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Given To Fly

Chapters 1 & 2

TASM! Peter Parker x Original female character

Summary: After the events of Spiderman: No Way Home, Peter 3 is determined to make some changes to his life. It starts with a new job, and a chance meeting with a beautiful stranger in a bar.

Notes: The lonely, somewhat tortured TASM!/Andrew Garfield version of Peter Parker in Spiderman: No Way Home broke my heart a bit. This is my attempt to give him his happy ending.

I can’t say too much more, as there’s a mystery at the heart of this tale that I don’t want to spoil.

This will be a multi-part story.

Also available here.

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Chapter 1:

The Girl At The Bar

Peter tried not to wince as the alcohol burned its way down his throat. Guess brandy wasn’t his drink. It had been Uncle Ben’s tipple of choice, and he would often pour himself one in the evening to help him unwind. He’d swirl the amber-coloured liquid in a fat glass, while reclining in his lazy boy, sock-covered feet up on the foot rest as he asked his wife and nephew about their day. Aunt May liked gin, and white wine with dinner. Peter sometimes joined her in a glass during their weekly meals together, but he wasn’t a fan.

So far at this bar, he’d tried a glass of scotch, a shot of tequila and, of course the brandy, but none were to his taste. He’d kinda skipped the experimental drinking phase of college so was making up for lost time tonight, applying his scientific mind to the task of discovering a beverage that would:

A. Get him drunk and

B. Not make him want to gag in the process.

If he even could get drunk. He never had been before. And maybe his high metabolism and accelerated healing wouldn’t allow him. Did spider’s get drunk? Was that a known arachnid defence mechanism? Maybe he could write a paper after this little experiment and turn the world of entomology on his head: ‘New study suggests spiders can’t get drunk!’

Shaking off his idiotic thoughts, he flagged down the bartender for the third time in 20 minutes, yelling “Can I get a vodka this time?”. The bartender spared a semi-judgemental glance at the half empty glasses lined up in front of him, before nodding and turning to the rack of bottles behind the bar. “With tonic!” Peter added, not wanting to endure another swig of pure alcohol. The bartender nodded again, back still to him, not bothering to try to converse over the heavy din of the music.

Peter swivelled around in his stool while waiting for his latest drink to be made, taking in the strobe-lit bar-slash-nightclub. The air was thick with sweat, and a crowd of people were dancing and stomping to the pulsing electronic music mere mere feet from where he sat. This was not his typical scene - at all. His lack of drinking experience was enough proof that bars in general were not his scene. This time of night he’d usually be swinging through the city on the look out for criminals, not downing drinks.

Its not like he was part of a roaring social circuit, where he was meeting up regularly with friends over drinks, and he wasn’t a guy that needed alcohol to destress or help him sleep - his Spider-man activities did that for him. He wore himself out physically night after night, swinging from buildings, stringing up thugs and mobsters, getting the occasional beating in return. Then, in the early hours of the morning, he’d stumble through his apartment window, strip off his suit and collapse into bed, just sparing enough consciousness to set the alarm for later that day. Deep down he knew that wasn’t exactly a healthy method for coping with life, but he justified it to himself that at least he was helping people and not just selfishly drowning himself in a bottle.

So yeah, this was not his scene. But after leaving May’s that night, he’d arrived on his block and just…couldn’t bear to go home alone. Again. His little foray into the multiverse had shown him how solitary his life truly was. Seeing Peter 1 with his MJ and his best friend, and hearing about Peter 2’s relationship with his MJ…it had thrown Peter 3’s last 9 years into stark relief.

His life as Peter Parker was…non-existent. He had no social life. He survived paycheck-to-paycheck and, while he loved photography, taking photos of himself to sell to tabloid newspapers was not exactly creatively challenging. In fact, he was doing nothing to challenge himself. His degree was going to waste, he had no ambitions, he was just coasting.

Barely existing.

After he returned to his own universe, he vowed to change some things. The first thing he did (the only thing, if he was honest, but, hey! Baby steps!) was get a new job. From Monday he would be the newest research assistant at the well-respected GenTech biogenetics institute. He would actually be using his brain - and his degree - for something useful. The pay wasn’t life changing, but given enough time he might be able to upgrade his shitty apartment to something marginally less shitty.

Yay.

He still couldn’t cut back on the Spider-man activities though. Until his life as Peter truly began, he needed to be out in the city, in amongst everything. The alternative was sitting home alone, with no-one around to distract him from this thoughts…and that was far too depressing to contemplate.

Tonight he didn’t have the option to suit up; the still-healing bullet wound in his bicep (courtesy of a particularly over-zealous armed robber from the previous night), prevented him from using his webs, and it was too risky even for him to venture out without them.

So as he’d passed by the bar near the corner of his apartment building, contemplating the endless stretch of night awaiting him, he’d figured 'what the hell’. He’d get drunk - enough so he could sleep without dreaming - and then head back to his miserable apartment.

