Infected
“Kid!”
Peter snapped his head up, jerking so hard that he nearly dropped his phone. Only by the luck of his sticky fingers did he catch it, mere centimeters before it crashed onto the floor.
Thank God, because he didn’t think his screen could handle another crack.
With one fluid motion, Tony wheeled his chair across the workshop, sliding seamlessly over to where Peter sat.
“I don’t ask for things more than twice,” he deadpanned, holding out an open palm.
Peter blinked, the wires in his head about as disconnected as the wires laid out along Mr. Stark’s workbench. There were two things he noticed – Tony's annoyed expression, teetering dangerously close to the look of frustration, and his fingers that wiggled in back and forth in a gimme motion.
Sheesh, what did he want now? Wasn’t he just working on —
“Right!” Peter scrambled through the clutter on the table, pushing aside pieces and parts, screws and nails; he shoved aside everything littered in front of him to find the tool needed. It ended up buried at the very bottom of the mess — just his luck.
“Monkey-wrench!” he excitedly plucked the tool out from the disorganized pile of scraps, both a screwdriver and pair of pliers dropping to the ground in the process. “Here you go. Money-wrench...like you asked for...”
Tony raised an eyebrow, unamused even as Peter widened his smile to the point that pink gums glistened underneath the workshop lights.
“Uh-huh...” he muttered, snatching the monkey-wrench from Peter’s hands. He gave the kid a once-over before wheeling himself back to the other side of the room.
Peter swallowed past his embarrassment, watching silently while Mr. Stark’s hands stayed busy crafting whatever project he had been working on — Peter had been too preoccupied with his own thoughts to ask. He leaned down to pick up the tools that had dropped, screeching metal against hard concrete the only noise that filling space between them.
It had been quiet. The faint hum of airflow drafting out from the ceiling vents had been the most sound between them, not counting the occasional cough, sniffle, or inevitable swear word from Tony. And boy, could he get creative with those.
Not even music played from overhead, something that had become a tradition. ‘Internship nights’ were full of AC/DC and Black Sabbath, accompanied by a hearty dinner of pizza from the city — the works for Tony, Hawaiian toppings for Peter, who was never allowed to get his slices more than a foot next to Tony’s. In a way, that was also something of a tradition.
Peter unlocked the screen to his cell, checking the time. It had gotten late, way later than he thought it was. Tomorrow would be Monday morning; that meant waking up earlier than usual, what with Happy driving him straight from the compound to school. Which meaner extra earlier than normal for Peter, because Happy liked to hit up this one deli in the city and grab bagels while they were fresh out of the oven.
Wait – crap, school. That was right; Peter wanted to try and come back with something that made the ‘internship’ look real. He had been getting a nervous feeling about it lately, like the lie was getting dangerously close to being outed.
Especially now, what with people like Norman Osborn finding out.
Peter looked up. “Hey, Mr. Stark?”
“No,” Tony answered without missing a beat.
“I didn’t even ask anything yet!” Peter’s jaw nearly hit the floor. His smile, large as the computer screens surrounding them, easily leaked any bite out from his shout.
Tony spun his chair around to face him. “You’re going to ask if you can use the Iron Man repulsors as your welding gun. And just like all the other times you’ve asked, the answer is a clear cut, never in your lifetime, non-negotiable no.”
Despite the fixed, exaggerated pout Peter gave, he couldn’t blame Mr. Stark for the assumption. His track record of the aforementioned request had exceeded a number so high, it could probably reach the top floor of the compound by now.
“That’s not what I was going to —” Peter shook his head, sighing. “You’re right, nevermind. It’s stupid.”
His sudden disinterest must have sparked something in Tony. He looked up almost immediately, quirked brow high, curiosity reflecting like the sun in his eyes. He dropped what he was doing in favor of leaning back in his chair.
“Humor me,” Tony said, resting folded hands across his stomach.
Peter chewed on his bottom lip, purposefully looking down at the table.
“It's just — I was just thinking — and it's just a thought, not a big deal or anything, just a thought I had...but...is there any way we could, like...” he trailed off, unsure of how to word what should have been a really, super easy question. “I don’t know, maybe make this whole...Stark Internship thing look...real?”
It felt weird to ask. This – whatever they called this, their little cover story for what in truth was something much bigger than just tinkering with robotics and the occasional A.I — it had been going on for nearly a year now. Since Homecoming of last fall. It wasn’t that Peter had a problem with it, not in the slightest.
But people like Harry had real internships, concrete proof that backed up the time they poured into their work. Sure, Peter had Spider-Man, but it wasn’t like his classmates knew that.
And hopefully, it stayed that way. Having Ned and MJ in the loop was headache enough.
Peter finally looked up, the suspense of an answer gnawing away at his patience.
What he saw was Tony was staring intently at him, his expression unreadable.
“You don’t consider this to be real?” he asked, his arm gesturing widely to the workshop around them.
Peter made a face – the kind that scrunched up his cheeks and eyes, an odd mix of cringe and grimace. Offending Mr. Stark was exactly what he was worried he might do. A spike of electricity shot up his nerves; the last thing he wanted was to lose the time Tony gave him out of his incredibly busy day.
“No, no, like...I do. It’s real. Obviously.” Peter only realized he had stopped talking when Tony lifted his eyebrow higher. He swallowed, hard. “But other people...”
“That Thompson kid getting on your ass again?” Tony was quick to ask.
Peter shook his head. “Flash isn’t —”
“Because I can solve that problem in an afternoons time.” Tony casually spun his chair back around to face the workbench. “I’ve always wanted to see why your school charges so much for their lunch packages. Might just swing by and have a meal myself —”
“Oh my god, Mr. Stark —” Peter could have sworn he felt his heart explode into thousand tiny chunks. “Please don’t—”
“Pulling your leg, underoo’s.” A ghost of a smirk passed along Tony’s face. “The last thing Pepper needs before the wedding is for the press to think you’re some illegitimate child from my playboy days.”
Peter chuckled tiny sounds of amusement, the sounds mostly coated heavily with relief.
As Tony went back to fiddling with the cables and what appeared to be a motherboard belonging to the device on his workbench, Peter tucked his chin low to his chest, eyeing the screws and nails scattered across his table. Slowly, and without much thought, his index finger organized the pile.
“What were you thinking?” Tony asked from across the way.
“I don’t know.” Peter shrugged. “Something simple. Nothing complicated. Like...a photo or something, I don’t know.”
