Author's Note: Hey! Been a while. I don't really have anything to say for myself beyond mental illness sucks and I needed a break from MCU. But thanks to those who have waited patiently, and hello to anyone new. :)
Warnings: Canon typical violence, PTSD, horror, psychological horror, child neglect, graphic descriptions of violence, gore, seizures, May's A+ parenting, possible self-harm. More warnings will be posted at the top of chapters. No slash, no smut, no non-con, no incest. Language is all K.
Summary: After the snap, Peter wasn't great but he was coping. Tony's not dead, and that's all he can ask for, right? Then an SI employee winds up dead, and then his teacher, and Peter becomes aware that his recent blackouts may be connected. Or the cause.
Set: Post-Endgame, but alternative an alternative Endgame where no one died.
Parings: Pepper/Tony, maybe some Thor/Jane?
Everyone please stay safe and healthy.
For your information, this story is cross-posted on Archive Of Our Own under the pen name of "Galaxy Threads".
Just a personal note, if you could refrain from using cussing/strong language if you comment (no offense to how you speak! Promise! =) It just makes me uncomfortable) I would greatly appreciate that. ;)
"Sometimes we are just collateral damage
in someone else's war with themselves."
-Lauren Eden
Chapter One:
Through the thick haze of sleep, he feels something hard prick his back. It's sharp and impending, almost as if something is being driven inside of his spinal column. No, not prick. Drilling. The pain is distant, far away, but present. Hot and cold. Gone and there all at once.
Somewhere within him, he flinches, but his body barely responds to his desperate need to pull away. There's only a sluggish shifting of his hands and a lazy roll of his left knee. He's laying down. On his stomach. An attempt to move only reveals restraints. Across his wrists, ankles, and his back.
He can't remember how he got here. He doesn't even know where he is.
He moans low in his throat.
The sensation along his back stops for a moment—blades, knives?—and he feels something plastic and rough touch his bare skin, just above the source of pain at the small of his back. He realizes with no small amount of humiliation that he's been stripped to his boxers, his body vulnerable and exposed. He feels hot and heavy, too heavy to lift his head.
He drags his eyelids apart, but all there is to see is a murky, indistinguishable gray.
There's a sharp, snapping voice. He can't make out words because it sounds like they're speaking through thick glass. Familiar, but he doesn't know from where. Response, more voices, then a sharp jab of a needle against the side of his right leg. His consciousness spins, swirling emptiness awaiting him, and he can wrestle against nothing to stop it.
He falls, scrabbling in the darkness, looking for anything to stop his descent, but there's only the blackness winking back at him. Laughing. Taunting. Always there, always present, always wanting. Pressure starts to build in his chest until it feels like his lungs will simply tear themselves apart, regardless of their bone cage, and he screams—
—Jolting up, flailing, panting.
Up?
"—whoa! Easy! Hey, hey, Peter, calm down!" Ned's voice is loud enough to hurt, and Peter winces, ducking his head. He bites on his tongue when he realizes that an awful, ragged noise is escaping him, making it seem like he's wailing on his deathbed. His tongue is dry and his throat feels swollen. Hands grip his biceps, the fingers persistent in their pressure. Ned. Clinging to him.
Peter heaves in deep breaths, shaking his head to clear it, feeling sick. His mouth is full of saliva, bile lingering on the edge of his throat. The sensation of pain at his back whispers through him, and psychosomatic ache rolls across his spine. He grimaces, biting harshly on his lower lip. The urge to groan swaddles him, but he refuses to give in.
A dream. Just a dream. Calm down.
But he doesn't know why he's dreaming if it smells like sweat, dust and the lingering edge of something other that assaults his senses. Midtown. He's...school. He's at school.
"Hey, Peter, hey," Ned's voice is slightly higher than normal with fear. Peter realizes that the grip on his arms isn't tight for stability so much as it is because Ned's anxiety is augmented so high. He blinks. The familiar long, repetitive halls of Midtown High lazily coming into focus. Everything feels slightly black around the edges.
