Spider-Man and The Esper

93. Comfort From A Brother-in-law

Hours later, It's a bad rainy night.

The memories are coming back. One rings in his head above all others.

"With great power... there must also come... great responsibility."

He swings his legs off the rooftop, hugs his chest, digs his fingers into his shoulders. His upper bare skin and wound getting drenched in the rain.

Is it selfish, that he wants a different final moment? Is it wrong for him to wish that his mother, Yuri, or even May had died with a Be safe or an I love you on their lips?

Probably. Because he'd needed to hear it. All Spider-Men do, apparently.

His hands slide down his arms, pressing on the tender, bruised skin. The bruises are a constant, a reminder of his worth, a reminder that he doesn't exist for nothing.

On each passing day like these, he counts his bruises, cuts, and scars and wonders if they are enough to justify his life.

Children will play tag even if no one ever teaches them the game. You see, there are things that you are born knowing. Things that are coded into your DNA. Things that are written in your stars.

Things you cannot escape. The inevitability of fate.

These are the things that Michael has known since before he knew anything else.
He is lonely, but he is never alone. The thoughts in his head will chase him until his metaphorical legs give out. There is no rest for people like him, for people who have never tasted silence.

He is lonely, but he is never alone. He will never be alone. Right?

He can try to speak but the words will get caged behind his teeth. He speaks and speaks and speaks and no one hears.

Well, everyone hears but no one hears.

He can speak and speak and speak but the words are never right. They are always the wrong words.

Some people explode when they break to show all of their emotions coming out into the open.

Michael breaks like glass which is a perfect description for him because no matter how many times he tries to put himself back together he will always remain broken no matter how many times the mirror can be put back together again before it falls apart.

Explosions are bright and loud and if he is bright and loud then people will look and when people look, people see, and there are things inside him that people cannot see. The echoes of his own insignificance. The damning fact that he will never be enough.

So Michael implodes. He collapses inward like a dying star and the vacuum that has become the apex of his being swallows the screams.

Michael knows only two emotions: fear and the absence of fear. He is like a computer. He functions on zeros or ones. When he is not fear, he is apathy. The numbness crawls between his ribcage and runs frigid fingers down his lungs. He cannot breathe, and he cannot fight.

They tell him to smother the fear until it flickers into nothingness. But Michael is fear. If he is not afraid, what is he?

Without the fear, he is just a shell. An empty, hollow shell.