Chapter 4
The mission, while successful, did not yield any results in the Avenger’s search for Peter. They caught the bad guys, slapped some handcuffs on them, and sent them on their miserable little way to the Raft, but even the most thorough inspection of their operations did not reveal anything to do with Peter. When Fury’s people came through to confiscate the evidence for the SHIELD investigation, Tony had taken the opportunity to contact Fury prematurely.
That had also yielded little to no results.
Fury promised Tony he’d put the feelers out for him and set agents out to investigate the case, but both Tony and Fury knew that if the Avengers couldn’t find the kid, it might be a while before SHIELD could.
So, Tony had returned to the compound and locked himself in his lab to swelter in the heat of his own self-created misery. He’d checked on Happy first, of course. Dr. Cho had been able to clear his system of the worst effects of the poison, but it was potent. Bruce had analyzed the traces of the gas left in Happy’s blood and surmised that it was a gas designed to knock out Peter, meaning Happy was lucky it didn’t kill him. Still, Dr. Cho was confident it would be a week or so before Happy would be able to be woken from his medically-induced coma. She currently had his circulatory system running through an external, artificial filtering machine that she’d designed and Tony had built, but it would take a week to filter all of the toxins from his blood. Until then, he needed to stay under.
Tony distracted himself by trying to perfect everyone’s suits. If he could prevent this from happening to anyone else, he’d be a sliver less miserable, maybe. As he fiddled with a nanotech gadget he was working on for Natasha’s daggers, Friday chimed in over the speakers. “Sir, Captain Rogers requested your presence in the common area. He says it’s urgent.”
Tony frowned. “Tell him some other time, Friday.”
“I’m afraid that he also said he found Mr. Parker.”
Tony’s heart skipped a beat, and before Friday could finish her sentence, he was sprinting across the floor of his lab to the door. He sprinted through the hallways of his floor, nearly tripping over the cleaning robot vacuuming the floor. He threw open the door to the stairwell and nearly threw himself down; he didn’t have time to wait for the elevator. Tony bounded down the steps, skipping multiple steps at a time, his heart racing. Was the boy okay? Was he hurt? Was he… was he even alive?
Tony burst through the door onto the floor the rest of the Avengers shared and raced through the halls until he reached the kitchen attached to the common area. He didn’t spot anyone in the kitchen, which pretty much never happened when everyone was in the house. Someone was always baking or finding something to nibble on. When he rounded the corner and peered into the common area, he saw everyone around the living room staring at the television mounted up on the wall. His eyes followed everyone else’s and Tony skidded to a stop.
He could not believe what he was seeing on the television.
Peter was dressed in a ridiculously frilly costume on a carriage being pulled by some alien-looking creatures. Next to him was a younger girl with a similarly ridiculous costume. His eyes flitted to the subtitles. “What is this?” Tony asked aloud. ANNUAL CHAMPION GAMES TRIBUTE PARADE COMMENCES; TRIBUTES ONE AND TWO MAKE A ‘SPLASHIN’ HIT, TRIBUTES TWENTY-THREE AND TWENTY-FOUR SURPRISE ALL the line read as it ran across the bottom of the screen.
Steve turned and looked at Tony with a concerned look on his face. “We have no idea what this is. They keep talking about some sort of Games, but… we don’t know what they mean. This just interrupted Clint’s movie about five minutes ago.”
Tony nodded at Steve’s words. “Friday, please trace the signal of this broadcast and send the coordinates to Mark 85.”
“On it, sir.”
“Everybody suit up. We’re going to get him once Friday pinpoints the coordinates,” Tony said, looking down at his watch. He was so unfocused that he didn’t even acknowledge the time– he started to feel jittery, and he felt the heat of anger rise through him as he continued to watch the screen. Peter and the girl he was with looked nervous– they looked scared. This was not good. That was Peter Parker on the screen– Peter Parker, not Spider-Man. “Have you guys been watching for long enough to know what all this is?” Tony asked the room, pointing at the screen. His voice was stern, but not in the typical dry way. His voice was commanding and made everyone in the room stand up a little straighter.
“Some kind of games,” Clint said, standing up from the couch and straightening his jacket. He had a frown on his face. As much as he gave the little shit a hard time, he really did care about him. “I’m not sure what they’re all about, but it seems like a pretty big deal for… these people. Speaking of, not all of them, are… well, not all of them are really people.”
“What the hell is that supposed to m…” Tony’s voice trailed off when his eyes traveled from Clint’s grim face back to the television. Every once in a while, to cut shots from the teenagers being paraded around in their ridiculous costumes, there were shots of the crowd who seemed to be packed in massive steel bleachers. And Clint was right. Only about a fourth of them appeared to be human. The rest…
Tony wanted to faint.