A figure emerging from the crush of intoxicated dancers caught his eye and brought him out of his reverie. She was tall for a woman - taller than even some of the guys she was trying to squeeze past. Her hair was…well, he couldn’t make out the colour but the way the strobe lights hit the loose, wavy strands, he figured it was light - a blond or maybe a red head. Her shoulder’s were bare, exposed by a metallic halter top, and her long, slim legs were encased in skin-tight jeans. Surprisingly, she wore heavy black biker boots instead of more fashionable heels. His eyes moved back to her face to find she was looking straight at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. Busted for checking her out, Peter blushed and swung back around to face the bar.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, his Spidey-senses tingling; not with a feeling of danger, just…awareness…as she came to stand at the bar next to his stool.

Huh, he’d never felt that before.

"Jack Daniels and diet coke, please,” she called out to the bartender, her words laden with an English accent. Peter tried and failed to keep himself from looking at her face once more. He peered up at her profile, noting the cheeks flushed from dancing and the plump, slightly parted lips. Her heavy eye makeup made her grey irises seem pale and otherworldly. Those eyes flicked down to his and he quickly averted his gaze, taking a sip of the vodka in front of him. He forgot to hide his wince at the sharp taste, and heard a soft chuckle from the woman next next him.

“Does your drink taste bad, or are you grimacing at this appalling song choice?” she asked. He looked up to see her pointing at the speaker hanging over the bar, which was now blasting out a screeching techno hit from the late 90s.

He met her smile with one of your own. “It was the drink but…yeah, the music sucks too.”

She reached over and lifted his drink, taking a small sip through the straw. “Hmm, just vodka. I was expecting paint stripper from the way you screwed your face up.”

He laughed at that. “Are you familiar with the taste of paint stripper?”

“You’d be surprised what a poor, struggling student will drink on a night out,” she replied straight-faced.

His grin stretched wider. “And is that what you are? A poor, struggling student?” he asked.

“Not anymore thankfully. I graduated a couple of years ago. Now I can afford the good stuff.” She raised up her own drink as if in a toast before taking a quick sip. “Here,” she offered the glass to him, “Maybe you’ll like this better.”

He took the glass from her, their fingers brushing for a moment. The contact set his Spidey-sense off again. He didn’t know how to interpret what his body was telling him. She didn’t feel like a threat, and she certainly didn’t look like one. It was more like he was being told 'pay attention. She’s important’.

“Are you going to drink that, or absorb it through osmosis?”

He shook off his thoughts and took a drink, pleasantly surprised at the taste. So maybe he was a Jack man? Then his brain caught up to her words. “Osmosis? Are you a scientist then?”

“Wow, so knowing the word 'osmosis’ labels me a scientist? Didn’t know you Americans had such low standards in academia,” she teased.

He laughed but narrowed his eyes, pretending to peer intensely at her. “You are something science-y though,” he guessed, more out of hope for a common interest than anything tangible.

“I’m a doctor,” she admitted.

“Hah, I knew it! Medical or PhD?”

“Medical,” she confirmed, looking abashed.

“Why are you so embarrassed, that’s cool!”

"No, I know, and I am kinda proud of it,” she sighed. “But people make such a big deal sometimes, like, just graduating Med School is this huge achievement, when really I was just lucky enough to be born with a reasonably high IQ and an ability to memorise a whole bunch of random information. Most of medicine is just memorising lists,” she finished with a shrug.

“Even if that’s true, it is a big deal being a doctor. It should be the first thing you tell people! You should only ever introduce yourself as 'Dr. So and So’. Brag about it!”

“Brag?! Have you ever met a British person before? We’re sorta famous for our charming modesty,” she said wryly.

He laughed again. God, when was the last time he laughed this much? He found it easy to joke around as Spider-man. The banter and quips flowing thick and fast under that guise. But as plain old Peter…he’d alway been kinda shy. Thankfully, he’d pretty much grown out the stuttering awkwardness of his teenage years, but he was never good with small talk. Especially with strangers. ESPECIALLY with beautiful female strangers.

To demonstrate, he followed up with the most inane question possible. ”So what are you doing here?”

“In this bar or in this country?” she countered.

“We’ll start with this bar and then zoom our way out.”

“I like to dance,” she said, with a shrug of her slender shoulders.

“I can tell.”

She cocked her head, “How?” “

By your boots,” he said, and they both peered down at her feet. “You want to be comfortable, right? And not have to worry about breaking your ankle in pretty heels when you’re out on the dance floor.”

She gave him a thoughtful look, as if he’d done something clever, and he felt stupidly proud of himself. “How do you know its not the height thing? That I avoid 'pretty heels’ so that I don’t tower over every guy in here?”

He shrugged. “Something tells me that doesn’t bother you.”

“Correct again,” she said softly, with that same thoughtful look. “I like being tall.”

“How tall are you?” he asked, as he got up off his stool. He breached the small distance between them to gauge it better and realised she was the same height as him. Out of nowhere, the notion came to him that he wouldn’t have to bend down to kiss her.

Just as he was shaking off that thought, the crowd that had been amassing at the bar suddenly surged against her back, pushing her against his chest. His hands automatically came up to steady her, wrapping around her bare arms. Now he knew why Peter 1 referred to his Spidey-sense as a 'tingle’. Because upon touching her again, that sensation suddenly coursed through his entire body, leaving him flushed and slightly out of breath. Her gaze met his, the two of them no longer smiling. The air between them grew heated, and his fingers tightened imperceptibly against her skin.

