Archive of Our Own

He felt the cold first. It was a strong creeping presence in the room that made the ends of his fingers numb. His legs were shaking, but not from the chill of the air. 

Because on the other side, there was a monster. 

Long thin legs scuttered on the concrete floor. The creature’s beady eyes stared at him intensely. He could hear the click of its jaws and the drip of saliva, leaving wet lines on the floor. 

He tried to step back but his legs did not obey. He tried to turn, but a hand was suddenly on his shoulder and pushing him forward. Snakes wrapped around his body, scales cold like ice as they bound him. He tried to scream but another had covered his mouth. A voice spoke above him that hissed.

“Fight, little one,” it said as a thousand slitted eyes, hundreds of mouths wide and hungry.

He did not want to come closer. He tried to beg for mercy, but his tongue became heavy and the hand sunk and grabbed his throat from the inside. And they kept pushing him closer and closer as the monster with eight legs waited for him, mouth wide open, fangs glinting in the low light. 

He tried to struggle, tried to scream harder. But it did not work.

He kept getting closer and closer and closer.

And then,

“Peter!”

Peter Parker woke up, screaming and crying, and asking for his mama. May Parker hugged him tight, kissing his forehead. Ben Parker sat on Peter’s other side, rubbing circles on his back.

It took a while before the 9-year-old calmed down enough to fall asleep. 

Ever since Peter had arrived on their doorstep, he had been plagued by nightmares.

Dreams about giant spiders and cold castles. Long shadows and hands that would spring from the dark. For the first year of his arrival in the May and Ben Parker’s life, Peter would sleep with 2 nightlights and with a ceiling bathed in glow in the dark stars. 

Doctors said that they were results of trauma. The loss of Richard and Mary Parker was still fresh, too soon. Three months wasn’t enough time for a 9-year-old to grieve properly. 

No one goes through a disaster without having some scars. No one goes through a plane crash and witnessing the death of your parents without developing issues. Some kids would be irrationally angry. Some became recluses at such young ages. It was a small miracle that the only thing Peter had from all this was night terrors.

May had too big of a soft spot for kids. Working as a pediatric nurse didn’t lessen her love for them. And Ben Parker might not have known little Peter for long, but they weren’t going to let the poor boy suffer. He might not have any idea when Mary and Richard adopted Peter, only knew him from the few visits they experienced, but he promised to care for him as if he was his own flesh and blood.

He was the last memory of his little brother, after all.

Everything was cold and white, and the smell in the air made him want to cry with how it stung his nose. 

The straps on his wrists were cold leather that didn’t budge. He heard them moving around him, whispering, but he couldn’t see what they looked like because of the bright light directed to his face. 

“Please,” he begged. “Let me go. I’m sorry.”

His pleas were ignored as they kept moving, tinkering with random items that left thumps around him. There was the sound of rolling wheels, and a pair of hands were suddenly grabbing his arm. When he looked to their direction, he saw another pair of hands holding a long sharp needle.

He thrashed harder against his restraints. 

“Please! I’m sorry, don’t hurt me. Please, please, please. I’ll be good! No more, please!”

They don’t listen. The needles glints in the light. His skin hasn’t been touched but he can feel the ache as the ends comes closer and closer to his arm. He tries to pull away, but the restraints hold fast, and the stronger arms keep him from moving too harshly. 

The needle punctures his skin and Peter is screaming. 

He came to when he heard the rumble of Uncle Ben’s voice, and Aunt May’s hand carding through his hair. They sung him a lullaby that helped him fall back to sleep. 

If he happened to wake up again, they were there to keep him company.

“Ben, have you seen this?”

May could hear her husband move away from the stove. She felt his hand on her shoulder as he looked over it and to whatever she was holding. She heard him whisper, “What the hell?” as his hand skimmed the page.  

The drawing in May’s hand was made with a young child’s unpracticed hand, in brightly colored crayons. They were humanoid in shape, and when practiced enough could actually be a very good depiction of a body. There was five of them on the paper. Two were drawn with grey lines meant to look like suits. One was made with brown that looked like a cloak or long jacket. The last two were drawn in black, though one was smaller than the others and the other had a grey arm.

The man in brown was behind the two black figures. One of the grey figures was flat on the ground. The other looked like it was kneeling. The figure with a grey arm had its arm raised and pointed at the kneeling man. Red crayon was used to draw a puddle under the figure lying face down.

It didn’t take a genius to know what the red was.

“Did we accidentally let him watch something violent?” She asked. Ben shook his head, and replied, “we’ve been feeding him nothing but cartoons and Ghibli movies last time I checked.”

May stared at the drawing before gently putting it back on the table, face down. There was sick feeling in her stomach as she listened for her nephew’s tiny little laughs in the other room, Peter busy with watching a new cartoon on TV. 

“Should we bring him to the doctor?” Ben asked. May turned to face him. The worry in his face made her want to kiss it away. Peter was already a sickly asthmatic kid, wheezing at even the slightest effort. The possibility that he could be disturbed too… Well May couldn’t help but worry. 

“I don’t know, maybe? Is it just trauma? I don’t think he could imagine something like that out of nowhere.”

There was another laugh, and they both heard Peter sing with the show. It made her smile despite the situation. 

“Let’s just bring it up with him. If we think there’s something we should be worried about, then we can go. Peter doesn’t like going to the doctors as it is.”

Ben nodded and they let the matter rest, deciding on talking to Peter about it later.

It wasn’t as fruitful as they thought.

When asked if Peter knew what was happening in the pictures, he just shrugged. “I saw it on a TV once.”

