The still body laying on the table looked disturbing, and more than once did Tony have to remind himself that no, it wasn't a corpse. It was Connor, and Tony had an uncertain confidence that he could revive Connor from this… comatose state. Tony refused to refer to Connor as 'just a machine' like Connor had referred to himself. Tony knew more than anybody else that a fully sentient AI could be developed, as shown by Jarvis, but the complexity of Connor's programming was astounding.
When explaining it to him, Connor glossed over quite a few major points, such as whether or not this… blue blood was the 'Thirium' Connor was talking about, or if it was another thing entirely. Tony used a cotton swab to collect a few samples of the blue blood, and then lazily covered up the body on the table with a white sheet. Tony didn't know why, but even just looking at something that resembled a human being made his heart falter every second it came into his peripheral vision.
Tony refocused the microscope over the slide of blue blood and saw that it wasn't just any old swatch of engine oil, it had microorganisms moving along on its own accord, cleaning Connor's inner components and maintaining them by sending some form of energy. It was the kind of relationship that everybody where they both benefitted, the microbes has a place to live, and Connor got his own personal benefits from them.
It looked like it would take at least a few weeks to replicate it, and Tony was afraid that Connor would be missing in action, and everybody else in the Avengers compound who knew about him, would definitely wonder what happened. Maybe it would be better to tell the other Avengers that are residing at the compound, but Tony eventually told himself that the news would be best heard from Connor himself.
Millions of questions and queries were running through Tony at the very second, but he resigned himself to not knowing any of the answers for a while, after all, Connor isn't conscious to answer them.
The words along the page swum when Peter once again tried to read it, just barely managing to get the story behind it. The teacher decided that getting the entire class to read a book with an extremely hard level of understanding, and using all the old timely vocabulary, would benefit the class. Peter absolutely groaned at the thought of said teacher.
He may be a prodigy in Science, Mathematics and Engineering, but English was not his strong suit. It was to be expected when your parents die and leave you with your uncle and aunt at the age of 4, and your uncle worked long and laborious hours to support the now family of three, and your aunt was the only one who could stay at home looking after you.
Even Aunt May sometimes had the odd job here and there. Uncle Ben took hours that meant he could only see Peter ten minutes before Bed, and words spoken between them were minimal, meanwhile, Aunt May typically had the morning free, but sometimes took a few babysitting jobs in the early afternoon.
The thing was, she was Italian, and had done her best to raise Peter like she would her own son back in Italy. Because of Peter's young age, he was quickly adaptable and stuck to Italian like duck to pond, and English became a distant blurry memory, hardly remembering anything he had learned in English prior to him living with his Uncle and Aunt.
he first time he had to relearn English was when he was ten, and Aunt May wanted him to go to a real school, now that they could afford to send him to one. Homeschooling was an extremely cheap option for them, at first. All the resources they used to educate Peter were publicly supplied, like the local public library, and museums.
They got by, and once Uncle Ben was promoted, the idea of sending Peter to a real school looked so much more ideal than ever before, and Aunt May could afford to take on a part-time job during the school hours, rather than staying an occasional paid babysitter once every now and then.
At first, Peter didn't understand English very well and refused to speak out of embarrassment, then he got a hold of the basic structure, and his accent made many girls in his fifth-grade class swoon.
This, however, made other boys in the class jealous that they all had pretty much the same regional accent, so they started to try and mock Peter's accent, putting on a highly toned up bad Italian accent on for the other girls. The girls, being young, took it anyway, and didn't mind that it the others had a false accent, and quickly forgotten about Peter. Time passed, Peter was more learned in English and when the whole 'lets do a mocking of the Italian kid' fad was over, Peter tried his best to disguise his accent in a, rather well impersonated American one.
Once he moved schools to one closer to home, everybody didn't even look twice, simply believing that he was another plain American new kid, nothing new or interesting about him. Peter refocused his eyes and muttered to himself in Italian when the kid to his right looked up at him with wide eyes. It was Flash Thompson again.
"Oh my God, Penis, I didn't know you were-" He started chuckling to himself before finishing. "That was Mexican, right?! I didn't know you were a Mexican! Maybe that's why you're so poor!" Peter immediately stands up, Flash was sort of intelligent, some of the time, passing most of his tests in Science, but this was stupidity.
"Mexican isn't even a language, Flash." Peter looks at him dead in the eyes, and Flash's eyes just crinkle even more with mirth.
