my little versailles
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 — 2:01 AM
It’s been eight days since they reunited those kids, and Tony Stark finds himself awake in the middle of the night.
Tony forgets where he is for a moment, his mind giving way to familiar panic— have to work, have to work, get back to work, you have to figure this out— and then he calms, rubbing his forehead, crouching over. He finds himself pressing his hand to the glowing pacemaker in his chest—it only hurts a little, aching vaguely where his skin graft was removed. He feels like he’s a decade younger again, waking up in a cave with a piece of metal in his chest. Tony hasn’t fainted since it’s been put in, though; he’s been getting healthier by the day, his movements stronger, his medication making him more surefooted.
He had a dream, he remembers. About Peter. Something horrible—that day with the knife, Tony thinks.
Tony remembers that day so clearly. Peter didn't try to escape after that time. Not once.
He drags his hand over his beard, scratches at his face—he gets up then, making one careful glance to the kid asleep on the bed. Pete’s curled up on his side, arms bent up to his chest, asleep with the teddy bear pressed against his chest, under several blankets. His hair is getting more and more tangled, but the several times Tony has offered him a brush or offered to do it himself, Peter just gave him a tired look and went quiet.
In the other corner of the room, little Cassie Paxton-Lang is asleep in her mother’s arms. Technically, neither of them have to be here—the little girl gained enough weight to be considered healthy now. Her respiratory infection has developed into a kind of asthmatic condition—tided over by an inhaler that the girl takes a couple breaths of every evening, which is a hassle, but well-managed. Even some of her hair has grown back—barely half an inch of stubbly brown hair, light enough that they can spot every scar on her head. She’s been released into the care of her parents—yet still they are here in this room, mostly because Cassie refuses to leave Peter.
“Be right back,” Tony whispers, and he moves clutching that cane, moving a little. He just needs the bathroom—a drink of water, maybe.
Somehow, it’s still difficult to walk through doorways; his heart skips a beat whenever he does, like he’s not supposed to. Charlie fucking Keene trained that into him, like a dog with an electric collar.
He walks through the Medbay, back and forth, and Tony remembers—May’s room. It’s room eight, all the way at the end, and she’s still there, barely conscious, recovering bit by bit. Dr. Cho explained what was happening to her; apparently, it’s quite rare for someone in a vegetative state to recover like May has—if the coma lasts more than a month, usually people just…deteriorate. But May’s was caused by a head injury—so instead of deteriorating, the cause was reversible. For head injuries, Cho said, recovery can happen up to a year after the original incident. Although, Cho reminded him, recovery so late from comas caused lasting damage—paralysis, cognitive disorders, all kinds of effects. For May, they’d just have to wait and see.
May has been waking sporadically now, an hour or two a day, and able to communicate decently before falling back asleep. She knows some of what happened, and she struggles to retain the details from day-to-day, but she knows what they keep telling her— as soon as Peter’s well enough, we’ll take him right to you.
He returns to Peter’s Medbay room having eaten a little—and when Tony opens the door, Peter jerks in his sleep, curling unconsciously around that teddy bear, so Tony tries to be a little quieter, closing the door with a soft click.
Then he climbs back into the cot where he was, checks on Peter one more time, and falls asleep.
“Tony?”
He jerks awake, and Peter’s there on the bed, looking at him; beside him, Cassie is still asleep in her mother’s arms. Tony checks his watch: it’s just past three o’clock. Still dark outside, surely.
“Hey, Pete,” Tony says, rubbing his eyes. The kid’s got his knees drawn up to his chest again—why does he keep doing that? Doesn’t it hurt? “Can’t sleep?”
The kid glances again to the little girl, but none of the rest of his body moves—just his eyes, which flit back to Tony, and then down at his Star Wars comforter. And slowly, minutely, Peter shakes his head; his long hair shakes, and the white tube taped down the right side of his cheek pulls a little.
“Anything I can help with?”
Peter stares at him for a long while, as though considering saying something, but eventually he just looks down, curls tighter around himself. His hospital gown is slipped partway down one shoulder, baring several mottled scars—burns.
Tony’s got a few guesses, but he doesn’t want to put ideas in his head. “You wanna try telling me?”
The kid swallows, and his voice comes out a little croaky. “Doesn’t…” he tries, and then he just trails off, his eyes focused down at the crack beneath the door, the sliver of light beneath. He's waiting for someone to come, maybe, someone’s shadow to drift beneath it. “Doesn’t feel…”
Tony doesn’t know what he can say. “It feels weird, right?” he eventually tries. “Being here?”
Peter hugs his knees, and he nods mutely.
“I thought I,” he whispers, “I thought I'd be…”
“I know,” says Tony, because he does. He heard most of Charlie's threats through that phone, his violent promises plastered grainy across his television. “Me, too.”
“And we’re…we’re not?”
Dead?
“No,” he says, soft. “No, Pete, you’re alive, and you’re right here. You’re right here with me. See?”
And then Tony puts his palm out, half-hoping Peter will take his hand; his sleeve pulls back on his wrist, drawing out Tony’s bare forearm, and Peter just glances down at his own, where circular loops of scars-upon-scars mark his own wrist, and the kid just curls tighter around himself. “Are you sure?” he asks quietly, as Tony draws his hand back.
“Very,” Tony whispers back. “You’re out of there, you’re never going back. I promise. They’re all—locked up, all of them.” Some of them are dead, too, but he’s not about to tell Peter that. “No one’s gonna hurt you again, buddy. You’re safe here.”
And Peter doesn’t react, not really. He doesn’t cry or laugh or even smile.
He just stares down at Tony’s chest then, and the spot where his pacemaker glows blue in his chest, and he looks wholly, incredibly sad. And eventually, after a stiff stretch of silence, Peter says, “You… You look different.”
“Yeah,” he says tiredly.
“Did they… Did they…”
He realizes then that Peter never even saw Tony. Never even knew where he was.
“They didn’t hurt me,” he says, “they never hurt me.” Just you, he thinks. Just you, Peter, the only thing that would hurt more.
“Where?”
Tony’s not really supposed to talk about this is he? Sarah and Dr. Miranda told him specifically not to talk about what had happened, but…Peter's not talking about his experience, right? Just asking about Tony’s. “Uh, the lab. Had me locked up in there, working on…stuff.”
“The gun,” says Peter, emptily.
“Yeah,” he says. It sounds so strange whittled down like that—all that effort, all of the chemical reactions, all of the explosive creations—all of the half-made wired weapons laying on the floor of his lab upstate. All of the boxes Riri transferred to him, filled with possibilities. Every box of weaponry that he transferred back, filled with disappointments. The post-it notes covering the tables, the chemical formulas written all over the windows. The gun.
