His skin feels too tight, and his hands won't stop shaking.
"It's not that big of a deal, it's not that big of a deal, it's not that – oh, Christ." He barely makes it to the toilet before he retches. His heart pounds and his vision blurs as some part of his brain screams that he's safe, but he doesn't feel safe, and he just needs to get away, he needs to get away –
But Peter will never get away. He's been running from it for three years, and he hasn't gotten away, hasn't been made clean. Peter was clean once, but he took that from him. He nearly took everything from him. He's been trying so hard to move on, to forget. Most days, although he wouldn't dare tell anyone, are still hard. Pretending to be okay on top of dealing with everyday life is more exhausting than he'd like to admit,
Not to mention the fact that his nightly activities as a masked vigilante tend to mess with his sleeping schedule.
So, yeah. Peter deals with a lot. And most days it's fine.
But right now? Everything is far from fine. Right now, he's physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.
It should have been okay. But he wasn't expecting to see Skip Westcott after three years.
Nausea and shame roil in Peter's belly as he mentally chides himself for being caught off guard. He had begged Aunt May and Uncle Ben not to do anything. He hadn't wanted them to press charges, he hadn't wanted therapy, he just wanted to forget it ever happened. He had just wanted to forget the feeling of older hands touching him, of Skip insi –
Peter leans over the toilet bowl and retches again. After he's spent, he flushes the toilet and leans back, trying to ignore the feeling of phantom hands touching him. God, he's so stupid. He should have known that Skip would still be out there somewhere. Maybe it would have been better if he had been wearing his Spider-Man suit. But, of fucking course, nothing could go his way. Of course he had to encounter Skip has puny, defenseless Peter Parker in a convenience store of all places. He would have been able to handle it as Spider-Man. Seeing Skip as himself? Well…
He feels like he's twelve all over again. The pain is so fresh, and he doesn't understand why. He shouldn't feel this hopeless, scared, and confused. He's a superhero now. He should have been able to see Skip and go about his day. He should be over it. Instead he finds himself curling up on the bathroom floor fighting the urge to cry. Skip hadn't even noticed him for God's sake!
Come on, Einstein.
Let's conduct our own experiment.
Fighting the need to vomit again, Peter curls up tighter, trying desperately to block everything out. It doesn't work. All the bottled-up fear, desperation, and pain of the past three years yearn for release, and before Peter can stop himself, he's sobbing on the dirty bathroom floor. The exhaustion weighs out the need to pretend.
He knows he'll go back to pretending when Aunt May comes home. He doesn't want to worry her. But here in this moment, all alone on the bathroom floor, he does what he's been denying himself for years.
He cries and lets himself feel.