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Flash Thompson stormed up the steps of his high school, looking for one person and one person only. His weekend had absolutely sucked, his parents had been out of town for his birthday and he was nothing but petty to their innocent butler. Flash’s parents had gotten home late last night to where he didn’t even see them, and they were out of the house early Monday morning before his eyes has opened.
And he was ready to take everything out on his personal punching bag, Peter Parker.
Flash walked straight to the locker bank they shared in a secluded area of their school where normally no adults were supervising the halls. He didn’t know what it was about Parker specifically, his classmate had never done any wrong to him. Flash just wasn’t able to get the same satisfaction of beating someone up as he did with Peter Parker.
The halls were still filled as Flash pushed past everyone, ignoring the annoyed curses of his peers as he shoved everyone out of his way.
The familiar mop of brown hair came into came into his line of sight, and the fire in his stomach only increased when Flash caught sight of it. He didn’t know why, but it did. The second his hand was in reach of those god-forsaken curls, he grabbed them tight in his fist and pushed forward.
Parker slammed into the door of his locker with a bang , and then continued to silently crumple to the floor. Flash smirked triumphantly as he looked at the unmoving kid below him, but that smirk started to falter when Peter hadn’t moved after several long moments.
“Get your ass up, Parker. You’ve gone long enough without a beating.”
Flash nearly sighed when Peter seemed to snap out of his trance and roll over. Peter turned around from where his face had been hugging the floor, and crawled to his knees before standing. Flash had already started to draw his fist back when he looked at his victim's face. A light red bruise was already starting to form near his hairline, but that wasn’t what caught Flash’s attention.
What caught his attention was the blank look on Peter’s face, the non-existent reaction to being shoved head first into a locker. What caught his attention was the empty look in Peter’s eyes and the way he looked as if he’d been through hell and back. Peter stared blankly at Flash as his fist paused midair .
The vacant eyes looked at Flash for a few moments longer before turning back to their locker and softly shutting it. Flash dropped his fist to his side and watched as Peter walked away with his head down.
Flash may have had a bad weekend, but there was no doubt in his mind that Peter Parker had a worse one.
000
MJ walked into class with her pencil and sketchbook prepared in her hands. Her mom usually had weekends off of work so the two spent their entire free time out on the town. The ate a late breakfast at one of their favorite diners and then went shopping for the entire afternoon on Saturday, much to MJ’s displeasure.
Her mother had promised that the next day they could go to the Noguchi Museum downtown, so MJ put up with shopping for Saturday and enjoyed the rest of the day Sunday, although she missed her sketchbook the entire time.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Peter seated in his usual spot for first period, so she happily dropped down across from him and flipped her book open to its first vacant page.
“You’re going to be at decathlon after school today, right Parker? You won’t just mysteriously disappear again?” MJ said with a smirk.
After a few moments with no response, she looked up with a raised eyebrow. Peter was staring at his notebook in front of him showing no signs that he heard her, an apathetic expression on his face. MJ could make out dark bruises under his eyes and if she looked close enough, the skin around his jaw seemed to have tightened.
Her pencil froze just before it hit the page, and with a sudden feeling of guilt, she set it down on the desk and flipped her sketchbook shut.
Peter didn’t seem to notice her presence at all.
000
Ned curved around the doorway and into second period where Peter and him had class together, glad to see Peter was already in the room.
Ned had gotten a text from May that made his heart drop earlier that morning. She had alerted him that something had happened that weekend... that Ben was gone and despite still being in shock, Peter refused to stay home where he would only be reminded of the man that bled out in front of him.
Ned had to give May some credit, while she was definitely in grief after losing the love of her life, she reached out to her Peter’s best friend to make sure that her nephew would be taken care of.
He had missed seeing Peter this morning, but he knew his best friend well enough to know that he wasn't ignoring him, he was most likely on auto-pilot and trying to get through his day without collapsing.
Ned cautiously sat down next to Peter and dropped his backpack to the floor.
“Hey, man,” he whispered.
He was surprised when Peter actually looked up, but Ned could see how much pain it took him in doing so. The faraway look in Peter’s eyes filled him with such empathy he thought he might throw up. Peter put all of his energy into a slight nod of his head, which Ned returned with a sad smile.
He didn’t get a smile in return. Instead, Peter turned back to the front of the class and rested his head in his arms, burrowing away from all light and reality.
000
The following months, Peter didn’t appear to get much better. Sure, he talked more and was doing better at focusing, but he rarely smiled and continued to stay pretty hidden in himself.
Flash hadn’t neared Peter for about a month. Word had spread around the school about what had happened and he had the decency to leave Peter alone. At first.
Eventually Flash started his teasing again, and Peter would receive kicks or punches here and there, but at least things weren’t as bad as they were before. There was something to be grateful for.
MJ had stopped sketching him when he seemed to be in misery, so she basically never drew him at all. She continued to draw on her own terms, sometimes sketching different classmates or things she saw around the city, but Peter Parker never made his way back onto her pages.
Ned continued to support him as much as he could, constantly inviting him over for the weekends to build Legos and watch Star Wars. Their conversations started to become less one-sided, but still after six months of Ben being gone, Peter still hadn’t gone back to his old, happy, bundle of joy self.
