Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've updated... I know. Sorry about that.

I hope everyone is having a good week and this update makes it even just a little bit better. Stay tuned; I finally did some outlining and things are building up, I promise. These poor boys are gonna suffer.

Enjoy!

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Chapter Six

It had been a couple of days since Steve's cold episode and on the surface, everyone was doing great.

Steve was back to his routine, morning runs and family time and all the other Captain America duties. Tony stumbled into bed right before the sun, murmuring equations until he fell asleep, mysterious mechanical grease always smudged somewhere on his person. Peter was still getting good grades and spent more time out with Ned than ever.

Except, he wasn't always out with Ned.

Sometimes, he was just out.

Walking, running, hiding. Anything but sitting around the tower idle. Because the moment he was idle, the moment his mind got to wander… all he could think about was food. Healthy foods like apples and carrots, unhealthy foods like cheese fries and pepperoni pizza.

His mind was a constant cycle of cultish chanting about food. When he could eat, how much he could eat, what he needed to do before he could eat.

It was as exhausting as it was exhilarating.

And thanks to the Spidey genes, he was already seeing progress.

It wasn't much, but it was there. The ripple of a rib when he turned a certain way in front of the mirror. A glimpse of muscle where muscle hadn't been visible before.

It was crazy but it was real.

He was gonna be fit. Buff. Muscle-y.

Peter was finally going to look like a hero. Like one of his dads.

He could finally help keep them safe. What happened on the last mission... To Pops.

Peter was going to help make sure it didn't happen again.

#

Peter had been gone for a few hours, out on one of his walks, when he came back to find the tower a complete disaster.

Tony was screaming at someone in the kitchen, a splatter of red across his chest.

"Dad!" Peter ran to his side, looking for the wound. "Dad, what- is this spaghetti sauce?"

Tony groaned and glanced down, just noticing his shirt looked he had been shot. "Oh, well, fuck. Steve, you got sauce all over my shirt, you perv-"

"Tony, we're married. Enough with the constant accusations!" Steve had a miraculously similar stain on his own shirt, slightly lower, almost like-

"Were you two making out while making dinner?" Peter shrieked. His dads were so gross. So, so, so gross. "C'mon!"

Steve held his hands up, the sauce smear all over the front of his shirt the only thing Peter could focus on. "Peter, we were just-"

Tony smirked and held up a sauce spoon, a dirty, dripping one Peter hadn't noticed earlier. "I asked Pops here to taste the sauce and he opted to taste something a little bit more savory-"

Steve and Peter shouted at him in perfect unison.

"Fine, fine!" Tony walked off, murmuring to himself before shouting over his shoulder. "I'm getting a clean shirt before Peter has an aneurism. I'll grab one for you, too, Captain."

Steve glared at Tony's back before dropping his face into his hands. "I hate it when he says it like that."

Peter shook his head. "I'm not talking to you for a couple of minutes, Pops. I'm kind of scarred."

Steve thumbed at a spot of sauce on his hand before lifting it to his mouth and licking it off. "At least the sauce tastes good. Want to try it?"

Yes, please. I'm starving. "Nah, I'll just have some with dinner."

Steve shrugged and went to give Peter a hug.

"Pops, you're covered in tomato sauce."

Steve's eyebrows shot up before he chuckled. "Oh. Right. I'll change first."

Tony came back, looking like a cat who destroyed something you cherished but hid it so well you'll never find it, and threw a fresh shirt Steve's way.

Steve changed right there, in the middle of the kitchen.

Which wasn't super surprising, really, considering they were all superheroes who changed from civilian clothes into superhero suits regularly and publicly. But Peter couldn't help himself from staring. At his dad. Like a complete and total weirdo.

And if anything, Steve was more toned then Peter remembered. Abs defined and swollen, back dimpled, nonexistent love handles. Peter fingered his own waist discreetly so Tony and Steve wouldn't notice.

Still soft. Still pliable.

Still fat.

"Peter? Are you okay?" Suddenly, Tony was standing right in front of him, his hands resting on Peter's shoulders. "You went all spacey there for a moment."

Deep breath, Peter soothed. Deep, slow, breath. Don't. Panic. Over. This.

