Lying Heart
He feels the needle breaking the skin of his forearm and then all hell breaks loose. All Peter hears at first is the sound of a shot ringing out; it hits him in the leg and he doubles over in surprise, the needle slipping out, the man taking a few steps back, stunned. The shots keep coming, but they aren't aimed at Peter—he turns around and sees that it's Fisher holding a gun, and now the bullets are aimed at none other than Peter's father, who has slammed the door to the supply closet to protect Gwen from the chaos. He approaches Fisher and deftly knocks the gun out of his hand, then shoves him against a wall and holds him there.
"Richard Parker," says Fisher's father. "I should have known you wouldn't stay out of this."
"Percy," Peter's father acknowledges grimly.
Fisher thrashes under his chokehold. It is apparent that whatever temporary abilities he was equipped with before have now faded, and that he wasn't expecting Peter's father to run in on the chaos.
"Let go of him," says Percy, holding tight to Peter's arm, "or I'll activate the robot, and the girl will—"
Peter thrashes away from him, toward the supply closet door, when Percy yells, "One step further and I'll have her killed—it's on voice command."
Peter halts. Lets Percy take hold of his arm again. From across the room Peter and Fisher stare at each other, both inescapably trapped by the other's father. The situation strikes him as almost comical, but it's a situation that can't go on much longer, as Fisher's starts choking against Richard's hold and the blood rushing up to his face mottles and purples under his skin.
"Activate," Percy orders, and the robot flares back to life with an unsettling hum. He turns to Richard, his face remarkably calm for a man whose son is choking to death. "Your son for mine, Parker. Let him go."
"I don't trust you," Peter's father growls.
"You're going to have to," he says, thrusting the needle closer to Peter. Peter flinches, intending to swing a fist at Percy and free himself on instinct, but before he can even finish the movement the robot jerks forward and rips the supply closet door off its hinges. Gwen shrieks in alarm, clamoring back to get away from the door and almost knocking the chair over in the process.
"Let him go," says Peter desperately, only taking his eyes off of Gwen for a moment to make his plea. "Let him go."
Richard's grasp on Fisher's neck loosens just barely enough for Fisher to squeak in a breath. "Put the needle down," says Richard lowly, "or I will let him die."
The robot's attention is eerily intent on Gwen, and when she wriggles and tries to right the chair, its weaponry clicks out of its metal arms and aims itself right at her.
"Dad," says Peter desperately. Richard is surprised into looking at Peter for the first time since he stormed into the room, and Peter is careful not to let his gaze waver. "Please."
Richard hesitates. Peter can see the doubt in his eyes, and something that almost seems to him like fear. He is afraid for him, Peter realizes with some disbelief. It is probably the least convenient moment in all of these eleven years for Richard to decide he cares about what happens to Peter, but Peter can't help the strange loosening in his chest, the relief that maybe his father really did regret the years of doubt and unanswered questions that plagued Peter all this time.
It takes a few moments, but slowly, his eyes trained on Peter, he releases Fisher—Peter inhales deeply, his sights set on Gwen, but then the needle sinks into Peter's arm with a sharp sting and a dulling sensation.
Just as quickly as it dulls him it burns through his veins, seeming to worsen with every heartbeat. He can't help stumbling to his knees, the pain crippling and unstoppable.
"Peter!"
For a moment he can't answer. He sucks in a breath, a painful relief, and the agony seems to subside. He staggers to his feet.
His father is running toward him. Gwen is screaming incoherently. Fisher is—Peter can't see Fisher anymore, he doesn't know where Fisher is, but Percy is moving, moving toward the robot.
"Stop," Peter gasps, trying to point, "stop him."
"Peter," says his father, grabbing him by the elbows, hoisting him up.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," says Peter, trying to right himself.
His father picks up the needle from the ground. Its contents are empty. He looks up at Peter, shaking his head, blinking hard. "I'm so sorry," he says to Peter, touching his cheek in a gesture that is foreign but inexplicably familiar to him. Peter is too surprised to pull away. "I'm so sorry … this is all my fault."
