Chapter Summary: Some things stuck with him - unchanging despite the passing time. Small things that contrasted sharply with the image he had tried to set up for himself.

It was disappointing, of course, but Peter was used to being disappointed.

Stars can burn your skin until you peel back layers of yourself dried off in the heat

But at night, you can freeze because you've gotten used to the sun

But the sky is filled with barren rocks and frigid lies

So what is there to do but run?

Peter felt alone. He felt alone most of the time, so it wasn't such an extraordinary feeling, but still.

No one knew what to do with the news. He supposed it was a new experience for the rest of them too, and he wondered why that hurt – as if he wished someone he loved had been hurt enough to share his pain. Some part of him thought he'd feel comforted if he knew that he wasn't alone in his suffering. Perhaps that made him a terrible person.

Still, Aunt May, Tony, and Happy they...well, they were trying, and that was all that really mattered, wasn't it?

While Tony made calls and shouted into his phone in his lab – which apparently wasn't soundproofed enough for Peter's super hearing – Happy ordered take-in. Peter didn't know what Mr. Stark had to do to resolve the situation, but he knew that Happy planned to call the school; he needed to inform the administration that Peter would be absent for the next few days.

Apparently, Peter 'needed a break'. Which, well, he supposed that was true.

Happy hadn't said anything yet, which Peter was almost happy about. He wished he knew how much Happy had heard, but he wasn't really keen to ask. So Peter just...sat there – alone in his mind as Aunt May tried to draw him back to the present by playing old Disney movies.

She'd offered him the choice between Finding Nemo and Toy Story and he'd picked Finding Nemo. He'd always fallen asleep to Nemo as a child – even before the first scene had ended he'd be snoring in his bed. He hoped that some of the calming aspects of the movie would still affect him today.

"Here, I brought you this," she said quietly, setting his phone down onto the coffee table in front of him. He muttered a thank you and she smiled far wider than what would be considered natural.

She grabbed some throw blankets and Peter dully noticed her begin to build a small pillow fort. When he was younger, they'd often watched movies in pillow forts if they'd had the time. Though, most of his memories with pillow forts included Skip so the sentiment wasn't as appreciated as he wished it could've been.

When Skip and Peter had played superheroes together they would make the fort their base of operations. They would run around and take cover from imaginary gunfire behind the cushions.

If they were playing with action figures they'd try to close off the fort entirely; hanging blankets in front of any open space so that the only light would be the dull gleam peaking through the thin fabric. They would huddle within the tent-like area and if the fort happened to still be up by bedtime, Peter would curl up and sleep in it. When they did clean it up, Skip and Peter would jump on it and collapse into fits of giggles and...

It was fun.

It had been fun.

But, that had been ruined too alongside so many other activities that Peter had enjoyed as a kid. Or, as a younger kid.

He swallowed down the influx of melancholic nostalgia at the sight of the precariously balanced cushions and tried to blank his expression. He wasn't sure what to do with his face. It felt almost like a foreign appendage – not quite connected to his body but having to be dealt with begrudgingly all the same.

May was trying to comfort him with it which was all that really mattered, wasn't it? He didn't need to share any more secrets today. He didn't think he could.

He'd learned to grapple with secrets as if they were mountain summits somehow crumbling off the surface of the earth. They jumbled together in a conglomeration of forgotten knowledge that rushed to break free from Earth's atmosphere like some sort of reverse meteorite.

(His secrets were supernovas wanting for his dusty lungs to expand under their crushing weight.)

Peter's secrets twisted like browning ivy vines; velvety leaves juxtaposed by dagger-like thorns. The stems pulled and dragged on the skin of his throat. He could feel the throb of open wounds in the confines of his chest.

So he swallowed – clenched his jaw, tensed the muscles in his legs, and sat still. Remaining still and frozen had equated to safety long ago, despite the lack of logic in his body's assumption.

May wiped the hair off his forehead and smiled warmly at him.

"You wanna come in the nest?" she asked teasingly.