He licks his lips, but can't find the will to speak. He looks up at the other teen, meeting Ned's blown-wide eyes for the first time since he...woke up? He doesn't know what happened. Did he pass out? He's not currently injured beyond a few nasty bruises. His body feels weird, almost like it's someone else's that he's tentatively touching, and he doesn't know why. His head is thick with fog like he's been vacuuming it directly into his skull.
Ned's shoulders drop a fraction when Peter meets his gaze, as if the simple action of their eyes meeting is enough to reassure him that Peter isn't about to spontaneously combust. Peter's mouth opens, but that's all that gets out. He's starting to sag in Ned's grip, body unwilling to support him.
And the fingers tighten further into his arms, hard enough to tempt bruises, and he's shaken roughly. Furthering nausea lingers in the back of his throat, and he breathes out sharply, looking toward the other teen for an explanation.
"Hey, hey, focus! MJ went to get the nurse," Ned explains. He's still too close, voice too loud.
Nurse? Why would she get the nurse? He's fine.
Peter's gaze slides away from Ned. There's other teens in the hall. Most of them he doesn't know. Which given the five-year-gap between them and the Blip, Peter guesses makes sense. Their stares are boring into him, as if he's something to study. As if there's something wrong with him. Maybe...maybe…
I can't remember what happened.
Peter's hands tremble, and he clenches them into fists, looking at Ned's face and wishing he could crawl into the nearest locker. The humiliation starting to sting him feels both familiar and foreign all at once. Ned frowns, a crease forming between his eyebrows.
"Peter?"
"I," he rasps, his voice thick. He coughs lightly, feeling like there's something cold, wet, and slimy in his throat. He grimaces again. He forces his abdominal muscles to pull their weight, and sits up then forward, crossing his legs and propping his elbows on them burying his face into his hands. Ned's grip releases him, only for one of his hands to rest against Peter's shoulder. He stiffens.
Don't touch it, Peter thinks vividly about his back and Ned's proximity to it, and bites on his tongue. It was just a dream, if a familiar one over the last few weeks. It wasn't real. He doesn't need to be defensive about something that never happened. What is wrong with him?
"Hey, hey, out of my way!" Comes the frustrated voice of the nurse, Mrs. Kurn. The throaty, deep but gentle tone she normally sports is sharp. Peter finds himself leaning away from it despite himself. Mrs. Kurn must push her way through the crowd of onlookers, because her hands are all but shoving Ned out of the way and leaning down in front of him. When she touches him, her fingers are cold, and a deep, throbbing ache pulses through him.
This time, he can't suppress the guttural moan.
"Peter? Hey, Peter, sweetheart, can you look at me?" Mrs. Kurn asks. Peter digs his palms harder into his eye sockets and shakes his head minutely. Mrs. Kurn doesn't make any verbal indication that she saw, and instead her hands shift slightly as she likely turns away.
"Keith! Get them out of here. They're distressing him and I don't know if we should move him yet." He's not dying. It's just...he doesn't know what this is. It's not an emergency. She doesn't have to treat it like he'll keel over if she doesn't. He's fine. Just a little winded and dizzy. A few minutes then he'll be able to get up.
But Peter doesn't move. He doesn't know if he can.
There's a shuffling of footsteps and a man's voice. A teacher. Peter was just talking to him. Biology. His biology teacher. The sound grows louder as the students are herded from the hall and back to class by the teachers he didn't realize were there. Peter clutches at the edges of his hair for a moment, feeling a bone-aching weariness snuggle next to his heart.
Mrs. Kurt's tone is quieter, "Do you want me to get rid of your friends?"
Peter considers it for a long moment, but shakes his head. Mrs. Kurt taps his shoulder, "Look at me, sweetheart."
Why does she keep calling him that? May only calls him pet names when she's angry. Sometimes he wonders if they're ever used to show affection, because movies and TV do the same thing. He sighs deeply, rubbing at his brow before gritting his teeth and raising his heavy head up. The weight feels like it's pulling at every side of his neck, and he has to take a moment to steady himself before squinting his eyes open.
