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Peter swung through the city, looking for anyone that might need his help.
It was a slow day. Slow meant less crime, though, so Peter wasn’t one to complain. A little boredom was well worth it if people weren’t suffering. Finding a nice rooftop to take a break, Peter let go of his web strand and landed deftly on the corner of it.
Hopping off of it onto the loose gravel of the roof, Peter stretched his arms above his head. His body felt alive with exercise but the downside of that was how hungry he always seemed to be. Peter’s stomach growled as he placed a hand over it, calculating how far he was from the hot dog stand that really loaded it up for a pretty low price. He had to be conscious of how much he spent on food now that he was on his own without May around anymore.
A pang of heartbreak hit him again and Peter released a shuddering sigh. Shaking his head, Peter cleared those thoughts of grief that wanted to crawl up again for a later time. His city needed him and that couldn’t happen if he was wallowing in the pity at the hand life had dealt him.
There was a sharp feeling of ice running down his spine that had Peter spinning around in his spot. His spidey-sense was alerting him that something was very wrong. He immediately found it when he spotted someone dark floating in the air right by the old avenger’s tower.
“What the heck is that?” Peter whispered to himself as he looked at the shadowy figure in the sky.
Peter watched two helicopters fly near the person and his eyes widen when they both lost control with a puff of black smokes flooding out. Without thinking, Peter threw himself off the roof and shot a web to swing up towards the scene. Civilians on the ground below him screamed and ran away into nearby buildings for shelter.
Peter swung as fast as the air and his webs would allow him to. His super hearing could hear how the loud screams from the scene were quickly disappearing one by one. Turning a corner, Peter was faced with an empty street as the final voice disappeared from it. A large shadow was crawling over the street and buildings around it.
The darkness was all consuming as anyone that it touched disappeared into a puff of a shadow. For a moment, Peter was almost thankful for the silence that the city never provided for his super senses. The next moment was filled with dread as Peter had no clue where those people had disappeared to and if they could be recovered.
Peter let go of his web to arch in the air in preparation of landing on a building. He was about to land on the building when his spidey-sense went off like a blaring alarm. Looking down, fear filled Peter as he realized the shadows had already reached the roof and he couldn’t escape it.
“This is going to suck majorly,” Peter gulped as the shadow touched his toe.
Peter’s scream was quickly cut off as he disappeared into a shadow.
Peter slowly opened his eyes to reveal himself to be inside a small corner store. It was one that recognized well as it was where he would often stop by after-school. It was the one that had been close to the apartment they lived in when Ben was alive. After Ben’s death, Peter and May could never bring themselves to go back there and shortly moved to another apartment that let them to never have to look at the store again.
“What the heck am I doing here?” Peter asked aloud even though he knew he wouldn’t get an answer.
Looking down, Peter realized that he was still in his Spider-Man suit. There was a jingle of a bell at the front door and Peter jumped behind a shelf to hide. How the heck was he supposed to explain how he just randomly showed up in the middle of the shop?
“Peter, go grab me some ice cream, okay?” a warm voice chuckled and Peter felt himself freeze. He knew that voice. Oh, he knew it so well despite the years it had been since he heard it.
Peeking around the edge of the shelf, Peter gasped a wet sob at seeing his uncle alive. Ben stood proud and tall like he did the day he died with gray peppering his hair. To his side, a younger pre-teen Peter grinned and turned on his heel to trot to the freezers at the back of the store.
Peter yelped as his younger self passed right past him. To his surprise, his younger self didn’t react at all about a man wearing a red spandex suit right in his view. His younger self was wearing the same nerdy shirt and cargo shorts that hot day he and Ben had made the trip to get them some ice cream. May had botched dinner again and Ben had the bright idea that they should get ice cream for dinner as a celebration for Peter getting into Midtown on a scholarship. May had wanted to argue but even she relented under the combined power of the Parker puppy-dog eyes.
Ben could be heard making small talk with the shop owner and Peter peeked around the edge. His heart was beating against his chest seeing Ben so alive and so close. His uncle was talking to the cashier that they’d known for years by that point, the two of them chuckling over something. In the back of the store, Peter’s younger self could be heard humming the imperial march loudly and off-key.
