Author's Note: Sorrrry for the wait. This next bit DID NOT WANT TO COME and I HATED It. Then I finished it and had no desire to edit this huge, gathering of ~20,000 words in one sitting. So. It's now split into two chapters because 20,000 is too much to read in one chapter anyway. (okay, it's like, 18,000-ish) but still.
Thank you so, so much for your support.
One more chapter to go after this, then we're done. You're all the best. :)
Disclaimer: no.
Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse, discussion of human experimentation, anxiety attacks, brief violence.
"You sliced me loose
and said it was creation.
I could feel the knife."
-Unknown
4.
April 2nd, 2018; 03:12 a.m. [Day 28]
Incoming call: Unknown number
Incoming call: Unknown number
Incoming call: Unknown number
Missed call (3): Unknown number
One message from unknown number:
Hey. It's Natasha. I know that…I know that we agreed not to call unless it was serious. Tony, Steve, and Sam are in the hospital. I don't know what to do. I need you…Tony's…ah, he's got a kid now. Spider-Man. He's the…he's the Parker kid. From the case you and Coulson worked in '07. His mom almost killed half our team. I don't…know what to do…I need you. Please call me. I can't lose this family, too. Clint, please…
Received: 03:14 a.m.
000o000
April 1st, 2018; 7:13 p.m. [Day 27]
Peter can't remember a time when he wasn't in pain anymore. There's a panicked desperation clawing to every cell of his bones, and Peter feels like he's screaming even though sounds are stuffed and packaged into his throat.
His hands are shaking, but it doesn't matter.
Nothing matters.
Tony's body goes limp in his arms and Peter feels whatever remains of the unstable stillness escape. Crash, break, and shatter apart. He's nothingness now. Tony was holding him together. His breath wheezes out, and he's spiraling around around around—
"Tony?" Peter breathes, feeling wet and sticky and wrong. Too tight, too painful, not his. This body. Never his, never has been, never will. Oh, God, help me.
The Avenger's body grows heavy in Peter's arms, Tony's eyes fluttering shut, his face pale, and Peter has to lower him to the dirty, dust-stricken concrete. He can't support himself and collapses on top of Tony. His sobs are dry and painful, scraping through every part of his throat.
Tony is wet, Peter realizes after a long second. Tony shouldn't be wet. Why is he wet? He's wet and it's not water. There's not water near here and
He's wet and slick with blood and
This can't
No
No
"Oh, God, please!" Peter gasps, shoving up. His limbs are shaky and won't hold him, but he forces his abdomen to tighten as he stares at Tony's face. Dust-covered, blood streaked. White. His blood is soaking his shirt, making the gray shirt stamped with NEW YORK across mop up the blood spilling out from his shoulder.
Bullet.
In
Out
So I shot her in the heart.
I shot her
I shot
I
"Tony," Peter's trembling hands come up to push on the wound weakly. He feels very far away. "Tony, please. Please, don't do this to me. Please, I can't—Oh, g—I can't. I can't—"
He's already lost May. He can't lose Tony, too. He wants this to be over. He can't. He can't. No. And somewhere, deep inside his stomach, Peter feels the edge of darkening hate swirl in his stomach. He's glad, in that moment, that he shot his mom. He's relieved. And he also wishes he could have done worse.
Tony makes a wet, gurgling sound, like he's trying to breathe through blood, and Peter panics because that doesn't make sense of course that doesn't make sense why would he be breathing blood if he's on his back and the bullet hit his shoulder and he should be fine oh, man, why is why is he why is he—
And then Peter remembers that Tony isn't…right on the inside. The arc reactor did a lot more damage in the long run than it helped. Tony could be dying. Dying—dying and that would be it the end no more and Peter wouldn't even get to say that he's sorry or thank you or anything and
He can't
No
It's
No
Peter throws back his head and screams. And he screams and screams until the EMTs try to get him to calm down and shut up. He just keeps yelling. His voice breaks before his will does. His fingers feel numb and his body is gone. He's a spectator watching it.
He sobs when they take Tony away, loading him onto a stretcher and yelling at each other, vanishing into an awaiting ambulance. He doesn't let them touch him. He shudders and shakes and breathes in dust and blood and everything wrong with the universe.
He watches as they treat his mom, as they get Steve on the stretcher. He watches as Sam is taken away. The gun is moved by the NYPD. Everything is wrong.
He's gone and gone and gone and nothing is okay and nothing is right and nothing
And then Black Widow is there, and she's wrapping him in her arms and he's falling inside of them like he's tumbling into the void and nothing matters anymore and he's gone and dead and Peter wishes this was over and he can't can't can't
And she's whispering that everything is going to be okay.
And he wants to laugh.
Because she's bloodsoaked and he's broken and he shot his mom in the chest and he's not sorry. Peter's not sorry. And it's never going to be okay, because nothing is okay anymore. Nothing at all.
Natasha holds him, and Peter falls into himself and drowns.
000o000
S.H.I.E.L.D. REPORT: FILE MCII, FOR S.H.I.E.L.D. DIRECTOR FURY, NICOLAS, J.
REASON FOR INVESTIGATION (RFI): SUSPECTED TERRORIST CONNECTIONS
AGENT IN COMMAND (AIC): PHILIP COULSON
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF RICHARD PARKER AND MARY PARKER V CALIFORNIA STATE. WITNESS BROUGHT TO STAND [CLINT BARTON] FOR QUESTIONING BY CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER [CLAUDIA DIAZ].
DATE: 05.10.2007.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: You were the one who found the boy in question, Peter Parker, is that correct?
CLINT BARTON: Yes.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: And you were also the one who called the police to bring this matter into the light?
CLINT BARTON: No, ma'am. I didn't call the police, my AIC did. I just took the kid off the porch.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Explain that. Why did you and your AIC, Phillip Coulson, who while in the midst of a government investigation into whether or not my clients were receiving the funding for their joint human experimentation into DNA from terrorists, decided that the child in question was in need of assistance?
CLINT BARTON: Takes one to know one…Ma'am.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Allow me to note my skepticism, your honor.
JUDGE ANDREWS: Noted.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Did you or your AIC have any proof that the boy was being mistreated, Mr. Barton?
CLINT BARTON: Definitive proof before we called? No. But have you seen pictures of the kid in January? He was bruised and had pretty much reached the brink of starvation. It didn't take a lot of effort to put two and two together.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Yet you had no proof to any of your claims?
