Chapter 6

When I say that being burned alive is unpleasant, I speak from experience.

It's no wonder why I had disliked, and still very much do dislike fire – waiting and watching every scrap of your epidermis from your hands to your feet regrow over a period of seven days after suffering full body third degree burns has that effect on you. It is an excruciating affair, especially when full body means 'every scrap of flesh'.

And I do mean every scrap.

And though these thoughts pushed me, giving me intertia where I would have otherwise been coaxed into a state of calm, cool confidence, it wasn't all bad. I had, from being charred to Spider-BBQ, obtained a new sympathy for the supervillains that I recuperated with. The not-so-super villains actually, those down and down D-listers and et cetera that saw it as a hobby.

I had also gained even more respect for Logan, but also more annoyance. Being charred alive might not be either of ideas of a good time, but at least his healing factor can heal him in less than a minute. Mine took me a fucking week.

I was still calm, because a fire was nothing I couldn't handle. If it was started by someone with pyrokineses, I was drowning them, it was as simple as that. History, at least insofar as interrupting my good time, liked to repeat itself, and that wasn't something I would allow to be repeated. My newest suit would make extreme elemental conditions child's play and I scoffed at how long I had returned back to the old red and blues.

'Chase me with a couch in one hand and a chair in the other' is right, I deserved that.

And so there I was, a twenty something vigilante slash CEO slash dead man four-times-over and walking, wrenching open the window of his employee slash coworker slash… friend with benefits (Girlfriend? Sexfriend. crushee)? And I was about to jump into a fire. This is what I think about.

Honestly, if when I was a teenager such a thing would have been outlandish, Now, it was life. Well, the after, after-life.

Swiftly moving toward the window I activated my suit via an innocuous trigger on my wrist before I dove out the window; the suit came into existence beneath my clothes, shimmering slightly - that always looks cool – the benefits of having unstable molecules and closed circuit nanites modeled after the functions of the symbiote, allowing it to come from nothing and recede back to that at my beck and call. Keeping super-duper clothes under your civvies chafed.

Among other addons that I'd make use of were the legs that Otto had used with his suit, though I heavily improved them. While his quick change protocol was utilitarian, and that was something I was quickly becoming a fan of, as it was they didn't quite suit my needs. They were offensive as they were, a love letter to Doctor Octopus, and considering it, I wasn't surprised, just bemused.

Flash-forward to recruiting Oliver Osnick; Parker Industries future, best R&D techie. He'd jumped at the chance to help out the webhead, his old friend and role model who saved his arm from becoming symbiote-chow, even more so when he learned that I was, well, me. Ollie wasn't stupid, I'm happy to say, and had easily seen the obvious differences between Spider-Man and 'not-Spider-Man'. This may or may not have had something to do with him almost getting his arm eaten by another 'not-Spider-Man', or the fact that Otto had once been his idol as well.

When given the specifics, he slapped his forehead because the signs were obvious. I'm happy Miguel, Anna, and myself weren't the only ones who thought so.

Oliver apologized profusely, but I held nothing against him. The Steel Spider had retired after the civil war to spend time with his family, specifically his wife, and became a self-defense instructor thanks to his years as a vigilante. Apparently, almost losing his arm was a bit much. If there was one thing I understood, it was that time with family was important, and almost dying had a good habit of putting your priorities in order.

For some people, it took for or five times. Ahem.

With his and Miguel's aid, essentially, we were able to construct legs that responded to my spider-sense; given that it could react to tracers and hijack my reflexes under extreme duress, or guide me in any case, it was my theory, brought on by my spider-sense's peculiar new habit to chime at certain times, that it could do the same for the legs. With a chime of my spider-sense and days of testing and eager work, the theory turned out to be an exciting and resounding success. Apparently, when you get a bunch of nerds in a room and tell them to invent something, they invent something sensational.

The legs, designed by Ollie's engineering genius, refined by myself, and test dummied on Miguel, were almost alive under the puppeting of my spider-sense, though it was an enjoyable trial trying to tell my spider-sense what to do, only to realize it intuitively knew what I wanted to do and did it anyway. With effort and repetition their movement became almost as refined as mine, like muscle memory. Like muscle memory however, movements required practice.

Their ability was put to the test as I discarded my shirt. Sleek black legs plucked them from my hands and webbed it up into a neat, compact sack, strands of webbing almost invisible like an actual spider's until it was wrapped over itself; the movements of the legs puppeted by my spider-sense itself, according to my needs, and setting my skull alight with a thrum of activity.

It was like hearing a beautiful woman hum a soothing tune as she sewed with mastery, and for a moment, I thought I saw purple, smiling eyes.

I engaged the stealth function to my suit, not for the first time taking the option to remain unseen as I worked – I didn't need to be seen to help people, and I wouldn't be. Though I had gone on patrol with Miguel, I was invisible, and I was as I jumped from the windowsill, nonexistent by sight and sound and smell. Gravity tried to pull me down jealously but my reflexes kept everything from being a blur as I surveyed the city streets in the scarce moments before I started to fall, having easily cleared the distance from Sajani's apartment building to the one opposite it, and a swiftly fired webline took me even further, over the rooftops.

I offhandedly discarded my pants, the legs bundling them, and I stashed the clothes as I moved, the webbing having been tagged with a tracer from the legs. New Yorkers wouldn't give the Amazing Bodiless-Pants a second glance if they had seen them, however. Not until those same bodiless pants stopped a few crimes.

I would reap the rewards of that; a merchandise deal here, posters there, a small but well received graphic novel. Parker Industries would corner the market on the 'Spectacular Slacks' discreetly.

Clean, efficient usage of weblines had me clearing such an amount of distance that it would have shattered my record of spanning the island in less than three minutes, if I were inclined. A webline from my shooter impacted the awning of a roof that I hadn't even looked at, anchoring itself with perfect accuracy and carrying me as I held on one handed, my body contorting to how my spider-sense saw fit, based on my needs. There was no flourish, no time to impress or to show off, just simple fluidity and clarity and all with the effort of brushing my teeth.

Experience had turned me into a calm machine, moving with efficiency that made my teenage self, and even myself before I had died look like drunken, spastic messes in comparison; if I hadn't perfected webslinging, the only one better at it was myself. While it's not bragging, it is a fact – decades of experience over every single other practitioner there is goes a long way, as does having invented it.

My game face was on now. Probably. Someone was in danger and I could help, would help because, again, being burnt alive fucking sucks, and I was willing to bet that the people in the fire didn't have a healing factor to help them.

After doing what I do, I'd go back to Sajani's apartment, tease her for being a quickshot until she buried her face in the covers, because she was immeasurably attractive when embarrassed, and I'd get to enjoy my after, after-life with all that entailed.

Wealth? Fame? Had one now, very nice, didn't need the other and didn't like it so much. Action? I liked the sound of that. And while I may have begun to warm up to the after, after-life now, I couldn't help but think of that old chestnut, and heard "The best laid plans of Spiders and Men."

It sounded like the CEO. It could have been a trick of my mind, but I wasn't about to bet on it.

