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notaparty-trick · 4 years

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All Those Senseless Scars - Chapter 1

By @notaparty-trick for @asyouleft

@friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: T

Relationships: Tony Stark & Peter Parker, May Parker & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, May Parker, Pepper Potts, Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds

Summary: There is a rule to the way Peter lives now. He didn’t know it at first, but he learnt it.

It’s simple.

To earn what he needs to survive, he has to make sacrifices. --- Peter Parker's life is derailed when he's kidnapped and kept in a white-tiled room with nothing: no windows, no cameras, no food, no water, no phone, nobody else. Only his own thoughts keep him from losing his mind. If he asks for anything, he must take punishment. Tony Stark will stop at nothing to bring him home.

Archive Of Our Own link here

There is a rule to the way Peter lives now. He didn’t know it at first, but he learnt it.

It’s simple.

To earn what he needs to survive, he has to make sacrifices.

---

When he wakes up, he knows he’s been out for a long time. There’s a cotton-wool quality to his train of thought.

He’s in a white cell.

And he’s completely naked.

“Oh my God, oh - what the…?”

He rushes to get up from the floor and cover himself, jamming himself into a corner. “Shit.”

His heart judders violently in his chest. There’s nothing to see, nothing at all, nothing but the white tiled walls of his prison. No window. No camera. No food, no water, no guards, no clothes, oh God.

What did they do while I was out?

But he isn’t in any pain that he can notice. Even with his enhanced healing, it’s unlikely he was asleep for long enough for complete healing to take place, so he thinks - he thinks - he’s safe in that respect.

Not in any other.

He’d been in the Spider-Man suit when they took him; the fact that his mask is no longer on him means they already know a lot more about him than he’d like.

He’s utterly clueless. He knows nothing; nothing, except that he’s trapped.

“Hello?” he calls tentatively, then desperately. “Hello! Is anyone, is anyone around? Please - I need--”

In under ten seconds, his calls are answered by the clang of the door opening.

Peter faces bad guys on the daily. He slips on his cocky persona like a second skin now after over a year of patrolling Queens. But it’s a whole lot easier when he’s in the suit. Instead, he instinctively huddles away from the four masked figures that storm into his cell.

There’s an overload of adrenaline pulsing through him stirred through with the dregs of sedatives which makes it impossible to think straight. He’s at a loss for quips.

“It’s alright,” issues a voice. Peter can’t tell who’s speaking behind the masks, but the tone is bafflingly soothing. “We’re here to reason with you.”

Peter prepares himself for a lengthy monologue detailing the way in which Spider-Man had wronged them, but it doesn’t arrive. One of the figures simply asks, “What would you like?”

It’s mystifying. Peter stays silent.

“Would you like some clothes?”

“Yes,” Peter can’t help but blurt, despite every ounce of logic he’s ineffectually grappling for like grains of sand, despite his sixth sense that cries out a never-ending chorus of danger danger danger danger.

The group nods in tandem.

And then, in precise, almost mechanical movements, they tear Peter from his corner and drop him so his face hits the floor. Then there are hands all over him, pressing his back and legs and arms to the ground, and he fights them - but finds he can't. His strength is gone.

A slew of panic grips him in its hold so violently that the room twists sickeningly around him.

The floor is freezing against his bare skin. He’s noticing now just how cold the whole room is.

The hands on him are rough and unsympathetic. But the taser is worse.

Before Peter even has a chance to speak, to protest, it's jammed into his side and activated. Peter's brain whites out instantly with the agony. It's too much. It has his limbs juddering against the floor, his mouth open in a scream he can't even find the wherewithal to let out, a heated pressure in his brain building and building and building upon itself until he’s sure it’s about to shatter his skull, ricocheting off the walls and battering him yet again, more pain, more pain.

There's a second of silent respite. Eerily quiet. He drags in ragged breaths.

Then it begins again.

Peter has no sense of time. It makes the torture feel endless.

After they're finished with him, he doesn't move from the spot where he'd been held down, every fibre of his body reeling, shorting out, fizzling with the aftershocks of the electricity.

"Now you've had your punishment, you can have some clothes. This is how things will work here. Once you have made a sacrifice, we will give you what you ask for."

“What, what are you - what do you want?”

“We want to test you. You have remarkable capabilities. We will discover just how remarkable they are.”

A pair of boxers is tossed into the cell as the masked group leaves. Peter crawls over to them and pulls them on through a bout of tremors, feeling the sour sting of shame enveloping him.

He knows that this is bad. Worse than bad, it's - a whole host of other words that he can't summon from his frazzled, drugged mind.

His kidnappers don't want money or leverage. They just want to break him.

So he resolves not to let them.

The group enters his box in intervals he presumes are daily - maybe twice a day, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know anything. They ask him politely if he'd like anything, and he doesn't ask for anything. They don't touch him.

Apart from their entry and exit, there's nothing. There's his box and himself. White, silent, tiny. Maybe ten by ten feet. Nothing.

So he fills up the nothing with talking.

"Actinium, aluminum, americium, antimony, argon, arsenic, astatine," he reels off. "Barium, berkelium, beryllium, bismuth, bohrium, boron, bromine."

He knows the elements. They're comforting but don't hold the bittersweetness of memories of before.

"Stay safe, kiddo," Tony called towards Peter as he rushed into the elevator that would take him out of the Tower and home before May could have his ass for being late to dinner.

The last words he'd said to Peter.

He climbs on the walls and ceiling, hammers at every inch of the tiling, bloodies his knuckles doing it, but he's only human now.

