Into the Abyss
Buzzbuzzzzz.
Buzzbuzzzbuzzz.
Buzzbuzzzzz.
Buzzzz.
“...wha the…?” Peter scrunched his face into something tight, rolling onto his side with a groan louder than the noisy streets of Queens that could be heard through his bedroom walls.
With one hand and both eyes closed, he blindly reached out to stop the persistent vibrating clattering against his dresser. It was annoying, going off every second, buzzing like a bee on steroids. Not to mention the sheer volume of how loud it was, piercing through his eardrums like a hot, scolding knife. His head ached something fierce, pounding ruthlessly from his hairline down into his neck.
It was official. He slept like shit last night.
Finally grabbing hold of his phone, Peter pressed his thumb hard on the mute button before he clumsily brought it into bed with him. In the process, his arm knocked down two plastic water bottles, a small desk fan that ran on high, and an old hard disk drive he found the other week in the dumpsters by Brooklyn.
There was no attempt made to clean up the clutter.
Peter flopped onto his back, wincing as even his bedsprings squeaked and rattled. The pull of sleep was tempting; he didn’t want to even open his eyes. An all-consuming urge to forget the day and call it a loss was every bit as overwhelming and enticing as it could get.
Buzzbuzzzzz—
“Oh my — ugh!”
So much for that.
One balled fist rubbed harshly at his eyes, wiping eye crust away until he saw dancing flares where there should only be darkness. A moment later and Peter peaked an eyelid open, testing the waters before doing the same on the other side.
His room was barely lit, dim, and shadowy without the use of artificial lamps. The soft glow of a fading sun was the only light seeping through his bedroom window.
It was still sunrise? Peter furrowed his brows. He didn’t remember going to sleep til late, long after Happy dropped him off and way past midnight. Sure, it wasn’t like he expected a good night’s rest, certainly not after what happened yesterday —
The thought stirred a sharp cramp in his stomach, his skin growing hot with a flush of sweat. The memory came bombarding back to him like a broken dam releasing floodwaters.
Yesterday.
Shit.
Peter shook the thought off. Still. Surely he should’ve gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep, regardless of what happened.
As his eyes came into focus, so did the yellow sticky note taped to the upper bunk of his bed, directly in his eye-line. Peter didn’t even bother reaching for it, reading it exactly where it had been placed.
Sleep. You earned a day of laziness.
Pizza money on the counter. Working a double at the shelter tonight.
Please don’t beat yourself up. I know you’re upset.
We’ll talk later.
Promise.
Love love love LOVE you,
May
Peter scanned the note, and then again, reading it until his groggy mind could comprehend what he was seeing and the words made sense.
Not a second later, and he tore it off from the bunk, crumbling it into a crinkled, messy ball.
Promise. Peter huffed, slowly sitting up on his bed until his back hit the wall with a thud. What good anyone’s promises did these days.
He leaned his head back until it pressed flush against the drywall, gently, careful not to aggravate his already pre-imploding skull. One wrong move and he was afraid the bomb rattling near his brain would explode. Both hands pushed back his hair, greasy at the roots and in major need of a shower.
None of this would have happened if May had just kept her promise. Peter set his jaw; this was exactly why he didn’t want Mr. Stark to know about the fight with Flash, about every single detail in his life. It always caused trouble, it always blew up into something way bigger than it needed to be.
And now...
Buzzbuzzzzz—
Tears were burning in his eyes, and Peter blinked them away before they could shed, reaching for and unlocking his phone. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about anything.
What greeted him on the screen was harder to understand than May’s note, a confused haze setting over his vision and a fog stealing his clarity.
Forty-eight unread messages. Five missed calls. The alerts were fresh and waiting to be touched.
It wasn’t the thing that surprised Peter the most.
“It’s seven at night?”
A quick glance at his bedroom window proved his phone correct. It wasn’t sunrise, not even close. The sun was setting and the day was coming to a close.
He had slept for sixteen straight hours.
“What the hell…”
Peter scratched at his head, barely taking the time to swipe through his messages. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept that long. Not straight through, anyway. Heck, he didn’t even remember getting up to use the bathroom. One moment he fell asleep and the next — well, here he was.
He didn’t even feel well-rested.
Screw that, he felt like utter crap.
Sixteen hours? Why the hell did he sleep for sixteen hours?
Slowly, and without paying much attention, Peter’s thumb browsed through the shockingly stupid amount of things waiting for him. His phone was never this lit on a good day; he couldn’t understand why it got so much activity suddenly — and while he was K.O’ed, go figure.
Checking the missed calls first, his heart stopped a hard beat when he saw four of the five were from Mr. Stark. They started around early afternoon, the latest one coming through just twenty minutes ago.
He left a voicemail for each.
Peter quickly swiped away. There was no way he was dealing with that right now.
Text messages were easier to deal with. Text he could handle.
Peter swiped out of the messages, moving onto the next bunch. He could get back to Ned at a later time; conspiracy theories really weren’t his priority at the moment.
Not with Harry’s name in the inbox glaring back at him, making his stomach turn with guilt — it wasn’t fair to leave the guy hanging, not after spending all that time spent tutoring him for basically nothing.
“Oh, no.”
Peter dropped his phone mid-text.
A forceful hand flew to his mouth.
“Nononono —”
His legs stumbled right out of bed, feet hitting the floor with hard purpose. They kicked at the discarded water bottles that had fallen over, and he nearly broke his bedroom door with such force swinging it open. Peter ran out long before he could hear it make a crack against the wall.
There was no warning that accompanied the lurch of his stomach. Tight cramps quickly became something entirely different. Before Peter knew it, his head was dipped deep in the bathroom’s porcelain toilet bowl.
The taste of vomit as he heaved and gagged was sickeningly enough, aggravating his already queasy insides into expelling a never-ending stream of burning bile. It felt like every noise he made was similar to an exorcism, his back reeling with each wave of nausea that tore through him.
It felt like it wouldn’t stop.
Even as his stomach contracted, twisting into some sort of demented pretzel, and even as hot tears wet his eyelashes and moistened his face, Peter didn’t understand what was happening.
Shaking hands clenched the toilet seat, and the pungent stretch of his own sickness invaded his nostrils as he waited it out, hoping that there was nothing left for him to purge.
It wasn’t often a thought of his — he was really, really, really glad May wasn’t home right now. She didn't need to hear that.
“Holy cow.” Peter fell from his knees onto his backside, a deep, guttural groan echoing off the bathroom tiles. Sweat dripped down through his greasy hair and into his brows, mixing with the mess that leaked from his eyes.
That. Sucked.
Wearily, shakily, he grabbed a wad of toilet paper and wiped his mouth clean. Minutes passed as he stayed on the floor, staring at the bathroom rug that probably needed a good wash but had been neglected on laundry day.
He must have ate something bad yesterday. May’s meatloaf, maybe? It was the only explanation.
Peter tossed the crumbled toilet paper into the bowl where it sank deep into the mess he made. He swallowed thickly, his throat burning like it was coated in acid.