“They didn’t…?”
“No,” he says, “they didn’t even touch me.”
They sit there for longer, and longer, and Peter says, “I've..been here. A while.”
“Yeah,” says Tony, “yeah, you have.”
“And I was there… for…”
“Almost five months,” he says.
“Five months,” he echoes.
“Yeah.”
The kid swallows, his throat shifting, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath the skin of his scarred neck. “You could see me?” he whispers.
“Yeah,” he says again.
“All of it?”
And the way Peter’s looking at him, Tony gets the insinuation, and he says, “Just the chair, Pete, just the chair.”
And the kid’s face twists again, and he looks away, and he buries his face in his knees.
Neither of them sleep; mostly, they just sit where they are and keep talking: Peter on the bed and Tony in his chair. Cassie and her mother, thankfully, sleep through all of their quiet, stilted conversations.
And Peter’s thinking now, his eyes sliding over the comforter. He's got a blanket around his shoulders now, pulled tight. “May,” he whispers, “where is she…”
Tony’s been waiting for this question, and he answers much too quick. “She's down the hall,” he says. “She's right down the hall, I can take you if you want.”
A look of confusion that comes over the kid. “She’s buried down the…” he whispers.
Tony blinks at him. Who told him… He guesses it might be a rational assumption—the last time he saw her was in a car crash. “No, Pete, she’s—she’s alive, buddy, she’s still alive. She was in a coma for a while, they got her head pretty good, but… but yeah. She's still kicking, kid. You know May—always a fighter. She’s in, uh, room eight.” The kid looks at the door and then back at Tony. “You’re in room one,” he adds.
The kid doesn’t say anything, just lets his eyes drift sideways to the doorway. “Charlie…said…” and upon saying the guy's name Peter starts whispering sorry, sorry, and going out again, muttering so quietly.
“Charlie lied,” he says, “she’s been here for a while, kiddo, she’s… She’s a little sick, but she’s here.”
Peter blinks at him then, a weary blink, and his gaze goes down again to the blanket, weighted. “Charlie doesn’t lie,” he whispers, in a defeated croak.
Tony stiffens at that. “Well,” he says, “he lied about that, buddy—she’s definitely still alive.”
“Charlie doesn’t lie,” Peter says, more insistent, and then he’s moving a little, frowning, gripping tightly his arms around his knees. “He doesn’t, he doesn’t lie, he doesn’t—”
“Alright,” Tony says, because the agitation is starting to make Tony think of that television screen, of the way Peter looked at Charlie, of the way he just agreed with everything Charlie said in order to ease the pain. “Okay, yeah, he doesn’t lie, alright, buddy, I believe you—maybe someone else told him she was dead, right?” This is what Sarah told him to do—don’t argue with him. Calm. Stabilize. Arguing is for later.For now, help him. “Maybe? Someone lied to him?”
That seems to put the kid a bit more at ease, because his shoulders go down a bit, and then Peter nods, whispering, “Yeah, someone—then someone lied—lied to him, lied to him…” A shuddery breath. “He doesn’t lie, he doesn’t—doesn’t lie…”
How many mantras has Charlie tortured into him? How many horrible phrases, ideas, thoughts had been beaten into this kid? Tony can’t even remember most of it—without sleep, on so many drugs that sometimes he’d find himself staring at the television long after Peter was dragged away. Most of the time, he wasn’t paying much attention to Charlie’s words—just the wounds on Peter’s body, calculating each day how much more Peter could take.
(Tony, too, recognized the truth of Peter’s situation very early on. He knew he would probably never complete the weapon, not the way Charlie wanted it. He knew he couldn’t rescue Peter. He knew he couldn’t get a message out to Pepper or the Avengers. All he could do, then, was watch Peter wither away. Attempt a project that would only be completed by some miracle above. Watch as the clock ticked down—as Peter’s time on this earth waned. He knew that most likely, no matter how hard he tried, Tony would never be able to save his kid.)
“You wanna,” Tony tries, “go see her? Your aunt May?”
Peter stares at him for a few seconds, his brown eyes focused on his face. His eyes look different somehow, a little larger, a little darker, like pupils wider than usual, a sheen to both that he’s never seen before. Helen mentioned that earlier—that Peter had mutated in there several times, and a gif to the ocular part of his brain had caused his brain to over-heal and mutate his eyes. He can see in the dark now, she said. Infrared, too. You see eyes like those in animals—bats, bugs, wolves, snakes. They have a reflective sheen to them—helps them sense heat, pick out possible predators.
They’re definitely still Peter’s eyes—just a little more intense.
“Peter?” Tony tries again, because the kid hasn’t said a word. “You with me?”
He mumbles a little in response.
“You wanna see May?”
The kid blinks, a little frown, and then looks up again—a nervous nod.
“Yeah?”
God, Peter’s decisions were so rare now that Tony felt actual joy witnessing it happen, like a shot of dopamine straight to his brain.
“It’s a little colder,” he adds, “out in the hallway. If you want a…” He gestures over in the corner, slow, so as not to startle him.
There’s a box of clothes in that corner—some of Clint’s kids’ stuff, some of Peter’s old stuff upstate, some of Tony’s, too, and others that the kid’s friends donated: worn-soft sweatshirts, fuzzy socks, sweatpants, T-shirts and sweaters. Peter hasn’t touched the box yet; maybe today’s the day. “There’s some…sweaters, other things…”
Peter’s eyes drift to it; Tony moves slowly, carefully, getting up and then sitting on the floor next to the box. In just a couple seconds, Peter’s following, too, limping over to the corner, and tubing from the line in his arm pulls tight, the wheeled poles rolling a little bit as he moves. Soon the kid’s sitting on the floor, just the way he was before—with his knees pulled up to his chest, in enough pain that it’s obvious in his face.
They take turns pulling things out; as Tony does it, Peter does, too, although it takes a few more seconds for the kid, as he sifts through it like a child with a toy box. He keeps pulling each item out and staring at it for a while, and there’s something uncomfortable about the way he keeps glancing at Tony between each item, like he’s expecting something to happen.
“It's okay,” he says, softly. “They’re all yours.”
Peter finds one of Tony’s sweatshirts in the bin, and he pulls it out in slow yanks, spreading it out over his lap like it’s something precious: an MIT sweatshirt, a zip-up maroon one with bright white lettering. The thing’s probably thirty years old and seen more than its fair share of hungover mornings, but Peter just presses the thing to his face—the fabric presses against the white tube extending across his cheek. and he inhales a little, like he’s smelling it. “Yours,” Peter says, and he just holds the thing to his chest. That might be an echo, might be Peter saying, Hey, Mr. Stark—this was yours once. Whatever it is, he knows.
