Author's Note: I have nothing to say for myself. Sorry. Thank you for your patience, support, and comments. It has meant a lot to me. :)

Warnings: some blood, a corpse is discussed, and seizures are discussed.


"The deeper you dig,

the darker it gets."

-unknown


Chapter Two:

There's little conversation for the rest of the drive. Happy's too worried to try for small talk, and Peter doesn't want to bother with it.

Instead, he wrings his hands and rubs them against the sides of his jeans compulsively, alternating from tapping his fingers along the seam line to bouncing his leg. There isn't any music, no radio, no white noise whatsoever save the bustling city around them. Horns, talking, cars, the bustle of sound is overwhelming to the point of painful, but it feels like a dull throb in the base of his skull because it's not the white noise that he wants.

The base of Avengers Tower is swamped by news trucks and police cars, the flashing lights flickering up to the cloudy sky like blinking Christmas lights. Given that it's barely October, the sight is almost laughable with its oddity. Peter's seen the occasional movie section off the street to film with the same set of blue and red, but that was fake, and Peter knew it was fake.

This is different.

It's...colder, somehow.

Happy pulls the sedan around to the back of the building, where the entrance to the garage is located. The car doesn't garner any more attention than the dozens of others slowing for a moment as they pass by. They're as insignificant as some random civilian, for which Peter's immensely grateful.

Still, as they drive past the swarm through the reporters and NYPD, Peter ducks his head a little, wishing he had a hat to hide under. Or a mask. Stupid, he knows, given that no one looks at them twice. But it's an instinct he's long since learned to hone around the police.

As Happy is pulling the car into park inside of the garage almost twenty minutes after they left Midtown, Peter's stomach cramps painfully. There's none of theadmittedly littlerelaxation and comfort that normally comes with the sight of this well-lit room. He spent most of his time at the Compound. Avengers Tower is something he's still getting used to, and he's not sure he ever will. It was a legend long before he stepped foot in it.

And now it's going to be crawling with the NYPD.

Murder. A crime scene. Avengers Tower is a crime scene. Because someone was murdered there. Freakin'—How? How has life changed so erratically that a murder could happen to someone that he knows?

Besides Ben.

But that wasn't malicious. It was an accident. This...wasn't.

Happy turns off the ignition, the sedan dying with a final grumbling huff of the engine. The man draws in a deep breath, visibly bracing himself. Then he looks at Peter, frowning, the edges of his eyes creasing. "C'mon, kid," he sighs, opening his door.

Peter would rather hide in the garage forever.

But he can't; he doesn't get that choice.

Peter grabs at his backpack's strap, swallowing heavily, and follows after the former head of security. The garage is cool, and he grimaces at the drop in temperature from the car to the room. His legs feel wobbly and feeble, and he has to fight valiantly to keep his stomach in the right place, but he moves. The first few steps are a trembling sway, but they are steps.

Encouraged by this positive outcome, he swings his backpack over one shoulder and promptly loses any balance he had to the sudden weight change. He stumbles, hands flailing outward for something to grab at. The car is too far away to offer any help. He's going to fall.

Happy's fingers touch his arm a second later, then grab forcefully, pulling Peter back up. "Hey, hey, hey. You gonna pass out on me?"

The world spins. He closes his eyes. Peter pushes fingers against his forehead, breathing out sharply, begging equilibrium to take mercy on him. After a few seconds of waiting, he opens his eyes and blinks several times, watching as everything merges into one. The world rights. Happy's concerned face settles in front of him as the man moves, grabbing hold of both of Peter's shoulders.

Peter swallows thickly, his throat hot and sticky.

"Kid?" Then a more concerned, "Peter, look at me."

Peter tries, but his eyes slide away from the man's earnest ones after seeing the depth of emotion there. His throat tightens. He just wants to lay down somewhere warm. Maybe he should have fought harder for Happy to take him home. Murder can wait.

