Chapter Summary:This world is but a quarter of a teaspoon of the universe and yet there's so much to unpick. Knowledge skims the surface and wisdom fills the seas. To sink deeper than that is to drown.
The scars the stars leave can be invisible
As subtle as a shift in the wind
We can break from the pressure
We can feel it boil under our skin
There is a time in everyone's life where you will have to stare down the flashing headlights of an incoming train and you will realize that you have two choices;
Stand still and brace for impact.
Or move aside and let it pass you by.
Peter was at that time
Peter stared down the eye of a storm and felt guilty.
Peter felt guilty down to the spongy marrow of his bones. But no, it wasn't the guilt of having it – fear, death, hands – happen. Peter felt guilty for wanting to get Skip in trouble. It was strange that he felt so guilty, but he supposed it was probably because he couldn't separate the bad from the good.
He thought that might have been the worst part: that not all of it was bad. He remembered the tinkling laughter of best friends. He remembered the sun igniting the sky with a blaze that covered games of make-believe in a fantastical array of star beams that flickered across youthful faces like a hungry flame.
He remembered how, even during the worst of it all, Skip was nice. And how was he supposed to hate the person who covered his scraped knees with bandages and swept him off his feet into the mystical worlds of cinema and high school chemistry? How was he supposed to look at his first friend and feel hate?
Sometimes, he made excuses for Skip. He would play it off like it was somehow his fault as a way to cope with the inaction he perpetuated. Sometimes, he pretended that it wasn't worth it, that it wasn't important enough to address.
(But it is a heavy stench at the back of his throat rotting his teeth into yellow stumps. It is permeating his mouth with a vicious and raw pain that throbs deep within his jaw. The unspoken words are sharp and stabbing at his tongue which drips blood from bitten lips.
The red stains on his chin speak of horror but nobody seems to see. His eyes are cracked glass orbs spilling piercing crystal. His tears carve craters down his cheeks that others seem to mistake for laugh lines.
He wonders how they don't hear how unhinged his laughs sound.)
Peter felt guilty because he was standing in Hell's Kitchen with torn jeans and scraped knees –
(No, don't think about it. There's nothing to think about, he's fine –)
Peter was at a crossroads;
To ask for help, to scream to the heavens and wish for a miracle.
Or walk home and burst from the trauma overloading his heart.
…
Peter yelled.
6 hours earlier - 7:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Mr. Stark had sighed a countless amount of times since Peter had entered the lab. Eyes constantly darting to the side to observe Peter, he seemed to be contemplating whether or not to say something.
Peter, on the other hand, was shifting nervously in his seat under the scrutiny. Twiddling with the cap of his pen, he tried to focus on the equation in front of him rather than the eyes boring into his profile.
(There's nothing wrong, leave him alone. He's drowning, stop looking at him.)
The room felt overcrowded and the walls reached out like grasping hands to choke him with their closeness. His spine was a steel rod straightening his back and his eyes misted with anxious tears.
(Don't cry, don't cry. Tears mean you're alive, and he's not. He's an imposter in human skin – a skeletal reflection of humanity and what it's meant to be.)
"What?" Peter asked voice clipped with stress-induced irritation.
Tony jolted and side-eyed him once more with – was that suspicion?
No. It was concern.
He swiveled to face Peter and Peter might've laughed at the constipated look on his face if he hadn't felt so anxious and drained at the same time.
"What what?" Tony joked.
Peter pinned him with an icy glare.
"Sorry," Tony relented, barking a little laugh before sobering, "I just wanted to ask if you were okay. Your reports from Karen say you've lost a lot of weight?"
The invasion of privacy, though not unexpected, made violation throb deep inside his chest. That, paired along with the implication that Mr. Stark couldn't notice his steady degradation without the aid of his technology made Peter scrunch his face in anguish.
(Mr. Stark didn't care enough to see on his own because Peter wasn't human.
He's just a tool.)
"M'fine," he spat, turning his head and body away from Mr. Stark to hide his angrily furrowed brow.
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Mr. Stark raise his hands placatingly. A heavy frown marred his face and he seemed to examine Peter consideringly.
"Wow, kid, what's got you into such a mood?" Mr. Stark teased lightly, though his tone betrayed his concern.
"Nothing, but you might just be," he retorted, regretting his words but unable to bring himself to apologize at the sight of hurt in Tony's eyes.
"I don't need you to hold my hand," he continued stubbornly, "I did this before you came into my life – I'm not a kid. I don't need your help!"
Mr. Stark looked startled and upset as his outburst and he swiveled as if to try to get Peter to meet his eye but Peter stared mulishly at the ink in front of his face.
