Felicia pulled back just far enough to look up at him, relief still shining in her eyes.
“How did you even know?
That they found him, I mean.
That I’d be here.” “Spider-Man called me,” Peter said.
“Told me what happened.
I snuck out.” Felicia smiled, warm and grateful, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all.
Then a voice cut sharply through the quiet.
“Ahem.” Both of them froze and turned to find Lydia Hardy watching them from the doorway, expression carefully composed except for the knowing curve at the corner of her mouth.
Felicia sprang back from him so fast she nearly stumbled.
“Mom—” “I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about,” Lydia said dryly, “later.” They stayed by Walter’s bedside a while longer, Peter and Felicia talking quietly, until Lydia finally suggested — with the polite firmness of someone who wasn’t really asking — that Peter head home for the night.
Felicia shot her mother a sharp look, but Peter just nodded, throat tight for a reason he couldn’t quite explain.
She really wants me gone, he thought, an unexpected sting rising in his chest.
It’s the middle of the night, her husband nearly died, and she still finds the energy to make sure I know I’m not welcome.
Could at least pretend.
He assured Felicia he’d call, and left.
He swung most of the way home, but found himself veering off course near Gwen’s block, some habit from the last few weeks pulling him toward her window instead of straight home.
Her bedroom light was still on.
He perched briefly, watching her hunched over her desk, and — deciding on a whim — changed back into regular clothes and knocked on her window instead of just checking in from a distance.
Gwen startled hard, jumping into what could only charitably be called a fighting stance, before she registered who it actually was and hurried to let him in.
“Peter?
What are you doing here?” “Nothing bad,” he said quickly.
“Just came from visiting Felicia at the hospital.” He told her about Walter — that he’d been found, that he was safe.
Gwen already knew the broad strokes; Felicia had apparently texted her the moment it happened.
Gwen let out a long breath of relief anyway, hearing it firsthand.
“Wait,” she said suddenly.
“How did you even get up here?
We’re on the third floor.” “Fire escape,” Peter said, without missing a beat.
Gwen shook her head, exasperated, clearly deciding not to interrogate that further at midnight.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway a second later, and Peter ducked under her bed on pure reflex just as her father knocked and opened the door.
Captain Stacy told her, briefly, that he was heading back out — trying to help locate a friend’s missing father, he explained, not realizing how close to home that already was.
“I believe in you, Dad,” Gwen said simply, and he nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Peter climbed back out from under the bed, and the two of them talked a while longer, keeping their voices low.
Eventually he decided it was time to actually go, and slipped back out through the fire escape.
Gwen watched him disappear down toward the street, an unusually soft smile crossing her face — rare enough that she caught herself doing it and shook her head, closing the window before heading back to her desk.
Peter texted Harry and MJ once he was a few blocks away, letting them both know Walter had been found.
Harry replied almost instantly — relieved, glad, already asking if Felicia was okay.
MJ didn’t answer.
Peter told himself it was nothing.
Late night, probably asleep.
Still, something in him wouldn’t quite let it go, and he found himself changing direction toward her apartment instead of home.
He was still a block away when his senses caught it — faint, but unmistakable.
Blood.
His stomach dropped, and he moved without thinking, launching himself toward her building and through her window in a matter of seconds.
A heat signature glowed inside, man-shaped, moving through the apartment with none of the caution of someone who belonged there.
Further inside, Peter caught sight of MJ herself, curled into a storage closet, phone lit up in her trembling hands.
His own phone buzzed in his pocket at the exact same moment.
She called me.
He dropped through the window and caught the intruder from behind before the man even registered movement.
The man laughed — actually laughed — and swung a blade toward him.
Peter caught it without effort, and the metal crumpled uselessly in his grip.
The laugh died fast after that.
Before the man could try anything else, Peter put him down with a single, controlled blow.
He wrenched the closet door open.
MJ screamed, flinching back — then registered who it was, and the scream cut off into a shaking exhale.
“It’s okay,” Spider-man said quickly, voice low.
“It’s okay.
I already took care of him.” MJ barely had time to nod before she was moving, pushing past him and sprinting toward the next room.
Peter followed instantly, senses already ahead of her — and found a far weaker heat signature, faint and fading, in a spreading pool of blood.
“Mom!” MJ’s voice cracked entirely.
Peter dropped to his knees beside the woman, checking her pulse — weak, thready, but there.
He worked fast, webbing over the worst of the wound to slow the bleeding, then carefully wrapped her in a supportive webbed harness so she wouldn’t shift or jostle during transport.
He hauled her up onto his shoulder as gently as he could manage.
“I’m taking her to the hospital,” he told MJ.
“Right now.” She wanted to come.
He wasn’t sure yet that carrying two people through the city at his speed was safe, but leaving her here alone, shaking and terrified, felt worse.
He glanced back at the unconscious intruder, webbed him thoroughly enough to hold until police arrived, and pulled the apartment door shut .
Then he ran — full sprint, MJ’s mother steady across his shoulders, MJ behind on his back.
Swinging risked jostling her too much; running was slower, but safer.
He ran like his life depended on it, cutting through streets, ignoring every startled face that turned to watch him pass, until the hospital came into view.
He got her straight to the ICU, staying just long enough to see hands take over, and sat with MJ in the hallway while the doctors worked.
At some point, through her tears, he heard her murmur, barely audible— “Peter…
where are you…” He almost answered.
Caught himself just in time.
“She’s going to get the best care possible,” Spider-Man said instead, quiet and steady.
“I really hope she pulls through.” He pressed a card with his number into MJ’s hand.
“Call if you need anything.
Anything at all.” Then he slipped away, found a quiet corner, and changed.
He ran back in as Peter a few minutes later.
MJ saw him and simply broke — she couldn’t even move, just stood there crying, frozen in place.
Peter crossed to her immediately and took her hand.
“I can’t lose her too, Peter,” she said, voice shredded.
“I…
can’t.” Peter didn’t know what to say.
He felt entirely powerless in a way his own strength meant nothing against.
He hadn’t seen this coming — hadn’t thought to check on her sooner, hadn’t imagined danger finding her at home of all places, on a night that was already supposed to be about relief, not more fear.
Whatever he’d witnessed tonight — the mansion, the men who’d been ready to kill Walter without a second thought, and now this, a stranger nearly murdering MJ’s own mother in her own home — had shaken him more than he was willing to admit out loud.
He simply held her hand, stayed beside her, and didn’t leave.
The others arrived over the next hour.
Felicia first, still pale from her own night at the hospital, immediately wrapping MJ in a hug the moment she walked in.
Harry not long after, quiet and grim-faced.
Gwen came with her father, Captain Stacy pausing briefly to speak with hospital staff before joining the rest of them in the waiting area.
All five of friends sat together in silence for a long while, once MJ’s mother had finally stabilized.
Then Harry spoke, quiet, almost afraid to say it out loud.
“Peter.
Can I ask you something?” Peter nodded.
“Are we all cursed somehow?” The words landed like a physical blow, silence spreading through the small group.
“My parents are both fighting for their lives right now,” Harry went on, voice shaking slightly.
“MJ’s mom almost died tonight.
Felicia’s dad was nearly killed too.
We got attacked on a school bus.
Oscorp got hit by an actual armed assault.
What is happening to all of us?” Nobody answered right away.
Peter watched the question settle over each of them in turn — Felicia’s eyes going distant, MJ staring blankly at the floor, Gwen’s jaw tightening as she clearly tried to find some rational explanation and came up empty.
Peter sat with it too, quieter than any of them, a single thought circling in his own head that he couldn’t say out loud no matter how much it scared him.
Is it because of me?