Date: Akeuo1$s

Location: K20so%

Time: 9a8RW*!

 

There was a light above his head.

 

Bright. Sharp.

 

He could hear it. Whispering. His ears were ringing. Echo, echo, echo, little noises, drops of sun, bright, bright, sharp.

 

Sharp.

 

Sharp and bright.

 

Bright and sharp.

 

A window. Sitting above his head. A perfect square of sunlight etched into the ceiling, cut right out of the air, a slice of sky stapled into the room.

 

The room.

 

His room.

 

This was his room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did he know that?

 

 

 

Where was he?

 

Sun.

 

He blinked. His eyelids clicked. The sun disappeared. Back open. There it was.

 

There was a creaking. The bed. He could feel it moving underneath him, felt the sinking of his body as he shifted against the covers. The window above him disappeared as his eyes trailed away.

 

He didn't need to see. He could feel the room in his skin, felt the splinters embedded into his muscles, the rough callouses of the hardwood floors against his bare feet.

 

He didn't wear socks in the Cabin.

 

Too slippery.

 

 

 

 

 

With dark hallways and moaning floors and arching doors.

 

 

He opened his mouth, let the air slip its way down his throat. He blinked-

 

 

Gone.

 

---

 

Thursday - May 26, 2016

Stark Tower - Penthouse Floor

11:12 AM

"So? Does he have you eating off gold plates? Is your bed filled with peacock feathers and chinchilla fur?"

"May-"

"Do you even walk around, or did he give you your own hoverboard to ride on?"

Peter snorted into the phone and heard May do the same on the other end, the familiar crackling muffles that always came out of her cheap discount smartphone with the twin cracks on the screen.

"Alright, alright. In all seriousness, how is everything? Is it as glamorous as I can imagine?"

Peter pulled the phone away from his face for a moment to cast a glance around at his surroundings. The bathroom was just as ridiculous as the room it adjoined. The floors and walls were all made up of pristine granite surfaces. The elevated bowl sinks were sleek, smooth, and matched the lining along the bottom of the shower, which was complete with 360-degree showerheads that encircled the entire top portion of a shower that could probably fit a couple of bears.

He leaned his head back against the empty million-dollar bathtub he currently lay in, which sat right underneath a full floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city below, letting a stream of natural daylight into the room.

"Something like that… yeah." He tapped his shoe against the inner walls of the tub, which were a stark white with gold nozzles along the edge. "Well, you got the pictures of the room I sent, right?"

He heard May give a little scoff. "I'm still having trouble believing that that's your room and not a whole other guest house he rented out."

(Not your room.)

(Not your room.)

(Not-)

He shut the thoughts down before they could get too loud and grimaced out a small smile before realizing there was nobody there to see it.

"Nope. All for me."

"Well, that's incredible. I'd get lost in there."

"You get lost in your closet and it's three feet wide."

"It gets dark in there and the door handle is hard to find. I'm not having this argument with you again."

Peter smiled a genuine smile this time. He heard his sneakers give a little squeak as they shifted against the bottom of the tub. He pulled his knees closer and curled up onto his side, pressing the phone tightly to his cheek as he leaned his shoulder into the wall of the tub.

"I'm so upset with myself that I didn't get to see you off."

"May. Come on- "

"The whole reason I took Saturday off was just so I could say bye to you! Only for me to get home on Friday after my double shift to find that you're already gone!"

The teen tightened his grip on the phone ever so slightly. The side of the tub dug painfully against the bones of his shoulder, but he didn't adjust. "I know. I'm sorry. It… wasn't my idea," was what he finally settled on after wrestling with the million other words that he wanted to say.

May must have picked up on the low levels of guilt seeping through his words, for he heard her shuffle on the other end of the line. "Oh, honey. No, it's alright. I'm just being dramatic obviously." She gave a chuckle. "As long as you're out of that house, I'm happy."

Another grimace. This time, it didn't melt into a grin.

"Kids like you shouldn't be cooped up all day in the summer. It's not right."

He swallowed before casting a glance away from the rest of the bathroom and out towards the window next to the tub. A flock of birds flew by in a v-formation. A plane hovered past them in the distance.

"I…never minded."

"Still, anything is better than that. And I must say, spending a vacation with Tony Stark is quite an upgrade."

("Without me, you have nothing.")

"I guess…"

There was a pause on the other end that Peter barely noticed as he shut his eyes and focused on his own breathing, which wasn't hard seeing as there were no other noises in the massive bathroom, nothing but cold granite floors and ridiculously expensive light fixtures.

"Are you okay?"

He blinked his eyes back open. "Hmm?"

"You sound…strange."

Peter bit back a small cringe. May had always been way too perceptive for his tastes.

Turning onto his back once more, Peter pressed up against the side walls of the tub and gave a little chuckle. "Oh, no. I'm just…a bit tired," he finally settled on as he reached up a hand to rub at the back of his neck. "I'm just not used to sleeping on a bed that's so soft."

He heard May laughing on the other end. "Don't even mention it. I can only imagine how comfortable it is. Like sleeping on a cloud, right?"

"Yeah. Just like a cloud." He craned his neck to peer over the lip of the tub and out towards the door, where he knew a pile of blankets and pillows sat on the floor next to his bed in the shape of a make-shift nest.

"…You sure you're alright, honey?"

Peter sniffed and dragged his eyes away from the door lest they become glued to it. "Yeah, yeah. Of course." He smiled. "You worry too much, May."

"I take my job as nosy neighbor with absolute seriousness."

Peter's smile grew. He imagined May smiling in her house, pacing around the room like she always did whenever she was on the phone. He remembered Ben used to make fun of her for it, saying that she would wear a rut into the carpet from all her pacing.

As if sensing his thoughts, he heard the woman clear her throat a bit before continuing. "I want to see you. I never get to see you during the summer, and I live right across the street from you! What do you think? Movie night with stale popcorn?"

"How stale are we talking about?"

"There's some sort of amber resin growing on the packaging."

"Tempting." He paused, lowered his gaze as he began to fiddle with his shoelaces. "I'll…have to ask Mr. Stark. I don't want to assume anything yet. It's still his house and I don't really know all the rules yet."

She hummed on the other end. "I'm sure he's not too strict about things."

("And where do you think you're going? I don't remember giving you permission to leave. Max, am I going senile? Did I give him permission to go anywhere? No, I don't think so. So, I ask again: where the hell do you think you're going?")

Peter bit at his lip. Some skin peeled away with a sharp sting and he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. A tiny dot of blood stained the fabric.

"Well, let me know if you find anything out, sweetie."

He took a breath, pulled the sleeves of his jacket overtop his shaking hand, and smiled weakly into the phone once more. "I will."

There was some more shuffling on the other end followed quickly by a sigh. "I gotta let you go. I'm covering Deb at the diner this afternoon before my next shift at the hospital tonight."

Peter rolled his eyes. "What's her excuse this time?"

"Her kids have measles."

"She doesn't have kids."

"Well, if she did, they'd probably have measles anyway. I told you about her vaccine rant from a few weeks ago, right?"

"The micro-chips thing?"

"Like the government would want to hear anything that comes out of her crazy mouth."

They both laughed. It was almost strange feeling anything in his chest other than the crushing tightness that had been with him for the better part of the week. He fastened his hold on the phone once more, as if he could keep May on the line just by gripping it tight enough. But she stopped laughing all too soon, leaving Peter quiet on the other end.

"Alright, I'll talk to you later, honey. Love you."

Peter swallowed again, swallowed down anything and everything that he wanted to tell her, if only to tell somebody, to get the poison out of his system by releasing it into the air, letting it out to infect someone else.

But he didn't. He choked it down and taped it up with a wavery smile and a soft little voice. "Love you, too," he finally whispered out.

"And tell Tony I said 'hi'"

There was a beep, then silence. Peter slowly pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced down at the screen, staring at a picture of him and May that had been taken years ago.

It was the two of them at the Central Park Zoo a few days after his thirteenth birthday - her present to him. They were both making stupid faces at the camera.

Peter let a small smile fall onto his face as he gazed down at the image, could practically still hear the screeching from the monkey enclosure and smell the scent of deep-fried dough.

The screen dimmed. His smile did as well as he furrowed his brow and glanced over at the corner of the screen. There was a low-battery signal blinking in the top.

Peter let out a small sigh and leaned his head back, letting it rest against the lip of the tub he'd spent the better part of the morning in. And even now, as he approached the two-hour mark, he still didn't want to leave, didn't want to get up and venture out.

He lifted his gaze, let his eyes wander up to the ceiling. It wasn't as lavish as the room outside the door. It didn't tower above his head or make him feel dwarfed in comparison. It was a plain white surface, clear of any blemishes, marks or tile lines.

It was easier to pretend in the bathroom, sitting there scrunched up in the tub with his oversized jacket and shoes he'd had for years. Easier to stare up at that ceiling and pretend that he was back at home, staring up at the similar white surface of his own room. And sitting there in that tub, watching that ceiling and sharing texts back and forth between his friends, Peter almost felt better, felt that vice-like grip on his lungs recede just a bit.

But out there, in that other room past the bathroom door, the ceilings and windows stretched so far overhead that Peter couldn't even pretend. It's like the entire room was one single solitary reminder that Peter didn't fit.

It wasn't his ceiling. So, he didn't want to look at it.

Then again…his phone was dying. And there weren't any convenient outlets near the bathtub, which honestly, made sense.

So, with a sigh, Peter pushed himself up to his feet and carefully stepped out of the tub, nearly stumbling a bit as he miscalculated just how big the actual structure was. But he regained his balance just as quickly and righted himself to a standing position, casting a glance around the room before finally landing on the door.

Slowly, he slid his phone into his back pocket, kept his eyes straight. He took a breath, sucked it in slowly and blew it out carefully through a small part in his lips. He ran his tongue overtop them and noticed they were still bleeding. He wiped his sleeve overtop his mouth again.

Carefully, he began to make his way over. His footsteps were quiet, but they seemed to echo in his ears as he walked across the floor, vibrating up his legs, tingling his skin. The door loomed overhead, stretching with each step, darkening with every inch he advanced. It's like it was growling at him, glaring with a deep-seated hatred, shaking with a malice that couldn't be contained in a slab of sanded wood.

The second the tips of his fingers grazed the doorknob, he expected the wood to stretch out and suck him in, absorbing him into the darkened surface. He felt that familiar tightness in his chest again, the same bone-deep itch that made him want to shut his eyes and scratch the skin from his body, if only to stop the tingling, the itching, the burning.

But he stopped. He gritted his teeth and scrunched his eyes, ducking his head as he cursed at himself, willed his heart to calm, shouted at his head to stop smoking, his lungs to stop spasming.

Stop it. Stop it now, Peter. You're okay. Everything's okay. Just stop. Stop, stop, stop-

He blinked his eyes back open with a soft little gasp, chest heaving slightly as the low-level tingling of panic slowly began to recede like slinking, skittering bugs slowly retreating back under their rock, ready and waiting.

The door hadn't moved. Hadn't reached out for him. Hadn't swallowed him up. He let his hand linger on the doorknob for a moment before his face scrunched and a wave of loathing made his fingers curl.

You're so pathetic.

Without allowing himself another second of hesitation, Peter ripped the door open and stepped out into the room.

And for a brief moment, for one single second of silence, Peter shut his eyes and imagined the door opening up onto his room, the familiar sight of his steel-cold bed and his stark gray walls and the double-doors of his balcony ready and waiting for him.

That moment passed as Peter blinked his eyes back open. His fingers twitched carefully by his sides, but he resisted the urge to curl them into fists, deciding instead to squeeze them under his arms as he slowly walked into a room that most definitely wasn't his, no matter how much he pretended.

Same bed. Same couch. Same bookshelves and stairs and flat-screen TV. Same sleek floors and modern dark dotted walls. He stepped carefully, like one does when they're walking around a house they've never been in before, afraid of knocking over anything expensive or entering a room they're not allowed in.

He passed by the bed that still hadn't been slept in, passed by his luggage that remained untouched, passed by the mound of blankets and pillows piled up on the floor from the night before as he headed towards the window.

His feet stilled just a few inches from it, his face reflecting back at him in the shining glass surface. He glanced past it and turned instead to the city standing behind it.

Peter shut his eyes and breathed in deeply once again, taking a second to let the noises of the city wash over him in a warm, familiar wave. At least one thing was still the same, one thing that Mr. Stark couldn't change: New York City and the noises that came with each breath it took.

He let his eyes linger, tightened the hold of his arms around his midsection, as if his limbs were the only thing keeping him together. One slip and he would crumble to the floor in a heap of undone puzzle pieces.

A week had passed, and Mr. Stark remained distant. Peter counted this as one of the few blessings of the week. Apart from that first night, the two hadn't spent much time together, and even less time alone with each other.

Apart from dinners and the occasional breakfast (whenever Peter couldn't come up with an excuse fast enough to avoid it), Peter never even saw the man. Which made sense considering the fact that, apart from said outings, Peter hadn't left the room all week.

A particularly loud horn went off down below. Yelling followed. He kept his eyes on the glass, on the streets down below.

Peter hated the room. This much he recognized within himself with a certain amount of shame. But despite his growing disdain for his surroundings, he found that the idea of leaving, of wandering aimlessly around the Tower was even more daunting.

Where could he go? Where couldn't he go? What could he touch? What did he have to avoid? What could he see? What could get him in trouble? How many different ways would he get in trouble should he ever dare to leave the room?

It was this circular round of questioning that had kept Peter away from the door for the better part of the week.

He might have hated the room, yes. But this hatred was dwarfed in comparison to the relief of having a new cage to sit in, safe and out of reach of anything dangerous.

("Don't you ever...EVER go into the lab without permission! Do you understand? I - you know what? You've done nothing but get under my feet this entire weekend. For the rest of this week, you don't leave your room without my say-so, got it? Now get out of my sight before you really make me mad.")

This Tower was nothing but a laboratory in an experiment Peter now found himself in the center of. And he was nothing if not careful.

Peter let his gaze linger on the streets below, briefly entertaining the idea of grabbing a book from the shelf next to his bed before the sound of knocking had him spinning on his heel faster than he could blink, staring down the offending structure of the door across the floor.

Knocking. That was a thing. People did that. On doors. Often.

("It's MY house, Peter. Why would I knock on doors in my own house?")

Only one person had come to see him in the room since his first day here. So, Peter knew who it was before he'd even made it halfway across the room and even still before the door opened.

"Hi. I'm looking for Peter Parker. Have you seen him?" Tony asked with a smirk as he leaned in the newly opened doorway.

