deal after the whole ‘ Punisher kicked my ass again, except this time he did it with words (and words aren’t his strong suit)’ debacle.

The downside is that no one else benefits from this increased wisdom. Harry and MJ are still going to be upset, and while the thought of talking to them doesn’t feel quite as daunting as it did when Peter was on the subway home yesterday, trying to figure out what to say is still exhausting.

Even more exhausting is the realization that he underestimated the power and speed of gossip in a high school. The moment he walks in, it feels like everyone is sneaking glances at him. Some are outright staring. With his enhanced senses he can hear them when they whisper to each other behind their hands. Usually this allays his paranoia, but today they really are talking about him.

They’re all sorts of abuzz:

“ — would he turn down Liz? He’s never going to get anyone better —”

“ —why was she even—” “ —with Parker?” 

“Well, you know she has a… complicated… home life. Low self-esteem, you know.”

“I heard he said yes, and then she came to her good senses.”

“She had to have, you know there’s no way she would—”  

Peter has to fight the urge to cover his ears as he makes his way through the gauntlet.

At least MJ and Harry will know that it’s not what they thought, whether they think the future lack of kisses are his decision or hers. 

It’s not like he’s going to date her in secret.

“Well, I heard they’re actually dating in secret. She gets the best of both worlds. Stay the queen bee, and have the cute dweeb on the side.”

Yeesh. These people need to lay off the soap operas and porn.

MJ, Ned, and Harry are all hovering near his locker.

“Hey,” he greets, voice rough. It has absolutely nothing to do with hearing people talking about him like that. Nothing at all.

They all talk at once: “Hey—” “-the hell, Parker? Wh—” “What’s the story with Liz?”  

“Uhm,” Peter blinks. “Can we talk later? Like, kind of in private?”

“You have some explaining to do, Parker,” MJ glowers. His gut sinks, and he just feels so tired.

He’d hoped she would be at least somewhat appeased by the rumor that Peter crashed and burned where Liz was concerned. Or maybe the ‘secret boytoy’ rumor reignited her suspicions.

“Yeah, it’s just there’s a lot of people around here, so can we talk during lunch?”

“We don’t have lunch together, Peter,” Harry points out, fixing Peter with a stare.

“Free period, like always,” Peter pleads.

“Okay, but like,” Ned leans forward, “I want all of the details. Since I didn’t get to see it firsthand like these two lucky jerks.”

Peter sighs, and attempts a watery smile.

Said lucky jerks do not look particularly pleased, but at least they’re placated for now.

All Peter has to do is get his jumbled thoughts together in enough to explain what happened in a way that saves their friendship.

Easy peasy. 

Peter’s pretty sure he’s fucked. 

Resigning himself to a friendless life, followed by a solitary death alone and scared, he ambles to first period English. Hopefully Finkley doesn’t ask Peter to read today. Maybe he’ll say he’s got laryngitis to get out of it. His throat feels scratchy enough for it to be true.

True to form, Flash can’t resist coming over to Peter’s desk before class starts and harassing him. Peter wonders idly if it’s some sort of biological imperative for the other boy. Perhaps Flash goes into some sort of torpor during long holidays, conserving whatever dark energy he gets from irritating Peter, fat and happy from the feeding frenzy of Finals Week. 

Damn, he should have done that for his Biology project last year.

“I heard Liz asked you out and you spazzed out and ran away,” Flash looks exceptionally pleased with himself. As if Peter hasn’t been hearing worse versions of this since he walked in the building. As if he didn’t have The Actual Fucking Punisher accusing him of defending sex offenders last night.

It’s just so tame. Pathetic, really. He shouldn’t rise to the bait; Uncle Ben would want him to be the better man in this situation, and most of Peter agrees. But he couldn’t say anything last night, and he can say something right now, and then his mouth opens and the words just come out— 

“Well, I heard your parents don’t love you.”

Flash goes pale and then flushes. It’s a sore point for him. Everyone knows it’s a sore point that his parents never show up for any school functions, that never seem interested in his accomplishments.

“At least I have parents,” he shoots back, voice wavering with emotion.

“Is it better to have loved and lost,” Peter ponders philosophically, “than to have never been loved at all?”

Flash looks like he wants to hit him. Or cry. Too bad he can’t do either, because Mr. Finkley strolls into the room and tells everyone to sit down, strap themselves in, and prepare their bodies for another exciting reading of Holden Caulfield’s existential angst.

Peter manages to intercept MJ and Ned before they get to the lunch room. They don’t know about Harry and Peter’s secret entrance to the auditorium, but Peter deems the situation sufficiently dire to show them. 

Still, it feels a little weird to be letting them into such a secret spot. Vulnerable. He feels their gazes keenly on the back of his neck as he leads the way.

Once they’re settled, he’s out of excuses. He’d gone back and forth in his head on what exactly to tell them. He trusts MJ to keep the secret, but he’s only about 64% on Ned. Ned would never sell him out—on purpose. He just… gets excited. But this whole thing escalated because they don’t trust him to be honest with them. And—his gut twists with guilt—they’re right. He’s lying to everyone, all the time.

The least he can do is be honest about this.

It’s easier than he thought it would be. By the end, Ned, who had been excited for the juicy details on Peter’s first kiss, looks kind of confused. MJ is the kind of silent that always makes Peter nervous.

“But wasn’t it nice?” he asks, and gets cuffed on the back of the head by MJ.

“I mean, she didn’t have bad breath or anything,” Peter hedges. “But I wasn’t expecting it and then she just sort of mashed her face against me which wasn’t super nice?”

“Man, that sucks,” Ned sighs. “You get your first kiss with Liz and it isn’t even enjoyable.” 

“She is going to pay for this,” MJ says finally.

Peter sees Liz’s life flash before his eyes.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” he holds his hands out, as if he can hold her back with the gesture alone. “I just wanted to let you know that I wasn’t asking for it, I didn’t really like it, and I was never ever trying to have a secret relationship with your enemy behind your back. I’d never do that.”

MJ sighs heavily. “Alright. But if I find out she was messing with you just to try to ‘steal’ you from me…”

“Wow,” Ned snorts. “Egotistical much?”

And just like that, Peter is back in MJ’s good graces and Ned takes his spot on her shit list.

Afterwards, he feels lighter; the tightness in his chest has eased, at least a bit. He tries to concentrate on the way MJ smiled at him, tries not to let Frank Castle sneering at him take up the newly freed real-estate in his brain.

It went okay with Ned and MJ, and he’s not as worried about talking to Harry, now. Maybe everything’s going to be okay.

His phone buzzes.

He’s in class so he can’t check it, but the only person who would text him during school like this is Aunt May, so he knows he needs to check it as soon as he can. He hopes it isn’t that the shower broke (again). Or that the ancient water heater the landlord refuses to replace has (finally) given up the ghost, and the new ultra-budget replacement will take (at least) three weeks to arrive.

It buzzes again, and he starts feeling a little worried. By the third time it goes off he’s ready to climb out his skin from the anxiety. He hopes nothing happened to her. Nothing happened to her, right? They’d call him into the office if something really bad happened. But there’s a big space between ‘okay’ and ‘called into the office to be informed he’s an orphan again’ and a lot of that acreage is not good news.

As soon as the bell rings to signal the end of class, Peter runs out into the hallway and checks his phone.

It’s May, and as he opens them he feels a wave of relief, followed by a sharp twist of guilt.

The first text is a picture of the open washing machine, with Peter’s laundry wadded up and wet inside. The accompanying message reads, “Forget something?”

The next is of the counter, grounds scattered across it and spots of coffee dried onto the surface. “This better not stain!”

The final message is only text, and it’s long. Really long. May’s pissed, and Peter’s stomach drops as he reads it. Highlights include that he’s not a kid anymore and he should be able to clean up after himself; that she’s been waiting for him to get his act together but it wasn’t happening and she’s not happy to have to be telling him this; that she’s frustrated, and disappointed in him.

Peter wants to apologize immediately, but he’s not entirely sure what to say. A trite ‘I’m sorry, I’ll clean up when I get home!’ doesn’t seem sufficient.

She’ll understand that he’s in school and can’t formulate an adequate response. Hopefully.

He doesn’t have time to concentrate on solving that problem, because he’s still got to deal with Harry.

It doesn’t go exactly according to plan.

They can’t get into the auditorium because there’s a throng of teachers lurking in that hallway. They’re angrily gossiping about how the School Board is overstepping its bounds and trying to micromanage curriculum.

Instead, Peter finds a conveniently ajar window into the courtyard that, for some stupid liability reason, is always closed off. They can cram themselves through. Harry struggles a little bit, landing heavily on the gravel just below, so Peter makes a show of it being difficult himself. Harry is used to being the more athletic one of them, and he always seems hurt when Peter outperforms him. He never says anything about it, which honestly makes Peter feel even worse, and go even further out of his way to make sure it doesn’t happen often.

They crawl to a spot far from any open windows so no one will hear them, tucked out of sight of bored, grumpy teachers looking to hand out disciplinary actions. Peter’s spidey-sense is so useful in these situations; if only he couldn’t clearly picture Uncle Ben shaking his head disapprovingly every time.

“So, you’re not going out with Liz?” Harry asks.

“No, I am not,” Peter mumbles, pulling his knees in towards his chest.

“Didn’t you have, like a mega-crush on her last year?”

“Yeah, but not for a while,” Peter admits.

“So, uh, we can do Friday night then?” Harry asks. He’s really very close, but then there isn’t a ton of room in their little nook.

“No,” Peter shakes his head. He’s prepared to tell Harry that he and May are going to do something, but then he realizes that May’s pretty pissed at him and maybe she won’t, and…

He doesn’t notice until the first tear hits folded arms.“Pete? You okay?” Harry presses even closer, leaning in.

“No, yes, I just,” Peter takes a deep breath, mentally erasing the ‘one’ he’d optimistically put on his internal ‘Days Since Peter Parker Has Cried In Public’ tally board. “Friday, it’s Ben’s—”

“Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry I forgot,” Harry slides an arm around Peter’s shoulders and pulls him in close.

“But I think Aunt May is mad at me, so maybe she won’t want me around, because, because…” Peter trails off. He can’t tell Harry that his uncle’s death is his fault. It’s too close to admitting he’s Spider-Man, and he can’t do that. He just can’t.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, pressing Peter closer to his chest. “I’m sorry, that really sucks.”

Peter closes his eyes to try to hold back the tears. He knows Harry doesn’t like crying; Norman doesn’t tolerate that sort of thing, and so overt displays of pain or discomfort can make Harry uncomfortable. At least for once he isn’t pulling away.

“I’m sure she’ll want you around. But if she doesn’t, you can spend it with me?” Harry sounds a little too hopeful about that last part, but Peter can’t bring himself to be upset about it.

“Thanks,” Peter says, valiantly wiping at the wet tracks on his cheeks.

“No problem,” Harry smiles lightly. He’s looking a little pink, and Peter’s warm where they’re squeezed up together. Harry burns easily, they should probably… “Let’s get back in before we end up late. There’s only so many times I can sweet talk Ms. Mahama out of giving me detention.”

“Harry!” Peter laughs, but scrambles to his feet quickly. They crawl back in the way they came out, with Peter giving Harry a boost up to the window and Harry ‘pulling’ Peter back through from the other side.

Peter hopes making up with May will be as easy.  

Peter makes a beeline for the kitchen as soon as he gets home. May is sitting at the small table, forehead resting on her palm, listlessly eating sliced apples with peanut butter. She doesn’t offer any to Peter, and he isn’t about to ask.

His forgotten laundry is sitting in a miserable, wet wad in a basket next to the washer. He goes to stick it in the dryer, but May stops him.

“Not right now, Peter, I’ve got a headache.”

That’s fair; like all their appliances, the dryer is loud. And it has a singularly terrible, baffling long ‘end of cycle’ alarm that sometimes goes off even during the middle of running. No matter how many times Peter and Ben tried to find a way to turn it off, they never could.

“Besides,” she continues, chewing slowly. “It’s not like another few hours is going to hurt it at this point.”

Peter flinches, but nods and grabs a rag to wipe down the counters. May hadn’t cleaned them up after sending him the picture, and Peter could admit they looked pretty gross. 

“Just leave it,” May snaps before he can spray the cleaner. “Go do whatever it was that you were planning on doing before.”

“Just homework,” Peter replies, hurt. He’s not used to May acting like this. Normally if there’s a problem she’ll tell him to fix it, he does, and everything is fine again. Being forgetful about chores doesn’t seem like a bad enough offense to warrant this.

As he retreats to his room, he wonders if it’s because of the upcoming anniversary. May always reassured Peter that she didn’t blame him for what happened but maybe, somehow, some tiny part of her knows that it was his fault. He would deserve it if she did.

Feeling hungry and a bit queasy, Peter finally takes his backpack off in his room and digs out his schoolwork. He leaves the door open in case May wants to check that he’s actually doing what he said he was going to. 

Or, maybe, to come in and tell him he was forgiven and that everything would be okay. 

She doesn’t even say goodbye before she leaves, and the slam of the front door hurts, somewhere deep in the pit of Peter’s stomach.

Peter creeps out of his room, feeling like he’s breaking some rule even though May’s gone now. He puts his laundry in the dryer and wipes down the counters. Then he loads the dishwasher and runs it, handwashing, drying and carefully putting away the few items that won’t fit. The stovetop is starting to get gross so he scrubs that down, then he notices the cupboard doors are looking less than pristine and starts working on those.

He’s in the middle of sweeping when the dryer alarm blares, startling him enough that he jumps and ends up stuck on the ceiling for a moment before he can calm himself enough to drop back down.

It’s starting to get dark outside; he should already be out doing Spider-Man business. He grabs his laundry out of the dryer to prevent a repeat of yesterday’s mistake and haphazardly shoves it into his dresser drawers before changing into the suit.

The mask still smells a bit like dog-slobber, and he feels a bit light-headed as he flings himself out the window.

At least as Spider-Man he can do right by someone .

Later, when his eyes are sliding shut to a symphony of screams echoing oddly through the warehouse, Peter wishes he’d stopped May for a good luck hug.

Chapter Text

Frank shows up to work in a foul mood, even by his own standards

Kevin White got away.

It’s not the first time he’s been interrupted and lost his target. It’s nothing he can’t fix; he’ll deal with it tonight. He’s not looking forward to explaining the delay to Micro, especially since Leo has her lego robotics club this evening, but somehow Frank doesn’t think Kevin will be in any state to show up. 

The thing that’s got him scowling as he hangs pale grey wallpaper covered in a rainbow of pastel elephants holding balloons in their trunks is not Kevin . And it’s not because of Kevin that he’s even more irritated than usual by the subpar consistency of the hypoallergenic, eco-friendly paste the expecting parents insisted on .

Spider-Man is a kid.

He doesn’t know that for a fact, but after last night it seems likely. After last night, every crack of Spider-Man’s voice is like a whip through Frank’s memory. His awkward proportions no longer seem like the result of his freakish powers, but rather the natural ungainliness of a still-growing body. His (utter lack of) combat skills— 

“Fuck!” Frank hisses at the massive gob of paste that oozes along the seam of the wallpaper. Goddamn hypoallergenic, eco-friendly paste with its shitty, shitty consistency.

Usually, Frank finds the job soothing. Meditative. 

Even doing nurseries is relaxing, although they tend to send him spiralling into bittersweet nostalgia. Maria’d had a ferocious nesting instinct and Frank remembers doing the wallpaper for Lisa’s nursery, then having to tear it back down in the middle of the night when Maria found a better pattern. There hadn’t been any real rush, but Maria had been insistent, and Frank would’ve done anything to please her. He’d grumbled at the time, but he’d secretly enjoyed it. 

And she’d been right; the second wallpaper was much better.

He’d had to reassure her of that several times, when she started second guessing herself and wanted Frank to redo it in the first pattern.

Today, he can’t focus on anything except Spider-Man. Did his family obsess over his nursery? How long ago was it that they last told him a story and tucked him to sleep in it? A decade? A little more? Less?

He curses again. There isn’t a bubble or gob of glue in sight, every balloon-wielding elephant is in perfect alignment, but everything feels off-kilter and wrong.

Frank Castle does not beat kids half to death. He just doesn’t.

He doesn’t even know for certain if Spider-Man is actually a teen or if his imagination and anger are running away with him. He needs to find out the truth.

If Spider-Man is a kid, well. Frank has a lot of atoning to do.

And if he’s not? If he’s not, then Frank might be tempted to kill him just for the headache the whole debacle is giving him.

Kevin White can fucking wait. Frank needs to get on top of this Spider-Man situation before he can trust himself to do anything else. Feeling slightly more settled, he arms himself with paste and wallpaper and attacks the bare walls.

It isn’t until he’s home, pouring Max’s obnoxiously overpriced grain-free dog food into his bowl (metal, because he read somewhere that plastic could harbor bacteria and lead to life-threatening chin acne), that Frank realizes he has no idea how to find Spider-Man.

The kid (maybe kid) has always been the one to find Frank. While he’s not above tracking someone down to beat on until Spider-Man shows up, he’d prefer a less antagonistic approach for once. Some research is necessary.

Curtis (from his military days—they go way back) seems to think Frank’s incapable of using the internet. Contrary to those assertions, Frank is perfectly capable of googling shit. The fact that the other man stands by this belief in Frank’s technological incompetence despite their regular email correspondence irritates Frank to no end. Probably why Curtis does it.

Jackass.

Frank needs to send him another email soon.

He finds the single functional pen in his house and writes it down on one of the dog-shaped notepads the Lieberman kids gave him last Christmas. Then he turns on his computer and goes to make a sandwich. It’s not that the machine takes that long to boot up; it’s really very fast. Micro picked it out for him, of course it’s good. But the ancient PC he and Maria had when they first got married took forever, and he’s in the habit of giving it some time to warm up. Micro reminds him that it isn’t necessary every time he catches him at it, but Frank still does it.

