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When it first started, Tony didn’t even realize something was off.
Peter had always been talkative and excitable. No one sounded the alarm; when asked later May would say she just thought the kid was happy, and felt glad to see him happier than he’d been in years.
Peter was enthusiastic about his vigilante work, and that didn’t feel unusual either. Maybe it was, in retrospect, weird that Tony had to threaten to take the suit back when the kid kept going out in the middle of the night. It was best for everyone that May didn’t know about that. The downside of putting a stop to it was that Tony no longer had Karen to inform him that Peter was sleeping so little.
Karen did mention that the kid was unusually reckless sometimes. When she first started to report Peter’s new activity – letting himself fall a great distance before catching himself with a web at the last minute – the kid had claimed that even if he hit the ground he’d survive. He argued that he had incredible superhuman abilities and a small fall wouldn’t kill him. It had taken a little more effort than it should have to convince Peter that yes, falling 20 stories would result in death. It was only after desperate promises to stop from Peter and Tony warning him that Karen was always watching that he reluctantly let the kid keep the suit.
Peter had always been passionate about the projects he did at Stark Industries. When that passion led to fast talking and mind moving quicker than his hands could keep up, Tony just smiled fondly. The kid was a genius, and he’d never underappreciate his brilliance. He had several projects going at once, flitting between them eagerly, and even when the kid caused two lab explosions in one week Tony just felt proud of him.
Finding Peter in a Stark Industries lab in the middle of the night, when he was supposed to be at May’s… that had caused quite a conflict. It was another thing Tony didn’t tell the woman about – maybe a mistake, in retrospect – but he made it clear to Peter that he was in serious trouble and one wrong move away from losing the suit. Especially when checking with FRIDAY revealed that this wasn’t the first time the kid had done it.
When Peter started talking about running a company one day, Tony was floored, but not in a bad way. The kid usually followed in his footsteps and didn’t take that kind of initiative, and as much as a small secret part of him had imagined the kid taking over Stark Industries one day, he’d been well aware that things might not turn out that way. He couldn’t begrudge the kid’s lofty goals when he wanted him to excel and fully believed the kid was capable of great things.
When Peter’s projects started to take on an element of “saving the world” – from poverty, disease, suffering – Tony just wished he’d been like that at Peter’s age, instead of wasting his talents as a Merchant of Death.
It was Peter’s school that ultimately snapped Tony out of his assumption that the kid was just enthusiastic and motivated.
Tony had been listed in Peter’s paperwork for months, alongside May Parker. So when May missed a phone call, Tony was called next. A detention was mentioned, something so out of character that he couldn’t help but worry. He tried to tell himself that Peter was a teenager and this kind of thing was normal, but for this kid it really wasn’t.
So when Tony came to the school and was directed to talk to Principal Morita alone, he was really hoping that this was some kind of misunderstanding, or at worst a minor act of teenage rebellion.
But what he heard wasn’t that at all. Peter’s grades were slipping, he was talking loudly and blurting out answers disruptively in class, and the main reason for today’s visit: he yelled at a teacher when she tried to confiscate a notebook that was distracting him.
When Peter was brought into the room, he was spilling apologies, speaking faster than ever and talking over the principal. Even the man’s attempts at strict control – usually effective, Morita could be intimidating when he wanted to be – weren’t enough to halt the speech. When Tony brought up the notebook, trying to help get the meeting back on track, things got really weird.
“I just have so many ideas Mr. Stark!”
He was shown the notebook and there were pages upon pages of writing and math. He’d need look at it longer to assess it completely, but after a minute of checking it was clear that the math was full of errors and jumps in logic, with formulas being used to “solve” problems they didn’t apply to. It was a mess, and the intermittent writing was somehow worse. Mentions of a company called G.O.D., or Geo-Oriented Directions and the world-changing projects it was working on.
