Chapter Text
Green. Why is it so green? And where’s Mr. Stark?
They say death is peaceful, but God does Peter want to kill someone.
Peter swims— kicks with everything he has, every drop of strength, too hard, too fast, every burning fiber of muscle screaming— and then he drops. Not down, he knows that. He can feel down. Away. He’s falling.
God, why am I falling?
The green becomes all-encompassing, as it closes in around him and steals his remaining senses. It presses in from all angles, so hard it hurts, until there’s nothing left but him and it. The light just outside of the water’s surface smears, fades, thins to almost nothing. Everything monumentally shifts.
Green to black.
Green. Has he been here before? He thinks he might have. The thought feels old. Familiar in the most dreadful way.
He swims up, up, up, but to no reprieve. It doesn’t matter. The green remains above him, the surface stays just out of touch. His legs won’t carry him far enough. They’re too short. Too weak. Too little.
Little?
The word feels wrong. Since when am I little?
His chest burns. But only for a moment. He thinks that part of himself may have simply stopped working. You can’t feel pain in something so utterly broken.
Gone.
He’s out of air. Did he ever have any to begin with? He can’t breathe.
He can’t—
breathe.
Green. Fuck this.
He’s getting out if it’s the last thing he does. He tries again. And again. Every kick is harder than the last, messier, raw. Each with more fervor and vehemence. Each one fueled with more anger, more desperate passion.
Green. Again
Green. And again.
Green. Please— please, he just wants it to go away. He wants to go home. He wants to sleep. He’s trying so hard, can’t you see?
Green to black.
Green. To no avail.
Green. Maybe if he… stops trying. Maybe this isn’t worth it.
He lets the green take him this time.
He sinks. Lower, slower now, the fight draining out of him piece by piece. Limb by unmoving limb. He sinks into the vat he’s found himself in, the light from the surface getting dimmer and dimmer—retreating. He’s done enough. He’s so tired. Can’t he just rest?
The green closes around him, and this time he doesn’t fight back.
He lets the green take him, his diminishing consciousness taking his worries with it.
It feels restful.
God, does it feel peaceful to die. Death is a peaceful thing. He can hear the green, feel its heartbeat, whispering to him. It’s soft and sure, lulling him towards sleep. Acceptance.
It’s okay, it says.
You’re at peace.
Green. He doesn’t know how many times he’s given himself to the green like this, just for life to drag him back again, back to wakefulness. It’s sharp, and cruel, and breathless, and it won’t let him sleep. He can still hear the echoes of the water’s reassurances.
Green. The green is a mother fucking god damned liar. The chants of peace only serve to piss him off, and the whispers feel more like threats; warning him against escape, trying to seduce him, keep him here. In its grasp, he can feel the violence. It no longer feels like a cradle, but oppressive, captivating, controlling. With renewed energy and anger, he thrusts himself up up up towards the light above.
As his hand finally finally breaks through the surface, just as his lack of breath starts to take him from himself again, he grabs the rocky edge and yanks himself up and out. Collapsing to the ground, he heaves, gasps, breathes, and expels everything in his gut. All the green water, finally out. Finally no longer all encompassing. He can touch the rock below him, smell the moist air. He briefly wonders if he’s in a cave. The green is gone.
Except it’s not. Why is it not? As soon as he can hope to gather his bearings, the damned green creeps back in, stilling his vision and thoughts, turning every instinct to make him run, to make him want to hurt.
He’s running. He doesn’t know for how long, he doesn’t know why. But he is.
He can feel sharp metal under his palms, blood under his feet. And then there is that feeling again. The dissonance, the distance between himself and the world, the darkening of his vision. He hits the ground with a thud, only then bothering to curl up and recognize the gnawing in his stomach and the bite of the cold air against his bare skin.
Green to black.