Home isn't just a place

Chapter Four

Peter woke up to the overwhelming smell of copper. He scrunched his nose and slowly opened his eyes, wincing at the bright light coming in from his open window. A raging headache almost distracted Peter from the burning sensation in his thigh. Almost.

Peter slowly sat up, wincing when it pulled at his thigh and lifted the covers. Peter pressed his hand into his mouth to stifle the screech that left his lips at the sight. At some point the hastily done stitches in his thigh had come out, tearing open the bullet wound, and soaking Peter's white sheets crimson.

It was then that the burning agony hit him. Peter retched in his mouth, the pain dizzying. "What the fuck?" Peter mumbled, once the room stopped spinning.

His healing factor should have kicked in---and though it wouldn't have fully healed the wound, it would have at least shut it and stopped the bleeding---but instead a small dribble of blood leaked out of the wound in his thigh.

Peter had no idea how much blood he had lost in the night, but judging from how soaked his sheets were, it wasn't good. Peter needed to bandage his thigh and get rid of the damning sheet before tony saw and flipped his shit.

Peter whimpered as he scooted into a standing position. He was leaning heavily on his right leg, his left foot barely even touching the floor. Peter took one step forward, limping his way over to his dresser. The second the slightest pressure was put on his left leg, white hot agony hit him and Peter tumbled to the floor.

Tears fell down Peter's cheeks freely as he slowly pulled himself back up. Peter quickly grabbed the ace bandages from the bottom drawer of his dresser and gagged as he rewrapped his thigh. Peter was breathing through his teeth, his jaw clenched hard. "Fuuuuck." he hissed.

With his wound dressed and dying from blood loss seemed less likely, Peter crawled into his bathroom and fumbled around for some painkillers. Peter swallowed a handful of ibuprofen dry before forcing himself to take deep breaths.

Peter had a bullet wound in his thigh. His family was downstairs, oblivious to Peter's problem as they should be. Peter's next move was to get rid of the evidence. Peter winced when he saw the bloody trail he'd left from his bed to his dresser.

Peter sucked in a deep breath, bracing himself for the pain, and stood. He knew that he needed to walk without a limp to get away without suspicion. Peter let out a yelp, his hand instantly flying to his mouth and he bit down hard to fight against the scream that bubbled up in the back of his throat.

It took Peter almost forty-five minutes to fully clean everything up. He'd shoved his bloody pajamas, sheets and the rags he used to clean up the blood trail into his closet and buried it under a pile of dirty clothes. He then slowly got dressed and painstakingly made his way downstairs for breakfast.

He was greeted with the Avengers staring at him. Peter forced himself to act tired (though that wasn't really hard. He was lethargic from all the blood loss) and made his way to his seat. He forced himself to remain neutral, even though the pain of walking was almost debilitating.

"Good morning sleepyhead!" Tony said with a smile. "Took you long enough! We were about to send a search party!"

Peter allowed a smile to spread on his face. "Sorry," he said. "I stayed up pretty late last night."

Tony frowned. "You were asleep by the time we got home," he said. "That was only ten."

Peter fought to remain calm. Shit. "Right," Peter said naturally. "I just... I woke up and then I just couldn't fall back asleep, you know?"

"Did you have a nightmare?" Tony asked, concern ebbing into his voice. Shoot. Peter was trying to throw any concern and suspicion off of him. The last thing he needed was Tony picking apart his fake story.