"Can't get in—"
"Concussion alert—"
"—Blood and—"
"Screaming—"
It's loud.
So loud.
This is too raucous for Trigonometry class. Mr. Bindle would have said something by now or at the very least other classmates often shush each other. Especially now that they have a midterm coming up.
Now there's just…noise.
How am I supposed to focus if…
The pain is gone. Where once was lava down his back is only cool, white numb. Only his joints are stiff now, as if he's been sleeping in too late.
Did I sleep in? Why didn't May wake me before her shift?
Alarms. That's what this sound is.
Is there a fire?
There can't be a fire. Someone put it out of his back, surely. He's not even hot anymore, not in hot water.
Water…
Water.
"Get me Natasha! She can diffuse this, surely."
"No need. Keep everyone out. I'm going in."
"Barnes, you can't—"
"This is between he and I, not the others. Bruce, please."
"I'm not staying put if this gets any worse. Scans are detecting multiple fractures, internal bleeding, contusions—"
"Fine. Come on."
There's the distant sound of a door opening and then screams so tortured that it's hard to distinguish who they even belong to. The sounds of men in agony, every kind of agony, fill the classroom.
Wait. This isn't a classroom.
Water, water, water.
This isn't the ocean either.
"Tony—NO!"
Bucky cries out.
Steve shrieks.
Peter's eyes snap open. All at once.
Sensations slam into him in rapid fire succession, too many to process what's going on or where he is. Everything has been underwater and dull up to this point.
Now the sharpness of the overhead lights and the smell of antiseptic and the starchy sheets under his hands assault him with the clarity of an interrogator's lamp.
None of this is so overwhelming to Peter as the noise.
He's alone in the infirmary, which surprises him.
Bucky's sheets have been thrown off in a hurry. A fantasia of voices compete with each other down the hall.
Tony and Steve are fighting.
Tony and Steve are fighting.
Peter will never be able to explain it to people later, what happens in this moment.
It's like he is possessed by something greater than himself, the culmination of everything he's lived through up to this very second. There's no medical explanation for it.
His eyes go from glazed to clear. His floppy limbs calm.
Peter gingerly slides his feet off the bed and stands, trying to get his balance. He stumbles to one knee and then tries again, eyes never leaving the doorway. The IV is quickly ripped out, heart monitor unclipped, EEG nodes unpeeled from his scalp.
After a minute, he makes it into the hallway, clinging to the wall for support every step. His feet feel strange and too small for his body weight.
He's drenched in sweat after only half the trip. Bruce crowds at the doorway, along with Clint and Natasha. It's clear they've been sent out even as Bucky slips into the boardroom. They're all screeching over top of each other.
Again Peter's knees give out. They're slow to obey commands, weak and newborn in coordination. He grunts as he lands.
Peter still pushes with everything he's got with the single minded, all consuming need to get in that room.
Legs trembling, he stands again.
He falls two more times before finally making it to Clint's elbow. None of the others notice him, fixated on the sounds of a battle coming from the room.
Peter's heart leaps into his throat—he has no idea of the context for what's going on here.
But he knows exactly what he has to do.
It's clear his parents have all been drowning in his absence. He's never seen any of the Avengers this strung out and thin and so ill looking. Even Clint has shadows along his face and the darkness in his eyes he only sports when one of his kids is sick.
Peter's knees give out again so he takes advantage of it, crawling on all fours, threading between knees and bare feet and Bruce's med kit.
What he sees threatens to bowl him over—
Steve and Tony are quite literally at each other's throats. Steve's right eye is swollen shut and Tony's covered in glass, both from the TVs and the crack in his own arc reactor where, judging by the slices in Steve's palm, he tried to crush it.
Bucky is off to the side, also on all fours to heave up blood from a nasty kick to his windpipe. Steve keeps angling his body so Tony can't get to him. The two men are swearing and spitting and so filled with clear intent to kill that they're different people right now altogether.
Peter's chest immediately bucks in full-body sobs. He doesn't try to keep unnoticed at all, just fights the incessant dizziness and struggles to stand.
And he weeps.
Peter's high pitched whimpering somehow cuts through the mayhem. The three adults at the door, alarmed, holler his name.
Peter has lived through kidnapping, paralysis, abuse, extortion, drugging, drowning, strangulation, and so much more.
But right now…this sight is what breaks Peter Parker. It crosses a line he didn't even know existed inside himself.
And even if it gets him killed, he does what no one else will:
He plants himself right in between Tony and Steve.
Tony, force of nature that he is right now, doesn't even see Peter right away. Peter dodges a thrown fist.
It's Steve who rocks on his heels, coughing. "Peter?!"
Peter wails out a long note, too long, and puts a hand on Steve's chest. "Th…there's…"
Tony goes quiet, panting for breath, a mess in every possible way. Everyone in the room stares at little Peter Parker. At this tiny boy jolted to the land of the living by a sound he's never heard before.
Steve moves to scoop him up in his arms but Peter shoves him back, eyes a tornado of grief. Mistrust. He hisses like a live wire freed from its mooring.
Tony keeps his distance, though he covers the small hand on his own chest. His hand shakes more than Peter's and it's slick with blood.
Steve's blood.
For a breath all three all linked by this teenager.
Then Peter looks between Steve and Bucky.
"There's always another way."
Steve pants out a wailing, defeated sound. Bucky hangs his head.
Peter thumps on Steve's chest with a flat palm. Hard enough that he is using his super strength and it makes Steve waver a bit. "There's always another way! Always!"
Only sheer force of will—and a hand scrunched in Tony's button up—keeps Peter on his defective feet. He sobs and sobs, and nobody moves from their statue garden impressions for a long time.
Peter stutters on a breath. "Don't be like Zemo, please. Don't make his mistake."
The battle fervor fades, replaced by a noxious plume of shame that poisons the room.
Peter wonders if they'll stay like this forever, if archaeologists will investigate what happened to the famed Avengers and find them frozen in this room.
Find them torn clean apart except for a single thread.
Peter.
He's the one cable holding the whole bridge together, the one that refuses to sever. The seven look between each other except for Peter, head bowed, wishing he'd woken up to happy faces and excited greetings and group hugs and Clint's hummus.
His family isn't much a family right now. He's lost them all, to a force completely outside of his control. He's not even sure who he is if he doesn't have them as a foundation of support.
Peter's prediction might have come true, their unmoving stalemate that refused to break.
Except just then Steve passes out.
Peter goes down with him.
