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His hand rasped against the wooden door and then fell limply by Peter’s side. He felt like he was going to be sick. Actually, he was already feeling kinda sick. God, the last thing he needed was for the door to open and for his insides to get out. He couldn’t throw up now. He couldn’t look like he was the one suffering because he wasn’t. He had no right to, because he was the cause of this latest catastrophe.
But it was incredibly hard to stop crying for the last week. Peter felt like his eyes just couldn’t get dry before another wave of sobs hit him. He was helplessly curled up in his room or sitting on the toilet seat in his school or hiding in some alley. He was such a useless, pointless sack of bones and meat that couldn’t do anything right because apparently even his latest idea to help people made someone die.
God, what a horrible human being he had to be to cause so much death in only fifteen years.
Pushing away the feeling of bile rising from way deep inside him, Peter let his ears focus on the sound of footsteps approaching the door. There was a brief pause as the person must have looked through the hole in the door to see who was on the other side and Peter knew he looked like a mess already. His T-shirt was wrinkled and his hair hasn’t been brushed in forever. He just didn’t have the energy to stand in front of a mirror and care about what he looked like. There were also dark circles under his eyes from his lack of sleeping the last week, ever since it happened. And even though he wasn’t currently crying, there was the feeling of tears waiting to burst into the surface, so maybe his eyes were glossy or red. Who knows.
There was a single moment when Peter thought the door wouldn’t open. That whoever was inside wouldn’t want to hear what Peter had to say or wouldn’t want visitors. Which would definitely make sense because Peter felt like he was going to combust from just standing there, and he wasn’t even a part of that family. But the door did open and a woman in her late thirties opened it.
As if to prove Peter wasn’t the most miserable person in the world, the woman had even darker circles under her eyes and she looked like she hasn’t changed her clothes in the last week at all. They were all black – from her baggy shirt that had a few stains – probably from bleach – to her flip-flops that were a little torn and Peter could imagine them falling off her legs every few minutes. There were two children in the living room behind her. They were around ten and they were both playing with a robot toy while sending Peter curious looks in a way that must have felt pretty damn sneaky to them.
“I’m sorry, young man, but please, no more visitors today – “
Peter shook his head quickly. “N-no. I’m not…” His eyes fell on a Spider-Man toy that one of the boy picked up before he began to run away from the other kid with his robot. They were both laughing, though there was something hollow in their eyes, like it wasn’t quite right. Peter looked back at the woman that started closing the door. “I needed to apologize!”
The woman stopped and looked at him. Her eyes traveled up and down his body like she was sizing him up and then she opened the door just a little more. Her eyes were green, like the eyes on the face that covered every magazine, newspaper or website in the city. Like the eyes on the signs that people carried around as they mourned together. Peter looked away quickly, unable to look her in the eyes when they looked just like HIS eyes.
Her lips thinned a little. “Are you one of Dean’s bullies? From his school?” She asked, voice a little cold.
“No.” Peter shook his head and put his hands in his pockets before he decided that looked too casual and inappropriate so he pulled them out and started swinging them uncomfortably. Something in the woman’s face relaxed and she tilted her head at Peter, waiting to hear what he had to say. Oh, God… what now? “I, uh… I’m…” He exhaled and it came out shaky enough to draw a look of concern out of the woman. God, no. That was terrible. She shouldn’t pity him.
“Are you okay? Do you need a glass of water? I can – “
He shook his head frantically. “No. No, please… don’t.” He squeezed his eyes shut and then took in a deep breath before locking his eyes with the bright green of hers that made him want to curl and hide in a dark corner again. “I was there. When it… when it happened.” He said. The woman froze. “I… those guys came after me and… and then he showed up and he drew their attention away and he… he…” He shook his head and his hands trembled by his sides. He quickly shoved them into his pockets again.
The woman let go of the door. “Oh.” She said.