The gray-black edge has faded, but the disorientation still remains. There's a draft coming down the hall, and Peter wants to find another jacket. Bright light assaults his eyes as Mrs. Kurt flicks a penlight across his irises. He jerks away from her a fraction, spotting MJ and Ned behind her.
MJ is standing a few feet away, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed together into a thin line of worry. Her left eye is hidden by her hair, which Peter knows she does on purpose when she's worried. Ned is still sitting on his haunches next to Peter, looking distressed and unhappy.
"Your pupils are even and reactive." Mrs. Kurt says, and holds a digital thermometer up to his forehead. He's not familiar with the model, but it's that way with a lot of things now. It beeps and she frowns at the temperature. "You have a low-grade fever, but nothing to cause this. Do you feel nauseous?"
"A little." Peter whispers. He tucks his hands against his stomach. "What...I don't remember what happened."
Mrs. Kurt frowns deeper, the wisps of gray hair falling toward the sides of her face, making the ridges on her skin look sharper. She's older than Peter remembers her. She moves slower, and her lips are more faded. The blonde hair has grayed and whitened. She was nearing the end of her fifties when Peter chased after Thanos, and now she's half a decade older than that.
But she's familiar. A rarity now.
"We were talking," Ned pipes up, hands smoothing over invisible lines on his jeans. "Your eyes just sort of...spazzed and then you fell over. I thought you were having a seizure, but you didn't...you didn't shake or anything, you just…" he pulls his bottom lip in, casting his eyes away from Peter, moisture clinging to the rims of them.
Peter frowns. He doesn't remember...he sort of has a distant memory of discussing their class with Ned, MJ trailing behind them with her face hidden behind her phone. They stopped at the lockers and Peter...he was grabbing a book when it felt like all the energy in his body had been pulled from him. It felt like a punch to the stomach, and it was replaced by this fiery heat and…
Nothing.
Just that dream.
Peter's teeth set, unsure if he's panicked or despairing. This is the third time it's happened since last Tuesday. He tried to tell May about it, but she'd just said that he must be falling asleep. He'd never had an episode happen when he was talking to someone before. And that dream.
"Peter?" Mrs. Kurt looks close to snapping her fingers in front of his eyes, checking for signs of life. Peter blinks a few times, refocusing on her. Her gray eyes narrow in on him. "Michelle said that you were rigid, you weren't breathing. Has this happened to you before?"
Peter averts his gaze from MJ and Ned's piercing ones, clearly wanting to know the same. "Um. This is the...the third time in the last week." He admits. "I wasn't standing up for the other ones. And they were shorter. I thought I was just...I don't know, falling asleep or something."
Mrs. Kurt tips her head, "Do you have that severe sleep deprivation?"
Oh, you have no idea.
"I, uh, have pretty severe insomnia," Peter explains, which isn't a lie so much as a half truth. "So, I guess?"
The nurse sighs quietly, rubbing at her forehead with two fingers. Peter follows her movements. His eyelids feel raw. "I see. That's definitely one possible reason, but what Michelle described to me sounded more like a seizure. Have you been diagnosed with epilepsy?"
Epile…?
Oh. No. That's...It could have been a tonic seizure. His stomach tightens, dread settling somewhere above his hips and clinging to the skin, making it feel tight and cramping. He licks his lips, but doesn't speak. He shakes his head instead, unsure if his voice would come out evenly.
He hasn't had any lasting severe medical problems since the bite. This has to be something else. He doesn't have epilepsy. It's just...he doesn't know, but exhaustion makes a lot more sense than a seizure. It wasn't...it's not. He's fine.
Mrs. Kurt sighs quietly, "I think it would be a good idea to see a doctor about it. Having more than two seizures, if that is what this is, in rapid succession like this isn't a good sign. This could be a sign of something else happening, and it's just better to catch these things earlier than later, okay?"
