Peter wasn't in shock anymore. It had taken him a while to get used to the idea that dear God Gwen had been kidnapped is it my fault it is has to be my fault I don't know - but it was finally over.
Him, Ned and Harry were planning things out now. They were prepared (not really), and ready to try and find Gwen.
At the current time, Peter was trying to allow Tony to let him go to Ned's.
"Please, Tony!" he begged. "I haven't see him in such a long time! And Harry's going to be there too!"
Tony sighed, crossing his arms. "And you promise it's not about the girl who got kidnapped a few days ago?"
Peter looked up, using his puppy dog eyes to his advantage. "No!" he lied. "We've just got to do a project together, I told you this!"
"Okay, okay!" Tony finally relented. "You can't blame me for doubting you, everybody knows that you have a serious saving people thing."
"I know, I know, I get told that daily," Peter huffed, "okay, bye!"
"Wait, you meant now -?" Tony exclaimed, Peter simply answering with a "goodbye, Dad" before he left. "Aw man, I'm gonna get so many grey hairs..."
Peter stopped by a Starbucks on his way to Ned's, grabbing Ned and Harry drinks as well, knowing that they'd likely be doing this for a long time.
"Honey, I'm home!" Peter hollered as he walked into Ned's home. "Hey, Mrs Leeds," he greeted her with an easy grin. She gave a small chuckle, before gesturing up to Ned's room.
"The boys are up there," she said, smiling at him.
He gave her a nod, yelling "thank you, Mrs Leeds" as he walked up the staircase.
"Hey there, sunshine," Harry nodded to him. "Who knew that the thing to get you back to normal was some sort of mystery like a friend being kidnapped?"
"I don't mean to," Peter said, shrugging as he handed Ned and Harry their cups. "It's just - I feel I can finally do something useful, you know? Something that'll benefit people."
"Pete, everything you do benefits people," Ned said, "your smile literally brightens an entire room."
"Thanks? I think?" Peter said, taking off his jumper (well, okay, it was either Bucky's or Steve's) before sitting on the bed with Harry, Ned at his desk. "What have you been doing?"
"I've just been trying to take everything in," Ned replied honestly. "I've been looking at news articles, and -"
"And I've been thinking of battle plans!" Harry exclaimed, showing Peter the notes he'd written.
They mostly consisted of things like; oh my god I'm gonna kill this M guy - okay, running in with guns blazing is not a good option, I understand Ned, quit writing on my work - I've been running out of chocolate, I need more - what would Gwen do?
And man, Harry's infatuation with Gwen was very easy to explain with those notes.
"And before you say it, Pete," Harry said, interrupting Peter's thoughts, "it's not an infatuation. It's a friendship where I happen to like her a lot. Okay?"
"Sure," Peter snorted. "I believe you one hundred percent."
"Quit the sarcasm."
"Guys, quit it," Ned said, giving them a stern look. "I might've been able to find some clues. A load of stuff, actually, although I don't know if it makes much sense."
"Show me?" Peter asked.
Ned showed Peter the article, biting his lip as he did so. "It's bad," he warned. "And it doesn't make the most -"
"- sense," Peter said, nodding. "I got this, don't worry, Ned."
New Super-Villain on the Rise?
Late last night, policeman's daughter, who the policemen would like to keep anonymous, was captured by an unknown person. Who is this person? Is this to fight the police force, or is it something worse? Is this an attack at the Avengers? [More on the Avengers on page 5]
Look at the pictures and see for yourself!
Peter glanced at the pictures, looking intently at it, before he suddenly gasped, putting it together.
"Look at the background in this photo," he said, Ned and Harry immediately crowding around him and staring at it.
"I - I don't understand - it's just a bunch of ones and zeros -" Harry said, before Ned interrupted him, his eyes twinkling as he looked at Peter.
"Pete, you're so smart! I didn't think of that!" Ned exclaimed, grabbing his laptop away from Peter and looking intently at the photo, writing the numbers down.