“Um…,” Peter said, feeling like he had to say something to break the mounting tension between them. He knew he could just release her and step back, but found himself unable - unwilling - to do so. Being so close to someone so stunningly out of his league was short-circuiting his brain.

The decision was made for him when the crowd at her back let up the pressure and she stumbled back. His hands lost contact with her skin and, suddenly at a loss with what to do with them, he raked them nervously through his hair.

“Its getting a bit crazy down here,” she laughed, and he thought he could hear nerves in her voice too for some reason. “Do you, um, want to get a table upstairs?” she asked.

His self preservation instincts wanted him to decline. Just ignore this connection with this beautiful stranger, end this whole experiment with socialising, go home and go to bed. Return to his solitary life where he didn’t have to reveal anything of himself, or risk getting hurt again. 'What would the other Peters do?’ He thought. It had become an almost mantra over the past couple of months, whenever he felt himself slipping back into bad habits. 'What would they do in this situation?’. And that cinched it for him. Because they wouldn’t let this opportunity go so easily.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” she said, responding to his silence. “I just thought, we c-”

“I’d love to,” he interrupted. “Yeah, um, I mean yes. Let’s go. Upstairs. Let’s do that,” he rambled, before finally clenching his jaw shut and nodding like an idiot.

They managed to find a free table on the balcony overlooking the dance floor - free because it was situated annoyingly close to the line for the bathroom. But the irritation of the milling, sweaty bodies around them and the relentlessly bad music soon faded away as they talked and talked and talked.

They found they had a common interest in scifi and fantasy, and spent an hour comparing thoughts on their favourite movies and books. They also had a lot not in common, but enjoyed trying to change each others minds about their respective passions.

He found out she loved music but couldn’t play an instrument to save her life.

He told her about his photography.

He loved her self-deprecating humour, and her intelligence - she was intimidatingly well-read and had theories on all sorts of scientific pursuits, including the multiverse (she was completely wrong, but he couldn’t tell her without divulging some pretty hefty revelations). He was having fun verbally sparring with her.

And even when there was a lull in the conversation, it never felt awkward. They would just sit with each other and look out onto the crowd below, then start talking again. At one point he had moved to her side, the loud music necessitating closer contact to avoid having to yell, and they had stayed like that for the rest of the night. Their arms would brush against each other as they reached for their drinks and he’d occasionally have to lean even closer to her to be heard, his lips near her ear. He had to restrain himself from leaning in the rest of the way and allowing his lips to rest against the soft, inviting skin of her neck.

At one point he had taken her hand, gently turning her arm. “You have such pale skin,” he had remarked softly, tracing his finger over the surface, captivated by the way she almost glowed in the soft light of the table lamp.

“Curse of the British: pale skin and bad teeth,” she joked.

“You have great teeth,” he murmured, his eyes not moving from the path his finger was taking across her skin. “I bet you sunburn easily,” he commented, almost to himself.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Not really built for sunlight. We’re more of an indoors people.”

He met her eyes, grinning at her response, and suddenly realised how close they were, their lips mere inches apart. It would take no effort at all to lean just a little bit closer, to press his lips to hers…He swallowed nervously and sat back, maintaining his distance but keeping hold of her hand until the lights came on in the club signalling closing time.

That light offered him his first proper glimpse of her, and despite the late hour, the dance-induced sweat drying at her hairline and the harsh fluorescent bulbs, his first impression had been correct… she was absolutely, stunningly beautiful.

She ducked her head when he caught her staring and started blushing. It was funny, she looked like a freaking supermodel, but blushed whenever he stared at her. That British modesty thing really was charming as hell. He tugged on her hand to help her up from the table, and they made their way downstairs and out of the club together.

The cool night air was refreshing, and Peter raised his face up to the sky, eyes closing as he took a deep breath. He felt her come to stand against his side as he stood on the sidewalk, feeling comfortable in silence with her.

Her.

Peter laughed. He turned to her face her, and met her curious expression.

“What is it?” she asked, stifling a yawn. The cold air had invigorated him, but its seemed to have made her tired.

He took a step back and stuck out his hand. “Hi. My name is Peter.”

She laughed too. All those hours getting to know each other…and they seemed to have forgotten the basics. She grasped his outstretched hand but…hesitated slightly, her eyes darting to the left before meeting his. “I’m Jen. Nice to meet you.”

His thumb brushed against the back of her hand, the 'tingles’ from the contact still present, but less jarring now. “Nice to meet you too,” he replied, softly.

They stood there, hands clasped for several long moments. Peter didn’t want this night to end, he wanted to invite her to his apartment and keep talking to her, but couldn’t find a way to say it that didn’t sound like a sleazy pick-up line.

She took the initiative once more. “Peter,” she said, and, man, did he love the way his name sounded in her accent. He could see intent in her eyes and it made him swallow nervously. She stepped closer to him, grasped the back of his head with her free hand…and kissed him.

He stood rooted to the spot, his mind flinging in a million different directions. Was he ready for this? What was this? She didn’t really know him - would she still want him if she knew the blood he had on his hands? He couldn’t do this again. Was he betraying Gwen? What would the Peters do!?

