Chapter Text
The same night Eddie Munson came back into his life, Steve Harrington finally visited the man’s grave.
Selfishly, Steve always hated days when the city was safe. He obviously wanted the people of New York to be safe. He wouldn’t be Spider-Man or an Avenger if he wanted otherwise, but there were very few instances where nights were so slow that Steve found himself able to do anything but fight crime. Then again, the fact that he had been patrolling all day probably didn’t help much.
He usually didn’t patrol during the day, especially not on a weekday. Crime was always low enough during business hours that he could get away with catching up on sleep or working, but with Robin, his roommate and fellow Avenger, having been called to campus for work, he decided to head out. Something about staying in an empty apartment never seemed appealing to him. Ever since he was a kid, Steve hated being alone.
It was a side effect of his upbringing, of course. He might not have had a psychology degree, but it didn’t take a genius to see the flashing neon sign reading, “CHILDHOOD TRAUMA” above Steve’s head. He spent his adolescence wandering the halls of an empty penthouse, doing nothing but school work and reading. If he weren’t a prodigy, Steve imagines his parents would’ve shipped him off the second he was old enough to go to school. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on who you asked – Steve was a genius. He achieved in two decades what some people didn’t achieve in their entire life – two degrees and a PhD. It wasn’t enough for his parents, though. They’d come to town, show him off like a trophy, then drop him back off to their empty home that was never a home to Steve.
His upbringing was why, when destiny came knocking at Steve’s door, he threw himself headfirst into the fight. Becoming Spider-Man was the best thing that ever happened to Steve. At least, that was what he used to believe. The past couple of years, he’d been working on believing it again. Remembering what he lost and what he found. The family he formed out of the Avengers and at SHIELD. The type of love he never had growing up, he found with his friends. He found a reason to fight.
Not just fighting crime, of course. With great power comes great responsibility, and all that. Even when he was friendless and lonely, Steve fought crime. Indeed, fighting the battles no one else could was never a problem for Steve. It was fighting to keep going that he struggled with. Getting out of bed. Finding a reason to do the things that made him happy. He had that then lost it, and for years, he isolated himself from his friends like he was radioactive… Well, dangerously radioactive. He moved cities, stopped wearing the Spider-Man suit, and stopped talking to anyone who cared about him. More than that, he stopped caring about anything and threw himself into his work, fighting so often that he never went a single day without fresh bruises. Even if he wasn’t Spider-Man anymore, he still wanted to be a hero. He wanted to prove he could still do something good for the world.
It wasn’t until the Avengers finally tracked him down and knocked some sense into him that Steve decided to start living again. Remember what it meant to be Spider-Man. Not just to be a hero, but to love and be loved.
Well, loved by his friends. He imagined most citizens of New York liked him, but it was hard to assume something like that when staring at a giant Daily Bugle billboard reading, “Spider-Menace Strikes Again!” J. Jonah Jameson’s face was red with ire, as he spat lies about the vigilante through the screen.
“Oh, fuck off!” Steve shouted. He would’ve thrown the rest of his burrito at the man’s stupid mustached face, but Steve didn’t need a littering scandal after already being targeted for… what was it? Oh, yeah, stopping a bank robbery! God forbid Spider-Man do anything as awful as that!
“Asshole…” Steve muttered when the billboard finally changed to a soda commercial. The hero was at his usual lunch spot atop a building in Queens. Meaning, he should’ve been used to seeing stupid shit on those billboards by now. “God forbid I do my damn job.”
“Talking to yourself seems risky. Wouldn’t want Jameson accusing you of being crazy too, would you?” Steve jumped and turned around, spotting Max standing on the roof ledge a few feet away. The woman had a smirk on her face, and Steve had a heart attack to recover from. He took a deep breath before responding.
“Okay, first off, Jameson already thinks I’m crazy.” Max snorted, “And second, how the hell did you get up– you know what? Never mind, I don’t want to know.” Steve knew better by now to question the woman’s oddness. Max was a hero with some of the strangest powers Steve had ever seen. The girl was an enigma, in short. Ten years ago, the Avengers fought a villain named Vecna, who targeted Max as a part of his large scheme to take over the world. They killed him, saved Max, but not before she was attacked. The young woman went into a coma and woke up months later blind but with superhuman abilities. Superhearing, smell, and flexibility. She was one of the few people who could sneak up on Steve without triggering his senses.
Almost no one could sneak up on Max.
