If You Need Me

Ch. 6: I Said I Was Sorry

"I said I was worry for doubtin' your word. I said I was sorry for listenin' to the rumors I heard. Oh come on, baby. Ther'es no use in being unkind. 'Cause I'm gonna keep a-sayin' I'm sorry. Keeon right on sayin' I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, hey, if it takes me all night. I said I was sorry for saying you were untrue. I said I was sorry for not trustin' in you. Oh come on, baby. You might as well hold me tight. 'Cause I'm gonna keep a-saying' I'm sorry. (I don't believe you). Keep right on sayin' I'm sorry (I don't believe you). Sorry, sorry, hey, till you change your mind." - Solomon Burke

* * *

Peter stopped biting his nails when he became Spider-Man. It had been his nervous tick and considering he had constantly been nervous as a child after the death of his parents, he was constantly biting his nails. 

The tick must have gone away when he was bitten by the spider though, because the stubby little nails that were always raw, red, and sometimes to the point of bleeding if Peter took it too far, started to grow out again. He hadn't felt the need to bite them since.

Except now. 

Pacing in the lab, he watched closely as Cindy once again ran the test. It was close - super close - to completion and she'd gotten much farther on it than he had anticipated in the time he'd been gone. The holographic screen blinked to life and started to beep, transmitting the information on interdimensional travel, but then it fizzled out again and the holographic information all frazzled. It crumbled like building blocks before their eyes. 

"Look here," Cindy instructed, "These are the monitors."

She'd completed three monitors on the small machine she and Peter had started to build. The first one was to track temporal stability on their earth, which she had dubbed Earth-617. The other monitor was for Ezekiel's earth (an earth Cindy still couldn't remember). She'd locked onto the signal using the last of the particles she and Jessica had had on them when they'd arrived, so they desperately needed this to work, or else they had no other shot.

The third monitor was for any other anomalies that could potentially be spiked upon Ezekiel's arrival. Even though it had been almost five months since Cindy had returned, she was still extremely on edge that Ezekiel would come for her no matter how many times Peter tried to tell her that she might be safe once and for all.

"You don't know him like I do," she growled when Peter suggested it again.

He was tired and anxious. He'd been awake for 48 hours after barely getting any sleep after the night of the ball in New Asgard (which he wasn't exactly complaining about considering he got to spend the whole night worshipping you and your body, obviously). He'd been awake since then. He'd gotten the frantic call from Cindy, made it to the quinjet, flown back, and since then Cindy had been manic in the lab attempting to fix the final steps of this machine.

Peter had a feeling that once Cindy completed it and she could track Ezekiel's progress she'd be more at ease. She'd have her security blanket and she'd have scientific proof she was safe.

But until then, she was in a constant state of panic.

The average person wouldn't know considering she was able to conceal her feelings remarkably well, but Peter could feel it. It was like a cloud all around her wherever she was in a good mile radius. He could feel the frantic, almost deranged energy permeating off of her in every way. Her whole body felt rigid and wound too tightly. 

She was falling apart. 

"Jessica is important to him. He needs her in order to survive. And I know too much about him so he'll want me dead," Cindy explained to him for the millionth time, "And if he can get us both back, he'll have his guard dog again. Which, by the way," she turned to Peter and cleared her throat, smoothing down her hair before saying, "If Ezekiel does come and he tries to take me back, I need you to kill me."