dreaming is free (but I wouldn't care what it cost me)

by aloneintherain

Summary:

“I’m not—” Peter chokes on his swollen tongue. His teeth feel tacky and loose in his mouth. He swallows, and tries again, “I’m not a kid.”

Peter rises onto his elbows. His arms shake with the effort, and something shifts around in his side. Sandman watches him squirm and shake and gag, bringing up more blood than bile. Peter’s never been this badly hurt before. Not even after Toomes.

“You’re a brave kid,” Sandman says, ignoring Peter’s sputtering disagreement. “That’s not a compliment, by the way. You’re going to get yourself killed."

 

Anon asked for: 'how about something where Peter gets in over his head during a fight or on patrol and ends up injured with no access to help?'

Notes:

Anon asked for: 'how about something where Peter gets in over his head during a fight or on patrol and ends up injured with no access to help? Karen's the only one left to help and comfort him.' And I thought, hey, Peter hasn't met the Sinister Six yet, has he?

I swear I’ve seen other people use the term ‘tattletale protocol’ before, but I can’t remember who or in what context. Sorry. Also: this takes place in the MCU, but I've sliced some comics elements in here, too. And Peter has no idea who most of these villains are himself, so.

Warnings for violence, blood, and mentions of injuries.

Title is from 26 by Paramore.

Chapter 1

 

A week after Peter uses a combination of puppy eyes and ‘guy in the chair’ comments to convince Ned to block some of the more wicked aspects of the Training Wheels Protocol, he’s ambushed by half a dozen guys outfitted in chunky alien tech. His mind jumps to Ned. He thinks about the way Ned had bit his lip at Peter’s request, and said, “Only if you promise that if you get into trouble—anything you can’t handle on your own—you call someone yourself. Promise me, Peter.”

“Of course,” Peter had said. “I know what I’m doing, Ned.”

Peter had blown across the room with a smile. His eyes bounced from the suit laid out on his bedspread; to the clatter of Ned’s fingers across laptop keys as he reluctantly located and undid the Tattletale Protocol; to the limited view of New York visible through his window, waiting for Peter to get out there and prove himself. There had been no fear inside him. Only a feral kind of anticipation.

His instincts light up as men step out of the nighttime darkness, and he thinks, Ned would kick my ass if he could see me right now.

Peter crouches low atop a streetlight. The 7/11 behind him is manned by a lone cashier, its parking lot empty of cars. The buildings directly around them contain offices that emptied hours ago, but further down the street, still within sight, are a cluster of apartment buildings.

Peter wears a mask, but he broadcasts his intentions loudly. The man with a Scorpion tattoo scrawled on his neck smiles toothily, and says, “Wouldn’t want to run, now, would you? If you did, we might just go after someone else.”

“Who are you?” Peter asks.

“We’re the Sinister Six.”

They don’t flinch when Peter bursts out laughing. Karen says, “You should be careful not to antagonise them, Peter.”

But, really. The Sinister Six.

They stand around in a loose semi-circle, wearing themed costumes. They’re all easily twice Peter’s age, and have no business wearing anything that tight.

Peter laughs again—a shaky, odd-pitched sound. His instincts are going haywire. It’s like Toomes all over again, but sextupled.

“You’ve never faced this many enemies at once,” Karen informs him. “The closest was in Germany, and they were heroes who didn’t wish you any harm.”

“I really should’ve paid more attention to that prison break a few days ago, huh?” Peter says, and the words come out airy, like he’s barely phased, like he’s not sweating through his suit.

One of the men, decked out in a crisscross yellow that reminds him of May’s oven mitts, mashes his fists together. “You won’t be around to pay attention to anything, soon.”

“Where am I right now?” Peter says, and he keeps talking because his insides have turned to liquid, and it’s easier to let the words escape than the fear. “Have you guys been reading nothing but comics in jail? Why? DC needs to up its game. They wrote Tim Drake out of the Robin position, and I was so upset that I stopped reading—”

“How has he gotten more annoying?” Scorpion gnashes his teeth.

