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“Do you wanna talk about it, Pete?” Mr. Stark asked several long weeks after Peter’s initial breakdown in the lab. He had vaguely gestured towards Peter’s arms which were left uncovered due to his choice that morning to wear his usual style of t-shirt unaccompanied by a flannel or hoodie. It was the weekend and Peter was only visiting the Tower, so he thought he’d sneak by with the choice. He never left his arms bare at school. The scars were not the most obvious things, but people could put two and two together if they looked closely enough and Peter didn’t really want to deal with any additional attention. He’d thought Tony might leave it alone, but given how often his mentor had been checking in with him, Peter knew it was a bit of a long shot.
“Not really, but I suppose we have to.” Peter replied and pushed away from his desk, flicking his wrist to close the holograms that had been displaying his webshooter blueprints.
“We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to, Peter, you know that.” Tony rolled his chair around the lab table until they were side by side. “If this is something you’re not up to today, or ever, we can keep avoiding it. I don’t have to know everything, kiddo.”
“I don’t want you to think that I’m, like, weak or something. Or pity me, I hate that. I’m still Spider-Man that doesn’t stop just because I used to cut myself, Tony.” Peter didn’t know when exactly Tony had transitioned from Mr. Stark to Tony. It was somewhere in between them bonding about assassinated parents and PTSD. Formalities seemed to seem far less important when Tony was describing in intensely intricate detail exactly what he saw when he flew into that portal in New York. He hadn’t told Peter about Afghanistan which was fine because Peter hadn’t told him about Ben either. They weren’t there yet.
Tony knocked their shoulders together and grinned. “We established that last time. If I’m still Iron Man after all my bullshit, you’re definitely still Spider-Man.”
Peter smiled back, though it was a bit tremulous, and nodded. He took a deep breath to center himself and averted his eyes towards the table.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Wherever you’d like, kid.”
Peter nodded, expecting that response, and let his leg bounce rapidly from its perch on one of the stool rungs. He ran a hand through his hair and took a final deep breath before letting it out slowly.
“I started pretty young, maybe twelve, eleven?” I think twelve.” Peter keeps his eyes averted from Tony’s as he talks. He doesn’t think he can look his sorta father figure in the eye while he tells him this. “It wasn’t anything really major at the time, ya know? Typical kid stuff. I was being bullied a lot, and money was tight so May and Ben were never really home when I was, so I just got sort of isolated really fast.”
“I knew what I was doing the first time I cut, like it was an entirely purposeful choice. I think I’d read about it somewhere and well, I was sad and decided it was worth a shot. I took an exacto knife to my thigh and made a really small cut, barely a scratch really, and it hurt more than anything else, but I kept going. It didn’t feel great for a long time, but eventually some kinda hormone rush hit and I was able to just go completely numb. I didn’t stop for a long time after that.”
Peter picked at the skin around his nails, tearing up the already torn cuticles. He didn’t even flinch when he tore off a particularly large strip of skin and blood welled up. Tony gently took the hand he was using to pick at the skin with and held it in his. He only relinquished it when he managed to dig a bandaid out from a nearby drawer, so Peter could put it on his bleeding pinky.
“You good to continue, Pete?” Tony asked once the bandage was applied. Peter thought Tony knew that he'd rip the bandaid off later, or just tear another cuticle. Peter had never had good looking nails and he didn’t think he ever would.
“Yeah.” Peter sighed. “I’m good.”
“Um, so.” Peter huffed out a breath and made a frustrated noise at his own hesitance. “This is hard to explain.”
“Take your time.”
“It kind of escalated when Ben bought me a pocket knife. I was taking the subway by myself to get home from school, but it was still a bit of a hike to the apartment and he wanted me to have something to protect myself with, just in case. I got stupid, carried it to school, no one ever knew I had it. I cut in the bathroom, the locker room. I got caught once by some guy on the basketball team, but he never said anything to anyone.”
Peter spun to face Tony who was staring at Peter with a carefully blank expression, “I never got crazy with it okay, like I never cut too deep, because like I said it never felt, uh, super great? It stung and the healing was annoying and it was just a whole thing, you know? May and Ben eventually got suspicious because I was wearing these massive hoodies in summer, and would refuse to take them off even though I was boiling alive.”
