After leaving the precinct, Peter heads directly for Matt's apartment. It's only about a fifteen-minute walk away, but Peter manages it in ten by taking a page out of Matt's book and parkouring across the roofs of the city to make it quicker. He almost misses a jump, once again only being saved by his ability to stick to things (in this instance, the guard rail on a fire escape). He takes it a little bit slower after that, before dropping down to street level half a block away from Matt's apartment and sprinting the rest of the way there. He's definitely panicking, but this is different than usual. He tries to convince himself that the reason for his rapid breathing is just from him sprinting across roofs and nearly falling off one of them, but he knows that it has more to do with the tightness in his chest that feels like there's something in there, clawing to get out.
"Matt! Are you home?" Peter calls loudly, his voice pitched a little bit higher from his nerves, as he knocks on the door.
He pounds on the door for almost two whole minutes, before one of Matt's neighbors opens their door to glare at Peter.
"He's obviously not home. Keep it down."
"R-right. Sorry, I just…" Peter glances away from the woman, and his eye catches on faded letters painted on the wall beside an old cement staircase that reads 'roof access'. She closes the door.
Peter doesn't really think; he just goes for those stairs like his life depends on it. He can remember seeing the roof access in Matt's apartment the one time he's been inside it- mostly because he remembers thinking just how smart it was for Matt to have that feature in his apartment. Surely he'd never be able to keep up the dual identities if his nosy neighbors saw Daredevil stomping up eight flights of stairs at 3 every morning, bleeding all over the railings and such. When Peter gets to the roof, the door leading down into Matt's apartment is unlocked. It makes sense that it would be unlocked; carrying a key in costume wouldn't be a great idea.
As he descends the creaking stairs, the apartment is once again lit only with the bright purple glow emanating from the billboard outside. The lighting shifts through shades of blue and pink and back to purple as Peter does a quick lap of the apartment, including the bedroom, to make sure Matt hadn't crawled home and died somewhere. Fortunately, there's no dead Daredevil in the apartment, but unfortunately, that means Peter has no idea where Matt is. He tosses his backpack down on the floor by the armchair and pulls out his phone to try and call Matt. He feels dumb for not just calling earlier, but his mind was (and still is) pretty clouded with adrenaline and panic.
"No, no, no, no," Peter mutters, as he repeatedly clicks the lock button on his phone to no avail. All he sees in the dead, black screen is a reflection of himself, and Jesus, he looks terrible. He's pale, and his hair is soaked through with sweat both from the nerves, and the impromptu athleticism it took in order to get to Matt's apartment in the first place.
Peter falls down to his knees with a loud thunk to search through his backpack on the off-chance he remembered to toss a spare charger in there at some point, but his unlucky streak continues to shine when all he finds is a broken pencil and an old granola bar wrapper. As Peter lets himself settle into the armchair (he doesn't sit on the couch; the spidey-sense is extremely unhappy with Matt's couch), he realizes that all he can do is just wait for Matt to get home from wherever he is.
About twenty minutes pass by in what would normally be silence, but everything that's happened over the course of this night- of the past week- has left him so on edge that he can't even attempt to filter out all the sounds his enhanced hearing is lending to him. There's a couple fighting in the apartment downstairs, and a cat yowling in the alley behind the building, and the sirens from police cars and ambulances just keep pouring in. Peter doesn't even realize that he's crying out loud, heaving sobs with his hands clamped over his ears until he feels a hand on his shoulder.
He opens his eyes from where they've been clamped shut- as if that'll somehow help drown out the sounds and keep the light from the billboard from burning his eyes- and sees Matt kneeling down in front of him. He looks a little disheveled, with his tie loosened, and his shirt about halfway unbuttoned, and of course he still has those stupid fucking sunglasses on. There's a dark bruise on Matt's neck, which is weird, considering he hasn't gone out Daredevil-ing in almost a week but- just then, some movement further behind Matt catches Peter's eye.
There's a guy about Matt's age, who Peter's never seen before, standing awkwardly with one hand clasped around the wrist of his opposite arm as he does his best not to wobble on unsteady feet while he stands there. This guy's shirt is still completely on, but his belt is undone and- oh.