(No, it can't. Nothing important ever can.)

"No. I'm good. I promise." Peter's words are gritted, and he bites on his tongue once they're out. He blinks a few more times, then tries and fails to push himself away from Happy's hands to prove his point. His back twinges with faint pain, but he brushes it off with more annoyance than worry. He flexes and clenches his fingers, wrapping his left hand into a fist around his backpack strap.

"Peter…" Happy says his name cautiously, like he's working up to say something that he knows Peter won't like. Peter shakes off Happy's hands with effort, more than he'd like to admit to, and then starts hobbling toward the elevator.

"I can do this." Peter reassures him, "It's not that far."

"I can get a stretcher or something." Happy protests.

Peter's face heats. "I'm not invalid."

"I know."

Peter keeps walking, ignoring him. When did his backpack get so heavy?

There's a long beat before "you're going to be the death of me," Happy predicts in a groused mumble, but he catches up to Peter's stride quickly. Without saying a word, he grips Peter's bicep, and when Peter tries to wiggle free, raises a challenging eyebrow raise in response. Peter huffs, but gives up, and allows the man to offer support.

As much as he'd like to say otherwise, he needs it. Sitting out on the stairs next to MJ and Ned was one thing. They didn't really do anything. This movement is nauseating, making every part of his body feel wrong and stretched thin. Even after the other times he...blacked out, seized—whatever it was, he didn't feel this terrible.

He'd felt jittery and somewhat sick, but there wasn't this lingering weakness and ache.

Happy steers him into the elevator, thumbing one of the buttons. FRIDAY doesn't ask where to take them, and Peter stares up at one of her cameras, his stomach pulling. The lack of...her is like a blade being shoved inside his gut. He didn't realize how much he'd come to rely on her smooth presence until it's no longer there. And this, more than anything, unsettles him. More than the NYPD crawling around the base of the building. More than the press.

Because FRIDAY is an AI. You don't really just...turn those off with a flip of the switch. Whoever disabled her, even for a short time, would have had to know the system. The coding, the processing, known where her weaknesses are. And that information isn't public. Tony made sure of that. The only people that Peter can think of who'd know and have that knowledge off the top of their heads is maybe Natasha or Bruce.

"She's gone," Peter whispers as the elevator climbs toward the residential floors. "I mean...she's really…"

"Yeah." Happy says in equal solemnity. "I didn't really think that was possible without a major blackout to the city. Tony'll get her fully online again. Give him a few hours. I haven't seen a computer he couldn't get running."

But FRIDAY isn't a computer. In a weird sort of way, she's like a bodiless person. Peter frowns to himself, offering a quiet "yeah" in agreement that he doesn't really feel. The Tower feels violated in her absence. More so than it did knowing that someone killed here.

The doors open, bringing the common room into view. The flood of bright light from the large windows is immediately jarring yet still somewhat welcoming all at once. He squints into the warm glow, breathing in to steady himself. I can do this, he reassures himself. He can. He will.

Happy guides him forward, hand still at his elbow. Annoyed, but complacent, Peter doesn't fight it off.

The room looks both exactly the same as the last time Peter saw it, and completely different. The lighting is warm, but the atmosphere is thick with an unspoken tension. He can see evidence that people have been in and out of the room the entire day: a jacket hanging over the back of the couch, a pair of ratty tennis shoes—Steve's, he thinks—and miscellaneous thrown on top of flat surfaces.

The only people here are Bruce and Natasha, sitting at the counter to the small kitchen in silence. Natasha is nursing a cup of what looks like whiskey, but Peter couldn't tell various bottles of alcohol apart to save his life. There's a .45 gun resting on the table next to her shot glass. Peter stares at both the alcohol and the gun for a moment, feeling both sick and surprised. He knows that everyone in the Tower has pretty much adhered to Tony's no drinking policy, and to see it openly sitting on the countertop is incongruous.

