There is a certain feeling when you are stuck between consciousness and unconsciousness. You can tell there are people around you, you feel the vibrations of them moving, you can sense they are saying something even if you can't figure out their words, and yet it still feels like a dream. An out of body experience.
For a few brief seconds, you don't feel like you exist. Yet you know you do. And as the world slowly bleeds back into focus, you are slowly re-burdened with the struggles of life you left behind when you escaped the waking world. Leaving behind peaceful, or haunting, dreams to find your place back in the world you left.
Yet, Peter knew, being unconscious was different from sleeping. Unconsciousness was sweet nothing. You simply exist outside of yourself until you are thrust back into life. Sleeping, for many, is a similar experience. But not for Peter. Sleeping meant memories and dreams. It meant remembering in a new light the many things he had tried to forget.
Gunshots playing out in slow motion. Freeze frames of the world around him turning to dust while the words of people he had failed played like a broken record player over the top. The faces and tears of the people long lost to time. People and things Peter knew logically he could not have changed, yet felt responsible for all the same.
Sleeping did not hold the peacefulness of unconsciousness. It was a cheap imitation he had no choice but to indulge in. And as the world slowly became whole again in Peter's mind, he knew his soothing rest was over. In mere seconds, the choice he had made to let someone in would bear its consequences. The price of survival. A small price in comparison to the alternative.
It was soft, whatever he was lying on. Much softer than his makeshift bed, which wasn't hard. Peter could feel someone pushing down on his bullet wound, Bucky most likely. In amongst the sounds of life coming in through Bucky's open window, Peter could hear Bucky cursing to himself as he rushed around for what Peter assumed was more medical supplies before returning seconds later.
In all honesty, Peter felt a little bad for making him feel so worried. He hadn't thought about how it would affect others, showing up with a bleeding bullet wound. Promptly passing out probably didn't help either.
Slowly, and relatively easily thanks to the very few lights on in Bucky's apartment, Peter opened his eyes. After looking around at his surroundings for a few seconds, he made eye contact with Bucky. With his friend.
That moment could last forever, because in that moment Peter saw every emotion in existence flash through Bucky's face. Panic turned to surprise, turned to happiness, and ended in sadness.
Neither could find any words to say, each knowing the gravity of the situation. And perhaps it would be easier to say nothing, to imagine you said the perfect word instead of actually trying to find them.
"You're awake, thank God," Bucky said, mostly to himself. The 'you're alive' went unsaid, yet was loud in his words.
Peter opened his mouth to respond, but no words presented themselves. Peter wondered if it was because of his tired body or his tired mind that he could not find the words to say. So Peter resigned himself to simply taking in a shaky breath. A short, hollow breath with no soul in it. Before he tried to speak again.
"Don't speak, ok? Save your energy. Just stay awake, please. Don't you dare close your eyes again," Bucky asked, his words becoming slowly more desperate. Small pleas that Peters wasn't sure he could promise him. "Ok?"
Finding nothing else he could do, he just gave a small nod.
Looking down to where he had been shot, Peter saw the blood soaked towels that obscured his view from the real wound. And Peter in a horror filled stare could only think, That's my blood. The very thing that ran through his veins was now also staining his clothes, the couch, the towels, and Bucky's hands. Peter vaguely noticed that his hands were covered in blood too, though not nearly as much as the super soldier's.
Suddenly, or perhaps Peter had just not been paying attention, too lost in thoughts, Bucky grabbed Peter's hands and placed them over the towels on his wound.
"Hold it here, I need to get more bandages."
Bucky left with waiting for a response, but before Peter could question it he was putting pressure down on his wound. Peter could feel the cold, wetness of the bloody towels. Though he refused to look at it properly, refused to acknowledge that the blood was in fact his. He didn't want it to be real. And acknowledging it would make it so.
A century went by in a few seconds before Bucky returned, medical supplies in hand. He dropped down next to Peter, rummaging through the box to find what he was looking for. Before slowly looking from Peter's eyes to his wound. Peter was strong, but the pain made it impossible to keep pressure on the bullet hole himself.
"Peter, I'm going to bandage this as best I can, but you need medical help," Bucky stated, as he wiped his bloody hands on his jeans.
"That's why I came to you," Peter struggled to get out, trying to lighten the tense mood with a joke. The playful smile he tried to put on came out as a grimace more than anything.
"While I'm flattered that you think so highly of me, this is serious. Peter, the bullet is still in there. And I'm not taking it out myself. We need to get you to the hospital, to a medical team who could help you. More than I can."
That sent the alarm bells ringing in his brain. He had only just barely agreed with himself letting Bucky in. He knows Bucky. He trusts Bucky.
But he doesn't know anyone at the hospital. He doesn't trust the hospital to let him go if they find out he's alone. He doesn't want to be alone in a hospital. Because Bucky is one of the closest things to family Peter has in this universe, but they won't care. He would be ripped from Bucky's arms. He would be alone. If he died, he would die alone.
"No– No hospital," Peter panted out, a single tear danced down his cheek as he spoke. He reached a shaky hand up to grip onto Bucky's shirt, to make sure that man heard him.
