Sorry for the late update! My internet went out
You needed to punch something.
It wasn't like you to try and solve your problems with your fists, but you were almost drowning in the emotions you were feeling, and fighting seemed like the only option viable to you through the deprecation.
You were hasty as you suited up. For the first time since you had donned the first Spider-Woman costume, you hated the way it felt. You took a deep breath as the material of the Stark suit compressed around you, feeling like it was too tight. Too clingy. Like it was hard to breathe. But you ignored the feeling as you slammed your window up. You barely gave Karen the time the A.I. needed to calibrate before you were swinging away from your home.
Pain shot through your arm as you used the damaged muscles, irritating the bruise, but you didn't care about that either. The only thing running through your brain was the voice telling you how stupid you've been. So you tuned out the pain, your driving intent anger and the want to forget about your mistakes for a while.
Going on patrol the way you felt was irrational. That was something you were acutely aware of, despite the fact that you were breaking the promise you made to yourself that you wouldn't make an appearance as Spider-Woman until you were fit to fight without any hindrances--namely, your arm. It would have back to normal in a day or so if you hadn't interrupted the healing process. If things hadn't happened the way they did.
But here you were, swinging away from your house as fast as your surroundings would let you. Your voice was rough and low from the sobs you'd shed earlier as you commanded Karen to open the hack that allowed you to listen in to the police channels. You wanted something big. Something you could use as a distraction.
It's been hours since you let Peter leave. Since you let him wait outside your doorstep for his uncle to pick him up. Since you sat on the ground to your back to the front door, the boy doing the same on the opposite side. Your tears fell in rhythm.
He didn't tell you. Peter didn't have to. You knew he was secretly waiting for you to open the door. To pull him back in and tell him everything. But you didn't. You couldn't.
In the time it took for Ben's car to roll into the driveway, you had tried to find the right words to piece together. A way to tell Peter exactly what was going on. The real reason why you were hiding things from him. Hiding Spider-Woman. But every scenario ended with him being more hurt than he already was as you played them out in your head, and you didn't know if you could take any more heartbreak. Peter didn't deserve it.
You had listened as Peter sniffed and wiped his eyes before trudging to his uncle's car. Ben had asked him what was wrong, but Peter stayed silent. The car kept still and running for the entirety of three minutes as Ben waited to be sure, giving the boy a chance to speak. You knew it had to be obvious something had happened between the two of you, and you wouldn't be surprised if the man wanted to try to help your relationship before it was beyond saving.
You've always liked Ben. He was a good man.
Then the tires had crunched on the gravel, the car engine rumbling as they pulled away. Silent. The farther they went, you could feel Peter slipping from you in more ways than one. Feel the wedge that was splitting the two of you apart in the first place being hammered down even further, creating more cracks that spidered through the structure of your friendship.
You were losing him. And it was your fault.
That night, you ignored your uncle as you entered the house again around midnight. You were in regular clothes, your suit in a backpack you kept hidden outside in case of emergencies to hide your identity from him. Even though at this point, you weren't exactly hiding your identity either, you sporting enough clues for a suspecting person to put two and two together. You didn't hide the redness of your knuckles or the bruise blossoming across your jaw, or the way you limped as you stomped up the stairs to your room. You just let his voice fade in with the others in your head that were screaming rationality at you. The ones that were telling you the way you were acting would only continue to hurt yourself, but more importantly, the others close to you.
In the moment, you didn't care. You thought it only fair to allow yourself the outburst. The NYPD should be finding ten of the city's Most Wanted strung up in a Harlem bank when they arrive on the scene. You took care of the bad guys. You stopped the robbery.
You should feel better.
But you didn't.
•••••
The group chat continued to make your phone buzz by your side. Every once in a while, you would glance over to read the notifications, but you never replied.
You loved your friends and their enthusiasm, you really did, but sometimes you just felt like you couldn't connect to their wavelength and it was just best to let them do their own thing without your contribution to the conversation.
You knew you must have looked like shit because it's what you felt like. You were basically able to feel the weight of the bags under your eyes, and it only went to further prove your hypothesis. You didn't want to risk coming into contact with a mirror.
Never in your life did you ever think you could mess something up so tremendously, but you seemed to be on a streak of your thoughts proving you wrong. It was eating you alive, and if you didn't come up with a solution soon, if you continued to let yourself give into your fears, it would leave nothing left.
You would mute the chat if it wasn't for Peter. You missed hearing his voice, even if it was only through text. Lately, he's pulled out all the stops when it came to communicating to you. He looked the other way in the halls, never acknowledged you even if you were in the same room and only a couple feet away.
