Peter watched from above as the woman in the white lab coat entered his room. Light from the hall spilled onto the empty mattress below him. There was no place to hide, but he had crept up the wall and wedged himself into the corner of the ceiling.
It did not fool the woman in the white coat. If anything. she was delighted when she saw the empty bed. She laughed when she easily spotted him. "What are you doing up there?" The woman smiled and Peter wanted to cry. He never wanted the woman in the white coat to smile at him.
"Come down." Her smile widened menacingly. There was something wrong with that grin— that cold, dead smile that didn't match the rest of her face.
Peter lost his grip, dropping from the ceiling, and as he fell, the world was swallowed by the white of the woman's coat. He was now in a white bed, in a white-tiled room, wearing a white hospital gown.
Peter wanted to roll from the bed and get away, but his arms were tied down with biting snakes.
No, not biting snakes. Biting barbs. His wrists bled from dozens of barbed points whenever he moved. Peter's super strength was useless unless he wanted to rip his arms to shreds to get away.
A scream built in his chest. He needed to get out!
Peter woke gasping and tangled in tightly in wound-up sheets.
"Peter? Do you need assistance?" FRIDAY's calm, soothing voice was like a beacon of light in Peter's fog-swirled brain.
"No." He groaned into his pillow as he struggled to fully wake and reign in his erratic breaths and thundering heart. "I'm fine."
"You were having a nightmare. You are safe. You are in the Avenger's compound." The lights in the room brightened just enough to see.
"A nightmare," Peter agreed, trying to convince himself that's all it was.
His hands shook as he raised them in the dim light, searching his forearms for the wounds. His arms were of course peppered with the familiar, faint, ghostly marks. The old scars were as thin as spider's gossamer, and barely noticeable at all thanks to his super-healing. But, in the right light, you could see them. And Peter's sharp eyes traced the dotted lines that wrapped around each forearm.
Was it real? It was a nightmare, but was it real in the past? Was this one of his memories?
Peter choked on a silent sob. If the nightmares were actually memories, he didn't think he could cope with that.
"You are safe," FRIDAY reassured again.
Peter's breath steadied. "I'm safe," he echoed. "I'm safe."
"Would you like me to call Mr. Stark? He's awake."
"No!" Peter gasped anew. "Don't call him!" Peter threw himself against the pillow and screwed his eyes shut. "I'm going back to sleep. I'm fine."
FRIDAY cut the lights and was silent. Peter could almost feel her presence. It was both comforting and irritating.
He lay there for an hour, willing himself to sleep, while also hoping he wouldn't drift off again, lest he dream. Could they really be memories? Peter thought back to the absurd details mixed into most of his nightmares. Building a cartoonish beartrap? That was not real. It hadn't felt real, though it could have been a caricature of something real.
The remote incendiary device. That had felt real. And Peter really knew how to build one…
Then again, climbing the wall had felt so real, too, and that one was certainly absurd.
Peter tossed and turned, analyzing every aspect of every dream he remembered. There weren't too many, thanks to his amnesia. Fourteen nights. That was all.
After an hour of frustrated spiraling, he had finally had enough. Peter got up from the bed and stalked out the door.
Going to the kitchen in the pre-dawn hours after a bad dream had become his habit. Sometimes he would see Steve Rogers. The man would say hi and go for a run. But lately, Peter was often left alone. They weren't really keeping tabs on him anymore, Peter thought.
Still, out of habit, Peter kept his ears pricked for the sound of any Avenger who might be around so he was sure he wouldn't accidentally bother anyone or be bothered by anyone. It was much earlier in the night than he typically found himself in the kitchen.
He made himself a bowl of cereal and sat down in the dark, silent kitchen to eat. There was never much of a reason to turn the lights on if he was the only one in a room. Peter could see pretty well in the gloomk. He found comfort in the dark. He was a little more invisible. A little safer.
The cereal and milk chilled him and started a bout of shivers. He always seemed to have a hard time keeping warm at night. He wished he had brought one of his hoodies down with him.
Tired and shivering, he cast his sense of hearing around to try and distract himself. The whole compound was quiet.
Except the workshop.
Peter's ears pricked at the distant hum of tools and 80's rock. It sounded warm, and welcoming.
He kind of wanted to go to the workshop— but he also didn't want to go to the workshop. He wanted to sleep, but he also didn't want to sleep. He wanted to eat more, but he was freezing…
Peter worried he was going to drive himself insane with indecision.
He hadn't actually been in the workshop with Stark since Harley had gone home. Every time he tried, he couldn't quite work up the nerve to bother the man.
Peter knew his presence wasn't exactly welcome. So, he mostly went in to check on his little projects when Stark wasn't around, or when the man was busy in the office he kept at the compound. Peter had actually moved a lot of his polymer experiments into the Dr. Banner's lab, somewhat out of convenience, but also to keep out of Stark's hair.
What was Stark doing, anyway? Peter focused on the sounds as he stood shivering at the sink, washing out his cereal bowl. It was surprisingly easy to pick up on the details of the sounds at night with so little competing background noise.
"… weren't really expecting results, anyway." Stark declared, sounding a little defeated. This was followed by a frustrated sigh, and Peter wondered what the man could be working on so late at night. Was he researching something?
"Cut the music, FRI." There were some dissatisfied noises and Peter strained to hear what was going on. "Try regressing the image back …year and search again."
"I already anticipated your request. I have gone back as far as the regression software can reliably produce an accurate image, to age two. There were no hits."
"… tried variations of the name Peter?... Peoter, Pietro, Pedro, Petros?"