Tony tilted his head to the side, watching with wandering thoughts as Peter proceeded to organize loose bolts and fasteners in an obvious attempt to seem aloof. His act of appearing nonchalant didn’t go unnoticed, even if Tony didn’t vocalize it. He’d been around the kid long enough to know that Peter struggled the most when asking for things he really wanted.
It was one of the few areas where they weren’t alike. Tony wanted something, he got it. Peter — the kid was different in that way. As if asking for things that meant something to him would be a problem.
“A photo or something,” Tony repeated, humming quietly under his breath. “I’ll see what Pepper can scrounge up.”
Peter nodded a few times, still looking at the workbench. “Cool, cool.”
Tony shifted in his chair, a mild squeak echoing the room when he crossed his legs, his ankle resting comfortably against his knee. He studied Peter, watching as he entertained himself by categorizing metal fasteners.
It wasn’t like him.
In fact, quiet evenings like tonight weren’t the norm for either of them. Tony could count on one hand how many nights they spent not speaking, not engaging excitedly in whatever insane invention either of them thought up in a daydream. He’d come back from some mind-numbing board meeting with the idea for an anti-gravity device, or Peter would end up spending all of history class imagining tiny bots in the shape of spiders. And they’d run with it.
Most nights, they didn’t give themselves a break for pizza. Too busy playing off each others passion for science, too busy plucking each others brains in a way only like-minded people could do.
But this? Whatever this was, it wasn’t like either of them.
Tony tapped his foot persistently against his knee.
“Anything else on your mind?”
“Hm?” Peter’s eyes briefly flickered over to Tony.
“That’s the first time you’ve spoken since devouring nine slices of pizza about two hours ago,” he said matter-of-factly. “Either you have major indigestion — which I doubt seeing as your both mutated and teenager, an unstoppable force of a never-satisfied garbage truck stomach that could put the entire continent in famine...or there’s something else paying rent up there in that noggin of yours.”
Peter pulled his lips in tightly, making his mouth all but invisible. If there was ever a time he wanted blaring music to vibrate the walls, it was definitely now.
“Just...you know,” he trailed off again, his index finger pushing two screws into the growing pile in front of him. “Been preoccupied lately.”
“Uh-huh.” Tony folded his arms over his chest, clucking his tongue rather loudly. It managed to echo all the way over to where Peter sat, traveling to his side of the workshop with impressive force. The room held the kind of quiet that oscillated around them, murmurs of the technology embedded in the walls suddenly deafening.
All the while, Tony never relinquished his stare on Peter, the look only hardening as seconds ticked by.
Peter could feel it. It was intense as ever, like a shoulder watching over him despite being a good ten feet away. ‘Stubborn Stark’ as May would call it. It was the kind of look he had when he wasn’t planning to give up anytime soon.
Or when Peter accidentally ordered adult pay-per-view on their road trip and wouldn’t come clean about the mistake.
With much reluctance, Peter finally looked up, lips as thin as ever as he forced out,
“I need a new backpack.”
Tony blinked. “What?”
“I...” Peter forced eye contact as sheepishly admitted, “I need a new backpack.”
“How?” Tony asked, pulling a face. “I just bought you one before school started.”
The exact conversation Peter was dreading to have landed straight in his lap faster than Mr. Delmar’s cat would do the same. Rubbing the back of his neck, he shrugged, and shrugged, and — jeeze, if he didn’t say something soon, his arms were going to fall right off.
“Yeah, it, um...there was this —”
“Can it.” Tony held a hand in the air, his eyes closed as if he was willing the patience to continue. “It’ll be on your doorstep in the morning.”
Peter sighed in relief. Oh. Well, that was easier than he thou —
“C’mon!” Tony exclaimed, slapping down a hand onto the armrest of his chair. “I just saved you from having to spew out some weak, poorly thought excuse of how you saved a kitten from a tree in Brooklyn and ripped a brand new backpack on the climb down. I deserve a little something for that, don’t I?”
“Huh?” Peter stammered, knitting his eyebrows tightly together. “It wasn’t a cat — I mean, that’s...actually a pretty good story, but it wasn’t —”
“You’re never this quiet, kid.” Tony’s admission was soft, softer than Peter had heard him talk all week, heck, all month it seemed.
For Mr. Stark to sound...well, like that — it never meant anything good.
“I’ve just been busy with school,” Peter insisted. “I’m getting some tutoring in history class, that’s all.”
Hey, it wasn’t a total lie. Between patrolling, after school activities, and now tutoring, he had been incredibly busy. But the fact that Peter had to tell himself it wasn’t a lie — that was a little concerning.
“Right,” Tony nodded, huffing a hefty amount of air through his cheeks. “Wouldn’t happen to be Osborn’s kid helping you out, would it?”
The question blew through the room like a bomb.
Peter snapped his neck up, his stomach doing a back-flip strong enough to make the nine slices of pizza he ate earlier creep up into his throat.
“How’d you know that?” he asked, his voice thinning out at the end.
Tony sniffed, hard, and flicked his thumb across his nose.
“I try and make it a point to stay up to date on things happening with your school. Lunch menus, funding getting cut in the visual arts curriculum — which let’s be honest makes sense. It’s a STEM school, not Juilliard.” Tony sat a little straighter in his chair, his brows furrowed tightly together. “And a billionaires son of a questionable company joining your class right as the semester starts. Kinda makes my list.”
Peter swallowed past the digested pizza that began creep into his mouth. He wasn’t sure why his heart was pounding, or why his palms had gotten slick with sweat — there was nothing to be nervous about.
Well, aside from Mr. Stark’s stare, eyes so narrowed and stern that Peter finally had to look away.
“Yeah, he’s...he’s helping me,” Peter explained, clearing his throat quietly. “What’s the big deal?”
The sound of wheels rolling against the ground flooded Peter’s ears. He didn’t need to look up to see Mr. Stark had moved closer towards him; he could practically feel the man’s body heat against his forearms.
“Oh, I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me,” Tony’s casual tone failed to match the energy he put out. “Because it feels like the story doesn’t end there.”
Peter spared him a glance before shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something,” Tony insisted. “My gut’s telling me that.”
Peter shrugged, unable to look Tony head-on as he argued, “Well, you can’t always trust your gut.”
Even that felt like a lie, spoken straight through his teeth.
Tony rolled his chair back a few feet, squinting his eye slightly as he gave them a bit more breathing room. Wordlessly, he watched Peter organize a couple of nails into the pile meant for screws. A beat passed by before he realized the kid hadn’t even recognized the mistake.
“Then prove me wrong.”
