After spending a few days as Steever, Peter and Stevie finally unfuse. You'd think they'd want some alone time after literally being in each other's space that long, but instead Peter and Stevie discuss preparing for the next time they
fuse.
⚠Nada.
Day seven. If patterns held true, Derleth’s nightfall would come, and then it would reset. In a new place, or in the Void. The wastelands of Dunwich would be a thing of its past, and it would be onto the new week.
Steever sat on the bed that had become their place of respite since Stevie and Peter fused. It was a quiet moment in all ways: outside had been blanketed in the night’s silence, inside dampened whatever atmospheric sounds -- voices, footsteps -- carried from other rooms, and then the stillness within.
It was only Steever one moment, then Peter and Stevie the next. Each sat on the edge of the bed, but it was Peter who immediately jerked his hands up to feel his face for some tangible proof that he was still himself on the other side of it all. Steever had been leveled out by trust in Stevie and her just knowing what to do. Peter Parker on his own, however, had that ease of experience taken back and it left him to try and sort out the vacuum on his own. He felt his nose. It felt like his nose.
He blew out a breath.
“That was wild.” Because it wasn’t fear. Just trying to file away something new. Something that was very hard to put into words. His science-oriented mind was trying to process how two people could fuse into one single new entity, and it was coming up dry on how. In the same way, it was hard to process how that one entity knew it was time to split. It was like a conversation within a single thought, synchronized somehow. It was like… just knowing that it was time to let go and unfuse.
Stevie was blushing, and she couldn’t exactly tell why. Shyness, maybe? Except she’d never really been an especially shy child, certainly not around the gems. It was a little different around humans. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked at Peter nervously, brows raised in a question.
“Yeah? It was okay, right?”
Fusion was a part of Stevie, and an expression of who they were. They wouldn’t have stayed fused for as long as they did if Peter hadn’t wanted to? But the fact that Stevie had the thought made her anxious.
“Next time, I promise I’ll give you more heads up,” she said, by way of apology. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. It was just you were locked up, and I once saw Jasper fuse with another gem once that was locked up behind bars, so it just gave me the idea that we could do that and--”
Next time.
Stevie belatedly realized what she said. Which sounded like an assumption.
“I mean, we don’t have to. That’s not what fusion is about. Unless we’re talking about two people joining forces to combine their strengths and abilities, in which case, that is sort of what fusion is about. But also sometimes it’s not?”
She’d felt so confident and calm as Steever. Now that they were no longer joined as one person, she worried about not being able to tell how Peter felt anymore.
“It sure worked,” Peter replied. He lowered his hand and stopped fidgeting with his face. It was his face. Of course it was. “I mean, there’s a spatial factor to fusing, isn’t there? Is there some kinda phase between being a fusion? Maybe not really matter, but… energy?”
He’d pivoted around. It was a quick 90-degree turn with one leg shoved up on the mattress so he could face Stevie. This was the nerd in him that just wanted to understand.
“Like, how far apart could we be and it still works? And where would the fusion end up? Oh, if you could plan where, then it’s like a sneak attack! You distract! I jump behind! Fusion! I just…” Peter stopped, realizing he was unleashing a deluge on Stevie. “I think that’s worth trying again sometime. It’s kinda tactical if…y’know, if we got it down so that if Derleth needs a boost, we can…” Still rambling. He gave her an apologetic smile. “Team up again,” he finished.
“Because it worked,” he added, not knowing when to actually call it quits when he was ahead.
Stevie’s brows rose a little further in surprise, paired with a tentative smile. Peter didn’t seem upset, and that was a relief. Really, that should have been enough, but the fact that they were able to fuse planted a question in Stevie’s mind she tried her hardest to bury somewhere deep.
“Oh! It’s light. Gems, they’re their gems. The body you see around their gems is sort of an illusion? They can make themselves look however they want. It’s light given mass that adjusts depending on the gravity and what planet they’re on.
“I think that’s what happens when I fuse with humans. Our bodies convert into light briefly before reforming into one person. Uh, we haven’t really figured it out because when I was little it wasn’t really certain if I would be able to fuse like gems did, and the first person I ever fused with was my best friend Connie, which they really weren’t expecting.”
But questions were good. Questions meant Peter wasn’t upset, and she felt hopeful.
