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Tepid
The next day started abruptly for Peter. He jolted awake suddenly as though someone had shouted in his ear. No one was there, of course, and the only noise was the ambient sounds of the city. Light was pouring weakly through the windows and with a frown he realized that for some inexplicable reason, he'd woken up bright and early with the birds. It was unlike him to wake up voluntarily so early in the morning and he knew with every fiber of his being that he should still be asleep. Confusion swept over him as he lay in his bed, shaking off the depths of sleep and feeling out of sorts with the nervous energy and dread creep through his body.
He felt panicked and flustered, which was an odd thing to feel first thing in the morning. An ominous feeling prodded his brain, like he was meant to be doing something, or he had forgotten something important. The feeling was overwhelming and it forced him to sit bolt upright even though his brain was still half asleep. He reached for his bedside table and grabbed his phone. It lit up and confirmed for him that it was indeed ass o'clock in the morning. But it also confirmed something else that he had seen coming and yet was still caught off guard by.
It was the first of August.
His birthday was in nine days.
He had to make things right again with May before hitting that deadline. It was an arbitrary instruction based on no rational thought, and yet the importance of it resounded in him with such profound severity that he immediately jumped to his feet. Throwing off his blanket, he staggered as his feet struggled to find steady placement on the floor. He blinked hard to clear his disorienting head rush as the remnants of cobwebs scattered and sifted through his brain.
A horrible fact surfaced in his mind. One that he had been dwelling on for weeks: He had disrespected May by denying her a memorial service. The possibility of having one had come up in June, back when Mr. Stark had been forced to have daily life altering conversations with him.
"Pepper and I are having a having a memorial service for Happy. We were thinking… maybe you might want to have one for your aunt?"
"No."
"That's okay, you don't have to make up your mind now. Think about it for a couple days and-"
"No. I don't want to."
A memorial would've held such finality, and Peter couldn't bare it. At the time, sat on the couch at Happy's apartment, he imagined having a similar service for May and the thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had learned things about Happy that day that he should've found out progressively over many years, not condensed in one day. Despite having Mr. Stark involved in his life for two years, his life with May had never really been the subject of discussion. Reminiscing on old memories, sharing private stories with people who weren't there to remember her at all, but rather for Peter's sake, it had felt like an invasion of her privacy.
So, he had listened to the stories of Happy's life (he had been a boxer before Mr. Stark met him), looked through his shelves (there was a lot of Downton Abbey boxsets), and saw out of the corner of his eye as Mr. Stark slipped Happy's phone into his pocket with quiet reverence. It was just the three of them in attendance, and the fact that Happy didn't seem to have a life outside of the one shared by the few people in his home had made Peter sorry for not appreciating him more when he was alive.
Peter didn't think that he had ever experienced such detrimental blind faith as he had with his denial. He hadn't been ready to admit to himself or anyone else that May was gone, that they all were forever taken from this world. So he had shut his eyes, cover his ears, and tuned out everything that made her death permanent. In doing so, he had missed his chance to say good-bye as well as selfishly cheating her out of the final rite of passage in life.
Peter knew with absolute certainty that he would regret that for the rest of his life. No matter how many times he found himself alone, murmuring 'I'm sorry' to no one in some desperate hope that she heard him, the guilt would never ease. It was a moment that he would never get back again, just as Peter would never get his seventeen birthday back once the day had passed. All he could do now was try to make it up to her before he reached that day when he turned another year older and it became an unignorable fact that he was moving through life without her. Without them.
The solution struck Peter as his nervous feet were busy pacing around his room; He would go to Central Park and pay his respects at the newly constructed memorial grounds. The park had only just finished its reconstruction a week ago, and Peter had heard that the names of the vanished were so copious that they took up the entirety of the space.
At best, this was a half-baked plan. At worst, this was an insultingly pathetic send off for the woman who had raised him. He hated the idea of showing up empty handed, and with such short notice his mind reeled to think of a suitable parting gift. Freesias were May's favorite flower, and flowers were the conventional thing to lay down at a memorial. But Peter had yet to find an open florist shop, and his family wasn't conventional anyway.
His pacing halted as an idea came to him. In a matter of minutes, he was showered and dressed. He laid out his suit from Mr. Stark's wedding on his bed, not wanting to crinkle or stain it in his preparation of May's gift.
From his book shelf he pulled out a tattered old book:
'Anyone Can Cook: Italian Dishes Made Simple.' – edited by May Parker.
In the kitchen, he bustled about as quietly as possible so as to not wake Mr. Stark or Ms. Potts. The kitchen was always fully stocked with a full selection of ingredients, and to Peter's relief all the stuff he needed for May's lasagna was there.
With the cook book propped open against a jar of tomato sauce, Peter followed along with laser focus to the original instructions and May's dish ruining additions. He was in the process of mincing pesto, as the original called for, while ground beef sizzled in a frying pan behind him when he heard Ms. Potts' distinctive footsteps.
"Peter?"
His head snapped up and he saw her shuffle into the kitchen in her pajamas, robe, and slippers. She didn't look tired, but Peter's heart still sank.
