Chapter Text
Stars swam around in his eyes, and Peter hit the mat with a humiliating thud.
Pain shot through his face, white hot and sharp, but it didn’t hurt as badly as the embarrassment of being knocked down by one of the nameless, unimportant members of Tony’s Avenger’s Force. Shame pooled in his belly and threatened to eat him alive from the inside out.
It fed into something growing inside him, something that grew more wild and more uncontrolled with each passing second that he was away from home, with each passing day that his Mr. Stark failed to come and save him.
He supposed he’d been lucky Tony wasn’t around to witness his wipeout. He didn’t need a repeat of his last loss, that’d ended with Tony doubling his training sessions and effectively eliminating all his free time, which had been in short supply to begin with.
Truth was, Tony wasn’t around at all lately, at least often, not anymore, and Peter hated the way that bothered him, loathed that he actually looked forward to seeing him again.
Just for the plan. He told himself. Just to try and get through to him.
Peter groaned into the mat, mentally cursing Wanda for distracting him during a sparring match.
A whistle blew, and he heard Nat shout over the noise of the gym, calling off his sparring partner. Rage prickled at his skin, an angry storm brewing somewhere deep, deep within.
But he stayed down, collapsed there on the mat, and tried to make sense of that haunting way Wanda had stared at him. That look – somehow both perceptive and dreamy at the same time – had been becoming more and more common. Over the past couple of days, Wanda was always there, always watching, while he trained with Nat.
She was really starting to freak him out, with her stares, with her going completely silent while she observed anything and everything, as if the basement and the soldiers training and Peter were all brand new information to her.
Peter shut his eyes and stretched his jaw, ignoring the way it throbbed and ached. Instead, he focused on the footsteps growing nearer and nearer, and waited for his opportune moment. It arrived once his opponent hovered above him, with his foot raised and ready to stomp down on Peter’s head.
He snapped back to life, caught the foot, and brought down his rival in one, swift movement. It was over after that. Peter turned into a fury of fists and kicks, and once he got swinging, he couldn’t be stopped, not by the man’s grunts, not by Nat and her whistle, not even by the quiet voice inside saying stop.
Blood splashed his knuckles, and he kept punching, with his knees dug into the mat as he hovered over his unlucky challenger. He kept punching after the man lost consciousness. He kept at it until the voice inside shut up and was replaced by Nat’s. She caught his wrist, and Peter stilled, looked up at her.
“I said stop, Parker,” she told him, coolly. “Don’t lose control. It’s not a good look.”
Peter dropped his arms to his side, and stood up, dazed and empty, blankly watching the bloodied man passed out on the floor. Guilt nagged at him. He’d gone overboard, again, and it happened this way so many times since his training had begun.
He didn’t know how to stop it, no matter how badly he felt afterwards.
“Is he gonna be okay?” His voice betrayed him, coming out shaky.
“Sure,” said Nat. “He’ll have a nice stay in the medcenter, like a vacation, no harm, no foul. It’s time for a break, though, before you incapacitate Tony’s entire army.”
He nodded, still unsure, both by his blood-soaked knuckles and the way Nat’s voice sounded weary, unlike the confident way she normally spoke.
“Lunch?” she asked, lightly patting his shoulder, with a soft, sad smile.
“Yeah,” said Peter. He wiped the blood on his sweatpants, not bothering to care if it stained. Stains didn’t matter here. “Lunch sounds great.”
He followed Nat out of the training area and caught another glimpse of Wanda staring at him. She sat over by the water cooler, with her unnerving expression fixed and unchanged.
*
Nat shoved a cold pack at him, and Peter kept his arms down to his sides, digging his back further into the cushioned chair.
“Just take it,” she told him. “That’s going to swell, and it’s dumb suffer when given the option for relief.”
Peter took the cold pack, and pressed it up against his eye, just to stop a lecture before it started. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted it swelling, and bruised, if only to match, for once, what was happening on his insides.
“It’s been awhile since you’ve taken a hit like that,” said Nat. She sat down in the seat across the table from him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Peter unscrewed the cap to a water bottle and took a sip to avoid her question, but she pinned him down with a stare and well-timed silence, like she always did. That was what Peter hated about lunches with Nat. It was served with a side of interrogation and lectures.
He supposed it was only practical.
