Chapter Text
It had to have been the water.
She’d seen the bottled water in the fridge, but it had struck her as an unnecessary American luxury when there was running water in the house. For days she’d drunk the tap water, and the others either didn’t notice or didn’t think to stop her.
They probably didn’t notice.
And now it was the middle of the night and Wanda stumbled out of bed, unable to stand upright for the piercing pain shooting through her middle. Stumbling down the hall, the light is harsh from the bathroom overhead and the bolt sliding into place is so loud—no, no, no, time to—on her knees at the toilet, her guts wrenching and twisting cutting off her air. But oh, God—she didn’t need to be sick. Wanda pulled herself onto the toilet as—she gasped—this pain shot, pulsated, retreated and then extended down her legs and up across her ribs, over and over.
When she finally collapsed onto the rug she absently wondered if the others would have to break down the door to retrieve her body. Maybe she shouldn’t have bolted the door.
She shivered and curled into a tighter ball on the rug.
She missed Pietro.
He’d have known about the water. He thought about things like that.
Another cramp began building and she prayed she could breathe through it, because she didn’t think she had the strength to sit back up again.
I’ll take care of you, Vision would tell her, and she realized she was fluttering between a dream and a shabby rug on a floor. She leaned into the dream.
You’ve suffered so much, my love. She pretended to feel his arms around her, real, solid, warm.
——
Peter Parker wakes up to cold metal comprehending him in a crushing mockery of a hug, unable to free his arms or struggle or even gain enough air to cry out as he’s lifted clear from his bed and taken out the window. His head bangs against the window, hard
——
You don’t like to dwell on all you’ve lost. But I know, and I know I can’t keep letting you suffer alone. You need to share the burden, Viz said, and his voice was so kind Wanda wished again that she hadn’t locked the door. If someone were to come check on her, she’d tell them everything, she’d stop carrying all her guilt and aloneness and orphanhood like a calling card.
——
“You need to share the burden,” he says and Tony can barely hear him above the wind up on the roof, and he can barely see his dark, sinuous form. He only has eyes for Peter, standing at the very lip, balancing on the balls of his feet while his heels hang off the stone edge. He’s stiff as a board, afraid to breathe too deeply or move his hands at all
——
I’ll always take care of you. I’ll always love you like you deserve. Wanda panted through a series of tremors. What she wouldn’t give for some water.
——
“It’s time for you—both of you—to get what you deserve.”
~*~
“Stark? Stark, you’re needed upstairs. On the roof.”
Tony rolled over and tried to blink himself awake.
“Jar, what time is it?” he whispered, then caught himself. Pepper was away. He wasn’t used to her being back, and he wasn’t used to their new place in the City. The view from the penthouse was nice, but he missed the ocean. He rubbed his eyes to clear the tired thoughts, then sat up and cleared his throat a few times. Why had he thought of Jarvis?
“It is three twenty-five a.m., but I am not Jarvis.”
Tony swallowed a groan. Of course not. It hadn’t been Jarvis in over two years.
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Viz. What’s up?”
Tony began pulling on pants, an undershirt, cast around for socks.
“I’m not quite Vision, either. It’s best you come see. Mr. Parker’s life quite literally depends on it.”
And just like that, Tony was wide awake. He dropped the shirt he was pulling on and rushed out his room, barefooted and only half-dressed. Vision had ceased communicating with him after urging him to hurry. Tony tried to call up Friday, but she wasn’t responding. Neither were the phones or the internet. He paused by the door only to grab his watch and activate the Gauntlet. It hadn’t sounded like Vision was worried the attack was ongoing, but Tony wasn’t going to be unprepared.
Or, more unprepared, because whatever this was, it was off his radar of possible eventualities and that was not an easy place to be. Peter wasn’t supposed to be this far uptown at this hour. It was a weeknight, a school night, for fuck’s sake, and Tony hadn’t used that term since 1984. He hammered the button to the elevator, and once inside he slammed on the close-doors button, then entered his code for roof access. What the hell was going on?
The doors opened to a small access hallway, and Tony was across it in a moment, pushing open the heavy door to the roof. The building towered high enough above the City for the wind to run wild, and Tony had to brace himself against it as he let the door slam shut behind him. Nothing. He turned around, looking for the commotion.
What he found was an image of a perfect still-life on the south corner of the rooftop.
The scene imprinted itself without bothering to register first; Tony could recreate it, every displaced element of it, with his eyes closed. But he had no idea what he was looking at.
