〚 FLOWERS 〛
Peter stood in front of Darla's grave with a bouquet of flowers and tears brimming his eyes. It was mother's day, he knew she wasn't a mother but he felt like she deserved some flowers since he knew she wanted to be a mom.
"Thank you." He sniffled as he laid the flowers on top of her grave. She already had two other bouquets, one from her family and another from Bucky.
Peter knew that Bucky visited her grave and sometimes ever just sat down to talk to her. He often saw him but instead of going to talk to him, he just climbed up a tree and watched. He usually waited until Bucky was gone to go and talk to Darla himself.
"She loved lillies." Elio spoke up, making his presence known to Peter. "They were one of her favourite flowers."
Elio motioned down to the lilies that Peter had just placed down. Lilies were his Aunt May's favourite flower so they were the only kind of flowers that he really knew, other than roses.
"I'm sorry-I can go if you want to be alone." Peter jumped up and quickly got ready to leave, despite wanting to tell Darla about his day at school or that he misses his mom right now.
His Aunt May knew that his visited her grave every day after school just to let things off his chest, so she always knew that he would arrive home a little later than what he used to.
"No, I don't want to be alone right now." Elio smiled as he stood beside Peter, looking at the grave. "You know, Briar won't visit." He announced. "He can't bring himself to see her grave."
"I couldn't at first either, took me a few weeks." Peter smiled sympathetically. "Everyone has there ways of grieving. Some visit graves, some lock themselves in a dark room and others surround themselves by work."
Elio let go of a small chuckle and turned to face Peter, his furrowed his brows before saying,
"You sound a lot like her." Elio missed his sister dearly, she was always in his life until one day she just wasn't and he didn't know how to cope with that. "She'd appreciate the flowers and the conversations."
"How often do you come?" Peter decided to sit down, Elio following in suit so that now they were both sat in front of Darla's grave.
"I try to visit every day. But sometimes I can't bring myself to visit her. Sometimes I just imagine that this is all an awful dream." Elio lowered his head in embarrassment.
He knew that it was stupid to think that she was still alive, that it was all a dream. But he couldn't help it. He just wanted his big sister back. He just wanted to hear her voice once last time or to be hugged by her again.
"She told me to look after you." Elio announced. "It's why I transferred to your school. I wanted to keep my promise to her. I didn't want to disappoint her."
"You didn't." Peter turned and faced the boy. "I don't think you could ever disappoint her."
"I know I haven't exactly talked to you much, but I wasn't sure what to say. Every time I tried to say something, you were always busy." Elio chuckled.
Normally he was extremely shy and hated introducing himself to ones people, especially people who were famous, like him. He was spider-man and nobody knew that, that was big.
"I tried to talk to you too, but chickened out every time." Peter laughed. "Are you coming on the trip?"
"Sure am." Elio nodded, he jumped at the opportunity to go to Europe. Cecilia always encouraged him to travel.
"We can go together. You can meet my best friend Ned and we can become like a golden trio."
Elio couldn't help but smile, he always felt as if he'd never fit in anywhere, but now he was starting to believe that he would fit in with Peter. That maybe they could actually be really good friends.
"I like that idea." He whispered back in response. "I should get going, i'll catch you tomorrow Pete." Elio slowly stood up leaving Peter alone.
Peter smiled at the nickname, it was something that Darla had called him multiple times before. He looked towards the grave and read over her tombstone.
'A daughter, a sister, a friend and a fighter.'
"Thank you for telling her to look out for me." Peter smiled. "I'll look out for him too. I promise." He pressed his lips against his hand before placing his hand on the grave. "Until tomorrow Darla."