*JUST AS A KIND OF TRIGGER WARNING* This chapter gets pretty dark (I'm sorry! My writer's brain is so dark for some reason and I'll try to do better). If you are sensitive to depictions of depression, please consider skipping this chapter. The rest of the story should still make sense without it.
Take care of yourselves out there! 3
Peter was able to pretend for about a week before he gave in.
He visited the coffee shop where MJ worked, at a time when he knew Ned would probably be there too.
He hated himself for it immediately, of course, and almost talked himself out of it several times on the cold walk over there.
He told himself it was just because he wanted to check in on his friends, to make sure they were doing alright.
(That wasn't the reason, though. It was because he was weak. Because he was selfish.)
He reasoned that MJ probably didn't remember him anyway because he was just another customer to her.
(But he knew he had creeped her out. Going there again would probably just make her feel even more uncomfortable.)
And he told himself over and over that things were better like this—he could still be Spiderman and save people, and his friends could live a normal life. A life where they didn't have to fear for their lives or get cuts and bruises or be dragged into any part of the jagged mess that was his life.
After all, why shouldn't he just be able to deal with it and move on? People lost loved ones and dealt with the grief all the time, and his friends and Happy weren't even dead. They just…couldn't be a part of his life anymore.
Why shouldn't he be able to just keep them safe and stay away for good? How could he be so selfish after all the pain and destruction he'd already caused? They were happy without him and there wasn't really anything he could do about the fact that they'd forgotten him anyway. He could do more as Spiderman than ever before—help more people than ever—because even if his identity was revealed, there was no one who cared about him anymore.
All the people he loved most didn't even know they used to love him back.
(Even though they shouldn't have).
It was better like this.
Right?
He had to ask himself that question because there was a thought that Peter couldn't let go of, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself of all those things. It was the dim, flickering belief that maybe his friends could remember everything if he really wanted them to—that there was something he could say or do that would break the spell. At least for them. It was a selfish hope, he knew, but it was hope.
(And it was almost Christmas now. Wasn't Christmas all about hope?)
So he swallowed the guilt and he left his empty, grey apartment behind.
The wind bit into him, bitterly cold against his cheeks and exposed hands as he made his way automatically to the shop where he knew she'd be.
I'll be in and out, he told himself. I won't even say or do anything but order my coffee.
I just need to make sure they're healed and happy and that I haven't accidentally messed anything else up in their lives.
I'm doing it for them, he lied.
Because he knew he was really doing it for himself—because he needed to remind himself that the growing hollow in his chest was there for a good reason.
He needed to remind himself that he had to be alone for those he loved to be safe.
He needed to know he was making the right choice.
He froze when he first saw her.
He tried to act normal—tried to smile and order his coffee and then leave as soon he saw she was okay—but it was like he wasn't in control of his body anymore.
He wanted to cry when she smiled at him. He knew that smile. And he knew why she smiled like that—because as much as she tried to keep it a secret even from herself, MJ couldn't help but care about every person she met. She was a light in this world even if she and all the people around it didn't always see that.
But Peter never failed to attract a darkness that would extinguish that light if it could, and that's why he wanted to cry.
(The ache in his throat and the burning in his head and the choked reminder that she doesn't remember she doesn't remember she doesn't remember throbbed in his chest…but he didn't cry).
When by some miracle he managed to order his coffee and hand her the money, her fingers brushed his palm. He froze again. The world buzzed around him, and every cell in his body seemed to buzz too, leaning forward as if the universe was telling him to fix this. She was so close. She was so close and she was sobeautiful and amazing and if he could just tell her—
If he could just see her eyes light up again like they used to when she saw him—
But he couldn't.
The buzz in his ears retreated, and everything was moving again—too fast, too loud, too empty. Peter told MJ to keep the change, but he didn't remember saying that or how much change it was. He didn't care because the only thing that mattered now was not looking at her so he didn't freeze again—so he could leave as soon as he got his coffee.
