Held Up

Peter thought he was doing pretty well, all things considered.

He was getting out of bed every day. Showering most of them. He got his assignments from his teachers through his email and he did his homework, and he even talked to the other people in the tower. He told them about school work and about other things, whatever they wanted to talk about. Baking or favorite foods or the weather. And when he had the nightmares, which happened nearly every night, he almost never screamed. Instead, he would bite down on the pillow and hide his face, suffocating himself until he couldn't do it anymore. When his hands shook, he was usually able to hide it. When he was startled by a loud noise, he could go about the rest of his day.

Almost always.

So he couldn't stand the idea of going into grocery stores anymore. So what? It wasn't like Tony Stark ever needed him to run out for eggs or sugar or milk. The kitchen at the tower was always stocked. The pantry was always full of anything he could possibly want to eat.

That morning was no different. He woke at a reasonable hour. Before eleven, anyway. It had been a week. Seven days. When he pulled his pajama shirt off, the place on his shoulder was nearly healed. Bringing a finger up to touch it, he tried not to remember. Tried not to remember the cold press of steel against his forehead, and the screaming...the blood. May. He didn't want to remember. No matter what anyone said, he didn't need to relive it. To think about any of it. So he yanked a new shirt on and didn't let himself think about it.

He headed for the medbay first, skipping breakfast and going straight to the elevator. No one was around, thankfully, so there was no one to push a granola bar into his hand and tell him to sit down. To drink some water. To eat. Instead, he was able to go straight to the medbay, walking down the hallway without being interrupted, and then he stepped into May's room. Well...it wasn't exactly May's. It was just a patient room. A spare room with anyone that needed medical care. But Peter had tried to make it feel like hers. He'd put a picture of her and Ben on the nightstand, and had placed a vase of flowers beside it. The flowers had been changed out a few days ago, replaced with nearly identical fresh ones, and Peter had no idea who had done it.

He hadn't asked.

The bandage wrapped around her head was clean and white, and her newly short, partially shaved hair poked out from it. He knew she'd hate it, but he'd get all of his allowance money together to take her to a salon as soon as she woke up. Or...or he'd get someone to come to the tower if she couldn't get out of bed just yet. That would be fine too. Mr. Stark would help him find somebody. He wanted to get her some of her favorite food, but he knew it was dumb. It was one of the first things he'd suggested when he'd first seen her, though, his brain seeming to short circuit at the sight of her in that bed. When Mr. Stark had helped him into a wheelchair and had wheeled him into her room. They'd given him a plate of bland, mashed foods with jello for dinner, and as he'd stared at his aunt in that hospital bed, he'd started talking, hands shaking where they sat on the arms of the wheelchair, feeling a terrible numbness settle over him.

"I...I should go. I need to get her...get her some food because...because she won't like the mashed potatoes. She's...she's really weird about mashed potatoes and...and stuff like that. Because…" his voice had broken but he'd tried to keep talking as Mr. Stark had moved to kneel in front of him. "Because she...she makes them with onions. Which is super weird because I don't like it when my mashed potatoes are crunchy, but there's this restaurant that will make them just the way she likes…"

"Pete...hey, look at me," Mr. Stark had urged, a hand on his uninjured shoulder. Peter had tried to obey, taking ragged, painful breaths. "It's okay. We have her on a feeding tube right now. She's in a medically induced coma, remember? She won't have to eat anything for a little while. But I promise, as soon as she wakes up, you can tell the chef how she likes her food and they'll make exactly what she likes. Okay?"

Peter had struggled to nod. To take it in. "They...they should have shot me…"

"Don't," Mr. Stark had reprimanded softly, cutting him off. "They did shoot you, Pete. You lost a lot of blood. It was luck that we were able to get to you as quickly as we did. if you hadn't been enhanced, you might have died."

Peter had wanted to go on. To insist that it should be him in that bed. But Mr. Stark had looked so wrecked...so sad and afraid and lost, that he hadn't. He'd just nodded, pressing his lips together as tightly as he could as the man had wheeled him close enough that he could take her hand...so that he could rest his forehead on her bed and fight the tears that he had wanted to let out so badly...but that he'd held back. Because Mr. Stark had been sitting with him and the last thing he'd wanted to do was worry Mr. Stark even more than he already had. The man had done everything for him. The least he could do was hold himself together.

Peter moved over to her side, dropping into the chair that was always there, and took her hand. "Hey, May," he whispered, his voice raspy. "I'm back." He paused, glancing over at the door as if someone would be there. As if looking away would somehow make it better. "My shoulder's pretty much all better. Dr. Cho doesn't want to clear me for Spider-Man just yet, and I think Mr. Stark wants me to talk to somebody." He shrugged, wiping his free hand quickly over his eyes. "It's dumb. I'm fine. It's you that…"

Peter looked away again, unable to stand the sight of her unnaturally still face.

