Chapter Text
As panicked as he was, Peter thought he could handle it when Toomes told Liz to get out of the car so he could talk to Peter alone.
His mind was still racing with the realization of the Vulture's identity and plans and what all of it would mean, for him and Liz and the Avengers compound and the people of New York, but— they were outside the school, dozens of other students and parents and teachers milling around outside the car. Toomes couldn't hurt anyone here, not right now, so Peter had time. Even with his mouth dry and hands shaking and mind scrambling for an out, he had time, he could figure something out, he could do this.
He thought through it as Toomes pulled out his gun, as he gave his speech. "I'll kill you, and I'll kill everyone you love," Toomes said, casual, and Peter's heart was pounding with anticipation and adrenaline but he was still thinking through it, still thinking about slipping his phone into the seatback pocket, when—
"And even if you do manage to catch me, kid— if I go to prison, I'll out your identity to every person you or your little spandex-wearing posse has ever put behind bars," Toomes continued, just as measured, "and how long do you think you'll be able to keep your aunt and your pudgy little friend alive after that?"
And Peter froze. He froze, because in all his worst-case-scenarios, in every downside he'd ever considered to being Spider-man, he'd stupidly— so stupidly, what was he thinking, Mr. Stark was right, he was right that Peter wasn't ready, wasn't enough for this— he'd never considered that.
Toomes smiled, then. Told Peter to thank him. Gave permission for Peter to get out of the car after he complied, wooden.
Peter didn't leave his phone behind.
Homecoming was probably fine. Peter didn't really remember. He knew he was acting at least a little weird, because even Ned ducked into his space to ask if he was okay at one point, but he also can't have been too weird, because Ned and Liz and MJ all accepted his excuse that he was getting a headache. He didn't really know how he did it, in the aftermath, but— something about that fear that stalled him from acting in the car also reached up and grabbed him when he almost felt himself being pulled under by the thought that somewhere out there the Vulture was completing his hit, he was stealing all of that tech from the StarkJet to put out onto the street and into criminals' hands, and the same fear told him to play it cool, act normal, show Liz a good time— but not too good of a time.
So he tapped into the same part of himself that he used to use to jump off of buildings and throw himself at armed criminals, even though the comparison made him sick to his stomach when he was being such a coward— but no, wouldn't it be more selfish to endanger May and Ned— no, no, he couldn't think about that— and he ate snacks and drank soda and cracked jokes and danced with his friends and danced with Liz.
"I really like you, Peter," Liz said at one point, and he did remember that, breaking through the fog of act normal, act normal. Her arms were around his neck, and she was standing very close as they swayed to the song that was playing. She was taller than him even in flats, and in her modest heels he had to look up to meet her eyes.
He said something— he knew he said something, even tongue-tied with the tangle of stress and startled delight wrestling in his gut— but then she kissed him, and the memory of his own words was washed away with the feeling of soft lips and scent of vanilla shampoo.
And then it was time to go home, and fingers of dread snuck their way back into Peter's haze of suppressed shame and adolescent warmth.
Toomes picked them up. He looked fine. No bruises, no scrapes, and he hadn't been arrested, so the heist must have gone well. Peter looked out the window or looked at the pictures Liz was showing him on her phone and answered in monosyllabic words.
"We're not dropping Peter off first?" Liz asked suddenly, and Peter blinked into awareness that— yeah, they were driving into Liz's nice neighborhood, not heading toward Peter's apartment—
"Nope, Mom wants you home," Toomes said cheerfully, and Liz huffed softly but didn't argue. Which meant— she wanted to spend more time with him, which was nice, but if she was getting dropped off first—
"See you on Monday, Peter," Liz said when they rolled to a stop, and her tone was soft and sweet and as flirty as she must have dared with her dad in the front seat, and Peter didn't know how to balance the fear and the pride at all, but he managed to tell her good night.
And then his attention was trained on Toomes, because— it really didn't make sense for them to drop Liz off first, so he wanted to talk to Peter alone, and why—
And even though Toomes was quiet until they were out of his neighborhood, Peter's senses were slowly whispering to him, get out.
"The hit went well," Toomes said finally, conversationally. "Which stays in this car, obviously. You did good tonight, but you understand that this is a standing deal. You don't spread any news about the Vulture; I don't spread any news about Spider-man."