No. Yes, he understands, but no he's not going to do anything about it. What can he? May lost her job after coming back from the Blip, and they're already strained for finances as it is. If they want to keep the apartment and eat something soon, he has to clamp down on this. Whatever it is, his healing factor will take care of it.
Sure. That's why it hasn't already done so?
Peter brushes the voice off and nods. "O-okay." He agrees, biting on his tongue. He blinks several times, still trying to clear away the last lingering fog and breathes out between his teeth. His eyes make their way back to Mrs. Kurt after avoiding yet another attempt MJ is making to catch them. "Is...is it okay if I go home?"
School isn't supposed to get out for another couple of hours, but the thought of remaining here for any longer makes him want to puke.
Mrs. Kurt's eyes soften. "I wasn't going to make you stay if you didn't want to. There doesn't appear to be any damage and though I imagine you're a little tired, going home is probably what's best for you right now." She settles a hand on his forehead for a moment, and Peter swallows back furthering nausea at the coldness of her fingers. It's almost painful. She pulls back and he has to stop a relieved breath from escaping. "You have your phone?"
Peter nods and pulls out the device with weak fingers. The few ounces of weight feel like tons and his hand sags a little in his lap as he opens it. He scrolls through his contacts, his thumb hovering over Tony's name before moving down to May's.
He should call, probably, but he doesn't, thumbs smearing across the screen as he tries to text. He manages to get a jumble of words together, but whether or not they're actually coherent is anyone's guess. His intended The nurse wants to send me home, can you come pick me up? is probably somewhere close, but he can't make the letters focus enough to read his sentence. He turns off his phone and lets it rest on his leg.
Mrs. Kurt is squinting at him, and brushes hair from her face. Stop looking at me, he thinks widely. "Do you want me to call for you?"
He shoves his phone into his jacket's pocket.
"No, I, um, texted. I think I'm going to wait outside." He says, suddenly desperate to be out from under her stare. Her head tips, but he's already scrambling up to his feet. He nearly lands flat on his fact again, if not for Ned's hand wrapping around his arm and clinging to him. Peter pushes his other hand against Ned's chest, and they sit there for a second as Peter waits for the world to right itself.
"Are you still feeling dizzy?" Mrs. Kurt asks. "I could see if I could find some medication to help."
"No," Peter says, opening his eyes. He can't remember when he closed them. "That's okay. Thanks though." He tries for a weak smile and is certain it's barely anything near reassuring.
Mrs. Kurt sighs, but doesn't stop him. She looks at MJ and Ned, and, apparently deciding they're going to ditch, says, "I'll write you both up a note. Come and get me immediately if anything changes, alright?"
"Yes ma'am," Ned's voice is faint. Peter clenches his fingers around his gray shirt for a moment, then lets it go and forces his body to grapple for equilibrium. You're fine, you're fine, you're fine…
Peter breathes out deeply, his lungs feeling cold, and takes several steps forward. He doesn't pitch to the side, his head remains firmly attached to his shoulders, and he doesn't pass out. Considering this a success, he keeps moving forward. The piercing stare of Mrs. Kurt lingers on the back of his head, but beyond curling into himself slightly, he does his best to ignore it.
MJ appears at his other side, looking like she wants to help, but isn't sure how. She's holding his backpack, which is good, because he doesn't know when he put it down.
Peter moves like an old man, rigid and stiff, but he moves, and the three of them make slow but unfaltering progress to the outside of Midtown inside of five minutes. Ned helps lower him onto the stairs, taking a seat on his left. MJ drops his backpack at his feet and sits on his right. The two of them are quiet, the only sound Peter's somewhat ragged breathing.
MJ says a loud cuss with an edge of hysteria in her tone. She repeats it, making nonsense of the word as she adds false endings to it in growing panic. Peter looks up at her, blinks, and has no idea what to do for long seconds as his brain struggles to catch up. Say something, his mind commands him. I can't. He opens his mouth to try and all that's there is emptiness.