“Yeah,” says Tony, and he doesn’t know how the kid could possibly know that—the smell alone? “That's mine, yeah. From college.”
The kid just murmurs, “College,” and dips his face back into the fabric, gripping it with both hands. pressing to his nose. He rifles through the bin again, and he pulls out one item—a sweater of MJ’s, something knitted and purple. He stares at it for a brutally long moment, holding it gently, and then he puts it back inside.
He’s still got that red MIT sweatshirt in his lap, but he’s not putting it on, gripping it with both his hands like someone’s about to rip it from him.
“Hey,” Tony says, and he picks up one from the clothing scattered across the floor—it’s one of his, another sweatshirt from college, gray with red letters, a zip-up one with a hood. “Look, I’ll take one, too, okay? We’ll do it together.” And he shoves his arm into the sleeves, zipping it up over his white tee, and he glances back up at Peter. “See? We’re—we’re the same, okay?”
“Yours,” says Peter quietly, staring at Tony’s chest.
The arc reactor is barely seen through it, the cloth obscuring the blue glow. “Yeah,” says Tony, “from college.” And Peter’s just still staring at it, barely blinking, so he adds, “Last time I wore it I was probably your age. Thought I grew out of that thing a long time ago, but uh, guess I lost some weight.” Tony lets out this weird hitch of a chuckle, but Peter doesn’t seem to find it funny, tightening his arms around his knees.
Tony adjusts the zipper on his, pulling it up a bit more till it reaches his neck, and Peter stares at him for an extraordinarily long time.
But seeing Tony in one seems to put Peter at ease, because soon he’s pulling the thing over his arms, too, struggling with his one casted wrist, pushing through until the fabric stretches over his wrist.
“You want shoes?” he asks.
“Shoes,” Peter echoes.
“Yeah,” says Tony, recognizing the sound of that echolalia, that strange, repeating voice of Peter's. “Or, like, slippers.” He doesn’t have any in the room, but he could go get some. Peter just stares at him; Tony doesn’t want to lose him to old memories again, so he says, “Just for, like, traction, buddy. Might help you walk a little better.”
And the kid nods vaguely, so Tony gets up to get him some, but Peter makes such a sudden gasp of panic that he just sits right back down. “Alright,” he says, “okay, that’s okay. I'll just sit right here then. Maybe just socks?”
Peter’s still shaken from Tony getting up, so Tony gets them himself—pulling out several pairs of socks for the kid, and putting a pair on himself so that Peter will follow. He does—he grabs a pair of thick black ones, and muscle memory comes through—he pulls apart the pair of socks and stares at them loosely before pulling one over his left, then one over his right.
And he wiggles his toes.
Tony smiles—he’s still in there. Peter’s still in there.
It’s difficult, though, getting Peter up and moving. He uses that wheeled pole with the fluid bags hanging as a kind of cane, moving forward inch by inch. On the first try, Peter doesn’t even make it three feet out the door before he’s panicking, choking out unintelligible words, going directly to the first door he can find.
He drops to the floor as soon as he does, curling up against the wall, and Tony shuts the door behind them both. It’s not Peter’s hospital room—just an empty one nearby, Cassie’s old one, maybe, but he doesn’t think the kid’s lucid enough to understand exactly where he is. Peter’s curled up on the floor now, and he’s whispering to himself, fast and panicked, and as Tony gets closer he hears what the kid is saying: “When you run, you get punished—when you run, you—you get punished when you run—you get…”
“Peter,” he says quietly, kneeling beside the kid, “you’re okay, buddy, you’re safe, just remember where you are.”
“Where,” he chokes out, and the kid hits himself in the head suddenly, slapping himself so hard that it leaves a red mark on the side of his face, and it startles Tony badly enough that he freezes where he is, “wh-where, when you—”
Peter keeps mumbling and Tony just sits there dumbfounded as the mark on the side of his face reddens, blood rising to the surface of his skin, and then he winds up and smacks himself again, hard, on the side of his head. Tony can’t grab him—he won’t—God, he’d never seen Peter do this before. Was it agitation? Anger? Self-punishment? Did Charlie tell him to? “Don’t do that, Pete,” he blurts out, trying to stop him, “don’t—don’t hurt yourself, buddy, I hate to see you—”
Peter sobs into his hands then, gripping his face, gripping his hair, clawing at himself with such vigor that he’s leaving more red—pink lines down his face and his neck. “When—when you—when you run—”
“We’re not running,” he says quickly, pressing his hands against the floor, still a little disturbed by the way the kid’s taken violence to himself, “we’re just taking a little walk, that’s all, just a little walk through the Medbay, you know the Medbay, buddy, you’ve been here, right? Right, Pete?”
He’s still repeating that fucking thing—Tony’s heard this before, heard Charlie make him say it.
“We don't have to go, buddy. We don’t have to go out there again.”
A small noise muffled into his arms.
“But it’s safe, I promise it’s safe. No one’s gonna” —Tony swallows— “punish you, no one’s gonna hurt you if you go out there.”
Peter seems so little like this, curled up into a tight little ball, hiding his face in his knees, his arms wound tight around his legs, afraid of the hallway and what it might contain.
“Punish you,” he echoes, this strangled whimper, and then he just goes quiet, hiding his face, his long hair drawing over his legs. “Punish you, punish you—”
That’s the only thing the kid’s focused on—this looking idea of punishment, so Tony says quickly, “Not today, okay? No one will hurt you today.”
Charlie did that a couple times—give the kid a break when he was too wounded to endure anything else. Those days were sometimes worse—the guy liked to move to psychological shit when he couldn’t physically hurt Peter.
(Once, he remembers, he told Peter to crawl to the door. If you make it out of the room, said the bearded man, in less than ten seconds, then I won’t touch a hair on your pretty little head today. Then he started counting down from ten like some fucked-up teacher, and Peter just sat in the chair dumbfounded until seven. Around five he managed to get to the floor and start crawling bloody to the door. And by the time those ten seconds were up, Peter had made it three feet. Three feet. Not even close to the door. Charlie laughed at him then, a horrible slurred laugh, and stood over Peter as he begged and cried. Again, he said, and Peter just sobbed there on the floor.)
Peter just makes this horrible choked sound. “When you—when you run—when—when you run—”
“Pete,” he says softly, and Tony doesn’t know how to explain this to him. He doesn’t know if Peter would even understand. He gets it, though. It's the same reason Tony hesitated in the doorway of his lab.
Charlie taught him never to run away.
And Peter’s always been a fast learner.