He made a turn, and Peter's stomach dropped. They were heading away from Queens.
"I didn't say anything," he said, pulse rabbiting in his chest, and it should've been embarrassing to say— to confess to his own cowardice— but he didn't know why Toomes would be taking him somewhere else; if he was bothering to threaten Peter then he couldn't be planning to— to kill him, so—
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Good job, I said. You were a very good listener," Toomes said, glancing at Peter in the rearview mirror with an indulgent, almost fond grin.
The warnings from Peter's senses shifted from a whisper to an urging chant.
They were heading somewhere— sketchy, industrial. The Vulture's headquarters, or near it? Peter's hands gripped the seat as he said, "I'm not going to— help you. With— with any of it."
Toomes snorted, genuine amusement, and said, "I don't need your help, kid. Relax. I just want to have a conversation about where we stand."
He pulled up in front of an old building— some kind of warehouse— and put the car in park. Peter strained his senses, listening for the sounds of tech or the Vulture's crew or anything that might let him know what Toomes was planning, but the block's quiet was only broken by the click of Toomes unfastening his seatbelt.
"Stay put," Toomes said as he climbed out of the car, and Peter unfastened his own seatbelt in turn— no way was he just sitting there if Toomes was going to, what, vaporize the car with him inside of it or something— but all Toomes did was open the opposite backseat door and slide back into the car with Peter.
Goosebumps prickled along Peter's arms even despite the weight of his suit jacket and the beading of sweat at the base of his neck, his body going haywire with mixed signals as his senses screamed. But Toomes didn't even have a weapon with him— his handgun was back in the glovebox, Peter was pretty sure, and it just still didn't make any sense, it didn't make sense for Toomes to try so hard to scare him if he was just going to shoot him anyway—
"So," Toomes said, and he did such a good job of making himself sound jovial, reasonable, even while Peter's senses cringed away from the underlying malice. "I already told you what I'd do to protect my family, yeah? I'd die for them. I'd kill for them, Peter."
The arm rest of the door was hard where it pressed into Peter's back. It had already felt so claustrophobic sharing the car with Toomes even when he'd been in the front seat, but now, with him in the back— he was so big, and took up so much space, and when were adults ever in the backseat with kids, anyway? It hadn't felt so weird with Mr. Stark because he had a driver, at least—
"But what about you?" Toomes's smile turned sharper, less friendly. "What would you do to protect your family?"
"I— I told you," Peter said numbly, because this felt wrong, but surely it was just— knowing who Toomes was; what he had threatened to do. "I'm not going to help you, or— I-I won't hurt anyone. I'm not going to help you hurt anyone."
"And I told you, I'm not going to ask you to," Toomes said, shaking his head. His gaze was intent when he refocused on Peter's face and said, "But anything else, I bet. If not doing it meant that all kinds of bad people would come after them, I bet you'd do anything, anything else to keep your aunt safe. To keep your friends safe. Isn't that right?"
Peter's voice was frozen in his throat. It sounded like— but no, no, this was Liz's dad, he was just in this to make money, it couldn't— he couldn't—
So Peter nodded, an uncertain jerk of his head.
"That's what I thought," Toomes said, and he reached for his belt.
Peter's head hit the window as he jerked away, but he didn't register the pain under the ice-cold horror flooding his veins.
"No—"
"No?" Toomes was still so casual, unthreading the loose end of his belt through its buckle with steady hands like Peter wasn't groping blindly for the door latch. "Your choice, kid— you can take your chances with me, or your aunt can take her chances with every street thug that has a bone to pick with Spider-man."
Peter couldn't think. He couldn't think— Toomes was right, he couldn't do that to May, the kind of danger she would be in was totally different than the kind of danger Peter would if his identity leaked, except, that was the kind of danger he was in right now, wasn't it? But he couldn't— he couldn't let her get hurt, but he couldn't let this happen, but there was no way out, no way out—
"Mr. Toomes," he whispered, not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't make his voice any louder. "Please. You don't have to— you don't have to—"
Toomes laughed, popping the button open on his jeans.
"'Mr. Toomes,' he says; your aunt really did raise you right." He grinned, mean. "Hurry up, kid. If you're gonna fight, do it, and we'll let the chips fall where they may. Or lie down."
