Chapter Text
Comfort zone
A simple concept of staying in one place, around the same group of people where everything is safe. You feel safe the second you enter it, and the second you leave you’re afraid of everything that can come. Cause for a comfort zone, you don’t have to worry about what will happen if you slip up, and things don’t go the way you want. Since there are always people there to back you up, pick you up after you have fallen down, and to tell you that everything is okay. A little thing that most people take for granted, and never really realize until it’s gone.
You were the same way.
You lived for your comfort zone. You thrived in it. It was everything that you wanted and more. You felt safe with your dad, Pepper, Happy, and Peter.
Until you decide to fling yourself out of your comfort zone after graduating high school.
Somehow, you had found yourself in California at UCLA studying biology and physics with a minor in art history. Not exactly the easiest of majors, but you wanted…needed some kind of control over your life after what happened almost three years ago.
You had your sense of comfort in weekly video messages with Morgan, and in wearing one of Peter Parker’s old high school sweatshirts. And maybe you were overly thankful it had been the one that was overly stretched out and a little too big on him. For it swallowed you whole every single time you wore to class with a pair of leggings. And it gave you a sense of comfort when it felt like everything was crashing down around you.
“Are you listening to me Y/N,” Morgan said, scooting closer to the screen and tapping it with her pointer finger. “Did you even hear what I just said?”
“What?”
“Y/N, look,” Morgan huffed, rattling a sheet in front of the camera.
You jerked your head up away from the recent physics notes in your lap. They were now covered in little green circles, flowers, and part of a poem Morgan had rattled off to you from remembering it for class earlier that week. “Sorry Morgs, I’ve got finals this week, and I haven’t studied for any of—”
“You don’t study,” Morgan said, tilting her head with her eyes narrowed in on you. “Mom says you’re like dad, and you’re too smart for your own good.”
“Oh yeah?” You asked while pressing the tip of the green pen into your pointer finger, allowing the ink to sink into your skin and spread across your finger like wildfire.
And you can’t help, but smile a little at the way Morgan bit her bottom lip and started to count on her fingers of how many times Pepper had mentioned you being like Tony.
“It’s a lot,” she finally answered you with a shrug of her shoulders.
You nodded your head just enough to give Morgan the satisfaction of what she was looking for—you paying attention to the drawing she had been shoving in front of her for the last twenty minutes.
Something so little meant so much to her.
Maybe it was ping of jealousy that she didn’t know all the events that went down in the last three years. But you also couldn’t blame Pepper for not wanting to explain it to her either. There were zero words to brace the fall that would come once Morgan finally grasped what Tony did for her, Peter, you, and everyone eventually. It would be too much for her seven-year-old mind to wrap around.
But you would tell her at some point. You just didn’t know when. It never helped that Tony’s words were always replaying in your mind from when you were Morgan’s age.
‘Keep the kid innocent’ at least that’s what your dad always told Pepper and Happy before you would come skipping into the room with some wacky stack of legos, pretending to be the next Tony Stark with an invention.
Oh, how things changed over the years.
“What was that you really wanted to show me, Morgs?” You asked, closing your notebook, but not breaking eye contact with her.
You saw the way Morgan’s eyes lit up with excitement at the sheer fact you had remembered.
Not like you could really forget. Morgan had made it a mission to text you from Pepper’s, Happy’s phone and even her iPad about the huge surprise that she HAD to tell you tonight. Instead of waiting until your weekly Sunday night sessions. It was that important that you had to know right then and there, but everything was overly important to a seven-year-old.
She slid out of the chair with a grace. Her footsteps were loud enough for you to hear every single time her heel met the hardwood floor of your house. Voices muffled from down the hallway before it sounded like a herd of elephants running back into the office that used to belong to your dad.
Your eyes went wide, mouth fell open, and you weren’t sure if what Morgan was holding in her hands was real or not. Brown and white fur wrapped tightly around Morgan’s arms while she hoisted herself back up in the seat.
Surely, Pepper had not let Morgan get one.
There was no way that it would happen this early. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but Christmas was still almost six months away. But the clear sign of the head moving, gave it away that it was in fact as real as you moved your hand for your phone to text Pepper.
You: It’s real right? What Morgan is holding in her hands right now?“
"You got another stuffed animal?” You asked in hopes that playing it off would probably do much better in case it was some type of prototype Morgan had gotten her hands. Much like how she did last year for her birthday and came out of the kitchen with a weird hologram of a half black cat and half golden lab. You didn’t even want to know how she managed to make that happen.
Momma Pepper: Real. Very, very, real.
