The room is dimly lit, and Pepper runs a tired, defeated hand over here face in realisation once Tony pulls away from the computer with a look of heartbreak on his face.
Tony runs a hand over his face, "we'll find him," he manages to say, "they probably—they want money or maybe realised he wasn't worth the trouble and he's just camping out here somewhere or hiding," Tony says, listing all the possibilities that come to his head there and then.
"You don't know that. We don't know anything," May shakes her head, seconds away from completely losing it, "you can't know," she knows she's being too pessimistic, but she can't help it.
"That's the point, May, we wouldn't be here if we knew," he says, maybe a little too harshly, "I can try." He emphasises.
Three hours earlier
"In the blizzard?"
Peter scoffs, "there's not gonna be a blizzard," he replies with confidence, eyes staring out the frosty window.
Ned makes a face, "the news begs to differ," he says, bringing up his phone and showing him the headline: BLIZZARD TO HIT NEW YORK.
Peter squints, "they're wrong a lot," he shrugs, picking up a pencil uselessly when the teacher glances at them, "they say that like every year," and this year he hopes they're wrong, because as great as being half-Spider is, for some reason he really can't handle the cold the past year and a half.
"Okay, ten dollars says it'll happen," Ned replies, eyes widened and hand extended.
Peter looks down and huffs a laugh, then shakes the hand, "you're gonna lose."
"As MJ would say, 'I—"
"MJ's here, and she can speak for herself," MJ cuts in, eyes on her book which she reluctantly puts down as she mutters the last sentence, " I say you're both wasting your time."
"Yeah? I say you're a buzzkill," Ned retorts, earning a glare from her.
The day goes slow. It's cold, it's frosty and everything is dull and grey. Granted, it's minus three and at four-pm, it looks like the day is all gone and all you want to do is be home and in bed.
It feels like an eternity has passed by the time he reaches his block, especially because the sun has already set and everything feels glum and dark.
He just really needs to get home, because every breath he takes is ice cold, and his nose and fingers are both starting to feel numb, and he doesn't think he's felt this cold before.
Taking solace in the fact that he is in fact nearly home, he takes out his earphones, which are also starting to feel uncomfortably and slightly painful.
A woman runs past him first, purse clutched and gasping a slight "run" as she heads straight towards Peter, who steps out a second before she can crash right into him.
Three more people run past, and he looks curiously ahead, dropping his backpack to his side and trying to find the source of panic.
Two steps in, five of six men dressed in all black and heavy-style gear start to walk towards him. He takes it as his queue to listen to his racing heart and get the hell out of there instead of swing around, mostly because he didn't have his suit or the time to get into his suit.
But they all have their weapons pointed, and he decides to run down, scooping his bag as he turns the corner, where there are several more waiting for him. He turns around helplessly and then looks up the wall. He can scale it—
Darts shoot at him, and at least his reflexes are hyped and working well enough to dodge them.
One of them isn't shooting, just staring until he finds the right stop, and he brings up the gun carefully, aiming at Peter's neck.
Peter dodges, and the dart fires somewhere else, apparently aimed perfectly to take everything into account including the dodge as so to hit him right in the neck.
He lets out a yell and grabs the dart with his fingers in a struggle as he slumps against the wall, eyeing the empty street for help.
He takes the risk now and shoots a web across the street on the wall, but something whips through the air in front of him just as he is less than quarter of a way through the air, cutting the web and throwing him harshly onto the middle of the road.
Everything blacks out a few seconds later.
"I'm trying. I'm trying to do it and I'm trying to find him, and you're all telling me things I don't care about—"
"The van was ditched two minutes ago," Rhodey walks in, phone in his hand, "a rental, but it was stolen yesterday."
"Right, so zero leads," Tony shrugs after listening intently, "nothing new, Ithis/I is what I'm talking about."
"112th street, near some park but there's no CCTV in the area, and there's a blizzard so no one was around either," Rhodey continues, ignoring Tony's comments.
"I'll check the park," Tony says, skipping the apology because hey, this is definitely something new, "you check abandoned buildings around the area, nearby CCTVs, whatever."
May sniffles and stands up, "I'll check shops," she says, or states, "I can do it."
Tony glances at her and nods, he doesn't need an another argument over something he knows she's capable of doing.
When his eyes flutter, it takes a real effort to open them, mostly because it feels like they've been glued shut.