"Please wake up," he whispered, voice breaking. "May? Please…" He wanted to shake her. Wanted her tug on her arm like he had when he'd been little, but he couldn't do that because he might hurt her because the bullet had gone into her head and she was in a coma and if he hurt her even more…it was just like Ben. Ben had been so still. And now...now she was still and silent and...and what if...what if she...

Peter dropped her hand, standing up abruptly and backing away from her bed. The air was too thick in this room, so he stammered out a 'see you later' to May, praying that she could hear him and also praying that she couldn't. That she didn't know how afraid he was. Turning and practically racing out of the hospital room, he headed for the elevator, sticking his hands to the wall when he would have fallen. "Friday? I need...I need to be outside. Can I go to the landing pad?"

"Of course, Peter," she answered, her voice strangely kind, as though she were a real person. Would she tell Mr. Stark, he wondered as the elevator moved upwards. Would the man worry even more now?

Peter stumbled out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened, taking deliberate breaths and racing out to the edge of the landing pad where the wind was the strongest, hoping it would force the air into his lungs. He had to breathe. He had to! But every time he closed his eyes he remembered the gun pressed to his forehead.

May's scream.

The blood.

Why hadn't he shoved her out of the way? Why hadn't it been him? Why hadn't he taken that bullet? It should have been him!

"Peter!' His own name started him, and he turned to find Sam Wilson a few feet away, his hands up, palms out. The wind whipped across his face and he felt tears turning cold on his cheeks, but he still didn't understand what Sam was doing. He started to take a step back, but Sam's eyes went wide with horror and he shook his head. "No! Kid...come here!" he ordered, and Peter looked down only to realize that the backs of his heels were nearly hanging off the edge of the landing pad.

That he was about to fall.

Blinking almost dizzily, he nodded, stepping away from the edge and wondering how long he'd been out there. His tears felt frozen on his cheeks and he was shivering, but he didn't feel particularly cold. Sam practically lunged for him, pulling on his arm until he was several feet away from the edge. "Look at me!" The man squeezed his shoulder, grounding him, then looked him up and down. "What are you doing out here?"

"Couldn't breathe...in that room…" Peter tried to explain, still gasping for air despite the wind that practically carried his words away. Sam just nodded, walking backwards as he led Peter back inside.

"How about now? Can you breathe now?"

He shook his head a little, closing his eyes and feeling more tears fall. It was true. His chest was tight and his whole body felt like it had when he'd been shot...like the blood was draining out and his knees were weak and Sam caught his shoulders before he could drop, lowering him carefully down to the ground and kneeling in front of him.

"Peter?"

He closed his eyes and saw it...the gun. His aunt. The blood.

One second, the gun had been pressed to his forehead. The next, his aunt had surged forward, screaming. Begging them not to hurt him. And then one of the men holding the store up had shifted, shooting once, and his aunt had crumbled onto the floor. He'd lunged, trying to protect her from the thing that had already happened, and the gun had gone off again. The blood flowing from the wound in his shoulder had been beneath his notice as he'd lain on top of his aunt, sobbing and pressing his sleeve-covered hand to her temple until the door had been blasted open after what had felt like hours.

By the time the Avengers had shown up, he'd been too weak to respond. Too weak to even look at the man kneeling beside him while Sam and Bruce eased his aunt onto a stretcher. Mr. Stark had scooped him into his arms before placing him on his own stretcher, his hands pressed into Peter's shoulder to stop the bleeding. And Peter had been thinking the same words that he blurted out now.

"It should have been me. He was going to shoot me! He should have shot me!'

Sam pursed his lips, then nodded a little. "Hey, look at me, Spider-Kid." Peter did his best through raspy breaths, following orders without thinking. "It's normal for you to think that. It's normal to wish that you'd been hurt instead of someone else. Especially in our line of work. But without you...if you hadn't held pressure on that head wound, she might have bled out like you nearly did."

"She was trying to protect me," he whispered, and Sam nodded again.

"You're her kid, Peter. Of course she was trying to protect you. She loves you. Any one of us would have done the same."

Peter wanted to keep arguing. To insist that it wasn't fair, and that he was the reason his aunt had nearly died...that she was still in a medically induced coma while the damage to her brain healed. That Helen Cho had called Stephen Strange, the best neurosurgeon in the country, to look after her, and that Mr. Stark was paying him. All of this was his fault! But Sam pulled him forward, wrapping his warm arms around Peter's shoulders as they knelt in the silent, dusty room on top of the Avengers tower, and all he could do was cry as the other man held him up.