"I never said you were," Mr. Stark mollified warily.
Peter bit his lip and scowled at the paper, trying futilely to block out the conversation and for Tony to leave it be. Instead, Mr. Stark seemed to sag at the reaction and changed his approach entirely.
"Look, I've got issues, kid, I'm not gonna argue that, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you. I try my best but I'm still human," Tony said solemnly, "I've messed up a bunch with you, I know that, but I don't want you to think you can't come to me with your problems."
Peter snorted derisively, knowing he was taking out his tightly bridled anger on Mr. Stark just because he was covering up his fear. His anger was a force of nature, a hurricane brewing beneath his chest and caged by the shortness of his anxious breaths. His ribs were a prison for rainfall and lightning to clash in a dangerous dance which riled the bile of his stomach to rise up his throat and coat the back of his mouth with acid.
He had been able to hold his tongue, to spew his vitriol within the dark corners of his mind, but a target had arisen and his self-control wasn't enough to hold his venomous words behind clenched teeth or swallow like a bitter pill.
"Yeah, sure," he muttered sourly and Peter tried to ignore the stab of guilt in his chest when Mr. Stark looked as if he had crushed his heart beneath his palms.
"Alright, well, moody teenagers are definitely not what I signed up for," he said and Peter knew at this point that Tony was the kind of person to cover up his hurts with asshole remarks and scathing misdirection.
But Peter wasn't really in the mood to care.
"What did you sign up for?" Peter questioned harshly, finally looking up to meet his mentor's gaze.
Mr. Stark's eyes widened at the sight and Peter wondered what he saw. His eyes had to be red and broken and his face felt gaunt like the stretch of sallow skin on a decomposing corpse even without looking at a mirror.
A vicious stab of pleasure pierced his heart at the sight of guilty worry on Tony's face and he tried to press it down. He shouldn't have been feeling glad that Mr. Stark was worried or upset.
(He shouldn't, but he did.
You see, there were two feelings that persistently followed him, nipping at his heels and impatiently asking for acknowledgment. On one hand, he wished for silence, to hide in shadows with his head stuck in the sand ignoring all that might hurt him as well as any way to escape from that which already was. And, on the other, he wished to waltz into the sunshine with his vocal cords booming his pleas to the masses.
It is not so simple as guilt and self-blame. It is a grapple with all the desires that could be but seem so impossible to those who wish them.)
"I didn't sign up for anything," Mr. Stark said reflexively, wincing a little at Peter's angry glower.
"Yeah, and I never asked you to!" Peter yelled, standing up from the sudden burst of rage (and sharp hurt) he felt.
Blinking his eyes in shock at his own reaction, he stepped back and gave a lost look to Tony.
"I-I'm sorry. I don't know what's happening to me," he blurted, hurriedly moving to pack his bag.
His papers crumpled under his manic hands and the ink of cheap gel pens smeared like bloodstains on his fingertips. Haphazardly putting the items into his threadbare and fraying backpack, he fumbled to zip it up as anxiety made his stomach turn.
"I-I'll just go," he whispered furiously and shut his mouth to prevent much more from coming out.
Mr. Stark looked panicked now and stood up straighter before speaking frantically.
"What's wrong Peter?" he asked hastily, his eyes startled and uncertain.
But Peter's hands shook like leaves on a gentle Autumn breeze and he was only the accumulation of all of his fears at that moment. No matter how much he wished for comfort or kindness, his skin burned at the thought of human interaction.
Tony was too close even a meter away, and Peter was like a polarized magnet stuck in repulsion with the world – pulling, always pulling away.
Mr. Stark reached out to grab at his wrist (no, stop! Don't hurt me!) to try to keep him from leaving and Peter flinched away, jostling his sleeve up to reveal his arm. It was as thin and brittle as a twig and discolored with sickly yellow bruises.
Peter looked to him in horror as bile rose and washed the back of his throat like mouthwash. Eyes like a stained-glass mirror shattered with the explosion of the revelation and, within seconds, Peter was gone.
(Tony Stark is left in a desperate struggle to find out how to fix a problem that has no instruction manual.)
Peter crumbled under the weight of his apathy. Shifting and stumbling on shaky feet he wobbled through his patrol and tried to ignore the distinct lack of Karen's voice soothing his ears.
(He had rushed to an alley-way and crushed the internal hardwiring of the suit as soon as he could. Not one of his better decisions but, if he could be Spider-Man without the A.I. before Iron Man came into his life, he could do it again.
Even when he had to face Mr. Stark in the next 48 hours – because he would, he knew that – it somehow felt worth it for the time being.)
