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When Peter gets home on Wednesday to a note from Aunt May on the table-- Gone to pick up dinner for family night, be back soon. Love you!-- he doesn’t think much of it. It’s not unusual for them to eat out, especially after another failed recipe. He’s mostly just curious as to what she’s picking up; they’ve already had Thai and pizza this week. Fingers crossed for Delmar’s.
He spends the first two hours finishing his homework, rushing through a calculus worksheet and then half-heartedly brainstorming ideas for his history paper. He watches Friends reruns on cable for another hour, albeit distractedly, because the clock is rapidly approaching 9 p.m. and it can’t take three hours to pick up sandwiches, can it?
Maybe she’s not getting Delmar’s, he reasons with himself. Maybe it’s Italian, or Chinese, or maybe she got sushi from the fancy place in Brooklyn and couldn’t find cash for a cab and the train is down so she has to walk and she’ll come in the door any minute complaining about her feet and the weather and the heavy sushi she had to carry all the way back. He tells himself that this is obviously the best explanation. No need to worry. He texts her just in case.
9:02 p.m.
Peter: hey just wondering what you’re getting for dinner
Peter: please say delmar’s haha i’m hungry
Peter: do you know when you’ll be home??
Peter: did your phone die??
Peter: just call me when you get a chance i’m getting worried
By ten, he’s pacing. Eight steps to the edge of the living room rug, turn, eight steps to the end of the couch, turn, repeat. On his fifteenth lap he decides to call her. Peter opens his phone with shaking fingers, scrolling past all the casual-turned-frantic texts from the last hour, to the call button at the top of the menu, and waits for the dial tone. Instead, he’s met with her familiar voicemail greeting.
Hey, it’s May, I can’t come to the phone right now but leave me a message and I’ll call you right back!
“Uh, hey May, it’s me. I was just wondering when you were coming back? I mean, if you take too long the food’ll get cold,” he lets out a breathy laugh, “and Dirty Dancing’s about to start and I don’t want you to miss the beginning because I know it’s your favorite, so just hurry up. Please. Uh, love you and see you soon.” He sighs and hangs up. Her phone has to be dead, that’s why she’s not answering and why it went straight to voicemail. Has to be.
He keeps pacing.
Around midnight, Peter falls asleep on the couch, phone clutched tightly to his chest. He dozes fitfully until it lights up buzzing with a call from an unknown number.
“Hello?” He mumbles into the receiver.
“Is this Peter?” A woman’s voice comes from the other end. She sounds familiar, but Peter’s brain is sleep-addled and clouded in worry, so he can’t place it.
“Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this?”
“It’s Amy, I work with your Aunt May at the hospital.” So that’s where he knows her from. “Listen, Peter, you need to get down here. Something’s happened.” His stomach drops.
“What? What is it?” He’s almost too afraid to ask. But, deep down, he thinks some part of him already knows what’s she’s going to say.
“I’m sorry, Peter. I’m so sorry. Just hurry, we’re at Queens General.” She hangs up.
Peter fixates on the “we.” May can’t be there. She got off work hours ago, and the only other reason she’d need to be at a hospital is if she was hurt, which she can’t be.
His body is on autopilot as he slides on his shoes and shrugs on a jacket before locking the apartment door and walking the six blocks to the hospital.
When Tony rushes in later, Peter doesn’t know if it’s been hours or minutes, he’s deceptively calm, like he comes to the aid of orphaned teenagers in the middle of the night all the time.
“Hey, Pete,” he crouches down next to the bench Peter’s sat on, carefully unclenching Peter’s fists and placing a tentative hand on his shoulder.
Peter doesn’t say anything, just blinks at him owlishly. Tony’s hand tightens on his shoulder, and it feels a little suffocating and a little grounding, like Peter’s body can’t decide if it wants to dial everything up to eleven in a constant thrum of dangerdangerdanger or if it needs to check out, remove itself from the boulder of anxiety that’s taken up residence in his stomach.
A social worker walks over then, some lady who’d introduced herself to Peter when he first arrived but whose name now escapes him, and gestures for Tony. Peter zones out, trying to focus on something other than the screaming baby down the hall and the hundreds of heart rate monitors incessantly beep beep beeping out of rhythm with each other. It’s all too loud, too bright, Peter feels like a gaping wound, exposed and festering, inviting infection and disease. He scrunches his eyes closed and shoves his head between his knees, palms pressed over his ears, and it helps to dull everything just a little bit.
He loses himself for a while, a floaty sort of fleece blanket replacing the sticky polyester panic previously covering him. It feels nice. Not quite asleep enough for his brain to conjure up images of the truck decimating his aunt’s body, not awake enough to register the tempest of emotions threatening to spill over at any moment. Peter wishes he could drift about the in-between place forever.
But Tony walks back over, hand coming to rest on his shoulder once more, and Peter suppresses a startled flinch.
“Hey, Pete, we can go. C’mon.” he speaks quietly, as though afraid to disturb his peace. Peter untangles himself and stands, allowing Tony to wrap an arm around him and lead him to the exit. “We’re gonna go to the tower, alright? It’s going to be okay, buddy. I promise.” He squeezes Peter a little tighter.
