Chapter Text
Peter could feel a massive headache start up from the back of his head until it starts a steady throb in his temples. The lights of his school blur together as he rushes for the exit away from the explosive noise a Friday afternoon always causes in the hallways.
The pain comes to a crescendo when the sun beams directly in his eyes, and since it’s not a lab day, Peter will have to walk all the way to the subway in the hot bright sun that makes him want to curl up in a ball and die.
It fucking sucks.
Car horns beeping, engines roaring, chattering, bird chirping, and so so many sounds keep flooding in that he can’t think.
The pain doesn’t abate when he gets into the train, which he hoped it would but there was as many if not more people on the train then on the streets.
Peter sits himself in one of the free seats in the train. The stained padding on the back of it scratches against his neck as he sinks down into it. His clothes are too tight, too rough, and he just wants to rip his ears off because it hurts so fucking much.
He just wants to go home and curl up in bed. He’s sick of his stupid powers just fucking him over and making him such a screw up with shitty side effects like this.
He’s tired.
The train stops with a strong flourish, doors opening automatically to let people on and off. Peter feels dizzy as he gets up to join the swarm leaving the compartment with heavy limbs.
Walking home feels like it’s taking longer than it usually does with his sluggishness. His danger-sense buzzing low as the sun shines more once the much-needed clouds passed.
It takes too long for Peter to realize his danger sense was alerting him of something much more than just sunlight shining in his eyes.
He can barely move before a bag is shoved over his head and a prick of a needle is in his throat. Mix a killer migraine and sedatives?
Peter didn’t stand a chance.
***
Peter wakes up to a dim room.
There’s pillars lining the place standing proud and tall with slimy-looking moss sticking to the sides. It’s damp and smells strongly of weed in a way that makes Peter want to vomit from the strength of it.
A camera on a tripod is stood in front of him with a red-blinking light to show its recording. Whether it’s a stream or not he can’t tell.
His head aches something fierce, but the sedatives dull his senses just enough that his sensory overload from earlier has tamped down greatly. Ropes dig into his wrists, something that vaguely feels like spikes in the rope is buried into his skin.
Thank god his wrists are numb enough not to feel it yet.
Before he can think anymore about his situation, a guy comes in dressed in dark grays with accented black-silver books. Weird choice of outfit for a criminal, but pop off.
“Peter Parker, Tony Stark’s son, am I correct?” The man asks conversationally, as if he already knows the answer.
But sadly, the guy does not. Because he’s stupid and didn’t do his research.
“You are, in fact, not correct.” Peter responds, eyes scanning the room for an exit. The drugs are still making him feel loopy, but his mind is clearing up minute by minute. Thought his limbs still feel like lead.
Bummer.
The man glares, stepping forward and smacking him across the face. “Don’t lie to me, boy.” Moving to the side, the man holds out Peter’s phone which has Tony’s contact pulled up as My Old Man .
Peter snickers.
“Can an intern and his boss not have inside jokes?” Peter snips, eyes looking at the criminal calculatingly. Such an idiot.
The back of a gun is struck across his face before the guy pulls his hair roughly. “Shut up you fucking smart ass—“ The man puts the gun to Peter’s head and he can’t do anything but pause. “—or Ill shoot your fucking brains out on camera for Daddy, okay?”
Okay. This guy’s serious.
“Capiche. Message sent.” Peter snarks, because that’s all he can do in this situation. The guy thinks Tony fucking Stark is his father.
Nothing profound here.
The man picks up Peter’s phone and clicks on the contact, letting it ring on ringer for a few moments. The line clicks.
“Hey, Pete, what’s up?” Tony calls, tone light and teasing. “Loose your backpack again, kid? Because I swear if that’s why your calling you’re ground. That’s your fourth bag this—“
“Stark.” The man snaps, stopping Tony’s ramblings, “I have your son.”
Tony pauses for a moment, going quiet. Peter can hear the uptake in his heartbeat, the starting of stressed breathing.
“Who is this?” Tony barks, tone dark. The man grins. “Garrison Flon, Stark. Remember me?”
A chuckle. “Not really, who are you to me?”
Garrison looks furious at Tony’s dismissal and Peter has never felt more unprepared as his danger sense spikes painful in the back of his head. Shit. Tony struck a nerve.
“You’ll fucking know it.” Garrison spits acidly, throwing Peter’s phone on the table next to him before going to the camera and clicking a few things on an open laptop next to it.
