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It’s been three days since Peter’s slept.
He looks like shit, he feels like shit, and nothing he does makes it any better. He’s tried everything, from hot teas to soothing music and sleeping supplements, but nothing helps. He’s not even surprised.
(Peace is for the deserving.)
He’s not even sure how he’s functioning – he’s not, really. He spent the last part of his weekend laying on his bed and smacking his head against the wall in frustration, thinking that maybe if he’s lucky, he’d knock himself out.
But no matter what, Peter’s brain screams just loud enough to let keep him from relaxing.
When he walks into school on Monday, he knows what he must look like, stumbling around in an exhausted haze, and Ned immediately frowns in concern when he sees the state of his friend.
“Holy shit, dude! You look awful,” is the first thing he says. And if Peter was less tired, he’d say something snarky back, but instead he just shrugs and clumsily fiddles with his locker, trying to get it open.
Ned watches him struggle for a second, before gently pushing Peter’s arm aside and opening it for him, and Peter shoots him a grateful look.
“No problem, man. Are you sick? You shouldn’t be here,” he says, but Peter shakes his head.
“Not sick. Tired. No sleep.” At this point, he can only manage short sentences. Thank god his teachers don’t generally call on him, or he’d be screwed. Ned gives him a worried look.
“When was the last time you slept?” he asks.
“Dunno,” Peter practically slurs. “Brain loud.”
“Wow,” MJ deadpans, coming up from behind them. “Very articulate.” Peter just shrugs again.
“How did May let you leave the house like this?” Ned wonders.
“She’s workin’ a lot,” Peter informs them.
“Crazy. You’re going to die at the internship today. You’d poke someone’s eye out if you tried to hold a tool right now,” Ned jokes, doing his best to conceal his concern with humor. Peter jerks in surprise at the words.
He’d completely forgotten he was going to Tony’s lab today. And though he’s usually excited to spend time with his mentor, today he groans at the thought. There’s no way Tony’s not going to notice.
“Fuck,” is all Peter’s able to say before the bell rings. Ned pats him on the back sympathetically, and MJ gives him a studious look.
It’s going to be a long day.
By the time he gets out of his last class, Peter’s convinced he’s not even walking through air anymore. It’s just water. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like. The sounds around him, rather than being amplified as they usually are, instead are muted.
His eyes lazily find the familiar car waiting for him, and he lethargically makes his way over.
“Hey, Happy,” he mumbles, dropping his bag onto the floor and sinking into the back seat. Happy grunts in a way that Peter knows by now is just Happy’s way of expressing affection.
Today, though, he’s thankful for Happy’s lack of chattiness, because he truly doesn’t think he could get through a conversation. Instead, he settles for leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes, desperately hoping to doze off.
He tries to relax his muscles and focus on the ambient noise of the city, letting it soothe him, But his head is loud and his thoughts threaten to boil over, burning with remnants of grief and fear and please, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go! Fear grips his mind and refuses to let go.
Peter’s eyes fly open, and he nearly cries in in exhausted frustration. Happy eyes him through the rearview mirror.
“You okay, kid?” he asks, a rare show of concern, and Peter straightens up, nodding.
“Yeah, I’m good. Was up late doing homework last night,” he lies. “You know how it is.”
Happy pauses. “I really don’t, actually. Probably blocked those years out, to be honest.”
Peter laughs weakly, because he can’t imagine Happy as an actual teenager. Nah, he was always a grown, snarky man.
When they pull up to the Compound, Peter sighs and wonders how the hell he’s going to manage doing just about anything without Tony realizing how messed up Peter currently is.
He sighs heavily and curses his stupid brain, slowly making his way to Tony’s lab.
When he gets there, Tony’s busy making repairs and modifications to DUM-E, who’s chirping happily at the attention. Peter smiles a little at the scene.
“Hey, kid,” Tony greets. “Grab a wrench and come help me with the last of these bolts.”
Peter nods grabs the correct size. Tony moves his arm slightly so that Peter has room to maneuver the wrench into place, and Peter’s hand shakes slightly, making it hard to slip the head of the wrench around the bolt.
He furrows his eyebrows in frustration, fingers feeling heavy and movements lethargic, and he hastily brings up his other hand to steady his arm.
Tony watches him with sharp eyes.
“You good, kid?” he asks cautiously, but Peter just nods.
“Yeah. It’s in place now,” he says, dismissing the inquiry, and Tony narrows his eyes but starts ratcheting nevertheless.
