Work Text:
"-God, kid, fuck, come on - shit, shit-"
The concrete should have felt cold and hard against his skin, but Peter could have sworn he was floating. A pair of hands shook him roughly. He would have batted them away, told the nameless person to leave him be and let him sleep, if only he could make his body or voice work.
“–FRIDAY, is he breathing? Fuck, I don’t think he’s breathing–“
“Peter is breathing, but not effectively. Depressed breathing can be a side effect of heroin usage. He requires urgent medical attention.”
“Yeah, no fucking shit,” the voice snarled, then grew immediately softer: “Pete, buddy, I’m gonna fly you back to the Tower, alright? You’re gonna be fine. God, you probably can’t even hear me – shit, kid…”
Metal arms scooped him up. He groaned.
Mister Stark.
Peter’s head lolled lifelessly against the Iron Man suit. He tried to focus on his surroundings, the sounds, the sensations. The sound of repulsors; a sudden blast of wind that didn’t stop.
Something acidic and hot rushed up his throat, and Peter could hear more than feel himself choking. Tony grew near hysteric. “Fuck. Peter, come on, please don’t do this to me – Friday, what’s–“
“Peter has vomited. He is asphyxiating. It is a common complication of heroin overdose.”
Over the sound of wind rushing around them, Peter heard Tony’s ragged breathing through the metal faceplate.
“Peter,” he said, strained and desperate. “Kid, please. Just give me two minutes, alright? We’ll fix this. We’re almost there. Two minutes, can you do that? You can do that.”
Terror coursed through Peter as the realization struck him: he was dying.
Up hundreds of feet in the air, choking on his own vomit, Tony begging him to stay alive for just a few minutes longer. This was how he would die.
He was dying – and it was entirely his own fault.
I love you, he longed to say, just to make sure Tony knew, but all that came out was a weak groan. Thank you for everything. I love you. I’m sorry.
“You can’t check out on me, kid. Not here. Not like this. Another minute, okay? Bruce and Patel are gonna help you, everything’s gonna be fine. Peter, please.”
FRIDAY said, calm but with a tinge of regret, “Peter is no longer breathing.”
He drifted.
Peter woke and immediately panicked.
He clawed at his neck, his mouth – the intrusion, he realized when he opened his eyes to a blurred and spinning world, was a plastic tube stuffed down his throat.
A hand grasped both of his gently and held them together, thumb rubbing across his knuckles. Bruce knelt beside the bed, face pale and eyes sad. “It’s a ventilator. Don’t fight it. Let it breathe for you, okay? Just relax.”
I’m sorry, Peter wanted to say. A stream of hot tears spilled down his face. Bruce wiped them away. I’m sorry.
“I’ve got you,” Bruce said, sounding for all the world like he’d never been more exhausted in his entire life. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got you.”
Peter did, holding Bruce’s hand in a death grip, hoping the silent plea of don’t leave me was visible in his eyes.
The next time he woke, things were calmer.
He was breathing of his own accord, but an oxygen mask was strapped to his face, and his throat hurt. Peter turned his head and groaned. Seated in a plastic chair at his bedside was Tony.
Peter expected some sort of reaction from the man. A tirade of worry and relief. A furious rant. Maybe, after those were through, a hug.
But for a long moment, Tony did nothing, said nothing. He stared at Peter, face impassive and eyes icy cold.
When he finally did speak, what came out was a deathly quiet hiss of, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“’M sorry,” Peter mumbled now that he could, all the pent-up sorry, sorry, sorry’s spilling out at once. “’M so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. Honestly, I have to ask: were you trying to kill yourself? Are you fucking suicidal? Is that what this little stunt of yours was?”
Peter shook his head weakly. “D’dn’t…kn-know–“
“Don’t fucking sit there and tell me you didn’t know,” Tony snapped. “You knew it could kill you. You knew how stupid and dangerous it was. You just decided to do it anyway. Because fuck everyone else, right? Fuck all the people who would have had to bury you. Fuck everything we’ve done for you. Peter got what he wanted – that’s all that matters, huh? You got your damn high. Worth it, right?”
Another round of tears spilled. Tony didn’t wipe them away like Bruce did. He ignored them entirely.
“Love you,” Peter said, partially because he hadn’t gotten the chance to say it earlier. Partially because he had to say something to defuse the situation, to confirm that Tony didn’t hate him. That he hadn’t entirely screwed everything up. But mostly just because it was true. “I l’ve you.”
Tony didn’t soften like Peter expected, didn’t run a hand through his hair or kiss his temple or tell him, I love you, too, you little shit. Instead, he stood and walked away from the bed.