Then the door’s bell jingled again as a man wearing a dark ski mask and a hand stuffed deep into his pocket. The man seemed to size up the two men before pulling out the gun. He waved it wildly around in the air and the cashier yelped, holding his hands up in fear.
Ben, always the negotiator, held his hands up in a placating manner. All the while, Ben was making sure to put himself between the gun and Peter’s younger self who had now returned to see what the yelling was about. The ice cream was clutched tight in younger Peter’s hands, his grip almost white-knuckled from how he stood frozen in fear.
His super strength from the radioactive spider bite neither his aunt or uncle knew about yet starting to let his fingers dig into the frozen solid ice cream.
Peter gasped as the scene played out the small way it always did, one of the revolving carousel clips that haunted his nightmares.
The robber screaming at Ben.
Ben trying to reason with the robber.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
The robber running out as Peter screamed and let the ice cream fall from his hands when he ran to Ben, dropping to his knees to try and stop the blood.
“Ben!” Peter and his younger self screamed at the same time. Peter dropped to his knees on Ben’s opposite side and laid his hands on top of his younger self’s hands to apply pressure. Ben coughed loudly with blood running down his chin.
“Help!” Peter’s younger self screamed to anyone that would listen, just like how Peter did the night Ben died.
Ben raised his hand to cup younger Peter’s face, his eyes full of love. “Peter, I want you to remember: with great power, comes great responsibility.”
“Ben, wha—” Peter’s younger self started to ask before Ben’s eyes went glassy and his hand dropped away. “No! Ben! Come back!”
Peter sat back on his butt; his breath caught in his throat as he had watched Ben die for a second time. The wound that had slowly started to scab over was ripped open again with a ferocity Peter couldn’t imagine. The blood around it immediately bubbled up and spilled over the edge to leave Peter gasping for breath in a pool of grief.
Dropping his face into his hands, Peter told himself to calm down. He had to be in some type of simulation seeing he was watching from a third-person point of view versus seeing it through his younger self’s eyes again. It was something mental and if he could figure out how to get out, then he was home free.
It didn’t stop the disgusting feeling that wanted to crawl up his throat with the warm sticky blood of Ben’s on the hands of his suit.
There was a jingle again but Peter didn’t look up.
“Peter, go grab me some ice cream, okay?” Ben’s voice piped up and that made Peter pull his face out of his now non-covered in blood hands so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. It was like the scene had reset itself as Peter’s younger self went trotting to the back to get the ice cream and Ben talked to the cashier.
“What in the actual hell?” Peter breathed as he watched Ben talk. At the same exact time, the bell jingled again to show the robber come in. The screams started the same way Peter knew they would and the gun shot rang out like it did twice before.
Ben fell to the ground but Peter didn’t move. He just watched his younger self scream and beg for help. Ben still cupped Peter’s cheek and said those words that Peter lived by before dying.
And then the scene reset again.
The arguing.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
Peter tried to stop it sometimes. It would never succeed as the shooter, who was some two-bit robber, would somehow have the same combat skills as the Winter Soldier and would still shoot Ben down. Peter would have to watch Ben fall to the ground and die before the scene reset again.
The arguing.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
Sometimes, the store around him would come alive to make him watch no matter how much he tried to ignore it. The shelf he had been hiding behind to avoid watching smacked him forward back into the aisle to watch in time as Ben was shot. Or the bags of candy would launch at him to stumble out to get a face full of blood sprayed at him would of Ben’s back. It wouldn’t let him run and hide – only wanting him to watch yet again as Ben was killed before resetting.
The arguing.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
It would reset again…
The arguing.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
…and reset again…
The arguing.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
…and reset again…
The arguing.
A gun shot.
Ben falling to the ground.
…no matter how many times Peter tried to stop it.
“Stop!” Peter screamed shrilly with his hands pressing against his ears as tight as possible. The jingle of the door as Ben and Peter’s past self entering the store was like a death toll every time Peter heard it. Every time that small innocent bell rang, an intense wave of dread rolled over Peter.
