Chapter warnings:
TREAD CAREFULLY IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY THE FOLLOWING:
suicide mention
Suicidal ideation
Emotions
But here we are again, enjoy a sad and oddly paced chapter :D
—*—*—*—*—*
"How the hell are you going to balance two super—"
"Vigilante," Hebi corrected firmly, knowing she was very far from a hero and not wanting that term applied to her. It made her feel like a fraud. Hope, who had been the one talking, sighed but continued on determinedly.
"Fine, two Vigilante personas? Hebi, Boa, and… do you even have a code name for the last one?"
The teen shrugged. "Tony says the codename from now on is Backup. Which is fine, considering he's shit at naming things and I could have ended up with something worse," she said easily. Hope pinched the bridge of her nose, and Scott was frowning. He had forgiven her for the prank the previous week, so the frown was pure concern.
"You know, should you even be keeping so many secrets from Peter? Isn't he your best friend or something?" The electrician asked, eyebrows furrowed and eyes intent on my face. "Coming up with a new vigilante persona just to hide your other one seems…"
"Shady?" Hank spoke up from his spot working on something at the dinner table. "Rude? Secretive? Paranoid? Like she thinks Peter doesn't deserve the truth?" He continued on relentlessly, glancing up to look at the teen, who was frowning at him by hasn't budged.
"Boa's enemies are not the same as Spider-man's" she argued.
"Okay, so you think he isn't competent, then?" Hank shot back, making the girl's eyebrows come down over her eyes.
"You guys don't know nearly as much about me as you think you do," she said, her voice cold. Hope and Scott stiffened at the tone that they had never heard from the girl before. It was like a verbal dagger, cutting through the air dangerously. Hank remained unmoved. "I like you, Hank. But don't push. I don't want Peter to know about me being Boa, because it will open up a pathway to my past that I'm not ready to go down with him. Or anyone."
"What could you have possibly gone through that he won't understand?" He asked, putting down the thing he was working on to give her his full attention. "You're only fifteen, that isn't a whole lot of time to go through the end of the world."
Hebi's gaze went red at the edges, and she stood up from the chair she was on. She had come over to just hang out, talk to some different people for a change. But it looked like that was a mistake.
"I've been through more than you have, old man," she hissed back at him, refusing to show how his simple words had wounded her. His whole body jerked back, eyes hurt before they settled back into a glare.
"You couldn't begin," he started, his voice trembling. "To know what losing my wife felt like. What I went through, you're forty years too young to make that claim, girl."
Hebi felt irrational anger stir up at that word. Girl? Like she was just some kid? Like she was some other fifteen year old girl, worrying about Homecoming dresses and the test coming up and some cute boy, as if that was all that mattered? As if she hadn't suffered more than most people three times her age?
She wouldn't let Hank just write her off like that.
"You don't get to pull the age card," she replied, her voice nearly a growl. "You don't get to do that. I have been through more than you. I've seen more than you, though I wish I was lying. I wish I was being a dramatic, asshole teenager right now. But you're the blind one in this scenario, Hank, not me," her hands were clenching in and out of fists by her sides. Her mind was running through old calculations.
She could have Hank down in five seconds. He was old, he couldn't move like he used to. It would be nothing to surge over and snap his neck, and to defend from Hope. She knew the older woman's fighting style like the back of her hand, by then. It would take a minute, but she could take her down too. By then Scott would have gotten in the suit, but that would only extend his life by—
Hebi forcibly halted her through process before it could go any further.
That wasn't her anymore.
It wasn't. And she wouldn't let a few abrasive words shoot her right back there.
Everyone was staring at her, tense and ready for a fight. It wasn't until then that Hebi realized her fingers had curled around the lamp that was to her right. Disgusted with herself, she let it go as if it was something nasty and picked up her backpack.
Her face was ashen.
"Hebi," that was Hope, trying to grab Hebi's arm. But the younger girl couldn't even stand the thought of physical contact right then, flinching away from the hand violently. Her breaths were coming in gasps by then, her eyes shot wide and frantic.
"I-I-I need to leave," she managed to stutter out, her feet barely making a sound against the wood floor panels as she stumbled to the door and forced her way out into fresh air.
