Rem: What if he does get sick though and just doesn’t tell anyone? He’s a stubborn fool who thinks if he works his way through it, it’ll pass. He doesn’t have time for bedrest, he has a city to protect.
Maria: The spiderfam only finds out when Noir misses a date with PB, who comes over to check on Noir.
Rem: Noir all sickly, his grey skin turned white, a dark feverish flush on his cheeks, he’s got bags under his eyes and he looks a mess and reeks.
He can’t get up, he’s barely lucid when PB gets there. He’s shaking and sweating, and he won’t respond to PB shaking him or calling his name.
PB snaps his fingers in front of Noir’s face and his eyes don’t even move to look at the noise.
Maria: PB practically carries Noir through a portal, because he can’t stand on his own. Noir is incoherent, mumbling something that PB can’t quite make out, but might not even be words at all.
Rem: They go to Aunt May’s because if anyone knows how to deal with a sick Peter Parker, it’s her.
Maria: Aunt May takes Noir in without hesitation, bustling around to pull out all of her flu treatments. Noir doesn’t know what’s happening, but he hears Aunt May’s voice and he’s afraid his identity has been revealed to her. Once Noir is wrapped up in a blanket, Aunt May tries to give him medicine, but Noir won’t take it.
Pb wraps around Noir, snuggles close, and whispers sweet nothings.
PB is able to make Noir take the medicine.
Rem: Noir just feverishly asking if Aunt May is mad, if she knows what he’s done, and PB keeps shushing him, wiping his forehead cause Noir is just sweating and shaking so much.
Maria: Noir is clinging to PB, and PB is pretty sure at some point Noir thinks he’s his Uncle Ben. Noir keeps asking him if he’s proud. PB replies yes, every time, even as his voice chokes from trying not to cry. Noir, his Noir, is on the brink of death and all he can do is offer this one, little comfort.
Rem: mARIA
Maria: I’m trying my bestest here
Rem: I literally, physically hurt for a hot second reading that.
Eventually Noir is almost fully unconscious, just barely holding on to the waking world; and Peter just strokes his hair, telling him “it’s ok to fall asleep, love. I’ll be here when you wake up, it’s ok. You’re safe.”
Maria: When Noir’s eyes slip closed, PB holds his breath, terrified. If Noir stopped breathing, he didn’t know what he would do. PB cradled Noir’s head, stroking his hair over and over. At some point Aunt May tried to give him something to eat, but he didn’t even acknowledge her presence and at some point, she stopped asking, and just left it next to him.
PB didn’t know what it was but didn’t want to take his eyes off of Noir for even the second it would take to check. In that one second, his whole world could change. Noir could stop breathing or open his eyes.
PB had promised to be there for him when he woke up, and he would be, no matter what.
Rem: Noir just in a feverish sleep for days. He sweats and shakes and talks in his sleep, sometimes shouts. But sometimes he gets so quiet, and PB gets so scared because it hardly feels like he’s even breathing.
Sometimes he’ll come to just enough to need to get sick, or they can get some water or tea down his throat.
The others come and visit and PB almost looks just as much of a wreck as Noir.
KK: They’re like “Come on, PB, you’re wearing yourself thin.” He rubs at his eyes, shaking his head. “I can’t leave him alone like that. What if something happens?” Because stuff like this probably happens in the 30s all the time. With so many people cold and starving, they just fade away without notice. He doesn’t dare dwell on what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there to take care of Noir.
Rem: The others promise to take shifts. They’ll do some patrols around the city for him, and they’ll watch Noir. “Just at least go take a shower, eat and sleep a little. You’re gonna be no good to him if you’re sleep deprived and make yourself sick too.”
KK: PB begrudgingly agrees and they shoo him off to sleep in a different room. But he literally can’t settle down. He can barely hear Noir’s heartbeat from upstairs. They watch him walk by with a sheepish grin, eyes more focused on Noir’s sleeping form as he says “Oops, forgot my blanket.” He leaves and within the next ten minutes he’s back with “And my pillow.” Then, “Need a drink of water.” His excuses get worse and worse. “My emotional support….snow globe on the shelf.”
Eventually they just force him to take a nap on the couch next to Noir because jfc.
“And you better sleep or else I’m having Miles zapping the lights out of you.” – Gwen
Rem: My emotional support snow globe, I’m gonna cry.
He ends up taking the floor, wanting Noir to have as much room as he can. Also, he doesn’t think he could handle it if Noir stopped breathing while pressed against him, his mind and heart just couldn’t take that.