“No.” Morgan’s eyebrows creased together before she shoved the poor dog in front of her face. “This is Woofles.”
“Woofles?”
You had no idea what Morgan could have gotten herself into this time. It wasn’t abnormal for your younger sister to come run into the house with some kind of bird or bunny after playing outside. And you couldn’t count the amount of times she had “stolen” your dad’s or Pepper’s helmets from below, running around the house pretending to be Iron Man.
It was just that this was an actual real puppy in her hands that she was currently squeezing to death with excitement.
“Kinda like waffles, but better,” Morgan said with a smile and placed a kiss on the top of the dog’s head.
You nodded your head, allowing whatever thought process Morgan was going through when naming the dog. Probably something she decided was a good name whenever she had waffles, and figured naming a dog after it was better than letting anyone else name it for her.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to get a dog 'till later?”
“Mom got me one cause I passed all my spelling test this year,” Morgan said, placing Woofles in her lap. Some of her hair falling in her face when she looked away from the camera. “And cause I miss you.”
“Ah,” you said while running your tongue over your lips, “there it is. You guilt tripped mom into getting you one.”
Morgan shook her head, stroking the dog. “When are you comin’ home?”
You thumbed through your notebook, pages of random notes and doodles could be seen from the corner of your eye. You tried your best to avoid the big eyes Morgan gave you—the constant reminder that she had a countdown for when you supposed to come home.
Not a day later.
Not a second sooner.
Right down to when your last final was and how long it would take to pack up your dorm room, get to the airport and back home.
“One final,” you said, holding up your notebook to point to, “one single final and a paper, but—”
“Can you finish it here?” Morgan asked, tucking her legs underneath her to sit up a little closer with Woofles still in her lap. “Use your laptop and do it on the plane, and come home sooner.”
“Are you trying to get me to skip my finals, Morg?”
Morgan shrugged, bringing her shoulder up to her cheek as she looked the other way. “That would be bad, and mom would probably yell at you.”
“Considering I need to pass this one, and ya know,” you pointed your pin towards her, “not get like a B or somethin’ on it would be nice.’”
Morgan tossed her head back in a laugh that filled your whole dorm room.
Of course, she would find this hilarious. She found anything slightly funny when it came to getting a B in something that you could easily pass with your eyes closed. You shook your head, knowing somewhere in her seven-year-old the only thing she was worried about was trying to pass a spelling test without mixing up two letters.
“Not funny,” you said in a tone that only made your little sister laugh harder. “Okay, it’s a little funny.”
“Lot of funn–”
“Morgan,” Pepper’s voice could be heard from down the hall, followed by her footsteps, “time for bed.”
Morgan’s eye got wide as she turned to look towards the door and back to the iPad screen. “I miss you, mom misses you, Happy misses you, and Peter misses you.”
“I miss y’ all too,” you said with a smile, ending the call right before Pepper walked into the room.
Peter misses you.
It didn’t leave a sour taste in your mouth, but it wasn’t exactly a happy one either.
Tossing your notebook towards the end of your twin bed, you rolled off the side of it until your bare feet hit the white plush rug underneath. The evening sky was painted with shades of pinks and oranges against a light blue of it. Deep down, you knew you should be out of your dorm room. You should be in the library with your roommate and friends, laughing, pretending to study for a test that you could pass with your eyes closed, and drinking way too much coffee.
But a wave of sadness had washed over you when you woke up that morning, and maybe some of it had to do with the fact that you were going home by the end of the week to a reality that you pushed to the back of your mind for the semester after winter break. Much like you did every single year.
You really knew it had to do with the matter of your dad’s death coming up so soon that you weren’t prepared for it.
You were never ready for it.
And after almost three years, it never got easier.
You closed your curtains with a slight jerk and started to dig through your desk drawer for the one thing that you had hidden out of sight. A single thing that held one of the most precious memories in it to date to you. Something that you couldn’t have seen back when it was taken, but you kept it so close to you that you felt like you had been there to witness the whole thing.
You held a small little gold and red pod with a single hologram message from Tony in your hand.
Climbing back on to your bed, you placed it in the center of it and reached around for one of your pillows to put in your lap before you pressed the center of the pod.
A smaller hologram of Tony popped up on your bed. You bit your bottom lip, holding back the tears that were starting to form in your eyes and blur your vision. You had watched it multiple times. You knew exactly what your dad was going to say, but it didn’t make it any better. Any easier. Nothing was easy.
Some people would say it was like pouring salt into an old wound and pressing down with your finger until you yelped out in pain. Others were always telling you that you needed to move on.
