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Peter knows what rape is. He’s read the definition over and over again, poring over the same damn words until he can recite them from mere memory: the crime of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with the offender against their will. There have been nights where he has been unable to sleep, staring mindlessly at his glaring phone screen, the words bright and bleary and no longer making sense, muddled up together. He knows what rape is, he knows that what Skip did to him wasn’t rape. (“Peter, that definition of sexual assault is very problematic, and invalidates your-”)
It’s such an ugly word, so painfully crass, unreasonably indicating the most hideous of things (which, he supposes, is the point). The typical picture painted when the word comes to mind (“Peter, what he did to you, that’s rape-“) is one of blood and violence. A trembling woman in an alleyway, a drunken man, a weapon, usually, a falling off dress, the flash of teeth, blood (and there was so much blood: on his sheets, on his thighs, in his hair, in him, oh god it was in him the blood was in him it was in-), threats and swears thrown around, screaming, a slap to the face, slipping in and out of consciousness. It was violence and cruelty in its purest form, the woman’s ‘please stop’ drowned out. Skip wasn’t like that.
Skip was his friend (Damn, you’re a regular Einstein, aren’t ya?). He held his hand when they crossed the road, and although he was much older, he treated him like an equal. Besides, Peter had never gotten along well with people his age, anyway.
They met up at the library, every weekend, and soon, it shifted to Skip’s house, and then, eventually, Peter’s. (Babysitting? Einstein, do you think I’d bring a space encyclopedia to drool over for someone I was babysitting? Plus, if you eat those disgusting vegetables, I’ll let you watch a big kids' movie-yeah, the one with the guns). Skip didn’t like his dumbed-down version, like many of his friends did, or his emotionally-mature version, like the adults did. He liked him for him. Skip was solace, when school got too tough, when his classmates turned their noses at him and eyed him all funny, when he was tired from catering to everyone’s needs, when he needed a break, Skip was there, always waiting with a Twix bar and some shitty, old, sci-fi movie (You were home).
And despite everything that went down, Peter believed, for a long time, and a part of him still does, that Skip was…good. They talked and they made fun of others, and Peter felt like a normal kid, and yeah, Skip would get a little (understatement) upset whenever you wouldn’t do what he said, but a lot of kids did that. All his other friends did that; except Ned, maybe, but he was different. But Peter was just happy to have a friend, honestly, and Skip was cool, so it was okay (right?).
So they did what Skip wanted. Every time. Could you blame him, though? He might’ve been a child genius, but he was still seven, and he wanted to play, as Skip had so eloquently put it, stupid baby-games, like hide-and-seek, or tag. Skip was older, sixteen, he didn’t want to play that. Which made total sense, even Aunt May agreed!
He wanted to play GTA, and their little ‘monster in the closet’ game, or the one where they’d have a quiz competition and the loser had to stick their hand down the toilet (damn Peter for always losing). And it wasn’t like Peter didn’t find the games fun. The closet one was his favourite, where one would pretend to be a ‘monster’ hiding in one of the several cupboards they had, and the other would try to find them, both doing their best to sneak up on each other. Loser had to eat raw cauliflower. (Cauliflower’s a trigger for him, I don’t know why? It’s so weird-)
So, when Skip suggested new games, Peter never said no (Skip, what are you doing, this isn’t funny, stop-). He had, once, and Skip had responded by not talking to him for a whole two weeks. Peter never denied him anything again. Skip cared for him, though. When they watched movies he wasn’t technically allowed to watch, Skip covered his eyes at all the bad parts (he could still hear them, but that was okay, it was the thought that mattered), when a couple of kids decided it was a good idea to beat Peter up, Skip was there, all glares and cracking knuckles. When Peter accidentally walked into Skip showering, the boy just brushed it off, we’re the same, Einstein, don’t worry, saving him a decade worth of embarrassment.
There was trust. Skip hadn’t raped him, the very definition went against what he’d experienced. Against their will. Intercourse against their will. When Skip had decided that Peter was old enough to watch the big-kid movies without Skip’s hand covering his face, he’d grimaced slightly, but had gone along, all fake-enthusiasm and forced chuckles (the lady’s thing looks so funny, right Einstein?)
Skip Westcott had not raped him. (The jury finds you guilty of sexual misconduct-) The words that fit, he realized, after endless research, were coercion. He was smarter than most kids, had the mental and emotional maturity of most sixteen-year olds, his age shouldn’t have played such a big role in it (The victim, Peter Benjamin Parker, age eight). It hadn’t been violent. There had been no aggression or screaming (shut the fuck up, Einstein, you’re not five, stop crying), it had been Skip, his friend (Skip, it hurts, please). His best friend.
