Hope
Peter Parker sat at his computer, his hands quivering as he clicked play on the video. The speech. Her speech. Gwen Stacy's speech. He remembered what his aunt had said, to put everything away where it belongs. Should he even watch this? How could he put her out of his mind after seeing her face again? He longed to hear her voice one more time. To see her long, blond hair and her perfect lips. Something inside of him felt he needed to watch it, one last time. As he clicked play, the image of Gwen in her graduate gown and hat appeared on the screen. She looked nervous before her peers, but confident at the same time. Instantly, guilt panged in Peter's heart. How could he had missed this? What could have been more important than seeing her valedictorian speech? He remembered what had made him late. The madman and the truck. The shooting. The Oscorp valves. Cursing, he turned his thoughts back to the video. He was never going to put that suit on again. Ever. Not without Gwen at his side.
"What makes life valuable is that it doesn't last forever, what makes it precious is that it ends," Gwen was saying. "I know that now more than ever. And I say it today of all days to remind us that time is luck. So don't waste it living someone else's life, make yours count for something. Fight for what matters to you, no matter what. Because even if you fall short, what better way is there to live? "
Tears slid down his cheeks and he gritted his teeth in anger. You were my life! I did fight for you! I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough! Why you! Why did it have to be you! "It's all your fault!" He screamed at the mask on the floor. "My parents died because of this shit and now her!"
He snatched the mask from the carpet and threw it at the wall. "I'm never doing it again! Gwen Stacy is dead and Spiderman is dead!" He sobbed.
He heard her voice again, "There will be dark days ahead of us too, and they'll be days where you feel all alone, and that's when hope is needed most, no mater how buried it gets, or how lost you feel."
Hope? You were my hope!
"Promise me that you will hold on to hope. Keep it alive, we have to be greater than what we suffer. My wish for you, is to become hope, people need that, and even if we fail, what better way is there to live? As we look around here today, and all the people who helped make us who we are, I know it feels like we're saying goodbye, but we will carry a piece of each other, into everything we do next, to remind us of who we are, and if we're meant to be."
As the video finished, Peter buried his head into his hands.
I've made to many promises already.
He remembered promising her father as he died that he would keep away from Gwen.
I should have stayed away from you!
But he knew she would not have had it any other way. He heard her voice echoing a sentence over and over in his head. "Become hope. Become hope." He could see all of those headlines: "Spiderman is the hope of New York!" "Webslinger has all of our hope with him!" "Spidey is more than a vigilante, he's a hero!"
"Promise me that you will hold on to hope."
I was their hope.
He took one of the pictures of her from his wall and held it in his hands. "I know it feels like we're saying goodbye, but we will carry a piece of each other into everything we do next, to remind us of who we are, and if we're meant to be." She said again.
A tear fell from his eye on the picture. He glanced from the mask laying rejected near the wall to the picture. Finally, he kissed the picture and said, "I promise Gwen. I'll hold on." He gathered all of the photos of her and set them gently in his closet and closed the door. "Goodbye, Gwen." He whispered.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the mask. "I will hold on," he said again. "I will become hope."
* Gwen Stacy's speech is from the movie and is not my work.