When the last of the bolts are fastening, Tony gives DUM-E a pat, and the robot trills excitedly, gently bumping into its creator, before turning to give Peter a soft nudge.
Peter laughs and marvels at how alive DUM-E’s programmed to seem.
“You’re quiet today,” Tony remarks as they move to their separate work areas. They don’t work on the same projects as often anymore. Tony wanted to give Peter the chance to come up with and make his own products, interested to see what the boy would come up with.
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Just a bit tired, I guess.”
“Uh huh,” Tony huffs, but leaves it at that. He decides to wait it out, choosing to watch the kid from across the room.
He watches as Peter takes out a circuit board and a tiny screwdriver, using the tool to lever the small tab of plastic up, so he can slide the end of a wire into the space with his other hand.
However, even from across the room, Tony can see the kid’s hand shaking, and Peter continuously misses the hole to slide the wire in. If he wasn’t so worried, he’d find it very amusing. But when Peter lets out a frustrated growl at his fourth failed attempt to do something he’s done probably hundreds of times by now, Tony slowly walks up and takes the objects out of his hands.
“Pete, hey, look at me,” he says, crouching in front of him. Peter pouts childishly, hands curled into tight fists. He shakes his head and purses his lips, avoiding Tony’s eyes, and Tony’s worry immediately shoots up.
“Peter. Come on, just look at me. It’s just the two of us here,” Tony says, keeping his voice low and soothing.
When the kid finally meets his eyes, Tony cringes inwardly. Peter’s eyes are bloodshot, dark bruises around his rapidly watering eyes.
Tony nearly smacks himself for not realizing something was wrong sooner. But now’s not the time for self-recrimination.
“Hey,” he coaxes, gently reaching up to place a hand on Peter’s cheek, pausing just before making contact. Peter sways tiredly, unconsciously leaning into the tender touch. “What’s wrong, bud?”
Peter leans forward even more, and Tony’s almost afraid the kid’s going to topple forward out of the chair and onto him entirely.
“Tired,” Peter finally tells him, voice cracking, a desperate sound. “I can’t – I can’t sleep anymore. Too loud.”
Tony closes his eyes for a second, filled with protectiveness and empathy. “Okay,” he says, sounding calm and sure, once he’s opened his eyes again. “We’ll fix this.”
And Peter, so tired and so desperate for any sort of relief at this point, clings to him, a high-pitched whimper pushing past his lips. Tony gently shushes him and stands, pulling the kid with him and catching him when he stumbles drunkenly with fatigue.
Tony carefully guides the kid up to his private quarters, worrying filling him at how weak Peter seems to be. Yeah, it’s been bad before, especially since the snap, with panic attacks and almost nonstop nightmares, but they’ve been slowing working through it.
Peter’s never just straight up stopped sleeping before.
Tony delicately lifts Peter onto his bad, ignoring the kid when he tries to protest.
“You need to sleep, kid,” Tony tells him.
“I can’t,” Peter repeats, close to tears, and Tony quickly sits next to him, back against the headboard.
“I know, I know, it’s too loud,” Tony says quickly, remember what they kid had told him before. Peter nods almost frantically. “Let’s try this, okay? Pepper used to do this with me, and it helped a lot when things got to be too much.”
Peter looks up at him, and Tony’s heart aches at how much trust is in the kid’s eyes. He gently maneuvers Peter so that the kid’s head is resting comfortably against his thigh.
“Close your eyes,” Tony commands gently, waiting for him to do so. He can feel how tense Peter is, coiled tight with anxiety, and it’s no wonder the kid hasn’t been sleeping. Even completely exhausted, the teen can’t seem to relax.
“Alright,” Tony says, keeping his voice low. “I want you to take everything that’s going through your head right now and let it out. Just completely word vomit. I don’t care if it doesn’t flow or make sense, just keep talking until there’s nothing left to say. I won’t interrupt. Are you comfortable with that?”
Peter looks a little unsure but nods anyway.
“And hey – I won’t judge you at all. You know that. Just talk about anything and everything, okay?” Tony asks, pausing to make sure the kid understands. “Okay. You can start whenever. Let me know if it gets to be too much.”
There’s a moment of silence, and Tony can tell Peter is trying to gather his thoughts enough to start, and Tony reaches out and runs his fingers through his soft curls in a soothing gesture.
“I… I don’t know,” Peter starts, cautious and a little uncertain. “I’m just so tired all the time. I’ve tried everything: tea, sleeping supplements, classical music, exercising. Everything. But. But it’s always too loud. My head is too loud. I… I try so hard to go to sleep but all I hear are screams and I feel the gritty sensation of dust against my skin and it makes me scared that I’m going to go away again,” Peter says thickly.
