Thanks ever so much to argentum_ls for beta reading this! Her efficient work upped its quality by leaps and bounds.

Written for hc_bingo at LJ for the "loss of voice" square.

Who is Spider-Man without his voice?

Peter Parker had never cared to find out. But when he wakes up one morning with a bruised and swollen neck, it's clear he has no choice.

His aunt calls him from the kitchen, her footsteps tapping down the hall as she approaches his bedroom door. Peter leaps out of his bed, ithwip/iing the door shut with a bit of web; he hadn't taken the time to change out of his suit the night before. Aunt May stops outside of the door. "Peter? Shouldn't you be on your way to school by now?"

Though still unsure how to tell her that transportation by web-slinging beats transportation by New York traffic any day, he opens his mouth to respond…yet he makes not a sound.

"Peter? Are you in there?"

He works his jaw, touching his still-gloved hand to his throat on instinct, but it doesn't feel like his throat, it feels as thick as his arm. His throat seizes up, a burst of adrenalin rushing through him, and suddenly he can't breathe. He stumbles over to the mirror next to his desk.

Purple covers his neck, with some blue tinges layering the purple, and it's safe to say that he's never seen any colors so ugly.

The web is starting to dissolve, and his mechanized lock isn't on at the moment, so his aunt could open the door any moment. He takes one last look in the mirror, yanks his mask on, and vaults out of the window. Hopefully Aunt May will think he's already left.

x-x-x

He's on patrol all day. He can't go to school looking like this, that's for sure, so he texts Gwen, lets her know what's going on, asks her to let the school know for him (a watered-down version of the truth, that is. Laryngitis, maybe), and then he's free for the day.

He's not really that dispirited, not at this point - after all, though he might not be able to talk to anyone else, his inner monologue is going strong. He's content to let his thoughts barrel over one another in his mind in order to escape the feelings of soreness and hurt whenever he swallows.

He hasn't found much that requires his attention so far, which isn't terribly strange, considering that it's only eight o'clock in the morning. He sees New Yorkers striding across the city blocks, Starbucks cups or thermoses in hand, and as they file into their office buildings there isn't much for him to go up against. He winces as a particularly abrupt web-swing jolts his body, and once again he's fighting for air, he can hardly breathe. Stay calm, Peter, it's just mind over matter, he reminds himself, though since when do you tell a guy who's a formerly bullied, currently super-strong spider-bitten powerhouse that life is as simple as mind over matter? It's so much more than that.

Still, though, he descends from the sky into an empty alley to catch his breath, and it's a fairly fortunate alley, because he sees someone doing something that takes his attention off his painful encounter with the Sandman last night.

It's a young man on the sidewalk with a half-concealed gun in his hand, pointing it at a woman, and the man is about to drag the woman into the alley. "Did you really not see Spider-Man in the air just a minute ago? And you decided to assault this lady anyway?" is on the tip of Peter's tongue. "I'm friendly, I'm in the neighborhood...right now." He's planned the whole scenario out, how he'll shrug and drop down into a fighting position, rattle off, "There's this guy I want you to meet. His name is Captain Obvious," and then he'll pin the guy to the wall with some webbing and offer the woman some directions to the nearest police station.

So as the man follows the woman closely into the alley, Peter opens his mouth, but...nothing comes out. The man remains oblivious to the superhero in his midst and makes the woman rifle through her purse at gunpoint, and she pulls out her wallet and hands over all of the cash and credit cards. Peter's not prepared for this, it's like - quipping is his thing, right? He's frozen until the man orders the woman to toss her bag to the ground. The man spins her around, her cheek against one of the buildings that lines the alley, and it's basically a miracle that Peter clumsily wobbles out of the shadows before he can either shoot her in the back or run away.

"Spider-Man!" the woman cries as she spins around to see her assailant inelegantly webbed up. "I just need to thank you," she wails, and Peter's sure she would've gone on for a long time if he hadn't jerkily nodded to her, still in a bit of shock, and swooped into the air once again.

