[ for a moment, peter closes his eyes and tries to ground himself, between how tired he feels and how — hollow, maybe. wrung out of everything he had.

but her hands on his serve as anchor, and the cadence of her voice and not for the first time, she offers understanding. parallels. it goes away, she promises. he isn’t so sure, but he wants to trust her in that, so much.

but there’s a news anchor’s voice in his head, loud amidst the rush of a downpour and stretched across a billboard; everything spiderman touches turns to ruin and we, the innocents, are left to pick up the pieces —

eyes flick open, with an inhale in. hair tucked behind his ear. ] Yeah. Yeah, I guess you can’t.

[ he doesn’t know what else to say, just leans forward when she draws him in. you hang on to that. it’s all he can do, as he pulls away, and runs a hand across his face. ] Sorry — [ croaked again, a sniff. ] Sorry you got drawn into this. I didn’t mean it to be so — loud? [ she said her powers reacted to these things, hadn’t she? that they’ve been acting out for the last few days?

sentiment called to sentiment, but he hand’t wanted to make it worse, isn’t sure if he could have ever helped it anyway.

ruin and ruination. ] — and, thank you. For listening. No one else knows all of that, either. Not fully, anyway.