thirty-seven.
Peter looked around the room, dark and unfamiliar. The little girl was there again, her dress covered in blood. She was still as a statue, unmoving, staring at Peter with her bright eyes. She looked familiar, and not just from his dreams.
Once again, he saw Wade over the little girl's shoulder. She looked up at the masked man and smiled, and it looked friendly in a way, but also deadly as all hell. Peter tried to take a step back but when he did he collided with someone, their arms wrapping around him like snakes around prey. He looked up at the girl, then down at his chest. He knew that Wade was holding him still and suddenly he wondered what kind of dream this was going to be.
He felt Wade's hands roaming his body and he felt a tingle in his veins, but he soon became aware that it was a tingle of fear as the little girl approached. Peter was weighed down by fear, and by Wade's arms. He couldn't move anywhere, but he could hear Wade's voice in his ear.
"Don't you worry, Petey... You won't remember this later, we'll make sure." Peter struggled and looked back towards the little girl. She held a knife that was nearly the size of her little forearm. She was approaching, and as much as Peter struggled he couldn't get free from Wade's grasp.
"Wade, please! Let me go, Wade, please!" he shrieked as he kicked his legs out towards the little girl. He felt Wade's grip tighten around him and he screamed, hoping desperately that there was someone around to help him.
The little girl grinned evilly at him as she rose the knife to Peter. She grabbed onto his arm and yanked it towards her with an inhuman strength. He fought her, to no avail and she giggled as she brought the knife to his arm. He screamed again and tried to pull away, but she had him held still as a statue as she brought the knife down and dragged it across his wrist.
All he could do was watch, breathing heavily as the blood seeped from his arm and dripped down to the floor. He screamed. It was all he could do. The sting in his arm intensified as the blood continued to flow. He heard Wade laugh as the little girl smeared the blood up his arm and across his face. Her laughter turned to screaming. Harsh, angry, loud screaming. There were no words, just her high-pitched voice piercing his ears.
In the midst of her screaming, he could hear Wade talking. "Don't you worry Petey, we've got you. That's what family's for."
Peter kept struggling, but they both had him held in place. The little girl kept screaming in his face, and there were tears on her chubby little cheeks as she rose the knife up once more, and Wade began to cackle as the little girl lunged forward and plunged the knife deep into the center of his chest.
Peter jolted awake gasping for air and clawing at his chest to try and remove the knife that didn't exist. His chest hurt as though it had existed in real time. He could feel his watch but it wasn't doing anything to ground him, especially not once he inspected his hands and arms and his eyes fell on the scratch across his wrist. It sat there, red and irritated and angry, like the little girl.
He was alone in the tiny metal bed, and he couldn't make himself talk because he couldn't take in enough air to do it even if he wanted to. He climbed out of the bed as quickly as he could manage. His watch was going nuts.
He grabbed onto the doorway to the bedroom and in the kitchen was Nat, making tea. She spotted him and stopped everything to walk over to him. She could see the distress on his face. It didn't take a genius to see that he was scared. Of what she didn't know yet. When she last checked a few minutes ago, Peter had been peacefully asleep, just like he'd been when Steve called this morning, and when she showed up, and when Steve and Bucky took off this morning to hit the shops.
She took his face in her hands and searched his eyes for the words he couldn't speak, but instead, she found an intense fear she'd never seen in him before. "What happened, Peter?"
He tried to suck in the air that he needed to answer her, but he couldn't. He just stood there gaping like a fish out of water. He touched his chest, and Natasha made a mental note to teach him sign-language soon.
He looked down to his arm and she saw the scratch and determined that it was what was bothering him so much, so she grabbed his wrist and covered the scratch with her thumb while caressing his cheek with the other. "You're safe Peter. You know I won't let anything happen to you."
He continued to struggle to breathe but she kept talking to him regardless, and as she did so she slowly started sinking towards the floor and made sure that he came with her until they were kneeling and Peter put his head in her lap. She continued to gently rub the scratch on his wrist as she played with his hair and as he relaxed, his watch vibrations slowed down.
Nat was getting more and more worried about Peter and his well-being with every day that passed by and now, she was extra worried by this, and yesterday's sickness that seemed to vanish into thin air.
Peter let his fingertips brush over an empty space on Nat's wrist, and he made a mental note to buy her a nice bracelet with his allowance money as soon as he got the chance. Christmas was coming, and everyone deserved something nice. And Stark gave him a hell of an allowance, though it went straight into a side account for Peter to use to go to college one day. Steve had started giving him an allowance too, for small things like doing chores and getting good grades at school.
Nat continued to play with Peter's hair and tried to fill the silence by asking him if he still felt sick from yesterday. He said no, and he just felt sick yesterday morning and that was it. That sounded like something to Nat, but this was Peter, so that wasn't really possible... Was it?
Once she got Peter calmed down enough that he could breathe properly, she got him to crawl back into bed. As soon as he turned his music on in his headphones, he was out like a light.
Nat sat there with him for a little while before placing a much needed call to a number that she took from Peter's phone. It rang a couple of times, but once the call started, she wasted no time in speaking.
"I know who you are, and you know who I am. And I know that you know where I am. I want you to come here, and I need to know what you've done to my son."