Uncle Ben used to tell him that all good things end — and all bad things end.

Ben was one of those good things, and Westcott's abuse was one of those bad things.

Maybe it's more complicated than that, but it doesn't always have to be if that's how you can fall asleep at night.

When he wakes up in the morning, the past doesn't consume him. It doesn't drown out the jokes May tells him at breakfast, or the goofy texts he gets from Ned, or the excitement he feels when he realizes its free comic book day. All of these things, they remain untainted. Sure, there was a time when everything was a nightmare that he traversed when he was eight, nine, ten. But Steven Westcott isn't the one in his shoes right now; he isn't going to be the one walk him through life empty, guilty, exhausted. He doesn't deserve such flattery.

Besides, his shoes are too nice for the likes of him: beat up and worn-out. Ned-approved.

Peter wakes up and walks through the house half-coherent. For breakfast, he lounges in bed for absolutely no reason other than laziness with a plate of strawberries and sugar balanced on his chest, and plays a Tetris knock-off with a million ads on it that he can barely see on his cracked phone (It's okay Mr. Stark, really, Parkers aren't good at getting rid of something until it's totally busted). He flosses ritually and winces at the signs of wisdom teeth pushing forward from the very back like a dental mosh pit, leaving his gum sensitive and his cheek eternally pinched. He wears the same jeans again for the second day in a row, because laundry sucks to do and there's no stains to be flustered about, and he pulls on another layer because he likes being warm more than he does cold. He's got three bucks tucked into his bilfold, the remains of a tiny allowance which will sate his sweet tooth before vigilante work; there's a Where's George bill among them, and he wonders where it's been (and then he thinks ugh, it's passed so many hands).

He goes to school — and realizes with some welcomed clarity that nobody in the hallway gives a single shit or know-how about Steven Westcott.

But they know Spider-Man.

Maybe it's immature to smile about that, but he does.

"Are you smiling at nothing?" MJ asks, peering around from behind him. "You loser."

Peter beams. "No, no — now I'm smiling at you."

For the first time in their three years as friends, it seems he's left her speechless, and he doesn't even mean to.

Peter stops by Zeke and Simone's in the afternoon, sometimes, too.

When things are quiet for once in the ever-bustling borough, the two children cross his mind — and then cross it again and again, zig-zagging around in there like a trapped moth. Their mother's name is Becky, and she has very pretty green eyes — and she's young (too young to have an eight year old), single, and extremely in over her head. His sympathy for her is a vast well that is constantly being poured into by relentless storm waters. What do you even say to a mother who feels like she's destroyed her own child by virtue of trusting the wrong person? He can tell she's taking it far worse than May did. Maybe because May had Ben.

But he comes and knocks on the window sometimes to say hello, because Zeke has gone very quiet lately — until Spider-Man comes to visit. It's easy to get a kid out of his dark thoughts, when you make him a swing in his own room. If he can do that at the very least, then he's had a successful day of hero-ing.

Now, Zeke's a freaking awesome kid. He's smart and well-read, and he draws insanely well for his age, Peter's pretty sure. Anything Spider-Man draws with the boy is never as good, and that's something Spider-Man is more than happy to live with. And Zeke's also an avid toy car collector; he lines them up on fifteen dollar plastic shelves that are covered in Avengers stickers and knows the names of all them. There are no stickers of the friendly neighborhood vigilante on anything, of course, but the Avengers don't get to hang out with one of the smartest kids ever, so who is the real winner here?

Zeke's curled up on his couch with his face tucked against his knees, one day, when Spider-Man crawls in on the ceiling; there's something about the way the kid relaxes and looks up hopefully at him that makes Peter never want to let him down — ever. He plays it off and has learned with amazing accuracy how to be cheery in the face of things that are most definitely not. "Heya, Zeke! You wanna work on some homework stuff? I heard you were having a hard time with multiplication."

Zeke's not quite like Peter, after the damage was done; he's been failing classes and lashing out.

Peter had thrown himself deeper and deeper into perfect test scores and extra credit and hid from everyone else.

But it's okay, it'll all be okay, because it's only 5:32 pm in the afternoon, and Spider-Man is more than happy killing an hour with math flash cards. It gives him just as much purpose as anything else he does in the suit.

