Except this time, it's not tears that arise. It's a hot feeling in his chest, a stickiness in his throat that feels like it won't go away unless he shouts, and sometimes he does. He shouts when Uncle Ben tells him off for not doing the dishes. He shouts when he can't go on the eighth grade retreat and Ben won't even give him a good reason why.
When he isn't shouting, he's quiet.
So is Ben.
One night, Peter is lying in bed, watching the numbers on his digital clock tick closer to midnight, listening for the door, and he thinks, I don't have to stay here.
So he puts on his sneakers, his jacket, and he slips out the back window and down the fire escape, not really knowing where he's going until he's at the twenty-four hour convenience store around the corner. He buys a Coke and a pack of gummy worms with his allowance, and feels a little thrill when the guy behind the counter doesn't even glance at him as he shoves Peter's change through the bulletproof glass.
He takes his prize home and eats it on the fire escape, and when the door finally opens around one in the morning, he crawls back through his window and into his bed. But Ben goes straight to his own room without checking on Peter, and a second later he hears the springs in the mattress creak as Ben climbs into bed.
For once, it's nice not to think about why he's doing what he's doing. It's nice not to think about how it makes him feel.
Peter just leaves.
A few months later, Ben is the one who leaves.
Peter slips out of the ratty old chair next to the deputy's desk, where he's been sitting for the past three hours. The deputy disappeared an hour ago. In the middle of the night, the rest of the bullpen is almost empty.
Peter tiptoes past the room's only other occupant: the detective who brought him in, asleep at his desk. He opens the door just wide enough to slip through and heads straight for the payphone he saw there earlier, digging a fistful of quarters out of his jeans as he does.
(Peter had gone to the arcade.)
The quarters sound like a hammer on an anvil as he drops them into the slot.
(Ben had been on a night shift. Peter, bolder with his nighttime excursions with each passing week, took a bus to the arcade, not realizing it stopped running at midnight.)
The finger Peter uses to dial is still crusty with blood. He'd scrubbed as much as he could off on the towel the deputy gave him, but it's under his fingernails. His hands shake as he presses the ancient buttons.
Peter only has two numbers memorized, and the first one is Ben's. He dials the second.
(He thought he'd walk home. It wasn't like Ben checked on him most nights, anyway. He could make it home before three am if he walked fast. But he'd barely made it two blocks before his cell phone rang.)
"Hello?" says a woman's voice on the other end.
Peter can't speak. He's been telling police officers what happened all night. Now, when it matters, he can't say it again.
(For once, Ben's expression was not mild.)
"Hello?" says the voice again. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I can't hear you."
("Jesus Christ," Ben said when he spotted him. "Jesus Christ, Peter, it's like you have no sense of your own limits. Do you have any idea how dangerous this city can be late at night?")
"It's me," Peter whispers.
("You act like nothing bad's ever happened to me," Peter said, ashamed but covering it in annoyance. "You didn't have to come all the way out here. I could have walked.")
A pause.
"Sorry, say again?"
("Like hell you could have. You're thirteen years old! In this neighborhood, past dark? You might be smart, kiddo, but dammit, sometimes you are dumb.")
"It's me." Just a little louder. "Peter."
"Peter? Honey, what's wrong? It's the middle of the night. Where are you calling from?"
Peter swallows.
"Can you come get me?"
("I thought you said I was smart at everything."
"Yeah." Ben walked quickly, not bothering to cover his own annoyance. "And you act like it means you can do whatever you want. Intelligence isn't just a free pass to make your teachers feel stupid and skip out on studying, or to… to manipulate me so you can sneak out of my house. Your smarts are a gift, Peter, but any gift is also a responsibility.")
"What happened, Peter?"
Her voice is sharp. Panic rising.
("Maybe I don't want to be responsible all the time. Maybe I don't like being the biggest dork at school, Uncle Ben, did you think of that? Maybe sometimes I just want to have fun.")
Peter's is flat, as dull as hers is dangerous.
"Ben is dead," he says.
(Ben turned around, leaving his back open to the dark mouth of the alley up ahead. "Responsibility," he said, "is not a choice.")
"He got shot."
A long, long silence. Then—
"Peter. I'm coming to get you, okay? I'm coming to get you."
A hand falls on his shoulder just as their time runs out. The phone clunks as it drops the call. Peter turns toward the officer's stern but sympathetic face.
"Your guardians are here, son," the officer says.
May never does show up.