Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rain hits harder in Gotham.

It’s not sharp, not dramatic — just relentless. A steady, numbing percussion that drowns out thought. The kind of rain that doesn't cleanse, doesn't baptize — just clings. It seeps into walls, skin, bones. Soaks through until it feels like part of you. It doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t stop.

Peter’s hood is already plastered to his head, hair curling against the damp fabric. Cold water traces the line of his spine, slipping beneath layers that offer no warmth. He hunches forward as he slips under the archway of a forgotten church, its crumbling stone façade almost invisible behind a curtain of ivy. Nature is taking it back, slowly, violently — vines splitting mortar, roots pushing through the foundation like they’re trying to tear down every last remnant of what used to be sacred.

The doors, once tall and proud, sag under their own weight. One is stuck open, jammed by a wedge of broken brick and time. The other hangs crooked, rusted hinges whining in protest when the wind nudges it. Peter steps through sideways, boots skimming over slick marble warped by water and time. He catches himself on the doorframe. The cold bites.

Inside, the cathedral opens up like the hollow chest of something long dead.

It smells of mildew, rot, and old smoke — the scent of too many winters burned through in desperation. Moss crawls up the pillars like veins on old hands. The roof has half-caved in, exposing ribs of steel and splinters of wood, letting the rain fall freely into the sacred space below. A sapling has rooted in the back corner, its leaves slick and vibrant in the gloom. Life thriving where no one asked it to.

The floor is littered with the shattered remnants of stained glass — once divine images, now just shards. Jagged pieces of cobalt, viridian, and dried-blood red glint under the occasional flicker of lightning. A saint’s eye here, a wing there, scattered like forgotten promises.

Peter exhales. Long. Shaky. The sound of it is swallowed by the space.

His breath curls into the cold, drifting upward, vanishing. His shoulders sag.

And then — a sound. Soft. Steady. Not threatening. The rhythm of someone asleep.

He follows it with his ears, not his feet. The noise leads him to the front, where a man is curled on a pew, bundled in mismatched coats, scarves, wool blankets turned gray with time. One foot, clad in a thin sock with a hole at the toe, sticks out from the nest. His face is gaunt. Hollowed. But peaceful. His arms cradle a plastic grocery bag, worn thin, as if it holds something holy. He sleeps like someone who hasn’t felt safe in a long time — and finally found a place to rest.

Peter doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t want to break it. That kind of peace — it’s rare. Delicate. He knows better than to touch it.

Instead, he walks a few rows back, lowers himself onto a pew. It creaks beneath him, complaining like an old friend.

His knees protest as he bends. The chill in the air settles into his joints, in that stubborn way it always does after a long night. His gloves are damp. One fingertip is split open. Beneath his hoodie, his suit clings uncomfortably — wet fabric, dried sweat, blood that’s gone sticky and dark. His ribs ache with every breath, and he’s pretty sure one’s cracked. He doesn’t check. Doesn’t care.

He lifts his eyes toward the altar. Or what remains of it.

The ornate stone has been replaced — or perhaps forgotten — by a milk crate. It sits slightly off-center, an awkward imposter. On it, a mess of melted candles slumps in various directions. The wax has spilled and hardened into wild patterns, chaotic and raw, like arteries in an exposed chest. Only one candle remains lit. A stub. Its flame flutters against the draft, weak and stubborn, like it's too proud to go out.

The wind howls through the rafters above. A long, lonely sound.

Peter drops his head.

His hands come together in his lap, almost on their own. Fingers interlaced. A gesture buried deep in muscle memory, from pews and prayers and Sundays he barely remembers. He swallows. The lump in his throat burns, but doesn’t move.

He wants to pray.

Not to God. That part of him is long gone. Worn thin.

But to someone.

To May. To Ben. To the city that forgot his name. To the version of himself that thought saving people meant something — that it changed anything. He opens his mouth. No words come. Just air. Dry and trembling.

He tries again.

Still nothing.

His chest rises. Falls. His lungs stutter, unsure.

Rainwater drips from the ceiling, steady and indifferent. Each drop echoes. The candle sputters. Somewhere far off, the city makes a sound — a train, maybe. Or thunder. Sirens. It all blends here, inside this cracked heart of Gotham.

He stays like that. Breathing. Listening. Letting the silence wrap around him like a second skin.

His eyes drift closed. Just for a second. Just long enough to wonder.

What if he stayed?

Not ran. Not quit. Not died.

Just… let go. Let the city swallow him. Let this broken place become his cathedral. His tomb. One more shadow among thousands. One more name lost in the rain.

But the wind shifts. A sudden gust sneaks through the rafters and hits his face like ice. A fine mist of rain follows, sharp and real.

It brings him back.

He opens his eyes.

The candle is almost out.

The man in the front murmurs something, barely a word, and turns in his sleep. Peter watches the steady rise and fall of his chest. There’s something solid about it. Grounded. Human.

A strange warmth swells in Peter’s chest. Not comfort. Not hope. But something close. It doesn’t feel good. But it doesn’t hurt.

When he stands, his knees creak. His side flares. His breath fogs again in the cold.

The moment has passed.

But it was real.

And in Gotham, sometimes that’s all you get.

He walks out the way he came. Into the rain. Into the dark. No prayer on his lips — but something still flickering in his chest.

Something like silence.

And the memory of a candle that refused to die.

~~~

He doesn’t need the vending machine.

Hasn't in a while. Not for food. Not really. It's been weeks since he pressed a button expecting anything to come out.

It's never been about the food.

It's about the hum.

The machine used to sit wedged under the overpass on 8th — the kind of spot you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it. Rusted red, body half-swallowed by layers of graffiti tags in black and neon pink and streaky white. Names, symbols, maybe gang signs, maybe just bored kids with a paint marker and time to kill. The screen blinked between WELCOME and ERROR like it couldn’t make up its mind. Always glitching. The keypad was sticky with soda or rain or something worse. The labels didn’t match the slots. Press B7, you might get a honey bun so stale it cracked like drywall. Press A2, and nothing. The machine would wheeze like it was trying, then give up.

The city never fixed it. But they never hauled it off either.

It just sat there. Broken. Predictable.

So Peter kept going.

Late at night, after patrol. After patching himself up with cheap gauze and bad tape in the back of a bodega bathroom. After the city had chewed him up, spit him out, and told him to do it all again tomorrow.

He’d walk the extra block just to stand in front of it. Not to eat. Not to buy anything. But to listen.

That low electric hum. Soft and steady. Mechanical comfort. It reminded him of Karen. The one that used to tell him his heart rate was too high, that he was going to be fine, that maybe he should consider eating something with protein. She's gone now. Stripped out. Ghosted.

The hum reminded him of other things too. Streetlights back in Queens, the kind that stayed on when everything else shut down. His room when he was fourteen, the glow of his laptop warming his legs while he did homework he never turned in. The elevator in his old building, groaning between floors.

It reminded him he was still here.

Tonight, the corner is empty.

No vending machine. No flickering keypad. Not even the warped metal casing. Just a rectangle of cement, darker than the rest, rain-soaked and bare. A scar on the sidewalk.

Peter stops in the middle of the block. Cars hiss past behind him, tires cutting through puddles. Somewhere across the street, the neon sign over the bodega buzzes half-dead — the ‘O’ flickering like it’s trying to hold on.

He doesn't move.

For a second, he thinks maybe he’s in the wrong place. That maybe he's more tired than he thought. He looks up. Checks the signs like a stranger. 8th and Weller. Same crooked pole with the busted security light. Same peeling flyers for lost dogs and open mics stapled into the bricks. The corner store behind the machine is gutted now — metal gate rolled down, yellow caution tape strung up like it’s holding the place together.

No sign. No warning. No explanation.

Just gone.

He stares at the spot where the light used to blink.

The hum is gone.

His fingers twitch.

There’s a crack in the sidewalk — the one where he used to plant his foot while waiting for the machine to make that sputtering sound before it coughed out disappointment. He steps into it now. Just to feel something familiar.

His boots grind against the broken cement. Water seeps through the sole of the left one.

The cold settles in. Works its way up.

He doesn’t care. The cold is easier than the ache.

He stays there longer than he should. Head down. Shoulders hunched. Rain dripping from the brim of his hood. Long enough to feel ridiculous. Like a man grieving a vending machine. Like a ghost haunting a memory.

Someone walks past behind him — a blur in a soaked raincoat, hood up, scarf wrapped high. Their glasses fogged. They slow down just enough to glance his way, then keep walking.

“You’re wasting your time,” the man mutters without stopping. “Shit doesn't work.”

Peter doesn’t turn. Doesn’t flinch.

Just stands there. Eyes fixed on the concrete. Hands shoved in his pockets. Jacket clinging to him, heavy with rain. He closes his eyes.

Exhales slow.

Then he leans forward, lets his forehead rest against the brick wall. Cold. Wet. Rough. Solid. The kind of solid that doesn’t lie. That doesn’t change.

The weight of the city presses into his back. Not violent. Not angry. Just there. Constant. Unrelenting.

He lets it.

For a few seconds, he lets everything blur. Lets the traffic fade, lets the rain become static. He lets his pulse slow. Imagines the hum.

He sees the machine like it’s still there — blinking, humming, waiting. Glowing like a dying star. Offering nothing, but still there.

Still there.

That’s all he ever wanted. One thing to stay.

He doesn’t want the snack. He just wants the moment back. The space. The stillness. The hum in the silence.

After a while — he doesn’t know how long — he pushes off the wall.

His breath clouds in the air. Fades quick.

Peter looks down one more time at the bare patch of sidewalk. At the broken line of pavement where his boot used to rest while he waited for a candy bar that would never come.

He doesn’t cry.

Not for a vending machine. Not for himself.

But he walks slower that night. Hands deep in his pockets. Shoulders hunched.

And when he dreams, it’s not of swinging through the skyline or running down rooftops. Not of villains or voices.

When he dreams, he hears static.

And for a while, that’s enough.

~~~

The bruises have started to fade.

The ones on his skin, at least — yellowing now, blooming into that sick, final stage of healing where they don’t hurt unless pressed. His knee, though — that’s a different story. Still throbs when he walks too fast or stands too long. He didn’t wrap it right. The bandage kept slipping under his suit, sliding loose with every movement until it was more annoyance than support. Eventually, he just stopped bothering. Figured if it hurt, it meant it was still attached.

It’s late afternoon when he finds himself back at the cathedral.

He tells himself it’s coincidence. That it’s just part of his route — a back alley loop to avoid traffic cams and late-shift cops. That he’s not limping toward it on purpose. But his hands are already cold by the time he reaches the steps, and his feet slow without permission. Like they recognize the place before he does.

He doesn’t go inside.

The doors are still cracked open, same as last time. Crooked and weathered, groaning in the wind. The interior breathes out through the gap — a mix of damp stone, mildew, and stale incense. He can hear water dripping somewhere deep inside. And pigeons — nesting in the rafters, cooing softly like ghosts. The man might still be in the pew. Or maybe not. Peter doesn’t check.

Instead, he sinks down onto the steps.

The movement pulls a hiss from him as his bad knee bends. He exhales through his teeth, presses his palm to the joint for a second until the sharp edge fades to a manageable throb. One arm rests across his thigh. In the other hand, he clutches a bruised apple — swiped from a cart near 5th. He’s not hungry. Not yet. But it gives his fingers something to hold onto. Something round and real.

The stone beneath him is cold. Seeping up through his jeans, into his spine. His hoodie’s too thin for this kind of chill, stretched out from too many nights spent curled on rooftops. The air smells like wet copper and old motor oil. Metallic and tired. The kind of scent that lingers on your clothes.

The sky is that pale, washed-out gray — not bright enough to be called day, not dark enough to be evening. That limbo tone that means rain is either coming or just passed through.

He listens.

To the wind rattling through the hollow doorframe. To the distant hiss of tires on wet asphalt. To the strange hush a city gets when it's between noises — that moment where everything pauses, as if holding breath.

And then someone sits beside him.

No footsteps. No warning. Just the subtle shift of weight on the stone, the rustle of fabric layered too thick for the season. Peter tenses, hand tightening around the apple — until he turns and sees it’s the man from inside.

Same patched coat. Same deep-lined face. A different hat this time — red, knit, pocked with holes. The brim curls up in one spot, like it’s been sat on too many times. He holds a paper bag in one hand, rolled tight at the top. Doesn’t say anything at first.

They sit in silence for almost a full minute. Not awkward. Not uncomfortable. Just... quiet.

Then the man glances over.

“You praying?”

Peter doesn’t look back. His jaw tics, and his fingers shift slightly on the apple.

“No,” he says. “Just listening.”

The man hums, soft and low. Not mocking. More like agreement. “To what?”

Peter pauses.

He should deflect. Make a joke. Toss out something cynical. That’s usually how he plays this — distance over honesty. But the words don’t come this time.

So he just says, “The city.”

The man lets out a breath that might be a laugh. Or maybe just exhaustion.

“She’s cruel,” he says. “But honest.”

Peter finally turns to look at him. The man’s face is older than it was in memory — not by age, but by wear. A bruise shades one cheekbone, fading purple. There’s a stitched cut just below his chin, healed but crooked. His eyes, though, are sharp. Present. Like he’s been watching the world longer than it deserved.

His coat smells faintly of cigarettes and wet brick.

Peter doesn’t usually ask. It’s a rule. Names create weight, and weight becomes risk.

But it slips out anyway.

“What’s your name?”

The man doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even seem to hear it. Just reaches into his paper bag and pulls out a granola bar — off-brand, half-crushed, wrapper faded.

He holds it out without looking.

Peter blinks. Then wordlessly trades the apple for it.

They eat like that. No words. No rush. The apple is soft, but still sweet. The granola bar tastes like cardboard, but it’s something. It anchors him.

The sky dims while they chew. Across the street, shop windows glow to life one by one. A flicker of neon. A buzz of failing fluorescents. The city waking up again for its night shift.

The man stands first.

He brushes crumbs from his coat, dusts off one knee, and looks down at Peter.

“If you ever go inside again,” he says, “don’t ask for anything.”

Peter squints at him. “What?”

The man shrugs. “Just sit. That’s all it is.”

Then he turns and walks down the block. No hurry. No ceremony. Just disappears into the mist and steam like he belongs there.

Peter stays.

Long enough for the cold to work its way into his bones. Long enough for the ache in his leg to spike again. Long enough to forget what time it is.

He doesn’t pray.

Not out loud.

But when he closes his eyes, he listens.

And this time, the silence has shape. It has breath. It hums — not loud, not clear, but steady.

And for now, that’s enough.

Chapter Text

It’s not a tall building.

Four stories, maybe five if you count the rusted water tank on the roof — which Peter does, if only because it still stands. The kind of structure that used to be something, once. A dance hall. A textile mill. Maybe an old union office. One of those buildings with bones built for purpose, now cracked and slouched under the weight of disuse.

Whatever it was, it isn’t anymore.

Now it’s just another forgotten block of brick and metal on the edge of a district no one names out loud. No signage. No residents association. Just boarded windows, burned-out lights, and a flicker of life in the cracks if you know where to look.

Peter finds it by accident.

The alley behind it smells like rot and cigarettes, with puddles that don’t reflect and a pair of sneakers hanging from the power line like they’ve been there since the last mayor got indicted. He’s ducking low, keeping to shadow, avoiding attention — the usual. Just another bruised night in a city full of them.

But there’s a fire escape. Old, metal, rust-eaten. And when he jumps to grab the first rung, it doesn’t groan.

It doesn’t screech or collapse or send a chorus of angry pigeons into the sky. It just holds. Silent. Steady.

In Gotham, that kind of quiet feels like an invitation.

So he climbs.

The metal is cold beneath his gloves, the rain slick. His knee aches with every pull, still swollen from something that hit too hard two nights ago. He grits his teeth through it. When he hauls himself onto the roof, the sky is low and heavy, pressing down like a hand.

