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Run. Don’t look back.
It’s a mantra Peter repeats in his head, as his feet hit the pavement and carry him further and further away from Midtown High. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he knows he can’t go back. At least not today.
He slows to a brisk walk once there’s enough distance put between him and the school. He tries to breathe, to focus on the gentle, spring air hitting his face, pulling him out of an anxiety attack and calming him down.
Peter keeps walking even after the panic attack ends. As long as he’s moving, he’ll be okay, even if eventually he’ll have to stop and actually stake out where exactly he’s ended up.
He doesn’t worry about that now. Only worries about putting one foot in front of the other, until he’s forced to stop when he runs into someone exiting an ice parlor.
“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t watching -” starts Peter, then stops, when he realizes who it is he’s run into. “Mr. Stark.”
“Oh, hey, Underoos,” he says, a bowl of ice cream in hand.
“What are you doing here?” asks Peter, looking around. Didn’t exactly seem like a place Tony Stark would hang around.
Tony looks at his watch, then back up at Peter. “I’m an adult. I’m allowed to eat ice cream in the middle of the day. What are you doing here? And not locked up at your super nerd school?”
“I’m skipping today.”
“Oh, really? Why?”
“No reason,” says Peter. Trying to act casual. “I’m just rebellious like that.”
Peter thinks Tony might try and pry, or laugh. Thankfully he doesn’t do either. Just eyes him suspiciously before pushing him inside the ice cream parlor, buying him a ridiculously large serving of the cookie dough flavor and belligerently declaring that it’s a nice day for a walk in the park.
*
Patches of doomed snow litter the grass in Central Park, glistening and melting under the new, Spring sun. Peter feels like that snow on days like today. That trying to hang on a little bit longer is altogether useless, especially when he’s worn and tired from anxiety.
He’d rather just give up. Not on life, but on school and Spider-Man and friends. On the things that make up his life. On days like today, even the good things are overwhelming and makes him want to crawl under his covers and never return to the world again.
They ditch their empty ice cream bowls in the trash can, and he follows Tony over to a path by pond, where a family with small children are feeding the ducks.
“I’m glad I ran into you today,” says Tony.
“Yeah?” Something like pride flutters in his chest.
Even after a few years of being in Tony’s orbit, Peter never gets tired of hearing he’s welcomed there, though it’s become more common since Peter has returned from the dust. Whatever had happened during those five years he’d been dead had turned Tony into the kind of person who’s free and generous with his affection.
“Yeah,” says Tony. “Pepper’s taken Morgan for a girl’s weekend, and I didn’t really feel like being alone today.”
“Why?”
“Suppose it’s just too quiet,” says Tony. “It’s easy to feel like… well, what it felt like when you were gone.”
Peter puts his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and the conversation stalls.
He doesn’t want to talk about his anxiety attacks at school, or the way he starts shaking when the world goes too eerily still and his mind has no choice but to dwell on the things he typically avoids. But if knows that if he doesn’t talk about them, he’ll go on feeling this way and the awkward silence that has descended upon them will continue, so he forces his words.
“I had a panic attack at school,” says Peter. “So I left.”
“Seems reasonable.”
Peter shoots Tony an incredulous look.
“Look, kid, sometimes we all just need a little break. If you were feeling like you had to leave, it’s probably good you left. No shame in it.”
“Yeah,” says Peter.
He feels the guilty feeling, the you-should-have-just-toughed-it-out feeling evaporate, as if it were never there. A couple of words from Tony are enough to disappear his bad feelings, at least temporarily.
“It’s just when I have to sit still, like in class, I feel like I’m about two seconds from unraveling again, you know, like turning to dust?”
“Please don’t say turn to dust,” says Tony, with a grimace.
“Sorry,” says Peter.
“Well,” says Tony, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s official, then. We’re both a mess. A giant, fucking pile of anxiety and trauma.”
Peter laughs. “At least we’re not alone in our misery.”
Tony’s face loosens, and Peter gets the impression that his words hold a little bit of power, too.
“Yeah, kid,” says Tony. “We’re not alone. That’s something. Know what we need?”
“More ice cream?”
“Uh, no,” says Tony. “We need a day. What’s Pepper and May call ‘em?”
“A spa day? You want to go to the spa?”
“I’ll have you know I love going to the spa,” says Tony. “Just not allowed to go with Pepper anymore after the Incident.”
“What incident?”
Tony doesn’t answer him. “A mental health day. You can skip school, sleep til ten, and then we’ll go catch a movie and eat bad theater food for lunch. How ‘bout it?”
“I resent that,” Peter tells him. “The movies in the mall actually has really good food.”
Tony tilts his head at him, as if to say, really kid , and Peter grins back. He’s feeling lighter just at the thought of a day with no expectations except relaxing. That maybe that’s all he needs to refresh and start looking forward to getting out of bed again. That a nap and time spent with family really is medicine for the soul.
“That’s a yes?” asks Tony.
“It’s a definitely,” says Peter. “It sounds great.”
“Good,” says Tony.
“Mr. Stark,” says Peter. “I really need you to tell me about the spa incident.”
Tony laughs, and launches into a wild story Peter is sorry he’s asked about. By the end of the day, he breathes easier and he’s one hundred percent sure Pepper had been justified in her decision to ban Tony from the spa.