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“Shit, shit, shit,” Peter says.
He’s trapped. The bad guy he was fighting apparently decided he’d had enough of Peter’s witty lines and now…
Well, now he’s standing in a bank vault, with shaky hands and shuddering breaths and no way out.
He can’t do this again. He can’t - it’s the warehouse all over again, and he can feel the panic rising in his stomach, up past his ribs, through his chest, into his throat. He’s ever-so-conscious nowadays of where the panic rests inside of him because it’s always there, just waiting for the opportunity to show its true colors, and he can feel every move it makes as he yanks on the door handle one last time for good measure.
It doesn’t budge. He knew it wouldn’t, of course - he’s not stupid, after all, he knows how locks work - but the fact still makes his teeth grind.
He can’t get out of here. He can’t get out of this stupid bank vault and he’s going to be stuck here until someone comes by, which could take forever, seeing as the bank is currently being robbed. It could be hours before someone gets him out of here. It could be days before someone gets him out of here.
Normal people could last for days like this, but his metabolism is way too fast for that. He’ll starve in a quarter of the time that someone his age and weight should, and then he’ll die in this fucking vault. And that’s only if he doesn’t suffocate first.
Which seems like a toss-up, what with how quick his breathing is right now.
Hyperventilating.
He’s hyperventilating.
Hm.
That’s bad, he thinks. He’s pretty sure.
The thing is, he knows this isn’t the warehouse. There’s nothing on top of him, nothing crushing him, which means it’s not the warehouse. Which also means there’s nothing to lift. If it was another building falling on him, he could do what he did the last time, as excruciating as it was, and escape. But the doors of bank vaults are made specifically to prevent them being broken down, so he’s kind of out of options here.
Maybe he should address the whole hyperventilation thing. He’ll suffocate faster if he doesn’t slow his breathing down, he’s sure of that part.
There are exercises for this. Multiple different exercises, some that work better than most, except none of them work when he can’t remember them. His brain doesn’t want to work with him long enough to recall how long each breath is supposed to be or what his hands are supposed to be doing other than shaking so badly it feels like they might fall off.
Fuck.
“Fuck!” His hands slide through his hair, pulling at the strands until the top of his head screams in protest.
Good. At least he can still feel.
(There’s a certain point he gets to sometimes, where he loses pretty much all sense of reality and all of his senses go dull. It’s only happened a couple of times, but those times easily found their way onto the list of the worst moments of his life.)
Someone is speaking to him. Except no, no one can be speaking to him because he’s alone in this vault, alone yet again, always alone -
“Peter.”
Toomes?
No.
Karen.
Not Toomes, never again. Just Karen, who’d never hurt him, who can’t hurt him because she’s programmed only to help. And god, he needs help.
“Peter, would you -“
Everything after this sounds muffled. Everything is muffled. Blurry. Hazy. Like - like back when he used to wear glasses before the bite and he’d take them off and the whole world would go fuzzy. Exactly like that, but if the glasses were for his brain instead of his eyes.
That doesn’t make any sense. Brains are inside people’s heads, they can’t wear glasses, that’s not how it works.
None of this makes any fucking sense.
He’s spiraling. Slipping.
Fuck.
He doesn’t want to slip. Slipping is definitely bad, worse than hyperventilating, because slipping means -
Slipping means -
What does slipping mean?
He has a system. There’s a term for everything, a repurposed word for every way in which his brain may revolt against him; it makes it easier, for him and for all the people who care about him, to understand what the hell he’s on about whenever his brain takes its glasses off. Which is more often than he’d like, but, well.
The system works.
Usually.
The system can’t work, though, when the one who created it doesn’t remember what his own words mean. And if the system doesn’t work, then no one will know how to help him.
And he’ll be alone.
But no, he’s already alone. What does it matter if the system doesn’t work if he’s already doing this on his own?
He’s on the floor. He doesn’t know when he ended up on the floor, but he’s there now. The metal is cold, even through his suit, and, vaguely, he registers that he doesn’t like it. Makes no effort to move. Presses his still-trembling hands into the floor and inhales until his head spins.
The warehouse wasn’t cold.
Or was it?
Maybe it was and he just doesn’t remember quite right. Maybe he was freezing in the warehouse, but it didn’t register through the adrenaline and the fear.
He wonders what May is doing right now. And Ned. And MJ. And Mr. Stark.
Wait.
Mr. Stark.
“- Mr. Stark?” Karen says, the tail-end of a question he missed completely.
He doesn’t respond, can’t figure out what he’d be responding to. Karen, ever his savior, asks again.
“Peter, would you like me to contact Mr. Stark?”
Oh.
Oh.
His chest is unbelievably tight as he chokes out, “Yes.”
“Calling Mr. Stark,” Karen says in that silky sweet, everything-is-fine-because-I’m-an-AI voice of hers. It’s sort of comforting, in a way, and incredibly irritating, in another.
He taps his fingers against his knee to the tune of i’m so tired... by Lauv and Troye Sivan, choppy and uneven with uncooperative fingers, and lets the gentle ringing of his mask’s built-in communication device drown out the audible beating of his heart.
Tony will help him. Tony will save him. Tony won’t let him fade away, alone and afraid, in this vault, because Tony cares way too much, even if he can’t say it.
“Pete?” Tony’s voice floats through the comm, concern already dripping from his words. “Pete, please tell me you didn’t get stabbed again. I have heart problems, kid, don’t think I can handle -”
“Tony.”
It’s all he has to say. It’s part of their system - unofficially, but really, all of it is unofficial.
‘Mr. Stark’ is everything’s fine, I’m just calling to give you a patrol report or hey, I’m gonna be a little late to the lab today.
‘Tony’ is help me I need you please.
He hears scuffling on the other end. It’s hard to make out what the noise is when it feels like there’s cotton stuffed in both his ears, but he can’t quite find it in himself to care.
“I’m on my way, Peter,” Tony says, and then he just…keeps talking. About his day, about his board meeting earlier, about Rhodey, about Pepper, about things that aren’t really followed but are appreciated nonetheless.
No warehouse. No Toomes. No crashing plane or tangled parachute or mechanical wings.
Tony wasn’t there when it was the warehouse, when it was Toomes, when it was fires and ruined Homecoming dates and crumbled bricks. He’s here now.
His breathing is still harsh and ragged and quick, but it’s marginally closer to what it should be.
Tony’s voice is light, soft, kind. Nothing like Toomes’.
The bank vault floor is smooth, hard, cold. Nothing like the warehouse.
Okay.
He’s okay.
Tony finds him about ten minutes later, arms wrapped around his legs and chin resting on his knees, shaking still but only just. Present. Breathing. Alive.
Okay.
Safe.
Tony leads him, gently, out of the vault and out of the bank. Lets him swing himself back to his apartment but flies alongside him the whole way there. Sits with him until the trembling finally subsides.
And there is no warehouse. No Toomes. No homemade suit and no almost dying.
Peter falls asleep on Tony’s shoulder, half an hour after they get back to the apartment, and for once, his sleep is dreamless.