Chapter 2: Consequences
It was the beginning of December when Tyler found himself coming home to an empty apartment. His shift at the clinic had ended, and he only had a couple of hours to himself before he was due for a meeting with some new ward members, so he tried to rush through his shower and getting ready. But as he was buttoning down his shirt, something struck him as being entirely off.
He took a step out of his bedroom, holding his breath to listen, when he was rushed from the end of the hall. And just like that, his father made his appearance with all ten claws sunk into Tyler's back as he pushed him to the ground.
Tyler tried to make the most of what he knew, and he fought back hard, but Victor had never attacked using his claws before. Not like this. Every time before, Victor had more or less been showing dominance and toying with Tyler. This time? Victor was out for blood.
Tyler managed to land some hits — moves that Logan had taught him — but that just seemed to enrage the beast more, and every stunning blow he landed was answered with a swipe of Sabretooth's claws until Tyler got desperate and gave it back to him in turn.
He fought back hard, and there was blood everywhere as the two of them went toe to toe, but Tyler just wasn't used to using his claws. At all.
"You really think you can go toe to toe with me?" Creed snarled out when Tyler managed a deep enough slash to actually get him to pay attention — and then Creed sank his claws into Tyler's side, wriggling the sharp points around once he had his claws in until Tyler was panting and whimpering underneath the growl that he couldn't stop at all. "Bout time you learned the consequences of learnin' to roll over and beg instead'a fightin' like yer meant to."
Tyler couldn't get out of the pin Creed had him in, though he let out a low and rippling growl — that cut off and turned to a howl when Creed yanked his hand down and tore him open.
By the time Victor was done, he was outlining every single thing that Tyler had done to deserve the beat down he got. And oddly enough, it was pretty much the exact same list that his mother and Henry and Kurt had all used to describe what they were proud of that he'd accomplished.
But his recently acquired position in the church seemed to be more than Victor Creed could stomach. "You think you can play nice, wear the cloth like a good church boy an' show yer belly?" he snarled in Tyler's ear, slashing at something vital with every word so that Tyler couldn't even growl anymore; he was losing steam too fast. "Ain't nothin' good come from a Creed in the cloth, boy. And I'm not havin' it."
When he was finished with him, Tyler was barely breathing and unable to get up on his own steam. He kicked him a few times before he left — purely out of spite — before he crushed Tyler's cell phone, leaving him without any means to get himself help.
It was a lucky break that Tammy even came home before the end of the day; she was supposed to be at the school late, but she'd forgotten to bring Tristan's favorite blanket, and he couldn't go to sleep without it. Rather than drag a grumpy, tired little boy all the way back to get it, Tammy had left him with Peter Quill and Jayce, watching a movie, which would hopefully get him to sleep eventually anyway.
Which was also lucky, as it meant that Tristan wasn't there when Tammy got home a little over an hour after Tyler had… and froze in the doorway when she saw the bloody evidence of the fight everywhere in the apartment.
She flew — literally — through the apartment, calling for Tyler until she found him laid out and unconscious in their room, barely breathing and still losing blood. When she realized how badly he was hurt, she immediately pulled out her comm to call for help, since she wasn't going to levitate a bleeding Tyler all the way back to the school. That might cause … a whole lot of panic. Besides, having America at the school meant that in an emergency like this, there was a quicker route. As soon as Tammy had reported what was going on, a bright white star appeared in the apartment, and both America and Lucy stepped through.
"Oh crap," America said when she saw the scene — all of the blood everywhere and a very wide-eyed Tammy. "What happened?"
"Judging from the slash marks?"
"Well, you know, coulda been Mr. Snuggles," America said lightly before Lucy gave her a look.
"Let's get him back to our lab," Lucy said in a voice that no one was going to argue with, and America kicked open another portal to do just that, gesturing for Tammy to do the heavy lifting as the girls quickly got back to the Chicago school and safety.
"I'll get him set up," Lucy said, clearly in charge, since Tammy was still in a state of shock. "Not sure how his healing will work with me, but I can give him a little help, at least."
Tammy nodded, and America steered her to a chair with a solid hand on her shoulder, while Kitty poked her head into the lab to see the damage and immediately called up Logan when she saw the telltale slash marks.
Kitty hadn't even hung up her phone when Logan, K, and Kurt appeared in a poof of smoke. "Hank's right behind us," Logan said, moving quickly for the medical bay where Kitty had said Tyler was set up.
"He's still not awake," Tammy said, still clearly in shock.
Logan took one look at Tyler and shook his head. "I'm not surprised. That was one hell of a beating. He'll be fine in a couple days."
"A couple days?" Lucy repeated, both eyebrows raised.
"That's a rough estimate," Logan replied. "He doesn't heal as fast as we do …"
"It would take one of us probably at least overnight," K said, nodding. "Just be ready to feed an army when he does wake up."
