doomsday, pt 4
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 — 5:51 PM
Peter’s slipping.
He can feel his grasp on reality going—like ash through his fingers, like water. They’re here, he thinks. They’re here.
He knew they’d come back. They always come back for him. Like vultures circling a carcass, like wolves trailing a wounded sheep. Like sharks sniffing out the reek of blood—and Peter the red swirling in the water.
They’ve come for him.
“...counsel and I call you by your first name, is that right?” a woman is saying. She has dark hair and darker eyes, and she’s staring at him over her glasses as though expecting an answer.
He doesn’t recognize her. She’s wearing black and she’s smiling at him. What happened? Did he do something? Where—where is he? WHERE— He was in the Medbay, Tony told him so, but now he’s sitting in a chair. It is alarmingly soft and it is dark-colored and when he looks up the room is so bright that he has to shut his eyes. There are people around, too, an incessant murmur, and there are pairs of eyes everywhere he looks.
“...let us obey Mr. Murdock’s request, if we…”
Too many people in this room—EVERYONE’S HERE BUT WHERE’S CHARLIE—WHERE IS HE—HE WAS RIGHT THERE—HE’S—HE’S—
—here at last, and the door shuts behind him with a squeal. A click—the door locks. Another safeguard against Peter breaking free.
They don’t need to lock that door. Peter can’t make it out of these vibranium cuffs, let alone all the way to the locked door.
“Know what this is, Parker?”
Peter looks at it. And then back up at the bearded man, who licks his teeth and stares down at him.
One of Tony’s weapons. The ones Charlie wants him to make. Charlie’s nose is quite red, all cracked bleeding skin, and his sleeve is rolled up to bare his needle-pocked arms. Peter looks down at his own arms, spotted with prickles from sedative-drenched needles, pinpricks red like freckles.
They match.
“You answer me when I’m talking to you!”
“A gun,” Peter says, fast.
“Wrong,” he says. “It's a piece of shit! Piece of fucking junk! Say it!”
“Piece of fucking junk,” he echoes without thinking.
Peter didn’t used to curse. He does now.
“You know what happens when Iron Daddy’s things don’t work?”
A scrape of fear down his back, and Peter sucks in breath, halting as he tries to think of his answer. “Um,” he mentions, a squeak of noise, and that’s all that comes out of him as the man stares at him.
He knows what happens. It’s what always happens. Every day for the rest of Peter’s short life, this will happen.
He takes a shaky breath in, and—
—jerks his head up. Someone is speaking to him. A woman’s voice, one he doesn’t recognize.
“...an enhanced victim… above the age of consent for vigilante activity…” Noise all around him—the low murmur of people, and when he looks around the whole word is blurry. “... these charges…to you?”
Charges, Peter thinks, in a moment of clarity and he remembers Tony talking to him. He remembers a man in his room with red glasses: a new man, one Peter didn’t know. Hair dark like Tony’s, face clean-shaven like the soldiers, pants khaki-colored like Beck’s.
BECK, he thinks, and the woman is still talking to him. “...that a yes?”
“Yes,” Peter murmurs. She doesn’t look much like Ava or Renee—one of the doctors. Medbay, he reminds himself, but Tony kept telling him differently. YES, he thinks, and he says it again. “Yes, yes…”
“And do you also recognize that as both a vigilante and an enhanced person, all of the charges brought against the defendant committed against you fall under the law of collateral?”
The man with the blond hair meets his eyes and nods. Peter watches his hands—they still in his lap, ready—he has to be ready— “Yes,” he says. He wants a yes—give him a yes, give him a yes, Pete—
The woman frowns, and she says something else, and air feels humid, damp, like they’re underground, and Peter doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know—
—how long he has left.
Cassie is crying silently—whispering for Ava over and over, and he wants her there. He feels himself lying in the middle of the concrete floor with the ceiling laying above him, his blood warm and sticky beneath him. Help me, he whispers, although he knows no one is coming. Who is he talking to now? Mr. Stark? Uncle Ben? God?
