liliaeth | Fic: So why didn't we know (Spider-Man Unmasked)

Title: So why didn't we know
Author:Lore
Rating:Gen
Summary: Joy Mercado's thinking about Peter coming out as Spidey.

I told him he was lazy, that he was wasting his potential and that he could have been a good reporter if he stopped using the crutch of his connection to Spider-Man to score good shots. Now I can’t stop laughing at what I told him.

Oh I should be even angrier. Thinking about it, he really did just go wherever he was because he knew beyond a fact where Spider-Man would be. Only it wasn’t because of laziness.
Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

Peter Parker, of all people. God, I’m supposed to be a reporter and I didn’t even realize it? Spider-Man suddenly shows up out of the blue in Ireland, just when Peter happens to be there and I just went… “Spider-Man must have told Peter.”

And that while the obvious truth stood right in front of us; we just never bothered to see. It was just Peter after all. Sweet little Peter with his innocent hazel eyes and little boy smile; so unassuming, so quiet, but with a soft sense of humour that showed up when you least expected it.

He showed up in Ireland for gods sake and I didn’t even manage to put two and two together.

Jameson is suing Peter for fraud, for lying: but honestly, the only one that really lied to all of us, were ourselves. I think it was because Spider-Man felt so alien, so strange, over the top, exuberant, loud where Peter was quiet. I think it was because we just refused to accept the idea that there could be a person beneath the myth. That the big costumed superhero could have a family and feelings, that he could be hurt by our words.

I mean Peter? Great guy, but a total geek.

Peter’s the kinda guy you can imagine in a lab coat, watching test-tubes, not someone that fights high scale battles in the streets blocking traffic for miles around. He’s clumsy, fades in the shadows, Clark Kent to Spider-Man’s Superman. Which should have set off alarms from the start.

It’s only now that the truth is out, that I realize how many clues there were, how bad a liar Peter really is.

We should have known, but we refused to know. I think I’m starting to realize how Lex Luthor felt when told that Kent was Superman. It really is easier when you don’t have to look in the hero’s eyes.