And while Peter is well aware the entire Tower is filled with hidden weapons, almost no one leaves them out in the open. Morgan isn't stupid, but she's also only four. Peter has learned to see the subtle arming, just hasn't had to watch for the explicit one.

And why wouldn't Natasha have a weapon so openly displayed? A body was dumped on Tony's dining table. That doesn't exactly bring out anyone's pacifist side. Peter gets that, even as much as he doesn't like it. But still. It's...wrong isn't even a word he can use, because that's not what it is. It doesn't hold enough weight.

At the sound of their approach, both Natasha and Bruce turn. There's no surprise in their equally haggard faces; they likely tracked their presence from the elevator by sound alone. Bruce's lip quirks a fraction, like he wants to smile, but can't put in the effort. His glasses are sliding down the bridge of his nose, distracting from the smudges beneath his eyes. Dark, long hair hangs in tangles around his head. His clothing is rumbled, but the familiar polo and black pants, suggesting that he didn't sleep in it.

Natasha is more put together, but the strain of the morning is obvious. She's in dark gray sweatpants and a black tank top. Red hair is tucked into a messy bun, and he can see the outline for another gun tucked at her back. Her socked feet are resting on the bars to the stool comfortably, but she's poised in offense.

Both their eyes slide on him, then Happy. Natasha returns to her glass, and Bruce frowns at him, then sighs. "Hey. You look terrible."

Peter's lips push together, but he doesn't offer any argument. It's not like he's seen a mirror. He can't even offer the mandatory sarcastic thanks. He's too tired.

Happy pushes him toward the stools, a quiet, but obvious encouragement for him to sit down. Peter complies, dropping his backpack to the floor and clambering onto the seat on Bruce's right side. The world gives a violent lurch, and he grips at the rim of the counter for balance, closing his eyes for a moment.

He wants to lay down. It doesn't feel like he slept last night, despite the fact that he knows he did. Restful sleep, not so much, but sleep all the same.

"How are you feeling?" Bruce asks after a moment of careful stillness.

Peter squints one eye open at him. Then, with a resigned sigh, drops his head into his hands. "You know?"

"About the seizure? Yeah." Bruce confirms, shifting slightly. Glass clinks against the countertop. "Happy wasn't really subtle about it."

The former head of security makes a sound in the back of his throat in irritation. "What, did you honestly think the FBI was going to let me go if I said I had an emergency? I had to be specific."

Everyone who was near Happy knows? Peter's face grows hot, and he buries it further inside of his hands, wishing that the countertop would swallow him. This is humiliating. No one was supposed to know about this. It was just some strange...thing that happened sometimes. If they know, then they're going to hover, and if they hover, then Peter's going to be taking up more time than they actually want to give him.

"Yes, well," Natasha trails, tipping the bottle toward the shot glass. The amber liquid fizzes faintly as it falls inside of the cylinder. It's loud as she methodically sets it back onto the granite surface. Natasha doesn't drink it, but stares at it miserably, as if the thought of tasting it physically disgusts her.

"Is that vodka?" Happy asks hopefully.

Natasha shakes her head. "Bourbon."

Happy walks behind the counter and leans down, grabbing another shot glass. He sets it heavily beside the bourbon and moodily pours the alcohol inside of the glass. The smell makes Peter's throat burn. He feels tears press at the corners of his eyes when he realizes the smell reminds him of May. He needs to get home. She might be up by now. If he can catch her at the right time, before she's had much time to think, today might be a good day.

"Do you have any dizziness?" Bruce asks. Peter's attention snaps to him, blinking once before he processes the question.

"Um, no." Peter lies.

"Did you hit your head recently?"

"No more so than usual." At Bruce's disgruntled look, Peter adds with slight sigh, "Being Spider-Man doesn't mean I'm concussion proof. And people kinda have a tendency to go for the head. There aren't any problems. I'm okay. I promise."

