Peter feels weak.

He's been in and out of consciousness for what has felt like an eternity, but the sensation lingered the entire time.

Its as if his bones weigh him down, keeping his back flat against the surface he's been placed on.

It reminds him of sleep paralysis.

Sometimes his eyes open a crack but they barely stay open a few seconds before his vision swims and he dives back into the dark void.

Eventually though, he wakes.

Or, he thought he did.

His eyes open slowly and from the angle he's at laying on the pillow, the tv is sideways. It's grainy and one of May's favorite old movies is playing on the screen, volume at a low setting.

He moans quietly and pushes himself up to a sitting position. Groggy, he looks around his apartment.

He's home.

"May," he croaks, "May?"

A familiar, warm hand squeezes his shoulder.

"Hey,"
it was a soft, angelic voice he thought he'd never hear again. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"May," he cries.

"Peter." She drags her nails through his hair.

He gasps in a stuttered breath, tears welling up in his eyes. In mere seconds he's crying desperately.

He lets her drag him into her arms like she did when he was young. He can still smell her favorite perfume. He still remembers. He constantly questions when the day will come when he'll forget things like this.

But was it even real? 

This has to be. He's home.
He swears, he can feel her.
He can hear her heartbeat.

"It's ok," she whispers. "You're gonna be ok."

He doubts she could understand his unintelligible sentences, but he eventually manages to choke out a: "You were gone."

She smiles sympathetically, tilting her head. He can see unshed tears in the light from the television.

"I know."

He pauses, and it's as if his world comes crashing down again. His face screws up and he slowly shakes his head.

The heartbeat stops.

"No," he rasps.

He's still shaking his head as she holds his face in her hands and guides him closer to press a kiss against his forehead.

"I'm sorry May," he cries, "I'm so sorry it's all my fault."

"It's not," she says simply. "It was never your fault, baby."

"I need you."

She shakes her head and he knows. He knows he has Tony now and he needs him the same way he needed May. And he knows no matter how much he begs, she's not coming home.

"I don't want to just- replace you, May. I can't."

"You never needed to, Peter. You can love both of us. Let him be there for you."

A silence lingers.

"But... you need to wake up."

She hugs him tight and still, he swears he can feel it.

"I love you."

His eyes open again and the tears are still there, but this time, he's not met with the warm colors of his apartment.

Instead, he can only stare up at a cracked white ceiling while he's hit with the nausea and throbbing in his thigh. There are chains around his limbs and there's an IV stuck in his arm. It puts him in a state of panic not knowing what the liquid inside it is.

In his efforts to squirm, pain shoots up from his leg up to his hip. He gasps and squeezes his fists tight.

He's somewhat used to waking up after injuries like this. But usually, it's cleaned and stitched, and the the only thing he has to worry about is the upcoming lecture from Tony.

He finds himself getting choked up at the thought of his adopted dad-... mentor.

Shit, he can't deal with all this at once. Can he please just have a normal mental breakdown when he goes home? He promises he'll be more communicative.

He looks down at his leg.

The wound is still open, blood crusting around the edges.

'That's... odd. It should've at least started to heal on its own,' he thinks, glancing over at the IV

Before he can think on it much longer, a door creaks opens.

He squints his eyes at the man that had just stomped in. He'd noticed the walking pattern- the slight limp and strong smell of cigarettes. His senses aren't even working and he could smell it with ease.

"Recognize me?"

Burns.
Burn scars carved deep into his cheeks and forehead, practically disfiguring the face Peter had seen too many times.

"You..."

"Yeah. Dagger, that is me." He drops something on Peter's good leg and be recognizes it immediately.

"Face changing device," Dagger says simply. "I'd think you'd know what those are, being in the avengers 'n all. The burns would attract attention to myself. We don't want that though; especially when I manage to kidnap the famous spider-man."

Peter's lips part, a question on his tongue.

He sounds different. He has an accent- one he could detect easily being around Natasha and Bucky on a daily basis.

"You have a..."

"Yes. You don't know as much about me as you thought you did." He grins. "I am not as stupid as you think."

"What, is your name not your actual name too?"

His smile widens, eyes looking crazed with satisfaction.

Peter drops his head back onto the cool metal, ignoring the shock that vibrates his brain. He'd almost forgotten about the concussion.
"Dude, what the fuck."

"Lukasha Lezviye."

"Lezviye- Doesn't that," Peter pauses in confusion, racking his brain to make sure he had this right, "Doesn't that mean, like... Blade?"

Dagger's (Blade's??) expression drops suddenly, turning blank.
"There was a mistranslation. Though, it ended up sticking."

"That's even worse than Dagger," Peter exclaims, "Your actual last name is Blade- do-do you need to talk?"

"Enough."

He stands over Peter, coming closer in an intimidating manner. His eyes widen as he watches the man's hand reach for his back pocket.

"This has gone on too long. I have to say, I'm going to enjoy watching the life drain from your eyes."

Talk Peter! Talk! You're good at that, c'mon!

"Wait! Wait- I have more questions! If you're going to kill me anyway, it doesn't matter, right? We fought. Like actually fought with our fists. How? You were able to dodge a lot of my punches."

He seems to ponder on it but today's apparently Peter's lucky day (not really, he's been kidnapped) because he caves.

"I was in and out of different hospitals for a very long time. They tried to fix the damage from the burns but I was practically paralysed and they kept getting infected. They wanted to try something new to help me because someone had a theory that the super soldier serum could cure anything."

Peter tilts his head, "How'd they get the serum?"

"People have connections. Their theory was right. With some modifications, I came out better than I was before."

"Huh." A lightbulb goes off in Peter's head. "Ok, last question-"

"You talk too much."

