Peter's phone rang again, and the screen turned on, displaying fifty missed messages and ten missed calls. Steve raised an eyebrow at the teen as he didn't so much as look over at the device he was usually glued to. He just continued to practice, contorting his body midair as he jumped off the many pillars and perches Tony had installed in the training room. He'd been at it for a while now, but showed no signs of stopping yet.

"Hey, Pete, your phone rang," Steve called out, even though he knew that Peter's enhanced hearing had picked up on the little chime.

"Okay," the teen grunted, landing on a wall a little harder than he had intended to. He crawled up the vertical surface until he reached a perch, from which he jumped off of, using his webs to swing across the room.

"Shouldn't you answer it?" Steve pressed.

"I'll answer them later," he replied shortly, springing off a pillar and landing in a crouch on the floor.

The super-soldier raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you avoiding your friends?"

"Yes," Peter said stiffly. Steve was too surprised to respond. Peter wasn't usually that easy to get answer out of. He tended to dance around the question, much like Tony. Peter stood and stretched. "I'm going to go—"

"Wait a second," Steve said and the teen froze in place. "Why? Your friends are clearly worried about you—"

"Exactly!"

Peter's shout echoed through the room. The both stood facing each other, neither taking so much as a step or shifting their weight. Steve looked stunned. After all, Peter didn't usually raise his voice. Especially at him. And Peter looked kind of drained after his shout. He was pale, and dark rings circled his eyes. His hands raked through his hair helplessly. His voice was much quieter, but just as exasperated and harsh as he kept talking.

"God, everyone's worried about me! May, Tony, Pepper, Sam, Bruce, MJ, Ned! And now the whole goddamn country is trying to get me into therapy, and I'm trying, I'm trying really fucking hard to get better, but no one seems to see that—" He cut off, sharply turning away, his shoulder hunched protectively. He looked so small in the cavernous room, arms wrapped around himself. "I don't know what to do," he whispered.

"We worry because we care about you," Steve said, standing beside the teen.

"I know—" Peter began to say tiredly.

"I'm not sure you do," he interrupted softly. "All of us have lost so much, Peter. We've done a lot of good, we've done a lot of bad. But we all did it for the same reason. For you. For the next generation. So you could grow up in a safer world. We feel like we failed you. You should never have got superpowers, you should never have had to fight with us, you should never have woken up screaming from a nightmare. But you did. Our fault. That's not the worst part though. The worst part is not knowing how to help you. We can barely take care of ourselves."

Steve hated being helpless. He'd rarely ever felt terror as pure and consuming as when he had checked Peter's pulse after he'd fallen from that rooftop and felt nothing. No pulse, no breath, no heartbeat. He didn't know what he would have done if the CPR hadn't worked. And now he felt like he was watching Peter drown, but he couldn't pull him out.

"I don't mean to scare you guys," Peter whispered.

Steve nearly smiled. "You're too nice, son. But if you want to help us out, maybe you should let your friends know you're okay."

He sighed and nodded. "Yeah. I will."

"Good. Go get something to eat while you're at it. You just had quite the workout."

"Ned and Michelle are here, Peter," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said suddenly. Peter frowned, spoon falling into his cereal.

"What? Are you sure?" Peter asked, confused. It was a school day. Did they ditch? And neither one had a license. How did they even get up here?

"Yes, I'm sure," she replied in a tone that could only be described as insulted. Tony gave his A.I.s too much personality.

"Let them in, I guess," Peter said, hopping off his stool.

"Shouldn't they be at school?" Pepper asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Apparently they're ditching now," Peter said in exasperation. She just smiled and cleaned up his meal. Peter gave his cereal a wistful look. He was really hungry from his workout this morning, and he'd hardly got anything down yet. But someone needed to deal with his friends.

He rode the elevator down to the lobby and stepped out. Interns and employees were hurrying about to get their important work done. A few waved to Peter, mostly scientists he'd met in the labs, but they hurried away before he could greet them. Everyone was always so busy around here. A big project must be going on right now though, because this was an unusual amount of people for so early in the morning. He'd ask Tony later, if he remembered. He quickly spotted Ned and MJ waiting awkwardly by the front doors, watching the organized chaos with some amount of fascination.

"What are you two doing here? Are you seriously ditching class right now?" Peter hissed at them.