With every bit of his common sense that wasn’t too exhausted to function, he knew it didn’t add up to be sick on an empty stomach. Way deeper past that, he knew it made absolutely no sense for him to be sick at all. He hadn’t even caught the common cold since the spider bite.
He pushed the thought aside, flushing it down the toilet with the contents that stained the bowl. It was strange. He never remembered drinking coffee either, yet the disgusting looking vomit took on an eerily similar role of coffee grounds. Almost a dark, burgundy red tint to it.
It was so bizarre, Peter couldn’t help but stare as it swirled down the drain.
God, his life was weird.
From the ground where he sat, Peter gripped the edge of the sink, forcing himself upwards. His knees buckled before he found his balance. It was a conscious decision to bypass the mirror that hung on the wall, opting not to look at himself on the way out.
He didn’t need his reflection to tell him he was a hot mess. He knew that solely from how he was feeling.
Thankfully, and as slowly as he walked back to his bedroom, the gnawing sensation in his abdomen began to abate. He was careful with each inhale he sucked in, worried that one breath too many might reawaken the beast that had used his insides as a punching bag.
“Damn…” Peter muttered, his bedsprings squeaking as he sat back down on his bed. With careful regard, he picked up a discarded water bottle on the floor and began to take small sips. Even the little bit of liquid he swallowed felt heavy, too heavy, like led in his chest.
Okay, maybe this was a little too weird, even for his liking. Some answers definitely wouldn’t hurt. Maybe Karen could check his vitals, scan him for anything out of the ordinary —
Right. Peter didn’t have his suit anymore. His hand clenched the plastic water bottle in his grip, crushing it under pressure. He didn’t have Karen, and if he called May, she’d just call Mr. Stark, and once again something small would be blown way out of proportion.
Peter looked to his pillow, where his phone laid discarded in his rush to get up. Going back to sleep sounded like the most amazing thing ever. He was really, really ready to call this day a loss.
Half of his text messages still weren’t answered. He hadn’t even looked at MJ’s yet.
Peter dropped the empty water bottle, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. MJ was still waiting to hear back from him about making arrangements to try on their formal wear for homecoming. That was just around the corner, and he knew how she liked to do things well in advance. She’d be livid if he procrastinated on this one.
A chuckle almost left his mouth. Peter wondered why it happened to be every single homecoming he went too resulted in losing his suit from Mr. Stark.
Granted, this was only his second homecoming...but still. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
Peter rubbed his eyes until they felt raw and tender. He’d see MJ at school tomorrow, they could talk about it while she went over his history exam. Maybe he’d feel better by then. With how lightheaded and tired he felt right now, God only knows what stupid things he’d say to her.
Besides, the very idea of talking to anyone else made his gut tighten into a stiff ball again, and with a hard swallow, Peter decided he did not want to kiss the rim of a toilet bowl anytime soon.
As if on perfect cue, his stomach began to gurgle with a noise that sounded eerily similar to a raging sea in the middle of a storm.
Alright, so maybe trusting things to get better on their own wasn’t his best option in the book.
Peter grabbed a pair of socks from his laundry basket, ignoring how badly they needed to be washed in favor of being lazy. He wasn’t aiming to please with his appearance, not with where he was going. Sweats and a baggy t-shirt would do just fine.
The money May left for him stood out among the other ideas on the kitchen counter. He snatched it on his way out, grabbing his hoodie from the coat rack before leaving the apartment.
Rush-hour traffic was just barely starting to die down, and for once, Peter had no desire to extend a fast errand into something more. No suit, no way to patrol. And quite frankly, he wanted to get back to the apartment asap. Sixteen hours of sleep clearly wasn’t enough — all he could think about was going back to bed.
It was a good thing the bodega was only a few blocks away. What should have been a quick ten-minute walk ended up kicking Peter’s ass, in more ways than one. Half-way there and he found himself winded, struggling to breathe the warm, nearing the end of summer air. At least back at the apartment there were fans in his room, a way to circulate through the muggy temperature and keep him mildly comfortable through the bulk of the season.
Once outside, a crushing wave of vertigo nearly stole his balance at every step. Like no inhale was deep enough for his lungs. Warm, muggy, and overall downright miserable.
“Watch it, asshole!”
Peter jerked to the side, barely avoiding a bicyclist as they came rolling down the hill, full speed ahead.
Well, damn. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing at his forehead uselessly to rid the pounding in his skull. Here Peter thought his spider-sense was a constant thing — magical nanotech mist excluded, of course. The moment he felt a little under the weather, it decided to pack its bags and leave him high and dry?
Peter shook his head, forcing himself to hurry through the last block ahead. The sun was nearing gone, a slight orange and pink glow hiding behind clouds, the only remnants left of daytime.
He didn’t want to be out once it got dark. Under the weather or not, it made him feel guilty. Knowing he wasn’t able to uphold his responsibility. Knowing everything that would happen in Queens without him there to stop it.
It wasn’t fair.
Walking into Delmar’s cool air-conditioned shop was a relief, albeit one that was short-lived.
“Jeeze!” Peter clutched his hoodie, wrapping both arms tightly around himself. “You guys leave the freezers open in here or something?”
Leaning on the counter, Delmar shot him a look, eyebrow so high it nearly hit the ceiling.
“It’s ninety-two degrees outside and you’re wearing a sweatshirt thick enough to incubate a gooses load of eggs.” Delmar shoved his magazine aside, standing up straight as he gave Peter a long once-over. “You doing the drugs now, Mr. Parker?”
Peter rolled his eyes, heading straight for the pharmacy aisle at the end of the store.
“No, Mr. Delmar, no drugs,” Peter mumbled, staring blankly ahead at the shelves where different medications were stocked. It felt like ages since he last bought anything for when he was sick. He wasn’t even too sure where to begin. He wasn’t even too sure what he was sick with. “Just...you know, got a cold. Or flu. Or something.”
“Or something…” Delmar repeated skeptically, eyeing Peter even as he rung up another costumer. “You know, my wife’s got this great thing she makes for that. It’s some kind of Turmeric drink. It’s good for you, got lemons in it, ginger, turmeric…”
Delmar’s voice faded away, muted in Peter’s ears, drowned out by the sharp, piercing ringing that drilled into his head. He scrubbed at his eyes for the millionth time, already feeling the tissue on his lids grow pink and irritated.
The array of different products on the wall could have very well been labeled in some crazy alien language. For the life of him, Peter couldn’t concentrate on a single one. He scanned the shelves, up and down, finally settling his eyes on a bottle only to lose focus a second late.
It was impossible to concentrate. Like his mind wasn’t even his own anymore.
After what felt like too long, Peter finally picked through the items without a care. One of everything it was. Just to be safe.
“...and you stir the pot for about fifteen minutes. Or five minutes, can neither remember which. Once the ginger becomes really pronounced you —”
Delmar stopped talking the moment Peter dumped an armful of items onto his counter. A second later, and he reached into his hoodie pockets, pulling out two more bottles that his arms couldn’t carry.
