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i.
“I’m only eighteen / And I feel like I’m dying
I’m getting sad too soon / I hope I make it ‘cause I’m trying”
One of the earliest memories Peter Parker ever has is being with his dad, and he can’t quite remember if he was three or four or five, but he can remember feeling happy. It’s after one of his birthday parties, where he spends the entire afternoon running around with his school friends at the park near Ben and May’s apartment, stuffing his face with the ice cream cake that his mom had made just the night before, messy as it melts in the sticky New York humidity.
Someone gets him a little set of Crush Gear toys that he’s excited to build by hand, only to later crash them into each other, and Peter remembers sprawling across the living room carpet of his Aunt May’s apartment with his dad right beside him as they put the pieces together. But it’s a school night, and it’s getting dark and past Peter’s bedtime, and his mom is already picking up all his presents so they can go home.
Peter complains that he’s not even a little bit tired and he wants to continue building with his dad, and all it takes is one stern look from Mary for Richard to agree with finally getting them home. Uncle Ben easily throws Peter up in the air — at that age probably only weighing forty pounds sopping wet, anyway — and tells him they can plan a fun sleepover next time. Richard promises Peter that he can come back so they can all finish building the cars together.
Despite all the reluctance in his voice, Peter’s already nodding off to sleep with his head on his dad’s shoulder. When his mom and dad tuck him into bed that night, he remembers thinking it’s the best birthday ever.
The first people that leave him are his parents. For a while he doesn’t understand, because they’d only gone on a business trip, and everyone knows business trips aren’t dangerous. But he doesn’t think a lot about it because he finally has that long sleepover with his aunt and uncle, and it’s not until they take Peter home to pack more of his belongings does it hit him that something has been really wrong the last few days.
He runs through his apartment, stuffy and quiet like it normally never is, and barges into his parents’ room only to find it empty like the rest of the place. May has tears streaming down her face and Ben has this hard look in his eyes that softens significantly when Peter asks, “Where’s Mommy and Daddy?”
Peter remembers crying so much that his throat hurts and his lungs start aching, and there are so many things he feels that he can’t put names to — except for anger and sadness and empty. Even the sky turns sad because it rains every day that week, especially on the day they bury his parents. But Peter doesn’t worry about getting wet because he stays in the town car with the door closed and Aunt May crying as she holds him, and he knows Uncle Ben’s clothes must be soaking wet because they can hear his sobs outside as he stands at the foot of Richard and Mary’s graves.
Ben finds Peter crying under the covers in the middle of the night, so he leaves a family photo on Peter’s bedside table, that way he can see his parents whenever he misses them. His heart hurts the most because he never really got to say goodbye.
ii.
“I’ve loved and I’ve lost / And realized that it’s all my fault
Wish someone loved me enough / To catch me when I fall”
Ben and May never have any kids, and they joke that Ben’s childish enough in their relationship that they never need one, but they are, without a doubt, great parents to their nephew. Peter remembers sitting on his uncle’s lap as he plays through his console games — stuff like Final Fantasy or Mortal Kombat or Star Wars — and even early on, Peter really gravitates to Star Wars the most and he finds so much pride in being Uncle Ben’s young Padawan.
His uncle never fails to buy him yo-yos on the way home from school whenever they pass by the bodegas selling toys, and he’s the one who always ties Peter’s shoes and picks him up when he falls and encourages him to apply to that fancy Midtown high school because he belongs there, and they’ll figure out the money for it, no questions asked.
Peter’s aunt and uncle always play the good-cop-bad-cop routine with him, and Ben may start putting his foot down a lot more as Peter gets older, but he’s always there for him whenever he gets sad and cries about missing his parents, because Ben isn’t afraid to admit he misses his little brother too.
“In fact, you’re looking more and more like him every day,” Ben says, brushing Peter’s tears away with the pad of his thumb.
“Really?” Peter sniffs and pushes his curly, floppy hair from his own face, and even at twelve-and-a-half, Peter’s ears are still adorably huge for his head, but those eyes of his are as brown and endearing as Richard’s had once been.
