Work Text:
In hindsight, there was no way he could have known until that moment.
It wasn’t like Peter acted weird about it before. No, he’d never called Stephen by his first name, not even once, but it didn’t raise any flags. He was still a kid and called most adults by their proper titles—Mr. Stark, Director Fury, Captain Rogers—so it never even occurred to Stephen that he might have been an outlier. That there may have been another reason that Peter never, ever said his first name.
“Hey, hi!” Peter’s tone was as excited and cheerful as ever. He raised one hand and waved awkwardly as he quickly crossed the street with his friends. Though Stephen was not particularly in the mood for conversation, he stopped and allowed them to catch up to him. “Sorry to bother you, sir, it’s just that we saw you and my friends really wanted to meet you, so I thought—”
“Hi, I’m Ned,” said Peter’s male friend, eyes wide with awe as if he were standing in front of… well, Doctor Strange. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Strange. I’m a huge fan of your work. Your magic, I mean. And your surgery, I guess. Which one do you think you’ve saved more lives with?”
“What’s your real name?” asked the young woman. Stephen assumed she was Peter’s other close friend, MJ. Somehow, of all the things he said about her, Peter failed to mention her lack of respect. “I mean, Doctor Strange? It’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?”
“And yet it is my real name,” Stephen grumbled.
“Yeah, yeah, I made that mistake too. Sorry. Can we start over?” Peter took a deep breath. He shot his friends a look, begging them to act cool. Neither of them so much as shifted as he shook his head and blinked twice, effectively resetting himself. “Hi, Mr. Strange. These are my friends, Ned and MJ. Ned and MJ, this is Doctor S— St— Ste— Doctor Strange.”
“That’s Stephen, to be clear. Stephen Strange. Not ‘S— St— Ste—’ Strange.”
It was the look in Peter’s eyes that gave him away. His arms were already wrapped around himself, but his gaze fell to his shoes when Stephen made what he thought was a lighthearted rib. Normally he’d blame his own unfavorable social skills but something about Peter’s reaction looked distinctly off. He hadn’t forgotten Stephen’s name; he just wouldn’t say it. Couldn’t say it? Whichever was the case, Stephen couldn’t even begin to think of an explanation as to why.
“Sorry,” said Peter quickly, one foot already turning away. He raised his hands almost defensively and bit his lip as he glanced at his friends. “You probably have more important places to be, huh? And my— my Aunt May is expecting us back soon, so. We should probably go. Sorry for bothering you, sir. And for— yeah. Sorry.”
“No, hey, Peter!” Peter whipped back around. He obeyed the request of Stephen’s finger and hesitantly walked closer until they were less than a foot apart. Stephen lowered his voice to try and keep Ned and MJ from overhearing. “You all right, kid?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m just— I’m bad with names. Sorry. I really should go. Thanks for— for meeting my friends.”
Stephen only studied a little bit of psychology, but it didn’t take an expert to recognize something was wrong with the way Peter shoved his hands into his pockets, gaze downcast as he turned a corner with his friends. They’d known each other for more than a year at that point and yet, it was only in that moment when Stephen finally realized: Peter had never said his first name. Not in passing, not through introduction, not even in the essay on superheroes he’d so proudly showed him and Wong.
Never.
It was probably none of Stephen’s business why, but that had never stopped him from looking for answers before.
The fact that Peter stopped responding not only for the night but for the next four days was what convinced Stephen that something more was going on. At first, he thought Peter might have made a confusing joke and been embarrassed by it, but that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like him. So, Stephen texted him a few times, inviting him to do half a dozen inarguably cool things and Peter didn’t reply once. He didn’t accept, didn’t refuse, didn’t answer at all.
So, naturally, when Stephen was passing through Queens and spotted Spider-Man swinging on a nearby building, his natural curiosity—curiosity, yes, not concern—convinced him to follow.
He caught up with Peter on top of a hotel. It didn’t look like he’d stopped for any serious reason, his legs dangling over the edge as he ate candy with one hand and texting with the other. So, he wasn’t having phone issues either, he was ignoring Stephen specifically. Stephen cleared his throat and winced when Peter jumped. He barely caught his candy before it fell off the building.
“Oh, god!” Peter’s breathing was suddenly audible, one hand squeezing his candy bag like a stress ball. “Oh. Mr. Strange. Sorry. How long have you been standing there?”
