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“Hey,” Peter’s voice cracks, and he licks his lips. He feels stupid. No matter what Pop tried to teach him about God and the afterlife and faith, Peter is a scientist. He always adhered more closely to Dad’s perspective than anything. Still, it’s not enough to make him stop. Not quite. “Hey, Dad,” he continues softly. “Papa.” He ducks his head, clenching his fingers into fists on his knees.
The roof is kind of chilly, despite the unusually warm temperatures. He supposes it’s because Avengers tower is so high up, the cold comes from the wind chill more than anything. He curls up a bit more tightly and patently ignores the cold. “I—I don’t really know what to say. I miss you.”
He listens for answers in the whistle of the wind, but none come. He wasn’t expecting any to—not really.
“Kennedy is doing okay. She’s strong—but you already knew that. I try to look out for her as much as I can, but I’m in college now. And she’s got Tony and Steve.” He huffs out a short laugh at the idea of telling his parents about their alternate selves, but figures it isn’t any weirder than talking to his dead parents in the first place.
“They’re good people, Dads. Though I guess you could probably guess as much, considering they’re you. Well, almost. They never chose to be parents—not those type of people, I guess. Hell, I’m pretty sure Steve and Tony hated each other’s guts when we got here. But they take care of Ken, and I know they try to look out for me, too.”
Peter scuffs his shoe against the concrete and looks out over the cityscape. It’ll throw him off, sometimes, when he sees something that was never there in his universe. It’s happening less and less lately. He’s been here long enough to see the changes happen gradually. He’s starting to mix up what happened in his world and what happened in this one.
He remembers, back when he first got here, how every little difference stood out like neon paint in a grey room. He would see something that was different and his mind would immediately think “wrong”. The lines are blurred, now. He can’t really tell if he thinks that’s a good thing or not. But he’s here now, and his world is gone, so there’s really no use dwelling over it. He’s alive, Kennedy’s alive, and they’re safe. That’s what really matters.
“I met someone,” he starts suddenly, a small smile pulling at his features. It doesn’t feel as foreign as it used to, smiling. “His name is Wade. I know, I know,” he hurries, “even after I came out, you still kept hoping I’d find some nice girl and get a normal life. That I wouldn’t have to deal with all the stupidity in the world, yadda yadda, I know. But see—”
He swallows, some of the good humor draining from his voice and soaking into the concrete, lost. “The way I see it, that ship already sailed. I feel like it sailed the moment you guys decided to adopt me. Honestly, two gay superheroes for dads?” He laughs, and some of the pain eases in his chest. “That’s not normal. Neither is watching the world end and transporting to an alternate universe. Neither is getting bitten by a radioactive spider and winding up with superpowers. Don’t worry—I’m being careful. I’m just saying… I don’t think ‘normal’ was ever really going to work.”
Peter laughs to himself and ducks his head, scrubbing a hand through his hair until it’s a right mess, sticking up in twenty different directions. “Besides, Wade loves me anyway.” Something small but warm curls around his heart, and Peter’s starting to recognize it as the way Wade makes him feel. Different than anyone he’s ever met, different than Gwen. That’s how he knows. “And I love him. He’s it, Dads. He’s the one.”
Peter shifts a little, checking behind him to make sure he’s alone, because he’s kind of having a soul-bearing moment here and he’d rather not be overheard. There’s no one there. “It’s not going to be easy, I know. Wade is… Well, he’s basically the definition of ‘not easy’. But he gets me, and he loves me, and we’re happy.”
He ducks his head for a moment and draws in a deep breath. “I wish you guys could’ve met him. You’d probably think he’s a riot, Dad, just taking into account Tony’s reaction. Papa, I know you’d be hesitant at first, but you’d warm up to him. He’s got a good heart, and I know you would see that. He’s—” Peter cuts himself off and sucks in more air, his chest suddenly expanding with heat. “I don’t even know how to describe it. If this is how you guys felt about each other then…” He pauses, chewing on his lower lip. “Then I’m glad you didn’t live to see each other die.”