Schooling her face into something neutral, Hebi walked with her head towards the ground. Her fingernails were biting into her palms even as she clutched her backpack straps tightly, the fabric easily giving way under her constricting strength without breaking like something brittle would have. The cool air, it was late in autumn and not getting any warmer, bit at her exposed skin. Normally she hated the weather closer to winter, having a hard time thermoregulating and all, but it came in handy just then to cool her temper. Each breeze was like a knife, but instead of making her bleed blood it forced her anger and adrenaline to flow out of her body.
All that was left behind was disgust. Thick, syrupy, uncomfortable self-loathing that coated her all over like a layer of mucus. It wasn't until she stepped into her and Matt's empty apartment that the tears came, accompanied by the full blunt realization of what had almost happened.
"Oh my god," she choked out, hands slapped over her mouth as she tottered her way to the couch with trembling legs. "Oh my god I almost killed Hank," her backpack slipped from her shoulders, landing on the wooden floor with a thump that legitimately made her jump several feet into the air, muscles tensed. Upon realizing what it had been, a new flood of tears poured down her face and she crumpled onto the ground, her head and arms slumped over one of the couch's arms as she sobbed into the faux leather.
What was she thinking? She wasn't human enough for a normal life like this. Why was she fooling herself? She went and got friends like the idiot she was, thinking it was over. That if she tried hard enough, she could just leave her assassin self behind without consequence.
But she couldn't. She knew that now. She couldn't ignore anymore that her assassin side was a part of her. A side she might not ever be able to shake. Hebi pulled herself up, running into the restroom just in time to vomit into the toilet. Why did she think it was a good idea to make friends?
It was just going to end in her standing over their corpses, just like before. Just like always.
Hebi Teal didn't keep friends alive. She didn't keep parents alive. She was better off alone, where the only person she could kill was herself and the world would only be safer if that route was taken anyway.
Her eyes found the window.
—*—*—*—*—*
Matt got home at six, expecting Hebi to be back already. Knowing she had decided to pay one of her mysterious friends a visit though, he figured she was just running late.
Until he realized her scent around the house was strangely fresh. As in, only an hour or two old. His eyebrows furrowed, walking circles around the room. Was that the scent of old vomit from the restroom? His nose wrinkled, but his heart sank.
Trying hard not to panic, Matt pulled out his phone and ordered the voice command (his new stark phone had an A.I. that never misunderstood his requests, and he was suddenly grateful for the expensive gift that had at first made him very uncomfortable to receive) to call phone rang, but Matt could hear it because it was on the kitchen counter. Abandoned. He grit his teeth, deciding instead to call Tony. The other line picked up almost immediately, the sounds of metal and power tools droning in the background even as the billionaire's voice spoke up amiably.
"Murdock, hello. Good to know you know how to use that phone after—"
"Is Hebi at the Tower?" The lawyer interrupted. He was never the best at keeping a poker face, or voice in this case, and his panic must have been obvious because almost all the background sounds came to a sudden halt.
"No…" Tony said slowly, voice serious and suddenly alert. "Peter said she was at school."
"Yeah, but…" Matt couldn't just say that he knew she had come home, but had left despite possibly being sick or something else. There were no strange scents in the house, Hebi had left on her own. "She's not Home. She said she went over to a friend's place, but she pulls the 'I was an influential homeless kid, I have friends everywhere' card when I try to figure out who she's talking about. I'm pretty sure it's just to get under my skin now, but…"
"But you don't know who she went to visit because of it," Tony finished, receiving only a worried groan in response. "Shit. I'll get Peter, she might have told him something."
Matt took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. He could track Hebi, he knew he could, but he needed to know what was going on. He needed a full picture, to know what he was likely to find at the end of her scent trail.
A moment passed before Peter's voice came over the phone. The worried tone to it suggested that he had been filled in by his dad.
"Mister Murdock?" He asked tentatively. "Um. Hebi said that she was going to hang out with Hank— Hank Pym— and Hope and Scott. Hope and Scott are Antman and there Wasp. I don't think they would do anything, but…"
"She left her phone here at home, so she came back before leaving again," the man told Peter, glaring sightlessly over at where the discarded piece of tech was. "Wait. The window's open," berating himself for not noticing the ever so slight crack that the window was slid open, he walked over. Hebi's scent went down. "I think she used he fire escape."
Peter sighed into the phone, making a slight staticky sound over the line. "Okay. Okay, here. I'll have Happy drive me over to you, okay Mister Murdock? We can go visit Hank together and see if they know where Hebi went."