He’s pretty sure it helps.

Roast beef sandwich in hand, he settles down with a different dog-notepad. This one, Leo insists, looks like Max. Frank disagrees, but he would never, ever tell Leo that to her face. She put so much thought into its selection, so he makes a point to use it regularly. Anyway. Research notes are research notes, no matter what kind of dog you write them on.

Searching “Spider-Man Sightings, New York” gets him a very helpful site, conveniently called Spidey-Spotting. It has pictures dating back to nearly a year ago, complete with days, locations, and times. It’s perfect. He makes a note on a chihuahua to ask Micro to wipe it from internet history as quickly as possible.

The more recent stuff is going to be the most useful, but he finds himself curious about the oldest pictures.

There’s… a lot.

By the time he gets to the second page of a shorter, slimmer looking Spider-Man carrying groceries for old ladies, posing for selfies with tourists, and jumping rope with little girls in pigtails, he has to put his pen down, or else he’ll be reduced to zero working pens.

How could he have not seen it? Spider-Man’s youth is so obvious it’s painful.

Except, well. Confirmation bias or whatever the fuck it's called. Now that Frank thinks Spider-Man might be a kid, everything seemed to scream the fact at him.

A day ago, this kind of feel-good hearts-and-minds bullshit would have left him irritated. Disgusted, really. It’s the same visceral reaction he has to videos of cops dancing on street corners, or to conflict-profiteering politicians putting out ‘support our troops’ ads from their cushy offices during election season. If he had seen this a day ago, he probably would have been tempted to track Spider-Man down and beat the snot out of him for it.

Hell, if he’s wrong, and Spider-Man is just a weird, squirrely adult, then he’ll feel that way again.

Frank crams half his sandwich into his mouth and clicks to the most recent sightings. That’s the information he needs, after all. No use working himself over pictures from a year ago when he doesn’t know what they really mean yet.

So-called ‘Spidey-spottings’, it turns out, have changed in timing, frequency and location over his period of activity. That’s no surprise, but the pattern makes Frank a little sick.

At the beginning, Spider-Man was active starting around 3:30pm, then he disappeared for a couple hours in the evening, and reappeared until three or four in the morning. He was seen a lot more on the weekends. A lot more. But after a few months, the sightings decreased. He started his patrols later, scurried back to his spider hole earlier. 

It was like he had responsibilities that were catching up with him. Responsibilities like homework. 

As an example. 

In the summer, Spider-Man became more active again, only to drastically reduce his active hours in late August. The kid is practically broadcasting that he’s a schoolboy to the world, but somehow there isn’t any speculation that he is one. Yet.

Jesus fuck. Frank needs to have a talk with the kid’s parents about this.

Unfortunately, there’s no indication of a ‘Spider signal,’ or reliable ways to bait him out. Some comments indicate that he appreciates gifts of food once he's already out and about, but it doesn't seem to work as a lure. There is, at least, a several-block area where he’s seen most frequently, especially between the hours of eight and midnight.

It’s a start.

Now to figure out how to approach him.

Frank’s townhouse has a very nice guest room. It has yellow and blue walls, and a very floral duvet cover that Sarah picked out. The colors wouldn’t have been his first (or second… or third) choice, but he quickly realized that if he didn’t go with it, he’d have to let Leo and Zach choose. Since he didn’t want a fully dog-themed guest room, he accepted the oversized yellow and blue rose covered bedding with his most charming smile. Anyway, it was easier than picking something out himself.

The roses are obscured right now by the contents of his armory.

Frank isn’t about to go out as the Punisher unarmed. That would be asking for trouble. Besides, there’s a decent chance that Spider-Man won’t react well to his presence, and Frank might have to do a little threatening to get the kid to listen.

He settles on a couple of easily concealed knives, because those are always useful even if he doesn’t get into a fight, and two handguns. They’re easily enough to stash in his jacket, along with plenty of ammo. Just in case.

Frank feels like a massive asshole wandering around in full Punisher gear without an actual target in mind. How Murdock can stand to do this in that ridiculous get up of his is anyones’ guess. At least with his jacket zipped up he’s mostly indistinguishable from the regular civilians about their business. He doesn’t want to call too much attention to himself, and he’s going to have to be light on his feet in order to catch Spider-Man.

Several hours in, he feels like an utter idiot. He doesn’t have enhanced senses, so ‘hearing’ any crimes underway is likely not going to happen.

Finally, with the familiar sound of gunfire, Frank finally has something to investigate.

Thirty-six hours ago, he would have found the situation hilarious. Now, watching Spider-Man come under fire from a veritable rain of bullets makes Frank want to puke. Spider-Man is perfectly capable of dodging bullets. 

Frank knows this, because he has shot at Spider-Man before. 

For a few minutes, it looks like the kid — and he really does look like a kid, now that Frank is really seeing him — has a fighting chance. Frank’s reluctant to interfere, because if he distracts Spider-Man now, it’s game over. Despite his shitty fighting form, Little Red at work is a sight to behold. He fluidly webs up guns and disables the shooters, all while dancing around the flying bullets.

But the moment the first one grazes the kid, Frank can tell he’s done for. It feels both like a fraction of a second and hours pass as the kid gets hit again, and again, and again, before falling.

Frank bellows, calling attention away from Spider-Man’s prone form. Frank’s not as well-armed as he would like to be in this situation, but at least he had the forethought to bring something. He’s grateful that Spider-Man managed to disarm and tie up at a good number of them.

For the second time that day, Frank Castle gets to work.

After he finishes the last of the bastards, Frank looks around. It’s a bloodbath. It always is, when he’s involved; it’s kind of his calling card. But he’s supposed to be dead, gone, more urban-legend than walking, breathing, shooting vigilante these days, so he’s toned it down for the last year or so. That, combined with the presence of Spider-Man’s webs paints a poor picture for the other vigilante (assuming he even makes it). Out of consideration for the kid’s reputation, Frank smears a rough ‘Punisher’ skull out of a puddle of blood. Hopefully that will help deflect the blame.

Satisfied, Frank stumbles back to where Spider-Man fell, relieved beyond words to see his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Kid’s still alive, at least. On closer inspection, the bullet wounds look— well, they look bad. They’re bullet wounds in a kid’s body. But they look more survivable than Frank had initially feared.

There’s no way Frank can bring him to the hospital like this. Not in the Spider-Man suit, not with the way the media and NYPD goes after him. He’ll be arrested. Flayed alive, metaphorically and possibly physically if he gets sent to jail.

Frank’ll have to get him changed, first. Check out the wounds and do some first-aid. Spider-Man is resilient; maybe he’ll pull through without a trip to the emergency room.

Frank watches him gasping for air under the mask. 

He’s never understood the insistence on ‘secret identities’ and the weird code that the superheroes and many of the so-called supervillains have built up around them. He knows it’ll anger Spider-Man to be unmasked, but he’s struggling to breathe and Frank will have to take it off him if he’s going to dump him at the ER anyways.

Might as well sate his curiosity now.

With a perfectly steady hand, Frank yanks the fabric away from Spider-Man’s face.

Chapter Text

Peter closes his eyes on a cold warehouse floor, screams and gunshots echoing in his ears. 

When he opens them, there’s warm yellow light spilling in from the open door, almost drowning out the calming yellow and blue walls.

He scrunches his eyes closed and takes five deep breaths. When he reopens them, the yellow and blue walls still surround him, still calm. He closes and opens his eyes five more times, expecting each time to find himself back in the warehouse. For a moment, Peter wonders if this is some sort of end-of-life vision—he hasn’t slept in a bed this big in years . He’d suspect a memory, but the cheerful paint job isn’t a match for any apartment he can remember living in, and the bed is way too soft. It’s downright plush. The sheets are scratchier than he’s used to; they’re stiff and new feeling, not like the ancient, nearly transparent sets grabbed from estate sales.

And that sends Peter jolting upright, because if he’s dead he shouldn’t be able to feel the sheets. His breath whooshes out in a pained hiss as his body reminds him that he was recently shot, that he landed hard on broken concrete when he fell. 

Whoever took him to this strange and comfortable room took his mask off. That means they’ve seen his face, and that’s kind of a big deal right? Like, a really big deal. A really, really bad thing, especially for May, and oh, God, he’s just letting May down so much today. First the chores, then almost dying on her, and now—

His enhanced senses pick up on approaching footfalls, snapping Peter out of his panic-spiral. He takes a deep breath and tries to prepare himself to face whoever it is that both saved and unmasked him. He’s not sure if he needs to be ready to thank them, or fight them, or maybe some combination of both.

All of his emotional preparation is vaporized as The Punisher walks into the cheery little yellow and blue room with a glass of water and a bottle of store-brand ibuprofen.

Peter can’t even really think of him as The Punisher like this. The Punisher doesn’t wear a ratty, paint stained tank top and pajama bottoms. The Punisher doesn’t just walk around with his feet bare. Peter’s never contemplated The Punisher’s toes before. But then, he’s not really The Punisher when he’s at home, is he? He’s...Frank Castle? Or at least, that was what the papers called him, back before he’d been announced dead. And then he’d come back and announced himself as very much alive, by way of kicking in the ribs of every single bad man and Peter Parker who stood in his way.

“You’re awake,” rumbles Fran—oh no, he can’t call The Punisher Frank. Too familiar.

“Uhm,” Peter replies, like the honor roll student he is. “Yeah. Thanks? For that? I guess?”

Mr. Castle (there, that’s better) snorts and shakes the pill bottle, “You’re not allergic to ibuprofen, are you?”

“No?” Peter replies, feeling lost.

“Good,” his rescuer-slash-potential kidnapper grunts, popping open the bottle and shaking out a couple of pills as he approaches the bed. Peter’s not sure if he should try to stand up, or if he should burrow deeper under the covers and hide; would it be rude to treat The Punisher like the monster in his closet from when he was seven?

He decides to try to sit still and keep quiet, deeming it the safest course of action in the face of this mysterious Mr. Castle persona. Unfortunately, his body disagrees. When the man is about two feet away, Peter’s stomach lets out a warning growl.

Stay back.

Or, perhaps more accurately:

Feed me!

Peter manages to blush which is, objectively, impressive. He wonders what vital organs aren’t getting sufficiently oxygenated as he feels the heat spread across his cheeks, to the tips of his ears. As if being swaddled in floral blankets isn’t humiliating enough; now he’s got to worry about brain damage

A strange look crosses Mr. Castle’s face, and for a second Peter thinks he’s about to get yelled at (or possibly even punched). Instead, the man’s lips twist into a pained sort of smile.

Alarming.

“It’s best not to take painkillers on an empty stomach.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Peter nods, unsure of where Mr. Castle is going with that.

“You got any food allergies? I’ll make you a sandwich.”

Before Peter can respond he’s turning away, presumably in the direction of said sandwich. Unsure of the proper etiquette in this situation, Peter slips out of the bed. It’d be rude to get crumbs on the comforter, after all. Anyway, he’s done doing his best impersonation of a rose-petal garnished blanket- burrito. 

Peter’s vision greys out at the edges and the room spins around him for a long, nauseous second, and wow, he hasn’t felt that sensation when standing up for awhile . When he finally feels steady on his feet, he looks up to see Mr. Castle staring at him in surprise from the doorway.

“I was going to bring you the sandwich here,” he says, after a long, awkward moment.

Peter feels another rush of self-consciousness, followed by horror as he realizes he doesn’t recognize the soft, oversized shirt and shorts he’s wearing.

Holy shit. The Punisher dressed him.

Mr. Castle seems to follow Peter’s line of thinking and then has the audacity to turn pink and look away. As if he’s not the one who made the decision to undress Peter and then executed it all by himself.

“I had to clean up your wounds, and if I had to bring you to the emergency room I couldn’t while you were… so…”

“Right,” Peter nods, feeling floaty and distant. It’s too much, too fast. He’s experienced so much bizarre humiliation in the last few minutes that he’s circled around back to calm acceptance.

So he follows Mr. Castle out of the room on autopilot. Besides, it’s a good test of how he’s doing physically. Which, in all honesty is...not great. The stairs are a struggle, and he has to pause a couple of times to get his bearings.

By the time he’s leaning against the doorway of the kitchen, he’s winded and light-headed. Peter knows he’s been hurt worse than this, but he doesn’t ever remember feeling this woozy afterwards.

“You dodged even while you were getting hit,” Mr. Castle says, his voice a combination of accusatory and impressed. “Just grazes, but you lost a lot of blood.”

Peter’s hand moves instinctively to his side, feeling for the most memorable wound. He winces when he touches something tender through the borrowed shirt.

“Don’t pick your stitches,” Mr. Castle grumbles, reaching out as if to grab Peter’s arm, and then awkwardly drawing back.

“Sorry,” Peter mutters, and lets his hand drop. He still can’t wrap his head around it. The infamous Punisher brought him home and stitched him up. The Punisher is making him a sandwich. A day ago, Peter would have said the man wouldn’t pee on him if he was on fire. He wonders what changed.

“Roast beef okay?” Mr. Castle has already moved on, facing away from Peter and digging around in his refrigerator.

“Uh, yeah. Yes! Sounds great!” Peter suddenly remembers his abandoned lunch. His complete lack of dinner.

No wonder he feels like crap—he was running on fumes even before he got shot. He slides gingerly into a chair, feeling bad that he isn’t helping, but he’s starting to see spots again. Besides, Ned’s mom always tells him that it’s rude not to let a host dote on their guest at all. And he knows how Mr. Castle feels about his ‘interference,’ although he’s not clear if that applies in the context of sandwich-making.

So he spaces out, watching Mr. Castle putter around the kitchen. The man pulls irregularly-shaped pieces of meat and cheese from little parcels of brown paper (he gets his cold cuts from the deli , he must be loaded ). Peter can make out one of the labels, and that’s a specialty cheese store, wow.

His eyes idly drift to the way Mr. Castle’s shoulders move as he slices up a tomato and chops lettuce and holy shit . No wonder it hurts when he gets punched by The Punisher. The man is built . Not that Peter didn’t already know, but it’s one thing to be aware of how strong someone is when they’re pummeling you, and quite another to watch someone that muscular wearing a tanktop and sawing thick slices of marbled rye bread.

Embarrassingly, he’s so dazed that when Mr. Castle turns around and brings the sandwich over that he doesn’t stop staring.

“You must be really hungry,” Mr. Castle says as he sets an enormous stack of bread, vegetables, meat, and cheese down on the table.

It gives Peter a moment to refocus on the food, at least, and to cover his shame over practically staring holes into Mr. Castle’s shoulder blades. He mumbles his thanks to the floral tablecloth (why is it floral, how did he not notice it’s floral)  and takes a huge bite.

And then another.

And another.

He means to savor it, to voice his appreciation between bites, but he can’t stop himself from shoving it into his mouth as fast as he can. It’s as if the first contact of bread with tongue opened up a black hole where his stomach is meant to be, and the only thing that can possibly fill it is marble rye and roast beef and...Peter doesn’t even know what kind of cheese is on this sandwich. He’s probably never even had it before, he should probably stop and ask and be polite, but—

Mr. Castle’s massive, calloused hands appear in his periphery with another sandwich and a glass of water, just as Peter finishes the first.

“Remember to breathe,” he growls, but there’s a hint of humor in his eyes. Peter flushes and wipes at his mouth, taking a big gulp of water to try to slow himself down a bit.

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles.

Mr. Castle waves him off and slides into the chair across the table. Peter isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do, so after a moment of silence he gives into the urge to devour the second sandwich.

“I remember being a teenager,” Mr. Castle muses as Peter inhales his food. “It felt like I was a walking stomach. My Ma was convinced that’s exactly what I was.”

Peter has no idea where Mr. Castle is going with this, but chewing is always a good excuse not to respond. He takes smaller bites so he can drag it out longer, and also to give his brain time to catch up with his stomach so he doesn’t come across as a glutton, aiming to hit ‘not hungry’ without passing it by and swan-diving straight into ‘Violet Beauregard’ territory. 

“What about your mom?”

It’s an abrupt, awkward transition. Not unlike Mr. Castle himself, in a lot of ways.

Peter takes a moment to swallow, then responds as carefully as he can, “What about my mom?”

“What does she think of,” Mr. Castle gestures vaguely at Peter, “this?”

A shrug is the only response Peter can think of. Announcing that his mom is deceased seems incredibly uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want to have that conversation right now. Plus he cannot let The Punisher know about Aunt May, no matter how nice Mr. Castle is being.

“Does she even know?” the older man looks increasingly agitated. Peter can see The Punisher simmering under the  Mr. Castle facade that he’s been putting on after unmasking (and effectively kidnapping) Spider-Man.

“That I eat a lot?” Peter says slowly. He knows, he knows it’s a dumb thing to say.

The purpling of Mr. Castle’s face is positively artistic, and Peter can feel a low thrum unders his skin as his Spidey-sense comes online. Not a klaxon, warning him of immediate harm, but a marked increase in alertness. Yellow to amber, perhaps. A thrill of...something runs through him.

“Does she know you run around trying to get yourself killed every night?” 

Mr Castle manages, with great effort, to get the words out in something resembling an indoor voice. 

“Of course not,” Peter scrunches his nose. He would never put that on Aunt May. He could probably tell his mom, though.

“And she doesn’t notice you’re missing every night?” The question slides out with the cool, controlled precision of someone who is incredibly angry.

“Not everyone works nine to five,” Peter snaps. He feels a distant flicker of guilt at how rude he’s being but—he’s sick of the assumptions, sick of the condescending tone. Mr. Castle doesn’t know the first thing about him.

There’s a screech as Mr. Castle’s chair scoots back, and he rises above Peter in a jerky motion. Peter’s Spidey-sense holds steady, so he just stares owlishly at the man, waiting to see what he’ll do. He… does not expect Mr. Castle to turn away and start throwing together another sandwich, mutilating a tomato with rough hacks of a chef’s knife.

