Cover Story

01

That afternoon, Jean sat at the very back of the library with a book she’d barely gotten a few pages into in front of her and her phone in her hand.

Peter lay at her feet and watched her scroll through their chat history. She scrolled up, and up, and stopped on a photo. He’d sent it: a box of Little Caesars pizza, captioned best pizza in New York, don’t @ me.

Jean stared at the photo, and the corners of her mouth curved up, little by little.

“Ooh.”

Kitty’s head popped out of a bookshelf. Jubilee came around from the other side, still holding a bag of chips.

“Grey is smiling,” Jubilee whispered. “Grey is smiling at her phone.”

Jean flipped her phone face down on the table. “I am not.”

“You are.” Kitty stepped out through the shelf and sat down across from her. “I saw it. It says ‘Peter’ on the screen.”

Peter’s ears shot up.

“Who’s Peter?” Jubilee put her chips on the table like she was settling in for a long talk.

“A friend.”

“A friend who makes you grin like an idiot,” Kitty said.

Jean said nothing.

Jubilee narrowed her eyes, looked at Jean, then glanced up at the ceiling. Jean’s room was right up there on the third floor.

“Wait a second,” she said. “What about the wall?”

“What wall.”

“You know which wall.” Jubilee lowered her voice like she was discussing a state secret. “You’ve got a whole wall of… that guy in your room. And now there’s a Peter, too. Grey, you’re two-timing.”

Peter buried his face in his paws.

Jean opened her mouth. Peter could tell she was trying to figure out how to explain, and then realizing she couldn’t. She could hardly say “that guy is Peter.”

“…It’s not what you think,” she said at last.

“Then what is it?” Kitty asked.

“It’s complicated.”

“Classic.” Jubilee popped a chip into her mouth. “Anyone who says ‘it’s complicated’ wants them both.”

Jean stood up, picked up her book, and left with Peter on his leash. At the door she stopped and looked back. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Behind them came two people trying very hard not to laugh.

Two-timing, and both of the guys are me.

Peter followed her out with a feeling that, one of these days, this was going to come back and bite him.

02

In the evening, Jean sat on the windowsill watching the sky. As the sun went down, the woods behind the school all turned orange-red.

Peter lay on the floor at her feet. Her phone was lit up in her hand, showing that same lock screen.

“Look.” She turned the phone toward him. “Pretty, right?”

Peter looked at the photo, a band of orange-red sky pressed down behind water towers and antennas. Last time he hadn’t had time to think about it. This time, he noticed the section of rusty railing in the lower left corner, wrapped in a string of faded Christmas lights.

Then it came back to him: it was the roof of his building. He’d hung those lights up the year he moved in and had been too lazy to take them down ever since.

“I took this on the roof of his building,” Jean said. “When I was staying at his place, sometimes he came back from patrol early, and we’d bring a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream up to the roof and sit and look at the stars.”

Her eyes dimmed for a second. “There was a while when I couldn’t even walk past an ice cream shop.”

Peter remembered. She’d just been through all of that back then, and she couldn’t sleep at night, so he’d dragged her up to the roof and said, “Counting stars with Spider-Man works better than counting sheep.” He hadn’t actually known if that was true. He just wanted to get her out for some fresh air.

He remembered the ice cream, too.

The first time, he’d grabbed it without thinking; mint chocolate chip was the only flavor the bodega had left. Jean froze when she saw the tub and didn’t touch a single bite. He didn’t ask. He just ate his own, spoonful by spoonful, and kept rambling at the stars about Star Wars and Star Trek. Jean wasn’t in the mood at first, but his sheer nerd power cracked her up soon enough.

The second time, she didn’t just listen. She started telling him little things about her and Sara, including that last ice cream promise Damage Control had interrupted. When she was done, she had one bite.

The third time, she ate half. By the end, she’d wait until he got really into a story and then steal his half too.