The surface is tar — soft from too many freeze-thaw cycles, the kind of roof that gives a little under your weight. Not enough to worry, just enough to remind you it’s been a long time since anyone cared for it. Pigeons scatter from a nest jammed into the base of the water tank, wings flapping hard against the quiet. Off to the side, a rusted lawn chair leans at an angle, half-submerged in standing water, a broken umbrella wrapped around one leg like a flag of surrender.

There’s a soda can jammed into one of the roof vents, rattling softly as the wind threads through it.

Peter lies down in the middle of it all.

Right on the wet tar, arms out at his sides, legs bent just enough to stop his ribs from screaming. He stares up at the clouds. The rain falls soft tonight — not in sheets, not angry or dramatic — just a cold, steady whisper. The kind that soaks through you quiet and slow.

It kisses his face. Settles in his hair. Drips down the side of his neck.

And he lets it.

Because right now, that’s all he wants. Stillness. Weight. Cold, quiet rain on his face and the breathless hush of a city not quite asleep.

Then, beneath him, something stirs.

Through the cracks in the brick, through the spaces where time has worn everything thin, music rises.

At first, it’s faint. A phantom sound. He almost thinks he imagined it — a trick of wind, maybe, or the city playing games again. But then it sharpens.

A saxophone.

Slow notes. Uncertain. Not smooth enough to be a recording. There are hesitations between breaths, moments where the melody stumbles, recalibrates, then carries on.

Someone is playing. Somewhere inside the building. One of the floors beneath him, maybe. Tucked in a forgotten apartment above the boarded-up bar on the corner. A real person, coaxing real music out of something dented and old.

The notes float up like steam. Imperfect, but alive.

Peter closes his eyes.

The rain traces lines across his cheeks, soaking through the thin cotton of his hoodie. His ribs ache when he breathes too deep, his leg throbs in dull pulses. But he doesn’t move.

Because that song — whatever it is — it’s working on him. Pulling threads loose inside his chest. Unraveling knots he thought he’d tied off a long time ago.

May had records. A full cabinet of them, tucked beneath the living room TV in Queens. She’d dust them every Sunday, even after the record player stopped working. Said it was about memory. About respect. About ritual.

He remembers her humming. Always out of tune, always bright. Soft and alive.

He remembers sitting cross-legged on the rug, arms folded, chin in his hands, pretending to be bored. Pretending not to care.

He remembers pretending a lot of things.

The melody wavers.

Peter hums along before he realizes what he’s doing — just a breath, barely a vibration in his throat. The smallest sound. The kind you only make when you forget you're alone.

His lips part. His voice is rusty, half-formed, but he follows the shape of the tune. One note. Then another.

For a second, it's like being underwater. Everything muffles. The city recedes. Time folds in on itself.

He forgets about the pain in his knee. Forgets the wet hoodie and the cold in his bones. Forgets that Gotham doesn’t see him unless he’s bleeding in costume or plastered across a headline.

He just sings.

Soft. Low. Just for him.

Then the saxophone cuts off — mid-note, mid-breath — like someone pulled the mouthpiece away too suddenly.

Silence follows.

Then a window slams shut somewhere below.

Peter opens his eyes. The moment snaps.

The rain is louder now, tapping hard against the metal of the fire escape. The air has turned colder. His breath fogs.

He’s still on the roof of a building no one sees. Soaked to the bone. Alone.

No one heard him. No one cared. The music is gone.

He wipes at his face, but doesn’t check if it’s rain or not.

Then he rolls onto his side, one arm clutching his ribs as he shifts slowly, painfully. The tar sticks to his clothes, but he doesn’t care. The rooftop holds his weight. That’s enough.

The water gathers beneath him. Fills the lines in the roof. Soaks into his jeans. Doesn’t matter. He’s already wet.

He lies like that for a long time.

Long enough for the melody to come back in his head, note by note. Fainter now. But still there.

When he finally leaves — easing down the fire escape, boots slipping once on the last rung — he doesn't look back at the roof.

He doesn’t need to.

As he limps back into the alley, vanishing into the wet blur of Gotham, he hums.

Just once.

Soft and low.

Just enough to remember that something beautiful happened.

Even if it didn’t last.

~~~

It’s not marked on any map.

Tucked between a pawn shop that never unlocks its front door and a tattoo parlor that smells like antiseptic and beer, the laundromat on Glencroft only opens at night. There’s no name above the entrance. Just a weather-warped awning and a flickering neon OPEN sign that blinks like a heartbeat too fast — bright enough to blur the glass, dim enough to doubt.

Peter finds it at 2:13 a.m., soaked through, cold down to the bone, and too tired to care.

His hoodie is wet again — second time this week, maybe third, though the days have started to smear together. The kind of wet that clings, that turns heavy at the seams and sticks to your skin like it’s trying to fuse there. His sleeves drip steadily onto the sidewalk as he stands outside the door, squinting through the glass.

His fingers are numb. The pads of his thumbs sting faintly — red, raw, cracked from the cold. He cut his palm earlier, didn’t even notice until the blood spread dark across his cuff. Glass. Some broken window he didn’t see in time. A messy blur during patrol, one of a dozen little things that didn’t register until the adrenaline dipped and the pain crept in.

He’s not bleeding now. Just cold. Just heavy.

The bell above the laundromat door jingles as he pushes inside. Not a pleasant chime — too sharp, too metallic — like a wind-up toy snapping its last spring. But the air inside is warm.

That matters more than he expected.

The place is almost empty. One old woman in the corner flips through a magazine with curled edges. A man at the folding table moves cards around in silence — Solitaire, maybe, or something close. He plays with a bent deck, the kind you find at dollar stores and bus stops, the backs faded to near white.

There’s no music overhead. No TV. Just the mechanical hum of machines, the occasional metallic clink of coins being fed into unseen slots, and the soft swish of clothes tumbling in circles.

Peter hesitates near the door. Water pools beneath his feet, tiny puddles forming around his boots. No one looks up.

A dryer clatters open. Loud, sudden, harsh — like a dropped wrench in a quiet garage. It breaks the moment for a second, echoes off the tiled floor, then fades.

Peter moves toward the washers. One sits open near the end — a battered thing, its door creaking as he pulls it wider. Faded stickers wrap around the front, peeling from heat and time. Someone once scratched YELL INTO ME in shaky letters across the metal below the coin slot. Deep grooves, desperate enough to last. He runs his fingers over the words. Doesn’t yell.

He peels off his hoodie first. It makes a sick sound, clinging wetly to his shirt. Underneath, the suit hugs his ribs too tight. Damp fabric, stiff with sweat and city grime. He smells like asphalt and blood and old air.

He wants to laugh — the whole thing is absurd. This place. This night. The fact that he’s here, loading his ruined hoodie and two backup shirts into a washer like it matters. Like he didn’t just climb out of a fight an hour ago. Like he’s not still vibrating with bruises beneath the skin.

But he doesn’t laugh.

He just feeds in a handful of coins — quarters swiped from a parking meter two nights back. Petty theft for a clean rinse.

The machine shudders. Stalls. Then groans into motion, the water sloshing in slow, methodical circles.

He lets it go.

The man at the folding table glances up.

Not fully — just a tilt of the chin, enough to show the corners of his eyes. Yellowed with time. Red from too little sleep or too much of something else. He nods once.

Peter nods back. That’s all.

No one speaks.

He walks to the back corner, finds a plastic chair near a vending machine that doesn’t work. The lights inside flicker dimly. There are no snacks. A crumpled note is taped over the coin slot — SORRY in thick black marker, underlined twice like it makes a difference.

The chair creaks as he lowers himself into it. The light above him buzzes, then calms. His fingers tremble slightly until he tucks them under his thighs to warm them. His cut palm stings when he shifts his weight, but he ignores it.

The dryer across the room spins in lazy rhythms. It makes a soft thunk every few turns, like something heavy’s inside — a shoe, maybe. Or nothing. Maybe the machine just sighs like that. It feels like the city does — tired, consistent, still moving even when no one’s asking it to.

Then, somewhere behind the counter, a song begins.

A radio — crackling, old, low. Not modern. Not clear. The station’s buried beneath static, but the melody makes it through.

A woman’s voice. Soft, worn, like a tape that’s been played too many times. She sings about blue skies she never saw. A slow, aching tune. Something with weight and dust. The kind of music that’s kept alive by places like this — night places, liminal places, where no one asks for details.

Peter leans his head back and closes his eyes.

The warmth of the room doesn’t reach all the way in, but it starts to.

His ribs still throb — that dull, pulsing reminder of a fight he didn’t win clean. His knee is stiff. His cut hand burns. But for now, inside this place, it’s manageable.

He lets the song wrap around the rhythm of the dryer, the shuffling cards, the faint buzz of neon through the window. Lets it all settle over him like a blanket made of other people’s noise.

He watches a sock spin in the dryer across from him. Purple. Cartoon-print. It’s been going for at least ten minutes. No one’s checked on it.

The woman in the corner clears her throat softly. Turns a page.

Nothing else moves.

He thinks, for just a second, about staying.

Not long. Not forever. He doesn't believe in forever anymore. But maybe long enough for the song to finish. For his hoodie to dry. For someone to notice he’s here and not flinch.

Maybe long enough for someone to say, You can sit here, and mean it.

But no one does.

And the song ends.

He doesn’t remember standing. Doesn’t remember pulling the warm hoodie back over his head or stepping through the door. Just that the bell jingles again as he exits. Softer this time.

Outside, the alley is still wet. The rain hasn’t stopped, just softened into mist.

But it doesn’t bite now.

He walks slower.

The city still looms.

Still rains.

Still watches.

But for once, it’s not trying to drown him. Not yet.

~~~

The rain slows by evening.

Not gone — not in Gotham — but quieter. A whisper instead of a downpour. Mist instead of sheets. The kind of rain that doesn’t fall so much as settle, soft and invisible, until you’re soaked without knowing it. The kind that clings to your eyelashes. The kind that fogs the edges of things.

Peter walks without a plan.

Some nights demand it. The city draws him out like a loose thread from the hem of something unraveling. He doesn’t fight it. Doesn’t try to predict where he’ll end up. That’s the deal — you walk until something catches, or until you’re too tired to keep going.

Tonight, it pulls him toward Calder Street.

Midtown. Not quite downtown, not quite uptown — a crooked seam between the parts of Gotham that still pretend to matter and the ones that gave up long ago. He doesn’t think he's been here. But the rain is thinner here. The streets are emptier.

Then he sees it — the puddle.

It spreads across the sidewalk in front of an old record store, wide and still, fed by a steady drip from a cracked gutter above. The concrete beneath it is uneven, cracked in a dozen places, but the water finds a way to hold. It glows in the neon light from the sign above the storefront — reds and pinks rippling across the surface like paint bleeding into water.

Peter stops. Crouches at the edge of the puddle, careful not to touch it.

The breeze sends a faint ripple across the surface. The neon overhead buzzes, the OPEN sign humming in electric protest — too bright for a shop that’s clearly closed. The metal gate is rolled down halfway. The glass behind it is smudged with fingerprints and rain spots, but Peter can still see through it.

Inside, the store looks untouched. Frozen. A time capsule left behind when the world moved on.

Posters yellowed at the edges curl against the front windows — Fleetwood Mac, Bowie, The Clash. A mannequin head near the door wears a pair of oversized headphones, the kind with a coiled cord that would stretch all the way across a room. A crate of records sits on a table just behind the glass, stacked unevenly. He recognizes the one on top.

Ella Fitzgerald.

Dream a Little Dream of Me.

His chest tightens, sudden and sharp.

May had that album. Played it when it rained. Played it when she missed Ben. Played it when she didn’t want to talk but wanted the apartment to feel like someone was still inside. She’d put the needle down, stir soup on the stove, and say things like, Some music just smells warm, doesn’t it?

He remembers pretending not to listen.

He remembers slumping on the couch, headphones around his neck, rolling his eyes like he was above it. Like her music didn’t matter. Like nothing old could reach him.

He remembers being wrong.

Now it feels like someone’s reached in and pressed on something behind his ribs. Not hard. Just enough to bruise.

The street is nearly empty. A kid pedals past on a beat-up BMX, too small for him, weaving through puddles like he’s dodging invisible shapes. Ghosts, maybe. Bad memories. Waterlogged regrets.

As he passes Peter, the kid throws a look over his shoulder and shouts, “You listening to it too, mister?”

Peter startles. Doesn’t answer.

The kid is already gone — tires skimming water, disappearing around the corner with a splash.

Peter looks back down at the puddle.

At the store reflected in it. At the warped OPEN sign. At the album cover, barely visible through the fogged glass. At his own shape — crouched, small, just a shadow at the edge of the light.

The puddle shivers when he exhales.

It’s not grief exactly. Not sharp enough. It’s quieter than that. Softer. Sadder. The kind of ache that slips in through the seams. The kind that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that settles in your shoes, in your breath, in the back of your throat. The kind of feeling you can’t name until hours later, when you’re trying to sleep and can’t.

He doesn’t try to go inside. He knows the door is locked. Knows the album’s probably warped by now. Knows the store is more memory than place.

But he stays.

He watches the puddle, the way it holds the light. Watches the neon pink and red slide across the surface like brushstrokes. Watches the slow, constant drip from the gutter feed it — rhythmically, like a metronome for a song no one’s playing anymore.

He thinks of May’s records.

The way she used to hum along. Not on key. Never on key. But always with heart. The way her voice would carry across the apartment, past the creaky hallway and into the corners of his room.

He thinks about the warmth that used to fill the space between people. The kind music brings. The kind that doesn’t need explanation. The kind you feel even when you’re too young or too stubborn to understand it.

He doesn’t have music anymore.

Not really.

He has headphones, sure. But not like that. Not scratchy vinyl and dusty sleeves. Not albums that smelled like the past. Not warmth curling out of a stereo in a too-small kitchen.

But he has the memory of it.

That counts for something. It has to.

A breeze cuts across the sidewalk, tugging at the hem of his jacket. The streetlamp overhead flickers once. Then twice.

Then the neon sign buzzes once more — a stutter, a short-circuit — and dies.

The puddle dims.

The pinks and reds collapse into gray.

Peter stands slowly. His knees creak. The ache behind his ribs doesn’t fade, but it stops pressing forward.

He steps back from the edge of the water.

Doesn’t walk through it. Doesn’t break the surface.

Just turns, adjusts his hood, and starts moving again.

The city is still raining. Still watching.

But tonight, it doesn’t press quite as hard.

And for a few blocks, at least, he walks like someone who remembers what warmth feels like.

Even if it’s just a memory.

Chapter Text

Some rooftops feel safer than others.

Not because of height. Not for the view. Not for any tactical advantage — Peter stopped making those kinds of calculations weeks ago. Maybe months. The part of his brain that used to analyze vantage points and line-of-sight and escape routes has gone quiet. Not dead. Just... quieter.

Now it’s about instinct.

It’s about where the wind doesn’t bite as hard. Where the bricks feel solid underfoot, not crumbling or brittle. Where the air doesn’t push in on him like a wall. Some places just feel still. Not peaceful — Gotham doesn’t do peaceful — but still enough to let his shoulders drop for a while.

The building on Rykert and 10th is nothing special.

Four stories. Faded paint that flakes when you brush against it. A convenience store on the ground floor with a window display full of expired cigarettes, dusty candy bars, and scratch tickets that no one ever wins. The kind of place that hasn’t changed since 1983, and probably won’t until the structure collapses under its own apathy.

But the fire escape is sturdy. The ladder doesn’t squeal. The rungs don’t bow under his weight.

And the roof is flat.

So he climbs.

Not for patrol. Not for surveillance. Not to watch the city, not really. Just to get high enough that he can stop thinking for a few minutes.

To breathe.

His hands ache as he pulls himself over the lip of the roof — knuckles raw beneath his gloves, left wrist stiff from something that didn't heal quite right. The wind brushes his face, soft and cold. Not biting, just present. He exhales slowly through his nose, lets the breath curl in the air in front of him.

It’s quiet today.

The city doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it hums.

The rooftop’s mostly empty. A couple of milk crates stacked in a corner, the kind with holes that leave square patterns in the dust. A broom with a snapped handle, bristles bent at odd angles. A blue tarp half-folded, soaked through from the last storm, edges flapping slightly when the wind stirs. Nothing useful. Nothing threatening. Just debris, forgotten like everything else in this part of town.