Facing off against nameless faces and foes, he swung his arm carelessly and without force against his opponents and accepted retaliation without much of a fight. He wrote his notes to the cops lethargically and sloppily as if the weight of the pen between his fingers was that of the sky under Atlas' back.
Robotically comforting the victims of the crimes he intervened in, he tried not to notice the way his voice slurred with depression. It sounded like he was muffled by blankets.
(Though it wasn't as if that wasn't accurate – he felt as if he was drowning. Why not sound like it too?)
He had dreams, sometimes – nightmares, not dreams – dreams in which he was the enemy, the blade that struck down unsuspecting innocents instead of saving them. He dreamed of war drums and cold-blooded murder and no one to notice as his masked face hid all of his crimes.
(He wondered, sometimes, if the mask meant he was a coward or if it was a sign that what he was doing was wrong – shameful.
What is a mask but a ragged swath of shawl to cover up one's sin?)
Peter followed the curve of a raindrop floating haphazardly on the unpredictable glide of the wind – undirected and entirely dependent on forces outside of his control. He splashed upon the concrete, puddling onto the crowded sidewalks like a trickle of fresh water joining a pool.
His ears rung with the echoes of sirens and he flinched away from shoulders until he seemed to be lost inside the hoody he threw on after changing out of his suit. Swallowed by shadows, he was barely spared a glance as he woodenly dodged the sharp elbows of his fellow commuters.
Deciding that his apartment didn't sound all that bad even with the threat of confrontation, he trudged home on unsteady feet.
Crossing the street without turning his head, he maneuvered through cars parked in traffic until he was left to gaze up at the large expanse of his apartment complex. He took a shaky breath in for courage before trudging forward and stepping inside the building.
The warm air alighted upon his skin like a match and he shivered at the coldness in his limbs that he hadn't noticed until faced with the sharp contrast of temperature. Lips numb and chapped, he rubbed his frozen palms to his nose and winced at the burn in his nostrils from the chill.
Noting that Aunt May would probably be home, he hurried to the elevator to face the meeting that he had been so steadfastly avoiding.
(Walking home takes so much longer than crawling in through a window, but the break eased a little chip of ice off his heart. It felt freeing, sometimes, to walk on the ground and not fly through the air. He could pretend he was normal with it – could pretend that his legs burned from the long walk rather than the extensive vigilantism that labored his muscles and pumped raging rivers of blood through his veins to thrum like an earthquake in his ears.)
It was awkward, sometimes, how obviously touch averse he was. The elevator, though not overly crowded, was filled with two other occupants and he, though the one to press the button in the first place, opted for the stairs.
It wasn't like it was an inconvenience to him or his monstrous athleticism, but it said something about his mental state that he couldn't handle two strangers close to him for even the extent of an elevator ride.
He hopped up the steps torpidly and tried not to crush the staircase railing beneath his palm.
(It would twist and scream like a tortured soul writhing under his ministrations, but he would only squeeze out the protests impassively.)
The landing of the stairs to his floor seemed so glaringly similar to the one before that he had to check the number beside the door to make sure it was his – a sign of his inattentiveness as he could usually tell by counting the floors subconsciously as he passed them by.
Once he had affirmed he was on the right floor, he leaned his side into the push bar to open it rather than expend the energy to use his hands. Walking the length of the hallway made him feel like he was walking to his death but he plodded on, even if it was at a snail's pace.
Reaching his door, he stood for what felt like hours staring at the expanse of wood. Carving divots into the frame with his eyes, he waited as if he was expecting it to open under the force of his stare. His mind, so frequently fraught with thoughts and rambling ideas, had halted as if stopped by the mere presence of home.
(A home that isn't home.)
Scraping his key into the doorknob with a wobbly fist, he pushed it open warily and breathed a sigh of relief at the open living room. The sound of a running shower filled his ears and his heart clenched in discomfort when he realized that he was so preoccupied with his thoughts (or lack of) that he couldn't hear the shower from outside of the door.
Walking to his bathroom, he paused at the note on the counter.
'Out with friends, I'll be home late - Skip,' was scrawled messily on a piece of paper ripped unevenly from a notepad.
Peter couldn't bring himself to smile.
Shaking his head and closing his eyes against the inexplicable sadness the emptiness of the apartment brought him, he walked blindly into the bathroom, flinging his bag into his opened bedroom on the way.
Fingers tightly grasped upon the sink, his teeth clenched as crumbs of porcelain gathered under his nails. He looked into the mirror and felt a little older – a little bit colder. His face was a blank slate crumbling at the edges. His eyes were dulled and tired and grief beyond his age swam in the once warm whiskey orbs.
