Chapitre 1217: 6
Chapter 6: stars don't shine, they burnNotes:
1) I have been resurrected! I'm not gonna lie, the past week has destroyed me. There was a lot of stress and high emotions that decided Thursday was the best day to find me so I didn't get the chance to write for a bit.
2) It's genuinely hurt/comfort throughout this chapter, I swear. Ned is the best guy in the chair anyone could ask for and you won't persuade me otherwise.
3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!
Chapter Text
Why had he decided swinging was a good idea? Everything ached and he could barely see with his smoke-stained goggles and his blurry vision.
Buildings appeared out of nowhere and he needed to yank himself to the side to quickly avoid slamming into a billboard, wincing as his ribs ached.
The post-fight adrenaline was fading, his light-headedness making his surroundings spin as he made it to Ned's street, barely stopping himself from slamming into Ned's window.
Looking around and thankfully seeing nobody, he tapped on Ned's window with the secret code they had developed after a frightening incident where a criminal had followed him and nearly killed Ned as a hostage. They couldn't have a repeat of that and so the code had been developed to say that it was safe for Ned to show himself.
The window slid open to reveal a very worried Michelle, her eyes widening when she saw him. He must have looked like he'd been thrown through a blender -he definitely felt like he had- as she told Ned he was here before moving aside so Peter could crawl through the window and shutting it once he sat -well, more like he fell- on the wooden floor.
Squinting at the brightness of Ned's light, he barely processed the channel playing on Ned's laptop as Michelle crouched down beside him, brushing her hair behind her ear -a nervous habit- as she checked him over for injuries.
"How bad is it?" She asked, gently pulling his glove off of his shaky hand as he used the other to yank his mask off, breathing in sharply as he dropped it on the floor beside him. "Holy shit, you looked like something crushed you."
"You're not far off," he grunted, grimacing at how red the skin around his hands was. He must have been burned by the plane crash because he didn't remember handling anything hot – oh wait, it must have been when he was webbing Toomes to the boxes.
The fight seemed like a blur of punches and being thrown into the air; he supposed his brain was still processing everything that had happened and focusing on getting to Ned's safely.
"The news is showing everything about the plane crash," she muttered, raising a hand to his face only to pull it away when he flinched. "What happened after the call cut off?"
"I…" He stared at his shaky hands before, breathing in, only to regret it when his chest seized and he wheezed, prompting Michelle to pull him away from the wall into an upright position so he could breathe properly.
"Peter!" Ned exclaimed, shutting the door with one hand as the other held a first aid kit. "Oh crap, did the building…?"
"Y-yeah." He hissed as he forced himself up to sit upright, remembering the wound on his side. He needed to wash before anything became infected.
"Did the building what?" Michelle asked as Ned knelt on the other side of him.
"H-how about I explain everything after I shower? I don't want anything to become infected."
Truthfully, he didn't think he could face retelling Michelle and Ned what had happened without spiralling into a panic attack. Hell, he was still processing everything that happened within the fight.
He couldn't even begin to think about Toomes's trial and how Liz would be affected again and then how Tony and Happy would react and revealing his vigilante persona to May…it was too much.
"Right, right…do you want help getting up?" Ned knew him too well. He wasn't likely to ask for help even though it was obvious he needed it. He supposed it was connected to embarrassment and pride but he couldn't care currently – all he wanted was a warm shower and food and he could let his healing factor kick in overnight.
"Yeah, sure…ah, shit," he gasped as he stumbled onto his feet, blinking away the black spots in his vision as he forced himself to pause to stop the room from spinning. He hoped he wouldn't collapse in the shower.
Ned firmly supported him as he limped to the bathroom, switching on the light before helping Peter sit down on the plastic closed toilet seat lid – something that would be easy to wipe the blood off of compared to the wooden floor.
"This," he panted, "is much worse than last time."
"Are you sure you can handle this yourself? Do you want me to get Strange? He was a doctor, right?" Ned asked.
He froze at the thought before chuckling, stopping the second his chest protested. Fractured ribs weren't fun.
"Why are you laughing?"
"I- I kind of forgot he was an actual doctor," Peter laughed weakly.