Rem: So I know we went like Noir is sick and starts getting healthy but is just weak and stuff, but like, what if
1. Noir Doesn’t get better. Like. The big bad happens or 2.His weakened state leaves him vulnerable on patrols and in fights and when PB comes back. Oh no.
Maria: hghhhhhhhhh
PB noticed that Noir had become increasingly lucid over the past few hours. He was hopeful that maybe Noir was recovering and that he would pull through.
Noir, for one, didn’t seemed too concerned. He merely asked for PB to come to the couch with him, and Pb complied. PB pet Noir’s hair, matted and greasy as it was, and they just…talked.
Noir became quieter and quieter, seemingly becoming drowsy. PB asked Noir if he wanted him to move so that he could sleep, but Noir shook his head.
“I want you with me. At the end.”
Rem: PB getting flustered. “Noir, stop being dramatic. You’re fine. You’re awake, you’re talking, you’re gonna be fine.”
And Noir just shakes his head. And Peter’s anxiety shoots through the roof because what is happening?
Maria: PB starts to get up, ready to call Aunt May or do something, anything, but Noir just grabs his wrist with a grip that PB only just now notices is far too weak.
“Please. There’s no time. Just…stay.”
Rem: Noir just buries his face in PB’s chest and holds him there for a while. “…I really loved you, ya know. Still do…never felt this way before with another person.” And his voice sounds so sleepy, and PB is in tears because he wants to call out and demand for help, but he can’t find his voice.
Noir just smiling a bit, and he’s rubbing Peter’s back. “We could have been a great team. We were. But I was hoping we could forever…maybe in another time. Another dimension.”
Maria: PB shook his head. “No, Noir. There’s no one else like you. No one.” His voice chokes up, “I love you. I love you so much. I don’t…I can’t do this without you.”
Noir tilts his head up and smiles softly at PB but doesn’t speak. PB feels his eyes tear up, and he repeats himself again. “I love you.” He’s not sure if Noir can hear him anymore.
Rem: Noir just mumbles, “You gotta let me go, Peter.” And his eyes flutter shut, and Peter’s heart races and beats out of his chest. “Hey. Noir…Noir, seriously, this isn’t funny…Peter? Peter Benjamin? Wake up! Please! Peter!" And he's wailing, not quite shaking Noir, but not holding him. Just rocking.
He curses his damn spider senses, why didn’t they tell him this was going to happen. They predict danger. Why didn’t it tell him this was fucking happening?
Maria: PB can tell other people are in the room now, there’s colored blurs at the edge of his vision, as others – probably the team – rush about. He vaguely hopes Aunt May isn’t letting Miles or Peni see this. But all PB can see, all he registers in this world is the bundle of black and gray and white laying in his arms. His spidey sense has gone completely silent, which PB was darkly thankful for. He didn’t need it to tell him that Noir, his Noir, was gone.
Rem: Everyone moving and making noise – crying he thinks. Shouting. He doesn’t care. Everything is slow yet so fast, blurry but painfully in focus. He’s hardly breathing, his heart is pounding so loud it’s all he hears in his ears. He’s staring at Noir and Noir just doesn’t open his eyes.
“Peter, you’re in shock,” Gwen says.
“We – we gotta get him to a hospital,” Peter says. “Please, call a fucking ambulance, anything!” and they’re quiet, and he moves to put Noir over his shoulder, hell bent on swinging there and they’re like, “Peter, he’s gone!” and he’s fighting and spitting and crying.
Maria: Finally, it’s Aunt May who reaches out, catching PB’s face with her hands, turning his to meet hers. She’s crying.
“He’s gone, Peter. Please, just let him go. Don’t keep trying to hold onto him.”
Rem: “Why didn’t anyone save him?!” he demands, anger fizzing out of him. “He was right here! We were right here, why didn’t anyone – why didn’t any of you…..”
“Why didn’t I save him?”
And Peter just stares at Aunt May. Not his Aunt May, just like he’s not her Peter. And she’s just lost a second Peter, and so has Miles, and so has Gwen. And now he’s lost Noir. And he stares at her, and he crumples to the floor, and they peel Noir away, just holding him and he’s crying into Aunt May’s arms on the floor.
Maria: “I could’ve saved him. I could’ve checked on him sooner. I could’ve done something, anything.” Peter was muttering to himself, shaking in Aunt May’s arms. At some point, another pair of arms encircle him as well, followed by another, and another, until he’s surrounded by his entire family, all of them sitting on the floor offering what little comfort they could.
Rem: “it’s not your fault, Peter.” Miles says. “We can’t always save everybody.”
