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"C'mon, Pete," Harry cajoles, throwing an arm around Peter's shoulders. "It'll be fun! Fresh air, a rustic cabin, a beautiful lakeside view...."
There's a faint hint of desperation to Harry's beaming smile, and Peter sighs, turning a little sideways as Harry pulls him through the doors of The Daily Grind. On the plus side, at least Harry picked the closest place to campus to deliver his elevator pitch. On the minus, Peter has the distinct feeling he's going to need something stronger than coffee to deal with Harry's latest crisis.
"Did you get banned from Aspen again?" It's the only reason he can think of for Harry to be abandoning his usual haunts for a wholesome weekend getaway in the middle of nowhere. He can't see Harry's girlfriend putting up with it either; MJ is a lot of things, but outdoorsy she is not.
"No!" Harry protests a little too quickly, though he sounds genuine enough. "Can't a guy broaden his horizons?"
Peter stares, eyebrow raised. Harry squirms.
"Okay, and Anna really likes hiking," he admits, suddenly finding the menu board impossibly fascinating as Peter continues to stare.
Great. So Harry and MJ are on the outs again, and if MJ isn't coming, that means Gwen definitely isn't coming. Which is fine--he's not pining after Gwen...anymore--but it doesn't bode well for Peter's sanity if he's going to be forced to socialize for an entire weekend with Harry's upper-crust acquaintances. "I dunno, Harry," he hedges as the line ahead of them moves up a pace. "I've got a lot of assignments I need to get through for next week, and I don't think a big party's going to--"
"No, no, no! No party! Seriously, it'd just be the three of us and Anna's friend Mika! You'll like her--she's a physics major, probably have her nose buried in a book right alongside you."
Peter narrows his eyes. "Is this a weekend getaway or a 'set Peter up' getaway?"
Harry laughs, pulling him closer in a rough side-hug. "Are you kidding? If I were trying to set you up, I'd ask Anna to bring her brother too. Why skimp on the options?"
Despite his suspicions, Peter doesn't fight the wry smile that tugs at his mouth. Harry knows him too well. "Fine. So how rustic are we talking about? Am I still going to be able to use the internet or what?"
"Oh, sure. It's actually one of the company properties," Harry continues blithely, eyes scanning the menu for real this time. "Some kind of retreat setup, so there's plenty of room. There's a facility out that way too, I think, so if anything goes wrong with the cabin, I'm sure we can call maintenance to come sort it out."
Peter resists the urge to drop his face into his palm. That's...not how on-site maintenance works, he's pretty sure, but the Osborns have no notion of the separation of business and personal use, so he's not particularly surprised. "Why do you have a facility in the middle of nowhere?" he asks instead. "Isn't that a bit inconvenient?"
Harry just shrugs. "Taxes, probably. Why? Want me to see if they're hiring? If you're looking to graduate into a sweet job outside the city...."
"I'm not going to mooch off your family for a job," Peter protests, rolling his eyes. He doesn't add that he's got a fairly dim opinion of Oscorp's containment policies; after nearly being bitten by an escaped lab specimen on a school-sponsored trip, the only job he'd be tempted to accept from Harry's dad is Safety Compliance Officer. "I will mooch off you for coffee, however," he adds before Harry can protest yet again that they're friends, like that's the only argument he needs. Peter's a growing college boy, and growing college boys need their caffeine.
***
They end up taking two cars, Peter and Harry in Harry's utterly impractical BMW, the ladies in a sporty Jeep with aspirations of one day growing into a full SUV. Anna turns out to be the driver, but both women are dressed for backpacking, in sturdy boots and loose, comfortable clothes. Peter finds himself casting a sidelong look at Harry, wondering if his friend is going to be able to keep up or whether Peter's been dragged here as company for Harry while his prospective girlfriend amuses herself. It's no skin off Peter's back either way; he's only here for the free food and free wi-fi, plus moral support as necessary.