“Would I lie to you, Skywalker?” he teases.
A sarcastic “Yes, Obi-Wan” comes out of Peter’s mouth, and Ben retaliates by grabbing the kid by his ears and blowing raspberries on his cheeks because he deserves it, and it’s so worth hearing Peter laugh again.
Peter is on a school trip when he gets bit by that radioactive spider and his whole world turns on its side. At fourteen, he’s young and he’s secretive and he doesn’t want his aunt and uncle to worry about him (even though getting superpowers is literally the coolest thing to ever happen to him after Iron Man saved him that one time).
And maybe Peter is being too enigmatic and sneaking around so much that it worries Aunt May and Uncle Ben enough to think he's joined some street gang all the way in Hell’s Kitchen, but he’s growing up and helping people in the neighborhood, and he’s angry with Ben when he berates him about being more responsible because Ben isn’t his dad, and he never will be.
Peter’s eyes burn with quickly forming tears — he hates being an angry crier — and he runs out of the apartment because he hasn’t fixed up his web shooters and he just can’t stand seeing the disappointed look on his Uncle Ben’s face.
But the thing is, Peter learns too late about taking responsibility for both his actions and inactions, because he hates bullies and the cashier at the corner store is even meaner than Flash Thompson and is always creepy towards May, so when the bodega gets held up by a robber with a gun, Peter decides that even if he can do something to stop the guy, the cashier probably deserves the scare.
Down the block is a huge crowd of people, shouting after a gunshot echoes, and his stomach feels all weird and there’s something wrong, and then Peter’s watching Ben bleed to death on the cold, hard ground. Through the fog of shock and heaving sobs, Peter catches someone say his uncle got shot by a man leaving the shop he just came from, and only then does he realize that it’s his fault.
It’s his fault.
iii.
“And I know it’s kind of selfish but / It’s not my choice to leave
‘Cause I wish I could stay / But it’s more of a need / For me to go away”
Peter’s only a kid when Iron Man saves his life the first time, when Queens played host to the first StarkExpo in decades. He remembers being six- or seven-years-old, and Ben picks him up after work to go to the expo for the days they were open, and it’s the absolute wildest thing because Tony Stark himself signs Peter’s Iron Man helmet one day and destroys a Hammer drone to keep Peter safe on another day, and he annoys everyone at school because he never ever shuts up about how he helped Iron Man defeat the bad guys.
He’s barely turning eleven when the aliens first attack New York, and almost thirteen when he realizes that it’s okay for boys to like boys because Iron Man and Captain America seem to love each other enough to deal with the bullies calling them names, but more than that, Steve Rogers always looks at Tony Stark as if he’s hung the moon, and it’s the exact same look May used to give Ben, and Peter thinks that’s proof true love exists.
The first time Tony Stark appears in his apartment snooping around about Spider-Man, Peter’s fourteen and awestruck and defensive when he gets called “Spiderling,” but it’s also around the same time he gets to ride on a plane and leave the States for the first time, and Happy is stuck with babysitting him in a hotel in Germany, but he gets to help Mr. Stark with wrangling the other Avengers because he and Captain Rogers are having some type of a lover’s quarrel.
There are months between when Tony hugs him for the first time and the time Tony gets mad at him and takes the suit away for nearly capsizing the Staten Island Ferry, and he knows Mr. Stark’s still out of the country when Peter defeats the Vulture but then he’s suddenly at his doorstep bringing warm soup and cold medicine made for enhanced persons when Peter gets sick and May’s out for a weekend with the girls.
And Peter’s fifteen for all it’s worth, so he tells Mr. Stark that he can take care of himself just fine (but he can admit it feels nice to have someone else care about him too).
Peter turns down Tony’s offer to be an Avenger, yet Happy still picks him up every other weekend to head upstate to the Avengers Compound for “intern duties,” and sometimes Peter finds himself in Avengers Tower with Tony, working on upgrading his web shooters or learning about StarkTech advancements.