I saw the smoke billowing up into the night sky and was at the fire in less time than it took for a frozen waffle to heat up in a microwave, for all the good that did me. It was a big one, and it didn't take the lack of sirens to tell me that something was wrong. I had my tweaking spider-sense for that, and beyond that, a gut feeling refined after years of situations such as this.

Now I was faced with a blaze that roared like a lion in the dark of the night, but there was no screaming, no running, and no yells for help. It was as if the entire building had been evacuated, the phone lines cut.

I released the thin cable of webbing more than a hundred feet up in the air. This area of city had lower rooftops, making it a long fall down. As I descended, I scanned the blaze - it wasn't any different than the hundreds I had seen over the years, and the fire was, at the very least, not sentient.

It's important to take what wins you can.

Because I was more environmentally friendly than most people with super strength, I hit the ground, leaving no sign of impact in the concrete of the roof before I bounded off again. Tax payer dollars and et cetera.

It was likely that the fire was a setup, an attempt to get some dumb hero like kid-me, or someone else, to put their life on the line and get blindsided.

And while Otto had done a great job at making an example out of the last schmuck that tried to single Spider-Man out, one Miguel was doing a spectacularly futuristic job at perpetuating by being fairly unfriendly, it would take someone ridiculously stupid, or ridiculously confident(and thus pretty damn stupid) to set this up. Neither option was a good recipe for their success.

If Miguel had made any enemies that stupid, he would have told me. He trusted me, the kind of trust that can only be built when you fight an entire corporation of robots and security led by the corrupt, future version of the man you model yourself after.

Also, lots and lots of lasers and rogue experiments. And good, bad jokes.

And the only other person working the city with nearly as much frequency as either of us was Anya Corazon, Spider-Girl. That was another bridge burned, and I kept my distance, as did Miguel. I didn't want to know how burned it truly was, but had heard through the webline, and Miguel's encounters with the Avengers, that she was working closely with Spider-Woman who had once mistaken him for me, and while there was a nepotism joke in there, it's beneath me. Puns are not.

However a bitter joke about even Jessica not being able to tell the difference between one Spider-Man and another, yet again, isn't either. At least she was confused by an actual Spider-Man. Technically. One deserving of the title.

Regardless, Anya was better off with Jessica; Anya was a teenager, and though even at a glance I could see the similarities between us, I only hoped that with Jessica's example, she wasn't stupid. Jessica was skilled, though I could finally hand her ass to her after inventing my own formidable martial art. She could do a better job than me at teaching Anya if she were so inclined, I thought.

…She couldn't, but Anya was still better off with her. The last Spider-Girl I knew died because of me, and while she was sitting pretty in Heaven, I still wasn't jonesin' for a repeat. Mattie Franklin died because I wasn't there for her. Because I hadn't guided her, because she had a connection to me.

Because I had left her alone… like I was doing to Anya.

Well, damn. Parker, what the fuck?

I shook my head. Spider-Girl could get her tutelage from Jessica, as well as the inclusion and protection from the rest of the heroes that I never could, still being one of the outcasts and least trusted even after years of efforts. And Jonah.

A bland and morbid thought entered my mind, since Ben was the best at optimism, Kaine at turning his brooding into outward, reluctant action (the big hearted softie that he is), and Miguel having the market cornered on scathing sarcasm. I was left with being a very, very good cynic and thought,

Everyone inside this building could be drugged and/or gassed to sleep and would die a horrible, immolating death.

I didn't want to be a cynic anymore. It's a hard habit to kick.

But if everyone was gassed asleep, I'd save them anyway. Somehow. Something involving expending every last bit of webbing, fire-retardant or not. I'd tear out an entire floor and drag it to the street by hand if I had to. There was no question about it. I wouldn't fail, being burned alive sucks, and I would not fail.

Smoke streamed out of the building's upper levels like water in reverse. Someone had to have noticed, they had to. But it was still silent, it was a trap, possibly, and most likely for yours truly at that, and my spider-sense, choosing at that moment to indulge in its new helpfulness, chimed quietly. I groaned.

Fires make for good traps. There's smoke, there's decreased visibility, dangerous surroundings, and, also the healthy paranoia that comes after the first five times you fall for them. Myself, I got paranoid after the first, since being a sixteen year old on fire while a fat woman is trying to beat your head in because the Bugle says you're a monster, while you're saving her family from also being burnt alive, is not fun. Nor is being blamed for the fire.

Eventually, when you're facing some schmuck with pyrokinesis, you just start keeping your eyes on the fire hydrant. Some days you bring water balloons or baking soda with you by the dozens. Just in case.

I wouldn't need that now, since, thanks to a healthy bout of occupational necessity, paranoia, and Miguel's organic variant, I had modified my webbing after them as well, giving the formula a much needed retardation to fire and everything 'burny'.

With that I sprinted on the rooftop to the world's largest brownstone oven, outpacing a good make of car for a span of seconds as the world rushed past me. That was when the flashbacks started, but in my life, I don't, and did not, have the luxury of being held back by fear. Despite memories of being in a similar fire flashing through my head with increasing frequency as I was, once again, about to jump into a fire, I kept moving. I may not have liked fire, but the only thought going through my head was, "If I ever fight someone with pyrokinesis again, I am drowning them, or shoving a box of baking soda down their throat. Possibly both."

My spider-sense guided me to one floor in particular and I leapt, unquestioning since that is an awful mistake only the greenest of Spider-Men should make – I was desiccated. I sailed through the air and the building got bigger up to a point before it was just fire, fire, more fire, broken windows, and flames streaming out like water in no-G as they reached for the sky, and also, more fire.

I bulldozed through the window, wood and glass passing harmlessly past me like bits of torn paper, and I immediately flattened to the ground to avoid the backdraft before immediately setting forth again, running through the building. I was feeling quite comfortable, but even with the perks of having a suit that was essentially a big middle finger to extreme conditions were many, I still didn't want to spend a vacation there.

Flames continued to lick ineffectually at the material of my suit, the orange and smoky haze turning the dark red and blues to red and black. I was looking and listening, ready to move. If it was a trap, I was ready for a fight. I was in my element, surrounded by danger on all sides was where I excelled, and the only way this would have a fraction of difficulty for me was if the villain was some sort of sentient fire creature. That'd be new, and it'd be another one to add to the list right beneath sentient water-boy.

But I tempered my confidence. I knew better, of course. Been at this a long time, and I know there is a reason why you should never show Mr. Murphy your hand, why you should never tempt Fate, and why you should never court Death. But do as I say, not as I do, because that last one is something that I tend to do inadvertently, but frequently.

My spider-sense was guiding me, my skull alive with thrums and vibrations that changed from the pleasant, all encompassing hum to something else. A tweaking, a professional whir of activity that distantly regarded the danger as burning wood and warping walls, crumbling banisters, and the omniscient presence of fire. I barely understood what it was saying to me, but I listened regardless and the meanings came to me almost instinctually.

I was the leading human expert, in my universe, anyway, of all things spider-sense, and if my spider-sense wanted to play ball and be partners instead of a puppet and its master, with me being the puppet, that was fine. Lives were on the line and I didn't like the odds of waiting and looking while someone was roasting alive. I needed help, and I wasn't anywhere near above asking my faithful, years-long companion for that help. I wasn't Otto, and even then, in my self-imposed exile, I wasn't alone.

