His ears are ringing as though someone just shot a rifle beside his temple. Peter's world swings in and out of focus, his eyes unable to grab onto the imagery of anything before him. Not the vomit-drenched plant standing before him. Not the mad shuffling of bodies around the room as various S.H.I.E.L.D. members run about, preparing for an assault on The Task Master. And certainly not that which he now knows to be the truth. The world which he was so blissfully ignorant of is now replacing the daydream he now realizes he had been living in for the last few weeks. Chalky taste filling his mouth, Peter spits what remains of the bile out into the plant before him, wishing to expel as much of this feeling from his body as possible. It doesn't work. With every passing second, he feels worse than he did the moment before.
Peter tries to reconcile it, tries to wish it away. But it's all becoming painfully clear, pulling him farther and farther under the sickeningly dark water of misery with each new thought. Everything has been fixed, he now sees. Her arrival at school the day after he saved her. Her asking about Spider-Man that first night at Aunt May's house. Her suggesting that Spider-Man should join The Avengers...It's all be right there in front of him. And he has been keeping his eyes closed because he didn't want to see it.
He wishes he could crawl out from his own skin and slip into someone else's life. Being inside of his own body at this moment, trapped inside his head and feeling slowly poisoned by a toxic leak in his own heart, Peter feels like surviving as anyone or anything else would save him from suffering like this. He doesn't cry; doesn't scream, though those options both feel so viable that he wants to do them both at once. Instead, he just tries to breathe as though the universe weren't pressing down on his chest.
He has been betrayed. And nothing is more painful than betrayal.
"Peter? Peter?"
Flinching at the feeling of a light touch on his shoulder blade, Peter turns to see that Bruce has been trying to get through to him for five minutes now. There is an apology evident in Bruce's face, but Peter cannot comprehend it, partially because he fears Bruce's involvement in the whole matter, but partially because there is no apology that could soothe the feeling resting in Peter's gut. Bruce repeats Peter's name one time, and the young man struggles to stammer a reply out, the effort of speaking forming a noose around his neck and pulling taut against his skin. Breathing is a chore; his sight is still blurred, but he soldiers through the haze.
"What?" He asks, pathetically.
Anything that would follow a response to broken would be demeaning to the gravity of his suffering. Bruce staggers back a few steps, humbled by the brokenness of Peter's expression. Tony, whose hand is bleeding onto the rug with a reckless abandon that the scientist has no inclination to halt, stands like a man possessed. Wildly staring at the now shattered, smoking television set, he breathes in with bullish harshness. Knowing that his friend will be help in this state, Bruce snaps at two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moving silently around them, motioning that they should help Tony tend to his hand. Tony protests, shouting as they try and force him to sit so that they may get the glass shards out of his hands, but neither Peter nor Bruce are paying him any mind. His lungs fill with air and Doctor Banner sinks to the floor a few feet away from the black hole of a human being in front of him, his eyes sincere as he tries to dance around the fact that is hanging in the room like lead balloons: Peter now knows what is wrong.
"She's going to be alright," Bruce reassures him.
No matter how hurt he is now, Peter still loves Lee; it's a fact undeniable and someone as smart as Doctor Banner can see it without looking too deep. Even if he knows that he's been played for the fool, he will still want to know that Lee is going to be alright. At least, that's what the good doctor assumes. However, Peter's clouded vision narrows as he repeats the word thrown at him, the one that recoils in the depths of his thoughts.
"Alright?" He replies directionlessly.
That word tastes foreign on his tongue, as if he can't remember the last time he felt alright and cannot see himself feeling that way ever again. It's a dramatic thought from a heart-broken young man, but in this moment, Peter's mind only knows how to play in dramatics. Bruce smiles half-heartedly in a production of what is meant to be reassurance, but even he isn't entirely sure he believes what it is that he's saying. Nothing is as clear as S.H.I.E.L.D. made it seem when this mission was first laid out before them all.
"Yeah. We'll get her out of this," Bruce says, hardly convinced himself.
But, the problem is that Peter Parker isn't looking for reassurance; he isn't looking for hope of her safe return or of their triumph as the new Avengers. His mind isn't filled with holding her safely in his arms or rescuing her from some monster. The fairy tale that his mind might have sketched before is now corrupted, and he no longer wants to envision the good things that could erupt from this. His eyebrows knit themselves slightly inward and he stares at his hands, now bloodied and busted from the training he's been doing for this team, this chain gang that he willingly sold himself to for the safety of someone who didn't ever need his help at all. The slick taste of bile reaches the top of his throat again, but he coughs it down. Somewhere in the edge of his consciousness, he knows that the shards of glass have all been removed from Tony's hand; the billionaire is refusing pain killers. He is going to rescue the kid. Even in this half-state of awareness, Peter notices that Tony doesn't call her his kid. What a world.
