Holding To The Ground

Peter Parker thinks he knows abuse.He’s seen it out on patrol, in a little girl with cigarette-burned hands, in a teenage boy who ‘fell down the stairs’ one too many times.He thinks that it’s a few months of punches and then you escape, go to therapy, and everything ends up okay. He doesn’t realize that it’s not always that simple. So when May first hits him, he is confused when she kisses the bruise, and he doesn’t understand why her nails cut into his palm whenever they hold hands or why every insult she throws at him, he already knows.Abuse isn’t always straightforward. Peter Parker learns this the hard way.——Or, when May finds out that Peter had the powers to save Ben, she is not as forgiving as we would all like to believe.

Before I begin this work, I would like to emphasize my limited experience in this field. Suffocated and Isolated was based on my experience of my father dying. In My Dreams was an extremely exaggerated description of my chronic pain and financial troubles. Other one-shots have just been dreams, little scenarios I’ve thought up that I project onto other characters.This story isn’t like those. To write it, I have and still am looking extensively into abuse cases of people I know and articles published by those who don’t. I have experienced very limited abuse, and just based on the topic of this story, I am handling a much more sensitive idea that could harm a lot of people if botched. So please, I’m begging you, if any of what I write seems off, seems like I am portraying parental abuse poorly, let me know, and tell me how I can fix it. This is not a story I can take lightly, and I refuse to pretend as if I have enough experience to be exempt from mistakes.With that, let it begin.