"I get that a lot. You texted me but we couldn't track you. What'd you use to talk to me?"

Please pull it out please pull it out-

Lucas Dagger- now known as Lukasha Lezviye pulls a device out of his pocket. (Could Peter even call it a device?)

He supposes it's meant to resemble a phone but it's more of a mess than anything. Maybe Peter's become spoiled being Tony's adopted kid for almost a year, but the scrap of tech looks like it could blow up any second. He was a dumpster diver and he got better things than this.

It's got wires sticking out in places they definitely shouldn't be sticking out and there's no cover and it looks genuinely dangerous to even hold. There's got to be some sort of long-term radiation side effect from holding that thing.

He should probably keep his mouth shut considering he's not in the safest place to be insulting a man's creation.

"Dude, what is that?"

But he's probably gonna die anyway, so screw it.

"Ok Spider-man, you've reached your question limit."

Shit he's regretting that now.

"Wait-!"

The man grabs at his knife once again and a terrified whimper lingers in the back of Peter's throat as he drags it across his chest. It's not the worst thing he's ever felt but the fear of what could come next is enough to make Peter dizzy.

The blade (hah) presses down enough to rip both the fabric and skin near the spider emblem in the center of his chest.

He expects the pain to worsen- for his slow and painful death to begin but he halts. Peter's body remains tense in anticipation, but he opens an eye.

There's another man poking his head through the door. Peter doesn't think he knocked because Lukasha glares in his direction.

He is short and hesitant looking- looking as if he fears the man.

Makes sense. Peter fears him too, honestly.

"Um, sir. There's an issue- with the, uh," he glances at Peter. "Distraction."

Distraction-
"What? Are they here?" Peter asks, frantic.

"Shut up!" The knife is plunged through one of the chains just inches from the hero's leg. If he hadn't flinched away it would've-..

He feels nauseous.

"They're not here. They're not coming," he hisses. "The distraction is just in case."

As he moves to storm out the room, muttering curses he couldn't translate that he'd only heard from Bucky's mouth, the short man runs the opposite direction to show him the "issue."

Peter moves into action.

One of the chains is broken and he forgot his knife.

Idiot.

He keeps forgetting the man spent his entire budget on his clunky metal glove and not on his goons and chains.

With one foot free, he guides the knife up towards his knee, where he can push it closer to his hand. The action stretches the stab wound and the pain sends shockwaves through his nervous system.

He grabs hold of the knife, manoeuvring it to where he holds it tight in his fist. Peter uses any energy he has left to pick at the chains.

The cheap chains rattle as they plumet to the ground.

He rips the IV out of his arm, and manages to get the other heavy chains off his limbs.

His heart races with adrenaline as he reaches for his spider-man mask and the "phone."

"Karen? You there?"

"Always Peter."

He feels tears well up in his eyes in relief.

"Is my tracker on?"

"No. Unfortunately the electricity he used on you has interfered with your suit's functioning ability. I'm sorry."

"No, no it's ok. I have an idea."

"Ok," he drags the top part of his suit down to his stomach, revealing the expensive technology and wires. He yanks at a few- the ones he recognises most from the many times he'd hacked his suit's tracking ability. 

The back of the phone wide open with wires exposed, he's able to connect a few to his suit.

"Help me out with this, Karen. Is it connecting?"

"I'm in. The device should be open to your use now."

Shaking thumbs press buttons until he sees his contact name. He sees it. The mysterious texts he'd gotten- the ones that had so easily convinced him to risk his life to find some sort of closure.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon," he hisses, typing out what he can through blurry vision. "Please work."

Boots thump against the ground, getting louder with the passing moments. They're moving quickly- He's running out of time.

"Please."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Bruce it's a match! What if-"

"No Tony. You knew that blood was Peter's to begin with- that doesn't change anything. He's not... gone." 

"Yes. He is gone," Tony snaps.
Tessa paces between the two men, anxious at their arguing. Every once in a while she nudges one of them but her attempt at getting them to calm down is futile. They're not like Peter. Most of the time, she waits at the door for him to come home but she can't while these two seem like they'll start trying to kill each other at any moment.

She huffs with frustration.

"You know what I meant. There wasn't enough for him to have bled out."

"It was a lot of blood."

"Still. Not enough. We shouldn't be arguing about this."

"Shut up."

Bruce snaps his eyes up to Tony's, looking angry now. Tessa stops pacing.

"Listen, I've tried to be patient with you because I know this is hard-"

"No- Bruce- shh!"

"Tony-"

"Listen!"

It's buzzing, followed by a quick line of music. The spider-man theme song.

That damn cocky kid.

"That's Peter's text tone!"

The music keeps running with each message that sends, but they can't seem to find it. Tony throws cushions and blankets to the floor and Bruce begins to swipe papers off his desk.

Tessa's the one that comes back with a cracked high schooler's phone in her mouth, wagging her tail.

Tony practically launches himself towards her, and she drops the phone in his hand. He pets her enthusiastically and she gives him her best toothy dog grin, satisfied that she'd done a good job.

"Good girl, Tess!"

His hands shake as he opens the text thread that had come from an 'Unknown number.'

It starts at the top and he can see who Peter had been talking to all this time. He can see how exactly the man had manipulated him with promise of some information on his Aunt.

Then, there's new messages at the bottom in a very recognisable typing style. He sends seperate messages in lines of rants about cheap, non-vibranium chains and hopes that he left his ringer on.

Then, a linked location.

Tony and Bruce look up at each other, wide-eyed.
"We have him."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sorry for taking so long to update y'all college has been wack 🧎‍♀️

ONLY A CHAPTER OR TWO LEFT TO GO RAHHH 💪💪💪💪💪