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Sam heard the music drift away as he walked away from the main hall. Even if he hadn't seen most of those people in almost two years, he was getting tired of answering the same questions for hours. What have you been doing since the blip? How's being Captain America? He knew they meant well but his mind was turning to mush giving out the same responses.
Footsteps followed him. He sighed, it wasn't like he didn't want to be bothered, Sam was a sociable person, but the last time he saw these people, they were fighting the biggest threat they ever had. It was difficult to be reminded with every sentence what they'd lost, even if they'd gained much.
Sam stopped to see who was following him, "Oh, Bucky, it's just you,"
"Just me?" He caught up to him. "You hoping for someone else?"
"No, I thought it could've been a threat,"
"I can be a threat if you want me to be,"
Sam sighed and fixed the lapels of his suit jacket. He didn't know where he was walking, perhaps he could find a quiet room to sit in while he waited for the party to end.
The party was taking place at the New York Sanctum. Sam looked at the wooden wall panels, the thick scent of old books and strange artifacts, this place had a sense of calm. Part of him, the curious side, was happy to finally explore it after only hearing about it for so long.
He stopped in another, more narrow hallway, just away from the loft space filled with bookshelves and opened to the world with a circular window. Bucky stopped next to him.
"Do you hear that?"
"Yeah, it sounds like-" Bucky started.
"Crying?"
They stood and listened for a moment to see where the sound was coming from. It was down the hall, where the rooms got smaller and the calming atmosphere soon turned claustrophobic.
"Come on, it's this way," Sam said.
He gestured for Bucky to follow. Who could be crying? He hadn't taken note of everyone at the party, but the few people he did remember seemed to be happy. Although, appearing happy and feeling happy were two different things.
They stopped at the end of the corridor, the crying was slightly louder here. Sam hesitated when he reached for the door handle. He turned to look at Bucky, who only nodded at him to go on. He couldn't say why he was so hesitant. Part of him was waiting for something to happen, with all the most famous heroes, on Earth and from space, it was guaranteed. But he had to remind himself that not everything was a threat. It was a dangerous headspace to enter, especially as a hero.
He grasped the handle and opened the door. All his anxiety flew out of the window as he looked down at the source of the crying.
It was a kid, no older than eighteen. His knees were bent against his chest as he squished himself into the cupboard sized bathroom. A few stray brown hairs scattered over his forehead. He stopped himself from hiccuping another sob when he looked at the two men in the doorway. His red rimmed eyes staring directly at them.
"Er, hello," he said.
"Hi," Sam replied. "Wait, who are you?"
This seemed to be a touchy question as the delayed sob escaped. He lowered his head and rested it against his knees. More tears slid onto his cheeks.
"Didn't mean to offend you, I just didn't see you at the party,"
The kid shook his head, "It's alright, I was there, just that no one knew I was," he grabbed some tissue from the holder and blew his nose. "I should be used to it by now but every time it hurts."
Sam and Bucky looked at each other. Were they supposed to know who this kid was?
"That's awfully cryptic," Sam said.
"Yeah, sorry,"
"Don't apologise, you're upset, want to tell us why?"
The kid turned the used tissue in his hand and gazed back at Sam. He nodded and shoved himself further into the cupboard-sized bathroom to make room for him.
Sam, now settled in an equally uncomfortable position, took a deep breath. "You said that no one knows who you are, it seems to have made you pretty upset, care to tell us who you are? Because to us you're just some random kid who snuck into an Avengers' party and had a breakdown,"
The kid chuckled amongst the tears and tried to shuffle as much as he could.
"I'm Peter Parker,"
Sam looked at Bucky, maybe he knew that name. Bucky just shrugged.
"Of course, you have no idea who that is, no one does anymore," he said. "Although, I'm not sure you two knew my real name before all this anyway."
"You're being cryptic again,"
"Oh, yeah, sorry,"
The kid reached for something on the floor, between his legs. He stretched it out in his hands and slid it onto his head. It was the Spiderman mask.