Peter forced a tight-lipped smile.
Delmar studied his face, as if waiting for more items to magically appear from other places.
“That everything?”
Peter nodded, regretting the action immediately. It was like his head had turned into a maracas, rattling to the beat of a song he’d do anything to stop.
Delmar turned his head around, hollering to the other clerk nearby. “Hey, Keith, get me a number five, don’t forget the pickles —”
“Uh, no, no,” Peter quickly interrupted, shaking his hands to match his words. “Not — not tonight. Feeling a bit...you know…”
For whatever reason, Peter decided to motion to his stomach, realizing a second too late how idiotic he looked mimicking a sick child.
Luckily, Delmar seemed to take pity on him. “Can take it home. Goes good with soup. Soup’s good for a flu.”
Once again, Peter forced on a smile too fake for his liking. The feel of his lips stretching across his face was almost as painful as the migraine that took residency in his head.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
A hasty glance outside the bodega doors and Peter realized it had gotten dark, streetlamps and store lights now his guide home. Looking around, he also caught notice of the few customers in the store staring at him.
More than that, they were gawking.
Peter made a face. Like they hadn’t seen a sick person before? He quickly grabbed the back of his hoodie, yanking it over his head with frustration.
No matter how much he loved Queens, there would be times he simply could not handle the New York attitudes. Tonight was one of those nights.
“You know…” Delmar was deliberate in ringing up each item as slowly as possible, going as far as to review each one with careful, noisy consideration. “This stuff ain’t no good for you. Poison. Bad for the liver.”
Peter arched an eyebrow. “It’s medicine, how bad can it be?”
Delmar hummed, lifting a bottle of Advil close to his eyes, squinting as he read the small print on the back of the box. “All chemicals. No good.”
Peter fought off a hard shiver that nearly shook his body sideways.
“Don’t you smoke?” he asked, a foreign lace of spitefulness coating the retort.
The look Delmar proceeded to give him was colder than the store itself. Peter couldn’t find it in him to care; he really wanted to get home, and he’d already been out longer than planned.
“Besides,” he added a playful tone to his words to lighten the tension, “when did you of all people become a health nut?”
Delmar tossed the many bottles of medicine into a plastic bag, making a few clicks on the register before taking Peter’s money. “Wife’s trying this new thing. Holistic or something. Has some valid —”
Keith, residing from behind the deli counter, took the plastic bag from Delmar and pushed it straight towards Peter.
“It’s a bunch of bullshit mumbo jumbo where they eat grass and gloat about their clear pee. Don’t listen to him, he just wants to make the misses happy.” Stuffing the receipt in with the rest of Peter’s item, Keith offered a small smile. “Feel better, okay, kid?”
Peter forced a chuckle, nodding thanks while taking the overly stuffed bag of medicine. Only once grabbing onto it did he realize he may have over-done it with his purchase. One more item and the plastic was sure to rip apart. No wonder Delmar had been staring at him like he’d grown five heads and three noses.
It took a good second to get to the bodega doors. Peter almost couldn’t get his legs to work at first, too heavy to maneuver, feeling like cement leaked into his calves and stole basic function away from his muscles.
A small meow caught his attention on the way out. Sitting on top of a beer cooler was Murph, looking more relaxed than Peter had felt in months. Even with the chill expression, the cat was intently eyeing every customer that walked around the store.
Peter managed a weak smile. Delmar’s own furry little security monitor.
“See ya round, Murph,” he muttered, lifting a hand to pet the cat on his way out.
He never got the chance to brush up against even one single strand of fur.
“HiiiiIISSS!!”
The violent, unexpected sound was enough to startle Peter backward, stumbling on the balls of his heels until his back hit a dusty magazine rack.
“Hey!” Delmar poked his head out from behind the counter, leaning over for a better look. “What’s going on over there?”
Peter shot his head towards him, wide-eyed and stunned.
“I don’t know!” he answered honestly. “I went to pet him and —”
“HiiiiIISSS!!”
The hair on Murph’s back stood up straight, the cats back end high in the air while he hissed directly at Peter.
With a gulp, one that managed to convulse his stomach into a knot, Peter managed to regain his footing. He picked up the magazines that had fallen from the rack, never moving his eyes away from Murph the entire time he cleaned up the mess.
In his entire lifetime of shopping at Delmar’s, not once did Murph hiss or snarl at him. Heck, the cat literally wouldn’t hurt a fly, no matter how many swarmed around the bodega.
“He’s never acted like that before,” Peter mumbled under his breath.
A low, borderline feral growl came deep from Murph’s throat, his whiskers pulled back and his body laid low. He looked ready to pounce, prepared to attack at any wrong move in his direction.
Peter frowned. As badly as he wanted to comfort the cat, his presence was clearly an agitation.
This was turning out to be the weirdest day ever. And he’d only been awake for an hour.
“Cats are smart, ya know. Intuitive,” Delmar called out, his eyebrows pulled down, furrowing intently. “Maybe he senses something off with you.”
Peter looked up to the counter, clutching his plastic bag close to his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“C’mon D-man, knock it off,” Keith argued from the deli. “Let the kid go home already, he’s sick and you’re just full of shit.”
“Hey! Eres un puto gilipollas —!”
Peter shook his head, hard. The mismatched banter between the two store owners was his opportunity to slip out unnoticed, avoiding being pulled into an argument he had no energy to be apart of.
It was a feat in itself that he managed to get home in one piece, his pace taking a drastic decline compared to just a brief while ago. If Peter was being honest with himself, he didn’t remember most of the walk. By the time he opened the front door of May’s apartment, he wasn’t even sure how he got there.
An otherwise concerning thought that he pushed away for another day.
His bed was calling to him in ways he couldn’t resist, the urge to sleep so overwhelming he could have collapsed on the living room floor and been snoring before hitting the rug.
Peter dumped the contents of the plastic grocery bag on his dresser, barely catching a few bottles before they rolled off. At the same time, he swiped almost randomly at his phone, tapping the screen a few times to access his voicemail.
As Peter unscrewed the lid to an anti-nausea bottle so pink it made his eyes hurt, his voicemails played on speakerphone.
Peter made a face. Mostly from the taste of nasty pink chalk labeled as medicine, and partially from Mr. Stark’s voice encompassing his bedroom.
Why couldn’t the guy just let a burn heal? Was it really necessary to be jumping his throat again so soon after what happened?
Peter resisted the urge to roll his eyes, popping lids off other medicine bottles as the messages kept playing.
Peter swallowed down a handful of capsules, swigging them back with more liquid, pink chalk.
No more than a few seconds after Peter finished most of the medication, and he could feel it threatening to make its way back into his mouth. It took a surprising amount of effort not to projectile puke a rainbow of different colors onto his dresser. The idea of how gross it would taste in reverse was enough to pull him through.
There was little to no chance that any of what he bought would have any effect on him. Peter knew that, and he scrubbed harshly at his face as the thought mocked him. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was waste it all down in a toilet bowl.