“What’s Daredevil doing all the way in Queens?” Steve’s question was sarcastic, of course. Hell’s Kitchen was in Manhattan, which was right next to Queens. In fact, most days Steve and Max joined on patrols due to their proximity. Though, usually in the daytime, Max didn’t fight crime. Instead, she was usually at work– “Wait a minute, shouldn’t you be in the office?” The woman was a pro bono lawyer because Max Mayfield was the most badass person Steve knew. Fighting crime rings in every sense of the word; that was Max Mayfield. And Steve was a bit like her brother, always on her ass about being responsible.
“No meetings on the schedule today, and I already did my case work.” Max smiled and sat next to Steve, “It feels so nice to finally be an actual lawyer,” she added with a groan. She was smarter than most, but law school was still hellish as any other school.
“Home free,” Steve agreed then winced, “Well, home free after fighting crime, case work, client meetings, work, more work, and even more work from now until the end of time?” Max punched his arm, “What? If anyone can handle it, you can.”
Steve couldn’t see her eyes beneath the devil mask, but he imagined Max was rolling them. He offered her the rest of his burrito, and she happily accepted, complaining about the lack of hot sauce before resting her shoulder against Steve’s. “How are you doing, by the way?” He should’ve seen the question coming, but Steve still held out hope that Max had somehow forgotten. He knew she wouldn’t. She was too smart and too observant. Though, Steve would say omnipotent was probably the better word.
“What do you mean?” Steve stared down at his gloved hands, playing with the carbon fiber covering his fingers.
“You know what I mean.” Max had that tone that Steve knew as well as the sky. The type of tone almost everyone used on him at least once a week. That tone of worry, of care. More care than Steve deserved. More worry than he liked. He didn’t want his friends to be worried about him, but it wasn’t like he could blame them. Half a decade off the grid would make anyone worry about someone. Steve didn’t blame them for being worried, but that didn’t mean he liked it. The questions. The sad eyes. The way their mouths turned downwards and their heads tilted. It used to make him angry, with how many times he had to repeat himself, but back then he was lying. He was telling everyone he was fine when he wasn’t. Now, any frustration was because he was finally telling the truth. He was fine.
Unfortunately, Max was a human lie detector, and today, there was a reason why Steve wouldn’t have been fine.
“Did you really not have work today, or did Robin send you?” Steve looked at Max with a knowing look that, even if she could see, she would miss due to his mask. The girl huffed and shook her head.
“You tend to throw yourself into superheroing when you don’t want to think. She felt bad about leaving you alone.” Max was long finished with the burrito, and she gave the wrapper back to Steve. He played with the paper while considering his response.
Steve stopped being surprised about the things Robin knew about him years ago. The woman was his best friend since before the Avengers became a team. It’d make sense that she’d know exactly what Steve was thinking and how to help him. Hawkeye never missed.
“I’m…” Steve paused and took a deep breath, “I’m trying to just not think about it.” Good idea or not, that was Steve’s go-to coping mechanism. Ignore the pain. Ignore the thoughts. Ignore the knife in his chest for as long as he could. He accepted what happened a long time ago, and the grief was better to deal with, but it wasn’t easy. Especially when they were coming up on the tenth anniversary of…
“We could go see him,” Max offered, resting her hand on top of Steve’s. He flinched, backing away from her touch. “When was the last time you went to go see him?” Steve kept his gaze towards his lap, and Max leaned forward to catch it. “Steve?”
“I don’t want to see him. I…” Steve cut himself off, “It’s not him. It’s just a stone and some dirt and a body…” His voice cracked, and he had to take a deep breath. It was a painful breath to take, as if he was choking on sand. “He’s not there.” Steve pressed a hand to his chest, feeling beneath his suit the necklace he always wore. He never dared to take it off, finding comfort in the metal against his skin.
Max leaned back, staring at… Well, staring at nothing, but she was facing forward, brows furrowed beneath her suit. It was evident only by subtle creases in the leather. “Steve, I know you miss him. I miss him too, but you can’t keep going on in this limbo. You have to let him go.” Steve clenched his jaw.
“You mean forget him?”
“I mean let yourself grieve,” Max returned, voice suddenly deadly serious, “Do you have any idea how scared we all were when you disappeared on us? Imagine waking up from a coma to find out your friend is dead and your other friend is God knows where.” Her voice turned thick, and Steve didn’t need to look over to know Max was crying. “Steve, it’s been ten years! Ten years, and you won’t even say his name!”
