Chapter Text
May Parker died on a Tuesday, about an hour before sunset.
On some subconscious level, Peter knew before Karen had even finished telling him that he had an incoming call from Harley. His fiancé had seen how much he’d been struggling lately, as the health of his last living relative slowly but surely declined. He knew how much Peter needed those few hours swinging through the city each day to clear his head - to stay sane. It was the only time he could be convinced to leave May’s bedside, the only time the sound of her failing heart didn’t follow him from room to room - inescapable thanks to his heightened senses. Even now its unsteady rhythm pulsed in his ears, his overactive brain reconstructing the beat from memory to torture him, like some kind of Tell-Tale Heart bullshit.
Despite that soundtrack gnawing at the edge of his consciousness, his mind was quieter thirty stories up than it ever would be with his feet on solid ground. And Harley knew that. He wouldn’t interrupt that with a phone call...
... unless he had to.
He didn’t want to answer.
Answering would make it real.
So he didn’t.
Not for a little while, at least. Instead he let muscle memory guide him back to Queens, to the apartment building he’d shared with May throughout his childhood and teenage years, through winter and summer breaks in college, until he’d moved across town with Harley just over a year ago. There he perched on the rooftop and watched the sun slowly sink behind the skyscrapers. It was beautiful. The sky was cloudy - it was mid-April, now, and they were long overdue for a good soaking rain that would jumpstart the growth of Central Park’s gardens. The long streaks of clouds slowly tinted pink, then orange, then deep red as the sun continued to drop.
Only once the last rays of light had faded did he return Harley’s call.
“She’s gone?” he asked when Harley picked up on the second ring, with a forced calmness that surprised even himself.
“I’m so sorry, Peter.”
There was a beat of silence before Harley continued. “Do you want to come back to the Tower? Or should I come to you?”
“Can we go home?” Peter half-whispered. All at once he desperately wanted to get out of the suit that had been his solace only hours prior, wanted to be able to give into the wet pressure he felt slowly building behind his eyes, but the thought of returning to the building that contained the room where his aunt had spent the last few weeks of her life suffering… no. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and that room as possible.
“Of course,” replied Harley softly. “Meet you there?”
He nodded before remembering that Harley couldn’t see him. “Yeah. See you soon.”