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Chapter Text

Peter was ecstatic. He had been invited to join Daredevil and Deadpool on his first official mission. He had spoken with the two before, exchanged information in case anything was needed, but today, tonight, he would really be a part of a team.

He made sure he made extra web fluid at school on Friday, and put his suit through the wash to prepare. Daredevil had even mentioned he knew a guy who could make a real suit, and that they could talk after their mission about it.

Peter swung up to their designated meeting place, the roof of an apartment complex right outside Hells Kitchen.

Daredevil was already there and nodded at him once he landed.

“Spider-Man.” He greeted, looking into the distance. Peter wasn’t sure if it was the way his mask looked, but always seemed to be giving Peter a thousand yard stare. It creeped him out sometimes.

“Hey Big D!” He greeted.

“Don’t call me that.” Daredevil responded, all serious. He wasn’t mad though, Peter had seen Daredevil mad, and that wasn’t it.

“Where’s Deadpool?” He asked, changing the subject.

“Late. He’s always late. That’s why I told him we were going to start thirty minutes ago.”

There was a lull in conversation after that. It was always quiet with just Peter and Daredevil, not uncomfortable usually, just quiet.

Daredevil tilted his head, “He’s here.” He announced.

Peter listened, and a moment later he heard him as well, whistling a tune as he strolled towards their location.

Peter began stretching idly while he waited, trying to get out some of his energy.

“Hi Spidey, Hi Daredevil!” Deadpool announced as he slammed open the door leading to the roof.

“Little D!” Peter announced, because it pissed Deadpool off and was hilarious to Peter as the immature high schooler he was.

“I’ll have you know Spidey I have a full twelve inches do-“

“Deadpool.” Daredevil cut him off.

Deadpool rolled his eyes, “Spideys young but not too young for dick jokes.”

“Can we just- get planning?” Daredevil said, a plea in his voice.

“Alright alright, what’s the situation?”

Deadpool settled on the floor and Daredevil sat as well, so Peter followed suit.

“There’s an armed group operating in the basement of a warehouse a block and a half from here. From what I can tell there’s maybe 60 people, no more than 100.”

Deadpool whistled at the impressive number and Daredevil continued.

“All are fairly skilled with a gun, but none should be too exceptional at hand to hand combat. The leader is Fred Treampry, he’s organizing a large scale drug and weapon trafficking operation. They are scheduled to start next week.”

“The basement has sixteen small windows at the top that we should all be able to fit through. There’s two stairs and an elevator leading from the inside. There’s a small loft wrapping around the very top near the windows used for storage. The weapons they have shouldn’t be too dangerous, just normal guns, but some of the weapons they are selling are things much more dangerous that could threaten the stability of the building.”

“So, thoughts?” Daredevil asked, looking between Peter and Deadpool.

Peter was taken aback, he assumed one of them would be telling him what to do.

“Let’s have Spidey give it a go.” Deadpool suggested, nudging Peter in the arm.

“Uhm, well…” Peter thought as a plan began formulating in his mind.

“It’s best to enter through the windows if we can do so quietly. We should enter from different sides if we can and get a better idea of how many there are. If it’s too noisy to do that though we could go in the stairwells and try to take them out slowly, or sneak in without noticing?” He ended it as a question.

“That’s good,” Daredevil said, and Peter practically glowed at the praise, “the stairwells could be hard, so we should definitely use those as a last resort.”

“I think Deadpool should drop in first if we go the window route. If they are clustered together you can use a smoke bomb,” daredevil shared similar values to Peter when it came to killing, Deadpool did not, “then Spider-Man and I should come down and help finish off any of the rest.”

“Sounds good to me,” Deadpool stood up, “Let’s get this show on the road!”

“Wait,” Daredevil held out a hand and Deadpool dramatically dropped back down.

“It’s Spider-Mans first time, we should lay some ground rules.”

Daredevil took a small device out of his pocket, “Use this to talk to us. It only works if you tap it first but if your hands are busy you can use your shoulder. If they stop working you can call out my name then whisper what you need to say and I will hear it.”

Peter took the earbud and turned away to pull his mask up and put it in. The other two dutifully turned around to avoid catching any glimpse of his face.

“If you get hurt enough that fighting is difficult let us know. One of us will come help you. If for whatever reason you need to leave or need a break, let us know. Don’t be embarrassed if you’re too winded, or get a flashback, or something. It happens.”

Peter nods.

Daredevil hesitates then.

“In this field, there’s no garuntee you will live.”

Peter paused at the change in tone. He knew this of course, but it was odd to hear it said out loud.

“If something happens out there and you don’t make it, do you want one of us to contact someone and what would you like us to tell them?”

Peter took a breath. He wanted aunt May to know of course, but did he trust the two with his aunts information?

Apparently he had hesitated for too long and Daredevil had picked up on his conundrum.

“You don’t have to give us a phone number or anything. It can be a message passed through a few different people or a note left somewhere.”

“Can you… there’s a deli shop in queens. Delmars deli? Can you tell Mr. Delmar to tell the wife of the man who used to get his pickled smooshed real flat to check behind the second bedrooms bulletin board?” Peter regretted saying that. It was way to complicated-

“You got it kid.” Daredevil gave him a thumbs up.

“Oh. Alright. Thanks.”

“Can we please go ki- grievously injure people now?”

Daredevil nodded and they were off.

Peter took the north side of the building, Daredevil the West and Deadpool the East.

“I found an open window,” Peter announced, “I can slip through and there’s some boxes to take cover with.”

“Perfect,” Daredevils scratchy voice came though, “I found some too.”

“Nothing on this side, I’ll check the south.” Deadpool said.

Peter slipped in silently and peeked around. It was how Daredevil had described it, mostly storage.

There was about eighty people, so a bit more than the original guess, but nothing unmanageable.

“I’m in.” Said Deadpool.

A lot of the guards, maybe thirty, were clustered towards the middle, playing a game of cards. The rest were spread out, sitting or standing idly among the boxes.

After a few moments a device from the south side, from Deadpool, was thrown among the cluster. A puff of smoke exploded and then gunshots rang out.

The rest of the guards stood at attention once more and started looking around for the threat. A few of them noticed Peter and Daredevil in the loft and soon everyone did.

“Rude!” Peter exclaimed as a man shot at him and he swung down, kicking him in the face.

He dodged a few bullets, one grazing his arm, and took out some other people.

A quick glance proved the other two faring similarly.

It was eerily quiet as they fought. There wasn’t any backround music like in the movies, just a cluster of gunshots and grunts.

He took guns out of the hands of a couple guards and they stood confused for a moment, unsure of how to continue.

“Oh sorry! Did you need these?” He asked as he webbed them securely to a wall.

They ran and before Peter could chase after them he was being assulted by more gunfire. Oh well, Daredevil was by the door, they wouldn’t be getting out any time soon.

He made quick work of a lot of them, knocking them out or webbing them up. He could hear Deadpool in the backround, making quips not dissimilar to his own.

Peter jumped up onto some boxes, dodging some bullets as he landed to get a better view of the surrounding area.

The guards were dropping in numbers pretty quickly. He had already taken out a good twenty by himself and the rest were making similar progress.

His spider senses tingled and Peter ducked on instinct, eyes landing on the object being thrown at him.

His eyes widened as he reached out to grab it. It was a bomb.

His spider sense roared as he grabbed onto it and immediately went to throw it.

The easiest place would be the south window, it was a long shot but the best decision. If Deadpool got caught in the blast he would recover, and if the building was damaged the escape routes would likely stay clear.

He threw it with all his strength and accuracy and it almost made it out the window. Almost.

It was just feet away when it exploded, rocking the whole building and if it weren’t for his stickiness Peter would have been knocked off the boxes he was on.

There was a handful of boxes up there, but none contained bombs if the lack of domino explosions was anything to go off of.

The loft was damaged, fallen to the ground, but nobody was stuck underneath.

“Everyone okay?” Peter asked through the comms.

“Good.” Daredevil replied.

“That was so fucking awesome! Good job Spidey! Baby’s first explosive!” Peter could see Deadpool’s dramatic theatrics from his peripheral view.

He didn’t have time to respond as more people started shooting at him.

After the explosion it was uneventful. They took out everyone and then the big bad guy came down and Daredevil took him out.

The sirens in the background was their cue to leave. All three exited through the East loft and Spider-Man ended up carrying them both up to a roof to avoid the police fanning out.

Then they ran a bit, still without saying a word, until they were a good mile away.

“That was…” Peter paused as he panted, “so… fucking cool!” He jumped up.

“I mean holy shit did you see that they were all-“ he mimed throwing the bomb, “and then I was all-“ he pretended to catch it and slow motion throw it into the distance.

“Aww the little spiders all grown up,” Deadpool exclaimed, a comically late tear somehow falling from his mask.

“I’m so proud of you!” He shouted, and then tackled a laughing Peter to the ground.

Peter glanced at Daredevil, half expecting a disapproval, but found a soft smile on his face.

“Alright boys,” Daredevil said, “let’s debrief.”

“Me first!” Deadpool raised his hand and Daredevil nodded towards him.

“I got shot twenty-seven times. I got punched in the face. I got hit by a flying piece of metal. And screamed at multiple times, which counts because it hurt emotionally.”

Deadpool finished and turned to Peter, “Your turn now. You just state any injury’s you got, even if they healed over.”

“Oh, uh…” Peter thought for a moment as he mentally went through his body for any injury’s, “I got grazed on the shoulder,” he inspected it, “it’s just a scratch now though.”

“My fingers got burned a bit from the bomb, but those are starting to heal now. I’ll put some cream on it and they should be good tomorrow morning.”

“Perfect,” Deadpool praised, “now for the one without super healing!” He waved jazz hands around Daredevil.

“Actually not so bad. I got a graze on my leg but nothing horrible. Few bad bruises that’ll hurt like a bitch for a few days, but that’s all.” Daredevil finished.

“Spider-Man,” Daredevil asked, “you threw that bomb.”

Peter put his head down, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I think I know who did it and I shouldn’t have-“

“Breathe.” Daredevil placated, “It was really quick thinking I was going to say you did a good job.”

“You-“ Peter paused, “oh. Thank you.”

Daredevil just nodded.

“Well, it’s a whopping five hours past my eight pm bedtime, so I’m going to go home now.” Deadpool stretched as he began to leave.

“Good job today newbie!” He called out as he left.

Peter and Daredevil watched him go.

“He’s right, you did really good today. I’m going to have a talk with that guy I know about the suit, I’ll be in contact with you soon.”

And like that Daredevil was gone too.

Peter swung back to his own patrol area. He was still so pent up from the mission he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep if he tried.

They thought he did a good job. They thought he did a good job.

Peter let out a loud, “Woooo!” As he swung low to the ground, searching for any impending car accidents.

After an hour or so he went home, finally feeling tired enough to sleep.

Two weeks later, Daredevil showed up while Peter was taking care of a robbery.

“Hey kid!” He shouted, raising a hand to him once all the robbers are webbed up.

Peter waved back and Daredevil nodded his head outside, signaling for him to follow.

Peter does so, and follows him outside after making sure one of the witnesses was on the phone with the police. The chill air hit him as he exited and looked around, hearing for Daredevil.

He picked up on his heartbeat and made his way into a nearby alley.

Daredevil was leaning against a wall, a bag in his hand reading “Happy Birthday!” with bright yellow tissue paper.

“Deadpool wrapped it.” Daredevil explained, holding it out to him.

Peters eyes widened as he gently took the bag. It was nowhere near his birthday but he understood and appreciated Deadpool’s humor.

“Is this…” he looked to Daredevil who nodded.

“Oh my god!” He whispered, reaching his hand into the bag and pulling out the contents.

Staring back at him was a Spiderman mask. It felt similar to Daredevils suit, same material. Thicker than his normal mask.

He dropped the mask into the bag and then dropped the bag.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He jumped up, wrapping himself around Daredevil in a hug.

He had a suit, a real suit! This was the best day of Peters entire life.

Daredevil let out a laugh, wrapping his arms around Peter back, “I’m glad you like it,” he chuckled.

“Are you kidding! This is the best day of my life! Oh my god it looks cool as fuck!” He releases Daredevil and excitedly pulls the mask back out to admire it.

Daredevil smiles, “alright, since I did that for you, you need to do me a favor.”

Peter looked up, “sure, anything.”

Daredevils smile faded, “first, never agree to a favor that quick. Second, you don’t actually owe me anything because you never asked me to do this. And last, you’re going to agree to let me teach you.”

Peter was taken aback by the response. Why wouldn’t he owe Daredevil, the man had gone out of his way to get him a suit.

“Teach?” He asked.

“Not to be rude, but your fighting sucks.” Peter deflated a bit.

“Oh.”

Daredevil shifted, “you rely on your strength, which works, but someday you may find your strength isn’t enough. You’ve done good with what you have, but I want you to be ready in case something as strong as you comes by someday.”

Spiderman nodded. Daredevil had a good point. He didn’t know how to fight. He could dodge bullets and throw a punch and that was about it.

He wasn’t too worried about fighting someone stronger than him. He had to pull all his punches anyways, but it would be good to learn some actual technique.

“Okay.” He agreed.

Daredevils mouth twitched into a small smile, “please never agree to be trained by a strange man in an alleyway that quickly again.”

“Oh. Yeah, uhm…” Peter paused, “I’ll have to think on it…”

He mimed out thinking, dramatically tapping his finger on his chin.

“I’ve thought it out, and I’ll have to agree.”

Daredevil let out a chuckle, “okay, head home for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll come find you and we can start. Sound good?”

“Sure thing!”

Daredevil clapped him on his back, “See you around.”

“Thank you Daredevil!” He yelled out as Daredevil left.

Chapter Text

Today was Friday. Today was Friday which meant take out with May then training with Matt then patrolling.

Fridays meant an after school snack at Mr. Delmars (he has a fast metabolism okay?) and busting all his homework out right away.

“Have a good week Mr. Delmar!” Peter waved as he began unwrapping the sub and walking out.

Peter put on his favorite music and took in the city as he walked to his apartment.

He glanced at the impressively expensive car on his way in, noting to tell May about it, and took the stairs up. (The elevator hadn’t worked in years.)

“May, you won’t believe this car outside,” Peter said as he walked in.

“How was school today?” May asked.

“It was okay,” Peter set down his phone and went to wash his hands, glancing up at May.

Glancing up at May who was sitting next to Tony Stark.

Tony Stark as in… the billionaire.

In his living room.

On his couch.

Tony Stark as in Iron Man.

He had a bruise on his face, which was strange because Peter assumed a billionaire would have the money to get makeup and cover it up. He was wearing a suit that looked more expensive than his trust fund, and a watch that was probably worth his entire soul.

“Hello Mr. Parker.” He said, like he was just saying hi to an old friend.

“What… what are you.. uhm.”

(Get it together Peter.)

“Hey… I’m-I’m Peter.” He settled on.

“Tony.” Mr. Stark responded, as if Peter didn’t already know who he was.

“What are you-What are you doing here?” He asked, trying to act nonchalant.

“Bout time we met, you’ve been getting my emails right?” Mr. Stark asked while May mouthed ‘what the fuck’ at him.

Peter had definitely not gotten any emails from Tony Stark, but Mr. Stark was… winking at him? Peter couldn’t really tell what he was doing with his face, but he decided to play along.

“Uhm, yeah… yeah.” He said.

“Regarding the…?” He looked to Mr. Stark.

“You didn’t tell me about the grant.” Aunt May spoke up.

Peter knew nothing about a grant.

“The September foundation,” Mr. Stark supplied, “remember when you applied?”

“Yeah.” Peter answered hesitantly. The name sounded familiar, but he definitely hadn’t signed up for anything like it.

“I approved,” he said, “so now we’re in business.”

Had Peter signed up for a grant? His freshman year of high school he went crazy and applied to any and all scholarships he could without keeping track. Was this some three year process thing he had forgotten about?

“You didn’t tell me anything what’s up with that? You keeping secrets?” May added the last part jokingly.

Peter felt a wave of guilt, “No! No I just… I know how much you love surprises.”

He couldn’t just admit he had forgotten about some grant in front of a billionaire.

“Anyway what did I apply for?” He asked, hoping the question wasn’t too suspicious.

“That’s what I’m here to hash out.” Mr. Stark replied, taking a bite of aunt Mays date loaf.

“Okay, hash out yeah okay.”

“It is- so hard for me to believe she’s someone aunt.” Mr. Stark changed the subject.

Was that… an attempt to hit on his aunt? In front of him?

“Yeah well… we come in all shapes and sizes you know,” May replied, letting a bit of snark show.

“This walnut date loaf is exceptional-“ Mr. Stark went on.

“Let me just stop you there,” Peter said. Because he had tasted aunt Mays date loaf, and it sucked. Was he trying to make fun of May or hit on her? He couldn’t tell.

But still, if the grant was for collage, which he assumed it was, he could really use the help.

“Does this grant got like… money involved?”

“Yeah it’s pretty well funded.” Mr. Stark nodded.

“Can I have five minutes with him?” Mr. Stark asked aunt May who granted permission.

Peter let him to his bedroom because it was the only place he could think of. He didn’t really understand why they needed to be alone for this though.

Mr. Stark closed the door which… was sort of creepy actually. Peter wasn’t sure how comfortable he was alone with some guy in his bedroom, no matter how many people he saved as iron man.

“Quick question of the rhetorical variety,” Mr. Stark pulled out a small device and Peter was amazed when a hologram lit up from it.

He was less amazed and more terrified when the hologram was a video of Spider-Man.

“That’s you right?”

Oh my god. Oh my god shit shit shit shit shit.

What was this? Some sort of ambush? Was Mr. Stark going to like… kidnap and experiment on him?

“Uhm no.” He responded dumbly.

“Yeah.” Mr. Stark replied as the hologram changed to a video of him stopping a car crash.

“Wow 3,000 pounds 40 miles an hour. Nice catch.” A small bit of sarcasm bled through his voice.

“It’s not easy,” Mr. Stark admitted, “you’ve got mad skills.”

Peters eyes widened a bit at the compliment. Iron man thought he had mad skills?

But he still didn’t want Mr. Stark knowing his identity.

“But that’s all on YouTube right? Cause you know that’s all fake.” He said.

“It’s all done on the computer,” he looked down to his desk to find something to fidget with.

“Oh yeah you mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?” Mr. Stark asked.

Peter looked up at him, “Yeah-“ just as Mr. Stark pushed on the vent in his ceiling, reveling his suit.

Peter immediately beelined for it, grabbing it before it reached the floor and throwing it in the dirty laundry.

“Uh that’s…” Peter tried to come up with an explanation, but sighed as he gave up.

“So. You’re the spider…ling? Crime fighting spider? Spider boy?”

Peter resisted rolling his eyes. If Tony Stark had gone through the trouble of finding his civilian identity then he knew his name was Spiderman.

“Spider-Man.” He corrected.

“Not in that onesie your not.” Mr. Stark picked up the suit.

Peter felt a bit of anger boil up. He loved his suit. It was better than what he had before. And sure it wasn’t avengers level, but it was well made, and a gift from Matt.

“It’s not a onesie,” he glared, sitting down on his bed.

“You know I was having a really good day today Mr. Stark. Didn’t miss my train, this perfectly good dvd player was just sitting there, and algebra test - nailed it.”

But thus goes the Parker curse.

“Who else knows? Anybody?” Mr. Stark asked.

Peter glanced up.

Like hell he was about to drop Matt or Wades name.

“No.” He replied, using all the tricks Matt had showed him when lying, slowing his heartbeat, controlling his movement.

“Nobody.”

“Not even your unusually attractive aunt?”

“No,” then he processed it, “What? No?” Then decided it wasn’t worth fighting.

“If she knew she would freak out. And when she freaks out I freak out.”

“You know what I think is really cool?” And then an object was being launched towards his face as he caught it.

His webs.

“This webbing. Textile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?”

“I did.” Peter replied, telling the truth this time.

“Climbing walls? How you doing that? Adhesive gloves?”

“It’s a long story. I was-“

“Lordy!” Peter looked over to find him holding the mask to his face.

“Can you even see in these?”

“Yes,” Peter took it out of his hands, “Yes I can.”

“It’s just when it happened my senses got dialed to eleven so I need those to focus on one thing.” He explained.

“You are in dire need of an upgrade.”

That wasn’t true. He was doing just fine in his suit.

“Top to bottom, one hundred percent restoration that’s why I’m here.”

Peter paused. He was happy with his suit, but a Tony Stark made suit?

Peter sat back down on his bed.

“Why are you doing this?” The question seemed genuine.

Peter fidgeted with his hands.

“I guess… I have these powers, and if I don’t use them to help people then… then what kind of person would I be? My uncle-“ Peter swallows the grief, “My uncle always said with great power comes- comes great responsibility.”

He looked up, trying to read Mr. Starks face.

“So you want to look out for the little guy? Do your part? Make the world a better place?”

It wasn’t completely on the nose, but close enough.

“Yeah.”

The man stood up, “you have a passport?”

Peter was taken aback, “Uhm no I don’t even have a drivers license so…”

“Ever been to Germany?” Peter shook his head, “Oh you’ll love it.”

Peter stood up, “I can’t go to Germany I have…”

He had a lot of things, but he lamely settled on the least revealing one.

“Homework.”

“Alright I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Wait!” Peter said, “I’m being serious I can’t just up and leave!”

Peters eyes met Mr. Starks, all fiery defiance.

“We’ll figure something out.” He clapped Peter on his shoulder.

And he did.

“Matt?” Peter asked, holding the phone to his ear. Mr. Stark had left an hour ago.

“Hey Peter, what’s up?” Matt’s voice rang through.

“Hey! The craziest thing ever just happened to me you and Wade are not going to believe it. Any way we could meet up later? I um… I might need to cancel tonight’s training. And the rest of the week.”

There was a pause on the other like, “Sure, I’ll send Wade a text. Off of cranberry okay?”

“Yup!” Peter responded.

“Be there in twenty.”

Peter hung up.

Holy shit. Holy shit he was going to Germany!

Mr. Stark had laid out some more details for him. They would go to Germany for some mission and Peter would get a new suit and he would be a sort of semi Avenger! Peter!

Peter pulled on his suit and leaped out the window, webbing his way to the meeting place.

Matt arrived at the same time, and Peter helped him up the building. Surprisingly, Wade was only a few minutes late.

“So, what’s the big surprise kid?” Matt asked.

Peter grinned, “I’m going to Germany with the Avengers!”

He didn’t pay much attention to their reaction. Didn’t notice Matt’s slight frown or the look he exchanged with Wade.

“So what are you going to do in Germany Spidey?” Wade asked, his tone light.

“Uhm… he didn’t really say,” Peter admitted, “Just that it was a mission and I should be ready to fight.”

“He?” Peter finally picked up on the distaste in Matt’s tone.

“Tony Stark…” he proceeded cautiously.

Matt’s mouth twitched, “What happened? How’d he find you? What did he say?”

Peter rolled his eyes, “You’re such a helicopter parent Matt.”

Matt stood still, waiting for a response.

Peter sighed, lowering himself to the ground.

“It was… kind of scary honestly. Still is.”

Matt and Wade sat too.

“He was at my house. So he knows who I am.” Peter could sense the growing concern from both men.

“Did he threaten to use that against you?” Matt asked.

Peter shook his head, “No, but it’s still… like he knows you know? And maybe he’ll change his mind about me?”

“And what was his mind about you?” Wade asked.

“That I was a good kid. That I was strong.”

“Peter,” Matt said, “you will never stop being those things.”

Peter smiled up at Matt.

“So when are you leaving?” Wade broke the moment.

“Tomorrow morning, I have to get up early.”

“And you’ll be gone for a week?” Matt clarified.

Peter nodded, “more or less.”

“Well hey, that’s cool. You’re like an avenger man!” Wade clapped him on the back.

Peter laughed, “I mean I guess that’s the idea, one day at least.”

Peter glanced to Matt. Was he upset?

But he was smiling.

“I’m really happy for you Peter. I can’t say I like the guy, but this sounds like a good opportunity.”

“Do you think it has to do with all this accords stuff?” Wade asked before Peter could respond to Matt.

Peter thought for a moment, “he didn’t mention anything about it. I guess I assumed it wasn’t related.”

The trio had discussed the Accords in the past. They all agreed they weren’t really on one side, more of a middle. Still, it was always awkward to bring up politics.

“Just- promise you’ll be careful Peter?” Matt asked.

Peter nodded.

“I promise.”

“Spider-Man!” Peter looked over to find Wade on the ground, waving up to Peter, swinging along the skyline.

Peter made his way down to the street, empty at this time of night.

“Hey!” Peter called, excited to see his friend.

“Holy shit dude, that’s some suit.” Wade pulled Peters arm out and began inspecting it.

“Right?” Peter said, “it’s awesome. It has a bunch of cool features and a heater.”

“Dude.” Wade said, feeling the fabric.

“How was Germany?” Wade asked.

Peter paused, “it was… alright.”

Wade let go of Peters arm, “alright?”

Peter nodded.

Wade stared at him.

Peter avoided eye contact.

“I’m telling Matt.”

“What?! No!” Peter waved his arms, “I mean- there’s nothing to tell him!”

Wade crossed his arms silently.

Peter sighed, “Okay so it wasn’t as magical as I expected, so what?”

“What happened?” Wade asked.

“It just… wasn’t what I expected.”

He didn’t really want to fight Captain America, but what was he going to do? Tell Iron Man no?

“I think we should call a meeting. Matt will want to hear about all of this,” he gestured to Peter, “as well.”

Peter rolled his eyes and gave up, “Okay fine.”

An hour later they were all congregated on the roof of the building off Cranberry.

“Are you okay?” Is the first thing Matt said to Peter.

“I’m fine Matt,” Peter rolled his eyes, accepting the hug offered to him.

“Did you get hurt there?”

“A little,” Peter shrugged, “It’s all healed now though.”

Matt nodded, “So what happened?”

Peter could tell that Matt could tell something happened.

“It was fine,” Peter said honestly, sitting on the ledge of the roof, “Just… not what I was expecting.”

Wade splayed down along the ledge, resting his head in Peters lap. Matt sat on the other side of him.

“It- It did have something to do with the accords.”

Matt stiffened beside him.

“And-And I’m really grateful, because this suit is awesome and I could be on the avengers…”

“Breathe” Matt reminded, his voice calm in comparison to his body language.