CLINT BARTON: They ******* hit him.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: My clients insist that they never laid a hand on Mr. Parker. There isn't a witness to say that they did. Just a "gut feeling" that you and your AIC had.
CLINT BARTON: Are you seriously calling a six-year-old "mister?" What is this ****? Nobody knew he ******** existed until five ******* months ago! Of course there aren't any ****** witnesses!
JUDGE ANDREWS: Mr. Batron, please watch your language.
CLINT BARTON: No.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Obviously, we can tell from this alone that Mr. Barton can be impulsive. Maybe he misunderstood the situation and now the Parkers are being blamed for it. Is a prison sentence really necessary on an assumption? The boy in question won't even confirm whether or not his parents have abused him.
CLINT BARTON: No, no. This is ****. Let me lay this out for you.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: So you can tell us the same lies and rash thinking?
CLINT BARTON: Your honor, as you know, my AIC and I were investigating whether or not the Parkers had any terrorist connections. They were flagged by a superior and we were seeing if the claims were true. After legally surveilling them for days, I noticed that Peter was on the porch by himself and he wasn't doing very well. I went over to ask him if he was okay and that's when I noticed the bruises. I took him from the porch with the intention of getting him to a hospital.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: So you admit that you didn't think the boy was my clients'?
CLINT BARTON: It's not like he had that stamped to his forehead.
JUDGE ANDREWS: Mr. Barton.
CLINT BARTON: Sorry, your honor. [Long pause] Can I say this, at least? When Peter looked at me for the first time, he was scared. Really, truly scared. Like something was going to come out and kill him, and that's not a look that belongs on a child. There's a lot more going on here than an abuse case. I don't know what they were doing down there to him, but I don't know that they would have stopped if we didn't intervene.
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Like what?
CLINT BARTON: I don't know. But if I had to put a name on it, human experimentation comes to mind.
RICHARD PARKER: That's ****! We never laid a hand on that boy!
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Mr. Parker!
RICHARD PARKER: No, I'll speak this bit for myself. We did not lay a hand on that brat!
CLINT BARTON: So you're going to find some other way to explain why your son was high as a kite when the EMTs checked him out?
RICHARD PARKER: He's always getting into trouble.
CLINT BARTON: Really? And you just had illicit drugs all over the floor?
RICHARD PARKER: We had nothing to do with what happened to him. If he got into some sort of problem, it was his own doing.
CLINT BARTON: Deny this to my face, then. Did you and your wife perform experiments on him or not?
RICHARD PARKER: [REDACTED]
JUDGE ANDREWS: [REDACTED]
CLINT BARTON: [REDACTED]
PHIL COULSON: [REDACTED]
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Objection. Relevance.
000o000
March 4th, 2018; 3:57 p.m. [Day 1]
They're doing ninety down a deserted road in the middle of what he thinks is Pennsylvania. The engine is chugging. The radio is playing a song that he doesn't understand and couldn't if he tried. The world around him is smudged in clouds of gray and black.
Peter is panting. Gasping, wet things, both from tears and pain. The music deafens the sound of him, but Peter can feel the gasps rattling in his chest, drying up his throat and making his nose and eyes burn behind the pressure.
"You're getting blood on the seats. Will you try and clean that up?" Mary demands sharply, the first words she's spoken in well over an hour. "This is a rental."
The road is long and open before them, stretching endlessly in the form of a thick, endless forest. The sky is cloudy. It's almost peaceful. The sound of the car eating mile after mile is enough to make him drowsy.
Mary is driving. It's a white sedan made before the 2000s if the tape player is any indication.
And Peter's in the front seat, crying quietly to himself, pressing gaud pads against his stomach and right leg with weakening strength. Not that it's helping the bleeding. The blood has long-saturated the cloth and Peter's beginning to feel it: dizziness, drowsiness, extreme thirst. The seatbelt Mary had, ironically, forced him to put on is chafing painfully against his sensitive skin.
"Can't," Peter mumbles miserably, shuddering. He makes a sound in his throat as it pulls on his wound. He closes his eyes. They're swollen and raw from the crying, but he can't get himself to stop. People who freak out in emergencies are the people who die, May used to tell him. Peter's trying not to, but it feels impossible.
There he goes.
Panicking.
And being the one who doesn't survive.
Mary makes a sound of annoyance in her throat, and Peter opens his eyes again, flinching back prematurely, bracing for her hand. But she doesn't hit him, her fingers only tightening around the wheel until they're white. "We don't have time for a hospital," she says sharply, talking to herself. She looks at him in accusation, "Why'd you make me have to shoot you?"
This is my fault.
Peter shrinks back, wanting to disappear. "I'm sorry," he whispers. He pushes the gauze against his stomach harder and a soft groan slips through his lips. This is, apparently, enough for his body, though. His vision grays and Peter feels himself start to slump sideways, any control of bodily functions completely lost.
Maybe this is how Ben felt when he was lying on the sidewalk and bleeding out, and Peter was pushing on the wound...
Mary slaps him.
Peter jerks, weakly shoving himself back up before he slams head-first against the gearshift. Peter blinks several times, the world hazy and dark. His cheek is stinging and his ears are beginning to ring. Mary's gaze hardens and she shakes her head, tossing bangs from her eyes. Peter can't read her expression and it makes him anxious.
"Don't pass out." Mary commands him. "I don't want to drag your sorry butt to a hospital."
Don't know if I'm going to get much of a choice about that. Peter presses his lips together. He shifts the saturated gauze against his stomach and looks out the window. He tilts his head back against the seat and stares at the passing fields. It smells like blood.
I want to go home.
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you shot me," Peter mumbles quietly. The protest makes his throat feel hot, and he has a moment of regret, waiting for her temper to flare.
She doesn't rage. Mary scoffs, shifting in her seat. "This is my fault, is it?"
It's not his. It's not. It isn't. He's sure.
Would he survive if he jumped out of the car? Peter once heard that getting hit by a car going forty is like falling out of a five-story building. He's seen physics problems about it. He doesn't know what the impact would be at ninety. He knows he could survive if it was forty, but the road is long and empty, and Peter doesn't think they'll be slowing down any time soon.
Peter shifts uncomfortably. His skin is growing hot and itchy, and his spider-sense is pulsing against his skull like the beginnings of a migraine. Always present, always screaming. Ready to defend him, but it's too late. The world is growing dimmer.
The pain is beginning to borderline on unbearable. Peter doesn't feel right. His fingers are going numb, and he's lost the ability to feel anything past his left knee.
Peter looks down.