"Oh, uh, yeah! I'm fine." Peter's voice went up too many octaves. Crap. "Just got a bit dizzy. Sorry, yeah, I'm good!"

Steve and Tony exchanged some sort of parenting look.

Peter needed to run for it. "Man, I really need to pee. Be right back."

Peter was gone before either parent could say a word.

Tony cocked an eyebrow. "So, we both know you were a complete social reject at that age, but was it just me, or was that weird even for Peter?"

Steve frowned, crossing his arms over his fresh shirt. "That was definitely weird. Do you think he's okay? Maybe I should go talk to him."

Tony bit his lip, his foot starting to tap without his permission. "No, no. I'll talk to him. I'm the teenage whisper here. Also, I'll burn dinner if you leave me in the kitchen."

"Very true."

"You know, you didn't need to agree-"

"Go check on our son, Tony."

Tony waved Steve off. "Yeah, yeah. I'm going."

#

Peter was pacing his bathroom, heart hammering.

What if his dads figured out that he was on a diet and tried to stop him or force him to eat an extra plate and then he-

No.

Spaghetti was high enough in carbs for a few bites… but a plate? Two plates?

His chest was getting tight.

Breathe. Just slow down your thoughts, slow your heartbeat, and breathe. A panic attack will not convince Dad and Pops that everything is fine. It'll do the opposite.

"Peter?"

Shit. It was Tony. Tony was so much harder to fool than Steve, even through a bathroom door. "Yes?"

"You seem a little tense. Is everything okay?"

"Just really need- well, needed to pee." Stupid. So, so stupid. "Uh, is everything okay with you?"

Peter couldn't see Tony's face, but he could picture it perfectly- cocked eyebrow, slightly scrunched nose, general air of confusion. "Uh, yeah, bud. I'm good. Alright, when you're done, dinner's ready."

To save himself from saying anything stupid, Peter clamped both hands over his mouth and nodded. Then he realized Tony couldn't see him nodding because there was a door between them. But by the time he put that together, he could hear Tony's receding footsteps and he was in the clear.

Well, not in the clear so much as putting off a meltdown.

Dinner.

What was he supposed to do? Steve and Tony would notice if he didn't eat. They were observant. They were superheroes for God's sake. Superheroes noticed that their kid wasn't eating.

But he couldn't eat it either. Not spaghetti.

This was bad.

Really bad.

So. Fucking. Bad.

#

Dinner was a shit show.

To start it off, Steve made some comment about how Peter wasn't eating.

Of course he wasn't eating. It was spaghetti with meatballs and Peter loved spaghetti with meatballs. All it would take is one bite and Peter would eat the whole plate. Two whole plates. Maybe even three.

All of his progress would be undone in a single meal.

Then, Tony gently nudged his leg under the table and asked what was going on. But he didn't ask the way Tony usually asked, with a side dish of side eye and a mouthful of snark. Instead, Tony's eyes were soft, pleading, and that always messed with Peter's head.

So, naturally, Peter bit his lip, glanced down at his food, and burst into tears.

Yep.

He started crying over his dinner.

If the alarms hadn't already been blaring between his dads' ears, they definitely were now.

"Peter, what's…" Tony jumped to his feet and came over to the other side of the table, knelt at Peter's side and palmed the back of his head. Peter's face was in his hands so he didn't have to look his dads' in the eyes. "What's going on? Talk to us."

Peter couldn't speak. There was no way in hell he was telling them he was crying over a diet and he didn't have the mental space to lie right now.

"Alright, alright. You're okay, buddy." Tony carefully pulled Peter's chair back from the table so he could pull Peter into his arms. Peter refused to move his hands from his face so Tony just sat him on his lap and wrapped his arms across Peter's small shoulders.

Peter always felt smaller when he was crying. Like back when he was a baby and would wake Steve and Tony in the early mornings, refusing to stop screaming and start sleeping unless someone held him.

Judging from Steve's pensive stare, he was feeling something similar.

"I've got you, monkey."

That just made Peter cry harder.

About half an hour later, eyelashes and lids crusty with salt, Peter pulled himself together enough to put some lie together. A bad lie but better than the truth.

