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Peter thinks the only thing that could salvage his day at this point would be about a gram and a half of weed.
The morning set his day off to a rough start from the get-go, sleeping through his alarm because some crook decided to bash a lead pipe against his head the previous night during patrol. When he finally was able to pry his sandy eyes open, they landed on the analog clock’s glowing red “9:45.”
Peter groaned, all but rolling out of bed onto the floor, which only made his aching skull pound even worse, which caused him to groan even louder.
Fuck my life, Peter thought. Everything is shit.
By the time he managed to cut back his teenage angst a bit and arrive at school, it was well past 4th period. He didn’t even bother running by the office to get a late pass (he already had an obscene amount of absences this semester and had long since given up on the whole “perfect attendance'' thing).
His AP Chemistry teacher barely spared him a second glance as he stalked in and slumped into his seat. The fumes of the nitric acid at his table burned his nostrils and throbbed in tune with his head. Biting back a huff, he folded his head into his arms, opting to repress the rest of the day.
During 5th, he was scolded by his teacher when he didn’t bring in his homework for the fourth time that week (Peter deemed saving a mugging victim's life a bit more important than his AP Physics work, sue him). He left the room with the looming threat of an upcoming parent teacher conference.
Lunch was, of course, a complete disaster, because why wouldn’t it be? Peter sat at his usual secluded corner of the cafeteria with Ned and MJ, when Flash and his posse of soon-to-be fratboy burnouts started harassing them.
“Ayup, penis!” Flash called, accompanied by the throw of a banana peel.
Peter didn’t even bother catching it, as easy as it would’ve been. It smacked the side of his face, sticking to his cheek. Flash and his groupies howled with laughter. Ned shot Peter an apologetic look, knowing he couldn’t do anything about the situation.
Peter, however, decided he had had enough of today.
“ Jesus Flash, what is your issue?” he hissed, peeling the skin of the fruit off his face and dropping it to the dirty tiles underfoot. Flash was a bit taken aback at first but quickly covered it up with a newfound sneer.
“What issue, Parker?” he feigned innocence, “Mind billing a bit more specific?”
“You threw a banana peel at my face, dipshit,” Peter deadpanned, “Or is that short term memory loss finally kicking in from inhaling all that cheap cologne?”
Needless to say, he entered his 6th period with a scarlet-stained tissue pressed up against his nose and his head pounding tenfold.
Today was just the gift that kept on giving, wasn’t it?
Halfway through the period, he decided to just say fuck it and picked up his backpack, took the hall pass, and left the school grounds.
Peter was so sick of today.
Though if he was being honest, it was much more than just today. It took a lot more than a headache and a fight with some petty schoolyard bully to wear him down. However, when this was the everyday schedule–limping through the school day through a half healed stab wound in his abdomen or a partially fractured femur, trying to ignore Flash’s constant harassment, and coping with his less than perfect mental health–it got a bit messy for the teen. There was really only one way he could deal with it all–
Speaking of which, he was about 80% sure he would cut off his left leg for some nicotine right now.
He dragged a hand through his stringy hair, tired eyes scanning the ground for butts. A part of him (the part that probably had something to do with him being an international superhero, and all that) had the decency to cringe at the thought of putting a cigarette off the dirty streets of New York to his lips. Who knows what kind of diseases it held within the confines of its thinly rolled parchment?
The other part of him simply couldn’t give less of a fuck.
Bending down to pick up the half finished cig, he pulled out a lighter from his back pocket, brought it to his lips, flicked the lighter to life, and inhaled deeply. The simple, familiar process calmed him down automatically. Cig perched between his lips, he whipped out his phone and shot a quick text to MJ.
literally abt to commit rn. sesh tn??
whore:
do u even have to ask
fair enough lol
whore:
wya btw? ned says u aren’t in 7th
ditchin
whore:
bruh again?? mays gonna be pissed if she find out
emphasis on the “if.” im taking that chance.
whore:
your funeral
i wish
Peter dropped the now completely finished cigarette (at this point he was just smoking the filter paper— God he was desperate) and smeared it across the cement with the sole of his tennis shoes. He sent a quick thanks to the universe that May was working a double shift tonight. That woman could smell cig smoke from a mile away.
