someday (i'll make it out of here)

MONDAY, AUGUST 13

(ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DAYS INTO PETER’S CAPTIVITY)

(TEN DAYS BEFORE HE IS RESCUED)

Peter does not feel good.

He really, really doesn’t feel good. 

The past couple days, it’s been getting worse—a fever brought by a wound in his side. 

“…fever,” says the white-coated man, and the man is sitting in front of him on that stool and Peter blinks awake in the corner, hugging himself, bending his broken knee up to his chest, curled up tight. “…let me help…”

Peter feels fucking horrible—the fog of fever pulling at his head, the heat of it pressing whole over his body like an iron. Nausea curling in his stomach and throat, headache buried like an axe in his skull. It makes the fear worse, everything worse—makes his spider-sense tremble at the slightest sound, makes his mind split open at the thought of a memory.

Panic keeps winding and winding up in him—he knows it’s just the doctor, but still he’s afraid. It has been forever since Peter was anything more than Parker or Petey or stupid pathetic Spider-bitch, YOU THINK YOU’RE SO SMART, YOU THINK YOU CAN OUTSMART ME? HUH? YOU’RE NEVER GETTING OUT OF HERE PARKER! YOU’RE GONNA FUCKING DIE HERE! YOU HEAR ME? YOU’RE GONNA FUCKING—

“…Peter?”

He trembles, trying to peel himself away from the memory: Charlie and the hammer, Charlie and the hammer, Charlie and the hammer and his knee breaking open wide—

“Peter, come on, hon, you’re okay…”

Peter comes back to himself with a breath, warm with fever, and something cool presses against his forehead. A touch on his side, gentle, and Peter mumbles, “Mr. Stark?”

The man lets out a small sigh. “Just me, Pete. Dr. Skivorski, you remember me?”

“Yeah,” Peter whispers, and he shuts his eyes tight. If he opens them again, the man might be someone else—Charlie or Beck or any one of the others. “Doc.” The world sways around him; the doctor’s room—wide and gray-walled, filled with used bandages and half-full syringes and blue cloth. 

“That’s right. You with me?”

Peter’s barely clinging to the moment he has now—with the doctor. Safe. He’s safe here. Right? In this room—in this room—his thoughts swirl, laced in nausea, and he tips to the side a little; the man reaches forward and steadies him with his hands; Peter clings to him, and he mumbles out, “Don’t feel so good…” He can feel sweat pool at the back of his neck, slip down his back. Peter’s whole body is heavy with ill, enough that he’s struggling to remember what it was like without it.

“I know,” the man says, and it takes a moment for Peter to remember who he is—the doctor, the white-coated doctor, the only person in the world that can keep Peter safe. “I know, but it’s not too bad, I promise. Just an infection.” The man’s gesturing to some part of Peter—his side, where a dark slash is red and swollen and leaking pus—now wrapped in bandages. “Your immune system is pretty shaky, given everything, so it’s having some trouble fighting it off—I’m gonna give you some more antibiotics, try to get it out of your system, but it might take a couple days…”

Peter slips away again—into a haze of memory: Mr. Stark standing beside him, pointing to his tablet and talking to FRIDAY. Captain America all dressed red and blue, saying, You got heart, kid. Where you from? Ned spinning in a chem lab chair, asking him about the homework. MJ flipping around her worn notebook to reveal a sketch of their teacher’s face.

All of them, alive and well. 

A short glimpse of Aunt May—her dark curly hair, her warm smile, wearing bell-bottom jeans and Uncle Ben’s old shirts, smelling slightly of burnt toast and cheap perfume. Dead, long dead, and somewhere at peace. But Peter? Peter will die here, in this bunker somewhere underground. He has no idea where he is—and he will never know. He will die horribly—starved and wounded and in terrible pain. Peter can only hope that he is alone when it happens—that Cassie will not have to watch. She has seen too much already.

She’s gonna see—she’s gonna—oh, God, she’s gonna watch—

“Peter, hey… ” A hand at his arm, and it hurts. 

He blinks dully; fever pulls at his face, hot. Peter grips the man’s arm—Mr. Stark? “Gonna… gonna die here,” Peter croaks, “gonna…”

“No one’s dying,” says the man firmly. “You’re just a little sick, that’s all.”

Peter shakes his head, pressing his hand into his forehead. Somewhere on his torso, the infected wound burns.

He finds himself thinking of May—her face comes to him like a dream, her features all blurry with fever, dark brown eyes and long hair and thrifted sweaters. May, he thinks. Peter’s never gonna go home—he’s gonna get sicker and sicker and die like this, trapped underground—he’s gonna die…

Peter blinks himself awake again, and he’s lying on his side on a cold table—he jerks awake with a gasp—CHARLIE—WHERE’S CHARLIE—HE’S COMING FOR YOU—

Sound—a horde of voices across the room, and Peter’s whole body trembles. 

“…not contagious?” one is saying, a woman.

The doctor hesitates. “No, it’s not—but he needs some rest, he needs to—“

“He can sleep in his cell,” says another, and there’s a scuffle as the doctor starts to shout— “Wait! He’s not ready! I need more time! He needs—”

There’s a lot of screaming and a physical struggle, the scuff of boots against floor and a massive thump and then there’s a click and the guard says, “Try that again, doc, and that nice white coat’ll be red, you understand me?”

Peter looks over to see the doctor pressed against the wall by two of Charlie’s guys, hands shaking in the air. “Y-yes,” he says. 

“Don’t forget who’s in charge here. One wrong move and you’re dead.”

A shadow coming towards him, and then a hand hard around his arm, and he screams—

“Please—please—be careful with him!”

“Shut the fuck up,” snaps the man. “Your hour’s up. Haroun, grab his legs.”

And the last thing Peter sees—as hands and hands and hands drag him away, is that man in the white coat, 

He spends a long time on the floor of his cell, right in front of the door, and he watches it. It is closed. Cassie sits beneath the bed now like she often does, hugging her knees and looking at him; her dark hair is terribly long, and there are her brown eyes blinking wide under the bed, waiting for him—

—and Peter turns away from her, shame grasps him, a gnarled twisted feeling corkscrewing through his chest, coming over him, and he tries to push himself up, but it hurts too much. He takes a breath—the sweat of fever damp on his skin, and his head’s fuzzy with pain. “Peter,” Cassie whispers, and he can’t find a single word to say in reply.  

He hears her moving—and when she comes back, she’s got a piece of scrap cloth in her hand—he thinks that used to be part of her shirt before they tore it up. It’s barely recognizable anymore, stained with old blood and color faded from wash. It’s a little dark with water, and when she brings it up to his face, he sees a flash of a thousand things—a hammer, a knife, a wire, a belt—and he cringes away. “It’s just water,” she whispers. “Don’t be scared.”

She dabs at his forehead—streaks of wet leaving a pleasant cool—then at his neck and his arms. When she’s done, Cassie lays beside him and takes his hand, squeezing twice to let him know it’s her. 

They lay for a while, Cassie’s little hand in his, and Peter imagines for a while that they are what they dream of: two superhero kids somewhere in Queens, eating sandwiches and saving people, going to school and coming home. Somewhere they’ll never be—somewhere safe.

They will never, ever make it past that door.

They will never, ever leave this fucking place.

“We’re gonna die here,” whispers Cassie after a while.

“Yeah,” Peter whispers back, because he’s told her this many times before.

“I’m not gonna see Mommy again.”

He makes a small sound, a click of his tongue: no.

“Or Jim.”

Peter makes another sound: another no.

“Daddy, maybe.”

“Maybe,” he says softly, his vision swimming with fever. 

For a moment, one stupid moment, Peter thinks of May—he can’t remember what her voice sounds like, and the strain of remembering hurts enough that he stops trying and focuses on Cassie’s voice instead. She’s telling him a story about her father—about Ant-Man, about a woman who dressed like a wasp. It’s not long before the fever takes him then, and he fights it for a couple seconds, clinging to the sound of his kid’s voice, but it comes back, and the fever steals him away.

Peter’s awake again, and the door is closed.

Voices outside the cell.

“Beck, wait,” someone says, and there’s some movement—shoes over concrete. “Give the kid a break, alright? He's sick.”

“Fuck off, Haroun—”

The man scoffs, and there’s a scuffle—Peter doesn’t bother to lift his head—his sweat makes his face stick to the floor, and he tunes back into the sound.

“What's wrong with him?” Beck asks. 

“Doc said he had some kind of infection,” says another. “Treatable, though. Not contagious or anything.”

“Damn it,” he says. “Alright, outta my way—“

“Beck, I’m serious, leave him be—he can’t take this shit all the time—“

“I don't know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t make me say it,” the other says. “Just…go easy on him, alright?”

“Out of my fucking way, Haroun—“

Another scuffle, bodies against bodies, and a thunk against the wall, and someone walks off fast, and someone else comes towards the cell door. 

And Peter hears the door open and terror screams in him—he freezes there where he is, and somewhere behind him he hears Cassie scamper quickly under the bed. 

It’s Beck. Brown-haired, brown-eyed Beck. 

The brown-haired man shuffles in—his zipper’s already down, and Peter freezes where he is—body going frozen at the sound—that slow, sultry shuffle. Wait—wait—wait—

Peter must pass out for a moment because when he wakes Beck is there, one hand on his jaw, pushing him with one hand against the wall. Peter shudders in a breath, and the man says, “Wow—you really do look sick…” and then something else, but Peter loses the sound in the haze of fever and blood-curdling fear.

With his other hand, Beck grazes his knuckles over Peter’s face, and it’s almost kind. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says, his voice echoey in Peter’s aching skull, “you’re burning up.” He’s so fucking delirious, vision going in and out, and Peter finds himself pressing into the touch, because it’s gentle and he hasn’t had gentle in so long…

A memory presses up against his mind, blanketing over him, cool and precious…

(Peter and Mr. Stark are in the lab together, working side by side. 

It’s cold, unusually cold, and Peter shivers. He’s been feeling terrible all day—drifting off in class and at lunch, too. “You alright there, Underoos?” Mr. Stark asks, tipping his head at him. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“Stop Baby Monitoring me,” he complained, “I’m fine. It’s just cold in here.”

“FRIDAY,” says the man, and Peter groans, tipping his head into the workstation, “temp of the room?”

From above them, the AI answers cheerily, “Seventy degrees even, boss.”

“See?” Mr. Stark says, gesturing with his pencil. “FRIDAY doesn’t lie, buddy.”

“I’m just tired,” he says. “We had a decathlon meet last weekend—”

“Tired people don’t shiver, Pete,” he says. “You sick?”

“I’m not sick—”

“FRI, scan the kid for signs of illness.”

“Oh my god, that’s, like, an invasion of privacy—”

But there is FRIDAY’s chirpy voice nonetheless: “Peter’s temperature is currently at one hundred and two point seven, and he has shown signs of chills, unusual tiredness, and has held in several coughs.”

Peter glares at the ceiling. “FRIDAY, you are such a narc.”

Mr. Stark whistles. “Jeez, Pete, one-oh-two?” He gets a little closer, and then he clasps gentle on the back of Peter’s neck, pressing the back of his hand at his forehead. “Well, no wonder you’ve been so tired,” he says. “You’re a damn furnace, kid.”

“Am not,” he says pitifully, stabbing at his notebook with his pencil. “She’s exaggerating.”

FRIDAY, from above: “I would never embellish on your medical status, Peter.”

