He's Gone
Michelle got the call a week after she said goodbye to Peter. It was a hellish week by itself, she had to see the people around her turn into to dust. When she didn’t hear from Peter during that time, she knew he was dead, he would have called or gotten Karen to check in but for that entire week, it was radio silence. That didn’t mean she didn’t try like hell to reach him.
She called and left so many voicemails that it would take him at least a day to finish them all. Voicemail after voicemail, each one would always ask if he was okay and to call her back with a few rambles in between but she knew that would never happen. She knew he was dead but the call only confirmed it.
That week she had been hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Then she got the call and she wasn’t even close to prepared when Tony Starks number came on her phone. (Surprisingly they became close during those two years when she first found out Peter was Spiderman.)
She answered it the second his face appeared on her phone. His voice was raspy as he rambled on about how brave he was and how hard he fought to get back to her, to them. His words were useless, she knew he had turned into dust like half of the world, she knew he was gone and she would never see him again.
Michelle stayed calm, mumbling little things to show she was still listening but it wasn’t until he said “He didn’t make it, he died in my arms” did she break into a million pieces. Her whole world shattered when those words left his mouth.
His voice broke as he spoke thinking of the memory of laying Peter down before he turned into dust, breaking into a million pieces, just like Michelle.
Her body went completely numb, Tony continued to talk but she couldn’t hear anything. There was dead silence before she dropped her phone and collapsed to the ground. She let out a scream as her body shook with sobs. She ached for Peter to be there with her and hold her while he told her everything was going to be okay. Her heart beat a thousand times per minute and her palms were drenched in sweat as they shook.
The world around her seemed to stop, trembling she let out another scream. She didn’t want to believe Peter was dead nor did she want to hear it and on the phone of all things.
The tears didn’t stop as she yelled out “You promised.” She yelled it out over and over again until her throat went raw.
Tony was still on the line, yelling out her name, trying to get her attention. He knew how much Peter loved this girl and if he was being totally honest, he had taken a liking to her too in the short time he got to know her. Bottom line was he needed to if she was okay. But no sane person would be after hearing news like this.
The last person she wanted to talk to was the man that brought him into this mess. Deep down she knows it’s not Tony’s fault but she needed someone to blame and Tony was an easy target. Peter could make his own decisions but he was still only 18. He didn’t deserve any of this.
With a shaking hand, she picked up the phone and threw it across the room in frustration. Smashing the screen in the process although she didn’t care she just wanted Peter. She was willing to do anything to get him back, literally anything to have him back in her arms again.
The guilt she held over herself was overbearing. If only she had fought harder for him to stay on that damn bus. He listened to her, he always listened to her. Peter rarely listened to Tony. Quickly that blame she put on Tony was put on herself. She knew Tony did everything in his power to get Peter to safety while she had done nothing.
Deep down she knew nothing could stop him from dying, it was Thanos' doing but in her head, it was her fault. All of it was her fault.
***
For five days Michelle didn’t leave her room. She only left her bed to have hot showers (really, really hot showers) which were mainly used to muffle her cries. The tears came and went but she never stopped thinking about him. She didn’t eat or drink, nor did she sleep. Lying awake, staring at the ceiling all night was all she wishes she did, instead she uploaded all their stuff off her cracked phone and on to her computer. She went through old photos and videos of him (never any about Spiderman) even went through some of their old text messages. And finally, when she hit rock bottom, she would call his phone to hear his voice mail.
She watched this one video of them more than the others. Ned was videotaping them during one of their movie marathons, she made a joke about how Star Trek was better than Star Wars. It ended with both of them on the floor due to a tickle fight that Michelle lost. Peter was on top of Michelle, he pushed the hair that fell from her ponytail out of her face before kissing her. Ned yelled at them to get a room before stopping the recording. She remembered that day like it was yesterday. She smiled fondly at the memory but just as soon as the smile came it left with the thought of never being able to make new memories like that again.
It felt so good to be in his arms and have his lips on hers, she would never have that again. She would never feel his body against hers, never see his smile again or his beautiful eyes. She'll never get to hold his hand or cuddle with him while watching movies. No more lunches at school or weird field trips. No more swinging from building to building or late nights on the roof to watch the stars. Never getting the opportunity to say I love you. So many things, to many things she would never get to do or experience. Those thoughts hit her like a brick every second.
Everything else on her phone was ignored and it wasn't only because her phone was cracked. All calls and text went straight to voicemail or straight to read.
Ned called and texted multiple times and she only answered once. It was only to let him know she hadn’t turned in to dust.
Tony kept calling to see if she was okay but she didn’t answer. Not once did May call or text which worried her at first but after one of Ned’s lengthy messages she learned, she was one of the survivors.
May got the news first and Tony had called after to let her know that Michelle was alive but not okay. He asked May to check up on her when she wouldn't respond to any of his messages. May knew better and in a way knew Michelle better than her own parents. She knew Michelle didn’t want to talk to anyone. The one text she did send was that she would always be there to talk and if she needed anything she would be there. Michelle appreciated it but still left it on read.
Her parents, on the other hand, tried to figure out what was wrong but she had locked them out, literally. When they came home the day, she found out they heard her screams and tried to help her but she locked her door. Every day they would knock and when she didn’t answer they left a plate of food outside her door. And every day they would pick up that plate and throw it away.
They were happy their child wasn't affected by the snap but got sick of the silence real soon, going as far as to call Ned over to try and get her out of the room.
She locked him out too, not wanting him to see her cry. But that didn’t stop him from telling her stories of Peter for an hour. During those hours Michelle laughed for the first time since the news. As he left, he promised to come back the next day for more stories. He kept that promise.
Michelle was slowly starting to lose herself and she didn’t want anyone she loved to see her like that. She didn’t want their pity and she didn’t want people to think of her differently and she definitely didn’t want people seeing her completely break into a shell of the person she used to be. So, she dealt with it by herself, like she always did.
On the eighth day without sleep or food, May’s caller ID came on her phone while she was looking through old text messages of Peter. She didn’t want to talk to the person who practically raised him. She didn’t think she deserved to, not with all the blame she had put on herself.
But of course, it was Aunt May and she doesn’t give up, she called twice more before she sent her a text:
Aunt May
Please pick up your phone, I know you’re on it looking at old messages from Peter. I have something to tell you that’s too important to say over text.
Michelle contemplated whether or not to call her back but she never got the chance to before May called her again. This time she answered.
She didn’t say a word, simply put the phone to her ear and waited for May to talk first. When she did, she didn’t stray from the topic or ramble on like Tony did she only said two words that made everything in and around Michelle stop “He’s alive.”