He nodded but didn't move. The ball he'd curled into was comfortable. It felt safe even if that might have been irrational. The smallest shift felt as though the world was shaking from the core. Any further change, no matter how slight, seemed as monumental as an earthquake.

She sat down beside him and he felt tears gather again in his eyes. He'd already cried so much that the rising tide of anguish billowing past his lips was maddening.

The sobs settling in his mouth were whiny and small like the wails of a newborn. A whimper slipped past the cage of his teeth and he moaned as his head throbbed with dehydration. His vision filled with saltwater and caused his surroundings to distort into an unshaped blob. The world blurred and sparkled as he squinted in an attempt to blink away his tears.

He tilted his head back and swallowed, trying in vain to stave off the ensuing meltdown.

He wondered what it would be like to float placidly in the saltwater leaking from his eyes and reach his own version of nirvana. He'd never been able to feel entirely calm in the water without some sort of floatation device, but whenever he'd been able to lean back and drift along the surface with ratty pool noodles stuck under his neck and ankles he could swear he'd found temporary inner peace.

(Water was such a conflicting element. It was constantly at odds with itself – waves crashing and disturbing the surface of the sea but settling into almost glass-like smoothness within an hour.

Water could be rational – flowing in a predictable direction and following its path without variation. But, add external factors and it could change its' course entirely; turn into the raging epicenter of flash floods and other natural disasters.)

Maybe it was just the abundance of tears, but he thought he saw Aunt May swipe away her own wetness on her cheeks. He didn't want to think she was crying as well so he ignored it. Despite the pang in his chest from guilt, he didn't do anything to help. He felt too emotionally drained to be a hero right then, and each reluctant sob only drained him further.

(He was Peter Parker, not Spider-Man. He was 16-years-old though he felt both too young and too old for that age. He was scared.

He was so very scared.)

"Shh, sweetie," Aunt May said, holding him close to her chest and rocking him slightly in a mirror of their positions just half an hour before, "it's gonna be alright."

He gasped, clutching her shirt in his fist like a toddler. His breaths quickened and he hiccuped and coughed around the cries stuck in his chest.

"I-I'm sorry," he said, trembling, "I'm alright."

She didn't call Peter out on his blatant lie and he shuddered more in her arms, spluttering on phlegm and snot.

"I CAN'T!" he finally shouted, punching a white-knuckled fist into the couch cushions.

"I-I can't," he said, his voice warbling with tears, "I don't know what to do!"

"You'll be okay," she repeated and, even though he didn't feel like that was true at all, her words were still comforting. Despite how much he wished to stop crying, though, his tears refused to end. His body's lack of control over its' own facilities only made him more stressed and he tugged on his hair in a futile attempt to ground himself.

It did give him a burst of manic energy and he jumped up with the sudden urge to do something – anything. He grabbed his phone off the table and slid it into his pocket swiftly. Tapping his foot a few times, anxious with indecision, he sat down roughly in the fort and tuned out the sound of his breaths hitching every few seconds with suppressed wails.

There wasn't anything he could do to distract himself so he waited, tense and anxious, for May to join him in the fort.

After a few moments, he heard her sigh and begin to move, settling down beside him. Running a hand through his hair, she gently leaned him against her chest so her body became his backrest.

It was strange: how he could lift a car but still be weak enough to lean against a far more fragile person. Aunt May was in no means helpless, but compared to him – someone who could smash concrete with his bare fists – she was as small and powerless as an ant.

But here she was, holding Peter in her arms like he was something to be protected, like he was something precious. He breathed and held her hand – somehow still bigger than his – and felt as if he was 7 again and grieving with his first real taste of loss. He'd felt even younger than 7 then as well, having been dressed in black funeral garb too big for his body.

(Peter had always been small. Even now, he was so very small – like a child who couldn't even cross the street without holding the hand of an adult.)

It was funny: how much he had once wanted to be special and how much he wished he wasn't now that no one could hope to match him in uniqueness. Which wasn't to say that somewhere out there there wasn't someone more special than him – he was a fan of Thor, thank you very much. It was just that, within the confines of Earth, there weren't many people who could boast the same unique experiences he'd had.

When it came down to it, Peter didn't have anything inherently special about him. He wasn't born with power or money, but he came by it through sheer luck and chance. He was smart enough, but he certainly wasn't the smartest. He wasn't overly attractive or passionate like Michelle or as dedicated to his nerdy interests as Ned.

Peter had never been rich or influential - though perhaps Spider-Man had filled his capacity for influence.

(Spider-Man was everything good he'd never earned but had gotten to experience anyway.)

So, really, Peter himself wasn't special, but his circumstances were.

But, everyone was immortal in some way - forever and yet so minuscule in the grandness of the universe. Humans could change billions with words or even just a few, but even the smallest human impact would always be exponential.

Expansive.

Even if he died, he'd be kept alive through a thousand more lives and a thousand more words. Those stories shared of him would spiral into every interaction between people who knew him or knew of him until the world would forever shift slightly to account for every effect his actions would impact.

Poets sometimes tried to downplay the human experience. It was true, in some ways, that humans were small - tiny in the grand scheme of things. But, in many ways, the impact a single human could leave was immeasurable. Humans were, in the grandest sense, larger than life.

Humans weren't held down by the constructs of death. Souls, in the metaphorical sense, could survive far longer than their bodies decayed.

It surprised him, really: how big an impact even the shortest of lives could leave.

(Like spiderwebs hanging in the depths of his mind, memories of his parents and Uncle Ben clung to the grey matter until they covered every surface of his brain – every slight movement he made being directly affected by his loss.)

May shifted, pulling a blanket over them as he breathed deeply to calm his waning sobs. She called out to F.R.I.D.A.Y. to start the movie and he relaxed at the sight of previews.

The only thing he disliked about streaming services like Netflix was their lack of previews.

He wasn't the largest fan of television commercials but, when watching a movie, the previews always seemed to set the mood. He wondered if F.R.I.D.A.Y. was just playing a copy of the disc because it seemed strange for her to be able to play previews if it was being streamed.

Then again, he'd mentioned multiple times to Mr. Stark when they had movie nights to play the DVD copies rather than stream it just for the chance to watch the previews. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to have noticed.

Mr. Stark had always made fun of him, but it was nice to have a time before the movies to finish getting set up and make popcorn or get a glass of water if needed.

The trailers for old Pixar movies made him smile with nostalgia as he tried to wipe his wet face with his thankfully already dirtied sweatshirt. His eyes were somehow still watering, but the tightness of his chest had loosened considerably. Aunt May's hand running through his hair was sadly more uncomfortable than soothing, but he tried to tune out the feeling rather than let it bother him.

By the time the movie started, he felt like he might have been able to smile again - even if it was slight.

Apparently, his penchant for falling asleep during Finding Nemo had lasted. Peter woke up to the shifting of May as she tried to find a more comfortable position. He was curled in a ball on the cushions with his head pillowed on her leg. Half-asleep, he felt too tired to change his position so he just waited for her to situate herself before burrowing himself further into the pile of cushions, blankets, and legs that he'd found himself in.

He didn't hear the movie or the credits so he assumed the movie had ended or that May had paused it when he fell asleep. His groggy mind didn't have the energy for complicated thought, though, so he just closed his eyes and blocked out the light.

"Do you want any of the pizza before I put it away?" Happy tried to whisper but failed.

"Shh," Aunt May hissed back, voice entirely too loud to be telling someone else to be quiet, "Peter's sleeping."

"He's still asleep?" Happy asked, though he didn't sound annoyed, "you can still eat anyway. It's not like you have to eat in the kitchen; Tony wouldn't mind."

"I know, I just don't want to wake him up," May whispered back, sounding slightly reluctant to refuse the pizza.

"Alright," Happy said, acquiescing even though he didn't sound pleased.

Ughhh, Peter's conscience was screaming at him and he just wanted to sleep and avoid everything and ignore his problems and – he really understood ostriches right then.

He was feeling rather hungry himself, though. Considering this was the first time in days he'd had a real appetite, it seemed like a sign that he should feed his monstrous metabolism.

He groaned – audibly this time – and sat up. Blinking blearily at the lights, he wiped his crusty eyes and grimaced at the feel of dried tears and snot.

May looked both upset and relieved that he'd awoken and pet his hair again. This time, he shifted away to avoid her hand and winced at the flash of hurt and guilt on her face.

"I'm fine," he said, smiling plastically, "I missed the movie, though."

"You did. You'll never make it through the whole movie, will you?" Aunt May asked with a laugh, clearly trying for normality.

"I guess not."

Laughing slightly, Peter shifted into a sitting position and nodded at Happy.

"Hey, Happy! Got any of that pizza you were talking about?

The instant slump of relief in Happy's tense shoulders was very telling about how much the man had heard. Though, perhaps Peter was just projecting. Either way, Peter figured that Happy would have to know something was going on.

"Sure, don't mind me. I'm just the personal butler now too, aren't I?"

"Thanks, Happy," Peter said, grinning

"Yes, thanks Happy! Are you sure you don't want us to eat it in the kitchen?" Aunt May called at Happy's retreating back.

"It's fine!" he shouted back, "That living room has seen worse!"

Aunt May leaned back into the fort, sitting criss-cross applesauce on one of the cushions. With Happy gone, the air grew stiflingly uncomfortable for a moment, before Aunt May smiled stiffly as if to dismiss the idea of talking about the elephant in the room.

Peter appreciated it.

"What do you say about trying a different movie this time? How about the Incredibles?" May asked.

"That sounds good."

The pizza was good. They'd filed out of the pillow fort when Happy had brought out the pizza – settling on the remaining cushions of Tony's obnoxiously large sofa.

After eating nearly a whole pizza, he felt full. Though there was slight discomfort lingering in every interaction, it was almost relieving to see everyone else also fumbling through socializing.

He couldn't hear Tony on the phone anymore, but he assumed he was working on something else to destress. He didn't want to think too much about what Mr. Stark might be doing on the computer to help with the Skip situation, so he ignored the – slightly suspicious – quiet lab.

His phone pinged with a text and he frowned, picking up the appliance in curiosity. He thought he had turned the ringer off.

Ned's name shone out from the small screen and Peter frowned. He'd been neglecting Ned recently, hadn't he? He also needed to mention he'd be staying at the tower for a bit before coming back to school.

'How have u been? Are u busy with internship stuff?' the text read, and he smiled at the noninvasive check-up mixed with the hero fanboy Ned would most likely always be.

'I'm fine. I need to stay at the tower for the next few days, but I'll be back around Wed.' Peter typed back.

':( that sucks. U doing anything fun while away?' - N

'Not really, just need to take a break for a bit.' - P

'Ur not hurt/sick, r u?' - N

'No. I'm fine.' - P

'Alright, good!' - N

'Wanna meet up at my house this Saturday. I got the lmperial Star Destroyer as an early birthday present!' - N

'OMG! No way! That's super expensive!' - P

'YES! I totally want to help!' - P

'Ik! It was on sale and I convinced my mom to get it!' - N

'Awesome!' - P

'Yeah!' - N

'I gtg, but I'll miss u tomorrow! Sucks that you have to miss Decathlon, though' – N

'Yeah, but at least that means I'll also miss the spanish test' – P

'U wouldn't even need to study and you'd get an A, lol. Y worry about spanish when it's AP Lang that's the real monster' - N

'True' – P

Peter tucked his phone back into his pocket, trying to rejoin the conversation between Happy and May before deciding that he would just scroll through Instagram to escape their uncomfortable flirting.

Except, Instagram didn't prove to be a relief either. May turned on the news and, though no one was sure why, Iron Man was flying over Queens. It appeared that Tony hadn't just stopped making noise in his lab – he'd left the tower entirely.

In his suit.

Knowing Mr. Stark, Peter could only assume things would get worse before they got better.

(When Peter Parker was 16-years-old, he found that some parts of him were immutable – fixed points of his being insusceptible to change.)