“Max–”
“You think I don’t know? You think I don’t smell his cologne on you and feel his vest when digging in your closet? You think I don’t know about the tattoos you got or the music you listen to? You keep clinging to him like he’s something you can float on, but if you keep this up, you’re going to sink.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Steve snapped, wincing a second later when he remembered who he was talking to. As expected, Max scoffed.
“Oh, really? Oh, I don’t know what I’m talking about? Right, yeah, no fucking clue.” She tongued her canine and shook her head, “Yeah, it’s not like I lost my fucking brother, right? Not like I’ve been mourning him for over a decade. No, definitely not.”
“I didn’t mean it like that–”
“Or what about Eddie?” Steve flinched, “Right, yeah, sorry, I forgot we’re not allowed to say his name. I forgot we’re not allowed to talk about him because God forbid you think about him! God forbid you get confronted by the fact that he’s dead!” Steve felt tears pooling in the lenses of his mask, but he didn’t dare take it off, even if Max could probably smell his tears, “Well, he is dead, Steve! He’s dead, and he isn’t coming back! None of them are! And we can either lay down and die with them, or we can let ourselves grieve and move the fuck on!” Steve flinched once more, as Max screamed in his ear. He looked over to find the woman sobbing, “You were gone for five years, Steve.” She hiccuped, “We needed you – I needed you, and you were gone.”
Steve didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have the words, so he silently tugged at the neck of his suit to reach for the necklace he always wore. He tugged the thing up and over his head, making sure not to dislodge his mask, before he handed the thing over to Max. The vigilante took it without question, feeling it around in her hands with a frown, “Eddie’s ring? Why would you…” She cut herself off, almost dropping the necklace. Steve was quick to take it back, putting it back over his neck with a sniff.
“His last words to me was a fucking proposal,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left you guys, and I’m sorry, but I…” He sobbed, “I didn’t know what to do. He was… he was the only person who loved me for me. Who loved me before the bite and before I became a hero. He was the only person who loved me the way I wanted to be loved, and he died. He died because I was reckless and stupid, and I had to leave.” Steve spoke through a clenched jaw, “I had to leave before I killed the rest of you too.”
“Steve… I’m sorry. I know you’re just hurting, and I shouldn’t have snapped–”
“You were dead when they brought you in, Max,” Steve continued, and the girl stopped talking, “Your heart wasn’t beating, and I couldn’t lose you. Not when I already lost Eddie. I packed my bags in an hour and left without saying goodbye to anyone. I was a coward, and no amount of apologies can make up for that, but I…” his voice broke, “I loved Eddie more than anything in this world, and you’re my sister. Losing you two… my world ended. I didn’t see a point in staying where it happened.” He didn’t mention seeing pictures of Daredevil in magazines a couple of years later and knowing it was Max. He didn’t mention the big bads the Avengers had to fight without him or the fact that he spent every day fighting battles he wanted to lose. It wasn’t like he could get drunk; how else was he supposed to get rid of the emptiness inside of him? Luckily, as he said, Max was omnipotent. She didn’t need to hear all the details to know what to do.
“Come on.” She stood and held out her hand.
“Max, I really can’t…” he braced himself, “I can’t see Eddie. Not yet. I promise… I–you’re right, I need to let go. I need to properly grieve, just not today. Please, not today—”
“Just shut up and follow me, dingus.” Max tilted her head, and Steve begrudgingly listened. He grabbed her arm and let her lead him to her apartment. Lucas was on a mission, but Steve still borrowed the kid’s clothes. Well, he borrowed one of Lucas’s sweatshirts and shoes, stealing a pair of jeans from a box of Billy’s old stuff. Sure, Steve was slender, but Lucas had super speed and the world’s fastest metabolism. The only reason the sweatshirt fit was because it came from long before Lucas became Quicksilver. Steve couldn’t help but scoff at the Hawkins High logo when he put it on.
“Am I allowed to know where we’re going?” He asked when they reached the street.
“Nope.” Following Max when they were Daredevil and Spider-Man was fairly usual on patrols, but following Max outside of uniform felt wrong. Max led with her white cane dragging against the ground in front of her. Steve was beside her, trying to appear like he was leading her instead of the other way around. Luckily, it didn’t take long for them to reach their destination.
“Nope, no, no way. We are not–” Max snagged the hood on Steve’s shirt when he tried to walk away. She read the braille on the name tags before pressing the buzzer to a familiar apartment.
“Hello?” A voice grumbled through.
“It’s Max, open up!”
