If there was one thing Peter Parker knew for certain about the way things happened to him, it was that everything happened within the middle of a second and a blink of an eyeโ just as quickly as somebody could ( ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. )
When he had been six years old, the current began to rise. He hadnโt known it then, but the first deaths Peter would ever be exposed toโ the loss of the mother who tucked him in at night and sang him lullabies rather than read to him and the father who prodded Peteโs interest in science through film and real life experimentsโ would be the beginning of a gradual ( hurricane. )
He hadnโt known it then, but as time would go on and the death of his uncle would be tugging at his delicate heartstrings at the ripe age of thirteen, Peter would be whisked beneath the ever-rising current and left to wonder which of two evils would result in him coming out the least unscathed: to d
r
o
w
n
beneath the waves?
Or die from the thirst?
To feel everything at once. .
or n o t h i n g at all.
But even heโ the very embodiment of softness and home and ( family )โ got through it. Sometimes it hurt. . sometimes he was submerged in an ocean; lost in a blizzard; stuck in the tunnel of a tornado. . but he swam to the surface, or he found shelter from the snow (in his aunt), or he waited the tornado out. .
Point being, he made it through.
And he did. Until now.
Because caramel irises were crying constant tears like a sky promising rainfall for days to a city full of drought. Because he was s t u c k and s u f f o c a t i n g in the current and paralyzed without the feeling of his limbs where he had once felt disappear from his body ( I donโt wanna go. ) Because he was fifteen but he should have been twenty and working with Mr. Stark. Because Mr. Stark was gone and he couldnโt breathe and they all l o s t ( we won, Mr. Stark, we won. )
The hurricane was all encompassing. He couldnโt hear with the static in his ears. He couldnโt see with the wind blowing in his eyes resembling dust and no, he didnโt want to think about that! He couldnโt feel anything other than the tangible storm at his fingertipsโ brewing deeper and deeper inside of himself and all he could do was harbor it. Embody it. Years of suppression and now he was the storm. Destructive. Hurting all of those around him. Fatal. Everybody around him was [ dead or dying. ] Reckless. He didnโt care.
Relentless, unyielding, bold; he was a storm.
And, holding the graying, rough and calloused hand of an inventor (father, engineer, billionaire, philanthropist, playboy, victim) and watching the spark leave his tear-filled eyes, he thinks he gets it.
At last, Peter Parker understands why storms are named after people.