“I think I wanted to quit by that point, but I didn’t really know how.” Peter inspected the small spot of blood that had gathered under the bandaid. “I was good at hiding it, and like I said May and Ben were really busy, so it wasn’t all that hard to keep it a secret when I kept it to my thighs.” Peter laughed, a hollow disjointed sound. “I mean it had been a year at that point and no one was the wiser. I was fucking golden”
“Oh, kiddo.” Tony’s voice is soft and sad and Peter can’t look at him, because he knows he’ll see the same sadness that he saw in Ben’s eyes, in May’s when’d he’d showed them his arms.
“I think it scared me.” Peter pressed on. “How easy it would’ve been to just disappear and no one would have noticed. I went whole days without seeing May or Ben for more than five minutes at a time. If I’d died I don’t know how long it would’ve taken them to find my body.”
“Peter.” Tony grabbed his arm and tugged gently until Peter scooted his stool closer to Tony’s. They were so close their shoulders rubbed together. Tony draped his arm around Peter’s shoulders and pressed him impossibly closer. “Peter.” Peter smelt salt on the air and he knew Tony was crying. It took the moisture hitting his lips to realize he was crying as well.
“I think that’s why I got started on my arms.” Peter took in a deep shuddery breath and it hitched as he let it out slow. He couldn’t help the words that were tumbling out. He didn’t even know where all this was coming from. “I was so fucking scared, because I wanted to die but I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t know what to do, or how to ask for help, so I just, I just—”
“You did what you knew how to do, Pete, and you got help. You’re here right now, with me. May and Ben saw you and got you help, Peter. You did all you could do.”
Peter turned his head into the crook of Tony’s shoulder and just cried. He cried until his eyes hurt, and his lungs burned, and his face felt gross and puffy. Tony didn’t say anything. He just held Peter close, occasionally murmuring something in Italian that Peter was too tired to translate, and let him get it all out.
Peter thought that it’d been a long time since he’d truly felt okay to cry on someone like this. He loved May, with all his heart he loved her, but there was always a part of him that was desperately afraid of burdening her. He was always going to remember the way her face crumpled when he’d walked in the door, covered in Ben’s blood, standing silent as a police officer told her that her husband wouldn’t be coming home. He loves her, but he can’t keep putting his problems on her when he’d already taken so much. Damn Parker luck.
Tony was an odd middle ground between a father, a mentor, and a close friend. Peter wasn’t ashamed to admit that there was a small sliver of him that was still a kid in an Iron Man helmet ecstatic at being saved by his hero. Iron Man was larger than life, invincible, incredible, and Tony was none of that. He was flawed, an anxious mess as much as Peter was one, and yet he still managed to come out on top. Peter hated burdening people and he thought he always would, but Tony didn’t mind taking it on. Maybe it was their disastrous beginning, and their shaky middle, but Peter was painfully aware how human the man behind the mask was. It was that humanity that made Peter just comfortable enough to truly tell him everything.
“They got me in therapy after that, on medication.” Peter continued after he’d calmed down. His voice was thin and crackly, but it still rang clear in the quiet workshop. “It helped. I got some coping mechanisms. It wasn’t perfect, you know? But May and Ben kept a watch out for me.” Peter’s breath shook as he let it out. “Ben died right after I hit six months clean.”
“Shit, kid.”
Peter couldn’t help but laugh, just a touch hysterically, at Tony’s response, “Yeah, thank you! That’s the perfect summation.”
“I’m sorry, Peter.” Tony squeezed his arm that was still draped around Peter’s shoulders in a half hug. “I wish there was more I could do.”
“It’s not your fault.” Peter replied, squirming a bit closer even though his stool threatened to tip over. “And this is good. This is really good.”
“Yeah, hugs and snotting up my t-shirts is what does it for you?”
Peter shoved Tony away, laughing when both their stools overbalanced and shoved them to the floor.
“That’s it kid, I don’t care how sad boy emo, or whatever you say these days, you got tonight, you’re gonna get it!”
“Mr. Stark, no!”
“It’s Tony, kid! At least get your murderer’s name right.”
“DUM-E!” Peter shouted and dove behind the lab table, “Tony’s on fire!”
“Peter, I swear to—God, dammit, DUM-E!”