VOLUME TWO:  FINALS

Peter dreamed.

He was running, feet hitting the ground one after the other. He wasn’t sure why he was running, only that he was. He was conscious of the beats hitting harsh ground but couldn’t see or feel anything else around him. Peter stumbled when the ground softened, and he began to sink. Cold water swallowed his legs, waist, torso, all the way up to his neck.

He began to swim. One arm after the other, his legs beating desperately behind him. In the distance he could see pin pricks of light floating atop a mass of darkness that he assumed to be land.

No matter how hard Peter kicked his legs, he didn’t feel like he was going anywhere. His arms felt like lead as he dragged them through the water. The water grew thicker, pulling Peter down to whatever lay below. He took a last gasping breath before he was dragged under.

When Peter opened his eyes this time, he was in the compound. Not his compound, the old one. He was in his room, but it wasn’t his room at all. 

Tony Stark stood before him. His mentor was dressed casually in a t shirt and jeans, but Peter couldn’t see where they were, or when. There was a lot that his brain seemed to be omitting, he eyes couldn’t even register his hands before him.  

“You’re still being reckless!” Tony yelled; Peter flinched at the raised voice. “How am I supposed to trust you if you never listen to instructions!”

“I don’t—” Peter began to say he didn’t understand what was happening, or where he was.

“You need to learn that every single thing you do effects everyone around you,” Tony said sternly, putting his hands on Peter’s shoulders, “that’s a part of the gig, kid.”

“I’m trying.” Peter heard himself speaking but couldn’t feel his mouth moving.

 You’ll never be able to truly help people if you keep trying to change the past.”

“But—” Peter tried yet again to speak but Tony was faster.

“Stop searching.”

The scene dissolved and Peter suddenly found himself kneeling on the ground of a worn battlefield. The air smelt like blood and earth and the tangy aroma of firepower. There was sobbing, Pepper’s by the sounds of it. His own face was wet with tears. Not far away the once insistent but now weakening beat of a heart, thud… thud……thud.

A light so bright, burnt out and extinguished in a matter of hours.

Stop searching.

Peter was running again. In the distance there was gathered a small crowd all dressed in black on the shore of a lake by a lodge in a forest. A peaceful place coloured by incomparable loss. Peter was crying and his hand was outstretched as he ran but no matter how fast he went he couldn’t reach them.

Stop! He was crying. Don’t let him go!

Peter woke with a start.

The first thing that he noticed was the scent of antiseptic. It always made his nose itch. It had been like that even before he’d been bitten by a radioactive spider. But his heightened senses now gave it a painful sting.

“Peter? Can you hear me?” May’s familiar voice made Peter open his eyes.

“Oh honey,” May said and he felt a hand against his cheek. The light above was bright, and he groaned, reaching up to cover his eyes. “MJ can you switch the lights off, they irritate him.”

“Sure thing, Ms Parker.” There was a click and the room started to come into better focus.

“What happened,” Peter tried to say, but his mouth was dry and it came out sounding more like ‘mwa hatten’.

“There was an accident.” May’s voice was slow and steady, and Peter felt himself relax for the briefest of moments. The hold that the nightmare had on him receded but was quickly replaced by the horrifying memories of everything that had happened at Manhattan Bridge. Peter sat up roughly.  

He was in what appeared to be hospital bed – which explained the smell of antiseptic. The cotton bedsheet was rubbing against his bare legs and there were two hard pillows at his back. He felt medical tape holding an IV drip in place on his arm and the pull of other monitors stuck to his chest.

The room was much nicer than what he’d seen of other hospital rooms. The walls were a warm grey and the floors appeared to be dark hardwood. Windows lined the wall to his left accompanied by blue drapes at either end. Aside from his bed the room was largely empty, save for a small table laden with flowers and two chairs in the corner, one of which was occupied by MJ. Her hair was messy and hanging around her face, her eyes were hollowed by tiredness and travelling up her right forearm was a thick bandage. Peter swallowed and his fingers twitched anxiously. In the other chair sat Pepper Potts, her forehead creased with concern. Her attention had been on the files in her lap, but she now looked towards Peter.

