Chapter 18
Peter gets a request with each fight he wins, and each time he loses there’s a consequence. The more he gains, the more he has to lose, and he’s determined not to lose. He fights people bigger than him, smaller than him, and people with all manner of insane abilities. One man could shoot fire from his hands, and Peter had a handprint singed onto his back. There was a man who could dissolve into black liquid, and another who could become sand. Both took Peter down, leaving him with a set of teeth marks on his calf and a hacking cough from being swarmed with sand.
For the sand, they’d done a surgery, leaving him with a jagged scar down his sternum, although he gained back the ability to breathe. He’d lost his bedding and the single pair of hospital socks that had slowly become his prized possession. He did win them back, but the time spent without them was unpleasant.
A lot of his opponents look like him, without an obvious ability, although they can move a little faster and punch a little harder than they should be able to. Every time Peter is pushed into the ring, he feels it on the edge of his consciousness, the drive to pour everything into the fight, to snap and rampage, causing as much damage as he can before the electricity forces him to stop. He’s only ended up in that place when he’s been injured, but he’s worried that it will get easier and easier the more he succumbs.
Is it really all that bad? a piece of him wonders, after all, you won’t lose. What’s the point of holding on? What are you even holding on to? It’s true that he’s felt his resolve slipping lately. He’s feeling lost, like the past is some fragment of a dream that he foolishly fell for. In fact, he struggles to remember what’s a memory and what’s a dream most days.
He’s been missing the hot chocolate his Babbo would make around the holidays, practically ganache, half the batch with a hint of mint. Aunt Nat and Aunt Pepper would come around, so would Rhodey and May and Ben, and they’d watch christmas movies all night and exchange a few gifts in the early hours of the morning. But, Peter can’t remember it like a memory. It’s soft around the edges, pieces of it shifting as he tries to recall them. Does Steve make fudge or caramel? Both, Peter figures, but it still itches at the back of his mind. He can’t recall the exact shape of his Dad’s perfectly coiffed facial hair, or the number of miles Steve would run in the mornings.
He has dreams sometimes, more like nightmares, in which he wakes up in his own bed, in his own house. His Dad and Steve don’t accuse him of being a monster, but he keeps doing things wrong. They glance at him, frustration and confusion in their glares, and finally they’ll ask what's wrong with him. He’ll apologize and try again, but it’s still wrong.
It’s been so long since he’s made fried eggs or even cereal, and in the dream he just can’t remember how to do anything. He struggles to tie his laces while his Dad hovers, annoyed, and in the worst part, he forgets how to drive, forced behind the wheel of an unfamiliar car with infinitely more buttons and pedals than any car he’s ever seen. But then again, it’s been a while since he’s seen a car. Maybe that’s just how they look to me now, a pessimistic piece of his brain worries.
It’s hard to remember he had a life outside of these four walls and his prized socks, outside of the labyrinth and the cage and the violence. It’s hard to believe that there was a time his hand didn’t shake and his body wasn’t covered in permanent reminders of his worst moments.
That night, he dreams that he wakes up in a field. His cuffs are gone, and there’s nothing in any direction. He could go anywhere. His initial elation is crushed by heavy panic. The idea of making a choice, of taking a step, is paralyzing him. He looks down at his feet and sees that they’re nothing but bones. The field is dying, the world moving on, and then he’s dust, falling and falling.