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CHAPTER THREE
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THE SPACE
BETWEEN NOTHING

THE HEATER WASN'T WORKING.

It was cold. At least, she believed it was cold. It was dark and she believed with the dark came the cold, but truly it was neither warm nor cold nor anything else because there was nothing. The dark was not dark but empty. The car was not real, nor was the cold.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked, watching as she continuously fiddled with the knob, the other hand on the steering wheel.

It was a few hours after their stop at the gas station, after Peter filled up the gas tank for them. At least, she believed he had filled it up and believed it was a few hours because both the clock and the gas meter were not working because they had no reason to be seen in the first place, as they did not exist.

She shrugged jerkily, one shoulder following the other, then moving back the way it came, as if she were a robot learning to be human, mimicking the movements, but unable to fully act them out.

"Cold?" She said it as a question, unsure if she was asking whether he, too, was cold, or asking if the car was cold. She would never know if he felt the cold or if he knew that this wasn't real; she would never hear his full explanation.

Wordlessly, he unbuckled and began to tug off his jacket, struggling against the fabric which refused to be parted from him, like a petulant child clinging onto his mother's leg, distrusting of all others around him.

"Put your seatbelt back on," she commanded, grabbing his uncooperative jacket by one of its zippers, tugging it back onto him, struggling to reach for the seatbelt which was far out of her reach.

"If you're cold, you can borrow my jacket," he argued, though complying nonetheless, "You're pretty small, doll, chances are you get colder easier."

"Well, Spidey, I don't trust you all that much and I don't really wanna put on the jacket that was just on the ground for who knows how long," she replied, referring back to their encounter however long ago it was.

"Thanks for letting me hitch a ride, by the way," he mumbled, giving her a small smile that she was only barely able to see, her eyes still trained on the empty road ahead, "Where are we going?"

She shrugged, feeling her chest constrict as she realized she didn't know where she was. "I don't know. Where are you going?"

"Upstate," he replied and that was all she needed to know.

"I guess we'll head there," she whispered, looking up at the sky that was void of all dark or light, day or night. "What're you planning on doing there?"

"I gotta report to my boss," he explained, "He's the Iron Man." He tapped the cup holder with his fingers, resting his chin on his right hand, his arm propped up on the door.

She snorted, unable to help herself. "Is he a real man, or is he a kid like you?"

He shouldered her, nearly causing them to swerve and hit the metal barrier. Though, nothing would have happened, the car would be broken, but no one would be hurt. She didn't know that, however.

"He's a real man," he muttered, "But so am I."

"Okay, Spider-Guy," she sang lightly.

An image of Peter with eight arms flashed into her mind and she struggled to rid herself of it, shuddering. There was something about two things, natural on their own, yet monstrous when put together, that made her sick; maybe it was the idea that non-destructive things could be destructive when together, that perception could distort everything if given the chance.

"Seriously, doll, are you alright, you keep zoning on me," Peter said, breaking her out of her reverie.

She shook her head, blinking. "Sorry, I think."

"Yeah, well, try not to kill me in the process," he said, leaned forward, not relaxed enough to lean back.

She reached out an arm and placed it against his chest, pushing him back until his back was flush against the seat.

As she pulled her hand away, his own hand that had been by the cup holder reached up and caught it, holding it, only for a few moments. She went stiff, immediately on edge, but didn't jolt enough to pull out of his grip of shift the car.

She let her hand rest in his, trying to understand the feeling. He was real. His skin was smooth, though callouses dotted his palm. In her mind, she expected him to be neither cold nor warm, but he was. He was something, neither cold, nor warm, but he wasn't devoid of the feeling.

He pulled away, skin dragging against hers, before she could fully understand him.

Her hand went back to the steering wheel and silence descended upon them again. As they continued in silence, she began to drift.

○ ○ ○

"A lot of 'psychology facts' found on the internet aren't really facts at all, just societal assumptions about certain things people wish could be proven by hard psychological evidence, rather than just the reliance upon trends or patterns that will die out within the next century."

There was just silence in response.

"I think people are just afraid that when they're gone, they're meaningless. They look for patterns in the past so they can feel validated that what they're doing will be continued and mean something later on. Though, I guess that would mean that, in the grand scheme of things, we'd just be the small dots that make up the larger, more significant pattern all of us focus on."

The silence made a sharp retort of neither dismissal nor acceptance.

"I miss your voice."

○ ○ ○

"Did you just fall asleep?"

She was jolted back, car momentarily swerving, at the sound of his voice. Her entire body began to shake, the way it did when she was woken from a light sleep, like the ones in the class, her heart racing and her nerves buzzing, her breathing short.

"You did!" he exclaimed incredulously, "I can't believe you just fell asleep on me. At the wheel! We could've died and you would have had no idea."