A man with shifting limbs, who looks solid one minute and liable to fall into a puddle the next, snickers into his hand. His face looks like it’s melting when he smiles. Super-powers, then. The only other super-human Peter’s fought is Captain America. He had thought he would be more excited at the prospect.

“Buddy, I only just met you,” says Shifting Limbs McGee, “and I already know why you have so many people gunning for you. Are you trying to be as annoying as possible?”

“Hang on.” Peter points at him and adopts an affronted tone. “If you’ve never met me before, why are you part of the goon squad?”

He shrugs. “Cash.”

Some people, no morals. “Uh huh. I bet it’s just because Sinister Five isn’t anywhere as catchy as Sinister Six, so they had to rope in—hey!” The man dressed in cords of irradiant light sends a whip of electricity at Peter, and he backflips into the air to avoid it. The streetlight he was perched on explodes with a loud pop. “I was mid-quip, dude!”

“All six men are about to engage in combat,” Karen says in his ear.

“All six? Uh, fellas, can’t you make an orderly line, take your turn like civilised—” Shifting Limbs McGee puddles into sand. He slicks across the asphalt, solidifies around Peter’s ankles, and tries to yank him off his feet. Peter yelps. “Guess not.”

“Peter, you can’t take on six combatants at once,” Karen tells him. Peter knows that, but he doesn’t really have a choice.

Later, Peter won’t be able to recall the entire fight without looking at Karen’s video log. His adrenaline kicks into high gear, and his instincts lead him forward when his lack of experience fails him. It’s like the first day he fought someone post-spider bite all over again.

Peter remembers, in a blur of colour and heated fear, flipping through the air, dodging attack, after attack, after attack. He remembers being swallowed up to his nose in sand, it spilling into his mouth, choking on it until Karen tells him to shoot a web at the streetlight above him, and haul himself out, like an adventurer using a vine to tug himself free of quicksand. He remembers a man with tentacles that coiled around Peter’s wrists and ankles, and thinking, dazedly, Non-consentacles. He might’ve already been concussed, at that point.

He remembers taking hits. He remembers bursts of pain, and Karen listing off injuries like a laundry list. Peter doesn’t stop. He can’t. He pushes on, and takes down one, and then two, and then three, and then four, and then collapses onto his knees, gagging on blood. He spits on the asphalt.

Karen flashes alarms over his eyes, and Peter hauls himself to his feet. He doesn’t remember taking out the fifth man with a feral kind of strength, mechanic tentacles ripping in a spray of wires.

Peter falls to his knees again. There’s something pushing up on his lungs, and it’s hard to breathe. He pulls his mask to his nose, and hacks up another mouthful of blood.

“You have broken ribs,” Karen tells him. “A small shard of bone has pierced your right lung. Your broken ribs will continue to push on the tear, until you drown.”

“Drown?” Peter asks.

“Yes. Your lungs will fill with blood, and then you’ll drown.” Peter giggles, and presses his fingers to his dripping mouth to stifle the sound. “You’re laughing. This isn’t funny, Peter. You could die.”

“Drowning in front of a 7/11,” Peter says through his laughter. He hiccups, and it makes something in his torso shift, new pain ripping up his throat. He claws at the damp asphalt. They’re in a metropolitan area, lit by flickering streetlights and the faint flow of the 7/11. He doesn’t know it now, but there are lights on in the apartment buildings down the street. There are people up there, crowded around the windows.

“Oh, god. I have a math test tomorrow. I haven’t studied. I’m going to be grounded until college.”

“You can’t be grounded if you’re dead.”

“Thanks, Karen. You’re so helpful.”

Feet step into view. Peter has a detached moment to admire the thick laces on the boots, tucked into a pair of fraying jeans, before he remembers the gooey sand that took human form. Or the man who took sand form. Or a man-sand hybrid, not entirely man, not entirely sand.

“Hey,” Peter says, and he’s drooling through the words, his mouth struggling to close entirely, “were you—were you bitten by radioactive sand?”

The sand-dude crouches in front of Peter, studying him. Karen blares a warning in his ear, but Peter has a spider-sense, thank you very much. He doesn’t need anyone to tell him when danger is near.