The sun was, at this point, smack dab in the middle of the sky. Peter huffed and realized he was bored out of his mind. So, he did what he knew best.
He walked into a random alley Peter Parker and crawled back out Spiderman.
Of course, there wasn’t too much crime this time of the afternoon, so all he ended up doing was stopping some petty shoplifting or helping out with a car accident.
Oh, and the whole “getting-shot-in-the arm-thing,” too.
It was nearing about 8pm when he heard mixed yelling a few blocks down the road. He quickly roped over to find a man and a woman stood a few feet away from each other, engaged in a rapidly heating argument. Peter crouched against the wall silently and watched.
“You bitch!” the man screamed, holding his arm to his chest, apparently injured
“You stay the hell away from me, Rob. I’ll fucking call the cops, I swear,” the woman staggered back, sporting a black eye and a painfully broken nose. Upon closer inspection, Peter noticed there was a pair of bloodied car keys gripped in her deathly pale hands. A tingling sensation faintly played upon the back of his neck.
The man snarled, “The hell you will,” and just like that, he pulled out a gun from his back waistband and aimed it at the woman.
The previous tingling turned to a sharp sting and Peter's spidey-sense went ballistic. He dove in front of the woman, just barely stopping the bullet from hitting her. He then quickly webbed up the man and swung the dazed woman to the police station, where she would be able to attest for herself. The teen bathed in the afterglow of having saved a life–it filled his chest with a sense of purpose, and actual sense of meaning.
The follow-up of digging out the bullet from his upper bicep, however, diminished said afterglow. Significantly.
He stared down at the dark, wet mess of skin and muscle beneath his fingertips, barely even registering the sharp stings and aches that raked their way up his arm. Peter cursed himself for not smoking up before this patrol, it would’ve made the whole process a lot easier.He faintly wondered what the hell was wrong with him, why he didn’t even hesitate before diving in front of the gun. Karen was going batshit, of course, but he didn’t pay her any mind. He and Ned had disabled her baby protocol a few nights ago, which prevented Tony from seeing his injuries. Thank God for that, or else his mentor would be chewing his ear to a bloody stump right about now.
Peter sighed heavily, looking over the city and wrapping his arm up with a ripped section of his t-shirt. He glanced at his phone. 9:30. He figured he should probably get to MJ’s soon. He was fucking exhausted. Peter slipped a hoodie over his suit, swung over to the girl’s house, and crawled down the back of her house to the rain cellar, where the gate had long since been removed.
He knocked on the window and immediately heard a loud “ fuck” from inside before the window slid open. There MJ stood, nursing one hand and holding a torch in the other.
“You made me burn my goddamn finger, Parker. mind being a bit less sneaky?”
“Sorry, it’s in my blood” Peter grinned.
MJ rolled her eyes, “ Mm‘kay, nerd. So, what's the plan for tonight?” She moved over to the ratty couch, draping herself over it dramatically. “Bud? Wax?”
“Do you still have the rig?”
MJ’s head shot up, “Damn, shit day?”
“Shit day,” he affirmed.
“Hm, figured. That thing gets you fuuuucked. I mean, I think it’s still in the bathroom, if you wanna find it.”
“Will do.” Peter huffed, making a beeline for the rig.
Thirty-four minutes later, the two were laying on top of each other, engrossed in an episode of George Lopez.
“This is the weirdest fucking uh…. Uhm. What’s this called again?” Peter slurred.
“George Lopez?” MJ offered.
“No. Fuck. Damn it all to hell. What’s it called?”
“A television?” MJ snickered.
“No, bitch! The things on the television,”
“A fucking tv show?”
“Oh my god,” Peter broke out into a fit of giggles, his vision spinning slightly, “Did I j just forget the word for a fucking tv show?”
“George Lopez’ll do that to you, man” she lamented, crawling out from under Peter’s legs to the rig, heating up the base to take another rip.
