Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Grief, I've learned, is really just love. 

It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. 

All of that unspent love gathers in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in the hollow part of your chest. 

Grief is just love with no place to go.”

- Jamie Anderson 

Pain, Peter’s learned, is relative. 

Subjective. Fleeting. Impossible to measure. 

He knew from his biology classes that pain was less a feeling but more of a chemical— neurons traveling together and communicating. Brain synapses signaling to each other what is, what was, what will be. 

Pain is intangible, objectively speaking. 

The inability to feel pain— congenital insensitivity— fascinated Peter when he was young. He was always sick, always in pain, always struggling to just breathe .

There was a lot of appeal to feeling no pain at all.

Pain, Peter’s learned, is relative. 

Subjective. Fleeting. Impossible to measure. 

Right up until the moment it isn’t.

“May, have you seen my—“

“Out here,” May calls out, Peter ducking his head out into the hallway and seeing her wave his chem book. “If you put it up when you were done…”

“You’d never get to help me find it,” Peter says with a grin as he walks over to her, May laughing as he takes it from her and shoves it in his backpack.

“Oh I get to help you, is that it?” May says, rifling her hand behind his neck to fix the tag on his shirt— gently placing it back in with a move that’s routine for how often Peter haphazardly shoves his clothes on. 

(He always forgets his books and she always finds them and he always jokes with her about it while she smooths out his hair, fixes his clothes, wipes his cheek with her thumb.

It’s a routine that doesn’t feel routine, a routine that Peter would give anything— anything— to go back to. 

He can’t.  He never will. 

He doesn’t know that yet.)

“Yeah, you do,” Peter says with a laugh as May sighs, exasperation only in name as she looks at him up and down— hands braces against his shoulders.

“Plan for today?”

“School,” Peter says, counting off with his fingers. 

“On time?”

“Should be,” he says sheepishly as she raises an eyebrow as he continues, “AcaDec.”

“With the new captain?” 

“MJ, yeah,” Peter says as May smoothes out the curve of his jacket, zipping up his backpack and then slinging it over his shoulder. “Then… probably hang out with Ned maybe? Or…”

He bites the inside of his cheek, seeing the concern in May’s eyes and the anxiety— the uneasy compromise that they’ve established in the weeks after she found out his biggest secret.

Peter hated the look in her eyes when she realized he’d been lying to her, even if he hated the idea that she would ask him to stop even more.

She hadn’t—yet— but it was always a fear he had when he asked her about patrol, an uneasy dance between the two of them now that even if the truth had been revealed, there was still so much that she didn’t know. 

So much that Peter didn’t want her to know.

(He’ll regret that.)

“Patrol?” She asks but it’s uncertain, like she’s still getting used to the idea just as much as Peter is getting used to the idea of her knowing about it as he nods. 

She purses her lips, a habit Peter’s picked up on of hers as he presses forward.

“I took last week off like you asked and the suit is— it’s working great now. Won’t need a check in for another month, maybe more like we talked about. I can text you every hour, or uh, remind Karen to remind me to text you every hour. I promise, I’ll—”

May takes a deep breath, Peter clamping his mouth shut as May’s face takes on a complicated expression— pulling him into a hug that Peter easily falls into.

(If he closes his eyes, he can still smell the cinnamon and vanilla scent of her lotion.)

“I just want you to be safe,” May whispers into his hair, Peter’s shoulders loosening as she hugs him tighter. Peter holds her tight— as tightly as he can— burrowing his head into her shoulder. 

“I will, May. Promise,” he says and he can hear her heart stutter, can feel that she doesn’t believe him and yet wants to.

(He hadn’t heard it. 

He hadn’t heard it. 

He should’ve heard it.)

May finally lets go but it’s not without bringing her hands into his face, nodding a few times. 

“You can go,” May says, Peter breaking out into a smile, “But, you have to text me.”

“Every hour, I promise.”

“And take a jacket with you,” she says, “It’s getting cold.”

“The suit has a heater…” Peter begins before trailing off from the look on her face before saying, “Jacket. Got it.” 

“And you’ll be back home by seven.”

Peter balks, making a face as he tries to argue, “May—”

“Seven,” she says more determinedly, Peter clamping his mouth shut. He can tell from the look in her eyes that this isn’t an argument he’s gonna win or worse— if he tries that it’ll just mean he won’t patrol at all. 

“Seven,” he says glumly, May nudging at his cheek with her thumb.

“Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” Peter says, going back for one more hug— another habit and routine, only a few months old and one he won’t allow himself to change.  

(Ben left without saying goodbye. His mom and dad left without saying goodbye. It was not getting to say goodbye that hurt the most.

Or so he thought.)

“Love you,” she says with one more squeeze, Peter saying it back until she gently pushes him towards the door. 

“Seven!”

“Yes, May. Seven,” Peter says with a laugh, grabbing a banana and his keys— walking out of the door with a wave and never looking back. 

(He’ll regret that too.)

“Do you want my fries?”

“Of course I want your fries,” Peter says with a snort, Ned rolling his eyes as he grabs a handful. He shoves them into his mouth, ignoring Ned’s mild look of disgust since the simultaneously half-burnt and undercooked fries from Midtown’s lunch room were Peter’s favorite and Ned’s least. 

“I don’t know how you eat those,” Ned says, nose wrinkled up and making a face as Peter chews with his mouth open— teasing him as Ned fake gags and reaches for his soda. 

“They’re not bad,” Peter counters, quickly chewing then swallowing the fries down as he leans over to grab more, “You just have high standards.”

“I don’t have high standards, I just have standards ,” Ned says with a snort, Peter laughing as he shoves down another handful of fries into his mouth. “I don’t know how you can eat that.”

Ned makes a face then, only for his eyes to grow wider when he suddenly asks, “Wait, do you have to eat them? Do you think it’s a you know ?”

Peter looks back at him incredulously, shaking his head as he asks, “A what ?”

(Peter won’t remember this conversation later. 

He won’t remember it because it’s important, because it didn’t matter, because it was just another Thursday, in another week, in another time of his life.

Peter won’t remember this conversation.

But he’ll remember the next.)

Before Ned gets the chance to say anything, he stops short when someone comes up from behind Peter— Peter slowly looking behind and seeing Mr. Harrington behind him. 

“Peter, can you— can you come to the office please?” He asks, nervous in the way he always does— eyes not quite reaching Peter’s as he looks to Ned, “Grab anything you’ll need.”

Peter frowns, confused— 

(He won’t be confused for long. 

He knows how this works.)

— and asks, “Am I in trouble?” 

Mr. Harrington finally locks eyes with Peter, a faraway expression that he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t know how to make sense of

(He will.)

as he shakes his head furiously.

“No, nothing like that. No, just—” He reaches his hand out, beckoning for Peter to follow after him. “Principal Morita wants to see you. Come on, let’s go.”

His words are rushing but his actions are not, as if he would rather do or be anything than to take Peter to the office. Something sinks in his gut then, a painful and old fear— a breath of a thing that he hasn’t thought of in years, that he thought he’d never have to think of again— a terror that snakes across his neck and—

“Why?” Peter asks, forcing himself to look at Mr. Harrington and when he avoids his eyes again— that’s what does it, what makes Peter’s stomach churn from the undigested french fries and from a pain so horrifyingly familiar that it makes his breath hitch. 

“Peter,” Mr. Harrington says awkwardly, pleadingly, desperate it seems as he looks around to the other students and to the other teachers— none of whom have noticed. 

(Peter would wonder later— much later— why Mr. Harrington had been the one sent to him. 

Maybe it was because he was in the office at the time.

Maybe because he was the AcaDec faculty lead. 

Maybe it was just bad luck.

Bad luck.

Parker luck.

It didn’t matter either way.

He still lost.)

It’s like ice in his veins, instantaneous and a shock to the system— the thought not quite at the forefront of his brain even if his body is working it seems, on autopilot. 

(Of course it would. Peter knew how this worked.

He’s done this before.)

He grabs his backpack. He doesn’t look at Ned. 

He stops looking at Mr. Harrington. 

He doesn’t have to. 

(Because he knows. 

May is dead.)

“Who would you like for me to call?”

Peter hears the words but he also doesn’t, because he’s not sure that he’s really hearing anything right now.

“Peter,” Principal Morita repeats gently, “There’s two different emergency contact numbers on your file. Maria Leeds and Jan Reilly.”

He’s in a tunnel now, a thousand miles away and yet so painfully fucking present, staring at the hardwood desk Principal Morita has.

His nameplate, specifically.

The little a on the edge, even more. 

It’s chipped. 

“Ms. Reilly is listed as your… aunt,” Principal Morita says haltingly, but he doesn’t have to. 

The a is chipped. 

