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Bones hollow and stomach empty, Peter feels weightless. His flesh melted away months ago with his appetite, clogging his shower drain and turning the water around it a murky shade of gray. It looks better as a mound at his feet than it ever did stretched over his frame.
His skin had once clung to his body like an ill fitted suit, sagging in the wrong places and bringing too much attention to everything Peter hated about himself. He never wanted to be the center of attention, folding himself down until he’s as small as he can manage and hiding in corners to avoid wandering gazes and excess scrutiny.
The remaining pieces of his dignity are expelled from his system through retching over a toilet and clinging to the porcelain as if it’s the only thing anchoring him to this plane of existence. Peter becomes better acquainted with the stomach acid he’s regurgitated than he’s ever been with himself.
Tony watches him with sad eyes whenever he passes by, acting as the sole witness to Peter’s demise. If he looks close enough, he’ll see Peter breaking off at the bone.
“Kid,” Tony says, worn out from the never-ending battle between them. “You need help.”
But Peter’s bones are turning into a pile of dust right in front of him. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” he replies. His voice is as dull as his eyes have become, both lacking their typical abundance in emotion.
Peter’s resistance is usually enough for Tony to back down, for him to tuck his tail and retreat because he doesn’t know how to solve Peter’s problems—the one thing he doesn’t know how to fix. But this time is different. “You’re sick, Pete,” he says. “I’m not playing this game anymore.”
Weapons drawn and in a stalemate, worried eyes meet blank ones.
“‘m not sick," Peter insists, but the man looks him up and down, taking in Peter's decaying form and the puddle of mud he's left on the floor.
“How many times do we have to go through this?” Tony asks. Peter can’t quite place the emotion in his voice. Anger, maybe. Something blue and hot that coils in Peter’s stomach and makes him just as nauseous as dinner does. “Come on, kid. Talk to me.” His gaze burns Peter. Like gunshot wounds, there’s holes in his bones that Tony can see the other side of the room through.
Tony was there to watch Peter grow into a hero, to grow into Spider-Man. He once regarded Peter with pride, showed him off to the world and said this is the future. Now, neither of them are certain Peter’s going to make it long enough to see it happen. Now, Tony doesn't bring him around much.
“What is there to talk about?” Peter’s voice is rough from all the beatings his throat’s taken. Its walls have since given way to a sandpaper-like surface that grinds against Peter’s vocal cords and makes them bleed out his words.
“There’s doctors that can help you,” Tony says. “We can go see them, right now.” He reaches a hand out for Peter, but Peter flinches away.
“No one can help me,” Peter says, more to himself than to Tony. He leaves the room in a hurry, pointedly walking as far from Tony as possible as he makes his way to the hallway. He leaves a trail of bones in his wake, and Tony doesn’t move to sweep up the pieces.
It’s a battle where no one walks away a winner.
Peter stumbles his way to his room, then the bathroom connected to it. What once was a safe haven from Tony’s constant pity is now crumbling around Peter. The wallpaper peels, the tiles grow mold, and the drain is still clogged.
He looks in the mirror, and sees himself. Sees himself. His cheeks are swollen and his eyes are sunken in, and his hair is much thinner than it used to be (He’s thinner than he used to be). Even his curls are lifeless. They hang loose over his forehead, greasy and covered in sweat. His skin is pale, and his veins look bright enough to have been painted on. His teeth are yellow. His knuckles are red. His bones are poking through his skin, making it appear more like a flimsy sheet of paper than an organ on his body.
He puts a hand against his cheek, dragging his fingers down it as if trying to rub away the evidence of his decomposition. The touch, even his own, is foreign to Peter. His face is much too sharp now. His fingers, too. They meet in the middle like plastic against glass and make Peter’s ears bleed when they scrape together.
He drags the corners of his mouth up into a smile, like someone taking safety pins to a half-finished shirt. His eyes don’t change. They remain lifeless and empty and Peter’s sure that if they weren’t attached to his face by the string of muscles behind them, they would’ve fallen out of their sockets by now.
His reflection stands in front of him, pointing a finger and laughing at him. The image stretches and bends and Peter considers smashing the mirror, letting it shatter and watching the image of himself fracture into a million pieces against the counter. He’d press a shard against his cheek just to make sure that he still bleeds. That he’s still human. Maybe he’d carve a hole in his face, an exit wound for his food to fall out before it ever reaches the pits of his stomach.
Would the draft make his teeth chatter? Would the hole be big enough for him to reach in and pull his jaw off its hinge?
His hands fall from his face and hit the counter hard enough to dent it. But Peter doesn’t feel it. He turns the faucet on instead, letting cold water run over his hands. It’s not like holding glass but the sensation is enough to make him feel human, and it drowns him all the same.
Peter turns the water off, elbows resting on the counter to hold his weight. He’s never up for this long anymore, not when the support beams beneath his body have been weathered and are seconds from giving out.
He slumps, face falling forward into his hands as a sob rips its way out of his throat, bringing up mucus and bile and blood and all the feelings he's buried deep inside himself for months.
God, he's killing himself. And for what? A tighter suit in a size small coffin? An easier time rotting away because by the time the worms get to him, he'll have already done half the work?
Taking a shaky breath, Peter looks up to the ceiling. “FRIDAY?” he calls out, “Can you get Tony?”