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Another bead of sweat formed on Peter’s forehead, and the boy let it slide down his temple and to his chin, leaving a delicate trail as it did so. At this point he couldn’t identify what was sweat and what was salty tears - he had no energy to tell the difference. It was the middle of the week, the early hours of Thursday morning, and Peter should be in bed; instead, he was plastered to the roof of an unidentifiable building in the middle of New York City, allowing guilt to eat away at his stomach, every bite making him want to curl further into a ball.
There were so many possibilities running through Spider-Man’s - Peter’s - mind, so many different scenarios playing as if on tape, overlapping and interrupting one another. It was all a bit foggy, but not pleasant fog that sparks your curiosity of the unknown. The type of fog that leaves you almost sightless and leaves nervousness to gather in your gut.
Could he have saved that woman’s life if he had been faster? Stronger? Would she be able to return home to her family if he had spotted the danger quicker? Would he have even had to protect her if he had taken out that gunman before he had the chance to see her? These thoughts came crashing down like waves on the teenager, each harsher than the last. Each wave left him drowning further into the depth of his feelings, suffocating him and filling his lungs with more and more water.
Sirens wailed below him, but the noises went in one ear and out of the other. His mask lay abandoned next to his outstretched arm (having ripped it from his head mere minutes before) and this allowed his senses to overlap and battle for dominance. No matter how much he begged himself to relax, to appreciate the stars in the sky and the lights emitting from neon signs, his eyes continuously filled up with fresh tears.
New York City would have to wait, for Spider-Man was taking a raincheck on playing superhero. For once, he was going to be Peter Parker - a vulnerable, sixteen year old boy.
Tony Stark was trying not to be worried. Perhaps the boy had simply broken his phone mid-fight, or even left it on his bed. Maybe he was asleep, much more peaceful than Tony was. But maybe he was injured, kidnapped, dead.
No, obviously not. If Peter was in danger, Tony would sense it. His fatherly instincts would have kicked in before the boy had even set foot into the danger zone. Nevertheless, dread pulsated through his veins and circled his entire body, driving him ever so slightly insane.
“He’s probably fine, Tony. Just got his phone on silent or something, really.” Rhodey had tried to reassure him, but every time Tony had shrugged off the idea with a rapid shake of his head.
“He hasn’t contacted me.”
“Don’t you think Karen would have if there was a problem?” Rhodey placed a hand on his friends’ shoulder, a frown sinking into the corners of his lips as he felt how tense he was. “It technically is your suit, you programmed it to protect the kid. It isn’t going to fail you now.”
“Maybe she doesn’t think there’s a problem. Maybe he isn’t even in the suit.” Tony always seemed to find loopholes in solutions in order to disprove them, and he wasn’t going to give up now. “Maybe he’s out there, suitless, at three in the morning, alone.”
The ruckus seemed to have stirred a few of the Avengers from their beds, as the door slid open with a satisfying click, revealing Natasha (who was still in her sleepwear), an unamused glint present in her gaze. This soon turned to pity as her eyes locked with Tony’s, clicking onto the situation at lightning speed. “The kid?”
“I...I can’t get into contact with him. He isn’t answering his phone and I have can’t get a hold of Karen.” Tony rushed his words, letting it all fall out as word soup. At this point he was past caring for how strong he looked - this was his kid, and he would go to the ends of the earth and back again to be certain that he was well.
“Well...can you track her?” Natasha suggested, turning her sleepy eyes away from the desperate man to look at the many screens surrounding the room, one of which was used primarily for GPS tracking. The realisation hit Tony like a train travelling at full speed.
Yes, he could.
“Natasha Romanoff, I could kiss you.” Tony grabbed Rhodey by his forearm and gave him a coaxing tug to follow him to the equipment, leaving Natasha in his dust in a moment of brainstorm.
“Save your affections,” Natasha muttered under her breath, sarcasm lacing her tone as she followed the pair of boys with sleep-riddled movements.
Tony, accompanied by his two companions, frantically typed and clicked into the computer, selecting the GPS tracked for Karen and throwing it up on the larger screen. Multiple stats were given:
STATUS: ACTIVE
CONDITION: STAND BY
INTERCOMS: OFFLINE
“He’s isolating himself.” Rhodey declared after the three stood in stock silence for what felt like an eternity. “His suit wouldn’t be active if he wasn’t in it, and it would be in repairs if Karen was damaged. He’s turned it off himself.”