“But Dr. Leeds is in the city, local. Do you know if your Aunt Jan is—”

“She’s not my aunt,” Peter says, surprised in a way that he can still talk since he’s sure his vocal cords had taken a vacation like the rest of his body has— “she’s— she was May’s.”

It doesn’t hurt.

(It will .)

It should hurt. 

But it doesn’t. 

“Oh,” Principal Morita says softly as Peter rambles on.

“I’ve never met her. Well, not— I met her but back when I was really little—

(When this happened the first time. 

When he first came to live with Ben and May.

When his parents died.

Why does this keep happening?)

“—I don’t even know where she lives now. I don’t… I don’t know where she is.” 

Peter takes a breath like he’s gonna say something more, Principal Morita waiting patiently for him to do so but it’s like the words aren’t there anymore— like a lamp turned off not from flipping a switch but being pulled out of the electrical socket. 

It’s silent for a few beats, miserable and painful and yet completely empty as Peter looks back to the little a on the nameplate on Principal Morita’s desk.

“You should probably fix that.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“That,” Peter says, pointing to the nameplate— surprised in a way, that he can even move his hands since he’s not totally sure if he’s completely present now, stuck in some liminal space between reality and total devastating collapse.

He hasn’t decided yet. 

“The ‘a’ on your nameplate,” Peter says matter of factly, as if it was obvious.

(Because it is. It always would be. There wasn’t a fucking world or universe where Peter ever got a happy ending, where he was happy. Where things were actually fucking good for him. 

But he wasn’t thinking about that then.)

“It’s chipped,” Peter says, bringing his hand down and resting it on his lap— aware of it now in a way that’s disconcerting because he has limbs, which means he has blood flowing through his veins, blood that has oxygen, blood that goes straight to his heart—

“You should fix that,” Peter repeats before scratching absentmindedly at a line in his jeans. 

Principal Morita grows quiet, Peter feeling his stare on him but not looking at him because he’s not really sure of what he’s looking at anymore. 

It’s another long, pregnant pause— enough for Peter to feel it, even if he’s not really sure if he’s feeling much of anything— his mind fixated on the little a of Principal Morita’s nameplate and nothing else. 

“Peter…”

There’s a knock at the door then, one that surprises Peter just as much as it surprises Principal Morita— Peter’s eyes still focused on the nameplate but seeing him glance up. 

He doesn’t say anything, curiosity— if it could be called that— getting the better of Peter as he looks up and sees him making a face, Principal Morita shaking his head.

Whoever it is doesn’t listen, opening the door as Ms. Linda— his secretary— pops her head in. 

“Lin—”

“You have a Maria Leeds on the phone,” she says in a hushed tone, as if Peter couldn’t hear her. He could. Maybe. He thinks he could. “She’s on her way now.”

“Dr. Leeds,” Peter says without thinking— partly because he’s not really thinking much of anything but mostly because he’s not even sure if his words are even real, not even noticing the way Principal Morita and Ms. Linda look at him as he corrects her, “It’s Dr. Leeds. She’s a doctor at Elmhurst.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Principal Morita says calmly, Peter looking away from the nameplate and back up to him. 

The door closes behind him, Principal Morita’s expression one of sympathy— but not quite pity. 

(He knows what pity looks like.

He’s used to pity.

He’s used to a lot of things.)

“Dr. Leeds is on her way,” he says, repeating the obvious.

The obvious, but not the unnecessary. 

Not when Peter is keenly aware of the feel of his jeans scratching against his thigh, of the way Principal Morita’s heartbeat is ramping up, of Ms. Linda stifling back a sob— hearing the creak of her chair and the little clink of rosary beads as she prays. 

“Okay,” Peter says, because it’s what you do when someone speaks to you. 

It’s what you do when someone tells you terrible news and expects you to be the one to guide them through it. 

(It’s what he does, anyway.

He’s used to this by now.)

Peter doesn’t remember leaving the school. 

He knows he did— currently sitting on the Leeds’ couch with music softly playing in the background, music was always playing in the background at Ned’s house— a cup of tea in his hands that he hasn’t touched. 

He left school but he hasn’t left his body yet— for now, at least— holding the cup of tea in his hand as he stares off into the distance and also to nothing at all. 

He can hear Ned crying in the bathroom— trying to control himself from the wretched sobs that he’s failing to hide under the guise of a shower. Ned had been holding them back unsuccessfully from the moment Peter had seen him again so it doesn’t surprise him that Ned took the first opportunity he had to cry in peace. 

He should cry, Peter knows he’s going to cry.

He hasn’t yet. 

(He will.)

Peter hears Ned’s mom take a deep breath in the kitchen, setting a cup down— heartbeat still peacefully beating along in rhythm. 

It’s a good rhythm, back and forth and back again. He’s listening to the rhythm and to nothing else— focusing his attention on that and nothing else because if he feels it, if he lets himself feel it, if he lets himself think —

“Peter?” 

Peter glances up to see Mrs. Leeds looking back at him in surprise before looking down at his hands, looking back down and seeing that he’s broken the mug that he’s holding, spilled tea all over the carpet and blood dripping down across his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” he says as she rushes forward, delicately taking the mug away from him. 

“It’s alright, here— let me—”

“I’ll be okay,” he says without thinking because he can’t think— he can’t— thinking isn’t something he’s capable of right now— “I heal fast.”

“Okay,” she says without changing her actions at all, removing the pieces of broken ceramic and placing them in on the coffee table that she has there— Peter’s eyes drifting from the spilled tea and the blood over to the mug. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again, looking up to her and seeing something in her eyes— a quiet kind of serenity that’s instantly calming. “I liked that mug.”

“Me too,” she says because she did and that’s something Peter’s liked about her— her honesty— as she says, “cover your fist.”

“Huh?”

“Cover your first, tight,” she says, holding his gaze, “I need to get my first aid kit.”

“Okay,” Peter says, following her directions— vaguely aware now that his hand is sliced open and bleeding as he looks back down to them. She gets up from the couch but Peter doesn’t follow her, looking down at his hands and at the red and the tea— the mess of broken glass and tea and blood all mixed together like some kind of morbid tapestry. 

It hurts, which surprises Peter because he thought he wouldn’t be able to feel it— he hasn’t felt anything in hours and he thought that maybe he’d succeeded, in turning it off, in feeling nothing.

(He hadn’t turned it off. 

He knew it was shock.

He’s done this before.)

He watches in mild fascination as the blood trails up and around his fingers, very aware now of the power that he has in his hands— of the blood gushing from his veins and the way that it’s pumping through his system, fighting against the pressure that he’s applying from his tight grip like a dam threatening to burst. He’s aware in a way that he’s not usually of how easy it is to break things, to break his fingers, to break—

“Here,” Mrs. Leeds says when she comes back, Peter glancing up and seeing her gently take his hands apart before applying gauze to his wound, Peter blinking a few times as he watches her work. “Hold this here. Let me see your other hand.”

She’s direct but not unkind, Peter watching her as she takes his other hand and mutters “ang gulo .”

(What a mess.

It’s not his first.)

He watches with rapt attention as she works on cleaning up the first of his hands, hearing the shower finally turn off in the distance. 

“Do you heal fast?” 

“Huh?”

“You said you heal fast,” Mrs. Leeds says, voice calm and even and focused as she works, “Have you done this before?”

“Not on purpose,” Peter says candidly, bluntly, because she’ll understand that and because he’s not really sure if any of this is real. “It happens sometimes. I forget to control it sometimes.”

She hums and that should be Peter’s first clue,

(He should’ve noticed a lot of clues.

He hadn’t noticed any of them.

He never had to.)

steadily wrapping a bandage over the one hand as she says, “That’s okay, to forget sometimes. I’ll start giving you plastic now.”

“Plastic?” Peter asks, looking up at her in confusion because his brain is not quite catching up to the conversation they’re having but there’s some part of him that understands— that’s trying to— Mrs. Leeds still focused on the task of wrapping up one hand as she nods.

“Plastic bends, won’t give you such a nasty cut,” she says, before reaching out for his other hand. “Has the bleeding stopped?”

“I think so,” Peter replies on autopilot, passing it over to her as she looks at him square in the eyes. 

“You think, or you know? You know this better than I do,” she says with a calmness and a certainty that grounds Peter— heart thumping in that same rhythmic beat as he nods more assuredly. There’s a buzzing in the back of his mind, a buzzing that’s getting louder and louder. 

“I know,” he says, something now clenching in his chest and a whisper nudging at the back of his mind that he can’t quite grasp as she searches his face before nodding, looking back down to the gauze.

He’s not surprised that it’s stopped bleeding and neither is she, humming again as she removes the bloody gauze and reaches for another without another word— before something finally snaps into place. 