He is getting blood all over the seats.
That's so much blood. He shouldn't have been able to lose that much blood and still be alive. He's going to die. He knows that as surely as he does that the sun will rise tomorrow. Peter Parker is going to die. They're going to find his corpse decades from now deserted on some long empty road. Or maybe they'll never find him at all, and he'll disappear from the world like how he was born into it: non-existent.
He's going to die. And there's nothing that he can do to stop it. He licks his lips, his throat dry and tasting of acid. He weighs the words heavily in his mind for long moments before saying softly, "Take me to a hospital. Please."
Mary's mouth hardens. "We don't have time for that."
"I don't…" Peter blinks several times, trying to get his words to work together. He can't remember what he was going to say. Peter frowns. Then he licks his lips and tries again, "I don't feel right."
Oh. He should...there's blood...and…
He pushes against his leg again, and tries to lift his hand to push against his stomach and can't. He should have bled out hours ago. His healing factor is crappy on good days.
Mary breathes out through her teeth.
Peter's heart beats painfully. "Take me to a hospital."
His vision is graying.
"I can't!" Mary shouts, slamming a hand against the steering wheel. It takes Peter nearly a second to jump in surprise, his startle reflex slowed with everything else. "Don't you get that!? Why does this have to be on me? You're the one who made me shoot you! If you hadn't jumped out of that God forsaken window then none of this would have happened in the first place—"
Mary continues ranting angrily, her words becoming murkier and distorted. Peter doesn't hear the rest of it.
The world does this funny spinning-swirling circle, then Peter's hands drop and his entire body goes lax. He slumps against the door and passes out.
Looking back, Peter wishes that he had died in that car, doing ninety down that empty road in Pennsylvania, his body dumped out in the field. It would have been better for everyone. Especially him.
000o000
March 5th, 2018; 03:22 a.m. [Day 2]
His throat is so dry it feels like it's cracking. Light is shining in his eyes, burning everything and leaving behind nothing but ashes and pain. Peter moans and tries to turn his face away, but it's everywhere like he's sitting in the middle of a star. Peter's eyes sliver open enough for him to make out that he's beneath some sort of big, fluorescent light. Like the kind in hospital hallways, but bigger and brighter.
He knows they're not called tube lights, but that's all his brain will come up with.
Peter squeezes his eyes shut and moans again, lifting up a hand to cover his face. His forearm doesn't do much in the way of blocking out the light, which is both impressive and disappointing.
Peter swallows. It hurts. He wants water, but he knows he can't have it, even if he can't dredge up reasons for why.
There's a loud, persistent humming in the background, like a low-pitched moan. He can hear the dull sound of something else he can't place. The sound is distracting, but Peter assumes it's probably some sort of vent.
The skin on the back of his hand feels slightly pinched, and it takes Peter long seconds to realize that his entire body is weirdly numb. He knows he has toes, but he couldn't tell you if they were in this room or the other side of the planet. His lungs feel heavy, his heart aching every time it pumps, fighting weakly against his ribcage.
Peter squints open his eyes again, lifting his left hand out to block the worst of the light, and realizes that there's an IV in his hand, which explains the pinching. But it's weird because, through all of Peter's extremely limited hospital visits, he can't remember ever being able to feel an IV. Now, he's far too aware of it.
It's red. What's inside of the IV is red, he realizes after another few seconds of staring. Wow, his reaction time is squat right now.
Red.
Blood.
Why the heck is he being given blood?
(Or is it taking it?)
Peter blinks rapidly as he tries to adjust to the light, and swallows again, wishing that spit would help the dryness. He breathes out slowly, mentally counting to three before he shoves his palm flat on the surface he's lying on—a table? One of those extremely flat thingies in a doctor's office?—and shoves up. The world spins, blurring into dozens of colors and stretching out like laughy taffy.
He squeezes his eyes shut again, crouching over as he presses his left hand against his forehead.
What…?
What the heck is going on?
His head feels foggy and he can't remember what happened in the last month, let alone the last few hours. Peter shifts a fraction and gasps at the sharp pull of agony in his stomach. His eyes pop back open—the light is so painful, holy crap—and he looks down at his abdomen. He's in a hospital gown, which he has no memory of changing into.
The room is some sort of hospital room, which means that he is on the most uncomfortable hospital bed in existence. It's depressingly bare and small, containing only medical equipment and nothing else. Peter's hooked to more than one of them, but he can't feel it against his skin.
The heart monitor is silent, but he can watch the sluggish peaks form on the screen when he looks at it.
Peter carefully gathers up the edge of the gown and pulls it up until he can see a thick bandage on his stomach, taped carefully into place. It's obviously been cared for. His leg hasn't. The wound is still open, raw, and puckering with infection. Peter feels nauseous looking at it and the layers of skin and dried-over blood. He can't feel it and he doesn't know if that's a good thing or not.
Looking at the wound pulls back memories, dragging with them a hot panic.
Sitting in the car. Mary driving for hours and turning up the music when his crying started to annoy her. Feeling himself slowly dying from blood loss, because he's Spider-Man but his healing factor is crap sometimes.
Peter swallows thickly. His throat aches. Dehydration, side effect of blood loss.
He has to get out of here. He doesn't know where he is, but he knows enough. The room is windowless, but there's a door with a small glass window covered with a small curtain. Mary is out there somewhere. She wouldn't just drop him off in a hospital because he asked her to. That would be too nice.
Peter clenches his hands into fists and forces himself to take deep breaths through a wave of dizziness. He just needs to get out of here. Maybe there's a phone or something. He can call Tony. He can…oh, man, he's very dizzy. Drugs? Whatever it is, it's hard to think through.
Peter forces his eyes open, then looks at the door again. He doesn't know what is out there, but it doesn't matter. He's not going back to the basement. He'd rather die. Everyone promised him it was over. And Peter, like an idiot, believed them. His parents were in prison. What could they do to him from there?
And now.
Now Peter wants to slap his past self. Enjoy that reassurance while it lasts.
Peter had stopped worrying about when they'd be released from prison. Peter had stopped having the date branded into the forefront of his mind despite the fact that it felt so far away when he was seven. He felt okay. He felt safe. And that was only cemented when he met Tony. Tony was Iron Man. What could possibly happen?
Not that Peter was that worried about his parents at sixteen. It didn't feel real, like the first six years of his life were some sort of vivid, violent dream.
Other times…other times things were too real.