"Wasn't asleep," she mumbled, because she wasn't. She was in the space between dreaming and awake, conscious yet not, in a space where she was as nothing as the world she was inhabiting.

As nothing as the universe.

"You need some help staying awake?" he asked, shifting in his seat to look at her, "I know a few car games."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing that it wouldn't be any more useful in the conversation as the car heater working. "I think I'll be fine, thanks."

"Well, I'm bored, so I'll just play with myself," he said lightly, shifting again so his back was turned to her and he was looking out the window, arm still propped up, chin still resting on his hand.

"Please, don't," she groaned, "I just want quiet. Please."

He turned to look at her, frowning, though not in anger or frustration. Concern. It was etched into the crease of his forehead, the furrowing of his brow. In the downward stroke of his mouth, the pinch of his lips, the light in his eyes, still golden-whiskey despite the lack of light.

She nearly crashed the car as she stared at him and she wouldn't have felt a thing if she did.

"You should take a break," he said, breaking through the fragile glass of the moment, the tension she had created herself, "We've been driving for a while."

She wouldn't have known. Neither the clock, nor the gas tank, nor the heater worked. Because none of those things mattered in the world that did not exist. The headlights worked, as the sky was nothing and the light was both there and not, the dark not enveloping, but not retreating.

She wasn't going to take a break.

"I'll be fine," she said, no longer looking at him.

She could see from her peripheral vision that he was still looking at her. She could tell the concern was still there, but it was now mixed with something indescribable. The most she could tell was worry.

Worry was different from concern. It was found in the lift of his nose, in the pursing of his lips, in the burning of his eyes. Concern was found in crease of his forehead and the furrowing of his eyebrows, but worry was all in the eyes. Eyes that begged for explanation, that screamed in futility, trying to be heard, that wanted nothing more than answers and a way to help, but no way to achieve either goal.

Eyes of golden whiskey from a light nonexistent.

"You wanna know why I'm called Spider-Man?" he asked softly, his voice barely a whisper, but as cutting and sharp as a jagged rock to the glass of the tension he now created.

"Later," she replied, her hoarse tone a desperate plea.

"Alright," he sighed, settling back in his seat, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Resignation and determination were found in the shoulders, the eyebrows, and the mouth. Resignation found in the drooping of the shoulders and the furrowing of the eyebrows. Determination found in pinch of his mouth, in the harsher creases of his forehead, in the gritting of his teeth, the pursing of his lips.

She continued to stare straight ahead into the nothingness of the road.

º º º

Peter insisted they stop at a diner to eat, as it would be perfect ambience for his story.

She parked right in front of the door, watching as he climbed out eagerly, closing the door with less force than he had done before, though he seemed to really struggle to make sure it wouldn't slam.

She merely sighed and leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes. She just wanted to sleep, to go back to the feeling of nothingness, where there was nothing to run from, nor nothing to run to. Just to stay stagnant.

"Let's go, doll," Peter said, crashing through the fragile glass like a sledgehammer, destroying the delicate peace she had made her for herself and herself alone.

He unbuckled her seatbelt for her and pulled her out, practically carrying her inside, grabbing the keys and locking the car as they went.

"Put me down," she commanded, lightly struggling. He was stronger than he seemed and the most she could do was squirm with what wasn't being held, that being her legs and hips.

He complied wordlessly, dropping her down and holding onto her arms to keep her steady as she regained her balance. His touch was kind, soft, different from his grip. His grip was to keep her in place, his touch was to keep her anchored.

"Let's go," he whispered, leading her towards a booth near the back, but not by the back wall. She slid into one side, him taking the other.

She never had the chance to look at him directly head on until that moment, not since the car, but even then, it wasn't the same as it was now.

She could see his hair, messy from his jacket hoodie and the car seat, as well as his general movements. It was fluffy and brown and made her feel like she was choking, but accepted the feeling gladly, if not overwhelmed.

Though there was no sun to be seen, nor to shine, his eyes still glistened. They didn't glisten in the car as he looked at her, but now he looked at her with all the life of a young boy, the light reaching all corners of the world that didn't exist, pulling her in.

She was drowning, but the only other one there was the ocean that was dragging her down.

"Like I said before, I have a camera."

She immediately scowled at his joke, but caught his reaction. Caught how, behind his teasing smile, there was the drop of disappointment in his eyebrows and the pull of his mouth. The disappointment of losing the look in her eyes as she stared at him.

She had pulled herself back to the shore.

"Why're you called Spider-Man?" she asked, almost feeling compelled to. Feeling the desperate need for answers that, a moment ago, she would gladly leave alone, wanting nothing to do with them until that moment.

She watched as he shifted completely. At least, he shifted in a way that changed nothing. He was still the same Peter, but something shifted, but she saw nothing of it in change, as he was still the same. A shift with no consequence.