"We'll order pizza," America said when Tammy just quietly nodded, obviously overwhelmed.
"As long as there's a steak in there somewhere," Kurt added with a smirk.
"Burgers then," she replied.
Tammy shook her head at that and then looked toward Logan. "What was he doing here?" she asked, since she figured he was the most likely to know.
Logan weighed it out for a moment and let out a sigh. "Vic has a place here in town. It's not his main spot by a longshot, but he was probably just lookin' for a fight."
"He didn't get to tangle with Logan the other day," K added. "He's being a pouty little diva."
"So the coward came after the sweetest doctor in town," America summed up with a frown, looking between them with her arms crossed.
"No one ever said he was the bravest cat around," K pointed out.
"No, but still… come on. Have you met this kitty? Because he's not anything like his genetic donor," America said, shaking her head and clearly mad. "You should have seen the apartment."
"He's a pain in the ass," Logan agreed. "And we're gonna take care of it. For good."
"Need any help? My aeronautics class can totally wait," America offered.
"Nope, got it covered," Logan said arm in arm with K as she smirked and stuck her hand in his back pocket, leaning in close.
"We have a plan," K promised.
"Well, get to it," America said, shooing them with both hands. "Because I gotta tell you, I'm a step away from giving Earth a few new moons. He grows 'em back, right? How many d'you think I could get?"
"You really don't want to stink up orbit like that," K advised.
"I didn't say it would be this Earth."
"Really just wanted to check on Ty and grab that last address from David before we head out," Logan admitted, giving K a little squeeze before he stole a quick kiss from K and broke away to start toward the door and Kitty, who was watching the whole discussion.
"David's upstairs," Kitty put in. "He's got Bobby field testing a few changes to our version of the Danger Room."
"Thanks, Kitten," Logan said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before he headed up.
"Kurt, can you get your little demon friends to help us out?" K asked. "I think we'd be better off if you were in Westchester keeping watch."
Kurt frowned for an instant at not being included but let out a sigh. "Of course. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to help."
She gave him a quick squeeze. "I promise I'll send one when we corner him."
He straightened up a bit at that and shot her a smile. "Naturally. I wouldn't miss it for the world. This has been a long time coming, and I want to help if I can."
"Take a trophy picture," America said K's way with a troublemaking smirk.
"Now, what makes you think I'd want to commemorate one moment with that stink bag?"
"For the hilarity factor later when you show it to Tristan all grown up and say it's his grampa?" America offered.
"Pay no attention to her," Lucy said, waving her hand at K and shooting her girlfriend a dry look. "Just… call if you need any help?"
"We got it," K promised. "Victor's been looking for someone to take his aggression out on for a while now."
"Well, he gets so touchy when he's ignored," Kurt said with a small smirk.
"Oh yes, I've been soooo neglectful," K deadpanned.
"Alright; if it's just a matter of waiting, I'm going to set Tyler up on some fluids," Lucy said, turning back to the task at hand.
"That would be great," K said. "And for as far down as he is, it wouldn't hurt to give him a weight-appropriate hit of painkillers."
"He'll respond to that?" Lucy asked, honestly surprised.
"As long as he's in a healing coma, yeah. He's going to be prioritizing the worst stuff first, and it'll ease his waking up if he's been doped, believe it or not." K gave her a little shrug. "Help him sleep better too."
Almost on cue, a muted bamf echoed the room, and Hank appeared, looking completely worried. As soon as he saw the extent of Tyler's injuries, he started to growl. "That monster had better not be breathing by the time you're done," Hank warned K.
K held up both hands. "Henry, there is no way Logan will let him walk. I swear."
Hank held her gaze for a moment before he gave her a sharp nod and then jumped in next to Lucy to give her a few instructions on what, in his experience, could help a badly hurt healer.
"I don't think I've ever heard Beast growl," America muttered to Kitty, one eyebrow raised. "I mean, I knew he could do it — Billy and Teddy know the abilities of the full roster of all the heroes — but still."
"It's not something he likes to do," Kitty pointed out quietly.
"No," America agreed. "I just… have never heard it is all."
"Well … now you have."
"Beware the Beast-Dad," America said, sitting down by Tammy so that the young woman had a friend while they were waiting.
"I have to admit: when you said you knew a good place to watch the sunset, I wasn't expecting a rooftop picnic," Sara said. She and Peter were sitting on the very top of one of New York's taller skyscrapers — which meant they had an excellent view of the sunset over the water unimpeded by any other buildings — and had a couple bags of food between them.
"Well, it's all about where you spend time, right?" Peter said with a grin.
"And you spend plenty of time up here," Sara said, laughing as she leaned back.
