Peter measures his life by losses.
Peter knew death. He knew what it did to people when he saw his mother crying after her mother's passing.
Looking back, he thinks he never entirely understood what happened with his parents at five. Just that they were gone, that they were never coming back.
The instinct that he learnt was: hold close, never let go. Uncle Ben and Aunty May became his solace. Ned was his person.
He suppose he became too content with the love received, that he forgot how it can be snatched away in the blink of an eye.
He remembers the chill wind whipping past him, the slick of Ben's blood in his hand, the flutter of his eyelids, the slacking of his chest beneath his fingers.
The lesson imprints harder in his mind. Hold close, never let go, mend things quicker, faster.
Peter hates arguments. He tries not to take too much space. He gives everything he can, asks nothing back.
May turns into someone he has to protect, someone he tries god he tries to never upset - a penance borne out of guilt.
Tony Stark walks into his life and now he's back to arguing, getting someone upset, taking everything the man has to offer like a leech and Peter hates himself for it.
But the part that seeks for the older man's validation, to be told nice job, kid, to be someone trustworthy keeps trailing behind Tony.
The Coney island was his penance to Tony. The rapport Peter built with the man afterwards, bouncing off ideas, lab sessions turned into movie nights, impromptu cooked dinners to show Ms Potts that they can indeed behave (the scorch mark from their disaster lasagna recipe still remains in the kitchen counter) and Peter lets down his guard again, like a fool who never learns.
He still remembers the devastation in Tony's eyes amidst the reflection of red sand and dust. The warmth of the arms that has carried him to the lab couch several times surrounding him again, drowning out the noise of the battle.
The scent of burnt flesh, the unseeing amber eyes that always softened when they met his, the irregular rhythm of a heartbeat he can recognise across any room slowing down in each second, the whisper of kid carried away in the soldered down battlefield - they are forever etched in the crevices of his brain.
Peter thinks maybe, maybe holding closer is the issue. Maybe Peter Parker is never meant to have somebody in his corner. A wandering spirit put on Earth only to take away the lives of those who get close to him.
Timelines tear down, Multiverse collapses because of him. May is reduced to a civilian casualty in Spider-Man's unstable chaos. Ned and MJ lose their chance to get into MIT just because they know Peter Parker.
The menace. The freak. The one who brings devastation everywhere he goes.
Then everybody forgets about him. Their lives become better. His losses remain only as his.
Peter knows who is really the issue now.