“Look, kid,” Mr. Castle sighs. Apparently the solanaceous violence calmed him down enough to slip back into the veneer of civility like some sort of creepy skin-suit, as he sets the third sandwich in front of Peter. This one is bigger than the other two, but Peter is still somehow starving, so maybe that’s not a bad thing. “There is nothing worse than burying your own child.”

Peter feels a twist of guilt. He knows that was almost the case for May tonight. He knows how cruel it would be to do that to her, especially so close to Ben’s anniversary, but—

“I know,” Peter replies sullenly. He remembers the face of a young mother after he’d returned her lost toddler to her. He remembers the raw emotion in the tired eyes of a dad as he opened his front door, after Peter talked a young woman down off a ledge and she asked for him to bring her home . “That’s why I’ve gotta keep doing it.”

That seems to shut Mr. Castle up, at least for the time being. Peter starts the third sandwich in relative peace, finally starting to feel better as he licks the mustard from his fingertips. Usually he hates the stuff, but maybe that’s just because they always get that lurid yellow store-brand.

Every once in a while he catches Mr. Castle’s eye, and gets a grumpy sigh in return. After the eighth sigh (Peter counts) the older man finally gets up and leaves the kitchen. Peter is a little concerned that he might be going to get some sort of weapon to threaten him out of his nightly activities. Or maybe a belt so he can bend Peter over his knee and—

Peter is choking on air when Mr. Castle returns, yet another pill bottle in hand.

“You ok, kid?”

“Yeah,” Peter gasps, taking a gulp of water and trying desperately to will himself to stop coughing. He can’t look Mr. Castle in the eye. Unfortunately this puts him looking at him in the thigh, which is even less helpful.

“Don’t pop a stitch,” Mr. Castle grumbles, approaching cautiously.

The glass of water is removed, and for a moment Peter thinks The Punisher somehow managed to figure out what he was thinking and is going to let him choke to death on his embarrassment as penance. Then it returns, refilled, alongside an enormous, un-appetizingly metallic smelling tablet.

A few sips of water help Peter get the fit at least somewhat under control. Enough for him to look quizzically at the tablet and then back at Mr. Castle for clarification, at least.

“Iron,” he grunts.

Which is weird. Like, kinda really weird. Why the hell is Mr. Castle giving him vitamins?

“You lost a lot of blood,” Mr. Castle explains, making Peter wonder if the other man really can read minds. It also makes him hope against hope that the blood-loss will make him blush less obviously, but from the way his ears and face are burning, that seems unlikely.

“Thanks, Mr. Castle,” Peter says and grabs the vitamin, downing it quickly. Hopefully good manners will save him from whatever the hell it was that came over him before.

“Frank,” Mr. Castle grunts. When Peter stares at him stupidly, he shrugs. “Call me Frank.”

Oh. Right. His name is Frank Castle.

Peter doesn’t think they’re on a first name basis, but he nods anyways.

His eyes slide over to the wall clock and he nearly chokes on air again.

“I need to get home!” Peter gasps. “My web-shooters, I need—”

“Slow down there, kid,” Mr. Castle settles a hand on Peter’s shoulder before he can rush out of the room. It’s enough to make him pause, even though he could easily break away. Does the man think he can keep Peter here? Has he really been kidnapped? Oh god, what if that wasn’t an iron supplement, what if it was some sort of drug?!

“Do you even know how to get home from here?” Mr. Castle asks. In his current frame of mind, Peter finds the question very ominous indeed.

“I can figure it out,” Peter stammers, eyeing any potential exits.

Mr. Castle rolls his eyes. “Or, I could drive you.”

Peter blinks a couple of times. That doesn’t sound like something a kidnapper would say. 

“Thank you, but if you could just give me my web shooters, I can get back on my own.”

“You don’t even know where we are. And your costume is shredded, and I don’t want you pulling those stitches.”

It’s hardly the worst argument Peter’s ever heard. And he’s certainly gone along with worse plans with weaker reasoning (thank you, Harry), but it still feels really strange to force out an agreement. “Ok. That’d be great, Mr. Castle.”

Mr. Castle twitches, but doesn’t correct him.

-

Peter had never really thought about what sort of car someone like The Punisher might drive. A black, windowless van complete with a skull painted on the side? Maybe some sort of heavy weaponry zip-tied to the top?

But no. Mr. Castle drives an ambiguously dark-colored station wagon. He hustles Peter in before he can thoroughly inspect it, and Peter has a sharp moment of suspicion that Mr. Castle is intentionally keeping him from memorizing the license plate, before he remembers that they are kind of on a time crunch, and he has no idea how long it’ll take to get back to his neighborhood from wherever the hell they are now.

Mr. Castle had been gruffly efficient in getting ready to leave. He hadn’t needed to run back inside for his keys even once (let alone twice).

He’s so efficient that before Peter can blink he’s opened the door, pushed him in, and buckled the seatbelt for him, depositing a paper grocery bag containing the bloody remnants of the Spider-Man suit on his lap. They hit a roadblock when it comes to navigating, though.

Mr. Castle wants to know where Peter lives, and Peter very much does not want The Punisher to have his home address. Unfortunately, Peter doesn’t have a convenient, nearby address memorized. He finally tells Mr. Castle to drop him off at Delmar’s Deli-Grocery, which is near enough but not so close that he thinks Mr. Castle will find his home and be waiting for Peter when he gets back from classes the next day. The look Mr. Castle gives him could peel paint.

“You don’t live at a grocery store, kid,” Mr. Castle growls at him.

“No, but it’s close by,” Peter crosses his arms defensively.

“Just tell me what building to drop you off in.”

“No.”

“Kid…” Mr. Castle says warningly.

Peter reaches for the release of his seatbelt. “I’ll just swing home. Thanks for the offer, but—”

He’s cut off by Mr. Castle firmly grabbing his wrist. Peter could shake him off easily, but the warm, callused grip makes him pause for a second.

“It’s ‘Delmar Deli’?” Mr. Castle’s jaw is twitching, and Peter can tell he’s not happy.

“Delmar’s Deli-Grocery, yeah. In Queens,” Peter specifies.

Mr. Castle jabs at his phone, hard enough that Peter is concerned for the screen’s structural integrity. Then it boops and beeps and an artificially soothing, computerized woman’s voice starts directing them.

They don’t talk for the entire ride, which Peter is both thankful for and not. Mr. Castle is angry, and Peter shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He wants to say something to break the tension, but he’s pretty sure the only thing that will appease Mr. Castle is giving away his home address, and that isn’t happening. Period. Anything else he says, he’s pretty sure will just piss his impromptu chauffeur off even more, which Peter very much Does Not Need.

The situation is made even more bizarre by Mr. Castle’s…interesting taste in music. By the time they’re (finally) arriving and cutting the gas, a man is singing about grinding coffee with a shotgun’s blast. Peter is suspicious that the lyrical imagery may evoke more memory than metaphor for Mr. Castle.

Peter is undoing his buckle and reaching for the door when Mr. Castle grabs his wrist again.

“You need to come back so I can check your stitches in a few nights. Keep them clean, too.”

“I can take care of them,” Peter replies, feeling weirdly defensive. Sure, he’s never dealt with stitches before, but he can always, like, Youtube a tutorial or something.

“No.” Mr. Castle squeezes a little. “You need to come back on Friday and let me check them over,” and Peter would be nervous except that Mr. Castle decreases the pressure almost immediately and runs a rough thumb soothingly over the area.

“Not Friday,” Peter shakes his head, realizing as he does that he’s just agreed to come see Mr. Castle. Damn it.

“Hot date?” Mr. Castle sneers, and Peter hunches up his shoulders, his ears burning.

“I’m...no! I’m just busy, okay? Not Friday.”

“Saturday. No later,” Mr. Castle dictates, and Peter nods, dazed.

Satisfied, Mr. Castle reaches over Peter to open the glove compartment.

When Peter is finally allowed to leave, it’s with an address scrawled on a sticky note in the shape of a particularly plump corgi, adhered carefully to his paper bag of stuff.

“I put the iron supplements in your bag,” Mr. Castle grumbles as Peter steps out, barefoot, onto the pavement. “If you have any little brothers or sisters make sure they don’t get into ‘em.”

“Of course,” Peter nods.

“And don’t forget about Saturday,” Mr. Castle says as Peter starts to close the door.

“I won’t,” Peter reassures him. “Uhm, thanks? For the vitamins. And the ride.” And for saving his ass, but Peter just wants to go home, so he leaves it at that and shuts the door.

-

He manages to scramble into the window of his bedroom without fanfare, and is just starting to drift off when he hears the door to his room open.

“Peter?” May asks, sounding tentative and worried.

Shit shit shit. Did she check earlier and he wasn’t here? Did something bad happen?

Peter tries to give his most non-incriminating, definitely-asleep grunt.

“I’m so sorry about earlier, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I…” She trails off, and Peter wants nothing more than to leap up and tell her it’s okay, but then he realizes he’s still in Mr. Castle’s clothes, and he can’t.

“Thank you for cleaning up so much,” May murmurs after a painful pause. “And let’s plan what we’re going to do on Friday over breakfast.”

She’s not mad. She’s not mad at him anymore, and Peter feels like shouting for joy, only he’s supposed to be asleep, so he says in his best impression of a sleepy slur. “Sounds nice... Love you.”

And maybe it’s a little weird for him to say that, but he’s had a weird night.

Peter is definitely getting his good luck hug from her tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Frank sits there in his car for a long time, long after the kid has stumbled his way out onto the streets, ambling towards what Frank hopes is a warm and welcoming bed.

Shit. What the hell is he doing? Waiting for the kid to flick the lights on and off for him three times to signal he made it home safe?

So he sits there, like an asshole, waiting for some signal that will never come that it’s okay to go because the injured, barefoot kid has gotten home safe. When enough time has passed that he’s certain he would have heard the boy’s screams if they were going to come (if he’s close enough to hear them) he forces himself to put the keys in the ignition. There’s nothing he can do at this point.

The drive home passes in a haze. Frank is too tired to be functional, but too riled up to sleep. Instead, he cleans the kitchen and lets Max out of his room, where he’d been exiled after a few enthusiastic (and slobbery) attempts to help patch the kid up.  He eyes the pooch pad he’d gotten suckered into buying on Labor Day sales — meant for a dog twice Max’s size with all five star reviews.  The little outlaw eyes him happily from where he’s curled up in the exact center of the bed, little white and gray hairs radiating out across the duvet. The bed is usually forbidden territory, what with Frank’s night terrors and his concern over exacerbating whatever deep psychological wounds his drooly companion must bear from his own history of abuse. Of course he’d taken the opportunity to check it out.

Frank grumbles, but still pats Max’s head as he trots out of the room, the mutt’s tail wagging so hard he loses rear-leg coordination. He should take the spot that Max just vacated, should at least try to sleep. Instead his legs carry him to the guest bathroom (triage bathroom more like, god knows it sees more blood than guests) and he starts cleaning up the supplies left strewn around from patching up the kid.

A surgical needle coated in dried blood creates a plume of red when he drops it in a repurposed sauerkraut jar full of rubbing alcohol. The memory of the kid’s skin plumes with it, all unblemished planes, marred only by ragged troughs plowed into it with bullets. His fingers twitch as he recalls prodding the kid's ribs, feeling for the black and blue prints his own boots left just days ago. Bruises should have just been hitting their full bloom.

There was nothing. The skin was pale and unblemished as freshly fallen snow. No sign of the violence inflicted.

It almost troubles Frank more, that he couldn’t see the damage he’d done to the kid. He’d suspected that Spider-Man heals fast, but it doesn’t seem right that kid’s body just takes and erases abuse like that. Unfair, somehow, to the boy. Anyone could hurt him — hurt him badly — and just a few days later he’ll be good as new. Ready for more.

Frank is familiar with what beaten bodies look like. He can hold those injuries in his mind, long after the boy’s skin has forgotten them. He deserves that burden.

Once the bathroom no longer looks like a murder scene (he’ll do a full scrub with disinfectant in the morning), he heaves himself into the guest room, with vague notions of changing the sheets. He’s at the foot of the bed, contemplating the lump of blankets that the kid had vacated like some kind of moth abandoning the tattered remains of its cocoon, when the  exhaustion finally hits him like a wall. He barely gets himself situated on the now-crushed mound of blankets, nose filling with the faint smell of blood, antiseptic, and cheap, fruity shampoo, and then he’s falling into a deep and unusually dreamless sleep.

When Frank wakes up a few hours later, his mouth tasting of tooth-fuzz, he feels settled. More than he has in months, if he’s being honest with himself. He’s been drifting by. Micro’s acerbic suggestions and Sarah Lieberman's polite guidance offered him direction, but not true purpose.

Purpose drives him now. He sends a text message to Karen Page, asking to meet. They don’t see each other often, but he considers her a friend. He hopes she considers him the same. Realistically, she probably doesn’t.

He doesn’t get a response until after he’s scrubbed down the bathroom and sprayed every hard surface, heavy-duty tuberculocidal disinfectant gleaming wetly as he closes the door. He’s wrestling the sheets from the guestroom into the washer and mentally composing a grocery list when his phone buzzes.

Karen Page: Sounds great! Can you come over to my place at 6pm?

Frank spends more time than he cares to admit contemplating an appropriate host gift. His first thought is flowers, but he’s afraid they’d send the wrong message. Ditto wine and chocolates, and he’s sure he’s overheard Sarah saying one had to be careful with gifting houseplants, since they require ongoing effort from the recipient. He finally decides not to bring anything. He’s going to talk to her for business reasons, after all. And he’s pretty sure neither Murdock nor Nelson have the manners to remember things like host gifts anyway, so Karen probably won’t expect one from him either.

Hopefully.

He spends the rest of the day distracting himself with errands.

He picks up more bread, even though he isn’t fond of the bread-man that works on Wednesdays (he refuses to give that moron the title of ‘baker’). The tall, lanky young man seems to care more about ‘customer service’ than making a decent loaf. Frank prefers the woman — five feet of utter contempt — that works on Saturdays . He’ll have to stop back by get more of the rye bread the kid seemed to enjoy so much before he comes over to get his stitches checked. For now, Frank grabs a loaf of sourdough, because even the beaming, pimpley chump can’t fuck that up too bad. He eyes the bread-man thoughtfully, unable to stop himself from comparing every youthful face he sees to the one he uncovered under the Spider-Man mask. The bread-man is older than Spidey, but Little Red has way better skin. He wonders if that’s part of the superpower package, or if the boy is just lucky. There’s no way that mask doesn’t encourage acne.

“Have a wonderful day, sir,” the bread-man simpers, handing over the loaf that Frank had to insist, several times, that he did not want sliced. Frank grunts, and very politely does not flip him off on his way out the door.

He watches the news, flicking through channels, scanning radio stations, before he gets so bored-agitated-angry that he takes Max on a walk just to blow off some steam.

By the time he’s calmed himself down enough to be decent company, Max is panting and dragging on the leash, and it’s time to head over to Karen’s.

Karen is excited to see him. Which is...well.

It's nice. Unexpected. Unusual. But nice.

It does mean he's going to have to explain the entirety of the warehouse incident, though. 

Which....

Fuck.

He decides to delay the inevitable, letting her wave him in and set him down on the couch, chattering about whatever charity case she's helping Foggy and Murdock with this time. Some kind of class-action lawsuit with big business dumping hazardous waste in low-income neighborhoods or something.

It’s exactly the sort of thing Karen should be championing. She looks good. Happy. Her long, silky hair is just a little damp from the shower, and she looks nice in her casual clothes. He notices just a touch of freshly applied makeup and frowns.

She either notices his break from the blandly polite expression he's been working on for months, or she finally ran out of things to say.

“You're not here for a social visit,” she says, fixing him with her Karen-Stare (the ‘I’m onto your shit’ Karen-Stare, not the ‘Jesus and also Matt Murdock would be very disappointed in you’ Karen-Stare).

Frank blinks. He’s pretty sure he has never, in the time Karen has known him, gone on a social visit. Even his weekly meet ups with Micro are more to prove that he hasn't gone totally feral (yet), or gone on a(nother) messy killing spree, or to confirm that Lieberman hasn't gotten himself assassinated (again), than for socialization.

He would almost think she was joking, if she didn't look so damn disappointed.

“No," he replies. It's the first thing he's actually said this entire time, and the word feels strange on his lips. Stale. Unwelcome.

Of course the moment he opens his mouth, Karen is no longer happy to see him.

Well, no. Not exactly. She'd already been on the fence after five minutes in his presence. Those two letters had simply tipped her over the edge. If he was a better person, he would set aside his mission and spend a pleasant evening with her. If he was a smarter man, he'd pretend he was there to socialize and somehow extract the information he wanted, without letting on that it was the only reason he'd reached out.

He’s not better, and he’s definitely not smarter.

"I killed about a dozen men in a warehouse last night," Frank says, because there are no words to make a bloodbath pretty, even if her journalistic heart would disagree.

"Jesus, Frank," Karen gasps, her carefully cultivated ‘attentive journalist’ pose breaking as she slumps into the armchair.

"They shot Spider-Man," Frank explains. She pales dramatically, and he rushes to assure her. “He wasn’t critically injured,” or, he was, except that his physiology allowed him to walk it off. Either way, all Karen needs to know is that Spider-Man survived. “He’s fine.”

The relief in her face quickly gives way to a ferocious scowl. She stands, pacing and pressing her knuckles to her mouth.

“Who would shoot Spider-Man?” she whispers, more to herself than to Frank. He doesn’t volunteer the information that he had been strongly considering doing so himself less than a week ago. And that it was far from the first time.

Frank shrugs, unsure of how to respond. They were just nameless lackeys, and now they’re lying dead in a warehouse somewhere. He didn’t exactly take the time to question them.