Except—there’s a super-villain kneeling inches from where Peter is laying on his belly, prone, and his instincts are muted. Sandman looks Peter over with a tight frown.

“Gimme, like, 10 minutes,” Peter says. “Then I’ll be ready for round 2.”

“Your wounds will take longer than a day to heal, Peter.”

“Okay. Maybe not 10 minutes. How about we reschedule? This time next week?”

Sandman sighs and stands up. Peter squirms back so he’s not looming directly over him, even as Karen warns him not to aggravate his injuries further.

“I only agreed to fight you ‘cause I need the money,” Sandman says, running a hand over his bruised face. Blood dribbles down from his nose. Peter may be too injured to stand or even sit upright, but at least he landed some hits on a man who can turn his limbs into sand. That has to count for something. “I didn’t think they wanted me to kill a kid.”

Peter’s brain jumps over kill, and straight to kid.

“I’m not—” He chokes on his swollen tongue. His teeth feel tacky and loose in his mouth. He swallows, and tries again, “I’m not a kid.”

Peter rises onto his elbows. His arms shake with the effort, and something shifts around in his side. Sandman watches him squirm and shake and gag, bringing up more blood than bile. Peter’s never been this badly hurt before. Not even after Toomes.

“You’re a brave kid,” Sandman says, ignoring Peter’s sputtering disagreement. “That’s not a compliment, by the way. You’re going to get yourself killed. Probably by the very guys you just laid out.”

“You really shouldn’t join up with random guys dressed in animal mech costumes,” Peter says, shuddering as he pushes the words out. He’s cold. That’s not good. “No matter how much cash they offer.”

“And you should probably go to a hospital, but that’s not going to happen, is it? Not with that mask of yours.”

“I might just… Take a nap, actually, if you’re not going to fight me anymore.”

Sandman laughs, and in his generic striped shirt, laugh lines creasing his cheeks, he doesn’t look like a bad person. They never do. Minus the tattoos, the reinforced exoskeletons, the guns stuffed into the band of jeans, they always look like regular people. If Peter hadn’t met the Vulture first, he wouldn’t have questioned Toomes as Liz’s doting, albeit intimidating dad.

“I didn’t know you were funny, either.”

“I try,” Peter says. His fists are clenched painfully against the ground, and don’t loosen, even when Karen says in that steady voice, “Residents in the surrounding housing have called the authorities. They’ll be here soon.”

There isn’t enough air in Peter’s lungs to ask if the police will shoot at him, too. Sandman cocks his head. The whirl of police sirens can be heard, far off.

Sandman stands, rocking back on his heels and surveying Peter for a moment. His face twists, and there’s something in the downturn of his lips that makes Peter think that the criminal is about to haul him to his feet and help him limp to safety. But the moment breaks, and Sandman shakes his head, and says, “Look after yourself, Spidey. You seem like a good kid. Reckless, but good.”

Sandman steps away, weaving through the crumbled bodies of his coworkers. He rubs his jaw, and says, mostly to himself, “Hell of a right hook, too.”

And then he’s ducked into a side street and disappeared, and Peter is alone. His ears fill with static. The street is howlingly silent, and every wet scrap of his hand against the asphalt, every rattling inhale, cuts through the still air. The road is pockmarked and littered with broken bits of armour and splattered blood. The walls of the office buildings are scorched and crumbling in places. Collateral damage isn’t ideal, but these men didn’t hunt down the people in the apartments down the street. If Peter and the disfigured road are the only things mutilated tonight, then he’ll count that as a win.

Karen cuts in, “Peter, I’m not authorised to call someone by myself.”

As much as he doesn’t want to, he needs to reach out to someone. He didn’t turn to help when the six villains found him, and in the hot blur of the fight it was all he could do to focus and hold on. But now, he needs to be smart.

“That seemed a little passive-aggressive, Karen.”

“Tell me to call someone, Peter.”

Blood drips into his eyes. Most heroes wear helmets, or some kind of headgear; Peter understands why, now. He blinks, and colours pop and fizzle in his vision.

