And Washed The Spider Out
They didn’t talk.
The basics were exchanged, but nothing else needed to be said.
So nothing was.
The compound hadn’t been this quiet since he returned from Siberia.
Tony sat hunched over on the couch, his chin resting in the palms of his hands, the tips of his index fingers pressing heavily against his nose. His eyes were wide, heavy and fearful, but he didn’t blink.
He couldn’t. If he did, he’d see…
He hadn’t moved from the spot in hours, not since Pepper took over the situation. His useless, scrambled attempts at controlling the damage did more harm than good. Screaming and shouting at everyone who crossed his path, until his throat went hoarse and his voice fractured with strain. He was pretty sure he screamed at Director Hill over speakerphone — he definitely screamed at someone over speakerphone, because they took his phone away from him after that.
He had become an absolute, complete wreck. Breaking apart at the seams with each minute that painstakingly came to pass.
It wasn’t like him, not at all. Tony Stark was confident, cocksure, owning a room the moment his expensive Louis Vuitton dress shoes stepped foot inside. He was smooth talking, witty and snappy, and when he spoke people listened — to him and no one else.
That Tony Stark didn’t return from Brooklyn.
Instead, he entered the compound a blubbery mess, his anxiety off the charts, his impatience and panic directed at every poor soul that walked by him. Sitting alone in the common lounge, Tony knew being ushered away from his staff was more for them than him. Their well being, not his.
He didn’t care.
He was paralyzed with thick, heavy denial. He wouldn’t admit what he knew to be true until it was proved to him — SHIELD was immediately brought in to recover the reassembled alien tech, and his own team swept through the ashes of the warehouse with a fine tooth combed. That's all that was left, ash and dirt.
Tony awaited their results.
Utterly nauseous, his stomach twisting in knots, Tony fought for each breath that filled his lungs. He had vacated everything within him shortly after returning from Brooklyn. Even if he hovered over the toilet now, nothing would come up. Bile, maybe, if he tried hard enough. He didn't care to find out.
The shock hadn’t gone away. If anything, it settled deeper into his core; rattling him with a cold, disgusting repulsion. The team split up almost instantly — Tony didn’t know where they were at, possibly in the compound — he just didn’t care.
The scream he heard from Wanda, the howl that could've broken the sound barrier —
He closed his eyes and let out a rattling sigh, the air shaking in his chest. She hadn’t made such a horrifying sound since her brother died.
He couldn’t let himself feel that yet. Not while there was the smallest possibility of…
Of...
Of anything.
Fuck.
This was bad.
This was real, real bad.
So wrapped up in his own thoughts and chaotic unnerve, he hadn’t even noticed when Rhodey entered the room.
“Tones?” He stood idly at the entrance.
Tony shot up from the couch with lightning speed and looked towards Rhodey with large, hopeful, desperate eyes. They shined bright with tears that had yet to fall, the crows-feet around them standing out more vividly than ever. His high-tech glasses were discarded somewhere on the coffee table, where Rhodey briefly caught sight of them before returning his gaze on Tony.
“Anything?” Tony's voice cracked underneath the stress. “Tell me they found…”
Tony swallowed.
Anything.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” Rhodey forced the words out of a throat that didn't want to work. “They’ve swept the site five times now. There’s nothing.”
Rhodey didn’t move, not bothering to enter the room. Not bothering to approach Tony when he knew he'd be asked to check again — sweep again — leave again.
The sun had set long ago and their teams worked unrelentingly through the night to investigate the incident. 'Incident', because of course that's what they called it. It was nothing more than paperwork for SHIELD and a headache for the Avengers.
Looking ahead, Rhodey realized it was far, far more than that for Tony.
“Bullshit.” Tony viciously shook his head, a tremor nearly lining his voice.
Rhodey's face dropped, and he pressed his hand against the door frame to take a step inside.