"Peter- Peter, are you okay?" Matt's asking- and has been asking, for at least a minute now. "Peter, what's wrong?"
Peter hates the way his voice cracks when he speaks, and he hates that he sounds like a scared child. "It's too much-" he manages to get out.
"What's too much?" Matt prompts gently, rubbing a small circle on Peter's shoulder.
" Everything! It's too bright, and it's too loud, and it smells like blood in here, and-"
"Shh… shh, it's okay," Matt continues before turning over his shoulder to address the man standing there. "You should go."
That gets a nod from the strange man, who then realizes his belt is still undone, so he quickly fixes it as he heads for the door, shutting it behind him. Even just the sound of that makes Peter flinch, and full on whimper and try to hold his hands to his head even tighter.
"It's okay," Matt repeats, adding his hands on top of Peter's, and holding them there firmly. "I can fix this," he says, and Peter notices that his voice the absolute tiniest bit slurred.
Matt keeps his hands tightly over Peter's ears, as he gets him up from the armchair and takes him into the bedroom, gently walking Peter backward. They continue this way until the backs of his knees collide with the bed, and he sits down on it.
"I'm gonna let go for just a second, okay?" Matt says. "Two seconds, I promise." Peter nods.
Matt removes his hands from Peter's, and a second later Peter feels headphones sliding over his ears. There's the soft click of a switch on them being flipped, followed by some gentle white noise that manages to drown out almost everything. He feels the mattress dip down as Matt sits beside him, and very carefully puts an arm around Peter, holding him close.
As Peter's heart rate returns to normal over the next hour or so, he relaxes more against Matt and even almost drifts off to sleep a few times. Eventually, he pulls the headphones off and sets them in his lap before opening his eyes to look over at Matt. It isn't too loud anymore, and the light from the billboard, which is fainter here in the bedroom, doesn't burn itself onto his eyes.
"You wanna tell me what happened?" Matt asks softly, giving Peter's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
Peter nods and takes a minute to try and collect his panicked thoughts from earlier. "I think I had another panic attack…?"
Matt huffs softly. "Yeah, you did."
"It wasn't like before, though. Last time I just couldn't breathe, and I felt like I was gonna die, but this time everything was so loud and bright and I just- I couldn't make it stop…"
Matt gives Peter a sympathetic look. "Has that ever happened before? Things being too loud?"
Peter nods. "Yeah- yeah, after I got my abilities, it was always too loud. Sometimes when I get nervous, everything gets loud too… And everything's almost always a little too bright. Wait- is that why you always have the sunglasses on? Is it a super-senses thing?"
Matt smiles fondly and shakes his head. "No, not really."
So it really is just a douchey fashion statement. Huh.
"So," Matt continues, "do you want to tell me why you were panicking?"
"I was with Jessica… She said she wanted me to help her with one of her cases, but I think she was probably just trying to keep me busy and out of trouble. Maybe Mr. Stark thought I needed a babysitter, and told her to do it or something- I wouldn't put it past him. Whatever, doesn't matter. So we ended up at this- this bar. Called Mouth- mouth something. It was super trashy and disgusting," Peter says.
"Mouthful," Matt replies with a nod. "I know the place."
"Right- well, there was this girl there, and she had to be like, my age, and Jessica told her it wasn't safe to be there, and the girl said she had to be there because some guy there owned her. She said he owned her, Matt. You can't- people can't own people-" Peter hears the panicky tones rising back up in his voice, and Matt must hear them too because he just hugs Peter tighter and reminds him to breathe.
"Hey… I know. It's horrible and disgusting, and it still makes me sick, even after years of dealing with it. What happened next?" Matt prompts in a soothing tone.
"Jessica and I got her out of there, and we took her to some cop that Jessica said you trust, and I think Jessica's still at the station with her…"
"You did good, Peter," Matt praises gently. "You saved that girl."
"But that's the thing- there were so many other girls in the bar, Matt. Ones that weren't standing close enough for Jessica to start a conversation with, and we only got the one girl out and I just- I can't just leave them there!"
"Shh, calm down, Peter. It's okay," Matt soothes gently. "It's alright, I'm gonna go help them, okay?"
