Chapter Text
He hadn't realized it was a problem, until he had hit the ground.
He didn’t understand how he had gotten there. He had just been walking along with his friends, and then his backside was on the pavement and he was scrabbling back. The hair on his neck stood up and that familiar sense of danger shot through him.
But instead of giving him a direction, a sense of where the danger was, it was everywhere. Surrounding, closing in. Suffocating.
A deep rumbling shot through him as the whistle blared. Alarms rang through his head and the ground shook to pieces underneath him.
"Peter, what's going on? What's wrong? What is it?"
God. No. Don't talk, don’t touch me. Don't. Stop.
Pain and darkness and blood and one wrong move and he would die. Slip underneath and be smashed to obliteration. Spread across the tracks and gone.
"Wait, give him room."
"I'm giving him room, MJ!"
He scrabbled for purchase, the blood smearing along sleek metal. Too much blood on his hands and he was slipping. He needed to get to safety.
The world crescendoed, all the rumbling and the cacophony reaching a height he couldn't take.
He slammed his hands over his ears. He couldn't find safety and maybe he was going to die, but then at least the noise would stop.
His stomach lurched and then it all began to fade away. The ground settled, the world quieted.
Peter's heart pounded and the feeling of danger still stole away his breath.
He wasn't dead, but maybe he was still dying because his chest hurt and there was no air.
"Breathe."
A command. Peter blinked hard. He recognized that voice.
"Yeah, just breathe."
His friends. His best friends.
Careful fingers danced along the inside of his wrist. A slight pressure that sent pain up his arm, taking his pulse.
The world stopped.
Peter breathed.
Great gasping breaths of a drowning man.
The danger was fading, but the colors were still too bright, everything still assaulted his senses with a magnitude he couldn't describe. He shut his eyes, but the noise of his own breathing resounded in his ears. Hot saliva pooled in his mouth and acid burned up his throat. And MJ had used something strawberry scented for her hair and they all smelled like sweat from walking in the summer heat.
The heat. The sidewalk he was on had warmed in the sun and it burned his legs through his jeans.
It was all too much and he shot up on his feet. Knocking away concerned hands.
"I 'ave t'go."
He ran.
He ran and ran until he couldn't hear his friend’s voices calling after him anymore.
He slipped down an alleyway.
Darker, quieter. Good.
He pulled his suit from his backpack and was changed in record time.
With not a thought to where he was going, he climbed up the nearest wall. Up and up until he was above most of the noise and bright colors.
Up, above everything, on the roof, he stilled and he waited.
The sun had begun to set and the world had begun to cool by the time he crept towards his building's edge and looked over.
Down below, there were the train tracks. There was the sidewalk he had been walking with his friends when everything seemed to shatter to pieces.
A train went by, thundering down the tracks. Peter felt it as it sent tremors through the ground, somehow shaking the building he had settled on.
But he could manage it from a distance. It wasn't so bad from far away.
He bit his lip and pulled in a breath through his nose.
Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid.
The train was gone, the ground still shook.
You're not afraid of trains.
Another one was on its way. Too far to see, but he could feel it shaking the ground all the same.
Peter bit through his lip.
"Edith," Peter whispered in the dark. He had eventually found his way home and managed to pull his suit off before crawling into bed. May was out, maybe working, maybe with Happy, he couldn't remember.
He had reached out from within his blanket cocoon and hesitated. Phone or glasses? His friends probably had been texting, maybe calling; he should respond.
Peter grabbed the glasses and pushed them onto his face before burying himself in blankets once again.
"Hello, Peter." Edith sounded quieter than usual, maybe she had read something in him.
"Is everything here real right now?" Peter felt his voice waver and it made his cheeks color in embarrassment. He felt dumb for having to ask, but he needed to know.
There was a brief moment of hesitation before the answer came.
"Yes."
Peter breathed out.
"You appear to be bleeding, do you require further assistance?"