Skin stretched across his cheekbones like leather on a tanning stand. His hair flopped on his forehead in greasy clumps and he blinked dully at his reflection.
His heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest. Thumping like the carcass of an animal slaughtered by carefully steady hands, his heart was an ever-constant reminder of the pitch-black shadows of the world.
Suddenly, the violent urge to destroy tore through his being and he sobbed harshly. Curling into himself, he scrabbled at his side in a mockery of a hug like his own false comfort could really cure his heartache. Grasping at his rib cage like fingers on piano keys, he played a melody with his bitterness and pulled on his bones like handles that could open to a place that might be better.
Heaving with the force of discomfort in his skin, he clenched his fists and punched the air at his sides. He noted, distantly, that no matter how hard he squeezed his hands, he couldn't break the nothingness hiding in the cracks of his palms.
Jabbing his fist forward, glass shattered under his knuckles and gathered in his skin like trees rooted deep within the ground. The tips reached towards the heavens in ragged and bloody peaks. Distantly aware of the destruction, he observed the broken pieces pooling in the sink and cluttering the tile floor mutely.
Cracks lined the mirror from where he had punched it but it was hard to dredge up any emotion towards them.
Hurried footsteps thudded towards the bathroom but he did not move from his position. Still staring at the mockery of diamond rings imbedded in his fingers, he saw bare feet halt at the edge bordering the bathroom floor from the hardwood of the living room.
Aunt May took one look at the destroyed frame and asked him, "Why? What was the reason?"
(What was the reason? There were so many reasons.)
There was a resigned air to it all. Face lined with disappointment, she sighed as if she expected no less of him. But then, she examined him and softened slightly at his state.
(He wondered how bad he looked now, how purple the bruises under his eyes had to shine and how grey the skin clinging to his bony limbs had to be for her to finally see. To look and find evidence of the perdition he had found seemingly permanent residence in.)
"Are you alright?" May asked, voice loving and concerned, "you've been acting strange for a few weeks now and I'm starting to worry about you. You're all pale and you look like you've lost weight. You know you've got to eat more than other people, honey."
Peter nodded listlessly.
(He felt like a fiddle being plucked in all the wrong ways.
What could he do when his house was no longer a home but a dollhouse set up for play?)
But he hadn't looked up, so she sighed again – this time with more heartbreak than disapproval. Stepping carefully into the room, she gathered his hand within her own and he swallowed shakily. Her fingers laid carefully upon the edges of his palm and she leaned down a little as his eyes flicked to meet hers.
"Honey, what's wrong?" she asked softly, and Peter realized with a startling lucidity that tears as salty as the brine of a sea breeze were making their way down his face.
Glancing watery eyes up to his Aunt – his caretaker, his family, his mom in all the ways that mattered – he croaked brokenly, "I don't know anymore."
Though that was a lie because there were fingers melded on his wrists like stains of molten yellow wax and scars dug caverns under his eyes – big purple bruises from nightmarish dreams and horrible realities. His skin stretched the expanse of his soul, marred by cougar claws and the scathing burn of sunlight. His hair was an oil spill that leaked through his scalp and into his mind in toxic waves colored in twilight and the luminescent shine of death.
He was built from the husks of firecrackers burned out too quickly. Ash lined his tongue as he coughed up smoke, polluting the world with the secrets he kept.
(He knew, of course he knew.)
"Oh, sweetie," she said sorrowfully, placing her hands on the side of his face and kissing his forehead as she dragged him towards her and out of the glass littered bathroom.
She held him close to her body as she led him to the couch but he didn't flinch or draw away. Instead, he put his face in the crook of her neck and cried as if he were a child seeking comfort.
(Is he still a child? What is the turning point between youth and adulthood?
Could he really be just a child?
Could a child face all of this alone?)
The love that sparked from her lips was like a warm campfire but it could so quickly turn into that of a raging inferno. She could burn down the forest of his soul with a single syllable because his own relied on her words for survival.
He hung onto her like a dying man grasping at a smoking log as if it could save him.
What a convoluted way of saying his dependence was irrational.
(But is it irrational when all you have known is the never-ending loss of those you hold dear to you? Is it irrational to cling tightly to the last bit of family you have?
Peter had always known of death. Just as he knew that the sun would rise tomorrow, he knew that, sooner or later, all that he ever loved would rot to dust.)
Clinging to the one he loved above all, he fell asleep to a lullaby.
Facing the world with a nighttime riddled gaze, he woke up warm and alone. Well, not quite alone.
Voices swirled softly on the air wafting like the scent of freshly baked cookies into the living room and Peter ached with sleep-induced nostalgia. Squirming out of the blanket and trying to dredge up the energy to lift his limbs, he yawned tiredly as he lazily faced his head to his wrist.
12:15 A.M. his watch blinked at him and he startled at the sight. He had forgotten to take off his watch! So much for being able to hide from Mr. Stark when that was on his wrist.
Shaking his head and rising to his feet, he stretched his arms upward even as his heart-rate skyrocketed in anxiety. His joints popped and creaked as he pulled his hands together. He cracked his neck to the side and tried not to wince at the loud sounds.
Padding softly to the entryway of the dining room, he peeked his head around the corner and tried not to cry out.
Mr. Stark's face peered out of the kitchen, glancing wary and livid eyes at the shuttered and calm face of Skip. Stumbling mid-step, Peter was hit with the sudden realization that he could not do this. Ripping the watch off of his wrist, he ran to his room and clawed at the window with frenetic hands. Even with super strength pulsing through his muscles it didn't seem to want to rise for his frantic fingers. They twitched uselessly against the pale wood and he could feel his breath shorten with panic.
The walls were stone weights lying on his chest and gathering pebbles in his stomach. They climbed like a cage around him that, for all his power, seemed impossible to escape.
(To clamber out of the chasm of his heart which has swallowed him whole.)
Finally finding purchase on the smooth grain, he slammed it upwards and did not even wince at the sharp snap of a fault line carving its way through the glass. Footsteps neared his bedroom and he shimmied through the gap without a glance behind.
Hearing yells of protest behind him, he jumped and landed with a painful jolt on his feet before falling to his knees. Jagged concrete tore through denim and embedded in his skin
Tripping over both his feet and strangers, he skidded into building corners and jostled his way through crowds of tourists and locals alike. He jumped around cars in flying leaps that Peter Parker very clearly shouldn't have been able to do.
(Because Peter Parker isn't Spider-Man. He's 9 and alone and oh, so scared of the world. Peter Parker runs from problems and cowers with his head between his knees. His fists clench and grasp at his ears to block out the anguished howls of the world.
Peter Parker isn't strong enough to face this burning star of a world, but Spider-Man should be. The question lies in if he actually can.)
He sprinted with his eyes clenched shut and let his instincts guide him through the flow of people as busy-bodied as a school of fish.
The world glimmered like spotlights on his closed lashes and rainbows swirled through the salty liquid in his eyes. Stumbling through his tears, he watched rivers form and converge within the space of a minute.
The world fluctuated and rippled like a dress billowing in the wind.
(Without looking, you might be able to trace the wrinkles into a solid shape as you dragged you your finger along the fabric. But, with eyes wide open and curious, the creases and folds will hide worlds between their seams.)
Faces lined the walls, the street corners, and malls and yet they all looked the same. The world was a haze of impressions rather than the harsh lines of reality.
(Blue and white and pale honey – a sweet summer serenade to lost innocence. Red and brown and whiskey – the crisp and sharp burn of alcohol behind his sternum settling like hot cocoa in his hollow belly.
They blur with a contingency, the possibility of mortality shines upon their dampened lips. Poison shines like lip gloss and they lick at it without fear. They pause in neutrality, polished blades of war set aside in apathy, yet killing all the same.
He sometimes remembered a time where the nights had numbers and the days had names. As it was, could barely remember something different from monotony.)
Rushing through traffic like a thread of water flowing against the current, he fleetingly thought that he might have looked like an anime character in a drama to an outsider's perspective.
The thought was quickly overridden by the swell of terror rising in roiling waves within his soul.
His heart was as wide as the world felt empty and it rattled with the sound of beans rolling in a rain-stick. Stopping briefly, he blankly gazed at the expanse of the Queensboro Bridge hanging like a willow branch reaching its fronds over the East River.
(To feel is a much more blessed thing than we give it credit for. Emotions and tears that batter like rain on a window are much more meaningful than the hollow thrum of depression that swallows one whole. It is a sinking ship without much impact on the surface of the sea for others to notice it.
It is a localized disaster.
Though tears may fall, Peter wished he felt some satisfaction from his dewy and swollen eyes. And yet, his tears only puddled lamely to join the ocean of his mind, leaving an astonishing lack of fulfillment.)
Pushing forward, he veered into the pedestrian lane. Strides long and sure, he paid no mind to the impressions of the other commuters as he ran faster than any normal human could accomplish.
After all, Hell's Kitchen was only five miles away.
(When Peter was 16-years-old, he ran towards help like the hounds of hell were snarling at his heels.)