Breaking the Void

Chapter 42 - The Truth

(Peter's POV):
As I finished my speech, I saw (Y/N) slip out of her seat and head out of the hall. Confused and worried about her, I followed her out, afraid that something had happened. She had seemed distracted at the end of her speech and throughout mine, like there was someone in the audience that she was afraid of or didn't trust.

As I went to open the door to the hall, an explosion rang out and I began to panic. I couldn't go out there as Peter Parker, there was clearly something going on outside. The entire hall behind me erupted into chaos, screams echoing throughout the building as people assumed we were under attack.

I could vaguely hear the Avengers trying to keep everyone calm, making me thankful that they had decided to come to my graduation. While they took care of everyone inside, I shed my graduation robe so that whoever was out there wouldn't know that I was one of the graduates and pulled my Spider-Man mask over my face. I didn't have time to fully change into my suit so I just secured my web-shooters and ran out of the building.

As I stepped outside, a cloud of smoke was dissipating, allowing me to see Void using her telekinesis to stab two people. She then crouched over the fallen bodies, removing her daggers from them. Fear shivered down my spine, afraid that (Y/N) had been caught up in this, but the victims were both much older than she, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Void!" I called out, turning her attention to me. I hadn't seen her in a while, making me wonder if she had given up her life as a supervillain, but it appeared that she was just getting better at not getting caught by me.

Void spun around at the sound of my voice and her body tensed, "P-Spider-Man, this isn't what it looks like."

I scoffed at her response, "Void, you're standing over two dead bodies with a bloody dagger in your hand and I saw you stab them."

"They were bad people."

"I don't understand you, Void. One minute you're fighting alongside me and the next you are killing innocent people in the streets. You claim that they've done bad things, but you've killed children, Void, and at the very least you can't claim they were evil. I'm starting to think that it's you who are bad people."

She shook her head, "you don't understand-"

Before she had a chance to defend herself, I cut her off by webbing her up, pinning her arms to her side. She retaliated, sending loose bricks from the facade of the graduation hall hurtling towards me, but I was able to catch them with a web and hit hurt with them instead. She buckled forward at the impact, falling to her knees. I stepped towards her, needing to know what face lay beneath her mask. She knew my identity now I needed to repay the favor, to know the face a monster.

She tried to scramble away from me once realizing what I wanted to do, squirming beneath the webs. And for the first time, she actually seemed scared. My spidey sense went off like crazy, warning me of the blade that she was lifting telekinetically. My body acted immediately, grabbing the blade out of the air and plunging it into her, causing a gasp to escape her lips, barely audible through her mask.

Time seemed to slow as I heard the rustling of people running out of the graduation hall. Void crawled backwards on her knees, her body swaying slightly, and I reached out to support her as she collapsed into my arms. Realization of what I had done washed over me, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. Tears for my enemy, but also tears for my friend.

I never understood Void, that was the one thing that I was certain of. I could never make sense of why she did what she did, why she would sometimes fight alongside me but then try to kill me. There were those that she seemed to care about, like Harry, but then she did not seem to value anyone's life. She was an enigma and in my haste, under threat of my life, I could have terminated my only chance to start unraveling the mysteries that she was wrapped in.

But there was still one thing I could still discover: what she looked like beneath her mask. My hands shaking slightly, I reached for the bottom of her mask and I could almost feel Void's eyes pleading for me to stop, to let her die in peace.

"Peter, I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice breaking. I gave the mask a tug and lifted it off of her, finding myself face to face with (Y/N). Her hair sprawled out across the pavement and her eyes were glossed with tears, a single drop escaping her eyes and traveling to the ground. Her breathing was labored as she gazed up at me, trying to say everything that she wanted to with her eyes.

A million emotions were swirling around inside of me rendering me incapable of deciphering what I was feeling. It was as though I wasn't actually there in the moment, like there was someone else in control of my body. The only thing that I could feel was the pain, it was almost overwhelming. I ripped my mask off in an attempt to stop feeling as though I was going to hyperventilate, but it did nothing to help.

(Y/N) went limp, eliciting a scream from my throat. I picked up her body and cradled it to mine, the tears that prickled in my eyes turning into full sobs. There was a hand placed on my shoulder and a soft voice in my ear, but I did not hear the words that were saying.

"Peter, let us have her, there's still a chance we could save her," the voice repeated, a bit more sternly this time.

My hold on (Y/N) slackened slightly as I looked up to Tony and asked, "why? Why would she do this to me?"

He shook his head, "I don't think any of us ever really understood her. Let us take it from here, Pete."

I gave no response and Tony took my lack of protest as permission, nodding to Rhodey, who gently took (Y/N) from me and took off into the air with her. I collapsed into Tony's arms, sobbing into his chest as he held me close to him.

"Peter?! Peter, oh my god, I was so worried!" Aunt May's voice called out as she ran out of the hall and over to me, placing her hand on my shoulder. She looked up at Tony, "is he ok?"

"Psychically, yes, but it is going to take him a while to recover from this. You both are welcome to stay in the Avengers Tower until he is better, we will do whatever we can to help."

-

(A/N): Ok so yeah this is the end - but wait, is it actually? What's this - is this actually going to be a trilogy? That's right! The next (and final) book of this series Reborn from the Void will start being published tomorrow! In the meantime, enjoy this emotional chapter (which honestly is fitting for that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode that came out tonight because wow I thought it was just gonna be a fun episode in the 70s and give us a nice break to breathe but nope I am still recovering and processing everything that happened)

Anyway, I just want to thank everyone that has made it to this point in the story and I really hope that you will continue on to the final book. I've never actually had the momentum to write a trilogy before (as I will usually tire of a story long before then) so I am really excited about this and I hope that you are all excited to see how all of this plays out!