“Just a few seconds,” said Stephen. He raised a brow, pushing away the faint guilt from startling the kid so badly. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to sense people sneaking up on you?”
“That’s not really how it works. It really only alerts me to danger so it wouldn’t alert me to you. I hope. And anyway, I was distracted by these memes the team keeps making out of screenshots from Flash’s livestreams, so…”
“The team?”
“Academic Decathlon,” Peter clarified. He set his phone and his candy on the nearby ledge and twisted his hands around uncomfortably. He glanced around before he turned to fully face Stephen and pulled his mask the rest of the way off. They were high enough no one would see him, and if they did, Stephen could easily make them forget. “It’s a— never mind. It’s not that interesting. Did you need something, sir?”
Well, he wanted to know all about Academic Decathlon because Peter’s reaction indicated that other people often shut him down, but he pushed that feeling aside for the moment. His gaze shifted to Peter’s phone, still open to a group chat that sent messages at a rapid rate. The fact that kids could keep up with things like that blew his mind. Stephen had lost his hands to one text—god forbid there had been a hundred.
“Not really. It’s just that you’ve been ignoring me since the whole name thing the other day. I saw you and I thought I’d ask if everything was all right. At first, I figured you were joking around but now it seems like something’s wrong so if there’s anything you want to tell me…?”
“No, sorry, it’s just— um— I do know your name. I know your name.” Peter pushed his hair back with one hand, but the wind quickly blew it back toward his eyes. His gaze rapidly flickered from Stephen’s face to the roof they were standing on. “It’s just that I— I used to know someone else with your name. Well, almost. It was with a ‘V,’ but it sounds the same and it’s—” He wet his lips and shook his head. “It’s stupid and it’s hard to explain, so. Yeah. Sorry. It’s okay if I just call you Mr. Strange, right? That’s not weird?”
“Whatever makes you comfortable, kid. But you know there are a lot of people in the world who share their names, right? You can’t just meet one guy and decide he’s the definitive Bob or whatever.”
“I know. I know that. But he wasn’t just some guy, he was— he— it’s stupid. Sorry. I think I should just—”
“You can tell me.”
Peter’s voice was alarmingly small. “It’s really embarrassing.”
“I am a surgeon, Peter,” said Stephen. He gave the kid a look that he hoped was as sincere as he felt. “I have seen the most embarrassing things you can possibly think of. Try me.”
“I… um…” He bit down on his lip and ran a hand over his face. He lied. He wasn’t embarrassed, he was anxious or ashamed. Maybe a mix of both. Stephen chose to wait rather than push Peter to speak faster. “He was— The guy with your name, he was— he was my babysitter when I was like— like seven. I knew him for like, two years, maybe? I don’t remember exactly.”
If it weren’t for the way Peter spoke, his voice barely above a whisper and his gaze fixed on his feet, Stephen would have made a joke about him being seven a year ago. He almost did, just to fill the silence after Peter suddenly went quiet. For a long moment, his heavy breathing and the traffic down below were all that filled the silence. Peter pushed a hand through his hair before he continued, still unwilling or unable to meet Stephen’s gaze.
“He was my friend. Or I thought he was, I guess. He was— I— I trusted him so much. He meant everything to me and then he—” Peter broke off. He shoved his hands over his face and took a deep breath. “The point is, I know I can’t just avoid his name, obviously, and I’ve always been okay with hearing it as long as it’s in other contexts, but I can’t— I don’t— I can’t say it. I don’t know why I can’t say it.”
“That’s all right. You don’t have to say it. But Peter… are you telling my name makes you uncomfortable or are you telling me it’s a trigger word?”
Peter said nothing. He met Stephen’s gaze for the briefest moment before he shook his head and turned to face the sky. Whatever thoughts consumed him, he chose not to share, but his body language made it obvious. Stephen’s name was a trigger word. Peter did not mean that he had some falling out with an old friend and he didn’t want to think about it, he meant that he had PTSD from whoever Steven was. The name didn’t just bother him, it haunted him.
Before Stephen could think of another word to say, Peter grabbed his phone, sent a quick text, and yanked his mask back down. He shoved his phone into a pocket Stephen hadn’t even noticed and stepped to the edge of the building. It was exactly what happened last time but in person instead of over text. Peter did not want to answer any more questions so he chose to leave before the conversation could proceed.
