Love After Love
Love after love will not feel the same, but that doesn't mean it isn't love.
What is a solution?
He stared at the pink flashcard, his mind drawing a blank. He groaned and face-planted onto his desk, hands gripping the curls in his hair.
“Peter!” May knocked on his bedroom door. “Breakfast is ready!”
“Coming!”
As she headed back to the kitchen, he looked up just enough to see the rest of the flashcards. He couldn’t do this. He was going to fail his finals and get kicked off the team and everyone would be so disappointed and how could he ever look Mr Stark in the face again –
“Peter!”
“One sec May!”
The question was mocking him. It was simple as could be, AP Chemistry 101, and yet he couldn’t remember. He straightened and flipped the card over.
A homogeneous mixture made up of two or more substances that do not chemically combine …
He pressed his palms to his eyes and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry.
“Peter!” his aunt was back, knocking harder on his door. Frustration made him storm over, yank the door open and snap,
“I said I was coming!”
May looked taken-aback, then annoyed. “Okay, whatever this is?” she gestured at him. “You need to take it down a level. You know the deal.”
“Yeah yeah…” he rolled his eyes and ducked under her arm.
Once in the kitchen, he threw himself in the closest chair and tried not to gag at the full English breakfast on the table. The deal - until Dr Cho declared him ‘out of danger’, attendance at meals was mandatory and everything on his plate had to be eaten. May had interpreted that as 'eat a full English breakfast every single day'.
“Some deal,” he muttered as he stabbed a fork into the sausages. Deal implied there had been a negotiation, a compromise on both sides.
May had been scarce on those recently.
“I’m sorry, the opinion of someone who starved himself doesn’t get a say,” she said as she settled on the seat opposite. “So eat your food and – your fork!” Peter winced when he realised he’d been gripping the fork so hard he’d bent it.
“Sorry,” he said, bending it back in place and a small crease the only sign something had happened. His aunt’s gaze was heavy as he tried to use it gently, but she didn’t say a word and, eventually, he pulled out his phone and started scrolling through Twitter to avoid the awkwardness. His friends had been updating the official Spider-Man account (@NYCWallCrawler was an awesome name) every day with old footage pilfered from the ‘baby monitor’. The craziest part of it all wasn’t the thousands of followers, but that people were actually starting to tweet at him.
He clicked on his tag and read the newest.
@NYCWallCrawler Have I said I would kill for super-powers? Cause I totally would …
One of my friends took a selfie with @NYCWallCrawler awhile back! I’m so jealous. I’ll never get to meet him while I’m working early shifts…
Help me Spider-Man I’m hungry! @NYCWallCrawler #SaveMeWithPizza
He grinned at the last one, even though his chest ached. He wanted to be out there helping them, swinging through the streets, free-running across the rooftops and then jumping off, his stomach flip-flopping from the exhilaration –
“Peter?”
“Huh?” he looked at his aunt. Her eyebrows were raised, but she just sighed and nodded at his plate.
“You need to finish.”
“Right…” he had to try very hard not to bend the fork again as he restarted eating and went back to the Twitter feed.
Are we sure that Spider-Man is even a Human and not an alien? @NYCWallCrawler
Whatever little appetite he’d had left fled him.
That would explain why he’s always wearing a mask.
He swallowed and decided to switch to Instagram. His feed – Peter Parker’s – was full of both people from school and people he liked, but it sucked that the top photos were all from Flash.
Flash’s healthy meal… a selfie at the gym… two photos of his pile of books and notes…
Rolling his eyes, he went to the official Spider-Man Instagram and took a few seconds to admire the aesthetic. Ned had taken screenshots from his recorded footage of the city and its skylines and was posting them. They looked gorgeous, more so than he remembered being in person, and he wondered if they were edited.
He clicked on the most recent – looking out towards the bridges and river, around sunset – and read the comments.
Hey Spidey i love u
Love
This is the nicest one yet!
“Peter…”
Peter hit the power button and shoved his phone in his pocket (he knew that tone). “Eating!” he smiled and made a show of putting everything in his mouth. She made a disgusted face, but the corner of her lips curled up a little, so he considered that a success.