MJ crossed her arms and gave him an unimpressed look. "Hello to you, too, loser."

"MJ!" Ned groaned.

"Oh, he can handle it," she snapped back. Peter wanted to groan. It seemed Ned was in the group that believed he was a fragile little baby who mustn't be upset.

"Let's go somewhere more private," he said, shepherding them towards the elevator. His hand was scanned on a panel and then F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, "To the suite, Peter?"

The superhero looked wary. "Who's up there?"

"Ms. Stark, Captain Rogers, and Sgt. Barnes."

He tilted his head back and forth, considering. Tony wasn't there, which was good, because Tony tended to overreact or interrupt. But Steve and Bucky had super hearing, which was not good. Especially since both of them were kind of nosy, not that they would ever admit that.

"Is my lab empty?" Peter tried.

"Yes. Going to your lab," F.R.I.D.A.Y. answered and the elevator started moving.

"Thanks," Peter said automatically and leaned heavily against the wall. His friends eyed him in concern.

"Are you okay?" Ned asked anxiously.

"Just tired. I may have pushed myself too hard on my workout this morning," he replied, rubbing his shoulder ruefully. He'd nearly dislocated it on a bad web swing.

"You already worked out? It's not even eight yet," Ned said.

"We keep weird schedules around here." He didn't expand on that statement. Anyways, he had questions for his friends too. "Like you two apparently. Why aren't you at school?"

MJ raised an eyebrow. "I think the better question is why aren't you at school?" she retorted.

"Because I've been brainwashed into serving the Avengers as part of a government plot, or haven't you been watching the news?" he said flatly, sarcasm dripping from his words.

The elevator doors opened, admitting the group into Peter's lab. His Iron Spider suit was laying on a worktable, multiple panels open on it, exposing the wiring beneath. Tools and screens hooked up to the suit were scattered across the table. Alt rock music was pouring out of speakers that Ned looked around for, but couldn't see. Peter turned off the music with a simple voice command.

"Seriously, dude, are you okay?" Ned asked.

Peter laughed bitterly. "I'm great. The government is going to be interrogating me to see if I've been forced to join the Avengers, but just another day, right?"

Ned looked even more worried now. Peter fiddled with a screen rather than look at his friends. MJ was having none of that, though. She pulled the screen away from him.

"How long have you been having panic attacks?" she asked bluntly. Ned made exaggerated abort signs, clearly thinking that she was being to forward with him.

"It's fine, Ned," Peter assured him. He fell silent for a moment as his friends watched him expectantly. They jumped as he chucked a screwdriver at the wall where it got lodged three inches deep in the paneling. Peter rarely exhibited his super strength. Sure, they knew he had it, but he was much more careful with his strength than his wall crawling. Peter sighed, then met MJ's eyes. "I've been getting panic attacks since the beginning of summer. I had one in the middle of a mission. That's why I got stabbed and couldn't break my fall. I freaked out, completely lost it. And I died. Steve saved me, but I died."

"How many since?" she asked, voice uncharacteristically soft. Peter slumped against the edge of his worktable.

"I haven't counted them. Two dozen, maybe more," he answered mechanically.

"Two...dozen?" Ned asked in horror.

"Who knows about these?" MJ continued in a gentle voice.

"The Avengers, May, and Pepper." Peter looked uncomfortable. "Can we not talk about this?"

That had been the wrong thing to say. Ned backed up slightly as a dangerous glint entered MJ's eyes. Peter looked regretful as soon as he saw her face. She'd had a lecture ready for him for months, and he had just given her the perfect opportunity to perform.

"You have been lying to us and avoiding us for months, Peter!" she said furiously, and it stung him more than if she had been yelling at him. The quieter her voice, the sharper it cut. "This week's just one example! We understand that you're Spider-Man, and shit happens, but how do you think we feel when we hear the Avengers are fighting halfway around the world and you don't let us know you're okay until you show up to school! Or sometimes you stay home for days and ignore our texts. What do you think we imagine happened to you, Peter? Every damn time I don't hear from you I assume you're dead! And now we're just finding out that you have a panic disorder, which, by the way, the whole damn world knows! We could have helped you! Instead you shut us out!"

She took a deep breath. "So," she said in a steady voice, but there was a no nonsense tone to it, "you need to start talking to us, Peter, because we can't keep doing this."

