May Parker is certainly no stranger to pain or heart ache. After losing Ben and Peter, she thought that somehow she would become immune to the pain. Surely nothing could ever hurt her more than losing her boys. Surely there would never be a worse pain than watching tears drip onto photographs of smiles she'd never see again. And mostly she was right. The worst pain she ever felt in her life was when Tony arrived on her doorstep, eyes red, to tell her that her nephew, no, her son, had fought a war he would never return from.

No, nothing would ever hurt more than the losses she had experienced but she has to admit that this is a close second.

Peter's alarm for school went off 20 minutes ago and he still wasn't up. It had been about a week since Tony's funeral. A week since she held her boy for the first time in five years. Today would be his second day returning to school. He had insisted that he return to school as soon as possible, despite May's pleas for him to take a break. Something about wanting a taste of normal as soon as possible. And he had been fine last night. He ate his extra servings of dinner with gusto. He chatted nonstop about how he and Ned were miraculously, yet tragically, still the same age (and if that gave her flashbacks to darker days, she wasn't going to mention anything). Peter was just classic Peter. There was no sign of the grief filled, distraught boy she had taken to Tony's funeral just the week before.

That is why she has to admit that she is confused and concerned when Peter is still not up and ready when he knows he is about to be late.

"Peter, honey, wake up. It's almost time for you to go" she lightly taps the doors with her knuckles. No answer. "Pete, come on let's go." A little louder this time, knocks a little more insistent. Still, no answer. She hopes the worry that constricts her chest is misplaced. She opens the door and invites herself inside. She sees the brown mop of curls sitting above the comforter, his back still turned from her. For all her knocking, it looks like he hasn't moved at all. She crosses the room and gently sits behind the crook of his knees.

She supposes that this is the point where a mother should be angry, where a parent might rightfully demand discipline. How dare he lay here when he knows he has to be at school and she at work. But, anger hasn't crossed her mind in regards to Peter in a long time. Yeah, when she found out he was Spider-Man and had lied to her she was angry. When she heard he had went to space, she was beside herself with anger. Maybe because anger is an easier emotion than fear and grief. But ultimately, Peter was a good kid. The best kid she knew. He didn't have a spiteful or hateful bone in his body. He would never lay here just to be a petulant teenager.

The emotion she feels mostly in regards to Peter these days is concern. It grips her heart like a vice in this moment. She finds herself carding her fingers carefully through his curls. "Cmon Petey, time to get up." She might not have super hearing but she still picks up on the sound of a small sniffle. She finally twists her body to look over his shoulder. She pushes his curls back to find his face. It's in this moment that her heart shatters.

He's staring straight ahead. His eyes are rimmed red and there are drier tear stains on his cheeks.

"May, I don't feel so good" he rasps timidly. "Must be sick or something."

"Have you got a fever? What's wrong, buddy?" She moves the back of her hand to his forehead and as she suspects, it only feels slightly above room temperature, which is normal for Peter. A part of her wants to call him out; tell him he's not sick and that he has to go to school. It's the same part of her that wants to hear him tell some geeky story about his and Ned's adventures. The same part of her that wants him to ask her to help him with his flashcards for academic decathlon. The same part of her that just wants her Peter to be ok and happy. The part of her that would like to forget the dusting ever happened.

Yet she knows that part of her cannot be allowed to win in this situation. "Okay baby, roll over. Come on look at me." She tugs his shoulders gently towards her and he begrudgingly responds. He's still laying down, like all the energy has been drained from his body, and his eyes aren't any less red but at least he's looking at her. "What happened? You were so excited about going back to school yesterday. What's changed?"

He chews his bottom lip, closes his eyes and sucks in a breath, " I can't do it May. I just can't." His voice cracks in the end of his sentence and May tries to push back the tears she feels pooling in eyes. "I thought I could but I just- please don't make me go."

"I'll call and tell them you're sick and I'll take off today too. It'll be just the two of us. We can do whatever you need, Petey." When he shakes his head profusely, she knows her boy is still in there somewhere.

"Don't wanna do that to you. Don't wanna be a burden."

"Nonsense. I've been meaning to take off for awhile. No place I'd rather be than here with you." If she were being truthful, she would add that there is no place she would rather be than anywhere where she could finally see Peter smiling and happy again but now doesn't feel like the time to add that bit of information. She starts to stand to let the necessary people know of their little day off when she feels a tug on her wrist.

"Don't go." He mutters. He looks at her with tearful eyes and a quivering lip. Sobs are surely not far away at this point.

"I'm not going anywhere. Just going to get the phone out of the kitchen to call in our absence. Why don't you come lay on the couch? I'll make us some breakfast and then we can have a movie marathon. Any movie you want."

"Not hungry."