“I’m going to wrap this one too,” she says, Peter’s own heartbeat racing now because he’s not sure of a lot of things right now but he is sure that Mrs. Leeds shouldn’t be so calm about this right now— shouldn’t be so easy to accept that Peter was bleeding three minutes ago and now that he’s not, that the only reason he was bleeding was because he crushed a mug in his bare hands. 

“Why?” He asks because his voice is working but his mind still isn’t, here in the living room and slowly feeling himself sink away, like a deep, cavernous pit is threatening to swallow him whole as the bathroom door opens— Ned’s soft footsteps coming in towards the living room. 

“It’ll distract you,” she says just as calmly, looking right into Peter’s eyes, “For now.” 

“Ma? Is—”

“Can you grab me a blanket, kuya ?” She asks of Ned, still holding Peter’s gaze. 

“Yes ma,” Ned replies without a second thought, the seconds feeling like hours as she gently runs her thumb over his gauze wrapped hand. 

“You’re staying with us,” she says definitively, firmly— in the same calm, measured tone that she’s spoken to him this whole time.

(There’s an edge to it that he didn’t hear at the time.

Grief, just barely on the surface.

He didn’t hear it because he wasn’t feeling things.

He would.)

“Okay,” Peter says but it’s more of a whisper, Mrs. Leeds nodding a few times as she searches his face.

“Okay,” she repeats back to him, thumb still gently caressing his gauze wrapped hands— useless and unnecessary. He’s probably stopped bleeding. He doesn’t feel the pain anymore. 

But it is distracting.

She was right about that. 

Peter is awake.

He’s awake and everyone else is sleeping, everyone in the Leeds apartment at least. 

He doesn’t close his eyes, staring up at the ceiling of Ned’s room— Ned softly snoring in the background, heartbeat slowed from sleep but still steadily pumping— a beat that he focuses on as his fingers absentmindedly toy with the gauze in his hand. 

He’s awake and he doesn’t want to be but he also doesn’t want to sleep— can’t sleep because if he sleeps then he’ll have to wake up. 

(He doesn’t want to sleep because if he wakes up and she’s still not here then it’s real.

It’s real.

He hasn’t accepted that yet.)

Instead, Peter picks at the gauze in his hands and stares at the ceiling and listens as the Leeds family sleeps and snores and their hearts beat in a discordant but no less soothing rhythm. 

It’s soothing so much as it’s also distracting, the beat serving as a metronome that he forces himself to focus on because the alternative is to deal with reality and reality is impossible.

He can’t focus on the reality that it happened to him again— happened again — staring up at the ceiling in the middle of the night in a room that isn’t his but will be now and with a weight on his chest that threatens to strangle him.

Because May is dead and it’s happened again— desperately trying to avoid feeling that familiar rush of anger and regret and grief and guilt only to have it be replaced instead with utter desolation that it’s happened again.

It chokes him, the weight of it— an all consuming, endless ache in his lungs that pulls him down into depths he knows he won’t be able to come out of. 

His breath hitches and he can feel it— the agony of being split apart, a festering wound that never healed right because it never could, because you never get over falling asleep with parents and waking up as an orphan or holding the man you knew as a father and watching as the life leaves his eyes just like his blood poured over his hands from his chest. 

A heartbeat that Peter’s senses can hear, only to stop— only to stop—

Peter sits up and takes a gulping, shuddering breath, looking over to where Ned is sleeping on the floor. 

Ned’s hand is reaching out towards him, asleep and at peace even if Peter knows that’s not true— not when Ned has known May as long as he’s known Peter.

He doesn’t remember a lot about Ben’s funeral but he does remember three things: 

How tightly May held his hand when they lowered him into the ground. 

How pretty and blue the sky was. 

How much Ned cried.

Ned was devastated and Peter knows it’s not just his own grief but grief for Peter— but it’s focusing on the first that stops him from feeling like he could rip his heart out, helps temper the feeling that his lungs are gonna constrict and stop him from breathing. 

(The feeling never goes away.

He’ll get better at handling it. 

But not yet.)

Peter stares up at the ceiling and questions why it keeps happening— why this keeps happening— why it keeps happening to him.

It’s not a question he finds an answer to that night. 

(He never does.)

There’s a funeral to plan and people to call and things to do but Peter doesn't do any of it. 

It’s not for lack of trying— he does, try, to make the phone calls he’s far too familiar with and to think of the answers to the questions no sixteen year old should ever know, much less know three times over. 

But Mrs. Leeds meant it when she said that he was staying with them— with them in a way Peter hadn’t fully comprehended until the night before the funeral when Mr. Leeds comes in with Peter’s suit, freshly ironed and ready for him. 

“What happens next?” Peter asks, watching as Mr. Leeds stills and turns to Peter.

“Next?”

“For me,” Peter clarifies even if that’s the only thing he can really clarify. He keeps dropping in and out of his body, time seemingly skipping forward and back and around him in a way that would be disorienting if he had any concept of what was around him. 

Because Peter blinks and it’s last week, hearing May hum in the kitchen but when he blinks again it’s the middle of the night. He breathes in the smell of burnt toast only to look over and see no one’s in the kitchen, breathes again and he’s in their apartment with Mrs. Leeds and Ned staring at him as they sort through his room for clothes for him to wear. 

He’s here but he’s not here because to be here is to be present in what’s a nightmare he wants to get out of, he wants to get out, he wants to get out —

“You’re staying with us,” Mr. Leeds says simply, kindly, Peter not even realizing his hand is on his shoulder until he blinks a few times and sees him in front of him.

Peter hasn’t noticed how much older Mr. Leeds has gotten or maybe he’s just tired—

(It’s grief, Peter would realize later.

A grief of having known Ben Parker who had been his best friend and then burying him.

A grief of having known May Parker and having to bury her too.)

a gentle smile on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he says, “it’s already been settled.”

“Settled,” Peter asks but it’s not really spoken as a question, the feeling in his fingertips all faded away now and his mind skipping like those old vinyl records May used to play on Sundays when she cleaned— like last Sunday or maybe the Sunday before because the days have blurred together and she’s dead and Peter’s not sure if he’s even here anymore. 

Mr. Leeds is speaking to him, soft and gentle and kind in the only way Peter’s ever known the man but he’s only absorbing about half of it— staring right into his eyes and not fully comprehending anything.

(How could he comprehend that May had prepared for this? 

She’d prepared for what would happen if she died unexpectedly.

After all, Peter had been brought into her life because of the unexpected.)

“I’ll fix your tie for you tomorrow if you’d like,” is the last thing that Peter hears, even if he’s not really sure if it’s the last thing Mr. Leeds says— painfully aware that time has passed and he’s been rude and that there’s a silence that skips a beat as Peter blinks and then nods. 

“Thank you,” Peter replies because it’s polite and because he’ll need it.

(May raised him with manners, after all.

He wouldn’t forget that.)

Peter’s been to a lot of funerals. 

(May’s will always be the worst. )

He’s used to it by now, as used to it as you can be when your entire world is shifted off its axis. Funerals were never really about the dead person but everyone else, their tears and their memories and their lives that have all been completely shattered because they’ve all been left behind.

The problem, Peter thinks, as people come up to him and offer him condolences— as Mrs. Leeds keeps her arm wrapped tight around him in an effort to hold him up or shield him or both— is that none of them have been left behind. 

Maybelle Reilly Parker had been loved by many and her funeral is proof of that, an endless throng of people coming and going and crying— some Peter recognizes and most that Peter doesn’t— because she isn’t living anymore. 

But they don’t get it, none of them get it— none of them can feel it— of being left behind in the specific, horrifying way that Peter is.

Mrs. Leeds is on one side and Ned is on the other, looking at him with a sadness that’s so deep and so cutting that Peter can’t look at it for long because that kind of sadness doesn’t deserve any place in Ned Leeds’ life— doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near him. 

(It’s a sadness Peter knows well.)

Peter is sad but that doesn’t cover it, doesn’t show it, doesn’t even begin to express the extent of the consuming, agonizing weight that he can feel pulling him deep into the ground— rooted where he’s standing even when he’s walking. 

It’s a heaviness that he drapes over him like a blanket, staring at her casket and staring at her and feeling not sadness but anger— unbridled and furious that she of all people had left him.

She’d left him. She’d left him. May, who knew what it was like to be the last one standing, only to make it so that Peter is. 

He’s angry and he’s devastated and he’s everything and he’s nothing, all at once. 

Peter doesn’t cry.

(But he will.)

“Pete.”

“Yeah?”

Peter hears Ned come into his bedroom— Peter in pajamas that aren’t his, in a bed that isn’t his and staring at a wall that also isn’t his— gently closing the door behind him. 