“Max, I haven’t seen him in years! He’ll kill me! Hell, he probably hates me!” Steve hissed. He could easily break out of Max’s grip with his strength, but all too soon the door unlocked, and they were heading up a flight of stairs to an apartment.
Steve stared down at the worn out welcome mat, as Max knocked on the door. He put his hood up and stared at the ground, as Wayne Munson answered the door. Max walked in without a care in the world, while Wayne was too distracted staring up. Steve couldn’t look at him. He couldn’t bear to see the disappointment or anger in the other man’s eyes.
When frail arms suddenly wrapped around him, Steve felt one of the cracks in his heart heal. With a sob, Steve wrapped his arms around Wayne, and it felt a bit like coming home.
“About damn time you show up,” Wayne whispered, kissing Steve’s head. When he pulled away, there were tears streaming down his face, “You look skinny.” That forced a laugh out of Steve, but soon he was sobbing all over again. Wayne shook his head and lightly smacked the younger man’s arm, “Oh, don’t start with that. Come on. I made your favorite.”
Wayne led Steve inside his apartment, where the smell of the man’s chicken and dumpling soup floated through the air. It was the first thing Steve noticed, followed quickly by a sharp pain, as he saw Eddie’s guitar on the wall along with some old posters. “You kept his stuff,” Steve muttered, touching the Corroded Coffin tapestry he watched Eddie make in high school. Steve was already in grad school by then, but he’d been friends with Eddie ever since he could talk.
“You can take whatever you want. I kept it for y’all. The kids have taken a lot, but there’s plenty I saved for you.” Steve turned to see Wayne ladling out some soup in a bowl. Max was on the couch with her own bowl, listening to the man’s old box radio. “Careful, it’s hot.”
“How’d you know?” Steve asked, sitting at the table. Wayne joined him with his own bowl, smirking.
“Max texted me,” he said.
“Snitch!” Max snarked from the couch.
Wayne tossed a packet of oyster crackers at the girl, scoffing when she caught it, “Damn superheros.” Steve’s eyes widened, “Don’t give me that look; I’ve known for years. You would’ve found that out if you ever bothered to visit.” The man took a spoonful of soup to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, “Don’t look so sour about it. I don’t blame you. God knows I damn near lost control when I lost Eddie. Still think he took my mind with him when he left, but when I stopped crying about him, I was crying about you.” Steve pushed at a dumpling with his spoon, feeling too sick to eat. “When Eddie died, I lost a son. I didn’t expect to lose another.” The younger man looked up just as Wayne rested his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Eddie would lose his damn mind if he knew what happened to you.”
Steve looked back down at his soup. He dropped his spoon and, for the second time that day, removed his necklace and handed it over to the man. He figured, if it worked as an explanation for Max, then it might work for Wayne too. “Eddie gave this to me when he was…” Steve trailed off, realizing that instead of the tears he was expecting from the man, Wayne had a giant smile on his face.
“Goddammit, the son of a bitch actually did it.” Wayne laughed and shook his head, admiring the ring hanging from the necklace chain.
“What?”
Wayne looked over at Steve with a smile then held the ring high in front of him, as if admiring a precious jewel, “This ring cost me $300 and three years worth of oil changes.” Steve frowned and tilted his head, “Eddie came over one day telling me he wanted to propose, so I gave him this.” He handed the ring back to Steve, “It’s the same ring I used to propose to my wife.”
“It was his aunt’s ring?” Steve asked, remembering how Eddie’s aunt died a couple years after he moved in with Wayne. It was a drunk driver that did it.
“Yup,” Wayne nodded, “he asked me, oh…” the man tilted his head, “Maybe half a year before he died.” He chuckled, “I kept telling him to get it over with, but he kept on putting it off. ‘Oh, now’s not the time!... Steve’s busy with work… It needs to be romantic!” Wayne did a bad impression of Eddie. Steve still laughed. “When he died, I damn near kicked the dirt on his grave just for waiting so long. I thought he never got the chance, but now I see that he asked you.”
“I said yes,” Steve said, smiling just as the old man’s own smile faltered.