"That's what you think I'm- That's what you think I care about right now?" Peter asks.
If it is, then Banner is a worse doctor than Peter ever could have guessed. Wanting an end to the discussion, needing to get a move and meet the rest of the team in order to compose a strategy for attack and extraction, Bruce tries to brush him off. This is a therapy session that they don't have time for.
"Of course you do. Let's get up. We've got work to do," Bruce says, as gently and understandingly as he possible can.
Bruce stands, but Peter's voice comes out as clear as can be. There is no room for misinterpretation, no room for discussion or argument. There is only the resignation that he feels settling into his blood as he realizes that he must hear the truth-all of it. For closure, for catharsis, Peter doesn't know or care. He only knows that he must understand for himself.
"I'm not going anywhere," he replies, stoic.
Freezing in place, Bruce tries to remind Peter of what is at stake here. A life. Lee's life. One that only hours ago Peter wanted to give up everything to protect.
"Lee is in trouble," Bruce states.
Peter shakes his head; he isn't going anywhere until he is given the explanation that he is owed. And yes. He is owed an explanation; of that much, he is absolutely certain.
"You have to explain," Peter commands.
Bruce is beginning to feel the weight of desperation settle around his neck and he struggles to control the beast raging within him.
"Every minute we stay here we get closer to losing her," he retorts.
It is at that moment that Peter finally succumbs to the urge to scream. He can't take it anymore; the pressure has risen and risen and now it has exploded into a declaration that rips part of the scar tissue around his heart.
"I don't care!" He roars.
But the moment he says it, he knows it isn't true. Sickeningly, he cares so much about her still. Even when there is nothing there, as he knows now that there isn't, he cannot control his urge to move the world for her. The image of her so bloodied, so bruised, so obviously in pain overwhelms him, ever fiber of his muscle itching to strike into action. But there is another part of him, a fighting part if not a dominant one, that wants nothing more than to take a butcher's knife to the muscle in his chest and carve her straight from it. It is just this struggle that cracks him. Emotion colors his face and he shrinks from his own violent tone, his breath coming out in hiccups as he tries to convince himself more than anyone that he shouldn't still love her.
"She obviously didn't care about me. Why should I- Why-" He chokes out, unable to fine a single line upon which a statement could dance.
Bruce looms over him, standing in front of Peter's shaking form; more than ever, his paternal instinct over Tony's daughter shows as the gentility he offered Peter only a few minutes ago disappears, leaving in its place an unwavering, unforgiving order.
"Pull yourself together," Bruce barks.
"Tell me the truth," Peter snaps.
Tony is led by the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics from the room, the occasional agent giving the arguing pair by the vomit-laced plant the odd look, but for the most part, the two are left in piece. Conflict brims in Bruce's head. They do not have time for this argument, but he must move Peter to action somehow.
"Wouldn't you rather hear it from Lee?" He begs.
A dark thought crosses Peter's mind and slides like venomous snakes from between his lips.
"She might be dead soon. Can't hear the truth from a corpse."
The severity of that remark shocks the truth from Bruce's mouth. He tells him the truth. Everything. Every detail. Peter listens with ever-darkening eyes. And when Bruce reaches the end of his story, he tries to redeem Lee in every way that he can. He cannot allow Peter and Lee to lose each other. He just can't watch them fall apart.
"She was running away so you never had to know. She must have been tracked by The Task Master," Bruce offers, "But she does love you. She told me herself-"
Peter cuts him off, speaking for the first time in this little sermon. Pain hangs in the air and Bruce feels it in every syllable that Peter utters.
"Do you think that makes it better? It makes it worse. It makes it so much worse."
The Avengers Alarm rings through the building, red lights flashing like emergency neon, blinding Peter for a dizzying moment. Bruce swallows hard.
"We have to go."
When Lee finally comes to, one of her eyes is swollen nearly shut. But in the quiet stillness of this moment, she knows that she is still in that swirling moment of the calm before the storm. No one has come to rescue her. The revelation fills her with a swirl of desires and emotions. The feeling of being right has never felt so bittersweet. Her jaw aches from the pain, but not moving from her place on the cold, metallic ground, she spies her captor, sitting on a chair, looking out of a series of vast windows, waiting like a cat for a bird to meander into its path.
