Chapter 1
Parker had been weird, lately. Weirder than usually, anyway. Whenever he sat down, or moved in a wrong way, he pulled a face and shifted uncomfortably and once, Flash had even heard him wince.
The boy had forced every thought out of his head that went even remotely in the direction of mild concern, and instead observed his two most hated classmates with some distance. He didn't even pick on them any more. Not much, anyway.
For the first few weeks, Ned's obvious worry increased steadily, as he kept asking Parker what was going on, and if somebody had hurt him. Parker kept dodging the questions, making excuses all day long, until one day Ned stopped. From one day to the next, he stopped urging the other one to get help or some equally stupid bullshit and instead refrained to giving him pitying looks, but only after he'd asked, whether Parker laid eggs.
Flash tried not to think about that part too much.
And for some reason he managed to ignore the two nerd's oddities. Okay two weeks. It was two weeks before things went sort of downhill.
It was the Monday after Homecoming. Most students were in a good mood, excitedly chatting about who they'd danced with or which popular person they'd talked to.
Ned seemed excited, too, whisper-yelling at Parker about some 'crazy cool shot', until suddenly he seemed to realize that something was off.
Off, as in Parker looked like a ghost.
Flash had noticed right away, considering he'd been watching him like a hawk for the past month, always ready to drop a snarky remark about the latest black eye or bruise or cut, that the other one kept sporting.
Now he looked pale, nearly sickishly so, while his eyes were wide open, dark and scared, like a deer caught in the headlights.
It didn't look good on him. Made him look like a child, and something about that made it hard to hate him. Something about it made it hard not to grow worried, made it hard to slip back into his role as the bully and even harder to put Parker into his place as the victim.
Flash managed to avoid staring at him for the better part of the day, although he couldn't shake the distinct feeling of concern, nagging at the back of his mind.
Until he met Peter in the hallway after school and that feeling exploded into a full emotion. It wasn't really that Parker was doing a whole lot of weird stuff, but that he didn't really do anything at all. He was just standing there, in front of his locker, staring at nothing without blinking. It was as if he didn't even register Flash approaching him, or anything for that matter. Just stood there, staring.
“What are you doing here, Penis?” Flash asked, shoving the other one a little. He told himself that he didn't feel guilty about it.
Peter flinched, hard, spinning around and taking a step back until his back hit the locker, eyes flitting through the room. “What?” he croaked and started fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt, absently, not really focussing. “What's going on??”
“... you zoned out.” The bully squinted.
“Oh.” Parker didn't seem too concerned by that.
“Are you okay??” He didn't like saying it, but Flash was worried. It had happened quite a lot in the past, that Parker didn't pay attention and was somewhere else with his thoughts, but not like this. He'd never completely lost his connection to the present reality. Also he still looked kind of … confused.
“Um … yeah. Sure.” Peter took a deep but shaky breath, looking around once more with a slight frown, as if to make sure he was still in the same place. “I just … I was stuck in a – a memory? From … Homecoming.”
“Do you wanna go to the nurse or something? You don't look very good.” Oh god, since when was he so nice to this nerd?? It wasn't like him; he was the bully, the powerful one! He wasn't supposed to care! Caring would only end in pain. Always had.
“N-no.” Peter took another deep breath, this time a little steadier. “It was just – just a flashback or … something.”
“Of what??”
Peter locked eyes with the other boy, his own still empty and scared, as if he wasn't really there. “A building fell on me.” He sounded about as distraught as Flash felt at that very moment; his hands fell to his sides weakly. For a few more seconds they maintained eye-contact, Parker looking as if he was searching for answers in Flash's eyes, answers that neither of them had. Flash didn't even know the question.
Flash was about to say something, but Peter already turned around, shuffling down the hall until he reached the door and disappeared outside, leaving Flash alone in the empty school.
There was something seriously wrong with this boy. Sure, he'd always been a little weird and nerdy, but the bully never would have thought that he'd be the type of guy who'd one day get buried underneath a whole ass house.
Flash decided that now was the time to start a few investigations to answer a few questions. For example: why did Peter always leave school like he had some place to be, except for when a very fancy black car picked him up? Why did he sometimes look like he hadn't slept at all and, occasionally, like he'd run into a door and the door had hit back? And, most importantly: what was the story behind the building that fell on a sixteen year old boy? It would have been on the front page of the papers if somebody had been seriously injured, so why hadn't Flash heard of it? It only left one logical explanation: Peter had been the only one there – and nobody knew about it.
Two days later Flash got his opportunity to follow Parker after school. He hadn't been fast enough that time after the flashback-incident and the next day the nerd had been picked up by a car again, but today Flash managed to get after him. He nearly had to run so he wouldn't lose the other boy.
In the end he did lose him, but he could proudly say that it was only after he got stuck at a red light, while Parker ran across and vanished around a corner. He was really goddamn fast. Too fast to be as bad in PE as he pretended to be.
This procedure repeated itself for the next two weeks: Flash tracked Parker until a red light or a street with a hundred alleys in which the other one could vanish and the next day the nerd would show up with different bruises than the day before.
Then, on a Wednesday, shit hit the fan.