"I'm sorry, S-p-a-n-i-s-h then," Flash says, enunciating each word as if Peter was too dumb to understand any of it, and gave a satisfied smirk when a round of laughter was heard. Peter looks his stare on Flash for a few more seconds before sitting back down. He'd had enough of this Flash kid, and there was only so much more he could take. After giving up trying to read the assigned book, Peter stood up and called out in Italian over his shoulder.
"It's Italian, dickhead."
The shocked eyes that made their way over Flash's face was well worth the curse.
It's when Peter arrives back at the compound that he begins to worry. Nobody else is in the compound apart from Tony, who is locked away in his lab and made a specific reminder for Peter to not come in, and Connor won't answer his texts, or even calls. The silence of the compound isn't as comforting as somebody would usually find it, and an eerie atmosphere hung around.
It made Peter feel extremely empty, as if there was a hole in the pit of his stomach. The level of soundproofing the compound had in place was insane, as Peter could usually always hear something, with his enhanced senses. There was always some rustling of animals in nature, or a distant conversation, maybe even ruffles of clothing as people shifted their posture.
But now, there was just silence. Usually, the compound's eerie silence was bearable, as there would typically be somebody talking with him, or intense training going on in another room, but nothing. Peter's ears couldn't pick up anything, and as a resort, the only sound that he picked up was the dull beat of his own heart.
After a while of contemplating a few things, Peter decided to be little productive and began cleaning his quarters in the compound, it was a little messy after… the incident. Less than twenty minutes later the entire room was pretty clean, and once again Peter was left with nothing to do. A shower would probably help with the somewhat horrifying lack of sound in the compound, but Peter didn't really feel like getting up right now, so he opened a new tab on Safari, and hours poured by as he just browsed and watched recommended youtube videos.
Somehow he ended up on a website for the local Catholic Church, and Peter ended up considering going to a mass. He wasn't strictly religious so to say, but going to Sunday Mass was a pastime that most Italians enjoyed, and by extension, Aunt May would always find the time to take them, this had stopped once Aunt May had finally gotten a job that involved her attendance on Sunday mornings.
Maybe he'd finally feel like he was letting her go peacefully, and maybe he'd ask Tony about going to Italy to visit places where his Aunt May had grown up, attempting to relate to her childhood could definitely put his mind at peace and maybe his grief could be released in a healthier way if he discovered more about her though experience.
Next Summer, Peter was determined to go to Italy.
Turns out, Michelle could speak a little bit of Italian, given her accent was horrendous and linguistics so bad its almost depressing. On a side note, everything she says sounds so formal, and never casual. It was like trying to hold a conversation with iPhone's Siri.
Eventually, in a thick Italian accent, Peter tells her she can speak English if she wants to, there isn't much of a difference anymore theses days to him, although his accent does return when he's particularly emotional, in this case remembering his Aunt May.
He didn't have an Italian accent around the time of the incident… because Peter was too emotionally shocked to properly process any of the situation, but now that he's had time to think back on it and reflect, there's something about it that brings back his accent.
Even a few times he's caught himself muttering in the damned language, realising that the other kids are giving him stares in the cafeteria. He decided to go back to school a few days back, as he couldn't just avoid it all together for the rest of his life, he had to resume a normal schedule sometime, and its never too late to start now.
Some kids were a bit curious to why he's been away so long, while others who had heard of the tragedy in the Parker household were just pitiful… except for Flash. Flash was always going to torment him, not really taking notice of how it affected him or any witnesses. A young girl, in a grade, bellow him, once stood up for him, and everybody avoided doing anything remotely taunting to him for a few days.
That girl, Artemis Crock, could be extremely scary sometimes. Peter eventually thanked her and she told him there was nothing to worry about, and they both went there separate ways after that. The next time Peter heard about her was when news got out that she was moving to a place called Gotham.
A crime cesspool apparently, Peter felt sorry for her but there wasn't anything he could do to stop her from moving. She was gone by the end of the week.
During Materials Design Technology class, Ned had offered Peter to build a new Lego set, Lord of the Rings, and Peter had gratefully accepted the offer, hiding behind the veil of normality it gave off between the two best friends.
"Where's Connor?" Asks Ned. Ever since they'd lost contact with Connor, he wasn't at school for the following week, and still hadn't come in yet. Since Connor was apparently extremely popular with a lot of the girls, and a few of the boys, rumours had started spreading immediately. Connor was the sort of popular person you'd admire from a distance, nobody being brave enough to talk to him, except a few ladies who shyly tried to flirt.