“Why would he do that?” Tony mused, trying to put himself into the boy’s shoes, but finding immense difficulty in doing so. The way that the pair thought could sometimes be so opposite that he simply couldn’t understand what the younger boy was thinking, and this was one of those times. “It’s not the anniversary of Uncle Ben, or his parents. It has to be something recent.”
“Go find out, then.” Natasha raised her hand to hover over the area in which the GPS was flashing, somewhere on the opposite side of New York City. Despite the distance, effort and time it would have taken to get to Peter, Tony squeezed his way between Natasha and Rhodey and set off with a new plan in hand: find the boy before he could do something he would regret.
Two turned to three, and to four. Peter lay motionless, eyes fixated on the sky but he wasn’t looking at it, not properly. The stars would normally bring comfort to him, remind him that there was more out there than just his life, but today it only brought one harrowing thought, the same thought that had been plaguing him for three hours.
Had he been too cocky? If he had acted like Mr Stark or Natasha, would he have provoked the gunman as much as he had? Perhaps this whole superhero thing just wasn’t fit for him, perhaps he was too young, too naive. He could attempt to persuade Mr Stark to find a way of removing his powers or giving them to somebody else. Would it be worth it? Would he be able to go back to being plain Peter Parker, who didn’t have to worry about what crime roamed the streets?
At this point Peter was slipping in and out of sleep, eyes willing him to rest but brain forcing him awake every time he inched too close. It was impossible to sleep this guilt away.
The consuming thoughts he had been pushing back and avoiding were tumbling down on him like bricks, perhaps even a whole building worth, all at once. How was he meant to hold up New York City when he couldn’t even hold his own emotional turmoil? How was he meant to grow and evolve into the superhero he was forced to become when the death of one person could send him down such a dark hole? How was he meant to become an Avenger when he couldn’t fight like the rest of them?
It wasn’t just him that had gone through hardships, but everyone else seemed to handle it better than Peter ever could.
“Peter.” Karen’s voice spoke through the mask, quiet and muffled from a distance. “Mr Stark’s suit is currently active. I think he is on his way.”
Without really deliberating his actions, Peter disabled Karen.
“Karen has been disabled, sir,” Friday spoke.
“Excuse me?”
“Underoos has disabled Karen. I can no longer track her GPS, or get into contact with either of them.” Friday repeated, displaying Karen’s stats again on the side of Tony’s HUD:
STATUS: OFFLINE
CONDITION: OFFLINE
INTERCOMS: OFFLINE
“You’re telling me Karen was manually turned off?” Tony repeated for a third round of clarification. Peter never fully disabled his suit, his condition was always set to standby for as long as the suit had been in the boy’s possession.
“Yes, sir.”
“Set boosters to high. We need to find him, now.” Tony’s voice struggled to emerge through the large lump that was forming in his throat; he knew that the boy was capable of taking care of himself (he had, nonetheless, proved himself worthy) but he had never seen him act this rationally before. Normally Peter was the polar opposite of him: excited where Tony was not, optimistic when Tony struggled to see the light. Now it felt as if Tony was the one bearing the light.
“Get into contact with Happy. Tell him to prepare a room for the kid to spend the night at the Avenger’s tower. I can’t send him back to May like this, she’ll know something’s up.” As Friday did just that, Tony tried his hardest to scan every single roof in his peripheral vision, desperate for a heat signature to pop up on the side of his HUD. Every empty rooftop added another layer to his dread, piling up above his head and ready to crush his spirit to nothing.
“Your heartbeat has spiked considerably, sir,” Friday informed him on numerous occasions, but he ignored her every time - he could feel it beating urgently in his chest and didn’t need to be reminded.
“Did you contact Happy or not, Friday?” Tony asked, irritation lacing his tone that he was failing, actually failing, to find his kid.
“Yes, sir. I did it when you asked. Please don’t take your anger out on me.”
“Sorry. I’m just…” Tony couldn’t find the correct word.
“Worried?”
“Worried isn’t a strong enough word.”
With Karen disabled, everything was silent. The number of cars on the roads had decreased drastically, leaving Peter’s voices the space to scream, kick and shout. Peter longed to shout something, to declare his presence, to let the world know he was still there, but the words always got stuck in his throat. Even if he could speak, what words would he say? He couldn’t call for help, because he was still in his suit; there was no way he was going to reveal his identity to a stranger because of his emotional turmoil. He would have to pull himself together, put on that damned mask and get off the roof before it was time for May to barge into his room and tell him to get up.