"And yet," Natasha's voice is cool, eyes still on her glass, but it's obvious her attention isn't on it. "You still seized. That isn't something to take lightly."

Peter's lips press together. Logically, he knows that. But every emotional response within him wants to ignore it. He rubs a finger over the top of the counter's smooth surface, agitated. "It wasn't that big of a deal. The nurse already went over all of this with me. She said I was fine."

"Has it happened before?" Bruce questions, choosing to ignore that.

Peter suppresses a sigh. "I mean, a few times? I guess?" Peter says, looking at his finger, not wanting to see Bruce's expression. His nail has traces of dried blood beneath the surface, which surprises and repulses him. Gah. When was the last time he seriously cleaned his hands? That's disgusting.

"You guess?" Bruce asks skeptically.

"This is the third time." Peter submits, rubbing his thumb nail beneath his others to start and clean out the crusted blood. "I don't know. I wasn't standing up for the other ones. They didn't seem as…" terrifying is the word that comes to mind, but he bites down on it. Instead, he says, "big."

Bruce nods, like that actually made sense. He's staring at Peter's eyes, though, "Did you hit your head when you fell today?"

"No." Peter says, though he's not sure. "Really, Dr. Banner. I'm okay."

Again, he's ignored. Bruce lifts up a hand and gently prods the back of Peter's hair. Peter twitches, not expecting the touch. His rough fingers are gentle as they card through the loose strands, searching for a bump. When he doesn't find one, the chemist leans back to look at Peter's face, checking pupil dilation. Apparently as satisfied as he's going to get, he backs off.

"I don't think anything obviously wrong." Bruce concedes after a moment, working his lower lip between his teeth. "But I still want to go over it in the med wing before you leave. It's better—"

"—to catch these things early," Peter finishes, flicking the gathered grains of blood to the floor. He can't remember the last time he was bloody enough after patrol for this to happen. He took a knife to the arm a few days ago, but he didn't think it bled that badly. All he has now are bruises. "I know. My school nurse mentioned that."

Bruce nods again, then sighs, rubbing a hand across his forehead, brushing hair from his eyes. In a tired, but doubtful mumble, he adds, "there will be time before you leave."

Natasha makes a noise in the back of her throat, like she's choking on a laugh. "Your optimism is cute."

Bruce glances at her, his posture tight. "It's just a few more hours."

"You and I have seen enough crime scenes to know that isn't the case." Natasha reminds him dutifully. She looks back at the glass, her graceful fingers tightening around the edges. Her wrist bumps against the .45, and Peter feels himself shift as the gun does. Natasha doesn't even look at it, exhausted. "It will be days before they're satisfied."

Days? Peter frowns at that, a thought occurring to him. "Where are Tony, Pepper and Morgan staying? Is their whole apartment a crime scene? Or just the table?"

Happy sighs heavily, taking a long drink of his bourbon, grimacing, and then says, "Last I was up there, it was."

Peter's lips press together with discomfort. He's stayed often enough here that one of the guest rooms in the Stark's apartment he's come to sort of think of as a second room. It makes him uncomfortable to know he's subconsciously claimed it, but it was something that happened so gradually he wasn't able to stop it. The thought of the police rifling through it makes his stomach tighten.

"Why? They found the body in the kitchen." Peter finds himself saying.

Natasha and Bruce share a look, one that speaks a thousand words between it. Natasha finally turns away from the counter to carefully scoot herself backwards, so their eyes can meet with Bruce's shoulders in the way. Her gaze is steady. "Peter, the blood trail is pretty extensive. Zhao didn't die in the kitchen. None of us, or the police, can find the murder weapon. We know it was blunt force trauma, but we don't know by what."

Wait. If there's a blood trail, then she didn't die in the kitchen.

Someone dragged her body there.

Peter feels his eyes close in morbid disgust. He's seen blood before. He's been in battles. He wandered through corpses in the final fight on the charred Compound a few months ago. But...