His breathing is laboured, and he can see the fog forming in front of him every time he breathes, it's the only thing he can focus on - the heavy breaths and slowing thuds in his ears.
All he can see is blurred white in front of him - something standing out which he realises is his unmoving hand.
He's outside. He's outside, and it's snowing and he can't move.
Ned was right and he can't move.
He should go home. He ihas/i to go home. He can't stay here, it's way too dangerous.
The shivers are mild, and he settles on the fact that he's getting worse, not better, and is racking his brain trying to figure out where he is, or why he is here. All those questions aside, he knows he's been here awhile.
Maybe he lost his way. No, he's not that incompetent.
He won't be able to figure it out, because he can't find the energy to move himself, even though he should know that lying face down in snow isn't an ideal place to keep thinking about how much he wants to go to sleep right now.
But he does move - he scrunches up his first weakly, and even when he makes out his fingers moving, he finds that that's the extent. And then he feels his fingers twitch, and feels worse because he probably mistook that for movement.
"Everyone can—someone must've seen—it's the middle of the street!"
Tony runs a hand over his face, "we'll find him," he manages to say, "they probably—they want money or maybe realised he wasn't worth the trouble and he's just camping out here somewhere or hiding," Tony says, listing all the possibilities that come to his head there and then.
"You don't know that. We don't know anything," May shakes her head, seconds away from completely losing it, "you can't know," she knows she's being too pessimistic, but she can't help it.
"That's the point, May, we wouldn't be here if we knew," he says, maybe a little too harshly, "I can try." He emphasises.
Then they all get ready to go. Rhodey and Tony head out with their suits, and a car would take forty minutes to get there, so they also get one of the older suits to fly them to the area.
At one-hundred and fifty miles per hour, Tony is there, in the middle of the road, at the abandoned rental, in just under four minutes. He sees that the others have landed safely around the park too.
He clanks towards the van and and smashes a fist through the back doors, which flings down in seconds. It's a hasty decision, because he could tell even before he landed there was nothing and no one in the van, but call it a mix of paranoia and the fact that's it's Peter, so it can't hurt to double check.
"Fri," he mutters, and the HUD lights up, but with nothing important - nothing he can actually use or that will help him, which he was kind of counting on.
He looks to both sides of the park - decides to go with left first and flies upwards for a scan, and it takes a minute or so to properly scan the area, only because he has to be sure he doesn't miss anything, however small.
Peter manages to get up on his knees, about to topple over any second with the strong gusts of wind pushing him around.
Another pang of panic hits him when he looks up, because it's all white ground, and no one nearby — no houses, streets or cars to help him.
That's fine, his mind tells him, everything is perfectly fine, Peter, He's worrying for no reason, and there's no reason for worry.
He manages to stumble onto his feet, then reaches into his pockets for his phone, but his fingers suddenly don't coordinate and it's unusually impossible to stick his fingers into the pocket in the first place, let alone find a phone.
It quickly becomes a lost thought, who needs a phone anyway? Plenty can be done without one. He can take care of himself for one night without a phone.
He starts to walk - maybe he'll find someone to talk to. The thoughts are erratic, and he knows this every time one of the absurd ones springs to mind, but it only takes a millisecond for his mind to tell him that actually, he's making all the sense in the world.
Minutes in, or it could be hours, he finds himself going nowhere, the only thing that has changed is the fact that every inhale of cold air is starting to burn more and more up to the point that he is sure his lips, nose and throat are nonexistent.
It's better this way, because it doesn't hurt.
His legs give out soon after, and he topples back down onto his knees, then, as much he tries to steady his shaking self, he falls sideways into the blanket of snow that has been waiting to engulf him once again, eager to not let him go this time.
Strangely, it's not so cold anymore.
He could really use some coffee right now.
"It's alright," a voice whispers in his ears, and he feels himself getting pulled and dragged until an arm is crossing his chest and tightly holding him in place, not that he is moving much anyway.
It doesn't make much of a difference to him, and he can't bring himself to care or focus on why this stranger is talking to him.
"Breathe," the voice tells him.
His finger jerks, "mmm—I—I—", if he could talk, he'd say that he was breathing just fine. And also that he was very confused right now. But he can't say any of that, because everything that comes out of his mouth is slurred, and he can't get past the first letter, let alone say a word.