"No you aren't- you're hurt!" he protests. If Matt gets himself injured or killed from doing this, then Peter will never forgive himself.
"Hardly. Peter, I've fought harder battles with worse wounds. I can handle this-Look, I'll even call Frank to help, okay?"
It's a pretty good negotiation, and Peter nods, caving after less than a minute. "But you have to be careful."
"I will be," Matt assures, squeezing Peter one last time before he stands up. "I should only be gone for a couple of hours, alright? You can stay here until I get back if you want."
"Okay…" Peter agrees. He's suddenly feeling just how drained that weird-ass panic attack left him, and all he wants to do is just sleep for a solid 36 hours.
"Alright. Make yourself at home," Matt replies, pulling the blanket from the bed up around Peter's shoulders.
Peter listens to the sound of Matt walking back into the living room and opening the closet door. There's a faint scraping, followed by the sound of fabric rustling, as Matt changes into the suit. The last thing Peter hears before he passes out, slumped on what feels like silk sheets, is heavy footfalls going up the stairs to the roof access.
When Peter wakes up again, it's to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The first thing he notices is that this time, it's definitely two pairs of boots. The second thing he notices is the daylight coming in through the window. He sits up abruptly, practically launches himself out of Matt's bed, and starts pulling on his shoes. Holy shit, it's gotta be like 7 in the morning. When he stumbles out into the living room, he sees Matt still in the suit, the mask discarded on the kitchen counter, crouched by the sink as he fishes something out from the cabinet there. Frank is sitting on the couch, holding the type of rags that restaurants use, to the side of his arm. It's pretty bloody, and Peter looks away quickly.
"I gotta go—I'm gonna be late for school, and I have physics first period, and I'm totally screwed if I miss that again—" Peter rambles, fumbling slightly as he grabs his backpack from where he's left it by the armchair the night before. Frank's looking at him like he's a little bit crazy, and Peter can't really blame him.
"Jesus kid, don't have an aneurysm," Frank says. "Want me to call you a cab?"
"I'll just catch one myself," Peter replies, waving Frank off, as he tries not to panic too hard.
"Alright," Frank says with a shrug, wincing a little bit.
"Don't fucking move—your ribs are broken," Matt calls back over at Frank, as he finally wrestles a huge first aid kit out from beneath the sink.
"They're bruised," Frank argues.
"I can hear your fucking bones crunching around, Frank. It's disgusting," Matt retorts, walking over to Frank and shoving the first aid kit down on the couch, before rummaging through it for something. "'Get out of there, Frank' I said. 'Don't shoot that, or it's gonna explode' I told you. And what did you do? You blew yourself up!"
"Well, pardon me for not taking your word as gospel, your holiness" Frank snaps back at Matt.
Matt looks more than a little tempted to use the suture kit he's just pulled out to sew Frank's mouth shut instead, and Peter uses the moment of silence that idea creates in order to escape.
"Thanks for letting me stay, Matt. I'll call you later or something—bye!" Peter announces before pretty much sprinting out of the apartment.
He manages to catch a cab about two blocks away from Matt's apartment. He collapses into the backseat, panting to catch his breath. The driver just glances back at him.
"Where to?"
"Midtown Tech," Peter answers after he's at least sort of caught his breath.
"Gotcha," the driver replies, before turning the radio back up when it's obvious Peter doesn't have any other requests.
The station he has on is playing the news, and Peter isn't really paying attention- instead just counting the streets they pass until he hears the woman on the radio say "Punisher".
" The Punisher and Daredevil are back. These two vigilantes, who once turned Hell's Kitchen into a warzone fighting both each other and the law, have once again been spotted working together—this time, to take out part of a suspected human trafficking ring. Witnesses say that Daredevil and the Punisher attacked a bar, severely injuring an indeterminate number of the patrons. Daredevil left the scene with 9 girls, who are suspected to be victims of human trafficking, to take them to a safe location while they waited for the police to arrive, and during that time the Punisher told some of the onlookers to leave the bar before there were shots fired inside. The death toll is currently at five, but there are multiple people in critical condition at a local hospital. At five o'clock this morning, there were multiple explosions down at the docks, and we can only assume this was related."
