Chapter Summary: But he is steady, like a drum, and the world hits heavy on each thrum. When will it rest - take a reprieve?

For all that he sees are oceans of greed.

Perhaps the sky is just light and dust

And perhaps we're all just dust too

Because we will all soon scatter on the wind like forgotten memories

And death will coat ash on every skin

There was a point where it felt normal. Where he forgot that he was just a percentage of one negative thing after another. Where he forgot that he wasn't supposed to be good anymore – that people who dealt with what he did were supposed to turn bad at some point. He thought that that was rather silly. He felt normal because this was his normal – because the darkness of man had followed him since birth so why would it shatter his resolve now? Why would his morals shift?

It was surprising, sometimes, how many things he had experienced when time flew by as if it was meaningless. He wondered where he fit it all in. How was there any space for all that he had accomplished? All that he had experienced?

16 years felt both too short and too long. At 15, he had felt mature but now he looked back at his past self and picked apart his childishness. It was a cycle that he hoped would end soon.

Maybe there was a difference between age and experience. Adult minds differed so much from a teenager's, after all.

But, there was also a point where life caught up to him. Where he could see the symptoms of a mind drawn too thin.

(He realized with a dull throb of panic that he hadn't even glanced at his homework for a week.)

Gripping the countertop, he chewed on his lip and contemplated how much damage control would have to occur if he snapped it in half right there in front of all the coffee shop patrons. 'It would be a lot,' he thought resignedly as he flexed his fingers instead. The small action did nothing to calm his restless indecision and he tapped his foot quickly as his blood beat patterns underneath his skin.

Maybe he was destined to be torn apart from the inside – a maelstrom of emotions without any outlet. Hurricane winds scraped the corners of his mind and prickled his soul until he was only a body of badly controlled impulses. Maybe he wouldn't die from a villain's scheme but by his own corked worries.

Maybe – he was still stalling.

The coffee shop was painted in different tones of grey and the dreary weather outside made the world around Peter almost seem like a black and white film. The atmosphere provided a certain drama to the scene; as though his tragic lingering in a café was being romanticized even by the weather.

Perhaps he was just romanticizing himself. Maybe it was a way to find comfort in the world around him. To find beauty in tragedy made the world seem like a better place even as children starved and wars raged on.

(There are wars burning homes and breaking families right then, weren't there? Wars with bullets and bombs and fiery infernos of hate.

To know of the existence of war as an abstract is not the same as experiencing the daily coating of soot settling on your skin or the constant terror pinching at the back of your neck.

Peter thinks he is rather accustomed to war, though, being in the unique position of a teenage vigilante. He fights battles every night and comes home to a house that isn't safe. His life sounded an awful lot like a person living in a warzone.

But he isn't.

Winning a battle wouldn't end a war. It wouldn't end this world, wouldn't end the endless cycle of violence and senseless animosity that humans seemed to breed in spades. Winning a battle wouldn't end a war but it might save a life – push a few forgotten melodies into empty heads to be sung when freedom eventually prevailed.

But Peter isn't free yet. He hasn't won his battle yet. He's just a child and children are never free in this world – never free from the gunpowder noise of orphan children and lost innocence.

The only way he could be free is through the mercy of an adult. Ironically, that's what trapped him in the first place.)

The rain slid down the window in crystal blue rivulets that he traced with weary eyes. Peter thought that maybe it wasn't romanticism making his heart clench mournfully. After all, the feeling that went along with racing raindrops on car windows would more accurately be described as nostalgia.

(He wished for a time when he wasn't too sad to cry. A time when juice boxes and McDonald's fries fixed hurt feelings like they were a Band-Aid to the soul.)

Thunder rumbled dark and low in the distance as the sky turned almost purple from the dark storm clouds congregating on the horizon. Peter felt a headache build up behind his temples and he rubbed between his eyebrows to relieve the dull ache. His eyes felt dry from the tears he had shed the night before and stung from the brightness of the artificial lights inside the café.

Voices drifted through the room and Peter put his hands on his ears to block the harsh noises. There were so many different conversations that it was hard to focus on any one in particular, but the T.V. was still louder than the rest.