They all thought he was getting better. They all were so sure of it. He was lucid. He was talking. He was aware. Why did he die? Why did he die? Peter thinks.
Maria: “I didn’t want to save everybody…just him.”
Gwen rubbed Peter’s shoulder. “I know how that feels, PB. Believe me, I do. But that’s not the path you want to go down.”
Rem: They don’t want to bring him back to his world. Not the one he protected, yet hated, the one that he felt so alone in. They wanted him to be buried in Miles’ world. The lights, the colors, he loved it. He had loved it there. They want to have a funeral for him, but he isn’t the Peter Parker of that universe. He’s just some guy, just Noir. So, they get together what they can, who they can. Some of the officers including Jefferson Davis knew how these Spiders helped. He comes. So does Aunt May. It’s a toss up they decide. Going back to Noir’s world to see if Aunt May or Felicia Hardy will come.
Oh God, who’s gonna tell them?
Becaues this could fit the comics in how Noir died and Gwen told them and how May reacted.
PB looks too similar, he’s too vulnerable. He wants to go but sticks to the shadow.
KK: I want Mile’s dimension’s Aunt May to get back at Noir’s Aunt May.
Maria: When PB arrives at Noir’s Aunt May’s home, he pauses. He knows, from what Noir had told him, that they didn’t have the best relationship. Still, he had to try. Miles’ Aunt May was there with him, because he wasn’t sure if he could do it alone.
When Aunt May opens the door, she freezes. She had never seen color before, except on that little cube at the museum.
Rem: They go in and talk, that world’s MJ is there, friend of the family and Peter’s heart hurts too much to look at her. He can’t, not after this.
He explains who Noir was, a hero. Someone who protected people even with is life on the line. How he loved people, loved his family. Wanted to keep them safe. How he helped save dimensions, protected millions of people. How he was such a damn good person.
And that Aunt May just, snaps.
She’s mad, furious even. Sure, she had never had the best relationship with her Peter, but she never expected him to be like this. A goddamn vigilante murderer. And she makes sure to say so, even giving Peter a smack across the face.
MJ is trying to hold her back while she screams and berates PB.
Maria: Peter takes it. He doesn’t say a word. What could he say anyway? Her words about her son, about his lover, grated in his ears and made his blood boil, but he could never take it out on her. Not when she was all Noir had left of his Uncle Ben.
Miles’ Aunt May had no such restrictions.
She got right into Noir-May’s face, seething.
“How could you hate a child that you raised? How could you hate Peter? He gave up everything to save others, and you are so ungrateful to claim that what he did was wrong? Was selfish?”
Rem: “If he loved our family, he wouldn’t have done what he did! A vigilante? He murdered people! He knows how I feel about that, and yet you say he was a hero? He killed people like animals. He lived under my roof and didn’t even tell me. He did this because he was in mourning? He wasn’t the only one! He was a selfish child!”
Maria: a sad keysmash: dfvdvahgheragfd
Rem: Ok, but Aunt May refuses to go to Noir’s funeral and PB is dragging Miles’ Aunt May away and they go to leave but MJ pleads that they tell Felicia.
Maria: PB asks MJ if she wants to come, and MJ hesitates. “it’s not…I’m sorry, but no.”
Felicia, for one, bursts into tears when she hears the news, and agrees to come before they even finish the question.
“He was my friend. Of course.”
Rem: The funeral is on a day when it’s dark. They wanted it to be on a day when it’s bright, something Noir would have loved. But the clouds bring an overcast and it is dark and grey. Like Noir’s world. Peter thinks bitterly it’s the universe’s way of laughing at them both, one last time.
People are in varying states of sadness. Felicia is crying, Peni is too. Porker is holding her trying to comfort her. Gwen looks so distant. Miles is trying to put on a brave face, but he’s sobbing. Jefferson goes to his son’s side. The officers have their hats off, a sign of respect. Aunt May looks both tired and distant, like she’s tired of being in these situations.
Burying Peter Parkers.
PB is just…numb.
Maria: Noir is dressed to the nines, and the way he lays there, looking like he should be sleeping. PB knows he should be crying, but he doesn’t really feel anything right now. He asked for the flowers to all be colors, and he thinks it would have made Noir happy to see all the different shades of reds.
PB doesn’t cry until he’s supposed to give the eulogy. He takes the stand, shuffles the papers around, and opens his mouth. He can’t speak. Not now. What could he possibly say that could explain all that Noir was? How could any story convey how much of a person Noir was?
