5.
the first call peter makes is to the police.
he isn’t sure how his slick fingers don’t fumble over the keys and drop his phone into the blood on the floor in her blood on the floor she’s dead but soon he can hear the dial tone.
he can hear the dial tone and the dog barking three floors down and the horn honking seven blocks away and the baby crying in the apartment next door and the shouting out on the street. he can hear everything. except for her heartbeat.
it feels like years before the droning tone turns into a voice that shatters through his brain and makes him drop the phone in surprise. it lands in the crimson liquid on the floor and spatters it across the ground.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
he can’t get the words out, he can’t say them, he can’t look at her anymore. the light from his phone is too bright and the sounds of the dog and the car and the baby and the shouting are echoing around his head like a cruel record player.
“hello?”
the voice stabs through his head again, shooting pain into his ears that blossoms behind his eyes. he tries to grab the phone and it slips again, wet with the blood on his fingers her blood on his fingers and he squeaks out a response.
“i need help she’s dead oh my god she’s dead please help me i ca-“ his voice is cut off by a broken sob escaping his chest, a noise that would normally hurt his super hearing but instead it’s coming from him so it’s drowned out.
peter can’t hear the response.
he hopes that they’re tracking his phone. he hopes that when the police arrive he’ll still be conscious. he hopes that when the police get there he finally won’t be alone.
because aunt may is dead.
4.
the second call peter makes is to ned.
his phone is thrown on his bed and it’s on speaker even though it’s too loud and the lights are on even though they’re too bright and he’s trying to get out of his suit because it’s too tight and if the police find him wearing the suit without his mask on then he’s done for.
he strips the suit off and the smell of blood her blood wafts up from it and burns his nose all the up to his sinuses and down to the back of his throat all over again.
he keeps hearing the dial tone echo around his room and he goes to hang the suit up but he realizes that the police will search his apartment so he’s got to hide it somewhere so he puts it in his backpack and throws his gym clothes on top of it and he hopes that the police aren’t going to suspect that he, a seventeen year old orphan, killed the only living family member he had left.
the phone is on the eighth ring when he’s about to grab it and turn it off because he just can’t listen to that noise anymore when he hears a click and a voice.
“pete?”
peter stares at it like he can’t even fathom a response before a noise escapes the speakers again.
“peter, i know you’re there.”
“ned i-“
“are you okay man?”
peter’s answer is short. it’s simple.
“no.”
“what happened?”
“can you just come over here?”
“pete, it’s 3:40 in the morning.”
“ned, it’s may, she-“ peter’s voice is drowned out by a sob shaking through his body and out of his lungs. he falls to the floor, the thud of his knees resonating loudly around his room and he lets out a cruel chuckle when the people who live beneath him waste no time in knocking on their ceiling to try to get him to shut up.
there are no words coming out of his phone now. just the sounds of moving fabric and the thud of shoes on the floor and panting breath.
“i’m on my way. have you called anyone else? call mr. stark.”
call mr. stark.
3.
the third call peter makes is to tony.
ned’s voice resonates through peter’s head.
he doesn’t remember hanging up the phone. he knows that ned is coming but he knows that ned lives twenty minutes away and he knows that ned won’t be there before the police arrive and he knows that he’ll be alone.
he doesn’t remember scrolling through his contacts list or pressing the familiar name or listening to those same stupid fucking rings because for the first time since he walked in the door his mind is clear when he hears him.
“underoos, this better be important.”
“tony, i need-“
almost instantaneously, peter can hear fabric shifting and a confused female voice pepper in the background.
“pete, what’s wrong?”
“how do you always know when something is wrong?” he asks with a sniff, trying to do anything, anything at all to not say the words. she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead tony
“you never call me tony.”
peter scowled inwardly because he betrayed himself. the scowl is cut off by a whimper when he realizes that the police are going to be here any minute and he’s standing in his bedroom and may’s body is sitting outside and he’s going to be alone and he needs mr. stark here with him.
“please i need you mr. stark please come here help me i can’t do this alone.”
he can hear the distressed shouts of ms. potts in the background and the familiar sound of metal sliding together on tony’s suit. he knows that the call is going to be cut off momentarily when tony steps in the suit and he knows that he’s going to be stuck in the same silence again.
“i’m on my way, kid. stay right there, everything is going to be okay.”
everything is going to be okay.
2.
the fourth call peter makes is to mj.
he knows that she’s awake because it’s saturday night and on saturday night she picks a new book to read for the week and stays up in the living room reading and watching trash tv until sunrise while her mom works the nightshift. he knows that she’s snuggled up in one of his hoodies that he left there after patrol under the pink blanket that she loves so much but don’t you dare tell anyone that i like pink because i reject the social construct of a gender having a color and he knows that her phone is sitting on the table in front of her.
he knows that mj never picks up the phone on the first ring, because if it’s important they’ll call back and this is very important so after the phone rings two times peter hangs up and calls again.