Peter hyper-focused on the device. Fascinated, he watched as MJ measured the temperature and placed a good amount of wax on the metal platform. She inhaled it all in one go. The cloud she let out was straight-up unholy.
“Hold this?” she offered up the rig to him, coughing slightly and reaching for her Redbull.
Peter took it and barked out a laugh, finding her simple request the funniest thing she’s said all night. This only got MJ laughing, and before they knew it, they were on their backs, rolling around the floor of MJ’s basement, losing their absolute shit over nothing. Their high-pitched, almost manic laughter echoed around the dusty walls.
During the comedown of their giggle-attack, Peter looked up at the ceiling, entranced. He felt every molecule of air as it traveled down his trachea, into his lungs and back out into his cotton mouth. He could barely even comprehend the words that MJ spoke next.
“Peter, why is there like, blood. On your arm.”
“Fuuuuck,” he groaned, having completely forgotten about his injury through the high, “Got shot. You know how it is.”
“What the hell,” she let out a shocked laugh, and giggled for a lot longer than she probably should have. “The way you just say that like it’s, I don't know—like it’s regular or some shit. You scare me sometimes, man,”
“Me too,” he murmured.
“What’s that supposed to even mean?”
“I dunno, MJ—it’s like–it’s like I don’t even care anymore, you know?”
She hummed in agreement.
“Like, like you know I should be–I guess, worried when I'm fatally wounded. But I'm just not . I'm kind of excited. Is that–is that fucked up to say?”
“Kinda.” she laughed, “But I get it, man.”
“Yeah,"
“Yeah,”
For how long they layed there, Peter had no fucking idea. At one point he took another rip from the rig, and then a couple hits from MJ’s dab pen, then another from the rig.
It was that sort of night
Needless to say, when Tony called him out of buttfuck nowhere, he panicked.
“MJ, MJ fuck! Fuck my life!”
“Huh? What’s up?” she rolled over, her dazed eyes meeting his.
He flipped his phone screen to her and watched furrowed brows overtake her lazy expression.
“Just let it ring out. Pretend you’re asleep or some shit.” she suggested.
Peter knew that wouldn’t really work, but was simply too high to argue against it. He set his phone down, praying to God that it wouldn’t ring again. He held his breath.
The phone rang again.
“There is no God,” Peter groaned, dropping his head into his tucked arms.
“I’ll drink to that,” MJ raised her Redbull up to the heavens.
Tony called again. And again. And again.
On the seventh ring, MJ growled, “What is this manchild’s issue?”
“Everything,” Peter huffed, “Literally everything.” And, finally realizing he didn’t really have an alternative, he answered the phone.
“Parker.”
“M-Mr. Stark,” Peter relayed, trying to sober up as quickly as humanly possible, “You woke me up.”
“You know, I find that hard to believe, as you’re not even at your own house right now.”
“Y-you can track me?”
Peter could practically feel Tony’s single-eyebrowed raise through the call, “You have a Stark phone, Peter. And you’re wearing the suit.”
Touché, Peter thought. He looked up at MJ, his wide eyes begging her for help. She shrugged, shaking her head cluelessly.
When it became clear that the younger boy wasn’t going to respond, Tony cleared his throat. “Well, alright then. Great talk.” a sigh through the receiver, “Listen kid, that’s not why I called. I don't care if you’re at a friend's house. I do care, however, as to why you have forty-three absences this semester. Your aunt just forwarded me an email from your counselor who was threatening expulsion . So? Care to enlighten me, Peter?”
Shit.
He really didn’t need to be having this conversation right now with his mentor/somewhat father figure, faded as hell in MJ’s basement with a bullet wound in his arm.
And Peter Parker, being the absolute genius that he was, started laughing.
He couldn’t stop giggling—something about the entire scenario was just so surreal , and his doped up brain couldn’t handle it. MJ stared at him, before a laugh escaped from her chapped lips. Once again, the dingy basement filled with the obnoxious laughter of two extremely high teenagers.
Silence on the other end ensued amongst the laughter. “You know, the humor in the whole ‘truancy’ thing is getting lost on me. You realize this is a complete jeopardization of your education, right Parker?”