“...get punished, when you—run, you get punished—when you run— punished, you get punished…”
“We’re not running ,” he says again. “I promise, Peter, we’re just… .”
And then the kid just starts slapping himself in the face like he’s trying to wake up, hitting himself in the forehead, and then he switches to a fist, punching himself in the side of the head with a closed hand, and again Tony doesn’t know what to do, so he blurts out, “Hey.” And the word’s much sharper than he meant it to be, but he’s not gonna grab the kid and force him to stop or scare him into something else, so this is his only tactic— “you remember your Aunt May?”
And Peter does stop, his hands stilling in his hair, breathing hard, gasping, squeezing his eyes closed and then open again like he’s trying to clear his vision. “Y-yeah,” Peter sobs.
“We gotta go see her, right? You wanna see her?”
“Yeah,” he manages a second time.
“Then we gotta get out in that hallway, buddy. Just for a second—and then you’ll see her, okay?”
A teary nod.
And so the two of them try again—and again—and somewhere around their eighth attempt, they manage to get all the way down the hallway, all the way into May Parker’s room.
Tony shuts the door behind them, making sure Peter hears that telltale click, and Peter’s on the floor again, curled up, gasping in deep breaths in an attempt to gather himself.
Peter chokes out that sentence a couple more times, pulling at his hair—and it seems, strangely, to calm him: “When—when you run, you run, you get punished, you…” And Tony just sits beside him, and waits for him to calm down, and eventually Peter comes back to himself, blinking tearily around, taking in the room, jerking away from Tony before he remembers where he is. “Medbay,” Peter says suddenly, and then he presses his hand into his eyes—shame comes over the kid in a muted wave. “Sorry, s-sorry, I’m—”
“It’s okay,” Tony prompts gently, kneeled on the floor beside him. “We’re just here for May, remember?”
Peter nods shakily, and then the kid forces himself into a standing position, clutching the wheeled pole for balance. In the middle of the room is May’s hospital bed, white-sheeted with a warm yellow comforter over it. Tony doesn’t know when someone put that there, or the colorful posters lining the walls, of eighties vinyl records strung up to the ceiling, of the massive bookshelf in one corner boasting rows of Star Trek novels. It was Pepper. It must’ve been Pepper.
“She’s been going in and out since you got back,” Tony says, watching as the kid looks at his unconscious aunt. “Sometimes awake, but mostly… She’s just tired, I think.”
Peter’s using the metal pole like some kind of cane, helping him forward, limping to her and he just stares . “This is real,” Peter says then, his voice barely a whisper of sound, “right?”
“Very real,” Tony says.
A long silence as he stares at May. He inches forward, a little further and a little further. “Doesn’t..feel…”
Tony asks, “Is there anything I can do to convince you?”
Peter shakes his head. “Just… Just… Don’t leave, okay?”
“I won't,” he says.
In the bed, May looks paler than usual, her brown hair tied back in braids, dressed in a hospital gown with a plastic nasal cannula strung across her face. But she still looks just the same.
“I could get someone to wake her,” Tony says, “if you want.” Anything you want, he thinks. Anything you want, anytime, for the rest of your life, Pete. Anything and everything.
His response is immediate, shaking his head. “No,” he whispers, like he’s trying not to wake a sleeping baby. “Don’t.”
“It's no problem,” Tony says. “Really, most of the nurses are live-in, i could call then right down—”
And now, Peter’s just shaking his head, clutching at that metal pole with both hands. “Don’t want her to see me,” he says, his eyes scanning over May's face, and his face breaks as he looks down at her sleeping form. “I know—I look—I’m a—I look like a—like a freak, like a—I’m a—” and then he’s crying into his hands.
“You’re not a freak,” he says,
Peter just shakes his head, muffled sobbing into his fingers.
“Peter,” he whispers, and when Tony moves closer, Peter backs up against the wall, that red sweatshirt pressing against the wall. “Peter, buddy, you’re not a freak—“
Peter’s just shaking his head and crying, and he’s back to not speaking again, tipping his head into his hands and pulling that broken knee up to his chest with a pained groan.
Tony’s watched Charlie say that hundreds of times to Peter—and that was just on camera. He remembers Charlie forcing him to say it like a confession, Peter choking out the words, and then Charlie patting his back when he did like a proud teacher. That’s right, Parker, he liked to say, you’re not even fucking human! Little fucking freak—YOU’RE FUCKING DISGUSTING! YOU’RE MADE FOR THIS SHIT, YOU SHOULD BE DEAD! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!
That man —that crazy fucking man, high on every drug imaginable, his mind ruined by addiction and abuse—he destroyed Peter. Tony watched and he watched as Peter started to give in—how he went from fighting and shouting, I’m okay! I’m okay! I’ll get us out of here! to going hollow and screaming like an animal every time he entered that horrible room.
And the thing is, that transition... It didn’t take too long at all.
Peter’s hugging that wheeled pole in lieu of a person, and curled up with his back to the wall, and he’s whispering now, “I… I want…” and then he just goes quiet and pushes his hand over his face, as though shielding it from Tony.
“What do you want, buddy?” Another sweatshirt? Pain meds? Cassie?
Peter looks hollow; he looks like someone's carved him like a pumpkin, scooping out his insides with a metal spoon. “A hug,” he whispers, and then ducks his head down, hair drifting, shame clear on his face.
Tony stills. Oh. “Yeah,” he says, and he tries not to move too fast. “Yeah, of course you can, anything you want…”
And then Peter moves back a little, shifting back against the wall, glancing towards the door. “Just a hug,” he says, his voice shaking.
Tony’s gut twists—a wave of nausea rolls over him. “I know,” he says, and he’s already seeing images on the back of his head, flashing through him— Peter, Peter, Peter… His hair, curling wet over his face as he struggles to stay awake, and he coughs up a burst of water, jerking against the cuffs—Charlie cackles beside him, and the kid flinches so badly that his head smacks against the back of the chair. He tries to cough out another word, and all that comes out is more water. “I know, I won’t—I won’t do anything else, buddy, you’re in control. It’s all you.”
And then he moves his hand to Peter, and the kid cringes so badly that his knee cracks and he lets out this horrible gasp of pain. “Sorry,” Peter whispers.
Taking away his hand, Tony quickly says back, “It’s okay, it’s totally okay. I'm not gonna touch you if you don’t want.”
Peter gives him this odd look, his eyebrows drawn in, and then quickly looks away.
He doesn’t really know where the kid’s mind is going. He’s read up on some of this—asked JARVIS about sexual abuse survivors, tried to figure out the best way to talk to him when he’s like this, and it always gave the same few answers: don’t cross physical boundaries, assure them you believe them, that there’s nothing wrong with them, and don’t force them to talk about it.