And then she gestured for Peter to come in, which he… he really didn’t deserve this, but he couldn’t say no to her so he just walked inside, feeling the weight of the eyes of the two kids on him. They looked like twins but he couldn’t be sure. No one really heard anything from the family so far. All people had was the name of the deceased and the refusal of his family to talk to anyone about it. But Peter still managed to get their address. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. Maybe it was a mistake.
But what kind of person would he have been had he not come here?
The woman told him to sit on the couch before she went over to the kitchen. Peter was pretty sure she didn’t only go to get him something to drink but also to compose herself. The little kids stopped playing and creeped towards him curiously, their eyes wide open with unveiled interest.
“Who are you?” One of them asked.
“My name is Peter.”
“Did Dean really save you?”
Peter’s breath hitched. “Y-yeah.” He could have saved Dean instead, though. “He did.”
“Was it cool?”
“Was he cool?”
“Do you remember what he said to the bad guys?”
“Were you scared?”
“Do you think Dean was scared?”
“I miss him…”
The boys fell quiet and looked down, their faces glum. Peter opened his mouth but nothing comforting came to mind. He had no idea what he could possibly say or do to make things easier on them. They were miserable because their brother died and he was the person Dean sacrificed himself for. If only Peter could go back in time and yell at that guy to not do it because Peter was never in real danger until Dean showed up. He could defend himself. Dean couldn’t.
But it was futile. The past was in the past and Peter left it a week ago, although his thoughts never did leave that moment when the gun fired twice and the body of Dean fell to the ground, the thug running away from the scene as quickly as possible. Peter looked down at his hands and swore he could still see the blood on them, glistening and accusing Peter of not doing everything in his power to stop it. Accusing him of letting an innocent kid die for him when everything could have turned out okay.
He choked on a sob and quickly tried to swallow it when the woman came back into the room, two glasses of tea in her hands. Peter took one of them politely but didn’t drink it. He could smell the mint inside from a mile away and while it wouldn’t kill him, only make him sick, he didn’t feel like tempting fate right now. There was a pang in his chest that told him he had to take a sip to not be rude in front of his hostess, but he… well, he couldn’t.
The woman smiled at him sadly. “Peter, you said?” She glanced at the kids who went right back to playing with their toys. She rolled her eyes a little fondly at them and Peter noted the way her hands shook, the tea trembling in its glass. “My name is Sara.” She introduced herself. “And these are Cliff and Barry. I’m sorry if they come off a little… unfiltered.” She pursed her lips. “They can be a lot.”
“No, it’s… it’s fine.” Peter shook his head and brought the steaming tea to his lips. He didn’t take a sip, though, instead opting to pretend to drink it. Sara looked like it was enough for her and took such a small sip from her own drink that Peter was worried about her. She did look skinny. Has she always been this skinny or was this the result of losing a child? It didn’t really matter – this was none of his business.
Sara plastered on a smile. “I know you said you needed to apologize,” She said and Peter had to consciously keep his grip from shattering the glass he was holding. “But there’s nothing you need to feel bad about. It wasn’t your fault. My kid just saw you were in trouble and chose to help.” Her lips quivered. “And now everyone keeps calling him a hero and…” She sniffed. “I mean, they think he’s Spider-Man. How crazy is that? Someone dresses up in a Spider-Man costume and suddenly it’s enough to make an entire city mourn the loss of someone he wasn’t even…” She trailed off and tried to take a deep breath in.
Peter shifted in his seat uncomfortably and chanced a look towards the twins. They gave their mother a quick look but then went back to playing. Peter was sure it wasn’t the first time she was going to cry in the last week. Wouldn’t be the last one either. “You think…” He licked his lips and looked down at his hands. “You think he wasn’t Spider-Man?”
