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Peter didn’t call Mr. Murdock. Not in the week after the surrealest night of his life (the night he got bit by the spider wasn’t the most surreal, it was the most horrifying), and not in the week after that. Not even on the Tuesday of the third week when he had a minor mental breakdown that started when he woke up in the morning to find he’d gotten blood on his sheets and his cut hadn’t healed and had gotten infected, and middled with him spilling the good hot chocolate he’d splurged on from the non-MJ containing coffee shop down the street all over one of his favorite shirts, and finished with him stubbing his toe and sitting on the floor shaking, not sure if it was a panic attack, or crying that his body just wasn’t doing correctly, and just really, really wishing he had someone to talk to.
He had one business card worn and soft, rounded in the corners, and one business card that was sharp-edged and new. He didn’t look at either of them, didn’t put the number in his phone.
The problem was that the phone number was for Mr. Murdock’s work phone. The problem was that if Peter called, Mr. Murdock would be obliged to answer. And Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted Mr. Murdock’s help getting his life straightened out legally, and he knew it was too much to ask for him to do it for free, even if he said he would. Peter didn’t even want a lawyer, really, just someone who could look at him and know he was real.
This had been the problem before, and it was still the problem now.
It wasn’t that Peter didn’t have people at all, it was just that he had all these people who were just out of reach. He knew that he could reach out to touch them if he wanted to, but that would mean they were touched by him. That would mean that he chose that for them.
So Peter didn’t call Mr. Murdock.
The day after the mild mental breakdown, he went to MJ’s cafe, and maybe stared at her a little too much to be polite, and then drank the shitty coffee they sold there with his back turned to her so he’d seem a tiny bit less like a stalker. He listened to her, as hard as he could. He eavesdropped on her talking to customers, and listened to her walking back and forth, listened to the sounds of her moving, of her making coffee. He listened and he imagined what she looked like, when she was making that customer service smile that she hated, when she turned her back so she could mutter insults under her breath. So close, infinitely far.
He wondered if this was what it was like for Mr. Murdock.
His phone ate away at his pocket.
It was still the starkphone that Aunt May gave him freshman year of high school, right after Uncle Ben died. Before that Peter had had a cheap old dumb phone, because Uncle Ben and Aunt May didn’t see what a kid Peter’s age needed with something fancier, and really they couldn’t afford it.
After Uncle Ben died, Aunt May got him a starkphone, because the world felt a lot scarier than it used to, and she wanted to always be able to find him if she needed to.
When Mr. Stark took Peter to Germany, he did something to the phone’s tracking that would make it look like they were in Stark Tower the whole time.
The phone ate away at his pocket. It felt like it was weighed down with every call he’d ever made on it.
Peter never knew what to think about Mr. Stark. Before he met him, he was Peter’s favorite celebrity, in an “I really, really hope he doesn’t turn out to be a rapist or pedophile or anything” kind of way.
Thing is, life is full of good and bad. When Mr. Stark took him to Germany, there were two ways he could look at it. On the one hand he could be horrified, furious, scared, that a grown-ass billionaire stalked him, came to his home under false pretenses, lied to his aunt, made Peter lie to his aunt, blackmailed him, and took him to a foreign country to fight for him without even having the decency to tell him what he was fighting for.
Or he could look at it the other way, and be over the moon excited , because his favorite superhero was impressed by him, thought he could make a difference in the large scale, recruited him to the fucking Avengers.
There wasn’t any point in freaking out, there wasn’t anything Peter could do to stop Mr. Stark, no power that Peter had over him. The way Peter saw it, he might as well enjoy himself, might as well think about the good, and pointedly not think about the bad. That’s how you have to live sometimes, that’s how you manage it, living, instead of freaking out, facing the world and doing what you need to, instead of giving up and dying.
Sometimes Peter lies in bed at night and thinks about Mr. Stark. Thinks about how he gave Peter the fancy spider suit, and made the lenses to help with Peter’s enhanced vision, and all the safety features, invasive and otherwise, and all the other things that Mr. Stark added just for the hell of it, just because he wanted Peter to have them. And he thinks about how Mr. Stark didn’t need to do any of that, how he did it all for free, because he liked Peter, because he wanted him to have them.
And sometimes Peter lies in bed at night and thinks about how, since the spider bite and Uncle Ben died, every bad thing that has happened to Peter, every single one, has in some way been because of Mr. Stark.
Peter’s never been one for holding grudges. He can be annoyed, pissed, and incredibly viciously petty sometimes, but he’s never really got the point of real, long term anger. There’s only been two times he’s had the fire burn in his gut, felt that rage carry him, and burn a home for itself in his brain, once when Ben died, and then again for Aunt May. Mr. Stark has never been worth that kind of anger.
The thing about Mr. Stark was that he always meant well. He always tried, and it was a little ridiculous. Mr. Stark was so earnest. He talked to Peter like a dad from a bad sitcom, and sometimes it was all Peter could do not to laugh, even when it was all he could do not to scream, because Peter wasn’t in the market for replacement father figures, and even if he was, Mr. Stark wasn’t who he’d pick.
Sometimes Peter lies awake at night and wonders if it’s weird to be proud of a grown man for how he’s grown since you’ve known him.
Because that’s the thing, Peter was pretty sure Mr. Stark figured it out in the end. Somehow while Peter was gone, Mr. Stark got married and had a kid, and finally learned how to be a dad, finally learned how to be better than his father made him. Mr. Stark grew up during the blip, while Peter wasn’t looking, Peter could see it in the afterimage he left behind, in the people left to mourn him. Mr. Stark grew up while Peter was gone, and the moment he got back, just moments after Mr. Stark laid eyes on him, he died.
That’s three for three on father figures.
Anger, it burns hot, it takes energy, and you can decide whether or not it’s worth the effort. Sadness, though, grief, that’s not something you can choose, or if it is, Peter’d never figured out the knack. So Mr. Stark was never his dad, he was an annoyance at best, but Peter grieved him, wouldn’t know how to stop.
Peter figured he’d haunted MJ long enough. He threw away the coffee cup and left the cafe. His phone weighed down his pocket.
Peter wasn’t in the market for father figures, he wasn’t. He was just a few short months from adulthood, for fuck’s sake.
He was lonely, though.
That night, Peter sat on the roof of the tallest building on his block and watched the city lights. His phone was in his hand, he wasn’t sure how it got there.
He opened his contacts. They’d all been erased, along with every single text, every single voicemail. There was no physical evidence left in the universe that Peter Parker used to exist, the spell made sure of that. Peter stared at his phone, at the one lonely contact listed. “DD” was all it said.
He could call, Peter realized all of a sudden. He could call, because Daredevil would see who was calling and he wouldn’t answer.
Sure he’d said he’d answer, he’d said Peter should call, but Peter was realistic. Daredevil on its own was a full time job, and he was Mathew Murdock on top of that, there was no way he had time for answering phone calls from lonely teenagers. Daredevil wouldn’t answer, and Peter would leave a message that Daredevil would never listen to, because it would be long and rambly and not worth his time, and Peter would have someone to talk to, even if no one was listening, and it would all be fine.
He hit call. He realized his mistake almost immediately.
Daredevil answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
Daredevil answered, because of course he did. Because Daredevil was Mr. Murdock, which meant he was blind, which meant he didn’t have caller ID on his burner, not any he could read. Mr. Murdock didn’t know it was just Peter, he thought it was someone important, some thing important, an emergency. And there were probably real emergencies that Daredevil needed to get to, and here Peter was taking up his time because he was a whiny baby who wanted attention.
“Sorry, wrong number!” Peter said in a rush, and hung up.