Knowing that screams of agony are like a box of… screams of agony, you get all types, I would have begged. I heard no such screams and that was either fortunate, or horrifying. Begging wasn't necessary.

The team that we are, I closed my eyes and trusted my spider-sense. We were both too old to just look out for me alone. We had grown, been through too much, too many ups and downs. We could do this… somehow.

The sound of the world being consumed by fire drained away and my spider-sense pulsed, a skull wide thrum that opened my eyes on its own merit, and I could see, sense, and feel every inch of the building like a three dimensional radar. This wasn't new, but it was definitely welcomed. I hadn't experienced it since Cassandra had improved my spider-sense for a time. I could do it on my own now and that was fine, great, fantastic, but I wasn't about to look a horse, or a spider-god, in the mouth and promptly put it to good use.

The doors were all open. No footsteps, no screams… the entire building was empty, evacuated. Not a single person, the first pass of my eyes said. No people rushing, no one moving.

A rookie mistake is ignoring the spider-sense, but a stupid one is taking it at face value. The spider-sense grows with time, like a person, but nothing starts out finished. I knew better, and I looked harder. The world slowed to a blackout, drunken crawl.

Getting a third person image of yourself and the area surrounding you is strange, but there it was, with every structural weakness and threat that had my spider-sense tweaking like Morse code. There was no time to question it, and in this new, cold calm, its rhythmic activity kept me centered.

The floorboards three floors down were crumbling and weakening, embers flying and greedily feeding on every scrap of fuel for the fire there was. Personal items were lost and fabric burned, and the fire wanted more. In such a state, my hairs were set on edge almost instantly and drove my reflexes into overdrive.

A split second later felt like a minute, the world was so slow, and my old friend reacted to the fire as if the spider-sense jammer was right next to me. It was becoming too much. Every weakness I saw, my spider-sense saw extreme danger, and I tried to ignore it all as my spider-sense dialed up from eleven to fifteen.

I quashed the sensation and the world drowned out again with my effort, my spider-sense's tweaking becoming muffled, but still highly noticeable. My head started to protest and ache, my spider-sense working beyond my ability to handle at the moment, like taxed, fatigued muscles. I wasn't ready, too much danger, too much fire, and as I started to lose focus, it did too. It didn't want me to become a fried spider or a barbecued man, or a charred other, again. It was worried, frantic with activity and working hard and hampering with my concentration.

But the fire was as much of a threat to me as a regular human was, which is not at all, I protested, and my spider-sense disagreed, its ringing as derisive as it was urgent to the idiot teen that had once ignored it all the time, and the man that thought he knew more. But it acquiesced and listened to me as I listened to it. This was a partnership. We were too old to bark orders and ignore each other anymore.

The ringing quieted, but didn't disappear, and the sharp pain in my head dulled significantly. In the fire, there was something else… keep looking, it rang. Just breathe and calm down, Parker. A second or less had passed. Breathe. I looked closer.

Then I saw. The world frozen in flame, and so was my blood, and the only word that popped into my mind as I stared, sounding so much like Kaine, "Fuck."

The entire building was empty… save for two people. One was a small bundle crouched behind the door of a closet. Smoke filled the room and they were coughing, shuddering in fear.

The other was the person who set the trap. The silhouette was familiar enough, I'd recognize those hips anywhere, but the way my spider-sense reacted gave me certainty. It read them, read her, as a friendly, but there was anything but friendly about the intent she had. It was a haze of aggression that surrounded her, a hatred of a man, a spider, and the other guy that was both.

I felt shock, bewilderment, a stopped heart.

No one could make me feel those things like Felicia Hardy.

The Black Cat was strolling up to the roof without a care in the world, a burning building left beneath her as she swayed her hips. I could see her as if I was right behind her, the self-satisfied smirk on her face.

It felt like adding one and one together. Felicia was walking away while a child was about to burn to death in the flaming casket of a building.

Bonus question: What had you been doing a few minutes ago, Parker?

I had been more concerned with getting laid.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

I was too cold to be disgusted at anything, even myself. The fire was nothing now, and instincts paired up with single-minded purpose had me moving, my spider-sense guiding me like a single light in the dark, silent as shock and a mounting desperation took over. I tore through wood and metal, ripped up wall and floorboard like paper, and crashed through three whole floors of burning wood and stubborn pipe like nothing to get to that kid.

A little girl. A scared, hunched over little girl.

When I crashed into the room and wrenched the door off of the closet she hid, she screamed, seeing nothing but a wrathful, invisible force come to drag her into the fire. The door tore through the rest of the building and what remained ended up embedded into the brickwork of another, all pinging to my spider-sense like an afterthought.

Before my eyes was a familiar sight, in hindsight. Spider-Man, busy with his Spider-stuff, notices a child coughing in some unnoticed corner. She looks up at him and her eyes widen and the look in them is so bright and she smiles – it's a foregone conclusion that she's such a good kid. Then she starts to pass out.

The little girl's scream was interrupted by heavy coughing and almost drowned out by roaring flame and crumbling architecture. I disabled the stealth function of my suit and snatched her up, and she saw me. Chocolate, curly hair brushed me in the face.

The world was so slow, my reflexes and everything kicked into overdrive and my spider-sense tweaking like a Geiger counter and as terrified as she must have been, the second she saw me was forever frozen in time. I saw her hair, her face, her smile, so wide and splitting her face with recognition and hope.

History, that big, ugly bitch that it could be sometimes, was repeating itself. Chocolate eyes, chocolate hair. A dirty, sooty face and a look of realization that made her smile like she had just seen her hero. Recognition so strong I thought I was dead, because that was the only way I could see it again with such clarity.

To see Leah.

Felicia had a lot to answer for.

Life loved to throw some pretty dirty punches my way but I had finally learned how to fight, and I understood that Otto fucked a lot of people over after he took my life. I really did. I just didn't care.

I could sympathize, but everyone who couldn't tell the difference between us paid the price of their stupidity by being near him. It was like Darwinism, the supervillain variety!

A wolf in a sheepdogs clothing, and the sheep too dumb to tell the difference? That was almost everyone that Spider-Man knew, and I didn't deserve the headache I got that night.

It was a long night. I dropped the little girl off at the hospital. I was there in seconds.

If history wanted to repeat itself and score another against Peter Parker it could try, but for every last life I had, I would play a mean defense. I wasn't about to lose a child for the third time. I wasn't about to let someone else lose theirs if I had any say in it.

…The little girl's name was Maya. Of course it was.

I say was, because at some point later in life, she got it legally changed to Arana. God… of course she did.

She was missing her two front teeth, her favorite thing in the world was the hairpin her Uncle had gotten her before he died. Her birthday was in April, wonder of wonders, and her favorite food was chocolate cake with sprinkles - What kid likes sprinkles on chocolate? - which is why she lost her teeth.

She was seven years old. I stayed by her side for what felt like hours, my spider-sense still slowing the world down to a crawl. Torturous, slow hours.

I hadn't seen Death her-his-itself, in a while. If she was standing close by, I was standing guard ready to look her right in her… lack of eyes. She wasn't about to take this child.