"What you got?" Peter asked, shifting closer to see what Ned had written.
01001101 - M
01111001 - Y
01110011 - S
01110100 - T
01100101 - E
01110010 - R
01101001 - I
01101111 - O
"So that's the name of the guy we're going after," Peter breathed quietly. "Okay. We know he's dangerous, Gwen mentioned something about him being able to cause people to - hallucinate, was it? Yeah, hallucinate. Now we know his name. If we could find out more -"
Suddenly Peter stopped, eyes growing wide as they met with Ned's. They seemed to have a conversation with their eyes alone, both getting more excited as they went along, before Peter deflated.
"No, I said I wasn't trying to find her, he'll kill me if I admit that I did find her," Peter said.
"Who?" Harry demanded. "What are you guys talking about? How did you even have that conversation? Are you in some friendship gang that speaks like that and you didn't ask me to join it?"
"It's a long story," Peter said, "and it'll take a while to get through it... Unless we go through the short version? Ned and I are very practiced in talking like that during class. No, we didn't join a friendship gang."
"Tell me," Harry said, jumping up on Ned's bed, before falling back down again, leaning against the pillows. "I know that there's something you're keeping from me, so can you tell me?"
"I - Peter, you really need to," Ned said, shaking his head. "Harry deserves to know, right?"
"When did this turn into talking about my family life?" Peter asked, glaring at Ned.
"I, um, I never said anything about your family life," Harry hesitantly put in.
"It's better to say it quickly and get it over with, right?" Ned said, implying something that Peter was pretty sure he wouldn't want to do. Was he supposed to be subtle about it, so Harry didn't get a heart attack?
But, of course, Peter was never known for being subtle.
"My dad's Tony Stark."
Peter was pretty sure that Harry would've fainted if Ned hadn't been ready to continue the conversation.
"And..." Ned quickly added, giving Peter a deadpan look as he steadied Harry, "we figured that Mr Stark would probably help us because of Peter, you know?"
"He might kill me first," Peter put in. At Harry's terrified look, he felt obliged to carry on with that statement. "Not literally. He's pretty chill most days, actually, but I kind of told him that I wasn't looking into Gwen's kidnap? And I clearly am, so that's a problem..."
"But - I - what about your foster homes?" Harry asked.
"I wasn't in foster homes," Peter admitted. "I met Tony when I was ten, he took me in, but we didn't want the world to know that. We made up the lie about foster homes, then with me working there for an internship so people wouldn't be suspicious when I showed up at Avengers Tower so much."
"A lot went into this, huh?" Harry breathed. Then he paused, bolting up and surprising Ned who wobbled slightly before regaining balance, shocked from Harry moving so quickly. "He can help us save Gwen?"
"Yup. With the amount of equipment he has, he'll definitely be able to track her down, drink coffee, and discover more about the villain. At the same time. With a million other projects doing their business in the background," Ned grinned.
Peter smiled, grabbing his phone out of his pocket and immediately ringing Tony.
"Hey, Dad."
Harry did a strange sound, like the sound of shoes squeaking, when he heard that term.
"Hey, Pete. You telling me that you weren't actually going to Ned's to 'hang out' but to instead look for that missing girl?"
"... In my defence I'm friends with that girl."
"That doesn't count."
"Also I told Harry that you're my dad, and we're gonna come over so you can help us look for Gwen, the missing girl, okay? Thank you! Goodbye!"
"Wait, Peter, you what-"
"And he hung up," Ned predicted.
"And I hung up," Peter confirmed.
The three boys glanced at each other for a single second, before bursting into laughter.
Ned grinned at Peter, who gave a small smile in return. Harry, feeling left out, brought them both into a cuddle pile.
"We really need to go now," Peter said, his voice muffled because his face was shoved into Harry's shoulder.
"Yeah, that'd be good," the two boys agreed, immediately standing up, leaving Peter abandoned on the bed, face down in an uncomfortable position.
"Great. Thanks. Help me, please?"
"Yeah, sure, sorry..."
