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He gets up in the morning and pours his burnt, cheap coffee into a chipped, broken mug. He watches his alarm clock go from 7:15 to 7:30 to 7:45 to "What am I doing with my life,” to “It's time to go.”
He walks down the streets. Blending into the crowd of a city that's never quiet but always somber. He feels down, just as everyone does. He looks to the buildings while he waits for the sign to change, to give him the security of walking forward. He looks at the skyscrapers that reach so much higher than he would. Though the older he is, the shorter the buildings have gotten. He walks by the corner shop where he used to be known by name, but now nobody knows his name.
He enters the diner and thinks “Out of everywhere you could go, why would you choose here?" Because just like everyone else in a city where it's impossible to be by yourself, he is alone. Because like everyone else he is broken, and all the king's horses and all the king's men will never be able to put Peter together again.
Because no matter how hard Peter wishes, the people he loved will never love him back again. Because no matter how hard he fights and talks and runs and sprints and... No matter how hard he tries he will never get them back, not the way he had them before. Because no one will ever find him in a crowd. No one will wave to him and make someone else think they are getting waved to. No one will shout out his name and make all the heads in the room turn. No one will show up to his graduation to cheer him on. No one will cheer him on. No one will complain about the little imperfections he's had since he was a young child. No one remembers when he was Penis Parker with glasses and braces and an inhaler. No one will- “I’m home.”
The emptiness of the apartment says it back to him. He throws a frozen meal in the oven and he sits and thinks.
He thinks of all the ands in his life. He should be happy he even still has his and that he should live on for Uncle Ben, and Black Widow, and Mr. Stark, and all those who have died in battle, and those who have died in war, and those who have died because of war and battles. He should live to save the people that deserve to live on. That deserves more time. That would be their third and final wish to go home and hug their children or wife or husband or mom or dad or cat or dog one last time. For the people who aren't too weak, just not strong enough to face this fight alone.
He should live for Aunt May, kind, beautiful, May. The May who had so much to do, with what should’ve been so much more time. And because of Peter she couldn’t, and he knows it isn’t entirely his fault but if he hadn’t- the oven goes off.
Peter grabs the food out of the oven, too lost in everything that he doesn’t feel the heat, or the tears on his face, or the ache in his heart. He sits at his tiny table and he eats the burnt, cold food. He knows it's selfish but he feels that he may die of sadness. But he can't afford it. He has no medicine, he is too young to buy alcohol, although his ID states he isn't. He would never own a gun, it's too messy. He's too sticky for rope, and as he goes through the different ways he could die he throws out his trash, brushes his teeth, and puts on the suit.
He goes out and finds one villain or another. He makes his snarky remarks and punches and runs and sprints and, and there is a boy in the corner. The boy looks to about the same age as when he was when he started. He runs over and crouches and tries to get the boy out safely but when both their heads turn towards the oncoming attack he pauses. Because next to him is a boy with powers the same as his own, next to him is a boy of the future, while he is stuck in the past this boy can move forward and find the greater things out there. This boy can have a guide on how to help and save people and Peter can rest.
Peter knows this is selfish but he still says “You're like me… What's your name?” and he listens as the boy says “Miles, Miles Morales.” and Peter says “ Hi Miles, I’m Peter.”
He would have laughed at the shocked expression on Miles’ face but he's too overwhelmed with the fact this is the first person he told his name since having to start from scratch. Miles is the first one to see Peter for more than the waiter taking his order, or the mediocre employee, or the weird guy who had said his first and last name ordering a black coffee, or anything else.
“Miles, buddy, I need you to do a favor for me and get yourself to safety so I can neutralize this threat. Alright?”
Peter watches Miles nod and starts to leave, running off to better things, and for the first time in a year, Peter has a little smile on his face and a spring in his step. For the first time in a year, Peter has hope for the future. For the first time in a year, Peter starts to think about what he'll do tomorrow and how it might get better. The fight is going wonderfully.
Until it isn't. The fight is going well until he is attacked on both sides and is unable to put the hard drive in to stop the collider. The fight was going so well until he was hit, and hit, and hit. It is going so well until Peter is hit with something he might not be able to get back up from. It was going so well until he took his mask off, knowing it wouldn't matter who saw him this time, and started crying. It was going so well until Peter is on the ground, pressing the hard drive and his apartment key, with the address written on the back of the tag for when Peter tries to get back to the apartment where he and May lived and gets so into his own mind he couldn't remember anything, into Miles’ hand and telling him that ''He'll grow up and do wonderful things” and “be a great person” and “he can be anything he puts his mind into.”
Before Peter goes limp his life flashes before his eyes. He sees when his parents first died and he had to move in with Ben and May. He sees when he meets Ned for the first time. He sees when he got bit by the spider. He sees when Ben got shot. He sees when Mr. Stark showed up in his apartment and all the moments Peter had with him right until Tony Stark had snapped his fingers and Peter wonders if Mr. Stark thought it was funny that Peter had never called him Tony. He sees his fight with the Vulture and Mysterio. He sees when his identity was revealed and kickstarted the worst turn of events to happen to him. He sees May's face as he holds her in his arms. And then suddenly he sees nothing and he realizes there is no afterlife, at least not for him.
Maybe heaven is a place and all the people he loves are there having a party, another party that "Stupid Penis Parker" will never be invited to.
As Peter's body goes limp, and his heart stops, and there is no electricity in his brain, and there is no air in his lungs, as Peter dies, he thinks nothing and he sees nothing and he hears nothing and he feels nothing.
Peter is floating in an abyss of nothingness when his identity is revealed to the world a second time. Nobody gasps, nobody really does anything when it is revealed that Spider-man was just a scared 17-year-old kid with no family, no degree, and now no life.
The only person who sheds a tear is Miles, who thinks that maybe if he “didn't distract Peter, then he would still be here.”
And with that, the cycle has been unknowingly repeated. The cycle of self-blame and self hatred is like a washing machine with no start and no end that only gets more and more intense as time progresses. But the next day Miles will get up, drink something in a cup that might have belonged to a set at one point and watch the clock before he has to leave to go start at a new, weird school that he doesn’t really want to go to.
And he will think “What am I going to do with my life?”