When he’d finished, he dumped his plate in the sink and turned back to his aunt. She’d finished long ago and was just drinking a coffee.
“Did you speak to Miss Potts yet?”
She hesitated before replying, “Not yet. There’s still some fuss about those threats, so I’m sure she’s busy with that.”
“I guess…” Peter sighed.
“I’ll ring in a few days, unless… have you heard from them?”
“Nope.”
“Good,” she crossed her arms. “Your finals start tomorrow. You need to be focusing on those.”
“I know.” He thought of the draft text sitting on his phone and tried not to feel too guilty. “I’m gonna go study some more.”
“What time’s Ned coming?”
“Soon.”
“And are you staying or going out?”
“Dunno.”
She studied him for a few seconds, before sighing and looking down at her coffee. “Well, I’ve got a double shift today so I’ll be home late. There’s food in the fridge and money on the counter.”
“Thanks,” he said and started to head to his room. He paused in the doorway, then glanced over his shoulder at her. “They’re working you too hard.” May didn’t reply, but her lips thinned and Peter heard her answer anyway (we need the money).
As soon as he was back in his room and the door was shut, he slumped against it and shut his eyes. He’d barely done anything, but he was so exhausted. He sank to the floor and pulled his knees to his chest, then got out his phone and opened the draft text to Mr Stark.
Can I come over?
His fingers hovered over the send button, but the memory of May’s exhaustion made him sigh and delete the words. He looked at his desk with renewed determination.
If she could work double-shifts for him, he could put up without being Spider-Man for a little bit longer.
“Last one, you ready?”
“Hit me.”
Ned held up his phone so Peter couldn’t see the screen. “A high school football has an average mass of 410 grams. If MJ can throw one -” Peter snorted and covered his mouth, glancing over at the laptop where the girl in question was pulling a face. Ned ignored them both. “If she can throw one with speeds exceeding 60 miles per hour, what’s the total kinetic energy she produced?”
“150,” Peter grinned.
“What’s the equation?” MJ pressed. With a roll of his eyes, Peter scribbled the equation for kinetic energy on a scrap of paper and pressed it to the laptop’s screen. “Dummy, I can’t see that close!”
Ned snatched the paper, looked it over then gave MJ a thumbs up. “What next?” he asked, putting it next to the last flashcard.
“Take a break,” MJ ordered. “You losers have been at it for hours already.”
“But I can still study,” Peter argued.
“You look like a small breeze would knock you down.”
When Peter turned to Ned, hoping for some support, the other teenager just shrugged back. “She’s got a point dude.” Peter should have remembered Ned was a traitorous back-stabbing - “Haven’t you been sleeping?”
“Of course I have,” he crossed his arms and glanced at his shoes.
“I really don’t get how you’ve managed to hide being Spider-Man this long…” MJ shook her head in disbelief. “You can’t lie for shit Parker.”
“Dude, what’re you doing if you’re not sleeping? You’re not going out, right?” Ned looked upset, like the idea that Peter had been going out and not telling him was the worst thing in the world.
“You know I haven’t,” he said. “May said I can’t, so...”
“Yeah but May’s said a lot of things and you’ve always ignored those. Remember when she said we couldn’t eat the ice cream?” They both shuddered at the memories of them taking that as a challenge and, later, two whole tubs being projectile-puked all over the living room.
“This is different,” Peter pointed out. “You didn’t see how pissed she was…”
“But that was ages ago, it’s kind of weird she’s still mad,” Ned said.
“Yeah…”
“Why’s it weird?” They both jumped and looked at the computer screen where MJ was frowning at them. Sometimes it was easy to forget she hadn’t always been there, like Ned.
“‘Cause she’s usually only pissed for a few days,” Ned explained. “She’s always been super chill. It was Ben who -” he broke off, went pale and glanced at Peter.