Peter can hear the wiring behind the lenses move as it gets just a slight better close up of him.
Shit.
Garrison smirks at the look on Peter’s now pale face, walking behind him to tug his hair back roughly again. The barrel of his gun being pressed to his right cheek. “How do you like the view, Stark? This a good close up?”
“What the hell do you want, Flon? Money? Fame?” Tony asks, and even though it’s faint, Peter can hear Tony talking away to Friday and the faint sound of air streaming past the speaker.
“Retribution.” Garrison cards his fingers gently through Peter’s hair, a sad sigh coming to his lips. “Your son looks like my little Nathan that you killed, did you know that?”
Tony sucks in a harsh breath, and Peter’s heart speeds up. No no no this can’t be happening.
His limbs won’t move.
“No, I didn’t. I bet your kid was just as sweet.” Tony stalls, voice wavering. Peter still can’t hear anything in the distance. They must be really far away.
“Hm.” Snatching his hair back, the man stares into Peter’s eyes creepily.
“Son for a son.” He pets Peter’s cheek. “I think that’s fair.”
A punch is thrown his way before he could even blink. Throw after throw is pelted onto his body. On his stomach, in his face, on his sides. He can feel the bruising, the crushing force of ribs snapping and hurling themselves into tender organs and tissues.
One more punch lands on his mouth, making Peter hear the disgusting cracking of one of his teeth. His mouth floods with iron and he spits it out on the man’s shoe.
Bang.
Breathing gets harder as he cries out in pain. It licks fire-hot through him as his ears ring. He was shot. In his fucking leg.
Fuck that hurt.
Fire licks it’s way through his being as the blows finally come to an end, his leg throbbing with an overwhelming amount of burning. The bullet must be lodged between nerves.
Standing beside Peter in all his glory is Garrison with an eerie smirk and gun pointed at his face. “You can’t save him, Ironman. How does that feel?”
Peter could hear a sob over the other side of the line and realizes that Tony must’ve been watching as Peter was pelted and screaming in pain and he feels guilty. Peter still can’t hear his repulsors. He’s too far. It’s too late.
“If you die kid— well…that’ll be on me. And I don’t think I could live with that.”
He has to apologize.
Tears fall into his mouth, tasting strongly of salt as his throat clogs. The barrel of the gun straight in between his eyes as Garrison shifts his arm, the flood of drugs still in his system. There’s no way out. He’s going to die.
He’s going to die and he won’t be able to see May or Rodney or Pepper or Tony again.
He’s going to die.
Peter sobs, eyes closing. He doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want to watch as he hears the man’s hand shift to the trigger. He can’t.
But his wishes spew out his mouth regardless as he hears Tony taking frantically on the phone in front of him. “T-Tony ‘M sorry— I don’t— I don’t wanna go, please please please I don’t wanna go— TONY! ”
Peter screams, because that’s all he can do when he feels his spider sense spike. He’s going to die he doesn’t want to go please please please—
Bang.
Blood sprays across the screen and Tony can feel his heart collapse in his stomach as he lands in the warehouse, a minute too late. Garrison is long gone, but Peter…
Sweet baby Peter .
Blood is splattered all over the camera, the ground. His head’s leaned back with a hole clean through. His leg is still slowly gushing blood and all Tony can do is stand and stare, searching for any signs of life.
There’s not.
Tony gathers what little he has of himself left and gets out of the suit, racing over to his kid. Oh fuck that’s his kid.
His knees slam on the floor as he sits on his heels in front of his son. Tony puts his hand on Peter’s face, hoping for some sigh of life even thought he knows there won’t be. Shock floods his system as he watches blood ooze from Peter’s forehead, down his nose, chin, drip.
The little drop of blood trickles down his his hand and onto his wrist before the reality sets in.
His kid is dead. It’s all his fault. The guilt rushes in overwhelmingly as his throat clogs and sobs burst from his chest.
Tony feels tears gather in his eyes as he wraps his arms around his son, his head falling into the nook at Peter’s hip.
He screams. They rip through his lungs like never before. They scrape, they claw, and it hurts so bad that he doesn’t know what to do. Peter’s dead. Dead deaddead—
It’s his fault-
Tony lets his eyes open to look at Peter one last time, pale cheeks still stained with tears, he catches the glint of a bloody gun and a strong urge to reach for it. The handle is cold on his fingers, heavy in his hand.
-And Tony can’t live with that.