Chapter Text
Peter woke up the first morning with severe brain fog.
He had to drag himself through dark waters to get to his bathroom. He knew he needed to shower. The warm water would make his bones feel better. He had gotten into a fight the night before with a few gang members, and they gave him a nasty punch to the ribs. It didn’t help that he was wearing his binder at the time. It was a workout binder that Tony made, but it still hurt like hell nonetheless.
He turned the light in the room and flinched. He nearly stumbled back as the scolding bright light flashed over his eyes. Bad sensory day for sure. He’d need to remember to grab his earplugs and sunglasses on the way out if he was going to survive the subway ride to school.
He looked in the mirror and pulled his shirt up to see how his ribs were. He swallowed as he saw part of his chest and lowered the shirt slightly, so that only the ribs were showing. The bruising wasn’t that bad. Mostly tinted purple with greenish-brown spotting on the edges. He let the shirt fall back down and cover his skin.
He turned to the side and examined how his chest bumped out. He analyzed the curve of it with nausea swirling in his stomach. He stopped standing up straight. However, even with the shitty posture, he could still see where the fatty tissue went out rather than being flat pecs. The bile in his mouth turned sour.
He could feel his eyes burning with unshed tears. He refused to cry. Crying would just make him feel more dysphoric.
His soul felt unaligned with his body. His entire body felt so wrong. He wanted to rip his soul out of his skin and free it from the cage it was trapped in.
In the end, he turned the light off and showered in the dark. It was easier on his senses. And for his mind.
When he got out, he felt too drained. Like all of his energy had been zapped out of him with a singular shower. His body felt shaky and he could hear blood thrumming through his head with every heartbeat. Peter sank onto the shower mat, towel wrapped loosely around his body, and he put his hands over his ears and began to rock back and forth slowly.
The rocking was the only thing keeping him from ripping the hair out of his scalp. There was a buzzing underneath his skin that kept his thoughts racing. He could feel his chest through the towel.
He knew he shouldn’t have, especially after the night before, but he dried himself off and put on the damn binder.
He slid his t-shirt over the binder. He looked into the mirror and slid his hands over his chest. The flatness wasn’t nearly as flat as he craved, but seeing the lumps shrink was enough to make the storm in his soul calm.
Throughout the day he could feel a dull ache grow in his ribs. He sat at lunch with MJ and Ned. His head was slumped on MJ’s shoulder and Ned made sure to speak extra softly. It was clear Peter was having a bad sensory day, to the point he was struggling to eat his food because chewing was sensory hell. He could taste the individual chunks of his sandwich and the crumbs were getting stuck between his teeth.
“Do you need your ear plugs?” Ned asked softly. Peter shook his head and closed his eyes.
“Last time I did that, I pissed off a teacher because I didn't have official accommodations.” Peter scoffed and closed his eyes with a wince. The chatter of the lunchroom was loud and unyielding. Every few seconds he could hear the bark of laughter from a nearby table or the crunching of food from another. His head was pounding and he was certain the security guard across the cafeteria thought he was stoned as fuck.
“You should just have Tony or May pick you up. You’re not feeling well and I doubt you are learning anything. You’re months ahead of the curriculum.” MJ reminded her boyfriend and ran her fingers through his hair. The raking of fingers over his scalp was the only thing grounding him. That and the comforting weight of a binder strapped to his chest.
“I have too many absences. The principal emailed May and threatened her with a court order if I missed any more classes without an excuse.” Peter said.
“That’s bullshit. It’s not like you can go to a doctor every week with a broken bone, they’d freak and think May’s abusive.”
“And they’d wonder why I heal so quickly.”
“Just tell them you drink lots of milk and your calcium intake is helping.” Ned offered. MJ looked unimpressed and Peter laughed softly.
“Yeah, I’m sure drinking milk would explain my broken bone healing in two days.” Peter said sarcastically. Ned shrugged and took a sip out of his milk carton.
“Never underestimate the power of a good drink.”
“Ned, that sounds like something an alcoholic would say.” MJ said.
Peter laughed then reached for his water bottle and he could feel the water going down his throat. He hated the feeling, but he knew he needed to stay hydrated. Tony had already gotten on to him for passing out due to dehydration once before.
Just then, Flash walked by with a group of his friends. One of them ‘accidently’ tripped and spilled their juice all over Peter’s back. Peter flushed, knowing he was wearing a white shirt and the outline of the binder was probably visible now.
“Look, Penis is wearing a bra!” Flash pointed out. Just as Peter suspected he would. Peter took a deep inhale. He could hear MJ going off on Flash. Streams of curses that he had never heard come out of someone’s mouth before. Curses that probably would have killed Steve Rogers.
Ned got up and ‘accidentally’ spilled his own drink on Flash. Flash started threatening to ‘sue a shitstorm out of Leeds’ and that was when MJ decided to get the trio the hell out of there. Not because she was scared. But because she was ready to punch a bitch.
This wasn’t the first incident with Flash. The guy had a habit of calling Peter a plethora of slurs. The r-slur, the t-slur, and even the d-slur meant for lesbians. Which was a weird thing to call Peter, since Peter was a straight guy.
This all happened because Peter’s packer once fell out during gym class. Which, already deathly humiliating, became worse because it outed Peter to Flash and his classmates. Before that, he went stealth and had little to no issues. Mostly because Tony helped make sure his gender marker read male on all records.
Once people realized Peter was trans, teachers got involved and said he shouldn’t be using the boys restroom anymore. But they also didn’t want him in the girls restroom, because he was a year and a half on testosterone and literally passed as a cis guy.
So he got stuck with the nurses restroom.
Which was where he, Ned, and MJ were now. Drying off the back of his white t-shirt.
“How obvious is the binder?” Peter asked. No one responded. MJ and Ned both looked at each other quietly and Peter groaned.
“It’ll dry soon, at least it's the gray binder and not your black one.” MJ said with assurance. Then, she tilted her head, “Wait, aren’t you on a binder break?”
“How did you know that?”
“Because you usually take a break after nights you patrol for an extended amount of time. You did patrol last night right, yes?” MJ asked. Peter hated how she could read him.
“No.” He lied. MJ and Ned looked at each other again, but they didn’t argue with Peter. They just kept patting paper towels to his back and making comments about this and that.
Peter hated being in the nurses restroom. It made him feel so othered. He already felt like a freak half of the time. He didn’t know how to communicate outside of his circle. He didn’t know how social rules worked. And he broke rules by merely existing. His existence was bending the rules of gender expectations.
Obviously, he struggled to find his place in this puzzle of a world. The nurses restroom only reminded him of how people pushed him out of the way and closed doors on him.
He just wanted to be treated like the other boys. He wanted to piss in peace. He wanted his dick to stay on and not risk falling off if his boxers moved the wrong way.
He felt darkness swirl in his heart. A solemness that he wasn’t sure he could shake off anytime soon.
He looked in the mirror on the wall. The T helped with his voice, it squared his torso sure. But his chest was still there. Unless he got rid of it with a little neat compression top.
He knew the second it came off, he wouldn’t look like the other boys anymore.
That hurt more than the insults Flash threw his way.
Peter decided he wouldn’t take off the binder anymore.