(He remembers, once, when he and Flash were still in middle school, and Flash had thought it would be funny to lock Peter in a locker for a few hours. Peter can still remember the cramping panic at having been locked in somewhere dark and small again. He can remember inhaling the smell of musty dust and antiseptic despite the fact he was in a locker and it should have smelled like sweat and gym clothing.
Peter had started screaming. He'd screamed even when Flash had pulled him out, and he'd screamed and sobbed the whole way home when Ben picked him up.)
Peter shoves up to his feet and immediately topples forward when he tries to put weight on his right leg. He grabs hold of the heart monitor, which doesn't help anything because it's not meant to hold the weight of a human being. It tips over, crashing loudly to the ground as Peter follows, landing on his knees hard. The shock jolts up through his body. And his leg.
Peter doesn't scream, but he makes this sort of sound like something sharp is being shoved down his throat. He gasps, panting, and falls to his side, gripping at his leg with both hands desperately. He can't breathe. The light is bright. His leg feels like it's burning, the pain is so hot and numbing and nothing else matters.
He thinks he's dying. It's possible to die from pain, isn't it? No. It was…was the shock…from the pain and—
Holy—
The door opens and Peter squints up through instinctive tears to see Mary standing there. She's changed clothing, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. She looks tired.
She stands there for long seconds, taking in the scene before her face scrunches and she sighs in annoyance. She takes several steps into the room and Peter tries to shove back from her, but he can't move without his vision going white. He makes a gasping, choked sound at the sight of her.
He doesn't want her near him. He doesn't want her to touch him.
He wishes this whole thing was a dream.
"You're an idiot," Mary says, annoyed, kneeling down and grabbing his arm.
Peter flinches back from her. His spider-sense is ringing dully, and he wants to smack it. "No." He croaks weakly. "Don't…"
Mary looks at his face, not moving her arm. There's something in her brown eyes that makes him cold. She studies his face for long seconds, and Peter hates, he hates that he can see himself in her face. He has her nose. He has his father's ears. He has her eyes. Their hair color. The only thing that's his is his freckles.
Mary's fingers tighten on his arm until he winces and then she smirks faintly. He doesn't fight her, even though he should. But he sees her and his entire body just…freezes.
"You trying to go somewhere, kid?" she asks like she's trying not to laugh.
"No," Peter says through gritted teeth. His body is trying to clench, but it hurts. He can't feel his feet. The heart monitor pads are lying next to his face. They must have got pulled off his chest when he fell.
"You know," Mary says, and grabs his other forearm, hauling him up. Peter tries to help her but trying to balance on his leg again only ends in a repeat of the first attempt. He smashes into her shoulder violently, eyes squeezed shut, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and wishing that the fact he's touching his mom didn't make him feel sick to his stomach.
Mary staggers a step at the sudden weight change but guides him back to the hospital bed. Peter's panting by the time they get there. Mary grabs his left hand and checks that the IV is still in place.
Peter squeezes his eyes shut. Her fingers are warm. In a different world, a different life, he can almost imagine her touching his face gently because she actually cares about him. It makes his stomach hurt.
"I thought," he whispers, voice hoarse, and somehow, it's easier to talk with his eyes closed than open as Mary does something else to his hand. The tape. She's taping down the IV again. "You couldn't take me to a hospital."
He tries not to feel hope. Because a hospital has nurses and doctors and people and Peter can ask them for help. He can get back home. They were in Pennsylvania last he saw, which isn't that far from New York. Mary said they were going home. California. They can't be there yet if he's here.
Mary laughs, and he looks up at her. She rights the heart monitor and then turns back to catch his gaze. "Who says that I did?"
Peter feels his face fall, and he looks around the room in confusion. "But, we're—"
"This is a plane." Mary interrupts, turning off the monitor with a soft click of a switch. "Do you think I'm stupid? You know Tony Stark. We stop in a hospital for half a minute and he'd be in California before we are, and that would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"
The purpose of what? The kidnapping?
Peter shakes his head, not in denial, but to try and shove out some of the persistent fogginess. It occurs to him then that Mary could have given him no drugs and this is just an effect of blood loss. The IV is a transfusion. That makes more sense. Even explains the numbness.
"You…" Peter's mouth goes dry. Drier. "We're…on a plane."
The only plane that Peter's been on is the one that took him to and from Germany. May and Ben drove him from LA to Queens because he had such terrible claustrophobia when he was six. Any time that May's family wanted to spend time with her, they came to the US. Peter's stomach twists. May. She's probably freaking out. He was supposed to call her on her lunch break. He doesn't know what time it is, or even what day it is, but he knows she's worried.
"Ten points for deductive prowess," Mary says, rolling her eyes. She starts to walk to the door, and something in Peter panics. He sits up again, despite every instinct telling him not to. His leg burns at the slightest movement, but so long as he holds perfectly still, he can't feel anything.
He hasn't stopped crying, and now he doesn't think he can.
"Mom," he says, and she stops, and looks back at him, expectant. The word tastes like an ash-covered habit in his mouth. Mom and dad have always been dirty words to him. Ned makes jokes all the time about Peter calling Tony dad eventually, but Peter's pretty sure that would make him vomit. Her heavy gaze makes him look away, "I, um, it's—my leg. Are…can you…?"
Mary laughs again. It's a dry, empty sound. Peter remembers that about her. She used to laugh all the time. He can't remember her ever being happy. She grips the door handle. "Now, Peter," she says like he's a stupid child, "Why on earth would I give you an incentive to escape? You can't walk on that, can you?"
Peter looks down at his leg. He can see that the muscle is tense. He couldn't stand up. He couldn't walk. Oh, man, he can't walk. He can't run. He can't drive a car. He's in a plane. Until this heals in a few days, he can't go anywhere. But she doesn't know that. She's probably assuming this will impair him for weeks.
Peter looks up at her, his mouth tight. He wants to be angry with her, but all he feels is a swirling, endless pit of dread and panic.
Mary fake pouts, mocking him. "Oh, don't be upset. I got you to a hospital, didn't I? You didn't die. Besides, I'm sure that your healing factor will work it out."
His…
His what?
He freezes. His breath escapes him in a gust. He can't speak for several seconds, and Mary seems to relish the open panic that he knows flares across his face. "Wh—what?" he manages, but he knows it sounds weak, "that's—what—what are you talking about? What he-healing factor?"
Mary hums, brushing her bangs away from her eyes, and laughs quietly, shaking her head. "Oh, Spider-boy," she sighs, and his stomach tightens painfully at the realization that she knows. Of course she knows. I'm the worst superhero in existence at keeping their identity a secret. "They never did tell you what we were doing to you, did they?"