The kid was standing on the very edge of the roof, barefoot, as though he were pulled straight from bed. His t-shirt and loose pajama bottoms whipped in the wind, and he fought to stay balanced. He held something in his hands, and though he was facing Tony his eyes were on the figure beside him, on…
It looked like Vision, but—no, it hadn’t been lying; it wasn't him, but some nightmarish copy, gray and scaly. The engineer in Tony clocked the metal, mixed pieces of nickel and steel and iron wrought to mimic Vision’s physique. A copy made of scraps.
In his forehead a stone glowed with a soft, red pulse.
The Nightmare must have sensed him there, because it immediately raised its dead, white eyes to Tony’s. In an instant a connection was formed, an invasion of hatred and fear and a burning sense of injustice somehow made Tony feel anger and shame at the same time. He forced his eyes away from the thing.
“Pete? You okay?”
The kid shifted his gaze to meet Tony’s, moving only his eyes.
“Mr. Stark, get—”
“You were told not to speak,” Nightmare Vision interrupted, calmly. He was conducting an event. “Don't force me to end this sooner than I had intended." The foul version of Vision, who spoke in Jarvis' voice, walked to the kid and raised a knuckle to knock on the thing the kid was holding to punctuate his words.
Peter reacted as though he'd been hit. His whole body tensed around the thing, as he half-gasped in breathy disbelief. He raised his eyes to the thing, then to Tony, then let them rest between his hands as he made a deliberate effort to regulate his breathing. His entire outline jerked with the effort. Tony didn't know what could have made the kid react like that. He looked terrified.
The kid raised his eyes to Tony, an instinct he couldn't help. Tony was afraid he’d try to warn him again.
He raised a finger, and spoke to the… robot? android? shell?
“Stop, who are you, what is this?” As he spoke, Tony twisted his wrist to activate the Gauntlet. He felts its reassuring weight gloving his hand.
“No,” Nightmare Vision said, softly, turning lightly on his heel to face Tony. With a intricate movement of his fingers that was both familiar and all wrong, Tony’s hand fell to his side, useless.
“What is this?” Tony asked again.
“All will become clear and made right when you regain consciousness,” that thing said, and before Tony could piece together the puzzle that was taking shape, something—
~*~
Peter saw the smallest of the water tanks on the roof barreling towards Mr. Stark, but he didn’t dare warn him even though every moral imperative was telling him he should have. When that version of Vision set him down on the roof, he hadn’t had five seconds to catch his breath before this thing was shoved in his hands, and he was warned that any movement would set it off. It was bad enough trying to figure out why this was happening and how not to boom himself out of existence when it was just him, but then Mr. Stark stumbled out onto the roof looking like he’d just woken up, and everything got so much worse. So he did nothing but wish he was smarter as he watched silently as that water tank crashed into Tony, breaking over him as he fell to his knees, dazed.
He wasn’t unconscious, not exactly, but it seemed that Tony had no will of his own to exert. He didn’t resist as his arms were pulled forward around the support beams of the nearer, larger tank, and cuffed there in thick, heavy-looking metal bracelets. He tried to raise his head but only managed to slump it to the other side. He tried to open his eyes but only managed to roll them as they failed to find purchase in the outside world.
Peter watched him struggle against this half-consciousness in small bursts, always returning his own eyes to bomb he was holding. It was heavy, easily upwards of 600 pounds, and while the weight itself wasn’t too bad yet, holding it perfectly level and perfectly still was getting hard. At least the warmth was keeping his fingers from getting too stiff. Stupid Vision put him on the very edge of the roof, and balancing on the balls of his feet was making his calves burn. But he could hold for another minute, easily. Another minute was doable. Another minute would be fine.
It had been maybe thirty or forty more minutes when the sky began to lighten, and a few minutes after that when Tony began to come to. Vision’s evil twin had stood perfectly still the entire time with his back to Peter, watching Tony. All things considered, that suited Peter just fine. He didn’t want to have to see those milky eyes staring venom at him on top of everything else.
Peter focused on his breathing, on stretching his fingers as much as he could, on making it through one more minute, when a harsh rattle forced his eyes up. Mr. Stark was pulling ineffectually at the heavy cuffs around his wrists, fighting to move forward even though there was no way either the cuffs or the heavy metal frame would give. And he wasn’t even looking at Peter, but at the bomb he was holding.
Peter looked back down at this, and made sure his grip was tight.
