Re: Marvel hospital: Gwen & Peter
"At least," he emphasized, and he grinned when she said Aunt May was getting slow. "I'm telling her you said that." Peter was as good at falling back on humor as he was at feeling guilty about, well, a lot. It didn't mean he wasn't worried about Flash and it didn't mean everything was okay, not by a long shot, but dark and brooding wasn't his thing. Besides, when he moped he did it alone. And maybe everything changed when that radioactive spider bit him; he felt like he had a responsibility to do things normal people couldn't do because of his powers, and so he held himself to a higher standard. He was supposed to help because he could.
Okay, so he probably would've been powerless in Silent Hill, but that was a tiny detail he purposely overlooked.
Yeah, Flash was a big boy. He could make his own decisions. But Peter still believed he should've been there, and nothing Gwen said was going to change his mind. When all else fails, shrug. Perfect avoidance technique. "Of course you're not responsible." He sighed. "But you're right. It won't make him better." That much was true; he could literally drown himself in guilt and blame and it wouldn't help Flash in the slightest.
He'd been really, really worried that Gwen wouldn't want to listen to a word he said. That she wouldn't even want to talk to him. It could still go badly, but at least neither of those things'd happened (yet). Peter handed over the water bottle without question, and since she was looking away, well, it was a little easier to get his thoughts together when he was looking at his knees instead of at her; he'd get all tongue-tied otherwise. "Well, uh... it kind of just happened," he began. "We were hanging out. And I felt... different. I think she did, too. It was during the wish thing. I think that had a lot to do with it." Maybe he was just blind, but he didn't think MJ would've kissed him without all that heat, and he wouldn't have... gotten caught up in the moment. He picked absently at his jeans. "We didn't-- we didn't sleep together." He cared about MJ. He did. He cared a lot. And maybe if Gwen wasn't around, maybe if his feelings had faded... but she was, and they hadn't.
When she whispered, though, he was a different kind of quiet. He dragged his gaze up from his knees, and understanding clicked in. His eyes widened. Oh. Now all that stuff about the comics made sense. "That doesn't mean--" He stopped and swallowed. Hard. "That doesn't mean it was fate."