His kid got kidnapped by aliens?
“Natasha, can you get on contacting Thor? Friday, how are the coordinates looking?”
Natasha quietly peeled away from the room while Friday’s voice rang out over the eerily silent living room. “I seem to be having trouble, sir.”
From the corner of Tony’s eyes, something red popped out of the wall behind Steve and he saw Vision phasing into the living room. His face was devoid of emotion, per usual, but even he seemed to be emanating a level of distress that was highly unusual for the android. “I’m afraid that tracing the signal has proven to be impossible. I can only trace it as far as satellites around Earth, but the source comes from beyond this galaxy. I could see that far, but the encryption and security protocols surrounding the signal is far more advanced than anything I can currently decrypt; it could take me several weeks to determine the source of the signal." What Vision didn't add at the end was that By which time, Mr. Parker may be deceased.
It wasn’t often that Tony wanted to stamp his feet and scream and tear his hair out and cry and throw up and melt where he stood, but now was one of those times. If he couldn’t locate the kid, if Friday couldn’t, if Vision couldn’t… he hoped Nat was able to get a hold of Thor. He was their last hope in finding Peter, and it seemed that more often than not Thor showed up of his own volition and never even looked at the extra-galactic communicator that he had that connected to the twin device he’d gifted to the team.
A sudden wave of exhaustion rushed over Tony. He felt completely helpless in this situation. Bruce rushed to his side and helped lower Tony onto a nearby recliner, and Tony sunk his chin into his hand and stroked his beard. His stomach was about to erupt out of his mouth.
“...take a look at the second Games, where Klen-Od reigned victorious over the star-themed arena…”
Everyone who wasn’t already looking at the television lifted their heads at the mention of someone reigning victory. They wanted to see what exactly these games looked like. Hopeful that this was just some childish game that seemed akin to something like a prank Loki would play on Thor, Tony watched the screen.
And when he watched an alien bash another person’s head in with glowing fists, he fainted.
Peter was eating the most decadent albeit strangest meal he’d ever had.
In the strangest building he’d ever seen.
Surrounded by alien races he didn’t even know existed.
After all the fighting he’d done over the years, he’d met some pretty strange creatures. His personal favorite was the talking raccoon and tree duo that served only to irritate most of the Avengers, but took an odd liking to Peter. He’d met all sorts of races and species, but even then, it was miniscule compared to what he was seeing here.
Lyvernae proved to be helpful in guiding Peter through the experience though she didn’t seem to share the same starry-eye awe that he was in. He seemed to constantly forget about his impending doom and murder in front of him once the games started. She seemed unphased by the bizarre alien architecture and the abilities some of the others displayed during the parade– everything had been a blur but Peter swore he had seen a girl turn herself into water and another guy spawn some sort of creature to pull their carriage to replace the strange horse-like creatures. Cerulean was currently across the table eating dinner with them and talking to the prep teams. Lyv’s fork scraped against her full plate; meanwhile, Peter was gulping down his third plate of food.
“When do we meet our mentor?” Lyv dryly asked, scraping one of the prongs of her fork against the plate.
Cerulean frowned at the sharp noise in disdain. “She’s on her way up right now.” Cerulean stood up from the table and tossed a napkin onto the table. Without a word, the designers and the prep teams departed from the dining room. Peter didn’t really notice because he was too busy scarfing down food, but Lyv sighed.
“Weird people.”
Peter merely grunted a response as he swallowed some food, and Lyv looked upon him judgingly. She was too nervous to stomach anything, Peter determined. “What’s a mentor?” Peter asked through a mouthful of food. Lyv rolled her eyes, but answered his question.
“They help each pair through the games. Usually the mentors are someone who has won a game before. Since we’re the twelfth pair, though, I doubt our mentor will care… people from the twelfth pair have only won, like, three times. And of those three, only one is alive.”
“Who is it?”
“Her name is Ingrid. She was the twenty-third tribute about ten years ago, and nearly lost.”
“What powers does she have?” Peter innocently asked. Both of their attention turned to the hallway leading into the dining room where they heard footsteps, so Lyv’s response was quiet and hushed.
“None, really. She’s just really good at fighting. A warrior from some ancient kingdom or something. I mean, some say that she can communicate with others in their head, but… there’s no way to know if that’s true or just something the Gamemakers said to make their Victor more interesting.”