“You don’t understand,” Karen shakes her head. “Spider-Man raised twelve thousand dollars for Bobbi and the Strays.”

Frank stares at her. First of all, because that information does not seem correct or possible, and secondly because he doesn’t see how it matters where bullets are concerned. He has no idea who (or what) ‘Bobbi and the Strays’ are, either.

“It’s a no-kill animal shelter. And, well,” she amends under his scrutiny, “he raised thirty-two dollars and eighty-seven cents. Which is still impressive, since he was just gathering cans and bottles that ended up in hard-to-reach places. And then he kept giving them to anyone who was going around collecting cans and bottles in the area. The rest of the money came from an online fundraiser after a TikTok went viral.”

“But the bottle deposit is five cents,” Frank says slowly.

“Well, yeah,” Karen looks away. “He also picks up pennies. But only if they’re heads up. And are in hard-to-reach places.”

“How—?” Frank whispers. He also wants to ask ‘why?’ Both in front of ‘do you know that?’

“We all have hobbies, Frank,” Karen replies primly. When his expression doesn’t change, she rubs her nose and continues, “I’m a damn good investigative journalist, and just because I decided to use those skills to help the Avocados…”

Frank assesses her carefully. He hopes that her prolonged contact with both Murdock and himself hasn’t compromised her in some way; he very much does not want to find out that he needs to find a merciful way to put her down.

“I write fluff pieces about Spider-Man for pop-news sites,” she admits, staring him dead in the eye as if daring him to mock her. The red blooming across her cheeks undercuts the effect. “I also manage an Instagram account.”

“You what?”

“Someone needs to counter the bile that the Bugle’s fascist propaganda machine keeps spewing,” she grumbles.

He supposes she isn’t wrong; the kid gets notoriously bad press, and a little bit of fluff can’t hurt. 

Karen paces, the embarrassed flush slowly receding as she thinks. She’s a good ally for the kid to have, even unwittingly.

“He’s not like you and Matty,” she says suddenly, breaking the yawning silence.

“Me and Murdock?” Frank snorts.

“You two share frighteningly similar core beliefs, don’t even try to deny it.”

Frank feels his upper lip curl into a sneer. If it were any other night, he would argue that claim.

“But that’s not the point,” Karen informs him as she pads back and forth in the cramped apartment living room.

“The point?” Frank prompts after a few seconds.

“The point is, he’s...if he were any sweeter, I’d be seriously concerned about the possibility of him getting carried off by ants! Why the hell would anyone be shooting at Spider-Man ?”

“He is a masked vigilante who interrupts criminal activity from time to time,” Frank points out laconically. Because yeah, Spider-Man might get cats out of trees, but he also runs around interrupting muggings and stick-ups (not to mention sorely-deserved beatings, delivered with extreme prejudice to assholes who have it coming).

The look Karen gives him would singe the hair off most men. Frank blinks.

“Where was this?” she asks.

Frank shrugs. “Sunnyside?" Damn, he should have kept better track. He'd been so focused on the kid bleeding out in his arms that he hadn't noted the address. “Maybe Maspeth. Near the river.”

“Huh.” She chews her bottom lip, looking thoughtful. “Seems like someone would be around to notice.”

“I mean, I was,” Frank shrugs.

Karen gives an indelicate snort. “I mean it’s very odd that a shooting like that isn’t a headline today.”

“It is. Especially given the calling card I left behind.”

Her head snaps up. “You’re supposed to be flying under the radar.”.

Frank bristles back. “It was that or leave them to think it was Spider-Man, what with all the webs laying around. Kind of distinctive.”

“The media would love to have a story about Spider-Man massacring a warehouse full of people,” Karen chews her thumbnail, “and NYPD aren’t his biggest fans, so I can’t imagine they’d cover it up.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Frank admits. “To see how the scene was being handled. I figured you’d have heard about it.”

“I would have, if anyone was talking about it. That’s...concerning.”

“That you haven’t heard about it?” Frank asks.

“That no one is talking about it. I’m going to try to make some quiet inquiries.” Karen sounds distracted as she starts writing down notes on a yellow legal pad. “Try to keep a low profile?”

Frank grunts, noncommittal.

“Ass,” she says, sounding incredibly fond.

“I take it, that’s my cue to leave?” Frank stands and rolls his shoulders.

“Since you only came to try to get information about it, and I won’t have any until I get some work done…”

“Thanks,” he says with a wince. “Seriously.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles, but smiles.

As he slips out the door, he pauses and turns back. “You look really good. Happy.”

He hopes he hasn’t just ruined that for her.

Unsettled, he spends the rest of the week pacing the house, obsessing over every hit he’s ever seen anyone— ever felt himself  — land on Spider-Man.

Karen reached out the morning after his visit, saying she would ‘let him know as soon as she heard back.’ More direct than his sense of paranoia would have liked, but also vague enough to be frustrating. Classic Karen.

After that, radio (or rather, phone)  silence. 

He works himself up thinking about how easy it should have been for the kid to fight them all off, given his exceptional reflexes, his strength, his flexibility. If he had even the slightest clue about how to defend himself...Frank shakes his head. 

He replenishes his med-kit at the drugstore. When he goes to grab more iron supplements, he remembers reading something about vitamin C assisting in absorption, so he grabs a bottle of that, too.

It doesn’t help the feeling of agitation that follows him, no matter how many walks he gives Max. He cleans, he fidgets, he does squats and push-ups until his joints creak in complaint, then he goes and cleans some more. Still, the feeling persists.

Frank is only slightly grumpier on Saturday when he goes to get his loaf of rye bread from the competent baker. He barely restrains a growl at the kid who knocks into his leg, a giant black and white frosted cookie occupying the whole of their attention.

The woman at the counter seems, as always, to share his disdain for small talk. She gives him two loaves of rye, fresh out of the oven. Just before he’s about to pay, he remembers the little cookie kid’s gleeful expression and asks for two black and whites.

The kid could use the calories, and he’s pretty sure all teenage boys like cookies.

Then he goes to make sure he has plenty of fresh vegetables, cheese and meat on hand. Just in case.

Maria probably had some unspoken rule against feeding a guest the same thing two times in a row, but Frank’s culinary range is not wide. Besides, he can’t imagine taking the time to cook up a pot of spaghetti for the kid while he sits in the living room, and having it sitting ready for his arrival seems wrong. The kid might not show up, and then Frank would have a massive pot of spaghetti on his hands. And then what would he do? He doesn’t even like spaghetti that much.

Anyway, in his experience teenage boys will eat pretty much anything you put in front of them. And this particular teenage boy seems too polite to say anything about a repeat menu gaffe. So. Roast beef sandwiches. If the kid shows.

Triple checking his med-kit isn’t necessary; He’s carefully unpacked and repacked it twice every day since he drove the kid back to that desolate corner in Queens. He does it again anyway.

He considers that sweatpants might be too casual, might make the kid feel uncomfortable, and changes into a pair of worn but stain-free cargo pants.

By the time it’s dark, it’s all Frank can do to make himself sit down in the living room to wait. If he fidgets much more he’s going to start destroying things, and he doesn’t want a mess on his hands when the kid comes. 

If the kid comes.

The kid better show up. 

If he doesn’t, Frank feels an itch that says he won’t be able to hold back from suiting up as The Punisher and dragging Spider-Man back here, whether he wants it or not. Not to ‘punish’. Just to make sure he’s alright, make sure he’s healing up okay. Maybe give the kid a quick refresher on manners.

He’s about to give up on waiting quietly and head to the kitchen, where he will inevitably destroy some cabinetry, when a hesitant knock on the door echoes through the house.

Max’s ears prick up, interrupting his slumber in the middle of his extra-plush doggy bed, but after a second he starts snoring again.

There had been a time when he hadn’t been so worthless as a guard dog, Frank thinks. Probably. Maybe.

He walks calmly to the door, and opens it to find a slightly sweaty, pink-cheeked boy. The kid is wearing a hoodie, looking like any other kid hanging out on the weekend, but Frank can see the red and blue of the Spidey suit peeking out ever so slightly where the too-big neckline pools on his clavicles.

Frank breathes a sigh of relief and lets him in.

Chapter Text

Peter wakes up to the blaring of his alarm with the scent of coffee and baking chocolate heavy in the air. 

He groans and throws an arm over his eyes, which makes him groan more because ow, stitches. He’s long since burned through whatever chemical cocktail —either natural or Punisher sourced— that had kept him going through the extremely weird interaction at Mr. Castle’s house. 

It’s tempting to give himself more than his traditional five minutes of moping, to just fall back asleep and have May call him in sick for the day, except he smells coffee and something sweet and chocolate in the oven, meaning May is awake, and she told him last night that they’d talk in the morning which is right now.

He’s Spider-Man. He can force himself out of bed. He can have a conversation with his aunt who may-or-may-not wish he’d been on that plane with his parents. 

It doesn’t hurt that bad, he assures himself. He’s gone to school the morning after picking charred and melted pieces of his suit out of burn wounds. That had to have hurt worse than this, and he got through it. And anyway, just because he gets out of bed, that doesn’t mean he has to go to school.  He’ll get up and shower and talk with May. If he still feels awful, he can just crawl back into bed.

It’s a stupid method of tricking himself into going to school when he feels like crap, but Peter is the crown prince of falling for stupid distractions. He grumbles as he hauls out of bed and shambles to the bathroom, annoyed at how readily he falls for even his own half-assed deceptions. 

A mirror inspection of the damage is like one of those ’good news, bad news’ scenarios. Good news first: his face and arms are blessedly unmarked, which is really good because he is total shit at cover stories. Under agonizingly removed gauze — the bad news. Thick black lines of stitches march across his skin, looking even more ghastly against a backdrop of olive-colored bruises.

It looks even worse than when Harry came to school with five stitches in his chin, courtesy of his short-lived skateboarding phase. 

(Peter doesn’t think he ever saw him actually ride it; just carry it around awkwardly, the accumulating bruises and cuts the only evidence he’d ever laid a foot on the thing.) 

Peter’s pretty sure showering with burns was more painful than this. That’s the mantra that gets him through the process of washing up, applying a thick layer of antibiotic cream, and taping fresh gauze on with shaking fingers. Brushing his teeth with a broken finger must have hurt more. It had to have been worse to pull jeans on over partially healed road rash.

He finds Aunt May in the kitchen with a mug of coffee and a big brownie in front of her, and another in Peter’s usual spot. Ben’s chair, unoccupied for nearly a year, is still pushed up at the side of the table he always favored, and the sight of it is almost enough to make Peter burst into tears.

“Morning, glory,” she smiles at him, looking so very right sitting there in her threadbare robe.

It takes a concerted effort not to say something extremely sentimental and weird that will make her suspicious. So instead he says, “Brownies for breakfast?”

“All for you, sweetie,” she gestures towards the pan cooling on the oven. “Well, minus a corner piece for quality assurance purposes.”

“Proper QA is very important,” Peter replies, forcing a smile as he slides into the chair. He takes his first bite and make a very appreciative noise — Aunt May makes the best box-mix brownies. 

“You’re not allowed to share. All of these are for you,” she informs him as he occupies himself with his less-than nutritionally complete breakfast. “And I wrote a note about you missing class on Friday. I figured we could visit Ben’s grave, then go get lunch nearby and just… see where the rest of the day takes us.”

“That sounds…” Peter struggles for the right word. ‘Nice’ doesn’t seem appropriate. He settles on, “Good.”

“Good,” May repeats. Then she pats him on the cheek, gives him a quick kiss on the forehead, and yawns. “I’m going to go back to bed. Kick butt at school, Peter.”

Peter stands as well, abruptly enough to make May jump a little. “Need my hug,” he explains.

“Of course.” May wraps Peter in her arms and holds him close. Peter leans into it a little more than usual, but he thinks that’s okay given the circumstances. He’s a little reluctant to let her go, even, but he has to get to the train station soon and May wants to go back to bed.

“Sleep well,” he says by way of a farewell when he finally releases her. That’s one of the things about their hugs that Peter loves; May always lets him decide their length.

“Oh, I intend to.” May sounds like a woman on a mission as she ambles out of the kitchen.

Autopilot gets Peter to school and has him stiff-legging it to the office to convert Aunt May’s note into the official slip to inform teachers of his upcoming absence. It’s not a complicated process, or at least it shouldn’t be, except that Mr. Dukakis doesn’t seem to want to do it.

“We usually like to give teachers at least a week’s notice,” he says, frowning at the note.

“I just got it today,” Peter shrugs, not sure what Mr. Dukakis wants him to do about it.

“It’s Wednesday, Mr. Parker. This note is for Friday. Friday this week,” Mr. Dukakis states, as if somehow it will somehow change anything. At this rate Peter’s going to be late for class, and he doubts he’ll get a late slip from the man-shaped wall of pedantry currently staring him down. He contemplates just leaving and telling Aunt May to call him in sick on Friday.  

Then Ms. Nguyen sweeps in, steaming cat-shaped mug of tea in one hand, and rolls her eyes. “Doug,” she sighs, and plucks the note from his hands, “don’t be a dick.”

Mr. Dukakis puffs up, and Peter sees a mischievous glint in her eye as she ushers him over to her desk. The absence slip is filled out with dramatic flair, followed promptly by one excusing him for being tardy to his first period class. Peter probably doesn’t need it, but he’s deeply thankful; running to his locker and then to class sounds like an entirely unnecessary test of his flagging endurance.

Getting that slip signed is about the only thing Peter manages to accomplish for the entire school day. The throbbing of his stitches, the bone-deep exhaustion, and the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he thinks about his incredible failure one year ago all combine into a miasma that makes him utterly incapable of following lectures or putting together coherent thoughts. If his teachers notice (which they must) then at least they’re merciful, not calling on him or reprimanding him for his clear lack of attention.

Just how obviously pitiful he looks becomes clear when MJ and Ned spend most of lunch trying to shove brownies into him rather than not-so-stealthily stealing a couple. They’re delicious, of course; Peter really does love Aunt May’s brownies. And it’s not that he’s not hungry, either. He pretty much always feels like a calorie blackhole, but especially when he’s been injured. Even so, it feels like too much effort to eat. He’s so tired.

Study hall sees him at very real risk of falling face first into his history textbook and accruing a material damage fee for drooling all over it.

“Okay, that’s it,” Harry groans, fake exasperation concealing very real concern, “nap time.”

Peter doesn’t fight it when Harry drags him towards the giant bean bag chairs in the back corner of the library. Despite how comfortable they are, they’re usually left vacant due to the scent of B.O. that seems to cling to them no matter how much ’extra strength’ deodorizing cleaner they get sprayed with. Apparently desperate times call for desperate measures. Peter slumps into one, only scrunching his nose up a little bit at the eau de sweaty teen that crawls into his nose.

“I don’t wanna be late to my next class,” Peter complains weakly when Harry pulls Peter’s head down. But his eyes slide shut as soon as his head hits Harry’s shoulder.

“I’ll wake you up,” Harry murmurs. “Just rest, Pete.”

It’s not a particularly comfortable slumber. Harry’s bony shoulder makes Peter’s ear ache, and the way he has to twist to fit makes the waistband of his jeans dig painfully into the big gash on his hip. Even the smell chases him into his fitful, half-formed dreams. And yet, he sleeps.

When Harry shakes him awake, Peter isn’t sure if he’s annoyed or grateful. Probably grateful, because he could feel himself inching towards a nightmare, and he doesn’t really want to miss class. But he’s always a little resentful about being woken up, and Harry laughs at the grumpy nose-scrunch Peter directs at him as he gathers up his bag and heads to his next class.

Peter feels better for the nap, but it does have the unfortunate side effect of kicking his healing factor into hyperdrive. Which means, in a nutshell, that he itches. And hurts. He hurts and he itches simultaneously and he wants desperately to scratch at the stitches because they itch more than they hurt. Even the knowledge that scratching them will be painful isn’t enough to stop him.

But then he remembers Mr. Castle’s stern warning not to scratch, and that’s the thing that drops his hand away from his side.

So Peter is stuck in class, alternating between trying to keep his eyes open and trying to keep his hands away from his bandages. He doesn’t dare even touch them, not in class. No one pays that much attention to him, but if someone does notice and they do somehow make out the outline of bandages under his shirt, then he’ll be asked a whole lot of questions he doesn’t have the mental capacity to answer right now.

Then his phone starts vibrating with text after text, and he gives up on trying to sit normally and excuses himself to the bathroom. Sitting on a toilet seat in a locked stall, Peter finally lets himself lay his hand over the bandage on his ribs, where the itching is the worst. He doesn’t scratch at it, of course. He just kind of… rubs. Slowly. It hurts. It hurts badly enough to obliterate the itchiness from his mind and he supposes that’s all he can ask for at this point.

MJ, Ned, and Harry have been conferring in their group chat, and Peter lets out a relieved breath. Much better than yesterday’s series of irate texts from Aunt May.

MJ: Osborn is escorting you home today, Parker. You look like you’re gonna pass out on the subway and Ned’s convinced you’re gonna go missing for several days then get dragged out of a shipping container by Daredevil.

MJ: Also you’ll have somehow developed a crippling drug addiction.

Ned: The traffickers use super addictive drugs to keep their victims compliant!

MJ: Point is, we don’t want to see you being carried out a shipping container bridal style by Daredevil so Osborn is going home with you.

Peter’s got a reply typed out before he can think about it (“With my luck it’d be The Punisher”) but he stops himself before he hits send. Too on the nose. He sighs.

Peter: I’m fine, stop watching that true crime stuff, Ned.

He’s rolling his eyes at the indignant response from Ned when MJ sends a text just to him.

MJ: 92% sure Norman is in a bad mood, Harry won’t say anything but I think he needs somewhere besides home to be for a few hours.

That stops Peter short.

Peter: sure fine, will wait for you by my locker Harry. Don’t be late.