"No, no, I'm good. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Peter still tasted blood in his mouth, but, even though it hurt, he was pretty sure he would be fine in a day or so. He still had time before school started up again, so he didn't have to worry about making an excuse for an injury for teachers or classmates.
"Edith, you'll let me know if anything… is not okay, right?"
Another brief pause.
"Yes, Peter."
Peter breathed. The air stung his lip as he dragged it in. The displayed readings in the glasses dimmed automatically and Peter let his eyes shut, content with the slight weight pressing into the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, Peter."
He didn't know why his aunt sounded so exasperated until she had wet a dish cloth in their kitchen sink and was wiping at his chin.
The wound had mostly healed, but enhanced healing didn't clear away the dried blood still smeared across his face.
"I thought you weren't going to patrol last night. I thought you and your friends were going out to eat."
She sounded calm, but the words sat heavily in the air between them. He had promised to tell her when he was out patrolling.
Waking up with a freshly healed busted up lip made it look like he was breaking promises.
"I didn't, I just…" He trailed off. He had promised not to lie as well. "Swung home. Bit my lip by accident."
"With your super strong teeth?" May sighed, but she forced a worried smile.
"Yeah," Peter tried to smile back. He couldn't do it without pulling on his freshly sealed cut.
He took the cloth from her and proceeded to wipe at his own face. May's hands landed on his shoulders with a squeeze. She took in a deep breath and held it for a beat.
"Okay," She turned away towards the kitchen sink. "Help me make breakfast in a bit?"
Peter nodded, eager for the distraction.
28 new texts and 6 missed calls.
He put the phone face down on his mattress. Avoiding wasn't going to help.
Breathe.
"Okay," Peter dragged air in and picked his phone back up.
It was a lot of asking what was going on and please let them know he's okay. The last message had come in early that morning.
MJ: Text 1 if you're dead, 2 if you're still alive.
Peter: 2
Peter ran fingers through his hair as he let out a hollow laugh. His phone buzzed in his hand, startling him.
MJ: Do you want to talk about it? 1 for yes, 2 for not right now.
Peter: 2. I'm sorry about what happened. I'm alright.
No need to talk about it at all.
There was a long pause before the next text came in.
MJ: Text Ned too. I'll see you soon.
He sent off another text to his best friend. Brief, reassuring and apologetic.
He turned his phone to silent and set it face down on his mattress before climbing back underneath his comforter.
He grabbed the glasses from where he had stored them underneath his pillow and slipped them onto his face. With his blanket over his head, he squinted, preparing for Edith’s blue light that always filled the frames.
"Edith?" Readouts appeared in front of his eyes, scanning the room, bringing up his own profile picture. Letting him know he had just received a text on his phone. He ignored that for now.
"Yes, Peter?"
Peter wrung his hands together, scratching the skin along his fingers. He tapped his knuckles against each other.
"Am I okay?"
Edith didn’t need to pause. Peter imagined she was able to process nearly everything in milliseconds. But there were times Peter swore she would hesitate . Maybe Mr. Stark had made her that way; to emulate more natural conversation.
Maybe Peter just wasn’t good at communicating with her.
“Peter, how can I assist you?” She sounded slower, quieter, the lights blinking in his eyes dimmed, most of the readouts were cleared away, instead replaced with numbers that Peter realized was his heart rate. It didn’t look abnormal.
“I don’t know if you can- sorry, just keep the heart rate up for now. That’s fine.”
“Of course.” Edith went quiet after that. Peter stared at the numbers until his eyes blurred and he slipped into sleep once more.
Peter told May he wasn’t feeling well and she didn’t press him.
After his school trip, he had stayed home for days, sleeping in and watching horrible reality shows with May late into the night. Even with his healing factor, he had still been injured when he got home, he had still been in pain. Happy had him looked over, bringing in one of Tony’s doctors to assess him. A quiet professional woman who had been sworn to secrecy long ago. Happy had suggested he take a vacation to get over his vacation and he looked as though he wanted to invite him and May to go away somewhere, but May had suggested staying home and Peter agreed.