“I know he wasn’t.” Sara choked out a laugh. She looked so incredibly sad but her eyes were so bright. “Dean… he had cancer. We tried everything but we knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer. He should have already been dead, actually, but he fought with everything he had for one more day, one more minute…” She smiled shakily and Peter quickly put down his tea before it spilled all over the carpet and his clothes and the couch. “He wasn’t going to fight, you know. He wanted to give up at first when we were told about how long he approximately had. But then he went to school and he was waiting for me on the curb and he… he was feeling really down and Spider-Man just showed up and – “
“Sat with him.” Peter finished. Sara looked at him in surprise and Peter’s fingers twisted in his lap as he tried to squeeze his brain to get to that memory. The memory he didn’t even know was related to this person that threw himself in front of Peter to save him from getting shot. “He gave him cookies that he had and told him that… that everyone was destined to die. The only thing that matters is what you do before it happens.” His eyes widened in shock and he dropped his head into his open palms. “Oh, my God. It’s all my fault…”
Peter never expected someone to take his advice and interpret it in a way that endangered them. He never expected someone would hear him out and then jump in front of a bullet to make sure their life was worthwhile because… because that was the opposite of what he stood for as Spider-Man. Not that he could ever stomach the idea of wearing that costume again after someone died in it, trying to do his job to save HIM.
The thing was, because Peter didn’t go out as Spider-Man for the last week, people truly believed the kid that died was Spider-Man. And they were all shocked at the revelation that it was a kid. A seventeen-year-old high schooler, no less. Of course, that wasn’t the truth but Peter could imagine that if people were outraged at a seventeen-year-old vigilante, they would be even more distressed to find out that the actual vigilante was fifteen. A sophomore in school that didn’t have anyone to turn to when it came to being Spider-Man.
He was startled when Sara’s hand landed on his one, squeezing a bit. He looked up at her, expecting to see anger or disgust. Maybe betrayal. But the woman looked at him with kindness, like he did her a favor. That was so far from the truth, he almost laughed. He basically killed her son. That wasn’t a favor – that was like handing her a ticking time bomb. From the corner of his eyes he could see Cliff and Barry staring at him, their toys forgotten again and their mouths wide open. Right… he told them who he was. He wasn’t planning on it, but they probably deserved to know who they let into their home.
“I’m sorry.” Peter said in a small voice. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean for him to die. It all happened so fast and I didn’t know what to do because I was so confused to see someone dressed up as me that I didn’t move in time and he…” He felt the tears trickling down his cheeks but didn’t move to wipe them away. Sara just watched him patiently. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, ma’am.”
She hummed. “Does anyone else know? Your family? The Avengers? Anyone??”
Shaking his head, Peter tried not to look at the twins who were now openly staring at him like he was an exhibit in a zoo. “Nobody.” He noticed the concern on Sara’s face and felt like he was taking something that didn’t belong to him. This woman just lost her child and here Peter was, pitying himself and getting her to feel bad for him when he was responsible for her son’s death. “I just… I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help because this was all my fault and I… there has to be something I can do, right?”
“Nobody knows you’re doing this?” Sara asked, ignoring him completely. Peter frowned at her a little, confused as to why she was focusing on that part of the sentence instead of what he expected her to latch onto. She put a hand on her chest. “Peter, when the police came to my house and told me Dean was…” She looked away for a moment. “They told me he was Spider-Man and for a moment I actually believed it and it crushed me that my own son would hide something this big from me. Later on I realized it didn’t make sense, but in that moment I felt like I didn’t even know who my own kid was. I can’t imagine what your parents would go through if something happened to you and they found out the truth from strangers.”
Peter tapped his hand against his thigh over and over again anxiously. “Oh, um, that’s not a problem, actually, since my parents are…” He glanced at the twins and then looked back at Sara. “They’re… gone.” She pinched her nose. “But my aunt… well, if she I told her she’d make me stop and I can’t – “ He cut himself off. Could he really not stop? Because he was planning on just that. He was planning on never wearing that cursed suit again. But Uncle Ben would be so disappointed in Peter if he chose to give it all up like that. Someone died – it was horrible – but more people could get hurt without Peter to help them. “She’d freak out and then I’d freak out and then…” He shrugged.