Peter opened his mouth to respond but stopped when they saw a figure come into the dining room. His fork stopped midair as the woman who he presumed was Ingrid stumbled in. She was very clearly intoxicated to some degree, walking upright and straight but still unsteady enough to give herself away. At least, Peter thought so. Mr. Stark drank a lot, and he was good at covering his tracks, but Peter had grown to recognize someone who’d been drinking because of him.
Ingrid’s eyes traveled between Lyv and Peter before she sighed and slid into the chair Cerulean had been sitting in. “Can’t they vote me in someone who doesn’t look like a breeze could snap them in half for a change?”
Peter was used to people underestimating him due to his size, which is actually what gave him an edge over those who opposed him, but Lyv clearly did not enjoy the insult. “Aren’t you supposed to be supportive of us?”
“Aren’t I? Well, yes. Am I going to be? Probably not. I’ve learned not to get too attached,” Ingrid sighed as she reached for the bottle of deep red wine that sat in the middle of the table. “You need to be like him. Eat some food, bulk up for the big games. You’ll need strength with the tributes they’ve voted in this year.”
While Peter was immediately bewildered by the woman, Lyv did not seem half as impressed. “I know you won your games by pure luck, but it wouldn’t hurt to be a little nicer. We’re about to die, do you want us to be miserable during our last few days here?”
Ingrid lazily lifted the rim of the wine bottle close to her lips. “Nobody in that arena is going to be nice to you, sweetheart. I’m doing you a favor.” She glugged a few gulps of the wine down. Peter had never really seen people drink so… so frenzied before. Like if she didn’t drink enough something awful was going to happen to her. Peter glanced over to Lyv, and for the first time since they’d met, they made eye contact. He was concerned, but she just seemed… unimpressed? Pity, almost? It seemed strange, a fifteen-year-old pitying what Peter presumed was a fully-grown adult, though it was far from the strangest thing that had happened to Peter in the past twenty-four hours…
“So, like… what kind of powers do people have?” Peter innocently asked after swallowing a large gulp of some of the richest soup he’d ever had. Both Astrid and Lyv looked at him with strange expressions. The word power was probably bad too, or something. What else was he supposed to call them?
“Your opponents have abilities that can and will kill you,” Ingrid sighed. She swiveled her body to face Lyv and Peter completely; he saw that as a sign that he’d won over the slightest bit of interest for them. “We’ll go over that after dinner. Tonight we analyze your opponents and gauge potential allies, though…” she looked Peter and Lyv up and down, “don’t be too hopeful. Tomorrow begins the first of two days of training, and then you’ll have an interview, and then you’ll be sent to die.”
After the brief interaction with Ingrid, she excused herself to use the restroom. Peter assumed that she went to vomit up the contents of her stomach, which, based on her words, he felt like he might do too. As he finished up his fourth plate and was finally starting to feel full, he looked down at the viscous red sauce covering whatever kind of steak he was eating. It was oozing all over the rare meat, blood seeping out of the steak and mixing with the crimson sauce, dripping from his spoon and sliding down his throat so he could feel every movement… Peter began to feel very warm as images of all of the bodies over the years started to flash across his eyes. He dropped his spoon to his plate with a clatter and jumped out of his chair, knocking it over to the side. “I…I think I’m going to be sick.”
Peter stepped out of the bathroom, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand. While he’d been leaning over the strange toilet emptying the contents of his stomach, all he could think about was Aunt May. He missed her. Whenever he was sick, Tony would bring him to stay at the apartment with her. She would rub his back while he threw up and make the best chicken noodle soup Peter had ever tasted. It was just about the only thing she was actually good at cooking, and the only thing Peter didn’t have to fake being delicious when he ate. He wished she was here now with him. She would know exactly what to say.
He walked out of the bathroom in a daze and was surprised to see Lyv leaning against the wall, seemingly waiting for him. She studied him with careful eyes and Peter’s face fell to the floor, embarrassed. He hated losing his cool like that. “Sorry,” Peter sheepishly said, scratching the back of his head. “That steak… it just…”
“It’s okay. Stuff like that makes me queasy too.” Her voice was soft for once. It wasn’t dripping with sarcasm or disdain like it had been ever since he’d met her. “Come on. I found a good place where we can talk.”
Lyv led Peter through the maze of a compound. They ran into servants quite often who encouraged Peter and Lyv to get some rest, but the teenage girl just sneered at them until they veered away and continued to do whatever they had been doing. As strong as Peter was, this girl made him feel safe. He realized that she was much closer to his age than he thought; her short stature simply made him think she was much younger. She was mature beyond her years, though, and incredibly witty. That much was obvious with the scathing remarks and quick retorts she made to whoever dared to speak to them in the hallway.
