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Chapter Text

''Go. Now!''

''No! I will not fucking leave you here, not like this!''

''Kid, I will not tell you again. You have to run, fast.''

''But I-''

''I don't want to hear it! Go! For the love of God, stop being such a pain in my ass and save your own goddamn life!''

''But what about yours?''

''I'll be fine, kid. Don't worry.''

''I'll come back for you.''

''You can't. You won't. Not for any of us, understand?''

So he ran. He ran with such speed that even the Gods couldn't keep up with him. The thousands of hallways started to turn into a blurry maze as he tried to keep his head cool. His heart was pounding in his ears, his breath was high up in his chest. Tony had only given him one direction; get to the exit.

Yeah, like that hadn't come to mind sooner.

Peter had told Tony loads of times that there should be maps hung on the walls, telling you where you are. The man had laughed at him as he placed a heavy hand around the boy's shoulders. ''Don't worry Pete,'' he had said, ''you'll be able to find your way in no time.''

That turned out to be a lie. A cruel, life-threatening lie. The only route that he knew by heart was the one from the guest room where he stayed every weekend to the kitchen. He didn't even have to memorize the route to the lab, as the smell of smoke and the sound of AC/DC blasting way too loud usually pulled him straight into the right direction.

The elevator was put into lockdown, much like the rest of the building, so he had to use the weird maze of staircases to get to the exit, eightysix stories down. Even after almost a year of weekly visits, Peter still didn't know his way around the tower, and with the power being completely shut down, Friday was not able to give him directions. Peter mentally cursed at his mentor for putting the complete lockdown protocol in action when the man had so dramatically told him to get the hell out of the building.

The windows were blocked, so he couldn't jump out, all the main doors had all been sealed shut, with an exception of the bedroom and bathroom doors, who only had one single lock to protect the spaces. It would take Peter just a single ounce of his strength to break through that.

It took him a couple of minutes to realize that Tony had locked the whole system down with a purpose; so his mind-controlled self wouldn't be able to access any of the Iron Man suits. Peter prayed to every God in dear heaven above that the system was fool proof enough to resist orders from the indoctrinated version of Tony.

The alarm above Peter's head was getting so loud that he couldn't even hear himself think anymore. But he knew that it had a purpose. As long as the alarm was ringing, he was still safe. Tony promised him that he wouldn't turn off the alarm if he was still in his right mind. But no matter how brainwashed the man was going to be, his annoyance at loud ringing noises would always stick around, especially when he was now thirsty for blood. When the alarm stops, the real trouble begins.

It had been such a simple thing. Peter was coming back to the tower just like every other Friday afternoon, but this time he wasn't greeted by the smiling faces of his sort-of family. Even from hundreds of feet across the building he could see the chaos, with hundreds of interns and employees running out of the building, lost papers flying behind them, completely forgotten about. At first he thought it was a fire, so he immediately pulled on his mask and climbed the side of the building to enter through one of the windows around the 70th floor to help out the people that were stuck in the higher areas of the tower.

He had checked multiple floors, working his way up as he did so, when he was met with the horrified face of Tony Stark. The man's eyes were red-rimmed and nearly unrecognizable. He grabbed Peter by the shoulders and shook him violently, worry -or perhaps even fear- flowing from his words as he spoke.

''What the hell are you doing here? You shouldn't be here, it's not safe!''

''I- I was coming in to help, I thought you guys were in danger-''

''No, no we are all gonna be fine, it's you that's in danger, Pete! God fucking dammit! ''I don't- I don't understand-'' Peter stammered, backing away a couple of steps. Tony paid no mind and started pulling at his hair. ''Didn't Happy stop you on the way in? Or any person of Shield for that matter?'' When the boy shook his head, Tony started to pull even harder. ''You went in through the window, didn't you?''

Peter didn't even have time to respond as Maria Hill came speeding into the room, a deep frown on her forehead. Her eyes had the same alarmingly red color as Tony's. ''Stark, we only have six more minutes left. Everyone is out of the building, so Friday turned on the lockdown protocol- '' she stopped dead in her tracks as she caught sight of the teenager standing in front of Tony.

''He wasn't in the room with us when it happened, was he?'' She didn't ask a question, but rather stated it to confirm that there had been yet another grandiose mistake. Tony didn't seem to pay any mind to her statement, instead pointing a sharp finger into the woman's chest.

''How could you tell Friday to put everything in lockdown when he was still in this fucking building?!'' He yelled, taking a threatening step into her direction.

''I didn't know!'' She screamed back. ''I asked Friday if there were still any non-Avengers left in the building, but the kid classifies as a part of the team!''

Tony dragged a heavy hand down his face and let it rest right on top of his chin. ''We can't turn it back, can we?''

''It is designed to be in full lockdown until the said threat is fully over. No exceptions.''

''Is there any way that he would be able to get out?''

''Only the main entrance is able to open if you put in a code.''

''Is it the same code to get into the Avengers database?'' Peter questioned. The two adults snapped their heads back at him, eyebrows raised in a mixture of worry and confusion. '''Cause I know that one.''

''Wait, how… you little-''

''Tony, there's no time for a lecture. Just be glad that your kid is smart enough to hack into the database. Now, we gotta move to keep ourselves and everyone safe.'' With that, Maria left the room in a hurry to move to whatever place she was moving to. When Tony tried to follow her, Peter wrapped an arm around the man's wrist to stop him in his tracks. 

''Mr. Stark, please, you gotta tell me what the hell is going on here.''

Tony anxiously tapped his left foot as the right one was aimed towards the exit. ''Alright, to keep it short, we were having a meeting with the Avengers when the coffee lady dropped a smoke bomb into the room. According to Friday's analysis, everyone who was affected by the gas would turn extremely violent and lose all sense of humanity. The formula wasn't fully developed, so it has a slow effect, but everyone who is still in this tower is soon expected to turn into full killing machines.''

A shiver was sent down Peter's spine as he thought of the fear he felt when Tony had said that, not even five minutes ago. He felt his body being pulled down by gravity as he raced down the stairs, nearly falling half of the time, when suddenly, the alarm stopped.

Tony was gone. Or at least, the real Tony was gone. All that was left now was a body that was being controlled by nothing but anger and bloodlust. Peter stopped dead in his tracks, pulling off his mask and stuffing it in his pocket. Tony hadn't had the time to tell him who had been in that room when it happened, or even how many people had been infected. But most importantly; he didn't tell him where they all went after the incident.

Just as he was about to continue his journey down the staircase, his spidey sense started to tingle. All of the hairs on the back of his neck stood up in alarm, and Peter was only just quick enough to jump out of the way as an arrow pierced the floor right in the place where he just stood. Hawkeye.

Peter's spidey sense would not stop ringing and he quickly threw himself as far away from the arrow as the tip exploded, making two flights of stairs disappear. The blast of the explosion sent the boy flying into a wall, ears ringing loudly as he tried to stand up. His vision was blurred, but he could still see Clint's shadow on the walls as the man hurried his way down the stairs. Peter gave this no second thought and quickly made his way out of the stairwell, running onto the seventy third floor. Some voice inside of him was kind of disappointed about the fact that he had only made it down thirteen flights of stairs, but the other parts of his body wanted him to run and hide as quickly as he could.

He had never been on this floor before, but he knew for certain that if he had seen this place under any other circumstances, he would immediately die of anxiety. There were about a gazillion congress rooms, offices and workstations, which would normally be filled by about eighty people, but were now completely empty. Places like these always had the tendency to creep Peter out.

Especially if every single wall was made out of glass.

''Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,'' he cursed as he quickly made his way down one of the hallways, as far away from Clint as possible. But right as he reached the very last congress room of the floor, he turned back around only to find out that he could still see the exact place from which he came in. Fucking glass.

In a haze of panic, he opened the glass (of fucking course) door to the congress room and hid behind the large table. He slowly reached his hand to the cabinet in the corner of the room to grab the bottle of whiskey, in case he needed to use it as a weapon.

Right as he had emptied the last remaining bit of liquid from the bottle into the trash can, he saw the hood-covered frame of Hawkeye enter the floor, bow ready in hand. Although he was far away, Peter noticed that this wasn't his usual bow, or any of the easily accessible ones, for that matter. This one had a dark, red stripe all over the length of the carbon fiber, which meant that it had been taken from beneath the couch, all the way back into the common room.

If Clint had remembered where he placed all of his backup weaponry, then what would happen if Tony could still get one of his suits to work? Or if any of the other Avengers would still remember where they had stacked the billions of knives, guns and explosives around the tower?

Clint's slow footsteps sounded like heavy drums in Peter's ears. The man was looking around, an arrow placed on the shaft as he carefully pulled the string back. He kept looking around, slowly making his way down the hallway, checking every room he walked by. That was, until, his eyes stopped when he faced Peter.

Peter's breath got stuck in his throat and he immediately went to dive under the large table as an arrow was shot through the glass walls of the conference room. The entire entrance to the room shattered and millions of pieces of glass fell onto the floor, forming a glowing mass of destruction.

The slow, menacing footsteps had turned into a steady pace of running as Clint neared the boy with a new arrow drawn back. Peter quickly climbed out from under the table and caught the arrow right as it was about to pierce his skull. ''Holy shit,'' he exclaimed as he threw the arrow to the side. Clint, the man with whom he had played Mario Kart not even five days ago, had tried to shoot an arrow into his forehead. He had tried to kill him.

With the bottle in hand, Peter jumped over the large table as he headed for the older man, who accepted the fight by aggressively swinging his left foot towards the boy's face. Peter ducked away and slid underneath the man's legs. He jumped back up and smashed the whiskey bottle against the back of Clint's head. The man tumbled and fell to his knees, but, to Peter's disappointment, didn't seem to be all that phased by the attack.

It may have been the gas intoxicating his brain that stopped him from caring about his injuries, or it may have been Peter himself, who had highly underestimated the strength of the archer. 

''Oh, crap.''

Chapter Text

Clint didn't waste another second as he spun around with his leg spread out, tackling Peter in the process. Peter barely had time to respond as he was pinned to the floor by the archer, who grabbed his throat and started squeezing. Peter gasped out for air and clawed at Clint's fingers, praying for the man to release. 

''M-mr… Mr. Bar-Barton, p-please,'' he heaved. Clint only squeezed harder, anger evident in his face. There was nothing left of the man he once was, his face existed out of nothing but animalistic bloodlust as the sweat on his forehead started to mix with the blood pouring from the wound on the side of his face. His red-rimmed irises were even darker than Tony's had been, with black veins starting to grow around his eyes. It reminded Peter of Bucky during his Winter Soldier phase, only more alienated.

This is not him, he needed to remind himself. This is not Clint. He'll kill you.

Just as he started to feel himself slipping away from the lack of oxygen, he used all of the strength that he had left to kick the man as hard as he could. Clint doubled over and released his grip slightly, allowing Peter to headbutt him right to the nose. With the couple of seconds that he had, Peter rolled out from under the archer and swiftly kicked the man in his side. He stood up and picked up the bow that had been abandoned on the floor.

''I'm sorry sir, but this is a necessary precaution.'' With that, he smacked the bow against the man's head, this time actually knocking him out. 

He stood there for a couple of seconds, checking if it was safe before he dropped down to his knees and reached for his throat, coughing violently. He gave Clint's unmoving form a short glance before looking at the bow in his hand. He couldn't let the man roam around freely once he woke up. 

Ignoring the fact that his body was still recovering from the lack of oxygen, he stood up and cautiously pulled off Clint's hoodie. Thank God he was wearing a shirt underneath. As he lifted the man into the air to drag him to the nearest chair (Christ what was this man's diet, rocks?), he tied Clint's hands behind his back with the hoodie. Once he was properly placed on the chair, Peter grabbed the bow and slipped it underneath the archer's arms. He gave one last pull to see if it would hold, which, knowing Clint, it wouldn't, before removing all of the arrows from the quiver. If he got out of the chair, at least he would only have his bow left to attack someone.

Peter quickly stumbled out of the conference room, arrows still in hand as he made his way down the hallways. When he reached the stairs, he came to a halt. The explosion had removed two entire flights of stairs, which caused a drop of about thirty feet. It wasn't a lot, but Peter's head was pounding so badly that he knew he wasn't coordinated enough to take that jump. He slowly looked up to the thirteen flights of stairs, knowing that he would have to get closer to whatever threats were ahead of him.

He couldn't stay on the same floor as Clint, but he also couldn't go up too high. If only he had his web shooters… he had hidden his suit in his backpack, but that thing had been abandoned when Tony told him to run. All that he had left was his mask that was still safely hidden in his pocket. He didn't know if he should wear it so the Avengers wouldn't be able to see that he was afraid, his familiar face might be a switch for their minds to realize what they are doing is bad.

Taking a deep breath -a feeling that he now appreciated a whole lot more-, he silently climbed up the first steps of the staircase. FLOOR 74. The big, black letters were a punch to the face as Peter reached the top of the first flight of stairs. Each floor closer to mind-controlled Avengers was a floor too much.

As he pushed open the door, he listened to his spidey sense buzzing in the back of his mind. No immediate danger, but he needed to get out of the building fast. By the looks of this floor, it was still some kind of workfloor with loads of offices and workstations, but the walls were made out of concrete, not glass. Thank fucking God.

Hiding until he wasn't as disoriented so he would be able to jump those thirty feet seemed like the best option. Not only the lack of oxygen had had an effect on his body, but also the explosion that had knocked him into a concrete wall. His limbs felt like the living embodiment of myalgia and for some reason, once he figured out how much pain he was actually in, he had trouble even standing up.

''Oh my lord, this was only Clint. Fucking Clint! He has never beat me in combat once!'' Peter shockingly mumbled to himself as he closed the door of an office behind him and slid down into one of the chairs. ''Mr. Stark better have locked away all of his suits without any access, or my sanity will not be the only thing to die tonight.''

He slumped down in his chair and leaned back, letting all of his muscles relax for just a second. The smell of burnt clothing started to fill his nostrils. He looked down at his left arm, where the fabric of his dark green jacket had been shredded into tiny black pieces of ash. He slowly rolled up the sleeve, only now noticing that there was a third degree burn lining up the side of his forearm. He tried to touch the sides of the wound, hissing as he did so. Well, fuck.

He quickly stood back up to find something to clean the wound with. A bottle of water, filled till about halfway was sitting on the corner of the desk, abandoned by the owner of the office, but very much appreciated by Peter, who greedily reached out for the bottle. He grabbed the trash can from underneath the desk and slowly started pouring the water over the wound, letting the fluids drip down from his arm into the can. Peter tried to muffle his groans each time he poured a bit of water over his skin, but he couldn't help the occasional hiss slipping from this mouth. 

Once the wound was cleaned enough, he ripped the bottom of his shirt and used the piece of cloth to wrap around his arm. After he tightened the knot, using his right hand and his teeth, he sunk back down into the chair. This was quite unfortunate. Or very unfortunate, actually. 

He was trapped inside a building with brainwashed and very aggressive Avengers, which on its own is already a very shitty situation, but on top of that, he didn't know who had been infected, didn't know where they were hiding or how many there were. And to make it all even better, he had only traveled thirteen floors out of eighty six to get to the only exit, and he had already almost died. That was great, just great.

Peter's eye fell on the last remaining bit of water that was left inside the bottle. He was damned thirsty, hungry, too. It was only one sip of water, but it was the most refreshing thing to ever slide down the boy's throat. 

He only knew one thing for certain: he had to get out of the building as quickly as possible. He could, of course, just hide in a closet and wait for it all to be over, but judging by the look in Clint's eyes, the Avengers would not just be aggressive as soon as they saw him; they would go hunting for him. Aside from that, he had no idea how long it would take until they would have returned back to normal. What if Bruce was in there too and Hulked out?

No, he couldn't have been. If Bruce let go even a little bit of anger, the Hulk would appear and then the entire city would be aware of it. He either was not around during the meeting or they had locked him inside the cage that they built for situations like these. But then again, Peter would have heard the Hulk roar if he was inside the building. 

''If only Bruce were here, he probably knows what to do against the gassy situation,'' Peter mumbled to himself, sighing deeply. Then, as if the universe had heard him, his eye fell onto a weird looking object on a cabinet in the corner of the room. A long, curly chord was connected to the wall and to the back of the odd looking object. When Peter leaned forward in his chair to get a closer look due to his blurry vision, he recognised the black thing. A phone. Or at least, a phone from back in the 80's.

What that thing was doing inside a very modern office, he had no idea, but oh boy was he glad that it was there. His own phone was still in his backpack way up on the eighty sixth floor and all of the electronic devices were shut down as a part of the lockdown protocol. All of them except for old phones.

Peter vaguely recalled having a conversation with Pepper about this. She had told him that in case of a hacker or some sort of cyber attack, the people inside the building would at least be able to contact others through a phone call. 

As he stepped closer, Peter prayed to every dear God that it would also work in a situation like this. He picked up the phone handle and started to turn the numbers to the only household that he had remembered from his childhood.

One ring, two rings, a voice.

''Leeds residence, who's speaking?'' Peter put his fist in the air in celebration, letting out a breath of air in relief. ''Hi mrs. Leeds, this is Peter. Is Ned home?''

Mrs. Leeds chuckled softly. ''It has been quite a while since you called us like this, did you lose your phone?''

''Uh, yes, I did. And Ned is the only one who knows where it is, so could you put him on the phone for me, please?'' He didn't get a response. Instead, the loud voice of mrs. Leeds yelling something in Filipino ringed through the small speaker. Luckily, Peter heard the sound of Ned responding. There was a bit of stumbling and more muttering in Filipino until Ned took over the phone. ''Hey Peter, my mom just said that you lost your phone and that I should tell you where it is? I'm sorry to break it to you, dude, but I have no idea.''

''Ned, I need you to listen to me. I need the guy in the chair.'' Peter could practically see Ned's face light up in both excitement and worry. ''At your service, Spider-Man. What do you need? Are you ok? Does this have to do with the Avengers going nuts?''

''W-wait… how do you know that?''

''It's all over the news, dude! They say that about half of them have been infected with a gas that makes them want to kill people. The situation is under control as long as the tower stays in lockdown. Do you have something to do with this?''

''I'm, kind of… inside…''

''What?! Holy shit are you ok?'' Peter moved the phone away from his ear as the high-pitched shriek from the other side of the line practically teared up his eardrums. ''Yeah, yeah I'm ok Ned. For now, at least. But I need two things from you as soon as possible.''

''Anything. What do you need?''

''Alright, first: can you tell me what Avengers have been infected? Did they tell you?''

''Yeah, as a precaution in case they manage to get out. The whole city has been alarmed.''

''Well then, who is it?''

There was a bit of typing away at a computer before Ned sighed deeply. ''It's not good, dude. There's seven of them inside. Iron Man, agent Maria Hill, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Captain America, the Winter Soldier and the Falcon.''

Peter's heart sunk to his chest. The people that he considered his family had turned into killing machines who were hunting for more blood. Some part of him was a bit relieved to hear that Thor, Wanda, Stephen and Carol weren't on the list. Lord knows what could have happened then.

Peter tried to push all of the sickening thoughts away and sat a bit more upright, holding his injured arm closer to his chest. ''So, no Bruce Banner?''

''No, he's together with Shield to make a formula to stop this mess.''

''Ok, good. That's good. Now I need you to listen, Ned. I gave you access to my phone in case of an emergency. I don't have it on me right now, but you can hack into my cloud, right?''

''I already have that stored in my server.''

''I don't know whether I should be mad at you for doing that or if I should kiss you. So you can see all of the phone numbers that I have saved?''

''Give me a second…'' There was a bit of typing on the other side of the line. ''Yes, I got it. What now?''

''I need you to give me Bruce Banner's number so I can contact him.''

''You have Bruce Banner's phone number?! Sorry, sorry, not focussing on the right subject. Give me a second to get into your contacts… Alright, it's 678-136-7092.'' Peter quickly grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and wrote the number down. Tears of relief almost fell from his eyes.

''Thank you, Ned. You just saved my life. Possibly all of New York too.''

''Glad to help. Be careful, Peter. Ok? MJ would kill me if you died and honestly I would miss you a lot as well.''

''Of course, bro. I'll see you soon.'' With that, he hung up and immediately started dialing Bruce's number. One ring, two rings.

Three. Four. Five.

Peter tapped his foot against the floor anxiously. Six. Seven.

''Banner's phone, I'm kind of busy right now,'' Bruce's voice came through. There were multiple anxious people yelling in the background, obviously trying to work out a solution. Peter waved his hands in the air out of excitement and relief, breathing out a long, heavy sigh. ''Oh my God, Dr. Banner,'' he cried out. There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line.

''Peter? Is that you?''

''Yeah, yeah it's me.''

''Holy shit you're alive, thank God you're alive. Tony called with the last bit of his sanity to tell us that you're still inside. I'm so sorry for everything, Peter, but we can't open up any exits for you. Then the whole system will collapse.''

''It's ok, don't worry about it,'' Peter lied. He wished with every last remaining piece of his soul that Shield would fix this as quickly as possible. 

''Are you alright? Any injuries?''

''Yeah. I'm good. Totally ok. Just a bit scared, is all.'' The boy instinctively reached for his injured arm.

''Peter, you have to be honest with me. Have you had any encounters? Every single detail could be crucial to our formula to fix all of this.'' There was some more shuffling on the other side of the line as multiple voices started calling for Bruce. The man simply brushed all of their questions away and got back to the conversation. 

''Hey, kid, I'm gonna put you on speaker so we can all listen, is that ok?''

''Who else is there?''

''Basically every member of Shield, together with all of their scientists.''

''Alright, put me on speaker then.'' A bit more shuffling, Bruce announced something that the boy couldn't understand and the whole room went quiet. Some more shuffling. ''You're on speaker now, Peter. So please, tell us: have you had any encounters? And if so, are you injured? We can give you advice on what to do with the wound.''

