I was rewatching TASM2 and I couldn't help but wonder what the immediate aftermath of the Clocktower Scene would look like. What that moment after The Moment would be like for Peter.

So here it is...

Forever After

He sits with her for a long time.

Peter cradles Gwen in his arms, pulls her toward his chest, his fingers fluttering over her face. He swipes at the bead of blood that keeps blooming from her nose. Running the pad of his thumb over it, like you would for tears.

It's a single stain against her porcelain skin, that little red droplet. Gwen looks untouched otherwise. Windswept and otherworldly, as she lays motionless in Peter's arms. She's still stunning, she still takes Peter's breath away.

She is the most beautiful woman Peter has ever seen.

He wishes she would open her eyes.

"I've never been on a plane before," Peter tells her. Running his fingers through her hair, ignoring the way her head lulls to the side, the fact that she's not breathing. "What's a flight from New York to England, six, seven hours?" He pauses, just looks at her. . .

Gwen.

His Gwen.

"I'll let you have the window seat," he goes on, a whisper. "I'll let you have the window seat," he says again, feeling breathless, feeling cold, feeling like he may never, ever get back up again.

Peter shifts Gwen on his lap, propping her against him so that he can lace their hands together. Gwen's fingers are cold in his, and while his curl around hers, hers stay stiff against his, unable to hold onto him the same way he's holding onto her.

Holding on.

Holding on because he doesn't know how to let go.

"I'll have to find a new job," Peter says, because he can't stop. Because the moment he does, the moment he stops talking, he'll have to put on his mask, he'll have to leave this clocktower, he'll have to let go of Gwen.

"Peter Parker can't show up in England taking photos of Spider-Man." Peter can picture it, the both of them, building a new life together. Maybe he'd find a lab to tinker in. Maybe he'd work in a dusty bookstore, surrounded by the classics. Maybe he'd be a waiter at some hole-in-the-wall café that no one's heard of.

It wouldn't matter, not as long as he gets to be with Gwen.

He can see them, walking in the rain, huddled together under a single umbrella. The two of them, learning the architecture of a new city. Discovering a new favorite restaurant, exploring the shops, making new friends. Finding new rooftop hideaways, kissing under unfamiliar city lights, having a picnic on Big Ben.

"We'll get an apartment," Peter tells her, and then corrects himself. "A-a flat." He's trembling now, full-body tremors that shake-up Peter's arms and legs, leave his voice sounding thin and cracked with every breathless whisper he gives.

He can picture that too, their apartment. Low ceilings and thin walls. Paint chipping and the heat always on the fritz. He can see them there, laying under the sheets on cold winter days, keeping each other warm. Gwen would hang up her yellow twinkle-lights, and Peter would fill the walls with photos and memories. They would bump elbows in their cramped bathroom while getting ready in the morning. And they would slow-dance in their kitchen to the fading sun of the afternoon.

"We'll be happy," Peter whispers into the silence, into the void. "We would've. . ."

Peter can't catch his breath, he can't breathe. . .

Gwen can't breathe either.

"We would've—" Peter chokes on something too loud to just be a sob, but too quiet to quite be a scream.

"Gwen," he gasps, pressing his nose into her soft hair. He can smell her flowery shampoo, he can smell her blood too. "Gwen," he says again, feeling dizzy with it, dizzy with her, dizzy without her. "Gwen," he says one more time, like his ribs are caving in, like his organs are rupturing, like his heart is stopping.

Peter pulls back, presses both of his hands to Gwen's face. Tracing his fingers over her cheekbones. Trying to soak in every last inch of her. To memorize every single detail of her.

She's still bleeding.

"Gwen," he says one last time, pleading and desperate. "Will you marry me?"

Gwen doesn't answer.

Peter wasn't expecting her to.

He sits in the ensuing silence, feeling more alone, more afraid, than he's ever felt in his life. Because this? This is the part where Peter has to get up. This is the part where Peter has to move forward. This is the part where Peter has to let go.

Peter takes a breath, and then he webs his mask over to himself. He clutches it in one hand, staring down at Gwen. Ever so gently, so reverently, Peter leans forward and presses a trembling kiss to her forehead.

Their last kiss.