With a grunt, he collapsed onto his bed.
The voicemails kept playing in the background.
A loud sigh caught his attention. Peter did a double-take; it wasn’t from him.
Looking up, he stared at his cell phone, his tired eyes barely in focus. There was a shuffling in the background, and he could hear as Tony cleared his throat more than once.
Something rattled in the background, and Peter knew Mr. Stark well enough to know it was a screwdriver or wrench of some sorts tapping on the surface of a desk. He always fiddled when he was nervous.
Peter could feel his heart drop down into his already queasy stomach, settling there where hot, boiling juices corroded the tissue. Of all things for Tony to latch onto, it just had to be the one thing he regretted saying the most.
Damn it. He smacked a palm against his face, a fresh wave of dizziness swarming his head at the feel. Why couldn’t he stop himself from saying that?
There was another sigh, blowing into the speaker-phone and creating a crackling static.
Peter snatched his phone, shutting off the app in the process. For a moment, he didn’t move. Somehow, he was afraid that the slightest twitch would cause the device to start replaying messages, tripling his guilt and whatever other nasty feeling was embedding itself in his bones.
Crap. He hadn’t meant to make Mr. Stark sound like...well, like that.
He sounded awful. Upset.
Really, really upset.
It probably didn't help that Peter had been ignoring the man for weeks now. The whole situation had definitely gotten out of hand. It was hard not to feel an immense amount of guilt for his part in all of it.
But he was tired. And every part of him ached, cramped, and shook with a feeling that felt like his blood was boiling inside his veins.
With one hard, rough movement, Peter stuffed his cell phone underneath his pillow. Out of sight, out of mind. He’d deal with everything tomorrow. Everything that needed taken care of, everyone who was blowing up his phone wanting his attention — he’d handle it all tomorrow.
Right now, he just...couldn’t.
Peter swore he was asleep before he even closed his eyes.
P̵͇͑͐̇̑̅̊̈́̈́̈̾̐̚͠͝e̶͔̘̱̥̰̣̭̪̤̙̻̲̲̓͊͑̈́͝ͅt̵̮̯̺̮̘̖͔̟̺͋̎̿͊̃͗̈̈́ͅe̸̢͓̞̐̆́̌̓̍̐̈̆͋r̵͙̫͎̦̙̦̳͗̓͋̐̓́̽̿̅̋̈́̐̓̓…̴̨̪̟̯̮̤̰̫͎̫̱̈̅̓ͅ
P̸̢̮̖̩̍̿̈ē̵͙͉̜̦̦͆̔͂͘t̴̪̼̭̩̙͛ê̷̮͓̮̓r̵̠͙̙͚͊̇̑͂̚…̴̰͕̩̈́̑̔̚
It’s hot. Burning. His skin feels on fire, his insides boil and blister away in the heat.
It feels wrong.
It feels like death.
A̶r̶e̷ ̴y̵o̷u̵ ̶t̷h̷e̶r̵e̷?̷
He needs to breathe. He needs air — air that’s too hot, a furnace steaming inside his lungs, searing away the soft, delicate tissues of his organs — his body, his brain.
A force grabs him in an unwanted embrace, choking him, suffocating every fiber of his being.
He can’t get away. He wants to scream, to howl until his throat collapses and his windpipe caves in. No sound escapes his mouth.
W̠͕̰͍̰͚͔e̛̫̠'̢̱̪r̝̥͙͚͉e̖̜̥͚̤ͅͅ ̙h͈̬̱͕͇̫͎e̲͓̦r̠̪͇͇̙͙e̢,͎͉̗ ̨͇̹̯̻͕͚P̗̥e͚͉̳̪̯̹͟ͅt͖̪̦̮̯͞ͅe͡r͈͇͖̩
Something crawls along his skin, every inch of him exposed, vulnerable to the grease that begins to course along his body. His flesh creeps in buckled waves. The feel is sickening, repugnant. A slimy lard inching along his arms, his back, his legs. Up his neck, into his mouth.
It violates him. Chokes him. Slides along his tongue and through every open crevice of his teeth, wrapping around his jaw and holding him hostage. It trickles down his throat, unwanted, coating his esophagus in a thick layer of sludge.
He screams, gags, begs for reprieve. No sounds are heard. Nothing besides the miry, wet whispers that speak with horror.
L̗̭̟̩͙et̯̞̬͉͕̗̖ ͔̹̠̼͕u͞s̠̬̱̳͎̥̩ ̮̻͙̺̝ͅi͓͚̹͍̹̲̯n̫̱͙̭̩̼.̖
Poison consumes him, a black plague drowning and seeping into his pores, leaking out of his ears and every orifice. The substance gorges into his body, pouring into his stomach with no relent. Pumping into his intestines, defiling the nature of his physical being.
Hands clutch at the thick, oozing fluid and he pulls, tugs, yanks with every bit of strength he can conjure. Out, out — get it out, please, get it out!
W͞e̵̦̪̪̜̜̰’̦͉͇͍͙̫re̵̟ͅ ̮̰͜h͔͍̬̗̪͔͝e̙re̙̲̥̯͠ ҉͖̺̱̙͇̳f̸̟̮͍̲̗o̠͈r̯ ͈̟͔̻y̗̱̺o̧̬̥̪̺u̙̻͠,̴͉̗̥ ̬̳͠P͏̟͍̤͖̭e͓̮̫̠͚ͅț̰̦̟̬e͉ͅͅr̮̫̗̠̟͕.҉̗̦͕̘̱̭̺
His eyes swell shut, pressure building from behind his skull as the ether begins to seep out from within. It cakes his eyelashes, coalesces along his cheeks and trickles down to his nose, becoming one with the leakage that pours from his nostrils.
He tries, and tries, desperate to stop the onslaught of tendrils that grips him, the inundation of burning chemicals that befoul and shakes his core.
He screams.
No sounds are heard.
L̗̭̟̩͙et̯̞̬͉͕̗̖ ͔̹̠̼͕u͞s̠̬̱̳͎̥̩ ̮̻͙̺̝ͅi͓͚̹͍̹̲̯n̫̱͙̭̩̼.̖
L̼͘e̳̗t̛̫͎̩̫ ̷̳̖u̙̗͎s̫̩͇̞̤̼ ͔̝i͖͈̺̘̳n̠̠̤̫͡,͝ ̢̙͎̝̳͕P̜̮̪͕̭ͅe̹t͖͍e͔̥͉r.̮̩͔͓̟̮
P̴̪̤̹͓̤̫̯̩̳̠͚͈̳͟͝͡ę̵̛̳̣͖̜͖̬̟̲͈̩̳̗̬̰̦̤̦̙͖͢͡ṱ̴̸̮̺̘͙e̸̜̠͓̥͎͈͚͕̭͇̭͓͕͓̙̹͎̝ŗ̙̭̪̟̹͚͇̠͉̺̲͡.̧͎̘̣͙
P̴̻̳̪̱̙͓͙̟e̛͎̲̫̲̦̦͉̳t̶҉̮̗͈̙ͅe̸̷̪͙̫̕r͉̼͘͠ͅ.̸̞̟̼͕͈͜
P͈e̙̠t͚e͎̭r͉̱̼̖̪̻.̫̞̞
“—ter!”
