ʟᴏꜱᴛ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ || 𝟙

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 29

"OW!" she hissed, swatting his arm away as the Betadine made contact with her head, immediately regretting the motion as the pain in the left side of her chest flared up again. 

"How was it?" Peter asked as Sam swooped in, quite literally, the interior of the cabin rumbling slightly as he landed, wings folding back into its jetpack, his shield strapped to its back.

"Not bad, they assumed that the Avengers were cleaning up post-Thanos again."

"And the cache?" Peter pressed, while at the same time dabbing at her wound, taking advantage of the fact that she was in too much pain to reach him.

"Substantial. Good job on finding it kid, you just saved a lot of lives."

"But is it ALL of it?" he demanded, holding onto the delicate tweezers so tight that they bent in half. Frustrated, he dropped it into the trash, taking a new one and replacing it with a fresh cotton ball.

"Hey," Happy clapped a hand down on his shoulder. "You did good, okay? You might not have brought him down, but you still did good."

"Her." Demetria's voice croaked, frustrated that they immediately assumed the villain had been male.

"What?" Happy turned to her, wondering if her blow to the head had made her delirious.

Clearing her throat painfully, she sat up. "I said it's a her. The new Vulture is Liz Toomes."

Flabbergasted, Happy turned to Peter who nodded solemnly.

"She's replaced her father. The Tinkerer got to her. And it's my fault." he surmised, throwing the last cotton ball that was now soaked with blood, leaving Demetria's wounds clean and ready to be bandaged. 

"That explains all the weapons I saw on sale in Madripoor," Sam cursed under his breath. 

"Language." Happy rebuked attempting to lighten the mood, as the three of them laughed while she looked on cluelessly.

"Inside joke. I'll explain later." Peter whispered, breath tickling her ear, sending shivers of pain? pleasure? down her spine.

It's the adrenaline and the painkillers, making you loopy. Snap out of it.

Parker glanced worriedly at her vitals when her heart rate spiked slightly before dipping back down to its usual rhythm.

"Anyway, Liz's entire family was blipped, she was the only one left unscathed so when the Tinkerer came to her with a business opportunity I guess she took it." He shrugged, picking up a sterilized needle, shakily threading surgical grade silk through the eye as he remembered the encounter.

"It's not your fault okay, Pete." Happy said, taking the thread from him. "History repeats itself. It happens. Liz was a good kid, but she was doing what she had to do to survive. And know that we know she's at large we can put out an APB for her but in the meantime, we've scored a really really good store of her weapons, probably forcing her to lay low for the next few days at least."

"Happy's right." Sam agreed. "You've got to celebrate the little wins, kid. Back in the army if we had let everything bring us down, shit I don't think I would have been able to take it." he hung his head as the memories, normally repressed, came back to him.

"Take the next day off. You deserve it. Both of you do." he nodded towards Demetria who was wincing, despite the numbing topical solution that Happy had applied.

"Oh and kid?" Sam popped his head through the doorway, just remembering something. "You got a visitor when we land," he notified him as Peter's face scrunched up in confusion.