Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are firsts for everything. Some are nerve wrecking, but fulfilling, like your first kiss on a date or finally riding that scary roller coaster you’ve seen since you were a kid. Some are exciting like, in Peter’s case, going to kindergarten or when the first time Peter had ever met Tony, it was from when he saved him. 

But, some can be tragic or traumatic like, when you lose someone so quickly and suddenly that it leaves a noticeable empty space in your life. 

“No, just— please don’t touch me.” Sniffles fill the room. 

Today was the day, the anniversary of that tragic day. 

“Im sorry, I should’ve known-“

May had told Tony about it, how it changed Peter. She wanted to make sure nothing like that would repeat. From that conversation, Tony knew that May would kill before she let her nephew be hurt again. 

Peter draws his arms in around his stomach, “It’s just that, he— he um,” 

He was holding Peter when he—

“I don’t wanna talk about it, not yet.”

Tony gives a nod, “Yeah, I understand. That’s okay, it’s okay.”

They sit in loud silence for twenty minutes. 

“Tony?”

“Yeah?”

Peter absent-mindedly rubs his arm, “It was, it got all over me, my clothes, my hair. In the shower I kept um, I kept scrubbing. My stomach, my arms my hands my—“ He catches himself and looks up. “Sometimes I still do.”

“It’s over now Peter. You’re safe, you’re okay.”

“He held onto me so tight,“ Peter gasps, “He said it would be okay and—“ He shakes his head, “But I um— I didn’t feel okay.”

“Tony I could’ve—”

Tony interrupted, “I know what you’re thinking, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I could’ve done something,”

“Peter—“

“I knew something was wrong, I felt it. I just couldn’t do anything.”

“You were a child, Peter. You still are.” Tony scoots closer to him, “You couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.”

Peter silently stares ahead and keeps his position 

“That had to have been frightening and confusing to you, how would you know what to do, Peter? You didn’t even know what was happening.” Tony stares at Peter with seriousness in his eyes, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Peter ignores that and shakes his head, “Aunt May doesn’t know but, I still have the clothes from that night... Is that wrong? I kept it as a, as a reminder I guess. A reminder of how I could’ve, y’know, did better.” Peter laughs, “That’s kinda dark, isn’t it?”

Tony speaks after a minute, “No but, it’s unfair to you, and the you in that memory.

I know how it is, to...” Tony pauses to gather his thoughts, “to blame yourself for things out of your control. It takes a while to convince yourself that, and even longer for you to realize that you don’t have to punish yourself for it. You can’t let yourself think like that. It is not your fault.”

“But what if it is?”

Chapter Text

And Peter’s always dealing with it;

He has bumps along the road just as anyone else. Because the pain and the guilt never really stops, it’s just placed on the back burner—low-medium heat—not too closely watched. Then you turn away for what just seems like a minute and then you hear it bubbling over. You thought you were okay, but you turn around and you find that it just it got hotter and hotter, and whatever’s in the pot bubbles over and now it’s splattering all over the stovetop, the clock face of the oven, and the counter and you know it’s gonna take a helluva long time to clean up and it’s gonna need more than water—

If only you had just paid a little more attention. 

(if only he had paid a little more attention to the warning signs he could feel it for God’s sake his body was ringing bells all around him he could’ve stopped it, he could’ve—)

It always gets worse around this time and he’s gotten pretty good at hiding and ignoring it. If you asked him, he was dealing with it.

But, if you pay enough attention you can tell. It shows in thousand yard long stares and the still unwavering of his body with a faint look of pain in his eyes. It shows in the tiredness in his face from insomnia caused by his nightmares or from him messing with his suit so he could stay out on patrol and push way past the limits of curfew. 

‘Pushing your pain down and hiding it isn’t the same thing as dealing with it, Peter.’

He had made Karen promise not to tell. Or more like he tried to make the situation seem less horrible than it was.

(sometimes he wishes people, or AI’s, would just listen instead of acting or doing. peter just wanted, no needed, someone to listen sometimes.)

Peter had thought about just going in there, violating her code and taking away all of the data and the analytics so Tony wouldn’t know. 

He hated himself for even thinking about it because that’s what happened to him.  He got something taken away against his will, he knows how that feels how dare I try something so fucked up like that I should be punished for something like that I can’t believe I—

Peter opted to tell his AI companion that she didn’t need to mention to Tony that maybe Peter needed to get a checkup from Bruce because his reaction times were a little slow or because when he shot out a web to send himself swinging through the air it was almost at the last second. 

(Peter doesn’t think the AI has learned that doing what he says isn’t always the same thing as doing the right thing. He just has to hope she hasn’t learned to “helpfully” rebel yet.)

‘It’s fine, I just need practice.’

(he needed practice on how to value his life maybe.)

‘Compared to your skills when you first got this suit, Peter, you were near perfect. You don’t need practice. Your skills have declined as of late, it’ll be negligent and reckless to ignore this. It’s a bit worrying, friend.’

Friends, Peter loves his friends very much.

Ned is his day one, his ride or die. Peter loves him. He knows Ned pretends to now know when his friend is getting bad. Ned knows about it, he knows what it looks like. Hell, Ned was the first person he cried about it with too. That’s how he got better. His best friend, ‘Guy In The Chair’, Ned Leeds swooped in and helped him. Ned had always been that guy in a chair, the both of them just never realized until that homecoming week when—

Yeah nope, that’s something that always puts fear in his chest, he’d rather not think about that. 

Michelle Jones, she’s his favorite pretend bully and a friend that’s maybe becoming more than friends. MJ never lets Peter breathe when she thinks something is wrong, she wouldn’t even give him a chance to pretend he’s okay. She’s observant, knowing, and doesn’t take bullshit or even give it. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything either, ‘If I got something to say I’ll say it’. is a common line of her’s. MJ knows that something happened and that it still affects him, but even though she doesn’t know, she gives him support anyways. She knows better to push it. 