Peter shot his eyes open, a startled gasp caught in his throat as he blinked, trying desperately to clear the blinding light that flooded his room.
“Pete! C’mon, Parker...” The faded voice grew louder, stronger. Piece by piece, cotton was pulled out from his ears, and he could feel his eardrums ring sharply at the frustration of it all. “Hey, kid! Talk to me, Underoo’s, you’re freaking me out here.”
The bright, white light that stole his focus slowly dimmed away as his vision grew sharper at the edges. Peter squinted his eyes, unable to make out the blob of red and gold in front of him.
Red and gold? Wait, was that —?
“Holy shit —!” Peter scampered back into his bed, his head hitting the wall with a THUNK that echoed the entire bedroom.
Iron Man was mere centimeters from his face. The LED's on the eyes piercing bright, the metal so close he could taste copper.
“Hey, hey, take it easy!”
The voice — familiar, confident — became much clearer to Peter. He shot his head over to the sound, eyes bugging out of his head once he saw Tony emerge into view, his entire body pushing the Iron Man suit aside.
“Mark 39, stand down! Sentient mode, now.”
Peter watched with both fascination and horror as the Iron Man armor backed away, moving towards the doorway of his bedroom, completely lifeless of a person inside.
His head then shot over to Tony, who was not in the suit and very much so in his apartment.
Mr. Stark was in his apartment.
In his bedroom.
Right now.
“What the hell, man!?” Peter erupted before knowing what he was even saying.
Tony gaped, his skin somehow paler and the lines around his eyes six inches deeper.
“What the hell is right!” Tony’s hand clenched the rail of the top bunk above Peter, his back leaning over to better see. “Kid, I know that you’re a hell of a beast to wake up, but you damn near gave me a heart attack! That thing was checking your pulse to see if you were still alive!”
Peter swallowed hard. He looked over to where Tony nodded his head, pointing in the direction of where the Iron Man suit stood.
There was an Iron Man suit in his bedroom. With Mr. Stark. Both, right now.
“How long have you been here?” Peter’s voice squeaked on each word. His heart was still threatening to burst right out of his chest, pounding so hard it made him sway in his bed with dizziness.
It didn’t feel real — was he still dreaming? Was this part of his nightmare?
Tony stepped back, releasing his grip on the bunk bed’s upper guard rail as he did. His confusion didn’t go unnoticed, but Peter was too busy trying to understand what the hell was going on to address it.
“How long have I —” Tony couldn’t finish the sentence. He looked down at Peter, who was still pressed tightly against the wall, blankets in a bunch around his legs. “Kid...are you okay?”
Peter ran a shaking hand down his face, fingers slipping on the grease and sweat that dripped from his hair.
“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine. I was sleeping, I...I have school in the morning, I —” Peter scrubbed at his skin, the feeling of sleep quickly steamrolled by the shock that so abruptly woke him up. “Mr. Stark, what are you doing here?”
Tony shuffled around in the room for a second, flipping on a second lamp that stole the shadows from the corners.
Peter looked around, realizing it hadn’t been all that bright after all. Iron Man’s LED eyes though? Those things could light up a whole warehouse. Especially when directly in front of someone’s face.
A stinging, pulsating feeling grew at his temple. Peter decided waking up that way was officially the worse way to wake up.
Ever.
“Pete, look at me…” Tony stayed at a distance, resting his back against the computer desk across from the bed. “No questions asked. Are you okay?”
The question, repeated for a second time, had Peter five different shades of baffled. His jaw dropped, and no matter how many times he blinked, the scene stayed the same.
He fell asleep without Tony in his room, and now the man was most certainly in his room. He could be wide awake with six cups of coffee and it still wouldn’t make sense.
None of this made sense.
“Wow, Mr. Stark. Is this what happens when you’re left on read?” Peter gave a dry chuckle, trying to add humor to the situation in a vague attempt to cut the tension. “It’s a little extra to come breaking in because I didn’t answer your calls, don’t you thi —”
“Where’s your aunt?” Tony frowned deeply, clearly struggling to maintain his composure.
Peter opened his mouth to talk, but as he got a good look at Mr. Stark, words immediately failed him.
It was the first time since he woke up that he noticed just how casual the man was dressed — wearing nothing but a sleeveless, black tank top paired with sweatpants that looked basic, but knowing him, were probably Armani or some nonsense.
The only other time Peter had seen him so casual had been during their road trip, at the hotels they bounced between while they made their way across the country.
Did he wake Mr. Stark up? How late was it, exactly?
“N-night shift,” Peter finally answered, untangling his legs from the blankets on his bed. “She’s working a double at the shelter. Won’t be back til morning.”
Tony leveled him a look.
“Well, it is technically morning right now.”
Peter looked to the one and only window in his room. It was still dark, possibly darker than when he had left Delmar’s. Though Queens offered no stars to see, he could still tell how late it was by the color of the sky. No blue insight, a deep black only illuminated by street lamps and apartment lights.
“Like...when the sun comes up kind of morning,” Peter added, staring blankly at the window on the wall.
It was closed shut, which was a good thing. Still, he thought he locked it the last time he used it. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember.
“Did you sneak in through my window?” he bluntly, and suddenly, asked.
Tony let out a huff. “Do I look like the type who would crawl their way through a four by three double pane just to get where I need to be?”
Peter made a face as he shook his head. “So...what, did you break our front door to get in —?”
“I have a key,” Tony reminded him, stingy tones of insult lacing through his words. “I’ve had one for months. You know that.”
Peter scratched at the nape of his neck, the hazy feeling in his brain clearing way just enough to make him feel awake again. Right, that was right; May had given Mr. Stark a key to the apartment not long after…
Peter shook his head. He didn’t care to think back on that. What mattered was that it had been a few months now. Mr. Stark had a key, and it’d been a few months now.
He honestly forgot about that. It wasn’t like Tony ever needed into the apartment. Until tonight — for whatever reason.
“And even if I didn’t…” Tony sniffed, hard, the base of his thumb swiping aggressively against his nose. “Well, maybe I’d eat my words and climb through that tiny ass excuse of a window to get to you. I’d bust down that door if I had to — it’s cheap, I can pay for the replacement.”
He looked to the bedroom doorway for a moment, his eyes purposefully averting Peter’s gaze even in the dimly lit room.
“I’d do anything I need to for you, kiddo,” his voice went low, softening in a quiet whisper. “Now, you’re way past freaking me out, and I doubt you want to see what happens when I cross that line. It’s not pretty. It’s catastrophic. Ask Pepper, she has all the juicy details.”
Peter furrowed his brows, and Tony turned his head towards him, locking eyes dead-on.
“Just...talk to me. Are you okay?”
Something about the way Tony was speaking sounded off to Peter. Wasn’t he screaming at him not too long ago?