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
"No, not at all," she shook her head and waved off his concern. "I get up at this time any day that I'm heading into the office. Which is more or less every day." Peter's face twisted in pure bewilderment which made her laugh. He would've thought that, being the boss and having the power to set her own schedule, she could've picked a less icky time of day to be at work. She shuffled towards him and eyed the picture in the open cook book. "Why are you cooking lasagna at six in the morning?"
Peter dropped his eyes back to his pesto and he heard Ms. Potts move behind him to stir the browning beef.
"It's just something that I had to do."
"I've heard that one before," She murmured with a smile lacing her voice. "It's uncanny sometimes how alike you and Tony are." The spoon tapped a couple times on the side of the pan and was set down before she moved to Peter's side. She lifted the book up and glanced through the recipe with a perplexed frown. "This lasagna recipe looks… exciting."
That was, quite possibly, the kindest way that anyone had ever described one of May's experimental recipes. It very nearly rivaled Uncle Ben's mastery of polite tongue-in-cheek, and that was no easy feat.
"Oh, yeah?"
Ms. Potts nodded and set the book back where she got it from.
"Like there's a party in your mouth and someone brought acid."
Peter laughed and narrowly missed cutting his finger with the paring knife. Ms. Potts fingers wrapped around his wrist, stilling his hand while she took the knife from him. Peter smiled good-naturedly and surveyed the wide variety of spice bottles in front of him, all of which were to be used in the dish.
"The curry compliments the paprika," he said without much confidence, quoting May's haughty explanation from many years ago.
"Does it?"
Peter shrugged and cast Ms. Potts a smirk.
"Supposedly."
She reached forward and grabbed one of the spice bottles, her brows pulling together as she read the label.
"And the nutmeg?"
Peter sighed. He really had no defense for that one.
"I don't remember why that goes in, but it does. And don't ask me why there's radishes in this thing, there just are." Ms. Potts' lips pursed in a way that Peter had come to associate with her dreading something. "Don't worry, I won't make you eat this. It's not for you."
Relief broke over her pinched expression and Peter almost laughed again. He wouldn't wish this stomach twisting indigestion on anyone. He had to live through being the guinea pig once before, he'd never inflict that torture on anyone else.
"Whose it for?"
Everything in his being came to a standstill. He cast his eyes down, unable to meet her gaze, but answered honestly all the same.
"May."
It was silent for a second, save for the crackling sound of grease, and Peter's shoulders tensed. Arms looped around him, and Ms. Potts' cheek pressed into his temple as she squeezed him. It was unexpected, but not all together unwanted as Peter felt the tension bleed out of him. For a moment, she said nothing and Peter simply existed comfortably in her arms, feeling the pressure in them gently smother his sadness.
And then, traitorously, a spark of anger flickered to life deep in his chest. Peter's jaw clenched in tired frustration as his eyes slipped shut in an effort to block out his internal ire.
"You're a good kid," she murmured with a softness that Peter had been missing for a long time. Hot tears flooded his eyes. Pooling behind his eyelids and gathering in the seam they threatened to fall, but didn't. "And your aunt had… interesting taste," she added with one final squeeze, and Peter hated the way he leaned into it.
She pulled away, but kept one hand on his back. Its grounding weight rested between his shoulder blades. He focused on the feeling of it there as he pushed his irrational response deep down and buried it before Ms. Potts could notice. He reached up with one hand and brushed the wetness out of his eyes and was satisfied when they stayed dry.
"You're way more polite about her cooking than Mr. Stark was."
Ms. Potts smirked and the effect reminded Peter a bit of a shark.
"That's always going to be the case, Peter. Get used to it." She gave him a pat on the back before her hand pulled away and she turned to leave. "You'll be alright alone today?"
The question seemed to be asked more out of courtesy than genuine concerned, and Peter felt pride welling in him as he had finally earned that small amount of trust.
"Have a good day at work," he said by way of answer and continued his mincing.
At the edge of the field in Central Park, Peter became frozen in place. He had known that this would be difficult, but he hadn't fully grasped the gravity of it until he was standing where he was. Passing through the entrance of the park and following the short concrete path had been easy. It was identical to any other time that he had come here. The only difference was that he had picked up a brochure-style map at the gate, outlining the changes in the park. He had spared the title 'The Wall of the Vanished' a single glance, skimmed through some of the facts about its construction, and continued on his way. But to view the formidable vastness of the site in person gave overwhelming scope to his life.
His mind had gone quiet in the wake of his initial shock. Soon after, he'd thought with hysterical giddiness that the term 'wall' was a bit of a misnomer here. They were more like overgrown tombstones than walls. They filled the sight in front of him, stretching farther than his eyes could see. Rows upon rows of giant marble slabs three feet wide and ten feet tall, according to the brochure, with three columns of names on both sides. Five hundred names per stone. Six thousand stones total. Unassuming, identical from a distance, and uniformly spaced apart, they seemed to have erected themselves out of nowhere. Towering high in the air, they raised up from the earth in a display of solemn dignity.
Invisible millions crowded every inch of the park, permeating the air so tightly that they stole the breath from Peter's body and refused to give it back.
'We were here.'
A whisper carried on the wind for no one but Peter to hear, and it kept his feet rooted to the ground. Somewhere in those millions was May, and all Peter had to find her with was a shitty brochure that mapped out the park by alphabetical sections.