"I don't get to share this view with anyone very often," Peter admitted. "And I really like it."
"And the trip up here wasn't bad either," Sara said, this time with a slightly more playful grin, since he'd done some webslinging and carried her the whole time.
Peter let out an embarrassed laugh and smiled her way. "Well, then, maybe we should do this more often."
"Yes, we definitely should," Sara agreed before she leaned over and kissed his cheek.
The two of them enjoyed their rooftop picnic, and when it was over, and they'd done a fair bit of webslinging around the city, they headed over to take a walk through the park. It was a nice night for it in spite of the December chill.
They'd stopped on a bridge that crossed the pond in the park and were watching the ice that was forming in the water when snow started falling gently around them. And when Sara looked up at Peter with a smile, he finally couldn't quite stop himself from kissing her.
The rest of their walk was a lot cozier. Peter took the cues and pulled her closer with one arm around her shoulders as she kept one around his back. They didn't have much more to say, just smiling at each other and frankly enjoying each other's company.
It was as perfect a date as Peter had ever been on. So of course it couldn't end that way. That would be too normal.
As the two of them were headed over to hail a cab — the curb in sight through the trees — his spider sense went completely haywire. He couldn't figure out where it was coming from, and no one around them looked suspicious in any way, but he couldn't shake it.
"How about we share a cab?" Peter offered, holding the door open for Sara.
"Not ready to say good night?" she teased as she scooted over so he could sit with her.
"Honestly? No. Not really," he admitted with a grin.
"Well, I make a mean hot chocolate," she said. "Perfect for a snowy night."
"That sounds great," Peter said as he slid into the car with her and took her hand in his. The two of them were still smiling at each other four blocks down when someone laid on their horn — and Peter looked up with wide eyes to see a pair of headlights bearing down on them.
He reached over to try and open the door, but it was locked; they were trapped just before the cab was t-boned by a massive SUV.
The cab went skidding sideways and crashed into the sidewalk, nearly flipping over. By the time Peter got his wits about him again, he could see that Sara was alright — it looked like she'd been knocked out, but nothing worse than a bump on the head, miraculously.
"You should get that looked at," Peter said, more to himself than anything as he gathered her up in his arms and looked around himself to see what the heck had happened. He was able to tear the door off when it was bent in at a weird enough angle that, even unlocked, it wouldn't have opened, but once he got them both out and checked on the driver of the cab — who was worse off than Sara but not critical, thankfully — he looked toward the massive SUV. Even without the spidey sense, he would have known something was wrong, since there was nobody in the driver's seat.
His spidey sense went haywire again, and this time, he was able to duck in time before he would have been totally clotheslined. When he saw that it was Sabretooth, he let out a frustrated noise and jumped sideways to avoid another swipe. "What, you couldn't find someone your own size to pick on?" he asked as he webbed Sabretooth's hand to the SUV. "No mountains wanted to play with you? All the other trolls wouldn't play reindeer games?"
Sabretooth snarled his way and tried to tear loose of the webbing, but it didn't want to budge. "Gonna tear your spine out, bug," Creed growled out, already trying to cut the webbing loose with his free hand.
But Peter responded by webbing up that hand, too — and then his feet to the ground after that, just to be sure. "Yeah, because that is how you get all the other reindeer to play," he said, webbing Creed's mouth when the guy snarled. "Little early for Hanukkah, but I've got plenty to wrap up here," he continued as he poured on more webbing, making very, very sure that Creed couldn't make a move before he finally nodded over his good work and turned back to Sara.
He crouched down beside her and checked one more time to make sure she was alright before he pulled out his cell phone to call Logan. "Hey, so… I have a seven-foot tall wannabe traffic problem webbed to the pavement? Where should I put him?"
"Where the hell are you?" Logan asked. "And why's he bothering you?"
"I don't know!" Peter said, shaking his head. "I'm too amazing? Anyway, that's not the point right now. I'm two blocks down from Avengers Tower."
"Well that's just perfect," Logan grumbled. "Kurt just left; we're in Chicago. Waiting for the imps to show up. Get to the mansion."
"Okay, well, I was kind of hoping for a speedy delivery to the good Doctor Blue. Sara got knocked around and I just want to make sure… you know… It doesn't look too bad, but it's a head injury and—"
There was a little discussion on the other end of the line before Logan came back. "Just told Hank what's going on. He's sending Celia to Westchester. Tyler got attacked here earlier. Looks like Vic's making his rounds."
"Oh, I was wondering why everyone was in Chicago," Peter said through a wince. "Is Gerry's favorite X-Man alright?"
"He will be," Logan told him. "Just get her safe. K and I are gonna draw his attention if he's not where you left him."