He stared at his feet until his order was ready, mind numb, feeling like he was somewhere far away from his body, looking down at himself. She handed the coffee to him. He accepted it—it burned his hands but he didn't ask for a cardboard sleeve to avoid the pain. He responded to her token "have a nice day" automatically, and then he took one step towards the door.
Two steps.
He couldn't breathe.
Three steps.
Stop.
"I love you."
That's what she had said to him. MJ had told him she loved him right before he'd left and she'd forgotten he ever even existed.
Peter let out the little bit of air left in his lungs and then turned without thinking. He sat down in a booth in the corner, still not daring to look up because he didn't know what would happen if he looked at her face again. Maybe he would cry. Maybe he would scream. Maybe his chest would finish collapsing in on itself and everything would go dark and quiet and things wouldn't hurt so badly.
Or maybe something worse would happen—
Maybe he would keep the promise he made to MJ right before everything fell apart—
Maybe he would tell her, "I love you too."
Maybe she would remember him.
(Maybe she would die because everything he touched did break.)
After what seemed like an eternity of not being able to pull in a breath, that thought finally shocked Peter into allowing a trickle of air into his screaming lungs. He couldn't let his friends die. He couldn't keep his promise to MJ because he did love her.
And he loved Ned and Happy—
And he loved May too. So much.
Look where that had gotten her.
No, he had to leave. He had to leave and never come back.
So, Peter stood up quietly and left, though his feet felt like they were made of lead. He left his coffee behind—and also, it seemed, a jagged piece of his soul.
But even as he walked away, he knew it was only a matter of time before he was driven back here by the aching space that missing piece left behind.
After he started coming into the shop once or twice a week, Peter began to believe that he really was doing it for Ned and MJ's sake.
He promised himself he wouldn't talk to them any more than was necessary to get his order, and he never stayed for long. Most of the time he didn't even eat his food—even though he knew it was wasting the precious money he was living off of, the money he'd once been saving to help pay for college—because the lump that formed in his throat every time he saw MJ and Ned talking and laughing made the idea of eating seem laughable at best and impossible at worst.
And then he hit upon an idea.
Obviously, he wasn't strong enough to resist the urge to avoid Ned and MJ altogether—to keep them wholly safe—but maybe, over time, he could become that strong.
Maybe what he needed was time—time to grieve the future that he'd basically thrown out the window himself. Time to settle into the new rhythm of life.
He would begin coming into the shop regularly, but now he wouldn't just do it to check in on his friends. Now he would do it to desensitize himself even as their happiness reminded him of why things had to be this way.
He would go into that shop every day to prove to himself that his friends were better off without him.
He would prove that the people he loved needed Peter Parker to die so Spiderman, at least, could live on to protect them.
Peter felt sure he could get away with rationalizing it like this, and for at least a month, his life seemed a little brighter than it had been before.
He spent his days studying for the GED test, finding odd jobs to do for as much cash as people were willing to give him, and listening to news reports to prepare for his nightly patrols as Spiderman.
He even managed to put up all the pictures of May, Happy, and his friends in the apartment. For the first few weeks, looking at them when he came into back from some errand made the darkness seem inescapable once more—his heart raced, his Spidey sense went haywire, and his head was flooded of memories of the time before all of…this.
Soon, however, those periods of overwhelming grief became a little more bearable.
They became something he expected, and because he expected them, they didn't seem quite so hard to deal with.
(Like MJ said: if you expect disappointment, then you can never really be disappointed).
The fact that he didn't struggle quite so much with the grief made him excited—if you could call the weak, thready pulse of triumph in the pit of his stomach excitement—because it meant that maybe with time things really would get better. It got to the point where he could even remember May without feeling like he was back in all that rubble with her, and tentatively throughout the day he would even allow a memory or two of her to creep past the walls he was slowly but surely building up in his head and heart.
They always made him smile.
He had the strength to be Spiderman at the end of each day because of her. She had loved him with everything she had—had given him everything—because she believed in him and thought he was worth it.
It was a mistake to love Peter, of course…but how could he reject the legacy she had left behind in him and in her city? He clung to the memory of her love selfishly. He wanted to make her proud. He wanted to fight for this city and to protect this city and to love this city because she'd taught him no one was beyond saving.