His schedule was packed so tightly he didn’t have time to just sit around and eat, so usually Nat spent mealtime listing everything he did wrong and telling him exactly what he needed to implement to improve.
He learned to live with it.
Her constant critiques had turned him into a better fighter and gave him skills to go along with his spidey strength. He’d take those with him, if he ever managed to go back home, so he didn’t count it as a complete waste.
“Not really,” said Peter. He pushed the cold pack further against his face, and relished the way that numbness had its own way of hurting him. “Nothing to discuss. I’m tired and distracted. That’s all.”
Nat didn’t press him any further, and Peter felt a rush of relief at the reprieve. He didn’t like the idea of sitting there and complaining about being overworked and overscheduled when the last time it’d earned him two days grounded in his room.
“I’m not breaking my promise, Peter,” Tony had told him, in an eerily calm voice, with his hand locked around Peter’s arm. He had marched him through the halls and towards his bedroom. “No locks. I’m trusting you to stay and face the consequences like a big boy. You wanna complain and be ungrateful? Then you need to remember what your life can return to.”
The worst part had been that Peter had stayed in his bedroom, without even attempting an escape, and that alone came with the crushing realization that Tony had never needed locks to keep him there.
A waiter served them their lunch, and by the time Peter removed the cold pack from his swelling eye to pick up his utensils, his face was properly numb.
“So, Pete,” said Nat. “What did you like to eat back home?”
Home
Nat always wanted to know about his home, about his friends, and his family. His Aunt May. Before he’d answer happily, but it was becoming a tired, painful subject, and it wasn’t the kind of pain Peter wanted. Remembering them was grief, and sadness, and he grew weary of crying himself to sleep every night.
It was a lot easier to forget.
“Didn’t you say your Uncle Ben loved to cook?”
Uncle Ben
Shame rushed him the second time that day, but it wasn’t like the first time, nothing like the embarrassment of being knocked down in a fight. It wasn’t superficial or based in fear of repercussions, but it was shame that ran deep as an ocean, cut to his core, shame in the knowledge that if Ben had been watching him wail on his defenseless sparring partner earlier, he’d been sad, disappointed.
He’d be ashamed to call Peter his nephew, and he should be.
“I don’t want to talk about Ben,” said Peter, fast and sharp. “Stop bringing up things from my other life. It doesn’t matter here.”
“I’m not being sentimental. Remembering is how you survive this with a piece of yourself still intact,” said Nat. “Helps you stay in control, and reminds you of who you are.”
“And if I don’t want to be reminded?”
“Lucky for you I don’t really care what you want,” she told him, and Peter rolled his eyes, choosing to focus on eating his food. “As for being tired, your tutoring session with Roger is canceled today.”
“Really?” asked Peter, trying not to let panic slip into his voice. He felt that everyone here was just one wrong word away from dropping dead, at any moment. “Why? Is Mr. Harrington okay?”
“He’s fine. Tony’s coming back today. He’s throwing a welcome home party for himself, and wants you to clean up and get ready,” said Nat. “I suggest a nap. Maybe give that blackeye a chance to heal before the drama king can overact.”
He finished eating quickly, and excused himself, choosing the long way back up to the penthouse.
It forced him to pass through his favorite corridor, a dim and lonely hallway, with an excellent view of the city. He lingered there, stopping to sit on one of the benches, dreaming about what it might be like to swing from building to building again, or even just step outside of Stark Tower.
*
Peter skipped the nap.
His busy schedule wasn’t the only reason he was tired.
Sleep eluded him most nights, and even when he did manage falling asleep, it was restless and interrupted. He tossed, and turned, and tried not to think about all the things he wanted to forget, but nights were always the hardest. When it was dark, and quiet, it was difficult not to ruminate on how utterly alone he felt, how unfair his life shaped out to be, how much he missed May.
So, instead of attempting a nap, Peter showered, got dressed in one of the many suits that filled his obnoxiously gigantic closet, and waited for Tony to show up by zoning out in front of the TV, only slightly guilty for not using his rare spare time for extra studying.
Mr. Harrington contrasted harshly in this world. He was a drill sergeant, and his daily tutoring sessions with him tested Peter’s mind, wore him out. That wasn’t even including the work he assigned him to do on his own, in the evenings.