Before he could sort out the maelstrom of his feelings, she broke the contact and tugged her hand free of his. “I’m sorry,” she said sounding embarrassed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and turned quickly to look down the street. “Shit, I’m so sorry. Just forget that happened.“

A yellow cab made its way down the street and she stuck her hand out to hail it. She glanced back at him, "I’ll get going now. Nice to meet you.”

The cab slowed to a stop in front of them, the tires splashing through a puddle from the rainstorm earlier in the day. The sound of the water shook Peter from his stupor. “No! Wait!” he yelled, grabbing her hand. “Just…wait, please wait.”

She looked at him and bit her lip, her other hand on the cab door. The driver called out, irritated at the delay, “Are you coming or not, lady?”

Peter answered for her. “She’s not.” He pulled Jen away from the cab and grabbed her other hand. "I’m sorry, just listen to me for a sec and let me explain and if you never want to see me again, I’ll flag down another cab. Or call you an Uber or something, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and waited.

And waited.

Peter swallowed. He couldn’t really explain to her why he was acting so weird. From her point of view, she’d met a guy in a bar, they’d talked all night, done some mutual flirting, so she’d kissed him. It was all completely reasonable, and yet he’d had a mini freak out.

That wasn’t normal.

But what could he say? “Sorry, I’m an emotionally-stunted superhero who lost his first love because he didn’t catch her when she fell from a clocktower, and I’ve spent the last 9 years in a guilt-induced spiral of violence and solitude”.

Yeah, that wouldn’t freak her out at all!

“Peter,” she sighed, “It’s okay. I misread the situation, it happens. No big deal.”

“But it is a big deal,” he countered. “This doesn’t happen to me. I don’t meet people and have it be so…easy and effortless, and, and…nice! Tonight was really nice!”

Her brows came together in confusion. “Okay…” she said.

He dropped her hands and dragged his own through his hair, feeling agitated. He tugged on his locks and spun in a circle before facing her again. “I know that sounds weird, but you have no idea how much I needed 'nice’ tonight. And it wasn’t just nice. That makes it sound so…so…boring. It was so much more than just nice - it was amazing. You’re amazing. And God, you’re so beautiful. And I wanna keep talking to you and yeah, I think I want to kiss you - properly this time - I’m sorry I was weird about it before. But, yeah,” he finished, his smile growing with the realisation. “I wanna kiss you.”

He reached for her, but the air was suddenly filled with the drunken cries of the young revellers spilling out of the club behind them. Making a quick decision, he grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the mob. “Look, my apartment is just there,” he said, pointing to his window on the fifth floor of the building opposite. “Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee, or something?” He grimaced internally - guess he ended up going with the sleazy come-on after all.

But she just smiled and nodded and squeezed his hand.

He met her smile. “Good! Great, okay, lets go.”

Once they got through his apartment door, the nerves and awkwardness intensified. “Um, I’ll get the coffee,” Peter said, locking the door behind them. He started to shuffle towards the kitchen but he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she wandered around his small studio, studying the books on his shelf and the photos on the wall. She leaned over slightly to check out the view from his window, presenting him with the full expanse of her bare back. There was literally no material from the thin band at her neck to the waist band of her jeans - how did he not notice that before? And when did he become a back-guy? Because that’s evidently what he was. Seeing all that milky soft skin…it snapped him out of his awkwardness and self-doubt.

He marched over to her, spun her around and kissed her.

There was no freezing this time. No hesitation or second-guessing. He kissed her, and kept kissing her, bring his hands up to tangle in her hair, angling her head so he could kiss her deeper. She kissed him and kept kissing him in return, stepping closer to him so they were pressed tightly together, her hands roaming over his back.

‘That’s a good idea’, the part of his brain still engaged in higher reasoning thought, as he moved his hands down to caress her back in return. God, her skin was even softer than it looked, and he could feel hints of delicate muscle under his wandering hands.

It wasn’t enough - he needed to feel her everywhere.

He started backing her towards the bed in the corner of the room, all the while tugging the material of her top from of the front of her jeans.

Once freed, his hands moved underneath, reaching up to cup her breasts. The sensation of hands on bare skin, jolted him slightly, enough for that last remaining bit of higher functioning to kick in. “Is this ok?,” he checked with her between kisses.

Her knees hit the bed and she collapsed backwards. He followed her down, resting the length of his body over her long, slim form. “Jen, is this ok?” he asked again, pulling away from her slightly. “I didn’t invite you up here for this. I mean, I thought, maybe another kiss or something…I just don’t want you to think I’m that guy. The one just trying to get into your pants, I li-“

“Peter!” she gasped, her tone slightly exasperated. “It’s all good, we’re good. I want this. So just shut up and kiss me!” She grasped him by the hair and pulled him back to her.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled against her lips with a smile.

—

Chapter 2:

The Girl In The Lab

Peter jolted awake, unsure of what had disturbed his sleep. He was lying on his side, curled around a sleeping, naked Jen. Her blond hair was spread out between them and it tickled his nose as she nuzzled her head deeper into the pillow they shared. He figured that must have been what roused him. He smiled and edged his head back a bit, even as his arms tightened around her.

He mentally took stock of his body - his usual habit upon waking - checking for any new aches and pains or wounds. But of course, there were none. He hadn’t suited up last night. He’s spent it with Jen instead. And while his body felt used and spent, it was in the best possible way. In fact, he felt pretty great. Better than he had in years.

