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“We now have updates on the condition of Spider-Man...”
Frank wasn't someone who regretted his actions. He had his way and it worked. In his line of work he couldn't afford to hesitate anytime Spider-Man had a moral objection.
This once he wished he had. Maybe then he wouldn't have to live to regret this.
He could still remember the moment the kid moved the girl. The moment of realization that he'd be hit. That Frank had shot to kill. The moment of impact. The second Spider-Man stood frozen, the blue of his suit slowly turning red to match the rest of it. Then he'd collapsed.
Frank didn't remember much between that and arriving at the hospital. He knew he had rushed down the stairs from the roof. That he had ditched his van on the way after traffic proved to be too much. He had seen the girl kneeling over Spider-Man, panicking, trying to stop the blood. Then the kid was in his arms and he was rushing to the nearest hospital.
Once he got there, Frank had been left standing in the lobby, arms now empty, covered in enough blood that he knew what the outcome would be before the doctors had the chance to tell him.
Just this once he wished he'd missed.
“Following an incident at the Department of Damage Control involving an enhanced individual...”
Jean didn't want to lose any more people in her life. After their mom had abandoned them, she had at least had Sara. Then Damage Control, Bill Metzger, had taken her and Jean had been alone. Then she had at least been able to focus on trying to find Sara. But V-Max had meant nothing and Sara had been dead the whole time.
Spider-Man had tried to help and he was going to end up just like Sara because of it.
Jean had tried her best to help him. She really did. But extending her mind farther than she ever had, controlling all those people, took too much out of her. She couldn't contain her sobs when she realized she wouldn't be able to help. In the end all she could do was put pressure on the wound and hope someone else could.
Help had arrived in the form of Frank Castle, looking so panicked Jean started crying harder. He had taken Spider-Man and left just as quickly as he'd arrived.
Then Jean was alone again, kneeling in a puddle of blood.
“The masked vigilante has spent hours in critical condition…”
MJ stared at the news covering what had just happened. The first thing she had done after coming back to herself was turning on the TV. Just hours ago, Spider-Man, Peter Parker, had been sitting in her and Ned’s apartment hanging out with them. Like what she guessed it was like before he'd done that spell. Normal.
Peter was in the hospital now and it wasn't looking good. The woman on the TV was trying to make it sound better than it was, but there was no denying the facts. Bullet through the spine. Significant blood loss. Surgery ongoing.
She didn't know what she was going to tell Ned about everything. If she even should. She was still having a difficult time processing that she had had an entire life with a man she couldn't remember. Peter should be the one to tell Ned, not her.
But now he might not get the chance. She would have to decide whether or not it would be better for Ned to mourn his hero or a best friend he never knew.
MJ had never been optimistic. Bad people did bad things and good people suffered because of it.
This time she hoped more than anything that she was wrong.
“But sadly, despite the best efforts of the best professionals in New York, Spider-Man has died."
Peter Parker
2001-2026
A hero to all
Frank stared down at the grave.
Peter Parker. No living family and no friends. Without government records it would be like he never existed.
God. The kid was only twenty.
Without anyone to claim the body, it had taken time for the hospital to identify him. Eventually, some old records were found from Midtown High School. None of the staff or former students remembered him going there. But there was no denying that the boy in the picture of the student ID was the one lying dead on the hospital bed.
Peter had been buried next to a May Parker. A woman who had dedicated her life to helping people. Frank guessed it ran in the family. No one who had known her had known she'd had a nephew.
The funeral had been massive, attended by what Frank was sure was over half the city. He felt most of the people there didn't deserve to be there.
But then, he had probably deserved to be there the least. It was his fault they were there after all.
Everyone had left now and Frank was alone in front of the headstone. You could barely make out what was written on it through all the flowers and gifts left. There was already talk of a memorial being built.
“Hey kid,” Frank thinks those are the first words he'd spoken since the hospital, “I'm sorry.”
It wasn't nearly enough for what he'd done. He'd never be able to make up for what he did.
“If you were here you'd probably say something stupid like ‘It’s okay’ or ‘It’s not your fault’, but it's not okay and it is my fault.”
Frank’s vision was getting blurry. Now he really couldn't read what was on the head stone.
“Why’d you haveta get in the way kid? You didn't deserve this.” Jean Grey wouldn't have either. “You always had to be a hero, huh?”
There wasn't much to say after that. No amount of apologies would bring him back.
Frank didn't know how long he'd stood there, face slowly getting colder. When he did eventually leave, the sun had long since set. The city was oddly quiet.
New York had stopped for the first time since the Blip.
Frank had done that.
There had been a vase in front of May Parker’s headstone with wilted flowers. He remembered the kid always disappearing at noon every Friday, like clockwork. Frank was rarely busy. He was sure he'd be even less so, now that there wasn't a kid out there he felt the need to watch. He could make time on Fridays.
It was the least he could do for Peter.
Jean hadn't gone to the funeral. She felt a bit guilty, but she was sure Peter would understand. She needed to get out of the city. Metzger had disappeared, and though the official statement hadn't placed any blame on her, she knew the people of New York would find a way too.
She watched the tree blur through the window of the bus.
Maybe she was cursed. Getting close to her was a death warrant. It didn't matter how much she hated being alone.
That was how she was destined to spend the rest of her life.
MJ sat by herself on the roof of Midtown High. She wondered how many times she had sat in this exact spot with a boy who loved her, instead of being alone.
There was no denying after the records had been found. There had been the slightest chance that maybe Spider-Man had just been a disturbed man who she really had never met. But Peter Parker had been a boy she went to school with. A boy who she'd shared many classes with. A life with.
She fiddled with the broken necklace that she always wore. She had always wondered where she'd gotten it from.
She was going to tell Ned when she got home. It wouldn't be fair to keep this from him. She shouldn't be the one to tell him, but Peter wouldn't get the chance now.
She looked out over a quiet New York.
MJ wondered what their life would be like if they had the chance to rebuild their relationships. If she and Peter would end up back together. If she and Ned would get another roommate. If Ned would finally have someone there that understood all his little references that she herself didn't.
It was a weird feeling. Mourning someone you don't remember knowing.