Connor didn't seem to get any of their attempts, looking there dumbly as he says 'You must be mistaken, I've never fallen from the sky before.' or a classic 'you've lost your number? I'm sure you'll find it again.'
His social stupidity was almost embarrassing, but that just made the various different people fall for him even harder.
"I don't know where Connor is Ned. He doesn't answer any of my calls, or texts. It doesn't even say he's read them, which he usually he does read them even if he doesn't respond! I don't think he's purposely ignoring us." Ned nods, looking thoughtful.
"Do you think it's," Ned looks around then stage whispers. "Spider-man or Avengers related?"
Peter immediately stops writing down his design for a clock and freezes. How hadn't he thought of that, it was entirely possible that somebody found out he was Spiderman and thought of kidnapping Connor to try to get to Peter. He'd have to take this up with Mr Stark immediately.
Tony sighs, deeply, pinching his nose.
"He's perfectly fine, Peter." Peter scrunches up his face in confusion. How was Connor fine?! Connor hadn't even seen any of them in a few weeks at least.
"I've given this some thought and I think telling you might be a good choice." Tony leads Peter down to the familiar lab, a lab that Peter's been banned from for a few weeks as well. He's assumed that Tony was just working on a dangerous or surprise project that he didn't want Peter involved in, but as they neared the room, Peter's anxiety was building up, heart beating little faster.
He didn't know what to expect, maybe a coffin preparing Connor for his funeral?
He wasn't that far off, technically.
Tony dialled in his eight digit password for the lab, and the door swung open, showing Connor positioned up, lifelessly in a glass case. It looked like he was one of those display barbie dolls for a moment, eyes open and all. What completely through Peter off was the hole through Connor's abdominal regain of his getup.
"He was shot." Tony says, as an explanation of sorts. Peter gets choked up and red fills his vision again, just like it did that night he spilt the blood out of his wrists.
"You said he's fine! He look's like he's dead, Mr Stark!" Peter felt like he's lost another important person in his life, even though he's only known Connor for a few mere months, Connor was like a best friend to him. He can't of lost another person so quickly, it was like life was trying to test his limits.
"He's not dead. Don't you notice something about him, what's this scene missing. What happens to somebody that gets hurt, what leaves their body." It takes Peter way too long to answer Tony, but he eventually does answer him.
"Blood," He says in Italian, but can't tell that he's switched from English. Peter looks back at Connor, as painful as it is, he can't tear his eyes off what he sees. Everything is there that should make the scene of a dead body that had been shot, everything except for the blood. There's the torn fabric of where the bullet had entered, and the caved in shirt, but no blood, none at all. "Where's the blood?" Tony nods at him stiffly, and ruffles his hair, not taking any notice of the language change. Through Peter's confusion, he still can't tell what this means for Connor, and how this relates to if he's alive or not.
"Now you're asking the real questions." Tony answers back, surprising also in Italian. Tony goes back to a few separate clips under his microscope, and looks at them intently before scribbling down something on a whiteboard, in a hardly legible script. "Which I am trying to answer. Connor has blue blood, and I thought it just might be a lack of hemoglobin proteins which make the blood red, but it isn't that. Somehow the blood evaporates completely after an hour of being exposed to oxygen."
Tony walks to the other side of the room, to a refrigerated shelf, grabbing a few flasks of different chemical compounds and a dropper. "Which is why," Tony points to Connor, "He's in that vacuum sealed case, so all of his blood doesn't just evaporate. At first, I thought recreating this would be easy, but I'm more of an engineer over a chemical person so, things happen and now its been a week or so."
Peter wonders what this has to do with the corpse, it hurts to think of Connor like that, and why it sounds like Mr Stark is planning on resurrecting Connor. From what Peter understands, it's not possible to do that.
"With all due respect, Mr Stark, I hate to be the one that tells you this, you can't reanimate a corpse, but will say that I wish you could." Peter bites the inside of his cheek, and gauges Stark's reaction.
Tony chokes back a laugh, but it's mirthless and really expresses that Tony is extremely sleep deprived and just living off various cups of coffee, and handfuls of caffeine pills at any given time.
"Wish," Tony mumbles, then adds in Italian, "Granted."
Suddenly a clip, as if it was on cue, plays from a projected hologram, courtesy of Jarvis, directly in front of them. It's a security tape.
"I'm Connor, the android sent by cyberlife."