The last words he'd ever said to her still played back in his mind.

"I'll get everyone out of here and when I come back, you'd better be alive."

His last words to her had been a lie.

Had he known they were going to be a lie?

Yeah. Deep down, he knew that he wasn't going to be coming back, that he was too weak and he had suffered too many horrors there.

Was he going to go back anyway?

Probably. Tony wouldn't have let him though. Tony would've gone himself. Tony...

Tony should've gotten Wanda out of there instead of him.

"It should have been me," he whispered, staring at a picture of him and Wanda with a forlorn expression. "It should have always been me."

Wanda had her arms wrapped around him, but she was looking at the camera, smiling a massive grin. Peter, though, hadn't noticed the camera was there, and was hugging Wanda back, laughing, his nose scrunched up in the way it always did when he laughed.

He placed it down on his desk next to all the other ones that he had gotten Tony to process for him.

There was one with all of the Avengers together, excluding a few, such as Vision.

Wanda was sitting on the couch along with Natasha and Clint, while Peter sat on the floor in front of her. On the couch arm was Tony, folding his arms and smiling, and next to Peter was Thor and Steve.

There were several photos taken in that position, but Peter had chosen ones that he liked the best.

Wanda had reached her arm down, patting him on the shoulder, and his arm had reached up, so they were holding hands.

His hands shook as he picked up the photo and he could feel the tears pouring down his face again.

What he would give for just one more moment with her.

He could hear a knock on his door and he quickly wiped his face with his sleeve, carefully put the picture down - he couldn't risk breaking it - and walked over to the door, opening it.

"Hello?" he croaked, wincing at how bad his voice sounded, clearing his throat. "Hi?" he tried again, his voice sounding much better than the first time.

It was Tony.

"Hey, Pete," he said softly, walking into the room and gently shutting the door behind him. "You okay?"

Peter had quickly fixed a bright smile onto his face. "Yep! I'm - I'm all good. I have school starting soon, right? And I get to see Ned again, which will be great, and I get to meet Harry's friend Gwen, and - and -"

Peter seemed to run out of conversation topics. He looked around the room hurriedly, trying to find something else to talk about, before his eyes landed on Tony.

And Tony?

He was crying. Silently, of course. There were only a few tears dripping down, but still... Peter felt obliged to do something.

"Hey, Dad, it'll be okay," he muttered, giving his dad a hug. "You just need to get your mind off it for a while - that's why I want to go back to school. I need to distract myself."

"I don't want to," Tony murmured. "I don't want to act like it didn't happen, Pete, and you need to stop acting like it didn't happen either. We're all suffering, Pete, but you're withering away.

"You're withering away in front of us, and you think we can't do anything about it, but you're wrong. We can. I'm spending a lot of time with Natasha - Wanda and her were close, you know that.

"Nat doesn't like to show it, but she is upset. So am I. I normally wouldn't show it - I've not cried in front of people for a while, Pete - but you, of all people, need to know it's okay to not be okay sometimes."

Peter nodded slowly.

"I - I have homework," he mumbled in  a low tone. "Ned sent me the homework I missed and I need to catch up. So - so I'm sorry, but I can't be with you right now."

Peter knew he was being rude - selfish, even, but he just couldn't.

He couldn't spend time with anyone because, damn it, his last words had been a lie!

He had promised that he'd get her out, as soon as it was possible, and that she would be okay. She was relying on him, and he had just shoved that hope away!

No, he didn't want to face the facts. He wanted to hide in his room, doing whatever he needed to do, so he could avoid it.