Peter blinked. Then blinked a few more times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating as Tony continued to gaze at him with a casual grin and a not-so-well-hidden scan of his eyes. The teen didn't move, just stared back at him with his lips parted slightly.

Tony cleared his throat.

"I was sort of…implying I'd like to come in."

He blinked again. Another pause.

"…Do you want me to knock again so we can take this from the top?"

That seemed to be enough to get Peter's brain recalculating its route, for he gave a little shake of his head and quickly stepped away from the door, words tumbling over each other. "Oh! Uh…sorry. Just, um…yeah. You can…yeah."

"Appreciate it." Tony's smile remained while Peter's cheeks gained a new reddish coloring as the billionaire strolled in, turning to face the teen now leaning against the closed bedroom door. "You weren't at breakfast." His tone wasn't accusatory, merely curious. But Peter felt his muscles tense with a newfound defensiveness that he had to try extra hard to push away.

So instead, he reached up a hand and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Right. Sorry. I, uh…I wasn't h-hungry. Also, May called. So, I…talked to her for…for a while." He glanced down towards the ground. "She…says hi."

If Mr. Stark noticed the sheer tightness in his voice, he didn't comment on it. Instead, the man continued into the room, casting a glance around as he spoke. "She could always come over, you know. Check the place out so we can get her official stamp of approval." He took a seat down on the armrest of the sofa, letting his arms rest against his knees as he leaned forward.

He turned back to Peter. "So, you liking the room so far?"

It was probably the tenth time he'd asked that very same question in the past week. Neither of them commented on this fact. Peter instead gave the same reply he'd given every other time the man asked.

No words. Just a nod.

Normally, that would be good enough. But Mr. Stark won't stop looking at him. Won't stop scanning him over, eyes scouring over him in search of some particular detail, an out-of-place marker. Peter shuffled a bit on his feet.

"Yeah? Have you checked out the lab yet?"

"Not yet."

"Well, if you ever get a case of the night-time jitters, tinkering around with my stuff always does the trick for me." He reached over to pluck up the TV control from the coffee table in front of him, fiddling with it in his hands as he went on. "Speaking of, you sleeping alright?"

Peter glanced away, slowly moved over towards his bed. "Yep."

"No issues?"

"Nope." He kicked the blankets and pillows on the floor underneath the bed.

"Good." Tony glanced over his shoulder to meet his gaze once more. His eyes drifted towards the luggage near his bed. Still untouched. Peter cleared his throat and fiddled with his sleeves. "I still…gotta work on that."

Tony turned back around. He kept fiddling with the control. "No rush." His voice was quiet, calm. Despite this, Peter felt his skin beginning to itch again.

"So, hey. Some good news for ya." Mr. Stark tossed the remote up, caught it easily in his hand. "Pepper's been monitoring the airwaves for the past couple of days, and it looks like this big Parker-Stark media fiasco is finally dying down. Stage 5 of our never-ending nightmare is finally drawing to a close, kid."

Peter's eyes found the window by the bed. There was another flock of birds flying past, larger than the last. There was a straggler. "That's… great."

"Yep. Hopefully now when we go out clubbing and bar-hopping we won't have to dodge every eye in New York."

It was smaller than the other birds. Lagged a good distance away. Broke up the v-formation, left an indent in the pattern where it should have been. "Mm-hmm."

"Plus, now we won't have to flick past every other news channel giving a run-down as to why this little media storm is just a cover-up for our joint plans to tear down the rainforest or some shit like that. If I wanted to tear down the rainforest, you can damn well be sure I could do it without Parkstem's help."

"Yeah…"

He imagined a pair of fingers plucking the bird from the sky, dragging it down away from the group. It would cry and flutter in shock, but none of the others would hear it. They were too far away. They were already gone. It was alone.

"…And of course, now that it's over, I can continue my daily ritual of walking down the streets of New York, stealing the souls of every pedestrian I pass in my ancient rite of expanding American capitalism."

Peter jolted out of his thoughts, furrowing his brow as he twisted around to gaze back at the billionaire. "What?"

Tony was on his feet now, hands in his pockets as he threw the kid a weird look. "Nice of you to join me. You know, I like to consider my time fairly valuable. So, the chunk of time you use up for spacing out could probably fetch a pretty penny on the market."

("Listen to me when I'm talking to you, boy!")

He swallowed, stared down at his fingers. "Sorry," he whispered.

Peter couldn't see Mr. Stark's face from his staring match with his hands, but he heard the man's footsteps, heard the snark in his voice leak away from his words as he spoke next, quieter and more hesitant than before.

"I'm just…messing around, kid," he said it like it was an obvious thing. Was it obvious? It didn't seem very obvious. Not anymore, at least.

The footsteps stopped. Peter spared a small glance up and noticed that Tony was still staring at him, only this time, his gaze was much more intense. He could see the man going over every detail of his face, stopping and staring at each point, each flaw. Peter wanted to turn away.

"You sure you're okay?" Mr. Stark finally asked in a soft voice.

Peter stared back at him for a moment, felt that same tell-tale tightness in his chest from days before. He took a breath before it could grow out of hand, pulled his sleeves to cover overtop his hands. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Mr. Stark didn't say anything. He just kept staring. So, Peter did too.

And for a moment, staring back at the man's intense dark brown eyes, staring back at his unwavering gleam and the shine of concern flickering through his own irises, Peter almost wanted to talk. It was that same feeling he'd had with May, holding the phone to his ear, gripping it as tightly as he dared as if he could reach out and make her stay the tighter he held on. That same feeling of desperation, of needing the poison sitting on his tongue out of his body. He'd spit it out if he had to, hurl it up and cough up any last remnants of venom, any traces of ink coating his throat, weighing heavy in his gut. He needed someone else to see it. He needed to know it wasn't just in his head. He needed someone else to know it was there.

"Listen…" Tony said softly. Peter gazed back at him in silence, almost leaning forward slightly. Mr. Stark could tell. He knew something was wrong. He'd ask and Peter would finally have his chance. He couldn't bring it up. But if Mr. Stark brought it up for him, then he could finally get it out of him. He could remove those toxic fumes bubbling inside of his lungs, choking the air right out of him, infecting it the second he breathed it in.

"I, uh… I was just…"

More silence. More staring. Peter held his breath.

And Mr. Stark released it for him with a tired sigh. The man turned away. "Was wondering if you… wanted to eat anything for lunch."

Peter swallowed the poison pooling in his mouth. He shut his eyes to keep from swaying. Mr. Stark continued, gaze elsewhere, anywhere but on Peter's face.

"Rhodey made sandwiches and since you didn't eat breakfast, I… figured you might be hungry."

Behind him, Peter could hear the ticking of his grandfather's pocket watch as it sat on the nightstand. He could hear it laughing. Cackling with each tick.

"Sure."

Tony turned and nearly started speed-walking out of the room. Peter followed in silence.

"Great."

 

---

 

It was not great. It was very notably not great.

Peter ran his small little fingers over the corner of his sandwich, pinching off a piece of bread before rolling it into a small little ball between his thumb and index finger. Tony watched him in silence, watched him maneuver the small little piece round and around, feeling very much like that piece of bread, squished and crushed between two fingers, rolled over back and forth, back and forth into a small almost indistinguishable mesh.

He watched the boy carefully pop the little piece of bread into his mouth before pinching off another piece of the sandwich. Those few identical indents in the corner of the bread were the only signs that Peter had even touched the meal, the rest of it going undisturbed and untouched.

Rhodey and Pepper were talking. Tony didn't have the wherewithal to distinguish whether or not they were talking to him. He safely assumed not, for they'd been manning the reigns of all conversation for the better part of the half-hour they'd been there.

He let their voices wash over him, let the sounds of their conversation simmer into background noise as he watched the boy sitting next to him at the kitchen counter, body hunched, muscles tense, shoulders stiff. Like Tony, he'd been content to simply listen to the conversations taking place around them, never once opting to join in as he usually would.

The billionaire let his eyes linger for a second longer before sparing a glance over at the others as he noticed the conversation lull into a subtle silence. Pepper stood by the sink, washing her recently finished plate while Rhodey leaned up against the fridge, his own freshly made sandwich half-eaten in one of his hands.

On their faces were identical looks of disquiet, marred with small little grimaces and shifting gazes towards Peter. The man wet his lips and turned away again, eyes shooting back towards the teen.

Peter could very well disappear if he looked away for too long. Tony was almost sure of it.

He heard Pepper give a little sniff, likely her attempt to clear the stagnating air. "So…how are you settling in, Peter? Everything alright so far?"

Her casual tone of voice contrasted the tense shift of all their eyes as they shot over towards the boy. If Peter noticed this, he didn't let it on. He didn't even lift his gaze away from the plate in front of him. He just nodded.

Tony swallowed. His fingers drummed against the counter in an almost painful manner, like the tips of his fingers were pressing down into sharp little splinters with each roll of the knuckles. He noticed Peter's eyes spare his drumming hand a quick glance before shooting away again. He stopped.

Rhodey chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before giving a small smile. "Have you checked out the study yet? I heard Tony even dusted off some of his dad's old first editions."

"N-not yet…no."

Rhodey glanced over towards Pepper before speaking once more. "Well, you'll probably get more mileage out of them than this guy ever did. The most he'd ever use them for was when he needed the occasional paperweight."

"They're pretty good doorstops too," Tony added with a strained smirk. His tongue felt puffy. He swallowed again, felt how dry his throat was on the way down.

Peter didn't smile. Just picked another piece off the corner of his sandwich. Started rolling it between his fingers again.

He didn't eat it this time, though. Just set it down on the plate next to the sandwich before pinching off another piece.

Tony kept watching him, watched him rip off piece after piece. He didn't want to look up, didn't want to glance over at his friends and see the questioning looks in their eyes. Questions he had no answers for. Questions he was just as stuck on.

Pepper cleared her throat, setting her dish on the drying rack before grabbing the nearby kitchen towel. "So…do your friends have any plans for the summer?"

Another piece. Another ball. "I'm…not really sure." He set it down to join the others.

"Well, you can always invite them over here. I'm pretty sure we have some room to spare."

Tony sniffed. "But I feel I should add, if you're going to throw a party in my tower, at the very least, it'd better get mentioned in the yearbook, otherwise I'm going to be highly offended."

Rhodey gave a chuckle at that, placing a hand to the back of his neck as he gave a little sigh. "Jeez, summertime parties. I don't' even remember half of them."

"I think that's the point, platypus," Tony turned to him, thankful to finally be having a somewhat full-fledged conversation. "Aside from the occasional vomit parade down the front lawn of Dana Curtis's house, those nights are pretty murky. I think I still have some video of it, by the way."

Pepper rolled her eyes, leaning her elbows up against the counter. "You two are ridiculous."

"Don't pretend that you didn't have a wild streak, Ms. Potts."

"Please. My wild streak involved cutting my five-hour study dates down by half an hour so I could make it to my double shifts on time."

"Uh-huh. Right. Save face for our resident newbie." Tony gave a little chuckle before resting his arm against the counter. "Anyway, back on track. Parties. Here. Any vomiting at least better be out the window."

There was a pile now. On his plate. A small little mountain of perfectly rolled white spheres stacked one on top of the other. He set another one down and the pile toppled, rolling across his plate in scattered little trails. He paid it no mind, like he hadn't even noticed. Another. Right on top.

Tony felt his fingers curling.

"Pete?"

The kid's hand stilled. His fingers paused in the middle of rolling another ball. He slowly set it down and angled his head towards Tony. His eyes trailed the collar of Tony's shirt, but no higher.

He wondered if Peter could hear the ominous thudding of his heart.

He probably could.

"You gotta eat, kid," he said softly, so soft that even he could barely hear it. But he knew Peter could. Peter heard everything.

The kid's head dipped back down to its original position. He didn't reach for another piece of bread. Instead, his hands slowly stilled on the counter.

"I'm…not really hungry."

Tony heard Pepper and Rhodey shifting but he didn't spare them a glance. His eyes saw nothing but Peter.

"You haven't eaten since last night, though." He leaned across the counter and grabbed a fresh sandwich off the tray Rhodey had prepped earlier that afternoon. "Here, why don't you-"

"I said I'm not hungry."

Tony stilled. They all did at the sudden intensity that had leaked into the teen's voice. The billionaire watched as the kid pulled his hands away from the counter and let them sink down into his lap. He also didn't miss how they shook as he stashed them away.

Carefully, as if he were tangled in the wires of an active bomb, Tony lowered the sandwich back onto its tray. "Okay…"

Rhodey took another step forward. "Are you alright, Pete?"

Tony almost snapped at him, almost lurched his head towards him with a vicious snarl and a demand to shut up and leave the kid alone. But he didn't. He sat in the silence and he watched Peter with an unflinching gaze, felt the anger turn to anxiety in his stomach. Because Tony already knew the answer.

Tell me why you're not.

But Peter didn't say anything. He kept staring down at his plate, shoulders slowly bobbing up and down like a buoy in the water, slave to the motions of the ocean, the highs and lows of each wave dictating its every breath, its every beat.

Tell me what's wrong.

Pepper stopped leaning against the counter and took a step closer just like Rhodey. And Tony suddenly watched Peter's whole body shift, watched his muscles coil up tightly like they'd turned to steel underneath his skin. He watched his chest give a little heave as his breathes came out in violent puffs, fast and out of tune. His fingers curled into fists, curled around the fabric of his jeans, his knuckles fading into white, the blood draining down, draining away, dripping out of sight. He saw the kid's face beginning to curl, twisting into a look of barely restrained emotion, teetering on the edge of something Tony knew all too well, something he could also feel beginning to rise up against his chest, pressing down painfully against his ribs, fast and hot and uncomfortable.

Tony started to rise out of his seat.

Pepper spoke first. "Peter?"

A flick. A switch. Within a flash, Peter was still. He rose out of his seat faster than any of them were expecting, causing them all to jump a bit, but he didn't seem fazed. He didn't seem disturbed, despite the ashen color of his face, blushed by the hint of red overtop the brim of his nose. The teen wet his lips and began to fiddle with his hands. He still didn't lift his gaze but Tony could see how frantically it scoured the ground, like it was looking for something in the details of the tile lines.

"Can I go out?"

Tony almost had to do a double-take at the sudden question. "I…what?"

Peter didn't say anything for a good few seconds. Tony watched with a morbid fascination as the kid's eyes continued to flicker around the floor, darting from one place to the other like a rat scurrying along the ground, desperate for a hole to slink inside, a rock to crawl under, away from the watchful eyes of those above.