Mr. Stark tsks again, his hand now gone, and pushes Peter to the door. “Yep—well, that’s enough for today. Medbay. Now. ”

“I’ve got school in the morning,” he complains. 

“Not in that condition you don’t. Come on—I’ll have Cho whip up some of those nice spidey meds for you.”

“No,” he complains. “I hate those. They make me think weird.”

“They’re gonna reduce that fever of yours down to nothing, buddy, so I don’t think you’re in any position to complain.” Peter grumbles under his breath, but he follows Mr. Stark nonetheless out of the lab. 

Mr. Stark gets him set up in the Medbay. Dr. Cho comes in and out a couple times, and some nurse hands him a paper cup with those red-capped pills. He takes them, and afterwards he sleeps for a while—at some point he wakes with a start, the fever worse. “One-oh-three point eight,” says the nurse. “Even enhanced, it shouldn’t be this high. Could be your mutation…”

Peter mumbles something back. He sleeps some more, and when he wakes Mr. Stark is at his side. “Spidey-drugs really knocked you out,” he says. The man’s still dressed in a jeans and tee shirt, red MIT hoodie slung over the chair. “You feeling good enough to eat?”

He murmurs, “Gotta…go home.”

“Don’t worry—I texted your exceptionally attractive aunt about where you were. She hasn’t responded yet, but she knows you’re safe.”

Peter hums, the sound of nothing, and burrows in the Medbay blankets, shudders a little, forcing the blankets up and over his nose and mouth. They are soft and white and knitted. 

“Still cold, huh?” Mr. Stark says. The man touches his forehead again. His hand feels nice. Like Uncle Ben’s used to. “Hm,” he says. “Hungry?”

Peter mumbles out a “no” into the warm blankets, shivering a little more. His stomach churns at the thought.

“Want something to drink, then? Water, apple juice?” A wink. “Gin and tonic?”)

And Peter whispers, “ Mr. Stark?”

A hard slap across the face—Peter hits the ground sideways, his face stinging, his body twisted over the concrete, and he can feel the concrete there with his palms. Swaying, his stomach churning with nausea and his head dizzy with fever, Peter tries to find his bearings but finds only Beck above him. 

Brown-haired, brown-eyed Beck.

“For the last goddamn time,” the man snarls, standing above him, towering like a fucking giant, grabbing him by the jaw so hard that it pains him, because he’s pressing hard into bone with his strong fingers and Peter whimpers at the pain, shifting backwards. “I’m not your fucking Iron-dad."

And Beck leaves Peter there like that, half-passed out on the floor, jaw aching with coming bruising, and the man soon comes back with a bottle of pills. He shakes them, rattling them in their orange container, and Peter doesn’t know what’s going on, and he cringes away from the man. Beck shakes a couple out into his hand, places the bottle on the sink, and kneels down beside him. “Here,” he says. “Take them.”

In his palm, a couple white tablets.

Peter is shivering, and his vision does, too; before him in Beck’s open palm, the little white pills tremble. He’s coated in sweat, his head weighty like it's filled with cement, and when Peter tries to move away he collapses on the ground again, weak, his palms sliding wet over the concrete. “Wh—what—”

“I said take them, you stupid bitch,” the man says, and then Beck’s got a hold on him, forcing his arm around his neck as Peter weakly pushes him back. Trapping him with his arms, the man forces the pills past his cracked lips one at a time, and Peter’s kicking at him, uselessly fighting him; Beck gets his hand over his nose and mouth, clasping impossibly hard, and snaps, “Swallow—fucking swallow, Parker, I’m trying to help you.”

He does as Beck says, and sometime as Beck’s checking his open mouth for the pills’ remains, shoving his finger into Peter’s  mouth and passing around, Peter passes out again, tilting sideways, and when he comes back to his back is to the wall and he’s sort of sitting and Beck is standing in front of him. Beck’s hands are on his belt, and he’s unbuckling, slipping the leather straps dangling on each side of the open zipper, and stepping closer to him. For the first time, somewhere in the daze of fevered confusion, Peter pushes weakly back at Beck’s legs, mumbling, “Don’t… Don’t want…to… ”

Above him, Beck is enormous, his fevered vision turning him huge; all shining white teeth and cigarette smoke, brown scruff and leather belt; the man just laughs and says, “Sweetheart, I don’t care what you want.”

The fear is cold in him—when Beck presses forward, Peter shoves back, and he manages, “No—no—I don’t—” Beck half-winds up and smacks him again, and he finds himself on the floor, again, cheek against floor, and Beck yanks him back up. “Say no to me again,” the man snaps, voice loud, gripping Peter by the jumpsuit’s collar, “say no to me again, Parker, and I swear to God—”

Peter flails, slapping hard against the man, and Beck grapples for him, getting hold of his wrists with too much ease, forcing him up and slamming him down on the concrete bed—WAIT—WAIT—NO— Peter twists, and Beck squeezes hard and he kicks his weak legs, and twists again, so hard that his sweaty forehead bashes into Beck’s nose, and the man’s large hands let go— “Ah!” —clasping his hand to his now-bleeding nose.

For a moment, the room is horribly quiet, Beck breathing hard, sweat glistening on his white face, his mouth open with a sliver of teeth visible, blood slipping down from his nose to his lips; and there, Peter looking up at him, trembling on the bed, dizzy, an ache spreading through his forehead. “Fine,” the man says coldly, wiping at his nose with one hand—a smear of blood at the back of his hand “Have it your way.” and takes his head in his large hands and slams it back on the concrete so hard that his vision speckles out.

And when Peter looks up, Beck’s got Cassie by the arm—he pulled her from under the bed—and she’s screaming and howling and scratching at him with every bit of her seven-year-old power, clawing at him, and Peter mumbles out, feverish, “Not—not her—please— please —”

Cassie and her tangled hair, and he’s grabbing the jumpsuit by the front—shaking her and shaking her and the man is screaming, “SAY NO TO ME AGAIN! SAY NO TO ME AGAIN!”

“I’m sorry,” Peter cries, fast, feeling like throwing up—I’M SORRY—I’M SORRY, PLEASE—NOT HER NOT HER— Peter drops hard off the bed to the ground and throws himself onto him, clinging to his ankles and stroking at his legs with trembling fingers—“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please—please don’t… I won’t fight…”

“You’re sorry?” Beck spits, twisting his face away from Cassie’s clawing fingers. “You’re sorry?”

“Yes—yes—yes, I’m sorry, s-sorry, sorry…”

“You’re sorry?” he repeats, his nose still bloody; he lets go of Cassie then, and she launches herself under the bed, hitting the wall at the back with a thud; Peter can hear her panicked gasps of air—her barely-restrained sobs. 

Peter kneels in front of him, grasping the man’s calf—clutching desperately at the pant leg of his jeans. The denim is rough but washed—smells like laundry detergent. “Yes,” he chokes out.

“Say it like you mean it,” he says, and his voice is like a knife, cutting at Peter, pressing at him, deeper and deeper and deeper.

“I’m—I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” Peter stammers, gripping the denim, rubbing harder at his knee, up at his thigh.

Beck looks down at him—brown-haired, brown-eyed Beck, and he lifts his chin, speckled with blood. “Show me you’re sorry,” he says.

Peter is not a person. Peter is a body. And this body is the only thing that stands between Cassie and the inevitable. The only thing. This body is her human shield. Her only shield. And if keeping her from this means sinking to his knees or rolling onto his belly or doing as Beck tells him…

…then he’ll do it.

He’ll always do it.

When it’s over, Peter lays on his side for a while, that familiar ache growing worse in him, and he thinks, oddly, of MJ.

Her brown hair. Her crooked tooth. Her oversized sweaters. Her sarcastic smirks. 

Peter might’ve liked to have sex with MJ. Who knows. Not like it matters. This is what he gets. Peter doesn’t get the nice stuff: someone who cares, in a bed that he knows, maybe with blankets and a pillow and a gentle touch. Peter doesn’t get that luxury. All he gets is this. Beck and the concrete bed and Cassie with her hands pressed over her ears. Peter has done it dozens of times now, all in this stupid fucking concrete bed, on the concrete floor, and he’s getting used to it—he hates that he’s gotten used to it—he hates that he can feel the shock of fear wash over him every time that door opens, that he knows when to lay on his back and when to lay on his belly and how to move his hands and how to move his hips and when to sit on his knees and look up at him—

All for Cassie.

All of it, all of it for Cassie.

This is the only way he will ever do it. in this room with the door cracked. His skin dark with bruising, his body screaming in pain. with Quentin Beck's hand on him. A man’s voice whispering, Do it like I taught you—

He forces himself to roll onto his back, and with some struggle, Peter pulls his jumpsuit back over his hips and lays on the floor for a second from the effort. He tips his head towards the bed, and there’s his kid—sweet, brave Cassie hiding under the bed like he told her to, and she looks like she’s been crying for a long time—mucus dried in stripes under her nostrils, her eyes red and puffy.  She’s holding herself, frozen stiff, barely blinking. 

She saw.

He knows she saw.

Cassie’s eyes are horribly wide—tense and frozen—and she’s holding herself so tightly. “I’m sorry,” she whisper. “Didn’t–d-didn’t mean to—t’ see…” Cassie trembles, her hair shifting in front of her, tangled dark. “He was gonna—an-and then he—he—” More tears then, and the little girl squeezes her eyes shut, crying with her mouth closed, her chest caving in and out. 

Peter closes his eyes.

He thinks of Aunt May. 

“C’mere,” he says, and before he can say anything else Cassie’s there, hugging him, clutching him so tight that it hurts, pressing into the bruises he already has, and Peter holds her back, cupping the back of her head as she cries. 

“Sca-sca-red,” she sobs wetly, hiccuping through it. “He was gon-gonna, gonna—”

Peter curls his arms around her as close as he can—he wants to meld her to his chest, wants to protect her from what might come. “Quiet, Stinger,” he whispers.

His kid shuts her mouth again, crying muffled, the hiccups hitching inside her chest, her shoulders jerking against his chest, body going tense. Tears come quiet down her face, and Peter holds her close. “G-gon-gonna, he was gonna—”

“I know—”

‘D-don’t wanna—”

“I know, I—I know…”

“Is he gonna—”

He can’t promise that Beck won’t come for her.

Peter won’t lie to her—they never lie to each other. He doesn’t know. Maybe one day Beck will get fed up with Peter, and he’ll peek under the bed and say something about Pop-Tarts and Cassie will poke her head out at the promise of something good. And he’ll—he’ll—

“If he does, I’ll try to stop him,” he whispers, “but if he does...what do you do?”

Cassie sobs. “Op—Operation—ope—ration Sti-Sti-Stinger.”

“Yeah,” says Peter, “remember what I told you?” 

“Hu-hurt him?”

“Yeah. And what else?”

“Fight—and fight—with my whole body—”

“With your whole body,” he echoes, and he knows this is how it has to be. “Where?”

“Eyes, n-nose, ear-ears…”

The fever pushes at him, pries at his eyes and his face, solidifies beneath his skin.

“...be-between legs, neck, ba-back of his—his knees…”

“That’s good, Stinger,” he says, and he’s so fucking tired. “That's real good.”

They learned it in school freshman year—they separated the girls from the boys in gym class. The boys learned not to commit a crime; the girls learned how to defend themselves from one.  

“‘Cause you—you said if he—if he gets me then he won’t sto-stop…”

“Yeah...” Peter whispers, tipping his head back to the ceiling. 