He feels bad not being able to stop by tomorrow afternoon, but he's got a field trip to get to that is gonna eat up his whole day.

"I'll bring you back something super cool, okay? Pinky promise."

Kids take their pinky promises really seriously; he can't afford to fail him now.

"Oh my goood, Peter, look at this."

Peter uncrosses his legs on the couch to get a better view of May while she's carrying out a large plastic tub from the storage closet. PETER'S STUFF is written on duct tape on the side that is so old, it's fraying like crazy at the ends. Y'know, the kind of old that leaves an impossible stickiness that goes all dark with dust and dirt. She pops the lid and carefully takes out things that Peter admittedly hasn't looked at in — years, really. In fact, it was ever since they'd packed up and moved their things after Ben had died, so they could survive on May's income.

He tucks away the school newspaper he'd been scrolling through and flips onto his stomach to inspect these colorful bits and pieces of his life. Most of this, he can't even remember, but here's the proof of it — things like his father and him at the beach when he could barely walk, or pictures of him and the family cat that had died when he started the fourth grade (Nelly, the orange cat with nine lives, who somehow survived a face-off with lilies). An Iron Man drawing Tony would love to get his hands on for blackmail is perfectly folded on the side of the tub, as well as some of his smarty-pants medallions he'd collected to garner as much approval as possible from the people around him, and some ticket stubs from movies he didn't even particularly like.

"... Man, I really liked hoarding stuff."

... Oh.

At the bottom of the box is his slightly cracked and extremely worn Iron Man mask, which May playfully picks up and holds in front of her own face to nearly startle Peter out of his socks. "Oh, look who it is — How has he been fighting evil when he's trapped in giant Tupperware boxes?"

"Man, that's great; lemme look," he smiles.

She hands it off to Peter, and he runs a thumb over the eternally scratched up plastic eye covers. What feels like forever ago, he had gone to the Stark Expo — just after Steven had started causing years worth of therapy conversations — and had nearly gotten killed by out of control robots being used by a madman. Isn't that something? There he was, stuck spiraling into being nearly nonverbal, chastising himself for worrying his family, feeling like he was never gonna be freed from it; he donned the mask that day and, suddenly, he felt like he could do anything.

And even more than that, he was far less scared of deadly suits than he was the babysitter. He had faced this murderous robot down, one that would have been more than happy to kill him without so much as a second glance. Peter had aimed his hand with confidence, feeling something inside him bubbling to the surface (if I can't protect myself from the bad things, I can protect my aunt and uncle) and — fired. And Iron Man looked at him, glinting in the night lights, and said he'd done good.

Peter held onto that until the day he walked in and found Mr. Stark talking to May on the couch.

"... You're not going to start — wearing it around the house again, are you?" May asks, wrinkling her nose.

"What?" Peter flusters. "Nooo, no. No."

That would be ridiculous.

Not more than an hour later, Peter is laying on his bed with the Iron Man mask put on, absently twisting and turning the parts of an over-used Rubix Cube in his hands. Hours later and a few tacks worth of decorating, he's gotten brave enough to start putting his own pictures and trinkets on the new cork-board above his desk, filling those spaces once left for experiment notes with things from the Tupperware Box of Memories —reminders. He'd had a hard time before, looking at his own face, as if he were a walking landmine that he couldn't afford to pay attention to... But this is good.

These things are proof, that he wasn't a bad kid. And most certainly not alone. And most certainly not unhappy, not every day, and most certainly not forever. If he were gone tomorrow, he'd want people to know. That he was good, no matter what happened to him before. He was here. He tried his best, and he likes to think he succeeded somewhere in that mess.

Removing the Iron Man mask and letting it sit against his stomach, he closes his eyes and has a really, really good dream.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, guys...!

This epilogue takes place daaaangerously close to Infinity War, so if you have seen the movie it probably changes some of the things written here (into something depressing probably, let's be honest). But I wanted to try and leave it on a good note regardless of the future events of IW, even if my writing comes across as a little corny here probably. I can't believe how much I wrote in a few days, hahaha... Jeez. If you liked, shoot me a comment or kudos, and keep an eye out for other Peter-related fanfic! You never know what might pop up. Hopefully something a little less sad of a topic. But knowing my track record... Ehem. Anyway, thank you! Your words mean a lot to me.