As Peter continued his swing back home, his mind continued to sink into a deeper, darker place. It wasn't long before he was essentially on autopilot physically, no longer focusing on where he would fire his next web strand, his spider-sense subconsciously taking care of that for him. Hardly any of the details of the city were even registering to his eyes or brain anymore. He couldn't even feel the pain from his recent injuries as he could even when he had first taken off for home.

Instead, all he felt was a sense of failure. It was encapsulating every part of his person, seemingly all the way down to his bones. It made him ache from the heart outward, the sense of a potential imminent loss. Only the slightest part of him was trying to think of a plan or at least even a next step anymore. He had gone through just about every major individual he knew of in the city's underworld while also scouring the occasional empty warehouse along the way, but all of it had been fruitless. The Master Planner had just covered his tracks too well. From the beginning, Peter had been one step behind, but now, he felt like not only had he lost the race but been lapped a hundred times over.

Finally, Peter returned to his apartment building, actually finding the open window to his own place this time. He landed gently against the building, slipping his way inside almost lethargically. Once inside his room, he couldn't even find the motivation to move at first. He did manage to pull off his mask eventually, his eyes falling towards the floor ahead of him as he stared blankly at it, not even processing it was there. Dropping his mask to the floor, he made his way over to his bed, where he just sat at its end, folding his hands together, like he was waiting on something.

Peter didn't know how long he had been there when he heard a knock on his door. He didn't even react to it at first, not just because he was still in his suit sans mask, but also because he couldn't bring himself to care. The individual persisted, so he decided he would at least get up and peek through the small looking spot in the door to see who it was. He walked slowly towards the door, the individual still knocking. Peter gently placed his gloved hands on the door, putting his eye right at the spot to look through.

It was Mary Jane.

For just about anybody else, Peter would've just walked away and pretended nobody was there, but something in him gave him the sense that she wouldn't give up until he let her in. He unlocked his door and opened it to do just that, poking his head out from the side. She slowly stepped in, turning to face him as he closed the door.

For the first few moments, there was silence between them.

"I was watching to see when you would come back," M.J. finally said. "I mean, I'm not exactly sure I was supposed to fall asleep after, you know..."

Peter couldn't find it within himself to react to what he was saying. He wasn't sure he could react to much of anything right now; his mind and body were growing more and more numb by the second.

"Anyway," M.J. continued, "uh, I just wanted to see if you had any luck? You were gone a long time, so I was hoping that might've meant that you found something.

Peter managed to shake his head a couple of times.

"No."

"Oh," M.J. responded, "well, umm...can I, like, make you something? It might be good for you to eat at least a little bit, maybe rest a little too before you go back out there."

"I'm not hungry," Peter offered in response.

"Okay," M.J. nodded, stretching up onto the toes of her shoes before falling back down. She seemed the complete opposite of him, having a kind of restless energy despite having likely been up almost all night. "Well, is it okay if I take a look at some of your injuries again? I can get what First Aid stuff I have real quick and come right back."

Peter finally managed to offer a light but very forced smile to her, nodding his head a few times to show that he was accepting her offer. She offered a light one back before stepping out of the apartment, heading next door.

Mary Jane hadn't been able to discern a lot just now, but there was one thing that was very obvious: Peter was NOT okay. She had no clue what he had seen out there, what or who he had dealt with, but clearly none of it had gone the way that he had hoped it would. She quickly went into her apartment, gathered what First Aid materials she could, and returned to his apartment. When she did, she found that Peter had moved to sit down on the couch now, and his expression was...haunting. Even as she walked over to him, he just continued to stare ahead, a totally blank expression over his face, like he was a coma patient or something.

Squatting down beside him, M.J. struggled to force out even some basic words.

"Umm," she finally forced out, "do you want to, like, you know, take the top part of your suit off again? That's kind of where most of your injuries are."

Peter at least partially snapped back to being in the moment.

"Yeah," he said, and he proceeded to peel off his costume from the midsection up, setting it down next to himself on the couch.

The good news is that none of his wounds seemed any worse than they had been before, though he did seem to have a few more cuts this time. Still, some of them needed a little stitching, so M.J. got out what she had and proceeded to work on them. She did so meticulously, trying to be as careful as possible so as not to poke Peter by accident, though she wasn't sure if he would even react much right now if she did.

Indeed, Peter proved to be a remarkable, if very depressing, patient for her, and it wasn't long before the stitch work was done. She then grabbed some bandages and wound cleaning stuff she had brought over and began attending to those. Mary Jane was surprised at how much this was all coming back to her; it had been a long time since she'd been First Aid certified, but it appeared that the training hadn't left her just yet.

As she worked, it was hard not to find herself occasionally glancing into Peter's eyes. They looked empty, as if there was no life behind them at all. His overall demeanor gave off a sense of hopelessness, like he'd been fighting a war and had finally admitted defeat, and it made her heart sink. Part of her had always been able to tell that he had gone through some things in his life, but Mary Jane had come to think of Peter as one of the more hopeful and optimistic people she knew. When she was down, it seemed that being around him had always brought out her more playful and fun-loving side again. Seeing him in the state he was currently in made her want to find a way to do the same for him.

She just had absolutely no idea how.

After cleaning and bandaging a few of the larger cuts, M.J. moved to pressing the ice pack against a couple bruises that, while better, were still a bit swollen.

"I failed."

Peter's words came out of nowhere; were they not the only two in the room, M.J. would've questioned if they had even come from him at all.

"What?" she said, turning her head to look him in the eye.