But honestly, Tony tries not to think much about that aspect of Peter's captivity. How many times it happened. If it was a calculated tactic made by Charlie to break Peter, or if it was just some guy getting his rocks off. And he doesn’t even know who it was. It could've been Charlie or the Chinese guy or the blond guy or even one of the dead ones—it could’ve been anyone . It could be someone who died at the Sandman’s hands—it could be someone they didn’t even catch. Who knows? Maybe it was another captive. That doctor, or Scott Lang, or someone Tony never even saw.
(He doesn’t think it was Scott Lang. He doesn’t. It’s just—he doesn’t know. He hates that he doesn’t know. No one knows for sure, only the police, and those reports are vague and unsure, too.)
Did Riri know about it? Why wouldn’t she tell him? Did Charlie know? Did Cassie?
Peter is scared of everything—so it’s difficult to tell what is a fear of physical violence and what’s a fear of the sexual kind. He supposes they overlap; they must. The sexual trauma they found on him when he first arrived—it was enough that the dark bruises remained for days afterward. He remembers what that one police officer said about the crime scene, too: Evidence of intercourse as close as an hour before law enforcement shower up. Semen from multiple parties, pubic hairs, the like… God, even thinking about this is making Tony grow tense, making something grow heavy in his chest, sick and twisted, and Peter’s looking at him now like Tony’s gonna grab him and rip the red sweatshirt from his skinny shoulders.
So Tony tries to calm himself for the kid’s sake, dropping his hands loosely at his sides in some attempt to look less threatening, and he says, “You—you took back your consent, buddy—I’m—I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want.” Consent for a hug. Consent for a fucking hug and still Peter was scared of him.
And Peter just shakes his head, and he shakes his head again, and he curls up his knees closer to his chest. “Sorry,” he chokes out.
“It’s okay,” he says, “there’s nothing to be sorry for, Pete, nothing at all.”
The kid whimpers out another apology.
So Tony inches his hand out between them, puts it there on May's hospital floor. A foot or so away from Peter, and he just leaves it there: an offering. “Better?” he asks.
He's expecting a nod or at least a whisper, but Peter just stares , his hands drawn up to his chest. One’s still casted from that time he broke out of his restraints—soft white padding covered in strips of red netting, hardened over, shiny silver wires threaded through—steel, so he doesn’t break the cast. “Better,” he whispers back.
And it takes a long time, but inch by inch, Peter sort of grabs onto Tony’s arm, looping in close. It’s not a hug, but it’s something of an equivalent, Peter just hugging Tony’s arm, and then eventually he just tips his face into it. “Don’t move,” he says, and Tony can feel his small, bony self tremble against his arm, “please don’t move, please don’t—”
“I’m not moving,” he says, although he can feel tears prick at his eyes, immeasurable pride for this kid, “I’m not going anywhere.”
And then Peter just cries into tony’s shoulder, and he cries, and he cries, gripping Tony’s arm like a lifeline, like a dog to a bone, like the edge of a cliff. And he cries, pressing his face into Tony’s clothed shoulder, holding it hard enough now that Tony thinks he might bruise. But he just sits there, unmoving, and whispers, gentle, “You’re okay, Pete, you’re okay… I’m right here…”
He can feel it there, the weight of the kid’s forehead pressing against his arm, the drift of his long hair, and Peter mumbles, “I have to go back, have to go back…”
“What?”
Tony forgets sometimes he’s not talking to Peter Parker the engineering intern, Peter Parker the amazing Spider-man, or even Peter Parker the regular—normal—kid. He’s talking to Peter Parker, who spent five months experiencing daily torture, who was brutally beaten every time he tried to escape, every time he fought back, every time he tried to stand up for himself. That Peter Parker has months of evidence that he’s never going to escape.
“Can’t—can’t stay here, I have to go back—have to go back—have to—”
“I told you, buddy,” he says, careful not to move, because Peter just hides his face again in Tony’s clothed arm. “They caught those guys, they’re in prison.”
“Have to,” he chokes out again, “I’m sorry, s-sorry, so-sorry…”
And Tony makes a mistake then—moving his hand towards him, and Peter cringes, staring at him wide-eyed, his breath catching on nothing, halting in his chest, like he’s expecting Tony to grab him by the throat and shake.
“It’s just me,” Tony tries. “I’m not gonna…”
But Peter’s already going, going blank, his mouth slightly open, swaying a bit like someone’s hit him.
God, he hates what they’ve done to his kid, how they’ve morphed him into this non-functional shell of a person, barely able to speak or move without horrific terror, so attached to a little girl that he’s barely cognitive unless she’s there with him.
Honestly, he’s a little relieved that Peter disassociated again. Watching him claw at comprehension is hard, watching him try and fail at understanding something so simple—even walking back to his room would’ve taken so much out of Peter… Now, at least he can actually touch the kid, provide him with some semblance of comfort. That’s all he wanted when he was in there. To touch him. To hold him. To tell him that he was gonna be okay.
Tony’s gotta get Peter back to his bed, so he picks the kid up carefully, gingerly, watching the broken leg, and carries him out of May Parker’s room like a little kid who’s fallen asleep at the end of a long car ride.
Tony walks him all the way back to the room, slow, forgoing his cane in May’s room, shuffling all the way. It’s a slow process, and the wheeled pole follows behind him, scraping slowly on the Medbay tile. In this state, somehow, Peter still knows it’s him—tipping his head a little into Tony’s chest, closing his eyes.
This is his kid.
He loves Pepper and he always will, and he’ll love the baby that comes out of her. But there is nothing in this world, absolutely nothing, that will take him from this wonderful, brave kid ever again.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 — 11:14 AM
The clothing seems, as much as Cassie, to help Peter remain grounded. Tony’s not sure why they didn’t think of it sooner—maybe because it was against Medbay protocol to have a long–term patient out of hospital wear—but now Peter’s wearing clothes constantly.
And with the amount of clothes he’s wearing, Tony thinks, horribly, He was cold? This whole time, he was cold? He rids that bin of its shorts and tanks, replacing them with more of Tony’s old sweatshirts and the Barton kids’ pajama pants. Everything in the bin’s been worn—which serves to make them softer, comfortable, like an old stuffed toy. And Peter wears layers of it—a long sleeved flannel over a soft-knitted sweater, long johns and sweatpants and two pairs of woolen socks.
Like he’s swaddling himself.
There’s not much more medical care to do these days anyway—just making sure he’s eating and improving, checking for infection, monitoring nutrition, bathroom usage, that broken leg… Mostly, they’re just trying to get him stronger, so the clothing isn’t an issue. They’re under instruction to cut off the clothes, anyway, at any sign of emergency.