Tony fully rose out of his seat at this. Behind him, Pepper and Rhodey were giving each other full-on looks of confusion and concern, but Tony paid them no mind. He took a small step forward, felt the violent tinglings of electricity shooting up his leg, pulsing out of the kid in front of him in thick, uncontrollable waves, a blast of nerves that he could feel on his skin.

Peter seemed to jolt out of whatever panic-induced trance he was in, for he gave a little shake of his head and stole a frantic glance upwards, quickly taking a step back as he noticed the billionaire's approach.

He hunched in. "I…sorry. I don't…I don't know what I was…I mean, I didn't mean like, it's okay. Never mind, I don't really, um…"

"No, I-" Tony stuttered out, shocked with the sudden floundering of a kid who, less than a second ago, hadn't spoken more than six words at a time within a single conversation. He wanted to turn, wanted to steal a frantic look behind him at the others, gauge them for any sort of assistance, a pleading look of desperate need. But he didn't, too afraid that the kid would fade away into thin air if he so much as breathed wrong.

"I mean…yeah definitely," he finally said after a second. "I'm getting a little sick of this place myself. We might have to rent out a place to keep from any unnecessary crowds, but other than that-"

"No."

He paused. Peter looked uncomfortable, more so than before.

"I, uh…I don't mean…. I don't mean…as me."

Tony blinked.

"Oh."

He blinked again after another second of thought.

"Oh."

Peter took another step back. "Sorry…it was stupid. I-"

"No. No, um…" Tony lifted a hand to rub at his neck, finding himself at a loss for words. Though, this was quickly becoming the norm as of last week. "I mean, I figured Spider-Man would still be on the clock, I just, uh…hadn't really thought of the specifics, yet."

Peter's eyes remained fixed on his hands, like they were permanently locked. "Sorry."

Tony watched him for a moment, let the room fall into a desolate pit of uncomfortable silence that had been lurking in wait behind the defenses of Rhodey and Pepper's tepid, half-hearted conversations. And now that it was there, now that it was sitting right there in front of all of them, the sheer weight it added to the air was almost enough to have their eyes watering from the thickness of it all, blinding and suffocating.

Tony felt his hand twitching at his sides, resisted the urge to reach out and rub at his aching wrist.

He wanted to say no. More than anything, he wanted to say no. Peter was in the middle of a precarious balancing act; that much Tony could see with his very eyes. Ever since that first night, the kid had been taking step after step along that line, inching his way along a steadily fraying rope, a string hoisted in the air held by nothing but two rusting poles ready to crumble at a moment's notice, ready to plunge the kid in a dark, dismal emptiness that Tony was all too familiar with, an emptiness that even now still lingered in the back of his head, a gnawing pain in his skull.

So the thought of letting the kid go, of having him far off, out of reach, and further than a simple walk down the hall almost made his mouth form the word he so desperately wanted to say.

Then Peter glanced up at him.

It was a small little look, half a second at best before he was averting his gaze once more, but it was enough for Tony to get a good look, to take in the film of distress gleaming back in those irises, a silent plea of desperation shining back at him telling him that it was everything Peter had not to start begging.

Peter begged enough.

Tony didn't want the kid begging with him.

"No, it's okay," he said with a soft voice, watching Peter's gaze flicker upwards once more before jolting back down. "I, uh..." He swallowed. "Sure. You can...you can go. You can use the landing pad on our floor."

Peter was spinning on his heel before Tony could even finish speaking, looking as if it was taking all of his willpower not to sprint out of the room. "Thank you. I'll...I'll be back soon. Swear."

He was already in the doorway. Tony took another step forward, felt himself itching to follow after him. He settled for his voice instead. "Peter?"

The kid paused. It took him a moment but he finally turned back around.

Tony stared back at him and for the first time since he'd fetched the teen from his room, Peter finally lifted his gaze and looked him in the eye. The billionaire stood there for a second, felt a flurry of words swirling in his chest, banging and scratching against his throat, pressing against his cheeks. But they were garbled. He couldn't hear what they were saying. There was too much.

So instead, he choked them down and settled for a grimace of a smile. "Just...be careful."

Peter gazed back at him for a second before doing something he hadn't done all week. And the sheer relief Tony felt at seeing the kid's shy little smile lasted for as long as it took for Peter to disappear around the doorframe, where it quickly melted into sheer, unfiltered misery.

Without another word, Tony let out a deep sigh and leaned back against the kitchen wall, slowly sliding to the floor with a long, drawn-out groan following him all the way down.

Rhodey leaned up against the counter, peering overtop to gaze at the man currently sitting on the floor. The colonel rested a fist against his cheek. "Well...that was awful."

Tony leaned the back of his head against the wall, taking a moment to stare up at the ceiling and consider the possibilities of it crashing down around them in a relieving, life-ending weight. "Once. Just once, I'd like things to go smoothly, to not be on the precipice of disaster every minute of ever day." Pepper and Rhodey walked around the counter to take seats at the bar stools. Tony followed them with his eyes. "I feel like that's not a lot to ask. Sure, you make this a regular request and you're bound to be a few days short of a perfect life, but I can't get one?" His voice took on an edge of barely contained frustration as he glared at some nonexistent force hovering above them. "One fucking day is too much of a demand?"

Neither of the others said anything for a second. At least not until Rhodey reached over the counter to grab the plate of sandwiches, casually lowering it to Tony's eyeline.

The billionaire eyed it angrily, as if the very plate had somehow personally offended him on a deep level. He aggressively grabbed a sandwich but he didn't take a bite, using it instead to gesture around as he spoke.

"This could not be any worse. Literally, this could not possibly be going any worse. Other than the Tower crumbling right underneath us, this is the bottom. At least then, we'd be dead and far away from whatever shitshow this is turning out to be." He angrily took a bite of the sandwich before glaring at it even harder and tossing it away like it now disgusted him, pieces of bread, lettuce and turkey scattering onto the floor. Pepper raised a brow at the new mess, giving a small shake of her head. "Tony-"

"One week. We're one week into this thing and it's already falling apart at the seams. No. Not even. We're one day short of a full week and I feel like any longer and I'm going to explode from how fucking tense it is in this goddamn tower. It's like I can't even breathe," he snapped, eyes jumping from one spot to the other, as if some silent threat lingered on the walls, ready and waiting to spring out. He clenched his fingers into shaking fists, pressing them against his temples as a teeth-grinding arch of pain flared in the back of his skull.

Rhodey must have noticed, for he leaned a little closer. "Relax, man. I-"

"Relax? Fucking relax?" Tony jolted his head back up and glared over at the others, nerves melting back into anger. "You're seriously telling me to fucking relax right now? That's all you have for sage words of advice? For me to fucking relax? I- Jesus. Relax."

He turned his glare onto the floor, hoping against hope that the sudden inexplicable anger he could feel bubbling under his skin would fade before he said something he regretted.

They were staring at him. He could feel their eyes lingering, scanning him up and down in a strikingly similar manner to how he'd examined the kid not ten minutes ago. And in the newfound silence, Tony could hear a deep-seated ringing hovering in the back caverns of his ears, the familiar uncomfortable noise that had pierced his skull that horrible day he'd confronted Richard. His chest was burning. The heat was back.

"He couldn't even look at me, Rhodes." Slowly, he turned his head to stare up at his friend, a somber gaze passing between the two of them. "Did you see that?"

The colonel stared down at him, lips pressed tightly into a firm line. He didn't have to answer. Neither did Pepper. Every detail of the past half hour seemed to have carved itself into their minds, vivid and hard to ignore. Every twitch and flinch and stretched period of silence that made the atmosphere ten times heavier. The lingering traces of the sheer tense uncomfortableness still seemed to cling to them, a fog that hovered in the room, leaving them shifting on their feet and searching for an ever-changing sense of relief that remained elusive.

Rhodey gave a muted nod nevertheless. "I saw."

And after a second, the sheer electric nervousness Peter seemed to have left on the room became too much for Tony, for he pushed off of the ground for an excuse to move. "I mean...don't get me wrong. I wasn't expecting this to go off without a hitch. I was prepared for some bumps. I was expecting it to be a bit of a challenge at first. But this?"

He stopped and lifted his head towards the window. After a second, he noticed a bit of commotion near the edge of the glass. A little red and blue blur swung past, disappearing down into the mesh of other buildings and high-rises surrounding them.

"We were doing well," he sighed in a soft little voice, keeping his eyes on the window. "Not perfect, but...we were making it work. We'd finally found a way to make things work and now..." He swallowed, lowering his gaze as he stared down at the remnants of the sandwich he'd tossed away. "He couldn't even look at me." A piece of bread lay by his foot. He inched it away with the toe of his shoe. "Why couldn't he look at me?"

Again, they said nothing. No words of advice or hints of an answer. Not that Tony was really expecting one. Even he didn't have much to contribute in terms of a solution. But anything was better than the sheer gut-churning silence that had been plaguing the Tower for the week. So he kept going.

"At first, I thought he was just nervous. New tower, new place. Makes sense." He furrowed his brows and glared back down at the floor again. "But I've seen him be nervous before. Hell, that's practically his fucking language. But this?" He stopped pacing and let his eyes trace over the remnants of his sandwich once again. The single bite he'd taken was still more than Peter had eaten all day. In fact, the more he cycled through the memories of the past week, Tony began to realize that apart from practically shoving food into the kid's hands, Peter had been particularly averse to eating much of anything over the past few days. That, in itself was a concern. He'd seen the kid wolf down two pizzas on his own and still have room for dessert.

He thought of the little balls of bread on the kid's plate, small and pale as they pressed between his fingers.

"This...this isn't that. There's something else. There's something else that I'm not seeing."

The tingling in his legs was gone, taking with it any ounce of energy he might have previously had. With a little sigh, the man took a seat on the armrest of the nearby sofa, hands resting on his knees as he stared down at the floor. He heard the sound of the stools shifting against the ground and felt the approaching presence of the others.

"Tony," Pepper murmured softly, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder after another second. "Are you okay?"

He sucked in a small breath.

("You sure you're okay?")

His fingers tightened around his knees.

("Why wouldn't I be?")

He lifted his head to gaze up at her. "No. Cause he's not. And I don't know how to fix it."

The woman spared a glance towards Rhodey before giving a sigh of her own, taking a seat on the armrest next to Tony as her own hands rested in her lap. "Honestly, we're right there with you. This isn't just some run-of-the-mill nerves anymore. It's...it's like he's-"

"Regressed," Rhodey finished for her, folding his arms overtop his chest.

"Right back to the beginning. Like the day I first met him." Tony leaned forward to let his elbows rest on his knees as he folded his hands overtop his mouth, staring hard at the floor, looking past the sleek polished surface as if he could see through the foundations and stare right into the earth below those hundreds of floors. He could still feel it, that familiar prickling heat settling in his chest. He could feel it in his finger as they pressed against his lips, the same uncomfortable warmth from before, born from the same wave of emotion he'd felt all those weeks ago standing in the med-bay, patching up a kid who was too young to even have a learner's permit.

His fingers tensed. He felt the warmth flare against his ribs, scorching up against his sternum as his throat burned from the smoke rising up around him. "What did you tell him, Richard?" He whispered to himself, eyes transfixed on some silent predator lurking in the floors.

"What?" Pepper furrowed her brow and leaned closer.

Tony didn't answer her question, acted as if he hadn't even heard it. Instead, he rose back up to his feet. "I need to figure this out. None of this is going to work if he won't even talk to me. That's a non-starter." He shook his head and gave a little scoff as he brushed a hand through his hair in frustration. "So what am I supposed to do then? Ignore it? We've been playing that strategy all week and he's just been getting worse, so that's out. Confront him on it? Our track record for confronting our issues is very...explosive so I don't know if I want to go poking that bear right now either."

Rhodey gave a shake of his head. "So...what?"

"I don't know. This is the part where I was hoping you two would have something useful to contribute to the conversation."

Pepper and Rhodey shared a glance. The woman shrugged. "Honestly...we don't know, Tony."

"Perfect. Thanks for playing."

She rolled her eyes and rose up to her feet. "Listen, you know Peter better than either of us. If you don't know what's wrong, then how are we supposed to?"

He turned away. "That's the problem! If I don't know, then who does? Peter, for one, but he's not about to tell me. He can't even talk to me without tripping over his own tongue." He took a deep breath, placing his hands on his hips as he turned back towards the windows, gazing out over the city where somewhere, a little spider-clad teenager was hopefully doing better than they currently were.

Tony pinched at the bridge of his nose and started to pace once more, voice retaining its frustrated lilt once again. "We need help here. I need someone who might know what's going on. I need some clues here. I need information I'm not currently getting. I need-"

He paused, froze in his tracks as his jaw clamped shut. A second of silence was all he needed for the thoughts to align into place. Without another word, he spun around on his heel and made for the door, leaving Pepper and Rhodey to gape after him as he called over his shoulder,

"I need to make some calls."

 

---

 

Thursday - May 26, 2016

Queens, NY - Community Youth Center

03:21 PM

Peter went back to the house.

He knew he shouldn't have, but he couldn't help it. Within the first hour he'd been swinging onto the adjacent building's rooftop, peering over the edge at the windows of the townhouse next door. When he'd seen no lights, he'd dared to venture further, finding a vacated property with not a single sign of life.

They were already gone. The feelings of homesickness that lingered had revealed to the teen that it wasn't the house itself that he'd been longing to see.

So with his one chance of relief already gone for whatever business took priority, the teen had gone off to do what he'd elected to do in the first place: his job.

A few burglars, car thieves and a group of touring old ladies that had gotten lost around 31st street were pretty much all the day had summed up too, not that Peter could complain. Anything was better than sitting up there in his new dungeon up on the 107th floor like some modern-day Rapunzel. And while he was certain his web-shooters were way superior to any mile-long hair, Peter found that the desire to return was sorely dismissible.

Which was maybe how he found himself where he currently was.

It only took a minute to change out of his suit and into the pair of extra clothes he'd packed. He scaled the fire escape down to the alleyway and tightened the straps on his backpack, knowing that his current location was prone to a few desperate hands eager to make a grab for anything that could potentially be pawnable.

Thankfully, no such attempts were made from the people sitting along the walls or up against propped-up tents. They merely gave him a disinterested gaze before turning away. Peter made his way down the alley and out onto the street beyond, taking in the sight across the road, the reason for his coming in the first place.

Nobody called it the Youth Center. Nobody called it the CYC or whatever other acronym that got commonly passed around in city-wide board meetings to discuss how to excuse diverting even more funds away from the dilapidated building. Anybody who really did need said building, anybody who didn't pass it by on the street with a disinterested, apathetic glance and a curled lip of disgust and contempt called it what it really was.