“I always told him no amount of fear was worth dying with regrets. That’s how you get ghosts, and my boy didn’t deserve to be a ghost. He deserved to move on. Watch us from someplace better than this damn planet.” Wayne shook his head, “You know, there was a time when I would do anything to have my nephew back. I’d give it all away just for one more chance to hold my boy in my arms.” Steve returned his gaze to his soup, which was slowly turning cold, “But that’s not me anymore. I can’t bring my nephew back just as I couldn’t convince him to get over his fears and ask you to marry him sooner. There’s nothing I can do to save him and there was nothing I could’ve done–”
“I could’ve done—”
“Boy, if you don’t shut your damn mouth, I will do it for you.” Steve shuts his mouth with a click, ignoring Max’s snickering from the living room. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. I may not have seen it with my own eyes, but I know you would’ve ripped the world apart to save Eddie. I know because he would’ve done the same for you. My boy died protecting those he loved, and you lived on because you have to do the same. Eddie died not because he wanted to or because you couldn’t save him; he died because someone else needed saving. My son died a hero, and he’d be pissed as all hell if he knew you were throwing it all away.”
“What?” Steve was taken aback.
“My son saved your damn life, Steve. You think he’d want you caught up on him like this? You think he’d want you running away? Five years, you were gone. Imagine if Eddie was alive. Imagine what he’d do if he found out. How heartbroken he’d be? He loved you more than the moon loves the Earth, and you left that love in the dirt. You left what he died trying to protect. You ran away, and by the sounds of it, you’re still running.”
“I’m not running.” Steve didn’t want to get upset at the old man, but at this point, it was a force of habit to turn on his defensive mode when talking about his feelings.
“Then how come you haven’t visited me?” Steve clenched his jaw, “How come Max told me you never go to Eddie’s grave? How come you don’t even say his damn name?”
“Snitch,” Steve whispers at a volume he knows only Max can hear. Wayne raised his brow, and Steve clenched his jaw, swallowing the coal trapped in his throat. “I’m scared,” he finally said after a few beats of silence.
“What was that?”
“I said I’m scared, okay?” Steve repeated, “I’ve lost people before, but none like Eddie. None where it feels like…” he bit his lip, “It feels like he’s still here, you know? It feels like at the end of the day, I’ll go back to our place and find him working on a song. Or–or it feels like he’s just been on tour, and I’m just waiting for the time zones to line up well enough to call him. Or he’s… he’s right outside my door. He’s gone, but I still feel him. Everywhere I go, I feel him like a looming shadow, and I don’t know how to stop it. I can’t stop it. No matter what I do, he’s there, and I’m scared…”
“You’re scared if you let yourself accept that he’s gone, then he’ll disappear for good?” Wayne scooted his seat closer to Steve’s and grabbed the younger man’s arm, “Because I can tell you for a fact that he won’t. No matter what happens–well, anything short of the world ending can happen, and Eddie will still be here. He’ll always be here. Not physically–not beyond the things of his we keep around or even the memories we have. He’s here.” Wayne pressed a hand to his heart, “Right where it hurts the most, that’s where he is. That pain you feel–pain like a knife twisting in your damn soul, that’s him. That’s your love for him persevering. That’s him surviving through the love you have for him. Love doesn’t just die; it lives on forever. You can keep trying to cling on to the tangible parts of that love. You can deny that he’s gone all you want, but that isn’t going to fix what has been broken. You need to feel that pain to heal. You need to understand it to live on without him. And it’s not easy, and if I’m being frank, that pain doesn’t ever get better.” The old man starts crying again, “It hurts like hell, but it becomes manageable. It becomes so you can think back on him and smile through the pain. So you can be reminded of the man he was and feel nothing but love. Knife and all.”
Steve cries, “I can’t handle the pain.” He sobs, “It hurts too much.”
“Oh, son,” Wayne wraps his arms around Steve once more, “you’re a damn superhero. If anyone can fight this, it’s you.” He pulls away, and puts his hand against Steve’s chest, “Feel that pain, and use it. Feel that love, and use it. Fight against that dumb head of yours. Fight against that stubbornness. There’s an entire world out there. Don’t waste my son’s sacrifice by blocking it out. And maybe come visit me every once in a while, huh?”
“I’m sorry for not visiting, Wayne.” Steve cries into the old man’s shoulder, “I thought you’d hate me–”
“Hate you?!” Wayne pulls away with a scoff, “Did you not hear a damn word I just said? Love perseveres. Married to my boy or not, you’re my son too. That doesn’t go away just cause you were too stubborn to stop by. I love you, kid. Ain’t nothing going to change that.”
“I love you too.” Wayne smiled and messed up his hair.
“Good.” The older man scooted his chair back to its original spot, “Now that that’s done with, eat your damn soup before it gets cold.”
Steve laughed and dug in, feeling the most at home than he had in a long time.
