#i am a weak willed woman. please don't judge me too hard ;~~;

[candledburns]

sometimes i need to work with my brain instead of against it. and that’s why i’m watching volume 7 of rwby despite having not seen volume 6 yet whoops-

[nowplayingblog-main]

Chapter 2 is finally here!

read under the cut

...”C’mon kid, just a few more steps”...

...”I know, I know it’s too hot”...

...”Shhh... I know it hurts, I know”...

...”You’re gonna be alright, Peter, It’ll be okay”...

Peter’s eyes snapped open to the blinding lights of a white room. He felt his face scrunch underneath a plastic mask placed over his nose and mouth, blowing soothingly cold air across his face. His eyes had squeezed shut in an effort to shield him from the harmful light above his eyes.

“Can we have the lights dimmed, please?” a feminine voice called out.

The orange glow behind his eyelids dimmed, and Peter braved blinking a little, to let his eyes adjust to the room. It was blurry at first, and while the darkness soothed his eyes, it made it hard to see the room. Then, slowly, everything came into focus, and Peter eyes settled on the woman who was sitting at his bedside.

She was clearly a doctor of some form. She wore a long white lab coat over a pale pink scrubs, and a stethoscope around her neck. Her skin was a few shades darker than his, and she had long, medium brown, wavy hair. Peter remembered all those medical dramas his mom watched before their trip to Afghanistan; this lady would have fit right into the cast.

“Hello, Peter,” The woman said. “My name is Dr. Sullivan.”

“Hi,” He responded meekly, his voice weak from lack of use and muffled by the oxygen mask over his mouth.

Dr. Sullivan gave him a small smile. “It’s okay to take that off, if you want. Just don’t leave it off for too long. You should be fine, but I’m not quite willing to risk anything yet.”

The coordination in Peter’s arms was lacking extremely, but eventually his left arm found the mask on his face and pulled it away as gently as possible.

“Where am I?” His voice was just barely above a whisper.

“You’re at Thousand Oaks Surgical Hospital, in Malibu California,” Dr. Sullivan explained. “You and Mr. Stark were found two day ago in the middle of a desert in Afghanistan. You suffered a heat stroke shortly before you were found by the United States Air Force. Not to mention an infection due to your various wounds, including the bullet that was still lodged in your stomach. The surrounding skin healed remarkably fast, most likely due to your altered DNA.”

Peter’s heart rate picked up in fear. His monitor beeped loudly, and blood pulsed in his ears. She knew? She knew.

Dr. Sullivan raised her hands in surrender. “It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone. I can’t really. Patient privacy, as well as the fact that Tony Stark himself had me and my entire team sign a non-disclosure agreement. We only know because we need to know, Peter.”

“Why do you need to know?” Peter insisted, his voice cracking. He wasn't exactly sure why he was so defensive about this. He just felt embarrassed, ashamed,  almost dirty. Like everything about him now, after what those... those... monsters did to him. He had always felt that way but his emotions were muted under the influence of the drugs they kept him on. Besides, in the cave no one was there to judge him, until Mr. Stark was brought in.

“We need to know so that we know how to take care of you, Peter. You’re enhanced, we need to know that so that we don’t try to treat you like a normal person, because it wouldn’t work the same way with you -”

“I am a normal person!” Peter was almost at the brink of screaming, and, god, his voice sounded awful.

“I know that, Peter,” Dr. Sullivan tried to calm him. “But biologically, you are different, and I don’t want to accidentally hurt you because of that, that’s why we need to know -”

“You don’t! There’s nothing wrong with me! I’m normal! So what if my DNA is different now! I’m still normal! I’m still normal!”

Peter didn’t acknowledge much beyond the screaming. He didn’t notice the doctors filtering into the room as his heart monitors went crazy. He didn’t notice them shouting orders, didn’t even notice the needle filled with an enhanced sedative. All he knew was lab coats. Lab coats meant pain, and god he never wanted pain again. Haven't they done enough? They already changed him forever. Why were the lab coats back to hurt him? Peter was supposed to be safe! He was supposed to be safe! He was supposed to be -

...white lab coats...

...a man with graying hair leans over him...

...he’s being restrained, he can’t move, the drugs altering his sense of reality...

...“- the world is not ready for him-”...

...“Sleep tight, my little pest”...

Peter woke up later that day. The sky was dark outside his window, and his eyes took less time to adjust to his surroundings, the voices of his nightmare echoed in his head.