Peter raked his fingers through his hair, twisting his mouth in an odd way that any other time, Mr. Stark would have made some sarcastic joke about.
He didn’t know why this was so difficult for him to answer, it wasn’t like he was in trouble. All he needed was to muster up a little bit of confidence so he could admit the truth — which again, wasn’t a problem. He just had to keep telling himself that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
And ignore Mr. Stark’s stare, which made him believe otherwise.
“Harry and I go back a little bit,” Peter mentioned, a little too quiet for his faux confidence to take hold of.
For a suspended moment, Tony stared at him, quiet and unmoving.
“You what?” he finally balked, confusion getting the best of him. “You’re sixteen. Going ‘back a little bit’ would mean you were a fetus in the womb.”
Peter’s ears reddened. “C’mon on, Mr. Stark —”
“You friends with this guy or something?” Tony rushed to ask, working his jaw.
Peter took notice, scrunching up his face at whatever attitude Mr. Stark was throwing his way. What was his deal? Whatever hostility he had going on was making him anxious, and that was just completely uncool. Lab nights and workshop hangouts were supposed to be fun, chill.
This was so not chill.
“We grew up together,” Peter tried to play off the fact like it was nothing. “Went to the same elementary school, went to middle school together. We were friends. He got transferred freshman year and we...drifted apart.”
“Drifted apart?” Tony echoed back, a line forming between his eyebrows. “That’s...as many years as I have fingers on one hand. That’s not drifting apart — by law of time, babies are not able to drift apart.”
Peter rolled his eyes, electing to ignore the latter half of Tony’s comment. “Maybe. I don’t know. He seems like he wants to be friends again, so...we’re hanging out. No big deal.”
There was something about Mr. Stark that Peter had come to figure out not long after they started spending time together — real time together, the kind that May would joke about, saying it made her jealous. The man had an aura; he spoke with his demeanor, with the energy that poured out of him. With or without intention.
So with that in mind, it didn’t take long for Peter to notice the thick, suffocating blanket of tension that began to whirl around them. It was swift, a tornado that wrecked everything in its place.
Peter knew long before ever looking up that the eye of the storm had originated from Tony.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Pete?” he asked, concern etched deep into the contours of his face.
Peter chewed roughly on his bottom lip, the twinge of pain enough to ground him. It was stuff like this that made him feel like he was in trouble.
“I...didn’t feel like I needed too.” Peter shrugged for what felt like the millionth time.
“Yeah, you did,” Tony argued, a strict boom of authority lacing his tone. “With everything going on with OsCorp —”
“What! What’s going on with OsCorp!?” Peter spun around in his stool, so quickly that the wheels beneath him jostled the workbench. “I don’t know, you don’t tell me these things!”
A look of realization fell over Tony. His face dropped almost as quickly as the handful of screws that fell to the floor. They chimed against the concrete ground, one after another, all while he clearly worked his brain for a response.
“It’s nothing you need to get involved in,” he finally managed, after a pause too long.
“Why?" Peter didn’t let even a millisecond go by without pushing the issue. “What’s the big deal?”
Tony huffed in exasperation. “Listen to me, Pete —”
“You’ve kept everything secret from me, and I don’t even know what’s going on!” Peter was breathless, agitated impatience leeching into his every word. “If things are such a big deal that you don’t want me being friends with Harry all because of OsCorp, shouldn’t I get to know why!”
“You do know why, kid,” Tony bit back sharply, addressing Peter with stern eyes. He stood up from his chair, letting it wheel away from him without a second thought. “Sentient rock androids? A maniac running around wearing a fishbowl on his head? An entire bunker built under the sea? Radioactive spiders? Any of this ring a bell?”
The room went quiet, if only for a second. Peter seemed to shrink down in his stool, unintentionally hunching over to make himself look smaller.
“I just thought—”
“No, that’s the problem, you didn’t think,” Tony’s knee-jerk anger dissipated almost as quickly as it came, his entire body softening a mere moment after his retort. He sighed loudly, running a grease-stained hand down along his face. “Because you didn’t have to. This isn’t your battle. The Avengers will deal with OsCorp and whatever shit they’re spewing out of their ass. But you? You need to stay on the ground, that’s where you belong. That’s where we need you.”
“But I’m able to help!” Peter perked right back up, unable to keep containing the frustrated eagerness he had been suppressing for months now. A part of him knew he should be approaching this in a much different way, that he should be acting more calm and patient. But finally talking about all these things had him way too excited.
And Tony could tell. He pinched tightly at the bridge of his nose. “Christ, kid —”
“I can be a part of this, I can do things for you guys!” Peter stood up from his stool, the wheels pushing it far behind him. He didn’t care, approaching Tony with wildly excited hands. “Especially if I’m friends with Harry! That’s like, an inside source, right?”
Tony looked him straight on. “Reel it in, kiddo —”
“I can get access to places!” His arm gestured to nothing particular. “Like OsCorp, I’ve already been inside OsCorp!”
“Yeah, I know.” Tony marched wide steps to close the distance between them, more intimidating now than he ever could be with the Iron Man armor on. “And that’s not happening again.”
Peter’s brain shuddered to a halt.
His arms dropped down to his sides with a smack, confusion coloring his face so brightly that he could feel the heat reddening his cheeks.
“You....” he cocked his head to the side, as if it would better assist in gauging Mr. Stark’s expression. There was something noticeable in it, as if the man realized a second too late what he had said. Like he had blurted out a secret not meant for Peter to know.
Peter didn’t like how that made him feel.
“How do you know these things — are you spying on me?”
Tony sighed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the accusation. He looked away, noticeably debating on a response, shaking his head tightly.
After a short, heated glare directed at the walls, Tony lifted his arm in the air. Immediately after, he used the other to point his finger sharply at his wrist, and the watch strapped around it.
The same watch that Peter wore.
Looking down at his own hand, Peter furrowed his brows, eyeing the nanite technology wrapped tightly around his skin. It took a second, but once the realization sunk in —
“This thing tracks me!?”
If Tony wasn’t pissed off with the accusation before, he definitely was now.
“No,” he curtly rebutted. “Not until it’s removed.”
Stumbling a bit on the uptake, Peter made a face, mentally re-tracing his steps. Now it just felt like they were both accusing each other of things — Peter never took the watch off. Hell, most of the time he forgot he had it on. It was like a second skin, nanites so advanced he only noticed it when someone pointed it out.
When someone pointed it —
Of course.
He closed his eyes and held them shut, cursing inwardly.