Scary Vision spoke to Mr. Stark then, his voice familiar and amused, like he was sharing a joke. “You recognize the warhead, of course. It was laughably easy to find.”
Warhead? Jeez, that sounded so much worse than ‘bomb.’ A million dumb villains used bombs. Rhino used bombs. But this… This wasn’t Rhino. Peter’s heart pounded at the realization that this wasn’t amateur hour.
Mr. Stark sounded like he didn’t think so, either. “Why—the kid, he isn’t a part of this, he isn’t a part of anything, you can let him go.”
Monster Vision moved cross directly between Peter and Tony, and crouched directly in front of Mr. Stark.
“He is exactly a part of this, and not only because of you.”
Peter looked up at that, wishing he dared ask how exactly he was a part of what, but he wasn’t invited to the conversation. Right now, he was just a prop waiting to explode.
Mr. Stark asked the follow-up question for him.
“How? She’s angry at me, I ruined her life, fine. I get that. What’s he doing here?”
“He’s been given…” Creepy Vision laughed bitterly. “All the things she was denied. He—”
The wind cut across the rooftop then, taking the rest of the explanation with him, buffeting Peter somehow in all directions at once. He hunched his shoulders against the wind, then remembered that that was a terrible idea, and he straightened, instead. He tried inching a little forward, at least to get his heels onto the roof, but he could feel something shift inside the bo—inside the warhead. How, how was this something he was worried about at five in the morning? How had he managed to anger some she, enough to merit… this? It wasn’t fair, and it was getting really hard to keep doing it and all he wanted to do was relax just one of his muscles, he didn’t even care which, just to rest for two minutes, and he’d be able to go again. He closed his eyes against the wind until the tears cleared, then opened them.
The wind slowed, and Tony’s conversation with… with, Ugly Vision—had he used that one yet?—came back to him. Peter tried to ignore Mr. Stark’s slightly purpling lips, the way he seemed to blink his way into every sentence, as though that could stop the shivering. At least there was no rain tonight.
“You have to share the burden,” Terrible Vision said, and it sounded like the most obvious thing in the world. “You have to share her burden. You knew, but you never bothered truly to understand what it was like watch a bomb, wondering if it is going to destroy the only thing you have left in the world. No one knew, no one cared. The lesson must be learned now.”
“Listen,” Tony said, then blinked himself into focus. “Listen, I get it, okay, I know. Now I know. But the missile that killed the Maximoffs never exploded, right? But he—” Tony gestured to Peter as best he could with his hands bound—“he’s holding the warhead of a Jericho. That’s a thermobaric weapon, okay? And I see you’ve undone the outer casing, and that means that if—if—if that thing gets heated enough—”
“I’ve already preheated the nanofuels beyond their ignition threshold, and the dispersion charge is primed. Should Mr. Parker so much as tilt the device or break the vacuum currently maintained by nothing more than his hands—”
Peter’s heart dropped or his stomach roiled up but his hands were beginning to sweat and his throat was beating harder—that was wrong—but, it sounded like they were talking about—
“The scatter-cloud would ignite on contact with the oxygen, and it wouldn’t only,” Mr. Stark shot a glance at Peter, helpless and apologetic, “incinerate the kid, it’ll take out all 42 stories of this building, goddamnit, it might take out the block of it hits a gas main. Thousands of people could die. Hundreds wouldn’t even leave a body behind,” Tony was begging, by the end.
“Innocent lives are always on the line,” Evil Vision responded, almost kindly. “That’s part of the game. Part of our job.”
Tony narrowed his eyes. “Game?
The Dumb Vision stood up, and began pacing.
“You needn’t necessarily die. We’re not monsters, she and I. We only want to be seen. To be felt. For our greatest suffering to be known. The bomb is the first part. But just as equal horror no one seems to care about is what Hydra did to her…” He trailed off there, walked to Peter and back to Tony, then again. Before he returned the second time he paused by Peter, raising a hand slowly. Peter bit his lip and braced himself, but it wasn’t a blow. The thing extended a cold metal hand and ran it down the side of Peter’s face. Somehow, that was worse. Peter forced himself not to move away from the touch.
“Don’t,” Mr. Stark snapped, and there was no stammer, no shiver. Creepy Vision pulled his hand away from Peter.
“No, I don’t know what Hydra did to her, but she volunteered! That can’t be on the kid. He was barely potty trained when that went down.”
