Peter, what happened? Are you ok?" Rachel frantically asked as she rushed over to him, reaching up to touch the bruise on his face. But stopping herself once she saw him slightly flinch away from her prying hands.
The other interns quickly followed suit, walking over to where Peter was standing and inspecting him for other injuries. While this occurred, variations of the same questions were being flown around the room. Peter couldn't tell which questions were coming from whom, all the words muddled together to form one single sound in his ears.
"Are you ok?"
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"What happened?"
"That looks painful, do we need to take you to medical or something?"
"Are you sure you're ok?"
"Guys, guys, I'm fine," Peter tried to reassure as he carefully pushed away their searching hands. He was pretty sure he didn't have any other noticeable bruising, he surely would have seen it while changing last night, but he couldn't be certain. He didn't want them to get the wrong idea. Despite his protests, the questions continued.
"You don't look fine, your whole eye is purple," Oliver stated, gesturing to his face. Peter subconsciously tugged his hood further over his head, his eyes slowly moving to look at the ground.
"It's just a small bruise, it'll be fine," Peter reassured, plastering a fake smile onto his face. But none of the others looked entirely convinced.
"It doesn't look small, it looks like someone hit you–" Roy started to say, only to be cut off.
"Will you drop it already," Peter bit out, unsure himself where the anger was coming from. He wasn't mad at any of them, they were just trying to be nice. But Peter was too tired to keep his emotions in check. It seemed the others were also surprised by the sudden outburst. Though it didn't completely deter them.
With a deep breath Peter calmly, almost monotony, said, "Look, I'm fine. Trust me. No one hit me. The bruise will be gone soon anyway. I'm a fast healer."
"That doesn't answer my question though," Gwen persisted while the other interns seemed to accept Peter's pleas.
"What question was that?" Peter asked.
"What happened?"
Peter racked his brain of a reasonable excuse for his unfortunately placed injury. He didn't want to worry anyone by accidentally misleading them. But it wasn't like he couldn't tell them the truth either. Though it appeared finding a reasonable excuse was harder than he thought. But the key was speed. If he waited too long to speak, anything he said would sound like a lie. So against his better instincts Peter went with the first lie that came to his mind.
"Biking accident," Peter blurted out. It wasn't as dumb of a lie as he thought it was going to sound. Though obviously still not perfect as he was met with many confused faces.
"Biking accident?"
"Uh yeah," Peter began as he mentally put together the whole story. "I went biking with my uncle yesterday. I hit something when I wasn't paying attention and went flying. I'm all good, though don't worry."
It took a moment as the others processed the story and eventually decided to accept it as truth. Which Peter was more happy about then he probably should have been. Though Gwen still stared at him blank faced. It was a little strange, but Peter tried to push forward.
"We are presenting our projects today aren't we? Let's set up our desks," Peter proposed, pulling out his heater from his pocket.
The group, accepting the advice, dispersed to their own desk. They were still slightly covered with blueprints and spare parts and materials they didn't end up using.
Which was putting it nicely, in reality the lab looked like Ultron threw up on each desk. So it was easy to say they needed to do some cleaning before they started.
As Peter walked over to his desk, he sensed someone following him. Turning his head slightly, he saw it was Gwen. With a sigh, he sat down at the desk and began to clean. It seemed he had not entirely convinced Gwen of his bruise's origin.
"You said you were safe," Gwen whispered at him, an edge of anger in her words that was covered with a slight bit of concern.
"I am, it was a biking accident. I already told you what happened," Peter tried to lie, but Gwen just rolled her eyes and reached for his hand. Holding his right palm up to his face.
Peter's eyes dart between Gwen's face and his palm. Unsure of what she was trying to suggest. The confusion must have shown on his face as Gwen started to explain.
"When people fall from bikes, they get small cuts or bruises mainly on their palms, arms and legs. If they fall and hit their head, they mostly get scratches on their cheek. Not black eyes."
Peter yanked his hand away from her soft grasp. Gwen made no attempt to stop him. Shoving his hand into his jean pocket. His eyes looked up to meet Gwen's. They just stared for what felt like decades, waiting for the other to give in. In the end, Peter gave up first.