Peter thinks of the needles and feeling like the world was spinning around him. He remembers Mary coaxing him out of whatever hiding place he had found in the basement and Richard giving him drugs. He remembers waking up on tables in hysterics. Remembers May and Ben having quiet conversations in the kitchen when he refused to take pain medication when he broke his arm when he was eight.
He doesn't remember anyone telling him what it meant.
"You…" He can't get himself to say anything else.
Mary smiles at him, her eyes cold, but her voice is mirthful when she says in a sing-song voice, "don't go anywhere," and leaves the room. She closes the door behind her, and Peter flinches at the sound. She doesn't lock it, but she doesn't need to. Peter's not going anywhere.
(I can't wait to be a part of your life again.)
(Please let me out!)
000o000
April 1st, 05:46 a.m. [Day 28]
Happy doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't this. He knows what he'd been hoping for, what he'd wanted to see, and reality is distorting his fantasy image. Then again, within said fantasy, Peter had come back from his kidnapping uninjured and mentally unscarred. He'd pop back into their lives, none the worse for wear.
Happy's been working a little too long with the Avengers to have believed this, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when his fantasy doesn't meet up with reality.
Peter looks empty like something came and scooped out emotions from his chest and let a sticky, momentous void suck up the rest. He's laying on his back on the hospital bed, his arms loosely resting at his sides, staring vacantly at the ceiling. His face is a mess of blotchy bruises and healing cuts, but Happy is struck by how small he seems. Peter's never been a bodybuilder by any means, but he generally has a presence that can fill up a room.
Now he's just…
Gone.
This entire picture is wrong. The last time that Happy saw the kid was a few days before this whole mess started. He'd driven him from Midtown High to the Avengers Compound. Peter had been fine. Happy. Normal.
Everything fell apart so quickly.
Peter's on his back, and he never sleeps on his back. He says it's impossible for him to. And he's never this Godforsaken still, like he has an endless amount of energy he needs to shake and wiggle from his body. But now, Happy thinks that the doctors and nurses dumped a corpse on the bed, dressed it up in a hospital gown, and then decided to pass it off for a living teenager.
Happy's stomach twists, but he stops lingering in the doorway and takes tentative steps into the room. Peter doesn't acknowledge him, apparently content to memorize the ceiling plaster.
"Hey, kid," Happy says softly. In the eleven hours they've been in the hospital, the nurses said Peter hasn't spoken once. Not a question, not a word of complaint, or an assurance that he's not broken. According to Natasha, who was on the scene, the last thing he said was screeches for help as he cradled Tony's collapsed body and screamed. Seeing the kid now, Happy can't imagine even that.
Oh, man, what did we let happen?
Happy blows out a breath and then grabs one of the chairs, turning it so he can face Peter as he sinks into the uncomfortable furniture. Somehow, despite being padded, the very fact it's in a hospital means that the cushion feels like it's lumpy and rotted.
Happy steeples his fingers and rests his chin on them, staring at his charge. Peter doesn't look at him. His chest rises and falls shakily, but the doctors felt no need for him to be on oxygen. Beyond wrongly set bones and needle scars, most of the wounds were superficial bruising. Dehydration and malnutrition were another area altogether, but that's what the IVs are for.
"The nurses said you can hear me, but I'm not sure that I believe them," Happy admits with a shaky laugh. "You seem pretty dead on us, kiddo."
Peter blinks.
Happy frowns, rubbing at his face. A few days growth of beard prickles uncomfortably against his palm. "I think you'd probably want to know that Tony's, ah, still in surgery. Cap's unconscious, but his surgery to get out the bullets went fine. Falcon's on the mend…Your mom didn't kill anybody."
Happy pointedly doesn't bring up her current dead or alive status. Peter doesn't need that on his mind right now. He may have shot her, but Happy doesn't think he really meant it to kill. It was defensive.
Maybe he's just saying that because he wasn't there.
Happy sighs, remaining quiet for several long minutes before confessing. "I wish you'd talk to us…I just want to know you're okay. I miss you."
He does, and it hurts more than he can say to see Peter like this. Happy never really wanted kids, but he imagines that this is what it would be like to have a nephew. The annoying thing about it is that Happy doesn't remember making a conscious decision to even like Peter, let alone adopt him into his family.
Happy waits for Peter to respond.
He doesn't.
Submitting to the silence, Happy rambles for a while about work and anything else that comes to mind. He talks to fill the quiet, but Peter doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in anything he has to say. Peter doesn't care about anything. He stares at the ceiling and he doesn't talk. He doesn't move. He breathes because it's expected of him. Not because he wants to.
And it pisses Happy off more than he can say. Not that Peter isn't talking, but why. Because Happy's pretty sure that Mary Parker may not have killed her son physically, but in any way that matters? Yeah. Mary Parker may as well have buried a bullet in her son's chest. She broke him, and Happy doesn't know how to fix it.
Or even if they can.
When Happy has run out of words, he buries his head into his hands and just breathes. He tries his best not to think about Pepper's panicked phone call from a few hours ago, nor seeing Natasha desperately wiping the blood of her teammates from her hands futilely with tissues in the waiting room. He does not think about Rhodey's anxious pacing and feeling the helplessness of knowing there's nothing that can be done.
He's supposed to be keeping watch on Peter. Pepper will let him know if anything changes with the others. At this point, he's dreading a call. Because for things to change that would mean that they would be worse, not better.
He just wishes Peter was okay. He wishes they had good news to give Tony when he wakes up.
After a while of sitting like this and trying not to fall asleep but failing, Happy sighs and determines he's going to go find the coffee machine in the building, as chronically disappointing as they are. He needs something.
As he drops his hands and gets to his feet, Happy comes to the realization that Peter is staring at him. Not the ceiling. He's looking at him.
Happy stops, his stomach contracting painfully. For long seconds, he's not sure if he should move or not, but Peter doesn't seem inclined to take the first step. Happy forces his body to relax, "Hey," he says softly. "How are you feeling?"
Peter blinks, looking at him for long seconds blankly. Happy wonders if Peter's gaze dropped on accident, but then the kid's lips slowly part. He exhales like it's almost painful, then whispers, "Did I kill her?"
Happy's expression drops. He can feel his face contorting into something and he sighs softly. "Mary? Kid, I really don't think that you need to focus on this right now—"
"Did I kill her?" Peter persists. There's something in his gaze that Happy can't read. It's an edge between darkness and desperation.