Peter howled with laughter at that— and he couldn’t stop. MJ stifled her giggling behind her fist, until suddenly she went white as a sheet and ran to the bathroom.
Fuck— Peter hoped she didn’t green out.
His giddy laughter fizzled out into a floating numbness, no longer caring at all about his current situation. Somewhere between being high off his ass and the rapid deterioration of his mental health, his ability to invest himself in drastic situations such as these withered away.
“Uh huh. Right. Still lost on how your very real possibility of a court case is that hilarious. But hey, I mean–”
“I don’t care,” he droned.
“….What?”
“Don’t care.”
“Gonna have to be a bit more specific, kid,”
“Court case. I don’care”
“Are–are you drunk?”
“Nope."
“Right,” a pause, “Why don’t you care?”
Peter shrugged, then remembered Tony couldn’t see him, “I just don’t. What’s the court gonna do? Send me to jail?”
“Uh, yeah. That's definitely a possibility. Peter, this isn’t a joke,” Peter began to pick up on Tony’s rising annoyance through their call, “This is your future we’re talking about. Why all the absences? Is it Spiderman? Do I need to take away the suit again? Ground you to the compound?”
“I don't care what you do,” he closed his eyes. He was too done with everything to deal with this.
Silence.
“You’re definitely drunk.” Tony deadpanned
“Mr. Stark, I’m not drunk.”
“Hmm, I suppose you’re right. Little miss goody-two-shoes-Peter-Parker, alcoholic galore. Right.” he snorted to himself.
“Oh, fuck off” Peter sneered. He was just about to continue the banter, when–
Shit.
“Excuse me?”
“I—uhm. Fuck.”
“Eloquently put. Peter, what’s going on?”
“Um—“
“Do your little mood swings have something to do with all these absences?”
“I—“
“You know, I’m about two seconds away from checking your vitals, mister,”
Peter snorted. “Go for it,” he knew damn well Tony wasn’t going to be able to see anything, thanks to his guy in the chair.
He heard grumbling from the end of the line as presumably, Tony pulled up his vitals “What the….”
Peter huffed out a laugh, feeling strangely proud.
Atta boy, Ned, he thought.
“What the hell did you do to the suit, Peter?”
“Gonna have to be a bit more specific,” Peter sported a shit-eating grin and relayed the elder’s previous words. He felt manic .
“Listen, Pete, I’ve had enough of your shit . I don't know where this new attitude of yours is coming from, but I’m done. I’m coming to get you right now—FRIDAY, get my car—and we’re going to sit down and have a nice little chat with your aunt,”
“What the—you can’t do that!” Peter half yelled, half whined.
“I don’t think you’re in the position to be telling anyone what to do,” Tony snapped, “I’ll be there in five.”
And with that, the phone call ended.
Peter sat up from the matted carpet, head spinning. This time, though, he knew it had something to do with more than just the weed.
Well fuck. He had really dug himself into a hole, hadn’t he?
Going through the five stages of grief in approximately 12 seconds, Peter took a deep breath, stood from the floor, and carefully walked to the bathroom. He knocked gently and peered inside.
“MJ?” he called softly. His eyes fell on the poor girl, hunched over the toilet, hair hanging every which way. The air smelled sharply acidic.
Peter grimaced. Yep, he thought, Greened out.
He walked over MJ, tying her matted hair into a low ponytail. He knew she was going to be feeling this sesh for the next couple days. He sat down next to her.
“Hey, I gotta go, alright? Mr. Capitalism is picking me up, apparently,” He waited for an answer, but none came from the nauseous girl. He sighed, “Text me if you need anything,”
MJ finally hummed in response. Peter didn’t worry too much, she would be fine. MJ always took greening out like a champ, considering she did it all the time.
Ding-dong
He cursed silently as he heard the door bell ring faintly upstairs. Peter scrambled over to the couch, squirted eye drops into his eyes at record speed then bounded up the stairs. He prayed to whoever would listen that he didn’t look like shit.
Peter opened the door to an extremely disgruntled billionaire.