"C'mon," he grits, slamming his side into the wall. "Please, c'mon."

It won't give.

He sinks to the floor, still wracked with jitters, and cradles his head in his hands.

"Don't cry, Peter. Gonna use up water. Stop it, stop."

And, after knuckling his eyes until they ache, he manages to stop.

He knows that an inactive person can survive up to a week without water and almost a month without food. Mostly, that’s what he has to worry about, as well as the cold, which isn’t so severe as to give him frostbite but is enough that within his first few hours in captivity he becomes used to the incessant chattering of his jaw and wonders where the aftershocks of the taser end and the shivering begins.

That, and going insane.

“Cadmium, calcium, californium, carbon... cerium, cesium, chlorine... chromium… uh - cobalt. Cobalt. Copernicium. Copper. Curium.”

Peter likes to talk. He’ll talk whether there are people to listen to him or not, but he’ll admit that he prefers getting to talk to other people. He starts to miss it like hell, actually.

“You know what I should’ve done?” he says aloud, grinning, “I, I really should’ve brought my Chemistry homework with me. I’m so behind. And I’m supposed to be, like, the big science guy, right?”

Flopping to the floor, no longer noticing the coldness of it, he lies limply there for a moment, trying to wrangle his thoughts. “Or I could’ve just done it when I was supposed to. Would’ve cut into my patrol time, though, so, um - hm. Ugh, indecisive.” Affecting the upright demeanour of Captain America in his PSA videos, he crosses his arms: “Choose a thing, Mr. Parker.”

He laughs at himself, but it comes out wrong. It sounds too loud, too close to a sob.

“Choice is great, isn’t it?” he muses, watching the white ceiling. “One day, when I - yeah. The next thing I choose, it’d better be something awesome. Let’s make a deal. Yeah, okay, sure. The next thing, the next thing I choose to do is gonna be - monumental. Nice word. You could fool people into thinking you, thinking you take English. Eh, who am I kidding? I’m not an English kid. Look at me.”

He’s sobered by his own words.

When he grows tired, he sleeps on the ceiling. He doesn’t have a bed, and it feels just a little safer up there.

There are a lot of things he doesn’t have. His phone is nowhere to be seen. No shower or sink. No toilet. No clothes but his boxers. No mirror. No toothpaste. No friends.

The low-grade fuzziness of his brain doesn’t abate with time although he isn’t injected with anything else and doesn’t eat or drink, which leads him to believe the drugs are being circulated in the air of his cell. It would explain the masks, too.

The guys who took him really have it down to a tee. It’s terrifying.

And it wears down on him.

Thirst is an awful thing. It drags greedy claws down his parched tongue, reminding him every minute of the dryness of his throat. From his chapped lips to the very depths of his stomach there festers a growing sickness, a sensation of shriveling from the inside out until his skin begins to split and talking becomes painful. He does it anyway, clings to his own words because they’re real and solid and won’t jump out and scare him like the nightmares that begin to haunt him even while he’s awake.

On what he hopes is the third night after he woke up in his box, he wakes with a jolt from a dream of a thousand faceless beasts tearing away at him and falls from the ceiling. The moment he tries to get back up, he passes out.

The hunger begins to plague him too, gnawing at his muscles and weakening them. Standing is effortful. It becomes more and more tempting to ask for something as the days creep by and Peter feels himself falling apart.

“Palladium, phosphorus, platinum. P… Polonium? No. Uh. P-L. P-L… plutonium. Polonium. Potassium, protactinium, praseodymium - I mean, praseodymium, protactinium… you know what, shit. I don’t care. Don’t care about the elements--”

Imagining a telephone is sitting on the floor beside him, one of those old-fashioned plastic ones with a curly cord, he sticks his fingers against the side of his head in the universal position to indicate holding a phone and dials a number in his head.

“Hi, May,” he rasps. “Don’t come over, I’ve gotta clean up a bit first. Yeah.” He chuckles.

If he listens hard enough, he can pick out an amused reply.

“Are you good? I’m good. You know what you could do, though? Bring some paint. Or some colourful furniture. Anything but white. It’s boring as heck.”

He squeezes his eyes shut against a thundering headache, feeling the skin around his eyes cracking, his heart fluttering wildly, scalpels of hunger piercing his sides, his thoughts becoming formless, untamable things.

“May?” he falters. “Can you tell Mister Stark to come and get me, please? I don’t wanna… what am I supposed to do?”

The group enters on the fifth day. Peter is lying on the floor where he’s been for an unfathomable period of time.

“Would you like anything?” asks one of the masked people.

“Water,” he whispers. “Please. Water.”

He braces himself for the taser this time, but it’s a boot that meets his side instead. Another. A flurry. A stampede.

You get beaten up all the time on patrol. But it’s different when it’s just him, weak, pathetic, unable to stand, half-naked, against these four figures that become tyrannical gods to him as they hold him in the air by his hair, his neck, and beat him bloody.

Peter can do nothing to shield himself from the blows - and moreover, if he does it will jeopardize his chance of getting the water he needs so badly. So, swallowing back a rush of shame, he just takes it.

He can’t help the noises that escape him, however: the grunts as boots connect with his stomach, the whimpers at hands yanking at his hair, the groans as fists clad in brass knuckles meet his face over and over and over again. Blood pours from his nose, trickles from cuts across his cheekbones, temples, eyebrows. He feels a rib snap.

A water bottle is placed by the door as the group leaves. There are maybe 300 millilitres inside.

Peter lays on the floor and watches his blood pool slowly on the pristine tiles.