Matt found himself nodding despite Peter not being in the room. "Okay," The lawyer agreed, taking a deep breath. "Thank you, Peter."
"Hebi's my best friend, Mister Murdock," the teen replied solemnly. "I'd do anything to make sure she's okay."
—*—*—*—*—*
Matt and Peter were silent the whole ride to Hank's house, with Happy driving them since they knew about the oldest Pym's dislike of Starks. The teen kept his eyes glued on Hebi's dad, and wondered if that was how his dad looked when he went out as Spider-Man and didn't respond to a call immediately. The lawyer, who had been unruffled and charming when he first met him, now had his red hair rumpled and messy from running his fingers through it too much. The man was tapping his foot, and couldn't really fail any distraction from looking out the window so he was just staring sightlessly ahead of him and worrying his lip between his teeth.
And what had happened with all of Peter's hero's so far happened again; he was disillusioned. Matthew Murdock was not just an untouchable lawyer with an unfailing moral compass, fighting a fight painfully similar to Spider-Man's but in the legal system. He was a man. A mortal man, whose daughter was missing, and who could be torn apart if hit at the right weak points.
It was obvious Hebi was one of those points.
Still, Matt was the first one out of the car when they got to the right house, and he barely seemed to remember to extend his cane in time before walking up to the door and banging on its wood.
Peter could barely catch up in time for the door to open. There stood Hope Van Dyne, looking tired and confused.
"Peter? And, who is this?"
"I'm Matthew Murdock, ma'am," he said, polite despite the rush to his voice. "My daughter, Hebi, visited today didn't she? She came back home but she left her phone behind and I have no idea where she went."
Hope's shoulders fell instantly, eyes wide. "Shit. Come in, I'll get you something to drink," she said, opening the door and letting them in. Matt's skin itches to just get answers and leave, what if Hebi needed him? But he had to follow the breadcrumbs. As tempting as it was to just take after her like a scent hound, he had to know what he was walking into. If she had chased after trouble, he'd need his suit and possibly backup. If she had just gone out on an errand and was late, he needed a beer to deal with the stress and embarrassment. If she ran away.
If she did that, he needed about a whole decade to add back onto his life, because the stress would take that much away. Maybe more.
"Hebi and my dad had an argument," Hope's eyes shot to Peter, and then back to Matt as she tried to figure out how to word it without betraying Hebi's trust. "He… we were all talking about Hebi becoming Spider-Man's emergency backup, and my father made a remark about her past."
"What?" Matt and Peter asked at the same time, in two very different tones. Peter sounded confused—what would Hebi's last have anything to do about it? But Matt's was pure anger. Hope rushed to explain.
"Hebi said that she didn't tell Peter something, and Hank said that she should always be open with her friends. She made a remark about us not knowing her as well as we thought, and it all devolved from there," her tone was even, but worry seeped into it as she spoke as efficiently as possible. "They started taking hits at each other, making vague remarks about who had a worse past without ever saying anything specific. And Hebi… she got mad," Hope stopped in the kitchen, and turned back to them.
Peter saw the hesitation in the older woman's eyes. Matt heard it in her heartbeat.
"Hebi grabbed a lamp. I don't think she even realized she did it," Hope's voice had gotten softer, and she shifted her weight nervously between her feet. "We thought she was going to attack us. We'd never seen her like that, not even during the times Scott or I had sparred with her. Then she just… snapped out of it. She seemed completely caught off guard, and immediately let go of the lamp. I…" Hope ran a hand down her face. "It looked like she was going into a panic attack. I tried to stop her from leaving, to work through her attack here until she was able to go home safely, but she ran before I could. By the time I got outside, she was halfway down the block, and all our cars are back in San Francisco."
That was when Hank came out, and blinked at the visitors.
"What's going on?" He asked, but nobody had time to answer before he was lifted up and slammed against a wall by none other than Matthew Murdock. Peter blinked, eyes wide, as he processed a blind man doing something like that with little to no effort.
Must be the adrenaline, he thought. He's so worried about Hebi he just ran towards the first vaguely familiar voice and bam.
Still, Peter wouldn't be getting on the lawyer's bad side anytime soon if he could help it. He never knew a blind man could be so intimidating.
"Hank Pym?"