“MJ needs me to help with some test prep stuff,” he said suddenly. “It seems like a low-crime day so I’m just going to head over to her place. Thanks for checking on me. You didn’t have to.”
“Peter, wait.” Peter’s feet were halfway off the building, one arm raised and ready to swing out of there. Stephen spit out his question before he did. “This babysitter of yours; did he hurt you?”
Peter said nothing before he shot a web at a nearby building and raced away at a pace even Stephen couldn’t keep.
Considering how much the kid talked and how persistent Stephen could be, it was surprisingly difficult to reach Peter.
Stephen didn’t know if it was only him or everyone Peter talked to, but he realized quickly that the kid only responded when he messaged first. When Stephen sent a text to ask if he was okay after their last encounter, Peter never answered. When Peter sent an increasingly popular meme of Wong glaring at Stephen outside the Sanctum Sanctorum, they had a brief exchange. When Stephen changed tactics and sent a lighthearted comment about Spider-Man’s feats, Peter stayed silent.
Though it somewhat annoyed him, Stephen didn’t press for Peter to speak more than he chose to. When he caught on to the pattern, he stopped trying to initiate conversation and respected whatever boundaries Peter was trying to set without question. He wasn’t owed an explanation, especially given the weight of what Peter had confessed. It made sense he might need space.
“No, no, I’m fine, I’m okay.” Stephen frowned when he heard the voice outside the door, muffled but distinct. Peter. He couldn’t hear another voice, indicating he was likely on the phone. “I have some ice and it’ll heal fast. I just wanted to let you know in case they call. Yeah. Okay. Love you too.”
He lowered his phone into his lap when Stephen opened the Sanctum Sanctorum’s front door, one brow raised at the kid seated on his steps. In most contexts, his first thought would have been to wonder why the hell Peter Parker was there without invitation or warning. Given the fact Peter had an ice pack pressed to his left eye, his right slightly narrowed as he typed something on his phone, Stephen let his curiosity slide in favor of concern.
“You all right, kid?”
It was weird to think of anyone hurting Peter. On the one hand, imagining Spider-Man getting beat up was easy. There were thousands of videos of it on YouTube. On the other hand, until that moment, Stephen had never imagined anyone hurting Peter. There was no reason for anyone to so much as slap his kind, innocent face let alone put him through the abuse he had alluded to.
“Yeah, no, I’m good.” Peter rose to his feet and shoved his phone into his pocket. He didn’t seem surprised by Stephen, but a bit caught off-guard, as if he intended to knock on the door himself. Stephen almost felt bad he didn’t let him. “This is nothing. It was just some guy from school. I would’ve dodged but it gets suspicious.”
“People bully you at school?” It was the phrase ‘it gets suspicious’ that gave him pause. People bullied Peter enough that it wasn’t one or two dodges easily written off, it was a consistent pattern that could expose he was more than just a nerd.
“More people call me Penis than Peter.” He shrugged as if that were normal and slid his backpack off his shoulders. He dug through the front pocket with his free hand, not so much as glancing up at Stephen when he spoke again. “Nobody called him by his name either, by the way. I guess it doesn’t really matter but I thought maybe I should tell you because I realized that’s why I can’t— I’ve never— I don’t think I’ve ever said his name before. His real name.”
“His real name? Did he lie to you about who he was?”
“Legally? No, I knew his real name, he just went by something else at the time. I don’t know if he still does. Ben always said he lied about his intentions, but I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like I knew all along and it was my fault that it went as far as it did.”
When he put on the suit, he was Spider-Man. He was a powerful, confident superhero, easily mistaken for an adult by those he saved due to his fearlessness and selfless actions. But the young man in front of Stephen was not Spider-Man, he was Peter Parker. Peter Parker was a teenager, a minor, a child. Physically, he could help anyone he wanted but mentally, he still needed adult support and reassurance. He needed someone older not to fix him but to support him, to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that everything was okay, and it would stay that way.
Unfortunately, emotional support was not Stephen’s strong suit. “If a seven-year-old came up to you right now and told you that his babysitter hit him, would you tell him it was his fault?”