After twenty agonising seconds of dragging himself across the floor, he reaches the bottle, fumbling desperately to unscrew the cap, and takes a greedy swig of the liquid, at first moaning in relief at the way it gushes down his throat, then regretting his haste as he retches it right back up.

“Crap, Peter,” he mumbles to himself, arms trembling in their effort to hold him off the now-slippery floor. “Stupid. God. Shit. Stop swearing.”

Although his every instinct screams for him to down the water, he forces himself to take small sips. When there’s about half left, he pulls the bottle away and reluctantly caps it, saving the rest.

Then, ignoring the mortification that swells up in him at the prospect of what he will do next, he bends low to the puddle on the floor and laps up every drop of moisture he can find.

He’s a wild animal. He’s insane.

When he’s finished, he lets his arms and legs give out under him and grits his teeth against excruciating waves of pain from his battered body.

It’s simple, really. He endured the punishment; he was given what he asked for.

Though Peter is half-sure he’s already lost his mind, he does know that he needs to make a plan, to rationalize his situation as well as he can with his fuddled brain. Escape is not an option, and neither is refusing punishment.

He swallows and tastes blood.

“Here’s what’s, here’s what’s gonna happen, Peter. Okay? Just get stuff you really, really need. Okay. I’ve got water for tomorrow. Just… uh, ask the day after. And food. No more clothes.”

His rambling words become his life plan.

He’s forced to make adjustments the next time the group visits, however, when his half-full water bottle is taken from him.

Desperation overrides him. He lunges at the figure who holds the bottle, sticking his fingers to it. “Don’t! Please, don’t take it--”

Almost the moment he touches them, an ear-splittingly piercing whistle assaults Peter’s ears, forcing him to unstick himself in favour of dropping painfully to the floor and cramming his hands over his ears. Whatever drug he’s being fed in his cell hasn’t taken away a fraction of his enhanced senses: the noise drills clean through his eardrums and rattles his weary brain in his skull. He bites back a cry of pain. He doesn’t know why; he already looks utterly pathetic.

There’s no water that day.

The next, he asks for food. After breaking his arm, the group gives him a cheese sandwich that tastes better than anything he’s eaten before, even though he has to eat it with one hand.

His white box is steadily getting dirtier, painted with bloodstains, sweat, even puddles of piss. At least there are colours now, not just white, white, white.

“I’m doing great,” he reassures himself after he’s counted twenty visits from the group. There are forty lash marks across his back. He knows; he felt every strike of the whip. But at least he received a blanket in return. It was too cold, so he strayed from his plan.

He’s been tased and beaten again, had his nose and collarbone and forearm and fingers broken. Every movement he makes hurts somewhere, so he stays still.

“Mister Stark is, he’s, he’s on his way. He’s, uh… fixing his hair. Like he always does when he, when he gets out of the suit. To look cool. When he comes - God, it’s gonna be so nice. I don’t care about his hair. I just... want him.”

He feels closer to a carcass than a human being.

“Get me out, Mister Stark. Get me out, Mister Stark. Why haven’t you come?”

The feral desperation he’s finding it harder and harder to tamp down rears its head again, and he finds himself crying out with all the volume his torn-up throat can muster. “Mister Stark, please - I can’t stay here, going crazy, they’re gonna kill me. Save me . ”

It seems like the world is laughing his face when the group enters the twenty-first time and he’s asked, “Would you like to see Tony Stark?”

“What?” he croaks.

His mind can’t comprehend the thought. Tony Stark darts around his mind, turns itself inside out and emerges in his consciousness shrunken and frayed around the edges like it’s been washed too many times.

“Would you like to see Tony Stark?”

“I, uh…” even attempting a few words of conversation feels foreign to him. “Is he there?”

There’s no response from the group.

Peter is faced with one of the most frightening choices of his life.

He could accept the punishment on the off-chance that Mister Stark was really there and risk being hurt for nothing; or he could refuse and risk letting Tony down if, by some crazy chance, he was out there and needed Peter to come to him.

Locking his jaw to offset the tremors there, he shuts his eyes.

“Okay.”

Though he braces himself for the instant onslaught of punishment, instead he finds himself being hauled up from the floor and dragged towards the invisible outline of the door. The door.

He whimpers at unforgiving hands yanking at his bad arm, making an aborted attempt at scrambling to his feet. He’s too weak, too injured. And at the same time, he’s nearing the door, the door that hasn’t let him out in twenty-one days but swings open now.

Peter can’t quite determine whether this is real or not.

His heart awaits the inevitable punishment, thudding restlessly in his chest, but he’s entranced by the door closing behind him, revealing more tiles, a corridor, his arm throbs, tiles, pain, tiles. He reels.

The moment they turn the corner, an abrupt spreading of warmth at the base of Peter’s neck jolts him out of his daze of shock and compels him to lift his heavy head and meet the eyes of a man restrained by two guards, a man facing him, a man who sees him.

“Kid! Hi, kid. It’s me. What did you do to him? Pete. Pete. I’m here, hey?”

“Mister Stark,” Peter breathes.

There’s worry in his eyes, as clear and piercing as a blade. Peter assumes he looks pretty crappy. He doesn’t feel it just now, however. All his thoughts are occupied with Mister Stark Mister Stark Mister Stark , taking his breath away, melting away pain to reveal dizzying relief.

This is why he doesn’t notice at first.

Not until he hears, “Don’t you fucking dare! Kiddo!”

Before he can attempt to jerk away from the hands keeping him in place, they tighten, another pair clamping over the top and bottom of his head so he just barely glimpses a match held to an approaching blowtorch.