“No, that isn’t his fault. And yes, she volunteered. And she had about as much choice in the matter as you will. I’m certain you’ll volunteer, too. Did you know they made her hurt herself? That was the worst part of it.”
Insane Vision stepped onto the ledge Peter was standing on, but he didn’t touch him again. He didn’t even look at him.
“We’ve other scores to settle. You’ll notice I’ve left you your gauntlet. It's time you both got what you deserved.” He made as though to leap off the roof, then tilted his head in thought. “You know, she doesn't know how to to be heard. I’m only trying to help.”
He stepped out of Peter’s line of vision, then; Peter waited a moment, then raised his eyes to Mr. Stark. He shook his head lightly in question.
Mr. Stark sighed. “Yeah, he’s gone kid.”
A deep breath. By both of them.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
Peter took a moment to enjoy his relief that Nasty Vision was gone. Those deadened, all-white eyes… He didn’t know who she was, but Peter could feel her hatred of him radiating out of those eyes. It was so strong, simple on its conviction that it made him wonder if he really did deserve it. He tried to relieve some of the pressure on his legs without moving, failed, then spoke.
“So, um, Mr. Stark? It’s not that I’m not super flattered to be punished for mysterious crimes together with you, but, uh, what’s happening?”
What he really wanted to ask was, what do we do, but he suspected Mr. Stark didn’t really know, either, and he definitely didn’t need to pressure him while he was tied up twenty feet away from a bomb. The least Peter could do was handle his end of the panic. It was hiding in the back of his mind, behind the pain in his legs and the tension in his hands, but Peter recognized it and he wasn’t about to let it out.
Mr. Stark sat up as straight as he could. Now that the sky was lighter, Peter could see that must have been tricky. His hands weren’t in traditional cuffs, but in thick bracelets that were connected by a long chain that ran behind Tony’s back. Pulling his hands apart would only tighten the chain around him, and sitting up required him to lean heavily against the metal beam he was tied to. He grunted with the effort.
“First you, kid. You okay? I mean… Considering? Holding up? How long have you been holding that thing?”
“Only a couple of hours, I’m still good.”
Tony called him a liar with impressively minimal change to his face.
Peter amended.
“Well, not good good, but I’m good. I can keep holding this. Mr. Stark, what you were saying before, can this thing really take out the block? Cause, I’d rather we didn’t do that.”
“Yeah,” and he wasn’t looking at Peter anymore. “Me, too. Not blowing up is almost always on my to-do list.”
“Can I just, like, yeet this thing up in the air? I got decent range.”
“It’d ignite before it cleared the roof. Forget the block, it would burn the air out of your lungs before you knew it, and the blast wave would shatter all your bones.” Tony’s eyes shut tightly as he shook his head. “Sorry. No, you can’t move that thing, not yet.”
Peter was determined not to ask the required question. He wouldn’t put that pressure on Mr. Stark.
“Okay,” Mr. Stark said a moment later. “Okay. Okay. Here’s the plan. I’m going to get out of these cuffs, I’ll get over to you and disable the ignition primer. Easy.”
“How…?”
“I blast through the chain. Nightmare Vision left me the gauntlet, remember?”
Peter tried to envision how that could possibly work. The chain ran across his abdomen under each arm and around his back. The repulsor was hardly a precision tool. There was no way to cut that chain without—
Peter reeled, took a step back to steady himself only to remember that there was no back. He caught his balance and regained his footing, his grip in the warhead beginning to lightly dent it.
“Mr. Stark, no.”
“Easy, kid. I volunteer, remember? You can’t keep holding that thing forever. You’re not even fully balanced. Your legs will begin cramping, your fingers will start slipping, and the sun’s gonna be over those buildings any second now. It’s gonna get hot up here, and if that thing so much as slips…”
Peter was not entertaining this. He’d been in plenty of bad situations, and he always found a way out of them. Always. For Tony to fry the chain enough to break it, it would mean also shooting himself, right in the abdomen. “Mr. Stark, I swear, I’m good. I can hold this till we find another way, or someone comes looking for us. Or for you, I guess. I mean, and if you have to cut through, why not the beam you’re attached to? It—”
“It wouldn’t free my hands, and it would cause the ton-and-a-half water tank behind me to come crashing down on both of us. It might smother the bomb,” Mr. Stark mused, then regathered his thoughts. “But I’d rather not kill both of us if I don’t have to. Kid, I can do this. But—listen, please. I need something from you.