“The bridge.” It was all Peter could get out before his head dropped into his hands. That was when he noticed that there were thin white bandages wrapped around his fingers. He raised his head to look at them, flexing his hands experimentally – he didn’t sense any pain, from anywhere in his body in fact.  

“Your hands and arms were burnt,” May said, rubbing his back comfortingly. “Carol was the first to get there, but she had to stay and help stabilise the bridge, it was Director Fury who helped you to the hospital.” Peter frowned, Nick Fury wasn’t one to get involved with anything as public as this, preferring to target the more threatening but low-profile missions.

“I don’t remember any of that.”

“You wouldn’t,” May said sighing and she turned to the table to get Peter a glass of water which he sipped gratefully. “At the hospital they had to give you adrenaline and all sorts of things to make sure your body didn’t completely shut down.” Her voice was wobbly at that and Peter gripped her hand with his free one, squeezing tightly.

“In the end your injuries were healing so quickly that the doctors grew suspicious, so Pepper kindly had you moved here.”

“Where’s here?” Peter asked numbly.

“The compound, sweetheart,” May said brushing the hair out of his face affectionately, “we’re in the med bay, next to the hangar.”

“Oh,” Peter managed, leaning back against his pillows again and finally looking out the window. Sure, enough he could see the manicured lawns of the Avenger’s compound stretching all the way out to the heavy-duty gates that cornered it all off.

“What happened after I left?” He forced out after a few minutes – refusing to look at any of the women in the room with him.  

“438 people had the chance to escape the bridge because you were able to act quickly and dismantle those bombs.” It was Pepper who spoke this time. “Everyone is recovering in hospital. That was two days ago, it’s Sunday afternoon now.”

“I have school tomorrow.” Was all Peter could murmur as the scene of the bridge came back to him in vivid snippets.

“That’s ok sweetie, you don’t need to worry about that now,” May said squeezing his shoulder, “everyone has been so worried about you, the doctor here says--”

Peter cut her off. “There were four more explosions.”

“What?”

“Four I didn’t stop.”

May frowned, “You did as best you could Peter, even superheroes have their limits.”

“It was my fault,” Peter ground out and bit his lip firmly to stop it quivering. He could see the way that MJ was looking over at the floor in the corner and he felt his face heating in embarrassment as he turned his eyes to the ceiling and breathed deeply.  

“It was not your fault,” May said squeezing his shoulder tighter. “You saved everyone; you can’t blame yourself for terrorists targeting that bridge!”

Peter didn’t answer.

“Listen,” Pepper said firmly, she was standing now, her files abandoned on her chair, “you cannot start blaming yourself for these things, you see what it does to everyone around here? You did what you could and thatis enough.”

“But it ismy fault because I knew!” Peter cried, finally losing his patience with it all.

“What?” MJ said, it was the first word she had spoken.

“I knew,” Peter hissed finally looking May in the eyes. Her expression was confused, and MJ was just unreadable. “I’d been tipped off about suspicious activity with ammunitions manufacturers and I forgot it. I was supposed to be on duty! I knew that there were things going on that the police wouldn’t know about, but I was an idiot and I kept it to myself because, oh yeah I’m Spider-Man and I think I’m a bloody hero!”

He couldn’t stop himself. “So, I told no one. I knew that it was likely for the attack to happen that night – I even knew the area that they were targeting – and I didn’t say anything!To anyone! I let it happen. I knew where it would be and instead of being able to stop it, I got jealous and distracted and people almost died! So, it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t nearly enough, and it never is.”

Peter was breathing heavily, and the heart monitor’s beeps reflected how quick his heart was thumping. A large lump had swollen in his throat that he tried to swallow past. He didn’t know what else to say and didn’t want to see the disappointment on any of their faces, so he trained his eyes on the horizon out the window. The sun was setting.

“You can’t control everything,” May said firmly after a minute or two. “You don’t have to carry all this on your own shoulders!”

“But it’s my responsibility, Mr Stark said it was important that I knew what I was getting into and I do now. But I keep making these stupid mistakes, mistakes that keep costing everyone around me.” It was almost exactly what Tony had said to him in his dreamscape.