"That's me," to his credit, the older man was mostly unruffled and stared back at the redhead pinning him against the wall with a mostly calm face.
"The next time you consider arguing with Hebi about who has had the harder life, let her win," he growled. "Because she's right. You're four times her age damn it, act like it," with a growl, Matt let go of Pym before Peter could move and coax him to do that very thing. The teenager in the room watched as Hebi's dad took a deep breath as a weak attempt to calm himself down. "I think I know where she went, now," he told them.
In reality, Hope's words had been the last piece of the puzzle. He knew what he was going into, and he would need backup.
"Thank you, Peter," he said, smiling tiredly in his vague direction. "You're a good friend to Hebi. Please keep it that way, for her sake. She needs you more than she will ever admit. I promise I'll call Tony when I find her, so you don't have to worry okay?" the man told the boy solemnly, patting his shoulder as he left the house.
Once he got a few blocks away, Murdock pulled out his phone and called Foggy.
"Hey," Matt said as soon as his old friend picked up. "I'm gonna need you to buy a whole gallon of black cherry ice cream from the store. Hebi's gonna need her favorite, we have a lot of trauma to work through today. Could you pick up some sleeping pills while you're at it? I'll pay you back."
—*—*—*—*—*
While Matt was channeling his inner police dog tracing Hebi's streets through back alleys and fire escapes, Peter got back to the Tower and found that all the Avengers had been filled in by his dad. Strangely enough, Bucky, Natasha, and Clint were all in a corner talking to each other apart from everyone else. In most situation, that would be normal. The three former spies/assassins usually flocked together because they all could relate to one another in ways most of the others couldn't. But at that moment, Peter noticed that those three in particular seemed even more worried than everyone else.
"She should be fine," Sam spoke up, trying to stay casual despite the concern in his eyes. "That girl can whoop Wasp's ass, she can take care of herself. Probably went out to ship tea orders out or something and got stuck in line at the post office."
Peter watched as none of the three in the corner even pretended to give that idea the light of day.
Something was going on. The spider boy was not stupid. He could tell when things weren't adding up, when something was being kept from him. Hope had mentioned the argument with Hank taking place because of a disagreement over Hebi keeping a secret. From him.
That wasn't a shock. Hebi was a secretive person, and Peter respected that. MJ was, too. And Hebi had purposely gone out of her way to try and respect Peter's privacy regarding Spider-Man, so Peter wasn't in any rush to find out all of Hebi's secrets.
But with the three in the corner, two of them being the ones that did Hebi's background check?
Something really wasn't right.
They knew something about Hebi's past that Peter didn't, and it was telling them something that the rest of them didn't know. Peter had never wanted to march up to somebody and ask for an explanation so badly. This was one of the few instances where Peter was okay with being a bit intrusive with Hebi's privacy, as long as it meant getting her home safely. As long as it meant being able to protect her better.
And this seemed like a pretty big thing.
Natasha caught him staring at them first, and her gaze snapping over to him caused the two men with him to also turn. They stood in silence as Peter marched over.
"What is it?" He demanded in a hiss, staring into Natasha's eyes. "What do you know? Where is Hebi?"
"I don't know where she is," Natasha admitted.
"But you know why she left, don't you?" He continued, not letting up. "All three of you," he was interrupted by a heavy hand on his shoulder. Bucky's flesh hand.
"Peter, no," the large man said gently, but his eyes were firm. "This isn't something where telling you is going to fix the issue. All it's going to do is make Hebi lose trust in all of us, and that's the last thing that needs to happen," he told the teenager. Peter glared at the ground, clenching his fists.
"But—"
"Hebi will tell your eventually, kid," Clint spoke up, patting Peter's back. "But it really isn't our place to say. If t makes you feel better, Nat and Bucky are going out to help look for her right now. No, you can't go. Not this time, Pete," Clint at least had the decency to look as apologetic as he sounded. "Hebi wouldn't want you to see her like that."
"Like what?"
After a silence, it was Natasha who softly said:
"Scared."
—*—*—*—*—*
Matt closed the heavy metal door. It had taken a lot of time to reach the roof of the nondescript skyscraper where Hebi's scent trail led, but he assumed that had been the point. The sun was long set, and there sat Hebi. She was at the very edge of the roof, only her legs hanging off so that nobody threw a fit about a jumper. She was laid on her side, which nearly gave Matt a heart attack when he registered that, and was staring out at the city.