***
“If you don’t call, I’ll take my damn shotgun to your door. I don’t care how strong you are!” Wayne shouted from his apartment’s doorstep. Steve had two boxes of Eddie’s stuff in his hands, but he managed a thumbs up.
“I’ll call, Wayne, I promise!”
“Tell Hopper to stop cheating in that online chess game we play! I know he’s got that AI thing!”
“I’ll speak to him personally,” Max promised then saluted the man, who grumbled under his breath before heading back inside. “Do you want me to call Lucas to run those to your apartment?” She already had her phone out.
“No, I can take it. I wanted to go back on patrol anyway.” Max frowned, “Don’t give me that look! I’ll…” he sighed, “I’ll be fine, okay? I’m… I’ll let him go, I just need a bit of time. Some crime fighting to clear my head, okay?”
“You don’t have to rush into this, Steve,” Max said, “You can take your time with this.”
“It’s been ten years,” Steve pointed out, “If I don’t follow this momentum now, I’ll just stay stuck.” Max nodded solemnly.
“Come over when you’re done?” She asked, “Lucas will be home, and we can watch some Spongebob and eat Ben & Jerry’s. Your favorite?”
“Sure thing, kid.” Steve nodded. His suit was still at Max’s, but he had extras at his apartment. That, and he insisted Max actually show up to work for at least a few hours. If only to make Steve feel a bit less guilty for forcing her away for so long.
He took a taxi back to his apartment, as carrying two large boxes on the subway wasn’t ideal. Besides, it gave him a more stable environment to think. He played with the ring around his neck and listened to the playlist Eddie made him years before.
“Thanks.” He gave the driver his money before heading up to his apartment. He set the boxes down on his countertop, but before he could open them, his phone started to ring. His work phone, not his personal phone. This is important to specify because his work phone was an Avengers only line. Dustin designed the phones themselves so no one could call them without a secure connection and about ten billion different codes that only Dustin could grant access to. So, even as Steve stared at the ‘Unknown Caller’ title, he answered. If someone had this number, then they had it for a reason.
“Hello?” Steve asked, frowning when all he heard was static. “Dustin? Hopper? Nance?”
“… told you… my year…” Steve felt himself stumble, as Eddie’s voice broke through the static. There was no way, “Flame on!” There was a loud screeching noise that followed, and it made Steve flinch and drop his phone. The thing went dark; the call dropped.
Steve quickly ran to his closet and grabbed the first Spider-suit he saw, “Karen, did you see what just happened?” Karen was the personalized AI Dustin added to his suit. He used to use Jarvis, but Jarvis was a bit of an asshole. Karen was much nicer, and she may or may not be named after a Spongebob character.
“I caught it all on record, sir. Would you like me to send a recording of the call to Dustin?” Karen had a Scottish accent, for some reason. Steve asked Dustin why one time, and the kid called him racist, so he stopped asking.
“Yeah, just…” Steve hesitated, grabbing the necklace around his neck, “Can you send it in a few hours, actually? There’s just something I’ve been putting off that I need to do first.”
“I can send it tomorrow morning. Is that alright?”
“That’s perfect. Thanks Karen.” Steve eyed his phone once more, shaking his head. It was probably just a glitch. An old recording that somehow got sent through the grape vine of phones, or maybe one of the kids was playing a cruel prank. Steve wouldn’t put it past Mike; the kid was still getting used to society. He wasn’t the best with social cues or jokes. God forbid he knew what a prank was.
“Remind me to take Mike’s arm at some point,” Steve grumbled, putting on the rest of his suit. Mike was an Avenger better known as the Winter Soldier, and he had a vibranium arm.
One time, Mike accidentally ate Robin’s leftover birthday cake, and the woman hid the arm in the vents. They still hadn’t fixed all the damage the kid caused when searching for it.
“It wasn’t Mike. He’s in Wakanda with Will getting an upgrade for his arm. I can message Shuri if you require proof,” Karen offered.
“It’s fine, I trust you.” Steve tugged on the boots for his costume, cursing himself for not remembering to grab baby powder on the way home. “Do you know where the call came from? Like, can you track the source?”
“Not an exact location. The signal—wherever it came from, somehow widened its range. It’s radius seems to be centralized in Central Park, if that helps.”
“Remind me to head there before I go home.”
“Will do, sir.” Steve thanked the computer before heading to his window. A long time ago, he used to strictly get ready in back alleyways. Anywhere where his Spider-Persona couldn’t be traced back to him, but that was before Eddie died. The only reason Steve hid his identity in the first place to protect his friends and family, but who did he have to protect now? All his friends were superheroes or spies. If his villains found out and tried to hurt them, Spider-Man would be the least of their worries.
