Indirect spoilers for Infinity War, so don't read if you haven't watched that, and under the assumptions that May still doesn't know about Peter being Spiderman.
I was on the bus when it happened. The last time I saw my best friend. And I was so used to him going off and being Spiderman, I forgot that he wasn't invincible. Sure he had gotten hurt before, but I forgot that he wasn't impenetrable. I forgot that under the suit and the spider bite, he was human. He was my human. My human best friend. So when people started disappearing, he was the first one I thought of. I called his number. You couldn't imagine the relief I felt when there was an answer.
"Ned? Are you with Peter? He left his phone here."
"May... No, he's not there?"
"No... What's going on? People have been disappearing and... Ned, is Peter alright?"
In no more than an hour I was at their apartment, waiting for him to come home with his Aunt May. There was a... A frog in my throat. I couldn't speak without getting choked up because something had happened that took without discrimination and I was terrified to find out if it had taken him.
I was no snitch, but in the long hours of the night, as fear reigned supreme, I told Aunt May everything. I told her everything that Peter had told me and everything that we'd been through since the spider bite. She was horrified and so worried. She broke down crying, and who could blame her. I was so close to tears myself.
"He's not okay, is he? He put himself in danger and he... He might not be coming back..." She was really choked up now.
"I'm so sorry... And all I did was watch that stupid space ship. I could have been there for him! I could have done something..."
"And I could have kept him home from his field trip and sheltered him more. But that didn't happen..." She stood and began to pace. I wondered if she was thinking that she had lost everything. Tears started to slide down my face. Peter was my best friend, but he was so much more than that. He meant so many things to so many people. He was important to the world, and now... Now it seemed like he was gone forever. The tears flowed faster down my face. I was devastated and enraged. Nothing from before, no high school assignment or cute girl mattered. Nothing mattered except that the world was a worse place because Peter Parker was no longer in it.
I wanted to be in denial, then, when it finally came true. When Iron Man returned to earth, just as devastated as I was. There were tears flowing down his face when he repeated Peter's last words. Even though I'd known in my gut he was gone I was still yelling.
"NO! WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S GONE? HE CAN'T BE GONE!" Because he outright couldn't be. The world still needed Peter Parker. Peter Parker had so much to give the world. So I just couldn't understand how it could be the end for someone as good as him. Why not me? Why not any of the bad guys who lived while MY best friend crumpled to ashes? I just couldn't reconcile it in my mind.
What was left? What remained? Where were earth's mightiest heroes, and why didn't they save Peter? Why didn't anyone save Peter?
What went wrong?!