Harry: Wouldn’t dream of it

Which is how Peter ends up squished against Harry for the second time that day, as they cram together on the train home. He doesn’t want to admit it, but having Harry with him is nice. He’s a good shield between Peter and the careless, jostling New York masses. He makes sure that they get off at the right stop when Peter nearly misses it, his head filled with grey static, too tired to process the overwhelming sensory input of the crowded train and his aching body.

The apartment is quiet when Peter and Harry arrive. For a moment Peter thinks May must be taking a nap, and feels a sudden rush of guilt at having brought Harry home without telling her. Then he sees the scrap of paper on the kitchen table.

There’s a lumpy little rabbit doodled at the top, then a hastily jotted note:

Going to run some errands before work, see you in the morning!

Don’t forget to eat dinner! I got clementines, cut up a pineapple and there’s a cucumber that needs to be eaten. This is me trying to encourage you to eat your fruits and veg after feeding you brownies for two meals today. Hint hint nudge nudge wink wink.

I love you to the moon and back!

Peter stares for a moment, his eyes sliding back up the doodle of the rabbit. May hasn’t done that in years.

Not since… 

He can’t remember the last time she drew that for him.

The bunny is him.

Back when he first came to stay with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, back when his parents had merely been missing not—not gone for good, they didn’t have any toys on hand for him except a Pat the Bunny stuffed animal and the accompanying book. They’d gotten it when Peter and his parents had visited when he was a baby.

May had read it to him, saying ‘Pete the Bunny’ instead of Pat, and making up all sorts of stories that Peter knew weren’t in that book. He was Pete the Bunny for a few days until he’d insisted he needed big boy books. And so when Uncle Ben started sounding loud and angry into the phone, May had taken Peter to a cozy little bookshop.

They’d gotten a big, hardcover book of Beatrix Potter stories, and then they got ice cream even though they hadn’t had lunch yet and it would ruin his appetite. Ben was quiet and sad when they got home, and he held Peter and Pat the Bunny in his big lap while May read them The Tale of Peter Rabbit It was Peter’s favorite story for a long, long time, because it was the last story he got to hear when he was just visiting his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. When it was just a few fun days with people who read him books that were meant for babies, not five-year-olds, and got him ice cream cones before lunch. 

The last story read to a boy whose parents would be home soon.

After that, May read the Beatrix Potter book to Peter before bed every single night for a few years. Then, all of a sudden, she was never around. In retrospect, it can’t have been more than a few months that she was working so much overtime that it seemed the only time he saw her was when Ben would let him quietly creep into their room and cuddle up with her while she slept in their big, big bed. But to a lonely kid with abandonment issues, it felt like years.

That was when the bunnies first appeared. She started leaving post-it notes with doodles of bunnies every single day (That’s you, Pete the Bunny! This means you, Peter Rabbit! ) all of them saying how much she loved him.

When work finally calmed down, when she was actually there when Peter got home in the afternoons, Aunt May and Uncle Ben decided they needed to spend more quality time together. So they got a paperback copy of Watership Down and all took turns reading it to each other. Ben with his low, sonorous voice, Peter stumbling and stuttering his way through with lots of enthusiastic encouragement about his impressively high reading level for a second grader, and Aunt May, who always replaced ‘Pipkin’ with ‘Petekin.’ Peter pretended to hate it, but he secretly loved it whenever she said the name.

They read Watership Down, and then Tales From Watership Down, and then May’s work picked back up and they all got busy and then they never read together like that again.

Never ever.

Peter suddenly misses those hours spent reading to each other, the ache for more tearing through him like another bullet to his chest. He’ll never read like that with Ben again, and it’s not fair that a year later he’s still finding new things to mourn.

“Peter?” Harry sounds concerned. Which is fair, because Peter’s eyes are welling up at the sight of a bunny doodle.

“Yep?” Peter wipes his eyes quickly and carefully folds and pockets the note.

“Is everything okay? With you and your aunt, I mean. You didn’t say anything about it at school, and it didn’t seem like the time to ask.” Harry shrugs, clearly uncomfortable.

“Oh! Yeah. No, everything’s good. I left a mess and she was tired and grumpy, and I think we’re both a little…” Peter trails off, unable to think of a single word vast enough to explain what they’re both ’a little’ right now. "Anyway she said she was sorry for snapping at me and we made plans for Friday and she made me brownies for breakfast. And lunch.”

“Alright,” Harry sounds dubious, but he doesn’t try to press any more, “if you say so.”

It strikes Peter that his friends don’t really know Aunt May. 

They’d only ever seen her in passing, traded polite ‘nice to see yous’ if they saw her at all, because she was always working odd shifts and doing overtime. Ben was the one who had always been around.

Uncle Ben was the one who kept an eye on their study sessions, ‘study sessions,’ and sleepovers. When a deeply embarrassed Ned had whispered to Peter that he couldn’t eat potatoes because he’d get a rash ( not because he was allergic, he insisted), it was Uncle Ben who dipped out and reappeared with SunChips (along with ingredients for french toast, so Ned wouldn’t feel left out when he cooked breakfast for them all the next morning).

It was Uncle Ben who listened seriously to MJ, asking her all the right questions whenever she learned something new and terrible about the world, when Harry, Peter, and Ned lacked the patience and maturity to care. 

(Peter cares now. He listens now. He wishes he had back then.)

And it was Uncle Ben who would somehow convince Mr. Osborn to let Harry stay the night, even on school nights, when Harry was especially reluctant to go home.

Harry hasn’t slept over since Ben died. Peter’s top bunk, always reserved for Harry, is piled high with laundry and books. And Peter can’t have sleepovers now, not if he’s going to go out as Spider-Man.

Another thing lost. Another thing to mourn.

“I’m sorry,” Peter blurts.

“What?” Harry startles.

“I’m sorry I can’t have you over for sleepovers all the time anymore. I know they were—”

“Jesus, don’t worry about that.” Harry rolls his eyes, then grabs Peter’s shoulders and steers him toward the couch. “It’s fine, I’m fine, not having weeknight sleepovers isn’t the end of the world.”

“It’s important, though,” Peter murmurs. Because it is important. Everything they’ve lost because of Peter’s terrible mistake is.

“I’m going to make pudding to cheer you up,” Harry announces. He narrows his eyes as he pushes Peter down on the couch, pulling the throw over him like that will be enough to pin Spider-Man down. Peter’s lips quirk in amusement at the thought. Harry smiles back.

“So where do you keep the cornstarch these days?”

Harry makes excellent pudding. It’s, like, his thing. The one culinary endeavor at which Harry Osborn excels. MJ thinks he should have invested in a more nutritious (or at least, more impressive) dish as the one and only thing he can make. If only for the sake of his own survival when he finally gets away from his dad and has to fend for himself.

Peter disagrees, because pudding is plenty impressive and Harry makes amazing pudding and Peter likes eating said pudding, thankyouverymuch. 

It’s cheering him up, eating a giant bowl of still-warm chocolate pudding while sitting on the couch pressed close against Harry. His wounds still hurt but not nearly as much, his healing factor doing what it does best (or maybe it’s just the magic pudding). Now that he’s curled up at home with his friend beside him and a pocket full of May’s love, he doesn’t feel quite so drained. It’s as if the pudding and the blanket and the note and Harry’s warm presence against him are all warding off the memory of the cold warehouse floor under his body. Guarding against the feeling of warm blood that isn’t his own cooling rapidly on a cracked sidewalk, a year before.

The cozy bubble of calm and safety can’t last, though. It’s starting to get dark and Harry has to go home, even if he seems as reluctant to leave their little hideaway on the couch as Peter.

“See you in study hall tomorrow?” Harry asks as he shoulders his backpack, half an hour later than he probably should have.

“Yeah.” Peter smiles. “Thanks for the pudding and the company.”

“No problemo,” Harry grins obnoxiously. “Figured you need a reminder of why you should totally stop blowing off my invitations to hang out.”

Peter’s face freezes and Harry suddenly looks panicked.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he rushes to amend. “Just don’t be a stranger is all.”

“Yeah. Of course. We’ll hang out again soon, I promise,” Peter says, with as much cheer and sincerity as he can muster.

Harry nods, his smile a little wobbly, and leaves.

The warm, safe feeling collapses entirely, and Peter scrambles off the couch.

He needs to do something good, something helpful. He needs to do it right now.

The feeling of Spider-Man suit against the stitches, even through the bandages, smarts in a way that tells Peter he isn’t as healed as he thought. The sudden, sharp pain when takes his first good swing between buildings confirms the suspicion.

Okay, so maybe coming out tonight was not a smart move. Peter is pretty much useless, and he needs to clean the kitchen up before May gets home anyhow. He should probably eat some of the pineapple and cucumber she cut up, too.

Except… well… he’s out now. He should do something. Part of him knows he should go back and check on the warehouse, but the thought is immediately followed by gut-roiling fear of what he might find there. Logically, he knows the people with the guns aren’t still there, waiting for him. He woke up in The Punisher’s home, and there’s only one way that would have happened, and it doesn’t involve anyone laying down arms and having a level-headed discussion.

He doesn’t want to know. Not for certain.

It probably means he’s a coward, and he’s probably dishonoring his Uncle’s memory, but Peter turns away from the warehouse and takes off towards an apartment far away from the memory of gunshots and hot blood.

Peter peeks carefully through the window, from a certain balcony where he had left a certain dog. The dog is glossy and clean, sporting a brand new purple collar with a big fabric flower affixed to it. She looks transcendentally joyful about the fingers scritching at the spot right above her tail.

“Who’s my best girl?” the woman croons.

The dog wags her tail frantically.

“You’re right Violet, it’s you!”

Violet is a good name for a dog. Peter is ecstatic to have made a stranger and a stray dog happy with his incredible matchmaking skills.

But as happy as he is about Violet and her new human finding each other, Peter is also increasingly aware of things sliding around disturbingly under his suit. The adhesive on the tape he used to secure the gauze is giving up the ghost in the face of his acrobatics and subsequent sweating.

Great. It’s as good a cue as any to head back home.

Cleaning up the absolute mess he made of both his suit and the bandages keeps his mind off other, heavier, things. He did manage to tear himself back open in a couple of places, if the blood is any indication. Thankfully the bleeding has already stopped. Hopefully his lapse in judgment won’t be noticeable by Saturday evening.

By the time he falls asleep at midnight, Peter has managed to supplant his anxiety about Harry with anxiety about the Punisher noticing that his wounds got reopened.

He dreams of calloused hands and a deep rumbling voice telling him to be okay even as it cusses him out for being a dumbass.

Peter wakes up well before his alarm, the itching bad enough that he wants to writhe out of his skin. Apparently re-injuring himself followed by enough rest to start healing is a bad combination.  Frantic, half-conscious research leads him to an article about using capsaicin cream to treat chronic itching.

After a clumsy search, hindered by attempts to gently pat the painful prickling in his skin, he manages to unearth Aunt May’s jar of Tiger Balm. It’s not capsaicin cream, but it’s the closest thing he’s got.

Peter tears back a bandage, swipes a big glob of the goo onto his fingers, and smears it all over.

His alarm starts blaring while he’s curled around himself on the bathroom rug, trying not to screech at the burn.

He checks out mentally after that. Nothing important ever happens at school on Thursdays, anyway.

The extra rest from Thursday night’s decision to put the Spider-Man suit in the time-out corner was apparently enough for Peter’s body to get past the awful ’nerves reconnecting’ phase. He’ll take the good luck: it’s really the only thing has to feel good about when he gets up Friday morning, an hour later than his alarm usually goes off.

May is in the kitchen, struggling valiantly with a spoon against a tube of cinnamon roll dough. Peter watches for a moment before swooping in to the rescue, popping the cardboard open with ease. At least his strength is good for something.

“Thanks, bun.” She gives him a watery smile.

If there are tears in both their eyes, it’s only because May’s signature store-bought cinnamon rolls are just that good.

And then it’s time to go.

Peter hasn’t been back to the cemetery in almost a year.

It feels weird. Unfamiliar. There are trees he doesn’t recognize, even though they must have been here. They’re full grown trees, not saplings, and they’re probably older than he is, but he has absolutely no recollection of there being a giant sycamore thirty yards from Ben’s grave. That seems like something he would have noticed, should have noticed, because Ben always did like big old trees.

They say that funerals offer closure for the living, but there is nothing like ’closure’ about the blur that marks that day in Peter’s mind. He vividly remembers holding Ben’s hand as it went slack in his grip, and then everything went hazy. It just all happened so fast. Ben was dying, then he was dead, then Peter was in a suit at the synagogue and a blink later he was in the cemetery and the rabbi was saying words he couldn’t quite parse through the roaring in his head.

Back in those early days after the bite, it was so easy to get lost. He can’t remember what the rabbi said, can only half-remember his own faltering attempts to form his numb lips into the right shapes to recite the Kaddish. What he does remember, though, is the smell. He remembers the pine of the casket. He remembers the first horrifying hints of rot. Of dirt, dirt he’d held in his hand and dropped into the gaping wound in the ground where Ben lay, like the gaping wound in his heart where Ben had been ripped out.

The cemetery is peaceful today, his mind clear and his heart beating steadily, even if it does still ache. They’re in the area separated from the rest by a little gravel road that crunches pleasantly under his shoes. Grass has grown over the grave, and it slumps ever so slightly.

Peter wonders how much, if any, of Ben is still in that grave. When his parents died, his uncle had held him in his lap and said Richard and Mary were together and at peace, their souls slowly parting from their bodies. For years, Peter had comforted himself with visions of his mom and dad’s souls intertwined, shedding their bodies like a molting spider.

May shifts beside him, frowning intently at the half-finished headstone. For a second, Peter imagines his name carved next to Ben’s. If not for The Punisher’s intervention it likely would be, with Peter’s grave dirt spilling messily all over Ben’s peaceful resting place. Disrupting and disturbing his afterlife just like Peter had done his real life.

And May. What would that have done to May? If she had opened the door to his room to apologize to him, and found the bed empty… would she have called him in as a missing person? Or would she have waited for him to come back, assuming he would come home after he calmed down? Would she have still baked those brownies and waited for him to come home, only to get the call that they’d found his body in that warehouse? How long would that have taken? Would she have been here today, on Ben’s day, watching yet another Parker be lowered into the ground?

Or maybe — 

“I’ve never been fond of cemeteries,” May interrupts his thoughts. “I’m not superstitious or anything, it’s just…” she trails off. Peter reaches out and takes her hand, unsure of what to say but wanting her to know he’s there and listening.

She gives him a short, tight smile and squeezes his hand before her eyes return to Ben’s name carved in stone.

“When I was little, the family dog died,” she says, her voice a strained attempt at ’conversational’. “Daisy. My dad buried him in a cardboard box in the yard. Except, not too long after, they had to dig the box back up.”

Her throat works as she swallows. “The box was flimsy and wet, and Daisy was a little chubby. It tore, and I saw it. This awful, rotting mass of flesh and fur and… other things… that had been Daisy. Things that were feasting on what had been Daisy. It was horrible.”

“Sounds awful,” Peter chokes out, trying not to remember the heavy, still weight of some poor family’s beloved pet in his arms.

“Mmm,” May nods, then continues. “I wasn’t much older when one of my great aunts died. We went to her funeral, and then the burial. I couldn’t stop thinking of Daisy in his little cardboard box. When I saw the hole and the headstone with her name on it, it clicked in my head that every single headstone in the entire cemetery had a dead, rotting person buried under it.” May shudders. “And I imagined her being lowered into this fetid morass of… of human rot and I couldn’t stop screaming. My parents had to take me home, because I couldn’t stand to be in that cemetery. Not with what I imagined was just beneath the surface.”

May takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I had night terrors. Nightmares about a giant mass of rotting flesh reaching out with dead hands to drag me underground. I was so afraid of going down there. In the earth. It went on for months. My parents couldn’t figure out what to do. Finally, my mom sat me down, explained cremation in great detail for me, and promised that when I died I could be cremated. I made her promise that they wouldn’t even bury the ashes.” May laughs humorlessly. “And when I got older I found all sorts of logical reasons why it was better to be burned to ash and left to drift in the wind than be buried, just in case anyone asked. But that stinking, decaying meat reaching out from the graves with rotting hands… it never left me.”

She pauses for a moment, collecting herself. The cemetery feels a whole lot less restful, all of a sudden. Peter imagines it like May described; he’s seen roadkill before, seen dead rats, left to decompose in the moist heat of summer. Maybe instead of his peaceful departure, Ben is down there rotting and reaching, resenting Peter for his failures. Hadn’t his Uncle always been there for him? Hadn’t he been good? How could Peter let him down the one time Ben needed him?

Peter’s jaw aches and he makes himself to relax. That thinking does no good right now. May needs him present. Peter takes a deep breath and puts Ben back into his gentle slumber. Where he belongs. Where he deserves to be.

“Anyway. Funeral arrangements aren’t something you discuss a whole lot when you’re dating. Not even when you’re deciding if you should get married and settle down and build the rest of your lives together. You ask questions like ‘do we want kids’ and ‘should we try to get a house out in the suburbs’. But you don’t talk about what you want done with your corpse.”

“I never hid the fact that I wanted to be cremated, or that I hated cemeteries. I think I must have joked about it at least a little. Enough for Ben to have some idea, because when …” May trails off, glancing at Peter sadly. “Well, there was a lot happening. We were both distraught. Ben got hung up on this idea that he wanted us buried side by side, so we could rest together for eternity.”

It reminds Peter of that fairy-tale version of his parents’ death that Ben had told him when he was little.

“But all I thought of was that fetid mass of flesh. Being buried was the last thing I wanted. I tried to explain, you know? Not the… not about Daisy or my great aunt and that day in the cemetery. That was just silly and illogical. But my logic didn’t work. He was so insistent. We were just both so, so upset about so many other things…”

Unshed tears threaten to spill over onto her cheeks, and she has to take a moment to catch her breath before continuing.