When asked, Peter seemed to think that he was starting the company now, or even was partly through the process of doing so. The kid couldn’t explain in any logical way what steps he had taken, other than insisting that the company was coming together. When asked about it, he just said that the name made sense for something that was going to change the world.
About the yelling episode, Peter claimed that certain teachers in the school – ones who sometimes confiscated the notebook – were trying to oppose his goals and he needed to resist them. There was an uncharacteristic me vs. them mindset, paranoia and a belief that certain people were trying to stop his mission.
One look at the principal showed that Tony wasn’t the only one who was worried. The man’s strictness had fallen away into stress and palpable discomfort. When he sent Peter out of the room and the discussion continued, Tony told him in no uncertain terms that he knew the kid needed help, and that he was going to get it.
When Tony finally left the room, expecting to find Peter sitting on one of the chairs in the office, the kid was nowhere to be seen. In his panic he was more than a little harsh with the office attendant, who told him the kid must have left while she was busy in another room. She was unsurprisingly meek in the face of a scared, angry Tony Stark.
“FRIDAY, track Peter’s suit” Tony firmly spoke into his phone. He felt more thankful than ever that the kid kept the suit in his backpack and took it everywhere he went, just in case.
[Of course, boss. I have located Peter. Would you like a hologram of his location or verbal directions?]
“Both, FRI. How far away is he?”
[Peter has travelled about a quarter of a mile. He seems to have stopped, but he’s in the middle of an intersection so I would suggest you hurry.]
“He’s what?!”
--
Tony’s first act upon finding the kid was to grab his arm and drag him onto the nearest sidewalk. There was a lot of shouting and honking from people he’d inconvenienced and it was all Tony could do not to scream at them. Didn’t they know this was an emergency?! He needed to focus on Peter, though, because he knew full well that if he startled the kid he was no match against superhuman strength.
“Hey kiddo, what’s going on?” Tony said, in the softened voice he’d use with an upset child.
Peter yanked his arm out of his grip, apparently not appreciating the tone. “I’m not a kid, and I’m not crazy!” he yelled, and it hurt Tony to see his kid so distressed.
“No one’s saying you’re crazy,” Tony reassured, trying to sound somewhat less condescending this time.
“You people all think I’m crazy! Everyone wants to stop me!” Peter shouted, eyes wide and wild.
“Stop you from doing what?” Tony asked, calling upon all of his willpower to keep his voice calm.
“Using my abilities! Changing the world! I can help people! You know I can!” Peter yelled, and Tony could appreciate that even when his brain was working against him, some part of the kid wanted to do something good.
“Of course you can, Pete. But not like this. You gotta do well in school, go to college, and then you can work with me or start your own company,” Tony said, trying to seem rational in the face of the kid’s irrationality.
Peter shook his head. “No. No! You started working at Stark Industries just a little older than me! You think I can’t do it? You think I can’t do the same thing you did?!” he demanded angrily. The kid didn’t seem like himself at all, and Tony felt sick with dread at the sight.
“I went to college first. I started earlier than you – good for my work, bad for my social life. There’s nothing wrong with taking the normal path. Going to school at 18, taking 4 years and getting a degree in anything you want,” Tony said.
“No, it’s important that I do it now! Think of how many people could die between now and then if I don’t! It’s my job to save people, it’s always my job to save people and it can’t wait!” Peter said desperately, and not for the first time Tony wished the world hadn’t put so much on this child’s shoulders.
“If you don’t wanna wait, we can work on solutions together. Come back to the lab with me and we’ll look through the ideas in your notebook, see what we can do with them,” Tony suggested. He knew it was unlikely that any of the ideas were usable, but if he managed to trap the kid in his building he’d at least know he was safe and wasn’t wandering the streets while the adults figured out what to do.
Tony wasn’t an expert in mental health, not even close, but he suspected he knew what was going on. He kicked himself for not noticing sooner.
Up until now the kid’s anger had had a desperate and pleading edge, but something downright suspicious entered the kid’s eyes then. Seeing it made Tony feel even more sick to his stomach.
