39 Personal Therapy

"But if your father was among the dead, would you have stopped me?"

The air in the room seemed to stop as Gwen looked horrified.

'Did I go too far?', the thought wormed into his head as she looked like she wished to unhear what he'd just said. Perhaps that question wasn't asked at the best moment.

"Okay. That was unwarrent-

"I don't know", Gwen's answer shut down his hurried apology. 

"What?", he looked at her with raised brows.

"I said I don't know", she said, clenching her fists as though she hated what was coming out of her mouth. "You got me there. Happy?"

"I wouldn't say that I'm happy..."

"But what about you?", She walked forward and poked his chest. "What if you make a mistake? What if you kill someone who could've been redeemed?"

"Sparing people on the chance that they could be redeemed in putting other innocents at risk", he said softly. "Especially supervillains who can throw cars around like they're feathers."

"So you'll kill on the CHANCE that they'll never be redeemed?! Or are you implying that nobody can be redeemed?!"

He stayed silent, mentally sighing a certain character popping up in his head.

Would he kill Loki? A once beloved character turned redeemed hero? One who had a dedicated 'glorious' fanbase?

He had a far greater kill count than Tombstone and had even attempted to wipe out an entire race with the Bifrost. Hell, even the Green Goblin had once switched teams, becoming the Gold Goblin who'd sworn to help the innocent.

Moreover, although Gwen's points about him becoming just as bad as the villains he killed were a crock of shit, they did have some truth to them given his propensity to subconsciously look at himself as the predator in his confrontations - seeing his opponent's death as a necessity regardless of if they had the tiniest bit of good in them.

'But is the risk worth it? Can I in good conscience let go of a villain who has a good chance of coming back after my loved ones?', Peter pondered as he looked into Gwen's beautiful blue eyes. 

'No. No, I can't', he concluded. 

"You got me...on the redeeming part, somewhat...", he admitted, raising his hands in false surrender. "But I still stand by my code. 'Mercy to your enemies is to be cruel to yourself.' Was it Sun Tzu? Eh, it doesn't matter - the quote still stands."

"At least we got common ground", she sighed, plopping back on the bed and wiping her eyes.

Peter gave her a small smile before his eyes flicked to the fridge behind him, realising something.

"Yeah, we did, but I have a confession to make", he exhaled. Keeping this from her would not lead to a healthy relationship which he truly wanted with her.

"Hmm?", she looked back up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Going to drop another bombshell on me, are you?"

"Yeah. It's a big one", Peter said, taking a deep breath, as though preparing for certain doom. "Remember the superterrorist poet with fire powers?"

"Yeah? What about him? The military got him, didn't they?"

"Well...about that..."

***

"What do I do, Toby?", Peter sighed to the garden lizard as it happily gulped down a small bowl of giant crickets - its eyes crinkled in joy. Sometimes, he truly envied Toby - with his simple mind and simple goals.

All he wanted to do was to eat tasty insects, sleep and jump around in the garden. Nothing else bothered him. Even if the world ended but his garden was still intact, he wouldn't mind whatsoever.

Toby was a happy lizard.

Peter lay inclined on his bed with Toby on his chest as he stared into the ceiling, both his heart and mind in turmoil.

'Perhaps I shouldn't have brought that up now, but if I did that after she got over the fact that I don't mind killing, it would've been something akin to a betrayal of trust', Peter thought, letting out a heavy sigh that made Tody tilt his reptilian head in worry, swallowing the last of his crickets.

'Either that, or I'm a dumbass.'

"It's probably the latter isn't it, Toby", he muttered, patting the lizard's head who gave out a croon of content.

After he'd explained what'd happened in the airport in detail - how Killian had killed and mutilated tens of people and how Shaw was prepared to slaughter everybody on the plane, almost a hundred people, by suddenly absorbing its Kinetic energy, he'd informed her that he'd killed both of them with no remorse whatsoever.

She'd gone into a state of shock, a part of her wishing to scream at Peter and call him a murderer and the other telling her that what he'd done was perfectly reasonable.

Her brain seemed to short-circuit as she immediately gave him a robotic goodbye before heading out the door in a daze.

He didn't know what to make of it - he'd expected an outburst, tears and disappointment but he didn't understand this. Perhaps the Professor was right after all, no matter how smart he was, understanding women would be impossible.

"Should I make an equation for that too?", he smiled, and Toby gave him an angry chirp as he climbed onto his head.

"Yeah...I should stop", he agreed.

He didn't know whether he was always like this, but him making light of a stressful situation as a defence mechanism was becoming more common. Perhaps it was the Parker in him, but he really needed to sit down and mull over it instead of pushing it aside or covering it up.

'Is there anything I would like to change from the moment I arrived in this universe?', he thought.

His scientific advancements.

The relationships he'd forged.

The potential he'd created.

The people he'd killed.

His eyes widened as he seemed to be fine with almost all the decisions he'd made, before he frowned.

'The conversation we'd had could've gone much better. I may have been a little too passionate and aggressive', he realised. 'And am I too trigger-happy? Where's all that rage coming from?'

When killing Shaw and Killian, he'd felt furious at them - he didn't know whether it was the righteous kind or the irrational, but it was anger all the same. Even when choking out Tombstone, it had induced anger, and he once used to be a person who'd walk past a car crash, and disregard ethics if it gave him the results he needed.

Sure, he hated unnecessary violence, but was it really the mutilation and death of innocents that got him so riled up? Was he the compassionate hero he never thought he was?

Toby gave out a satisfied chirp as he made Peter's hair his bed, which immediately turned into an annoyed squawk as Peter leaned back, going through every situation where he seemingly lost control of his emotions.

What was the root of his anger?

He let his emotions run free as he searched himself for that tiny part of him that he refused to listen to. The one that spoke the truth that was hard to hear.

When was the last time he truly relaxed? Even when he was with Gwen, his mind was constantly scanning for threats, and any suspicious movement and a part of his brain continued to work on his serums while another planned for the future by taking into account the immense number of variables in the Marvel Multiverse.

The truth was, from the very moment he'd been dropped into this crazy place, he hadn't truly relaxed and done nothing. The moment he was able to forgo sleep, it'd become worse.

Why?

It was simple really.

The One-Above-All, Eternity, Infinity, Mistress Death, The In-Betweener, Master Order and Lord Chaos, The Beyonders, Cosmic Abstracts, The Skrulls, The Chitauri, Galactus, The Infinity Stones, The Cosmic Cube, The Celestials, The Machine that is Earth, The Eternals, Deviants, The Horde, Oblivian, Thanos, The Skyfathers, The Council of Godheads, The Hand, The Brotherhood of Mutants, HYDRA, The Hellfire Club, The Enclave, The Children of the Atom, The Shadow Council and many, many more.

The list went on and on, and although most of them wouldn't spare a random seventeen-year-old a look, he didn't care.

The truth was that it was incredibly overwhelming, so much so that he was still coming to terms with the fact that he was in a fictional universe.

The truth was that need for self-preservation had been warped into anger in a place where he could really die if he made a mistake.

The truth was that...

"I'm scared..."

Peter whispered something he'd been holding in for a long time, and for the first time in a long time - he managed to relax. He closed his eyes as he felt the tinest bit lighter.

A human and a lizard, enjoying the Sunday afternoon - one wondering if his girlfriend would ever call him back, and the other dreaming about frolicking among the grass. 

***

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Be warned, O Reader. The Era of Exams cometh. Prepared thou must be, lest you despair.