Chapter 13
They went back to Oliver’s room eventually, watching a movie or four to distract them while he gathered his thoughts. Occasionally, he interjected with some depressing thing that he just realized had been weighing on his shoulders. He talked a lot about his mom, good memories and bad ones. Peter talks about his uncle and his parents. He didn't really know his parents, so the grief was different, but he knew his uncle. He was there for his uncle.
Eventually, around 2 am, they both got to the state of tiredness where they went giggly and stupid. Oliver decided to play the worst movies he’s ever seen, starting with one called Antboy. Peter thought it was hilarious. It was nice. Being stupid and goofy. It had been a while. Plus, when the main villain flew, it looked like he was farting.
Around 4am, the door opened.
A groggy Mr. Stark peered into the space confused. “What are you guys doing?”
They both froze. “Did we wake you up? Sorry for being so loud I just-“ Oliver started rambling. The mood of the room was replaced with a need to come up with an excuse.
“Oliver asked me to come. You ever seen antboy Mr. Stark?”
He looked at Peter, baffled by the calm.
“Nope. Is it any good?” Mr. Stark sat on the edge of the bed, a smile peeling away drowsiness. It was that easy?
The silly feeling had gone away now and Oliver was beginning to realise how tired he actually was. His head felt almost as heavy as his eyelids and he struggled to keep them open. He didn’t want to fall asleep again, especially not around Peter and Mr. Stark. He didn’t know what he did when he was asleep, especially if he had bad dreams. He just had to stay awake through the end of the movie.
He didn’t know why he was so nervous to fall asleep around them, especially Peter. It’s not like he hadn't spent the last while living in Mr. Stark’s house. Plus they had both seen his most traumatic life moments, a nightmare wouldn’t change anything. But still, it felt like he should be over it all already. Felt like he should be normal again, healed like his bruises.
Oliver caught himself, opening his eyes before his head dropped all the way. He couldn’t remember the last few scenes in the movie. Finally, the movie ended with a terrible attempt at practical effects and a very lame fight. They would leave now maybe, leave him to rest or to fight off sleep or do whatever he wanted.
Peter stood up and stretched. “It’s cool if I stay in my room tonight?” Mr. Stark nodded. What kind of intern has a bedroom in their boss’s house? Come to think of it, Mr. Stark and Peter had a weirdly close relationship for an intern. Maybe Peter was secretly a superhero. Oliver smiled to himself. As if. Peter didn’t need to hide and fight people to save the world. He was smart, he could do it properly.
They both left, leaving the room dark and quiet again. It always felt weird to be abruptly alone. How you could go from being with other people, loud and happy to suddenly all by yourself. No other living beings around. It used to be different when everyone left and his cat was still there. He was alone but not really. Alone but still viewed by something alive. Now he was just alone.
Everytime Oliver felt alone like this he always thought of hamlet. No other medium other then plays seemed to convey loneliness quite the same. Now I am alone. And they look alone. Standing in the middle of an empty stage with countless onlookers watching from the dark. Now I am alone. It never felt the way he wanted it to.
Oliver woke up the same way. With a jump and a vague memory of lots of blood. He closed his eyes again, listening to his pounding heart go back to resting and feeling the buzzing of his surroundings fade back to quiet. He felt three people outside the room, though he couldn’t tell who they were.
Eventually, he dragged himself out of bed and put on some pleated pants and a orange polo. Bucky was in the kitchen, humming some tune that Oliver sort of recognized, but not enough to name. He was making crepes.
“Making enough-” Bucky jumped at his voice. “Sorry, making enough for me too?”
He relaxed seeing Oliver slide onto a bar stool. “Yeah, of coarse. We got Nutella and strawberries and stuff too if you like that on yours.”
He nodded a little awkwardly and went to take the strawberries out of the fridge. He grabbed a knife, pushing away impulsive thoughts, and started cutting the strawberries and some bananas up.
“Oh and Tony wanted to talk to you about some things.” He nodded towards the living room where Bruce and Mr. Stark sat, taking over whatever show was on the tv. They didn’t seem to be watching. He hated when people told him they needed to talk to him about something and then just left it at that. He always thought the worst. Like Mr. Stark finally decided to kick him out. “I think he said it was about some medical stuff? And school?”
“Oh” school, Oliver had forgotten about that. The last time he was at school it was getting to a week or two before it would let out. He was just finishing exams.
“Have you uh, seen the training room yet?” Bucky broke the silence that had started settling. “I don’t know if you’re into that kind of thing but it helped me process a lot of stuff so I can show you around later if you want.” Oliver looked over at him. He was focusing intently at the crepe currently cooking in the pan. He had never really been one to enjoy working out and such but, he used to have a punching bag and that felt good to use sometimes. Plus, with his newly fucked up body of his, it might make some things easier.