"Hi, Harry!" Anna greets him warmly with an unself-conscious little wave. She's model-pretty, with big green eyes and dark hair caught up in a ponytail, but it's the artless sort of prettiness Peter's not used to seeing in Harry's polished crowd. "Thanks again for inviting us--this is Mika, by the way."
Mika waves as well as she comes around the front of the Jeep, a stuffed blue duffle hoisted over one shoulder. Though she's half a head shorter than Anna, she balances her heavy-looking pack without effort, lean muscle standing out under tanned skin. "Hi, Harry. Hi...Peter, right? Nice to meet you."
"You too," Peter replies, though he sort of wants to nail Harry with an elbow, just to make absolutely certain this isn't another case of Harry throwing cute blondes--and blonds--in his direction. Harry really does seem taken with Anna if his goofy grin is any indication, so Peter's willing to let his suspicions lie for the moment.
"I'm glad you both could make it," Harry jumps in, beaming widely. "I haven't been out here before myself, but I hear the trails and the fishing are great if you don't mind roughing it."
Peter's tempted to roll his eyes. The 'rustic' cabin he'd been promised is a sprawling ranch house in a faux-log cabin style, with a back deck that extends out right onto the water. The lake itself is good-sized but private; there are no other houses in their immediate vicinity, and Peter had seen only a few turnoffs in the wooded path they drove to get here.
"You're not kidding about the rustic," Mika says with apparent sincerity, only to hold up her phone with a grin. "No bars."
"She's married to her media," Anna explains, bumping her friend's shoulder with her own.
"No, I'm married to my thesis. I'm cheating on it with Tumblr," Mika huffs, mock-insulted. "We're very happy together."
"Don't worry; there's internet in the cabin," Harry assures her quickly. "Pete made very certain of that before we ever left the city."
"Yeah, well, you know how it is," Peter says with a shrug, unabashed.
"Grad student," all four of them chorus in unison, which loosens up the last of the remaining tension. Peter's still smiling as he follows Harry up the gravel path to the front door. He may not have wanted to come, and he has no expectations of the weekend beyond gaining another pair of friends, but he has to admit, he has a good feeling about their little group. Far from having to put up with noisy, drunken rich kids for an uncomfortable forty-eight hours, he thinks they're going to get along just fine.
***
They take it easy that first day, tired from morning classes and the drive out of the city. The approach of fall is measured mostly by a certain crispness in the air; the trees that hem them in are still lush and green, spreading a broad canopy overhead. The rolling tide of undergrowth that washes up almost to the foot of the house remains thick, disgorging the occasional bird as they make a meandering circuit of the property.
"Jump scare," Mika says the first time it happens, the scolding calls of a jay fading into the distance as they laugh.
There are picnic tables on the back deck, an imposing wheeled grill tucked away in a utility room, but none of them have ever used one before--the grill is his Uncle Ben's sole purview--and burning the place down doesn't sound like the greatest beginning to their weekend. Instead they find a refrigerator stocked with catered meals, and Peter can't even feel guilty for taking advantage of Harry's blithe assumption that food will simply appear when it's required. Peter's not hopeless in a kitchen, but he's used to following his Aunt May's instructions, and he knows for a fact that distracted cooking can be almost as hazardous as distracted driving.
No one wants to turn in early, even with the promise of a busy morning, so they stay up late watching old comedies. Peter thinks once or twice of the reading he should be getting caught up on, the essay due next Friday, but surely he's entitled to a little time off. One weekend won't kill him.
***
"So which way do we want to go first?" Anna asks between bites over breakfast. "Do we have maps? We can always make a trip around the lake...."
"Oh, right--there were maps with the packet they sent. Hold on," Harry says, politely wiping his mouth as he gets up from the table. He looks very dashing in his new hiking gear, but Peter commits himself to blowing off his coursework for another day, only semi-reluctantly. Someone has to make sure Harry doesn't keel over pushing himself to keep up.