“But I didn’t want to fight Captain America.”

Both Wade and Matt stiffened.

“Sorry, backtrack,” Wade sat up, looking Peter in the eye, “He made you fight Captain America?”

Peter looked away, embarrassed at the reaction, “Yeah? I mean, it’s not like he made me-“

“But he never gave you the opportunity to say no?” Matt guessed.

“I-“ Peter hadn’t thought of it like that, “I guess not.”

There was silence then.

“I’m sorry Spidey,” Wade gave him a hug and Peter hugged him back.

“Peter that- that was highly inappropriate of him, okay? He shouldn’t have done that, not to a kid.” Matt said.

“I could have said no though, it’s not like he would have forced me-“

“Tony Stark is well aware that people have a hard time saying no to him. He was trying to use you Peter. I hate to say it, because you deserve this you deserve that suit and you deserve to be with the avengers, but I think he knew he was outnumbered and saw a kid with powers who adored Iron Man and he exploited you.”

Matt had said it, said what Peter had been thinking after the fight.

“I know.” Peter whispered.

“I was… I was sort of scared. I’d never matched strength with anyone. Captain America and the Winter Soldier were both really strong.” Peter looked down, a little embarrassed to have admitted it.

“I think… I think if they wanted to kill me they could have,” Peter said, “but I think they knew, I think they could tell I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Matt wrapped an arm around Peter and Peter leaned into the man.

“I told Mr. Stark I wanted to lay low until the accords thing was figured out. He didn’t seem to happy.”

“Did he hurt you?” Wade asked.

Peter rolled his eyes, “I’m Spider-Man.”

“Did he hurt you?” Wade repeated.

“No.” Peter answered honestly.

“I don’t think he’s a bad guy, I know you both think so. He just… he thinks he’s doing the right thing. We all think we’re doing the right thing. He’s the same as any of us.”

Matt squeezed him closer, “Don’t ever change Spider-Man.”

Chapter Text

“Alright Spidey, what’s the situation?” Peter had called in the group late Saturday night to help him out.

“There’s a heist being planned at the Museum of Modern Art.”

“That’s so fucking cool dude how did you even figure that out?” Wade asked. They were at their usual meeting off Cranberry.

“There was a van parked outside it with some weird noises and I intercepted it. They’re planning on taking some of the paintings and shipping them overseas.”

Matt nodded, “And that’s tonight?”

Peter nodded, “Yes. About 20 people are involved, but most are just helping get the paintings from the museum to the airport, only a handful are actually going in.”

Peter pulled out the map he had printed of the layout and set it on the ground, webbing the corners.

Wade began studying it, Matt just stared forward.

Peter pointed to the parking lot on the east side, “That’s where the car had been parked-“

Matt cleared his throat and Peter picked up on his slightly faster than normal heartbeat - something Matt had taught him.

“I’m blind.” He stated bluntly.

Peter just stared at him for a moment.

Suddenly a lot of things made sense. How so many of his training with him involved relying on senses other than sight. How he never described people by the color of their skin or hair. How he didn’t always make eye contact when talking with others.

“Oh.” Peter said, “Okay.”

“Shit dude when did that happen?” Wade asked.

Matt cleared his throat, “A while ago. Anyways I can’t see what I assume is a map you just pulled out so if you wouldn’t mind describing it?”

“Oh- Oh yeah!” Peter jumped into action, “Sure thing.”

He went on describing it to the best of his ability, Wade dropping comments here and there.

They were making their way to the museum when the jokes began.

“Hey Daredevil,” Wade used Matt’s vigilante name, rare in private now-a days.

“Why don’t the blind go to hell?”

Matt sighed, “Because the devil is afraid they’ll step on his tail.” He responded like he’d heard it a million times.

He didn’t seem angry though. Matt never seemed angry. Sometimes at bad guys sure, but the man was just calm… all the time.

It was strange, all the men Peter knew weren’t like that. The guy teachers at school always lost their temper fast, let their frustration show. The few other missions with the avengers proved they were no better.

Even Uncle Ben could be quick to raise his voice or get angry at a well meaning joke, not that Peter loved him any less for it.

It was just different. Every time he looked to Matt expecting disappointment or anger, he didn’t find it.

“Peter?” Matt asked as the Museum came into view.

Peter hummed.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” Peter glanced at him, “Why?”

“You just seemed spaced out.”

“Just thinking.” Peter responded.

————

The mission went well, all things considered. There was a slight change in plan about halfway through when one of the guys pulled out a bomb, but no one was hurt.

A painting got ruined, which was unfortunate, but it wasn’t a horribly old relic. Police were called and the three scooted away before they arrived.

“Alright, reports everyone?” Peter inquired once they landed on a rooftop.

“I got stabbed 7 times!” Wade excitedly explained.

He proceeded to reenact each stab wound onto Peter, who dramatically acted out being stabbed.

Peter strategically positioned himself to fall into Matt’s arms on the seventh stab, who caught him with ease.

“Alright alright you two,” Matt let Peter catch his balance before letting go of him, “Peter?”

“Uhh, nothing too bad. Punch to the face and a graze on the neck.” The neck actually hurt a little bit now, so he was going to look at it once he got home.

Matt frowned, “how’s the one on your neck?”

Matt taught Peter to lie, but he hadn’t been able to lie too him successfully yet.

“Sort of hurts, I’m going to wrap it when I get home.”

“Do you mind if I look at it?” He asks.

Wade burst out in laughter.

“Get it? Because,” another burst of laughter, “because he can’t look any anything!”

“You’re just hilarious Deadpool, I don’t know how you do it.”

Wade and Peter made eye contact.

Matt didn’t use their hero names unless someone was listening. It could be that there was just someone nearby, or it could be a warning.

“Think you’ve got time?” Peter asked. (Do you think it’s safe?)

“Sure.” (It should be, stay cautious.)

Peter moved towards Matt and lifted part of his suit. While neither of them had ever seen Peters face before, he felt strangely comfortable with Matt touching his neck.

“There’s somebody below, just passing by I think.” He whispered once he was close. “Breathe.” He added, probably noticing Peters heart going fast.

Wade couldn’t hear Matt and stayed dutifully on guard, glancing around in a way that seemed natural.

Matt prodded at the wound a bit, eliciting a wince from Peter.

“That’s pretty deep,” he admitted.

Peter just nodded, more worried about the listener.

“Deadpool you have the kit? We could wrap this up real quick.” Wade nodded wordlessly, pulling out

“I sure do!” Wade exclaimed, pulling out an impossibly large first aid kid, “Why?” He asked an invisible audience, “Because it’s plot relevant!”

Matt and Peter shared a look and decided not to address it.

Matt slowly wrapped Peters neck after wiping away the blood. After a minute he finally spoke up.

“They’re gone. I think they are just passing by but they were stopped for a while.”

“Anything to worry about?” Peter asked.

“No, I think I was just being paranoid.”

Mat finished on Peters neck, “should be good to go, check it in the morning though okay?”

Peter nodded. Then paused.

“Wait can you tell when we nod or shake our heads?” He asked, his voice a mix of concern and curiosity.

Matt nodded, “I can. I’ve learned to use my other senses well enough that I can piece together my surroundings. It’s just things like drawings or colors that I can’t see.”

“Matt, why can’t blind people eat fish?” Wade asked.

“Oh my god.” Matt buried his face in his knees but Peter could see the smile on his face.

“Because it’s sea-food!” Peter couldn’t help his own laugh coming out. It was a horrible joke but it was funny.

“Wade you’re going to be the end of me.” He complained.

Wade just smiled, all proud.

“Those were just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Just wait until I do some research!”

Matt groaned.

——————

Peter was ecstatic.

Things with the accords had blown over and Mr. Stark invited Peter to join them on a mission. Nothing too bad, he had said, just to see how he did.

He knew Matt and Wade were worried about it, but it was the avengers. Besides, they trusted him enough to keep their displeasures to themselves.

That’s how, bright and early on a Sunday morning, he found himself in a quinjet (A quinjet!) with Captain America (Captain America!), the Black Widow (The Black Widow!), Hawkeye (Hawkeye!), and none other than the Bruce Banner.

Peter had been staring at him for a while, so much so that Dr. Banner shifted uncomfortably.

Mustering up the courage, he walked up to the man.

“Dr. Banner sir?” He tried to keep his voice deeper, the way Matt had taught him. He didn’t want the avengers knowing just how young he was.

“Uhm… yes?” Dr. Banner asked.

“I just wanted to say I’m a super big fan of your work.” He tried to stand tall.

“My work… as hulk?” He asked, confusion seeping through. The other people in the quinjet shifted.

“Huh?” Peter had forgotten about the hulk, “No- I mean that’s pretty cool too. But I meant your advancements in the field of physics. Obviously you get a lot of credit for your work in gamma radiation - which is super cool! - but I really love your work in quantum mechanics.”

Bruce Banner raised an eyebrow, “you’ve read my work?”

Peter nodded, “Of course. It’s revolutionary.”

Bruce Banner smiled at him.

(Oh my god Bruce Banner smiled at him!)

“Excuse me Spider-Man, what about all my revolutionary work?” Mr. Stark chimed in, breaking the silence around them.

“Well yours is great too!” He waved his hands out, “I’m just more of a physics guy and less a mechanical guy? If that makes sense?”

Mr. Stark just laughed at him, “I’m kidding Spidey.”

“Oh.” Peters face flushed, “Okay.”

“We’re here.” Captain America announced as the quinjet began decending.

Everyone lined up for the door, Peter towards the back.

“Uhm… so what’s the plan?” He asked hesitantly.

“Just stick to the outside kid.” Mr. Stark instructed.

“Stick to the-“ Peter wanted to clarify but the doors opened and everyone ran out.

Peter followed and took in his surroundings. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

Surrounded by trees was a concrete building, about the size of a mansion. There was only one floor but Peter could hear movement below the ground.

Peter tried to pick out the heartbeats, figure out how many people they were working with, but it was all too muddled.

He climbed onto the roof while the rest of the avengers barged inside.

‘Just stick to the outside’. As if that meant anything.

Peter wasn’t salty about not being able to go in. He was expecting to be given the easy job, he was just thinking that job would come with a bit of a description.

Did they want him to guard the doors? Was there one door in particular? Were they worried about people escaping through the windows? The roof? When should he give up pursuit? Were there hostages involved? What were they even doing here?

All questions were left unanswered.

Peter prowled around the roof, taking note of any possible exits. After a minute or two a group of men ran out one exit.

“Bingo.” Peter whispered as he ran across the roof to meet them.

“Hey where you going?” He asked, webbing away the gun from one of the men and standing in front of them. “It’s rude to leave a party this early you know.”

There were five men, and the four who still had guns began open firing at him.

Peter dodged as many as he could, a few bullets grazed him but clotted over immediately. He webbed the fifth guy to the ground and slowly began taking the guns of the other four.

Soon enough he had them all webbed down and he resumed his patrol on the roof.

Not a moment later another group came busting out of some doors. Peter took care of them similarly.

As he swiped the gun from the last man his senses alerted him of someone on the roof. He must have gotten out while Peter was on the ground taking care of the others.

The man peeked over the roof and pointed his gun.

Peter easily dodged all the bullets while the man in front of him came at him with a knife. Peters senses prioritized the immediate threat and he dodged out of the way of the knife without thinking.

The bullet dug into his arm, a searing pain filling him immediately.

He let out a curse and webbed the man in front of him to the ground through gritted teeth. He webbed his way back to the roof and knocked out the man with a gun, hitting harder than normal.

After determining everything was clear he sat down to inspect his wound.

It wasn’t bad, but the bullet was still inside, which could lead to some serious complications. He could still fight and function fine but Peter thought he should be safe and report it in.

He webbed up the wound and hit his earpiece.

“Mr. Stark?”

A moment passed and the other line was filled with noises of fighting, “Hey kid hold on a moment.” He made a grunt of pain and the line went off.

Peter waited, continuing to patrol.

A few minutes passed and he hadn’t heard anything.

He didn’t want to reach out again. Mr. Stark sounded a little upset and he didn’t want to startle him if he was in a fight.

He listened closely and could still hear the wirr of his suit.

Peter bit his tongue. A bullet wound was probably nothing to the avengers anyways. Besides, he could still fight just fine. As long as he wasn’t dying then he should be fine to push on.

So for the next half hour Peter fought through gritted teeth.

It was nearing midday when the avengers emerged from inside and got on the quinjet, Peter close behind.

Peter sat down, grateful for the rest. His arm was really starting to hurt. He almost regretted not saying anything earlier because now the bullet would have to be dug out.

The Avengers were all crowded around a hologram. The Black Widow inserted something and files showed up on the screen.

Mr. Stark began searching through it, eventually pulling up a folder. Inside were forms, documentation of people. Employees, Peter assumed from the glance he got from his seat.

Another wave of pain motivated Peter to stand up.

“Uhm, Mr. Stark?” He asked from behind the man.

Mr. Stark continued to scan the current file, “uh huh.” He said.

“Uhm… I think maybe-“

“Sorry Spidey can we sort that out later?” Mr. Stark said, leaning forward at the hologram.

It wasn’t a question that needed answering.

Peter sat back down.

The avengers spent the whole ride back looking over the documents. They piled off when the arrived at the landing deck, all heading to “room 5” to continue their inspection.

Peter jumped off the landing deck of Avengers Tower and left.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. His arm hurt like a motherfucker. He could smell the blood and sweat practically dripping from it at this point.

It hurt to swing, so he mostly walked once he made it to the flat roofs. He let his arm hang limply, though even that began to hurt.

Peter wouldn’t be able to treat this. He could tell now. He was loosing blood and shaking and he wouldn’t be able to cut his skin open and dig out the bullet without passing out.

Peter changed course as his head grew lighter, his vision going in and out as the pain increased.

He should probably call Matt before bursting in on his apartment, but he didn’t even want to think about pulling out a phone. If he stopped moving he would probably pass out.

He’d only been to Matt’s apartment once or twice. The first was just to show him where it was and the second was after Matt had gotten injured and Peter brought him back there.

After what seemed like forever of running across rooftops with a limp arm screaming at him, he finally made it to Matt’s roof.

His legs wanted to give out the moment the landed but he had to get inside. He ripped open the rooftop door, his brain to tired and out of it to feel remorseful. Peter fell in, practically collapsing.

It occurred to Peter that there was a good chance Matt wasn’t even here.

“Peter?” Peter let out a small breath of relief, he was.

“Shit! Peter?” Peter felt Matt approach. He closed his eyes. He was safe now so he could rest.

A tap to his face had him opening his eyes, “Do not fall asleep.”

The voice wasn’t angry, it was never angry, just worried.

Peter complied, keeping his eyes open and looking at Matt.

“I’m going to move you to the couch okay?”

Peter just nodded in response.

He was gently lifted up and Peter winced as his arm was jostled. He lifted his hood arm to wrap around Matt’s neck, afraid of falling.

“I gotcha,” the man whispered, “just breathe.”

Peter blinked, heavy, and then he was on the couch.

“Alright, what’s going on?” Matt asked in his debrief tone.

“Arm.” Peter croaked out, gently lifting the injured one.

Matt nodded, “can you take off your suit?”

Peter pressed his chest, allowing the suit to come off. He pulled his mask off, letting himself breathe a little easier.

Peter began to pull off his suit, pausing as he reached his arm and pain shot through him.

Matt’s hands gently replaced Peters and he began to coax it off.

There was a sharp intake of breath when the arm was revealed.

“Peter it looks - it looks healed. What happened?” Worry shot through each word.

“Bullet.”

Matt’s hand went up to Peters hair, curling through it, “Okay.”

His voice was calm, collected.

But how was it healed over? He was getting more lightheaded as time went on.

“I’m loosing blood though,” he whispered, “I feel dizzy.”

Matt’s hand paused and moved down to his forehead.

Apparently what he felt was bad because his heart rate sped up.

“Peter was the bullet poisonous?” Matt’s voice was getting less calm.

Peter closed his eyes again. He was so tired. The pain in his arm was getting worse, that didn’t make sense. It should be feeling better.

“Peter!” Peter reluctantly opened his eyes, “Was it poisonous?”

Peter shrugged.

It was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open. He blinked, a long heavy blink, and Matt had moved. His hand was no longer in his hair, but holding a phone up to his ear.

Peter blinked again and the hand was back in his hair. He liked that. It made him feel warm.

“Peter? Breathe. You’ve got to stay awake okay? Tell me something interesting, how’s that math class going?”

“Still fucking sucks.” Peter croaked out.

“How come?”

Matt already knew why it sucked. Peter had gone on and on about it last week. But Matt seemed like he really wanted to know, so Peter told him again.

“She doesn’t know how to teach. She’ll just send us to YouTube, but then get mad when we don’t do it her way.” His words were long and slurred. It seemed like it took five minutes just to get a sentence out.

“I have it with Liz though.” He added.

“Liz? Who’s that?” Matt’s hand was still in his hair. Peter liked that.

“Girl. She’s really cute. She’s a senior though. Gonna- Gonna try and ask her to homecoming I think.” Peter blushed a bit. Why was he telling Matt about his love life?

“Shit!” Peter exclaimed as another pulse of pain shot through his body, this one more painful than the rest.

He tried to hold his tears in, he really did, but fuck it hurt.

“Breathe. It’s okay, you’re okay. I have a friend who’s going to help you out okay?”

Peter nodded, an embarrassing noise of pain accompanying it.

Another heavy blink and there was a women’s voice filling the room. She was talking, instructing Matt.

Blink.

He was being picked up, his arm left cradled on his stomach, pain pulsing through him steadily like a heartbeat.

Blink.

He was on the ground, his head resting on Matt’s knees.

Blink.

Matt was holding down his arm.

Blink.

Peter screamed as something dug into his skin, right were the bullet was. It moved around, scraped at his flesh. He screamed and his vision went white and blurry and his throat became raw.

Blink.

It was almost a relief when Peter passed out. At least he wouldn’t feel the pain. Claire had dutifully ignored the screams, something Matt was grateful for (He couldn’t have ignored it if it was him).

Peter was on the ground of his apartment floor, his head cushioned on Matt’s knees as Claire dig around for the bullet.

A moment ago Peter had been screaming loud enough someone had probably called the police, but now it was silent.

Matt kept himself focused on Peters still beating heart.

“Got it.” Claire announced, a clink hitting the tray as the bullet was dropped in.

It had been an uphill battle, trying to dig out the bullet through a hole trying to stitch itself back together.

Matt let out a breath. It was over.

Claire was bent over, inspecting the bullet.

“It was definitely poison.” She pointed to the bullet, which was opened, a hole in the middle. “I’m not sure what was inside of it, but that’s likely why he had a fever.”

“Will he be okay?” Matt asked.

Claire looked to Peter, “I think so, a bullet like that would have killed a normal person but if he’s survived this long… as long as the fever goes down he will be okay.”

Claire packed up, leaving some medicine and bandages for the morning, and left.

Matt picked up Peter, god he was so small limp in his arms. He brought him over to his bed, quickly pulling off his blood stained suit. He set out some clean clothes for Peter in the morning.

Matt went and sat on his couch, also bloodstained.

He rested his arms on his legs and leaned over, closing his eyes.

“Dear God help that boy.” It was short prayer, but Matt was too tired to say anything else.

Peter was so young, and he just wanted to help. Some days he wanted to take the suit and tell him to wait until he was an adult, but he knew that wouldn’t do anything. Peter would go back out in sweatpants and a hoodie and keep saving people, stubborn as he was. It scared Matt.

He was smart though. He was so smart. His technique was getting better by the day. Even before they had met Peter had been smart. He’d learned how to fight through experience, but his strategizing was already beyond Matt’s.

Matt laid down and fell asleep to the sound of Peters heartbeat.

—————————

Blink.

The bed was comfortable. Larger and softer than his twin bed at home. There was a dull pain radiating all through his body, but the warmth of the bed compensated for it.

There were unfamiliar noises around. There was more people shouting than normal, new smells, new lights dancing behind his eyes, the clink of pans in the other room that was a rarity nowadays.

Peter opened his eyes. This was not his bedroom.

He glanced around. The room he was in wasn’t huge by any means, but still larger than his. There was a wardrobe to his right and a door at the foot of the bed.

Windows lined the left wall. Directly outside was a large billboard. Brightly lit was the daily bugles headline (because of course it was) *’Spider-Menace spotted in Hells Kitchen!’.

There was some nonsense subtitle about Spider-Man taking over ‘the devils’ territory.

Last night hit Peter like a brick.

The mission. Being shot. Being ignored. Swinging to Matt’s. The pain increasing as he stumbled in.

He didn’t remember anything after that.

He slowly got up. His arm was a bit sore. The bandages revealed he had bled into them. He gently probed it and winced. The wound was still open, likely because he hadn’t eaten in a while.

He found a set of clothes at the end of the bed. His suit was laid over a chair in the corner, covered in blood.

Peter pulled the too big clothes on, his mind racing. What was he going to tell Matt?

(The truth.) His brain supplied. Because he hadn’t ever lied to Matt. He didn’t think he could.

Peter cracked open the door, peeking his head out.

Matt was in the kitchen and Peter slowly advanced towards him.

“Peter.” Matt greeted. He didn’t sound angry. He was never angry.

“Hi.” Peter said, standing awkwardly.

“Why don’t you take a seat, I’m making pancakes.” Matt nodded his head towards a table and Peter nervously sat down.

True to his word, a minute later Peter was being handed a plate of hot pancakes.

Matt sat next to him, a plate for himself sat in front of him but he turned to Peter.

“Can I see your arm before you eat? I’m supposed to rebandage it - there’s some ibuprofen here too, not sure how well it will work though.”

Peter nodded silently. He knew Matt would have questions and he didn’t want to answer them because then Matt would get mad.

Matt took off the old bandages, revealing the cut still open on his arm.

“What happened last night?” Peter asked as Matt rewrapped it.

“You crashed at my place, quite literally, and told me you were shot. It had healed over so I had Claire come over.”

Peter winced at the gel Matt applied.

“The bullet was- it was poisonous-“

“Well shit that explains it.” Peter interrupted.

“Claire had to dig it out and you passed out.”

Matt finished up with the bandage and Peter stayed silent. He put the back of his hand on Peters forehead, “You had a pretty bad fever. It’s gone now though.”

Peter nodded, “I feel fine.” He looked away.

“Breathe.” Matt urged. “I’m not mad.”

“I know.” Peter said, and he was telling the truth, “But you will be.”

“I won’t.” Peter listened to his heart, he was telling the truth.

“Talk or eat first?” Matt asked.

Peter was hungry, and he didn’t want to talk, so he chose the ladder.

They ate in silence, Peter tried to keep his pace slow but he was really hungry, and that didn’t last long. With his metabolism he could eat triple what a normal person does and still have room for more. Needless to say he goes hungry quite often.

They finished eating and Peter helped with the dishes before Matt led him to the living room. Peter fidgeted anxiously with his fingers.

“Do you need to call your aunt?” He asked.

Peter shook his head. Aunt May had the night shift, and by the time she got home it wouldn’t be unusual for Peter to be out.

“Want to tell me what happened last night and why you’re so nervous about telling me?”

“Yesterday morning I got a call from Mr. Stark.” Peter glanced up but Matt’s face was unwavering.

“There was a mission he wanted me on and I said yes.”

Peter took a breath, “I got shot. Obviously. And I tried to tell him I swear! But he told me to wait a moment and I didn’t want to bother him if he was fighting and I felt fine so I just kept going. And then when we were coming back I tried again but he was busy looking at all these files and I thought, you know, the avengers probably get shot all the time so I thought maybe it’s not even that big of a deal.”

Peter paused to take a breath.

“But then I was going home and I realized maybe it was a bigger deal than I thought so I came here. I’m really sorry Matt, I didn’t want to barge in but I didn’t think I could dig it out on my own.”

Matt didn’t say anything. His heartbeat was fast. His jaw was clenched.

“You’re angry.” He said.

Matt’s gaze softened, “Not at you Peter, never at you.”

It was the truth.

“Just - I won’t tell you to not do missions with them anymore - that’s not fair. But next please, just please push harder if you need something? If you’re injured?”

Peter nodded.

Matt sighed, “Okay. And you can always call me too, always.”

“I know.”

Chapter Text

Peters arms were on fire.

Not literally, but they might as well be.

The ferry was splitting down the middle, and Peter was not going to be able to hold it together.

Toomes was long gone, so any hope of catching him today was gone.

Right as Peter was reaching his limit, right as his muscles were about to give out, the pressure let out.

Peter looked around, confused.

Then he heard the familiar wirr of Mr. Starks suit.

Shit.

Peter let go and slipped out the back of the ferry as it closed. He swung to the bottom where Mr. Stark was patching up split.

“Mr. Stark?” He called out as he followed the man up the side.

No response.

“Mr. Stark? What do you want me to do? I can help get people off-“

He made it to the very top of the ferry.

“Oh I think you’ve done quite enough.” Peter stood still as the venom and anger in his voice hit him.

Shit. He was really pissed.

Then he just left.

Which okay, rude. Peter sat down defeatedly.

It took him an hour to reach the shore. Hours of work and he was no closer to finding Toomes.

Peter swung up to the top of a building, content to wallow in his failures for an hour before it got dark and he could head on patrol.

Then that stupid wirring sound approached.

“Previously on Peter screws the pooch I tell you to stay away from this and instead you hack a multimillion dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do.”

Peter felt anger bubbling inside him. Toomes was going to hurt people. And besides, Mr. Stark gave him the suit. It was his and Mr. Stark thought it was okay to just track him?

But the better part of him was thinking about the ferry.

“Is everyone okay?” He asked, keeping his gaze forward.

“No thanks to you.”

Peters head turned. “No thanks to me?” He repeated. “Those weapons are out there and I tried to tell you about it.”

He walked closer to Mr. Stark as the suit lowered towards the ground.

“But you didn’t listen!” He said, letting anger seep into his tone, “none of this would have happened if you had just listened to me!”

He was close now, standing right in front of Mr. Stark.

The suit opened up and Peter backed up as an angry looking Tony Stark walked out.

“I did listen kid. Who do you think called the FBI?”

Peter scoffed. The FBI only got in his way there. They were shooting at Toomes even though the bullet were flying right off.