If he had any strength left at all, he’d pray.
But the only thing he can do is close his eyes and hope he dies quickly—and if they kill Cassie as he’s sleeping, that they do it fast—
“… Peter! Peter!”
He throws his head up, and there is a roomful of people and a woman staring at him.
“I know this is difficult, but try to stay with me. For the presented charges against the defendant, do you wish to proceed with a case against Mr. Keene?”
Across the room is a man with a dark beard and tired eyes. Tony. He’s clutching his left arm with his other hand, and through his shirt a low blue circle glows faintly. Iron Man, he thinks, and then on instinct, help me, and he looks sideways to find—
—the bearded man in front of him, smiling. His teeth are black in spots—rotting away—and his face is spotted with scabs. “…failsafe, Parker…”
Peter mumbles something back, and his chest aches with something awful. It’s over now—the phone is hung up, Scott Lang’s laptop is closed, and the pain has resumed in this pulsing thump on the side of his face. He thinks his nose is broken. Twice already, three times now.
“You’re a part of something good,” he says. “We’re gonna save the world, right? You’re gonna help me. Say it!”
Peter’s face feels numb from the shock of it—his eye swollen shut, his fucked-up nose leaking warmth into his mouth. “…he…he’…help…” He coughs and something dribbles wet onto his lap. “He-help—”
“..me…” he croaks, and his face doesn’t hurt so bad anymore. Peter touches his hand to his nose and finds some plastic tubing there threading into one nostril.
What—
“Peter?” The doctor must be here somewhere. Here somewhere—no. Medbay. He’s in the Medbay, and Cassie is here safe with him. Tony said he was safe here. Tony said… What did he say? “Peter,” the woman says again. “Peter—”
“—PARKER!”
Peter looks behind the camera at the man tied into his wheelchair—Scott Lang’s dull eyes, his growing beard, his dazed gaze tilted at the computer instead of Peter. His hair is long like Peter’s. He’s seen too much. Peter’s seen too much, Scott’s seen too much, and they’re both going to die here. They don’t need vibranium cuffs to tie Scott Lang down. Just the threat of hurting his daughter, and they had him tied down from the start. Help me, you coward, he thinks, but Scott never does anything other than what Charlie tells him. Help me!
The walls seem to get smaller as the bearded man draws closer. “Talk back to me again,” he hisses, “and I’ll take that snarky tongue of yours right out of your mouth—“
“Screw you,” Peter spits back, and Charlie whips around so fast that his spider-sense doesn’t even see it coming.
All of a sudden he’s got his hands in Peter’s mouth, gripping the bottom of his jaw by his teeth, and Peter feels the prick of the knife in his cheek, can feel his fingers pressing at his teeth like some kind of warped dentist, and he flails—panics—makes a garbled shout into Charlie’s fingers. Charlie’s crazy—he’s actually insane—and if he says he’ll cut Peter’s tongue out then that’s what he’ll do.
He bites down then, hard onto Charlie’s fingers; the man roars and then with a roar of pain, the fingers are gone.
There’s only a half-second of relief before a hand flies towards his face, hits square in the eye, and there’s a horrid crack upon impact, knocking his whole neck off kilter, and his vision goes star-spotted and sideways—
—as Peter twists his head back around, one way than the other. WHERE IS HE—WHERE’S CHARLIE—and panic spirals up his back as he tries to sense the hit before it comes. He was just here, he thinks, and he looks around again, finding only strangers. Where is he? WHERE IS HE—
“...and I understand this is difficult, Peter, I really do, but you have to answer my questions. Can you look at me, Peter?”
Frozen stiff where he sits, Peter forces his eyes to the woman’s. He listens; he does as he is told.
“Good. Thank you. Now, will you be proceeding with the charges given against Mr. Keene?”
She has long, dark hair. Shiny. Clean. Nothing like Charlie’s but he knows the man is here somewhere, knows what’s about to happen.
“A yes or no is fine,” the woman prods.
“Yes,” Peter mumbles.
