After the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker had the chance to restart his life and start fresh. But without his family, friends, mentors or fellow Avengers, his life began to spiral into darkness.
His new neighbour however, seems to make that dark...
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Y/N L/N
"I know you well enough to know that scheduling a last minute appointment isn't because you want a 'casual chat' Y/N, what's the real reason?" Dr. Shao said on the call as I rested my phone next to my head on the pillow.
I couldn't sleep after the Stark Gala. I turned my phone off to avoid the myriad of texts and calls from Peter and I desperately tried not to cry. I sat in my room in silence, wearing my noise cancelling headphones with the lights off, to limit myself from as much stimulation as possible. I was scared. My powers had never done that to me before and I needed Dr. Shao to tell me everything was going to be okay.
I need everything to be okay right now.
"I had a flare up last night... And before you say it, I know that this is the reason I should be taking my medication so yes, I've started taking my pills again this morning," I sighed, preparing myself for the classic 'I told you so' moment.
"Okay what sort of flare up? One where you need an ear to listen to, maybe a shoulder to cry on? Or one where I need to implement the emergency recovery protocol?" He said calmly.
The emergency recovery protocol was a plan that the super psychiatric association had in place to protect those with super abilities as well as average citizens. It's a lengthy process that outlines what to do in the event of an unknown super exposing their powers in public. It's basically like damage control. Luckily for me, nobody would be able to trace back last nights incident to me; except for Peter.
Peter had powers himself so I knew he wouldn't rat me out to the media or try and get me jailed like most civilians would. That's what the association helps with, keeping our powers a secret. People all around the world love superheroes because they protect them. They love watching them fly around in fancy coloured suits and they love to buy tacky merchandise to express their devotion. If they were to see someone with powers living an average life however, they would fear them, loathe them, despise them. If you have powers and choose not to save the world in a cape, you're one of the worlds deadliest weapons.
So the world can't know about us.
During school we were registered with SHIELD for having powers. This ensured that we would legally be on the record for being genetically gifted. You see, whilst SHIELD was run by twisted megalomaniacs, they used us kids as testing subjects. They tried to erase our powers from our DNA at first. For the kids they were successful with, they were integrated back into normal schools and lived a normal life. For those of us whose powers remained, we were put through several more years of torture until graduation.
When SHIELD became managed by Phil Coulson however, our school was shut down and the stories of what happened inside those walls were exposed. Unluckily for me, I had already graduated.
I explained last nights phenomenon to Dr. Shao, telling him about the argument I had gotten in with Peter and how I had told him to go away. Thays when everyone around us got pushed somehow.
"Um... Nobody got hurt and nobody would be able to trace it back to me so it's fine. But uh, I didn't touch anyone..." I admitted.
"Anyone? Normally you have always needed physical contact for those to render under your control... Interesting..." Shao said, with the sound of his laptop keyboard typing away in the background.
"I was drinking," I admitted.
"Alcohol? Right that makes more sense, you rarely drink. Mix alcohol with the lack of medication and it appears your powers worked without contact, very interesting..." Shao said, the typing noise even louder.
You see, as a kid I never knew how to "use" my powers. They'd kind of just happen and my mother figured if I wore gloves constantly, I'd never get to touch people and accidentally use them. Then when I got admitted into the fucked up nightmare of a school Ravencroft, they discovered I could temporarily control others with a single command whilst touching them.
I can't just poke someone and make them my bitch, it's a lot more complicated then that. Think of it as being really good at convincing people to do favours for me. Like if I held someone's hand and said 'I want you to buy me a coffee' it would be like they had this overwhelming urge to buy me a coffee. Then they'd be on their merry way thinking like they came up with the idea to buy me a coffee.
My medication practically blocks my powers from showing, that's why I stopped taking them when I began writing about Spider-Man. I needed them to convince all those people to let me into The Raft to interview Spider-Man's enemies. How else would a random college kid be the only person in the world to get access to interview Baron Zemo? I used my powers for them to grant me security clearance.
I went to that communications and marketing lady and told her to grant me journalistic clearance whilst shaking her hand. She sent a few emails to the jail and next thing you know, they treated me like any other journalist with maximum security clearance. I don't use my powers for bad things, just to you know, make things a little easier for me.
That's when I first suspected Peter was Spider-Man. Well, not Spider-Man specifically but I knew he had powers because my powers can only affect normal people. I had grabbed him and asked him to not lie to me, knowing full well he had lied about something ages ago - and he still lied. He was immune to my control. Another time I realised they didn't work on him was when he went down on me the first time in the shower- he sucked at it.
That's a perk, I can tell a guy to make me cum and he magically does it. So when Peter struggled to make me finish for the first few weeks of us dating, I knew something was different about him. I actually had to coach him in eating pussy. Pair that with his constant injuries that healed rapidly, and I knew he was a super.
It wasn't until he saved me that night after work that I realised Peter was Spider-Man. He didn't hide it very well, he answered the door wrapped in sports tape around the same arm I had slashed with my knife. He didn't move his arm all night and he winced when I touched it.
And he really sucked at wiping up the blood in his bathroom. It was a pretty poor attempt at hiding it.
After my call with Dr. Shao he gave me a new prescription to increase my medication dosage and sent it to my local pharmacy. I hung up, got dressed, put my headphones on to block out any potential sensory overload and left the apartment. As I walked down the stairs to the lobby I tapped my thumb against each of my fingers over and over again; I was stimming.
"Y/N! Hey, I uh, how are you?" Peter said standing at the mailboxes as I turned the corner to leave our building.
"I'm fine thanks, how are you," I said turning my music down and avoiding proper eye contact.
I couldn't decipher Peter's emotions, his body language or whether the words coming from him mouth were truth or not. He mumbled an apology and asked if I wanted to come upstairs and talk. His smile was uneasy, his hands fidgeting in his hoodie pocket and his bottom lip clenched between his teeth as he nervously chewed at it.
"I think I just need some time alone for a bit... I need to get my head straight," I said quietly, pushing the lobby door open.
"Wait Y/N! I thought about what you said! I- I'm going to come out of retirement... You were right," he yelled out behind me, making me stop and turn around in the doorway.
"I'm glad to hear that... We need a hero right now."
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A/N: Check the comments to see ALL of the hints I've made throughout the book that Y/N had powers...