“Ma asked if you’re hungry,” Ned asks, voice thick with uncertainty and that overwhelming sadness— a sadness that he’s clearly trying to hold back but a sadness that threatens to choke him all the same. 

“No thank you,” Peter replies. He’s not hungry and he hasn’t felt hungry in days, eating when he’s supposed to but never anything more because he hasn’t been hungry since that morning— that morning when he grabbed a banana and left the apartment— left the apartment and didn’t even look back—

“Peter.”

Peter takes in a deep breath before slowly exhaling, looking over his shoulders and seeing the red-rimmed eyes of his best and oldest friend. 

“I’m not hungry,” Peter says, trying to sound more encouraging but falling comically short— seeing the complicated expression on Ned’s face. 

“I’m not,” Peter says before Ned can argue, turning back around and staring at the wall. “I’ll eat, I promise.” 

He doesn’t have to look at Ned to know what face he’s making— Ned Leeds being the person that he knows best in this world and who up until four days ago, knew him best too. 

(He’ll thank Ned later, for trying. 

But not yet.)

Ned was looking out for him and Ned had seen this before— Ned being the first friend he made when he moved in with Ben and May and sharing peanut butter sandwiches in the lunchroom. Ned had seen this before when they were fourteen and Ben was murdered, right in front of him, blood spilling out over his hands, and Peter didn’t eat or sleep for two weeks straight— a disaster that would’ve put him in the hospital if that was a thing that Peter needed nowadays. 

Ned had seen this before and Peter knows that— knows that Ned is trying to remind him of how to be a person and how to live or maybe just to survive.

But Peter isn’t sure if he really is doing any of that— both in and outside of his body as he stares at the stucco style of the wall, tracing little patterns with his eyes for however long it takes for Ned to give up this time around. 

“Please eat,” Ned finally whispers, because Ned’s like his dad in that way— trying to find something practical to do and to help with as Peter nods.

“I will,” he says and he means it, even if Ned doesn’t seem to believe him before he finally sighs and leaves the room. 

Peter’s still staring at the wall but he can hear their conversations in the living room as if they’re right in front of him— can hear all the way down the hallway as Mrs. Jutka cooks something with oil and the couple three floors down on the last apartment at the end of the hall having sex so loud that their bed is creaking and the new baby crying two floors up as she wakes up from her nap. 

“Kumusta siya?” He hears Mrs. Leeds whisper. 

He doesn’t have to hear them to know that Ned shrugs, whispering back in English, “Not good.” 

Mrs. Leeds says something in Tagalog that’s too fast for Peter to catch but he’s already gone anyway— staring at the wall and feeling an ache in his chest and in the pit of his stomach that can be attributed to a hunger that goes beyond food. 

A hunger for a life that he’ll never have anymore, a hunger for a normalcy that he’ll never get back, a hunger for peace in a universe that will never give him one. 

It keeps happening. It keeps happening. It keeps happening. It keeps happening —

Peter startles himself out of bed, turning over and out of it abruptly— his blood pumping and adrenaline running through his system. He’s poised and ready for an attack, though there’s no threat imminent— his spider senses calm even if everything else isn’t. 

He’s alone in Ned’s room and he’s alone in his body and he’s alone— he’s alone —

It comes out of him without warning, without his permission, without even trying— a broken sob that he can barely hold back as his knees buckle. 

He lets out a sharp breath, palms flat against the floor and staring at it even if he’s not really seeing it, though this time not from dissociation but from the tears that are blurring his vision. 

The doors open but Peter doesn’t register it because of the ringing in his ears, his chest aching and hollow as his body convulses with an agony that’s splitting him in half.

“Peter…”

There’s a sound that comes from somewhere that sounds animalistic— horrifying and ugly and so loud that it makes Peter’s body shake, fingers gripping at the floor beneath him and the carpet coming apart in his fingers. 

There’s a presence next to him that’s warm, comforting, immediate as it leans down beside him— the earth shifting around him and shaking so much as he feels it, maybe for the first time, the full weight of what he’s lost .

“Peter, we’re right here. I’m right here,” a voice that sounds like Mrs. Leeds or Ned or someone that cares about him but that isn’t May— the only thing Peter is aware of being the carpet that’s being torn to shreds underneath his fingers and the too loose pajama bottoms he’s wearing in the room that isn’t his and the life that fucking is. 

It pours out of him in deep, convulsing sobs that he can’t control— arms shaking less like they could carry a bus and more like they couldn’t even carry his weight as he curves into himself, balling himself up tight into the fetal position as he sobs. 

His head already aches and there’s snot everywhere and he can’t see from the tears in his eyes but Peter is barely even aware of it— so fucking aware of the fact that he’s here, again, again, again , and desperately wanting to be anywhere but. 

There’s a hand that gently rubs up and down his back before someone comes up behind him, a familiar shampoo that tells him that it’s Ned as Peter sobs into his hand, into the ripped up carpet, into the expanse of another day in this fucking universe where he’s been left behind again as Ned holds him from behind. 

It should be comforting but it’s just a reminder that they’re here again— that he’s here again as his body shakes from the ache of it. 

There’s nothing for him but agony— unfathomable, painful, gut-wrenching agony— as the black hole making space in the pit of his stomach pulls him deeper into the depths of a festering pain that he’ll never be able to crawl out of as he cries harder than he has in years, as Ned holds him tight and Mrs. Leeds whispers in Tagalog. 

(He will. 

Impossibly, he will. 

But not yet.)

It’s raining. 

It was sunny, the first three days after the funeral— the first three days after Peter finally let himself feel the ache of something so old and so terrifying that if he allowed himself to truly let go, there’s the thought that he’d never come back.

It’s been three days and he hasn’t yet. 

He feels it, every miserable, aching moment of it, of losing May and what losing May means — that he’s alone and there’s no one else, that the Leeds family are his family— legally and otherwise— but that doesn’t change the fact that May is dead.

May is dead and it isn’t from anything he could’ve stopped or prevented, isn’t from anything he could’ve done or seen or noticed. 

May is dead. She is dead and Peter isn’t and he hates that— hates that she is dead and hates himself that he is alive and that this keeps fucking happening to him. 

It keeps happening and there is a part of Peter, three days after they put May in the ground, that wonders how he is going to fucking survive this— how he is going to keep waking up in a world where May doesn’t.

A voice in the back of his mind that suspiciously sounds just like her tells him that he would— he would because had before. He survived his parents dying in an accident when he was too young to truly grasp that death was forever. He survived Ben being murdered right in front of him, too young to watch the light leave someone’s eyes and to have to wash caked blood from underneath his fingertips under the swirling water of sink in a police station. 

He survived getting beat to shit night after night as Spider-Man, something Peter’s only just now thinking of in the living room of the Leeds apartment— wrapped up in a blanket and half-eaten soup in front of him. Like a sick day rather than a sick life, a sick and twisted joke of the fucking universe that this is his life and he is here— again — living a nightmare that would never end. 

A nightmare that could end, if he wanted it to. 

It’s a thought he’s had a few times before, just right on the edge of something that he never lets himself really fall into save for once— a week after Ben died, sitting alone in his bedroom, wondering if it was even possible because he could slice open his hand and not even have a scratch an hour later. 

He thought about it and then was immediately shamed, hearing May rustle around in the kitchen and thinking that he couldn’t do it— that the overwhelming weight of his grief and his guilt at vividly replaying the glassy look Ben’s eyes took when he didn’t see him anymore paling to what it would feel like to know that he left May behind.

She’ll be the last Parker standing, he’d thought to himself then and decided that he couldn’t— that he couldn’t do that to her and that he wouldn’t do that to her because he could never let her feel like what he was feeling then.

Peter lets out a bark of laughter that clearly startles Mrs. Leeds, hearing her papers rustle from the kitchen. She’s home, instead of at the hospital, both her and Mr. Leeds seemingly alternating as they sit with him, as he tries to become a person again.

(He won’t  know ‘til later that they were trying to be there for him and wade through their own grief. That May Parker hadn’t always been prepared in life but she had made sure of everything for Peter in the event of her death. 

He didn’t know. 

He will.)  

Peter knows she’s staring at him from behind just as he knows that she’s looking at the television screen and wondering what she missed that was funny— even if Peter hadn’t been paying attention to what was on there anymore than he was paying attention to anything but exhausting pull of unimaginable darkness that threatened to overtake him. 

I’m the last one left, he thinks to himself and then thinks of other things— of what it means to be the last one of anything, to be left behind so cruelly and for it to have happened again , that even the thought of the Leeds family and of Ned specifically isn’t enough to hold him here anymore. 

He doesn’t know if he could do it, if he’s honest with himself— not the doing but what it would take. 