His palms were slicked with sweat, both from the heat of the day and the pounding of his heart. The feel of ceramic against his damp skin was uncomfortable, but the weight of the casserole dish in his hands grounded him. His fingers tightened around the edges strongly enough to secure his hold without shattering the dish. The pressure in his hands brought a piercing focus to his mind.
He had made this for her.
Standing at the border where concrete and grass met, there was no turning back now. Not when Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark knew where he was going and for what purpose. To return now would bring him nothing but shame for his cowardice and further regret for letting May down.
He set one foot on the grass, followed by another, and felt immediately as if he were crossing over into another world. A microcosm of the city's mourning encapsulated him as he ventured further inward, one step in front of the other. Grief was thick in the air, concentrated, stifling and choking him with its acridity. His sensitive ears heard every sniffle and wail from the tide of mourners weaving through the rows.
The giant slabs were moving past him quicker, and Peter realized that his walk had become a jog. Seconds later he was running and his speed felt out of place here, like he was shouting in a library. People turned to stare at him as he passed. He could feel their eyes on him as he ran, but like a race horse wearing blinders he kept his eyes forward to avoid their distraction. Each individual smearing into a blur of darkly coloured clothing, and Peter sprinted until his lungs burned. Slowly, the section that he had memorized as soon as he had opened his map drew closer. The section marked 'P'.
'Find May. Give her the lasagna. Get out,' he repeated to himself over and over again like a mantra. Sweat ran into his eyes from his now damp hair. His eyes stung, but his hands were too full to wipe them. The thought of breaking his pace, of pausing to set the dish down and allowing the ghosts to catch up with him was terrifying.
So he endured, and he ran.
He nearly ran past the 'P' section, stopping comically in his sprint when he realized he had almost run through to the 'Q's. He backtracked, casting his searching gaze over the leveled field.
There were supposed to be willow trees here, but they were gone. Peter remembered sunny afternoons where he'd grasp handfuls of their long, wispy branches and then curl his knees up to his chest. He'd hang and swing his weight from side to side like a metronome, loving every second of air-born suspension until Ben would tell him to stop and warn him that he was damaging the trees.
But they were cut down now, so Peter supposed that any minor damage he had caused was a moot point. They'd been uprooted and paved over, like they'd never existed to begin with. In their stead, a fraction of the six thousand stones replaced them.
Peter tried to not be bitter about their removal. At the end of the day, it was just another thing that he needed to let go of, and their importance was far less significant than the names that stood in their place. With steely resolve, he began his search.
Circling and weaving through massive rectangles, his eyes skimmed over seemingly endless lists of names that became forgotten as soon as his eyes passed over them.
'… Parem'
'… Paril'
'… Park'
And finally:
'May Parker'
There she was. One name among many. Tucked away in their numbers and hidden to anyone who didn't know to look. Even her name was more disguised than most. Sandwiched between a few other Parkers (none of which were their relatives. It was just what came with having a common last name.), she blended in among the strangers and lost her vibrancy in the gray stone. His eyes stung again, but from tears this time. The sun was in his eyes from craning his neck up to see her name listed in the middle column, three feet above his head. Balancing the lasagna in one hand, he rested the other against his brow to block out the light.
"Hey, May," he murmured and felt the tears finally slip down his cheeks. He wanted to trace his fingertips over the sunken grooves of the engraved letters, but she was untouchable in death in every sense of the word. He glanced down at his lasagna. Through the glass lid Peter could see the crispy cheese. It had browned up nicely, deceptively concealing the horrors that lay beneath it. With a strained smile, he glanced back up at her name and gestured to the dish. "I know you probably didn't want this to be your legacy, but you made me eat it once, back when you were hooked on 'MasterChef'. That was your choice. You took a gamble, artistic liberties were taken to the extreme, and this… thing came out of the oven."
Laughing through the tears, he knelt down on the grass. The lasagna was set down – Ms. Potts had assured him that she didn't mind never seeing the casserole dish again – and he nestled it in among the other mementos.
Peter's throat rapidly began to close up. He took a deep breath through his nose to clear his thoughts, and his eye wandered to the other things surrounding his lasagna: flowers (some trimmed nicely, others with roots still attached like they'd been ripped from a garden), teddy bears, glittery fairy wings, pictures illustrating fragments from a variety of lives, pieces of paper with poems written on them, and burnt out candles.
There were some bizarre items too like a jar of pennies, a pack of cigarettes still in the cellophane, and tiny sample bottles of hard liquor with the seal unbroken. All of them with meaning to someone, though it was lost on Peter. His own offering joined them, and he knew that someone else would later look at it with just as much confusion as he had for these strange things.
He sighed and wiped the tear streaks from his cheeks. His eyes had gone dry again from his brief stint of crying. It was always fleeting these days, the moments when he felt the need to cry. He would and then minutes later he'd dust himself off and carry on like nothing had happened. A vaguely hollow feeling would remain in him, serving as the only reminder that he had fallen apart, if only momentarily.
