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Peter’s not trying to make a truth serum, but, that is what he’s effectively made, apparently.
He just wanted stronger webs! That’s it! And now Tony knows that Peter actually prefers Steve’s cooking over his own, and is vehemently offended by the fact.
“You said you liked the casserole!” Tony exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. Peter groans, putting his head in his hands and trying to bite his tongue, but the words fall out anyways:
“I lied, okay? Steve is good at improvising with your random, bougie ingredients, you’re not!”
“What brought this on anyways?” Tony huffs. “All I said was, ‘is it my turn to cook tonight’? And you jump in immediately with ‘please don’t’. My own spider-boy turned against me for no reason!”
“I made a truth serum by accident,” Peter says. “I just— I wanted stronger webs, but then the burner was set too high and the concoction exploded and my mouth was open and I forgot to wear a mask because I’m fucking stupid—”
“Hey, now, you’re not stupid, Pete,” Steve interrupts from his place on the couch.
“Aren’t I?” Peter mutters under his breath. “Who the hell forgets to wear protective gear while working with volatile chemicals?”
“You’re probably the most familiar person in the world with those particular chemicals,” Tony says. “I’d get overconfident too. Also, did you just say you made truth serum?”
Peter nods sullenly.
“Kid, you realize that’s never been done before, right?” Tony asks. “Like, never-ever?”
“I know!” Peter grits out, “I know, because I’ve been looking all over online for an antidote and I can’t find shit!”
Steve whistles.
“Kid’s got quite the mouth on him when he’s not holding back,” he comments, standing up to walk over to where Peter and Tony are. All three of them stand at the counter in the kitchen. Peter is visibly unhappy, Tony is scientifically intrigued, and Steve... doesn't really know what's going on, but the words "truth serum" aren't all that hard to decipher.
“Hey Fri, let’s get Banner in here,” Tony decides, “He might come up with something.” An affirmative beep comes from above, indicating that Friday is off to relay the message to Bruce’s lab.
“I hope he does,” Peter groans. He feels his stomach twist with hunger, and while he normally does a good job of hiding that, today is just not his day, because, before he even knows it, he’s blurting out: “I’m really fucking hungry.”
“You just ate half a pizza, Pete,” Tony says, “Do you want me to order another?”
Peter shakes his head.
“Does he normally get hungry that easily?” Bruce asks, stepping into the kitchen. He’s still in his lab coat, with his protective goggles pushed up on his head.
“No—”
“Yes—”
Peter and Tony interrupt each other.
“You eat a regular three meals a day, kid, what do you mean ‘yes’?”
“I’m enhanced, remember?” Peter whispers. He doesn’t want to say this, but it’s like he’s being compelled to by an invisible force in his chest. “Comes with an enhanced metabolism.”
“But you told us—”
“I lied,” Peter says, cutting Tony off. “Sorry,” he tacks on, as though that makes it any better.
“It really is a truth serum,” Bruce mutters, sounding somewhat amazed. Normally, Peter would be flipping his lid because, come on, making something the Bruce Banner considers amazing is all any science nerd wants in life, but right now, Peter just sighs defeatedly.
“I’m very aware of that, yes,” he says, flexing his fingers. “I can’t figure out an antidote, we were hoping you could help.”
“We’ll figure out the antidote after you get some food in you,” Tony cuts in. “Steve, would you make him something? God, kid, why wouldn’t you tell us this? We’ve practically been starving you.”
Peter shrugs.
“Nothin’ I’m not used to,” he responds. The words, I have an eating disorder, barrel themselves against his lips, but he’s able to come to a compromise and work around the serum: “Please stop asking me questions, I don’t want to answer them.”
“This is about your health, Peter,” Steve says. “Tony’s your legal guardian now, he has to make sure you’re in good health.”
“Did May know about your metabolism?” Tony asks.
“No,” Peter shakes his head, “I’m serious though, please stop asking me questions.”
“But—”
“I agree with Peter,” Bruce interrupts. “It’s not entirely ethical to interrogate him under a truth serum. He’s a teenager, not a criminal.”
“Vigilantism is criminal, technically,” Peter says. Bruce huffs.