He comes back with a large manilla envelope and shakes out a square card printed with important numbers, a spare set of keys that he hands to Anna, and a simple, brochure-style map which mainly focuses on the highway exit and the meandering track they took to get here. Peter remembers being very grateful for Harry's GPS. The map has a few trails marked, one being a spur that leads to a much larger National Forest System trail. There's also a clearly-marked back road that leads straight to the Oscorp facility Harry had mentioned, just in case visitors cared to mix a little business with their pleasure.
Anna's eyes light up when she sees the National Forest trail, but Mika reins her in quick. "We should probably pick an easier route to start, give our feet a chance to work up to something longer."
"Ugh, I know. I don't know about you two, but we spent way too long cooped up this summer," Anna say with a sigh.
"Well," Harry says gamely, "maybe just to where the trails meet up? That doesn't look too far."
They pack sandwiches, just in case the map's scale is deceiving, setting out after a break to check emails and catch up with posts while breakfast settles. Harry's not the only one to pocket his cell phone as they leave, more out of habit than anything. The wi-fi at the cabin is pretty strong, but they pass out of range almost immediately.
It's a nice morning, the air cool but not cold, with clear skies and just enough wind to sweep the woodsy mugginess from the air. He's pretty sure Anna and Mika are taking it easy on them, but he's got no complaints. Scrambling around to catch the perfect shot for his job with the paper keeps him in decent enough shape, but he's no Steve Rogers.
They reach the intersection of the two trails around noon, stopping for lunch in a little clearing where a fallen tree gives them a natural place to sit. Mika pokes sadly at her phone while Harry and Anna trade stories about the wedding of someone Peter's never heard of.
"Still no signal?" Peter asks in commiseration.
"Nope," Mika sighs, tucking her phone away. "And we should be closer to the town, but I guess we're still too far out. Either that or my carrier sucks."
Peter laughs. "Don't I know it. I get dead spots in Queens, but I got my phone through work, so I can't really complain."
It gets warmer as they start to head back, the forest going sleepy and slow as the temperature rises. Eventually even the birdsong tapers off, leaving only the quiet click and chirr of insects in the undergrowth. Pleasantly tired and looking forward to curling up on one of the couches with his assigned reading, Peter thinks nothing of it until he notices Anna looking around them with a frown.
"Is something up?" Peter asks, taking a quick look around as well.
Anna hesitates before hunching a shoulder. "It's quiet."
"Too quiet," Mika adds solemnly, which startles a laugh out of the rest of them.
"Think it might be a bear?" Peter asks, feeling like a true city kid, because of course that's the first place his mind goes when it comes to dangers lurking in the woods. He's not actually sure what he's supposed to do if the answer is yes; mostly he's hoping the answer will be no.
"Mn...a dog, more likely," Anna says, shaking her head. "Or another hiker. If there are bears in the area, they belong here. It's humans that are scary."
"Tell that to the bears," Harry quips, glancing furtively at the trees.
They're close enough to see the cabin up ahead when they come across the first mangled trunk, sap bleeding sluggishly from pale, exposed wood where the bark's been ripped away. A few straight furrows are scored deeper still, as randomly-placed as the bark flakes chipped unevenly from the tree. A quick glance around finds another similarly-marked trunk closer to the cabin, a third right up at the edge of the trees, but it's anyone's guess whether the damage is new or had been there when they left for their walk. They'd have had their backs to it walking away.
"Uh...still not bears?" peter asks hopefully.
Anna looks troubled. "Still definitely not bears. It looks more like someone's trying to mark a trail, but...badly."
"Amateur hikers?" Harry suggests, half-turning to look back the way they came. "Could be someone wandering around lost. We should check to see if anyone left a note. Even if they missed us, they'd have seen our cars."
There's no note, though, or any sign that anyone had approached the house at all. In the absence of any obvious mischief left behind, Peter chalks the mystery up to the casual rudeness of strangers, but he still finds himself stopping to listen at every stray creak of timber.
