"Do you ever," Peter's words are halting, stilled as he plays with the edges of his shirt, "Just feel... I don't know, left behind?"
"Like, in gym class?" Ned chuckles, "Because I don't know if you've seen me trying to keep up in track and field, but I suck, man. I'm so glad that we're only required to take one year of gym."
"Not that," Peter laughs a bit, "I mean, like, there are people out there, inventing crazy new gadgets and writing books and being successful and I'm just..." he twists the edge of his shirt and untwists it, shrugging a bit, "I'm just here with you, not doing anything."
"We're trying to decide what to watch," Ned points out, offering Peter a small smile. "That's something."
Peter huffs, "Is that a no?"
"No," Ned sits back, letting the DVD sets scatter around him, "I get it. Like the whole world is going around you. People are learning new languages and getting part time jobs and just getting ahead in life, and we're just sitting here, not doing anything productive or cool, right?"
Peter nods.
"But you're Spider-man," Ned points out, "You're a superhero, man! You're practically, like, a member of the Avengers already, and you've been to space and fought with aliens! And I'm your ordinary, lame best friend."
Peter smiles a bit, "You hacked my suit."
"I did do that," Ned dips his head in acknowledgement, allowing a small hint of pride to color his voice for a moment before he continues, "Not the point. I mean, you're already amazing. You're super cool, a lot of kids want to be you when you're older!"
"Having experience in helping old ladies cross the street in a weird super suit doesn't land you any extra points on your resume, though," Peter points out.
"Do you even need a resume?" Ned blinks, "Didn't Mr. Stark already guarantee you a job or something?"
"No! ...yes. Well. I mean. It's not about my resume," Peter sighs, "It's just, I feel stagnant. Like I should be someone cooler, with ambitions and goals and things that I want to do but I don't want to do anything, I want to play with legos and watch movies with you but I also want to be someone with a good budget that travels the world and... I don't know, has a job with Youtube or something... and who does amazing things and always looks put together and I just..." He groans, "I want to be a person that people point to and say goals, you know? But instead I'm lazing about on the couch, about to watch movies. Like, I get the same amount of time in my day as Oprah Winfrey does, but she's getting a lot more done than I am."
"Okay, mood," Ned rolls his eyes, "You don't need to be someone amazing or super cool. You just need to be... I dunno, just you. And that's enough."
"Is it?" Peter despairs.
"Yes. Geez, man, you're going to give me a complex," Ned sits down next to Peter, "Look, do you really need to do those things? Will it make you happy to have a published book or be in a movie or meet Jimmy Fallon?"
"...No?"
Ned nods patiently, "And what would make you happy?"
Peter shrugs.
"It's not the big things, I think, that make us happy," Ned hums, "It's not being cool or amazing or even wearing sunglasses that cover half of our faces that make us awesome. It's making others happy. Just doing nice things. Holding open the door for someone, helping someone cross the street, leaving a big tip for a waitress that needs extra cash. What you do when you're Spider-man, what you do every day, consciously choosing to help others, I think that's what's important." He holds his breath, "At least, I think. I dunno. I'm just fifteen."
"I'm fifteen, too," Peter laughs a bit, elbowing Ned.
Ned makes a vague humming noise in the back of his throat, "So what do you think?"
Peter plays with the ends of his shirt a bit more, because he's the kind who likes to mule things over before he responds, at least in situations like this, slow moments between him and Ned, and then he sighs, "I think that I'm an idiot and you're always right."
"I mean, you're not wrong..." Ned drawls.
"Rude," Peter huffs, "You're supposed to tell me that I, too, am wonderful in my own way."
"You, too, are wonderful in your own way," Ned intones, and bursts into laughter, "But seriously, man. You good now?"
"Yeah," Peter softens, smiles, content and eyes closed, "I'm good. This is perfect."
Sitting beside his best friend, in a warm home, having someone to talk to, Peter thinks, ah, yes.
It's perfect.