“Yeah sure. Sounds fun.” It didn’t really sound that much fun but he thought he should probably do more with his life then sit in his room and watch tv. Bucky seemed to relax when he accepted the offer too. He was much more uptight without captain America around, though he hid it pretty well.
He put the last crepe on a plate and carried it over to the kitchen table. “Alright boys, breakfast is served.”
“Breakfast? It’s like noon.” Bruce still trotted over to the table and served himself up a crepe.
“Thanks Barnes.” Mr. Stark sat down beside Bruce. “Good Morning Oliver. Or should I say good afternoon.” He smirked in his direction.
“You woke up an hour ago Tony.” Bruce side-eyed the man.
“Hush, don’t give away my secrets. I’m a powerful and productive buisness man who gets up at 6am every morning.” He had Nutella all around his mouth.
“Anyway, Oliver we need to talk to you about some uh, medical stuff.” He eyes Bucky sitting there.
“You can tell me now.” He didn’t really care if he heard. Mr. Stark and Bruce shared a look. It was a concerning look.
“So. Bruce has been testing your blood and doing a lot of different tests and uh. Your body is accelerating.” Mr. Stark wrung his hands. “It’s hard to tell what it implies but your cells are reproducing and dying faster, but they’re also healing faster and becoming more efficient.”
Bruce interjected. “The problem is that it’s speeding up. It started normal but now it’s getting more and more efficient. So right now you might just digest food a little faster and gain muscle or heal faster but there are possibly really harmful ways this could go if your body keeps speeding up.”
“So. I could die faster or what?” They really just left it ominous, as if that would make anything better.
“Actually, although cellular decay is speeding up, cellular reproduction also is so no, your fine in that matter. But if your digestion keeps speeding up and your muscles start developing at too fast a rate you might not be able to keep up with the caloric demand.”
So he’ll starve to death. That’s just wonderful. If that starts he thinks maybe he will just kill himself. Out of mercy. Oliver didn’t want to die like that.
“We’re still monitoring though and trying to figure out how a shock to your brain caused this. We’ll try our best to find a way to stop it.” Mr. Stark seemed genuinely sorry and genuinely determined to find a way to help.
Cool. This was just. Great. Was this shit ever going to stop impacting him so he could actually start healing? Was life going to be boring enough so he could get over it all? Fuck. He was tired. They were all looking at him like he was supposed to say something. What the fuck was he supposed to say. ‘Yay I’m so glad I’m dying!’ ‘Yikes, we’ll it’s okay for now’. Like what did they expect.
“Cool.” He settled with, in a monotone voice.
They all waited a little bit too long. What were they expecting? He wouldn’t break down into tears, he had cried enough. He wasn’t going to yell and scream at them to do better, his throat was too tired. He just stuck with cool, and sat under the expectant stares quietly and still, trying his best to keep control of the buzzing.
Every time the world started buzzing it seemed to go further. Although the emotions obviously strengthened it, maybe his accelerated body was strengthening it too. Oliver tuned out Mr. Stark talking about putting him into a school in the fall, the same place Peter went. If he focused, he could feel the buzzing in the street below. It wasn’t quite a sound, nor what he was used to feeling. Mr. Stark said something about Peter’s friends at the school and college.
Oliver came back to his own body. “Wait, hold on, how long am I supposed to stay here?” collage was still two years away, Mr. Stark couldn’t possibly want to house him for that long.
Mr. Stark seemed taken aback slightly. “Well it's a part of the accords. If a minor is found to have supernatural abilities, the avengers must find a way to eliminate the abilities, or train the individual to control them. Bruce and I, we’re learning but there's no way we know enough about what changed in you to know how to do either of those things. It’s going to take awhile.”
Oh yeah. The government. He hadn't thought about that. The Canadian government has much more lax superhero laws, and that's pretty much all Oliver knew about them. “What.” He took a deep breath. Ask. “What if you don’t figure it out?”
Silence. Again. “We will.”
“What if you don’t”
Bucky finally put down his fork, chiming in after being a silent observer. “They’ll take you to the raft. I can’t imagine you’ll be treated like a prisoner there but, they’ll make certain you can’t ever accidentally hurt anyone.” He didn’t say it, but they all knew. He wouldn’t hurt anyone because he wouldn’t have access to anyone. Fuck. He didn’t want that with his life. He just wanted to be a fucking teenager and young adult and do stupid shit, but not too stupid. He wanted to live a life, not have to worry about- about all this.
Bucky looked at Oliver. Something like compassion in his eyes. “They won't let that happen though. Trust me.”