Peter sighed deeply and looked around the small office, as if there were people inside that could hear him. His eye fell on his jacket, the left sleeve of which had completely burnt off. ''Yeah, I've had an encounter. Clint Barton.''

A few humming noises and gasps were heard from the agents. ''Can you tell us exactly what happened? Don't skip any detail.''

''Well, when I got here, I ran into Mr. Stark. He was worried out of his mind and hanging onto his last strand of sanity, but he was still himself. When I saw Maria Hill, she was the same way. Both of them had red-rimmed eyes, as if they had been sprayed with a toxic chemical.''

''Sounds about right,'' Bruce mumbled. There were multiple hums of agreement. ''And then what happened?''

''Mr. Stark told me to get out of the building fast. He said that the only way I could exit the building was through the main entrance, as long as I knew the code. I had already memorized that one a long time ago, so I started running down the stairs immediately. But then I saw Mr. Barton. He was way gone, which I know because he shot one of those explosive arrows at me. I ducked out of the way but then it blew up about thirty feet of staircases. The blast disoriented me and gave me a third degree burn on my forearm, but I already cleaned and bandaged that so it's all good now.''

''No other injuries?''

''Not that I know of. I didn't have the time to care about it back then anyway, because Mr. Barton started coming after me to kill me. He was carrying one of his backup bows, which probably means that he had hidden all of his easily accessible weaponry before going insane. Mr. Stark and Ms. Hill had that conversation earlier as well, which means that everyone inside put away as many weapons as they could. It just kinda sucks that this place has knives and guns hidden in every single goddamn corner.''

''Did Tony lock away all of his suits?'' A new voice came in. It was female, which Peter would usually associate with Maria Hill. It felt like a punch to the stomach.

''Yeah, he did,'' Peter responded as he tried to keep the tremble from his voice the best he could. ''I think that that's one of the main reasons why the tower is in lockdown in the first place. All of the electronic devices are off and all the power too except for these old-fashioned phones and the lights. Friday is down too, so I think Mr. Stark included his suits when he wrote the protocol.''

''Good, thanks kid. Now, could you take us through the attack step by step? It's all going to be ok, I promise, I just need you to be as specific as possible.'' Bruce's voice was calming in his ear, almost like the man was giving him a warm hug through the phone. Peter felt a bile rise to his throat at the softness of the words.

''Well, Mr. Barton's eyes were red as well when I saw him, but there were black veins around his eyes. When I made him bleed, however, the blood was still red. I didn't want to attack him, but I- I had to. He shot arrows towards my face, neck and chest. He really did try to kill me, which was… terrifying. When I lunged at him with a whiskey bottle, he just abandoned his arrows, which I know isn't something for him to do. He just wanted to kill me with his bare hands. I ducked from his attack and smacked the bottle onto his head. It broke, he fell down to his knees, but he wasn't phased in the slightest. He tackled me a-and… and then…''

Peter felt his breath hitch as his hands started to shake. The image of Clint lingering above him, face red with anger as he tried to choke the boy to death was clouding his mind. 

''Hey, Peter, listen to me. It's ok, it's all going to be ok. We are all here for you and we're going to help you get through this. Just take some deep breaths, ok? In… and out. In… and out.'' Bruce's calming voice once again made Peter see things a bit more clear.

''Thank you, I'm ok. I'm ok. Just getting a little scared. But, uhm, yeah. He tried to… uh… choke me.'' Multiple gasps. Something shattered in the far background. ''But it's alright, I knocked him out by kicking him, headbutting him and then smacking him across the face with his own bow. I tied him up to a chair and I hid all of his arrows in the office I'm in now, one floor above him. I don't think my knotting skills will hold him for long, though. He has told me thousands of stories in which he got out of cuffs and ropes without any effort.''

''You did fantastic, Peter. So now you're one floor above him?'' Peter nodded, before realizing that the people on the other end of the line couldn't see him. ''Yeah, floor seventy four.''

''So, you have a long way to go before you're at the main entrance. Shit. How come you ran up the stairs instead of down after your encounter with Hawkeye?''

''Because of the explosion. The stairs have turned into rubble for about thirty feet. I can easily take that leap, but I was feeling very disoriented after my oxygen supply had been cut off for so long, so I didn't risk it. I think I'll jump soon, though, before any of the Avengers come running down before me.''

''Are they all upstairs?''

''I don't know, I only know that Mr. Stark and Ms. Hill are, Mr. Barton is one floor below me but I have no idea of the last four.''

Suddenly, a loud crash came from the stairwell, as if metal had collided with metal. A loud ring followed after, then, silence.

''Shit.''

Chapter Text

''W-what, what is it?'' Bruce's worried tone was evident through the ancient phone, and Peter just knew that the man was wringing his hands together out of anxiety. ''C'mon kid, talk to us! What is going on?''

''I heard a crash, I- I gotta go.''

As Peter lowered the handle of the phone to hang up, he heard the entire room explode into madness on the other side of the line. ''NO! No Peter don't you dare go near the sound! You have to hide! Don't make any noise and hide!''

Peter didn't bother to respond and instead hung up the phone, too occupied with trying to figure out what happened after the crash. He placed himself against the wall near the door, a heavy book in hand, ready to smack a bitch if he needed to. His spidey sense had been buzzing in the back of his head for the past twenty minutes, but now the noise had turned into a high pitched shriek that got louder and louder with every passing second. All of the hairs in Peter's neck stood up when he heard footsteps coming closer.

They were slow, steady. As if the person knew that the kid was hiding somewhere near them. Like he had established before when he encountered Clint: every infected person will come hunting for him. Maybe it was still Hawkeye, who had woken up and gotten out of his chair to track the boy down and kill him. That would be an obvious claim, as Peter was hiding only one floor above where he had tied the man down.

But no, this felt different. All of Peter's senses were going haywire, he could hear the person's heartbeat, could smell the blood and sweat on them and he could feel the ground shake with every step that was being taken. This was not Clint, he was a lot stealthier and less heavy with his footsteps. It wasn't Natasha either, nor Maria, nor Tony. Which left only three options: 

Bucky… Steve… or Sam…

Peter had beaten every single one of them in combat before. He was simply too strong for Sam, he was too quick for Bucky and too clever for Steve. But this was different. During combat, the three men were holding back. They didn't try to slice open his neck or stab him in the chest. They didn't want to kill him. 

This time, killing him would be the only thing running through their minds.

A couple of weeks back, Peter was sparring with Bucky. The man had a look of concentration on his face as he blocked the boy's punches. Peter frowned, noticing how Bucky didn't dare try to throw a single punch at him.

''Are you ever planning on fighting back?'' He had asked, ducking down to the floor and sweeping his feet against the soldier's legs. The man fell down on his back, panting heavily.

''I am.''

''No, you're not.''

There was a moment of silence and Bucky dragged a heavy hand down his face, resting it at his chin. ''Come on, Mr. Barnes!'' Peter whined, sitting down on his heels. ''You were the one telling me that I needed to learn how to fight against a trained supersoldier in case I ever crossed one during patrol. I believe your exact words were: 'You don't know how to take down a man unless you take one down who has no control of himself'. I don't think a supersoldier would refrain from trying to kill me with every chance he got.''

Bucky froze up, his muscles tensing and his eyes widening. Peter realized that he had hit a sore string there. ''Is- is that what this is all about? Are you afraid that the Winter Soldier will come out if you fight me?'' When the man didn't respond, Peter sighed deeply and scooted closer to put his hand on Bucky's knee. 

''You are healed from him, you know that, right? Back in Wakanda, you trained and trained and trained even more and now your triggers don't even work anymore. You are your own man. You are in control of your body.''

With a bit too much excitement, the boy jumped back up and held out his hand for the man to take. He smiled with a mixture of fondness and excitement. ''And now, I want you to use that full control to try and beat the shit out of me. Don't hold back, we both know that they won't do that in real life either. Besides, I've beaten you before when you were trying your best, so you can go rough on me.''

With a small smile, Bucky reached out to take Peter's hand and got back up his feet. Within a second, he threw a punch, which was blocked by the other.

Even then, when Peter had specifically told him to not hold back, he knew that Bucky was not using his full strength. The man simply couldn't, which is why Peter respected him so much. With his past life as a mind controlled murderer who killed innocent people in brutal ways, it should be impossible to stay away from those old habits now that he had full control of himself again.

But he did. He did stay away when he fought and whenever he wasn't fighting, he was the full embodiment of a grumpy old man who had a soft spot for just a handful of people. Peter had been there when Bucky was going along that journey of finding himself. He had seen the times when the Winter Soldier did come out, and the amount of emotionless anger that the body that Bucky was stuck in conveyed had kept the boy up all night for over a week.

With this gas that had infected the seven Avengers, the Winter Soldier was probably an easier version to deal with. The Hydra controlled body would not want to rip out Peter's esophagus with his bare teeth as soon as he laid eyes on the boy. The gas controlled one probably did. Peter hoped to dear God that Bucky was not the person who was hunting for him, mere feet away. 

When he had bumped into Tony and Maria earlier, back when they still had some kind of control over themselves, they had been talking about hiding weaponry and making sure that no one would be able to access it. It was obvious that Clint had tried the best he could as well, but hadn't had enough time to lock up every single one of his weapons. This would be a problem with Natasha and Bucky as well.

But this idea did leave some form of hope inside Peter's chest. Steve only had one shield, Bucky only had one arm and Sam only had one set of wings accessible at all times. The reserves were always safely hidden in the lab, together with Tony's suits, which meant that the most lethal things about the three men were not there anymore. Their bloodlust and hundreds of other possible weapons, yes, those were still going to be a problem, but those would be easier to handle than the weaponry that defined the three heroes. 

As the footsteps came closer and closer, Peter hoped for dear life that the person would walk right past him or even better; knock themselves out so he wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. Even though the odds of either of those situations happening were slim to nil, a secret, hidden part in him illogically insisted that the real versions of the Avengers were still there, that they could regain control of their own bodies. 

But the fact of the matter was that Peter was hiding behind a door, a heavy book in hand to smack one of his family members in the face with because they wanted to kill him and rip out his organs. He knew that they would not be able to regain control, the dark veins in Clint's face told him that the man was nearly alienated, mind controlled beyond repair. He could tell himself that he was not hunted by family members, but by people who looked like them.

It wasn't them, it wasn't them, it wasn't them.

Peter could hear the steady and strong breath of the person coming closer until there was only a wall separating the two from colliding. Then, silence.

It seemed to last for hours, days. Peter held his breath as his heart rate started to pick up. He hated having heightened senses, he hated it. Because he not only could hear his own heart racing in his chest, he also heard the heart of the person on the other side of the wall. It was steady, normal, a bit slow, even, whereas Peter's heart was nearly jumping out of his chest in fear.

The idea of the heartbeat of the hunter being slow made all of the hope and bravery Peter previously had sink to his shoes. He wasn't cut out for this, he was going to die by the hand of one of his family members.

Bucky, Steve or Sam.

Funnily enough, Peter had seen Steve that very same morning. The man was going for a run near the subway station where the boy himself was basically running for his life to be able to catch his train, only to see it disappear right in front of his face.

''Shit!'' He yelled, throwing his hands in the air out of frustration. His alarm clock hadn't gone off when it was supposed to, and May had gone to work earlier than usual, so she was not able to wake him up in time for school. But now that he had missed his train, he was most definitely going to be late. As he was shouting a couple of swear words at nothing or no one in particular, a warm hand landed on his shoulder.

''You alright there, kid?'' Peter quickly turned around, his face lighting up as soon as he saw Steve standing over him with a friendly smile. ''Hey,'' he said, not being able to bring out any other words. ''I - uhm, yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm fine, thanks. I just missed my train and I was already late, so that's definitely gonna be detention after school.''

Steve furrowed his brows and looked down at his watch. ''Don't you have twenty minutes left before classes start? Why not just swing there?'' 

''I leave for patrol around school campus a lot, if the public eye sees me there in the morning as well, they might connect the dots.'' The boy put his hands in his pockets awkwardly as he avoided eye contact. Steve simply nodded, his lips forming into a thin line. ''I see. I'd offer you a ride, but I'm on a run right now so that would have to be a piggyback.'' The lousy joke didn't cut the anxious tension that Peter was feeling, but it did make him smile a bit.

''No, that's ok. I think I'll just risk it and skip class. Miss Vanderwaal never checks attendance anyway.''

Steve immediately shook his head. ''No, you're not gonna skip any classes. Education is important.''

''Jeez, Mr. Rogers, if you want the team to stop calling you an old man maybe you should stop acting like one,'' Peter grinned.

''That's no way to talk to your elders.''

''Well then, youngling, how do you expect me to still be on time then?''

Steve shrugged and leaned in a bit closer. ''You swing after that train you just missed and take a piggyback on top of that. At your stop, you can change back into your normal clothes. Bingo bango, you're still on time.'' Peter's mouth fell open in shock, his eyes widening.

''So you're telling me to break the law?''

''No, no, I'm telling you to just… bend the rules a bit. Education is at stake, you have to take this seriously.''

''Sir, bending the rules is just an innocent way of saying that you're going to break the law.''

''Yes, but if you don't leave now, that opportunity still falls out of the window. Go, go, go!''

The laugh that Peter let out at the man's seriousness had not even been twelve hours ago, but it felt like a whole different lifetime. It had been such a Captain America thing to do; standing up for what he believed was right, even if he had to break the rules a bit. It didn't make him a bad guy, on the contrary, but it made him feel like a person behind the stars and stripes. No matter how much of a symbol and almost cartoonish character he had to be to resemble what is 'good' and 'bad', he still had to make choices and would always put himself at risk to help others, like he most likely had done as soon as the gas bomb had been dropped.

Although it didn't have a lot to do with the encounter that the two had had that very same morning, the small hints of Steve's real conscience would always shine through when he was with Peter.

Except this time, maybe. This time he was trying to find the boy and tear open his chest so he could rip out a still beating heart.

Although Peter was not certain of that either, as it could still be Bucky or Sam.

Sam, who for some reason had insisted that he held a grudge against the boy from day one. The Avengers had rolled their eyes at his dramatic statement, saying that he should get to know Peter before judging him, and that he would probably grow to even care for the kid. Sam had stubbornly shaken his head as he took a bite out of his breakfast pancakes. ''No, no, definitely not. The kid talks way too much for me to be able to like him.''

Bucky furrowed his brow and looked up from his own plate, confusion evident on his face. ''And then again you always say that it annoys you when the two of us sit in silence. There is just no pleasing you, is there?''

Sam scoffed in response. ''Well, the silence would be pleasing if you didn't stare into my soul for an eight hour flight in the quinjet.''

''And yet you kept staring back. Seems kind of contradicting,'' Bucky remarked as he focussed his attention back on his food.

''That's not what I meant- nevermind, you will never see my side of this anyway.'' Sam slumped down in his seat, his arms folded in a childish manner. 

''Well then, let's try to see it from your perspective,'' Natasha said as she sat down at the edge of the table. ''It annoys you that Peter talks so much. Do you even listen to what he says when he does?''

Sam sighed deeply and dragged a hand over his forehead, pinching his fingers at the bridge of his nose. ''I don't know, I can't really keep up, actually. During the fight at Germany he kept on yapping and yapping about how cool it was to fight me and Bucky and he kept making these horrible puns and jokes.''

''Yeah, but that was during a fight. It was his first big one, you can't blame the guy,'' Clint weighed in. Natasha nodded. ''My sister talks a lot too, but she actually says some useful stuff every now and then. Peter must do that as well, I've heard him ramble on about science stuff that I didn't understand and now I know what string theory is. Have you ever talked to him outside of the fight?''

''A couple times, yes.''

''What wisdom does he impart during those times, then?'' A smirk was forming around Natasha's lips when she said 'wisdom'. Sam sighed once again as he started to think, but then his expression had softened.

''Well, he did say that I should ask Stark to make the edges sharper for more control over sharp turns and twists. He also said that my suit should have more pockets for knives and guns. But then he started to freak out. I believe his exact words were: 'I'm so sorry Mr. Wilson Falcon sir! You're still very cool, this is very cool.' I think he was afraid that he had insulted me or something.''

''Sweet kid,'' Steve remarked.

''Yeah, he kind of is, isn't he?''

Clint smiled knowingly. ''So, still think he's a pain in the ass?''

''Oh yeah, definitely,'' Sam chuckled. ''But maybe not as much as I thought.''

The relationship dynamic hadn't changed a lot after that conversation that Peter had later on been informed of by Natasha, but the boy did notice that Sam was not rolling his eyes as often and even weighed in on what were usually one-sided conversations. The man was probably too proud to admit it, but according to the knowing looks that the other Avengers gave him when he was seen together with Peter, the kid knew that Sam had started to grow some sort of soft spot for the rambling teenager.

Bucky, Steve, or Sam.

Peter didn't want it to be any of them.

But then again, as soon as someone set foot into the doorway with a knife ready in hand, Peter slammed the heavy book to the person's face as hard as he could.

Chapter Text

Steve went tumbling down to the floor with a loud thud, his head nearly colliding with the desk. This was probably one of the only times when Peter wished that it would've been a direct hit with the desk, as that most likely would have solved a lot of his problems. But, sadly enough, the Captain stood up in mere seconds and sent a high kick towards Peter's chest, making the boy slam into the wall behind him. The air had once again been sucked out of his lungs as he tumbled to the floor, his hand instinctively reaching for his chest. He hadn't fully recovered from his encounter with Clint yet, so the kick had a lot more impact on his oxygen supply than he had wished.

Steve didn't seem to care and simply pulled Peter up by the collar of his sweater as he pulled his fist back to send a punch directly to the kid's face. Peter's body seemed to work faster than his mind as he blocked the punch with his left arm. He didn't have the time to cry out from the pain from the burnt wound that had been left from the explosion. He kicked Steve right in the shins and then sent another kick right to the ankle. Steve fell to his knees in an instant, grunting like an animal.

Peter didn't waste a single second and used the heavy book to once again smack the man right to the face. Steve's head shot to the side, then, he turned back to look at Peter in a slow, menacing way. The last thing Peter noticed before he started running like a madman was how the veins around Steve's eyes were more a sort of gray instead of the dark black color that Clint's had been.

As he was speeding through the hallways, trying to find his way back towards the staircase, he felt the vibration of Steve's heavy footsteps through every nerve in his body. If he got to the staircase in time, he would survive this. Peter had fought Captain America hundreds of times before, or at least, sparred with him. The thing that would give the kid the most advantage was his ability to climb walls. In any other situation, Steve would throw his shield at him or at his webs to make him fall back down, but, given the fact that he didn't have it on him right now, he had locked it away well before he had fully turned into a mad serial killer. 

So, Peter quickly speeded down the first flight of stairs, only to be face-to-face with Clint. The man stood right in front of the 30 feet drop, bow ready in hand. His eyes were screaming fire and the black veins had moved on to his cheeks and the corners of his mouth. His lips were starting to turn into a mix of dark blue and gray, and the blood from the head wound had dried up. Peter noticed how the blood tracks that ran over Clint's temple had a darker color than they had before. Was it spreading? Was the gas some form of virus that would soon be incurable? Dammit, he needed Bruce to figure all this out.

Clint let out an animalistic grunt, showing his teeth. Peter had just been overthinking before about the Avengers wanting to rip out his throat and spitting out his esophagus, but there was some form of sharpness to Clint's teeth that made the boy think that he was actually going to go for it. 

Clint simply looked at him, his head tilting in a curious manner. Peter had taken upon a fighting stance a long time ago, waiting for the archer to make the first move, but Clint didn't move a muscle. All he did was grunt and stare. Until his eyes moved to something above Peter's exhausted frame. 

Thank the radioactive spider for the spidey sense.

Peter managed to duck out of the way right before a switchblade could slide into his neck. A fucking switchblade . Peter's eyes went wide as he crawled away from Steve, who flipped the blade into the air before taking another swing. Peter rolled out of the way and kicked Steve as hard as he could to the side. The man went flying up a couple of steps, his back colliding with the concrete wall.

A grunt was heard from Peter's left as Clint came storming up to him, his hands ready to tackle him to the floor. The boy quickly stood up and used the railing to jump over the man, make a twist in the air and kick him to the floor. Just as Peter landed, both men stood up in sync. Clint grabbed a small black device from his belt and pressed on a button, which made a black baton appear, made out of vibranium. Bloody fucking fantastic.

Steve also grabbed a hold on his switchblade, which had fallen onto the floor.

''Oh, come on you guys! I'm just trying to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and now I really gotta go back down to the neighborhood,'' Peter whined as he took a step back. Instinctively, he raised both his hands to web the two heroes up, but the movement was just another hurtful reminder that he didn't have anything on him to defend himself with.

The two men started to approach with movements so in sync that it started to look a little terrifying. Their heads tilted to the side at the same time, their feet hit the floor at the exact right mark. They grabbed onto their weapons more tightly, their fingers wrapping around the handles in the exact same way. Almost as if they were being mind controlled by the same thing. Like the gas had linked them to turn them into an efficient hunting pack of wolves. Well, human wolves. With superpowers.

Peter didn't waste a single second. His head finally felt clearer than ever after the lack of oxygen supply, so he only shot the distance between the edge of the rubbled stairs and the nearest wall a single look before taking the leap, quickly lowering himself down the exploded stairs. His left arm was screaming at him in agony, both from the weight that he was putting onto the freshly injured arm and the feeling of his flesh tearing apart at the places where it was already stitching itself back together. Peter yelped at the feeling and quickly held his hand against his chest when he finally reached the bottom of the thirty feet drop.