He doesn’t lie to his friends about how he’s feeling, but he does lie about the reasons of why he has those feelings, or he’ll even not say them at all and give them an, ‘I don’t know’.

They’re his friends, he feels safer talking to them. They won’t freak out and stay up late, wasting money on trying to find him a therapist that he doesn’t need. They can’t, really.

Peter has control, he loves control. 

On the other hand, May is an Aunt. Aunts will freak out and stay up late, wasting money on trying to find him a therapist that he doesn’t need and taking all that control away from him. 

He doesn’t tell May when everything gets too heated and stuff starts to bubble up and overflow. He doesn’t tell her it’s so bad that he’ll probably need someone to help him clean up. She’s already dealt with so much with him at this point and she has too many responsibilities on her plate. He can’t afford—she can’t afford to be weighed down anymore. 

On the other hand, Tony is a friend.

Peter doesn’t have control over him, of course, he’s only a kid (teenager) and Tony’s an adult. But Peter does have some leeway with Tony, or maybe Tony just lets him think that. 

Peter doesn’t even have to tell Tony how he’s feeling, just like Ned and MJ, he knows. But, Tony doesn’t pretend to not know and subtly treat him with love and care as Ned does, nor does he press him about it as MJ does. It always goes like this:

Tony acknowledges it in a way that just makes Peter open up and break down. Tony listens, comforts him, gives him advice, and gives him more comfort when Peter inevitably breaks down some more.

Peter always apologizes, but Tony lets him know that it’s all okay, and that talking and letting out feelings is good, that it’s never okay to hold things in and to always get help. 

(it sometimes frustrates him when Tony talks like that because it makes him feel like a kid, but he won’t tell him that.)

Today is one of those days. It’s still the month of that day and last night on patrol someone reminded Peter of back then. He didn’t even remember which incident the man reminded him of. All Peter knows is that he was suddenly taken back to that night again and this became the first time ever that he let lost control and let his anger take over.

And he almost killed him.

If he did—

Peter could see it in the headlines: SPIDER-MAN MURDERS SEX OFFENDER IN FRONT IF CHILD, or SPIDER-MAN KILLS ARMED MAN IN FRONT OF CIVILIANS.

Yet, Karen had stopped him. 

Peter had almost killed him.

How could he?

How could I? 

I’m just as bad as— I don’t deserve to be—

Demented. 

Sick. 

Hypocrite. 

Peter is quiet in the lab. He sits away from Tony and instead rests at his desk filled with all his work full of various formulas and theories, but he isn’t working on it. He hasn’t been lately. All he’s doing is sitting and staring as he relentlessly chews on the inside of his left cheek until it bleeds.

“Peter?“ Tony asks behind him and Peter answers back in quick succession. 

“Mr.Stark,” Peter pauses for a tense second, “I almost killed someone last night,” Peter says hoarsely. “He was about to,” Peter can’t say it, “I just, I just snapped back to when it happened and I started punching him, but I couldn’t stop.”

Tony winces and his face changes into one of sympathy, “I know, Karen, she told me.” 

“Oh.” See, that makes Peter want to Freak Out™ even more. If she told him that, what else did Tony know? 

Tony pulls up a chair beside him and sits, “Are you okay?”

Peter’s breathing falters and he looks up at Tony, “I— No.” 

“Want to talk about it?”

Peter nods his head but he can barely get the words out. A staccato of thoughts rush through his head and he can barely get a grasp on even one of them. Like, yeah. He wants to talk about it, he wants to talk a lot about it but he can’t. He doesn’t know what to say, where to start, and the talks almost always end up unfinished because he feels embarrassed, annoying, or has a breakdown in the middle of it.

Tony grabs Peter's hands. “Peter? You okay there?” 

He’s still staring right at Tony’s worried face and Peter realizes he’s digging his fingernails into the palms of his own hands, and his breathing is increasingly becoming irregular.

Peter nods, “Yeah, sorry um. When Karen snapped me out of it, I just called the police, made sure the other person was at least okay and ran.” Peter shakes his head either at the memory or at himself. “He was bad when I left him there, how do I know he didn’t die when he was taken to the hospital? That’s so fucking fucked up of me. I just took out all my—my pent up anger and grief on him, what makes me better than—“

“Hey, don’t say that Pete—”

“Can you let me talk!” Peter snaps then a look of regret quickly replaces his anger. “Shit— crap I’m sorry.”

Tony holds up his hands and lets Peter’s foul language pass, “No it’s fine, it was my fault.” 

“Okay I just, just let me say this. I have to get it out.” Peter is pleading more than commanding. 

————————

So, Peter begins speaking and Tony listens. Peter cries and rants and laughs (albeit inappropriately) about everything that had been plaguing him and Tony listens.  He doesn’t interrupt to dispel any negative thoughts Peter had, he listens, let’s Peter know he understands and gives feedback only when asked. 

And, when Peter is done, he falls into Tony. He’s physically and mentally exhausted and is kind of rethinking the ranting thing he just did. He thinks he feels empty, but eventually, he realizes it’s not that he feels empty, he feels lighter. The lingering sadness from crying was still there, but he felt better.

“Hey, you want some water?” Tony says. 

Peter nods his head against Tony’s chest, “Yeah, and some food maybe?”

Tony chuckled, “Sure, Pete.” He moved to pull away but Peter’s grip strengthens on him. “I can’t order anything if you’re still holding onto me.” Peter stays silent and keeps his hold on Tony. 

Peter can't see him, but Tony playfully rolls his eyes and holds Peter a little closer, “Okay then. Friday?” He feels Peter smile against him. 

“On it.”