"I looked everywhere I could," Peter muttered, his line of vision unmoved. "I talked to so many people; I went to every terrible place I could think of to gain a lead on where they might have taken it, but I failed."

"That's not true," M.J. protested gently. "You still have time. You can still save your aunt, Peter."

Peter let out a light huff.

"I wouldn't even know where to start," he replied. "I don't want to lose her, but I don't know what options I have left." Peter then hung his head, seemingly just staring at the floor now.

M.J. tried to find some words of reassurance to offer him, but none came. She wanted so badly to boost his spirits again, to help him regain even the slightest semblance of hope. Both of them had worked very hard to get the life-saving treatment for Peter's aunt, so there was just no way that it could end this way, right? Surely there was one little thing that he was overlooking, one tiny detail that would lead him to where he needed to go. She just needed to get him in the right mindset to be able to think, but how was she supposed to do that?

Deciding some movement would be good for her at least, M.J. got up, starting to head to the kitchen to look for some food that maybe she could convince him to eat. However, he spoke up again, stopping her after only a couple of steps.

"Maybe this is just how it's supposed to go for me."

M.J. spun around, seeing that Peter had resumed looking straight ahead again.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Peter ducked his head down, rubbing his hands together slowly.

"I've lost people my whole life," he said. "My parents when I was kid, then my Uncle Ben, and then Gw..."

He paused, seemingly trying to find the will to say the last name. Peter then met Mary Jane's eyes for the first time since she'd come back into the apartment.

"Gwen," he finally said. "We met back in high school. We thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, until...until one of my enemies found out who I was and went after her."

Peter started to tear up, and a piece of M.J.'s heart started to break as she began to piece together in her head where this was going.

"I couldn't save her," he continued. "I tried, but I was just too late."

Again, Peter paused, looking away from her. His face was now starting to contort itself into one of anger, and he let out a couple of heavier breaths.

"You know what the worst part of it is though?" he asked. "With his dying breath, her father made me promise to stay away from her, because he knew that people would come after her to get to me; he knew it would happen. I made that promise to him, then I broke it, and she paid the price for it. Now, here I am again, with someone else about to pay the price for being in my life."

Mary Jane felt her eyes starting to get a little watery. She'd had no idea how much Peter had been forced to endure in his life and learning so much of it at once was threatening to make her heart crumble to pieces.

Peter's gaze returned to meet Her's.

"You should stay away from me, M.J," he said, "Go, get as far away from me as you can. If you stick around, you'll either end up dead or miserable, and you deserve so much more. You deserve to live the best life that you possibly can, and that's not what I can give you."

M.J. just stared at him, her mind swirling and her heart now feeling like it was on the verge of being yanked out of her chest.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" Peter suddenly yelled, gesturing vehemently towards the door. "LEAVE!"

M.J. glanced towards the door, part of her actually wanting to go through it. On top of everything else that she was feeling, she was SCARED right now. It wasn't that she feared Peter, but rather her own limitations. She wanted so badly to help him, but she doubted whether or not she was strong enough to be the person that he needed, that calming, grounding, guiding force in his life. After all, she was just some ex-party girl who just happened to grow up a little bit and get lucky enough to open a store that was a little successful.

Who was she to think that she could be the one to help him?

On the verge of being overwhelmed, Mary Jane moved towards the door and began to open it, not even bothering to collect the First Aid stuff she'd brought over. However, something stopped her just as she had it cracked open. She turned to look at Peter, who had his face buried in his hands, crying.

A new emotion came over M.J: anger. What was she thinking, leaving him at his most vulnerable like this? Her own insufficiencies shouldn't matter right now; they COULDN'T matter. So what if she didn't have just the right words to say, or know just the right thing to do? Mary Jane knew in her heart that she had come to care deeply for Peter, and when you care about someone, you don't leave them in their time of greatest need, no matter what.

Pressing her hand against the door as her eyes remained trained on Peter, M.J. closed the door, clicking it shut. She then marched over to Peter, bent down and got right in front of him, putting her hands to the sides of his head.

"Peter," she said, "look at me."

Peter's head slowly rose, and Mary Jane could see his eyes were still filled with tears. Her willpower threatened to give out again, but she steadied herself, never breaking eye contact with him as she continued.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, hoping her tone was conveying her determination and compassion as much as she meant it. "I don't care what or who you've lost, or what you did during the hard times. You can't do this on your own, and you shouldn't have to."

She ran her left hand through the hair just behind his ear, offering him a smile. His expression was still largely unchanged, but she pressed on.

"You can't push everyone away forever, Peter."

Something about those words must've finally got through, because suddenly Peter broke down again, and he pulled her into a hug as he buried his face on her shoulder, weeping bitterly. M.J. pulled him tight, rubbing her right hand up and down along the top of his back.

"It's okay," she whispered quietly into his ear, fighting back her own tears as well. It was strange how familiar this all felt, only now Mary Jane was on the opposite end.

The two of them remained that way for a while, before Peter finally pulled away, wiping his eyes as he sat back up.

"I guess I should, uhm, like, put on a shirt or something," Peter said. The randomness of it produced a chuckle out of Mary Jane.

It felt so good to laugh for a change.

Suddenly, the ringing of a phone could be heard.

"Oh, that's mine," Peter said. "Hang on."

Peter ran up to his room, grabbing his phone. He recognized the number as the one from the hospital, and his heart sank a little. Still, he needed to take it, so he hit the answer button, putting it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Peter, it's Harry," came the familiar voice at the other end. "We need to talk."

Hope you're still enjoying it!

Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!

"Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place." Psalm 28:2