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Nightmares riddled his every sleeping moment and his every waking moment, too. Hell on earth. He had lost everything. His parents, Uncle Ben, Aunt May, and now Tony. He had nothing left.
He had nothing.
Just emptiness and darkness. His life, an abyss.
He went into the bathroom and stared at the boy in the mirror. Still a child, but far from it if you count the decades of pain stored in tired eyes.
He looked about as messy as he felt. A mess of probably greasy hair from having gone one too many days without a shower, strands of hair in every direction. Pimples on a pale face like mountains on a landscape. Picked at scabs leaving marks of dried blood. Dark circles beneath his eyes like someone has stepped all over him, leaving behind dark shoeprints and sunken skin. An emptiness behind dark eyes like an abyss hiding too much underneath for someone so young.
Being a teenager is supposed to be one of the best times of your life. It’s the time where you’re meant to feel free and happy. Like sticking your arm out the window of the car while screaming along to your favourite songs with your friends. Like jumping fences to break into playgrounds in the middle of the night. Like staying up till the early morning hours, tipsy enough to feel the buzz and sharing your deepest secrets with your close friends.
It’s meant to be something more than this.
It’s not supposed to feel like you’re wading through solidifying concrete. To feel like you’ve gone swimming, but someone’s grabbed your ankles and has dragged you out to sea, water filling your lungs and you scream but no one can hear you. To feel like you’re in a vehicle flying towards a brick wall and you try to swerve or hit the brakes, but there’s nothing to do but slam straight into the wall. To feel like this.
Like someone has carved a hole in your chest and you can feel it bleeding everywhere, and there’s so much blood, and you’re sure you’re going to die, so you ask people for help, to save you, but everyone says that you’re fine. That they’ve had worse happen to them and they were able to stitch up the wound and move on. That it’s fine and that you’re overreacting.
Like you’ve fallen down an abyss that’s nothing but darkness and pointy rocks and nothing but cold empty air below. And everyone above you is just laughing and telling you to just climb up. But every time you grab at the sides, your hands bleed and the gravity gets heavier and you can’t possibly climb out because the light is getting harder and harder to see at the top of the abyss.
*
Morgan lost a father.
But she had Peter. She had a big brother who took care of her and loved her and told her stories of her wonderful superhero dad.
She had Peter.
What more could she ask for?
*
The first year passed in a blur of alcohol and dissociating and sleeping the hours away and throwing all of him into projects to keep the thoughts at bay.
The second year passed in a blur of pain and panic attacks and locking himself in the bathroom to keep Morgan blissfully unaware of his worsening state.
The third-year began with binge-drinking and being rushed to a hospital for alcohol poisoning.
The next month, it was a hospital trip for fainting after not sleeping, eating, or drinking water for four days straight.
The third month was a hospital trip for getting stabbed on his first patrol since it had happened. Later, when watching the footage, it looked a little too purposeful for Pepper to let it slide.
The fourth and fifth month was spent in full-time hospitalization for his worsening mental state.
The sixth month, he returned, binge-drank and collapsed into the enigma of himself, too far gone to ever be saved.
*
Morgan told her uncle Happy that Peter hadn’t left the bathroom in what felt like forever.
Two years, seven months after it happened.
Happy, in a panic, busted the door open to find the kid lying across the tiles, pale-faced and closed eyes.
*
Morgan hadn’t been raised religious, but she had seen her mom and her uncles pray enough times to understand the idea.
As the ambulance was called, she found herself kneeling in front of her bedroom window, facing the cloudy sky.
And she prayed.
What was she meant to do without her big brother?
*
“Hold on, I still want you
Come back, I still need you,” she begged.
*
The shock set in the moment she climbed into the car, wide-eyed and a chill settling in her veins.
She had never been allowed to ride shotgun before, but Peter was lying across the backseat, taking up all the space with arms wrapped in stained gauze and ashen skin standing out against the black leather of the seats, a blanket wrapped around his legs.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Her questions hung unanswered in the air around them.
*
The drive lasted forever; the longest stretches of highway Morgan had ever seen.
Happy alternated between watching the road, checking on Peter through the mirror, and glancing over at Morgan who’s shaking in the passenger seat. She’d never seen him this bad before, she’s always been shielded, eyes covered when it gets worse.
The childish part of her sneaks up and she found herself asking, “Maybe he just needs a popsicle.”