May had started to get better. She was much less mopey after about three months, and by six she almost seemed to be her normal self again. She kept Peter going, kept forcing smiles onto his face and kept making him laugh in the worst of times. She started to miss Ben less. Instead of crying, she smiled when she thought about him. She could talk about the man he once was without her voice breaking or tears filling her eyes.
What she did miss was her nephew.
Peter would talk, and he would smile here and there, but even she could tell he still wasn’t himself. When she would ask him about his day, she would get an “it was okay” or a “fine” in response, but never his constant ramblings about every small detail of his day.
After Ben was gone, Peter had been missing a part of himself. When Peter’s dad had died, he had Ben to fill in the role of a father figure that was needed in any five-year-old boy, never truly losing that piece of himself. But when Ben was gone, Peter didn’t have some to fill in that blank space. That missing part.
That lacuna.
And then one day, Peter walked into his apartment after school to find Tony Stark sitting on his couch. At the moment Peter had completely forgot he was an enhanced vigilante who patrolled the streets of Queens and was genuinely confused as to why Mr. Stark was sitting in his living room eating a walnut date loaf with his aunt.
Then Peter had somehow found himself in Germany fighting alongside and against Earth’s Mightiest Heros. He had webbed up two of the guys and figured out how to take down not-so-ant-man, and had been told by Mr. Stark that he did good and that he was done. Peter was sent back to his hotel room to spend the night in before flying back home.
Peter showered and got dressed in sweatpants and one of his science pun t-shirts when he heard a knock at his hotel door. He had expected it to be Happy, so he didn’t even try to straighten his hair before he swung the door open and was met face to face with Tony Stark. Peter had once again been a stuttering mess as he tried to straighten himself up, but Tony just shushed him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
As it turned out, the man had come to invite Peter to spend the night on the town with him. Peter had agreed almost too fast, but Tony just laughed and led him out of the hotel.
They spent hours looking around shops and trying foreign foods from multiple restaurants. They had gotten to know each other well, and were both surprised with how easily they fill in sync with one another. Peter found himself smiling more times in that night than he had in six months, and he almost felt like he could fly.
There were a few moments where Peter would find Mr. Stark giving him a weird look after he had been rambling about something for a while that made his chest warm, but he never mentioned it and just continued to talk with a blush on his cheeks.
When the night came to a close, Peter stepped into his room with a few bags of souvenirs in hand feeling lighter than ever. That night, he fell asleep with a smile on his face and slept peacefully through the following hours.
Peter walked back into his apartment the next day and met May with a hug, the promise of a call from Tony still lingering in the back of his mind.
He started rambling to May the moment they broke from their hug, only stopping when he saw May giving him an odd look with something like hope in her eyes.
“What?” He asked, eyebrows raising when her smile grew slightly wider.
“Nothing,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal and he immediately starting talking again.
May had to turn around to stop Peter from seeing the copious amount of Joy on her face.
000
As promised, the call from Tony had come a day later after Peter got out of school. The man invited him over to check out the Avengers Tower and to see what they could do in Mr. Stark’s lab. He had asked May for permission the second he burst through their apartment door, and she had quickly agreed with that same hopeful look in her eyes.
From there it was set, Peter would go to the tower every Friday to work in Mr. Stark’s personal lab and spend time learning everything there was to know about mechanical engineering from one of the smartest men alive.
Peter still looked at Tony as if he hung the stars every time they met up, even after months of spending time together and growing unbelievably close.
When Tony stepped back into the tower after getting back from Germany, he had felt insanely alone. The silence was almost unbearable, and after nearly twenty-four hours he had given in and called Peter. Tony had wanted to keep the kid at arm's length so he wouldn’t screw up with him like he did everyone else, but every time he thought back to their night in Germany, he felt as if a part of him was missing.
Peter was annoying and childish and so damn good , Tony smiled every time he thought about him. He had originally invited Peter out that night only as a distraction from his thoughts, from the reminders of the team and what they left behind.
The distraction had worked better than anything Tony had ever tried, better than working in the lab for hours on end or drinking until he passed out. Peter had made him forget about Steve and the betrayal that hung heavy over his head, and for that night, Tony just felt peace.
When Peter and Tony were together, the part of them that was taken was given back again.
Their lacuna was filled.
000
When Peter went back to school, it was easy for everyone to spot the difference in his attitude. People may not have mentioned it verbally, but Peter could tell everyone around him was happy to see him smiling again.
Flash’s bullying picked back up to full capacity, and Peter would receive multiple jabs from him on the daily. ‘Flash is happy to see me happy,’ Peter would think to himself with a smirk every time Flash would push him around.
MJ had started to draw him again. She would show him new sketches she drew almost every day, whether he looked happy or sad. He would laugh and say some snarky comment back to her, something that he had started doing a lot more since he met Mr. Stark.
Peter and Ned started to hang out much more on weekends, bouncing ideas off one another as the whipped through their newest Lego set. Peter would invite Ned over to hang out at his place or they would walk around the city while eating Delmar’s sandwiches, never getting sick of each other's presence.
May was nothing if not happy to see Peter back to being a golden ray of sunshine. They would attempt to cook with each other and then proceed to eat out at some cheap restaurant, both talking and laughing and basking in one another's comforting presence.
Peter was happy. Tony Stark had filled that empty space inside of him, and then he had done the same for the man. They were more than okay.
Lacuna- a blank space; a missing part.