Peter Parker's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

All day Peter picked things up and put them down. The duplicate dragon had scared her once. He couldn't repeat that. He needed something softer, something that reached her without a shove. He kept coming back to one thing. An old sweatshirt she used to steal on cold nights. He held it a long time. Then he chose it, and picked the rooftop where they'd had their first kiss. He got there early in the suit. The roof was quiet, one crooked table, rust streaks down the concrete. He set the sweatshirt on the ledge and waited. Then a shape dropped from the dark. Not Viper. No mask, no scaled armor. Callie. She wore the sweatshirt already, sleeves pushed to her elbows. She saw him and froze. "You're the one from the rooftops," she said. "Spider-Man." Her voice was flat, careful. "I don't know why I came here. My feet just knew the way." Peter's throat locked. She wasn't supposed to arrive as herself. He kept still so he wouldn't scare her off. "You're safe," he managed. She tugged the sweatshirt's hem. "This isn't mine. But it feels like mine." She looked down at it. "Where did I get this?" "I don't know," he lied, and hated it. Her hand slid into the front pocket. She stopped. She drew out something small and dark. A black flower pendant, its petals torn, the stem snapped. She turned it in the low light. "This was in here." Her thumb moved over a broken petal. "I've held this before. I know I have." Peter had given it to her the night on this roof. He watched her hold it and felt the words rise before he could stop them. "That sweatshirt used to be mine." Callie's head came up. "What?" "It was mine." His mask hid his face, but his voice cracked. "I gave it to you. You kept it." She stepped back once. Her hand closed tight around the broken pendant. "How would you know that? You don't know me." But her eyes stayed on him, wide, searching, not leaving. "Say it again." "It was mine," he said. "You wore it when you were cold." Callie pressed the pendant to her chest. She didn't run. That was the difference. At the coffee shop she'd fled. Now she stood on the roof and stared at the masked man who knew her sweatshirt, her flower, the shape of a life she couldn't name. "I don't understand this," she whispered. "But I'm not leaving until you tell me." Peter had wanted to spark one small memory. He'd done more. She was here as Callie, not Viper, holding proof he was tied to her past. He had reached her. Now she wanted the whole truth, and Tony's warning rang in his head. The door he'd opened wouldn't close again.