Sometimes People Leave You Halfway Through The Woods (Do Not Let It Grieve You, No One Leaves For Good)
“Drop your weapon!” Shouted one of the officers. Tony obliged immediately and the bloody fire poker clattered to the floor. MJ watched with wide eyes as he raised his hands above his head only for them to be grabbed and cuffed behind his back.
“Wait, this is all a misunderstanding—“ Tony protested, but an officer spoke over him, stating his rights as two more grabbed his shoulders and started to drag him away. Tony fought against them, straining towards MJ. “Keep him safe!” He called from the doorway as he was forced out of sight. “I’ll take care of the hospital bills, just keep him alive!” And he was gone.
As Tony was forced from the apartment, EMT’s rushed into the room with a stretcher and bandages and a hundred medical devices MJ couldn’t name. One ripped off the Spider-Man mask (Peter’s face was so broken) without comment, and MJ finally stood on shaky legs to sweep it underneath the bed. But she must have stood up too fast, too soon, because after kicking away the mask the edges of her vision filled with darkness and she stumbled backwards and on top of Flash in a tangle of limbs.
A single EMT noticed her fall and rushed over. “Are you alright?” He asked loudly over the commotion surrounding them. How was she supposed to answer that? Physically, she was unharmed, but her mind was gone, she could hardly think around memories of an angry middle aged man plunging a knife into her shoulder blade, around the blood smeared over the floor and on the white shoes of the doctors that were currently rushing Peter’s limp body out of the room. She didn’t answer, she couldn’t, her lips were parted but no sound came out. The EMT must have taken her silence as a “no,” (I think this one’s in shock, he yelled over his shoulder) because before she knew it she was being led out of the apartment and into the cab of a firetruck, Flash next to her, equally gone.
The sirens suddenly switched on and they sped onto the street. The wailing snapped her into reality, and now she was no longer away. No, she was so painfully here she could hardly breathe. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “Holy shit. Flash—“ she reaches over and grabbed his shoulders, forcing him into the cramped red truck with her. “Flash, Peter’s going to die.”
Flash shook his head, blinked hard, and he was back. “What?”
MJ’s breath picked up, her chest burned. She had only felt like this one other time, and when it had subsided, her brother was gone. “Peter’s going to die. Oh, my God, he’s going to die. Flash, he’s going to die!”
”He’s not going to die!” Flash protested, but he looked doubtful himself.
”How do you know?” She shouted suddenly, and Flash jumped back. “His skull had a fucking dent in it! How do you survive that?”
Flash recoiled sharply, brief fear flashing across his eyes. Then, he blinked and responded, “He’s in the ambulance, they’re—they’re gonna save him.”
”But what if they don’t? What if he ends up just like—“ She cut herself off, but it was too late. Flash, to his credit didn’t ask. He just sat and watched while MJ closed her eyes, willed away the burning in her throat, and said in a low voice, “What happens if he dies?”
Flash licked his lips. “Then he dies,” he said in a shaking voice. “But there’s nothing we can do. It’s out of our hands.”
MJ took a breath. “We promised Tony we’d keep him safe,” she said around the lump in her throat.
”Yeah. We did. And now he’s in jail and Peter’s on his way to the hospital. We can’t change that.” He punctuated his sentence by laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she flinched briefly when his fingers brushed over her hidden scar.
Finally, with tears in her eyes, she looked him in his sorrowful face and breathed, “Okay.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he repeated, more to himself than anyone else, and put his hand back into his lap.
MJ turned her head to look out of the window, watch the trees fly by, too bright a green for such a dark occasion.
She stared.
She waited.
She ached.
——
“Do I get a phone call or what?” Tony called as he was shut into a temporary cell, drag and gray. The guard huffed as he locked the door.
”I’ll get you the phone in a minute, Mr. Stark. Sorry you have to wait for something,” the guard said with a sneer as he left.
Tony sighed and sat on the cold bench near the barred window. It seemed like every person he had ever met was either star struck or completely unimpressed at his presence, never just there. This man was obviously the latter.
He leaned his head back against the concrete wall behind him and closed his eyes. He counted twenty-nine—twenty-nine—times he should have noticed something was wrong before FRIDAY told him. When he stopped going out in the suit, when he ate like he was starving (he was starving, you idiot), when he had a new excuse for every cut that should have healed days before. The memory of that day in Peter’s apartment came rushing back in front of his eyes. The way Peter could hardly speak when he looked at May, the way he flinched when she came near, the way he moved around his home like a ghost, as if he wasn’t supposed to be there. As if he was made to feel like it wasn’t even his home.
