.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

[WORD COUNT: 2408!]

'The past cannot be changed. The future is in your power'
— unknown

After Peter's night took a turn, he found himself quickly stumbling back to his apartment where, sure enough, Happy was waiting, the usual non-happy glum look on his face.

"Happy!" Peter yelled, picking up his pace to a jog as he crossed the road over to his apartment complex, the male turning his head to face the teen. He sighed contently after having to wait for twenty minutes over his time slot.

"Kid, where the hell have you been?" he exaggerated, opening the back car door for Peter.

"Doing my job" he shrugged, sitting down in the vehicle where the warmth of the heated leather seats consumed him over the spandex suit. Before Peter could go on to question and burst out with excitement that finally; something good was happening, the car door closed. He moved to the middle where he hoped he would be able to talk to Happy through the small gap, but all he got was his reflection staring back at him on the blacked-out screen.

Peter bit his lip as the car started, moving to sit back against the seats and folded his arms, drawing his attention to the side window where the town quickly passed away beside him, the street lights becoming nothing but a blur.

The ride was short with the detours that Happy took, and soon the newly built Avengers Compound came into sight, shining like a sore thumb in the night. The building was much shorter than the previous, but it was long and looked more like an expensive house than a place of work. The car came to a halt in the driveway and Peter needed no help getting out, before Happy could even pull up the break Peter was skipping his way up to the front door.

Peter stopped at the large entranceway, hands fumbling together as he waited for Happy to join him.

"I like what you've done with the place" Peter snarked, nodding his head in approval as Happy opened the door.

"You better, you don't wanna know how much the revamp cost" Happy raised a brow as he watched the teenager enter, already completely in awe with just the hallway decore. "Down the hallway, kid" Happy instructed, hanging his keys on the hook before picking up his pace to keep up with the spritely teen.

"So," Peter began as Happy met his side, "when did Mr Stark start needing help from a teenager when he has a literal house of Heroes?"

Happy chuckled, although the nerves were beginning to surface slightly, "it's more of an emergency than a technical difficulty if I'm honest" he re-adjusted his glasses, "Tony uh, thinks you could give us an insight"

Peter was left rather confused as the walk shortly came to an end, the door to the lab opening under Happys pass code.

"Go on in" Happy gestured Peter inside, to which the teen followed, removing the detachable mask from his head. As Peter walked further into the lab, the nerves began to surface on the face of his skin. It had been months since he had last come into contact with his mentor, let alone be face to face with him. It took a moment or two before Peter found what he was looking for, being the form of Tony surrounded by Steve, Natasha and Banner against a lab surface.

"H-hey guys" Peter smiler nervously, twisting his fingers around the mask at hand. The four paused their conversation momentarily to look over at the teenager, a smile spurring in Tony's face at the sight.

"Kid, you made it" Tony smiled, expanding his arms to the young boy as he slowly jutted himself towards the older man. Tony placed a hand on Peter's shoulder as he guided him towards the holographic desk where a diagram was displayed, a box with an image in the middle and a play button hovering over it.

Around the table stood Natasha and Dr Bruce Banner too, making Peter's nerves rise every quicker at the fact he was being watched by some of the most notorious super hero's of his generation. Both had their eyes fixated on the screen, Natasha with her arms folded while Banner sat patiently in a chair.

"So, uh, why am I here?"

"Because of this" Tony gestured towards the screen, moving his hand away from Peter's shoulder and the tension suddenly rose as a video on the screen began to play. Peter swallowed as the distortion fizzled out and on the screen... Stood you...

Peter took a step back, jaw falling slack but a hand on his back brought him forward again, waist pushing into the table. You looked... Normal out of everything, but the arm wrapped around your shoulder belonged to Kyle, which was never a good sign.

"Peter, I hope your there," Kyle began. Peter's heart was pounding as he scanned over the screen for something recognizable, but there was nothing. The walls were all grey, not even a door in sight and there were certainly no paintings or windows giving away landmarks. "It appears we have something that's yours. Now, I'll get straight to the point, you give me what I'm looking for and you can have her back"

"Mr. Stark-"

"Ssh" Tony quickly pointed back to the screen, Peter's head-turning when he heard your voice.

"Peter don't listen to him, I'm fine-" your figure jolted as Kyle pressed a knife to your throat, Peter's hands gripping the edges of the desk as his blood began to boil. His nose flared as Tony held his wrist, trying to silently calm the raging teenager.

"Here's where it gets interesting though. You have twenty-four hours to deliver Tony Stark to me, or your little sunshine here will be burnt out. You have until midnight tomorrow night, we'll meet you at the clocktower" and just like that the screen cut off, your figure disappearing from Peter's sight.

"So, you mind telling us what the hell you've done this time?" Tony quizzed, turning his head in a calm manner as the room fell deafeningly silent. The only thing Peter could hear was his heart pounding in his ears, pulsating against his eardrums so hard he knew they'd tear any second.

"His name's Kyle Devenshaw, and uh, that's Y/N" Peter swallowed, releasing his hands from the table along with Tony's grip on his wrist.

"Yeah we got that part, but why has he got this girl?"

"I don't know! I-... We got into a fight, I haven't spoken to her since this morning"

"Well, isn't that great?"

"I don't know what to do Mr. Stark, he's a borderline psychopath-!"

"Ladies, ladies, can we keep our wigs on please?" Natasha jumped in, leaning over on the table. The two men turned to face her, both cheeks beginning to flush with rage. "Look, as far as we know the message was sent to us just under an hour ago, which means the girl is still safe or should be. Kyle says he wants you at the clocktower tomorrow evening, so you've got until then to get your shit together"

Peter sighed, biting the inside of his lip as his knuckles clenched and unclenched. How did Kyle even get a hold of you? He left you alone for two seconds and already everything was going wrong.

