Chapter Text
MJ tapped her nails against her ring, teeth biting into her lip as she shoved things aside in Peter's kitchen cabinets, looking for something useful or just...usable at this point. It was a bit depressing actually, the guy had barely anything in there but protein powder and empty takeout containers.
“Jesus, Peter. Not even protein bars?” She tossed an empty box aside with a groan and went for the fridge instead. At least there were some water bottles in there. She added them to her arm load of supplies and ticked them off in her head.
Blankets, check, hoodie, socks, clean underwear, check. That had felt weird, rummaging through his drawers, but they had found Peter in just his shorts sitting in a pool of his own blood, they’d been soaked.
MJ hugged her pile of supplies to her chest and tapped her ring again as she walked across the kitchen, trying to think of what else they needed when her foot slid across the floor and she almost landed on her back. She managed to keep her footing without dropping anything but as she looked down at what had almost taken her out she almost dropped it all over again.
“Oh….right.” The blood trail. She’d almost forgotten about that. It was an impressive thing. Hand prints slapped and smeared across the floor, a drag path painted itself from one end of the apartment to the other. She could see long sweeps where Peter had dragged himself and occasional single shoe stamps where he had used his good leg to push his way across the floor.
She’d need to clean this up at some point, especially the impressive mess at the window before anyone saw it from outside and called it in.
She stared at the window for a bit, unable to help but notice that based on the hand prints, splatter and bigger pool on the floor below it, he had fallen inside and lain there, either in too much pain or not aware enough to move right away.
Why would he lay there and not call for help? He chose to lay there, in pain and bleeding and he still chose to keep her, to keep everyone, out.
MJ sighed. She didn’t have time for this right now. She could be mad at him later. She could clean this up later. Right now Frank was keeping Peter breathing and from bleeding by himself. That’s what was important right now.
MJ took a deep breath and turned away from the window, making her way back to the bathroom, careful to avoid the blood trail this time.
Frank was pumping the ambu bag with one hand while the other was tugging at the needle and thread attached to Peter's thigh, looping a stitch closed with brows furrowed and his tongue out in concentration but he looked up as she entered. “Oh, perfect. Take over for me while I finish this. I got a couple more.”
There was a small corner of unsullied floor by the door so she dropped her supplies there and grabbed the bag as Frank shuffled back down to Peter's thigh, hands going back to their usual efficient speed.
It was only because she’d had a chance to take a breath outside of this bathroom, away from this bag, from breathing for him, from the panic of wondering if he was alive and how long he was going to stay that way, that MJ was able to look down at her hands and realise that like everything else, they too were covered in blood.
Her fingers, her ring, her jeans as she knelt beside Peter, the ambu bag, all of it was damp if not slippery with the red stain. It was in desperate fingerprints on Peter's neck where they had checked over and over for a pulse, his chin, his cheeks, jesus it was smeared across his mouth.
How had she not seen it before?
Hands grabbed hers and squeezed and she startled until she heard Franks deep rumble. “Hey, you have to keep it going. MJ!”
Her eyes snapped up to his and she suddenly came back to herself, sitting up and blinking hard. Her aching knuckles protested as she started up that now familiar rhythm. “Sorry, sorry. I got it.”
Frank pulled his hand away and went back to stitching but his gaze flickered between her and his work. “You good? What happened?”
In, out, in, out. MJ kept the breathing going, trying to match her own breathing to it and ignore the way the blood in between her fingers was drying and tacky. “I think… I just realised why he wanted to keep me out of this.”
Frank looked up from his work, his own bloodied scarred hands not stopping as he watched her. He was quiet for a moment, nothing but the soft crinkle of the ambu bag and the sigh of Peter's breathing. Finally he spoke, gesturing to the mess around them with the needle he was using. “Yeah, well…it might not be pretty but you knew that when you came here. Sitting in it now…Do you agree with him?”
In, out. The webbing between her fingers was trying to stick together every time she squeezed the bag and she knew when she pulled her hand away from the plastic it would rip away like sweaty thighs on a leather seat in summer. God, she wanted to wash her hands. “Agree with him? No. Understand a little more…yes.”