She hadn't, and I don't know if it was pity, or something, but I was grateful all the same.

I had felt years younger, and years more stupid. Peter Parker, Spider-Man, had barged into a hospital with a near dead child in his arms, and he was roaring for someone to help. He was just a man, stupidly trying to atone for a mistake he made when he was little more than a child. He couldn't help her, but they could. They had better.

Then the money. What could he sell? He's on his own, barely has anything to his name other than a dead end job working for the Bugle. What could he do to make sure this kid lives?

First instinct: adopt her. She likes Spider-Man, adores him. He's Spider-Man and what child doesn't want Spider-Man as a Dad? Take care of her Parker, hang up every thread and web and retire for her.

She dies.

The 'amazing' Spider-Man spends a month as a demolition worker. Peter Parker loses his second child and no one is any the wiser. Not the mother of his first, not the woman who raised him, not the people that begin to trust him after so long.

That wasn't about to happen a third time, even if that meant never having children again. I had refused, and didn't care how childish that sounded. I refused. History repeats itself unless you learn from it and remember it – God did I remember. I remembered and I wasn't going to repeat myself anymore.

I went to the hospital covered in scorch marks with a little girl barely breathing, curled into my chest. She was smiling, her arms around my shoulders because for some God awful reason, she looks up to me too.

As calmly as I could, I asked for someone to help her. No yelling, no joking, no repeating myself. I asked once. If no one answered I'd put her in a room myself and do my best, apply what I had learned to help her. My blood was too cold, my heart too still, and the world too slow. Waiting for the reply was an eternity, but if that was what it took I was willing to give it again and again.

A doctor came up and the second the girl left my arms it all rushed up to me, the sound of pregnant silence almost deafening as people stood around wondering what Spider-Man was doing in a hospital.

A police officer tried to stop me as I followed the doctor. They didn't try for long, and I didn't have to break them. I didn't want to, but I didn't really care at that point. After that I watched every proceeding and no one tried to escort me out. Doctors are very, very smart people.

At the end of it all was next to her bed in almost complete silence, save for the beeping and her breathing. I gave them her address, told them to look out for any father, mother, or family that was missing their daughter after a fire, and all the while I was planning. If she had no family I had the money. If she needed help,I would pay for it out of my own pocket.

See? I learned. I could do that now. Parker: 1; History: kiss the spideriest part of my ass.

…

Maya had a family. They had insurance. Her father, mother, and baby brother arrived to see me holding her hand, my mask peeled back to show a tired smile. That was all she could do. Her eyes were open but she was too weak to do anything but smile, and that was enough. It was familiar. Not my daughter, but close. Very close. Too close.

Her father cried as he hugged me, and her mother hugged me as she wept. And the baby boy…Ricardo, of course, smiled this toothless, bright smile, and that felt nice.

I would handle everything. I helped back the costs for the reconstruction of the entire building, gave them a new home, anything, per Parker Industries future reputation of being utilitarian and looking out for the little guy. It gave us a good start.

I attended every birthday they had even when people thought I was just a guy in a costume and the kids were too old for that. And though I couldn't understand what the significance of a picture of me was, I couldn't say no to little Maya. The way her eyes lit up when I said yes was the highlight of my night. I still have my photo copy of her smile. It's on my fridge.

So, day saved. Family reunited. All good.

Except it wasn't.

I crawled through the window of her room and said goodbye. For the hundredth time her parents thanked me, their little baby boy giving me an excited wave with bright eyes. It felt good, and though I can always function without, it helped a lot.

That warm feeling kept my heart from freezing over as I left. My night wasn't over. Little needling thoughts, that patented Peter Parker process, were on me in a second. I hadn't seen them in a while and this was not a reunion I was waiting for with bated breath.

You could have gotten there sooner.

I couldn't have. A webline from my wrist and I was swinging away, a part of my mask melting back so I exhale tiredly.

You could have moved faster. Could have been better.

I did the best I could when I could, I thought back as I soared through the air.

You almost damned a child to death because you wanted to have sex. This is your fault.

I did. I couldn't have known. I have a life too. I can't save everyone.

You can try!

That is a very, very stupid idea.

How many people have to lose theirs so you can have yours? You don't deserve anything good. You're selfish, Parker, you always have been. Ben is dead because of you, your children are dead because of you, everyone you love is-

Oh, shut the fuck up.

This was my problem, and I was done with it. I couldn't have known that while I was busy having sex, some poor kid was stuck in a burning building blocks away. If I had, of course I wouldn't have been getting my dick wet, but I couldn't be everywhere, it wasn't my fault, and I had done the best I could, when I could, and if the world wanted anything more, it could find someone else and kiss my ass!

That didn't make me feel any better. Fortunately, I wasn't feeling any worse. Like I said: "Mean defense."

The thoughts that I was intent on living without returned. You were getting your dick wet while a child's home was burning down around her.

I was.

Burning alive is painful, isn't it?

It is.

You could have been on patrol. You could have been-

God in heaven, I had done the best that I could, I had saved the day, because that's what I do. And I would do it over again, and again, and again. I have a life. I deserve to enjoy it, and I better because my life took me away from my death.

I effectively told what remained of Peter Parker's old habits to go fuck themselves. It felt good. I was getting a headache arguing with them, and was extremely close to punching myself in the face.

Happy thoughts, Parker.

…

It was my fault, wasn't it? In some small way, it could have been linked back to me. I'm man enough to admit that. It's the only way to move ahead. I am not a child. It was my fault. I fixed it. Problem settled. I still felt no better because the feeling coiling in my stomach was cold, and it was angry.

Happy thoughts.

But it was unsatisfied by a day that was saved. It wanted closure, vindication. I wanted to keep moving forward, to look forward to the day I could go home and see my daughters again, my family, but in the meantime to enjoy my new life. It wanted Felicia to answer for what she had done.

The haze over my judgment that used to pop up when it came to those I cared for was nowhere to be found and I had no such compunction to deny what happened. Felicia had done this, I had seen her, felt her, and the only question on my mind was why.

Three guesses, first two don't count.

Octavius.

Happy thoughts.

Felicia Hardy was not a good girl, but she was a good, bad girl. She used to be. She was a good person at heart, which she did have, and I cared for her so, so much despite our less than close history of her holding me back at arm's length and loving only one part of me.

Two parts of me. …Four.

But she also knew how to hold a grudge, and as preposterous as the prospect seemed to the side of myself that said Felicia couldn't have done it, I connected the dots and saw the picture. Otto had wronged her, and she remembered. And she thought he was me.

I could hear Kaine already. "Peter, what the fu-, no, you know what? I'm glad I'm not you anymore, for fuck's sake."

I scoured the city for her. Felicia had laid a trap for me… because she was punched. Because she felt wronged. She had damned a child because of all of this. All because of Otto.

The fact that he was suffering in literal nothingness wasn't a bit of a relief to me. I wanted his bones in my grasp as they crunched. Like he had done to me when he was in my body and I, in his. Like Felicia's nose had underneath his fist. Nonexistence wasn't good, or terrible enough for him.