One of the nurses complains about it—mentioning that it’s more time-consuming to adjust his central line—and Dr. Cho fires him on the spot. “I don’t care if it’s true,” she says calmly, “and I don’t care if it makes your life more difficult. If you can’t show empathy to this boy now, you shouldn’t be on his team.”
The nurse didn’t do anything wrong, not really, but the last thing Peter needs is a member of his medical staff giving him resentful looks and muttered complaints when he’s trying to heal.
Tony forgets sometimes how much he loves Helen Cho. “Helen,” he says, when the woman orders a binful of thermal wear for the kid—sweatshirts lined with heat-conserving thread, merino wool socks, thin cotton thermal pants he can wear beneath his sweatpants, “you’re a miracle worker. Honest to God, a fucking Mother Teresa—you can do whatever you want for the rest of your life, go anywhere, and I’ll pay—”
“I sure hope so,” she says with this amused chuckle. And then she gives him this strange, solemn look, tilting her head a little. “You know, you sound more like yourself, Tony.”
He feels more like himself. With every day, Peter gets better, and Tony feels a bit more like his old self—like Tony Stark. “Thanks,” he says quietly.
The woman just nods, and then she adds, “I’m sorry about before—with Peter. I was really unfamiliar with psychiatry, or his psychiatric condition, and I wasn’t willing to learn. So I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t do him any favors.”
Tony smiles at her then, and he thinks about Peter—with that red MIT sweatshirt zipped all the way over his hospital gown, with the too-big sweatpants pulled over his skinny legs. Peter Parker, after everything he’s been through—pulling on a pair of black socks and wiggling his toes. “Even miracle workers make mistakes,” he says.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 — 4:09 PM
Peter’s staring at Tony's phone.
Tony’s trying to show him something, a video of May while she was awake, one she made for him. Peter keeps looking away, though, getting distracted by some small movement that makes him jump.
“Don’t know where mine is,” Peter says suddenly, quietly, his eyes on his own hands.
A long sentence, a solid one, and Tony warms with pride. “Your what?” he asks, pausing the video.
They’ve given the kid a series of knitted hats—although he only accepts the ones that Ned and MJ sent over—ones he recognizes. This one’s cable-knit with soft blue yarn, and he pulls at it nervously, trying to cover his head. His hair, long as ever, is hidden in the back of his hoodie, and the top of it disappears into his hat, only a few tangled strands snaking free. With his hair all hidden, he looks different—more like a kid. More like the old Peter, maybe.“Maybe…” Peter starts, very quietly, “...it’s still in the car.”
His phone, Tony realizes. He’s asking about his phone.
Tony wasn’t there to see the car crash—and he refuses to watch the footage—but Pepper has explained to him how Peter’s kidnapping actually occurred: how Peter and May were on their way to dinner, how a truck T-boned them with such force that the car flipped over several times, how May never made it out of the car but Peter was dragged bodily out, how Peter fought six men after he’d been drugged and incapacitated four before they took him down.
He supposes it could be in the car; the more likely scenario, however, was that one of Charlie’s thugs took it from the vehicle and destroyed it so it couldn’t be traced.
“We can get you another one,” prompts Tony. “The newest. StarkPhone, iPhone, whatever floats your boat, buddy. You want a new one?”
And he’s expecting Peter to say something like That’s a great idea, Mr. Stark! or Wow, that would be so cool! or Okay, but no Androids! but instead he says nothing and stares at Tony’s phone where it’s sitting in his lap.
And eventually, eventually, he just shrugs.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 — 8:22 PM
At some point, Tony returns to May's room when she’s awake. She's there with Pepper, who is speaking to her in a low voice. He didn’t realize they were friends—probably more, honestly, than he and May are. “You’ve been…taking care…of him…” May says, her voice dry.
“Yeah,” he says. “As best I can.”
Peter hasn't yet visited May while she's awake—but these things take time, and May knows that.
The kid’s aunt manages a small weary smile. “I wish…it were me…” she says, “but…I’m glad…it’s you.”
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 — 9:37 AM
Peter has started to willingly leave Cassie for a few minutes at a time—before he does, he always gives the little girl a series of strict instructions, whispers, mutters, some that they can hear and some they can’t. And then Peter looks her straight in the face, kisses her forehead once, and then hugs her tightly. He’ll look very peculiarly at Maggie Paxton, some kind of mutual understanding passing between them.
And then he’ll leave, making the anxiety-inducing trek with Tony at his side, limping badly, using the wheeled IV pole to help himself along.
He’ll sit beside May’s bed, ask Tony several times if he’s sure she’s asleep, and then he’ll just stay there and watch her. “I can wake her,” Tony keeps saying. “Buddy, she wants to see you—she’ll always want to see you.”
And Peter just shakes his head, and he’ll pull that knitted hat over his head, and just go quiet.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 — 1:50 PM
Matt Murdock and his partner Foggy Nelson come back Thursday afternoon to update them about the arraignment.
“I thought it wasn’t until…” Tony starts, and then he realizes— Sunday. That’s in three days. “Oh, God.”
“Three days,” says Murdock slowly, his red-colored glasses shining slightly. “Sunday. But we need to start preparing Peter for the—”
Tony interrupts, “I thought you said—a video conference, that he could just give his statement.”
Matt Murdock rubs a hand across his forehead. “I thought they’d let it slide—because of how much Peter has endured, I even showed them pictures—but the law is as the law is, Tony. All enhanced people or non-enhanced vigilantes must be physically present in court, defense or prosecution.”
It feels like a physical punch to the chest. “No,” he says. “Matt—Matt, he can’t. ”
The man winces. “I know,” he says. “It’s gonna be hard, but—”
“Hard?” Tony whispers. “ Hard?”
The lawyer grimaces. “We don’t have a choice. Listen to me—the Stark Seven have gotten a legal team.”
Beside him, Pepper sits up a little straighter. “How many?” she asks.
“Six lawyers,” he says, “seven, if you count the man leading—Norman Osborn.”
Tony’s heard the name before—but he can’t remember where it comes from. Pepper seems to remember, though, because she breathes in sharply. “Oh, God,” she whispers. “Osborn?”
Murdock glances at Tony and, reading his confusion, says, “They call him the Green Goblin. Green for the suits he wears, and Goblin for his… Well, his courtroom demeanor. He’s…not a kind man. He’s known for cases like these—massive, press-heavy kinds of cases, and not for the good side. Usually for millions and millions of dollars. And as long as he gets paid, and especially if he is paid in contingency fees, which he usually requires.” His face sours. “Most lawyers aren’t in it for the money, Ms. Parker. But the ones that are—they’ll do anything to win.”