“Tony, the explosion —”
“No,” Tony insisted, the shake to his head growing harder, faster. “There has to be something — you can’t tell me they didn’t find a single goddamn thing —”
“There was over five thousand Chitarui remains found. Bombs, Tony, whoever found these things turned them into bombs," Rhodey needlessly explained. "Everything was...the heat was too much.”
There was the nausea again, creeping up from his gut and swimming in his throat. Tony couldn’t stand anymore, his already weak knees giving out beneath him. With one quick collapse, he sat back down on the couch.
Breathing suddenly hurt too much. His lungs constricted, wheezing, reminding him that he was breathing and Parker wasn’t — he was alive and a fifteen-year-old kid suddenly wasn’t.
This was a nightmare.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, rubbing his skin so harshly that it hurt. That wasn't enough — he scrubbed harder, wishing the pain would wake him up from the godforsaken nightmare that had taken him hostage.
The attack on New York was a nightmare.
Taking his last breath in space, that was a nightmare.
This was hell.
“Fuck,” he spoke in an exhale, the word shaking on each syllable. “I don’t…”
He didn’t know what to do. This was never supposed to happen.
He wasn’t prepared for this.
Tony Stark, always ready with a game-plan, always packing a plan B, C, and D in his pocket — was clueless on how to proceed.
“Where is everyone?” Tony settled on asking, desperate to distract himself. Reality threatened to eat him alive — he needed to find safety from it before it could get him.
Rhodey frowned and dropped his shoulders, finally deciding to take a few steps into the eerily quiet lounge..
“They're..." Rhodey trailed off. "They're around.”
Tony looked up and towards him, his expression speaking louder than his words.
Tell me something, Rhodey, it begged. Keep me grounded. Please.
Decades of friendship was the only thing that told Rhodey what Tony couldn't speak for himself.
“Natasha and Clint are off handling things with SHIELD," Rhodey went on to say, folding his arms tightly over his chest. "Vision’s been with Wanda, Bruce and Sam went their own ways. They're around somewhere. I don’t know about Rogers, he’s—”
“Right here.”
Rhodey briefly turned his head, though Tony’s remained in place — his eyes stayed locked on the slick, marble floors. He didn't dare look up, not even as Steve entered the room.
“Anything, Rhodey?” Steve asked, quietly, his hands deep in his pockets as he made his way inside.
Rhodey waited a second before shaking his head. "No."
A sudden movement jerked Tony's eyes to the side, where Steve approached them both head on. His posture was slumped and his t-shirt soaked with sweat, an uncommon trait for someone usually so pristine. Tony figured the gym was going to need a few punching bag replacements after today.
Better them than him, Tony decided.
“The search and rescue parties went over the site five times," Rhodey had lowered his voice, as if hoping Tony couldn't hear him. "They’re sweeping up the debris now, but forensics say they may find teeth later on —”
Tony’s stomach rolled.
“I can’t fucking do this.” He shot up from the couch, gripping the armrest when he nearly stumbled on his feet.
Rhodey noticed his buckling knees and offered him a hand, but it was rejected as soon he extended it out. Tony’s chest visibly heaved as he made his way to the kitchen, leaning over the sink with arms that shook and a back that trembled.
"I can't..." Tony swallowed, pushing past the bile he preferred to not make an reappearance. His shoulders were tight, tense, and he fought off the pain that each damn breath brought him, because he was breathing and Peter wasn’t. His lungs were crisp and clean and Peter’s burned black, charred and decaying into ash and —
“How are things going with SHIELD?” Rhodey asked, sounding eons way and yet so close at the same time.
The two continued their conversation behind him, quiet and hushed, again acting like Tony couldn't hear them.
“Not good,” Steve admitted. “They’re, uh…less than pleased.”
If they wanted him out of the loop, they needed to leave the room, because even through the hammering beat of his pulse Tony could make out their voices — tones that were serious and solemn, tight and stressed.
“Yeah. I imagine,” Rhodey muttered. “What's next then?”