“It turned into a terrible fight. I felt backed into a corner. I said some very unkind things, things I regretted. Things I regret. And then I refused to ever talk about it again. Whenever he’d bring it up I’d change the subject. Or if he wouldn’t let me change the subject I’d walk away. I was waiting for it to get easier to talk about; we both had plenty of time before we had to worry about that.”

“And then you didn’t.”  Peter does his best not to let the strain he’s feeling slip into his voice. He doesn’t want to be hearing this — hearing about any turmoil in what he had always imagined to be as perfect a partnership as any two people could manage — on the day that they’re meant to be celebrating Uncle Ben’s memory.  

“And then we didn’t,” May agrees. “Ben had already bought the plots, did you know? Right here in the interfaith area of the cemetery. About as soon as it was established, years ago. I didn’t find out until he… he…” she wipes at her face aggressively with her free hand, refusing to let Peter’s go. “And I was a little bit mad about it! Can you imagine? But my first impulse was still anger, because he made that decision without me, knowing how strongly I felt. I… I tried to imagine it. When we buried him. I tried to picture that beautiful, fanciful version of being buried. It all sounds so pretty the way Ben talked about it.”

Beautiful, shining souls slowly pulling away from their old husks.

“But I couldn’t. Can’t. I still don’t want to be buried.” She sounds so small, so defeated as she sways on her feet. “I guess it makes me a bad wife, that I’m not going to do it. I won’t even be alive to be upset, so why should it bother me?”

Peter doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what to do except step closer and lend support against whatever cold wind is sweeping through her.

“But it does,” she whispers. “It really, really does.”

Peter’s throat sticks.

What would Spider-Man say, to someone alone and hurting like this?

“I don’t think Uncle Ben would want you to be afraid like that. I think he’d rather you… you be free. On the wind. I think he’d like to imagine you like that.” Peter knows it’s not quite right, but maybe it’s enough, because May gives his fingers a little squeeze, and forces the glimmer of a watery smile.

“Let’s go get some lunch,” she husks.

It’s a good day, or at least as good as it can be. Under the circumstances. They walk to Ben’s favorite Indian place (Ben loved it, even if his intestines didn’t always agree). Then they meander over to the restaurant where May proposed to Ben, and Peter laughs until he almost cries at May’s evocative re-enactment of his face when she pulled out (and then proceeded to drop) the ring. The building is a bookstore now, and May lets him stay and pet the bookstore cat for as long as he likes. On their way out, she presses something into his hands.

A well-loved copy of a Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

So, all in all, a good day. It’s never going to be okay, never going to feel like it did, but a little something eases in Peter’s chest, like maybe he’s finally allowed to heal.

The next afternoon, May has to go run errands and then go into work for a few hours. Most of Peter doesn’t want her to go; she looks so rundown and tired and Peter wants her to get enough rest to look like herself again.

A little part of him is thankful. It means he doesn’t have to make an excuse for why he’s slipping out, doesn’t have to sneak into an alley to change into his Spider-Man suit. 

He doesn’t need to explain the paper bag full of clothes held close as he swings through the city, heading towards an address scrawled on a strangely cute dog-shaped sticky note.

Chapter Text

The kid is infinitely better company when he’s dazed from moderate-to-severe blood loss. Or totally unconscious.

Frank considers helping the kid help him to be a better host as he yanks out another stitch. He’s been thinking that a lot in the last thirty minutes.

The first time he'd considered knocking the kid out was mere minutes after his arrival. Frank had asked if the kid had swung over. Clearly knowing full well that he screwed up, the kid started babbling about subway fare and direct routes and connections and public transit inefficiencies while looking anywhere and everywhere but at Frank.

Getting him to quiet down long enough to guide him to the bathroom to check how bad the damage was from that particularly dumb decision was...difficult. Frank handled it more tactfully than he could have, a fact that he is proud of.

The bathroom, which was perfectly adequately sized for one grown man and one unconscious Spider-Man, was shockingly crowded when occupied by one grown man and one conscious Spider-Man. At one point he moved to pick the kid up and set him on the counter. A perfectly fine and reasonable thing to do with kids under the age of ten, but not so fine or reasonable after they’d hit puberty. Frank's urge to cover the kid's mouth and nose with his hand until his big, dumb eyes fluttered shut had as much to do with horror at his own actions as with his annoyance at the endless stream of words spouting from the kid's mouth.

The next time he considered putting the kid in a sleeper hold was out of mercy, when Frank inspected the stitches and saw how badly they'd healed over, skin creeping up over the thick black threads. That they had pretty obviously been pulled at enough to reopen at least once did not help the healing process.

And he thought about knocking the kid out several times more as he maneuvered between his legs, snipping and extracting the stitches as carefully as possible — which still involved a whole lot more bleeding than Frank would have liked — while the kid tried to mask his discomfort with cheerful, one-sided conversation. He gave himself away when his fingers squeezed against Frank's shoulder, where he'd set the kid's hand so he could tap out if necessary.

The worst was when they moved onto the stitches on his hip and thigh. The kid locked eyes with him, said "My name's Peter, nice to meet you," and then arched up and yanked his pants and the bottom half of his suit down. The whole situation was somehow made even more uncomfortable because the kid — Peter — did his utmost to keep himself 'modest.'

So Frank is left biting his tongue so he doesn't tell Peter he's already seen him naked and splayed out on the floor. After that, there's really no point in Peter’s attempts to preserve his dignity while Frank tries to avoid touching the kid's ass too much as he struggles to get a good angle to extract the final row of stitches.

And through it all, Peter talks. And talks. And talks. It's muffled into Frank's back now because he's hoisted half over a shoulder in a terribly uncoordinated attempt on both of their parts to get at Peter’s injuries. This would all be so much easier if the kid was unconscious and Frank could just roll him over as needed and not have to deal with nervous chatter and freakishly flexible limbs and strong fingers kneading at him like tiny cat paws whenever he's too rough.

"Okay," Frank pants when the last stitch is removed and the final strip of gauze is taped over the probably-already-healed rips in Peter’s carefully antibiotic cream-smeared skin. "Done. I didn't pay attention to any of that shit except your name."

"Oh," Peter says, cringing in on himself and suddenly looking so small where he's perched on the counter. "Sorry. I babble when I'm nervous."

No shit, Frank thinks, followed immediately by oh, fuck. His whole goal for the night was to not scare the kid away. He had promised himself he would be nice.

He bought cookies.

"I'm not good at understanding speech when I'm focused," Frank throws out as a sort of apology. It's not a lie, exactly, but it's not the reason why he'd tuned Peter out.

"Oh!" Peter perks up a little, "My aunt is like that. She's a nurse, too!"

Thank God for Peter being the type to want to think the best of people. Although they wouldn't be in this mess if he wasn't.

"I'm not a nurse."

"Well, no, but you know a lot of nurse stuff."

"True enough," Frank allows. And then, because he needs to steer this conversation away from actually talking before he sticks his foot in his mouth again, "I was planning on feeding you before bringing you home. Are you hungry?"

It’s a gimme — teenage boys are always hungry.

The k —  Peter  — had clearly clocked Max earlier. The way he drags his feet and not-so-subtly steals glances at the dog makes the question he wants to ask painfully obvious, but Peter doesn’t open his mouth. Thank God. Frank wonders if it's nerves or if he’d already asked about Max when he was too busy trying to pull skin-fused thread out of the kids’ side to reply and was afraid to ask again.

Either way, he takes pity and tells the kid what he knows he wants to hear. “Max is friendly if you want to pet him.” And just like that Peter is across the room, kneeling in front of the pooch pad and holding a tentative hand out for Max to snuffle at daintily.

It’s for the best; Frank doesn’t know if he could handle inane chatter while he tried to assemble sandwiches, and he’s not sure embarrassed silence would be any better. Hopefully rubbing Max’s disconcertingly hairless belly will wipe Frank’s rudeness from Peter’s memory. He seems like the type to be puppy-crazy, at least.

Armed with a pair of haphazardly plated sandwiches, Frank makes his way back to the living room, where Peter has managed to crawl onto the pooch pad with Max (which he notes is large enough to fit the entirety of both of their bodies) and is making his useless guard dog drool and kick his back leg with expertly placed scritches.

Suck up, he thinks, and he’s not sure which of the pair he’s referring to.

“Wash your hands, dinner’s ready,” Frank barks. Peter jumps, just a little.

“Y-yeah. Okay,” Peter stutters and stumbles to his feet. His eyes dart around, trying to figure out where to go until Frank tilts his head towards the kitchen. The kid flees.

It’s much easier to talk over food. He times it so that Peter’s mouth is too full to interrupt his carefully planned speech, and thankfully the kid is polite enough not to just go for it anyway. Frank carefully lays out his plan for training Peter up to a basic level of competency so he doesn’t get himself killed running around as Spider-Man, and he manages to make his point without (too many) threats. He gets a few wide-eyed stares as he explains why the whole scheme is incredibly necessary, but in the end, the kid nods his acquiescence and Frank rewards him with a cookie. He also rewards himself with a cookie, because he fucking deserves it after all that.

By the time he’s cleaned up their plates and returned to the living room, Peter’s gaze keeps flitting to the door and he’s bouncing his leg restlessly.

“I should probably head home,” he mumbles nervously.

Frank nods and heads to pull on his shoes.

“I can get home on my own,” Peter says quickly.

“I’m giving you a ride.”

“But like, traffic.”

“I’m giving you a ride.”

“It’s not a big deal, I can — ”

“I am giving you a ride,” Frank grits out.

“Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Castle.”

Driving really isn’t practical, but Frank’s not about to admit it.

Peter’s nervous chatter turned into nervous silence for the ride, for which Frank is vaguely grateful. He has a slight tendency towards road rage, which is not the best combination with New York City traffic. Despite that, it’s better than the headspace he’d be in if he knew the kid was out swinging around in his little suit. The fact that he has been since the incident makes Frank want to yell at him, to lecture while he has Peter captive in his car, but that won’t do any good. He also isn’t entirely certain that the kid won’t just fling himself from a moving vehicle and into the road if Frank gets too into it. He needs to find a way to activate a child-lock on the front seat, or maybe banish Peter to the back.

So he’s mostly silent, letting the drone of whatever CD he popped in last wash over him.

The fact is, it's not safe for Peter out there right now. Not that it ever has been or will be for Spider-Man, but even so. The warehouse can't have been an easy cover-up, and in Frank’s experience the type of people who have the ability to do so aren’t the type to simply let an interruption like that go. Even with Frank’s rushed attempt to make himself the obvious culprit, Spider-Man’s presence was clear as day. Really, if whoever they had interrupted had wanted to make things difficult for Spider-Man, letting the cops and the media in would have been the easiest way to do so. If the public would even be willing to believe that the Punisher was still alive and active and that Spider-Man wasn’t responsible for the slaughter, the mere connection between the two would be damning for the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s reputation. The uproar caused by that alone would be enough that whatever illicit activity had been going on in the warehouse to begin with would be forgotten. 

Unless it was something very big.

Nothing seemed particularly unusual to Frank, but he hadn’t been paying attention to much except the kid bleeding out on the floor. Not that he trusts that the good old boys in blue would expend much effort with something as exciting as the possibility of pinning murder or an association with the Punisher on Spider-Man. Or that they wouldn’t be bribed into diverting the attention to the easiest target. So it’s got to be something they need to keep very, very quiet. Not your regular drug or weapons trafficking operation, then.

Not something that Spider-Man is even remotely equipped to handle.

And not something Frank can protect him from if he doesn’t know what the hell it is or when or where the kid is running around. It’s a fucking nightmare, and he’s got half a mind to shoot the kid in the knee to keep him grounded, now that he has an idea of how fast he heals. But that wouldn’t be a long-term solution, and would metaphorically kneecap any plans for one.

When he finally pulls up by the deli where Peter insists on being dropped off again (and Frank wonders if this is because he’s still legitimately trying to keep the exact location of his home a secret, or if he’s trying to prevent a parent from seeing him exiting a strange vehicle), Peter turns to him.

“So, uh, I guess I’ll see you on Tuesday, then?” his voice pitches high and cracks just a little at the end, his fist closing around the post-it note with instructions on where to go.

“One way or another,” Frank smirks.

“Right…” Peter fidgets with the door handle. “Uhm. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

With that, Peter trips his way out of the car. Frank would prefer to make sure he gets back to his home safely, that he actually goes home, but at least he isn’t concerned about the kid keeling over from blood loss this time. And at least Peter has shoes.

The feeling of relief that the kid’s okay lasts up until he hits a particularly long red light. Then Frank remembers that his weekly meetup with Lieberman is in two days and explaining why Leo’s lego robotics coach still has enough blood to flow south has become...complicated.

How much should Frank tell him? If Karen doesn’t come up with a whole lot of information very quickly, he’s probably going to need Micro’s help with the warehouse situation. And with a first name, a physical description, and a neighborhood, he could get the background Frank needs on Peter’s home life to put together whatever the hell is going on there that’s leading the kid to swing around almost getting himself killed most nights, seemingly without being noticed. Can he justify outing Peter as Spider-Man, even to Micro? Because even if he doesn’t say it outright, David Lieberman will not need much information to connect those dots.

“So pick your poison!” the radio wails with gusto.

Indeed. Frank groans and lets his head hit the steering wheel with an ungraceful thunk.

The car behind him lays on the horn; apparently, the light turned. He sits there while he counts, very slowly, to thirty. Because fuck that asshole.

Karen still hasn’t given him anything by Monday.

It’s probably best to keep the topic of conversation to Kevin White. Frank is still debating whether or not to say who interrupted his run-in with the man when he gets to the counter to order.

The same mousy girl as last week, staring up at him with barely concealed nerves in those big, brown eyes. It’s not new, that the world continues the same as always when things have changed completely for him. But the shy little barista looking at him like that has him off-balance.

Something about the way she stutters out a hello, having evidently remembered him and his abominable lavender tea latte from the previous week, how she has a whole lot of words and not much to actually say, reminds him of Peter. Peter, mostly naked and unable to shut up in his bathroom.

He finally puts them both out of their misery by agreeing to get the same drink, again, since he enjoyed it so very much last week.

Goddamnit.

Lieberman is sitting at their usual table, positioned so that Frank can have his back to the wall and his eye on the door, just how he likes. It means he isn’t pissed enough to purposely make Frank uncomfortable, which is a good start. When Frank slides into the chair he sees dark circles and Micro’s patented grumpy face, which more resembles sleep-deprived pouting than anything Frank would ever consider intimidating.

“So…” Frank drawls by way of greeting. He doesn’t want to get into it until their drinks have arrived. He idly wishes there was alcohol involved, then decides he’s glad there isn’t. Micro can be such a bitchy drunk.

Micro grunts at him in return, which is really more of a baritone squeak.

“Not sleeping well?” It’s an opening for Lieberman to yell at him for fucking up if that’s what’s got him in a mood. Otherwise, it’s an invitation to talk about whatever else is bothering him. Frank isn’t the only one with nightmares, and just because Micro’s family’s brains are 100% contained in their still-breathing bodies doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his own shit to carry from his brush with high-level military corruption. Frank’s a good listener for that, and Micro never needs reassurances or advice when it’s getting to him anyways.

“Leo’s coach just got released from the hospital,” David says slowly, making the sort of intense eye contact that always makes Frank want to look anywhere else. “I can’t tell if I’m glad or not.”

“Oh?” Frank’s never been the best at reading tone and body language, and that’s only gotten worse since taking a bullet to the head. If Lieberman’s mad at him about it, he’s going to have to say it straight.

“Yeah,” Micro shrugs while continuing to stare Frank down. It’s damn weird. “I’m really not sure how I feel about it.”

They sit there, Frank willing himself to participate in this impromptu staring match, with absolutely no idea what’s going on or what to say. His plans for explaining what happened did not include ‘having no idea what David’s on about while attempting to make intimate eye contact with him,’ because that is not an eventuality that anyone plans for.

The silence stretches from ‘mildly uncomfortable’ to ‘extremely uncomfortable’ when Frank sees the barista load up their cups and start heading towards their table. Then suddenly turn right back around and hurry back behind the counter, because she forgot something. Then there’s a minute or two of her fixing the order while casting increasingly frantic looks towards the two of them, who are now sitting in dead silence. And then, finally, she drops off Micro’s coffee and Frank’s hell-brew with a smile before beating a hasty retreat without asking if they need anything else.

Frank turns a jealous eye towards Micro’s coffee, which Lieberman must see because he pulls it closer and wraps a protective arm around it. As if he could stop Frank if he decided to drink that coffee.

“So, uh,” Micro breaks the standoff. “Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about it. He’s out of the hospital now, but he’s going to need at least one corrective surgery, maybe— probably — more. It’s just. Am I the kind of guy who orders hits on his kids’ lego coaches?”

Frank bites back a sarcastic ‘yes’ because that’s not going to help things and he’s probably going to need Micro not pissed off at him in the near future.

“Corrective surgery, huh?” he says instead. “So he’s not going back to coaching soon?”

“Oh, definitely not. He’s out of the hospital, but…” Micro slumps back against his chair. “Well, there’s time. I have time to decide.”

Which, sure. Okay. Not what Frank meant, but yes, Micro has time to come to whatever decision he wants. Not that it matters, because the only decision that matters here is Frank’s, and he’s already made up his mind about Kevin White. He was only asking if the fucker was out of commission for a while longer because he needs to know if he has sudden, very urgent plans for the night or not. He’s got shit to do tomorrow.

They sit there for a while, Frank watching Micro drink his coffee and not touching his own ‘beverage.’ He’s already subjected himself to it once and he’s not desperate to distract himself or occupy his mouth with something besides words, so there’s no point.