Peter wondered if Mr. Harrington was born into this world rigid and strict, instead of awkward and goofy like his variant back home, or if Tony had turned him that way, transformed him into the harsh person Peter was forced to deal with every day. Like so many others around Stark Tower, Mr. Harrington was imprisoned with a glowy bracelet, and every so often, Peter saw him pulling at it.
He’d almost gotten through an entire movie when the elevator doors slid open, and Tony stepped inside the penthouse.
“Peter,” he greeted him, with a rockstar grin. Peter quickly switched off the TV. “I’ve only been gone for a week and you’re already getting lazy on me, huh, kid?”
His words felt like a punch in the gut, despite being said with a well-mannered smile and a good-natured tone. He’d spent every day getting his ass kicked in the gym, and having his brain wrung dry in the library, and that wasn’t enough for Tony. Nothing ever was.
“Hey, kid, I’m joking,” said Tony, joining him in the living room. Peter hated that he was so easily read. “I know you work hard… is that a blackeye?”
“Oh, um –“
“Let me see it,” he said.
Peter titled his face up from his spot on the couch, and Tony lifted his chin with three fingers, examining his eyes while he hovered over him.
“What happened to the other guy?” he asked, once he finally let go.
“I sent him to the Medcenter.”
Tony raised an eyebrow, smiled more widely, and broke eye contact. “Good. Never let someone leave a mark without punishing them for it.”
Peter let his tension and annoyance ebb away, and followed Tony over to the bar, where he took a seat on a stool and waited for him to pour the scotch. It had become a routine, on the evenings Tony cared enough to be around, to sit and have drinks with him while they chatted about their days.
“How are your trip?” asked Peter, accepting a glass from Tony.
“Fine. Good,” said Tony, pouring his own glass. “Better now that it’s over and I’m back for a while.”
Peter nodded and took a sip.
Alcohol still burned as it slid down his throat, but it hit differently now. It burned good, relaxed him, and there was something powerful about acquiring a taste for something that had once made him sick.
“You looked awful, Pete.”
Peter frowned into his glass. “Oh, thanks.”
“I mean it,” said Tony. “It isn’t just the eye. You look exhausted. Don’t you sleep at night?”
“Sometimes,” he offered, softly. Ignoring and lying were viable options when it was Tony asking him questions.
“Sometimes,” Tony repeated. “And what’s keeping that big brain of yours awake at night?”
Peter trailed his fingers across the glass of scotch, trying to think of a safe way to answer. Tony wouldn’t want to hear about how much he missed him. He wouldn’t want to hear about May. Mentioning either of those put him at risk of spending even more time grounded to his room, with unlimited time to dwell on his situation.
In this world everything was all or nothing. His day was either packed, or completely empty, and if it were one extreme over the other, he would pick overwhelmingly busy over bored and lonely, every time.
Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder, after his silence. “Tell you what, we’ll skip the party, go for a walk instead? Central Park? We can talk.”
“You mean go outside the Tower?” His heart did a funny leap, and suddenly, he wasn’t so tired anymore.
“There’s only one Central Park, Pete, and it isn’t inside these walls,” said Tony. “You’ve more than earned it.”
“Can we go now?”
Tony laughed, genuine and booming, and Peter swelled with pride, knowing he had the correct reaction, that he’d said the right words.
He didn’t bother changing out of his party clothes, and Tony didn’t bother changing from his travel clothes, so they were an odd pair walking the paths in Central Park. Not that anybody looked at them. Not directly. People kept their heads down, hurried past, or offered awkward waves.
Peter didn’t care. He wouldn’t let other people ruin the night.
Fresh air pumped through his lungs, trees surrounded him, and the scotch rushed through his veins, amplifying giddiness, and giving a blurry edge to his view of the park. They stopped at one of the ponds and watched the moonlight dance in the water. Peter stood close enough to see his own reflection.
Tony had been right.
He did look awful, even in the dark, rippling water.
Not even his expensive coat pulled over his ridiculous designer suit distracted from his swelling and exhausted eyes. He looked like someone else. It reminded him of his only shot at getting sent back home.
“Hey Tony,” said Peter, looking away from the water. “Uh, what happened to the other me? You know, your Peter, who was from here.”
Tony’s expression darkened under the streetlamp. “Are you trying to get inside my head, Peter?”
“What?” he stammered. “No – no that isn’t – I’m sorry if you don’t want to talk about it. I was just trying to –“
“-Maybe we should get you another drink,” said Tony. “You’re panicking.”