“So I have to—ha-have t’—have t’—hurt him.”

“Yeah,” he says again. “not just him, right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Who else?”

“Anyone who’s n-not you…” She sniffles. “...or Da-Daddy or the—the doc-tor.”

“Good. Good, that’s really good.”

More quiet crying as Cassie calms, sniffling and sniffling and rubbing at her face. “But what if it’s a good guy?” she whispers.

Peter closes his eyes to the world around them. He wishes there was a lock on the inside of this door. He wishes he could keep her safe. “There are no good guys anymore, Stinger. Just you and me.” 

No Iron Man. No Captain America. No Hawkeye or Black Widow or Hulk to save them. Not even Thor.

Just Peter. 

Was he even a superhero anymore? His red-and-blue suit was rotting in his laundry basket. His webshooters were laying on his desk. Even his super-strength was gone now—sapped away by drugs and exhaustion. Day after day, his strength seeps away. Day after day, his resolve withers. 

Maybe Spider-man is dead.

Maybe Spider-man died the day they pulled him from the car and stuck that needle in his back. Maybe he died the day Charlie took out his knee. Or the day Beck walked into the cell. Maybe he picked up that gun and pointed it at Renee’s head.

Yeah. Dead, Peter thinks again, with his sweaty face pressed against the cement. He stares there, at vibranium-reinforced screws bolting the toilet to the floor, at the mess of finger-length scratches all over in the metal plate. Spider-man’s been dead a long time.

Peter’s thinking about it again—the hand gripping Cassie's arm, the white teeth, those large hands, and he feels it happening—the panic, the inevitable, and quiet washes over him, waves lapping in a pond, and he knows what to do, he knows what’s coming and he knows what to do—

—and as he slips away, Peter hears Cassie in a panic, saying, “Wait—Peter, don’t go, don’t—don’t leave me—”

It's no use. It’s quick. Painless. Like falling asleep.

Peter’s already gone. 

There's blood in the toilet. 

Cassie’s across the room—turned around, facing the corner by the Treasure Chest, hands over her ears, sitting quietly and humming to herself. This is how they always do it, the bathroom stuff, just to give each other some semblance of privacy. 

Peter gets up, sways sideways against the concrete wall. His jumpsuit’s damp on the inside—but he draws it back up over his hips, careful, but it still hurts; there’s a shaky ache in his thighs. He jerks his arms into the sleeves one at a time, and then the row of buttons down the front—Cassie’s still waiting for him to finish. He tries to button, he really does, but he can’t. Charlie broke a couple fingers on that hand a few days back, and they’re still healing. 

Mr. Stark was watching—Mr. Stark was watching, and Peter’s just here, a stupid fucked up freak, ruined by scars, a fucking piece of meat rotting in the back of the freezer—

—and somewhere, somewhere, Mr. Stark is screaming his name.

Peter sees it in front of him then, that tiny glowing green light—the camera on the laptop—Mr. Stark’s eyes—the world beyond the bunker—

(Somewhere, somewhere, May lying dead in a crushed car, Ned and MJ laughing without him, his Spider-man suit laying in his laundry basket, his locker with all his books inside. His Spanish homework half-done. His bed unmade. Somewhere there, Mr. Delmar’s sandwich in their apartment fridge: sliced ham, provolone cheese, soft French bread with a spread of yellow mustard, grilled and pressed flat. He was gonna eat it for lunch the next day. 

Peter never did get to eat that sandwich.)

That world—it was gone. Peter would never touch it again. Ever.

This was his world now: blood in the toilet, the wounds around his wrists and ankles worn red, Mr. Stark’s eyes through the laptop camera, the old jumpsuit damp inside, little dark-haired Cassie facing the wall with her eyes closed, still waiting for him to button up.

Peter thinks again of the blood in the toilet, a few drops spreading pink in the water, and Peter’s on the ground then—sweat and tears coming slow from him—did he pass out? And his jumpsuit is still unbuttoned, gaping wide, cold air against his naked chest, and he can feel Beck’s hands on him—wait—wait—please—

—but they’re little hands, Cassie’s hands, cold and small, and she’s buttoning up one at a time, the work hard because her hand’s messed up—crushed bone and skin, his sweet Cassie’s hand.

(Peter remembers when they did that to her. Months ago, years ago, a lifetime ago, when he still had lace-up sneakers and an unmarked face and he was still a virgin. He was something good then, he thinks. Spider-man without his suit. Now he’s something else, he is—a living corpse.)

“I heard you fall,” she whispers. “Sorry I broke the rule. Scared me.”

Their rule—don’t turn around until you’re done at the toilet. “It’s okay,” he mumbles. “Help me sit down.”

It takes some maneuvering and then Peter’s sitting against the wall, and shame presses at his eyes. The tears are bad this time, sounds coming from him he didn’t know he could make, and Peter can’t stop them—sitting up against the wall, and Cassie’s beside him, hugging his arm, and she whispers, “Let’s play a game, let’s play a game.”

He doesn’t say anything at all—Cassie squeezes his hand, a little pressure. “Once upon a time,” she says, quiet as she should be. “Let’s play once upon a time.”

“Okay,” Peter says tiredly, and he just keeps crying—gasps of air, thinking of the blood in the toilet—and Cassie helps him lay down, on his side so he doesn’t hurt his back, and they’re laying on the ground together facing each other, and Peter hates that she has to look at him.

“Once upon a time,” she says, and she’s holding his hand, and all he knows is Cassie, sweet brave Cassie, the only thing that keeps him going, the only thing that keeps him sane, “There was a Spider-man. And he was seventeen. Super old. Super duper old.”

Peter chokes out this sob of a laugh. 

“And he lived in New York with his family and he had friends and every day he went to school and at night he would help people who needed help. In Queens, he lived in Queens, right?”

Peter can’t stop crying, he can’t stop crying, the hot rush of tears that comes, and Cassie just keeps talking.

“And he had a little sister, too. Her name was Cassie, and she was a superhero like Spider-man. She had a cool name. Stinger. And she could fly in the sky with Spider-man, and he’d swing around, and they’d save people…” 

He’s never gonna put on the suit again. Never gonna swing through Queens grasping at webs, never gonna hear Karen through his suit.

(Mr. Stark’s asking him about Karen—about her name, and Peter’s doing his best to explain, Mr. Stark looking more and more confused with each explanation. 

“You named your AI after an AI from a kid’s show?” the man says, crossing his arms. “Very mature.”

Peter blushes. “She’s not an AI! She’s like Plankton’s wife!”

“Who’s Plankton?”

So Peter explains, and Tony nods like he understands, and then Peter explains some more, and he’s halfway through an explanation of the rivalry between Mr. Krabs and Plankton when Tony says, “You know what? Let’s just watch the damn thing. FRIDAY, pull up the first episode.”

So they sit and watch, Peter pointing out every single thing until Tony tosses popcorn kernels at him and shouts, “Any more from the peanut gallery and I’m sending you home!”

It gets late, and Aunt May starts to text him about dinner. Ms. Potts offers to let him stay—calls May to make sure it’s okay, and then they start talking about pizza. “Deep dish,” Ms. Potts suggests. 

“Ned says deep dish is just pizza casserole,” Peter chimes in. 

Mr. Stark nods his head sideways. “Well, he’s not totally wrong…”

“One more word,” warns Ms. Potts, shoving at him, and the man gives her a cheeky smile.

“Yes, whatever you say, my sweet,” he says, with an overdramatic flourish. “Deep dish for mia dolce meta , and Peter, what did you say you wanted?”

“Uh, thin crust…” Peter starts.

“Please don’t say pineapple, please don’t say—“

“…with pineapple.”

“You little weirdo,” Mr. Stark says. “Is this what all kids these days are into? Disgusting food combinations and Cartoon Network references?”

“Spongebob’s on Nickelodeon—“

“You know what I mean.” He waves his hand at him. “Alright,” Mr. Stark says. “One large with pineapple, you want a medium, too?”

“Yes, please,” he says with a blush. “Sorry.”

Mr. Stark tsks, tapping the order into his phone. “Don’t be sorry, Pete—you need enough to satisfy that Spidey-metabolism of yours.”

He picks at his fingernails. “But—”

Mr. Stark waggles his finger at him. “No buts. You want pineapple on that one, too? A little ham?”

He blushes again, feeling warmth rise to his face. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

Mr. Stark returns to his array of screens, those glasses glowing and blinking over the lenses. “Alrighty, looks like we’re all set.” 

They work a little longer—Ms. Potts sits on the couch barefoot and cross-legged, typing out on her computer. Eventually, Mr. Stark’s phone buzzes on the work table and he picks at up, peering at it through his glasses. “Oh, shoot—forgot to get delivery. You mind picking it up, Spider-boy?” He does the motions with his fighters; pinky and index extended, thumb out sideways: pew, pew. 

Peter rolls his eyes, taking off his hoodie. “It’s Spider-Man—“

Mr. Stark presses his hand behind his ear. “Spider-what?”

“Are you being serious right now—“

The man grins at him, a chuckle. “Go, go, Spider-baby—you know how Pepper gets when she’s hungry—“

A noise of protest from Pepper on the couch.

Peter scoots up and, realizing he’s gotta change his clothes, and Mr. Stark points without looking up from his array of glowing screens—to the bathroom down the hall. Peter changes in there, leaves his clothes folded on the edge of the sink, and taps his chest, and the Spider-Man suit tightens around him. Shuffling out the door, hopping on one foot to adjust the ankle of his suit, he adjusts and adjusts and shoves his arms through his backpack straps. He heads for the window, pops each side open, and gets one foot solidly outside when he hears, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, where do you think you’re going, Clark Kent? Inside, now.”

Peter spins around to face Mr. Stark, who’s looking at him like he’s grown a second head. “Close that window,” he says sternly. 

Peter groans. “Mr. Stark—I’m literally going to get the pizzas, like you asked.”

”We are on the top floor of a damn skyscraper, Parker. Take the stairs.”

“But the momentum from this high, is like, so cool—“

“Nope—nuh uh, not on my watch,” Mr. Stark says, arms folded. He gestures to the door across the room: the stairwell. “Stairs or I’ll make Happy drive you.”

He groans again, pulling off his mask, baring his face to the man. “Are you kidding me—I’ll be fine—”

“I’ll be tracking the Baby Monitor, so I better see you come through the lobby. First floor. No funny business!”

“This is so unfair,” Peter grumbles.

“Be safe, Spider-Boy!”

Peter grumbles under his breath and flicks his hand at Mr. Stark as he goes.

“Boss, Peter has made an obscene gesture in your general direction.”

“Oh my God, FRIDAY, you're such a narc—”)

A squeeze—Cassie’s hand. “Popcorn.”

Peter might throw up if he opens his mouth, and some of him hopes he does, that he just spews it all up—he might feel better that way, like his insides hadn’t been tainted, too.

She pokes at him, gentle— “Your turn, Peter, that means it’s your turn.”

And there’s this horrible moment where Cassie's waiting for him to speak and Peter’s just thinking about the blood in the toilet and he just chokes out another sound—a wet, helpless sound, and then he’s crying again. 

He can’t help himself. He keeps crying, crying like a stupid kid, crying like a pathetic little bitch—pathetic Parker, stupid freak Parker, and he’s sobbing relentlessly into this little girl's shoulder.

“It's okay, Peter,” she whispers, and he hates how quiet she is. “It's just pretend.”

Sometime later, there’s a conversation outside—a little down the hall. 

