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His heart aches like it hasn't in years.
He doesn't know if it is a dream, or if it is real. God, he wishes it weren't real because there is no way May is gone. She can't be. Not May.
But then he's heard it. The quiet, uninterrupted beep of her heart monitor filling his brain as if it were screaming to his soul, shattering him from inside out.
May is gone. Forever.
Through the sobs that rack his body, Peter faintly feels a pair of hands on his shoulders, and he's quick to recognize Mary Jane's soft touch.
She doesn't speak. She doesn't have to. He knows she's sorry. He knows she's grieving just like him. He knows she's lost a familiar figure, too. So he doesn't speak either.
He lets her hold him. MJ embraces him sideways, his upper body still laying atop May's improvised hospital bed.
It's comforting, in a way, how he doesn't feel as lonely when MJ is around. His heart, however, is broken like it hasn't in years.
He's lost May. The only family he had left. The only person he cared for more than anything. The one person who's been through everything with him and still rose with a smile, always.
The one person he swore he would never let anything bad happen to.
Yet it did.
And he's hollow inside.
It feels like hours later, when he's run out of tears to shed, when MJ finally whispers against his shoulder. "Pete, you can't stay here. I'm so sorry."
And he knows she's right.
Doctor Michaels will come around eventually, Miles, too. He can't stay, at least not as Spider-man, anyway.
So he stands up, eyes red and puffy, legs shaky and weak, a vacant space where his heart had been. Peter finds the will to finally look up, meeting MJ's soft blue ones. Hers, too, are brimming with tears, her cheeks wet from crying silently on his shoulder.
Her hands shoot up to his cheeks, and if it weren't for the fact that he'd been crying for almost an hour he would start crying all over again just because of her soft touch on his warm skin.
"You should rest for a bit too, Pete. You must be exhausted."
He doesn't fight it, because he is. He's extremely tired, devastated, hurt. All he wants is to curl up on the blankets as he used to when he was a kid and wake up to May's warm smile and caring eyes, soothing him, assuring him that all was just a nightmare.
One of his hands rests on top of hers, stroking it caringly, silently telling her that he's thankful for her. That he's glad she cares.
With a final glance at the person who was his whole world, he leaps out the window, the icy breeze cooling his cheeks, yet doing nothing to his broken heart.
_______
When he comes to, he's in front of MJ's front door.
He's been swinging aimlessly across New York City ever since he left F.E.A.S.T., trying without success to turn his mind off and hopefully lift the weight of grief on his chest.
It didn't work.
He can't rest, even if he wants to. He knows he won't be able to.
And so, when he finds himself in front of her apartment two hours after leaving the shelter, he is only mildly surprised to still see the lights on. He doesn't even bother changing to his casual clothes as he knocks softly on her door.
Peter is exhausted. His body aches, the wound on his shoulder caused by Otto is now starting to burn, and the tears forming on his eyes are starting to fall again.
MJ opens the door seconds later, her cheeks red and eyes shiny, a tissue still on her closed hand.
"Oh, Pete..."
And she doesn't have to say anything else before he crashes on her, holding her with whatever strength he has left in him, sobs taking over his body again.
MJ closes the door behind him, holding him tightly, his head resting on her shoulder tiredly, hands wrapped around her with the fear of someone who doesn't want to lose anyone else.
She cries, too, as she rubs his back soothingly, trying her best to calm his ragged breaths. MJ hasn't seen him in such state since the passing of Ben, and she hopes she will never have to see him like this ever again. Peter is such a bright soul, doing everything for the others, that seeing him like this, so hopeless, so devastated, sparks an emotion in her that she only feels upon seeing him in such despair.
"Pete, look at me," MJ whispers, pulling away to hold his face in her hands. "You'll get through this, alright? I know you will."
"I don't know..." He whimpers, eyes locked in hers.
"I do. Because I know you. And I know..." She lifts his face when he looks down. "...that Peter Parker never gives up. You hear me?"
He nods, defeated.
When he leans down to her warmth again, she doesn't deny him the comfort.
MJ scratches the nape of his neck the way she knows he likes. He once confessed it helps him calm down, so it's worth a shot. His breaths even out on her shoulder a few moments later, his arms holding her loosely around her lower back.
"Hey, how about I get you some clean clothes and you try to rest for a bit?" MJ asks when he pulls away.
"No, MJ, I don't want you to worry-"
"Well, too late. Besides," she rakes her eyes towards his right shoulder. "You're hurt, and I don't want you getting an infection."
_______
Minutes later, Peter is sitting on the closed toilet bare from the waist up as MJ cleans up his wound.
It's ugly, and they both know it.
Peter felt it poke his insides when Otto pushed it against him, and MJ can tell by the way his wound is that it must be hurting him like hell.
Not more than losing the person he looked up to the most and the person he cared about the most, though.
"You'll need stitches, Pete. And it looks like you've lost a lot of blood..."
"It's okay. Really, MJ. What you're doing is more than enough." He then looks up to meet her eyes tenderly. "Thanks."
MJ is midway bandaging his shoulder when he speaks, voice raspy and hurt.
"I've lost everyone."
The fact his voice cracks when he says it only tells MJ he's being completely serious.
And no. She won't have this idiot thinking there's no one alive who doesn't love him nor care about him.
"Hey, hey, hey," MJ finishes with the bandages, putting them aside to give Peter her full attention. "That's not true."
He looks up, eyes sunken and sad, though a hint of hope incites her to continue.
"You have Miles, that kid loves you so much." MJ smiles, glad to see a hint of one on Peter's lips, too.
Miles... that kid has lost his father, and now May. He's suffering, too.
"You have all the people you've saved, all the people you will save." She continues, hands cradling his cheeks as she stands in between his parted legs. "And you have me too. You will always have me." She whispers, suddenly timid.
Because she doesn't know where they stand, only that she loves this dork so much to the point it hurts seeing him hurt.
Peter smiles a tiny smile then, and after thanking her endlessly for everything she's done for him, both decide they should rest for a bit, or at least try to, that is.
So they lay on the couch, Peter's head on her lap, facing the TV as her fingers stroke his hair, curling it around her delicate fingers, while the other hand holds his on top of his clothed chest.
And although he's felt like shit ever since May left, he's feeling less burdened now. Maybe it's the anesthetic that MJ gave him that is making him drowsy, or maybe it's his body finally giving in to sleep, but his eyes suddenly fight to stay open, MJ's caresses on his hair soothing his soul permanently.
Then, as the first rays of the sunshine peek through the blinds of the window, both fall into a dreamless sleep, their hands joined on Peter's chest.
They will be alright. They know they will.