Steve Rogers would occasionally pop into the workshop, and Peter realizes that he sees Steve around a lot — not because he’s under house arrest (which he is) or because he’s settled into bringing them dinner whenever they forget to eat (which they do) — it’s because he loves their company, so Peter doesn’t mention it when Steve and Tony steal kisses when they think he’s not looking, but he does pretend to be grossed out whenever they hold hands in front of him, and he’s always a little grateful for his heightened reflexes because Mr. Stark has insane accuracy whenever he throws things in his direction.
“Is he priming you up to be the next Tony Stark?” Steve asks him one day, sending a fond look over to his partner.
“Not even remotely. Besides…” Tony makes his way to Peter’s side and ruffles the dark curls on the kid’s head, saying, “Why deprive the world of one amazing Peter Parker?”
He's sixteen when the aliens come back and he ends up in space with Mr. Stark, and Tony pretends to be annoyed by him but does everything to try and protect him anyway. Not a lot of things scare Peter, but when they lose against the giant purple alien and Peter’s senses come down on him so hard it hurts, he starts crying into Tony’s arms because he doesn’t feel so good.
He’s still sixteen when Tony hugs him again in the middle of a battle, vicelike as if he’d no sooner disappear if he let go, and Peter’s wondering why there’s extra gray in Mr. Stark’s hair when he’s seen him only ten minutes ago, but it’s not until he witnesses Tony’s last breaths, catches the pained smile on Tony’s face when Peter tells him “We won, Mr. Stark,” does he realize that actual years have gone by — years that he never gets back.
There’s a funeral for Mr. Stark at the lake house that he and Captain Rogers had retired in, and May holds one hand while Steve holds the other, because as stoic and sturdy as the super-soldier seems to be, Peter can feel him trembling, and the least he can do is let Captain America lean on him as he says goodbye to the love of his life.
At least this time, Peter thinks, he got to say goodbye.
iv.
“I’m tired of the world / Hating on me / I wake up to the friends / That I can’t keep
And when the end is near / And I’m asleep / I’ll be chasing dreams / While counting sheep”
Spider-Man meets Captain America before Peter has a chance to meet Steve, but the guy from Brooklyn smiles wide when he finds out Peter’s from Queens, and he can tell Steve is a little more annoyed with Tony once he realizes his partner brought a kid to fight against the Avengers. It’s not until later, after Sergeant Barnes gets his name cleared and Captain Rogers gets sentenced to a lengthy house arrest, that Peter finally gets his chance to get to know his mentor’s boyfriend.
Tony mentions offhandedly that he’s not sure whether to be glad or terrified that Peter and Steve get on like white on rice, and Steve just tells him he’s being overdramatic. Still, Peter finds it amusing that Steve looks young, yet he dresses like a grandpa, and he listens to old swing music that Peter vaguely remembers his parents loving too, and then suddenly he’s learning to dance to those same songs wearing only socks on his feet because Steve wants to avoid getting hurt when Peter inevitably steps on his toes.
Before long, he’s over at the tower or the compound almost every afternoon once school lets out because Tony likes having extra hands while he’s tinkering on his R&D projects, and Steve is more than happy to indulge him in watching the entire Star Wars franchise.
There’s more than one night where Peter falls asleep in Tony’s workshop and wakes up in one of the guest rooms in the penthouse, and before he can fret over Captain Rogers carrying him as if he weighs nothing, he swears that his sleep-addled brain distinctly remembers someone going, “I never thought I’d ever want kids.”
“You’re good with him.”
“So are you.”
On Fridays, they plan dinner together because May’s out late volunteering, and on Saturdays, the three of them jog around the Village with Happy following them on a golf cart, and on some Sundays, he doesn’t mind accompanying Steve to church because while he might not be that religious, his parents used to be, and so Peter lights a candle for his mom and his dad and his uncle and the little boy who has lost so much but found a family all on his own.
He doesn’t expect it at all when Steve leaves. Peter has barely had time to mourn Tony’s death before the funeral is over and some of the other Avengers, like Sam Wilson and Dr. Banner, are talking about Steve going back for a mission to return the magic stones that have helped them beat the bad guys.