“Beck,” says someone, a man.

“God—Haroun, would you get out of my ass? I’m trying to work. Stark’s fucked this weapon up again, and I’m trying to fix the fucking thing.”

“This isn’t about the weapon.”

“Then what is it about?”

The other man sighs. “Did you—did you do something to the Lang kid?”

“What?”

“The Lang kid. Uh, Cassie. Did you…”

Beck’s voice, and Peter shudders on the ground, tries to get up, and completely fails. “I never touched that little brat.”

“She was screaming, man—”

“What do you care? You guys fucked her up worse before I even got here.”

“No—no, that’s not what I mean. Half the bunker heard—she was screaming about… About….”

A pause, and then a loud cackle of a laugh. “Oh, that? I barely laid a hand on her—I was just, you know. Scaring them a little bit.”

A pause. “But did you do it?”

“Do what?”

There is a long, shaky pause. An uncomfortable shuffle. “Did you rape her?”

The other man huffs. “You think I’d— no, of course not, man. I’m not a fucking pedophile. Jesus, where do you get off, asking me something like that? I would never— man, she’s seven, and how could you think something like that?”

“You’re right. You’re right, man. Sorry.”

The whole following day goes by in a strange, feverish blur, and Peter finds himself slipping—IS HE IN THE CHAIR? HE’S IN THE—HES IN THE—and he can’t remember what’s going on, and he keeps waking up in weird places—he’s at home sitting in the kitchen eating leftovers with May. 

She’s saying something to him and she’s cooking, she’s at the kitchen table, using a meat hammer: smack, smack, smack. And when he looks down at her hands, she’s got a hammer and it’s smeared with blood—and on the table is aleg, his leg—his fucked up leg— and he’s screaming but it’s a dream, it’s a dream? Because May is dead, THEY'RE ALL DEAD—he drifts and he drifts and he’s sitting in the lab with Tony and Tony’s operating on something and Peter’s craning his head to see what it is and on the table is Peter— on the table is Peter, and he’s small and skinny and weak and Tony’s got a blowtorch and he’s firing it up—and then he’s there with the man in his white coat and he starts screaming and screaming “No! No!” because what if it’s Beck in that white coat—what if it’s Beck in that white coat—and the doctor's eyes are teary and he cries, “I DON'T WANT TO! I DON’T—I DON’T—“

“Peter—Peter—hon, you’re okay. You’re okay. It’s just me, it’s just me.”

Where—where—where—he sobs into his hands, curls up in himself—stupid Parker—knowing the tighter he winds himself up, the more protected his body is, and Peter clasps his hands over the back of his neck, pulls himself into a ball. “No,” Peter moans, “no, no, no…”

The man comes near him and his whole body screams with this unbridled sense of terror, and he cowers, losing all sense except for the horrible strike of fear in him—

(“My therapist says,” Mr. Stark said once, “when I feel like I’m going a little crazy, I should just repeat to myself some true things. Names. People. Places. Helps with, uh, grounding or whatever.”

“You have a therapist?” Peter asks. How does this man—genius, billionaire, superhero Tony Stark—have a therapist?

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Mr. Stark chuckles. 

Peter scribbles into his notebook. “Aunt May says shrinks are just people you pay to be a friend for an hour.”

“Well, Aunt Hottie’s not totally wrong,” Mr. Stark says, sitting down beside him. Absent-mindedly, he takes Peter’s notebook as he talks, making gentle corrections in pencil. “But sometimes it can be good to have someone tell you where your head’s at—especially if you can’t figure it out yourself.”

Peter shrugs, taking the notebook back and adjusting with the corrections Mr. Stark has made, flipping to a new page, tearing it out and smoothing it down with his hand. “So what do you say?” Peter asks; Mr. Stark blinks at him. “To yourself? What do you say?”

“Well,” he says, “you start with the easy stuff. My name is Tony Stark, my fiancée is Pepper Potts, I live in New York, that kind of thing.”

“That’s kind of dumb,” says Peter. 

“Not a fan of shrinks, I see.”

Peter shrugs. “Don’t think they do much good.”

“I thought your generation was supposed to be all—therapy this, therapy that, eating therapy for breakfast with psychoanalysis for dessert.”

Another shrug from Peter. “Not all of us.” He nods at the Spider suit before them both, spread over a mannequin—a new prototype, one with runs of blue down both wrists. “Some of us have, like, responsibilities.”

Mr. Stark gives him a strange look. “Alright, Spider-Kid, if you say so—lemme see these new numbers. FRIDAY, scan the kid’s notebook and put his new calculations on the board, please.”)

Spider-man. He’s Spider-Man. He’s Spider-Man. Peter Parker. He’s here. May is dead. They’re all dead. He’s dead—he’s gonna die. Here. Peter Parker. Parker. Peter Parker.

Peter traps himself in his arms and he’s coming— Beck—he’s coming— and Charlie behind those double doors, Charlie everywhere, Charlie is here with him—Charlie’s gonna find him—GONNA FIND HIM—GONNA FIND PETER PARKER—PETER PARKER’S DEAD—GONE—GONE—GONE—

“I’m losing you,” whispers the doctor: the man in the white coat. His beard is longer than it used to be. He looks very tired. “Please, Peter, you gotta stay with me. I know you’re still in there. You can’t go yet—when we get out of here—“

CAN’T RUN, he says. WHEN YOU RUN YOU GET PUNISHED WHEN YOU RUN YOU GET PUNISHED WHEN YOU—

“Alright,” says the doctor, soft. “I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

You know what happens when you run—Charlie finds you—he takes out the wire—oh, God, he’s gonna—did Peter try to run? He ran, he ran, and now he’s gonna—

“Just take some breaths for me, okay, Peter? I’m gonna get your temperature down—you’re really, really warm right now.”

There’s a sheet around him—something cool, and Peter lets out a relieved sound. “When you… When you…run…”

“I know,” says the man. “I know, hon, I know… Can we take some breaths?”

There’s something on his face—plastic, cool air gusting through it, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Peter,” he whispers into the plastic, sound all muffled. “Parker—Parker—Parker…”

The white-coated man looks down at him then, misery glinting in his blue eyes, and somewhere in the back of Peter’s mind there is someone screaming. 

When Peter wakes up, there’s a man at his arm with a needle to prick, and he moves, and the man says, “Still, Parker, be fucking still—” and on his other side someone’s pinning him down. ITS BECK, he knows, IT MUST BE BECK—and Peter cries and mumbles, “Sorry, sorry,” as the needle goes in. He fumbles blindly for the man—do it like I taught you—and the man jerks away, “The fuck is wrong with you, don’t do that—”

He’s losing himself again. HE’S LOSING IT AGAIN—he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s stupid and he’s gone—

(This is what he gets. Beck and Charlie and the chair and the camera on the laptop—every day, every fucking day for the rest of his cut-short life. This is what he deserves.)

And then he’s there again, in that fucking room— Charlie and the chair and he’s so terrified he can feel it raze over his mutilated skin. NO—NO—NOT THE CHAIR—then that electric thing settles over his head, and there’s something pressing into his mouth, cold and rubber—STUPID FUCKING BITCH! YOU SEE THIS, STARK? SEE HIM? HE’S CRYING FOR YOU!—and he can’t think, he can’t breathe through the pain, nothing but pain, rippling from his head all the way down his spine in horrific waves—HE CAN'T REMEMBER HIS NAME HIS NAME HIS NAME—and Peter’s out again. 

When he comes to, he’s back in the ground in that room, crawling away from the Chair, and Charlie grabs him—NO, NO— PLEASE —and tosses him into the Chair and God, no, please, no—but now they’re strapping him in—

Out and out and a haze of dreamlike memory—MJ with her notebook, Ned cross-legged on his bedroom floor, May on the couch, Mr. Stark in the lab—and then Peter’s in the room again and he’s on his knees, swaying, and his body is oily with sweat and Beck’s wrinkling his nose and saying, “God, you stink—I told you to wash, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

“Didn’t…” Peter mumbles, and he’s so fucking confused, the heat pressing at his head and pushing at his eyes. “Didn’t I…”

And he slaps him and Peter takes it, absorbs the hit, and he mumbles, “Didn’t,” through his broken lips, and he’s so fucking dizzy, the fever draws something cloudy and huge in him, like his brain’s melting, and Beck’s on him, Beck’s hands on his knees, Beck’s hands on his thighs, Beck’s hand on his—

“When I tell you to do something, you fucking do it, Petey,” says the man; the stench of lavender soap—it stings in his cuts and burns against his wounds, and Peter cries because it hurts—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—he goes out again, but just for a minute or two because when he wakes Beck is still there and the whole room reeks of soap.

Beck’s nose is in his neck, pressing, inhaling, saying, “Good, much better…” And Beck sits back finally, stands up and goes, rinsing the whitish suds from his hands, and when he returns, he says, “Now do it. Do it like I taught you. “

Peter just feels part of himself fade away. He’s just a body. Just a body—he’s not here anymore. And Beck’s watching him as his vision goes blurry and his skin is hot and he’s so, so dizzy—Peter forces himself to his knees, and he can't bring himself to move, if he moves he’ll pass out again, he’ll surely pass out—

And the brown-haired man slaps him hard, so hard that Peter can feel the buzzing imprint left on his face, so hard that there’s blood in his mouth. “Do it, Parker, or it’ll be the little girl! Do it—I said fucking do it!”

Not her.

Not her.

Peter finds something in himself—his last shred of dignity, and he forces his head up. Get up, Spider-man! he thinks. Get up! Get the fuck up! 

CAN’T, he thinks, and Peter tries but he’s shaking so badly— his head screams in protest, and he sways sideways, presses his sweaty hand against the concrete, tips his head against it. 

GET UP, SPIDER-MAN! GET UP! YOU HAVE TO—

A low, lusty voice: “Don’t make me ask twice.”

With every ounce of strength in him, Peter forces himself up onto his knees—the pain alone makes him gag; and he shuffles forward—his knee in sickening pain—finding Beck with his hands—touching Beck because he has to—because he knows how, because he knows he has to, and he goes out and Beck makes a sound, a pleased sound—IT'S COMING—IT ALWAYS COMES—

—time, quiet, and he’s gone, like a canvas painted white, like a book dropped into water, dissolving and going soft and hazy—

Peter comes back again on the floor, so sick that he gags bile out onto the cement. Peter lays there without cleaning it up, dazedly watching it spread, so dizzy he can’t bring himself to even lift his head.

Peter is tired. 

God, he’s tired.

Somewhere beyond their cell door, there’s a voice. A couple of them, and Peter can smell the reek of drugs from his spot on the floor. Angel dust, he thinks. The stuff Charlie likes. They’re giggling like a couple of kids. They talk and talk, and eventually the drugs start to wear off and their conversation lulls. “…and honestly, if I have to hear Beck fuck that kid one more time…”

A nervous laugh. “Discreet, yeah, not his strong suit.”

“Guy’s a sicko—you’d have to be real fucked in the head to wanna spread your legs for that guy.”

“Hey, don’t blame him—not like the kid’s got much of a choice.”

“Whatever, babe. Some of those sounds Parker makes don’t sound too rapey to me. You've heard him. Kid’s all like, Oh, yes, Beck, whatever you say, sir, oh, yes, please— ” Then some sounds: mock moaning, high-pitched and rhythmic, and the man devolves into laughter— 

—a scuffle, and then someone is getting up. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What? What’d I say?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Wait—come back.” Another person getting up. “It was just a joke—babe, come on, it was just a joke…”

His dreams are worse.

