Clessidra | Peter Parker.

30. all hope is lost

"Shit, shit, shit."

Peter stumbled down the hallway, his feet loudly hitting the ground as he tried to hurry up and not slip on the extremely smooth pavement. He had been looking for Tony for the past ten minutes, not finding any trace of him anywhere, and in that same time horrible things could have happened to June without him even knowing. He knew she could handle herself, more than all of them could, but he also knew that she was kind of irrational when anger and frustration kicked in, which were exactly the emotions he had spotted in her sad eyes before the two had split up.

He would have done anything in his power to stick with her, but he was the only one with powers who could actually hurt the patients, while Simon and June, probably two of the most powerful beings in the world, couldn't even lay a punch without breaking their hands. How ironic.

So, he was forced to look for Tony, who was probably in deep shit if he hadn't reached Cecilia already, while Simon and June were sent to look for the doctor and try to convince her to stop with her homicidal plan. Not the best pair for that type of mission, but they were all they had.

He tripped down the flight of stairs and shoot a web towards the ceiling to launch himself in the air, landing on an extremely crowded hallway. He cursed under his breath when he found himself completely surrounded by murderous looks, and started throwing kicks and punches around until he was met with Tony Stark, wearing his Iron Man suit, which was emitting sparks of electricity in a few places that had been dented by the attackers.

"Tony!" he exclaimed, distracting himself for a moment before returning to his enemies. Tony placed his back on his, not saying anything even if he had to admit that Peter's arrival had raised his hopes about getting out of there alive, as well as it had made his heart drop to his feet at the thought of him, June or Simon getting hurt, if not worse.

"Where are the other two?" he asked as he shoot an energy blast towards two patients.

"Looking for Cecilia, trying to convince her."

"You know, right now I'm not really feeling like saying Cecilia is wrong," he deadpanned, yelling in order to be heard by the teenager, who scoffed as he threw webs around. He tried to ignore the pang in his heart at the sound of Tony's words, since they were exactly the same thing June's face was yelling before they broke apart.

"What is her plan, anyway?" he asked, stumbling forward when Tony got hit in the chest, his suit making an odd sound.

"I think she covered this entire place with gasoline, or at least most of it, enough to burn the whole place down. She could light it at any moment, and we'd all be dead."

Peter stopped his movements, his eyes widening as his heart started beating at an inhuman race. If what Tony had said was true, then everyone was in danger, and if Cecilia had really lost her mind like they all thought, and there was no way of making her change her mind, then the first people who were going to get hurt were Simon and June.

June.

-

"That's crazy, Cecilia! We did so much to find a cure, you can't give up now! There has to be a way!" June was yelling, still held back by Simon as she spat her words in Cecilia's face, her cheeks burning up with anger.

"There's no solution," the doctor said for the fifth time since that discussion had started. "And if you don't walk away from here soon enough, I'll have to kill you, too."

In that moment, with those exact words, June realized there was no solution. Cecilia had lost her mind. She had gone completely crazy, crushed under the heavy weight of everything she had lost, everything she had to give up on, all for a lost cause. Her mind couldn't take it anymore, and she had succumbed to all the frustration, anger and impotence without even asking for help. She had made that decision just like she had done with all the others, with a stubbornness that once was an object of admiration from former and soon-to-be doctors.