He glanced upwards, where Steve and Clint were looking down at him with the black and gray veins nearly popping out of their heads. They gave each other one small glance before Steve kneeled down and let his body hang from the edge. Clint climbed onto him with a weird combination of stiffness and elegance and let himself hang loose at the man's feet, before letting go. Peter's eyes widened at the sight. He stumbled backwards once and then sprinted down the next couple of stairs, jumping multiple steps at the time and using the railing to swing himself with more speed.

They moved like an oiled machine. All of their movements had constantly been coordinated, just like they had during missions, but this time there was no need for any words. Even the heavy thuds of their boots hitting the floor as they chased Peter down the stairs seemed to be in sync, moving in a steady rhythm that sped up Peter's heartbeat. 

All the big, black letters on the wall that Peter passed as he nearly flew down the floors were each time a new punch to the gut. FLOOR 63, FLOOR 62, FLOOR 61. They didn't go by quick enough. All he needed to do was reach the ground floor, put in the code and then get the fuck out of there.

But wait, no. No, that was not the only thing he needed to do. He had two bloodthirsty Avengers on his heel and five more hiding somewhere, anywhere, in this building. When he put in the password at the front entrance of the building, the door would stay open, Tony had explained that to him a couple of weeks back. He had told him that the system was not flawless yet, especially when it came to thinking of the ideal system for hundreds of different kinds of situations in which there would be a need for a full-on lockdown.

The man had been running his hands through his hair constantly as he explained this, showing how insanely impossible it was to create a system that wouldn't be a giant obstacle in at least one of these hundreds of possibilities.

And out of all of these possible situations, Peter was quite certain that Tony had never thought of one in which they would have to run from the Avengers, instead of them being their allies. Maybe the Winter Soldier had crossed the man's mind once or twice, but T'Challa and Okoye had assured him that the months of training that they gave Bucky right after the accords had been re-negotiated into a compromise for the two parties had taken an insane toll on the way that the man was behaving. They had told Tony that Bucky was more and more becoming his own person and that he was getting more control over his mind and body than he ever had before, even if he himself was reluctant to believe it. Tony had been having his doubts as well, but he trusted the people of Wakanda enough to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Although it was a nice gesture on the journey to forgiving Bucky for killing his parents, it would have been nice for Peter if Tony had taken the Winter Soldier into the lockdown protocol as a possible threat. Maybe then Peter would be able to find a way to get out of the building without endangering the entire city and the people he considered to be his family. 

Going out by the main entrance was a no-go. That left only one other option; fight his way out of this and keep fighting until the mysterious gas would wear off. If it would ever wear off. Peter didn't want to think about that.

For a moment, he stood still as he looked at the new set of big, black letters that were painted on the wall. FLOOR 48. Would it truly be wise to still be going down if he didn't have a reason to go down anymore? He was starting to reach the more open spaces of the intern labs, which didn't contain as many places to hide as the upper floors. On top of that, his web shooters were still lying around somewhere on floor 85. Would that be too far up to be able to get to without getting killed?

Yes, yes it would.

Especially considering that he would have to cross at least two Avengers on his way, most likely the rest of the group as well. So fuck no, that was a pass.

Going all the way down to the lobby didn't seem like a great option anymore either. He would just wear himself out by running for too long and then he would reach a place where there would be no places to hide. Fighting off two of the earth's mightiest heroes while being out of breath didn't seem like a very wise thing to do. 

Peter's neck started to tingle and he looked up to see that Steve and Clint were not very far behind him anymore. Steve was way ahead of Clint, seeming to be taking the lead with his advantage in speed and strength. Clint was pretty far behind, but when Peter looked closely he could see that the man was making something while he was running. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. 

Peter gave one quick look down the stairs, but decided against it. He pushed the door open to floor 48, one of the interning labs, and immediately ran towards one of the desks. He pushed it in front of the door and placed it so that the handle wouldn't be able to move anymore. His spidey sense told him that it wouldn't take very long until the two men would reach the floor. He just hoped that they hadn't noticed him fleeing off into the interning labs. 

Peter quickly scanned the room as he rushed past all of the projects that lay abandoned and unsupervised on the various desks and tables. His eye every so often caught a mistake in a formula or a flaw in one of the robotic devices, but he pushed his inner excitement to create new things aside to find some things that would be able to help him fight off the Avengers.

There were no weapons stacked anywhere on this floor, which meant both good and bad things for Peter. The good thing about it was that Clint wouldn't be able to get a new bow and that Steve would have to keep trying to kill Peter with only his switchblade and his bare hands. The bad news was that Peter, too, couldn't get any weapons to defend himself with. The only luck he had was that he was smart enough and still sane in the mind to be able to make one of his own. Or at least, he hoped that the gas had numbed the minds of the Avengers enough to get rid of their scientific knowledge. All of the previous evidence wasn't pointing to a direction that was in Peter's favor, but he had to at least keep hope. Where would he be if he didn't have any?

When the first struggle was heard at the door, Peter knew that he was running out of time. He grabbed a small towel and a bottle of highly flammable acetone. As he stuffed the tip of the towel inside the bottle, he reached for the lighter. Making a fire inside of a lab that had a very high percentage rate of things in it that were able to explode may not have been a great idea, but Peter knew that he was running out of options. If he explained it to Tony when he got out of this mess, he surely wouldn't be in too much trouble, right?

There was a bit of commotion behind the door before it was smashed by Steve's shoulder. The wooden desk was swiftly kicked to the side like it was merely a small obstacle in the way, nothing more than a feather floating in the air. Just as the man was about to walk into the room, Peter lit the towel on fire and threw it at the entrance. A loud explosion followed, which smacked Steve right into the nearest wall. Peter was flung off his feet as well and he slid across the floor. He shook his head to get rid of the loud annoying beeping in his ears and quickly tried to compose himself, reaching for the nearest object he could find. His fingers slowly but surely managed to get a hold of the metal pipe, nearly crushing it with the strength of their grip. 

Peter's vision was blurred, but he could see him. Steve was slowly starting to stand up, but before he could put both of his feet on the ground again, Peter flung the pipe at his head. It collided with a loud 'clunk!', knocking the man out.

''Holy shit, that worked. I can't believe that worked. ''

What he hadn't counted on was Clint making his way through the entrance, who shot a handmade arrow right into Peter's chest.

Chapter Text

Peter screamed. 

He could feel the arrow rip through his flesh, slicing through skin and scraping past bones. Blood started to seep through his shirt, dripping down his chest and stomach with a steady flow. 

Peter shakily placed his hand over the wound to steady the blood loss. He screamed, but he didn't feel any pain. The adrenaline from both the explosion as well as the arrow attack had caused him to be more alert than he had ever been. His eyes immediately flickered around to look for the shooter, who was hidden within the sea of smoke and flames. 

Peter scrambled backwards against the nearest desk with his hand placed firmly against his chest. He could still breathe, which meant that the arrow didn't hit anything important. Or so he thought. 

His free hand was reaching onto the desk to grab the nearest thing he could find. As soon as his fingers found a stapler, he pulled his arm back and held the D.I.Y. weapon in front of him like a shield. Peter slowly started to stand up, being careful not to let the sudden movements mess with the clarity of his head. His vision was already becoming blurry due to the smoke that was slowly starting to fill the room.

Peter felt a loud buzz in the back of his head becoming increasingly more loud with every passing millisecond. Right after he flung his body to the left, another handmade arrow flew through the air, landing right where his neck had been not even a second ago. 

Peter's eyes went wide as he gasped for breath. Both the pain and the fear were starting to fill his veins and cloud his vision. From the corner of his eye, Peter could see Clint starting to approach, bow ready in hand. Fuck, he really should have taken that thing away earlier.

The only positive thing that Peter noticed was how the archer didn't have any other makeshift arrows on him, hence why he was being approached by the man, who wanted to finish what he started. 

Not even a week ago, Peter and Clint had been playing Mario Kart together after a particularly long school week. Now, Peter was about to get choked by Clint for the second time within an hour as the man watched the life drain from his eyes.

Nu-uh, no way. Not happening. Not again.

Peter blinked his eyes a couple of times to get rid of the haziness and then reached out for the weirdly shaped arrow. He pulled it from the desk and quickly jumped back up on his feet, not even minding how dizzy it made him. 

Right as Clint charged at him, Peter slid back down on his knees and pierced the man's thigh with his own weapon. Clint grunted in pain and grabbed the wound with his hands. He took a couple of heaving breaths as he leaned on his fist, his other hand searching for a new weapon from around his belt. Peter vividly remembered the image of the black baton emerging from a small device with a single click of a button. No matter what, he was not planning on getting his ass kicked by a weapon that he associated with the police, definitely not by someone who was brainwashed into thinking he was a machine designed to kill. 

He opened the stapler with a swift motion and pressed it against the man's hand right before he could press the button of the baton. Clint's hand shot away from shock, but after less than a second of revalidation, he reached for the weapon again.

''Would. You. Stop. It!'' Peter yelled every time he tried to smash the stapler into Clint's hands. After the fifth time, the man let out one single growl and charged at the boy with his feet, tackling him and knocking him down to the floor. Before Peter had any time to get up, his legs were pushed back down by Clint's knees. The man placed his full body weight on top of the boy and when he was certain that all the limbs were pinned down, he pushed his face closer to Peter's. Black goo was starting to emerge from the corners of his eyes. One drop fell onto Peter's cheek when Clint tilted his head to the side. Still, there was no kind of emotion in his eyes.

''Mr. Barton? M-Mr. Barton, please. Please. Please look at me. Please stop. Don't do this again, I'm begging you, let me go. Please, please, please,'' Peter begged as tears started to cloud his vision. He didn't want to cry, he didn't want to, but all the shit that he had been through the past six hours was starting to take a toll on him. Clint looked back down at him, still without any form of emotion, but he didn't say anything. He didn't do anything. He just stared.

That was, until, his hand began to reach for the arrow that was still sticking out of Peter's chest, right underneath the boy's collarbone. Peter's eyes grew wide and he opened his mouth to once again beg for mercy, but no words were able to come out when Clint started to push the arrow in deeper. Peter screamed and cried as he felt his flesh being torn and twisted. When the arrow was pushed in enough to scrape one of his shoulder blades on the inside, he was certain that he might pass out from the pain.

Right as Clint was about to have the arrow impale him, Peter let out one single scream and pushed the man off of him. Clint was sent flying through the air and landed on top of one of the many desks. A sickening crack was heard when his head collided with the metal lamp that was placed on top of it. Then, his body was still.

''Oh, shit. Oh, shit! Oh, no. Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God!'' Peter managed to stand up with one of his hands firmly placed around the tip of the arrow. He half stumbled, half sprinted towards Clint, who was once again suffering from a pretty bad head injury. The desk was starting to get smeared into a pool of black blood as it stained all of the paper sheets that were scattered around on it. Peter placed his hand underneath the man's head to examine the wound.

The first thing he noticed was that the man was still breathing, which was, funnily enough, in some kind of way, a good thing. He quickly glanced over his shoulder at Steve, who was also lying unconscious in a position that did not seem healthy to any normal eye. No broken bones, no major injuries, still breathing. Peter could only see a minor head wound and perhaps a couple of burns here and there. 

As he focussed his attention back onto Clint, he felt a wave of dizziness and exhaustion come over him. At this point, only the adrenaline and the feeling of his flesh knitting itself back together around the arrow wound around his collarbone had been able to keep him awake, but now that the biggest threat at the moment was gone, Peter felt like he could collapse at any second. The floor was already starting to look a little bit too comfortable…

He shook his head and kept a firm hand placed around the wound to steady the blood loss. Focus, Peter. Focus.

Even through the smoke and ash that had started to fill the room and blurred everything in sight, it was obvious that something had to be done about Clint's head wound. The blood might have been black, but it was still blood, which still meant that the man needed it to stay alive.

With the last ounce of his strength, Peter ripped Clint's shirt into two large pieces. ''I'm sorry Mr. Barton, but with all of the shit that you just pulled on me, you kinda deserve this.'' Peter tried to chuckle, but a shiver was sent down his spine as he thought about the look on Clint's face when he had tried to impale Peter's shoulder blade from the inside out. He knew, if he were to get out of this alive -no, when he gets out of this-, it would be a hard thing for him to be able to be in the same room as his teammates without being in a constant state of panic.

But no, no Clint is nothing like the man that was lying in front of him. Clint was kind, considerate and an excellent father to his kids. He was one of the people that Peter looked up to most, and this creature that was bleeding out on an intern desk was not the way that Peter wanted to remember him.

Once again, Peter shook his head to get rid of all of the intruding thoughts and carefully lifted up Clint's head and wrapped the fabric of the shirt around the wound tightly. After going around it twice, he made a knot and took a step back to examine his work.

There was not a lot else that he could do, considering that he was not a certified doctor. The only experience he had was when, during his early days of being Spider-Man, he would come home and watch a YouTube tutorial on how to stitch up his own wounds, which Tony did not appreciate when he found out. He had grabbed the boy by his shoulders, pointed a sharp finger into his chest and gave a typical 'dad look' as he said: ''There will be no more playing doctor around here, ok? If you are ever injured and you don't immediately come to the tower to get it fixed up by Bruce of Helen, you will be grounded, capiche?''

Suddenly, Peter's eyes grew wide in realization. Bruce. He had said that those old phones would be located on each floor in case of an emergency, which this definitely was. The pain in Peter's shoulder and chest was starting to become unbearable and the feeling of his flesh stitching itself back together was driving him crazy, especially considering that he still somehow needed to pull out the damn thing before it was stuck in there forever.

He heaved a couple of times as he tried to regain strength in his body without hurting his chest. Once again, his eye caught sight of Steve, whose body was still in that insanely unhealthy position as a mix of red and black blood was dripping down the side of his face. No matter how badly Peter wanted to take care of the man and replace some of his limbs, he knew that he had to wait for Bruce's instructions in case there was something more going on than just a concussion.

Or, well, that was the thing he told himself. The actual reason was that he was too afraid to wake the two Avengers up and get killed by his family members, but he had decided to push that thought deep down. First, the damned fire.

One of the better things about the Avengers tower was that it was specifically designed not to catch fire, considering how many daily explosions and lab accidents there were, not even to mention the amount of possible villains that would want to come to attack the building, which meant that only the door was going high up into flames at the moment -which Peter considered to be a flaw in the system, but he didn't want to dwell on that- as the rest of the desks and other items seemed to be untouched. Although it did give Peter an advantage in putting out the fire, it also eliminated the option of locking Steve and Clint inside the room to prevent them from attacking him once again.

To be completely honest, Peter was getting kind of sick of having to fight Clint all the time. Luckily for him, the man was out cold, and this time he would probably not get up in a while. 

Right as he punched the glass window in front of the fire extinguisher, he felt his stomach rumble in agony. He hadn't eaten since lunch, which, according to his watch, was almost nine hours ago. For six bloody hours he had been stuck in this hellhole and still no one from the outside had come up with a plan on how to get him out of there and cure the Avengers. But still, he decided not to dwell on that, nor on the hunger that he felt. He had to take this step by step. First, fire, then, call Bruce.

He hoped that the sound of the extinguisher as well as the smell of all the smoke wouldn't draw any of the other Avengers towards him.

After he put out every last bit of the fire, he decided to keep the extinguisher close to his chest as he looked around the messiness of the intern labs. ''Ok, guys, I'm going to look for a phone,'' Peter rasped out as he looked at the two unconscious men. ''So you two just… stay here, alright?'' He made a weird gesture with his hand, like he would do to a stray dog. When he got no answer, he made awkward finger guns. ''Awesome.''

Right as he left the first corner to reach an area even bigger than the previous one, his eye fell on the old phone in the middle of the room on top of one of the interning desks that was filled with papers. No labs, this time.

''Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up,'' Peter gritted through his teeth as he thanked whatever lord that made him remember the phone number this quickly. Bruce's half-relieved half-panicked voice was heard after only two rings.

''Peter..?!'' The boy let out a sigh of relief at the sound of the familiar voice. ''Thank God, Dr. Banner! It's good to talk to you again.'' The waiver was evident in his voice, no matter how badly he tried to hide it.

''Holy shit, you're still alive. Are you ok? What happened, kid?'' 

Peter dragged a heavy hand down his face and let it rest on top of his chin. ''A lot, a lot of shit happened, but now I kind of need your medical advice.''

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line, but Peter could hear the deep breaths that Bruce was taking to calm himself down. There was a swallow before the response came. ''Of course, I have a team of doctors here, so I'm going to put you on speaker again. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere.''

Peter breathed out a small 'ok' as he listened to people arguing and shushing each other on the other side of the line. ''Yes, you still there, kid?''

''Yeah, I am.''

''What is it that you need?''

Peter took a couple of steps, as far as the wire would allow him, to look around the corner at the two knocked out Avengers. ''Well, first of all, I'd like to inform you that I just got my ass kicked by Captain America and Hawkeye. I beat the shit out of them too, though, so I'd like to know which one of us has the most priority at the moment.''

''You have to put yourself first, Pete,'' Bruce sternly informed. ''The other two are a danger to you right now. You need to take care of yourself and then get the hell out of there.'' Even though Peter couldn't see him, he knew that it pained Bruce to have to order the boy to leave two of his closest friends without any medical care.

Peter sighed deeply. ''Please just let me finish, it's important. I'm not sure if their injuries could kill them.''

''Alright, alright. What are they?''

''The Captain has a minor head wound, which isn't super bad or anything, but his body is laying in a position that makes me wonder whether he will ever be able to get up again. So, do I need to move him into a more comfortable position, or should I keep him like that to prevent him from waking up?''

There was a moment of bickering on the other end of the line until Bruce once again sighed very deeply. ''Steve won't be out very long if he only has a minor head injury. I wouldn't risk it, kid.''

''I do think that Clint needs proper medical attention, though. His head is bleeding pretty badly. Oh, and as a side note, the blood is black, is that bad?''

Silence. Maybe he should have eased that one in a bit more softly. 

''...what..?'' Came Helen Cho's shocked voice. After that, a couple more murmurs came as scientists suddenly started to yell orders in the far background. Bruce stammered a bit before he finally spoke again, trying to remain calm. 

''A-alright, so we have the black veins around the, uhm, the eyes, and now their blood is black as well. Have the veins spread?''

Peter scratched the back of his head, but immediately flinched in pain when the motion pulled at his open wounds. ''Ah, uhm, well- that's- that's kind of where things get… interesting.''

'''Interesting'? What do you mean 'interesting'? Interesting is not good!'' A young sounding voice called out, probably in their early twenties. Right as Peter was about to respond, an older man beat him to it. ''Ellis, calm down, please. Go check up on the process with entering the building.'' After a moment of silence, the man hummed in exasperation. ''My apologies for that, Peter. Dr. McBeth has never really been in control over their emotions. Please, proceed.''

Suddenly, Peter felt his throat close up as his mind became blurry. He looked around the room when he noticed that he couldn't see as clear as a couple of minutes earlier. His right hand was still firmly pressed against the tip of the arrow sticking out of his chest. At first, only his fingers and his palm were covered in blood, but now he could feel a steady flow trickle down to his elbow. He slowly looked down and-

Wait.

He could've sworn that he had been wearing a blue sweater instead of a red one.

''Oh, yeah, uhm…'' He looked at his arm again and followed the blood trail back up to the iron tip sticking out of his collarbone. Blood. ''I- I'm sorry, what… what was the question a-again?''

''Peter, what's going on? Are you hurt? Peter!'' The boy vaguely caught some commotion coming from the background, maybe even yelling voices?

''I'm bleeding,'' he slurringly proclaimed as he looked at his red-covered fingers.

''Shit, are you bleeding badly?'' More commotion, more yelling, panicked breathing.

''My sweater is red.''

''W-what? What do you mean - kid keep on talking to me! What is your injury?''

''My blood is red too. M-Mr. Barton's blood is black. Is it normal to be black? Mr. Rogers has a mix of both. His veins weren't black, but gray-ish. They aren't only around the eyes either anymore, on the cheeks and the mouth. Mr. Barton looks like a zombie with his black veins and blue and purple lips. The only red thing about him are his eyes, looks like they're bleedin'.''

Peter slowly sat down on the floor, pulling the phone with him as far as he could. His vision became even more dizzy than before. There was some shouting in the background on the other end of the line about 'writing this down' and 'passing this through to whatever-their-name-was'. ''Now I have two places that hurt. No, wait, three. Nevermind, it's like… a million. But two big places. My arm is getting better now, which is, y'know, it's nice. But now my chest hurts even more.''

There was some heavy breathing in his left ear. He looked around to see who was so rudely leaving all of their bacils in his personal space, only to find that actually, there was no one there. When Bruce spoke once more, in a much more panicked tone than any other moment, he realized that he was holding a phone. Was it a bad thing that he forgot?

''Alright, so you're losing a lot of blood?'' Though the man tried to sound as professional as possible, it was obvious that he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown, even Peter could see that in his hazy state. Or rather, hear it.

''Yup,'' the boy responded, popping the 'p'. ''From an arrow. Ran into good ol' Clint again. Wait, no, shit, Mr. Barton. Sorry.''

''Where did the arrow hit you, Peter? Can you specify?'' That was Helen Cho. Had Bruce ran off?

''Bit below the collarbone. Didn't hit anything vital, I can tell. But yeah, blood loss is a bitch. Also, the healing factor, not a big fan of it right now.''

''Keep talking, Peter. What is the exact position of the arrow?''

Peter furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He looked down at the tip sticking out which pointed right at the wall in front of him. ''Well, straight through. What other way would there be?''

''No, I mean how deep is the arrow.''

''Oh! Yeah, that lil' shit's in real deep. That was actually Mr. Barton's fault. Well, he already shot the arrow but then he pinned me down and pushed it in further. It's scraping my shoulder blade from the inside.''

