Disillusioned

What to do when someone you love dies. There should be a how to guide. 

                            ~

Wandering aimlessly through the apartment a yellow legal pad caught Peter’s eye. Going closer he saw the list May had given him the last time they’d had a proper conversation face to face. She’d asked him to do at least half of the list before she returned. And sometime in the next hour a delivery man would arrive with her ashes.

She was coming home in the worst way.

Grabbing the pad he went to sit on the couch. Looking over the list he ticked off a couple of items: he went for walks, he had breakfast (or hangover brunch) at a cafe, he was taking photos again, he was having fun with his work mates at the Christmas party, and thanks to them and Deadpool he wasn’t alone anymore. He ticked off making a new friend because despite whatever instinct first told him to be wary the mercenary wasn’t some normal guy he’d met; he could trust him and he had come through when he needed someone even though they hardly knew each other. 

Tapping his pen against his shoulder Peter hummed over the list again: except going to the zoo he’d done almost everything on it. He could recognise the improvements in his stale routine life but he feared they wouldn’t continue. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to go on this way even as a legacy to her but he would have to try.He ripped the page from the legal pad and folded it slipping it into his pocket. 

Staring passively at the blank tv Peter was jolted to his feet by a sharp knock at the door. The delivery man with Aunt May’s ashes. 

Opening the door he was hit instead with a mass of strawberry blonde hair, clutching arms and sobbing body. 

“Oh,” he fell backwards with the unexpected momentum crashing to the carpeted floor. “So you got my message then. Right.”

“Oh Pete!” Gwen finally managed through harsh breathes pushing up and staring at him with searching red eyes. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it.” 

The young woman lifted herself up off of his lap and scrubbed at her tear stained face. She didn’t seem bothered that they had fallen to the ground in the doorway but Peter wasn’t sure she had even realised yet. She had dropped a carry on bag and purse when she’d thrown herself at him so he quickly tucked them inside before closing the door.He ushered her over to the lounge and pulled a bottle of whisky and two glasses from the kitchen before joining her. 

They didn’t need to say anything as he poured two drinks passing one to her then drinking straight from the bottle himself. 

“Fuck.” She swore taking a gulp from the glass. “Shit. Fuck. Dammit!”

Tears were flowing down her cheeks unchecked and it was morbidly gratifying to see someone else mourn the woman who was such a integral part of his life. He knew with most of her friends and family already gone there would only be a handful of people left in this world to remember May Parker. 

They sat in silence interrupted by swearing as each of them tried and failed to express themselves. 

Finally a short knock at the door had Peter leaving his seat to answer it. 

“Mr. Parker?” A man in a sharp black suit handed over a tablet and stylus. “Please sign here for your package and leave your thumbprint at the bottom there.” 

Peter hesitated for a moment staring at the SHIELD emblem at the top of the screen before signing it, leaving his imprint and handing it back. The man unceremoniously handed over a plain cardboard box the length of his palm, bobbed his head respectfully and left.

Peter stood there holding the small parcel in stunned disbelief. Eventually Gwen guided him back to the couch with a firm hand and shut the door. The man fumbled with the box opening it with unsteady hands: inside lay a sealed plastic bag of ash with a sticker on the side proclaiming ‘May Parker 20th December 2018’ and that's was it.

“That is fucking ridiculous,” Gwen turned her head away reaching instead for another drink. 

Peter nodded agreement; it seemed stupidly simple to place a human body in a plastic baggie like a sandwich. He walked over to the mantle and carefully pulled down a simple blue urn. Placing it on the coffee table beside the bottle of scotch he opened it for the first time. Looking at the contents he laughed a slightly maniacal laugh; inside sat an identical plastic bag of nondescript ash. He carefully placed his aunts bag inside the urn with his uncles before replacing it on the mantel. 

Grabbing a new bottle of scotch from the kitchen he nudged the half empty one over to his best friend and only remaining family: Gwen. 

It was fucking ridiculous, disappointing and somehow a poetically sound way to end up. Ashes in a plastic bag. 

—-

That night Peter got drunker than he had ever before. The next day he woke up exhausted but settled. 

—-

When Gwen had arrived it was five days until Christmas and Peter had been given compassionate leave until the first Monday of the new year.

Somehow it felt crueler that he had all the free time to remember he’d be alone in the house once Gwen left after Christmas. For now she spread herself across his guest room and being that she was his only ever guest it was for all intents and purposes just her room. She spent most of her days with him playing around in his lab and her nights visiting her mother across the city. 

Every night Spider-Man patrolled from dusk until dawn. He webbed petty criminals to parking meters and subdued the more serious criminals within an inch of acceptable hero conduct. 

Christmas Eve dawned bright and cheery for a New York day; Peter found himself a few hours later having his first coffee in the kitchen as Gwen muttered into her phone gesturing to herself as she spoke to whoever had called her. She’d flipped her phone open and upon seeing the caller had moved into the lounge room for some privacy. 

Peter frowned as he looked over at Gwen’s handbag sitting on the counter: her pink phone case visibly poking out of the black leather. He hadn’t realised she had two phones or why she would need them. 

Watching her something akin to unease tingled across his back. Thumbing the side of his coffee mug the man thought about the woman now stalking back and forth speaking in a harsh angry tone at whoever had called on Christmas Eve to bother her. He’d just wait and ask her. He trusted Gwen incomparably and wouldn’t waste time thinking of nonsense when he could just amuse himself at the expense of whoever was stupid enough to annoy the spitfire that was his best friend. 

