~Broken Family~

That's Rough, Buddy

Over the course of two days and three nights, Harley's memory didn't improve one bit. He remained impassive to all his old belongings, including his formerly ever-present crutches. And even a poor, confused Grover.

On a whim, Tony, who had gone to Africa to see Peter for a day and then come back to check on Harley, decided to take the amnesic with him next time. Thinking that maybe, just maybe, seeing his brother's face would bring something back. Even if it looked a little different than what he was supposed to have remembered.

"Woah," Harley breathed as they entered the room, staring at Peter lying motionless in the glass capsule. Frost blossomed on the surface of both the glass and the boy's deathly pale skin. His eye sockets and lips were the only things that seemed to have color, both being an extremely pallid shade of pink. His lips had a blue tinge to them, though.

"Is this guy cryogenically frozen?!" Harley asked excitedly, making Tony's spirits sink even deeper than Tony's jet-lag exhaustion. Harley tapped his finger on the glass, and Tony slapped it away.

"Yes, don't do that. He's recovering."

Harley stared at the monitor on the wall above the capsule, which showed Peter's vitals. He whistled.

"Wow, dude's cold. Why's he in there again?"

"Your brother is in there because he overworked himself using his powers to save us." Tony cleared his throat impatiently. "Just thought maybe..."

He trailed off as he saw Harley wasn't listening. His fingers were on the glass again, but were still and pressing eagerly, like he was trying to open it.

"I know him," he whispered to himself, "don't I, Tony?"

***

Peter was asleep, though it hurt. Real bad.

He felt like he had been wrapped in a giant freezing pizza roll and then baked in a smoldering hot toaster oven, but backwards. Not as bad as he'd ever felt, but not the best, either.

His shivering was what woke him up. He knew he was in some kind of state of half-delirium but couldn't wake up from it. He knew he wasn't back in that hospital bed he'd spent his coma in two years ago, but couldn't convince himself that he wasn't. He knew he was mumbling things that didn't make any sense, but couldn't stop himself. He had to get someone to listen, someone to wake him up.

When the world became a little more real, he tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but found his arms were too weak and hardly moved an inch. His skin was slick and wet with what he assumed to be sweat, but it was freezing cold. He shivered again and opened his eyes, expecting to be laying in a snowbank and seeing his breath fog in front of his face, but he came face-to-face with a blinding light.

"Agh!" he yelled, trying to twist away from the light, but he found he couldn't really move. His muscles were so cold they felt like jello. His teeth chattered together and he licked his lips, which were super chapped, before he attempted to speak. "W--what's goi-ng on-n?"

The light was flicked to the side and a familiar face started to fizzle through his vision, still greenish and sparkly because of the light. It was a girl.

"Almost done, you silly boy," she said tauntingly. She had a thick accent, some kind of African.

"His vitals are stable," another accented voice said, and then its face popped into his view. It looked like the king of Wakanda, the man who Peter had learned about in school, the Black Panther who had been on the opposing side during the Avenger's battle in Germany.

Is it actually him?

"H--hang on," Peter found he was able to move his head a little, and twisted it to the side. He was lying on a flat blueish spongey surface up in the air, like some kind of freaky-deak table. Like he was in an infirmary. "Oh, sh-shoot, nnnot again-n..."