There were a couple of gasps combined with a big pile of no-no words on the other end of the line. Someone was talking to Peter, but the boy only had eyes for the water bottle standing on top of the desk on the other side of the room. His heartbeat was pounding in the back of his head, he couldn't think clear and his motions were becoming sluggish.

Deep down, he knew exactly why he had made the phone call. And he knew as well that the way his body was responding to the blood loss was not a good thing. If he drank water, a big part of his problem would be solved. Or at least, according to the health and lifestyle guru's on the internet, it would. That didn't really comfort him.

''Peter? Peter! Kid, please answer! Peter!'' The yelling continued on for a while until Peter held the phone back up to his ear, whispered a small 'I'll be right back before just letting the handle hang on its wire as he tiredly crawled his way towards his destination.

Never, ever, in his life had he ever drunk a water bottle this fast. Within five seconds, the entire thing was completely drawn from its contents. Peter let out a small sigh of relief before making his way back to the phone. As he sat back down into his original position, he noticed that he was leaving a body-dragged-like trail of blood on the floor. 

''I'm back, I'm ok,'' he breathed. ''Are you sure?'' Helen Cho's concerned voice came through. Peter nodded and let out a small hum of agreement. ''Yeah, sorry for all the slurring. Blood loss.''

''Alright Peter, what floor are you on?'' Determination was suddenly edging through, which made hope blossom inside the boy's chest. It sounded like Helen had a plan. Plans are good. Good means maybe staying alive.

''Forty Eight.''

''Interning labs, fantastic. Peter, check the nearest desk for a needle and thread. I know from our previous little run-ins that you have stitched up your own wounds before?''

Peter smiled slightly at all of the memories of every single adult in his life being a mix of impressed and furious after they found out about his weekly stitching moments. ''You know I can, Dr. Cho.''

''Good, because you are going to need them after you pulled the arrow out.''

Chapter Text

''Shit, I- I don't think I'll be able to do this, Dr. Cho,'' Peter hissed as he carefully placed all of the needed tools on the desk in front of him. He was deeply slumped down into his chair, struggling to balance the phone to his ear while at the same time attempting to remove his sweater. ''I mean, I already feel bad about having knocked them out but now I have chloroformed them as well? My conscious is screaming at me!''

''You've gotta be kidding, right?'' Came Helen's exasperated voice, a slight smirk clearly evident in the undertone. ''You are going to have to pull off an insanely painful procedure on yourself to stop you from bleeding out and you're worried about having chloroformed the two people who did this to you in the first place?''

''You know, you're not a very comforting person,'' Peter frowned once he finally managed to take off his sweater with his injured arm. His eyes fell on the hand-made bandage that was still wrapped around his forearm. Even though the pain in his shoulder was a lot worse and a lot more overwhelming, the feeling of his flesh and skin tearing apart with each sudden motion felt like Peter was being set on fire from the inside out.

''I'm just very baffled about where your priorities lie, Peter. Any other person would be freaking out by now,'' Helen chuckled with some sort of fondness in her voice. 

''Yeah, well, your little speeches about 'the worst pain you'll ever feel in your entire life' wouldn't help anyone who was freaking out,'' the boy teased.

''I never said, 'the worst pain you'll ever feel in your entire life'.''

''You literally just did.''

''Because you made me!''

''We all make our own decisions about what we say to other people, Dr. Cho.''

Before Helen could go against it again, a familiar male voice was heard. ''You two done? We have to get started before the arrow is stuck in there and messes up Spider-Boy's organs.'' If Peter hadn't been in too much pain to move, he would have smacked the table in a mix of anger and confusion. ''Jesus Christ, Bruce! Where the hell did you go, I thought you just hang up on me!''

Bruce sighed tiredly, probably whilst rubbing the back of his neck. ''Sorry, kid. The other guy started to come out, I had to leave for a second.''

''Wait a second-'' Peter gasped, ''since when did you start calling me Spider-Boy? There is only one annoying adult in the world who calls me that!''

Bruce laughed for a second, which was a surprisingly soothing sound to hear after having been worked up on adrenaline for the past seven hours. ''Maybe I've been hanging out with Tony too much. He talks a lot about you, mostly about how you either annoy the shit out of him or how proud he is of you. He said he'd even want you to be the next Iron Man. He'll probably deny it if you ever asked him, though.''

Peter smiled and looked down at his hands. ''Yeah, that sounds like him. But I could never be Iron Man.''

''We wouldn't want a second one, Peter. One is more than enough trouble. We need Spider-Man, who swings through the streets of New York to look out for the little guy. And he won't be able to do that if his shoulder is forever messed up and he dies from blood loss.''

There was a moment of silence on both ends of the line, neither of the two knowing what else to say. Peter swallowed once, twice, to get rid of the lump in his throat. ''Well then, let's pull this son of a bitch out of me.''

---~---

''Dr. Cho, I'm not sure about this… I've always been told that arrows should be removed through surgery, I can't pull this out like that!''

''It's ok, Peter. Calm down. You said that it was a makeshift arrow, right? Just a straight piece of metal with a sharp tip?'' Peter nodded, but then realized that she couldn't see him. ''Yeah, it is.''

''Then the reason why surgery is usually necessary is gone,'' Bruce spoke up, his voice half-present half-distracted. There was some tapping away on a keyboard in the background. ''The bottom of a normal arrowhead prods out below it, which means that when you pull it out, your flesh will be torn with it. You can't pull one like that out, but you can remove… let's say a pen.''

Peter scoffed and rolled his eyes in a mix of utter bafflement and anxiety. ''Are you really comparing an arrow that has nearly impaled me and is almost killing me with the amount of blood loss to a pen?''

''No, I'm comparing the shape to a pen.''

''It still feels like invalidation.''

''It's not, Peter. Let's just get this all over with. We're so sorry about everything, but we're gonna fix it. Are you ready?''

Peter took a deep breath and tried to keep the upcoming vomit to himself. It was already bad enough that he had cried and screamed and nearly fainted over things that he would usually see as pretty standard, considering that he had been shot, stabbed and poisoned a couple more times in his past sixteen years than any other regular person had within a lifetime. He had faced bigger threats, he had taken care of wounds way worse, but yet, the idea that the people who did this to him were in some weird way like family to him, made him sick to his stomach.

Last time he visited the tower, he was excited to see Natasha so they could play a confusing Russian card game. Now, she was one of the people that he was hoping to avoid with all his heart.

''Yes, I'm ready.'' The dread that filled his stomach told him that he wasn't.  

Peter followed every single one of the instructions, but as soon as he had to grab the tip of the arrow and felt an immense pain when it shifted around in his burning flesh, he wasn't sure if he would be able to go through with it. He wanted to kick, scream, cry and run into the arms of his aunt so she could tell him that everything would be alright, but he knew that he couldn't give in to any of his weaknesses. He knew that if he were to break down into tears on the phone with all of Shield plus their scientists, they would all lose hope. He would lose hope.

So, instead of curling up into a tiny ball and covering his ears until it was all over, he took a deep breath and tightened his grip around the arrow. ''Alright, so h-how… How do I… do this? Pull it out quickly, like ripping off a bandaid?''

''No, you have to do it slowly and steadily. Don't let it move around too much and make sure that you don't rip open any extra flesh.'' 

Peter's hand was anything but steady. His fingertips were covered in both fresh and dried up blood and the droplets that were slowly dripping down his wrist to his elbow made him tremble even more than before. His breathing was shallow and his heart was beating in his eardrums. When he moved the arrow less than half a millimeter, he felt vomit rise to his mouth. He hissed, tried to blink the tears away and bit his lip to stop himself from screaming. 

For some odd reason, Peter started to feel slightly irritated. He was an Avenger, for God's sake. He had super strength, enhanced healing. He had stitched up wounds way worse than this, he had been shot, stabbed and beaten thousands of times. He had lifted a building with nothing but his bare hands, there was not a single reason why it was so difficult for him to pull out some stupid piece of metal. But now, the way the arrow scraped the inside of his shoulder blade each time it moved made him want to scream and puke. 

Fear, it's a… curious thing. It does things to people. It freezes them. It takes the things away that make the person themselves.

And sometimes, it sushes the brain and lets the person act. Not think, act.

''Oh my God, Peter,'' the boy whispered softly, making sure no one on the other end of the line would be able to hear him, ''stop being such a little wimp.'' With that, he took one deep breath and ripped the arrow straight out of his shoulder. He yelled in pain, covered his mouth with his sleeve and dug his teeth right into the fabric. 

''Peter? What the hell is going on?'' Multiple panicked voices were heard from the phone, most of them in the far background, as if hundreds of people were listening at the same time.

Peter grunted and took the second half of Clint's shirt, which he had neatly placed on top of the desk. He wrapped it around his shoulder as best as he could and could only stand by in shock as the purple fabric very quickly started to turn into a more scarlet shade. Slowly he started to realize that that may not have been one of his better moves, but then again, he would have felt a lot more tearing apart if he didn't pull the arrow out in a clean line, just like the way it had been shot into him. 

''It's out, everything's fine.''

''That's an insanely stupid move, Peter!'' Helen scolded. Bruce followed soon after. ''Do you have any idea how much damage you could have caused to yourself? There's a reason why surgeons take hours to remove things from a person's body!''

''Yes, which is because surgeons aren't being chased through a hospital by seven of the deadliest people alive, Bruce!'' Peter snapped. It was silent for a while, a kind of silence that was annoyingly loud and filled every corner of the room with the feeling of uneasiness. Slowly, Peter took a deep breath as he tried to collect his emotions. ''I mean, Dr. Banner, sir,'' he said softly.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Bruce scoffed. ''I have told you countless times that we are officially on a first name basis, kid. You can call me Bruce. In fact: I want you to.''

''Yeah, Mr. Stark has been nagging me about this as well. I think that after this hellish day, he'll allow me to call him whatever I want to. I plan to take advantage of that.''

''Why, so you can finally call him 'dad' like you've been wanting to for months now?''

Peter's mouth fell open in a mix of shock and embarrassment. ''W-what? I- N-no, no that's… that's not what I meant. I don't want to call him 'dad'. That's not on the table here.''

Even though he couldn't see any of their faces, Peter knew that none of them believed his lie.

---~---

After about an hour of doing check-ups on Peter's blood loss and safe recovery, the boy could feel his wounds starting to stitch themselves back together. The skin on his left forearm was starting to exist out of raw meat and dead cells, a combination which made the wound sting with pain each time it slightly moved.

The area around his collarbone was a different story: there was not a single moment where Peter wasn't in agonizing pain, even though the wound didn't provide any major threat anymore. It had been neatly stitched up -well, as neatly as Peter could manage- and bandaged. Every now and then a droplet of blood would trickle down the wound and stain his blue sweater even more red. The wet fabric felt sticky and uncomfortable on his skin, but it was the only way the boy could remain warm in what was a surprisingly cold environment. He slowly reached for his jacket and carefully put it on to provide himself with a bit more heat.

As if on cue, Bruce spoke up again. ''How're you doing there, buddy?'' The man hadn't spoken in a while. In fact, none of them had, on either side of the line. They had guided Peter through the process of taking care of his wounds, but as soon as that was finished, everyone sat in a silence that was a balance between nice and uncomfortable. 

''I'm all right,'' Peter responded as he fiddled with the hem of his sweater. ''I just want this all to be over.''

''And it will be soon, I promise.'' They both knew it was a lie, but nevertheless, Peter felt some sort of comfort inside his chest at the man's words. ''You know what I'm gonna do once I'm out of here?'' He barely waited for a response, knowing that the people on the other end of the line were just there to listen. ''I'm going to go home to my aunt, take a long shower, put on a sweater that isn't covered in blood and then watch movies until I fall asleep on the couch.'' 

The rumble in his stomach cut off the silence. ''And I'll eat so much Thai food that I'll be on the brink of throwing up.''

''That sounds like a nice plan.'' Peter could nearly hear the hint of a smile in Bruce's words. ''And it's going to happen, ok? But for now, we need a plan. You can't stay there forever with Clint and Steve right around the corner.''

''So… what should I do? Just tie them up and leave?'' Peter crossed his left arm around his waist.

''Basically, yes. But that was not the kind of plan I was talking about. We have to figure out where you should go to be the safest.''

Peter chuckled lightly and threw his head back to lean on top of the chair. ''Honestly? Right now I don't really care. I just want to go to a place with food and water, I'm starving and dehydrated.''

''Well then, that'll be our first priority. I can't really help you there, though. I only know the top floors of the building by heart and there is no way in hell that you'll make it up there without either passing out of coming across one of… you know.'' He didn't say it. Bruce didn't say 'teammates' or 'Avengers' or whatnot. And Peter knew why. He knew that no matter what words the man would use, they would all feel like a kick to the chest, a knife in the back. Peter decided not to dwell on it.

''Well, is anyone listening who might know where I can find food? Holy shit, this feels like some kind of apocalypse. I didn't know I was in an episode of The Walking Dead.'' Despite his attempt at a lighthearted joke, no one laughed. Instead, there were some yelling voices and a lot of commotion. After a couple of minutes of incoherent screaming and yelling, Bruce's voice came through again. This time, a lot more hopeful than before.

''Another change of plans, kid. We found a cure.''

Chapter Text

The plan was simple. Or at least, the three steps that it took were simple to remember . Everything else about it had Peter’s heart thud inside his chest a billion times faster. He could do this, he knew he could. He only had to somehow inject the cure into the blood systems of the Avengers, easy peasy. 

No matter how many lies he told himself, Peter couldn’t fathom the thought of having to attack his family and nearly kill them one way or another to be able to cure them from the craziest disease since the Pokémon Go plague. Bruce had been very clear about all this: he had to stab his teammates right into their jugular veins to make the serum work, or else it would mean Peter’s death. Although the loss of a tube of serum didn’t necessarily mean that Peter was going to die, it was an indication that he wouldn’t be able to take on the entire team on his own and would eventually die on his own anyway.

Peter knew that no one could go in to help him with all of this, he knew that the entire system would go down which would result in the escape of the Avengers, but deep down, he was begging for someone to come in and save him. A team of SHIELD agents, a SWAT team, police officers or, hell - even his aunt. He wished for someone to take over this insane responsibility and tell him that it’s ok for him to rest, that he can take a long shower and go to sleep. He wished for a guardian angel to come down upon him and have all his problems be solved with a single fingersnap. 

But no, he couldn’t rest. He wasn’t allowed to rest, because the fate of the entire city was resting upon his shoulders. Resting would have to wait. Fuck resting.

According to his biological clock, it was now around midnight. The amount of aspects that resembled a horror movie was almost laughable; the timing, the setting, the final hour in which everything comes to an end being at exactly midnight. Or at least, he was going to try to pass it off as funny when he would tell Ned the entire story later. The details about the time, well, he would just leave those out.

Because having superpowers always came with a price. For Peter, it was a fast metabolism; he had to eat twice - if not thrice the amount of food that a normal human had to eat every single day. If it was truly around midnight, that meant that he had skipped about what would be three full meals to a normal human. Though the hunger was not necessarily painful yet (more like an annoying grumble), it did slow down his mind and his reflexes, which scared Peter to the very core. Bruce didn’t have to know that, though. None of the people listening did.

Peter wanted to seem as calm as possible to the people on the other end of the line. He was going through the process of making the cure out loud to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes and he even tried to quip some jokes here and there. It was quite obvious that everyone listening knew what state the boy was actually in, but they tried to hum along and chuckle when it was required. Peter tried to fool himself into thinking that the entire group saw him as someone who could deal with problems.

Whether he actually believed that lie or not; it didn’t matter.

‘‘So, kid, tell me. What’s your plan?’’ Dr. McBeth spoke up, clearly not wanting to beat around the bush any longer. ‘‘I think I’ll go up to floor 86 to get my web shooters. If I pass any Avengers along the way, I hope it’ll be just one of them. Preferably Tony, if he doesn’t have his suit.’’

‘‘That doesn’t sound like a very well-thought-out plan,’’ McBeth replied, a chuckle evident in their voice. ‘‘Any more… sophisticated ideas? Such as a battle strategy?’’

‘‘Try not to get killed.’’

‘‘More specific.’’

‘‘Try not to get killed by the Avengers.’’

‘‘I know that you’re trying to make light of the situation, Peter, but you have to admit that it’s not a good idea to go out there and ‘just fight’ those guys.’’

‘‘Well, honestly… I can’t really think of anything better at the moment. First, I’ll test the serum on Steve and Clint. They will still be knocked out afterwards, right?’’

Bruce’s voice came through. ‘‘Yes, they’ll still be chloroformed for another forty minutes according to the amount you used. I’m sorry, but they won’t be much of a help during your battle. Even if they woke up, they would still be in too rough a state to fight. Especially Clint.’’

‘‘That’s alright,’’ Peter sighed, though he didn’t sound disappointed or unencouraged, ‘‘It just means that I got two down and five more to go. It makes me feel better about my accomplishments. I’m a glass half full kind of person.’’

‘‘That’s never a bad motto to go by. As long as you keep it realistic,’’ Dr. McBeth intervened. ‘‘You have to realize that whatever it is that you’re planning on doing, you can’t go into that fight without having thought everything through.’’

‘‘I understand,’’ Peter replied, a sudden change of attitude in his voice. ‘‘And believe me, I have a plan.’’

After about an hour of creating the serum and engulfing in some light-hearted chatter, Peter took a couple of deep breaths to ready himself. He was ready. He wasn’t. He had to be.

It didn’t matter whether he was actually ready or not. He had to pretend that he was, for the people listening, for the people of New York, for the Avengers. As long as he pretended, he could manage.

There was a reason why he wore a mask, aside from hiding his identity. He didn’t want bad guys to see when he was scared. He had gotten away with this a lot of times before, he could do it again.

Peter reached for the mask inside his pocket. He didn’t have his suit on him, nor his web shooters, but that didn’t matter. All that he needed was the mask, which he pulled over his head to protect himself from the judgment of the world. Ready or not, he had to be.

‘‘I’ll see you guys soon, just make sure that you have a sandwich ready for me when I walk through the doors.’’

‘‘Number five? With pickles?’’ Though he couldn’t see the man, Peter knew that Bruce was smiling.

‘‘You know it. Squish it down real flat for me, will ya?’’

‘‘Of course. Good luck, Spider-Man. Be careful.’’

‘‘When am I not?’’ Despite the irony of that sentence, Peter hung up with a hint of a grin on his face. He grabbed the needles along with the serum and placed them in his pockets, hoping to dear God that they would stay there while he was running or fighting. 

First, Steve and Clint. Then, water and food, if he was lucky enough. Then web shooters, maybe cross an Avenger on the way. Then kick cure their asses.

No matter how many times Peter told himself that what he was doing was for the best, he still couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty when he jabbed the serum into Steve’s system. He had already knocked the man out, injured him and chloroformed him, and now he was testing a serum on Steve without even knowing if it was actually going to work. It was the exact same story with Clint, except with him, it was even worse. For all Peter knew the man could be lying on a hospital bed for multiple days because of him.

But all those intrusive feelings went away when he noticed the black veins underneath Clint’s eyes turn a shade lighter, to a dark gray. Peter smiled, knowing that this hell may soon finally be over.

Two down, five more to go.

---~---

Peter was humming the Friends theme song as he was searching the cabinets of floor 55. Although the entire building contained thousands of employees, it seemed as though they all decided to take their food along with them as they ran out of the tower. Peter grunted in annoyance as he once again opened a desk drawer which contained nothing but paper clips and empty candy wrappers. Not a single unopened candybar in sight, it was a disgrace.

Peter could feel his flesh slowly stitching itself back together, but he knew that it was not going as fast as it was supposed to. Usually, his arm would be at least halfway healed by now, but his skin still consisted of burnt flesh and dead cells with an insane amount of pain radiating from it whenever he moved his arm. For the past couple of hours, he had barely been paying attention to the burns, but now that he was thinking about it, it hurt nearly just as much as the arrow wound did.

Peter took a deep breath and tried to focus on everything that hurt. It wasn’t the best way to calm himself down, but if he wanted to get out of the tower with as little injuries as possible, he wanted to know what areas had to be protected at all costs. 

Aside from the two major injuries, his chest and back hurt quite a lot as well. Without even having to look in a mirror, Peter already knew that the entirety of his torso was bruised and black, as well as his spine and shoulder blades.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that he was not in a state to fight off earth’s mightiest heroes.

But then, the impossible happened. Or at least, for the past twenty minutes it had seemed impossible, because apparently it is just too damn hard to have food in a desk drawer and not eat it immediately. Peter smiled when he saw the stack of muesli bars piled up in a neat, tiny tower inside someone’s desk drawer.

Without any other thought, Peter pulled off his mask, ripped the wrapper apart and swallowed the first bar whole. He did the same with the second, and the third, and the twelfth, until he felt that he had eaten enough to maintain his metabolism for a little while. He let out a small breath of fulfillment and smiled sweetly into space. Thank whoever was kind enough to leave this many muesli bars in their desk drawer.

There was a half full pot of coffee (Peter was a positive person) left on the top of someone else’s desk, and though it was not the water that his body desperately needed, Peter was still absolutely thrilled when he chugged the thing. Water or not, this was the energy boost that he so desperately desired. 

But the universe never lets Peter Parker have more than five minutes of happiness and relaxation. Right when the boy was about to go look for some water bottles and sandwiches to help himself heal even more, he heard a loud bang from the hallway. He slowly lowered his mask back over his face and reached for the nearest item that he could throw at the person behind the corner.

Peter grabbed a tight hold of the coffee pot and wrapped his fingers around the handle so tightly that at some point, he was worried they would break. His other hand was already lingering for his pocket, where he had placed the serum, ready for use.

Less than an hour ago, he would’ve tried to hide and shield himself from the danger, as he had nowhere else to go. But now, he was ready to fight whoever was lurking within the shadows, anticipating to attack at any moment.