The Hole was always open, no matter what time of day you came. What you'd actually find in it was another story, but the doors themselves were never locked, at least not to the people that needed them.

The building itself had seen better days. Going on five decades of use, the Hole - as it was commonly referred to by those who frequented the place - wasn't the prettiest, that much was for certain. The rust-colored bricks were old and faded with patches of ivy and weeds growing through the foundations. The roof sagged against the weight of time and the doors were crusty with oxidized metal fixtures. The grass was dead in some places and overgrown in others while the concrete sidewalk leading up the stairs to the doors were cracked and uneven. On the front wall overtop the doors sat two feet high, tilted and faded letters spelling out Queens Community Youth Center, with a few letter missing entirely.

By the front doors, Peter saw kids sitting on the steps, the older ones chatting amongst themselves while a younger pair of girls drew on the sidewalk with small cracked pieces of chalk that looked like the leftover pieces you'd find in the bottom of the box. Peter spared them a small glance, but he didn't move to approach, didn't make for the front doors.

Instead, he went around to the side of the building and walked along the chain-link fence separating the sidewalk from the large grassy area right next to the building. He could make out a few more kids running around in the grass. He kept walking until he came to the back of the building, where the grassy field transitioned into a hard, concrete basketball court, complete with net-less hoops and faded lines on the floor. A group of boys played on the court, passing a ball that barely bounced between each other.

Off to the side sat a group of two bleachers only about three benches high and complete with rusted metal seats. The bleachers were empty save for one solitary boy laying on his back against the seats, leg propped up on one knee as he held a cigarette between his teeth, eyes to the sky.

He was already speaking before Peter had even fully made it over to him.

"I need milk."

The teen actually stuttered in his step as he heard this, furrowing his brow as he leaned his head back. "What?"

"Milk. I need you to go get some for me."

Peter rounded the bleachers and stopped right behind them, staring up at Danny as the boy continued to lazily lay with his back pressing up against the seats themselves, arms folded underneath his head as he bobbed his leg up and down on his knee. Peter couldn't help the small smirk that fell onto his face at his friend's supposed indifference.

"Hello to you, too."

Danny threw him a glance from the corner of his eye. "What do you want, a kiss on the cheek?" He reached up and plucked the cigarette from the corner of his mouth, blowing out a puff of smoke as he did so. And judging from the smell of said discharge, Peter was willing to bet it wasn't your average cigarette. The teen held it out. "What some?"

"I'm good."

Danny finally sat up at that, groaning a bit as he pushed himself upright, letting his legs dangle off the sides of the bleachers. His overgrown black hair stuck up in every direction. "What're you doing here, anyway? I thought you were supposed to be livin' it up at Stark's little sky-high mansion by now."

Peter shuffled on his feet, sparing a glance behind his friends. He could hear the teens behind them shuffling around on the basketball court. Someone made a basket and the ball fell through the bare hoop with no more than a silent drop. "I am. I'm just...taking a break."

Another puff of his cigarette. "What? Got tired of bossing your butler around? How many you got there anyway?"

He pursed his lips. "Zero."

"Shocking. Guess Stark hogs them all for himself." He leaned his elbows down against his knees. "Seriously. A break from what?"

Peter glanced away but the sneakers squeaking against the concrete filled his ears with annoying high-pitched squeals. "Just...I don't really wanna talk about it."

Danny smirked. "Then you shouldn't have come to me, mate." He straightened up again and glanced over his shoulder before digging around in his pocket. "But later, because it's been like two full minutes and I still have no milk in my hands so let's get to it."

He shoved a crumpled stack of ones and fives into Peter's floundering hands, the teen blinking down at the money before giving the boy a strange look. 'Why don't you go and get it yourself?"

"I would, mate. But I've been permanently banned from that store."

Peter sighed and began to count the bills. "Do I even want to ask?"

"Not unless you got twenty minutes and a hankering for a tale about a flock of pigeons and some birdseed stuffed down an asshole's trousers."

"Right." He glanced back up again and eyed the convenience store across the street. It wasn't as well known as Delmar's, but Peter knew of it. The owner never seemed to look up from his stack of Car and Driver magazines.

"Uh, what kind of milk are we talking about?"

Danny pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. "What kind-? What the fuck question is that? Milk, mate! It's not that hard."

"No, I know. But like, how big of a carton?"

"Just like, one of those paper things you get at lunch. What, am I going to carry a gallon jug of milk with me?"

"Okay. What kind?"

"Jesus Christ, just fucking get the milk, would ya? Milk!"

"Okay, well there's a lot of different types of milk, moron!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

And after a very brief conversation about the various different kinds of milk and their respective percentages, Peter was off. Nobody paid him much mind as he crossed the street, not even the teens on the court. New faces were never something that interested the kids around said parts considering they were an everyday occurrence. Turn-around rates were high around the Hole.

So Peter only spent a few minutes in the convenience store (sparing a particularly suspicious glance to the sign posted outside the front door stating 'No birdseed of any kind allowed on the premises') before he was out and crossing the street again, returning with a small paper carton of milk secured in his hands. He recognized it as the type they usually handed out during lunch in the cafeteria.

Danny pulled out his cigarette and puffed out another smoke ring as he saw Peter approaching.

"Here's your milk," Peter tossed him the carton before handing the boy the remaining change from the transaction, sparing the cash a lingering look. Danny wasn't one to be very liquid. He furrowed his brows. "Where's you get that much money from anyway?"

Danny started to pocket it again. "You know how sometimes when you're walking, you'll see some bum sitting on the street playing a guitar and people will toss money into their guitar case?"

"Yeah...? Wait, do you play guitar?"

"Nah. I just run by and snag the cash while they're too busy fucking with their dumb-ass guitar."

Peter shut his eyes. "Oh my god."

"Hey, they can always make more. Tone-deaf assholes got to eat too." He jumped down from his seat and brushed past Peter. "Come on."

The teen watched him for a moment before hesitantly following after him. "Where're we going?"

"Shut your gums and you'll find out, ya wanker. Jesus, you're needy."

Peter rolled his eyes but followed nonetheless. Wordlessly, they walked off away from the court and around to the back of the building. Danny strutted around with the confidence of a high-powered attorney while Peter silently peddled after him, making sure to keep close as numerous glances were spared his way.

The alleyway was filled with different colored tents, the sort you'd see advertised in front of big-game hunting stores. Plastic bags and lawn chairs were set up along the walls with different groups of kids of various ages huddled around in packs, ranging from teens that were older than him to kids that probably wouldn't even qualify for middle school yet. Piles of garbage littered the floors, which Danny absentmindedly kicked along his path as he walked towards the back of the alleyway.

And as they walked, Peter noticed that, unlike the other teens huddling together sharing small talk, Danny didn't spare any of them a glance. He didn't wave or crack a grin or share an insider's greeting, not even with the kids Peter himself recognized to be longtime members of the streets. But this didn't surprise the teen. While the usual rules of the street demanded companionship and close-knit communities to survive, Danny was always the exception. In fact, there were days where Peter wondered if he was the only one Danny ever spoke to, if the boy just maintained a sense of silent isolation until Peter made an appearance and gave him an excuse to speak.

And the flare of unease that rose at this thought was enough to get him to speak once more.

"So...how long have you been camped out here?"

Danny spared a glance over his shoulder, looking down at the boy he was immensely taller than. He faced forward again. "Not long. Maybe a week. You know I don't like hanging out here too long. The staff starts getting all gushy, trying to convince me to turn back to CPS and whatever other shit they're on about."

Peter furrowed his brow. "They never call for you?"

"Nah, most of the chaps around here are kids like me, trying to stay out of the hands of those government snips." He tossed the milk up and caught it in his hand. "They call and we'll just go and find a new hole to scurry in till the coast is clear. So they know there's no point in trying." He spared a glance around him at the other teens huddled in the alley, picking through their ratty backpacks, eating scraps, sleeping in their tents, or chatting up with other kids. "Best they can do is hand out blankets, some meals and the occasional roof whenever the weather starts getting fucked." He tossed the milk into his other hand. "That's all we'll take."

He turned his head and gave a grin, showing off his yellowing teeth. "Besides, I like variety, mate. Can't very well stay in one place too long and get that. Then again, this place does have the benefit of that cute redhead that's always on food detail behind the counters."

"Who? Megan?"

"Yeah." Danny elbowed him in the sides. "She's sweet on me, too. Always gives me extra portions of meatloaf."

Peter grinned. "That's cause you're the only one who'll eat that stuff, dude."

"Hey. Food's food. Besides, you're just jealous cause I'm basically the perfect package." He tossed the milk again. "No obligations. No busy schedules and I'm always fit. Look at me. Not an ounce of fat." He ran a hand down his chest with an overdramatic flare of his hand and a flip of his hair. "Am I a catch or what?"

"I'm surprised you're still on the market."

"I like to play the field."

The teen snickered, Danny doing the same as they approached the end of the alleyway, meeting the seven-foot chain-link fence that separated them from the garbage clearing compete with two green grease-stained dumpsters, mounds of slick black garbage bags littering the floors, and piles of molding or crushed cardboard boxes. In terms of human life, though, the clearing was empty. But, Peter presumed, not for long if the way Danny tossed the milk over at him was any indication.

He caught it with ease and watched as his friend slipped his fingers around the metal looping of the fence before pushing the toes of his ratty shoes into the holes. It only took the teen a second to climb up and over the fence, his significant height difference on Peter most likely the cause. He landed on the other side with a bounce and a dusting of his hands before gesturing for Peter to toss the milk.

He did and Danny caught it easily before Peter stepped up to the fence as well. It was an easy jump, barely even cause for a blink. But the vast number of potential witnesses left him with the idea to play it safe. He climbed the fence even faster than Danny, though, hopping over and landing on his feet with barely a sound.

"Alright. Now what? And you still haven't told me what the milk's for."

Danny tossed him a grin over his shoulder and spun the milk around on the tip of his finger before turning away to walk further into the clearing. "Hush up and watch, Pipper."

Peter pursed his lips and gave a roll of his eyes but followed nonetheless, ignoring the nickname he'd been gifted with at ten. Four years later and he still hated it, which was all the more reason Danny refused to let it go.

Speaking of, Peter watched with a furrowed brow as Danny bent lower to the ground as he walked, eyes scouring the ground as he did so. And...was he clicking? Peter took a step forward. "What are you-?"

"Shut your mush. You'll scare her."

"Her?"

Danny continued with the strange cooing noises for a moment later before Peter heard it: a response.

He took another few steps forward, coming up to stand behind Danny as the older teen stopped at a pile of cardboard boxes with one particular crate positioned on top of the mound like a house on a hill. They both peered into the box, Danny giving a smile while Peter looked on with sheer confusion-

"There you are, darlin'."

-which quickly turned to shock.

"You have a cat?"

Danny didn't respond as he reached into the box and pulled it out, twisting around for Peter to see.

It was a fluffy little thing despite its size, barely bigger than Danny's cupped hands put together. It had surprisingly clean white fur with reddish blushes of color around the tips of its ears, nose, tail, and paws, and its eyes were almost as blue as the teen's currently holding it.

Danny tucked it closer to his chest and ran a few fingers over the top of its head. The cat - or kitten, considering its size - leaned into the touch, shutting its eyes as its toothpick of a tail stuck out stiff in content.

"This is Misty. I found her about a week ago, right around when I got here." Danny held her out closer. "Cute little thing, ain't she?"

Peter blinked down at her as she stared up at him. He took a small step back in case his friend tried to shove her into his hugely unqualified hands. "Uh...yeah. But I mean...where'd she come from?"

Danny tucked her back close where she brought her front paws up to rest on his chest before jumping up onto his shoulder. "Hell if I know." He shrugged and the kitten bobbed with the movement. "I was looking to see if I'd get lucky with any scraps someone had thrown away when I hear a meowing. Scruff around and find this little miss." He reached around and grabbed her as she began to walk along his shoulders, bringing her back to curl against his chest. He scratched at her belly. "Been feeding her the scraps from my own meals. She likes Cheetos."

"Healthy."

"Better than nothing."

Peter paused for a moment, watching Danny's attention become fully engrossed in the kitten currently curling up in his arms. He noticed the look on the boy's face, a relaxed sort of grin that he didn't see very often. Genuine, enough for Danny to actually look his age for once as nothing more than a sixteen-year-old kid playing with his kitten. Peter watched for a minute longer before his own grin settled onto his face. He stepped forward, seeing as how Danny probably wasn't about to force the thing onto him, and reached out a hand.

Danny let him scratch the top of the kitten's head. It was soft and downy. He could feel her purring underneath his fingertips. "She is cute," he finally sighed with a smile as he continued to pet her. The red blushings of color around her ears and tail seemed unique in a way, not something he saw too often in the alley cats that commonly frequented Queens. Usually they were black or tabby cats. This almost seemed like the sort of cat he could see one of his friends owning, not a cat you'd see dumpster-diving alongside the rats. He gazed down at her for a moment longer before glancing back up

"Why Misty?"

Danny glanced up as well, seemingly jolted from his thoughts as Peter spoke. "Hmm?"

"Misty? Why that name? Any reason?"

Danny held his gaze for a moment of silence that was already in itself fairly strange for him. Danny wasn't one to hesitate, and certainly not in a quiet manner. And yet, Peter watched as he averted his gaze and settled his eyes back on Misty, running his fingers through her fur as he shuffled on his feet.

Peter didn't say anything, just watched him with a new intensity to his gaze. The carefree smile on the older teen's face was gone, replaced with a look of passive indifference that was too forced to be real. Again, Peter found this weird. There were few things on Earth that Danny cared about. Why was he now faking an indifference that he could usually conjure up no problem?

Danny continued to scratch Misty's head before letting out a little breath, giving a small shrug of his shoulders that didn't shake off the obvious aura of tension that now lingered between them.

"My, uh...my mum...had a cat that looked a lot like her." He didn't look up as he spoke. His voice held its usual casual flippantness. Peter knew it was fake.

"Same coat colors and everything. Same name. Figured...why not?" Now Danny did look up and for the first time in who knew how long, Peter saw something in the older teen's eyes, something that almost made him freeze right there, something that left those blue eyes of his looking a bit colder, gazing a bit sharper. Before he could really digest the look, it was gone, washed away with a blink as Danny's face took on its usual cocky attitude of mischief. He held Misty up to his face and grinned. "Course, this little babe is way sweeter than that cunt of a cat my mum used to have. Isn't that right, Misty? Yes it is!"