My anger wasn't limited to one direction. Bitterness rose up in my throat. Cry me a river, Felicia. I watched my life get broken down into pieces and my relationships betrayed, my faith in those I trusted my life with not just questioned, but become laughable. She lost some teeth and set a trap for me. Because of Otto.

In my tunnel-vision, I don't know when he appeared, but soon I could tell Miguel was swinging beside me, appearing to my spider-sense as a friendly. A single set of thwips didn't do anything to bring me out. Then another, frantic, excited, unskilled. Voices. Miguel and… Anya, Spider-Girl, because who else had organic webbing?

Kaine. Another bridge burned thanks to Otto, and another fan to the flames, and he wasn't coming back. I had yet to find him.

I ignored them, their voices muffled and bickering and unimportant to me, entering one ear and exiting the other. They couldn't hope to keep up with me for long either, though they tried.

I didn't care about anything but finding Felicia. I was knee deep in a cold feeling that froze my core over. Eventually I couldn't hear them, couldn't hear what I realized was them trying to talk to me. They faded from my spider-sense's range, which I noted had gotten larger with use. That was good because I was scouring like a hawk for that one familiar blip, that chirp of recognition, that feeling I got in the burning building. For Felicia. It didn't take long for me to find her. She was waiting.

She could keep waiting.

Experience is a wonderful thing, especially in RPGs. The more you have the closer you are to leveling up. With mine, I was far and away from that green, level 1 Spider-Guy. I knew the score, I knew the exploits and how to play the game. What to do when you get trapped, ambushed, tricked, bamboozled, or pissed off. All collected in Super-Villainy 101: The Spider-Man Edition.

Now, Felicia had taken cues from that book in spades. Lesson 1: It's a bad idea to go headfirst in any situation, especially without spider-senses, spider-reflexes, spider-speed, and spider-handsomeness, all reasons why I had been hesitant about Miguel and Anya working alongside me. They had no spider-sense and that made everything that much more dangerous. Miguel had accelerated vision and Anya had spider-cuteness, but it's just not enough.

Lesson 2: Never let the bad guy know you're on to him. Play the fool, the jokester, the buffoon. The drunken barfly or the underdog. Not only does it make it so much easier to get the upper hand against them, criminallyso against those arrogant types, but it makes victory that much sweeter. The look on their face is hilarious and a good meal for your pride, if it's wounded.

Lesson 3: Stealth. I owned it when I felt like it. No one saw me when I didn't want to be seen. With my suit's capabilities it was overkill, Logan wouldn't even be able to smell me, and Felicia never saw me coming.

She was playing the part so well. That smug look on her face as she waited for the hero to show up in a pre-determined place looked almost rehearsed. I could imagine her standing in front of her mirror, naked as the day she was born and proud of her body, practicing that satisfied look.

I was almost marginally impressed. Did she think she was a punch-clock villain? What did she thinkwas going to happen? Banter, and then a commercial break?

I swung by her, pretending to not see her and her smirk grew. I doubled back behind and engaged the stealth functions and watched as the smirk began to fade, giving way to frustration. When she looked around on that lone rooftop, I was already behind her, and observed.

Her hair was as white as it had been but her stance was different, aggressive instead of coy and seductive. Her costume was different: the white, fluffy mane that I'd come to recognize as the Black Cat's signature look was gone, and in its place was a look that sent a different message. Namely, "What is the purpose of having a belt this big?" It went all the way to her legs. She probably tripped a lot with it. Cats are clumsy.

Her cleavage was zipped up by a leather jacket and her fingertips glinted dangerously with sharp claws, so I knew she meant business. I remembered cat puns galore, and had enough of them fighting her future self/clone in 2099.

But for the both of us here, there was no amusement, no fondness, and no attraction. I was angry, at Felicia, and that was not something I was used to. Not when she refused to sleep with me without my mask, not when she sold my blood for her own pockets, never. Because she, despite everything, was good. She cared for me, once. For Spider-Man. This freezing feeling of rage now threatened to consume me.

Never Felicia. She had been there for me through so much. Saved my life when she wasn't asked, stood at my side implicitly when no one else would, fought with me when it was far more dangerous for her to than not. She wasn't always this way. This didn't make sense. I was confused, at war with myself. She's mind-controlled, she's not herself.

She is.

You know what that's like. This isn't her, it couldn't be. A clone, a spell, a robot or alien, anything. Don't jump to conclusions, Parker. You know what it's like to be blamed for things you didn't do.

I do. Over a decade of experience for all of that. If anyone is good at doing the reverse of what Logan does, it's me, and I reeled in the anger, closed my eyes, and looked to my spider-sense. Please be wrong.

A negative ping.

For what it's worth, I think my spider-sense sounded regretful. Regretful, but not wrong. Of course it wasn't. Aside from magic mojo, my spider-sense doesn't lie. It never lied. It could be a bit overprotective, it could be confused and driven into overdrive where I couldn't understand it, but not now. Not here in this calm, cool, coasting glacier of… anger? Disappointment. Bemusement.

It was a whisper that sounded vaguely of Felicia Hardy. Images and history, and as true as the day is blue, it felt Felicia, registered her. So familiar, so right. So wrong.

So now what? I was ready to have torn into whoever used Felicia like this, whoever had controlled her, but not her, not Felicia. Never Felicia. I couldn't. The thought made me clammy and disgusted. Felicia was important to me, the man who had done this to her was already more than dead, but that wasn't good enough.

All I could do was wish for him to be back so I could crush his balls until he died again, and bring him back so I could do it again, and again, and again. I'd have to settle for hoping he was getting the fattest, prickliest pineapple and evergreen sapling shoved so far up his ass in nonexistence, with a pitchfork, that he'd feel them in his throat.

Felicia's lips curled back in a growl of annoyance. Some of her teeth were gone. Distantly, I surmised that she was likely going to make that a point of contention with me and rub it in my face. "Look what you've done to me!" and so on. Her future-self had done the same thing and Felicia, if nothing else, was always true to herself.

I snarled. Felicia whirled around with a slash, ready to attack at a hair's notice and I stopped her arm in its tracks with a stone-like parry. At the speed her arm was going it buckled and snapped under the force as if it had just whacked into a brick wall and she cried out, but I felt nothing. I couldn't. I couldn't blink, couldn't speak. My hand snapped out and met soft breasts, but there was no pleasure in this. She slammed into the brick wall behind her, the entrance to the building, trying to collect and defend herself and finding nothing but open air.

Waiting for me, waiting to attack me, she was obviously not cognizant enough to recall that I was smart enough to build a suit that made me completely, utterly invisible to both eye and ear. Anger had made her stupid, and anger also makes you incredibly shortsighted. I thought Felicia Hardy was better than that. Apparently I was wrong.

Anger had driven the man who used to be Peter Parker to insanity and made him spend years chasing after himself to kill him. It clouded Kaine's eyes and made him loathe Ben. It corrupted the symbiote's… feelings into something that made it hate me enough to terrorize and attempt to murder those I cared about.

What had it made me do? What would it make me do? I wasn't at this point, I knew how to control my anger just as well as my strength. I wasn't Brock, I learned from Kaine, I wasn't Logan.

But then Leah's face flashed before my eyes. Maya. Their looks of adoration and relief and joy. The hospital again. One in the cold, one hot. One breathing, one not.