“Technicalities,” he dismisses, “Would you mind answering some questions about how you made the serum while Steve makes you some food?”
Peter shrugs. He taps his fingers on the marble countertop absentmindedly as he waits for Bruce to pull out a notebook and pencil. Tony’s not interrupting anymore, letting Bruce go mechanically through the elements used and amount of heat applied and all that other shit. Steve is making pasta. Peter keeps interrupting his own responses with periodic phrases along the lines of, “I’m really hungry”, albeit with stronger language involved.
“Almost done, Pete,” Steve reassured him. “I just need to add some butter and cheese—”
“I don’t want any,” Peter says quickly. “It’s too high-calorie,” is whispered under his breath.
“What was that?” Tony asks, craning his neck towards Peter.
“He said it’s too high-calorie,” Steve responds without looking up from the pot. He moves over to grab a plate and load it up with carbs. Damn him and his super-hearing.
“That’s exactly what you need right now, Peter,” Tony protests, “You haven’t been eating enough, you need more calories— hell, what’s a kid like you doing worrying about all that anyways? That's not normal.”
“I have an eating disorder,” Peter deadpans. He doesn’t even try to stop himself, because he knows he can’t. The unbearable itch that had been building under his skin ever since they started talking about his enhanced metabolism vanishes, and he slumps against the counter in relief.
An uncomfortable silence settles over the room. Tony is the first to speak.
“What.”
Completely deadpan.
“I have an eating disorder,” Peter repeats, “Which is why I was hoping to get away from the topic of food.”
Tony stares at Peter like he’s just spoken a foreign language.
“You’re kidding,” he finally says, not unkindly, but in that half-joking tone that means he’s scrambling to process. “You’re not kidding? I’m hoping that the truth serum is allowing some room for kidding.”
Peter shakes his head, refusing to respond verbally. He just keeps looking down at the counter, shoulders rigid. Stupid stupid stupid stupid why didn’t I just lock myself in the lab after being exposed to the serum oh my god.
“So, Pete,” Tony’s voice is strained, “What else have you—”
“Tony, you have to respect his privacy right now—”
“I’m his legal guardian, he doesn’t get privacy if he’s in danger!” Tony exclaims, waving his hand in Peter’s general direction. “What else are you hiding, huh?”
“A lot, and I don’t want to say,” Peter responds quickly, but that itch is already building up under his skin, because there’s so much that he’s hiding, and all of his secrets are suddenly threatening to spill from his lips. “How would you like it if I gave you truth serum and started interrogating you about your sobriety? Sorry, sorry, I didn’t— fuck, I didn’t mean to bring that up, it’s a touchy subject.”
Luckily, the question takes Tony aback enough to stop interrogating Peter. Bruce sighs and gives Steve a Look. Tony is fiery and abrasive, and Peter’s under a truth serum, so now he and Steve are stuck as intermediaries.
“Let’s talk about all of this later,” Steve decides, pushing the pasta towards Peter, “Instead, you should eat now.”
“Yeah,” Peter says, but doesn’t move to grab the fork. “Don’t want to, though. No, I do want to, actually, I just… I can’t.”
“Peter,” Steve says, firmly this time. “You have to eat.”
“I know,” Peter sighs. Steve pushes the plate towards him again. Peter glares at it.
“You’re hungry, right?” Steve asks. Peter nods. “So eat.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” he mutters.
“Peter,” he repeats, his voice more urgent now. “Peter, please eat.”
“Is it because you grew up during the Great Depression?” Peter asks, promptly slapping a hand over his mouth and groaning. “Oh my fucking God, I didn’t mean to say that. Shit.”
Steve blinks, and then looks down thoughtfully at Peter’s plate.
“I do get worried when people don’t eat enough, yes,” he says quietly.
“Sorry,” Peter whispers, “But I can’t, okay? Not now. I’m hungry but I can’t—”
“Goddamnit Peter, just eat the pasta, you need it,” Tony interrupts, pushing a fork into Peter’s hand. He makes him twirl the pasta and guides the fork into his mouth. Peter scowls the whole way through, but fuck it, he’s hungry. He keeps eating. Tony shoots him a glare every time he pauses.
