A week. Seven days. That's how long it had been since he heard the news that you were gone. A whole week and it still hurt as much as it had the first day. Peter stood in front of your grave, cold autumn air blowing through his curls and sending a wave of yellow and orange leaves flying through the air. He stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes still red from tears that wouldn't stop. This was a position he never thought he would find himself in, if anything he thought that it would be the other way around, with you standing here in his place. He was the one who always managed to find trouble, who fought against aliens, he was supposed to be the one that you worried about. He never thought that he would be the one to get to called saying that you had been hurt.
According to the police, you had tried to help a young girl from a mugging and it had gone wrong. A gun had taken yet another person he loved away from him. He was mad, mad that you hadn't turned the other way and gone to safety but deep down he knew that he would have done the exact same thing. That's one thing he loved about you, that you were good, selfless. He was just angry that the thing he loved the most about you was what had taken you away.
The two of you had met the previous year when you had sat next to each other in class. There hadn't been much interaction at first except for the polite smiles you would give to each other as you took your seats. Polite smiles became small talk and then small talk soon became genuine conversations and both of you became fast friends. You became a regular at movie nights and you had hit it off right away with Ned. Study nights on the kitchen table surrounded by papers and coffee cups became a weekly thing. He wasn't sure when it was exactly that he started thinking of you differently. He tried convincing himself that you two were just friends but he didn't want to hold Ned's hand like he wanted to hold yours. He didn't usually find himself starting longingly at his other friends when they weren't looking. He didn't miss the look aunt May would give him every time he got caught staring, a knowing smile on her face.
The two of you only got closer as time went on and you eventually found out about him being spider-man. You had been mad at first, storming out of his apartment. Mad that he would willingly put himself in danger like that. You hadn't answered his calls that night, needing time to collect you thoughts. When you finally calmed down, you realized that it was selfish of you to want him to stop. You knew that he was doing the right thing and as much as you were worried about him, you would only feel worse by holding him back. Finding out about spider-man had brought the two of you even closer. He didn't have any more secrets holding him back and he found himself coming to you for comfort after rough patrols in the city. Coming to you with bruised skin and a bloodied suit. He remembers you holding him in your arms, running your hand through his hair when he woke up yelling in the middle of the night.
Peter took a seat in front of the headstone and traced your name with the tip of his fingers. He didn't want to believe that it was your name that he was reading. Hoping that he could just shut his eyes and have there be a different inscription when they opened. He already missed everything about you;
The way your eyes lit up every time you got excited about something.
The way you scrunched you nose when you laughed.
The way it felt when you held him close.
Your smile.
All things that he would never be able to see or feel again.
He pressed the heel of his palms against his eyes and took a shuddering breath. He didn't want to cry again but there was an ache in his chest. An deep ache that became heavier and heavier every time he lost someone, He knew that for someone his age he had already spent too much time in this graveyard. He wasn't a stranger to death, not after his uncle and the war against Thanos. A war that still plagued him with nightmares. He just never thought that you would be on the list of people that had been taken away from him too soon.
He brushed the leaves off his coat as he stood up, giving your gravestone one last glance before turning around. The pain in his chest would continue to be a reminder for why he did this. He knew that he couldn't save everyone but he would damn well try.