Snapshot (фотография)

XXIV

They stared at each other for a moment as he was assaulted with the memories of before. This was the woman that had taken everything from him, who had shaped him into what he was now. She was the reason he had so much weight on his shoulders, the reason he tried his best to work as Spider-man to clear the red out of his ledger.

"Hello." He said with a dotty smile. "I'm looking for my niece, Sharon." May looked taken aback, and he could tell that she was holding her gun in her opposite hand. There was no need for any petty emotions or identity reveals. He was there to get in and get out.

Tomorrow would be a new dawn, a new day for him. If he could just manage to erase that one bit of his past remaining, he could make a new life for himself; one where no one knew who Peter Parker really was: a killer. He could collect the bounty on her head anonymously with off-shore accounts. He'd chosen the time of day where he knew that most of the residents in the thin-walled apartment would be at work.

He was sure that it was a red room trick meant to get him to come out of the woodwork, so he was being especially careful this time by not using his usual signature of poison. Instead, Peyta was planning on using a knife and carving in the initials of this nasty hitman known for disguises that he'd met while working the bar. Some bastards never learned how to tip.

Peering into the apartment, he pasted a doddering look on his face. She drew the door closer, but he caught a glimpse of things in disarray. Her face was red and shiny, with what looked to be nail marks on her neck and jaw. Her hair was a mess, and her glazed brown eyes struck a pang in him that he had never felt before. In totality, she was a beautiful woman still, who had been aged by the sorrows of reality and let down by life.

"Might I borrow your phone?" He asked, and after a moment, she sighed. Jaw unclenching, May looked down the hallway and reluctantly opened the door. Peyta tried to tamper down a victorious smile, mentally reviewing his plan. This was the woman who had taken everything from him.

He stepped into the foyer, suddenly hit with not only the smell of rotting fruit, but something lost and forgotten to him long ago. There was a hint of spices that he suddenly recalled being used in the sauces that he and his Uncle Ben used to make, and Peyta was caught up in the dance of long lost nostalgia for a childhood he had lost.

"Here." May moved to shove her phone into his hand. He shook his head, beginning to fold up the walker he had bought not 15 minutes before and placing it to the side. Straightening up, he cracked his back.

"Alright," Peyta said. "Shall we talk business?" He slipped his fingers under the grey wig, loosening it enough to take off, so the brown curls that he had let grow since leaving expanded. May's eyes tracked up to his head, and he realised that he was taller than her, if only by a few centimeters. Fear began to creep into her face as he carefully pulled off the mask, his face a stoic disguise.

"You wouldn't happen to have security cameras in here, would you?" He asked, reverting back to his normal voice, with only a hint of an accent. He looked around, seemingly unbothered. "You're too paranoid for that." He laughed.

May was struck with the familiarity of that laugh, now deepened with time and age. It was so strangely similar to someone else's laugh that she had heard nearly a decade ago. That day that she had gone through with a decision that changed her life. Whether or not it was for the better, she still hadn't decided. She'd resented Peter when he joined them- wasn't she enough for Ben? He'd made comments about how their family was complete now. They had been more strained for money with a kid that she didn't want, who stole love from the man who was supposed to put her ahead of everything.

When the opportunity came, she took it. She'd passed off the money as inheritance from a long lost Uncle. Ben hadn't questioned it, mourning the last of the biological family he had left. She looked over the interloper, realising that her past choices were finally catching up with her. All she could do was try to survive.

"Peter?" She whispered, the gun in her hand shakily aimed at him with rusty instincts from days of insomnia, paranoia and starvation. The boy looked at her with uncaring eyes and raised eyebrows. Her mouth opened slightly, though she did not speak. He silently placed the wig and mask into his bag.

"You're going to kill me then?" May asked, suddenly manic. She yelled, tears beginning to steam down her face. She flew at him, her arms beating at his chest. He only moved slightly, silent as a rock. Though she could not see, Peyta had tensed and his face was open as he reverted to the boy he once was. In a moment, he closed up again, his eyes darting away from the photo of a trio on the mantel. He remembered taking that picture now.

"Watch yourself." He said, teeth clenched, quickly grabbing her wrists and holding them together. Her eyes were filled with tears as she came to know the inevitability of her death at the hands of the person she had wronged most. Peyta realised that she was not crying for the nephew she had lost, but rather the loss of the life she had given herself through lies and trickery.

Perhaps in another life, humans could be caring and unselfish. Humans are capricious, reaching for survival and selfishness. They exist merely for their own concupiscence and greed. They seemingly cannot fathom the world that they have created, and the solutions that they bring about merely to impress themselves, even if it is not right. But the funny thing about humanity is, even if something isn't right, if it means giving up control, it is wrong. Humans have marched out of rage and grief, and they kill out of anger and sadness, contrasting emotions that hold hands. In that moment, though, Peyta felt nothing. He looked at May, and all the anger he had been building up seemed to grow.

Perhaps in another life, they could have been happy. He could have been normal. Alas, she had ruined it all. He pushed her away from him. She fell down onto the loved couch with a cry, clutching at her wrists. In a movement to show how unafraid he was of her, he turned his back and stalked towards the photo on the mantel. Though he did not know it, he had exposed his suit to her.

"A killer." She told him. "You're a murderer. You're the reason Ben is dead." He faced her then, his face dull as his fingertips turned white on the frame. He recalled the feeling of blood on his face as Ben was shot, as he shot a thousand others. His was the hand that had wielded the knife. It was another that had shown him how to shoot, but it was a third that had sold him for greed.

"I am what you made me." Peyta said, darting forward in a quick movement. The frame was smashed onto the ground, but he didn't care to notice. His face was drawn back into a feral grin as he remembered his bloodlust, his instincts, and everything that used to make him love the job. She cared for nothing but herself, so he watched in an almost out of body experience as the knife entered her abdomen over and over again. He felt the blood splatter across his face as she spit at him and continued to fight against him as they dueled in an odd tango.

At last, she was dropped to the ground, and he stood there, panting, as all the progress he had made in the last few months was undone by one woman. She continued to bleed out on the floor as a rush of vindication and power filled him. Nothing mattered anymore. He was going to die too. How fitting that the Parker line would end with the only two left- the killers.

"What a lovely family reunion this is, hm?" Peyta said, his smile like the dagger he wielded in his hand. May looked up at him, her eyes alight with stars. With seemingly great effort, she looked up at him and opened her mouth again to speak.

"I'm sorry, Peter." He kneeled down next to her in what could be presumed to be a caring gesture, but was anything else. Leaning over her, he began to cut the signature into her left arm, the one closest to him. The light began to fade from her eyes as she continued to twitch, still trying to escape the karma that she had wrought.

"Your sorry is a life that will never return too late." Peter Parker watched as May died there on the floor, and opened his backpack, laying down the sheets of evidence he had collected of her crimes around her. Everything that he had gotten from Ned was placed near her legs, spread like a marker where the body was. The last paper was what proof he had that she had sold him to the Red Room, and he placed that right above her head, like a cloud that would hang over her for eternity.

He didn't close her eyes, choosing to leave them open so that she could watch him take the frame from the floor and pick up the photo inside. With a small smile reminiscent of the one in the picture, Peter Parker disappeared from the apartment and went up to the roof for one last time, clutching the snapshot of the day his life ended in his hands.