God, how could he have been so stupid? He had known something was wrong. But like a true Stark man, he pushed down his doubt until something happened that he couldn’t ignore. His father would be proud.
A lock turning in a lock brought him out of his head. He slowly lowered his head to see the same grumpy officer as before swinging the rusted door of his cell. With a sigh, Tony stood and turned to face the opposite wall, his hand behind his back. He felt the familiar cold metal clamp around his wrists and let himself be dragged by the shoulder down a hallway lit painfully with flickering fluorescent lights. He was shoved into another concrete room—cops didn’t take kindly to abusers, he thought with a turn of his stomach—this one with a table, chair, and an obviously one-way mirror. He was pushed by his shoulders into the chair and an old, corded phone was plunked in front of him. The guard sighed, removing the handcuffs. “Well, Mr. Stark, it seems like you already have an account with Paytel. Just dial whatever number you need and it’ll take thirteen dollars straight out of your bank account.”
“Thanks,” Tony murmured, and grabbed the phone off of the receiver. He waited for the guard to leave, but he just stood over him in silence. Tony turned back to the table and dialed the only number he knew without speed dial.
After three rings, Pepper answered, “Hello?”
”Hey, Pep.”
”Oh, my God. Tony?” He could hear her disappointment through the tinny speaker.
”Unfortunately,” he answered. “Listen, I’m in a bit of a jam, here. I need you to do two things for me—“
”Look, I’m—I’m in the middle of something, can this wait?”
“I wish, but no. It’s serious this time. Like, actually serious, not just I-can’t-find-my-keys-help kind of serious.“
Pepper hesitated. “What happened?” She asked cautiously.
”It’s the kid. He’s—he’s in the hospital, they think I did it. I can’t let him die, and if they don’t let me out she’s going to get away with it, and then she might find him again if he even lives—“
”Tony,” she said. “Tony. I need you to calm down, okay? Just breathe, and tell me what happened from the beginning.”
Tony took a sharp breath and realized that his lungs had been burning for quite some time. His lungs stuttered, but did their job. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. Um, it’s Peter. From what I can piece together, his aunt’s been...she’s been...”
”What?” Pepper asked slowly.
God, how could he say it? Such an awful word, malicious and evil and sad. How was he supposed to acknowledge what that awful woman had done to her kid, his kid?
”Tony,” Pepper said, her voice starting to shake. “What happened?”
He took a trembling breath. Just say it, asshole. Just say what she did. “She’s been beating him.” A gentle gasp from the receiver. “And—and today, I guess she just went over the edge. FRIDAY found out, she told me, and I went straight to the apartment. I found a couple of his friends there, too, so I guess we all knew what had happened. And when I found him...Jesus, Pep, there was so much blood. How could one person even have that much blood? I don’t even know if he’s alive. And then the police showed up, and they found me there and thought it was me, and now I’m here. God, I should have known something was wrong. I’m so stupid, and—and now he’s going to die, and it’s all my fault.”
Pepper was silent for a long time, so long Tony thought she might have hung up on him. Then, she said, her voice gentle and fragile like broken glass just barely glued back together, “Okay. Alright. I’m going to send some people over there, and they’re gonna get you out, okay? We’re going to find his aunt and fix this. He’s going to be fine.”
Tony gulped, closed his eyes for just a second. “Okay. I believe you. Just—“ The guard behind him cleared his throat in an obviously fake fashion. “I’m out of time. I’ll see you...at some point, I guess.”
He moved to put down the phone, but Pepper said quickly. “Remember, it isn’t your fault.”
Tony blanked. Pepper had always been right. But today, she was wrong. Today, like every day, it was his fault. “I know,” he lied. “I love you.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He slowly put the phone back on the receiver. The second the plastic clicked back into place, he was grabbed by the arm and half-led, half-dragged out of the room, down the hallway, and into his cell, and before he knew it, the key was back in the lock and the man was leaving.
”Nice story, Stark,” the guard scoffed as his footsteps faded. “Let’s see if your fame holds you up this time.”
Then, he was gone, leaving Tony alone with the bench, the concrete, the barred window with a glimpse of grassy courtyard.
He stared out of the window, wishing he was out in that grass but knowing he wouldn’t deserve it.
He stared.
He waited.
He ached.