Chapter Text
The guides split them up into three smaller, but still quite large, groups. Peter hummed as he watched Flash be separated into a different group, a relief he didn’t realize he needed washing down his body.
The guide directing Peter’s group started handing out their tour badges. It was a blue edged card hanging off a thin lanyard that everyone was quick to put around their neck. Peter followed suit and carefully slid the rope over his headphones. His face scrunched as soon as it touched his neck and he ripped it off, shaking his head harshly to get rid of the feeling. It didn’t work and he reached a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, shoving the card and offending lanyard into his pocket.
They were guided inside the building and into an elevator. Adam, the guide, stayed with the second half of the group while the first half went up. “It’s a fast trip, we’ll follow right behind you guys. Just make sure to stay in the waiting area, we don’t need any of you guys getting lost now.” He smiled as the doors slid shut.
Peter felt his hands shaking, tapping out rhythms on his thigh. He hated elevators. He scratched at his neck again. He could feel himself humming, his headphones blocking out the sound. Ned glanced at him as it came back to the main floor, and Peter noticed he was rocking up on his toes.
Peter watched as his classmates huddled into the metal box and shook his head again before stepping forward. He felt the elevator creak as the doors shut and his stomach dropped as it moved upward. Peter felt himself rocking again, his arms crossed over himself tightly.
He watched as the red led screen flashed through numbers as they sped up five, six, seven floors. Peter rushed out the doors when it lurched to a stop at the eighth floor, his breathing fast. The guide, what was his name again?, placed his hand on Peter’s shoulder. He heard Ned warn “Don’t-” too late and twisted so fast and so hard out of the touch that he fell to the floor. He heard a snap! as he landed and winced. He could feel the hard plastic of his now broken headphones digging into his cheek.
“Shit! I mean- Kid, are you alright?” The guide started to reach out to Peter again but quickly retracted his hands and shoved them in his pocket.
Peter pushed himself to his knees and looked down at the cracked headphones on the carpet. What would he do? Aunt May would be so disappointed with him. They were so expensive, she’d never be able to afford a new pair. She’d hardly been able to afford that pair. What would he
do
?
There was an ocean of noise around him but he couldn’t make out a sound. Slowly, Peter slid off his backpack and unzipped it. He picked up the headphones and put them in his bag, zipped it up, and put it back on his back. He stood up and pressed three fingers to the cut on his, each coming away with blood. He looked to Ned with a scrunched face. He just wanted to go home .
The guide, Adam, Ned had reminded him, directed Peter and Ned to the infirmary. The woman there seemed confused as they entered the room, but Ned said something to her that Peter didn’t catch and she gave Peter a look and a bandage and sent them on their way.
He stared at the floor as they walked, watching Ned’s hasty steps over the carpet, wincing when the lights reflected off the tiles. He listened to the sound it made, the rhythm of their steps. It gave him something to focus on, something to draw him away from the buzzing of the machines along the walls they passed. Peter scratched at the bandaged, his fingers picking at the tape that held down the gauze.
He wished it was just a bandaid, the adhesive didn’t itch as much as the medical tape. He scratched again, then the spot on his neck and shook his head. He sighed and wrapped his arms around himself, holding the straps of his backpack. He wished he had remembered about the field trip this morning, then maybe he could have actually enjoyed it like he’d wanted.
He wished he had his headphones- Peter stopped. The footsteps were off, it wasn’t just his and Ned’s anymore. He looked up only to bring his head down again when he saw the lights. He squeezed his eyes shut and hummed, hoping the people weren’t coming to talk to him.
“Hello, boys.” Ned stopped walking and Peter winced.“Uh, hi.” Couldn’t anything go right? “Are the two of you lost?” Peter didn’t hear Ned’s reply, his humming turning their words to a murmur. He looked around the room as he rocked on his heels, taking interest in the “Radioactivity” sign on a door close to him.
Suddenly one of the guards took a step toward him. Peter screamed as she grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull away even as she pulled him to her chest. He heard her say something, “Calm down, stop moving, quiet down”, but it only made him clap his hands to his ears. Her voice was so loud . He tried to shake his head, he needed to get the sound out of his ears, but she put a hand against his forehead and held him still.