Eventually, Lyv led Peter up a flight of stairs that led to the rooftop of whatever building they were in. It was peaceful up here, and nobody else seemed to have found this spot. There was a garden; greenery and flowers all over the rooftop. Littered throughout the planets were several benches, chairs, and even a fountain, but Lyv did not go for any of these. Instead, she walked towards the edge of the building. Peter furrowed his brows. Was she going to suggest they jumped off? Peter didn’t want to kill anyone, but he also wanted to make it to the games. If he could survive just long enough to give Mr. Stark time to rescue him…
Lyv sat down on the edge and swung her feet to hang over the edge of the building. Peter followed suit. This was a position he often took in the city. He didn’t mind heights anymore. When Peter had first gotten his powers, heights had terrified him. A few times, he’d even have to lift his first mask that he’d sewn for himself while swinging through the streets and vomit his stomach contents onto whatever lucky bystander was below. Now, though, he loved heights. He could be alone, hear his thoughts, let everything else melt away. Peter and Lyv’s feet swung slightly as he gazed over the strange city below him. It really was a hodgepodge of buildings. The streets were full of zig-zags, strange platforms, and dead ends. The architecture didn’t match. The building really did look like someone took patches from a bunch of different alien planets and strung them together.
“So… how do you feel?” Lyv asked. It was the first time she’d addressed him since they’d left the bathroom. Peter stared down at the city below him for a bit, bewildered by the fact that people seemed to be celebrating about a bunch of children about to murder each other.
The truth was, Peter didn’t really know what to feel. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that this wasn’t just some random, chemical-induced fever dream caused by some spies or enemies of the Avengers that kidnapped him. So, he decided to be honest with Lyv.
“I feel… confused. And angry, I think.”
Lyv’s legs retreated from their position dangling over the edge and she curled them up on the ledge in front of her, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. In the pale light of all the stars and shapes in the sky, she really did just look like the scared girl she was. And Peter would have to… well, he couldn’t kill her. But he might have to watch her die.
“I get that,” she softly responded, staring out over the city. “I just wish there was some way we could say ‘screw you’.”
Peter furrowed his brows. “I mean, there’s gotta be a flaw in their system. There’s always a way out-”
Lyv frowned and shook her head. “Maybe where you’re from, Peter, but not here. We aren’t going to leave this place.”
His stomach churned. Lyv didn’t understand. The Avengers were coming for him. Maybe even the Guardians of the freaking Galaxy were coming for him. And he knew they’d get Lyv out of here, too. Maybe all of the kids. Maybe they’d take this place down. However, Peter knew it was futile to try to tell that to Lyv, so he just chose not to answer.
“I like you, Peter. You’re… odd, and your planet certainly isn’t very socialized or habituated with the rest of space, but you just seem… well, you seem like you’re from home.” Lyv’s voice grew a little more soft and a little more shy, and she seemed to sink into her legs a bit. “I know how confused you are at this point. The next two days we get to train and scout out our competition. I didn’t want to get close to you, because that’s a recipe for disaster – either we have to fight or I have to watch you die–” Peter was thinking the same thing, “- but, for the next two days, maybe it’ll be beneficial for us to work together. I… I know a lot, but I’m not a fighter. Are you?”
Peter closed his eyes for a few fleeting moments.
Blood. Fire. Ash. Pain. Death.
He opened them back up.
“Yea, you could say that.” Peter looked down and lazily traced his name over and over again on the wall he was sitting on. “Get bit by a radioactive spider and suddenly you’re the hero of a city.”
“Seems a bit modest. You’re pretty popular on Earth,” Lyv flatly retorted, a little bravery spiking up in her voice again.
Peter glanced over to the girl. “What about you? What’s your story?”
Lyv flinched and seemed to retreat a little bit again. Peter wasn’t sure if that was the right or wrong thing to ask. What does it matter? I’m probably going to die anyway.
Lyv sighed, and craned her head up away from her legs to look at the stars.
“I’m not a fighter, but people like to fixate on my planet.”
Without saying anything else, Lyv opened up the palm of one of her hands up to the sky. Seemingly materializing from nowhere, a small insect appeared on her skin. Peter had never seen anything like it; it was probably one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. His brown eyes grew wide as he stared at it. Its shell scintillated and reflected under the light of the stars in arrays of greens, blues, and violets. It almost seemed to be emanating light itself, and Peter could not help but be mystified by the creature that Lyv had seemingly procured. She smiled softly as she noticed the wonder on Peter’s face.
