Pointe Shoes and Spider Webs

70. Fine

Daphne and Peter are in his sleeping quarters at Avengers Tower. It's been two hours. Two hours. Daphne's on the edge of the bed, blankly staring ahead with a glass of water in her hand. Peter watches her, worried. They heard a lot of commotion about an hour ago, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. told them to stay in Peter's room for the time being. The longer the wait takes, the more Peter sees the life draining out of Daphne's eyes. The worst thing is that he can't do anything about the situation. All he can do is be here for her, but it's not enough. Not to him.

"You said you wanted to talk to me about something..." She mutters, breaking Peter's trance. Daphne's still staring at nothing, not moving.
"Wha-" He pauses. Zephyr. The word ghosts through his head, but he can't bring himself to explain it to her now. There's already enough going on. Telling her she's a collector's item that's often enslaved by sorcerers is the last thing she should hear right now. Especially since she literally told her dad that she wouldn't want to know about a threat like this. "It wasn't that important. It's fine." Daphne's quiet for second, rolling his words over in her head.
"Okay."

...

"So, you're telling me-" Nick Fury gestures at himself. "-that you knew exactly where to find a teen with some sort of silver sickness that spreads like the common cold? And that these men-" He turns to Derek and Tao and raises his eyebrows. "-were just very unfortunate to be in the otherwise completely empty zoo?" Tony cocks an eyebrow and pulls up one corner of his mouth.
"Yeah, pretty much."

It was almost scary how easily the kid gave up. Pretty much the second he saw Bucky's arm, he let go of Derek, probably thinking Bucky was going through the same thing. At least, that was what Tony hoped for. It's why he sent Bucky in. The kid never said a word, but he also knew he couldn't win a fight from Captain America. Not with the dead weight that is hanging from his shoulder. They didn't get a good look at it, but from what Tony could tell; his arm is heavy. It must be pulling at his skin. Aching. Steve mentioned he saw the skin in his neck turning a grey-ish blue. Like it was crawling from his arm up to his face.

Tony's unsure of how he feels about David. There's an odd sadness resting on the teen. He obviously has some mental conditions and Tony is the last person to judge someone for that. David needs help, like Daphne had said. Tony agrees. But with everything he's done, Tony's torn about whether or not David should be put back into society anytime soon. His obsession with Daphne is still very much there, but after the Halloween party and tonight, there's no way to tell what he actually wants to do with her anymore. All that Tony knows is that David wants to do something with her.

"You used to be better at lying, Stark." Nick shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips.
"Still a good liar." Tony shrugs and smiles sweetly. "Maybe you just don't trust me enough."
"You're right. I don't trust you." Nick sighs. "Where are the kid's parents?"
"No clue, but I can give you his address. He used to be part of SASS." Nick scoffs.
"SASS. Right." Nick takes a breath and looks down at the ground, shaking his head yet again.
"Don't sass me, Nick. Kid's a great singer. Also a psychopath." Tony brings his hands up in front of him and looks at Derek. The billionaire sucks at his teeth, opting to leave out the disturbing writing David has forced upon Daphne. His eye twitches as he wonders what else he must have forced upon her before she met Tony. Before she met Peter. "I didn't fund him for that last bit."

Everyone got interrogated. Just a few short questions, nothing much. It only took one stern glance from Tony for Derek and Tao to realize they shouldn't mention Daphne and so they didn't. Nick didn't want the teen locked up too far from home, which meant the kid would be sent to the Raft. Tony didn't really like the sound of that. The Raft is where they keep some of the worst super powered criminals and treating the teen like one of the bad guys probably won't improve his mental stability. If he even has any. Tao was given a glove to cover his silver hand and asked to stick around for the night, so doctor Cho could check up on his... condition... in the morning.