Pepper turned to him once more and made him meet her eyes. Her gaze was so intent and fierce that it was almost frightening. This wasn’t CEO Pepper or Morgan’s Mom Pepper; this was the Pepper who had spent the better part of the last decade and a half surrounded by superheroes, who knew and shared and lived their burdens.

“Don’t you for a second think that this is your fault,” she said firmly, crossing her arms. “Did you give those weapons away? Take them out into public and fix them to a busy public bridge?” Her voice was demanding, and Peter thought the questions had been rhetoric, but it seemed she was waiting for an answer.

“Well no,” Peter relented, “but I might as well have, you know inadvertently or whatever.”

This was clearly not the answer that Pepper had been looking for and her gaze narrowed in anger. “You aren’t supposed to be able to predict terrorist attacks – that’s not your job. As far as I’m concerned, you did exactly what you needed to on Friday. You saved people. Every single person on that bridge will live to see their family and friends and to continue with their lives. So, before you go on saying you didn’t do enough, maybe you should think long and hard about exactly what enough is for you.”

Peter looked away, back down at his hands as he tugged at the bandages. The room was entirely silent for a beat as Peter gathered his thoughts.

“But they might not have even got into that situation if it weren’t for my mistake. Mr Stark always said that I have to be mindful about my actions, one wrong move can cause a ripple on effect if I’m not careful.”

Pepper was pleading with him now. “Tony always told you that as a warning, not a reprimand. He was desperate to make sure you didn’t make the same mistakes he did.”

“I agree,” May joined in, “he always told me how special you were, how much good there was in you.”

Pepper nodded, “and Tony was always making sure that he righted his mistakes to the best of his ability. When he realised what Stark Industries was really doing, he almost brought the whole company down by telling the world we were stopping the manufacturing of our weapons. He was never good at admitting to everyone else when he was in the wrong but as soon as he did realise, he’d try and fix it. He spent his whole life trying to right his wrongs and he was terrible at letting go of the past.”

Pepper unfolded her arms and sat herself down on the corner of the hospital bed, reaching for one of his hands and squeezing it tightly. “So, if you think that you did something wrong then think about why and promise to yourself to do better next time. There’s no sense in trying to change the past.” Peter nodded wordlessly and gripped Pepper’s hand back. He looked at his aunt and words that didn’t need to be vocalised passed between them.

Pepper gave him one last small smile and stood to retrieve her files before walking for the sliding door.

“You can take as long as you need to recover here but our doctors said you’d be fine once awake. I expect Happy will want to have a word with you about what happens next.”

“Thank you,” Peter said quietly.

Pepper paused as she was about to close the door behind her and turned to offer one last piece of advice. “There are ways to honour his legacy other than becoming him, Peter, it’s the last thing that he would want for you.”

Pepper let the door thud behind her, and Peter let his head flop back against the pillow. His brain felt tired, more so than when he had busy weeks at college or worked all weekend in his lab, he felt exhausted even though he had just been asleep for two days.

“There’s this too,” MJ said hesitantly and dragged a chair over to the other side of his bed.

“I’m sorry for leaving you at the bridge,” Peter said before she could say anything more. MJ smiled sadly but said nothing, instead opting to drop a stack of newspapers into his lap.

There were about 10 that Peter could count as he thumbed through the pile. The New York Times, the Daily News, the Post, the New York Herald and more. He noticed the Daily Bugle on top and cringed, stupid gossip mills, what did they have to say now?

“Protégé Parker: Is He Spider-Man?”

“Star Student Snapped in Superhero Costume – is he the Masked Vigilante?”

“Spider-Man Left Swinging – Infamous Avenger Finally Unmasked?”

The headlines went on and on. He was on the front page of all of them in some way or another featuring under a number of dubbed nicknames: ‘Protégé Parker’, ‘Spider-Man’ ‘Stark Industries Golden Child’, ‘Stark’s Heir’ and other heinous twists to his identity.