Peter swallows hard and squeezes his eyes shut. Five people are dead. Frank killed five people. But the other girls are safe. Peter knows he should feel more remorse for being the (indirect) reason five men were put in the morgue, but he can't find it in himself to feel sorry for those monsters.
Peter pulls out his phone, before remembering that it's dead, and oh fuck, he never texted Jessica last night, and May wasn't on the night shift, so she definitely knows that he never came home last night. Unfortunately, thanks to some pretty bad traffic due to some moron causing gridlock, the cab doesn't pull up at Peter's school until about 7:55. There's no time for him to find a charger, go home, or even ask to borrow someone's phone before class starts, so he can't call May. Whatever, hopefully, she'll just assume he spent the night at Ned's house like he does sometimes. Peter pays the driver as quickly as he can, before getting out and sprinting through the front entrance and down the hall to his first class. He sits in his usual seat just as the bell rings. The teacher raises an eyebrow at him but doesn't say anything.
Ned immediately freaks out when Peter walks into the room, and the second he sits down Peter finds himself being punched repeatedly in the shoulder.
"Dude!" he whispers. "Where were you? Tony Stark came to my house looking for you!"
Peter shrugs off Ned's hand. Tony was probably just going to chew him out some more. "I was with Daredevil." Peter's still trying to shrug off his exhaustion, trying to focus on just being awake. Now he definitely isn't also freaking out about Tony trying to track him down.
"He said Jessica thought you might've done something stupid," Ned continues. "Daredevil wasn't answering when she called him, and she said he's still on medical leave, but apparently not, because last night at that bar—wait, were you there?"
"No—I wasn't—I was at his apartment, okay?" Peter hisses back, as he tries to get Ned to calm down at least a little. "A lot happened yesterday, okay? I'll tell you later. Just—he handled it, alright?" Peter catches up to what Ned said before. "What did Mr. Stark say when he stopped by?"
The spidey-sense goes off half a second before a pencil hits Peter in the back, and he turns around in his seat to glare at whoever threw it.
"Are you still talking about how you actually, definitely, super aren't lying about how you know Tony Stark?" Flash whispers, smirking.
"What's it to you?" Peter hisses back, narrowing his eyes as he waits for the inevitable rude comment.
"'Cause I prefer people who don't brag about something that isn't true." The teacher calls for quiet, and Flash just shoots Peter a triumphant look.
He manages to get ten, wonderful, uninterrupted minutes of note-taking in, before there's some sort of commotion out in the hallway, followed by the door opening.
Pretty much everyone's jaw drops when none other than Tony fucking Stark storms in, followed closely by principal Morita, who looks moderately concerned.
"I'm so, so dead," Peter says, quiet enough that only Ned can hear it.
"I'll pray for you," Ned whispers back.
Tony looks directly at Peter, who is now trying to see if he has a somehow undiscovered ability that'll allow him to sink into the floor. Tony is angry again? Angrier?
"Sorry for the interruption," Tony says, not sounding very sorry at all. "I need to borrow one of your students for a second."
Mr. West just gives a gesture that looks like it says, 'you can take anything you want, including my left kidney'.
"Great. Peter, come on, let's chat." Tony says, before turning and walking out of the room.
Peter drags himself out of his chair, since the floor-sinking ability has decided to not make itself known at this time. He does his best to ignore all the eyes on him, but he still feels them burning into him. Principal Morita follows him out into the hallway, where Tony's pacing back and forth. He looks up when he sees Peter, and casts a glance over to the principal. Peter doesn't know what he could have possibly done to have pissed Tony off enough to come find him at school , but he knows he isn't looking forward to this confrontation.
"Mind if I have a minute alone with him?"
Peter silently begs not to be left alone with him.
Principal Morita looks over Tony critically for a second, before sighing and leading them down the hall about ten feet, to unlock a classroom that isn't currently being used. "You've got just a minute or two. Mr. Parker is gonna need to get back to class as soon as possible."
"Thank you," Tony mutters, before dragging Peter into the classroom and shutting the door behind him. Tony moves toward him suddenly again, and Peter braces for an impact.