Peter opened his eyes to look for Ned but all he could see was the bright, white, light, and he quickly shut them again. His skin felt like it was crawling, shifting around his body. The hands on him felt heavy, hot like fire and made him so aware of their presence. He dug his fingers into the skin around his ears and tried to focus on the pain he could control.
And then it was gone.
Slowly, not believing it to be true, Peter opened his eyes and gradually began to lift his head. A few feet in front of him was Ned, breathing heavy. Peter noticed he had his hands raised high, each holding one of the blue edged passes they were given when they arrived.
Peter flinched as he saw the security guard standing off to the side of him, her hands still out-reached from where they held him. He glanced back and Ned and noticed another guard, his hands resting on his hips. “Come on, guys, let’s get you downsta-”
“Peter? Ned?” Peter jumped at the voice of Mrs.Glasier, the chemistry teacher followed by a guide and group of students. Peter let out a sigh of relief, an adult he knew finally. He could go home. “What’s happened here, boys?”
He watched as the guards explained the situation, Ned interjecting at every few words. Peter was grateful for Ned, truly he was. He’d be so lost without Ned, probably lost on a bus somewhere, unable to say where he needed to get off. Mrs.Glasier gave him that look, the one that meant she felt sorry for him, that she didn’t know what to do with him anymore. Was she reading his mind?
Peter looked down, watching his hands fiddle with the strings of his hoodie. He always ruined them, chewing on the ends of the plastic and picking apart the threads. He heard his name and glanced back up, idly wondering if he’d be allowed on the next field trip.
When he turned his attention back to his fidgeting hands Peter noticed what he thought was a speck of blood, scratching at his hands tended to make them bleed. But as he looked closer at it he realized it was a spider, unnaturally red. Was it glowing? He blinked and it was black, or maybe dark brown, but a normal spider nonetheless.
Peter watched as the creature crawled up his finger and went in a circle at the edge of his wrist before biting down. He gasped and shook his hand in both shock and pain and felt a rush of nausea, his feet tripping over each other as he tried to balance himself against the wall.
“Peter!” The chorused voices of Ned and Mrs.Glasier rang in his ears and he watched as their blurred bodies rushed toward him. Peter blinked quickly, trying to get the world to right itself again. Ned’s worried face began to un-pixelate and he took a deep breath to calm himself, pushing back up from the wall he didn’t realize he had albeit crumbled into.
“Come on, Peter, let’s get you back to the school.” Peter had never heard better words from his teacher, and followed the rest of the class outside with a relieved grin.
If the first bus ride was chaotic, Peter didn’t think he knew a word to describe the ride back. Everyone around him sat half off their seats to tell their friends of what they had seen at the exhibits, Peter only wished they didn’t have to scream . They had all been there, anyway.
He sat on his knees, his hands tucked under his hood, scratching aimlessly at his neck as he pressed his forearms as hard as he could to his ears. He could feel beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and wondered if he should stop rocking and take his sweater off, but he was so
cold
, too.
The short trip couldn’t have seemed longer. Peter practically ran off the bus when it made it back to Midtown, and had to try his combination seven times before he finally managed to open his locker.
Aunt May wasn’t home when he unlocked the apartment, but he didn’t think she would be. She usually wasn’t back from work when Peter normally was done with school, and that was without him leaving an hour early. He’d never been so happy with shortened days, but today he figured he’d needed it.
Peter hardly remembered to lock the door behind him before he speeded to his room, not even bothering to slip off his backpack or converse. He collapsed into his bed, tugged his blanket over the back of his neck, and fell asleep faster than he ever had before.
-----
“Peter, sweetie? Are you awake?” Aunt May knocked on the door.
The sound jolted Peter awake. He opened his eyes and let out a small scream; he had felt himself jump, but he hadn’t realized it was that far. He was staring at the ceiling, no, he was on the ceiling.
“Oh, shit.”