Tony focused in on it, willing himself to stay present and not trapped in his own head.
“Tony?”
It wasn't either men who caught his attention. It was the sound of heels clicking softly against marble floors that did the trick, followed by a voice that would soothe even the darkest of his nightmares.
Though he still remained hunched over the kitchen sink, Tony lifted his head, turning to the source the best he could.
Pepper met his eyes with her own.
“I’ve done everything I can to keep this away from the press," Pepper started, her frown growing heavier with the passing seconds. "But…”
Tony’s back shook with a scoff, his hand reaching forward and turning on the faucet with trembling hands.
Not even Pepper could end this nightmare.
“Let them say what they want,” he mumbled, splashing a handful of cold water on his face. For a split moment, it felt good — too good. The cooling relief hit his skin and reminded him of fire, flames, smoke; ashes that he could still taste on his tongue.
There was still soot on his tongue.
Bile shot up his throat and he swallowed it down bitterly.
“Tony…” Pepper furrowed her brows, her head shaking along the way. Her mouth moved to speak, but the words fell flat on her lips. Like they wouldn't escape, like there was no exit for them to go through.
Finally, after a moment that stretched on too long, she forced them out.
“You need to get to May Parker before she finds out from the news.”
Tony's hands dropped into the sink and splashed down into the water that poured from the faucet.
Oh.
‘Oh shit.’
He closed his eyes. His breath was still trapped in his lungs, a burning fire still swirling in his chest. He relished in it — if Parker couldn’t breathe, why should he? And if the kid felt red hot, smoldering fire melt through his bones, melt him until he was a corpse made of ashes, why shouldn't he?
May.
Oh god, he didn’t sign up for this.
He couldn’t look that woman in the eye and tell her he took her child away, buried him in an early grave, killed him because he was unable to protect him — protect him like he had promised.
He promised her this wouldn’t happen.
Tony scrubbed a soaking wet hand along the length of his face.
Why the hell did he make that promise?
The sound of Rhodey excusing himself barely crossed through his ears, the man saying something about needing to help Natasha and Clint at SHIELD and more crap Tony didn’t care about because goddammit — his hearing was muffled and he was positive it wasn’t because of the explosion anymore. His blood rushed through his eardrums, pulsating with each beat of his heart.
It was all he could think about. How his heart was beating, while Peter’s scorched away in a burning inferno. His pulse hammered on, while Peter's stopped. Becoming remains of the young, bright boy he once was. He wondered — was the pain like having shrapnel dug out of your heart? How much did it hurt to feel a heart liquefy into a boiling puddle of tissue?
Was it as painful as the grief that consumed his right now?
Tony jumped when a hand laid on his arm. The soft, delicate skin touching him did nothing to calm his nerves.
He didn’t let Pepper say a word.
“Get the car ready.” Tony turned as quickly as he spoke, his eyes blinking rapidly to find focus. Everything was wet, and blurry, and for a moment he couldn't see left to right — it was nothing but muscle memory that got him to the exit.
He didn't see the body barricading the front door. Not until a hand shot out towards him, grabbing his bicep with frightening force.
“Tony…” Steve's voice failed to match the grip he had on Tony's arm. The hold was strong, but his tone was soft.
Tony rooted his feet in place, lips pursed with a building anger he was too weak to confront. Wearily, tired beyond what even he could deal with, he looked over his shoulder and at Steve.
“Now is not the time to lecture me, Rogers," Tony's voice was low, rumbling like grinding stone. "Save the 'actions have consequences' speech for another day, will you?"
The animosity that dripped along his tongue wasn't matched. Steve held his arm, but loosened his grip, his expression softening in a way that made even Captain America look far younger than what he actually was.
“Let me go," he said, voice quiet and yet somehow able to command the room. "Let me tell the kid's family."