“I took it off for security,” Peter mumbled, the realization pummeling down on him, hard.
“It’s a panic watch.” Tony’s jaw clicked as he crossed his arms, his weight shifting from one foot to the other. “What did you think was going to happen if you took it off?”
Peter should have known better. He should have known better, he should have known better, he should have —
Damn it, what was he thinking?
“What were you doing in OsCorp?” Tony pressed, stiffening with tension, his mouth set in a thin line.
Peter kept his eyes shut, finding it easier to focus on the swirling colors beneath his eyelids than the look he knew Mr. Stark was giving him.
That look.
The one on Staten Island, the one from the night he encountered Mysterio in Time Squares, the one that made him feel like he was in trouble and — seriously, why was he even in trouble here!? All he did was go into a building, it was just a building, and it happened a whole week ago, so why —
Wait.
Peter suddenly opened his eyes, frowning. That happened, like, last week. That meant Mr. Stark had known for...what was it, almost seven days now? They had seen each other since then, multiple times. And he never thought to just ask him about it?
“Is that why you’ve been throwing me so much shade?” Peter huffed, animosity riding into his tone.
Tony balked. “Throwing you — what?”
“You’ve been wanting to know why I was at OsCorp, but you didn’t want to admit you were spying on me?”
“Peter, it’s not spying!” Tony raised his voice, frustrated aggravation quickly heating up the room. “The tracker sent me a notification —”
“I was studying!” Peter threw his hands in the air, the words ripping straight through his throat. “Harry invited me to his private lounge there so he could tutor me. I’m sure you’re disappointed but that’s it, that’s all I was doing! I wasn’t getting into trouble, I was studying!”
The yelling came to a stop, leaving echos of their voices to drift against the walls.
Tony had fixated his eyes on Peter — tight, tired, the dark moons above his cheekbones somehow deeper and more apparent even under the dim workshop lights.
Peter gulped down his nerves, wound so tightly in his stomach that he definitely could taste at least five of the nine slices of pizza he ate earlier, pineapple and all.
It was only once the room fell quiet again that he realized he had been yelling.
At Mr. Stark.
He yelled at Mr. Stark.
Crap.
Now he was in trouble.
Silently, Tony stuffed his hands inside his jean pockets, grease smearing on the blue material. He sniffed, hard, and looked elsewhere as he flatly stated,
“I think it’s best you stay away from him.”
Peter blinked. His brain was definitely having trouble catching up after the whole ‘he just yelled at Mr. Stark’ part of things.
“What?” he managed, disbelief too thick for him to talk through.
“The Osborn kid,” Tony quietly, yet sternly explained. He pulled his shoulders back with stiff tension. “You need to put a halt to this buddy-buddy thing. Go back to playing superhero and sidekick with that Fred kid — Ted? Ned! That’s progress, I knew there was a correlation there, give me credit for these things.”
Peter stared at him, his jaw so unhinged that it practically cleaned the floor.
Tony rambled on, never once looking Peter’s way. “Focus on your studies, get back into your hobbies, lock your bedroom door for once like a normal teenager — it’s okay to be a little pervy at your age, you don’t have to be a walking angel all the time. Point is, for right now, just until we get this thing settled with —”
“Mr. Stark, that's ridiculous!” Peter was shouting again, raising his voice when Tony hadn't raised his. “C’mon, Harry's a good guy, it’s not like he’s his dad!”
Tony dropped his head, rubbing at his forehead with enough pressure to dent the skin. Even out of view, Peter could see his frown deepening, the tension in his neck making his veins stick out more prominently.
“You’re right,” Tony started, clenching his jaw tightly. “But he’s an extension of him, and that’s just as dangerous.”
Peter let out a huff through his nose, unable to look Mr. Stark in the eye anymore. It was a good thing too; his gaze could probably melt a glacier.
“I thought you of all people wouldn’t judge someone by their dad.”
Tony’s eyes grew big, his lips parting with disbelief.
If it meant anything — anything at all — Peter did regret the words the moment he said them.
But he was also mad.
And that seemed to be winning over anything else right now.
So he didn’t apologize, he didn’t take them back. Not even when neither of them spoke for what felt like a lifetime.
Peter chewed his lip fiercely, his face practically glowing red. The hum of A.C had grown so loud, he wanted to crawl into a vent and turn it off himself.
There was a lot of silence.
“Do as you’re told, Peter,” Tony finally spoke up, his voice taking on an uncharacteristically sharp edge.
Months of agitation, of secrets and more secrets, of being kept in the dark like a child who couldn’t be trusted —
“Will you stop treating me like a kid!” Peter snapped.
“You are one!” Tony’s voice thundered right over his. “And you’re going to be in for a rough time when you finally get yours hands on that birth certificate of yours — although I’m growing more tempted by the minute to hack into every damn hospital database in Queens and have it on display in this compound to remind you that you are a kid! Like it or not, you need to do what you’re told! And I’m telling you now — stay away from him.”
Peter shook his head, aggressively, angrily.
This was the same argument they had just a week ago, when he was told he couldn’t be around Bucky — and now Harry? Not even May would dictate who he could and couldn’t see.
What happened to trusting him, to treating him like an equal?
He gritted his teeth with frustration — what happened to being one of them?
“No,” Peter fired back, hands clenched into fists so tight that he could feel his nails digging into the soft skin of his palm. “You can’t tell me who I’m allowed to be friends with.”
“Goddamn it, Peter!” Tony smacked his hand against the workbench, random mechanical parts tumbling to the ground in a fit of temper. “This isn’t like being grounded, this isn’t causing trouble at some party — it’s much bigger than that and it almost got you killed!”
“Will you stop bringing that up!” Peter spun on his heels, snatching his backpack off the ground with wordless sounds of anger. “I am so sick of you treating me like glass! Like I'm weak! That wasn’t my fault and you know —!”
Everything came to a stop.
Peter froze.
Every muscle in his body solidified, the hairs on the back of his arms turning into knives that dug into his skin.
Sharp, agonizing, screaming at him, electrifying his entire being.
“Something’s wrong,” Peter forced out — choked out — barely intelligible over the swell of his vocal cords.
He tried to say more.
He couldn’t.
“Peter? Hey, Pete?” Mr. Stark was talking to him, Peter could hear it, he could see the man’s lips moving. But he couldn’t concentrate on it. Overwhelming vibrations tore into the nape of his neck, stealing away his thoughts, his composure, everything. “Talk to me, kid, you’re freaking me out here.”
Something was wrong.