"Oh, you're Spiderman," Sam said.
"Yeah, I remember you, the whole 'talking too much in a fight' thing makes sense now," Bucky added, gesturing to Peter's age.
Peter laughed again and took the mask off.
"Why are you so sad that no one knows you then, we know you're Spiderman, were we supposed to know your non-superhero name?" Sam said.
"No, you weren't, it was just wishful thinking,"
Sam waited a beat for him to carry on, but when he didn't, he stepped up again to speak. Bucky had yet to say too much that was constructive, he guessed he was leaving the heartfelt conversations to Sam, he was more qualified.
"Okay, stop being cryptic for a second and just tell us what happened. After everything we've been through, nothing's too crazy,"
Peter nodded. He took a few deep breaths and began.
"Do you guys remember that Mysterio guy?"
Sam nodded, "Yeah, he said you were responsible for all those attacks,"
"Well, initially, he gave away that I was Peter Parker, to the entire world,"
"That must've been rough,"
"It was, I was getting paint thrown at me, me and my aunt's apartment was surrounded at all times by paparazzi," he said. "But it wasn't just me, my girlfriend and best friend were both harassed too, we all got declined by M.I.T. just because I was Spiderman and they were associated with me"
"So, I went to Dr Strange to see if he could make it so Mysterio never revealed who I was, that was too dangerous, so we decided to make everyone forget that Peter Parker is Spiderman. But I kept on interrupting the spell when he was casting it, so instead of making everyone forget that I was Spiderman, it brought in everyone who knew I was Spiderman, from every universe,"
He looked at them for a response but got nothing. Sam knew better than to interrupt someone's flow while they were talking, particularly when it was about something painful.
"So, I had to find all the bad guys that had entered our world, but I found out that they all die fighting me, so me, my friends and my aunt set to solve the problems that made them bad guys, and I had to hide it from Dr Strange too,"
"I bet that wasn't easy," Sam interrupted.
"No, it wasn't," Peter said. "So, I helped this guy called Doc Oc get control of these robot arms he had, I made a way for this electric guy to get control of his electricity and I just made a cure for this guy, Norman, possessed by this evil, what was it called again, this evil goblin side of him, but then the goblin side came out and he convinced all the others to go against me,"
"So I told my aunt to take the goblin guy's antidote and run while I fought him, but he let off one of these grenade things he had and-" he stopped and heaved. "And my aunt and me were there when he let it off and-and-"
He shook his head and rocked back and forth. Sam placed an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. This was a strange experience, he didn't really like Spiderman, but seeing that he was just a kid, who had gone through so much, broke his heart slightly.
"She died because of the blast, didn't she?"
Peter nodded and took some more deep breaths. The tears made his cheeks shiny in the dull light of the bathroom.
"I left, went to the roof of my school. My friends, one of them I found out can do magic like Dr Strange, somehow managed to find two other Peter Parkers, from the same universes as the bad guys, and together they all found me and convinced me to carry on trying to fix the bad guys,"
"We lured the bad guys and fixed them until there was just the goblin guy-"
"The guy responsible for your aunt's death-" Sam input.
Peter nodded, "And I couldn't stop myself from hitting him and hitting him, I would've killed him if one of the Peters didn't stop me from making the same mistake that he did," he said. "We ended up curing him and I thought it was all over until the spell we cast, the one that made a mess out of everything in the first place, started going out of control."
He started to breathe quicker. His eyes clenched shut as more tears flooded his face.
Sam didn't pressure him to carry on. His story sounded crazy already. He pulled him in closer to his shoulder and felt him shake as the tears poured down his face. With a few more hiccups, and a lot of nose blowing, he composed himself enough to finish the story.
