chasing waterfalls [Peter Parker]

~64~

When we got to the roof of the high school, I could see a silhouette sitting on the roof, staring at the skyline. I slowly approached him, not wanting to startle him, Ned and MJ behind me. Cautiously, I put my hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at me, tears in his eyes. His eyes shifted to a slight look of relief for a second before reverting back to their state of grief.

"Nixie?" He said in a shaky voice. "I thought you were dead, too." I sat next to him, hugging him. Ned and MJ joined in the hug. He started crying. After a few minutes, he sat up, sensing another presence.

"Peter, there's some people here." MJ stood up, and Peter looked behind him. He stood up defensively to see the other two Peters on the top of the building. They both jumped down.

"Hey, wait..." He got a good look at the two. "What?" The taller Peter held up his hands to signal he wasn't a threat. The older Peter held up one hand.

"I'm sorry about May." Taller Peter nodded.

"Yeah, sorry. I got some understanding of what it is you're..."

"No, no, please don't tell me you know what I'm going through." Peter interrupted him. "Okay. She's gone. And it's all my fault. She died for nothing." He sighed, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "So I'm gonna do what I should have done in the first place." He went to grab the box from MJ, but older Peter's voice stopped him.

"Please, don't..." Peter sighed.

"You don't belong here. Either of you. So I'm sending you home. Those other guys are from your worlds, right? So you deal with it. If they die, if you kill them, that's on you. It's not my problem. I don't care anymore. I'm done. I'm really sorry that I dragged you into this. But you have to go home now. Good luck." He turned around to grab the box again.

"My Uncle Ben was killed." The older Peter commented. "It was my fault." The taller Peter had tears in his eyes.

"I lost..." He faltered. "I lost Gwen, my, um..." He looked from me to Peter. "She was my Nixie. I couldn't save her. I'm never gonna be able to forgive myself for that. But I carried on, tried to, um... Tried to keep going, tried to keep being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, cause I know that's what she would've wanted. But at some point, I just... I stopped pulling my punches. I got rageful. I got bitter. I just don't want you to end up like..." He looked down. "Like me."

"The night Ben died..." I looked over at older Peter. "I hunted down the man who I thought did it. I wanted him dead. I got what I wanted. It didn't make it better. It took me a long time to learn to get through that darkness." Peter sighed, then looked at the two alternate Peters.

"I wanna kill him. I wanna tear him apart. I can still hear her voice in my head." He started sniffling. "Even after she was hurt, she said to me that we did the right thing. She told me that with great power..." I saw both Peters' eyes widen.

"Comes great responsibility." Peter looked up at the older Peter.

"Wait, what? How do you know that?"

"Uncle Ben said it." Taller Peter responded.

"The day he died." Older Peter continued. "Maybe she didn't die for nothing, Peter."