“I trust you, implicitly. But that’s not gonna cut it right now. This is gonna suck, and I’m gonna tap out. I need you to keep me on my game, okay? Don’t let me pass out, don’t let me back out. I need you to remind me that there is no other choice. Remind me why I’m doing it.”
“Thousands of dead people, hundreds of whom wouldn’t even leave a body behind?”
Tony shook his head. “That won’t cut it, either.
“You, kid. I need you to remind me that if I fail, if I stop, you die. I know it’s… Shit.” Mr. Stark tugged at his chains, as though to raise his hands to his face, but managed only to cut of his air with a strangled breath. he released his hands as much as the chain allowed, and leveled his gaze at Peter. It was sharper, more determined than before.
“I know it’s everything you aren’t, to remind me of those things. I know that you’d rather take the heavy lifting on this one, let me off the hook, and try to figure out another way. But there isn’t one, and we can’t wait around for one to present itself. We—I need, I need you do remind me this is on me. That you’re relying on me.
“I need you to be weak for me, Pete. Do you think you can do that?”
Peter had to tear his eyes away from Tony’s. He couldn’t handle the intensity of that stare, the minute movements of his head as though to better calibrate what he was asking—demanding—of Peter. He breathed heavily through his mouth, but it felt like his lungs couldn’t get enough air. Tony was about to blow a hole in his middle, and he was asking Peter to…not only not to stop it, but to encourage it. To make it happen. To let the panic show; to let it roam.
But… He didn’t really see an alternative, either. They could try waiting for someone to find them, sure, but Peter was also one sneeze away from killing a lot of people.
Shit.
“I, I don’t think I’m strong enough to do that, Mr. Stark.”
Tony regarded him closely, his eyes widening in his scrutiny of Peter. He came to a conclusion.
“You’re a little shit, you know that, Parker?”
Peter gave a small smile.
“How long… How many times will you have to… You know?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
And Peter heard the repulsor whine, and he blinked away the afterglow, and Mr. Stark was stifling a groan as he tried to pull his arms to check out the damage to the chain. Peter couldn’t see any, from where he was.
“Well,” Mr. Stark gasped, “more than once.”
And then he blasted the chain again, and again.
And then once more, with feeling.
After the fourth time he stopped, panting heavily. He laid his head back against the water tank. “I… It must… It’s gotta be a synthesized alloy, maybe diluted vibranium?” he breathed, and let his hands drop. He’d moved the chain slightly every time he’d hit it with the repulsor, probably so the burns would be spread-out across his body instead of scorching him straight through. But Peter could see the series of round burn marks, blackened skin delineating every blast, red, raw, and slightly bleeding in the middle. He squinted against the sun which had just peaked the buildings to his right, and hated himself.
“Hey, eyes open.”
Tony nodded, but kept his head back and his eyes closed. “A minute, kid.”
“We don’t have a minute, Mr. Stark. Any second now this thing could explode and kill a lot of people. Me included. Eyes open.”
Peter forced himself to keep looking, despite the profound shame that now colored Tony’s features. Shame Peter felt himself, shame that seemed to reverberate between the two of them, growing wherever it found purchase though Peter had no doubt he was its source.
So he watched as Tony aimed another repulsor blast at the chain, then another. He encouraged him to make the blasts longer, more focused. He made his voice hard when Tony told hin he needed to rest, just for a bit.
“Eyes open.”
Tony's gasps became grunts, then screams; the burn marks became blisters, then open wounds; Peter’s words became even harsher.
The sun was higher now, and Peter’s hands were beginning to sweat, and the street far below him was starting to get busy with cars and foot traffic. He closed his eyes against a persistent sunbeam, and wondered if May was worried. With any luck, she’d think he’d just left for school early. It was a shame about school—he liked Wednesday mornings best. He got to sit next to MJ in…
Peter jerked awake, then held his breath as he realized what he’d done. Jesus. Jesus. He looked across the roof, but Mr. Stark hadn’t noticed that he’d all but fallen asleep standing up. His own eyes were shut, his breathing haggard. His chest and abdomen were a mess.
“Tony!”
He jerked upright, whispering an apology as he readied for another round. “Sorry, kid, sorry. I’m…” His head slumped forward.