"Someone bashed her skull in." Peter concludes. "And you...don't know by what."

"Yeah." Bruce says quietly. "Having that information would help us locate a perpetrator a lot faster. There's no DNA anywhere, no footage. It's like Zhao was killed by a ghost. It's a perfect locked-room scenario, without the locked room."

Peter suddenly wishes he knew more about forensics. Any and all information he has is mostly gathered from the media and books, which he doubts is an accurate portrayal of reality. Spider-Man doesn't get a lot of first hand experience, ergo, neither does Peter. "Do...do they know when she was killed?"

"Not yet." Natasha says, brushing stray hair from her face. "They were finally taking the body out when I left ten minutes ago. We're guessing sometime after FRIDAY's main systems went down. So after three or four in the morning."

That wasn't even ten hours ago. Peter's skin crawls. Zhao was a live ten hours ago, alive, happy, warm. And now she's sitting in a body bag. She was on Tony's freakin' table. "Has Tony had any luck? With getting FRIDAY back online?" Peter asks, desperate to think of something else.

"She is online," Happy says, sounding indignant. Peter's gaze lifts to him, noting that the man has drained his glass dry and seems only more frustrated by it than soothed. At least he's still functioning. And he's not angry. "She's just confined to Tony's phone and a few computers." Happy explains.

Right. Peter remembers Happy mentioning something like that in the car. How she didn't have any memory of the attack, but that doesn't mean that she was gone. "How's that going?" Peter asks carefully.

Natasha's shoulders drop, and she sighs, tipping her head back. "Poorly. If he wasn't trying to multi-task a dozen and a half things right now, it might be going faster." She's quiet a moment, then her lip quirks in bitter mirth, "The funny thing about this to me is that the police want that footage, and they aren't giving him the room to actually get it."

Peter nods. That sounds exactly like something the police would do. The thought is tired.

Bruce rubs at his eyes. He rests his body heavily against the countertop, then blows out a long breath. Peter scrapes more blood out from beneath his fingernail, compulsively biting at his lower lip. The question is on the edge of his tongue, but he's hesitant to say anything, because a part of him is content not knowing. But he swallows it down, and says hesitantly, "Um, have the, uh, have FBI gotten involved? Do you guys know how this is affecting the court case?"

"FBI showed up before the NYPD," Happy tells him with an edge of annoyance. "We even got a few people from the CIA drop in."

Peter's wide eyes lift to him. He shifts forward on the stool. "Really? That's...whoa."

Natasha's scowl says otherwise. "Any ground we'd scraped in our favor is gone. I don't know how any lawyer is going to explain this in a positive way."

Oh.

Yeah.

It makes sense. It does. That doesn't mean Peter isn't disappointed. He'd hoped...Tony made it sound like they were on favorable ground the last time they talked about it. That was only a few days ago. How could things have gone wrong so quickly? As childish as it is, Peter wants to grab the universe and shout it's not fair! into its endless depths.

Why can't they have this one thing after everything?

Why did OsCorp have to put the blame of the Blip on the Avengers? It wasn't their fault. They were just trying to fix things. Isn't that what everyone wanted?

"What are you going to do, then?" Peter asks, trying not to sound as frantic as he feels. "You can't just...give up."

"We're not going to," Bruce assures. "It's just going to take some time to get this under control. Pepper talked to them. They're already putting a plan together. We'll work around this, okay?" He reaches out a hand and rests it on Peter's arm. His fingers, as usual, are warm, and Peter's skin seems to sigh in relief beneath the contact.

Peter doesn't believe him. He can't. He's not stupid. He knows how these things go. The optimist died in him about the same time Thanos killed him. Maybe he came back wrong. Maybe everyone did, and that's why this whole thing started.

