Chapter Text
Posey Parker always knew she was adopted. When it came to living with two moms, there wasn't anything but transparency on the matter.
Peter Parker had always known who his parents were and what it meant to truly have flesh and blood relatives- even if said flesh and blood happened to be six feet under.
So when Posey asked her moms at around age four to track down her biological family, Peter felt the need answer her call. Posey was his half-sister, after all. Aunt May and Uncle Ben had tried everything to keep her with them after the death of Peter's dad and their mom, but Posey's biological father had been insistent upon his taking care of the girl.
When Peter told her this for the first time, her eyes welled up. Peter was more honest than he should have been with the then five year old girl, but he was only fourteen at the time.
Posey had lived with her biological dad for two years before said father decided he had had enough with playing parent. He put Posey up for adoption. Peter and May weren't in contact with the dad at the time, and when they learned about her adoption, it was already too late for them to try. At age four, Posey was taken to Edison County, New Jersey to be the kid of two lovely ladies: Elena and Judis. They took wonderful care of Posey. The two women supported her every endeavor and filled Posey's life with the joy and wonder every child deserves.
Peter called her once a week. It wasn't that hard to find the time. Posey was the sister he had always wanted, and to Posey, Peter was the literal coolest. Aunt May loved Posey too. Each spring starting the year Posey tracked them down, Posey took a weeklong trip to New York with her moms to get to know them better.
Sadly, most of Peter and Posey's interactions were limited to texting and daily phone calls.
"Me and Shelly Sharp have a band," she told him at age six. Peter was fifteen at the time. "It's really cool. Mom's teaching me guitar and everything."
"Oh?" Peter had been swinging around the city for hours by the time Posey was free to call. "That sounds awesome."
"My guitar's pink." She sounded so gleeful, and Peter wished he could see her face. Wished that he wasn't zipping around the city as Spider-Man so that he could see her smile. Even if it had to be over Facetime.
Posey loved that her brother was the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. When he came to visit, his stories were always the coolest. When Posey visited New York, he took her out for a swing or two around town. She was the first person not to scream in fear when he let them free fall between webs. She even laughed a little, and Peter had never heard a better sound.
Posey was eight when the blip came. She was lucky in a way that most weren't. Her moms were both okay. Her friends at school stayed mostly the same. Even her guitar teacher was perfectly fine. She had everyone. Everyone except Peter. She called him that day. She called him four times. All four calls were unanswered.
And Peter never left her unanswered. Not if he was in the middle of class. Not if he was fighting a super-villain in the park. Not even if he was going to the bathroom. Peter always picked up the phone for his sister.
Posey got awfully familiar with voicemail that day.
There was no one she could talk to about her brother. Her moms had made it quite clear that it was of utmost importance to keep Peter's connection to her a secret. To keep Peter's entire identity a secret. She wasn't even allowed to have any photos with him in her room. No, those were closet only pictures. Posey found out what happened to him over the news in her world history class. Her teacher had gone over the blip with a shaky voice, and an even shakier hand when writing the basics on the chalkboard. Spider-Man was only one name in a long list of those on the screen.
She cried that night. She was inconsolable for weeks. Months. It actually took her a couple years to come to terms with the absence of Peter from her daily life. Peter wasn't only the last link to her ancestry; he was her best friend. He was an essential part of her routine. He was the voice she called daily, the person she looked up to most.
And he was just gone.
Peter had been her favorite person to talk to. Without him, she just stopped. Stopped talking. Stopped breathing. Stopped anything but thinking, spiraling, twisting in her own mind. The panic attacks started when she was ten. Therapy seemed out of the question, as any talking about Peter was still strictly prohibited. She understood that.
Eventually he became just an angel on her shoulder.
Posey joined the Science and Engineering community at her middle school because Peter did at Midtown. Posey won honors in Academic Decathlon because Peter went to Nationals in DC. She joined every club and Honor Society because he couldn't.
She became so busy she didn't have to think about Peter.
Posey Parker lived one life for the two of them in the years Peter was gone.
She was thirteen when Peter came back into her life. And Peter was still seventeen.
Peter had woken up on Titan to thousands of voicemails from his sister. One for every day he had been gone.
And he knew not only that he needed to do as Dr. Strange said and beat Thanos, but that he needed to do that and then get home to Posey, who was not only the reason he fought in the first place, but the last thought in his head before he blipped.
After the war, Peter didn't bother going home.
He took a flight back to New York, and then a train to Jersey. He didn't stop moving, didn't even change out of his suit until he got to Edison County.
And Posey didn't care that he had blood on his face.
She didn't care that he hadn't bothered to call ahead (something she had gotten anal about in his absence).
She only cared that her brother came home.
Peter spent a month there in New Jersey. He and Aunt May stayed with Posey and her moms for as long as they could before they had to return to life in New York. Posey, despite being thirteen, and totally capable of sleeping without stuffed animals or nightlights, made Peter sleep by her side the whole time. It really didn't take much convincing though. Peter didn't ever want to leave her alone again.
"I've missed so much," He would whisper into her hair.
"I know." Posey would curl in close to his side. "We won't let that happen again."
"Wherever we go, we go together, okay?"
It was the easiest promise Posey ever made.
But the truth is, they had to let go. They had to let it happen one more time.
Because when Mysterio let the world know who Peter Parker was a year later, Posey's music career with Electric Bloom was just taking off. Sofia Carson reposted her band's video, and Electric Bloom was going viral as the world's newest obsession.
Peter was going viral as the world's newest terrorist.
And he would not let what was happening to him touch her.
He sent her a letter in the mail with no return address. He explained everything. Deleted their call history. Deleted any trace of her from his life so that their last names were pure coincidence and not a connection. He might have been under fire as a teenage vigilante, but he would not let a single flame get near his sister.
Posey wasn't exactly allowed to cry over it when it happened. She held hands tighter than necessary with Jade and Tulip in the spotlight to keep from crying. She sobbed on Lucas Jasper's overly empathetic shoulders. She didn't tell any of them why. Her emotions were just another problem not even The Vince could solve. Her smile was on billboards and in commercials. She couldn't let it falter. At night, she reread his letter and recorded audio messages for herself in place of the voicemails she used to leave in the blip. Those words were all she had.
And Posey was the only reason Peter kept going. Her determination to follow her own dreams was the reason that Peter fought so hard for MJ and Ned's dream of MIT. The reason he went to Dr. Strange in the first place.
And in that final battle on the Statue of Liberty, Peter let Dr. Strange erase him from everyone.
Everyone except Posey Parker and the family he had left in New Jersey.