“This is Arla.”
Peter leaned in closer to the insect. It waggled its antennae at Peter, and Lyv giggled. “She likes you.”
Peter stared for a few moments in wonder before furrowing his brows.
“She’s beautiful. This is super cool and all, I mean – I don’t mean this as a diss, but like, what exactly, you know…” Peter rambled on and on as he tried to make sense of what Lyv was showing him. Why bring a random bug up now? Lyv chuckled and cut Peter off.
“She’s my Familiar. Where I come from, children are few and far between. My kind live long, and don’t mate often.” As she spoke, she began to stroke the shell of the beetle with her pointer finger. The insect shuddered in Lyv’s hand and began to emanate a low, haunting tone. It was one of the most beautiful yet eerie things Peter had ever heard. “But when the rare time comes around a new child is born, we are born with a Familiar. We take on their attributes. Our Familiars give us strength, they give us guidance. Our souls are tied together; therefore, our fates are tied together. What I feel as does Arla; what she feels as do I. We are one, you see? I am Arla, and Arla is me.”
As she continued to stroke the insect, Peter watched something incredible happen. Lyv’s skin turned from the pallid color it typically was into something resembling the insect’s: it began to shine green and violet and blue and scintillate and reflect the stars. Her shoulder blades burst out from underneath her shirt with hard exoskeleton wings sporting the same colors. The song Arla sung grew louder and louder and it was all Peter could hear, Lyv was all he could see–
And then it stopped. Lyv closed her hand, and when Peter looked at her again, he just saw the small, grail girl he’d seen all along. A haunted, bittersweet smile adorned her face, and she hugged her legs again. “It’s a beautiful bond, Peter. Soulmates are rare in this universe, but to be born to one another? It’s akin to a miracle. And these people… for them, our bond exists for entertainment. To them, Arla's only purpose is to provide me with powers to get me through a fight. They don’t know Arla. They don’t know me.”
Peter had nothing to say. He stared at the wall next to Lyv, taking everything she had just told him in. He looked upon the sassy, feisty girl in a different light now. This wasn’t just a moody 15-year-old-girl who was pissed off she was being sent to die. These people were breaking something beautiful that had never even gotten the chance to flourish. They were turning Lyv and Arla into something they were not.
“When I saw what you could do, when my stylist showed me recordings of you fighting on your planet… a part of me wondered if you were like me, too. And you’re not, and that’s okay. But they’re trying to take something beautiful away from you, too, Peter. We can’t let them.”
Peter bit the inside of his cheek so hard he drew blood. She was right. “I… I may not have anything that cool, or meaningful, but…” he sighed. “When what happened to me happened, when…” Uncle Ben’s words flashed through his head “...I knew it was a way for me to make a difference. I swore to never use what I could do for bad things. I just want to save people. And now I’m being told I have to do the opposite of that or die? And not even, like, a dignified death or anything, or like, a warrior’s death.” Peter stopped himself short a little bit when he realized he was rambling, and when he consequently realized he felt like he was on the verge of tears.
“Just like they can’t take me and Arla's beautiful tie away from one another, they can’t take that away from you Peter. Don’t play their game."
When Peter stripped his clothes off and stepped into the shower in his quarters, he leaned against the wall and began to sob as a stream of water immediately started down on him. He’d gone through so much the past 24 hours – no, he’d gone through so much in his entire life. He was tired . He curled himself into a ball on the shower floor and cried for an indefinite amount of time. He mourned his time he’d never get back with MJ and Ned, all the time spent in school he took their company for granted. He mourned the Avengers who might never know what happened to him. He mourned what Tony would probably think and do to himself in Peter’s lifelong absence. He mourned Happy, who was most certainly dead at this point. He mourned Lyv and Arla's beautiful soul bond that was to be twisted and warped for entertainment. Peter cried and cried and cried and mourned and mourned and mourned until he couldn’t breath and his eyes were red and he wanted to tear his skin off of his body until his blood ran down the drains
and everything was so
uncomfortable his skin touched his bones he wanted to bleed until
he
was
gone
forever
and
ever
he just wanted to
not be.
When Peter crawled into bed, someone entered his room and offered him a small capsule to help him sleep.
If Peter didn’t take this pill, he’d get no rest.
If Peter took the pill, he wouldn’t see any faces dying in his dreams from causes he could’ve stopped.
Almost immediately after swallowing the little tablet, Peter fell into a blissful, dreamless sleep.
A part of him wondered if he should’ve braved the night without medicinal help if only to see Mr. Stark's face.