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Peter is heading back from Ned's place following an afternoon of looking at notes and catching up on homework assignments he missed during his absence from school. He ended up only really needing to use the notes for history and literature, but the fact that Ned took detailed notes for classes he knew Peter probably wouldn't need notes for, just on the off chance that he actually would need them, served as yet another reminder of what a great friend he has.
He slips through the tiny gaps in the bustling crowd with the ease that comes from practice and longtime familiarity, and his mind starts to wander to the events of the prior week; the reason Ned was sharing notes in the first place.
He was sick for almost seven days straight. Really sick. It felt worse than any flu he's ever had, and there were times when he really, honestly thought he was going to die.
His fever and other symptoms are gone now. He's actually feeling better than he has in a long time, though he has an absolutely ravenous appetite. Part of it is his body trying to make up for a week of fighting off illness, he's sure. The other part…
Peter's whole body ached terribly for several days last week, every inch of him tense and aching and clammy. Muscles he didn't even know existed would suddenly cramp, locking him into involuntary spasms that he could do nothing but grit his teeth against.
He experienced several instances of full-body tremors, though thankfully none of them happened while May was with him. During one of the first ones, he braced himself against a bed post. And when he tried to take his hand away from it afterwards, he couldn't. It was stuck to the pole. So he pulled harder, bracing against it with his forearm and pushing. The pole bent.
Metal bed frames like his are generally made out of steel, he knows, so seeing the warped metal made him freeze, then panic. He unthinkingly tried bending it back into place, and it worked.
That was just the beginning of it. His senses started going crazy soon after that; he would catch snippets of conversation from people on the sidewalk across the street and the squeak of hinges as a neighbor three floors down opened a cabinet and a hundred other sounds he couldn't identify. He could smell the individual spices May was using in a new recipe as she opened their lids and the difference in a load of dishes before and after it was run. The brush of clothing and sheets against his skin itched fiercely and his brain scrambled to keep up with the sudden awareness of each individual thread in the weave.
The light filtering through his blinds and curtains stung his eyes, which had begun to pick up the minuscule bumps and divots that textured the paint on his wall, the scratches on his door handle, the dust motes floating in the air. Their details were sharp, the colors more vivid, and there was something else, something he still can't find the words to describe. It was a color, but at the same time it wasn't; it was something he'd never seen, something not on any color wheel. He has no name for it, and it only appears on certain things in certain lighting.
Like the fever and aches, the overwhelming input has subsided, but the illness left alterations in its wake. His senses still flare unexpectedly from time to time – mostly when his emotions are running high, so he's been trying desperately to stay calm – and the not-color still appears in certain lighting regardless of his emotional state. It's become clear to him by now that the changes are permanent. They're not going away.
The enormity of the situation still strikes Peter out of the blue at least a couple times a day because this is huge.
(And speaking of size, a skinny nerd who hates gym class suddenly developing well-toned limbs and a six-pack definitely isn't a normal occurrence either.)
Of course, Peter would be lying if he said he wasn't enthusiastic about the extra muscle, but if he's being honest, he's also really scared. And not just about all the unnatural changes his body has been going through.
For the most part, famous superpowered people seem to generally be accepted as long as they're not causing trouble, but he's not sure if people leave them alone (outside of standard celebrity attention) because they genuinely don't have a problem with them, or because if anything were to happen to them their fans would notice and kick up a fuss.
Because Peter's also heard rumors about enhanced people just disappearing. Before now he's always dismissed them as just that – rumors. But some part of them must have stuck with him; a sliver of his mind must have believed they could be true, because over the last week, every time May asked him if he needed anything and he thought about telling her how bad things were getting, he would imagine what might happen if she took him to a hospital. Images of scalpels and steel examination tables and faceless, emotionless scientists would flash through his mind, and those images, cliché but horrifying, sent waves of terror that cut off his words before they could leave his mouth, effectively stamping out any mention of his worsening symptoms.
Peter is so wrapped up in his thoughts that he jumps as a sharp prickle races up the back of his neck and he has the sudden urge to run.
His head snaps up from looking at the ground, and he realizes his subconscious has somehow picked a route home that's taking him down a back alley. The sun has started to set, shrouding the narrow, isolated space in deep shadows, and Peter feels like one of those horror movie extras who's too stupid to live. He's walked to and from Ned's place hundreds of times before, so how has he ended up wandering in here?
Brick walls mute much of the constant noise of the city, allowing Peter to hear his breathing accelerate along with the pace of his steps. He turns a corner and halts. His stomach sinks at the sight of another brick wall directly ahead. It's a dead end.
The sound of shoes scuffing against asphalt comes from the section of alley he's just left, and goosebumps prickle along his arms.
For several seconds he can do nothing but stand there, frozen, staring at the wall and mentally shouting at his body to move as the footsteps draw closer. Finally, his stiff limbs cooperate with him, but an instant before he can turn to run, meaty fingers are suddenly clenching around his wrist. In the same movement his arm is tugged sharply behind his back and he's thrown against unforgiving brick. His mouth flies open in an aborted gasp as the air is forced from his lungs.
"Now what's a cute little thing like you doing out here at this hour?" Asks a rumbling baritone, an insidious grin woven into its inflections.
Icy fear trickles down Peter's spine. He squirms in the man's tight grasp, but the awkward position makes it difficult to get any leverage and he still feels weak from having the wind knocked from him. He grunts at the strain.
"Let go of me!" He demands breathlessly.
The voice chuckles.