“This is why I’m going to jump off the Empire State Building,” Peter mutters around a mouthful of pasta. He hopes it’s muffled enough to escape Steve’s hearing, but, of course, Parker Luck would never let things like this slide.
“What was that?” Steve asks sharply, looking up from the second pot of pasta he’s cooking up.
“I don’t want you to worry about it,” Peter says, more clearly this time.
“What’d he say this time?” Tony asks. Peter shakes his head frantically, but Steve pins him with a hard look, and then turns his head over to Tony.
“He said this is why he’s going to jump off the Empire State Building,” Steve says with a worried pinch to his brow. Tony frowns.
“Is that a joke?” he asks Peter. What Peter wants to say is, yeah, of course, I didn’t mean to say that. What comes out of his mouth is:
“No,” shortly followed by a coughing fit as he chokes down a piece of pasta. “Goddamnit, it’s not— it isn’t—”
It’s not like that, I don’t really want to die, it’s just a dumb joke, but they’re all lies that his mind seems to be physically preventing him from speaking out loud.
“Shit,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to tell you that.”
“Peter, are you suicidal?” Bruce asks quietly.
“Yes,” Peter answers automatically, then groaning and running a hand over his face. “Fuck, man, what happened to ‘it’s unethical to interrogate a non-criminal under truth serum’?”
“This is regarding the safety of your life, Peter,” Bruce says. “We can’t let things like that slide.”
Steve looks kind of pale. He turns back to his cooking, seemingly at a loss for words, but the steam doesn’t bring any color back to his face.
“Come on, Bruce, we have to ask him about everything now,” Tony argues. “What other life-threatening secrets could he be hiding?”
Even though the question isn’t directed at him, the urge to tell them everything begins to hum beneath his skin. Everything everything. He bites down on his tongue, and briefly considers biting it off altogether, but he’s not sure if his healing factor will give him a replacement or not. The words surge up his throat like burning bile, and he’s using every ounce of energy he’s got left to try to keep them down.
“Okay, you know what, I think I have a solution,” Bruce says, holding up his hands. “Peter will be supervised until the serum wears off, and then we can ask him questions.”
“He could be hiding any number of things, and you want it to stay that way?” Tony asks incredulously. “Peter, how many suicide plans have you made?”
“Tony, please—” Bruce starts, but Peter cuts him off.
“Six,” he answers automatically. Tony gestures broadly and aggressively towards him.
“Do you see what I mean?” he asks Bruce. Bruce sighs.
“Yes, which is why he will be kept under supervision,” he explains, “But we will not interrogate him like this! He deserves privacy. There may be entirely non-harmful things that he doesn’t want us to know, that we don’t want to know. It’s not fair to drill him with questions right now.”
“But—”
“No,” Bruce says firmly. “Peter, how does going to the lab sound?”
“Please,” Peter’s voice comes out desperate. “I just want to make an antidote.”
Bruce nods affirmingly.
“We can’t really leave you alone right now, so who would you like to accompany you?” he asks.
“You,” Peter answers immediately. “And no one else.”
“So then we’re done here,” Bruce concedes. Tony opens his mouth, but Bruce makes a zip-it motion with his hands. “Tony, Steve, you two can go… I don’t know what it is you do to kill time, but go do that. I’ll bring Peter back and we can have a discussion once he’s either taken an antidote or once the serum has worn off.”
Tony still looks like he wants to argue, but Steve places a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head. Tony frowns and shakes Steve’s hand off. Bruce stands up, taking Peter’s empty plate and dropping it off in the sink before motioning for Peter to follow him. They make their way down the hall and into the elevator slowly.
“I’m sorry for asking you about your suicidal ideation earlier, Peter,” Bruce apologizes once they’re in the elevator. His voice is sincere. “I understand what it’s like to be there, and I don’t want to see you end up the way I did. You can’t survive a fall like that. You can’t spit the bullet out if you change your mind.”
“Is that what you did?” Peter asks. Bruce nods.