“Do we need more?” Pepper asks. “Lawyers?”
Matt shakes his head. “You don’t want to seem like you’re trying to intimidate the jury or the defense. That would not look good for Peter.”
“But Keene’s doing it—”
“But they’re not enhanced , Ms. Potts. In a court of law, in recent law, the enhanced person is always seen as intimidating the other side, even if they’re technically the victim. It’s just the way it is.” Foggy Nelson, the blond one, is typing something into his computer as Murdock continues to speak. “Enhanced law isn’t easy—we’re going to do the best we can. But unfortunately, Peter will have to appear in court on Sunday. And the defense will be there, too— all of them. They’re required to by law.”
“But Peter—” Tony tries.
“I know,” he says, and the lawyer just looks tired. Everyone, it seems, who has viewed Peter’s files has that same look in their eyes—a weary, horror-stricken look—and that includes Matt Murdock. “I tried to find a way around it, but… Peter has to appear in court. I’m sorry.”
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 — 4:42 PM
Peter’s new fixation on clothing, although helpful to his cognitive state, does create one major problem—it interferes with Peter’s bathing. So yet again, Tony has to speak with him about it. “You can do it yourself,” says Tony, and Peter gives him that horrible look again, “but we just have to make sure, with the central line, that you’re clean—”
The kid’s already getting upset, going taut, and Tony hates that he’s done this to him, made him crook that broken knee up to his chest, made him curl up and cry and just nod, like Tony's forcing him to take a knife to himself.
Still, they have to bathe him. So Tony leaves him with his nurse, who looks terribly apologetic, and she removes his clothes one at a time in order to bathe him a little bit at a time.
“I'm sorry,” Nurse Kaelyn says as she works, and Peter’s just watching her with this horribly dull gaze, and Kaelyn pulls out the first wipe and says with contained upset, “I’m on your right side, Peter, I’m just gonna start with your leg and work my way up.”
And she grabs him, wiping smoothly, and the kid stiffens and relaxes like he’s fighting himself, gripping onto the bed-railing with one hand and looking away. And she doesn’t know when it actually happens—when his mind decides to click off—but it does, and somewhere when she’s working on his chest she looks up at him and he’s just gone , sweat shining on his forehead, blinking blankly, tiredly up at the ceiling.
And as she goes, Peter sort of grabs Kaelyn’s arm, his eyes down, and just grabs on tight. He’s still silent, still mentally gone, but there’s something of Peter there because he’s holding on tightly to her. “You need something?” she asks, and she quickly glances up at his monitors—other than an elevated heart rate, the kid is fine.
“Not her,” the boy says in this strange, breathy croak, and then he shakes a little, and he starts to stroke her arm with his hand, up and down—
Firmly, Kaelyn shoves the kid away from her; Peter Parker just curls in on himself then, a small whimpery sound leaving him, and he shuts his eyes.
She leaves quickly, carefully, a little shaken.
And unfortunately, she has to report that, too.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened with Peter Parker—and it certainly won’t be the last. No one’s suing the hospital, no one’s angry with Peter for what’s happened. They understand why; it’s just… It doesn’t get any easier, even after all this time.
“Again?” whispers Tony Stark, as she informs him. “Oh, god…”
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 — 8:55 PM
Cassie’s hiding under the bed again. She’s been doing it more and more—she feels safe there, all the way by the wall, curled into it, tracing the scratched-up wall with her fingers. She finds solace in the words they wrote. She knows she can’t be hurt as long as she’s under the bed.
Now, Peter doesn’t have to tell her to go. She just does.
When they drag Peter back, his leg is bleeding, gurgling blood. He doesn’t have a shirt anymore—they tore it to shreds. He goes around bare now, half-naked, an animal. His jeans are nearly falling off of him. It’s only a matter of time before he loses those, too.
They took a scalpel to him today, made horribly long cuts down an open patch of skin on his lower thigh. He tries to imagine them as something cooler—claw marks from a bear, scratches from Wolverine, slices from a ninja fight. What would he say if someone asked him? Oh yeah, these? Cool, huh? Got these while sitting in a chair. A bearded guy took a scalpel and cut me up like a Christmas ham. Sexy.
Peter never really thought much about how he looked. He knew he was no Brad, but he was fine with how he looked. He hadn’t really dated much at all, unless he’s counting Skip, and Skip never commented much on his appearance—he was a quiet guy, only ever talking when he wanted Peter to do something. May always called him handsome, though, and Ben called him a regular David Cassidy, whoever that was. He knew MJ liked him—not that she’d like him much anymore with all these horrible scars on him. Who’d want to look at that?
He doesn’t remember when he hit this point—where he realized how ugly he probably looked—somewhere after the second week, maybe, when Charlie cut into his face. Charlie was always saying it, too: GOD, YOU’RE SO FUCKING DISGUSTING—WHO WANTS TO LOOK AT YOU, HUH? STARK—YOU SEEING THIS? THAT’S PUNISHMENT ENOUGH, HA!
Now, MJ would probably take one look at him and puke; even Ned would probably wince and look away.
Now, Peter’s just a piece of fucked-up meat. Now, he’s just ugly.
“That looks bad,” Cassie says, staring down at his leg.
And his first thought is— yeah, I agree, it’s really fucking ugly . And then Peter realizes she means it looks like it hurts, because she’s already digging through the Treasure Chest to find some antiseptic that Haroun gave them last week.
“Needle, too, Cass,” he says, his voice shaky.
He hates doing this.
“Peter.”
Tony’s looking at him like he knows exactly what he’s thinking. And Peter just feels it—the shame come over him like a blanket—he knows. He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows what you’ve done, he knows. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he says. “It’s up to you, buddy.”
But he wants to. May’s there—she’s right there, and he wants to know that she’s okay.
“Yeah,” Peter manages, and he squeezes his eyes shut. She’s gonna hate you—SHE WON’T—SHE LOVES YOU—MAY LOVES YOU—
— but you didn’t save her, did you? You left her in that car to rot. You left her there to die. You’re Spider-Man, you’re not a hero anymore, you’re just a freak, a pathetic fucking freak, and you didn’t save her—
He hits himself hard on the side of the head, and the thoughts dissipate amongst the pain, and beside him, Tony makes a sharp noise— “Peter. Peter, don’t do that.”
