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Peter had no idea how long he had been alone in the small room. The floor was hard and cold, and wasn’t even big enough to be considered a closet. But it was all he had, the one safe place at the base.
He had scratched lines onto the wall, a mess of lines and circles. It was the only thing to focus his mind on, the only way to keep the grief from crashing onto him. It was held back by a dam that was ready to break. His ragged nails and the crescent moon scars he re-etched onto his skin every morning were the only outlets he allowed himself. He forced the crashing waves back with all his strength. The moment he let go, he knew he would drown. And he couldn’t do that.
It was supposed to have been an easy mission. The team had suited up to fight against a small faction of rebels who had similar technology and beliefs as HYDRA, but who were worse at staying under the radar.
Once at the base, they had split up. Clint and Natasha, Thor and Bruce, Rhodes and Carol, Steve and Sam, and Peter and Tony. They hadn’t really needed everyone, but they had decided it would be nice to have backup, just in case.
Clint and Natasha had snuck in, taking out the first line of defense before Steve and Sam were sent in. With their help, they were able to incapacitate some high level agents, stealing their swipe cards. Peter and Tony had joined next, the two of them heading straight for the labs. Peter had webbed up the bad guys before they could react, Tony blasting the data banks. They had already hacked in and downloaded the information, so he had no qualms about it. The data the organization had gathered shouldn’t be in the hands of people like them.
Carol and Rhodes took the ariel position, taking out the hostiles that tried to flee. Thor and Bruce went to save the few hostages in the building, all located on the lowest level, in cells that were too small.
There was one hostile, however, that managed to evade the Avengers, detonating a bomb near the labs. It was a defense mechanism, to destroy evidence and to incapacitate anyone who tried to infiltrate them. The bomb would release a colorless, odorless gas that would alter the chemicals in ones brain. It would make it look like their worst fear came true.
The hostile grinned to himself as he heard the explosion go off, sending most of the Avengers flying out of the building, where Carol and Rhodes tried to catch them.
Steve hauled himself to his feet, groaning at the pounding in his head. Meeting Carol’s eyes, the captains turned to the figures around them, trying to account for their teammates. Thor, Bruce, Natasha, Clint, Sam and Rhodes, while all battered, bruised and bleeding, were alive and breathing.
“Where are Tony and Peter?” Steve asked, muscles tensing as he looked at the ruined building.
Carol immediately took to the air, flying over the ruins looking for their two missing teammates. Her eyes scanned the rubble quickly, and as she spotted the familiar red and gold suit, she landed.
The suit was damaged beyond comprehension, the chest plate torn away to reveal the barely glowing reactor. It was faint, but it was there. Carol carefully pulled Tony into her arms, taking to the skies. She deposited him in front of Rhodes, confident that Tony’s best friend would look after him. “Get him help,” she ordered. “I’m going back to look for Peter.” Before anyone could argue, she shot them a look.
She didn’t watch them leave. Even if they didn’t like it, they knew she was right. They would look after Tony, while she searched for their youngest.
Peter had been halfway through his warning when it happened.
A blast shook the room, the beakers and test-tubes exploding, sending their contents and the broken glass flying across the room.
He let out a strangled scream as he felt his ribs crack under the impact. Emptiness threatened to wash over him, but Peter fought against it. He called out for Tony, wanting to ensure he was okay, but there was no answer. As he worked himself into a panic, everything around him went dark.
When Peter came to, there was blood everywhere. His hands were dripping with it, and his hair matted. He pushed himself up, panic growing as he noticed a body on the other side of the room, unmoving.
A man, dressed in exactly what Tony had been wearing under the suit. His face was tilted away, half covered by debris and papers destroyed during the fight. The suit was in shatters around him. His abdomen was a bloody mess, the knife that appeared to have done the damage right beside Peter.
“No, no, no,” Peter’s breathing picked up as he tried to stand up. His fingers scrambled to find purchase in the shelving unit behind him, but as soon as he attempted to lift himself up, the room started spinning and he went crashing to the ground, legs unable to keep him upright.
“Whoa, let’s get you out of here, hm?” an unknown voice broke through Peter’s desperate thoughts. The arms of the man reached down, stilling the teenager’s movements.
Peter immediately went into defensive mode, trying to get away from the unknown presence.
“Okay, we’re having none of that,” the man muttered.
It was the last thing Peter heard before he felt a needle go into his neck, and everything went black.
“He’s awake,” Rhodes voice came through the coms.
“How’s he doing?” Carol asked distractedly, sifting through the papers in front of her.
Rhodes sighed heavily. “He… I don’t think this is something he’s going to recover from, not emotionally. The first thing he said when he woke up was that… Peter’s gone. He begged me to tell him it wasn’t true, that Peter had to be alive.”