Peter pretended it didn’t bother him as he took a deep breath and added, “My uncle was always very serious. He had high expectations and specific rules and if I broke them he’d get mad, and May… she’d always encourage me to push the boundaries a little, said it was good for him…” His chest ached, but it was also freeing to finally talk to MJ about Ben. He didn’t think he’d ever done so before. “That’s why they worked really well together,” he glanced down at his lap.
“... So she’s never been pissed this long before?” MJ asked and he shot her a grateful look for not pressing further.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe she just snapped,” she shrugged. “It happens.”
“Not to May,” Ned said.
“Everyone has a breaking point. But that doesn’t mean what she’s doing is right,” MJ’s gaze went from Ned to Peter. “She’s basically forbidding you from being who you are, right?”
Peter frowned. “She’s just scared for me and wants me to be safe.”
“We want that too man, but we wouldn’t ever ask you to stop being Spider-Man,” Ned said. “It’s like asking you to stop having brown hair.”
“That’s not true -”
“It is,” MJ’s tone didn’t allow for any arguments. “Maybe it wasn’t always the case, but you don’t just want to be Spider-Man anymore - you need to be. You’re not sleeping because you want to be out there, right? You’re worrying about all the people you’re not helping, missing the freedom?”
Peter gaped. “How’d you -”
“She knows you dude,” Ned said quietly. “And if you don’t trust her, then trust me. I meant it when I said you being Spider-Man was the coolest thing to ever happen to me, but I also think it’s the best thing that’s happened to you. Yeah it was hard at first - you kept ditching school, forgetting we’d agreed to hang out, and you wouldn’t tell me what was going on…”
“Ned -”
“But now you’re practically an Avenger and dude, you’ve been making a difference. We’re getting all these messages from people you’ve helped on, telling their story or just thanking you -”
“And we’ve watched the footage,” MJ continued. “You love being Spider-Man. You make these dumb whoops every time you jump off a building.”
“So it’s not fair what she’s asking,” Ned finished. “You don’t have to do it.”
Peter clenched his fists. “But I do.”
“You really don’t,” MJ said.
“I do!”
“But aren’t you mad?” Ned asked. “Don’t you wanna get pissed at her for stopping you?”
“Of course I do!” he snapped, glancing between them. “Miss Potts said the same thing but I can’t risk it! You weren’t there when -” he swallowed. He hadn’t told them this before, but… “In the hospital she looked exhausted and I thought it was just stress and we’d be okay at home but when she got mad, I heard…” he pressed his palms to his eyes. “I heard her heart skip, it made this really weird sound - like it was struggling to cope and what if…”
The idea was too painful to say aloud.
“Peter…” Ned and MJ looked horrified.
“If I do what she says, she’ll calm down eventually. She doesn’t stay mad for long,” he repeated, more for himself than for them. “Besides, we have finals right now. I wouldn’t be patrolling anyway, gotta stay on the team right?” he tried to smile at MJ.
Her expression said it failed miserably.
“Can we just… go back to studying?” he hunched his shoulders a little. “Please?”
“... Sure, man.”
“... Okay losers. Who introduced the theory of punctuated equilibrium? Was it a, Haldan and Wright, b, Kirschner and Gerhart…”
Just outside the hall where they were waiting to enter for their first exam, he got a text from Miss Potts.
Remember to breathe. You’re going to be fine.
He stared at it for a full minute, chest warm and unable to keep the smile off his face, and it helped get rid of all but the smallest amount of nerves. If someone as successful as her thought he could do it, how could he not?
At 2am, halfway through the week and so stressed he couldn’t remember what day it was, his phone buzzed again.
Go to bed kiddo was all it said.
Peter didn’t even question how Mr Stark knew, just sighed and obeyed.
“Here.”
Peter couldn’t be bothered to lift his chin off his arms, but he muttered his thanks as his aunt put yet another a full English breakfast in front of him.
“Last day! You ready?” she asked with forced cheer as she sat with her own plate opposite.
“Yeah,” he yawned.
She wrinkled her nose and ordered, “Drink your coffee."
“You’re actually giving me coffee?” he raised his head a little.
“You look like you need it.”