"All these bad guys were coming from every universe, there was no way to stop them with the spell Dr Strange originally cast so I told him to cast a new one," he closed his eyes, readying himself for whatever he was going to say next. "I told him to make everyone forget who I was. That way, Mysterio never knew who I was, so couldn't out me, so people never harassed me as Peter, only Spiderman, so my friends' lives were never changed just by knowing me, because they didn't know me, so they got accepted into M.I.T, so there was no reason for me to go to Dr Strange to cast the initial spell, so all the issues would go away. The bad guys and the other Spidermen went, they all remembered me, but my girlfriend didn't, my best friend didn't, and now I have absolutely no one." He bowed his head and didn't try to stop his tears.
Sam was speechless. He'd felt alone before, especially after Riley's death. The tremendous, overwhelming loneliness encased him, making it seem impossible to climb out of. But he had friends and family he could rely on. Peter didn't have that. His family were dead, he had to assume. His friends had no idea who he was. That loneliness, the cave Sam felt like he was in, Peter was actually stuck in.
Peter ripped more toilet paper from the holder and sobbed into it. His sobs became more silent as he shook. He lowered his head onto his knees and sighed. The music drifted through the small vent near the ceiling. Whirring and general background noise filled the silence as Peter sniffed.
Bucky cleared his throat and slid to the floor, taking up the doorframe. The atmosphere changed. Sam looked at him in his peripheral vision, his head was bowed also. He had the look on his face that he always got when he was about to open up about something, not the harmless things like his thoughts on Of Mice and Men or the radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds, but the darker things that plagued his mind.
“I know how you feel,” he said simply.
Peter looked up. His eyes had stopped streaming with tears. There was a look on his face, something of hope but also interest.
“After I was proven ‘free’ of the winter soldier brainwashing, I came back to Brooklyn and everything had changed so much,” he said. “When me and Steve lived there, it was full of poor people, it was rough, but now it’s full of cafes and art exhibits."
"My apartment is nothing like the one I had with my family, I don't even think it's still there anymore, not in the same capacity, anyway," he ran a hand through his hair and his face dropped more into the lonely look Sam had only seen Steve have before. "No one I knew before is alive, and if they are then they think I'm dead, I had no one-"
"Hey! You had me,"
"Did I, Sam? Before Karli and the Flagsmashers could you honestly say we were close?" Bucky grumbled.
Sam averted his gaze, "I guess not, but I did try,"
"My only friend was an elderly man, and I was only friends with him because I felt guilty over killing his son as the Winter Soldier,"
"I didn't know you felt so alone," Sam said.
"I didn't want anyone to know," Bucky smiled at Peter. "So, you're not alone, even if it's not exactly the same, I know how it feels to have basically no one who knows you."
Peter nodded and pulled himself up. He turned on the tap and splashed water on his face, making little difference to his red complection.
Sam stood up too, "I think we should get back to the party,"
"Right, right, just give me a second,"
Peter lent over and rummaged on the floor for something. He re-emerged with his mask.
"Ready," he sniffed.
"You're going to put the mask on?" Sam asked.
"I don't really want to have that conversation fifty times,"
Sam shrugged and pushed Peter along. He continued to sniff as they got to more open parts of the Sanctum. Bucky pulled him into a side hug, which was strangely close for him, and didn't let go until he smiled through his watery eyes and red, raw face.
As they got closer to the party, when the music was beginning to pump around them, Bucky stopped them to look at Peter.
"I can't say I'll be much help, and I wouldn't do this if you weren't a kid who's going through something I know a lot about, but if you need anything, come and see me, I live in Brooklyn," Bucky said.
He told Peter his address, watched him put it in his phone and patted him on the back. Sam gave him his number. Like he'd reminded himself earlier, he wasn't Spiderman's biggest fan, but he'd been on his side when Mysterio's 'evidence' emerged and now, seeing how vulnerable Peter was, he could safely say that he wanted to help him.
Peter looked up at them while juggling his phone and his mask, he said in a quiet voice, "Thanks guys," before sliding on his mask to rejoin the party.