The oxygen mask was over his nose again, and Peter reached up to pull it down, not realizing he had now caught the attention of Mr. Stark, who was sitting where Dr. Sullivan was earlier that day.

“Hey kid,” He said as a means of greeting.

“Hey,” Peter said plainly.

“Heard you had a little freak out earlier.”

Peter blinked. “I did?”

“Dr. Sullivan said it was a panic attack. You were breathing too fast, and you kept yelling at the staff until you got so worked up they had to sedate you.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter apologized. He remembered now, and he was recalled the look on every panicked doctors face while Peter did nothing but yell and scream. Deep guilt stirred inside his chest.

“Don’t apologize,” Tony said. “She said it was expected, considering everything you’ve gone through in the recent past. I still don’t understand what triggered it though-”

Peter opened his mouth, whether it was to tell Tony what had triggered him, or to refute that he had been triggered at all, Peter himself would never know, because Tony cut him off. “Nevermind. I’m not willing to put you through that again if you got so worked up about it the last time.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment.

“I held a press conference today,” Tony announced.

“What’s a press conference?” Peter asked innocently.

“It’s a big, boring meeting where I can tell reporters what I want them to hear. Helps me control what information gets out to the public,” Tony gave him a strange look. “How is it that you can help me create a miniaturized ARC reactor, and a mechanized suit of armor in a cave with nothing but scraps, when you’re - how old are you?”

“Thirteen”

“Really? God, I feel old. Anyway, how is it that you can do all that, but you don’t know what a press conference is?”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t think press conferences have a whole lot to do with mechanics, Mr. Stark.”

“True,” Tony shrugged. “I guess you and I were just raised in extremely different circumstances. What did you say you’re parents were? Geneticists?”

Peter’s smile, which has been slowly pushing his cheeks upward suddenly fell. He nodded mutely.

Mr. Stark winced. “Sorry, kid. Probably wasn’t a good idea to bring that up.”

They were silent for a while after that. Peter focused on the way the individual threads on his blanket were woven together.

“You’ll be living with me from now on,” Tony said softly. “I promise not to bring it up again if you don’t want me too, but we looked into your family, Pete, and you were right. You don’t have any surviving relatives. But I’m not going to let you slide into that broken government system of tossing poor kids around. Not after everything you and I have gone through, especially after...” Tony trailed off. “After your DNA has been altered so much...” he said carefully, eyeing Peter for a reaction before carrying on. “I just don’t think it’s the best idea, and neither does anybody hear at the hospital, so I signed for temporary guardianship, and you’ll be living with me from now on. So there’s that.”

Peter nodded, not looking up from where he stared at the blanket, playing with the material between his fingers.

“Well, I won’t bore you any longer, is there some kind of movie that you really like? It might help you to take your mind off of everything.” Tony stood up and walked over to a pile of DVD cases, still wrapped in plastic as though they had just been purchased. “I didn’t know what you would like, so I got a little bit of everything.

Tony handed Peter a stack to shift through, until Peter felt his heart lift upon seeing his favorite movie of all time - Star Wars: A New Hope.

“I knew you had to be a bit of nerd,” Tony mused, standing up to insert the DVD.

They didn’t talk for the entire run of the movie, but Tony didn’t leave Peter’s side either, which Peter felt was enough.

Peter was signed out of the hospital the next day.

“Shouldn’t he be here a couple more days?” Tony questioned. When we brought him in a few days ago you insisted that he was in critical condition, and now he’s right as rain?”

Dr. Sullivan shrugged. “His tests came back clear of any infection, and his stats have been within a healthy range for over 24 hours now. He is completely fine to leave. Welcome to taking care of an enhanced.”

Tony tilted his head. “And how do you know so much about enhanced people?”

“I have my sources. Have a good day Mr. Stark.”

And with that, Dr. Sullivan whisked out of the room with a flourish of her lab coat, and disappeared from Peter’s line of vision. Which was fine in Peter’s opinion,. Since his anxiety levels had been through the roof ever since she had stepped in the room.

Peter had begun to notice that when the medical professionals were around, he couldn’t seem to keep himself calm. His palms felt sweaty, and the rate of his breathing began to pick up. If they came too close to him without warning, or if they touched him, Peter would flinch, as though he was expecting to be hurt.

Peter himself found this ridiculous. He knew the doctors weren't there to hurt him, they were there to help him. He had never been afraid of doctors in his life, not before the cave.

