Chapter Text
An orange spot was burned on the inside of Peter’s eyelids, but he continued to stare at his small fire despite the growing irritation it caused his scratchy eyes. He watched as the label of his celebratory can of chicken noodle soup caught fire and curled slowly as it burned away, its ash joining the small collection that was rising from the handful of twigs he had set up on top of the abandoned hospital he had been occupying for the past week.
“Happy Birthday Peter Parker,” he mumbled to his knees, shifting slightly to dislodge some gravel that had started digging into his backside. Why he even bothered trying to replicate this previously happy holiday still baffled him.
Tears stung his smoke-filled eyes as the memories of warm, bright, sweet birthdays of a past long gone drifted lazily into his thoughts. The drooping, messy, homemade chocolate cakes that May insisted on making every year, traditionally topped with rainbow sprinkles, and Ben’s rasping voice as he sang “Happy Birthday” off-key. He always ended up shouting because he made a point to increase his volume every time May or Peter snickered, which was every other note.
Peter’s rose-colored reminiscing warmed his cold expression from his usual gray line to a small, cautious smile. But that brief, untroubled moment was fleeting. The contrast of those happy years juxtaposed by Peter’s current reality of sitting, alone, homeless on a rooftop excited to have a can of chicken noodle soup was sobering, and sobriety brought with it crushing sadness.
Fat, hot tears reduced Peter’s vision to an orange blur. The warmth of the fire no longer reached him and tear tracks exposed how dirty his face was. Peter grabbed fistfuls of his baggy jacket and buried his face into his knees, finally yielding the staring contest, once again, to his smug fire.
Peter squeezed his eyes shut painfully and huddled into a tense ball on his side. The memories that flashed evasively in his mind were no longer welcomed, comfortable reminiscing; they were harsh and abrasive. They made his head throb and he flinched terribly every time an imagined blow struck his past self.
The chicken-noodle soup boiled furiously, abandoned by its owner yet somehow mirroring the internal chaos the shivering teen was drowning in. Trembling like a leaf, Peter breathed ragged, wheezing breaths, a symptom of his spasming lungs. Peter’s heart raged with adrenaline, pumping furiously and drowning out any other sound that his enhanced hearing might pick up. That steady, albeit frantic, rhythm soon drowned out even Peter’s thoughts.
Relieved for any lifeline to pull him from his past, Peter clung to his heartbeat, focusing all his energy on hearing his blood rush through his body and back to his eternally pumping heart. If he concentrated, he thought he could feel his heart’s chambers constricting and relaxing, and the valves in his heart opening to allow oxygen to be distributed to his taut muscles. As Peter’s rhythmic heart started to slow its beat his lungs followed suit.
Sizzling filled the air as the precious birthday soup finally boiled over, quenching any flames too close. Peter’s gradual surfacing to lucidity immediately quickened when he realized what that sound meant. He scrambled to his knees, gravel flying, and rushed to save the food he desperately needed. His frantic movements against the sharp rocks covering the roof would have scratched up the hands and knees of an ordinary person, but an ordinary person would have been broken and bleeding from what Peter did daily as Spider-Man. Peter’s tense state and general durability saved him from himself, leaving just the gravel’s residual dust instead of cuts and his jeans were coated in gray instead of soaked in red.
Thankfully despite his head still being sluggish and eyes still misty, still bogged down by the wrath-filled faces of past foster parents, Peter had the presence of mind to use two unburned sticks as tongs to rescue his bounty from the heat.
Sitting back on his heels, Peter sighed. He watched as his food, set down far from the fire, stopped bubbling and presented him with the consequence of leaving it unattended. There were only two-thirds left, the rest having spilled over into the now fast diminishing fire.
Peter looked up at the sky, avoiding the small aluminum can as if it was Medusa reincarnated, and let the crisp night breeze cool his aching headache. He would have cried, but his tear ducts were dry, instead, he choked out strangled breaths and turned back to his soup.
Might as well eat it while it is still hot, the universe can’t take that from him too.