she knows the feeling all too well. no. she remembers it all too well. the first time she’d come here, after the funeral, stella remembers only in bits and pieces. she remembers walking into the cemetery. remembers seeing gwen’s grave for the first time. the headstone was still being made, so all that had set this patch of ground apart had been a flimsy marker. stella remembers crumpling. remembers rain. remembers lying on the ground wishing it would open up and swallow her whole, so they could be together again. she also vaguely remembers helen finding her there, remembers a warm jacket being wrapped around her shoulders that did nothing to warm the chill in her bones. it had gotten easier, with time, to visit and not feel crushed under the reality of everything. but easier never meant easy.
she can feel the grief rolling off peter in waves, mingling with her own. it creates it’s own field of gravity, where time and logic had no effect. stella takes his hand, squeezing tightly, trying to break through the haze he’s fallen into. he isn’t doing this alone. the look he gives her grinds her shattered heart to dust; it’s the first time she’s seen her own grief mirrored. the hand not holding his comes up to tenderly cup his cheek, thumb swabbing the tears away as her expression softens.
❝ hey, deep breaths pete. we don’t have to. don’t push yourself. it’s alright. ❞
soft, slow, almost inaudible. he’s falling apart, and that’s why she’s here, to hold him together. if anyone understand his pain, it’s her. and vice versa. the hearts halved by the same loss.
❝ i’m here. it’s alright. we can head back home if this is too much. ❞
was it fair for him to be so … utterly useless at this? how could he stand here and say it was too much when the girl he killed was beneath the ground right where he stood? how was that fair? he couldn’t do this. well gwen stacy couldn’t survive the fall. and HE COULDN’T CATCH HER.
he isn’t sure what’s hurting the most. the fact that it’s sinking in, deeply, that he’s never going to see gwen again. the fact that stella is absolutely a shell of the girl he once knew, because gwen was gone. or the fact that all of this is his fault. no matter how much stella told him it wasn’t. it was his fault. because he couldn’t save her. because she was there to help him. because he wasn’t good enough. wasn’t fast enough.
everything is just … cloudy. and he isn’t sure that this is even real. maybe it’s a nightmare. maybe he’ll wake up and when he walks down the hallway he’ll find stella and gwen on the sofa. curled up, still asleep, having crashed mid-way through their movie the night before. he won’t crumble every time he walks past gwen’s closed door. knowing that there’s a room beyond it that’s full of her things. of the life she lived before she just … ceased to exist anymore.
he still can’t quite process how she’s gone. how one moment she’s living and breathing and he can hold her and talk to her. and then she’s — nowhere. and he will never hear her voice, or hold a conversation with her again.
❝ no — no. she’s … i need to be here. for her ❞
gaze flickering back to her grave. to the flowers he’d placed upon the grass. amongst the other petalled bunches that showed just how loved she was. how loved she is.
❝ it doesn’t — i’m just waiting for her to come back. to be home. to — to be here again. i don’t get how she could just … leave like that ❞
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