Hope you're doing well. It's been a tough couple of months but I'm trying to continue to write, little by little. As always, thank you for reading.
"Dude, what's up? You've been jumpy all week." Ned walked beside him as they wound through the halls toward English.
"You've skipped out on lunch, too. Don't think I've forgiven you for leaving me to listen to Mike's newest obsession by myself." Flash said from the other side of him.
Peter could feel his two 'bodyguards' share a look over top of his head but he continued to stare ahead. He shrugged a shoulder without giving any other indication he was listening. The two began running through the merits of time travel as a plot device, hoping to draw him into the conversation, but Peter remained un-engaged. His thoughts circled back around to the call over and over today, and the rest of the week. Peter couldn't not think about it.
Mr. Stark loved his AI, had built Friday with his hands, and it showed in how Friday was so alive. Their voice held so much emotion. The hesitancy and utter urgency in their words could be felt through the phone. When Peter heard to cadence to Friday's voice after so long, his heart began pounding. Mr. Stark, somehow against all technology and odds, poured, made, created, a soul in Friday.
Peter missed Friday. Missed their short chats in the elevator and the other ones where Peter would find an empty room and just sit, back against a wall and talk to Friday about anything that came to mind. He remembered the tight feeling in his chest when Friday was offline for the way. The way the hurt at being ignored turned to an uncomfortable relief when he found out that it was a misunderstanding. Trying to then ignore the constant worry that Friday was broken, or hurt, in some way.
So, while his heart raced during the call and his breathing remained uneven and stunted, Peter couldn't stop the unbridled relief at hearing Friday's voice again. He didn't realize how tight his chest had tensed until it eased throughout the conversation.
Two days after the phone call and it was constantly on his mind. Friday hadn't budged on their statement. They give him no information. For now, he thought as Peter shook his head.
Ned stared at him with eyebrows raised. He opened his mouth, words about the phone call ready to jump off the tip of his tongue. Peter shivered and closed his mouth. This was something he needed to decide for himself. It wasn't lying, he supplied. Peter would inform everyone when he was ready. When he knew more.
The feel of Ned's glare deepened. Peter shrugged and in rare form bumped Ned's shoulder.
"I can't stop thinking about that new game you got and how I'm going to crush the latest level. I know you only scored 1,242 and it will be easy to get at least a 1,400."
Ned snorted. He could see the competitive glint in his friend's eye.
"No way. I've already got a head start on practicing and it's beyond hard."
"Ned, you were supposed to wait."
His friend shrugged with a huge smile on his face and Peter couldn't help but return the expression.
Homework piled, forgotten and neglected on the desk in front of him. His fingers flexed again, causing the phone tucked in his palm to dig into his skin. The desk drawer to his right was open enough that papers, stuffed in a hurry, were sticking out. The Weaver formulas almost visible from where he was sitting.
What Peter needed to do was collect himself and think this through. The task, seemingly simple, felt next to impossible with everything clouding around his mind. With a flick of his finger, Peter opened the phone and stared at the missed call list. Friday's phone listed in red stared back at him. His finger hovered over the enter button before he put the phone down. Again.
Breath shuddered out of his chest and despite knowing the result would be the same, he wanted to pick the phone up again. Peter messaged the palms of his hands into his eye sockets.
What to do?
So many months had passed. Time and space and, he thought with a frown, growth. Yet after it all, he still felt like that child hiding behind a plant, waiting for something to come to him. That feeling of being perpetually scared hit too close to home now.
Peter glared down at the phone and desk. The open drawer caught his attention and before he knew it, Peter ripped open the desk drawer. His fingers grabbed indiscriminately at a bunch of the papers. The papers bunched up and scattered onto his desk. His hand, now open and trembling like the paper burned him, was hovering in over them. For a split second, he couldn't tell if he wanted to rip them to shreds or pull them to his chest.
Instead, he found himself grabbing the paper nearest to him with careful fingers. When it didn't burst into flames or crumble at his touch he began reading.
The first paper was an earlier draft of the Weaver if the amount of crossed out bullet points and margin notes were any indication. Sheet after sheet, he read through his notes. It was strange to see the beginnings of what he now took as fact. In a way Peter felt like he was traveling through time. Sometimes he could remember what thought pattern led to a certain annotation and others, well, they probably would forever remain a mystery.