He couldn’t breathe. He was being left again, abandoned by yet another parental figure, and this time, it really was all his fault. He couldn’t breathe.
Peter wanted Tony to notice he was beginning to spiral, to turn around and come back and apologize, to hold his hand while he calmed himself down. Instead, Tony paused at the door of the medical wing and glanced back at him coldly.
“I trusted you,” he said. “My mistake, I guess.”
With that, he was gone, and Peter was alone.
But what else was new? Peter had always been alone.
He turned his face into the pillow and cried.
“Is everyone mad at me?”
This was the first thing Peter asked in a croaking voice, words spilling from his mouth the second Bruce removed his mask.
Bruce paused, not looking at him. “Yes. We are.”
And there were the tears again. Bruce, at least, was kinder about them than Tony. He didn’t wipe them away this time, but he looked at Peter with sympathy and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” Peter gasped, and scrubbed them away himself with the edge of his sleeve. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“I know you are.” Bruce sat heavily in the chair Tony had abandoned. “We’re all pretty pissed off at you right now. I’m sure you can understand that.”
Peter nodded fervently. They were definitely going to make him leave the Tower the instant he could walk again without help, definitely going to kick him off the team and send him away, but he couldn’t even blame them. He’d done this to himself. He deserved it.
“I know,” he said through a hitched breath. “You can hate me. ‘S fine. I get it.”
Bruce leaned in and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t hate you, Peter. Nobody here hates you, I can promise you that. We love you very, very much – that’s why we’re so upset. We almost lost you. It was terrifying.”
“Mister Stark hates me. He hates me. He won’t even look at me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.” Bruce rubbed his shoulder soothingly, scooted the chair a little closer, and used his free hand to brush a fallen strand of hair from Peter’s face. “Believe me, he definitely doesn’t hate you. I thought he was about to have a heart attack when he brought you in here. I’ve never seen him so scared.”
“I g-get it, though. I get it. I – I kind of hate me right now, too.”
Bruce dropped all pretenses of keeping his distance, of tough love, of whatever front he’d been putting up. He leaned in and gathered Peter into a hug, squeezing him tight.
“We love you,” he said simply. “I know you’re angry with yourself. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: we’re all pretty angry with you, too. But we still love you, Peter. Nothing is going to change that. Okay? We just…we just need some time. You can’t fix this overnight. Give us some time.”
“I love you,” Peter whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” Bruce said into his hair, soothing a hand across his back. “You should get some rest. You’re still recovering.”
“Stay?”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t the same. Peter really did love Bruce, love all of them – he wouldn’t have said it otherwise – but it just wasn’t the same. Bruce didn’t hug him the way Tony did, didn’t ramble through a string of mildly insulting semi-affections, didn’t smell like Tony, wasn’t Tony.
But he supposed he’d have to get used to this. It was all he was going to get.
“I love you,” Peter mumbled toward his feet, a faint blush on his face, as Natasha escorted him from the medical wing back to his suite. He felt this ardent need now to tell all of them, to make sure everyone knew. “I’m really sorry.”
Nat said simply, “I know.” Then, after a beat of silence, “I love you, too. You’re fucking stupid, but I love you.”
“Thanks. I think.”
A small smirk flashed across her face for a moment, but it looked forced, more like she was trying to instill some normalcy than anything.
When they stopped outside of his room, she paused, then said, “I have to lock the door once you’re inside. Stark’s rules. Sorry.”
Peter’s chest clenched, but he nodded. “It’s fine.”
Of course they didn’t trust him. They probably never would again, not with his own life and certainly not with anyone else’s. He couldn’t complain, though. Peter felt like he was awfully lucky to still be allowed in the Tower at all.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Nat said, then shut the door behind her.
A lock clicked into place, and Peter was alone.
His first instinct was to check the closet for his Spider-Man suit, but he knew it wouldn’t be there. Some of his furniture was tilted slightly off-kilter, a few drawers left open, a basket of books on his nightstand emptied and overturned. They’d clearly gone through every nook and cranny of his suite, searching for a stash. The little baggy he’d kept beneath his mattress was gone.
Peter lay down on the bed and cried. He’d done a lot of that over the past few days: crying all by himself, while any others who happened to be in the room either shot him silent looks torn between anger and pity or ignored him entirely.
It was fine, though. Peter understood. He deserved it.
He woke to the sun setting outside his window and FRIDAY informing him, “Mister Stark has requested your presence in the kitchen for dinner.”
Peter rolled onto his back and said numbly, “I’m not hungry.”