The older Parkers just sighed. Maybe they did accidentally leave a movie on. Nothing they could do but explain then. 

So they spent that day explaining about what to draw and what it meant and that Peter shouldn’t be afraid to ask them certain things. They advise him to not draw the scary pictures when he starts going to back to school in Queens. Peter nodded and agreed.

They tell him that they’ll show him the friendly channels to check, the ones that didn’t have dangerous things like he’d seen before. 

Peter didn’t tell him not to worry. He’d tried searching for the channels he’d seen the image, trying to find the reference, but it didn’t seem to exist in his Aunt and Uncle’s home. The shows and movies were too up close and clear. And the people looked too big. The TV he was used to showed people that were small and tiny, the screen full of grain and shadows. And they never had sound, just dates and times on the edges. Those seemed more real than what he read on TV.

None of them were accurate to what he saw so he really didn’t think he’d bother looking for it again. 

The concrete was cold and he was too small. His body curled into itself, trying to conserve heat against the cavernous size of the room, the stone and metal leeching the warmth from his bones. 

He did not like this. The shadows with the snakes and a thousand arms told him that it would make him strong. But he didn’t understand. It just made everything hurt. They’d say that the spiders could live in the cold and fight in the snow. And the statues of ice did not melt in the burning heat, even if they were torn apart. 

He was different and he will be stronger. 

But he wasn’t strong. He didn’t care to be strong. He just didn’t want to be cold. He wanted to get out of this place, but the snakes had too many eyes and the spiders and statues were always there. 

Why couldn’t they see? They were wrong. Please, couldn’t they just let him go? It was so cold. So so cold. He wanted….

Warmth. 

He felt warmth as something hugged him. The room was too dark too see, but the heat of those arms made him melt. He could smell fire and blood in the arms, but also something warm that melted into him.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come before,” it said. He could hear the clicking of jaws and feel the hair on it’s legs and he knew that it was one of the spiders. But he did not feel fear, unlike the others. The spider was warm and close and safe and his little body relaxed in its embrace.

“Forgive me. I didn’t know about you. They never told me. I wish I could have known. Maybe I could have… I could have….” it whispered, voice choked. He simply patted its face, hugging the spider back. They cried harder, hugged him tighter, and he could fade away with this memory. 

They stayed like that, the spider crying and him cherishing its embrace.

“I wish I can save you,” it said, and its voice was true sorrow that made him cry. “But I’m not strong enough yet. A hawk will come and help me, and I’ll get out. And then I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

He didn’t want to believe, his little heart too sick with hope. But he nodded and hugged the spider tighter. 

They stayed that way for a while, until the spider moved to pull away. He tried to pull it back, but it pushed his hands away. There were tears in its eyes, like it didn’t want to leave. But it didn’t stay. And he didn’t know why it couldn’t stay, so he cried as the warmth crawled away. All he had left was the red of the spider’s hair.

Peter woke up to that dream crying until he couldn’t breathe.

“Oh my god! Aunt May! Uncle Ben! Aliens are attacking Manhattan!” Peter screamed, running into the kitchen. The two looked up from making their dinner and asked what was happening. He pulled on both their arms until they were sitting in the living room, all three watching the news as monsters came out of the sky.

They all watched as heroes suddenly came to fight the monsters and saved the day.

Like all kids, Peter loved the Avengers. The first group of superheroes in the world. It was a dream come true for superhero lovers everywhere. From old fans of Captain America rejoicing at the return of their idol, Iron Man supporters who worshipped the man and hero, to new enthusiasts who discovered that aliens were real. To kids, it was the best thing to ever happen.

All the other kids had immediately looked at Iron Man or Captain America as the coolest. And Peter really liked them too. He loved the good and honorable justice that Captain Rogers represented, but he also liked the genius wit and cleverness that Tony Stark had. Iron Man would sometimes be his favorite Avenger, and Tony Stark would always be one of his idols. 

Others liked the new ones. The Hulk, a green humanoid that couldn’t be stopped. Rage incarnate, and just pure cool. The actual Norse God of Thunder, Thor. Who was way more charming than the stories made him to be. The cool hammer and the lightning powers were a favorite. Peter loved them too.

But, while everyone looked to these flashy heroes with their powers, Peter had always fancied the quiet ones that people forgot. The normal humans that had nothing but pure skill and resourcefulness. Spies and agents for a secret organization called SHIELD. One was a guy that had nothing but a bow and arrow, and could shoot with terrifying accuracy that Peter was sure he had powers. They called him Hawkeye.

The woman, though, was the one he loved the most. 

“It’s absolute chaos here as more of the creatures come out through the portal” the reporter said on screen, an 11-year-old Peter huddling with May and Ben in their home. “It’s all a miracle that the brave heroes we have are still fighting to protect us.”

That was when he saw her. In the middle of the smoke and fire, blue blasts of energy that made the air sizzle, he saw the woman. Nothing but black leather as her armor, guns in hand against blasters, red hair that moved around her like fire. 

They didn’t release a lot of information about her, just that she was also an agent for SHIELD. A red headed femme fatale, the media had dubbed, with her powerful fighting skills that allowed her to go head-to-head with aliens, fighting alongside super-humans and demigods. The mystery woman that some had dubbed as Black Widow, named after a supposed group of elite and dangerous assassins. She was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

In the new group of superheroes, Black Widow was his favorite.

In his dreams, when the images of the aliens and monsters would terrify him to the point of waking up, he would think of Black Widow and how she managed to fight off these monsters with nothing but her guns and fists. The bright red hair felt like a comforting flame against the darkness.

