A/N: So, this is a follow up to my other story Patient Suspicions, and mostly it is for WaffleNinja :)
I used the ideas from the second Spiderman movie and sorta placed them in here as the backstory, but some events are tweaked to fit the current storyline. I don't know if everything is correct, because I am just going off of memory, but I am pretty sure it's close.
But anyways, I hope you like this little follow up since there will be no other follow ups after this one. This is the end, sorry :( As always, reviews are most welcomed and appreciated. Please, enjoy :)
Heartbreaking Suspicions
Spiderman is dying right before her eyes.
She had been sitting down at the table, watching the late night news as always when she saw it happen. Spiderman had been pursuing the former-genius-turned-criminal Doctor Otto Octavius, or as he was now called, Doc Oc, from incinerating the entire city with his tridium device. She didn't much understand what it meant, only that it looked like a tiny second sun that practically ate all of New York's metal, and that Spiderman was right down in the center of all of it. Peter was in the heart of the storm. The building collapsed in on itself, and she had to hold her breath that he didn't get squished underneath the giant walls.
What came next was worse.
The building started to sink rapidly, falling under the surface of the black waters, the orangey glow of the dimming sun vanishing as it sank deeper and deeper. For a moment, all was still. For a moment, the day seemed saved. But it was only for a moment, because police couldn't find any sign of Doctor Octavius. They assumed he drowned.
They couldn't find any sign of Spiderman.
The police searched and searched for what seemed like years on that tiny, fuzzy screen. Every second felt like an hour, and the pit of despair in her stomach grew wider and wider with each one. She wanted to look away, to tear her eyes from the TV and pretend this was all a bad dream, but she couldn't. This was just one of those incidents where it was too horrible to look away. Then finally, after minutes of searching, they spot a red object breaking the surface of the bay. They immediately rush him to land, but her fragile heart is already crumbling to bits.
He isn't breathing, not at all.
The reporter on the news says he had been under for over three minutes, which exceeds the time requirement of receiving oxygen needed to live. It would be a miracle if he lived. She watched the medics hammer on his chest, giving him CPR in the faintest hopes of reviving him. They need their hero to live; she needs her nephew to come home. They all could use a miracle now.
His time is running out.
They have been trying to kick start his heart for about two minutes now, but he hasn't responded. The only logical answer was that his lungs were filled with too much water, and there was no room for any oxygen. He had been under for a long time, and they are about to give up and write him a death certificate. She can't watch them give up on him. It makes her mad that they would just leave him there on the ground when he had done so much for them already. He was a stubborn kid; all he needed was time, but he didn't have any left. She is about to turn the TV off when the impossible occurs.
With one giant gasp of air, he startles up from out of his murky slumber.
The entire city rejoices, and once again he is surrounded by media and medics alike, both dying to get the first story about his run in with death. Of course, his mask had been off, but the police had secured his anonymity to the public. It was back on now as he stumbled up off of the ground, trying to get back to normal. He's trying to act fine for the public, because he is a hero.
She knows that he's not really fine at all.
She wants to be happy, and there is no doubt that she is relieved that he is alive to live another day, but she is more tired and upset than anything else. She has always silently supported what Peter was doing, because she truly believes that he tries to make a positive difference in the world, but recently she has been discovering how selfish his acts have been. He never once takes into account how all of this effects her, and she supposes that is her fault for not speaking up about it.
But, she just can't do this anymore.
She doesn't want to have to be lied to about everything; she misses their closeness. She doesn't want to have to turn on the TV just to see what he is doing, and she especially doesn't want to have to watch him get beaten up to the point of death every night. She is tired of pretending not knowing when it kills her to watch him come home with all these scars and bruises on his face. She is sick of feeling worried until the point of nausea at whether he will come home dead or alive one night. But most of all, she is just tired of feeling helpless, like she can't do a thing to help him even though he is in desperate need of it. It is just all too much for her old body to handle, and she fears that all of it will kill her.
Spiderman, she decides, needs to end.
When she hears Peter open the front door early in the morning, she sighs and raises her head from the kitchen table, making herself wake up from a long night of horrible, impossible sleep. She had long since made this place her bedroom ever since Peter had become his crime fighting alter, and last night was a particularly nightmarish one. Sleep on the kitchen table was uncomfortable at best, but last night was impossible. She didn't know how she was going to breach this topic of conversation, but she knew she had to. Last night, she reached her breaking point. Now things had to change.
All her previous confidence shattered as she saw his face.
When Peter walked into the room, she stopped short, and it took all her will power not to scream at the sight of him. His face was masked in red welts and cuts, not distorting his features but cutting into them, long gashes slashed across his nose and eyebrows. His bottom lip was busted, and there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. That wasn't the bad part though. The true horror were the huge black bruises that wound their ways around his wrists and all the way up his neck to his jaw line, marring his skin with ugly splotches. She couldn't help but notice that they formed the exact shape of the mechanical clamps used at Doctor Octavius's demonstration a few weeks prior, the ones that were so conveniently attached to his back and used to throw Spiderman through the walls of the water warehouse last night.
She felt a tear run down her face, though she quickly rubbed it away. Her heart fell apart as she took him all in, every cut, bruise, and mark on his once perfect pale skin. If she wasn't mistaken, she could make out something that looked like crusted blood on his hairline, but she chose to ignore that. She would take one fragile situation at a time.