‘‘Come out, come out wherever you are,’’ Peter called out in a sing-songy voice. There was another bang from the hallway, as if someone was smacking an iron door with a metal bat.

Suddenly, the lights flickered.

Then, darkness.

Peter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had his spidey sense to depend on, he trusted himself. 

With a clean twist, he ducked out of the way of a bullet, which was meant to go straight between his eyes. Without any time to recover, Peter threw the coffee pot towards the nearest emergency light switch. Only half of the usual lights turned back on, some of them flickering with lack of power. But Peter didn’t need anything more to recognise who was standing right in front of him, glaring with deadly eyes.

Natasha.

Peter and Natasha had sparred quite a lot over the last couple of months. At first, he was afraid of the woman. Her elegance, quick movements and her skill intimidated the boy and made him wish that he would never have to cross her path, so he didn’t. After their very first meeting, Peter mostly avoided her, despite being in absolute awe of how amazing she was.

One day, after months of awkward hallway conversations and lame excuses about why he needed to leave, Natasha confronted the boy by asking him to spar with her. Peter had reluctantly agreed and finally felt like he was ready to build a bond with the woman once they finished their session. Sparring together had soon become part of their weekly routine. Peter came to the tower three times a week and immediately went to spar with Natasha once his lab time with Tony was over. 

All in all, Peter knew his stuff when it came to Natasha’s fighting style. He knew her tricks, flips, battle strategy and where she hid most of her knives, which meant that he knew how absolutely deadly she could be.

Steve had super strength and could kill. But Natasha… her past made her a predator. A skilled one. She could analize her prey with a quick glance, which meant that Peter’s mask was of absolutely no use.

She knew he was scared.

The flickering of lights made it seem like her movements were in motion pictures, as if Peter was trapped inside an awful nightmare. There were black veins around her eyes, her cheekbones and her lips. Black goo was dripping down her chin and spat onto the ground when Natasha let out a low growl. Her eyes were red, her skin even more pale than usual. Peter nearly froze at the sight, almost afraid that the woman had fully turned into a zombie-like creature.

But that was the scariest part: she wasn’t moving like a zombie, she wasn’t slouched, she wasn’t animalistic in the slightest. She was standing up straight, her shoulders back, an angry yet cold stone look in her eyes, a gun in her hand. She was human, but not herself. She was a human that had been corrupted by anger and bloodlust. A trained assassin, out for blood.

Peter knew that this was going to be his end.

Natasha jumped over the desk that was separating the two of them and made a twist in the air to kick Peter to the face. The boy barely managed to duck away. Before he could even come to his senses, Natasha slid down onto the floor and swept him off his feet. She tried to grab him, perhaps choke him the same way Clint had wanted to, but Peter was stronger. He kicked her away and quickly jumped back up, high enough so he could stick to the ceiling. He crawled as fast as he could as Natasha fired bullet after bullet.

Peter’s shoulder was screaming at him in pain along with his arm, but the boy was too scared to even care. He had to grab her in a chokehold and inject the serum in her neck. 

After the last bullet was fired, there were a couple of clicks as the Black Widow made sure that there was nothing left to shoot. Peter knew that, if they both were to get out of this mess, Natasha would feel eternal regret for not having been able to lock away all of her hidden weapons.

Peter quickly jumped down from the ceiling as quietly as he could and hid right into the shadows of a corner. Natasha looked around for a second, confused, but then she ripped the wire of a desk lamp apart. She wrapped the wire around her fists tightly, leaving about eighteen inches in the middle. Despite the circumstances, Peter smiled. She was going to do something that he had hoped for and which he planned on using against her.

As the Widow glanced sideways to look for him, Peter slid across the floor to another corner of the room.

‘‘You wanna play a little game?’’ He echoed into the distance.

‘‘I wanna play a game,’’ he said when he sensed that Natasha was coming closer. He crawled up the wall, into the deep shadows.

‘‘It’s called the fox and the rabbit.’’

He could see the woman come closer, her gaze was fixated on the corner in which he hid, only she did not look up.

‘‘Who’s the fox and who’s the rabbit?’’

Just two more steps. One.

‘‘Let’s find out.’’

Peter jumped down onto Natasha’s neck, who was startled in an instant. They fell down to the floor and the woman quickly recovered, dragging Peter’s foot closer to her. Right as she was about to wrap the wire around his neck, Peter jabbed the needle into hers, injecting her with the serum. Her eyes went blank and her breathing quelled. With the last bit of her strength, she pushed Peter’s hand away and slammed the needle onto the concrete floor. Then, her eyes closed, and she fell onto the floor like a rag doll.

Peter immediately jumped up and felt her pulse, which was beating steadily as the serum started to do its work. He smiled in relief and grabbed Natasha’s hand. ‘‘I’m sorry for all of this, I hope this doesn’t screw up our sparring sessions. I really enjoy them.’’

He watched as the goo that dripped from the Widow’s mouth slowly started to dry up and the black veins turned into something more of a gray-ish color. He wished that he could just sit right here for the rest of the night and wait for her to wake up so he could give her a hug, but he knew that he couldn’t. The coffee and the muesli bars were not going to last a whole lot longer. Aside from that, he was growing more and more tired with the minute. If he had four more Avengers to face, he had to do it now, or else his chances of survival would decrease even more.

He gave Natasha’s hand one final squeeze before he stood up to leave. He flicked the lights back on to make sure that she wouldn’t wake up with a massive migraine and then left floor 55.

His web shooters were all the way up on floor 86. There was quite big of a chance that he wouldn’t even be able to make it there without having crossed the remaining four. Was it really worth it to get them? He had to at least try, no help would be able to come until the very last one of them had been eliminated. No, that sounded wrong. Like Peter had been killing all of them. Cured. Until the very last one of them had been cured.

It took Peter an embarrassingly long time to get to floor 62, where he sat down underneath the big, black letters. His breath was hitching in his throat, his movements were getting sloppy. The only thing he wished for was a nice bed with a warm blanket. He was already growing tired just thinking about it.

Fuck no, not gonna happen. Sleep was for the weak, fuck sleep. 

Peter didn’t have time to eat something, to rest for a little while. The only thing that could help him get back up on his feet in full action mode was an insane amount of adrenaline.

He must have said that out loud, since the universe just loves to fuck with him.

As if on cue, two silhouettes appeared on the top of the staircase, only fifteen feet away from Peter. He had seen those two silhouettes together before, just a couple of hours ago.

Maria and Tony.

Tony.

If he hadn’t been so blissfully aware of the danger that he was in, Peter would’ve burst out into tears right then and there. Tony was in the exact same state as Maria and all the others had been: black veins, red eyes, black goo dripping down his chin. In his hand he held a large kitchen knife, whereas Maria was only carrying a screwdriver. No matter what the weapon was, Peter knew that he was fucked either way, with the state that the two of them were in.

He didn’t know Maria very well, but he had seen her fight before. She wasn’t as skilled nor as graceful as Natasha, but she was still very dangerous. Tony, on the other hand, was dangerous in a different way. He didn’t really know how to fight with his fists, so he always fought with his mind. With any luck, all of Tony’s battle strategy and his insane ideas were gone along with his healthy state of mind.

Peter seemed to have the first positive thing happen to him all day: Tony was a lot of things at the moment, but he was definitely not as smart as he used to be. Normal Tony would use the large kitchen knife to his advantage, perhaps throw it at the boy with a surprising lot of skill. This version, however, was just swinging the thing around as if he were a little kid holding a large sword. Peter grinned. Perhaps this would be easier than expected.

As both Maria and Tony charged at him, Peter leapt into the air and threw himself onto the nearest wall. He then flipped around and managed to knock both Avengers down with a quick kick to the chest. He jumped back down and smacked Tony’s knife out of his hand. He ducked away from a new attack by Maria as he kicked the man’s chest once more to make sure that he would stay down for a couple more seconds.

Maria tried to smack the boy with her elbow as she planted her feet between his to make him fall down. He dragged her along the way and she landed right behind him. It was clear that the fall had taken her breath away for a second.

Peter felt his spidey sense kick in and he quickly turned around to punch Tony square in the nose. Right as the man fell back down, Peter jabbed the needle in his neck and injected the serum. Before Maria could jab the screwdriver in his back, Peter turned around and in a swift motion jabbed another needle into the woman’s neck.

He watched as the two Avengers fell down and their muscles got weak. Once he was certain that there was no immediate danger anymore, he broke down into tears.

‘‘I can’t do this anymore, I can’t fucking do this anymore.’’ He pulled his mask off his head and shot a glance towards Tony. His breath was hitching in his throat and tears were rolling down his eyes. The man lay unconscious, the man who had attacked him not even a minute ago. The man whom he considered to be a father figure. Peter barely even recognised him anymore.

‘‘I can’t do this.’’

Chapter Text

Peter’s knees buckled underneath his weight as his limbs trembled with every sob. His mask was stuck between his fingers, the fabric almost ripping by the pressure. His eyes were closed shut while tears made their way down his cheeks. His hands were shaking violently. 

He didn’t dare to cast the two bodies in front of him another glance. He didn’t want to see what pain he had caused, what drastic measures he’d had to take to keep himself alive. If it weren’t for the ever so small rise and fall in the chests of the two Avengers, he’d say they were dead. 

A sudden sting in his head made Peter hiss in pain. The headache came down on him like a tsunami; unexpected and devastating. He pressed his hands against his temples and leaned forward as he let out a deep grunt. Right when the quick headache seemed to come to an end, even if it had only lasted for about ten seconds, a loud beep rang in Peter’s ears. 

Peter had dealt with sensory overloads before. He had felt the headaches that had been given by sound, light and smell billions of times before, but never had it felt like this. His brain was being twisted from the inside out, as if a venomous snake had injected poison right into his bloodstream.

He couldn’t open his eyes yet, despite the stairwell being nearly completely empty. Everything was too loud, too bright, too annoying. Peter wanted to rip off his own ears if the ringing wouldn’t stop anytime soon.

He wasn’t sure how long he laid there, motionless. It could have been a couple seconds. It could have been minutes, perhaps even half an hour. But to Peter, it felt like days, months, years. Tears uncontrollably rolled down his cheeks, but he wasn’t making any noise as he cried. He was only praying for it all to stop soon, whatever it was that was happening.

Slowly, carefully, Peter peeked one eye open. Right in front of him was the body of Tony. Tony, who Peter had never seen get any second of sleep in his life, and yet, here he laid like he was never going to wake up again. The lights were too bright and the picture was too blurry, so Peter wasn’t able to see how the man’s chest moved up and down in quite a healthy rhythm, despite the situation he was in.

The boy took in a sharp breath at the sight and slowly crawled closer, no longer caring about the stabbing feeling in his head.

‘‘Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark, please. Please wake up, please.’’ Peter’s chin was starting to tremble, along with his bony fingers that reached for Tony’s arm. But no matter how much he pulled, the man refused to show a sign of life. ‘‘Come on, Mr. Stark, I need you. I need you. You have to wake up, please wake up.’’ For the first time, Peter allowed himself to let out a violent sob.

‘‘I can’t do this without you, Mr. Stark. Please. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t. I don’t want to anymore. I’m tired. Please, please. Just wake up.’’

No matter how many times Peter called out, no matter how roughly he was shaking his mentor’s arm, the man wouldn’t open his eyes. Just when Peter was about to cry out Tony’s name again, the stabbing pain in his head returned. It was quick and sudden and this time, a red light shone into his eyes. It was as if someone was flashing a uv-lamp right at him, but Peter knew better. The flashes were inside his own head, caused by the insanely painful headache.

It took a minute or two until he had fully calmed down again. The boy’s breathing way high up in his chest as he took deep gulps of air to stop himself from having a panic attack. The pain in his head had been so agonizing that for a second he had completely forgotten about his other injuries.

When he had fully started to feel like himself again, when the headache had stopped, Peter could fully feel the arrow wound and the third degree burn again, as if the pain had never even left in the first place. The boy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

‘‘Hello? Does anyone copy?’’ The voice came from some kind of device, something right in this room. Peter immediately perked up, despite the state he was in, searching for the voice. ‘‘Stark, do you copy?’’ Peter recognised that voice. He had heard it a million times during detention.

Steve.

‘‘Tony, can you hear me?’’ It took Peter a couple of seconds until he realized that the sound was coming from Tony’s earpiece, which had dropped during the fight. Despite all technical devices being shut off during the lockdown protocol, the intercoms were far from unserviceable. 

Stumbling over his own feet, Peter practically ran towards the intercom and put it in his ear, tapping it to make sure it worked. ‘‘Mr. Rogers? Mr. Rogers is that you?’’ Hope blossomed in Peter’s chest once he heard the Captain’s reply.

‘‘Yes, this is Steve. Peter?’’

The boy could only smile in relief. ‘‘Yeah it’s me! Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re ok! How’s Clint doing?’’

‘‘Not too bad, thank you for asking,’’ a new voice came through. Another relieved breath escaped Peter’s lips. Steve grunted in annoyance. ‘‘No, Clint. You’re far from fine. You definitely suffered a serious concussion. I don’t even know how that happened, but your shirt is now wrapped around your forehead. Aren’t you cold?’’

Though Peter knew that it wasn’t his fault, that it all had to be done, tears of regret started to well up in his eyes. The two men sounded so normal, so calm. As if they had always been that way, as if they hadn’t completely lost control of their minds just a couple moments earlier. Peter’s hand started to shake. He decided to hide it in his pocket.

There was a small conversation taking place on the other end of the line about Clint being shirtless and freezing. Peter barely even managed to pay attention, until Steve pulled him back into reality.

‘‘Wait, kid, why are you wearing Tony’s earpiece? You shouldn’t even be inside the tower.’’ Even safely secured inside the pocket of his pants, Peter’s hand was starting to shake so badly that even the boy himself couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there. Slowly, Peter’s nails started to dig into his skin. It didn’t matter that it hurt.

‘‘That’s sort of a long story. I was trapped inside when it all happened.’’ There wasn’t anything more that Peter wanted to say, that he needed to say. If anything, he wanted to avoid any form of conversation about this for the rest of his life, wait for Tony to wake up and then fall asleep in his aunt’s arms when he got home. That was all he was asking for, was it really that much?

‘‘Kid, what the hell?! Are you alright, what happened? Shit, Clint, be careful damn it!’’ Steve’s concern weeped through the phone as some background noise made evident that Clint stood up way too fast out of shock.

‘‘Jesus Captain, you sure got over the entire ‘language’ thing, didn’t you?’’ Peter tried to smirk, though he couldn’t even fool himself. Steve noticed. ‘‘Peter, you have to be honest with us. Are you injured?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘Are you safe?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Were you attacked by any of us?’’

‘‘No.’’

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Peter slowly lowered himself to the floor, as far away from Tony and Maria as he could. He pushed his knees to his chest and wrapped his one good arm around them. Everything hurt.

‘‘All your answers were lies, weren’t they?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

Another moment of silence followed and though he was trying to do it as quietly as he could, Peter knew that the two men could hear him cry through the earpiece. ‘‘Peter, we saw the needles on the floor and we have injuries that could only have been caused by a fight. Did we… encounter… within the last few hours?’’

At first Peter simply nodded until he finally managed to get out any other noise. ‘‘Yeah, yeah we’ve crossed paths. I’m alright, though.’’

Peter knew Steve quite well, despite not having had any deep conversations with the man. But the way he walked, talked and behaved himself in front of others, especially the ones he cared about, was a pattern that Peter had quickly picked up on weeks after meeting the guy. One thing he knew for certain was that Steve would never press on about possible trauma or anything else around those edges. Steve would leave it alone for now, despite how badly he might have wanted to pry. 

‘‘I figure those needles had a cure in them, and that’s how we got back to our normal selves?’’

‘‘Steve, buddy,’’ Clint intervened, ‘‘I don’t know what you classify as ‘normal’, but this ain’t it. Look at our eyes, man! We’re spitting out some gooey black shit every five seconds!’’

‘‘That’ll go away in a couple of hours. Or at least, according to the scientists,’’ Peter replied, glad for the (somewhat) change of topic.

‘‘So you didn’t come up with this yourself?’’

‘‘No, I created it, but the scientists of SHIELD came up with the formula. You have no idea how many people there are outside, trying to figure out a way to fix you all.’’

‘‘Well, whatever it is they’re doing, it’s working. Steve and I are fine now.’’

‘‘Clint…’’ Steve sighed softly. Even though Peter couldn’t see the two, he knew that they were having a silent conversation with their eyes. He had seen that happen a lot with the Avengers, as if they could communicate better with simple looks than with deep words. ‘‘Oh, shit,’’ Clint gasped, finally catching up on what was going on. ‘‘You’re the plan, aren’t you, kid?’’

Peter didn’t even have to say anything to confirm the archer’s suspicions. The man cursed something under his breath out of anger. ‘‘How could they leave a kid in charge of dealing with all of this? I get that he’s an Avenger and all, but he’s a kid still! Why is he expected to take up on the entire team? Can’t they just send someone else in?’’

‘‘If they sent anyone else in, you would all be free to escape. There are flaws in the system. One minor breach shuts the entire thing down,’’ Peter replied as he tried to keep his cool.

He had known for a while that it was truly fucked up that the fate of the entirty of New York had been put into his hands while he barely even managed to stay alive on his own, but there hadn’t been any other solution. He trusted Bruce and his team on their word when they said this was the only way. But now that two of the Avengers confirmed that something was terribly wrong about this logic - two of the people who had tried to kill him mere hours ago - Peter realized that he was indeed angry too. His fear and pain had corrupted that anger and disguised it as something else, but now, he knew.

‘‘Still, Pete. Trauma is not something to take lightly.’’

‘‘Let’s not talk about trauma right now,’’ Steve intervened. ‘‘We can discuss the ridiculousness of this logic later. Right now, we have to get on the same page about everything. Tell us Peter, who are left?’’

‘‘I cured you guys about forty-five minutes ago. You woke up forty minutes after that, which means that Natasha will be back on her feet in about ten minutes. I faced Tony and Maria not that long ago, I’m with them in the stairwell right now on the 62nd floor. Natasha is on the 55th. Only Sam and Bucky are left.’’

Steve hummed in understanding. When he spoke, there was a hint of a smile in his tone. ‘‘So you got five out of seven down? I can’t say I’m not impressed, Peter, but there is no possible way that you managed to get out of all those fights without getting injured. Be honest with us, kid. Are you ok?’’

Peter sighed deeply and felt his heart sink even lower into the ground. His injuries were screaming at him, crying out for help and proper medical care, but Peter had more important things on his mind. He also had some feelings to spare.

‘‘I have a burn wound on my left forearm and another injury to my collarbone and shoulder. Both are quite manageable, no need to worry. Though I did have this sudden migraine that just comes and goes, I don’t know what that was about. Maybe I’ve suffered a concussion.’’

‘‘Wait… What- what do you mean ‘migraine that comes and goes?’ As in a… stabbing feeling?’’ Clint sounded genuinely concerned, along with Steve, who made a weird gasping noise that he desperately tried to hide. ‘‘Yes…’’ Peter hesitantly answered. Steve continued the investigation.

‘‘Does every little thing hurt? Sound, light, smells? Like a sensory overload?’’

‘‘Yes, but I don’t understand-’’

‘‘Did it get so bad that you wanted to rip your ears off? Scratch your eyes out?’’

‘‘Mr. Rogers, you’re scaring me. How do you know all this?’’

‘‘Did you see red flashes?’’

‘‘I… yes. Yes, I did see those. Why?’’

‘‘Oh, God. Kid.’’ There was some sound of struggle in the background. Both men started to curse softly as their breathing quickened. Suddenly, it all became clear to Peter too. ‘‘No, please don’t tell me-’’

‘‘Kid, you have to get away from Tony and Maria. Get rid of any possible weapons and lock yourself in a room. Leave the needles with the cure with Tony; Steve and I will come and get them. For now, make sure that you are locked in and safe. And for the love of God, don’t come near anything sharp.’’

-----~-----

Tony awoke with a gnawing feeling in his stomach. He was aware of the insane migraine and the pain around his sternum, but that wasn’t the first thing that he noticed. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

‘‘Jesus Christ,’’ someone mumbled from right beside him. Maria slowly stood up with a surprising amount of grace, despite the state her body was in. Deep, gray veins were covering her face and her eyes had a hint of redness in them. Black blood was dripping down her nose and she looked utterly exhausted. Now that he thought of it, Tony was feeling like absolute shit as well.

‘‘How are you feeling?’’ Maria asked as she helped him sit more upright. Tony tried to shrug nonchalantly, but the feeling of dread was becoming increasingly worse. He could barely even bring himself to lift his shoulders. ‘‘Like absolute shit.’’

‘‘Well, you’re looking the part.’’

Tony gasped at the remark. ‘‘Excuse me? Have you even looked in the mirror?’’

Maria smirked and folded her arms over one another. ‘‘It doesn’t matter what I look like, because it can’t possibly be a lot worse than you.’’

Before Tony could begin to make another comment on the terrifying sight of Maria, he was cut off by one of her fingers being lifted into the air to shut him up. ‘‘Shh! Listen.’’ She put one of her fingers against her earpiece -which he only now realized was missing on his part. ‘‘Yes, we’re up. Tony and I are fine. How are you guys doing? Do you have any idea how the gas wore off? Alright. The 62nd. Hurry.’’ 

The woman sighed deeply and pulled her finger away from the earpiece. Tony raised his eyebrows in a way that indicated he wanted to know what was going on. ‘‘Steve and Clint are awake too. Natasha is on her way here with them, said they’ll explain it all once they get here.’’

Tony turned around to pace the floor anxiously. ‘‘So we have no idea why the gas wore off? If the Hydra agent has been caught?’’ Once he wanted to list off the third and possibly the most important question, his heart dropped. Peter.

