Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or Spider-Man, be it the movies or comics, and don't make any profit from writing this fanfiction. It is purely for the entertainment of any good reader who might deem it worth reading and for my own personal enjoyment. Also, this is movie-verse on both accounts and happens after the Amazing Spider-Man, but before the second movie.

Prologue

It was amazing just how fast New York was rebuilding itself. The streets were still full of debris and smashed cars covered the roads, even as the populace milled throughout the city, going about their usual businesses. Many buildings were still wrecked and missing entire walls or even a few floors shorter, left open like rotting wounds. Some were to be demolished because they were beyond repair, others would simply be reconstructed and fixed.

Some things, however, were much more harder to heal.

A lot of people had been killed or perished in the destruction wrought by the alien invaders. Graveyards were filled with mourners and funerals were abundant among the seas of cold, lifeless marble stones. Many had died but many had lived on still, scarred as they had become.

Time mended a broken heart, people said, but what about ashes and dust? Could you patch up something that was now just a gaping hole in an aching chest?

Still, the world hadn't ended that day, but for one Peter Parker, it might as well have.

After all, the world hadended for her.

Peter clenched his fist around the wooden frame of the photograph until they were white and his grip almost painful. It was nothing compared with the pain in his heart.

Aunt May.His mind whispered brokenly. Why?

Why? Why? Why?He'd asked this question a hundred times over, whispered it when he was curled up on his bed and crying in his pillow in that now empty house, shouted it to the heavens as he soured above the ruins of the city and screamed at himself with those unanswered questions that burned in his eyes like tears.

Why did she have to die? She wasn't supposed to die. Aunt May was supposed to live and be happy and fuss over his and he was supposed to protect her.But he hadn't. He'd failed. And everything came crashing down after that.

It was Uncle Ben all over again, but this time he hadn't even been there to witness it.

"The house collapsed on her,"he remembered a paramedic saying, his face blurred and dark "We'd found her in the kitchen, crushed under the debris. She had a broken pelvis, four broken ribs and two fractured ones and a dislocated spine. We believe she survived the initial impact of the ceiling crashing down on her. She also suffered because a rib had punctured her lung, causing it to collapse. We have her in the ER now, but it's doubtful she'll ever wake up, Mr. Parker, it might be better, for all parties involved, if you just pulled the plug."

The words left his numb and reeling at the same time, the voice speaking to him distant and the syllables fluctuating strangely, yet so clear in his mind.

"I'm sorry, but we still need you to identify her. It's procedure."

Oh God, he didn't want to think about it anymore. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to see her blank, pale and lifeless face again as she slept in the white-washed hospital bed or how her expression still held the remnants of pain she must have suffered before finally going under – No, no stop it! Stop it!

He couldn't take it anymore. His insides felt like boiled mush and lava, his mouth still filled with the taste of bile and the puke even when he'd thrown up many times over in the past few days. It felt so unreal and yet the cold fingers of reality held him firmly withing their grasp, clutching and squeezing at his heart as if testing if it too would stop.

Peter wished it would. He wished the pain would go away. But above all, he wished he could have saved her. He wished he could run up to her warm and motherly figure and hear her laugh as he clung to her like a small child. He wished he could have done all of that. No, even better, he wished this entire mess hadn't happened at all.

It all happened because of him.

The monster that had lead the Chitauri Army. The thing that had caused a massive genocide and killed countless innocents with his own hands. He was to blame for all of this. He killed her.

And he was going to pay.

This idea has been bugging me for the last couple of weeks, so I finally decided to write it down. This is just a teaser, just so I can see how people will react to it and decide whether or not to write more. As for Aunt May... Please don't hate me. As you can see, this isn't going to be your fluffy little "Spidey meets the Avengers" kind of fic. This is dark, and I'll give you a fair warning: things will get bad, then worse, then pretty much hit rock bottom before they get any better. Just so you know.

So, review? I really want to know what people think about this. Should I continue or not?