Liz’s dad dropped a building on him then pierced him in the shoulder, knocked him around after Peter took down Mr. Stark’s plane—

Peter startles, thinking for the first time in over a week about Mr. Stark.

He hadn’t been at the funeral, at least as far as Peter could tell and it wasn’t as if he would’ve known— not when Happy had dropped him off a week ago? Longer?

They weren’t due for another lab time for another few weeks, because of May’s rules. Because she’d only found out about Spider-Man a month ago and he thought when she found out that his life was over. 

(He’d give almost anything to go back to that.)

May’s rules don’t matter anymore because she’s dead and he’s not and he wants to be— his mind back on track as he thinks about this thing that he really can’t reason himself out of doing. 

He survived a building and a plane and a ferry splitting in two so it would take something big, Peter thinks— something he couldn’t heal from, something that would end it, would finally end him because it can’t keep happening to him again —

Peter stops, closes his eyes and lets— for a brief and miserable second— the weight of what he’s wanting to do rest on him.

Death doesn’t scare him. It can’t scare him. 

Death is all he knows.

(It isn’t. 

But he doesn’t realize that yet.)

When Peter opens his eyes again his mind is made up but his plan is not— because he can’t figure it out. 

A building. A plane. A ferry. Stabbings. Gunshot wounds. 

Nothing’s killed him yet. 

It’s a tightness in his chest, sharp and painful where he can’t move— immobilized now with a fear that he hadn’t even realized he had. 

He’d been scared, the night Liz’s dad had dropped the building on him. 

But he survived it. 

He’d survived it, he kept surviving— it kept happening to him — and what if he couldn’t stop? 

What if he couldn’t die?

(He will.

He can.

But not yet.)

He lets out an involuntary sob, gritting his teeth together and forcing himself to control the feeling like he’s about to be split in half. 

What if I can’t die? He thinks to himself, for the first time— truly reckoning with the possibility that he won’t even be able to kill himself because that was his fate. 

He’s always going to be the last one standing. 

Even when he doesn’t want to. 

Peter is always going to be the one left behind. 

He goes back to school.

There’s something different about going back to school after death, when everyone is aware of it and knows about it and knows nothing about how to help you with it.

(They’ll never be able to because they don’t understand.

They’ll never understand.

But they’ll try.

He can’t accept that yet.)

Peter is back to school and he knows what to do, he knows what’s expected of him and he knows what happens with his teachers and his classmates and even with Ned.

Ned, who never lets him out of his sight and sticks by him like glue. 

Ned, who tries not to cry when Peter can hear it even if Peter always can, no anger for his friend mourning the woman who was his second mom just as much as she was Peter’s. 

(He never called May his mom. 

They both knew it, knew how he saw her and knew what she meant to him. 

But he never said it.

He regrets that.)

Ned is there and Peter is glad for that because if he has to stay alive, if he can’t die, then at least he can wade through his own miserable grief and existence with Ned there with him— as much as he can be anyway. 

Because Peter is at school but he’s also nowhere at all, outside of his body and his mind in places that he won’t let himself speak about because he knows what’ll happen if he does— knows that he’ll be taken in for an evaluation and dubbed a danger to himself even if the only danger seems to be that he can never do anything about it, can’t do anything to himself.  

Because it keeps happening, it always keeps happening, and Peter knows there’s nothing he can ever do to stop it. 

“Hey.”

Peter glances up and sees MJ but says nothing. He says nothing when she sits across from him, Ned in the lunch line for the two of them because Peter doesn’t bother eating unless it’s sitting in front of him. 

It’s been three weeks since May died and Peter still feels like he’s an open nerve, like a wound that won’t close— an ache and a pain that’s past infected and needs to be cut out of him. 

But he can’t cut it out of him, he knows it without even having to try that it won’t give him what he wants.

(He wants to remember the good times, the good moments, the good feelings. 

He can’t yet. 

He will.)

“Hi,” Peter croaks out because he’s miserable and miserably alive but he was still raised by May, grinding his teeth at the thought of her and of how much he hates it or maybe hates her for dying or maybe just hates himself that he isn’t dead along with her. 

“I’m gonna sit here,” MJ says bluntly as Peter looks back up at her, seeing a softness that he doesn’t expect but also doesn’t know what to do with.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she says quietly, putting her backpack down on the cafeteria table.

He watches her as she sits and unzips it, taking out a pile of books and arranging them in the way that she always does. It’s fascinating, in a way, to see her do her routine that he’s seen several times before— that something else hadn’t changed in his own miserable existence even if everything else had. 

He watches and she clearly notices but doesn’t mind or at least doesn’t say anything— something that a distant part of Peter wonders why because MJ was many things but reluctant to speak her mind wasn’t one of them. 

“Hey MJ,” he hears Ned say as he comes back with two trays full of food, one with noticeably more food and Peter’s stomach turning that it’s his— reluctant to eat any of it but knowing he’ll have to unless he wants unwanted attention.

“Hey,” she says in reply and it’s simple but it’s enough, none of them really built for small talk because they’re not really friends.

Peter hasn’t been to Decathlon practice because he barely got out of bed in the morning, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind as he asks, “Am I off the team?”

The question startles both Ned and MJ, the latter of whom freezing as she lays out her newest library book— bookmark still in hand as she looks curiously up at him. 

“What?”

“AcaDec,” Peter says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Am I off the team?”He watches as MJ shares a look with Ned before slowly looking back to Peter.

“Do you want to be?”

Yes. “No.”

“Okay,” MJ responds, holding his gaze for a beat before looking back down to her book— moving her hands to open up a sandwich bag that he hadn’t even realized she’d stuffed in her backpack. 

He can almost hear the gears in Ned’s mind whirring but Peter doesn’t acknowledge it— or MJ for that matter— looking back down to the plate of food in front of him and trying to think of how he was going to be able to eat any of this, much less all of it, knowing what he does of Ned and of his own metabolism. 

Peter might not be able to kill himself but he can push himself— figure out his limits in a way that he never had to before, that he’d never wanted to before— too terrified in a way of what his powers were and what they could be. 

Peter isn’t scared anymore.

He is the last Parker standing.

He is the one left behind. 

He is alone.

(He isn’t.

He doesn’t know it yet.)

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

Peter can see Ned looking over at him, the two of them sitting quietly in his room working on their homework. 

Ned is, at least. Peter’s been staring at the same problem for the past fifteen minutes, pencil in hand, thinking about how little he thinks about breaking pencils. 

He could break a bone just as easily as he does a pencil but he doesn’t— he hasn’t. Yet. 

“Are you gonna get that?” Ned asks gently, because Peter’s been ignoring his phone for the better part of an hour but there’s also no one that matters that could be reaching him now. 

(It’s not true. 

He doesn’t know that yet.)

He grabs it for Ned’s sake and glances at the name on the screen before swiping the message away, turning his phone on silent completely before putting it face down on the bed. 

Ned doesn’t ask who it is even if Peter knows that he desperately wants to, just as Peter doesn’t offer an explanation.

He’ll answer him later. 

Maybe. 

Peter’s preoccupied with a pencil and bones and how easily things can snap out of place at the moment. 

A few hours later, when everyone is asleep and Peter is not— he scrolls through the text messages. 

Happy: hey kid checking in. schedule says you’re due for a lab time. 

Happy: let me know when would be a good time to pick you up. 

Happy: your suit working okay? Karen hasn’t sent me any updates the past few weeks. 

Happy: you’re not still wearing the old suit are you? 

Happy: did your phone die or are you grounded again? Tried calling your aunt but it went to voicemail. 

It’s the last one that threatens to break him apart from the inside out, just as much as he could break a pencil or his right arm, forcing himself to respond even if there’s nothing about any of this that he cares to participate in anymore.

This — texting Happy, going to Mr. Stark’s lab, Spider-Man— is part of a routine that isn’t his anymore, part of a life that died weeks ago, part of himself that Peter’s not sure he even wants to use anymore. 

(He will. 

He always will.

He can’t face that yet.)

Peter: sorry phone was dead and I lost my charger. 

Peter: been busy with school. midterms. i’ll come next month. 

He doesn’t want to even say that, doesn’t want to promise anything when he’s not sure if he’ll make it to tomorrow— much less this ephemeral future he doesn’t care to see— but he knows any more will cause more questions, the thought occurring to him for the first time that he doesn’t even know where May’s cellphone is. 

It had to be around somewhere, just as his apartment and all his stuff went… somewhere. 

Vaguely, he remembers Mr. Leeds mentioning something about storage and packing and boxes, remembers being there as they sorted through the apartment that both is and isn’t his anymore, clicking his phone off and staring at the ceiling. 