“Tony, look at me. Look at me.” Peter waited till Mr. Stark raised unfocused eyes his way. “I’m tired. I’m fifteen and I’m standing here holding your warhead and I’m so tired. I can’t move, and I can’t keep this up. I can’t. You said that if this goes off, it won’t leave a body. I can’t do that to May, Mr. Stark. You can’t do that to her. She’s lost everyone already, do you know what that’s like? Everyone. She’ll wake up to an empty apartment and won’t ever know what happened to me. I’ll just disappear and she’ll never know that I couldn’t even scream as I died because... How did you put it? My skull shattered and my air was burned away from me by your bomb. It’s not fair, and you volunteered to make this right. So keep your eyes open and fix it.”
Peter didn’t know what part of that got through to Mr. Stark, but he sat up straighter, more alert. His entire front was drenched in blood, but he only tightened the chain across the burned flesh of his middle, positioned the repulsor again, and fired. And kept firing. His screams were loud enough that Peter was sure they must be heard down on the street. When he ran out of breath, he kept the repulsor trained on the chain, kept it firing. Peter could smell the burning skin, the boiling blood. He thought was going to be sick.
And the chain snapped.
Tony fell forward with an intake of air that was mostly a hiss. Peter blinked away wetness in his eyes. If he’d killed Mr. Stark, the least he could do was take responsibility for it. Witness it.
But it looked like he hadn’t, not yet. Tony shook the chains free from around his back, and rested his head on the soft white sealant that coated the rooftop. “I know, I know, eyes open,” he said—whispered—his voice scratchy, “eyes open.” And he began to drag himself across the roof towards Peter.
The going was agonizingly slow. Peter wasn’t sure how Mr. Stark would be able to even sit up once he reached the ledge where Peter was standing. He couldn’t even crawl properly. He pulled himself forward, making low sounds in the back of his throat, a trail of blood marking his route from the water tank to Peter.
Tony made it to the wall and pulled himself to a seated position, his breathing so jagged Peter wasn’t sure he wasn’t dying, after all. He wrapped a hand around his middle, gasped in pained surprise, then let his arm drop heavily to his side. “I’m not resting kid, I promise, just catching my breath.” Tony leaned his head against the wall and looked up at Peter. “Look, my eyes are wide open.”
Peter couldn’t stand how this was playing out, Mr. Stark at his feet, talking up to him, like Peter held some sort of authority over him, like he owed Peter anything, let alone an explanation as to why he needed to rest. “Mr. Stark, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I’m okay, I’m barely tired anymore, you can take—take all the time.”
Mr. Stark chuckled, like he was really amused. “Sorry,” he said inexplicably. And he pushed himself around, then up to his knees, so he was at eye level with the bomb. He extended his hands, then pulled them back as he steadied himself against the ledge.
“Whoa. Dizzy. Maybe should have kept some blood inside here. Don’t drop that,” he added, pointing at the warhead.
After a moment of careful, painful-sounding breathing, Tony lifted his hands, the chain dangling loudly at his side. Peter could feel him fidget with the underside of the bomb, then a series of morosely declining beeps from within the warhead, and Mr. Stark allowed himself to collapse to the side.
“It’s done, kid. The disposal primer and ignition timer…” he stopped to catch his breath, “disabled. You can go ahead and…” Tony waved a haphazard hand vaguely towards the rooftop next to him. “drop it.”
Peter released a shuddered breath. It was done. This awful night, and awful morning, were done. It was safe. Whatever lesson the Jerkface Vision wanted them to learn was done. His lungs weren’t going to burn, his skull wasn’t going to shatter, and May wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to him.
“Kid?”
This was all good news.
But Peter couldn’t release that bomb.
He tried. Or, he thought he tried. His brain told him that it was safe. Told his fingers to relax, to release. Told his feet to take a step forward, to rest the fire that was shooting up his legs and down his arms.
But the panic he’d let loose earlier, it was still free, and it made his fingers grip stronger and his muscles clench tight enough for something to feel like it was tearing in his ankle but he couldn’t, he couldn’t let go of any of it because he didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want to kill Mr. Stark, especially not after he’d made him do that to himself. What he wanted was to explain this, to tell Mr. Stark that he’d be fine, he just needed another minute. Except his brain wasn’t forming words anymore than it was completing simple relay instructions, and instead of something strong, or funny, or even cogent, all he could manage was a weak, “Can’t.”
Within a second Tony was clambering back to his knees, then pushing himself up to his feet. “Shit, Pete.”
After another two further false starts and three additional expletives—two of which Peter had never heard before though together they painted a very vivid picture—Tony had the gauntlet situated under Peter’s left hand, his other touching the right. Tony’s hands were freezing, which made Peter suddenly and acutely aware of how pale Mr. Stark was. How fundamentally unwell.