With a deep sigh, Peter explained "Look, you're right. The bike story was a lie but I can't tell you what happened, ok? You just need to trust me. I'm fine."
"You can't rock up to the internship with a black eye and a shitty story and expect me to just accept it," Gwen tried to reason. Her words holding some venom in them.
"I'm asking you to trust me."
"Peter if someone is hurting you–"
"No one is hurting me," Peter whisper-yelled. He was too tired to deal with this. He just wanted to get through the day and go home. Though it was looking like that was going to be harder than usual.
"Look at me," Peter tried again, their eyes meeting once more, "I'm safe. I just need you to trust me. When I can tell you, I will. Ok?"
Gwen paused. Lost in thought. For a moment, Peter worried that there would be no hope of convincing her to forget about what she had seen.
"Fine, but if something happens again…" Gwen gave in, her eyes glued to the floor. Clearly at odds with her own decision.
"Nothing is going to happen. Look, Dr Williamson is going to be here soon, you should clean up your desk," Peter stated, ending the conversation.
Without a word, Gwen walked back over to her own desk. Looking back at Peter once, though he didn't notice. His web of lies was getting harder to handle. There was only so much longer he could hold on and keep up his facade.
As Gwen made her way to her desk, Dr Williamson arrived, welcoming everyone and asking about their weeks.
His eyes widened as he saw Peter. Though, unlike before, this time he had his lie prepared.
"Biking accident," Peter answered to the unspoken question.
"Ah, I see. You have to be careful Mr. Parker. Make sure you wear your helmet," the doctor reminded, tapping his head with his index finger.
"Yes, sir."
———-
Up in the Avengers common room, the two super soldiers sat quietly, doing their own thing.
Bucky was scrolling through his phone. Sam and Nat had suggested some new music for him to listen to so he was currently looking through the different artists. While Steve was reading an old, worn out copy of the first Lord Of the Rings book.
For a moment, everything was at peace. Everyone in the tower was often doing their own thing. Though Bucky and Steve had been inducted into Nat and Clint's investigation, the two spies had opted to look into Toomes by themselves first before involving the others. There was no point getting everyone involved if it was a dead end lead.
Which was how they found themselves with a few spare days to relax. Something that was quite a luxury for the superheroes. Normally there was always something going on.
The peaceful silence was crushed by the sound of the tower's AI coming over the speakers.
"Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, Protocol Scan and Report has picked up some interesting results. Would you like me to read out the scan's report?"
Now that caught the soldiers attention. They had set up the Scan and Report protocol barely 2 days ago to keep an eye on Peter's health while at the internship. They didn't expect anything to pop up so soon.
Dread filled them as they wondered what had happened to Peter for the results to be considered "interesting" by an AI. They had almost hoped the protocol would never have to report. They were wrong, so wrong.
"Yes Friday, report please," Steve said, finding his voice after a moment. Both soldiers cautiously awaited the results. Tension hung in the air as they waited.
"The scan reports that Mr. Parker has a bruise on his left eye as well as some other mostly healed bruising on his torso. Though this torso bruising appears to be from at least a week ago while the bruise on the eye appears to be recent. Along with this I have detected slight malnutrition, though not enough to cause lasting harm yet. However it is advisable that this is treated as soon as possible," the AI recited smoothly.
…
"Shit," was all Bucky could say as they processed the information. Shaking his head slightly, he moved to start walking towards the elevator. Only to be stopped by Steve, who grabbed a hold of his arm.
"Let go, Steve. We need to go check on Peter," Bucky protested trying to shake his arm from Steve's iron grip. But Steve wouldn't move.
"I know, I want to check on him too. But if we go busting into the internship in front of all his friends we are going to cause a scene. We want him to trust us, embarrassing him will do more harm than good," Steve tried to explain.
"I'm not embarrassing him," Bucky argued "I'm trying to help him."
"He won't see it that way," Steve said slowly, trying to calm Bucky. He always got like this when kids were in trouble. On a mission, seeing them getting beat up on the street, anytime where kids were in danger, Bucky was ready to throw hands. Not that Steve was against it, but it wasn't the right course of action for now.