How would a story about learning colors possibly be equal to the experience, or the memory of Noir’s eyebrows all scrunched up and his confusion at the differences between orange and yellow, and how he always asked if the color was red first. PB was pretty sure it was his favorite color.
He couldn’t explain that. Not to anyone here. So, as he began to try and speak, all he got out was “Peter Benjamin P-“ before he felt his breath catch, and his heart rise to his throat.
Rem: How do you explain a man with so much history? Who fought against Nazis and villains? Who helped bring food to people in need during the Great Depression, even if it meant cutting his own rations? Who before even getting his powers, went up against the most notorious mob boss because he was tired of letting injustice persist? Who despite all the pain, and all the hurt, got back up and put the mask on to go out another night to fight for a city that didn’t care for him or want him?
Should he tell the story of when he got Noir a milkshake for the first time. How delighted he had been having it – butterscotch, just like from his childhood – and the look of fondness in Noir’s eyes. Or the time Noir excitedly brought back the finished Rubik’s cube, a smile on Peter’s lips as Noir showed him just how he solved it. Or the way Noir and he would put on old records from the 1900s when Noir felt home sick and overwhelmed. How they would sway and dance together in Peter’s too small apartment.
Maria: PB would probably start from the beginning when they first began their relationship. But he couldn’t explain the feeling he had when he saw Noir step through the portal to meet him, or when PB was the first one to say, “I love you, you know?” and how Noir got real quiet before grinning so brightly. Oh God. How could PB explain that smile? Or his laugh? Any attempt he made would be a shallow recreation of the true thing. The original.
He knew he had to try, though. To try to tell everyone why Noir mattered, to try and explain how his existence meant something. To his city, to the multiverse, to his friends and family, and to PB himself.
Rem: PB talks, just lets his brain run on autopilot. He tells them everything.
How his heart felt when he first saw Noir. How the two danced around each other for ages, just passing hints and glances here and there. How they fell in love. How Noir was the greatest hero PB ever knew. How he was so serious yet so funny, so experienced yet so naïve. How he was so selfless and so brave. How he got hurt so often, and yet he loved even more.
He talks about his favorite memories. The dates. The anniversaries. The triumphs and even the falls where they would have to pick each other up off the floor. Where it seemed like only they were keeping each other intact.
How Noir began to see them all as a family. How he even made a joke once that he and PB better take care of their spider kids. How Miles opened his heart and Peni helped it grow. How he saw Gwen as the toughest little warrior and Ham as the best friend he never had.
He’s openly crying now.
Maria: He knows he’s been talking for a long time, probably more than he was supposed to, but he didn’t care. He wanted everyone to be touched by Noir the way he had been.
He can see Miles crying, holding onto his dad’s arm which was wrapped around him, hugging him close. He can see Gwen wiping away tears, and Ham had a little mini raincloud over his head. Peni is crying, too, and Sp//der has a crying graphic playing. Aunt May is stoic, sitting upright, even as tears slip down her face, seemingly without her notice. Felicia, the woman he barely met but knew so much about from chatting with Noir, was crying, her monochrome appearance making her look even more somber.
Rem: It’s so much for PB to take.
Rem: Peter sees his face. His hair is combed back nice and neat, but still has those strands that always fall in front of his face. His glasses are on making his face look so soft. He’s so pale. His eyes are closed and PB swears he’ll open them and wake up. Over his chest are his folded arms, his hat and mask in his hands. His trench coat is folded up nice and neat, used as a pillow for his head.
He looks so peaceful.
Maria: The funeral service had asked if PB wanted them to hide the scars on his face with makeup. PB disagreed. Noir was Noir. Those scars were a part of him, were proof he had taken down some of the worst guys there were. Noir looked so comfortable, it was easy to forget that he wasn’t just taking a nap after a patrol shift.
Rem: Oh god, we’re doing scars Noir. Way to make my heart even sadder.
When they start to do the burial, PB starts to panic. He knew it would lead up to this, that this was going to happen. But the second the lid closes, and the casket starts getting lowered into the ground, he feels like he cannot breathe.
He knows Noir is dead, but his brain, his stupid foolish in love brain is screaming at him because they “Can’t bury him! He might wake up! He can’t breathe down there!”
Maria: PB’s spidey senses is going haywire, sending alerts flashing through his body. He’s not ready. He just wants to see Noir’s face one more time. Just one more time, please, please, just one more time and then he’ll be okay, he just has to make sure Noir isn’t still alive, please, just one more time he can’t let him go not yet not now –
PB didn’t even realize he was speaking until Aunt May was holding his arm, and politely asking the pallbearers to wait for just a minute.