Peter couldn’t even do this simple thing alone.
Mr. Stark didn’t take the warhead from him. He began by slowly massaging Peter’s right hand, stopping every few moments to adjust the cuffs or pull the chains back.
Sensation returned in a rushing flood that made Peter wish his hand had stayed numb; it hurt in a way that overpowered the strained muscles everywhere else. It was unbearable, and he instinctively flexed his fingers to regulate the blood flow there.
“Heavy,” Tony grunted as the warhead dropped onto his gauntleted hand, and he guided it to the ground in a controlled drop.
But Peter was balanced too precariously on the edge. His heels had been hanging off the edge of the roof, and without the counterweight of the warhead, he toppled clear backwards.
“NO, NO!” Peter could hear Tony yell—it wasn’t hard, he was barely a foot below the edge of the rooftop—and a second later his hand was reaching over the ledge. He looked over, and when he saw Peter standing on the side of the building, he sagged with the fleeting tension.
“I thought you plummeted to your death. I forgot… Sticky.”
“Sorry, stumbled,” Peter said, and walked the few steps up the side of the building, tumbled back over the ledge, and collapsed. God, it felt good to sit.
Mr. Stark exhaled hard, and placed a hand on Peter’s head, before collapsing next to him.
For a few long minutes, they just sat.
Mr. Stark breathing heavily, Peter massaging his hands, his legs, his forearms. Everything tingled with the feel of an electric charge with nothing to ground it, just racing back and forth between his fingertips and his elbows, his shins and his knees, his spine and his skull.
They sat and breathed.
When feeling had returned somewhat, Peter reached over and grabbed Tony’s wrist beneath the gauntlet, and snapped the cuff the surrounded it. The blackened, broken chain fell with it. Tony made a sound that Peter supposed could be a form of thanks, before silently extending his other arm. Peter broke that cuff, too.
Being, breathing.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”
Tony let his head tilt towards Peter, and shook it.
Peter let it go, but only because Tony looked like he was about to pass out, and Peter didn’t want to push him over the edge.
For a long while, not-pushing was enough.
And then it wasn’t. Peter stood first, and then helped Tony up. Peter took most of his weight—it was nothing compared to holding a warhead while standing completely still for half the night—and followed Tony’s blood trail to the water tank, then looped behind it to the short hall that led to the elevator.
Peter was practically carrying Tony now that his adrenaline rush seemed to have waned, but Tony was able to navigate the elevator codes back to his apartment.
It was the first time Peter had ever been there, and it was surprisingly… homey. Warm. Peter realized that part of him had been expecting glass walls and maybe a white-leather sofa or something. But Tony led him to a soft couch in front of a low table, and waved for him to grab first aid from a cabinet sided by shelves that held little bowls of potpourri and recessed lighting.
There were tchotchkes.
It made Peter feel… Like Mr. Stark was a regular person, and that this thing happened on the roof of a regular person’s home. The Nightmare Vision, Tony had called him that and it fit, knew where Tony lived, and it took Peter there to hurt Tony at home, to make his home the nexus of a devastating explosion. It was a dirty game to begin with, but it was also personal; that made it filthy.
And it made Peter angry.
Mr. Stark didn't deserve to be violated like this, whatever she thinks he's done to her.
He allowed Tony to talk him through the first-aid, apologizing every time Tony winced as he moved on to a new wound. He made coffee while Tony had Friday summon whoever was at the Compound, and he grabbed fresh clothes for Tony and then spoke to May while Tony struggled into them.
This wasn’t right.
He was still angry when the ceiling thumped, and seconds later the elevator whirred. Peter moved in front of the sofa where Mr. Stark was sitting to stand between him and the elevator doors. He hadn’t been expecting the ceiling to dip down.
No, not dipping, someone phasing through.
“Stand down, kid,” Tony said, and tugged Peter back onto the couch beside him. “It’s Vision.”
And it was. Vision-Vision, this time, and even though Peter thought he should be on edge, the difference between him and Nightmare was practically pooling around the android in palpable energy. If the Nightmare’s eyes were dead, cold, and radiated profound, pained hatred, Vision’s were warm, empathetic, and incredibly human. There was no sense of danger around him, no lingering instinct to protect Tony. Peter knew they were safe, and he wondered how that awful thing could be Vision’s mirror image. He wondered what kind of surface could create that kind of reflection.
