don't go... -Peter Parker/ Spiderman

*Ch. 1-Time*

                                                       k a m r y n 

The blood rushed through my ears, my heart stuttered, and all I could do was sit there, crying, blankly staring at the casket of my mother, Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow.

"She was beautiful. And brave, so very brave. And she would have told us not to cry, because although my sister loved to bring the guilty to justice, she never would have wanted the innocent to suffer," my aunt sobbed into the microphone. "If she was here today, we all know she would crack one of her signature jokes, offer to share her peanut butter sandwich, and do everything in her power to make us all feel better. She meant the world to us. All of us."

I could feel the anxiety attack before I had it. My throat closed and my chest tightened. I stood silently and stumbled out into the hall. I had to get away. Anywhere but there, in anyone else's funeral but hers. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to her hugs and her laugh, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to all the time we spent together, I wasn't ready to let go of all the time we spent training me to be an Avenger.

I felt myself getting light headed and dizzy, my hyperventilating making me run out of air. Leaning against the wall, I fell to my knees, willing it to all be over. 

"Mom, what do I do? What do I do without you?" I cried at the ceiling, waiting for an answer that I knew I wouldn't receive. 

"Kam? Oh, Kam. Are you alright?"

I willed myself to slow my breathing and wipe away the stray tears and trails of mascara running down my cheeks, just in time to see a concerned Peter Parker studying me from the doorway. His eyebrows were furrowed together in sorrow, and judging by the red rings around his eyes, he'd been crying too. 

"No. No, I'm not" I wheezed, pulling myself up to sit in one of the benches along the church's corridor. From across the room, the figurine of the Virgin Mary taunted me, almost teasing about the life that was taken from me. 

Peter hesitantly sat down next to me and put his head in his hands. It couldn't have been easy for him either, losing Tony like that. Peter and I had grown really close, both of us training to become the next generation of Avengers, and it was obvious that he and Tony had a very special relationship. From the outside, it looked like they were father and son.

"Peter..." my voice trailed off, "I'm so sorry. I'm being selfish."

I reached over and rubbed small circles on his back. I could feel his muscles tensing and relaxing, his breaths sharp, his small sobs that he was trying to hold in so he could seem strong when, really, he was breaking apart at the seams. 

"I just...I don't know what to do" he breathed, letting out a long sigh. "I don't know how to feel or how to at or what to say. I feel like I've lost my direction."

"I know. Trust me, I know." I could feel the tears pricking at the edges of my vision.

"We just need time, you know? We just need time to heal. And we don't get enough time, because we're kids and everyone assumes that we'll just brush it off. But we aren't little anymore. Things have meaning now," he stood abruptly, my hand falling back to my lap as I jumped slightly, startled by his sudden flash of anger. 

"Peter, it'll be okay. It'll all be okay"

He paused, and looked me in my eyes for a moment. Then, without another word, he stormed out of the cathedral, leaving me in solitude with my thoughts and memories of my mother.