Five years. It's been five years already. Five years since she saw him walk out that door to go to school and never come back.
Five years since she had sobbed and cried on the kitchen floor as the news played in the background.
And five years every single day, she waits for him. Dinner included.
He might be hungry when he does come, she thinks. I just have to wait a little longer.
He's coming back. She feels it in her heart. She knows. She's just waiting for him to prove her right.
She waits in that kitchen, every afternoon, sometimes all night, waiting for that door to open.
Sometimes, she'll distract herself, in paperwork and bills till the sun rises.
Sometimes she'll sleep, maybe, for a few hours on the sofa. Or in his room.
Sometimes she passes out on the countertop by accident, but she always does the thing she avoids.
She dreams. She dreams of him, her memory still as clear as the day he disappeared.
She'll hear something familiar. She'll see his face. Hear his voice. Feel his touch.
It never lasts.
It usually ends fast and she wakes with a start, eyes blearily looking around for something that still isn't there.
The apartment mocks her in its stark silence, save for the New York traffic below it.
Sometimes, if she can face the world, she only goes as far as the Leeds's home.
They're hurting just the same way as she is. They've been lost something. A son.
Her son may not have been hers at first, but soon enough, that's what he became.
That is what she misses. She misses everything. His laugh, his smile, his awkwardness.
He didn't deserve to be taken. No one did, really.
So, she makes it her mission in life to bolster that fact.
He would want her to if he was truly gone.
He was coming back though, she could feel it in her bones.
The job with the homeless shelter came out of left field, but it feels right to her. Perfect.
Here she could right the wrongs that she had suffered so someone else didn't.
So, someone didn't have to feel the pain she went through every night.
Or every day. Or every second her eyes are open. None of it.
She hopes he will be proud of her. Fuck it, he would be.
It's late when her wishes finally would come true.
There's soup on the stove, still enough for two, not one like it should be by now.
She didn't know why she wanted to make two, just that she /needed/ to do so.
She's cutting bread to toast when the door opens behind her and she freezes.
And so does her heart at the voice from beyond the grave leaning at her front door in a red and blue torn up suit.
There's blood trickling from wounds and dried in others, limbs covered in dust, but his face has not aged.
He's still the same. He's still the /same/. Pink, yet bloodied lips parting, tears in his eyes as he stares at her, breathless.
"…Aunt May…"
She doesn't know much of her surroundings afterwards or remember much about what happened after she heard his voice, but he recounts it for her later when they are together.
She sobs, hands over her mouth before they outstretch along with her arms and she runs towards him, fast. Faster than even the most lighting charged superhero.
Her arms somehow get there before she does and she takes him into them, bloody, broken and all, sobbing as she holds him tightly while he does the same to her.
The kitchen floor becomes their home for a long while.
Longer than even she could remember when her and Ben first moved in here.
But all she cares about is just one thing, in that moment.
Her baby has finally found his way back home.