A/N : Pretty hefty trigger warning for self-harm on this chapter. Stay safe lovelies xx
2
Peter felt a little guilty about the Mutant sports ban, but mostly just furious. After all that time keeping his speed down, trying *so* hard not to put people's backs up, making the biggest effort he possibly could to fit in! All of it had been for nothing. Two brief weeks of glory when he'd been in all the local papers, for once ventured outside during daylight quite a bit because people would recognise him, even ask for a picture with him sometimes. It had been so wonderful to feel like people loved him for something, even if he knew it was a huge lie.
None of it had been easy on him. Keeping himself down to a fast, but not crazy fast, speed had taken so much effort it exhausted him. He'd tried everything to make it easier, shown up for practice half-cut on vodka, tried Quaaludes and Valium and everything else under the sun and still despite any of that could feel his body screaming at him every time he took those hurdles at what the human world considered a phenomenal pace, but which to him was still slow-motion. It had been agony to keep himself going on what was to him a ridiculously small amount of calories, even that making people disgusted with him but still necessitating a days' rest afterward just to make sure he didn't work himself to a collapse. Didn't they understand what it was like for him? How hard it was to do things at their pace? How much it hurt his legs to not go any faster than they would believe?
Despite all that difficulty, the cramps and the lightheadedness and the frustration, it had all seemed worth it just to see his name at the top of the board. To stand on that podium and hear people cheer for him and lift up that medal and be dazzled by the flashbulbs. To have people glad to meet him and look at him as an inspiration, to feel accepted and admired. For two weeks, he'd felt like a hero and been treated like one. Two weeks out of his twenty-one years, he had felt like people liked him. It had been the best two weeks of his life. Now they hated him more than ever.
For such a short while, it had been 'hero' and 'stunning' and '8 world record holder', and now it was 'cheat' and 'freak' and 'disgraced athlete'. Turned out, it felt even worse for people to loathe you when they'd loved you once.
He went back to hiding himself away in his basement. Even shouted at his mother a couple of times in his fury at having been stripped of his titles and banned from ever competing again. Ate boxes of Little Debbies with one hand whilst he played on the arcade cabinet with the other and felt better for a very short while before he'd remember why he was sad and it all came crashing down again. Cut for the first time in years and found that even that did not have the desired effect and did nothing to help the painful anger he felt. Too furious even for tears he'd cleaned up the wound and spent a few days carefully dodging his mother when he emerged from the shower, only daring to wear short sleeves again when the marks had paled to match his other scars.
He'd ruined it now. Not only for himself, but for everyone else. He wondered how many other Mutant kids there were who had powers that did nothing to help them throw a javelin or run a track, but who would now never compete because of him. Because of this arrogant, desperate boy who just wanted to be recognised as good at something – and running was all he'd ever been good at. Bitterly resented the authorities who'd put that rule in place, the reporters who had once sung his praises and now called him names in their papers, everyone who had spoken out against Mutants in these past weeks. Brooded and skulked around the house until finally, he had realised he couldn't blame the world for this. It wasn't their fault he'd pulled the wool over their eyes and shown off like that. It was his.
If he hadn't been so desperate for people to think well of him, this wouldn't have happened. There would be Mutants all over the world competing and doing what made them happy. Kids playing baseball and hockey and running track and leaping hurdles peacefully, but one vain little boy had screwed it up for all of them. He could only blame himself for that. Drank even though he knew it didn't help, tried without success to drug himself to sleep, started sitting banging his wrists against the side of a table until bruises blossomed over them just to feel something other than this hateful misery. Resented himself and his powers, hardly even spoke to his family, emerged for meals then would vanish downstairs to lock himself in his room and feel sick with fury at himself for doing this to everyone. Those dark thoughts he used to have back when he was a teenager and felt like a burden on his family had come back, tormenting him with the idea that there was never going to be anything better than this for him, that he was going to live out the rest of his life as Quicksilver the Fraudulent Freak and never get anywhere no matter how fast he ran. Started considering going for a long run somewhere remote and heading away from the nearest hospital until he couldn't run any more, or just stopping eating altogether, which would probably be a faster method of dealing with himself for good.
How could he have done this to the world? To his mother, who had always been there for him and who now had to face criticism from total strangers when she went grocery shopping? To all those Mutants out there who just wanted to join in? He felt selfish and worthless, absolutely without anything left to give to the world. His very existence seemed only to annoy others. He didn't go outside for weeks, looking paler than ever and just a little too thin when his mother had eventually decided she'd had enough of him beating himself up and had ordered him upstairs one afternoon.