Slowly, and carefully, Steve let go of his hold on Tony — hovering there for a moment as if he may latch back on. He didn't have a chance; Tony's arm smacked back down at his side, too flabbergasted to do anything but stare ahead at Steve like he'd grown six heads that all spoke gibberish.
“Are you out of your mind?" Tony looked at him with an incredulity that shook the room. "Is dementia finally kicking in at that old age of yours?”
Steve frowned. “Tony, I —”
“She doesn’t fucking know you, Rogers,” Tony snapped. “You think I’m going to send Captain goody-two-shoes to tell this woman her nephew was just brutally killed, that we have no body for her to bury, that we —”
"Tony.” It was Pepper who cut him off, already having reached his side in a time he wasn't aware of. Like Steve, her tone failed to match her face. The warning was heard loud and clear, but when Tony shot his head towards her, the wet shine in her eyes spoke differently.
Her hand hovered over his other arm but didn't touch down. For a moment, Tony was ashamed that it may have been fear that caused her hesitance.
It was overwhelming — to be surrounded by such heavy emotions, as if his own weren’t enough to deal with. It wasn’t his element, nowhere near the type of environment that he could handle.
There were few things that Tony Stark couldn’t do.
This was one of them.
“Listen, Tony...I have experience with this type of thing," Steve's voice managed to perforate through the ever growing hammer of his pulse. "You don’t realize, until you have to do it...how difficult it can be to tell someone —”
“Fuck off,” Tony growled, his eyes firmly locked on Steve, even as he could feel spit cover his lips from the retort.
He went to leave — his feet anxious to take him far, far away from everyone and everything that threatened to break him.
Steve’s hand grabbed his arm again.
Tony's first instinct was to throw a punch, because God, sometimes he just wanted to hit the man straight in his perfect teeth. But when he looked up at Steve, the urge fell flat. A fire that was extinguished immediately.
“You’re in no condition to do this," Steve said, soft and stern all at the same time. His voice matched his face, and the sympathetic eyes pooling back at him said the rest.
Tony clenched his jaw.
Damn the man.
It was the eyes that did it, always the eyes. While Tony was notorious for hiding behind a sleek pair of high-tech shades, Steve would expose his eyes out in the open. And when things got tough, there was nothing for him to hide behind. And never a reason for him to.
It was the eyes that spoke — saying things Steve never would, saying things Tony never wanted to hear in the first place.
He saw those eyes take in New York City for the first time in seventy years, and question his place in a time he no longer belonged in.
He saw those eyes question Tony's morality after Ultron, and during the Accords.
He saw those same eyes pick Barnes over the team.
"Let me go," Steve stared at him, unblinking. His eyes showing all the confidence he could muster for Tony — respecting the man, the suit. The strengths and abilities that came inbetween.
He didn’t doubt that Tony could do this.
Steve was telling him that he didn't have to.
“He’s right, Tony,” Pepper all but whispered, finally laying an open palm across Tony's arm.
Against his will, Tony found his eyes clenching shut at her touch. The warmth of her skin against his felt wrong, and he jerked away no sooner than she made contact.
“Fine,” he croaked, clearing his throat — and then again when that wasn't suffice. “Happy will take you to Queens.”
Tony turned to leave, shaking off Steve’s lax grip. He stopped midway in the hallway, swallowing his lips until a deep sigh broke them apart.
“Offer her to come back with you," he said, turning just slightly at the hips, though he never looked head on at either of them. "Or—or to call me. She can call me. Or…”
There wasn’t much else he could do.
These weren’t things he handled, and there wasn’t a playbook for this. There wasn't a manual titled 'how to treat the family of the deceased child you're at fault for getting killed.'
Still though, Steve nodded. Silently understanding his sentiment, even when poorly worded.
And that was it — Tony was done, he couldn’t do this anymore. Steve would handle his dirty work, and he was free to go.
Tony spun on his heels and hastily stormed down the hallways, not a single destination in mind. He wasn’t even sure what muscles were moving his legs, his brain a foggy mess that barely produced one coherent thought.