"Why would I do that? I just caught you," it says. Hot breath and the coarse chafing of a beard sweep harshly against Peter's ear.
He shudders, the fine hairs all across his body prickling and standing straight up as something in him shrieks, wild and angry and desperate, and suddenly he's ripping himself away from the tight grip as though it's nothing. The man stumbles and tries to regain his balance, and Peter swings his arm out in a vicious swipe that slashes through the air directly in front of a bearded face.
A scream echoes off the walls of the alley, and Peter skitters back, pupils blown wide and pulse thundering in his ears as terror and the cacophony of his flaring senses threaten to overwhelm him. The man is clawing at his eyes and sobbing, stumbling aimlessly until his foot catches on a sagging box and he tumbles to the filthy ground. Peter seizes the opportunity and skirts past him, scrambling around the corner and bolting for the mouth of the alley.
Peter flings the front door open and shuts it quickly behind him, his hands fumbling briefly with the lock on the knob before moving to the deadbolt. He releases a stuttering breath and squeezes his eyes shut as it clicks into place.
"Hey Peter!"
He jumps, eyes flying open before recognizing the voice drifting from the kitchen as May's.
"Did you have a good time at Ned's?" She continues. Her casual tone feels jarring and unnatural as his hands tremble uncontrollably at his sides. "I know he's been worried and was really looking forward to seeing you again, and I'm sure you've been wanting to see him too. I hope you at least got some of your homework done while you were there, though. You did, right?"
Peter startles at the direct question. He breathes in, swallows, tries to clear his throat but the lump in it chokes the attempt and produces nothing but a faint wheeze. He swallows again.
"Peter?"
He can hear her moving from the kitchen to the front hallway, and when she comes into view he sees that her brow is furrowed in concern.
"Honey, what's wrong?"
"I…" he forces out, lips moving soundlessly for a moment. "I-I…"
He can't tell her, he realizes. How is he supposed to tell her he took on someone twice his size and won – especially when he's still not sure how he did it himself. And even if he left that part out and just told her someone tried attacking him, she would call the police, and if they actually manage to catch the guy he'll tell them about Peter and then Peter will disappear to an underground lab somewhere for the rest of his life and May will be left all alone—
"I-It's nothing, I was just… walking home and thought that, uh, that there was someone following me. There wasn't!" He quickly adds when May's eyes widen in alarm, "It was just, you know. The dark. Shadows making me paranoid. I'm sorry, it's stupid."
"Peter," May says gently, pulling him into a hug. "Being rattled after you thought someone was following you is not stupid. Nothing that upsets you this much is stupid, no matter what it is, okay?" Peter nods against her shoulder.
"Okay," he breathes. He feels her give a responding nod. After another few seconds of letting her hug settle his nerves, he pulls back and gives her a small smile. "Thanks, May."
Then his hairs prick, and a moment later the smile slides from his face when he smells smoke.
"Uh, May?" He says. "I think dinner's burning."
A curse slips past May's lips without notice as she dashes back into the kitchen. Peter runs into the living room, on autopilot as he goes through the familiar motions of turning on the fan and opening windows. Their efforts are rendered useless when the smoke detector goes off a few seconds later.
Peter grimaces at the piercing wail of the alarm, and the beginnings of a headache are already forming behind his eyes before a wordless shriek rises from the downstairs unit, signaling the start of their neighbor Ms. Cài's inevitable conniption.
As soon as there's nothing more that can be done in the kitchen May retreats to the living room, which is further from the cacophony of both the alarm and Ms. Cài and thus is just slightly more tolerable.
The alarm cuts off a short time later, but the old woman seemingly doesn't notice, continuing right on with her tirade.
"So." May starts, ignoring the muffled screaming with practiced ease. She reaches for the drawer in the couch side table where their admittedly ridiculous stash of takeout menus resides. "Takeout?"
Peter nods with a smile.
"Takeout."
May takes a seat on the couch with a long exhale, and Peter plops down next to her. The two of them flip briefly through menus before settling on one of the cheaper of their regular orders, and May takes out her phone. Peter does his best to focus on the cadence and rhythm of her voice as she places their order, rather than on the banshee in the unit below them.
May ends the call and, as if on cue, Ms. Cài's enraged shouting suddenly reaches a new pitch, the old woman slipping into Cantonese and pounding a broomstick against her ceiling.
Peter blinks at May, startled for a moment, before a grin slowly overtakes his face. He finds himself laughing abruptly. This – Ms. Cài screeching at them through the walls while they wait for takeout to arrive after yet another one of May's culinary disasters – is just so normal. The whole evening has been a series of extremes that leaves him with watering eyes and a body that shakes with helpless giggles.
Then a warm hand rests on his shoulder and begins sketching a simple, comforting pattern, from shoulder to elbow and back up again. The gentle glide of May's fingers has him melting into her side, and he's too exhausted to feel any embarrassment over the way he tucks his cheek against her shoulder like a little kid.
Her warmth and scent and caring presence lull him into a semiconscious haze, where the world's sharp edges are dulled and none of his thoughts can truly touch him. Even Ms. Cài's shouting seems muffled to the point where it no longer grates so harshly against his senses.
The knowledge is still there, of course, at the back of his head: he's going to have to deal with the fallout of the evening's events sooner or later. He knows his own mind too well to fool himself into thinking this is something he'll be able to brush off so easily.
But for now his thoughts are relatively quiet, and he'll take the reprieve. Everything else can at least wait until tomorrow.