Peter nodded slowly. "That's...fair." He eyed MJ apprehensively, not sure if she would start tearing into him again or not. but she just leaned against the wall and waited. Ned hadn't said anything, but Peter could tell he was on MJ's side. If he had to guess, he would say they'd talked about this a lot together in the last couple of months.

"Homecoming started everything," he opened up with, playing with his sleeves nervously. "I started being anxious all the time, and there were these nightmares...I wasn't sleeping, and my grades were dropping and I was a wreck. That's when May went to Tony for help. I started spending the weekends up here. It helped, being with people who understood what I was going through."

"I didn't even notice," Ned whispered, ashamed.

"To be fair, I was trying to hide it from you," Peter assured him. "Anyways, that arrangement lasted for months. Then I had my first panic attack during that fight on the roof. When I woke up the next day, I couldn't even walk near a window because reporters were camped outside. Everyone suddenly knew who I was. I started getting death threats, May started getting death threats. I went numb. Tony had to force me out of bed to eat. It...I wasn't okay."

He broke off and his eyes unfocused. MJ and Ned were stunned. Peter was a much better actor than they had believed. They'd had no clue he'd gone through any of this. They'd assumed he'd spent his summer getting to know the Avengers. He'd always skimmed the details of the two months he'd dropped off the face of the earth. MJ was particularly upset at herself for not noticing sooner. It had take Peter's panic attack in the middle of class for her to realize how severely messed up he was.

"Tony started having me talk to Sam. He'd worked with war veterans before. I started getting better. By the end of the summer, I was sleeping through the night, mostly. That was enough to convince Tony to let me go to school."

"And lately?" MJ asked, subtly pressing him to continue, but gently enough that he knew he didn't have to answer her and it wouldn't upset him.

Peter shrugged. "Mostly good. I dropped decathlon to lessen my stress and I have a little therapy session with Sam at least once a week. My panic attack on Monday wasn't normal. I hadn't had one in weeks prior to it. But with Tony getting hurt last week, my nerves were running kind of high and I panicked. But I really am fine, you guys. I'm getting help and all that stuff."

"God, Peter, why didn't you tell us?"

"I thought I was getting better," he explained with a sigh. "I thought they would go away, for good. I didn't want to worry you for no reason."

"Well, you failed there, dude," Ned told him, and both boys cracked a grin. "What happens now? With the press and stuff, I mean."

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. Tony and Pepper are trying to run damage control, but we're not sure how to smooth this over. Even if the U.N. decides that I am not being brainwashed or coerced, the press will probably keep running articles on the state of my mental health. It could reflect badly on the Avengers. And the last time people hated the Avengers, they broke up for nearly a year. Anyways, I probably won't be back at school for a while, if ever."

"What are you talking about?" MJ asked, frowning at him.

"With how many absences I've been racking up, they're probably going to hold me back a year. I'd rather skip straight to college if that's the case. We'll see though."

"We'll still come bother you," MJ promised as Ned nodded along with her. "You're a loser, but you're still our loser."

"Thanks, guys."

"Hello, May," Tony said as pleasantly as he could. He'd been on the phone all day. He hadn't even seen Peter since last night. But he needed to make this one last call. Probably should have made it a while ago. Maybe not. He was too tired to really think about it right now. He hadn't sleep in over a day. Only coffee and determination was keeping him going at this point.

"Stark," she replied, somewhat coldly.

He winced. That was not a good start to this chat. "I'm sensing that the news spread to Hawaii, then."

"You think?" Sarcasm dripped like acid from her tone. "I thought you said that he hadn't had a panic attack in awhile."

Tony sighed, spinning a pen between his fingers. "He hadn't. Nightmares and whatever, but no panic attacks. Sam thinks this was an isolated incident."

"Well, it's all over the national news now. What are you going to do? How's Peter?"

"Peter's...upset. But okay. And as for what I'm doing, that's why I called. There's going to be a plane waiting for you in a couple hours. Let's say eight. That should get you here by tomorrow."

May was clearly surprised by these plans. "What? If anything, shouldn't Peter be joining me out here? The press knows where the Facility is, they'll just stake out front."

"You and Peter won't be staying in the Facility," Tony said flatly. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ms. Parker." He hung up before she could respond.