Chapter Text
Peter was running.
The ground beneath him was falling away beneath his feet and he was running slower than he ever had in his entire life. People shouted behind him, and one of them must have pressed that godforsaken button because he was being electrocuted and falling. The walls sped past him as he fell, and Peter closed his eyes waiting for the sweet release of death so those people wouldn’t get him again.
It never came.
He sat upright in bed, his chest heaving and his pulse racing faster than it normally did as he tried to calm himself down. He ran a hand through his hair as he laid against the pillows, his other hand shaking from anxiety.
“I’m okay, I’m safe, I’m okay, I’m safe….” Peter repeated the mantra into the empty room as his heart rate returned to normal. Well, normal for him, heart attack worthy for others.
It had been 4 months since he had been taken, and only 2 months since he had been saved but he still found himself plagued by nightmares and most nights unable to sleep. Usually, he would take to bothering his sister, Madeline, since she was with him when they were taken and could understand as she was experiencing the same thing, but right now her boyfriend was visiting Charles’ school. So finding comfort and solace in the fact that he wasn’t alone was not really an option.
What was an option was denial and pretending like you were okay when you were in fact not okay. So after getting out of bed he listened to his growling stomach and headed downstairs towards the kitchens.
Usually he was the only one up. His fast mind didn’t let him sleep for long and when he was asleep he was plagued by the past, so sleeping was never his favorite pastime. This night however, when he went to the kitchens the lights were already on and the voices of his friends drifted into the staircase.
“You can catch anything?” Jean asked, her voice the loudest as she asked some unknown person Peter couldn’t find.
“Anything,” Peter Parker confirmed. “One-time Maddy threw a coke can at my head from across the room when my back was turned, and I caught it.”
“You make it seem like I tried to give you a concussion,” Madeline objected. She looked almost the same as when Peter had seen her the first day they met. Her brown hair met her stomach, grown from the months of capture without a haircut. Her hazel eyes now held a knowing, too mature from torture but too young to do anything about it. She stood just underneath Peter Parker’s chin, and Peter knew the baggy sweatshirt she wore was hiding how thin she really was. As she smiled at the group her scar that ran from her eyebrow to her nose rose up and became scrunched, only to relax as she ate another twix. “I was testing it out, it was when he had told me about his whole ‘spider sense’ thing, and I…lobbed it at your head, I didn’t chuck it like it was a fucking baseball.”
Peter Parker ignored her, facing the group instead. “She tried to give me a concussion.”
“Even if I did, you would’ve survived! With the amount of things that have almost killed you and you’re still here, you would’ve survived.”
“Nah, you tried to kill me.”
Madeline rolled her eyes, smiling as she saw Peter entering the kitchen. He went behind her and Peter, crossing to be in between Wanda and Storm.
“Peter,” Scott called in the Maximoff’s direction. “You have a girlfriend back home?”
Peter had been in the middle of reaching for a bag of chips that were in the center of the table when he was called, so he stopped his mission to turn to his friend. “This girl, Crystal…” The speedster took a pause as he tugged the bag of greasy foods towards him once more. “She was…well, I have no idea what we were but I doubt we’re anything now.” The last time they had talked was after the kidnapping, he had called to let her know he was alright after disappearing and she had been angry.
He remembered the conversation like it was yesterday, how she had called him out on not talking to him for months and then showing up with “a lazy ass excuse” and how he was still not there because he had run off with his deadbeat father and with the way he had left her he was the same.
Just another thing taken from him.
The table was silent for a moment before Parker caught something from behind his back, and after moving his hand back to the counter everyone could see the banana Jean had used her powers to throw.
It quickly turned into a game: See what you can throw at Peter to make him mess up and not catch. It went from just Jubilee throwing things to Jubilee and Storm, then the two teamed up with Scott.
The game quickly progressed, and instead of throwing things inside they moved outside. The snow crunched underfoot as they ran to designated spots, one at the water fountain and one 10 feet away. They split into teams, The Lehnsherr's and Peter against Scott, Jean, Storm, Jubilee, and Kurt. Jean announced that they had 10 minutes to build a fort and make as many snowballs as possible, and once the timer had gone out Jubilee fired a firework into the air.
The game started.
It was things like this that had kept Peter going during the months of captivity when the days blurred together and hope faded. It was small things mostly, like Crystal’s smile or his 10 year old sister’s laughter. It was Wanda sometimes, either scolding him or pulling him in for a rib-crushing hug. It was Alex, his voice like a beacon of light amidst the sea of darkness that had threatened to drown him. It was his friends, and the things they would do when he got out. Things like this night.
The cold air whipped around him, almost numbing his fingers as he gripped more snow in his hand. He let the snowball fly, watching as it hit Scott in the face. He watched as Wanda launched her own weapon, only for it to crumble back to snowflakes before it hit Storm.
Nights like these were the only thing that had kept the hope in his chest burning. The things they would do, like convincing Kurt to steal Charles’ wheelchair or all of them playing monopoly in the library.
Deep down Peter knew he wouldn’t be okay. He knew he would carry those scars forever. But nights like these helped ease it. It helped remind him that he wasn’t alone, that someone would always be there to help him carry the burden. Whether it was his sisters, parents, Charles, or his friends there would be someone to help him, to help him heal and to smile again.