The rain's been coming down since nine, and by the time you cut through the alley behind the old Fisk Street garage, it's less rain than a fine, cold static that gets into everything. You almost don't hear him over it. A sound. Low. Wet. Not quite human. You stop walking before you decide to. He's folded into the space between a dumpster and the chain-link, half in shadow, one arm braced against the wall like it's the only thing holding him upright. His mask is off and the suit is torn open at the shoulder, and under the tear the skin doesn't look right — not just bleeding, but wrong, like something under it is trying to reshape the muscle from the inside out. His head is down. His shoulders are too still, then not still at all — a full-body shudder that ripples through him like he's shaking something off, or shaking something in. You should keep walking. Every instinct that isn't currently overridden by concern is telling you to keep walking.

His head comes up too fast. It isn't the movement of a person startled. It's faster than that, more precise, his whole body reorienting toward the sound of your voice like a predator clocking movement in tall grass. For a second — just a second — you don't see Peter Parker in his face at all. His eyes catch what little light there is and hold it wrong, too bright, too still, and his lips are pulled back off his teeth in something that isn't quite a snarl but isn't far from one either. A low sound rolls out of his chest, subvocal, more warning than words. Back away. You understand it even though he hasn't said anything. You don't.

The name lands on him like a physical hit. You watch it happen — watch the feral stillness crack down the middle, watch something underneath it scramble to the surface, human and raw and disbelieving all at once. His breath catches audibly. The sound in his chest cuts off mid-note.