Peter and his family had been celebrating his 13th birthday in their home when the helicarriers fell from the sky. 

It was all the news was talking about. How the ships rose from the grounds of SHIELD headquarters, destroyed each other by cannon fire. DC was in a state of chaos and every news station was focused on the smoke and devastation. 

It was Captain America fighting HYDRA, they said. The serpents hiding in the grass, poisoning SHIELD from within. They had a plan to create order by using an advance weapon targeting system. Protection by holding a gun to everyone’s head.

But they were stopped by the heroes. Captain America, the Black Widow. A new man that the new had dubbed Falcon. Together, they helped stop HYDRA. And in the process, they unleashed the all the files and data SHIELD had. Each and every little secret that HYDRA tried to hide. 

Peter watched all this from the TV, May and Ben on each side. They were shocked at the horror of it all, and even more so when news about the contents of those files. From assassinations to torture, to under-the-table deals, it was all scrutinized by the public.

Yet while the world fought about heroes and villains, justice and morality, all Peter could think was the flames. 

The bright orange flames, the giant pillars of smoke. Wrecked metal and concrete. The loud sirens and scattered screams. Like the attack on New York. When he saw the destruction wrought by the creatures from another world. 

Smoke and fire. Metal and concrete. Blood and screams.

Peter was crouching behind a rock as fire raged behind him. The air sizzled with heat, pillars of smoke darkening the sky. Flashes of light came from the darkness and left loud screeches in the air. The sound of rushing air and exploding soil made him whimper as he hid behind a piece of rock. There was loud shouting, mocking him from hiding. It burned against his ears, but the fear of the rushing things kept him hidden. 

Moving meant being fast. If he wasn’t then he’d get caught by them. If he gets hit, then he’d feel pain. So he didn’t move.

The spiders weren’t talking as they aimed for him. The ice statues said nothing as he got hit by the rock and stone. Neither flinched as he cried. The darkness watched from the distance, a thousand snakes sprouting from its head and watching him.

He could feel their eyes on him. 

“Weak,” they growled.

Then it was cold metal walls and swift wood that hit his limbs and shouting full of anger and disappointment. Bandages and bandages that bleed bright red. And then a room with soft floors where spiders danced ballet and tried to eat Peter. 

He had these nightmares for weeks after the disaster in D.C.

May and Ben consoled him during the night, when he’d be crying so hard that his chest felt like it would burst. They would say that he was safe, hug and kiss him to remind him that they weren’t in any danger. The explosions were far away, and the heroes had saved the day.

Peter could never tell them that he never dreamed of what happened with SHIELD. His were full of monsters in black and coiling snakes with red scales. Blood on cold metal. Stone walls destroyed by orange flames. Laughter mixed with screams that made his heart ache. He dreamed of cold mountains that chilled his bones, spider bites that left him aching, and metal shackles in the shape of hands.

It would take a month for the nightmares to pass. And Peter would forget these nights as nothing more than a scared child’s active imagination.

But, it wasn’t always bad.

Sometimes, he’d dream of the spider again. The red spider that came to him with whispers and hugs and lullabies. And the promises of something that he couldn’t understand.

Sometimes, he dreamed of the man with the grey serpent.

His dreams with this man were always strange. He was like the statues, standing still in the distance as he watched Peter struggle in the dreams. He wasn’t ice. He was a shadow that took human form. Its grey serpent was always on its shoulders, watching Peter with unblinking red eyes. 

He didn’t like the man in his dreams at first. He never hurt Peter, but he also never did anything. Sometimes, the man would let his serpent crawl on Peter and it would pull Peter’s limbs in his dreams. Sometimes into stances and forms that he didn’t know what the purpose was.

But sometimes, the man would be different. 

Sometimes, his serpent would wrap him in a hug and lay on his shoulders, warming him from the cold. The shadowy man would come to him with stories about far off lands where the air was never cold and some rooms weren’t big and empty but small and made of wood. He’d tell Peter of warm places that had laughing kids that flew on giant wheels that circled the sky, or ate sweet clouds of sugar and milk.

The shadow would sometimes hug him, his shadowy body warm and solid underneath. The serpent would wrap around them both, hiding and protecting them, its ruby red eyes staring vigilantly for the spiders and other statues or the darkness hiding the thousand snakes. These were his favorites.

“What’s your name,” he had asked the shadow one time. Its serpent had laughed sadly, before slithering away. The shadow was quiet, pondering his question. Then he placed his hand on Peter’s head. It was warm on his scalp.

“I have none. They mock me with their false identity. Winter, they call me, but I am more.”

Peter hummed, laying his head on the shadow’s thigh as the hand continued its ministrations. “Can I give you a name then?”

The shadow chuckled. “What would you name me, little one?”

He thought hard about it, then said, “ Morozko. Father Frost. You’re winter but you’re not cold. You’re like the men who watch but you’re not alway cruel. You bring gifts of stories to me when you can. Like the man in the stories.”

This had surprised the shadow. But the serpent curled around them, and Peter felt warm all over. The shadow had no eyes, but Peter knew that it was looking at him.

“I wish I can free you, little one. I wish I can take you away,” and then the shadows had to leave.

Whenever he would dream of the shadow or the spider, he would wake up crying. He never told these dreams to May or Ben. He’d already worried them enough when he was young. He was older now. More mature.

He could take care of himself.

Literature should have been fun and interesting. Theoretically speaking, Peter and Ned had already started doing analysis ever since they discovered the beauty of Star Wars and geek essential pop culture. He’d exchanged different opinions on the themes of Star Trek against Star Wars, debated whether Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings was the more important fantasy creation in art, and the two of them had even experienced the art of survival horror in Resident Evil. 