“Sorry,” said Peter, hotly. He snapped his focus away from Tony, and returned his stare towards the water. “Didn’t mean to upset you, or anything. I was just curious.”
“I suppose it is natural for you to be curious,” said Tony, though his voice carried a note of condescending humor Peter didn’t like, as if Tony had guessed his plan, maybe had always known it, and had decided to play along.
Tony’s reflection appeared behind him, and he clamped a hand down on his shoulder.
“He died, Peter,” he told him. “He was murdered.”
“Oh, I – I’m sorry.”
Tony pulled him away from the water’s edge, and they sat down on a nearby bench, where he launched into the story.
“Steve Rogers, good ole Captain America, killed him,” said Tony, “It was my fault. Should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve… went with him, on that mission I sent him on. I sent him to his death.”
Peter tried to process that information, tried to think about a world where Captain America was a child murderer.
“One of the hardest parts about losing him is that I never truly understood that kid until I lost him.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. It –“
“-It is. He tried to tell me how guilty he felt about the night his aunt and uncle were killed, how much he wanted to fix it, but I brushed it off. Now I know what it feels like. That responsibility.” He paused, took a deep breath, and looked Peter in his eyes. “You know, my Peter had trouble sleeping sometimes, too.”
“Yeah,” said Peter, quietly, not understanding why every adult wanted to talk about May and Ben, about his history, or how this conversation had been turned around to examine his own grief instead of Tony’s. But maybe that wasn’t so bad. Maybe it’d feel good to get it off his chest. “I lost my Uncle Ben, too. He was murdered by – I mean, just by some petty criminal, but I could’ve-“
“You were just a kid,” said Tony, cutting him off before he could finish. “You didn’t know any better. You weren’t grown up enough, didn’t understand how the real world works, still don’t, maybe.”
Peter frowned, but before he could try and work out what Tony was telling him, before he could process any of it, the man kept talking.
“The point is, Pete, you don’t need to feel guilty about letting that mugger walk away.”
“What? That’s not what –“
“Don’t lose any more sleep over it, okay? Ben was a good man. He would have understood you weren’t ready yet. You just weren’t prepared to do what had to be done back then.”
Peter opened his mouth, but he was too stunned to speak.
Didn’t have words, so he just nodded, numb, and felt relieved when Tony stood up from the bench and they continued their walk in Central Park.
An odd ringing filled his ears, and his heart pumped faster, erratically, as he tried to work out what Tony had just said. He’s never stopped to consider that he should have chased down the mugger that night his uncle died.
His other self had been so consumed with rage and guilt to avenge his loved one it kept him up at night. Peter had felt so much guilt he’d become Spider-Man and used Ben’s dying words as his personal philosophy.
“With great power, comes great responsibility.”
And it wasn’t until then that Peter understood he’d failed his uncle, because he hadn’t spent any time looking into his killer or tracking him down, ensuring that man couldn’t do the same thing to another family. He’d been too focused on himself, and Spider-Man, and Ben, and May, and his friends.
He’d been selfish, and now he was here, with no family, or friends, or any way to correct his past mistakes.
When he slipped into bed that night, he’d down two additional glasses of scotch, making his head floaty and his thoughts numbed out, but not even a good, healthy buzz could help him drift to sleep.
*
“Pencil down.”
“It’s a pen, actually,” said Peter, with a grin, as his lucky black ballpoint landed on top of his test.
“Don’t be a smartass,” Mr. Harrington told him.
He slid the test across the wood table, so it sat in front of him, instead of Peter, and pulled the dreaded red marker from his front shirt pocket. At least both the Mr. Harringtons Peter knew had the same fashion sense.
“You don’t actually have to grade it in front of me,” said Peter. “You could wait until the session is over.”
“You know that isn’t how I teach,” he said, annoyed, and as if he were speaking to a much younger child.
Peter leaned back in the chair, let his fingers find a rhythm on the table’s surface, and watched Mr. Harrington study his test, with his red marker of doom ready. He smiled as his teacher’s eyes poured over the page, getting further and further towards the bottom, without having a chance to mark it up.
He increased the volume of his finger-drumming, earning him a glare from Mr. Harrington.
“Be quiet, Peter.”
