This chapter is a little different, but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I hope you enjoy!

Alex couldn't remember the last time he felt as genuinely terrified as he was at that moment while running back into the stadium to look for his father. The image of Peter looking so fragile and scared refused to leave his brain, and it kept making him wonder what had caused the younger boy so much pain for him to look like that. There were whispers about a fight floating around the concession stands and considering the way Peter had acted towards Ned in the parking lot, he had a feeling he knew exact who Peter had fought with.

Looking around the concession stands, Alex began scanning his surroundings before locking his gaze onto his father who was leaning against the fence that separated the football field from the stands.

"Dad!" Alex called out over the crowd as he approached George, causing the older man to turn in the direction of his son's voice.

When George found him in the crowd, concern began to bleed through his naturally giddy features. "Alex?"

Once Alex was in front of him he fought to catch his breath as he panted, "You gotta come quick... It's Peter."

"What?" George's face paled. "What happened to Peter?"

Alex shook his head, already walking away in a hurry, his father following with no hesitation. "I don't know, I just saw him..." Alex trailed off as he entered the parking lot and his stomach dropped when he saw who was missing. "No, no, no..." He took off at a run, skidding to a stop at where he had left the brunette, but that space had long been abandoned. "Peter!"

George brought a steadying hand up to Alex's shoulder. "Easy, bud..."

"No, you didn't see him," Alex shook his head furiously. "I told him to wait, why didn't he wait?"

"Alex, you're not making any sense," George tried to stay calm, but Alex could hear the underlying fear in his voice.

"I didn't see what happened," Alex ran a hand through his hair. "People kept saying there was a fight, and I just saw him with Ned and some other person. Dad, he looked really upset, like almost brokenly upset."

George bit his lip, the wheels evidently turning in his brain. He dug in his pockets for his car keys, "He couldn't have gotten far, right?"

"I left him alone for less than a few minutes," Alex hated how tiny his voice sounded. He began to wonder if he did the right thing leaving Peter alone at all in the state that he was in.

"I'm going to go for a drive and see if I can find him, okay?"

Alex nodded. "I'm coming with you."

"No," George shook his head solemnly. "You can't leave in the middle of a game."

"But it's Peter," Alex protested.

George sighed and squeezed Alex's shoulder. "I know, but you're not just a player, you're the quarterback. I'll call May and let her know what happened, but you need to stay here. There's no need to panic just yet, he could've been on his way home."

Alex felt his chest tighten as an overwhelming wave of emotion washed over him, but he knew his father was right. "I'm having Coach Axel hold my phone, if you find him I want you to call me."

"That's an easy deal," George agreed readily. He cupped the side of his son's neck and said, "I'll find him. He's gonna be okay." This isn't like what happened to your mother, the implication was left unsaid.

Alex felt rooted to where he was standing as he watched his father break out into a sprint towards where he had parked the car. As he watched the headlights of his father's car leave the school, Alex finally made his way back towards the stadium, every part of him feeling numb. His mind was racing a million miles a minute and he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. Alex had never assumed that Peter would ever intentionally hurt himself, no matter how much he was suffering. The kid had been through hell and back in more ways than one, and Alex had major respect for him in that sense. However, he's seen that broken look on himself once, and it had ended up with a much too close of a brush with death. Just because Peter wouldn't intentionally inflict harm on himself didn't mean there was the danger of an unintentional event occurring. Alex was all too familiar with how hypnotizing it could be to get lost into the dark depths of your mind when you felt like you had nothing left.

As he approached the stadium gates, the first thing he saw was Ned sitting on a bench with a girl sitting beside him, obviously trying to comfort the hurting boy.

Alex walked up to them, using every fiber in his body to keep the flames at bay. Don't judge until you know more than you do. "What happened?"

Ned's head snapped up at his voice and Alex felt his heart ache at the heartbroken look in the boy's eyes. "I didn't mean..."

"Ned, please," Alex cut him off, not unkindly. "What happened?"

"He found out about MJ," Ned's head bowed in shame.

Alex's eyes flickered over to the stony faced girl who refused to look him in the eye. Suddenly it made a lot more sense than Alex wished it did. "The one who cut him off."

"I didn't mean to hurt him," MJ protested, and Alex saw that her expressionless face was just a facade and that there were faint traces of tears in her eyes.