His hands are then scooped up from his side and sandwiched between something that feels mildly, somewhat warm, but they are too numb to tell what it is.
"You'll be fine," this man won't stop talking, Peter's mind tells him, it also tells him that everything he is saying is useless and to ignore it.
Then the person starts to shift him around, and he makes out a flurry of blurred, bright lights in the distance.
He jerks, and gasps, then he jerks again. Then suddenly, all the white noise, the talking, the shouting that had started to echo and the crunching of boots is gone.
And all that is left is the thudding.
The lights are starting to disappear too. The lights he was looking for to save him are gone, and they'll never come back.
Thud, thud, thud—
And his eyes feel heavy, like they've been yearning for sleep for the past decade.
Sleeping isn't a bad thing, he tells himself.
Thud. Thud.
So he closes those eyes finally — lets himself rest, because sleeping is important and May never fails to tell him that every single night he comes home late.
Thud. Thud.
Sleeping means he's safe. And he definitely wants to feel safe.
May's scarf is so tightly wrapped around her neck that it's almost suffocating her, but she can't find the energy to untangle it all while he's right there, in front of her eyes. She just needs to know he's safe.
And Tony is still shivering and wet from the few minutes he spent knees-deep in the snow, holding onto Peter, watching his eyes close, then hear his heart gradually stop. He just needs to know he's okay.
They both stand, in front of Pepper and Rhodey, while the already overcrowded Emergency Room struggles to deal with all these casualties on a snowy night.
The ER is packed, and really loud. People are shouting random things into the air, and sometimes it's something important, and at other times it's someone complaining about a broken knee, and any of the four standing by Peter would love to tell them to shut up.
The lights are bright yellow, and at times, they flicker. It makes Tony feel nauseous, or maybe that's the combination of sickly smells lingering in the air.
Peter's skin is deathly pale, and his eyes are closed in a way that says they'll never open up again, but that's what doctors are for.
They watch, even though they've been pushed back and told not to come any closer. But they can still see, because privacy doesn't seem to be a big concern to anyone right now.
His heart won't restart, that much Tony can make out each time the doctor uses the defibrillator and gets a look of guilt and sadness from the others surrounding her.
The fourth time she tries, she steps back like the last three times, and everyone's eyes eagerly watch the monitor so that damn straight line can move and show that the boy in front of them is alive, but it doesn't.
The doctor goes again, even though whoever is assisting her tells her to stop. The fifth time doesn't work either, and this time the other person takes her hand to console her.
Everyone standing there has figured out what it means. It means they can't try again because Peter really is dead.
May starts to shake her head in disbelief as soon as they all quieten down - words stuck in her throat and tears about to fall any second, and it seems like she can't even open her mouth to cry.
"Time of death, twelve-seventeen am," the doctor says shakily, then looks hopelessly at the boy in front of her.
The lights flicker, and the doctor closes her eyes.
Tony suppresses a cough, because he's definitely going to throw up. He's going to Idie/I. He wants to die. He can't be here, he wants to go far away from this place and never come back.
"No. No, he's not—try again!" May shouts, face scrunching up when she chokes a terrifying cry and covers her mouth with both hands.
But everyone has quietened down, and there's no more random medical words being thrown in the air or sense of panic anymore, because there's nothing to be panicking over. Peter is dead.
She looks at their faces and then steps in - they move back out of respect, and she looks over his face, so calm and peaceful. She can't help but feel somewhat responsible - she should've been there. He would've been so scared.
She puts a hand on his forehead, and he's definitely not Peter anymore, because he's colder than any normal person should ever be. Colder than Peter would ever be.
Tony stands frozen in his spot, unable to move or even breathe, until he finally brings his hand to the back of his neck and his breath starts to hitch. The day wasn't supposed to end like this.
12:17am.
Peter was supposed to come home.
Peter was supposed to be surprised at the surprise party May threw him a week early, because then he always figured it out.
He was supposed to be sleeping at home, not lying here.
Sleeping's always a good thing. He was supposed to be safe asleep, but no one told him he'd never wake up again.
Aaaah I killed him in this one for the first time sorry this was probably not what people wanted
I don't know if anyone here is also on AO3 because I posted this there too. Also, thank you for the newer reviews and lots of recent bookmarks? which is the reason I decided to post here again after that very long break