He realized his mistake immediately. Somehow, Stephen had let his own preconceived notions overshadow the few facts Peter had revealed. What he asked wasn’t relevant to what Peter experienced. For several seconds, Peter froze, his hand still in the pocket of his backpack. Then he looked up, an unreadable expression in his eyes, and shook his head. He exhaled and offered a piece of paper to Stephen, the flimsy material blowing in the breeze.
“This is why I came over here, actually,” he started awkwardly. His fingers shook, the rising and falling of his chest visible beneath his jacket. Stephen opened his mouth to apologize for his hypothetical, but Peter began to ramble before he could. “I know that I didn’t answer when you asked over text and I kind of cut myself off in person but if you really are interested in Academic Decathlon we have a thing next weekend and we all get a couple tickets but I only ever need one for May and sometimes Happy so if you want to come then you can have this but you don’t have to.”
Stephen glanced at the ice pack against Peter’s eye, his flushed cheeks, and tried to decipher what he was feeling. He took the ticket for the kid more than his own interest. “I will clear my schedule.”
“No, I mean, if you’re busy, you don’t—”
“Nope, I’ll be there.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
The commitment to spend an evening at an inevitably lackluster high school event was worth it to see Peter smile again.
Given the fact that he’d RSVP’d at least three times, it really shouldn’t have been that surprising when Stephen showed up at Peter’s Academic Decathlon event.
He wasn’t swarmed by random superhero fans—thankfully, most people didn’t seem to recognize him in a casual suit—but May, Ned, and MJ’s eyes all widened when he approached them. When he explained Peter invited him, they revealed that all of them knew, they just didn’t expect him to actually show up. Stephen made a mental note to communicate better with the kid’s aunt, at the very least.
“So, where’s Peter?” asked Stephen, interrupting what was, in his opinion, an ungodly amount of small talk.
“Oh, he’s doing his interview right now,” May answered. She glanced at Ned who nodded to confirm. “This isn’t technically an official event, just friendly competition between two schools, so he’ll probably only be another minute. They don’t usually do very thought-provoking questions and it’s a max three to five minutes for each kid after they start.”
Except five minutes came and went and Peter didn’t come back. May thought she might have been wrong about the timing but they saw other kids get called back for their interviews so Peter must have been done. Ned and MJ went to see whether anyone else from the team had seen him while May and Stephen held their seats. It was possible Peter had just gotten sidetracked; his ADHD was a secret to no one.
After several long minutes, Stephen got tired of waiting for the actual event to start and sick of being surrounded by chatter. May said it would be another twenty minutes before the kids took the stage, so he decided to take a walk somewhere quieter. He considered looking for Peter, but Ned and MJ had never returned so it was safe to assume they’d already found him and reunited with their team. Probably doing last minute preparations or something.
That seemed a perfectly logical answer until Stephen stepped out a side door for fresh air only to find Peter seated on the steps—his knees pulled up to his chest and his head buried beneath his arms.
“Hi,” said Peter quietly. He barely turned his head enough to look at Stephen when he closed the door. He shifted his face back into his knees, his entire body heaving with each shaking breath. “Sorry. I didn’t— I didn’t know you were here.”
“Why is everyone so surprised that I actually came?” Stephen’s tone was meant to be humorous but either it didn’t come across that way or Peter wasn’t in the mood for it. He guessed a mix of both. “You all right, kid?”
“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“Stage fright?”
“No.”
“You look like you’re having an anxiety attack, Peter.”
“I think this qualifies as a panic attack, actually. You just caught me at the end of it.”
“And yet you’re still not breathing.” Stephen exaggeratedly inhaled and exhaled, then repeated the action over and over again until Peter finally took the hint and tried to follow with his own breaths. “You want to tell me what happened or no?”
“It’s stupid,” mumbled Peter. He shook his head against his knees. His hands weren’t trembling as badly anymore, but his voice still wasn’t even. “It’s really, really stupid.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“No, it is. It is and I hate it because usually it wouldn’t bother me at all but because I’ve had Sk— him in the back of my mind the last few weeks, I guess it just— I don’t know. I just feel so stupid. It’s like—” Peter sniffed. He finally shifted his arms, revealing bright pink cheeks with tears smudged across them. “You remember how you asked me if your name was a trigger word? I didn’t— I never thought of it like that before but now I think I have another one.”