With an obnoxious sigh, Peter stilled his fingers, and zoned out while the rest of his paper was graded.
“Well done,” he said, finally, while writing a one hundred at the top. “You got them all. A big improvement. I take this to mean you are finally studying.”
“I finally have time to study, you mean,” said Peter.
Tony had scaled his training hours back to normal after he’d sent that nameless soldier to the Medcenter, meaning Peter spent less time in the gym being gawked at by Wanda or interrogated by Natasha, and more time on his own, studying in his favorite, abandoned and lonely corridor, or goofing around in one of the many rec rooms scattered around the Tower.
“Semantics,” said Mr. Harrington. “Take out your history book and read the next chapter, please, quietly.”
Peter pulled the heaviest, lamest book from his bag, and plopped it down in front of him, smirking as the loud thud on the table turned Mr. Harrington’s eyes sharp. He glared at him but didn’t do anymore scolding. It was worse than that. He ignored Peter completely, opening his laptop and beginning to type.
“I have a question,” said Peter.
“You haven’t even opened your book.”
“It isn’t about history.”
“Then it isn’t important,” said Mr. Harrington. “Read, or I’ll have to contact Mr. Stark about your behavior, and neither of us want that.”
Which was precisely why Peter was confident he could keep pushing him. “What did you do before you started tutoring me?”
“I promise the answer isn’t more interesting than your history lesson.”
“Anything is more interesting than my history lessons,” said Peter, truthfully.
They had started off fascinating. Peter had to start from scratch, being from a different universe and all, but the further they got into the present, the more he wondered if the facts being presented for him were the truth. If it just wasn’t all lies written by Tony Stark and his loyal commanders of the Avenger’s Force.
“Is this really history, though? Like all this stuff really happened?” asked Peter, bluntly, taking a glance down at his textbook.
Mr. Harrington took a calculated look up from his computer, and the words that left his mouth were low. “It is unwise to question government regulated coursework, Peter.”
“Like you did?” asked Peter. His eyes automatically flew to the bracelet on his wrist, and as if he could feel Peter’s stare, Mr. Harrington tugged his sleeve over it. “I’m sorry if you don’t want to talk about it. I just – I want to know if I’m being brainwashed, you know?”
Reality felt fleeting, and uncertain enough, already, without learning a false version of history. Sometimes it felt as if there was nothing solid, anymore, nothing to stand for, or against, and he was constantly disorientated, left in the dark without any way to see.
When he’d overheard the rumors about Mr. Harrington, from a few of the library staff, he saw a risky opportunity.
“This conversation is beyond inappropriate,” said Mr. Harrington. “But it is only natural for you to be curious. Mr. Stark told me about some of your… challenges, before he hired me to tutor you. It must be confusing for you, coming from – from a place where things are so different.”
“It is,” agreed Peter, willingly to take any form of empathy and run for it, no matter how little or thoughtless it sounded.
“There was a time where I made mistakes in my life,” said Mr. Harrington. “There’s misinformation everywhere, and Steve Rogers’ campaign of lies was a lot more influential where I taught at Midtown. I got caught up in it and was rightly punished, and I’m deeply regretful of all the young minds I led astray during that time in my life.”
“You really mean that? You’re regretful?” asked Peter, softly, staring at his hands. “You don’t miss teaching the other s –“
“-there is no other side to this conflict, Peter,” said Mr. Harrington. “Mr. Stark is keeping us safe. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude.”
It troubled Peter the way he felt relieved, and reassured, to hear his teacher say this. He couldn’t be impartial as a prisoner, sure, but thinking of Tony as a monster to escape only, or a damaged person to manipulate into letting him go home, had only added to Peter’s suffering.
Struggling was futile, anyway, so Peter toyed with the idea of accepting that Tony only wanted what was best for him, for the world.
“I’m sorry,” said Peter. “I just get confused sometimes.”
“Consider your apology accepted,” said Mr. Harrington. He returned his eyes to his laptop. “Read the next chapter, please. No more interruptions or I’ll be forced to reach out to Mr. Stark.”
Peter opened his book that time, though he knew Mr. Harrington would never contact Mr. Stark about behavioral issues.
He was just as afraid of him as Peter.
*
The end of everything was accompanied by a rush of excitement.
Only at first.