He scanned a few of the articles and several, insistent phrases jumped out at him, ‘suspicions had been growing since Parker developed a close relationship with mentor, Tony Stark, prior to the heroes’ death in May” and “Stark Industries is refusing to comment on the teen’s identity as of yet” or worse: “has Parker been lined up to take over the mantel of Iron Man since the beginning?”. Peter stopped reading when he saw a particular article that speculated about his appearance at the public funeral which was accompanied by comments regarding his parentage and whether he was Tony’s secret child.

Beneath many of the accusatory headlines were blurred photos of a figure hanging beneath the Manhattan Bridge. The images were poor quality and had obviously been taken from a great distance and zoomed in on but there was his face and his hair. He wasn’t sure how they could infer from those photos that it was him though. It could very well be any other white, male, teen with brown hair.

“Someone talked to the papers after they got the photos coming in,” MJ said slowly, “after the explosion, I came to in one of the ambulances and everyone was there getting tended to or waiting to see what happened. They asked about you and I said you were fine but still on the bridge – Flash kept giving me these odd looks and once everything calmed down, he came over to talk to me. He said he knew you were Spider-Man.”

Peter’s heart sunk.

“He said he’d seen the suit go on and wanted me to confirm it,” MJ said rubbing at her right hand and the flap of bandage that had come untucked, “I insisted that I didn’t know what he was talking about but I think it was too late. After that I guess he went straight to the news.”

Peter dropped his head against the papers on his lap and closed his eyes. This was his absolute worst nightmare. How was he supposed to handle a press scandal? There had been close calls before and constant whispers about how he had gotten so close to Tony and the Avengers, but never anything like this. They had photographic evidence and witness statements. It was the last piece they needed to make their story fit.

“I’m going to wait outside…” MJ said trailing off and relieving herself of Peter’s growing frustration. Peter hoped she didn’t think that he was angry at her in any way.

“Peter it’s going to be alright,” May said taking the newspapers off of his lap and moving them out of sight. The thought occurred to Peter how silly the phrase ‘out of sight, out of mind’ was to a brain like his. Out of sight was never out of mind and the newspapers ate at his consciousness even if they were currently being kicked under his hospital bed.

“Happy’s outside and he’s going to tell you exactly how everything will be handled,” May said and grasped one of his hands tightly. “Everything is going to be completely fine now.”

Peter nodded slowly and for the first time that afternoon, actually took a good look at his aunt. Things had changed since they’d both been restored after the Decimation. It was difficult not to blame himself for the shift in their relationship for it was entirely him who had caused the change. He’d gone from being sullen and depressed for a month, then to stressed out of his mind before graduation and then he’d moved away to start college. Of course, things were different. So much had changed in such a short span of time. Peter longed for time to turn back a few years and give him the chance to properly enjoy that which his fifteen-year-old self should have.

May had aged since then. She looked tired and there was something deeper to her eyes that maybe hadn’t been there before his depressive episode seven months ago.

Before it all, Peter was pretty sure that he had been an easy enough child to deal with. Well perhaps easy wasn’t the best word to use. May had been given Peter, having not really had any concrete plans to have children herself shortly following the death of her brother. No, easy was definitely not the right word.

But Peter hadn’t been a very troubled child, despite the scars he bore from losing his parents at such a young age. He grew up well, he was smart and knew his rights from wrongs (though the interpretation had gotten more challenging once he started learning about ethics and Plato and then became a super-hero).

It wasn’t until he was bitten by a radioactive spider and sponsored by a billionaire-genius that things started to get more complicated. He knew that was when things really started to test his relationship with May. She always pushed deeper and wanted to see him in all his pieces, but Peter wasn’t very good at bearing his soul like that. There were parts of himself that he always kept locked up, secrets he held about how he truly felt because he could never seem to say things in quite the right way. When it came down to the ‘people things’ he knew that deciding to move left or right in a fight would always come more naturally than knowing whether it was the right time to kiss the girl. It was just the way that he was.  

Peter squeezed May’s hand tightly in return. “You’re right,” he said in his most convincing voice and managed a smile. “I’m guessing I’m still flying to MIT on Tuesday?”

“Happy needs to talk to you about that,” May said slowly and her eyes shifted to the door, “I think he wants you back there tonight if you’re feeling well enough , and depending on what your decision is.”

