It's really weird to be back in his room again. It doesn't even feel like it's his at first; it's more like a little stage in a museum that shows off a fraction of history he had lived through. It offers him a detached fascination of a period where things were so much simpler and grounded. That was back when getting his suit taken from him was devastating. That was back when getting a building dropped on his head was traumatic and not just another Friday. He had sat down with a shocked May here years ago, her in his rolling chair and him on his bed, still dressed up as Spider-Man, and told her who he was. This is where he'd stumbled in past curfew once, covered in oozing wounds from a glass window in an abandoned warehouse he'd fallen through, and she grounded him for a full two weeks in a hysterical panic.
He always worries her. It's not fair to her; she didn't ask for this. She didn't ask for him.
And yet she's always there to make things better — to be a mother and father and aunt and uncle.
He knew going in that there would be abandoned presents on his desk, but seeing them clearly and in person again chokes him up a little. He wishes she hadn't done it, hadn't tormented herself with the task of finding things he'd find dear to him, of dressing them up in colorful wrapping paper - and then, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. She stands twiddling her thumbs in the doorway with a pleased expression on her face, like she's waiting for a verdict. He just looks back with a little sad frown. "May, I..."
"I know, I know. It's kind of crazy."
"No, no, I just. I wish you didn't have to do that to yourself."
"I never gave up on your Avengers," she admits, voice quiet. "There were a lot of times I wanted to, because it all seemed so impossible to fix and it's not healthy to cling to impossibles, but I knew you wouldn't have — so I didn't. And I knew when you got back, there would be a lot that you missed. A lot you didn't deserve to miss. So... Whenever you're ready, you can open those... any time you'd like. With or without me around. Judgement-free zone."
At that he picks up the one in the very back, labeled 'Christmas 2019'. His heart pangs with guilt, but he holds it against his chest.
He says, "Just one, you and me."
Her and him, like it's always been.
... He can't hurt her like this. He can't take away what she's only just gotten back. It's not fair.
But when has life ever been totally fair to them? To her?
He peels back the wrapping paper — a silly pattern of comic book sound effects bound in red twine — and runs his hand along the smooth surface of a intermediate robotics building set. A hundred-plus pieces, probably costing an pretty penny; maybe with one less mouth to feed, it was easier to afford, but the likely cost of it makes his eyes grow wide with wonder. "This is... awesome."
May grins behind her hand, masking a trembling mouth. It can't be easy, but he hopes it at least makes her feel good. Makes her feel like everything'll be okay. Because it is gonna be okay; he'll make sure of it, for her and for everyone else involved in his life. "I'm glad you like it. I want you to make something cool, alright? Preferably... something that doesn't catch fire, like the last one?" And to that, he laughs, but he can't help but feel a pit of despair deepen in his gut.
He can't hurt her like this, he thinks again. And yet he knows he's going to.
Tracing the logo with his fingers, he nods.
"Yeah, I will. No catching fire. Promise."
The other presents will wait, just for a little while longer. While she's in the room next door, he packs a few things up in his old gym bag, just in case things actually go smoothly tonight. It's just a precaution, something he nudges into his closet with his foot. Ned shows up just in time for dinner at the apartment like clockwork, bringing chocolate chip cookies his mother baked (she's an amazing baker), and hugging Peter for a good two minutes before he had to laugh and start prying him off. "May, I think you need to get the jaws of life."
They eat so many cookies he nearly pukes, and watch a couple of oldies-but-goodies together huddled on the couch. Ned ends up nodding off against his shoulder while May wanders off to clean up the kitchen, the two boys basked in the glow of a typical Saturday night. It's nice. It's really genuinely nice, and the most relaxed he's gotten since gasping awake that desperate, cinder-filled night at headquarters. The easy and lulling feeling won't last too long, just like it hasn't all the other times, but that doesn't matter. What matters is taking in the moment now, so that when things hurt all over again, he'll have a memory on hand that tells him there are things worth enduring the worst of it for.
"Pssst, Ned." He nudges him. "You can take top bunk, dude."
"Nnnnoooo, I'm still up," Ned mumbles.
He huffs, pinching his friend's cheek with immeasurable fondness and knowing it'll do nothing to rouse him. The table are turned; he has to direct the half-asleep college boy to his bedroom this time, instead of Ned directing a husk of a friend to a bathroom or kitchen table. Peter figures it's impossible to get Ned up the ladder without totally slapping him wide awake or risk him falling right off the rungs, so he ushers him to take the bottom mattress instead. He can just sleep on the couch anyway, especially since he's not remotely ready for sleep.
As Ned's head hits the pillow, his hand reaches out and grabs for Pete's sleeve, tugging.