The world slowed, my spider-sense silent, like a lone light and unmoving, but calming. I was better than this. You saved the day, Parker, again. No surprise, have a pat on the back. Your folks are so proud.

I saved Maya. I couldn't save Leah but that was fine, she was safe, she was happy, she was waiting for me. I was better than this. If I wasn't, I would be. Finally, I was… I knew better… and that made me feel better.

I deactivated the stealth functions of my suit that muted all sound I could make, and as I spoke, my voice was as slow as a glacier and twice as cold. "I am going to give you one chance to explain yourself, Felicia. Just one."

A brief flash of recognition flashed in her eyes before her expression twisted in rage. Her foot lashed out in a snap that'd have a professional fighter on the ropes, but it was nothing to me. As slow as molasses and twice as weak.

Her leg hit air, it hit something solid and impacted painfully, for her. Superhuman durability can be a right bitch to stupid, angry people, but stupidity is its own punishment. I shook my head. "Alright then."

I wasn't about to let this escalate. Felicia cried out but was cut off by the webbing that hit her square in the forehead, knocking her back with the force of a thrown billiard ball. A following ball of impact webbing hit her in the arm, expanding on impact and dragging her straight to the wall from force alone. She smacked into the brick wall, reeling.

I briefly and clinically inspected her leg, but my spider-sense knew it wasn't broken. I knew, too. Felicia was too skilled, too experienced, to not know how to roll with her kicks. She was obviously too angry to care, though. It was injured, but not broken. I could see the flash of doubt on her face. Was this a good plan?

Hm… No. Any super-villain out there who involves children in their plots might as well sign their ass over to me, because I will be one of the first in line. It wasn't a good plan, and Felicia Hardy was obviously no exception, her relationship with me would be of no help, and she was starting to realize that.

Felicia made a valiant effort to acrobatically swing up the wall and wrench her arm free, testing the durability of the webbing and finding herself wanting. The webbing looked unimpressive, simple, and delicate. It was faint and only now that it was in a wad of impact webbing did it look tactile, but my webbing is a lot stronger than people give it credit for - it doesn't get ripped like paper by anyone but the really damned strong, and it was only stronger now. Its adhesiveness is just as good, and unless Felicia had enough strength to tear the bricks from their very foundation before she tore her muscles trying, she was stuck and done.

She tugged and wrenched and yanked and pulled until finally she tired herself out. I watched her fall gracelessly, what finesse she could muster leaving in the face of her injured leg. She fell as a heap, her leg buckling with a cry of protest that almost gave me pause as she tried to get back up, stubborn as always.

I had missed her. Had. All the while she looked ahead through the mess of her hair, air blowing through the gap in her teeth and nose like a bull in a red room, forcing me to acknowledge just how our reunion was going, and why.

She thought she was looking at me, but I wasn't there. It was second nature for me. Felicia could snort all she wanted but I was shaking my head in disappointment. Not at myself, at my luck, but at hers. At Otto Octavius, for all the good it did me. Atlas can rage against the world for its injustices all he wants, but it means nothing until he shrugs. I shrugged.

"I'm right here, Cat," I said softly. I deactivated the stealth function and my suit sprinkled into existence like water. She whipped her head to me and glared anew, but that look of surprise on her face that preceded this did not add to the 'super deadly femme fatale' look.

"You," she seethed. I'd have been surprised by her vehemence if I felt like caring. I could have been five inches from her face and she could do nothing. Past that, I was too cold, frozen with a cocktail of apathetic emotion. At everything and everyone. All because of Otto.

"It's me," I said. The voice of the CEO was there. Dry, sarcastic, caustic, and patronizing. I reveled in it because it kept me stable, even though it was another thing on my plate. "And you're here. Would you like to know why?"

"Because history has a way of repeating itself," she spat. "Come to bag the villain again, Spider?"

"Oh, you have no idea about history," I snapped, the ice cracking for only a second.

A humorless laugh left my throat, sounding a little manic. There was a joke in there, about me being a teacher. I ignored it. "I'm here because of you, Felicia. Because you set a trap for me. Are you thinking about a change in career?"

She seemed to smile a smug smile, but it was crinkled and twisted into a toothy sneer that showed just what had happened to her teeth. Her look was just as bemusing as Carnage's maw and I stared her down all the same.

"Poor little spider, always so gullible! Can't help but play the hero, can you? Turn in the big bad criminal," her voice sweetened to a sultry tone, as if she wasn't were she was, toothless and twitching with ferocity. "And you fell for it."

She laughed bitterly. She was trying to get under my skin. It was Felicia, alright. In the future she had done the same thing. She had twisted my emotions and tortured me with them, with my guilt, and got off on it.

At the moment, I questioned my taste in women. Still, that Felicia then, and this Felicia now, forgot who exactly they were dealing with. Being an industrial grade irritant is my trademark. Now all I wanted to do was make her feel stupid and the only one she had to blame was herself.

"Bravo Cat, you've copied just about every fledgling super-villain who wanted my attention there ever was. You're just as successful. Welcome to amateur hour, Felicia. Don't let the door hit you on the way out and make sure not to quit your day job."

She thrashed against the bindings. It was my turn to sound sweet. "Oh, too soon?"

I watched her go back to that snarl again with a cold gaze. "It's pathetic, really. What did you plan to do, Felicia? You never could beat me, Cat. Did you plan to sneak up on me? Kill me? Is that what this is?" I wrenched her hand up and shook it, the sharp metal claws at her finger tips glinting like knives in the moonlight. "Are you a big, bad, 'super-villain' now?" I repeated with all of the interest someone would give a dimwitted child, the CEO's voice overwriting my own. "Did you want to get caught by the big, bad, Spider-Man, too? Poor, poor Kitty-Cat."

That set something off in her. She thrashed and writhed in vain at the restraints, screeching. "You ruined my life!"

"Join the club," I hissed, to her confusion. I got in close, uncaring, my voice quiet. "You set a building on fire, Felicia," I said softly, quietly, before I snarled. "There was a CHILD IN THERE!"

For all it does, anger is a fair-weather friend. Rather than letting it blow me up like a car in a drag race, I obtain far more satisfaction in reigning it in and letting it out in controlled bursts, otherwise then it's gone, leaving behind regret, a broken vehicle, and me feeling stupid.

Felicia had never seen me yell so loud, and I hadn't done so in a long time. Not since Mattie, Cassandra, and Kaine's death. My voice was tested and my throat protested. It was soon raw, hoarse, and stripped dry from the air that left my lungs. I could hear it echo and reverberate and birds fluttered off in the silence that followed. She flinched, suddenly aware of the fact that her being restrained and my being significantly unpleased was not good for her.

I like to think it took some of her stupid away, but it was probably fear. A scaredy Cat was fine too.

She blinked dumbly and frantically at me, trying to edge away but the webbing wouldn't let her. I backed away and started to pace. "Third floor, closet of her bedroom," I said softly. My foot impacted into the roof, breaking through it like it was a corn chip. "A little girl cowering in there while smoke flooded the place. Because of you, Felicia."