“Right.” Peter squeezes his eyes shut. His head sinks to the asphalt. “Right…”

“Peter, you need to stay awake. If you fall asleep here, you may not wake up again.” Karen waits, and when Peter says nothing, she urges, “The fight’s not over yet. You could bleed out here, or be taken into police custody.”

Peter wants to call May. She was the one that was there during his worst moments. It’s instinct to reach for her when he’s hurt, but he can’t let her see him like this. The last time she saw him covered in blood, he was fourteen and the blood wasn’t his. It was Ben’s.

Ned is fifteen, and doesn’t have his license. MJ, too. Neither of them will be any help.

Peter squeezes his eyes tight, and pries open his mouth, and says, “Karen, call Mr. Stark.”

 

Chapter 2

Summary:

May should be the first person Peter sees when he wakes up, but inevitably—in the way that the universe likes to rearrange itself to laugh at people like Tony and Peter—it isn’t. It’s just Tony.

Notes:

Someone please let this kid know how amazing he is, since I'm not there to do it myself.

Thanks for the wonderful feedback, everyone! Sorry I haven't had time to respond to your comments - I appreciate each and every one. Life-anxiety was kicking my ass.

Thanks for reading! And thanks again to the prompter. x

Tony presses his knuckles together. He crafted a millionaire dollar suit to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Peter’s chest rises and falls with the soft beeping of machinery. His face is swollen and dark. Tony’s not sure anyone could connect tell this mass of bandages and blood-spotted bruises with Peter Parker.

May is in the bathroom, taking a phone call. She’s been crying on and off all day. She’s angry at Tony, at herself, at Peter—a churning and directionless storm, catching everyone in its boundless fury, centred around Peter’s hospital bed. May had held Peter’s hand for hours, before she left to call in sick to work. Tony doesn’t hold Peter’s hand in her absence. He doesn’t touch him.

May should be the first person Peter sees when he wakes up, but inevitably—in the way that the universe likes to rearrange itself to laugh at people like Tony and Peter—it isn’t. It’s just Tony.

Peter’s eyes crack open. He squints against the harsh light. It takes him a few moments to register where he is. Coming down from enough anaesthetic to kill an elephant must be unpleasant, but it was necessary to keep him down through the surgery.

Peter works his tongue against his cracked lips, and rasps, “Mr. Stark?”

“Welcome back,” Tony says. The storm rattling behind his sternum is different than May’s—twisting into something less like anger, more like sharp needled guilt—but it howls at how how shaken and vacant Peter looks. The detached haze on Peter’s face isn’t from the drugs, Tony knows; it’s from being beaten so badly you’re not sure if you’re going to get back up again.

“You’re okay,” Tony says. “Hey, look at me.” Peter tilts that dead-eyed look his way. Tony grits his teeth. “I’ve got the best medical team I could find looking after you, and your aunt is in the bathroom a few doors down.” That doesn’t help. Peter’s expression shutters, and his eyes slip closed, and Tony fumbles for something concrete to tell him. Something that will actually help. “You get to miss out on school today. Isn’t that what every teenager wants?”

“I like school,” Peter says, very quietly.

Tony leans forward in his seat. “Peter, I need to know: what happened?”

“The Sinister Six.”

“You want to repeat that?”

“Some guys calling themselves the Sinister Six.” Peter closes his eyes. “I disabled the Tattletale Protocol, so when it got bad…”

Tony always knows what to say, but by Peter’s side, he finds he doesn’t have the words. He stares at Peter’s face. Bruises balloon the skin around his eyes, reducing his right eye to a slit. Ropey stitches hold the right side of his face together. His lips are bloodless.

Tony sits there, until Peter falls back asleep, until May comes back with a tissue bunched in her hand, and then gets up, heads halfway down the hallway, and collapses into a spare seat.

“FRIDAY,” Tony says, “get me everything you know about the Sinister Six.”

 

---

 

 

Tony tears through all the information available on the so-called ‘the Sinister Six’ (a blatant rip off of the amateur group, ‘the Fantastic Four.’ They couldn’t even pick a half-way good superhero group to mimic?). He breaks through the paltry firewalls put up around the Baby Monitor to find their faces. The Leeds kid is good, will one day be great, but for Tony, it’s tantamount to tearing through tissue paper.