Happy's shoulders sag and he submits. "No. The EMTs got to the scene in time. She's not walking away from this, but she's still alive."
Peter stares at him for long seconds, his face looking pale and emasculated. Hard edges and dead eyes. This isn't Peter Parker, Happy thinks widely, it's some kid they pulled off the streets, haunted by his experiences. "Oh," Peter intones, and he's disappointed.
Peter is disappointed that she lived.
And Happy…Happy doesn't know what to do with this realization. He'd meant to kill her. Not just stop her from hurting Tony, not just hurt her, but actually kill her.
Peter rolls his head back to stare at the ceiling. He doesn't say anything else. Not even when Happy tries to get another answer out of him.
Peter sinks back into the hospital bed like he's laying down in his grave. And Happy wonders then if they were too late anyway. Because Peter isn't okay. He's so far from okay.
000o000
April 2nd, 2018; 09:34 a.m. [Day 28]
Tony is wrapped in a crappy brown blanket, shaking so badly he can barely stand. His legs feel disconnected from his body, barely putting in the bare minimum required of them. All he can do is shake and pant, and pretend that he's doing fine when all he wants to do is cry. His hand is pressed against the side of the wall, and the hallway feels like it's spilling out into an endless void. He's trapped in two mirrors reflecting each other back and forth.
Stark men are made of iron.
What does that make me if I'm not?
"Tony? What the—what are you doing out here? Hey," Natasha's hand reaches out and grasps his wrist, just above his shaking hand, and just like that, the halls of the hospital become one. Natasha's face is in front of his, and it takes him several blinks to place her as her without the familiar frame of red hair. Blonde. Like the pictures Natasha has shown them of Yelena. (She is safe). Blonde. Family. Natasha's family. Not red. Not...
He swallows. The assassin's green eyes soften as she watches him, and her grip becomes more concrete. "You should sit down."
He shakes his head. "I have to...I have to…"
He has to find Peter.
It can't have been some sort of wild dream.
"You just came off of a twelve-hour surgery. You're not even supposed to be out of bed. I don't know how you are. Sit down." Natasha's voice is hard, and she pulls him toward the floor. Tony sinks against the wall, collapsing in the empty hallway and wincing as his shoulder brushes against it. His legs fold beneath him readily, and his butt rams hard against the floor, sending a sharp spasm of pain through his entire spine.
The drugs he's on make his entire body feel slightly numb, and he's grateful for the lack of pain around his shoulder, but everything is so far away.
Natasha sits down next to him, adjusts the blanket, then grabs his hand again. Her fingers are cold, but comforting.
"Is he dead?" Tony asks, wanting to hide his face from her but unable to. One of his arms is pinned tightly to his chest for his shoulder and the other Natasha has. He settles for looking away from her and pulling his legs up against himself. He feels enormous and wants to shrink himself. As if everyone is watching him and his entire presence is soaking up the halls.
This whole thing is his fault.
"Peter is alive. He's stable." Natasha says, but there's something in her voice that suggests something more. Tony wants to ask, but he's afraid.
"What about the others?"
Natasha chews on her lower lip. "Sam's going to be fine," Natasha assures softly, "Mary's bullet got him good, but it didn't penetrate. He needed some stitches, but that's it. Man's got Steve's reflexes." Tony snorts quietly because it's true.
Thank God, though.
He and Sam butt heads more often than not, but Tony doesn't know what he would have done if Sam wasn't okay.
"Last I saw, he was on the phone with his sister." Natasha says after a moment.
Tony bites his lower lip, "I thought," he says quietly, "they couldn't…"
"Sam needed to talk to her," Natasha says gently, and that's the end of any argument about that for him. Sam and Sarah are closer than any biological siblings that Tony knows, but he's never had a habit of surrounding himself with people who have well-adjusted, supportive families.
Tony shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his left fist. He feels Natasha's grip shift on top of his own, but she refuses to let go. Natasha sighs, and he can almost imagine her tipping her head back against the wall.
They sit in silence for a long time, the stray family member or nurse walking past them. A few of the nurses ask if they need help, but Natasha will ward them off, even though they both know he needs to lay down. Natasha's thumb strokes the outside of his pointer finger, a subconscious, tired gesture.
"Steve took five bullets for me," Tony whispers eventually.
"I know," Natasha says softly. "And I know that he would do it again without hesitation. So would I."
Tony laughs shakily. This whole thing is a confusing mess. He doesn't understand anything. The Avengers hate him. Steve isn't supposed to almost die for him. He's not supposed to be in ICU, barely clinging to life, and would surely be dead several times over if not for the serum. Peter's not...Peter's not supposed…
They should all be fine.
Anyone who slips into his orbit dies, leaves, or gets permanently changed. When did he forget that? When did he start clinging to the hope that maybe he wasn't the problem? He always is. He always has been.
Steve would not take five bullets for him. It was an accident. It was adrenaline. It was not any desire to keep Tony safe.
He's my friend.
So was I.
"I'm sorry," Tony whispers to Natasha, because he knows that she, Steve, and Sam didn't come here expecting it to be more than a weekend venture. The hospital staff haven't recognized them yet, but they will soon enough after Steve starts healing rapidly. The Avengers will be arrested, and their lives will be in tatters all because Tony couldn't fix this by himself.
"Don't be," Natasha says in a sigh. "We knew what we were getting into."
"You shouldn't have come here."
"We weren't going to leave you by yourself." Natasha says, as if that should be rather obvious. Tony opens his eyes to look at her, confused and somehow deeply hurt. You left me before. You all did. Why could Steve not do it by himself, but I could? What if I needed help, then, too?
"I got you all shot." Tony looks up at the ceiling. "I get everyone shot."
Natasha is quiet. "We wanted to help you, Tony. Ty' nasha sem'ya."
You're our family.
Tony squeezes his eyes shut. Natasha's hands, gentle and rough, but so, so gentle, pull him against her in a tight embrace. And Tony doesn't know what else to do but let himself be swallowed in it. He buries his head against her shoulder and cries.
"I didn't want this to happen to him." He whispers. "Peter was supposed to be good. He was supposed to be safe."
"Shh," Natasha soothes, "it's going to be okay."
"No," Tony gasps. "No."
"Peter's okay, and you're okay. We'll all be fine. Just breathe," Natasha whispers and strokes her fingers through his messy hair. "Just breathe."