Jen shifted again in her sleep, one of her legs coming to rest between his. The contact brought up a vivid memory of last night, of him wrapping those long legs around his waist as he thrust inside her. His smile broadened until his cheeks almost hurt. Last night had been fucking amazing. He’d never had sex like it - not that he’d had that much experience over the years. But still, he knew it wasn’t always like that - it couldn’t possibly be, otherwise the human race would do nothing but stay in bed all day.

They’d been so in tune to each other, their bodies fitting together like they were made for each other. And it had been surprisingly light and fun - they’d still talked and laughed throughout the night, losing none of the easy interplay they’d shared in the bar.

He felt happy, he realised. The complete opposite to the shame and disgust he always assumed he’d feel after a one-night stand. Not that he considered this a one-night stand. Sure, they’d met at a bar and had sex the first night, just hours after meeting…but it wasn’t some sordid one-off. This was the start of something.

Something real.

Just as he was dropping off to sleep again, his Spidey-senses suddenly went haywire, coinciding with the sound of a terrible drawn-out metallic screech in the distance. His eyes snapped open. Shit, what the hell was that?

He carefully extracted his limbs from around Jen and crept out of bed, straining his super-hearing for any more clues, but all he could hear now was the blare of sirens as the emergency services raced to the site of a presumably horrible accident.

He quickly shoved some clothes on and grabbed the backpack containing his suit from under his bed. Sparing one last, long look at Jen sleeping peacefully under his duvet, Peter hurried to the kitchen to quickly scribble a note for her to find if she woke.

Hi. Something came up and I had to head out - help yourself to coffee and I promise to bring breakfast when I come back.

Peter paused, unsure what else to say. Well, he knew what he wanted to say: last night was one of the best nights of my life, I can’t wait to kiss you again and hear you laugh, and just sit with you and be with you…but he didn’t want to scare her off.

The sirens were getting louder now, and were sure to wake Jen if he lingered any longer. So he scrawled his phone number at the bottom of the note, just in case she needed him, and left the apartment.

———

Several hours later, Peter jogged up to the front of his apartment building, a stupid grin on his face that he couldn’t quite manage to suppress. Juggling two coffee cups and several brown packages filled with pastries, he pulled open the main door of his building and stepped inside. The emergency had turned out to be a subway derailment, which could have been a lot worse had it occurred at rush hour. But, luckily, in the early hours of a Saturday morning, the contingent of passengers was low, and between the efforts of Spider-man and the FDNY, they’d managed to locate everyone and get them all out alive in record time.

That left Peter the whole day to spend with Jen. Maybe they’d go see a movie or go to a museum. Or maybe they’d just stay in bed all day. At that thought his smile widened. He started whistling a random tune as he bounced up the stairs and let himself into his apartment.

The darkness was the first thing he noticed.

None of the lights were on and he could see the curtains over his window were still drawn, blocking out the bright mid-morning sun.

Then he noticed the silence.

There was no rustle of sheets from the bed, no sound of running water in the bathroom, no padding of footsteps on his wooden floor.

“Jen,” he called out, hastily dumping the breakfast items on his kitchen counter. He started hurrying around his apartment, checking every inch of the tiny space. “Jen,” he called out again, futilely, knowing the truth the moment he’d walked into the apartment and felt the utter lack of life and warmth in the place.

She was gone.

“Shit,” he muttered, jumping back to the kitchen to check the note he’d left. He let out a relieved breath when he realised it had moved from the place he’d left it. That meant she’d read it at least, and hadn’t thought he’d just bailed on her. He flipped the scrap of paper over, hoping she might have left a note of her own, or her number, but there was nothing. Quickly rummaging through his pockets he located his own phone and checked the display.

No texts. No missed calls.

“Shit,” he repeated, louder, as he collapsed into the chair by the kitchen table. “Shit!” He yelled it this time, his stomach sinking like a stone as he realised that she’d left and he had no fucking way to contact her.

———

For the rest of the weekend, Peter ran the gamut of nearly every emotion known to man.

There was soaring hope whenever his phone chimed or he heard footsteps outside his apartment door.

Crushing disappointment when it turned out to not be her.

Irrational anger at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for not maintain the tracks of their subway system allowing a derailment to occur the exact morning he was waking up with someone special!

Overwhelming annoyance at himself for not getting her number or even her fucking LAST NAME before walking out the door and leaving her. They’d talked for literally hours and he felt that he knew her…but in retrospect he realised a few very important details had been missing from their conversation. Like who she was, where she was staying, how long she was in New York…all pretty fucking vital information!

On the back of these thoughts, creeping doubt and mistrust directed at Jen started to plague Peter. Why was she so evasive about who she was? Was she just in it for the sex, and hadn’t really cared about forming a connection with him? Was it just a one-night stand to her? She had been the one to approach him at the bar, and she’d kissed him first. At the time he thought the contradiction between that boldness and her otherwise shy nervous blushing was endearing…but was it an act? Was it a routine she regularly employed to get her rocks off?

Those thoughts led to him hating himself and feeling like an idiot and wishing he could do everything differently that morning.