Soon enough she hung up the phone with a definitive snap. 

“Sorry about that,” she brushed hair out of her face where it had fallen during her pacing. “Work.” 

“Was it important?” Peter asked still amused. 

“Actually yes,” Gwen sighed picking up her own coffee mug and looking down into it. “An experiment we’ve had gestating for a while is looking like it needs further testing. And since I’m the primary on it I’ll have to go in.”

She glanced up at him before looking away again. 

“I’m sorry I wanted to stay until New Years but they can’t be trusted to do this without me and it’s really so very important.” Her fingers clenched against the porcelain. “Those idiots would mess it up and loose a year of work for me.” 

Something in her tone turned ugly as she drummed her fingers against the counter top. 

“Honestly you leave people alone with highly hazardous materials and you’d think they’d know not to bugger around with it,” she growled out. 

“Shouldn’t they though?” Peter put his mug down and frowned at his friend. “If they work with you and Dr. Richardson shouldn’t they be competent? I mean he is the leading expert in alien research; wouldn’t he have the best?” 

“You’d think so,” she smiled at him sadly. “But Dr. Richardson is always saying that he’s the brightest mind in the room; that no one could even dream to be compared to him. If I was smarter I would have left years ago.”

“Why don't you just leave?” 

“At New Years I took control of our current project and I think I need to see it through,” Gwen smiled at him putting her mug down and rounding the counter she pulled Peter forwards enveloping him in her arms. “It's just really important to me but so are you so I wont go if you're not ready.” 

His throat burnt with the sudden need to cry and he held her tight hands clutching her close.

“It's ok. I'm ok.” He stated resting his chin upon her hair no longer fighting the tears that burnt his eyes and made it so painful to breathe. “I'm probably not ready and that's ok because I don't think I was ever going to be ready for this. I have no fucking clue what I'm going to do. She was always there and always by my side; she made me chicken soup when I was sick, she pulled me out of the lab for dinner so I wouldn't forget to eat, she told me off when I worried her and she always told me she loved me more than I said it back. She was always there for me, I'm going to miss her so fucking much and I just don't know what I’m going to do without her Aunt May-“ he gasped past they tears falling down his face to soak her hair his throat constricting painfully. “-Aunt May I never said it but; She was my mum.”

“Oh Peter,” Gwen shook in his arms as her own tears soaked the front of his pyjama shirt. “She knew.”

——

Peter saw Gwen off in a taxi so she could visit her own mother before going to the airport and Spider-Man spent the first Christmas Eve ever out patrolling the streets. 

Aunt May had always said that Christmas was for family and never let Peter leave her sights for the three days of Christmas they celebrated. Similarly she never took a shift from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day. Peter couldn't face the holidays alone or being awkwardly shoehorned into his friends family events only to be shown what he was missing.

Instead he decided to dedicate his time to protecting the neighbourhood as Spider-Man; funnily enough he didn't feel as disconnected from his superhero persona as he once did swinging from building to building canvassing the streets.

His life as Peter Parker had become stagnant in the monotony of motions that his everyday routine comprised of. He had firmly believed that Spider-Man was someone who did amazing good deeds, made friendly with everyone and had all the fun. But coming outside more often, speaking to his lab mates and even befriending a morally questionable mercenary had helped him see he was just more confident with a mask on but he wasn't so different. 

Except maybe the jumpers; no one would believe Spider-Man would wear ugly old man jumpers.

A scream pulled his attention across the street to a shadowed alleyway. 

Swinging towards the entrance to the alley Spider-Man saw a figure standing above a cowering woman.

Without hesitating he swung down feet first to incapacitate the shadows figure. The momentum of his swing brought him to the man in a perfect arched movement landing squatting on the mans broad back prepared to restrain him.

Looking down he noticed familiar katanas strapped below his feet with a distinctive red and black leather mask.  

“Deadpool?” He asked staring at the masked man now laying in puddles of filth and garbage in a New York alleyway. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh Spider-Man!” The woman gushed holding her hands in front of her as she practically shone with admiration for the masked hero. She looked unharmed if a little ruffled with her bag hanging loosely from her arm and her hair a frightful mess trying to escape its tie. “This man saved me from a mugger but thank you so much Spider-Man for coming to my rescue! You're a true hero and New York just loves you!”

“Oh,” Spider-Man stepped awkwardly off of Deadpool’s back and offered the merc a hand up. “Well I didn't actually do anything m’am. It was Deadpool here.” 

He nodded over to the other man then looked around trying to spot any sign of the mugger.

“Uh speaking of which. What did you do to save this woman Deadpool?” The red and blue hero asked resting a hand on his hip as he inspected the other masked man. “It's not really your style to freely help people: Actually the opposite of your job description.” 

“Hey! I didn’t kill anyone cos I figured that’d make you annoyed with me,” Deadpool shrugged like that was the only thing stopping him from killing and it was a normal, legitimate, explanation. “So I just thought: what would spider babe do? And since my sticky white stuff doesn’t come out on command...” 

Spider-Man looked around the alleyway again. This time his looked up. There hanging from a fire escape by a garrotte was a man in dark clothes and a beanie.

Upside down. By one foot. With something pink shoved in his mouth. 

Spider-Man laughed. 

——