So, he should be having a fun time dissecting literature. He liked reading Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games, surely he could leap to Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoevsky. But sadly, his waning attention in the class said otherwise. Both Peter and Ned had almost given in to the temptation of video games instead of starting on the report when they decided to meet up at Peter’s house. 

He just really really didn’t want to do it. The new Tomb Raider game was definitely not the reason.

“God, there’s too much introspection,” Ned said, head thumping against his desk. Peter nodded, eyes skimming over the titles on the paper. They were each assigned a book report on Russian literature. Which wouldn’t have been a bad thing since he liked to read. Except, his 14-year-old adolescent brain liked people kissing romantically under the stars than reading about how a guy spiraled into madness by having a meal. 

As Ned continued his rant about the depressive nature of the books, something caught Peter’s eye. 

“Hey, are we allowed to do fairy tales?”

Ned looked up, eyes still full of despair that almost made Peter chuckle. “I think so? But only if it’s a collection, I think? If it’s on the paper, then it’s allowed. Why?”

“Well, I think we can do a paper on this.” Peter pointed at a specific title. When Ned checked it out, he scoffed. “Isn’t that a Barbie movie?”

Peter nodded. “Yep, but it’s also an old Slavic fairy tale.”

“Have you read it before?”

Peter scrunched his eyebrows, then shrugged. “Maybe? I’m not really sure. But I think a few fairy tales are easier than ‘Crime and Punishment’ don’t you think?”

Ned nodded, so they started with collecting a few of the stories together. The Sea Tsar, Vasilla the Beautiful, Father Frost, The Magic Swan Geese. And finally,

“Twelve Dancing Princesses,” said Peter. Ned chuckled beside him. “Wow, you really like that one.”

“What can I say, the Barbie movie had a huge cultural impact on me,” he replied. Then he looked at Ned’s screen and quirked an eyebrow. “You know that we can’t cite Wikipedia right.”

“But we can cite Wikipedia’s sources,” Ned replied with a grin. Peter shook his head. “The teachers know how to do that too you know.”

“They’re too underpaid to care, and I don’t know how to read the Russian alphabet.”

“Cyrillic,” Peter corrected. 

“Right, that. I don’t know how to read that.”

“Just cite some online books and call it a day.”

“Once again, they’re all in Russian.”

Peter rolled his eyes, then asked Ned to give it to him. The other obliged, too eager to hand it off. When Peter checked out some of the sources, he just grinned at Ned. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the citation.”

The other boy just raised an eyebrow at him. “Is it because you can read Russian?”

Peter smirked. Then, opening one of the free resources online, the entire screen written in nothing but Cyrillic, he started to read. 

The language flowed easily off his tongue, the words smooth and natural as he read the story about twelve princesses who would always have ruined shoes despite being trapped inside a tower. Instead of the stumbling other people would have, his control was perfect. As if he had spoken the language most of his life. Even the accent was perfectly natural. 

As he finished reading the tale, he turned to Ned with a smug expression on his face. 

“Maybe I can read a bit of Russian,” he said. Ned said nothing, just had a gobsmacked expression on his face. Then, he was flailing his arms, repeating “Dude!” again and again that Peter did laugh out loud. 

“You never told me you could read in Russian!”

Peter grinned. “Never came up.”

Ned had a faux betrayed expression on his face that threatened to break into a smile. “Don’t hide your secret skill in languages next time. If you’re good in Spanish, just tell me now.”

“Spanish, Italian, Romanian, German, French. Does that count?”

Peter kept laughing as Ned just looked at him with wide eyes, mouth opening like a fish. “You’re a language genius and you never told me?”

“It wasn’t that important,” he laughed. 

“Okay but you have to tell me your secret. I’ve always wanted to learn Japanese for a while, so what’s your technique?”

Peter shook his head. “I’ve always known how to speak it. Even as a kid. Figured it out when May and Ben couldn’t understand the movies we watched sometimes but I always did. Funny how they never figured out how inappropriate some of the words were. They figured it out when I asked them what some of the words meant in this Italian movie we watched and one of our neighbors was shocked.”

“Wait, did you learn before you were with May and Ben?”

Peter paused. Did he? It made the most sense since May didn’t speak a lot of Italian despite being half herself. And Ben was all American. So…

“Yeah, I think so?”

Ned found the entire thing cool, and Peter’s polyglot skills helped them finish the project in no time. As he cleaned up his room and waited for May and Ben, he couldn’t help but think back about what Ned said.

Peter didn’t really have any recollection of being taught the language. No tutor or even someone just telling him how to do it. He just started watching movies and he just understood. 

Maybe it was something his parents taught him? He didn’t give his mom and dad much thought these days. He’d spent too many sleepless nights in those early days, so he tried not to relapse. 

But, he also didn’t remember anything from before. May and Ben said it was trauma. That maybe his mind just didn’t want to remember. 

Ugh, thinking about it made his head hurt.

He dreamed of a spider’s web this time. He wasn’t bound by silk, but lay comfortably on the thread. The sky was pure black and it made it feel like he was being caved in. He curled inward as he heard the distant hiss of snakes and the crack of the limbs of frozen soldiers. 

“Do not fret little one. They cannot hurt you here,” said a voice, soft and gentle.

He turned and saw skittering limbs longer than his legs. Eight eyes looked at him. He whimpered and almost screamed. But the spider shushed him, one long limb gently caressing his head. 