Peter followed Tony down the stairs and towards the workshop. When they reached the bottom, glass doors opened into a wonderland of tech. Peter realized, with a bit of an ache, that he missed working with Mr. Stark’s tech. Back home workshop days were the only part of his internship that was real, and rage filled his chest thinking about it.
He wouldn’t have anything to miss if his Mr. Stark hadn’t pretended to care, only to prove he never did by not even bothering to come and bring him home.
“Like what you see?” prodded Tony. “I’m thinking it’s about time to add some workshop sessions into your studies.”
“I don’t think Mr. Harrington knows very much about your tech, Tony.”
Tony laughed and ruffled Peter’s hair. “I’d be your teacher, dipshit.”
“So,” asked Peter, looking around. “Are we starting tonight?”
“No,” he said. Humor had left his voice completely. “Tonight’s about something else.”
A series of lights turned on after he spoke, and Peter was able to see the middle of the workshop, where a man was blindfolded, tied to a metal chair and unconscious.
Peter’s breath caught by the shock of it, but dug his fingernails into his palms, attempting to shut off and keep his emotions in check. Dread replaced his earlier excitement, so strong it tied knots in his stomach. Nothing good was happening here tonight, and Peter knew it even before Tony started talking again, even before he pulled out a gun.
“I keep thinking about our chat in Central Park,” said Tony, walking up to the captive, loosely holding the gun. He untied the blindfold, and let the cloth fall and hit the floor. “And I think I’ve found a way for you to feel better, about that night your uncle was killed.”
The man didn’t wake up, until Tony backhanded him with a gun. Peter flinched.
“Don’t feel sorry for him, Pete, do you know what he did?”
Peter shook his head and kept his feet planted on the ground, not daring to walk across the room and get any closer to whatever was happening in the center of the workshop. He only watched, as the man’s chest began rising and falling, faster and faster, as he looked around and eventually understood his position.
“Please – please I ha –“
Tony hit him with the gun a second time, and Peter flinched again.
“I didn’t say you could speak,” said Tony. “Peter – get over here. I’m tired of yelling across the room.”
Peter hesitated, only for a split second, before his feet carried him to where Tony stood.
“He’s a murderer,” Tony told him. “Killed a woman on her way home from work. Popped her in the head just to steal her purse.”
The man stared at Peter, eyes wide and begging, as if he had the power to change Tony’s mind about anything. He had once been naive enough to think he could crawl into his head and appeal to his better nature, but all that had accomplished was a short conversation where Peter had revealed too much.
It was the conversation that had brought him there, in that workshop, watching a man who was about to be killed.
“She was a single mother,” said Tony. “Just trying to take care of her kids.”
Peter’s heart pumped in his ears, and a confusing swirl of emotions brewed inside him. He hated that man, that stranger, hated him so much for what Tony said he did, but he didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want the responsibility of being an adult who handled problems like a man who preyed on innocent people.
But it was Ben’s words that came back to him. Again.
With great power, comes great responsibility, but is that what he meant? Younger him knew it certainly wasn’t. He was older, now, and everything was complicated, confusing, even a little twisted. Nothing felt right, or true, so he waited for Tony to tell him what he wanted to hear.
“What do you think should happen to murderers, Peter?” Tony asked him, in a voice so low, it was almost a whisper. “How do we keep the people we love safe?”
“He has to die,” said Peter, weakly.
A gunshot rang out in the workshop immediately following Peter’s broken words.
The man slumped over, limp, and lifeless, and Peter turned his head before he could the bullet hole in the stranger’s skull. He didn’t need evidence of what he’d done, what his words had detonated.
“Good choice,” said Tony, but Peter barely heard him.
*
Everything frosted over to numb after the night in the workshop.
Peter never liked zombie movies, but he turned into one, moving about his day colder, and without much thought.
He trained with Nat, ignored Wanda and her increasingly worrying stares, and completed whatever assignments Mr. Harrington handed out to him, without the sport of annoying him on purpose.
He kept his conversations short. He didn’t chat. Not even when Nat conned him into having lunch after their sessions and bombarded him with questions about his past.
She was predictable, consistent, but Peter didn’t care anymore. He answered her, using as few words as possible. Sometimes he thought she looked a little sad. That had bothered him, at first, but playing dead felt better than before, way better than when his emotions were so out of control, up and down, he’d felt as if he had been strapped on a tilt-a-whirl that he couldn’t get off.
