Chapter 1
Peter was drowning.
There was no other way to describe it. It was like the vulture again. The feeling of being dropped into that damned lake, tangled in the parachute, desperately trying to break the surface but being completely and utterly unable to do more than helplessly flail his limbs while the water pushed in on every side of him. Pulling him down, crushing him until he felt like his lungs would burst.
The only difference this time was that there was no water, no vulture, and no parachute to drag him down. Only the ache in his chest, the hopelessness, the misery. The way he hated himself with every fiber of his being, more powerful than anything he had ever felt towards anyone.
He supposed it had been a long time coming. Slowly building over time until he felt like he couldn’t breathe through the ache in his chest. His nights turned from movie nights with Aunt May, laughing until he cried, and building new and exciting Lego figures with Ned, to tear stained pillows and empty eyes.
All he could think of these days were his failures. The way he burdened his Aunt, and his Uncle as well before he’d ultimately gotten him killed. If he had only stepped up and accepted his responsibility sooner, gotten over his childish mantra of ‘notfairnotfairnotfair’, it wouldn’t have happened. Uncle Ben would have been alive if it hadn’t been for him. He wouldn’t have had to lay there on the ground, bleeding to death for doing the right thing. The thing Peter should have done from the start. He hated his uncle’s killer, yes, but it couldn’t even come close to the way he hated himself. The way his chest was caving in, cracking from the weight of what he had caused.
He had become Spider-Man to make sure no one else had to feel that pain, determined to do some good. But if he was honest with himself, it was mostly so he could ease his guilt. To live up to his uncle's legacy. To have the right to feel some pride again. To stop feeling like he wasn’t even worthy of the very air he breathed. No matter how hard he tried though, he couldn’t save everyone. Another failure. Every person he failed, every person whose lives were lost because he wasn’t quick enough, wasn't good enough, left their own crack. Their own imprint on his spirit. The one slowly giving up.
He burdened Aunt May every day. She was working herself into the ground to pay their bills, something that wouldn’t have happened if not for him. His metabolism was breaking her bank account and he didn’t know what to do to fix it. She always put on a brave face, pretended that it wasn’t as bad as it really was, but he could hear her crying at night. Stifling her sobs to keep from waking him up, so determined to make sure he never had to worry.
Too bad he couldn’t seem to sleep properly anymore. He either laid awake with his darkening thoughts all night, or couldn’t seem to stay awake. Just stuck in a daze every time he had the apartment for himself, which was too often these days, the fog he tried to keep at bay closing in on him.
That was his fault too. His aunt was pulling double shifts left and right to keep food on the table and the power on, looking more and more tired every single day. He wondered when she would break, and what would happen when she did. Would they even have a home anymore? The very thought of what had to go through her head every single day was enough to make another crack in his chest.
The ferry disaster was another big failure, another big crack. He was stupid, reckless, arrogant. He had decided to take them down himself, somehow believing a 15-year old could stand against grown men while fully aware of the lethal weapons they carried. Weapons that could have killed hundreds of innocent civillians.
It was just sheer dumb luck that Mr. Stark had come when he did. If he hadn’t, Peter would have been the reason they had died. He had done the right thing, the responsible thing, by calling for back-up before going to confront them. If Peter hadn’t been so consumed by his desire to save the day and finally prove his worth to Mr. Stark, if he had just used his brain for once, he would have realized that he was in way over his head and needed help.
He couldn’t stop thinking about their fear that day. Couldn't stop hearing their screams for help when all hell broke loose. When he failed once more by not even successfully webbing the ferry together again, even though he was the reason it broke in the first place, it was just another thing that fueled his nightmares when he finally managed to fall asleep.
Even Flash made his own personal crack in his spirit, in his chest. Flash was just a highschool bully and shouldn’t even get under his skin. He had dealt with so much worse in his life. He was Spider-Man for god’s sake. A school bully was nothing. His words shouldn’t even faze him. And yet, somehow, they did. He wondered when his inner voice, his doubts and fears, had started to sound like him.
It hadn’t really bothered him too much at first. He knew Flash was just bitter and angry, jealous that Peter beat him on almost every test they had. That he was only competing with the decathlon team if Peter couldn’t be there. But slowly, it started to creep into his mind, poisoning his thoughts. What if he was right? What if Flash was the only one far enough removed from the crap his life had become to actually see him for what he was? The only one to say it to his face?