Peter swallows back a sob as he pulls his mask over his head. He shifts, tries to get his numb legs under him. "I'm—I'm going to move you now," he tells Gwen, pressing her head to his chest, cradling it under his chin. "I'm gonna. . .I'm gonna move you now."

Peter takes one stumbling step, and then another.

Gwen weighs absolutely nothing in his arms, and yet, she is the heaviest thing Peter has ever had to carry. But how could she not be? When she is his entire world.

There are already flashing lights down the street, police officers and paramedics waiting to meet him, to apprehend the bad guy of the day, to take Gwen away.

Peter's knees almost buckle when he realizes this is the last time he will ever hold Gwen, that this is the last time he will ever touch her, the last time he will ever be with her.

It's such a horrible, gut-wrenching realization that Peter can't move for a moment.

Peter stands there, frozen in place, as the world blurs and distorts around him. He swears that he sees George Stacy in his peripheral, so he closes his eyes. Rests his face against Gwen's, and tries to remember how to breathe.

"I love you," he tells her, because it's the last time he will get to press those words into her skin. "I love you. I love you so much," he murmurs, because he doesn't know what else to say.

Peter stumbles down the street, the weight of the world held in his arms. Gwen clutched against him, hugging her tightly to himself. Chest shuddering with his choked back sobs, body trembling with an unbearable type of pain.

When he reaches the police cruisers and the single ambulance, it feels too soon, too quick, too much. Peter will never, ever be ready for what he's about to do.

All conversation stops at the sight of him, every head turns toward Peter, to Spider-Man, and then their eyes drift down to Gwen. There is a moment of utter silence, of absolute stillness, and then a paramedic steps forward, voice somber and resigned as she says, "we'll take her, Spider-Man."

Peter doesn't move at first, doesn't think he has the strength to. Because this is it, this is where he lets go, this is where he says goodbye.

Peter pulls in a shuddering breath, gives Gwen one last squeeze, and then he takes one halting step after another. He places Gwen down on the gurney with all the gentleness he has, and then he watches as the paramedics pull a white sheet over her.

Peter feels cold, standing there as they load Gwen into the back of the ambulance. Taking her someplace that he can't follow.

What do you do. . .What does a person do, when their whole world is taken from them? Peter's world was flipped upside-down when his parents disappeared. His world shattered when Uncle Ben bled out under his hands. But what do you do, what is Peter supposed to do, when his world has vanished?

"Spider-Man?" one of the police officers calls out hesitantly. Everyone is still watching him, now that Gwen is hidden beneath a sheet and blocked by the ambulance doors, there is nothing to distract from Spider-Man, standing motionless and despondent in front of them.

Peter should leave.

He can't seem to move a single muscle.

"I couldn't catch her," Peter says, voice hoars and crackling with grief, with guilt. "I couldn't catch her," he repeats, softer this time.

The men and women gathered around him fall still, Peter hardly notices.

"Harr—" Peter starts before he chokes the name off. "The man," he says instead. "The man, the one who killed her— he's in…he's in the clocktower," he tells them, swallowing hard. "At the top," he says. "He's at the top of the clocktower."

One of the officers says something from behind him, but Peter doesn't hear whatever he says. It's all catching up with him now. The realization about his parents. The plan to move to England. The showdown with Max. The fight with Harry.

Gwen, Gwen, Gwen, Gwen.

Peter's world is lost, the rest of the world keeps turning.

Peter takes one lurching step forward, startling the people around him as he trips over his own toes. But he doesn't care, doesn't care that he is supposed to be Spider-Man and not Peter Parker right now. Doesn't care that they will see. What does it matter, when he has nothing left?

Peter presses one gloved hand to the back of the ambulance, places his masked forehead to the metal there. It's all he can do not to tear the doors open, to lay down next to Gwen, to follow her, like he promised to.

Peter presses his face against the metal, mouths the words "I love you," over and over again, and then, when he thinks he's brave enough— he pushes off the doors and turns away.

Everyone's eyes are on him.

Peter has never felt so alone.

Peter takes a breath and leaps into the air, firing out a web and swinging away. Away from prying eyes, away from Harry and the clocktower, away from Gwen.

Peter swings away, his world left behind.

So I scribbled this out in my notebook, and a few days later decided to type it out and post it, because I'm trying to get better at posting smaller things. ;)

Hope you liked the angst.