"MJ." Ned says softly. Not in warning, but sympathy.
MJ's tongue snakes out, but then she closes her mouth and says forcefully, "Why didn't you tell us that you'd been freakin' passing out!?"
Peter blinks at her. "I...I just...it wasn't…?"
She shakes her head, looking incredulous and murderous. She jabs him in the shoulder with her pointer finger. "You said no more secrets after Thanos killed us. You said that, you freaking hypocrite."
He winces. After MJ pulled him aside in the summer to let him know that she was well aware of his alter ego, he'd been trying. But this was different. This wasn't important.
"MJ…" he tries, but doesn't know what to say and lets it hang there.
MJ shakes her head, pressing her fingers against her temples. "He just…" she turns to him, eyes sharp. "You just...you just fell over. What the heck, Parker?! Your eyes...and you just—" she slams a weak fist against his chest, looking sick and exhausted, and it nearly topples him. She hits him again, then again, but her blows, though forceful, are tempered. "You weren't breathing...and why...weren't...you breathing, you selfish bas—"
Peter pulls her against him, gripping her shuddering body against his own. He closes his eyes as she leans into him, sounding like she's choking, but Peter knows she's trying not to cry. He exhales deeply. He doesn't know. He doesn't know why this happened, or why this keeps happening, and he doesn't know what that stupid dream means or why he keeps having it. He doesn't know how to help May through her relapse, and he doesn't know what to do about Tony and that stupid lawsuit.
He just.
I don't know.
"Sorry." Peter mumbles.
Ned's hand rests against his back, helping keep him upright as MJ silently clings to him. His body is exhausted, but it won't be forever. In a few minutes he'll be back to feeling half dead instead of three-fourths of the way there. They're quiet for several minutes, but none of them move. Or speak.
Peter's thoughts spin, but he can't break the silence first. Maybe he doesn't want to. He doesn't know, and part of him doesn't care.
His phone remains quiet and unmoving inside of his pocket. May hasn't texted him back, and it's been almost fifteen minutes. His lips purse together and he bites on the inside of his cheek. As if sensing his thoughts, MJ mumbles into his shirt, "She's not going to come, is she?"
"I can try calling," Peter says, feeling doubt creep into the edges of his voice. I don't know how much good it will do, he keeps to himself.
Ned sighs, and MJ scoffs. The amount of their combined disapproval causes something in him to go hard. MJ says, without much of anything in her tone, "Why? She's probably passed out somewhere. Drunk. Again."
She was when I left this morning, he thinks.
Peter twitches. His throat still feels dry. "It hasn't been easy for her," he defends. The same argument he's been spinning pointlessly since May lost the last job she was applying for in August and went on a three day bender. Her first drink since her attempt to go clean in the months following Ben's death.
Ned and MJ don't argue. They've been down this road what feels like a dozen times before. His shoulders sag, but the familiar disappointment at May's no-show lost it's bite a long time ago.
"You need to go home," Ned points out, "I can call my mom. You can sleep over for a few days."
He hasn't slept over at Ned's since those first few nights after the Vulture. The memories of the panic attacks in the Leeds' bathroom isn't something he wants to revisit. Besides…he shakes his head without much conviction. "May needs me at home right now."
"May wouldn't notice if you went missing for days." MJ's voice is biting, and he lets her go, stung.
May isn't his mom. He knows that. His mom is happily buried beside his dad in a plot at the cemetery, and has been since he was four. But she's really the only mom he can really remember in his childhood, and she would notice if he went missing. She has to. She's not so far gone yet that Peter has become obsolete. He can still help.
He doesn't know what to say, mouth open, but all the defense he wants to shout sounds exhausting, and the urge to curl in on himself and admit defeat is just as tempting. He doesn't do either, and instead pulls out his phone. MJ pulls away from him, and he feels terrible that part of him is grateful. The comfort of MJ and Ned's presence is soiled with their opinions. What does that say about him, that he wants them there, but not really there?
