Work Text:
It’s 2:47 in the morning when Tony gets the call. He’s elbow-deep in a new project he’d started earlier that day, and he’s startled out of his whirling thoughts by an alert from FRIDAY.
“Boss, you have an incoming call from Peter Parker via Karen.”
Tony furrows his brow, immediately pulling up the kid’s vitals. “Answer it,” he commands, without hesitation, relaxing a bit once he realizes that there’s nothing out of the ordinary besides the fact that it’s a school night and the kid has a curfew. He doesn’t even wait for Peter to start speaking.
“Kid, it’s almost three in the morning. Care to tell me why you’re out frolicking in the suit on a school night? I’m not above calling May,” Tony threatens.
He waits for a reply, but all he hears is a faint rustling, and he can practically see the teenager fidgeting nervously.
“Peter.” Immediately, the sound stops, and Tony holds his breath, waiting for him to speak.
“Mr. Stark?” The voice sounds hesitant, tired.
“Yeah, it’s me buddy. What’s going on? Are you hurt?” Tony prompts, and his concern only rises at the answering silence. He’s just about to call a suit to take him to Peter himself when the boy asks something that makes his blood run cold.
“Mr. Stark. Do you ever have intrusive thoughts?”
Whatever’s made the boy ask him a question like that at three in the morning could not be good. Tony thinks his next words over carefully.
“Sure, kid. Almost everyone has them. Why, are you suddenly feeling the irresistible urge to pull a fire alarm or something?” Tony tries to joke, but it comes out strained and tense.
There’s a heavy sigh at the other end of the line, and when Peter speaks, it comes out sounding frustrated and on edge. “Isn’t it crazy that all it would take for me to die on any given day is to just. Let go?”
Tony could swear his heart stops.
“Peter, where are you?” he asks, even though he’s already getting FRIDAY to pull up the boy’s location. It doesn’t seem like Peter hears him anyway, because he just keeps talking.
“Like. It’s so wild to me. Like for some people, falling is the scariest part, but I fall all the time. I love the fall, just as much as I love the rise. I could just close my eyes and jump and enjoy the feeling and that would be it. That’s not so bad.”
Tony’s got a suit on and his heart is stuck in his throat because his kid is somewhere out there alone, thinking – no, practically fantasizing – about jumping and he’s not going to settle until Peter is in the safety of his arms.
“Pete – kid. Hey.” Tony’s voice comes out choked and he coughs to clear it. “I’m gonna have to beg to differ. Road spider is no good for anyone. I think everyone would prefer a healthy Spider-Kid.”
Peter’s breathing picks up, sounding increasingly agitated. “I don’t – I can’t, I can’t stop thinking it and it’s all my mind can think over and over and over and over…”
It’s like something in his brain has gotten stuck, and he can’t quite seem to move past the words, and Tony scans the buildings nearby, sucking in a sharp breath when he spots a blue and red clad form perched on the edge of a building.
When Tony gently lands behind him, Peter’s still muttering the words, rocking back and forth slightly, and every time he shifts his weight forward over the edge, it takes the utmost self-control for Tony not to scream.
Tony steps out of the suit and carefully approaches the kid, who’s still muttering to himself with hands yanking at his hair, and Tony feels his heart break a little. He’s an engineer. He’s used to fixing things. But this? This can’t be fixed with nuts and bolts.
“Peter. Hey, can you do me a favor, bud? Can you look at me?” Tony asks, crouching down slightly behind him. Peter abruptly stops the muttering, and Tony can’t decide whether or not the remaining silence is better.
Peter looks down, legs kicking nervously over the edge and hands twisting violently at his hair, before turning his gaze to his mentor’s.
“Hi, Mr. Stark,” he croaks.
“Hey, Pete.”
“I think I’m going crazy,” he informs him, and it takes all of Tony’s willpower not to yank the boy into his arms. Instead, he fixes the teen with an intense look.
“Peter, listen to me and listen to me good: you are not crazy,” Tony says firmly.
Peter looks away then, looking at all the city lights. It’s awhile before he speaks, and Tony waits patiently, knowing he just needs to give the kid time to get his thoughts together.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s just – I don’t even want to die. I mean, sometimes I do,” he confesses, swallowing thickly. “Like when it gets too much. But this is different. It’s like, like something in my wiring is wrong. I – I can’t even look at a building without imagining me falling and hitting the ground, wondering what it would feel like, how long it would take for it to be over.”
Peter looks up, then, and fixes Tony with an utterly desperate look. “It doesn’t matter where I am, Mr. Stark. I’ll always be infatuated with rock bottom.”
Tony can’t help the way his hands finally do what they’ve been itching to do since he’d set eyes on his protégé perched high above the rest of the world. Without a second thought, he reels the kid in, away from the edge of the building, and Peter latches on to him like a child seeking shelter.
Tony presses Peter tightly against himself, wishing he could fight the battles in Peter’s mind for him. He lowers his head to whisper into Peter’s ear, a fierce reminder.
“It’s okay, Peter,” he reassures, squeezing him tightly, anchoring them both. “I won’t ever let you hit the ground.”