“But she loves you.” Sara said and Peter couldn’t argue that point. “She loves you enough to want to make you stop because she doesn’t want you to get hurt. Which means that it would really hurt her to find out the truth. The longer you keep it from her, the harder it would be for her to accept, Peter.”
He shook his head.
“Well, I can’t make you.” She relented and then pressed her lips for a moment. “Why not tell the Avengers?”
“They’d make me stop, too. Claim I’m too young.”
Sara frowned. “How old are you?” She asked. Peter didn’t reply. “Peter… how old are you? You can’t be older than Dean.” She waited but Peter just looked down and flexed his fingers nervously. He couldn’t. He couldn’t tell her because if she knew, she’d freak out, too. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me.” She gave up and Peter heaved a sigh of relief even though he knew she now was sure he couldn’t be old enough. He was young – people usually mistook him for twelve, so he looked even younger than he was – and he knew it. He just didn’t want people to look at him like he was a kid.
They were quiet after that, sitting together in the living room and seemingly trapped in their own heads. The twins creeped towards Peter as if to inspect him from a closer range, their eyes taking him in carefully. Peter wanted to tell them he didn’t deserve their admiration because their brother was gone because of him, but he couldn’t say it out loud and he couldn’t help but feel a little better at the look on their faces, like he was still their hero.
“You said you wanted to see if you could do something for us?” Sara asked eventually and Peter looked at her before nodding quickly. She nodded. “I don’t think you owe us anything. In my opinion, you saved my son’s life. But I might have something in mind.”
Waking up in a daze, Peter blinked up at the white ceiling above his head. There was a constant beeping sound coming from nearby and the breaths of two people that mingled together, both of them slow and steady. Calm.
Peter felt like his body was a sack of potatoes, too heavy for him to move. He tried lifting his hands or just moving his fingers, but his brain protested, yelling at him to go back to sleep and just relax, which was hard because how could he relax when he didn’t know what was going on, right?
He remembered shouts and someone with a knife. He remembered a scared group of teenagers in an alley with those buff men surrounding them. He remembered pain coursing through his body and slipping down the wall to the ground until he was just lying there, panting. He remembered taking out his phone and calling for help. Or maybe he didn’t call for help? Maybe he called and then he fell unconscious?
The faces of those scared teenagers popped in his head and urged him to sit up and check to see if they were all okay. Make sure they made it out of there without suffering or getting stabbed or shot or… or… he just needed to make sure they were okay, alright? He needed to know they weren’t dead or bleeding out, staining the dirty ground with the crimson substance.
But a hand on his shoulder pushed him back down and Peter narrowed his eyes to try and focus on the figure looming over him. He had sunglasses over his eyes but Peter could see the worry shining through from behind the lenses. The goatee was a dead giveaway as to the identity of the person.
“Mr. Stark?” He slurred. He wasn’t even sure the name came out right out of his mouth. Was he drugged? That wasn’t possible, because nothing worked on him thanks to the spider-bite. He knew that for sure, at least. But… but didn’t Mr. Stark promise to find something? Uh… they worked together, right? They… there was… something… “What…?”
Mr. Stark smirked down at him, trying to mask his concern. “Relax, kid. Just go back to sleep – you need the rest. It’s all fine in the land of the living, Spiderling.” He said. Peter still tried to get up, though. “Come on, sleep. You look like you’ve been run over by a bus. All floaty and hazy. Can you even recognize me? I’d be surprised if you could actually sit upright now seeing as you’re barely able to look me in the eye. Hey, kid? Down. Lie back down unless you want me to use my suit to force you to sleep. Is that what you want?”
Another voice groaned. “Don’t be mean to him.” It was a woman. A much more delicate hand touched Peter’s cheek and he turned around to see who it belonged to, his body still half-rising from the bed. He couldn’t think straight, that was for sure, but he was pretty sure that woman was Sara. She smiled at him. “Peter, everyone is safe, okay? Just rest, honey.”