“Fuck!” Peter yelled, trying to silence the thoughts flying through his head for the millionth time since Saturday morning. He startled the old man passing him on the sidewalk with his outburst. “Sorry, Sir,” Peter called after him, but the man just gave him a sour look over this shoulder as he carried on walking.

Peter sighed and picked up his pace. He was gonna be late for his first day at GenTech at this rate, and he wanted to make a good impression, mainly for Professor Samuels benefit. Prof Sam (as he liked to be called) had been Peter’s favourite professor at college. He’d always taken an interest in Peter, recognising his talents and trying to convince him to go to Grad School. But Peter had always declined. He wanted to get his diploma (mostly just to make May proud), but at that point in his life he couldn’t see a future for himself beyond his role as Spider-man.

Reaching out to Prof Sam after all these years had been a long shot, but Peter had very few other contacts in his chosen field and he needed some help getting through doors. Help that Prof Sam had been all too happy to provide. He’d put Peter in contact with an acquaintance of his - Professor Henri Allard, a renowned French geneticist who had just set up a private research lab in Manhattan studying gene modification therapy - a subject Peter had some personal experience with, although he’d obviously left that out of his application.

Prof Sam’s recommendations, as well as Peter’s college transcripts had been enough to land Peter the gig of an entry level research assistant.

Which he was going to be late for.

Shit.

———

Peter managed to reach the reception desk with minutes to spare, thanks to a last minute dash through traffic, relying on his Spidey-sense to help him dodge any oncoming cars.

Panting slightly from the exertion, he introduced himself to the receptionist and was given his pass along with directions to his supervisor’s office on the second floor. Stepping off the elevator on said floor, Peter straightened his shirt and tried to smooth his hair down as he made his way to meet Dr. James Newsome.

James, or Jimmy as he preferred, was just a few years older than Peter, but was already noticeably balding and his large gut strained against his button-down shirt as he reached over his desk to shake Peter’s hand.

‘"Nice to meet you, Pete. I was in Prof Sam’s class in ’09. Anyone who impressed that dude, is a good dude in my books,” Jimmy commented, leading Peter back out of his office for a tour of the department.

“Will I get to meet Professor Allard at some point?“ Peter enquired partway through the tour. “I read that piece on him in the New Yorker, and…just…wow. The things he’s been able to accomplish within the field of cancer gene modification is amazing…but he also does all this work in Africa and his advocacy for-“

“You’re a fan, I get it!” Jimmy interrupted, laughing. “Dude, we all are, that’s why we’re here. But we’re just the grunts on 2. His office is up on 6 and he doesn’t make it down here much. Too busy wining and dining grant money out of senators to bother with the likes of us.”

Peter tried to hide his disappointment as he and Jimmy rounded a bend in the corridor and reached an open plan area. “Next,” Jimmy said, opening both arms wide, “we have our Data Geeks.” Jimmy motioned to a group of eight small cubicles, seven of which were already inhabited. He pointed to the empty desk “This will be yours, newest Data Geek,” he said with a smile. “I assume you’ve already been given the run down on what your job will be?”

“Yeah,” Peter replied. “Data entry and analysis of exome sequencing from the mice trials”.

“Correct-amundo. Talk to Steve after this,” Jimmy said pointing to the guy in glasses sat opposite Peter’s desk. “And he’ll get you up to speed on the software.” They reached a set of double doors and Jimmy swiped his access card, allowing them entry into a small laboratory. The solitary occupant was a young woman in a white lab coat. She was sitting at a desk, her back to them, as she peered down a microscope.

“Now we have the Lab Geeks. Well,” he corrected, “Lab Geek singular, seeing as Jane is the only one here so far. Yo, Janey,” Jimmy called out loud enough for the woman to hear. “Got a newbie starting today. Meet Peter.”

The woman glanced over her shoulder dismissively. But then she did a slight double take, her eyes widening a fraction when she saw Peter, before quickly turning back to her equipment.

“She’s a bit of an odd one, don’t take it personally,” Jimmy whispered ushering Peter back out the door.

Peter’s gaze lingered on the woman, a strange feeling almost like déjà vu falling over him. She’d looked at him like she knew him.

And he felt like he knew her too.

———

Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Peter approached the woman - Jane - the moment he saw her enter the break room later that day.

“Hi,” he said as he came to stand beside her at the counter.

He saw her stiffen slightly, and she kept her gaze fixed on her cup as it filled with coffee from the espresso machine.

Peter stiffened too - the spider tingles were back! The same ones he got being near Jen. But this was not Jen. Their names might have been similar but they looked nothing alike. Jane was shorter than Jen by about an inch or two. Her much longer hair was dark brown and pulled up in a messy bun. The eyes he’d glimpsed back in the lab, hidden behind dark-framed glasses were hazel, not grey.

She finally peered up at him, realising he wasn’t going away. He got a good look at her face then. She wasn’t ugly, but the moniker ‘Plain Jane’ suited her in more ways than one. She had nothing on the striking beauty of Jen.

“Bye,” she replied stiltedly, turning to walk away, her cup in hand.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Peter called to her back.

She paused at the doorway, and without looking back replied simply “No.”

Peter watched her walk away with a frown on his face.

———

“So, how was your first week at work?” Aunt May asked as she sat down at the dining table.

Peter, who had already started tucking in to his meal, answered “T’sokay,” around a mouthful of spaghetti.