"I'm okay," says Peter, more confidently, feeling like a child in that he suddenly needs his father to nod at him and confirm it. He doesn't. Peter has to wrench his eyes away—the despair, the hopelessness in his father's eyes is scaring him.
He turns again to Percy, only to see that he has managed to clamber inside of the robot in the time they have been distracted. It whirs to life, louder than before, and hovers over the gym floor. It heads straight toward them, prepared to fire.
Peter shoves his mask back on and slings biocables from both of his wrists, propelling himself at the torso of the robot, where he knows Percy is protected inside. He smashes it with his fist; it makes a small dent, just enough, Peter thinks, to stall Percy for a moment, and it's that moment that Peter takes to turn to his father. Richard is still standing there, floundering, staring at Peter with incomprehensible grief.
"Go," shouts Peter, hoping that it will make his father collect himself. "Get Gwen out of here."
He doesn't know if he gets through to the man, because the robot is shooting upward, with Peter still in tow. They crash through the ceiling of the gymnasium. Peter cringes at the impact but holds tight nonetheless. It is a feeling of vertigo that is becoming all too familiar, a chase that he has now instigated many times in the past month, but it doesn't make it any easier to fight this battle that will most certainly end one of them, once and for all.
Peter tries to punch through the panel protecting Percy again, but it makes an even less significant dent than his last attempt. His arms feel heavier somehow. As they ascend and he feels the whir of the robot preparing its weapons he throws himself off and lets himself fall for a few seconds before shooting a biocable at a building and throwing his body weight toward it and out of the line of fire.
He is sluggish, he is nowhere near as fast as he is in his prime, but he is functioning and it's enough. Enough to keep up this chase he will inevitably lose long enough that his father can untie Gwen and take her someplace safe. Peter has accepted his own demise enough times in the past few weeks, so that now, after a dozen or so of these horrifying, life-altering moments, he almost thinks nothing of the fact that he will, most likely, be dead within the next few minutes. It doesn't matter. Gwen will be safe, and with Peter dead, hopefully nothing will ever threaten her safety again.
He has maybe only traveled half a block by the time Percy has located him. Peter doesn't need to turn and look to know that Percy is probably a hair-raising hundred or so yards behind him. He shoots another biocable toward an adjacent building and yanks himself sideways, hoping to evade the man, but this robot seems to be every bit as capable with heat-seeking technology as the last. The laser that hits Peter blows straight through an office building and sinks into his arm.
The shot knocks him off balance and the next biocable doesn't hit its target. Peter is aware he is falling, but his keen reflexes are deteriorating—he knows it shouldn't be so difficult to find purchase on another surface but he can't think fast enough or see far enough to find one.
His back hits the awning of a café, which rips and sends him hurtling to the cement. He gasps at the impact, trying to get back up to his feet, to run, even though he knows how completely futile it is. His head is spinning—is this the serum, or did he just hit his head really hard? How much longer can he keep this up? Is he far enough away from the school that it's making any difference?
"C'mon, Parker, I didn't think you were this pathetic!"
Peter arches his head up at the noise. The figure is dressed all in black and crawling up the side of a building across the street; Peter doesn't have to be close to him to know that it's Fisher, and that he has injected himself with whatever temporary serum enables him to mimic Peter's own abilities. Peter assumed the serum would be more akin to whatever Connors injected himself with, but now that Peter sees Fisher in action, he sees that it's more related to whatever his father injected him with the night of the fourth attacks, when Peter didn't have his abilities back yet.
Fisher shoots his own biocable at the building Peter just fell from, jerking himself over to Peter. Peter stares at him incredulously, making a mental note to be more careful about where he stashes those devices on the decidedly unlikely chance that he survives this.
Fisher slams straight into Peter before he can get out of the way, throwing him at the building wall. Peter groans, and Fisher steps back and regards Peter's limping form with disgust.
"You don't have to kill me," says Peter, "you don't have to do this—"
"Shut up." Fisher kicks him, not hard enough to knock him over, but hard enough that Peter stumbles again. "Look at you—wasted, pitiful, useless—this was supposed to be me! I wouldn't have taken it all for granted—"
"And what were you going to do with these abilities?" Peter challenges him, with the boldness of a dead man. "Huh? Go show off to a bunch of girls, tear it up on your board, make your daddy proud of you?"
A deep, throaty growl erupts out of Fisher as he shoves Peter again. This is silly, this is just plain old playground bullying—Peter almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it. He thinks that Fisher doesn't really care all that much to kill him; he thinks Fisher probably doesn't even know how.
They're interrupted by an earth-shattering explosion, just to the left of them. The robot is nowhere in sight, and Peter rationalizes that it must be using its heat-seeking mechanisms to tear through the building. If Fisher hadn't just shoved him aside it would have hit him and easily ended him in one blow.
Fisher seems more surprised by the blow than Peter is. Peter takes the opportunity to throw himself at the building—at the very least, his fingers are still latching on and able to scale up the wall.
Fisher grabs his foot, tries to tear him back down, and Peter kicks him in the face and keeps climbing.
"It's pointless, Parker," Fisher calls after him, climbing up the wall behind him with what Peter suspects is a much more impressive speed. "I saw that needle go in. You're dead. Just give it up and spare us all the trouble."
Peter grits his teeth and tries to focus on climbing higher. He knows that, he knows, but Fisher is too obtuse to understand Peter's intentions for keeping up this ridiculous chase. His heart beats seem to come with exaggerated slowness, his chest is aching, and with every foot he climbs he feels himself fighting this inexplicable drowsy sensation and desire to let his eyes sink closed. Percy was not lying about the serum. It's Peter's job to try and outrun it.
Fisher latches on to Peter's left leg and tugs. Peter kicks back, but it's futile, Fisher's grip on him is too strong.
"I don't know why my dad even gave a shit about you," Fisher screams. "You're nothing!"
At the last syllable Fisher wrenches Peter's leg down and Peter starts tumbling the forty or so feet back down to the pavement; about halfway down, he is about to shut his eyes, bracing for the white hot shock of his body thudding to the ground, when he sees it: an explosion has ripped through the building, to the exact spot Peter was only balancing seconds before, and it has blown Fisher out of the way like a rag doll.
Peter hits the ground, and a second later, only a few yards away, so does Fisher. Peter doesn't have to look to know that Fisher is dead.
He lets himself stare up at the night sky, remembering the night not so long ago that he had let his biocables run out and hit the ground with a similarly paralyzing crash. Remembering how he lamented that he could never see the stars in such a bright city. He stares up at the blackness again now, breathing in, breathing out. The city is silent. Percy thinks that Peter is dead.
He doesn't know how much time passes before he hears the slight crunch of the robot landing on the destroyed pavement. Peter closes his eyes and turns his head away. He doesn't know much about Percy, just enough to hate him, but he cannot watch this man discover his son's lifeless body, cannot watch him realize the gravest mistake of his life.
In the distance he can hear Percy's screams. It occurs to Peter that the man really shouldn't be that far away, but everything sounds far away now, as if Peter's senses have been muffled and dulled. This is dying, Peter thinks, but it isn't so bad. It's slow and a little bit warm, like falling asleep in the sun.
A shot rings out and Peter jerks reflexively, with a last gasp of alertness he didn't know was still in him. He sees his father holding a gun and knows that Percy must be dead now, too.
"Peter. Oh, god." His father is closer now, close enough to tear off Peter's mask. He feels his head being lifted off the pavement, feels his father trying to prop him upward and giving up when he realizes how far gone he is. He sets Peter back down gently. Peter blinks up at him, barely able to make out the features on the man's face.
He takes a breath, or at least he intends to. It seems like years before he is finally able to croak out the last unanswered question keeping him on this earth: "Gwen?"
"She's safe," says his father.
Finally, he can close his eyes.
Hey fanfiction ... can you keep a secret? The reason I'm updating early today is because I got off work early today and all of this week and I'm driving up two hours to go home and surprise my parents. TO THE SISTERS I KNOW ARE READING THIS: please. keep. your mouths shut. One of you I trust to do this. The other ... I love you, but you know who you are.
Time to hit the road screaming country music and reveling in the fact that I FINALLY FINISHED WRITING THIS GIANT WHALE OF A STORY. The last chapter should be posted on Thursday. You have all been forewarned.