“If it weren’t for the Other Guy, I’d be six feet under by now,” he says softly. “I’d rather you get treatment than see you through the same situation.”
“I don’t want treatment,” Peter says bluntly. “They’ll take away everything. All my coping mechanisms.”
“Peter, I can assure you that having those coping mechanisms get taken away is a lot less painful than keeping them.”
“I know,” Peter whispers. Bruce frowns. It’s obvious that Peter’s holding back now. His fingers twitch, and he presses his lips together, but it spills out right before they reach the floor Bruce’s lab is on. “Ideserveit,” he says, the phrase coming out like a single, mashed-up word.
“You don’t deserve pain, Peter,” he says carefully.
“You don’t know that,” Peter responds plainly. The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. They both step out.
“No, Peter, I do know that,” Bruce says, “You don’t deserve pain. You’re a good kid.”
They walk down the hall in silence before Bruce sighs.
“Okay, um, maybe we should have a change of topic,” he mumbles to himself. “How’s the serum treating you so far?”
“It’s like… I’m getting better at working around it, but the actual effects of the serum are getting stronger,” Peter clarifies. Bruce nods thoughtfully.
“Is there a particular feeling to it?” Bruce asks. “Like, a physical compulsion to tell the truth, or just a blockade against lying?”
Peter thinks for a moment, opening the door to Bruce’s lab once they come to it.
“It’s itchy,” Peter decides. “Like, everything under my skin feels itchy if I evade the truth, and I’m like, physically compelled against lying.”
“Interesting,” Bruce says to himself. He pulls up an extra chair at his usual work table for Peter, and then walks around the lab, picking up an assortment of supplies needed to figure out an antidote. “Is the itch constant?”
“Yeah, after Tony asked what else I was hiding, there’s just a constant itch. Not sure if it’ll go away with time or not,” Peter hums.
“Is it due to something specific?” Bruce asks, “You don’t have to tell me what, of course, but is it a specific secret, or could it be the result of smaller white lies that have built up over time?”
“It’s one specific one, I think,” Peter says. Bruce sits down next to him, plopping a few trays of supplies down, and opening up a journal.
“Would talking about it help?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s like, The Secret,” Peter clarifies, “With a capital T and S.”
Bruce smiles gently.
“Would you mind talking about it at all?” he asks.
“I’d— goddamnit,” Peter curses, rubbing his temples with his index fingers. “Sorry, it’s just— I’d mind, I’d mind a lot, but it’s something that’s like. Really important. But also really personal. But also, I’m going to be living with you and the rest of the team long-term, so it’s going to need to come up at some point. And the serum is making me itchy as hell because of it, ever since Mr. Stark asked what else I was hiding.”
“I’m not going to ask you if it’s something you’d prefer not to talk about,” Bruce reassures him. “Here, let’s just… let’s work on that web formula of yours for now, okay?”
He gives Peter a warm smile and a quick pat to his shoulder before settling down next to him with a handful of supplies. Peter gives him a terse smile in return.
They work quietly, side-by-side. Bruce is calm, but tension is building inside Peter as everything everything threatens to overflow. His last secret, and his most well-kept. He feels the words against his lips, twining around his teeth and tongue, trying to break free.
It really is The Secret. The one Peter planned to take to his grave, and yes, he’s only sixteen, so that doesn’t mean much, but still, you know what he means, right?
And yet, Bruce is just sitting there. Patient, quiet. Methodically working through potential antidote formulas. Eventually, he moves past the drafting stage, and pulls out a set of beakers and vials for himself and Peter. They don’t speak, except for the occasional “could you pass the salicylic acid” or “are we out of limestone”.
Bruce gets a lovely titration in one of the beakers he’s working with. He nudges Peter’s shoulder to show him, and Peter offers an excited grin. They turn back to their respective side-by-side workspaces. Peter’s stream of thoughts develops an eddy around The Secret. He tries to keep his mind off of it as they work, but it just keeps circling back and around to The Secret while the itch of the truth serum burns beneath his skin, borderline unbearable.
He takes a deep breath.
“When I was nine,” Peter starts, his voice almost too quiet to hear, “I had this babysitter.”