"Dude, it's literally in his name."
"I know- ouch." He groaned when he raised his arm, quickly learning to expect a lot of pain whenever he moved. There were bound to be bruises. "But it slipped my mind when I'm used to seeing him use magic instead of a scalpel."
Ned chuckled before heading back into his room to get what Peter presumed would be a first aid kit and some clothes.
Taking off his clothes was a struggle he hadn't anticipated, fighting away another wave of dizziness as he pulled his blood-stained hoodie off. The white t-shirt he was wearing underneath was covered in various shades of red -he would throw it out the next morning- with the area around his chest dyed maroon and the area by his side the same. Thankfully, both areas had clotted, albeit a sudden movement would stimulate more bleeding.
Ned left a black towel, some clothes and the first aid kit on the counter beside the bathroom sink, smiling when Peter nodded gratefully.
"Give us a shout if you need help," he said softly before closing the door to give him his privacy.
He steadied his breathing as he tugged his bottoms off, frowning at the red splotches where his wounds were. He would have to wash the suit at the laundromat to avoid questions from May; he didn't want her knowing how bad the injuries from this fight were. He didn't want to tell Ned and Michelle either, but he had no choice in regard to them. They were a team and he had promised them a while back that he wouldn't keep secrets about his injuries.
The wounds on his thigh and side would prevent him from sitting down comfortably for a few days but they weren't the worst he'd had; being hit by a train and punched through six floors set the bar for injuries much higher than it should be but at least he was alive.
There were bruises blossoming everywhere from the discolouration around his shins to the green bruises on his arms…he wasn't sure if he wanted to see the state of his back. His fingers stung from the burns he hadn't realised he had from when he fought Toomes on the beach and, looking in the mirror, there was a blood stain from when his temple had been cut.
Wheezes were intermittent depending on how focused he was on keeping his breaths shallow enough to avoid the pain of breathing normally, his fractured -probably broken- ribs jostling with each necessary movement.
He probably -definitely- needed to see a doctor. Was he going to? No. Was he an idiot for not going? Yes.
Unfortunately, Tony hadn't made painkillers for him – his metabolism was a bit faster than Steve's and he burned through the medicine an hour sooner on the super soldier pills. He would need to ask Tony about that in the future. For now, he was stuck with a body that resembled a colourful painting of the remnants of a warzone and every movement caused pain.
He undressed and stepped into the shower, gritting his teeth as water ran in rivulets down his body, changing the white base of the shower brown as blood and sand mixed together like an unfortunate hair dye.
The steam took away some of the strain from breathing but he knew it would take a while before the wheezing left completely.
He blinked away the dots speckling his vision as he washed his wounds, fire lashing up his skin when he raised his hands to wash the dust and sand out of his hair. The foam trickled down his body, seeping into his slowly healing injuries as his nerves screamed in pain.
He grimaced as he finished showering, letting the clean water wash away the remains of blood and sand down the drain before he turned the shower off and patted himself dry, trying not to aggravate his wounds in the process. He didn't remember his injuries being this bad last time.
Then again, Toomes had known who he was and wasn't aiming to hurt him that badly.
…but he did drop a building on him.
It would always be a moral question for him to ponder, but for now, he focused on wrapping his wounds. He cleaned his hands before placing a gauze pad on his side and bandaging the stab wound in his thigh, relief rushing through him when he saw the wounds had started to heal.
He hadn't looked at his chest.
Considering he had been in the shower and hadn't felt like his lungs were going to fall out because of the wounds in his chest, the area shouldn't have looked as horrible as it was. The blood had been washed away but the bruising was like nothing he had seen before; a mottled constellation of black and navy filled the area where the puncture wounds had been, green filling in areas around his stomach and yellow around his shoulders.
With the worst of the damage fading away as quickly as it was, hope bubbled in his chest that he would be fully healed by Monday – or mostly healed. The fractured ribs could take a week depending on how well he was fed and judging by the state of his healing side and thigh, he would be willing to bet they would heal sooner rather than later.