Like, yesterday.
It was literally yesterday that he was shouting and yelling at him, telling him to leave the compound, the team, all of it — and possibly never come back. It was the reason Peter sat in his own bed, in his apartment in Queens. It was the reason he wasn’t spending the weekend at the compound like they agreed.
Just like May, it had been another promise broken. Another adult telling him something that he couldn’t trust.
For Tony to sound like he suddenly cared — Peter clutched at his bedsheets, biting his tongue from saying anything he’d regret. Again.
“Mr. Stark, I…” Peter trailed off, his mouth drying as he fought through the waves of confusion clouding his mind. “I really don’t know why you’re here.”
The look Tony gave him was indescribable.
“You hit your panic watch.”
A ton of bricks crashing down on him wasn’t enough to describe the feeling that swallowed Peter whole. It was more like a building, collapsing and crushing him under a hundreds, thousands of pounds of steel.
It was all too familiar, and it made his lungs constrict and spasm with the feeling of dread.
“I what?”
Tony lifted his arm in the air, the sleek, black band strapped around his wrist firing off a rapid succession of red and blue lights. The first time Peter had ever seen anything like it, the device never emitting any color besides the default black it was designed to be.
Peter looked down at his own wrist. Though no colors lit up his, it was still there, the nanotech so seamless on his skin he’d once again forgot he was wearing it.
“Oh,” Peter managed. His hand began to tremble, and he quickly stuffed it under the blankets. “I...I musta hit it in my sleep. Or something. I-I’m sorry.”
What the hell — Peter forcefully swallowed past the knot that began to crawl up into his throat. He didn’t remember activating the alarm. He didn’t remember doing that.
There was no way he did that on purpose.
Right?
As if to reinforce his doubt, Tony shook his head.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
Peter tried to shrug casually, knowing full well that he was failing to look anything beyond anxious.
“Well...have you ever tried it before?”
“Peter,” Tony stressed, clearly not amused by Peter’s smart-ass attempt at humor.
Peter threw a hand up in the air.
“I’m serious, Mr. Stark! I guess I rolled over or – I dunno, something coulda caught onto it…” his voice took on an edge of panic before he quickly shoved it aside. “But I didn’t touch it! I swear. I would totally let you know if I did. One-hundred percent, cross my heart. I...I’d totally let you know.”
For the first time since he arrived, Tony let out a sigh heavy enough that Peter could smell his breath from across the room. He stuffed his hands deep into his sweatpant pockets, staring up at the ceiling as if he was counting to ten — which Peter realized was actually a very likely thing to be happening. He had the tenancy to bring out ‘that side’ of the man sometimes.
It was strange. Peer always saw Tony as someone so well put together, the type who stood tall with nerves of steel and perfect poise.
For a split second, he seemed rattled. Downright shook.
It was a far cry from how they were yesterday.
Then, before Peter could blink, he was looking down at him with slightly more composure than the moment before. Though the stress lines around his eyes had deepened significantly, and exhaustion wore vividly on his face.
“You’re okay?” Tony asked again, a bit of relief easing the tense pressure that had been building between them.
Peter nodded a little too hard, faintness making his eyes dance and wander.
“I’m fine.”
There was a pause. The brief silence that fell between them was harsh enough to send goosebumps up the course of Peter’s arm. Or maybe that was from the look Tony was giving him, cold-stoned and harden like a rock.
“Try that again.” Tony shifted from one foot to the other, his lips pressed back and his eyes hard. “This time with a little more feeling.”
“Mr. Stark —”
“You look like shit.”
Peter gaped, his own breath coming out in large puffs, making him realize he absolutely needed to brush his teeth. “I just woke up!”
Tony let out a snort, folding both his bare arms over his chest. “Yeah, and I’ve seen your morning hair before. Cow-tails and all.”
The sarcasm died off the tip of his tongue, and Tony’s demeanor suddenly changed with a slight tilt of his head. He looked at Peter — really looked at him, so intently that Peter wanted to hide under the covers of his bed and never come out.
“You sick?”
Peter wanted to balk at the question. It was kind of hard to, all things considered. He had slept the entire day away, and blew dinner money on every bottle of nausea medication he could find at the store.
Still. The idea of opening up to Mr. Stark didn’t feel right. He flat out didn’t want to.
And Peter didn’t like how that made him feel.
“I had an off weekend,” he said instead, the sheer amount of bitterness coating his words impossible to ignore. “Lost my spot on this team I’d been looking forward to joining one day.”
“Answer the question, Pete.” Tony didn’t miss a beat. “You sick?”
Like a broken record, Peter shook his head. He tried to tell himself it was okay, that everything was alright — even as Tony stared him down like he was some sort of project to be examined and figured out.
It wasn’t lying if you didn’t say anything, right?
That sounded right.
So he kept shaking his head.
“Talk to me, kid,” Tony’s tone faltered into something close to unrecognizable. If Peter didn’t know better, he’d say it sounded freakishly close to begging. And Tony never, ever begged. “I can’t do the equation unless I have all the variables.”
Peter fiddled with the material of his bedsheets, pulling and tugging to keep pressure on his fingertips where it could distract his mind from anything but the current situation.
There was a lot he could tell Mr. Stark right now. More than what Peter realized he’d been hiding. Nose-bleeds that hadn’t let up, odd bouts of sickness that kept him in bed all day.
Nightmares.
More nightmares.
“Really, Mr. Stark. I’m fine.” It didn’t feel like the right thing to say. But Peter didn’t stop himself from saying it.
The lie of omission started to taste like acid in his mouth. Or maybe that was the bile creeping up through his throat.
Tony clucked his tongue and swiveled his jaw, working on releasing the stress built up in his muscles. With one fluid motion, he uncrossed his arms from his chest and pointed almost casually to the trash bin next to Peter’s bed.
“You doing pharmaceuticals for fun now, then?”
Peter shot his head to the floor with lightning speed.
Shit. Boxes upon boxes littered his waste bin and — okay, fair enough, he couldn’t fight that one. It didn’t look good at all.
“I ate something bad,” Peter fumbled for an excuse. “Made me sick to my stomach. Went to the store to see if anything could help.”
Tony narrowed his eyes, his mouth twisting into sharp confusion.
“Interesting choice in purchase to spend your allowance on,” he dryly stated. “Those drugs don’t touch you with a ten foot-pole.”
A heat of shame began to redden on Peter’s cheeks, and he turned away in hopes that it couldn’t be seen in the dimly lit bedroom. The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of was the struggle that Tony, Doctor Banner, and a massive amount of scientists went through trying to create drugs that effected his metabolism.
It was borderline ridiculous how he thought a few bottles of anti-nausea medication sold at a convenience store would do anything for him. As if the chalky, pink liquid that worked on normal humans would even touch his mutated DNA.
“I know,” Peter mumbled, running his hand through greasy hair that desperately needed a wash. “I just...made due with what I had.”
The persistent sound of tapping overtook the room. Peter barely lifted his head to notice Tony gripping his computer desk, his nails taptaptapping on the metal frame.