(Except maybe him).
(But he was saving himself, wasn't he? He was doing better. He was moving on).
Spiderman was what was saving him, and that was thanks to May. Any of the suffering from the day always seemed so much more inconsequential when he was Spiderman because Peter Parker didn't really exist out there on the rooftops. When people saw him swinging around the city—when he stepped in and he saved someone from a beating or a mugging or even just helped them across the icy streets—he was doing what he always should have done.
He was helping people, loving people, protecting people.
The universe had forced him to choose being Spiderman over being Peter Parker, and when his skin burned and then went numb from the cold or bruises bloomed under his skin or he saw the relieved, grateful smiles of people he'd just rescued, he knew this was the choice he was always meant to make.
This city was his responsibility, so he was going to give every bit of himself to making it a better place.
Things were going to be okay.
He was fine.
He had to be.
Ironically, it was MJ who made him realize that hope was a very hard thing to kill.
He came into the shop one afternoon as usual. He was actually so engrossed in his thoughts about how to wipe out the growing gang activity in one of the neighborhoods nearby that he didn't even feel anything about the fact that it was MJ working behind the counter until he scanned the shop by habit and noticed her and Ned's haggard expressions.
He frowned, quickly scanning her to see if she was hurt or maybe just sick with a late-winter cold, but she smoothed out her frazzled expression as soon as she saw him and then came over to help him.
He swallowed his concern when he realized she'd noticed him looking at her and then leaned forward a little on the edge of the counter. He was just settling back into his thoughts about the gang again—determined to figure out why MJ looked so tired and puzzled today later, when he was back at the apartment and the risk of getting emotional wasn't so high—when she said his name.
MJ said his name—and she said it with familiarity, even if her voice was tinged with some of the strain he had already picked up on.
She said it like she knew him, and when he met her eyes, he could have sworn her probing gaze was looking straight at the hole in his heart that she used to occupy.
His heart began pounding, and with its every beat all of the feelings he'd been trying to bury deeper and deeper inside of himself rose up into his head, flooding him with adrenaline and expectation and hope hope hope—
"W—did you say…did you say Peter?" he asked because maybe he'd just misheard.
He didn't notice the subtle shift in MJ's eyes then, like she was no longer truly seeing into him.
"Yeah," she said.
And she said it like she remembered.
Peter couldn't stop himself. He didn't even want to.
He smiled—the first time he'd smiled in what felt like years.
He smiled because even though he'd told himself over and over that it was better if they didn't remember him—
Because even though all he wanted was for them to be safe and for them to be okay and happy and not to be touched by the darkness of his life—
Because even though the universe made him choose Spiderman over everything else and he told himself that was fine and good—
He had been lying.
He just wanted them back.
Because he missed them so, so much.
He couldn't do this without them.
(Could he?)
And then MJ said something else.
"I learn the names of all the regular customers here if I can."
And the world tipped over.
Peter's heart just broke.
She didn't remember him. She never would. No one would. He'd hoped and now he was getting what he deserved for it.
He thought he'd buried the hope that his friends would remember him so deep it would never surface again. But he had been wrong. He had been wrong and now he deserved and felt the bleeding gash in his heart—
He deserved it because even after all that had happened, he had still wanted to choose himself over those he claimed to love. But he could never say that. He never would.
So, instead, he said, "Oh."
A few seconds later, he realized that MJ was radiating utter confusion, and he scrambled to pick up the pieces of this entire, doomed encounter before he made her any more uncomfortable. She didn't deserve that.
"Sorry. I thought—I don't know. I was just being an idiot," he said. And he meant it.
It wouldn't happen again.
Peter Parker was broken.
A/N: I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. This is honestly one of the depressing things I think I've ever written and I KNOW PETER DESERVES BETTER, but...let's be honest. He went through SO MUCH in No Way Home, and he really needs his family to support him (Marvel why?). I promise this fic has a happy ending, though, so hang in there and please enjoy any catharsis you might be able to glean from this.
Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for your amazing feedback. :)
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears." ~1 Corinthians 13:8-10