If You Need Me

Prologue: Time Is A Thief

"I woke this morning and I looked at my life. It was filled with so much sorrow and grief. And in my troubled mind I could see through all my sorrows that time is only a thief. Time is a thief that will rob you of your years. Your youth the only ransom you can pay." - Solomon Burke

* * *

Peter Parker had come to blows with Death on many occasions. They were old friends, and yet Peter was only 22 years old. How could you be old friends with someone when you weren't even that old to begin with?

And yet Peter knew Death intimately.

May always told him that understanding loss was a blessing he would one day appreciate. Because he'd lost so many people in his life, he knew what it meant to nourish those relationships and give everyone that one last parting hug that felt so warm you could feel it all the way down to your toes. Because who knows when you'll see that person again?

Peter could always feel Death breathing down his neck.

And yet, when it was Peter's turn to die from a radioactive spider ... Death spared him. Not only did Death spare him, but Death granted him someone to go through the whole process with.

His best friend.

Death had taken so much from him, and yet Death had also allowed him to keep Cindy Moon.

Maybe that was why Peter felt such a strange connection to Cindy from the beginning. Everyone around him was dying when Peter was younger, and yet Cindy never did. Cindy always came over to his house to play. Cindy always shared her snacks at lunchtime. Cindy always knew how to do the homework he didn't understand, and she always helped him even when he didn't know he needed it.

Cindy was always there. Cindy didn't die on him. And that's why Peter loved Cindy.

And when she became Silk, she became even more invincible. Peter may have been stronger and bigger than her, but Cindy was faster. She could fly faster, twirl through the air at a greater speed, and she was always beating him in every race.

Peter made his webbing. He had to create it. But he'd only created it because Cindy could make her own organically and Peter was not one to be beat. Peter was convinced that's why she was faster than him - because her webbing was organic and a part of her. It shot from her fingertips like ribbons twirling in the wind and in one breath she'd fly up into the air with grace unbeknownst to an average human.

But then, because Death became bored and decided to take another trip to Peter Parker's doorstep ... Cindy died.

But before Cindy died, when they were just best friends, Peter started to have a sudden realization that maybe his best friend and partner in crime wasn't just that. Maybe he wanted more?

He'd always thought of Cindy. He'd always wanted to be with her ever since they were little. Being in her house was one of Peter's favorite places to be. And he always felt better when Cindy was around. But since they'd gotten their powers and since they'd started fighting crime together, Peter had started to want to be around Cindy in an entirely different way.

And the guilt was eating away at him.

"I've been thinking," Peter's said, his voice cracking as he stood in the doorway of Cindy's lab.

"Sounds fascinating," Cindy muttered while looking through her microscope, "We have that history paper due tomorrow and I'd like for you to think more about that, if you wouldn't mind."

"Not about homework," Peter shook his head, stepping into her lab and closing the door behind him, "Just ... other things."

"Things that get you excited from the sound of your heartbeat," Cindy said looking up from her microscope, "You know, I think I could make an entire suit out of my own webbing?"