He almost doesn’t see the cat.

It’s curled up against one of the vents, half-tucked into shadow, nearly the same color as the grime-smudged brick. Small. Black. Tightly coiled like it’s trying to disappear.

Peter freezes.

Not out of fear. Just... surprise. You don’t expect company on rooftops. Not the quiet kind. Not the kind that doesn’t need something from you.

The cat lifts its head slowly. Blinks once.

They look at each other.

Not a challenge. Not a standoff. Just two things occupying the same space, both a little too tired to care.

Peter stays crouched by the edge of the roof, fingers curled over the lip for balance. He waits. Breathes. Tries not to shiver as the cold settles deeper into his jacket.

The cat watches him. Then lowers its head and rests its chin on its front paws. Eyes open, but unfazed.

He shifts, stretching one leg out with a quiet hiss. The muscles in his back complain. His ribs tug sharply beneath his jacket. There’s a healing cut under his left side that catches every time he breathes too deep — he ignores it. It’s been there a while. Part of the background noise now.

He doesn’t approach the cat. Doesn’t say anything. Just finds a patch of roof that’s still dry from earlier sun and sits down, about ten feet away.

The tar-paper beneath him is warm in spots, where the sun managed to break through for a few hours before the clouds took over again. He stretches his legs, careful not to groan, and leans back on his palms.

The cat yawns. Slow. Wide. Then blinks again — long, lazy — and closes its eyes.

Peter doesn’t smile. Not really. But something shifts in his chest. A muscle that hasn't moved in weeks stretches, uncertain.

He watches the skyline. The clouds drift slow overhead, flat and grey, dragging shadows across the tops of buildings. A plastic bag is tangled in a phone wire above him, fluttering like a flag with no nation. Somewhere off to the west, a siren winds up, slicing through the quiet like a warning bell. Then it fades again.

The cat doesn’t react.

Neither does he.

He could be anywhere right now. Gotham blurs at this height. The corners fade, the noise falls away. The skyline could be New York, or Tokyo, or nowhere at all. Just silhouettes against the sky. The only real thing is this patch of roof. This moment. This stillness.

He thinks about saying something.

A name. A joke. A greeting. But it all feels wrong. Too loud. Too sharp. Like throwing a rock into a pond that’s finally settled.

The cat lifts its head once, slowly, tracking a pigeon as it cuts across the sky in a lazy arc. Then it curls back in, tighter than before, and breathes deep like nothing matters.

Peter nods to no one.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. Barely audible. Not even a whisper. “Same.”

He doesn’t know how long he stays. Long enough for the siren to fade into something else. Long enough for his back to start aching from the roof’s uneven surface. Long enough for the sky to shift from grey to dusk without him realizing.

When he finally gets up, the cat doesn’t move.

It’s still curled tight, still tucked into its pocket of warmth like it belongs here. Like it’s always been here.

~~~

The clouds move slow. Thicker now. They slide across the sky like bruises spreading — heavy and low, casting the city in muted tones. Not quite shadow, not quite light. The hour before dusk, when everything feels slightly out of phase. Like someone turned the saturation down on the whole world.

Peter is still on the rooftop.

The cat hasn’t left.

Neither of them have moved much.

An hour, maybe more, has passed since he first climbed up. It’s hard to tell. Time on rooftops doesn’t behave the same way it does down below. It stretches. Slows. Breathes in a way that feels detached from clocks and schedules and alarms. The kind of time that exists in between things. Between noise and silence. Between what matters and what’s already over.

The wind picks up a little. Not sharp — not yet — but enough to rustle the corner of a torn tarp and set a clothesline swaying on the neighboring building. A single sock flutters from it — white, fraying at the heel, pinned in place by a rusted clip that looks like it might give out at any second. It swings lazily, like it’s waving at nothing.

Peter watches it move.

The motion tugs at something in him. Not grief. Not quite. A strange sort of loneliness that doesn’t hurt the way it used to. It doesn’t demand attention. Doesn’t stab or burn. It just exists. Like the wind. Like the grey sky. Like the cat curled in the shadow of the vent.

He shifts slightly and pulls a granola bar from his pocket. The wrapper’s half-torn already, and the bar inside is broken in two, slightly melted from the heat of his body. He eats one half without tasting it. Dry oats and something vaguely sweet. The other half, he places gently on the rooftop between himself and the cat. A peace offering.

The cat flicks one ear. Doesn’t move. Its eyes remain slitted open — aware but uninterested.

Peter doesn’t push.

They sit like that for a while. Him watching the sock and the skyline. The cat pretending not to be curious about the granola bar. The distance between them steady. Comfortable. Unspoken.

No one talks.

But something still feels like it’s being said. Not in words. Just in being. A quiet, mutual acknowledgment: You’re here. I’m here. That’s enough.

Peter eases onto his side, one arm folded beneath his head. His knee has begun to ache again — the dull, persistent kind of ache that grows louder the longer he ignores it. His back is stiff too, sore from last night’s sleep in the corner of an abandoned maintenance shed. A few hours curled up on concrete, his hoodie bunched under his head, every hard surface pressing into his spine like old guilt.

His ribs still protest when he moves too much or breathes too deep, but he’s learned to work around them. He shifts slow. Careful.

The cat stays still.

He studies it now. Really looks.

It’s not clean. A nick in one ear. A bald patch along its left flank where the fur never grew back. But it looks... solid. Its body compact, coiled. The way strays are — built for survival, not comfort. Its eyes, though — they’re sharp. Alert in a way that says: I’ve seen worse. I’m still here.

Peter lets out a long breath.

He wonders if it has a name.

If someone ever called out to it once — Come here, Socks , or Hey, Trouble , or maybe just Cat. Wonders if it ever answered. If it ever followed someone home. If it ever curled up on someone’s bed and purred like it meant it. If it ever disappeared and left someone worried sick.

He wonders if it missed anyone.

Or if it just kept walking, building to building, quiet and sure and unseen.

He thinks about giving it a name.

He used to name everything. Villains. Gadgets. Little dumb things that needed a label so he could hold them still for a second. Names made things familiar. Made them real.

Ned. MJ. May.

Names like friend and hero and son. Names that used to matter.

Now?

He hasn’t heard his own name in days. Maybe longer. Maybe the last person to say it out loud was bleeding. Maybe it was a whisper into a comm line that never got answered.

Even in his head, the name sounds distant. Too bright. Too far away.

He opens his mouth, just slightly. A half-breath of a name forming on his lips.

Then he closes it.

It doesn’t feel right. Naming something wild. Something silent and whole and fine without you. Naming something that never asked.

Instead, he whispers into the stillness, “You don’t owe me anything.”

The cat stretches — long and slow. Its front legs extend, claws flexing just slightly. Its back arches, tail curling, then lowers again. It settles back into its spot with a quiet sigh, tucking its paws beneath its chest like a sphinx.

Peter watches it.

Smiles — the small kind. The kind that barely lifts the corner of his mouth. The kind that doesn’t reach his eyes, but means something anyway.

The breeze shifts. Sweeps across the rooftop with a little more bite this time. It sends a ripple through the tarp and makes the plastic bag caught on the fence flutter like it’s trying to take off. He shivers but doesn’t reach for his hood.

The granola bar remains untouched.

Somewhere far below, the city stirs. A car horn blares. A dog barks twice. A train groans into motion — that deep, metallic grind that seems to carry for miles.

But up here, nothing moves.

Nothing changes.

He watches the skyline dim. The clouds thicken into dusk, and the first streetlights blink to life. Golden-orange pools of glow reflected in wet asphalt. The sock still swings from its clothesline like it’s trying to say goodbye.

He wonders if anyone will come up here later. If someone else will find the granola bar and wonder who left it. If they’ll see the cat. If they’ll sit for a while.

He hopes not.

This moment — this quiet — feels too small and too fragile to share.

He glances at the cat again. Its ears twitch at the distant sound of a siren, but it doesn’t lift its head.

Still here.

Still breathing.

Still enough.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds. Long enough for the wind to press gently against his face. Long enough to let go of the tension behind his eyes, in his jaw, in the space between his shoulder blades where it always knots up.

For a moment, he isn’t Spider-Man. Isn’t anyone.

He’s just a boy on a rooftop with a cat that doesn’t need him.

And that’s enough.

Eventually, the cold finds its way through the layers. His knee throbs again. The ache in his side sharpens.

He pushes himself upright with a quiet groan, one hand on the gravel for balance.

The cat lifts its head but doesn’t move.

Peter nods to it.

~~~

The sun doesn’t set all at once in Gotham.

It never has.

It bleeds out slow, leaking through the clouds in pale threads like veins opening beneath the sky. The light shifts in layers — gray to bruised violet, then to the dull rust-orange of old metal and neglected alley walls. Rooftops soften, corners lose their sharpness, and the whole city begins to blur.

Down below, streetlights flicker on in staggered rhythm, not in unison but in patches — a block here, another there — like the city can’t quite decide if it’s done for the day. Gotham doesn’t glow. It dims. One piece at a time.

Peter doesn’t notice when the first hour passes. Or the second.

By the time the shadows stretch long across the rooftop, his body has settled into stillness, curled half onto his side with his chin resting on his arm. One leg stretched out. The other bent at the knee, turned slightly inward — not intentional, just how his body landed after a long exhale.

The granola bar still sits untouched.

The cat hasn’t moved much. It’s shifted once or twice, adjusted its posture in those slow, deliberate ways animals do — the kind that aren’t reactions so much as quiet decisions. Eyes blinking open and closed like it’s watching time slide past from the corner of its vision.

Peter hasn’t spoken. Doesn’t need to.

Up here, time doesn’t make demands.

It just is.

The rooftop air has changed, though. It smells like dust now. Warm tar cooling under open sky. And faint gasoline from the street below, drifting up through the cracks in the brick like a reminder that the world still runs on things that can burn.

His jacket is damp from where he laid against the rooftop. It clings at the shoulder, heavy with condensation. His ribs ache again. Not urgently — not the kind of pain that makes you sit up and count your breath — just the kind you accept. The kind that comes from sleeping wrong, moving wrong, surviving wrong.

The kind you live with when no one’s looking.

He hasn’t thought about the alley he’s supposed to sleep in tonight. The one behind the old pharmacy with the broken awning. He hasn’t thought about food, about the blister on the back of his ankle, or about what happens tomorrow. Not really.

That’s what the rooftop gives him. Not peace. But pause.

A chance to not think forward for a while.

The cat lifts its head first.

Not suddenly. No tension in the movement. Just a slow raise, like it heard something he didn’t. Its ears perk slightly. Its eyes focus. Then it stretches — back legs long, tail flicking lazily once, a quiet yawn curling its jaw wide.

Peter lifts his head too.

Watches it as it takes a few steps toward the edge of the roof. Not fast. Not nervous. Just done.

It doesn’t look back.

Not even a glance.

Its body moves with certainty — not grace exactly, but confidence. The kind of movement you only get when you’ve jumped enough gaps to stop measuring them. It doesn’t hesitate at the drop. Just hops cleanly to the next building over — a slightly lower roof with a row of pigeon coops and a busted skylight covered in corrugated plastic.

Peter watches its silhouette merge with the dark.

Then vanish entirely.

The absence lands harder than he expects.

Not devastating. Not sharp. Just... present. Like a small shift in weight. Like the air moving differently now. The kind of quiet that you don’t notice until the thing that filled it is gone.

He pushes himself upright, slow.

His muscles protest. His back clicks. His knee tightens.

He stretches his legs out in front of him and leans forward, elbows resting loosely on his thighs. The rooftop feels colder now. The breeze more deliberate. The kind that starts to find the gaps in your jacket, the places where you stop holding yourself together.

He looks at the spot where the cat used to sit.

There’s nothing there.

No paw prints. No sound. No warmth in the stone. Just the granola bar, still sitting there untouched. A little darker now in the low light.

He almost laughs at himself.

Not out loud — just a huff of breath through his nose. The kind of laugh you let out when you catch yourself in something too human, too soft. For being sentimental over a stray. For sitting here like this meant anything.

But the ache in his chest says it did.

Because for those few hours, he didn’t feel alone.

Not really.

And now, in the stillness left behind, the loneliness feels different. Not cruel. Not sharp. Just honest.

Like a truth he didn’t want to say out loud.

He doesn’t reach for the granola bar. Doesn’t stand up. Just sits there, letting the wind move over him. Letting the weight of what was settle beside him again, like it always does.

He lays back down eventually. Slowly. His body easing into it like it’s too much trouble to resist. One arm folded beneath his head again. His breath puffing visibly now — just slightly — as the air cools.

Above, the sky shifts once more.

From violet to a deeper blue. Not a clear blue. Not midnight. Just something dark and indistinct — a color with no real name, the kind you only see between dusk and true night.

The city below starts to light itself in patches. Street by street. Window by window. Red brake lights stretching down avenues like veins. The pulse of Gotham continuing without him.

He doesn’t cry.

He just breathes.

And it’s not relief, not release. Just rhythm. In and out. Like the wind. Like the cat.

The ache behind his ribs doesn’t leave. But it doesn’t sharpen, either. It settles. Something familiar. Something lived-in.

He turns his head slightly, eyes still open, watching the edge of the roof the cat jumped from.

He thinks: Maybe I’ll see it again.

Not because he expects to.

But because wanting something — even just a little — feels like a beginning.

A small one. A quiet one. The kind that doesn’t require action or commitment. The kind that’s allowed to stay unfinished. Just an idea. A thread.

And for now, that’s enough.

The rooftop hums under him. The wind moves. The city breathes.

And Peter, for the first time in a long time, lets himself want something simple — not for the world, not for someone else.

Just for him.

Chapter Text

It’s nearly midnight, and the city smells like metal and wet concrete.

Not fresh rain. Not petrichor. Just cold air running over steel and stone, lifting the scent of rusted scaffolding, backed-up gutters, and things that never quite dried. The kind of smell that settles in your clothes and never really leaves. The kind that makes you feel like you’ve been underground, even if you haven’t.

Peter’s gloves are soaked.

Not just damp — soaked through, fingers squishing when he flexes them, fabric clinging like second skin. The cut on his side has stopped bleeding, but he knows it needs to be cleaned. He can feel the sting every time he shifts, where the fabric of his suit sticks to the half-closed wound, then pulls away. It’s crusted now. Tender. Quietly inflamed.

He’d thought about peeling the suit off behind the dumpster out back, but it’s too cold. Too exposed. One wrong angle and someone sees too much. He doesn’t have the energy for that conversation. Doesn’t have the words.

What he wants is something small.

Gauze. Rubbing alcohol. Soup.

Something warm. Something simple. Something that doesn’t require explanation.

The store on 73rd and Vernon is still open. The kind of place that’s always just barely open — no matter the hour, no matter the weather. It’s wedged between a vape shop and a shuttered pizza place, humming like it’s surviving off its own inertia.

The light above the door flickers between jaundiced yellow and sickly green, buzzing like a dying hornet trapped in a glass. One of the letters in the sign is missing. Just _EGA MART now. He can’t remember what it used to say. Maybe he never knew. Maybe it’s always been broken.

He pulls the door open.

The bell doesn’t ring. Just a mechanical click and a slow exhale of warm air, like the building is reluctantly letting him in. The fluorescents overhead cast everything in that washed-out, too-clean hospital blue. The kind of light that makes everything look worse.

There’s a man behind the counter.

Early forties, maybe. Greying stubble. Hoodie pulled over a flannel. Phone in hand. Scrolling one-handed, slow, with the detached energy of someone killing time because that’s the only thing left to kill.

He doesn’t look up when Peter walks in.

Peter moves quietly. Not because he’s trying to sneak — not really — but because walking like you’re supposed to be there feels like a lie. And walking like a ghost feels familiar.

He moves down the first aisle. Past the canned beans, the off-brand cereal, the dust-coated Halloween candy in April. The first-aid section is shoved between a shelf of dog food and cheap dish soap. One box of gauze left — partially open, a little crushed at the edges. Two bottles of antiseptic, both of them expired last year. He grabs the gauze anyway. Stares at the antiseptic. Leaves it.