Peter didn't respond. Instead, he turned his head away and glanced down at the sand and dirt-covered ground underneath their feet. He could still hear Danny cooing at the kitten in his hands, but he didn't watch. He felt his fingers tapping up against the sides of his legs as his eyes traced the patterns in the dirt. He knew that look. He knew he did. But from where? In whose eyes?

The cooing noises stopped. He glanced up and noticed Danny was gazing at him now, kitten comically tucked under one arm like a textbook. She didn't seem to mind, at least. "What? I see those gears turning, mate. What's up?"

Peter stared back at him for a moment, didn't respond right away. The look was gone...but not entirely. He could still see it, could feel it in the way Danny was staring at him. The older teen's plea was silent, but Peter could hear it, could see it in his body language, the new stiffness that had entered his posture, the extra gleam shining through in his eyes. He was willing a silence, an apathy that they both usually accepted, a mutual agreement to move on, let it go, and forget as they always did, as they'd been doing ever since they'd known each other.

Peter chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second before he finally spoke what they were both waiting for.

"Do you ever think about them?"

Danny blinked and his jaw tensed ever so slightly. "Who?"

But he already knew.

"Your parents."

Peter heard his friend's shoes scuff against the ground, heard the sound of his teeth beginning to grind in his skull. But there was no outward aggression, no signs of anger or distress. Danny's gaze was strong, staring back at him with those bright blue orbs of icy-frost that always seemed to sharp, so perceptive, so ready to fight and win. So strong and stubborn and always willing to argue, to poke and prod and make noise despite his positions of silence on the streets.

But he was silent now. He was silent long enough for Peter to shift his weight, to clench his fists behind his back as he waited. Danny broke his gaze and glanced down at Misty. She looked up at him.

Finally, he sniffed and cast a glance around them. "Not here."

Without another word, Danny grabbed Misty and gently stuffed her into the front pockets of his sweater before turning away towards the fire escape leading up the building next door to the Community Center. Peter hesitated for a moment before following.

It was a short climb. The building was only three stories. But the buildings on that street were lucky to still be standing so a three-story tenement was basically a skyscraper, which probably explained why Danny had chosen it as his spot.

And his residency was obvious. His signature bright orange tent was the first thing Peter spotted, propped up in the center of the rooftop clearing with a few other traditional camping supplies scattered around it, including a sleeping bag, a few rolled-up blankets, and some unopened cans. There were some lawn chairs set up as well, cracked and rusted and years beyond their prime, as well as a couple backpacks presumably filled with old clothes.

Danny walked past all of this and went to stand by the ledge of the roof, overlooking the run-down shadow-encrusted streets that surrounded the Youth Center. He fetched Misty from his pocket and held her against his chest once more. Peter watched for a moment before silently walking over to stand next to him. 131st avenue stared back at them with its dilapidated homes, abandoned streets and gutted cars littering the roads. Upturned shopping carts and bags of garbage rolled along the sidewalks, joining the blowing scatterings of newspapers and rolled up junk that flew along the cracked roads. And everywhere you turned, there was someone, at least a single person shuffling along, ratty jackets pulled around their sickly forms as they leaned against the walls or pushed their carts in front of them like rusted shields.

Peter stuffed his hands into his pockets and pulled it a bit tighter around himself as he let out a small sigh. "Nice view," he murmured softly.

Danny didn't turn to look at him, merely kept staring out overtop the buildings as he ran his fingers through Misty's fur. "Why I picked it, mate. Plus then I don't have to socialize with the party down there." The older teen kept his eyes on the distance for a moment longer before wetting his lips, sparing a glance down as he crouched and swung his legs overtop the edge of the roof, sitting down on the ledge with Misty secured in his lap. Danny gazed down at her and continued to run his fingers across her head. "Why are you here, Peter?" He didn't look up as he spoke. "Why are you here...and not living it up with Stark right now? I mean...isn't this what you wanted?"

Peter continued to watch him for a moment longer before turning his eyes back to the view. His fingers rubbed up against each other in his pockets, the fabric course and old. He swallowed and stepped closer to the edge. "It is...sort of."

Danny threw him a curious glance. Peter sighed and crouched down to sit next to him on the edge of the roof, his heels bouncing against the rough bricks that made up the walls of the building. He pulled his hands from his pockets and folded them in his lap. "It's not that I don't want to be there. It's just that..." He trailed off, face scrunching a bit as a new bubble of uncertainty bloomed in his chest.

He threw Danny a nervous glance. "...You're going to get angry."

Danny rolled his eyes and held up a hand, using his fingers to mark a cross on his chest. "Cross my heart. Besides, there's a kitten in my lap. Literally, you could slug me in the face right now and I'd probably apologize to you."

Peter scoffed and turned away again, but the uncertainty remained, hot and muggy in his throat. He could feel that same pressure up against his lungs, the same constant weight that had been with him for the better part of the week, lingering like a stain on his skin. "I...it's just that I..." His tongue was swelling again, like a sponge too big for his mouth, stuffing down his throat and choking the words back. He curled his fingers. "I..."

"You miss him...don't you?"

Peter turned to look at Danny. The boy stared at him with an unreadable expression. "Your dad."

Peter held his gaze for a moment. There was none of the anger he'd been ready for, the disappointment and contempt that Danny was known for tossing around like unused change. There was none of that this time. No chastising comments or disparaging insults about how pathetic he was. Danny was silent. Peter turned away and let his eyes drift over the sight below him once more.

"I don't know how to do this." He stared down at his hands, noticed how pale they were save for the faint blush of red at his fingertips. He imagined he could see the blood pooling around his fingers like paint, dripping off the tips to the ground below. "I don't know how to...be away from him. That's...never happened before. At least, not for this long. Maybe a week at the most whenever he'd go off for his trips, his rounds, whatever. This...this is different."

Peter could still remember the times when his father wouldn't even let him leave the house without some sort of escort or guard to accompany him down the streets, and not for Peter's safety, but for his own. On the off chance that Peter took a risk and tried to flag down a cop or a straggler on the street to twist some elaborate tale about an abusive household and a psychotic father at the helm of it, said guard or escort would be right there to laugh it off with the excuse of wild child-like imaginations and too much TV.

He remembered one time, one attempt, his last. Four years ago. It cost him two months of summer confined to his room, both the balcony doors and the door to his room completely bolted shut with industrial locks and meals of fruit and milk that left him close enough to starvation to teach a strong lesson.

So the idea that the same man that had installed metal shutters on the windows, bolts on the fridge and five separate titanium locks on the front door could somehow agree to letting his son go off unaccompanied and unmonitored for two months nearly left him floundering in the shock of it all.

Maybe his father just trusted him.

That couldn't be bad...right?

Peter kept fiddling with his fingers, pressed the tip of one nail into his pinkie. "I keep trying to just relax and...go along with whatever Mr. Stark wants me to do. I mean, I should be happy, right?" He glanced over toward Danny. "I should be stoked with where I am right now. I'm living at Stark freaking Tower with an Avenger. I should probably be condemned for complaining about all of this when we're literally twenty feet from a community center filled with some of the most down-on-their-luck kids in the whole city."

"I mean, it's not the best look but whatever."

Peter chewed on the bottom of his lip, turning away again as he looked out over the streets below, tracing the cracks in the concrete that led to pothole after pothole. "It's just that..." He continued to press his nail into his pinkie, digging in harder as the skin started turning white. "It's like...it's like my dad...never left."

He paused to take a breath, found it to be a bit shaky as he inhaled. Danny watched him out of the corner of his eye, Misty tucked protectively to his chest.

"Whenever I move, whenever I speak, it's like here's there, looking over my shoulder. Watching whatever I do, watching and waiting for me to make a mistake, to break a rule, something to give him an excuse to jump out and punish me." Peter scrunched his nose and furrowed his brow. He could feel a sharp stinging as his nail continued to dig into his skin. His voice took on an almost bitter quality. "At least back home, I knew it was happening. I wasn't paranoid for thinking it because it's exactly what was happening. I was always being watched, wherever I went, on the streets, at school, everywhere, everything I did. I was used to it. It was normal.

"But now? I just..." He broke the skin. He pulled his hand back, the tip of his nail pricked with a dot of blood as it bubbled up onto the surface of his pinkie. He swallowed and wiped the blood away on his pants. "I don't even know how to describe it."

Danny watched him in silence for a moment before leaning forward. Misty jostled in his grip a bit before curling into a ball on his lap. "Try."

Peter turned to him and their eyes met once more. The older teen's gaze was as perceptive as ever. Peter could still see a trace of that look still lingering around the edges, clinging to his eyes with an insistent stubbornness. He licked his lips and lowered his head, strands of light brown hair dangling before his eyes. He brushed them away and the words followed next.

"Lab rats." More blood bubbled onto his finger. "It's like those...lab rats. The ones that grow up in cages, spending their entire lives conducting tests, running mazes, getting needles poked into their backs, learning what to do and what not to do, what gets them rewards and what gets them shocked." His skin tingled, an unsettling itch that shot through his muscles like a bolt of electricity. The hairs on his arm stood on end. He brushed a hand over them and felt the goosebumps that now accompanied them. Danny said nothing.

"So...you have this rat that's...only ever known one thing. One thing has been its entire life: the walls of that cage, of that lab." His tongue was swelling again. Or maybe his throat was just closing up. Whatever the case, Peter found he now had to focus on the words, had to really concentrate to get them out, like a fight he had to put all his energy into. "And all of a sudden, you take that rat and...release him into the woods, into some big unknown forest and tell it to run off, to be free and live a new happier life.

"And what happens? They freeze. They don't know what to do. There's no scientist telling it what to do, no walls to keep it from going somewhere dangerous." He clenched his fingers around the ledge of the building, felt it beginning to crumble under his grip.

"It's free. And that's...terrifying." Another breath, shakier this time. "Because... because it's not. Not really. You've just put it in a bigger cage. Another test to run. Only this time, it knows it'll only end in failure." Peter shut his eyes, clenched them tightly for a second as he let his ears soak in the noises of the city, tried to overpower the sudden high-pitched whine that seemed to emanate from his skull, chattering his teeth and blinding him with big bright spots before his eyes. He inhaled, let it out even slower. He opened his eyes back up, gave a little scoff. "That rat lasts - what? A day? Maybe two if they're lucky, if they can find some hole to hide in before something bigger swoops in and kills it?" He clenched his fists tighter around the ledge. A few pieces actually broke off in his hand. "How is that any better than the life it was already living?"

Danny leaned back a bit, face tightening just a tad as his eyes narrowed. His voice was level. "Except you're not a lab rat, Peter."

Peter pulled his hands away from the ledge, lifted the new broken off piece of the brickwork and held it in his palm. It was rough, hardened with age as parts of it crumbled in his palm, leaving little scattered bits and pieces that dribbled between his fingers.

"All it wanted was to go home...back to his cage." Peter gently folded his fingers around the rock, his voice barely above a whisper. But he could feel it waver in his throat, felt it catch and thicken as it leaked out. "Why is that so wrong?"

Danny watched him fiddle with the stone. He hesitated for a moment before tilting his head. "Is that what you want?" he asked softly. "To go back to him? Back to those...monsters?"

("You ever try something like that again and I'll cut your fucking tongue out.")

("How's bout it, Peter? Two more days? Three? I can do this forever but something tells me that stomach of yours isn't going to last that long.")

("I'm so sorry about that, sir. You know how kids can get. Four daughters? My god, you're a hero. I can barely handle this guy over here. I think maybe I should cut back the TV. Maybe that'll help things.")

("Lock the doors. He doesn't leave this fucking room, you hear me? I want him to learn.")

("You know I love you, Peter.")

A single drop landed on the stone in his hand, darkening a splotch before he crushed the rock into nothing but bits of dust. He sniffed and quietly brushed his free hand against his cheek, wiping away the single trail of moisture that remained.

"I...I don't know." He opened his hand and allowed the pile of dust to gently dribble away. "I don't know."

Danny let out a little sigh and turned away, glancing back down to focus on Misty. "Has Stark said anything about all this?"

Peter gave a shake of his head. "I haven't said anything to him. Honestly, I've been trying to avoid him. Cause I know he knows something's wrong. And I'm so afraid that he's going to call me out and I won't know what to say. Like, 'hey, I know you've been working your ass off to get me here and I'm just so damn ungrateful, aren't I? Whoops! Those darn teenage hormones, huh?'"

He dropped his hands back down into his lap and let out a little sigh. Danny pursed his lips and kept stoking the kitten in his lap.

"He'd understand."

Peter scoffed but didn't glance over. "Would he?"

"He's understood everything else and he's still here so it's safe to say you haven't scared him off."

"Yet." Peter bit the inside of his cheek and shook his head before gazing back down at his hands. They were dusty now, a pale gray with smudges of dirt around the creases. He rubbed them together, traced the smudges with his fingers. "I'm in the woods," he whispered, pushing the dust around as it tickled his skin, running along the deep grooves of scars long forgotten. "In the forest. I need a hole. I need...to find some way to survive."

Danny clicked his tongue. "You've survived nine years in hell. What's two months in heaven?"

Peter narrowed his eyes. "I survived cause my dad told me how to survive," he growled back with a newfound frustration that hadn't been there before. "He gave me everything I needed: what to do, what not to do, how to act, what to say, how to look-"

"How to live."

He stopped, swallowed what felt like a new rock in his throat, like he'd shoved the old one into his mouth and tried to dry-swallow it like a few pills. "There are...rules. Important rules."

Danny scoffed and his face twisted. "You don't need instructions on how to live, Peter."

"But I do need instructions on how to not die."

Danny tensed his jaw at that. Peter heard him swallow and shift a bit in his seat, a new heaviness in the air around them.

Peter didn't turn to look at him, though. Didn't want to see the despair he could feel in his chest mirrored on his friend's face. Instead, he just kept tracing little circles into his palm with the tips of his fingers, tracing the feel of dust and dirt on his skin. "I'm in the woods," he repeated. "And I'm lost. I need...something. Something I can fall back on. And if I can't fall back on him, I can at least fall back on his words. But I need...something. Otherwise..." He lifted his hand and glanced at the dust-covered fingers, more specifically, at the pinkie that had still yet to scab over. The cut was still visible, caked with dust, browned with dirt.

"...I won't last a day."

Peter swallowed and kept chewing on his lower lip. He could taste the tang of copper from the cut he'd gotten that morning, running the tip of his tongue over the newly scabbing scratch on his lip. And for a brief moment, he thought of the Tower, thought of Mr. Stark. What was the man doing right now? Was he thinking about Peter? Worrying about him? Peter ran a finger over the cut on his pinkie, brushing away the dirt and the dust from the scratch. What would Mr. Stark think if he told him all of this? What would he say?

