Marvel – I am Spiderman

Tuesday they'd talked about the Maggia. Where Rosetti's crew was operating, which blocks to avoid, how long the web-fluid patch on her shoulder had held before she'd needed actual bandages. She'd brought a thermos of coffee and shared it without offering, just unscrewed the cap and handed it to him and took it back when he was done. The coffee was black and too hot and tasted like it came from a machine nobody had cleaned in a while. They'd split it and when it was gone she'd screwed the cap back on and said "You owe me a coffee" and he'd said "I owe you a better coffee" and she'd almost smiled.

Wednesday they'd sat on the tank and said almost nothing. She'd been tired. He'd been tired too. MJ hadn't looked at him at school that day. Cindy's texts had gotten shorter and the knife emoji had graduated to three knife emojis and a period, which was worse than the knives. He hadn't told Felicia about any of that. They'd sat on the water tower and the November cold was the same and the city was the same and neither of them had needed to talk. When she left she'd said "Tomorrow" and he'd said "Yeah" and she'd looked back over her shoulder.

Thursday she was shaking.

He landed on the tank and she was sitting in her usual spot, legs dangling, but her hands were gripping the rim and her knuckles were white through the gloves. The domino mask was on. The grappling hook was coiled beside her. She looked the same as the other two nights except for the shaking. It was in her shoulders and her arms and she was trying to hide it by gripping the tank harder and the gripping was making it worse.

"Walter had another seizure."

Peter sat down. Left the usual space.

"This morning. The nurse called it a grand mal. He was on the floor of the cell for four minutes before anyone came." Her voice was the flat one. "When he woke up he asked for my mother. She's been gone twelve years."

A plane crossed the sky above Chelsea, lights blinking. Peter watched it until the lights went behind a building.

"You know my father," she said. "You know what he did. You know what I do. You know what I sound like when I'm scared." She looked at him. Her eyes were green and steady through the mask and the shaking was still in her arms. "You've seen me without it." A pause. "When I was falling apart. When I couldn't hold it."

He remembered Monday night. The mask pushed up, the eyes that had been crying.

"And I don't know yours," she said. "I don't know your face. I don't know your name. I've been sitting on this water tower with you and you've heard me talk about my father like he's a saint and a criminal and a dying man and I don't even know what color your eyes are."

The wind pressed steady and cold across the tank.

"That's not fair," she said.

"No," Peter said. "It's not."

She looked at him for a long time. Her hands released the tank edge. She sat up straight, shoulders back, and the shaking was still there but she was holding it differently.

Her right hand went to the domino mask. The tips of her gloved fingers found the edge where it pressed against the bridge of her nose. She hooked the edge with two fingers.

She peeled it off slowly. Lifting from the center, the adhesive pulling against her skin and releasing, and the mask came away from her face in a single motion. She held it in her lap with both hands and looked at him. Her shoulders were set and her hands were steady on the mask.

White hair falling loose without the mask to hold it back from her temples. Green eyes, lighter than he'd expected, almost grey-green in the November dark. Pale skin, cold-flushed across her cheeks and the tip of her nose. A scar near her left eyebrow, small, old, healed white. Her mouth was set and her jaw was tight and she was twenty years old and she looked younger than the costume had ever let her look. She was looking straight at him and Peter forgot how breathing worked.

"Felicia," she said. "Hardy."

"Hi, Felicia Hardy."

Her mouth opened a fraction.

"You're staring."

"Sorry."

He didn't stop. Her face was right there without the mask and her eyes were right there and the scar near her eyebrow was right there and the wind was blowing her hair across her cheek and his lungs were doing something approximate to their job but only barely.

She pushed the hair off her cheek. Tucked it behind her ear. The gesture was different without the mask. Smaller. Her fingers behind her ear and then back in her lap with the mask and her face just open and right there.

She didn't tell him to stop.

They sat on the water tower and he looked at her face and she let him. A car alarm went off on Twenty-Second. A fire truck passed on Ninth Avenue with its siren winding up through the intersection. The siren faded and the car alarm stopped and the city went back to its low noise.

"You're not going to tell me yours?"

"Not yet."

"Why?"

"Because then you'll have something to lose."

Her jaw tightened. Her eyes went sharp.

"I already do, you idiot."

She reached for his hand. Her gloved fingers found his gloved fingers and her hand closed around his whole hand. Full grip. Strong. Her palm warm through the fabric and her fingers wrapped around his and she was holding on. He held on back. Her hand was smaller than his in the glove but her grip was solid and the warmth came through the leather and her fingers pressed individually against the back of his hand.

They sat on the water tower holding hands and the city was below them and the cold was around them and neither of them said anything. The wind blew her hair. Her face was in profile now, without the mask, the line of her nose and her jaw and the ear with the hair tucked behind it. She was looking at the skyline and he was looking at her and the hand-hold was warm and full.

She let go when the wind shifted. Stood up. Picked up the grappling hook. Put the domino mask back on, pressing the adhesive against the bridge of her nose.

"Goodnight, Spider."

She fired the hook. The cable caught a building on Twenty-Third and she swung out over the gap, legs tucked, hair streaming. She looked back over her shoulder mid-arc. Through the mask.

Third time.

Peter sat on the water tower. His hand was warm. The grappling hook had left a third rust ring on the tank rim, overlapping the first two.

A pigeon was sleeping on the far side of the tank, head tucked under its wing, puffed against the cold. It hadn't moved during any of it. Peter respected the commitment.

He sat for a while. Three rust rings on the tank. MJ's thumb had been cold two days ago and Cindy's knife emoji was waiting in his phone and Felicia Hardy had just given him her name and held his hand and he didn't have enough answers for any of them.

He swung home. Climbed in through his bedroom window. Ben's light was on down the hall, leaking under the door, and the crossword pen was clicking against the newspaper. The rhythm Peter had learned to sleep through. The sound of Ben working on a word he'd probably gotten wrong and wouldn't notice until morning.

The room smelled like his room. Laundry Ben had folded on the bed. A glass of water on the nightstand May had left before her shift.

He lay in the dark. The pen clicked down the hall.

Felicia Hardy.

He said the name once, quiet, to the ceiling.