The back of his neck prickled, and Peter twisted his body to look behind him. An elderly man stood a respectable distance away from Peter, giving him his space while at the same time crowding him. His eyes, magnified behind thick coke-bottom glasses, pointedly looked away from Peter as he stared at the stone a few feet to the left. He said nothing, but it was clear that he was waiting for his turn to stand where Peter was. His hands were clasped together over his stomach, pinning a 'Paw Patrol' birthday card with a big '4' on it to his middle.
Peter's stomach clenched as he scrambled to his feet. He hurriedly dusted blades of grass and dirt off of the knees of his black dress pants. Taking long strides, Peter quickly walked by the man, who met his eyes as he passed with compassionate understanding.
"Thanks, son," he said quietly, and damn if Peter's heart didn't go all warm and fuzzy. He smiled easily under his endearing sincerity and nodded his head in acknowledgement, his voice not yet ready for speech.
There were concrete benches built into the ground every twenty feet or so, and Peter sank weak-kneed on to the closest one. He felt tired, but not quite as worn out as he had expected to be. The atmosphere that had overwhelmed him when he had first crossed over that grassy threshold felt diluted now. It was as if he had acclimatized to its intensity, as impossible as that may seem.
It was bearable to exist in, but Peter also knew that he would never come back here again after today. Unlike Queens, which had the potential to recover and grow into a community full of life, this park would remain forever stagnant in its harboring of death. While Peter knew all too well how important closure was, he wished that there had been some way of attaining that without ruining the source of many happy afternoons. Without trees to swing from, what was the point of coming back?
This park had been repurposed in to a graveyard, and Peter had no desire to return.
He had come here to say good-bye, but he had never been one for prolonged suffering. Today would be a one-off, he decided. He'd make it count for everyone that he would miss.
Shrugging off the jacket of his suit – it was too damn hot out!- he reached into the pocket and pulled out the map. In his mind he comprised a list. In his years on the decathlon team, he had built some camaraderie among the other members. He wouldn't go so far as to call them friends, but he would miss Zoha's deadpan jokes, Betty's positive bubbly nature, Josh's increasingly lame and farfetched excuses for being late (his favorite had been when he'd strolled into the library, ten minutes late, with a Starbucks coffee and said that Spider-Man was fighting some muggers in the subway and that was causing train delays. He and Ned had shared a side-eyed glance and a smirk, but said nothing.). Ned, and MJ were technically part of the team, but they were also so much more than that.
With his mind made up, Peter stood and headed towards the beginning of the alphabet. His list started at the 'B's with Betty Brant.
On the way, he loosened his tie and popped the collar button of his shirt. It was going to be a long day, and the heat would be miserable. Despite that he couldn't bring himself to regret his decision to wear such an uncomfortable suit. May had deserved his best effort, and if he had to put up with a little heat exhaustion then so be it.
Hours passed, but Peter barely noticed in his search. He worked his way steadily through each section of the park, and the poor organization of the layout left him treading over seemingly every inch of it. The sun was getting high in the sky, indicating that it was nearing noon, and Peter could feel a sun burn creeping up over the bridge of his nose and cheeks.
In the 'J's, Peter sat on a bench to rest his feet. About five feet in front of his face, 'Michelle Jones' seared into his retinas.
'My friends call me MJ'
Just like that, she had been dubbed under a new name, and Peter, in his eagerness to take her tentatively extended friendship, never called her 'Michelle' again. It almost looked wrong to see her name written like that: proper but incorrect. He was tempted to return with a sharpie to correct the mistake, if for no other reason than to set her apart from the other 'Jones's who may or may not have been her relatives. There were a lot of them. Surely, they weren't all her family? Peter realized with a sinking heart that, despite growing closer over their two years together, they had never been close enough for him to learn what her parents' names were.
Why hadn't he ever asked? He knew that she valued her space, and he had never wanted to make her uncomfortable, but maybe he should have been more assertive. A snide thought countered with: why didn't she ever tell him their names? For two years he had considered her to be one of his closest friends, but she had never once invited him over to her place. They had met at coffee shops sometimes, outside of school hours, but there was always an underlining sense of cool unattachment there that Peter hadn't wanted to acknowledge at the time.
Maybe they weren't as close as Peter had thought. Maybe it had all been wishful thinking on his part. Or maybe there were feelings there, lying just below her cautious exterior. Countless times, Peter had pep talked himself up to asking her out, only to chicken out at the last minute. He should've asked her out when he had the chance. At least then he would've definitively known what they had been to each other. Instead he found himself replaying in his mind every one of their interactions and guessing at the intention that lay within them.
Regret was a hard thing to live with, and from time to time Peter staggered under its weight while wishing that he had less of it to carry.
Climbing to his feet again, he closed the gap, kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them over MJ's name.
"Bye, MJ."
'Bye, loser,' his mind supplied in her voice, and he smiled weakly. There was nothing else to say really. Well, nothing that he was willing to say aloud in public with so many people milling about. In this communal sort of mourning, all those private, intimate things that he would've confessed to her, had he known that their time together was short, stayed in the back of his mind. Unspoken but no less real for him.