But if salt caused the pain they were talking about, then it compared to nothing that went through your body every time you watched it.
“So, I thought I better record a little greeting in case of an untimely death on my part, I mean, not that death at any time is untimely. God, don’t let Y/N hear that she would hate me and tell I’m going too soft.”
You laughed a little, wiping a stray tear falling down your cheek. You hugged your pillow closer to you, closing your mouth around it.
“The time travel thing we’re gonna try and pull off tomorrow, it’s got me scratching my head about the survivability of it all. Then again that’s the hero gig, right? Part of the journey is the end. What am I even trippin for? Everything’s gonna work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.Y/N will be back, and I’ll have her and Morgan wrapped about my finger. But—if something does happen, and I do die, just know Y/N will be there for you, Morgan in more ways than you can imagine.”
You watched the way Tony pushed himself up off the chair and walked towards what was his former Iron Man mask. The way he bent down to look Morgan directly in the eye, but was somehow, right now, was looking you straight in the eye.
“I love you both three thousand.”
The hologram faded as you brought the pillow up to the center of your face and sobbed into it. Letting out every single emotion that you had been holding in for the last couple of weeks. Your body shook as each tear fell from your eyes.
Maybe you did miss Morgan and Pepper.
Maybe you did miss Peter.
But nothing compared to the way you missed your dad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frank Castle leaned up against the door on top of the rooftop with a gun resting its holster, watching the cars and people down below. His tongue ran along the back of his morals before he titled his head to look better at Matt Murdock, in his Daredevil suit, before pointing in the direction of four buildings over where Matt believed Peter Parker had been resting for most of the night.
“Tell me again, Red why we’re stalkin’ the spider-boy?” He asked, shaking his head.
“Stalking is a strong word,” Matt laughed when he turned in the general direction of Frank. “More like keeping a promise to certain people.”
“Didn’t realize it meant keeping tabs on a kid,” Frank said while crossing his arms, turning his attention back down below. “Won’t he know someone’s watching him or something? You aren’t exactly skilled in keeping a low profile.”
“That’s why I have you,” Matt said with a kind of smile that any other time, Frank would have slapped off of him. “Plus, he starting to become reckless.”
“We’re reckless.”
“There’s a difference, it’s what we do. It’s not—.” Matt moved closer to the side of the building just as Peter swung from another building. Peter’s heart was racing faster with every flick of his wrist while he flew through the city, loud enough for Matt to hear a couple of blocks away. “He’s onto something.”
Before Frank could ask another question about Peter, Matt was climbing down the fire escape.
“So, what are you two going to become best friends in red or somethin’,” he said, following behind Matt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Parker had made plenty of mistakes in his life. More than he could count on one hand, but for some reason he knew listening in on the police radio tonight would be high on the list when the name Wilson Fisk come through.
Peter was gone in a heartbeat, swinging through the city towards Fisk Tower. Maybe in hopes that he wouldn’t have intervene and could just sit back and watch the police take him down once and for all. Then again, he had been listening on a line he wasn’t supposed to be.
It wasn’t like Peter had put Wilson Fisk on the top of his list on purpose. Fisk had kind of just found himself up there after the way he treated his Aunt May. The way Fisk had demanded her to leave her apartment that she had been in for the last eight years. Telling her that she had to relocate within somewhere else in the city with zero compensation. All-cause Wilson Fisk wanted the land to build some kind of art gallery or a new tower. Peter was still hazy on the full details from trying to refrain himself on knocking Wilson Fisk right then and there almost six months ago.
Peter sat there on the ledge of two buildings over from the tower, watching Fisk men bringing in crates. He couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Wilson Fisk could be up to bringing in supplies this late at night and at the start of the week in an area that still had heavy police presence until mid-week.
It was bad enough when Fisk had started taking over Hell’s Kitchen back when Peter was still in high school. Now, it seemed like everything was up for Fisk to grab and take before anyone could stop him. Apparently, the snap was the one thing that didn’t stop him from running New York City the way he wanted for those fives. And things had only started to go somewhat back to normal now.
“Unfortunate events,” Peter muttered to himself, leaning forward a little more to the faint sound of a heartbeat coming from inside of the crates. “Couldn’t just keep—”
“Incoming voicemail from Y/N Stark,” KAREN’s voice echoed in Peter’s ear.
“What?” Peter asked, slightly confused as to why his phone didn’t go off. He always made sure to at least tie it up to KAREN’s voice monitor.
“You asked me to mute all calls tonight, but to filter through May or Y/N’s messages,” Karen replied.