Something bad was going to happen, he could feel it, he knew it, he just knew it.
Peter struggled for air, heavy, panicked breathing hitting him like beams of steel from a collapsing building — it could be the ceiling, the entire roof could be seconds from crushing them flat under concrete — puffs of air coming one after another, short, sharp. Borderline hyperventilating.
“Hey, hey, breathe, kid.” Tony was closer to him now, hands gripping his shoulders firmly — when had that happened? “You keep panting like a dog in heat and you’re going to pass out six ways to Sunday.”
Peter shook his head; it didn’t matter. Not now. Not when something was —
“Wrong. Something’s wrong, something’s bad gunna happen —”
“Okay, okay,” Tony urged, his tone low, pitched to soothe, a drastic change. “What? What’s going to happen?”
There was no time to answer, no time to think, no time react. Like a jet falling from the sky, convicted to crash on the shores of the beach, thousands of pieces exploding at impact. Peter could feel his heart pummeling against the bones of his rib-cage, destined to explode right alongside it.
“I dunno,” he barely managed to squeak out. “It could be anything – something – anything. Something’s gunna happen...it could — someone could be breaking in. A burglary.”
Tony kept a strong grip on his shoulders. “This place has enough security plus some to stop that. Happy made damn sure of it after last time.”
Peter’s throat worked silently.
“The — the chemicals. There could be a – a leak, or – or something,” his words tripped over one another, gushing to get everything out at once. “An explosion or —”
“DUM-E’s on standby with an extinguisher. Always. You know that,” Tony calmly reminded him. “And even when he fails at that, this place has a sprinkler system large enough to put out a forest wildfire. Smokey the Bear wouldn’t even have time to lecture us. What else?”
Peter shook his head, faster and faster by the second, dizzying him into vertigo. There was too much. Too much, and the vibrations in his neck were too loud, piercing down his spine, a paralyzing effect on his every muscle.
“The – the floors, they could give out, we could —”
“Look at me, Peter,” Tony stressed. He repeated himself when Peter didn’t listen. “I said look at me, kid.”
Peter hadn’t looked at him until that point.
He wished he didn’t look at all.
“Tell me five things you see.” Tony’s voice was different, delicate, a far cry from the barks of tempered agitation they had been exchanging mere seconds ago.
Peter didn’t understand.
He wasn’t listening, he never listened —
“There’s no time, Mr. Stark, we gotta —”
“Come on, amuse me,” Tony pushed again. “Five things you see.”
Peter took a step back, both of Tony’s hands falling away from his shoulders. He nearly tripped on the backpack that he dragged on the ground, strap held tightly in his hand, soon to be broken right alongside the other.
With a thud his backside hit the workbench behind him — no sound entered his ears, silenced over the excruciating drone of panic that increased with vociferous urgency.
“There’s too many, way more than five and — why aren’t you taking this seriously!?” Peter snapped. “We need to stop whatever it…”
The words died in Peter’s throat, as well as whatever air he desperately needed to draw in next.
The painstaking vibrations had reached a crescendo.
Peter’s eyes bounced around the room, frenzied to find whatever it was, whatever it could be — whatever had left and was a threat to return. His focus was his priority; Mr. Stark’s voice happened to leak through that.
“Okay, Pete? I'm gonna need you to ease back on the throttle a bit, yeah?”
Peter shot his head towards him, so fast he could hear the fluid in his joints swish. “Huh?”
The white spots that had begun to spread across his vision slowly stared to recede, diminishing away one by one. It wasn’t until then that Peter saw exactly how close Mr. Stark had gotten to him, mere inches from his face, worry coating his every feature.
“Look, it’s gonna be fine. You’re fine, nothing to freak out about.” He swallowed, arms hanging stiff at his sides. “Gosh, you really do want to be like me, don’t you, kid...”
Tony bowed his head for a moment while he scrubbed a hand across his scalp. Then, chewing the corner of his lip, he sighed and lifted his face once more. “I'm sorry. I know this isn’t really what you want to hear but... well, I kinda saw this coming about... I dunno... a while back. Actually I'm sorta surprised it didn’t hit you sooner.”
Peter fell quiet. He didn’t know what to say, not at first, not while Mr. Stark stared at him in a way that felt….not-Mr. Stark-like.
He hated to admit it, but he almost wanted the fighting to come back.
“Saw what coming?” Peter hauled in a shaky breath, a certain kind of panic breeding with the confusion running rampant in his head.
Tony shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He looked away for a moment, his shoulders stiff with tension that crippled the room inert.
“I mean, who wouldn’t have... you know... a few, issues, after the shit you’ve been through. Nothing to be embarrassed about — we all get them. You’ve seen what Cap does to punching bags, right? You think I couldn’t design one that he couldn’t destroy? The answer is, of course I could. Actually did, a couple years back. Thing is, Cap deals with his issues by destroying gym equipment. I deal with mine by building stuff. Nat deals with hers by... actually I don’t know what the hell she does. Point is, all of us have got issues.”
He singled out the word before ever giving himself chance to hear anything else Tony had said.
“Issues?” Peter repeated, shaking his head. “I-I don’t have issues.”
Tony took a step forward. Peter took one step back.
“Okay, that’s fine, we don’t have to call them issues. What’s that term all you Gen Zs are tossing around these days? Executive dysfunction? Whatever — what I’m getting at is you don't have to try to deal with it on your own —”
“I don’t have…” Peter scoffed, shaking his head harder, the vertigo stronger now than ever. “I don’t! That’s just...I don’t!”
Tony let out another sigh, one so deep it lifted his shoulders high, the drop heaving them low.
“This is a panic attack, kid,” he stated frankly. “I know one when I see one. Trust me.”
Peter kept shaking his head, as if he could will the moment away, make it all disappear. Every second he stayed standing where he was only made things worse, made the corkscrew in his chest tighten with frightening capability.
No matter how many times he swallowed, he couldn’t push down the feeling; gut-twisting, nerve-wracking feeling that had him seeing double — no, triple. The air in the room was suddenly too thin, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t —
“It’s not — it’s —”
He needed to get out.
Peter swung his backpack over his shoulder, nearly pushing Tony out of the way in his rush to leave. His feet moved faster than Tony had ever seen him move, out of costume anyhow.
His legs bounded to the doorway straight ahead, wide strides getting him there in no time, his chin tucked low to his chest the whole way there.
“Peter, wait!” Tony spun around, tossing his hands in the air with an aggravated sigh.
The automatic doors swished shut before he could say another word.
