Grievance

"who am i? i’ve lost the thread. 

my ego dies at the end." 

- my ego dies at the end, jensen mcrae 

Life was going to be different, but that was fine. It was to be expected, really. So Peter got himself an apartment using the cash he had stashed away under his mattress back in Queens (because you can take the kid out of poverty, but you can’t take poverty out of the kid). And sure it was tiny, but he had never really known anything other than that. No problem. He could handle it.

The new thing was that the space was all his. A fact that made the measly square footage feel like a sprawling Malibu mansion, as if some part of him knew that he was going to lose himself within the walls. He pushed the feeling away, filled the space with his Legos (he’d made sure to be extra careful handling the Death Star- he wasn’t sure if he could handle it breaking again, without Ned to help him fix it this time-), some of May's old sweaters that smelled like her favorite drugstore perfume, and the secondhand GED prep books he'd bought at the thrift store. 

Everything was going to be fine. Peter was going to be fine. He was used to being alone, he always seemed to end up that way despite his best efforts; he could do this. 

That didn’t mean that it hurt any less.

The eighteen year old’s heart clenched when he thought of his friends, the way being near them had made him feel like a ghost. Which-  he supposed that’s essentially what he was, for all intents and purposes. An apparition, invisible to everyone around him. He had allowed himself to get his hopes up, let his head fill with fantastical scenes of warm, familiar embraces and glimmering eyes that lit up in recognition as things went back to normal, spell be damned. And well, that was definitely another mistake to add to his ever-growing list of fuck-ups, wasn’t it? 

Why was it that everyone he ever loved was taken away from him, one way or another?

It made Peter feel sick to remember the way he felt staring into MJ's eyes, his own stinging with tears that he’d tried to hold back over that little steaming cup of coffee that was still sitting on the corner of his desk, its contents surely having transformed into some sort of science experiment. But he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. Because even if she didn’t remember him, and never would, he would never want to forget her, what she meant to him. (And every time he tried, he could hear her voice in his head- "I love you ." …He didn’t want to forget what was possibly the last time those three words would ever be said to him. Regardless of the fact that he couldn’t say them back, wouldn’t let himself because those words were meant for-)

His eyes burned when he thought of Ned, happy and healthy as ever without him. His guy in the chair. His partner in many a childhood crime. His best and oldest friend. Going off to MIT, fulfilling one of the plans they’d dreamt up as much smaller versions of themselves. ("You’ll be my best friend forever, right Ned? You won’t leave me?" "’Course not, who else would build Legos with me during recess, Peter?")

Despite his best efforts he still shook whenever his mind drifted to May. He would think about the way her blood was sticky between his fingertips as his trembling hand caressed her ashen cheek in his best but still poor imitation of the way she’d touched him for nearly his entire life. ("Now you listen to me, Peter Benjamin, I may not be your mother, but you are mine, you silly boy. You’re my world, sweetie. Never doubt that. It’s you and me, bubby.")

And when he really let his mind wander, Peter found himself choking. His mouth would go dry, full of silty ash, the smell of burnt flesh trapped in his nostrils, making him gag- ("Mr. Stark. Hey, Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It’s Peter. Hey…we won. Mr. Stark. We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, you did it. … I’m sorry, Tony.")

Sometimes it felt as if his grief would kill him. Fill up his lungs, clog up his airways and smother him. 

Sometimes, laying between the scratchy sheets in the middle of the night, damp and cold with sweat, he wished it would.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it…