"Fine," Bucky gave in, "we'll talk to him after the internship. Let's send him a message to stay after he finishes."
With a nod, Steve asked "FRIDAY can you send a message to someone for us."
———-
Peter had long since finished cleaning his desk, while the others were still going. Which made sense. Peter had finished his project a few internship days ago, so his desk was mostly clean. While everyone else had only just finished. Some were even putting their last finishing touches on their projects now.
Peter waited patiently for everyone to finish, scrolling through the YouTube on his desk's laptop as he waited when something popped up on his screen. At first he thought it was some sort of ad and went to click out of it, only to realise at the last moment that it wasn't.
Reading it properly, Peter saw:
"Mr. Parker, please stay in the lab after the internship has finished.
FRIDAY"
Not suspicious at all.
Though, Peter wondered why he was being asked to stay. Panic welled up in his mind. Was it about his bruise? Or maybe it was about his fake documents. There were so many things that could go wrong. He should just leave at the end then, right?
No, that would be suspicious if it wasn't about either of those things. And anyway, they would just talk to him at the next internship day. There was no way out of it. He had to wait. Which only made the rest of the internship painful.
Instead of enjoying his friends' presentations, his mind was preoccupied with worrying—preparing lies and excuses for later. But what could he possibly say to them if they found out that the documents were fake? How could he lie his way out of that situation?
He couldn't. He just had to hope it was about anything else. Maybe Tony wanted to talk to him? Peter hoped it was that, even if he had to lie to Tony about the bruise, it didn't matter if he wasn't kicked out of the internship. That was all he wanted. To stay.
The time passed excruciatingly slowly. A minute felt like an hour with his thoughts running at a million miles per hour. But eventually, the hours passed and it was time for everyone to leave. After lying to the others by saying he was going to the cafeteria for food so they would leave without him, Peter waited. And waited.
His hands fidgeted relentlessly. Nerves taking over his thoughts when eventually, the elevator opened to reveal… Steve and Bucky?
Why were they here?
"Peter!" Bucky called as he rushed over to him.
"Bucky? What are you–" Peter stopped as he realised he was inspecting the bruise covering his eye. Expecting his next question, he said "I'm fine."
"Bullshit–"
"Language."
"No, bullshit. Look at his face Steve and tell me he looks fine."
Sighing, Steve looked over to Peter. His eyes soft, as if he was worried a sudden movement would cause him to break into a million pieces. Peter wondered if maybe that was true, his body and soul felt fragile. A sad smile covered Steve's face as he looked from Peter's bruise to his eyes.
"Peter, what happened?" Steve asked delicately. Bucky stood to his right, awaiting his answer.
"Nothing happened," Peter tried to reason "why are you here anyway?"
"FRIDAY scanned you when you entered the building, they said that you were malnourished as well. Peter, what's going on?" Bucky explained, turning to face Peter and putting his hand on Peter's shoulder carefully.
"That– that is a complete invasion of privacy. What, you just scan people without their permission? Surely that's a privacy breach," Peter argued, anger once again seeping into his words.
"We were just trying to make sure you were ok," Steve tried to reason, attempting to calm the situation down. Emotions were flaring, he didn't want it to become a big argument. Arguing with Peter wasn't going to help him.
"Then you could have asked! Like a normal person!" Peter yelled.
"So you could lie to us and tell us that you were fine? Peter you're clearly not fine, let us help," Bucky pointed out, his anger dripping away and quickly being replaced with concern. It hurt him to see someone who was obviously in need of help blatantly refuse it. Especially Peter, someone who had only ever been kind throughout his time knowing him.
"Peter," Steve started carefully. "Is someone hurting you?"
To Bucky and Steve, the silence told them everything.
To Peter, the silence was his tiredness kicking in. He was over this. He was over convincing people he was ok. He was over life.
He was done.
But of course he couldn't be. He still had so much to do.
"No one is hurting me. I crashed my bike. Accidents happen," Peter answered, his voice monotone from mental exhaustion.
"What about the malnutrition, why aren't you eating," Bucky asked.