“Boss,” FRIDAY cuts in, despite his demands that he not be interrupted, “the kid is asking for you.”

“Oh, now he’s asking for me.”

“Boss,” FRIDAY says. Tony breathes out through his nose. The disapproval in her tone is enough to push him out of his seat with a calmer head, and make his way down the hallway. He hadn’t gone far from Peter’s room, only made it a dozen steps before collapsing into a plastic chair squashed between two vending machines, his itchy fingers automatically reaching for the supercomputer fastened around his wrist.

Peter is more alert this time around. He fiddles with the blankets. His gaze flickers up at Tony, and then away, even as Tony settles in the seat by his bedside and says, “Alright. Lay it out for me.”

“I wanted…” Peter scrubs a hand through his tacky fringe. His healing factor is a monster. His head wound is sealed up, his concussion faded. “I wanted to prove myself,” Peter forces out.

“I’m not getting it. You did that months ago, when you took down Toomes.”

“I still didn’t—You were always—” Peter’s hands clench in the thin bedsheets. The way he won’t look Tony in the eye, the hunch of his shoulders, and the muted pitch of his voice—it reminds Tony sharply of a younger version of himself. Before the flashy gimmicks, before the gilded armour, when he was grasping to be recognised in his father’s shadow.

Tony takes a deep breath. This time, he has the words. They’re sitting in his throat, where they’ve sat since he first realised what kind of person Peter was—how strong he was.

He grabs Peter’s shoulder, angles the kid towards him. Peter looks up. The pale purse of his lips forces the words out of Tony’s mouth: “You’re going to be ten times the hero I am, one day.” Peter startles. Tony barrels on before he can interrupt: “You’re going to be stronger and more compassionate and better than anyone I know, but it’s going to take you a few years to get there. I didn’t burst out of the gate a superhero. It took me decades to get to that point. Even at MIT, I was playing catch-up with the experts for a few years.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says, and Tony flatly ignores the wet sheen in the kid’s eyes.

“These protocols are in place so that you can get to that point. Nobody is doubting your capabilities—the YouTube videos of last night have doubled your online fanbase, at least. But the part after the fight, when you were too hurt and isolated, that’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

Peter looks at the bed, and Tony looks at Peter. Bandages encircle his torso, from his hips to his collarbone. His healing factor is churning through his painkillers at an alarming rate. Tony makes a quick note to talk with the fleet of doctors assigned to Peter, to make sure he isn’t recovering from surgery sober.

Peter sifts through the words. Tony’s not sure if that kind of speech would’ve gotten through to himself as a teenager—probably, considering how hungry he was for some semblance of approval—but he hopes they got through to Peter. For both their sakes.

“YouTube video?” Peter finally asks. He smirks, and though it’s a poor facsimile of his usually bright smile, it’s an improvement on that shaken, dead-eyed look he had worn when he had first woken up. “Hey, Mr. Stark, do you think I’ll get more fans than you, one day?”

“Alright, that’s enough from you.” Tony stands, and pulls out the cracked smartphone May had handed over earlier, hoping it might help him in his investigation. “Put your Oracle out of his misery, will you? He’s been blowing up your phone.”

Peter winces. “Ned’s not in trouble, is he?”

“I think he’ll learn his lesson when he sees your face,” Tony says. For now, anyway. He might need to drop in on Ned Leeds one day, to talk with him about appropriate amounts of teen rebellion and maybe offer him a job before he gets to senior year and some other two-bit company snaps him up.

Tony heads to the door, hands stuffed in the pockets of his unwashed suit. He has a list of things he has to run over with May. She’s distrustful of him, has every right to be, but they’re getting there.

They’re all getting there.

Tony knocks on the doorframe. He looks over his shoulder at Peter—typing furiously at his phone, that pinched look back on his face—and unsticks his jaw. “Peter,” he says to the space over Peter’s shoulder, where he doesn’t have to look at Peter’s big, bruised eyes, “you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. You’re enough right now.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says.

“Get some rest,” Tony says. “If you need anything, call.”