***
The sun's been down for an hour or so when Mika comes out of her room, hair still damp from a shower, with her phone in hand and a frustrated frown creasing her brows. "Wireless is down. Has anyone seen the router?"
Anna's still taking her own shower, but Peter and Harry join in the search at once. They find it in the den, but after several attempts at resetting it, it's reluctantly pronounced dead at the scene. "I'll see if there's a number for the internet provider," Harry offers, skimming the emergency contact card as he fetches the cabin's portable phone from its charging station.
The moment he puts it to his ear, he stops, pulls it away to glance down at it, and looks up again with a sheepish grimace. "Ah. Must be a downed line somewhere. I'm not even getting a dial tone."
"Either that or we're in a horror movie," Mika jokes with the faintest trace of unease. "I mean, it's the classic setup, right? Four attractive college kids, house in the middle of the woods...if there were more of us, I'd say one of us is bound to be the--"
Anna's short, sharp yelp of shock has the three of them bolting to her room, almost crashing into her when she dives out into the hall and slams the door behind her. Dressed for bed in a faded tee and flannel shorts, she still has her brush in hand, hair half-combed and face pale. "What happened?" Harry and Mika shout over each other, Harry hovering while Mika grabs Anna by the elbow, ready to pull her further away from the door if need be.
"There was someone at my window," Anna says, looking queasy. "I only saw him for a second, but...there really was someone there."
"We believe you," Peter says grimly, trading looks with Harry and Mika. "We just found out the internet and phone are down."
Anna starts, wide-eyed. "You think they were cut?"
"We do now," Mika mutters, casting a furious look at the closed door at Anna's back. "Look. Maybe I've watched too many horror movies, but I don't want to be one of the dumb extras who gets taken out in the first fifteen minutes. If the phones are down, the power could be next. We need flashlights and anything that could be used as a weapon, right now. Nobody leaves the group for any reason."
"Should--should we try to drive out of here?" Harry asks, eyes darting to each of them in turn.
Mika hesitates, like she's already seen an obvious problem and really doesn't want to say it out loud.
Anna takes a deep breath, pushing her startlement aside. "If we do, we should take mine. It can handle rougher terrain."
"Absolutely," Harry says without hesitation. "So. Flashlights. Didn't we see something like that with the grill?"
They travel as a knot, pulling doors closed to the left and right on Mika's advice as they pass. The utility room is a treasure trove: they find a box of heavy Maglite flashlights, a stash of spare batteries, half a dozen hurricane lanterns, and a well-stocked toolbox. The rest of them have already armed themselves with a selection of knives from the kitchen, but Peter reconsiders his choice of cleaver when Mika claims a hammer with a determined scowl.
"Okay," Harry says as they shuffle back through the kitchen and out into the hall. Most of the windows have full curtains, but most of the curtains are still pulled aside. Peter can't tell whether the weight of eyes between his shoulder blades is his imagination or not. "Keys. And shoes," he adds, flexing his socked toes against the hardwood floor. "Maybe we should all get dressed?"
They troop into each other's rooms as a group, but they don't linger for long. They grab only what they need, retreating back into the hallway to struggle quickly into their clothes, both pairs turning their backs to the other.
They approach the front door cautiously, Peter and Harry in the lead. Harry flicks the switch for the porch light, but nothing happens; either the bulb's been broken or quietly removed. Taking a firmer grip on the crowbar he replaced his cleaver with, Peter meets Harry's eyes and nods once as Harry unlocks the door.
Harry throws it open wide, but there's no one waiting on the other side, just the quiet of a wooded night, a slim rectangle of the front drive lit by the glow streaming past them. The wind has died down, only the quiet drone of crickets echoing back from the trees, but there's a held-breath stillness in the air that Peter doesn't think is just him.
"Wait," Mika says, grabbing Harry's arm as he makes to step out onto the front porch. "Can we check the tires from here?"