"…President Donald Trump has now ordered the withdrawal of all remaining U.S. Troops inside Northern Syria. That order comes as Turkish forces push further South into Syria. In fact, Turkey's leader says the offensive will go about 30-35 kilometers into Syria. Pro-Turkish forces have already taken over a strategic highway in Syria which has effectively cut off the Kurdish city of Kobani. All this, as Syria's state news agency says units from the Syrian army are moving North to confront Turkey's offensive…."

Peter shuddered, cold gripping his heart. For a moment he had thought he'd lost his empathy but, just seeing the news was enough to dissuade him of that notion.

There was war in the world that he couldn't comprehend. War and betrayal that made him sick with anger.

War that the world seemed oblivious to until it really mattered.

(It's hard to be concerned about disasters that you cannot experience. It's hard to dredge up alarm at the state of the world when its negativity seems so constant.)

Maybe Peter was selfish – overreacting to something minuscule in the grand scheme of life. Maybe Peter was privileged and spoiled by the life he'd lived.

(Maybe Peter didn't deserve to feel as piteous as he did, to feel as though his life had been uprooted and stamped upon like a weed thrown in a compost pile.)

Either way, Peter tuned out the news to avoid thinking anymore about the impending deaths of thousands of people that he couldn't do anything to prevent.

….Maybe the Avengers could, though.

Peter gave a bitter smile at that. The Avengers would never be supported in getting involved in anything 'political' ever again.

(Not that Peter thought the deaths of American allies were political, but some people seemed to be pretending it was. Like war was anything but a travesty – an injustice that needed to be fought.)

Peter turned his ear to the traffic outside to drown out the high-pitched voice of the reporter on the T.V. He twitched anxiously as he heard a metallic thump in the distance just barely loud enough for the average ear to hear over the pouring rain. He jumped from his perch at the counter to find someplace to hide – he'd heard that sound before – as the clomping of iron boots neared the window.

Not even questioning how Mr. Stark had found him, Peter rushed to the back corner of the shop to look for a restroom.

He swiveled his head around to peer at all the nooks and crannies of the shop as he tried to find a door of any kind that wasn't the kitchen, but he was only met with blank walls. The only door he could find was behind the server's counter.

Adrenaline heating his body, he felt sweat build on his brow as his stomach clenched with nausea. It didn't matter that he was planning on talking to Mr. Stark anyway, he wasn't ready.

He wasn't ready!

Stumbling in a panicked circle, he felt his breath pick up as he saw Mr. Stark's red and gold metal suit glaring at him from the window. The world lurched and he leaned against the display case with a grip that he distantly noted was strong enough to dent the steel edge.

Mr. Stark had once said that he wanted Peter to be better than him. Peter wondered where that kind of a standard would get him now considering he was a high school kid cowering in a coffee shop.

Peter didn't think he could live up to anybody's standards at that moment.

(He's as small as an atom under a microscope. He's just an ant waiting to be squashed by unsuspecting feet.)

Only a few months before Peter met Skip, Peter had gone to the Stark Expo. He had been thrilled to go to the event. Clinging grubby hands to his aunt and uncle, he'd dragged them through every display he could find and had watched excitedly as Tony Stark spoke from holograms and on stage.

Just before it had gotten dark, he'd seen a rack of Iron Man themed memorabilia. After begging and pulling at Ben's sleeve, his uncle had finally given in and bought him a mask. It was flimsy and made of cheap plastic. The edges were coarse and almost jagged, but he'd tied it around his face eagerly all the same.

Bouncing around with all the energy of an excited child, he'd joined the crowd as just another covered face.

(It's simpler like that.

The world tends to feel utterly separate when you're anonymous – like you've unlocked a new dimension entirely your own to explore.)

He had watched the stage as it had filled up with dancers and inventions and he'd ignored Aunt May's disapproving tutting at the risqué display. The experience had been enthralling and he hadn't realized how absorbed he was in the show until he'd finally stumbled into Ben's side, overcome with exhaustion. They hadn't bought tickets with seats, so Ben had swung him onto his back where Peter could nap lightly – as only a child who's stayed up past his bedtime could.