"And you two have just been sneaking around behind his back?" Alex crossed his arms, feeling his grip on his anger starting to slip.

"I thought if he'd known... I didn't want to hurt him more than he was already hurting," Ned shook his head. "I'm such an idiot. Give this guy the worse friend of the year award."

"I just don't understand... You had to know that wasn't going to work."

"I was trying to find a way to tell him," Ned promised. "He's never going to forgive me."

Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down. It's not your right to be angry in this situation, He told himself. He opened his eyes and looked back at Ned. "Do you know where he'd run too?"

The question caused the tears to fall from Ned's eyes. "I don't know... I tried to get him to stay. The last time he went out like this..." His voice broke.

The last time Peter lost control, it had been when Ben died, Alex recalled May telling him. It was the first time I was scared he wasn't coming back.

The sound of the half time buzzer broke through the fog in his brain and Alex wanted to just scream. He turned back to Ned before he left and said, "It's not my business to be angry. My dad went out to look for him, maybe you should too."

By the time Alex got home from the game, it was close to nine o'clock. George had picked him up and had revealed that he didn't have any luck finding Peter. He had driven up and down several blocks surrounding the school and their apartment and that must've meant that Peter didn't want to be found. In other words, there was nothing that was soothing the worse case scenarios playing out repeatedly in Alex's head.

"You're going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep bouncing your leg like that," George told him, setting down a cup of tea on the table in front of him.

Alex immediately stopped bouncing his leg in response. He hasn't done that in ages, hasn't since they moved to Queens. It had been a result of his anxiety after his mother had passed away and it always drove his father crazy.

"Any word from May?" Alex asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

George sat down across from him and shook his head. "I've called her three times within the past hour, she must either be sleeping or the hospital's having a rough night."

"Who else can we call?" Alex cupped the hot mug in his hands. "Should we call the police? What about Tony Stark?"

"It's too early to involve the authorities," George also looked sad at the statement. "And I don't have Tony's number, I was hoping May would answer. If we could..."

"May said the last time he broke down, like truly broke down was after his uncle died," Alex looked down into the steaming liquid.

George paused for a moment at that. "She never told me what happened, just that something awful happened."

"It scared her though." Alex's leg started bouncing again.

George noticed right away and he stood back up. "Grab a coat, we can do another drive to see if we can find him."

Alex immediately jumped up at the thought, and nodded. George left the kitchen to make his way into his bedroom while Alex walked towards the hallway that he shared with Peter's bedroom. Just as he was about to open his bedroom door, a thud from Peter's room made him pause.

The pit in his stomach returned with a vengeance and Alex called out, "Peter?"

He could've sworn he heard a faint groan of pain and that was enough for him to walk up to Peter's room and open the door. When the door swung open, Alex was not prepared for the sight that greeted him. Peter was curled up on his side just under the open window, and it wasn't just the obvious shaking of the younger boy's body that Alex noticed. His eyes traced the evident Spider emblem along his back, the bottom part of the emblem singed away, as if it had been burned. His mask had been discarded off to the side, as if he had just been able to peel the material off his face.

"Peter!" Alex ran up to him, carefully moving him away from the window so he could crouch in front of him. "Peter, can you hear me?"

The younger boy's eyes were closed and Alex could make out the darkened patches of Peter's suit, except it wasn't a part of this suit.

That's his burned flesh... Alex's stomach rolled. He turned his head in the direction of the doorway and yelled "Dad!" He turned back to Peter, placing his hand upon an intact part of his suit, hoping the skin below wasn't injured. "Peter, come on, open your eyes," He coaxed.

Peter's eyes snapped open a moment later, but the glazed look over his eyes did nothing to calm Alex's worries.

"Alex?" George called out, obviously panicked as he ran into Peter's room. At seeing the body on the floor, George tripped over his feet in shock, nearly falling on his face, but recovered all the same.

He hurried over and dropped to his knees at Peter's back, bending down to study the charred flesh that had been exposed. Alex could tell that his father was doing everything he could not to panic, analyzing Peter with a doctor's precision.

Alex turned back to Peter's glazed over expression and told him, "It's okay, it's gonna be okay." If he had to be honest with himself, Alex wasn't sure if he was trying to comfort Peter or reassure himself that Peter was going to be okay.

