Peter tensed his shoulders, pressing back into his donation chair as the senior tech came over to reposition the needle in his arm.

This was not fun. He did not like this part.

But he got his cards mailed. And he was going to treat himself to buying a package of chicken breasts and some Romain lettuce for today's donation. And maybe some stuff to make bread? Flour, yeast, eggs? Those things could let him a long time if he played his hands right.

"Feel alright?"

No, he had just been stabbed and had the weapon wiggled around in his arm. "Yeah, thanks."

"Let me know if you need anything. You can start pumping."

Peter nodded and began to gently flex his fist. Wade wasn't here. He hadn't seen him in line or at the door so he'd thought maybe he'd gotten in early but he wasn't in the mutate zone either.

Peter sighed to himself, disappointed. He wondered where he was, if he was sick or if something came up? Maybe he missed the bus or couldn't get a ride?

Did Wade Drive?

This was unfortunate. He'd been looking forward to seeing Wade again after their steakhouse outing. Especially since he had to go in to work after this to give the paper a handful of new photos to harass him with.... He hated that man. He hoped some other sucker would come along and be more interesting to Jameson than Spiderman. He just didn't understand the guy's obsession.

Peter's cuff released his arm and his blood began to cycle back, a tangy metallic taste coming along the transfer. The taste was from the hemagglutinin. He was pretty sure that he was supposed to say something about the taste, but at the same time his onboarding, unfortunately, said it was fairly normal so he wasn't sure if he should mention it or not. But he'd been here a few times now and it would be weird to mention it now, right?

He was sure it was fine.

He watched the clock as he pumped, cycling just about every five minutes. Without Wade, time went by slowly, the man's chatter making the facility more medical-like. Sterile.

A half hour passed and Wade didn't appear. Peter was flooded with saline and patched up before being sent on his way with his mild hypothermia.

He sighed to himself, pulling his jacket tighter around himself as he walked back towards his apartment. He wondered if he could get away with swinging home, not only to get away from the cold but to warm his body up. Getting flooded with room temperature solution didn't burn quite like it used to, but it was still quite unpleasant.

He quickly decided against it when he thought back to that person who'd seen him jump out of his window. He couldn't afford to be caught out of costume in case he was getting scouted or something.

This sucked...

But when he walked past the grocery store on the way home he was able to pick up his chicken and vegetables. And he splurged on himself and even picked up a liter of coke while he was there since they were only a dollar. As thrilled and happy as he was about his goods, he couldn't help but feel a bit disgusted that he was excited by real food.

Unprocessed food. Something that had either been grown from the Earth, or an animal who's flesh went from bird to butcher to customer with little in between.

Why did being alive have to be such a burden?

He felt awful at the thought, knowing that he had no escape from the cycle. He would continue to struggle to make ends meet because he didn't have the degree to make money and he couldn't dream of ever paying off student debt, and he'd struggle with freelance and he couldn't make things work with a typical job because he'd eventually come in too many times looking like he'd had the shit beat out of him and get himself fired. Not that any small job could pay enough for rent anyways. Peter was lucky enough to be making what he was off his photography. Better yet that he had a healing factor that allowed his arms to heal up between plasma days.

He groaned. Fuck life.

He entered his building, walking up the stairs and down the hall towards his door. He could feel the presence again and he'd do anything just to punch through the door and drag whatever was setting him off out to be discovered. But he couldn't do that. He wouldn't do that . . . He'd have to pay for the door.

He stared at the door, eyeing the peephole to see if he could catch a glimpse of an eye or something but all he could make out was the reflection of the dim light in the hallway. He tsked and walked towards his door, forcing it open before forcing it shut again.

His phone puzzled while he was putting his groceries in the fridge. He picked it up to look at the notification that popped up, Surprised to see it was a follow on his Spider-Man Instagram account.

He opened it up, taking a look at who had followed his nearly empty page. It was someone with a goofy name and their page was full of writing. After paging through A few frames of text he realized it was fanfiction. Spider-Man fanfiction.

He quickly backed out of the post, glancing up at the bio to see the account headers and their follow for a follow note. If he had to guess, it was a creator trying to find an audience by picking out people with Spider-Man related content in their names or profiles. Or maybe they had high hopes for his account? Maybe it was an accidental follow from swiping and hitting the follow button that was where your thumb goes which was clearly a purposeful and stupid design.

You know, for how shitty things were you'd think social media would at least be functional. But no, that had to be a stressor too.

He glanced around for his suit, grabbing it where it had been left to dry after the laundry. He felt it, making sure it wasn't still wet before walking to his bed for his camera. He kept it hidden behind a pile of decoy clothes so that if he were ever robbed it wouldn't be spotted. Who's going to go out of their way to find something of value if it's hidden under a bed behind clothes that for all the stranger knows is dirty? Right? He hoped.

He pulled out his Rebel and set it by his pillow before turning to pull off his shirt. He pulled off his pants, changed into his suit, squeezing into his pants. His sleeves were inside out and while he was fixing them he caught a glance of himself in the $7 Walmart mirror leaning against the wall at the foot of the bed tucked in the corner of the room. He wouldn't see his face, or anything above the top of his abs actually...

I'm high school he used to pay for a Patreon subscription to a couple who did a lot of character photography. Cosplay, but artistic and thematic. It wasn't just dress-up, their series had storylines if you know how to read them. Anyways, they were also known for their erotic work. Certainly nothing pornographic... or not quite.