Spider-Man with no additional commentary? It had shaken him more than he'd wanted to admit. Because, Peter can handle the injuries that come with the job. He can handle the occasional scratches or bruises or broken bones, or even a few sand-packed punches to the throat. But he isn't sure he can handle the depersonalization that his inability to talk is causing. Who is Spider-Man without the attitude? After all, the sarcasm had begun with Peter's feverish search for his Uncle Ben's killer; that is, it'd begun at the very genesis of Spider-Man himself. But now, until his healing catches up with his injuries, he's stuck without a voice. And he happens to hate that.

x-x-x

Peter keeps swinging through the city, and he prevents a car accident up by Columbus Circle, but other than that, it's still far too quiet. There's too much time to think.

Soon enough, though, he hears a few screams from a couple blocks down, and as he approaches the scene, the sharp crackle of a Taser rings out and he catches sight of a bulky man convulsing face-down on the ground, a bag big enough to be a suitcase under his arm. "Purse-stealer!" a woman spits in his face, and though there's one policeman at the scene holding the Taser, there are no more in sight and the thief is starting to climb to his feet.

Peter swings nearer, mouth closed. He slows a bit as he descends, but has just enough velocity to kick his legs forward and take down the thief once again, causing the guy's knees to buckle as Peter flips over him and sticks the landing. He'd hang around if he was needed, but back-up is climbing out of a police car, and the NYPD has clearly got this one handled.

And best of all, he's planned for this moment, the moment when he'd normally say "Thanks for coming to the show," or something about the price of admission, before springing into the air - so instead of saying either of those things, he swallows his uneasiness and bows deeply, motioning elaborately with his right arm, and it has the same effect as any quip ever could. The on-lookers laugh with wonder in their faces and wave at his disappearing figure.

He's been turning over his identity crisis in his mind. He's replayed the encounter in the alley, and on the one hand, he hadn't been able to stick to his normal process of crime fighting. But on the other, he's still Spider-Man, just like he still was in that alley. The gymnastics, the web-slinging - all perfectly trademark. Maybe he'd focused too much on the importance of his voice, and forgotten about other ways to express his alter ego. Maybe it wasn't all about the jibes.

x-x-x

It's a petty crime that this guy commits, but Peter supposes that he's seen stranger things. Really, though. If a guy wants a couple six-packs of beer, all he has to do is fork over a twenty. Instead, this guy pushes open the "exit" door.

Peter drops down right in front of him, happily waving an "earth to criminal" gesture in front of the man's face and bending to grab the beer out of his hand. He strolls back inside, deposits the drinks on the counter while the clerk stares in amazement, and returns to the sidewalk. The guy is surprisingly belligerent.

"Hey, Spidey, that can't be you! Everyone knows it ain't Spider-Man unless he smarts off to ya!"

Peter shakes his head, and where earlier today this would've troubled him, he simply lets it roll right off his back. He's dying to call, "You can't believe everything you read in the papers—!" as he webs the guy to the "Push Button To Cross" sign at the adjacent intersection, but settles instead for a cheeky salute before he backflips and bounds again into the air.

x-x-x

The scenario repeats itself, and as the night wears on, Peter becomes more and more comfortable with the absence of banter in his latest confrontations. By the time he comes home at about nine o'clock or ten - "It's a school night," Aunt May always insists, and he's starving by this point anyway - his aunt is sitting on the couch and mending a couple of shirts. He drops in through his bedroom window to change into everyday clothes, checking in the mirror to make sure all of the bruising has faded, and he realizes that he's already healed - in fact, it's possible that he'd been well enough to talk hours ago. Oddly enough, he's okay with not finding out earlier.

As he walks down the hall toward the living room, he realizes again that he'd probably overreacted with his identity crisis earlier in the day. He knows why he'd had one, but he's confident that he won't again. He's Peter Parker, he lives with his aunt, he dates Gwen Stacy - hey, he's second in his class. And even minus his voice, he's still Spider-Man.