They had told him the details but Peter can’t place them, not now, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if it would even matter if he figured out where everything of May’s was if he didn’t plan on sticking around to find out. 

Pencils. Bones. Lives. 

Everything breaks eventually. 

Peter stares out over the rooftop, watching as the sun comes up and casts shadows over the city. 

It’s pretty, in a way few things are to him nowadays— shades of purplish blue giving way to a golden orange, watching as the city that never sleeps starts to wake up. 

It’s pretty and it’s another day and Peter’s still alive— feet dangling over the edge of the building and wondering how much he wants to be today. 

He’s been on this roof for half the night, thinking about it— the only thing really stopping him being the distance. 

Eight stories wasn’t enough, not if he could survive a plane crash. He could try, Peter thinks, spending more than a few hours wondering how much it would hurt to just drop from this angle. 

It would hurt but would it hurt as much as what it feels like to keep breathing when May doesn’t? To be left alone, left behind for the fourth time in his life?

His mom. His dad. Ben. May.

It chokes him, the sun being up and the city waking up holding him in place. 

It was too low, too easy to survive. If he was going to do it, he’d need to get higher. 

Peter’s eyes shift away from the skyline and back down to his feet— dangling over the edge. 

(He was too far gone to see the point. 

He will. 

But not yet.)

The problem, Peter’s found, with living life after loss was just that. 

The living part. 

He’s alive, every traitorous beat of his heart and every guilt ridden breath from his lungs being proof of it— mocking him at night when he was alone with his thoughts and staring up at the ceiling until he couldn’t take it anymore. 

He hates it, almost as much as he hates himself, hates that this is the life he has because it keeps happening. 

It keeps happening and it keeps happening to him and there really isn’t a way out of it because Peter’s thought about it now, weeks after May died and he was all but moved into the Leeds apartment, that the chances of him surviving were an inevitability. 

Not because he wants to. More because he can’t see a way out of it— out of this— in a way that would work. 

There’s a voice in the back of his mind that he shouldn’t.

He ignores it. 

Time moves through Peter but he doesn’t move with it. 

It has to, he has to, but it’s not the same— the motions of a life that’s his and that he desperately doesn’t want it to be. 

He wakes up. He gets ready for school, Ned never too far behind. 

He goes to his classes and he does his school work. Goes to AcaDec and then home with Ned. 

Home, that isn’t home anymore, doing his homework and not much else. 

Despite Ned’s best attempts and the clear understanding that Mr. and Mrs. Leeds seem to have of him being Spider-Man, the food they serve is never quite enough— the stash of protein bars that Mr. Stark had recommended gone and that knowledge gone with May. 

Starving wouldn’t have been Peter’s preferred way to make it stop but it’s the best option he has now.

There’s another option available to him, one that he hyper fixates on as the days slowly dredge on. 

He thinks about it in class, drifting in and out of focus and never being called upon— left to his own devices in the same way all his teachers had twice before. 

He thinks about it on the train ride home with Ned, not quite noticing that Ned has grown quieter and pulled into himself— a constant presence but two shells of the people they once were. 

He thinks about it at night when he doesn’t sleep, in the early morning when he watches the sun rise, watching as the seasons slowly begin to change and the chill in the air has more of a bite to it. 

He thinks about it as October turns to November, as the leaves all fully change color and then start to die— as the snow begins to fall and a new season fully arrives and May isn’t here to see it. 

He thinks about it more when Happy texts again, asking with more pointed questions of why he hasn’t heard anything from the suit— Peter pushing it off as the weather and his finals and, in a shameful moment, because of May. 

(He wasn’t lying. 

But it wasn’t the full truth.)

Peter can’t hurt himself but he could let himself get hurt, could easily suit up and go out into the night— no longer bound to all his promises of making it home safe when the person who promised him had broken hers first. 

“It’s just you and me,” she’d told him that night at the police station, shivering under a shock blanket and grounded by the look in her eyes and the softness of her hands and the security that only came from believing in someone wholeheartedly.

May was dead and Peter was not and he knew he could change that— knew that if he went out as Spider-Man that he could find something, anything , to stop this from happening again. 

But he couldn’t go out as Spider-Man. 

Not when that’d been the last thing they’d ever argued about, really argued about. 

Not when he’d kept it from her for months, the last year of his life— his last year with May — and he’d hidden it from her. 

Not when to be Spider-Man didn’t feel like an escape but a curse— the very thing that got him out of bed in the morning when Ben was murdered now the thing that froze him in place when he ever thought of ever slipping on a suit.

How could he even think of going out to try and save anyone when he didn’t even want to save himself?

(He couldn’t. 

Not yet.)

“Pete?”

“Yeah?” He glances up from the table, realizing just how many eyes were on him and that he missed something. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Mr. Leeds says kindly, “we were asking if you would want to come to mass with us, next week.”

“Next week?”

“Advent,” Ned offers as Peter looks over at him— keenly aware now of the food on the table and the decorations around the house and the reminder that he hadn’t realized he needed that it’s the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and he’s been asked a question. 

He was drifting in and out too much now, too long— the limit on how much people were willing to work around grief closing in the longer any time passed. 

(They didn’t think that way.

Peter knew that.

He just wanted it to be over.)

“I… If it’s too much for you,” Mr. Leeds begins, Peter watching as the he and Mrs. Leeds held hands over the table— an ache in his chest at the familiarity in it as he continues, “we understand. We can—“

“I’ll go.”

His response surprises the two of them, much less Ned and his little sister Elaine. 

He looks out over the table and sees it— how badly they were trying to make him feel welcome, of how much Peter didn’t feel welcome in his own body much less in this life, of how much he missed the familiarity of this and how it was the second year in a row that he was grieving during the holidays. 

Last year, both he and May went to an advent service with the Leeds— the first time that Peter ever remembered May ever wanting to go to church of her own volition.

He could still remember how she looked, knees bent and crouched over as she clutched rosary beads that Peter hadn’t seen before— praying and sitting and standing and kneeling in a practiced motion that Peter hadn’t ever known from her. 

It felt like he was splitting in half, to go back to that church and not be able to see May there— but Peter was already broken apart from the inside out, nodding as he clutched his cup 

(Plastic. 

Just like she said.)

and took a drink. 

“We can go by storage,” Mrs. Leeds says as Peter brings his cup down, setting it lightly on the table, “find some things for you, for the holidays.”

Peter frowns then understands— a pang in his chest that he doesn’t want to bring attention to as he swallows down the lump in his throat. 

“Thanks,” he chokes out, clearing his throat again. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Leeds nods and Mr. Leeds tries to keep the conversation but Peter is stuck now in the past, in last year, in another loop that this happened again.

Over and over and over and over again.

Peter clutches the cup a little tighter and begins to think of what happens when plastic doesn’t break, but melts. 

Anything can break if you push it hard enough. 

It hurts less than he thinks it will, to be in the storage locker. 

There’s something clinical about it in a way that’s just separate enough for Peter that it doesn’t feel real— the feelings that he isn’t quite real coming back into focus. 

He waits patiently as Mrs. Leeds speaks with the manager of the building, Mr. Leeds at home and Ned staring at him like he’s not sure of what Peter is going to do. 

“I’m okay,” Peter lies because it’s the easiest thing to say, because he’s outside of his body but he knows how to bullshit his way through stuff like this.

What he doesn’t know is how to handle Ned through this— seeing the frown on his face and the way his eyebrows crinkle together in clear disbelief.

“Peter…”

“We’re all set,” Mrs. Leeds says as she walks back to the two of them, Peter turning his attention to her and cutting off Ned before he can try and push him any further. 

“Okay.”

Mrs. Leeds looks between the two of them before walking towards where the locker is, trepidation in Peter’s gut because this is something that he should’ve done before. 

He has done it— he did — vague and fuzzy memories of sorting through things with Ben and May and horrifically vivid memories of doing this with May barely over a year ago. 

Peter knows he was present when his apartment was packed up, most of it at least, but he has a blank spot in his memory now for where it is— drifting in and out and in again until they’re right in front of the locker, Mrs. Leeds opening it up for them as Ned stares. 

“Whatever you’d like to get,” she says softly as she lets Peter take the lead, Ned staying behind as Peter feels himself rooted into the ground again— still taking steps and still being pulled down further and further. 

It’s a mistake to be here, an instantaneous wave of nausea from the knowledge that all that was left of May was right here in this room—

(That was true, but it wasn’t the boxes. 

It was Peter, and Ned, and Maria Leeds, and everyone else who had ever known or loved her. 

Peter didn’t accept that yet. 

He will.)

—swallowing down the feeling as he nods.

He slowly opens one box and then another, his mind elsewhere as his body works on autopilot.

