st_x5_494 | Morning Run (Closed to Peter

"Yeah. I meant it what I said about you." That he was capable. Peter just needed to stop making stupid decisions from time to time is all. "If you don't want to, It'll heal on it's own. It'll just take longer." And he'd probably have to rest a lot more.

Alec didn't really turn to put pressure on Peter to make a decision, but instead got to work on his leg. His leg was where he'd bleed out from the most, really.

Peter nods solemnly, then goes through the stuff that Alec pulled out. He spends a little longer than Alec cleaning Alec's wound -- in part because he's delaying the first stitches, but also because he wants to be sure he's doing a good job.

"I'm about to start, okay?" He wasn't sure if he was right or wrong to give Alec a warning, but he'd want a warning.

Peter takes a breath and starts his first stitch.

It's only his muscles around his shoulders that seem to twitch when Peter does the first pass with the needle, but then his skin relaxed. There is a moment where Alec felt his eyes droop close and he realized maybe there'd been more blood that was lost than he realized, but he also knew he'd be fine after a rest. And he was thankful Peter couldn't see his face either.

"You're doing fine." Probably, anyways.

"Yeah," Peter says, not in agreement because he needs to say something to acknowledge what Alec's saying and yeah seems as good enough a word to the affirmative as any. "I'll try and get this done quickly."

A beat.

"But not too quickly," Peter quickly reassures. "I'm not gonna rush through and mess up."

Still, Peter continues to work and before long, Alec's back is stitched up.

"You're not going to be able to sleep on your back," he says, bandaging it up. It looked bad. Peter couldn't help but feel guilty, even if he knew Alec was going to be fine. He didn't like people being hurt because of him.

"I'll survive." He rolled his shoulders a little, feeling the stitches strain, but not rolling them enough to rip them apart. By the time Peter was done, Alec was starting to feel better.

He turned to the kid. "How are you feeling? How are your legs?"

"I'll be fine," Peter says about his legs. He takes a breath.

"I should have just gone with you to begin with. I shouldn't have pushed myself."

Alec wondered if that was Peter showing personal growth.

"If you want to make that distance, I can have you there in a month or so." That was Alec's way of acknowledging Peter's acknowledgement.

Peter's not sure how he feels about it taking a month to happen, but considering what happened today, he's willing to defer to Alec's wisdom on this one.

"Yeah, I'd like to," he says. "As long as it's not going to be a hassle."

"it's not a hassle." Alec could give him the theory of body conditioning. It only just occurred to him that Peter had gone from a weakling to someone who can stop a car without actually working out.

"You can teach me how to daydream." He'd probably regret that remark.

"I don't know if that's really something that can be taught," Peter says. It's weird, but now that he thinks about it, it's something that comes to him naturally.

"I just think about the way I'd want things to turn out. And sometimes the way I don't want things to turn out because sometimes you have to have things not turn out in order for there to be a payoff at the end of the story."

The story here being the daydream.

Alex did not understand this need. "What sort of things do you think about?" And why he also wanted to ask, but didn't.

"You can't laugh," Peter says, eyes bearing down on Alec.

Alec now clearly needed to know the answer. "I won't laugh." Outwardly, anyways.

"Like..."

This is embarrassing.

"We're in the middle of class and there's suddenly a big alien attack on the school. Or maybe not on the school, but near it. Everyone's panicked and freaking out and I'm calm because I've handled this kind of stuff before. I can't change into my suit, but I've got my web-shooters on me and I pull on the mask. Everyone knows I'm Spider-Man, especially Flash."

Especially Flash.

"And I jump out of the window, and I'm fighting these aliens, and Mr. Stark's talking to me through the mask telling me the Avengers are being deployed and I'm like 'Little busy here!' and then there's a big fight with the boss, but the Avengers still aren't there, and I defeat him even though it's tough and then Thor and Iron Man show up and Thor gives me a high five and Mr. Stark says 'good job, kid'."

Peter can feel his face growing red.

"Like that."

Thankfully Alec was trained enough not to have his expression change as he listened. But really - that was probably the most embarrassing thing he had ever heard, and Peter talked a lot. He blinked, trying not to look too judgy. There were parts that didn't surprise him - like how Peter had to fight 'the boss' like it was some sort of video game or how Stark had to praise him. Alec was sure the Psy-ops division would have a field day psychoanalyzing that day dream.

"How would you be able to take on all the alien guys if you don't kill them? And why wouldn't the 'boss' just do whatever he wanted to do while you were fighting the other guys?"

"Web-shooters," Peter says, lifting the wrist of his good arm, as if to demonstrate. That reminds him -- he needs to replace his cartridges.

"And yeah, the boss would be... doing things --" Peter wasn't really thinking about what the boss was doing until he finally stopped an appropriate number of alien bad-guys. "-- and I'd have to stop him before he did more. Like, maybe he was coming close to achieving his objective--" Whatever that was. "--but I showed up just in time to stop him."

Alec listened, but his expression perhaps gave away that he had no real clue as to why this was an enjoyable thing for Peter to think about. Also the logistics were all off. Peter was assuming somehow the timing would work and - he stopped himself from over-analyzing. He was pretty sure he'd go insane.

"What happens afterwards? You finish your science test?"

"No, you usually stop daydreaming after the hi-fives and Iron Man telling you you did a good job."

This was embarrassing. Why did he even say this? Alec probably thought he was totally uncool. Or more uncool.

Peter looks down at his bandaged arm.

"You have to try now," he says.

"okay..." He didn't know why he'd do it, but he supposed it was similar to running through variants of an outcome.

"Uh. We're running in the desert and you slow down so we make it through the whole thing without getting attacked by hyenas." He paused. "...then we high five?"

Peter frowns at Alec's answer in obvious disapproval.

"Something better," he says.

Alec wondered if his sometimes fantasies of women counted.

"Fine. I'm in a Jacuzzi and there's this woman-"

"No, not that kind of daydream!"

Peter facepalms with his good arm. "Come on!"

"Alright, fine." He paused and thought. It was sort of cheating, but, "Max and I decide to save the day because that's what we do and we end up at a strip club -" He shot Peter a look that said 'relax' " - and there's this mermaid there and we decide to help her escape, but some guy shows up we think is the enemy and while we're kicking his ass, the mermaid is captured and that dude ends up being the mermaid's mate. So we team up and get her back and those two swim away happily ever after... then Max and I high five each other."

"You're not taking this seriously," Peter moans. He's pretty sure Alec is just screwing with him. "Come on, Alec. Just close your eyes and think about something you think would be cool. And not women and not alcohol and not any of that other stuff," he says, because he knows there's almost certainly something that he's neglected to put on that list.

He sighed. "Fine. But for the record that really happened.. except for the high five part."

Alec closed his eyes though, just for Peter, and tried to think of something. It took him a long time.

"We're in Jam Pony and we're surrounded by cops and White's people are coming in... and instead of leaving them there, we kill them and kill White and don't ever have to worry about them again."

He opened his eyes with an expression that said 'good enough'?

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