"Don't leave again," he mumbles.
But Ned's eyes are shut with a light and easy sleep now, and he says nothing further.
Peter tucks him in carefully.
The VHS is old, the label peeling and worn. Peter rubs a thumb along where his uncle had haphazardly scribbled the title in blocky and proud capital letters with a green sharpie marker; he's lost track of how many times he's watched this, especially when he was younger and more impressionable, and now that he's sitting in the apartment again he can't help but hover towards it like its a reminder. May had a whole stack of family videos, some DVDs, some VHS, still sitting out on the coffee table. It ached to think of her viewing all these on her own, losing herself to memories of the dead and gone. Peter included.
He slides the tape into the player, hits play with an unnecessary mindfulness.
The screen says RISE OF THE ALIENS in some generic font.
And then announces proudly in even more boisterous font: A FILM BY BENJAMIN PARKER.
It's a pretty funny homemade movie, and uncle Ben's always been pretty on the nose about how terrible his production values were back when he was seventeen and broke as a joke. But when Peter was little, he thought it was the most amazing thing he'd ever watched. There's a funny narrator he learns was grandpa, who was clearly reading off some kind of script, detailing the dramatic adventures of two space travelers from the 1980's stopping an invasion of their little sunny neighborhood in Queens. There's a hell of a lot of cardboard, lots of plastic water-guns painted to look silvery and dangerous, and a cameo from an assortment of strings that hold up miniature spaceships.
Peter thinks Quill might get a kick out of it.
His expression perks at the entrance of Richard Parker, looking no older than thirteen or fourteen: the little adoring brother back then, the kind that would follow his sibling into any kind of trouble... such as making thirty minute adventures around painted backdrops and traversing alien worlds. It's some of the few clips of his father as a kid there is; they look so alike, it's almost as if Peter Parker had traveled back in time to wreck havoc on the city streets and grow out an embarrassing mullet. May used to point out that they had the same ears, had told Peter that no matter how goofy kids said he looked when he was ten, eleven, that he was a spitting image of Rich, and that he'd be a lady-killer by the time he was twenty.
'Captain, look out!' his dad calls out, aiming his blaster, which looks like something purchased from the local dollar store. It twinkles with red light when he fires, and one of their childhood friends, slathered in green face paint, falls to the ground with a gargled and dramatic yell. Ben grins in a fuzzy shot that is streamed with the hues of a setting sun. They've just defeated the big bad — tore the head right off the dummy. Neither of them know they'll die young someday. That's the thing about those Parker boys; they just go quick, don't they? Peter had been the next to go, to keep up tradition. Age seventeen.
But he's back, and the world keeps spinning, and he still has these wonderful video cassettes made by people who loved him, people just enjoying their days to the fullest. Fighting aliens in their parent's garages. Living in the moment. Peter leans in a little closer and settles his chin on his knees, feeling nine again as he grins at the credits, all some combination of the Parker surname. In perfect timing, May emerges from the bathroom fresh and dressed for bed, looking at ease in his company. "Hey, whatcha' watching? Some of Ben's greatest hits?"
Peter turns and pulls himself up onto the couch, smiling a little. "Rise of the Aliens."
"Oh, that's the one where they save their block from the big-headed green ones? God, he was so addicted to those Alien movies."
"I know, he traumatized the heck out of me the first time I saw them."
Ben had always been eager to share his movie collection with Peter. When he was little — like really, really little, to the point where it's all foggy memory now — he remembers having gotten a giant Darth Vader for his birthday that was even taller than him. He doesn't remember what his dad had told Ben, but he does remember Ben replying very confidently 'yeah, he's the bad guy, but he looks cool'. When his parents passed away the year after, Peter had spent the first few months despondent and hard to tame... but he always behaved when Ben hit play on the DVD player, and always fell asleep to the patient symphony of his uncle explaining all the special effects and camera tricks.
"He took me to Alien: Resurrection as a first date," May laughs, as she wraps her hair up into a loose bun. "I'll tell you, he wasn't the king of sweeping a lady off her feet, but he was smart and he knew his movies. And I was pretty weird, too, so it worked out."
"I like weird. The weirder the better."
She winks. "A true Parker."
The quiet becomes routine as she wanders, washing dishes and straightening up the room. Usually he gets up and helps with laundry or something else that needs tending to, but tonight he sits very still and steels himself, reminded of the gym bag sitting expectantly in his closet. Almost calling to him, reminding him of things left unfinished. May speaks up from behind the couch, sounding at ease, "Are you going to be okay going back into the middle of the school year? If you need any tutors or anything, I've got a little money put back, but I know you catch on to things so quickly—"
"May, I'm — not going back to school yet."
She looks up, putting down the rag she'd been wiping down the counter with and moving to go join him on the couch. "Oh... That's fine, Peter. That — that's really okay." She reaches up and rubs a thumb across his cheek. Her smile is full of love and patience. He feels a little sick at that. "I know it's been a lot for you, so you just take the time you need to get back up to speed, alright?"
Silence follows.
Her smile relaxes at his guilty stare, the air around them curdled into something solemn. His hand reaches to grip hers.
'But what is your heart telling you?' MJ had asked him.
There's no misinterpretation here.
"... May, I'm going with the Guardians for a little while."
May looks stunned at first, and then too literally sick, turning her head away and holding up a hand to stop the conversation. She can barely speak at first, but when she does, it's livid and full of panic, and she can barely even look him in the eye (it's not fair to her, it's not fair, he doesn't want to hurt her, but he needs this, he needs it). "Absolutely not. No, no way. I will not let you go into space — again! Are you serious right now, Peter Benjamin Parker? You want to go out there where I lost you the first time? No. No way!"
"May, May — please, listen—!"
"There's nothing to listen to right now, if it's just to convince me to let you go with some strangers on a—"
"They're not strangers!"
"—space ship to god knows where, doing something dangerous!"
She stands up sharply, and he follows.
"I need this!" He puts his hands on his chest, voice pitching desperately. "You gotta understand, I can't sleep. I can barely eat. I can't even think of going to school, or laying in my own bed, or wearing the suit. I feel like I'm getting more and more numb to everything important, the longer I avoid it." She walks into the kitchen to escape the reality of the conversation, and he follows in her footfalls. "I know what I need to do, and what I need to do is face it all — face it all and, and be there for Gamora, for better or worse. Whether she can come back or not, I have to be there to see it through. I swore I would."
He told her enough about his friend from the other realm. "Do you really think she would want you to endanger yourself? Did any of these people stop you from getting killed the first time?! Did they of them protect you!?"
"May, it was always gonna be that way," he utters. "You can't blame them for what Thanos did. I would've died here or there."
She presses her fingers to her temples, pained. Her voice struggles to stay above the surface of whatever storm is brewing in her head. "Peter, this is crazy. You're seventeen. You're a child — my child — and it's, it's my job to protect you. And that means I cannot and will not let you do this." She seems like she's going to go on further, but Peter reaches out to collect one of her hands in his. They stand there, arms hanging as fingers interlace, and the air cools.
"... I'm not seventeen, May. I'm not a kid anymore," he says, very softly. "And... you have protected me. For such a long time, you've been taking care of me, but now it's time for me to do this on my own. It'll only be a little while. I'll only be gone a month, maybe two. Maybe even less, if they can find the right entry points to Vormir. And you can trust them to get me back, okay? You can. And when I come back... I can start again. I can be okay again."
May looks shaken by everything he says.
"I was supposed to protect you. I'm supposed to protect you. I can't sit in this empty apartment again."
"You won't. I'll make sure you won't."
"I don't want them, I want my family! I want you here with me, in our home."
"Please," he whispers. "I dream about it. I have these nightmares, and it's so hard, I just..." He knows she wants to do what's best for him. She knows he's being earnest in his fear. But nothing is that easy. Loving someone, keeping them safe, facing loneliness, it's not that easy. He squeezes her hand, desperate as she stands with warring thoughts. "Please, May. Please. Trust me."
"... I'm sorry, Peter. But I — I — "
She swallows, turns, and rushes away into the darkness of her room.
Peter slowly sits down and presses his face into his hands. He stays that way for a while.
If he's honest with himself, he didn't expect it to go any other way... but it doesn't make it hurt less. His sharpened hearing picks up the attempts at stifling heartbroken sobs, and a sort of powerlessness permeates around him, the same kind that tormented him under tons of broken concrete, or when he was hooked against Tony Stark and crumbling like powdery sand billions of light-years away.
Sleep (or really, the severe lack of it the last 48 hours) eventually pulls him against his will to lay his head down on the sofa; he's not sure of the exact moment that he ends up sprawled across the warm cushions, and he's also not sure when a pillow from his bedroom is tucked under his head, but he does absently feel the soft, almost breathy, touch of a blanket as it drapes over him. He stirs along enough to see May pacing near the television, biting her thumbnail and looking devastated and lost at sea in her own living room.
I'm sorry, he tries to say, but his eyelashes flutter and he drifts away against his will.
Behind his eyelids, he sees distorted facsimiles of the souls lost to time and space.
They taunt him, and dare Spider-Man to cast his web, knowing it will never find purchase.
He aims and shoots, anyway.