He had been so tired.
And now, with only a little over a week left before classes started up again, he was exhausted once more.
He didn’t know how long he could hide away, before his Aunt got too worried. Hopefully, just a day. He just needed a day to rest and then he could go back outside, enjoy time with his friends. Once he got some rest he could clamp down on any weird reactions he had. He had been through so much and he wasn’t going to let one incident with a train bother him. This wasn't going to be a part of him, he wasn't going to let it.
He just needed a few days. And then he would be fine.
Everything was going to be fine .
Peter didn't know what his definition of "fine" was anymore.
He had been swinging to places or Happy had been driving him. He didn't take the subway. Why would he? He had an easier way to get around. No need to take the subway anywhere.
He still had a few days before school started up again, when he had gone out patrolling and gone too far. He had been trying to find the highest building to sit and pass his time. He had already stopped a mugging, probably using more webs than he should have, and by the time he was ready to head home, he realized he was low on webbing.
He briefly wondered if he could take the subway as Spiderman when, with a stomach dropping jolt, he realized he didn't want to.
Not even that he didn't want to, but the idea of it made his heart race. The harder he tried to convince himself to move, the more firmly planted his feet became to the rooftop ledge.
Well, he wasn't too low on webbing. If he timed it right, if he stretched out his strands, maybe he could just make it back to his neighborhood at least.
Not giving his heart rate time to slow, Peter leapt from his perch and began his journey home.
His heart continued to pound in his chest and his mouth felt too dry.
His hand slipped minutely, but not enough to cause concern.
Now that his heart had got going, it seemed to kick his other senses into overdrive.
Cars rumbled and honked, people called and shouted and laughed. The trains barreled down their tracks. He couldn't see them, but they whistled and made the ground tremble. The buildings shook, Peter could feel the vibration through the webs, through his shaking hands.
He slipped.
Webbing shot out at nothing but air and, for a moment, he was angry that he had wasted it, before he became terrified that he wasn't catching himself.
He attempted a desperate shot that stuck to an old billboard that ripped upon taking his weight.
He thought he would scream, but he didn't have the air in his lungs to force the sound out anyway.
He dipped lower and turned, allowing his hip to take the damage when he crashed into the side of a building.
Out of breath and stunned, he dropped to the ground, landing on his back and letting out a soft grunt.
Not his best recovery or landing.
Pain flared up his side and it was just similar enough to back then that his faculties failed him.
He couldn't breathe and his heart was racing while his stomach launched acid up his throat.
Laying on the ground, half way in an alley, Peter couldn't help the strangled noise that escaped him.
Don't cry don't cry don't cry.
The ground hummed beneath him and a train rumbled through his head.
Peter shoved his mask up, exposing his mouth, avoiding smothering himself if he did throw up.
Time ticked by. Peter could feel it, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself back enough to get up and walk home.
The other option was calling someone to come get him.
Just like before.
He messed up, he needed a ride.
Stubborn, Peter forced his feet underneath him.
He was shuddering and he couldn't get it to stop. He thought his legs were going to give out.
He hadn't designed this suit with an AI system and he found he missed Karen, maybe she could have distracted him, make him think about something else besides the pain shooting up his side.
By morning, it would be healed. Nothing to worry about.
Peter bit his lip and limped home.
He woke up sore and with a splitting headache. Edith was displaying his vitals, burning them into his retinas. He didn't even remember putting the glasses on before crawling into bed. He must have been out of it.
"Everythin' real?" He slurred.
"Yes." Edith's answer seemed too short, as though she was cutting herself off from saying more.
"Everything okay?" He mumbled, turning his head into his pillow, not caring how the glasses pressed into his face.
"Peter, what specific information do you require?"
Peter sighed. "Just, I'm okay? Nothing unusual is going on?"
"May Parker is at work, you have 4 unread text messages and the contusions you obtained are healed." There was a brief pause, perhaps she was waiting for feedback. "Do you wish to contact anyone?"
"No."
