Chapter Text
When Peter comes to, his eyes grow half-lidded. He is greeted by two blurry figures, his head feeling foggy and quiet as he tries to push past a clearly severe headache. He can feel this agitating feeling that seems to buzz throughout his body; it grows more aggressive the closer one of the figures draws. When the figure places a hand on his arm, he snaps his eyes fully open and focuses on the figure in his sights. On instinct, his hand reaches out and grabs the wrist of the figure, their motion stopping, dropping whatever they may have been holding near him. Another hand comes up and makes him drop his hold on his wrist.
A wave of adrenaline washes over him as he takes in his surroundings, the buzzing feeling continuing. The figure he's locked his eyes on is dressed in light blue scrubs, a man with a scruffy beard and glasses. He wears a rather nervous and frantic look as he exchanges looks and whispers with the other figure in what looks like a small hospital room. The whispers haven't yet come to Peter’s ears; everything still feels so muddled, but the adrenaline is making him focus hard on the people in front of him.
He follows one of the man's quick and pointed glances to a woman standing further back from Peter. She has a darker complexion with brown hair and highlights. Her face is far less panicked than the man's, but still looking displeased with something Peter can't realize yet; her lips are pulled into a thin line, and her arms are crossed.
While Peter looks between the two, he takes notice of his surroundings; his hospital room seems rather average-looking, nothing disconcerting other than the two others occupying his room currently. The bed he’s in has a scratchy white blanket; his right leg looks a little oddly shaped under the blanket. Something must be on it. His left arm, which the man attempted to grab, has an IV port in it, and lying discarded next to his arm is a syringe. The man must have been holding it before Peter grabbed him; the buzzing in his neck makes Peter feel like whatever is in it can't be good. Peter eyes the man quickly, understanding that something is happening here.
A frantic beeping starts filling his ears as he starts to regain his hearing.
Why would he even be here in a hospital room?
Why isn't his mom or dad here with him? Even for small clinic visits, at least one of them would attend it with him, keeping him company. They Wouldn't just leave him alone with two unfamiliar people, right?
(A distant memory of the smell of cut grass, spilled soda, copper and gunpowder while popping sounds ring out in the fairly populated park; these sounds are drowned out by his own words he's rushing out of his mouth, frantic reassurances, and someone else's screaming reaching his ears)
…
Oh god, where's his family?
The pounding of his head seems so unimportant faced with the realization, the epinephrine and norepinephrine rising in his bloodstream.
Peter, going on the defensive, he sits up harshly, bringing his legs up closer to his body as well, although something doesn't allow his right leg to come as close as his left leg does. Any pain he should be feeling, not registering with his body
“Frankie? Hey Frankie, you're gonna be okay, alright? Just hang on for me, okay. I won't let anything else happen to you.”
“No. No, come on, Frankie, you gotta keep your eyes open for me, bud. Help's gonna come.”
“I want my family” is the first thing Peter says to the two other people in the room. He states this clearly, leaving no room for misunderstanding. It's a clear demand, his eyes full of mistrust for the only other people he’s seen since he’s woken up.
The man, despite his clear ability to talk shown by his hushed conversation with the woman, says nothing to Peter, either at a loss for words or not thinking he should answer Peter. Peter turns his attention to the woman this time when he speaks again, “Where is my family?”
The woman has a closed-off expression on her face. “ Mr. Castle, please don't move too much. You've been in a shooting and have been severely injured,” she warns. Peter only meets her with a glare at her obvious avoidance of his question. The woman considers Peter's apprehension of her and speaks again, “My name is District Attorney Reyes. You and your family were in an accident. You are lucky to be alive, Peter.” She uses Peter’s first name to maybe sway his perception of her so far but only fuels Peter’s mistrust of the woman.
“No, I want to know where my family is,” he states. Peter’s increasing heart rate is shown by the heart monitors continuing to beep. It's starting to really get on his nerves. The man starts backing away from the left side of Peter’s hospital bed and towards Reyes. Peter's breathing is getting quicker and quicker. It's a simple question: why won't they just tell him?
