Three

Fandom: Spider-Verse movies
Characters: Peter B Parker
Words: 299
Tags: Drabble, Introspection, Character Exploration
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Written for the shortandsweet comm on dreamwidth. For the challenge, it had to stay under 300 words, but I want to come back and expand on this later as I think there's more to explore here. (Also the last line is inspired by a line of dialogue from Farscape.)

Three

It had been scary at first, allowing the small bubble of his life to expand to include another person. For the longest time, it had been him and Aunt May. And that was scary enough at times. So many nightmares in which his enemies learned about his connection to May and tried to hurt her. He couldn't let that happen.

And now that bubble held three. If he was honest, MJ had been a central part of his life long before he finally worked up the courage to propose. But now it was official. Like waving a big challenge at the universe to come mess up his tiny fragile world all over again. He'd already lost too many people.

Two

The first time the bubble shrank, Peter should have felt relief. Instead he felt empty. May was gone, and it wasn't even from the villains of his nightmares. She was just gone.

They were only two again. The thought of letting the number shrink any farther terrified him to his core. MJ was the only person left in his world.

One

The next time the bubble shrank wasn't from supervillains, either. It was from two scribbled signatures on an obscenely thick stack of legal documents. MJ was gone. And it was entirely his fault.

She'd wanted what he no longer had the courage to give her.

So now, here he was, alone in his bubble again.

The universe had accepted his challenge after all.

Three

Peter accepted little Mayday from his wife's arms and cooed gently at her. She was beautiful. He couldn't believe he'd ever been scared of this.

He'd never be able to thank Miles enough for breaking his tightly sealed bubble wide open. And for teaching him that three doesn't have to be such a scary number after all.

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