"But what if you can't?" Peter asks, feeling hopelessness taking large chunks out of his chest. "Because if you lose because Zhao got dumped on Tony's table, then you're all going to go to prison. You might even get executed and I don't...I don't want that to happen. What if you do die, and then there's no one—"

"Peter," Natasha leans forward, gripping his knee. Her expression is steady, her eyes endless and dark. She looks...old. "It's going to be okay."

No, it's not.

It never is.

Humans tell each other that because they don't know what else to say. They say it like they can bend the universe to their will with enough repeats. It's not reality. Not in Peter's experience. Things haven't been okay since he was fourteen. Even before that.

"I don't," Peter's voice feels impossibly small, "want any of you to die. I don't want you to go to prison."

He wishes the Blip didn't bring back Norman Osborn. It's a terrible, quiet longing inside of him that's been sitting there since he tangled the Avengers into this mess. If Osborn hadn't been brought back, the Avengers wouldn't be on house arrest in the Tower. Thor and Loki could go back to New Asgard. Clint could see Laura. Falcon could see his sister.

They wouldn't be facing possible execution, at the very least a long imprisonment.

Natasha's lips pinch, and her eyes crease at the edges. Whatever thought was on her mind never makes air, as at that moment, the elevator doors open. Peter turns his head automatically in the direction of the sound, as do everyone else's.

Peter catches a glimpse of the familiar dark head of brown hair before Tony exits the hall leading to the communal room. He squints into the sun like it hurts, and then turns toward them. Peter feels relief loosen his stiff muscles at the sight of him despite the man's exhausted appearance. Tony looks, in short, like he got run over by a bus. Worry-worn face, tousled hair, and messy clothing, the latter of which is pretty obviously pajamas. There's a Stark Industries hoodie thrown over the top like he's trying to be more presentable, but he's not even wearing shoes, just a pair of patterned socks. Peter can see the bulge and faint glow of the arc reactor beneath the zipper on his chest.

Tony's eyes swing around the room, jump over the various figures, then land on Peter. His shoulders visibly slump with relief. "Hey," he says tiredly, but his tone is warm. He strides across the room and envelopes Peter in a quick hug.

Peter's eyes close tightly at the familiar warmth, and he buries himself inside of Tony's arms for a moment. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to Tony's hugs, or get enough of them. They're so different from May's. They're warm and tight, like Tony never wants to let him go. They feel safe. Not methodical, not cold, safe.

Tony pulls back, keeping his hands on Peter's shoulders, and stares at his face for long seconds. "You look kind of gray. Are you okay?" Instead of waiting for an answer, he turns to Bruce. "Is he okay? He doesn't look okay. You said the nurse said he was okay." The last part is directed at Happy.

Peter represses an annoyed sigh. He gets why they keep asking, he does. It's just...they shouldn't have to. Peter shouldn't have passed out in school. He's just bothering everyone now. Making a big deal out of nothing. And it's not. That big of a deal, that is. May said that it wasn't. Why is everyone taking it so seriously when she told him to just brush it off? They don't know it was a seizure.

What else, a sly voice in the back of his mind counters, could it have been?

"As far as I can tell," Bruce confirms. "I still want to go over it in the med wing before he leaves."

"Of course," Tony agrees, releasing Peter's shoulders. His hands fall at his sides, then fumble for a moment, like he doesn't know what to do with them. "I didn't want him to leave without it anyway. We'll...just have to find some time to fit that in." He runs his hands through his hair.

Peter sighs, but doesn't argue, resigned to his fate. He leans his side against the countertop, resting his hands on his lap. Tony is still looking at him, his face tight and mouth unhappy. Peter knows—is fairly certain—that it's not because of him, but something else.

Tony's eyes lift up and spot the bourbon on the counter. There's a moment where his expression seems to flinch. Happy discreetly moves the bottle out of his line of sight, but it doesn't seem to help. Tony swallows compulsively, like he's trying to bite back a surge of want.

The sight is a familiar one to him after May's relapse. That doesn't mean that the yawning pit of please no in his stomach is any easier to bear.