Bruce pauses, his hands hovering over the beaker he was about to pick up.
“No, no, keep, uh, keep doing… that. We should keep working. Helps me not think as much,” Peter says. Bruce nods silently, and gets back to work. The glass rod he’s using clinks gently as he stirs the liquid around in the beaker. Peter turns on his burner with a few quiet clicks, setting his own beaker on top of it. He watches it carefully before he begins to speak again.
“I had this babysitter,” he continues. “Went by Skip. He was, uh, he was nice. He’d just turned seventeen, and was looking for a summer job before college. He’d landed on being a tutor at the local library I visited.”
He pauses for a moment, turning down the heat once the liquid in the beaker begins to simmer. He quickly pours in a vial of salicylic acid and swirls, watching the color in the beaker begin to change from clear to a cloudy, semi-transparent white. Some part of him wants to stop, to bury this all and never think about it again like he was supposed to, but the serum is working against him, and he knows it’s either now or never that he tells this story.
“We met at that library. I was reading a book on biochem when he walked up to me,” Peter says, taking a deep breath. “He didn’t make fun of me. He was… interested, I guess. He found me interesting. Called me, uhm,” Peter’s voice catches, but he plows through anyways, “Called me Einstein. He decided we were friends, and spoke with May and Ben about babysitting me.”
Bruce nods, flipping through several packets of crystallized substances before settling on a white one and dumping it into his beaker.
“It was perfect,” he smiles sadly. “It gave them time to take up extra shifts, make ends meet, you know? He was the perfect fit— not too old, willing to help me study the more advanced topics I was into, super flexible with May and Ben’s night shifts— I don’t blame them for not noticing that anything was off.”
He motions for Bruce to hand him the box of crystallized substances, picking a similar white one and putting it into a clean beaker.
“We played lots of games. One day, he wanted to try a new one, a new game,” his breath hitches on the word, but he pushes through. “Where he’d pull magazines out from his backpack, pick a photo, and we’d recreate them. They were X-rated magazines, to be clear. Moved into videos shortly after.”
His voice and hands are unsteady. He huffs a bit when he spills some of the crystalline powder from his beaker. He then pours it into the beaker that’s already over the burner, and the liquid goes from cloudy white to opaque, thickening just the slightest bit with the addition of the powder.
Bruce has paused his work entirely, frozen in place. His beaker is held precariously with a pair of tongs, in the middle of being removed from the burner. Peter can hear his strained, forcefully slowed breathing.
“I started doing my own laundry. ‘S why it was no trouble for me to get bloodstains out of my suit when I started Spider-manning. He said I’d get in trouble if I told anyone, so I didn’t.” Bruce sets his beaker down gently, trying to examine the fluid with as much clinical professionalism as he can muster. “He left for college the next year. I never saw him again.”
At that, green surges over Bruce’s fingers, and the beaker suddenly shatters, spilling all over the table. Peter flinches a bit, but he keeps working. He adds a couple drops of water to his own beaker, gives it an experimental sniff, and then dumps the whole thing into his mouth. He grimaces. It tastes bitter.
“And I just made and drank my truth serum antidote, so that’s the end of that,” he says, sighing. He finally looks up from his workplace, turning to face Bruce to his side. Bruce hasn’t moved to clean up the shattered beaker. He’s taking in breath after shaky breath, and green is curling over his collar.
“Sorry, Bruce, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no, don’t worry about it, Peter, I just—” Bruce inhales sharply, flexing his fingers. “I need to just take a moment, okay? Nothing… nothing against you. I’m just. Angry.” He settles on the word forcefully. “For you, not at you,” he tacks onto the end.
Peter nods, quietly cleaning up his part of the table.
“I’m not going to pretend I really understand what you went through,” Bruce starts after another minute or two of tense silence. “I know it’s… different, when you have to go through that at such a young age.”
His phrasing is hesitant, his voice full of uncertain pauses and slow wording.
“But I do, uh, I do want you to know that I went through something similar when I was in college,” he continues. “I was freshly eighteen and already working on my first PhD. Went to a party, and, um, roofies weren’t exactly— well, it’s not like they weren’t a thing, but they weren’t something I’d exactly heard of at the time. My drink did get spiked, though. It wasn’t all the way, when it happened, but it was. Um. Frightening, I guess is the word I’m looking for.”