He pulled on some grey sweatpants and a plain t-shirt before throwing on an oversized hoodie he had brought with him in his overnight bag, wincing at the soreness that flared up whenever he moved his arm too quickly.
His eyebrow furrowed when the blaring sound of air pump started, unlocking the bathroom door to see Ned on the floor beside a slowly inflating air mattress and Michelle pouring pack of Doritos into a bowl. The main light had been turned off and the lamps -one on Ned's desk, the other on his bedside table- softly lit up the room.
"Hey," Michelle gently said as Ned went to grab a plastic bag for him to dump his bloody clothes in. "I need to go before my dad wonders why I'm taking so long. Do you want to fill us in on what happened now or later?"
His gaze flickered to the filthy clothes in his hands. Telling her and Ned would reduce the burden on him tomorrow but his eyes were staring to droop and he didn't want to say much. He had promised to tell them and he knew his reluctancy wouldn't help his situation. Why had he agreed to tell them in the first place?
He had barely told Tony or Happy about injuries he received on patrol; it took Karen tattling to FRIDAY for Tony find out anything serious and he had tampered with the Baby Monitor Protocol to stop too many accounts of bruising and small cuts. He hadn't stopped Karen from listing head injuries or anything serious – that would be stupid in case he collapsed in an alleyway, regardless of how embarrassing it was.
The shame connected with his failures often embarrassed him whenever Tony brought it up during lab days when they edited suit protocols and whatnot, mainly because he couldn't stop himself from thinking of Tony as his idol. He didn't want to be seen as weak despite his close connection, even if he could lift buildings off of him and stop a mechanised alien-thing from crushing his mentor.
He slowly shook his head, trying to stave off the inevitable headache he would have before he passed out into a (hopefully) calm sleep.
"I'll tell you two later. I-" he yawned, "really want to sleep."
"I can tell." She huffed. She slowly raised her hands up, kissing his forehead tenderly before shyly smiling. "I'll see you later."
"Are you sure you want to go home by yourself?" He asked, sitting on the edge of Ned's bed as she gathered her things.
"Yeah, I'm meeting my dad at the bus stop."
"I'll go with you downstairs. I don't think Ned will let me leave." He laughed softly.
"Don't strain yourself, okay? I want to see you in one piece."
"I don't want to do much anyway."
He wasn't lying. Exhaustion plagued him, making staying awake difficult as he waved goodbye from Ned's door before munching on some microwave pizza and getting ready for bed.
The air mattress wasn't that bad with a black blanket draped over it and a couple of pillows, but his exhaustion didn't let him give into sleep. He ate his bowl of crisps as Ned changed into some Star Wars pyjamas, scrolling through the news reports on his friend's laptop.
Plane Crash On Coney Island: No Casualties
MASKED MENACE CRASHES PLANE
Adrian Toomes arrested on the site of a plane crash
Spider-Man takes down Vulture on Coney Island
Suspected Stark Industries plane crashes on Coney Island
"Is it just me or is this bigger than last time?" He jolted, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to ignore the pain in favour of turning around to face Ned.
"No, I think you're right. There's a lot more media coverage than before," he replied, placing the empty bowl by the desk. He would take it downstairs in the morning.
"Twitter started exploding with videos when it first happened, but I don't think you wanna see that yet." Peter nodded. "Go to sleep, it's almost midnight."
"I know, it's just…"
Ned nodding in understanding as he turned the desk lamp off, leaving the bedside lamp on as he sat on the floor next to the blow-up mattress.
"Wanna watch a movie?" He asked quietly, nodding when Peter handed him the laptop. "I'll load up WALL-E."
They settled against the back of the bed as Ned opened his downloads and Peter dragged the blanket on the mattress on top of them, quickly settling as the opening song started. He had watched WALL-E more times than he could count but it didn't make a difference to him; he liked knowing what would happen after each scene and listening to the robots communicate with each other in their mechanical but human-like ways.
He let his eyes flutter shut as La Vie en Rose started playing, faintly humming as Ned quietly sang along in Tagalog. He finally drifted off as WALL-E and EVE spoke to each other without weapons for the first time, his heart beating in time with Ned's as he fell asleep, forgetting all his worries for a few blissful hours.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone