Chapter 68
A knock on the door frame made Peter look up and saw Tony standing there. "Hey," He greeted them both. "Claire might be a bit busy so I reached out to someone I trust at SHIELD to come help out and they should be here shortly." He explained.
Aurora glanced over at Tony, glad to see him again. As much as she hated being a burden, she was glad to have him there to help her out of those situations. "Then can we get these ankle things off? It feels... wrong."
"Once the blades are out, yes." He agreed. "I promise-"
Friday suddenly cut him off. "Atlas has come online, sir."
Peter looked up at that, his eyes wide with... was that fear?
Tony looked up at the ceiling in surprise, not noticing. "Wait, seriously?"
"He is online." She repeated.
"Can you get a location?"
"I am requesting a-"
"Override." Tony replied, instantly.
"Override activated. His current location is Hell's Kitchen, Matthew Murdock's apartment building, specifically."
Tony stood there for a moment, his mind running back over his conversation with Matt not that much earlier and frowned. "Get my suit ready." He told her, a slight growl to his tone. He better not have lied to them about knowing where she had been, and he sure as hell better not have withheld the fact she was there when he was talking to him.
Aurora was glad to hear she'd be getting that thing off, but the gladness was cut short when Friday went off. There's no doubt Tony was going to go there, she was just afraid of what he would do once he went.
Tony may not have noticed Peter's change, but she did. It made sense, with how he was saying Claire might've been busy, and it also answered the question as to how he knew where she was earlier.
"Tony, just think about this for a minute-"
Tony shook his head. "No, I need to go get her before she runs off again. Atlas will have noticed the override and will alert her." He replied firmly before moving towards the door but was surprised when a web hit the door, sealing it shut.
He whirled around to see Peter with his arm extended, one of his web shooters back on his wrist.
"Peter," His tone was dangerous, making Peter tense but hold his ground. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Peter typed with one hand, barely looking at his phone. "Protecting Kasey from your unreasonable idea of locking her away."
Tony narrowed his eyes at him, making Peter flinch but he held his ground.
"I won't let you lock her away. She doesn't deserve that-"
"You don't know that!" Tony snapped in return. "You didn't see the footage! You didn't see how she fights!"
Peter's hands tightened into fists as he typed back. "YES I DID I WATCHED HER FIGHT BEFORE MY VERY EYES" He argued.
Aurora groaned and pushed herself up, ignoring any of the pain that flared up. She didn't have any first hand experiences of what Kasey could truly do, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't step up to defend her friend.
"How do you think all of this is affecting her? How would you like to feel, knowing you're being chased down by one of the only people you used to trust, because he believes you'd be better off locked in a room?"
Tony sighed in frustration. "Look, I hate this too but she's-" He ran a hand through his hair. "She dangerous-"
"SHE IS SCARED" Peter argued.
"Yeah? Well I'm sure the people she beat the hell out of were too!" He pointed out.
"She doesn't deserve to be locked up!"
"She killed someone!" He snapped back.
This made Peter stop and stare with wide eyes.
Aurora was going to intervene, to tell Tony off for being paranoid and overbearing to Kasey, but the last sentence hit her like a brick. It was news to her, and it was utterly shocking but...
"So what?" Aurora spoke up. "She must've had a good reason too. And if it was one of those rotten corps guys, then maybe she had every right to."
Tony crossed his arms. "Oh, so she had every right to dig into his side with her teeth and tear him open leaving him to bleed out on the ground?" He replied back.
"Or to do who the hell knows what to the other guy she strung up in a massive web after beating the shit out of him and forcing Atlas to shut off because she was tired of him telling her to stop?"
Peter paled, thinking back to what she might have done to the guy they had fought had he not stopped her...
"If she did it once, or even possibly twice, how long until she does it to someone who doesn't deserve it? Huh? How long until she loses it and gets an innocent killed?" Tony demanded.
"If you don't believe me I can show you the footage Atlas has recorded. She is tearing people apart! How long until she just snaps?!"
Aurora's face grew red with frustration. She hated arguing, hated it! Especially with Tony. She was surprised to see him yelling this much, and understood some of what he was saying, but refused to let him come out on top. She pushed herself further up, wincing.
"Would you rather she be the one dead? If she was fighting to defend herself, it's likely that she was doing it for a reason! Look at us, Tony! It's possible she was keeping herself from ending up like this!"
Aurora continued on. "I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to prevent her from doing it again. But you're going about it the wrong way."
"Sure, the first one was in self defense, but the second one? No, she hunted each of those people down, Aurora. That's what I'm worried about!" He replied, sighing with frustration. "What would you rather me do? Let SHIELD find out and take her instead?" He asked her.