Punishment always arrives.

It isn’t panic or desperation that overwhelms him in this precise moment, as time slows down and Tony’s cries of distress are suspended across milliseconds so the minutiae of his reaction rises, falls, intensifies in arcs that are distressingly beautiful. It’s an ugly conglomeration of a thousand pockets of hopelessness accumulated over twenty-one days, a Frankenstein’s monster of pure despair.

“No,” he moans uselessly, hanging limp from the hands. “Don’t do it. I can’t.”

“Kid?”

Peter sobs and yet can’t produce a single tear. “Mister Stark.”

“Kid, you’re gonna be okay, you hear me? Just - look at me. Look at--”

Once, Peter came out of a patrol with a knife in his back, a moderate concussion and a torn hamstring. It was nothing compared to this.

The blowtorch is turned on the side of his face.

Peter screams, long and loud and raw, and the noise ricochets off the tiles and hits him anew. Unparalleled agony. He can’t turn away, no matter how desperately his mind screams for release.

He will never forget just how awful it feels. The memory of it will imprint upon his mind forever, just as the white light of the instrument now sears his vision through his screwed-shut eyelids.

He feels his flesh melting.

“Kid! Fuck! Don’t - I’m gonna kill you fuckers - get away from him!”

With a flicker, the torch cuts off. Peter can’t breathe, juddering violently against the hands that still hold him and fruitlessly opening and shutting his mouth. The aftershocks of the pain present a different form of horror entirely.

“Breathe, Pete,” comes a voice half-muffled by the violent ringing in his ears, a painfully kind voice, a voice he’s supposed to be safe when he hears. “Breathe through it. C’mon, kid.”

The first breath Peter manages to drag in is torn to shreds, shrivelled by tears he’s unable to shed.

“Kid,” Mister Stark calls again; the syllable is lost in the splintering of his own voice.

Peter manages a small whine.

“Now, Stark, what’s all this about making a deal?”

It’s a new voice, encroaching on Peter from behind and sending his crazed danger sense ringing off the hook.

With his chin forced upwards, Peter recognizes Norman Osborn instantly.

It all fits: the drug that took away his powers, the pristine tiles, the experiments.

He crouches before Peter and taps the newly burnt side of his face. It’s gentle but overwhelmingly painful all the same; Peter chokes on his breath.

“Get your fucking hands away from him, Osborn,” snarls Mister Stark. “This isn't what I’m here for.” Peter has never been more glad of his presence, as little as it seems to affect the punishments he’s given.

Osborn picks up on the grip the guards have on Tony with a smirk, rising to address him. “I can see that. I must say, I’m surprised you turned yourself in. What a sacrifice for this little boy.”

“Quit the fancy footwork.” Mister Stark sounds breathless, wild. “Are you gonna let him go or not?”

It’s only now that Peter’s brain catches on to what Tony is attempting to do.

He does his best to speak around the fried nerves on his face and the haze of shock he’s still trapped in, but all that emerges are pitiful, slurring murmurs. “D’n, m’s’r st’r. D’n t’n y’self in.”

Mister Stark understands the source of his panic and smiles brokenly at him. “It’s gonna be okay, kid. Don’t you worry.”

“N. Pl’s d’n.”

“No need to panic, Peter,” Osborn soothes sickeningly, “We don’t want anything to do with Stark.”

“No. You’re gonna take me and leave him alone,” Mister Stark grits out with impressive stubbornness.

“Don’t you understand, Tony? This boy has strength you can’t imagine. Resilience. We’re making groundbreaking leaps in research.”

Tony is thunderous as he jostles his guards. “This is not research. Give me the kid, or so help me, I’ll--”

“You’ll what?” laughs Osborn.

Something splinters in Tony’s eyes; behind it, Peter sees a plan.

“I’ll tear this place up.”

Before Osborn or any of the masked guards can react, Tony’s glasses flash bright blue and he yells, “FRIDAY, torch them!”

Peter’s mind disconnects from the flurry of what happens next. He’s tackled to the ground and cradled tightly; a fiery blast envelops the room; a chorus of shouts is cut off by silence and a persistent buzzing in his ears.

After twenty-one days of nothing, there is everything. It’s too staggering for him to comprehend for a minute or two.

There’s dust in the air. He watches it settle with eyes that have forgotten how to blink.

Finally, his mind creaks back to life, running on fumes but present enough to tell him that it’s Mister Stark who is wrapped protectively around him. A frenzied glance around the room shows heaps of crumbled tiles, fire, prone bodies.

Dead bodies?

“M’s’r s’rk,” he coughs, hearing his voice dimly as if piped from speakers a hundred feet away. He finds the presence of mind to push at the man’s limp shoulder with his good hand. “G’t up. Y’ g’tta g’t up.”

Mister Stark’s eyes are shut and won’t open.

“Pl’s, m’s’r s’rk...”

Although Peter knows what he has to do, he dreads it.

Sucking in as much air as he can, he shifts himself onto his haunches and heaves his mentor over his shoulder.

The airborne drug has worn off to a degree now he’s outside his cell, returning a little of his strength to him, but the screaming of his injuries has in no way quietened, and he’s pitifully weak from cold, hunger and thirst. He staggers at the weight of Tony against his collarbone and arm, swallowing a cry in fear of waking any of the bad guys, but pushes on, inching towards the end of the corridor.

“C’m’n, Pe’r,” he breathes, fumbling at the doorknob with his one good hand, his bad hand stuck to Tony’s back despite the way it pulls at the snapped bones with every movement he makes. “Sh’t. C’m’n.”

