Peter walks home.
He keeps his head down, his eyes trail along the sidewalk as he drifts up the street. He considers digging his earbuds out of his pocket to try and distract himself, but ultimately decides against it.
"I'm going to need the suit back."
He's tired. Not just from the weight of the backpack on his shoulder tendons that still ache after the boat tried to tear him in half, but everything that's happened since he was bitten by the spider. The heaviness is dragging him down.
The late afternoon sky seems a few shades duller than usual. The sound of traffic from passing cars is drowned out by his introspection.
"But I'm nothing without this suit."
Peter makes it to another crosswalk by an intersection. Straight ahead a couple more blocks, two lefts and a right would have him back home. He presses the button and waits for the signal.
He needs to go home, thinks Peter almost robotically. He needs to apologize to Aunt May for being late again. He needs to finish his Latin American revolution essay for history and start working on the Chem project. He needs to go to sleep so he can get up in the morning and do it all over again. He needs to ignore that today even happened at all and just move on with-
"If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it."
The walk symbol blinks on, but his feet are cemented to the ground.
After a short moment of contemplation, he takes a left instead. He takes a left away from the heavy gaze of Aunt May that he knows is waiting for him at the door.
The sun should be setting within the hour. He needs to turn around a go home before she gets too worried.
He doesn't.
He finds himself at the edge of the cemetery instead.
It's quiet like a moment stuck in time. The shadows are stretching longer; the colors of the world grow softer.
His feet lead him past his parents to the gravestone that reads Benjamin Parker. Peter sits down on the cool grass in front of his uncle and tries to remember the warmth of his smile and the way his calloused, steadying hand would clasp his shoulder. Peter closes his eyes and decides that he knows a lot of things.
He knows that he's scared. He's scared of failing. He's scared of the flying man and his cold, calculating brutality.
He knows that he makes stupid mistakes but he's trying.
He knows that Mr. Stark isn't doing this to hurt him, that he has Peter's safety at heart.
He knows that he's not enough, but he also knows what it's like when you stand by and let the bad things happen. He knows because he can still feel the blood spilling out between his fingers because Uncle Ben's bleeding out on the sidewalk in the middle of the night and it's his fault and-
He knows that he decided a long time ago that he wasn't going to stand by and let the bad things happen anymore.
Peter knows what he needs to do.
He gets home twenty minutes after sunset to find a sticky note on the fridge. May's scrawled handwriting says that she's taken an extra shift at work. The house is empty, so he slips soundlessly into his bedroom.
He finds it crumpled into a haphazard ball of red and blue fabric in the very back of his closet under a small mountain of other clothes and various books.
Peter puts on his suit.