Chapter 5: Spider man (Peter Parker)
Aunt May had been in a car accident. The news had come the hospital by phone. She was in intensive care. She was expected to live, but she might end up with some permanent limitations to her mobility. And of course there was always the chance that she wouldn't make it. Peter was terribly off kilter today because of this unfortunate occurrence. He missed several easy kills in training today and Fury noticed as much as his friends had. Nobody needed to order them to talk to him. But Fury did anyway.
So as it came to pass, he was walking along aimlessly. His feet ended up taking him to the cemetery where he quickly found his parents' graves and that of his Uncle Ben. He still felt guilty for Uncle Ben's death, even though it had pushed him to being the amazing hero he was now. And he missed his parents terribly. He started remembering times with these important people in his life as if it all had just happened yesterday. He saw his mother's smile as she whipped out a batch of fresh cookies from the oven on Christmas Eve. He heard his father laughing at young Peter's antics, and he remembered when Uncle Ben had given him a new bike and told him to never stop believing in magic.
Presently, there were tears streaming down his cheeks. He was sobbing gently, but enough to be heard by his approaching friends. Danny was, naturally, the first to wrap his arm around Pete. "What bothers you so, my good friend?" He asked gently. He felt terrible for Peter, even though he knew the majority of his friend's pain was temporary. Peter pulled back from Danny and hurriedly dried his eyes and stopped crying, though there were clearly more tears to be shed. "Nothing Danny. I'm fine guys. Just a bad day." He said trying to convince them. "A bad day isn't enough to make even you miss every target in the training Webhead." Sam said tauntingly, although it was obvious to everyone that he was getting more emotional about this than he'd like to admit. Peter was worried that his mask would falter enough for them to see that he definitely wasn't ok in a second. He felt embarrassed about his team seeing their leader like this. Luke seemed to notice his reasoning. Peter was never going to figure out how he did that. "It's ok to show how you're really feeling Webs. We may be a team and you're the leader, but even a leader can have nasty problems and need friends." Luke said, laying his hand on Peter's shoulder.
Peter heard another sniffle and turned to see Sam scrubbing a little ashamedly at his eyes. Sam came over in tears and said in a voice thick with emotion, "Pete, you were there for us and now we're here for you." Then Sam hugged Peter and Peter found himself crying and hugging right back. Ava wiped her eyes and then laid her hand on Peter's other shoulder. Everyone was hugging for a while, when they all realized that Peter still hadn't said anything. They decided to tell Fury that Peter was just having a really bad day, and had been blowing off steam. When Peter later told the what had happened, they all offered to help around the house until Aunt May got well. Peter now knew that no matter what happened to his team, they were all friends and family, so close no matter the time or place. They were all invaluable to each other. They were united in a friendship, a bond that could never be broken. By anything. And that was the best of all. They could always depend on each other in a fight, but they could also depend on each other for support in the rest of life too.