It was a spider. But its form was wrong, the skin worn differently. This wasn’t a true spider. Not even a statue of ice and snow. This was a fake wearing their skin. And there was more than one. Besides the fake spider was another creature. It too wore a different skin, but those of the statues.

“We won’t hurt you. We promise to get you and the other kids out of here,” the false ice said. 

He didn’t know why, but he believed in them. It wore the skin of spiders, but he did not believe himself in danger. His body relaxed under the soft touch, eyes closing as the tension bled away. The sound of shouts and guns faded as the being placed a soft kiss on his head. 

“We’ll save you. Don’t worry. Wait for us, alright? Just sleep for now.”

And he did.

When Peter woke, he had tears in his eyes as his chest was filled with love.

He didn’t tell May or Ben about the dream. But he started drawing spiders in his notebooks after. 

Inattention would always be Peter’s Achilles heel.

The tour guide was busy explaining the importance of the research in the lab. Peter really was interested this time. He’d begged May and Ben to let him go on the trip. They could never really do anything against Peter’s puppy dog eyes, so they gave him the green light with a strict reminder to not get lost and to keep his inhaler handy. 

Peter had rolled his eyes then. He wasn’t a kid anymore, he wouldn’t forget. 

Except he did. By accident, he left his inhaler on the bus. Halfway through the tour, he had to go to the restroom and left without telling anyone. While there, his chest started to feel tight and he had trouble breathing while all alone. It had taken a while for his chest to unwind enough for him to leave the restroom. At that time, the tour group had disappeared. It was an accident. Just Peter not watching where he was going. He’d stumbled out of view for a moment and suddenly he had taken too many left turns.

Which led to Peter wandering the empty hallways of the research facility. It was just bad luck that he didn’t even find anyone to ask directions for. When he felt the tendrils of panic, he looked for anywhere that could look like an exit to the lobby.

He went inside the wrong room. Got a little too curious about the technology on display. And then, clumsily opening a case of something he shouldn’t have.

Peter should have been dead when he thought about it. The spider was clearly venomous, and Peter was just a sickly asthmatic who went into coughing fits by breathing wrong. It wasn’t even a guess as to what would happen if he got bit. 

Except, instead of dying on the cold lab, or being sent to the hospital, all Peter experienced was a mild fever. 

That and the new abilities. 

The day after the fever, he felt a strength that he had never felt before. His limbs seemed so full of power that every tiny movement was threatening to destroy everything. He couldn’t open his door without leaving dents in the metal. Accidentally bumping a doorway left cracks. His entire body was suddenly growing uncontrollably, and he was always hungry, compensating for his new body’s demands. His senses were alive to every minute detail in his room. His glasses had become perfectly useless. He could even breathe easier now!

A new life had opened up for him. He had no idea what the spider bit did. He would have to research what exactly had happened. But he couldn’t deny that it was absolutely crazy!

The people in white were back. Doctors and nurses. Scientists, he thinks. The lights blinded him to their faces, but their voices were loud and clear as they strapped him down the table. Cold and clinical, they spoke over his body like he was just a corpse. He could hear the disappointment in their tone, and he knew that it was him. His fault, shame curling in his chest, wrapping his heart in a vice grip. 

He had failed them and he didn’t know why. He wanted to apologize but his mouth was bound by leather too. 

They sneered at his tears.

“What a waste,” they said, harsh and uncaring. He cried harder.

And then he was kneeling. His limbs ached, his skin stung from cuts all over. The spider dances mockingly in front of him.

The hands from the shadows pull him up and up until his feet don’t touch the ground. The fingers turn to ice and they twisted his head to look out the window. 

Snow covered the outside, tall mountains that made menacing structures in the distance. Statues of ice stood, wrapped in black fur. Their faces were twisted in disturbing ways. He didn’t know which was the mouth and which were the eyes. But they all looked like they were in agony.

Something cold and metallic was shoved in his hands. 

“Use it, little one.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. The hands on his body gripped him harder. Claws of ice pierced his skin, making him cry out. They moved to his arms and forced them to twist to its command. He kept his eyes closed. 

“Obey your commander.”

He opened his eyes.

There was a doe in front of him. It kneeled in a tiny patch of grass that grew from the metal and concrete. Beside the doe were two sleeping fawns, small bundles that were wrapped with each other. He could feel his legs shake, so he tried to lock them in place.

The gun clicked in his hand, and the doe looked up. Its eyes widened, before it started flailing away. The fawns beside her rose and cried as their mother shrieked. It walked farther away except its back hit the concrete wall. The doe was crying, braying loudly. The fawns hid behind her thin legs.

An icy breath, came to his ear. The smell of tobacco made him flinch. 

“Shoot them.”

He shook his head, the gun slowly lowering. But a snake slithered from behind him and bit his neck. Another wrapped around his arm and aimed the gun again. The doe cried harder and harder. He could feel more tears in his eyes, and he wanted to beg them to stop but a snake covered his mouth.

“Shoot them!”

The doe was kneeling under him. It pawed at him with its hooves, but there weren’t any fingers that could grab at him, just leaving red stains on his clothes. 

“Please,” it begged. “Don’t do this! My babies!”

“Mama,” the fawns cried behind her.

The gun did not move. The snakes slithered away, the last to leave the one that bit his neck. His limbs did not obey his mind. His finger moved to the trigger. The doe cried harder, begged and begged and begged and the fawns started running but the statues just grabbed them until they were kneeling too and he just wanted this to stop and sleep and run back to the nice spider who told him he could get away-

He pulled the trigger three times.

The doe was taken away. The fawns were quiet. The floor was red.

Peter woke up when he pulled the trigger 30 times.