Despite what the hero in him wanted, the person inside of Peter couldn’t take seeing Ben die one more time.
So, he ran away.
Peter kept his hands over his ears as he cried, running as fast as his legs would allow him. There was only the backroom door available and Peter ran right through that. He didn’t even try to open it and instead burst through it. Peter’s sorrow was quickly invaded as Peter was deposited into another scene that he knew very well.
“No,” Peter breathed, his wet eyes refilling with tears. Reaching up, Peter ripped his mask off his head and breathed in the ash of the compound’s field right after they had beat Thanos. The ash tasted as terrible it had that day and the groans of the defeated were snuffed out.
“Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark, hey, can you hear me?” a voice said behind him and Peter sobbed.
Slowly, slower than ever as he wanted to prolong the moment before he was hit with one of the worst moments of his life, Peter turned around. It was worse watching it all over again.
“It’s Peter, Mr. Stark.” Peter – a version of Peter that was only a year or so younger than his current self – was kneeling in front of a near dead Tony with his hands on the Iron Man suit’s chest. The younger Peter looked like he was trying his best to not cry and hold it together as he looked at Tony’s face but his mentor kept just staring off into the distance. The younger Peter took a deep breath and forced a smile on his face.
“No, no, no,” Peter whispered to himself with his hands over his ears but unable to force himself to turn away. His mask slipped from between his fingers to fall against the dusty ground by his feet.
“We won, Mr. Stark,” the younger Peter said, gulping. “We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, we won.” A pair of gentle hands placed themselves on Peter’s shoulder and started to pull him away. The younger Peter let a small sob slip from between his lips as his strong façade broke. “I’m sorry Tony,” younger Peter said, his hands still holding onto the armor for as long as possible.
“No!” Peter screamed shrilly and turned on his heel. He knew what was coming next. That pool of grief that had him gasping for breath was now rising higher to try and drown him. It pushed against him from all sides and Peter struggled to stay afloat.
Peter ran again. He watched Ben’s death on replay too many times and he couldn’t go through that with Tony again. Tony’s death was too fresh in his mind despite the year or so it had been.
Peter ran even as the scene around him reset but his screams kept the sounds of his younger self’s words far away from him. He wasn’t watching where he was running – only that he was running as far as his legs would allow him to. Peter didn’t see the puddle in front of him and yelped as he fell through it into another place.
Crashing to his knees, Peter looked around the destroyed lobby he was in. May was laying on the ground off to the side from when the Green Goblin’s hoverboard came crashing into the lobby and plowed her over. The Green Goblin was crouched on his hover board, a beeping pumpkin bomb in his hands. Peter, the Peter from only a few months ago, was bruised and beaten but had a fighting spirit still lit in his eyes. The Green Goblin’s eyes looked to the side before the spark of an idea settled in them.
“You’ll thank me later,” the Green Goblin purred before throwing the bomb towards May.
“No!” younger Peter screamed and jumped in the air to intercept the bomb. It worked but sent younger Peter crashing to the ground. The force and light of it caused Peter to cry out, pawing at his face in pain.
By the time Peter regained his senses, younger Peter and May were already up and about to head out of the destroyed lobby. May had a hand on his back but she started to flag behind. May, unstable on her feet, looked at younger Peter and blinked rapidly.
“Let me just catch my breath,” May gasped softly. The hand that had been on younger Peter’s back lifted up slowly and shook something fierce. She and younger Peter looked at it for a moment before May’s legs gave out and she fell to the floor.
Younger Peter caught her and gently laid up to the ground with a slab of concrete propping her upper body up. Younger Peter brushed some hair from May’s face, looking her over. “What happened? Are you okay?” younger Peter asked.
Peter’s mouth went dry as he watched, frozen on his knees next to them. The pool of grief was growing deeper and there was now a hand grabbing onto his ankle to pull under the surface of it. Peter tried kicking at it but the hand held on firm.
May was mumbling something and younger Peter gulped. “Yeah, you’re okay. What happened?” he asked while looking her up and down.
May smiled at younger Peter, her chest heaving. “Just help me… to catch my breath,” she breathes but it is laborious.