Carol squeezed her eyes shut. “I couldn’t find him. It’s like he disappeared. No traces. He can’t have… we got them all, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“I—” Carol stared at her hands. They were covered in ash and her fingers were nicked and bleeding from broken glass. She had dug through every pile of rubble she had come across. “I can’t believe it’s ending this way.”
“You should come back. Tony is going to need us, even if he refuses to admit it.”
“I’ll see you soon, then.” Once the coms switched off, Carol dropped her head. Her grief and rage were bottling up in her chest. She knew she shouldn’t keep it contained, that she needed to be in control when she made her way back to the compound. As much as they all loved Peter, Tony would be destroyed by the loss.
Standing up, Carol looked at the destruction, her fingers curling into fists. They glowed with energy as she opened her mouth, letting a heart-wrenching scream loose. The earth shook beneath her feet, and the nearby lake frothed. Dropping to her knees, Carol braced her hands against the ground.
“I’m so sorry, Peter.”
When he was alone, Peter tried to stay awake. He knew the nightmares would come if he drifted off, and he couldn’t face the reality. Not yet. He wanted to believe that Tony was fighting to find him, that in no time, the whole team would be alive, and together, at the compound, back in the common room for a movie night.
He held onto the dream more fiercely than anything. It was the one thing that gave him the willpower to stand his ground against his captor.
The man who was holding him hostage in the closet-like-cell was cruel, in a manipulative way. A voice at the back of Peter’s mind was screaming warnings at him, but the attention from the man was so like what he craved that Peter wanted to give in. He didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to be forgotten.
When he was let out of the room, he was alone with his captor. Peter would spend what he guessed to be about three hours in the sparsely decorated room with the man who would try and make conversation with him.
Peter refused to answer. For a while, at least five days if he had to guess, he held up against the quiet. It was on what Peter estimated was the eleven day, he began to crumble.
“I’m all you’ve got left,” the man shrugged. “The Avengers ain’t coming for you.”
“You’re wrong,” Peter shook his head desperately. “They’re looking for me. They’re going to find me.”
“You sure about that?” the man turned his phone screen so Peter could read it. On the screen was a news articled. “New York and the Avengers Mourn the Tragic Loss of Spider-Man: Simple Mission Gone Terribly Wrong.” “A little wordy for a title, in my opinion, but it does get the point across. They think you’re dead.”
“No, no, no.” Peter didn’t want to believe it. The only thing he had was the hope he would be home soon. He was desperate to see his friends, his aunt, his team.
“I’m afraid they do. It’s just you and me, now, bud.”
Peter collapsed, everything he had been holding back washing over him. Everyone he loved thought he was dead, or was dead. A mission that should have been simple with those who had gone had turned into his worst nightmare. Tony had died, and everyone else thought he was dead. He would be trapped for the rest of his life with his captor. It was his worst nightmare. All the sounds around him faded away as the tears spilled.
Peter didn’t notice the way his captor smiled, eyes crazed slightly. “Guess that gas really did work.”
Carol was the only one allowed in the lab, since Tony knew that even if he locked her out, she would be able to get in. The doors were warded against everyone else, even Rhodes and Pepper, but nothing would hold Carol back.
She didn’t say much to him. Instead, she stared blankly at the station that had been Peter’s, still covered in half finished projects and assorted tools. It had only been six days since the mission. Tony had gotten himself out of the medical bay quicker than any of them wanted, but they didn’t have the heart to keep him there. Instead of forcing him back, one of them had to be near him at all times, and at the moment, it was Carol’s job.
She didn’t push him to talk, but ensured that every bottle of alcohol on the premise mysteriously vanished. She laid him to rest on the cot in the back of the lab when his exhaustion overran him. She reported back to the rest of the team, all of whom were trying to process the loss in their own way.
It was Rhodes, who on day twelve, insisted Carol let him into the lab. She let him, watching silently as he accessed FRIDAY.
“Can you access the last recorded video from Karen?”
Certainly, Colonel Rhodes. The AI’s voice was softer than usual, as if she too, was feeling the loss of Peter.
Carol glanced over at Tony, who was knocked out on the cot, before turning back to the screen.
“I have to,” was Rhodes answer to her unasked question. “I have to make sure we’re not wrong. I have to believe….”
“Play it.”
The image was blurry for the first few seconds, before clarifying. They watched as the explosion wrecked the building, sending both Peter and Tony flying backwards in opposite directions. The camera was still for three minutes. And then Peter’s voice came over the speakers. “No, no, no.”
“He survived the blast,” Carol breathed, transfixed by the screen.