Silence falls then, heavy and still, and Peter just keeps on breathing because there’s nothing else to do. He’s not one of those people that feels grief in waves, or someone that can just turn it off or ignore it. For him, it’s a constant thing, and he’s felt his parents’ loss every day, without fail, since he first knew they were gone. He wonders all the time whether it was quick. If they lived long enough to know the other was gone, if they died overcome with grief or if they died fighting, not knowing, hopeful. Even if they did know, if one of them went before the other and they knew… Peter’s just grateful that they didn’t have to keep going much longer. They didn’t have to learn how to live without one another. As much as Peter misses them both, he feels like it might’ve been worse, had only one lived. Because that kind of grief doesn’t fade with time. That kind of grief burns you up from the inside out, and it would’ve killed anyone, sooner or later. It would’ve been too much. Watching your family die…
There was a part of him, before they got to this universe, that wondered what would happen when they got pushed back to the uppermost floors of the tower. There was a part of him that planned for their eventual deaths.
If they finally got pushed back to the uppermost floors; if they finally ran out of all other options…
“I’m not going to be bug bait,” Mara hissed out in a hushed voice.
“No,” Peter agreed immediately, “No, never.” The tinea liked to play with their food. They’d figured that out when they lost Jimmy, one of the secretary’s kids. The tinea had kept him alive for days, unable to move, while they slowly tore at chunks of his body, let the acid burn away pieces of him… Peter shivers at the memory.
“We might have to…” Mara lets her voice trail off.
“I know.”
“Peter—”
“Don’t,” he says firmly, looking away toward the boarded-up window of the tower. He hasn’t seen outside the tower walls in…god, he doesn’t know how long. He’s not sure he particularly wants to, though. Seeing New York reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble. One giant, dusty graveyard. His parents’ bodies were still out there somewhere. Unless the tinea got hungry…
“It’s our responsibility,” he says quietly, and Mara doesn’t even move. For all that she manages to repress her emotions, shift into the perfect fighter, she’s still just a girl. She isn’t even old enough to drive a car and she’s wandering around learning how to assemble and use every type of gun they can find.
“We can’t.”
“We have to, Mara,” he snaps, and Mara snaps her mouth shut and nods, once. It’s not often that Peter loses his temper, even in the slightest. He’s their leader, though he never volunteered for the role. They look up to him. They base their reactions from his, so Peter shut himself down as best he could and thought about nothing but survival. It’s the only way they were going to get through this. “I’m not going to watch those monsters tear our brothers and sisters apart. I can’t see Kennedy—” his voice breaks. Mara places one warm palm on his shoulder and waits patiently.
“If it comes to that,” he starts again, quietly. He’s not about to let any of the others overhear them. This is their burden to bear and theirs alone. If he had his choice, he wouldn’t even be telling Mara all of this. “We’ll do it when they’re asleep. They won’t even feel it. If I thought we could spare the supplies, I would cook up something airborne, but…” he doesn’t finish that sentence, but Mara understands anyway.
“Are you going to be able to?” He asks her, looking up and meeting her eyes. She doesn’t falter.
“Yes. Are you?”
Peter hesitates, but the thing that scares him the most is that he knows he can. He will. If it really does come to that, if it’s either let the tinea get her or smother Kennedy in her sleep, then he’d do it. It terrifies him. What kind of person does that make him? What has living here, in this dying world, done to him? The Peter of six months ago would never have even considered the thought. He would’ve sooner killed himself than hurt any of them, no matter the circumstances.
“Yes.” He nods to punctuate, and then glances back toward the boards covering the windows. “We still have roof access,” he adds almost nonchalantly. It takes Mara a moment, but she shifts in recognition, and it’s all the sign Peter needs to know that they don’t need to talk about it anymore. They don’t even need to think about it. If it really does come to that, then they have their plan. It’s the most humane thing they can think of, and that’s going to have to be good enough. For the rest of them, it’s going to have to be enough.