“Goddammit...”
Chirping crickets from outside the compound flooded his ears, the weather still warm enough for them to sing their evening song, the summer not yet departing ways for the crisp, autumn chill that came with sundown.
In his bedroom, Peter sat quietly on the floor, his back pressed flush against the mattress of his bed. His eyes watered as he looked straight ahead, staring off at a wall that had nothing to offer but Star Wars posters and shelves filled with décor that he never picked out.
The crickets, along with the sound of his uneven breathing, was all he could hear while hunched over, knees held tightly to his chest. The time that had passed since his argument with Mr. Stark was a blurry haze, lost in the fit of wrangled emotion. His eyes stung with irritation as he forced back burning pools of liquid, an unrelenting pressure building behind his temples, soon to rupture.
Peter felt like a foreigner in his own body — wired, a guitar string pulled too tight. Sensations mangled him, dismembered his composure; a feral animal having dug its claws through and through. Just taking in air hurt — his breaths hitched and wheezed, a constant punching to his gut stealing wind from within. Like someone had a fist clenched tightly around his lungs and another wrapped around his throat.
Strangling him, choking him.
Not his parents, not Ben, not The Bite had ever made him feel like this.
Nothing compared to this.
The gentle voice was tender to his ears even as it cut through the silence, warm like a mother’s touch.
Peter barely glanced over to the source of the voice, the nightstand nearby. Next to multiple textbooks, his dimly lit lamp, and half-emptied water bottles, laid the mask to his Spider-Man suit. It was inside-out, the lively red hidden from sight, only the ugly lines of circuitry in view. It was the easiest way to hear from his A.I, at least without having to don the mask entirely.
He couldn’t dare put it on right now.
He’d feel like a fraud.
“Thanks, Karen,” Peter practically whispered, his voice hoarse from unuse. “Is everything...am I still alright?”
Peter clenched his knees tighter as he waited for a response, his knuckles turning ghost white.
Haltingly, Peter shook his head. “No.”
He hunched further forward, resting his chin against the skin of his forearms. The hairs on his arms stood up so straight they tickled against his face, sending bursts of shivers down his spine.
It had been hours; it had to have been, he’d lost count of the times Karen had checked on him. Nothing had changed, for better or worse. She’d say he was fine, he was okay, that nothing was physically wrong with him. But he never felt okay.
He didn’t feel okay at all.
And he couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Stark was right.
The color washed away from his face, his eyes squeezing shut with denial. There was no way, he wouldn’t believe it. He was Spider-Man. Spider-Man. He was strong, he was a hero – right? Hero’s weren’t weak, hero’s didn’t freak out over these things.
These stupid, ridiculous, childish things.
Peter groaned, beating his forehead against his arms. Who knows, maybe if he tried hard enough, he could knock the thoughts loose from his head.
Karen’s compassionate voice asked, unprovoked, unexpected.
Peter stuffed his mouth in the gap between his arms, voice muffled as he spoke, “Check in again in five minutes?”
There was a pause, the room filled only with chirping crickets from outside.
It had become a routine by now. Peter knew that if she was a real person, she’d have gotten sick of him. Heck, he was getting sick of himself.
There was small voice in the back of his head trying desperately to remind him of reality. That this wasn’t a first, the experience from tonight wasn’t new. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t.
He had flipped out when Harry started talking about death in Paris, he ran away from Natasha when she was trying to confine in him about Dmitri. He panicked then and he panicked tonight —
Peter shook his head, harder and harder by the second. He wasn’t panicked, this wasn’t some sort of anxiety attack. He just couldn’t get enough air in, that was all. A weight sat on his chest, heavy, constricting him from breathing.
Once he got in enough air, he’d be fine. He just needed to breathe.
He hadn’t even realized he was hyperventilating again until Karen’s voice grounded him back to reality.
“No!” Peter quickly said, the word sloppy against his rapid breathing. “No no no — no. I’m fine. I’m fine. I don’t need help.”
“Screw the protocols, Karen!” Peter pulled at his hair, yanking harshly at the handfuls. “Mr. Stark doesn’t — he doesn’t get it. I don’t need his help. Seriously, I’m fine.”
The thrumming of his stampeding heart rate practically taunted him, his body at rest being no match for the cyclone that raged on inside. He had no answer for what was wrong with him, and he refused to even entertain the idea that Mr. Stark might be right.
He was Spider-Man. He was better than that — he had to be better than that.
Peter weakly shook his head, tucking himself back into the wrap of his arms. “Just — just check in again in five minutes, okay?”
She didn’t respond this time around.
Peter couldn’t blame her.
With a sigh that never left his lips, Peter closed his eyes, trying with all the effort he could muster to focus on the sounds outside. His senses felt as if they were dialed twice as high, riding a wave of overdrive that he couldn’t control.
No matter how hard he tried to remain calm, the noises only got louder, and the skin of his arms began to crawl.
A chill swept over him, one stronger than the actual temperature of the room. Peter shuddered. He felt cold and clammy at the same time, a sheen of sweat forming against his lower back and glistening on his forehead. With each second that passed by, his heart began to beat faster, harder — faster, faster, faster —
“Am I dying?” he croaked out, his voice shaking, his arms trembling.
There was another pause. He couldn’t hear crickets this time, only his own pulse hammering against his skull.
Peter squeezed his eyes shut, crumpling inwards on himself. A stressful sob built up in his chest, one that he refused to let out. It rose suddenly, a torrent that had been building — accumulating. His breathing came in harder, faster, and suddenly the room began to tilt with the effects of a broken carousel.
Karen asked, the question warped under the sound of his panicked breathing.
“I dunno,” Peter struggled to get out, his tongue heavy and his voice thick. A shiver tore through him, and he hugged himself tighter. “I just...I don’t want to die.”
Leaning his head back, Peter looked to the ceiling. The pool of liquid sitting in his eyes freed itself to slide down his cheeks, seamlessly smooth, warm against his skin. He swallowed forcefully, the hard lump in his throat painful, a violent threat to his need for air.
“I’m really scared of dying,” he whispered.
It wasn’t directed to anyone in particular, not to Karen, not to himself.
Rather, a realization.
Peter pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until spots appeared beneath his eyelids, a quiet curse muttered under his breath. If Karen reported any of this back to Mr. Stark…
Crap, this was a bad idea. A surefire way to get his suit taken away, or get punished with another grounding, or something else insanely stupid.
And he’d have no one to blame this time but himself.
