prologue
Peter Parker didn't believe in God.
He used to, when he was little. He went to church every Sunday with Mom and Dad, and he even went to Sunday School every other week after church.
He learned about the same things all the other kids learned about. Jesus, God, Mary. (She had his mom's name!) He learned about Heaven.
But still, he didn't quite understand it. Not until he was five and he got home from school to find his fish, Dory, upside down and not moving. (He'd discovered Finding Nemo the year before and had been obsessed, begging and begging until his parents finally agreed to get him a small goldfish.)
Mom sat him down and took his hands in hers. She said, "Dory passed away, Sweetheart. God decided it was his time to go. He's in Heaven now, Pete."
And the boy frowned, squeezed his mother's hands. "Well, can I go to Heaven to see him?" He asked hopefully. He missed Dory. Who would he tell about school now?
Mom laughed softly and shook her head. "No, baby. Not for a very long time. We only go to Heaven after we've had long lives, Petey. You're still five, Love. You've got a good, long life ahead of you," she explained to him, brushing his curls behind his ears.
"But I'll see him once I'm all done bein' a grown up?"
Mom laughed again. "Of course, baby. Now, let's go say goodbye to Dory." She stood up and led him back toward the fish tank.
While he was sad he wouldn't see Dory for a long time, he was content with the fact that he would see him again.
The year after that, Mom and Dad gave him a new stuffy, a plush little toy that looked exactly like Nemo from the movie, and they told him they'd be back to pick him up from his aunt and uncle's before the week was over.
Then Uncle Ben got a phone call, and Uncle Ben started crying, and he talked to Aunt May all quiet, the way grown ups did when they didn't want kids to know what they were talking about.
And then Aunt May told him that his parents passed away, she told him that they went to Heaven, and Peter thought about how he still missed Dory. He thought about how Mom would never give him hugs and kisses anymore, and Dad would never pick him up on his shoulders so he could pretend to fly again.
He cried.
Aunt May and Uncle Ben held him as they all cried, and Peter asked through his sobs, "Why'd God take them?"
"I don't know, Pete. I don't know." Uncle Ben whispered, and that was the very first time Peter Parker wished he was dead so he didn't have to wait any longer.
He still believed in God and Heaven though, because if he didn't believe, then maybe God wouldn't let him into Heaven to see Mom and Dad and Dory.
Seven years later, though, he was thirteen and he was staring down at his bloody hands and his lifeless uncle, and he knew it was all fake. He knew that if there really was some powerful entity out there, they wouldn't have let this happen. They wouldn't have let Ben die.
And that night, once he was home and his hands were scrubbed clean, he heard May sobbing in her room, and he just knew, if God were real, he wouldn't take Ben from his wife.
So no, Peter Parker did not believe in God.
That didn't stop him from hoping, though. That didn't stop him from praying to anything and anyone that he did see them again someday.
He hoped that when he died, he could hug his parents again and tell his uncle how sorry he was.
It didn't stop him from hoping to see them when he died, and it didn't stop him from wishing that he already was.