He tensed his abdomen, making his muscles prominent bit just enough that he thought it looked attractive. He always thought the guys why trying to bust a vein flexing looked... awful. He didn't find the appeal really so he assumed that a predominantly female audience would agree right? Girls didn't like stupid muscular men, the majority at least? This way he was kind of like popular art, a fine definition but he didn't look like a comic book super hero on steroids. Obvious but not sharp.

He paused.

Would his theoretical audience be women? Would it be men? An even mix of both perhaps, he had no idea. And this was in an imaginary land where he was ultra-successful and cool enough to have a large audience.

Did onlyfans have tiers like Patreon? If so he could make a spicy tier and an explicit tier... more options would mean a higher likelihood of outreach and then he could rate things between his accounts. Instagram would be PG-13, tier one PG-16, and up from there with the final. If they didn't he could look up Patreon guidelines on whether or not that kind of content was allowed on the site. He wasn't sure.

His eyes widened and he spun on his heel. And clutched his hair.

What the fuck was he thinking? He couldn't do that. He was out of his fucking mind!

Stopped and looked at his camera.

But was he? Maybe he should live a little. What's the worse that could happen right?

He pressed his lips together, staring at his camera before he decidedly turned to pull out a drop cloth. He'd gotten them from Craigslist, some one was tossing them and put out a notice they were for the taking. How could he not snag the opportunity? They looked like something a photographer probably had for senior portraits or something. Aside from the plain ones he picked up, the patterned ones gave off a 'young to middle-aged woman amateur free-lancer who had a dream of being a photographer out of high school and probably did a lot of family and friend recommendations but took months to get edits back to the client' vibes with the barn doors and rustic wood backdrop, amongst other things.

And that wasn't to say that was a bad situation! Peter wasn't a master photographer by any means, but he did have a background in art to support his photography skill. And he delivered professional-level work on a timely manner, knew how to edit when needed, and could work his way around a green screen.

It takes practice to become well-rounded in an art form and even he wasn't quite there. What he was saying was that in the occasions he did portraits, his client's hair wasn't unnaturally round from cropping, nor were their teeth ever brighter than their eyes. And they did all have the exact same preset filter over them to give that cool aesthetic look that would look bad in ten years.....

He was thinking of a very specific girl in one of his high school art courses. All the stuff he picked up from the trash gave off 'I realized this thing I wanted to do is way easier said than done in the long term and decided to quit.'

After tying the arms of his half-worn suit, He unrolled the black fabric, checking it over for creases before locating a few clips to attach the corners to the command hooks he had specifically placed for this event. He preferred candid photography but he kept his horizons open.

He pulled the fabric back into an S curve and laid out the rest of its length flat on the floor. He sighed and crossed his arms. He wanted more than just a background. That felt a little too boring for the entirety of the shoot. There were limited dynamic options that way. He grabbed the wooden chair from the table he'd gotten from one of Aunt May's friends who'd given it to him when he moved out. It was a basic style, exactly what he needed. He brought that over to his little working studio space he was improvising and went into his linen closet to pull out his tripod, the third most valuable thing he owned after his camera and laptop.

He didn't know what he was doing, but he tried not to think about it. If he thought about it then he'd freak out. But if he kept himself removed, focusing on the artistic elements of what he was doing, keeping his own identity out of his actions then he could do this.

But it was also amusing. First, he started selling his reputation, accepting defamation for rent. Next, it was his physical body, his plasma. Now he was going to dip into selling his body in a less physical but less morally acceptable manner. He hadn't committed to anything X-rated but it still felt ridiculous. Similar to being a stripper but with less exercise and no physical hands reaching out to grope.

It was a little awkward finding a way to potion himself and get the lighting he wanted, but with some rearranging of his bedside and standing lamp he managed. He didn't worry about his face being in the photos, planning to do plenty of mood editing later anyways. He just hoped he wouldn't get timid when he got to that part.

After trying half a dozen positions and making note of some others he thought he could try and he got up and went over to his camera, taking it off the tripod to go sit on his bed and click through what he had.

Objectively, they were all good. The lighting worked out well considering his goofy setup and the fact he was creating a mood light with a red transparent plastic cup covering one of his light bulbs to soften his light.

No, it was not a red atmosphere, just soft.

All was well save for the fact that he knew it was himself. He felt embarrassed, making sure that no one including any spirits could peek in through his window and get a glimpse of his camera as he flipped through images of himself kneeling and arching back to get the desired shot of his musculature.

He paused to look at one where he was kneeling sideways, probably from when he was shifting positions. Regardless of the movement he'd captured a clear image of himself looking at the camera, his facet serious and the shadows making his eyes pop.

It was nice enough that for the first time in his life, he felt disappointed he couldn't publish it. He didn't normally care to look at his face. He didn't think he was ugly, but he wasn't handsome either. He was just... himself. But in this one, he felt like he was looking at someone else who had sharp eyes and an attractive shape to the face from the 3/4 angle.

Was this what he looked like? A man?

When he looked at himself in the mirror he still saw his fifteen-year-old self, awkward and extraordinarily boring and almost childlike. It felt curious and awful all at once to look at himself and both recognize and not recognize himself. He felt like he'd lost something, but that he'd also unlocked the ability to see something he hadn't been able to before. 

Suddenly all the times that Aunt May had told him he had a nice face made sense. She'd also always said he looked a bit like his mom too. He couldn't attest to that in the past but now he saw it in his cheekbones and the shape of his eyes and nose. 

He didn't recognize himself.

He set down his camera and shut it off, dropping back into his blankets as tears blurred his vision. He sniffed and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Who the fuck was he?

Special thanks to Poiuytre23.

Until next time
~ Shadow-Assassin