It takes Peter way too long to realize that Mr. Stark's hands are on his shoulders and patting down his arms to check for injuries. As soon as he seems satisfied that Peter isn't hurt, he pulls him into an actual hug . It's so tight that it's bordering on uncomfortable, and Peter is lost . He expected anger, frustration, anything but this.
"Do you have any idea," Tony hisses out, "how worried we have all been? May didn't know where you were, Ned didn't know where you were, and when you didn't text Jess, she couldn't get a hold of Daredevil so she called me, and I certainly didn't know where you were!"
Holy shit—Tony's scared . For Peter.
"I-I'm fine, Mr. Stark. I promise," Peter says, before awkwardly hugging Tony back for a second. He totally does the awkward back pat, and he hates himself a little for it.
"What the hell happened?" Tony asks, pulling back to put both of his hands on Peter's shoulders again.
"Jessica told you what we were doing, right?"
Tony nods. "Yeah, basically."
"There were more girls at that bar, Mr. Stark. I couldn't just leave them there, but I didn't have my suit so I couldn't help, so I went to someone who could!" Peter explains, feeling a little sick just from thinking about it again. "I went to Daredevil's place, and I was freaking out so I told him what happened, and he said he'd handle it, and my phone was dead so I couldn't text Jessica or Aunt May, and I fell asleep, and I only woke up when Daredevil came back at like, seven this morning and I was still kind of freaking out, and I just- I didn't wanna be late for school because Aunt May would be pissed and—"
"Kid, your aunt's not pissed," Tony interrupts. "She's terrified. She thought someone was gonna find you dead in a dumpster somewhere." Peter shudders at the intervention she's probably planned.
"Wait—how'd you even know I was here?" Peter asks suddenly.
"I hacked into the school's computer system and set it to alert me when you were marked absent, so I knew you were here when it didn't go off."
"What—"
Peter's interrupted by Principal Morita knocking on the door. "That was long enough, Mr. Stark. I don't care who you are, Mr. Parker needs to go back to class now. Your internship already has him missing out on enough."
Tony opens the door and turns back to point a deliberate finger at Peter. "Come see me as soon as you get out today. Okay?"
Peter nods, speechless, and watches Tony walk off down the hall.
"You gonna be okay to get back to class?" Principal Morita asks.
Peter nods again.
"Great. Then I'm going to go make sure I didn't just alienate our best donor," he says, patting Peter on the back, before heading after Tony.
Peter takes a minute to deal with the whiplash he's currently experiencing. He's trying to calm himself down from the fear that he'd built up from thinking Tony was pissed at him again, but instead of going away, it just transfers to the fear that Aunt May might actually murder him. He finds himself defaulting to some of the breathing exercises that Danny taught him, and after a few minutes or silent panicking, he makes his way back to class.
He opens the door slowly and hears the teacher stop lecturing again as he walks back to his seat silently, staring down at the floor and trying to ignore the looks he's still getting. There's been a pretty divided dispute about whether Peter actually interns at Stark Industries, at least there was up until about 5 minutes ago. After he sits down, it takes all of thirty seconds for Flash to throw another pencil at him.
"Dude!" Peter snaps over his shoulder. Does Flash just keep extra pencils on hand to be annoying?
"You actually know Tony Stark," Flash says, sounding a little bit dumbfounded, and more than a little impressed.
"I've been telling you that for months, asshole," he replies before doing his best to go back to taking notes.
The rest of the day passes by obnoxiously slow, but Peter manages to find a charger for his phone at some point and get his battery up to 30% before he has to get to his next class. He ignores the mass of texts and missed calls, and texts Aunt May that he's safe. Apparently, everyone knows that the Tony Stark pulled Peter Parker out of class today, so he keeps getting weird looks and even weirder comments from his fellow students. When the final bell rings, Peter's both a little relieved and a little nervous. Relieved that he can escape the prying questions about his internship, nervous that he actually has to go to said 'internship' now. Tony might not be mad now, but he definitely was mad, and Peter still isn't really prepared to deal with that yet. He sighs and heads for Stark Tower.