Work Text:
Peter sat in the hospital room, numb.
Aunt May had dragged him in for a follow-up appointment so Dr. Cho could remove the stitches from his side. Peter had argued the entire drive there. He told May they were pointless. He could pull them out himself. He had more important things to do.
Dr. Cho hadn't cared.
Neither had May.
So Peter sat there while Dr. Cho carefully cut each stitch and pulled the thread free.
He barely felt any of it.
The tugging.
The sting.
The pressure.
Nothing felt real anymore.
The world kept moving around him as if nothing had happened.
As if people weren't gone.
As if everything hadn't changed.
Mr. Stark was dead.
The thought still didn't make sense.
Nothing made sense.
Tony Stark was supposed to be impossible. Too smart. Too stubborn. Too important.
But he was gone.
Just like Ben.
Just like Richard.
Just like everyone Peter ever let himself care about.
Everyone he attached himself to eventually disappeared.
Everyone left.
The worst part wasn't the grief.
It was that Peter had started expecting it.
---
May had cancer.
It started with headaches.
At first she brushed them off as stress. Long shifts, bills, worrying about Peter.
Then she started forgetting things.
Misplacing items.
Losing track of conversations.
Sometimes she would stop in the middle of a sentence and stare into space, searching for words she should have known.
Peter noticed.
Pepper noticed too.
Pepper practically dragged May to the doctor after one particularly bad episode.
Peter remembered sitting in the waiting room.
Remembered the smell of that cheap coffee they put in the waiting rooms and disinfectant.
Remembered May smiling at him even though her hands were shaking.
The results came a week later.
Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma.
Peter spent hours researching it afterward.
Hours staring at statistics on his laptop.
Survival rates.
Treatment options.
Success stories.
Anything.
Everything.
For people in their thirties, the odds weren't terrible.
Around thirty to fifty percent.
May wasn't in her thirties.
Peter knew that before the doctors said it.
Knew it before they started discussing treatment plans.
Knew it before May squeezed his hand and told him everything would be okay.
The chemotherapy made her tired.
The radiation made her weaker.
Months passed.
Peter balanced classes, Spider-Man patrols, and hospital visits.
Every time he walked into her room she seemed smaller.
More fragile.
Like the universe was slowly erasing her.
Still, she smiled.
Still, she asked about his day.
Still, she worried more about him than herself.
Nine months after the diagnosis, she died.
Peter was holding her hand when it happened.
For a moment he thought she had simply fallen asleep.
Then the monitors changed.
Then the room filled with people.
Then someone gently pulled him away.
And Peter was alone again.
---
Peter went to college.
Because May would have wanted him to.
Because Mr. Stark would have wanted him to.
Because everyone kept telling him life had to move forward.
So he enrolled.
He attended lectures.
He took notes.
He passed exams.
But none of it mattered.
Not really.
The things he used to care about felt distant.
Like they belonged to someone else.
Someone younger.
Someone happier.
Someone who still believed the future was something worth looking forward to.
So Peter spent more and more time as Spider-Man.
Patrolling.
Stopping robberies.
Helping people.
Swinging through the city until sunrise.
It was easier than being Peter Parker.
Spider-Man always had something to do.
Someone to save.
A problem to solve.
Peter Parker only had empty apartments and memories.
Years passed.
Friends drifted away.
Classmates graduated.
People moved on with their lives.
Peter never really did.
He kept putting on the mask.
Kept throwing himself into danger.
Kept trying to save everyone.
Maybe because he couldn't save the people who mattered.
Eventually, Spider-Man became all that was left.
Then one day he didn't come home.
The city mourned its hero.
News stations ran stories.
People left flowers.
Strangers cried for someone they had never met.
---
Peter Parker's funeral was held three days later.
Only two people attended.
Pepper Stark-Potts.
And Morgan Stark.
The service was short.
Quiet.
Pepper stood with her hands folded in front of her, staring at a casket.
Morgan held a bouquet of flowers so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Peter had spent his entire life saving people.
Thousands of them.
Maybe millions.
Yet nobody could save him.
Almost nobody knew the boy beneath the mask.
When the service ended, Morgan stepped forward and placed the flowers on the casket.
"Tell Dad I said hi," she whispered.
Pepper closed her eyes.
And for the first time in years, she cried.
The three people Peter loved most in the world were waiting for him now.
And for the first time in a very long time, Peter wasn't alone.