He pulls down hard on the hat on his head, yanks it down tight over his hair. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “sorry, sorry…” May loves you, May loves you, she’s always loved you, right? She’ll forgive you, she’ll forgive you, she loves you— HOW COULD ANYONE LOVE YOU LIKE THIS? LOOK AT YOU! YOU’RE UGLY, YOU’RE FUCKING PATHETIC! A FREAK—A STUPID FREAK— AND YOU’RE NEVER GETTING OUT OF HERE—
“Peter,” comes that steady whisper again, and Peter feels something cool inside his chest. “Hey, we can try it another day, if you want.”
Terror clenches at him, worry and worry and he squeezes his eyes shut again. He wants to see her. He does. He has to see her.
But what if she hates him? What if she doesn’t forgive him? What if she takes one look at him and sours, spitting out how pathetic and freakish he is?
What if she doesn’t love him anymore?
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 — 9:46 PM
Although Peter has made this trek now several times, it is difficult for Peter to make his way down the hallway this time. He keeps panicking and turning back. He draws his hood over his hair, hiding it, and he collapses several times on his bad leg, the knee buckling beneath his weight even as he limps. He’s distracted, moving like a wounded animal, stopping in a random empty room and panicking so wildly that Tony has to remind him where he is.
Maybe this isn’t the best day for this. “We could go back,” Tony suggests again, and again, and again. “No one’s gonna make you do this, Peter, no one’s gonna make you see her.”
The kid’s trembling with the force of his terror, dragging his fingernails over his face and over the back of his neck, back against the wall, curled up against it like usual.
And at last, at last, Peter makes it inside.
May’s already awake by the time Peter and Tony enter. She’s awake more and more these days, a couple hours each day now, mostly too tired to do anything other than sit, do an hour or two of physical therapy, and listen to some reading.
But Pepper told May that Peter was coming—so she’s here, she’s awake, and she’s lying down on the bed and looking at Peter with this wonderful, proud smile. She’s tired—very tired—pale with exhaustion, but she’s there. “Hey…tough guy,” she croaks.
Peter, still clutching that wheeled pole for support, rocks back on his heels. He glances back at Tony, who’s standing at the door like some kind of guard, and Tony just nods at him— it’s okay, kiddo. Go ahead.
Turning back to his aunt, he takes one limping, careful step towards her, and then another one. “May?” he whispers.
She’s smiling again, and it’s filled with this knowing sadness, and Peter keeps hiding his face, ducking his head, and some of his hair comes loose from his hooded sweatshirt. Beneath it, his hospital gown hangs, visible, over a warm pair of flannel pants. And he keeps hiding, ducking his face away, and failing to hide himself behind the wheeled metal pole, avoiding her eyes, and she says, her voice dry and croaky, “Oh, don’t…don’t hide your face, baby…lemme…lemme see your…your beautiful face…”
And the kid just sobs. “May—”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, incredibly gentle in a way Tony has never, ever managed to be. “You’re okay, baby, I’ve seen it all before…” It’s a thing moms say to their embarrassed teenagers in changing rooms, something fathers say to kids who won’t get in the bathwater—and it’s what May says to Peter now as he attempts to hide his extensive scarring from her.
And he chokes out another sound, but he moves closer, finally shifting his hands away, and May just takes his face in her hands like something tender—and Peter melts into it. “Oh, baby,” she says,
“Somebody hurt you,” she whispers, scanning his face. “Oh, Peter, oh, baby, come here…”
Peter’s face crumbles; he doesn’t manage to do anything else other than cry helplessly.
“My beautiful boy,” she says, “come here, come on…” And she pats the bed like mothers do in the mornings, knowing that her kid will jump right in—and Peter does.
The kid just sobs, staggering forward, and he climbs into the hospital bed next to her with some pain, and he just falls into her arms—and she takes him right in, cradling him like he’s small. May’s barely able to move, but Peter doesn't seem to notice, burying his frail self into her side, and she just makes this small sound—and shes crying, too, blinking back a sudden rush of tears. And although she's been in a coma—for months, she's been barely responsive—still the kid's aunt manages to drag her hand up and down Peter’s back, whispering, "Oh, my beautiful boy, you're alright, I'm here, I'm here..." and press a shaky kiss to the top of his head, her face shiny with tears—and she breathes a tired sob into her son's hood, and she draws it back with one hand, making Peter clutch closer at her hospital gown.
"May," he chokes out one more time, and she just shushes him, shushes him, pressing another kiss to his bared head, to the mangled dark hair there. Pulling her arm around him, holding Peter close, she reaches his face—the scarred side, where his ear was burned away.
And she presses a wonderful, gentle kiss right there, too. "My beautiful boy," she whispers. "My beautiful, perfect boy..."
Peter sobs again, desperate, apologetic, shallow heaves of sobs, something unintelligible releasing from within him, and he just curls into her like a little kid.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 — 11:51 AM
And then it’s Friday—only two days before the court date.
Two days before Peter has to face those bastards in court; before he has to be in the same room as the people who tortured him so badly he can’t bring himself to speak more than a sentence at a time, so badly that he talks about being punished every time he leaves a room, so badly that he can hardly bear to be touched.
“You have to tell him,” Pepper says, gently, and her hand is there, steady, on the top of his back. They're standing outside Peter's hospital room, watching the kids play through the window in the door. “You can’t blindside him with this kind of thing, Tony. It's too much.”
Tony stares miserably at his kid, who has finally started to settle in. They’ve been putting it off for so long— it’s not like he has to say much, just his name and a yes and a no and a of course, Your Honor. But still. It’s almost time.
Pepper adds, “I know it’s gonna be hard—he’s not gonna take it well—but he, well, he has to be there, sweetheart.”
But he’s made so much progress , Tony wants to complain. He's… he’s talking, he’s leaving the room, he’s hugging his Aunt May… He’s playing with Legos, for God’s sake. He’s doing so well.
But the government—the judge, the jury, Secretary Ross—none of them give a shit about the progress Peter had made, or the trauma he’ll have to endure from seeing the people who tortured him.
“I know,” Tony says, in this hollow whisper.
He glances inside the room through the door’s window as Peter stares at one of those Happy-Meal-turned-care-package-boxes, prying open the cardboard. The kid glances around the room, finding only Cassie on the bed with him, and pulls out the blue Lego box, examining it like a dog would a new chew toy. And with another wary glance around, Peter takes it and gives it to the little girl. He and Cassie are on the bed then, sitting there together, and Cassie shakes the box, spilling Legos out onto the bedspread: plastic blocks are everywhere. They’ll probably lose some in the sheets, and others onto the floor—but neither of them seem to notice or care. Now, Pete’s got one hand on Cassie’s back, and he’s whispering to her, and Cassie’s putting the Legos together, and then he is, too.
“Just…” Tony adds, with this miserable glance through the glass at that wonderful kid, “a little bit longer.”