George went to touch Peter's face, but immediately retraced them with a hiss of pain. "His skin's on fire... We need to cool him down. Alex I need you to go to the kitchen, fill a bowl with cold water and bring a few dish rags. The thermometer is in the medicine drawer, grab that too."

Alex didn't hear what his father said, and instead was looking at Peter who was evidently losing his battle with staying conscious. "No, no, no, you gotta stay awake," Alex pleaded.

"Alex!" George's stern voice brought him back to reality and he jolted to his feet to do what he had been told.

Realistically it took him a few minutes to gather the supplies, but to him it felt like an eternity. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, so it made everything that much harder.

How could this happen? Alex wondered as he came back into Peter's room. George was obviously having trouble getting off Peter's suit and he was getting more frustrated and panicked.

"I got the stuff," Alex set them down, taking the thermometer and placing it under Peter's tongue.

"I can't get the damn thing off," George shook his head. "Did you know?"

Alex's eyes flickered over the unconscious form in front of him and he shook his head.

The thermometer beeped a minute later and when Alex saw the number, he almost threw up. "Dad?"

George's head snapped up at that. "How high is it?"

Alex felt tears well up in his eyes and he showed the number to him, not able to speak.

"Fuck," George cursed and began dipping the rags in the water before holding one to Peter's forehead and the back of his neck.

"That's too high," Alex said. The number still blinking, ringing alarm bells in Alex's head. 112 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Grab my phone and call May," George told him, his voice still in business mode, but the panic in his eyes gave it away that he wasn't faring much better than Alex.

Scrambling to his feet, Alex ran into the kitchen to grab the first phone he saw, which had been his. Dialing May's number, Alex wanted to cry when it went to voicemail the first time. He tried again with no success and this time he opened up his email page and found May's pager information. He had promised to never use it unless there was a direct emergency, but he didn't know what else to do.

SOS -A

He pressed the send button and kept bouncing on his feet, waiting for a response. A second later, May called him.

"What happened?" May's calm voice washed over him as soon as he answered.

"Peter..." Alex's voice broke.

"Alex, I need you to tell me everything," May told him patiently. "Take deep breaths."

Alex closed his eyes and fought for a few breaths before he said, "Peter's hurt."

"What kind of hurt? Did something happen at the game?"

"He came through his window... May, it's really bad," Alex was close to tears.

May paused for a moment before she asked, "Is George there?"

"Yeah, hold on," Alex came running back into the room, and put the phone on speaker. "May's here."

George's gaze snapped to the phone, "May?"

"George, what happened?"

"You know, you could've told us about his bug side," George began.

"So he's that kind of hurt," May was beginning to get worried.

"He's burned everywhere and his temperature... his temperature's way too high," Alex hated how shaky his voice was.

"Is there a way to get his suit off?" George asked.

"There's an override release on both of his wrists, it's a black button on the inside of his wrist closest to his thumb," May told them, and Alex could hear her voice tremble slightly. "How high was his temperature?"

Alex carefully maneuvered Peter's top arm towards him so he could look for the override release. When May asked the question, Alex paused what he was doing and looked up at George, unsure of what to say.

George looked at him too before he said, "It was 112, May."

May cursed under her breath, genuine panic starting to take over. "That's too high, the highest it's ever hit was 109..."

Alex found the button and pressed it. Immediately, the suit expanded enough where George and Alex were able to shimmy the one piece off of Peter's torso, leaving the rest hanging on Peter's lower half. Alex recoiled at the burns and bruises that covered Peter's chest, ribs, and the expanse of his back. It looked like he had been in some sort of explosion.

"Jesus, Pete," George's professional voice was long gone and replaced with agony. "May, he needs a hospital."

"You can't take him to a normal hospital," May told them urgently. "I tried calling Tony and Happy but they keep going to voicemail. I don't have any of... George, I know I'm asking a lot."

"Never say that, not for yours or Peter's sake," George told her sternly. "Call the shots, we're flying blind."

"I need you to drive him upstate, to the Avenger's Compound, they have doctors on site that are familiar with his... bug problem."

"How far upstate are we talking?" George asked.

"About an hour north, maybe half of that if you really push it."

"Is he stable enough to do that?" Alex sounded unsure.

"I don't like it anymore than you do, but if we take him to a normal hospital they wouldn't even know what to do with him. I'm not risking his life when I know there are people out there that already know how to help him."

George closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm himself before he nodded. "Okay, we'll head out now."

"I'll text you both the address, keep me updated."

"Meet us there?" George requested.

"I'm going to try and bounce as soon as I can," May promised.

"Just drive carefully," George said but May had already ended the call.

The drive upstate was complete agony for Alex, and he wasn't trying to be dramatic about it. George was in the driver's seat, the steering wheel clenched in a white-knuckle grip. As soon as his father had hit the interstate, he stepped on the gas pedal without second thought. Alex was in the back seat with Peter's unconscious form half in his lap and half on the seat, the younger boy's suit still covering the lower half of his body. From his bare torso, Alex could feel the heat radiating off the younger boy and he seemed to be getting increasingly hotter no matter how much Alex tried bringing his temperature down. He had bags of ice that were wrapped in a towel plastered against his skin that didn't have any burns, but he felt completely helpless.

He knew something had been going on with Peter from the very beginning, but he had always assumed it was Peter's way of trying to cope with everything that had been happening around him. Now that he knew of Peter's alter ego, everything that had happened in the past few weeks suddenly made perfect sense. The disappearing act and miraculously being at the Compound must've been related to Spider-Man, and on top of all that the whole Stark Internship thing was just the cherry on top.

Why didn't he tell me? Alex asked himself right away before he brushed it off. Peter hadn't told him because he didn't know Alex. Alex was just a person who was forced into his life, and not by choice. Still, I thought we were actually getting pretty close...

"How far out are we?" Alex asked, his voice completely wrecked.

"About ten miles," George glanced at the GPS. They were in the back roads of upstate New York and his father had been increasingly speeding up the more they went down the long straight road. "How's he doing?"

"He's still too hot," Alex shook his head. "I knew he shouldn't have left... He shouldn't have been out tonight. Not after that."

George looked at them from the rear view mirror, and Alex saw the sadness in his eyes. Without another word, George pressed the gas pedal harder.

The rest of the journey passed in complete silence until George sped through the entrance gate and Alex flinched at the reminder of how fast they were going. Cars and Alex have had a complicated relationship ever since his mother died, and he had been doing so well at focusing on Peter that he had completely forgotten he was sitting inside of his worse fear.

George skidded to a stop at the main entrance and turned off the car. He came around and opened Alex's door, reaching his arms out to carefully lift Peter out of the car. Any other time, Alex would've cracked a joke about George cradling someone to their chest like a baby, but seeing a frail Peter curled against George was an oddly touching sight. There was something almost instinctively paternal about it. Alex jumped out of the car and ran in front of George and into the compound.

"We need some help!" Alex called out desperately, his voice feeling like it was ripping his throat apart.

Almost immediately an Irish female voice, replied, "Dr. Banner and Clint Barton are on their way to assist."

Alex jumped at the voice that seemed to be coming out of the walls, but he didn't get to ponder it before two figures came sprinting their way towards them from the elevator.

The archer's eyes locked on Peter immediately and his pace grew quicker, "What happened?"

"We don't know," Alex's quivering voice barely pushed passed the lump in his throat. "He came home like this..."

"He's got burns on his anterior and posterior torso," George readjusted his grip on the teen, his doctor side coming out immediately. "I couldn't assess them all, but a majority appear to be second degree burns. It's his temperature we're worried about, it keeps going up no matter what we do."

Bruce placed a hand on Peter's head and recoiled almost immediately in surprise. "That's really high." Bruce began walking and motioned for them to follow. "How high was it when you found him?"

"It was 112 before we left," George followed without hesitation. "We tried bringing it down, but nothing seemed to work."

"It was like he kept burning up," Alex added.

"It's not uncommon for this to happen to him," Clint tried to reassure him, but failed when Alex was able to detect the worry in the archer's voice. "Kid's got some pretty weird powers."

Bruce led them through the elevator and it took them upstairs two floors before they made their way into a makeshift infirmary. Making their way into a vacant room, George gently set Peter down on the transportable bed. Once Peter had been passed over to Bruce and Clint, Bruce ushered them out of the room so that he could have some space to work. Two minutes later, Alex and George found themselves in a luxurious waiting room that had full velvet couches and a vast selection of coffee, water and other beverages that Alex wasn't old enough to have.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking no matter how hard he tried to calm his nerves. The last time he had been in the hospital, it had been when his mother died. Seeing Peter so beat up with a temperature that was too hot for any person to come out unscathed... it scared Alex. In the past couple of months, Alex had felt this instinctive pull towards the younger boy, almost as if he had always considered Peter to be his little brother. They had been making good progress too in the past couple of weeks with Peter slowly opening up to accept Alex and George into his newfound family.