I didn't think Felicia was a monster, just stupid. To see her eyes widened in horror brought me a perverse satisfaction that was in no small part relief. "No!" She screamed. "I evacuated the building, I couldn't, I-" she shook her head and snarled at me, "It's your fault! You made me do this!" Her following sob of regret made me too pleased for it to be comfortable. "No."

I could have eased her conscience, but I didn't. I clapped instead, feeling too much like the CEO himself to not acknowledge that I had, if only for the moment, become him, and I had no qualms about that. "Bravo, Felicia. You've gotten another super-villain accolade. Collateral damage; you've condemned an innocent to death. I am so proud." I sighed, and she flinched away, shrinking into herself pathetically.

"And I am thoroughly disgusted by you. What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I roared. "She could have died, Felicia!" She looked up at me, recognition in her eyes. Her breath hitched. I smiled a rictus smile that she couldn't see. "Yes, Felicia, while playing the hero, I saved someone's life. Because that is what I do," I sneered.

She gulped, her eyes darting. "I didn't see- I didn't, couldn't know, I-"

"Why, Felicia? Why couldn't you?!" I asked breathlessly. I was pacing furiously, taking my anger out on the brick wall behind her. Underneath my fist a good portion of the wall went flying, gouged out and discarded like a house of cards. "Because you were angry? At me? Because it 'was my fault'? Fucking explain that to me, Felicia. You set a building on fire to get back at 'me'? I know 'a woman scorned' is a popular saying, but this is bullshit."

Felicia said nothing, and looked down with all of the realization a child has when she realizes that she has fucked up. I heaved, my nostrils flaring behind the mask and ground my foot so hard into the roof, but it ended up gouging through concrete and I tore it out and kept walking.

Don't take it out on her, Parker, never her, never Felicia. Felicia wouldn't have done this. Not the Felicia I knew. Never the Felicia I knew.

…Right?

The thoughts came back, smug and annoying as always. This is all your fault, anyway.

Oy vey. Mother Mary, Dad, Uncle Ben, everyone.

"You betrayed me," she whispered eventually, swallowing. She looked up and I could see tears streaming down her face profusely, eyes glistening and her face stuck between a twitching, weak snarl and seconds away from crumbling into a full on weep. "You betrayed me."

The look on her face isn't one I'd ever forget. Heartbreak. It's what reminds me of what she must have felt. I didn't want to care, or see that, at that moment. She had no excuse. None. This wasn't myfault.

But if it was, I'd own up to it. My responsibility to keep moving forward.

"No, Felicia," I said, my voice soft and quiet. I reached to take my mask off. Cold air greeted my face and I held it limply in my hands, but it ended up falling anyway. "I could never betray you."

As she sucked in breath, I could see the memories coming back to her.

With as much as I learned, it was a given that I had done some dumb fucking things over the years. It's understandable. No onetaught me, guided me, or helped me, I was on my own from the get go and out in the cold for years. No team or anyone to rely on, no one trusted me. I won't complain because it won't do me any good.

Those times are behind me, but revealing my identity to the world was one of the dumbest things I had ever done, and it was the result of being taken in by a teacher. Peter Parker loved that, he finally had someone to look up to. As it turned out, I was better off by myself.

Parker, I had learned, could be known as the famous professional fighter; the Bombastic Bag-Man who was beloved by New York; Ricochet, the man who obtained the key to the city and was the adopted son of J. Jonah Jameson; Dusk, the man who the police called for help in hostage situations; all of this in any other universe where Spider-Man didn't exist.

But Peter Parker, Spider-Man? The worst thing he could do to himself is let the world know he was Spider-Man, the vigilante. Kind of unfair, really, but I won't complain. I could still hear the CEO say, "The one, the only, accept no substitutes."

Revealing myself to the world was one of my greatest mistakes. It put a target on everyone from my friends, some who turned their backs on me, to my family, to people I barely knew, to even the children I had taught. It was a mistake so great, in fact, it took magic to roll back the clock.

Doctor Strange was there for me, though, and it was that event that cemented my belief, my full on commitment to magic, Harry Potter jokes aside. Strange didn't just turn back the clock, he made it so that no one remembered who Spider-Man was. He folded the timeline on itself, because being the Sorcerer Supreme is more than just a fancy title. Spider-Man's identity faded like marker on a whiteboard, there one moment, gone the next.

Only, it came with a caveat because causality is a very big bitch. My abilities that came from the Other, I noticed afterward, were gone, and if anyone close to him ever came to the conclusion that Parker was Spider-Man, they would remember everything, like poking a hole through several folded pages in a book, seeing everything in-between.

Before I died only a few people found out – the Fantastic Four and Carlie Cooper, who had been so angry that she dumped me. Talk about self-centered.

There was a distinct look that accompanied this experience. A blank face for several seconds, then a blink, every time. If there was a sound to accompany this look, it'd be closer to the sound of glass opening. Felicia was experiencing it all.

She jumped in surprise as if a window just broke in front of her face. Her face twisted up, halfway caught between a smile and an absent that gave way to a confused sob as reality set in. She bit her lip. Hard, so hard, in fact, I could see the pearl of blood slowly start to stain what teeth she still had. I hissed – that was something I was already planning to fix.

Felicia's voice was breathless. "Peter?" She asked, her breath hitching.

The night came rushing up to me and I felt more tired than I had in a while. My shoulders slumped a little, and my face felt like stone. "Nice to see you, Party-Hardy."

Her eyes flit back in forth, at first in disbelief, then recognition, and finally recollection as, I suppose, every memory we had of us together with no masks or barriers began to play back for her. They did for me too, but I was far too tired for it. I rolled my eyes at how shallow she had become, or had been, if she never knew me. Without the intimacy of knowing Peter Parker, Felicia had regressed into the catburglar I had met years ago. There was no growth, she hadn't changed.

I severely doubted that knowing me was that important because I didn't think I was that influential, but one thing was for sure: out of the two of them, I preferred the Felicia who knew me, and not just the webhead. She never would have done this. She was smart, kind, loyal to death, and a bad good girl rather than a good bad girl.

Then I realized that her pain could have been amplified. She knew and felt it was me now, and still had the bitter rage and resentment fighting for dominance, telling her I had betrayed her. That I treated her like trash, like a common criminal, and left her behind after everything we had been through.

Peter Parker and Felicia Hardy against the world? Fuck that, he didn't need her anymore. He abandoned her because she was useless.

I put a stop to that line before it could hurt her any further. Anger fought with compassion, the former disgusted me while the latter annoyed me, yet I still made my choice. I knew better. I knew Felicia. This Felicia. I was tired, and sounded so old to my own ears I wondered if I had turned into the CEO. It'd be an interesting change of pace.

"Skrulls, clones, robots, mind control; alternate universe counterparts, the Chameleon, not to mention imposters," I drawled. "All ways of taking someone, replacing someone, and impersonating someone. And you didn't consider a single damn one of them, did you?"

"How could I ever?" She snapped. "I loved you, Spider! Do you know how it feels to be betrayed like that?"

I scoffed. Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant, Sara Bailey, Carlie Cooper, hell, even Felicia minutes before. I was so sure it couldn't be her I questioned the integrity of my spider-sense. "Yes, I do." I said gently, my voice tired. She quieted. "I know exactly what being betrayed and abandoned feels like, Felicia. How it feels to be let down."