Peter looks over at Bruce, a curious look in his eyes. “Then you… you get it, right?”
“More than I wish I did,” Bruce sighs. “It’s a difficult sort of pain to manage, and it’s difficult to know that someone you care about has gone through the same thing.”
“So, what, is this a club now?”
“God, I hope not,” Bruce laughs. “If it is, though, we’re in it together, okay?”
“Okay,” Peter says softly.
Then there’s the sound of shoes against tile, and a muffled curse. Peter’s head whips around to the door at the back of the lab, noticing it’s still ajar and spotting Tony through the crack. Tony doesn’t look at him guiltily, per se, but there’s something. There’s some sort of remorse in his eyes.
Peter’s voice isn’t soft or wavering now.
“Were you listening this whole time?”
“It’s not like that, Peter, I didn’t mean—”
Peter stands up, his chair screeching against the tile. His words are steady and sharp now.
“You always mean to. You always— why— goddamnit, Mr. Stark, why are you like this?”
His fingers dig into the metal frame of the chair, and it bends under his strength as he glares at Tony. Peter’s head turns to Bruce.
“Did— did you know?” he asks, voice breaking with the potential of betrayal.
“No, I…” Bruce trails off, seemingly at a loss. “Did you hear all that?” he asks Tony, and to most people, it would sound like a timid question, but Peter recognizes the undercurrent of carefully restrained anger in Bruce’s voice.
“In my defense, it’s something important that Peter clearly wasn’t planning on telling me,” Tony argues, straightening up and opening the door some more.
“Yeah, because it’s personal, dipshit,” Peter curses, “And the serum is still somewhat in effect, so I mean it. You weren’t supposed to find out like that, it’s something I’m supposed to choose to tell you!”
“But were you ever going to?” Tony asks sharply.
“Who cares?” Peter snaps. “That doesn’t matter, you eavesdropped on something that I didn’t want you to find out about, at least not like that!”
“Peter—”
“No, I-I’m out,” Peter waves, storming out the door and elbowing harshly past Tony. “I hope that was worth it for you.”
“Well, finally found something that’ll set you off,” Tony mutters, picking up the shards of glass from Bruce’s shattered beaker. Bruce huffs.
“It’s a sensitive subject,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure if it’s one you’re familiar with.”
Tony shakes his head.
“Not like you are. Not like Peter,” he replies, his voice weighty. Bruce bows his head.
“You should apologize,” Bruce says, wiping away the smaller shards and liquid. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Tony Stark doesn’t apologize,” Tony says bitterly.
“But you should,” Bruce reiterates. “You do realize what an insane breach of trust that was, right?”
“Well I just thought I should be there, okay? In case he needed me,” Tony mutters. Bruce stares him down, unimpressed.
“Fine, I’m sorry,” Tony says, making jazz-hands. “I shouldn’t have listened in on a conversation regarding the safety of my ward, I’m the worst legal guardian ever. Ta-da.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Bruce says tensely. “And that’s not a real apology. You have to go find and apologize to Peter and, make no mistake, I am pretty pissed that you listened in on something I told Peter in confidence, but I’m more pissed that you listened in on something he told me in confidence. I’m an adult that can deal with that sort of invasion without blowing up, but Peter’s not.”
Tony hums. He starts putting away the materials that Peter and Bruce had been using, picking up a pile of larger shards of glass from the floor.
“I mean it, Tony,” Bruce says. “You should really go, now. Apologize to your son before the Other Guy comes out and makes you.”
Tony does pause at that, mulling over Bruce’s words. His mouth opens, then closes. He looks down at the beaker pieces in his palm, like they might rearrange themselves into something less fragile. Breakable. The silence stretches out. He tosses the glass away and starts fiddling with Bruce’s microscope.
“He’s not my son—”
“Cut the crap, everyone knows he’s basically your son, and, just like every other dad in existence, you made a big fuckup with him. Now you need to decide whether or not you’re going to step up to be a good dad, and apologize to him. And stop messing with my microscope, it’s already calibrated perfectly.”