It’s open. It’s open.

He pulls himself one-handed up a ladder, his legs shaking beneath him, and shoulders open a circular trapdoor.

Outside, there is light.

Peter can’t help but collapse to his knees. The sky is there, wrapping him in an embrace that spans the heavens, cornflower blue and picturesque. Grass and trees glow green. And just fifty feet in front of them both is a roaring, seething freeway.

The noise hits Peter like a brick wall, like a fist with brass knuckles, like a strike from a whip. It surrounds him and invades his ears until there’s nothing but noise, noise Peter can pick apart in overwhelming detail: the friction of tires against tarmac, the smallest particles of grit tossed back and forth by lines of cars and vans and lorries with grumbling engines spitting plumes of carbon dioxide, a mechanical spray of pungently soapy water across a windshield, a chorus of laughter from a family whizzing by in an old Volvo, the tap of a cigarette against the rim of a half-open window, and people, people, people, people, passing him in their clamorous multitudes.

Setting Mister Stark down in the grass with as much gentleness as he can manage with his battered body and thundering heartbeat, Peter flounders, groaning at the grass stalks pricking his bare knees, hearing his breaths speeding up, recalling the sizzling of his skin under the blowtorch, unable to distinguish between the myriad of sensations assaulting him. Sight becomes sound, touch becomes smell, and each crowds his vision with hazy grey and sends wild tremors along the length of his limbs.

Peter’s going to explode.

But he doesn’t.

He recognizes the sign on the freeway. Although the text is painfully bright and jumps back and forth in front of him, he makes out the location. Only about two minute’s drive from the Compound.

He had been certain all good fortune had deserted him the moment he’d been thrown into his box, but today he wonders if someone is looking out for him after all.

All he has to do is walk, but walking has never been so difficult.

“Y’ g’tta go, Pe’r. Y’ c’n d’ it.”

Peter lurches to his feet, yelping when it jolts his back and collarbone. His vision whirls in front of him, spotted with black patches, but he does his best to pay no heed to his brokenness, lifting Tony tremulously over his shoulder.

Every step pains him, wears him out; he wonders every time he puts one foot in front of the other whether it’ll be his last step, whether his body will give up on him, and he comes close, stumbling and falling, but hauls himself back up.

He has to reach the Compound. It’s branded across his mind, the most important thought he has in there, and it keeps him going.

He’s getting out. He’s going home.

Fire licks at his face and knees and arm and fingers and collarbone and back and torso. Everywhere.

Between gasping breaths, he croaks encouragement to himself. “N’ly th’re. Y’ go’ this, Pe’r. Pl’s, keep goin’.”

He walks until the black spots have almost taken over his field of vision. Just as his knees give out under him yet again, he blinks and recognizes the sleek glass-and-steel buildings that he’s now among.

The Compound.

Too exhausted to speak, he simply gets back up, keening at the agony of movement, and carries on. He’s only a few hundred feet away. Two hundred. One hundred and fifty. He prays FRIDAY will alert someone when they get there.

One hundred. He thinks he can make out the doors now, although he can’t hold his head up for longer than a moment and his vision is no good.

Exhaustion has taken on a new meaning for Peter.

He hardly notices that he’s crossed the threshold until the door hisses shut behind him and there’s a muffled, muted sound he thinks could be the frenzied clicking of high heels on a staircase.

“How did this - Peter? Peter, honey?”

It’s Pepper.

The tone of her voice is blissfully familiar, dissolving the hold of adrenaline on his body and leaving it limp.

“I’m here,” he tries to say, but all that escapes his mouth is an incoherent whimper.

“Peter…” Pepper calls again, the heels drawing close, but he can’t hold on any longer. He doesn’t need to: he’s safe.

Darkness overtakes his vision and he collapses onto the carpet.

#fanfic #fanfiction #irondad #spiderson #tony stark #peter parker #whump #angst #hurt and comfort #notaparty-trick

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boredstudent-blog · 7 years

Text

Kakusaku Month 2017, Week Two: Homecoming

Summary: Sakura and Kakashi are two 16-year-olds at Konoha High. She is studious and he is the school bad boy. They meet through unexpected circumstances at the homecoming dance. Rated okay for teens and up, some cussing. Modern High School AU, Same Age prompt.

Sakura stood in front of the gym at Konoha High. She stood in her brand-new midnight blue dress, complete with sparkly blue high heels, her hair piled high on her head and bound in light blue ribbon. A couple of the ribbons just touched her shoulders. She glanced at her phone, impatient. She’d been waiting for twenty minutes for Sasuke Uchiha to join her for the homecoming dance. In that time, Sakura had texted him twice, then waited patiently. She wasn’t sure what could be keeping him, as traffic wasn’t bad, his parents had just bought him a new car, and the weather was clear!

Finally, after almost forty minutes, her cell buzzed. She looked down at the screen.

Sorry, Sakura. I’m not as interested in you as I thought, and I hate the idea of going to some stupid school dance. Have an enjoyable time tonight.

Tears welled up in Sakura’s eyes. Was she really not that interesting? And what was wrong with going to a dance? Sure, it was stupid, but it was better than doing nothing every weekend, which is all he ever wanted to do…

Sakura turned off her phone and put it in her purse, then sat down on the bench next to the gym door. What could she do now? She didn’t want to go in alone, and she didn’t want to go home early. She fought back tears, and looked down at her knees.