The elevator doors opened, and Colonel Rhodes stepped into the living area. He glanced at Peter and then took in Tony, now cleaned up but looking as though he’d been through some kind of wringer. Peter could tell when Rhodey noticed the bloody undershirt on the floor. He didn’t even seem upset.
He nodded to it. “Yours or his?” he asked as lowered himself to a chair across from Tony and Peter. Vision hovered nearby.
“Mine. He’s fine. Ish. Will be. But right now… We have a problem.”
Mr. Stark caught them up, giving them the whole tale in detail, though Peter noticed he very casually and very deliberately failed to name the she and the her that the Nightmare referred to. Rhodes took in the details, nodding, wincing, and glancing at Peter’s hands or Tony’s middle as the story progressed. He must have caught what Mr. Stark was not saying, because all his follow up questions were equally as vague on identities and rich in personal pronouns.
Vision, though, wasn’t taking it as well. He kept asking if Tony was sure, and if he was certain, and if there was any room for doubt. He looked pained—no, torn—with every word Tony said.
“I shall remain with you, then. If this facsimile of me is operating with her powers, you may need this,” Vision gently indicated the stone in his forehead, “to counter them.”
Tony leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He looked up at Vision. “I think you should go to her. She’s in pain. That thing admitted as much. I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to stop it at the source. Find her. Friday can point you in the right direction. Find them, find her. She needs you.”
“If she thinks you’ve sent me…”
“Then don’t tell her. You have access, you know where the safehouses are. Take her to one, do whatever you need to reassure her. But this has to stop.”
Vision nodded, and rose towards the ceiling. “I’ll find her. In the meanwhile, If my… duplicate indicated that there were additional scores to settle, you haven’t time to waste. I too believe she is operating out of pain, not malice. Trace the foci of her pain, and you’ll find the thing that attacked you. I’ll let you know as soon as I find her.”
He nodded again to each of them, and rose through the ceiling.
Mr. Stark ran a hand down his face and turned to Peter, next.
“Kid, Rhodey and I have some ground to cover if we’re gonna figure out where Nightmare is headed. I… I know this isn’t exactly what you signed up for, but I’d prefer you didn’t go home just yet. That thing knows where you live, and it might know about your school, and we don’t know whether it’s done with you, yet. You okay to crash here? Just for a few hours, till we get this sorted.”
“One way or another,” Rhodey muttered, and Mr. Stark shot him an irritated look.
“Till we stop this psychodrama. That cool?”
It was. It was very cool. Peter didn’t think anyone was free to drive him home, anyway, and he definitely wasn’t up to swinging, walking, or taking a train home barefoot in his bloodstained pajamas.
At that Tony made a movement to stand up, but Rhodes called him a name and waved him down, for Chrissake, and pushed himself to his feet, instead. He got Peter clean clothes—Tony’s—and then led him to the bathroom where he could change and freshen up. When he emerged, cleaner, more comfortable, and sporting none of Mr. Stark’s blood, Rhodey led him to the bedroom.
“Grab a few winks, kid. We’ll be trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Yeah. Um, about that—”
“We’ll let you know if we find anything.”
Peter nodded. “Thanks.” He pushed the door open and closed it behind him, then froze.
This was Mr. Stark’s room.
Or, half of it was. Peter assumed the tidy half was Pepper Potts’, and that the side with rumpled sheets and a pair of tinted glasses and what looked like an arc reactor base was Tony’s.
And this presented a dilemma.
How was he supposed to sleep in here? If he chose Mr. Stark's bed…that was weird. The bed wasn’t even made on that side, like someone had just thrown themselves out of the sheets and—well, yes, he supposed that made sense considering, but still. It was far too intimate to curl up under the bedding on Tony’s side of the bed.
But it was almost weirder to sleep on Pepper’s side. Would that be like he’s taking her place? What if Mr. Stark also wanted to rest, and he came in and saw Peter in Pepper’s bed and thought that was creepy?
Peter supposed he could sleep on the floor... But if someone came in to get him they’d think he’s this stupid country bumpkin who didn’t know about beds.
Ugh.
Peter decided not to decide. He was too wired to sleep, anyway. So he grabbed one of Pepper’s pillows and set it in the middle of the bed, and lay down atop the covers. This way if someone came in, he’d be able to snap up, and hopefully a-void the…the awkwardness entirel…
Peter dreamed he was warm.