‘‘Fuck! Do they know if Peter’s ok? Did he make it out? Is he safe?’’ Maria held up her hands in defense and placed them on the hero’s shoulders. ‘‘Stark, calm your shit! I know just as much as you do. We’ll have to wait.’’

Waiting for the three other Avengers to arrive seemed to take hundreds of years. By the time they arrived up the stairs, each one of them looking even worse than the other, Tony had almost gritted his teeth to dust. It was Clint who caught his eye first.

‘‘Jesus Christ man, what the hell happened to you?’’ He asked as he examined the shirtless man basically crawling up the stairs, black blood dripping from the bandaging around his head. Clint simply shrugged and sighed deeply as he reached for his obvious concussion.

‘‘I don’t even know, you should ask the kid.’’

For the second time within ten minutes, Tony’s heart sank to his feet. ‘‘Peter! What the fuck happened to Peter? What do you mean, ‘I should ask him’? Did he not make it out on time?’’

Natasha stepped forward and grabbed the billionaire by the shoulders with a firm grip to ground him. ‘‘Calm down. We won’t be getting anywhere if you continue to freak out like this.’’

‘‘How can you all be this calm when we don’t even know whether Peter is still alive or not?! I don’t know if you remember this, but there were seven of us in that room and if I’m counting correctly: we’re still missing two! Anyone noticed that Sam and Barnes are still not around?’’ Tony yelled, his hands reaching for his head to pull at his hair. The nervous tic had almost caused him to go bald a few years ago, which made him quit for a while, but whenever it had something to do with Peter, Tony felt like he was going gray and losing hair all over again.

Natasha looked the man deep in the eye to secure him of Peter’s safety before she spoke. ‘‘I know this because Peter is the one who cured us all. He knows what he’s doing. We just have to get to him and then he’s completely safe. Everything will be fine, Stark.’’

For a second - just a second - Tony felt like everything would indeed be alright. That was until he saw the looks on Steve’s and Clint’s faces; the two men almost seemed guilty and definitely knew something that the others didn’t. Tony took a step closer and pointed an accusing finger in their faces. ‘‘What is it? What aren’t you telling us?’’

‘‘We are not exactly sure what happened and we’re not certain whether we have it right or not,’’ Clint defended with an exhausted expression on his face. ‘‘I hope we were wrong about it.’’

‘‘Wrong about what? What happened? Tell me!’’ Even the non-superpowered people in the room could hear the fastness of Tony’s heartbeat. Steve’s expression hardened and he dragged his hand down his face to leave it resting on his chin. He looked utterly exhausted and devastated, and nothing like the regular Steve. ‘‘Do you remember how we felt before we lost our minds? The migraines, sensory overloads?’’

Natasha nodded as she folded her arms. ‘‘Stabbing feeling in our heads, sudden fits of anger, wanting to claw our own eyes out.’’

‘‘Red flashes, loud ringing,’’ Maria finished off with a whisper. Steve gave the group a look that should have said it all, but none of them wanted to believe it. None of them wanted it to be true. So they waited in anticipation for his answer.

‘‘Right after we woke up, Clint and I tried to contact you guys. You were still knocked out, but Peter heard and took your earpiece. Then he told us about what he had been… experiencing… for the last couple minutes.’’ Steve looked around the group again and could only bow his head when everyone started to put the pieces together. 

‘‘Oh, God… please don’t tell me-’’ Natasha whispered.

‘‘He was feeling the exact same thing. Migraines, sensory overloads… the red flashes…’’

Suddenly, Tony’s knees buckled from underneath him. He sank into a tiny ball and aggressively started to pull his hair. His shoulders shook with every heaving breath he took. ‘‘I-it can’t- it can’t b-be. He wasn’t- he wasn’t even there!’’ He yelled, looking up at the group through teary eyes. Natasha had kneeled down next to him and put her arm around his back while she rubbed soothing circles.

‘‘Stark’s right, how could he have been infected? The gas was gone within minutes.’’

Clint shrugged and leaned against the nearest wall to steady himself. ‘‘I don’t know, maybe through the ventilation system? For all we know, it’s all around us. That would explain why it took him nine hours before he started to get the symptoms.’’

Tony shook his head in confusion. ‘‘No, locking the vents was one of the first things I did when the bomb was dropped. That can’t be it.’’

‘‘Besides, that wouldn’t explain why Peter’s symptoms were almost just as sudden and quick as ours,’’ Steve continued. ‘‘If it took him nine hours, the symptoms wouldn’t be there within the blink of an eye. It would go a lot more gradually.’’

‘‘He’s just a kid,’’ Tony put forth while he stared off into the distance. ‘‘He’s just a fucking kid, and yet all of SHIELD expected him to defeat us while he got chased and almost murdered by us. How could they do that, h-how could they do that to my kid?’’

Tony Stark had a heart. Many people knew that, especially if they were close to him. it may have been cold and hidden most of the time, but everyone knew that he cared. He loved Pepper, he was more himself and more loose around her. He joked a lot more around his teammates, but not to disguise himself as a nonchalant guy who could do anything he wanted. After a while, he had started to open up more and joke around with his team because he wanted to, not because he felt like he had to to keep up his facade. Every person that he shared a bond with made him a bit better every day.

The one who did that the most: Peter Parker.

It was quite obvious from the beginning that Tony had a soft spot for the kid that he didn’t have for any other person inside or outside of the tower. He smiled more around him, cared more about his physical and mental health and even seemed to care more for the kid than he did for anyone else. The Avengers and Pepper liked to joke around that he was turning into a father, which Tony consistently pushed aside with a scoff and a dismissive wave of his hand. But deep down, he knew. He knew that Peter was his kid. No one else needed to know. Not even Peter.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, it felt good to finally say it out loud. 

‘‘Tones, if it makes you feel any better, there was no other way,’’ Clint softly stated, as if that would help the circumstances in the slightest.

‘‘That’s the whole point. Peter knew that too, that he was the only option. That everything depended on him while he had to fight the people he loves. Listen, I know Peter. No matter how proud he is or how much he tries to tell us that he’s fine, he’s not. This will eat him up inside. If this doesn’t kill him, then the upcoming trauma will.’’ Tony let out a low grumble and clenched his fists.

‘‘I’m gonna kill Fury after this.’’

‘‘Fury’s not here, he’s in space.’’

‘‘Another reason to kill him.’’

‘‘Let’s not make any haste decisions or waste time on thinking about ‘what if’ or ‘this is awful’. We need to find Peter and inject the serum.’’ Maria was standing tall as she grabbed the needles with the cure. ‘‘We also shouldn’t forget that Sam and Bucky are also still out there. They need to be cured as well.’’

‘‘Well, we have the serum, so what are we waiting for?’’ Tony snapped as he stood up. Steve simply raised his brow. ‘‘A battle strategy, perhaps. Weapons.’’

‘‘Alright, here’s a strategy: we jab the needles into their necks.’’

‘‘That’s not how this is going to go down, Stark.’’

‘‘Why not? It’s not like we can get to our weapons anyway, we locked them all up.’’

‘‘Not all of them.’’ The group turned around to look at Natasha, who had a disturbed expression on her face. Apparently, she sat down on the floor at some point during the conversation. ‘‘When I came to, there was a gun on the floor. One of mine. All the bullets had been fired.’’ She looked back up at the group, regret evident all over her features. ‘‘When I fought with Peter, I shot at him. For all I know, he got hit.’’

‘‘He didn’t. He would’ve told us,’’ Clint reassured as he wrapped his arms around Natasha’s shoulders. The woman simply shook her head. ‘‘That’s not the point. I wasn’t quick enough to hide all of my weapons. I nearly killed him.’’

‘‘We all did,’’ Maria replied. She kneeled down in front of Natasha and cupped her face with her hands. ‘‘Don’t blame yourself for this, it wasn’t you. You did all you could. Besides, you have billions of weapons hidden all over this tower. It’s a miracle that you managed to lock away even half of them.’’

Maria smiled softly and pushed a stray lock of hair back behind Natasha’s ear. ‘‘It’s not your fault, alright? You’re not to blame here.’’

Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that Natasha didn’t believe a single word, no matter how much she wanted to. Nevertheless, she smiled back at the sweet words and let the other woman pull her back up on her feet. A soft spark of anger was blossoming inside Tony’s chest. No matter how much empathy he felt for the spy and no matter how much he tried to tell himself that it wasn’t her - that he had attacked Peter as well - he felt some kind of resentment for her after her confession. She had shot at his kid repeatedly. Forgiveness was not an easy matter.

‘‘Alright, this kind of establishes the first phase of the plan, right?’’ Clint offered with his hands spread out, as if he had come up with some big revelation. When the rest of the group simply furrowed their brows at him, he continued. ‘‘Nat still has a lot of weapons all over the place. I know I do too, because one of my spare bows was with me and I had a baton. We just have to gather those first.’’

‘‘What? So we can beat the shit out of a sixteen-year-old?’’ Tony hissed through his teeth.

‘‘No, so we can defend ourselves. May I remind you that the kid has superpowers and that there are still two others roaming around the place? They won’t stop for anything until we save them. If they get bruised while that happens, then that’s just the way it’s supposed to go. We don’t have a lot of other options here.’’

‘‘So what do we do after we’ve gathered weapons? I think two per person would be more than enough,’’ Maria intervened, a thoughtful hand resting on her chin. ‘‘I mean do we just… sneak up on them or something?’’

‘‘It’s more likely that they’ll sneak up on us,’’ said Steve. ‘‘Peter can crawl on the ceiling and has insanely light feet. I’ve never heard him enter a room before. Buck is the same way: a trained assassin never makes any noise when walking. You two should know that, out of all people.’’ He gestured to Clint and Natasha, who both nodded with a knowing expression on their faces.

‘‘Alright, if we can’t sneak up on them, then we’ll just have to be prepared for anything that is to come. I suggest we try to pin them down and then inject the serum.’’

‘‘Well, since no one is coming with any other bright ideas, I think that might be best as well,’’ Clint remarked.

‘‘So, find weapons and then go look for Bucky, Sam and Peter as a group?’’ Natasha asked, stretching her shoulders. Steve warily shook his head. ‘‘Last time we talked to Peter, he mentioned that he was injured. He is a priority right now, so it’s best if we go look for him in split up teams.’’

‘‘I don’t know, man,’’ Clint sighed, ‘‘it never ever goes well when the group splits up. And all this taking place around Halloween and it’s literally right after midnight right now -- the universe is telling us to stick together.’’

‘‘Well, luckily for you, this isn’t some horror movie. This is just our own, very real nightmare. You’ll have to deal with it, birdbrain.’’ With that, Tony clapped his hands together. ‘‘Let’s get started.’’

‘‘To save your kid,’’ Natasha smirked.

‘‘He’s not my kid.’’

‘‘You said that he was five minutes ago and I will never let you forget that.’’

-----~-----

They decided to split up into two teams: Steve and Maria would take all of the even floors, Natasha, Tony and Clint would search through all the uneven floors. Clint’s head injury had given him a serious concussion - something that anyone who laid eyes on him noticed. Though he had tried to hide it as much as he could to just get on with the mission, it was quite obvious that he was struggling with simple tasks that involved coordination of his eyes and reflexes. With him being almost completely deaf, it was basically a death sentence.

Clint had tried to convince the team that he could still shoot quite well by shooting directly into an apple that Maria threw into the air. Everyone had reluctantly agreed for him to come along, though Natasha and Tony would never leave the man out of their sight. 

Even with the short time that they had, Tony managed to re-create the serum into a gas bomb: a very ironic thing now that he thought of it. When battling Sam, it would not be that difficult to get the serum into his neck, but with Bucky and Peter, who both had insane amounts of superstrength, that task would be a lot harder.

Sadly, the team was running out of time so Stark only managed to create one gas bomb, which he had safely placed inside his pocket. Steve and Maria had the other two needles with them and Tony prayed to dear God that it had been a wise decision split up. He would find out soon enough.

Natasha had insisted on having Clint lean onto her when they walked up the stairs, which was a surprisingly difficult task. The man had refused, but had given in after merely twenty steps, leaning onto the widow with exhaustion written all over his features.

The first five floors: nothing. The second five: also nothing, according to Steve.

‘‘We are now nearing floor seventy-three. Are you sure nothing has been found yet? It cannot be true that all the previous ones were empty,’’ Natasha called out over the comms, gun ready in hand. 

‘‘What if Sam and Buck were hiding on the floors below us?’’ Maria offered. The idea alone sent shivers down Tony’s spine. He shook his head before he spoke. ‘‘No, Peter would have crossed them if they had been down there. He passed all the possible floors underneath us where they could be hiding.’’

‘‘But what about Peter? He could have walked down,’’ Natasha came in, but Steve cut her off right away. ‘‘He wouldn’t. Clint and I gave him clear instructions that he had to get away from Tony and Maria, so he would never risk going anywhere near the rest of us if he knew we were about to wake up.’’

‘‘Come on, it still can’t be possible that they are all hiding in the top floors.’’

‘‘If you were scared and hurt, would you hide in a ditzy office or the comfort of your own home?’’ Once Steve came with this reply, it all made sense to Tony. Of course they would go somewhere that was familiar. The common rooms, the penthouse or the gym; all were places where they knew the way and felt comfortable. 

‘‘So, the higher we go, the bigger the chance that cross one?’’

‘‘Yup.’’

As if on queue, a loud thud was heard through the comms, which was followed by a deep growl. ‘‘Oh, fuck, we found Sam! Floor seventy-four!’’ Maria yelled through heaving breaths. Tony turned around to look at Natasha and Clint. ‘‘Should we help them?’’

‘‘We haven’t cleared out this floor yet,’’ Clint hesitated. ‘‘That will have to wait,’’ Natasha insisted. ‘‘If Bucky or Peter knows we’re here, they’ll come after us.’’ With that, she turned around and sprinted off back into the stairwell. Tony and Clint followed suit, not a single thought on their minds.

Once they arrived at the scène, Sam had pinned Maria to the wall with one of Captain America’s shields. Fuck, the weapons should have been hidden better.

Steve managed to stop him right in time as he pulled Sam back by his collar, but he was quickly greeted by a hit of his own shield right to the face. Natasha jumped right into the fight to help the two heroes out as Tony searched his pockets. They were never going to be able to get a needle into his neck if Sam had the shield to protect him. 

The gas bomb rolled around between Tony’s fingers in the brief moment of doubt, but when he saw Sam lift the shield to slam it right into Maria’s chest, he pulled the pin and threw the bomb. ‘‘Get down!’’ He screamed right before the thing went off. The other three Avengers covered their mouths with their sleeves as they stumbled out of the way. Sam, however, did not have as much luck. As soon as the gas made contact with his lungs, he bent over in a raging fit of coughing before collapsing all together.

When it was finally clear that the Falcon was completely down, they all got a little bit closer. Sam possibly looked the worst of them all: his veins were dark black, there was no white left in his eyes and black goo was dripping from his nose and mouth. Tony almost wanted to declare the man’s death right then and there, but that was until he remembered that at one point during the night, they had all looked like this until they had been cured. Instinctively, he wiped the bottom of his lip with his sleeve.

‘‘You four go, I’ll stay here with him.’’ Clint. He was looking even worse than he had before. His eyes were almost completely unfocussed and he had a hard time walking in a straight line towards Sam. ‘‘I’m not of a lot of use right now, so you huddle along. I’ll watch him.’’

‘‘Are you sure?’’ Steve asked, his eyebrows raised high into the air. Clint nodded. ‘‘Just go, I’m only holding you back.’’

And with that, the four of them left in search of Bucky and Peter.

-----~-----

Peter’s head was spinning a thousand miles per hour. It felt as though someone had taken a screwdriver and rearranged all of the wires in his head to make everything work a million times faster.

Peter remembered the first time he woke up after he had gained his powers. He had hid himself underneath his blanket with his hands covering his ears and his eyes clenched shut. He was suddenly aware of everything and it hurt the deepest parts of his brain. He could suddenly hear a fly walking on the wall, he could smell what the people were eating two blocks away and it seemed as if every atom in the air was suddenly clear as day to him. The feeling had made him want to die.

This, however, was a million times worse.

Where he had been completely aware of his surroundings before - a bit too much, if you asked him -, he was now not aware at all. Every single little thing that only slightly triggered one of his senses felt like a knife was twisting inside his head.

He just wanted it to stop he wanted it all to stop-

In a flash of anger, he punched the iron door of the supply closet. The loud bang echoed throughout the entire building, but Peter barely flinched when he felt his knuckles tear open at the impact. For a second, just a second, the ringing stopped. The pain stopped. All that he felt was anger, and he wanted more of it.

So, he punched a second time. The door immediately sprung out of its hinges and fell onto the floor with another loud bang. Peter stood in the middle of the doorway as the ringing and the pain in his head returned once again. He felt something rise within his blood, almost like a virus.

Even though he’d had a moment of peace, a moment of rage, the knife that was twisting inside his brain came back with even more force this time. The lights were once again too bright and the sounds were once again too loud.

One sound that Peter could hear very clearly was breathing. It was unsteady and heaving, much like his own. Whoever it was that he could hear; they understood him. They were going through the same pain.

Peter looked down at his hands when he felt an uneasy sensation rise within them. He took a small step back in shock. All of the veins on his arms and hands had turned black within a matter of minutes.

For a moment, Peter felt his consciousness come back. This wasn’t good, this wasn’t good at all. He needed to get to the cure, he had to go back and grab it.

No, he couldn’t. Tony and Maria were there. He would risk their lives.

Peter stumbled and leaned back against a wall as another shot of pain surged through his veins, right back into his head. It wouldn’t be long until he was fully gone, until there was no turning back from his rage-filled self. 

‘‘So, we’ve got two needles left?’’ A voice in the distance. A familiar voice.

‘‘Yes. Sorry for the bomb, but he was about to kill you-’’

‘‘It’s ok. But… will this be enough to cure Bucky? And Peter?’’ Oh, hey, his name was Peter.

‘‘It must be, we just have to be careful about this. We don’t want to hurt him, we just want our Peter back.’’

Suddenly, Peter understood. Those were his teammates, his family. They wanted to save him from turning into some killer robot. And the other person, the one who breathed, must have been Bucky. There was now only one thing left on Peter’s mind: get to Bucky and save him. He had to be saved. They both needed to be saved.

Another shot of pain soared through his body and Peter fell down onto the ground, letting a low growl escape his lips when he made contact with the concrete floor.

And for the second time that day, he was gone.

What had first seemed to be an irritated version of himself with fits of rage that were caused by the state his body was in, now turned out to be the only version that was behind the steering wheel: the version that wanted nothing but to act on the rage. On the bloodlust. He wanted to kill.

It didn’t matter who. It didn’t matter if it was one of his. It didn’t matter if it was an ally. He wanted to kill.

So, he searched for the very first living thing that he could come across. Even through the dark black eyes, black blood and unnatural veins Peter could still recognise Bucky right in front of him. Except the love for him was gone. Any feeling for him was gone. All Peter wanted to do was act in a fit of rage if that could just stop his misery if that could just stop everything if everything could just stop-

Bucky stood in front of him, expressionless. His eyes were sunken deep into his head and his body was heaving with every breath he took. His left arm was gone. It was obvious that the man was experiencing the exact same pain as Peter and for just a second, Peter’s anger stopped.

And so he stared back.

They must have stood there for a good ten minutes, just staring at one another. The loud ringing in his ears and the sudden migraines were still there, but Peter wasn’t feeling as tortured by it as he had before. He was getting used to it. He was accepting his fate, just like Bucky had.

Bucky, who was still staring at him. Just staring.

There was no reason for either of them to move, so they didn’t. That was until multiple footsteps were heard inside the stairwell. Both Bucky and Peter turned their heads towards the noise at the same time and looked back at each other to have a silent conversation. 

Whoever it was. Whatever it was. It had to be killed.

The fight that followed had passed within a blur. There were screams all around him, calling his name and trying to pin him down on the ground, but Peter didn’t let them. He crawled on the walls, flipped through the air and tried to tear each and every single one of them apart with his bare hands.

Bucky was on his side, attempting to kill the attackers left and right, even though he was missing an arm. They seemed to be getting the upper hand in the fight, which gave Peter even more strength. He felt his flesh tearing apart at his wounds but he didn’t care. The red flashes made him want to see blood.

The woman with red hair - Natasha, he remembered - backed away from him as he leapt forward to grab her by the neck. They both fell down to the ground, and Peter pinned the woman down to prevent her from getting up. Within milliseconds, he had grabbed a knife from her belt and held it up into the air to stab her in the eye. She moved her head to the side quickly, getting away with a mere cut on the side of her face.

When he tried to aim for her eyes again, he was dragged off by a pair of strong arms. Peter threw his head back to smack the attacker in the nose and kicked them down with a swift turn in the air. He grabbed a tighter hold of the knife and without looking where he aimed, stabbed the person with such force that it sliced right through the armor they were wearing. He twisted it once and then pulled it right out, feeling some sort of animalistic pleasure in the sound of pain that escaped the person’s lips.

‘‘Steve!’’ Someone screamed. Oh, right. It was Steve. Steve, who was now lying on the floor with a pool of blood forming around him. A pool of blood that Peter had created.

Shit, he had done this. It was all completely his fault. Peter remembered. He wanted to get to Tony, hide in his arms and beg for him to fix everything. He wanted to save Bucky from his barbaric self and stop everyone from killing each other. He wanted to get to Sam and cure the man so he could then annoy the shit out of him again. He wanted his family back.