Pulling his hand away, he swiftly strode towards the neighbouring 'L' section. A deep weariness was starting to settle in his bones, but he was determined to finish the journey that he'd set out on. The short walk did little to ease his frazzling nerves, and all too soon he was standing in front of Ned's name. It was the last one on the left hand column, engraved just above the neatly trimmed grass. Sitting on the lawn, as close to the stone as the surrounding ring of mementos would allow him, he ran his thumb over the name and felt the tickle of grass on his knuckles.
'Edward Leeds'
No one ever called him that. In fact, Peter had nearly forgotten on numerous occasions that his name was 'Edward'. It always took him off guard on the first day of school when a new teacher would call out: 'Edward?', only for Ned to correct them. They would make note of it in the attendance sheet, and then Peter would have a full year to forget all over again.
His oldest friend. His self-appointed guy-in-the-chair. They'd known each other for eleven years, and he could barely remember a time in his life where Ned wasn't in it. He had been his only friend for such a long time that Peter often felt at a loss now that he was gone. From stupid memes and TikTok videos to life altering decisions and catastrophic fallouts, the reaction that each one incited in Peter became amplified when he had shared them with his best friend.
He would miss that. No, he missed it already. Countless times in the past few months, Peter's fingers had itched to text Ned about whatever inconsequential news that he had. The excitement of good news, the desperate need to alleviate the misery of bad news, all of it become lackluster without his friend's thoughts on it.
Ned had been such a huge part of Peter's life for so long, to be without him so suddenly left empty spaces in his life. Spaces that he hadn't even realized that Ned had occupied until he was gone. In his absence Peter had come to realize how much he relied on him; for laughs and corny jokes. For just being there as someone who Peter could stand on equal footing with and as someone who understood him completely.
'I just wanna thank you for letting me be a part of your journey.'
The memory of that day in the school's shop, breaking apart a Chitauri energy core with a hammer (in hindsight, not his best plan, but he made do with his resources), surfaced in Peter's mind and he felt shame bubble up in him. He had groaned internally when Ned had said that, rolling his eyes at his over dramatic antics. He hadn't really appreciated back then how incredible it was that he had a friend like Ned to help him with all sorts of stupid, sometimes life threatening, shenanigans. Really, it was Peter who was thankful to have Ned on the journey. He wished he had told him that more often when he was alive.
"Thanks for being there," he murmured, meaning every word. Most people would probably start to distance themselves from the guy that almost got them killed in an elevator explosion, but not Ned. In his way, he was sort of fearless.
A headache was starting to bloom behind Peter's eyes, and his eyelids slipped shut to contain the thrumming. Weather it was from emotional exhaustion or dehydration, he couldn't tell. But it was clear that he didn't have much more energy left in him. He heaved himself to his feet, sensing that his day was starting to spiral to a close, and headed further down the alphabet.
At each team mate, he stopped only briefly to say a quick goodbye. At the 'S's, visiting Joshua Scarino, relief crept up on him because the end was in sight. He only had three more stops to make, and then he could go home and sleep for a week. The knowledge of that kept his body standing upright on his feet.
No sooner had he located Josh's name, muttered a sincere 'goodbye' and turned to walk towards the 'T's, that something unexpected caught his eye.
There was a girl sitting on the ground. That in and of itself wasn't odd, but the casual way that she leaned her back against one of the nearby stones and rested with her legs stretched out in front of her made Peter's eyebrows raise. She was reading a novel, her eyes slowly roving left to right over the page like she had all the time in the world to immerse herself in it. She shifted uncomfortably on the hard ground, straightened her back for a second and rolled her stiff shoulders before falling back again. Her eyes never left the page. She must've cleared a space in the mementos in order to sit that close to the stone. The numerous sentimental offerings were set carefully beside her, suggesting that she had at least handled them with respect.
The girl was striking in the setting of the park. While everyone else that Peter had seen, including himself, wore some sort of dark mourning colour, she stood out in a colour scheme of white and pink. Blouse, skirt, leggings, shoes, and even the coat that she sat on (which Peter could only assume she'd brought for the sole purpose of avoiding grass stains rubbing into her skirt. No way was she gonna wear it when the heat rivaled Satan's hellfire.), all of it was perfectly coordinated and smartly pressed.
Her thumb turned a page rather aggressively. The paper made a little snapping noise as it cut through the air, and her head raised suddenly. Her eyes met Peter's, and the hard glint in them made him freeze like a deer in headlights.
"What?" She snapped and narrowed her eyes at him. "You never saw someone reading in a park before?"
Peter's cheeks flushed under her hostility, and the embarrassment of being caught made his heart flutter in his chest. Her eyes grew wide as the look in them turned expectant, and he held up his hands nervously in response.
"S-sorry, sorry," he stammered. His feet shuffled and he shifted his draped suit jacket from one forearm to the other. "I didn't mean to stare at you… it's just…" He didn't know how to finish that. Any sort of justification, no matter how well intended, would come across creepy as hell. So he finished lamely: "sorry."
The girl rigid posture relaxed somewhat and she sighed. Her hand ran tiredly through her short, blonde hair, causing a few strands to puff out from the static electricity and then fall perfectly back into place.