There’s a heavy whine in the back of his head, and he can feel blood pool at the back of his neck, can feel cuffs around his wrists, can feel the cold shiver of the damp bunker air. Across the room, someone sniffles—coughs—and—
—Charlie sniffles again, rubbing his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hand. He gets like this sometimes, no matter what he was on, and his hand is wet. He sniffs, drags the collar of his shirt against his nose, and then coughs again. “You know, Parker,” he says, “my dad used to pull all kinds of shit like this.”
Peter can feel the stretch in his back—scars there from what Charlie did to him—and he wonders if Charlie has marks on his. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Maybe that’s all the man needs. Someone to listen. Someone to be kind. “Do you want to…” Peter swallows, and somewhere in the terror gripping him he finds it in himself to speak. “Talk about it?”
Charlie moves his head slowly—his mouth opens, his eyes narrow—focusing like a hawk to a mouse.
Focusing on him.
Shit.
The bearded man scoffs, pointing a trembling finger at him as he stalks forward: off-kilter, drug-slurred steps. “You think you’re so fucking good, don’t you, Parker?”
“No,” he stammers out, and Peter glances quickly at the woman behind him—Ava, with her long scraggly hair, blinking dully at him. Help me, he thinks, he’s gonna—
“YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME?”
“No, no, of course not—“
Charlie staggers in his direction, a little sideways, and then halfway, and then points his finger at him. “This is all your fucking fault,” he says. “You should be fucking sorry. I could do worse to you, you know? I could fuck you up bad—could take off that useless leg of yours, you want that?”
“No,” he says quickly, so quickly, and with every step Charlie leers closer and Peter presses his head back and twists his neck away—centimeters away, fucking nothing, because he’s trapped in this chair and there’s no escaping— “No—”
“—Mr. Stark, please sit down—I said sit down, sir, or I will have you removed from the courtroom.”
A man’s voice he knows, and when he looks around he sees faces—eyes—all focused on him. They’re all watching him—THEY’RE ALWAYS WATCHING HIM—
—from the doorway, a pair of cold eyes. Cassie is under the bed, hiding. She’s safe there. He can hear her short breathing, and Peter shrinks in front of the bed. A man, and his eyes are so bloodshot that they seem almost purple.
He’s watching him.
Thick brown brows and a stubbly chin, brown eyes and brown hair and khaki pants.
Beck.
Brown-haired, brown-eyed—
“Peter. I need you to try. Just—a few more questions…”
He is frozen in his spot and his breath is trapped in his chest, slowly expanding. He feels sick—where is he? Medbay, he thinks clearly, and when he looks around all he finds is more people.
THEY’RE ALL WATCHING YOU—THEY’RE ALWAYS WATCHING YOU—and when he shuts his eyes he’s there, in that room of gray walls and broken radiators and bloodstained cement. Here, with the locked door and caged lightbulb and the food slot still closed.
Home.
He forces his eyes open a second time: there in the corner, a brown-haired man. Brown eyes. White teeth. A scruff of brown beard.
The realization hits him, like nails clawing down a black chalkboard, like hot breath on the back of his neck, like four fingers clamped around his wrist.
How could he ever be so stupid?
Peter was never at Avengers Tower.
He was never in the hospital or the Medbay or anywhere else.
He was still exactly where Charlie said he would be: dying slowly in a bunker underground, alone without anyone to ask for help, bloody and hurting and waiting for—
“—no one’s here to save you, Peter,” whispers the bearded man. “So why do you keep asking for it?”
A slash of pain down his left side—a scream dies in him, and he sobs as soon as it’s over. It's over, he thinks, I'm done—just kill me, I'm done.
“Kill you?” Charlie laughs at that, and he clasps his hand against his chest as he does—a thunk, the weight of the bearded man’s fist against his own chest, and Charlie cackles again.
Peter’s legs shake—he thinks about it quickly, as the pain hitches in him, about how easy it would be, how quick.
No more pain, he thinks, it would be over.
“No, no, no, I need you, Parker. It’s not over yet.”