A sharp pain twisted inside his head. The knife was back again and it was stabbing him a thousand times worse than it had before. The loud ring made his ears bleed and the shocks of pain sent jolts up and down his spine that made his knees buckle from underneath him.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Bucky charge at Tony with such rage that made the boy realize the man wasn’t going to survive this. His eyes grew wider and before he knew it, he jumped back up again and grabbed Bucky’s face to slam it into the concrete wall. A crack was heard, a spatter of black blood ended up on the wall and then there was nothing but silence. Bucky’s limp form fell down to the floor as everyone’s eyes followed.

Peter looked up at the group of four, his chest rising and falling with such speed that he was afraid his lungs were going to burst. All the pain in his head and the raw energy in his body made him want to attack them and rip out their jugular veins, but Peter knew that his first instinct had been to protect his mentor. Protect, not attack.

‘‘Kid?’’ Tony asked carefully, as if he was trying to soothe a startled deer. The boy could barely place the voice as he was already having a hard time placing his own emotions and instincts. ‘‘Buddy, are you there?’’

Suddenly, all the windows that looked out over the city broke as dozens of armed soldiers came rushing in. Flashlights were burning Peter’s eyes and laser dots covered almost every inch of his chest. 

The last thing he could recall was someone screaming his name as a bullet got fired and everything turned into darkness.

-----~-----

For the first time within many lengthy hours, Peter felt beams of sunlight bathe onto his skin. The soothing noise of people having small conversations outside of the room he was in made him want to slip deeper into the comfortable circumstances. A soft beeping noise was steadily playing on his left. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in forever.

His eyelids were heavy and almost impossible to open. He tried to blink, but ended up squeezing his eyes even more shut. Slowly, his fingers started to twitch. 

‘‘I see you’ve started to wake up?’’ A familiar voice proclaimed from somewhere in the room. There was a hint of a smile within the words, and when Peter finally had the strength to open his eyes, he looked directly at the bright smile of Helen Cho, in doctor’s coat and all.

‘‘There he is,’’ she said in a sing-songy voice. ‘‘It took you long enough. We figured you’d be back up on your feet after an hour, once the serum worked, but apparently your body needed much more time to regain strength.’’

Peter felt his eyebrows slowly knit together as he started to remember all the events of the past couple of hours. The running, the fighting, the pain, the attacks, the bullet.

‘‘Someone shot me,’’ he softly said, and he was immediately startled by the raspiness of his own voice. Helen’s expression softened with sympathy. ‘‘It wasn’t a real bullet, if it makes you feel any better. You will be feeling the spot where it hit you. Luckily for you, it’ll be healed within a day or two with you metabolism.’’

‘‘Why did someone shoot me?’’

Helen put down her clipboard with paperwork and went to sit down on the foot end of the hospital bed. She sighed deeply and placed a warm hand on Peter’s knee. ‘‘Do you remember what happened before you got shot? About how you… changed?’’ She was careful with her words, almost as if she wanted to say something else at first.

Peter’s brow dug even further into his skin as he shook his head. ‘‘You do remember why you were running from the Avengers, right?’’

The boy nodded hesitantly, swallowing dry spit before he answered. ‘‘Black veins, black blood. They wanted to kill me because of the gas.’’ Helen’s grip on his knee tightened a bit. ‘‘Exactly. When you encountered Clint the second time and you received the arrow injury, some of his blood dripped down on you and mixed together with the wound. It took three hours before it started to take effect, but you turned into one of them. Look at your hands, kid.’’

Peter did as he was instructed and felt vomit rise to his throat at the sight of gray-ish veins, which had obviously been black mere hours before. Realization started to dawn upon him. ‘‘So… I attacked the Avengers?’’

Helen didn’t even need to answer. A series of memories flashed through his mind and showed him how he nearly killed every single one of his teammates. How he got a hold of his mind again when he realized what he was doing and how he possibly murdered Bucky in cold blood. The soft, steady beeping on his left side started to speed up, along with his heartbeat.

‘‘Oh my God, oh my God please just- please, tell me where they are I need to see them now-’’

Despite Peter having superstrength, he was no match to Helen’s firm hands pushing him back down onto the bed when he tried to get up. She put her right hand on his chest and started to breathe very loudly to help him calm down again.

‘‘It’s alright, it’s ok. They are all fine, I promise. You are by far the worst of them. All of ‘em are just bruised, nothing worse than some cuts. Bucky has a head injury but only has a headache from it. Clint’s the only one who has a concussion.’’

‘‘But Steve, what about Steve?’’ A flashing memory of him twisting the knife inside of Steve’s body tightened the pressure on Peter’s chest even more. ‘‘He’s alright,’’ Helen replied. ‘‘You didn’t stab him anywhere vital, it was just his shoulder. Yes, it might take a while for it to heal completely, but that won’t be any longer than four to five days. He’s a superhuman too, remember?’’

Peter blinked into space for a couple of seconds. ‘‘So, they are all ok?’’ A hum of acknowledgement. ‘‘And none of them have to be in the medical wing?’’

‘‘Clint is in another room on forced bedrest, but he’ll be woken up in ten minutes because of his concussion. Aside from that, everyone was free to go after the checkup.’’

‘‘So there’s no danger of the gas anymore? No sudden changes or violent urges?’’ Helen shook her head with an expression that could only be marked as relief. ‘‘No, not anymore. Don’t forget that there are over a hundred scientists around the place right now, Peter. If there was a breath anywhere, they’d notice.’’

A fond smile formed itself around Peter’s lips as he thought of the people in the background during his phone calls with Helen and Bruce. Like a sitcom audience, they provided a sense of comfort. ‘‘Oh, yeah. I remember them.’’

There was a moment of silence between the two in which Peter carefully tried to move his arms around again to check his injuries. The burn on his forearm had already started to scar and the arrow wound had been neatly stitched up, which would probably take around two days to heal. One thought that was hissing in the back of his mind was that he would forever be reminded of what happened by the scarring on his body. By his family. It didn’t matter, he wanted to see them.

‘‘Can you get Mr. Stark for me? Or someone else? I want to see them.’’

Helen laughed for a moment before she stood up. ‘‘Are you kidding? Yes, I can get Stark in here. He was screaming outside your door along with your aunt for hours about how they wanted to see you. They both stormed off with the most Italian anger I have ever seen when they were denied. I’m surprised you didn’t wake up any sooner, they were really pissed.’’

Peter chuckled at the thought and slowly started to sit more upright as Helen went into the hallway to get his mentor.

Everything would be alright again.

Chapter Text

Everything felt brighter than it ever had before. Not the bad kind of bright, like a sensory overload or a constant feeling of murderous tendencies that are running through your veins, but a good kind of bright. A happy bright. The feeling that no one other than Peter’s aunt May could create when she embraced the boy and rocked him back and forth, a calming line of sweet words rolling from her lips.

Peter had closed his eyes a long time ago and did not intend to open them any time soon. ‘‘Hi May,’’ he whispered into her neck. When the woman broke free from their hug and cupped the boy’s face, Peter was forced to open his eyes once more. He was met with the tearful gaze of his aunt, who smiled with relief when she saw her nephew looking up at her with his infamous doe eyes.

‘‘Hi,’’ she half-whispered back, a laugh slipping through her tone. ‘‘You slept for quite a while there.’’ Peter shrugged. ‘‘Yeah, well, it was already past my bedtime, so…’’

May chuckled lightly at his comment, but the deep frown on her forehead betrayed that she was not feeling amused in the slightest. ‘‘I’m glad to see that you’re doing alright. How are you feeling?’’

‘‘Way better now that you’re here. I have been craving one of your hugs for eternity now,’’ Peter smiled as he spread his arms, expecting yet another embrace of his aunt. This time, however, he did not miss the feeling of her shaking hands on his back. Carefully, he pulled away from the embrace and tried to lock eyes with May, but she simply moved her head out of the way to hide the tears that were threatening to roll down her cheeks at any moment. ‘‘Hey, what’s wrong?’’ It was intended to be sweet, but it only made the poor woman shake even more.

‘‘Peter, a lot of things are wrong at the moment. Just look at you! Everything they did to you… that the gas did… I almost don’t recognise you anymore through all of the bruises and the blackness, and yet you’re the one asking me whether I’m alright.’’ May motioned for Peter to scooch over a little bit as she sat down on the bed. Placing a heavy hand on his knee, she tried to look her nephew in the eye the best she could.

‘‘I’m still the adult here, got it? I have to take care of you, not the other way around. Speaking of which, I’ve had a little word with Tony.’’ When she noticed the panic in Peter’s eyes, she quickly continued with less seriousness in her voice. ‘‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill him anytime soon, but we’ve talked for over two hours straight and we decided that it might be best that you stay away from the tower for a while. At least until you’re fully back up on your feet again.’’

Peter almost instantly sat up at that statement, a fragment of panic evident in his eyes. ‘‘What? No - no! I swear, everything is fine! It’ll only take three days - tops!- until I’m healed again. There’s no need to push any of them away, it’s not their fault aunt May, it’s not and I-’’

The boy was cut off by a loving hand cupping his face. ‘‘I’m not going to let any of them stay out of your life, Peter. I know how much they mean to you. I can see the way that you can be yourself around them. I would never, ever, take that away from you. But if we are talking about your safety, it’s the best option that you part your ways for just a while.’’

Right when Peter was about to interject, to say that they are not a threat to him in any way whatsoever, that it was the gas that did all those things to them, he was once again cut off by his aunt.

‘‘Not that kind of safety. Of course they would never hurt you. But Peter, let’s be real for just a second here, do you really think that you could just hang around with them after this, like it all didn’t happen? I don’t know exactly what it is that happened, but I do know that you have encountered some of your family members while they were in… a wrong state of mind. You don’t have to push yourself to let it all be like it was before too fast.’’

Peter wanted to say that it wasn’t true, that none of the Avengers would ever hurt him, but deep down, he knew that aunt May was right. He wasn’t even sure if he could ever have one of them hug him again without all of his senses being dialed to 100. Admitting defeat, he lowered his head as he nodded.

‘‘You’re right. I… I- I honestly don’t even know what will happen after this, but it sure as hell won’t be like it used to. It just can’t be.’’ Slowly, he looked back up, and May melted over the sweetness in his red-rimmed eyes. ‘‘But for now, I don’t even want to think about any of that. All I wanted to do while I was in there was to forget that any of it ever happened and just watch some stupid sitcom with you on the couch until we both fall asleep.’’

May smiled at him and started rubbing circles on his knee. ‘‘That sounds absolutely delightful, Peter. And we will definitely do that, later. But first, we have to assure some Avengers that you are still alive. You have to tell them the entire story, do you think you’ll be able to do that?’’

Though Peter didn’t want to admit it, he wasn’t really sure whether he would be able to take the seven people who attacked him being in the same room. Sam would be alright, he never even encountered the man once. Bucky would have the exact same menacing presence he always had, something that Peter had grown accustomed to. He only remembered vague flashes of what his friend looked like while he was in the ‘killer-mode’, so he wouldn’t be that much of a problem either. Everyone else, however? Peter wasn’t ready to know.

But it didn’t matter whether he was actually ready or not, because they had to think that he was. He knew his family better than anyone, and he knew that the idea of them attacking Peter alone would eat them up inside. He had to assure them that he was fine, even though he actually wasn’t.

‘‘Yeah, that’s alright. Just don’t have them swarm into the room, I have a really bad headache.’’ Though it was not a complete lie, May seemed to get the underlying message and nodded sweetly as she went to open the door. There were some whispers from the hallway, whispers that Peter deliberately chose to tune out to avoid hearing people talk about him like he was some fragile glass figurine that could break by a simple touch.

Then, the man he considered to be his father stood in the doorway, looking as charismatic as ever. His hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and there was still a light shade of gray covering his veins. When he set the first step, Peter couldn’t help but notice the slight limp. He prayed to whatever God there was that he wasn’t the cause of that.

‘‘Hey Bambino,’’ the man smiled, but he didn’t dare to set another foot inside. Peter tried to smile back the best he could as he fought back the tears that were welling up in his eyes. ‘‘Hey Mr. Stark.’’

Tony was about to complain about the way the boy addressed him, but he stopped in the middle of his tracks and put his hands in the pockets of his worn down suit. Aunt May gave Peter a short look from the doorway, as if to say ‘good luck, I’ll be right here if you need me’ as she closed the door behind her. Then, for the first time in what felt like forever, the two of them were alone in a room again without one trying to attack the other.

Tony sighed deeply and strutted further into the room to sit in one of the uncomfortable chairs. ‘‘Listen, kid, before you say anything else, I just want to tell you how sorry-’’

With a wave of his hand, Peter cut the man off. ‘‘No, none of that. You have nothing to be sorry for. If anything you should be sorry about how you didn’t bring chocolate to cheer me up.’’ Tony tried to smile, he really tried, but seeing Peter lie in a hospital bed, looking utterly exhausted and beaten, he couldn’t help the tears that started to roll down his cheeks.

‘‘I know, kid. I know. It’s not our fault that we attacked you, but still. I don’t know how I could have been stupid enough to leave the lockdown protocol this flawed, or how I could let you get inside the tower in the first place. Not to mention the amount of fucking weapons everywhere and God I spoke to the others and I know what kind of shit they had on them when you were fighting them and now--’’

He stopped for a moment as he let his head fall into his hands. ‘‘How could I not feel guilty about what happened to you? Nine hours, Pete. You had to run away and hide from us for nine hours. You had to be afraid of us. You got attacked by us and you got hurt. I don’t even want to know what the fuck happened to your arm and shoulder, because I sure as hell know that you didn’t somehow inflicted that upon yourself. It had to have been one of us, so how could I ever forgive myself for all of this if I don’t at least get the chance to apologize?’’

A silence fell over the two, cold as ice. Neither wanted to look at each other. Peter felt that his senses were more on edge with Tony around, and he hated himself for it. He was more alert and more aware of everything, and suddenly, the pain of his injuries returned as if he didn’t have any kind of medication in his system at all. All of that, just because Tony was there.

No, he wasn’t going to give in. Tony didn’t deserve to be hurting in this way.

‘‘Because, once again, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m not scared of you, Tony.’’ That was it; the very first time he had ever addressed the billionaire by his first name. Tony’s head shot up at this, and even through all of the pain and the tears, a small smile formed around his lips. It was almost impossible to notice, but it was there. 

‘‘You are way stronger than you look, you know that?’’ Peter furrowed his brows at the statement. ‘‘Well, I can lift multiple tons so yeah, I’m quite strong if I say so myself.’’ Tony chuckled lightly and shifted into a more comfortable position. ‘‘Not like that, I mean- I mean it as in mentally. The fact that you’re still so upbeat and that you are trying to reassure me that I was not the problem… It's remarkable. And also very, very concerning.’’

Slowly, Tony scooted a bit closer, as though he was approaching a frightened deer. ‘‘You don’t have to be. It’s ok to be a bit of a wreck after all of this.’’

It didn’t matter how much Peter had tried to keep the tears from falling; when he saw his mentor, his father figure, being a wreck about what he thought he had done wrong, he broke down himself. Within seconds, the tears streamed down his cheeks as he tried to hide his face with his hands, shaking with every sob that broke free from his mouth. 

Tony seemed surprised at this at first, his expression softening with confusion. He slowly moved a bit more forward, kneeling at the side of the hospital bed. His hand reached up to touch the boy, but he hesitated. ‘‘Is it ok if I touch you?’’ When the kid nodded, he slowly moved his hand towards his shoulder. ‘‘It’s alright, kiddo. Everything will be alright.’’

Suddenly, Peter flung his arms around Tony’s neck, catching the man by surprise. They sat like that for a while, with Peter sobbing into Tony’s chest and Tony rubbing circles on the boy’s back, whispering small reassurances. ‘‘I- I thought- I thought you were g-gonna d-die,’’ Peter sobbed as he clutched his mentor even closer, who suddenly tensed within his grasp. ‘‘I- I saw you and- and you were so… you were gone. You weren’t there anymore and I thought I was never going to s-see you again.’’

‘‘I’m here now. I’m back. Everyone is back, so are you. It’s all right now, no one is in danger anymore. Everyone is safe. You are safe.’’ The trail of reassuring words made Peter sob even harder, especially when he noticed that the buzzing feeling of his spidey sense in the back of his mind had grown stronger as soon as Tony touched him.

He wanted to forget he wanted it to stop he wanted it all to stop-

‘‘I hurt you,’’ the boy whispered, and Tony immediately broke free from their embrace to look the his kid in the eye. The grip on Peter’s shoulders grew a bit more firm as Tony spoke with a serious tone. ‘‘Listen to me, Bambino. You didn’t do anything wrong, you hear me? You did nothing wrong. If I can’t blame myself then you can definitely not blame yourself. It was all defense and all for the greater good, you had to protect yourself.’’

Even more confusion took over the man’s features when Peter shook his head once more, his bottom lip trembling. ‘‘No, not then. After. When Mr. Barnes and I… I hurt you all, I was barely able to hold back anymore. I even stabbed Steve.’’

‘‘I’m pretty sure he had that one coming, kid,’’ Tony tried to joke.

‘‘This isn’t funny, Mr. Stark!’’

‘‘You’re right, it’s not. But then again, why are we not allowed to blame ourselves when we were being mind controlled while you can still beat yourself up about what you did? Double standards, kid. I’m not ok with that. Let’s just decide right now that no one is at fault here, alright? This is all because of that Hydra bitch who bombed us in the first place.’’

Reluctantly, Peter agreed. Mr. Stark didn’t need to know that whenever Peter looked at him, he saw the murderous version who was strutting towards him, holding a kitchen knife. He saw the dark, black veins and the red-rimmed eyes, he saw the face of a robotic killer. Tony didn’t need to know that being near him made the boy’s heart race a million times faster.

‘‘Alright, good. So we won’t be beating ourselves up about anything anymore.’’ For a split second, Tony’s eyes flashed towards Peter’s shoulder with a hint of hurt in his gaze. ‘‘Do you think you’ll be able to handle others being in the room? We could do it gradually, just one at the time. They all want to see for themselves that you are doing ok.’’

‘‘Yeah, that’s alright. Just… you gotta wait with a few of them.’’ Peter hoped that his mentor knew which of the Avengers he meant exactly. It all seemed clear when Sam was the first one to walk through the door, along with Bruce slowly following behind. Instantly, a bit of the tension was released in the room. Finally, people that weren’t driving his senses crazy.

‘‘Holy shit, little spider boy, you look even worse than Clint,’’ Sam remarked as he came closer, folding his arms over one another as he was examining Peter’s face as if it was a very detailed sculpture. The man was quickly pulled backwards a bit by Bruce, who came into view with a soft, relieved expression.

‘‘Kid, you have no idea how happy I am to see you again.’’ Peter smiled, sitting a bit more upright to pull the scientist into a short hug. ‘‘It’s good to see you too. Finally we can interact without a phone again. By the way, Mr. Stark, that was probably the best innovation you put into the tower.’’

Tony simply raised his eyebrows as he put his hands on his hips in an offended stance. ‘‘Seriously? The phones that were made back when the German wall was still up, that’s the best innovation? Not the million dollar Iron Man suits or anything? Kids these days, so ungrateful.’’

‘‘Let’s be for real though, Stark,’’ Sam interjected. ‘‘If it weren’t for those things, I don’t think any one of us would be standing here right now.’’

Bruce came a little bit closer once again to examine Peter’s injuries with a deep, furrowed brow. He tried to hide his obvious concern and pain by speaking in a somewhat upbeat tone. ‘‘Well, your shoulder is healing nicely. I have to admit, you are indeed quite good at stitching yourself up.’’ The flinches from the other two men in the room were unaddressed. ‘‘Though Dr. Cho didn’t fully trust it, so I’m sorry, but we had to replace your hard work with stitches from a medical hand.’’

Peter simply waved this away, wondering why Bruce would even bring this up in the first place. ‘‘I don’t even know why I would be mad about a doctor doing their job. As long as it’s healing, I don’t mind.’’

‘‘Good, because I think you’ll be back to normal within a day or two. Moving your shoulder will still feel a bit sore, so definitely no Spider-Man for at least a week. The arrow scraped the inside of your shoulder blade, we want to make sure that it didn’t do any permanent damage.’’

Suddenly, Tony jumped up from his chair, his expression wide and angry. ‘‘I’m sorry, but an arrow scraped the inside of your shoulder blade? Was this fucking Clint?!’’

Instinctively, Peter cowered back into the bed the furthest that he could, his hands lingering for the defense mode. He only barely managed to keep himself together and not storm out of the room.

Though nobody addressed it, all three men noticed.

‘‘Tony, remember what it was all about. There is no one to blame, and you will not blame Clint for something that he didn’t willingly do,’’ Sam interfered.

‘‘Still.’’

‘‘No, not still. And keep your fucking voice down, there’s people processing trauma in here.’’

Bruce immediately decided to just put all his attention back to Peter, even if it was only to distract the boy from everything else going on at the moment. ‘‘May I take a look at your arm? I believe you said it had a third degree burn from an explosion?’’ Peter nodded, thankful for the change of conversation. ‘‘The drugs are doing their job quite nicely, so I can’t really feel a lot of pain right now. I don’t know if it’s healing well, I haven’t had the chance to take a look.’’

‘‘Let’s see then, shall we?’’ Like a doctor for the make-a-wish kids, Bruce smiled brightly when he noticed the visible scarring. ‘‘Would you look at that! You’re a tough cookie, aren’t ya?’’

‘‘I try.’’

‘‘I’m sorry, I still can’t really get over the fact that you got that from an explosion. Because: what the fuck?’’ Sam stood in the middle of the room, a horrified expression on his face. ‘‘Did one of us drop a bomb on you or something? I thought we locked all of those away.’’

Tony sighed deeply and let his fingers rest atop the bridge of his nose. No one wanted to have this conversation, but him the least of all. ‘‘You clearly missed out on a lot. We didn’t get to lock away all of the weapons.’’

‘‘What do you mean?’’

‘‘Well, when Steve, Clint, Nat, Agent Hill and I woke up and gathered together, we tried to make sense of it all by putting the clues each and every one of us found together. We quickly realized that we hadn’t been able to hide all of our weapons. We all had some on us while we were on a killing spree. An explosive honestly doesn’t really surprise me right now.’’

‘‘And where was I when you found this out?’’ Sam’s hands were placed on his hips, as if he were a mother scolding their child for doing something they weren’t supposed to. ‘‘You were still, well… the thing. Do you remember the moment you woke up?’’

Sam nodded as he furrowed his brows, deep in thought. ‘‘I mean, kind of? Clint was there, he looked like absolute shit. Has anyone even checked up on him lately? Anyway, I thought we were the first ones to wake up, but apparently not. I honestly don’t remember a lot of it. I even think I saw Clint talk on a phone from the eighties at some point. He said something about sending the team into the 82nd floor. I don’t really know what happened after that, a lot of glass shattered I think. Did you feel like you were high as well?’’

Tony sighed once again, both out of exhaustion as well as the constant feeling of not knowing everything that was going on. Even if they were all able to finally make sense of everything, the information had to be passed on to five more Avengers and hundreds of SHIELD agents. The endless cycle of new information felt like it never ended. And then they hadn’t even heard Peter’s side of the story.

Peter, who sat upright in the bed to the best of his abilities, desperately trying to look like he could keep it all together when in reality he was on the verge of a breakdown. He had seen the boy cry once just a couple of minutes before, and he did not intend to see it again.

Well, fuck the truth. They would all now have to live with the fact that they wouldn’t know what happened on Peter’s part. Whatever it might take, Tony would not have him retell his tale only hours after it happened. SHIELD can suck it.

With that, Tony turned towards the boy, his fingers lingering to touch him. He reconciled just moments before he spoke. ‘‘What about you, kid? Do you have any unanswered questions for us?’’

Reluctantly, the kid shook his head. If anything, he didn’t want to have all of the gaps filled within the story. There was only one thing that he desperately needed to know. ‘‘Were they caught?’’

A sense of confusion filled the room. ‘‘Who?’’

‘‘The person who set off the bomb. Were they caught?’’

Suddenly, the tension started to rise once again. Oh, how Peter wished his aunt were here. ‘‘She was,’’ Bruce stated, though it was clear he was withholding information. ‘‘So, she’s not anymore?’’ The man shook his head. ‘‘She broke free. But there’s a giant team of SHIELD agents after her, so there’s no need to worry about that.’’

‘‘And what if she has a second bomb that’ll set off right when they corner her? What then, do we have to do this all over again?’’

Bruce walked up to Peter and pushed his hands on his chest, firm, but gentle, and pushed him back down to the bed. ‘‘ You don’t have to do anything. It’s all covered. If you can take seven Avengers, they’ll be able to take one Hydra puppet. I promise you, everything’s going to be just fine.’’

Though not entirely convinced, Peter decided to just let it drop. ‘‘Just… could you tell me when they catch her?’’

‘‘You’ll be the first on our list.’’ It was a lie, but that didn’t matter; it was comforting, nonetheless.

‘‘So,’’ Sam continued, still stuck on the topic from before, ‘‘are we going to enlighten each other with what happened? You know, the people from outside, Peter and the rest of you from when you woke up?’’ Tony only gave the kid one small glance, and immediately shook his head. ‘‘No, we’re not. Peter doesn’t feel like knowing more than he wants to and I don’t want him to be in a constant state of panic. It must already take a lot of bravery for him to be in a room with us three.’’ Peter didn’t respond, but it was obvious that Tony knew.

‘‘So c’mon, pigeon, let’s just leave the kid alone for a second.’’ With a simple wave of his hand, Tony ushered Sam out of the room. He quickly followed, but not before he turned around to give Peter a small smile. Once the door clicked, it was just Bruce and Peter.

‘‘So, now you can truly be honest with me. How are you feeling?’’

Peter almost got spooked at the question, but once he saw the serious look on Banner’s face, he responded truthfully. ‘‘The medication isn’t really working. I can literally feel my flesh knitting itself back together. It really hurts.’’

Without another word, Bruce walked up to Peter’s IV and replaced the bag with a new one. Immediately, Peter felt all of his muscles relax a bit.

‘‘And aside from the physical stuff, how are you holding up? I remember quite a lot of crying during our phone calls. No further continuation from that?’’

‘‘What are you, blind? Look at me, I obviously need a therapist now.’’

‘‘I know making jokes is like a defense mechanism for you, but it’s not healthy to just keep bottling up your emotions like this.’’

‘‘But it is healthy to force me to talk about a traumatic event hours after it happened? To force me to sit in a room with the people who did this to me in the first place?’’ Peter snapped. Tension filled the room, and Bruce just stood there at the edge of the hospital bed, looking both hurt and unfazed at the same time. ‘‘No one is forcing you to do anything, Peter.’’

‘‘Yes, you are! Do you seriously think that I wanted to be in a room with Mr. Stark when the last time I saw him was when I knocked him unconscious? I had to watch him lie there and bleed, Dr. Banner! I was worried about him when he was the one who attacked me not even minutes before that! Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see that he’s doing ok and I’m very happy that none of the Avengers have any major injuries, but I do. It’s like I’m just supposed to forget the fact that I got beat up and nearly killed by the people I considered my family not even a day ago!’’

With that, Peter jumped up and ripped the IV out of his arm. Bruce stepped forward to argue, but stopped in his tracks when he noticed that the kid was about to storm out of the room with anger he had never seen before. Right when he was about to open the door, Peter turned back around. A small, confused and angry chuckle erupted from his throat.

‘‘You know, I don’t even know why I’m still feeling bad about all of this. I could have defeated them easily. I could have hurt them badly, kill them if I wanted to. You know how strong I am, I can punch through concrete walls for God’s sake. I held back so much strength just so I could be the one who got hurt instead of any of the others. So, you know what? We are going to be doing shit that I want to do. If they want to hear the full story, that’s fine, they’ll have to figure it out by themselves. But don’t have anyone come knocking on my door. I want you all to leave me the fuck alone.’’

Peter gave Bruce one last glance to emphasize that he was indeed very serious and then stormed out into the hallway. He didn’t spare anyone waiting outside in the hallway another glance, not even his aunt, who yelled his name after him. Though he didn’t miss the utterly destroyed look in Clint’s eyes.

From then on, he didn’t look back.

-----~-----

‘‘Sweetie, I understand that you don’t want to talk to them, but it has been five days. Are you sure you don’t want to let them know that you’re ok? Not even through a phone call?’’ Aunt May’s hands were wrapped around her torso in a worried stance as she stood tall in front of Peter, who just wanted to continue his movie. ‘‘Yes, I am sure. I just… I need a while, alright?’’

‘‘No one understands that more than me. And they understand it, too. Remember the talk you and I had when you first woke up? Tony and I had actually already decided that it would be best for you to have a little space for a while. But we didn’t mean it like this.’’

‘‘What do you mean?’’

‘‘I mean that you should have space through mutual understanding, not because you yelled at Bruce and angrily stormed out.’’

Peter sighed and turned off the TV, finally caving in for the conversation. ‘‘I do feel bad for yelling at Dr. Banner.’’

Aunt May slumped down next to him on the couch and wrapped a warm arm around her nephew. ‘‘He knows that you weren’t actually angry with him. You lashed out, and that’s ok. You had every right to. Just make sure that once you are ready to rebuild the connection with the group, that you have not completely shut them out. A phone call wouldn’t hurt. Or an ‘I’m sorry’ card.’’

‘‘Just because Mr. Barton sends me five of those a day doesn’t mean that I have to as well.’’

‘‘Alright, it was a bad example, but it shows that you care. Everyone is just waiting for you to make your first move, and you should definitely do that - on your own terms. All I ask of you is that you don’t start to grow a grudge against any of them. Don’t wait too long, or you might get it up in your head.’’

With a deep sigh, Peter gave in. ‘‘Fine, I’ll go over to the tower tomorrow.’’

‘‘No, Peter, you don’t have to-’’

‘‘You said that I should be doing this on my own terms. Well, no better way to deal with trauma than to just look it in the eye and ask ‘what’s up?’’’

-----~-----

‘‘Tony, stop fucking pacing. You’re making me nervous as well,’’ Rhodey commented as he pulled the genius’ shirt to stop him from walking into a wall. Rhodey had come over as soon as he received Tony’s phone call to comfort his best friend. It turns out, he should’ve just stayed in his nice little cabin in Canada and enjoyed the rest of the holiday, because if anything, it felt like his presence only made the man pace even more.

‘‘He hasn’t called or texted in five days. Five days, honey bear. May let me know that he’s ok, but how could we ever go back to normal if he never tries to contact us again?’’

‘‘Come on, Tones. Just think about what the kid has been through. How big of a chance could there possibly be that he will just walk through that door unannounced and have another game night with us after everything that happened?’’ Rhodey tried to reason, sighing deeply when Tony started to pace the length of the common room once again.

‘‘Don’t ask him that, or he might actually do the math,’’ Natasha joked as she came walking in, holding a bowl filled with Halloween candy.

‘‘I don’t know how you can be so calm about all of this,’’ Tony stressed, and luckily for Rhodey, the question wasn’t aimed at him. ‘‘You were the one who freaked out that night when you realized that not all of our weapons had been locked up and now all of a sudden, you’re completely fine? What’s that all about?’’

‘‘It means that I have different priorities and standards when it comes to unpacking and dealing with trauma. If Peter needs time, then let’s give him some. He’s not endangered anymore, so it’s best if we just leave him alone for a little while.’’

‘‘Bad mental health is also something that could endanger someone, Romanoff,’’ Tony stated, folding his arms over one another as he finally put a stop to all of his pacing.

‘‘This time it’s different. We are not a source of comfort anymore, we are the danger in his mind, no matter how badly he doesn’t want us to be.’’ Though no one in the room wanted to believe her, the serious glare she had plastered on her features told them she was right.

‘‘Maybe I could talk to him,’’ Rhodey offered. ‘‘I mean, he still trusts me. Maybe from then on he can take little steps and then one day set foot into the Tower again.’’

‘‘Or maybe I just come here and get it all over with.’’ All three Avengers snapped their necks around towards the sound of Peter, who stood awkwardly in the open elevator, his hands wrapped tightly around the straps of his backpack.

‘‘Kid what are- uh… hi. What are you doing here?’’ Rhodey hadn’t heard Tony this nervous since his very first press conference. Peter simply shrugged and walked inside, trying to act as normal as possible.

‘‘You know, I’m just… ripping off the bandaid. Quick and fast, and then I’ll punch my demons in the neck.’’ He looked back up at the three and raised his hands defensively. ‘‘Not that I want to punch you in the neck! That’s not the case at all!’’

‘‘Kid, we get it. And if you want to, you are allowed to punch us in the neck,’’ Natasha commented with a very serious look on her face. She held out the bowl of Halloween candy. ‘‘You want some?’’

Reluctantly, Peter reached for a Mars bar and quickly devoured it whole. He looked around the room for a second, chocolate nearly falling out of his cheeks. ‘‘Where’s everyone else?’’

‘‘Most of them are in their rooms. Bruce is with SHIELD, so is Dr. Cho,’’ Tony said as he sat down on the armrest of the couch.

‘‘Oh, that’s too bad. I was actually hoping I could apologize to him. It’s ok though. Could you maybe call everyone else in here?’’

The three Avengers furrowed their brows at him and shot each other quick glances. ‘‘Are you sure about that?’’

‘‘Like I said, ripping off the bandaid.’’

The four of them waited in silence for a couple of minutes as the rest of the Avengers were making their way up to the common room. The tension was awkward and way too heavy for a group of people who considered themselves to be a family not even a week ago. 

Sam was the first to arrive.

‘‘Stark, what’s up? Friday told all of us to come here and-’’ he stopped in his tracks to take a look at Peter, who in return smiled weakly. ‘‘Well, would ya look at that. Looks like you finally decided to be the bigger man.’’

‘‘Someone had to.’’ Sam took a step forward to give the kid a pat on the back, but he retreated last second and took a small step back, still smiling nonetheless. ‘‘Good to have you back.’’

Within two minutes, Steve, Clint and Bucky had reached the common rooms as well. Instead of giving Peter a warm hug and a friendly wave like they usually would, all of them simply went to take a seat on the couch, merely giving a nod to the boy to acknowledge his presence. Peter tried to avoid his gaze as much as possible, not wanting to see the stitches in Clint’s forehead nor the stiffness in Steve’s shoulder. Now that he paid attention to it, he discovered that Natasha, Sam and Tony were also still covered in bruises, though most of them were almost completely healed, as if none of it ever happened. The memories behind those bruises, however, were still very fresh.

Peter took a small look around the room and raised his eyebrows at Natasha in confusion. She seemed to take the hint almost immediately. ‘‘Maria is on one of the floors below taking care of paperwork, so she’ll be here in about ten minutes.’’

‘‘Oh,’’ Peter replied, not knowing anything else to say. ‘‘Well, then, I’ll just get started right now, I guess. She’ll get filled in once she gets here, I don’t want to wait with this any longer.’’

Rhodey, Natasha and Tony took that as their cue to go take a seat on the couch as well. The seven of them were really pressed together, but none of them seemed to care in the slightest.

‘‘Well, then, kid, what are you here for?’’ Tony cut the silence. Peter sighed in response. ‘‘For closure. And apologies, although we had agreed that none of us are to blame for anything. I still don’t blame any of you for what you did, I was just… on edge. I hope you can understand that.’’

‘‘No one here blames you for your outburst, Pete,’’ Rhodey stated, rational as ever. ‘‘Yeah, those teen hormones can be a real bitch sometimes,’’ Sam joked, flinching when Steve smacked him on the back of his head. Despite everyone’s nasty looks at the comment, Peter appreciated the effort to make the conversation as lighthearted as possible.

‘‘It would be alright if you blamed me, I was pretty irrational.’’

‘‘You weren’t, though.’’

‘‘I was. I yelled at Dr. Banner, who was honestly the person who deserved it the least of all.’’

‘‘All I know is that you didn’t sound angry with him, so he knows that you didn’t mean to hurt any of his feelings,’’ Natasha said. Peter’s frown grew so deep that it nearly made his eyes disappear. ‘‘You could hear what I said?’’

‘‘Yeah. It involved quite a lot of bad language words.’’ 

In instinct, all of the heads in the room turned to Steve, who rolled his eyes in annoyance. ‘‘One time, you guys. One time. This joke is really getting old now.’’

‘‘Just like you,’’ Clint smiled mischievously. A couple of laughs were heard throughout the room. Peter shushed them all by making weird hand movements as he spoke.

‘‘Anyway, what I really came here for was to get closure about all of this and then… I don’t even know. Do bonding, I guess?’’

‘‘And how were you planning on getting closure?’’

Peter shrugged and went to sit down on one of the lone chairs in front of the couch. ‘‘Well, you all really wanted to know the full story of what happened. I have a couple of questions myself, too, so let’s just start there.’’

So, they talked. It went a bit slow at first, with none of them having any idea of what to say or do, but when the team came with some prying questions, the story started to construct itself naturally. Luckily all of them still seemed to try to stay away from the heavy topics such as injuries, though sometimes it was necessary to be filled in on those sections as well. Clint was one of the people who was dying to know.

‘‘Alright, I’m just kind of curious now, since no one here was able to tell me what happened: why do I have two major head wounds? Was one concussion not enough for God?’’

Peter slumped back in his seat, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. In reality, flashes of the memories came rushing back to him. He saw Clint hang above him once again, pressing his fingers into his throat to make all the air disappear out of his lungs. He saw himself hitting the archer over the head with a glass whiskey bottle only to then cower backwards as the man who was supposed to be knocked out, stood back up as if it were nothing. He saw himself kick Clint right in the chest with such force that he was flung through the air and hit his head on the desk. He saw one of the closest people to him bleed out with blood that wasn’t his own.

The Avengers, they didn’t have to know about what he was seeing.

‘‘One was because you fell very unfortunately and the other was because of a glass bottle.’’

Though he didn’t specify on why or how he knew the details of these injuries, everyone seemed to know. ‘‘So that means you and I had an encounter?’’

Peter nodded. ‘‘Multiple. Once I tied you up to a chair, but you didn’t like that very much so then you got Steve involved and you can guess who won that fight.’’

‘‘I know that it’s not the appropriate thing to say, but that’s very impressive,’’ Natasha smiled as she fiddled around with the candy bowl. For some reason, she was carrying the thing around without ever taking out a single piece.

‘‘I have to agree,’’ Bucky nodded, which was the first thing he had said all night. ‘‘It’s not easy to take out Steve, let alone with an archer in your back.’’

Peter noticed how Tony’s eyes flashed towards Peter’s shoulder, clearly knowing what Clint had done to him. It wasn’t clear whether his eyes were filled with hate or sadness.

‘‘But there had to have been some time between those two encounters, because the second time you had the serum on you.’’

‘‘Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that: why didn’t you just inject yourself with the serum when you noticed that you were having symptoms of the virus-thing?’’ Rhodey cut in. Peter felt heat rise to his cheeks.

‘‘Are you really going to make me say it?’’ When he saw the teasing looks on everyone’s faces, he sighed deeply and tried to avoid as much eye contact as possible. ‘‘Well… don’t laugh, alright? It’s because I only had two vials of serum left. Buck and Sam were still out there, so I figured it would be best if they were used on them. That’s why I left them behind with Mr. Stark.’’

Before anyone else could react with taunting comments about how that was ‘the most Peter-like thing to say ever’, Tony stood up with his hands wide in the air. ‘‘I’m sorry, but why in the ever-living fuck do you call those two idiots ‘Sam’ and ‘Buck’, but you still call me ‘Mr. Stark’? What have I ever done to you?’’

‘‘Do you remember two months ago, when you took the last slice of pizza without asking anyone first?’’

‘‘Maybe?’’

‘‘That’s why.’’

By the time they reached the end of the story, where Peter was mostly the one to ask the questions, Maria had joined the group as well.

‘‘No, no, you guys have it all wrong. SHIELD knew what they were doing,’’ she defended while Clint was backing her up.

‘‘Then why did they come crashing in through the windows when it had been made clear that the entire lockdown system would immediately be taken down?’’ Steve intervened.

‘‘Because I made a phone call and told them that they should break in right that second on the 82nd floor. The only two people left infected were right there, so it wouldn’t be like there were any others who could break free without us knowing. It was the right move as well, because it seemed like you guys were losing.’’

If it weren’t for the crashing guilt that was clouding Peter’s mind, he would high-five Bucky on being the ones to nearly destroy the Avengers. That amount of happiness was not able to be achieved, and Peter felt tears slowly well up in his eyes.

‘‘So, what, them shooting my kid was the best thing they could come up with?’’ Tony claimed with a pained expression. The whole room fell silent as everyone looked at the man with amusement. Peter didn’t, he could only stare in shock.

‘‘What?’’ Tony asked, clearly uncomfortable underneath everyone’s mocking gazes. ‘‘You called him your kid. You said he was yours.’’

‘‘Well- so?’’

Tony turned around to look at Peter, who still hadn’t moved from his seat. ‘‘In my opinion, it’s kind of true. Always has been.’’

A moment of silence fell between the two of them, though neither had to wait for Peter’s response, because they both knew. Peter smiled. ‘‘Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t sound too bad.’’

Tony smiled back. ‘‘Good. Then do you think you’ll be up for another family game night?’’

And from that moment on, Peter knew that everything would soon be ok. It may take a while until he would finally be able to be touched by his family again, but he also knew that the whole ordeal would only make them get out of it stronger.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Peter started to feel more and more comfortable. Natasha had shown him hundreds of hiding spots where she stacked her secret weapons, to make him feel more secure when he was in the tower. Maria had taken him to a couple of SHIELD meetings to let him get filled in with all the information of the Hydra agent, who had been caught a day after he had woken up. Tony let him help with building another Iron Man suit and Bruce showed him multiple ways to stitch himself up properly. 

Steve had intended on sparring more often to show the boy how to defend himself from super powered individuals. Peter had first been afraid that it might send him into a panic attack, but after a couple of sessions, he started to notice that he was not that frightened anymore and even enjoying himself.

After a while, everything had started to seem more and more normal. Peter had gone to therapy and was starting to manage to get all of his feelings and memories in control. During his first night back at the tower, he couldn’t sleep. When he got to the living room, he came across Bucky.

The two talked about nothing and everything until the first beams of light of the morning sun came shining through the windows. Bucky was the first one that Peter told about the details of every encounter, and it had felt better than ever.

Something that had also changed, which was quite odd, to be perfectly honest, was Sam. Usually, he would deny any form of affection towards the boy, but all of a sudden, whenever the two of them passed one another when Peter was back at the tower, he was a lot more affectionate with his words and deeds than usual. He tried to make jokes to make him laugh and complimented him more often about his ‘badass nature’. Though it weirded Peter out at first, he had soon grown fond of it. Maybe some things had changed for the better.

What hadn’t changed for the better, however, was his relationship with Clint. No matter how badly he tried to push the memories away, Peter couldn’t help but get the flashes of fear as the hairs on his neck stood up in fright. Clint wouldn’t do anything, he wouldn’t. But the fear just wouldn’t go away.

But, one day, that all changed. He had started to grow back the bond with the rest of his teammates by ripping off the bandaid, so he would do it one more time.

With as much confidence as he could gather, Peter walked up to Clint, who was making a sandwich in the kitchen. The man turned around at the sight of him and was about to speak, but was cut off when the boy’s arms engulfed him in a warm hug. 

He ripped off the bandaid.

Eventually, everything would be alright again.