Oh, well. If they were really safe…
He dropped back down and sleep overtook him immediately.
Apparently, he got shot trying to protect a bunch of teenagers. The men left after he fell down and ran away, scared of getting caught, and Peter called Tony to tell him he was hurt because, yeah, that was something he had to do now. If Peter needed help, Sara made him promise he would call Tony Stark – the only Avenger Peter was willing to share his secret with.
To say that the man wasn’t happy about Peter being a kid was… putting it lightly. He hated it. He tried to make Peter stop, claiming he was too young for this and that he could come back later, when he was an actual adult that could legally drink. But Peter stood his ground and Tony didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Peter was going to do it whether Tony liked it or not, so the man’s best choice was to just let him do it while assisting the best he could.
Once Peter was stable and knocked out from the pain and the strong medicine Dr. Cho gave him, Tony called Sara to let her know what happened. It wasn’t something he was too fond on – informing people he didn’t know when the kid got hurt – but Sara was the one who made Peter talk to him and she was the only other person who knew about Peter’s alter ego. She insisted that she wanted to know when Peter was hurt, so Tony promised he’d call her. At least she wasn’t going to scream at him for not taking care of her kid since… Peter wasn’t her kid.
“He looks so small when he’s like this.” Sara noted.
Tony turned to look away from his tablet and up at the sleeping kid in the white bed. The medbay in the tower was equipped to handle the Avengers and maybe some of the workers from time to time, and now it could handle Spider-Man, too. It was the first time Peter came in while being unconscious, but it wasn’t his first time in the tower because he needed someone to treat a wound or an injury from his patrols.
Humming, Tony put away his tablet. “Yeah. He is small.”
“Younger than even Dean was.” She said and Tony glanced at her. The subject never really came up. He knew that Peter only revealed the truth to Sara because the kid felt responsible for her son’s death. He knew that she asked him to tell Tony and that despite his objections, the kid still followed the wish of the woman. He knew that he mourned Spider-Man’s death for a while before the real kid came back out there, declaring that it wasn’t his body they had found. That he was still safe.
It felt like falling at the rollercoaster, that moment when the world lost Spider-Man, supposedly. They all truly believed it was him. That Dean was the kid that swung around the city, saving people. Tony wasn’t close to Spider-Man and he still felt the loss that came with the kid’s death. And then Spider-Man showed back up and told the world that it wasn’t him and that it was a fake. That he was still alive and that he regretted the innocent kid that had died…
Somehow, those news – both the death and the correction – became more popular than Tony’s declaration of being Iron-Man all those years ago. He almost felt insulted. But really, a lot of people cared about Spider-Man and what happened to him. Tony was relieved that the kid wasn’t actually gone, but he was less than thrilled to find out that he was even younger than the fake Spider-Man.
Sara smiled and grabbed Peter’s hand, her eyes unwavering as she gazed at the sleeping boy. “I wish I could wrap him in bubble-wrap and keep him safe forever.” She admitted, sounding almost guilty. Frankly, Tony couldn’t blame her – he felt like doing the same thing. “But I don’t think he’d like that.”
“He’s stronger than he seems.” Tony reminded her.
“What if one day he faces something that’s too much for him?”
He moved his eyes from Sara to the sleeping kid, chest rising and falling with each breath. He looked peaceful, like this. Just a kid that no one would ever suspect of having superpowers. Tony smiled. “Spider-Man always gets back up.” He pushed a stray curl out of the kid’s face. “And if he can’t do it himself, he has people to help him, too.”
Looking up at the woman, Tony found Sara tearing her gaze away from Peter in favor of nodding at Tony in understanding and gratitude. He got it. Even though this kid wasn’t hers, she seemed to care about him. And as long as he had any say in this, he wasn’t going to let her lose another kid anytime soon.
Besides, the kid kinda grew on him, too.