Below, nestled between soup cans and microwavable mac and cheese, sits a stack of instant ramen. He picks the miso one. No real reason. It’s just the one May used to buy.

He knows it won’t help much. The gauze won’t heal him. The soup won’t fill him. But they’re something. And some nights, something is enough.

He moves to the counter.

The man still doesn’t look at him.

Peter sets the items down gently. His fingers leave dark, wet prints on the packaging. He watches the condensation bloom and fade on the miso cup’s lid. It almost looks like breath.

There’s a pause.

Then the man’s hand reaches out. Scans the barcode on the soup. Still no eye contact. Still scrolling with his other hand. His thumb moves in practiced loops.

Peter pulls a fistful of coins from his pocket.

Mostly nickels. A few pennies. One dull button. A Canadian quarter he forgot about. He lays them out on the counter slowly, carefully, lining them up in uneven rows. His fingers tremble a little. Maybe from the cold. Maybe not.

The man picks them up one by one. Doesn’t count out loud. Doesn’t mention the button. Doesn’t ask for more.

Just drops them into the register. Bags the items. Slides the bag across the counter without a word.

Their hands don’t touch.

Peter opens his mouth. Maybe to say thank you. Maybe just to say something .

But the man’s already back on his phone. Face glowing pale in the light, expression unreadable. Like Peter was never really there to begin with.

Peter stays standing for a moment too long.

Waiting.

For what, he doesn’t know. A nod. A glance. A grunt. Some small, human thing.

It doesn’t come.

He leaves without the bell ringing. The door clicks shut behind him like it’s swallowing him whole.

Outside, the air feels colder than before. The wind cuts sharper now that he’s holding still. His boots squeak slightly as he steps around a puddle that wasn’t there earlier.

He ducks into the alley behind the store. Slides down against the brick wall, breath catching a little as the motion tugs at the cut on his side. The plastic bag crinkles as he sets it next to him.

He doesn’t open it.

Just sits.

Hands resting on his knees, back against the wall. The brick is damp and uneven behind him. Cold seeps through his jacket. His thighs burn from the chill of the ground.

He tilts his head back.

Looks up at the steam rising from the store’s exhaust vent — a soft, twisting plume that disappears into the dark like it never existed. It curls upward in slow spirals, catching the weak glow from the flickering sign above.

He doesn’t feel invisible.

Not exactly.

More like... hollow.

Like a space that used to hold something. Like a coat left hanging too long in someone else’s closet. Still shaped like a person. Still warm in places. But empty.

Nobody had looked at him. Not really.

Not the man behind the counter. Not the woman who walked past the storefront earlier and didn’t glance his way. Not the couple on the corner holding hands and arguing over which train line was faster.

And the worst part?

He’s not angry.

Not anymore.

He’s getting used to it.

That scares him, a little — how easily that emptiness settles into place. How natural it feels, now, to go unacknowledged. To be just there, like another piece of the background. Part of the city, not a person in it.

He shifts slightly. The pain in his side flares again. He doesn’t react.

The bag rustles beside him, caught in a gust of wind. The steam keeps rising.

He doesn’t cry.

He doesn’t scream.

He just stays there, breathing shallow, letting the cold press into him from every side. Trying to remember what it felt like to be seen.

And wondering, quietly, how long ago that was.

~~~

The bathroom smells like rust and piss and cold tile.

The kind of cold that seeps into your teeth. Not fresh air cold — not winter cold. A deeper, stagnant kind. The kind that lives in wet grout and iron pipes, the kind you can feel before you open the door.

It’s wedged in the back of the old bus station, half a block from the river. The station still runs on paper schedules and cash-only tickets — a fading part of the city, running just fast enough to avoid being shut down. The kind of place no one waits in unless they absolutely have to. Vending machines from the 80s hum in the corners. The benches are all metal and bolted down. You don't sit there unless you're already too tired to stand.

The walls in the bathroom aren’t yellow from paint.

They’re just old.

Years of time baked into the tile, into the cinderblock, into the steel doors warped by damp and heat. Graffiti climbs the stalls like veins — layers of names scrawled on top of names, messages, slurs, half-drawn hearts and jagged promises. Everyone trying to prove they existed here, even if just for a second.

Peter doesn’t care.

He doesn’t stop to read anything. Doesn’t care who was here before. He just needs a mirror. A sink. A second to stop moving.

The bathroom is empty when he slips inside. One of the overhead lights flickers with mechanical regularity — two seconds on, one second off, buzzing like a gnat that’s been trapped too long.

The mirror above the sink is cracked straight down the center.

Not shattered. Just one clean split, top to bottom. Enough to break his face in half. Enough to make his reflection look like it’s trying to leave itself.

The sink is stained orange-red with rust, and the drain swallows water like it’s reluctant — a slow, gurgling spiral that leaves a ring behind every time. Someone left a half-burned cigarette on the edge of the counter. Still faintly warm. Its ash clings to the porcelain like fog.

Peter sets the plastic bag on the floor beside him.

The styrofoam cup is cold now. The soup inside never stood a chance. The gauze is crushed at the bottom of the bag, crumpled under the weight of things that were never heavy until he had to carry them this long.

He turns the faucet.

It shrieks before water comes out — a high, metallic whine that echoes through the empty tile like the pipes are in pain. Then the water rushes, clear and shockingly cold. Too cold. The kind of cold that hurts your skin before it helps.

He washes his hands first.

Slow. Mechanical. He moves like someone in a training video. One palm over the other. Fingernails scrubbed against each other. Wrists. Knuckles. The dried blood flakes off in patches, red-black curls collecting at the bottom of the sink like old leaves.

He doesn’t wince. Just keeps scrubbing.

Grime comes away from the cuts in his palm — blood and dirt and something slick he can’t name. Oil? Grease? Some leftover stain from a fire escape that hadn’t been cleaned in decades? He doesn’t know. Doesn’t care.

His knuckles sting by the time he stops. Skin red and raw. Fingers trembling slightly. He rests his palms on the sink’s edge and exhales.

Then he looks up.

And sees a stranger.

The mirror doesn’t lie — not technically. But it doesn’t feel honest either. The boy staring back at him isn’t unfamiliar, but he isn’t him , either.

His hoodie is stained in patches. Dark where the rain soaked through. Dirt along the cuffs. One shoulder torn, barely held together by threads that fray more each day. His collarbone is too prominent now, jutting out beneath the fabric like a warning. His jaw is tighter. Sharper. His face is pale and stretched thin across cheekbones that didn’t used to be so defined.

There’s a bruise on his left cheekbone. Yellowing, almost gone.

His eyes…

His eyes don’t look like his.

Too tired. Too dark around the edges. Like the lights behind them burned out and no one noticed. Like he’s been running in the dark for so long, he forgot there was ever another way.

Peter leans forward, slowly, until his breath fogs the glass. The crack in the mirror runs straight through his right eye, splitting the reflection into two. One half tired. One half tired and broken.

He wonders, just for a second, if it’s always been this way. If the mirror isn’t cracked — he is. And the mirror’s just finally catching up.

He lifts one hand. Presses his fingers to the surface.

The glass is cold. His skin is colder. The smudge left behind is vague. Greasy. Like a fingerprint that doesn’t belong to anyone.

He opens his mouth. The sound comes out unsure, as if the acoustics of the room might change the word before it reaches his own ears.

“Peter.”

Just that.

The name feels foreign. Soft. Not quite his anymore. A word he hasn’t said out loud in days. Maybe longer.

It drops into the silence like a stone in water.

No echo. No reply. Just stillness.

He tries again. Louder. Firmer, but not by much.

“Peter.”

The mirror doesn’t respond. The stranger doesn’t blink.

It should feel like grounding. Like something real. But it doesn’t. It feels like shouting into an empty house and hearing nothing back.

He stares for a long time. Long enough that the flickering light begins to burn behind his eyes. Long enough that the hum of the pipes becomes a background noise he can’t ignore anymore. Long enough that the chill of the water has crept up his sleeves and settled in his elbows.

He thinks of New York.

Not the skyline, not the tower. Not the mask or the suit.

He thinks of the bodega. Of the mural painted on the side — bright colors that never faded, no matter how many winters passed. He thinks of MJ’s hand in his, the way her thumb used to trace circles when she was quiet. He thinks of his bedroom mirror, the one in Queens. The way he used to avoid it. Used to duck his head to avoid seeing the face that carried too much.

Too many names. Too many expectations.

He used to feel like he was carrying the weight of the world.

Now?

Now he feels like he’s trying to remember what weight even feels like.

He lets his hand fall from the mirror. Shakes the water from his fingers. Dries them on the hem of his hoodie. The fabric is rough and cold, but it works.

He bends, picks up the plastic bag. The styrofoam cup tilts slightly, knocks against the gauze. He doesn’t reach for it.

He steps back.

One last glance at the mirror.

The stranger’s still there. Watching. Waiting.

Peter doesn’t say goodbye.

He just walks out.

No one sees him leave. The flickering light gives one final buzz and steadies for a moment, as if the room is sighing. The door swings closed behind him with a soft creak.

Outside, the night is colder than it was before.

The streets are quieter. Damp, gleaming with reflected light from faraway places. Somewhere, a bus pulls away from the station, its headlights cutting briefly through the alley before it vanishes around the corner.

Peter keeps walking.

He doesn’t know where he’s going. Not exactly.

But for now, the name still echoes in his chest — soft, quiet, his.

And that, at least, is something.

~~~

It’s raining again.

Not a downpour — not the dramatic kind with thunder and lightning and people sprinting for shelter — just that steady, endless Gotham drizzle. The kind that doesn't make noise, doesn't announce itself, just shows up and settles in like it belongs. The kind that finds its way into your shoes before you realize it’s falling. That soaks through your sleeves, your seams, your skin.

The kind that turns the whole city into a bruise-colored smear and makes everything taste like wet metal and damp air.

Peter is crouched behind a dumpster in a narrow alley off Grant, near the old bakery. He didn’t mean to stop here. Didn't plan it. He rarely does anymore. But after the bus station — after the mirror, after the boy with his name who didn’t look like anyone he recognized — something in his chest tightened, too much, too fast.

So he turned down the first street he could find. Walked until the world narrowed. Until it folded in on itself. Until it became this: a short, dead-end alleyway framed in old red brick and humming with pipe steam and rain. A place forgotten even by the city that forgets everything eventually.

It smells like yeast.

Like wet bread left too long in the oven — heavy and sour and strangely warm. The scent clings to the air, pushed out from the bakery’s basement vents and mingling with the rain like breath on glass. Steam rises from a nearby storm drain in slow, curling tendrils, drifting upward before disappearing into haze.

His hoodie sticks to him. The sleeves are heavy with rain. His ribs ache with every shift of his body. The gauze in his jacket pocket — bought in a too-quiet store from a man who never looked up — is probably ruined by now. Soggy and useless.

He doesn’t care.

He’s not bleeding anymore. Not enough to matter.

Somewhere, far off, a siren wails. Not the kind that screams urgency — just the tired, warbling moan of a cop car turning a lazy corner. The sound bounces off buildings and echoes for a second before vanishing again. Gotham’s lullaby.

Peter curls tighter into himself.

Not out of fear. Not out of pain. Just… the need to shrink. To be smaller. To fold himself into a shape that takes up less space. He’s not running. Not exactly. But he’s not ready to be seen again. Not after the store. Not after the mirror.

Not when he doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be looking like anymore.

So he hides in the alley’s shadow. Blends into it. Lets the rain paint him invisible again.

And that’s when he sees her.

A window above the bakery — narrow, old, probably original to the building. The wooden frame is chipped, the glass slightly fogged with condensation. But there’s light behind it — warm, golden, the color of melted butter and firelight. It spills out onto the wet brick in a soft circle, like a lantern strung up in the rain.

Inside, a child sits on the wide ledge.

Maybe seven. Maybe eight. She’s small, knees pulled up to her chest, one sock bunched halfway down her ankle, the other bright red and pulled too high. Her hoodie is two sizes too big, sleeves draping over her hands. She’s holding a crayon.

Blue, maybe. Or green. Hard to tell through the glass.

She’s drawing.

Not anything in particular — just looping, spiraling lines on the glass. Abstract and shapeless. Not for anyone. Not meant to be pretty. Just… filling space.

Peter almost looks away.

But then she glances down.

And sees him.

They lock eyes through the rain-streaked glass — her, glowing in the golden warmth of the window; him, crouched in the alley beside a dented dumpster with blood on his sleeve and shadows under his eyes.

She doesn’t scream.

Doesn’t run.

Doesn’t call for anyone.

She just smiles.

A small one. A kid’s smile. Easy. Honest. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Then, slowly, she lifts her hand.

And waves.

Peter doesn’t move at first.

It’s like something short-circuits in his chest. Not fear. Not surprise. Just disbelief. His heart stutters — the kind of skip you feel when you think you've been forgotten and then realize someone was looking at you the whole time.

His hand rises almost on its own. Slow. Tentative.

He waves back.

Her smile widens.

She lifts the crayon, holds it up like a trophy, then immediately returns to her glass canvas. She starts a new shape. Something messier this time. Bigger. Bold loops and zigzags and scribbles layered on top of the old ones.

Peter stays still.

Watches her draw.

Watches the way her shoulders sway with each mark. The way she presses hard enough to make the glass wobble in its frame. The way the warm light behind her makes her look like she’s glowing.

The rain keeps falling.

Steam drifts from the drain.

Somewhere nearby, a car door slams. Voices shout. A dog barks.

The city begins to pull the moment apart.

But it happened.

She saw him.

Not as a threat. Not as a shadow in the dark. Not as a ghost.

Just a boy.

Just a tired boy, crouched in the rain.

And she smiled.

That shouldn’t matter.

It shouldn’t mean anything.

But it does.

Because it’s been days since someone really saw him. Maybe longer. Since someone looked at him and didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, didn’t pretend he wasn’t there.

It’s such a small thing. So small it shouldn’t register.

But it lands in him like a stone in still water — ripples spreading, quiet but sure.

He watches until the light flickers. Until the girl disappears inside. The window darkens, swallowed by curtains, by movement, by the rhythm of a house settling in for the night.

Then he stands.

His joints crack. His knees ache. His breath catches halfway between a sigh and something that almost — almost — sounds like a laugh.

He slings the ruined hoodie tighter around his shoulders and steps out of the alley.

The drizzle still falls. The sidewalk gleams. The air still smells like yeast and steam and sweet bread waiting somewhere just out of reach.

But something feels lighter in his chest.

Not healed. Not whole. Just… less empty.

Because maybe he’s not invisible after all.

Maybe, even here — even now — someone could still see him.

Even if just for a moment.

Even if they don’t know his name.

Chapter Text

The underpass is supposed to be a shortcut.

Peter’s taken it before.

It cuts beneath the old rail line — a narrow pedestrian tunnel that doesn’t show up on the city’s official maps anymore. Maybe it never did. The kind of place that was built for convenience and then abandoned when no one could agree on whose budget it belonged to.

The mouth of the tunnel is flanked by cracked pillars, each one streaked with years of soot and moss. Graffiti bleeds across the walls and ceiling in long, curling messages — names, dates, threats, poetry. Most of it unreadable. All of it layered like the rings of a tree, each tag covering the last. As if everyone who passes through wants to leave something behind. Even if it’s just their name.

It always smells the same: mildew and rust.

Like wet metal and damp paper. The kind of wet that doesn’t come from weather — the kind that lives in the concrete. Trapped in its pores. The kind that never dries.

Tonight, it’s quiet when he slips inside.

Just the squelch of his shoes as they splash through ankle-deep water and the low, distant grind of a train rolling somewhere overhead. A reminder that there’s still life up there. Still movement. Still normalcy. Just not here.

Most of the tunnel lights are gone.

Blown out. Smashed. Stolen.

Only one bulb still burns — a single flickering orb hanging at the midway point, swinging gently from a mess of exposed wires. It casts a halo of weak yellow light that doesn’t reach the walls. The rest of the tunnel fades into shadow, the edges soft and gray and uncertain.

