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Peter sat in the hot tub, his head resting against the edge as the heat slowly loosened aches and pains throughout his body.
He hadn’t felt so relaxed in years, ever since the shitshow his life has been since he got bit by that spider at Oscorp.
Yelena stares at him, continuing her speech. “Did you see the one with the ten Mysterios?”
Peter’s eyes snapped open behind the mask, his muscles tightening at the mention of that name.
Mysterio.
He knew exactly what she was talking about.
He’d seen the fan art. The theories. The videos. The arguments people made trying to figure out what had happened between Mysterio and Spider-Man.
When the spell had first been casted, Peter thought Mysterio would have been erased from the minds of everyone. He thought all the footage would be gone forever, only to exist in his memory now.
Until he got onto the internet the first chance he could get, searching up himself to see if the spell had worked. He was scrubbed from everything, no evidence of his life in any database. Dr. Strange was nothing if not thorough apparently. However, Mysterio had multiple pages when you searched him up. Peter had barely concealed his anger and shock in the public library he had taken refuge in that first night.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Peter Parker had to lose everything while Quentin Beck was still being celebrated from beyond the grave.
The world had remembered Mysterio had existed. They remembered Spider-Man had fought him. They remembered that Quentin Beck had died.
The only thing the spell had erased was Peter getting outed as Spider-Man.
Nobody knew the true story, and now they never will. That story got erased, along with him.
It didn’t account for the fact that Spider-Man had been a grieving teenager. Sixteen. Almost seventeen.
When he thought about Mysterio, he didn’t just think about the man who had ruined his entire life.
He remembered Quentin Beck. The man seemed so nice, so understanding.
He felt safe.
And Peter, who had just been back from being gone all those years, who had watched his mentor die in front of him, and who had just wanted a break, had been hooked onto false words.
Beck had listened to him. He told him he was doing a good job. He had made Peter feel special.
He’d shaken his hand. Put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. He’d hugged him. He’d looked him in the eye and told him things that Peter desperately wanted to hear.
And Beck wasn’t the only one.
Tony had done it too.
Not exactly in the same way. But enough for Peter to notice a pattern.
Tony had found a fourteen- year- old kid with extraordinary abilities and immediately made him feel chosen. Recruited him to fight in a battle he knew nothing about.
And Peter had only wanted to be useful.
Peter had been thrilled at the time. His hero who he had seen as a little boy, who inspired him every day, had finally looked him in the eye and said, essentially, I see you.
His hero who gave him gifts in exchange for ignoring Peter until he needed him again. His hero who gave the constant pressure Peter felt with Ironman’s legacy. The legacy he didn’t want or ask to be a part of.
The legacy that had led to Peter being in the situation with Beck in the first place.
He’d been a kid who desperately wanted approval from someone he saw as a father figure.
And the adults around him had known that.
Fury. Tony. Beck.
Different methods. Different intentions. Different circumstances.
They all saw a vulnerable kid, and instead of protecting him.
They used him.
Peter had a lot of time to think over the years. For years, he wondered why certain praise and touches made him uncomfortable and flinch. He understood why now. All the affection he had learned when he was younger had come with strings attached to it. It came from Men who you looked you in the eyes, touched your shoulder, gave you a hug, lured you into false promises, said you were doing a good job while simultaneously asking you to do things no kid should have been responsible for.
He had spent so long blaming himself. He thought he had been the problem. He now realizes had been too trusting with people who were supposed to fill that father figure role, only to take advantage of that need. He should have been more guarded. He should have payed attention to all those PSA in school and on Tv telling him what to do if someone was making you uncomfortable.
But what do you do when the Adults you looked up too and could tell were the ones doing it to you?
It had never been Peter’s fault, and he has slowly been coming to terms with that.
He hadn’t been stupid. He wasn't just another one of the millions of people, kids and adults alike, that dealt with grooming.
He had just been a teenager trying to grow up in a world that didn’t care about anyone but themselves.
“Spider-Man?”
Yelena’s voice was gentle.
Peter looked over.
“You went very quiet. You, okay?”
Peter wanted to laugh.
He was far from ok.
“No,” he admitted.
Yelena waited.
“But I'm trying to be better.”
Yelena blinked.
Peter suddenly felt the need to get this conversation finished. He needed the distraction. He needed to know about the new villain he was facing. He didn’t have time to dwell.
“You want to continue the discussion?”
Peter nodded.
“Yeah.”
Yelena studied him for a moment before nodding. She looked almost sad at him when she continued to speak.
Maybe she understood more than she let on.