Chapter Text
BANG!
Peter awoke with a shock. He only laid down for a nap while Aunt May cooked dinner for the both of them. Peter was only expecting to smell a freshly cooked meal. Instead, Peter heard a loud, startling noise. Almost like a gunshot. It very well could be a gunshot. He had to jump to action. Aunt May could be in danger. Peter got up swiftly. He rushed to his closet to put on the Spider-Man Suit Mr. Stark gave him. Peter put it on and decided to sneak out through his window so he could sneak in through the window to the kitchen.
Peter opened his window as quickly but as quietly as possible. As Spider-Man, Peter snuck out his bedroom window and shifted to the one leading to the kitchen. He opened it, and… and there was May. She was lying on the ground, and Peter ran to her, ripping off his mask.
“M-May?” Peter called. May looked at Peter, not appearing to notice that he was, in fact, Spider-Man.
“Peter, y-you have to get out of here. Save yourself, i-it’s not safe,” May said, fading from consciousness.
“No, I can’t leave you here. I have to help you!” Peter exclaimed.
“Y-you can’t. I love you s-so much, P-Peter,” May said.
Around May’s body was a pile of blood. She appeared to be shot in the abdomen. Through Peter’s mourning, he had forgotten that someone caused the gunshot. That someone was still there, with a gun pointed at Peter.
“So long, Spider— ah!” The man with the gun was blasted, which thrust him against a nearby wall.
It was Tony, decked in his full Iron Man armor. Karen, through Peter’s grief, had alerted the Avengers to the Parkers’ location. Tony was there, of course, with backup in the form of Steve, Bucky, Clint, and Natasha.
“The Avengers!” The man said in shock.
Tony blasted him once more. “Steve, Clint, take care of May. Natasha, Terminator, take care of the kid. I’ll take care of this asshole.” Tony then flew forward and grabbed the man by his collar. He then took the man outside via the window. “Listen here, dipshit. You think it’s okay to break into an apartment and then deprive a kid of his only remaining family member? Trust me, I’ll make sure you’ll be locked away for life.” The man was shaking with fear, holding up his arms in a pleading motion. No words left his mouth. “Yeah, that’s right. You better plead, because I’m sure you won’t see the end of this one. Hey, FRIDAY? You know what do.”
“The police and an ambulance has been dialed, Boss. They’re on their way,” FRIDAY responded.
“Alright, thanks FRIDAY. I’ll just hang out with our ‘friend’ here until they get here,” Tony said. He landed on the ground, with the man still being grabbed by his collar.
Back in the apartment, Clint and Steve were attempting to carry May out to get her the medical attention she needed. Natasha and Bucky were trying to help Peter out of the apartment.
“N-no, n-no…” Peter whimpered softly.
“Don’t worry, kid. We’re going to do everything in our power to help you and your aunt,” Natasha reassured him. “Barnes, help me get him up.”
“Roger that,” Bucky said in a monotone voice.
Natasha and Bucky got Peter off the ground, and he kept sobbing in shock. He was barely aware of his surroundings. But, Natasha and Bucky got out of the apartment and all the way to the street below. May was being loaded into an ambulance, and the man was being loaded into a police car. Tony lifted up the faceplate of his mask and ran over to Peter.
“Kid, we’re gonna take you to your Aunt. I promise you, we’ll do everything to get your Aunt help. Can you hear me?”
Peter nodded slowly, his eyes still filled with tears. “I-I froze. I couldn’t h-help h-her.”
“Oh, Peter. You did nothing wrong. Just hang in there, okay?” Tony asked.
Peter nodded once more. Tony used FRIDAY to call Happy to come to the outside of the Parkers’ apartment building. When he got there, everyone loaded into the limo Happy pulled up in and drove to the hospital Aunt May was being attended to. Everyone, in their civilian clothes, was in the waiting room. They waited for a few hours, and Peter was hoping, praying that his Aunt May would make it out alive. He was fiddling with his hand, and the Avengers that were there sat with him in silence.
“Peter Parker?” A doctor called. She looked apologetic, and Peter feared for the worse. But he stood up and walked to her.
“Son, would you like one of us to come with you?” Steve asked.
Peter looked at them: Bucky, Natasha, Steve, Clint, and Tony. “Um, M-Mr. Stark could you come with me?”
Tony nodded. “Sure, kid.”
Peter and Tony followed the doctor all the way down to the hall to just outside May’s room. She turned to them, specifically looking at Peter.
“Peter, I am so so sorry but your Aunt has passed on. We tried everything we could. The bullet hit her heart, which is almost always fatal. And by the time she got here, she already lost a lot of blood. But we tried to...”
Peter just stared at her, unmoving as the doctor tried to explain to him what happened with Aunt May. But all the information went through one ear and out the other. It didn’t matter how it happened. She was gone. There was nothing Peter could do about it. He just froze; instead of helping, he did nothing. It was all his fault.
“Kid?” Tony’s voice cut through Peter’s thoughts. “Peter?”