Rem: He’s breathing hard, sobbing. She’s rubbing circles into his back just like all Aunt May’s did for their Peter’s. He’s at the caskets side in an instant, opening it back up and he’s just standing there, hands reaching out to touch Noir’s face but hesitant – never quite touching. He can’t stand the idea of Noir’s warm skin now feeling cold.
When he does touch him, he touches his cheeks, his forehead, running his fingers along his scars. He’s whispering and probably babbling, nothing anyone else can hear but just soft, quiet little things.
“We could have spent our whole lives together ya know. Gotten engaged, married even. Been two grumpy old men living in a house together, our bones aching and popping with age.” He chuckles, tears dripping down his face onto Noir’s. He wipes them off with his thumbs. “I wanted to ask ya know. So damn long. I was afraid…heh…Can fight evil villains all day who are trying to end the world, but too scared to ask you to marry me.”
Maria: “I love you so much it would hurt when you would leave. I thought about convincing myself to leave my dimension to live in yours, but I knew you would never have let me.”
“I would have given it up for you, you know. The SpiderMan gig. I would’ve been happy to be with you, no matter what the sacrifice. But you never asked me to. Never wanted me to. You knew, even better than I did, that we could live together and love together around our work. You always were the smarter one.”
Rem: He’s just crying, and so many want to go to him but want to give him space. Eventually it’s Miles who comes up, wrapping his arms around Peter. Peter cries, he was too much of a damn coward to say this to Noir’s face and now he’s gone.
“You were my everything. And now I don’t know what to do without you.”
“I’m sorry I was a coward.”
Maria: hghhhhhhhhHHHHH
Pb lets them close the casket again and lets them lower it down. He tries to focus on Miles, his warm hug that’s so full of comfort, a sweet relief to this burning misery.
Miles doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. PB is grateful for it. He just doesn’t want to think anymore.
Rem: PB is just so quiet and distant the following weeks. He’s barely even PB anymore. A shell of who he was.
He still sleeps on his side of the bed, still makes two cups of coffee in the morning, always makes more food than just one person can eat.
Maria: He always pours two cups, and then puts them down at the table, just like always. Only after he sits down does he remember.
Sometimes when he wakes up, he’ll panic a little, wondering why Noir’s side of the bed is cold. Other time’s he’ll roll over expecting to find warmth, but instead only finds empty sheets.
PB can’t find a place for the Rubik’s cube. He keeps moving it around. Every place he puts it looks off. It was always in Noir’s hands before. No matter where he puts it, it keeps capturing his attention, distracting him and putting him off. But he can’t bear to hide it away, either.
Rem: PB is doing laundry and finds some of Noir’s turtlenecks. He doesn’t want to wash them because Noir’s smell still lingers on them.
Maria: PB puts it on the bed, on Noir’s side. If he closes his eyes, and pretends it’s almost like Noir is still there, with him.
Rem: Peter going to grief counseling two days every week because if he doesn’t, he knows he’ll just collapse, just break.
Maria: All of the members of the team, and Aunt May, offer to come with him every time. He refuses, because he hates how weak he is. He doesn’t want them to see that it still hurts.
They never stop asking though, for which he is somewhat grateful.
Rem: Sometimes he says he goes, and he doesn’t. Just sits in places he and Noir used to hang out at, he’ll drink alcohol and sit there, and he’ll talk to himself. He’ll pretend Noir is there, just bringing up conversations and telling him how things are, though sometimes he’ll be so upset. “Why the fuck did you die? Why the fuck did you go?”
Maria: As time passes, he finds himself doing that less and less. He hates himself for it, for not thinking about Noir all the time. In a twisted way, he doesn’t want to recover, because recovery means moving on.
But after a while, the turtleneck stops smelling like Noir and just smells like clothes, and he stops noticing the Rubix cube every time he walks into the room where it sits.
He starts buying enough food for himself and stops buying those snacks that Noir loved, and he couldn’t stand.
Rem: On the anniversary of Noir’s death, years after, he brings flowers to his grave and sits and talks. He tells him how therapy is going, and about how Miles, Gwen and Peni are growing up, and how they demanded he start taking care of himself better.
Maria: That evening, he goes to Aunt May’s house. They’re having a small get-together, in honor of their lost friend.
They reminisce stories about Noir, laughing and joking, and, for the first time since Noir’s death, it doesn’t hurt to think of him as gone.
Rem: We did it we finally turned it around from angst. Good for us.
Maria: Ikr wow, it only took us 20 hours.
Rem: Better late than never.