Flash was on his way to football-practice, after he'd once again lost Parker on their daily cat-and-mouse-play, when he quickly passed one of those dark alleys that you don't want to enter – and heard a broken groan.
The teen froze in his tracks. Of course it was a stupid idea to follow the noise. Anything could happen, for example: he could get into trouble. He didn't want to get into trouble. But then again, maybe it was somebody who needed help.
He was a bully, not an asshole. He hoped. Besides, he only bullied one guy and he deserved it for being an utter idiot nerd jerk.
Flash resisted the urge to turn and run – or to punch himself in the face for being this dumb – and slowly entered the shadows. He carefully approached the sounds of laboured breathing coming from behind a dumpster, ready to run.
After a few steps, that felt like a hundred, he reached the source of the sound: a more or less red heap of a person, curled in on themselves, apparently moaning in pain. It took him several seconds until Flash realized that the heap was none other than the Spiderman.
Without his mask.
Peter's day had been kinda alright. He'd rescued a cat out of a tree and a dog who'd been stuck in a fence. He had helped an old lady over a busy street and then webbed up a guy who'd tried to rob a young man. He'd done his homework on the roof of a building and had made sure a little girl got home safely. He'd given her a note to her parents, politely telling them that it wasn't very safe for a nine-year-old to walk through New York alone. Even if it wasn't dark.
And then suddenly, from one moment to the next, things had gone downhill.
It should have been an easy case, just a few bank robbers, robbing a bank. As it turned out, they had somehow managed to get weapons from Toomes, strong ones, strong enough to blast walls away, just like that first time before the building-desaster and then later with that goddamned plane. He still had nightmares of that day.
Anyway, long story short, he got blasted away, hit his head and passed out. When he woke up, he could hear sirens getting closer and when he tried to move, he felt something sharp in the left side of his stomach, along with something warm and sticky, soaking into his suit. He pressed both hands on the wound and forced himself onto his feet with a pained groan. He made himself stagger down a street until he found an empty alley where he collapsed the second he'd taken cover behind a dumpster.
He was seriously considering calling Tony, but something held him back. He didn't want to bother the man, didn't want to be seen as weak. Tony would take his suit again and the last time that had happened, Peter had gotten buried under a building. Besides, if he'd managed to survive that god-awful situation, he could definitely get out of a stab wound just fine. Probably. Or not, the blood loss made it kind of hard to think clearly. He took off his mask in the hopes that the cool air would clear his head a little. It didn't work.
Peter tried to sit up and let out a broken groan when a stabbing pain shot through his body. Okay, so no sitting up. He huffed out a laugh that sounded dangerously close to panicked madness. He couldn't move without being forced back to the ground by the pain, just like that day under the building, couldn't breathe properly because of the dust, could feel the weight on his shoulders and legs and back and chest, not letting him inhale properly, leaving him gasping for air, eyes squeezed shut as everything was crushing him to death.
Then there were hands on his arms.
Following the first shock that Spider-Man was laying on the floor, without his mask and obviously injured, with all the blood spread out around him, was a mix of dread and excitement. Dread, because what if the hero died?? What if he was bleeding hard enough to bleed out? And excitement, because holy shit it's Spider-Man!
The excitement quickly changed into surprise and then disbelief. He knew that guy there. He knew those brown curls, even though they were damp with sweat. He knew that jaw and those shoulders. Flash knew Peter Parker. And now he knew that the nerd was Spider-Man.
A Spider-Man who was currently laying on his side on the floor, his back pressed against the wall behind him, legs pulled to his chest, one hand trying to get a grip on the floor, fingernails scraping over the pavement while gasping for air, his other hand stuck between his legs, his eyes squeezed shut.
“What in the goddamn-”, Flash whispered to himself. There he was, his hero, laying injured on the floor and apparently in the midst of a panic attack, yet Flash had no idea what he was supposed to be doing.
He shouldn't help Parker! Flash was the strong bully, he couldn't help his victim now?? But on the other hand, Parker was also Spider-Man, a hero. Besides, the teen had already started worrying about the nerd some time ago; so why stop now?
He sighed an knelt down next to the heap of red, trying to ignore the knot in his stomach and also trying to avoid the blood. “Um,” he intelligently started. Peter didn't react. “Um are you okay?” Obviously not, but hey, conversation starter. “I mean you don't look okay.” There was still no reaction. Alright, bad.
Flash slowly reached out, until his hands closed around the other one's arms. Parker flinched, his eyes shot open and he sucked in a surprised breath, his body freezing, not even blinking. Then he sluggishly closed and opened his eyes, his mouth falling open slightly.
Flash frowned. “Uh … you okay?”
“Wha- …” He paused. “I'm … where am I?” He slowly blinked again and looked around in the narrow alley, a frown deepening on his forehead. “What're you doin' here? I'm … I'm not … here.”
Flash inhaled shakily. This was bad. This was so much worse than he'd initially thought. He'd thought he'd just meet Spiderman and maybe help out with a few scratches, but not … this. There was so much blood and Parker looked like he was high, but that was probably just because of the blood-loss or something. The bully had absolutely no clue what to do. Clear was only, that he had to help somehow.
Of course Parker was still a pathetic nerd, but he was also a hero. And if that hero died, then what was Flash Thompson supposed to believe in?