Not long after, Peter had encountered his first near-death experience with a plastic Iron Man mask covering his face.

The drones had activated suddenly, and he'd lost his aunt and uncle in the sudden panic of the crowd. He'd frozen in morbid curiosity (always freezing) at the malicious machines' attack. When one had swooped in and landed on heavy feet, he'd barely thought before he'd held his arm up in a pale mockery of his hero. Peter had stood tall, barely more than a halted stumble to indicate his trepidation.

(He'd been puny, then, under the eyes of metal men with cold eyes and colder touch.)

Staring down a Hammer Drone hadn't been as hard as he'd expected it to be. Initially, he'd been so fearful that he'd felt bile rise like rot in the back of his mouth. His terror had quickly faded to detached indifference as if he had only been a bystander to his own foolish bravado. He hadn't flinched in the face of danger as his body had almost seemed to hum with a calm that felt artificial.

(Like the blank spot in a movie where the music cuts out and you almost forget that what's happening on the screen isn't real. And yet, it feels so fake, so disconnected, that you're left in a strange dichotomy of present and absent that leaves you disjointed down to the tips of your toes. It's as though you've stepped back from reality to settle in the starry realm in between the fabric of the universe – the indeterminate space between matter. The quiet is pervasive until it almost rings in your ears and you watch, just a little interested, in the terrible things happening on screen – for movie silences only ever occur during terrible things.

But you still watch the screen calmly – because these terrible things do not and will not ever affect you. Emotionally, they are foreign to you. They are created for your entertainment and any visceral reaction is caused solely by the carefully constructed screenplay and soundtracks.

You are just a slave to your own impulses.

It's sometimes terrifying to know that so many people can manipulate the world around them until you're feeling happy or sad for no explicable reason. That people can pluck at your subconscious until the strings of your consciousness only play out-of-tune melodies without your consent.

It's terrifying how complicatedly simple we are.)

Peter had been so close to death, and he knew it. Knew that it had been Iron Man who'd blasted the Drone away, knew that it had only been luck that saved his life.

(Why was that the only time he had ever been lucky? He would gladly accept dying that day if it meant he didn't have to live through all the shit he'd been through. He had been so lucky that night, and yet, his life was like a lump of coal spreading the ash of disaster everywhere it went.

He was not prone to luck or chance. He was not a beneficiary of coincidence.

This was a rarity – a luxury he wasn't sure he wanted.)

And, afterward, one might have thought that wearing that mask would have been traumatic. But it wasn't.

It was soothing like warm blueberry dumplings after a bad day at school. It was calming like the rocking chair Uncle Ben had fixed up to sit alongside the mismatched furniture of their living room.

It was peaceful – a brief reprieve from existence like a nap under the sun in which one's body melds into the earth like we are just long-lost specks of dirt come to join our cousins.

That mask let Peter embrace his fears. He could climb mountains with that mask, touch stars and scale the sky.

Peter had faced monsters in that mask until it was just a coping mechanism to hide behind. It turned into a shield, a safe space to share his deepest secrets within.

And then, Skip happened.

Peter had wanted his mask for different reasons after that.

He'd wanted to use it until his head would fog and his skin would feel tight enough to make him a different person. Maybe that's what his mask was for – a way to separate himself from his body.

A way to change skin, a way to change lives, if only for a little while.

(A way to conceal the darkest parts of him. The parts which shouted for acknowledgment but were shrouded in shadow all the same.)

He'd hid until there was no such thing as a bad memory – no such thing as sadness and pain.
(And maybe that life, that person in the mask, would be better.)

Peter felt his hand prickle with numbness and he shook himself out of his panicked trance to gaze at it. The metal lining on the display case was twisted and mangled like a crooked spire atop a dilapidated cathedral. It was gouged in the center of his hand, carving a deep wound from his palm to the sensitive space in between his fore and middle finger.

And yet, he couldn't feel it.

Maybe it was shock rooting him to the spot like a startled deer on a highway or maybe it was just resigned acceptance.

Either way, he wasn't looking forward to the conversation ahead.

(Have you ever been so terrified that you feel as though your heart may go out – may pump blood in swift and furious pulses until it feels like a paper bag being used as life control? Have you ever seen black spots encroach on your vision until you think you may faint from your own inability to stay calm?