Peter finds himself in the Chair, strapped down—Charlie with the wire—that horrible hiss—the blowtorch—thrashing, blood comes warm down his arm as he howls for help.

Ava’s face bashed in. The gunshot hole in Frank’s beck—the blood pouring out from him. Cassie’s wide eyes glassy with fear. Beck next to her, arm around her shoulders, holding that book.

Charlie swinging the hammer. Renee holding a bloody knife. Mateo sticking the needle and pushing down. Beck pinning him down with one hand.

The fever stretches on and on and when he wakes from there’s a warmth against his front and he cries so hard that his head sings with pain his face hot with tears and and relief---he’s not in the chair because Cassie’s here—Cassie’s HERE—oh, God, oh, God.

And she whispers very quietly—THEY ALWAYS HAVE TO BE QUIET— “Peter. Peter.” Her voice is muffled, gone, and he finds himself gasping for air, struggling for it, and she says again, “Peter, you were screaming.”

Peter doesn’t hear the words actually leave him but he asks her if he was here—if Beck was here—and Cassie nods and says, “You were weird,” and she doesn’t explain.

DID HE, he whispers, and he feels so, so strange,

Cassie hugs her knees; her hair hangs matted around her shoulders, stringy and thin. Peter hasn’t brushed it in a long time. “Yeah,” she whispers back. There are white spots all over her head, too—lice, and he keeps forgetting; she scratches at it, scratches and scratches at her scalp and Peter will have to fix that tomorrow. They don’t have a comb. They don’t have a hairbrush. They don’t have anything except a couple cans and a can opener.

So Peter just sits there.

And he lays for a while. 

He remembers how he’s spent the last month—what he did to Beck, what Beck did to him, and he—God, the things he’s done. Sometimes Cassie sees, and sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes Peter remembers what it’s like for hours after, and sometimes he just leaves himself altogether and doesn’t think at all.

But he remembers.

God, he remembers it all.

Cassie pushes a tin can to him, and Peter can hear the metal scrape across concrete. “Dinner time,” she says, in this utterly tired voice. Somewhere across the room, her cans are empty. This is how it always is: two cans for Cassie, three cans for Peter. 

She’s already pried the lid off his, and he shakes his head. 

Cassie whispers, “You have to. You promised.”

A long time ago, Peter made her a promise. We keep going, he told her. We eat, we drink, we stay strong. No matter what we feel on the inside, okay?

But now, Peter stares down at it. He doesn’t want to eat it. He just wants to lay down on the floor and let sleep take him again.

He wants to dream of Mr. Stark. 

But Cassie is looking at him, waiting for Peter to take that stupid fucking can. He just— God, he feel so sick. He makes a sound with his tongue because he’s too tired to speak, a soft clicking sound, and she goes quiet for a second. “Peter,” she whispers, and he closes his eyes, letting out a breath. “Peter, you promised…”

Peter wishes they could die; he wishes they could both die. He wishes the ceiling would cave in and crush them both. Maybe they’d be free that way. Free, he thinks again, and he finds himself thinking of the apartment—he can’t remember what his bedroom looked like. He puts May’s face in his head, and he wonders what she would think if she could see him now. A piece of meat, carved up like a fucking filet—Peter imagines her lip curling in disgust, imagines her taking a few steps back, imagines her hard stare traveling over his fucked-up body. 

May would hate what he’s become.

“You’re thinking bad things again,” Cassie says from beside him, awfully quiet. Her hair sticks to her cheek; she doesn’t bother to push it away.

Peter keeps his mouth shut, and he pushes his hand into it—black beans, and it gets all over his hand. and then the hunger takes over—and he’s shoveling it into his mouth without thinking, his mind in a daze of stomach pangs and headaches, and when he comes back to himself his hand’s all scratched up from the can and he’s breathing hard and he can’t really remember eating at all. 

Cassie’s looking at him, and she’s pushing the next one into his hands, this time cold sliced carrots, and he shovels that in, too, chewing and barely breathing and swallowing faster each time—then the next, meaty soup that he gulps straight down without using his hands.

Cassie fills each can with water and returns them to him—and he chugs them fast, filling his belly, and when he’s done he collapses onto the ground, holding his aching stomach. 

(“I’m literally stuffed,” Peter groans, sitting back at the kitchen table.

“You ate nearly six servings,” Mr. Stark says, scraping the rest into a clearish tupperware. “I’m surprised you’re still standing.”

Peter stretched his legs under the table, opening up his belly a little wider. “It was, like , so good. Like, highkey? Best lasagna ever.”

“High…key…” Mr. Stark says, snapping the lid onto the tupperware and popping open the fridge. “Highkey? FRI, sweetheart, define ‘highkey’ for me, please.”

From somewhere in the ceiling, FRIDAY’s unmistakable voice: “Highkey, meaning ‘truthfully’ came about as the opposite of the teen term “lowkey,” usually meaning ‘of low intensity’ or—”

Peter tips his head back. “Mr. Stark, oh my God —you gotta stop asking FRIDAY every time I say something, you’re literally such a Boomer—”

Mr. Stark’s eyebrows raise; he gives a mischievous smile. “FRI, my love, please define ‘Boomer’ for me.”

“Oh my God,” Peter moans in protest. 

“Boomer, shortened from the generational category ‘Baby Boomer,’ references the generation born between 1946 and 1964….”

“Interesting,” says Mr. Stark, now shutting the fridge, “so…not me, then? ‘Cause I was born in seventy—“

“Oh my God… ”

Mr. Stark’s chuckling now, taking out another empty tupperware, cracking it open, and dropping the plastic lid onto the countertop. “You want leftovers? I’m saving some for Pep and me, but the rest…” He gestures. “All yours.”

Peter almost salivates at the thought. “The lasagna?” he says.

The plea in his voice is so obvious that the man chuckles and starts scooping out portions into the family-sized tupperware. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Mr. Stark says.)

—and Peter’s awake again, his back against cold metal, his wrists locked in, his ankles locked in, too, and then Charlie’s there—wild-eyed, bearded Charlie—and he’s rambling, screaming on and on: “...the world, Stark! It’s been four months! Four! And what have you done? Your precious baby’s not gonna last much longer—“

On the other end of the phone, a man is crying. His voice slurred with exhaustion, a whispery hoarse sound, a miserable croak: “Charlie, please—"

“You’re letting him die, Stark! You’re gonna WATCH HIM DIE!”

More ragged crying. “Peter, I’m so—so sorry—please—just take me, take me—please… Just let me see him—”

“You should know this by now, Stark,” says a woman. “Parker’s not going anywhere.”

“I’ll do whatever… whatever…you want…” the man croaks out. “Please—please just let me—Charlie, I’m begging you—just let me hold him…”

Some laughter, and Peter jerks against the cuffs of the chair; sweat pours down his face—his head drops against his chest. “Mr….” he tries.

“I’m here, buddy—” says the man on the phone. “I’m here—just hang on…”

Peter slips away—the fever takes him, squeezes too hard, and when he wakes, he can feel the heat of the blowtorch against his shoulder—he twists against the Chair—WAIT—WAIT—writhing hard, his wrists go slippery against the cuffs—

Cackling and cackling. 

“He’s sick,” pleads a girl’s voice. “Charlie, come on—he’s sick—the doctor said..”

“Sick?” the man echoes. “Sick?” Charlie staggers back from him—the heat of the blowtorch fades, and the man waves it around: a blue-purple glow. “Fucking disgusting—”

“…not contagious, the doctor said it wasn’t contagious…”

“Fine,” snarls the man. “You want a break, Parker? You think you deserve a break?”

Peter doesn’t know what he deserves anymore. 

There’s some low talking, some more shrill yelling, and then Charlie close to him, stroking his sweat-slick hand down Peter’s cheek—“Oh, precious baby Parker needs a break—” —and Peter snaps his head away so fast that his neck cracks, that his vision goes black-spotted.

Would he? 

Would Charlie—

Peter’s mind stutters as Renee laughs, cackling and slapping her knee. The seconds scrapes by—fear claws at the back of him. He thinks a thought, a clear one in his haze of pain and ache—do they all know about Beck? 

The thought washes over him, humiliation crashing down on him like a fucking wave, and the tears come fast. 

“Jesus, Parker, I’m not R. Kelly over there, I’m not gonna fuck you.”

A man snaps, “Oh, fuck you, Keene.”

Charlie whips around and he shouts, “What’d you say to me?”

“Fuck. You. Maybe all those drugs fried your brain and your hearing, too. Then I wouldn’t have to repeat myse—”

And then they’re fighting, grappling for each other, and Charlie’s bulky fist snaps into Beck’s brown-haired brow—mixed shouting and floods of color and sound and motion, and Peter is screaming and screaming, NOT YET—NOT YET—NOT READY—NOT READY—

And then Beck is staggering into the corner, grumbling and holding his hand to his eye, and he spits onto the ground. Charlie turns to Peter, then—those wild eyes focus on him, and he says, “Alright, Parker. I’ll cut you some slack today. You’ve got ten seconds.”

What?

“Uncuff him.”

Several of the crew uncuff him from the chair and he falls heavily onto the floor; hands against concrete, and Peter just lays there, waiting for something to happen. 

“If you make it out of the room in ten seconds,” Charlie says, “then I won't touch a hair on your pretty little head today.”

Peter swallows. 

“Ten.”

Peter just sits there, dumbfounded. Charlie doesn’t lie. He never lies. What did he say exactly? Would he let Peter... Would he let him...

“Nine."

He's not allowed to do this—he can't, he's not supposed to. But Charlie said... He said... For a split second, he looks up at to Cassie's dad in his wheelchair, his hair oily slick like Peter's and dark like Cassie's, and he can feel the man's gaze like heat on his face.

Eight.”

And on seven, it kind of clicks—Peter starts crawling for the door, and putting weight on his bad leg induces a sickening wave of nausea so weighty that his vision wavers, his hearing goes out—and when it comes back Charlie's on: “Four.”

Peter lets out this kind of primal, guttural sound, dragging himself forward with his fingernails.

“Three.”

He doesn’t hear those last couple numbers—in his mind, he’s screaming, forcing himself forward with such effort that’s all he can focus on, and then there are hands dragging him up, hauling him upward, and he’s no longer touching floor and he’s back in the chair—

And Charlie is laughing. He's laughing at him. 

“See how far you made it, Parker? See how far?”

Peter looks down at the ground, then, at the blood smear of his crawl.

Three feet. He’d made it three stupid fucking feet.

And Charlie's laughing at him, and there’s others laughing at him, too, and humiliation burns in his gut, in his face, and the tears come fast. “You know what happens when you run, Parker?”

Peter hides on the floor—useless, fucking useless— covering his head with his useless stupid hands, and Charlie screams, “WHAT HAPPENS, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU RUN, PARKER —FUCKING ANSWER ME—” Charlie slams the hammer hard down beside Peter’s head such a spray of metal sound that Peter screams sharply, curling in on himself, and his knee alights with this weird phantomy pain— “WHAT HAPPENS—WHAT HAPPENS?”

“I—I get—”

“WHAT HAPPENS?”

“Punished,’ he chokes out, covering his head with his hands. “Get…punished.”

Then Charlie brings him back to the chair and he says, “Try again.”  

The second time, he barely makes it a foot before Charlie’s dragging him back.