Amidst all these thoughts, his body wouldn’t move. His fingers wouldn’t respond to his pleas, his legs just wouldn’t budge. Nothing was going how he wanted it to, and his grip on his own state was beginning to loosen. He longed for company but didn’t want it, he longed for rest but refused to sleep. His eyes burned as they stared at the sky, his back throbbed after being pressed against the concrete for three hours, and his heart suffered with every beat it took.
It all felt too familiar. Not being able to save a life, being the reason for a heart to stop. Everything felt too real, too real for a teenager to handle, and oh how he longed to pass the responsibility to somebody else. Peter Parker had never been a selfish soul, but perhaps, this one time, he deserved it. Maybe he deserved to wake up one day and have his powers revoked, given to somebody else who could keep themselves steady.
Perhaps Mr Stark could take over. Bruce. Happy, even. Anyone.
These thoughts were short-circuited by the sound of boosters coming from his left. For the first time in hours he felt himself move, his head snapping to the side to identify the source of the sound. As he had predicted, the Iron Man suit was advancing on him at a swift speed, a speed normally reserved for battle or emergencies. On any other day this sound would have been music to his ears, for he truly enjoyed Mr Stark’s company, but today it felt different. It held a dawning realisation that he would have to discuss what had happened. It made him want to stand up and run away, to take his mask and escape the conversation he desperately didn’t want to have, but he knew that Karen would not be online in time (and that he wasn’t fast enough to escape him.).
The suit wasn’t even fully landed when Tony toppled out of it, jumping the last few inches and landing with a heavy thud. Panic was strewn across his features as he dropped quite roughly next to the boy, checking him over for any injuries. “Don’t do that, Peter!”
Peter did not have the energy to respond. He remained in the position that he had been in for what felt like an eternity now, building an internal wall between himself and Tony. The longer he remained distant, the longer he could avoid the events of the past night.
“Answer me!” Tony pleaded, placing two strong hands on the boy’s shoulders and giving him a gentle shake. “What happened?! Why did you go offline?!”
Peter’s pupils moved without his permission, landing on Tony’s face. The glint in Tony’s eyes sent a bulldozer through the wall he had been building, and the boy snapped. A strangled and raw sob broke through the silence of the night, taking Tony by surprise, but giving Peter an odd sense of relief. He did it again and again until he could no longer breathe.
“Peter…” Tony practically whispered, and this spurred the boy on further, swapping his sobs for a pained scream, filled to the brim with emotion. Tony had never experienced something so heart-shattering, watching this teenager break down in his grip. His pride fell into dust before him as he reached down to place his hand behind the boy’s head and aid him in sitting up, pressing his face against his shoulder. He allowed Peter to unravel before him, scream into his shoulder and raise his fist to hit against his chest. It was obvious that Peter had completely drained his energy clean because Tony could hardly feel the hits being aimed at him.
One hand on Peter’s head and the other holding his shoulder with the utmost delicacy, Tony could feel his own eyes beginning to sting with tears. He wasn’t one to cry on a regular basis, especially not about other people’s problems, but upon seeing Peter in such a broken state he just couldn’t contain it. A singular tear dropped into the boy’s hair, then another, until he couldn’t stop the tears from streaming. “You’re okay.”
The teenager shook his head violently, almost identical to the nod Tony had done only thirty minutes previous to Rhodey, the first movement Peter had felt was completely voluntarily. Again and again he shook his head until he could feel himself getting dizzy, only stopping once his head was forced into place by a pair of hands on his cheeks. “You’re safe.”
“She’s not!” Peter screeched, feeling his voice break halfway through the sentence. “She’s dead!”
“Who’s dead, kiddo?” Tony pressed gently for him to speak, guiding Peter’s face so that their eyes were locked together.
“That woman! I went to- to take down this man, and I didn’t see her just standing there and he shot her!” Peter motioned to his suit, which was stained with dark red splotches of what Tony could only presume was the woman’s blood. “I should have seen her, Mr Stark! I’m meant to be Spider-Man!”
“You aren’t just Spider-Man.” Tony reminded the fragile boy, letting one of his hands fall back to his shoulder as Peter shut his eyes roughly, pressing slightly into the hold of the man. “You’re… you’re Peter Parker, a teenage boy who makes mistakes sometimes. That woman’s death is not on your hands.”
“That mistake wasn’t made by Peter Parker. It was made by Spider-Man, who is meant to save lives, not let them end.” Peter’s voice was decreasing in volume with every word he spoke, finally reaching an appropriate inside voice that eased Tony’s nerves.