In the end, Micro doesn’t even ask about how Kevin White got away. When he asks Frank if he’s got anything going on or if he needs any help — of the vigilante or mundane variety —he responds with a vague “maybe soon” that gets him a look that Frank doesn’t even bother trying to parse.

When the barista sees that he hasn’t touched his lavender latte at all, she looks so much like Max when he’s locked out of the bathroom that he almost regrets not drinking it.

“Something else next time?” she suggests nervously.

“Yeah, I just wasn’t feeling it today,” Frank shrugs and then tips her generously because he’s not that much of an asshole.

“I’ll figure out the perfect drink for you someday,” the girl tells him with the sort of grim determination he would be reluctant to face down in a dark alley.

“I have total faith in you.”

He actually considers bringing Max along. As much as no one notices anyone, people do tend to take note of Frank, even if only peripherally. Having a dog that won’t stop wagging its stubby little tail and joyfully drooling at people makes him less notable. It would also probably put Peter more at ease. But then he’d have to either keep Max with them the entire time and hope he didn’t get disruptive or walk him back to the house to drop him off first, which would be significantly out of the way.

So Frank goes to wait by the subway entrance alone, duffel thrown over his shoulder. Hopefully, he won’t have to wait too long. He wonders if the kid’s gonna bring his gym uniform. Maybe he’ll even be wearing a school uniform, and make it easy for Frank to figure out what he needs without Micro’s help.

When Peter, looking sleep-deprived and a bit nervous, emerges onto the sidewalk, it’s in normal street clothes. The kid glances around but doesn’t notice Frank until he’s only a couple of feet away.

“Oh! I’m so glad this was the right stop, I was a little worried — ” Peter starts, but trails off when Frank just keeps walking by, trusting that he’ll follow, which he does.

They make it about half a block before Peter tries again, “Uhm, where are we going? I know it’s a little late for ‘don’t follow strange men to undisclosed locations’ but, uhm. Can you? Disclose it?”

“Somewhere we can work out,” Frank throws over his shoulder. Then, because the kid looks comically wide-eyed and nervous for someone who throws himself directly at the pointy ends of knives as his chosen extra-curricular, he smiles sharply. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

Chapter Text

Peter’s life is a joke.

No, that’s not right. There’s nothing wrong with his life. Nothing wrong with Aunt May, or Harry and MJ and Ned, or any of the other many, many moving parts that make his life what it is. The only thing wrong with Peter Parker’s life is Peter Parker himself.

What is wrong with him? How is this the thing that — ?

Peter practically sprints up the last flight of stairs to the apartment building; the neighbors can deal with the noise of him crashing up them for a minute. He needs to get back home and fling himself onto the couch so he can scream into one of the ‘tastefully tacky’ throw pillows that Uncle Ben had painstakingly selected.

Except no, he can’t, because when the door swings open he spots May curled up on it, asleep. He told her he was going to the library with Ned and it’s only 7:30, so he’s not even close to the danger zone for staying out too late. Then he notices the plate with a half-decimated mound of peanut butter and a couple of browning apple slices, and the way the silent tv is still softly glowing.

She must have fallen asleep while watching something. The position looks comfortable enough, and Aunt May has always been able to read his face like a book. She absolutely cannot be allowed to see what’s written on it right now, so he grabs the maroon and burnt orange afghan (all tack and no taste, but so impossibly soft that it was worth the $3.75 and a spot on their slumping couch) and gently pulls it over her, taking special care to tuck it around her feet. She’s a cold sleeper, and Ben had always complained about her frozen toes. The tv is asking if they’re still watching The Great British Bake Off, which Peter sidesteps answering by turning it off entirely.

Then he creeps to his room and shuts the door as quietly as he can, walks over to his bed, faceplants into a pillow, and releases a noiseless scream.

What the fuck?!

He can’t stop thinking about that teeny, tiny bathroom . 

The thing is, Peter hadn’t ‘felt natural urges ’— as his papery-skinned, skeletal 8th-grade health teacher would say — for a little while. Like, say, 384 days or so. It was maybe a little concerning since he’d certainly had an abundance of ‘natural urges’ before that, but ‘grief and also super powers’ was an entirely reasonable explanation for their absence.

And then that teeny, tiny bathroom. More specifically, that teeny, tiny bathroom with Mr. Castle man-handling and yanking painful little bits of black thread out of him, while Peter spread his legs far enough to be uncomfortable to accommodate the giant brick of muscle that had 100% beat the shit out of him before between them. All while he grunted out orders and shot Peter looks like what he really wanted to be doing was wrapping his hands around Peter’s throat (he’d probably only need one,  fuck !) and squeeze.   

And that, it turned out, was the key to unlocking a year’s worth of Peter’s ‘natural urges’ on the spot. With complete and utter horror, he felt himself start to get hard. That turned into humiliation, which seemed to fuel the process even more in the worst sort of positive biological feedback loop Peter could imagine.

So Peter talked. He talked a whole, whole lot, about anything and everything that could distract him from the situation.

He explained the Third Defenestration of Prague in excruciating detail while Mr. Castle teased a several-inch-long piece of thread out of his body, tearing skin as he went, and Peter was extremely lucky that whimpering and squeezing his fingers was a normal reaction to that particular sensation. 

Defenestration. He’d chanted the word like a mantra at one point, because Mr. Castle was very clearly not listening to a word he was saying, and because it was an objectively unsexy word. It was impossible to maintain an erection while saying it, but boy did Peter’s body put forth a heroic effort.

And then it got even worse because Peter was a foolish fool who deserved to perish and had gotten shot low enough that he needed to pull his pants down. The idea that Mr. Castle would very possibly be introducing himself to Peter’s semi while still referring to him exclusively as ‘kid’ was just too much to handle, so Peter had introduced himself before shoving the clothing out of the way fast, like ripping off a bandaid.

Smooth, Parker. Real smooth.

At that point, Peter had to commit to making sure that Mr. Castle did not catch even a glimpse of his dick. Even though the man had probably, no, definitely already seen it. Because he’d put the stitches in that he was pulling out now. He’d taken Peter’s ruined suit off entirely and cleaned him up and dressed him up in his own clothes and put him in a warm bed and there was no way he hadn’t seen Peter’s dick when he did that, but it was different this time, in this teeny, tiny bathroom. Had he taken Peter into this bathroom last time? Probably, actually. He’d probably had Peter naked in this bathroom before — 

And then Peter’s fantasy of himself sprawled out unclothed and unconscious on the very same linoleum just inches beneath his dangling feet was interrupted because Mr. Castle hoisted him up over his shoulder and Peter had to cling onto his warm, muscular back for dear life. Peter wondered if the spot on the floor had made contact with his bare ass. Probably.

Defenestration. Defenestration. Defenestration.

Peter chants it into his pillow. To be fair, throwing himself out the window would fix his rapidly growing problem.

The other way would be to… 

Well, he had just been thinking about how awful it would be to leave May with the corpse of another Parker boy.

He gives the window one last look before making his choice. He takes the pillow not currently on scream containment duty, pushes it down between his legs, and lets himself do what he wanted when he was draped over Mr. Castle.

Peter avoids thinking about it until 11:32 am the next morning. He knows the exact minute, because that is when he drops his pencil after finishing the last assigned math problem, beating his timer by a slim seventeen-second margin, and feels his pride at winning the self-inflicted race turn to horror when he realized he has nothing sufficiently pressing to distract him from thinking about Mr. Castle’s big, callused hands on his skin.

This is MJ’s fault for teaching him her secrets for ‘efficient studying,’ because it turns out that more than any of the rest of them, she hates school. So when she has to do homework or study for exams, she does so with laser focus so she can be done with it as quickly as possible. It was an absolutely vital skill for Peter to pick up so he could balance Spider-Man and grades and keep from stressing out May even more. MJ, as passionate in her love of sharing knowledge as in her hatred of the American educational system, had been perfectly happy to teach him her secrets.

So it is entirely her fault that Peter is done with his coursework before noon and can’t hide from his memories of Mr. Castle’s gruff voice anymore.

When he emerges from his room, both to flee temptation and because he’s really, really hungry, May is back on the couch (she’s wearing different clothes, or he would have suspected she had never left it) and looking as infected with the ‘blehs’ as Peter is. Hopefully not for the same reason. He shudders even as he thinks it. 

“Hey, sit out here with me?” May asks once Peter’s finished assembling a sandwich. It’s just peanut butter and strawberry jelly on bag-bread, nowhere near as good as what Mr. Castle —  no he is not thinking about that.

“Sure!” Peter calls as he eyes an apple. He is very hungry, and he’s supposed to get like four servings of fruit a day to be healthy, right? Right.

Apple and sandwich in hand, he plops down heavily next to her. She has a book on her lap, and she stares at it while Peter eats, but she doesn’t turn the pages. Her eyes don’t even scan it.

“Is everything okay?” Peter asks.

“Absolutely hunkey-dorey,” May replies with a big smile. “Just not really feeling this book today, you know?”

“Yeah,” Peter nods. “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Sure,” May closes the book but doesn’t make any move to grab the remote. Peter doesn’t either, and he eventually finds himself with his head in her lap while she gently combs her fingers through his hair, short nails scratching lightly just the way he likes.

It’s so nice. Except his eyes are burning and there’s a heaviness in the pit of his stomach, and it takes Peter a moment to realize that he’s sad. Because this isn’t something that he and May get to do. Most days they barely even see each other. They only have much time together if something happens to make them make time together. And when Ben was alive, Peter saw her even less. This moment, with her humming some off-key tune he can’t identify, surrounded by her smell and the warmth of her lap under his cheek, this moment is something stolen. Something that never would have happened if everything was the way it should be. And at the same time, it feels precious because he doesn’t know when or if it’ll ever happen again and he finds himself missing it even though he’s right there experiencing it.

May’s humming goes a little wobbly and when Peter glances up, she’s got shiny eyes too.

It’s a joint decision to let the moment drag out for as long as they can stretch it before May has to go get dressed for work.

An hour after May leaves, Peter is pulling on his suit.

He’s actually pretty sure Mr. Castle warned him not to go out tonight, but Peter wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying during that part of the conversation. He was very focused on Mr. Castle, because it would be rude not to be when he was talking to him. Peter had paid special attention to the cadence of his voice, to the distinctive wrinkle between his eyebrows when he seemed displeased about something, the way his biceps strained against his shirt… yeah, Peter had paid very, very close attention to Mr. Castle, just maybe not to the actual words he was making at that moment.

When Mr. Castle had told Peter that he would be meeting him on Tuesday evening after school so that he could ‘learn how not to get himself slaughtered,’ and made sure Peter knew that he could either meet him at a designated spot, or he could find Peter, and what the consequences of the latter option were, Peter was definitely paying attention. And Peter is definitely going to be at that meeting place on time, because contrary to what everyone seems to think of him, he does have a survival instinct.  

Extrapolating from the rest of what Mr. Castle said, Peter is pretty confident there were threats involved in the whole ‘don’t go out’ thing, and part of him is inclined to believe that the Punisher will absolutely know if he does and that there will be consequences to doing so. But, well, Spider-Man doesn’t just give up because of a threat, no matter the source. Besides, Mr. Castle made it very clear that he isn’t about to actually murder Peter, and serious maiming is probably off the table, too. Part of him is a little curious about what the consequences might be. Part of him is, maybe, a little excited.

But that’s not why he’s going out tonight. Spider-Man is there to help people first and foremost, and that’s what he is going to do tonight, and what he is going to think about tonight, and he won’t be thinking about anything else. He will not spare any consideration for consequences.

Except, well, maybe he does, but not to the ones that Mr. Castle may or may not have promised to inflict on him.

Peter needs to stay focused because the guy currently leaning on him most certainly isn’t. 

He’d been swinging around the city when he saw the figure spill out from an alley, panicked and incoherent. When he went down to check on them, it turned out to be a young man who Peter would have assumed to be about his age. The only problem with that theory was the ‘No Entry Under 21’ sign very prominently displayed on the door to the club he had just exited.

The guy is definitely out of it — Peter can’t parse what he’s trying to say through the mush of vowels and consonants — but he doesn’t seem drunk exactly. The guy seems relieved to see Spider-Man. This is both convenient and also not a great sign, because people who are faded six ways from Friday aren’t too keen on him as a general rule. Peter offers to bring him to a hospital, which gets a very negative response (inconveniently the most coherent response he’s gotten ). It’s impossible to tell if it’s because the guy doesn’t want to get caught or that he can’t afford an ER visit, and he doesn’t know how dangerous whatever the guy is on is.

So. Consequences.

Peter is definitely feeling the consequences of smashing two phones in rapid succession when he’d first donned the suit, and his decision to stop carrying one at all after that. He wants, desperately, to be able to look up what to do. Even more than that he wants May and her clear, stern nurse-voice to tell him exactly what he needs to do to fix things. 

Without a phone, he can’t even get WebMD to tell him the guy has cancer.

Every time the guy goes still Peter worries, and then when he starts thrashing and trying to fondle Spider-Man’s chest and babbling, Peter misses the silence. Peter tries counting the seconds, saying if he counts to a thousand (two thousand? Three?) and there isn’t any improvement, he’ll bring the guy to the hospital. But he keeps getting distracted, keeps losing count. Keeps thinking that the guy is improving, then deciding that no, no, he’s actually doing worse.

Keeps thinking that if he doesn’t handle this right, if the guy dies, then it’ll be all Peter’s fault. That if he brings him to the hospital and something bad happens to him there, it’ll be all his fault, too. What if it’s an opioid overdose? He knows MJ mentioned something about that, about how some libraries started keeping something called Narcan for first aid.

The guy starts grabbing at his butt, and Peter gently moves his hands (are they cold? Peter thinks the guy’s fingers might be cold. What drug is that a symptom of?) to a more appropriate spot on his own lap. Maybe the guy was looking for Narcan to save himself. Does he need to add a Narcan pouch to the suit? He doesn’t have much of the spandex-y material he’d found in a clearance bin at the craft store left, and what if it makes the suit tug strangely? A fanny pack might be better, actually. He could store a lot more first aid stuff in a fanny pack. But a fanny pack would look so dumb, and Peter already has a hard time getting people to take him seriously.

Is he seriously thinking about foregoing a potentially life-saving fanny pack for fashion ? What kind of monster is he? Peter is the actual worst. And he stopped keeping track of the seconds, and now the guy is slumping, and, and, and — 

“Hey,” a person — femme if not female, and wearing a bizarre fuzzy rainbow thing that eludes Peter’s ability to process —interrupts Peter’s spiraling thoughts. “Your friend having a bad trip?”

“Uhm,” Peter tells them, eloquently.

“I’ve got some Xanax, you know what he took?”

“No?”

“Damn,” they scrunch up their nose. “Well, I can leave one with you? If you can get him to tell you what he took, then you can decide if it’ll help.”

“Uhm,” Peter’s head feels like it’ll explode. He can’t make sense of what they’re trying to tell him. He’s heard of Xanax and he’s pretty sure it’s for anxiety. Maybe he needs the Xanax instead of the guy. But he’s also pretty sure that Xanax isn’t like Narcan or an epi-pen or glucagon and he’s pretty sure his gym teacher said something about people getting addicted to it. 

“Uhm,” he starts again, after a super, duper long pause, but the person looks patient, and a little concerned, and not at all like the trench-coat wearing creeps that they show in the educational videos about drug dealers. “No thanks?”

“Alright,” the person says, then watches them for a moment longer, chewing their lip before offering him a magenta water bottle, decked out with stickers. “I’m going to leave this water bottle here for you. And I’ll be in there,” they point at a brightly lit club across the street from the park bench where Peter was camped out, “in case you need help.”

“Okay,” Peter says numbly, reaching out for the water bottle. The only reason it doesn’t crash to the ground is his sticky fingers.

“You’re doing a great job, Spider-Man!” They give him a final thumbs-up, then walk away.

Peter stares at the stickers on the water bottle. Furbies.

Then he realizes that the fuzzy rainbow thing they’re wearing is a cape. Made out of worms-on-a-string.

Well, at least cool people think he’s doing okay.

Peter starts counting again. He hopes vaguely that this time he’ll get interrupted by a very grumpy Punisher, who will know exactly what to do. He doesn’t think Mr. Castle is the kind of person to hurt someone for being drugged (or to judge Peter for helping someone who is drugged).

Peter counts, second-guesses himself, and counts some more. Then the man seems to fall asleep for real and Peter isn’t sure if he should make a break for the hospital or try to get to the worm-caped hero. The indecision paralyzes him long enough for the guy to wake up. He seems embarrassed, and he gives Peter instructions on how to get him to a friend who can make sure he’s okay.

Peter is stupidly, humiliatingly relieved to pass him off to someone who actually knows what they’re doing. He crawls home and to bed, not sure if he actually helped at all, but relieved he didn’t just let some guy die on him.

Small victories.

It feels like all Peter manages to do is keep his eyes stubbornly shut until his alarm goes off. He’s managed to move his brain past thinking about Mr. Castle and onto thinking about thinking about Mr. Castle. Honestly, less fun, more stress, zero out of ten would not recommend.

What he’s come up with is this: it might not be Mr. Castle at all. Maybe he’s just...into being taken care of, and people being mean to him. And maybe these feelings about being treated like that have only just had a chance to come out in the past few days. Because of...reasons. He’s not sure what reasons, but he’s not a licensed therapist, so whatever.

But this does mean he can test his theory at school, because he definitely has people who take care of him, and people who are kinda mean to him, and some who even do both at the same time. If he just takes note of how that makes him feel, he can figure out if he’s into some weird shit or if it’s Mr. Castle.

He really hopes it’s not Mr. Castle. He really, really hopes what he’s into is not Mr. Castle specifically doing weird shit. 