“Right right,” Peter said, still staying focus on the three crates entering the building. “Go ahead and play it.”
“Hey, Pete.”
Peter smiled at the drop of the 'R’ on his name. Something you only did when you really wanted to talk to him and needed him. A run of guilt went through him for not picking up your call instead of sending it straight to voicemail.
“We’ve gotta stop playing this phone tag game, ya know. It’s kind of tiring for a girl whose doubling majoring in biology and physics and a minor in art history. But anyways, that’s besides the point. I’m studying for this physics final, and there are smart guys here, just no one as smart as you.”
“Smart as me,” Peter laughed to himself, “a humble brag, thank you Y/N.”
“I mean,” you sniffled into the phone as it was still recording, “they’re super smart, it’s just that they don’t explain things like you do for me. So, anyways, call me when you get the chance tonight. I’ll still be up, don’t worry about how late it is. Finals don’t wait for anyone. And Pete, try not to get hurt.”
There were several things that Peter knew about you. He could read you like the back of his hand when you walked into a room, knew exactly what you were thinking before you said it. But one was always certain, you almost never called during the week unless it was that important, cause between school and him fighting crime, it had almost become impossible. And two when you did call it was usually cause you needed something right then and them. It had started out from you missing him but slowly had been replaced with regular checks in just make sure the two of you were alive with all the distance between you and him.
The slam of metal door shutting below Peter caught his attention, and he remembered why he was here in the first place as he pushed out of his mind. Fisk was up to something, and Peter wanted first dibs at the man without getting involved.
“Remind me to call to y/n when this is over,” Peter told Karen while he started to climb down the building and snuck into the back door of Fisk’s.
A single light lit up the room in a dark yellow. Over in the corner sat four crates, and Peter could hear the slow heartbeats coming from inside of them. He was trying to be careful as he climbed across the ceiling. The last thing he wanted was to be seen before he could be heard.
Fisk had his back towards Peter. He couldn’t see the way Peter moved along with ease. Making sure to stay out of sight of the two other people besides Fisk. People that Peter had never seen before. It only helped, that he had started to keep a list of people Wilson Fisk began to work with in the last six month since the eviction of May.
One guy had on something that to Peter seemed straight out of the 1980s’ with the fur on his shoulder and so much leather. So much freaking leather on. That Peter was sure there was no way that could be comfortable. And the other guy, Peter wouldn’t have so much second glanced at if it wasn’t for the fact that he fell off the ceiling the second the guy looked at him.
“Looks like we have company,” the guy said with a wicked smile.
“Company?” Peter asked, looking over his shoulder and back at them. “Are there more people coming? Like a party?”
Wilson Fisk turned to face Peter. His white suit so clean without a single smudge of dirt. “Aw, you can’t keep your nose out of other’s business, can you now?”
“What would Vanessa say if she knew what you were up to? Knowing that you’re filtering in people again?” Peter went to shot his webs towards the crate.
But nothing happened.
He tried again, flicking his wrist harder.
Nothing.
No, this couldn’t be happening.
Peter knew he had enough web fluid to take care of anything that happened that night.
Peter’s body sent a tingling sensation throughout it.
Part panic settling into his bones.
Part Peter’s breathing was not slowing down.
All of it too much.
Too much at once.
But as Peter turned to look at the second guy, he saw it. A small light. So tiny that Peter furrowed his eyebrow together in confusion.
He tried again this time towards where Fisk stood.
“What the he—”
Before Peter could finish his sentence, a jolt of electricity drove through him. From his feet up, and he forced himself to stand up straight. His vision nothing more a white blur. But as the guy turned his hand to left slightly, Peter’s brain slammed against his skull. His knee started to buckle slowly. Peter’s hand pressed against the ground, and he gritted his teeth, trying to stand back up. His body was heavy, feet shaking when he pushed himself back up.
“What? Cat have your tongue, or should I say Electro?” Fisk’s hand wrapped around Peter’s neck. Squeezing it tightly enough until Peter was forced to start to claw at his hands. And with a smile, Fisk slammed him into the ground. Peter jerked underneath the weight. Trying to break himself free when Peter saw it in his hands. A single need, sharp enough to pierce through anything. Fisk injected a needle through his suit with an unknown substance into Peter’s neck. “I know all your secrets, Spider-Man. Every single last one.”
Peter started to sway back and forth. The substance coursed through his veins, allowing his heart to beat faster.
“You know nothing,” Peter said while dodging Fisk’s fist the best he could. But his knuckles caught part of Peter’s cheek. Bone meeting bone. Broken bone underneath his flesh.