000o000
April 5th, 2018; 12:33 p.m. [Day 31]
It's three days before Tony starts to feel like he's not a blood bag of pain anymore. He knows it will be weeks before he feels human.
He's exhausted, the painkillers are doing almost nothing for the agony in his arm—and for that matter, Tony is pretty sure he's overdue for pain meds—yet somehow all of this pales in comparison to how much he wants to hit this woman across her overly sympathetic face. The false understanding splattered across every inch makes it more than obvious that she doesn't genuinely care about them.
She's here because the government told her to be. Not because she cares about the outcome.
Tony stares at her, licking his dry, chapped lips and trying to figure out if he's understanding what she said correctly. A look at Pepper's face, tight with frustration and anger, assures him that he did. Tony slides his heavy eyes from Pepper to the DCFS worker again, trying to form words that won't come.
Pepper speaks before he does, her voice deceptively calm. "What are you saying?"
The woman, short and blonde, wearing a pair of heels that Tony doesn't think she should be able to balance in, gives another one of her plastic smiles. "I know that this is sudden, but it's really important to us that we get Mr. Parker into a safe home as soon as possible. The hospital is ready to release him, and he needs somewhere to go."
Now.
They have to do this now.
Because Peter needs somewhere to go, and the hospital doesn't know what to do with him. They don't know where to dump the traumatized kid, they only know they want him gone. Tony feels angry about this even though he shouldn't. He knows that hospitals are a business in the US, even as much as he wishes they weren't.
Tony swallows, his throat tight. He shifts a little on the bed and grimaces, his fingers tightening around Pepper's hand. "Okay, I get that," he says, "I just don't know why you're asking me."
Not that he isn't grateful.
He's more than grateful. It's a God-given miracle that CPS decided to tell him what they're doing with Peter before they ship him off to a foster home or temporary placement or whatever they do with minors. Peter would vanish again, and Tony would have killed someone.
The blonde's smile falls for the first time since she stepped into the room. She looks between them as if confused. "Why…wouldn't I be?"
Tony shares a look with Pepper. "Because we're not…we're not his parents," Tony says, and the words are painful to admit out loud. It feels like he's admitting that he's not competent, or he doesn't have a right to want a say in what happens to the kid.
The woman's expression clears suddenly, "They didn't tell you about Mrs. Parker's will, did they?"
Pepper's hand tightens in his. "The what?"
The woman smiles again, all big and fake and Tony wants to smack her. "Mrs. Parker stated in her will that should anything happen to her before Peter turned eighteen, that legal guardianship would be passed to you, Mr. Stark. I'm asking you because until a judge approves or nullifies this statement, all decisions for his welfare will be passed through you. I need your permission to get him into a group home while you're recovering in the hospital."
May…
What…?
May Parker chose him, Tony Stark, to be Peter's legal guardian? She changed her will to include him. She chose him to care for her child. That was her choice.
Him.
Tony's mouth moves, but he can't get himself to speak. It feels like he's spinning. The whole world is spinning. He clears his throat and tightens his fingers around Pepper's until it feels like he might break them.
"I, um." He intones. "I didn't know."
The CPS worker's eyes twinkle. "I can see that."
Tony exhales in a gust. "Um." He looks at Pepper desperately, trying to get his brain to catch up, but he can't get it to move past May Parker chose him and oh my gosh this means I'm legally responsible for a child to I'm going to mess this up, why did she choose me—
Pepper, God bless her, he doesn't deserve this woman, squeezes his hand back and says, "Tony will only be in the hospital for a few more days. Until then, Peter can stay with me."
The woman's lips downturn a little, as if she was somewhat excited at the prospect of taking Peter as far away from Tony Stark as humanly possible, and who wouldn't be? "Are you okay with that, Mr. Stark?"
"What? Um. Yeah," Tony says, blinking. His arm hurts. He needs drugs. "Um. Yeah. Pepper can—Pepper can keep track of him for a few days. We'll…work something out after that."
"Hm." The CPS worker intones, and Tony realizes why she's smiling so much. Because she's trying really, really hard to hide how much she disapproves of this. Tony breathes out slowly and tries to ignore how much that hurts before he looks up at Pepper.
"Before we leave the hospital," he says quietly, "there's something that we need to do first."
Peter is legally my child.
000o000
April 6th, 2018: 4:44 p.m. [Day 32]
As they enter the hospital room, Mary Parker sneers at them. Her face is bloodless and pale, gray smeared underneath her eyes, her hands limp at her sides, heavy swathes of bandages sticking out underneath her hospital gown. Her left hand is chained to the hospital bed, but it's obvious that even without it, she couldn't get up.
"My, my," Mary drawls weakly, "how unexpected. Did you break out, or did you get a hall pass from the principal, Mr. Barton?"
The creases around Clint's eyes tighten a fraction, but it's invisible to anyone who doesn't know him. Natasha was looking for it. But they aren't here as friends, so Natasha does nothing to reassure him. Instead, she closes the hospital door behind them and draws the curtain.
"I think that's a question better left up for God to answer," Clint says vaguely.
Mary laughs, but Natasha can tell that it's nervous. She knows who they are. She knows what they are, and the only thing that Natasha can think is good. She should be afraid of them. Natasha turns around to face the woman again but discreetly checks to make sure that the watch Tony gave her is still activated.
He, Rhodey, Sam, and Happy are in Tony's hospital room listening, and it would rather defeat the purpose if she'd turned it off.
Clint has stopped near the edge of the bed, but Natasha has no qualms getting up close with the woman. She takes several steps until they're close enough to touch and folds her arms across her chest.
Mary looks between both of them, licking her lips. "If you're in here to kill me, then just get on with it."
Natasha tilts her head. "You think we're here to kill you?"
"I can't imagine another reason." Mary smiles wide, "Tony Stark does like having assassins at his disposal, doesn't he? Gotta keep Stark Industries at the top somehow."
It's a jab and a pointed one, and Natasha is once again grateful that she talked Tony down from talking with her himself.
"Hm." Natasha intones.
Mary laughs nervously. Her hands are still on the bed sheets.
"See," Clint rubs at the back of his head, "what I don't understand is why you would take a sixteen-year-old kid you hated a decade ago and then stuff him somewhere no one can find. Is this some sort of petty revenge? Mom's gotta grudge?"
Mary rolls her eyes. "As if I would ever sink so low as to hold a grudge. I'm not six."
Clint shrugs his shoulders. "Eh, debatable."
Mary's eyes flash. "I didn't drag his sorry butt to California on a whim. Do you have any idea what I went through to get him there?"