A sweaty palm pressed against his forehead, and another wave of chilled fear passes over him as he pins his chest to the hard back of the chair.
“You’re not going anywhere—”
“...unless you wish to continue a case against him?”
Peter shuts his eyes.
He’s gonna die here.
“Peter?”
Brown haired. Brown eyed. His firm hands resting in his lap.
“For the charges listed against Mr. Beck, do you wish to…”
He shuts his eyes tight again, so tight that spots prickle in his vision, and opens them again. The world around him is much too loud. His throat is dry, and his leg aches, and—
—the brown-haired man sits up. “Better,” he says. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
It burns when he moves. and when Cassie asks what hurts he just stays quiet. He doesn’t have an answer for her. This kind of pain he has to trap inside of him. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here.
It didn’t happen to him. Not him.
He is at home somewhere. He is sitting at the kitchen table with his homework in front of him. May is at the stove burning the pancakes; Tony is on the other side of the table making a face; Uncle Ben is reading the newspaper; Ned is beside him with a full plate.
He is home. He is home he is home he is—
—sitting in a chair that doesn’t feel right. It smells clean, like antiseptic and rubbing alcohol and cold leather. “Doc?” he whispers, bewildered, but the person speaking to him is a woman—ONE OF THEM— “Doc?”
“No, Peter, just answer my question please—Mr. Stark, for the last time, I said sit—”
—straining against the cuffs, and Peter shouts, “Charlie, Charlie, please—please—don’t do this—Mr. Stark! Help! HELP! HELP—“
Something smacks him hard across the face—pain spackles across his cheek, his eye warming from impact, his skin buzzing. His nose stings, too, the kind of stinging that surges up to his eyes and makes them water.
Oh, Peter thinks stupidly. That hurt.
“Shut the fuck up!” the man snarls, and when he rears his arm back a second time Peter cringes away from his ringed hand. “Not everyone wants to hear that big fucking mouth of yours all the time, Parker! I get it! You don’t wanna be here! Well, WE DON’T ALWAYS GET WHAT WE WANT—
—a muffled sound and a man’s voice, booming and there across the room is red-haired Renee—her hair stringy and long, bloodshot smirk and Peter sucks in a gasp of a breath. Olive-skinned Haroun, black-haired Zhiyuan, the ones who hold him down.
They’re here.
They’re all here.
And Peter knows exactly where he is.
Someone is talking to him and Peter knows where he is now—the chair, the bloodstained cuffs, the green camera light blinking in front of him. The ringing phone, the tray of used metal tools, Mason’s hammer swinging at his belt. Another shout—his name, and—
—someone is laughing, a sharp sound from somewhere behind him, and Peter jumps at the sound.
His wrists ache from the cuffs, and one of his hands is prickly with numbness. It’s bleeding again, warmth dribbling down his forearm, and when he pulls again, the metal digs in—the pain swells, and he can’t feel his pinky finger anymore.
“—wait,” he chokes out, but he knows it’s coming. “It works—it has to work—Mr. Stark, tell them it works!”
Charlie’s hand clenches onto his shoulder, and Peter looks to Scott Lang, Cassie’s broken father. The man quickly looks down at his computer, his face taut with guilt. He finds Ava standing by the wall; she too looks away. At last, Peter looks up at Charlie, who only grins that horrible, stretched- smile. His gums are bleeding; his teeth are spotted with rot.
There is no one here to help him.
In a room full of people, Peter is wholly, entirely alone.
“It works,” Peter pleads again. “Mr. Stark! Tell them! Tell them it works!”
Silence on the other line—static. A hum of electricity.
“Tell them it works, please, please, Mr. Stark, tell them!” Peter yanks his arm against the cuffs—useless—his skin splits with the effort and still he pulls harder.
Charlie’s voice, cold and slightly amused: “Put him on his back, Glenn.”
Then—the sound of running water.
On the other line, Mr. Stark makes a noise like someone’s punched him. “Charlie—Charlie, please—” His voice cracks. “Please—please, don’t do this.”
