There was a searing pain tearing through Peter Parker's body. Thick, hot liquid was sliding down his chest; it burned. However the scorch of blood staining his pale porcelain skin was nothing compared to the sting of his wounds. Wounds inflicted by someone he had thought he could trust. Someone he was afraid he had accidently driven to madness.
Queens was very dark, sans the blue glow of streetlights that illuminated the gloomy alleyways. Cars sped by, pedestrians walked briskly in search of their apartments in hopes of making it before the crosswalk's meter turned red in favor of the nonstop traffic. Peter swung to the top of a small building just shy of 53rd street, watching quietly as a woman ran through the darkness fiddling with her keys; he wanted to make sure she made it inside safely at this hour, but mostly he had stopped because she reminded him of someone. A pure someone with hair as golden as the rising of the sun and eyes of a shimmering emerald. Someone he was on his way to see right this very moment.
Peter shot a web at a billboard several feet away, swinging to the rooftop of yet another building, though his entire body tensed and groaned. Dr. Connors had taken quite the chunk out of him. Connors had been a good man once, one who had worked closely with Peter's father and fought to change the world of medicine with his research. The only thing between the doctors advancement in Cross Species Genetics was a formula that seemed to be damn near impossible to solve. Now that Peter had solved and submitted the algorithm, Dr. Connor's transformation had officially become his fault. As if he didn't have enough to feel guilty for, right? He had stood there and watched as a petty criminal murdered his Uncle Ben in cold blood…and now…now that there was someone in his life worth so much more than any fathomable sum of wealth or power or even his own breath, he could not make the same mistake twice. So maybe it was a bad idea, then…going to see her. But what choice did he have? He'd been bitten.
When Peter finally made it to the proper building, he pushed through the searing ache crawling in the depths of his skin and jumped onto the metal landing of the fire escape on the 20th floor. He attempted to catch the breath he'd knocked clean out of himself, peering inside the plate glass window at the most beautiful thing his lonely brown eyes had yet to gaze on in his brief seventeen years on this Earth. Her pale blonde hair was spilled beautifully down the middle of her back, and though he could not see her face, he knew that her bangs were hanging in front of those big green eyes in the very way that drove him crazy. She was sitting at her computer desk, her back facing him as she absentmindedly adjusted the grey sweater draped around her feminine frame. He knocked very gently on the window and when she turned to face him it was like he lost his breath all over again.
Her thousand watt smile was more than enough of an invitation, using the last of his strength to pry the window open and tumble onto the soft carpet of Gwen Stacy's bedroom floor. She laughed a sweet chime of a laugh, the equivalent of ringing bells at Christmas. It was a sound he wanted to wake too, every day for the rest of his life if she'd let him.
"You should maybe consider coming in through the lobby…my father is under the impression that you require psychiatric attention." She teased, referring to Peter's cryptic warning to Captain Stacy regarding Dr. Connor's development into a giant mutated lizard. The smile fell from her face and her eyes lost a bit of their shine as she looked down at him, realizing that he was severely injured. His name graced her lips in an urgent whisper as she ran to his side, helping him into the chair she had been occupying moments before. The worry etched into her features constricted around Peter's heart. He didn't want her to fret, she needed to be as far removed from the situation as possible.
"You should see the other guy." He assured her calmly, though there was an edge in his voice that she knew must be from the pain. His suit was torn to shreds in the upper torso area, her long nimble fingers gently tracing the material before deciding it was going to have to come off. She gingerly reached behind him in an attempt at finding a zipper or something when her father knocked on the door. She was quick on her toes, though this undoubtedly meant that Peter was going to have to hit the floor…again. He rolled out of the chair as noiselessly as he could and rolled himself behind her bed. He was panting heavily, the pain hardly subsiding as he contorted his broken and bleeding body into an inconspicuous ball. He strained his ears to hear the conversation at the door, he sincerely hoped he hadn't gotten her into any trouble. Gwen's father was….intense.
"I don't want any cocoa, I am seventeen years old!"
"I remember someone saying just last week that she wanted to live in a chocolate house." A deep, male voice said as Peter fought to conceal his laughter. Only his Gwendolyn would think up things like that. It was cute.
"Well that's impractical! And fattening!" Gwen all but slammed the door in her father's face and turned to look at Peter. She wanted to kiss the stupid smirk right off of his face. Their eyes met and she held the gaze for longer than she'd anticipated, melting as she realized how much adoration was settling into those big brown doe eyes.
"A chocolate house?" Gwen rolled her eyes and peaked outside once more to make sure Captain Stacy had left. He hadn't. While Gwen exchanged a few more words with her father, Peter looked around her bedroom and took it all in. There was a picture of the two of them on her nightstand and a large bookshelf next to her computer. Everything was neat and in organized stacks, it was a very clean space. It was a stark contrast to anything and everything about Peter's room, which hadn't seen a vacuum cleaner since the third grade. For some reason or no reason at all perhaps it made Peter smile. It was about that time that the door to his girlfriend's bedroom closed for good and he watched as she took a tie from her wrist and pulled those gorgeous amber locks into a messy bun.