“But—”
“Go,” Bruce makes a shooing motion. “I mean it.”
Tony sighs, letting his hands fall away from the microscope, and trudges out of the lab with heavy feet, off to find his son.
Finding Peter proves to be a much more difficult task than he’d been led on to believe.
For starters, the kid’s a mutant, and his particular mutation makes it easy for him to get into places Tony on his own could never hope to end up in, much less check. Luckily, the same cannot be said for Tony’s suit, which can get him a bird’s-eye view of just about anything, including the Manhattan Bridge, where a certain spider-kid is moping.
He’s up at the top of the northmost bridge tower, not even having bothered with putting on his suit. Right now, he just looks like a teen civilian in a terrible position at the top of a bridge. His arms are wrapped around his legs, which have been drawn up to his chest..
Tony descends slowly and quietly, joining Peter at the bridge tower. He sits down next to him, and lets the Iron Man suit retract back in on itself.
“Hot day, huh?” Tony comments. Peter hums. “Can you get sunburned?”
Peter shrugs thoughtlessly.
“Hey, whadda ya say about heading back to the tower?” Tony asks. Peter shakes his head. “You don’t have to talk or anything.”
Peter shakes his head again, and then slumps his chin further onto his knees.
“Can we at least get off the bridge?”
He shakes his head again. Tony sighs.
“Do you want to talk?”
Peter shakes his head.
“Do you want me to stop asking questions?”
Peter nods, much to Tony’s dismay. They sit in silence for a solid three minutes before Tony breaks.
“Can you at least tell me what you want me to know?” Tony pleads. Peter gives him a humorless laugh.
“I didn’t want to tell you anything,” he says hoarsely. “I just wanted to pretend everything was normal, and eventually it would be, and then everything’s okay forever.”
The sun’s getting late-afternoon low, making the light around them seem warmer, though the sky is still mostly blue. Tony hesitates to speak, rolling words around in his head. This is hard. People are hard. Sometimes he wishes all his friends and family had motors for brains so he could go in and fix up whatever was bothering them.
“But, if you were planning or wanting to tell me something, how would it go?” Tony says, breaking the silence. Peter sighs.
“I did think about it a lot,” he admits, “Or, I guess, not so much telling you, but more like… Something would happen, I’d slip up, and you’d find out about everything and my whole life would come crashing down around me. Like, I’d have a flashback, or talk through a nightmare, or end up in the medbay with an injury on my stomach or upper thighs, or maybe you’d find one of my letters, or you’d realize I was fully enhanced, or… just, that sort of thing, you know?”
“Well, I did finally get around to calculating your enhancement,” Tony says. “Had Fri run the numbers while I ran around New York, looking for you.”
“Oh. Sorry about that,” Peter mumbles. Tony shrugs.
“I signed up for it,” he laughs, “Literally. Pen and paper. But, uh, yeah, I guess you really haven’t been eating as much as you should. You’re in a multi-thousand calorie deficit per day.”
“I know,” Peter says. “I ran the numbers myself a little while ago, back when— when May was still around, because I was eating through her salary and needed to figure out the bare minimum I could live on, and then, um, it… well, it got out of control. Got to be more about the weight loss than necessity.”
Tony nods. He doesn’t say anything, hoping that Peter will continue on his own. Luckily, he does.
“I never told her about any of it. Aunt May, that is,” he clarifies quickly, “I didn’t want to worry her. I guess the same goes for you.”
“How much were you hiding?” Tony prods. Peter shoots him a pinched look.
“Loaded question,” he says grimly. “She never knew about any of it. Not the eating, not Spider-Man, not— not…” he trails off for a second, vision unfocusing, but then regains his confidence with a steely look in his eyes. “Not Skip, not wanting to die, not the self-harm—”
“The self-harm?” Tony cuts in, panicked. He didn’t mention that before!
“Do you want me to talk or not?” Peter asks. Tony’s shoulders droop, and he nods. Peter shakes his head as though to clear it, and then continues.