“We have to be touching to fuse. I mean, more than that. Like we can touch and not fuse. Fusion can be really tricky at first, even if you’ve done it a lot. Some people fuse together easier than others. Some gems don’t fuse at all, which is okay, too. You have to synchronize emotionally, mentally, and physically with touch. A lot of Gems use music to do it, so… I took a lot of dance lessons.”
She chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully.
“But we could practice? You know… in case we need to team up?” A pause before adding with a smile, “I mean, just in case dancing isn’t really our thing.”
Somehow, Stevie suspected it was not.
Peter was tracking answers. They needed to touch. It was light-based. It was a matter of physical, mental, and emotional synchronization, which…
Made him slow down. In any other context, that sounded like something else. Something that came with someone you cared about. And, arguably, yeah, he did care about Stevie. All the weeks of working together and supporting each other was an obvious account of it. He just hadn’t entertained anything deeper.
His thoughts drifted around within his mind and he tried to start piecing back into a coherent order. It had been assumed that one day they would all go home, but Mobius had been a large part of that, and now he was gone. Things changed by the day. And besides all that, losing MJ had been a life-shift that made him write off getting too close to anyone.
But he couldn’t help it. If there was one thing Peter Parker couldn’t stop himself from doing, it was caring. For better or worse.
He shook his head after an uncharacteristic few seconds of silence. “May tried to teach me how to dance. I barely got to at Homecoming, but it wasn’t great. The girl I asked to go with me… her, uh… her dad and I got into a big fight during that.” He shrugged, and his smile slipped a little. “Good news is that no one remembers who I am back home, so no one remembers that even happened. Bad dancing and all.”
Stevie’s face fell as she listened. She kept waiting for the bright side, something uplifting, some kind of lesson learned or clue that things would get better. Instead the story seemed to get darker and worse with each sentence.
She didn’t know what to say.
Good news that no one remembered him? It sounded like the opposite of good news.
But she had to say something, right? Even though nothing she said could really fix things or make it better, or even make Peter feel better. Stevie still wanted to say something.
“Peter?” she said. “I’m glad you’re here--”
And that would have been a good place to leave it. Except, once Stevie started, she had a hard time stopping. As if she could fight whatever made Peter’s life miserable with words. So she just kept talking.
“--Even if you are bad at dancing. That part doesn’t matter. You still talked to me after everything that happened on Other Derleth, even when you saw me. The other me, and everything Other Me did, you still wanted to help. And you did help. And this place is completely insane and I miss everyone back home and I’m not sure I’d be doing okay if it weren’t for you. You deserve to be remembered, because I think you’re pretty great. And anyone that doesn’t? They’re missing out.”
He wasn’t expecting a counter-case. It was more treading into shallow waters and trying to explain, but in retrospect he realized that all he had given Stevie was a depressing anecdote about a spoiled party. And Stevie, for all her goodwill and wish to keep everyone happy, delivered a resolute account of why Peter Parker wasn’t the curse he occasionally felt like he was.
“Well, of course I talked to you after Other Derleth.” In the exchange, he’d noticed the tone echoed back. His doubt traded for Stevie’s doubt. They were two of a kind, weren’t they? Trying their best to fix everything, but haunted by shortcomings. “You’ve been kind since I got here. I felt like I was hanging with someone who knew what it was like trying to… y’know, use their powers to do something good, no matter where they ended up. Like, I didn’t have to ask if you wanted to help because you always did.”
He was still pivoted, leg up on the bed. His eyes fell to her hand and in an impulse he reached out to take it. “I have this habit of losing people. That’s what I meant. I’m just… I’m really glad that I have someone around who hasn’t left -- o-or got taken away. You’re really special, Stevie. You know that?”
Stevie perked up, and turned, mirroring the position he sat in to face him. Usually when people called Stevie special it was in relation to being a diamond or half-gem or all the powers she had. But this was different. Her hand turned to hold his back, and Stevie looked down and couldn’t help but stare at it as if it was some marvel more extraordinary than fusion.
It was slowly dawning on her that maybe they didn’t need fusion in order to make a connection.
Stevie managed a feeble-- “Yeah” --when what she meant to say was that she didn’t want to lose Peter again, either. He was also special to her. You, too just didn’t really sound right.
