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* Two months later *

Peter walks through brightly lit corridors, LED lights hurting his eyes. There are not many other people here, only two or three, who give him a small nod as he walks past them. The faint sound of music echoes off of the white walls and floor. He doesn't really understand why the people who work here play music. He guesses it's to help keep people happy and calm, but who could be happy in a place like this?

He turns a corner and sees a receptionist sitting at a desk, writing something down on a post-it note. She looks up as she hears his footsteps approaching and smiles softly.

"Hello, Mr Parker," she says, placing her pen back on her desk.

"Hi," he replies, stopping in front of her and avoiding eye contact as much as possible.

"You'll need to sign in here." She slides a sheet of paper over to him and hands him a pen. He writes his name, the time, and his signature before handing it back to her.

"The usual room," she says, giving him a final small smile before turning back to her work. Peter continues walking down the corridor until he comes across the familiar door, bearing a plaque with the numbers '112'.

He reaches for the door handle and takes a deep breath, his body already starting to shake from nerves.

"Come on, Pete," he mumbles to himself. "You've done this before, you can do it again." He lets out a sigh before pushing the handle down and entering the room.

The room consists of a relatively large bed, a couple of chairs, and some weird-looking machines. He walks over to one of the chairs and sits down softly before finally lifting his eyes and looking over at the bed. The second he does, guilt and sadness flood him and he starts feeling sick. Lying about four feet away from him is Calvin, tucked into the bed and attached to the machines.

By the time the ambulance had arrived at the warehouse, Calvin had already been trapped under the rubble for 20 minutes, enough time for the damage done to his head to set in and pull him into a coma. The doctors said that it's probably for the best right now and that it's easier for his body to heal itself this way. Still, Peter can't bare to see him like this, lying too still in a room that isn't his, not knowing when or if he'll ever wake up again.

He moves the chair closer to the side of Calvin's bed.

"Hey, Cal," he says. He doesn't know whether Calvin can hear him or not, but it's nice being able to talk to him, even if he can't respond. "Sorry I haven't visited you in a couple of days, May's been making me catch up with assignments since I didn't go in for a while." Peter lets out a small chuckle, imagining what Calvin would probably say if he were awake. "I know you'd probably tell me that school's more important than visiting you, but here I am anyway." He tries to remember other recent events that would interest Calvin.

"NASA discovered a new star the other day," he continues. "You probably wouldn't have shut up about it." He sighs as he tries not to think about what the past couple of months would've been like if the accident at the warehouse hadn't happened.

"I'm sorry I got you into this mess," he whispers. "I should have known Octavius would do something like that. And now you're here instead of being at school or sitting at home watching a documentary about frogs or something." Even just thinking about Octavius fills Peter with anger. When the ambulance arrived at the warehouse, they managed to get Otto out as well. The police took him away after that and put him under a higher security watch, promising that he'd never get out again.

"I haven't done much Spider-Man stuff since then," Peter mumbles. "Every time I look at the suit all I can think about is that day and then my spidey-sense goes all weird and then I can't do anything and..." He stops rambling and takes a deep breath to calm himself down. "I know it's all in my head, but you're all I can think about."

Peter reaches out to hold Calvin's hand which is resting above the sheets. As their fingers touch, the beeping on the heart monitor increases a little, making Peter pause. It was probably by chance, he was sure people's heart rates change by themselves all the time. But still, the timing did seem too perfect to just be a coincidence. He decides to test something, and slowly leans closer to Calvin and lightly kisses him. His lips brush against Calvin's and the heart monitor increases again. For the first time in weeks, Peter lets out a laugh.

"I know you're still there," he whispers. "And I'm right here. I'll always be right here. I won't leave you."

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