He hadn’t had these nightmares in a long time. Seeing those empty cement walls with dull fluorescent lights. He thought he’d left them behind when the nightmares stopped after the incident in Washington. But after the bite, they had come back with a vengeance.

Dreams of statues that fought in cages. Spiders who danced with ballet, blades hidden in their shoes and hair. Guns, military fatigues, the constant droning march that echoed on stone. Sirens that blared harsh words in a language he didn’t know but felt so familiar.  He didn’t know why, but he knew that they were commands. 

And he dreamed of pain. So much pain that left his jaw aching and his mind reeling from the sensation. He woke up sweating, his blankets ripped from when he was holding too tight. 

He didn’t share these nightmares with May or Ben. Neither his new secret. Something inside him was screaming at him not to.

There was blood on the ground. It was warm on his hands, a contrast against the cold of the concrete. His throat felt raw. His ears were ringing with the sound of screaming.  

Uncle Ben was bleeding on the sidewalk. Peter was screaming for help. The blood was sticky between his palms. It had pooled between them, soaking his pants and shoes. 

The blood was still there when the ambulance arrived. The blood was still sticking to his legs when the police came to question the witnesses, saw him covered in his uncle’s blood, and sent him home to his crying aunt. The blood was still caked under his nails when Aunt May busied herself in the kitchen, trying to make dinner and not think of Uncle Ben in the hospital. 

The blood wasn’t on his skin, but Peter could still see red on his skin. He tried scraping it off but the red didn’t leave. Wiping it didn’t work, so he tried to wash it off, but the shower must not have been hot enough so he raised the temperature more but the red remained.

No matter how hard he scrubbed, the red didn’t disappear. The more he pressed, the more red appeared.

May found him crying in the shower, skin reddening by the hot shower.

It was his fault.

He had just wanted to practice his powers more. To get better. To be like his heroes. To be cool and tough and strong and not be weak or afraid of snakes in his dreams.

It’s his fault for saying those things when Uncle Ben tried to stop him. That he didn’t understand. That he shouldn’t care what Peter did because he was an adult.

It’s his fault Aunt May was crying as she washed Peter with colder water to help fight the burns.

It’s his fault. The blood.

It’s his fault for holding the gun and shooting them in the head.

Ever since Ben’s d- Ever since then, he would hear the thoughts. 

He had just been walking home from school, when somebody accidentally bumped him on the sidewalk. The other person snarled at him, but Peter had said nothing. Just let his mind calculate the 10 different ways he could make the man bleed in less than 5 seconds. There was a nearby fence, metal jutting upwards that Peter could drive the person’s skull in before the other could breathe. The ID lace on their neck could easily be snatched, and Peter could take out the pen in his pocket and drive it in their eye-

The person moved, and Peter was suddenly blinking the thought away.

What the hell was that?

He ignored the strangeness away. The….ease of he felt in disposing the other person. He felt sick, bile rising as he imagined the person twitching on the sidewalk, and his mind conjuring up ways to disappear in the crowd before he could be spotted. He ignored the fact that his stomach wasn’t really bothered by the image at all.

He had thought it was just a consequence of the death. Grief making him angry and vengeful. Never mind that he didn’t feel any rage with the thoughts, just a strange calm. Calculating, even. It was just trauma and he’d get over it by living his life.

He was wrong.

The thoughts didn’t stop. He was constantly assessing people around him. Flaws in their movement that would make it easier for Peter to flip them over and out a window. Or how he could pick open the lock for the teacher’s lounge with nothing but to bobby pins. Or how he suddenly noticed that there was a quiet hum in only 2 of the 10 security cameras in the building. 

He was checking blind spots and exits. Looking at people and seeing how quickly he could just….

Ned noticed when he was getting more and more withdrawn, but chalked it up to grief. His friend was always respectful of his boundaries, so not talking about what he was feeling wasn’t difficult. Aunt May wasn’t as easy to hide from. Somehow she could tell that there was more to him than Uncle Ben. She was amazing that way, but he didn’t want to explain.

When she tried to push, his mind immediately went through the ways he could subdue her and he almost choked on his tears.

May had tried bringing him to a therapist, but their financial situation quickly made it impossible to keep it up. They just spent most of their time together. Hugging and sleeping and taking care of each other.

There was a big hole in their family, but they would get by together.

It was during one of his patrols that he found the man.

He had already taken to being his alter-ego for a few months now. Spider-man, the people of Queens had called him. Friendly, neighbourhood hero. Nothing but red and blue pajamas he bought from a thrift store and cobbled together to make a costume. It wasn’t even a hard choice to done the mask. Aunt May was a life long nurse and volunteer at a F.E.A.S.T. soup kitchen, who’d always taught the value of helping people because it was the right thing to do. And Uncle Ben was an activist since he first walked in support during the AIDS crisis. He’d taught Peter to always fight for those who need it. 

Was it really a surprise that when he got superpowers, he chose to be a superhero?

“Woah, I never knew they released the new version of Mugger 2.0,” he quipped from his perch on the roof. The thug looked up from where he cornered a teenager who whimpered in the corner. The man sneered at him, before barking two names. A pair of thugs came out of the alleyway opening. Peter whistled. “And it came with extra characters. Man, must be my lucky day I got to try the beta version.” 

The two thugs just looked at him in confusion. But the third guy took out a gun from his pocket and pointed it at Peter. 

Before he could pull the trigger though, he webbed the man’s arm to a nearby dumpster, before webbing the eyes of the other two guys. He jumped onto their shoulders, sending them smacking against the dumpster and knocking them unconscious. The third guy just cursed at him as Peter politely took the gun and crushed it in his grip.