“loser, you know the calling twice rule doesn’t apply to you. i’ll always pick up if you’re the one calling.”
peter wants to smile, he wants to take in the sentiment of the fact that his wonderful girlfriend would so easily ignore one of her strongest personal policies to talk to him. he wants to take in every moment because he knows when he starts talking that everything is going to become real.
“hey,” he says shakily, and for a moment he’s proud of himself for actually speaking like a normal person for the first time in any of his conversations tonight. his pride doesn’t last long.
“peter, what’s wrong?”
“nothing’s wrong,” he lies, pulling the phone away from his ear to attempt to mask the sniffle and swallowing the whimper that’s crawling up his throat. “i just wanted to call you on this fine saturday morning at 3:49 a.m.”
“peter, don’t lie to me. are you injured? do you need help?”
peter can’t lie to her and he can’t help himself, a cascade of words pour out of his mouth as new, burning not tears fall down his cheeks. he isn’t sure if he’s said anything that mj will actually understand and he can’t bother to care because his head hurts and his heart hurts and his whole body aches with longing for may.
“i was out on patrol and she said to be home by three and i was running late and if i had just gotten back when she told me to then i would have been here and i could have stopped it but instead she was alone she died alone because i was running late, mj.”
“i’m coming over. i’m going to run there,” came the panicked voice, piercing through one ear and dripping out the other.
peter knows that she’s being serious and that she will run the entire way there but he knows that even with that it’s going to be at least forty minutes before she can get there. forty minutes and the police will be here soon and tony will take him somewhere, anywhere that isn’t here, and mj will be too late.
“don’t run. i’m calling you a ride.”
1.
the fifth person that peter calls is happy.
he had an odd relationship with the man. he knew that he was annoying and that he talked to much. all but seven or eight of his calls to happy had gone unanswered in the entire time he’d known him, but he had to hope that tonight he would pick up.
peter was shocked when he picked up before the first ring had even ended.
“kid,” happy started, and even with his clouded hearing he could hear the sympathy in his voice. “tony called me, i’m already on my way. i’ll be there in 15.”
peter wondered, for a moment, for a split second how fast happy was driving and he hoped that he would slow down and be safe he can’t lose anyone else tonight but he pushes those thoughts aside just as quickly as they came because he doesn’t care how they get there he just wants someone.
“can you,” peter falters, not knowing how to ask this man who was simply assigned to seem like he cared to go out of his way when he was already racing down the streets of new york at four in the morning to come to him. “can you pick up mj?”
peter knows that his voice sounds small and he must sound like a little kid asking for a toy in a store, but there’s not even a moment’s hesitation before he hears, “of course. is she at home?”
“i told her not to run here but i know she probably is anyway so she’s got to be somewhere between her’s and mine right now.”
“i’ll have friday look for her. we’ll be there soon.”
“thank you, happy.”
peter knows that the man has responded, but the sound of metal hitting concrete outside is so loud and distinct that his senses are only able to focus on that.
0.
the knock on peter’s front door is frantic and rushed, but definitely the sound of a bare hand. as peter makes his way across the living room not looking down he can’t look down he can’t look at her he wonders where tony must have left the suit. on any other day, he would find it humorous that mr. stark would park it on the street like a vehicle.
but instead? the only thing that he can register is that when he collapses into his mentor’s arms, it’s the first time he’s felt at ease since he climbed in through his bedroom window at 3:29. he’s vaguely aware of a hand brushing through his hair like may used to do and whispered assurances that everything was going to be okay.
“it’s okay, underoos. i’m going to get everything taken care of.”
he isn’t able to relax for long, because within minutes of tony arriving, so have ned and so have the police. ned makes it into the building as fast as he can before the police barricade off peter’s apartment with police tape, because he knows that he won’t do his best friend any good on the outside.
peter knows that ned said something when he walked in the door, but it’s drowned out by the sounds of doors slamming outside and footsteps pounding up and down the stairwell. he thinks for a moment that he isn’t sure why they’re running, because it’s already been twelve minutes since he called and they should have gotten there sooner because if there was a chance she wasn’t dead when he called then she definitely would be now.
by the time the police reach the already open front door, peter has collapsed into ned’s arms and they’re crying on the floor. tony crouches above them both protectively, his hands on both of their shoulders.
it has to be an odd scene, he thinks, for the officers entering the small apartment in a dodgy complex in the heart of queens. to see two blubbering teenagers and tony stark, iron man himself, standing next to the body of a woman who had been stabbed. peter can feel their presence just like he can feel his tears and ned’s tears and tony’s hand, and he can feel tony shift behind him and stand up.
the next hour was a blur of people in navy jackets and camera flashes popping and sympathetic looks and questions that peter can’t answer. tony and ned had led him into his bedroom, where ned sat with him and the two of them worked dejectedly on a lego that ned had brought over three days prior to work on. tony was in the living room, tearing the police a new one for taking so long to get to the apartment and for even beginning to suggest that peter was responsible for what had happened.