Tony, Peter notices, doesn't even look twice at the .45 gun on the countertop, as if he expected it to be there. Is Peter really the only one who's uncomfortable with it there?

Natasha leans forward, "How is Morgan doing?"

"What?" Tony looks at her, but the distraction seems to work, snapping him from his thoughts. "Oh. Um." He sighs heavily, and shifts his feet, looking toward the ground and rubbing at his forehead. "Not great. She hasn't talked since this morning. Pep took her to my lab, but I don't know if that's going to help any. It's something familiar to her, at least."

Yeah. Peter, too. Not just for working, but also for homework and mindlessly talking.

"The police backed off of trying to get a statement from her yet?" Happy asks.

...they what? They want what from Morgan? Peter feels his face pale, then draw tight. Tony's shaking his head, but before he can say anything, Peter interrupts, "She's four. Why the heck would they need her statement?"

A look passes between the three Avengers, and Peter can hear Happy shift in discomfort behind him. His lack of knowledge for today's events feels him with a surge of frustration. It's things like this that he should know, but he doesn't. Because he wasn't here. Instead, he was passing out and making himself into a massive inconvenience.

"She found the body first." Bruce explains.

Morgan...

Peter thinks of Ben, laying on the sidewalk, blood smeared across his fingers and everything else. The slow stain from the bullet wound, the gaping, choked sound that he made while blood bubbled up his throat. Peter's fingers, helpless, pushing down the wound but only making things worse, and Ben's final words of I'm scared...don't...wanna go...pulsing through his head for weeks and weeks afterwards.

His throat is dry.

He swallows.

Blinks.

"Oh." He intones weakly. He clenches his hands into fists, trying to get feeling back inside of them. The weight of those words register, and he looks at Tony, feeling sick. "She saw the corpse? Did she touch it? Does anyone know how long she saw it?"

Peter knows corpses. How the lack of life turns people into stiff, dead marionettes with their strings clipped and laying around them like snake skins. That's not something anyone's ready to see. Let alone a four-year-old. Morgan isn't stupid. This is...Peter wants to groan. He's going to kill this blood murderer. They had no right to do that to Morgan. To anyone, but especially Morgan.

"She was...she screamed." Tony says after a moment, the words awkwardly tumbling from him as if they're hard to say. "I've never heard her sound like that before. I.." his gaze skirts away, fists clenching, "I don't think she was there for long. God knows I hope not."

Oh. Suddenly, Tony's appearance makes a lot more sense. If he'd jumped out of bed at her voice, then he didn't have any time to make himself more presentable. It may have been hours since they found the body, and the blood trail…

The blood trail.

Blood.

Peter looks at his fingernails, still faintly brownish-red, and wants to scrub at his hands until he can remove layers of skin to get to muscle. Muscles would be clean.

Tony releases a heavy breath, running a hand through his hair. He looks at Peter seriously. "I know that this is a lot to process, and I'm sorry. But I don't know if this was an attack on SI, or my family, and until I'm sure which, I need you to stay here for a few days. May can come too if—"

Oh, man.

"No." Peter blurts. Tony looks confused, and Peter grapples with his tongue, desperate for any sort of excuse. One would think that after almost three years as Spider-Man, he would be a better liar. And yet… "No. May's, um," destroying her liver good and proper, "busy. People don't know that we know each other, anyway, remember? Do I have to stay here? May needs me at home right now."

He should be there, but part of him knows that it's helpless. Even if he hides the bottles again, she's going to find some other means. The stimulus checks for the Blip victims only cover so much, and their finances are barely holding rent. He has to keep her floating on her downward spiral, because if he doesn't, they'll be on the streets before October's out.

But he can't explain this to Tony.

The thought of doing so makes him want to puke. Tony's already busy with everything else. Peter hasn't been able to work up the courage to tell him about May's relapse. Part of him is afraid that Tony would react badly to hearing it, and the multi-billionaire's trying so hard to get six years clean. Peter can't compromise that.