The third time, he knows better, and he’s crying so hard, so dizzy that he couldn’t find the door if he tried.

“S-sorry,” he says, “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry…” This time, when Charlie starts counting he goes to the bearded man instead, shuffling to the man and gasping for forgiveness, and everything starts to get hazy—

—Beck grasping Cassie by the hair, the girl kicking and screaming—Peter on his knees, pleading— brown-haired, brown-eyed Beck—SHOW ME YOU’RE SORRY—rough denim knees, his chin speckled with his own blood—

—DON’T RUN—CAN’T RUN—NEVER RUN—and Peter cries, “I’m sorry, sorry…” He’s crying messily onto Charlie’s shoes and kneeling in front of him, crawling to him like a dog to its master, prostrating himself before the man—a mortal before a fucked up god—and the man groans, annoyed, and says, “Parker, the fuck are you doing now?” 

Then Peter looks up—above him, a man.

And all he sees is Beck. 

Peter rubs the man’s leg first, and he doesn’t even have to think because he knows what to do, because he knows how. He moves his shaky hands up, and he reaches up two-handed for the man’s jeans; he finds the belt first, and then the buckle and Peter can’t see the zipper because he’s crying too hard, and the bearded man shoves him backwards. “What the fuck,” the man says, and all the voices combine above him—Peter cowers on the ground, trapping his head in his arms, pulling his pained knees up to his chest, curling up into a tight ball. “Beck, what the fuck did you do to him?”

“Oh, come on, like that’s my fault?”

“I don’t want the kid fucking molesting me, Beck! Did you tell him to—”

“No! Of course not! I’m not a fucking psychopath, kid’s a slut, he does whatever he wants—“

Then the two men are fighting again, grunting and smacking, and others rush forward to join the fight…

And all the way across the room, as the men fight and claw and punch at each other—Peter sees it. That tiny glowing green light: the camera on the laptop. Mr. Stark, somewhere, watching him. Somewhere, in a place Peter would never see—Mr. Stark was crying out for him.

And above the rush of movement and shouting, Peter hears the man crying, saying, “Oh, Peter—oh, Peter…”

Not Parker, Peter thinks, before the bleary heat of fever washes over him again. Peter.

They drag him back to the cell. 

Peter lays on the floor then—against the concrete, in and out, slipping from one memory to another: May and him in the kitchen, the smell of burning meatloaf; May and Ned and MJ at a decathlon meet, Mr. Stark waving proudly from the back of the room; him and Ned dressed up at Comic-Con.

Peter wakes with a jerk—to a sound: the sound of the creaking door.

He’s back—HE’S BACK—and he comes in fast, fast enough that Peter doesn’t have time to react, and Beck whips his hand across Peter’s face—the smack sends him sprawling, and he’s dizzy and confused, and oh, God—he’s here—HE’S HERE— Peter coughs, tries to pull himself back up, and the man hits him again, and he’s on the floor and his face hurts—buzzing with pain. Another hit— smack!— and his vision goes horrible and sideways, and another— Peter coughs a splatter of wet onto the floor and Cassie is screaming—

There’s only one thought pulsing through his head: Beck’s beating him. Beck’s beating him.

And Beck never beats him. 

Which means he must’ve done something wrong, he must’ve, what did he do—Peter can’t remember what he did—oh, God, HE DID SOMETHING WRONG—

And the man grabs Peter by the throat, full-handed; Peter doesn’t even bother fighting his grip—he just starts crying, and when Beck lifts him up, his broken leg dangles useless below him. He grabs at Beck’s hands, trying to hold him or touch him or something that’ll stop what he knows is coming—gargling out sorry, but Beck is screaming, gripping his throat hard enough that Peter gags, “YOU KNOW HOW FUCKING HUMILIATING IT IS? HUH? THAT WHOLE ROOM? THAT WHOLE FUCKING ROOM!” He shakes Peter against the wall, and his whole body dangles limply against the wall. “ALL BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF KEENE’S DICK, YOU LITTLE WHORE!”

And Beck throws him to the side—for a moment Peter is falling—and his body hits the concrete floor, and he sprawls out onto the floor, coughing back air into him. Beck rears his leg back and Peter cowers below him—WAIT, WAIT, WAIT—the boot hits, cracks into his chest like splitting wood, and pain breaks open in him. “IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!”

Peter doesn’t bother to beg. Begging never works on Beck.

“Sorry,” Peter gasps, clutching his chest, “sorry, sorry,” and then he crawls to Beck, a stupid limp of a crawl, trying to apologize with something else—SAY IT PETEY, SAY YOU’LL BE GOOD FOR ME— “I’ll be good, b’good…” But you know what he wants, what they all want, you know how to fix this —and the man shoves him backwards with his boot—screams, “YOU STUPID WHORE!” and leans down, grabs him by the collar, hauls him up—and he just hits him—

—and hits him—

—and hits him—

—and Peter’s face is bursting in bruised pain. So swollen that his lips can’t move, and his face is all slippery, and when Beck drops him to the floor there’s blood on the concrete below him and when he turns his head, Peter finds Cassie there, safe under the bed, watching and crying silently, her face ashine with tears, horror tainting her stare, clutching her knees like she’s next; he should tell her Iron Man or Hawkeye or any one of their code words, but he’s so dizzy and his head whines with pain and he just wants to tell her he’s here, he’s here—GOD, HELP ME—I’M RIGHT HERE, I'VE ALWAYS BEEN HERE—then a fist punches into his mouth—there’s a clink, his tooth pink and bloody saliva clattering across the floor, and he gargles out, “Cas—”

A fist slams hard onto the side of his head, and he hits the floor and his head bounces off concrete and his ears are ringing a high whine—

—HURTS—HURTS—HURTS THERE'S BLOOD ON YOUR FACE—HE’S HERE—HE’S HERE—and Beck hauls him up a second time, screams something incoherent, and he hits him—

—and hits him—

—and hits him—

—and Peter can’t tell anymore where the blows are coming from, just that they keep coming, and IT’S ALL TEARS AND BLOOD, AND IT'S COMING—IT’S COMING—HE KNOWS WHAT'S COMING NEXT—

And then he drops Peter on the ground and he hugs the concrete, scrabbling for some kind of hold, waiting for the next hit to come—he trembles and coughs and he trembles again and he clutches hopelessly, desperately at the fucking concrete—PLEASE DON’T, PLEASE, PLEASE—

And when Peter looks up, Beck’s hand is moving fast in his undone jeans, and then he’s grunting above him, and Peter's eyes are swelling up hot, and he can see only a crack—

—and all Peter can see is him. 

Brown-haired. 

Brown-eyed.

Beck. 

A zipper going up, and then a man kneeling beside him. Peter lets out a sound—weak as it leaves him, like a dying animal. Peter shifts just barely against the concrete, a stupid attempt at escape—and everything hurts—the crack in his side, the mess of his face, the sting of his neck, and still the fever has its hooks in him, making every sound foggy and every movement slow. A pressure growing and growing in him—and Peter makes another sound—please. 

A hand comes towards him, and Peter tries to say something—but all that comes out is a burble of hot blood, and it slips down the side of his face, pooling next to his cheek. A hand grasps a handful of his hair and yanks his head up so hard his neck strains: a high, broken sound leaves him. Damp with sweat, hair curls stringy around his neck, clings to his face, and Peter hides beneath it—the only thing between him and the man above him. 

“Try anything like that again,” a man’s voice hisses, low in his ear, “and I’ll make sure Charlie takes more than just a finger off you.” His face is so close Peter can smell the smoke on his breath, smoke he can taste through his split-open mouth. Beck comes closer, drags his head closer, and Peter knows not to turn away. “Understand me, Parker?”

He can’t nod; he can’t speak; Peter tries and just coughs another bubble of blood—it pops between his lips. 

Beck makes a sound—disgust, and he drops Peter’s head onto the concrete floor. “And your hair’s a fucking mess, sweetheart. Get the girl to fix it.”

CASSIE—where’s Cassie?—the only thing that matters, what did he do—he did something to her, he must’ve… Oh, God, Cassie—

The door clicks shut—another click, the lock.

Then Peter’s alone—laying there on the concrete floor, and he can’t hear Beck anymore. He tries to move—and his cheek slips bloody against the concrete—such pain that he comes to a few minutes later, the floor warmer under him. 

He can’t move. He can’t fucking move. 

Peter shuts his eyes and feels his body shake—the whole of him, shivering in fever and unbounded terror, waiting for the next hit, feeling wetness slide down from his mouth and spread across the floor at his cheek, warm and sticky. Pain crackles in him, spiking every time he breathes—it claws at him, deeper and deeper and he tries to breathe again—

Is he dying?

IS HE DYING?

This is it—Peter’s gonna die like this, here in this room, with brown-haired Beck above him. Peter’s gonna die here in this room while Cassie watches. No one to crack a joke, no one to brush his hair from his eyes, no one to hold his hand. 

Peter can’t feel his broken face, and it hurts to breathe, he takes in two quick inhales, and it hurts still—it comes out shaky and strained, and the pain gets worse—he’s gonna die, he’s gonna die here—

(“I’m gonna die,” says Peter, blinking down at the wound.

Mr. Stark has dragged him all the way out of sight of the main fight; beyond them both, the rest of the Avengers continue the fight—all working to take down some creepy guy and his goons somewhere in Brooklyn. 

“You’re not gonna die,” Mr. Stark says fast, his Iron Man mask pulling away from his face, kneeling in front of him. “FRIDAY, Spider-kid’s status report.”

“It’s Spider-man—”

“He has one major wound in his lower right side and another grazed along the left side. Minor bruising and mild shock—I recommend emergency care as soon as possible…”

“Yep,” says Peter. “Totally dying.”

“I said you’re not dying,” snaps Mr. Stark, and he presses his hand to his exposed forehead. “God, it’s like you’re trying to give me a heart attack—how many times did he shoot you?”

“Twice,” he says, nodding to the bullet holes riddled in Iron Man’s suit. Mr. Stark’s already pulling his suit half-off of him, peeling it off to get a good look at the wound. “Not too bad, huh? I was like, crazy fast—like, Flash fast, like Usain Bolt fast—”

“He got you twice,” Mr. Stark says. “Pretty sure that means you need to pick up the pace. Jesus, kid, I told you not to come, to leave this to the professionals—”

“I am a professional! I’m an Avenger!”

“In training, maybe.”

“Are you victim-blaming me? You’re totally victim-blaming me.”

Mr. Stark extends the finger of his suit, sprays some kind of liquid on the wound, lets it sit, and the pain gets a little better. “No, I’m telling you what happens when you don’t listen to me, which is you get shot.”

“Only twice.”

“I don’t know if you know this, Underoos—but twice is a lot.”

“Eh,” Peter says. “I’ve had worse.”

“Have you?”

“Remember that one guy who dropped a building on me freshman year—”

“Ah, dah, dah—“ says Mr. Stark fast, shaking his hand at Peter’s face. “Don’t remind me, I’m gonna Hulk out if you tell that story again.”

“It was my Luke Skywalker moment! Like, I am your father, but instead he was all like—ah! I am your girlfriend’s father! That guy had me, like, totally shook.”

“Could you stop making Star Wars references while I fix you up?” Mr. Stark says. 

“No,” Peter says, and when he chuckles another stream of blood comes through it. He squints down at his belly, where Mr. Stark’s still working. “Ow, ow, ow—is it bad?”