A click, and the chair slides out flat, and Peter flails as it moves. “Wait, wait, wait,” he tries, “wait—”
“Please! Please, Charlie, he’s just a kid… Please…”
Someone presses a cloth over his face, and Peter tries to yell through it but it comes out all muffled; he jerks his neck to the side, trying to get it off, and a thick hand presses against his forehead, holding him still. “Rules are rules, Stark,” he hears from somewhere above him, and then the water comes down.
Peter can do this. He’s Spider-Man. He can take it. It’s not hard at first. One minute, and then two. He was always a good swimmer. Uncle Ben taught him how. Three minutes, and he dreams of the pool—of high school gym class, of MJ and her chlorine-doused hair—
It’s starting to burn. He lasts as long as he can before he breaks—gasping, choking, and on instinct sucks in a lungful of water through the cloth, gargles it out right into the fabric and it goes right back in—he gags
and coughs and splutters—HE CAN’T BREATHE—
The cloth presses down harder.
Peter sucks in another breath half-drenched with liquid. He’s choking down water and he’s gonna die—Mr. Stark is screaming and he’s gonna die, he can’t move and he’s gonna die—coughing again and he’s gonna die, he’s breathing in water and he’s gonna die, his lungs spike with pain and he’s gonna die, HE CAN’T BREAK THE CUFFS AND HE’S GONNA DIE, IT HURTS AND HE'S GONNA DIE, HE CAN’T BREATHE AND HE'S—
—pulling violently at the cuffs and finds himself facedown on the floor, his hands pressing against carpet. He coughs violently, expecting water but only sweet air comes into his lungs. What—what happened? Where is he? WHERE ARE THEY—he senses someone behind him, a tidal wave of spider-sense up his back, and he twists his neck to find the cause. He thinks of FRIDAY and somewhere in the back of his mind Peter knows she can’t help.
He’s alone. He’s always alone.
“...help him up, Mr. Barnes…”
He looks down at himself and his clothes are dark—black, like the jumpsuit, but something’s not right. It’s too warm in this room; he’s too comfortable in these clothes; he smells clean, like soap, and Cassie’s gone—where’s Cassie—
“Cassie?” he cries out, and the panic worsens, sinks into him, grasps cold at his neck. “Cassie? Cassie—Cassie!”
If she’s not here then they have her—oh, God, if they have her—THEY HAVE HER, THEY’VE GOT HER AND THEY’RE GONNA—
“—hurt him,” says a croaky voice over the phone. Mr. Stark. “Please… Charlie… Don’t—”
Hard laughter.
“I don’t make the rules, Stark,” he says, and the man smacks Peter’s shoulder lightly—not enough to hurt, but still Peter stiffens at the impact. There’s a still-healing wound there from a couple days ago. A burn. Still healing. Still hurts. “This is all you. If you could just make this weapon right…”
“I'm trying, I—I am. I am…”
“Really? Trying? Because this—” Charlie waves around the newest weapon, tangle of wires and protected steel—fires it twice at the ceiling, and Peter cringes at the sound. “—doesn’t look like trying, Stark! Give me something that fucking works! You hear me?”
Mr. Stark is still talking but Peter’s focused on something else. Hands behind him on the chair, fiddling with the headrest on the chair. A click, and a slow cranking noise, and something tightens hard around his forehead.
The chair’s never done that before. Another one beside him—Ava, long-haired kind-eyed Ava—and she tightens the cuffs around his left wrist, then reaches over and fixes the right. On his other side, a tall man fiddles with a black device; on it, a row of buttons. From it, a gray cord that trails all the way down to the chair, to an outlet right next to his foot.
Electricity.
Beside him, the short guard waves something at him. “Open up, Parker,” he says. In his hand is something small—a mouthguard. Beige discolored rubber. There are marks in it, too, little indents—where teeth have been.
Peter's a smart kid. He knows what this mouth guard is for.
