Spiderman: Finding Home

Chapter 3: Peter

Peter's POV

It had been a long evening. Rough even. Peter was used to breaking up robberies, break-ins and petty street crimes which tended to be the usual violence he came across, but on the rare occasion, he'd have to deal with something that would stay with him and be added to the long list of nightmare material he already had. Tonight's incident was one of them.

The girl was young. Probably around his age. Seventeen at the most. Peter dropped his head into his hands as he thought of the screaming that had alerted him and the way he had barely just made it before...

He dropped his hands. He wouldn't think about it.

"It's okay," he whispered to himself. "You stopped it from happening. You saved her."

But did he really? She was shaking like a leaf as he walked her home. He offered to go with her to the police station to report the crime, but she refused to go. He wasn't surprised although he still held out hope. Of all those crimes he either stopped from happening or rescued from happening, only one of them had ever chosen to go to the police. The rest went home, mumbling about how they couldn't afford it or that there was no point. And like the others, tonight's girl, Georgia, was the same.

After returning her home and locating the perpetrators and unleashing his useless anger onto them, he had decided to take the night off. It was only 11 pm and he liked to be out on the prowl until at least 12am, but he didn't have it in him. He swung around the city, not thinking about where he was going until he found this abandoned building that he sat on now. He had needed air and took his mask off to breathe it in. It wasn't cold, but it had a bitterness to it.

"Spiderman?"

Peter jumped as he whirled around, inwardly cursing at himself. He should have known he can't just switch off like this. He always needed to be on his guard and ready.

He felt his stomach drop as his fast-moving mind took in the details of the wide-eyed girl before him.

"Peter?" she asked in a whisper and his stomach dropped.

Shit. Shit. Shit. He had forgotten about his mask.

"Ummm," was all he could say as his eyes searched around the roof, looking for something, anything to help him.

"You're such a fucking idiot," he cursed at himself. "What the fuck are you going to do now?"

She already knows now, his mind whispered.

"Umm," Peter repeated as he clumsily rose to his feet. "Hi, MJ."

MJ continued to stare at him, eyes wide and jaw dropped. If it wasn't such a bad time he would have laughed. MJ was always so... stoic and stern. If she wasn't scowling, she'd be laughing at a joke that she likely made at his expense. He'd never really seen much emotion from her. He knew she liked to keep herself in control.

"You broke MJ," his mind whispered to him.

Walking slowly towards her, so as not to scare her, Peter raised the palms of his hands.

"Before you say anything, please whatever you do, don't tell anyone. No one was meant to know. I was meant to keep it a secret. Actually, I decided I wanted it  to be a secret but then Mr Stark said it was a good idea because I'm so young and I was doing so well, but I guess Ned found out..."

He realised he was rambling, but he couldn't stop.

"Actually, Ned's pretty useless with secrets too, but we've both been trying so hard to keep our shit together and I was such an idiot for coming here and taking this stupid mask-"