The New Avenger

Remix

Peter's POV:

If it's true that a phone call signaled Kampe then their deaths were my fault. All my fault. If I hadn't taken that phone call my friends would still be alive, if I hadn't taken that phone call this wouldn't all be hanging over me, taking me over. But I did. And they paid for it, not me. I can take the consequences of my own actions, I can take the bruises and breaks and burns of my own inadequacy but nobody should have to bear that burden for me.

I have to get out of this room, this tiny, airless room. Heat sweeps over me and I can hardly stand. I need water, I need air, I need space. But more than anything I need this to be over. I need to be able to breathe again, I need to be able to feels something other than this. Except I can't, because there is nothing but this. My friends are dead. My Aunt is missing. What is there left? What reason is there for getting up in the morning? What reason is there for all this hate and all this pain and all this suffering? There is nothing. All my life is is waking and hurting and hiding and simply having to be in the least simple way possible. It seems as though everything has descended into this darkness, into this pain until it seems like I'll never see the light of day again.

The ground is below me, spinning, tipping, dancing. I have to lean on the wall, brace myself just to stay upright. It's so hot, sweat dripping down my back. My skin tingles with false cold, teeth fuzzy with nerves. Breathe. In and out. In and out. There isn't enough air though, no air in, no air out. Just the thought of moving makes me want to puke. It doesn't matter though, I have to leave this wall, I have to move, I have to be alright. I have to keep on being, even if everything is imploding around me, even if I ended almost all my friends lives and blamed the remaining one for their deaths. Even if my Aunt, the only person who loves me unconditionally I have left, is missing, perhaps dead. Everything I've done to try and make things right has backfired in the worst sort of way, not a me. In trying to reconcile with my Aunt May my friends were killed. In trying to avenge my friends I nearly drowned my remaining friend in guilt. And nothing I can do will change that.

"Peter?" It's Captain Rogers. I need to stand. I need to respond. I need to do something, but I can't. I'm just so tired, so, so tired. "Peter, what's wrong?" Captain Rogers voice is worried, almost panicked. I need to move, I need to be okay. It's beyond me though, all of it's beyond me. But I do it anyway. I push off the wall. I smile and nod. Smile and nod. Smile and nod. If you smile enough, if you nod enough, they will eventually believe you. And yet all I am capable of is nothing, useless, stupid nothing. I have to stand here and smile, watch his panic ebb, feel my strength fading with every passing moment. And even though I should be able to actually smile I can't, frozen here in my pain and my hurt and my fear. Trapped inside my head, a cage of glorious intelligence, serving only to remind me of my incompetence. The world has me trapped, trapped trapped trapped. There is nothing except this cage, this horrible gilded cage, it's beauty making it all the more hideous.

"I'm good. What's up?" A huge, all teeth, to wide smile plastering itself across my face.

Captain Roger gives me a pained look, a forbearing of whatever is to come. He doesn't want to tell me but he is dying to.

"They think they've tracked down your aunt." He gives me an almost hopeful look. Hope flutters in my stomach.

"How?" I'm almost breathless with relief. The darkness begins to flee my head, freeing me from the impenetrable nothing of everything. Because they found my aunt and now I can finally do something right.

"That's the issue." Captain Rogers grimaces. But I don't care. I don't care what laws were broken, or who was hurt or who had to hurt. Because finding my aunt is right, whatever the cost.

"But she's going to be all right?" Of course she will be. They found her.

"That's another issue." The perfect shininess surrounding me is starting to crack, like a mirror dropped in slow motion. Catastrophe is coming but there is nothing I can do to stop it.

"And what is this issue?" My voice is level. No fear. No worry. Nothing. Blank. I have to be blank. Emotionless. It doesn't matter if it's eating me alive inside, I can't show it.

"They didn't exactly find your aunt." My stomach drops at his words, "The person who took her contacted them."

"What?" Short breaths. Fuzzy head. Because Aunt May isn't missing. She was taken.

"I got a letter today. It specified a time and a place for me to go in order to get your aunt back. It was signed Remix." His voice is incredulous at the last bit. I am too, in part. But then again we call ourselves names like Spider-Man, Hawk-eye, and Hulk. Except-

"Why did he contact you?"

"I don't know."

"Why would he take my aunt only to contact you?"

"I don't know."

"This doesn't make sense. Something is wrong here. He took the wrong person." But even as I speak I see it. There is no one to be taken away from Captain America except for his team. The team is well protected though and in general the teams relations are well protected, if they have any. Except mine. My aunt. My friends. They're out in the open, vulnerable. Or they were.

"We don't know what's going on, but Peter, everyone is doing everything they can to get your aunt back."

"You're going to meet him right?" Throat tight. The US government doesn't negotiate with terrorists. But maybe, just maybe, Captain America will.

"The meeting isn't until tomorrow afternoon. Until then they're doing everything they can to find her. Officially I am not going tomorrow under any circumstances. I disagree." He gives me a long, maybe wondering if I'm worth this. Captain America is the perfect soldier, the perfect man. He follows rules, he does the right thing. Yet here he is, willing to break countless laws for a teenage superhero.

"Why?" I have to know why. I always have to know why. Silence ensues, the kind that could result in a deep, thought filled answer. Or no answer at all. It's the former.

"When you lose everything it hurt. The bottom was pulled out from under your world and you spinning. The dizzy and the dark and the desperation, it all consumes you until there is nothing else in the world except it. You have nothing left to lose. Until the one most important thing that you lost isn't lost. Now though, there is no way for you to save her and it hurts even worse. The pain, the helplessness, as you watch her slowly wither and fade and die until she's gone is worse than the worst. Because the only thing that is stronger than fear is hope and that was ripped from you as well.

"So if I can help someone not lose everything after they already lost everything I will, no matter the cost. Some things are right even if they aren't within the law."

A/N

Hello peoples! I am publishing from afar! Well actually my dear friend Radi is publishing this for me because by the time this is published I shall be in the land of no wifi.... Wish me luck. So thank Radi for getting you your update on time and not breaking anything (please please please not breaking anything). Anyhow, remember the other story I told you about, Not a Hero? Well soon this story will become rather confusing if you don't read that one. It'll be understandable and all, but you're going to want to know more about where Remix comes from, which won't be explored that much in this story but will be shown in Not a Hero. So take a look, for your own good!

Alrighty then! Have a great weekend and I'm sorry for not responding to any comments till Sunday afternoon!