"If you would like a more thorough assessment of your wellbeing, I recommend you contact someone."
"No, I'm okay. I can handle things."
"It is currently 12pm and you have been asleep for 14 hours."
Peter frowned. He didn't know if Edith was just reporting or if she was suggesting that he was obviously not handling things.
Peter sat up in bed. "Alright, I'm up."
He couldn't sit around moping. It didn't matter how he felt, he needed to fix himself. He would make it okay.
"Edith?"
"Yes, Peter?"
"Can you help me with something?"
Peter pushed the glasses further up on his nose. He fidgeted with them, getting them to sit just right.
He was ignoring the way the summer sun beat down on him, how uncomfortable it was with his long sleeve button down.
But he needed the long sleeves to hide his web shooters. They looked enough like bracelets, but he still didn't want them to be exposed. His suit was in his backpack, surprisingly heavy, but comforting in a way. Peter adjusted the straps on his shoulders. He shuffled forward carefully, ignoring the throbbing in his hip.
It was going to be okay. He would make it okay again.
Edith displayed his heart rate across his lens.
He'd gone back to the location where he'd first freaked out with Ned and MJ. Not a panic attack. He didn't want to give it that label. It was just his senses getting screwed up again. He needed to calibrate.
The tracks lay in front of him, glinting in the sun. The crossing arms didn't come down as he approached. No train was coming yet.
"Peter, you have 21 minutes."
"Thank you," he breathed out.
"Shall I display a timer?"
"No, no." All he needed was some horrible countdown staring him in the face, setting him on edge. "Just a reminder every four minutes, please."
"Understood."
Peter inched along the sidewalk, past the place he had fallen, past the place he had scrambled backwards creating scrapes on his palms that had healed within the day.
He walked past all of it. Until he stood at the edge, his shoes inches from that first strip of glinting metal.
A memory of Beck and an apology went skittering across his mind and he pushed it away.
Don't think don't think don't think.
Pain was shooting up his side now, making the hair on his arm stand up.
"Time?" He managed to choke out weakly.
"18 minutes."
"This is real." A brief pause, he wasn't being clear, it didn't sound like a question.
"Yes, Peter."
His shoe brushed metal. The steady vibration sent a tremor through his body.
The train is coming.
The train is coming.
Peter made a strangled noise in the back of his throat.
"17 minutes, Peter. Shall I begin the discussed distraction protocol?"
Peter nodded and hoped Edith registered it.
Edith started talking. She was quieter than usual, a touch slower than her regular pace.
"It is 2:12pm. You have three new text messages and one missed call. The temperature outside today is 99 degrees fahrenheit. A heatwave is suspected to hit in the next three days…"
Peter was standing with one foot on the rail and everything inside him screamed. He forced out a shaky breath and felt his throat close around the inhale.
Move your foot, he demanded. Move your stupid foot.
You look ridiculous, someone's going to think you have a death wish, just walk across.
Edith faded away and all he could hear was his heart thundering in his ears. The ground shook, it rattled his joints, caused pain to blossom everywhere.
Don't get pulled under, don't get smashed apart. Pull yourself up.
"5 minutes, Peter."
What had happened to his time? He'd been standing there, not really breathing for several minutes, he should have passed out by now. Peter glanced down the railway, he couldn't see it, but he felt it.
His stomach lurched.
"Peter, if you are unable to move, I will be forced to contact someone."
Because he was standing on train tracks and of course Edith had some sort of imminent danger protocol.
He wondered who could even get here in five minutes. Not Aunt May, not Happy, not his friends. Mr. Stark probably could have or at least one of his suits could have. Not that it was an option.
Peter wondered if he was going to throw up.
"Peter, while it does not meet your objective, if you are unable to cross, I suggest moving backwards."
Not forward, but back.
He let the feeling of danger take over. That horrible sensation shot up his spine and dialed his senses up further.
As if shocked, he jerked his foot from the metal. He could still feel the trembling. The train would be there soon. He could hear it, feel it shaking apart his core.
Peter ran.