The faint tremors of the workshop floor made every bone in Peter's body vibrate as if it would make him crumple to the floor. He knew that it had to have been the Quinjet, meaning the Avengers were preparing to take off. Walking over to the windows that spanned the entire length of the floor to the ceiling, Peter watched as he saw Steve running into the jet, the door closing behind him. Tony was hovering in the air, his red and gold armor glinting in the sunlight. Seeing his mentor made his blood boil, his palms curling into fists, his nails digging into the skin of his palms.
Peter knew that he shouldn't be as angry as he was, but being scolded so bluntly like a misbehaving puppy was absolutely humiliating. It was even more humiliating than the time that Tony scolded him on the rooftop after the ferry. At least back then, Peter knew that he had royally screwed up and Tony's anger was in the right place. He was a rookie back then, but he had grown since then, he didn't fly blindly into a situation anymore. Well, most of the time, anway.
Peter had proven himself time and time again, but it never seemed like enough for Tony. He had stopped Vulture from robbing the Avengers Quinjet during moving day all by himself, and had even gotten praised for his victory. Hell, he even went to space and saved Doctor Strange from being tortured by an alien. On top of all that, he had held his ground with Thanos on Titan considering the circumstances and he more than well held his own during the final battle with the mad titan. Peter wasn't some mere kid anymore, he had more experience than any person his age. Maybe too much experience, if Peter wanted to throw himself a pity party.
It didn't matter, it was more evident than ever that Tony still saw him as a scrawny kid from Queens who couldn't do anything right. At one point in time Peter would've brushed it off and convinced himself that it was because the billionaire actually gave a damn about him. Hell, he even built Peter suits that were so safety-proof that he felt invincible. He gave Peter his own AI that had kept him company whenever he got lonely on patrols.
Peter didn't know what to feel anymore, and it was frustrating to say the least. Tony had made it clear about where Peter stood, and even if it broke his heart it was his new reality. Tony had his own family to care about and Peter just wasn't a part of it. With each passing interaction between his former mentor, Peter was beginning to be glad that he wasn't a part of it.
What pissed him off the most was Tony's superiority complex. He always had to be the person on top who called the shots and looked down at everyone else. Benching Peter was just one small example of that. Whenever Peter seemed to step one foot out of line, Tony was there to reprimand him as if he was the wise adult in that situation. The fact that Tony seemed to only make an appearance to see him nowadays whenever he wanted to yell or scold him, it made Peter's patience wear then. What gave him the right to berate him when Tony left him in the dust?
You can convince yourself that you hate him, but deep down you really don't, Peter thought to himself and he felt his shoulders slump in defeat.
If Peter were to hate Tony for being dick, then Peter would be a selfish hypocrite. Tony had done many things for him, and had taught him valuable lessons about playing the role of a hero. Peter wouldn't be where he was now if it wasn't for Tony. According to the stories from the other Avengers, ones that Peter can't fully make himself believe, Peter and every other dusted person on the planet wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Peter being Tony's inspiration.
It all just comes back to Peter struggling to find his place in a world that had spun for 5 years while Peter was gone. He got lucky with May and her new family, but things change when you're gone for so long. The real enemy when it came to Peter's diminishing relationship with Tony was time.
5 years of relationships, memories, inside jokes and other events that you just weren't there to be a part of, Peter watched grimly as the Iron Man armor took off in a blink of an eye, the Quinjet following suit a few moments later. Sometimes I still wonder if it was a cruel joke to bring us back to a world that moved on.
Looking over his shoulder, Peter's eye landed on the spandex suit that was sprawled across Tony's workbench. Feeling a sense of determination, Peter walked over to the workbench and examined the fabric in front of him. Tony had repaired the damages from his accident, leaving the red and blue fabric spotless. It looked exactly as it did when Peter was first given the suit in Berlin, eliciting a small smile from him. Memories of meeting Tony for the first time in his apartment flooded his brain, back when he was a stammering mess of a teenager who was still innocent enough to take everything for granted. It had been the first time in six months that Peter felt genuinely excited about something. Six months since...
