Work Text:
Lonnie sees his opportunity the moment Big Don’s foot pivots. His toe bares down onto the asphalt, knee and hips beginning to turn outwards to give him the most momentum forwards. Blood from his nose continues to trickle down, a few droplets reaching the ground and marking the very spot where Don decided to run and the One Tenth fell apart. The stains they left would be a monument to everything Lonnie has given up - all for it to crumble away into nothing.
Except.
With Don running, Lonnie could too. He sees his opportunity to get out right there and then. This is the same door he had opened for Andre now being held out to him minus the added stipulations. Realistically this isn’t a trade-off. Lonnie looks around at the other members of the One Tenth struggling to get a foothold in the fight, even with Spider-Man not technically on their side but against Scoprion enough for him to feel like an ally, they were losing.
With Don gone, the One Tenth are going to be torn apart by the Scoprions. There won’t be any members left to come chase him down for his traitorous behaviour - something about knowing Don will also get away with this strikes a red-hot feeling through him. Betrayal - there won’t be any mouths to speak of his cowardice.
An uncomfortable pit starts to form in his stomach, warring with that anger that was brewing at the smell of Don’s exhaust pipe as he dashed away.
Running would be exactly what Spider-Man wanted - that had to mean it was the right thing.
Running is exactly what his parents would want. His dad would smack him upside the head for ever getting involved and his mom would hold pinch his ear before hugging him tightly for getting both Andre and himself out - that had to mean it was a good thing.
Running is exactly what he wants to do. What he’s wanted has been a distant thing from Lonnie in the last few weeks. Desire and ambition are fragile concepts because it was impossible to do it all so he’d had to readjust his expectations and now he can have it all back - just at the cost of people’s lives. Rejoining the football team might give him a scholarship, but could it cover the cost of his conscience?
Running is exactly what he had done from The Scoprions when Carmilla had chased him in her car. He isn’t the winner if he leaves today, she’ll still have that over him. The Scorpions will still be a shadow that he looks for around every corner. The One Tenth had been the ones to offer him some sanctuary and if he runs now he’s facing that all alone.
Running is an option that Lonnie’s mind can’t process, his body freezing up and holding him in position, forcing him to witness the fight around him through wide eyes. More blood is shed on to the road, each red drop is a second on the clock that Lonnie is wasting.
If he doesn’t run soon, the Scoprions will notice him and then his exit his lost and it will be his blood that is marking the occasion. He can’t win against them all and that will upset his parents more than anything else - that will anger Andre more than anything else and he has enough anger inside him already. If there’s anything that would make Andre something stupid - another stupid thing - it would be this. He has enough anger inside him that he might go chasing after the Scoprions all by himself…
Lonnie should run.
Smart. Sensible. Right.
His mind comes back to that other word - coward.
His feet don’t move. Lonnie continues to stand watching Bulldozer suffer through more fists to his face.
Lonnie has lost a lot lately at the hands of the One Tenth and his own choices, but the ache hadn’t felt as gaping with their company. They had offered him some companionship once he had proved himself - a conditional friendship that Lonnie had been relying on now that Pearl was more distant from him than ever and now that the team couldn’t understand his choice to stop attending practice, even Peter - the kid didn’t have a clue what Lonnie was going through. He was nice and kind, but he had everything, he had his future laid out for him with those good grades and OsCorp Internship. He didn’t need to fight for this the way Lonnie did. The people in the One Tenth understood that.
Even if they didn’t…
Lonnie can’t leave them to die.
This isn’t High School, this isn’t Football, this isn’t some game where they get to walk away after the losses, lick their wounds and regroup. This is life or death. There is a lot that could go wrong if Lonnie stays, but there is so much worse that could happen if he leaves. The guys will have no chance without him there.
Running now would make him just as culpable for today’s events as The Scoprions. Lonnie would be washing his hands of the One Tenth, the people that’d protected him lately, with their own blood. He thinks that it will be a whole lot harder to face his parents tonight knowing what it is he sacrificed to see them.
They raised him better than that.
They raised him to care. The world didn’t always look out for people like them so they had to be sure that they did it themselves. The world wasn’t kind, but they sure were. This isn't about kindness anymore, this is about survival, and he won't be able to look at his mom or his dad if he knows what he leaves behind here today.
Lonnie doesn’t run, but he does make a play.
“Dozer!” He shouts. His feet are firmly planted on the ground, hands cupping around his mouth. “The truck!”
Don isn’t here anymore, so for the moment, he is filling the space, moving up on the field to ensure that they can make this push. None of this is a game, but his head clears a little more looking at the street fight in front of him as a pitch that he needs to clear.
“You going somewhere Kid?” Carmilla asks with that sinister grin of hers. Gargan might have a tail and a mechanical suit now, but she manages to look just as dangerous when she stares at him with that hungry glint in her eye.
No. He answers her silently.
Lonnie isn’t running.