MJ pulled her gaze back up to Frank as he tied off the last stitch and tossed the needle aside. “If there’s no regret there's no problem. I’m finished here. You want to tag out? I can take over if you want to clean up a bit.”
MJ thought about the sweaty thighs peeling from the leather seats again and nodded, swallowing her nausea. “Yeah, that would be good. Thanks.”
Frank washed his hands in the sink quickly before kneeling and taking over, transitioning smoothly as soon as MJ had peeled her fingers away. It was her turn to wash her hands now and she kept her eyes on anything other than all that pink running down the drain.
“E.V start MJ’s playlist.”
Jessie Mazin started playing softly over the speakers, “I cut out my brain” covering the sound of Peter's manual breathing. She dried her hands and grabbed a cloth out of the cabinet, wetting it with warm water before kneeling down next to Peter again.
“You have your own playlist?”
MJ started with his face, watching those brown lashes for any movement as she gently washed away the streaks of red from his cheeks, and trying not to be too stung when she saw none.
“I didn’t make it. That day he got out of the hospital after the whole Jean thing I came over to make sure he was okay.” She gently washed away her own fingerprints from his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, leaving new clean skin behind.
“He fell asleep and I was…snooping I guess. Admiring E.V, the intricate system he built and I found the playlist he made. I asked him about it later. He said he’d made it in the years he’d spent alone. It’s made up of songs I used to like when we…knew each other.”
She picked up Peters arm and slid the cloth down his skin, watching the trail of goosebumps rise as the blood disappeared. “And he just kept adding new songs he thought I’d like.”
MJ held Peter's hand in both of hers. “He was right. I like all of them.”
“Ha, I knew this kid was a sap. That's some sweet shit.”
MJ smiled at Franks choice of words and stood to wash the cloth out in the sink. “Whatever, shouldn’t he be breathing on his own by now? How long will this take to empty?” She nudged the bag of blood on the counter beside her and watched it jiggle as she wrung out the washcloth.
“That one should be done in another hour but he’s going to need a lot more.” MJ knelt on the other side of Peters shoulders and watched as Frank pulled the ambu bag away from Peters face, hands squeezing the cloth so hard that the leftover water in the material was wrung from it, dripping between her knees onto the floor.
Peter did not take a breath on his own. MJ swore. Frank grunted.
“Why isn’t he breathing? Are you sure we weren’t too late? We don’t know how long he’d gone without oxygen before we got here, maybe he…” MJ pressed the cloth to Peter's neck, stroking it down over the curled loops of hair that stuck to his skin and bit her lip to stop from crying again. She couldn’t finish that thought, she just couldn’t.
Frank was already refitting the mask back to Peters face and pumping air through it again, tossing her worries to the side like they were empty mags. “Nah, I asked his computer thing when you were out of the room, he was only down for the time it took me to kick down the door. I may have a way to jump start him but I don’t think you’re gonna-”
MJ shook her head, holding back a laugh now. “Frank, I already know what you're going to say-”
“It’s not like I’m itching to do it! I’m just saying I think it has a fair shot at working!”
“Fine but if you end up jumpstarting a broken jaw that’s on you.”
Frank rolled his eyes and gave Peter one last puff of air before taking the mask away. “You think I can’t dodge a punch from a half dead kid? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
MJ stood and took a very deliberate three steps back, already cringing as she watched Frank pull his hand back.
“Sorry, kid.”
It happened in about 3 quarters of a second and MJ was glad she hadn’t blinked or she would have missed it. In the instant, or maybe even right before Frank's palm had met Peter's cheek with a sharp slap, Peter's eyes had snapped open revealing totally black eyes which trained themselves on his. In the same instant, Peter's hand had shot out and wrapped itself around Frank's throat and squeezed.
Frank however, only had enough time to grunt out a strangled version of Peter's name before Peter's black eyes faded back to their usual colour and rolled to the back of his head.
His head dropped back and his hand loosened and arm fell to the floor, he was out again but this time, breathing.
“Shit.”
“Finally.”