"No, it's okay. I shouldn't have snapped. All of these dirty looks just got me on edge," she grumbled, closing her book on her index finger to save her place. "You see that lady with the active bitch face, over there?" She tipped her head to the side, and Peter followed the direction with his eyes. Sitting on a bench, a middle-aged woman dressed in a black pant suit and sporting a short bob cut, was glaring daggers at the girl. Her thinly veiled raged started to visibly bubble as she realized that both Peter and the girl were staring back at her.
"Active bitch face? Like, the opposite of resting bitch face?" Peter asked and glanced back at the girl, mostly to avoid the waves of hatred that were rolling off of the woman.
"Exactly," she said lightly, not looking at Peter but instead smiling sweetly at the woman. She wiggled her fingers at her in a taunting sort of wave, and Peter could see gasoline being thrown on the woman's restrained anger. "She's been giving me the stink eye for over twenty minutes. You'd think she'd have something better to do than passive-aggressively harass teenage girls, but I guess everyone needs a hobby."
Peter's lips pressed into a hard line as he observed from a distance this bizarre generational stand-off unfold. He wasn't too keen on watching the inevitable show down, and some small rational part of his mind told him to move on with his own business. But he was intrigued by the strangeness of it all, and before he knew it, he'd started to walk towards the girl.
"God, I hope she tries to come over here to give me a talking to," she muttered under her breath just as Peter got close to her. "Please do, lady. I dare you."
"What are you reading?" he asked, in hopes of distracting her. She flicked her gaze over at Peter and held up the cover of her book for him to see the title:
'A Midsummer Night's Gene'.
Below the title, the cover art depicted a collage of retro mad science paraphernalia and red capped mushrooms with white speckles. Peter wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't trippy, sci-fi flavored Shakespeare. Some of his surprise must've shown on his face because she said defensively: "Don't judge me, I like my trash."
Being a connoisseur of pop culture trash himself, thanks to being raised with Ben's strict regimen of cult classics, B-list movies and indie films (Godawful ones. Not even the ones of Sundance caliber), Peter smiled at the thought of anyone accusing him of being judgmental on that front.
"Oh, no, I don't think you're-"
She waved him off rudely with an irritated flap of her hand and the action stunned him into silence. She leaned her head back against the stone slab behind her and crossing her arms over her chest. One hand still held her place in the book and the other wrapped around her elbow.
"I come to Central Park to read whenever the weather's nice. This is my thing. I'm acting normal. They're the ones who're crying over a bunch of damn rocks."
Peter's mouth worked open and close a couple of times, but he couldn't quite think of what to say to such a callous statement.
"Well…" he trailed, still a bit flummoxed. "It's just… grief, y'know?"
Blue eyes hardened into ice and their unforgiving sternness made Peter feel like a suspect under interrogation.
"Yes, I do know. I'm grieving too."
She reached her free hand up above her head, and her fingers trailed tenderly down a short list:
'George Stacy'
'Helen Stacy'
'Simon Stacy'
She didn't even need to look up to see where her hand was going, and Peter wondered with growing sympathy how often she had done that to know exactly where those names were by touch. His throat clenched and the girl dropped her hand back down to rest on her abdomen.
"I lost my everything," her voice cracked at the end, despite the anger fueling her momentum. She forcibly coughed to clear her throat, and Peter felt his own grow tighter. "And then they just had to go and take Central Park from me too."
"I'm sorry," Peter choked out. Feeling his eyes grow wet, he blinked hard a few times to push the tears away. The girl was determinedly avoiding his gaze, so she couldn't see them anyway. She ignored his condolence and continued looking straight ahead of her. A deep breath expanded her chest and she let it out slowly.
"Captain America said that fifty percent of all living creatures are gone," she said with forced flippancy. If not for the near imperceptible hint of steel underlying her words, they might've been discussing the weather. "If every other country is doing what America's doing, how much of the Earth do you think will be covered by these things?" She patted the stone behind her head. The questioning look that she shot at Peter informed him that she was actually waiting for an answer. Upon realizing this, Peter nervously curled his fingers into the fine fabric of his jacket.
"Like in a measurement of square miles?"
"Or square kilometers," she offered with a shrug. "Whichever unit of measurement you prefer."
"I don't know," Peter admitted while wondering if she was joking or not. She looked serious and held his gaze steadfast with her own despite his obvious discomfort. "There are too many unknown variables. That's kind of a morbid math problem, don't you think?"
Her eyes flicked down, and Peter was relieved to be released from their hold. Then he realized that she was staring with intense fixation at the flowers, cards, and pictures next to her, and his throat ached again.
"The rule was supposed to be fifty percent of all life, but I lost one hundred percent of my family. How's that fair?"
The hardened defensive tone in her voice wavered and gave way. A curtain was pulled back and Peter saw a glimpse of utter devastation, the intensity of which he was well acquainted with. To find his own pain so perfectly replicated and manifested in a stranger was startling, although he wasn't sure why. There were many like him who had lost all of their family. It wasn't like his case was special.
Immediately, he corrected himself, because he was special. Through happenstance and luck, he had managed to fall into a safety net, and an incredibly caring one at that. He remembered the boy that he had met the day before, the only one in his foster home to have family come back for him, and he thought of the many faceless orphans, who were apparently overwhelming the foster system, left without anyone. Fear and something akin to guilt gripped him with ferocity. A cold sweat broke on his skin and his heart began to race.