“You wanna stop me too. You’re just like them! You’re like all of them!” he shouted, and Tony took a deep breath, fighting his own panic.
He reached out and took hold of the kid’s shoulders, relieved when the kid didn’t try to fight him off.
“Look at me. Look at me, Pete,” he said seriously. “Have I ever, in the time you’ve known me, not had your best interests at heart? Have I ever tried to hold you back or hurt you in any way?”
After a long, tense pause, the kid seemed to slump, both physically and mentally. Something like alertness passed through his eyes for a moment. “Mr. Stark,” he said in a breaking voice, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Tony’s heart broke; it was so painful to see his kid suffer. “It’s gonna be okay, Pete. I’m gonna make everything okay,” he swore, meaning it more than anything. “Come back to the lab with me, okay?”
He was overwhelmed with relief when the kid nodded silently in response.
--
Trapping a mentally unstable kid in a lab full of dangerous equipment was clearly the definition of a bad idea, but Tony hadn’t been able to get Peter to go anywhere else. There was thankfully a window in the lab, and Tony watched from where he stood just outside of it. The door was closed and the room was built to be soundproof, which thankfully worked for Peter’s spidery ears.
“Tony?” May asked when she picked up the phone. “I’m busy at work. Is everything okay?”
Tony felt choked up for a second, overwhelmed by how not okay things were and struggling with how to explain this to the woman. He knew he’d taken too long to respond when May said “Tony?” again, sounding a lot more worried this time.
“May,” Tony said, swallowing around his dry throat. “Peter needs help,” he forced out.
“Where is he?! Did he get hurt?! He’s supposed to be at school right now, not being Spider-Man!” she exclaimed. Her confusion was understandable, but for once this was a Peter-problem, not a Spider-Man-problem.
Tony got himself together, steeled himself, knowing that despite his own anxiety he needed to be the strong one here.
“Peter’s school called me. He’s been acting erratically, his grades are slipping - he even yelled at a teacher. While I was talking to the principal he left, ran and stood in an intersection. I- I think he’s manic. He has all these plans for projects and none of them make sense. He’s not in his right mind, May,” he explained.
“Manic? What does that even mean?!” May demanded angrily. “If you’re trying to act like my kid is crazy then I’ll take him! He doesn’t need to be treated like that!”
“I’m not saying he’s crazy,” Tony said as calmly as he could. “There’s nothing wrong with struggling with mental health – I’ve struggled plenty. But Peter’s not safe, he’s a danger to himself. I have an eye on him here at the Tower, but he needs a psychiatrist to help with this. This is beyond what I know how to deal with.”
There was a long silence, long enough to increase Tony’s stress. And then, “Tony Stark. You promise me you have Peter’s best interests at heart. You swear you know what you’re doing here,” May said seriously.
“I do,” Tony choked out.
After another long pause, “Okay. Okay, Tony. I’m putting you on hold for a minute while I tell my boss I’m leaving work. You can explain while I drive.”
“Thank you, May,” Tony said, so grateful he had enough of this woman’s trust that he could navigate this situation, that together they could help Peter at a time like this.
He watched the boy through the window, glad that the kid had continued to spend his time writing in the notebook. As long he was focused on that, he would hopefully not blow up the building with some kind of chemical or mechanical concoction.
After a minute of silence on May’s end, she was back. “Okay. Explain this to me,” she said, firm and calmer than before. Tony wasn’t the only one who could function under pressure, and he was so relieved to be reminded of that.
“Peter hasn’t been sleeping much-“ Tony left out the ‘he went out in the middle of the night as Spider-Man’ part, since a fight over that was the last thing they needed right now. “-he’s been talking a mile a minute, more than he normally does. He’s overly focused on this notebook, it’s a book full of ideas but none of them make sense, May. He’s trying to found a company – or thinks he already has, I can’t figure out which. This kind of energy, this… psychosis, it isn’t normal,” he said, an edge of desperation in his voice. He didn’t know what he was going to do if May didn’t believe him.