"They haven't come yet, have they?" She says, the words slurred from her mind's fuzzy reentry into consciousness and from the swollen lips she's sporting at the moment.
To her surprise, the Task Master shakes his head and replies to the question that was meant as a rhetorical taunt.
"No. But I don't anticipate it taking much longer," he replies.
She detects no note of nervousness to his tone. He is as certain of this as he has been of anything ever, and she knows that from just that one sentence.
"You have made a mistake," Lee says.
The Task Master chuckles, as if her defiance is more amusing than anything else.
"And how is that?"
Lee's eyes catch the collection of bracelets resting on her right wrist. One of which bears the Stark logo. A tiny light on the inside of the metal is glowing silently green. Slipping back into unconsciousness, Lee feels her lips quirk upward.
"You'll see."
The Doctors have absolutely not cleared him for duty, but Tony Stark has bigger problems than a few sharp things lodged into his skin right now. He took a few Advil; he should be fine, he reasons with himself. He doesn't begin to feel the effects of the bloodloss until he's sprinting down the stairs to the basement; his brain does quadrilles inside of his skull, forcing him to a halt, losing a few precious moments before the world righted itself and he could once again sprint full-force toward his storage unit. When he finally arrives in the basement and opens his door, he notices that things are not as they always were. But, it's a minor acknowledgement, and nothing that he needs recognition of now. Instead, he throws open the doors to the suit's case, rests in his suit-dressing stance, and calls upon his manservant to assist him in refitting the Mark Seven for his use.
"JARVIS, open the suit," Tony commands.
And then, the reply that comes is the one thing that anyone using artificial intelligence hopes never to hear.
"I'm afraid, sir, that I can't do that," JARVIS replies.
Tony wants to strike something else, but the amount of pain he's feeling in his hand is a pretty fair deterrent for lashing out against any other inanimate objects. Instead, he swallows hard and shrieks out,
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Sure, he hasn't used the suit since the first battle of New York, but there isn't anything that should be keeping the suit from opening. It's rust resistant, time resistant. It shouldn't seize up or keep itself from opening. There is nothing that should be stopping Tony from-
"Your most recent sweep of fail safes on this suit says that it can only be activated with the homing bracelet," JARVIS replies.
And now, Tony remembers. The damn cuff system. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now he feels as though any safety precaution he has ever taken in his life is too cautious. Life and death situations do not care about failsafes.
"It's not a bracelet. It's a cuff," Tony barks out of habit.
Rhodey used to always make fun of the cuff, too. The thought of it is a swift kick to Tony's stomach.
"All the same, it is a precautionary safety measure that I have quadruple failsafes in place to enforce. You may open the suit manually, as Lee has done on occasion-" JARVIS continues, matter-of-factly as though there isn't Tony's daughter's life at stake here.
Tony's heart drops.
"Lee's been in here more than once?" He asks.
"Yes sir. For a while, she was here every evening. Giving the suit improvements," JARVIS answers in the affirmative.
Tony looks around the room and it makes sense; the tools appearing out of nowhere, the alteration to the various equipment boxes in here. It all makes sense now. He gulps, hoping that what he thinks isn't true.
"JARVIS, does she have the cuff?" Tony questions.
A few beeping sounds are heard from the computer screen on the wall nearest the door, and Tony shuffles over to it, drinking in its information.
"According to my calculations, the bracelet is approximately twenty-eight city blocks away. The readout should be appearing on the nearest information screen."
Sure enough, it's exactly the location where S.H.I.E.L.D. pinpointed the Task Master's transmission was coming from. Tony's mind darkens. This changes the game. This changes the game considerably. Desperately, he dials Bruce on the intercom, hoping that the man is somewhere near a communications system.
It only takes two rings for his friend to answer from the weapons department on the Eighteenth floor.
"Bruce. Bruce. I've tracked her," Tony says, breathlessly.
A sigh of relief from the other end of the line.
"Great. Get your suit on and come upstairs-" Bruce begins.
Tony cuts him off.
"I can't," he replies.
Bruce feels his body go cold. This can't be a good sign.
"What are you talking about?" He questions.
Tony sighs.
"Lee's the only one who can get into the suit right now."
Which means that she may be the only one who can save herself.
Alright, my friends! I am beyond sorry for the delay in the chapter. I have been having some health issues and just got back to university, so things have been crazy, but here is a chapter! I am going to reply to all of your reviews, but thank you so much for every one who reviews. You all are so lovely and wonderful! I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this chapter! :)