"Ehhhh wrong answer. You gotta try to eat something. Especially with that metabolism of yours."

"Ok I'll try."

Thank God May is able to lead him to the couch as he stumbles and rubs his eyes blearily. He lays down lifelessly on the couch as May goes to make the phone calls and to fix breakfast. She walks back into the room 30 minutes later with toast, eggs, and sausage. She's made Peter two plates worth in hopes that he will eat. He only makes it through half of one plate before he is staring off into space again. It's times like these that she wonders if Peter rememberers that he isn't dust anymore. She wonders if he remembers what it's like to be whole and in one place. She grabs the plate as it starts to slip from his loose fingertips.

She asks Peter what he wants to watch and suggests Star Wars when he doesn't respond. It breaks her heart when his head snaps up and his eyes go wide as he shouts no. He can't even watch his favorite movies without being pulled into a PTSD flashback. She shushes him and tells him they can watch all the Toy Story movies instead. Something would have to be comfortable about his favorite childhood cartoon.

It's about 30 minutes into the first movie when he starts to lean to the side and his eyes begin to flutter. May just places her hands on his head and gently guides him to her lap. She rubs comforting circles on his back and pets his head. She's almost put herself to sleep too when she hears the faint sound of sniffling again. She's wide awake when Peter's breath hitches. This has to be it. The breakdown that she has known was coming all morning.

"Hey baby. It's ok. Let it out. I'm here. I'm here if you wanna talk about it. Baby please let me help you."

"It's just… I expected to be okay. I wanted to be okay. But it's been five years May. I was dead for five years. It's all so different now. Half the people I know are in college now and nothing's the same. And Tony, god." His eyes scrunch up and she can tell he's trying hard not to break down in front of her. " You had to live without me for five years and after Ben, I just can't imagine. I feel like it's all my fault. I should've tried harder. I should've pulled Thanos' glove harder five years ago. It should've been me who snapped."

"Hey hey. Peter, look at me. It's not your fault. Don't you shake your head. It's not your fault. You did everything you could. You're hurting and your in pain but you're here and that's what's important. That's what Tony wanted all along, was for you to be here." He's full on sobbing at this point. Messy cries of pain that might have the neighbors calling in complaints. His breathing is fast and heavy and tears flow freely down his cheeks.

"I just want everything to be normal again."

"Me too, baby, me too."

He flips over and buries his face in her stomach. She picks him up and (god he is so light, he shouldn't be this light), places his head in between her shoulder and her neck. She keeps a hand placed lightly on the back of his head and the other wrapped around his torso, rubbing his shoulders. He lets it go.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry imsorryimsorryimsorry" he repeats like a mantra, like if he thinks he could have done more but failed then it'll hurt less than feeling completely helpless.

"Shhhh shhh shhh sh. It's ok. You're ok" she repeats back just as fiercely.

It takes one hour for the sobbing to die down. It takes two minutes of Peter hyperventilating in the post sobbing to run to the bathroom and throw up the half of a serving of breakfast he managed to choke down. By 3 pm, he has a fever of 102.1 and May doesn't know if his super senses alerted his body that it was coming hours before it appeared or if he just managed to make himself sick today. He throws up the superhuman engineered Tylenol she gives him at 4 pm and is absolutely miserable and ready for bed by 5 pm.

The look in Peter's eyes, tired and scared, tells her she can't leave him anytime soon.

"My bed. Come on let's go to sleep". He surprisingly complies very quickly. He hasn't slept in her bed since he was 10 and had nightmares. She knows he wants his normal back as soon as possible but she just wants her Peter, no matter how damaged. And it would seem he just wants someone to hold him and block out the world for a little while.

She gets him settled in her bed and prays he won't throw up again anytime soon. She wraps her arms around his too skinny waist and kisses the top of his head. She's worked with trauma patients before but this is Peter. Her boy, her kid. She remembers the protocol for how they treat traumatized children in the hospital but this feels different. He needs to talk to someone, someone with more qualifications than May. He needs to eat. He needs to get better.

But for now, all she can do is hold him, here the dark. All she can do is shush his nightmares and listen to his soft moans of displeasure. It's here in the darkness, that she finally lets the tears run down her face and into his curly mop of hair. She feels a piece of her heart break off every time he groans in his sleep. It seems there is no place left for Peter Parker that isn't haunted in some way.

All she can do is hope he doesn't throw up in the middle of the night, that his fever returns to normal, and that he can stay awake for longer than an hour at a time tomorrow. All she can do is hope to see him smile again soon.

All she can do is hope he will get better. And some part of her knows he will. It's the part of her that knows he will be brave enough to put on the Spider-Man suit again soon. It's the part of her that has never had anything but faith in Peter. It's the part of her that knows him best.