It's 3am and the kid is chugging hot chocolate like there's no tomorrow.
"For Christ's sake," Tony says, horrified as he steps into the room and gives the counter a once over. Hot chocolate packets are stuffed so much into the trash can that he can't see anything below them, and the brand new bag of marshmallows that Peter had brought over last night is more than half empty.
Peter is sitting cross legged on a stool by the kitchen island, the wide granite counter that divides the kitchen from the dining room, and his fingers tap incessantly at the granite as he mumbles, "Morning, Mr. Stark."
"It's not morning," Tony rubs a hand over his face, wondering when he started feeling so old. "How long have you been up?"
The kid opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He shrugs, and Tony has the fleeting and somewhat maniacal urge to grab him by the shoulders and just shake him until he's gotten some common sense.
"You know what, forget it," he suppresses the urge. Someone has to be... well... at least vaguely responsible, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the kid that's doped up on hot chocolate and marshmallows in his kitchen. "FRIDAY?"
"Peter has been up for approximately one hour and forty-eight minutes," FRIDAY answers, light and blithe.
"Christ," Tony repeats, because it is the middle of the night and he is tired and thus has no brain-to-mouth filter. He scrubs his face with the heel of his palm and wonders who the fuck decided that it would be a good idea to give the kid Tony's bad habits. "You've been up nearly two hours and just... what, drinking hot chocolate?"
Peter shrugs, looking slightly charigned, "I thought that it would help me sleep."
Tony presses down on the lever to open the garbage and hisses, "There's what," he rifles through the bags with his index finger, "Five bags of hot chocolate in here? You only use half a bag for each cup."
Peter frowns at his cup, where his marshmallows are lazily dissolving, "There's not a lot to do at 3am," he mumbles.
"No shit there isn't," Tony hisses, because his brain has still not caught on and enforced the idea of him attempting to be a good role model (which is laughable, but Tony typically tries. He blames sleep deprivation, okay?). "Because you're supposed to be asleep."
And because the universe has decided to mess with Peter's life, he bursts into tears.
In front of Tony.
Who is not good with tears.
Shit.
What is he supposed to do.
What would May do?
(May is in Europe for a business trip, and has thus decided that Tony can take care of Peter. Which is a foolish mistake because Tony cannot be good at Human-ing, it defies his nature. And now, Peter, sweet summer child, has decided that Tony is a trustworthy person to burst into tears in front of which is a lie because Tony is a failure who cannot emotion properly and that is why the vast majority of his relationships fail but he has got to do something now and he can't ask FRIDAY because that's "cold" according to Pepper and. AUGH.)
(Some detached part of Tony's brain notes that he spends a lot of his life internally screaming while trying to pretend to be cool and that is not what he is supposed to be focusing on because Peter is crying and he needs to make it better somehow.)
"I'm not angry," Tony blurts out the first thing that he can think of, because that's what the parenting books say, make sure your kid knows that you're not angry, right? (Does this apply in this situation? Tony doesn't know. Um. Emotional clarification is never bad, right? ...right?) "You're, ah, going to be okay."
He moves closer and sits down gingerly next to Peter (is this a good thing? He likes proximity but not touch when he has a panic attack. Wait. This isn't a panic attack. This is crying. Which is different. A lot different. How different? Tony doesn't know. Shit.), hands doing... something... as Peter sobs harder.
Tony pushes the cup in closer to the island's middle so that they don't accidentally knock it down and break it (because he is not confident that Peter will not accidentally step on the glass and start bleeding from the bottom of his feet right now) and then asks, "Kid, what do you want me to do?"
Straightforward.
That's okay, right?
Please say it's right.
Tony is not cut out for this.
"I... I'm sorry... I..." Peter hiccups, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes as his chest makes little motions with each sob, "I can't sleep."
Oh.
Sh-drat.
Drat. (The whole "good role model" thing is starting to kick in now that Tony's a bit more awake, thankfully. Probably thankfully? Like, at least 83% thankfully.)