Matt stop in place for a long time, not wanting to scare the girl when she was so close to the edge in more ways than one. When she let out a long shuddering sigh, he knew she had noticed him.
"Go away."
"Not a chance," he replied easily, walking up and sitting a few feet behind her. Close enough for her to feel his presence, but far enough not to crowd her. "I figured out that your mysterious friend who made the device for your glasses was Hank Pym."
"Fuck," she cursed softly. "Please tell me you didn't punch him," she asked, probably sounding casual to a normal person. Not to Matt. He could hear the slightly unsteady best of her heart, smell the salt in the air that told of far too many tears. He could hear the waver in her voice, the slight hoarseness that told of her probably having a sore throat the next day.
"I slammed him up against a wall, does that count?" He asked, purposely casual. He couldn't stare out at the sky or the city, so he just listened and felt. He listened to Hebi's too-shallow breaths, and felt the heat of artificial light on his skin. He heard the mumble of countless conversations below them, and the smell of hundreds of different foods. Usually it would be disorienting, annoying, but he let it all mix together into a weird mess of senses that was just The City. It was as close to gazing at the skyline as he could get, anyway. "His daughter made it sound like you were ready to do a little more than hitting, so why do you care if I punch him or not?"
Hebi chuckled humorlessly. "You know why," she accused without any heat to her words. He waited. She gulped, and he listened harder. "I don't deserve any of this," she squeaked out, her voice going hoarse. "I don't. I thought if I ran far enough, if I deflected hard enough, I could become a different person. But I can't. It doesn't matter how many people I save, I'm still a dirty murderer," Matt could smell new tears in the air. Hebi's breathing hitched; she was crying again.
"What have I told you about calling yourself that?" Matt asked, eyebrows furrowed.
"But I am!" Hebi shot up into a sitting position, nearly giving Matt a heart attack since she was still on the edge of the rooftop, but her balance didn't waver for a second. "I was so angry. He was saying things he didn't understand, and I got mad. And I, I don't know. What's that phrase from the movies? Your vision going red? It was like that. I was just overcome with this stupid, stupid rage, and I started thinking…" Matt stayed silent, letting Hebi work through her sobs and figure out what she wanted to say.
"I started thinking about the easiest way to kill everyone in the room," she finally choked out, and Matt felt cold. "I-I thought about how Hank was old and couldn't move like he u-used to, so he'd be down in two seconds. And th-that I was used to fighting Hope too well, so she'd be easy too," Hebi was a mess, speaking through tears and snot and sobs. "I imagined it. It would have been so easy, Matt. I was so close. And then I realized I was holding the lamp, and that everyone looked so scared. They were ready for a fight, it was like I was a wild animal. And I… God, I'm so fucking sick, aren't I?"
"You're healing," Matt argued softly, trying to scoot forward. Hebi tensed, and he stopped.
"I can't do this, Matt," Hebi said with a trembling voice. "I can't. I'll—I'll just black out and wake up with a corpse under me again. It—it might be you, or—or Hank, or Peter. God, if it was Peter I'd willingly hand myself to the Avengers and just kill myself in jail when they were done with me," she admitted, and Matt couldn't breath for a long moment.
He thought they had moved past the suicidal stuff.
Apparently not.
"You won't kill us, Hebi," Matt assured her passionately, but she just drew her knees up and hugged them to her chest. "You woke up in time, didn't you? If anyone can understand losing yourself to anger, it's Doctor Banner."
The unexpected Hulk joke made Hebi bark out a surprised laugh, immediately covering her mouth. Matt's lips tilted in a lopsided smirk.
"I'm a close second though," he said more seriously. "You've seen me, haven't you? Those last two guys who I put in comas. You were there."
She was. Hebi looked down at the ledge supporting her, biting the inside of her lip. "Yes," she said slowly. "But you always know when to stop, even when you're like that. Even when you're the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and not Daredevil."
"They're the same person," Matt pointed out with a raised eyebrow. Hebi just looked over at him with a pitying expression that he couldn't see on her face.
"That's what you think," she drawled blandly. "Me and the criminals who had to face you think differently. The Devil Of Hell's Kitchen is scarier than Daredevil," she looked back down at her feet. "But even he never kills."