He was starving, actually, his stomach twisting in on itself – but that didn’t matter. The team deserved to have a nice, pleasant meal together without some annoying teenager talking their ears off, the way they used to before he swung into their lives and ruined everything.
FRIDAY was silent, and for a moment, Peter thought they’d decided to do exactly that. Then, Tony’s voice crackled over the intercom, cold and distant. “That wasn’t optional. Get your ass up here and eat.”
Might as well, Peter thought and swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was no telling how many more warm meals he was going to get before they got sick of him, realized what a mistake they’d made in taking him in, and turned him loose back onto the streets to self-destruct as he pleased.
When he entered the kitchen, nobody spoke. There was dead silence save for the scraping of silverware against ceramics as they all piled meat and pasta onto their plates.
“Sit,” Tony said without looking at him. Peter obeyed unquestioningly. “Eat.”
He waited until everyone else had filled their plates, then hesitantly scooped a small spoonful for himself. As he lifted his fork and took a slow, mechanical bite, Steve shot him a sad look from across the table.
Just what he needed. More pity.
“You need to eat more than that, Peter,” Bruce said quietly, and several pairs of eyes glanced subtly at his plate. “You can’t start losing weight again.”
“I’m not really hungry.”
It wasn’t a lie. Anxiety and nausea had stolen away his ravenous appetite the second he stepped into the kitchen and felt the tense atmosphere.
Tony grit his teeth. “Don’t question him. Just do it.”
Peter’s hand shook as he placed more food on his plate. Still not enough to appease his metabolism, but more, nonetheless. Guilt pulsed through him. He didn’t deserve to sit at their table and eat their food, didn’t deserve their sympathy. God, he was so greedy.
He got halfway through the food he’d taken – stolen from them, essentially – when bile rose up his throat. Peter thought of the metal arms of the Iron Man suit clenched tight around him as he choked on his own vomit. He forced the nausea down, took another bite, and struggled to breathe.
Peter, please. Not here. Not like this. Another minute, kid. Please.
On his left, Sam paused, fork lifted halfway to his mouth, and gave him a wary once-over. “You alright, kid?”
Now everyone looked at him. Some faces impassive, some worried, some a blend of emotions Peter couldn’t even begin to sort apart from one another. Everyone but Tony, who said, “He’s fine.”
“I feel sick,” Peter corrected, though he felt terrible for it – but he thought Tony might take the defiance better than vomit all over the dinner table. His breath grew somewhat ragged. “I don’t feel good.”
“Parker, I swear.” Tony finally looked at him, jaw clenched and eyes afire. “I think you’ve had enough goddamn attention. Knock it off and eat.”
“I don’t think he’s looking for attention, Tony,” Bruce said carefully. “Peter, you can go back to your room if you’re not feeling well. I’ll come check on you in a little bit–“
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. He’s an adult, you don’t have to baby him–“
“Look at him, Tony,” Natasha snapped, matching his anger. She rose from her seat and approached Peter, shooting a disgusted glare over her shoulder at Tony as she went. “Come on. You need to lie down. I’ll make you some ginger tea.”
Peter looked between Bruce and Nat, eyeing him worriedly; Tony, fuming; everyone else, staring on, uncertain.
“It’s fine,” he said, though his voice wavered and he really felt about two seconds away from throwing up. “I-I can stay. It’s fine.”
“Some nausea is normal after an overdose.” Bruce, too, pushed his chair back. “Natasha’s right. You should go lie down.”
“Okay. Fine. You guys go and put him down for a nap or whatever. Give him his bottle – don’t forget to swaddle him.”
Natasha’s hand shook with anger as she gripped Peter’s elbow tight and hauled him from his seat. She murmured in his ear, “Don’t listen to him.”
“Heard that,” Tony quipped.
“Tony?” Bruce said calmly without looking back at him, following Natasha and a hesitant Peter to the elevators. “Shut up.”
Tony said nothing. Peter pressed himself against the cool elevator walls as the doors slid shut.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, taking a few ragged breaths to will the bile back down into his stomach. “Sorry, it’s just – I’m really gonna throw up.”
“I know.” Natasha rubbed his shoulder, eyes locked on the glowing number in the corner as it changed to fifteen. “You’re fine. It’s not your fault.”
“It’s normal,” Bruce repeated. “I should have started you off on a blander diet. I didn’t even think about it. I’m sorry.”
Peter wanted to rebuke the apology, because none of these people had anything to be sorry for, he was the one screwing everything up – but he had a feeling his protest would fall on deaf ears.