Stevie’s eyes met Peter’s and she smiled. How could she not?
When she looked back up, Peter was already there waiting. Maybe he’d lost his chipper edge moments ago, but the returned clasp of her hand was buoying. He smiled back, and let the second draw outwards. Derleth was so short on time to enjoy people’s company that these fragile moments felt like they needed to be guarded while they happened.
But sooner or later someone had to say something. Peter had always been terrible at letting a conversation dip for too long. “Cool,” he replied. It was probably the lamest word to choose from his entire wealth of the English language, but the decision-making part of that had already passed.
He blew out a sigh, more at himself and that awkward attempt. He also nodded. Why? Why was he nodding? He stopped nodding. Better.
“Hey, have you ever used a webshooter before?” They were still holding hands, but Peter’s mind was reaching for any excuse to buy a few more hours together. As if he needed to qualify a little more time on the tailend of being a fusion.
If Peter was being awkward or lame, it never registered to Stevie. She had very little words herself, and they felt right. More like an acknowledgment, which was all she needed in the moment.
They’d been holding hands for a whil—
“Oh! No! I haven’t!” Was the enthusiasm too much? It seemed like the subject change she was supposed to be excited about, which she was, but part of her was also seeing if he might not notice that they’d spent days together as a fusion and were still spending time together afterward.
Her eyes lit up.
“Are you going to show me? How does it know how to do the different kind of webs? Or is it just how you aim it? Or something else? How long did it take to figure out how to swing with them?”
Steever had been a little disappointed in Dunwich’s lack of tall buildings to really swing from an explore. Not to mention the fact that they were trying to keep a low profile from the survivors.
“Well,” Peter started, and he cast his eyes around to see where the webshooter ultimately ended up while he continued, “I can show you. I just need to find where… there you are.”
He leaned back on the bed a little, which tugged his hand from Stevie’s a small amount. Realizing it was probably an odd choice to try to keep holding on, he let her fingers go at the last part of his reach so he could grab the set. It frazzled his thoughts just enough that there was a beat before he recentered his focus.
“Okay, so. So, you take one.” Peter held it out,and he looked up at Stevie with a small smile. There was a certain amount of winging it here. “There’s a trick in the wrist and how you tap the sensor. It took me a while to get used to the range of motion because, believe me, wrists don’t like to fold down like that. I used to get wrist cramps, y’know? You’d think the worst part is missing a landing and hitting a brick wall, but no one tells you that trying to write a paper with a cramped wrist is somehow worse.”
He gave the door a glance. “I think we should find some room to work with. The webbing dissolves in a few hours since I don’t have the dissolving reagent here, but no one wants to spend a few hours covered in this stuff. Whaddaya think? Crash course in being a Spider?”
Stevie pressed her lips together once her hand lost contact with Peter’s. No big deal. The smile returned as soon as Peter offered her one of the webshooters. Stevie held it carefully in her hand, examining it.
“Is writing papers really hard?” Stevie asked. She had no idea. She’d never been to school. Stevie knew about school, but only in a very vague/hypothetical sense. She knew after high school, a lot of people went to college. How many papers did people usually write on in a day? Stevie tried to picture it for a moment, then let it go.
What did they do with the papers afterward? Did they get published in a school journal of some kind? Maybe the student paper?
Peter snapped her back to the present when he asked if she wanted a crash course in being a spider. Her face lit up. “Yeah, that sounds great!”
She stood up and waited for Peter in the hallway, letting him lead the way.
“I guess it depends on the paper. If it’s something interesting, then it’s not so bad, but school…” Peter shrugged at that. He wasn’t in school anymore and it made his heart ache a little for a timeframe of life that had come to a conclusion. No more Midtown. No more of seeing his friends, which was an understatement of the highest degree.
“School’s not always the most engaging thing. Funny thing, though, is that once it’s over? You really start to miss even those boring lessons.” He caught up to Stevie and fell into step beside her. It was enough to stop himself from really falling back into wistful thoughts of friends and teachers who never heard of Peter Parker now.
“Alright!” They had a short walk to get outside for a little more room, but Peter was ready to launch right into it. It was easy with Stevie. Even as he rambled through everything, she always listened. “First lesson. It goes on like this…”