“You look like shit,” Tony greeted, “Now get the hell in my car.”
——-
The pair ended up at the compound after Peter had broken the news to the elder that May was, in fact, not home. The following car ride was tense. Tony refused to speak to him while Peter was too afraid to even open his mouth, out of fear what would leave it.
The second they entered the large complex, Tony took off towards the main glass wall, pulling up a chart of some sorts on its technological screen.
“ FRIDAY , give me Peter’s vitals,” he said without hesitation.
“Right away, Boss,”
“Wha— hey!”
Tony ignored him and surveyed the new data on the screen which held Peter's information. In no mindset to read himself, Peter opted to look at Tony's expression and gauge the severity of the situation based on his reaction. Whatever the hell was on that monitor couldn’t be good. Peter held his breath as the elder man’s eyes rapidly scanned the text before him.
Tony's expression turned sour.
“You’re high.” he observed.
Peter sighed, resigned. There was no escaping the inevitable, “Yep.”
“Extremely so.”
“Yeah.”
“And your arm?”
“Bullet wound.”
A sharp inhale. “Uh-huh. Banner’s office. Now.”
It was about an hour later when Bruce had finished inspecting the wound, fishing out a couple pieces of shrapnel that Peter had missed. The doctor exited the office (with a stern warning to Peter), leaving the spider-boy and his mentor alone.
More silence. He wanted to dread the conversation that was about to ensue, but couldn't seem to muster up the energy nor emotion required to do so. Peter felt numb. His high was wearing off, the floatiness being replaced with the same emptiness that seemed to drag him down further and further into its depths everyday.
“No parole for six months,” Tony's voice was carefully subdued.
“Okay,”
“Okay?” Tony repeated. “Alright, wise guy. One year no parole.”
“Fine.” Peter gritted out. He didn’t care. He didn’t fucking care.
“Peter,” the other hissed, “I know you’re probably high off your ass right now, and everything seems like one big joke. But you messed up, kid. you messed up bad. Seriously Peter— drugs? Disabling the suit? Ditching classes? You were–you were supposed to be better . Better than all of us. What happened? I mean–where’s the studious, goody-two-shoes-ass kid I know?”
“Dead. I don’t know” Peter huffed, a humorless laugh escaping his chapped lips.
Tony stared him down, waves of disappointment radiating off the man. Somehow, it was so much worse than being scolded and screamed at. Peter would have withered under his gaze, if not for the overwhelming pit in his core that seemed to nullify all of his reactions.
Peter couldn’t feel a thing .
After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Tony let out a long breath while running a tired hand down his face. “I'm taking the suit. Permanently–or at least until you can get your shit together.”
“I don't care,” Peter whispered, more to himself than anything. Why didn’t he care? He couldn’t be Spiderman, couldn’t help people at all—
And it didn’t mean a goddamn thing.
It didn’t mean a goddamn thing.
For years, something was building–Peter wasn’t sure what it was, but he could sense it deep in his soul, pushing and prodding its way to the surface with its grimy, nasty fingertips, threatening to expose his weaknesses, his insecurities, his faults to everyone he knew and loved. The drugs, the ditching, the lies, the injuries, the recklessness, the numbness –they piled on top of the next until they were all pressing against the barrier of his heart so heavily he thought it may burst. His vision swam. His fingertips went stone cold and began to tremble. A familiar burning sensation pricked somewhere deep within his sinuses. His breath began to pick up and he felt like each breath was shorter and more pointless than the next.
And Peter broke.
Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down before he could even comprehend what happened. Quick intakes of breath accompanied the fat globs of saltwater rolling down his gaunt face. Peter brought his hands up to his coarse hair and pulled–
He didn’t feel a goddamn thing.
Tony, perplexed by the boy’s sudden mood swing, bent down to his level, with his furrowed brows and searching eyes hidden behind his tinted shades.
“-id? Peter! Talk to me, what’s going on?”
