Only My Ashes Will See The Sea
Peter didn’t answer a single question.
Tony watched over the edge of his laptop as the officers asked him anything they could think of. Peter kept his gaze trained on his lap, ignoring the social worker here to represent him as she gently held his limp hand, ignoring the officers as they asked every question they could think of (Did May Parker hurt you? Where was May Parker’s favorite place to go on vacation? Did May Parker ever affiliate with a gang or group that could hide her?)
He didn’t say a damn word.
How was Tony supposed to help him if he didn’t cooperate? What did he expect Tony to do if he wouldn’t help?
Tony sighed, blocking out the tallest officer asking Peter what shoe size May wore, and focused on one of the thirty-seven tabs on his laptop. Most were some variation of May Parker’s history, any indicator of how to officially convict her or even find where she was, but this one was different. It read, “How to Obtain Legal Custody of an Orphan,” and was written by some sleaze-bag who had essentially scammed CPS out of an eight year old. Tony couldn’t say that he wasn’t planning on doing the same thing, though. He was already assembling a team of custody lawyers, forming a plan and making sure Peter didn’t sign anything (Of course, it wasn’t hard when both of his hands were enclosed in casts).
Tony flexed his fingers, switched tabs, and kept typing. He had much more to do before he could worry about taking a child into his home.
The thought of it filled him with so much fear he could hardly breathe, so like a good Stark, he pushed it far, far away.
——
“Did May Parker hurt you?”
Peter couldn’t breathe. The answer was yes and no at the same time, how could he choose? She had hit him, stabbed him, starved him, but it was his fault, but what if it wasn’t? But what if it was?
”What was May Parker’s favorite place to go on vacation?”
Her and Ben had used the money they’d saved for a real honeymoon to take Peter to Disney World the summer after his parents died. All he remembered from it was a melting ice cream cone. The thought of it made him want to puke.
”Did May Parker ever affiliate with a gang or group that could hide her?”
She had a crocheting group long ago, before Ben died. Peter liked to tell himself that that was where she went when she would disappear for days at a time.
Eventually, the police left, with disappointed frowns and a blank notebook. Peter didn’t notice either way.
——
“Why can’t he talk?”
”Well, you said he talked upon waking, right? It’s not that he can’t talk, it’s that he won’t.”
”But why?!”
”Mr. Stark, you have to understand how complex abuse is. We have no idea what she did to him, we don’t even have solid proof that it was her that did anything. We just have to wait.”
Tony scoffed. Peter said nothing.
——
Papers were thrust in his face every day. He didn’t read them. He didn’t want to. The papers always meant betraying May, and he swore he would never do that. His betrayal of her was what had started all of this in the first place. He didn’t care what the soft spoken social worker told him he should do as if he were eight. She wasn’t May, so she wasn’t safe.
——
Her eyes were everywhere.
Her nails cut into his skin, too many of them, hundreds.
He was bleeding, far too much blood to be real, but there it was in front of him, a hot red puddle streaming from his eye, his head, his hand.
His hand was on fire.
On fire.
On fire.
He woke up with a gasp to the sound of beeping, and would have rathered stay asleep than open his eyes to the suffocation of MJ’s pitying eyes and Tony’s hands on his shoulders.
——
They kept offering him food. He couldn’t take it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry—every meal they put in front of his face was more tempting than a thousand piece LEGO set. It was just that he couldn’t. Not without May’s permission.
He finally understood how Adam felt looking at the forbidden fruit.
——
“Kid, just say something to me,” Tony all but begged, desperation creeping into his voice.
”Fuck off.”
”...It’s something,” MJ remarked from her corner. Peter almost smiled.
——
Ned showed up. He sat next to Peter and said nothing. At some point, in between blips and dozes, he left.
Peter liked that.
——
Peter looked up as the door to his room swung open. MJ sat in a hard, plastic chair in the corner, next to Tony and Pepper, who quietly argued over a thick stack of paper. The regulars were all here, and Doctor Boudreaux wasn’t supposed to check on him for another eighty-four minutes. Who could be here?
Some part of him hoped it was May. Another part feared that it could be her.