Stephen was the person who always buried his emotions. It didn’t matter how he felt so long as the people he loved were safe and the job got done. So, he was far from the best at understanding feelings and when Peter choked back a sob and shifted his face into his elbow, it was hard to act like he knew what to do. Part of him wanted to walk away because he was out of his depth. Part of him wanted to hug Peter but logic told him touching him without permission was a bad idea, regardless of intention.
“And I feel like I should be focused on that and trying to remember what my therapist taught me about acknowledging my feelings and managing a relapse but for some reason my brain just— it just keeps going ‘Ben, Ben, Ben’ because he always knew what to do. I never talk about this with anyone because we can’t afford a therapist anymore and it always makes May cry and I can’t do that to her and I don’t want anyone else to know so I can’t— I shouldn’t have opened this can of worms again because Ben was the only one who knew how to close it and now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”
“Peter?” May said his name the moment she opened the door. Stephen glanced down at his watch and realized how long they’d been gone for. She probably went looking for Peter when the event started without him. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I just feel really sick,” rasped Peter, despite how obvious of a lie it was.
May glanced at Stephen and, even without being asked, he felt obligated to tell her what he knew. He approached her and leaned in close to keep his words between them. “He was having a panic attack when I came out here. I got him to breathe, and he told me that one of the interview questions triggered him, but he didn’t say what it was and then he started rambling about his Uncle Ben and I don’t know how to help him with that.”
“It’s okay. You’ve— You’ve done more than enough, Stephen. Thank you.” The way May looked at Peter said everything. She understood where his panic attack stemmed from, even without the specific trigger. May knelt beside Peter and gently placed one hand on his shoulder. He didn’t so much as flinch; she was probably the only person in the world he fully trusted. Within seconds, their arms were around each other, Peter’s face buried in May’s neck as his body shook with sobs. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. I know Ben was a lot better at this than me, but I’ll try my best, okay? We’ll get through this together. You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Stephen didn’t stick around to hear Peter’s response or whether he responded at all. Regardless of his own concern, he knew that was a moment of vulnerability reserved for Peter and his aunt alone.
All direct communications ceased between Stephen and Peter after that. Stephen had a few brief exchanges with May after he called her at two in the morning to beg her to check on Peter, but they didn’t go into much detail. He knew that Peter was safe, that he was okay, and that was enough.
After Peter stated that his babysitter never hit him, Stephen considered many possibilities as to what type of abuse may have occurred. The reality was so horrible that it hadn’t even crossed his mind. Not because he found it too difficult to believe but because he subconsciously refused to imagine someone would do that to Peter. He refused to believe that the bubbly teenager held such a dark, terrifying secret, that someone could hurt a kid who dedicated his life to helping others.
Stephen missed Peter during the days they didn’t talk but he respected the kid’s boundaries. He understood that he’d unintentionally put Peter in an uncomfortable and even triggering position, that their last conversation had taken place at a vulnerable moment for him—it made sense he needed space. He needed time. Stephen didn’t know how much time that would be but part of him hoped it wouldn’t be too much. The kid grew on him more than he cared to admit.
Despite their lack of communication, the universe seemed compelled to put an end to the mess Stephen had started with a simple comment about his name. Just as it began when Peter spotted Stephen across the street in Queens, Stephen spotted Peter—seated on the steps of a random apartment building in Greenwich Village. Peter didn’t seem to notice him, so Stephen took a moment to think before he walked over, unsure if he had made the right decision. The look Peter gave him when he sat down gave him no hints.
“Hey, Mr. Strange.” Peter’s tone was as unreadable as his eyes, his left leg bouncing and his right acting as a table for his phone. Stephen could see it was open to a chat with May, but he read none of the messages. It wasn’t his business. “I, uh— I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“The Sanctum Sanctorum is about two blocks that way,” Stephen reminded him. He nodded int its direction. “So, Wong sends me for lunch and look who I find. Everything all right? What are you doing here? We’re a good thirty-five minutes from your place.”
“Nothing, I’m just… never mind. I’m glad you’re here, actually. I want to apologize for everything that happened, and especially that last night I texted you before ghosting. I haven’t relapsed like that in a really long time. I feel pretty stupid about it now.”
“It wasn’t stupid. If anyone was stupid in all of this, it was me.” Because it was his fault. He kept pushing and pushing until the poor kid was so far gone, he quite literally wanted to melt his own skin. “I never should have said anything about your anxiety when you wouldn’t say my name, let alone pushed for answers as to why. It’s my fault that all your shit got dredged up again. I’m very sorry for that.”