Unexpectedly, a shadow encompassed her view. She blinked and looked up into the face of Kakashi Hatake, the school bad boy. He wore his usual black turtleneck sweater and navy fatigue pants, and big black combat boots, with the neck of the sweater pulled up over his nose and mouth. He also wore his glasses with the mismatched lenses. One was clear and the other was tinted so you couldn’t see the eye beyond. He was intimidating, partially because of his look. The real reason why he was intimidating was due to his advanced fighting skills—he had broken Might Guy’s jaw in freshman year.

He was suspended for two weeks, his parents had to pay for the hospital bill, and everyone in school had to attend a PSA rally about fighting in school and how we needed to “use their words.” Kakashi had never told anyone why he hit Guy so hard.

The pair stared at one another for a minute, and then Kakashi cleared his throat.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Me? Oh, just um… hanging out,” Sakura said weakly. She wasn’t afraid of him and didn’t have a crush on him, but it was still odd for Kakashi to talk to anyone outside of his social circle. He only spoke to his teachers when required. She felt shy and on-the-spot.

“Hm. Kinda odd to be hanging out here instead of in there,” he said, pointing at the gym doors. The pair could just hear the hip hop music from within.

“Eh, its loud in there…”

“That’s true,” He conceded. “Might get cold out here, though. You gonna go in then?”

“Probably,” Sakura said, playing with one of the ribbons hanging from her hair. She wasn’t sure what to say to this strange loner, this guy who was known for his anger and who was probably some kind of bully.

“Mind if I sit here with you? I’m not really used to going to dances or school stuff like this.”

Sakura nodded and moved a little to give him room on the bench. She was surprised at his politeness, and at the clearness of his voice. She thought he would be slightly muffled by the fabric of his sweater, but it wasn’t.

He sat next to her, and they stayed in silence for a few minutes.

“Why are you here?” she said, breaking the quiet.

“Lost a bet I made with Might Guy. He wanted me to come here and stay until the dance was done.” That wasn’t all that he had to do, but he wasn’t going to tell Sakura Haruno that.

“You two are still friends? After what happened in ninth grade?” Sakura asked, curious.

“Oh, we’re good friends. He’s just a jackass,” Kakashi said dryly, stretching his arms over his head until his shoulders popped, then bringing them down until his elbows rested on his knees, leaning his upper body forward until his hand rested on one hand.

Sakura giggled at his response. “Then why be his friend?”

“He’s good people, for the most part. He was also my first friend in this area. I’ve only lived in Konoha proper since first grade. “

“Oh. That’s a good reason to be a friend with him, then. Loyalty is something one shouldn’t take lightly.”

“Absolutely,” Kakashi said seriously, leaning towards Sakura. “That’s part of why I don’t have many friends. Why should I bond with people when they might break a promise to me?”

“Yeah.” Sakura was surprised that the school bad boy would consider loyalty an issue, but she supposed if he had to take something seriously, at least he picked a good concept.

“Oh my God. I thought you said she wouldn’t be here, Sasuke!”

Sakura looked up and gasped in shock. Sasuke was there, arm in arm with Karin. Karin, the girl who liked bullying those in lower grades than her, who kissed up to all the teachers and cheated when they weren’t looking. Karin, who screamed and threw huge fits whenever she didn’t get her way. Sasuke looked at Sakura, surprised.

“I didn’t think she would be. Why don’t you go in ahead of me and get some punch, Karin?” Sasuke said, pulling slightly away from the redhead and toward Sakura.

“No way. I’m not going to give that bimbo a chance to talk you into something.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Fine, do what you want to do,” he snapped, turning to Sakura, who sat shocked on the bench. “What are you doing here, Sakura?”

“I—I should be asking you that question. You said a school dance was a stupid event.”

“Yes, it is. Karin insisted on going. I expected you to go home after I told you I wasn’t coming,” Sasuke replied coldly.

“You also said I wasn’t interesting for you. Look, if you wanted to go out with Karin, you could have just said that. You didn’t have to string me along like this.” Sakura was hurt, deeply hurt. She wondered how long Sasuke had been wanting out of their relationship, as they had dated for over a year.

She was so focused on Sasuke that she almost didn’t notice Kakashi get up and slip into the dance, only realizing he had when the music got loud for a minute. The doors closed and the music was again dulled.

“It’s nothing personal, Sakura. Look, you’re just not that interesting. You talk about nothing but health and medicine and stuff, and I’m not interested.”

“I’m going to college to be a doctor, Sasuke. I talk about medicine and stuff because that is what I am learning. You could have asked me to keep it to myself, or to talk about something else,” Sakura said. “You didn’t have to drag all this out. Why?”

“Because you’re boring, bitch,” Karin snapped. Sakura’s jaw dropped, and the tears began flowing.

“Hey, Karin and Sasuke,” Kakashi said, seeming to appear behind them. He held a glass of punch in each hand. He threw them on Karin and Sasuke, drenching the pair. Karin shrieked, launching herself at Kakashi. Kakashi pushed her away and into Sasuke with one hand.

“Disloyal asshole,” he said to Sasuke. “Leave, and both of you don’t talk to her again, or I’ll throw more than just overly sweet dance punch at you.”

Sasuke and Sakura both stared at Kakashi, Karin still wiggling and screaming, trying to fight her way out of Sasuke’s arms so she could go after the bad boy. After a moment, Sasuke noticed Guy and Genma Shiranui, another of Kakashi’s friends. Both were standing just outside of the gym doors, watching. Sasuke pulled Karin away, taking her to the parking lot and leaving the area.

“Everything cool, man?” Genma called out to Kakashi.