He’s sure Skip would’ve stopped if Peter said no properly (Skip, can we play something else-it hurts really bad), but he hadn’t. he’d let himself go still, let Skip do whatever, and Skip had tried his best to make sure he didn’t hurt the boy (A bleeding bite mark on his thigh, the inside of him hurting for days), he got points for that, right? Skip had been gentle, softly convincing Peter, and maybe even himself, that Peter was an enthusiastic, consenting party (you’ve always been so mature for your age). Skip hadn’t even threatened him, all it took was the cock of a head and a slight frown, a quiet, “I thought we were friends?” Peter had just wanted to fit in. He’d just wanted a friend.
And, besides, he couldn’t call himself a rape survivor, now could he? That was blatant disrespect. He didn’t go through anything most trauma victims went through, after all. He’s gone through the symptoms, too, read article over article, and he swears they don’t add up.
There’s avoidance, for example, and he’s sure he doesn’t do that. He still goes to the park where they used to play, still plays GTA, sometimes. (He slept on the floor for the first six months, he can’t stand watching porn, he has a panic attack the minute he steps into a courtroom, and he hates the name Einstein, fuck the scientist, honestly)
And there’s the nightmares, which have reduced significantly, and if he had to physically restrain himself from killing the first sexual assaulter he’d encountered as Spiderman in cold blood, then he’s blaming it on his moral compass. And the thoughts, the insomnia, the never-ending fear, he has none of it, so why bother?
(He stays awake at night, counting the cracks in the ceiling, the statistic he’d read a few minutes-or was it hours?-prior on loop. Survivors of childhood sexual assault have an increased likelihood of being assaulted again in adulthood. What’s the point? Will it ever end? Who’ll be the next Skip? He trusted Skip, now he wants to claw his skin off, now he craves and fights for every bit of control he can get over his body. He is twelve years old, sticking his hand down his throat because he years for that feeling of lightness, because it’s his body and if he doesn’t want something in there, it doesn’t stay in there, be it Skip’s fucking penis or his lunch. He is fourteen, slipping in and out of consciousness on the bathroom floor, he doesn’t even recognize the sharp object in his hand-a geometrical tool, he can tell-or the dried blood on his thighs, new scars added to old ones. He gets to decide what happens to his body, good or bad. He doesn’t know how many scars there are, he stopped counting after thirty.)
And then the sleep deprivation that he pens down to school, when in realities he’s woken up gasping and sobbing and scared, or the nights he’s simply spent staring at a wall, thinking about Skip (he’s gone and yet he’s here-everywhere), the question he wishes he could ask without hesitance, without fear, what were we? Were we friends (please say yes)?
Or, the very strong feelings he has against rape scenes in movies. It’s not his fault, they’re disturbing, why would you want to see that? And the shying away from physical touch? Hell no, he’s Peter fucking Parker, he’s always touching people, an arm around the shoulder, a flick against their forehead, a nudge of elbows. Physical touch is completely safe territory, as long as he can see and hear the person, or he knows they’re about to touch him, or might touch him.
(The way he flinches when Mr Stark ruffled the hair of an unsuspecting Peter, or the fact that he completely avoided coming within a five-mile radius of anyone after The Incident, the panic attack he had when some stranger smacked his ass in the changing room once are all unrelated. And, along with the fear of others, comes a fear of himself. Will he contaminate others with this impurity of his? Spread this filth around? Are people who’d been sexually assaulted as children more likely to assault others? Had someone done the same to Skip? Will he do the same to someone? How could anyone trust him, he couldn’t trust himself. Nothing tethered him to this Earth, he wondered how easy it would be to float away, to let go of that last thread of sanity, to leave-)
He stares at the buildings, the skyline of New York as he sits atop someone’s beach house. Fuck their beach house. His vision is blurred, he’s scared. He had another nightmare. He can’t let anybody know, Mr Stark doesn’t know, MJ doesn’t know, Ned might suspect something, but even he doesn’t know. For all his inability to lie, this secret is probably his best-kept one, and the fact that May found out was punishment enough. Some secrets are meant to be taken to the grave. A tiny voice whispers at the back of his head, urging him to tell them, but what’ll he do if he loses them, too? Why deal with the sympathetic looks and awkward glances? It’s so much easier to feign ignorance. He stares up at the starless sky. Hey, Skip, what were we?