Sing to the Sky {31 Days Of Peter Parker Whump}

10-Guilt

Oof this is a lot softer than I originally was going to make it lmao hope yall enjoy

Sitting on the edge of the building, maskless, Peter finally lets the tears fall, lets his armor collapse around him.

He hadn't been able to save the woman.

He hadn't been able to rescue everyone.

He had let someone die.

There had been a fire in a nearby apartment building, late at night. There was around 100 people to get out of the building and the fire was spreading fast.

He tried as best as he could to get everyone out. Animals, children, elderly, adults, teenagers, everyone. He even managed to get a boy's goldfish back to him. But there had been a woman. Trapped under a fallen beam and had died of the smoke inhalation and heat. Peter hadn't realized until it was too late.

He had been getting the last of the people out, the last family, when he heard the man screaming for his wife. He went back in as fast as he could, stumbling through the smoke and fire to find the woman still trapped somewhere in the building. His energy had already been depleted and he was tripping and getting dizzy from being inside the building too long.

When he finally got the woman out, it was too late. She had already passed away in his grip.

Normally, he would've stayed to talk to the kids and to the adults, to accept thanks and make sure nobody was forgotten.

But he couldn't listen to the man's screams any longer as he cradled his deceased wife in his arms.

He couldn't handle the guilt.

He couldn't handle any of it.

It was his fault.

The woman had died on his watch.

Peter ran a hand through his hair, pulling in another unsteady breath of air.

The guilt was weighing him down and he wondered if it could pull him right off the roof of the building.

The guilt like ice inside his gut and gasoline inside his mind, ready to explode at any moment.

He knows it's unfair, knows deep down that it can't be his fault. He got 99% which is better than anyone else could do, but it wasn't everyone. Somebody died. He didn't save her.

She had a husband. She had a job. A family. She was a real live person who simply isn't anymore. Because of him.

The sky's too pretty for such a somber night. The moon is full and bright, painting the streets in the soft glow, helping the streetlights show even the darkest corners of alleys. The stars sparkle above him and subconsciously Peter spots some of the constellations he knows. Orion, the big dipper, the bull, the little dipper.

Normally he can't see the stars because of Queens' pollution. But tonight, the stars are bright, twinkling above him.

The wind sweeps past him, brushing his hair out of his face and freezing the tears to his cheeks. It carries the cries of the people from the apartment building, whether they're happy cries or sad cries. The man's cries stand out from the rest of them, angry. Devastated.

He can't blame the man, he had lost the most important thing to him.

Peter knows how it feels. After losing so much throughout his life, he knows how it feels to be devastated like the man is. To be angry that they got taken from you. To be so guilty that it was them instead of you.