The hallways had become too narrow, and there were too many people walking by — way more than he remembered being in the compound.
He needed to get away.
He needed to compose himself before he lost it.
Tony entered his workshop with swift, profound purpose, immediately going to his tool bench once the doors slid shut behind him. He had no intention of dealing with anything that wasn't a physical object. Material problems only — his turmoil could wait.
If he shattered now, there would be no recovering.
“FRIDAY,” he grabbed a stool and plopped down in one seamless move. “Activate Wormhole Protocol.”
There was a beat of silence as Tony wheeled himself across the workshop.
“I will need additional authorization for such a request, boss," FRIDAY informed him.
Tony already had his thumb on the scanner near the furthest wall, the technology running lasers over his skin before beeping with clearance.
“291970160." The code left his lips like his own name, smooth and precise. And practiced.
The light on the scanner turned green before blinking red.
“Wormhole Protocol activated. All unauthorized persons will not have access to this room.”
Perfect.
He knew it would come in handy one day.
Tony designed the protocol after the attack on New York — when nightmares wouldn't stop and he needed an escape from the outside world.
That’s what he told himself, anyway.
He didn't need to dig deep within himself to know the protocol existed to prevent an anxiety attack, to keep his own paralyzing distress from destroying him. And it should have put him at ease — after the day’s horrifying events, he should have been relieved at the idea of peace and quiet. Of solitude. Of finally being by himself.
That's why he designed the protocol. It was doing exactly what was intended.
The exhale of air that left his chest wasn’t one of peace, though. Tony stood up from the stool and kicked it back, pacing the length of his workshop. Each breath he took shook painfully, as if his rib cage was about to collapse in on itself.
“Build something…” Tony mumbled under his breath. “Fix something. That’s what you do, Stark. You fix things.”
He snapped his fingers, once, twice, and then a third time while looking frantically around the room. Desperate for something to work on.
Scattered tools laid on the table, papers amiss the mess, but there wasn’t one specific thing he could narrow in on. Nothing he'd been focusing on that he could pick up and resume.
The kid had been his focus.
Not inventions, not fancy equipment — the chameleon helmet had been his last project, and look at how that turned out.
About how good as Peter did.
Tony shook his head clear of the thought.
“Fix something,” he repeated the words like a broken record, palms resting against the workbench, eyes darting to find something he could make his focal point. Anything to focus on besides the haunting memory of fire — ashes and embers filling his lungs, his screams for Peter scratching his throat raw.
Focus on anything but that.
“Sir, Doctor Bruce Banner has tried to gain access.”
Tony wasn’t concerned; the protocol was in effect. He wouldn't be able to get inside, no one would.
Right now, he needed to focus — focus on fixing something, building something, repairing something. He knew, with unshakable clarity, that he needed to occupy his mind.
“FRIDAY, do I have any outstanding projects in the works?” He tapped his foot anxiously on the ground, his nerves jittery and uncontrollable. The silence was painful and made his ears ring — or was that the tinnitus from the explosion that rocked half of the Brooklyn bridge?
“Sir, rest is recommended in your current state." A pause bridged Friday's next words. "As well, Sam Wilson has tried to gain access.”
“No rest for the weary,” Tony muttered, his tone empty of emotion. “Give me something here, FRI. Pull journal data and find a listed project.”
He picked up the nearest tool he could find — a screw-driver, and fiddled with it in his hands. It was cold and smelt of rust. Wasn’t that part of the technique Rhodey had taught him? Five things he could see, four things he could touch, three things he could…he couldn’t remember the rest. And the building nausea in his stomach was intensifying, churning, boiling and making his skin hot.
God, he was going to be sick again.
“I do not recommend pulling from your pending projects due to the current behavior you are exhibiting. For your own precaution, I recommend rest,” FRIDAY spoke with a sense of emotion he knew couldn’t exist.
