Who needs sleep part one
Peter curls tighter into himself, his knees drawn to his chest, trying to keep the little warmth left in his body. But no matter how much he tucks himself under the old, battered desk, the chill clings to him, sinking deep into his bones. The cold air nips at his exposed skin, and the dampness of his wet clothes makes it even worse. His sweatshirt is too thin for the brutal weather. He wishes he could figure out how to make his body not shiver like this. Maybe if spiders evolved thermoregulation like lizards or some other creatures, he wouldn’t feel like he’s being slowly frozen alive. But then again, no one ever asked him to be Spider-Man.
His teeth chatter against his will, and his breath is visible in the air—thin and shuddering. Peter pushes the cold away as best as he can, burrowing deeper under the desk, trying to keep the small bits of warmth trapped against his body. But it’s a losing battle. His body stays frozen, trapped in a constant state of chill.
‘You’re okay, kid.’
The voice suddenly cuts through the fog in his mind, familiar yet disorienting. Bucky.
Peter wants to ignore it. He wants to tell Bucky to leave him alone, but he can’t. The feeling of isolation gnaws at him, biting through every inch of his self-control. Gotham—wherever he is—feels wrong. The city seems wrong. It’s not New York. It doesn’t smell like New York. And he doesn’t even know how he ended up here. One minute, he’s on the battlefield, surrounded by his friends, and the next thing he knows, he’s here—alone.
But that’s the thing. He’s alone. Alone.
His thoughts whirl, refusing to quiet. There are so many questions he can’t answer. What happened to everyone? Why did they fail? Why did he fail?
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
Peter’s hand twitches at the sound of Bucky’s voice. He can’t stop himself from shaking his head. It feels like a lie. His chest tightens, the guilt clawing at him, choking him as the cold presses in. He should have done more. He could have done more. If only he had done something different, something better.
His fingers dig into the floor beneath him, and he forces himself to stop shaking. He can’t think like this. But it doesn’t help. The green mist starts to crawl back into his vision again—the same horrible, choking sensation he felt before. It’s as though the anger itself is a living thing, pressing against his ribs, suffocating him from the inside.
‘Please, Bucky. Leave me alone.’
The words are harsher now, desperate. Peter’s mind feels heavy, burdened by every failure, every wrong turn that led him here. His hands ache from the glass shards lodged in his skin, but the pain barely registers against the storm of emotions crashing through him. The anger. The regret. The emptiness.
‘Strange, he needs help.’
‘I’m aware. Wanda’s keeping the Pit at bay, but she can’t keep it up for long.’
Peter flinches, not at the words, but at the sudden, overwhelming sense that there are others out there. Other voices. They’re with him, in his mind, talking over each other, as though they’re right next to him. He can hear them so clearly, but they’re not real. They can’t be. There’s no way. He’s alone. He’s always been alone.
‘Is there anything we can do?’
‘Please, quiet,’ Peter thinks, his own voice breaking through the chaos. He can’t handle this. He can’t.
The voices seem to soften for a moment, but the green—no, the anger—pounds harder at his chest. The last thing he wants to do is to break down in the middle of Gotham, surrounded by strangers, by nothing.
His heart races, and his body trembles uncontrollably. He feels like he’s going to burst into flames from the inside out. He just wants the feeling to stop. To end.
‘Sleep, little warrior.’
And just like that, it changes. The gold. It washes over him, like a blanket thrown over his shivering soul. The fury starts to dissipate, piece by piece. The panic dulls, and for just a moment, Peter can breathe. The warmth isn’t his, but it feels like it is. It’s the kind of warmth that someone else gives you when you can’t seem to give it to yourself. It’s fleeting but beautiful, like sunlight breaking through the storm clouds.
He lets out a shaky breath, closing his eyes, allowing the gold to settle inside him. The anger is still there, but it feels distant, not as overwhelming as it was before. The green recedes from his vision like the ebbing tide.
Mantis. It’s her voice. It feels like she’s gently guiding him into a rest he didn’t think he’d ever have again. The warmth that comes with her words is enough to lull him into a hazy sleep, a restless one, but a sleep nonetheless.
His thoughts slow, and he finally surrenders to the weariness pulling at him. The dreams come, fragmented and fuzzy, like a broken signal. He doesn’t know what they mean or where they take him, but he lets go.
The dreams are strange, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit together. He’s running, chasing something—he’s not sure what, but it’s important. He can hear voices calling to him, but none of them sound familiar. They’re distant, muffled, and when he tries to answer, his voice doesn’t come out. He’s running through streets that look like they’re from a nightmare, a place where everything is just a little off, a little too dark. The buildings loom, too tall and too close, but they’re not the skyscrapers he’s used to. He can’t place them. They don’t belong in any city he’s ever seen.
Peter’s chest tightens, his breathing shallow. He’s panicking, but he can’t escape. The city, the shadows, they’re closing in. The walls are pressing in on him. He needs to get out, but every path he takes leads him further into the maze. He feels lost, terrified. He’s running out of time.
And then, something changes.
There’s a sudden noise—a sound that shouldn’t be there. A thundering crash. The ground beneath him shifts. He feels his feet lift off the ground, and his stomach drops.
Peter wakes with a start, his body jerking upright.
His chest heaves as he gasps for breath, sweat dripping down his face despite the cold around him. He blinks, his mind trying to catch up with reality. The green is gone, the warmth still lingering, but for a moment, he doesn’t know where he is.
He’s not in the familiar comfort of his New York. He’s somewhere else. Somewhere wrong. But where? The shadows around him don’t feel like they belong, the air too heavy, too dark.
His heart pounds as he slowly stands, looking around the abandoned classroom. It’s unfamiliar—gritty, cold, unwelcoming. The room feels as worn-down as the city outside. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before.
Where am I?
Peter's disorientation is complete. The city outside is foreign, and though he doesn't know it, he’s in Gotham, far from anything he recognizes. The voices in his head—strange as they are—are the only things grounding him to something familiar. But even they don’t offer much clarity. His physical pain is fading, but confusion is taking its place. This isn’t his world. This isn’t his city. And he doesn’t know what to do next.