Peter's hands are busy with his crowbar, but Anna steps up close at Mika and Harry's backs, all three of them training their beams on first the Jeep, then Harry's car. It's depressingly easy to see that both vehicles are sitting on their rims, punctured tires sagging.
"Damn," Harry says, flashlight dropping a little as his shoulders droop. "That's...really not--"
Peter barely sees the motion in time as something arcs out from the shadows right beside them. He has the confused impression of a tall, broad figure uncoiling from where it'd been pressed against the wall beside the door, the swing of an arm, no, a bat--
Harry makes a weird, choked sound as Peter grabs him by the shirt and hauls him back, half a cry and half a cough. Peter slams his shoulder into the door to knock it closed, bracing himself just as something hits it from the outside, before he can throw the locks. The sound of splintering wood turns his stomach to ice. Not a bat, oh fuck, that wasn't--
Still holding the door closed, fumbling clumsily at lock and chain and deadbolt, he casts a panicked look over his shoulder and nearly freezes. Harry's sitting on the floor, white as a sheet, and there's blood everywhere.
A screech of wood-on-wood startles him back to himself, and he looks over in time to see Mika throw her entire weight against an antique pigeonhole dresser set up as a sort of visitor's station in the foyer. Though she's tiny and the thing has to be solid oak, she shifts it step by steady step until it's blocking the front door and Peter can move out of the way.
Slumping over it to catch her breath, she grins up at him, saying, "Women's soccer team. Every day is leg day."
"I definitely need to catch more of our games," Peter says distractedly, already moving to kneel on Harry's left. Anna's on his other side, slipping out of the button-up shirt she'd pulled on over her sleeping tee to press it against the long, deep wound in Harry's chest. It's hard to see anything under the thick, dark blood streaming out, but when Anna pulls back her wadded shirt just a little to check, all they see is flesh, no bone. If he hadn't already been pulling Harry back, though...if that axe blade had dug a little deeper....
"There's a first aid kit in the kitchen," Anna says, and Peter doesn't hesitate to break their cardinal rule, scrambling up to sprint off alone.
He has to ransack several cabinets to find it, hyper-aware the entire time of the cutesy half-curtains framing the window over the sink, impossible to fully close even if he'd wanted to. The minute he lays hands on the familiar plastic box, he dashes back to the others like he's being chased, nerves buzzing the entire time.
Heart in his throat, he watches Anna clean and pack the wound with unfaltering competence. Harry barely winces, probably in shock--convenient, seeing as the strongest painkiller they have is Tylenol.
"I think he'll be fine," Anna says as she finishes, taping a thick bandage to Harry's chest. Harry is out, but Anna hadn't seemed worried, stopping only to check his pulse before moving on with her work. "But we need to get him to a real doctor, and I don't know how much he should be moved. Or how well he's going to be able to."
"You know we're going to have to walk out of here," Mika reminds her, voice tight. "I'd have said four against one were pretty good odds, but...."
She's right. Harry's not going to be able to help them beyond maybe holding a flashlight, if they're crazy enough to make the trek in the dark. But there are a lot of big muscles in the chest, muscles that connect up to other important things, and like it or not, Harry's going to be moving like an old man for a while even if nothing vital got severed.
"I'll go," Peter offers at once. "For help, I mean. If he can't be moved come daylight."
Anna frowns, uncertain. "I'd be the fastest...."
"Yeah, but you're also our medic," Peter points out. He has the distinct feeling that no one who's friends with Mika could possibly object to using gamer logic, and that's something he's good at. "And I don't like the idea of leaving anyone stuck in one place without a guard. Besides, I may not look it, but I'm pretty fast on my feet." He also doesn't want to mention it, but the guy who attacked them was big. He has no illusions that he could overpower someone that size, but years of putting up with Flash's bullying have taught him to fight dirty.
Anna and Mika trade looks, Mika biting her lip until Anna nods.