Peter closed his eyes, another wave of sadness washed over him as his mind glossed over his Uncle Ben.
You need to stop this, Pete, Peter berated himself. You were doing so well these past couple weeks.
Looking back at his suit, Peter decided to do what he always did to clear his mind: he got to work. It took him a solid hour before he got the hang of what he was doing. Two hours later, he was pulling on his mask and hoping for a miracle.
"KAREN?" Peter asked hesitatingly.
Immediately something flashed across his HUD and a calming feminine voice replied, "Good afternoon, Peter."
A wave of excitement coursed through his veins at his success. "Oh my god, I can't believe I actually did it. In your face, Mr. Stark." He smiled at the realization that he had truly brought his AI back online all by himself. "Welcome back, KAREN, I really missed you."
"I missed you too," KAREN replied kindly.
"Okay, okay, don't get too ahead of yourself, Pete," Peter mumbled to himself before saying, "Can you run a full diagnostic, KAREN?"
"Full diagnostic scan initiated," KAREN noted. "Estimated completion time is one hour."
"One hour," Peter repeated to himself. "Gotta find a way to kill the time, then."
Over the course of the next hour, Peter fiddled with his suit's coding, taking great care to modify some codes that he was unhappy with. For instance, he immediately took out the coding that automatically informed Tony whenever he was injured and instead set it to a manual setting. It didn't make sense for Peter to have to explain anything that was as minor as a small papercut or a bruised rib. By the time that KAREN finished her diagnostic scan and was found to be running at full capacity, Peter was ready to get out of the empty compound. Putting on his Spider-Man suit, Peter slung his backpack over his shoulders and made his way towards the exit. The silence in the building was eerie and suffocating, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Just as he reached the outside of the compound, he froze mid step and his entire frame tensed up. Spinning around, he half expected someone to be staring at him from one of the windows of the compound.
"Your heart rate spiked, Peter, is everything alright?" KAREN's voice made Peter jump out of his skin.
Not used to that anymore, Peter tried to catch his breath. "Is there anyone currently in the compound?"
"My scanners indicate that the compound is currently empty," KAREN replied.
"Oh," Peter still couldn't shake off the sense that someone was watching him. "I just... I could've sworn..." He trailed off.
"Shall I call Mr. Stark?" KAREN wondered.
That jolted Peter out of his daze, "What? No, no, it's fine," Peter wasn't sure if he was trying to reassure his AI or himself. "I've just been a little jumpy lately, it's probably nothing."
"If you say so," KAREN didn't sound convinced. "Shall I plot a course for your apartment?"
"Yeah," Peter readjusted the straps of his backpack. "Let's go home."
As Peter took off, he tried to get his sixth sense to calm down, but there was a lingering pit of nausea that seemed to take a permanent residence in his stomach nowadays. Trying to shake off the paranoia, Peter focused on the road ahead of him. It wasn't until later that Peter realized he never left a note, and he honestly couldn't find it in himself to care.
Peter didn't sleep that night and he felt like living hell the next morning. In all fairness, he did try to sleep, but he woke up the first time from dreaming about crumbling to ash. The second time, he was crumbling to ash while a pair of yellow eyes were staring at him, as if they were the reason he was falling apart in the first place. Needless to say, waking up twice while drenched in sweat was enough to cause his senses to go haywire. Suddenly the sheets of his bed were needles against his skin and he had no desire to sleep anymore. He had tried using Bucky's method of listening to rain or the ocean to soothe his worries, but it seemed like that trick was a one and done deal. It had been close to two weeks since he had a nightmare and he had just gotten used to being back on a normal sleeping schedule, at least normal for him. He should've known that his luck was going to run thin eventually, he was just hoping it would've been later down the road.
Somehow in the middle of all that was happening, Peter had found himself hanging upside down on his bedroom ceiling. He didn't exactly know how to explain why he favored the position so much, but it was one of the positions that helped him gather his thoughts. His aunt hated when he hung upside down, she said it wasn't healthy for his brain, but Peter never had an issue with that. He almost wondered if it was just another thing that his spider DNA had just instilled in his mutation.
