Couldn't stop thinking bout this AU
Angsty angst angst, gladiator Sam au
…...
"S, Sam?" Peter asked. The monumental finality of it finally sinking in. Sam was leaving.
Sam didn't answer. Sam was leaving.
"Sam, what…" Peter said, voice shaking. Sam was leaving. Sam was leaving him. Sam was leaving him and Peter couldn't even blame him. Peter wondered how Sam could have put up with him for as long as he had. Peter had heard his suffering and done nothing. Had convinced himself it was exactly what Sam deserved for his cruelty. But now faced with the harsh, brutal truth of Sam leaving him, never to return, Peter unable to even confirm if Sam was even alive. He found he needed Sam to stay.
"Oh God, Sam, no. No please, fuck no, you can't leave!" Peter said, horrified. He could be disgusted with himself for needing the monster Sam had become after he had Sam by his side. Right now, he didn't care. He needed Sam. He was selfish and a fucking back stabbing bastard but he didn't care. He needed Sam.
Sam's only response was a slow tired blink. Peter couldn't even be sure if he'd heard and understood him. Sam had said nothing to him the entire flight. Hadn't even really seen him, even when he looked right at him. The hollow, empty expression he wore had certainly never held any spark of recognition for him.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Sam," Peter said. Knowing that it was much too little, far too late. He'd hurt Sam more cruelly than any villain ever could. And he was a selfish, stupid asshole to only see that now, when he could do nothing to fix it.
At Peter's desperate apologies something like life sparked in Sam's eyes. So Peter kept apologizing. He shoved aside the stupid fucking helmet that had been the entire reason any of the hell of the past year and a half had happened. It was ownerless now and useless and Peter wanted to melt it in the fires of Mordor's Mount Doom to keep its power away from the entire cursed universe.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Peter repeated in supplication. Peter was only just now realizing the magnitude of his failure to Sam. In every aspect of his duty he'd failed him. As his team leader, as his teammate, and worst of all as his friend. Every chance Peter had been given to make things right between them he'd turned his back to Sam's pain.
Sam was looking at him now. No, Sam was seeing him now. Peter flung himself at Sam. He was perfectly, painfully aware of how badly this could go for him. But at least if Sam finally killed him he wouldn't have to figure out how to be without Sam.
Sam didn't kill him.
"Sam please, God, fuck, don't leave me," Peter pled.
Sam continued not killing him as he clung to him hard enough he was probably hurting him. Peter couldn't manage to let go. Sam actually had an expression. The first he'd seen since Sam had freed the both of them from Titus' enslavement. Sam and Peter were slaves, yes. But Peter had been kept in the most luxurious and expensive cage credits could buy. While Sam… Sam had been in the gladiator pits. Peter had only been there twice. First, when Titus had sold Sam and second… second had been when Sam… when Sam had 'earned' a reward for his skills in the arena and of everything, all the things in the entire fucking galaxy, he'd asked for Peter. Peter remembered that meeting better than he remembered the feel of web swinging across New York. Better than he remembered the taste of Aunt May's wheat cakes. He remembered it just as keenly as he did watching a man getting robbed and doing nothing and the feel of his uncle's chest rise and fall and never rise again.
He'd failed.
Again.
The exact same selfish mistake he'd made as a selfish child and had gotten his uncle, the man who'd raised him and loved him like his own son, killed. Sure this time it wasn't letting a mugging go by without stopping it when he could have. This time it was even worse. He'd been so wrapped up in himself, wrapped up in his guilt for getting Sam in this horrible situation in the first place. So busy feeling his guilt at watching Sam kill that first time, and every time after. He'd known Sam was trying, he'd known Sam was trying so hard. But he'd thought… he'd thought Sam was in as real danger of death as his opponents, and if only Sam… if only he'd do something, anything different...
He'd seen Sam for the first time in months and the first thing he did, first thing he said, he asked Sam why he'd enjoyed killing them. Every day Peter tried to forget and every night he relived it. Every night Peter watched himself crush Sam more thoroughly than the gladiator pits of chitauri prime ever had or ever could.
Peter deserved death. But he kissed Sam instead. Sam didn't kill him. He didn't do anything. Peter kept kissing him, trying to speak at the same time, "Sam, Sam, God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Sam" Peter said, nearly choking on his words.
Sam's mouth opened under Peter's and Peter deepened his kiss with frantic desperate energy. Sam shuddered, wrapped his arms around Peter, and fell into him as if he was marionette whose strings had been cut.
Peter moved his hands from Sam's shoulders and pulled him close. The only thing Peter could get out of his mouth, when he wasn't desperately kissing Sam, was 'Sam' and 'Sorry' and 'Stay please God stay'.
Sam shuddered again, then sobbed out his name. Peter lifted him up to hold him even closer. Sam clung to him, arms around his shoulders and legs around his hips.
"Peter," Sam sobbed again. Peter pulled his face away from Sam's. But instead of letting him look at him and maybe say something more helpful than the loop he'd gotten stuck in, Sam used leverage Peter hadn't realized he'd given him to flip him onto the table and kiss him back. More teeth and tongue than lips and sweetness but Peter took it all the same. "Peter," Sam sobbed out again.
"Sam," Peter gasped, damn near sobbing himself.
They kissed. Again and again. Peter tried to show Sam now what he should have been doing all along. After only a few more frenzied kisses, Sam pulled away. He pressed his head against Peter's shoulder and broke down in earnest. Peter held him close, crying into Sam's too long hair.
"Peter, how… how can you still stand me?" Sam choked out around his sobs.
Peter made a wretched sound and laugh-sobbed uncontrollably for way too long. Eventually he managed to say, "I hurt you. You asked for me, me! Out of everything in the Galaxy! And I hurt you! And kept hurting you! And you're asking me how I can stand you?"
Sam clearly didn't understand. Peter successfully bit back his sob. He'd broken Sam so thoroughly that he wished Sam really had killed him. But he hadn't and he still wasn't and here they both were.
"Please Sam, stay," Peter said, voice cracking.
Quiet. So quiet that Peter only heard him due to his enhanced hearing. Sam answered. "Okay."