“Psychosis? I thought you said you wouldn’t call him crazy,” May said sharply.
“It’s a medical term, not an insult,” he explained quickly. “I can get one of the best doctors in the country here within hours. Please, I need you to trust me long enough to do that. If the doctor says I’m wrong, no harm done. But I don’t think I am, May,” Tony said.
He heard a sigh on the other end of the call. “Okay, fine. I’ll be at the Tower in 15 minutes. Where are you?” she asked.
Tony breathed his own sigh of relief at her agreement. “We’re at our lab. My AI will direct you there,” he said, knowing that FRIDAY could hear him and would do as he asked.
“Okay. I’ll let you go for now – if he’s… not stable, I need you keeping an eye on him,” she said pragmatically, evidently calming down a bit.
“Thanks, May,” he replied, and she hung up.
Tony took a moment’s pause to steel himself, getting himself together before entering the lab. When he walked in, Peter’s distress had been fully replaced by his usual enthusiasm. “Usual” by recent standards, anyway – he again kicked himself for not realizing sooner that something was off.
Peter rattled off details about his ideas a mile a minute, not letting Tony get a word in edgewise. Tony did his best to give an appearance of attentive listening, but inwardly he was considering how to redirect the conversation.
“Hey, buddy. Pete!” he said loudly, finally managing to interrupt the boy. With the brief second of silence he got, he asked, “How have you been sleeping lately? When’s the last time you slept?”
“Sleep? You don’t gotta worry about that Mr. Stark! Maybe it’s my spidey powers or something but I haven’t had to sleep much lately! It’s been great! It’s like you, you always stay awake for hours and hours and invent things! It would be better if I could go out as Spider-Man or do work here, but you told me not to so I spend time writing down ideas instead, I have so many ideas, my notebook is almost done!” Peter exclaimed, practically all in one breath.
Not sure whether countering Peter’s perspective was a good idea, Tony tentatively said, “You’ve had your powers for a while now and you still needed to sleep after you got them. If not needing sleep is a recent thing, it can’t be because of your powers.” It felt kind of wrong to be approaching an actual genius like he couldn’t keep up with basic logic, but he genuinely wasn’t sure whether Peter could keep up.
Peter frowned, visibly thinking for a moment. “It’s been... a couple months? I don’t know, time moves weird when you don’t sleep. But there’s no reason I couldn’t get more powers as my body changes over time, something new could totally happen!”
Tony had a feeling that pushing harder would get him that angry, desperate version of Peter he saw in the intersection, so he decided to let it go for now.
“I gotta get back to my ideas Mr. Stark! Maybe I could try them out here, you don’t have some of the components I need though!” Peter exclaimed.
Tony grimaced, and grasped onto Peter’s final statement. “Maybe just stick to the notebook for now. If there’s other things you need I can order them for you and you can work on it tomorrow,” he said, not intending to do that at all.
“Thanks Mr. Stark, you’re the best!” Peter said happily before going back to his notebook, and Tony felt like a complete and total asshole for the deception.
He kept an eye on Peter until the boy’s aunt showed up.
“Hey, Peter!” May said from where she stood in the doorway, and Peter’s head popped up from where he was bent over, writing.
“Aunt May!” he exclaimed, apparently thrilled to see her.
May looked at Tony for just a moment before turning all of her attention on her nephew.
“What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at work!” Peter said, and May shot him a smile.
“Someone offered to take my shift so I’m here to see you! It’s not often I get to spend time with both of you!” she said, and Tony would feel pleased by that enthusiasm if he didn’t know it was fake.
“Awesome! I have so many ideas, I was just telling Mr. Stark about them but I can tell you too! I think you’re gonna like them!” Peter said excitedly, and when May looked over at him again Tony gave her a shrug. Peter didn’t seem to remember that his aunt wasn’t a scientist and wouldn’t understand him even if the ideas were logical.
