st_x5_494 | Morning Run (Closed to Peter

Peter doesn't know why Alec doesn't go. He has his web-shooters and it's not as if he's completely helpless. Peter presses his lands to the top of his thighs and presses down on them like he did before, but doesn't say anything. Not even when Alec finally sits down beside him.

It's not until Alec actually talks to him that Peter actually speaks.

"What?"

Peter looks over at Alec, puzzled. "No," he says, brows furrowed. "I mean, not unless he wants to."

Alec didn't really have time to respond before he tensed. Out from the sparse surrounding brush came five rather hungry hyenias.

He muttered a "Son of a bitch" under his breath as he stood up. Were these things even native to California?

"Peter?" Just to check in the kid was going to be ok.

"Got it," Peter says. Peter presses his middle finger against his web-slingers to activate them.

Then, arm extended, he sends a shot of web-slinging fluid towards the face of one of the animals; it stumbles back in surprise, clawing and snapping at the new intrusion.

"Sorry!" he yells in its direction. "It'll dissolve later!"

"You know they can't banter back, right?" Alec watched as the other Hyenas split up and turned instantly more aggressive and on-guard. Their eyes were much more on Peter than on Alec's.

Peter, the wounded gazelle.

Alec never thought he'd have to kick an animals ass before. At least not one that wasn't half human. Two suddenly came at him from two different angles and Alec reached out to stop the one jumping up at him which meant the other one's teeth found purchase in his thigh. Alec let out a curse as he kicked back, sending the Hyena into the air.

The second Peter saw Alec get bit in the thigh was the moment he knew he needed to get up. He tried to push himself up off the ground, but even when he was pushing it, he couldn't get up much further than he did before.

There's four of them left. Two on Alec, and the other two rounding Alec from either side.

"I'm really sorry about this," he tells the hyena lunging towards him. He sends a string of web-slinger fluid towards the maw of one of the hyenas, then using his upper-body strength, spins him right towards the other hyena.

The hyenas don't make impact, but the tight line of web-slinger fluid trips up the other hyena when he gave it a spin. While the other hyena is down for the count, that one scrambles up, and when it growls it becomes abundantly clear that it isn't. The hyena races towards him.

Peter tries to shoot out another string of spray, but only a short line comes out. He presses his finger against the webslinger again, but nothing comes out.

The cartridge was empty.

"Oh, come on!"

Why didn't he grab a new cartridge before he left?

"Having performance issues?" Hanging around Peter was clearly a bad influence for bantering.

Alec unceremoniously snapped the neck of the one who was trying to bite his face off and it yelped and went limp. He dropped the animal to the ground. He turned again to see the Hyena go for Peter, but the one Alec had kicked in the air was back and despite being blinded, the first one Peter had shot seemed to be aimlessly running to the noise, growling and snapping its jaws. Then unhindered one went for another attack. There was a blur of motion from both of them and Alec grunted loudly as he put pressure on his wounded leg and round-house-kicked the Hyena away.

"No," Peter counters defensively, wondering why Alec has to make everything about his web-slinging fluid sexual. "Just traveling light."

As the hyena lunges towards him, Peter drops backwards, lying flat on the sand. The Hyena overshoots and barrels into the ground a few yards behind him. The hyena is still pulling himself onto his feet when Peter tries to pull himself back on his.

It's then that Peter looks at Alec and watches as Alec snaps the hyena's neck with an audible sound.

"You don't have to kill them! They're just animals! They don't know any better!"

It's at that moment that Peter's spidey-sense kicks in. He spins around just in time to see the hyena that was behind him lunging at him once again. By reflex, he throws an arm up to defend himself and the creature locks its jaws around the limb.

Peter lets out a sharp cry of pain.

The last time Alec felt the surge of - something - rush through him the way it did when Peter cried out in pain was back home with Max. There was little actual thought that was processed after that except the need to extract the Hyena from Peter. And Peter's urging of being nice to the animals was completely disregarded.

Ignoring everything else on the field, Alec b-lined it to where Peter was and reached for the jaws of the Hyena on him - Alec didn't want to take off a big chunk of Peter's arm in the process of ripping the Hyena away. His two hands pried open the teeth. Despite his strength, the Hyena was putting up a good fight with its jaw. Alec was winning though and he almost nearly ripped the jaw right off of the Hyena until the one he had kicked and the one Peter had tripped up with webbing were both on his back, bearing down.

He swore and had to resist the urge to drop the Hyena on top of Peter.

His main goal was to keep them away from Peter, despite the biting they were doing right now.

He stumbled against the weight of two fully-grown Hyenas on him, trying to get them away, but they were bearing down again on his back and it hurt and instinct took over. Alec managed to break the neck of the one who attacked Peter - sorry kid - and then ripped one of the Hyena's and threw it into the air. The other one he couldn't quite seem to shake off his damn body, right at the back where it made things hard to grab.

Peter manages to dislodge himself from the hyena whose neck Alec just broke. Blood is coursing down his arm now, but Peter manages to push through the pain. When he finally looks up, it's just as Alec sends one hyena flying; another is firmly attached to his back. Peter pulls himself up as far as he can, his legs burning with pain.

"Get down!"

Peter's not sure if this is going to work; his legs were messed up already and they'd normally give him the spring he needed to make this happen. He'd have to use a lot more arm-strength than he normally would to get where he needed to go without that extra bounce -- and he only had one fully-functional arm to make that happen.

Peter throws his palms down to the ground, and with a grunt, pushes his body forward in a forward-flip and hopes against hope that he gets enough spring to get high enough for his legs to come down and hit it.

Alec spun his head and saw Peter coming at him - he'd have given him shit if there was time because he should just sit there and not get any more hurt - but seeing as Peter was already barreling at him, Alec ducked and maneuvered to help Peter kick the annoying creature off his bloodied back.