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Stephen didn’t want to push Peter if he didn’t want to talk, and he didn’t want to rush him if he was trying to get up the courage to. Instead, he just sat there as Peter stared between his shoes and his phone in silence, exchanging a few more texts with May without more than a glance at Stephen beside him.
It was obvious why Peter didn’t want to talk in detail about what happened to him, but it was only in that moment when Stephen fully realized why he didn’t want anyone to know. Because as hard as he tried to look at Peter the same, he couldn’t. Rather than seeing him as an ignorant, happy kid, Stephen saw Peter as almost fragile—one knee bent up against his chest, his shoulders slumped inward, and his gaze unfocused. He wasn’t always upbeat because he was young and naïve, he smiled and joked around to distract himself from everything he’d gone through.
“It’s not your fault,” said Peter suddenly, his voice low. “You didn’t know. I should have said something when you made fun of me the first time.”
“Okay, no. Peter, I need you to listen very closely to me, all right?” Peter hesitated before he nodded. He turned his head just enough to make eye contact but quickly pulled away. “You said to me once that sometimes it still feels like what happened was your fault. I think you’re still applying those feelings to this situation and it’s not right. You shouldn’t blame yourself for any of this. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“He asked if I wanted to play a game and I said yes.”
It took longer than it should have for Stephen to fully grasp the weight of what Peter said—that he blamed himself for his abuse because it was initially framed as a game he agreed to play, having had no idea what that ‘game’ would entail. “Peter—”
“I said yes. I agreed to it.”
“You were seven. You couldn’t have possibly known what—”
Stephen cut himself off when a painful sob broke through the air. Peter’s phone fell to the ground as he dropped his head onto his knees. He fell almost silent, his slightly wheezing breaths muffled by his legs as his body shook with suppressed emotion. It wasn’t fair that he had to feel that way. It wasn’t fair that he’d gone through so much shit when he was so little, that he blamed himself for things that were out of his control. Stephen wanted to point out that Peter saying “no” likely wouldn’t have changed anything, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t help.
Instead, he reached one hand out to squeeze Peter’s shoulder reassuringly, then froze when Peter’s head snapped up to look at him. Stephen quickly realized his mistake and almost apologized but stopped himself when he recognized the look on Peter’s face. He wasn’t upset, he wasn’t panicked, he was grounded, almost as if he expected to see someone else (Ben?). Stephen slowly moved his hand away and Peter let out a breath like he’d been dragged back to reality.
“May found a therapist for me over here,” he mumbled, his tone indistinct. “She was going to come with me but then she got held up at work so I told her I could do it alone but then I got here—it’s like a block away—and I just freaked out. She told me she would call and reschedule but I just— I feel so stupid. I mean, it’s not like it’s my first time, you know? I don’t know why I can’t do it.”
“Sometimes it’s harder the second time,” said Stephen. He tried to keep his voice soft, though comfort was out of his typical skill set. “You thought you were over it, but you aren’t and that’s okay. That’s normal. You can heal—you will heal—but the memories, the trauma, they stay with you. They never really go away.”
“I know. It’s not about forgetting it; it’s about overcoming it. That’s what I learned before. I overcame it before and I know I can do it again, I’m just— I’m not ready. I’m not ready to talk about it again.”
“You don’t have to do it yet. May already told you she would reschedule, yes? No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to.” Peter nodded but said nothing. Stephen glanced at the bag of carryout still in his hand and sighed. “Now that your afternoon is open, you’re more than welcome to join me and Wong. If you’d rather be alone, that’s fine too, but if—”
“I’ll come. I just need a minute first.”
Stephen didn’t rush him. He needed time to breathe, to calm down, and even though knew Wong was still waiting for him back at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Stephen was prepared to stay with the kid as long as he needed. Too many people had left and/or hurt Peter in his life—intentionally and not—and Stephen wasn’t about to be the next person to do so. When Peter was ready to go, they would go.
Until then, he would stay. And if Peter wanted to talk, he would listen. At the end of the day, no matter what his own arrogance told him, his job was not to tell Peter what to do; his job was to be supportive through whatever steps Peter needed to take to feel whole again.
Patience was not Stephen’s strong suit but for Peter, he was willing to learn.