“Can you get another nurse to sedate him?” Although this is whispered to the man next to her, Peter hears it very clearly in his ears. The buzzing in his neck is now clearly telling him he's in danger. The threat of being unable to protect himself from these two leaves him ready to fight his way out of this situation. Peter throws the blanket off of him and pushes his body to move. He swings his legs off of the bed. He realizes when his feet meet the ground that he must have injured his right leg from the lingering numbness of some sort of painkiller and the way his vision swims when he first puts weight on it.
District Attorney Reyes watches him as he gains his footing.
“Hey, listen, Peter, you shouldn't even be awake right now, let alone walking. Why don't you just sit back in the bed and we’ll talk about your family.” Reyes tries to appease Peter. Peter, seeing through her clear manipulation, takes a couple of steps forward, testing his bearing on his right leg. The other man in the room must have rushed out of the room when Peter got up. A new sense of urgency washes over Peter as he eyes the door of the hospital room. Reyes notices Peter’s line of sight shifts to be in front of his path to the door. “Peter, I'm not gonna hurt you, but I need you to go back to the bed for me, alright?” Despite Reyes’ soft voice and forced calmness, distantly Peter knows she's lying; something inside of him is telling him not to trust her, and all Peter has right now is himself.
He advances forward, increasing in speed as he makes his way around the bed, pushing past a side table. He tries to sidestep Reyes, but when she reaches to grab his arm, he quickly moves away and out the open door, his movements grow more frantic as he begins rushing down the connect hospital hallway he can feel her gaze on him and hear her rushed conversation with a another nurse, no doubt trying to get security to stop him before he can get away from her and the other man. The adrenaline keeps him going as he turns corners looking for a stairwell or some exit in what seems to be a maze of hallways in this hospital. When he finally reaches a stairwell, he hears a code blare over the intercom, unable to understand the meaning of it, but Peter assumes it's for his active escape attempt anyway.
He rushes down the steps, vaguely aware that every other step he can feel something wrong with his right leg; he'll just have to check that out when he's safe. He isn't sure when that will be.
“Mom, Dad, come here!”
“Just hang on, Frankie”
He eventually reaches the bottom steps, seeing there are no continuing steps down. Peter assumes this must be the ground floor. He busts through the door, avoiding hands reaching out to stop him, barely dodging one of the hands. He picks up the pace as he sees the front glass doors. He slips past someone else who had just opened one of the doors to enter the hospital, and he runs; as he runs, the world seems to become background noise.
Distantly, Peter knows he's running, but his mind just seems to float elsewhere.
—
Peter puts his hands over Frankie’s stomach; his hands are covered in his little brother’s blood. He keeps pushing down on the bullet wound despite that fact. The blood just won't stop pushing out from between Peter’s fingers. Frankie’s blood is pooling on the concrete under them. He feels tears welling up in his eyes, but he won't let them fall yet.
“Mom, Dad!” Peter calls again. Peter knows he won't be able to get help himself; he thinks he might have been hit in the leg. He turns around while still applying pressure to his little brother's wounds with his hands.
Peering past the railing behind him, he is horrified by the sight he's greeted with: his little sister, as well as the two people he had been calling out for, are still on the picnic blanket near the bench he had left them. But this time his mother is lying motionless still in her pretty floral dress she had flaunted to him and his siblings just this morning; it now has multiple blooming red flower spots on it. His little sister is face down in the grass just outside of the picnic blanket. Her matching Star Wars shirt is stained. There's a growing dark spot on her side, her blood mixing with the green of the shirt, making it look brown. Peter has the other matching shirt on.
Peter watches as his Dad flips Lisa over and applies pressure to her side. Peter knows his mom must already be gone. He hears his dad’s stern voice over the ringing of the pops in the air and the shouting. He can't tell what his dad is saying. He must be trying to get Lisa’s attention, but while he's talking to her, Peter watches a bullet go through his only remaining family member's skull. He watches as his father goes down and doesn't get back up.
He just feels numb despite a sharp pain in his neck as he is finally relieved of the horror of the sight behind him by a bullet to the head. He watches as his body collapses next to his little brother and finally succumbs to his wounds as his vision grays out.
Oh …
They’re gone.
Peter stops running.