One :)

Being alone wasn't that hard. Peter had been working at convincing himself of this. He took it all one step at a time, cherishing his little moments of respite when he'd go to visit Aunt May's grave. Every day was a grind. It started with relentless job searching. He wanted to be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and take care of others, but he had to start with himself. It would do him no good to wind up on the streets.

  So after renting a cruddy apartment with crummy plumbing and shoddy air conditioning, he applied for every job he could find in the paper worth making a living. In the coming months, he would focus on saving money and studying for the GED exam to make up for his lost high school experience. It was time to get back on his feet.

  And he did. He found a job working construction for about $18 an hour at a venue just down the street. Peter figured that if he got a job doing something laborious, it would keep him in good shape during the day to still be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man at night.

  He was so determined at the start. Peter knew in his heart what May would have wanted for him, so he tried his best. Being alone couldn't be that hard, so why was he struggling so much? His first day on the job was hell. The boy managed to embarrass himself on several occasions in front of his new coworkers, and they made sure to put him in his place as the new guy. He was genuinely surprised he hadn't already been fired.

  An older worker that went by the name Charlie supervised his work. Charlie was a middle-aged man with short dark hair and a deep gruff voice. He was great at grunting while he worked. The first thing he asked Peter that day once introductions were over was, "You ever seen a grown-ass man naked?" in a deep southern drawl.

"What? No," Peter replied, giving the elder man a withering look.

"Ya want to?"

  Peter gulped, his eyes growing to the size of saucers while he shook his head no hastily. Charlie let out a rumbling hearty laugh, the elder's dad-gut shaking with each tremor of laughter. Peter was then smacked in the back by a giant worn leather-like hand belonging to Charlie as he chortled, "I'm just messing with you son." He found it in himself to smile at least half-heartedly and let out a little chuckle with him. To which, Charlie's laughter immediately died down.

"What's so damn funny?"

"N-nothing, sir!"

  He learned really quickly from Charlie that he was more of a 'do it and learn from your mistakes' kinda guy than a hand-holder. But he was so eager to learn everything he could that he kept pestering the elder with questions which kept getting responded to with annoyed grunts. His barrage of questions and peeved mentor brought back memories of his time with Mr. Stark when he first started his "internship".

  Mr. Stark. He wondered what Ironman would think of him now. After nearly destroying the universe and losing everyone he loved, he felt as though he got what he deserved. But what did Mr. Stark think? Had he forgiven him for all the trouble he caused?

Aunt May's death was all his fault, and he was terrified of the thought of losing anyone else close to him. Peter was convinced he was a danger to society. It was for that reason he took the responsibility upon himself to distance himself from everyone he knew.

  It was while he dwelled on his deceased mentor that he fumbled helping hold a doorframe up for Charlie while he was working at stabilizing it. In his desperation to catch it before the falling doorframe could have caused any damage to their other work, he accidentally overextended his reach and instead knocked it all over as well as the doorframe. All they had worked on the past hour collapsed in one fell swoop. 

"You dumbass!" Charlie barked and Peter winced, "Stay focused!" 

  That was just one of his mess ups throughout the 8 hours he was on the job. He felt defeated and utterly miserable over how many times he'd gotten a tongue-lashing from his strict elder. He'd managed to injure both of his hands during the day, nothing that wouldn't disappear overnight with his rapid healing abilities, but still embarrassing and inconvenient.

  It was on his walk home that Peter recalled he hadn't done his week's grocery shopping yet, which meant there was likely nothing for him to eat when he got home. He was just so exhausted physically and mentally. He thought of stopping somewhere for food, but everything was too out of the way. With that, he decided he'd go to bed hungry, his stomach growling in protest. He missed Aunt May's homecooked meals. Being alone was hard.

  Peter's apartment was on the second floor, room 202. As he jostled his key into the stubborn doorknob, the boy noticed a platter covered in saran wrap, a single sticky note stuck to the top with a smiley face :) drawn on top. Once he'd gotten the door freed, he bent down and picked up the platter. It's still warm, he thought. He must have just missed whoever left it.

  Closing the apartment door behind him, he set the platter down on the kitchen counter and opted to change out of his work clothes before investigating the mystery food. After a brisk shower, Peter entered the kitchen once again and scrutinized the doorstep food. It was oddly convenient. Way too convenient. What if it was poisoned?

  Pulling the sticky note off and tearing off the saran wrap, his nose was assaulted by an array of enticing scents, his stomach grumbling loudly as a reminder that he hadn't yet eaten today. Surely it couldn't be poison if it smelled this good, right? It was a creamy chicken pasta of sorts. He noted how his danger sense had yet to fire off.

  Peter wasted no time fishing a plastic fork out of his near-empty silverware drawer and eagerly took a bite of the mystery pasta. Melting into the kitchen counter stool, Peter found his first genuine smile of the day as tears welled up in his dark eyes.

  That night after studying for a couple of hours, Peter went to bed determined to find who was responsible for saving him from a night gone hungry.

And just across the hall, she went to bed grinning ear to ear at her latest good deed. She swore he'd never find her out.