“Absolutely ridiculous, I won’t allow it.”
The slender boy in front of him let out a dramatic sigh, throwing his hands into the air and attempting to stomp away from him, but Tony reached out to grab one flailing wrist and pull him close. He was mad and Tony didn’t want him mad, he wanted him compliant. “It’s dangerous.” He tried a softer tone, brushing his free hand through the boy’s soft, chestnut curls. “You’ll get hurt. What do you think you could even do for them, baby?”
“Help them.” Peter responded, not allowing himself to give into the other boy’s embrace. They had both seen it, watched their friend’s suicide attempt in the Glade, but only Peter seemed to be deeply affected by it.
“And if it wasn’t Bucky who’d tried to off himself…if it had been Steve or Clint or Bruce, you would still be determined to go in there and get them out?”
Peter let out a curse and tried to push away, finally stumbling back a few steps away from his lover. “You’re jealous! You don’t want me to go in there because you think I’m going to what, cheat on you with Bucky? We’re friends. We’re just friends. We were only, ever, friends…He doesn’t even remember me, now.”
“Which is another reason I don’t want you in that maze, Peter. We built it. You know how hard it’s going to be to crack…and you’ll be going in there with no memories of building it, no memories of me…nothing. You’ll get hurt or killed or trapped in that place away from. It’s not gonna happen.”
Peter narrowed his eyes and turned away from Tony in disgust. Tony was older. He remembered more of what life was like before the Flare. Tony had told him once about what WICKED had done to him to make him give up his old name and accept the new life they’d offered him. It hadn’t been so hard for Peter. He’d been younger, lonely, eager for safety and stability, anxious to forget the trauma of what life was like before WICKED saved him. Peter had never had a reason to question WICKED or their intentions until he’d begun working on the maze with Tony. The older teen was bitter, suspicious. He was always trying to convince Peter that there were much more nefarious things going on behind the scenes than he realized.
Peter felt the hand on the small of his back and slowly turned back to look up into those searching dark eyes. He knew Tony loved him. They didn’t have much in the world beyond each other. Tony might like to think that Peter needed him more, but Peter knew the truth. Tony could deny it to himself all he wanted, but the boy needed love and affection as much as his young lover ever did. Perhaps more. He’d cared about the other boys, too. Been friends with them before they’d been plucked away one by one and sent into the Glade. He knew Tony well enough to see the shadow in his eyes when he watched the events unfolding in the maze they’d built. Really, he should be happy, for the first time Peter was willing to see the truth of what they were being made to do, and he was willing to put a stop to it.
“C’mon, Baby, it’s not that I don’t trust you. You’re beautiful and smart and I’m surprised that they all don’t want you.”
“Doesn’t matter if they do.” Peter still sounds huffy, but at least he turns now and steps into a full embrace. “I’m always going to choose you…but, Tony, I’m going in there and I’m getting Bucky and the others out. Nothing you can do is going to stop me.”
Peter feels Tony sigh into his hair as leans his chins against his head and gives him a tight squeeze. “Okay. For the record, I think this is stupid, but if this is what you want…I won’t try to stop you.”
“Thank you, Tony.” He knew how hard it was for him to let him go, but this was something Peter had to do.
“C’mon, get a good’s night sleep at least.”
In the morning, Tony was gone. Peter found it strange. Stranger still that his alarm hadn’t gone off and he’d overslept by several hours. For all of Tony’s talk of a good night’s sleep, he’d kept Peter up for hours trying to wring every moment of intimacy he could from the boy before he left for the Glade.
Peter rushed, finger-combing his hair and throwing on his discarded clothes from the night before. He didn’t even stop to shower, afraid that he’d already missed his window. There wasn’t going to be time to prepare him, to install and activate the SWIPE before he was sent to the Glade, not if he didn’t hurry.
He found the surgical areas empty, and it was only when he ventured to his own work station that he began to understand why. Frozen in front of the screens, he watched in horror as the lift carried it’s passenger into the Glade.
Tony.
That had been his plan all along. If he couldn’t get Peter to agree to stay, than he was going to go in his place. Cursing and knocking one of the computers off of a desk with a resounding crash, Peter became even more determined.
It wasn’t going to work.
It only meant he was going to have to wait for his next chance, but if Tony thought that Peter was determined to enter the Maze to save Bucky and the others…he had grossly misjudged how much the boy loved him. Now that Tony was in there too…there was no force in the world that was going to keep Peter out.