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Wade ran a hand through Peter’s web-white hair, which remained fluffy as ever. That seemed to be the only thing that had remained the same. His stomach had shrunken in, exposing his frail ribcage as it stuttered with each breath he took. His eyes had dulled, the childlike glimmer of hope and wonder that Peter refused to let go of barely remaining. Even the twitch of his lips when he smirked and laughed at Wade’s dumb jokes seemed to struggle in its movements, fighting for the energy to hold its well-worn position that had wrinkled the skin around Peter’s mouth.
He lifted a shaking hand to Wade’s face, pressing it against his cheek with such tenderness that Wade couldn’t help but close his eyes. The hand used to be so strong and powerful, guiding Peter as he swung, forming the telltale web-shooting shape that Wade hadn’t seen for months. That hand now shivered against Wade’s skin, all its strength drifting away slowly but surely.
Wade dropped his head to Peter’s shoulder and clutched at his shirt, trying to hold him there in the world so he would stay with Wade. Even just for one moment longer. One moment more would be enough.
Wade told himself that every moment that passed.
Every ounce of Wade’s being screamed at him to do something to save Peter. He wanted to share his blood and his shitty never-ending life with Peter, but they both knew why that couldn’t happen. So the steady march toward death dragged on.
{You can’t let him die.}
Wade couldn’t make him live.
He had pleaded with Death till his voice gave out, and he went back to plead more until he was again yanked back to life where he could do nothing but sit and watch as the only person who mattered slipped closer to Death’s waiting arms each day.
Hell, he would have even punched down his pride long enough to ask Thanos to grant Peter the same curse he had hurled on Wade. But Thanos was gone, too, and with him all of Wade’s hope. It didn’t matter, anyway. He couldn’t sentence Peter to such a life as his.
“Please stay, Pete.”
In the end, cancer ripped him away from Wade. The irony was not lost on him. It was an extra stab of anguish, a cruel joke that the world played on him to tie up his life with a tacky bow.
Because Wade’s life was over without Peter. Complete. Done. The end of Peter was the end of him.
Wade was sure he was dead when he felt the hollowness that followed Peter’s death. It was a deathless death with no peace.
He only lasted one minute, sixty seconds, before he pulled the trigger. He swam back into Death’s temporary hold to beg her one last time.
“I cannot do what you ask, Wade.”
“I can’t go on without him,” he blubbered, kneeling at her ivory feet of bone.
“Return. Move on. Not all is lost.”
Of course she’d give him nothing but a riddle. It was an empty promise, a vague platitude to get him to scamper away from her and leave her to enjoy peace he never could.
He would not give up so easily. Again and again, he pulled the trigger to return to her. He didn’t know how long he spent in her presence, sitting before her with a steely gaze, willing her to break and grant him recompense in some way for what she had taken from him.
She never broke.
---
Somehow, by some unknown trace of strength, Wade continued. He did not move on; that would be a lie to say. But he continued.
The city moved on. Sure, they had mourned Spider-Man’s disappearance for a few months (before Peter was even gone), but they moved on to the next super, the next hero, the next promise of safety.
For Wade, the world was empty without Peter’s smile to brighten even the darkest of days and his hands to hold Wade together when everything fell apart.
The world stayed empty for twenty years.
Then, the unexpected happened. A smile.
This was not just any smile, mind you. Wade knew this smile. Even after an eternity, he would recognize that slant of the mouth, that crinkling of the cheeks and the bridge of the nose. That smile was unmistakable.
It was given to him in an alleyway that reeked of piss and weed. It was given to him by a short, chubby guy with hair that shone like the sun in the shadows of the alley.
Wade’s breath hitched. He reached out a hand with a palm lifted up in offering before remembering himself. It shrunk back to his body, curling against him as if wounded. He closed his eyes, nearly able to feel Peter’s hand on his cheek again like on that final day. The day the world ended.
Wade walked the familiar stranger back to his home, desperate to protect him. This one he would keep safe.
---
Days emerged from the endless blur of time. Wade marked the days with the smiles, the quips, and the pancakes.
As the days passed, Wade found ways to mark the months. These he marked with the discoveries reminiscent of Peter. More than reminiscent, really, they were replicas.
The way this familiar stranger tucked his tongue between his teeth in concentration marked April. The glimmer in his eye that made Wade’s heart swell to bursting showed up in May. The way he rolled his earlobe between his thumb and pinky signalled the end of June.
He became more than a familiar stranger.
“I’m Jim.”
“Wade.”
He became Jim. He became the missing piece in Wade’s world that was put back into place. He made everything make sense again.
---
In the month of the eye roll, a gesture which was especially vivid in Wade's memory due to its frequency, Wade had another visit with Death.
“I told you not all is lost.” She grinned and trailed a bony finger over his chin.
Her words resounded in Wade’s mind, echoing through his skull as he tumbled back in the icy grasp of life.
When he awoke, Jim was huddled over him, choking out breaths in a way that was all too familiar to Wade. He reached up to wrap his arms around Jim, to steady those breaths and quiet his hiccups.
---
As the years passed, Jim’s hair greyed. His skin wrinkled in weblike patterns Wade could envision with his eyes closed. If someone asked him to, he could trace those patterns from memory all the endless days he had left.
The march toward death repeated itself in a way that Wade wished he didn't remember. The familiarity was an ache in his chest.
On the day the world ended yet another unbearable time, Wade was left to hope it would begin again, years later, like it had before.