"Kid, you fall apart countless times, you learn to move on, what's one girl?" Tony sighed, shoulders relaxing as he looked at Peter. Peter raised his head in utter shock, adrenaline shooting sky high as the rage inside his chest suddenly burst.

"What?"

"Is it really worth it? Going through all of that, just for this one random girl? How many kids are there at your school? one, maybe two thousand? The majority of that population has to be female, right? She's just some girl-"

Before Tony could squeeze another word out Peter had him pinned against the concrete wall, a test table falling over in the process making Natasha and Banner jump over to the scene.

"SHE'S NOT JUST SOME GIRL, TONY! She's everything to me, and I'm not just gonna let her die at the hands of some creep! I've saved her once and I'll happily do it again, with or without your help!"

"Peter, try to calm down" Natasha tried to intertwine herself between the two, but Peter was too enraged to take notice.

"Don't tell me to calm down! How can I calm down when the most important thing in my life right now could be taken away from me? What would you do if it was Pepper?" Peter's voice cracked as the pain in his throat began to grow, tears welling as his arm pressed harder into Tony's chest. The male swallowed, taking a deep breath.

"We can't resolve this while you're upset, alright, so calm down and let's resolve this like adults" Tony murmured, trying to get Peter's weight off of him so he could regain control of the teen. But the thoughts running through Peter's mind were travelling faster than the speed of light, so many questions and scenarios... Peter wanted to crawl up into a ball and let someone else deal with this. He wanted nothing more than to just sink away in a shadow and let someone else rescue you. He was tired... More or less exhausted of picking up other peoples mess.

Peter took a deep and attempted calming breath, moving off of Tony with a quiet apology.

"The best thing to do right now is to remain calm, and resolve this, you think you can do that?" Tony asked, trying to catch Peter's eye. The teen nodded, running a hand down his face. God, he hoped you were alright.

What felt like hours had passed in the darkroom, your eyes trying to adjust to the grey walls in the darkness. Come to realise there was a skylight, there was a minimal ray of moonlight cascading in the middle of the room like a spotlight, but of course, you were chained up to the wall. You'd tried moaning, screaming, yelling, crying anything to get someone's attention enough to annoy them to death, hoping they'd come in and unchain you and throw you out from pure annoyance. But you were living in a pretty unfair wold, where every scene was against you.

You could tell that your wrists had begun bleeding, of course, why wouldn't they be? You'd been thrashing around for a while. There were small crumbling dints in the walls where the chains had smacked the concrete, and your cheeks were still wet from the tears of desperation. You weren't crying out of fear, you were more or less forcing it to gain attention. Whatever happened you had to get out of here on your own, because relying on people got you nowhere. The second you let your guard down Peter pulled the rug from underneath your feet, and there in the shadows you had sure as hell enough time to dwell on how idiotic you had been. Peter was like everyone else, you were carless for thinking he was any different.

You had been careless for thinking every person you met would be different from the rest. It's like you were the pawn in some sick chess game and those above you were shoving you out into the middle of the board where sure enough you were kicked to the curb and shoved over to the side. You were useless, just there to buy time.

A sigh left your dry, cracked lips as you sunk down against the wall as far as you could, your weak wrists dangling in the chains as your arms remained outstretched. You tried to comfort yourself in the quietness with some light humming, but your tongue was too dry and quite frankly you were far too dehydrated to do anything other than close your eyes and dream. Dream about how life had once been so simple, and how love does come to destroy everything. Your mother had warned you, and even your father on the odd occasion before they parted their ways from your life. Just like everyone else. You knew everyone had a different voyage to par-take in life, but why did yours have to be so complicated? Sure, Peter dealt with a lot with having the literal world on his shoulders, but that didn't mean you got the freelance. You had to deal with the aftermath; the blood, the wounds, the trauma, the tears, the bruises, the screams, the nightmares. You'd been Peter's shoulder to cry on for too long and the second things got complicated he couldn't have jumped out of the boat sooner.

It's time things changed.

It's time you got your life together. Put your hands on the steering wheel and drove right off the road from chaos. It's time you stopped being the damsel in distress.

Who needs a knight in shining armour anyway?

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Oh kay *cracks neck* time for my half-ass excuses-

I have been away for five days and oh my good lord you guys did not like it 😂 My notifications have been blowing up with people screaming at me to update and I HAVE BEEN TRYING! I've had some friends round and I'm sorry but I wasn't about to waddle up to my woman cave and sit writing fanfiction when neither of the two even know Tom Holland exists (well one of them does but not to my exterior creep level). I can't even imagine getting caught and them questioning me. Non the less they're gone now and I'm back alone in my house!

Thank you all for dealing with the negligence and Im real sorry this chapter was so short! My horse has been a dickhead lately and I've had to deal with him too so writing has been one of the biggest and least problems if that makes sense?

Anyways I love you all so much and what the fuck, thank you for like 156k reads? Like... HELLO?! WHAT?! 😂🥳

I LOVE YOU WITH EVERY PIECE OF ME! YOU'RE ALL AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL AND UGH FUCK I DO NOT DESERVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

also -

On the 31st AUG it is exactly a year since I began my obsession with Tom 😂 Just thought I'd let you know!

Love you! Hope you have a good day/afternoon/night! It's 5:30am here 😂🌝🌚🌙💫💥☄️