“Do you know that I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone said I was crazy to recruit a fourteen year old-“

“Fifteen.”

“No, no this is where you zip it!” Peter tried to hide his flinch at the sudden and loud shout.

“What if somebody had died tonight? Huh?” Peter looked down, “That’s on you!” Mr. Stark was still yelling, he was still angry.

“And if you died? I feel like that’s on me. I don’t need that on my conscious.”

Peter looked away, “Yes sir- I-I’m sorry-“

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” Peter flinched back.

Peter swallowed, “I-I just wanted to be like you.” He met Tony’s eyes.

“And I wanted you to be better.”

Peter looked away.

“Okay. It’s not working out. I’m gonna need the suit back.” Peters head shot back as Mr. Stark spoke.

“What?” He asked, holding back the tears threatening to fall. “For how long.”

“Forever.”

“No-No No Mr. Stark you don’t understand.” He begged.

This suit was helping him help people. He was able to help so many more people with it.

“Please this is all I have - please I’m nothing without this suit.” It was a bit of an exaggeration, but not entirely false.

“If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it.” The words hit Peter like a building.

Peter looked away. Mr. Stark was set on his decision.

“I- I don’t have any other clothes.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

Mr. Stark left and came back with Hello Kitty pajama pants and an ‘I survived New York’ shirt.

Peter gave him the suit.

Peter held his tears until Mr. Stark left.

He opened his phone, his hand hovering on his contact list.

He didn’t want to call Matt. Matt meant questions and worry and emotions that Peter wasn’t ready for.

But Wade wouldn’t ask questions. He would ask if he needed to kill someone and Peter would say no and that would be that.

Wade would make fun of his pants but wear the same ones in a week. Wade would give him a hug and buy him a taco and some new clothes and send him home.

He pressed call.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey Petey-Pie! Need someone dead?”

Peter laughed at his prediction, a wet laugh.

“N-No I uhm… I’m on top of that octagon building on long island? I- I need a change of clothes.”

There’s a pause before the response, “I’ll be right over. Just sit tight and look pretty Spidey!” Wade kept his voice light but Peter could sense the worry.

The sun was setting when Wade arrived, messily crawling up the side of the building and breaking a few figures in the process.

“Nice outfit.” Wade commented as he shoved a change of clothes into Peters arms.

Peter huffed out a laugh and Wade dutifully turned around.

“I have Deoderant too. You stink.”

Peter let out a wet laugh, “thanks Wade.”

Peter changed again. This time into a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie, much more comfortable and weather appropriate, especially with his inability to thermoregulate.

“Okay,” he said once he was done.

Wade turned back around and walked forward, plucking the Hello Kitty pants from Peters arms.

“I’m just going to hold onto this okay?”

Peter let out another laugh.

Wade wrapped an arm around Peter, “you have to help me down because all of my fingers are broken.” He spoke bluntly.

After a bit of trial and error they reached the bottom and quickly hurried away.

“So… I’m thinking that Chinese takeout place down by Pine?” Wade offered as they walked down the street.

Peter nodded wordlessly, keeping his eyes trained on his feet.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Wade offered.

“No.” Peter said immediately. Talking was the last thing he wanted.

Wade let out a dramatic breath, “Oh thank god. I had no idea what to say. Matt’s way better at that stuff.”

The streets were empty this time of night, or at least the backroads they were wandering were. Peter let his mind wander, letting Wade lead the way.

His suit was gone. Toomes was still out there.

Peter didn’t want to ask for help. He wanted - needed - to prove himself. If he couldn’t take down someone like Toomes on his own then could he even call himself a superhero?

He knew Matt or Wade would help him without hesitation, but Toomes was his bad guy. Neither of them had been involved, and it seemed unfair to get them messed up in the situation.

Besides, it might make Mr. Stark less angry with him if he fixed the issue on his own.

“We’re here.” Wade announced as they approached the doors of the small Chinese take out joint.

Wade held the door for him and Peter walked inside. It was warm, enough that it made Peter sleepy.

The building was small, no more than a dozen tables were to the right of the entrance, each with a little basket for silverware and napkins.

There was a man at the counter in front of the door who gave a surprised look at Deadpool’s getup for a moment, but continued as normal (never change, New York).

Wade ordered for them both while Peter kept his gaze down. He was hungry, and tired, and Wade knew what he liked anyways, so he allowed himself to stay zoned out.

Wade finished at led Peter to a table, letting him slide in the booth first and then sitting next to him. The lighting was dim and had a tinge of orange to it, providing a calming effect.

The day began to catch up to Peter as he sat. His feet screamed in relief, finally able to rest. His legs too had been exhausted. His arms were starting to hurt, the strain from holding together the ferry became apparent.

Wade brought an arm around him and Peter leaned in, resting his head in the crook of Wades shoulder and letting himself rest his eyes.

He focused on the man’s heartbeat. Steady, a little fast but that was usual for Wade. He took deep, even breaths, lolling Peter to sleep.

“Foods here baby boy.” Wade whispered after a few minutes had passed.

Peter liked the name. Coming from anyone else it may have seemed weird or romantic, but from Wade it was just… a name. He only pulled it out on special occasions, sticking to Spidey, Petey Pie, or Peter normally.

He sat up straighter and started eating. Wade must have ordered half the menu judging from the amount of plates filling their booth.

None of went to waste though. The both of them had extremely fast metabolisms, so the table was cleared soon enough. Peter felt almost full by the end of it, a feeling he felt rarely after the bite.

Wade ended up getting desert as well. Fried ice cream, fried cheesecake, egg tarts, bean cakes, mango pudding. Wade split them all in half and made Peter try each of them, not that he complained.

Peter was sure they got some more strange looks from the other employees, but he was too tired to care. He was warm and full and his body was exhausted.

Wade guided him outside after paying. The cold air cold him up a bit more.

He didn’t think about where they were going, content to walk beside Wade. He was too tired to think, too upset to want to.

He just placed one food in front of the other. Wade kept an arm around him, turning every once in a while.

He was quiet, uncharacteristically so, but then, so was Peter. The only noises were those of New York. Car horns, people yelling, the works.

After what seemed like a while the older man came to a stop. They were outside Peters apartment complex.

“Is your aunt home? Do you need to enter through the window?” Peter shook his head. May was on the night shift again.

“Convenient.” Wade hummed, as if he knew something Peter didn’t. “Wonder how it always turns out like that. I’ll walk you up then.” Wade nodded his head and opened the door for Peter.

Peter led him up the stairs, the elevator was still broken, and stopped outside his door to fish out his keys.

His fingers were aching, a surprising strain had been put on them through holding onto his webs. They fumbled as he dug through his pockets for the keys.

They had been transferred around between all his changes of clothes, and it took him a moment.

His hands were shaking once he got it out as memories from today filled his head.

Wade took the keys out of his hands and opened the door for him.

Peter let out a breath of relief as the familiararity of the space filled him. He felt himself relax a bit.

“Alright Petey-Pie,” Wade announced as he shut the door behind him, “It’s somebody’s bedtime.”

Normally Peter would protest, but he was too tired. He followed Wade to his bedroom and collapsed onto the bed.

He fell asleep within minutes.

Chapter Text

“Most kids have a bad homecoming if they get stood up,” Peter mumbled to himself from the top of the cyclops, “I have a bad homecoming when my dates father tries to kill me repeatedly and I’m crushed by a building.”

He would laugh at his own jokes if he didn’t think that would kill him with the state of his ribs.

Reluctantly, after the police began searching the remains of the plane, he stood up to leave.

It hurt, but he made it to queens.

The city was quiet, thank god because Peter was in no condition to fight. He wandered for a bit. He didn’t want to go home quite yet.

He found himself on the roof of the apartment building off cranberry.

He sat down on the ledge. Peters head hurt. His lungs hurt. Every limb in his body hurt.

“Peter?”

“Matt.” Peter was relieved to hear the man’s voice.

Matt walked up to him, joining him on the ledge.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at homecoming?” He asked, then, “Shit. Peter you’re hurt. You’re really hurt.”

Peter could feel Matt’s gaze on him. Holding a million questions.

Peter didn’t know where to begin answering them. So he didn’t. He leaned his head against Matt’s shoulder, and he cried.

“Oh Peter…” Matt wrapped an arm around him, rocking him back and forth. “Breathe.” He whispered.

“I just wanted to- just wanted to go to fucking homecoming-“ he chocked out through a sob.

“I just wanted to be normal!”

Peter tried to be grateful for his powers. He was. But sometimes he envied the other kids. They didn’t have to worry about being killed or having their identity revealed.

Matt rubbed Peters shoulder, staying silent as Peter sobbed.

Moments passed. Peters sobs slowly died down to an occasional sniffle. He kept himself small in Matt’s arms, enjoying the feeling of safety.

“Woah you guys hanging out without me? So not cool!” A voice below yelled up and Peter let out a wet laugh. It wasn’t funny but it was Wade and everything Wade did made Peter laugh.

The assassin was standing on the street below, waving up at them. Either he hadn’t caught on about Peters mood or he didn’t care.

Wade began making his way up, latching onto the window ledges until he could accept Matt’s extended hand. He took a seat on Matt’s other side.

“Crazy night huh?” Wade commented. “First that building falling then the plane crash. I thought it was one of you two but then I saw you guys hanging out without me which is super uncool.”

Peter could feel Matt’s gaze, or… at least his focus on him.

“That was me.” Peter said, his voice raw.

Suddenly he wanted to tell them. He wanted to tell them and he wanted them to be mad at the world on his behalf. He wanted them to tell him what to do and how to fix it.

“Shit. What happened?” Wade asked.

Peter looked down and twiddled with his fingers. One of them was broken. The suit had been worn away on the pads of his fingers. Cuts lined his arms.

He sat up from against Matt, “I’ve been following this guy for a while.” He started.

The others were silent as he told his story.

“He was selling weapons. Super crazy powerful weapons. And the main guy - Vulture - I’d been finally getting some leads.”

Peter took off his mask to wipe his tears.

“But tonight was h-homecoming. So I thought - you know - I’ll just forget about it for a night. I asked a girl out and she said yes and May was so excited for me. We had to figure out how to tie a tie and everything and she dropped me off at her house.”

Peters hands tightened as he stared at the mask in his hands.

“Her dad was going to give us a ride there and then-“

Peters hands were shaking, reliving the moment the door opened revealing him, revealing the vulture.

“The Vulture was her dad.” He whispered, just loud enough to hear.

He heard Matt and Wades unified release of breath.

“And I thought - I thought - I mean shit right? But I can’t do anything about it now so I got- I got in the car with him-“ Matt’s arm reappeared around him and Peter leaned in.

“But he knew he knew who I was.”

“ ‘s okay,” Matt whispered.

“Then we got there and he made Liz get out so he could talk to me. I-It’s stupid because- because I’m Spider-Man but that was the scaredest I’ve ever been.”

“It’s not stupid Peter.” Matt reassured.

Peter sniffed, “he said he would kill me if I chased after him but obviously I couldn’t just not chase after him so I did.”

“So I caught up with him at this old warehouse downtown-“

“Shit- the one that fell? Are you okay?” Wade intercepted.

Peter wanted to nod, but he shook his head as more tears came flooding, “I was- I was under it.”

Peter didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath from both men, didn’t miss the way Matt pulled him closer.

“Like- all the way under it?” Wade asked.

“I was in the basement. In the middle.” His tears were slowing. “I pushed it off me.”

“Jesus - Kid-“ Matt wrapped both arms around Peter then released him, “Shit you’re still hurt-“

“I’m fine-“ he said, “At least- I just- I’m not going to drop dead.”

Matt was still concerned, but he laid off.

“Then I got out and I followed him up to the plane- the one moving all of Mr. Starks stuff - and I tried to call Happy but he didn’t pick up so I followed him up.”

Peter took a breath.

“And I was sort of beating him and then the plane started falling and I redirected it to the beach and-“ Peter sat up straighter “-Shit! I think I got a concession when I fell!”

He looked to Matt. Matt just looked at him, processing his words.

“Oh my God Peter.” He said.

“Dude what the fuck do you mean you redirected the plane?” Wade said at the same time.

Peter shrunk down, embarrassed, “I just like - webbed the wing and pulled.”

Matt pulled him ever closer and Peter let his head rest.

“Then um- then…” what had happened next? It was all fuzzy after he landed on the beach.

“I can’t remember…”

Matt and Wade shared a look.

“Do you feel dizzy at all? Any headache?” Matt asked.

Peter nodded his head.

“You have a concussion. Peter you need to be treated. For that and for…” Matt just looked Peter up and down.

Peter nodded his head in agreement.

“Will your aunt get suspicious?” Wade asked.

Peter shook his head, “night shift.”

Wade looks to you, “Well isn’t that convenient! Wonder how it always seems to work out like that?”

The others did not seem to hear this. Only you, the reader did.

“We’ll go to my place.” Matt decided, “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” Peter stood up with Matt, leaning heavily against him.

Peter let go of him, finding his own balance and immediately falling over. Matt and Wade both caught him, Wade pulling the kid into his arms.

“Lead the way Double-D, I’ll escort our damsel in distress.” Deadpool adjusted his grip so Peter would be more comfortable.

Peter kept his eyes closed as they walked, the motion doing his headache no favors. He hadn’t realized before, too caught up in adrenaline, but a few of his ribs must be broken from the way it hurt to breathe.

The made it to Matt’s apartment and Peter was carried inside and set on the couch (his bloodstains from earlier still there.)

“Why the hell are there bloodstains on your couch? Did you know there was bloodstains on your couch? Because there’s bloodstains on your couch.” Matt sat on the coffee table in front of Peter as Wade peered at the suspicious stain.

“Yes, I’m aware. It’s Peters.”

“What! When was this? Was nobody going to tell me about this?” Wade made a pretend betrayed face.

“I got shot a while ago.” Peter summed up and tried and failed to hold back a grunt.

“Alright, how can we help? What hurts most?” Matt’s hands hovered. Never touching but ready to move at an instant.

“I don’t-“ Peter made a pained face, “I don’t think there’s anything to do. I have a concussion and definitely some broken bones and bruises, but there isn’t much to do for them.”

Matt nodded, sitting back slightly.

“What about the cuts?” Wade gestured, “And the burns?”

Peter shifted slightly on the couch, lowering himself, “Those aren’t really bothering me right now, sort of forgot about them.”

Matt frowned, “We should try to cover them, at least so there’s no risk of infection.”

Wade jumped up and walked to Matt’s kitchen, returning a moment later with a first aid kit.

“Do you mind taking your suit off?” Wade asked, “I can grab a change of clothes.”

Peter shook his head, “I’m really hot anyways.”

Reluctantly, Peter stood up to take off his suit so he was in his boxers. He didn’t miss the movements from Wade as he took in his bruises and cuts on his abdomen.

Matt made him lay back down and didn’t let him help bandage himself. Peter tried to fight sleep, at least until they were done bandaging him, but he was exhausted. The pain had kept him awake for so long, but his body forced him to sleep.

——————

Explosions echoed in the backround as Peter ripped off his mask. There was too much smoke, too much fire. He couldn’t breathe.

His ears started ringing as he looked around. Sand beneath him, fire surrounding him. The wreckage of the plane lined the beach.

Peter forced himself to stand up. He looked into the darkness. There was something-

“Ah!” He tried to duck. His senses screamed at him to do so, but he couldn’t. He was already being knocked back.

The ringing faded, instead replaced by the sounds of the Vultures wings.

He was thrown back, sand and metal being sent flying as Peter attempted to cushion his head with his arms.

For a moment, just a moment, Peter wanted to stay down. He wanted to fall into the ground and not get up. But that wasn’t an option.

Defiantly, he stood. The vulture landed before him, all sparking metal and broken machinery. His eyes still glowed green, staring into Peter.

“Hey Pedro.”

The suit came to life, power building up in the wings. The Vulture rammed forward and Peters senses finally kicked in, allowing him to dodge out of the way.

He ducked and tumbled, trying to use his webs to fight back but they missed and the Vulture turned back around.

The Vultures claw came down on his chest. The weight was unbearable. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe.

It was like he was under the building again. He was under the building. Did he ever get out? What if he didn’t? What if he was still under there now, slowly being crushed alive?

The vultures claws dug into his skin and Peter screamed. He was stuck. He was stuck and he couldn’t get out. It was heavy, it was too heavy.

He opened his eyes. It was dark. It was so darkhe was back under the building.

“Peter!” What was the voice coming from? Peter looked around but he couldn’t see because it was dark and he was still under the building.

“It’s okay, it’s okay Peter it’s Matt.” Someone was touching him. Holding him.

Peter stopped screaming. He was too tired to scream.

Matt was here. Matt was here. Matt was here. He repeated it like a mantra in his head. Matt was here.

Peter looked around. It was still dark, but it wasn’t under the building.

“Where… where?” He asked.

“My room. Matt’s room.” Matt was holding him. Peter liked that. He leaned into it.

“I was- I thought-“ Peter tried to articulate. He was just under the building. He was just fighting the Vulture. “I thought I was under the building.”

Matt pulled him closer, and Peter leaned his head against the man’s chest.

“You weren’t. It was just a dream, just a nightmare. You’re here, you’re safe.” Matt smoothed back his hair. The way Peter liked.

“Oh.” Peter responded.

Peter kicked the blanket off of himself. It was too heavy. Then he immediately felt cold.

“Are you hot?” Matt asked, his hand moving to Peters forehead.

Peter shook his head, “Heavy.” He stated. He could have gone into more detail, but he didn’t think he had the energy to.

Matt hummed, “okay. Is there anything else bothering you?”

Peter thought for a moment, “Dark.” He croaked out.

There was a shift from Matt as he leaned away for a moment, and then a lamp was being turned on, dimly lighting up the room.

Peter let out a breath. He could see it now. He could see he wasn’t under the building. He was in Matt’s room, the blinds and door were both closed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Matt offered, keeping his voice low.

“I… remembered some of the fight. On the beach. With the Vulture.” Peter shut his eyes as he remembered, “He was on top of me and then- then I was back under the building-“

Peter was crying now. Matt began to rock him back and forth.

“I was back there and I couldn’t breathe-“ Peters breathing began to pick up as he recalled his dream.

“Breathe,” Matt reminded him, “You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re safe.” Matt’s hand continued to run through his curls.

Peter followed his instructions, matching his breathing. Eventually, in Matt’s arms, he fell asleep.

—————————

Matt let out a breath of relief once Peter fell asleep again. He wasn’t expecting a nightmare, not so soon. It was scary, seeing the kid out of it like that, seeing him so scared.

He’d only gotten an hour of sleep before he awake to Peters screams. Immediately a hundred different situations played through his head. The Vulture was here, he had Peter. Peter had shifted in his sleep and moved a broken bone. Wade had made a reappearance and scared Peter.

But it was only a nightmare.

Matt continued to curl his hands through Peters hair. It calmed him, his heart always slowed a bit more when he did it.

Peter was splayed out in the bed, his upper body resting on Matt’s chest. The covers were kicked down earlier. Matt was worried about him getting cold, but hopefully his own body heat would be enough.

His breathing was even - for now - the steady rise and fall of his chest letting Matt calm down some.

A part of him wanted to be mad. The kid should have called for help, should have told someone what he was planning. But Peter had taken down plenty of arms dealers on his own in the past, he couldn’t have known this one would be different.

Matt sighed. The kid was right, he deserved a normal life. He deserved a homecoming dance, deserved a stress free night. He deserved to do stupid shit like drink wine coolers under age or graffiti a bridge, instead of doing stupid shit like getting crushed by a building or getting shot at.

Matt could almost forget, when the boy was in his suit, just how young he was. In the suit, Peter was Spider-Man, he was reckless, but capable. Young, but not a child. But when the mask came off and Matt could sense him, he could really tell just how little he was.

And he was strong. Stronger than Matt, stronger than Wade. He was experienced, with about two years under his belt. He was good at what he did and that almost made it worse.

Because if Peter was bad at it, if he couldn’t fight or if he couldn’t plan or if he wasn’t so smart - Matt could justify trying to stop him. But as it stood Peter was good at being a vigilante. He was on the same level as him and Wade.

It didn’t make moments like this any easier.

Moments where Peter was covered in burns and cuts and struggling with nightmares.

Matt didn’t fall asleep this time, his mind racing about Peters nightmare. He was remembering at least, so his concussion was fading.

The buzz of the lamp made it too difficult for him to sleep, but if it helped Peter he wouldn’t complain.

Peters heart began to beat faster. It wasn’t supposed to do that. It was supposed to slow down.

He was having another nightmare.

Peter let out a whimper and began to flail. Matt tried his best to wake the boy.

“Peter?” He gently tapped his face, “Come on Peter wake up!” He allowed his voice to grow louder.

Then the screaming started again.

Matt felt a moment of sympathy for his neighbors.

Peters voice was raw as he screamed, the noise breaking every once in a while. He clawed at his chest as Matt attempted to stop him.

“Come on Peter, please, please wake up.”

And then the screaming stopped and Peters eyes flew open.

“Matt?” Matt let out a breath of relief.

“Yes, yes it’s me, you’re okay Peter. You’re here, you’re safe.” Matt repeated the last part. You’re here, you’re safe. He noticed how Peters heart slowed at the words.

Peter settled back into Matt’s chest as his breathing grew more steady.

“I remembered more of it.” He said eventually.

Matt hummed. He didn’t want to force the kid to talk about it.

“He was- he had me. And he just- he kept slamming me into the ground.” Peter sounded like he was crying, but there were no tears falling from his eyes.

“And then he let go but he- he was going to die Matt. His suit was breaking apart.”

Matt held back a depressed chuckle. Of course the kid cared about the villain.

“I tried to tell him but he didn’t listen and then it exploded.” Tears did fall now and Matt pulled Peter closer, resuming his hand in the boys hair.

“I was so scared he had died. And there was fire everywhere and I- I got to his body and he was alive.”

Matt felt a tear fall from his face. Bless this kid. God bless this kid. Everything he went though, everything the Vulture put him through, and he was still relieved he was alive.

Matt waited for Peter to continue, but he didn’t. Then he realized the kid had fallen asleep again, his body too tired to go on.

Matt took a deep breath and settled in for a long night.

——————

Peter woke up the next day feeling a million times better. He felt well rested and, though his ribs still hurt, his body was more sore than in any actual pain.

He stiffened when he realized there was somebody else with him.

Matt was behind him, holding Peter, fast asleep.

Slowly, Peter got up. Matt didn’t move an inch, proving just how tired he was. Peter felt guilt creeping up on him. He had crashed Matt’s apartment again.

Peters head shot up when he head a clang in the other room.

He closed his eyes, focusing on the persons heartbeat like Matt had taught him. He picked up on it, the familiar thu-thump becoming clear. It was Wade.

Leaving Matt to sleep, Peter stood up and silently sneaked out of the bedroom.

“Petey!” Wade exclaimed upon seeing him. He was in the kitchen wearing a ridiculous ‘Kiss the Cook!’ apron and a pair of Hello Kitty pajama pants.

Peter brought a finger to his mouth and Wade quieted down, tilting his head in question.

“Matt’s sleeping.” Peter whispered.

Wade nodded seriously. Peter approached him, glancing around the mess Wade had made.

“Jeez Wade who are you feeding that needs this much food?” Every counter space was covered in a breakfast food. Muffins, eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, pancakes, cereal, biscuits, scones, the list went on comically long.

“I have three super metabolized vigilantes to feed. One of whom-“ Wade took him by the shoulders and sat him down at the kitchen table, “-Has some injuries to recover from.” Wade booped his nose.

Peter huffed out a laugh and shook his head as Wade presented him with a plate of food and took a seat across from him.

“How’d you sleep Petey Pie? Injuries any better?” Wade lifted his mask to eat. He’d gotten more and more comfortable doing that.

Peter nodded. “I’m feeling a ton better. I think- I think I woke up some but I can’t really remember.” Peter paused to think.

“I think I remembered the rest of the night though. And my head doesn’t hurt quite as much.”

They continue talking in hushed voices for about an hour until Peter felt Matt stir.

“He’s up.” Peter told Wade.

“Well good morning sleepyhead,” Wade announced as Matt opened the door.

Peter heard Matt’s heart slow a bit as his eyes landed on him.

“Hey.” Matt said to them both then he tilted his head.

“What did you do to my kitchen Wade?” He asked.

Wade dramatically brought a hand to his chest, “How accusatory! How do you know it was me? It could have been Peter!”

“I can smell you all over it.” Matt said simply, taking a seat.

“Wow, okay, that’s not creepy at all.” Wade deadpanned.

Matt ignored him, turning to Peter. “Feel okay?” He asked.

Peter nodded.

Wade got Matt a plate and himself and Peter another one. They all ate in silence.

“What happened to your suit Peter?” Matt broke the silence after a few minutes.

Peter set his fork down. He knew the pair had been wondering, but he’d quietly shut them down each time they asked about it.

But Peter wanted them to know. He wanted them to be on his side.

“Mr. Stark took it away. After the Ferry.” He kept his eyes on his plate. They both had probably pieced that much together. The ferry incident had been all over the news.

“The night you called me. He had just taken it.” Wade said, his voice low.

Peter nodded.

“He-He left you on a roof in fucking pajamas in fifty degree weather by the shore?! It was fucking windy! And you can’t thermoregulate!” Wade stood, his arms gripping the table.

“What?” Matt’s voice was angry too. It sounded calm, but Peter could tell.

“I-It was my fault-“ Peter began.

“No it wasn’t!” Both men said at the same time. Peter shrunk back at the noise.

Wade sat down. Matt sat back.

“I’m sorry Peter.” Matt reached an arm to Peters shoulder. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to yell I just - I’m sorry.”

“He took your suit though? And just left you on the roof?” Matt clarified.

“Yeah,” Peter looked down. “He said I could have killed someone, and that it wasn’t working out.”

“I mean- he had a point? Sort of? If I wasn’t there the vulture wouldn’t have split the ferry.”

“But he also would have sold dangerous weapons to dangerous people.” Wade intercepted.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed, “I-“ he tried to come up with something to defend the man, but he couldn’t. “Yeah.”

“He was- he was really fucking angry.” Peter admitted, the argument with Mr. Stark replaying in his head. “I don’t know why. I mean I know people got hurt and the Vulture got away but- he was yelling a lot. Maybe it was just too loud for my ears but he was just- he was really angry.”

“I don’t really think I want to be an avenger.” He admitted, bringing his knees up. “Not if he’s in charge.”

Peter felt weak. He felt scared. He felt vulnerable. But this was Matt and Wade and he could feel that way around them.

“You don’t have to Peter. If he tries to involve you again you can say no. And you can always-“ Matt looked him in the eye the best he could, “always ask us for help.”

Peter sniffled, “Thanks guys.”

He might take them up on that offer if Mr. Stark came to his apartment again.

——————

When Peter returned home there was a paper bag on his bed with his suit inside. Along with a letter.

Peter wasn’t as happy as he thought he would be.

He immediately got to work changing the suit. He turned off some features, namely the “training wheels” program. He kept the tracker but limited the access. It would only turn on if he was unconscious or if he requested.

He cut Mr. Stark out.

Matt and Wade both supported him, telling him to let them know if Mr. Stark gave him any shit for it.

Peter fell back into his routine. Toomes was gone and Mr. Stark was letting him be. He went to school, patrolled, trained with Matt, did homework. He was getting comfortable.

Everything was going great.

Which is of course when it all went to shit.

Chapter Text

“Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession.”

“Bless you child. State your sins.”

Confession has gotten stranger for Matt. He couldn’t exactly go in and tell the priest he beat a dozen men up and brought fear into the hearts of criminals. Technically, the Priest had no idea who he was, but he could recognize the voice, and it wasn’t worth risking the lives of those he loved with a possible identity leak.

So instead he stayed cryptic. He asks for forgiveness for his Daredevil sins separately, privately.

“I let myself get angry this week. Really angry. And I hurt someone because of it.” Sex trafficking ring. The leader died later of the injuries Matt gave him.

“I eves-dropped where I shouldn’t have.” Something hard to avoid nowadays but he had no buisness listening in on his neighbors marital troubles.

“I took the lords name in vain.” Again, he said this almost each time he was here. Matt tried to work on it, but in the heat of the moment it was hard to prevent it slipping out.

“I felt hatred and anger.” Once again, it was hard not to feel hatred or anger towards criminals.

“I have lied.” Lying was necessary sometimes, but he had lied when it was unnecessary as well this week.

“This is all I can remember. I am sorry for these and all my sins.”

The father forgave him and assigned a penance.

They both said their respective prayers, and Matt exited the booth.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;

the choir was practicing later than normal this week. They usually left not long after the end of church.

Matt took his spot in the back pew, setting his cane down beside him. He sat for a moment.

thine own may I be, thou in me dwelling and I one with thee.

The chorus finished and the moved to the first verse.

Matt pulled down the knee rest and got down. He started with his Hail Marys, doing an extra one for good measure. Then he moved on to his Our Fathers.

The first verse finished and moved to back to the chorus.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Matt wanted to stay longer, but Foggys Sundays were always so busy in the morning, and he had to get back to him. He finished his prayers, saying a quick Glory Be and stood to leave.

It wasn’t until he got back to the office that he realized he had a message on his phone. From Peter.

——————

Peters head buzzed as stepped down onto the subway. He was heading back home from a sleepover with Ned. Crime had been low and Wade had agreed to stay in Queens and take over his watch while Peter had some well deserved fun.

It wasn’t uncommon for his Spider-Sense to go off on the subway. All sorts of crazy stuff happened on there. So he tried to ignore it as he made his way through.

It intensified once he stepped on his cart (he took the same one each time, and as affectionately as one could, referred to it as ‘his’).

It went haywire when the doors closed.

Trying to seem nonchalant, Peter took a look around. Even if someone on here had a gun or something it wouldn’t be warning him this hard. The people on the subway looked… normal? Almost too normal.

There were no kids. No other teenagers. There was almost always kids or teenagers.

The subway took off and Peter pulled out his phone as he took a seat near one of the exits.

(Stay calm stay calm stay calm)

Peter called the first person he could think of. Matt.

He held the phone to his ear. The man next to him shifted. Did he grab something?

The phone rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Shit. It was Sunday. Sunday morning which meant Matt’s phone was on silent and if there was an emergency he had to call the man’s burner.

“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic answering machine. Please leave a message after the beep.”

Peter gasped as his sense crescendoed and his whole body moved without him thinking.

Distantly, he heard the beep of his phone as he dodged the man to his right who was attempting to shove… something into him.

Immediately the entire cart moved to action, all aiming for Peter.

He ducked as what looked like darts were shot at him. Peter rolled out of his seat and onto the floor, standing up again as someone dove to pin him.

He swung around, punching the man in the face as he dodged another dart. The man fell to the ground and Peter backed up as three more men approached him.

“Somebody hit him Goddamit!” One man said. He had brown hair and blue eyes with a crooked nose.

Peter punched him in the face, harder than he should have. He felt the skin splitting underneath his first.

“Shoot him!” The man demanded.

And then somebody did.

An instant after he felt it hit him he went limp, his body falling to the ground. His head lolled to the side, giving him a clear view of the dirt underneath the subway seats.

Along with a clear view of his phone. The screen reading ‘Recording’ with the time - still counting - underneath it.

Peter didn’t know who these people were, or what they wanted, but he couldn’t get out of this one on his own.

“Subway.” He croaked out, loud enough to be head.

“What the fuck is he saying?” The same guy who had commanded he be shot said.

“D line.” He said as some of the men approached him.

“Organized, large.” Peter hoped what he was saying made some sort of sense. He hoped Matt would figure it out.

“What about his phone? He was calling someone.”

What else could he say? Some of the men started searching around for the phone. He had seconds before they would find it.

“They know.” He said. Because they did. Whatever they had used to paralyze him had worked, so they knew he was enhanced.

“Shit! It’s recording a message!” One of the men found the phone. He picked it up, Peters eyes trailing after it.

“Hang up!” Someone shouted.

“That will send the message though!” Another retorted.

Peter looked up to the leader. The one with brown hair and blue eyes and a broken nose.

“Broken nose.” Peter said, his voice getting louder as the phone got farther away. “Blue eyes,”

“Hang up!” The man demanded, “Hang up!”

“Brown hair!” Peter yelled and then the phone was shut off.

The man with blue eyes sneered at him. Peters limbs still weren’t moving, or he would have scrambled back. As it stood he could only sit there. Move his head if he really tried.

“Little shit.” And then his boot was hitting Peter in the face.

Tears welled up immediately and he tried to turn his body but he could move. He let out an embarrassing whimper at the pain. It wasn’t the worst by any means, but any blow to the face would hurt.

“Sit him down. We’ll ride till the end of the line.” The man continued to make eye contact with him, not breaking as someone hoisted Peter up from around the arms.

The laid him down on the benches facing the back.

Blue eyes sat near his head. The others returned to normal positions and the subway came to a stop.

Peter wanted to badly to get away. To move his head at least so he wasn’t so close to Blue Eyes. But he couldn’t. Whatever they used on him was strong. It didn’t seem to be getting any better either. After two stops he couldn’t move his jaw like he could before.

People got on and off as normal. Peter couldn’t have asked for help if he tried. Not that he would. It would only get them hurt.

All he could hope was that Matt got his message.

—

Six stops. Peters spider sense hadn’t died down still. It was exhausting, the constant reminder of danger.

Blue Eyes hadn’t moved, nor had anyone else for that matter.

Six stops. That was maybe twelve minutes, no more than fifteen. When had this happened? Would Matt be out of church yet? Would he see the message at all?

Matt would come.

—

Twelve stops. Peter had never ridden this far. He missed his transfer so he had no clue where they were headed now.

He was scared. He was really fucking *scared. The top of his head was touching Blue Eyes thigh and he wanted to leave. His spider senses weren’t helping either, the constant buzz making it hard to hear his own thoughts.

What did they want from him?

—

Stop twenty.

There was nobody else on their cart and as it started slowing down people began to adjust.

Blue Eyes stood and Peter hated not being able to see behind him. His senses screamed as the man’s hands came down and picked him up.

Peter wanted to move, wanted to roll out his arms, anything. But he couldn’t even support his head as it rested against the man’s chest. Peter hated it. He made an embarrassing whimper as the man spun around and the world went dizzy.

The cool breeze from outside hit him and he gave a shiver. He tried to look around but the station looked the same as any other. The rest of the men had gotten out as well.

Peter was overcome with the sudden urge to throw up. He hated this. He hated being in this man’s arms. Being so vulnerable.

“Sir? Are you two okay?”

Police.

A spark of hope lit inside Peter. The police could be a nuisance, but they could help. Peter was an injured, paralyzed teenager in a strangers arms. It was sure to raise suspicion.

“Oh yes, we’re fine thank you. My son ran into some trouble. Poor kids been bullied half his life. Finally fell asleep on the way back home. Didn’t want to wake him.”

It was an obvious lie. The man’s heartbeat didn’t even try to hide it.

“Oh poor thing. Well, you get him home. Have a good night sir.” The officer didn’t look at him. Didn’t see his eyes - half covered by Blue Eyes - begging for help.

They kept walking.

The sun hit Peters face as he was brought above ground.

Peter didn’t recognize the place at all. He closed his eyes, trying to listen for anything that could be useful.

People shouting. Street food. Cars honking. More cars honking. More cars honking.

(At least he knew it was still New York)

Birds chirping. Kids laughing. Music. More birds. Shit ton of birds.

Peter focused in on the birds as Blue Eyes kept walking.

The roar of… a lion? Or a tiger? A monkey. A goat.

Bronx zoo.

Peters eyes flew open. He was in the Bronx.

He flinched at the sound of doors opening and then he was being thrown out of the arms of Blue Eyes.

He groaned as his back hit the van.

There weren’t any seats in the back. Blue Eyes was the only one to get in with him aside from the driver.

Blue Eyes smiled at him, “Buckle up kid. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

The moment the van started moving, Peter started counting.

He wasn’t sure if it would be useful to know where he was, but he didn’t want to think about anything else, so he counted.

He was moving north, the sounds of the animals getting louder, then after a while receding.

All the while the sharp turns were making Peter slide around in the back. Whoever the driver was doing it on purpose, judging from the chuckle every time they made a turn.

And Blue eyes wasn’t too forgiving when Peter ran into him. He pushed him off with no trace of gentleness.

For the most part the man just sat there and stared at Peter. It was unsettling. When Peters head was positioned towards him he attempted to gage his thoughts but to no avail.

So instead he focused on counting and breathing.

Extra focus on the breathing. Because he was alone with a man in the back of a van and he couldn’t move. Blue Eyes could decide at any moment to just start beating him up or kicking him or any number of creative things.

Eventually, after maybe 20 minutes, the turns stopped. The van sped up and so did the cars around him judging on what he could hear. They were on the highway.

Peter couldn’t handle staring directly into Blue Eyes eyes so he closed them instead, listening for anything that might be useful.

After fourty minutes, Peter was still lost. He couldn’t tell what direction they were going anymore. He tried to overhear as many conversations as he could from the cars speeding past him but nothing was helpful.

And then.

“Hey look at that kiddos!” A man’s voice. There was a car driving to the left of the van.

“Back in Connecticut! We’re on the home stretch now!”

Peter didn’t listen to the response from the kids. Connecticut. He was in Connecticut. Peter wanted to feel relieved. He knew were he was. But it hit him suddenly that it didn’t matter if he knew were he was. He couldn’t move.

He tried to twitch his fingers again. He’d been able to twitch them for maybe ten minutes now, but still not enough to do much.

It was definitely getting better though. He could move all his fingers now and - though he didn’t want to risk it - he thinks he could move his head.

An alarm went off on Blue Eyes phone. He picked it out of his pocket. If Peter could get the phone off of him he could call someone. I’m maybe half an hour he would be able to stand and then his super strength would do the rest of the work for him.

Blue Eyes smiled and brought his head up to meet Peters eyes.

“Time for dose two Spider.” Fear shot through Peter as the man fishes something out of his pocket. A gun, or a tranquilizer, or whatever the name was. Wade would know.

Peter flailed. It was now or never.

He didn’t even move two inches. The dart dug into his thigh and he went limp again.

He didn’t stop the tears this time. He was well and truly stuck. These people knew what they were doing. Any hope of escape was gone. All he had was rescue. All he had was that message for Matt.

Peter closed his eyes and continued to count. He wasn’t worried about falling asleep, not with his spider senses like that.

—

Seven thousand three hundred twenty four seconds. That’s how long Peter had been in the van for.

The van came a fast stop and Peter immediately went flying into Blue Eyes, who harshly pushed him to the side.

The two men in the front got out and came around to the back, opening the doors.

All Peter could see was forest. Trees went on forever. The sky was gray, but it wasn’t dark out.

Blue Eyes got out and went out of eyesight of Peter. The two drivers who opened the truck dragged Peter out, one of them picking him up.

A few more trucks pulled up behind them and more men came out - all from the subway.

Peter was carried around the truck and he finally laid eyes on the building. It was concrete with a depressing amount of windows. There was two floors, the second one smaller. Peter thought he could hear something below though so there was likely a basement.

Blue Eyes led the way inside.

Peters heart sped up as he was carried inside. They weren’t going to kill him, so he had that going for him. Ransom was unlikely considering he and everyone he knew was incredibly broke. The only thing Peter could think of was experiments, but Peter didn’t want to think about that.

The inside was just as dreary as the outside except colder. Peter counted the turns. Right. Left. Stairs. Straight. Right. Left.

They stopped in front of a ridiculously fortified looking door and Blue Eyes pulled out a key from his pocket. He inserted it, twisted it, and the door fell open.

Peter tried to get a good look inside but before he could process any of it he was being thrown inside. It was all he could do to move his arms as far as they would allow to cushion his head. The rest of his body wasn’t as lucky.

He landed facing the door. Unable to look at any of his surroundings.

He closed his eyes and tried to listen. All he could really gather was that he was alone.

Peter attempted to lift his head, to flop onto his stomach, to move at all, but he was stuck.

Peter was stuck. He was paralyzed. He was locked in a room. He was kidnapped. They knew he was Spider-Man. No-one knew where he was. He was probably going to be dissected alive or something.

No one was around to see it, so Peter cried.

——————

“Wade.” Matt’s voice was angry. “Get to my place. Now.” He hung up.

Matt played the message again. He’d already heard it a dozen times but maybe - just maybe - there was something he missed.

—

Rustling. A bang. A body hitting a floor. Another one. “Somebody hit him Goddamit!” -

Matt’s grip on his kitchen counter tightened.

A crack. A thud. “Shoot him!”. Another thud.

Nothing.

”Subway”. It was Peters voice. “What the fuck is he saying?” A different one. “D line” Peter said. “Large. Organized.” The lack of movement was scary. “What about his phone? He was calling someone.” The same third voice.

More rustling. “They know.” Peters voice grew louder. The phone moved. “Shit!” This was the loudest voice of all. “It’s recording a message.”

”Hang up!” A voice demanded. “That will send it though!” The third man argued. Peters voice spoke again, “Broken nose. Blue eyes.”

”Hang up!” The voice was desprate. “Hang up!”

”Brown Hair!”

—

“Matt? What the hell is going on?” Wade had invited himself in.

Matt just shoved his phone out to Wade and walked into his bedroom. Wade stared at him as he left them turned to the phone.

Matt pulled on his Daredevil suit as he listened to Wade hearing the voicemail. Wade cursed. A lot. Matt had done the same.

Matt emerged from the room. “I’m going to the subway. He was going from Manhattan to Queens right?”

Wade nodded.

Matt walked towards the fire escape and slammed open the door, prompting Wade to follow him.

It was bright out, not much past noon. The two of them garnered much attention from passerby’s, not that either of them paused to give a shit.

Matt’s anger was slowly turning to grief. If Matt had picked up, if he hadn’t gone to church or if his phone wasn’t on silent then maybe Peter would be okay. Maybe he could have coached the boy better.

After a few minutes they reached a subway entrance. Matt went down quickly and silently, trusting Wade to follow behind him. He jumped over the check in, ignoring the small protest an officer gave out.

“Uhm sir you can’t… go in…” she trailed off.

Matt went to the middle of the station and concentrated. The subways were always hard for Matt. Too many smells and sounds. But if he was lucky he would be able to pick up Peters scent.

Chocolate. Perfume. Laundry detergent. Weed. Essential oils.

“Sir you have to-“ the cock of a gun. Matt didn’t turn. Didn’t move his attention away from Peter. Wade would handle it.

Wet dog. Chemicals. Coffee. Old books. Sweat. Smoke.

A gunshot. A scream. A couple more screams.

Soup. Dirty clothes. Mud. Flowers. Hair spray. Alcohol. Peter.

Matt’s head shot up as he caught onto the scent.

“I got him.” He announced. Matt began to trail after it, walking around towards a different entrance, Wade not far behind.

It stopped on the edge of the tracks where Peter got on.

A cart rolled up and the doors opened. More of Peter scent was inside.

Matt and Wade went in. It was mostly empty save a mother and he daughter in the corner. The daughter openly staring as the mother avoided looking.

Matt focused once again, trying to trail Peters movements.

“His bag.” There was a rustle as Wade picked something up. The familiar jingle of Peters keychains filled the cart.

Matt hummed in acknowledgement. The scents in the cart were faint, but Matt might be able to piece together what happened.

The strongest was along one of the seats, as if he had been laying down. There was blood. Peters and multiple others. There was… chemicals. The chemicals were strong, they were still here.

Matt bent down and picked up what felt like a dart. He brought it to his nose.

“Curare.” Matt stated. It was a poison that induced paralysis. Most of the time death as well.

“Shit.” Was all Wade said.

The cart came to a stop and the doors opened. The mother and her daughter ran out. A few people walked in before immediately turning around.

“Did he get off here?” Wade asked.

Matt shook his head. “No. He was on here for a while and I can’t smell him out there at all.”

Wade sat down, placing his head between his knees. “Guess we better settle in.” He said dimly.

Matt nodded but stayed standing.

They would find him. Matt promised himself. They would find him before sunset.

——————

Peter wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he could move now. The room he was in was surprisingly clean. It was made of concrete but there were no stains or oders. There was a toilet, made of some metal Peter couldn’t bend. A sink made of the same thing. A bed was against the far wall. The frame was the same metal as the other two with a light blanket and a pillow.

There was two security cameras in opposite corners, so Peter could never escape their view. The door was impossible to break down.

He was well and truly stuck.

He tried to listen, but the room must have been soundproof because all he could pick out was a faint muffle from time to time. It was unnerving to not be able to do anything. To have to just sit there.

But he couldn’t do anything else.

His spider senses were still haywire. So while Peter laid down on the bed and closed his eyes he wasn’t able to get any sleep.

After what must have been a full night, the door unlocked.

Peter sat up immediately, getting into a defensive position. He was strong now, he could probably take on whoever was about to step inside.

The door creaked open ominously and Peter ran forward.

His spider senses were getting more and more intense. So intense, that they couldn’t warn him about anything. Like the dart.

Blue Eyes smiled as Peters eyes widened. He didn’t fall limp, though his muscles felt weak.

“That’s no way to treat your guests.” Peter croaked out.

Blue Eyes laughed as he advanced. Peter tried to back up but his legs were shaking hard enough just keeping him standing.

He tried to shove Blue Eyes back but his arms weren’t working. The man pulled something from behind him and brought his hands behind Peters neck.

Something stretched itself around Peters neck. It was thick and heavy.

“If you try to take that off… it will detonate!” Blue Eyes announced. His heartbeat stayed steady. He was telling the truth.

Whatever was on the dart was waring off. Peters legs stopped shaking, his arms started working. Immediately, Peter went to attack Blue Eyes. If he could tackle him and get a key or something he could get out.

Blue Eyes made no reaction as Peters fist flew towards him. No reaction when Peter fell to the floor in pain as a shock went through him. He grit his teeth to hold back his whimper of pain.

“Well I’m glad you figured it out so soon.” Blue Eyes knelt to the floor beside Peter, still recovering.

“That was just a little sample. Nothing crazy. Just a little warning of what could be.”

Shit. If that was just a sample what the fuck was the real thing? Just that made him want to curl up into a ball and die.

But he still glared at Blue Eyes. For good measure.

Blue Eyes just smiled and stood up. “Okay. Stand up now.”

Peter continued to glare at him from the floor.

“I said.” The man pulled something out of his pocket. A remote. If he could get his hands on that…

“Stand. Up.” His finger hovered over a button.

Peter wasn’t an animal. And he would defy this man if it was the last thing he did.

(It might be)

Click.

Peter didn’t hold back his scream as the collar around his neck (A collar. A fucking collar.) sent spasms of electricity through him. He writhed on the floor as his nerves spasmed.

“Let’s try that again. Stand up.”

Peter stayed on the ground. Partly because he didn’t think he could stand if he tried.

Click.

Another volt.

“Get up.” The man’s voice was getting impatient now.

Peter stayed on the ground.

“Stand!” The voice yelled, loud enough to make Peter flinch.

Click.

But he didn’t budge.

Click

Click

Click

Click

He wasn’t sure how long it went on for. Only that by the end Peter felt so close to passing out. He couldn’t have even stood up if he tried at this point.

But Blue Eyes was ruthless. He continued to demand he stand up, and everytime Peter stayed still he clicked the button again.

And then Peter was hauled to his feet by two men. He hadn’t noticed them entering at all. It burned his limbs for them to be moved at all this way.

They dragged him out. Peter tried to pay attention, to look for an exit, but he was in too much pain.

He tripped over his own feet, eventually letting them fall limp. The men’s grip on his arms was anything but friendly as their nails dug into his skin.

Suddenly, Peters eyes were being assulted by overhead lights and white walls and floors. He squeezed them shut on instinct yet he kept trying to open them to catch a glimpse of his surroundings.

It smelled sterile. Clean. Chemically. There was so much white it was unbearable. There were people too. People wearing white. They didn’t smell like anything. Just sterile.

He tried to scan his surroundings as he was brought towards the center of the room. There were counters with sinks and cabinets. Rolling carts with tools on them.

It looked like a doctors office.

It terrified him.

Peter couldn’t fight back. His limbs were tired. He was shoved onto a metal slab. His arms and legs fit into clamps that closed around him.

“Alright Peter.” Blue Eyes had pulled on a white coat. There were six other doctors in the room, all standing by. Blue eyes pulled a cart forward, full of medical devices Peter knew nothing about.

“Let’s get started.”

Chapter Text

The subway rolled to a stop and Wade held his breath as Matt tilted his head. This was it. If Matt couldn’t trail Peter off the last exit…

“He got off here.” Matt announced as the doors opened.

Wade scrambled out, Matt following behind then taking the lead. There were a few surprised gasps at the pair, but nobody dared approach them.

“Shit.” Matt said. “Fuck.”

It was raining.

Matt jumped over the check in and bolted up the stairs. Maybe he heard it wrong. Maybe the smell was something else.

Droplets hit Matt’s face.

He wouldn’t be able to track Peter any further. Not in the rain. He wanted to sink to his knees. The Bronx. Peter could have gone anywhere from here.

“Let’s-“ Wade was next to him, “Let’s ask if anyone’s seen him.”

Matt nodded grimly.

Wade led the way, going back underground and jumping the check in. He paused for a moment, turning his head to look around before raising his hand. “Officer!” He called. “Yoo-Hoo!”

He walked up to women who anxiously aksed how she could help. While Deadpool and Daredevil had warrants out for their arrest, most cops have been advised to just work with them and other vigilantes, so attempts at arrests were growing less and less.

“We’re looking for a missing person. About yay high?” Wade estimated Peters hight. “He was probably unconscious. He’s pretty young, still a teen. Seen him around?”

“He would have been traveling with a man with a broken nose.” Matt added.

The women’s heart fluttered, she had seen Peter.

“I did. He was carrying a boy. Said he was his father. They came by maybe two hours ago.”

“Where did he go?” Matt demanded too harshly, prompting the women to jump.

“T-They left. Up the stairs. I don’t know where they went.”

Matt punched a wall.

“You didn’t think an unconscious teenager was suspicious?!” The woman was shaking almost violently.

Wades head tilted and the woman hurried away.

“Punching walls isn’t helping. We can’t go anywhere from here. I’m going to get in contact with some friends, see what they can come up with.”

Matt breathed. Wade was right. He needed to control himself.

“Okay.” He agreed. “Okay.”

They rode back in silence. Both made calls. Matt called Frank, because he knew the man had connections he didn’t. Matt was polite enough to not eves-drop on Wades conversations.

Wade got off before Matt, claiming he was going to meet up with someone in person to get information. Matt made him promise to not do anything crazy.

“Only if you promise the same.” Wade responded.

Neither ended up making the promise.

—

Matt went back to the Bronx. He didn’t know what else to do. Where else to go.

He should go home. Go to bed. Or patrol Hells Kitchen. But that felt like abandoning Peter.

Wade had taken the boys backpack. Matt wished he had it with him, it might have made it easier to trail him.

(He knew there was no hope. Knew the scent was long gone in the rain.)

He spent a few hours searching for cameras outside the subway but didn’t find anything. He made a few failed attempts as approaching passerby’s to no avail.

There was nothing to go off of.

Matt reluctantly went back to Hells Kitchen. He called Frank again, who didn’t pick up. He called Wade, who did.

“Find anything?” Both asked in unison.

“No.” Matt said. “I haven’t heard back from my contact yet.”

“I’ve started a list of people Peters pissed off, it’s pretty long. I also asked around about Spidey identity and no one had really been asking around in the past couple months.”

“Send me the list. We can start tracking them down.” Matt carefully climbed into his apartment from the fire escape.

“On it.” The line clicked and fell dead.

Matt ate a food bar and messaged Karen to let her know he would be out the next day. Maybe the next couple days. No more than that, he assured. (Who was he assuring?)

Wade came over with the list and read through it for him. They split it fifty fifty and parted ways.

Fortunately, a lot of the people who were pissed at Spider-Man for something or another were in jail. Unfortunately, it was very easy to pay someone to do something for you if you were in jail.

Deadpool and Daredevil spent the night committing war crimes. They both tried to keep it quiet, to not announce to New Yorks criminals that Queens was up for the taking, but a few fires and deaths did occur.

(Normally, Matt would chastise Wade for killing. Today he didn’t)

One villain after another came up with nothing.

—

“I-I don’t know anything! Shit, fuck, get out of my house! I promise I didn’t touch Spider-Man!” The man cowered on the floor in the corner, weeping.

Matt curled his fist. He was telling the truth. They all told the truth and the truth was none of them knew anything.

Matt punched him in the face and the man screamed as blood pulled out of his mouth.

“Who else do you know that Spider-Man has taken down?” He demanded.

“N-Not anyone that wasn’t on the news for it! I swear! I swear please, please just leave please…” the man trailed off.

Matt punched him one more time. Not for any particular reason.

The night continued on. The news started to cover it. How the Devil had gone mad and Deadpool had been let loose.

They weren’t exactly wrong.

—

Matt felt his skin split again on his knuckles. It was almost like he was back at Fogwells, punching the bag over and over again. Except instead of a punching bag it was a man’s face.

“Tell me.” He demanded again, but didn’t let up on the punching.

The man attempted to say something but Matt didn’t listen. It didn’t matter. He didn’t know anything, he’d already said so.

The man stopped moving and Matt let go of him. His heard was still beating. He would survive. Matt found himself thinking he wouldn’t care if he didn’t.

—

Criminal after criminal.

Night after night.

——————

*”It has now been a week since any sighting of Spider-Man, the longest in a while. Crime rates are beginning to increase, and locals are wondering: has Spider-Man abandoned them?”

Matt tuned out. He shouldn’t be listening to his neighbors TV anyways. Shouldn’t be here at all.

He should be out there, searching for Peter. But Wade was standing guard, eyeing him up and down.

“Just eat something Matt. I know it sucks but you can’t help him if you can’t even stand upright.”

Matt scowled, “Peter could be hurt! He could be- he could be-“

He couldn’t say it.

“He could be in pain or- or tourtured. I can’t just sleep. Not if he can’t!”

He was yelling again. He was trying not to yell.

Wade sighed. He ran a hand over his face. “Matt.” He said.

“No! We need to go back out and find him!” Matt finally stood up. Wade placed his hands on his shoulders, pushing him back.

“We’ve searched everywhere!” Wade snapped. “He isn’t in the Bronx! Whoever took him is long gone Matt! We can’t do anything else until we hear back from one of our contacts!”

Matt sat back. His lower lip trembling. He knew Wade was right. Knew working himself to the bone wasn’t doing Peter any favors.

“I can’t just… do nothing.” A tear fell from his eye as he sat down.

Wade took a seat next to him. “Peters strong. He’ll- he’ll be okay. He has to.”

“Should we… talk to his aunt?” Wade asked after an uncomfortable beat of silence.

Matt shook his head, “It’s only been a couple days. It’s not worth explaining how we know Peter to her.”

Wade nodded silently.

“You have to sleep.” Wade restated.

Matt nodded his head. “I know.”

——————

Peter lost track of time quickly. It was easy to do that when somebody was harvesting your bone juices or something.

He was in a constant battle with himself over whether to close his eyes or keep them open. His spider sense wanted them open. He wanted to see his surroundings and at least have a warning when Blue Eyes decides to choose a shiny new tool to experiment with.

On the other hand, there was a light shining directly into his eyes like the ones they use at the dentist. Plus, seeing Blue Eyes only made him more on edge every time he moved.

He couldn’t come to a decision, so he mostly squinted around.

It was mostly a blur of white.

White Doctor coats. White walls. White floors. White ceilings. White paper. White clipboards. White pens. White teeth.

All with an occasional flash of those blue eyes.

Peter screamed as something dug into his hip. Like, literally dug. White hot pain immediately burst through him. He tried to fight against the cuffs holding him down even though he knew it would get him no where.

He gave up on holding back his screams a while ago.

“Oh that was nothing Spider-Man. Just wait until we get to the bone extractions.” Blue Eyes patted Peters (injured) leg.

Blue Eyes turned his focus back down.

Click.

Click.

Click.

It happened every time. Everytime a new tool was used a series of clicks would sound through the room of every doctor clicking on their pen.

“You guys know you can leave the pens on right? You don’t have to click them on and off every time?” His jokes were getting worse as time went on. His voice was hoarse. His words uttered through a clenched jaw.

But hey, Spider-Man had a personality to keep up with.

There was no response. Blue eyes spoke some medical jargon Peter was unfamiliar with and the scribbling of pens intensified.

Something moved by his hip again and the pain decreased ever so slightly. He could feel a breeze against the wound and he bit his lip to stop from crying out.

Click.

Blue Eyes had pulled out the stopwatch again. Peter assumed this was to time how long it took for his body to heal. Spoiler alert: even with his super healing the literal hole in his hip wouldn’t close up any time soon.

The doctors shuffled around, peering at Peters hip. One of them pointed, turning to another who silently nodded in agreement and scribbled something down.

Peter knew he had bigger things to worry about than his ego right now, but the whole situation was humiliating.

He tried to control his breathing as it was the loudest thing in the room currently, but wasn’t able to. He tried to pull his eyes back open, to see what Blue Eyes was doing but he couldn’t move his neck to do so. He hadn’t been able to for the past…

How long had it been? He couldn’t remember.

It had started small. A cut here and there and then the stopwatch. Then it got bigger. A broken bone. More clicks. More scribbles. An IV line. More cuts. More clicks. More scribbles. An incision. Click. Scribble. Pain. Click. Scribble. Pain. Click. Scribble. Pain. Click. Pain. Click. Pain. Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

Pain.

Click.

—

Peter was alone when he realized he had been moved. He had been so spaced out, so delirious, that he hadn’t noticed he’d been placed back in the cell.

He was just sitting in the middle, bleeding out.

As much as he wanted to just collapse and sleep, he knew he had to do something about his injuries.

So Peter crawled over to the bed and pulled off the sheet. His hip was still bleeding, though sluggishly. It was an awkward place to try to bandage, seeing as anything tied around it would slip down, but he managed to wrap and tie it in a way that at least imitated a bandage.

It took most of his energy to do it, and by the end he was exhausted. Peter didn’t even have the energy to be scared or hopeful or depressed. He was just tired and in pain.

So he laid down on the bed, his injured hip up, and tried to find sleep.

Except for the fucking spider sense.

It had been overwhelming while he was in the room, but there was so much going on, so much more to focus on, that he had mostly blocked it out. His senses had been under a constant barrage of stimulation, there had been no room to even think about it.

Now though, it was dark. It was silent. The only smell was his own blood, one he had become accustomed to. There was nothing else there.

Nothing but his spider sense screaming in his head.

Danger! Danger! Danger! Danger! Danger!

On.

And on.

And on.

And on.

Peter laid there, staring into the dark, exhausted, with his

eyes

wide

open.

——————

Chapter Text

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

“Stop clicking the pen Wade.” Matt said, keeping his head tilted.

The clicking stopped for a moment.

Click.

“Wade!” Matt exclaimed.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m anxious okay?” Wade put his hands up.

They were waiting for a phone call in Matt’s apartment. Someone named ‘weasel’ according to Wade. Wade said he was the best person in the city to get information from. He better have something for how long they made him wait.

6 days. Today was Saturday.

Normally, on a Saturday, Peter would still be sleeping now. He wouldn’t wake up until around ten when he would call his friend Ned and they would do their chemistry homework and eat breakfast together.

Peter would head out around noon to do a small patrol and take advantage of the bakeries that would give him free pastries. He would go back home to eat a late lunch with his aunt after her shift. They would watch a movie together and then he would go back out on patrol.

Today though, Matt had no clue what time Peter woke up. (Or if he woke up at all). Didn’t know if he had breakfast. Or if he was going to have a lunch or dinner.

He knew he wouldn’t get his chemistry homework done. Knew he wouldn’t watch a movie. Knew he wouldn’t go on patrol.

Six days.

Six days and not a single fucking lead.

Four days since Peter Parker’s name had been printed in the newspaper. ‘Have you seen him?’ written in bold letters (according to Wade).

Click.

“Wade!” Matt finally snatched the pen from his grasp.

Wade opened his mouth to protest but then his phone buzzed.

Matt immediately dropped the pen as Wade scrambled to pick it up.

“Weasel?”

“Hey pool how’s it been?”

Wade clenched the phone, “Just- what did you find?”

“On Spider-Man?”

“Who else? Come on we don’t have time for this Weasal.”

“Okay okay. I did some looking around but there wasn’t much. Someone was asking around about a month ago for him, but maybe two weeks ago he got arrested by Spider-Man anyways so I assume that fell through. Other than that nothing.”

Matt stood up and started pacing while Wade yelled.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Six days and they were no closer.

Nothing.

Matt sat back down and buried his face in his hands as tears started falling. Wade was silent on the couch, adopting a similar stance.

What the hell did they do now.

——————

Click.

“Okay. I think that’s all for today.” Blue Eyes announces, pulling off his blue gloves. Peter tried to hide his absolute relief.

“So am I getting compensation for the bone marrow donation?” Peter asked. Nobody answered.

Click. Peter grunted at the volt of electricity. Was it getting less powerful or was he just growing used to it?

“Tough crowd.” He mumbled.

He tensed as two people approached him from behind. They unhooked his arms and legs. Peter flinched back as he was hauled up. Black spots danced in his vision as he attempted to put weight on his leg.

He let out a grimace of pain as the two men grabbed his arms and started dragging him.

Movement was painful. His leg was burning, sending shooting pain up towards his chest. His abdomen was covered in increasingly deeper cuts, the worst of which were still sluggishly bleeding.

And his hip.

Fuck his hip.

He couldn’t see it, couldn’t tell what they did only that he could feel his bone there. Most of his pain was concentrated there, any breeze at all increasing the pain tenfold.

His vision was going black. Nothing existed except Peter and pain and clicks. He felt dazed, felt like none of it was real. He was barely making out his surroundings as he moved down a hallway.

The grip each man had around his arms released without warning and Peters arms shot out to cradle his fall. He turned onto his side, the uninjured one, to turn to the door.

Blue Eyes. He was standing over him, looking down.

The fear that shot through Peter was unfamiliar. He’d been through his fair share of scary situations but something about seeing that man made him terrified. He was shaking, maybe it was with fear, maybe it was from the pain. Peter couldn’t tell.

Just knowing the man was looking at him made Peter tense. He tried to sit up, to show he was strong, that he hadn’t broke him. But it was hard. It was really hard and he was in a lot of pain.

He settled for making intense eye contact with the man, despite the fact all he wanted to do was hide in the corner.

The man’s lips curled in a smile. “See you tomorrow for round two Spidey.”

The door closed and moments later he heard a click.

Peter let his body collapse. He let himself lie limp on the concrete floor as he heaved in breathes, gasping and sputtering.

He wasn’t this out of breath before.

He was having a panic attack.

The thought only stressed Peter out more, making it worse. He was having a panic attack and he was alone and he didn’t have anything to help him.

Normally Peter would put on headphones, close his eyes or lie down. If it was really bad he would seek May or Ned, or if he was out Matt or Wade.

But he was alone and he didn’t have headphones and the fact that he was kind of sort of kidnapped with no hope of escape and maybe he would be experimented on for the rest of his life and his hip really hurt and he definitely missed the deadline for his chemistry paper really wasn’t doing much to help.

He was practically wheezing now, so much so that it was almost reminiscent of an asthma attack. Peter forced himself up to the wall, leaning against it as his hand went up to his chest.

He forced himself to calm down. He shut his eyes tightly and counted. He kept counting until his chest stopped hurting.

Eventually, he calmed down. His mind was finally still.

It wasn’t until he was sitting in the silence of his cell, only the pain to distract him, that he realized his spider senses were still screaming in the back of his mind.

——

Matt paused, burying his hands in his face. This was a last resort, he reminded himself. He wouldn’t let his own issues come between him and Peter.

“You sure about this?” Wade asked.

They were both sat on a rooftop, the skyscraper in front of them looming over, casting light shadows over the city as the sun set behind it.

Matt nodded, “Anything for Peter.” He vocalized.

Wade hummed in agreement.

“We just have to hold it together until we get him back then I’ll let you go wild on him okay?” Wade placed a hand on Matt’s shoulder, looking at him in the face, though he knew the man couldn’t see it.

Matt let a smile creep up, allowing Wade to lighten the mood, “sounds like a horrible idea, can’t wait.”

And with that, the two walked into avengers tower.

Immediately they were cornered by security as a concerned looking reception dialed something on her phone.

Matt and Wade stood their ground, staying silent for the time being. Guests were ushered away and reporters flocked forward as the event of the year unfolded.

After about ten minutes passed with a silent standoff, Tony Stark himself appeared.

“Okay, alright, put down the guns if they wanted to kill you they would have,” the man waved his hands in a shooing motion and security reluctantly lowered their weapons.

Matt, who had been standing almost perfectly still for the past ten minutes, felt his jaw clench as the man approached them. Wade shifted, a warning, a reminder.

For Peter.

“Well this is certainly unexpected. Who are you again? Devil man and Dead guy?” Stark crossed his arms over his chest and grinned as if proud of himself.

“We need to talk.” Matt said.

“Well good thing that’s what we’re doing.” Stark laughed and it grated on Matt’s ears.

Matt just stared. People like Stark thrived on conversation and died on uncomfortable silence.

After a moment his heart rate began to pick up minusculy. Matt hid his grin.

“Alright, somewhere more comfy maybe? I get the feeling this is a sit down sort of conversation.” He made a gesture of some sort, then turned around and walked away.

Matt let Wade lead the way, it would be easier to follow him, knowing his heart and walking pattern, then Stark.

Matt kept his head high and his shoulders back. For Peter. He would tolerate this man for Peter then they would never speak again.

They got in an elevator and went up at a speed that, Matt reluctantly admits, made him a little nauseous.

Stark led them out of the elevator and into what was likely a conference room from the quite frankly overwhelming smell of leather chairs.

Matt took a seat and Wade followed. Stark stood.

“Alright, what do you two need?” A part of the snark was gone. He was still playing his image, but it was toned down now.

“It’s about Peter.” Matt stated. Surly the man at least knew right? He must have suspectedsomething was wrong when Spider-Man didn’t appear for over a week. The rest of New York did.

Stark cocked his head. “I know a lot of people, your going to have to be more specific. Peters a pretty common name-“

“Parker.” Wade practically seethed out. The man’s hands were curled tightly around the leather chairs.

Stark paused for a moment, seemingly taking in their mood for the first time.

He also drew back at the mention of Peters last name.

“No clue, never met him.” A lie. A poor one.

Matt thought, trying to figure out exactly Starks motivations to lying about such a thing when it hit him. Stark was trying to protect the kids identity. Didn’t make up for anything, not in the slightest. But it was something.

“We know he’s Spider-Man.” Matt said to clear it up.

“And what? You want money? I’d think you of all people would understand the importance of a secret i-“ he stopped as Wade began to laugh hysterically.

Matt would have been tempted to join him under different circumstances. It was funny. How Stark thought they would blackmail Peter. That they would do anything to hurt Peter when he was the one who hurt him.

“We’ve known Peter a long time, longer than you,” the comment was unnecessary, a bit of a brag, though a strange one at that, yet Matt was compelled to say it, “in case you haven’t noticed, which you clearly haven’t- Peter is missing.”

Wades laughing died down as Matt spoke, leaving the room eerily silent at Matt said his last few words.

There was a beat of silence before Stark cleared his throat, “Okay. I’ll help. How long has he been missing?”

Matt felt a weight lift off his shoulders. It wasn’t that he thought the man would deny helping them, he just thought it would take some convincing.

“Ten days.” Wade replied after Matt didn’t.

A static filled the air that Matt had learned was a hologram. Peter had one on his suit and has spent almost an hour showing Wade videos he kept calling “vines”.

“Okay where was he last?”

“He was taken on the subway outside of a friends house and we tracked him to the Bronx then he got off and we lost him.”

“Alright, I’ll look into it.”

Matt felt his heart do something strange.

“You’ll… look into it?” He cocked his head and kept his voice steady and deep.

Peter was missing. He was *gone. And Stark would ‘look into it’?

Matt felt Wade stand up quickly beside him. Angry.

“He could be fucking dying!” (Or dead) “You better look into it right fucking now before I-“

Matt kicked Wade and cut him off. As much as he agreed with him, it wouldn’t get them anywhere. Matt took a deep breath before speaking. Civil. He had to be civil.

“As Deadpool was saying, we don’t know what sort of danger Peter could be in. It’s very important that we find him as soon as possible.”

Starks head looked between the two of them.

“Well excuse me then,” he whispered mockingly, “sure let me just clear my entire schedule for the rest of the day, no problem.” He was being sarcastic, but also telling the truth.

Matt bit back a response. For Peter.

“Fri? Run that for me.” Matt tried to hide his slight panic as Stark spoke to someone who wasn’t in the room. Wade didn’t move though, so Matt kept himself still.

The smell of cologne was starting to fill up the room and made Matt want to leave as soon as possible. It was strong, would be strong even for a normal person. How did Peter stand to be around this guy?

“Alright, Fri has to run something, might take a while. In the meantime, mind telling me how you know the kid?” His tone was slightly defensive.

“We didn’t find his identity then enter his house and basically blackmail him into leaving the country with us for a personal fight.”

The words left Matt’s mouth before he could think. The sarcastic tone not even attempting to hide as he sneered at the man. How dare he act so nonchalant when Peter was gone.

“It’d be a good idea for you to keep your mouth shut Devil Boy. I’m the one with the means to find the kid. And besides, I helped him. Gave him a real suit-“

“Much good that did-“ Wade commented but Stark raised his voice over him.

“-with real abilities.”

Matt wanted to yell. Wanted to scream at Stark that the suit did nothing to help Peter. That hedid nothing to help Peter. But he bit his tongue. For Peter.

“So?” Stark asked, still waiting for a response, annoyed.

Beside him, Wade sighed.

“We’re all vigilantes of New York, Stark,” Wade said, “Our paths were bound to pass at some point.”

“And he just- what? Told you his identity? Just like that? You expect me to believe you didn’t try to figure it out like I did?” Stark was tapping his fingers against the table impatiently.

“Actually,” Wade began, “we did this little thing called building trust. And not taking advantage of a minor-”

“-Well don’t say it like that!” Stark practically yelled as he jumped out of his seat.

Matt clenched his jaw and held himself back.

For Peter.

——————

Peter was tired. That was about the only thought in his head. Tired. Hungry was floating around somewhere back there too.

His hip didn’t hurt as much today. It had been slow to heal, but after that sandwich yesterday it had really picked up speed.

Without warning he let out another cough. Then another, then another. He was on all fours now, hacking and hacking as dribbles of water fell out of his mouth.

It was hours ago now that they had taken him to the room and put him in a tank of water. And hours later Peter was still coughing up water. He didn’t know much about stuff like this, but he knew water in the lungs was bad. And he knew he had a lot of water in his lungs.

His coughing died down and he collapsed back onto his back.

“Okay Peter.” He whispered to himself, self soothing.

“You’re okay. Just a little c-“ he let out a sputter “little cough.”

He knew he should get up on the bed. Get his head elevated on the pillow to lower the chances of him drowning in his sleep. But he was tired. He was so tired.

He closed his eyes.

Sleep didn’t come.

The buzz in the back of his head made sure of that.

Still, it felt good to close his eyes.

Every few seconds, Peter would stark slipping away. Then, like he was falling, he would jerk awake.

It would go on like this, Peter knew, until he became so exhausted he passed out.

Click.

Peter flinched. A full body jerk. If he weren’t so exhausted he may have screamed, or whimpered, or both.

The door down the hallway. Everytime it shut Peter thought it was a click. He swore sometimes they opened and closed it when he was trying to sleep just for fun, just to freak him out, over and over again.

Click.

Peter sucked in a breath as he jerked further in on himself. It wasn’t a click. It didn’t make sense for a click. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Blue eyes wasn’t even here.

Creak. The door opened.

Click.

Peter swore he heard laughing as he began to cry.

Chapter Text

The room was getting smaller. Or bigger. Peter couldn’t tell. One moment it seemed to be bearing down on him, crushing him, the next it was expanding.

Peter was leaned up against the wall on his bed, staring at the moving wall. Distantly, he recognized that walls weren’t supposed to move.

Maybe if he pushed on it, it would stay in place?

The thought left is mind as quickly as he entered.

How long had he been here? Time was a strange thing in this place. He couldn’t be sure he was taken out of the room on any set schedule.

But he knew he had been taken out what must have been a dozen times. They had been testing his healing last time they took him, or at least, that’s what Peter assumed.

Peters vision went extremely blurry for a moment before going back to normal.

Knives, or a scalpel, or whatever sharp medical equipment was in hand, was used to draw deep cuts all along his legs. Why they left his torso and his arms alone Peter supposed he’d find out next time.

Peters head fell forward and he jerked it up, taking in his surroundings once more.

The room was getting smaller again. The far wall creeped towards him.

If he reached out his arm he could touch it.

Peters head fell forward again and his neck hung for just a second until his senses kicked in and his head shot back up, his senses regained.

The door stood where it always stood, unmoving.

Peter was taking long blinks before he could process much and then the wall was moving again.

Peter had the thought to reach out and touch it.

The thought sounded familiar.

The wall moved away again. Peter rested his head on his knees.

He didn’t feel all that tired. Peter recognized that he should feel tired because he can’t remember the last time he slept. He thinks he may have passed out yesterday at some point.

His head fell to the side and although he jerked back awake he kept his head down. His spider sense was fading. That or it was being overshadowed by the overwhelming need for sleep.

Peter should get on the bed. His ribs were in no condition to be sitting up like this. His neck would be sore for days. His legs would go number then they already are.

Peter knew these things. He was smart. He knew the body needed 8 hours of sleep at night. Knew that between school and Spider-Man that was a laughable statistic. But he still tried to go to bed around 2, maybe 3, to get at least 5 hours.

And now, with Peter spending what must be 18 hours a day alone in a room with a bed, the perfect opportunity to start chipping away at his sleep debt, and he couldn’t sleep.

Peter let out a breath that was meant to be laugh.

He stared at the wall. It seemed to move.

He had the thought that if he just reached out to touch it, it would push away and never come back.

——————

Out of all the avengers, Matt liked the Black Widow the most. Maybe he just liked spider-themed heros, but she seemed to be the most stable adult at the table.

(Which was saying something, because he’s pretty sure she was one: the youngest, and two: raised by a child assassin organization… thing)

She didn’t joke around, didn’t ask any irrelevant questions, and differed to Matt or Wade when it came to important decisions.

Stark, though he had made some improvements, had quickly attempted to cut Matt and Wade out of he investigation completely. It took a great deal of arguments and threats to make him see reason. Even then, he seemed eager to assert himself as the one in charge.

And he seemed to have this strange idea that he was closer to Peter than they were. That he and Peter were just the best of friends. Clearly, this guy had no social awareness.

Stark had called everyone to a meeting a few minutes ago, and everyone had quickly assembled. As much as Matt loved to complain, he was praying the man had found something useful.

“I did some digging,” Stark said as soon as the last person had sat down, “And I found some footage.”

Stark made a gesture with his hand and Wade stiffened beside him. Matt did his best to show an appropriate reaction based on the movements around him.

He had no doubt Wade would explain the contents of the video to him in detail, but he’d have to go through the rest of the meeting having no clue about anything.

The video must have ended because the Black Widow spoke up, “have you tracked the plate yet?”

So footage of a vehicle then. That was good lead. That was a dam good lead.

“Fri is running some stuff now, we tracked it out of the Bronx but lost it after it got on the highway North. Could have gone a lot of places after that, so it could take a while to track it from there.”

There was a lapse of silence then. They had something, but they just had to keep waiting.

After a moment Matt cleared his throat, “let us know as soon as you find anything else.”

Then he stood up and walked out, Wade not far behind.

Wade stayed silent beside him as the pair walked down the hallway towards the elevator. He was used to the routine now. Leave. Walk. Listen.

Matt’s attention was focused on the conference room.

“They really don’t say much do they?” That was Hawkeye.

“I always heard Deadpool was a talker. I guess we’re all a little different once we take off the suit.” Captain America commented.

“Speaking of, that’s weird right? Like I get the whole secret identity thing but do they really not trust us? I mean we’re the avengers. They’ve gotta be uncomfortable in those outfits.” Hawkeye chucked and a wave of agreement followed.

Wade and Matt stepped in the elevator and the doors closed.

“Sooooo,” Stark must have stood up, “Thoughts on dinner?”

The voices faded out, replaced by the chatter filling the lower floors, and Matt lost focus. They weren’t saying anything important anyways. They never did.

It took them about 20 minutes to reach the roof off Cranberry. It would have been faster if Spider-Man, if Peter, had been here to help them.

But he wasn’t.

The moment they got there Wade went right up the the rooftop door and punched at it. He let out a brutal scream and Matt wasn’t sure if it was out of anger or pain. Knowing Wade, probably both.

Matt sat down on the ledge as Wade continued to punch the door and yell.

Matt rubbed his hand down his face.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fucking Fuck! Fuck! Fucking hell!” Wade wasn’t quite done yet.

Someone in the apartment complex below was listing to the news. The Daily Bugal.

”It has now been three weeks since any sighting of Spider-Menace. People are starting to wonder, has this villain finally left the people of Queens alone? Or is he simply plotting out his next menacing move?”

Matt calmly stood up and walked over to Wade, who was still swearing, but wasn’t punching the door anymore so much as he was gently resting his fist against it.

Matt took a deep breath and pulled back his fist. If he head another soul say anything bad about Peter, his sweet, joyful Peter, he was going to burn down New York.

Before he could hit the door Wade was grabbing onto him, forcing his arm back.

“Come on Matt,” Wades voice was shakey, “Come on. Can’t help him if you’re hurt.”

Wade pulled Matt to the ground. Matt let him.

He didn’t hold back his tears anymore. He had. For so long he’d been trying not to cry, but he was letting it out now.

How could he not? Peter was out there. He was out there somewhere and Matt had no idea what he could be going through. He could be-

And there was that thought again.

Matt let out a sob.

He’d been pushing it down. Ignoring it. Not daring to think of it. Because if Matt thought it, that meant it was a real possibility and that wasn’t something Matt was willing to face.

Wade was crying too now.

“What if he’s-“ Wade choked on his words.

“He’s not.” Matt’s voice was watery, but firm.

Another wet sob, Matt wasn’t sure who it came from. “Yeah.” Wade said.

Silence followed for the next few minutes. Both men worked to gather themselves on the rooftop.

Slowly, Wade released Matt from his grip.

“What was the video?” Matt asked at last. As much as he didn’t want to know, he had to.

Wade took a deep breath, “It was just- just a traffic camera.”

“There was a man. Carrying Peter.” Wade was having a hard time getting the words out. “They put him in a van.”

Matt thought Wade was done when he said nothing else, but then he spoke again.

“It was just- it made me fucking sick. To see someone carry him like that. Knowing he tookPeter.”

“It- it won’t be much longer now. With a license plate we can find him fast.” Matt assured, mostly to himself.

Wade nodded, “When we find him-“

When. Not if.

“We need to get him those subs he really likes.”

Matt let out a wet laugh, “yeah, with the pickles smooshed down real flat.”

Wade smiled, “And I know a guy who has a dog, we’ll let Peter pet him as much as he wants.”

“I’ll take him to the bookshop below my office that he always stares at on his way up and I’ll buy him any book he wants, all the books he wants.” Matt grinned at the memory of the time Peter had ran straight into someone because his gaze was so focused on the bookstore.

“We’ll do anything he fucking wants. But he has to get a fucking AirTag first.” Wade compromised with himself.

Matt smiled. He liked this game. He liked thinking about what he would do once Peter was back. Everything would be normal again. Peter was always the one keeping the group together, lighting the mood, bouncing jokes back and forth with Wade.

Matt and Wade had tried their best to fill in the role he played, but once he was back their dynamic would truly be complete once again.

——————

If he just reached out to touch the wall, Peter was sure it would stop moving back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

It was almost like a wave and Peter smiled at the memory of Uncle Ben taking him down to the pier for the first time, how they had watched the waves for hours and Ben explained how waves happened.

The wall was moving. Peter thought that was strange because he didn’t think walls usually did that. But he was having a hard time remembering so maybe that was a normal thing.

The wall was rotated from earlier. It used to be straight up and down, but now the door was on its side.

Peter didn’t remember laying down, but it must have happened because he was on the floor. That still didn’t explain the moving, rotating wall.

Click. Peters body gave a full forced shiver at the noise of the lock on the other side of the door.

A moment passed and the door creaked open. Blue eyes walked in.

He used to have a bandage on his face, over his nose, but that was gone now.

Peter placed one palm on the ground and pushed himself so he was sitting against the bed. The wall stopped moving and unrotated.

“Stand up Spider.” The man pulled out the familiar device and fear shot straight up Peters spine. His spider senses going haywire at the sight of it.

And yet he didn’t even try. Not because he didn’t want to, not to prove a point, but because was so dam exhausted that he wouldn’t be able to stand if he tried.

Blue eyes knew that, he must have known that, and yet he frowned as if disappointed.

Peter was screaming before the button was even pressed. The pain filter through Peters senses, through his body. The volt sending unbearable shots of pain up and down his spine over and over.

At some point the screaming stopped and Peter just sat there with his mouth open in a silent scream. He was crying. He was in so much pain. Peter realized this wasn’t something he could get out of himself. It wasn’t often he faced a villain he couldn’t defeat, but when he did he knew how to call for help.

He wasn’t sure were his suit was, and he didn’t have his phone for some reason, but if he called out Matt would come.

He tried to say the man’s name, but his couldn’t get his throat to say it. Instead, Peters mouth moved with no sound.

At some point, the pain stopped.

“Matt.” It came out as a croak, but Peter knew Matt had good hearing, so even if he was all the way over in Hell’s Kitchen, he could hear Peter in Queens.

Blue eyes mumbled something and rolled his eyes, “Matt-“ he spat the T, “Can’t hear you.”

Peter frowned. Of course Matt could hear him. This guy just didn’t know what he was talking about.

Blue eyes sighed and shook his head dismissively.

“Spider, I’m happy to let you know that phase one of our little experiment is all done. I have to say I am very pleased with our results. You are truly a remarkable specimen.”

Peter felt nauseous as he was reminded of the fact that he was being experimented on. He wasn’t in Queens. Matt really couldn’t hear him.

“So we will be moving to phase two!” Blue eyes clapped his hands together excitedly. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m very exited for this part.”

A second phase? How many phases were there?

“Then I can… go?” Peter found himself asking. Once they had what they needed from him maybe he could go back to Matt and Wade.

Blue eyes laughed. An out of place sound of absolute delight filled the space.

“Not quite my Spider. Every good scientist knows that an experiment is only good if it’s repeated. After phase two we go back to phase one and repeat until you die!”

Peter looked up at Blue eyes. He wasn’t allowed to look at him, but he had to, to see if he was lying.

He wasn’t.

Click

Chapter Text

Peter had been lying on the floor for a while now. Or at least it felt like a while. He had originally tried to keep track of time in here, but that plan had quickly fallen apart.

Blue Eyes had left after a while of shocking Peter. And although he didn’t know how much time had passed, he had a vague feeling that too much time had passed.

Usually he’d be taken out what he assumed was about twice a day and then left alone at night. It changed often, and Peter was sure he’d passed out long enough for his count to be wrong, but in all his time here he’d never been left alone for this long.

It was unsettling and yet…

And yet if they weren’t focused on him maybe they were focused on something else. Maybe they were having trouble.

Maybe rescue had come.

It was a small hope, but Peter clung onto it. There wasn’t much else to do anyways.

So Peter lied down and prayed for the devil to come get him.

——————

The next time the door opened, something broke in Peter. It wasn’t Matt, it wasn’t Wade, heck, he’d be happy if Tony freaking Stark showed up.

It was Blue eyes and his lackeys.

Normally, this is where Peter would silently start insulting them. Not out loud of course, that would earn a shock, but he could allow that sort of thing privately.

But this time his mind was empty. He had run out of comebacks and insults. He was filled with a disappointment.

And really, that was stupid of him. Just because he “felt” that it had been too long he was alone that meant he was being rescued? He was stupid to hope for something like that.

What’s worse, Peter was angry. Not a hot, red, boiling over angry. More of a sad, melancholy anger. He was angry. Angry at Blue Eyes, angry at Oscorp and that stupid spider, angry at Matt and Wade because shouldn’t they be here by now?

The lackeys approached Peter and he sat still, bracing for… something. There was always something.

He was tugged so he was sitting up and looking forward. His view was blurry, he felt dizzy just from that movement alone.

What had Blue Eyes said? That they had finished the first part? Maybe the second part was easier. Maybe Peter would finally get a break.

But from the way Blue Eyes grinned at him, Peter knew that too was a false hope.

He hadn’t noticed before, but Blue eyes had something in his hand. A rag or a piece of cloth. He let out a small wine involuntarily. He hated waterboarding. Usually they took him out of his room for it.

Peter’s eyes widened, fear automatically filling him at Blue Eyes movement. He went to flinch, to move away, but some invisible force inside of him stopped his movements. The fear of a shock was more overwhelming then the fear of whatever Blue Eyes was going to do.

The cloth came over his head. It was a hood of some kind. Different from what they used when the water boarded him. It was extremely thick, so Peter couldn’t see a thing.

Whatever was happening, it was uncharted territory.

Peter tilted his head, his mind suddenly alert now that the pattern had been broken. He had no idea what was coming next. He couldn’t see, and his spider sense was out of commission still, the same, muted hum coursing through him, but maybe he could hear.

Blue Eyes moved back and his hands picked up something else. Peter strained, his hearing wasn’t good after having meager meals for so long, but he could pick out some things. A rattle, a drag. Whatever it was it was heavy and metal.

A part of it slipped from Blue Eyes grip and Peter heard it clearly. Chains.

He did flinch back at that, but predictably the shock turned on. He let out a whimper, too tired to actually scream, and tried not to fall limp.

The anticipation of the shock almost hurt more than the shock itself. Just knowing that one slip up and he could be writhing on the floor in pain. Peter wasn’t sure if the shocks had been dialed down or if he had simply grown used to them, but the shock itself seemed to hurt less.

The chains were placed around his wrists and then around his legs. They were heavy, clearly meant for some sort of animal. Any other time Peter would have been able to break free no problem, and maybe he’d be able to now as well, but the fear of a shock kept him dead still as the chains were wrapped around him.

After a moment he was released and he heard the two guards who had held him retreat.

Usually, this is where Blue Eyes would talk. Explain what he had done, taunt him, laugh at him, but he didn’t.

The men grabbed him by the arms again, dragging him to the wall. Then the chains connected to his arms were raised so he was sitting up. The chains connecting his legs were pulled tight as well to either side of the room.

He couldn’t move at all. The chains dug into his skin, leaving red imprints. Already, Peter could feel his arms turning sore.

But still, if this was all Blue Eyes was doing today he was thankful. He would take a few hours of forced stillness over medical tests any day.

He suppressed a flinch as the door slammed shut. He tilted his head again, listening to be sure he was alone. Once Peter decided he was, he let his body sag.

He shifted, unable to find a comfortable position. After a few different tries he gave up.

The hood was itchy.

Peter couldn’t move to itch it.

“Fuck!” Peter exclaimed. It wasn’t bone marrow harvesting, but it was annoying. And swearing seemed to help with the aching pain throughout his body.

Peter tried to relax, closing his eyes. His spider sense was still muted in the back of his mind, but he found catching a few moments of sleep wasn’t quite as difficult anymore.

The last thought Peter had as he drifted off was about how itchy the hood was.

“Fuck!”

——————

Matt wasn’t sure how much more of Tony Stark he could take. Constant snide comments about their costumes or about their silence or anything else he decided he didn’t like about Matt and Wade.

It was fine, Matt told himself, because they were combing through footage of cars that had no license plates and any of them could have had Peter.

Well, Stark and Wade were combing through the footage. Matt was sitting beside Wade in the conference room staring intently at a screen and agreeing with all of Wades observations.

Currently, Stark was critiquing their costumes.

“I mean, I get the branding thing, but the horns just make you look like an off brand batman. I mean you kind of are right? You don’t have any powers.”

Matt wished he didn’t, because then maybe Starks voice wouldn’t be so grating in his ears.

“And I don’t think I really get the Deadpool thing. Is it supposed to be something? Or is it just red and black to be red and black? I mean don’t get me wrong I think it’s better than a lot of the stuff I’ve seen, but no theme at all?”

Wade also stayed silent. Normally, Wade would engage with people like Stark constantly. Quipping back and forth and calling out his bullshit, but ever since Peter’s been gone Wade had been quiet.

That was preferable for now. They had to work with Stark, so getting into fights wouldn’t do anything to speed up the process. Once Peter was back though, Matt looked forward to hearing him talk again.

“And why’d Pete choose a spider of all things-“

Wade and Matt both tensed up.

“-I mean, you’d think he’d go for something stronger like… I don’t know… I mean pretty much anything. Not too late to rebrand to something else I guess.”

Matt kept himself carefully still. Stark didn’t mean anything by it.

“I mean I guess he was pretty limited in costume options. I mean that first one? Yikes-“

“Oh just shut up will you!” Wade slammed his hands on the table and stood up, glaring at Stark.

“Shut up about what? It was a shitty costume!” Stark stood as well.

Matt remembered the funeral they held for Peters first costume. They had known each other for a few months then and Wade had suggested the idea when he found Peter throwing it out one night.

They had each said a few words. Matt kept his short and clipped. A thank it for keeping Spiderman hidden from the public.

Wade had gone on for a while. Thanking it for “keeping Peter warm at night” despite Peter’s insistence that he did not in fact wear it to bed. He spoke on its beautiful shape, going into details about its curves and smells so much so that Matt stepped in to clip him on the head.

Peter had been much more earnest. He told the two how he had pulled it together from his uncles old sweatpants, his own hoodie and gloves, and how he had gotten the goggles special just for the costume, placing a few old glasses lenses over them to lower the input.

It was, indeed, a very shitty costume. Matt could say that. He could say that because he had known Peter when he wore the costume. Had seen how bullets and knives sliced right through. Had seen that and had chosen to help for no cost to upgrade Peter to a better suit.

Matt can say that because he helped Peter. He knew Peter. And if he had told Peter it was a shitty costume, Peter would have laughed his ass off at Matt saying a curse word.

But Stark couldn’t say any of that.

Wade and Stark were still yelling at each other when Matt stood up.

“Shut up Stark.” Matt spoke. He didn’t yell. He didn’t need to yell. They both shut up.

For a moment at least.

“Excuse me?” Stark asked.

“You heard me. Shut up.”

“I said it was a shitty costume. It was! And you know what? I got him a better one! I’m allowed to say that!”

“You aren’t allowed to say shit about Peter!” Matt’s whole face twitched as he clenched his fists.

“I was the one keeping him safe!” Stark yelled. “Like hell I’m not allowed to say that!”

Matt’s headache grew right along with his anger.

“You didn’t do shit.” He said, keeping his voice quiet but angry. Wade shifted beside him, turning his gaze back to Stark at a glare.

“I gave him the suit! He was walking around in spandex before!”

“Yeah and then you took it away.!” Wade yelled.

“He was meddling with things I told him to stay away from. He could have gotten hurt!”

“He did get hurt! A suit with cell service would have been real fucking nice right about then!” Wade advanced in stark as his voice rose.

Matt had a headache.

“How was I supposed to know that-“

“Shut up!” Matt finally yelled and both of them fell silent, Wade murmuring a soft apology.

Stark was glaring at him but Matt couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Shut up.” He repeated, the demand aimed solely for Stark now.

Starks mouth shut as a his heart sped up in fear. Good.

“Shut up.” Matt repeated. “You have done nothing all to help Peter. An expensive suit means nothing. If you take it away when he makes a mistake. Nothing when you ignore his injuries, nothing when you yell at him and nothing when you enter his house and ask him to leave the country with you knowing that he is a minor just because you were fighting a loosing battle.”

Matt kept his voice calm, steady, only allowing a hint of his anger to show. They were wasting their time. Peter was gone he was missing and Stark was wasting time.

Matt sat back down. He stared intently at the screen.

Slowly, Wade sat down too.

Stark left the room.

——————

Peter wasn’t sure how long he had been chained to the wall. He was on and off asleep for so long it could have been days. Either way, it had been long enough that he should be getting food soon.

Peter’s arms hung heavy. The chains had been digging into them for so long he felt the scars would be permanent. He couldn’t tell if they were bleeding or not because they had gone all tingly a while ago.

His shoulders ached from the position, and it was starting to hurt his neck as well. He wanted so badly to lie down, to allow himself a real rest.

Before all of this, Peter was sure he could have broken the chains. He didn’t even try now.

Maybe worst of all was that he couldn’t see. All of his senses were generally unreliable and spotty, but together he could usually piece together what was happening. Now though, all he really had was his hearing.

Matt had taught him well how to focus it. How to use his hearing to its full capacity. But it still took Peter a lot of concentration. Concentration he didn’t have the energy to spend on listening.

Peter lifted his head. It allowed a slight relief to the pain in his neck and he tried to lean it to the side. He lasted a few moments before the pain in his shoulder became unbearable and let his head hang down again.

“Peter!”

Peter’s head shot up again. That voice. He knew that voice! It was distant, but he could hear it clearly.

“Peter!” It called again.

“M-att.” Peter croaked out. His voice was raw, but Matt would hear it if he were nearby.

“Peter!” Matt sounded… he sounded…

He didn’t really sound like anything at all.

“Peter!” The voice faded in and out and in and out. It changed. “Peter!” It was Wade. No, it was aunt May. No, Ned. No, it was his math teacher.

“Peter!”

It was a hallucination.

“Peter!”

——————

Chapter Text

His breath was fast. Probably too fast. There was an ache in his muscles because, despite being in a position where he could fully relax, he couldn’t force his body to do so.

Peter wanted more than anything to curl up into a ball, to provide some semblance of protection, but he couldn’t move.

Peter licked his lips again. He knew that wasn’t helping, but he couldn’t stop himself.

A creak resounded through the room and Peter jerked his head towards the source. He knew, logically, that this was another hallucination. But there was a little voice in the back is his mind telling him that it might not be.

The creak turned into a click.

Peter’s muscles spasmed as he tried to pull his limbs closer to him. His breath steadily picked up as he whimpered. Peter turned his head away, as if that could save him from the shock, and shut his eyes tight (or where they already shut?).

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he was able to relax again. Peter wasn’t even sure if the click had been real. There could have been a shock or there might not have been. Peter wasnt sure it mattered any more.

Just the fear of the shock was enough to send him spiraling.

“Okay Peter.” He said out loud, because that seemed to help sometimes. Peter could be sure the things he was saying were real.

There was a crackling that sounded in the room and Peter forced himself to ignore it. It reminded him of the intercoms at school.

It was the only sound that actually quieted the kids in the cafeteria as they waited to hear. Usually it was uninteresting. Someone’s car was going off in the parking lot, no, there was not a fire, someone pulled the alarm again, or if everyone could please stay seated we’re going on a soft lockdown.

Peter longed to go to school again. It was summer, and like any kid he was excited at the prospect, but he was a nerd. He was going to a fancy school on a fancy scholarship because he was such a nerd. So while the summer was fun, there was always a certain excitement that followed school as well.

He was going into his junior year and, nervous as he was for the most difficult year of high school, he couldn’t help but look forward to it.

That only got Peter depressed as he once again reminded himself that he likely would not being back to school. That this might be all there was for him.

Peter let out a deep breath. He couldn’t think that, not yet at least. There was still hope that the others would come for him.

Peter wondered if they didn’t come for him what he would do. Escape seemed out of the question. He could barely stand up without passing out and his captors had him under lock and key.

Certainly one of these experiments had to kill him eventually right? What if he laid on his back next time they plunged his head underwater? He could drown himself then.

The crackling was heard again and this time was followed by a voice. “Enjoy the music Spider.”

Peter had never heard Blue Eyes in any of his hallucinations. That, paired with the faint beginnings of a classical music piece, made him believe that it was a very real situation.

Peter sat there, very confused, as a melody began to form over the speakers.

Blinding Lights by The Weekend, on what must have been full volume, began flooding through the room.

This, Peter decided, could not be a hallucination. Because no matter how crazy he may be, it was not something his brain could ever or would ever conceive.

Despite his current situation, Peter began to laugh. First a little giggle of disbelief, and then a full on cackle.

Maybe it said something about how crazy he was in fact going, but really?

The fucking Weekend?

After Peter finished laughing, he forced himself to take a few deep breaths. The motion in his chest caused by laughing began to hurt.

It didn’t make any sense. Peter considered once more that it was a hallucination, or maybe he was just dead.

The chorus started back up again and Peter laid his head back.

He had never been a huge fan of The Weekend, but they had some good songs. He wouldn’t have minded listening to them if the volume wasn’t so loud it hurt.

Either way, it distracted from the the hallucinations, so he found it in himself to be grateful.

The song finished, and then resumed.

Peter could just imagine Blue Eyes and his crew laughing their asses off as they watched Peter attempt to plug his ears with his shoulders.

It didn’t work, and Peter soon gave up.

As funny as it was, Peter realized, it was working. The music was loud, blaring, mind numbing. He was crying. It was so fucking loud, especially compared to the silence he was previously enveloped in.

He couldn’t think.

Every time he tried to form a thought it got muddled, failing in the face of sleep deprivation and resounding noise.

Peter let go. He stopped thinking. He didn’t know what was up or down. What was real or not.

He was too tired to form the thought to care.

——————

Things had calmed down significantly since the fight. Matt had been worried, at first, that Stark would stop helping them. But Stark did care for Peter, misplaced as it often was.

Stark had stepped back, letting his AI search for the license plate and staying out of the way for the most part.

For the moment, they could work together. Both party’s only wanted to see Peter safely home and that was enough to keep any anger at bay.

It had been almost a month now since Peter was taken. Matt was more and more anxious as the one month mark approached. He knew, statistically, what that would mean for Peter.

One of the avengers had mentioned how it was unlikely Peter was dead. How these people knew he was spider man and therefore would likely want him alive as long as possible.

Wade left the room. Then he left the building. He disappeared for a day and returned without a word to anyone.

It was infuriating, because they had a license plate, and yet no address. No location. No lead. No Peter.

Nelson and Murdock had temporarily become Nelson as Matt took permanent time off work to search for Peter. The news had inevitably noticed Spider-Man’s absence and subsequent lack of protection over Queens.

It was Deadpool who took care of Queens for the most part. Patrolling it himself or pulling favors (of which he had a seemingly infinite amount).

Actually, crime seemed to have calmed down. Deadpool wasn’t quite as forgiving as Spider-Man, and criminals caught onto this quickly.

Matt tagged along when he could, knowing Peter would want Queens safe in his absence. This was one of those nights, just Wade and Matt wandering Queens together.

Things had gotten tense between them, privately. Together they presented a united front, always, but without Peter to be their middle man, they squabbled over the smallest things.

“I want Chinese.” Deadpool wined.

“Then go buy fucking Chinese, I’m getting Indian.”

“But I don’t want to eat alone.” Deadpool sagged his form, showing his deep disappointment.

“Then get your food and come find me.” Matt pushed Wade away as he swayed too close to him and the man fell on his ass.

“Indian isn’t even good!” Wade fell onto his back as well.

Matt turned around and crossed his arms. Leave it to Wade to act like a toddler.

“Peter liked Indian.” He mumbled.

Wade stiffened along with Matt. He hadn’t really meant to say that. Any mention of Peter ruined the mood immediately as both turned away from the other.

Matt was about to apologize and offer to get Chinese when his phone began buzzing.

“Stark. Stark. Stark. Stark. Stark.” Matt immediately fished out his phone as Wade stood up, bushing off his blood soaked suit.

“Yes?” Matt asked as he hit speaker.

“Come on over guys, we got a location.”

Matt didn’t pause to answer as he hung up and he and Wade both began booking it to the tower.

A location.

A fucking location.

For the first time in a month, Wade and Matt grinned at each other.

——————

There was a creak, and something in Peter told him this time was real. He tensed up, waiting for something to happen as he heard people file into his room.

Peter forced himself to stay completely still as the chains on his arms and legs were released, and then as his mask was taken off.

Immediately, he was hit by an onslaught of information. The light in the room was on, along with a brighter light that had been brought into the room by one of the half a dozen or so people who were inside.

Blue Eyes was at the center of it all, clipboard and pen in hand.

Peter took his chances and allowed his limbs to retract so he was sitting up in a ball. Blue Eyes didn’t punish him and Peter counted it as a win.

The 5 other people in the room were all in scrubs of a surprisingly colorful variety. There was a tray as well, but Peter couldn’t see it from where he was.

The light on wheels was adjusted so it was glaring down at Peter and he couldn’t help but whimper as he shut his eyes.

The onslaught of light was such a contrast to his former state of blindness that Peter found himself in actual tears.

This did not deter the nurses from approaching him. One of them, in pale blue scrubs, pushed his right shoulder so Peter was trapped against the wall, and held his other hand out as if waiting for Peter to struggle.

Peter began to feel nauseous as a nurse picked up something from the cart and approached on his other side.

He had seen the item before at the doctors office. It was the thing they used to measure blood pressure.

Despite having used it before, Peter found himself struggling as the nurse fit the cuff onto him.

click.

Peter sat very, very still. No shock came. He did not struggle as the pressure on his arm increased painfully.

“Sixty five fifty.” The nurse said and Peter could barely hear her because his vision was going blurry.

There was a faint scratching and that nurse disappeared, soon replaced by another.

The nurse on his other side remained, keeping him pinned against the wall, though Peter didn’t think he could move if he tried.

There was so much noise. The velcro from the blood pressure cuff, the clink of metal on metal, the buzz of the lights, the shuffling of clothes, the blood roaring in his ears.

Peter’s nausea grew steadily as the new nurse crouched in front of him and grabbed his head. He held it up so he was facing Peter, and Peter got a look at his impassive face before being blinded by light.

He shut his eyes on instinct as he fought the overwhelming urge to throw up. He tired to turn his head away, but the man wouldn’t let him.

“It is not complying.” The man complained. The voice was too loud and too close and Peter whimpered.

Blue Eyes must have made some non verbal commend, because the nurse let go of his head and moved away.

Peter opened his eyes again, squinting through the light, to find Blue Eyes right in front of him.

“Look forward.” He commanded, and Peter found himself obeying.

“Keep your eyes open.” The light shined back in his eyes and Peter let tears fall but kept his eyes open. He was trembling, full force shivers traveling his body, and yet he didn’t move to shut his eyes.

“Abnormal dialation. Todd write that down please.”

Blue eyes stood back up and resumed his position. Peter closed his eyes, tears falling.

Todd returned and put the light in his ears, a wholly uncomfortable feeling, and then in his mouth, which was a bit less uncomfortable but made him want to throw up more.

More words were thrown around, but they didn’t mean anything to Peter, so he zoned them out.

“I am going to ask you questions now.” Peter found himself paying attention again as he was addressed.

“Where are you?”

It was a simple enough question, not at all what Peter was expecting.

Peter thought he had known where he was at some point, but now he wasn’t sure.

“Underground.” He responded, his voice croaky. Blue Eyes scribbled something down.

“How long have you been here.”

Peter paused. He had no way of knowing for sure. He’d lost track of time a while ago. He stated his best guess.

“A little over two-weeks.” A few of the nurses laughed and Peter shrinked even further into himself. Was he that far off?

“Okay. What is your name?”

Peter hesitated only a moment because he wasn’t sure exactly that Blue Eyes wanted.

“Peter.” He eventually said. “Parker.”

“I’m now going to say a list of items and I want you to repeat it back to me.”

Blue eyes hit something on his watch and then spoke again. “Building. Carpet. Zebra. Rocket. March. Stick. Spider.”

Peter was sure the last one was meant to be a joke.

He opened his mouth to repeat it, it was an easy enough task, but he found himself forgetting. Shit. What was the first word? It had started with an A right? Did it go alphabetically?

He felt nauseous.

“Stick. Spider.” He repeated. He knew those at least. “I can’t- I don’t-“

“Okay. Quiet now.”

Peter shut his mouth. His head felt dizzy. He closed his eyes.

“I want you to spell spider for me.”

Peter spelled it to the best of his ability, but from the giggles resounding through the room, he had done it wrong.

“Now backwards.” Blue eyes stated.

Peter was ready to give up, but he tried his best. He was smart. He had always been smart. It was something Peter always had if nothing else.

He couldn’t get past c.

“Now place your right hand on your left knee.”