His eyes were still staring at the waste bin on the floor, even as he spoke.
“Could have called me.” The tapping got louder, faster. “Could have returned one of my calls.”
Peter swallowed thickly. “I was gunna. Tomorrow.”
Just like that, it went quiet again — minus the racket of miscellaneous street sounds from outside, Queens New York failing to sleep even in the wee early hours of the morning. The noise seemed to attract Tony’s attention, where he looked out the bedroom window with a low hum sounding deep from his throat.
“That’s fair,” he mentioned, so quietly Peter almost didn’t catch it. “I didn’t exactly give you any reasons to keep me on speed dial.”
The words struck a cord. Peter had a lot of things he could say about that. A whole lot. The seams of his bedsheets got tangled up in his fingers, his nerves working overtime in fidgets and twitches. Perhaps if muck wasn’t coursing through his brain, he could have managed a response. Like, any response at all.
From the way Mr. Stark looked though, it was probably best he didn’t say anything. A stab of guilt hit him, fast and hard, the lack of any talking suffocating and stifling.
As mad as he was with the man, Peter didn’t mean to stress him out.
He also didn’t mean to hurt Natasha yesterday. But that was a story no ears were willing to hear.
“Well,” Tony started, clapping his hands together with energy that didn’t seem genuine. He pushed himself away from the computer desk, his fingers working meticulously on a holographic image that appeared from his forearm. “It looks like I flew over one hundred miles for an apparent butt dial. Could be worse ways to spend my Sunday night.”
Peter watched with piqued curiosity as Tony tapped and swiped at the fancy device on his arm — within seconds, the Iron Man suit standing in his doorway began to leave, walking on its very own despite no human being inside to operate it.
Not long after, the apartment door opened and closed shut with his departure.
Peter almost had to wonder what that sight would look like if any of his neighbors were up and about. The Johnson’s in 3.B would probably have a heart attack from shock alone.
“I’m..really sorry, Mr. Stark.” Peter’s head fell forward, strands of his hair falling to cover his eyes. “I didn’t mean to...I swear I didn’t touch it. I don’t know what happened.”
He didn’t want to look at Tony, to see the way the older man was staring at him. Like he knew it was a lie. Like he knew there was no way his technology had malfunctioned.
Peter didn’t know what to say. The truth made no sense — he didn’t remember hurting Natasha, and he didn’t remember activating the panic watch.
He didn’t want to lie. But he just didn’t remember, and no one had believed him before.
It was like he didn’t have a choice.
“Did you wanna...take the watch?” Peter offered, bringing his wrist out from underneath his blankets to showcase the device, going so far as to have one hand start removing it. “Check for any, like, abnormalities or whatever?”
Tony’s hand clamped over his faster than Peter could blink.
“No,” he insisted, a sharp edge coating the word.
Peter’s head shot up to meet Tony’s face, suddenly so close to him that it sent shivers up his spine. He went to slide his hand away from what feeble attempt was made to remove the bracelet, only to be stopped by the strong pressure of Tony’s fingers latched onto his wrist.
If Peter didn’t know better, he could have sworn he saw a glimpse of fear reflect in Tony’s eyes.
But it was late — early — one of the two. And he was tired. It was easy to brush it off as a mistake.
“No,” Carefully, and slowly, Tony removed his hand from over-top Peter’s. “No, I want you to keep wearing it.”
Peter watched Tony intently, the man leaning over the bunk-bed with worry soaking through every ounce of his being. With what little energy liveliness he could muster, Peter managed a forced smile, one that felt as awful as he was sure it looked.
“Okay…never take it off. Always got it on. Twenty-four seven,” his voice squeaked in pitch and he quickly turned a grimace into a sheepish smile. “Metal detectors aside.”
Expectantly, Tony found no humor in the poor attempt of an joke. Slowly, he leaned back on the balls of his feet, standing over Peter in a way that the light from behind him cast shadows along his face.
Peter clenched his eyes shut for a moment to force clarity back into his vision. The room was starting to blur at the edges, and it wasn’t long before two Mr. Stark’s were looming over him. He almost didn’t hear him as he spoke again, his ears ringing with such force that it made even his nose hurt.
“Pete, kid…” Tony started, “we gotta talk about yesterday.”
That much he did hear. Peter groaned, forcefully rubbing a hand on his temple with a bit too much strength.
“Does it have to be right now?” he asked, his teeth set tightly against one other. “I’m just...I’m really tired.”
Tony’s slow sigh of defeat was infallible.
To Peter’s surprise, he didn’t respond right away, no immediate argument that shut down the request, or belittled his need for sleep. The Tony from yesterday had all since buried itself away, returning the much more understanding, calm Tony that Peter had come to know before. The one that Peter felt comfortable around.
The one that Peter almost wanted to have stick around a little bit longer, even if his eyelids were already drooping shut against his will.
Footsteps softly patted on the floor of his bedroom. Peter barely looked up to see Tony had approached the computer desk, grabbing something from the shadows that he couldn’t make out even if his eyes weren’t seeing double.
“Okay...” Tony cleared his throat, sniffing hard. “I can concede to that. Only fair. But before I go…”
Peter had zoned out. He knew he had zoned out only because the next thing that grabbed his attention was placed directly in his lap, red and blue, brighter than anything in his room.
Slowly, he lifted his neck, raising his head to meet Tony’s face.
“You’re…” Peter didn’t understand. “You’re giving me my suit back?”
The feel of soft fabric sitting in his hands almost didn’t feel real. Of everything that felt the most bizarre today, this one topped it all.
“Well, it is your suit,” Tony managed a weak smile, barely tugging at the corner of his lip. “Wasn’t fair of me to take it in the first place. I can admit to overstepping my authority, crossing one line too many. And for what I can’t admit to, others will force it out of me.” A weak chuckle got caught in his throat, and Tony cleared it away. “But...I stand by this one. Your suit. Not mine to take away.”
Peter ran a hand across the spider emblem, the black design staring back up at him. A spark of pride nearly had him smiling, the reality of it all tearing it down as quickly as it came.
He didn’t deserve to have the suit back, no matter how much he wanted it. Not after what he did, not even after now — he wasn’t telling the truth, he wasn’t being honest.
He shouldn’t have the suit back. Mr. Stark should keep it.
And yet it felt so good just to hold in his hands again. It made him feel whole again.
Peter’s bottom lip danced for a moment, before he finally looked up. “I thought —”
“We’ll talk about it later.” Tony waved him off, checking his watch briefly for the time before turning back to Peter. “Tomorrow, perhaps? I can free up some time in the evening. Make up for missing Friday. Double the lab work, double the pizza.”
For once in weeks, Peter actually wanted to say yes.
“I...can’t,” he shrugged and rubbed at his temple, the growing headache making it hard to think. “Detention for...you know. Then a study session.”
“Right.” Tony popped his lips, nodding along to the unspoken. He arched an eyebrow before shrugging it off. “Well, some other time then. You have my number.”