“I don’t care,” Peter shuddered, “Why don’t I care? Why don’t I care? I can’t feel a thing and I don’t fucking care about anything—“
“Deep breaths, Underoos,'' Tony instructed, “Come on, let’s go. In —one, two, three, four— hold it, c'mon kid—“
Peter was so fucked. What was wrong with him? Why didn't he care? Why was he so fucking numb? He felt somebody’s nails scratching and clawing at his arms, too detached from reality to comprehend whose they actually were. His arms felt sticky and wet. He heard a sharp inhale of breath somewhere in front of him, and then a pair of hands grabbed his own, stopping the scratching. He glanced down to find his nails coated in red.
“Shit —kid, stop. You have to stop,”
“I can’t—it doesn’t stop, nothing ever stops–”
“Pete, listen. You have to breathe . You have to breathe with me,”
“I can’t—I can’t fucking–”
“C’mon, feel my chest. See how I’m breathing? Let’s try it out, okay? In, out, there you go—”
And slowly, Peter followed Tony's instructions until he felt like he could inhale oxygen once again. Exhaustion and numbness weighed heavy on his bones. For a few minutes after he got his breathing under control, he sat there, feeling nothing in particular, a few remaining tears chill against his hot cheeks.
“What’s wrong with me, Tony?” Peter eventually whispered as he slumped against the older man's shoulder, shuddering breaths wracking his frame.
“I-I don’t know, kid.” Tony murmured back apologetically.
The comedown of the panic attack, his remaining high that was still coursing through his system, and the mental exhaustion of the past few months weighed down on the teen all at once.
Peter closed his eyes and welcomed the quiet slip into unconsciousness.
——-
Fluoxetine.
Peter thumbed the dulled orange bottle and listened as the pills within rattled against one another. He continued reading the the labels on its side:
Side effects may include: drowsiness, anxiety, dry mouth, weight loss or gain, uncontrollable shaking, suicidal thoughts, confusio—
He stopped reading, looking out of his room's window to the city’s horizon before him.
“Major depressive disorder,” Bruce had told him.
Peter figured it explained a lot.
Tony understood, because of course he did. That didn’t stop him from giving Peter the whole “drug spiel” and banning him from patrolling until he was 100% clean from weed.
And it sucked.
It sucked not being able to let loose and get high with MJ after a shit day. It sucked not having a solid coping mechanism to deal with his dumb brain and its dumb thoughts. It sucked knowing that Tony had full control over his life and sobriety.
Deep down, though, Peter figured it was for the best.
He was glad Tony didn’t know about the other stuff, though–the occasional oxy or line at a party, that one acid trip in the park–he would flip his shit. Peter knew he wouldn’t have to tell him someday, though.
He set the chunky bottle down and opened up his window, making sure the coast was clear before he climbed down the wall to the alleyway. He quickly found what he was looking for after a quick glance at the ground. He took the half smoked cigarette up to his lips, lit it, and inhaled deeply. It had been a while since he had smoked.
It’s not weed, he rationalized, It’s fine.
Peter knew he still had a long way to go. Obviously, if he was one hundred percent better, he wouldn’t be picking up and smoking random alleyway cigs.
But he was trying.
Ever since his panic attack a couple weeks ago, he had been trying to do better. With his mandatory daily marijuana tests, it was hard not to. Tony navigated the whole situation through a lens of tough love, helping Peter but also kicking his ass when he deemed it necessary. Peter trusted him. He knew the other had been through recovery many times before.
When May was informed of the whole situation, she just started crying. Peter truly didn’t expect it (he half expected he would have to dodge out of the way of a thrown sandal or hairbrush when Tony told her). Peter spent hours telling her it wasn’t her fault, there was just something wrong with him–which, of course, made her cry even harder. They would get through it—he knew Parkers were tough.
Peter himself was doing…alright. He couldn’t really tell if the medication he was taking was helping him or not, but he trusted the diagnosis. It had only been two weeks, after all. He began making the conscious effort to to tell others when he fucked up or needed assitance, to look at things through a positive viewpoint, to learn, to try, to live.
He leaned against a nearby brick wall, feeling the thick smoke waft through his respiratory system and the nicotine flowing in his veins.
Peter wasn't perfect. He would never be.
But he was doing better.