Peter’s moving slow.

His ribs are bruised. His thigh still stiff from a fall two nights ago — a hard landing that bent him wrong and didn’t let go. His hoodie sticks to him, damp with sweat, clinging in the wrong places. His mask is shoved into the bottom of his pocket, crumpled and wet. His muscles ache, not just from strain, but from the weight of constant tension.

He’s tired in the way that sinks into his bones. Not just fatigue, but erosion. The kind of tired that doesn’t go away with sleep — not that he’s been getting much of that anyway.

Still, he moves forward. One step at a time. Water ripples out from his boots with each step, the tunnel amplifying every sound until even breathing feels too loud.

Halfway through, he pauses.

He doesn’t know why.

There’s no sudden noise. No voice. No shape in the dark. Just instinct. That familiar, unwanted flicker of a sixth sense — the kind that used to sharpen instantly when danger was near. That used to light his nerves like electricity.

Now it flutters.

Now it hesitates.

Peter’s body tenses before his brain catches up. He turns his head slowly, muscles stiff, every joint resisting.

That’s when he sees it.

A smear of blue light spreading across the tunnel wall behind him.

His first thought is train. Neon. Reflected signage.

Then it flashes red.

Then blue again.

And his stomach drops.

He turns fully — shoulders rotating first, then hips, legs lagging behind. Every motion costs more than it should. Pain flashes through his ribs like a warning shot.

And there it is.

The tunnel’s entrance — the one he just came through — is now flanked by two vehicles. Squat, matte-black, unmarked silhouettes. The kind you don’t see on public roads. Not police cars. But not not , either. Military-vague. Government-something. Corporate, maybe. Clean lines. Tinted glass. Lights mounted on top, pulsing slow.

Blue. Red. Blue. Red.

No sirens. No floodlights. Just those twin beacons spinning lazily, painting the tunnel in rhythm.

Peter breathes in.

Shallow.

The air feels thicker now. Colder.

His eyes flick forward — to the other end of the tunnel.

And then that end lights up too.

Same color. Same rhythm. Blue. Red. Blue. Silent. Coordinated. Inevitable.

His pulse picks up.

Not a sprint. Not a panic.

This is cold .

A slow thud behind his sternum, the kind of fear that doesn’t shove — it seeps. Fills the space before the fire starts. The kind that comes with knowing you’ve been seen. And that whoever’s watching isn’t in a rush. They don’t have to be.

He looks down.

Water ripples around his boots. The lights reflect in the surface — long mirrored corridors of red and blue, twitching with each shift of his weight. They reach toward him like fingers.

The flickering bulb above his head sways.

He backs up a step.

The splash is too loud.

His breath stutters.

The walls feel closer now. The ceiling lower. The curve of the tunnel, once wide enough to breathe in, is shrinking. The graffiti seems to vibrate under the lights, warped by shadows and water.

He tries to feel his powers — the way they used to rise in him, automatic, like a tide.

But there’s nothing.

No buzz in his fingertips. No warmth in his spine. No alert in his chest.

Just breath.

Just bones.

His mind moves through the checklist.

Climb? The tunnel walls are slick with grime. No footholds. No pipes. Just smooth, wet stone.

Run? But where? Both ends are blocked. And he’s not fast enough right now. Not like this.

His legs don’t choose.

He stays exactly where he is.

Frozen.

Held in place by something deeper than panic — something quieter. The kind of stillness that comes when you know movement might be the thing that breaks everything.

He swallows hard.

The water creeps higher — up to his shins now. It’s moving, he realizes. A slow current pulling toward one end of the tunnel. Subtle. Intentional. He can feel it tugging at his boots. Pushing him forward.

Toward the light.

Toward whatever’s waiting.

He wants to scream. Not out loud — not for help. Just a scream in his head, something to snap himself out of it. But even that gets swallowed.

He’s a deer in headlights.

A misstep in a system that’s finally correcting itself.

A mistake about to be erased.

He glances at the ceiling again. At the single flickering bulb above him. It swings once. Then stops.

Like it’s watching.

He grips the edge of his hoodie with both hands, knuckles white, jaw clenched. His mouth is dry. His spine presses into itself, compacting with dread.

He wonders if this is how it ends.

Not with a fall. Not with a fight. Just found.

Caught.

Boxed in by people who don’t wear badges and don’t need to ask permission.

He tries to force his legs to move. To pick a direction. Any direction.

But they won’t.

Not yet.

Because this fear — it’s not the chase.

It’s not the sprint or the crash or the scream.

It’s the moment before.

The moment you realize you don’t get to choose what happens next.

And the lights just keep flashing.

~~~

The water is deeper on the left side of the tunnel.

Peter doesn’t think. Not consciously.

There’s no plan. No strategy. His body just moves — not in panic, not in grace. Just instinct. Something in his bones pulls him toward the far wall, toward the shadows where the tunnel dips lower and the ground disappears beneath a dark, half-submerged drainage trench. One he’s passed before. Ignored before.

Tonight, it doesn’t look like a hazard.

It looks like a choice.

The current’s slow. Barely there. But when he steps in, the cold punches through his clothes like teeth. It’s a biting cold — sharp and intimate. The kind that finds your joints. The kind that locks into your spine and whispers stay down.

Peter crouches low, back bent, water lapping at his waist. Breath tight. Muscles pulled taut like wire. His fingers scrape over the broken concrete wall until they catch — find purchase in the jagged edges of something old.

There’s a hole here.

He hadn’t noticed it the last time. Or maybe he did and filed it away as useless — another piece of Gotham decay, nothing worth remembering. But now, in the red-blue strobe of the tunnel mouth behind him, it looks different.

A collapsed section of wall.

A break in the drainage system where the cement buckled inward, leaving a pocket of darkness big enough for a body. Big enough to vanish into. Big enough to pretend the world outside doesn’t exist.

The water’s up to his chest now.

He slips in.

It’s tighter than he thought. The hole narrows fast. Like crawling into a throat. The mouth of something ancient and wet and breathing. Rust clings to the inside. Mildew seeps from the ceiling. Rot presses against his skin.

The air smells like dead leaves and time.

The tunnel lip scrapes his back as he inches deeper, dragging himself forward on his elbows. The concrete chews at his sleeves. Shreds fabric. Skin. His breath fogs the cold stone, hangs in the cramped space like smoke.

Behind him, the tunnel lights flash again.

Blue. Red. Blue.

Closer now.

He lowers his head.

Presses himself flatter.

Then slides into the water.

He doesn’t think about how deep it is.

Doesn’t think about what might be in it — broken glass, needles, bones, rats.

He just goes under.

And everything changes.

The water fills his ears instantly. The tunnel’s echo becomes static. A low roar that drowns out the world. His body reacts before his mind can — a full-body clench. His lungs tighten. His jaw locks.

Not from the cold.

From memory.

Because he’s drowned before.

Not like this — not in water, not always — but he knows the sensation. The weight. The pressure. He’s drowned in rooftop collapses and in oceans of grief. In screams he couldn’t stop. In decisions that never gave him time to choose. In guilt that wrapped around his ribs and never let go.

But this?

This is different.

This is quiet.

Here, beneath the surface, the flashing lights above become distant pulses — shards of red and blue slicing across the rippling ceiling of his world. His body floats just beneath, face inches from the surface, the broken concrete lip above scraping the back of his hoodie.

He holds still.

Not frozen.

Not afraid.

Just suspended.

There’s a stillness in it — a silence so complete it borders on sacred. His fingers drift, just barely brushing the silt at the bottom. His knees float free, jacket ballooning slightly around his chest like something trying to breathe on its own.

His eyes stay open.

Watching the surface ripple. Watching the color shift.

Time unspools.

It twists in this space, unfixed and soft. A second stretches. A minute folds. His body starts to burn — not all at once, but slowly. The slow squeeze of lungs pleading for air. A dull ache in his chest like a hand pressing inward, testing each rib for weakness.

And then — unbidden, uninvited — comes memory.

Not sharp. Not like a knife.

Softer. Slower.

He remembers Uncle Ben’s funeral.

Not the words. Not the crowd. Just the silence afterward.

The sound of his aunt’s hand finding his shoulder. Not heavy. Not tight. Just there. Just a shape against his back, warm and trembling.

He remembers the sky that day.

Gray.

A kind of gray that didn’t move. Clouds heavy enough to crush the day into stillness. Rain that fell soft. Not hard enough to send people running. Just enough to keep them close. Just enough to feel like the universe was asking them to stay inside.

He remembers standing there, soaked and small and seen.

And now?

Now, there’s no sky.

No hand.

No warmth.

Just cold water pressing in from all sides.

Just this space, this quiet, this moment suspended between breath and memory.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been under.

Seconds, maybe. Or longer. The lights still flash above — those same blue-red pulses slicing the surface like a heartbeat. Constant. Inescapable. A countdown he can’t see.

His fingers twitch.

The ache in his chest sharpens. Not unbearable. Just real. Just present.

And in that moment — that heartbeat of stillness, that flicker before he chooses to rise — the thought comes:

If I don’t come up... who would know?

Who would care?

The thought doesn’t hurt.

That’s the strangest part.

It doesn’t land like a punch. Doesn’t steal his breath. It’s just a fact. Just a question. Calm. Centered.

Because the truth is: he’s not sure.

Not anymore.

His chest spasms once.

His body makes the choice for him.

He kicks upward — not violently, not fast. Just enough. A soft rise through dark water. A drift toward light.

He breaks the surface with a gasp.

The air hits like fire. Cold, sharp, searing down his throat. Water pours from his hair, down his face, into his collar. He chokes once. Swallows it down. Feels his body shudder with the return of breath.

He grips the edge of the concrete lip. Drags himself partway up.

His elbows scream. His shoulder grinds. His ribs pulse.

But he breathes.

He breathes.

He stays there like that for a while — half-submerged, half-clinging, water running in rivulets off his sleeves. His face turned sideways, cheek pressed to wet stone. Breathing like it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

The lights are still flashing.

But now, they feel farther away.

Dimmed. Filtered.

He’s still trapped. Still cornered. Still soaked, exhausted, and aching.

But something in his chest feels different.

Not lighter. Not better.

Just awake.

Just here.

~~~

The lights are gone.

At first, Peter doesn’t believe it.

His body stays frozen, hunched low in the dark, every muscle still braced for the next flash — the next burst of red-blue, the next crackle of noise, the next rush of movement. But nothing comes.

Just the sound of his own breath, jagged and shallow. Just the soft lap of water shifting around his legs. His ears are still ringing, but not from volume. Not from sound at all.

It’s that pressure of silence.

The kind that follows adrenaline.

The kind that comes after the fall — not the physical one, but the drop from a full-body panic.

The breath you didn’t think you’d get back.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been holding it.

A minute. Maybe more. Maybe less. Time has lost its shape.

He pulls himself out of the trench with arms that barely cooperate. Elbows scrape the edge of the concrete, skin tearing in a way that doesn’t even register as pain. His knees land hard in the water, sending a ripple across the flooded floor of the tunnel. The splash echoes, sudden and sharp, like it doesn’t belong here.

His palms hit the ground. Slap against wet stone. He stays like that.

Bent forward. Soaked. Coughing. Gasping in half-breaths. Like his body forgot how to do it properly.

The water clings to him, heavy and freezing. It drips from his sleeves, from his hair, from his chin. His hoodie’s plastered to his back. His jeans feel like lead. His skin is cold in a way that feels permanent.

His chest rises and falls in shallow bursts. Lungs still stinging from the hold, from the pressure. His throat burns raw, like he swallowed something jagged and it scraped all the way down.

But he’s breathing.

He’s breathing.

There are no engines now.

No tires growling. No boots stomping. No lights bouncing across the walls. No shapes in the shadows. No silent watchers behind tinted glass.

Just the low, steady drip of water from a crack in the ceiling. Just the soft, intermittent groan of a pipe somewhere in the walls. The tunnel has returned to what it always was — empty. Echoing. Forgotten.

And Peter’s still in it.

Still here.

He blinks slowly, lifts his head, looks toward the mouth of the tunnel.

The exit yawns open in front of him. One side. Maybe both. It’s hard to tell from where he’s crouched. The dark stretches out beyond the archway. There’s no motion. No figures. No sounds. Just space and concrete and night.

No one waits.

No one followed.

No one even looked.

He doesn’t stand. Not yet.

He stays on his knees, letting the cold sink deeper. Then shifts backward until he’s sitting, legs stretched out in front of him, back pressed against the wall. The chill bites through his hoodie. Seeps into his spine.

He doesn’t stop it.

Doesn’t fight it.

He looks down at his hands.

They’re scraped raw, the knuckles chapped and bleeding, the fingertips wrinkled and white from the water. There’s dirt under his nails. Old blood. New blood. And now, none of it seems to matter. The water washes it all into streaks.

He stares at them like they belong to someone else.

He could’ve drowned.

It’s not a dramatic thought. Not loud. Not panicked.

It just settles in. Like a fact.

He almost didn’t come back up.

And no one would have known.

No alarms would’ve gone off. No headlines would’ve screamed. There’d be no search party. No MJ. No Ned. No voice over the comm asking where he was.

Because no one knows where he is.
Because no one’s waiting.

It would’ve happened quietly.

The city would’ve kept going.

Trains still running.

Traffic still crawling.

The sky still gray and heavy, too low to breathe under.

And Peter Parker would’ve just… disappeared.

Unmarked. Unclaimed.

Unmourned.

And for a moment, that thought hits harder than the cold ever could.

Not the drowning. Not the fear. Not the tunnel or the water or the bruises still blooming beneath his ribs.

Just that nothing would’ve changed.

He tries not to think about what that means.

Not just for the city — but for him. For what’s left of him. For the version of himself that used to matter . The version that swung over rooftops and cracked jokes and tried so hard to be enough .

He’s not sure where that version went.

Maybe he left it behind.

Maybe it sank.

He doesn't cry.

But his eyes sting.

Not from tears — he tells himself that, even now. Not from the thought, not from the ache in his chest. Just from the cold. From the air. From the tunnel.

That’s all.

That’s it.

A piece of broken glass floats by.

Thin. Sharp-edged. Light enough to skim across the surface like a leaf.

He watches it spin once in a lazy circle. Then slip back into the shadow.

Gone.

Peter exhales slowly. Lets his head rest back against the concrete.

It’s rough. Cold. Familiar.

The kind of familiar that doesn’t comfort.

Just reminds.

His eyelids slide shut.

His chest still hurts, but it’s easing. His breathing has steadied. The silence presses in like water, but he lets it.

The city breathes — somewhere above, somewhere beyond — and he breathes with it.

But this time, the air feels thin.

Chapter Text

It starts with light.

Not a bright one — just the weak glow of a dying streetlamp, half-swallowed by ivy, bleeding its pale orange across the concrete like a wound that never really scabs over. The kind of light that buzzes softly, inconsistently, like it’s apologizing for still existing.

It’s not much. But in Gotham, not much can still feel like too much.

Peter’s not supposed to be here.

Not that there’s a schedule anymore. Not that there’s a map, or a mission, or a patrol route he follows with any kind of logic. His movements through the city have become instinctual — animal, almost. He doesn't track patterns. He doesn't monitor scanners.

He listens to the wind. The gutters. The cracks in the sidewalks.

Tonight, that pull — that strange tug in the gut that tells him where he needs to be — led him here.

A narrow side street, close to the Narrows. The kind of space that doesn’t appear on digital maps unless you already know where it is. On one side, a boarded-up bodega with a rotting awning. On the other, a brick wall pockmarked with old nails, forgotten flyers, and the fading outlines of graffiti tags layered over each other until none of them meant anything. The ground is uneven — cracked pavement with moss clawing through the seams like it’s trying to breathe.

A rusted metal gate separates this stretch from a dead-end lot. It no longer locks. Doesn’t even pretend to.

The street’s empty. No people. No cars. No flickering TVs through upper-floor windows. Just a distant hum — neon signs two blocks away, trying to lure ghosts into corner stores that haven’t had working refrigeration in years.