Peter was light-headed with how fast his heart was racing in his chest, and he forced out one more weak, useless little, "You can't."
"I can," Toomes said, calm. "Unless you're going to kill me."
He raised his eyebrows then, watching Peter intently, a challenge and an assessment all in one, and— and Peter realized with a sick lurch that he could; Toomes didn't have his gun and even if he did, in close quarters Peter was faster and stronger and it wouldn't even really be a fight, but—
"You could, if you really had the balls. It'd mean taking away a woman's husband and a girl's father, all to avoid a few minutes of lying there and thinking of England, but you could."
Liz.
Peter's breath shuddered in his chest, catching on the tears stinging his eyes, and Toomes grinned.
He hooked a hand under Peter's knee, dragging Peter onto his back on the seat. Peter's suit jacket bunched awkwardly under his back, and Peter was struck by the ridiculous thought of how he was going to explain the wrinkles to May.
"Mr. Toomes, please," he said, though he couldn't remember deciding to. "I get it, I get it, I won't tell on you, please don't—"
He kept waiting for the moment where Toomes would reveal that it was all a joke, a power display to scare Peter into keeping his mouth shut, but Toomes just scoffed, moving so that he was positioned between Peter's legs on the seat.
"That's great, Pete," he said, and the sound of his zipper was louder than any gunshot. "It's good you've already learned that, but you also need to learn what happens when you get yourself involved with real criminals, kid. You get in over your head, and this is what happens. You get hurt."
Toomes slid his hand into the triangle of his boxers that showed between the open flaps of his jeans, and Peter squeezed his eyes shut, letting his head fall back against the seat cushions. This was— was happening. He couldn't fight, he couldn't run, not without the Vulture making good on his threats; all he could do was try to talk Toomes out of it but he didn't have anything to use, nothing that would stand up to Toomes's blackmail—
"I'm not Spider-man anymore, I don't even have the suit," he said anyway in a rush of clumsy, trembling consonants and vowels, because he had to try. "I won't tell and I won't mess with your operation, even on accident, I can't do anything to you—"
"Peter," Toomes sighed, and Peter flinched like he'd be electrocuted when he felt Toomes's fingers wrap around his wrist. "Shut up."
He pulled Peter's hand against the tacky half-hardness of his cock and ignored Peter's shudder as he wrapped Peter's fingers around him, hand-over-hand. Peter draped his other arm over his face, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow. He had to get out of here, he had to get out, but he couldn't he couldn't he couldn't—
"There we go. You know what to do," Toomes said, urging into the ring of his and Peter's combined grip, but Peter was frozen.
Toomes uttered another rough laugh as he rocked into Peter's hand.
"Oh, come on, kid; you can't play that innocent with me," he said. "I know you know how to jerk off, so get over yourself and get to it."
And what else could he do?
Peter grit his teeth and tried to— pretend, pretend that nothing else was happening and he was just in bed in his room after getting back from the dance and it was his own cock that his hand was wrapped around, that he was pumping his fist over, but his fingers were cold and his breath was too loud and too fast and shaking in his ears and there were tears soaking into the sleeve of his jacket, and Toomes was— making noise, soft little grunts, and still fucking forward into Peter's grip, and his bulk and his breaths and the smell of his lemongrass soap were too much to ignore, too much to tune out—
But thinking like that made a sob want to catch in Peter’s throat, and he couldn't— break down, because who knew what Toomes would do to him if he couldn't keep even this up, what if Toomes put him in the floorboards or turned him over onto his stomach or— so it was fine it was fine, he could still pretend, he would just have to pretend something— different—
So he imagined Mr. Stark. The old hurt of thinking about him was washed away to nothing under Peter's horror, so it didn't sting to imagine it, what it would be like if it was Mr. Stark who had Peter spread out on his backseat and was rutting into his grip.
Mr. Stark's voice was smoother than Toomes's, and he was always talking, so he would talk more. Peter's mind instinctively skittered away from what he would normally fantasize about Mr. Stark saying to him— 'that's it, kid, just like that' or 'fuck, you feel good' or any number of filthy things, but that's not what he wanted right now, what he wanted was— Mr. Stark pressed over him, nuzzling into his neck, sighing Peter's name and telling him that he would be okay and he was doing just fine and that he was perfect—
Toomes grunted, his cock fully hard under Peter's hand at this point, and shifted his weight, leaning further over Peter's body. Peter tensed even before he felt the fingers probing against his lips, letting the mechanical rhythm of his hand falter, and Toomes said, "Don't stop, kid. Open up."