He just needed to avoid it.

~~~

The days had gone by too fast. Everyone else had recovered - somewhat - while he was still drowning.

Drowning, without ever a chance to breathe, because the air is constricting his breath, and he needs it to stopstopstop -

There would be that occasional moment when Tony or Steve or somebody else would come into his room, wanting to talk to him and ending up sobbing because they should have saved her, they should have tried.

Those moments didn't happen often.

("It's okay, it's going to be okay, I promise," Peter soothed Natasha as she sat next to him, her face expressionless as several tears ran down her face.

Wanda's death really, truly had broken her.

"It's not," she said, her voice cracking. "It's not, because her room's empty - we haven't taken anything out of it, but it's still so damn empty and we can't do anything about it!"

"I know," Peter whispered. "I know. It's hard - it's going to take a while to get used to it - if we ever do. But she'd want us to move on - not to forget her, never to forget her, but to move on."

"You - you know," Natasha spoke softly, "she already bought Steve a Christmad present? Steve, Tony, me and you, that's all she got around to."

It had been around October when Peter had been rescued. The seventh, to be exact.

Peter had never liked October.

"You've gotta - gotta try and remember the good memories," Peter said gently, his voice shaking as he tried to hold in his tears. "She'd hate it if all you thought about was what you hadn't done."

"I hate it though."

Natasha had never sounded so emotionless.

"I hate that she expected that we could move on without her."

Peter looked to the wall of his room, Natasha's head on his shoulder as he hugged her, silent tears rolling down his face.

"She didn't. She just hoped, and we have to believe that's enough."

Peter didn't believe.)

When they did happen, Peter felt so utterly worn out from it that he couldn't face his family for the rest of that day or night, depending on if he was lucky.

There were those days where Peter couldn't feel anything, where he was just completely numb. Those were the days he longed for the most.

Despite the fact that he couldn't feel anything - happiness, sadness, anger - he liked it.

It meant that he wouldn't be crying that night.

The worst part, he thought, was school.

The day after he'd been saved - the day after Wanda had been killed - he'd insisted to go to school.

He wasn't sure why to be honest. Maybe he just wanted a distraction, maybe he just wanted to see Ned and Harry again.

It could be either.

It hadn't been a good idea, though.

He'd missed his first two classes because he hadn't been able to face it, regretting going instantly.

Ned had gave him a worried look as he left after home room.

He just sat in the office, talking to the office lady, pretending he was calm when he wasn't.

(He told her what had gone on - excluding the gruesome details of Wanda's death and what had led up to it. She allowed him the chance to stay whenever he felt bad - but she encouraged him to try his best.)

He'd missed two hours, one of which was science. He didn't care, though. He didn't need to know about it - not when she was dead.

Afterwards, he'd had one of his better lessons - he couldn't even recall it afterwards, though - but after that, he'd had a class with some 'friends'.

Namely, ones that said they cared when they just wanted to know about his personal life, why he looked so upset all day.

He'd told them to stop.

They ignored him.

With his luck, he only had Harry in that class, who wasn't certain on how to act around his classmates, but only managed to get them to quit asking after Peter had shown obvious signs of distress.

He'd missed twenty minutes of that class. It wasn't that bad.

After that (after Harry had told Ned, more like), Ned had insisted Peter tell him what happened.

Peter couldn't face saying it out loud, so he'd promised Ned he'd tell him later.

("Peter, there's obvious something is wrong," Ned said softly. "You don't need to tell me now if you don't want to. Text me later, okay?"

"I - I -" Peter whimpered, flustered as Ned asked him for things he couldn't give.

"I promise, I don't need to desperately know, I just want to make sure you're somewhat okay." Ned had the gentlest voice he could possibly use at that moment, Harry nodded behind him, concern evident in his eyes.

"You don't even have to tell me after, Pete," Harry offered, clasping Peter's hand in his. "Ned can tell me - or, or I can just go blind. Well, I mean - you get what I mean."

He laughed nervously. Peter, knowing that the other boy was trying his best, laughed with him, trying to help both Harry and himself.

"No, I - I wanna tell you both," Peter admitted. "I just - I can't tell myself that it happened. I try to - try to pretend that something else happened, and I can't say that it actually did happen. So... so I'll text you when I get home, okay?"

Ned and Harry nodded - and Peter still felt awful because Harry didn't even know where Peter lived, but he was going along with it because of the fragile state he was in.

He just wanted her back.)

His text had been relatively vague, considering he hadn't known how in-depth Ned was with the rescue mission, but he tried his best.

If he couldn't admit what had happened out loud, how could he ever hope to get through everything else?

The funeral was soon, he knew. He'd gotten the choice whether or not to go - they knew he was young, didn't want him to be scarred from such an early age.

He refused to miss the chance to say goodbye.

~~~

That day, he knew, would forever haunt his dreams. He wouldn't have missed it for the life of him, though.

When else would he get the chance to say it properly?

Wanda would be annoyed at him, he knew. The way he had been acting ever since.

Pretending to be happy, hiding his tears with a smile.

Refusing to get help when he needed it, not wanting to go to the lady at the office when he honestly needed to.

Getting snappy at his friends when they tried to help, chanting sorry, sorry, sorry when they demanded why.

When his friends were always there for him, and he felt upset when he realised he couldn't do anything in return.

When he realised he started panicking when he was alone, but he was always alone and he couldn't get away and he couldn't stop it -

When his friends had to leave because their lunch breaks were at a different time, or they had important lessons to go to, and he started panicking, only to rush to his own lesson and work to get himself through it.

He just needed to get it out of his head.

If he just pretended she was gone for a while, he'd be fine, right?

Yeah. Yeah, he's be fine. Perfectly, perfectly fine.

He hoped, at least.

sorry this was kinda lame I just really wanted to try and get something out for you guys.

I felt really bad about not having anything, and this chapter was relatively easy to write, hence why its kinda bad, but eh

(I literally just wrote my own experiences but with, like, caring friends who don't say things that they know will make me either panic or sob :) )

I want a Harry or Ned in my life :(

CEMMY, BE MY NED AND AVNI CAN BE MY HARRY. GWEN, YOU BE GWEN

I'm done :)

I tried for this, anyway. Sorry I havent been the best. Confidence levels = × self esteem levels = ×

Basically my mental health = ×

Have a great day!

(Oh also twenty days 'til Christmas, so... everyone wish Avni happy birthday on the 25th, please. BookDwerb. So you know :) (she gonna hate me so much for this))

Love you guys so much.

(I'm writing the catchphrase cause I love it)

I'll see you next next Thursday, my young Wattpadians!

(Hopefully)

- Hunter (and Cemmy)

🕸🕷Until next next Thursday🕷🕸