Still, I’m Tormented by the Wrongs I Have Done Him (Tell Him That I Beg Him to Forgive)
Peter didn’t sleep.
At least, he didn’t think that he did. He stared up at the black ceiling for what felt like days, listening to the air conditioning whir and the water flow through the pipes in the walls. Cars passed hundreds of feet below him, and every one rang through his ears. He just lay there, feeling every inch of his body throb but unable to move, to adjust his body.
He knew that the tube Dr. Cho slid up his nose and down his throat was a feeding tube, forcing 1500 calories into his emancipated body every day. He wanted to take it out, and he had tried, but with his hands bound in casts he made no progress. But it had only been in for a few hours, and even with the constant flow of calories, his stomach was still lacking substance, and his body lacking energy.
Even blinking was taxing, but if he closed his eyes for too long he saw her, he saw everything that he never wanted to see again.
So, as far as he knew, he didn’t sleep.
The sun started to shine through the windows, at first a dull gray but lightening to an almost painful white.
The shadows moved slowly, the angles softening as the day went on. Hours passed with the cars and clouds, and still no one came. He listened to the footsteps in the hall, some slow and sure, others rapid. One set, quick paced and stomping, passed repeatedly, often stopping just outside his door before hurrying away, accompanied by an erratic heartbeat. Peter wondered who it belonged to.
That was a lie. He knew exactly who.
At some point, an hour or so after he had hobbled to the bathroom and collapsed back onto his bed, the light shone directly into his eyes, so bright that there was a violent sheet of red covering his vision even with his eyes closed. He groaned and scrunched his eyes tighter, hoping to block out some of the light, but cried out as his right eye flashed in pain.
A robotic voice rang out, “Would you like me to shut the blinds, Peter?”
Still absorbed in striking pain, Peter grunted, “FRIDAY.”
FRIDAY repeated herself. “Would you like me to shut the blinds?”
Hurriedly, Peter nodded. With a loud rustle, shutters came down over the windows and bathed Peter in cool darkness. He sighed and relaxed.
After a moment, when the pain in his eye receded to a dull ache, he muttered, “Thanks, Fri.”
”Of course,” she replied. “Would you like me to call Boss for you?”
”No!” Peter said immediately, but some part of him sunk, heavy with some emotion he couldn’t recognize. “No,” he repeated, muttered.
”Are you sure? He asked me to notify him when you awoke, but seeing as you never fell asleep, I never got my cue.”
Hm. Guess I really didn’t sleep.
”N-no, that’s okay. Thank you, though.”
”Alright, Peter. Is there anything else you need?”
The first thing that came to mind was his striking hunger, but his hands started to shake at just the thought of eating anything. He forced his mind away from a meal, and examined himself. His casts had been cut away by Dr. Cho, leaving his forearms pale and somehow thinner than the rest of him. His right hand was still wrapped in thick, itchy bandages. He was about to dismiss FRIDAY, but stopped when he ran a hand through his hair and felt it stringy with oils. How long had it been since he’d had a proper shower? Fifteen minute rinses in the school locker room only did so much, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t bathed during his time at the hospital. He was sure he smelled as awful as he looked.
“Is...is there a shower anywhere?” He asked cautiously.
”Yes. There is a row of showers behind the door to your left.”
Peter looked over and sighed. That door must have been twenty yards away. Last time he tried to stand, he hadn’t even straightened his legs before he fell. Sure, he had a feeding tube in, but how much energy could that have provided in the fifteen or so hours he had been there?
Slowly, Peter sat up, wincing with every small movement. He pulled his legs over the side of the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. He shot a disdainful glance at the rod that held whatever they were pulling into his stomach; he guessed it was coming with him.
“Alright, Peter. You can do this,” he whispered to himself. His own name felt foreign on his tongue.
He held his breath and, pushing himself up with his hands, stood shakily. Spots clouded his vision and he could hear blood rushing through his ears, but somehow, he stood upright. He blinked once, then twice, and somehow, impossibly, took a step.
To say it hurt like a bitch was an understatement. His legs were unharmed, but the motion moved his bruised and battered torso. Suppressing a groan, he took another jolting step. Then another, and another after that.
Unbelievably, he kept walking, dragging one foot in front of the other. His chest burned and his knees shook, but he kept going, and holy shit why was this room so big? A singular wing of the infirmary was larger than his entire apartment. How much further did he still have to go? Was his hearing always this full of ringing? Were his feet always heavy as lead?
Through a haze, his shaking hand extended to open the bathroom door. He painfully stripped out of his thin clothes and stepped into the gigantic tiled shower, glass on all sides and lit from above, because of course it was. He pressed a button and freezing water cascaded over his body. He shivered and clenched his teeth, but he couldn’t be bothered to find a way to adjust it.
Breathing heavily, he leaned on the cold tile wall. He took a moment to make sure he wouldn’t vomit all over the gleaming drain, then struck his hand out and grabbed the first thing it found. It was some gritty bar of soap that smelled of hospitals, but he didn’t much care. In a blur, he was out of the shower and drying off with a towel more expensive and plush than anything he’d touched in his life. He couldn’t find any other clothes, so he just put on the linen scrubs he had on before, but getting them around his feeding tube was an obstacle.