“But…”
“You want me to take it away?”
“No!” he said, grabbing the coffee and holding it close to his chest. “My precious.”
Her lips twitched up into a smile. “Then shut up and drink. And eat.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
"Have you and Ned decided what you're doing tonight?" she asked. He shrugged and kept eating. They'd talked about it, but given how he felt right now, it might be better to just sleep off the craziness that had been the past week. "Well, if you guys don't have plans, I thought maybe you and I could have a Star Wars marathon, get some pizza from that place you like - you know, to celebrate finals finishing?"
"Sounds great," he smiled. She smiled back, then they fell into silence again. He picked at his food, feeling nauseous, and eventually his aunt sighed.
“Do you think we could talk later?”
“About what?”
“I know I haven’t exactly been very… fair, these past few weeks,” she said, making his eyes widen. "Well, it’s months now, really… but I think there’s some things I need to tell you, to explain.”
“You don’t have to -”
“I do,” she said. “Please, let me?”
His stomach twisted in knots, but he replied, “Okay, yeah. Let’s talk.”
“Thank you,” she looked relieved.
If only he could feel the same.
Less than an hour after their last exam, Peter, Ned and MJ were huddled around a table in Starbucks, nursing drinks and looking more like victims of a disaster than students who had pushed themselves too much.
“I think I broke my brain,” Ned mumbled.
“I think I broke my hand,” Peter flexed his fingers which still ached from the frantic scribbling.
“I think you two are such dorks,” MJ said. She looked more composed than either of them, but she was also holding her sweeter-than-usual coffee close to her chest and slumping in the chair.
“Aren’t you a dork yet? You’ve hung around us long enough.”
“No label suits me,” she sniffed. Peter and Ned pulled faces at her and she held a straight face only for a few seconds before giggling, which made them all crack up. Maybe they were a little hysterical from sleep-deprivation, but a few minutes later they were all much more relaxed.
“We should celebrate,” Ned said.
Peter immediately held his cup out to the centre of the table. “I may not live to see our glory, but I will gladly join the fight.”
Ned’s eyes lit up and he almost spilt his drink in his haste to hit theirs together. “And when our children tell our story -”
“They’ll tell the story of tonight.”
MJ was unimpressed. “Seriously? You’re doing this?” When they kept their glasses pressed together, waiting for her, she rolled her eyes and pressed her own cup to theirs. “Let’s have another round tonight.”
“Wait wait wait -” Ned fumbled with his phone, then angled it so he could take a photo of all three of them and their pose. Peter threw his arm around MJ to pull her closer for the photo and was momentarily distracted by how sweet her shampoo was, how comforting her warmth was against his side – “Awesome.”
They crowded round and looked at the photo. Some of MJ’s hair was cut off and the lighting highlighted the bags under their eyes and laughing, Peter said, “Thank god you don’t have any plans to be a photographer.”
“I’d like to see you do better,” Ned challenged.
“Alright, you’re on.”
“Can I be excused?” MJ asked.
“No,” Peter and Ned chorused together.
Peter slung his arm around MJ again and this time, she leant into him a little. It was difficult to keep his focus on his phone, but he managed to take a photo of them all a hundred times better than anything Ned had done, mainly because when pressed MJ muttered, “Not bad,” and so he stuck his tongue out at his friend in triumph.
“Forget science - you should be a photographer,” Ned joked.
“Work for the Daily Bugle,” Peter grinned. “Then it’s still for Mr Stark.”
“Oh my god you could sell yourself!”
“Uh…”
“Okay not yourself yourself but – you know – Spider-Man,” his friend lowered his voice.
“You could make a lot of money doing that, actually,” MJ mused.
Peter’s amusement faded at the reminder and he glanced down at his lap. “If May ever lets me again.” He winced when he heard the bitterness in his voice and tried to make his tone lighter as he added, “She wants to talk tonight.”
His friends exchanged a look.
“Just talk?” Ned asked. Peter shrugged.
“Maybe it’s about your eighteenth,” MJ said. “Have you decided whether you’re having a party?”
“Oh definitely, let’s just look at the invite list,” he pulled out his phone and pretended to call out names. “There’s May, and you, and Ned, aaaaand wait, hang on, there seems to be some kind of program called ‘being a nerd’ which is blocking any new additions -”
She rolled her eyes. “What about Mr Bubble Butt?”
“Don’t you dare start that again,” he pointed a finger at her.
“Oh my god you could have a party at the compound!” Ned’s eyes shone. “Imagine being able to say you’d partied with Iron-Man and War Machine! Hey hey do you think the other Avengers will be there?” he gasped. “Do you think they’d let us drink?!”
Peter glanced around and hissed, “Talk a little louder why don’t you?”
“Sorry! Sorry,” Ned clapped his hands over his mouth.
“Since when do you want to drink anyway?”
“I mean, it’s Tony Stark… isn’t that what he does at parties?”
“Even if he did, Miss Potts wouldn’t,” MJ said. “You should ask them if you could though. Even if it’s just us. They won’t say no.”
“Maybe…” Peter scratched the back of his head. “It’d be kinda weird though, wouldn’t it? They’re always so crazy busy and I never really… I mean it’s always been stuff to do with the suit or the wedding or… I couldn’t just ask them for a party, could I? They wouldn’t want a bunch of teenagers just crashing at the compound… and I haven’t even spoken to them since before the fight...”
“You dunno ‘till you try,” Ned said wisely.
Peter scowled at him. “You ask then.”
“I can’t ring Iron-Man! That’s like asking a gazelle to get the attention of a lion!”
“Well I can’t either!”
They both turned to MJ.
“No,” she said without looking up from her phone, then her head snapped up as if something had just occurred to her. “Actually yeah, hand it over.” She held out her hand for his phone.
“… I suddenly don’t trust you,” Peter squinted and moved his phone out of arm's reach.
She shrugged and went back to tapping on her phone. He peered over the table and realised – “Hey, that’s -”
“Your twitter, yeah, I’m just replying to a tweet,” she said. “I’ve been trying to fit it in around exams…”
“Oh yeah!” Ned went on his phone and, a few seconds later, Peter saw the official Spider-Man Facebook page. Ned loaded the messages and started typing, while Peter looked between them, wide-eyed.
“You guys’ve been doing this the whole time?”
“Duh,” MJ said. “You have to be responsive all the time if you want it to keep people interested. Got it memorised? You’ll need that when you’re running Iron-Man’s.”
“But we’ve had finals!”
“It’s like taking a break,” Ned shrugged. “And it’s fun.”
“And it’s the only way we can help you right now,” MJ said, quieter, her eyes glued to her screen even though her face was turning a little red. “Even if you’re not active out there, we can make you look it.”
“May wanted the attention off you, but you going absent would cause more ‘cause everyone would be asking questions,” Ned agreed. “So if we upload stuff and reply, they assume they’ve just missed you or whatever.”
“It’s a little worrying how easily we can convince them though…” she muttered.
Peter stared at them. Why were his eyes stinging? He wasn’t going to –
“Thank you,” he had to clear his throat.
“We’ve got your back man,” Ned bumped their arms together. MJ nodded. “Whatever happens.”
There was no way he deserved them.
They were curled up on the sofa, legs tangled and clutching hot chocolates, while a movie played in the background. It was as if the past few weeks had never happened and, as he watched her stare into her cup and listened to her nervous heartbeat, Peter hoped whatever she had to say would keep it that way permanently.
“This isn’t easy for me,” May said, finally looking at him.
“Yeah,” he said, more in acknowledgement than anything else because he could tell by the way her hands trembled she wasn’t comfortable.
“I don’t really know where to start.”
He waited but she didn’t continue, so he gathered his courage and asked, “Why don’t you like Mr Stark?”
“If only there was a simple answer,” she said.
“You’ve never really liked him,” Peter said. “I remember you didn’t want us to go to the Stark Expo…”
“With good reason as it turned out,” she pointed out and then sighed. “For a long, long time, the only thing I knew of Mr Stark was what the press reported, and I’m sure you remember what that was. Here was a man who had all the money in the world and was wasting it on booze and sex, was making and profiting off weapons which were leaving people dead or crippled or homeless-”
“That’s not -”
“Don’t be blinded by your love for him,” she chastised. He crossed his arms but remained silent, knowing she had a point. “When he became Iron-Man and started trying to do the right thing… it helped, but it didn’t undo what came before. You haven’t really experienced this yet, but it’s very hard to change someone’s first impression of you.”
“I kinda do,” Peter said. “Everyone associates Spider-Man with helping old ladies and saving cats from trees and I do more, you know?”
“… Yes, I do,” she whispered, looking back down at her mug, and Peter wanted to smack himself for reminding her. She rallied herself, though, squaring her shoulders and meeting his eyes. “It also meant being around him was dangerous, even then. No one’s saying it, but we didn’t have aliens attack New York before superheroes became a thing.”
“Uh… that’s ‘cause it’s not their fault?”
“But isn’t it true that more cataclysmic events have been happening ever since they appeared?” her fingers tightened on her cup. “Wasn’t that why the Accords happened?”
“I guess -”
“And although Tony agreed to obey them he couldn’t get the others to so he dragged a fifteen-year-old untrained child to help him out.”
“I mean -”
“A fifteen-year-old who worshipped the ground he walked on and would have tried to go to the moon if asked, so Germany was practically next door.”
“Hey!”
“Tell me that’s not true and I’ll take it back,” she raised her eyebrows at him and he sank back into the cushions, pouting a little. She nodded and took a sip of her drink, reminding Peter his own was getting cold, so he gulped it down. May didn’t look like she was going to continue any time soon, so he decided another prompt was necessary.
“So… it’s just the danger and the history you don’t like?” Her answering silence said no. “What is it then?”
She put her drink on the table, folded her hands in her lap, then took a deep breath in and, on the exhale, said, “I love Ben.”
Peter froze.
“It’s been three years, but I still…” her fingers turned white where they gripped the bottom of her shirt. “The other day at work, someone walked past wearing his aftershave and for a moment I thought – it wasn’t, of course, but my chest was so tight I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t… I had to leave.”
“… Was that the day you got crazy pissed at Mr Stark?”
“Oh…” she looked surprised, then shook her head. “No, it was a few days ago.”
It should have been a relief, but instead a heavy weight settled in his stomach. If it had affected her that badly, shouldn’t he have been able to tell?
Why hadn’t he noticed?
“It’s okay,” she said, reaching out and squeezing his arm. “I didn’t want you to know. It’s… hard, to say, but I think I need you to…” she blinked back tears. “I don’t know how I’ll ever get over him. Some days I wake up still expecting him to be lying next to me drooling over the pillow and…”
He didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t want to hear it; there was a reason they didn’t talk about him, it hurt, but then he remembered how freeing it had been to mention him to MJ.
Maybe May was right - maybe she needed to say it, for herself.
“And then I look at you,” May took another deep breath in and out. “Seeing you, it makes me wonder how you did it.”
“… Did what?”
“Get over losing him,” Her voice was so quiet he suspected he wouldn’t have heard her if he didn’t have super-hearing.
It felt like a sentence, like he'd been damned, but he needed her to know - "I haven't - I haven't got over it," he rasped and cleared his throat. His chest ached, a deep pain different to any bruise, as he wondered, "How can you say that?"
"How can you say you haven't?" she replied. "You've replaced him with Tony."
The blood drained out of his face and he couldn't look at her any longer, so he focused on the wall behind. "That's not true."
"You can be honest sweetheart, I just want to know how, because I can't - I can't do it, I can't replace him and -"
"I haven't replaced him!"