We're all so different now, he thinks with longing and frustration, none of us came back the same. How could we?
He scrolls until he finds Happy's number, and presses call before he can convince himself otherwise. The line rings several times, then goes to voicemail. Tears of sheer frustration build on the edges of his eyes, but he presses call again. Ned and MJ watch, silent.
The line rings twice before Happy's rugged, breathlessly tight voice says, "Kid, unless you're dying, now's not a good time."
I can't. What? I don't. It.
Peter hesitates, any willpower he had to ask the man for help dying an abrupt, painful death. "Uh, sorry. I'll call someone else. Do you know if Tony's busy?" He works his lower lip between his teeth, leaning forward a fraction. His heart sits in his throat, desperate and wanting.
Happy pauses, long enough that Peter can hear a muddle of voices on the other end of the line. One of which is Tony, which answers that question. "You don't sound so hot. You alright?"
No. My hands are shaking and the world is graying out.
"Um. Yeah. You sound busy. It's okay. Sorry to have bothered you." Peter says. MJ lightly smacks his arm in protest, and he looks back at her. She mouths just ask him. He shakes his head, returning a voiceless no.
"Kid—" Happy sighs, exasperated, and that's the total Peter hears of that sentence. Ned snakes the phone from his pliant grip and though Peter makes a scrambled dive for it, his limbs are stiff and fluid all at once. The most he does is end up toppling forward onto Ned's lap. His face heats and he scrambles to pull himself up.
"Ned—" he starts, desperate.
I can't force myself on them. If they don't want to help, they shouldn't have to, his thoughts race frantically. Ned will make them. Ned will make them help him, and Peter doesn't want that. It should be a choice, and Happy really did sound occupied. Too busy for him. Which is fine. It's not like he isn't used to it.
"Mr. Happy, sir? This is Ned, Peter's friend," Ned isn't usually an awkward person, but put him on a phone and Peter can barely recognize him. "No, no, he's not fine, sir. We think he had a seizure. Sir."
No. No, don't—
Peter tries to grab at the phone, but Ned evades him with so little effort it's embarrassing. "Ned," Peter hisses, "give me the phone."
Ned makes a face at him, but nods to something Happy said, "Yeah. No. The nurse gave him a sort of all-clear. She just wanted to send him home. Sir. His aunt can't come get him, she's...busy." A pause, in which Ned smacks Peter's hand away. He makes an uh-huh sound several times. Peter hears MJ shift behind him.
I hate this. The voice in his head, for all the weight those words should carry, is oddly dead.
"Yeah. Here." Ned hands the phone back to Peter with a challenging expression. Peter pulls the device from him heatedly, biting at the edge of his tongue to quell his bouncing nerves. Everything feels flayed raw, alive, yet dead and muffled.
A paradox.
A confusing mass of everything and nothing he has to wade through to get anywhere.
He lifts the device to his ear, bracing himself. His stomach muscles tighten in preparation for yelling. "Peter?" Happy's voice is even, which is worse. Peter can hear the edge of stress gnawing at it. "I'm coming to get you. Stay put."
"But I—" Peter starts.
"You have a seizure, you don't get to argue." Happy's voice brokers no room for argument, not that Peter's sure he'd have been up for the challenge in the first place. A dull throb begins to pound behind his eyes. "Why didn't the nurse contact Tony?"
The question, he can tell, isn't really meant for him as much as it is the universe in general, but Peter still offers a tentative answer. "She didn't drag me to the office and saw me text May. I don't think she saw a point."
"She still has to report it. So she shouldn't—nevermind." Happy is moving now. "Let me just explain to Tony where I'm going, then—"
"No!" Peter blurts. He closes his eyes. He almost feels like laughing as Hagrid's insistence of shouldn't have said that from the first Harry Potter movie comes barreling into his mind. He and Ned used to make fun of it all the time. "Just." He rubs at the lower half of his face, offering as a hasty explanation, "Tony's already stressed enough as it is, okay? With OsCorp riding on his butt twenty-four seven now, I'm the last thing he wants to deal with."
