Chapter Text
It had happened suddenly.
Logically, Peter knew that. He knew that the bullet that pushed too hard on her skin and ruptured into her heart was a fast one. She didn’t suffer, at least for long.
But logic wasn’t on his side as he stood a few feet away, paralyzed.
His spidey sense had gone haywire the moment he spotted her and the gun in the same vicinity. The malice behind the robber's eyes. And he was just standing in his red and blue suit, showing all that the amazing, powerful Spiderman was afraid. He. Was. Afraid.
His suit had been a blanket of safety, of warmth. It protected him, his identity. But in these moments, he hated it the most. Hated how confined he suddenly felt as he didn’t move quick enough, couldn’t calculate the fastest (and more importantly, easiest) way to stop the bullet that ripped out of the gun.
It’s rather ironic. How she died. The situation caused for some Deja vu, but of course, that wasn’t the feeling that coursed through his veins.
Icy, cold, unadulterated fear clogged his veins, morphing into a deep pit that made itself home in Peter’s stomach. His legs didn’t work (why didn’t they work?) and he just stood there, eyes widening and mouth opening to form something, anything, that may serve as a distraction. But of course, that didn’t happen either. Peter’s hands could’ve been shaking. He didn’t know. Because all he could see was her. From the moment she jerked to the left, to the moment her head bounced off of the floor.
He wasn’t fast enough.
He wasn’t smart enough.
He wasn’t enough.
He couldn’t save May.
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It had been in the news.
Armed robbery gone wrong, seven injured and one killed. Under, applause to Spiderman for saving the individuals.
But he didn’t save all of them.
__________
The apartment was cold.
It was in the first few moments of opening the door to their- his apartment, did he realize that May was the warmth.
The kitchen where she danced around and sang horribly off key while trying to make Peter pancakes right before he went to school was now just a desolate area with a few fruits that had been sitting out for too long. The living room where she cuddled with her blanket on the couch and gushed about the newest drama was now coated in a resounding silence, feeling bluer than ever.
Peter didn’t even make it to the other rooms before having his knees buckle under him, bringing him closer to the ground. Tears clouded his vision, hallucinations of Aunt May rushing in and helping him up spurring his emotional distress.
That night, Peter didn’t patrol as Spiderman. He didn’t get up from the ground, didn’t bother to eat despite his fast metabolism begging for some nutrients. A part of him whispered in his ear that it wouldn’t have mattered, he would’ve thrown it up anyways.
A small voice in the back of Peter's mind urges that Auntie May was only working overtime and she forgot to tell him, again. That everything was fine and she'll be in the kitchen tomorrow morning making breakfast, just like usual. She would walk by and lightly kick his side to wake him up, tell him that she burnt the food again, and then suggest getting toast or a churro from the food stand across the block.
Peter hated himself for listening.