"Great. Okay, so...I guess we wait for dawn." Peter clamps his mouth shut before he can start to babble. He's relieved not to be putting anyone else in danger, but he's also worried he won't be able to follow through, that splitting up will just make everyone's chances that much worse. He's not even sure the cops will believe him assuming he manages to find a signal or a neighboring phone. His whole story's going to sound like a cheap thriller.
"Hey," he remembers suddenly, turning to Anna. "That guy. When you saw him earlier. Did you get a good enough look to describe him?"
Anna shakes her head, mouth pulling to one side. "Not really? He moved pretty fast. Just...I couldn't tell you what exactly, but...there was definitely something wrong with his face."
***
By the time the sun comes up over the trees, everyone's exhausted, even Harry, who slept most of the night through. Despite Harry's determination to go with them so no one was left behind, it was obvious each jostling step was an act of will.
"Hey, it's fine," Peter swears with a confident smile. "Leave it to me. I've been dodging goons like Flash for how many years?"
"Just make sure you dodge this one too," Harry replies, fussing unhappily with the makeshift sling his right arm is caught up in. "You know your uncle will kill me if I don't bring you back in the same shape I borrowed you, and I love May's pie too much to disappoint her. You have the map?"
Peter pats his right front jeans pocket. "Right here." It's only a copy of the map they arrived with, at Peter's insistence, marked with their best guesses at where they'd seen the few turnoffs to what might be neighboring houses on the way. He's not thrilled about taking the road, knowing his route is going to be far too predictable, but trying to travel cross-country is out of the question. If he gets lost out there, they're all screwed.
"All right," Harry sighs. "Good luck."
Peter's careful as he leaves, checking outside the door first after making a careful circuit of the windows, but he's not exactly Hawkeye, or Kraven the Hunter, or...someone else who can see a bent leaf and tell what the person passing by had had for lunch. Maybe that's Sherlock Holmes. He does his best, and he's not attacked the minute he steps out of the house, so for now he'll assume his best is good enough.
He's got his map, his crowbar, plus a flashlight, some food, and a spare knife in his otherwise-empty backpack, traveling as light and smart as he can. He really hopes not to need the flashlight, but he feels better just knowing it's there.
Though he sets out at a jog, he pulls himself up soon enough, wary of running out of energy too soon. He knows time is of the essence, but there's always the possibility that he may need to run at some point, and he wants to make sure he still has the strength for it if the need arises.
He keeps his eyes peeled, his ears sharp, turns a quick circle often without slowing down, but the path remains empty, before and behind. He might as well be taking a quiet nature walk for all the danger he sees. He really wishes that comforted him more.
The first turnoff is a bust. There's a gate across the gravel road, but it's so rusted and overgrown, it's clear no one's been out this way for a year or more. The second has a 'Lot for Sale' sign stuck into the mulch by a sagging barbed wire fence, the notice listing acreage but no mention of a house.
He almost passes by the third, but he can hear some kind of rhythmic thumping echoing weakly through the trees, like someone driving posts or hammering in something unwieldy.
The house on which the trees open up is more what Peter had in mind when Harry mentioned a rustic cabin. It's small, maybe one-bedroom; a little dilapidated, but sturdily constructed. There's some sort of stripped-down buggy parked out front, red and black and gleaming like it's just had a fresh coat of wax. Peter supposes it counts as off-road, but it still looks vaguely out of place in the middle of the woods.
He almost goes to knock on the front door, except the noise he's been hearing is coming from behind the house.
He freezes when he turns the corner, pulse hammering in his throat. The man standing there is huge, six feet if he's an inch and likely more, with the shoulders of a linebacker and arm muscles that strain the cloth of what should have been a loose black hoodie. He's got his back to Peter, but the axe in his hands is really hard to miss. The only thing stopping Peter from melting away is the enormous pile of firewood stacked up against the back of the man's cabin--the cabin which even now is sprouting a thin plume of woodsmoke from a single, central chimney--and the practiced way he reaches for the next log. He looks like a normal guy doing chores, not a pyscho killer. Peter can only hope that's true.