“He talks so much,” Jean said. “From how old the water tower on that building is, all the way to how when he was little he thought he could see the Death Star in the sky… I never even had to say anything. I could just listen.”

She paused.

“He’s such a dork, he always makes me laugh. Those were the best nights of sleep I’ve ever had.”

Peter lifted his head to look at her. She wasn’t looking at him. She was still looking out the window, the sunset on her face.

He really wanted to tell her he remembered too. He remembered her sitting by that rusty railing, hugging her knees, listening to him ramble, every once in a while laughing out loud. He remembered thinking that if it would make her laugh a few more times, he’d tell a hundred more Star Wars stories. (?)

But he couldn’t say a single word now. All he could do was rest his chin on her knee.

03

That night, after her shower, Jean didn’t go straight to sleep. She opened the closet, took the gray hoodie down from the very back, carried it over to the bed, and sat cross-legged.

Peter watched her from his nest.

“Quit staring,” she said. “You stuck your head in the closet and sniffed it the very first night, didn’t you?”

She pulled the hoodie on and put the hood up. The sleeves hung way past her hands. She sat there like that, looking exactly the way she had three years ago, curled up in the corner of his couch.

“Pita,” she said, “have you ever imagined a scene? A really specific one?”

Peter: Woof? (Like what?)

“Like…” She buried her face in the collar of the hoodie, her voice muffled. “Like holding hands. Not the kind where he grabs my hand crossing the street, that doesn’t count. I mean he’s walking next to me, and I reach over, and he just takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like it was always supposed to be that way.”

…

“Like he comes home from patrol and climbs in through the window, and the first thing he says is ‘You’re still up?’ And then he walks over and rests his chin on top of my head, and holds me really tight, and he still smells like New York.”

Peter burrowed his head under the blanket.

“And…” Jean stopped, and her ears turned red. “Never mind. That’s all.”

She looked up and caught Peter staring at her, eyes perfectly round.

“What are you looking at.” She reached over and pressed both his ears down flat and held them there. “You didn’t hear anything. Got it?”

Peter: Whine. (Got it. I mean, didn’t hear it.)

Jean let go, pushed the hood back, and lay down.

“Night, Pita.”

The lamp went off, leaving only the little spider night-light in the corner. Peter lay in his nest with his eyes wide open, his heart pounding like he’d just jumped off a thirty-story building.

04

He didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep, or what woke him up.

The room was dark. The orange glow of the night-light didn’t reach the bed. The first thing he heard was the soft rustle of sheets, then breathing, low and uneven, and then a faint, wet little sound.

Peter’s first thought was that she was having a nightmare, and he almost got up.

Then he heard her say, very softly, “…Peter.” Too clear to be sleep-talking.

Peter froze in his nest. It took him about three seconds to understand what was happening, and about one more second to realize he absolutely should not stay here.

He climbed out of the nest and crept to the door as quietly as he could, praying with every step that the bell on his collar wouldn’t ring. At the door, he stood up on his hind legs, took the handle in his mouth, pressed down, and pulled back. The door opened a crack. He squeezed through sideways, turned around, and nudged the door shut inch by inch with his back.

The latch clicked. Peter held his breath. There was no sound from inside.

He sat down against the door, back pressed to the wood, his whole body burning from the tips of his ears to the base of his tail.

The hallway was dark except for the green glow of an emergency light at the far end. He stared at that green light and started reciting the periodic table in his head. Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron… When he got to sodium, another faint “Peter” drifted out of the room. He started over from the beginning.

He was on his third time through when he heard footsteps at the end of the hall.

It was Bobby. He was in slippers, holding a bag of cookies with another one sticking out of his mouth, probably on his way back from a midnight kitchen raid. He passed Jean’s door, saw a golden retriever sitting outside it, and stopped.

“Pita?” he whispered. “What are you doing out here? She kick you out?”

Peter didn’t move.

Bobby crouched down and reached out to pat his head, glancing toward the door handle. “Want me to knock for you…”

A low growl rolled out of Peter’s throat, teeth bared, every inch a menace. An ordinary golden retriever had probably never looked this vicious in its whole life. It was about as far from the usual friendly golden as you could get.