("Anything to keep you as far away from them for as long as possible.")

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his hand rest back down in his lap as a new wave of gut-wrenching loneliness bloomed inside of him, thick and suffocating against his throat.

Mr. Stark wouldn't understand. Not this.

( "As long as you're out of that house, I'm happy.")

Nobody understood this.

("Is that what you want? To go back to him? Back to...those monsters?")

He was alone.

It was growing, moving, whatever was inside of him. That same sticky residue that he'd felt that first night in the Tower. He could feel it shifting and prodding against his insides, crawling along his skin, up his throat. The tingling was back, a deep hum of vibrating electricity that coursed alongside his muscles, leaving him breathless as he fought to control the sudden bone-cracking anxiety beginning to loom overtop him. He could feel it. Could feel it building in his chest. That same panic from before. He curled his fingers into the fabric of his jeans and grit his teeth together, willing and praying the fog building in his head to recede and leave him alone.

Something bumped his shoulder. Peter opened his eyes and the fog disappeared. The ink was still there, still sticking to the insides of his chest, but it receded, hissed and curled away just a tad. He turned towards the side, blinking down at the kitten now being offered to him. He furrowed his brow and trailed his gaze back over to Danny, who simply gave a little shake of his hand, Misty shaking right along with him. She didn't seem to mind.

Peter hesitated for a moment before reaching over and carefully plucking the kitten out of his friend's hands, bringing her to sit on his lap. She stared up at him with her big blue eyes before running her cheek against his hand. Peter watched her settle into his lap for a moment before he let a small, wavering smile slip onto his face. Hesitantly, he lifted a hand and carefully began to brush his fingers overtop her back.

"I try not to."

He jolted and turned back towards Danny. The teen was reaching into his back pocket and had pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Now that his hands were free, he plucked a smoke from the pack and pressed it to his lips. "You asked before...if I think about them a lot. My parents. The truth is that I try not to. Which isn't very hard most days considering I got a lot on my plate out here, looking over my shoulder to make sure those guitar freaks don't try to jump me with their stupid fucking picks looking for revenge or whatnot."

Peter chuckled. The smile settled into a look of silence as Danny pulled out his lighter and flicked it open, pressing the flame to the tip of his cigarette. The older teen didn't put it away though. He just kept staring at that little manufactured flame, the tiny little lickings of orange light.

"But...I do sometimes. Think about them. And honestly, it ain't even that bad. You know why?"

Peter shook his head. Danny flicked the lighter closed and shoved it back into his pocket before throwing him a grin. It was a plastered look. Fake.

"Cause I got a strategy."

Danny pulled the cigarette from his mouth and blew out a ring of smoke. He watched it settle into the air for a moment before resting his hand on his knee. "Like, sometimes, I'll be roaming around the Hole, and I'll see some mug with her hair done up similar to how my mum used to do it and, you know, I'll think about shit." He sniffed and rolled his eyes. "Like, specifically how she used to drag me to her boring fucking hair appointments and made me sit in those plastic waiting chairs for hours, mate. Just bored out of my mind while she chatted up with some people I couldn't have cared less about."

He switched the cigarette into his other hand. "Or like, this one time when she spanked me for breaking some fucking vase that she'd gotten from my nan. Like, full open palm spank. The sort of spank that leaves you walking funny for a few days. Just a total bitch."

He placed the cigarette back between his teeth.

"Other times, I'll be walking around the streets and I'll see some bloke with the ugliest tie imaginable, something my dad would have worn just to embarrass my mum, and I'll remember how I'd barely ever see the guy." He shrugged his shoulder and leaned his elbows into his knees. "He worked at some canning factory, had been doing it longer than I'd been alive and he was always there long into the night. Sometimes I wouldn't see him all fucking day. Or like how this one time I was having some issues at school. Nothing interesting, just normal kid shit. So I pretended that I was sick so I could stay home." He grinned and let out a little chuckle.

"Fucker wasn't buying it and sent me to school anyway where I proceeded to get the shit kicked out of me on the playground for something I don't even remember anymore."

Danny sniffed and ran the back of his hand under his nose before brushing a few stray strands of hair out of his face. He pulled the cigarette back out and blew another puff of smoke. Peter watched him in silence as the teen stared down at the roll in his hands, twisting it back and forth between his pinched fingers. When he spoke again, his voice was softer this time.

"Little shit like that. Things that you usually try to forget and ignore when you think of someone close to ya, you know? Things you overlook." He watched the tip of the cigarette steadily shrink as the ash collected at the end. "I like thinking about those things. Those things that make you mad."

Peter blinked before turning his gaze back down to Misty. She was playing with the pockets of his jacket, sticking her head into the little folds of cloth as her tail stuck up straight into the air. He noticed Danny watching her intently, gazing carefully as if to make sure she was still alright. He turned away not a moment later though.

"Course...after I broke my mum's vase, she came up to my room...apologized for screaming." He flicked the cigarette and watched as the ash collecting at the tip broke off and blew away with the wind. "I remember her sitting on my bed, telling me stories about my nan, someone who'd died while my mum was pregnant. And my dad...after that day at school, he took a half-day at work and picked me up."

The boy's face broke into a small little grin, shallow and ghost-like, but there. "We went out for ice cream and walked through the park for a couple hours."

Peter watched him carefully, watched the look from before slowly seep back into his eyes. He heard Danny swallow and shove the cigarette back into his mouth as he cleared his throat and purposely angled his head away. His voice roughened. "Doesn't matter. They could still be annoying as shit. So...I try to remember all that. The annoying shit. To...I don't know..."He puffed another ring and pulled the roll from his mouth. "...make things easier, I guess."

Danny didn't turn to look at him, didn't say anything else after that. He just kept sitting there, elbows pressed into his knees, cigarette limp between his fingers. Peter ran his fingers over Misty's head and chewed the inside of his cheek, felt that same cloying ink from before in his chest.

"And...does it?" He asked softly. "Make things easier?"

Danny hesitated for a moment before slowly turning to look at him. And as he did, Peter saw that look in his eyes and felt his fingers curling tightly as he finally felt it stir something in his gut, a sense of realization and familiarity.

He did know that look. And he had seen it before.

Grief. A subset, at least, a dulled film of longing that hovered overtop the teen's irises, anguish and sorrow mingling together to create a heart-stopping sea of emotion and heartache. But grief in a different form, a different shape. It was darker, harder, calcifying like stone. Grief that didn't slowly seep away into acceptance and adjustment. Grief that lingered and rotted like an infection, poisoning the blood and weakening the muscles, leaving a withered husk of pain, anger and hatred.

Peter did know that look. He saw it every day when he passed his father in the halls, in the kitchen, in his office. It was that same piercing look that left him a defenseless puddle, a deer in headlights every time his father froze him with that stare, with that look of burning fervor.

Poisonous grief.

Danny held him with that look for a moment longer, that look that seemed to sum up all the pain and anguish of years long past in a single glance. The teen let a small smile onto his face, loose and casual as he turned away and glanced back down at his cigarette, flicking it away.

"Nah."

Peter wet his lips and turned away as well, didn't want to keep looking at that stare, that film over his friend's eyes, a film he was beginning to realize had always been there, had always existed. He'd just never noticed it before. Or maybe he hadn't wanted to.

A meow broke the silence between them. Both boys lifted their heads and turned towards the kitten in Peter's lap. She was kneading against his pants and staring up with an almost annoyed look in her eyes before letting loose another aggravated meow.

Danny stared at her with furrowed brows before he scoffed. "Oh. Fucking right. You're hungry. I almost forgot, little miss." The teen swung his legs overtop the ledge of the roof and stood back up, pulling the carton of milk from before out of his jacket pocket. He extended a hand and Peter carefully handed her over. "Come on, pretty girl. Let's get you fed."

Peter watched with a small smile as Danny brought the kitten over to his tent and started rummaging through his bag. He pulled out a plastic water bottle that had been cut vertically down the middle, creating a trough of sorts. Peter chuckled as the teen undid the cap on the milk and poured it into the bottle before setting both it and Misty down on the ground. As he worked to make sure it was secure, he spoke.

"Listen up, Pip. You've handled some rough shit in your times. I'd say this is just another bump." He stepped back and allowed Misty to eagerly start lapping up the milk in the bottle. Danny crushed up the empty carton and tossed it over his shoulder before walking back over. "You'll figure this muck out. You're a smart little shit." He clapped Peter on the shoulder before swinging his legs back over to sit on the ledge once more.

Peter furrowed his brows and scoffed a bit. "Thanks?"

"No big thing, mate," Danny grinned with that signature mischievous little smirk of his. Peter chuckled and elbowed him in the side as he shook his head, allowing the easy air that Danny always emanated to wash over him and bring him down from the panicked high he'd been sporting before.

However, as Peter leaned a hand against the roof ledge and let his eyes trace the street below, he felt his neck give an uncomfortable tingle that instantly had him sitting upright. He whipped around, eyes scouring to detect the sudden threat his senses had picked up on. Danny didn't seem to notice, for he was too busy watching Misty over his shoulder.

But as Peter continued to scan the streets below for anything that could have set off his senses, he furrowed his brow as he set his sights on something strange. Or rather...someone.

It was a...girl. And she was staring right at him.

She was older, maybe 18 or 19, definitely older than him. She had rich dark skin and long black dreadlocks tied up into a messy bun atop her head. The backpack by her feet and the cold gleam in her eyes matched the defiant glares of the other kids around the Hole, but there was something...strange about her. He could tell just by the way his neck continued to tingle as their eyes met. 

Her stare was dark, hardened and emotionless behind a shine of dark green eyes. Peter actually found himself wanting to squirm under her piercing look. He curled his fingers and leaned closer to Danny, though he made sure to keep his eyes on her. "Who is that?"

"Who?" Danny turned back around. Peter angled with his head towards the street, not wanting to point and make it any more obvious that he was talking about her. "That. Down there. That girl. She's just staring at us." Wrong. She was staring at him.

Danny leaned over a bit and followed Peter's gaze to the streets below. When he finally saw her, he shrugged his shoulders and straightened back up. "Oh. That's Jo."

"Jo?"

"Johanna. We don't use last names around here. We all just know her as Jo. She's a veteran, like me. Most kids around here been on the streets less than a year. Jo's going on six."

Peter watched her, watched her hold his gaze relentlessly, as if she could hear what they were saying even from this far away. He resisted the urge to shift in his seat. "Do you...know anything about her?"

"Just that the kids that hang around her aren't usually prone to showing their faces again."

This got Peter to turn away from her and over towards Danny, arching a brow. "What do you mean?"

Danny shrugged. "You never really see them again. My money's on that she eats them." He sniffed and gave a smirk. "But other than the potential cannibalism, she's pretty chill. Good for a smoke."

Peter turned his head back towards the street and blinked as he realized she was gone. He scanned the sidewalk and the nearby buildings, but there was no sign of her. Danny continued. "But just to stay on the safe side, I'd steer clear of her, mate. She's a vet for a reason. You don't get good at maneuvering these streets without a few side effects."

"Yeah, I know. You're a hoot to be around."

Danny scoffed. "I'm the exception, bitch." He reached behind him and pulled out another cigarette, putting it back into his mouth as he reached for his lighter.

Peter gave a little chuckle and turned his gaze back to the street. He heard Danny flicking his lighter open as he continued to scan the roads, looking for any sign of the girl - Jo, apparently. But there was nothing. Like she'd vanished into thin air. He hesitated for a moment before letting out a sigh as he rubbed at the back of his neck. It was probably nothing. Just paranoia getting the better of him, as usual.

Instead, he turned and glanced over at Danny, watching as the teen lit his fresh cigarette and slipped his lighter back into his pocket. The lingering in his chest was still there, present enough for him to wonder if it would ever go away. But he had to admit, Danny made for some pretty good company. He didn't say this aloud, though. Danny would never accept it with anything more heartfelt than a middle finger. But they both knew it to be true. Nothing had to be said. They just knew.

He supposed four years of friendship led to that sort of thing.

. . .

. . .

"Alright. I cave. Tell me."

"What?"

"The birdseed story. Spill it."

"Fucking yes, mate. Alright, well for starters, it was Tuesday. And you know they always have those half-off deals on Tuesdays for the hotdogs on that little spinny-thing. You know that thing?"

 

---

 

Thursday - May 26, 2016

2765 Springshore Dr. - Brenner Residence

04:32 PM

"What the hell am I looking at right now?"

"Banoffee pie." May stuck her head out of the kitchen, dirty towel draped over her shoulder, seemingly oblivious to the repulsed look Tony was not so subtly eying his plate with. "I'm trying out some new recipes so let me know what you guys think." She ducked back into the questionably-scented kitchen, emanating with thick, strong-smelling whiffs of flour, sugar, and something acidic that left Tony's nose wrinkling.

He spared his plate another eyeing glance. It was a gelatinous mess of a "pie", sitting heavily on his plate like a still-beating human heart, raw and meaty. In fact, the longer he looked at it, the more sure he was of its almost unquestionable ability to main and destroy in a way that only bad cooking could do.

"Right..." Tony drawled with a pulled out sigh. He hesitantly lifted his gaze away from the monstrosity in his hands and over to the couch he currently stood in front of, catching the eyes of the two teens sitting on it. Michelle rolled her eyes and turned away, so there was no help from her. But Ned was incredibly deliberate in the way he frantically shook his head 'no.' Their own respective pies sat a safe-enough distance away on the coffee table in front of them.

The billionaire remained standing in his spot in front of the two of them, hand on his hip as he continued to throw suspicious glances down at the jiggling mass before him. "Okay, well...besides the slightly concerning fact that you're slowly creating a very stable alibi for yourself should you ever try to test out death by poisoning, can we get back to the topic at hand, please?" He silently strode over to the living room window and pushed it open. "I did come here for reasons besides your fabulous cooking." He had to shake the plate a few times before the 'pie' finally slid off and into the bushes outside.

"Right, right, sorry." He shut the window right as May scurried back into the room, handing the two teens a few bottles of water, to which they gave thankful nods of their heads. She herself sat back against the loveseat nearby with a still steaming cup of coffee in her hands, the smell enough for Tony to inwardly groan at the sudden urge to snatch it up and gulp it down still scalding hot. But he didn't ask for a cup. He didn't have time for that.

