Peter was always strong. He had to be. He had to be strong for the kids who looked up to him, had to be strong to fight and keep people safe, had to be strong to push away the ones he loved.
He could never fully look at MJ, she wasn’t the same. That girl had died, the girl he had loved and cherished was gone. That wasn’t her fault, she didn’t remember him the way he did for her. But she was still there, still lived in her- even if it was from a glass panel that only Peter could see.
Ned was a man on his own. He was never his best friend, never laughed over the same shared dumb movies or inside jokes. Peter was just there. Never close enough to fully remember.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t mind this, the cold tile, the warmth spreading over his chest, the blur that seemed to spread over the world. He didn’t blame Jean, he couldn’t. He knew how grief can swallow you hole, hold you close and be the only hollow warmth in the growing pain around you.
At least he would go helping someone. His Aunt would be proud. He wondered if he would get to hug her again soon, let her hold him like he was a child, let him cry into her shoulder like a toddler who scraped there knee.
He hoped Frank wouldn’t blame himself, hoped that he didn’t isolate himself again- but hope could only do so much. Peter would leave the world he loved behind, leave New York in the last breaths he took in the hospital bed.
Spider-man was gone, he was the moment he entered the cold room that smelled like disinfectant. All there was left was Peter. A boy who’s carried more burdens then any teen should have. That have seen more death and blood then any young man should.
Maybe Mr.Stark would be proud of him. He knew who he was, knew that there was no changing himself. That all of him, the good, the bad, and the ugly, was still him. He can be spider-man, he could be Peter Parker. He didn’t have to choose.
Jean was gone, took the last bus to nowhere with whatever feelings she had buried away. Aunt May, Peter, Sarah- they haunt her like ghosts who she will mourn. Following her like phantoms in the night.
Frank will go back to his old ways, bitching and biting and avoiding- and never feeling. Because as much as he wanted, he couldn’t hang Peter in his cabinet. Never had a face, no photo or note to remember him by. Just the voice of a kid who still had so much to live for.
And MJ. Who will always wonder who that girl fully was to Peter. Who that girl never got to be, who Peter never got to see again. How differently her life could have been, how Ned’s life could have been like. The Ghost of what was and could have been.
Spider-man will forever be missed, will always have flowers on his grave, a candle light in his name, a man hundreds will miss.
And Peter will be laid to rest besides him, flowers only given in confession and wonder in who he could have been, a light that will soon go out, and a boy, who will be forgotten and never known.