If you have, then Peter felt sorry for you. It was rather like a panic attack that you could function through. One where you wished you could cry but didn't.

One where you wished you could puke but wouldn't.)

Mr. Stark walked out of the suit in an obnoxious display of technological prowess. The red and gold metal warped in the air with each step as the removal gradually revealed Mr. Stark's stern and annoyed face. Steadily, the brunt of his disappointed stare could meet Peter's wide eyes through the glass.

Peter stopped, stared, and felt an abrupt desire to laugh. Mr. Stark was disappointed, how new?

He laughed, harsh and with an edge as sharp as a thorn bush until it was very clear that everyone in the café was looking at him.

Until they noticed Tony Stark, of course.

Tony walked into the shop with the air of someone willing to tear apart others just to get what they wanted. It was unsettling, but only fueled the simmering anger in Peter.

(Who was he to judge anyone for their mistakes when he had made so many himself? Who was he to pretend to care about Peter only to turn around and berate him in the next sentence?)

He made eye contact with Peter and crooked his fingers as if to order Peter to follow him. Peter snorted in contempt and shook his head defiantly.

Mr. Stark wasn't his father. Mr. Stark had no authority over him.

(Though disobeying did spark a thread of panic in his chest which wound around his ribcage like a string. It tied itself in knots as though it was preparing to draw tight enough to break his bones.)

Mr. Stark pointedly raised his eyebrows and looked across the room. Though the café was only filled with a few customers, every one of them had their phone out. A flush rose up Peter's cheek and he sheepishly gripped his wrist to wrench his hand from its' metal entrapment.

The faces of the other patrons grew slack in disbelief and Peter avoided their searching gazes as he stomped petulantly past Mr. Stark to the door. He knew he was being immature, but he couldn't help the way his fists curled in anger at the sight of Mr. Stark's stormy face.

(Like he knew what Peter should be. Like he had any right to dictate Peter's actions or feelings. Like he could control him.)

"Don't think you'll be keeping any footage," Mr. Stark said, waving a small hand-held device to the customers watching the billionaire, "I've already deleted any data your phones have collected in the last ten minutes. So, good try, but no cigar."

Peter rolled his eyes and forcefully pushed open the door to escape to the street.

"Well, that's not the exact phrase," Mr. Stark added as he watched Peter hold the door open impatiently, "but that just means I can patent it… "

When Tony made no indication to move, Peter clenched his jaw and dropped the door with a disbelieving huff.

"….Aaand the errant teenager is off again, so I guess that's my cue folks," Peter heard Mr. Stark say through the door, and he crossed his arms in frustration, turning away from the shop to scowl at the street traffic.

After finally exiting the shop, Mr. Stark swung his arm around Peter's shoulders and guided him down the sidewalk.

"Ah, Hell's Kitchen. Such a wonderful place to brood," Mr. Stark jabbed, and Peter ground his teeth to keep from shouting. There weren't many cars on the street, so it was easy to see Happy parked in a Black Audi just a few spaces away from the end of the block.

Peter wondered if Tony had only flown in his Iron Man suit to be dramatic.

"Here's the deal, Underoos," Mr. Stark said, eyes peering over his sunglasses, "you're gonna get your butt in the car and we're going to go straight to the tower. And there, we're going to have a nice talk about why you ran out without any tech on you and why you look like a homeless hobo."

"Aren't all hobos homeless?" Peter asked spitefully.

"That depends on your definition of a hobo."

Glaring and ignoring the commands to get into the car, Peter stopped to face Tony head-on.

"How'd you find me, anyway?"

"I can hack into CCTV's, kid," Mr. Stark said sardonically, "it's not hard to find anyone who goes to the most popular coffee shop in Hell's Kitchen if you're Tony Stark. Facial recognition is a simple thing."

"And illegal," Peter retorted. He shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets and turned around, set on reaching the park at the other end of the block.