“She didn’t know about any of it. She died thinking I was a completely normal teenage boy, just like everyone else thought. I wanted things to stay that way,” he says quietly. “If I was just a normal teenage boy, I could slip under the radar. Slip away entirely.”
“Should we be talking about slipping while we’re on the tower of a bridge?” Tony asks.
“I’m sticky, and you can fly,” Peter shrugs. Tony pinches his lips in a thin line, trying to convey his disapproval for Peter’s carelessness non-verbally. Peter catches a glimpse of the look on Tony’s face and grins.
“You look like a disappointed dad,” he giggles. Tony’s stern mask cracks.
“Bruce said something similar,” he admits. “About me being a dad, that is. I’m starting to think he’s right.”
“He usually is,” Peter shrugs. Tony laughs, but then pauses when he actually processes what Peter’s just said.
“So you agree?” he asks. He tries to keep the hope from his voice. Or the fear. There’s a lot going on inside Tony right now that he’d really like to keep inside.
“Yeah,” Peter says, nodding. “Like you said, you signed up for this. For finding me when I run away, and helping me with my homework, and going on outings together, and decorating my room… You’re, like, basically my dad at this point.”
“Luke, I am your father,” Tony says quietly, squinting his eyes for a faux-serious expression. Peter snorts.
“Does that mean I get to know everything about you now?” Tony asks. Peter’s expression crumples a bit, much to his dismay, but Peter quickly regains his composure.
“Don’t most teens hide everything from their parents?” Peter asks. Tony rolls his eyes.
“Come on, Pete, in what universe are you comparable to ‘most teens’?” Tony teases. Peter grins.
“Well, you kind of do have a point,” Peter admits.
“It might do you some good to get it off your chest,” Tony prompts him. Peter’s brow furrows as he considers Tony’s words. The silence stretches out, and, to be honest, it’s making Tony a bit nervous, but Peter breaks it after a few more minutes.
“What do you want to know?” Peter asks quietly, keeping his eyes down on the water beneath them.
“Anything. Everything,” Tony says.
“Everything?” Peter questions, a worried look worming its way onto his face.
“Everything.”
Peter swallows thickly, steeling himself.
“Okay,” he nods, “Okay…”
And, well, it’s a lot. Of course it is, it’s always a lot, because life’s favorite hobby is tormenting Peter, so there’s always something to talk about. Something that’s crushing him.
Like that building that he apparently had to lift all by himself, without so much as an actual suit, and God, how did Tony miss that?
How did Tony miss any of it?
Peter’s on his fifth month without self-harm, and Tony had been none the wiser until today.
So yeah, it’s a lot.
It’s okay, though. Peter’s throat is dry and he feels painfully thirsty. His nose and eyes burn, probably red and puffy from crying. He’s clutching Tony’s forearm, trying to keep his strength at bay, and nothing’s really going to be okay ever again, not in the way “okay” used to be, back before Peter’s life went to shit, but things are still okay, you know? It’s just a different type of okay.
“It’s been a big day for us, kid,” Tony sighs. Peter nods, slumping fully onto his shoulder. “Lots of, uh. Big emotions.”
“‘M not six, dad, you can say it was a shit day,” Peter mumbles into his shoulder. Tony laughs, nodding his head.
“It was a shit day, yeah,” he chuckles. “You’re right about that.”
“Can we go home now?”
“Yep, I think it’s about time we head back,” Tony grunts, standing up and helping a slouchy Peter to his feet. “Christ, my old man bones can’t handle these teen moping poses. I’ll call Happy to meet us at the bridge once we get back on street level, alright?”
“Mmm,” Peter hums, blinking sleepily. His face feels scrubbed raw from wiping away so many salty tears, and he sniffs, clearing his nose and letting a refreshing breath of cool air fill his lungs. Nothing really hits the same as the air at the top of a bridge over water. He’s exhausted.
He kind of feels like a wrinkled t-shirt that was found on the floor and put through a vigorous washing and is now hung up to dry on a clothesline.
Now, he’s leaning against his dad as he soaks in the late afternoon sun, and nothing’s perfect, but this comes pretty close.