"Are you okay? Do you have a place to stay? Do you need anything?"
She glanced up, perhaps startled by the urgency of his questioning, but Peter had no qualms about being too forward when potential homelessness was on the line. Her eyes softened as they took in his concern, and for the first time Peter saw her without such harsh irritability permeating her features. With such severe tension chased from her face, she resembled a different person entirely and a vague hint of recognition stirred deep within him.
"I'm alright," she said with a weak smile, and Peter's bunched shoulders released with his sigh. "I moved in with my best friend's family. He's one of the lucky ones that got to keep one hundred percent of his family." Bitterness leached back into her tone, lacing it unpleasantly with sour jealousy. Realizing what she'd just said, her expression flooded with remorse. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be dumping this on you. I don't really know you at all."
"It's okay," Peter assured her as he watched her posture curl within herself. He meant it too, it was okay. He understood completely.
Recently, for inexplicable reasons, every day was a battle that he fought to subside his temper. Flickers of annoyance would crackle his nerves without provocation and restlessness would spark deep in his bones. The urge to do to run to jump, often without a known motivator and without purpose, would seize him and then he would be gone again to wander through his new neighbourhood.
The worrisome thing about it was that half of the time he wasn't even sure what made him do the things he did. Moments of aggravation came and went so frequently; they were starting to blend one into the next, creating a state of being out of their persistence. Unnerved at first, he had eventually grown used to the silent war waging inside of him. His wariness kept it in check, kept it from seeping through the cracks and ruining everything. He knew that it could be misconstrued as ingratitude for those he still had in his life, and the threat of it poisoning the good in his life was enough to keep it safely smothered down.
But he got it, he really did. Being on high alert all the time to keep all that ugly crap tucked away was tiring, and sometimes despite his best efforts Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts could sense it.
Slowly and hesitantly Peter lowered himself down on the grass. He watched carefully to see if the girl would protest, but she didn't. She did raise a brow at him as he moved to sit cross-legged. A heavy silence stretched between them while Peter built up his courage, and after a moment it started to turn awkward. The girl's eyes started to dart about uncomfortably just before Peter took a deep breath.
"I lost my family too," he confessed in a low voice like it was sensitive information, though he was sure that its significance was lost in the face of such commonality. "And my best friend. And the girl that I really liked. And everyone on my decathlon team is gone too, if you can believe that." Her blonde brows shot up, nearly disappearing into her bangs, and much to Peter's horror he saw her eyes turn misty. A panicked sort of guilt coursed through him and he cracked a tight smile to try to lighten the mood. She didn't smile back. "So, yeah. I get it. This sucks. No need to explain why it sucks."
Something about his blunt honesty must have been funny to her, because she laughed thickly through her tears. Her hand flew up to her mouth to contain it and her eyes widened, as though she were taken off guard by her own reaction. Her book slipped out of her other hand, flapping shut in the pile of mementos, and the girl eyed it with exasperation.
"Dammit."
Peter smiled wanly as she snatched it up and tried to find her page again. With a frustrated sigh she gave up and tossed it dejectedly back on the ground. Peter tried to suppress a laugh but failed and then squirmed under her unamused glare. After a second she laughed too, and using the edge of her finger nail she brushed away the tears trembling on her lash line while neatening the edge of her eyeliner.
"I'm Peter, by the way," he blurted out, realizing that he had never actually introduced himself, and feeling slightly embarrassed by his timing. The girl's head tilted to the side and a look of mild confusion crossed her face before it vanished and was replaced with a mischievous smile.
"I know."
Her sure look froze Peter and for a long second, he remained motionless.
"Y-you do?"
"Yep," she said, popping the 'p'. "Peter Parker. You're going to be a senior this year and you go to Midtown School of Science and Technology."
Peter's eyes grew wide as all sorts of alarm bells went off in his head. Years of maintaining a secret identity had made privacy an invaluable asset… but this was unsettling even by normal people standards, right?
The girls face split into a wide grin, apparently getting some twisted sort of satisfaction out of Peter's distress.
"I'm not a creep, I just like to know the competition."
"Competition?"
"Did I stutter?" she asked, making Peter frown. His mind worked in overdrive while she waited with an expectant sort of air for Peter's brain to connect the dots. It never did, so with a roll of her eyes she added: "I went to Brooklyn Visions Academy."
"Oh."
It all clicked. He had seen her before, sitting on the opposite side of a gymnasium behind a table and dressed in the same uniform navy blazer as her other team mates.
"Your decathlon team faced off against mine last year," Peter announced, like she didn't already know that. Her lips pursed and she nodded her head in an exaggerated manner.
"Mhmm."
He placed his palms on the grass and leaned his weight back on them, trying to recall that particular decathlon match. They had won and then gone out for celebratory donuts in Brooklyn. The place they'd went to had the best raspberry jelly donuts that Peter had ever had in his life. Never before had he had a donut with such a well-balanced jelly to bread ratio. And the sweetness of the powdered sugar didn't completely take over the tart raspberry. And it had been hot and crispy too like they'd just come out of the oven!