As expected, Flash’s daily jabs do not inspire any feelings except mild irritation. Peter didn’t expect that to do it, and honestly, he would have been a bit concerned if it did. He has higher hopes for MJ; beautifully vitriolic, sarcastic MJ. But she’s being atypically careful with what she says to him, and he realizes how frazzled he must look and how that combined with how recent Ben’s anniversary was is probably making her worry for him. Which is sweet, and makes his heart swell with something, but it isn’t that feeling. He’ll need to gather more data from her at a later date when she isn’t treating him like he’s an emotional soap-bubble, ready to pop from a wrong breath. And unfortunately, Ned is neither particularly vitriolic nor prone to the sort of overbearing care that he’s pretty sure triggered his response. Ned is steady and stable and always makes him feel safe and relaxed: pretty much the exact opposite of what Mr. Castle elicits in him. 

His last, best hope is, of course, Harry.

Peter thinks, for a moment, that they’re off to a good start when Harry drags Peter out of the library and toward the window to the courtyard. No explanation, just Harry being Harry.

As they huddle together in the courtyard’s blindspot, Peter wonders if Harry has a particularly fun bit of gossip he wants to share without risking it getting overheard. Or (Peter’s stomach sinks), maybe Norman said something particularly nasty and Harry needs to share it with someone safe.

But then Harry opens his backpack instead of his mouth, and pulls out a large thermos, two spoons, and a pair of cloth napkins. The thermos and the napkins are, to Peter’s combined fascination, delight, and horror, matching. Matching and dinosaur themed, and covered in illustrations of Allosaurus and Ankylosaurus and Cryolophosaurus that are both incredibly detailed and somehow wrong enough to make Peter’s teeth itch.

“Aren’t they amazing ?” Harry laughs, spreading out the napkins like a sort of makeshift tablecloth between them. “I had to get them as soon as I saw them, but then I couldn’t figure out what to do with them,” he explains and starts unscrewing the thermos cap, “but then I thought, well, you’re busy a lot after school, but there isn’t any reason why we can’t have pudding and hang out at school!”

“You absolute mad lad,” Peter takes the spoon Harry is waving at him.

“I mixed in whipped cream and strawberries this time, so it’s either gonna be the best thing ever or a total mess.” Harry is watching him intently, so Peter makes sure to express just how much he likes it. Peter, Ned, MJ, and Harry all have their things that they get anxious about, where they need a little extra reassurance.

“It’s basically the best thing ever,” Peter announces after swallowing. It’s only a tiny exaggeration. Harry’s ears go a little pink and he quickly shoves a heaping spoonful in his mouth instead of responding.

It takes them almost the entire free period to empty the thermos, and by the end, Harry is groaning and Peter feels very, very full. It’s a good feeling. Before they go in, Harry wipes a bit of leftover pudding from the corner of Peter’s mouth, which feels a little embarrassing and a teeny bit nice. It’s not quite how Mr. Castle made him feel, but it’s the closest Peter’s ‘experiment’ has gotten him.

He decides the results are inconclusive. He’ll need to run some more tests.

Adding to his stress is that he still hasn’t come up with an excuse for Tuesday afternoon. It’s Monday evening and he and May are eating instant tteokbokki (black bean flavor) on the couch while watching The Great British Bake Off. Ben used to insist that they eat dinner at the table, but like so many things since he died, that’s changed.

It’s the perfect time to nonchalantly mention that he’s going to the library or to a movie or literally anything. Ever since he got his act cleaned up and started doing well in school again, May has told him he’s a ‘good kid’ and never said ‘no’ to any requests for reasonable-sounding afterschool activities. But that would mean bursting the bubble that’s enclosing the two of them where they’re curled up on the couch with their absolutely delicious rice cakes and black goo (made by carefully adding approximately the right amount of boiling water and then impatiently waiting for almost the right amount of time) and ruthlessly critiquing the merengue whipping skills of the contestants.

So Peter doesn’t say a word.

It keeps him awake, which mostly defeats the purpose of his decision to stay home that night and actually get some sleep. When he finally falls asleep, he has fitful dreams of half-baked and increasingly bizarre excuses to tell May in the morning before school.

But, when he wakes up, the kitchen is empty and May’s bedroom door is firmly shut. There’s a note on the counter next to a bag lunch with his name on it.

Morning Bun, need to go in to work a few hours early today so I’m sleeping in. Packed a special treat in your lunch but no peeking! I’ll see you tomorrow!

There’s a little scribble of a rabbit underneath, enclosed in a heart.

It leaves him feeling funny while he makes coffee that morning. He’s glad he won’t have to make up a cover story for when he goes to see Mr. Castle, but he’s nervous that there will be another note tomorrow, and the day after that. That he won’t be seeing much of May at all, because she’ll be too busy working again. And this time it’ll just be Peter. Peter and the Spider-Man suit, and he won’t have excuses to stay home curled up on the couch watching TV anymore.

He doesn’t peek in the bag, not until lunch.

There’s two sandwiches and two clementines and a packet of cookies that are only in one vending machine at the hospital where May works.

Peter only lets Ned and MJ have one, each. They don’t appreciate the delicacy, anyway.

It doesn’t matter that he’s octuple checked; Peter’s still completely certain he’s gotten off at the wrong stop. It isn’t a big one, and it’s not on a route he’s familiar with. Even as Spider-Man, Peter doesn’t come out this way that much, because Daredevil has Hell’s Kitchen covered. Peter’s met the guy in costume exactly once and he’s absolutely terrifying. He’s read stuff about Daredevil and Punisher having some sort of complicated working relationship, and he both believes it and hopes he never, ever sees it.

Emerging onto the sidewalk from the subway stop he pats his backpack again to confirm for the umpteenth time that the athletic shorts (from his gym uniform, awkwardly smuggled out of the locker room) and spare t-shirt are there. He doesn’t know what showing up to ‘class’ unprepared would be like with Mr. Castle, but he imagines it would be worse than showing up to an AP exam without two carefully sharpened No. 2 pencils. 

And dammit, where is Mr. Castle? This better be the right stop. He’s not sure what he’ll do if it isn’t. Wander around as visibly as possible as Spider-Man in the afternoon to get the Punisher’s attention? Hang up the suit, go into hiding, and convince Aunt May that they need to move to another city? 

Peter’s considering the pros and cons of California vs the Pacific Northwest (anything nearer is far too close for safety) when his spidey-sense gives a funny, nervous little tingle, unlike anything he’s ever felt before. He whips his head around just in time to see Mr. Castle close the last couple of feet between them.

“Oh! I’m so glad this was the right stop, I was a little worried — ”

Except Mr. Castle keeps walking right on past him, and Peter doesn’t know what else to do but follow after him. This is Mr. Castle, right? He’s sure it is, but maybe it’s not, because Peter isn’t that great with faces and he’s never seen him in broad daylight before and this is a totally different context than ‘Mr. Castle’s House’ which is the only place he’s actually seen the guy out of full Punisher get up. But that scowl is pretty distinctive. It’s gotta be him. This is not going to be another round of grabbing a hand at the store and looking up only to realize it isn’t Uncle Ben.

He’s going to get a conversation going. It’s the only way to confirm that this is actually Mr. Castle and he isn’t reliving his eight-year-old self’s greatest humiliation.

“Uhm,” he starts, eloquently, “where are we going?” But maybe that isn’t directed obviously enough at suspected-Mr. Castle, so he tacks on, because there is no way it won’t get a rise out of whoever he’s following: “I know it’s a little late for ‘don’t follow strange men to undisclosed locations’ but, uhm. Can you? Disclose it?”

That gets the man to pause midstep, at least, and when he looks over his shoulder with something that looks both terrifying and adjacent to ‘amused’, Peter’s doubts that he is following anyone except for Frank ‘Punisher’ Castle are obliterated.

 “Somewhere we can work out,” Mr. Castle tells him. His eyes linger for just a second on Peter’s face before he bares his teeth in a vicious grin and says. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

Peter chokes a little. How would Mr. Castle biting him work? He tries not to imagine it and fails terribly, his brain summoning images of teeth digging into his side while he squirms, Mr. Castle using his teeth to keep Peter in place while he digs the stitches out of his flesh —  

He almost runs into Mr. Castle’s back when they come to a sudden stop in front of a dingy storefront. The faded sign proclaims that it’s “Where Champions are Made” and “Boxing” and “Daily Training,” but the closed sign hanging on the door seems to indicate otherwise. Maybe they’re secretly open and that’s why Mr. Castle is here?

Mr. Castle jiggles the handle and pulls up on the door before pressing hard with his shoulder. Peter’s about to point out the lettering reading ‘pull,’ when the door gives way to an unoccupied, unlit space.

The way no one seems to even notice them breaking in is a bit surreal. People are walking by and not giving either of them a second look. Mr. Castle does look like the kind of guy who would hang out in a stinky old boxing ring, he supposes. It’s less collusion than dumb obedience that has him following Mr. Castle into Fogwell’s Gym. The reek of stale sweat, old blood, and half-assed attempts at sanitizing the other two hits Peter like a wall when he crosses the threshold.

“Are we breaking and entering?” Peter whispers as soon as the door thuds shut behind him.

“Yup.”

Peter opens his mouth to say something, he isn’t sure what, when Mr. Castle gives him a snort.

“You know I’ve done much, much worse. And in case you weren’t aware, you’ve done a lot worse. So if you’re worried about the legal consequences of this, then we should also take a moment to go over — ”

“I know that,” Peter snaps. Well, he has an idea of the broad strokes, at least. 

“Hmmm.” Peter interprets that sound to mean ‘this conversation isn’t over,’ but Mr. Castle leaves it for the moment, instead making a beeline for the light switches and flicking on a few deeper in the building, where they won’t be visible from grimy windows.

Peter wanders into the gym, past the punching bags and skirting the ancient-looking ring. The equipment isn’t nearly as interesting as the posters advertising fights that line the walls. Except for the fact that everything is (relatively) dust free and that the scent of body odor is fresh, Peter would think the place was abandoned long ago.

The Fight of the Year!, one yellowing poster proudly announces. Carl ‘Crusher’ Creel vs Battlin’ Jack Murdock!

Peter stares at it, trying to figure out the year it was made. Maybe the fight was a big deal in the boxing world? The name Murdock seems a little familiar at least. But the only ‘important’ boxing match he can think of is the one with Muhammad Ali, and he can’t even remember the name of the other guy, let alone the year it happened. He thinks Ned might have a good estimate, from the style and font alone — he always had a better eye than Peter for picking out stuff like that . Peter’s best guess puts it in the amorphous fog of ‘before he was born,’ which, to be fair, covers most of human history. So, sometime between the advent of the printing press and 2001.

He’s got a bright and shining career as a P.I. ahead of him.

At least he has the presence of mind to pay attention to the sound of footsteps approaching, so he doesn’t leap onto the ceiling when Mr. Castle lets out a loud huff of a laugh behind him. Barely.

“Big fan?” Mr. Castle asks.

“Uh, no,” Peter says. “Was it a big deal or something?”

“Everything’s a big deal to someone,” Frank says after a long pause. “Jack Murdock trained here. Was a single dad, had a kid who went blind after some sort of accident. Murdock was murdered after that fight for refusing to throw it.”

Peter turns to gape at Mr. Castle, who is looking at the poster with a complicated twist to his features.

“Anyway, his kid grew up to be a lawyer, works on cases for the poor, exploited underdogs of the city. Guess he’s kind of a hero in this neighborhood.”

Oh. Oh. Murdock. Nelson and Murdock. Frank’s trial. It was all over the newspapers, so much that not even Peter, in his haze of grief, could avoid hearing about it. Spider-Man had almost gotten shot, like, five times during the fallout of the Punisher’s rampage.

“Do you not like him?” Peter asks. He’s curious, but he doesn’t dare ask a direct question about that night, and he thinks maybe the trial and everything around it might be a similarly delicate topic for Mr. Castle.

“Don’t hate him,” Mr. Castle shrugs. Then he looks over at Peter, the glint in his eyes a little manic, “You’d probably like him, maybe you should think about being a lawyer like him, instead of running around like you do.” Mr. Castle gives him a sly little glance like he expects Peter to laugh, but he can’t figure out what the joke is supposed to be. 

Maybe the joke is that Peter would have any interest in becoming a lawyer. He’s helped his friends on way too many legalese-heavy school projects to have any interest in pursuing that field. But there’s no way Mr. Castle would know that. 

“Nah,” Peter says, wrinkling his nose. “I think I’m good.”

“Then go get changed and I’ll teach you how to throw a punch,” Mr. Castle grumbles and pushes Peter towards the locker room.

Peter Parker does not like punching things.

Mr. Castle is teaching him the proper form, the best way to get as much power as possible. Peter could put him through a wall by extending his arm. Well, maybe not the wall of this place, because it’s actually sheetrock and cinder blocks and walls that mean business, and Mr. Castle’s fragile human body would give out before the walls did. But Peter could definitely put someone through an internal wall of a standard construction apartment without trying. Because he has. Like, at least twice.

At first it goes okay. Mr. Castle makes sure he knows how to form a fist properly, how to position himself, how to ‘engage his entire body’ in the motion. When Peter’s punching into the air it feels a little silly, but that’s fine. Peter dresses up in a red and blue suit to help people as Spider-Man. He’s used to feeling a little silly.

The problem comes when Mr. Castle wants him to start punching things. Punching Mr. Castle, specifically. At first, it had been his bare palms, but Peter had flat out refused. After a long moment of feeling like he was staring down a train, Mr. Castle had grudgingly wandered off to find some funny little padded mitts to cover his palms.

It feels like tossing out a sheet of tissue paper to stop a car to Peter, but Mr. Castle is insistent. And it would be intolerably rude to refuse. Mr. Castle took the time and made arrangements for them to come here for the sole purpose of helping Peter learn to be a better Spider-Man. He listened to Peter’s concern and got protective equipment, even if it seems woefully inadequate to Peter’s mind. What does Peter even know about it, really? So he sucks it up and goes for it.

Kinda.

Sorta.

He tries. Really. He envisions punching the same way as when there was nothing but empty air in front of him. He even gets about halfway to actually doing it, but as soon as the distance between his fist and Mr. Castle’s padded hand closes, he freezes up and ends up tapping the foam. Tapping it slightly less aggressively than he would knock on a door he didn’t really want anyone to open.

It’s frustrating. The problem is very simple and a little embarrassing; regulating his strength is like trying to adjust a particularly touchy firehose. He’s no longer snapping drafting pencils like toothpicks, which is fantastic, honestly. It’s the middle ground between ‘pre-bite’ and ‘intercepting a speeding bus’ that’s still giving him trouble. And of course, that middle ground is exactly what Mr. Castle needs from Peter right now.

Mr. Castle just isn’t letting it go, though. Minutes drag on, and Peter can feel the irritation radiating from Mr. Castle’s body while Peter gently tap-tap-taps on the mitts. It’s a bit frightening, actually. When Peter failed spectacularly in front of Ben, his uncle would get this quiet air of disappointment. He’d try to hide it from Peter, which made it feel worse, and Peter’s guts would drop and it was awful and Peter would do anything he could to make his uncle proud like he knew Ben wanted to be.

This is nothing like that. Mr. Castle isn’t saying anything, but nothing about him is quiet. Peter can feel something explosive building. It’s scary. It’s exciting. And that’s leading to a whole different problem, because Mr. Castle is watching Peter’s body like a hawk, picking apart the exact ways that he’s fucking this up, over and over again. 

They’re approaching some sort of breaking point. He keeps imagining the familiar zing of his Spidey-sense, which throws him off even worse. He can practically see what’s about to happen. Mr. Castle will throw Peter to the ground, he’ll hold Peter down under his boot and then pelt him in the face with those stupid little mitts.

“I see I can’t wear training gloves with you,” he’ll growl, and he’ll look down Peter’s body and lift his boot to — 

“Alright, that’s enough,” Mr. Castle’s voice stops Peter’s train of thought short. Peter flinches and flushes when he stands and yanks the pads off his hands. “Get changed, we’re done for the day.”

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles and flees, trying to hide his everything until he can get calmed down.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Peter rips his shirt  off and tries to scream into it quietly enough not to catch Mr. Castle’s attention.

By the time he’s calm enough to come out, Peter is pretty sure he’s earned himself a good, stern talking to. Having inappropriate thoughts about Mr. Castle (who is only trying to help him!) is, well. Inappropriate. And even though Mr. Castle (hopefully) has no idea about Peter having those thoughts, it still ended up wasting his time. Time that Mr. Castle took out of his day to help Peter. And here he is, wasting even more time putting his shirt on inside out, and then backward. And then backward again.

But Mr. Castle cuts him off when he tries to apologize.

“You can only learn so much in a day,” he tells Peter while doing something to the door to make it latch again on their way out. He tries to open it a couple of times, and when it stays firmly shut, backs away. “Your form is already miles better, we just need to work on your confidence.”

“Oh,” Peter looks at his shoes, feeling simultaneously a little better and a lot worse. “Thanks, I guess.”

Mr. Castle shrugs, looking almost as uncomfortable as Peter feels.

They both stand there for a few minutes, and Peter is about to suggest he head home when Mr. Castle breaks the silence.

“We should probably get some calories in you, after that.”

Peter almost laughs because he barely even broke a sweat, but he is hungry. He’s almost always hungry, though.

“What do you think about ice cream? There’s a good place around the corner.”

And Peter can’t say no to that. 

After all, when else will he have the chance to learn where The Punisher goes to get an ice cream cone?

“Let me guess,” he says. “Rum raisin?”

Mr. Castle gives Peter’s shoulder a shove that would topple a normal human being, and something that could almost be half of a smile. “Watch the sass, kid, or that’s what I’m ordering you.”

Peter doesn’t know if the thrill comes from that almost-smile, or from the idea of Mr. Castle ordering for him. He decides not to question it too closely, and instead just enjoy the fact that this training date (not a date! his brain rushes to correct) isn’t as much of a garbage fire as it felt like ten minutes ago.