“Now, this game fun and all, but you guys took it way too seriously. You could hurt someone like that.” 

The guy just looked at the shattered remnants of his pistol, before he whimpered and tried to pull himself free. It looked really funny to Peter. A 6 foot 3 guy running away from someone that was barely above 5 foot 8. 

After dropping them off at the police station, the victim angrily reporting how they got attacked, Peter breathed a sigh relief as he pulled off the mask. 

Sure he loved being Spider-man, but it did take out a lot for him. Plus it was really cold out and his costume was just a glorified pair of sweatpants and a hoodie that really didn’t fight the chill well.Thankfully, he still had time to grab a bite. May was working a shift and she had forgotten to cook any dinner. Since Peter wasn’t in the mood to cook, he decided to grab some food from a premier restaurant. 

He practically inhaled the convenience store hotdogs he’d bought. God, convenience store food was heaven after hours of swinging and patrolling. He was so distracted by eating that he didn’t notice when he accidentally bumped into someone. Or almost bumped into him. 

The man swiftly dodged him and ti was only thanks to his literal sticky fingers that Peter didn’t drop his food. He had a sheepish expression on his face as he turned to the older man.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t see you there!”

The man said nothing, just grumbled under his breath in what was distinctly Russian. 

“Damn kid,” he heard the other man say. It made him feel more ashamed, bowing his head as he turned away. Until he heard a distinct rumbling come from the other man’s stomach. He paused as he twisted to the other man, who ignored him in favor of looking at the inside of the store. 

While the man didn’t show any discomfort, Peter could hear the quiet hunger in his belly. It made him feel even more mortified. The remaining hotdogs in the plastic bag felt heavy, his own hunger fighting. Superhuman metabolism was a bitch and didn’t let up with him eating. 

But, Peter could see how ragged the other man’s clothes were. While towered over Peter, his body was hidden under a bunch of old scarves and coats. The sweater the guy wore was all black but frayed at the edges, and Peter could see a hole in the knee of the man’s old sweatpants. His sneakers were old and muddy. And despite the convenience store being relatively cheap, the man made no move to go inside, just standing outside.

It was a no brainer in the end.

“Hey,” he said, making the older man turn to him. He brought out one of the hotdogs, still warm, and gave the man a smile. “You hungry?”

The man just stared at him. Most of his face was hidden by the scarf he wore, his head a curtain of long black hair that hid the anything else, but Peter could feel those dark eyes appraise him. He felt sweat build on his neck as he stood awkwardly with one hand raised. And then Peter almost smacked his head as he remembered.

“I have extra hotdogs. You can have some if you want,” he said in Russian. The other man’s eyes widened, clearly not expecting another Russian speaker. Maybe he hadn’t found someone who could which was why he was wondering around? 

Whatever the case, he needed help. And for once, Peter Parker was the one that could do it. 

The man didn’t say anything at first. But then he slowly walked closer, taking out his hand to gently reach for the hotdog. Peter stayed unmoving, keeping a smile on his face as the man grabbed the food and slowly shifted away to eat. 

With that accomplished, Peter turned to leave. 

“…thank you.”

He turned back and give a wide grin to the man. “No problem!”

He thought that would be the last he’d see the man. 

But a few nights later, he’d encounter that same man again when he was walking home from Ned’s house. Despite being 15 years old, he had no fear of getting mugged in the street. It’s not like anyone could really threaten him unless they were an Avenger. Or a robot. Or an alien. There were a lot of those these days, but thankfully they hadn’t returned to New York so far. 

So, he was confidently walking home as normal Peter Parker when his sense were suddenly attuned to something close by. That special danger sense he had really helped him as Spider-man. Usually in avoiding danger. 

Maybe that’s what it was doing now, telling him to run. But he needed to check out if anyone got hurt. Suit or no suit, he was Spider-man through and through.

He crept up the entrance of the alley, slowly looking into it. The shadows hid most of what was happening, but he could hear the shuffling and dark chuckles of someone.

“Look, let’s be nice here. We just want whatever’s in your pockets. It’s a fee for loitering is all.”

That was met with silence. Peter stayed quiet, ears attuned to when things would slowly get violent. Sure enough, the other voice growled and more people started moving. 

“I said, give us your money.”

Peter sighed. Time for Spider-man to make an ap-

“Hey!” 

His senses shouted ‘Danger!’ a little too late and Peter was suddenly being dragged by a strong hand behind him and into the alleyway. 

The shock of it made him unable to stop the man, and 6 pairs of eyes were suddenly on him. One of those eyes was the homeless man from a few days ago. 

“Found a little rat listening!” A chorus of jeers answered at the man who pushed Peter in. He stumbled briefly, which jolted him back to awareness. He stuck himself to the ground, making the man behind him trip a bit. The man bit back a curse as the other laughed at him. Peter just kept staring at the Russian.

“Well, now we got two people who need to pay the fee.”

Peter gulped. This wasn’t good. He wasn’t really afraid of getting beat up since he could pretty much handle these guys. It was just going to be hard to explain how a 5 foot 8, 139 pound kid managed to survive getting mugged by 6 guys. 

One of the men brought out a knife, and Peter’s senses heightened in preparation for a fight. 

But before he could move, the Russian was suddenly kneeing one guy in the gut, punching the one right next to him, then elbowed the one next to him in the face. Before the rest of them could react, the guy was slamming the head of another to the wall and kicked the other that tried to sneak up behind him without even looking. In less than 10 seconds, 5 of the guys were knocked out. 