"Right, right. Okay. Well, he's pretty stuck, so — hey, give me a call when you get here and tell me if he broke out, because that's a thing I would like to know about," Peter said as he reloaded his web fluid so he could swing through the city with Sara — which was the fastest way to get to a car to head to Westchester that he knew.
He didn't get much further before there was a poof of purple-blue smoke that appeared right where he was swinging, and Peter nearly came out of his skin trying to avoid colliding with Nightcrawler. It didn't help matters that he'd lost his momentum and had started to fall — until another poof or two had the three of them reappearing in the mansion.
"Don't do that!" Peter shouted at Kurt, positively livid.
"I assumed you wanted to get here faster," Kurt said, grinning and not looking the least bit sorry.
"I also wanted a little warning!" Peter shot back. "You do that every time! On purpose!"
"Don't you have some sort of sense to warn you about imminent collisions?" Kurt asked with one eyebrow raised, grinning even wider.
"Oh, shut up," Peter grumbled, heading toward the nearest bed in the med bay. "It doesn't work around playful demonic appearances."
"What a shame," Kurt said before he peered over Peter's shoulder at Sara as Celia came rushing over — Kurt had clearly brought her first.
"You know, if … if that creep is loose again ... " Peter said, shifting from one foot to the other. "He was mad at me."
"What on earth for?" Kurt asked, the playful smile disappearing as he turned toward Peter.
"He wasn't exactly clear on the why, but it didn't seem like a chance 'oh look, there's Spidey; let's mess with him' kind of moment."
Kurt frowned deeper at that. "That doesn't make sense. You've had nothing to do with him or even Logan, lately, while you've been with SHIELD…"
"Well, I was with Noh when he gave him the ol' heave-ho over the fence?" Peter suggested. "But normally, he doesn't really seem to bother with me."
"No, and you would think he would be mad at Noh for that if you were simply a witness," Kurt agreed, still frowning thoughtfully before he shook his head. "Either way… perhaps it would be safer if you and Sara stayed here."
"Yeah, but if he's looking for ways to hurt people … I only really have one other person," Peter was nearly bouncing in place. "Considering it's Sabretooth … would it be out of line to ask …"
"Not at all," Kurt said quickly. "This is the safest place to be, especially when it comes to Sabretooth."
Peter pulled out his phone and pulled up the coordinates of his aunt's house. "What's the best way to get there and not draw attention?"
Kurt tipped his head to the side in answer and, an instant later, the two of them were outside of May Parker's front door. "No one's been able to follow me yet," Kurt said with a crooked smile.
"Yeah, this won't be hard to explain at all," Peter muttered as he rushed up the front steps and knocked once before letting himself in, calling for her as soon as the door opened. "Aunt May? I … kind of need to take you somewhere for a little while."
Aunt May was in the back of the house going through some old clothes for a holiday donation run and looked up when she heard Peter call out. "Peter, if you wanted to surprise me, you could have brought a card. I'm a little busy…"
"I'm sorry, Aunt May, but I kind of have a giant supervillain after me? And he has a nasty habit of going after people close to his targets?"
May put down the shirt that she had been holding and looked totally shocked for a moment before she passed a hand through her hair. "Well then," she said, finally shaking her head. "What have you gotten yourself into, Peter? And where are we going?"
"It's … okay. So it's really not my fault. I was in the right place at the wrong time, and I'm getting blamed for … breathing, I think. But Nightcrawler here can take us to the safest place from this creep. And the creep, I'm told, is being dealt with."
"So we won't be gone long? Good," May said, dusting her hands off. "I had a few places I wanted to be."
"Hopefully," Peter said. "But I kind of wanted to make sure that Sara had someone friendly around when she woke up. She got a little head injury."
May immediately jumped into concern as she rushed over to Peter. "What happened? Is she alright?"
"The giant creep happened," Kurt offered. "She's with a brilliant doctor right now. She should be fine."
"Well, let's see her then," May said in a tone not to be argued with.
Kurt nodded his agreement and offered her a hand as he rested his other hand on Peter's shoulder and teleported them directly into the hall outside the medbay.
"Now that is quite the experience," May said in a faraway voice as shook her head.
"My apologies," Kurt said, bowing her way. "I know it can be disorienting, but it really is the quickest, and I've found warning people does nothing to prepare them."
May nodded and almost absently patted Kurt's arm. "That's fine, thank you," she said before she straightened up. "Now… where is Sara?"
Peter took her arm and led her into the med bay, where Sara was resting peacefully, as Kurt's phone went off.
"Any sign of him?" Logan asked. "Because if not ... we're starting up."
"He wasn't where Peter left him?" Kurt asked with a frown. "We haven't seen hide nor hair of him."
"Then he'll come out once he gets a few of our messages," Logan decided.
Kurt nodded as Logan headed down the hall to where K was waiting for him. "Good luck."