To their credit, the second he'd messaged the three of them saying he had a problem with Peter and needed to talk to them, they were dropping everything and agreeing to meet at May's house not twenty minutes later. Fast forward through Tony's speedy and slightly frantic recounting of the week's events as well as May's sporadic attempts to throw in some near-death incidents disguised as desserts found the four of them where they were now: still at square fucking one.

"So, where is Peter anyway?" Michelle asked, resting an elbow on the sofa's armrest as she folded one leg over the other.

"He..." went swinging around the city cause he'd rather be spending time with thieves and murders than with me, apparently. "...went out for a walk. Said he wanted to...clear his head." Tony pressed the base of his palm against his eye, felt the pressure of an ever-growing migraine beginning to strengthen behind his pupils. "Look, I wouldn't have called you three here if I had any other choice."

Michelle sniffed with an unimpressed glare. "Thanks."

Tony threw the look right back at her, knowing full well that if anybody could take one of his glares and brush it off like it were nothing, it was her. "You know what I mean. I'm at a loss. The kid won't talk to me. All he does is sit in his room."

May leaned forward a bit. "And?"

"And...what?"

"He can't just sit in his room doing nothing all day. He's still a teenager."

Tony scoffed. "You wanna see the tapes? I've had FRIDAY keeping an eye on him and so far he seems to be switching between pacing around his room, talking to himself, and writing in some notebook he brought with him. That's it. Six days of that. At most, I can get him to come out to eat dinner and sometimes breakfast, but other than that, he just locks himself in there."

Ned, clearly the most uncomfortable of the four of them, most likely because of the billionaire standing not even five feet from him, fiddled with his hands. "Has he said anything?"

Tony took an obligatory second to tune through the week of memories, but he knew there was no point. It was all imprinted into the forefront of his mind like a bad tattoo he couldn't get rid off. "Not a word. Not unless I start the conversation and then it's one-worded answers and dead-end topics." He moved the hand from his eye up to his hair and noticed for the first time how greasy it seemed. Though he supposed it matched the plain T-shirt and worn sweatpants he'd arrived in, any and all fucks towards appearances going out the window right alongside May's Banoffee pie. "I'm getting nothing here."

May pursed her lips, but said nothing, instead lifting her steaming mug up to her mouth. The teens, on the other hand, exchanged quick worried glances with each other. Tony picked up on it immediately, his frayed nerves leaving him desperate for any sort of clue or answer he could grasp onto like a child with their blanket.

"What? You two got something? Anything?"

Ned wet his lips and glanced away. He continued to mess with his fingers. "Nothing. It's just that..." He trailed off for a moment, face twisting into an uneasy grimace of sorts. "That's...usually how he act when...when, uh..."

Michelle folded her arms over her chest. "When he shows up to school with a few extra bruises on his face." And the glare she sent Tony's way had the man standing up straighter, resisting the urge to bristle under her pointed gleam.

He narrowed his eyes and spoke in a low voice. "I don't like what you're insinuating," he growled, swallowing down the sudden churning that bubbled deep down in his gut at the sheer suggestion of it.

Michelle obviously noticed his sudden shift, for she rolled her eyes and scoffed in a way that had the man relaxing somewhat. "I'm not saying you're locking him up like some comic book villain, idiot. I'm saying we've seen this before."

Tony held her gaze for a moment before turning away, running a hand over the back of his neck as he breathed in deeply. May shifted in her seat, resting her hands against her knees as she gazed back at him earnestly, seemingly just as desperate for answers as he was. "Tony...you know him. You know how he is. Are you honestly telling me that you weren't expecting this?"

His watch beeped. Everyone in the room spared it a little glance as he brushed his fingers overtop it and killed the alarm. "Of course I was," he muttered as he began to fiddle with his pocket. "I wasn't expecting things to just magically align all perfectly right off the bat. But...this is..." He felt his mouth stuttering over the words in the same fashion as it had back at the Tower, back when he'd tried to explain things to Pepper and Rhodey. It came with the same terse tingling shooting overtop his skin, making his hands shake as he continued to reach into his pocket and tried to get a good enough grip on the bottle inside. "This is different."

His fingers finally fastened around the bottle and he pulled it out, a familiar bright orange prescription tab that Pepper had nearly forced into his hands before he'd left the Tower an hour ago, reminding him to listen to his alarm when it went off reminding him to take his medication. He didn't look up at the others in the room as he began to fiddle with the cap. None of them said anything about it. Perhaps a month or two ago, Tony would have attempted a more discreet manner of dealing with his newfound need for medication, but at the moment, he couldn't have cared less. He was trusting these three with Peter. The last thing he was worried about was taking a few pills in front of them.

Maybe that was progress. He'd have to ask Dr. What's Her Face?

"Look, the press conference, the one last week. I've seen him get nervous before. I've seen him get anxious and worried. He was like that right before we went live. And...I don't know. I...talked to him. He let me talk him down." He popped the cap and stared down at the little white pills glaring back at him. "Now he won't even look at me."

He said nothing for a moment, content to let his eyes drift over the little round tablets, small little pills that would seemingly take away some of the unending bout of pain and tightness that he'd felt in his chest, his skull, his bones, for the better part of three months. Steve's lasting impression, he supposed. He sniffed and started to shake out two pills as he spoke once more. "I mean, didn't any of you notice it? Notice how different he's been acting ever since he met me? It's not just me, right? I'm not just having one of my monthly power-trip ego sessions, right? I didn't make this all up?"

This time he did look up as the two tablets rolled into his hand. Silent looks were passed around the room, stopping at May as she pressed the lip of the cup to her mouth, but didn't move to take a sip. "No. We saw it."

Tony gave a muted nod of his head before glaring back down at the tablets in his hand. "Okay...so I'm not crazy here. Things were getting better. We could all see that. So, I don't understand this. This...whatever this is...it's not normal. At least...not for him. Not anymore."

He paused, letting the words resonate not just with them, but within himself as well. He thought back to that morning, sitting in a tense silence with a teen who couldn't even spare him a passing glance. He used one hand to snap the top back on the bottle, leaving the remaining two pills to sit in his hand. "It's like...like he's terrified of me again. Too scared to even open his mouth. Like...like I'm a stranger."

Tony hesitated for a moment before letting out a deep sigh and tossing the pills into the back of his throat. He grimaced and swallowed them dry where they sunk to the bottom of his stomach with a hollow thud.

He remembered those looks. He remembered that tense silence and the awkwardness that came with it. He remembered the dread of being alone with the kid and the fear of not knowing what to say or what to talk about.

(W-what...what are you, uh...doing here?")

("Well, I believed it was about time we met.")

He remembered the feeling of only knowing Peter Parker as a stranger. And the thought that the kid was feeling those exact same sentiments made his chest ache with an uncomfortable twinge of unease.

"...I think you are."

He blinked back into focus as he heard Michelle speak. He lifted his head and threw her a furrowed look, well and truly tuned out of the conversation in favor of indulging in his own fear-inducing thoughts. "What?"

Ned turned to her as well. "What are you talking about?"

The girl didn't answer immediately, though. Instead, she glared down at the floor, her face scrunched in thought, as if she were still formulating her next words right then and there. When she finally did lift her gaze, it was sharper and even more intense than before.

"Ned. Answer something for me," she started, voice terse with anticipation. "Has Peter ever slept over at your house? Sleep-overs, projects, anything?"

The boy stared at her, obviously just as confused as the rest of them were. He opened his mouth to speak, only to falter before the words could even form. He paused for a moment, eyes darting back and forth as he seemed to scroll through years past before their very eyes. Finally, he blinked and stared back at her with a newfound shock. "Actually...no. We used to make plans for it back in middle school, but we always had to cancel. My mom would usually get a call from..." he faltered. "...from his dad saying Peter was sick or that they had to go somewhere last minute." He swallowed, looking uneasy all of a sudden. "He's never slept over. I don't even ask anymore cause...now it's Peter who says no."

Michelle nodded, as if she'd been expecting that. Now she turned to May. "May...what about you? Has he ever slept over here?"

The woman, obviously having been running said question through her own head once the girl has asked Ned that very same inquiry, shook her head. "Not officially. Once or twice he's snuck over here in the middle of the night and I'd find him on the couch the next morning, but nothing sanctioned by his father, no."

Tony watched Michelle give another nod of her head, letting out a tight breath as she rested her hands against her knees, lips pursed together into a tight line. "So...basically what you're saying is that for the past fourteen years, Peter has never spent any time away from home?" It was formulated as a question, but Tony knew the implications behind it as if it were a full-blown declaration spit into a megaphone. He stiffened.

"Wait. I...when we first met, I took him on an internship exposition to Germany." He shook his head. "We were gone for a couple of days," he said, desperate to disprove what he was slowly beginning to see in the girl's words.

May shook her head, her own sense of realization coming through in her tone of voice. "But not for two months."

"Exactly," Michelle continued. "For the first time in...probably ever...he's somewhere new, somewhere that isn't his home. With someone that isn't his dad." She paused for a moment, letting her words carry throughout the cramped living room. "How do you think he's going to take that?"

Tony stared back at her, took a deep breath in the silence that followed her question. Slowly he brushed his fingers against his wrist, feeling the low level bone-deep ache that never seemed to leave, only getting worse with each step towards a conclusion he didn't want to face. "He never said anything."

Ned bit at his lip, face pulling into a look of exhaustion and sadness that seemed too deep for the face of a kid. "It's Peter," he said softly. "He never says anything."

Tony himself also didn't say anything at that, for he knew the kid was right. And he cursed himself for expecting anything different. With a harsh scoff blown past his lips, he turned on his heel and started to pace.

Michelle furrowed her brows, face tensing as she leaned closer, ignoring the new back and forth movements of the man before her. "Look, yeah it's true. You've made some pretty good strides with him. I'll admit that. But you made those strides as Tony Stark, his eccentric and narcissistic boss. And that's not what you are to him now."

"Okay...you're losing me. Subtle insults there, by the way."

She rolled her eyes. "When you first met him, it was under the pretense that your relationship would be strictly professional, right?"

He nodded. Everyone listened in silence as she continued, her words ringing in the air.

"Well, it's obvious that idea has gone out the window," she muttered gesturing to the magazines May kept on her coffee table, the front edition happening to be a piece about the Parker-Stark interview from a week past. "Still, there was always the idea that your relationship was a work-related one. He could separate you from home. Separate you from what he gets over there across the street."

She gestured vaguely towards the windows. Tony didn't follow her movements, too busy focusing on her words and the sudden heaviness gathering inside of him. She continued, despite his silent urge for her to stop, to shut her mouth before anything else came through that he didn't want to hear, that would leave him frozen in his tracks with nothing between him and the heart-stopping dread pooling into his bones.

But she didn't stop. Nobody stopped her. They just listened.

"Now you're Tony Stark..." Her voice was slow. "...owner of the house he's living in now. Just like-"

"Just like Richard Parker," May finished for her, face pinching in distress.

Michelle's eyes remained hard, face like stone, words like poison. "And now he's having a hard time keeping the two of you separate."

(Peter not looking at him.)

(Peter not talking to him.)

(Peter flinching when he'd entered the room.)

(Flinching. He'd flinched. How the hell hadn't he seen the fucking flinch?)

("But you're not really the one who needs to be afraid of me, are you?")

Tony shut his eyes and turned his back to them, afraid of letting loose some violent stream of bile and vomit and whatever else was churning dark and dangerous inside his gut. He heard shifting on the couch, heard Ned giving off little disbelieving grunts. "But...he has to know right? He has to know that they're...you know...completely different?"

(Peter pacing in his room. Locked up. Like a cage.)

(Peter talking to himself. Talking to himself because there is no one else.)

Tony focused on his breathing, focused on the rush of air going in and out, focused on anything other than the sudden urge to sit and put his head between his legs. He pressed a hand against the wall and stared down at the floor, his back to the others.

He heard May speak, heard the ache that had now entered her voice, the tired sound of a fight long since lost. "I talked to him this morning. He said...everything was fine. But I could hear it. In his voice. It's not."

He didn't respond to this. Instead, he lifted a hand and pinched his eyes, trying to fight down the inexplicable wave of heat beginning to flush overtop his skin in a boiling wave of frustration and anger, like he was suddenly inside an industrial furnace, the walls emanating a heat that could knock him off his feet.

Suddenly he was back in the conference room, Richard's eyes piercing straight through him, lighting him up with an unimaginable wave of burning heat and uncomfortable tightness that refused to let go. And the rage that came with it, he could feel that too, felt it mingling with a frothing sea of disgust and despair deep inside of him, burning through his blood like gasoline. He didn't act on this, though. Instead, he kept his eyes shut, kept his back to the others. Focused on breathing. Focused on the one thing he could control, at least for now. In that moment, he was happy Peter wasn't there to hear the frantic stutterings of his heart beating away in his chest.

Another deep breath. His ear rang with the strain of it, with the strain of keeping calm against the attempts to snap him, boil him from the inside out.

("That kid belongs to me...and he knows it. How long until you do too?")

 

. . .

 

How long?

He swallowed and slowly cracked his eyes back open, half expecting to see the room now filled with the smoke rising from his lungs.

"I've spent the past...three months convincing that kid that I am nothing like his father. That I am everything he isn't." He balled his hand into a fist against the wall. "And if he can just...forget all of that in the span of a week then...then what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to make this plan of ours work if he's too afraid to even come out of his room?"

("You want the kid so bad? Fine. You can have him. Keep him all summer.")

Slowly, he turned to face them once more, switching his gaze around all three of them. They stared back at him in silence, varying looks of unease, frustration and solemn despair written on their features. He could feel all of it reflected back within himself. "I have two months. Two months to try and convince this kid that I am his best shot of escaping that hellhole over there, that I am his one chance of getting the help he needs. But if he can't even talk to me then..." He swallowed, felt the burning in his chest beginning to char at his skin once more. "...then I don't know what to do."

("Do whatever it is you wanna do, attempt whatever you're hoping to achieve.")

He glanced down at his hands for a moment before letting loose a bone-deep sigh, taking a seat on the other loveseat opposite May's as he rested his head in a hand and shut his eyes, the full force of the day's exhausting events seeming to press him down into the floor.

("But if you think anything you can do will change the years of effort I've already put in...")

He thought about Peter, wondered where the kid was. He hoped he was at least getting a little time of peace away from the new prison Tony had supposedly just dumped him in. And the thought that Tony was now beginning to create in Peter the same chilling fear the teen's father created in him was almost too much to bear.

("...then you're kidding yourself")

Somewhere, Richard Parker was laughing his ass off. And Tony had to grit his teeth particularly hard to keep said fact from bursting him apart.

. . .

 

. . .

 

. . .

 

"I know what to do."