"I imagine it wasn't pleasant. Can't be easy to cart around a teenager." Natasha says neutrally.
Mary releases an annoyed sound. "He's gotten so mouthy since was a child. And with his powers…" she shakes her head, "I think we should have had the foresight to see the escape coming, but sometimes it was hard to know when he was conscious."
Natasha's stomach tightens. "These things happen," she agrees.
Mary looks between the two of them and she smiles again, big and unnerving and empty. "Well done, you've got me monologuing. What exactly are you here for? Is Stark listening in? Too afraid to face me himself, or too hurt?"
Clint picks off a stray piece of hair from his jacket. "I think, maybe, he just doesn't consider you important enough?"
"Not worth his time was the exact quote, I think," Natasha agrees. Mary's face falls, and anger takes its place, as Natasha knew it would. Mary feels the urge to be in the center of attention for everyone. Narcissism.
"What a self-centered beast. I wound his child and he doesn't even want revenge?" Mary's voice is unfairly annoyed.
Natasha's eyebrow raises. "You're hoping he'd hurt you?"
"Of course not," Mary snaps. "I'm just...surprised, is all."
Natasha leans in, her voice low and silk, "The thing about Stark you don't seem to understand is that he cares about his body count." Natasha smiles, wide, tipping her head a fraction, "I don't. You know they used to call me Krasnaya Smert' in the KGB? You don't speak Russian, so here's a translation for you. The Red Death. Bloody, red, painful deaths. I do hold grudges. So does my partner." She tips her head toward Clint. "And we're both trained in torture."
Mary withdraws into the bed, traces of fear showing across her face.
Natasha drops her smirk. "Did you kill May Parker?"
Mary stares at her and something flicks across her face, almost like surprise. "May's dead?"
Natasha studies her expression, taking in the weariness in her features, her wide eyes, and her shallow breathing. She's on pain meds, and waiting for a heart transplant that won't get here before she dies. Her reactions are genuine. She didn't know. Mary Parker had no idea who shot May because she didn't even know she was dead.
"Someone emptied their entire clip into her stomach a few hours after you left," Clint says, and Natasha can hear that he's come to the same conclusion that she has.
"Richard." Mary blurts, and Natasha withdraws with surprise, looking back at Clint.
Clint, whose expression has gone flat. His body has tightened up. Natasha read through the case file. She knows that Richard and Mary were partners in what happened, but Mary was the one in charge. She was the most dangerous and Richard was an enabler. But it's been a decade since the couple has even seen each other.
"What does your husband have to do with this?" Natasha asks neutrally.
Mary's face blanks out, her heavy eyes staring at them angrily. "Nothing. I haven't spoken to the man in ten years, how would I know what's going on with hi—"
Natasha slaps her, hard. Mary winces, taking long seconds to recover before she rolls her head back to face them. She flexes her jaw for a second, her hands clenching into weak fists. "You had a reason to go after Peter, and that's what you're not telling us," Natasha says lowly. "So start talking before I make your heart give out."
Mary's eyes narrow. She breathes out shakily. She should be on oxygen, Natasha thinks, but realizes she doesn't really care. The woman seems to recognize that Natasha is serious because she starts to taunt, "I hope that Stark has got some guns at home, because HYDRAs got a handsome ransom on his head. Richard must have been furious that he missed us both by a few hours. He's always been a little trigger-happy. Shot May up because he couldn't really shoot me now could he?"
"Why would HYDRA care about a kid from Queens?" Clint asks.
Mary laughs, hard and painfully, ending in a feat of wet coughs. "D-do you think," she smiles when she can breathe again, all teeth and hard edges, "that he really got bit by a radioactive spider and got his powers? That he was the only unlucky soul on the whole planet who wouldn't have just died or gotten cancer from that?"
Natasha shares an uneasy look with Clint. She'd never bothered to wonder where Spider-Man came from. Tony only knows whatever Peter told him. But that might not be the truth.
"No," Mary presses a hand against her chest. "No." She looks at Clint, "you said, Mr. Barton, in our court case, that we performed human experimentation on him. We did. We were trying to give him gifts." She leans forward, like they're sharing some sort of secret, "And here's the part that we would never tell you, despite how angry it made you, but we did succeed. Peter Parker isn't Spider-Man because of a spider, he's Spider-Man because of us."
000o000
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF RICHARD PARKER AND MARY PARKER V CALIFORNIA STATE. WITNESS BROUGHT TO STAND [CLINT BARTON] FOR QUESTIONING BY CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER [CLAUDIA DIAZ].
DATE: 05.10.2007.
CLEARANCE LEVEL X. UNEDITED DOCUMENT DANGER TO STATE.
...
RICHARD PARKER: We had nothing to do with what happened to him. If he got into some sort of problem, it was his own doing.
CLINT BARTON: Deny this to my face, then. Did you and your wife perform experiments on him or not?
RICHARD PARKER: Maybe we did. So what?
JUDGE ANDREWS: You feel no remorse over the prospect of performing human experimentation on a child?
CLINT BARTON: Why would he? He's a psychopath. I saw the basement. No one should have been living down there, let alone a kid. What were you doing to him with all those spiders?
PHIL COULSON: And then you could explain the quantity of anti-spider-venom that we found down there?
CLAUDIA DIAZ: Objection. Relevance.
000o000
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF RICHARD PARKER AND MARY PARKER HEARING.
CLEARANCE LEVEL X. UNEDITED DOCUMENT DANGER TO STATE.
DATE: 05.13.2007.
...
JUDGE ANDREWS: Are admitting before the court that you did perform what NYPD officer Jefferson Davis described as "human experimentation" on the boy in question, Peter Benjamin Parker?
RICHARD PARKER: Don't be ridiculous. Mary and I aren't animals. Boy was useful is all.
JUDGE ANDREWS: Define "useful."
RICHARD PARKER: You never know what kind of things you can do to the human body until you've got a specimen that won't fight you back. The boy was that for us. He was untapped genetics and a willing participant.
JUDGE ANDREWS: I see, and what exactly did you do to your son, Mr. Parker?
RICHARD PARKER: I was trying to make the next Captain America.
NICK FURY: Is that why you were leaving him in the basement with all those spiders? They could have killed him.
RICHARD PARKER: I think they did more than that.
Next Chapter: February 25th.
(It is completely written and edited, so the only reason it would be delayed is if I forget or get stabbed or something unforunate like that, fyi. XD)