“I’m gunna go to bed, okay?” Peter slowly got up off the floor, stiff joints protesting from hours of sitting in the same spot. “Don’t worry about it, just...thanks for...for being here.”
With a sigh, Peter took a few steps forward, reaching the nightstand and flipping his mask back to its original form. He wasn’t mad at Karen, he wasn’t even disappointed. A.I or not, she had helped him tonight, in what small way she could.
But she was still an A.I, one that followed her programming.
Right now, Peter just couldn’t deal with that. He knew Mr. Stark meant well, but all this — things like grounding him, telling him he couldn’t see Bucky, or Harry — this was way too much for him. Just when he thought they were giving him a place on the team, letting him become his own person — it turned out he was still being treated with kid gloves.
With a quick twist of his fingers, Peter turned off the lamp in his room.
He just needed to deal with this on his own.
The large bay window near his bed was the only thing that gave him any light, the stars still shining through the dark blue skies, a half-crescent moon visible through the trees across the compound.
With little aggression and mostly apathy, he kicked away his backpack lying sprawled out on the ground. Loose papers and pens scattered across the carpet floor as it rolled near his headboard, broken strap in plain view for him to see. He scarcely took notice of the black stain smeared along the side pocket, the spot of grease a problem he could ignore until morning.
For now, Peter crawled into bed. He could only hope some sleep would make all this go away.
The radiating heat from the crackling fireplace was hot enough to generate beads of sweat across his forehead, sticky and damp along his hairline. But even as he sat only a few feet from the burning embers, he couldn’t get warm.
He hadn’t been warm in months.
“Fascinating,” Norman drawled out, his finger swiping through the electronic tablet that sat in his lap. “Who would have thought my finesse of controlling emotional lability would play such a hand in the progression of this disease?”
He looked up, his eyes meeting the blue irises of the woman sitting across from him. She uncrossed her legs in the recliner chair, frowning.
“I wouldn’t go as far to say that, Mr. Osborn,” Adler stated, a leveled tone leaving no chance of discerning any emotion in her words. “However, this certainly puts us at a juncture of what to do.”
Norman hummed thoughtfully, rocking steadily in the recliner seated close to the fireplace. His finger scrolled at the same pace, leisurely taking in the information handed to him.
“What do you recommend next, doctor?”
Adler placed her hands gently in her lap; her white lab coat folded neatly across the armrest of her chair. She cleared her throat, carefully choosing her next words.
“We’ve tried to alter the structure of the symbionts to better match the more...tightly contained hormonal balance of your brain chemistry.”
“But?” Norman didn’t look up as he spoke. His head stayed low, the shadows of the burning fire casting dark circles underneath his eyes — darker than what already colored his skin.
“We can’t find success. The symbiote’s are only attracted to neurochemicals that are actively excited,” she explained. “They won’t bond to the host unless the pathway to the brain is wired for emotional instability. It needs an emotional creature.”
Norman calmly leaned forward, handing her the tablet with an expressionless face, if only appearing thoroughly tired.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he loosened his tie even further than what it already was, now just a piece of cloth hanging freely down his white-button up shirt. “What do you recommend next?”
Adler hesitated.
“There’s only one solution we have to alter your neurotransmitters, to create a more unstable, emotional byway for the symbiote to bond with.”
The wooden logs from beside him split apart with blazing embers, so close that he could have sworn one touched down on his forearm. It felt nice; warm. Norman rested two fingers delicately across his lips, looking ahead in the room with an absentminded stare.
“I take it Dr. Murphy has already begun to restructure the formula?”
“He’s at the starting phase, yes.”
Norman leaned back even further into his recliner, practically sinking into the leather cushions. “And the pathology reports, how do they show?”
Adler hesitated, yet again. The pause lasted longer this time, and when Norman finally managed to look her head-on, he could have sworn he saw a flicker of emotion in the normally emotionless doctor.
“Terminal. Your cells have seen too much degeneration, too much decay. It’s...beyond remission.”
He looked away, this time at the fireplace. Black soot clouded his vision, burning in his eyes with a stinging pain of irritation.
Months of hard work. Wasted. Time — gone. And they had barely gotten one step forward.
“So what you’re saying is I don’t have much choice in the matter,” he concluded.
The disinclination spoke in the silence that followed, no response from the doctor sitting across from him.
“You were initially against the reintroduction of Oz, no?” Norman went on to say, coercion a thin coat over his tone. “What was it you said about my behavior during the trials...schizophrenia? Dissociative identity disorder?”
Alder nodded. “That is correct, sir.”
Norman nodded alongside her, tapping callous fingers against the leather armrest of the recliner.
“And now?”
Adler drew in a shallow breath. “It’s your only chance, sir.”
Krrrrreeaaaaakkkk…
Freezing cold water shrouds his body, raging waves of the ocean sloshing, crashing.
The air’s arctic, each inhale crystallizes his lungs with razor-sharp icicles, piercing through him with a raw, frigid chill.
It hurts.
It hurts so, so much.
“Ple–pl–ease...”
The sounds he makes are sickening, disgusting. Bile surges up from within, hot and acidic in his throat. Waves of heat course through him, the pain boils his depleting blood. Yet the cold is bone-chilling, relentless. Biting at the edges, sinking its teeth deep inside, driving breath away from his lungs.
Krrrrreeaaaaakkkk…
The walls around him vibrate, they scream with an ache for release, a cry under pressure.
So does he.
“...I–d’nt...I don’t–want...”
The palpating pulse of the sea is only outmatched by his own, fighting to be heard over the violence that surrounds him. His heart clamors in his chest, dangerously fast, ferociously weak. Hammering, thrashing with the desperate need to stay alive.
StayaliveStayaliveStayalive…
Stayalive…
Stay...
He’s frighteningly aware of each beat, each pummel against the bones of his rig-cage.
And terrified of when it’ll stop.
It’s tundra-cold. Freezing, and yet fire burns within him, a sizzling inferno lit deep in his gut. He’s lost the feeling of what belongs to the ocean and what belongs to him. Water and blood run together as one, embers of hot pain leaking out from a gushing pocket of missing tissue and punctured organs.
It smells like metal, like the chains that hold him hostage to the walls nearby.
It smells like death.
Krrrrreeaaaaakkkk…
He’s trembling, tremulous with fear, shaking apart. Legs writhe on the floor, hands clench and unclench into fists. Every breath for air is a gasp, stolen away by sobs that choke him, suffocate him.
“Ple–pl–ease...”