Peter’s mind tried to understand the instructions. He found his right hand after a moment, and then looked back up at Blue Eyes. He had forgotten the second half.

Blue eyes did not repeat it, but wrote something down and moved on.

“Subtract 7 from 2.”

Peter subtracted seven from two. He felt his eyes burn with tears at how long it took him. He was smart. He could be so smart. And yet this elementary level question was hard.

He was told to subtract 7 from his answer and he did so. Once more, then he was told to stop.

That part Peter was sure he did well on.

“Give it food and move it to the other room.”

Peter was pulled to his feet by the man who had remained at his side, and promptly fell unconscious.

——————

Matt was, unfortunately, faced with another map. This map was not on paper but rather presented on a hologram.

He kept his mouth shut and dutifully allowed Wade to speak for him. He trusted the man with his life, despite his clear mental issues.

They didn’t know where Peter was being kept, (or if he was even still there, as Captain America had so helpfully supplied), but they had a rough idea of the layout and had once they were there could use Starks tech to search manually.

Wade made it clear he and Matt would go right inside and go where they thought was best. Captain America seemed annoyed by this but eventually relented.

And so a mere two hours later, a plan had been formed at Matt and Wade found themselves on a private plane heading towards Connecticut.

There was a whole crew of people joining them. All the avengers, along with Bruce Banner who wasn’t planning on turning into the Hulk. Actually, Matt wasn’t sure why the man was here because he wasn’t a medical professional or a planner and declined to fight.

The man had mumbled something about emotional support and resigned himself to a corner.

They had a whole crew of medical professionals, as well as ambulances that should arrive shortly after them in case.

Matt would have felt better if Claire was here, but Dr. Cho seemed capable as well.

Matt was giddy with excitement and anxiety. There was no saying what they would find inside. What state Peter would be in physically or mentally. A month away could change someone.

Wade clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a bit of a nod as the plane touched the ground. Matt knew, no matter what, he and Wade would be there together to help Peter.

The doors opened and Matt tilted his head, listening for the familiar beat of Peters heart. The building stood alone, surrounded by a forest.

It was hard to catch onto. There was a lot of people in the building, but after a moment he smiled. It was sluggish, but it was Peter.

——————

Chapter Text

The thing about being alone is it gave you a lot of time to think. Think about life. Think about death. Think about the summer work you definitely wouldn’t have time for now.

Mostly, Peter was too tired to form real thoughts. Most of what he thought were just memories. Just replaying his time before.

He thought about Uncle Ben, about Aunt May. He thought about Ned and MJ. He thought about Matt and Wade. He hoped they would take care of queens.

Peter thought about the time Team Red got to stop an art heist. Even Matt had admitted, weeks later, that it was cool as fuck. I mean, seriously, an art heist!

He thought about the time he learned Matt’s name. Wade had always been pretty open with his identity. Stating that if someone wanted to hurt him or his they could go ahead and try. But Matt and Peter were more private. They didn’t have a quite as brutal a reputation.

Needless to say, it took a long time and a lot of trust to reveal something even as simple as a first name.

—

Peter clutched his abdomen tight. The water pelting down on him burned on the wound and he distantly recognized that wasn’t normal.

He was surrounded by empty train cars, out of commission for repair. Apparently, the railways were a popular meet up for arms and drug dealers, because there had been not two, not three, but four separate groups when Peter was expecting only one

They had all run off once he collapsed, which he was grateful for. None of them had a vendetta against him, or at least were too scared to kill him.

Well, one of them must have not been scared because Peter had a sizable knife lodged inside of him.

Peter wanted to pull it out, but he had heard somewhere to not do that, so he left it in. He tried to stand up again, one hand grabbing at a rail on one of the carts and pulling as hard as he could to steady himself on his feet.

The rail tore off and Peter lost his balance. Peter screamed as the knife shifted and sent hot flares of pain through his body. He let himself sink back to the ground and placed both his hands on his stomach near the wound, as if he could hold it together.

It didn’t. In fact touching it only made to worse and he arched his back in pain, whimpering as he pulled his bloodied hands away. His vision turned dark for a moment.

Peter couldn’t get himself out of this one.

He’s dealt with injuries before. His Spider-sense saved him from most injuries, but he was bound to get hit every once in a while.

Peter had been stabbed in the leg before. Shot in the arm. Gotten burns all around. Been demolished by a cat on multiple occasions. Not to mention the mental toll of being called insulting names all night long.

But a stab wound to this degree wasn’t something he could sleep off. He couldn’t fix this with a first aid kit and a shower, at least not by himself.

Peter began to feel very cold all of a sudden.

He needed help.

Peter knew he was close to Hells Kitchen, or as close as one could be while still staying within Queens.

They said if you called for him, Daredevil would come, but that was only if you were in Hells Kitchen. Still, Peter’s seen the guy in action, and he was fairly certain he could hear a much farther range than that.

Peter began to feel dizzy, and decided it was worth a shot.

He took a deep breath, and yelled with all his might: “Daredevil!”

Silence echoed back at him.

The scream had hurt him, but it was all he had, so he tried again.

”Daredevil! I need-“ his voice cracked and grew quieter as he grunted in pain, “I need help.”

Peter really hoped it worked. Because then he passed out.

—

When Peter came too, he was definitely not on the railroad tracks any more. He was laying on his back on what must have been a couch.

Slowly, Peter opened his eyes. He still had his mask on, which was a relief, but his suit had been pulled down so his stomach was revealed.

Looking down, he saw his cleaned and bandaged abdomen. A faint but of blood was just beginning to show behind the white cloth.

He looked around, taking in his new surroundings.

He was in an apartment. It was fairly bare bones, likely only one person lived here. There was one door leading to what must have been a bedroom, and he could see the kitchen and front door from his spot on the couch.

There was very impressive floor length window that would have made a great view if it wasn’t for the giant billboard with a cocoa-cola ad directly in front of it.

Peter slowly shifted so he was sitting up, and was then hit with a wave of dizziness.

”Careful kid, you lost a lot of blood.” A man stepped out from a part of the kitchen Peter couldn’t see, holding a juice box in his hand.

It was Daredevil, he’d recognize the voice, but he didn’t have a mask on.

Peter immediately averted his gaze. Had the man forgot his mask? He was always so strict with his identity.

”You- You don’t have your mask on.” Peter gently reminded as the man approached.

Daredevil nodded, Peter still kept his gaze averted. “I know.”

He sat down in an armchair next to the couch Peter was on, and Peter slowly looked at Daredevil.

Peter could never tell people’s age, but he thought Daredevil looked fairly young, at least, younger than he had thought. Then again, he just looked softer out of the costume.

He was wearing a loose shirt and pants and a pair of sunglasses, which Peter thought was odd but maybe the guy was sporting a bad hangover or something.

”Here,” the man held out the juice box and Peter gently took it, “You lost a lot of blood.”

”Thank you.” Peter murmured, and he thinks Daredevil knew it was for more than the juice.

This must have been Daredevils home. Peter felt… well it felt good that Daredevil trusted him so much. A home meant an address and an address meant you could find out anything about anyone.

So that Daredevil took Peter into his home, took fo his mask, all to help him…

Peter sipped on the juice, lifting his mask up to his mouth. He’d become comfortable doing that around Daredevil and Wade.

”Hey, uhm, you didn’t happen to… take off the…” Peter trailed off guiltily as he gestured to his mask. Maybe it was selfish because Daredevil had opened his home to Peter but Peter still didn’t want him to see his face.

He just couldn’t risk it. Not with Aunt May. He trusted Daredevil, he did, but he was still a strange man, and Peter had grown up with stranger danger propaganda pushed constantly.

”No.” Daredevil answered him, and Peter knew it was the truth. “And don’t think you owe it to me to expose yourself like that. I live alone, and I don’t have any living family. I can afford to trust you like this. But I don’t know your situation. Maybe you have a kid, or a spouse, or any number of people who you have to worry about.”

Peter almost laughed out loud. A kid. How old did this guy think he was?

”I had assumed you were a legal adult, but in hindsight maybe that was too generous.”

Oh. Peter had lost a lot more blood than he thought. He took another sip of his juice box.

”Okay, shit. Do you need to like… call your mom or something?” Daredevil actually did seem surprised by the information.

Peter shook his head. May was used to him being out at odd hours. He could pull this off as a last minute AcaDec competition.

”Okay. If you’re sure. I have to get to work, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you need.”

Daredevil stood up, “There’s some clothes in the bedroom, probably not best to go swinging right now. Just take your time, if you still feel dizzy by the time I’m back from work we can figure something out.”

Peter just nodded, grateful he had someplace to stay for a little while.

Daredevil gave him one final nod, and began walking for the door.

”Wait!” Peter called, and the man turned back around. “I just- thank you, Daredevil. Really. I didn’t know if I was gonna make it out of that one.”

Daredevil smiled, a genuine smile, “Call me Matt.”

—

They had met up at their usual spot off Cranberry. Wade had called the meeting, so there was a lot of possibilities as to what was about to go down.

For once, Wade had actually shown up in a timely manner, so it must be serious.

”Whats going on Wade?” Matt had a gentle voice on, clearly aware of the tense way Wade was holding himself.

They were situated in something of a circle. The sun was just setting, and traffic down below was still bad.

”Someone has a hit out for Spidey.”

”What?” Peters voice cracked, went a few pitches up.

A hit. On him. As in someone wanted to kill him.

Which, yeah, people tried to kill him every day, but someone wanted to assassinate him.

”They have an address.”

Peter felt his heart stop. Like, actually, legitimately stop beating for a good two seconds. His hands were sweaty all of a sudden and he felt sick. Really sick. Aunt May. Oh my god they had an address and Aunt May was at home.

”Spidey!”

Oh my god. Aunt May could get hurt. All Peter had left. He felt himself sit down. His hands were shaking. He had to go, he had to go protect her.

”Breathe. That’s it, just breathe.”

Peter tried to breathe. He was gasping up air. Aunt May. He had to get it together to help Aunt May.

He eventually calmed down enough that he was aware of his surroundings.

”Keep breathing.” Matt was instructing. Wade was holding one of his hands.

”My Aunt.” Peter said. Secret identity be dammed. He trusted these people. “My Aunt May, she’s at home. They have an address.”

”Then we’ll help her okay? We will do everything we can kid. We’ll get it sorted out.”

”We’ll get you somewhere safe Spidey boy,” that was Wade.

Peter shook his head. “My Aunt.” He sobbed.

”We can go there kid, if you want. We can keep watch at your apartment to keep both of you safe until we figure it out.” Matt spoke with such a calm voice that Peter found himself believing it would all be okay wholeheartedly.

”Okay.” Peter said.

”You’re okay with that? If we go to your apartment?” Wade chimed in, almost concerned.

Peter nodded. He trusted them. He trusted them more than anyone else. He trusted them with Aunt May.

”Heres what we’re going to do kid. Wade is gonna find out whoever put that out and he’s gonna take care of that. You and I will go back to your apartment. I’ll keep watch tonight while you patrol, and tomorrow you can keep watch while I patrol. We can take turns like that as long as we need to kid.”

”Okay. Okay yeah we can- we can do that.” Peters voice was still shakey as he spoke.

”Just keep breathing kid, it’ll all-“

”Peter.” Peter said, almost without thinking. He wanted these people to know him if they were going to protect May. “It’s- my name is Peter.”

Matt smiled, so did Wade. “Alright Peter,” Matt’s voice was more upbeat, “just keep breathing.”

—

Peter was cold. He was really cold. He wasn’t sure if that was a part of the experiment or if it was just the lack of food and inability to thermoregulate causing it.

The room was completely white, and the lights were on all day every day.

He felt like an insane asylum patient in the all white room, though this wasn’t padded.

Peter was grateful he could see again at least. It seemed like the hallucinations had calmed down now that he could recognize when the person speaking wasn’t really there.

Peter claimed one corner, furthest from the door. Now that they seemed content to leave him alone, he should probably be forming some sort of routine, or planning some escape, but he was too tired.

His spider sense had calmed down to a certain degree, or at least he could zone it out enough to ignore it.

It was difficult to sleep in this room though with the lights on constantly. Peter was able to grab a few hours of sleep whenever he passed out, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

There was still the ever persistent issue of his spider-sense constantly alerting him of danger.

The wall was moving again. Peter wanted to push it away, because it kept getting closer, but he was too scared to move. Maybe Blue Eyes didn’t want Peter to touch the wall, and Peter didn’t want to get shocked.

Peter was shivering. It might have been the cold. It might have been the fear. He’s never been this scared for so long before. Just knowing that at any minute, Blue Eyes could order his team of nurses to come back in and inflict god only knows what pain onto him.

What had the man said? About repeating experiments? Was Peter destined to relieve this nightmare until he was dead?

His ears began ringing, and Peter passed out.

—

When he came to, everything was loud, and confusing, and there was red lights and loud sirens and Peter closed his eyes and curled into a ball, waiting for his nightmare to end.

——————

Matt latched onto Peters heart and almost collapsed with relief. Alive. He was alive.

“I got him.” He whispered to Wade, though he was sure others heard.

The Captain issued some command or another, and people ran out as the doors opened.

Matt and Wade cleared their way to the basement with practiced ease. The group wasn’t much larger than the average drug ring, but there was a certain air of anxiety knowing that Peter was in their clutches.

Alarms had began blaring as they entered the building, people shouting and guns shooting. It was a lot for Matt, his control over his hearing was lacking slightly due to his lack of sleep and strong emotions.

Wade shot someone in the face while Matt kicked a man in the balls. Both collapsed, one of them dead. Matt could hear Peter a few doors away. He was alone, but his heart rate had picked up significantly. He was scared.

Stark blasted someone who had come up behind the pair and attempted to join them. Matt wanted to cover his ears. The suit was fucking loud.

The three made their way down the hallway and Matt stopped outside the door leading to Peter. He and Wade exchanged a look, an understanding. They didn’t know how Peter would react, didn’t know what the boy had been through.

Stark blasted the door down.

“Are you fucking crazy!” Matt pushed the man back, super suit be dammed, and stepped between him and the door.

“Jesus I could see he wasn’t behind the door, the suit can see heat signatures.” Stark lifted his hands in mock surrender then attempted to move forward again.

“Guard the door.” Matt spat out to him, then turned around.

There was dust in the air, still settling. While Matt and Stark had their disagreement, Wade had entered.

He was crouched down now next to Peter.

God, now that he was closer Matt could really sense him. He was skinnier, prominent bags under his eyes, thinning hair. He was covered in a whole new set of scars and smelled like death.

There was something… mechanical around his neck.

Peter was shaking. His hands were over his ears as he shrank away from Wade and tried to curl further into a ball.

“Matt I don’t- I don’t know how to help him.” Wade whispered, standing up again.

Peter was clearly having a panic attack, or a sensory overload, or any combination of stress and anxiety.

Stark was still lingering in the doorway with his loud ass suit.

“Get Stark to quiet down his suit and keep guard. Let medical know his status.”

Wade seemed reluctant to leave Peter, glancing once more at him. But upon seeing the boy whimper and press his palms further into his ears, Wade moved away.

Matt sat fully on the ground in front of Peter. He wasn’t injured at the moment, so while he certainly needed intense medical care, he needed to calm down right now.

“Breathe, Peter.” Matt murmured, knowing Peter would hear it anyways.

Peter didn’t react to this, so Matt repeated it. “Breathe.”

Behind him, he could hear Starks voice raise louder. Peter flinched more.

Matt turned around and made what he thought was eye contact with Stark. “Be quiet.” He kept his voice low, but loud enough for the man to hear. He quieted down, waiting for Matt to continue.

“He has enhanced hearing. Your suit is loud. You need to leave.” Then he turned back around to repeat his instructions to Peter.

“Breathe.” He whispered.

God. Fuck. He wanted to kill someone. Whoever did this to Peter. Whoever gave him these new scars and this new truama. The kid had already been through too much.

“Breathe. That’s it.” The boy had begun to follow his advice. Peters eyes were far off, obviously not quite registering that Matt was here, but he was breathing easier. Starks suit had left but the man lingered.

Wade went to Matt’s side, sitting down next to him.

“Peter? Are you hurt?” Jesus Christ. Couldn’t Stark leave them the hell alone? His voice was set at a normal volume, which must have heart Peters ears if his flinch was anything to go for.

Stark was standing up behind Matt and Wade, but had taken off his suit, though Matt could still hear it moving on its own a while away.

“Peter? It’s Matt and Wade. Where both here. Can you give me a status report?” He hoped the boy would recognize the familiar routine.

Peter did seem to recognize these words. His eyes focused slightly, honing in on Matt and Wade both sitting in front of him.

He mouthed the words. ‘Status report’. As if it would help him to understand the request.

“I can’t walk.” His voice was scratchy, shaky, scared. But he was talking. “I’m not- not bleeding though.” He croaked out.

Matt could smell the blood on him. He wasbleeding, but Peter didn’t notice it.

“Okay.” Wade said, “That’s good. You’re doing really good Peter. We have some doctors who are going to help you okay?”

Peters heart sped up. His eyes snapped back to that unfocused glazed expression.

Matt could smell the anti-septic, the sterile alcohol and dried blood on metal. It was no surprise that Peter had faced some not so friendly doctors in here. No surprise how he reacted.

He coiled back in on himself, covering his stomach. “N-o. Please no… no doctors please.” He begged, then began to cough.

“No doctors.” Matt assured, though he didn’t know if it was realistic promise. He couldn’t bear to hear Peter scared any more though.

“Just breathe, no doctors just Wade and I.” He promised again.

Peter calmed again at this. His arms loosened and his eyes scanned Matt and Wade again.

Matt held out his hand. He knew it was important for Peter to initiate the contact. That for the past month any touch he’s had has been painful.

Peters eyes latched onto the hand, and very hesitantly, he reached his own hand out.

Peter let out a breath when his fingers found Matt’s. He grasped onto his hand and then pulled himself closer to the pair.

Wade took Peters other hand and they had a few moments for their happy little reunion. Peter clung to them, tears falling freely from his eyes as he repeated their names over and over.

“Guys? We gotta get a move on.” Stark was still standing behind them, probably awkwardly.

Peter flinched again at the loud noise and Matt brought another hand gently up to cover one of his ears. If his heart beat was anything to go by though, Peter didn’t like that, so Matt retracted his hand.

“Can I try to get this thing off you?” Wade asked, his hands brushing over the collar.

Peter flinched at this, but nodded. His heart rate shot up and his shaking increased at Wade quickly explored the buttons around the collar, but the kid let such a sigh of relief out the moment Wade threw the collar across the room that it was worth it.

Matt soothed him, reminding him to breathe as the kid began to massage his neck.

A gunshot rang ahead and Matt was reminded that they did in fact have to get going. The faster they got Peter out, the better.

“I’m going to pick you up, that okay?” He whispered and Peter nodded.

Matt went slow, making sure Peter knew each of his movements as he snaked one hand under his legs and the other under his back.

He stood up, accepting the support offered from Wade, but the kid had lost a significant amount of muscle and fat in a month, and he wasn’t very heavy.

Stark was breathing loudly in front of him and looking at them like they were crazy or something.

“Why don’t you lead the way out of here Stark?” Matt suggested. He wanted to tell the guy to fuck off, but with Peter in his arms he just wanted to help him, rivalry with Stark be dammed.

Shit, the kid really did soften him.

Stark seemed angry, but he wasn’t letting it show as he nodded.

Stark led them out, Wade standing beside Peter the whole time, ready to take out any threats.

They passed rooms, most were empty. Some smelled strongly of blood. Peter kept his head moving, scanning everything in front of him and tensing up at certain places.

Matt kept himself calm. That was job. Stay calm for Peter. Protect Peter. He steadied his breathing when they made it to the exit and went outside.

He kept his hands from shaking at the rows of people lined up in handcuffs dressed in scubs. Bit his tongue when Peter whimpered and turned away from them, wrapping his hands tighter around Matt’s neck.

They reached the quinjet and Stark led them onboard.

There were doctors and nurses waiting with a gurney and a few immediately rushed forward as the group entered.

Peter let out a gasp and moved as if he would try to make a break for it. Matt backed up with him, content to let Peter feel he had as much control as possible.

Wades katanas has the doctor’s moving back, much to Starks obvious dismay.

Matt moved towards the gurney after the people moved out of the way and Stark moved aside to talk with them.

“Loose the coats will you? Listen the kids out of it right now so just do whatever they need” Matt overheard as he set Peter down.

Peter let out a wince at the movement. Wade stood at the ready, he traded his katana for a gun, daring anyone to come near.

“Okay Peter. No doctors yeah? I can smell blood on your stomach.” The question went unsaid but Peter nodded his permission and Matt gently lifted his shirt.

His hands hovered. There was too much blood. Old blood. New blood. Strange wounds. Places clotted, places freshly bleeding. He couldn’t tell what was where.

Wade nudged him, “he needs stitches. Switch with me?”

Matt nodded, Wade handed him a gun they both knew he wouldn’t use and they switched places.

“Heya Petey, I’m going to help you out okay?” Wades voice was soft.

“Okay.”

Wade got to work, pulling out a needle and thread and wiping away the blood.

Stark and the doctors stood on the other side of the quinjet, all staring at them.

Matt hated to admit it, but he was out of his element here. He could treat stab or bullet wounds, deal with a panic attack, or bruised ribs, but he didn’t know how to help Peter. Peter was dehydrated, he was starving, there were likely old injuries healed incorrectly, or fluid in his lungs, or any host of issues Matt had no experience with.

“Distract him.” Matt whispered, low enough that Peter hopefully wouldn’t notice.

“Alright Peter, first meal as soon as we bust out of here, what’s it gonna be?” Wade began.

Matt gestured for one of the doctors to come over. One of them walked over, surprisingly calm and confident despite Matt’s weapon.

“Listen, he’s not too fond of doctors right now, but I don’t know where to begin helping him.”

Matt hoped the women had a plan.

The women nodded, “I know Peter, I’ve treated him before. Let me try to talk to him and if that doesn’t work I’ll do my best to instruct you.”

She hesitated, “if he needs treatment that you can’t give, or freaks out though… we will have to sedate him. It isn’t work risking his life.”

Matt frowned but nodded, she was right.

“Or how about a sub from that place you like? Or a churro?” Wade suggested.

Peter let out a small smile.

“Sub.” He whispered.

“Sub it is! Tell you what we’ll make it a team get together. Meet on the roof off Cranberry and blast some music, how does that sound?”

Peter let out a little nod.

“Peter?” The doctor spoke up and Peter stiffened.

Wade shot Matt a look, who nodded.

“D-Doc-“ Peter couldn’t seem to get the word out.

“Oh you’ve known me long enough Peter, Cho is fine.”

Peter swallowed and nodded.

“Do you mind if I help your… friends here take care of you?”

Peter was quiet for a moment, not responding. He looked at Doctor Cho, convincing himself that she was not like the other doctors, and he nodded.

“Okay.” He whispered, but he was tense. Matt took his hand and the boy clutched it close.

“Thank you Peter. I’ll try to make this quick, but we need to make sure you don’t have a concussion right now. After that we can leave you alone at least until you get a little more comfortable.”

Dr. Cho moved behind the gurney as she spoke, pulling out a tool and clipboard with papers on it. Peter tracked her movements nervously as his breath picked up slightly.

Dr. Cho returned and held out the tool for Peter to easily see. “We’ve done this before. It will shine a light, which could be pretty bright, into your eyes.”

Peter swallowed and nodded, but he was clearly anxious, boarding on an anxiety or panic attack.

“How can we help baby boy?” Wade was holding Peters other hand.

“I just… I just need… I don’t… I just need a minute.” Peters heart wasn’t calming down.

“Okay. We can do that.” Matt immediately placated.

Matt moved in closer. Physical contact had helped Peter earlier, hopefully it would do the same now.

He shifted Peter over so his head was leaning against Matt’s chest and he brought his other hand up to comb through his hair.

Peter calmed significantly at this. Dr. Cho kept herself in Peters line of sight so the kid could see all of her movement. After a moment, Peter motioned that he was ready again.

Dr. Cho described her movements as she completed the test. The light was held up and moved back and forth while Peter focused on the doctors finger.

Peter let out a breath when she was done and went back behind the gurney.

The quinjet doors closed. Another quinjet must have arrived for the others. Someone had made the executive decision that maybe Peter needed a bit of alone time.

Dr. Cho began to write something on her clipboard with a pen.

Peter started screaming.

It startled the shit out of Matt because as far as he could tell there was nothing to set it off.

It was a raw, guttural, scream of pain. Peter writhed against Matt’s chest as if he were being set on fire. Tears were falling down his face as his eyes rolled back into his head for a brief moment.

Matt was terrified. He took his hands off him, worried that maybe he had hurt his head, but it didn’t change Peters behavior.

“Peter!” He called after a moment. Was he having some sort of allergic reaction to something?

Wade had stepped away fully, seemingly overwhelmed or having a flashback, he got those sometimes.

Doctor Cho dropped her clipboard and was surveying Peter, her heart beating fast with fear and confusion.

Then the screams quieted down. Peters eyes returned to that glazed expression and he ceased movement. He let out a whimper and pulled himself close to Matt who, despite his panic, began to comfort him.

“It’s okay, it’s over, that’s it,” he soothed, running his hands through the boys hair once again.

Everyone was still for a moment, as if the slightest movement would set Peter off again. The only noises were Peters soft whimpers and harsh breathing along with Matt’s comforting words.

Stark and the medical crew had moved forward, but all of them now seemed unsure if they should get involved. Stark seemed hesitant to insert himself, despite his strange insistent that he and Peter were close.

It appeared that for the time being, he was content to let Peter recover with Matt and Wade.

“Peter?” Matt paused his comforts after a moment.

Peter hummed into his chest, still calming down.

“What uhm… what just happened?” He wasn’t sure if addressing it was the right way to go, but he had to try asking directly.

“I got shocked.” Peter replied, his voice rough from screaming.

He said is as not quite a question, not quite a statement. As if to say weren’t you there? Didn’t you just see it? Which no he didn’t see anything.

No pun intended.

“Shocked?” He questioned.

Peter just hummed a confirmation.

It was Wade who broke the strange stillness of the room by returning to his spot beside Matt. The others began moving. Doctor Cho picked up her clipboard and set it down. Stark let out a curse and the rest of the medical crew began to make themselves comfortable for the short ride back to the tower.