"I spent all night looking for you, and this is how you respond?" Mr. Stark asked, raising his hands in annoyance as he lectured to Peter's back, "what do I have to do to make you give a shit?! Your Aunt's worried sick, you haven't done your schoolwork in a week, your fifteen pounds lighter than you should be, so what am I supposed to think? Am I supposed to just watch you waste away while you're out here throwing yourself a pity party? Huh? So what is it? Drugs? Sex? Girls? Boys? Bullies?! What am I supposed to do here when I have no idea what's going on?!"

"You're the genius!" Peter yelled, spinning around and pointing an accusing finger at Tony, "why can't you just see what's right in front of you?! Stop pretending like you fucking care when you obviously don't!"

"I do care, dammit!" Mr. Stark yelled back, his suit jacket fluttering around his flailing arms, "why do you think I'm even here?"

"Because you want to think you're a hero when you're not! You're just a rich guy in a metal suit who drowns his guilt in alcohol! So guess what?!" Peter asked, a breathless laugh escaping his mouth, "I don't need you and I never will! Maybe I did, once, but you're too goddamn late now!"

With that, Peter turned on his heel feeling remarkably angrier than when had started. He was fuming, and his anger felt like more than he could process. Each step he took left indents on the ground as he stormed to the green foliage at the end of the street.

It was hard to experience so many things that no one knew about – that nobody could comprehend. It was hard to go through things alone and only receive notice when it felt too late for anything to change.

(It is hard to be helped when you are already shattered. You will always wish that you could have been protected rather than mended. That you would not have been scattered pieces of a soul before your struggle was even recognized.)

And, maybe it was irrational, but some part of him blamed Aunt May and Mr. Stark on this. Aunt May had brought Skip back into his life as though he had not already destroyed it.

Mr. Stark had watched him fall apart, unaware.

Maybe it was too much to expect others to know what he was thinking or what he desired, but sometimes he wished that they would just look for once. Look and notice and see where he was coming from because it was hard to know that May had never taken note of the nightmares the first time around; the trauma had integrated into every part of his life that it had become his new normal, but she'd never noticed a change.

It was hard to know that a watch that monitored vitals couldn't sense his distress – couldn't recognize anxiety beyond sudden wakeups and debilitating panic attacks (all of which he could tell Karen to ignore).

So, Peter was angry. He was livid and furious as a wave crashing onto sandy beaches and rearranging the shoreline to fit its' needs.

But, Peter could also hear the loud thump of Mr. Stark drooping against the side of an apartment complex. He sighed and muttered to himself, almost too low for Peter to hear, "what am I doing wrong, here?"

And… Peter felt guilty.

It was a slimy feeling, a cold feeling, a feeling that crept through his veins and made him shudder in disgust.

And Peter was disgusted – disgusted in himself, in the world, in the fact that he just couldn't seem to do the right thing anymore.

(But what is the 'right thing'? Is there really such a concept of right or wrong, good or evil, when we all exist somewhere in the grey in-between of morality?)

So, he turned, anger still making him clench his muscles in agitation. He met Mr. Stark's gaze and gestured jerkily with his head, beckoning him to follow Peter to the park.

Maybe Peter didn't have to talk for Mr. Stark to listen.

(The world told him to be silent – the world told him he was worthless. And it was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.)

The bench was uncomfortable and awkward to sit on. He shifted, silent as stone, as he avoided Mr. Stark's gaze. The man had spread out, flopping onto the bench and opening his legs like a picture-perfect example of manspreading.

"Soooo, nice weather down there?" Mr. Stark asked, trying to break the awkward silence. Peter scoffed, more bitter than he intended, and slouched in his seat as well.

"I don't know," he said, glaring at nothing. He didn't know, he really didn't know. He didn't know what to say, how to be, what to be.

He didn't know, and he wasn't going to pretend he did.

"… kid, you can't keep doing this. You've got to let me in at some point," Mr. Stark said, pleadingly, "what's going on?"

"I don't know," he said, mournful and weary and bitter all at once.

(He doesn't know.

He is 9-years-old and time flits by like butterflies. He counts his days in broken bones and candied smiles.

He is 10-years-old and the world is a monster that looms with scaly claws outside his windowsill until staying home becomes the only way to stay alive.

He is 11-years-old and Ned frantically gives him his inhaler because he can't tell the difference between a panic attack and an asthma attack.

