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Peter was doing bad mentally.
I mean, if you had lost as much as he had and had to start fresh you probably would be too.
His only family left. His friends. His girlfriend. Most of his belongings. His job at the bugle. His identity. His relationships with those around him.
He’d lost a lot.
He wanted so badly to stay strong for those he’d lost, but with no one to lean on for any stability in his life, he’d lost hope.
He’d relapsed one evening after a particularly bad day at work. Grabbing a blade from his razor and running it against his thigh, cutting through an old scar from when he was 14.
It opened, and he cut more.
He knew it was bad.
He couldn’t find it in himself to care.
He watched as the blood ran down his leg, bubbling up and slowly rolling down.
Who was going to notice? His aunt? His girlfriend? His best friend?
There was no one for him.
He looked like it used to, brown, and red, and pink lines all across his thighs and wrists. But no one knew.
So he went to work, patrol, to the library, on with his day, Not like anyone would point it out if they saw it.
His dysphoria was worse.
He couldn’t afford his hormones anymore, working on minimum wage and barely affording his food or apartment left little money for them, and he had lost his insurance with along with May. He’d stopped taping and used his binder again; and god did that hurt during patrol. But he couldn’t keep buying trans tape.
One day he snapped at work at a customer who was just too rude to handle.
He was fired for that.
What has he become? There was a time when he wouldn’t have ever yelled at anyone. Never would have shouted or cursed, or cut himself again. He had promised he wouldn’t anymore.
On his 18th birthday he had no one to celebrate with. He went to his new job on time. He went on patrol as usual. No one said happy birthday to him. He didn’t expect anyone too.
But it still hurt. And it really hit him how alone he was.
He’d been fired from his other job, a small pizza shop down on hillside. He hadn’t meant it.
But a customer had shouted a transphobic slur at him, and he had lost it at them. Now they were both banned from there, and he had to find a new job.
Except why should he? Why would he go on longer? To keep working at minimum wage jobs that treated him like shit? To come home to a sketchy queens apartment with no air-conditioning or heat?
He’d always had thoughts of how he would do it. But he always pushed them away because he had May and his best friends to care for him; they would miss him.
But who would miss him now?
The librarian that always shot him dirty looks for using the computers almost every day?
His landlord who was always mad that he was just scraping by his rent for the month?
The super market cashier that saw that he was barely affording his food, his dirty clothes and unkept hair. He didn’t even have bags for his food.
After a day of horrible people at another minimum wage job, more glares from the librarian, a patrol of people constantly shouting at him for things the bugle has been saying about him, he broke.
He came home, took his suit off, and carefully opened the cabinet in his bathroom. Really thinking if he wanted to do this.
He knew his metabolism was the same as before the bite. Many thought it would change, but even if spiders could go a long time without eating, his was as always.
He grabbed all the bottles from his cabinet (perhaps only 5 or 6, he hadn’t been able to afford much more than that,) and poured them on his hand. Walking across his studio apartment to his bed.
Would he really do it?
At least this way there would be nothing to clean; no on for him to bother.
He decided it was probably the best way to go about it.
No mess from any blood, or water, or smoke.
So he popped them in his mouth, watching the old lamp next to his bed flicker and flash in his face; slowly dampening.
He was tired. More than physically, a bone deep tired that seeped into his brain and nerves. He knew he couldn’t do it any longer.
He could feel himself leaving. It was a weird tingle in his skin.
He knew there wasn’t much longer.
He thought about seeing MJ and Ned in the window at the cafe MJ worked at. He thought about their dreams of MIT and how MJ and Ned got it.
He thought about May and Thai food dates with her, her hugs, and how patient she was with him.
He thought about Ben, and his advice and his and Mays strive to be good to everyone.
Hopefully he’d see May and Ben in heaven. Maybe his parents too? …
He was drifting off more and more..
He even thought of flash, and his awful transphobic jokes and bullying. But also how much he loved spider-man. It reminded him that people still did love him.
He thought all about spider-man. The symbol of hope! And god how ironic that was how. He had none.
He thought of the days with Tony, and his funeral. How he had sacrificed so much to bring everyone back. And how he was letting him down right now.
He thought about team ups.
With the other spider-man’s, With the fantastic 4, the team up in Germany.
He wasn’t very close with the 4 anymore.
It hurt but he wouldn’t say it.
It still brought a smile on his face at the thought of those days.
He closed his eyes in peace with his life, and felt as he drifted off into a sleep he wouldn’t wake up from.
He couldn’t wait to see those he loved.