Essentially, for the rest of that night, Peter had begun a self-reflection of his newer powers. He had been avoiding it for almost a month now and he knew that he couldn't avoid reality forever. He began with his organic webs, something that still creeped him out from just merely remembering the sight of it coming out of his arms. It was also hard to explain how right it felt to use it. It was almost more instinctual when compared to his mechanical web shooters, it felt like Peter had his own sixth sense for shooting his web fluid. When Peter had first begun to use his mechanical web shooters, it took some time to get used to remembering how to actually shoot the web and then releasing the web while swinging. However, with his organic webs, he just shot the webs before he had a second to think about how to do it, it was like it truly was a part of him.
When Peter had first found out about his organic webs, he had wondered why his webs felt stronger than before. Peter hasn't had a chance to fully test his theory, but he had a strange feeling that he knew that not only were his organic webs stronger, but they seemed more flexible too.
Besides his organic webs, Peter wondered what else might have changed or evolved when it came to his powers. His ability to stick to stuff hasn't changed, so that definitely wasn't it. He had noticed that his senses did seem even clearer and more enhanced than before, but Peter never truly dwelled on the idea, he just thought it was an after effect of being gone for five years. However, considering that his sixth sense seemed to go off twenty-four seven, Peter wondered if maybe his increasingly enhanced senses might be to blame for the enhancement of his sixth sense.
Twiddling with his wrists that contained the thin layer of translucent nanites, Peter bit his lip as he pondered something. Tapping on the nanites of his left wrist, the little bots evolved into a thin bracelet, exposing his web patch.
I wonder... Peter trailed off as he closed his eyes and focused solely on the patch on his wrist, picturing it becoming invisible. Almost immediately, Peter felt his wrist begin to tingle as if something small was crawling on his skin. Opening his eyes, Peter was shocked to see the webby white patch had faded completely into his skin. Holding out the same wrist, Peter found a spot on his wall and fired his web. Immediately, the web hit its target, the end releasing automatically. Looking back at his wrist, Peter was thrilled to see the patch was still nowhere to be found on his skin. He quickly retracted the nanites on right wrist and did the same thing, yielding similar results.
"Just like Uncle Ben used to say," Peter mused to himself. "Sometimes the craziest ideas turn out to be the right ones."
A knock on his door jolted him back to reality and Peter let out a small shout of surprise, falling off the ceiling and onto the floor in a heap.
"Peter? Breakfast is on the table," May opened the door, pausing when she saw her nephew on the floor, rubbing a sore spot on his head. "Ceiling?"
Peter just shot her sheepish look as he sat up into a criss cross position.
May shook her head in exasperation. "Mutant teenagers," She muttered under her breath before coming over and sitting next to him. "Couldn't sleep?"
Peter bit his lip at that, not sure what to say. He could be honest and admit the truth, but it was getting to the point where he felt ridiculous for having the same nightmares over and over again since he had come back.
May must've been able to read the answer in his silence and she sighed, pulling him into a hug. Peter went willingly, tucking his head into the crook of her neck, soaking in the security of her embrace. "Thought you finally caught a break."
"Me too," Peter admitted quietly.
She rubbed soothing circles into his back. "You know I'm always here if you need to talk. I don't want to push you, you know that, right? I just... I worry sometimes."
"I know," Peter reassured her, reluctantly pulling back.
May studied him for a moment before patting his cheek, "Take a shower, food's on the table when you're ready."
Peter smiled at that, "Thanks, May."
She returned the smile, but Peter could see the lingering sadness in her eyes. Getting up, May made her way out of his room before closing the door, leaving Peter by himself.
Peter closed his eyes and huffed out a sigh. "Time to face the day, Parker. How hard can it be?"