A wet laugh in response and the car sped up faster than before.
*
As soon as they arrived, Peter was ripped away from them, laid on a metal table and rolled down the long, brightly lit hallway.
He looked transparent under the lights like they could see all the pain he had stored inside his chest. They could see his ankles being tugged under the waves and the concrete that was solidifying around him and the abyss he had tumbled into and the piece of his chest carved out by Tony’s absence.
They finally saw just how broken he truly was. No more hiding.
*
A coma, the doctors told them.
Morgan didn’t understand. He looked like he had died, but someone he hadn’t.
Happy took her hand and guided it to Peter’s neck.
A steady heartbeat beneath ashen skin.
He’s alive, but how alive is he if he can’t even move?
*
“Please don’t leave me.”
Over and over and over-
Morgan begged, keeping her fingers firmly over her big brother’s pulse point.
“Please don’t leave me.”
*
Her family passed in and out of the room, letting her stay at Peter’s bedside.
Just like Tony would, they’d all tell her.
She didn’t want to be Tony, she wanted to be Morgan because of course Peter would wake up for her. She needed him.
She’s his little sister, of course, he’d have to wake up for her.
So, she continued pleading and begging and maybe praying that he wakes up so they could go home and eat popsicles and play with Peter’s Iron Man figures and build Lego castles like they’re meant to.
*
“I need you,” she found herself saying, squeezing his hand tight in her little one. “I need you. Please.”
Her words are met with harsh emptiness and she thinks she finally understands how Peter felt these last two years, seven months.
*
One day, a few days later, but what felt like months for the eight-year-old, Pepper explained to her what suicide meant.
Pepper told her about Richard and Mary, Ben and May, and now Tony.
She was told about how Peter was just really, really sad. And he wanted to see Tony again.
She told her mom that she wanted to see Tony again, too.
She didn’t understand why her mom started crying.
*
Was she not enough? Morgan found herself questioning. Was she not enough to fill the void Peter’s loss had created? Was she not enough to keep Peter happy enough to want to stay in their home?
Maybe she hadn’t let Peter pick the Lego sets enough. Maybe she hadn’t given Peter enough popsicles. Maybe she hadn’t watched Star Wars enough with him. Maybe she hadn’t suggested enough sleepovers.
Maybe, simply, she wasn’t enough to fill the space her father had left in the world.
*
“Please don’t leave me… I need you.”
*
“I love you,” she cried over his body, keeping her fingers against his pulse point.
A hand brushed back her hair. “Love you too, Jellybean.”
“Uncle Happy said that popsicles weren’t going to help you and I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m okay now.” Peter’s voice hitched, hoarse and shaky. He holds his hand over Morgan’s against his neck. “Still beating.”
*
Maybe, Morgan realizes, she is enough.
When they get home, finally, Morgan watches Star Wars with him and builds a Lego castle and eats as many popsicles as possible. They have a sleepover in their living room fort and Peter tells her stories about her dad and about Spider-Man and about how it’s going to be hard, but he’s never going to put her in a situation like that again.
She asks him to pinky promise.
And with tears in his eyes, he links his pinky finger with hers.
“I promise, Jellybean. I’m not going anywhere.”
*
For Peter, the next few years pass in a blur of helping raise Morgan.
It’s driving with their arms sticking out the window and shouting the lyrics to the classic rock CDs they found.
It’s playing with Lego and taking turns picking the movies.
It’s spending the bad nights in Morgan’s tent outside telling stories and in turn, listening to stories about Tony.
It’s eating as many popsicles as humanely possible and sneaking more even after Pepper’s cut them off.
It’s going to playgrounds and letting themselves both indulge in being a kid again, after being forced to grow up faster than they should’ve.
It’s tutoring Morgan and teaching her things you’re only supposed to learn in high school.
It’s finally finishing high school and applying to Universities and taking on Stark Industries from Pepper so she can retire.
It’s going out as Spider-Man, slowly finding himself back in the routine.
It’s saving the citizens of Queens and also saving himself from ever falling down that pit again.
It’s going to therapy by himself and going with Morgan to make sure she’s okay too.
It’s living despite everything he’s had to go through.
It’s choosing to exist in spite of the world’s cruelty.
It’s finding the positivity where there didn’t feel like there was any before.
It’s living up Tony Stark’s legacy whilst also being Peter Parker.
It’s remembering, but also moving on.
It’s happiness and it’s peace.