“Peter,” she sighed. “Don’t talk while you’re eating.“

“Well don’t ask me questions when I’m chewing,” he replied with a grin. It was a back and forth they’d been having since he was 8 years old.

She smiled at him fondly. “Make any new friends?”

“Its a job, Aunt May, not grade school.”

“But your colleagues must all be around your age, and you obviously have similar interests. Its not outside the realms of possibility that you’d meet someone you get along with.”

Peter’s mind immediately flashed to an image of Jen, her mouth pulled up in a smile as she leaned towards him. He let out an involuntary sigh.

“What is it?” May asked.

Peter deflected the question, not really in the mood to talk about Jen, who he hadn’t heard from at all since the previous weekend. “Oh, there’s just this woman at work who’s annoying.”

It wasn’t a lie. Jane was annoying. Or at least, the mystery of her annoyed Peter.

“How so?” May asked, taking a sip of her wine.

“She’s just…,” Peter tailed off. “She’s…,” he tried again. “She’s aloof.”

“Aloof?” May echoed with a laugh.

“Yes, aloof! Cold, distant, unfriendly. Basically the dictionary definition of ‘Aloof’,” Peter replied, chasing a rogue meatball around his plate. “Everyone on our floor avoids her like the plague, which is fairly easy since she stays hidden in her lab most of the time. I’ve literally heard her say two syllables the entire time I’ve been there. Two! And when she does stomp out of her little hole to get her daily coffee, she ignores everyone and everything happening around her. She’s rude.”

“Stomp out?” May asked, trying to hide her smile. She hadn’t seen Peter this animated in a long time.

“Stomp! In these big ridiculous Doc Marten boots that she wears with everything. Skirts, jeans, dresses. All with the same black boots.”

“It sounds like you’ve observed her a lot in just a week.”

Peter froze, realising how his little diatribe must have sounded. He tried to backtrack. “Not really. There’s just not that many people in the lab so you tend to notice the weird ones.” In truth, he had been watching her closely, hoping something would jog in his memory and he’d be able to place her. He was still plagued by the notion that he knew her somehow.

“‘Weird’ seems harsh,” May said with a frown. “Maybe she’s just shy.”

“She’s not shy. She’s rude,” Peter repeated, finally managing to stab the meatball with his fork.

———

She was rude. And aloof, and all the things he’d told May.

She was also fucking amazing.

It happened on his third Tuesday at GenTech. The day started much like every other day. He arrived at 9am, got settled in to his station and started ploughing through the latest results. He went looking for his caffeine fix at 11am and found Kevin - the work experience student - sitting in the break room looking…not well.

“Hey, you okay, man?” Peter asked, coming to crouch by the teenager. He was panting and every breath looked pained.

“Something’s wrong,” Kevin managed to whisper between laboured breaths. “My chest hurts.”

“Okay, dude, everything will be fine. I’ll call an ambulance real quick and we’ll get you looked at.” Peter stood up to dial 911, keeping his eyes locked with the frightened youngster, trying to reassure him with a smile.

Instead, he watched as Kevin’s eyes slowly fluttered shut and he slumped over. Peter dropped the phone and managed to catch Kevin has he slid from his chair unconscious.

“Hey!” Peter yelled, hoping there was someone in hearing distance. “I need some help in here!”

Peter laid Kevin out flat on the linoleum away from the furniture and checked his pulse.

Absent.

Shit!

Just then, the familiar stomp of Jane’s boots rang out behind him, much faster than usual. She dropped to her knees beside Peter, barking out, “What happened?”

“I don’t know! He was complaining of chest pain and looked short of breath, then he just collapsed.”

Jane quickly checked the boy’s vitals. “He’s not breathing. No pulse.” She started chest compressions, causing one of the girls in the gathering crowd at the door of the breakroom to gasp and cover her mouth.

“Someone call an ambulance,” Jane ordered, still rhythmically pumping Kevin’s chest. “And someone find a defibrillator or a first aid kit or something, whatever we have.” Jimmy, who’d wrestled himself inside the break room, nodded and got out his phone while barking his own orders at Steve, one of Peter’s fellow data geeks.

Jane looked at Peter. “Do you know how to do chest compressions?”

Peter glanced at her, numbly shaking his head.

“Just do what I’m doing,” she said, her voice calm and reassuring. “Use the heel of your hand, lock your elbows and lean your weight over your shoulders. You want to compress the chest about a third, and you need to do it fast - faster than you think. Try singing Staying Alive while you’re doing it. You know, the Bee Gees song?”

Peter nodded and edged closer, ready to take over. The minute she lifted her hands he placed his down and started pumping.

“That’s it,” Jane said, “Let me hear you sing.”

Peter glared at her, but complied, wanting to do his best by the boy under his hands. “Staying alive, staying alive, ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive” he sang, feeling ridiculous and freaked out all at once. He was so much better at being under pressure when he was Spider-man.

“If you get tired, let me know,” Jane said positioning Kevin’s face and performing two rounds of mouth-to-mouth. “Does anyone else know CPR?” She called out to the crowd by the door which was getting bigger by the minute.

“I won’t get tired,” Peter said, as a member of the lab staff stepped forward with their hand up.

