Winning the Game

Chapter 1

Trigger warning: Suicidal thoughts, self-harm.

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Peter Parker hated his life.

He felt nothing. He never slept. His grades were slipping. Once his mentor and idol died in that fateful battle against Thanos, Peter's spirit completely broke. He was falling apart at the seams, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him.

Now, he was lying in his bed at midnight – currently three months after that tragic day – staring blankly at the ceiling. Patrol tonight had been very monotonous: an ATM robbery, a bike theft, and a drug exchange down an abandoned alley. Through every crime, he webbed the bad guys up and continued on his way, not even pausing to make a snarky comment or call the police. They'd turn up and spot the criminals eventually.

Peter knew the only reason he was still here was Spider-Man. Despite how much he wanted to end it all and see Mr. Stark again, he had to stay alive to save innocent people and to keep his city safe.

That damned spider bite was the only thing keeping him alive. For many reasons. A few weeks ago, Peter was engaging in his second nightly activity: carving up his arms to drown out the pain in his thoughts. Feeling physical pain was just more bearable than emotional pain. And his body healed so quickly that it was like nothing even happened. But, on that particular night three weeks ago, his cuts went too deep. He knew it. He watched movies. He understood what fatal could look like. But his healing was too quick. It came to his aid before he could slip into oblivion.

And now he was still here, with barely any evidence to what he did to his body almost every night. The cuts kept healing and stitching themselves back together overnight. They only left behind faint white lines that most people didn't notice unless they really focused on his arms.

Like Ned did. He started noticing the scars about a month ago, and he wouldn't stop badgering Peter about going to a doctor. He kept threatening to tell May if he didn't get some help soon. Peter knew that if Aunt May found out, she would freak out. He couldn't handle that on top of everything else.

Peter tore his gaze away from the ceiling and glanced at his alarm clock.

1:23 a.m.

Another sleepless night. He sighed and threw the covers off his body. He paced around his room and gripped his hair in frustration. He just wanted it all to stop. The constant thoughts and the flashes of memories from that night plagued him. And once one awful thought entered his mind, they all would start to flood in.

His parents are dead. He was so young, he barely had time to even get to know them. But Uncle Ben is dead, too. And so is Tony. He wasn't strong enough to save them. He failed them. He failed May and Pepper and Morgan, too. He failed the Avengers. He was a disappointment to everyone, especially himself.

He let out a low growl and stomped to his bathroom. He stared for a few seconds in the mirror. Dark circles under his eyes over his hollow cheeks. He wasn't sleeping enough or eating enough and it was showing. Shaking away his almost unrecognizable reflection, he opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed what he desired most. Shakily holding the razor blade, he squeezed his eyes shut, let the tears fall, and started to dull the pain.

~~

Y/N couldn't sleep.

She tried really hard to though. She had taken her usual vanilla-scented bubble bath, applied her nighttime lavender face mask, and was now snuggled under her fluffy blankets with her eyelash sleep mask on.

Of course, she knew why she couldn't sleep. Her father lost his job a few weeks back. His six-figure job at Oscorp in one of the highest-level positions.

The firing was a result of him disagreeing with a scientist about some strange experiment. Though Y/N was glad her father stood up for something right, she also really liked having an apartment in the nicest complex in Queens and a shiny, recently purchased Audi to drive to Midtown Tech. Her parents had said there would need to be some adjustments, and so they moved out of said apartment in the nicest complex in Queens to a much cheaper and therefore rattier place. Luckily, still in Queens.

However, money was tighter than ever, as Y/N's father still had not found a new job, and her parents were starting to hint at her car being the next to go.

So now, at 1:54 am, all Y/N could think about was that she needed money. She briefly contemplated a sugar daddy. One wouldn't be hard to find. Her parents were good-looking and they definitely passed those genes down to her. But the idea of growing close to someone three times her 16 years of age had Y/N shuddering. So, sugar daddy was out.

She could always get a...job. Her parents promised her when she was 14 years old that she would never have to work in her school years. "You're going to end up with a painstaking job at Oscorp once you graduate college, so you might as well enjoy these few years of freedom while you still can," her father would always tell her. But now she was starting to think a future at Oscorp was bleak and impossible as is.

Y/N sighed and threw off her covers. She was still adjusting to the small twin bed she was forced into during the move. She had been sleeping in a queen-sized bed for years, and the lack of room in a twin was interrupting her sleep schedule.

She grabbed her robe from her desk chair and threw it on over her silk pajama short set. Her parents were nudging her to sell most of her clothes online or at thrift stores, but Y/N was determined to hang on to some of her "rich girl items," as her best friend Carli was starting to call them.

Y/N headed to her fire escape and opened the window before crawling out onto the metal patio. It was November, and there was a distinct chill rolling through Queens as winter descended upon the area. She stared up at the sky and watched the stars twinkle, silently reciting the constellations to herself as she spotted them.

After a few minutes, Y/N realized she wasn't alone outside. She could hear soft sniffles floating toward her from below. She peered over the edge of her fire escape and saw Peter Parker from her school curled up on his own fire escape...sobbing.

Y/N – like everyone else at Midtown – knew Peter was taking the death of Tony Stark hard. She didn't realize how closely they worked together while Peter was his intern. To be frank, she always assumed, like Flash, that he never even met Tony Stark. Clearly, they had been wrong.

Y/N felt awkward staring down at him during such a vulnerable and obviously private moment. She didn't really know Peter that well. He was kind of a loner and only had, like, two friends, whereas Y/N's crew was pretty big, with her and Flash being the leaders. She decided to leave him be and crawled back through her window and into her bed.

Seeing Parker like that put things into perspective for Y/N. While she had to move into a lame apartment and felt like her life was changing quicker than she could keep up with it, she realized maybe some people had it a lot worse than she did.

And strangely enough, that thought calmed her to sleep.

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Author's Note: 

Hey everyone! Starting a new story. I feel like my other story isn't doing as well as I wanted it to. I'll still be updating that one, but I had this new idea, so I thought I'd go for it. Please comment and vote! Thanks!