Peter’s boots make soft sounds as he walks. Not deliberate. Just enough to remind himself he’s real.

He moves through the corner like he’s moved through a thousand others.

And then he stops.

The kind of stop that doesn’t come from reason. Doesn’t come from analysis. It’s older than that. Primal. The way a deer freezes in tall grass. The way your breath catches for no reason you can name.

His spine tightens. Something curls at the base of it. He exhales and looks down.

There’s no shadow.

He’s standing in the pool of the streetlamp’s glow — a weak one, diffused through dust and fog and the leafy canopy of vines tangled around the light’s head. But still. Light is light.

There should be something. A faint silhouette. The shape of his shoulder. The hint of legs beneath him.

But there’s nothing.

He steps back.

The shadow reappears — pale, watery, stretching just a bit to the left. Imperfect, but present.

He steps forward again.

Gone.

He shifts in place.

Still nothing.

His jaw tenses.

The concrete beneath his feet is the same. The wall beside him hasn’t moved. There’s no obstruction. No dramatic shift in perspective. But the shadow simply… vanishes. Like the light forgets to register him.

Peter blinks slowly. Then shakes his head.

His first instinct is to explain it away.

It’s the lamp. The angle. Some quirk of the way fog refracts around moisture in the air. Maybe there's a layer of film on the pavement throwing things off. Maybe he’s just tired.

He is tired.

But he doesn’t move.

His legs stay planted. Ankles locked. He stares at the ground like it’s dared him to solve a riddle he doesn't understand.

There’s still nothing.

He slowly raises one hand, palm open.

The light catches it.

Still no shadow.

He turns it back and forth.

Fingers spread. Then curled.

No difference.

The buildings surrounding him are tall, but not blocking the glow. The lamp is just behind and above, tilted slightly left. It should cast something. Even if just a blurred shape. A blur. A hint.

But it doesn’t.

The silence of the street creeps in around him.

Not peaceful silence. Not the kind that makes you breathe easier.

This is the other kind.

The kind that feels hollow.

Like the city itself is holding its breath.

He lowers his hand slowly, like he’s trying not to wake something.

Then takes a step forward — just outside the perimeter of the glow.

The shadow returns.

Faint. But there.

He steps back.

Gone.

He does this again.

And again.

Forward.

Gone.

Back.

There.

He’s caught in it now. Caught in the impossibility.

His mouth is dry.

He presses his lips together and stays still, his heartbeat ticking up one cautious notch at a time. The flicker of the streetlight continues above, weak and uneven, buzzing like a dying insect pinned beneath glass.

Peter stays longer than he means to.

Five minutes. Ten. He doesn’t know. Time behaves differently in corners like this. Spaces no one is meant to linger in.

And in that stretch of stillness, something else begins to stir.

Not in the shadows.

Inside him.

Something sharp.

Something quiet.

A thought he doesn’t want to name:

If I don’t cast a shadow… do I still exist here?

Not in a philosophical sense. Not metaphor.

In this place — this corner — under this light…

Does he count?

He thinks of the last few days.

The alleys.

The tunnel.

The silence after the tunnel.

No one called his name.

No one asked where he was.

No one looked up.

He presses the heel of his hand against his chest.

Feels the beat. Still steady. Still present.

But the doubt’s there now. Carved into the space behind his ribs.

If the world forgets to cast you — are you still real?

A breeze picks up, soft and directionless. A loose paper cup rolls across the alley from somewhere nearby, spinning once, then stopping against his foot with the gentlest of touches.

The sound of it — that small, sudden scrape — breaks whatever trance he’s under.

Peter exhales.

A breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He shifts his weight. His body remembers motion. He steps backward, out of the light.

His shadow returns.

A muted, uncertain blur. But it’s something.

He turns.

Doesn’t run.

Just walks.

Not quickly. Not slowly.

Just… walks.

Each step sends water squishing inside his shoes. His clothes still cling from earlier. His breath comes in little clouds now — the air cooler than it was when he first turned down this street.

But his mind doesn’t leave.

It stays behind.

Lodged like a splinter in the moment.

Right there, in that strange patch of light.

Where the world forgot he was there.

Where nothing moved.

Where he stood and cast no shape.

Where the rules changed and he wasn’t sure if he passed the test or failed it.

His fingers twitch once.

Then still.

The buzz of the lamp fades behind him. Dims until it's no louder than a whisper inside a shell. The shadows thicken. The street folds closed like it never existed.

Peter keeps walking.

But something inside him now feels just a little… shifted.

A little less.

And even though the city resumes around him — cars passing, wind in gutters, voices rising in far-off windows — it feels like part of him stayed behind.

Still standing there.

Still waiting.

Still unseen.

~~~

He tells himself not to go back.

That should be enough. One sentence, clear and simple. A rule laid down in his own voice, to himself, by himself. But it’s not. Rules mean nothing when they’re whispered into the dark. When you’re the only one holding yourself to them. When something else is already pulling you by the collar.

That night, after the first time, he doesn’t go home.

He climbs two rooftops — not the clean, purposeful kind, but the ones with sagging gutters and half-missing ladders. He scrapes his knuckles on rusted railing and doesn’t stop to check the blood. Cuts through a fence that hasn’t been touched since before he was born. Drops into a courtyard so quiet it feels like a mistake. The kind of quiet that doesn’t belong in Gotham.

He keeps moving.

It’s not about the destination. It never is, not really. It’s the motion. Forward is how you survive. The city taught him that. Forward is how you don’t look back, don’t get caught, don’t start asking the wrong questions.

But something stays behind.

The corner.

That specific stretch of sidewalk. That piece of the city that should be meaningless — a shadowed alley and a flickering neon sign, just another worn-out street like a thousand others. But it isn’t. It isn’t meaningless, and it isn’t letting go. That spot stays behind like a thorn in his boot. No matter how many blocks he puts between it and himself, he still feels it pressing against the back of his eyes like afterimages. Like when you stare at a light too long and the ghost of it follows you, burnt into your vision.

It shouldn’t bother him.

He’s seen worse. He’s been worse. He’s been buried in rubble, drowned in floodwater, burned and broken and thrown through time. He’s fought things that don't bleed and faced people who don’t blink. He's walked away from craters that used to be homes. But this? This one empty corner? It gets under his skin like splinters.

Three nights later, he goes back.

Not because he wants to. That’s the lie he tells himself. He’s not chasing answers. Not looking for closure. He doesn’t believe in that kind of thing anymore. He just… needs to. That’s the word that sticks.

Need.

It’s drizzling when he gets there.

Not a real rain — not one that washes things clean or floods gutters. Just the kind of useless, persistent drizzle that makes the air thick and sticky. The kind that weighs down your hood and crawls down your spine. It makes the street slick, makes the whole place feel slow and blurred, like a dream you’re trying to walk through.

The red neon above the corner store still flickers. Half the letters don’t light up, and the ones that do buzz like they’re shorting out. The store itself is boarded up, has been for years. No one’s coming back to fix it. The bent street sign nearby leans into the alley like it’s eavesdropping.

Peter steps into the glow.

Nothing happens.

The shadow doesn’t appear.

Still gone.

He waits a long second, just standing there, rain soaking through the shoulders of his hoodie, breathing slow and shallow. Every instinct tells him he’s being watched — but not the way he usually is in Gotham. Not by the city. This is something else. Or maybe it’s nothing , and that’s what throws him. The absence. The silence.

He lifts his hand, hesitantly. A small movement. Familiar.

Still nothing.

He lowers it.

Pulls something from his pocket — a bottle cap. He doesn’t remember picking it up, but he must’ve. Three blocks back, maybe. Just a nervous habit. Something to hold onto. He tosses it gently into the space in front of him.

It clinks. Skitters across the concrete. Stops.

No shadow.

He steps forward, crouches, picks it back up. Then moves two paces outside the invisible boundary.

Shadow.

Back in.

Gone.

He presses two fingers to his neck. His pulse is fast, but not frantic. Not fear. Just alert. Present.

He wants to ask the city what it means. Wants to say the words out loud. But Gotham doesn’t answer direct questions. It’s not built like that. You don’t interrogate the city — it interrogates you. Leaves you standing in the rain asking things you won’t say out loud.

The next night, he brings a pen and paper.

He writes his name on it: Peter.

Simple. Clean. Just his first name. Not like it matters — no one’s watching. He folds the note once, creases sharp, and places it on the concrete inside the shadowless space.

Then he waits.

Ten minutes pass. Rain soaks his sneakers. A rat scurries by, pauses like it senses something, then moves on. A car backfires in the distance.

Nothing happens.

When he picks up the paper, the ink’s smudged — not from water, but like it bled sideways, like the name tried to drift off the page. Still legible, though.

Peter.

He folds it again and slips it back into his pocket.

But he’s cold now. Unreasonably cold. Not just from the rain.

This place — this little forgotten piece of city — it isn’t just quiet . It’s something else. Feels like a pocket where even Gotham forgets to look. A blind spot in a place that never blinks.

That’s what gets to him.

That’s what keeps getting to him.

He tells himself to stop. To let it go. There’s nothing there. He proved it.

But he starts going back. Almost every night.

Never for long. Never with intention. Sometimes he finds his feet turning toward it before he even realizes. Other nights he’s walking aimlessly, just trying to clear his head, and somehow ends up a block away.

Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it doesn’t. One night a couple walks by the alley — loud, laughing, drunk on whatever life they still believe they have. Peter slips into the shadowless space without thinking. They don’t notice him. Don’t even glance his way.

He wonders: if he made a sound, right now — a sharp, real sound — would they believe it came from here?

Would anything ?

He starts to think maybe this place doesn’t exist on the same map as the rest of Gotham.

And worse — that maybe he doesn’t, either.

That idea sticks with him. Even after he leaves the alley each night. Even after he climbs roofs and hops trains and goes back to whatever he calls normal now. The idea that the city has a corner where things fall off the edge — and that he’s dangerously close to becoming one of them.

He tests the space more. Leaves objects behind. A coin. A matchbook. Once, the wrapper from a protein bar.

Sometimes he comes back to find them untouched. Other times, they’re gone. Or changed. Not in obvious ways — not like someone picked them up and used them. Just off . Wet in places they shouldn’t be. Folded sharper than he remembers. Missing half a letter, or smelling faintly of ash.

He doesn’t tell anyone.

Who would he tell? Who’d believe him?

This isn’t a case. It’s not something he can punch. It’s not a puzzle with a clean solution. It’s just a hole. A tear in the city’s fabric. And he keeps pressing his fingers into the edges.

Sometimes he wonders if it’s not a place at all, but a mirror — something reflecting a piece of him he can’t quite face.

A version of himself without the city’s rules. Without the mission. Without the mask.

He doesn’t say that part out loud either.

Eventually, he stops pretending there’s a reason to visit.

He just goes.

Not every night. But often. Enough.

One time, he finds a feather there — pure white, resting where his name had once been. He doesn’t touch it. Just looks at it until it starts raining again.

Another night, someone else walks past the alley and pauses. A kid, maybe seventeen, wearing a jacket too thin for the weather. The kid doesn’t see him. Looks right at the space and keeps walking.

Peter stays still.

Breathing quietly.

Hoping — for what, he doesn’t even know — that maybe someone else will step in. That maybe it’s not just him.

But they never do.

No one else ever crosses into the corner.

It belongs to him now.

Or maybe he belongs to it.

And that, more than anything else, is what scares him.

Because in a city that never stops looking — never stops judging — this little pocket of absence is the only place where nothing follows.

And he’s starting to like it.

Maybe too much.

~~~

It’s raining again.

Gotham rain — heavy with grit and static. It doesn’t fall so much as leak from the sky, seeping down from clouds that never fully open. Rain that carries metal in its teeth. Rain that never quite feels clean, even when it soaks you through.

Peter doesn’t bother with his hood tonight.

What’s the point? The wind gets under it anyway. His hair sticks to his forehead, curls at the nape of his neck. Cold water snakes down his back and pools in the fabric of his sweatshirt, which is already soaked through — weighed down, clinging to him like it’s trying to remind him of gravity.

His shoes squish with every step. That sound, rhythmic and quiet, is the only thing accompanying him down the block.

He’s not following any route. He never does when it’s this late, this wet. His legs move without permission. He crosses streets without looking both ways. Turns corners like he’s been pulled there by a string.

And tonight — like always — he ends up in front of it .

The alley.

Waiting for him.

The red neon above the boarded-up bodega flickers overhead, tired but stubborn. A faint hum, barely audible above the rain. The same “FOR SALE” sign peels in the window. No one’s buying. No one’s fixing anything on this block.

The puddles here don’t ripple like they should. They just sit. Flat. Heavy. Like the whole street is holding its breath.

Peter’s not surprised anymore. He stopped being surprised a long time ago.

But this time, something is different.

Someone’s already there.

A man.

Standing at the edge of the shadowless zone — right on the border where things start to vanish.

Peter stops.

The man doesn’t. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even turn to look at him. He stands there like a statue left out in the rain too long, staring down at the pavement as if it holds something precious. Or dangerous. Or both.

Peter scans him quickly, instinct kicking in.

Tall. But bent forward, slightly. Not old, exactly — but worn. Like he’s been through something that aged him in uneven patches. His coat is heavy, thick, a dark brown that might’ve once been military. The kind made for cold, unkind places. But it’s damaged — the bottom half singed black, charred like he walked through fire and didn’t stop walking.

Steam rises faintly from his sleeves, curling into the rain like breath.

Peter takes a step forward. Then another.

Not out of fear. That’s not what this is. Not anymore. This is something else — curiosity, maybe. Or caution. Or just the sense that the ground here doesn’t follow the same rules as everywhere else.

The man doesn’t react until Peter steps past the line.

The invisible threshold.

That spot where his shadow always disappears.

Where the air feels thinner.

Where the silence sharpens.

The man speaks, still not looking at him.

“Been coming here long?”

His voice is dry. Not cold, but stripped bare. No excess. Cracked around the edges, like it hasn't been used for a while. But it doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds like he expected Peter to be there.

Peter hesitates. Swallows.

“A few times,” he says, voice low.

The man nods once. The smallest movement. “It stays that way. You noticed?”

Peter doesn’t answer.

He looks down instead. At his feet. At the place where his body stops being real. No reflection. No shadow. No presence. The rain should make ripples. Should distort his shape. But there’s only wet pavement. Still. Flat. Unmoving.

“It’s not the light,” Peter says. Half-statement, half-question.

The man shrugs.

“Light lies all the time.”

Peter finally looks at him. Really looks.

The man’s eyes are pale — not just in color, but in feeling. Like something washed the color out of him. He looks like a man who used to be important. Used to be dangerous. But now, he’s just here .

Peter asks, “What is it?”

A beat.

The man doesn’t answer at first. Just breathes. Looks at the empty space like it might whisper back if he’s quiet long enough.

Then he says, “Some things just go missing here.”

Peter frowns. His hand shifts slightly — not reaching for anything, just grounding himself.

The man still doesn’t look at him.

“Not people,” he adds. “Not exactly. Just the part of them that leaves shadows. Leaves noise. Leaves fingerprints. Sometimes they keep walking. Sometimes they don’t.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say to that.

He thinks of all the nights he’s stood here. All the times he’s stepped inside and felt thinner. Quieter. Unnoticed.

The man finally turns to look at him. A slow, deliberate movement.

“You still got a name?”

Peter’s jaw tightens. His throat goes dry.

He nods.

The man nods back, like that’s the only answer he needed.

He doesn’t ask what the name is . Doesn’t ask anything else at all. Just turns and starts walking.

No goodbye. No threat. No trace.

His boots make no sound on the wet pavement. No splash. No echo. He moves like a ghost who never figured out how to leave.

Peter watches until the man is gone.

Then he looks down again.

And that’s when he sees it.

He can’t see his feet.

Not just the shadow — them . The actual shoes. The actual shape of himself. They’re gone. Blurred into the still water. Not sunken. Not invisible. Just… not there.

He crouches, fast, heart stuttering in his chest.

Presses a hand to his leg.

He feels it.

Solid. Present. Still his.

But when he looks — nothing.