The car ride is silent. Tony’s got the radio turned off, and Peter’s lulled himself back to the in-between place. He can hardly hear the sirens, can’t really see the traffic lights or headlights on the cars. He’s tethered to reality only by Tony’s hand, which Peter finds he can’t let go of. Curled up in the passenger seat, legs drawn up underneath him, Peter’s clutching Tony’s forearm, resting his cheek against the man’s palm. It’s stupid and childish, and Peter hates how clingy it makes him feel, but it’s familiar, and, most importantly, it makes Peter feel safe. And Tony hasn’t said anything or tried to pull away, so it must be fine.
Peter must actually fall asleep at some point, because all of a sudden he’s startling awake as Tony pulls his arm away.
“Mr. Stark?” Everything’s hazy, and he can’t for the life of him remember why he’s in one of his mentor’s fancy cars at the tower, and not home in bed. The events of the last few hours hit him like a train. “Oh.” he whispers.
“It’s okay, Pete. It’s alright. Let’s go inside, yeah?” Tony’s voice is soft, almost a whisper, as he gets out of the car and opens Peter’s door. “C’mon, buddy. Time for bed.”
Peter lets Tony lead him to his room, and only when he’s sitting on the edge of his own bed, surrounded by Star Wars posters and Lego sets, does Peter realize that he hasn’t cried. The thought slams into his chest, stealing away his breath, leaving metal vices clamped around his lungs, and he can’t breathe. He can feel his body wracked with tremors as he chokes on sobs clawing their way out of his throat, his shoulders shaking as he tries to force air into his lungs. He’s distantly aware of Tony next to him, can hear him muttering breathe, Peter, just breathe, it’s okay, and if he had any air he would explain the crushing, collapsing feeling in his chest. He opts instead for leaning into Tony’s front.
“Oh, kiddo, you’re alright,” Tony holds one of Peter’s hands over his own heart beat. “In and out, Pete. I promise you can breathe, I promise.” he murmurs. “Please, bud, try to breathe. You’re going to make yourself sick, Peter.” Peter’s still choking on sobs, pressing his face into Tony’s shoulder, shoulders quivering. Tony wraps his other arm around him, hand resting against the back of Peter’s head, shushing him gently.
Grief is a black hole, and it’s reaching out tendrils, pulling Peter in slowly, one limb at a time. A tentacle latches onto his arm, starts dragging. Another hooks onto his leg, pulling in a different direction. There’s something covering his mouth, too, snaking its way down his throat and making it impossible to scream. He’s kicking, punching, fighting back with all his might, but it’s one monster Peter’s powerless against. No web-shooters, no Spidey Sense, no super strength. Just plain old Peter Parker.
It’s the first time Peter gives up a fight. He allows the black hole creature to have him, resigning himself to a life of darkness. In this moment, when all he can see is black, when the smell of his Aunt’s perfume makes him sick, the feel of her favorite blanket and the sound of her favorite song make him want to vomit, Peter believes with all his heart that he will never, never be happy again.
Tony holds him until he begins to calm down, breath returning in long, even inhales and exhales, rubbing a hand up and down his back. “That’s it, kiddo, deep breaths, I’ve got you,” and Peter comes back to himself slowly. Grief’s tentacles loosen their grip, don’t entirely let go, but give him just enough leeway for him to drag himself to the metaphorical light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. They linger in the background, watching, waiting for his next moment of weakness.
He feels Tony shift away, and he panics for a moment, because maybe the light wasn’t just a metaphor, and the tendrils seem to sense that his protection, his light, is retreating, so they lunge for him. Peter tightens his grip around Tony’s midsection.
“Sorry, Pete, it’s okay, I’m just going to lean against the headboard. Old man back and all that,” Tony huffs out a laugh, pulling Peter down to rest his head against his stomach, almost in his lap. “See, there we go, much more comfortable.” Grief retracts its tentacles once more, cowering in the presence of a soft blue glow. For the first time that night, Peter feels tired, exhausted down to his bones. He lets himself ignore the lingering tendrils and relax into Tony’s hold, heaving out a sigh and focusing on the careful hand running through his hair.
When he closes his eyes, all he can see is May. Dancing around the kitchen, folding the laundry, bustling about the apartment looking for her keys. Bright golden sun forcing its way through closed blinds, poking and prodding at their prone forms on the couch, the credits of some cheesy eighties movie rolling in the background. His breath hitches when he thinks about how excited she was for the Top Gun sequel. About the list of restaurants she wanted to try taped to the fridge. About the stack of secondhand books piling up on her nightstand, because she loved to read but just got too busy for it. About the goddamned unopened red velvet Oreos sitting in their cupboard, because Peter we have to try them! Come on, they’ll be delicious!
He doesn’t realize he’s worked himself up again until Tony’s voice breaks through. “Come on, Pete, shh,” and he calms down faster because he’s too exhausted to keep fighting. “That’s it, you’re alright,” Tony assures him, swiping his thumb over his cheeks to catch the tears as they fall.
When he closes his eyes this time he’s met with nothing but darkness, far as the eye can see. It scares him for a moment, because he thinks Grief has finally swallowed him whole, but this black expanse doesn’t have any tendrils or tugging gravity. It’s just dark. He lets himself get lost in the blissful expanse of nothing, zeroing in on the way Tony’s hands feel in his hair, grounding himself in the smell of cologne and motor oil, the feel of worn cotton and soft denim, and he falls asleep, unworried by the possibility that the tendrils could take him. There’s a soft blue light that will keep him safe, and if nothing else, Peter knows he can count on that.