Peter blinked. Once. Twice. “M-May, she’s gone. Forever.” Tears started dripping from his eyes. All of a sudden, the realization hit him. That May was dead.
“Would you like to see her?” The doctor asked.
“I, I c-can’t, I c-can’t. M-May.” Peter started to breathe heavily, his tears increasing. He backed against the wall behind and collapsed to the floor.
“He’s panicking! Oh shit, kid, breathe, breathe,” Tony yelled. He crouched down and grabbed Peter’s hands. “Okay, what’s five things you can see?”
“U-uh, the lights, the doctor, the wall, the door, and y-you.”
“Four things you can feel?”
“Your hands, my hands, the floor, and the wall.”
“Three things you can hear?”
“Your voice, my voice, and my heartbeat.”
“Two things you can smell?”
“Your cologne and soap.”
“One thing you can taste?”
“My saliva.”
Tony backed away to give Peter some space.
“Peter?” The doctor asked, stepping a bit closer to him now that he calmed down. “You absolutely don't have to, if you don't want to. But would you like to see your Aunt?”
Peter looked up at her and nodded slowly. Tony’s hand reached out to Peter to help him up, and together they walked into the hospital room. There, Aunt May laid a blanket up to her shoulders. Next to her bed was a chair, which Peter sat down in. Tony stood by him. The doctor stepped out of the room to give them privacy.
“M-May, I’m so s-sorry. I did n-nothing to help you. I f-froze. I failed y-you,” Peter said.
Tony turned to Peter and placed his hand on his shoulder. “No, Peter. You did nothing wrong. You’re not to blame at all. The only one to blame is the asshole who shot her, and he’ll be locked away for doing what he did.”
Peter looked at Tony. “B-but, Mr. Stark, what will happen to me?”
“I want you to move to the Avengers Compound with us. It’s up to you, and I’ll support whatever you want to do. Just, at least be sure to keep in touch with me.”
“I d-don’t know where else to go. You’d do that for me?” Peter asked.
“Of course, Peter,” Tony said. They both looked back at May. “We will never be able to replace your Aunt, or your Uncle, and we’ll never try to replace them. But I promise, we will get you everything you need.”
“What will happen to her?” Peter asked.
Tony thought for a moment. “Would you like her to be buried next to your Uncle?”
Peter nodded, and he started tearing up a little. He grabbed Aunt May’s hand from under the covers and held it. Tony took in the kid’s appearance for a second, and he looked absolutely distraught. His face was red, his nose was sniffling, and his puffy eyes still had tears coming out of them. He’s been through too much tonight, too much for just a 15-year-old boy.
“Kid, I need to go talk to the others. But, you just stay here with her, we’ll take you to the compound whenever you want,” Tony said. He gives Peter’s shoulder a little squeeze before heading out of the room.
Tony walked all the way back to the waiting room where his backup waited. Clint was the first to react, standing up out of his chair.
“How’s the kid?” Clint asked.
“Peter, he’s, he’s really upset. He had a panic attack when the doctor told him that his Aunt died. I had to calm him down and when we were in the room, he blamed himself for May’s death,” Tony explained.
“I disagree. The evidence of tonight demonstrates that Peter’s action did not influence the outcome of May’s death,” Bucky spoke up.
“Buck? Are you okay?” Steve asked.
“No, Steve. It’s just not right for him to sit there in guilt. I’m going in there,” Bucky said. He stood up and attempted to run through the hall.
Tony stepped in the way of Bucky. “Now, wait a minute, Terminator. You can go see Peter, but you need to calm down. He’s in a fragile state right now and we don’t need to freak him out.”
“Steve, come with me,” Bucky said, turning to Steve.
Steve and Bucky went down the hall to May’s room. Steve knocked on the door lightly before entering. There, Peter still sat, holding May’s hand.
“Peter?” Steve called. Peter turned around and looked at the two supersoldiers behind him. “You remember Bucky, right? He wanted to see how you were doing.”
Bucky walked to Peter’s side. “Hello. I just wanted to say that you are not to blame for your Aunt’s death.”
“But, I f-froze and d-did nothing. I was useless,” Peter said.
“No. You may have froze, but some things are beyond your control. I don’t know if you understand it now, but I promise that you will. I will help you understand if you need,” Bucky said. “You know I was once a killing machine?”
Peter nodded, unsure if Bucky realized the insinuation of stating he once was a killing machine while his Aunt lay dead from a gunshot.
“I am still recovering from the removal of my programming. But in that process, I slowly begin to remember my past life and the bad things I did as the Winter Soldier. There were many things beyond my control during that period. And yet, I still cannot control when memories come or don’t come. There are only fragments,” Bucky explained.
“That sounds hard to d-deal with,” Peter said.
“It is. But, I have people like Steve to help me.” Steve smiled at the comment. “When you come to the compound, we’ll all be here to help you,” Bucky said.
Peter looked up at Bucky and then back to Steve, who gave him a wave. Then Peter looked back at Aunt May, still holding her hand. He let it go and tucked her in, covering her body in the blanket.