I won't let you go

[spideyguy]

Things are different, After.

There's a Before and an After, now, even though sometimes Peter has difficulty separating them in his head. It feels like just yesterday he was downtown (it was yesterday...), taking pictures of chalk art for a Bugle fluff piece when the alien donut fell from the sky. Sometimes he'll say things, mention this or that, and it takes a beat for people to understand him - a reference, out of place, to something that happened half a decade ago. It takes the wind right out of his sails every time it happens, but he doesn't know what to do about it. If there's anything he can do, really.

The world is...kind of chaos. Peter leaves Tony's side exactly two times - the first, to find his Aunt (she had also been dusted, which was both a blessing and a curse, so Peter elects not to think about it too hard), and the second, to argue vehemently with the bank that took their townhouse.

It's not about the stuff, most of which has been thrown away. Their remaining neighbors saved a few of May's scrapbooks, and some of the more priceless memories - but the rest of it is gone. His camera, all of their clothes, everything. But it's not about the stuff - it's about the house. It's about the memories they pressed into the walls, about the kitchen Ben insisted they paint yellow, when he and May first moved in, because he thought it would suit them. It's about the gash in the hardwood and the scuffs on the walls, about the garden in the back, the tree May planted in Gwen's memory - which is nearly a quarter of the way grown, by now.

Peter breaks in through the window, into his (old) room, and quietly extracts the box he'd hidden under one of the floorboards. It has old webshooter components, but more importantly, it has the last of his photos. Gwen. Harry. Ben. May. Tony. His parents. Everything he ever thought was precious, so he could pull it out and look at it, sometimes. Peter's never had his paranoia be so validated.

Peter sets May up with Dr. Strange, who's opened the Sanctum to heroes and hero-adjacent peoples for the time being, and returns to Tony's side. He doesn't think they're getting the house back, doesn't even know what they'd do if they did - without the squashy couch Ben always fell asleep on, without the ugly dining chairs May had kept just to prove a point. What's the point, if it doesn't feel like home anymore?

"We've been poor before," May says, holding Peter's face in her hands. "You're here, that's all I care about. Parkers are made of strong stuff. We'll be okay."

But Peter's subdued, after that. His box lives in the corner of Tony's hospital room, tucked under a chair, and he doesn't mention it. He doesn't mention any of it, really, because Tony has way more important things to worry about - like his arm, like walking again, like dealing with the pain and any lingering after effects. He thinks Tony would have called him on it, probably, if Peter weren't so skilled at avoidance - and, guiltily, he thinks Tony's probably too tired to press it. Good. He doesn't need any more stress.

May visits, in and out, and when she does she holds Peter's hand in her's, and Tony's in the other. Peter takes the mangled one, ever so gently, and he doesn't know how Tony feels - but it feels like family, to him, and it makes his eyes burn.

"He's made of strong stuff too, you know," May whispers, as she hugs Peter goodbye at the end of one of these visits. It makes the worry Peter didn't even realize he was carrying in his chest ease, at least a little.

The day arrives when Tony is cleared to leave the hospital - earlier than Strange would recommend, but Peter thinks they just caved to the incessant annoyance. Tony could be persistent; but Peter wouldn't have let him leave if he didn't believe he was well enough. He's not sure where, exactly, to bring him, though, until Tony explains about the apartment he had in Manhattan...apparently.

It aches, because that feels like something Peter would have known if he'd been there, but he doesn't say anything about it. May fusses, heads over before them: cleans the apartment, restocks the fridge, changes the sheets. Peter thinks she just wants something to occupy her time; but when they arrive, Peter wheeling Tony in through the front door, she's already made herself scarce.

"Nice digs," Peter says, closing the door with his foot. "Disappointed in the lack of a bearskin rug, but I guess you can't win them all."