“Yeah. Head back inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

They went back in, and Kakashi turned to Sakura, pulling a couple of napkins out of his pocket. He wiped the tears from Sakura’s cheeks with one, and gave her the other one. She turned slightly away from him and blew her nose, then turned back and smiled.

“You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.”

“Someone did,” Kakashi said. “He had no right to call someone who is passionate about their future boring, and he had no right to lie to you. He’s a disloyal fool.”

“And why did you throw the punch at Karin?”

Kakashi shrugged. “She was trying to hurt you, and she seemed to need a little cooling off.”

Sakura giggled, and he patted her shoulder gently.

“I should go home,” Sakura said.

“Why? You got all dressed up and ready. Don’t let him ruin your night.”

“I’m… I don’t know. My friends are going to ask questions, people are going to know and everyone wants to put in their own opinion once they know.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

Sakura gasped in shock at the cuss word, and at Kakashi’s uncaring tone.

“Seriously, who cares what they say? Who cares if they know? High school is a blip on your timeline, and on most of their timelines. We move past it, and move on. It’s what needs to be done about shit like this, honey.”

“Honey?” Sakura said.

Kakashi stared back at her, heart pounding. How could he have slipped up like that? What if she asked him about it?

They stood in silence for a moment, and then Sakura met Kakashi’s eye.

“I want you to tell me about yourself, first. Then maybe… maybe I’ll go in to the dance… with you.”

“What do you want to know?” Kakashi said.”

“I want to know why you wear a sunglass lens in the left side, but a regular one in the right?”

“I’m blind in my left eye. I caught a rare virus when I was a child, and it damaged that eye beyond repair. The other lens is prescription. It made no sense to wear glasses that had two prescriptions in both lens holders, so I asked my parents to get these made for me. They were nice about it.”

“And why do you keep your turtleneck up around your nose and mouth like that?” Sakura urged.

“Half the girls in this school bathe in perfume, and half the boys bathe in cologne. The other half of the boys don’t even bathe. That, and I get away with it.”

Sakura giggled. “Why did you break Guy’s jaw in freshman year?”

“I didn’t mean to break his jaw,” he replied. “Rat bastard told my mom about the porn stash in my locker. I hit him too hard.”

Sakura started laughing, and couldn’t stop for several minutes. She doubled over as Kakashi stood there, smiling despite himself.

“Better?” he said when she stopped and stood back up.

“Yeah. One last question?”

“Sure.”

“You called me ‘honey’ earlier,” Sakura said. Kakashi’s heart thrummed hard against his ribs. “Why?”

“I … I like you. I have since you beat Ino at the debate last month. I like how strong you are and how smart you are.”

“Okay. Let’s go in. And after the dance, I’ll let you drive me home, and we’ll talk more, get to know each other,” Sakura said.

“Okay. One thing, though.”

Kakashi pulled down the neck of his sweater and grabbed Sakura around the waist, pulling her to him and kissing her. Their lips melded, and Sakura gasped, relaxing against him and leaning into the kiss. The door to the gym opened and then closed, but no one came out.

Kakashi set Sakura down, breaking the kiss.

“Well,” Sakura sighed, eyes wide and glassy.

“Sorry,” Kakashi said. “I should have waited.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Let’s just… go in to the dance.”

“Okay.”

The couple went in, holding hands. Laer, when Sakura went to the bathroom with Hinata and Ino, Genma and Guy met with Kakashi at the snacks table.

“So, you and Haruno?”

“Yeah. And I did what I was supposed to do, Guy,” Kakashi said.

“Yeah, we saw. You really laid it on her. Does she know about the bet?”

“Not the whole part. She doesn’t need to know you dared me to kiss the girl I like, just that I was supposed to be here at the homecoming dance.”

“Fair enough,” Guy said. “Wanna make a new bet?”

“Not right now. Sakura’s coming back out.”

Guy and Genma watched as Sakura and Kakashi joined hands and walked outside together. Guy smiled. It was good to see his friend with the bad boy image finally get close to someone, especially someone who could see he wasn’t a bad boy at all.

#kakashi x sakura #kakusakumonth #same age au #modern au #teen romance #young love #otp

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marimbistchick · 7 years

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Ok if nobody else has asked yet, for the Voltron Ask Meme- all of them. Just, all of them, every single one. Please :)

*cracks knuckles* Alright, here we go.

***********

Voltron: Which Lion do you think you would pilot? Why?

Ok, this one is probably obvious from my icon, but the black lion. If you'd asked me several months ago before I'd been forced to put actual thought into it (thanks guys) I'd probably have said green, but... no, black fits better. I'm the mom friend. I could be having a mental breakdown and I'd still make sure that everyone else was alright and help them when possible. Correction, I HAVE done that (PSA: don't do that, take care of yourself too folks). As much as I joke about wanting to fight people and probably would if ABSOLUTELY necessary, I'm a pretty level-headed person, and tend to consider all ideas and sides of a story before acting. I don't often actively seek out leadership, but I do tend to naturally fall into that roll for projects and stuff. If no one else is stepping up (which happens surprisingly often), I will.

Shiro: If you were given the chance to change the past, would you?

Hmmmmm... there are lots of things that I wish had gone differently, both in my own life and in history. But there's no way of knowing how far those ripples would spread, and my past has shaped me into me. So no, I wouldn't, though I'd probably always wonder what would happen if I did.

Keith: Do you consider yourself an aggressive or passive person?