He studied this in school, actually. Psych class, sophomore year. They’d watched a documentary on electroconvulsive therapy that took two days to get through. He wrote a paper on it. He got a B+.
Oh, god.
“Unless you wanna bite that tongue clean off,” the guard adds. “Take it.”
Peter opens his mouth—and a hand shoves the mouthguard inside. He gags at the taste of the rubber.
And suddenly, he knows how much this is about to hurt. His chest heaves with a breath—a mouthful of rubber and gritted teeth, he garbles out an apology. Maybe this time Charlie will listen—maybe this time he’ll take pity on him.
Beside him, Frank swallows. Peter begs him with his eyes—blinks at him, anything, and the man looks down at the remote, at his thumb hovering over the button.
This is gonna hurt, he thinks again, and he’s already sweating at the thought of it. This is gonna be—
“—fine, she’s safe…” A man dressed in black and he remembers them—the new soldiers, all dressed in black. Kevlar vests and combat boots. Buzz cuts and canvas pants. Hard, cold eyes. “...at home—remember? Medbay…”
The man’s voice goes muffled and sideways as he reaches for him—Peter rolls on the ground, tries to get up and falls again—his knee cracks against floor and a flood of pain surges up his leg that nearly makes him vomit. Could he make it to the door? His only way out—that door—BUT HE NEVER MAKES IT—YOU’LL ONLY FAIL—AND WHEN YOU RUN YOU GET—
“...down, Peter, just calm down…” A hand grazes his shoulder and he flails again, throwing himself away from the man and finds himself on the floor again; his leg hurts—GOD IT HURTS—and he crawls away from him.
YOU READY, PARKER? ARE YOU? OPEN YOUR EYES—OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES, OR I’LL—a shadow of someone moving—IT’S HIM—men shouting, a face passing in front of him, and a hand grasps his arm tight, hauls him up and he screams again—
—until at last the machine relents.
The pain is gone so fast that he can’t even remember what it was—just relief, sweet and utter relief, hitting him so fast that his head drops to his chest, his body going slack. His whole face is wet with tears—saliva comes down his chin as his head tips forward. Thank you, he thinks, and his bleary eyes find Charlie in front of him—Charlie’s hand on his shoulder, Charlie’s mouth moving into that gruesome smile. Thank you, thank you, thank you…
He stares down at his hands, at his bleeding wrists in their cuffs. His fingers are twitching. There’s a strange buzzing in his chest now and a whine in his ears.
“...fun, huh?” Charlie is saying. “They used to use these things on old POWs,” he says, “or so I've heard. World War II, when they couldn’t find anything better to do with ‘em. Tried to turn them into spies or some shit—turned their brains to mush instead.” He turns his back on Peter, and then he looks at the computer camera. At Mr. Stark. “Did you know that, Stark?”
“Charlie…” the man chokes out, his voice comes out croaky over the phone. He doesn’t sound like himself, and Peter’s fingers are still twitching. He can’t get them to stop. “Charlie, please…”
Charlie chuckles to himself, and he licks his teeth. “Parker doesn’t need his brain, does he?.” He ruffles his hand through Peter’s hair; he stiffens but lets it happen. “He’s not using it.”
He then pats Peter’s shoulder a second time; it hurts this time, too.
“You’ve made your point, Charlie—I promise it’ll work, I just need a couple more days…”
“You said that last week.”
“I mean it this time. I do.”
The man chuckles. “Well. Nothing wrong with a little incentive, is there?” He clicks his tongue—then waves his hand at the tall man with the remote. “Light him up, Frank.”
What? Again?
Peter jerks his heavy head up to look at the man and yells another protest through the rubber mouthguard—all that comes out is a muffled incoherent sound. Five minutes ago he didn’t know that’s what this stupid chair was meant for, and he feels stupid now that he didn’t know. All the cords—all the switches—and he didn’t even know.
Frank looks down at him and winces. He’s still holding the remote. “Charlie… Look, man, with the kid’s weight, I’m not really sure we should be—”
“Frank,” spits the bearded man. “Turn that fucker on—don’t make me ask you again.”
