Veins and Wires // Peter Parker

Endings and Erased

Early chapter 'cause I want to make someone cry early

Hailey flew through the all too familiar city looking for something. I don't know what. Crime, maybe. She wore my usual suit, the fabric billowing in the wind as she flew through the air, weightless.

After Strange had cast the spell where everyone forgot who Hailey Stark was, it created an interesting reaction in the world. Because he said Stark. Not Martin.

It seemed to work. No one knew who Circuit actually was under the mask now. Not even MJ or Ned since they never met Hailey Stark. But this wasn't a happy ending for her. Sacrifice is necessary for their story.

Pepper, Morgan, Happy, Harley, none of them knew her. It was for the best. Pepper wasn't going to have to go to jail for her existence which meant Morgan wasn't in danger of being taken away. This was for the best. They were safe.

Hailey flew into a hidden alleyway and pressed her arc reactor making her suit retreat back into her chest. She casually walked out of the alley and into the cafe where MJ worked, where she and Ned were waiting for their friend. They smiled welcomingly at her and she returned the smile, walking past a guy who stood right in the middle of the entranceway. Rude.

"Why are you always so late?" MJ started to lecture about keeping them waiting but Hailey simply rolled her eyes at her friend and sat down next to Ned.

"I have a life outside of you two, you do know that right?" Hailey shot back with a playful smirk and MJ glared at her, annoyed at her comebacks. She felt eyes on her and turned her head to see the guy who was still blocking the front staring at her before swiftly trying to hide that fact when she stared back at him. She scrunched my eyebrows together but said nothing, instead turning back to the conversation at hand. She was ignorant to how much he wanted to just hold her.

"Donuts for my fellow engineer," MJ announced, dropping a donut in front of Ned who looked at her blankly.

"Wait, what?"

"MIT, they have the engineers," MJ explained obviously as they both stared at him.

"Oh, right, right, right. I should probably know that," he muttered sheepishly making Hailey crack a smile at his lack of awareness.

"How do you not know that?" Hailey asked with furrowed eyebrows and a smile that played on her lips in amusement but her question was left unanswered.

"Look at you with the school spirit," Ned jabbed toward MJ looking at the donuts iced with the schools' colors.

"Our baby emo is all grown up and feeling emotions other than sadness and anger," Hailey cooed mockingly and she glared at her making her snicker.

"Tell anybody and I will deny it," MJ swore looking at both of us before going to the back to do some work leaving her and Ned to fiddle with their phones. Hailey looked up, feeling eyes on her and the guy who was still in the middle of the entranceway was staring right back at her but quickly looked away when he saw that she noticed.

Everything inside of him was screaming at him to go up to her and tell her everything, make her remember everything, make her remember him.

He wanted to hug his old best friend of so many years and teach him how to do their handshake again and convince him to build their Lego Death Star again for the eleventh time in the last two years. He wanted to tell MJ all the jokes she and he made, how she figured out his secret identity, how she figured out the identity of the smartest person alive who was sitting only five feet away from her.

He didn't.

"Hey, which hat do you think would look best on me?" Ned asked, adjusting his phone screen so Hailey could see a list of pictures of hats on some website though she was only half paying attention, still eyeing the awkward-looking dude. She looked down at his phone for half a second.