"Peter, you need help, please. It doesn't have to be a hospital, I could take you to the tower. Just please don't make me sit here and watch you bleed out," Bucky pleaded, taking the hand gripping his shirt into his hand.
The tower.
The tower meant everyone. He couldn't hide from Tony in his own tower. He couldn't hide from two resident spies of the tower. Everything would be on the table. He wouldn't be able to hide anymore. And really, would that be such a bad thing? Surely they wouldn't just let him leave after they find out everything.
On one hand, Peter didn't want to be a burden to anyone. After all, he had been sent to this universe to unburden people of their troubles to come, would it really be fair to drag them into his mess?
On the other hand, hadn't he said earlier that he needed to get closer to them to help them? What could he possibly achieve if he spent his entire life in this universe pushing every person who tried to get close to him away. He would live a life of solitude. A life where he couldn't truly save everyone. What life is that?
"Please," Bucky tried again. Peter can see the tears building up in his eyes, though he didn't entirely understand why they are there.
Peter trusts Bucky because technically they have met before. He knows the kind of person Bucky is and trusts him. But, Bucky barely knows Peter. He could count the amount of times they have met in this universe on one hand. Why would he care? What had Peter ever done to earn his compassion?
Tears threatened to pour from both their eyes as Peter made a choice. One he hoped he wouldn't regret. Apparently today was a day of decisions Peter would never normally make. But pain and death are mighty convincers to change your ways. If just for a few minutes.
"–tower. I'll go to the tower," Peter managed to get out. The words sound forced, somewhere between holding down cries of pain and hating his own choices.
But it was all worth it when he saw Bucky relax, like a massive weight was taken off of his shoulder just from the few words Peter had said. Though the look was quickly concealed with a look of determination. As if letting himself be too happy would hurt him.
"Good, ok. We can work with that," Bucky started, though Peter realised he was talking to himself more than anything. "We need to get you to the car. I'll bandage you up best I can, then I'll carry you down to my car."
Somewhere in Peter's brain, he registered that Bucky kept talking to him, but Peter was slipping in and out of focus. The noises around him stopped feeling like sounds and started to feel like static. All blending together until they all sound the same. A painful symphony he couldn't escape.
At some point, he must have closed his eyes. The world was dark again, but he was still conscious, for now. The sweet, peaceful darkness called out to him. Promising him a soothing escape from his situation. The darkness' arms reached out, as if to welcome him into a warm embrace. For a moment, Peter thinks he is happy. That perhaps he could rest for one moment more in the arms of the once terrifying shadow that surrounded him. He leaned in, ready to give in. He's ready to rest.
not yet
The voice was quiet, but so was the world, so Peter heard it perfectly. The words seem to scare away the darkness. The embracing arms retracting from him. Yet Peter did not feel alone. It was only after the shadow faded away that Peter realised that the voice he heard was not the voice, but his own.
"–eter? C'mon punk, you gotta open your eyes. You promised me you would keep them open for me. Peter! PETER!" Bucky's voice bled back into focus.
A warm hand on his cheek that he didn't notice before, and if the pressure around his stomach is anything to go by then Bucky had already bandaged him. How much time has passed? Peter's eyes slowly open themselves. Taking in the word around him once again as he did so.
The first thing Peter noticed was he wasn't on the couch anymore, he was in a car. A car he had never seen before. He felt a little out of place in the new surroundings.
"You're awake. Keep it that way, yeah?" Bucky asked, moving his hand from Peter's cheek to hold his hand.
Peter's eyes drifted from Bucky to his stomach, he could feel his bloody clothes. He could smell it, the copper-like smell filled the car. He just wanted to see how bad it was.
"Hey, no. Don't look at it, just look at me. We're almost there," Bucky distracted Peter, eyes darting between the road and Peter. Never straying from either for more than a few seconds.
"If something happens, I need to tell you something.The–" Peter began to say, if he was going to die someone needed to be there to finish what he started.
"You can tell me later, you're going to get through this," Bucky cut him off.
"You don't understand."
"Shhh, save your energy."
The tension in the car was growing, every second that Peter's eyes closed for too long, or when Peter could feel his shirt becoming wetter, each person in the car worried more.
"I called Steve, when you were out for a second, they know we're coming," Bucky said, as if to divert his own attention away from the child bleeding out in front of him.
In all honesty, despite his mostly calm demeanour, Bucky was panicking. His mind kept swinging between contemplating breaking all road rules to get to the tower, pulling over to check on Peter every time he closed his eyes for too long and wondering how Peter had, mostly, managed to stay awake throughout the trip.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by a painful cry from Peter.
As Bucky broke the speed limit, no one questioned it.
When the car finally arrived in the tower's parking lot, a team of medics swarmed the car. Flooding Peter's senses with every sound. Suddenly, he was on a gurney, being wheeled off to somewhere in the tower. The darkness was approaching again, and this time Peter had no energy to shoo it away.
As Peter started to let himself fall into rest, he heard the voices of Tony, Steve, Rhodey and Bucky all around him. Peter's lies were crumbling before his glossed-over eyes. It was too late to turn back now.
In that moment, Peter closed his eyes and let go. If he had stayed awake, he would have seen the two resident spies watching him from afar. Everything he had built, the different lives he had made, were gone.