Happy snorts. "Again. Seizure. No argument."
"Happy." Peter moans in protest.
"Ha. No. You sound like crap. I'll be there in less than twenty." The line clicks, and Peter holds the phone against his face for a moment, feeling frustrated, tired, and bitterly grateful. Twenty minutes. Happy must be at Avengers' Tower. Given that the Compound is ashes laying in a charred debris field the size of a small city, there's not many other places he could be where Tony also is.
"He coming?" MJ asks after a moment.
"Yeah." Peter pulls the phone away, setting it on his lap. He breathes out deeply, flexing his left hand's fingers over his knee. Ned doesn't say anything, but he seems relieved, and when their eyes meet for a moment, there's no regret there. Peter doesn't know how to feel about that. "He'll be here in twenty," Peter says quietly.
He stares forward onto the street, wrapping his arms around his stomach.
There's few words passed between them before the familiar black sedan is pulling up in front of the school. Peter clambers up to his stiff legs and grabs his backpack, clumsily working the zipper closed. He slides his phone into his pocket and haltingly makes his way forward toward the car. Ned and MJ follow, but he makes it to the car on his own.
The door for the passenger side is pushed open before he can grab it, and Peter catches a glimpse of Happy leaning back toward the driver's side. He grabs the edge of the door, then looks back at his friends. Their earnest eyes flick across his face, and he feels himself soften.
"Thanks." He says as a peace offering. Their faces line knowingly.
"Text us when you get home." MJ says. "Or if you end up dead in the hospital, loser."
His lip quirks up a fraction. "Yeah." He agrees, then clambers inside of the car. He throws the bag toward his feet and pulls the door shut, clumsily working with fingers that feel like a different human's to pull down the seatbelt and snap it into place.
Then he looks up at Happy's familiar features. Happy squints at him, looking Peter up and down. "You look terrible." He concludes. He pulls the car out of park and eases them back onto the main road. Peter rubs at his forehead, trying to ease the low headache.
"Thanks." He mutters.
"You want to tell me what happened?" It isn't a question.
I barely know more than you. Peter shrugs, glancing out the window for a moment. "I don't really want to talk about it," he says, rubbing his left hand against the side of his leg. "Ned explained what happened, right?"
"Sort of. Kid wasn't very lucrative with information." Happy's hands tighten a fraction around the steering wheel, as if remembering something. "Look. Tony wanted to be here, but something happened at the Tower and he's a little tied up."
Peter frowns. The urge to ask what is there, but his desire to remain in the dark is more overpowering. Ignorance is bliss, he's heard before. Knowing everything isn't always a blessing. Information hurts. But he can't not know, because this is Tony, and Peter wants to, even if Happy's voice reassures him it isn't going to be anything pleasant.
"What happened?" The words feel heavy. The trepidation in his body only reaffirms this.
Happy sighs deeply. "Media will be exploding with this in a few hours, despite our best efforts. Pepper's PA got her skull bashed in. We found the body a few hours ago."
Peter blinks, not understanding. Then, slowly, he feels himself tighten, his eyes widen. "Wait...murder. Someone got murdered?"
He can't feel his face. His legs are a lost cause, and the nausea makes a cheerful reappearance. His lips are dry, but even with halfhearted effort, he can't moisten them. Peter knows Pepper's PA. Sort of. He's seen her before, at least. She's a tall Asian woman with laugh lines and hard eyes. Peter was always privately a little terrified of her, but that's probably because she was a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and was perfectly capable of kicking his butt if needed.
I know—knew her.
Murder.
Someone…
"Oh my gosh," Peter breathes. "Is...is...do they know who?" Killed. Someone killed her. For as long as he can remember, death hasn't been a foreign concept to him. But though Ben's mugger was an act of violence, this isn't the same. That was a desperate man. Ben was a means to an end for him. But this is…
Murder.