Against all odds, he was still standing as he stepped out of the shower, his wet hair plastered to his forehead, his legs so weak he wasn’t sure how many seconds he had left before collapse.
And as he lifted his head to prepare for another monumental journey across the room, he saw—of course—Tony sitting on his bed, waiting.
He sighed and shifted his weight. “What do you want?” He asked, his voice breathy and weaker than he’d like.
Tony looked up, and his eyes met Peter’s one. “Just wanted to...check up on you,” he replied.
”Check up on me?” Peter repeater, skepticism lacing his voice.
”Um, yeah. You know, see how you’re doing.”
Every breath he took hurt and he couldn’t close his right hand around a bottle and his eye burned and his skin felt so fragile he feared it may rip in half if he made one wrong move.
”I’m fine.”
A long silence filled the room. Tony fiddled with a paper he held in his hands. Peter tried to hide the way he leaned on the wall next to him.
Finally, Tony took a breath and said, “Well, other than that, I’m here to ask if there’s anything you can tell me about where your aunt is.” He met Peter’s eye. Peter just stared. After another pause, Tony continued, “I’ve kept interrogators from meeting with you, but they’re really pressing me. We need info about this as soon as possible, because we’re really grasping at straws with her. And with you, honestly. They’re about ready to send in a child psychologist to dig into your mind or whatever.” A halfhearted laugh. “So I need you to tell me about her so I can get them off your back.”
Another stretch of silence. Tony’s false smile melted away, and his foot started to bounce. “Look, kid, there’s only so long we can keep this going. NYPD is gonna give up resources soon. Think of this as a last burst of energy. If they give up on this, they’re never going to catch your aunt, okay? It’ll be a dropped case, and you’ll never get any justice or closure. Is that what you want?”
Okay, nope, Peter’s legs couldn’t support him any more. He lowered himself to the nearest bed and said, “Yup.”
Tony blinked. “For real? You actually want your aunt to go free? That wasn’t shock, or whatever, you saying that the first time?”
Something unsure and swirling filled this pit of his stomach at Tony’s words. Even so, he nodded.
Tony let out a breath, shaking his head at the floor. Peter couldn’t tell if he was going to scream or pass out. He curled in on himself just in case.
Tony defied both choices and instead inhaled, slow and deep, and said, “Okay. Wow. I...don’t really know what to say to that.”
He stood, smoothing the rumpled sheets beneath him, and left the paper on top of them. “Well, I had a whole speech planned out, but I don’t know why I’m even bothering any more. Nothing I say can make you change your mind.
“This is an outline of your physical therapy. Look over it...whenever you feel, I guess.”
He started to leave, but stopped at the door frame. Slowly, he turned back to Peter, something deeper than sadness in his eyes, something closer to disappointment.
“You know, Spider-Man would have tried to save every kid like you.”
Then, defeat heavy in his gait, he left, closing the door behind him with a definite click.
Something close to guilt bubbled up in Peter’s chest. He was not new to the feeling. But then again, this was Tony, the man he once trusted, who though him incapable (you are) and weak (you are). Who stole him from the only person who truly loved him, who sent out search part after search party to hunt down the last scrap of goodness in his life. So he ignored it.
Peter wanted to go read the plan, at least try to figure out what would happen in the weeks to come. Another, smaller part of him wanted to follow Tony out of those doors and...well, he didn’t know what. It didn’t matter, though, because he couldn’t stand if he wanted to, and let himself flop into the bed, wincing when his body made contact.
And he didn’t sleep. He tossed, turned, and tossed again, but no matter how exhausted he was from his ten minutes of motion, he simply couldn’t. He stared up at the ceiling, the lights still annoyingly bright despite the darkening sky outside.
Maybe he was going about this wrong. Maybe if he gave Tony a lick or two of information, useless or even a full lie, he would leave him alone for a few days. Maybe he was being too brief, and should at least act like he cared.
Or maybe he was doing all of it wrong. Maybe his aunt had beaten him beyond recognition. Maybe she had taken away everything that meant anything to him. Maybe she should have been found.
He shook the thought out of his head. It was far too dangerous. To hate her was to hate all he had left. How could he hate the only thing still familiar to him, the only thing still normal and real in his life?
As he shifted and gripped the silken sheets beneath him, he realized exactly what the problem was. He didn’t deserve the soft bed, even with its scratchy comforter and the freezing air coming from the vent directly above it. He hadn’t felt anything that soft in months, and what would May say if she saw him like that?
He found it didn’t take long for the words “useless” and “selfish” to come to the front of his mind.
Slowly, with a withheld reluctance, Peter slid off of the bed and onto the cold floor beneath him. Nothing soft accommodated his body, only unforgiving tile that forced his spine to twist painfully and his broken ribs to be prodded. Despite the havoc it wreaked on his body, Peter’s mind was more settled than it had been in days. This was familiar, this was safe, this posed no risk or threat. If May came back and saw him like that, she would be proud. The thought almost brought a smile to his face before the motion pulled the muscle around his blind eye.
Impossibly, he slept, and he didn’t remember his dreams in the morning.
That was probably a good thing.