Peter was just staring at the Russian stranger in surprise. What the hell was that?! The guy moved so fast that Peter almost couldn’t see him. And he did it without even doing flips like Peter, just swift strikes. It was one of the coolest things he’d seen.

His danger sense suddenly came to life a something shiny flew from behind him, followed by one of the guys running. Peter couldn’t react fast enough as the knife flew at the back of the man’s head. Except the Russian twisted and the knife just grazed his left shoulder.

“You okay kid?” he asked, walking closer. Peter stood stock-still as the man roving over his form, looking for injuries. Peter said an affirmative, voice high and still shellshocked as the man nodded. Then he was turning away, and that was when he remembered that the man got injured by a knife.

“Wait,” he shouted, then in Russian, “wait sir! You have a knife wound!”

The man just waved him away. “I’m fine kid. Just go home and avoid getting into more fights.”

But Peter didn’t let up. The guy was homeless, still wearing the same clothes he saw him last time. He doubted the guy had money for a hospital. Plus, he felt bad for having the guy rescue him when he should be doing the rescuing. 

“Mister, at least let me bring you to a hospital,” he said, reaching for the man’s shoulder. He successfully grabbed the man’s coat, but the man twisted at the last minute, trying to get away. With Peter’s strong grip and the man’s movement, the old coat tore. A hole was now where the shoulder should have been, lines of fabric opening before Peter had the awareness to let go before he tore out all of the man’s coat.

They both stilled. Peter felt his face flush as he felt mortification. Oh god, he just ruined the guy’s clothes. He just ruined the clothes of the stranger that got hurt because he saved Peter! Oh god, this was embarassing-

Peter’s thoughts froze as he saw it. 

There, peaking out of the new hole he made. There was something metallic in the sleeve, large enough to encompass the whole of the man’s arm. From the tiny hole and the tears, Peter could see metal stretching all the way down. And through the new opening, a big red star glared at him.

And Peter felt New York melt away around him. The street below him turned to metal and stone, the brick walls around them becoming pure concrete. The distant sounds of traffic was now the march of hundreds of soldiers. The buildings became mountains capped with snow. The night was colder, the snow blindingly white. 

He could hear the voice of a commander, cruel words and barbaric orders. 

He could feel the metal of a gun in his hand, Orders to aim and point. To shoot them again and again.

A hundred thousand bruises bloomed on his skin. There was red on the floor, on his hands, in splashes on the walls. His hands held knives and guns and bombs and the throat of a spider- no a girl his age. His hands left purple necklaces on their necks and his knives made red blossom on their clothes. 

He feels a young woman’s embrace on his tiny body, her quiet singing and promises that kept him company cold nights. Her hair is red like fire and she gives love and warmth that kept him alive.The woman who would sneak in to hug him and cry with him, whisper stories and tales that gave him endless dreams. Who promised to return to him but never did.

He feels a man’s warm touch that calms his soul in the days when the soldiers were too cruel or his hands too heavy with the weight of souls. A man who wished for freedom and kept him close who vanished into the night.

He sees two, a man and a woman, who were not soldiers, not spiders, something else entirely. They are the ones who do it. Masters of disguise that make stone turn to dust and metal burst with flames while screams come out of a hundred soldiers. He hears the patter of many small feet, his, the girls, so many, and they run and run and run as fire makes the snow melt and turns the snow to rain. Smoke rising into the sky.

The woman and man who became mama and papa.

And then Peter felt the man pull away, an expression of shock on his face, and Peter could feel his heart tear again. Because he was going away and he’ll leave Peter alone again. And he’ll be back to the cruel men in black uniforms, the cruel snarl of their many headed dragon glaring at his very soul.

“Stop,” he begs. “Please, don’t run.”

The man doesn’t listen, and he’s already turned away, already running, but Peter is fast. Faster. And can climb walls. In the shadows of New York’s alley, he ran up the wall, overtook the man below, and jumped down. He blocked the other man’s path. 

“You’re not just the winter. You are Morozko!” He was begging, pleading for the man to see. To remember.The man stilled. And in the folds of his scarf, he saw the man’s eyes widen. 

“How do you know that name?!” He raged, and then he was dragging Peter to the wall, pushing him back against the brick. Those blue eyes stared it him with anger. Fury. Shined with a thousand sorrows. “You cannot say that name. Only Pyotr can say that name!”

But Peter just gave him a watery smile. Because, for the first time in decades, he finally remembers. 

“You told me you were the Winter Soldier, but asked me for a name. I gave you a name from a story. We stayed in the mountains where the compound was cruel and cold. But you were one of the few who were kind.  And you told me that you’d get me out, but you never came.”

And those eyes shed their tears, the grip on his shoulder tightening though he wasn’t pushing against Peter anymore. Instead, he was holding himself as if he would be washed away. 

“I don’t remember your name. I don’t know who you are, ” the soldier admitted. “I don’t know but I am ashamed for you to see me. I don’t know you or the promise, yet I will never forgive myself for forgetting. They made me forget and I left you. I don’t know you but, I beg you. Forgive me. I was supposed to save you, but I didn’t.”  

The soldier weeped on his shoulder, his legs almost giving up, but Peter had super strength and he did not fall as the Winter Soldier’s heart broke from the memory. 

“I’m sorry, Pyotr. I’m sorry.”

But Peter just shushed him and let him weep.

“I forgive you,” he whispered. And the Winter Soldier hugged him tighter. 

There were a thousand more memories for him to sift through. The past wasn’t clear yet, and he still had to gather what he was before, and what he will be now. 

But for now, as he helped the Winter Soldier until he could compose himself, he felt peace.