Bobby’s hand stopped in midair.

“…Okay.” He slowly pulled his hand back, stood up, and took a step back. “No knocking. No knocking it is. You guard that door. You’re doing great.”

He backed up a few more steps clutching his cookies, then turned and slipped back into his room.

Peter went back to the periodic table. That night he went through it eleven times. By the end, the window at the far end of the hallway was starting to turn pale.

The next morning, the door opened.

Jean stood there in her pajamas, hair a mess, and stopped short when she saw the golden retriever lying across the doorway.

“What are you doing sleeping out here?” She crouched down and rubbed his head. “Did you come out for water and get locked out?”

Peter couldn’t look at her.

“Poor baby,” Jean said. “Wait right here.”

She went back inside and came out a minute later with an entire bag of jerky treats, then poured a heaping plateful in front of him.

“Easy on those,” she said, and headed for the bathroom humming Running Up That Hill, in an unusually good mood.

Peter stared at the plate of jerky, then at her back as she walked away humming, and flattened himself on the floor.

Peter: Whine… (I should’ve just let her get me neutered.)

05

Day 4 · 3 days to go

In the morning, the first thing Jean did when she woke up was open that chat window again.

Still that same “ok.” No new messages.

She stared at the screen for a long time, then called him. It rang once, and then came a cold recorded voice: “The number you have dialed is not available…”

Peter lay in his nest listening to the recording and thought about that cracked spiderweb of a screen back in the alley.

Jean hung up and called again. The same recording.

“Three days,” she said, sitting on the bed hugging her knees. “He said he’d be a little slow to text back. He didn’t say he’d disappear for three days.”

Peter: Whine… (I wasn’t planning on disappearing for three days either.)

“With friends.” Jean said the words over again and frowned. “Which friends?”

Peter could count his friends on one hand, and while Jean was staying at his place she’d met almost all of them.

Ned had only just become Peter’s friend again, and every Friday he showed up with an armful of LEGO to play video games. The first time he saw Jean’s powers in action, he switched sides on the spot and declared that she could take Spider-Man in a fight, no contest.

To dig up information on Metzger, Jean had gone with Peter to Yelena’s bathhouse more than a few times. At first, things between the two of them had been a little tense. Then they got to talking about their sisters, and after that they got along just fine.

Frank had helped them in a few fights. Once, when Jean’s cramps were really bad and Peter was running around in a total panic, it was Frank who showed up with a hot water bottle and painkillers. Jean remembered thinking that he must have been a good dad, once.

And then there was Johnny Storm, the Fantastic Four’s resident fire hazard, who’d become Peter’s number one bad influence pretty much right after the whole Battleworld mess got sorted out. He’d come over for dinner exactly once, and the first thing he did was ask Jean if she had a boyfriend. Jean let him cool off on the fire escape for half an hour. For the first time ever, Peter didn’t stop her from using her powers irresponsibly. He even gloated about it afterward.

Only MJ had moved back to Boston for work. She and Jean had met alone just once before she left. To this day, Peter had no idea what the two of them talked about. All he knew was that MJ accepted Jean’s apology, and that afterward the two of them would sometimes get together to make fun of him.

If Peter really was with friends, it almost had to be one of these guys.

“It’d better not be that cat,” Jean said.

I swear to God, I cut things off with Felicia ages ago! Peter hopped twice in a panic. Even if Felicia herself doesn’t seem to have totally accepted that.

She pulled up Ned’s number. Her finger hovered over the screen for a long time, and in the end she locked her phone instead.

“I’ll give him half a day,” she said.

She spent that half day going to class like normal and checking her phone every ten minutes. At three in the afternoon, she went back to her room, sat on the edge of the bed, and started making calls, one by one.

06

The first call was to Ned.

It rang four times before he picked up. “Hello?”

“Ned, it’s me. Jean.”

There was one second of silence on the other end, and then a flood of words. “Jean! Long time no see! How have you been? How’s school? Peter says you’re doing really well there, he talks about you a lot, I mean not a lot a lot, just a normal amount, like a normal-friend amount…”

Peter: Woof. (Ned…)

“Peter said he’d be with friends this week,” Jean cut in. “Is he with you?”

Ned went quiet again for one second.

Come on, Ned. Please. Peter prayed silently.

“Yes!” Ned said. “He’s here with me! He’s… sleeping.”

Jean checked the time. “It’s three in the afternoon.”

“He pulled an all-nighter!” Ned said. “We were up all night building LEGO. The Death Star, the four-thousand-piece one.”

Peter closed his eyes. Ned had forgotten him once, but he’d never forget the Death Star.

“Okay,” Jean said. “Tell him to call me back when he wakes up.”

“Definitely! Absolutely!” Ned said. “And, uh, Jean, come visit sometime and we’ll get pizza!”

The call ended.

Nice one, Ned! What a bro. Hopefully that does it.

Peter breathed a sigh of relief.

But Jean didn’t seem ready to give up.

Peter had a bad feeling about this.

The second call was to Yelena. It rang until it cut off. No answer. Jean tried again. Still nothing.

Phew. Yelena’s probably off on a mission in some other country.

Peter breathed another sigh of relief. Best news he’d heard all week.

“Don’t tell me she ran off with Bob,” Jean muttered, scrolling down through her contacts.

Peter saw which name she stopped on, and the breath he’d just let out got stuck right back in his throat.

No. Not him. Anyone but him.

It rang once before someone picked up, with deafening music in the background. “Yo! Red! What a nice surprise!”

“Johnny, is Peter with you?”

Peter held his breath. He knew Johnny way too well. In a situation like this, Johnny would definitely…

“Yeah!” Johnny said. “Totally! He’s… fixing my oven.”

Damn.

Jean was quiet for two seconds. “Your brother-in-law is Reed freaking Richards.”

“Yep.”

“The Baxter Building is fifty years ahead of the rest of New York in engineering, and you’re telling me you need Peter Parker to fix your oven?”

Two seconds of silence on the other end, too.

“…He offered! You know how nice he is.”

Peter: Arf! (Flattering me is NOT helping right now!)

“Have him call me back,” Jean said.

“You got it! As soon as he’s done!” Johnny said. “Oh, and hey, if you’re ever bored…”

Jean hung up.

Peter buried his face in his paws. That was the downside of being this close. The last time Johnny stayed out all night with that Skrull, it was Peter who covered for him with Sue. He’d never thought twice about it. Now it was all coming back to bite him.

The third call was to Frank.

It rang six times. Someone picked up. No one spoke.

“Frank, is Peter with you?”

The silence went on for about ten seconds, and Peter started to think he was in the clear.

“He’s here.”

Even you, Frank?!

“Still as annoying as ever.”

The call ended.

Ugh. I guess one more doesn’t make a difference.

Peter was in despair.

He was very grateful that his friends had come through for him in his hour of need. But could they please get their damn stories straight first?!

Peter: Aroo… (I brought this on myself…)

07

Jean set her phone down on the bed.

“Great.” Her voice was calm, with a storm underneath it. “Spider-Man learned how to clone himself.”

Peter lay down and covered his eyes with both front paws.

Jean’s cheeks went faintly pink. She gritted her teeth and finally got it out: “Ugh. Men!”

Peter quietly scooted deeper into his nest. As the ringleader, he was in no position to argue.

She got up and paced the room, over to the window and back again.

“So he told them to say that?” She was talking faster and faster. “He’d rather have three people lie for him than text me back once? What is he doing?”

She stopped and stared at her phone. “Is it that damn cat?”

Peter: Woof! Woof woof! Woof woof woof! (No! They did it on their own! Don’t get any ideas!)

Jean ignored him. She took two more steps and stopped at the window.

Peter watched her back. She stood there without moving for a long time before she said, very quietly, “…Or maybe he isn’t with anyone at all.”

The room went quiet. Peter was relieved Jean hadn’t kept spiraling, and had instead guessed the truth on instinct. But when he saw her fingers tighten on the curtain, knuckles white, there didn’t seem to be much to be glad about.

“I could go find them.” An evil glint came into Jean’s eyes. “Just let me in for one teeny second, and I’ll know exactly where Peter is.”

She closed her eyes.

“No, no, no,” she said. “I can’t do that to my friends.”

Someone knocked. Before Jean could answer, Kitty’s head had already come through the door. She had a mug in each hand. Jubilee pushed the door open and came in behind her, holding one too.

“We were just walking by,” Kitty said, “and heard somebody in here pacing back and forth nonstop.”

“Out,” Jean said. But this time, there wasn’t much force behind it.

Kitty and Jubilee exchanged a look. Kitty set one of the mugs on the nightstand. “Hot cocoa. With marshmallows.”

Jubilee didn’t ask any questions. She sat down on the edge of the bed with her own mug. “If you want to yell at somebody, we can help. Anybody you want. Even Scott.”

Jean blinked. Then she sat down between the two of them, picked up the hot cocoa, and took a sip.

“He hasn’t answered my texts in three days,” she said.

Kitty asked carefully, “…That Peter?”

Jean nodded.

She didn’t kick them out. From his nest, Peter watched the three girls sit side by side on the edge of the bed, holding three mugs, in a surprisingly peaceful kind of quiet.

“So what are you going to do?” Jubilee asked.

Jean set her mug down. “Go find him.”

08

It only took Jean ten minutes to pack: one backpack, a few changes of clothes.

She zipped it closed and looked back at Peter in his nest.

“You can’t come,” she said. “I have to go a bunch of places, and you’d slow me down.”

Peter: Woof! Woof woof woof! (I can come! I know the way! I know the way better than you!)

“Objection overruled.”

She took him downstairs on his leash. At the corner of the hallway, Scott came toward them, saw the backpack on her shoulder, and stopped.

“Kitty says you’re going to New York.”

Jean didn’t slow down. “Kitty talks too much.”

“I’ll drive you.” Scott turned to follow her. “Driving’s faster, and you shouldn’t be going by yourself…”

“No need.”

“Jean.”

Jean stopped and looked at Scott for a moment. “Thanks. I’ve got it.”

Scott looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end he just nodded and stepped out of the way.

Peter followed Jean past him and managed not to look back. He didn’t want to admit it, but he actually felt a little sorry for the guy.

Hank’s lab was one floor underground. When Jean knocked and went in, Hank was bent over a microscope. He looked up, glanced at her, then at the dog on the end of her leash.

“Could you watch him for a couple of days?” Jean said. “He gets anxious.”

“Of course.” Hank took off his glasses. “The Professor took everyone else out on a mission, so it’s just me down here for the next few days anyway. You’re going somewhere?”

“Mm. To find someone.”

Hank didn’t ask anything else. He came over, took the leash, and crouched down to pat Peter on the head. “Looks like it’s just you and me for a couple of days, little guy.”

Jean crouched down to Peter’s eye level, cupped his face in her hands, and rubbed both of his ears.

“Heading out,” she said.

Peter froze.

That was what he said every time he left. He’d said it thousands of times, and this was the first time he knew what it felt like to have someone say it to him.

Jean stood up, turned, and left.

Peter lunged forward, and Hank caught him by the collar.

“Woof! Woof woof! Woof woof woof!” (Jean! Don’t go! The person you’re looking for is right here! He’s right behind you!)

The lab door closed.

Peter barked at the door until his voice went hoarse, and then he slowly sat down. Hank crouched beside him for a while, sighed, and went back to his microscope.

Peter didn’t move. He just sat by the door and watched it. All those times he went out the window, Jean had probably waited exactly like this.