Mrs. Leeds sorts through boxes of her own, as does Ned, searching specifically for a menorah but Peter’s also picking out things at random— unsure of what’s even important or what isn’t when it’s all important because it’s all hers. 

He’s barely aware of the sharp inhale from Ned or the sound of something almost like a cough from Mrs. Leeds that he’ll later recognize as a stifled sob, hands freezing over a box before he croaks out, “Found it.”

Ben’s menorah, gently nestled with the other decorations that May had haphazardly put together. 

He gently takes it in his hands, thumb gently tracing the edge before looking over to Mrs. Leeds.

“I found it,” he repeats, seeing the small smile on her face but noticing the way Ned isn’t looking at him now. 

“Okay. We don’t have to go yet, if you’re not ready.”

Peter turns from her back to the menorah, back to the box in front of him and the knowledge that he was in a room filled with boxes with memories of people for whom that’s all they’ll ever be. 

“I’m ready.”

(He’s not.)

Peter doesn’t realize something is wrong at first.

The ride back home from the storage locker is quiet but Peter’s barely aware of it, barely aware of anything most days except in the mundane of a routine that he lived by now. 

He’s only aware that there’s something wrong when he’s back in Ned’s room— their room— debating where to put the book he’d randomly grabbed from the storage locker when he hears the door close behind him. 

“Peter.”

Peter turns and is immediately taken aback by the look on Ned’s face— pure, unadulterated fury in a way that’s so unlike him, so foreign that it makes Peter take a step back.

“What—”

“What the fuck is this?” Ned asks, voice shaking as he grabs a paper out from under his shirt— Peter frowning at the paper and at Ned.

“What’s what?”

“This,” Ned says more adamantly, taking a step forward and all but shoving the paper in his face— Peter’s eyes adjusting to the paper and to the anger that is emanating off of Ned, only for understanding to dawn over him in the same instant the pit in the middle of his stomach grows deeper. 

He recognizes it instantly, May’s scrawled handwriting would be something he could pick up anywhere, but it only takes a second for Peter to see what Ned is referring to— his mind everywhere and nowhere and still too smart for his own fucking good when he catches on to one sentence in particular. 

Enhanced metabolism??? protein bars will help. 

Six words and yet Peter knows enough— is aware enough in this moment— to know that he’s fucked up.

“What the fuck?” Ned asks, bringing the paper down and staring Peter down. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

Peter doesn’t answer, partly because he doesn’t know what to say but mostly because he can’t say it— that for all these weeks of mentally walking through the steps of wanting to kill himself, he can’t bring himself to say the words to Ned.

“Are you— fucking starving yourself?” Ned asks, his voice barely above a whisper— pained and filled with an agony that Peter intimately understands and immediately is taken aback that Ned does. 

“Ned…”

“You can’t— you—” Ned grits his teeth together, tears stinging in his eyes as he furiously shakes his head. “Peter, what the fuck .”

“You can’t tell them,” Peter says adamantly, taking a step forward and staring into Ned’s eyes. He’s always been taller than Ned and he uses it to his advantage now— only for Ned to stand his ground as he glares back at him. 

“I’m not gonna let you keep doing this, Peter,” Ned says, Peter feeling panicked— feeling in a way he hasn’t in weeks as he grabs at Ned’s shoulders.

“I won’t, I’ll stop, I’ll—”

“Don’t,” Ned says, shaking Peter’s hands away, chin wobbling with grief and with fear and with anger most of all, “don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not— I’m not —”

“You can’t keep doing this, Peter. I can’t—” Ned’s voice breaks, Peter watching as his best and oldest friend struggles in vain to keep the tears from falling down his face, “I can’t lose you too.”

It cuts at something deep in Peter’s core to hear that, something akin to guilt and to grief and to something so human that it reminds him yet again that he’s not the only one that lost May. 

“Okay,” Peter says even if nothing about this is— the one thing he had in slowly stopping from feeling this pain anymore was gone now that Ned knew the truth. “Okay but… please, Ned…”

Ned holds his ground, eyes searching Peter’s face. 

“I won’t tell them,” he finally says, relief flooding through Peter along with an ache in his chest from yet another secret that he’s asking Ned to carry. “But you have to promise— promise me, Peter.”

Peter doesn’t ask what Ned is promising him because Ned is too scared to say it— just as Peter is too tired to try and lie.

“I can’t.”

(Peter would apologize for that later, for asking that of him and for making him promise something he never should’ve— just as Ned would apologize to him. 

But not yet.)

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

Peter doesn’t bother looking at his phone— on the roof again watching the snowfall. 

It’s the middle of the night, unable to sleep and unable to dream and unable to think of the menorah sitting in the living room of the Leeds apartment downstairs— unable to imagine how he’s going to survive another holiday when he was still figuring out how to be a person again. 

It’s too late for his phone to be buzzing, or too early maybe, there being very few people who would still be awake or persistent enough to bother him at the moment or at all. 

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

Peter checks the name across the screen and then ignores it, clicking his phone off because he’d expected this to happen sooner or later— he just hadn’t expected it to be now. 

He can hear the thrusters coming before they land, the sound of them intermixing with the city and the screams and the cries that he tries to ignore but can’t— just as much as he can’t ignore the weight of the knowledge that the very thing that gave him purpose a few months ago was now something that was so far out of reach. 

“What are you doing here?” Peter asks, because he knows that he’ll have to be the first one to break the silence as the suit lands behind him— knows it in a way that he knows very little about the world around him. 

“Peter…” Mr. Stark begins, Peter grinding his teeth and closing his eyes.

Underoos. Kid. Spiderling— that’s what he had always called him.

Not his name. 

He’s using his name. 

(He knows.)

“What do you want?” Peter says, articulating his words and opening his eyes and still staring out over the city skyline— seated on the cold rooftop with his legs dangling over the edge.

“For you to come up over from there, for one,” Mr. Stark says in a voice that’s oddly shaken— curious enough for Peter to look over his shoulder to stare at him.

Mr. Stark is out of the suit but isn’t in one himself— faded t-shirt and dark circles under his eyes and searching Peter’s face with an expression that Peter hasn’t ever seen before.

Not that he’s seen much, as much as he had wanted to— Mr. Stark nodding faintly towards where he is before saying, “Enjoying the view?”

“The fall won’t kill me,” Peter says bluntly, surprise flooding Mr. Stark’s features as Peter shrugs, “It’d hurt. But it wouldn’t kill me.”

There’s a silence that follows— as silent as the middle of the night in New York can be— before Mr. Stark finally asks, “You’ve thought about that?”

Peter doesn’t have it in him to laugh but if he could, he would— turning back to look over at the city before saying, “Why do you care?”

“Why do I— why do I care? Are you—”

“How’d you find out?” Peter says, cutting him off as his stomach twists itself into knots— from the ache that was as familiar to him as this view was, from the grief that made him feel like he was nothing at all.

But mostly from the anger— at Mr. Stark but mostly himself.

“Happy,” Mr. Stark says as Peter purses his lips, “Been skipping out on those lab times. Figured you were busy, finals and with your—” he cuts himself off, clearing his throat before continuing, “with everything, it’d be awhile before we saw you.”

“Yeah,” Peter says with a sniff before he stands, turning back over to Mr. Stark and walking towards him— seeing the visible relief in his features when he does, “We could keep it that way.”

“What—”

“This… whatever this is,” Peter says, gesturing between the two of them, “I’m done. I don’t—” he clicks his tongue, shrugging, “If you want the suit back, you can have it.”

“The suit— I don’t give a shit about the suit,” Mr. Stark says and that snaps Peter to attention, looking up at him and seeing a guilt in Mr. Stark’s eyes that shouldn’t be there— that angers Peter that it’s there as he says, “Kid…”

“Don’t,” Peter says, taking a step back even as Mr. Stark takes a careful step forward— hand extended because Peter’s gotten closer to the roof. “Don’t pretend you care, not now.”

Tony shakes his head, going to say something more but Peter cuts him off.

“I’m done,” Peter repeats, “with this. With all of this. With—” there’s something stuck in his throat but he can’t cry, he won’t cry— not in front of him— not when the only feeling he has right now is guilt and grief and anger as he says, “I’m done.”

“Peter, whatever you need. Whatever I can… I can do to—“

“You’ve done enough,” Peter says bitterly, just enough bite to it that it makes Tony lock eyes with him— the feelings that Peter had tried so desperately to keep under wraps, to keep under lock and key to never feel again for as long as he was stuck in this miserable existence coming up in full force at looking at the man he’d idolized once upon a time. 

There had been a time, not even six months ago, when all Peter wanted was for Tony Stark to know his name— to be a hero, to be an Avenger.