"I woke up late so I missed breakfast. I dropped my lunch so I haven't eaten today. Don't worry about it," Peter lied. The words falling out of his lips before he even thought about them. For some reason the lie just slipped out, perfectly made. For a moment he almost convinced himself that that was how his day went.
"Ok," Steve began, though Peter could tell even just from the one word that Steve didn't believe a word he said, "then why don't you come up to the kitchen and have a snack. You must be starving. It's already late and you haven't eaten all day."
The offer was tempting, Peter could feel his stomach yelling for him to accept. No amount of food he ate these days ever seemed to fill him. Causing him to be in a constant state of hunger pains. Though, Peter knew that he shouldn't stay. He could bump into anyone and ruin his different identities he had with the team if he bumped into them upstairs. Besides, he didn't want to burden the team and make them feel like they had to take care of him.
He could take care of himself.
So against his better instinct, Peter replied, "Thanks but I'll have to pass. My mum will want me home soon, dinner and all."
"Still, you should stay. Peter we know something is wrong–"
"That reminds me, I was supposed to help my mum with dinner. She'll be worried if I'm not home soon. I should go," Peter interrupted, making a move to leave.
"We could drive you," Steve suggested, but Peter could tell it was less of a suggestion and more of a plea. They didn't want him to leave, but he had to. He couldn't stay.
"NO! Thank you, but I'm fine. Bye Steve, bye Bucky," Peter said, waving at them as he walked towards the elevator.
The two super soldiers had a silent conversation with their eyes before Bucky caught up with Peter and said:
"If you need help–"
"Call you, I know. You say it every time. Thank you, but I'm fine. Goodbye Bucky."
And with that, Peter left quickly. Closing the elevator door behind him. He just wanted to leave without them trying to stop him again.
The lab was quiet once more, yet the tension filled the room louder than any yells could. It was suffocating. Drowning both the soldiers in worry and dread.
"How much of that did you believe?" Bucky asked.
"Not a word."
Out in the cold of New York, Peter battled with his own thoughts.
Had he made the right choice? Should he have told them everything? Was not telling them worse than admitting it all?
Only time would tell.
———-
Back in the tower, the resident super soldiers arrived back in the common room. Both still consumed with thoughts of the conversation they had had with Peter. Maybe they were reading into it too much. But what if they weren't? What if something was going on and they had just let him walk back into an unsafe situation.
They weren't doing anything but trying to help Peter, so why did they feel like they were doing something wrong?
Entering the room, they saw Rhodey was now sitting at the kitchen bench, scrolling through his phone. The man looked up to greet them, a small smile that was one his lips fading away once he saw the troubled look on his friend's face.
"What got you guys so down? The cinema reject your request for a seniors discount?" Rhodey joked, attempting to lighten the dimmed mood. But his attempt was fruitless as the super soldiers looked back at him with tired eyes. It was not the time for jokes. They were feeling a kind of down that wouldn't be solved with jokes and laughter.
Sometimes there was a kind of tiredness, a kind of sadness that can't be changed. It just was. Until it wasn't. Very rarely do people talk about such a feeling. Because it is too hard to put into words. And because no one can find the right words to describe it, no one talks about it. Which makes those feeling it feel so alone.
Rhodey wasn't about to let his friends feel alone. Not when he was right there.
"What's wrong?" He questioned, moving away from the counter and over to greet his friends.
"Just someone we are trying to help, they won't let us," Bucky explained, rubbing his eyes with his real hand. His eyes scrunching in frustration.
"Is it someone we know?" Rhodey questioned, tilting his head to the side slightly.
"Probably not, it's actually a kid downstairs in the new internship program. His name's Peter," Steve explained.
Silence filled the room and the thought passed through Rhodey's head. Wait, Peter? Like, Tony's Peter? How did Steve and Bucky know him?
"Wait, like Tony's Peter," he questioned, confusion lacing his words.
"What do you mean "Tony's Peter"? I mean Peter the intern downstairs," Bucky stated, clearly as confused as Rhodey was.
"Yeah, Tony has taken an intern from downstairs called "Peter" as his personal intern every Saturday starting last week."