Once he made his way into the bathroom, Peter cringed at his reflection. The bags under his eyes were far too evident to be healthy and his clothes were still wet from sweating so much. After a shower that was hot enough to singe his skin, Peter emerged from the shower looking presentable. The bags under his eyes couldn't be fixed in time for school, but maybe he could come up with the excuse of pulling an all-nighter.
Walking into the kitchen, Peter noted that May was finishing her cup of coffee while scrolling through her phone and Alex was finishing his homework while eating a bowl of cereal.
Grabbing a stack of pancakes, Peter sat down next to Alex and said, "History or Calculus?"
"Calculus and it's the bane of my existence," Alex huffed in frustration. "I can't figure out this damn problem for the life of me."
"Here, let me see," Peter requested.
"Good luck, Pete, I've been trying for hours," Alex slid the paper over to him before pulling the bowl of cereal to his chest. Peter could've sworn that the raven-haired boy looked like a pouting chipmunk at that moment.
Taking a bite of his pancakes, Peter turned to study the problem in front of him. It took him a minute but something popped into his mind. "You mixed up your sum and difference identities. Remember when you use your sine identities, its cosine time sine, not sine times sine."
Alex's eyes lit up and Peter could essentially see the lightbulb go off in his head. "Oh! Well, in that case I really am an idiot."
Peter shrugged, "It's a simple error, you would've gotten it eventually. Sometimes it helps to have a fresh pair of eyes."
"That fresh pair of eyes just helped solve the bane of my existence," Alex pointed out, taking one final bite of his cereal before going back to finishing the worksheet.
Peter looked up to see May studying the two of them, her eyes bright with happiness. When she noticed Peter staring at her, she smirked and winked at him. Peter rolled his eyes good naturedly before diving back into his breakfast.
Peter could hear May let out a faint chuckle before getting up from the table.
"Is George off shift today?" Peter wondered as May went to wash out her coffee mug.
"George is already at the hospital," May replied. "He got called in early this morning, he should be back by the time you two get home from school."
"What's your schedule like today?"
"I won't be home until late, I'm staying overtime tonight to cover for someone," May walked over towards the adjoining living area, grabbing her bag. "Oh, Peter, Tony called last night, he wants you to call him sometime this afternoon when you have the chance."
"Oh, okay," Peter winced at that.
May must've noticed his reaction, because her eyebrows furrowed in evident confusion.
"Come on, you say that like you kicked his puppy," Alex piped in amusedly.
In a way, he kinda kicked mine and I just pissed him off, Peter thought to himself.
May checked her watch and sighed, "I have to go or else I'll be late. You two be safe and don't miss your train!"
"That was only one time," Alex defended himself.
"I'm not talking about that," May looked at Peter.
Peter's eyes widened, "Hey!"
May shot him a playful smirk before she left, the door closing behind her.
"So what's going on between you and Tony?" Alex asked.
Peter froze at the question, his fork stopped in the air. He set the fork back down, his appetite faded. "It's nothing."
Alex's eyes flickered between Peter and his abandoned food. "Is everything okay?"
Peter ran a hand down his face at that, suddenly wanting to bolt. This was a touchy subject and Peter wasn't sure he was ready to venture too far into this territory yet. "It's nothing, just some internship stuff."
Alex raised an eyebrow at that, "What kind of stuff?"
"We just had a disagreement," Peter chose his words carefully.
Alex looked like he wanted to push, but he must've sensed how uncomfortable Peter was because he backed off. "I'm not trying to push, I promise. It's just... you look like crap, dude."
"It's not because of that," Peter shook his head. "I just... I don't really talk about it because it's embarrassing."
"Does May know at least?"
Peter looked at the older boy, and was taken aback at the genuine concern he was showing. "Yeah, she knows."
Alex looked him in the eye, as if trying to read between the lines before he deflated. "Look, whatever is going on I know it's not my business. I don't know why you're not sleeping, and I might have some suspicions but I'm not gonna throw you in a corner to fend for yourself. I don't know what's going on between you and Tony Stark, again, it's not my business. Word of advice though, ghosting people because you don't want to face them just hurts you in the end."