Tony was right. He didn’t need their attention, didn’t need to be babied – but he craved it, more than he’d ever craved heroin. Between affection and getting high, there was no competition. The unwavering love of friends, the feeling of belonging in this mismatched little family, was infinitely better.
If only he could have seen that before.
Natasha did actually swaddle him, once he was done throwing up what little he’d eaten and Bruce was satisfied that nothing seemed to be majorly amiss. She tucked the comforter in tight around him. Peter’s eyelids fluttered when she brushed her fingers through his hair, strong enough to make him feel safe and soft enough to make him feel loved.
“Sorry,” he mumbled for the thousandth time as his eyes closed.
Natasha pressed a kiss to his temple. “Shut up.”
Safe and loved didn’t last for long. Honestly, at this point, Peter was willing to stipulate that he’d give up the role of Spider-Man forever if it meant he’d never have another nightmare again.
He woke screaming. It was a regular enough occurrence that he shouldn’t have felt nearly as terrified as he did. Natasha was there in an instant – she must have been in the common room, because he heard the faint sound of the TV playing in the background when his door opened.
“You’re okay,” she said, trying to sound soothing, but he could hear the uncertainty in her voice, feel the stiffness in her body when she hugged him. She didn’t do things like this. Calming him down after nightmares had always been Tony’s job, a house rule that passed unspoken between all of them. Nobody did it as well as him.
Which was, perhaps, why Peter didn’t feel soothed immediately at the sight of someone coming to his aid, and instead spiraled into a full-blown panic attack. He said against her shoulder between gasping breaths, his entire body trembling, “I need Mister Stark. I need him.”
Nat said, sounding more than just a little out of her depth, “I’m sorry.”
“No, please. Get him, please, I need him. I can’t breathe. I need Mister Stark.”
He felt her jaw clench determinedly where it rested on his head. “FRIDAY. Tell Stark he’s needed in Peter’s room.”
There was a pause. FRIDAY replied, “He is very busy in the lab and requests you ‘handle it.’”
But of course. Peter knew it was a longshot asking for him, but he couldn’t breathe and he just really needed needed needed Tony to hold him, to rock him back to sleep, to tell him, I love you, too.
It would be fine, though. He’d be okay. He deserved this.
“Tell him it’s an emergency.”
Another pause.
“He will be there momentarily.”
“Don’t t-tell him that,” Peter had enough sense to say, even as his vision grew hazy and his lungs ached, desperate for air. “’S gonna think I took something.”
Natasha said, “That’s the point.”
Before he could make sense of that, footsteps pounded toward the room. Peter caught only a glimpse of Tony’s figure in the doorway before he buried his face into Natasha’s hair, hiding, wishing he could disappear.
“What’s wrong?” Tony asked sharply. “Did he–“
“No,” Nat said. “Nightmare.”
There was a beat of silence. “You could have handled that.”
Natasha snapped, “He was begging for you. He’s having a panic attack and I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. Stop being an asshole and get over here. Your kid needs you.”
Tony exhaled audibly. Peter was just preparing to open his mouth to apologize for bothering him, to tell him he didn’t have to stay, when Tony said, “Alright. Alright, give him to me, I’ve got him.”
He was passed from one shoulder to another. He breathed in a stuttered inhale of oil and cologne, and Peter was gone, the hysteria he’d been holding back bubbling up his throat all at once.
Tony wrapped firm arms around him as Natasha left, shutting the door behind her.
“Deep breaths, PJs. I’m here. You’re okay.”
It was the PJs that really did him in. He’d missed it. Missed him. “I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry. I fucked everything up and everyone hates me and I’m so fucking stupid–“
“Yeah, you are stupid. Nobody hates you. Dumbest thing you’ve ever said, honestly.”
“You hate me. You hate me and you sh-should. I don’t deserve you.”
Tony breathed in, sharp and pained. “Stop talking right now.”
“Sorry, ‘m sorry–“
“You’re the one who deserves better than all this shit. Better than us. You’re the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me, and I thought – fuck, Peter, I thought you were dead. I love you so goddamn much, and I thought I’d lost you. If you ever say I hate you again, I’ll kick your scrawny ass.”
Peter choked on a humorless laugh. Choked on vomit, please, kid, not here, not like this. “I’m sorry. I can’t – Mister Stark, I can’t breathe.”
“You can. Four-seven-eight, Pete. You know what to do. You’ve got this.”
He inhaled, four, held it, seven, exhaled, eight. Again, and again, and again, tucked warm and safe against Tony’s chest.
Peter didn’t know how long they sat there. It felt like hours, but when he’d composed himself enough to lift his head, the sky was still ebony-black outside his window.