"Take the top part of your suit off, Pete. I'm going to get the first aid kit." Before he could argue she'd left him there to undress and he sighed heavily. He stood shakily and sat down on her fluffy white and pink bedding, sinking in a way that was unfamiliar to him. It hurt to move, much less strain to remove his suit though he supposed he should do it quickly before she had the chance to see him hurting. He didn't want her to worry. When she walked out of the bathroom with some alcohol and a washcloth she gasped, her features contorting into a pained and tearful expression. She was frightened. She crawled onto the bed with him and began to clean his wounds as tenderly as she possibly could while listening to him recount what had happened.
It was a terrible memory to relive, black talon like claws digging into his skin as his vision filled with nothing but those horrible green scales. The images danced behind his eyelids like a living nightmare and the ache in his heart was telling him he had to confess to her that it was all his fault. He tried, sitting up slightly as if he were prepared to give a speech, but something caught him off guard. He had been smitten by Gwen since the moment he first laid eyes on her, but something about tonight was different. The way the light was catching her eyes just right, the way her face was full of love and wonder as she looked at him as if he were a hero. She was the sun, the moon and the stars; she was his universe and his life support. How was he supposed to tell a girl like that that he was absolutely no good? He couldn't help himself, leaning in to capture the loveliest lips he had ever had the pleasure of tasting. Could he ruin it? Could he let the one person he loved most in all the world see him for what he was? Well, he should have. Maybe then she'd still be alive.
There wasn't a day that went by that Peter didn't think about that night. He and Gwen had just fallen in love, and back then…in that singular moment, everything had been perfect. It didn't matter that his flesh was torn and mangled or that the splash of alcohol was torturing his already flame-licked open wounds; it just mattered that she was alive and in his arms and that her very presence was still breathing life into them both. But now she was gone, he'd let her slip through his fingers just like he had his Uncle the year before and it was going to haunt him the rest of his life.
Peter couldn't close his eyes without watching her body dangle fragile and lifeless from the end of his web, the web that was supposed to have saved her life. Her purple skirt still clinging to that perfect figure and the blush on her cheeks still giving her the warmth and life that had always radiated off of her every time she looked at him. But Gwen wasn't warm anymore, she was cold; and everything good in the world was cold with her as the seasons faded to winter and a thick frost crept over Peter's heart.
It had been about a month and Peter's adoptive parents had grown more than a little worried about him. Peter had only been reconnected with his aunt and uncle in recent years, after his parents had died he had been adopted by a certain pair of Avengers…a pair who knew all too well what their son was going through. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers walked quietly into his bedroom that morning, determined that their kid wasn't going to spend another day wallowing in his bed. Peter was laying on his bed, hood up and curled into a ball. He was holding a picture in his hands of what appeared to be him kissing Gwen's forehead and the sight before them absolutely broke their hearts. Tony very gently removed the picture from his son's grip, his dark eyes full of compassion as he shot him a lopsided smile.
"How are you holding up, kiddo?" Peter shrugged but didn't respond, wiggling away from Steve who wrapped his strong arms around him from behind and held him there.
"You need to let it out, Peter. This isn't healthy." Peter tried with all his might to push him away, though rolling a super soldier off of the bed was proving more difficult than he'd originally thought.
"Let go of me! It's not like you ever got over Peggy!" He shouted a little harsher than he'd meant too, a soft sadness lacing Steve's blue eyes although he still refused to let go of his son. Tony grabbed hold of Peter's face and forced him to look at him, half angry and half devastated that his kid was in this much pain.
"Hey! Apologize. Now." Peter grumbled an 'I'm sorry', though Steve wasn't particularly interested in hearing a heartfelt apology, he just wanted to make sure his son would be alright. He knew how much he loved Gwen, they had all but accepted that she would be the young woman their son married…she was the star crossed love of his life. Tony sighed and pulled up a chair, tilting Peter's face up to look at him once more; gentler this time.
"It's okay to miss her. You're right, your pops misses Peggy and I miss Pepper…but things happen and people die. Especially when you live the sort of life that we do. There is a certain price you have to pay to be a hero, and we've all paid it. I wish I could change it but I can't." Peter's lip quivered and he tried to look anywhere but at Tony. He had idolized Tony as a child…he couldn't bear to look this weak in front of him, but he couldn't help it. He felt like a hole had been carved out of his heart and it would never ever be complete again.
"Dad…" His tears spilled over and Tony hugged him tightly, threading his fingers into his son's messy brunette hair as he sobbed violently into his shoulder. Tony shushed him and locked eyes with his husband, whose expression mirrored his own. Gwen Stacy had left her mark in all of their lives, and that wasn't ever going away. However, both parent knew that there would come a time when Peter wouldn't want that piece of him to ever fade; Gwen would become his most precious memory, and that would shape him for the rest of his life. Gwen's love and support would always keep him going…keep him on a path to great things, so no matter what pain he was feeling now…Gwen Stacy would remain the best thing that ever happened to him. In other words, Peter Parker was going to be just fine, and it was all thanks to that girl he'd met in his senior English class with the gold hair and the shinning smile who healed every wound he'd ever had…and would continue to forever.