If he was being honest with himself, he knew that there was some truth to everything Flash said these days. He was a failure, he was stupid and he was worthless. Everything he did showed that. He was a good kid once, always trying to make other people feel better and actually helping them, but that kid was gone. This was what he was left with. A disappointment. A black stain on the lives of everyone he got close to. He knew everyone would one day leave him, either by death or by choice.
He had let Mr. Stark down in every way imaginable. He had given Peter so much trust. Bringing him to Germany, trusting him to have his back. He even made him a multi-million dollar suit, as if he had ever done anything to deserve that kind of faith from the man. And what had he done with that? He had broken his trust, hacked his suit, lied to him and almost gotten his class and an entire ferry killed. Mr. Stark had every right to tear him a new one and take his suit away. He would only put more people in danger if he had it. It was better this way.
It had hurt even more than he had thought it would, letting him down like that. He had looked up to him ever since he was a child, had iron man toys to keep him safe at night, only to screw up so badly that his hero gave up on him. Mr.Stark didn't think he was good enough to be Spider-Man. Another crack in his spirit.
He wondered how much was left of it now. If pieces were falling off completely, or if it looked like the china doll he had knocked over in a shop once. The cracks in it’s face spreading like the disease of his failures. He was a walking death trap. And sooner or later, everyone he loved would end up dead because of him.
It seemed like every time he woke up, his thoughts had darkened even more. It was all-consuming, a constant echo of ‘wrong’ in his very bones. He could feel himself slipping further away every day. Losing himself. Losing his will to stay. Losing hope that anything could ever be okay again.
It used to be so simple just being himself. Now, he didn’t even know who that person was. The happy kid he used to see in the mirror was gone. Replaced by this shell of a person, pale with smiles that hurt to wear. Who would have thought that smiles were the deadliest things. The perfect cover for the darkness inside. As long as he kept smiling, no one would ever know how damaged he was. How broken he felt. Spider-Man had his mask, but this one? This one was all Peter's.
He had taken to avoiding the mirror these days, unable to stand seeing what he had become. He knew he would only lose control and shatter his reflection, inflicting upon it what he wished he could do to himself a thousand times over. Making the outside match the inside, every crack on display. His healing wouldn't allow that, but it still occupied his darkest daydreams.
Every injury he had sustained after the spider bite healed faster than should be possible. He could heal from broken bones in days, and could come home with a gunshot wound and wake up with only a small white scar to prove that it ever happened. He both loved and hated it. He loved it because it meant he could get up and go to school, even after a bad patrol. it meant he could keep his other identity , and his spiraling thoughts, a secret. He hated it because the injuries healed quicker than he wanted on bad days. When he wanted to see it, feel it, for longer than his abilities allowed him to.
On those days he would sit on the roof of the closest building he could find and watch it bleed until the wound slowly started to close. Just feeling the blood slide across his skin, the ache of the wound and the way it stung in the wind. Sometimes, if it stopped bleeding before he was ready to let it, he would dig his thumb against it until the blood trickled down his skin again and his breath came out in a hiss from the sharp pain.
This was one of those days. He had just brought the Vulture down an hour ago and he felt lost. He had saved Mr. Stark's things from theft, things that were worth infinitely more than Peter himself, but it hadn't mattered in the end. The crash destroyed them. He wondered how mad Mr. Stark would be at him for failing him again.
He had made sure the police had taken Toomes away, but it hadn't felt like a victory. He was Liz's dad and he hadn't been able to convince him to give it up, to walk away from his insane plan and let it go. Instead, Liz would be without her father for however long his sentence would be. A sentence that would be even harsher because of his actions today, and Peter could have changed that if he had been better.
Liz's life would be ruined. She hadn't known what her father did, but it would follow her for the rest of her life. After all, her father had tried to steal from Iron Man himself and had been responsible for the deaths those weapons had caused. He felt a new crack forming in his chest at the thought of the phone call her mother would soon receive. Another family torn apart because he hadn't been enough.
He had hidden after making sure there was no way for Toomes to escape, leaving a note to Mr.Stark, as if that would cover the cost of the expensive artifacts currently covering the area. If he had only paid more attention to what was really happening in that warehouse, he could have avoided the building falling on him. He could have stopped him before he got to the plane.
The moment the police had Toomes in the car, he was off. He didn't even know where to go. All he knew was that he couldn't bear to stay there a moment longer.