Peter froze. They were talking about him. Why were they talking about him? Was it a secret?
He wondered what would happen if he walked in. Would Stark hide what he was doing?
Peter left the bowl in the sink and strode purposefully through the compound to the workshop. His curiosity was piqued, but he was also worried. Was Stark keeping something from him? The thought made Peter so irritated it lent him a brave sort of confidence. He didn't mind bothering the man if Stark was hiding things from him.
"Peter is approaching the workshop, boss." He could hear FRIDAY's voice through the doors and wondered if a normal person would be able to hear that at this distance. He walked up to the workshop doors and paused, giving Stark a moment to be duplicitous. A moment to hide whatever he was doing. It would be very telling, then, if Peter walked in and Stark pretended nothing was amiss.
"Let him in, FRI."
The doors slid open.
"Hey, Mr. Stark. FRIDAY said you were awake, so I thought …" Peter glanced around the workshop and stopped short of the large, main holo-screen displaying a dozen pictures of … Peter. He recognized himself easily enough from the slightly younger images. But the pictures of him as a toddler had him gaping open-mouthed.
"Hey kid." Tony's voice pulled him back. He didn't sound surprised to see Peter standing there. If anything, he sounded… resigned. He didn't move to hide the images.
"What are you doing up so late?"
Peter's jaw worked, but no words came out. His brain was still caught on the image of himself, standing there like a before and after picture of someone else's life.
His life.
"Is… is that me?" His voice came out quieter than he intended.
Stark stood from his chair and crossed the room, not invading Peter's space but coming close enough that Peter could feel the weight of his gaze. "Sort of, yeah." He gestured toward the screen. "We've been trying to find out where you might have come from."
"These are recreations of what you probably looked like as a kid. Well, as a younger kid. FRIDAY used forensic age progression software, but in reverse. She's been searching old missing children's reports, comparing the photos to these recreations."
Peter stared at the images again, his arms folding tightly across his chest. "Why?"
He hesitated. "Because you should know."
"Oh." Peter shivered again. He could feel Stark's eyes on him as he took it all in. A dozen kid versions of himself were lined up on the screen juxtaposed to a more recent image of himself as the cold, detached teen in a Hydra uniform.
It was a disconcerting arrangement, and Peter was struck again by the eerie sensation of something being both intimately familiar and altogether foreign, forgotten. The row of Peters stared back at him like echoes of a shadow.
Peter swallowed. "Any luck?"
"Not yet," Stark admitted. "FRIDAY's still searching. She doesn't want to discount any reports that might have been filed under a different name, which means we've been sifting through thousands of images from several different countries."
"My name is definitely Peter. I didn't make it up or anything. I… well, I sort of remember it. 'Peter' feels right."
Stark nodded. "Okay. But it could be a middle name, or a nickname. We'll figure it out."
He waved a hand and the holo-screen went blank. Peter felt like he could breathe again.
"What did you need, kid?" Stark asked, his voice quieter. "It's two in the morning. Are you okay?"
Peter hesitated. The reason he'd come in here in the first place suddenly felt… insignificant. But Mr. Stark was waiting.
"I was awake, and FRIDAY said you were, too. So I just thought maybe I could help out in the workshop a bit. Burn off some energy." Peter shrugged, and then shivered again.
Stark studied him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he tilted his head toward a workbench. "Hmm. Well, I could use a hand with this armor." He gestured at the arm of a suit, lying half-disassembled on a table. "It's an easy fix, but a little tedious. The perfect project to help you get to sleep."
Peter nodded. "Okay, that sounds good."
Mr. Stark stepped past him, reaching for something behind Peter's chair. Peter startled, half-flinching before he could stop himself.
But he just grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of the chair and tossed it onto Peter's shoulder.
"First, put this on."
Peter blinked at the soft bundle of fabric. "Your sweatshirt?"
"You can't shiver your way through this repair," He said casually, already turning back to the workbench. "You'll rip out a wire or something. You need steady hands, so put it on and warm up."
"Oh, yeah." That sounded reasonable enough.
Peter hesitated only for a moment before pulling the hoodie over his head. There was an MIT emblem on the front, and it was soft in an old-and-worn kind of way. It smelled of laundry detergent, so it must've been washed recently. But it also smelled like Stark and the workshop. Peter burrowed into it.
Stark glanced over, his expression unreadable. Then he smirked. "Pull up a seat."
Peter sat, eyeing the armor, his brain itching for something to work on.
Stark reached for a screwdriver. "FRI, turn the music back on, but half volume. Classic rock."
The opening chords of an old Aerosmith song hummed through the workshop.
Peter took a seat and looked over the tools and armor, trying to figure out the needed repair without touching anything.
Stark sat across from him and started pulling another panel off the arm. "Hand me that 3mm screwdriver."
They worked in comfortable silence, pulling apart the armor and replacing fried wiring. At one point, Stark glanced up, watching Peter work.
"You're handy in a workshop. And the lab, too." He met Peter's surprised gaze with soft eyes. "And you're really smart, Peter. I don't know if you realize just how smart you are."
Peter stared at the man in silence. He had no idea where this was going.
"You know, you're welcome to work in here with me whenever you want. Harley going home didn't rescind that invitation. I like having you around, too, kid."
"Oh." Peter blinked. "Okay."
Stark looked like he wanted to say more but abruptly changed the subject to the armor in front of them. So they finished the repair in silence. But it was a comfortable silence. And when they were done, Peter walked back to his room and collapsed onto the bed and didn't even realize that he was still wearing Mr. Stark's hoodie. He drifted into a dreamless sleep feeling safe and calm, and welcome.