Peter could only manage a nod, shakier and faster than Tony’s. Everything he wanted to say stayed locked in the depths of his mind, so far away from his mouth that the words could never form. It felt like the first time he’d ever dug a hole so deep that there was no possibility he’d ever climb out.
He wasn’t sure what scared him more. Admitting the truth and facing the consequences, or continuing the lie for his own comfortable denial.
Tony had turned on his heels, only to spin around just as quickly.
“One thing before I go,” he said, crouching down to Peter’s eye level so quickly that it nearly startled Peter right out of his skin.
“What are you —”
“Look at me.”
Peter blinked owlishly, his brows scrunching up with confusion. Tony was mere inches from his face, so close that neither could tell which was their breath and which belonged to the other.
“Huh?”
Tony leveled him a look. “Just humor me, kid.”
Even if Peter didn’t want to, there weren’t exactly many other options for him to latch onto. With reluctance and a bit of panic, he stayed still, a deer frozen in headlights as Tony practically corralled his eyes to him.
It was weird.
Super weird.
“Mr. Stark,” Peter gulped, “what are you doing?”
Tony’s response was blunt and to the point.
“Looking at your eyes.”
There were a lot of weird things Peter had found Tony doing over the course of their time together. Mentor-ship had quickly turned into an odd friendship of sorts, lab nights being shared with odd pizza toppings and funky music, hotel rooms shared across the country with more candy than Peter was sure he should be eating. He’d seen the man at his oddest moments, sincere moments, times where he felt like Mr. Stark was a human and not some Hollywood figure the news made him out to be.
Of all their time spent together, Peter could easily mark this one down as the weirdest.
“Why?” he choked out, unnerved the longer Tony bore his eyes into him.
It was another beat before Tony looked away. Although Peter wasn’t sure if he ever truly looked away; rather he simply stood up, brushing off his sweatpants with a grin that definitely didn’t feel genuine.
“No reason.”
He lingered for a moment, head cocking to the side as if he was still trying to get an answer that hadn’t arrived yet.
Finally, and with more resistance than felt necessary, Tony turned to the small lamp in the corner of the room and flipped the switch off.
“Get some sleep, Pete,” he quietly mentioned, heading for the door. “You look exhausted.”
A fist clenched his bedsheets tightly, and despite the room falling into darkness where Tony couldn't see him, Peter nodded his head.
“Yeah,” he croaked out, watching as Tony’s shadow began to depart in the doorway. “Thanks, Mr. Stark.”
His words echoed the bedroom, no response to drown them out. It wasn’t long before he could hear the sound of the apartment door opening, a good pause blocking the time before it creaked shut and the locks bolted everything securely.
Peter waited until he was sure Tony was gone. And then a handful of minutes afterward, just to be safe. Once he could feel his heartbeat settle in his rib-cage and his pulse resume to something semi-normal, he unclenched his fist from around his blankets.
Just as quickly, and with a breath hitched in panic, Peter stuck two fingers deep into his mouth.
Fingernails dug and swirled around underneath his tongue, desperately searching for the nauseating, oily substance that he could feel creep up from his throat. It felt foreign, wrong — slithering, slimy against the soft tissues of his cheeks.
Withdrawing his fingers from inside, Peter’s eyes grew wide as he saw first-hand what he pulled out. A thick, oily sludge coated his skin, crawling underneath his cuticles and nails with frenzied spasms that looked alive.
Peter gagged. He forced down a bout of sickness, his eyes clenched shut as the black substance began to drip in steady drops onto the spider emblem of his suit.
Queens was surprisingly awake for three-thirty in the morning. Tony wasn’t all too surprised; New York never slept.
And neither did he, apparently.
Standing directly outside the Parker’s apartment building, he paid no mind to the folks that passed on by, giving odd looks to him and the Iron Man suit that stood ready for flight.
The armor was ready, but Tony wasn’t. Though he knew staring at a building all night wouldn’t make a difference, something in his gut kept him from leaving. Maybe he was waiting for the panic watch to go off again. Maybe he was watching for a text, or a call.
Or something.
Honestly, Tony wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.
Natasha had seen black eyes. He wanted to have seen black eyes, he wanted to believe in the hype that everyone had been going on about. Maybe that would have finally given validation to the nagging feeling in the back of his mind something wasn’t right.
Because something just wasn’t right. Black eyes, no black eyes...there was no denying it.
He just didn’t know what it was.
Tony’s lips pursed so tightly he could feel the hair of his goatee tickle his skin. The kid looked like death warmed over. Hell, he looked better when death was actually warming him over, back a few months ago when shit all went downhill.
The variables just weren’t adding up. His behavior, drug store medication, how pale he was, the raccoons under his eyes, how weak he sounded — everything Tony wanted to mention but held back, because dammit , they were at square one again. He had gone too far, and this is where it had put them.
Peter wasn’t going to trust him if he had to force an answer.
Peter barely trusted him now as it was.
Lying was not a good look on the kid.
His hand clutched the camera in his grip. Tony gave it a brief glance, the expensive model he’d bought for Peter’s birthday now in his possession.
This is what it had come to — he was stealing from the kid to get answers. Taking what wasn’t his in hopes that it would provide even the smallest of clues. Desperate to see if there was anything that could tell him what was going on in the radio silence of questions he’d put out there.
Tony couldn’t blame Peter in the least bit for not trusting him. It hurt in ways he could never say to lose that trust. But it hurt more to see the kid succumbing to something far beyond his control.
Damn it, why did everything have to be so complicated?
Biting back a sigh, Tony pulled out his cell phone from the pocket in his sweats. The number he needed was on speed-dial; his phone was pressed to his ear in a matter of seconds.
It rang four times before someone answered.
“Tony?
Tony closed his eyes at hearing the voice on the other end. It took a good second to gain the courage to speak.
“You were right,” he managed, his voice thin against the still-busy traffic from the street.
There was a crackle, a rustle of noise on the other line. Finally,
“...where are you?”
“Uh-uh, that was going to be my question. You can’t have it.”
A sigh sounded, one not from Tony, surprisingly enough.
“I’m still in D.C, we had the quarterly review with Director Hill, remember?”
Tony clucked his tongue, chewing on the answer for a moment, his hand unintentionally gripping the camera tighter. Not even the car alarm blaring from a block away could penetrate his deliberating thoughts.
“How fast can you make it back upstate?”
The sound of friction and stirring movement came through, and Tony wasn’t sure if the honking cars he heard were on his end or the other.
"What's going on, Tony?"
The question provoked a long stream of silence. He didn’t like it — it gave him too much time to think. Too much time to stare at the unchanging apartment building in front of him, where he wanted to do nothing more than burst right through that tiny bedroom window and make something happen, for better or worse.
But Tony stood still, fighting every urge in his muscle and ignoring every screaming command in his brain. He’d do this the right way, the only way that had the possibility of success.
He had to. There weren’t any other options now.
“You were right, Steve,” Tony admitted. A darkness seeped into his tone, an urgency that rattled him to the core. “Something’s wrong with Peter.”