He still remembered when Scorpion kidnapped Nancy, known by her peers as Black Widow. The poor fool never stood a chance.
When Eddie died, with him went Steve’s only friend who would actually be at risk given an attack or kidnapping. So, Steve cared less and less about his identity being revealed. He told himself that hiding was nothing more than habitual at this point. Wearing the mask all the time. Dodging and webbing cameras. Steve claimed it gave him a sense of normalcy, as if someone out there was still in need of protection, but it wasn’t true. At the end of the day, hiding was like a band-aid on a bullet wound. It was Steve’s poor attempt at hiding the truth, even if he had accepted it a long time ago.
He was a poison. Steve and Spider-Man at once; everyone around him got hurt. Hiding his identity made that feel less true. That as long as he kept this wall up between his worlds, then he could keep everyone safe for that much longer. Even if they could handle themselves… not every villain of his was easy to defeat, and not all of his friends had powers. Sooner or later, they’d all get hurt too, so Steve kept his mask on, if only to delay the inevitable.
“Do you want the usual playlist, sir?” Karen asked.
“No, I…” Steve swallowed, “Play Eddie’s playlist.” He usually didn’t listen to it on patrols; he’d get too stuck in his head if he did. But this was obviously an exception. He wasn’t leaving to fight crime. He was leaving to fight something much more intimidating.
Steve never went to Eddie’s funeral. He was already in a different state, trying to pretend nothing went wrong. This was his first time actually seeing the man’s grave.
There were fresh flowers in the dirt and guitar picks on top of the stone. Someone had left an old CD, and Steve shook his head. Eddie’s band had made it big—finishing their first world tour when he came back to New York for the last time. He had finished their second album in the time he spent at home. “I’m telling you, Stevie. This is gonna be my year. Grammies… tours… all with the best damn boyfriend in the whole world right by my side.”
Two months later, he was six feet under.
Steve stared down at the stone—at Eddie’s name carved into the rock. “You would’ve been the best damn husband in the whole world,” Steve whispered, and he reached down the neck of his suit to bring out the necklace. He stared down at the thing, eyeing the stone “Karen, will you… will you play the recording from March 5th, 2016?”
“Are you sure?” Karen wasn’t human, but she had a skill of sounding just like flesh and bone, as she softened her tone. She knew what the recording meant to Steve. Despite being saved in his suit’s log, the man originally recorded the video on Steve’s phone, meaning the quality was shitty in every sense of the word. Still, it was nice. The outline of Eddie’s body behind a curtain, as the man sang his heart out against his shower’s spray. Eddie rarely sang songs outside of the metal genre, but he was listening to the playlist Steve made him.
“No, I don’t wanna fall in love!” Eddie’s voice was soft and sweet like a gentle storm, as he sang along to Chris Isaak. “I don’t wanna fall in love.”
“Just play the audio, please.” The video disappeared, keeping the sound playing in Steve’s ears. He listened to Eddie’s voice. The song Eddie sang to Steve when the man had a nightmare. The song he played when Steve was off on a mission. The song Steve loved but hadn’t heard in years. The song he only liked when Eddie was the one singing it.
Through tears that fogged up his lenses, Steve took the ring off the necklace chain. The hands of his suit were attached in one piece, so he put Eddie’s ring over his costume. The jewelry rested on Steve’s ring finger, and it felt like it weighed a thousand tons.
“Why did you have to leave?” Steve whispered the question, listening on as the song reached its end. He heard Eddie cut himself off and laugh.
“If you’re going to stand out there like a creep, you should at least join me!” Eddie shouted over the shower’s spray. Steve smiled at the memory. He then heard himself say, “You’re such a perv, babe,” before the video cut off. To make up for the silence, Karen replayed it, and Steve sighed.
“I’ll always love you, Eddie,” he promised, securing the ring around his finger the best he could, “but I have to let you go.” His stomach protested almost as much as his heart, which twisted painfully in his chest. In an instant, he dropped to his hands and knees. There were probably security cameras. This was probably going to go viral from the Daily Bugle or some other bullshit website, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was how much grass had grown over the dirt. How the stone was already stained, and how the pictures left by fans were already bleached by the sun. How long it had been. How Steve wasted a decade when he should’ve been here. When he should’ve been at Eddie’s side the entire time.