~~~
They were finally in Avengers Tower, after a long time of delaying things because Peter didn't want to be murdered after everything he'd been through.
The second they'd entered the tower, they'd been ambushed by Clint Barton, grinning happily at Peter with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.
"Yeah, I know..." was the only thing Peter replied with, glaring at the man before walking past him, going straight to the elevator to go to Tony's lab.
"So, you lied to me," Tony said when Peter walked in.
"Sorry, but we really need your help," Peter said.
"Already started."
Peter skipped up to Tony, Ned and Harry following at a slower, less stupid pace. Harry was full of giddiness - he might be on his way to getting Gwen back, and that was the best thing he could wish for at that moment.
"So, Gwen's father is a police officer, correct?" Tony asked, before shrugging his shoulders when anyone tried to answer. "Yeah, I know I'm correct, anyway -"
"No, she didn't know I'm Spider-Man, and I've never heard of this villain before, so he probably doesn't know my secret identity," Peter cut in, already knowing what Tony was going to say.
Ned and Harry just stayed quiet, enjoying the interaction between the father and son.
"And the villain guy, what was his name again?"
"Mysterio, we worked that out from the -"
"- photo of the newspaper which had binary code in the background, smart girl that one. But the only question is -"
"- the powers this guy has, yeah. So far we've got some type of hallucination thing that he does, but we don't know how he does it."
"Other things that people have said are illusions, rather than hallucination, he just messes with people's minds a bit, I'll work out how soon. He seems more of a -"
"- magician, right? It's like he can hypnotize people into seeing things he wants them to see."
"It'll be something logical, I can assure you," Tony said, laughing. "People are saying he wears a sort of - fish bowl, I think, on his head, and some sort of cape or something. It's strange. What's he trying to do here?..."
It was safe to say that Ned and Harry were in awe of the simple back-and-forth that Tony and Peter just did.
"Maybe it's just a trick?" Ned offered up. Tony and Peter immediately swung round and stared at him, surprised. "I'm just saying, what if this is just - like you said earlier - illusions? Fancy tricks that a magician would use? None of it's real?"
Tony suddenly jolted up, pacing the floors.
"Yes! That makes sense!" he said, snapping his fingers. "It could just be all special effects, devices. I mean, of course they'll be high-tech stuff, he wouldn't be able to do all the illusions otherwise, all you have to do is remember that none of it's real."
Ned smirked, raising his eyebrow at Harry, who simply laughed.
"Hey, this is helping me find Gwen, so I'll be pleased either way."
Tony gave Peter a grin as he sat back down, pulling several things up as he focused on news and images of Mysterio.
"This is good," Peter said, smiling. "We'll get Gwen back in no time, I'm sure, Harry. And trust me, we'll find her. No matter what it takes."
Okay I'm done now :) I wrote all my stuff for DIO in a book so it's all planned!
So, surprisingly, Peter is seemingly fine now? How would that be, considering Gwen's just been taken? Well, here's an explanation (feel free not to read it if you have your own ideas):
Peter's like me. He needs to have something to do, literally anything, or he'll start crawling into a hole, not being sociable, not talking to anybody, nothing. This happened to him anyway, in this little universe I created, but after Wanda's death, it got much worse. He needs something to do, or he'll start thinking, and he doesn't want to think. After Gwen got kidnapped, he finally had something useful to do, his brain got back into gear, and he finally turned back into the normal Peter we all know and love. Bad timing, yes, but are you sad about it? Hopefully, no.
That was long, sorry... Anyways, I'll see you guys soon! I'm back on track, finally, yay!
OH, ANNOUNCEMENT, EVERYBODY, ANNOUNCEMENT! So, Drowning in Oxygen will end on chapter ~ Fifteen ~ - yes, like that, so in four chapters time. Of course, I'll do what I did in Hunted and thank you all personally, because I appreciate you so much <33
I hope you guys enjoy the remaining four chapters!
I will see you next next Thursday, my young Wattpadians!
~ Hunter