“And Kraven,” Fisk spit in his face, leaning back enough for Peter to see the other guy. “They’re some of the best to get rid of you.”
Peter’s legs wrapped around Wilson Fisk’s neck, hoisting himself up and over his back. “And to think you should know what’s best for this ci—”
Peter dropped to his knees the minute another bolt of electricity went through him. Out of all the times he went to see what Fisk was up to, he would never have believed that Wilson Fisk had back up that was not his men for once.
“Finish him, we don’t need someone else knowing what we’re doing,” Fisk said with a swift hand. Wiping some of Peter’s blood on the wall before walking out of the room.
Peter tried to stand up. Tried to gather everything he had in him to fight. His hands were balled up in fist as he sturdy his stance. His head throbbed against itself.
This time it wasn’t Fisk’s hand wrapping around his body, but Kraven’s. Peter was brought up above his head before he went sailing through the cement wall and onto the pavement down below.
Peter rolled over. His mask half broken on the ground. Blood trickling down his forehead and onto his lips. The smell of iron mixed with burned rubber greeted him when he went to inhale. Only to spit out what had entered his mouth on the pavement. He pushed himself up off the ground, wiping the back of his hand across his nose.
“That’s the best you got? I thought this would be fair,” he said.
“We’ve got more,” said Kraven with a smile, jumping from the hole in the building to where Peter stood.
“Your vitals are low, Peter,” KAREN said into Peter’s ears. “It’s best you leave.”
Peter turned his back towards them as he went to jump on the building. But what he didn’t see was the first guy nodding to the second from above. He only felt his brain rattling against his skull, his vision going in and out as his body collided with the building.
A hand around his chest, squeezing what air was left in his lungs out. His body went sailing through the window of the next building, landing on top of the desk.
Peter winced. Shards of glass penetrating through his tattered suit into his lower back and legs. Glass was all around him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t do much more than breathe through his mouth. But even when he did, he was greeted with blood entering his mouth and coughing it up seconds later. Having it trickle down his bruised cheek and onto the perfect white tile.
“I advise not moving, Peter.”
His body was on fire. Little pricks of needles ran across his body. His fingers had a tingling sensation coursing through them when he went to flex his fingers. Every time he inhaled, his body screamed in a way that made Peter close his eyes.
“This was too easy.”
Peter’s body was limp in Kraven’s hands. He couldn’t fight. His head pounded against his skull as his body came in contact with a car outside the second building.
Peter was weak.
He knew he was too weak to be taking on people on his own after what happened last week.
Everything was fading, turning black when Kraven’s fist met Peter’s face. First time in the nose. The second time to his forehead and left eye.
Peter heard a faint gunshot in the distance before Kraven yelped out.
He saw Electro reaching Kraven, pulling him away and back towards the original building.
Footsteps.
Multiple footsteps.
Loud and heavy running towards him.
Another pair light as air. Almost as if they were jumping from building to another building instead of running on pavement.
“Karen,” Peter’s voice was hoarse, coated with blood, “call May and Y/N.”
Peter opened his right eye to see a guy dressed in all red and another one standing beside him with a gun in his hand.
“He’s dying.”
Dying. Funny. I already feel dead. Felt dead a long time ago, boys.
“How can you tell?”
“His heartbeat is too low, almost too low even for me to hear.”
Another Spider-Man. Someone who can hear heartbeats?
Peter felt a pair of arms go under his knees and his chest, hoisting him against a warm body. His vision blurring with blood, and his brain rattled against his skull.
“What are you doing, Red?”
“Call Claire, tell her I’m bringing him in through the back door.”
“Moving him isn’t best.”
“Neither is letting him die.”
Peter reached for the guy’s face, leaving a bloody handprint in the middle of it. “Call May and Y/N.”
Peter’s body went limp in Matt Murdock’s arms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You had fallen asleep with your phone on silent sitting on your bed. Your notebook with your physics notes underneath one of your arms and your other one was wrapped around your pillow. You had on Peter’s old high school sweatshirt.
In your dark room, your phone lit everything up from underneath your scattered physics notes.
One Missed Call: Momma Pepper
One Missed Call: Happy
One Missed Call: MJ
One Missed Call: Ned
Two Missed Calls: Momma Pepper
Three Texts: MJ
Four Texts: Ned
Three Missed Calls: Happy
One Text: Lil Morgs
Four Missed Calls: Momma Pepper
One Voicemail from Momma Potts: Y/N, call me ASAP. Peter’s been in an accident.