He is 12-years-old and each breath he takes is stolen before it reaches his lips.

He is 13-years-old and Flash's taunts begin to hit a little too close to home.

He is 14-years-old and he can't remember a time where he felt so unsteady – he has lost his balance, his foundations.

He is 15-years-old and scrambling to find purchase in the scattered affections of anyone he meets.

He is 16-years-old and he falls through time like sand in an hourglass. Counting the hours in bloody pinpricks on his skin, he is not unaccustomed to the endless monotony of tragedy.

His skin is a map of all the ways a life can go wrong and of all the ways it can go right. But he is an ever-shifting mass of indecision – he struggles with the inability for his self-awareness to be wholly honest and unhindered by the views of others and himself.

He didn't know what to say, how to be. He couldn't put his feelings into words because they would just be scattered thoughts as empty and meaningless as the void.)

"I don't know, Mr. Stark. I don't know what you want me to say," Peter said, looking up to the sky with a heavy sigh, "I know what I should say but, even then, I don't know what to say."

"Do you think I could help?" Mr. Stark asked, and Peter quirked a small smile at how awkward Tony sounded.

Peter looked out at the park, silent and still and frozen like a snowman waiting for a convenient magic to somehow move his limbs or aid his speech

(He wondered if the reason he trusted Mr. Stark more than any other man in his life was because of that mask. That slim piece of plastic to cover up one's secrets.

That buffer for all the hate and love he'd ever felt.)

"I'm not really sure," Peter said slowly. His mouth tasted like he'd sucked on a sour candy and he smacked his lips uncomfortably in the silence.

"Well, what's going on?" Mr. Stark asked, obviously impatient but trying to hide it.

"I think you know, a little bit," he said with a bit of hope behind the words, "at least, you should."

"I think I know a little bit as well, but that doesn't mean I know everything," Mr. Stark said, before making a disgusted face, "did I just say that? Forget I said that. I know everything – I'm the smartest man in the world."

"Sure," Peter said, smiling softly.

His uncertainty still clogged his mind and he rocked slightly in his seat. Words kept forming in his brain like clay sculptures, but each one didn't look good enough to bake.

Decision-making was so difficult.

(There were many Peter Parkers, the way that there were thousands of hairs on our heads or that one decision could split off into nests of tangled realities. If he chose one route now, he might miss out on a thousand others.

It made making decisions daunting.)

"I think… I think I need help," Peter eventually said, closing his eyes against the glaring sunlight and imagining the soft twinkle of stars in their stead.

(Peter used to be unable to see them - the stars. But things change, and people leave and every year you're a little bit taller or shorter, wider or thinner, until you wonder if you should grieve all the things you were and would be.)

"What kind of help?" Tony asked, relief and worry warring in his voice.

"The Aunt May kind," he said, even though he knew her presence would be infinitely more difficult to deal with than Tony's.

Having her there would be more helpful in the long run, though, and he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

"Alright, kiddo, whatever you need," Mr. Stark said, and Peter frowned, distraught, because he didn't know what he needed. At this point, there were too many things he struggled with to pinpoint how to fix himself.

(Did he even need fixing? Wasn't he supposed to love himself as he was? If he did that, then he would never be able to better himself, would he?

There was probably a balance, but he hadn't found it yet. He was still floundering in the deep end, just struggling to keep his head above water.

If he didn't even love himself, why would he want to be better?)

"Where are we going?" Tony asked, looking to Peter for guidance.

"Where do you think we should go?" Peter asked, turning to face him.

"Depends on if you want to move or not," Mr. Stark said, his voice carefully neutral. Peter spent a second trying to see if his inflection indicated any preference, but he couldn't tell with how dispassionate Mr. Stark's voice had been.

"Could we go to the tower?" Peter asked, feeling restless as a herd of caged horses grappling to be set free.

"Sure," Mr. Stark said, rising to his feet gracefully, "Happy's probably getting impatient anyway."

Peter nodded distractedly, mind too preoccupied with what to say to May and Tony to be aware of his surroundings.

(When Peter was 15-years-old, he watched the world burn from within television screens and felt its' fire heat his skin.)