"Do you know why?" Tony is not going to jump to conclusions because he is pretty sure that is not healthy to do.
"I... my spider sense was going off like crazy," Peter hics, and reaches to take a sip of his hot chocolate. Tony pulls it away because he is positive that all this sugar is not doing anything for Peter's health, physical or mental. "And I just had this sense of danger blaring at me and I couldn't sleep and when I woke up it was just... nagging at me... and so I thought hot chocolate would help but it's still kind of there but you're here and it's a bit better but my heart's still going fast and... I don't know..."
Tony feels something stirring in his chest, and he nods a bit, showing that he's listening, allowing Peter to go on.
Peter does. He talks about how he feels on edge, how his head is blaring and his chest is buzzing and sometimes he gets really freaked out that he'll miss something as soon as he falls asleep and he goes on about what Tony thinks he understands now, and Tony doesn't like the picture it paints.
Peter finishes, and there is a moment of silence before Tony asks hesitantly, "Do you think that it might be anxiety?"
Peter shakes his head, "I don't have anxiety."
Tony bites his lower lip because he hasn't trained out all his tells yet and because the kid is seriously worrying him, "Are you sure?"
"I..." Peter stares at his hands, "I... Fengchi said that I had it."
His therapist.
Which means.
"You have anxiety," Tony nods.
Peter shrugs, shoulders hitching to the tips of his ears as he curls into himself.
"Hey, hey, it's fine," Tony holds out a hand and Peter takes it, grip firm but not tight, like Tony is a lifeline but Peter remains aware of his strength. Tony tries to think about why Peter could be in denial, and makes a stab in the dark, "I have anxiety, too. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
Apparently his stab hit something, because Peter's eyes widen as he looks up at Tony and breathes, awed, "...really?"
"Yeah," Tony rubs his nose, "I have ADHD, too, which is," he huffs, "A bad mix. And since people with ADHD are more likely to get mental illnesses than neurotypical people..." He coughs, "Anyway. It doesn't mean anything bad. Just that we need a little extra push to get where everyone else is, emotional health-wise. Nothing wrong with that."
Peter is quiet for a moment before he whispers, "Fengchi thinks that I have PTSD, too."
Drat.
Gosh dang it.
Butter Tony with Nutella and drop him in a bag of skittles.
"Do you know your triggers?" Tony makes eye contact. Peter blinks at him, waiting for him to continue, "Know what helps you feel better? Calm you down? Is therapy helping?"
"...I mostly know them," Peter says quietly, "Therapy helps."
Tony is silent, waiting.
"Drinking that much hot chocolate was a mistake," Peter laughs awkwardly, and when Tony keeps staring, he sighs, "But I don't regret it."
Tony bites back the instinctive response and waits.
"You're helping," Peter admits, "Thank you, Mr. Stark."
Tony's throat feels tight.
I'm not helpful, he thinks.
Don't rely on someone like me, he thinks.
I'm not worth that, he thinks.
"Don't mention it," he says, tongue dry, "Want to watch a sappy animated movie and fall asleep on the couch together?"
Peter laughs a bit, "Do we get pancakes in the morning?"
Tony raises his eyebrows, "With the amount of hot chocolate that you just drank, kid? You're banned from sugar for the next year."
Peter pouts and Tony laughs and they put Coco on the TV, lights dimmed, Peter curled up in Tony's chest and Tony's arm around his shoulders and they get through that but they fall asleep halfway through The Little Prince and that is how Pepper finds them in the morning, curled into each other with the TV off (courtesy of Friday) and she shakes her head at them before putting a blanket around the two of them.
They sleep in until somewhere near noon, when Tony yawns and huffs at Peter to hurry up, kid, we've slept half the day away and they go to some 24/7 diner to get themselves a platter of pancakes.
(It is not perfect, but it is something almost better, because it is good and real and Tony could not trade that moment for the world.)