Tony's eyebrows draw together with anxiety. "I get that. But we have to consider every possibility. With FRIDAY's servers a mess," there's an edge to his voice here that Peter can't place. "I can't keep you guys safe from a distance. None of us can leave this freakin' building."

Peter's hand clenches.

"We can send a protective detail to the apartment," Natasha suggests. "Then they can stay home, and we can have peace of mind."

A protective detail? Are they serious? Did they forget that Peter is Spider-Man? If push comes to shove, he can keep them safe. That's his job. To look out for people. Especially May. Nothing is going to happen to May while he's around. Not if he can help it.

Except her getting alcohol poisoning and dying. You don't do anything about that. Not that you've really tried.

Peter waves off the voice as best he can, but it's hard.

"Send who?" Tony's voice is incredulous. "There's so few people left on this planet that I can trust my life with, let alone Peter's, and all of them are locked down in this building."

"The FBI's downstairs," Bruce points out, "we could ask them."

"You think the FBI is going to help us with OsCorp's case resting on us?" Tony sounds like he wants to laugh. "I don't want Peter dragged into that if I can help it. They aren't supposed to know he exists."

The words, he knows, are protective, but something inside of him shrivels at it.

...Aren't supposed to exist...You aren't supposed to exist.

You died five years ago.

Death should be permanent, not a tourist destination to and from.

"Tony," Peter interjects quietly. They all look at him, and Peter ducks his head, wishing that they would stop. He hates the attention. The words barely make it out of him. "We're not helpless. I'm Spider-Man, remember?"

Tony's shoulders drop a fraction. He releases a tight breath and nods. "I know. I do. I just…"

"Let's wait a few hours before we make any decisions," Natasha suggests, and Bruce nods in agreement. "None of us are thinking clearly." Bone-weariness touches at the edge of her features before she says with a frustrated sigh, "We need to get back downstairs anyway."

Tony makes a sound close to a groan in his throat. He turns to Peter. "Not you. I don't want them to know you're here. Actually," he looks thoughtful, then relieved, and asks hopefully, "how do you feel about babysitting Morgan for a few hours while we deal with this? Then we can talk about what we'll do after. And get you to the med wing. Okay?"

All he wants to do is curl up on a couch somewhere and sleep for a few hours. The enervation from the seizure (not a seizure, yes a seizure, not a seizure, yes—) has yet to leave him, making his brain feel like it's moving through muddy, wet concrete.

Peter nods on autopilot, his stomach knotted up somewhere in his sternum. But anxiety has become a given thing by the second rather than minute now, so he ignores it.

With the edge of his thumb, Peter scrapes the final edge of blood out from underneath his nails, and gets to his feet.

He makes it about a whole second before his back seizes up in knots of pain and discomfort, and refuses to hold him. He collapses forward, falling face-first into Tony's chest with a yelped cuss, slamming his cheek heavily against the ridges of the arc reactor. His cheekbone goes white-hot with agony, and he scrambles away, apologies and swears falling off his lips in concession. He can't make his vision focus anymore.

Tony's hands reach out and grab him, his voice, when he speaks after a second, is worried and angry. "You're an idiot. Cancel that. NYPD can wait. We gotta get you to the med wing."

Peter shakes his head, regretting that decision immediately. "'m okay," he mumbles in weak protest, "really. Just stood up too fast."

"Peter," Tony's voice is hard, "do not try my patience today. C'mon," he grabs a fistful of Peter's shirt and drags him forward toward the elevator. Peter struggles to get his feet beneath himself, barely hopping an odd step. Tony notices, because of course he does, and he says under his breath, "what's wrong with you?" in a whisper Peter's pretty sure he wasn't supposed to hear. But he does, and he doesn't have any more of an answer than Tony does.


Author's Note:

Next chapter: Let's be hopeful, and we'll say before the end of May, okay? Great.