“Okay, well, you can catch your breath. I’m right here,” younger Peter assured her. The fire crackled around them but Peter didn’t let his attention shift from his aunt. Not even that suffocating grief could draw him away…or perhaps it was making him focus only on May. Younger Peter brushes a hand down the side of May’s hair. “We’re gonna take our time, you catch your breath, and…and we’ll take you to a doctor, okay?”
Younger Peter pulls back one hand and notices the red, then bends down to look at the concrete below where May is laying. Peter knows what’s next and covers his mouth as he watches his younger self pull his hand from May’s shoulder with it covered in his Aunt’s blood. The smoke and ask from the destroyed lobby had covered it up before but now, all Peter could smell was that blood. “Are you okay?” May breathes quietly.
Panic sets into younger Peter’s eyes. He turned to the large gaping hole at the front. “Someone help! I need an ambulance! Please, somebody…!” younger Peter screams.
“No one is coming,” Peter whispers to himself. He takes in everything of May, noting the details that he hadn’t noticed before. How there was a scuff on her check. The section of hair that had been sliced off. The fading light in her eyes.
May blinked slowed. “What happened?” she asked in confusion.
Younger Peter turns back to his aunt, eyes filling with tears as he gingerly places a hand on the top of her head. He cups her cheek in the other hand and runs his thumb down it in a soothing manner. “Nothing, You’re okay. You’re okay,” he repeats. It is uncertain who he was trying to convince May was okay in that moment.
May smiled up at Peter one last time. “I’ll just…catch my breath…”
“Okay, I’m right here.” Younger Peter nodded. He tucks a lock of May’s hair behind her ear. “I’m right here. I’m right here. We’re okay. Just me and you.”
May looks off to the side, almost seemingly at Peter. Peter gasps a sob all over again as her eyes go glassy and she exhales with no inhale following. Reaching a hand out, Peter placed it over his aunt’s heart and cries as his younger self switches between begging for her to come back and apologizing.
Before he can get too far, Peter feels May disappear from below his hand as the scene resets itself again. Peter falls forward with May’s sudden disappearance as the scene resets and he barely catches himself in time to stay up. That pool of grief now had another hand grabbing onto his other ankle.
Peter cries the entire time as he watches May this next go about – from when the Green Goblin throws the bomb and May gets up. The pain is so fresh and Peter decides he is done with it – he wants to fight against fate and the grief. Grinding his teeth, Peter pushes off the ground and wraps an arm around May’s waist.
May blinks in surprise and looks at him. “What are you doing?” her tone accusatory.
“I’m not losing you again,” Peter stated in furious determination. He can spot the flashing red and blue lights outside that offer salvation for May. “You are going to live.”
May shook her head and stopped in place. His god-like strength seemed to have left in that moment and he couldn’t hold May up as she dropped to the ground in a dead-weight right where she first fell. Peter gasped and rolled May onto her back as she looked right up at him.
“May, May, please hold on,” Peter begged, his tears falling onto his aunt’s face. “I need you. Please – please, don’t leave me.”
“You can’t stop this,” she said simply before she stopped breathing.
May disappeared from below his hands and the scene around him reset again. The Green Goblin bounced the pumpkin bomb in his hand before throwing it. Peter’s past self would jump to intercept it, throwing it to the side enough that the explosion wouldn’t hurt May but did send him crashing into the ground.
Peter stayed on his knees where May had initially fallen. Blood pooled below her and crawled to stain the knee of Peter’s suit when it touched him. May was alive and breathing but that would only be for a few moments before her injuries from the goblin’s hoverboard running her over would become too much and kill her.
And then the scene reset.
Again.
And again.
Holding his head in his hands, Peter curled over so much that his forehead touched the dirty floor of the lobby and cried. The pain was too much for him and the grief of watching the death of the three people that he considered parents again broke something in him. It was too much and Peter cried as he didn’t know what else to do.
Peter didn’t know what he did to deserve this cruel and unusual punishment.
The hands pulled him fully into the pool of grief.
Peter gasped loudly as he was returned to the real world, sitting up in a hurry from where he was laid out on the ground. He scrambled up to his feet and stumbled over to the edge of the building. With his hands braced on the short wall lining the roof, Peter looked out onto his city to see what that could have possibly been.
It felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest as the adrenaline and grief of what he had saw still haunted him. Sniffling, Peter wiped at his face with his forearm and realized that his mask was still on. Rolling it up to his nose, Peter wiped the snot again that had formed from his tears that carried over from the nightmare.
A loud cry from down below had Peter jerking back to the reality that he was out as Spider-Man right now and he had a job to do. Pulling his mask back down and forcing his tears to dry up, Peter shot a web and jumped off the roof to go swinging down. The cry he heard was a woman kneeling on the ground as she struggled to get off but her legs wouldn’t let her up.
Peter landed next to her and offered a hand. The woman jolted and looked at the hand offered to her, letting her eyes travel up to the body that owned it. A sense of relief seemed to fill her and she gingerly took his hand. Peter helped the woman up and looked her over to make sure she wasn’t hurt.
“Are you okay?” Peter asked.
“Yes,” the lady nodded her head but there was a haunted look to her gaze. Looking up, she met the gaze of the mask’s white lens. “Thank you, Spider-Man.”
“Anytime,” Peter said and went to help a man nearby up. He held his hand out and felt a small tingle of his spidey-sense right before the man slapped it away.
“Don’t touch me, murderer,” the man hissed and hefted himself up on his own. He made sure to spit at Peter’s feet before stalking away, shaking from fear the entire time.
“That was rude of him,” the lady scoffed, the fear slowly disappearing from her stance but not from her eyes.
“It happens, don’t worry about it,” Peter shrugged. He made sure to salute the woman before jumping in the air and shooting a web high to attach to one of the buildings. Pulling the web, Peter went swinging through the air. He shot more and more webs to gain height and soon, he was soaring above most of the buildings of the city.
He heard a commotion from by the old avenger’s tower and Peter changed his destination mid-air. He swung through the air, one web at a time, until he made it to the tower that he used to spend time with after-school with Tony. Shaking his head before new tears of grief for happier past times, Peter found a good place to see what was going on nearby.
Peter let go of his web and landed deftly on the rooftop across the street from the tower and walked over to the edge. Looking over the edge, Peter could see a large crowd of reporters and then a woman that he recognized from the news with her court trials going on appeared from a curtain. Following after her was a group of gray heroes that Peter knew in varying degrees.
“For months, I have been working on something in the background,” Valentina started, her voice full of mysterious anticipation for the reporters. “A top-secret project for the betterment and hope of our great country.”
“What is she going on about?” Peter murmured to himself.
“I would like to introduce you to the New Avengers!” Valentina announced, gesturing a hand to the gray heroes behind her. The man that looked out of place with them clapped along, Yelena shooting him a look.
Peter frowned slightly behind his mask.
The New Avengers?
He rolled it over his tongue but it didn’t settle right. It was like a piece of candy that he expected to be sweet but make him pucker his lips with its sourness. It was a change that Peter hadn’t been expecting.
Peter shook his head and turned away, the questions being hurled around in the air by reporters at Valentina and The New Avengers fading away as Peter left. Peter wasn’t sure how he felt about this new team that was supposed to take the place of the team that used to protect the city. It felt wrong but Peter knew that life continued on even if half of the original Avengers team was gone and the other half were no longer active in the hero business.
But that was going to be a thought for another time when he was off the clock. He could hear the cries of lost children and confused civilians after the chaos of that nightmarish shadow zone. Having been through his worst nightmares – and watching them over and over and over and over – Peter knew how they were all going to be feeling.
It didn’t matter if half of the city’s population still hated him and thought of him as a murderer of Quentin Beck even after the spell that erased the memory of his identity from everyone in the world. It didn’t matter if Peter was now alone in the word with no back-up or family. It didn’t matter if he had to watch his best friend and girlfriend from a distance live their happily lives without him anymore. It didn’t matter that he had to force himself out of bed some days as he fought for a reason to keep going in a world that only wanted to beat him down.
It didn’t matter since Peter was going to help everyone he could with these powers given to him.
Because the city needs their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.