This didn't happen on a mission. It was. She's…
"No." Happy's voice is tight. "Not yet. FRIDAY doesn't have any memory of last night, and Tony's trying to see if he can find it right now for the NYPD." There's a soft rap against the steering wheel. Anxiety. "Man solves time travel, but can't find four hours of footage?"
That was supposed to be funny.
Peter doesn't laugh.
Someone got murdered, and Peter is whining about the fact he passed out? If he'd just called May, then they could have focused on that, and wouldn't have to deal with him and his incessant needs. He's like a leech, sucking everything bone dry until he pulls himself away and crawls off to enjoy his satiation.
He bites at the tip of his finger, flexing out his toes. The sensation of them pressing against his sneakers offers some grounding. "S-sorry. Sorry." He says more firmly the second time. He pulls his eyes away from Happy. "I shouldn't have called. Sorry."
"Don't apologize." Happy says firmly, if tiredly. Peter shakes his head, disgusted with himself, and the former head of security then adds, "Tony was thinking of pulling you out of school anyway, so this just makes things easier on all of us."
So what? Peter could help him solve a murder? Does he at all resemble Sherlock Holmes?
Peter looks at the man. "Why? What am I going to do?"
Happy makes a slight noise, like laughter, but stuck in his throat. "Nothing? He has some of the best assassins on the planet helping him. Forgive me for not thinking a high schooler going to compete with that, even if you are enhanced."
Yeah. He knows. Peter versus Avenger isn't a hard bet.
"Okay," Peter breathes out, "so…?"
"Her body was on their kitchen table." Happy says, as if that explains everything, and it sort of does. Peter's insides clench. Some random murder in SI would have been unfortunate, but it's a big company. Pepper's freaking PA gets her skull bashed in and the body dumped on their table? That's personal. That's a threat.
And exactly what OsCorp has been railing about. Great. That's not going to fuel their self aggrandized ideas at all. This is just something else to add they can add to their stupid lawsuit, and if stuff like this keeps happening, Tony really is going to lose and end up in prison.
"Is...are they okay?" Peter finally asks. He should have asked that earlier. He wants to reach inside his skull and shake his brain back and forth until it starts running at even a fourth of its normal capacity.
"Yeah." Happy says in a way that means no. He takes a turn in silence. "I'm taking you to the Tower."
Protest dies in his throat before it ever meets air. May won't be awake for several hours. He'll be back before she starts on her next binge, and he'll stop it. This time. He will. He rubs aching hands across his head and feels exhaustion threatening to take his consciousness.
He rolls his lower lip between his teeth, unsure if he's allowed to jump topics yet. If it would be disrespectful to. But Happy isn't continuing on, so Peter hesitantly asks, "Hey, Happy? Do you, um, do you know if it's normal to...dream the same dream when you're having a seizure?"
Seizure.
He had a seizure.
Happy's brow furrows. "Uh. Maybe? I don't know that much about them."
Peter runs a hand through his stiff hair. "I mean. The exact same thing. I know that people see stuff sometimes, but this just…" it doesn't feel the same. It's like he's going somewhere else entirely. But out of body isn't something uncommon to grand mals, either.
Peter bites on his lower lip. His hands thrum with anxiety. He thinks about the woman lying dead on Tony and Pepper's table, and feels a growing sense of dread sink and settle inside of him. The Tower is only getting closer, and with it a murder.
And despite how much Peter wants to cover his ears and close his eyes, he doesn't get that option.
"You okay, kid?" Happy asks when Peter doesn't say anything.
Peter blows out a breath between his teeth. No is what he thinks, but "yeah," is what he says.
Author's Note: Please leave a review if you're comfortable with that. :)
Next chapter: Uh. Hopefully before the end of Feb, but if not that March sometime.
Also, small note. I don't personally have epilepsy and I don't know anyone who does. All of my information comes from the internet. I'm trying to be sensitive, but I'm sorry to anyone I may inadvertently offend.
