Apparently, all it took for Peter to break was three. Three father figures gone for Peter to absolutely lose it. First was his biological dad, the best dad in the world until he wasn’t alive to be a dad anymore. One supposed accidental plane crash later and Pete’s suddenly an orphan. His uncle immediately took him in. Ben had never wanted kids, not really, he and May had jobs that took up most of their time and Ben’s was too risky to lump in a 7 year-old on top of it. But Ben didn’t even hesitate to barge straight into the 107th police precinct in Queens and demand they hand over his kid when he got the phone call. Peter’s six years with Ben were the best six years of his life. But when your uncle dies in front of you right after you discover you got powers from that weirdass field trip spider trying to protect you from a druggy with a gun, it messes with you just a bit.
Ben had looked at him with soft eyes as he bled out and told him those important, hard-hitting words. With great power, comes a great responsibility Peter. When you use those powers of yours, you’ve got to choose to use them for good or to not use them at all. Peter told one person who he was and then immediately watched them die the same day. He decided he was cursed and vowed to never tell anyone ever again, especially people he cared about the most. So when Ned finds out late one night unexpectedly and then May finds out by accident and Tony freaking Stark pulls up to his apartment with an advanced suit and a job offer, Peter freaks out just a bit. Just a tiny bit, mind you. But he covers it expertly with the same jokes and babbling he’d been using to cover up his pain and sadness. May had enough to deal with with her own grief and Ned’s eyes full of pity and sadness were heavy enough to deal with the first two weeks after Ben’s death that Peter learned pretty quickly how to make people see only what he wanted them to.
Peter hadn’t meant to get close to Mr. Stark. He hadn’t meant to look at him as anything more than a mentor and a maybe-possibly-friend. But Mr. Stark had a funny way of worming his way into your heart without either party ever realizing it until it’s too late. Before Peter knew it, he was biting his tongue to keep the “dad”s from slipping out. Even the sarcastic ones, especially the sarcastic ones. Peter supposed he was just as allergic to being open about his feelings as Mr. Stark was. He’d lost too many people already and he didn’t want to dare the universe to make him lose more. And then Thanos happened. Peter got back and got to hug Mr. Stark and got to feel how loved he was by the most aloof person he knew and then it was all ripped away. Father figure number three dies and Peter feels vindicated in losing it.
Peter’s first day back to school sees him collapsing into Ned’s arms and trudging to classes that are too quiet for comfort. He flinches at mentions of the Avengers that were suddenly missing in action, at the people who didn’t come back from the snap because they were gone before the snap ever happened and nobody even knew. He almost cries when someone mentions Iron Man and he shuts down when they hiss the words “Tony Stark is dead” in the back of his english class. It takes one week of school before Peter breaks completely. He throws on the Spider-Man suit and his Aca-dec jacket on top of it. He stops by Starbucks to get his frappe and ignores the phone cameras pointed at him unsubtly. He walks to school with the taste of sweet sweet vanilla bean in his mouth and the sound of cameras clicking behind him. Peter walks into his first class of the day and drops unceremoniously in his chair, dropping his notebook onto the desk and ignoring Ned’s squeak of shock from next to him.
Yeah. Peter’s lost just the right amount of father-figures to even care.