But it wasn’t May. Flash Thompson shuffled through the door with his hands in his pockets, so different from how cockily he swaggered through the halls of Midtown. Peter would laugh if rage wasn’t bubbling up in him, like an ever-present magma beginning to overflow.
Peter watched through narrowed eyes as he entered the room, MJ standing quickly to meet him. She muttered something in his ear, but Peter couldn’t hear it over the sound of Flash’s racing heartbeat. Slowly, as if approaching a frightened deer, Flash walked up to Peter’s bedside. Peter’s glare stayed steady on his pale face.
Flash cleared his throat. “H-hey, man,” he muttered.
“Why are you here?” Peter asked, disregarding his greeting.
Flash‘s face dropped, a blush creeping up his neck. “I’m—I’m just here to visit—“
”And what? Just say ‘hi’?” Peter’s eyes narrowed.
Flash smiled sheepishly. “I mean, I guess,” he said, shrugging. “And check up on you, y’know...see how you were...holding up, I guess.”
“When you’re the one who got me into this mess?”
Flash blinked, recoiling for just a second, “I’m—I mean, I guess—And hey, I helped you!”
Peter scoffed and gestured to his body with a casted hand, bandaged and bruised. “You call this helped? You ruined my life, asshole!”
Tony stood so quickly he knocked all of the papers in his lap to the floor. “Kid—“
”No!” Peter snapped. “You don’t get to say anything about this.”
Flash cut back in, ”Come on, man, you’ve got to wake up and—“
“And what? Thank you for setting the cops on my aunt? Thank you for landing me in the hospital? God, I don’t even have anywhere to go because of you! When are you going to just leave me alone?!” Peter’s voice rose to a shout, even as a cold murmur in his stomach didn’t quite believe his own words.
Flash took a quick step towards the bed, anger painting his face in a flash and suddenly he was May, her fists balled and her eyes blazing. Peter flinched backwards and a bedside monitor beeped loudly as his chest started to stutter its breaths. Flash stopped, his brows furrowing for just a second before realization overcame him and he stared at his own fists in horror. Peter didn’t even notice as he sheepishly apologized and hurried out of the room. He was too caught up trying to force his hands to stop shaking, beat his fear into oblivion, stop seeming like so weak when he was a superhero, when he was almost a damn adult. He felt pathetic. He was pathetic. He couldn’t do anything, not even save his family.
God, of course May had done what she had. She knew the truth about him.
Three sets of pitying eyes were on him as he buried his face into his hands, trying to hide from the cramped room and condescending glances, and he knew that she had been the only one to know the truth. The only one to know he really didn’t deserve this life.
——
Three days passed since he woke up. His mind was becoming clearer, sharper, the world coming back into focus. He stopped losing chunks of time—the doctor assured him that this was a good thing, but he had his doubts. Why would anyone enjoy the constant stream of time, passing by both painfully slowly and slipping through his fingers before he could process it? Why would anyone enjoy such grating, unstoppable motion?
The fourth day started like the rest. Tony woke up in a hard plastic chair, and Peter felt his eyes on him as he pretended to be asleep. Once he retreated to the small bathroom, Peter cracked his eye open and blinked up at the ceiling, listening to the water run. When it shut off, he forced himself to even out his breathing and once again feigned sleep.
Of course, a few minutes later Doctor Boudreaux would come in and read his vitals with an offhand greeting. She was serious, to the point, and never talked too much. Peter liked her. It was funny, he thought—six months ago he would have spent all of his energy trying to make this woman smile. Now he just wanted her to leave.
Then, she would call in the social worker that was there to represent Peter—Sarah, he thought her name was—and would rattle off words and numbers that Peter didn’t understand as she nodded intently. Everyone pretended not to notice Tony scribbling down every word she said on scraps of notebook paper.
After vitals, Peter expected her to leave and usher in MJ, Pepper, and the annoyingly polite police officers whose names he could never remember, and he would spend at least an hour dutifully ignoring the same questions over and over and trying to keep himself from hurdling off of the bed and beating them senseless. But that didn’t happen. Instead, she lowered her clipboard and looked at him.
(He was sick of people looking at him.)