They tell him it’s a quick thing, that Steve will be back soon because it’s not expected to be dangerous, but Peter of all people knows the world doesn’t always work that way, so he just lets the disappointment roll over him when Captain Rogers never comes back. And maybe Peter should be used to people leaving him, or people never choosing to stay, but he thinks, if anyone is going to be around to help him live with the hole in his heart shaped like Tony Stark, it would’ve been Steve Rogers.
Nobody except for Ned and May and Happy know how much losing Steve and Tony affects Peter, because it’s never easy to lose people you love and Peter has lost too much, and it doesn’t help at all when everywhere he goes, everything reminds him of them. Murals and statues and newspapers celebrate Iron Man and Captain America, but what Peter misses is Steve teaching him how to loop a tie properly whenever he went to events for Stark Industries, or Tony teaching him how to drive even though he sucked so much at giving instructions.
What he misses the most is the weekend Steve and Tony help him to bake an ice cream cake to surprise May for her birthday, because despite Tony leaving eggshells in the batter and the cake never really holding its shape, it’s something they do together that reminds Peter of his childhood. But now he’s stuck with finding names to the emotions that fill his bones deep — anguish and resentment and emptiness — because he regrets never telling them he loves them.
v.
“When I turn nineteen / I’ma feel like I’m flying
I’m in the sky where / Where I’m free and I’m smiling / But ‘til then”
Maybelle Parker is the strongest woman that Peter knows, and there is nothing in the world that can ever make him think any different. She’s the one true constant in his life, from watching him take his first steps to wiping his tears away after his first broken heart, and Peter can’t help but to think he wouldn’t be where he is without her.
Aunt May never had kids, but she has Peter, and that’s just as good. She and Ben don’t hesitate to take Peter in when his parents die, just like she doesn’t hesitate to take Peter into her arms whenever he has a nightmare about battles in space that he never feels ready to talk about. She doesn’t hesitate to show just how big her heart is, and it’s something Peter is more than grateful to have taken after.
Peter remembers the days and nights May spends working for the Salvation Army, running donation drives and leading the community center and being the bright light in so many people’s darkest days. He grows up with his Aunt May’s inspirational one-liners and life lessons, and he takes it to heart by hiding behind a mask and using his powers for good as the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man, because she’s right — she’s always right — when she says, “When you help someone, you help everyone.”
So, Peter helps. He helps take down the Vulture when he tries to commandeer the plane leaving Avengers Tower. He helps take down Mysterio when he steals EDITH and tries to destroy London. He tries, even, to help Mr. Stark and Dr. Strange and the people who call themselves the Guardians, and then, he tries again in the battlefield that was once the Avengers Compound.
And they win, even though it doesn’t feel like it because Tony is gone, but May is there still wiping Peter’s tears away.
May Parker is the strongest woman that Peter knows, and he is so sure of the fact because she always smiles in the face of danger, and maybe it’s a delusion to expect nothing bad will happen to May, but she comes back from the Blip with that smile on her face and a goal to join FEAST and help everyone else displaced in the aftermath, so Peter has an excuse to think May would live forever. After all, her job is significantly safer than his ever was.
It is supposed to be, at least, safer. Peter goes to Dr. Strange for help because his life has never been the same since Mysterio, but no one expects people from other worlds to be sucked into theirs. Peter doesn’t expect to be only eighteen and to feel like he was dying, either, because physical scars always heal, and that pain is temporary, but it’s the invisible ones that hurt the most and never truly leave him.
Peter tries to help Dr. Osborn until he can’t, and he really only ever had one job, but he can’t seem to keep May safe either. The words she tells him burn into his skin, said with steady conviction and so much faith, “You have a gift. You have power. And with great power, there must also come great responsibility.” But then May is dying in his arms, and she’s trying to catch her breath, and they’re supposed to be a team, just him and her, and his heart shatters when hers stops because he loves her even though he can’t stay, and he can’t help but think this is his fault too.