Just rain. Just pavement. Just the outline of absence.

Peter steps back, fast.

Out of the boundary.

Into the world that still knows how to hold him.

And like a film reel clicking back into place, his feet reappear.

He breathes in sharp. Chest rising like he’s surfacing from deep underwater.

The street hums back to life — just a little. The flickering sign. A car a few blocks away. Rain against the gutters. Noise. Presence. Reality.

He turns and walks. Fast.

Doesn’t look back.

Doesn’t want to see what’s still missing.

He doesn’t stop until he’s three blocks away, under the scaffolding near the train line. A spot he’s claimed more than once. Out of sight. Out of reach. Dry enough to sit without drowning.

He strips off his socks. They’re soaked. Cold. Heavy with city water.

He wrings them out, watches the droplets fall, and realizes something’s still off. Something’s still gone .

His fingers find the edge of his coat pocket. The folded piece of paper — the one with his name, the one he’s been carrying since the first week — is gone.

He doesn’t remember taking it out.

Doesn’t remember dropping it.

But it’s gone.

He closes his eyes, head leaning back against the cold steel of the scaffold pole. Tries to slow his breathing. Tries not to think about what that man said.

“Some things just go missing here.”

Not people.

Not exactly.

Just the part that leaves a trace.

And somewhere back in that shadowless space — that corner Gotham forgot to name — Peter knows something stayed behind tonight.

And he’s not sure he’s getting it back.

Chapter Text

The wind cuts hard near the river.

Not sharp — not yet — but constant. The kind of wind that crawls under your clothes and settles against your ribs like a second heartbeat. The kind of cold that doesn’t hurt, but persists. A quiet, crawling cold. The kind that gets into your blood and makes you slow. Makes you tired. Makes you think things you shouldn’t be thinking.

Peter’s hands are stiff in his sleeves. He keeps them tucked close, fingers balled into fists, trying to preserve whatever heat hasn’t already bled away. His breath fogs in front of him, thin and gray.

He hadn’t meant to stop here — the lot behind the community center, half-covered by a sagging tarp strung between two old scaffolding poles. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. The tarp flaps in the wind like a tired flag. The ground’s a mix of gravel, trash, and patches of frozen dirt. A dented metal trash can nearby sends up smoke from whatever someone’s been burning — probably cardboard and wet wood. It stinks, but it’s warm.

Peter had been walking — nowhere in particular, just moving, because movement kept his muscles from locking up. He hadn't planned to stop. But the smell of warm food pulled him in. That, and the soft murmur of voices that didn’t sound like they were looking for trouble.

Two folding tables stand under the tarp.

One holds a metal pot, steam rising steady from it. The soup inside is thin, pale, with slices of something floating in it — maybe onion, maybe potato. Not much, but it smells hot, and that's all that matters. A few plastic ladles sit on a tray next to mismatched mugs. Some are ceramic, chipped at the rim. Others are paper, soaked through near the bottom from too many uses.

The second table is lined with crates — gloves, scarves, coats. Mostly secondhand, some barely more than rags. But better than nothing. Some of them are still damp from earlier snow. Others look like they’ve been through several hands already this winter.

A few people linger — a woman with a baby sleeping against her chest in a sling, a man with a limp trying to repair the heel of his boot using a bent nail and a rock, and a kid in a bright blue jacket, no older than thirteen, eating soup with one hand and texting with the other.

Peter hovers near the edge.

Doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t ask for anything. He just stands with his arms around his chest and lets the wind gnaw at his spine.

The coat he’s wearing now — an old navy zip-up — is too thin. Wet at the sleeves from melted snow. One elbow’s torn wide open, stuffing showing like a wound. The zipper only works halfway, and the lining’s long gone. He hasn’t had dry layers in two days. The shirt underneath smells like sweat and river water. He tries not to breathe too deeply.

Someone hands him a cup of soup anyway.

He blinks. A woman in a red scarf, maybe in her forties, presses the cup into his hands without a word. Just a look — tired, calm, like she’s done this a thousand times.

He nods, grateful but quiet. Curls his fingers around the heat like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the world. The cup warms his palms instantly. He sips carefully. The broth is mostly water, but there’s onion, maybe garlic, and something slightly burned clings to the bottom. He doesn’t care.

He’s halfway through sipping when a voice cuts through the breeze.

“You look colder than me, man.”

Peter turns.

It’s a teenager — maybe seventeen. Maybe eighteen. Tall, broad-shouldered, built like someone used to carrying more than his share. Hair buzzed short, skin a soft brown, eyes sharp with something like mischief. There’s a kind of stillness about him too, though — the kind that comes from long nights outside. Watching. Waiting. Learning what to ignore and what not to.

He’s got on a black hoodie and two coats layered over it, one of them bulky, padded, with a busted zipper that flaps a little as he walks. The outer coat looks like it used to be part of a uniform — something industrial, maybe a delivery service, long since stripped of logos. It’s patched at the shoulder with duct tape. Still, it looks warm.

The boy shrugs one coat off.

“Here,” he says, holding it out. “You’ll freeze in that paper-thin thing.”

Peter blinks. “I’m fine.”

The boy laughs — short, not mocking, more like disbelief. “You look fine. But you sound like someone who hasn’t been warm in a week.”

He’s not wrong.

Peter hesitates. He doesn’t want to take it. Doesn’t want to owe anything. Doesn’t want to admit he’s that cold.

But he is.

He could refuse. He should. It’s obviously not a coat to spare — it’s his. He wears it like it belongs to him, like it’s been keeping him alive. But the kid just raises his eyebrows, shifts the coat in his hands, and gives it a little shake, like he’s trying to wake Peter up.

“Take it. I got layers. You got bones.”

That almost makes Peter smile.

Almost.

He reaches out. Takes the coat.

It’s heavier than he expects. The fabric is thick, stiff at the shoulders, but soft where it’s worn in. Smells like dust and firewood and something faintly citrus — maybe laundry detergent, maybe soap, maybe just the ghost of a cleaner life. The inside’s lined with something warm. Torn at the hem, but real. Real warmth. Real insulation. Not just another layer of wet fabric pretending to help.

Peter shrugs it on.

It’s a little big in the sleeves, tight across the back. But once he zips it up, the difference is immediate. The cold that had wrapped itself around his ribs like a fist starts to loosen. His shoulders drop. His jaw unclenches.

He doesn’t say thank you right away. Can’t.

The boy doesn’t push.

Just nods, grabs a fresh cup of soup from the table, and walks back toward the curb. Sits next to the guy with the limp and starts talking like they’ve known each other a while. No drama. No guilt. No expectation.

Peter watches him for a minute.

Finally says, quietly, “Thanks.”

The boy raises his cup in a lazy salute, like it’s nothing.

But it’s not nothing.

It’s not even close to nothing.

Peter stands near the edge of the tarp a little longer, finishing the soup in slow sips. The wind still blows, but it doesn’t get in now. The coat holds it back. He can feel his fingers again. His spine doesn’t ache quite so deep.

He looks at the people around him — the woman with the baby, now rocking slowly on her heels; the kid in the blue jacket, curled over his phone; the man with the limp, smiling faintly at something the boy said. There’s no chatter, not really. Just soft voices, careful ones. Nobody here’s trying to be loud. Nobody wants to be seen too much. It’s not safety, exactly, but it’s not danger either.

He remembers a night three weeks ago, sleeping under the bridge by the train yard. The wind there didn’t crawl — it bit. Sharp, sudden gusts that rattled your teeth. He’d tried to sleep with his arms over his head to hold in heat, but his fingers had gone numb halfway through the night, and by morning, he couldn’t feel anything below the wrist.

He hadn’t had help that night.

Most nights, he didn’t.

But tonight — here, now — someone gave him soup. Someone gave him warmth. No questions. No price. Just kindness that didn’t demand anything back.

He zips the coat up higher. Puts his hands in the pockets. One of them’s ripped inside, but the other one’s intact. There’s something in it — a balled-up napkin, maybe. He doesn’t pull it out. Just lets it sit there. Someone else’s ghost of a life.

Peter tells himself he’ll give the coat back tomorrow.

He means it.

He’s just not sure where to find the boy if he does.

Still, he repeats it in his head like a promise. Tomorrow. I’ll return it tomorrow.

The light’s starting to go. Street lamps blink on, casting long, uneven shadows. The tarp flutters, lifting at the corners like it might take off. The people start to move — packing up the tables, folding crates, gathering cups. The woman in the red scarf starts stacking the used mugs in a plastic bin. The man with the limp helps, limping slower now, favoring his right leg.

Peter doesn’t know where he’ll go next. Not exactly. But he feels steadier.

He takes one last look at the boy — still talking, still laughing low at something the man says. His breath clouds the air, then vanishes.

Peter steps back into the wind.

And this time, it doesn’t get through.

~~~

The coat still smells like someone else.

Dust and firewood. Faint citrus. A trace of laundry detergent that’s long since faded but still clings in the lining like memory. It carries the ghost of a different life — one that walked different streets, laughed in the open, maybe had a place to hang things up at night. A home with walls and warmth that didn’t come from borrowed layers.

Peter wears it anyway.

He tells himself it’s temporary. He’ll find the kid again. Return it. Say thank you properly this time. Maybe even offer something in exchange — even if all he has is a half-stale granola bar or one of the bodega knives he keeps strapped inside his boot.

It’s not about value, he tells himself. It’s about balance. Dignity. About not just taking and disappearing.

You survive like this long enough, you start building your own code. Quiet rules. Private pacts. People think the streets are lawless, but that’s not true — the law’s just different. Harsher. Quieter. And more personal. Peter’s code is simple: if someone gives you something you didn’t ask for, you give them something back. Doesn’t have to be even. Doesn’t even have to be useful. Just has to mean something.

He just needs to find the right moment.

It comes on a Tuesday.

Cold, but dry. The sky the color of old newspaper, stretched thin above the city. Wind rolls down from the river in long, lazy gusts that tug at scarves and lift loose flyers off telephone poles. Gotham feels... less cruel than usual. Not kinder — that would be asking too much. Just less sharp around the edges. Like the city’s teeth aren’t bared today.

A street musician is playing a broken accordion two blocks from the community center. The music is crooked, dragging and off-key, but oddly calming. A few kids are kicking a half-deflated soccer ball against a brick wall spray-painted with BE KIND OR LEAVE. Someone’s roasting peanuts on a cart, the scent curling into the air like something out of a memory. Charred, sweet, alive.

Peter’s walking with his head down, fingers jammed deep into the coat’s pockets. The coat — still heavy, still warm — hangs on him like something both comforting and undeserved. He wears it zipped to the collar. Every time he touches the zipper, it reminds him he hasn’t returned it. That the moment is still coming. That he hasn’t kept his end of the deal.

Then he sees him.

Across the street.

The boy from the lot.

Standing near a bench, shoulder pressed casually against the metal frame. Laughing. Really laughing — not just a smile, but a full laugh, loud and unguarded. His head tilted back, mouth open. One hand moving mid-story like he’s telling something ridiculous.

He’s not alone.

There’s a girl with him — about his age, maybe younger. A backpack hangs off one shoulder, covered in dangling keychains that clink when she moves. She’s holding a paper tray of fries, pulling the crispy ones from the top and eating them fast, like she knows he’ll go for them if she doesn’t. He does. She elbows him. They both laugh again.

They look like they’ve done this a hundred times.

Not safe. Gotham doesn’t allow that.

But comfortable .

Like they’ve carved out their own corner in the chaos. Their own rhythm. One that isn’t about survival but about being . Just being.

Peter stops.

His heart thuds once, too loud in his chest.

There it is.

The moment.

He could cross the street. Walk over. Tap the kid’s shoulder. Say Hey, you probably don’t remember me — the coat, remember? You gave it to me last week. I just wanted to give it back. Maybe offer something in trade. A thank you. Eye contact. Something real.

He even reaches for the zipper.

His fingers hover there.

He watches them laugh again — the girl almost drops the fries. The boy catches the tray without missing a beat, hands it back like it’s second nature. Their shoulders bump. They stand close. Close in a way Peter hasn’t felt with anyone in a long time.

He stands on the curb and feels like a stain on the sidewalk.

A crack in the foundation.

A reminder that not everyone gets to belong.

He tells himself he shouldn’t interrupt.

They’re busy. They’re fine. The coat isn’t important. It was just a moment. Just a gesture.

He’ll do it later. Next time. When it’s quieter. When he has something better to offer than an apology and empty hands.

So he turns.

Walks the other way.

Doesn’t look back.

The coat is too warm around his neck now — like it knows it isn’t his. Like it’s reminding him with every step.

For the rest of the day, his footsteps echo a little louder than they should. The city hums around him — car horns, distant shouts, the snap of a plastic bag caught on a fence — but he feels separate from it all. Like a shape cut out of the scene instead of part of it.

Later that evening, he ends up under the expressway.

Not the worst place. He’s slept there before. A concrete ledge keeps the wind off. Someone left half a pallet and some cardboard behind. A mattress leans against the wall — stained, burned at one corner, but dry. The bones of an old fire still sit in a circle of rocks. Someone even stashed a broken umbrella nearby, half-open, useless against anything but the illusion of privacy.

Peter sits with his back to the wall and pulls the coat tighter. It wraps around him like armor he didn’t earn. His boots are still damp. His stomach’s empty. But it’s not hunger that eats at him.

It’s something else.

Something slower.

He closes his eyes and sees the boy laughing again. The girl stealing fries. The way they moved together — like the city hadn’t crushed all the softness out of them yet. Or maybe it had, and they just kept laughing anyway.

Peter wonders what he would've said if he’d crossed the street.

Would the kid have remembered him?

Would he have smiled? Or just stared, unsure of who Peter was beneath the layers and weeks and wear?

Would Peter have been able to look him in the eye?

He thinks about the coat. About what it means to carry something that doesn’t belong to you — not just physically, but really . The way it reshapes how you see yourself. How you move. How you’re seen.

He thinks about offering it back. About pulling it off and folding it at the boy’s feet. About saying thank you like he means it.

But he didn’t.

He walked away.

And now the silence feels heavier than the coat ever did.

He shifts. Leans his head back against the cold wall. Watches the shadows stretch.

Tells himself again — tomorrow.

Tomorrow he’ll try again.

Tomorrow he’ll be braver.

Tomorrow, he’ll cross the street.

~~~

He comes back three days later.

Same lot. Same folding tables. Same sagging tarp held up with rope and prayer. The same damp concrete underfoot and the same faint smell of burned cardboard floating on the wind. It’s all there, like a set left behind after the actors have moved on.

But the boy isn’t.

Peter scans the area twice before he even steps closer. There’s no buzz-cut silhouette, no layered jackets or lazy grin. Just faces — familiar in their unfamiliarity. People wrapped in blankets and plastic ponchos, some sitting on overturned crates, others on the ground. The kind of scene that moves, but never really changes.

He tells himself it’s fine.

People move. The shelters rotate locations. Sometimes folks get a motel voucher, or hop the train out to Queens, or hole up in a warm stairwell for a day or two. Maybe the kid went inside. Maybe he’ll be here later.

He waits.

The soup still smells the same — hot and thin and overly salted. The kind that coats the back of your throat and makes your stomach tighten more than it soothes it. A smell that makes you hungrier the longer you stand in it.

Peter doesn’t take a cup this time.

Just stands off to the side, coat zipped to his chin, scanning the crowd.

He’s not even sure what he’s hoping for. Recognition? Closure? Some sense that he didn’t blow it the first time? All he knows is that the kid’s absence feels sharper than it should. Like a splinter you didn’t notice until your skin started swelling around it.

A woman with gray braids hums softly as she pours tea from a thermos into paper cups. Her hands move steady, practiced, like this is her job even if no one’s paying her to do it. A man next to her is counting out broken cigarettes — short ones, half-burned — and lining them up neatly on the table’s edge like he's arranging silverware.

A group of teens argues loudly a few feet away, their voices bouncing off the alley wall. Something about Wi-Fi. Which corner has the best signal. Whose data plan’s throttled. It’s oddly normal, almost absurd — like the rest of the world hasn’t noticed this place froze over weeks ago.