But the numb haze didn’t stick around forever.
It melted away on a bright and sunny December day, while Peter was stretched out on a bench in his favorite corridor, enjoying both the view of the city from the window and artificial heat pumping through the vents.
He wasn’t enjoying the book in his hands, something Mr. Harrington had assigned, but he preferred it to the sudden way Wanda Maximoff appeared and invaded his personal, private space. She sat down next to him, and ended her silent staring by daring to speak to him.
“Hello, Peter.”
“Please go away,” said Peter. He refused to look up from his book or gave her any reason to believe this was a conversation he wanted to happen. “I’m studying.”
“I have something to say,” she continued. “You may not believe me, but it’s important that you keep an open mind and listen carefully.”
With an internal groan, Peter closed the book and turned his attention to Wanda. She looked different. Instead of the dreamy, dopey expression she’d had over the past couple of weeks, she looked sharper, present.
“I have a message from your family.”
“What?”
Sunlight streamed in through the giant windows, and his cheeks burned under the heat of it. He took a glance around the hallway, in case someone was around to overhear, but it was only him and Wanda.
“It’s going to sound weird, but I’m Wanda, from your world –“
“-the one who attacked us at the airport?”
“Attacked is a strong word,” she said, brushing past it. “Look there’s a spell – I’m possessing my other self – but I guess that part isn’t important right now. I’m here with your family and friends, and they want you to know that they’re coming to get you.”
Peter blinked at her, and looked back down at his book, opening it. “Yeah, nice try.”
“It isn’t a trick,” she said. “I’m not playing around. It’s real –“
“-How am I even supposed to know what’s real anymore?” asked Peter. “This – it can’t be –“
“-You’re real and –“ started Wanda, then paused and went quiet, looking like she was listening to somebody on the other end of a phone. “Your Aunt May wants me to tell you about that time you all had that food fight on your birthday, the day you turned seven, and you cried because you accidentally smeared cake all over your favorite stuffed animal –“
“-he was my partner for magic shows in the living room,” said Peter, a smile tugging at his lips, and a forbidden warmth in his chest.
“-Mr. Fluffybottom,” said Wanda. “You were upset because he was a white rabbit, and you’d gotten blue icing on him.”
“That – it doesn’t prove anything,” said Peter.
“Ned misses you. He’s got the new limited edition Star Wars set, and he’s waiting until you come home to put it together,” said Wanda. “MJ misses pretending she doesn’t see you trying to catch the titles of the books she reads in the hallway at school. She says you aren’t sneaky.”
“Tell them I miss them, too,” said Peter, quietly.
“They can see and hear you, through my eyes and ears,” explained Wanda. “Happy says he knew you ordered an adult film in Germany-
“-Happy’s there?” asked Peter.
“And Stark,” she said. “And some of the Avengers.”
“No that can’t – the Avengers broke up. I was there.”
“We drafted a temporary truce,” said Wanda. “Because we’re coming to get you, and we have everyone working on it.”
“No,” said Peter. He shook his head. “No, because it’s been too long, and it’s - it’s almost Christmas. It’s just – you can’t be – they can’t be listening and watching… they’ve been watching, this whole time?”
All those times Peter was annoyed and creeped out by Wanda’s staring, all those sessions in the training room, where he was unhinged and wailing on whoever was unlucky enough to spar with him that day. May had seen that, and was seeing him now, this weird version of himself, that had commanded the death of another person without even really knowing for sure if he was guilty of the crimes Tony had said.
It felt violently unfair that Mr. Stark and the Avengers had sat around and watched him struggle through Wanda-Vision as if it were an extremely enjoyable movie and did nothing to send help his way.
“We’ve been watching,” said Wanda. “And waiting, while Stark and Dr. Strange figure out a way to travel the multiverse.”
“No.”
He didn’t have to think about it.
Mr. Stark, the Avengers, and whoever this Dr. Strange person was, couldn’t open the door to this hellish world, couldn’t draw Tony’s attention back to Peter’s home. The only way to keep May and his friends safe was to keep them, and the Avengers, away, and keep Tony from knowing they were even attempting to break through.
Peter had already made his peace with his new life, in his own way, and he wasn’t going to let Mr. Stark string him along for any more failed expectations.
“No?”
“You guys can’t come here,” said Peter. “You can tell Mr. Stark he can stop pretending to care and you guys can go back to fighting in airports, or whatever it is you do.”