He cries because his Aunt May isn’t there to wipe his tears away or hug him tight until the shattered pieces fuse back together; instead, the sky starts to pour and the cold rain washes away warm tears on his face, and his chest hurts too much, but he thinks he deserves it, because there’s a piece of his soul that dies with her that night. There are two other Peters that mourn with him, mourn the people they all have lost, but Peter bottles up the darkness brewing inside of him until it starts spilling over — a wave of unadulterated rage finally filling that emptiness after Osborn tells him May died because of him, that his morality has failed him, but Peter knows he’s wrong.
Peter learns to find the strength to wipe his own tears, because May Parker has raised him like her own son, and the other Peters remind him that helping others is just what they do.
+1
“Things will stay the same / Things will never change / Life will be a mess
And that life I became / Hopelessly in love / With doing what my brain / Tells me to do
And life, I’m over you”
Peter gets used to people leaving him. It’s sad and probably pathetic, but he accepts that life is just like that sometimes. Ned’s grandma tells him that God never gives you anything that you can’t eventually overcome, but with every additional candle he lights, Peter wonders just how much he can take.
He finds that limit in the end, when reality starts to crumble around them because of the spell he breaks, and Peter knows that he only ever had one real choice. MJ always says something philosophical like, “Expect disappointment, and you won’t be disappointed,” and it’s that fine line between pessimism and realism that opens his eyes to the notion that sometimes people leave the people they love in order to keep them safe.
For the first time in his life, Peter chooses to leave, to make the decision for himself instead of letting others do it for him — because Tony Stark made the decision to save his world over his own life, and Aunt May cared so much about the lives in the world that she would give hers, so asking Dr. Strange to wipe the slate clean of Peter Parker is a small price to pay to keep the sentiment going.
It hurts him a little, a sharp pain in his chest that’s more than just his broken ribs, when MJ smiles at him with tears in her eyes, vulnerable and fond and sincere, because Peter realizes it’s the exact expression that used to find its way onto May’s face when she looked at Ben, the look of adoration that painted Steve’s when he saw Tony, and it’s a cruel joke to let him find his true love only to lose her.
But Peter promises to find them, to tell them he loves them — and it’s because he loves them that he chooses to leave them in the dark, to walk away, because even though MJ says the cut on her forehead doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s the invisible ones that Peter knows will take longer to heal. Throughout all the years of loss and heartbreak, at least they did teach him how to say goodbye.
There are days when he does miss it, the one week of his life when every person he wanted to know he was Spider-Man did, and it’s in those days that Peter finds himself near Park Avenue. The old Avengers Tower has long been bought by someone who thinks tearing out half the floors to build an atrium is a good idea (it’s really not) but staring up at that huge skyscraper still reminds him a little of swing dancing and rock and roll.
The little cafe tucked in the corner of 39th Street gets a lot of customers, but the noise never bothers Peter as he buries his nose in books almost every day to study for his GED. Nothing changes until one day it does, because the outside patio is full and the only open seat is the empty one across from Peter, and it’s not like he minds much when a sweet old man asks to sit down with him.
They sit in a companionable silence, with Peter working on the section for reading comprehension while the man draws in a sketchbook, but then the old man starts humming to himself. It’s not the humming that makes Peter look up, not really, it’s the tune — unassuming but so familiar, just like the man himself: A well-worn brown jacket and ocean eyes that shine with a kind of adoration Peter hasn’t seen in a long time.
The man catches him staring, daring to ask, “There something on my face, son?”
Peter feels his cheeks flush. “No, sir, sorry. I was — um, you looked — kind of sad but... in a happy way?”
“...thank you?” His eyes narrow slightly, brows knitting together, but his mouth quirks up in amusement.
“What are you drawing, if you don’t mind my asking?” Peter asks carefully, eyes briefly skating down to the pages.
The old man smiles a smile that reaches his eyes, but there’s a kind of wistful look in them even as he turns his sketchbook around for Peter to see. Its pages are full of detailed renditions of the old Stark Tower, a cabin with a wrap-around porch that tickles the back of Peter’s brain, and a half-finished sketch of the new building that replaces the one overlooking Grand Central.
A softer smile appears on the man’s face as he turns the page, revealing the facial expressions of another older gentleman that looks oddly like Mr. Stark, if Peter squints.
“Home.”