Peter's breath hitched on an involuntary whimper, his throat locking up with another wave of panicked revulsion, but there was nothing for him to do except part his lips, letting Toomes press his fingers into his mouth to slide them over his tongue.
Toomes urged his hips more insistently into Peter's grip with a little gratified groan, but his voice was almost casual as he said, "Suck."
It would be over soon. It would be over soon. Peter just had to make him come, and then it would be over and he would get to go home and forget it ever happened, so—
Peter sucked at the fingers in his mouth, letting himself pretend that it was the salty musk of Mr. Stark's cock, letting himself pretend that it was his own dick that he was working his hand over, and he didn't fight when Toomes pumped his fingers through the seal of his lips or when his breath grew more ragged.
But when Toomes finally pulled his fingers away, dragging them down Peter's chin and then reaching for his belt—
"No—"
Peter reacted on instinct, scrambling partially upright and twisting his hips away from Toomes's hands as best as he could with Toomes between his legs, but Toomes only rolled his eyes.
"Don't be a girl about it now, Pete," Toomes said, pressing a hand to Peter's shoulder. "I'm not gonna pop your cherry. Lay down."
Peter stayed frozen under the too-hot press of Toomes's hand, mind utterly blank in his panic. He knew he needed to— do something, listen to Toomes or finally fight and run away or something, but the adrenaline was so urgent in his system that all he could process was no no no no—
Until Toomes's eyes went flat and cold, and he increased the weight of his palm against Peter's shoulder, saying, "I'm not going to tell you again."
No. No. No. No—
Peter laid down.
Toomes wanted to untuck his shirt, it turned out. He hiked it up over Peter's stomach and pressed himself over Peter's body, and when he came from a combination of Peter's hand on his cock and his fingers shoved far enough down Peter's throat to make him gag, Peter felt the hot threads of come spatter over his bared skin like boiling water.
Toomes sighed roughly and moved to sit back, patting Peter's flank.
"There," he said, as Peter stayed motionless against the seat, his hand and stomach sticky with come. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Toomes gave him some napkins to clean up with and took him home.
"Remember to put on a good show for your aunt," he said before Peter climbed out of the car. "We don't need to talk about what happens otherwise, right?"
Peter did his best. He showed May his pictures and tried to smile and begged off for bed by saying all the noise had given him a headache and he was tired from all the fun. She was still concerned, he thought— she asked him if things had gone okay with Liz— but she didn't push when he brushed off her questions, so— it was fine. It's not like she would think— there was no reason for her to wonder if—
It was fine.
It wasn't his problem anymore, he rationalized once he was alone in the shower and didn't have anything to distract him from his thoughts. He wasn't Spider-man anymore— that hadn't been a lie— so the Vulture wasn't his problem. The weapons weren't his problem.
Toomes wasn't his problem.
He wouldn't even really ever have to see him again. Yeah, there was— Liz— but, well, she was a senior and was going to be graduating this year anyway, so it's not like they were going to get married or anything. And they went to AcaDec meets on the bus, and he'd never seen Toomes at any of the meets before, so— yeah. That was the end of it. It was— a bad thing— but he was through it and it was over and it wouldn't happen again, especially without Peter being such an idiot and playing hero and getting tangled up in things that were bigger than he was as Spider-man. It was done. It was fine.
He looked at his phone on pure reflex as he was laying down to sleep, mechanical, and he almost didn't process the text notification from Liz.
Sorry my dad's such a buzzkill, she said. Homecoming was super fun. Thanks for asking me!
Peter stared at it for long enough that his screen went to sleep, the abrupt plunge into darkness startling him back into thought. That's right— they'd had a date, so she was checking in with him. It had been a good time, even, probably. She'd kissed him, so— yeah, a good time.
He remembered thinking at the time that her lip gloss was vaguely sweet, but he couldn't remember the flavor now. Even with the minty bite of toothpaste on his breath, his mouth still tasted like salt.
Thanks for going with me, he wrote out, effortful, the familiar routine of typing suddenly foreign and clumsy. It was awesome. See you Monday!