"You remember this?" he asked, pulling down the zipper of his jacket and tugging on the black circle he had been so desperate to find during their first encounter.

"Yeah," she replied, staring at it with all the intensity of the sun that did not exist; that is, to say, her attention was there, yet not.

"Well," he began, setting it down reverently, as if it would run away if he so much as let part of it drop instead of making sure it was resting before pulling away, "It's sort of synced to these things." He pulled up his jacket sleeves to show objects akin to watches on both wrists.

"I'm called Spider-Man because these shoot webs and I can walk on walls and basically do whatever a spider can. Sort of. I mean, I have the ability to tell when danger is around and my reflexes and senses have been dialed up," he explained, speeding up as he began to ramble, his explanation nowhere as slow as it should have been, considering the circumstances and the context.

She kept up. She listened to his fast speech and understood, at least, understood his words. His meaning was another matter, but the fact that she didn't ask him to slow down, that floored him to the point of silence.

"So you've got, what, superpowers?" she asked, after realizing that he was no longer going to speak.

"I-I guess so," he mumbled, picking up the burger that she was sure hadn't been there before, taking a bite.

She glanced down and found a sandwich for herself on a plate and took a bite as well, glad to find it was a burger and not a sandwich like the one her father made. She didn't know where they were, but she knew she was away from the deli and the sandwiches.

"That doesn't sound right," she commented, "I mean, a person and powers, that's..." she paused, "a perception of mine, I guess."

"What?" he asked, tilting his head. She had to force herself not to stare at the way his eyes widened and his hair fell into his face, though he made no move to fix it.

"I mean, spider powers, that's something for spiders. You're a person, spiders aren't for people, but...I guess I could get used to it."

It was as if she were still half-asleep. Her reasoning was warped, her thought process murky. It was how dots so easily connected while alert were flying over her head and passing her now. She accepted this as reality, his explanation as reality, with no questions other than a philosophical question that she couldn't grasp, if it be philosophical at all.

She was stagnant in the space between asleep and awake, keeping her in the world where everything was nothing at all.

"So you're going upstate to see your boss who, what, gave you these powers?" she asked with all the casualness of someone asking about the weather or the time.

She was not alert, no matter how alert she perceived herself to be. She would not have acted so lax had she actually been alert.

"No, he's the one who gave me this," he said, tapping the black circle, "I made my own webshooters, but he made me better ones. This black circle hooks it up to the shooters without the need of a full suit. We, um, don't use costumes here."

"Oh," she replied, not realizing that she should have pulled up red flags when understanding that, somewhere else, people used costumes when being superheroes.

Red flags were gray in a world nonexistent.

"That's how I talk to Karen," he continued, speaking slow despite knowing he didn't have to, "She's in my ear, basically, because the circle pulls up what would be the different graphic-things if I had a mask, but I don't, so instead its holographic, but you can't see it."

"Cool," she replied lightly, taking a sip from the soda she was sure hadn't been sitting on her other side when her burger arrived.

He gave her a lopsided smile, one that reached his eyes, but didn't have the same life. There was a mix of concern and worry behind that smile, maybe discomfort, though that itself mixed with concern and worry. A subset of fear.

"You good?" he asked, the question carrying so many other questions that she could both understand and never comprehend, nor fully pick apart.

"Yeah."

She watched as he plucked the black circle from the table and pressed it against his chest, taking a deep breath. She could almost hear it envelop him, maybe even feel it. Everything was so murky, so falsely alert, anything was possible.

She watched as he opened his eyes and, after a few moments of not looking at her, raising his eyes to show that the light had come back. The sun, still nonexistent, shined in his brown eyes, enveloping her, once again, in the golden whiskey ocean that slowly pulled her in.

She was drunk on the bliss of not existing, drowning in the ocean of nothingness.

Peter pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket and dropped it onto the check that hadn't been there before. "Ready to go?"

She nodded and slid out from the booth, fixing her clothes before following him out of the empty diner and over to the car.

"I don't remember anyone bringing anything over," she commented as they climbed inside.

She didn't notice the quick pause before he replied in a joking tone that made sure she wouldn't catch onto anything. "Too focused on me, doll? So cute."

"Shut up, Spidey," she spat, backing out of the parking space, "You have no leverage over me."

Except he did. He had all the leverage in the world.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Okay, there's something really exciting about the way Barbie thinks, I can't explain it using the example I had up in the reading, but basically you know how Peter talks to her in those little snippets where she doesn't respond? Well, he does read to her and he does tell her these educational things and she does hear them...see where I'm going with this? If not, it'll be explained later, you'll see.

Also, this isn't inta love. I know that bit where he grabbed her hand was kinda like...you know? But it's not, that's just...it's not, 'Kay!

I know this chapter was weird (I wrote part of it in the middle of the night) but I swear it'll start to make sense, promise.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!