But that was six months ago and this was now — angry and tired and cold and alone — snow falling all around them and a cold that chilled him straight to the bone that had very little to do with the weather causing him to shiver as he shakes his head. 

“I’m done,” Peter says, a simultaneous hardness and brokenness as Tony looks helplessly on— helpless in a way that was so unlike the man who four months ago had taken the suit away from, only to give it right back two weeks later.

(Peter would forgive Tony, eventually.

For lying to May.

For helping him lie to May. 

For being the catalyst, even if he was not the reason, for the biggest argument and tension of his last month with her. 

But to forgive Tony means that he would have to forgive himself.

Peter will.

But not yet.)

He doesn’t expect Tony to leave him alone but it is the middle of the night— forcing himself back into the Leeds apartment much earlier than he normally would have with Mr. Stark promising that he would be back in the morning. 

Peter didn’t give a shit but said nothing— meaning what he said entirely even if Mr. Stark didn’t seem to accept it.

Peter was done— with him, with the Avengers, with Spider-Man — with anything that reminded him of how he had lied to May for months before she died and how Mr. Stark had enabled it, encouraged it, encouraged him.

It was a bitter anger, a vividness to it that carried Peter as he made his way back downstairs— the only use he got out of spider powers these days being these nightly trips to the roof. 

He slowly opens the window of the kitchen, slipping in as quietly as he can and closing it— turning back to where Ned’s room is only to freeze when he sees Mrs. Leeds. 

She’s holding a cup of tea in her hand— just as motionless as Peter is before she nods to the kitchen table.

Peter’s shoulder’s slump and he follows her there without a word, slowly sinking into the chair that’s always been his as she takes hers— hands cupped over her mug. 

“Would you like some?”

“No thank you,” Peter softly replies because it’s polite and it’s late and she knows — something that Peter hadn’t been fully aware of that first day but is very much so now— more inside his body and in his mind because of the vividness of his anger. 

Mrs. Leeds hums, Peter watching as she looks down over to the cup of tea— fingers lightly tapping against the mug before says, “This was May’s.”

It’s instant, how much it hurts to hear her name— to hear her name from Mrs. Leeds ’ voice— forcing his eyes from her hands up to her face, even if Mrs. Leeds keeps staring at the mug. 

“The tea, she— she gave it to me for Christmas, last year,” she clarifies. 

Peter watches as Mrs. Leeds presses her lips together, watches as a frown line appears across the middle of her forehead and as her eyes look strained— the anger he feels in his gut sharply defining the shadows of her face as the corner of her lips upturned. 

“She was trying so hard to find me something and I kept telling her, ‘May, it’s okay. It’s okay’ and she wouldn’t listen,” Mrs. Leeds says, her voice and her eyes telling Peter that even if she was there with him that she was elsewhere— lost in a memory of a life and a person that neither of them will find again— as she continues, “So stubborn.”

Peter doesn’t ask for her to explain that because he already knows— knows of how much Mrs. Leeds reminded May that she was a doctor and to get herself checked out, knows how often she’d tell her to take care of herself, to take care of her heart.

Peter didn’t need her to explain because they’re both here— in the Leeds kitchen well past midnight— both mired in a grief that feels far too big and far too suffocating at seeing someone else’s right in front of him. 

Mrs. Leeds clicks her tongue, gripping her mug of tea harder before looking at Peter— trying to smile even if it looked more like a grimace. 

“A lot like you,” she says and Peter feels so much younger than what he is right now— younger and older and so tired as Mrs. Leeds holds his gaze. 

“Mrs. Leeds…”

“I’ve been wondering,” she says, taking a breath, “when you’d— if you’d want to keep… doing that.” 

Peter stares at her and watches as she takes a breath, stabling herself for something that Peter thinks that she shouldn't have to— for something Peter just told a man he used to idolize that he wants no part of anymore and that makes his stomach sick to even think about doing anymore. 

"If you do, if that's—if that's what you want, I... I want to try," Mrs. Leeds says carefully, nodding as Peter feels like he's slowly disintegrating from the inside out. "If May... if she—"

"She didn't know," Peter says, Mrs. Leeds freezing as Peter unloads, "She knew but she didn't—  I didn't..." 

Peter tries and fails to clear his throat, still too raw and too angry and too aware that he was alive as he says, “She didn’t want me to be Spider-Man.”

It’s the first time either of them have said the name but it doesn’t feel significant, not in the way it should— not when Peter was so aware of everything and still so angry.

At Mr. Stark.

At May.

At himself. 

His breath hitches and then it’s as if something has unlocked— keenly aware of his hands and of where he is this time as he cowers into himself, an overwhelming weight threatening to bring him to his knees even now as he says, “I can’t— I can’t be… him anymore.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Leeds says easily, soothingly, “that’s okay.”

Peter grinds his teeth, a harsh breath out of nose and a building pressure behind his eyes that’s thrown off course as she asks, “Did she tell you that?”

“What?” Peter asks, looking up to Mrs. Leeds— seeing tears in her eyes but a determination all the same. 

“Did May tell you she didn’t want you to be Spider-Man?”

“No,” Peter says quickly because it’s the truth— that despite the equal measure of fear and anger that he saw in her eyes that day, those words had never come out of her mouth. 

“I’ve known May for…” Mrs. Leeds laughs, a soft look in her eyes as she does, “a very long time.”

Peter doesn’t correct her and Mrs. Leeds doesn’t try to— equally painful and comforting for her to talk about her as if she was right next door. 

“I don’t know what she thought about… all of that,” she says, gesturing to the window that Peter had just crawled out of, “but I know that she loved you more than anything in this world.”

It’s something he knows and yet it hurts— cuts right to the bone in how much it does, physically aching as his grinds his teeth so hard he thinks he might finally break them as she continues, “if you can’t be that anymore or won’t, we never have to talk about it ever again.”

Mrs. Leeds loosens her grip on her mug, gently extending her hand out to Peter. 

He stares at it, thinking of pencils and bones and lives and snow before he takes it, the familiarity and the warmth of Mrs. Leeds’ hands grounding him in a way very few things have as she wraps her other hand around his.

“You’re with us, okay? May— May wanted you to be with us. We want you with us,” she says carefully, gently, Peter hearing the words she’s not saying— a clarity that could only come from being fully present in this moment despite how much he didn’t want to be. 

“I don’t know how to be here anymore,” Peter whispers, voice shaking and tears that he’d tried desperately to ignore blurring his vision— feeling Mrs. Leeds gentle squeeze of her hand with his.

“We’ll figure that out together, okay. You and me, we’ll figure that out together alright?”

It’s words that Mrs. Leeds can’t possibly know the meaning of, words that at any other time would’ve passed over him like water through his fingers— like blood down the sink in a police station. 

Peter hears them now, internalizes them, feels them, a broken sob coming out of him as he’s immediately enveloped him into a hug. 

He hugs her and it’s familiar but it’s not May — the knowledge that it’ll never be May ever again hitting him just like it had the first time.

It hurts— every miserable moment of it— but he feels it, feels it in a way that’s so similar and yet so different since the first time. 

Because this time he’s in his body and in his mind and he knows now he won’t be able to get away from this— won’t be able to lie or ignore or pretend that everything is okay.

(It wasn’t. 

It would never be.

He knew that.)

He clutches Mrs. Leeds tighter and he cries— deeper and longer and louder, crying for the lost years and lost sleep and lost memories that now will never be. 

Peter’s never drank but by the next morning he feels hungover, inside his body and his mind and painfully aware of that as he looks out to the city skyline— cup of tea in hand.

He can’t see the view from here but he knows now he won’t be able to— knows that he said things last night that won’t be easily taken back.

He knows this but it doesn’t ache as much as it should— either too tired or too grieved or too everything to reckon with the reality of what he’d said to Mrs. Leeds, putting words to the thoughts that had been swimming around in his mind since Mr. Harrington came into the lunch room. 

He’d said them, and he meant them, knew now with that in his mind and in his body with a clarity that Mrs. Leeds understood that— just as he knew that in saying it, he’d opened himself up to the possibility of having to deal with it. 

He closes his eyes, thinking back to the first time and all the promises he made— promises to May — to keep going. 

It keeps happening to him— this keeps happening to him— and Peter just wants it to stop.

He slowly exhales, opening his eyes and looking back out over the skyline.

It keeps happening. 

It keeps happening. 

He is still happening— still here, still alive , still waking up every day.

Maybe, Peter thinks— for now— that’s enough. 

(It won’t be. 

It isn’t. 

He’ll find it— hope— again.

But not yet.) 

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. 

You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; 

you will learn to live with it. 

You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. 

You will be whole again 

but you will never be the same. 

Nor should you be the same 

nor would you want to.” 

- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross