(for my dearest @timeisluck!!!)
Peter’s life has felt empty for so long now he’s lost count of the number of days. All the days somehow seem to blend together, only knowing it’s a new day when his alarm rings loudly in his ear — signaling for him it’s time to get up. Classes, Stark Internship, and then wearing the suit at night; that is the cycle that Peter’s life has been going through, over and over, with the same muffled sirens and bruises all over his body. But now, without one person in particular to stitch him back one. Without that one person’s gentle voice and soft touches, without her reassuring words and gently pressed kisses along his skin. Peter misses her. It’s a different kind of grief — not the kind with Uncle Ben, that lingers and is always a painful reminder of the spot he’s left in Peter’s life, but with Gwen it’s different.
She’s still alive. She is off in England — doing what she needed to do, having to get away from Peter and from New York for a little. More likely, Peter thinks, to escape her father and the memories of him that are seemingly everywhere. Having a father who’s a police captain, Peter’s sure it made Gwen’s life almost impossible to not be reminded of him everywhere she went every single day. Wherever her feet carried her, her father was also there. Not too mention he was at the basis of this — she said he wasn’t, but Peter knows the truth. He’s the reason her father is dead, so he’s part of the reason why Gwen left.
He replay’s that instant over and over in his mind again, just before Captain Stacy had died. How his hand felt slipping through Peter’s, not even his ability to stick to walls and other surfaces could help him in that instance. It was a blink of an eye and then he was gone, gone in every sense of the word and replaced only with guilt in Peter’s life. A cycle of the feelings of he has with Uncle Ben, now with two haunting images of two men in his life now gone at the fate of Peter’s hand.
“Uncle Ben?” Peter remembers desperately asking while he laid on the sidewalk, his eyes closed and Peter’s heart pounding in his ears, his voice shaking — his throat racked with sobs, not even trying to hold them back now, “Uncle Ben, come on, please —” but Peter knew he was pleading with an unforgiving universe, one that would not allow him to have his beloved Uncle back, and one that would be relentless in losing Captain Stacy. Gwen wasn’t going to get her father back, either.
He hadn’t worn the suit for a while after Gwen left, knowing that if he couldn’t save two of the most important people in his life, what was the point? He was holed up in his apartment one night, hearing a gentle knock on the door. Assuming it was Ned, Peter told them to come in, but paused when he looked up and saw Aunt May holding his suit; it was so odd, seeing it in her hands — he knows how worried she is whenever Peter puts it on, feels the weight of her worry every time he goes out in the suit. But to see the red and blue in her grasp was so odd to Peter, looking at her and pausing for a few moments. “Aunt May, what are you —”
But she cut him off, her voice gentle and soft; reassuring, like Gwen always was with him. “I know Gwen is — gone, Peter,” Aunt May told him gently, making her way over to sit next to him on the couch now, “but I also know that this city needs you. I — cleaned your suit, from the night you lost —” she doesn’t say it out loud, Captain Stacy, but Peter still hears his name in the stillness that follows, “but it’s all stitched up and ready to go,” she told him, putting it back onto his lap now. “The people need you, Peter. And I know you don’t think the same way — but they do. Gwen isn’t going to be back for a while and you need to let yourself heal too, alright? You can’t keep walking around with this guilt forever.”
Walking around with this guilt forever; her words echo in Peter’s head even now, even while swinging through the dimly lit streets of Queen’s. Gwen’s back, as a text from both Ned and Harry confirmed what Peter suspected, but he didn’t make any effort to find Gwen. Why would he? He knows what the conversation will be, he knows the words she’ll say to him once they finally get alone, and Peter isn’t ready to face that reality yet. He isn’t ready to face a world and his life without Gwen in it, and he knows that the moment she sees him, she’s going to end everything. So he’s hiding in plain sight, in the suit, swinging from building to building and trying to convince himself that he’ll see Gwen eventually.
His body aches having been out for a number of hours now, having a day off tomorrow (which in Peter Parker’s life is a rarity), so he figures he can spend a few hours out longer than usual on his ‘patrols’, as he likes to call them. His body is bruising and there’s a few unattended cuts on his torso from a rather angry man he’d encountered just before he’d decided to call it a night. He makes his way up to his apartment, tossing his bag down onto the floor and removing his mask, tossing that aside and pulling his suit down to rest on his hips, making his way over to the fridge now.
He pulls out a slice of cold pizza from a few nights ago, because the fridge has nothing much to offer beyond that — some milk, a bottle of soda, and some bottles of beer. He takes the box of pizza out of the fridge, along with a bottle of beer, but Peter pauses when he finally notices someone sitting on his couch now, blinking slowly.
“Gwen?” Peter asks, putting the beer and pizza down onto the countertop now. If ever there was a moment for Gwen Stacy to want to end her relationship with Peter Parker, he knows this could be the case — with cold pizza and beer, as he takes in a deep breath. “What are you doing here?” he asks, though he already has an idea. More than likely has to do with his very clearly avoiding her since she’d returned home, but Peter doesn’t tell her that. Instead he looks over at her, feeling the ache of missing her as he has these past few months, even though she’s sitting just a few feet away from him now.