He always felt better when Mr. Stark was around, however, though he couldn’t quite explain why. He made him feel safe, even though Peter knew that him even being around Tony made the man feel uncomfortable, at least at first. He guessed it had to do with the fact that Mr. Stark hadn’t ever had to deal with someone Peter’s age. Besides, now that they were free, there wasn’t much that they could talk about. They didn’t have a lot of common ground, at least not any that they knew about, and they didn’t have a common goal or a common enemy anymore. Their relationship had grown while they were in the cave, but to what extent?

To his credit, Tony always did seem to ease up after talking to Peter for a while, and eventually the two did find some common interests.

“Just you wait until we get to the house, kid.” Tony had told them on their ride to his Malibu home. Tony was driving, which Peter found somewhat surprising. “You’ll love the lab. It has so many fun toys. My bots are there, though they’re somewhat antiques at this point - those stupid pieces of scrap metal.”

“Why don’t you just get rid of them?” Peter asked.

Mr. Stark turned to him, with a frown on his face, which quickly melted into a smile. “I couldn’t do that! I love them too much. Just don’t tell them I said that.”

When they arrived at Tony's mansion, Peter was shocked at the sheet size of it. Growing up in New York City, Peter had seen some pretty big buildings. Correction. Some pretty tall buildings. Peter didn't think that Mr. Stark's house was more than three stories, but it stretched across the shore of the Pacific almost endlessly. Peter could wrap his head around why anyone would need a house that was this big.

The inside of the house felt like a maze. After the walked in, Peter found it hard to keep his bearings. Once they moved away from the door, he couldn't tell which way was which, and he had the feeling that if Peter lost Mr. Stark in one of the winding corridors, he could be lost in the house forever.

When they finally reached a room that Peter recognized to be some sort of living room or sitting room, there was a woman with strawberry blonde hair wearing a white blouse and a gray pencil skirt, sitting on the couch, watching something on the television.

“...allow me to introduce you to the new Stark Industries business plan!” The voice on the TV said, followed by the sound of something shattering. “Look, that's a weapons company that doesn't make weapons!”

The woman looked up, noticing them, and shut off the TV with a static click. “Welcome home, Mr. Stark.”

“Hello, Ms. Potts,” Tony said, stepping in front of Peter. “I'll be in my lab for the rest of the day, if you need me.”

“Alright, I'll be sure to come get you. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“That'll be all Ms. Potts.”

Then Tony turned and motioned for Peter to follow him. They went downstairs, down a winding, circular staircase, until they reached the bottom floor, which left to a room behind a big, glass wall, with a glowing pin pad by the door.

“I'll take you to see your room in a second, kid, I just thought I would show you the lab first.”

The door opened, and Tony held it open to let Peter in. He walked in and was greeted by an echoing voice.

“Unidentified personnel.” Said a voice seemingly coming from everywhere. Peter jumped at the unexpected noise, looking around for where it may have been coming from.

“Oh, calm down JARVIS,” Tony said, “He’s with me, and he’s going to be around here quite a bit. Log him as Peter...” Mr. Stark turned to look at him. “Parker right? I thought I saw that name of the guardianship forms.”

Peter nodded silently. Tony spent the next half hour showing Peter around the lab, introducing him to his robots, and showing him how to operate certain types of equipment. Mr. Stark rambled on and on, talking about everything under the sun, while Peter remained uncharacteristically quiet, thinking back to what he had heard in the living room.

“You’re a quiet thing today, aren’t you?” Tony remarked. “Haven’t spoken a word since we got to the house. Usually you’re talking a mile a minute.”

Peter turned to look at the man. He stayed silent.

“You got something on your mind?”

Peter took a deep breath. “What... What was Ms. Potts watching? When we came in?”

“One of those broadcasts or TV shows that advises people on where to invest their money.”

“It said you were a weapons company that doesn’t make weapons.”

Tony sighed. “That’s because as of a couple of days ago, Stark Industries announced - or rather, I announced, quite unexpectedly - that we were shutting down our weapons department.”

Peter blinked. “What made you decide to do that?”

“You did,” The mechanic sat down and began fiddling with some sort of circuit board. “You told me in the cave that weapons won’t just stop working when someone I don’t want to have them gets ahold of them. I realized then that I had become part of a broken system,” Tony looked up at him. “I don’t want to make weapons anymore. Stark Industries whole mission is to make the world a better, safer, and more peaceful place. Making weapons isn’t working. We can do better. I just need to figure out what I want to do.”