Not again, Peter begs, and he’s stupidly crying again, the tears coming hot down his face. Please, I can’t take it, not again… He can scarcely remember the pain but he knows it’ll be bad—he knows it’ll hurt—
“Come on, Charlie. Look at him. He’s already—”
“Now, Frank!”
The tall man sighs, looks at Peter, and then down at the floor. “Sorry, Parker,” he says, and then his finger moves for the button.
NO, he tries to say but he can’t get anything out through the stupid mouthguard, and his fingers are still twitching and he’s not ready yet—NO, WAIT PLEASE—
Click.
It splits straight through his skull, and rips down his spine—he can’t think—just IT HURTS—IT HURTS—TURN IT OFF—PLEASE—IT—
—hurts as the hands get tighter around him, fingers and sweat and the stench of vibranium metal, pull him hard across floor so IT’S TIME—
—IT’S—
Arms latched around him—his voice slips away from him and all sense goes with it. He claws out blindly, his vision hazy and blind with panic, and a hand clasps around his wrist so he—
—screams—
—and screams—
—and screams—
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 — 6:08 PM
They can still hear Peter screaming.
They had to drag him out like that—it wasn’t even a conversation. Murdock turned to the judge, tried to say, “Your Honor—” above the noise, and the judge immediately waved—a yes.
Although Peter is already gone, his chair empty and the doors shut, Pepper can still see it happening—the whole courtroom did. Bucky Barnes grabbing the kid and pulling him towards the courtroom doors, all the while the kid screamed like Barnes was trying to kill him.
Steve Rogers has his head in his hands; even the usually-calm Rhodey looks shaky.
At the prosecution’s table, Tony looks pale. He’s got one hand pressed to his chest, and he’s breathing hard through his mouth in huffs. Foggy Nelson has a hand on his back patting softly, talking to him, but Tony isn’t responding.
The courtroom is quiet for a while, save the low murmur in the pews. The judge is shuffling through her papers, tapping on a tablet, and eventually she calls up Sarah Wilson to her podium.
Sarah approaches, and walks all the way up to the judge’s podium before speaking with her. Ten minutes go by like this—just the two women talking, until at last the judge peers over at the empty chair where Peter sat only minutes beforehand. She dips her head for a second and closes her eyes—a beat, a thought—and opens them, staring down at the packet of papers in front of her.
Then she looks up at Sarah—who’s clutching her hands tightly in front of her—and the judge says, “Alright, Ms. Wilson. Let the record show that although Mr. Parker—Peter will not be held in contempt for his outbursts, he will be required to display legal proof of comprehension.”
An out. She’s giving them an out. “So a written statement, Mr. Murdock, do you understand? Signed, notarized, stating his position on all of the charges.”
“Yes—of course, thank you, Your Honor,” Murdock answers. “Thank you.”
The rest of the hearing is quick. The judge calls up both of them individually—Tony barely says anything—just murmurs whatever Murdock coached him to say and sits back down without looking once at the defense’s table. Steve is a bit stiffer, and he nods almost militarily, answering, “Yes, ma’am,” a couple times which the judge does not correct. He makes nervous glances towards Bucky the entire time, and then they bring up Beck and Steve simply stares down at the podium. “And you wish to continue pressing charges against Mr. Beck for the aforementioned offenses?”
“Yes,” the man says, and he sniffs roughly.
Afterwards, there's some final discussion of the next hearing—sentencing for the ones who plead guilty—and when Judge Pearce is done, she adds, “None of the prosecution will have to be there,” looking pointedly at Tony as she does. “But some like to. For victim statements, closure… Mr. Murdock can speak to you about it.”
At last Judge Pearce makes some closing statements, schedules the sentencing hearing for three weeks from now, and a separate hearing for Quentin Beck.
Then the judge bangs her gavel.
As the crowd begins to shuffle out of the room, Pepper looks back at the judge with her sleek ponytail and her black judge’s robes and finds that she’s covering her face with her hands.