“My decision?” Peter asked, carefully removing his drip (he was pretty sure that you weren’t supposed to do it yourself) and the monitors stuck to his chest. They flatlined when they came unstuck.

“About the papers.”

Peter sighed. As always, duty called, and she had her fists up ready to put up a fight. He could only hope that he wouldn’t make a misstep again and find himself knocked out on his ass once more.  

“Peter,” Happy said a smile bursting across his face when he caught sight of Peter leaving the med bay. He’d changed into some fresh clothes and brushed his teeth and was already feeling a lot better.  

“Hey Hap,” Peter grinned and let the big man hug him.

“You really gave us a scare there, kid,” Happy said pointing a finger sternly. “No more bridges please.”

“No more bridges for now,” Peter agreed.

They began walking down the corridor. Peter’s legs felt stiff and perhaps his body was a little sore but nothing that good stretching wouldn’t sort out.

“We have to talk strategy,” Happy said, “this whole ‘press thinking your Spider-Man thing’ needs to be rectified real soon otherwise it becomes an issue for both you and SI.”

“Right.” Peter said, preparing himself for a breakdown of all the possible solutions from Stark Industries’ Head of Security.

“We have two options.”

“Oh.”

Happy clapped Peter’s shoulder. “Don’t worry it’s not that dire. You either go public with a statement endorsed by the Avengers and SI revealing your identity to the public or we keep quiet about it and wait for it to blow over.”

“What happens if I do go public,” Peter asked hesitantly as they left the building and met the brisk air and the amber light of the setting sun. He basked in the sunlight whilst trying to pretend that the idea of going public with his alter ego didn’t terrify him.  

“We organise a statement and a press conference with all the people from those, ‘scuse my language, fuckers talking about you in the papers and tell them the truth, at least as much as you want to disclose.” Peter nodded, just as Tony had planned years ago (though Peter hadn’t known it at the time the‘welcome to the team go see the press waiting behind this wall’had most definitely not beena test).

“What happens after that?”

“We up security. I’m talking bodyguards with you at all times, you’ll be moved to a separate residence at college and we might have to restrict the time you spend at the flat in New York which means more time at the Compound. We’ll get some Non-Disclosure Agreements drafted for your closer friends, that sort of thing.” Happy ticked each element off on his fingers as he spoke. Peter suspected there was more that would come if he did take that path but that Happy was holding off on sharing all the changes that would have to be made.

“And if I don’t? If I let it blow over? How does that work?”

“We give the press something else to sink their teeth into. They’ve been wanting interviews with you for months so that’s what we give them,” Happy explained. “We make it all exclusive, tell them about your role in SI, how you’ll be the youngest person to ever present at Stark Expo aside from Tony himself, that sorta thing.”

Peter nodded slowly, thinking about how either option would still involve a lot of invasion into his personal life. This could change everything. No, either way this would change everything. Peter wondered how Tony had coped when he had been in this situation.

“Same deal with the NDAs for your friends and whichever witnesses that the papers found to make sure that they don’t do anymore harm. We do some damage control of your image and lead the press in the wrong direction re the Spider-Man rumours. If we make your whereabouts and activities really public for the next month, then with any luck by the new year they will have forgotten about everything.”

Happy was quiet for a few beats, letting Peter absorb the information.

“What do you want to do?” Happy asked, concern and sympathy written all over his face. “It’s a big decision so you don’t need to have a firm answer right now, but if you want to opt for the second option then time is of the essence.”

There was no deciding in the matter. Peter couldn’t afford to come forth about his identity now. The balance he was maintaining between college, the Avengers and SI was precarious enough as it was. Not to mention everything he had worked on with Project Chronos would become even more complicated if there was increased surveillance on him. He couldn’t risk threatening that all, not right now.

“Option 2. Damage control and let it blow over,” Peter said firmly. Later he would wonder whether he had made the right choice, but his mind would constantly come around to the same answer no matter how he weighed the pros and cons.

“Are you sure? You can take your time.” Happy was wringing his hands.

“I don’t need time. This is the only answer.”