Tony stepped back into the hallway to make some phone calls. They needed a psychiatrist here to assess Peter ASAP. He’d make them sign an NDA and let them into the lab, since he figured it would be much harder to drag the kid out of here than it would be to let someone in.
It didn’t take long for Tony to find someone, and he was just hanging up the phone when May stepped out of the lab. He looked through the window to see the kid writing again.
“You were right,” May said quietly after closing the door. “There’s something going on with him. I don’t know anything about mania or psychosis or whatever it was you said, but Peter doesn’t act like this. It’s hard to put my finger on what it is, but something's off. Even when he’s happy he doesn’t talk that way. I should’ve noticed sooner – it’s my job to take care of him and I can’t believe I screwed up this bad.”
“May. I’m a scientist – not that kind of scientist, but still – I should have noticed. I get the feeling, and I’m beating myself up too. But we need to put that aside right now, for Peter’s sake,” Tony replied.
May blew out a long breath, then nodded. “You’re right. Have you gotten anyone on the phone yet?” she asked.
“Yeah, the best psychiatrist in the northeastern United States, and the guy has expertise in Bipolar Disorder. He’ll be here in about four hours,” Tony replied.
May looked surprised for a moment, before letting out a huff of a laugh. “Famous billionaire, right. I don’t know how I forget sometimes,” she said.
That bit of light-heartedness quickly faded. “That’s what you think it is? Bipolar Disorder?” she asked.
Tony sighed. “Look, it’s not my area of expertise. I’m not a medical doctor. But if I had to guess, that’s what I would bet on. You can take that with a grain of salt until he’s been assessed,” Tony said. “The guy I called will figure it out.”
May stared at him searchingly, before the tension in her body relaxed like she was forcing herself to calm down. “Okay,” she said tentatively, “Okay. So we just keep an eye on him until he gets here?” she asked.
Tony nodded. “Yep, pretty much. The kid seems like he has enough going on in his head to keep himself busy, at least. We've just gotta to make sure he doesn’t blow up the lab.” Both of them smiled slightly, though the heaviness of the situation ruined the amusement of the comment.
--
A few hours later and Dr. Richard Craye was standing just outside the lab with Tony and May. Knowing it was better coming from him than sounding delusional out of Peter’s mouth, Tony told him that Peter was Spider-Man. Dr. Craye’s eyebrows rose but he otherwise processed the news neutrally, which they were thankful for. Hopefully the NDA would do its job. Peter would definitely take issue with them sharing that information, but there wasn’t much else they could do at the moment.
Tony quickly went over his observations: the lack of sleep, the erratic behavior, the irrational beliefs. Inevitably it came time to introduce him to the kid, who hadn’t yet noticed them through the window.
“Peter?” May said tentatively as they walked into the room.
The kid looked up. “Hey! Oh, who’s that?” he asked, chipper and undisturbed.
However, when May said, “This is Dr. Craye,” Peter seemed to put the pieces together.
“Mr. Stark, I told you I wasn’t crazy! I told you that! I’m changing the world and you’re- you’re just too stupid to understand what I’m doing! Either that or- or you wanna stop me! Why do you wanna stop me?!” he yelled, backing away until he bumped into a work bench behind him.
“Peter, we’re trying to help you,” May said, trying to sound as calm as she could, but Peter wasn’t having it.
“Help me?!” he demanded, his voice cracking. “If you wanted to help me you’d leave me alone! I’m here on Earth to bring peace and happiness to everybody, and you’re- you’re trying to stop me! You’re just like those teachers!”
The collective panic in the room exploded when Peter grabbed a scalpel off the work bench behind him. “Is this what you want?! To hurt me?!” he demanded, holding the blade near his neck.
Through the immediate panic, Tony wondered whether Peter was suicidal or if he was mostly flailing in confusion. It obviously wasn’t a good sign either way, and he was terrified at the thought that they could lose him.