"He never mentioned it," Bucky said, looking down.
You could feel the silence take over the room like an invading army. It wasn't so much the fact that they both knew Peter that was confusing them. It was the fact that Peter hadn't brought up knowing either of them to each other. Why hadn't he said anything?
"You said he needs help, you see it too?" Rhodey asked slowly.
"If you mean the flinches and the bruises, then yeah, we've seen it," Bucky answered coldly.
"Bruises?"
"We just saw him after the internship, he had a black eye. Said it was a biking accident."
Looking them both on the eye, Rhodey answered "We need to talk to Tony. Now."
The trio hurried down to Tony's lab, the silence deafening. The only sound that could be heard between the group was the sound of their feet hitting the ground as they sped down to where Tony was. With the determination they had, it wasn't long till they arrived.
"Tony we need to talk, now," Rhodey stated, entering the lab first with the two super soldiers on his heels.
"Not now honey bear, I'm busy," Tony tried to push his friend out only to be stopped by Steve.
"It's about Peter."
Three words were all it took for Tony to drop everything he was working on. Peter was more important than anything he was working on. That stuff could be postponed, Peter couldn't.
The group huddled around a desk, Steve and Rhodey sitting while the other two remained standing. The tension in the room could be cut with a butter knife. Each person explained how they had met Peter. All finding the situations to have been merely coincidences, they soon changed topic to what was going on with Peter.
"He flinched a lot, and was starving. Said he hadn't eaten all day cause he forgot. But he ate like he hadn't eaten in a week," Tony explained, eyes glued to the table.
"We've seen pretty much the same thing, along with a black eye today and a limp a few days ago," Steve calmly added.
"It's awful, but the bruises are the proof we need to help him," Rhodey stated, rubbing his chin in thought.
"How could we have not noticed?" Tony asked.
"We did, we just didn't do enough to help stop it," Bucky answered, disappointed they had let it go on for so long.
"It has to be a parent, right? Otherwise his parents would have noticed something was wrong and done something about it," Steve guessed.
"FRIDAY, bring up Peter's documents he used when he applied for the internship. Give us the run down on his parents," Tony requested, his words coming out rushed.
"His parents are May and Ben Parker. Records show they live in Queens. May is a nurse while Ben, her husband, appears to move between jobs but is currently employed as an electrician. However, sir, there is something unusual about the Parker's," The AI recited.
"Don't leave us hanging, FRIDAY."
"There is no record of the Parker's ever having or adopting a child. Nor is there a record of any "Peter Parker" ever existing. It appears these documents were forged."
"What," Steve found his words first. Unable to understand that Peter didn't exist.
"How is that possible?" Rhodey asked.
"So what this means is we have a kid who doesn't exist, who obviously needs help that we have no idea where they are staying," Bucky asked. Looking around at the group, hoping that someone, any of them, would correct him.
But no one did.
After all, it was the truth. They didn't know where he was. If he was ok. They didn't know how to help him. They were helpless. For the first time in a while, there was nothing they could do till Peter let them help. Who knew how long that could be?
"Peter comes in to intern on Friday, right?" Rhodey asked, gaining a nod from Tony "Then we'll talk to him on Friday. Something is wrong. We can't let it continue."
They had to wait till Friday. Two days. Who knew what could happen in two days.
They only hoped that they wouldn't be two days too late to save him.
Besides, it was only two days.
48 hours.
2,880 minutes.
172,800 seconds.
2 days.
———
Peter tried to ignore the events of Wednesday. In his experience, dwelling on memories didn't help get over them.
Peter knew he couldn't outrun the super soldiers' concerns. He was in a battle with time. Which was moving at a lightning speed for him. It was already Thursday night.
More than 24 hours later. Soon he would be back at the internship. His bruise had mostly healed already, he hoped no one would mention it tomorrow.
But despite the pressure of Wednesday, he was still excited for Friday. The lab was his happy place. It was one of the only places he felt calm in.
It was just one more day till he was back in the lab.
Just one day, one patrol.
He just had to get through one patrol completely unscathed.
Easy enough.
….Apparently not.