The only thing that hurt more than him choosing to ignore you was the fact that you knew he didn't want to. Every time you turned your back, every time he thought you couldn't see him, you could feel him staring at you. And if you were fast enough and in the mood to continually torture yourself, you could catch the glimpses on his face. You could see just how much his--and your--actions were breaking him.
Neither of you wanted it to come to this, but being stubborn was something the both of you had been ingrained with since birth. It might not have been fair, but you knew the both of you were waiting for the other person to make the first move.
And you hated yourself for not having the courage to be that person.
Each day you waited, you held onto the foolish hope that maybe a solution would flash a SOS for you to see. That some kind of sign would give you the answer of how to magically make everything better. That you could find some kind of lucky charm into the air and everything would be fixed.
But day after day after day passed. Your friends all knew about the rift between you and Peter even if they didn't actually know. And even if they didn't understand how to make things better, you could see the concern every time their gazes flickered between the two of you during study sessions. Especially the ones that were still held in your living room.
Needless to say, you tried your hardest to leave them be and let them work when they were over. They were Decathlon study sessions, anyway. You spent most of the time in a different room until Cindy came in to tell you that Peter was gone. He started getting a ride back with Ned to avoid any confrontation. You couldn't blame him, since you were distancing yourself to do the same.
A tired yawn escaped your lips, and you haphazardly shoved your homework off your lap and messily dumped it back into your bag.
You reached to silence your phone, deciding that you would worry about school later and just try to get some sleep, when the mention of your name in a message flashed across the top of your screen. Your curiosity made you open the group chat completely. There were over a hundred of unread messages, but you just scrolled down to the last couple of ones to figure out what was going on.
Abe Lincoln
Are you all ready for tomorrow?
Ded with a N
You bet your assbutt i am
Moon Girl
I can't wait!!
Peteawan
Ye man
Ded with a N
Y/N's still coming, right? Anyone have an answer?
Abe Lincoln
She better. The tickets are prepaid.
Ded with a N
Plus, she promised!
Moon Girl
I can't go unless she's there with us, so she will be even if I have to kidnap her myself.
Peteawan
Actually, i don't think i can make it guys
I got a thing that came up
Abe Lincoln
That is not true.
Ded with a N
Dude, I was just over at yours yesterday and you said that you made sure you didn't have any plans and I quote "so i wouldn't have to miss out on hanging out with you guys"
Peteawan
I forgot about a test I have to study for on Monday
Abe Lincoln
Tomorrow's Saturday...
Moon Girl
You can't do this, Peter
Just because you and Y/N haven't been the same lately, you can't ditch us
Has it occured to you that maybe Y/N has some problems to deal with, and you acting like this is only making them worse?
You using them as an excuse to avoid talking to her is a crap move because at this point, the blame is on both of you for not working things out sooner.
So grow some balls and stop lying to us. You're gonna be there, Y/N's gonna be there, and that's that. Deal with it.
Ded with a N
Woah
Abe Lincoln
What is even going on with you two?
Cindy's right, BTW
Peteawan
...
Moon Girl
I swear to God, if Y/N doesn't tell you soon, I'll tell you myself, privacy be damned. This has gone on long enough.
Ded with a N
idk what just happened guys, but all in favor of asking? Because Y/N is reading all of these as they come in??
Peteawan
What?
The chat went as silent as you were as you sat on your bed, reading each message as they popped up on the left side of your screen. You let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding until the texts stopped coming in; your friends waiting for a response.
You'd forgotten all about the movies tomorrow, but it wasn't like you had any plans other than going on patrol. That was something you could easily not do. You felt bad, but you were also angry--angry that Cindy was right. She normally was, anyway.
But the exhaustion you battled so you could keep your eyelids opened beat out any and all other emotions as your fingers typed out a message to send to the group. As you did so, you realized that you were just going to have to take on the problem headfirst. Let the words come out without any thought behind them to keep you from speaking the truth when the time came.
Gold Coin
I'm just gonna go to sleep, but I'll see you all tomorrow
I promised, after all
You closed the group chat and silenced your phone without waiting to see the responses. Fumbling for the light switch, you settled down into bed.
When your head hit your pillow, you couldn't even begin to explain the amount of relief your body felt as you finally let it rest. The past week had been non-stop patrol every moment you weren't in school. And the constant distraction from real person problems took its toll.
It only took you a couple of minutes before you allowed yourself to go to sleep, drifting unconscious with the thoughts of finally being able to get a chance to make amends with Peter. To come clean about everything--well, at least about Spider-Woman. One problem at a time.
It might be more a of a rocky road from there, but it was a start to clearing you conscience and guilt away. And hopefully--you had your fingers crossed--everyone would get better.
As your mind was busy thinking it was on the path of solving one problem, you were completley oblivious to the fact that you had another one rapidly approaching. One that--just like this one--you had brought onto yourself.