“Peter, put that down,” May said in a shaking voice. Peter’s hand shook, but he kept the scalpel in place. Luckily it was an inch or two away from actually nicking him.
“Look at what you’re doing. You think you would do this under normal circumstances?” Tony said carefully, meeting Peter’s wild gaze when he looked over at him. “I know you, and I know you would only do this if you were struggling. May and I, we love you. We just want you to feel better.”
Peter shook his head, and they all tensed at how close that put him to the blade.
“You know I’d never be okay again if you hurt yourself, right?” May said in a tear-filled voice. “Please put the knife down. I can’t lose you, not after we lost Ben.”
Peter flinched at the reminder of Ben, and then a moment of clarity seemed to take over and he moved the blade away, looking down at it like it was foreign and unfamiliar.
“Oh- oh god!” he gasped, and the scalpel fell through his fingers and clattered on the floor. “What was I- oh god!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry May, I’m sorry, I- I don’t know what I-“ he rambled. He was cut off by May, running towards him and taking him into her arms.
“Please, Peter,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “Please let the doctor see you. I can’t lose you, I can’t,” she begged.
“Okay. Okay, Aunt May,” Peter mumbled, barely loud enough for them to hear.
--
May and Tony left the room, giving Peter privacy with Dr. Craye. They waited silently in the hallway, watching though not able to hear the conversation through the window. Neither one of them felt like talking, still in a lingering state of fight-or-flight after seeing Peter almost hurt himself.
They gradually untensed as the adrenaline faded, but both still felt a combination of distress and exhaustion that didn’t facilitate conversation. The only thing said, by Tony, was, “He’s going to be okay.” He was trying to convince both of them.
After just under an hour, Dr. Craye stepped out of the room and conferred with them in the hall, keeping an eye on Peter through the window.
“I got to know Peter a bit. Based on my conversation with him and what you’ve told me, I’ve diagnosed him with Bipolar 1 with psychotic features,” he said. “Bipolar 1 is a disorder where a person has episodes of mania and depression. He's manic, which means he has excessive energy. Psychosis means he’s disconnected from logic and reality. He told me what happened earlier wasn’t a suicide attempt, but in cases like this I normally suggest hospitalization. Just long enough for a med regimen to be worked out. But in Peter’s case-”
May went from exhausted to incensed in an instant. “You want to lock him away?! He doesn’t belong in a place like that! Maybe he’s having an episode, but he’s not crazy! And I won’t let him be alone! He needs to be with his family, with us!”
“Ms. Parker,” the doctor said firmly. “I said I normally suggest hospitalization. Peter is enhanced, which means his presence at a hospital could be dangerous to other patients. That-“ he held up a hand to forestall May’s interruption.
“That doesn’t mean he would hurt anyone on purpose, but an accident is something we have to consider. If someone tried to restrain him, and he instinctively used his full strength against them... even if it’s unlikely, there’s a liability.
“Instead of hospitalization I recommend another enhanced person stays with Peter at all times, in a safe space with nothing he could use to hurt himself. Our first priority is making sure he’s safe. Even if he didn’t really mean to kill himself, like he told me, suicide and self-harm are still a risk. While he’s being watched, I can see him regularly and work on a medication plan to bring him out of this,” the psychiatrist explained.
May let out a sob. “Peter, my baby,” she cried, shaking with tears.
Tony put a hand on her shoulder as a plan came to mind. “He has us, May,” he said, trying his best to sound reassuring. “And Thor’s met Peter – I’m sure I can get him to help us keep an eye on him for a bit. He’s strong and he’s got a hell of a soft spot for kids,” Tony said.
“Peter’s gonna be okay,” he added, for both of their sakes.
May looked at him, eyes desperate and beseeching. “Please. I don’t like asking for things, but this time…” she trailed off, her expression saying more than her words could.
“I promise you May, we'll look after him. He’ll be okay,” Tony repeated, and May nodded.
“Okay,” she said shakily, and then more firmly, “Okay.”