There’s no hope, no promise of rescue. There’s only the brittle finality of what was now. Fear sifts through the hollow place of his core, spreading through a wound that not even his mutated abilities can mend.
The echo of a discordant rumbling tears him apart, the sea swollen to its confined depths, a growling from the fathoms outside. Enraged walls weaken, their cries growing louder as his dwindle down.
KkkkrrrrreeeAAAAKKK!
Water barrels towards him, the taste of salt rushing down his throat, his frantic gasps for air filling his lungs with unceasing pressure.
Wave after wave after wave after wave — he can’t breathe, strangled on a paralyzing inhale.
Gagging, drowning.
“I..I d’n’t... Immediate senses evaporate; his ears ring too loudly, his body grows numb, listless. “I d’n’t wanna die…”
Darkness closes in on the edges of his vision, swallowing him whole, submerging him under the duress of the sea.
KkkrrreeeaAAKK —
“Achk!”
Peter gasped loudly, startled awake into the same darkness that had been in his dreams.
The only sound was his breathing — fast and unsteady, his breaths short, sharp.
For a split moment, he was too afraid to move, too disoriented to recognize anything besides his racing heart.
Tangled in disheveled blankets, he kicked them away with panicked movements, swallowing again and again to rid the lump in his throat. Moonlight poured from the window nearby and he blinked several times, fighting to recognize the night stars that lit chiaroscuro against the walls of his bedroom.
His bedroom — Peter looked around frantically, his chest rising and falling with rapid procession. Unwanted adrenaline wracked his nerves, sweat coating his skin, thick as the blankets wrapped around his body.
With nauseating relief, Peter struggled upright, clarity making him force down the sickness that began to gurgle upwards in his stomach.
His bedroom.
Not home, but also not there.
He wasn’t there.
With a sigh, Peter closed his eyes.
The lights in the kitchen came on with a slow fade, accompanied by the sound of bare-feet making their way across the smooth, marble tile.
Bucky barely looked up as Peter came walking into the kitchen. Automatic lights that had since shut off from his inactivity began to brighten softly. A warm, yellow glow highlighted the counter-tops and gave way to the shadows he’d been sitting in.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” he dryly asked, slowly setting his beer bottle down on the table. With detached interest, he eyed the kid quietly, watching as he opened the fridge to pull out a carton of milk.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Peter mumbled. He kept his head low, bangs hiding his eyes from view as apathetically made his way to the cabinets. His flannel pajama pants began to drop on the way; he yanked them up, yawning into his other hand.
Craning his neck behind him, Bucky lifted an eyebrow, watching Peter dump cereal into an over-sized bowl with the milk soon to follow. This kind — whatever it was, made noise as milk flooded against it. Crackling and popping, audible like fireworks over the silence that stretched on between them.
Not bothering to look for a seat anywhere else, Peter pulled out a stool opposite side of Bucky at the table. Somehow, he managed to have already stuffed his mouth with three spoonfuls of cereal before ever sitting down.
“You?”
Bucky blinked, otherwise expressionless. It wasn’t often people asked him why he was awake at three in the morning, in the kitchen of a building he didn’t make the choice to live in.
Peter didn’t look anywhere but straight ahead as he chewed fervently, not giving himself time to breathe before digging in for more.
Bucky honestly couldn’t tell if he was staring at him, or beyond him. Possibly lost in his own thoughts, or something more.
He took of a swig of his beer before answering, “Couldn’t sleep.”
The smell of alcohol in the air was strong, or at least it was to Peter. It sat heavily on Bucky’s tongue, whiffing in the air with every word he said, every breath he let out. Peter had a feeling the beer he drank wasn’t his first. It wasn't as they had any effect on him.
With the back of his hand, Peter wiped away the milk that dripped down his chin, smearing it on the flannel of his pants.
Unwittingly, it was in that brief moment that his eyes locked with Bucky. Something was unsettling about the realization that he never actually saw the man look at him, not directly, not straight in the eyes.
And yet he was, looking at him. Straight in the eyes.
Hesitatingly, Peter set his spoon down. The clank of metal made a gentle echo in the otherwise empty kitchen. Suddenly, his empty hands began to wring together, his heart-rate spiking after just recently getting it to calm down.
“I had this…dream,” Peter began, his voice turbulent at the edges. “I was...I kept drowning.”
A look flashed across Bucky’s face. His eyes flittered from Peter over to the entrance of the doorway. It was as if he subconsciously hoped someone would walk in at three-something in the morning and magically take the conversation away from him.
It was unlikely, but he had seen some pretty unlikely things happen in his lifetime.
Still, he wasn’t surprised when there was nothing. No one came to intervene.
So he took a large gulp of his beer instead, sighing.
“Sounds like a nightmare,” Bucky finally managed.
“Yeah...” Peter nodded, watching as the cereal in his bowl began to swirl in aimless circles. While nearly half of it had already been devoured, he had quickly lost his appetite for the rest. He pushed the bowl away.
The discarded spoon began to make a small puddle of milk on the table. He made note to clean it up before leaving.
The kitchen was quiet, but far from silent. The fridge made a low buzzing noise, the lights hummed in their dimly lit state, and the cereal in Peter’s bowl crackled and popped, even as it grew soggier by the second.
“Mine are like that,” Bucky spoke up, so quiet Peter almost didn’t catch it. His voice was rough, grinding like sandpaper. “Always falling.”
He kept his head low, eyes staring intently at the amber beer bottle in his hand. “I never land.”
The words hung in the air.
Peter swallowed down the tightness in his throat, unsure of what to say.
As Bucky took another drink of his beer, he decided for once it was best to stay quiet.
Shifting awkwardly on the bar stool, Peter rubbed at the back of his neck, sore muscles tight at the base of his skull. Tossing and turning all night had left a cramp in his shoulders that he couldn’t seem to massage away.
It was silly, but he had never considered the bad dreams that woke him up so early in the morning to be nightmares in disguise. Just calling them that seemed ominous, somewhat alarming. Like a problem he should probably talk about to someone.
Peter shoved the thought aside, kneading harder at his neck. He could handle this on his own. If that’s what it took to prove he wasn’t just some kid who needed someone to hold his hand all the time, that’s what he was going to do. Maybe then Mr. Stark would finally take him seriously.
A sticky substance caught his attention.
Peter furrowed his brows, pulling his hand away with a grimace. Exhausted, he didn’t take more than a second to examine the sleek, oily gunk that he pulled out from behind his ear.
Gross — he definitely needed a shower.
He smeared the black slime against his pajama pants, right next to the spot of milk.