"Um, hello?" he calls, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot. The guy pauses but doesn't turn around. He doesn't seem particularly startled, either, Peter realizes uneasily. Then again, he hadn't exactly been trying to keep quiet on his approach. "Hey, uh...my friends and I have run into a little trouble, and we're not getting any reception out here. Do you have a--"
"Phone's inside," the guy says shortly, jerking his head toward the back door. His voice is weirdly rough, like someone who's been smoking for fifty years or coughing through a nasty bout of the flu for a week. "Don't mind the mess."
He still has his back to Peter, like he doesn't even care to know who he's about to allow in his home. When Peter takes a few cautious steps closer, the man tenses, big shoulders hitching protectively inward.
There's definitely something wrong here, and Peter's starting to think that intruding on this guy's turf might be the biggest mistake of his life, but if he turns back now and this guy turns out to be just some antisocial mountain man, he's never going to forgive himself.
"So you haven't had any trouble?" Peter asks, inching another step forward but still ready to bolt. "Because we're pretty sure our lines have been cut."
That gets the guy's attention. "Cut?" he asks with an audible frown, turning at last, and--
Fuck. Oh, fuck.
There's something wrong with his face.
Peter's brain is telling him to run, but his feet remain nailed to the ground. He's not one to stare at people's scars--his aunt is a nurse, had disabused him quickly of every stupid notion he'd ever brought home as a kid--but he can guess why Anna had had trouble describing what she'd seen. He looks like he's been through a fire, except the shape of his face is perfect, like only his skin had turned molten, cooling in strange patterns over untouched flesh.
Peter isn't blinking--isn't breathing--so he sees the flash of hurt and self-disgust that crosses the man's face in perfect clarity. Reflex unlocks his jaw, an apology stuttering at the back of his throat, until suddenly the man is moving, and Peter loses his breath to panic once more.
Big as he is, the scarred man is terrifyingly fast. When he lunges at Peter, he closes the distance between them so quickly, Peter doesn't even have time to stumble back out of the way. One big hand, scarred as the guy's face, fists on the front of Peter's shirt, and then he's being wrenched forward, tossed behind the man--
Who brings his axe up to block a blow that would have taken Peter's head clean off his shoulders.
"Man, I moved out here to get away from all of this," Peter's unexpected savior grumbles, but he doesn't honestly sound that displeased.
Sprawled in a drift of dried leaves, Peter stares wide-eyed as the scarred man shoves his opponent back with a faint grunt of effort. The second man is just as big, just as broad, but that's where the similarities end. The axe the cabin's owner is swinging could have come from Home Depot, a plain tool for ordinary work. The other man's looks like something from a medieval reenactment, goes perfectly with his form-fitting black gear and cowl, but his face--
He takes it all back. The cabin owner's face may be scarred, but it's still just a face, one he could get used to easily enough. The other guy doesn't quite look like he was ever human to begin with, the shape of his skull strangely exaggerated, his skin an unhealthy green tint that makes Peter think of zombies, or orcs, or goblins.
The scarred man doesn't seem deterred at all, matching the goblin blow for blow. They're both ridiculously fast, unbelievably strong; when the goblin blocks a two-handed blow with the metal haft of his own weapon, the wooden handle of the mundane axe gives an ominous crack, as if its owner's own strength was too much for it. Grinning wide and unnatural, the goblin disengages and catches the other man with a fast swipe across the chest, driving the air out of him in a startled huff.
Peter's on his feet before he realizes he means to move, hand closing on the crowbar he'd dropped and forgotten as he rises.
"Fuck you," the scarred man growls as he falls back a pace. "I liked this hoodie."