child protective services arrived, ready to take peter away from the tragedy that had come over his family and place him in a new home, but tony chased them off as he would have overzealous reporters. peter remembered hearing a hushed voice say, “if he’s not safe with iron man, then he’s not safe with anybody.”
soon after, the police are ushering them all out of the apartment and peter has his backpack with his suit in it and his calculus homework that he definitely wasn’t going to do in one hand and an iron grip on ned’s hand with the other. happy was waiting outside in the empty parking spot for the apartment and he gave peter a hug before opening the door to the backseat. peter followed ned in and was followed by tony, who said that the suit on the sidewalk wasn’t important right now and had failsafes to keep it safe and it could wait until tomorrow.
only then did peter remember that happy was supposed to pick up mj, but his mouth was too dry and his throat was too raw and he was too tired to voice his concerns before he fell asleep on ned’s shoulder in the back of the car.
he woke up as soon as the car turned off, looking out the window at the fabulously expensive apartment building that he’d swung off of and into occasionally while out on patrol. two figures stood out front, one with straight strawberry blonde hair and one with curly brown hair and wrung hands and a blue midtown hoodie on.
peter practically sprinted out of the car and into mj’s arms, all of the adrenaline drained from his body. he felt gentle hands on his back and he thinks that they have to be ms. potts’, because no one else would be able to feel so much like may without actually being her.
at some point they were led upstairs, into the penthouse that only someone like tony stark would have been able to afford and peter is sure that he took a shower because the next morning when he woke up on the couch sandwiched between ned and mj with the end credits of the empire strikes back playing, there’s no more blood on him.
+ 1.
the rings of the dial tone still make peter flinch because all he can think of is that night when he had so many calls to make and so many thoughts going through his brain.
after the tenth ring, he hears the familiar click and the message begins.
“this is may parker. i’m not able to come to the phone right now, but leave a message and i’ll get back to you,” there’s a sigh and a chuckle, before, “peter, put that dow-“ and the dreaded beep.
a shaky breath rattles through peter’s chest, something which no doubt isn’t helped by the thin air seventy stories up on the roof of the apartment building.
“hey, may,” he says quietly, and he almost hangs up because this is stupid no one is going to ever hear this anyway but he has so many things to tell say and there isn’t anyone he wants to tell but may.
“it’s really cold out today. of course, it’s new york in the middle of december so i guess i can’t be surprised by that, but still it’s a little rough. don’t worry, i’m wearing a jacket.”
it was a lie, he wasn’t actually wearing a jacket, he was wearing his suit and before he’d taken the mask off to make the call, he’d asked karen to turn the heat all the way up.
“mr. stark blew something up in the lab today. he wasn’t paying attention and accidentally added potassium sulfide instead of sulfite to a new concoction of web fluid he was making and it blew up. they had to evacuate stark industries, happy had to come and escort tony and i out the back door to keep us away from the press, and pepper was pissed,” he said with a dry chuckle.
“speaking of pepper, she’s doing great. tony was just as surprised as i was to find out that you’d spoken to her about guardianship if something happened. his jaw literally hit the floor and he looked like the surprised patrick meme from spongebob.”
peter was interrupted by the beep signaling the end of recording, but he had no intentions to stop talking.
“they caught the guy that did it, by the way. it took them almost three months, but the guy tried the same thing in one of the buildings down the street. spider-man stopped him this time,” he said quietly, feeling the tears pooling in his eyes and starting to slip down his cheeks. the cold air froze them on the spot. “i’m so sorry, may. i’m so sorry that i wasn’t there to save you. i should have been i was supposed to-“
peter had spent the first month after moving into the stark apartment caught in nightmares of reliving the events of that night. sometimes, he would wake in a cold sweat after a dream about what would have happened if he’d made it back to the apartment in time, and friday would have to alert tony so he could help peter calm down and readjust to a world without may.
“anyway,” he said, trying to stem the tears which were now flowing freely from his cheeks. “i got into mit today. so did ned. tony wasn’t actually the one to write my letter of recommendation. he made a really bad dad joke and i got mad at him so i called rhodey. tony wrote ned’s though. and mj’s looking at northeastern. if she gets in, mr. stark’s already said he’ll get the three of us an apartment because “no kid of mine is going to live in those hellish dorms.” it was the first time he called me his kid. it didn’t really feel right, you know? but at the same time it felt more right than anything i’d heard for a long time. i cried and then pepper cried and then he cried and then mj cried and then ned cried. rhodey walked in while we were all crying and it was a mess,” he sniffled again.
“i really miss you, may. i said it once already but i’ll never be able to stop saying that i’m sorry that i wasn’t there for you. you were always there for me and you went through so much shit because of me, and the only way i was able to repay you was by not being there when you needed me. you should have been there with me when i opened the early decision email. you should be there to move me into those ‘hellish dorms,’ and you should be here for christmas.”
peter’s phone vibrated against his ear, and he knew that it was pepper texting him to come to dinner.
“i’ve got to go. bye may,” he said, pulling the phone away from his ear and drying the tears streaming down his cheeks.
“i love you, now and always.”