Her voice had become grating, nails on a chalkboard, worse than the hammer of his heartbeat. Tony pulled up his systems from the nearest computer, the smart screen lighting up interactive images that surrounded him, a complete 360 of holograms.
Quickly, his hand pushed through the many controls.
Sweep, sweep, sweep — found it.
“Keep it to yourself.”
“Sir, it goes against my programming to —”
With one wave of his hand, Tony shut down the AI.
The room fell eerily quiet afterward. It made his ears ring even louder.
He needed to be left alone. That was the entire point of the damn protocol. Just like after the attack on New York, just like after the day he found himself nearly dying in space, he couldn’t be around others.
The panic in his chest increased with each breath he took. He needed to be by himself.
He needed to focus.
“Okay, fix something, fix something, fix —”
Tony's words became rambles, mumbled and unintelligent even to him. He turned from his computer station and back to the workbench.
Things were blurring together again. First when he looked at Pepper back in the lounge, now here. Did he have a concussion from the blast? He never did see Cho afterward, too preoccupied with sending his teams out to the war zone, the ground zero, to ensure Peter was positively, absolutely, no certain of a doubt dead.
Which he was.
It took a flicker of a burn to realize that his sight hadn’t blurred — it never had. It was pesky liquid rising from his eyelids, pooling in a puddle threatening to fall. He blinked them back and away, refusing to let himself shed a tear.
He needed to focus. Five things he could see. He had plenty to choose from, his eyes darting around the workshop in a panicked search.
Somehow, and for some reason, his eyes locked onto the scattered papers on his desk.
The MIT brochures stared back at him.
Mocking him.
“I just…I don’t know, Mr. Stark.” Peter hesitantly set the brochures on the work table, stepping back with caution. “I can’t leave New York. What about Spider-Man, protecting the little guy? I can’t do that from MIT. And—and I can’t —”
“You can’t what?” Tony snapped in a way that was purely controlled, a vibration of intimidation that shook Peter’s core. If looks could kill, he'd surely be six feet under from the piercing glare the billionaire gave him.
Peter bowed his head, his eyes locked on his dirty sneakers.
“I can’t leave Aunt May.” His words were quiet, his hand rubbing at the nape of his neck. “She needs me, Mr. Stark. I can’t just leave her...not yet.”
Tony squeezed the screwdriver in his hand so tightly that the metal tip broke through skin, a stream of blood trickling out.
It didn't hurt enough. It ached, throbbed, and stung, but it didn't hurt enough to distract him from the sickening pain in his heart.
So he did the only thing he could think of.
“Goddamnit!”
It took one sweep of his arm to knock over everything on the table. Papers, tools, and random mechanical parts fell to the ground with a clatter and bang. It wasn’t long after that he decided, screw it, the entire table can join them. And then once he knocked the table to the ground, Tony kicked the chair over as well. He kicked it — kicked, kicked and kicked it, slamming it against the wall with the force of his anger.
“Damn it!” he kicked repeatedly, angrily. “Damn it, GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!”
He screamed because he needed to, his voice harsh and jarring, because he had to, because this isn't happening, this isn't real, this can't be real.
But it was. Tony had no ability to change it, no amount of money to fix it, no control over any of it. He croaked as his knees buckled under his weight, pathetically sinking down onto the stool with a deafening headache starting to drown out the scratchy pain in his throat.
And he let himself be.
It was like a tidal wave, the grief. Washing over him instantaneously.
He heard the whoosh of the sliding doors but never the alert from his AI. Because he shut it off, of course. Though he wouldn’t have needed the warning to begin with.
Tony knew exactly who it was.
“You’ve gone too far with your override privileges, Pep.”
His voice was so ragged he didn't even recognize it, wet with tears and clouded with pain. It didn't sound like him at all.
“Tony...” Her voice was steadier than he expected it to be.
He was reluctant to let her near him. To let her feel the anger and shame radiating off him, to see him in such a weak, pathetic state. Yet he never made a move to otherwise stop her.