Peter smiled softly. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Well, I initially wanted to look more into ARC reactor technology,” He tapped on the glowing blue light under his shirt for emphasis. “But Obie shot that down, he’s still married to the idea that we’re only good for making weapons. Then I thought... maybe...” Tony eyed Peter carefully. “Maybe if I couldn’t control who had the guns... I could make sure they were in the rights hands...my own...”

The teen tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Tony pulled up a couple of displays, maneuvering things through the air on his holographic projections, before pulling up an image of a suit of armor. Peter looked at it for a few moments, before he began to recognize certain elements of it. His eyes widened in shock. Yes, Peter definitely recognized this. How could he not? He had helped build this.

“I’m changing up the design a little, trying to change the form to increase the aerodynamics to help it to sustain prolonged flight - kinda similar to the way we’re shaping cars to be able to move faster. The original model was never meant to fly for very long, that’s why it ended up crashing so badly in the desert, I’m trying to figure out how to use less energy to achieve flight, because with our last model it was a bit overkill -”

“Hold on,” Peter cut him off. “You’re building another suit?”

“Well, I was hoping you could help me. You did so well the last time.”

“No, I mean,” Peter sighed, “You’re going to stop making weapons for your company, but you’re going to make an even bigger weapon for yourself.”

“It’s not like that, kid.” Tony got up from where he was sitting a moved to stand beside Peter. “It’s not a weapon. It’s a method of keeping the peace.”

“By having a bigger stick than the other guy?”

Tony paused. “Where did you hear that?”

“I read it in a magazine.”

“In the hospital?”

“I got bored.”

Mr. Stark turned to face him. “Listen, kid. This thing isn’t meant to be a weapon. Or, maybe it is, but I’m going to be the one in the suit. I’m going to make sure no one else gets their hands on this, and I’m only going to go after the people who hurt others. This suit isn’t going to have big guns or cause massive explosions like the first one did.”

Peter was struggling to understand. “So, you want to become a superhero?”

Tony blinked. “What? No.”

“You just said that you wanted to go after the bad guys and protect people.”

“What? Kid, that’s not - Well... I guess maybe it is. Sure, let’s go with that. I’m going to become a superhero.”

Peter smiled. “Well, in that case, I’m in.”

The billionaire chuckled and looked back at his designs for the new suit. “I should have known all I had to say to get you on board was something extremely dorky like ‘I’m going to become a superhero’”

“I just think that you made something that could really help people, or could really hurt people,” Peter explained. “My dad used to tell me about his brother, Ben. He died when my dad was in college, but he used to say ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ It’s super cheesy, but I think it’s the truth. You have a lot of power, Mr. Stark, and you want to use it to help people. That’s something I can get behind.”

Tony smiled at the kid. “You know kid, you’re pretty wise for a thirteen-year-old.”

“Well, I’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah kid. Too much.”

Later that day, Tony showed Peter his room. It was a bit of a blank slate. A guest room which hadn’t really been converted to become Peter’s room, but Mr. Stark said that he could decorate it however he wanted to.

Now, Peter was laying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The bed felt too soft, like he was laying on marshmallows. He supposed that was because He had gotten used to a beat down mattress on a wire frame, and even after that he had been stuck in a hospital bed, which was a huge improvement, but nowhere near the comfort levels Peter found in this bed.

Ever since waking up after their escape, Peter found it hard to sleep. Before, Peter had been on drugs virtually all the time. Sleeping wasn’t something he had done on his own for quite some time, he always just dozed off after receiving another dose.

His lack of sleep wasn’t the only thing that the drugs did to him. Walking around, and viewing the world was completely different now. Everything was so much more vibrant and vivid than Peter had ever remembered it being. The world was louder, and brighter, and more three-dimensional.

It wasn’t as though Peter wanted the drugs, in fact it kind of surprised him that he didn’t find himself addicted to the substance because of how much he was forced to use it. He suspected the doctors had weaned him off of it while he was still unconscious. It was just that everything felt so different now. Like he was living in a dream. A happy dream that couldn’t possibly be his reality.

There was no way Peter could truly be free. No way he could have been taken in by the infamous Tony Stark. It just wasn't possible.

And yet, here he was. Free at last.

And at some point that night while he stared up at the ceiling, Peter had the most peaceful night of sleep in his life.