For Mara and Peter… Well, he just hopes the fall doesn’t take too long.
Peter shuts his eyes against the onslaught of memories, not faded even after all these years. The heavy smog of this New York is different enough from the New York back home that it almost keeps Peter grounded in the here and now, rather than going back to then. Back to when Mara and him had to agree to do things they never thought they’d have to do. Back to when he wasn’t even sure if he was human anymore.
The shivers start gradually, and he hardly even notices them until his teeth start clacking together so loud that he hears them echo off the concrete landscape of the roof. He curls around himself, burying his face against his knees and telling himself that he doesn’t have time for this. He doesn’t have time to be freaking out because Kennedy and the others need him. He needs to be strong for them. He needs to keep them alive, keep fighting, keep breathing. Be strong. Don’t fall apart. Don’t show fear. Kill. Kill the monsters and keep running. Keep his family safe. Keep his feelings locked away. Not safe. Be strong, Peter. Be strong.
“Shhh.” Warm arms encircling him, pulling him back until the whole world tilts. Lights dance above in blurry motion. The stars shake and shiver in the pale navy of the sky. He’s outside. How is he outside? The outside is tinea territory, they’ve been on lockdown for months. He’s going to have to talk to Kennedy about checking the system.
“Shhh.”
The lights are so bright. So bright that they burn. Burn like the fires that killed everything. Killed Dad and Papa. Killed the world. Is going to kill them. Peter wonders, does he really favor fire? Fire or acid. Both burning, tearing him apart from the inside. From the outside. Teeth—not quite teeth, jaws. Something. Monsters. The kind that aren’t supposed to exist. These monsters can’t be held back by a closed closet door or a sweep of eyes beneath the bed. These monsters are just there, always, everywhere. Burning. Destroying. Killing everything, killing everyone. Gone. Just…gone.
“Peter be still now. Peter be safe.”
Voices? But not Kennedy or Mara or Claire or Sammy or… Not any of them, so then how? Everyone is gone. Everyone but them is dead, the whole world is just dead and so how…
Safe? He’s not safe, he can’t be—he’ll never be…
“Shhh.”
“Wade,” his voice rattles over the word, like tires on gravel, dragging and catching and uneven. He knows that voice. He knows that name. Wade. Safe. He’s safe. Wade is here, he’s here. He’s right here.
Peter chokes on his own breath and rolls furiously until he’s facing the warmth; until his arms wrap around a warm, familiar figure and he buries his face into soft cotton and breathes in. Nimble fingers stroke through his hair, and Peter concentrates wholly on that feeling. He uses it to pull himself back from wherever it is he’d gone, pulls himself back to now, on the roof, with Wade. Not there, on the roof, seconds from jumping to his death. Not there, holding tight to Kennedy, trying to hide from the tinea. Here. Safe.
He curls tight around Wade and lets himself sink into him, lets Wade cover him, wrap him up and save him while he silently shakes apart. He feels like thousands of tiny, glass shards on a countertop during an earthquake. He’s just trying to keep himself together, but he can’t guard every single edge, and slowly but surely, piece by piece slips away from him, shattering all over again when it hits the floor. And every time he manages to catch one, manages to save one piece of himself, it cuts him open anew.
So instead of slicing himself to ribbons trying to hold on so tightly, so steadfast, he just…lets the pieces fall where they may. Trusting Wade to be the ground beneath him.
“Wade,” he sighs, and relief washes over him, fitting into the cracks and keeping him warm.
“Peter.”
It’s all the answer he gets, but it’s exactly what he needs. Because that’s the thing about Wade. He just…knows. He gets it, and he does absolutely everything Peter needs him to and more. They’re both broken but they’re holding each other together, and that’s why Peter knows.
This is it for him. He’s not an optimist—not anymore—but he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is it for him. Wade is it. He’s the one good thing to come out of this whole damn mess, and Peter is holding on with everything he’s got.
“I’ve got you,” Wade says softly. Peter thinks he doesn’t know just how true that is.