But not him.

Not the boy.

Peter walks the block twice.

Loops the corner. Stands by the fence, pretending to fix his shoe — kneeling slow, tying and retying the same frayed lace while watching each face that passes. He even ducks into the alley behind the center, where people sometimes cut through to avoid the street. No luck. Every voice he hears isn’t the right one. Every shape is wrong.

He stays longer than he should.

The volunteers start packing up. Mugs collected, crates repacked. The chatter fades. The lot grows quieter. The light shifts — that soft, dismal dimming that means evening’s creeping in, even if you weren’t watching for it. The tarp flaps once in the wind. No one bothers tying it down.

Peter doesn’t move.

He still wears the coat.

Still smells the faint echo of someone else’s life in the collar. It clings to him. Has molded to his shape over the past week. The sleeves still hang too long, and the shoulders are a bit too broad, but his body has learned to live inside it. Like the muscles beneath it remember how it helped him breathe that first night. How it dulled the edge off the wind. How it felt like maybe — just maybe — he didn’t have to freeze alone.

He stands there, the last shadow in a space that no longer has a reason to hold him.

He thinks about what he would’ve said.

Thanks, again. You didn’t have to. I should’ve given this back sooner.

He plays the words over in his head like a scene from a movie he’ll never be in.

He thinks about how it would’ve felt to say them — to stand in front of someone who saw him, even briefly, as more than just another ghost in the street. Someone who didn’t flinch, or pity, or pretend not to see him. Someone who gave without asking, and didn’t look twice when Peter kept quiet.

He thinks about being seen again by someone who didn’t want anything except maybe warmth and a little honesty.

But the chance is gone.

Gotham doesn’t always close doors loudly. Sometimes it just lets you linger in the threshold until you realize no one’s holding it open anymore.

Peter leaves without taking anything.

No soup. No gloves. No small talk.

Just the coat — zipped high, sleeves still too long — and the weight of an apology that never made it out of his throat.

His hands stay in the coat pockets all the way back to the rooftop he’s been calling not home for the last week. It’s flat and quiet and fenced off on three sides by rusted railing. The wind’s worse up there, but no one bothers him. He keeps a flattened piece of cardboard under a vent, and a plastic bin he found in an alley as windbreak. He knows which bricks to avoid when it rains.

The sky stays gray the whole walk back. The kind of gray that never commits to rain, just hovers and waits. A color you stop noticing until it’s been there too long.

His mouth stays shut.

And that night, when he lies down — the coat wrapped tight around him, sleeves pulled down past his hands, collar turned up — he stares at the rust-colored clouds overhead and tries not to imagine what the boy would’ve said if he’d just walked across the street.

Hey, you kept it? Good — looks better on you anyway.

No big deal. You needed it. That’s what matters.

Or maybe nothing. Just a smile. A nod. That same lazy cup-raise from the first night, like everything was fine.

Peter tries not to imagine it.

Tries harder not to imagine that maybe… the boy would’ve needed it back.

That maybe Peter kept something that wasn’t his to keep.

That maybe kindness given doesn’t always mean kindness free.

He turns over. Pulls the coat tighter around his frame.

And pretends it still smells like firewood and citrus.

Pretends it hasn’t changed.

Pretends he hasn’t either.

Chapter Text

The city is still asleep when Peter climbs the tower.

Fog clings to the skyline like a second skin. Not the heavy, choking kind that makes your lungs work harder — this is different. Gentle. Whisper-thick. It swirls around rooftops and softens the bones of buildings, turning the sharp steel and concrete of Gotham into a watercolor of muted greys. Streetlights glow like stars drowned in milk. In the distance, horns honk like they're trying not to wake anyone. Even the city’s usual hum seems to be holding its breath.

Peter moves slow.

It’s not caution, exactly. He isn’t afraid of falling. It’s something else — reverence, maybe. Habit. A way of being with the silence instead of breaking it. The climb isn’t difficult. Not for him. Every rung, every ledge, every slippery stretch of metal is already charted in his body like a ritual. His fingers find holds before his eyes do. His weight shifts instinctively. Muscle memory guides him more than thought.

He’s done this before. Many times.

Though it’s been a few weeks since the last climb, it doesn’t matter. His body remembers. The old radio tower feels like an old friend — rusted, creaking, paint curling back like sunburned skin. It sways just a little with the wind. Not enough to matter. Just enough to remind him it’s alive, too.

Halfway up, his boot slips on a frost-slick bar. The metal shrieks under his weight. For a split second, gravity grabs him by the collar. His heart skips once — no panic, just acknowledgment — and then he’s fine. Recovered. Fingers locked around a crossbeam, legs braced, the cold steel biting into his skin through the fabric.

He doesn’t flinch.

It’s the kind of fall that wouldn’t kill him. Probably. Bruises, maybe. A broken rib. He could handle that.

He keeps going.

Up here, time feels slower. The kind of slow that doesn't drag but stretches. By the time he reaches the top — the final, narrow beam jutting into the grey — the edge of the sky has started to bleed. Color seeps in from somewhere behind the clouds. Barely. Like the light is still considering whether it wants to arrive.

He climbs past the last platform, settling on a strip of steel barely wide enough to sit on. Legs over the edge. Arms resting on his knees. Hands bare.

No gloves. No mask. No hood.

Just him.

Peter Parker.

No one calls him that here.

The air is colder up top, but not unbearable. It wakes him up more than it hurts. His breath curls in soft, misty ribbons that vanish before they get too far. He can hear the soft thud of his boots tapping against the beam. The sound echoes upward, not down. Up here, above the rooftops, above the grind, things feel... cleaner. Not safer. Not really. But further away from the mess.

He doesn’t look down.

He’s done that before, on nights when everything felt too loud or too close. Looking down has its own kind of comfort — a reminder that the city, big as it is, can be held in your gaze. That the chaos has borders. That it fits into a frame.

But today, he doesn’t want small.

He wants space.

So he looks out.

Gotham stretches forever in front of him. Rows of jagged rooftops punch through the fog like rusted teeth. Antennas, cranes, half-lit signs. A thousand secrets tucked into alleyways and fire escapes. The city breathes in silence, a rare moment between battles, as if waiting for the next thing to go wrong. But for now, for just a beat, everything holds.

The world feels still.

And in that stillness, Peter doesn’t feel like he has to be anything.

Not Spider-Man.

Not the kid from Queens who keeps losing people.

Not the hero Gotham never asked for.

Just a boy. Sitting on steel. Breathing.

There’s something sacred about it. Something he doesn’t try to name.

The coat he’s wearing doesn’t help with that.

It’s not his. He stole it. Or borrowed it. Or inherited it. Depends who’s asking. The shoulders are too broad, the sleeves too long. The zipper catches halfway up. It smells faintly like smoke and something else he can’t place — maybe pine, maybe aftershave, maybe just memory. He wears it anyway. Not for warmth. Not for protection.

It doesn’t feel like armor.

It feels like a question.

And he’s okay not answering it.

His fingers flex against his knees. He can feel the city starting to stir below. A siren, distant and tired. A dog barking in the maze of alleys near the Narrows. A subway grumble like a buried storm. But it’s all soft. Nothing urgent. Nothing yet.

The sky shifts again — just slightly. Pale gold begins to edge the clouds. Not enough to cut through, but enough to hint at what’s behind them. Like the sun is drawing near but hasn’t made up its mind.

Peter closes his eyes for a second.

Just listens.

To wind.

To silence.

To himself.

He doesn’t think about New York. Not right now. Not about who’s looking for him. Not about Aunt May’s quiet apartment or MJ’s smile or Ned’s voice on the other end of a call that never comes.

He doesn’t think about home.

Because here, in this moment, he doesn’t need to.

Here, he just exists.

When he opens his eyes again, there’s color in the fog. Warm tones. Cream and soft yellow, bleeding into pink. Not dramatic. Not a sunrise worth painting. Just... steady. Real. The kind of light that doesn’t try to be anything but itself.

It creeps over Gotham like a secret. It doesn’t announce itself. It just arrives.

Street by street, window by window.

It touches the shattered glass of an abandoned office. It climbs the ivy on a crumbling wall. It glances off a rooftop garden someone is still trying to keep alive. It slides across the tower beam until it touches Peter’s face.

And he lets it.

Doesn’t look away. Doesn’t tense. Just lets it happen.

The warmth is soft — not enough to chase away the cold, but enough to remind him that cold isn’t all there is.

His eyes sting a little, but not from wind.

And he breathes.

Again.

Deep this time.

Like he’s trying to take something with him.

The city is waking now. He can hear it. Feel it. A garbage truck hissing to life. A metal gate rattling open. Footsteps, muffled by distance. Life, starting again. As it always does. Gotham doesn’t stop. It just rests in short bursts, like a boxer between rounds.

Peter stays a while longer.

He doesn’t check the time.

The sun finishes rising behind the clouds, not with triumph, but with a kind of quiet persistence. That’s the thing about the sun — it doesn’t need applause. It just shows up.

Every time.

Whether you’re ready or not.

He knows he should go soon. Patrol starts early. Or at least his version of it. There are always people who need help. Always someone falling. Always something burning. But right now, no one is screaming. No one is bleeding. And for once, Peter doesn’t feel like the world will crack without him.

He shifts on the beam, stretching his legs slightly. His boots knock again — a rhythm now. Thoughtless. Familiar. Like a heartbeat in metal.

He wonders what Bruce would say if he saw him up here.

Probably nothing.

Maybe just a nod.

That’s how it is between them. Sparse words. Shared silences.

Peter understands now why Bruce comes up here. Why he watches the city from the shadows, high above it all. It’s not about control. It’s not about power.

It’s about space.

Perspective.

Breathing room.

Up here, you can see how everything fits together — even when it's broken.

Up here, you remember that you’re small — not in a worthless way, but in a freeing one.

Because when you’re not the center of the world, the weight isn’t all yours to carry.

Peter exhales again.

The sound is almost a laugh. Quiet. Dry.

He doesn’t know if he’s healing. He doesn’t know if he’s okay. But he knows that right now, he’s not pretending. And that’s enough.

For now.

The fog begins to lift.

Slowly, reluctantly, like it’s being pulled back by invisible hands. Details sharpen. Roof tiles. Chimneys. Faint trails of smoke rising from early risers. The city becomes a little less dreamlike, a little more real.

Peter watches it happen.

Still not moving.

Still not speaking.

Just watching.

Breathing.

Letting the morning make its quiet promises — not of peace, not of safety, but of time. Another day. Another chance. Another try.

That’s all anyone gets.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

Eventually, Peter will climb down. He’ll slip back into shadows and alleys and masks. He’ll do what he’s good at. What he’s meant for. But not yet.

Not just yet.

For a few more minutes, he’s just a boy sitting in the clouds, letting the sun warm his face.

And that’s enough, too.

~~~

The sun has been up for twenty minutes.

Not that it feels like sunlight — not in the way it does in other cities. Gotham doesn’t allow light to arrive unfiltered. It catches on soot and haze, gets tangled in the scaffolding of half-finished buildings, bends around the grime on windows. By the time it reaches you, it’s quieter. Dimmed. Not dulled, just... softened. Like the city’s telling the sun to keep it down.

It doesn’t dazzle. Doesn’t blind. Doesn’t even warm the skin much. But it lands.

And somehow, that’s enough.

Peter hasn’t moved from the beam.

His body is stiff, but he only notices when he shifts — just enough to stretch out his legs and cross his ankles, the heels of his boots hanging over the edge like punctuation marks on the morning. His arms fall loose into his lap. Palms open. Fingers relaxed.

Below, the city stirs.

It doesn’t roar to life. It doesn’t explode into chaos like some places do. Gotham wakes slowly, like someone reluctant to get out of bed. A few half-hearted car horns. The hiss of a train pulling into a station. The bark of a dog from somewhere near Chinatown. A voice through a loudspeaker at a construction site, too distant to make out. Somewhere, someone is dragging a metal gate open.

But up here?

Stillness.

The tower doesn’t move. Doesn’t creak. Just holds him.

He slides one hand into his coat pocket and pulls out the heel of a bread roll. What’s left of something he took from a folding table outside a shelter three days ago. It was warm then — soft, buttery — passed to him by a woman who didn’t ask his name. Now it’s crushed, misshapen, slightly damp from being forgotten in his coat. Any sane person would’ve tossed it.

He eats it anyway.

Not out of desperation. He’s known worse hunger. Days without food. Weeks running on adrenaline and stubbornness. This isn’t survival. It’s something simpler. A small act of choosing. Of being present.

The bread tastes like nothing. But the chewing slows his breathing. Grounds him.

He finishes it without hurry.

Lets the crumbs fall where they will.

The wind brushes through his hair — not harsh, just enough to stir it. Like fingers trailing along his scalp. His eyes close for a moment, then blink open again. No dreaminess. Just watching. Rooftops roll out in every direction. Satellite dishes. Clotheslines. A rooftop garden with dying tomatoes. An old woman smoking alone on a fire escape.

Everything is gray and gold and soft.

Peter exhales.

Not the kind of breath you push out to calm yourself. Just... a breath. Natural. Unforced.

For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t feel like he has to move.

Doesn’t feel like he should be somewhere else. Doing something more important. Wearing a mask. Saving someone.

He doesn’t feel like a ticking clock.

Or a loaded question.

Or an echo of someone who should’ve made it home.

He doesn’t feel brave. Or broken. Or haunted.

He just feels still.

There’s a pulse behind his ribs that doesn’t ache.

A breath in his chest that doesn’t catch halfway.

A silence in his head that isn’t asking him to prove anything, fix anything, be anything.

And in this exact minute — the one balanced perfectly between nothing and everything, between hunger and enough, between shadow and light — nothing hurts.

Not the bruises beneath the coat.

Not the ghosts trailing him from city to city.

Not the gnawing ache of being forgotten by the world he saved more times than he can count.

Just air.

And light.

And sky.

He leans back, slow and steady, until his shoulders press against the spine of the tower. Cold metal against warm body. The structure groans faintly beneath his weight, but holds. Always holds.

The light catches his cheek.

Warms a patch just below his eye.

He lets it.

Lets it touch the parts of him he usually hides — the parts too tired to keep being armor.

His hands stay open in his lap, empty but not grasping.

There is no one here to see him like this.

No one to ask what comes next.

No one to need anything from him.

And still, the sun shows up.

Still, the wind moves.

Still, the city breathes.

He’s not sure what that means. Whether it’s grace or indifference or just gravity doing what it always does. But he doesn’t need an answer.

He doesn’t need much right now.

Not hope. Not a plan. Not even clarity.

Just this moment.

Uncomplicated.

Undemanding.

Undisturbed.

Time slips in strange ways up here. Some minutes stretch out like bridges. Others collapse like dominoes. Peter doesn’t care which this one is. He lets his head tip slightly to the side, cheek resting against the steel. Lets his eyes close again — not to sleep, just to pause.

The city will call for him again soon.

It always does.

Someone will scream. A siren will cry out. A building will burn. And he’ll go. He always does. Even here, in a city that isn't his, he can’t stop himself. Can’t not answer.

But that’s not now.

Now is different.

Now is quiet.

Now is weightless.

Now is a version of peace that doesn’t ask for permanence — just presence.

And Peter gives it, finally, fully.

The sun climbs higher behind the veil of Gotham’s smog, casting long golden slants across the buildings. Windows flash and flicker as if winking to each other. Somewhere far below, someone laughs — loud, unfiltered, echoing upward like a flare in the silence.

Peter smiles.

Not a big one. Not the kind that hurts his face.

Just a soft, honest one.

The kind you don’t even notice forming until it’s already there.

He doesn’t know what’s waiting for him when he climbs down.

Doesn’t know if he’ll find another fight, another alley full of fire, another person looking at him like they want him to be something he’s not.

He doesn’t know if he’ll make it another week without disappearing again.

But that’s later.

This — this stillness, this softness, this golden breath of morning — is now.

And for the first time in a long time, Peter lets himself be here.

Not running. Not hiding.

Just here.

Alive.

Still.

And letting go.