Doctor Boudreaux sighed. “Well, Peter, it seems that somebody’s team of lawyers,” she said, eyeing Tony, “Have arranged for you to be moved to Mr. Stark’s personal medical unit. As much as I disagree with this choice, I am sure that he has your best interests in mind.” Seeing as she said this through teeth gritted so tightly it must have been painful, Peter didn’t quite believe her. “And, legally, I can’t disagree. So, we just have to mark your injuries and progress down one last time, then you can be discharged.”
“I’m...leaving?” Peter asked as Doctor Boudreaux examined one cast, then the other.
“Mhm,” she replied, distracted by her task. “You will take up temporary residence with Mr. Stark and his medical team.” She stood straight and jotted down some notes on a clipboard.
“Wait,” Peter said, “I don’t want to live there, though. Can’t I just go home?”
Now moving on to his right hand, she said, “Well, I’m afraid a minor can’t live alone in a crime scene. Pretty unethical, y’know?”
A long time ago, Peter would have laughed at that. He wasn’t sure when exactly he changed.
“Okay, but I don’t want to go to the MedBay. Why can’t I stay here?”
Doctor Boudreaux tsked, “Sorry, kid. In the absence of your aunt, temporary guardianship’s been signed over to Stark.”
Peter whipped his head around to face Mr. Stark, whose face was tight and red. “What?!”
“Yup,” she confirmed, still distracted. “I don’t know all the details, that’s Sarah’s job.” Sarah, who had not said a word the entire time, nodded, a light smile plastered on her face that made Peter’s blood boil.
“But I don’t want to live with him! Don’t I get some say?”
Doctor Boudreaux sighed and finally met his eyes. Her round face looked weighed down as she sighed. “Look, Peter, it’s not up to me. All I had to do was make sure they’ll take care of your injuries there, and they will. Otherwise, social services has decided that you’ll be safe with Mr. Stark. If you’re worried about real, physical harm, then you can go to them to get you moved to a group home. It’s out of my hands.”
“You—you can’t make me go with him! Physically, you can’t.”
“We have a sixty-seven person security team. I think we can. Again, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing to be done.”
“I’ll call CPS, I’ll file for emancipation, I’ll do something, I’m not just gonna—“
Her voice suddenly so hard it shot a pang of fear through his body, Doctor Boudreaux said, “The court waived consent requirements for your case. Without real proof of danger in the home, you have to go. End of discussion.” And Peter wanted to fight back, argue, do something to stand up for himself, but her tone reminded him so much of It should have been you, not Ben, you piece of shit, that the words wouldn’t come out of his suddenly cotton-dry mouth, he couldn’t even gesture with shaking hands. All he could manage was a smoldering glare in Tony’s direction, one that he hoped convey what he couldn’t manage to say:
I’m never going to forgive you.
From the way Tony gulped, Peter was pretty sure he succeeded.
Taking his silence as deference, Doctor Boudreaux continued, “Before we go, I need to change all of your bandages, okay?” Peter nodded his assent, just barely. This had become a twice-daily routine, but it was never any easier. He quietly slipped his good hand to grip the bar on the side of his bed while she took his right hand in her own. He gritted his teeth, and when he nodded again, she started removing the bandages, working carefully around his cast.
His breathing picked up as his mangled skin was jostled, but he fought to keep his face still. He wouldn’t show weakness. Not here. Not now. Of course, when she poured alcohol on his half-healed wound, he couldn’t help but gasp and scrunch his eyes shut. He hoped they wouldn’t charge him for the bent metal beneath his good hand.
Finally, she wrapped his hand back in clean white gauze and bandages. Peter let out a quiet sigh of relief and his body sagged, forcing away the fact that with the end of this pain came a dreadful life at the MedBay. But he didn’t hear the sound of footsteps retreating as he normally would. He opened his eye to see Doctor Boudreaux staring down at him apologetically.
“Alright,” she said grimly, “we do need to redress your eye today. We need to assess the condition of your orbital fracture. As you know, we did insert fourteen pins to keep all of the bone pieces in place, but the condition of your eye is still unknown.” He didn’t know that. But then again, he never really listened. “The pins should have settled enough now to remove the bandages, and from there we can make a recovery plan. Best case scenario, you shouldn’t blow your nose for a few weeks. Worst case, you’re blind. Won’t know until we find out. Okay?”