Please don't make me lose him, Alex pleaded. I don't know if I can handle that.

Alex wasn't the type of person to burst into tears randomly, he's always been a level-headed kind of guy, one that people tended to gravitate towards because he was good at listening without judgement. There were only a handful amount of times where Alex could remember crying, and the main one that stood out was the day his mother died. Right now, though, Alex was scared of losing Peter, the little brother he never had. Before he knew what was happening, George was sitting beside him and pulling him into his arms. Alex clung back desperately, digging his face into the crook of his father's neck as the tears broke free.

When Alex blinked awake to find himself resting his head on his father's shoulder, he couldn't even remember drifting off in the first place. George had an arm wrapped around his stomach in a firm grip, and Alex knew that his father was trying as hard as he could to appear strong for his son. There were always little ticks that gave him away, and Alex had learned quite a few of them as the years have gone by.

"How long has it been?" Alex's rough voice broke the silence.

George's arm tightened around him. "They took him back an hour ago."

Alex shut his eyes again, Why couldn't I just wake up when this nightmare was done?

George's phone began to ring and the arm around Alex slid away, "It's May."

Alex sat up from where he was laying against George and said, "You should go fill her in."

George's eyes flickered between the phone and Alex before he gave Alex a hug with a promise to be right back. Alex watched his father's retreating form, hearing his voice fade away as he walked away. Pulling his legs up to his chest, Alex wrapped his arms around himself as if it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart at that moment.

He wasn't alone long before someone joined him, the smell of chocolate invading his senses. "Care for a cup?"

When Alex looked up he was greeted with the one and only Scarlet Witch, her red hair tied up in a loose pony tail while wearing a loose green hoodie and a pair of gray joggers.

Alex accepted the cup wordlessly and held the mug in his hands. The heat reminded him of Peter's burning hot skin and he wasn't sure if he wanted the hot chocolate anymore. However, he hated to be rude and took a hesitant sip. He half expected to recoil at the heat and the memories it would bring, but there was something soothing about the taste of the drink.

"I sprinkled a little chamomile on top," Wanda told him kindly. "My brother used to do that for me whenever I was scared about something."

"Thanks," Alex told her genuinely, his voice rather small.

"He's a tough kid, he doesn't give up easily."

Alex shook his head, if he hadn't cried all his tears out he had a feeling he would have started bawling again. "I didn't even know he was Spider-Man until two hours ago."

Wanda sighed, "Yeah, that probably wasn't the best way to find out."

"No, it really wasn't."

Wanda studied him thoughtfully for a moment before saying, "You care about him." It wasn't a question.

Alex took another sip of the hot chocolate and he could feel his hands starting to slowly stop shaking. "I never had a brother, but I always wanted one."

"That's a good relationship to have," Wanda noted. "My brother was my best friend, I never wanted to imagine a world without him."

Alex's eyes flickered over to her, "What happened to him?"

Wanda's eyes grew glassy at the question and Alex wondered if he overstepped. "He died in battle a long time ago. It still feels like yesterday."

Alex's heart dropped at that, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

Wanda shook her head, "I kind of set it up to make a point. I'm glad you two became friends, he really needed someone like that ever since he came back."

"Someone like who?" Alex frowned in confusion.

"Someone new, someone to prove that there was still hope in the darkest of times," Wanda told him genuinely. "In a sense you've become his beacon."

Part of Alex wanted to believe that, but it felt too good to be true. "How do you know that?"

"Let's just say I'm pretty good at reading people," Wanda smiled kindly. "He's a fighter, don't sell himself short. He'll be okay."

"He's got to be... I don't want to imagine if he wasn't gonna be," Alex's voice broke.

Wanda placed a gentle hand on his forearm and repeated, "He'll be okay."

As soon as she said that, she got up and left as quick as she came, leaving Alex to sip on his hot chocolate and hoping that what she said was true.

Was it good? Was it bad? Feel free to let me know!