“Tis but a flesh wound,” chirps Karen from his suit, and Mr. Stark jerks his head up. 

“No, it’s not too bad—wait, was that Monty Python?”

“Uh…” tries Peter. “No?”

“Did you code your AI to quote Monty Python?”

“I mean, Ned did most of it, but…”

Mr. Stark shakes his head. “What is wrong with your generation?”

“It lightens the mood!”

“Twice the smarts of any kid your age and you and Fred use it to code your AI to quote Monty Python—“

“It’s Ned,” Peter corrects, “and he’s my Guy in the Chair! That’s what we do…”

“Guy in the chair is not a thing.”

“It’s totally a thing.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Is, too.”

Mr. Stark shakes his head but keeps working on the wound, winding around it with one of Peter’s own webs, and the bleeding slows. “FRIDAY, scan the Spider-kid and find the nearest enhanced-friendly hospital, pronto.”

From Mr. Stark’s suit, FRIDAY speaking: “Searching for enhanced-friendly medical centers…”

“It’s St. Jude’s,” Peter interrupts, gesturing vaguely without much movement. “Four blocks down.”

Mr. Stark blinks at him. “How the hell would you know that?”

“I have to go a lot for—” Seeing the look on Tony’s face, Peter backtracks quickly. “—checkups. For checkups. You know, flu shots, uh, physicals, you know, that whole...thing.”

Mr. Stark presses his hand to his forehead, finally done. “You are the actual source of my heart problems…”

Eventually, Hawkeye comes over the radio. “All clear, Tin Man,” says Clint Barton’s voice clear on the radio. “Go get the kid some help.”

Mr. Stark taps the side of his head, re-activating his comm. “Watch it, Barton—Spider-kid’s on the line, I’d like him to retain some respect for me.” But he goes, re-adjusting his Iron Man suit so that his body’s covered, snapping the mask over his face, and gingerly picking Peter up. 

“Too late,” says Peter with a laugh, looping his arms around the iron suit’s neck as it begins to take off. “Can I call you that?”

They’re in the sky now, flying slower than usual. “No, you may not.”

“I mean, it’s clever, the Wizard of Oz, Tin Man—”

“When I say ‘no,’ what does your teenage brain hear? Static?”

“I’m just saying—”

“Say it again and I’m grounding you.”

“You can’t ground me—”

“Oh, yes I can—”

“Can we keep the parenting off the main line?” states Black Widow through the radio. “Some of us are trying to, you know, fight bad guys?”

“The kid okay?” asks Rhodey.

“He’s fine,” replies Mr. Stark. “Tip-top shape.” 

“‘Tis but a flesh wound,” chimes in Peter from beside him. 

Mr. Stark shakes his head, pressing his now-bloody hand to his forehead—exasperation. “God, why did I give you a comm—I’m taking that away as soon as we get home, you hear me? I’m making you a mute button.”

“You won’t,” Peter says, wincing at the pain in his side.

“I absolutely will.”

“Was that Monty Python?” asks Hawkeye over the radio. 

“Nope, nope, nope,” says Mr. Stark. “Iron Man out—and we’re finishing this conversation later, Spider-kid.”)

Beside him somewhere, he hears a little girl crying. Peter tries to say her name, and pain needles at his chest—he twitches his fingers in her direction, the only movement he can manage without pain—a noise comes out of him and it doesn’t sound like him—a halting groan. His eyes keep swelling and swelling, and now he can’t blink without pain. Blood or tears trickle warm from his eyes, and the puffy skin presses closed, sealing him in terrifying darkness.

HIS—OH—HE CAN’T SEE, HE CAN’T SEE AND WHERE IS HE—WHERE IS HE—

Peter is on the floor still, and he coughs again—and his lip’s been split nearly in half; he can suddenly feel where it’s separated. His mouth’s all fucked up and his tastes salty and there’s a soft spot where his tooth used to be. he’s coming back he’s gonna come back and he’s gonna come back HES GONNA COME BACK AND HE ALWAYS COMES BACK YOU OWE HIM TODAY YOU OWE HIM and Peter just lays there whimpering, and half-breathing and praying the seconds go by slow, and everything hurts—even breathing is hard. A wheeze from him, a whistly sound from somewhere in his chest, shallow in him, his lungs catching on every inhale.

Peter can’t see—he can’t see— and his eyes are swollen shut, hot with blood, skin thick, and he tries to open them, tries to blink, and still he can’t see anything. He’s still dizzy and the world spins around him—and he finds himself slipping away to somewhere better, to somewhere without any blood running into his eyes, without any pain spiking in his broken chest—

The door opening—THE DOOR—OH GOD, THE DOOR—and then there’s someone in the room, a man’s heavy shuffle, and Peter lets out a broken moan through his bloodied mouth—another stupid plea for mercy.

The man is close to him now, and Peter is in too much pain to move—the fear takes hold, and he sucks in a breath, faster and faster—HE’S GONNA, HE’S GONNA—panic crashing over his head in a high wave—WAIT—WAIT—

The man’s voice, a little higher than usual: “Oh my god… ” 

Peter screams a gargled sound from in him, PLEASE DON’T—PLEASE DON’T—PREPARE YOURSELF, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE YOURSELF and it’s him, it has to be him, and his spidey-sense is going berserk—Peter claws at the ground, trying to pull himself away, but all he can manage is a low flail against the concrete; the man says, “You’re fine, you’re fine, lemme take you to the doctor, Parker… Gotta get you cleaned up…” and he’s reaching for him—

HE’S COMING AT YOU—HE'S GONNA FINISH THE JOB—YOU STILL OWE HIM—YOU ALWAYS OWE HIM—

Peter gurgles, “Sor -sorry, ‘m sorry—m’sor…” and more blood slips out through his cracked lips, trickles down his sweaty neck. His face—his face—he can’t feel it, it’s so swollen he can feel his nose press against his battered lip, can feel his thick-swollen eyelids press together—

The man says, “I’m not gonna hurt you,” and Peter screams—trying to push himself away from the sound, but he’s not even strong enough to open his eyes. He cringes on the floor, hiding his head. “I’m just getting you downstairs, calm down, kid—” When the man reaches again, grazing his hand on Peter’s shoulder, Peter cowers, shudders, nauseous with pain, and his whole face is wet with blood. 

Knowing what he has to do, Peter reaches for the man—just like I taught you, Petey— and the man shoves his hand away, and he says, “Jesus, Beck really did a number on you, huh?”

Peter thinks the man has said something, but he’s already forgetting—HE HAS TO DO IT—not her, not Cassie, please not Cassie—he hurts so much but he’ll do it, he’ll always do it— he has to do it—COME ON, SPIDER-MAN! COME ON! YOU HAVE TO—and the man’s still talking, but Peter’s not listening to him, just feeling that broiling sick in his gut—HE CAME BACK—HE’S GONNA FINISH THE JOB—

“I’ll— b’good,” Peter chokes out, “m’sorry—not h’r—”

He can’t see the man, but he feels the stare—the way the man’s heartbeat stilts in his chest. Beck. Beck. Beck. Peter knows what to do—again, he reaches his dark-bruised arm to the man’s leg, strokes up—do it like I taught you, Petey—good boy, good boy—and rubs him again, and the man makes a small sound, a pleasant sound, this throaty groan, and this time he doesn’t push Peter away. Peter hates that sound—but as long as you’re touching him he won’t hurt you—AS LONG AS YOU'RE TOUCHING HIM HE WON'T HURT YOU—and he tries the zipper but he can’t get it—and the man’s hand on his wrist—

—for a stupid second, a stupid Parker second, Peter thinks he’s gonna stop him—

—and the zipper, the man doing it himself, and then the man’s pushing Peter’s hand inside.

Peter knows what to do. 

The man whispers, “Oh—oh, god,” and squeezes Peter’s wrist harder and harder like he’s about to stop him. “Yes—ah—yes, keep—oh, fuck. Yes, yes—oh, god—” Peter’s gone for a while, time coming over him like a cool fog, and he falls through it—doing what he’s supposed to do, the only thing he’s good for, the only thing that makes the pain stop for a while, the only thing that works. 

And after a few minutes, the man makes a loud sound through his open mouth, a groan, and then he falls back a little, slack, wetness slimy on Peter’s hand. 

Suddenly, the man lets out this sharp gasp and shoves Peter backwards, and Peter hits the floor hard enough that his head cracks against the ground, so Peter just lays there and prays that was enough because he’s good, he did good, PLEASE—I DID GOOD—PLEASE—NO MORE—I CAN’T— curling up on the concrete, guarding his head with his hands, and the man says, “Oh, God—what did I just do…” A strange breath. “What’s wrong with me…” 

What?

That sentence—it echoes, resounding in Peter’s skull. Beck doesn’t say things like that—Beck doesn’t… Confusion pulses in his chest—a sick stab of feeling in Peter’s haze of fever and pain. A slip of blood in the crack of his swollen eye, and at last he forces it open. 

The man staring down at him is not Beck at all. 

It’s a man he doesn’t know. 

He’s in a soldier’s uniform—black camo and thick rubber boots and a kevlar vest. He is dark-skinned and bald and he looks nothing like Beck—

Terror comes over his—he just—he just—

Peter feels something crack in him—his mind splinters, because—he couldn’t have—he wouldn’t—he only—

Tears—humiliated tears, horrible tears and the breathing gets worse, mucusy blood sliding down from his nose, wetness sliding hot down his face. I didn’t mean to, he thinks, and the tears come harder. I didn’t—I didn’t—

There’s some shuffling like cloth and a zipper going up, and then the man says, “Come on, Parker, let’s go—” And he grabs Peter by the back of his jumpsuit and drags him out of the room, and Peter’s screaming then, thrashing, but he’s so weak it only requires one person to take him down. The man gets an arm latched around Peter’s waist and he screams gargles through his mouth; bloody saliva runs down his chin and the man just drags him forward—NO! NO! NOT THE CHAIR— “Would you shut up?” the man hisses. “People are gonna think I did something to you—shut up, I said shut up—"

Something smacks hard into Peter’s head, and he’s out again.

When he comes to, they’ve stopped moving, and there are two voices around him—the one holding him, and another a few feet away. 

“The hell are you doing?” snaps one. “Put him back. You know you’re not supposed to…” The man shifts him, and Peter’s head lolls back. “Oh. Oh, shit. Who—”

“You know who.”

“Jesus.” Shuffle to Peter. Someone grabs a fistful of hair and pulls up, turning Peter’s aching head to see. “He did all this?”

“Looks like. Dude needs to rein it in.”

“I know, right? Here, let me take him—you update Charlie.”

Arms and arms and shifting around, and Peter goes away for a while—into that sweet limbo space, into nothingness and safe, and when the world hits him again they’re in the elevator—all the way down. Peter’s body moves with each step, sways—he thinks he’s been slung over someone’s shoulder, his arms swaying beneath him, a shoulder pressed into his gut, each step sending him side to side. Peter lets out a small sound and the man says, “Almost there.”

 Through the operating room doors: the smell of antiseptic and chemicals, of washed fabric and a blondish-gray haired man—all the way down, all the way down, all the way down to the doctor.

A ping and the sound of elevator doors rattling open. More walking, more walking, and two more sets of doors, and finally—

Another man’s voice: “What’s going on? I already—”

“Got a present for you, Doc.”

Hands release him—Peter hits the cement hard and just lays there, wheezing slow—spikes of pain in his chest. Are they gonna—are they gonna—

A suck in of air, a ragged gasp. “O-oh. Holy—” Footsteps coming closer, hesitant. “Is he—what did you do to him?”

