AKA the second half of a rescue roadtrip for our traumatized kid.

It's over.

Peter knows as soon as the door to his cell is thrown aside by Rhodey's gauntlet. It's done. He's free. Everyone keeps telling him that, keeps repeating it over and over as they lead him outside, and he can't figure out why.

"It's okay, Pete, they're gone."

"You said that," Peter snaps, and where did that come from? His emotions are changing too quickly for him to comprehend past the hunk of dread still lurching in his stomach whenever he moves too much.

"I know," Rhodey says, and passes him off to Clint at the base of the Quinjet ramp. "I'm gonna go do one last sweep, and then we can take off."

Clint's hand is heavy on his shoulder, just on this side of restraining rather than grounding. Peter grits his teeth and wrestles himself into not wanting to shrug it off.

"Let's head inside, yeah?" Clint asks.

Peter blinks and he's sitting down.

The Quinjet's interior is achingly familiar, as is the feeling of the vinyl cot beneath him. Natasha is in the cockpit, flipping buttons and levers as the engine whirrs. Wanda shakes out her hair as she boards. A blanket settles over his shoulders and he jumps.

"What…?"

"You're shaking like a leaf." Clint says. He pulls down a table from the wall next to him and starts arranging medical supplies on it. Tubing, a J-tip, gauze.

"I'm gonna start an IV, okay? Just saline for now. You're pretty dehydrated."

Peter nods numbly.

"What's your pain like?"

Ribs hurt. Head hurts. Tune it out. "Fine."

Clint gives him a look Peter refuses to meet, instead staring at the purple band-aid taped across the bridge of the man's nose. "Mm-hm. Any serious injuries I should know about?"

"No." Too many questions.

"Okay. Not gonna lie, this right here is kind of the extent of my medic skills, so Sam can check you over later. Or we've got Cho waiting in the medbay already." Clint flushes the IV. Peter can taste it in the back of his throat. He watches as Clint clicks the fresh line into place and tapes it down, stares in morbid fascination at the tubing buried underneath his skin. If he closes his eyes, he can feel the cool liquid seeping up his veins.

"That feel okay?"

Nod.

Clint claps his shoulder and disappears into the cockpit. Wanda swoops in almost immediately to take his place. Peter locks eyes with her, and a swell of inexplicable rage fills him. "Don't read my mind."

She smiles, soft and kind with a touch of irony. "Wasn't going to. Here," she pulls her cardigan off and slings it around his body underneath the shock blanket. "You look cold."

The anger quells, washes away like it was never there. Stupid, stupid. Why is he acting like this? Wanda is just being nice-everyone is being so nice, and it makes him want to scream. Makes him want to force them to march back to his freezing little cell and take notes on how empty it is, so they can see why he's maybe not doing so hot with the influx of social interaction. He had finally gotten used to his confines, and now he's seeing a whole parade of people he alternately wants to hide from and cling to. He'd stopped singing himself hoarse a week ago. Yesterday he threw rocks at a wall for hours, planning how to spend the numbing stretches of time between meals. Now everything is happening fast. Way too fast. Like someone pressed the forward button on his VCR.

He's still staring at Wanda. He doesn't want to decipher the look on her face.

"...Why aren't you in your outfit?"

She huffs a laugh. "My suit? The tip call was a surprise. We were not...expecting it."

"Oh." The unspoken we weren't expecting to find you today hangs in the air.

"I'm sorry we couldn't get here sooner."

Peter stares at his lap. "It's okay."

Her voice is soft, guilt-ridden. "FRIDAY ran security footage every day. She picked up a man two days after they took you. I tried to...make him tell us-but he-"

Peter looks up and startles at the tears welling in her eyes. "Wanda-"

"He bit down on his jacket collar a second before I could see it. His mouth-foam-"

"Wanda, it's alright." He leans into her and she wraps both arms gingerly around him, tucking his lanky form-all skin and bones now, so many bones-underneath her chin. He feels a tear drop into his hair and silently thanks her for not commenting on how terrible he must smell. His face is damp too, when did that start? There's a brief, hysterical moment of panic over the snot he's getting on her tank top, but then she rakes a hand through his curls and he lets it go.

They sit like that for a long, unbroken moment until the sound of boots on the Quinjet ramp make Wanda shift, still tugging him close to her. Peter peeks over her shoulder and sees Rhodey and Steve.

"Hey, Peter," Steve smiles with eyes full of his patented steady reassurance and takes a seat opposite them. Peter lets Wanda keep holding his hand as he extracts himself from the hug.

"Hi."

"Alright, roll call," Clint shouts from the front. "Nat, you're here. Who else?"

"Here."

"Present."

"Steve and I are back," Rhodey says. "We're just waiting on Sam."

"Sam is here," Sam calls, striding onboard. "Lost a comm, had to backtrack for it." He makes a beeline for the icebox and starts passing around waters. Peter sips his dutifully.

He watches as the ramp closes them in. Natasha and Clint don headsets. Nat sends Peter a questioning thumbs-up that he returns.

She winks and the ground shrinks beneath them. Peter can't help but look at the facility outside getting smaller and smaller. It looks different from the air. He can't pick out what wing his cell was in.

He must have been losing time again, because when he comes to somebody's hands are on him. Sam. Sam's wrapping his injured leg, fiddling with his IV pump, talking to him. Tune in.

"...with me?"

"What-? Yes," he says, and tries to look like he's been paying attention.

"Uh-huh," Sam raises an eyebrow. "So you've got some pretty nasty bruises on your ribs there, and I'm worried some of 'em could be cracked. Are you having any trouble breathing?"

Is he? He tries.

"A little? Not really."

"Probably nothing broken, then, but we can take some x-rays to be sure. Hey, is it alright if I give you some pain meds? Nothing too strong, just enough to take the edge off."

Peter's pretty certain he's gonna pass out with or without the drugs given how sluggish his brain feels. "Sure."

Sam goes back to messing with the IV, and a minute later, relief creeps into his aches. Glory, that feels nice. He should go back to sleeping on Wanda's lap.

Sam has other plans. "Hey, just because I gave you the good stuff does not mean you get to nod off, Spider-baby. No sleeping 'til we get you a real head trauma check at the medbay."

"I do not have a TBI," Peter groans, but he pries his eyes open anyways.

"No, but you for sure have a concussion, so look alive. Steve, entertain him."

Steve, bless him, tries. Time moves in flashes now, skips like one of May's favorite records. Peter settles in and lets it happen, very carefully not freaking out when he looks up and people have swapped seats without him noticing. Natasha takes a break from the cockpit, slides her headset off tousled hair and shares a bag of pretzels with him. Rhodey's on a voice call with Pepper. Peter says hi, and her voice goes all maternal and warm just for him. Sam and Steve argue for ten minutes about…something with Bucky and knitting. He doesn't bother keeping up with that one.

Slowly he settles into a fatigued truce and lets himself relax, inch by inch. When they touch down, there will be more doctors, and talking, and memories pushing themselves to the surface. But for now…

"C'mere, bud."

For now, it was enough to sit with his head against Natasha's shoulder, Steve's arm wrapped protectively around him and the promise of home in the air.

-I don't know why, but something about chilling on the Quinjet post-op (looking at you, AoU) checks off all my domestic Avengers boxes.
-Medical accuracy is just another form of canon to break here.

-(Quick reminder that I'm usually more active on Ao3, so check over there if you'd like updates a day or two faster!)

Thanks for reading!