“I see it every time you and Tony are together,” she whispered. “I can’t not see it. He’s been your hero for years, and now…”
“But it…” he swallowed. Maybe he had been looking up to Mr Stark in that way, but… “It feels totally different. I loved Ben, May, and he’ll always be my dad, and it’s just – now Mr Stark’s there, too. He’s not – it’s just – different…”
“How can it be different?” her nails dug into his arm. “They’re both like a father to you -”
“How can it be the same?” he asked. “Ben was… I was a kid, and I didn’t have my spider powers, and he taught me how to tie my shoes and give me piggy-back rides and – and how to be responsible, and now I’m like a superhero and trying to follow his lessons and there’s Mr Stark and it’s crazy, like, how does that even happen? But -” he bit his lip. “He’s helping me so much, May. I don’t know where I’d be without him.”
“I just… don’t understand how you can love both,” she said. “It hurts to see you two together.”
He suddenly got it.
“Is that why you don’t like Mr Stark?” he leant forward, trying to look in her eyes, but she kept avoiding his gaze. “You think… he’s taking Ben’s place?”
“Isn’t he?” she wondered. “The things he’s teaching you – it should be Ben -” she broke off and pressed a hand to her mouth, shutting her eyes.
“Oh, May…” his eyes started burning. “Mr Stark’s never gonna replace Ben, I swear. Everything I do, everything I believe, is from what Ben taught me. He’s why I’m out there night after night – but you know, I think…” he reached out and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She tensed up. “It’s not a bad thing, what Mr Stark’s trying to do. Right?”
“I…”
“Mr Stark and I haven’t ever really talked about Ben ‘cause you know how freaked out he gets about feelings and stuff, but… I also never really wanted to. Even though I think of them both the same way… it’s still different. You can’t compare them.”
“Do you love him?”
Peter blinked back tears and pulled back so they could look at each other. Tears were in the corner of her eyes too.
“Yeah,” he admitted and felt her flinch. His heart sank. “May, c’mon -”
“I miss the you when Ben was here,” she admitted.
“… What?”
“I -” she froze, as if just realising what she’d said, her eyes going wide. He pulled back and leapt to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets and trying to pretend his vision wasn’t blurred with tears. “Peter -”
“It’s okay,” he tried to reassure her, but his voice cracked. He coughed, and there was a painful lump in his throat.
“No, it’s not – I didn’t mean it -”
“You kinda did though,” he interrupted and had to turn around, so he couldn’t see her pained expression. “It’s really okay though, I know I’ve – changed, a lot, ever since the bite -”
“No, no – Peter, baby -”
“Ned said something like that the other day, that becoming Spider-Man changed me… a-and I dunno what a younger me would think, but -” He felt her scramble off the sofa, put her hands on his shoulders, but he couldn’t look at her. “Maybe I have changed too much, if even you’re saying the old me was better -”
“I didn’t say that!”
“No, you just told me you don’t like me!” he broke out of her grip and spun around.
“I didn’t say that either!” she snapped back and then she ground her teeth together, took a long breath in through her nose, and said, “Please don’t twist my words -”
“That’s what it felt like!” he took a few steps back. “How did you think it’d sound?”
“I didn’t mean to say it at all!”
“Why? Because it’s true?!”
“Yes!”
The words echoed around them. May looked like she wanted to say something else, but Peter couldn’t stay any longer. He turned and ran to his room, pulled out the suit and started changing.
“Peter, don’t you dare go out now!” May appeared at his bedroom door.
He ignored her and pressed the black spider, making the suit fit him comfortably. He pulled on the mask and Karen automatically started up, greeting him with a pleased,
“Welcome back Peter.”
“Hey Karen, long time no speak,” he replied as he opened his bedroom window and swung his leg out.
“Peter Parker!” May shouted. He turned to look at her, straddling the window frame, and there were tears streaming down her face as she shouted, “If you go out right now, you’re not coming back!”
He hesitated only a moment, but the anger and hurt fuelled him to say,
“I don’t need to. I’ve got Mr Stark now.”
He swung out the window and up onto the roof of the apartment building. Only a few seconds later he heard the sobbing echo up out the window, deep heart-wrenching cries that broke his own heart, and he couldn’t bear to listen any longer.
A few swings later and he was sailing through another block, grateful for the mask absorbing his tears.
How had it come to this?