"He comes close," Matt admitted softly. "It's only by luck that I have enough of a rein on him to keep that line from being crossed. And maybe your rein is a little frayed, but that's okay. We can repair it. The longer you go without letting yourself cross the line, the easier it will be to stop yourself like you did today. You didn't even throw the lamp, you didn't attack. You stopped yourself before that."
"I'm not safe," she argued weakly. "Not to be around."
"I'm pretty sure I'd be a lot worse off without Boa having my back actually. Or Hebi. You know, that normal snarky girl who for some reason likes running a small business that keeps us from having to rely on the income of one tiny newborn law firm."
The former assassin let out a watery laugh, scrubbing at her face with her palms. "I a-always knew you just like m-me for my m-money," she joked back, hiccups making her stutter. Matt's smirk came back.
"Totally," he agreed with humor tinging his voice. "Although, you do make great tea, too."
"The true reason you k-keep me a-a-around," she agreed with fake solemnity.
"Get over here," Matt breathed softly, holding his arms open. A long second passed before Hebi threw herself into his arms, balling herself up and letting him hold her instead of daring to trust herself not to crush him. Not tonight, not when she was like that. She just let herself be held, let her tears fall into his criminally soft shirt.
For now, it was okay. Matt would help her get better. His grip tightened around her.
He had to help her get better. If she regressed again, he didn't know if she'd be able to survive it without breaking.
—*—*—*—*—*
"Hey, bud," Tony's voice came from the other side of Peter's door, seconds after he billionaire had knocked on it. It was eight thirty at night, almost two hours since Matt had first called Tony with the news that Hebi wasn't home. "Murdock called. He found her, she's okay, they're at home now."
Peter's bedroom door creaked open, and he looked up at the man who adopted him. The lanky teen took a long breath, and let it loose in a relieved sigh. "That's good. Did he say why she left or where… where she was?"
Tony put a hand on Peter's shoulder, running his free hand over his forehead for a moment. "Pete, bud, he said that it was personal for Hebi. That the argument with Hank stirred up some bad memories, and Hebi needed air."
"She wasn't planning on coming back though, was she?"
Tony pauses, which was really all the answer Peter needed. But the former playboy spoke anyway; "If Murdock hadn't found her? No, I don't think so, Pete. He made it sound like she was really in a bad place."
And, really, who could blame the younger boy for sucking in a hurt gasp? Was Hebi really just going to leave that easily? After how close they had gotten?
"Let's pick her up tomorrow," Peter suggested randomly, looking up at Tony with fire in his eyes. His dad lifted an eyebrow.
"Pete, don't you think she needs time to deal with everything? I'm not sure she's going to go to school tomorrow."
"She will," Peter argued firmly. "She won't miss it. Hebi once told me that she's missed so much school from being homeless that she'd show up even with a knife in her gut," he admitted. Tony grimaced.
"I really hope she didn't mean that literally or from experience," he remarked dryly. "But fine. If you really want to, we can pick her up tomorrow and take her school. Should I call Matt or will you?"
"Nope," Peter crosses his arms. "We'll surprise her. She deserves at least that much for worrying the hell out of us."
"Language," Tony corrected automatically, but sighed. "Okay. Be ready to go earlier than usual, then, if we have to make a pit stop in Hell's Kitchen before taking you to school."
The next morning, the two arrived outside Hebi's apartment building in a car that was basically a giant middle finger to the wealth of the entire neighborhood. Peter chafed at bringing an expensive car into a neighborhood like that, knowing it was stupid, but Tony didn't care. After all, it wasn't just anyone's car— if anyone tried to take it, they'd get their due from the security system.
Stark straightened his suit habitually as they walked up to the proper door, and stopped short a few doors away at the sound of slightly raised voices.
"You can't just treat me like a kid, damn it!" That was Hebi. Matt's all too-patient voice came just a second later.
"This isn't about your age or your ability to defend yourself. You know that. But what happened last night can't happen again, you know that right?"
"I was fine."
"Hebi," Matt's voice grew stern. "I know I can't actually see you, but do you have any idea how much it scared me to find you sitting at the edge of a skyscraper?"
Peter and Tony stiffened. They hadn't been told that.
"... I'm fine, Matt, honestly," Hebi's voice was gentler, apologetic. "I'm not suicidal."
"I thought you knew better than to try lying to me," the lawyer's voice sounded almost… disappointed. There was a tense silence, in which Tony and Peter glances at each other and contemplated turning around a leaving right then. Too bad they were both too nosy for their own good.
"I'm not that suicidal anymore," Hebi amended. "I'm trying. I don't plan on dying or killing myself anytime soon, Matt. I promise. I have too many idiots to keep alive. You, Peter, MJ, Ned, Foggy, Karen. I have my hands full."
Matt huffed. "But you can't fly. You aren't Spider-man, you don't have webs or wings or a parachute. You can't just let your legs swing over the edge of a skyscraper because what happens if you fall? On purpose or otherwise?"
"I won't," and hell, if Hebi's tone wasn't one of absolute surety then Peter didn't know what was. "But if it makes you feel better, I won't go any higher than our fire escape for a while unless necessary. Okay? Now, about school."
"You should go," Matt said, making Tony raise both brows out in the hallway. He would have made Peter stay home after a night as emotionally taxing as what Hebi had had, what was Murdock thinking? "You can't avoid Peter forever."
"But, Matt," Hebi sounded tired all of a sudden. "I'm not… what if I..?"
"You won't hurt him. You had a setback yesterday, that's all. Regression doesn't suddenly make you a villain. It doesn't make you evil."
"I almost hit Hank with a lamp," Hebi sounded distressed. "Matt, Scott, Hope, and Hank aren't the best fighters in the Avengers. They utilize their brains and their suits. If I had actually lost myself for even a second longer—"
"You would have stopped yourself," Matt said, taking his turn to sound absolutely sure of himself. "You don't have to fight for your life anymore. You're safe. Nobody can blame you for thinking about combat first and friendship second, but we're gonna work on that. Nobody can expect you to be better after just a couple months. But you won't heal if you don't let yourself go out and be a normal kid."
Hebi sighed. "You suck," she hissed, but it didn't have any heat to it and it sounded strangely off topic. Tony and Peter took that as their cue, and walked up to knock on the door.
The way Hebi opened it almost immediately made them think that maybe she knew they were listening the whole time, except that was impossible. Wasn't it?
"Stark, Peter," she said, blinking at them. "Uh. What's up?"
"I was worried!" Peter didn't bother pretending to be unaffected. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his mouth was set in a frown. "New rule. You aren't allowed to leave."
"I'm sorry, what?" Hebi asked, and Peter hadn't seen her so confused since that time she asked what Legos were. Some of his anger drained away st that, and his glare softened.
"You. You are not allowed to run away like that. I'm your friend, aren't I? And Ned, and MJ? Are we really worthless enough for you to just leave behind without a second thought?"
Hebi's face went ashen in a way Peter had never seen before.
"No!" She refuted immediately. "Fuck, no! That's not it at all!"
"Then don't leave."
Hebi stares into Peter's eyes for a long second, and then the fight seemed to drain out of her along with a long sigh. She quirked a weak smile up at him.
"I'll do my best, brat," she replied. "You here to give me a ride or something?"
"Yup, brought a car I like too so let's get going before someone tries to take it and I have to peel them off the pavement," Tony quipped. Hebi gave him a grateful grin for going along with her subject change.
"Great, I'll be right back. And the first samples of the merch I ordered came in, since you're here will you give some to everyone Tony?" She asked, raising her voice slightly as she went in to grab her bag.
"Sure, kid," the man replied easily, patting Peter's shoulder to let him know he did good. Peter preened.
Hebi came back out a minute later, holding a thermos that leaked steam. It was black, holding the dark purple logo of her business— a purple witch hat with black stars, and the stylized purple words: WickedTea right under it. It was a really good quality thermos, too.
Hebi handed a smaller fabric bag to Tony, smiling. "There's a few hats, shirts, and thermoses in there. There should be enough to go around, but if anyone fights over anything tell me okay?"
The billionaire couldn't help but laugh at that, shooting the teen a smirk.
"Tell you what, if that happens I'll just send you the video of it to do with as you please."
"Deal."
Peter watched as Hebi slowly thawed during the ride to school.
Maybe everything would be okay. He could only hope.
—*—*—*—*—*
Feel free to give me ideas for scenarios you want to see too, if you have any. I might not accept every idea, but I would really appreciate the help. Who knows, your suggestions might get me through a writer's block too.
As always, thank you so much for reading and see you next chapter~