“You okay?” Tony asked, eyes roaming anxiously over him.
Peter nodded. “I’m – yeah. I’m fine. Thanks, Mister Stark. You can go back to the lab now.”
But the man still sat there, staring at him. Something swirled in his eyes that Peter had never seen in them before. If he didn’t know any better, he might have called it regret.
Tony sighed.
“I think we need to talk.”
Ten minutes later, they sat on opposite ends of the couch, Peter with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate in his hand. Tony held a particularly strong cup of coffee.
“I don’t hate you,” Tony started. “I’m just–“
“Angry, I know.” Peter stared at his lap. “It’s fine. I’d be mad, too.”
“Let me finish. I’m not angry, either. I was, and I had every right to be. What you did was stupid. Really, really fucking stupid and dangerous.”
“I know.”
“I was angry because I’d do fucking anything to keep you safe, and you couldn’t be bothered to do the same for yourself. Like you just didn’t care, or something.” Tony paused. “I’m – sorry – for the way I talked to you at dinner. That was uncalled for.”
Peter accepted the apology with a strained smile. He didn’t need to hear Tony say he was sorry to know he was, but it was nice to hear, anyway. “I care. It’s not that I don’t. I just…didn’t think you’d be that upset.”
He fully expected this admission to be met with another wave of anger, but in the name of honesty, he said it anyway.
Tony didn’t look angry. He looked deeply, horribly sad. “What do I have to do to convince you, kid? I can’t lose you. I don’t know how I’d live with myself if anything ever happened to you – if we’re being honest, I probably wouldn’t. How do I get that through your thick skull, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Peter mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, just – stop it with the apologies. We’re done apologizing. I know you’re sorry. We need to figure out what comes after sorry.”
“I believe you,” seemed like a pretty good place to start. “I do. It’s just weird, you know? That everyone cares so much. I don’t really get it. Like, I care about you guys, too, but you’re the Avengers. I’m not that important.”
Tony rubbed a hand down his face. “And there’s our problem. You’re an Avenger now. You’re important, too. And you still would be if you weren’t Spider-Man. You’re important because you’re you. Get that? That’s the only stipulation. You don’t have to be or do anything special to make people love you. Peter Parker is important enough all on his own.”
Peter chewed on his bottom lip, a few silent tears dripping into his mug.
It wasn’t like nobody had ever told him these things before. Ben and May had; his parents had; his friends had. He’d always known they loved him, that they wanted him around and cared about him, even long before Spider-Man was a thing. He just…
“I forgot that, I guess,” he said. “After I went into the system. I used to get it, but it’s just, like – really hard to believe now. I wasn’t Peter Parker in the system, I wasn’t the nerd on the honor roll or Spider-Man or anything like that. I was just another mouth to feed and another paycheck in the mail.” A body to use, a whore to lend out, a junkie who needed a fix. “I don’t…I don’t know how to come back from that.”
“With time. You didn’t start believing you were expendable in one day, kid. That took years of being treated like shit. You’re not just gonna magically feel better about yourself because I tell you how awesome you are. I wish it worked like that, but it doesn’t. Believe me, I tried that with the press. Turns out they’re finicky. One day you’re God’s gift to mankind, the next you’re a terror to all of civilized society.” Tony leaned forward and tapped on Peter’s chest. “It’s gotta come from you, and that’s not gonna happen overnight. You need to be patient with yourself.”
Peter paused. His heart lept into his throat, but he said before he could change his mind: “Can I be honest with you? Since we’re doing, you know, the whole truth thing.”
“Shoot.”
“I was a prostitute. After I aged out of the system, when I was out on the streets. That’s how I paid for the heroin.”
Whatever Tony had expected, it wasn’t that. Peter risked a wary glance at him. The man stared, eyes wide, looking like he might be close to crying, too. Peter wondered if he would, or if he would ask questions Peter wouldn’t want to answer, or if he might, possibly, start drawing up a list of all his former clients for vengeful purposes.
Instead, Tony whispered, “Can I hug you?”
Peter nodded silently and scooted closer. He rested his forehead in the crook where Tony’s shoulder met his neck, more comforted than he could put into words by the pulse he felt thrumming there.
This was familiar. This was safe. This made all the shitty things that had ever happened to him feel just a little better, soothed wounds that had been festering in his soul for far too long.
“Thank you for telling me,” Tony said. “For trusting me. You’re – you’re a really fucking incredible kid, Peter. I know you might not believe that right now, but I do, so you’re just gonna have to trust me on it.”
Peter did.