Across the Stars 🕷 Peter Parker [3]

fourteen

Colin

F I V E Y E A R S L A T E R

Things had been rough, to say the least. Everything had changed after Thanos. The world had slowly become some dystopian version of what had once been. World leaders, those who were left, declared a worldwide state of emergency. Borders had closed, trade had stopped, flights were cancelled, any sort of travel was shut down. Garbage littered the streets and crime rates were at an all time high without the heroes that had once defended the world. 

And not just superheroes.

With the government in shambles, national and local law enforcement had just sort of... stopped. Police didn't roam the once busy streets of New York, firefighters only responded in times of absolute crisis, and the security guards that had once watched over the malls and stores and businesses just... didn't anymore. 

Those were the darker days, the first couple of years. The world governments had somewhat come back together to try to restore the world to some version of normalcy again, but not a lot could be done when people like the president or the prime minister were... gone. 

The worst part was the pleading. The begging. The world was on its knees, pleading and begging the Avengers to help. They had saved their world before, why couldn't they do it now? They knew that some of them were gone, like Scarlet Witch or Vision, and that the others were war criminals, like Captain America or Black Widow... But no one cared about that anymore, they just wanted everyone back. Their friends, their family.

Colin Wallace was no exception. 

His daughter had been cruelly ripped away from him, from her other father, when she was barely sixteen years old. She had died trying to stop Thanos from snapping his fingers, and now Colin and his husband, Leo, were left with empty holes in their hearts that only their daughter could feel. 

Things had become harder for Leo and Colin when they lost their daughter. How does a parent carry on when they've lost a child? It didn't make sense, how was someone supposed to listen to the numerous marriage counselors tell them that they needed to let go, that they needed to move on? 

When a person loses their spouse, they're called widows or widowers. When a child loses their parents, they're called an orphan. But what are you supposed to call a parent who loses a child? Why wasn't there a word for that?

Because it was too horrible a thing to even think about. Because no one is supposed to outlive their child. 

Leo blamed Colin. It was obvious. Painfully obvious. The way that Leo looked at him in the mornings, the way their interactions were short and often there were no interactions at all. They tried counseling, really. But Leo could hardly bare to look at the man he blamed for his daughter's death. 

Colin blamed himself, too. He knew that, rationally, even if he hadn't let her go with the other Avengers to Wakanda, she would have disappeared anyway. It had all been random. Thanos claimed that it was merciful. But still... some part of Colin wondered... what if it had been different? 

He should have been the one to disappear, not Alexandra. Not Peter Parker. Not May Parker. 

Their apartment was so much quieter after the snap. With Alexandra gone, with Peter and May Parker gone...