“I’m so sorry, Ed. I–” With a hiccup, Steve cut himself off. His heart was still twisting, and under any normal circumstances he would’ve gladly continued the breakdown he so desperately needed, but peace was never a guarantee for Steve. Hell, he shouldn’t have been so surprised. Every hero knew that slow nights were just build-ups for something big.
As it always did, Steve’s spidey-sense started with a tingle in his neck that traveled down to his forearms and stomach. A heavy pit that matched the empty hole in his heart, but it wasn’t painful. It was… Steve thought it sounded crazy, but it felt hopeful. Usually, his senses only triggered due to danger or an impending doom. Never had his senses made him feel lighter, as if the sun was going to rise on a freezing morning. Before Steve could even attempt a rational explanation for the sense, there was a flash of orange light coming straight from the sky.
“What the hell?!” Steve shouted, putting his engagement ring back on the necklace and back on his neck. He was going to wear it! But he figured losing his engagement ring when he was trying to get closure for Eddie’s death would probably send him right back to square one. “Karen, what the fuck was that?” The system belonged to SHIELD, meaning it could hack into just about every database in the world, including New York’s traffic cams.
“It came from Central Park, sir! Same signal as that call from earlier!” Karen sounded just as frantic as Steve was running. He reached the exit of the cemetery and stuck his web to the side of the nearest building, “It was some kind of energy burst from the sky. I’m trying to find the source, but it’s…”
“It’s what?” Steve demanded, grunting as he swung towards the park. “Karen?”
“There’s a hole in the sky.”
Before Steve could ask for clarification, he finally came into view of Central Park. Sure enough, there was a giant hole in the sky. As if the stars and inky darkness were nothing more than patterned fabric, there was a rip amongst them. A hole torn in space and time to reveal swirling lights. Just as Steve was about to turn his ass around and call a more capable Avenger, the rip closed.
But not before something came through.
No, not something… It was a person. It was a person free falling above the park. Steve shouted and swung faster, cursing as he went. The person falling from the sky kept flashing, like a malfunctioning flashlight. They would go dark, then glow like a fire. In fact, as Steve got closer, he realized it was a fire. Indeed, the man falling from the sky was igniting into flames then extinguishing back and forth in seconds. When he landed, it was like an asteroid crashing into the park. There was a big flash of orange light and a similar flash of heat. When the smoke cleared, Steve wasted no time swinging towards the crater the fallen man left in his wake.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Steve shouted, swinging through the trees. Trees were much harder to swing through than buildings, but it was still faster than running. “Fuck! Please don’t be a pile of fleshy, bloody mush.” He did not want to deal with that, not when he already dealt with more than enough shit, “Okay, also please don’t be a supervillain.” He really did not want to deal with that.
Soon enough, the vigilante reached the outer lip of the crater. “Karen, can I get some light?” He had decent enough night vision, but there were still plumes of smoke coming from the dirt. That, and a few burst pipes were sending sprays of water that made Steve instinctually squint, even if his suit blocked anything from entering his eyes.
He saw the outfit first. Anyone would’ve probably noticed the outfit first. It was colored navy blue and white — the stereotypical superhero type outfit if Steve had ever seen one. The outfit was torn in a few places, with one of the man’s gloves missing and his white boots stained with dirt and mud. More noticeably, there was a large ‘4’ on the man’s chest outlined in a white circle. Steve frowned, took a deep breath, and approached. He found peace in the fact that he did not smell blood, but he couldn’t really smell anything over the stench of ash, like a smoke room. When Steve was close enough, he could finally see the man’s face, shining white in the light of his suit.
To describe the feeling would be like describing color to a blind man. It was so overwhelming it made Steve fall. There wasn’t a lump in his throat but a full boulder. It choked him. It made him burst into tears all over again. He couldn’t breathe past the knife in his chest. Whatever healing he had just done at his fiance’s grave seemed to break apart all over again. He crawled forward and brushed the man’s long, black hair.
The few pieces of rational thought left in Steve’s mind were screaming that the man was dead. That Steve just watched some kind of doppelganger fall from the sky just to die in Central Park, so he tried to follow the more rational thoughts and pressed two trembling fingers against the man’s throat. The suit he wore had a turtleneck, so it was difficult to find the correct spot, but Steve found it. The steady thumping of a pulse.
“Oh my God…” Steve gasped, pressing his ear to the man’s chest to confirm. He was breathing. The man was alive.
Eddie Munson just fell out of the sky, and he was alive!