Peter stood up at that, feeling the nausea grow at each word Alex spoke. He knew he should eat more, his metabolism is going to wreak havoc on him later for that, but the last thing he needed was to throw up his breakfast. No one should be so tense when talking about their mentor, he didn't need Alex's suspicions to go through the roof. His chest felt heavy, though, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could go without collapsing with the weight of it all.
Fuck it, Peter decided. "The thing about Tony... it's complicated," Peter conceded. "Before... I don't really remember my parents, I was orphaned when I was really young. The only father figure I really remembered growing up was my Uncle Ben. He tried so hard to be what I had lost, and for the most part he succeeded, you know? I knew the hole would never go away, but Uncle Ben filled a majority of it. It was all that I needed."
Alex was looking at him, his face showing that he was listening to every word Peter was saying.
"When Uncle Ben died..." Peter's voice broke at the memory. He looked down at his hands, as if he expected to see them splattered with blood. He shakily closed his hands into fists and looked back up at Alex. "I thought that was it, I had a father and I lost him. Then Tony came along when I won that damn internship and at first he wanted nothing to do with me."
"What changed?" Alex wondered, curiosity evident in his tone.
"I proved myself," Peter admitted, except he was the only one who knew the true meaning behind it. "I won his respect, so to speak, and he kind of just took me under his wing. As time passed he essentially became another Ben. I mean no one can top Uncle Ben, but Tony came very damn close. For the longest time I could've sworn he saw me like a son. Then T-Thanos happened," The name tasted like ash in Peter's mouth. "When I came back, things changed. I got lucky with you and your dad, but Tony had a family of his own now. He has a wife and daughter and I'm just... I'm just me."
Why am I saying this to the one person that doesn't even know the real me? Peter wondered. It was just that Alex was so easy to talk to, and for some reason Peter trusted him with his entire being. This was something he hadn't even worked up to the nerve to tell Ned.
"But Peter Parker is awesome," Alex amended. "You are you, but that's not a bad thing."
Peter smiled bitterly at that, "Hard to think that way when you feel someone slipping through your fingers because you aren't good enough for them."
"Peter, stop," Alex walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Don't do that yourself."
"What else am I supposed to think?" Peter burst out. "I was so stupid to believe that someone like Tony Stark could care about a nobody like me."
"If Tony Stark didn't care, then why did he call May last night freaking out about how you disappeared?"
Peter scoffed at that, "Because May's my guardian, he's worried about liability."
Alex tightened his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Fine, maybe he is, but if that's the case then he's an idiot. Peter Parker isn't a nobody from Queens, he's got amazing friends and one hell of a family that cares deeply about him. Is it perfect? No, we're all a little broken and bruised, but we are strong."
The genuity in Alex's voice made Peter speechless, but the self-deprecating part of him made him wonder what he did to deserve such kindness.
"I don't know Iron Man personally, I've only read the stories of how he's this so-called asshole billionaire who's had a rough past," Alex admitted. "But when May told stories about the two of you these past couple years, it changed my whole perspective. He visited her a few times throughout the years. He would never admit it, but I know he teared up whenever they talked about you. Tony found a picture of the two of you and gave May a copy of it as a Christmas gift one year. It was the two of you holding a Stark Industries certificate, and you both were doing bunny ears to each other. He said that he had one that he kept, but if it could bring her happiness like it did to him, then he wanted her to have a copy too."
"That sounds a little too sappy to be Tony Stark," Peter admitted dubiously.
"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," Alex shrugged. "I don't know how to convince you, I'm not sure if I'm trying to or not. I don't think you're a nobody, Peter. To me, you're like the kid brother I've never had. These past few months have only confirmed that for me."
With that being said, Alex patted his shoulder one last time before ducking into his bedroom to finish getting ready for the start of the school day. Peter was left staring at his retreating form, his head reeling with everything that had just happened.
Alright, you're all caught up for now!
Was it good? Was it bad? Feel free to let me know!