“Wasn't me,” the first man says. “Just clean him up, alright? We’ll come back for him in an hour.”

“What happened? I told Charlie he was sick—he said he wouldn’t—”

“Wasn’t Charlie, either.”

A horrible pause. “Oh,” he says. 

Some more movement, and something hard nudges at Peter’s back—he cringes hard, covering his bloodied face. “One hour, doc. Then we’ll be back for him.”

Pounding footsteps and the slamming doors—a click, the lock. 

Peter’s chest—it’s splitting with pain, every breath, and he tries again, breathing, and it hitches halfway. Liquid runs down the side of his face—maybe his mouth or his eyes or his nose. He coughs weakly, a slip of pained air, takes in half a breath, and when he tries to breath out it comes out a frail whimper. 

A man closer—AND CLOSER—AND CLOSER—

Peter screams.

“Peter,” says a man. “Hey—hey… just me, hon. just me.”

And then he’s mumbling, “I’m s’ry, so—so…rry, s’r…” — and he just keeps saying it and keeps saying it and please, please, I can’t do it anymore, but the man is close now, close enough to touch, close enough to grab him, and Peter sobs and he hears Beck’s voice all low in his head—

—do it like I taught you, DO IT LIKE I TAUGHT YOU—

—so Peter grasps onto the man’s shirt with his hands—bruised hands, crooked hands, stupid pathetic freakish hands—feels for the buttons, trying so hard, fumbling like a stupid kid, and he can’t—he’s so tired, he’s so fucking tired…

The man says then, tiredly, “Oh, Peter…” and he pushes Peter’s trembling hands away and Peter starts crying again because he can’t do it with his stupid broken fingers, and the man’s gonna do it—he knows he’s gonna do it—and Peter will have to take it— and the blood in the toilet— and he can feel his body there and he’s—

—gone, gone, the world gone away, and he’s somewhere else, color and sound moving around him, and he’s nothing, and everything is quiet—

—and when Peter comes to, his jumpsuit’s buttoned back up, all the way back up, and there’s the slosh of something, a painkiller in him, pleasant numbness soothing the everpresent ache in him. A man is holding him sideways, faceup to the ceiling and close to his chest and Peter can hear his heartbeat thumping warm through soft cloth. The man is rocking him, a steady motion, and he’s humming something, soft, and patting his back slow. It’s nice, really nice and Peter just cries, because he doesn’t even know the song, because he doesn’t know where he is, because there’s a man here and he’s fucking terrified—

—but there’s a hand patting slowly, steadily, gently at his back, not in his pants, not at his throat, not at his thigh or his ass or his jaw, and no one ever touches him like that anymore, except maybe Beck, but Peter’s so fucking confused, and he gargles, “B’ck, Be…k, s’ry…”

“It’s just me,” says the man, and Peter struggles to recognize the voice, but for now Peter’s warm and he turns his face into the man’s coat and cries anyway, hiccups and tears. “The doctor, Peter. Just the doctor.” He shudders, frightened, and the touch somehow gets softer, the pressure smooth and gentle, like breathing in a cool gust of mist. “See the coat, buddy? It's me. just me.”

“Doc…” he sobs, the only word he knows.

There at Peter’s back, a warm hand. The man is shushing him, that nice sound, like for frightened dogs and crying babies, and that slow soft humming, like the hum of an air conditioner, like the familiar creak of an old house. The man’s got a nice voice. A kind voice, slow and low and it’s not gruff or screaming or lusty and dark—it’s just here, humming from one song to the next, his chest occasionally moving against Peter's head whenever he takes a breath. Sometimes, the man sings the words, but mostly he’s just humming. Humming and rocking, humming and rocking and holding Peter like he’s something good. 

No one ever holds him like this anymore. 

He sobs—it comes out of him like vomit. Wet bloody tears, and the man’s white coat is ruined by Peter’s tears, by his fucked up face, and Peter grabs the man harder and harder with his hands, fists in his white coat—THEY’RE GONNA TAKE ME FROM YOU PLEASE—PLEASE—DON’T LET THEM TAKE ME—THEY ALWAYS TAKE ME—PLEASE—LET ME STAY—

“If I could,” whispers the man, “I’d let you stay here forever, Peter. I’d lock those doors and I’d keep them from you forever.”

The man cradles him, in a chair maybe; Peter can hear the creak. The man keeps going, slow and steady, tipping the chair up and down with his feet: rocking him, cradling him, his arms gentle and unmoving—oh, God—and through his swollen eyes, Peter just cries. 

He thought he’d never experience this again, the warm pressure of a hand at his back—ever again. Peter claws at the doctor’s white coat—that precious white coat—his only sign of good, of fucking heaven—and Peter grasps it tight in his broken fingers, and he wants to keep it—God, can he stay here forever?

And then he’s gone—slips away for just a second—

(“So,” says Tony, “you and MJ, huh?”

Peter flushes pink. “Uh.”

“It’s okay—it’s okay—I know kids are” —Mr. Stark drags out the air quotes, “sensitive these days about talking about dating and sex and everything else—”

“We’re not dating,” he blurts out, focusing entirely on the webshooter in front of him. Heat grows in his chest and drifts up into his face, and he fiddles with it so hard that a canister of web clanks out of its slot and clatters onto the table. “We’re not.”

Mr. Stark lifts his hands in surrender—forgetting he’s still connected to the empty Iron Man suit a few feet away, and the metal-encased suit raises its gloved hands, too, mirroring him. “I heard you the first twenty times—I don’t care what you call it—hooking up, going steady, situationshipping—”

“That is not a thing people say,” Peter says, clicking the web canister back into its tiny slot and testing out the mechanism. “And MJ and I are just friends, I told you that.”

The man waves his hands at him—a yeah, yeah—and the Iron Man suit does the same. “Whatever you kids want to call it these days.”

It is April now, and the sun comes in warm through the windows. It was April Fool’s Day yesterday—Peter and Mr. Stark spent the week prior plotting a way to paint Happy’s black van pink. 

They work in silence a little longer. Mr. Stark is shifting to his table, standing beside him, looking down at the newly fixed web-shooter, and eventually, the man clears his throat. “I get it, buddy, no one wants to talk about this—but I just wanna make sure. If you and MJ…do…decide to do anything, then I just want you to be safe. So if you need anything, or you wanna talk about anything, I’m right here.”

Peter doesn’t look at him, he just keeps fiddling with the thing, screwing and twisting the screwdriver, adjusting it tighter and tighter around his wrist. He can feel his blush still there in his face, pressing at his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “But I’m good—we’re totally good—there’s nothing to talk about.”

Terse silence, and Mr. Stark clears his throat, coughing a couple times into his fist. Another pause, and then, “If you’d rather, I can get Pepper to chat it up instead—she can give you a two-hour lecture about the difference between different types of condoms, because I’m sure she’d be happy to—”

“Oh my God, Mr. Stark, please don’t,” he says, and the tension between them pops, both of them giggling, and for a moment there, on his back, Tony’s hand. Warm and firm, a couple pats, and the man returns to his workstation.)

—and Peter’s back—where is he—WHERE IS HE—shuddering and breathing hard, he’s against someone—what is this—what is this—

And Peter hears it again: that sweet humming, the shushing, and that steady rocking, back and forth, back and forth. 

“M’st’r… St… St…” he chokes out—HELP ME—HELP ME—I NEED—I NEED YOU—

“I’m right here, Peter. I’ve got you.”

“St-t…t’rk…”

A tired sigh. “Yeah, hon. It’s me.”

The man holds him steady, and maybe for just a few more minutes, for a few more holy precious seconds—Peter is safe. He hums, and Peter can feel the vibration next to his head. And clenched in his sweaty fist is a fabric, beautiful white fabric, and God, please, he wants to stay here forever—

“I should've told them it was contagious,” the man whispers, “I should've… I’m so sorry, I thought they’d… I'm sorry, Peter. I'm so, so sorry.”

Peter hides in the man’s arms; he shivers. He wants to shroud himself in this white coat, wants to bundle himself up. He doesn’t want to let go—he wants to stay like this forever, cradled in this man’s arms, knowing that no one will hurt him, knowing he’s safe a couple seconds more.

This would be a good way to die, he thinks, with feverish clarity, and a part of him hopes he does. 

But he can’t—Peter has to stay: to protect Cassie, to make sure what happened to him at eight years old doesn’t happen to her at seven. To make sure she keeps that unmistakable light in her eyes. 

So Peter holds on, holding fast in that white coat: even as his mind goes foggy, even as the world goes soft with fever, even as the white coat blurs before his eyes. “D’n’t wanna…go…” he sobs through broken lips, burying his face in the cool cloth. 

The man murmurs something back, and he doesn’t hear it. He’s too far gone. “D’n…w’nna…” he cries, and a small high sound leaves him, desperate to stay—and it hurts to speak and it hurts to try but he wants to stay— “please, pl’s… don’t wanna…g-go…” Peter tries to stay, he really does—

—but his fever is coming back, and he’s too tired to fight it. He’s too tired to even try.

And Peter can’t hold on for much longer. 

Peter tips his face into the doctor’s coat and takes a shaky, tear-steeped breath of him. His mouth tastes like salt: like blood, like tears. The man is saying something, and Peter mumbles, “I’m—m s’ry…”

Peter’s so tired—he’s so fucking tired, and his grip weakens as that cool numbness comes to take him. He feels it—the haze of fever crawling up and up in him, the pain sweeping high in his flailing chest, the soothe of drugs creeping its way past his eyes.

And Peter—

—stupid, pathetic Peter Parker—

—lets it take him.

(“How’s he doing?” asks Pepper.

“Better,” says Tony, and Peter feels a cool hand on his forehead, a palm, and then the hand flips over—Mr. Stark’s knuckles, the smooth back of his hand. “Fever’s gone down a little, but you know him—Spider-genes like to fight off everything in sight.”

“He sleeping?”

“In and out.”

Peter is too tired to speak. He tries to mumble a sorry and all that comes out of him is a mild groan. 

“And May?”

“Getting off a night shift—I talked to her, and she should be here in half an hour.”

Some talking between the two of them, whispering Peter can scarcely hear.

“Stay,” he murmurs, and Peter’s hand on Tony’s wrist.

He’s not sure if he says it out loud but he must because the man in the t-shirt chuckles lightly and says, “I’m not going anywhere—not until you stop feeling like a damn radiator, kid. Go back to sleep.”

But every time he feels himself slip away, he brings himself back, jerking awake and squeezing his fingers tight around Tony’s wrist. “I’ll be right here when you wake up, okay? Just go back to sleep.”

He mumbles something in response—he doesn’t know what. The world is much too warm and his vision is spotty.

A warm chuckle. Then there it is again, a hand on Peter’s arm, a gentle pat— “Don’t fight it, bud. I promise I’ll wake you when she’s here.” 

He mumbles again, moving his hand against the sheets.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Stark says. “You can sleep, Pete. May’ll be here soon.”

Peter can feel the exhaustion pull at him—and pull at him—and pull at him. He can smell Mr. Stark’s closeness in the air—hazelnut coffee and motor oil, sweat and a smile. So he blinks his eyes open for a second, gets a glimpse of Mr. Stark’s unmistakable beard, and closes his eyes again. 

Letting go of Mr. Stark’s wrist, Peter gives in—and lets sleep take him away.)