Tony tenses, resisting the urge to remind Peter that he’d never let that happen. Not again. But this isn’t a time for conversation.
“I don’t want to go away. I keep thinking it’ll get better. And sometimes it does. But then sometimes I want to… I want to dissociate again. I do the exercises you taught me. But I can’t even dissociate anymore because it’s just too loud, like my thoughts are tethering me to my stupid, tired body and May is worried, I can tell she’s worried, but she’s not here enough to do anything about it. And it’s not like it’s her fault, she has to work and I’m no help. I’m so useless, sometimes. Some hero I am,” Peter mutters bitterly.
Tony wants so badly to refute that, to tell Peter how loved and incredible he is, but he stays silent, opting to rub soothing circles into the kid’s scalp, raking his fingers through his hair and hoping to convey the sentiment through touch.
“Sometimes… Sometimes I wish I’d never become Spider-Man. I wish that that stupid spider had bitten some other scrawny kid, so I wouldn’t have to do this. But I do have to do this. For Ben. For everyone who can’t stand up for themselves.”
Peter pauses, before saying, “If God’s real, I don’t think He likes me. I mess up too much. I keep trying to be better but if Heaven’s real, I don’t think people like me deserve to be there. They’d never let me in.
Peter laughs, a harsh sound that grates at Tony. This – this pure fucking kid thinks he wouldn’t be allowed into heaven. Jesus. Tony wants to strangle him and hug him all at once.
“I know it’s selfish, but I am so fucking tired. I can’t – it gets too loud and I just want it all to stop sometimes,” he confesses, and Tony freezes.
This isn’t news, of course. He remembers the cold feeling that shot through his veins when he found Peter sitting casually on a roof, but god, he wishes his kid never had to feel like this. He wishes he could have protected Peter better.
“I’m tired,” Peter repeats. “I don’t hang out with Ned enough. I feel bad. Cool dude. Been my bes’ friend for a while.”
Good, Tony thinks. The kid’s already fading.
“He’s my guy in the chair, ya know? Helped me after Ben died. And bullies. They don’t like me. Wish they knew that, that I already hate myself, so they don’t have to. They don’t have to be loud, because my head already does that for them.”
It takes every ounce of self-control for Tony to keep quiet, to keep from curling his hands into angry fists. He takes a few deep breaths and focuses on the feeling of Peter’s hair running through his fingers. It’s enough, for now.
“And.” Peter sighs, as if getting too tired to continue. He probably is. “They don’ know what it’s like, ya know? Try and try and try an’ I still fail. An’ I get stuck like this. I get stuck in my head and sometimes I’m like, what if this is all fake an’ I’m in the stone? Scared to sleep. Scared to wake up.”
Tony can’t help the feeling of guilt that settles over him like a heavy blanket. It’s his fault for dragging Peter into all of this in the first place. It’s his fault the kid can’t sleep and has panic attacks and dissociates and works himself into exhaustion.
“Don’ wanna wake up sometimes. But couldn’t do that t’May. I love May. She does so much. I don’ do enough.” There’s another pause, and Peter just lays there, eyes closed, and Tony’s just starting to think that maybe he’s finally drifted up, but Peter starts talking again. But he’s barely there.
“Sometimes I think I’m a waste o’ space. You could have any kid work with you. Why me, ya know? Doesn’ make sense. M’not special. You’re nice, though. People think a lot of things ‘bout you. Mos’ of ‘em are wrong. You’re the most selfless person I know,” Peter sounds drowsily, body relaxed.
Tony’s heart clenches and he bites back the lump in his throat at how goddamn pure this kid is.
“S’okay, though. Think they know now. You’re good. You help me. Wanted to tell you that but emotions.”
Tony laughs, scratching the Peter’s scalp slightly, and the young hero keens unconsciously, letting out another relaxed sigh.
“S’good. Feels good. Quiet. Tired.”
He falls silent again, breaths evening out, and Tony finally speaks up.
“It’s okay, Pete,” Tony murmurs, still running his fingers through the soft locks. “You can stop talking now. You did amazing. I’m so proud of you.”
Peter turns his head sleepily towards his mentor’s voice.
“Love ya, Tony,” he mumbles. Tony’s heart breaks into a million pieces and puts itself back together again with those words.
“Love you, too, kid.”
And with that, Peter succumbs to sleep.
(It’s the closest thing to peace he’s had in a long time.)