(Peter Parker x reader) Romeo and Juliet

56: Biggest Fan

Rocking back onto my heels, I cried so loudly it echoed in my skull. Pain from the tears spread from my head to my toes, while my chest ached the most. The effort my lungs put into crying..and the broken heart my ribs held.

Thoughts of what I could've done...what I should have done..bounced around, making the pain in my heart so horrible I physically felt it.

Peter Parker had been taken from me. The last thing I needed in this world full of pain was to loose the only thing that made me feel safe and whole. 

I don't know, nor remember, how long I lay by myself on a rock, surrounded by ash and dust, crying and screaming until no sound came out of me. 

Eventually, the last surviving person I couldn't live without came over to me with tears in his eyes, and held out a hand.

I looked up at Tony, covering my mouth. God it hurt so bad. "He-he's gone."

Tony wiped at the underside of his eye furiously. "I know baby girl. I-I'm so-so sorry."

I finally took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet, followed by a long embrace.

"I am so sorry I couldn't protect him," Tony whispered to me through muffled sobs. "I tried so hard to-"

"Tony," I rasped out, leaning back to look at him. "It was...not your job." I could hardly talk through dry heaves. "We were a-all trying to p-protect h-him. It-it's not a-a single pers-person's job."

Tony looked indifferent, stony-faced. But the tears streaming down gave it all away.

He was hurting just as badly as i was, but he was never going to tell me.

 He let go of me, turning around and sinking to his knees, laying back against rubble and covering his face with one hand.

I sank to my knees as well, covering my mouth with both hands and trying to hide the deep sobs. 

"Peter-" Tony started, "pulled...he pulled me aside. Before he joined you in your positions." He swallowed, rubbing his face. "He told me that...no matter what happens, if we lost...and he died...to protect you with my life. I..I promised him neither of you would die." 

Saying those words made him break down again.

"Tony...no matter what you promised him-" I let myself cry for a moment, "he will never blame you for not being able-able to keep it. That's just how he is-....was." And at that moment, neither of us was able to speak through the heavy sounds of heartbreak.

I could only imagine what had happened to him. Where he was..what he'd felt in his dying moments...where everyone else was. The stinging truth that we had lost was such a prominent feeling, but the most predominant was the absence of my entire heart. 

"Tomorrow is Peter's birthday," I whispered that night, in the dark, shoulder-to-shoulder with Tony on the floor of what was left of the ship.

The large window the ship held was undamaged, which was purely lazy writing, but we weren't complaining....because we had a window to look at the stars.

They weren't our constellations...but they were still outstanding.

Tony swallowed hard when I whispered to him about Peter. "I didn't know that."

I nodded slowly, keeping tears at bay. Where I'd been trained, we all knew how to do that successfully. Hiding emotion.

But I hadn't lost someone like that since before the training.

I kept thanking the stars over Titan that I still had Tony, no matter how dreadfully painful and annoying he could be. 

"I was going to give him something," I muttered.

"Now is usually when I'd make a V-card joke, but that's insensitive." Tony looked at me with a soft expression.

I twitched my eyebrows. "Well that too, but I was giving him something else as well." I paused, but Tony didn't want to comment. So I sighed and went on. "I found your arch reactor. Your old one. And-" I held my breath, tears threatening, "since he's your biggest fan-" Tony started rubbing my arm softly, trying to comfort me. "I was giving him that..."

Tony closed his eyes. "You won't believe the way he'd talk about you when we'd spend time working on his suits in that damn lab. I knew he wasn't going to give you up. I knew...despite what I advised him....he thought you were both his earth and moon...and all the stars."

I covered my mouth with a hand again. "Aw shit," I said, in acknowledgement to Tony.

He sat up, wincing, and motioned for me to sit up as well.

I did.

Then he did something odd....

He hugged me.

I can understand hugging me after Peter died...but now? I will take all the affection I can get.

And it didn't last long.

Tony stood up, holding a hand to his injured side. "You should try to get some sleep."

I felt a twinge in my gut, already panicking before he'd even left me alone to think about Peter by myself. "You're not leaving me, are you?"

He froze, thinking about that, then turned back to me. "No. No, I'm not."

If he left I would've broken down completely, unrecoverable. 

I sighed in temporary relief as he settled back down next to me on the cold ground. 

"Tomorrow we'll...we'll find Nebula and work on getting back to earth. Recon...see who's left. And try to fix this." Tony let me lay against his side as I let silent tears fall onto his shirt, closing my eyes.

"I am so sorry kid," he said in a broken whisper, looking up at the stars through the large, clouded window. 

And I knew...he wasn't talking to me.