Peter blinked, overloaded by the information, but nodded all the same.
“Okay,” she repeated. “Now, when I remove the bandages, I need you to tell me what you see, and if at any point it hurts too much, just let me know and I’ll stop.”
Without waiting for assent, she carefully reached for Peter’s right eye, her hands disappearing into the blackness that filled that side of his face. The second her short fingers touched his face, he winced. She pulled back. “You okay?” She asked.
Peter took a breath and nodded slowly. Uncertainly, she continued. Her fingers quickly yet deftly lifted the bandages away, and Peter forced himself not to flinch with every movement. It felt like his skull was breaking apart all over again, and the rest of him breaking with it.
Finally, his breathing reduced to a shallow stutter, Doctor Boudreaux said, “Alright. I’m going to take off the last layer of gauze, and I need you to tell me what you see, alright?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled breathlessly.
“Okay,” she said lowly. He felt some pressure relieve itself from his face, and cold air hit his skin. He blinked once, then twice. Nothing.
“Is it...is it off?” He asked, refusing to believe what was right before his eyes. Well, eye.
Doctor Boudreaux sighed. “Yes,” she said, her voice low and sad. “It’s off.”
“Oh,” Was all Peter said. He couldn’t say anything more. Tears choked his throat, unwanted and awful. They burned the back of his eyes, his useless goddamn eyes, and it was all he could do to look down at his hands to hide them.
“This isn’t the end,” Doctor Boudreaux reassures him. “Temporary blindness is common in cases this severe. It’s possible that your eye will slowly heal itself, maybe even back to full use.”
And again, Peter nodded, but he didn’t quite believe her. How was this not the end? He had nothing left. No family, no home, not even his sight wanted to stick around. If he weren’t so busy clenching his teeth to keep the tears at bay, he would wonder what the hell he did in childhood that warranted all of this from the universe.
She kept talking, answering Tony’s millions of questions, but Peter didn’t care to listen to anything beyond the ringing of his ears. Eventually, after a lot of papers were signed, a nurse came in with a wheelchair to usher him out. He tried to refuse and walk out on his own, but his legs shook so much that he fell back into the bed only a few seconds later. Even if he hadn’t, black dots had started to fill his vision, and it was only a matter of time until he would black out.
Reluctantly, he let himself be helped into the wheelchair and taken out of the hospital. As the doors opened, a sleek black car cane into view. Peter could have laughed. How did any of this make sense?
Happy was in the front seat, because of course he was. Peter ignored his awkward greeting. He had never given one before, Peter wouldn’t accept one now.
The tires started rolling, and Peter could feel Tony’s eyes on him. He kept his gaze trained out of the window, his jaw set. He didn’t want to look at him right now. He didn’t want to look at anyone.
When his gaze swept past a man holding a rusty fire poker, he had to look down at his lap and force his breathing to level. His cheeks burned, because he knew Tony was staring at him with that same mix of concern and disappointment. But no one said anything, and eventually the threatening tears receded. Peter kept his gaze in his lap until they came to a stop.
Peter carefully crawled back into his wheelchair. Happy took the handles and slowly, unsurely pushed him around the car, giving him a quick glance of the gigantic exterior of the MedBay.
Once inside, they turned down multiple identical white hallways. Peter didn’t keep track. Eventually, he was led into an empty room with at least twenty beds, each spectated by a sheer plastic curtain. He slid onto the first bed he saw with a sigh.
An Asian woman came in and introduced herself as Dr. Helen Cho. She detailed some kind of plan for rehabilitation. Tony stood over him the whole time. He just watched dust mites float on the bright sunbeams that streamed through the too-clean windows, bathing the room in harsh white. It, combined with the movement of watching the dust, hurt his eyes.
Eye.
The thought made the back of his eyes burn, and he tried to blink away tears. Luckily, Helen left the room soon after, taking Tony and leaving him alone.
And then it was just him, the hard mattress beneath him, and the air, too cold for his liking, angry on his pale skin.
A hunger pang shot through him, and as he sat alone, he realized that with his destroyed and useless eye, it hurt to cry.