Morning Run (Closed to Peter

[st_x5_494]

Alec believed Peter when he said he'd be up. He knew Peter would take the challenge seriously, too, because the kid had this wish to show people he could do things. He just hoped Peter was actually ready for the amount of running today - almost 50 miles - and that he could keep up.

He padded out of his room in jogging pants and a t-shirt and eyed the room. "Ready or not, time to get your ass kicked."

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"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.

[st_x5_494]

"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.

[st_arkintern]

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."

[st_x5_494]

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."

[st_arkintern]

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."

[st_x5_494]

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.

[st_arkintern]

"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?"

[st_x5_494]

"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.

[st_arkintern]

"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."

[st_x5_494]

"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."

[st_arkintern]

"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."

[st_x5_494]

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."

[st_arkintern]

"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.

[st_x5_494]

"Would you say that to someone who was twelve?"

Alec slowed to a stop. "You want to go to the clinic, or you want me to fix you up in your room?"

[st_arkintern]

"Depends on what the 12-year old could do," Peter argues. "Besides, there's a huge difference between 12 and 16."

When Alec stops, Peter's quick to give his answer: "The room. I should probably be back to normal in a day, so there's no use making a big deal out of it."

[st_x5_494]

Alec was going to argue that Peter just told him that he had been fourteen at the time, but didn't. Instead, he headed for the rooms. He headed not through the front way, but through the back of the building in a manner that seemed to suggest he had studied how people moved in the inn and was avoiding the most popular places.

When he got the the room, he finally sat Peter down on a chair - no sense in getting blood on the bed. Alec now had a limp, but he disappeared into his bedroom and came out with the black pack of his. He brought out bandages, antisepic, and tools to stitch up Peter's arm. He also disappeared into the bathroom and came back with towels and used the bucket of ice as a bucket of water.

Despite having his own wounds, he moved to start to clean Peter's arm.

[st_arkintern]

"Shouldn't you take care of yourself first?" Peter asks, pointedly. "If you pass out or something, I'm not going to be able to do much to help."

Peter can at least admit he's in a sorry state right now.

[st_x5_494]

"I've been in worse." He really had. "We're made to be durable... I have a little longer before I need to rest. So, the lesson for the day is how to stitch up a wound." Alec wasn't going to be able to fix his back, after all.

Alec's brow was sweating though. He would have to stop soon.

He picked up the needle after Peter's wound was clean. "This is going to sting." He started to stitch the wound up with careful hands.

[st_arkintern]

Peter tenses up as Alec pierces through with the needle, but after that first intrusion, Peter finds himself slowly relaxing.

"Did you have to do this a lot?" he asks. Alec is surprisingly good at it -- his stitches are neat and even. Somehow Peter doubted that Alec was mending clothes, so that meant he had to have sewn someone else up at some point.

[st_x5_494]

"In the field? No, not really. More in the last year, sure." Because Manticore was hunting them, so it gave for more occasion/need for it. "But we had lessons on it all the time. We're no good if we can't keep going. We're also universal blood donours, if you ever need a transfusion or an organ of mine."

[st_arkintern]

"I hope I don't need your blood or your organs," Peter says. He winces as Alec pulls his needle through. Everything would be healed through soon enough, but this would probably help it.

"I'm B+," Peter says helpfully. "Would you be able to take my blood if you needed it, or is this a Type-O kind of thing?"

[st_x5_494]

"I'm O-... but I can only take blood from another X5. Same with organs." It would be a one-way deal. The healers here like Pike made the idea far less likely to need something like that, though.

Alec's almost done. It seems like the bleeding has stopped for his arm which was good.

[st_arkintern]

Peter feels a prickle of worry form at the back of his neck, but he tries really hard to ignore it. Alec was a super fast regenerator. There were also healers here, so blood transfusions and organs weren't likely to be a problem.

Those thoughts don't do much of anything to assuage his concern.

"You should take care of yourself first then," Peter grumbles.

[st_x5_494]

Over Alec's dead body would he take care of himself over Peter, but he didn't say that. Instead, he finished dressing Peter's wound, put gauze overtop.

"I'm fine. It just needs to be cleaned and stitched so it closes without a scar." He tugged off his shirt and tossed it into the garbage from where he was and then practically fell down into the chair. "I can work on my leg while you get my back. Just don't mess up too much." The last part was meant as a joke as her ripped his pant leg open more and began to clean the bite mark.

[st_arkintern]

Peter's not sure if he's capable enough to do this.

"Are you really going to let me do that?"

Let probably isn't the word he's looking for. Peter's by no means scrambling for the opportunity to stitch up someone else's back. Yeah, it might be a valuable life skill, but he was worried about screwing up and hurting Alec.

He's also pretty sure his stitches aren't going to look nearly as good as Alec's.