“They’re the same person.” Tony leaned over behind the boy and took the mask from behind him, holding it up to be eye level. “If you weren’t Spider-Man without this suit, I wouldn’t give it to you.” An odd wave of deja vu rushed over him.
Peter didn’t reply to his words, only set his eyes on the mask laying in Tony’s hands. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing seemed to want to come out. For a few moments Tony was afraid he had said something wrong, but as the teenager nodded gently and leaned his body forward into his hold, the worry was swept off the table. As if on instinct Tony wrapped an arm around Peter, allowing him the time to recollect himself fully.
“Happy has arranged a room for you at the Avenger’s Tower. I don’t want you going home to May’s like this.” Tony muttered into the boy’s ear, and he only got another nod in response. Seeing the boy so deflated really pulled on his heartstrings, it was such a contrary compared to the Peter he was so used to.
“It’s a school night…” Peter muttered, his voice slurring as he began to fall asleep. Tony rolled his eyes affectionately at the statement and gave the boy’s face a gentle slap to keep him awake.
“You can’t fall asleep until we’re back at the tower, kid. Stay awake.” Tony had to shake him a couple of times but eventually Peter came back around, the emotions that had been overriding his system finally draining from his eyes and being replaced by the Peter he knew.
Once being certain that the boy wouldn’t fall asleep in his arms, he handed him back his mask with a knowing look before returning to his suit. Peter, mask in hand, allowed Tony to pick him up bridal style and rest his cheek against the cold metal of his suit, a sigh escaping his lips at the chill it sent down his spine.
The ride back to the Avengers Tower was silent, except for the delicate breathing of Peter.
Peter awoke in a bed he didn’t find familiar, and he felt eyes staring at him before he could see them. This made him jump and he scrambled up the bed, heavy breaths escaping his lips.
“It’s just me.” Happy spoke from his seat, placing down his phone on the drawers to Peter’s right and moving to be sat on the edge of the bed. This allowed Peter to calm down slightly, unravelling himself from the ball he had curled himself into in order to look at Happy. His head was pounding and he had a slightly blocked nose, so he knew that he was a bit worse off than when he had left for patrol the night before.
“What’re you doing here?” Peter asked, using both hands to try to fix his bed hair so he looked at least a little appropriate for being in Happy’s company.
“Looking after you, of course. Tony needed sleep as much as you did, so I said I’d look after you until he woke up.” Happy, for once in his life, was living up to his name. There was a delicate and reassuring smile plastered on his lips, and it took Peter by slight surprise. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen Happy smile without being forced, or from Peter smiling first.
“You’re smiling.” Peter decided to point it out, not meaning for it to come out as a joke, but it nonetheless made Happy chuckle gently and shake his head affectionately, just as Tony had done the night before. It didn’t carry the same strength Tony’s had, but it still made Peter feel a bit brighter than moments before.
“I’m glad you’re okay.” Happy replied as if it were a known fact. “I’m used to you being okay.”
“I’m not.” Peter mused under his breath. He could tell by the hurt expression now on Happy’s face that he probably shouldn’t have said it at all.
“I know it doesn’t feel okay, but you are okay, Peter.” Happy’s hand clapped down on Peter’s shoulder and almost made his teeth chatter with the force of it. “You’re surrounded by people who will make sure you’re always okay.”
“It’s nice to have you back, Peter,” Karen announced as she started up, causing a smile to spread across the teenager’s face. “I have had new features added to my programs. Would you like to see them?”
“Have I?” Peter’s eyes widened at the fact, an eyebrow raising. He couldn’t remember giving his suit over to Tony for him to do maintenance. “Uh, sure. Let’s see it.”
Peter was expecting something to appear regarding his webs, maybe refill holders or a new spider gadget, but all that loaded was a screen that took up a majority of his HUD. Ned’s face appeared dead and centre, his typical, goofy grin plastered on his face.
“Hey Pete! You’re doing great out there. Keep it up!” Ned’s arms raised above his head in raised fists, punching the air over-enthusiastically. Peter squatted down into a crossed-legged position, deciding New York City could wait a few minutes.
Next up, Clint’s overenthusiastic “You can do it!” rang through Peter’s ears, accompanied by him and Natasha flashing four thumbs up.
“Keep fighting, kid!” Happy.
“Don’t you dare stop swinging!” Rhodey.
“C’mon, Queens!” Steve.
And finally, the man of the hour. Tony Stark, in all his glory, on Peter’s screen. “Keep breathing, son. We’re all counting on you.”
Maybe Happy was right. Maybe he was surrounded by people who would always make sure he was okay.