Note to self - Hyenas suck.

Alec's movements were almost as if they were in sync with Peter's. He let the kid kick the animal and slide over him, then stood up to face the one he had just thrown off. He was so done with these things. Peter could lecture him later about killing them. Besides, he was sure someone could use them at the inn. Dyson did pelts, right?

He waited until the Hyena attacked and as the Hyena rushed up into the air, Alec managed to catch it in his hands and twist the neck of that one too. That left the one Peter kicked and the blinded one who was no real threat at all.

As Peter hits the ground, he can't believe he managed it himself. The strength is draining out of him; between his bloodied arm and the leg muscles he's blown out, he's not sure there's anything else he can do. He tries to push himself up with his good arm, but he finds he can't steady himself.

Was he always this weak? He'd fought Vulture -- he'd fought the Avengers and managed to push through it. Now, he's being taken down by a too-hard run and a pack of hyenas.

Why had he been so stupid? He should have just let Alec carry him back without argument. He should have known Alec wasn't going to leave him. He should have thought to have changed his cartridge. Why was he such a screw-up?

Alec's leg stung like a son-of-a-bitch and his shirt was definitely ruined by blood, teeth, and claw marks. As he turned to look at Peter, he saw the look on the kid's expression, but then he also saw the Hyena about to bare down on him. Alec foot came down on the Hyena with precision timing, trapping the animal by the neck and with just a little more pressure there was snapping sound and the animal went limp. Alec eyed the last one, but the blinded Hyena seemed to be retreating awkwardly since it was blind.

He dropped down to a crouch, ignoring his own issues to look over Peter's. "How bad is it?" He reached for the arm to take a look.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Peter reassures him, looking Alec up and down. Alec doesn't look fine. Alec looks the opposite of fine. And Peter knows Alec would be fine if he hadn't argued.

"You're not 'fine'. You need to get your arm looked at and you need to start accepting your limits." The second part was all he was going to say about what just happened. Alec lift Peter up over one shoulder this time, the bits on his shoulder and back would make it too hard to carry him across it and this way he could still favour his good leg. "You won't get stronger if you don't pace yourself. It's a marathon, not a Sprint."

Alec started to walk again, though his pace was noticeably slower this time.

For awhile, Peter doesn't say anything. He offers no protest when Alec lifts him up over his shoulder. He doesn't argue when Alec says that he needs to have his arm looked at. When he finally opens his mouth to speak, he just says two words:

"I'm sorry."

He closed his eyes at the apology. Whenever Peter said those words, it made Alec feel unpleasant for some reason. He didn't know why because he knew that Peter should be sorry this time.

He was quiet for a while after the kid's words, thinking, but also concentrating on staying upright and not dropping Peter.

Finally, as if out of the blue, he started talking.

"I already told you I thought you could handle yourself. You don't need to prove yourself to me."

Peter looks over at his arm. The old blood has already started to dry and the newer blood is still oozing out. The skin around the punctures is slightly raised from where the creature's maw was pulled from his arm. Peter can't help but think that it looks a little like a volcano with blood oozing out of it instead of lava.

"I know I don't," he says, quietly. "But I still want to."

He sighed loudly. The idea that Peter would do such a stupid thing - what the hell was he going to do around Stark when he had to battle Thanos? The thought was unsettling.

"I'm just a guy, Peter."

Alec wasn't sure why, but he felt anger inside of him. He wasn't sure if it was anger towards Peter or to himself or to the situation... it was just there and it translated into his face as determination.

"I know," Peter says. He does know, just like he knew that he shouldn't need to impress Alec. Knowing hardly did anything to change how he felt, though, and he isn't sure he'd be able to explain it in a way that made sense to someone who didn't ever want to impress anyone ever.

"Don't you ever want people to just see the best side of you?"

"Yeah." Even here, he was sure that was one of the reasons why Corbie had such a strange hold over him. Even Peter, to some degree.

He paused and continued to walk until he managed to say what he had been thinking for over five minutes in his head.

"Your fighting isn't the best side of you. You have far better sides." His eyes remained on the path, the comment almost like he hadn't said it at all.

"I want to look competent," Peter says, and then he quickly readjusts to say what he actually means. "I want to be competent."

For a few moments, Peter doesn't say anything.

"Mr. Stark told me once that he was the only one who believed in me," he says, finally. "That none of the Avengers did."

Peter takes a breath.

"I just... want to prove to them that I'm someone worth believing in."

"Peter" His name came out hard around the edges, like Alec was clearly trying to control his anger. Alec would have stopped right then and there and had a talk with Peter, but they were both bleeding and if Peter lost his arm, that would be on Alec, so he kept walking despite the rage brewing inside.

"From what you've told me, you haven't spent more than five minutes with anyone else but Stark. How do you know what they think or not?" Alec was still of the belief that Tony Stark said a lot of shit to manipulate Peter. He saw in Stark the same sort of stuff he saw in Lydecker. "You got that Hyena off my back even after you've been injured. You're competent. You just need to actually believe that."

"Because I'm a kid."

It's the first time Peter actually admits it.

"Because I was fourteen years old when he brought me to Germany. Because everyone thought he was crazy for recruiting me because of it."

The inn was just starting to come in view. It was good because even Alec's stamina was starting to drain. He had been slowing down ever so slightly for a while now.

"If you want to become as old as them, maybe trying to stay alive is more important."

"My age shouldn't matter," Peter says. "I don't get why it does."

As the hotel comes into view, he can't help but still hope that no one sees them. Yeah, they're visibly injured, but the last thing he wants is for someone to see them and make a big deal out of it.

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