Hold Onto Me 'Cause I'm a Little Unsteady

Chapter Twelve

Sir's hand ghosts through his curls, thumb brushing against his sharp cheekbone. He's got a bored sort of smile dancing across his cruel features. He's muttering words to Elodie who lingers just a few feet behind Sir, a clipboard in hand. Peter can't understand any of them, focusing solely on the hands on his face and on his arm. They're surprisingly warm, sending chills through the rest of his body as though he's only now realized how cold he is.

One word stands out more than any other does.

"November," Elodie's saying.

Peter's whole body jolts at that, decaying muscles tensing as much as they can. The last date he remembers it being was September Seventeenth. When they were walking to school. Before Elodie and Luc took them away.

Sir's face falls into one of almost sympathy. "Since you've been such a good boy, I'll tell you a secret, huh? It's November twenty-first today, my little bug."

His mouth falls open, but no words escape his chest.

Sixty-Five Days.

He hasn't seen his dads in sixty-five days. He hasn't seen his brother and sister in probably fifty days.

He's been missing for two months.

And nobody's found him.

*

Harley trudges into the kitchen, running a hand through his overly long hair with a heavy sigh. He can feel eyes watching his movement, but he ignores them as he grabs an apple off the counter, shoving it into his backpack.

Sixty-Five days since Peter had been home.

He couldn't forget. Brain constantly counting the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes since Peter had been safe at home with them.

It hasn't been easy for any of them.

"Harley-" Steve's hand flails in the air for a moment in an aborted movement of comfort.

"Leave me alone." Harley's southern accent comes out a little more whenever he's tired or upset, which now he's both.

He slings his backpack over his shoulder loosely and heads for the elevator, ignoring Morgan's twitchy movements as though she can't decide whether or not to stop him. Ignoring Tony who lifts his head from where he'd passed out on the dining room table. Ignoring Steve who makes another attempt to talk to him.

He ignores it all and marches to the elevator, requesting to be taken to the ground floor so he can go to school.

Sixty-Five Days.

Sixty-Five Days without nerf gun fights, without movie nights, without family dinners.

Sixty-Five Days without racing each other to school, without copying each other's notes, without setting things off in the lab.

Sixty-Five Days without teasing Morgan, without making fun of each other, without pranking their dads.

Sixty-Five Days without nightmares taking them to the other's beds, without sitting together whenever anxieties get too high or mood gets too low, without talking each other down from panic attacks or talking each other up from the self-conscious demons lingering in the corners of their minds.

Sixty-Five Days without Peter at home.

And it's like their world has fallen to pieces around them.

*

Dad spends his days in the lab. Relaying orders to Natasha, Rhodey, and the others who scour the state and the neighbouring ones too. Giving lists to Friday of everything she needs to do.