The girl's eyes were narrowing at him, and Peter scrambled to focus again. That wasn't the part that he was supposed to be remembering and her impatience was starting to become obvious. He remembered that Midtown and Visions had been tied for a long time, and then they'd moved into the tie-breaker round. And then…
"You guys almost won," Peter offered a sheepish smile, and the girl's frown deepened.
"Yeah, but then you made sure that we didn't." Peter almost flinched from the subtle venom in her tone, knowing that it was directed at him specifically. He had been the one to answer correctly the tie breaker question. She smirked then, and added: "Don't worry, I don't hold grudges. I mean, I was kinda bitter about it at the time, but life's too short to get hung up on trivial shit like school, and grades, and decathlon loses."
Peter's skin prickled as a wave of goose bumps washed over him. His eyes unfocused and he blinked hard to correct them. When he opened them, rows of stones stared accusingly down at his place on the ground.
"At least it was a near miss," she continued, but Peter could barely understand her. She sounded far away and he struggled to latch on to her words. "You guys didn't annihilate us, so we got to save face at least. Silver linings and all that…" she trailed off, and Peter was vaguely aware a silence had fallen. "Hey, are you alright?"
He was done. He knew it fully and completely. The day was over for him, and he had to leave. Flash, Suzan, and Zoha would have to forgive him for leaving them out… but they were gone. And really… did it matter?
"I gotta go…" he heard himself say, and the girl watched him carefully rise to his feet. He turned and set off in the general direction of one of the exits when he heard: "It's Gwen, by the way!"
Eventually, he stopped walking once her words had tumbled over in his head and had truly reached him. He turned to look back and saw her staring at him with concern colouring her features.
"I'm Gwen Stacy," she clarified in a gentle manner that Peter would've been insulted by if he were more present. Her words rolled off of him, barely registering in his head.
Without a word, he turned back and left.
When Peter returned home, tired and throat parched from thirst, he discovered that he was the only one there. He remembered then… something about Ms. Potts and a check-up appointment after work. Mr. Stark had gone with her, he always did, and Peter was alone.
His bed called to him. Stopping in the kitchen long enough to slam back a couple glasses of water, he fell into his bed still fully clothed and his jacket crumpled in a heap on the floor. Face squished into his pillow, he closed his eyes for just a second.
When he opened his eyes again a hand was on his back, gently shaking him awake.
"Hey, kid? You with me?"
He hummed noncommittally and rolled over on to his back. Mr. Stark sat on the edge of his bed, eyeing him with mild amusement before wincing in empathy.
"That's a nasty looking sunburn you got there." Mr. Stark gestured to Peter's face. He frowned sleepily, reached up and prodded his cheek below his eye. An ache bloomed across his hot skin and he let out an involuntary hiss.
"Owww…" he moaned, and Mr. Stark smiled grimly.
"Yeah, I bet. The sun took a lot outta you, huh?"
He nodded his head.
"Did you drink some water?"
He nodded again.
"Want some aloe vera?"
He shook his head, as he didn't think he had the energy to expend on applying it. Mr. Stark laughed quietly under his breath as though trying to preserve the quiet in the room.
"We're having dinner in a little bit. You in or do you wanna sleep some more?"
"Sleep," he murmured, eyes already starting to droop in response to the option. But then he frowned and added: "If that's okay."
"I just said it was," Mr. Stark reminded him lightly with a smile. Peter could see a sobering thought pass over his face, turning his expression cautious. "How was Central Park?"
'Terrible,' he thought.
"Good," he said and watched Mr. Stark's gaze turn calculating.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
For a moment, they stared at each other. Mr. Stark's prying gaze searched over every inch of his expression, making Peter feel uncomfortably exposed. Agitation stirred in him, though it was dampened by his fatigue. With a tired sigh, Mr. Stark's eyes lost their seriousness. A half smile softened his features, but it did nothing to ease Peter's grated nerves.
"Alright. We can talk about it later if you want, when your hard-boiled brain rehydrates."
'No. I don't want to,' caught in his throat. A few months ago, he would've said it, but vocalizing that point now felt unnecessarily hurtful. There was only so many he could stand to shoot down Mr. Stark's help, and at this point it was redundant. He wished he would stop offering it. He didn't need it.
Peter froze as Mr. Stark's hand extended, reaching towards the top of his head, as though to ruffle his hair. He recoiled into his pillow, realizing only a half second later that he'd done it when Mr. Stark's smile fell off his face. The glint in his eye vanished and his sad, tired gaze made Peter feel like he was falling. His hesitant hand touched Peter's hair, pulling back with a blade of grass pinched between his fingers. Peter wondered idly how it had gotten there.
Dropping his hand in to his lap, Mr. Stark stood and murmured, "Night, kid."
The door closed behind him as he left, shutting Peter away from the ambient noises of Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts living their lives and leaving him with nothing but a growing sense of dread. He hadn't thought it possible when returning home, but as his eyelids turned to lead and pulled his consciousness down, he realized that he somehow felt even lonelier now than he had before.
Mary: Thanks! And yes, Miles Morales is officially in the wings of my AU stage. Hope things go better for you in the fall than they did in the spring. Stay safe!