"Sorry," he croaked. Tony rubbed his shoulder. "I, um." He swallowed the urge to start crying again. Not now. "I ran into some guys at a comic bookstore with Ned. They said some shitty stuff about us. Really shitty stuff. Like, threats, and it- it just freaked me out because I don't want anyone to hurt us, especially someone like that guy, and I- I, I guess- I freaked out."

Steve shook his head and clenched his fists. "Do you want me to talk to SHIELD? If it makes you feel safer, I-"

Peter shook his head and sniffed. His nose was running all over his face. Like a toddler. "No, no. It wasn't like that. I wasn't really scared of them. They were young and stupid. I just got scared because… there's other people like that. People who want to hurt us just because we're different, you know?"

Steve grimaced and Tony cringed. They knew exactly what he meant. Sexuality wasn't a discussion when Steve was growing up. Sexuality wasn't a choice in Tony's house. And that was just their families. Both of them knew what people wanted to do to people who were different. As superheroes, as men in a relationship.

Peter was preaching to a choir.

So they waited it out, Tony on the floor with Peter in his arms and Steve sitting across the table, ready to leap across the divide at a moment's notice.

If they're freaking out now, Peter thought, I don't want to know what they'd do if I told them the truth.

I want to eat, more than anything.

But I can't.

But the only thing scaring me more than not eating is the idea of putting pasta- heavy, stagnant, pasta- in my mouth.

And that itself was terrifying.

Who was scared of eating?

Crazy people.

And maybe Peter was crazy.

He didn't want to be crazy.

So he cried a bit harder.

#

Steve and Tony were getting ready for bed when Tony decided to break the silence.

They needed to talk about tonight.

"Is it just me or was dinner…" Tony gestured while the right words escaped him. Extra? Too much? He didn't want to invalidate Peter's emotions. They were valid.

But they didn't feel like Peter.

They just felt… wrong?

Peter had panic attacks. He had nightmares. He was generally anxious, and messy, and forgetful, and all of those double-sided words that Tony loved as much as he loathed.

But tonight felt out of character.

"It didn't seem like he was upset about the thing at the bookstore." Steve had a foamy toothbrush in one hand while the other one ran over his hair. "Peter doesn't get upset about that kind of thing. I mean, just the other day, he and Ned were actively seeking out those kind of people at the comic store to torment."

Tony nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, his knee bouncing. "Steve, something just feels… off. I don't know what it is but I something is different. Peter's been acting weird for a few days now. On edge. But not the usual anxious on edge. It's different. It's… bigger almost."

Steve finished brushing his teeth and came to sit beside Tony, squeezing his husband's knee before kissing his forehead. "I see it too."

They sat there for a minute, Steve's thumb tracing the knob of Tony's shaking knee as Tony tried to unwind himself. He was pretty sure his body was just reacting to the amount of caffeine in his bloodstream. People with anxiety shouldn't drink coffee, he knows, but the ritual of drinking coffee itself calmed him down so there was no right answer.

Steve's head settled into the groove between Tony's neck and shoulder and Tony let his cheek fall against Steve's hair.

Those little touches said so much more than their words ever could.

"I'll talk to Peter in the morning," Steve whispered. "See if I can find out what's going on with him."

Tony sighed. "Good luck. He's a terrible liar but that doesn't mean he isn't going to try."

#

It was about midnight and Peter still couldn't sleep.

I did it, I did it, I did it, looped mercilessly in his mind just loud enough to drown up, eat something, eat something, eat something.

24 hours. Peter hadn't eaten in 24 hours.

Now that he'd done it, it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Going a full day without eating was something people did all the time at school. Ned did it accidentally on the weekends at least once a month.

So why had it been so hard for Peter?

Sure, part of it was probably the Spidey metabolism. He ate more than the average teenager. He knew that.

But why was he so addicted to food that he couldn't quit for a day without his mind fixating on all the things he wanted to eat?

His stomach felt sore right now, empty, but he wasn't hungry. He wouldn't eat if someone paid him.

Because his stomach felt smaller. Not by much, but by enough that he wanted to jump up and celebrate.

Well, his head was pounding, so he wouldn't jump. Also, he felt a little weak.

But he made it.

24 hours.

He was doing it.

And tomorrow, he was going to try to do it again.

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Thanks for reading! Here's to hopefully having the next chapter up and ready sooner rather than later. :)

~Ann