"She doesn't want to be here, I get it, I don't want to lock her away here either but she hasn't shown me any reason why I should trust her to be out there alone!" He argued. "She knows the rules I have in place to keep all of you safe and both of you broke them on the same damn night! I can't trust her not to get herself or others hurt! Especially now! Especially when the people she's after can do shit like this!" He gestured to her.
Peter had gone quiet, no longer typing and just stared down at his phone.
Tony sighed. "Look. Regardless of if they deserved it, murder is still murder. And when you do it once, it becomes easier and easier to do without thinking twice. And she has done nothing but show me that she doesn't think twice."
God it was so frustrating trying to argue with him! He just didn't seem to think that Kasey was even capable of changing!
"Well I'm sorry you can't keep every little thing under your control! But if you keep her here, it's only going to make it worse. Letting her be, and letting her figure things out on her own will help. Especially if she's with someone she trusts." Her chest hurt.
"Maybe you're just pissed that she trusted the one guy who's been 100% supportive of her over you."
Peter turned to look at Aurora with wide eyes. That was... unexpected. He hesitated before typing. "She really does trust him. She said she felt at home with him-"
Tony looked at him. "What? When?" He asked, making Peter flinch, his hand tightening on the phone before hesitantly responding.
"When I talked to her before she sent me to find Aurora..."
"Wait, wait, wait- You found her?" He asked Peter.
Peter was rigged. "...Yes..."
"And you didn't tell me?!"
"Do you blame me?! She was terrified! I almost didn't get to even know she was there!" He argued.
"You could've at least told me she was safe and not out beating the shit out of people!"
"Oh, I'm sorry! I was kinda busy trying to get to Aurora!"
"And then there's that! You should've called me as soon as you knew something was up!" Tony pressed. "Then maybe it wouldn't be this bad! All three of you just keep rushing into things and getting yourselves hurt!"
Peter flinched at that and looked away, shaking a bit, clutching his phone tight. "What are you gonna do? Ground me? Keep me locked up in the tower like you wanna do to Kasey?" The phone's voice read out as Peter glared at his phone.
"O-or-" His own voice struggled to make itself known without coughing. It was weak and breathy. "Are y-you gonna t-take my suit away a-and cause me t-to nearly die again?" He glared up at Tony who could only stare at him in shock as he withheld the urge to cough his lungs up again.
That confirmed how Peter knew Claire was busy earlier. Kasey was probably the one who heard her... scream. She had forgotten about that.
She grimaced at Tony reprimanding Peter for not calling. "We can't always call you for help Tony! You can't just put us all into a bubble and expect it all to work out! It was a simple situation that just got out of hand." Lord her chest hurt from all this arguing.
She turned to look at Peter, worried when he was talking instead of typing. His voice still sounded damaged and weak. "Peter..."
Peter didn't look at her and just glared down at his phone again.
Tony was about to reply when Friday spoke up.
"Dr. Lee is here."
"Guide her upstairs and fill her in." Tony told Friday as he used his repulsor from his nano suit to burn the webbing away. "Lower your arm, Peter."
Peter had his web shooters aimed at Tony, glaring at him. "N-Not if your going- going after Kasey..." He replied, straining his voice to try to speak.
Tony sighed. "I'm sorry Pete, but I am not leaving an unstable spider enhanced kid out and about. You know about her episodes. What if she has one out there? Huh? What if she has one outside of his apartment? She could get herself killed! Hell, she almost bit Claire and bit into my suit instead! I'm not gonna risk letting her hurt someone who never should have been this involved in the first place!" He pushed the door open.
Peter tried to shoot a web at him but Tony stepped out of the way and shot him a look. "Friday, disable his web shooters."
Peter tried again but they wouldn't trigger.
"Please, behave for Dr. Lee." He told them before sighing. "I'll be back." He disappeared out the door.
"Tony!" Peter instinctively tried to yell out at him but doubled over, finally coughing from the use, a bit of blood trailing out of his mouth again.
Aurora would've used her own webbing if it hadn't been for the damned inhibitor locked around her ankle. She reached down, fidgeting with it, but to no avail. She couldn't even shock the thing to short it out.
She snapped her head towards Peter and stopped. "You shouldn't talk as much, you're going to hurt your vocal chords." She sounded a bit defeated, but that didn't mean she wouldn't mind Peter, or worry for Kasey still.
Peter glanced at her slightly as he calmed down enough to breathe better and carefully wiped his mouth off, grimacing at the sight of the blood. He cleaned it up and grabbed his phone again. "Pretty sure that they're already pretty damaged." He pointed out before sighing. "We need to warn Kasey."
"Atlas might've already told her that Tony's coming. He's a pretty loyal dude, for an AI." Aura spoke tiredly, her body aching from her wounds. She wasn't used to going this long without her healing factor.
Peter nodded a bit. "I hope so..."
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top