“Don’t be a hero,” Jane said. “If you get tired, you won’t be effective and you’ll do more harm than good.”

“I won’t get tired,” Peter bit out.

She ignored him and turned to the new volunteer, a black woman in her early forties. “Take over mouth-to-mouth.” The woman nodded and got to work. Just then, Steve came bursting through the crowd with the defibrillator kit and several first aid boxes in his hands.

Jane quickly attached the AED leads to Kevin’s chest, working around Peter’s hands, the lock of hair that had escaped her bun brushing against his forearms.

Moments later the electronic voice intoned “No shock”.

“Is that bad?” Peter whispered, not wanting to alarm the crowd at their back.

“It’s fine,” Jane mumbled as she rooted through the first aid kids, obviously looking for something. “He’s not in a shockable rhythm but if we can reverse the cause of his collapse we can get him back.”

“Reverse what? We don’t know what’s wrong with him?” Peter exclaimed.

She looked up at him quickly, her eyes focussed and sure. “I do.”

Peter shook his head slowly, not understanding what was happening. He watched as she pulled out a cannula from one of the first aid kits, the kind they stick in your arm in the ER when you need fluids.

She quickly unwrapped the device and ran her hand over Kevin’s upper chest, counting out his ribs. When she found the location she apparently needed she pushed the needle straight through the skin and removed it, leaving the plastic tubing sticking from his chest. Peter’s sensitive hearing could pick out the faint whistle of air coming from the small port on the end.

Peter continued CPR, getting increasingly worried as he watched Jane do…nothing. Nothing but observe the trace on the AED monitor and rest her fingers on Kevin’s neck. Shit, did she really know what she was doing?

Long, endless, agonising moments passed before she spoke again “Stop CPR, we need to reassess.”

Peter reluctantly removed his hands, having no choice but to trust her. The ambulance crew hadn’t arrived and no one else was stepping forward to help.

They both watched the monitor on the AED as the flat line weaved across the display. Then…a beat. And another.

“Got a pulse,” Jane said calmly, removing her fingers from Kevin’s neck.

“He’s breathing!” The older woman at Kevin’s head cried out.

A cheer went up in the crowd and Peter fell back on his heels, taking what felt like his own first breath in minutes.

A paramedic finally shouldered into the room, carrying a stretcher. “What have we got,” he asked looking between Peter and Jane.

Jane answered, her voice amazingly calm and controlled. “16 year old male, complaining of dyspnoea and chest pain. Witnessed asystolic arrest, 5 cycles of CPR, left-sided thoracocentesis for tension pneumothorax. Return of circulation after approximately 6 minutes of down time.”

The paramedic looked at her in surprise but quickly nodded. “Good work.” Then, with the help of his partner, he scooped Kevin onto the stretcher and carried him from the room.

Peter slowly got to his feet, his eyes never leaving Jane. She looked visibly uncomfortable as she was suddenly surrounded by a swarm of grateful coworkers.

Jimmy noticed her discomfort too. “Okay, everyone, lets leave the good doctor alone and go back to what we were doing. I’ll call the hospital after I speak to Kevin’s parents then let everyone know how he’s doing.”

The crowd dissipated, and the sound of people chatting and exclaiming to each other about what they’d just witnessed got quieter as everyone returned to their workstations.

Leaving Jane and Peter alone.

“So, you’re a medical doctor,” he finally said, still watching her closely.

She met his eyes, her face completely impassive, as if she hadn’t just saved someone’s life with a crowd of people watching. “Yes,” she said simply.

“And you’re English,” he stated. He’d registered her accent the moment she started barking orders. Considering this was the most he’d ever heard her say in two weeks it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t caught the accent before.

“Yes,” she replied again, cocking an eyebrow as if to say ‘And?’

He just shook his head. “That…what you did…it was amazing,” he admitted. “How did you know how to save him?”

“There aren’t many things that can cause cardiac arrest in teenagers - spontaneous pneumothorax leading to displacement of the mediastinal structures and interruption of the venous return to the heart is one of them. Tall, thin adolescent males like Kevin are particularly susceptible. I just needed to remove the air from his chest and let things return to normal. Medicine is really just memorising lists of causes and effects. I knew the possible causes, treated the most obvious one. Simple.”

“Simple,” Peter echoed shaking his head again.

———

Later, once his heart rate had recovered to normal, he replayed her words in his mind.

'Medicine is really just memorising lists of causes and effects.’

And he remembered another similar statement, from another English medical doctor.

'Most of medicine is just memorising lists.’

Jane was English, and a medical doctor. And his Spidey-sense was triggered by her presence.

But she wasn’t Jen.

Somehow she wasn’t Jen.

Was he just seeing Jen everywhere because he was obsessed with finding her again?

Just the other day, he’d chased a tall, blond woman through Times Square, convinced it was Jen. He’d called out her name, barrelling through the crowd of milling tourists, frantic in case he lost sight of her. Eventually catching up with the woman, he’d spun her around to see…a complete stranger. He’d stuttered out an apology and left her, feeling like a mad man.

Was he going mad?

Or was there more to this?

The coincidences felt too unreal.

But she couldn’t be Jen.

She was aloof, cold, arrogant…all the things that Jen wasn’t.

And, yet…she was also fucking amazing.

CHAPTER 3

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