Three heads darted up at the new voice and turned towards the one person who had had the least to say the entire time. Ned was concentrating on...something, for he wasn't looking at any of them. Instead, his face was twisted into a look of serious contemplation that left them all waiting on his continuation.

That continuation never came. At least not fast enough for Tony, who was just about ready to consider looking up the nearest liquor store and raiding their shelves in the world's most extravagant 'fall off the wagon' ever witnessed.

"You...planning on sharing with the rest of the class?"

Ned turned to him before seeming to jolt at the metaphorical poke. "Right, right, sorry. Well...I mean," His face retained its concentrated twist, like he was still formulating the words even as he said them, a plan formulating right before his eyes that only he could see. "MJ, you said Mr. Stark's like a stranger to Peter now, right? Totally different setting. Different circumstances. Different guy."

"Right...?"

"Okay, and Mr. Stark...you said he's acting like he did when you first met him?"

"All the way down to his stutter."

Ned gave a little nod, chewing on the inside of his cheek in a similar manner to Peter, Tony noticed. "Right. Well you said it yourself that you'd changed him. That you'd managed to get him to open up, relax, act more like...himself. It took a couple of months, sure, but you did it. You did change him."

Tony shifted in his seat, narrowing his eyes slightly. "What's your point, kid?"

Ned blinked back at him, furrowing his brows as if the answer was obvious.

"Well...if you could do it once...why not just do it again?"

Silence. Six individual eyes stared back at the teen, Tony's being the most confused. And the most desperate.

"I...what?"

"Think about it," Ned said with a growing confidence he hadn't presented with before, voice clearer and eyes perceptively sharp. "Peter knows you. He knows he does. He's just...confused, and...probably like, really, really scared." Ned paused at that, face taking on a concerned sadness that reminded Tony of the strength between the two boys' friendship. "That's why he's acting like this. Cause...he doesn't know what else to do."

The teen turned towards Tony, speaking with a new command to his tone. "You got to show him that you haven't changed. That just because he's living at the Tower now doesn't mean you're going to start acting like his dad all of a sudden." The boy paused, casting a more uncertain glance around the room, as if he was just now beginning to remember who he was talking to. When he turned back to Tony again, his face held a smile of sorts, shaky and hesitant, but there. "You just got to remind him that those three months meant something. If they did to you, then they certainly did to him."

Tony lowered his gaze back down to his hands, letting the words do their jobs of sinking down into his thoughts. Ned shrugged his shoulders and retained his smile, though it seemed stronger this time. More sure of itself. His words mirrored this confidence. And Tony couldn't help the similar chord it struck within him.

"You won him over once. Now you just gotta do it again."

New memories now were springing to the forefront of his mind. Dodging Pepper and Rhodey as they snuck around the Tower. Their disastrous attempts at breakfast for dinner. Listening to cheesy 80s pop in the back seat of the car. Ratty ice cream off the high of a Decathlon win.

He had done it once. Against all odds, he'd gotten the kid on his side. And somewhere deep down, Peter still was. Those memories hadn't gone away for Tony so he couldn't believe they would have gone away for Peter. They were still in there just as they had been for Tony, sealed away in a compartment guarded more securely than anything else, cherished in a way he couldn't describe.

Tony blinked, lifting his head as he scrunched his face in thought, letting his mind wander through the week's events once more. And that's what they were. A single week's events. One. Not a month. Not a stretch of time that was too long to handle. A week. Not even, just six days.

The kid was scared. Just like Tony. But unlike Tony, he was somewhere new, in uncharted territory. Tony had the home-field advantage. He'd have to take the first step. Hearing it first hand from the mouth of a kid who was probably a fourth his age might have been a bit unorthodox, but it was enough. And suddenly Tony began to realize just how valuable it was going to be having the teen's friends and close confidants on his side, seeing the things he couldn't, or didn't want to see.

This was it. The first hurdle. It wasn't a disastrous end or a foreseeable sign of what was to come. It was an obstacle, the first of its kind. How Tony handled it would determine how everything else would play out these next two months.

Well...he'd already put in three months of work. So he sure as hell wasn't about to roll over now.

He pursed his lips in thought, but said nothing out loud. Though he supposed his decision to trek on was obvious on his face, for the others retained looks of relief and determination similar to the feelings now brewing in his stomach.

May leaned forward in her seat, giving him a surefire look of unwavering support. "We'll do what we can to help."

Michelle folded her arms but gave a nod of agreement. "So will we. Text him, talk you up, whatever. I don't want to set a precedent of supporting you, but this is the exception." Her words were softened by the challenging smirk she sent his way. Tony threw her one of his own, silently grateful that Peter had a friend as fiery and strong-willed as she was when he couldn't be that for himself.

"I appreciate it," he said with a nod of his head.

Perhaps they would have said more. Perhaps they would have brainstormed what Tony's next move could have been or even planned out the various things that could go wrong and how he would handle it, but they were sadly interrupted by the sound of a high-pitched ringing from the kitchen.

"Oh. My cookies are done."

"Christ, May. Enough with the cooking. You're gonna bring the CDC out here."

"Please. It's not that bad."

"Yeah? Then why is the smoke coming out of your oven green?"

"It's not- oh. Uh...hmm. That's not good."

"Right. Michelle, call the fire department."

"Already on the line with them."

"And maybe tell them to bring gas masks. Also...off topic but you didn't happen to eat your pie, did you?"

With that, their team briefing quickly drew to a close, chorused by the sounds of approaching sirens and disgruntled paramedics readying for their fourth call to said residence in the last month alone.

 

---

 

Friday - May 27, 2016

Stark Tower - Penthouse Floor

07:51 PM

Tony got his opportunity the next night.

He knocked on the door with only a mild case of indigestion eating away at his insides. He pushed it down in favor of sticking on his more assuring smile that certainly didn't match the nerves beginning to fray overtop his skin like a bad itch.

The door slid open automatically, Peter leaning up against the doorframe as it did. The teen was still seemingly unused to not being able to crack his door open manually, for he pressed himself up against the doorframe like it was a lifeline, only peeking about half of himself out to see who it was. And once his eyes landed on Tony, his back straightened up just a tad, but he didn't move away from the frame.

"Oh. H-hi." The kid rubbed at the back of his neck and pointedly avoided Tony's stare. "Sorry I...wasn't at dinner. I just, uh...I wasn't really feeling well."

Tony didn't comment on this obvious lie, instead responding with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's no problem. Kitchen's always open in case you get hungry later."

Peter looked slightly uncomfortable at that, enough for Tony to get distracted in watching the teen's movements, taking in each and every detail he'd previously failed to pick up on. It was obvious now, the ways in which Peter retained a sense of ingrained apprehension similar to his mannerisms from months ago when they'd first met.

The silence lasted another moment longer. Too long apparently, for Peter began to shuffle on his feet, hands grasped tightly around the doorframe. "Did, uh...d-did you...need something?"

Tony blinked, silently bringing himself back into the present with a metaphorical slap to the face. Focus up, Stark. "Right, well...sort of. I was just, uh..." He watched Peter continue to shuffle on his feet, like he couldn't stand still. He trailed off watching said movements, brain trying to churn through the swirl of emotions he felt and very well could not identify.

The inevitable awkwardness they'd been drowning in all week began to rear its ugly head once more, lurking in wait for Tony to drag his feet and bail out on his plan with a wave of his hand and a walk of shame back down the hallway. But he didn't leave. He didn't bail on the words he felt crawling thick around his throat like molasses, sticky and uncomfortable to get out.

He watched the kid for a second longer before letting out a little sigh of self-centered frustration.

He'd rehearsed this for twenty minutes and he was still blowing it.

Tony cleared his throat. "I was just, uh..." More shuffling. More refusal to even meet his gaze. "I just wanted to see if you wanted to come down to the lab with me."

At this, Peter finally lifted his head enough for Tony to get a good look at his face. His eyes were dark with deep purple bags he hadn't seen in weeks. The kid obviously wasn't sleeping. Tony filed this away to deal with later, for at the moment, Peter was gazing at him with more light in his eyes than he'd seen in days.

"W-what?"

Pushing down the immediate excitement Tony felt at the kid's interest, he continued. "Yeah. I've been slacking off a bit, so the work's starting to pile up down there. Nothing I can't handle but I just wanted to extend the offer. You've been cooped up in this room for a while now so I thought you might like to stretch your legs."

Mentioning the kid's isolation was a mistake, for Peter flinched a bit and took a step back, looking very ashamed all of a sudden. Tony didn't scramble to backtrack though, knowing adding his own nervous energy into the mix would only make things worse. One of them had to keep their cool at least, even if that cool was well and truly faker than any of the relationships he'd had prior to 2008.

Peter traced his fingers along the doorframe, looking very much his age as he stood like a child caught still clutching the hammer next to a broken vase. When he spoke, his voice was soft and tepid with a hesitance Tony wasn't used to hearing anymore. "Oh, uh...it's...i-it's okay. I think...I think I'll stay here. If...if that's okay?"

Tony held in his disappointment, reminding himself that he'd been expecting failure above all else. After all, this was his first attempt at going through with the plan he'd formulated with May and the kids from yesterday. So he simply shrugged and threw the kid a smirk. "Okay, no problem."

He turned on his heel and started to make his way back down the hallway, already beginning to run through the options for his next attempt at coaxing the kid out of his room for something other than food. Maybe they could try Delmar's? Or even try the library to see if the kid wanted to grab some things to-

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony all but tripped over himself as he spun around. Peter lingered in his doorway, not entirely stepping out of it, but leaning a bit further into the hall. He still looked uneasy, but there was a new look beginning to spread onto his face, one Tony had been banking on since returning from May's house the day before.

After all, nothing was more powerful than teenage curiosity.

Peter fiddled with his hands, looking embarrassed. "What, uh...w-what are you going to be w-working on?"

And not even Peter was immune.

Tony resisted the urge to grin as he tilted his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets, cranking the notch on the next knob of his plan now that Peter had started eyeing the bait. "Oh, nothing too serious. Updating some of my suits and maybe starting on the initial groundwork for the new nanotech suit I'm working on."

Peter gave a little nod of his head. "That's, uh...okay. Just...just curious." He bit at his lower lip and continued to fiddle with his hands. Tony could see him leaning just a bit further away from the doorway. The billionaire couldn't help but give a little chuckle at the display, watching Peter very much try and fail to conceal his newfound interest.

Tech was Peter's Achilles. Just as it was Tony's.

"You sure you don't wanna come?"

Peter sniffed and hesitated a second longer this time before turning his head to glance back into his room, lifting his arms to fold over his chest in an almost defensive manner. "I...I'm sure." His voice said he was anything but sure. Still, Tony didn't push.

He didn't have to. He had one last trick up his sleeve.

"Okay. Oh, I almost forgot."

Peter looked up.

"I'm gonna need to borrow your suit."

"What?"

Tony approached once more. "Your suit. I need to borrow it."

Peter looked thoroughly confused, and perhaps even a little worried. But he just gave a little nod. "Um...okay. Hang on." He disappeared back into his room for a moment before returning with his folded-up suit. He handed it off to Tony, who stuffed it securely under his arm and began to walk away again without another word, hiding the smirk on his face as he did so and started to count.

Three.

Two.

"Wait!"

Bingo.

He turned back innocently, watching as Peter now fully stepped out into the hall, the door to his room closing behind him. He looked a little embarrassed at his shout, but it was quickly replaced with undiluted curiosity as he stared back at Tony with his nose scrunched in confusion. He blinked at him in shock.

"What do you need it for?"

Tony cleared his throat. "Like I said, nothing major. Just some updates, checking the system to make sure everything's up to date." He turned around and began to walk off again, smirking once more as he called over his shoulder,

"Oh, and I'm also going to add in a new AI system I've been working on."

"You what?!"

Bait successfully snatched.

Tony turned back around. "Oh, I didn't tell you? Well, I figure you must get pretty bored when you're out on patrol, so I decided to add in an AI system so you can talk to someone while you're working, like your own personal FRIDAY built right into the suit."

He could see it now on Peter's face, a liveliness he hadn't seen in a week, a gleam in his eyes he'd missed sorely. The kid was trying very hard to conceal such a change, but Tony had known the kid for a while now and could tell just by the way he was bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet that he was interested in only a way Peter could be.

The teen spared a small glance back over towards his now shut door, continuing to chew on his bottom lip as his face scrunched in some serious internal deliberation. Tony could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he argued with himself in some silent debate that only he was privy to.

Finally, Tony couldn't hold back a little chuckle, causing Peter to look back at him. At him. In the eyes. He held in the sigh of relief that wanted to come with it, instead settling for extending a hand and beckoning the kid over with it.

"Come on."

Peter stared at him, stared at the extended hand before gazing back up at him with those light brown eyes of his that always seemed to make Tony smile. They could both feel it, staring at each other in the silence. They could feel the exhaustion pooling between them both. The week had well and truly left them bone-tired, the weight of tense air and awkward interactions seeming to suck the energy straight out of them.

And after a moment, after a long moment where the two of them drifted their thoughts back through that space of awkwardness and silence, that space of heaviness that had weighed them all down throughout the previous days, they both watched it fizzle. They watched it fade and soften like early morning fog making way as the sun rose and warmed the dew-covered grounds.

They could still feel its traces. Felt in the way Peter continued to hesitate for a few seconds longer. Felt it in the way he continued to rub at his arms and spare little glances back over towards his door. Felt it in the way Tony himself started to shuffle on his feet, finally wondering if said attempt still wasn't enough.

The air was still there. Thick and heavy between the two of them, hovering overtop their heads in a way that told them both that it wasn't going away without a fight.

But after a second, Peter turned back towards Tony and smiled, hesitantly shuffling down the hall to join him.

They were both used to fighting. More importantly, they were used to winning. This wouldn't be any different.

 

---

 

At least, this was the thought Tony went to bed with that night.

This was the thought that finally managed to calm his nerves enough to grab at least a couple of hours of much-needed rest.

They could manage it. He'd proven it. The beginning was always the roughest part, but they were managing, and they would come out on top. This was the bump, the first hurdle. And they would clear it.

They had to clear it.

Of course, Tony hadn't expected said hurdle to suddenly shoot up another ten feet, sprout steel spikes and light itself aflame. But this is exactly what he got when he awoke that night to the sound of a heart-stopping, ear-splitting shriek of unadulterated terror echoing from down the hall, sending him shooting up out of bed with a snap of fear bolting straight through his chest.

 

 

 

 

 

(Richard Parker was still laughing.)

 

 

 

 

 

(Tony tried not to hear it.)