The World I Knew [Discontinued]

Ow

Waking up sorta sucked, because everything hurt, and everything was hot and cold at the same time, and he was laying on his stomach, so breathing was a little hard. Peter could tell he had a bad fever, even without opening his eyes, and he knew where the infection was coming from. There was something cold, wet, and soothing being pressed to his back--which felt like it was on fire, mind you--drawing a shudder of relief from him.

"Morning," someone commented.

He grunted in response, shifting slightly.

"How're you feeling?"

"Well, I'm not dead," he said, shifting to push himself up, despite the pain it caused, "so I'm not sure anything else really matters. All things considered, though, I'm okay."

Hope was watching him carefully. "I don't think sitting up was a good idea."

"Probably not," he agreed, "but breathing gets harder when you're lying on your chest." He looked down. "Speaking of which..." he looked up at her again, "Why am I in sweats?"

"Well, Iron Man sorta tore up your suit, so it's currently being fixed by the same things that changed you into that," she said, gesturing at the pants he was wearing.

Peter frowned. "'Things?'"

"The Iron Legion. They saved us, remember?"

"Oh. Uh... not really?" He smiled sheepishly. "I remember Mr. Stark jumping on me and clawing at me, but beyond that..." he shook his head, "I'm lost."

"Okay. Yeah, the zombie—"

"You mean Mr. Stark."

Hope hesitated, but sighed. "Yeah. Mr. Stark jumped on you and made big scratches on your back, but his robots came in and..." she cleared her throat, "eliminated him. After that, you were having trouble getting up, so one carried you, and you passed out."

"And the wound is infected, right?"

She shrugged. "It could've been worse. We got to it in time, so you should be good as new in a day or two. You should've been dead. Any wounds from any zombie are lethal to any mortal man."

"Well, technically, I'm part radioactive spider. What were you doing, just now, by the way?"

"I was cleaning the blood off. Any other questions?"

"Yeah. One, how long was I out, and two—" he looked around, gesturing to the unfamiliar setting, "—where are we?"

"We're in the Quinjet. I shrunk the car, so we have everything with us, and you've been out since yesterday morning."

Peter breathed a sigh of relief. "So, welcome to day three of the apocalypse, and we're okay," he said, closing his eyes. "Okay, okay, okay."

"Are you... sure about that?"

With a smile in her direction, he nodded. "I'm not dead, you're not dead, we've got a legion of Iron Man suits protecting us, and we're safe, for the moment. So long as you're here, I'm good to go."

Suddenly, something rocked the quinjet, and the two had to grab ahold of something to avoid falling, despite Peter's scabbed-over wounds protesting and threatening to break open again. He winced, but held tight until the ship righted itself.

"What was that?" Peter asked.

"I don't know, I'll go check it out."

"I'm coming."

"No, you need to rest up until you can move around again."

Peter brushed her off. "I'm fine." He stood, wincing as the skin pulled against the wounds, and fighting off the dizziness of his fever.