“He has a mild concussion.” The doctor explained with a frown on her face, “He should be able to sleep without complications. I think it’s best we hold off on anything else until we can get him hooked up to an IV at the tower.”

Peter was already half asleep in his arms. He had seemed exhausted when they arrived and after everything in the past hour he must have been debilitated.

Matt agreed with Doctor Cho and he and Wade shared a moment with Peter right in front of them. Alive.

Everything they had worked towards for the past month had paid off. Peter was here in Matt’s arms and he was alive. Wade grasped onto Matt’s shoulder as if to steady himself.

They both knew Peter would need them in the coming weeks or months or indefinitely. They both knew they would be what he needed for as long as he needed it.

Peters heart beat slowed, and he fell into a deep sleep, the first one he’s had in over a month.

Chapter Text

Peter keeps his eyes closed when he wakes up. He tries to do that when he can, to chase sleep as long as he is allowed. He furrows his brows upon the realization that he's lying down, when he usually sat tucked up against the wall.

Then he realized there was something in his arm and that meant an IV which meant that Blue Eyes had moved back on to the first phase which meant-

Peters eyes flew open in fear. He couldn’t do anything about his predicament, but he could at least know what they were about to do to him.

Peter came face to face with a pair of blue eyes and he screamed before he could think about the consequences.

There was the scraping of a chair beside him, and a man standing up, and it was as Matt’s fist collided with Tony Starks face that he realized, no, that was not Blue Eyes.

Matt’s fist punched Mr. Stark squarely on the nose, and Peters pretty sure he heard something crack. Peter scrambled to try to sit up , still taking in his surroundings.

He had clearly woken up Matt with his scream, and the man seemed disoriented, tilting his head back and forth to regain his surroundings.

Mr. Stark had let a stream of curses out as he clutched his nose and glared at Matt. “What the fuck man!”

Peter winced slightly at the loud yell, but there was no threat so he turned his head to gather his surroundings.

He had been here once after Germany briefly. Mr. Stark had one of his doctors, Dr. Cho, look him over and get some blood to develop a medicine for him. He never did hear back about that.

It was a medical room in the tower.

It was, decidedly, not the medical room in Blue Eyes evil lair.

“Holy shit.” Peter said, just because he could. Then he twitched slightly, because he wasn’t allowed to say that without getting shocked. No shock came, of course.

Matt turned around after spewing a very brief apology to Mr. Stark having gathered his surroundings.

He picked up the fallen chair and scooted to Peters bedside.

“Hey Peter”. He said.

Tears welled in Peters eyes. He had always been a pretty emotional guy, so tears came easy to him. He was out of there, that or this was the most elaborate hallucination yet.

“Matt,” he let out a sob and reached out his arms. Matt didn’t usually initiate hugs, but Peter knew he didn’t mind them and, well, Peter wanted a hug.

Matt gathered him in his arms and Peter molded himself against the man.

Oh my god. Holy shit. Peter wasn't even sure what to think. Matt was holding him securely and murmuring something that Peter didn't care to pay close attention to. Peter was... out. It was over.

He let the tears well out of his eyes and buried his head in Matt's shoulder. It was overwhelming. One moment he was in the hands of evil scientist Blue Eyes who was hell bent on making the rest of Peters life miserable and now he's here.

He closes his eyes, it's safe to do that now, and breathes in. It still smells like a medical room, but it's different. It's so different.

There's that same sterile smell, but this one is laced with something floral. He can't smell much of his own blood and mostly it smells like people. Real people who do things outside of experiment on children.

He can smell that familiar dust on Matt from Fogwells, smell the faint scent of the cologne Foggy uses and the shampoo Matt swears he only gets because it's on clearance, but really he likes the way it feels.

He can smell something of Wade. A bit of burned flesh (because somehow he always gets burned), day old Chinese food, laundry detergent (he washes his suit almost daily contrary to popular belief).

There's the smell of coffee (and god does Peter miss coffee) and... motor oil? Doesn't matter. The point is it smells absolutely nothing like the medical room back there.

So why the hell is his spidey-sense still telling him to get out get out get out get out?

"Peter? How are you feeling?" Matt asks after a moment has passed and Peters tears have slowed down.

Peter took stock of how exactly he was feeling. Most of his injuries had been healed from phase one for a while now. Mostly, he just felt sore and tired and overwhelmed.

"Sore." Peter said, because it was the easiest one to say.

Matt's hand ran up and down his back comfortingly. "Alright? How do you feel about getting Dr. Cho in here to check you out?"

Peter hesitated. He wasn't sure how he felt about that right now. On one hand, he knew Dr. Cho was an extremely qualified and kind doctor, on the other hand, the feeling of an IV in his arm was enough to make him feel a little nauseous.

"I already called her down, she'll be here soon."

Peter had, admittedly, completely forgotten about the other man in the room. He removed himself slightly from Matt's embrace so he could see him.

"Hey kid." Peter hadn't really seen much of the man since the ferry incident. He still scared Peter, if only a litter compared to what he just went through, but Matt was right here so he didn't feel so bad.

"Uhm, hey Mr. Stark." He responded. Then he registered what he had said, that Dr. Cho was already on her way.

"I think we need a little longer Stark, why don't you tell her to wait a couple minutes." Matt's voice was dark in a way that told Peter whatever this was had been building up for a while.

Stark twitched slightly and he took on a very annoyed face. Actually, his nose was bleeding ever so slightly in a way that made him look mad.

Just then Dr. Cho appeared in the doorway, clearing her throat. Peter felt himself tense up slightly, Matt began rubbing his back again. It's stupid, it was stupid. It's just Dr. Cho.

"Mr. Stark that looks bed, why don't I help you out with that and Friday can let me know when Peter is ready." She offered in a kind yet demanding voice. It was a question, but she wasn't asking.

"Nice to see ya kid," and then Mr. Stark was following Dr. Cho out of the room.

"Yeah, you too." Peter mumbled even though it was sort of a lie.

Matt and Peter both relaxed as the door shut and they were alone.

"What happened?" Peter asked, "And where's Wade?"

He could smell the man, so had had been here at some point.

"Wade is..." Matt hesitated and Peter felt his heart speed up a little. Was he hurt? Did Blue Eyes take him? Were he and Matt in a fight?

"Wade is okay." Matt quickly finished. "He's been gone for about a day, he's having a bit of an episode."

An episode usually consisted of Wade leaving for a while. Usually returning with a higher body count (in more ways than one) and various injuries (some self inflicted). Matt had tried to get involved once, get Wade to take care of himself, but he ended up needing Peter for back up to restrain Wade.

Wade had schizophrenia. On a good day, the only evidence of it would be strange comments or talking to himself. On a bad day, he distanced himself from everyone.

"I think seeing... where you had been kept was hard for him."

Of course. Wade wasn't very open to discussing his upbringing or past, but Peter and Matt had uncovered within the past couple years that Wade had been experimented on.

"He's stopped by earlier but you were asleep." Matt explained.

Peter nodded. He wanted to see Wade, but the man knew when he needed space and Peter trusted he would come to Peter when he was ready.

"As for what happened," Matt began and Peter turned his full attention to Matt.

"I got your call, that was very smart of you." Matt still had one arm around Peter as he spoke. "Wade and I tried to track you down but..."

Matt sighed, "We ended up going to Stark for help. We were working too slow and he had technology we needed. We got a license plate and eventually a location, then we got you out." He squeezed Peter closer.

"How long have I- how long was I gone?" Peter found himself asking.

"About a month." Matt whispered, almost guilty.

Peter swallowed. A month. He thought for sure it hadn't been more than 3 weeks. He had been there for almost a month.

"You've been asleep for about three days. You were- well, I don't know all the details, Dr. Cho could tell you. You were exhausted and deprived of basically everything under the sun - including the sun."

Peter nodded along. That sounded about right. How often had he eaten there? Not enough, apparently, though he didn't feel too hungry now.

Matt sighed again but gave Peter a smile and a bit of a squeeze. "Speaking of Dr. Cho," Peter held his breath. "She needs to see you, but take your time. It's up to you when you want to see her."

"I guess I'd rather get it done sooner than later." Peter admitted. He was glad Matt recognized how nervous he was though. He'd probably seen, or more accurately sensed, the medical equipment there.

Matt smiled, "Say the word and we can stop, okay?" Peter nodded.

Matt talked to the ceiling, a bit hesitant, and Friday responded. Peter vaguely remembered her from his time at the tower.

A few moments later, Dr. Cho arrived with Mr. Stark following at her heels. His nose wasn't bleeding any more and a bruise was forming. He looked like he wanted to glare at Matt but he smiled at Peter.

Peter gave a small smile back to be polite. He wasn't sure what exactly the man was doing here. Peter sort of assumed the man would be mad for what he did with the suit, but maybe he had come to his senses a little bit?

"Good morning Peter." Dr. Cho was dressed in jeans and a shirt, not at all looking doctor-ey which Peter was grateful for. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright I guess." He didn't feel amazing, but compared to the past month he couldn't complain.

"Do you want him to leave?" Matt said it lowly so only Peter could hear. The man must have picked up on Peters uneasiness around Mr. Stark.

But... the man had helped to find him. Not to mention things already seemed tense between him and Matt. Peter didn't want to make anything worse. If the man really wanted to hang around while Dr. Cho did a checkup... Peter didn't think it was worth it to throw the man out.

"He's fine." Peter was hesitant, but Mr. Stark smiled warmly at him in an assuring manner.

Dr. Cho had pulled out a clipboard with papers on it and a small bin that Peter couldn't see inside of. He found himself breathing deeper at not knowing.

Matt squeezed him again and Peter forced himself to slow his breaths.

"Alright Peter. I'm going to walk you through everything I'm doing and you let me know if you want to stop at any time okay?"

Peter nodded numbly.

"Peter?" It was Matt, "Still want to do this?"

Peter nodded, slightly more assured this time. He wanted to get it over with.

"Okay. I'm going to check your blood pressure first with this." She pulled out the familiar item - the one that would wrap around his arm, the one they had used there.

"I'll go as quick as I can, if you want me to take it off at any point just let me know." She waited for Peter to nod his head and then approached.

Peter was extremely grateful as she managed to work quickly yet also keep her movements slow enough for Peter to see them all.

Matt stayed close to him the whole time, reminding Peter to breath whenever he got too stressed. Mr. Stark stood slightly awkwardly at the foot of his bed.

"All done with that." Dr. Cho quickly put the item away and scribbled something down on the clipboard.

"Okay. Next I'm going to listen to some things with my stethoscope." She took out the item and pressed it in her palm for a moment, warming it up slightly.

"I'll just place it on different spots on your back and stomach and ask you to breathe in and out."

She waited again for Peter to nod his head before proceeding.

Peter was beginning to relax slightly. Everything was fine. He was with Matt, and Dr. Cho was not an evil scientist.

"Next I'm going to shine a light in your eye. This will help me see if you have an irregular dilation." Dr. Cho pulled out the device and waited, once again, for Peter to nod.

Peter eyed up the tool. It's foggy, it's all foggy, but he remembers that.

He nods.

Dr. Cho moves forward and holds her finger up for Peter to look at. The light moved over his eye-

(“Keep your eyes open.” The light shined back in his eyes and Peter let tears fall but kept his eyes open. He was trembling, full force shivers traveling his body, and yet he didn’t move to shut his eyes.

"Abnormal dialation. Todd write that down please.”)

Peter gasped, moving his head (away, away, away, away, get away). He felt so viscerally that he was back there that he couldn't help but let out a whimper of pain as he slammed his eyes shut (too bright. It was too bright and he felt so nauseous.)

He was shaking. Fuck.

"Peter?" Matt's voice rang through his panic. He latched onto it. He kept his eyes shut but he could hear the man's heart thrumming, feel the breath coming out of his nose and landing on Peters hair, feel his arm wrapped around Peters shoulder, his hand running up and down his back.

Peter gasped out. Fuck. He wasn't there. He wasn't. But that light and that smell and fuck.

"It's okay Peter, breathe, it's okay."

He kept gasping. He couldn't breathe. How could anyone just breathe after that shit? Breathe?!Blue Eyes was right there with his stupid fucking clipboard and his stupid fucking shock that controlled Peters stupid fucking collar.

Oh god the collar. Fuck. How fucking degrading. A collar. As if he were a fucking animal. He brought his hands up. He shouldn't touch it, he knows, but he can feel it tightening around his neck and he can't BREATHE.

"Just follow my breath Peter. It's okay. You're safe. I'm here."

There was a hand in his hair. A hand over his hands, trying to stop them from removing the collar. Strange, something like this would usually result in a shock.

"Follow me, follow me Peter. It's Matt."

Matt. The name rang in Peters ears. Matt. Matt was here which meant- which meant Peter was safe. Matt was looking out for him.

He could feel the man breathing, his chest rising up and down. His heart was beating fast, but his breath was forced to a slow and steady pace.

Peter found himself following the breath, matching the rise and fall. He let himself feel the hand in his hair, the familiar motion calming him.

"Matt." He said, because he wasn't really sure what else to say, but he wanted Matt.

"Hey Peter, I'm here. You're safe. Can you open your eyes for me?"

Peter opened his eyes. Matt was looking back at him, his neck turned down to look him somewhat in the eye. Peter knew Matt couldn't see him, but the gesture was appreciated nonetheless.

"I'm sorry." Peter said after he looked around. Dr. Cho and Mr. Stark had left the room.

"Peter, nobody expects you to be even remotely okay."

Peter nodded. He knew that. He knew that. But he still felt bad. He couldn't even get through one doctor visit. He was still dreading the return of Dr. Cho, kind as she had been.

"I think that's enough of that for today yeah?" Matt suggested easily and Peter found himself relieved.

"Okay. Yeah." He leaned his head back onto Matt.

"Why don't you try and get some sleep?" Matt offered.

Peter hesitated. He had just slept for three days. He needed to call Aunt May, needed to talk to his friends, needed to do that fucking Chemistry summer work.

But fuck was he tired.

"Yeah." Peter sighed, his eyes drooping ever so slightly. "Okay."

(Danger! Danger! Danger! Danger!) the familiar warning continued in Peters head.

But the danger was gone. His spider sense seemed to disagree as it continued to blare its warnings.

Maybe Blue Eyes hadn't been caught? Or maybe Peter was still hallucinating? Or maybe all of this really was over but now there was an incoming nuke?

"Peter?"

Peter hummed in response and forced himself to relax.

"Hey what's wrong?"

"My spider sense." Peter explained to Matt. "It's still going off."

Matt frowned and tilted his head , "I don't hear anything. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know." Peter whispered. He hugged Matt closer, willing himself to believe this was real and he was safe. "It's just still going. Same as it was back there."

Matt didn't say anything for a moment and Peter thought he wasn't going to respond, but then he spoke up, "Sometimes, when we get really used to a bad situation, every situation starts to feel bad."

Peter mulled over the words.

(Danger! Danger! Danger! Danger!)

Even when he was as safe as he could be during the experiments, when he was alone in his cell and knew they wouldn't come back for another few hours, his sense hadn't shut off.

And now he was really safe, and it still wasn't stopping. His spider sense continued to warn him of a danger that wasn't there. He had begun to tune it out, his spider sense kept him safe, safe enough to spike and alert him of an incoming threat, so he had gotten used to it.

But now there was no need for a constant spidey-alert.

Sometimes, when you get really used to a situation, every situation starts to feel bad.

Peter felt scared. He was safe in Matt's arms in avengers tower and he felt scared, for no reason other than he had just been through something horrible.

"Breathe." Matt guided and Peter followed. He was scared, which he knew was irrational because Matt was here.

The thought didn't turn off his senses, but it helped to tune them out, to recognize its falsehood.

Peter breathed. And he kept breathing until he fell into an uneasy sleep.

"Alright. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way." Wade cracked his knuckles, breaking some bone or another in his hand.

"Please! Please I'll tell you whatever you want!"

"I wasn't asking you. I decide which way we do it!" Wade finished his sentence by punching the guy in the stomach.

Shield didn't keep their prisoners under very tight wraps. It was very easy for Wade to make his way into this holding facility.

Hurting people helped sometimes. It quieted the voices in his head and gave him something else to focus on. Plus, he got to give these people a mere idea of what they put Peter through.

The thought made him more angry and Wade punched the guy in the head. He fell unconscious.

(The sterile smell was too familiar. The medical equipment too similar to something Wade had been through once.)

Wade left the room. He didn't want to kill any of them. They deserved to live with that they've done and live it in permanent pain.

He could hear cries down a few doors. A women he had beat up a few minutes ago who had gained consciousness again.

(Then there was the files. Files upon files depicting what they had done to Peter.)

Wade made his was to the next door.

(Intensive surgery and tests. Little to no anesthesia given. Methods implemented to gain control. Starvation. Drowning. Isolation. Exposure to light, to sound, to darkness, to silence. Electric collars.)

Wade banged the door open with no hint of kindness. The man in this room was trembling, he must have heard Wade coming. Good.

He made his way, visiting each person individually. He kept them all alive. He assumed Matt would want his turn eventually.

Wade was sure someone had been made aware of his presence at this Shield facility, but nobody spoke a word to him as he exited the building. It made him hate Shield a little less.

It was midday when Wade showed up to Peters favorite deli and ordered three sandwiches. The orders were familiar, bought many a night before long stake outs or after a particularly difficult test.

He ordered three coffees as well. Peter didn't drink it late in the day, but he knew the kid liked the coffee from Delmars better than most, and he figured Peter needed to enjoy something.

When Wade turned up to the tower, Peter and Matt were both asleep in the medical room. Wade had stopped in briefly, but once it was clear Peter would be okay (okay as one could be) he knew he needed to cool down.

But cool he was, so he made a reappearance.

Matt looked like death itself, but also less anxiety filled than he had been over the past couple weeks.

Wade set the bag down softly, Matt's eyes blinked open and he tilted his head.

"Wade." He smiled, "how are you."

"Alright now, Matty." Wade assured. "You look like shit."

Matt just hummed in agreement as Wade tossed him his sandwich.

"How's he?" Wade asked. The 'he' not needing to me named.

"He's going to make a full recovery."

Wade let his obvious question hang in the air. Physically he's fine, sure.

Matt sighed. "He couldn't sleep for long. Said he Spider-sense was going off. We got some medicine approved to knock him out he just- he kept saying he was tired but he couldn't sleep."

Wade pressed his lips together, concerned for Peter and for Matt.

Wade had never recovered. He developed ptsd and his schizophrenia got worse. The days got better, but the nights almost never did.

But Peter had people. He had Matt and he had Wade and, begrudgingly, he had Tony Stark, who at least could financially provide therapists and all that.

"Matt, go home." Wade encouraged. Matt was practically growing a beard, not having shaved in a while. "I'm sure Foggy misses you. Take a shower, please, and get some sleep. I'll watch over Peter."

Matt took another bite of his sandwich and looked at Peter for a moment. Slowly, he nodded.

"Yeah," he agreed, "okay. But you call me if he asks for me okay? And keep Stark away he's been creeping around the kid waiting for him to wake up."

Wade frowned but nodded, deciding now wasn't the time to deal with Stark.

Matt nodded again to himself and slowly stood. Wade clapped him on the back as he took the man's chair by Peter.

And god, Peter. He looked so small in that fucking hospital bed. Muscle and fat all but gone from his already small frame. He looked peaceful to a certain degree, or at least not in pain.

Wade took the boys hand. He would make it. It's Peter, of course he would.

Matt lingered a moment more, but Wade cleared his throat loudly and he began to leave.

"Say hi to the mister for me!" Wade called out as the door shut behind Matt.

Wade squeezed Peters hand and then pulled away so he could get out his sandwich. He realized too late that he forgot to give Matt his coffee, but quite frankly the man needed some sleep.

So Wade made himself comfortable, drinking three cups of coffee and putting Peters sub in the fridge next to a bunch of containers labeled "Do not eat!" And "this fridge is not for food!"

Wade watched Peter sleep a bit, but that made him feel creepy so he played Tetris on his phone.

Eventually, because of course this happened eventually, Stark wandered into the room.

"Hey," Stark greeted as Wade sat up in his chair. Peter was still sleeping, "Where's the other guy?"

"Went to take a shower. Need something?" Wade asked, almost passive aggressive.

Stark narrowed his eyes, "Can't walk around my own tower freely?"

Wade stood up. He was getting really fucking tired of this guy. "Not when it violates medical privacy laws."

Actually Wade didn't know about or give a shit about medical privacy laws, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

"Oh please," Stark scoffed, "You're a wanted criminal."

"So's he." Wade gestured to Peter. Peter who had multiple warrants out for the arrest of his alter ego.

"That's different."

Wade decided to ignore that, "Seriously, you need something?"

"I'm just checking on him. I'm allowed to check on him, he knows me."

"You don't know him." Wade rebutted.

"Sure I do! I know plenty about him! I gave him his suit you know! He's been on missions with the avengers! Maybe I've made mistakes, but I've still mentored him!" Stark approached Wade as his voice rose.

Wade stood up, the chair screeching behind him. "You threw a bunch of money at him, that doesn't mean you know him. You don't know his sandwich order, or what classes he's taking, or when his aunt has a night shift, or that he can't thermoregulate or that he wanted your approval so badly and it killed him when you let him down."

Stark seemed at a loss for words. Wade was also at a loss for words cause fuck he just said a lot of words. It all just came spilling out of him. He usually talked first thought second.

There was a resoundingly awkward silence that followed. Stark seemed extremely upset but controlled his anger well enough.

Wade tentatively sat back down. He took another sip of his coffee.

Stark turned on his heels and walked away.

"Yeah you better run." Wade mumbled.

Fuck that guy, seriously.

They didn't hear hide nor hair of Stark for two weeks after that, which Matt was totally fine with. He pushed the man to the back of his mind because right now was for Peter.

Peter had fallen asleep a total of once without needing medication. He immediately had a nightmare and woke up screaming. They decided to get him to a therapist before trying that again.

Peter, guiltily, had explained that his spider sense hadn't shut off since he was taken on the train.

Despite these troubles, he's come leaps and bounds. He's gained some weight and muscle. He's learned to cope with clicks.

(And jesus had that been a hard conversation. After the third time Peter had broke down randomly and had managed to explain what triggered it.)

Peter had just moved back home after a painful explanation to Aunt May. He still promised to come into the tower every day for medical evaluations and therapy, almost always accompanied by Matt, Wade, or both.

Which is how Matt found himself outside of the medical room in Stark Tower, clutching a cup of coffee that was far too expensive for him.

He and Wade sat in a comfortable silence. Things had grown less tense between the two of them. They both slept easier, took care of themselves, were less haunted by the constant knowledge of Peters inevitable pain.

Wade had been out of town for a few days in Canada, and was surprising Peter. (Though Peter could likely hear Wade).

Matt sipped on his coffee and waited for Peter to come out. He had decided for the first time that he wanted to see his therapist alone. It was a big step for Peter. He still hated being completely alone.

May was taking less night shifts now, so Peter had her most nights. Before he moved in, Wade or Matt were constantly by his side.

So seeing Mrs. Roan on his own was a big step. For all of them, really. Matt and Wade were constantly on edge for Peter, and spending as much time with him as they did was probably unhealthy for all of them.

Wade was bouncing his knee up and down. He had drank multiple cups of coffee in the very short 15 minutes spent sitting outside Mrs. Roans door.

Stark cautiously approaches. He walks slowly as if waiting for one of them to stand up and attack him. Eventually, he stops in front of them.

Matt raises an eyebrow. "Can we help you?"

He dam well better not be here to bombard Peter after a therapy appointment.

Stark swallowed. "I've done some... thinking." He was nervous. Matt could hear his heart beating faster than normal.

"Look I- I really didn't get the whole-" he waves his hand around- "mentor thing. I forgot Peter was, well, a kid."

He sighs as Wade and Matt both furrow their brows. "What I mean to say is... I want to help Peter. But I don't know how. And I think you guys do."

Stark paused expectantly.

Matt tilted his head. Was Stark... asking for theirhelp?

"Okay." Wade said, crossing his leg. "And?"

Starks mouth fell open a little before quickly closing. He stood up a little taller. "And I want your help." He said.

Matt's lip tugged up. That felt good.

"Okay then. Sure." Matt responded.

As much as he hated Stark solely on the principle of him being a billionaire, he could definitely help Peter.

Matt thought he and Wade had the vigilante mentorship pretty much down, and after Starks first mentor attempt, Matt couldn't see Peter being too eager to resume that.

But Peter could benefit from more than just Spider-man mentors.

The kid was a genius for one. Robotics club, passion projects, web formula, he was on his way to MIT for sure.

And yet all his materials came from dumpsters. His workspace was flammable desk. He could spend hours trying to find answers to obscure physics questions.

Peter could fucking flourish if he had Tony Stark mentoring him in all things science.

Matt would be weary of course. He hadn't forgotten everything Stark did to Peter. But it was hard to screw up that bad confined to a lab space. Not to mention, Matt was sure he and Wade would have in depth conversations with the man about what he did wrong.

So Matt and Wade agreed to help Stark become Peter's mentor.

Stark left before Peter came out.

The door opened to reveal the boy. He had clearly been crying, but held a grin on his face after he spotted the bag of subs in Wades grasp.

"Wade!" Peter wrapped his arms around the man and pulled him tight. Wade and been in Canada for a few days. It was the longest he had been away since Peters been back.

"Hey Petey Pie!" Wade ruffled the boys hair despite Peters protests.

Peter evades Wade and gives Matt a quick hug. Or quick as far as their standards.

"Go okay?" Matt asks.

Peter nods in his chest. "Yeah. I mean, it sucked, but it was good."

Matt nodded and released Peter, smiling at him. His face had a flush in it that would have been gone a month ago.

"Alright kid, let's go patrol."

Patrols were different. Peter was eager to get back out, but the doctors didn't want him doing anything crazy. 'Patrol' mostly meant Peter got to put his suit on and swing out to their roof, eat some subs, and trail behind Wade and Matt while they dealt with any crime.

It wasn't perfect, but it helped Peter know Queens was safe, and helped Matt and Wade know Peter was safe.

So the trio make their way out of the tower and are on the roof by the time the sun is setting.

They sit on the ledge, Peter sandwiched between the two.

They all sit in silence. Peter smiles.