So, with a wavering breath she asks him where he's been all night. He looks like he has been dragged through hell and back, but still he lies and feebly tells her he tried to stop a gang from hurting this girl, and that he got beat up pretty badly for helping her. She knows he was beat up badly; his face can tell her that. She's just tired of being lied to, and she knows he can sense that somehow.
"Peter, you and I both know that you didn't get those marks from a street fight..." she said in a low voice."Now will you please tell me what is really going on?"
"Aunt May, I don't know what-"
He tries to play dumb, but her patience is thinning. She is so upset, so high strung about watching him almost die, that she cannot bear to take a moment more of this charade.
"Peter, I was watching on TV last night, just as I always watch you on TV like I do every single night because you never tell me where you're going or when you'll be back, so I have to sit in front of this awful, goddamn thing and wait, and watch, because it is the only way I can know if you are going to come home or not!"
He just stood there, staring at her as if he had been slapped across the face, realization crossing it almost immediately afterwards. She didn't give him time to speak though. This was her time.
"You could've died last night Peter, and you almost did! You would've died out there and I wouldn't have even known where you were had I not been watching the whole godammned time, praying that you would make it through!"
She was crying by this point, wildly moving about the kitchen as she screamed at Peter, who seemed to be glued in place, solemnly hanging his scarred head.
"Do you have any idea how insensitive your actions are? Do you know what it does to me every time I see you come home like this, every time I watch you get thrown across a street or fall from a building? You think it doesn't hurt me to watch every psychopath in the city break you to bits? It kills me Peter! And what's worse than not telling me is that...is that you don't seem to care one damned bit."
She was so exhausted, sitting herself down at the table at the close of her monologue, her head pressed in her palms as her body shook with tears that wouldn't stop. It felt as if, after weeks of constant worry, all that pent up emotion had surfaced itself in a giant wave and once it left, it left her drained of all energy. She could barely register the feel of two strong hands gently gripping onto her shoulders. They moved just as soon as she felt them, and she looked up to see Peter, who was clearly as distressed as she was, standing beside the table facing her.
"I do care Aunt May, believe me, I do. It's just, you're safer this way, not knowing."
He was trying to find the right words to say, but she still didn't understand. How was it healthy for her to be kept in the dark about his wellbeing and safety? She would only continue to worry herself to death.
"Aunt May, I just don't want you to get hurt. If anything was to happen to you, I-"
"Peter, the only one hurting me now is you."
She said this with a sad smile, and he looked absolutely devastated.
"I can't watch this anymore Peter. I can't sit around and watch you try to kill yourself every night. Please, you have to give it up, if not for your sake than for mine!"
"I can't." he replied shortly, turning his head away much to her dismay.
"But why not Peter!" she shrieked, the anger returning. "Look at what this does to you!"
She ran up to him and pulled up the sleeves of his jacket. More of the purplish black bruises covered his forearms and she had no doubt that they littered his entire body. He pulled away from her, tugging his sleeves back down and averting his gaze. Clearly, he was embarrassed she had seen those.
"Why do you insist on fighting these people, on purposely hurting yourself every single day and night?" she yelled, motioning to his arms. "You've done more than enough good already! What could you possibly owe them that would make you want to keep doing this?"
Tears were brimming again, and she didn't think he would actually listen to her anymore. Surprisingly, he smiled and took both her hands in his, looking her right in the eyes as he spoke.
"Uncle Ben once told me that if someone had been given a great power, then it was that person's responsibility, their duty to use that power to help other people." He smiled again with her this time. She remembered that day well; it was his last. "Well, I have been given this...amazing power Aunt May, and it is my responsibility to use it to help save the city from the things other people can't. I can't just stop doing this; it wouldn't be right, and I am sure Uncle Ben would agree with me."
She nodded and sniffled a little. She understood more of where he was coming from, but it still hurt her inside, that he was choosing to put her through all this pain by being who he deemed he needed to be. And in a way, she knew he was right about what he had to do. People relied on Spiderman; he was a hero, a savior, and he would always be needed to help those who couldn't save themselves. They are selfless and wonderful, the things he does, but that doesn't mean it made things any easier on her.
"If your Uncle Ben were here, he would be so angry at your for keeping secrets. But, he would be so very proud of the man you have become."
His smile cracked, and she swore she could see tears forming in his eyes, though she knew he would never let them go. She pulled him into a giant hug, relishing the fact that he was still alive for her to hold him. She kissed his cheek, not caring that he was nearly an adult and was probably a little too old for such actions. He didn't seem to mind though. In fact, he was the one who clung on the longest.
"Please Peter," she practically whispered as she held the embrace, "please give it up, if only for a day."
It was her last chance at trying to change his mind, though she already knew what he was going to say. It didn't much surprise her.
"I just can't..."
She nodded against his shoulder, letting him go after what felt like forever. The tears threatened to come back, but they were tired tears, the ones shed when there was nothing left to do but cry. She shook them off, and watched Peter leave and hobble off up to his room. It was a strange, sad sight to behold, one she feared she would be seeing for many years to come.
When Spiderman didn't appear on TV that night, she breathed a sigh of relief, though the growing dread was still present. She supposed that Peter had done as she asked and given up the mask for a night; she was glad he at least had the common sense to take the time to recuperate. Still, that didn't mean he wouldn't appear on the screen the next night, and just because he wasn't shown didn't mean he wasn't there.
He would be fine; that she knew somewhere deep down in her heart past the clenching fear and the panic attacks. He was a strong, smart, resilient boy, and even though he may not know what he was doing half the time, she was sure he was capable to figure it out. After all, he was amazing. All she could do was hope for the best. That would have to be enough.