I like to consider myself to be pretty balanced, but I suppose that I'm more on the passive side, though I was more aggressive when I was younger. I'm not passive in the way that I would let people walk all over me, but I don't seek out fights, and avoid them if possible. If it's something relatively minor (like a family member with some remarks that I'm not comfortable with), sometimes I'll keep my mouth shut to keep the peace. Though it might be worth mentioning that if someone ELSE is hurt by said comment, I'm absolutely calling the person out. Politely at first, but I have gotten rather confrontational on behalf of others before.

Lance: Are you a flirtatious person? Lance level flirting?

Oh god. No. I'm so emotionally constipated, sometimes I even have trouble flirting in the conventional sense with my boyfriend. However, I will absolutely play-flirt with my friends shamelessly if the situation arises.

Hunk: Do you know how to cook/bake?

YES! BOTH! I'm nowhere near Hunk level, because that boy could probably open a 5 star restaurant, but I am pretty good. When I'm living at home with my family I tend to bake more than I cook, just because I'm the only one in the house who's really any good at it in general. Through lots of practice my mom has gotten really good at baking bread, but we all know that my cookies and muffins always come out better (despite using the same recipe).

Pidge: Who are the people you value the most?

My friends and family, specifically my parents and brother. Well, my friends may as well be family. I'm big on the found-family trope, both in fiction and real life. I feel it worth a shout out that, like Pidge, my brother is named Matt, and I would ALSO do some crazy shit for him. We're twins, and I can't imagine life without him (even if we drive each other crazy sometimes).

Allura: What would be the first thing you do if you wake up after 10,000 years?

Honestly? Probably have a panic attack to end all panic attacks.

Coran: What was your worst “phase”?

Um. Probably when I was like 12 and discovered social media and texting for the first time. I'd use all the abbreviations when I texted people (through WiFi and an app on my iPod), and I remember playing that game on Facebook where you answer questions about your friends. Which might not sound too bad, but I didn't know what some of the terms meant and answered the questions anyway based on (wrong) assumptions of what was really being asked. I think back on all interactions I had and feel a tidal wave of embarrassment.

Zarkon: Do you think revenge is wrong?

To an extent. I think that a little bit might be fine (I can be mildly petty sometimes), but I also think that if you go for it then you need to watch yourself very carefully. It would be far too easy to cross a line that you really shouldn't.

Haggar: Are you obsessed over something? Someone?

I tend to switch between obsessing over works of fiction with no stop in between. Currently it's Voltron.

Lotor: What would you be exiled for?

As is? Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't really have the opportunity to do anything exile-worthy. Assuming that I'm living in an evil space empire? Treason.

Galra Empire: Who is your favorite Galra character?

Does Keith count? I'm assuming that he doesn't. Ooooh boy, this is tough. Acxa is a badass babe, and I'm really curious about Kolivan. But I guess going from what we've actually seen, I have to say Lotor. I wouldn't like him as an actual person, but so far I think that he's an amazing villain, and I'm excited to see more of him. Also he has a gorgeous voice

Blade of Marmora: Who has the best character design?

I haven't really thought about this much, to be honest. I guess I'll go with Honerva/Haggar, just because you can see the gradual shift over time and I thought that it was really well done.

Matt Holt: Do you more “nerdy” or “sporty”?

I definitely have a sporty side, but "nerdy" wins by a long shot. I'll geek out over pretty much anything, but neuroscience and music are top subjects.

Balmerans: Are you good at reading at other peoples emotions?

YES. Too good sometimes, I think. I'm ridiculously empathetic, to the point that it can be painful. If I'm around people who are upset, I'll often either get angry myself, or incredibly anxious. It led to being called "too sensitive" quite a lot when I was younger.

Olkari: Do you have a close connection with nature?

Mmmmm, I wouldn't exactly say "close". I do enjoy it. I LOVE the feeling of wind on my face, and the smell after it rains. I like hiking and climbing rocks and waterfalls. The sun feels really nice when I'm not doing anything. But then we get to the things that I DON'T like. Bugs are NOT my thing at all, and I burn and overheat very easily. So I'd say that I have some mixed feelings when my appreciation of nature is actually put into practice.

Kuron: Would you want a clone of yourself? Why?

No. That would be way too weird. In theory it might be amusing or even useful, but... it brings up some existential questions that I'd rather not ponder.

Honerva: Do you have any pets?

My family has a dog, and I have a cat! His name is Legolas, but we call him "Lego" for short pretty often, since people keep mis-hearing his name as "Legless". He's a goofball, and I love him dearly. He likes to act tough around people (if he'll stop hiding from them), but he's a huge mama's boy and everyone knows it.

Alfor: What is your best friend like?

Um. I can't pick just one. But I have a group of friends who are very dear to me, and we're moving into an apartment a bit off campus in a couple of weeks. We're all huge queer nerds, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I could write an essay about them if I'd let myself.

Weblum: What is your favorite Voltron episode?

Before season 3, it was Blade of Marmora. But now it might just be The Legend Begins, because I'm always a slut for backstory.

Slav: What are your ships? No discourse allowed.

Eh, I'm a pretty neutral party/multi-shipper. I have come to actually really like Keith/Lance and Hunk/Pidge, but in general I tend to like pairings in the context of specific works.

Sven: Would you sacrifice your life for someone you barely know?

I'd like to be noble and say yes, but probably not. I would definitely try to help them, but I'd likely prioritize my own life.

Space Mice: What are your favorite animals?

Oh my god, asking the tough questions here. The answer flips a lot, but if I narrow it down to animals that I have experience with, then probably cats.

KALTENECKER: Who is your favorite Voltron character?

PIDGE!!! But Keith has been steadily squirming his way into my heart as well.

Paladin: When did you start watching Voltron?

I think it was around late September/Early October of 2016.

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