She knew it all, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
“He was just a kid." Tony shut his eyes and held them tight. “I’m the adult. I was supposed to protect him. He was just a kid.”
Tony never moved, hunched over the stool so far forward that his chin could've met his knees. Pepper approached him and, without any hesitation, without any shame, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head close to her, letting him rest in the tuck of her stomach where she stood.
“It’s okay, Tony.” Pepper ran her hand through his hair. “It’s okay…”
It hit him with capsizing quickness. Tony felt himself pulled forward, as if the weight in his chest was enough to define gravity. The sobs wretched through him and he wailed, like a dying animal, crying in agony.
They came one after another, harsh and loud, until he couldn't breathe, until he was gasping from the exertion of dissolving into his emotions. Her shirt became soaked with his tears, but neither cared. She held him closer as his cries howled in the room.
“It’s okay, Tony.” Pepper’s own voice cracked. “Shhh, it’s okay.”
There was no physical mark, no external catalyst for his distress — he made it out okay. He wasn’t swallowed up by the burning flames, eating away at his flesh and muscles and stripping him of the life he knew. He was okay.
But Tony was still burning, gasping with panic at flames that didn't exist.
Throat aching, his sobs died to thin, whistling intakes of air, choking on his own tears when they hiccupped in his throat.
“I can’t fix this. I can’t fix this,” Tony gasped, over and over again. “I can’t fix this, Pep. I can’t bring him back.”
Pepper held him tighter, her own tears salty on her lips.
“I failed him." He choked on another sob, pulling tight at his chest. "I — I failed him.”
Pepper didn't respond.
Tony didn't need her to.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
“Malen'kiy kroshechnyy pauk vzobralsya na vodnyy nosik…”
Dmitri sang the song with a sense of innocence as he swiveled on the stool, rolling across the room and to the table that pressed flush against the wall. He cracked his knuckles, the popping between his joints echoing in the large, semi-empty space.
He had work to do.
“Vniz poshel dozhd' i vymyl pauka…”
“Shit just got serious." Francis set down his plexiglas helmet and adjusted the purple cape strapped around his neck, his irritation evident. "If we’re going to execute this plan, you need to start communicating it with me.”
Dmitri smiled, picking up a gas mask and tossing it over to Klum, the man standing right behind him — sans helmet covering his head.
He was prepared. He had made sure he was prepared.
Though the costumed man fumbled his hands at first, he caught the respiratory mask tightly. Just as quickly, his eyebrows cocked with confusion.
“Yesli vy khotite zhit' i protsvetat', pust' ostavat'sya ozhivayet…”
“I don’t speak Russian!" Francis rolled his eyes. "I can’t even say your last name, Smer…ve..kawhatever. Whatever you’re singing — it’s going over my head. Use English if you're going to tell me the plan!"
Dmitri turned his back as if he hadn’t heard what was said. He continued to organize the various equipment — his newly acquired, bright, shining white helmet a centerpiece to it all.
“Potomu chto yego slomannyy pauk ne mog snova podnyat'sya.”
Their surroundings creaked, the walls groaning under pressure, but nothing was as persistent as the leaking water from above.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Three knocks.
One.
Two.
Three.
His knuckles tapped hard and precise before his arm fell down to his side, where he interlinked and clasped both his hands together in front of him.
The door opened eight seconds later.
He knew, he counted.
Still, looking up from the rugged, blue doormat on the floor below was harder than he expected it to be. Greeted by a woman shorter than him, long brown hair with shining brown eyes to match, her expression immediately became concerned.
That concern only got worse when she saw who was at her front door.
“Mrs. Parker?” Steve solemnly looked up, forcing his eyes away from the doormat.
May frantically looked at him, and then behind him where Happy stood. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t speak a word.
She didn’t need to.
Her hand had covered her mouth before she realized it.
Steve frowned. “May we come in?”