“What does that mean?” asked Wanda. She lost some of her previous gentleness, and Peter felt a strange satisfaction in that.
“It means if he cared, he’d be here, and he wouldn’t have wasted time with whatever this is supposed to be. It doesn’t even matter now, because he’s too late. It’s almost Christmas.”
“Listen, I’m not Stark’s biggest fan, so you can trust me when I say he cares about you, deeply, jumping around the multiverse isn’t like getting in your car and driving down the road –“
“-It is for Tony,” said Peter. “He can figure it out, but Mr. Stark can’t? It’s just whatever, he’s off the hook, okay? Just tell my aunt I love her and tell Ned to go ahead and build his Legos. They should move on.”
“Peter –“
“No, just stop talking, and stay away from me,” said Peter, standing up with his book. He turned his back on Wanda, but came face to face with Nat. He froze in place.
“What’s going on?” asked Nat. Her eyes shifted back and forth, from Wanda to Peter.
“I was studying,” said Peter. “And Wanda interrupted me.”
“You’re this upset about someone interrupting your study time?”
Peter wanted to pull his hair out, to scream, or cry. All three, at the same time. The intensity building behind his eyes had no place to hide once Nat had shown up. He hated her apt ability to see through his masks.
“You’re stressed. You need to take a deep breath. Compose yourself.”
“I need both of you to quit talking about my family and where I came from,” said Peter.
Nat frowned and looked back at Wanda again.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” said Nat, an edge to her voice. Her eyes bore down into Peter’s. “But it needs to stay between us. You wouldn’t want Tony to find out about it and be the direct cause of somebody else losing their lives.”
The walls of the corridor were closing in, and the floor wasn’t solid anymore. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the man tied to the chair, or the other man, who died before Peter had even gotten here, much. Every time his mind drifted in that direction, he suffocated, and his world spun out.
“… how do you even know about that?” asked Peter, not even bothering to cover up the way his voice cracked and wavered.
“It’s what he does,” said Nat. “He’s the merchant of death. Why do you think he’s brought you here?”
“I try not to think about it,” admitted Peter. “Just – just keep her away from me.”
He stormed past Nat, and blinked over and over again, as if it’d keep his tears in his head instead of on his cheeks. Nat had been right. He needed to compose himself, but he felt the opposite. He was coming undone, and unhinged, and he couldn’t stop it from happening. Part of him didn’t want it to stop.
There was something about losing control that felt good.
“Peter,” said Wanda. He stopped walking, but didn’t turn back around to her or Nat. “May loves you. No matter what.”
*
Peter sat on a barstool and poured himself another glass of whiskey.
He didn’t need anything to mix in with it. He liked it when the burn felt the strongest, and when it worked quickly, numbing his senses, and drowning his misery.
This was his chosen way of composing himself. It worked well enough for his pain, but not well enough to wipe the grief and confusion from his body language. Tony picked up on it as soon as he walked into the room.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Tony. “Angsting at the bar is never a good sign.”
Peter shrugged and downed his third glass of whiskey. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
“I know what will cheer you up,” said Tony, ignoring his lie. “Let’s take a trip down to the workshop.”
It was the absolute last place Peter wanted to visit, and his stomach revolted at the idea of sitting in on another trial where he and Tony were judge, jury, and executioner, but he followed Tony anyway. Didn’t have much choice.
Tony led him to one of the worktables, where an oddly familiar case sat.
“What’s this?”
“Call it an early Christmas present,” said Tony. “Go ahead. Open it.”
Peter pressed the button, and the case folded open, revealing a Spider-Man suit. It was lacking it’s vibrant blue and red colors. Instead, it was blue and silver, with a black spider on the chest. He ran his fingers across the fabric, and imagined putting it on, swinging through the streets of New York.
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “It’s amazing.”
“Wanna try it out and give it a spin?”
“You mean down in the Playground?”
“No,” said Tony. “I thought it might be nice for the people of New York to get to catch a glimpse of their new Spider-Man.”
A flutter of hope ignited in Peter’s chest. “You mean – I can go outside?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said, with a careless tone. “As long as you’re not planning on getting clever and attempting to escape and go back home.”
Peter paused and knew exactly what to say to get himself out the window and swinging through the streets. “I am home.”