“Whoa, let’s get you out of here, hm?” an unknown voice replaced Peter’s. Peter began to kick at the unknown figure, before the man’s voice spoke again. “Okay, we’re having none of that.”
The screen went dark.
“He could still be alive,” Carol shook Rhodes' shoulder. “He survived the blast. That man might have him.”
“We can’t tell Tony. If we do, and we’re wrong…”
“This stays between us,” Carol decided. “Can you connect to Karen? Find schematics of the base, see if there’s anything we missed? I can go check it out.”
Logically, Rhodes knew it would be best to talk through all the options, but in the current situation, if they could find Peter, get some closure, he knew they had to act quickly. “Go. I’ll see what I can find and keep you updated.”
Carol nodded, turning to make her way out of the room. “We’ll find him. We’ll bring him back. Alive.”
“I hope so.”
Tony’s dreams were plagued of the last time he had seen Peter. After waking up after the blast, Tony had looked around the room he was in, searching for Peter.
What he saw made him want to pass out again.
Peter was lying on the ground, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling. The Spider-Man mask had been ripped away. The rest of the suit was mostly intact, save for the rip where a metal pipe had pinned Peter to the ground.
“Kid,” Tony breathed. “No, no, you’re okay. You’re going to be alright. You have a decathlon meet this weekend. You and Ned have that new movie you want to see next week. I promised May I’d get you back unharmed.”
He tried to stand, but as soon as he managed to get himself up, the roar of his thoughts washed over him and everything went black.
The next time he woke up, he was in a hospital bed, his teammates, except for Carol and Peter, hovering anxiously around him.
“No,” Tony shook his head as the memories stilled in his mind. His worst nightmare had come true. “Peter…”
He couldn’t look at anyone. He stayed in his lab, ignoring anyone’s attempt to talk to him. Tony had lost a lot, suffered a lot. But nothing hurt more than the memory of Peter’s lifeless body laying in front of him.
Tony wanted to self-destruct, wanted to scream and cry. He had lost one of the only people that he loved more than anything. He wanted to drown his sorrows in vodka and rum. But Carol had thrown the bottles away, and the promise Tony made to Peter not to drink himself into oblivion, kept him from attempting to buy any more.
He worked himself to exhaustion. When he fell asleep, his mind was blissfully blank, too exhausted from his work.
On the twelfth day, before he crashed, he caught the tail end of Rhodes and Carol’s conversation, something about a recording.
Carol held Peter close to her as she made her way out of the ruins. Rhodes was inside, cuffing the man who had held Peter hostage.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Tony’s voice cut through. The faceplate was going down, the repulsers turning on. His movements were stiff, obviously still in pain. He wasn’t looking at her, instead focusing on the ground beneath him. “If there was any chance that—”
“Tony,” Carol stopped in front of him.
He looked up at her, before his attention dropped to the figure in her arms. Carol watched as the faceplate flew back up, Tony surging forward to make contact with the teenager in her arms. His fingers worked their way through Peter’s flattened curls, a sob breaking its way out.
Carefully, Carol lowered herself, and Tony, into a sitting position. As they waited for the paramedics and emergency response team, she rested Peter’s head in Tony’s lap, knowing he needed to reassure himself that Peter was really there. She sat next to them, shoulders tense in case a threat emerged.
Tony didn’t notice Rhodey leading the hostile out of the ruins. His focus was on the teenager draped across his and Carol’s laps. When he had woken up, three hours after Carol had left, and twenty-seven minutes after Rhodes had left, something had felt off. Tony had asked FRIDAY where they had gone, knowing fully well that they wouldn’t have left him alone unless something serious had come up.
When he heard that Peter could still be alive, Tony had ignored the searing pain in his limbs. He put on a suit, and made his way to the base where everything went wrong. He was ready to storm the base. When it came to Peter, he would do anything. Just as he had been about to charge in, Carol had walked out, bringing him the one thing that could ease the pain. A still-alive Peter Parker.
He didn’t notice anything going around him, too focused on the rising and falling of Peter’s chest. Tony was grateful for Carol and Rhodey for handling everything. Tony refused to take his eyes off the teenager, tracing the kid’s face as if memorizing him. He had though he lost him. Peter was thin, and Tony guessed he hadn’t eaten much, or anything, while captive. The teenager had small scars on the inside of his wrists, and his nails were ragged, but he was alive.
Tony knew, later, he would find out what had actually happened from Rhodey and Carol. They would make sure the man got what he deserved. Tony trusted them to make the right choices that he wouldn’t be able to make at the moment. Because all that mattered was that Peter was there, traumatize but alive.
It was more than he could’ve hoped for.