"Then you can understand why I-"

"No, I can't," I said patiently. "I can't understand how you could be so monumentally stupid that you would-"

"Because I. Love. You." She spat. Felicia had always been passionate, but it still wasn't clicking for me.

I took a deep breath. "Then you should have trusted me." I winced inwardly, it was hardly her fault. It was mine. If she had known, had the presence of mind to consider that Peter Parker would never hurt her like that, then she would have considered. …Right?

Right.

Right?

I had made a mistake that I corrected, the lives of every person I knew were on the line because of me. From old classmates to the children I oversaw. Having Felicia Hardy forget Peter Parker was a price I was willing to pay, in hindsight. At the time, what Parker wanted wasn't important. His woes could take a backseat to my 'great' responsibility.

The thought brought up blaring questions in my mind, loud as alarms. Felicia had an excuse, and a damn good one. The Felicia Hardy who knew me and not one half of me would put her life on the line at the drop of a hat for me, for almost anyone. She gave up thieving, became a hero for hire, for me. Because of me, because of all of me.

But what about the Avengers? They knew me just as well. They fought alongside me and I trusted them despite years of a sterling lack of reciprocation. I still did, butmy mistake lay in thinking that I could count on them, that my faith would go unquestioned. Wasn't knowing Spider-Man for years well and good enough? Did they need to know Peter Parker intimately just to tell the difference between Octavius and Spider-Man, or that something was wrong? Because heaven forbid Steve Rogers turned out to be a sleeper agent for HYDRA, or Thor an agent of Ragnarok.

At that moment I was a lot of things, tired most of all. I was heavily, helpfully reminded that I was surrounded by idiots. This, of course, reminded me that I had not one, but two women waiting for me elsewhere, and that now all I wanted to do was sleep.

"Love makes you do stupid things," Felicia said quietly. I agreed wholeheartedly. "I thought, I knew… Knew that you just… You, whoever that was, he left me there. Treated me like I was nothing but a thug, like everything we went through was nothing, like I wasn't good enough."

Otto.

I sighed, and let the last of the anger fall enticing whispers of vindication trailed at me like a lover's embrace and I wanted all of it. I knew I should want none of it, and forced them away. Anger was a real bitch and it turned on me, assaulting me with guilt.

This was all my fault, after all, right? If Felicia had known-

No, Felicia had absolutely zero interest in Peter Parker, such had been our relationship. It was back to our beginnings. She had only cared about Spider-Man since the wipe. Getting his attention, making him jealous. I couldn't have told her if I wanted to without her reeling in disgust and leaving.

That does just as much wonder for a guy's confidence as being forced to have sex with the woman you loved while wearing a mask. To say I had been disillusioned is putting it lightly, and to say I questioned my taste in women, again, is right on the money.

"And now?" I asked as I moved to sit down in front of her.

Her eyes narrowed. "I want to know who it was so I can rip his goddamn dick off," she said dangerously. There was the Felicia I knew.

She smacked her head against the wall in what had to be painful, but she took it as punishment, and I stopped her when she tried to do it again. "A child… God, what was I thinking…"

She couldn't even meet my eyes. Her shame was a palpable, visible thing and it shrouded over her like a miasma. I knew the feeling and didn't care for it in the slightest. Now, just as she had gotten her memories of our time together back I had relived them, and seeing her like this wasn't fun, but I was able to see past that and know that Felicia had messed up royally.

"You must think I'm an idiot." She said, so full of remorse that my heart hurt.

"An idiot doesn't even begin to cover it," I said. "I could make a list of what I think of you right now, Felicia." She flinched back, ashamed, as I had just slapped her, and I pressed on. "You could have killed a child. Fuck that, you could have killed anyone, because you were so angry at me. Because you loved me? I don't want to be able to do that to you, Felicia. I don't want to be able to do that to anyone," I said, but so far I was going three for three for driving women crazy enough to hurt others – a symbiote, my ex, and an obsessed student who stalked me before the wipe. I have that effect of women, apparently. Joy.

Tears freely streaming down her face, she tried to bash her head against the wall again but I held her head and forced her to stop and stared into her eyes. All I wanted to do was hug her and tell her it was going to be okay, but a hug and sweet words wouldn't change anything. Maya could have been burned alive because Felicia felt scorned. Because her love crossed the line over to hate.

Primal weakness against fire aside, the symbiote hadn't done that, though it wasn't much better. The symbiote targeted my loved ones, innocents, and Felicia's machinations had caught an innocent.

I shook my head at the thought of what two of my exes could do together. Spider puns, cat puns, and rough, needy sex, considering. Nothing that couldn't be solved by very, very loud music and a bag of shiny jewelry I'm sure.

She sniffed and looked so pitiful, so heartwrenchingly ineffectual that I was captivated. I saw that look in her eyes. That one I hadn't seen in what felt like years. When she knew me, when she let me get close enough and wouldn't let me go, because I was her hero. It had felt nice.

"You know," she began, voice quivering and her smile twitching like she didn't know how to, "I wanted to make you proud. But me, a hero? Like you? Who was I kidding?"

She closed her eyes. "And then one day I wake up and I can't- I couldn't remember who you were it was like a dream that never happened and- and that all just shattered." She huffed. "I guess that was you?" She asked, giving me a wry look.

"Responsibility is a bitch, Party-Hardy," I returned and smiled, though it barely met my eyes. We laughed all the same.

"Peter, I thought you had… God, I don't know what I thought. It's just… you changed my life and made me want to be better, and then whoever that was made me feel like I was nothing but the worst. Like I had deserved it and everything else was a lie."

I rested my chin on her head and breathed deeply, clenching my teeth so hard I wondered what would crack first, my jaw or my molars. I wrapped my arm around her and rocked her back and forth for what felt like minutes in nothing but silence and she freely wept into me. I had the presence of mind to rip off the webbing from the wall without effort, the legs doing their part to disintegrate the webbing on her person, and her arms wrapped around me like a lifeline.

"You don't deserve that, Felicia." I said quietly. "You never did, and I never could… I never could."

But she heard nothing, and I knew that if I ever saw Otto Octavius again, I was going to make it last. "I'm sorry, I am sorry, so sorry. Sorrysorrysorrysorry…"

I could hear the telltale thwip of a webline in the distance, and then two sets of feet hit the ground on the rooftop. My spider-sense chimed like a doorbell at their arrival. A feminine voice let out a gasp of shock at, what I guessed was the rooftop, or me. I'd done damage. So much for being the environment-friendly superhero.

I watched as Miguel O'Hara and Anya Corazon froze, but didn't move. "I know," I whispered to Felicia. "I know." I closed my eyes. It was turning out to be a long night.

A/N: Should there be a warning for sad, or no?

If you can't tell, I love the spider-sense. A lot. The spider-sense is your friend, and silent, serious Spider-Man is my amazing.

Also, Felicia... Her early traits were never something I like, but I work with what I'm given, though I'm not above cherry picking. I don't like cherries, though.

I'm still shaking my head at what she did, and then there's Silk... Oh boy.

I hope you enjoyed!