For the first time, the goblin's confident smirk falters. His eyes flick down to the other man's chest and back, poison-green eyes wide with disbelief, and he's a fraction slower to block as the next swing slices the air. The goblin catches it, turns the blow--delivered up with the same speed and strength as before, and how the heck is Peter's defender still on his feet?--but he's too slow to face a second threat when Peter charges up on the scarred man's left, grips his crowbar in both hands, and slams it into the side of the goblin's knee.
He doesn't have time to protest as the scarred man's axe comes down one final time, sinking into the goblin's neck and glancing off his collarbone before coming to a stop, way too deep. Knee already buckling, the goblin's legs give out entirely as he clutches at his neck, weapon falling unnoticed to the ground. Peter drops his own weapon as he staggers back and then stumbles to a halt, torn between diving back in to try and staunch the bleeding and his wariness of being tricked with one last attack. None seems to be forthcoming; before Peter can make up his mind to risk doing the right thing, the goblin slumps over, so gracelessly he can't be anything but dead.
Reminded abruptly that the goblin wasn't the only one injured, Peter spins to face the other man, but instead of a repeat of Harry's mutilated torso, all he sees is one clean cut through a suspiciously-damp hoodie and a whole lot of skin, scarred but unbroken.
"What the...?" Peter starts forward automatically, only to freeze again as the other man leans subtly away.
"Healing factor," he's told with a shrug as long fingers pinch together the edges of the ruined hoodie as if to hide his skin from view.
Peter's ears burn; he feels like an absolute monster. "No, you're fine," he says quickly, "I'm sorry I--earlier--we just...we never got a good look at the guy, and my friend only saw there was something...different about his...."
"His face?" Peter cringes in mortification, but the other man snorts a quiet laugh, hand falling away from his chest. "Yeah, I get that a lot. Name's Wade, by the way. You a super?"
"Me?" Peter blurts, stunned. "No way--I'm a grad student at ESU. Um...I freelance for the Bugle? I'm not...I'm just...Peter."
Wade nods easily, only to follow up with, "Then how'd you run afoul of one of Osborn's minions?"
Peter feels his face go cold as all the blood rushes elsewhere. "Osborn?"
Wade shrugs. "Yeah, you know. Norman's Goblin Army? I mean, okay, nobody can prove he's the one making them, but it's kind of an open secret, you feel me? Oh, shit, wait," Wade says, standing up straighter, eyes rounding with concern. "You guys weren't squatting at that cabin out by the lake, were you?"
Too stunned to speak, Peter can only nod.
Wade puffs his cheeks, blowing out a sympathetic sigh. "Well, you're definitely not townies; all the locals know to stay away from that place. It's where Oscorp sends the new referrals, if by 'referral' I mean 'slated to get their asses mutated.' Oh, hey. Hold still."
"What?"
He's so distracted, he doesn't think to back away until Wade is practically right on top of him, reaching for his throat. He jerks back then, but before Wade can touch him, a sharp pain in the side of his neck makes him jump.
Wade grimaces, finishing his reach to flick something away from Peter's skin. "Yeah, that's gonna leave a mark. You're not allergic to spiders, are you?"
Hand clapped to the side of his neck, staring up at a kind face going fuzzy at the edges, Peter mumbles, "Spiders?"
He's falling forward in the next moment, faceplanting into the middle of a warm, broad chest--a very nice chest, matched perfectly to the solid arms that jerk up to catch him. A deep, gruff voice rumbles under his cheek, increasingly urgent, distracting him from the echoes building in his other ear. It's as if every blade of grass scraping against its neighbor, every brush of leaf against bark, is amplified, but his hearing is just the tip of the iceberg. If he concentrates, he can smell the soil at his back growing heavy with moisture, blood and earth mingling, but it's easier to concentrate on the clean sweat and musk right under his nose. Strange instincts twitch to life telling him he's found a good scent to sink into, a good sound to block out all the others, to ignore everything else because he's safe safe safe.
He wonders if the goblin's hitchhiker was meant for him again or Harry this time, and then he stops wondering anything at all, content to sink as he's scooped into steady arms and carried inside.