He flipped one especially scribbled page over and froze. On the back side of the paper was a lone sticky note. How many times had he seen his uncle scratching grocery lists or work or notes for May in that exact script. The loopy y letters and fat a's. The paper trembled in his hand as he unstuck the note to read.
"Courage and bravery aren't the absence of fear. Don't let anything stop you from doing the right thing. I love you. Always."
A tear trickled down his cheek and landed on Ben's signature at the bottom of the note. Peter's lip trembled as he wrapped his sleeve over the curve of his thumb and brought it to the paper to dab it away without disturbing the signature.
After all this time Ben was still lecturing him, reminding him of what was important. A small laugh bubbled up his throat.
"Doing the right thing."
Another tear fell and another. All his notes became incomprehensible behind the fogged blur in his eyes.
Why did doing the right thing have to be so hard?
Peter sighed, brushed back his hair behind his ear, and waved his hand over the note, hoping somehow Ben's advice would give him strength.
He leaned back in the chair staring at the note next to the closed phone on his desk. The past was always close to him, but in that moment the future pressed against him in a new and uncomfortable way.
A straggling tear threatened to fall when nothing changed. All the while, indecision plagued his mind.
Morning came along with darker circles under his eyes. The sticky note was stuffed, safe in his pocket. Peter's hand kept coming back to pinch the corner between thumb and finger. As a reminder. As hope.
He was standing in the living room with a bowl of cereal in hand watching the news before he had to leave for school. His eyes moved from spoon to TV and back so he could read the subtitles. May's snores were quiet enough he couldn't hear them from where he was but they had accompanied his alarm earlier to make for a special awakening this morning. She must have had a long night shift for her to still be asleep so he muted TV to prevent waking her.
Another interview on Oscorp was on the screen. Peter stared at Mr. Osborn's easy, curled smile from the top of his new building. Another tall, thin pinnacle overlooking the buildings around it. Another monolith, watching and threatening the city.
The man's eyes sparkled at some joke the interviewer made and Peter shuddered. How cold his voice had been.
How could he do anything to that man? He was just Peter. A no-one who had been lucky enough to experience a bit of life along the way. Osborn was right. He was powerful. Peter was none of those things.
It cost nothing to admit it to himself. It cost him a bit more than nothing to admit he was ashamed of that fact.
Why couldn't he be older? Or stronger? Or anything more?
Why couldn't Peter do something?
"Doing the right thing."
He set the cereal half-eaten down in front of the TV and took out the note.
Something was the key word.
Maybe he could do something. Nothing huge or life changing or anything like that. To other people it may look like nothing and while it may not change anything, Peter could do something. He could try.
The Avengers saved the world more times than anyone probably knew. They were larger than life and their actions rippled through the world in the same way. Thor could stop buildings from falling or manipulate the weather. Those huge, planet altering things were beyond him.
But that didn't mean Peter couldn't do nothing. It wasn't enough by a long shot but it was a start. And really, Peter could work with that. He would have to.
His uncle spoke of the right thing; of fear and courage and everything worth fighting for in the world. Peter didn't know if he believed all of that. He never felt courageous when everything was said and done. And fear was always a companion of his.
The bathroom became a sort of safe haven during the weeks it took him to sign up for the S.T.A.R.K competition. And when Ned first asked him to eat at lunch with them all, even after the fifth time of doing it, all he felt was a shaky weakness in his knees. Never, in all the time at the internship. Not those long hours sitting with Julia or even the quiet ones with Mr. Stark did he feel anything courageous.
The feeling didn't come now.
But still, Peter had to try. If he could somehow help one person. He had to do something.
And isn't that what he'd been doing this whole time. Trying so hard to belong somewhere, to prove to his family - to himself - he wasn't a waste of space. That he could do something good. Striving like he promised May to be happy.
If trying was all he could do - all he could give of himself - then he would do it without regrets. He could bend and bend and bend under the pressure. Maybe he would break and falter this time but all the same, he would give it his all.
Peter was no superhero. He had no special powers or amazing, otherworldly intellect racing through his veins. He was just a kid doing his best to survive. Peter thought of the blatant emotion in Friday's voice. How they must have tried everyone else before reaching out to Peter for help. If Friday was desperate enough to contact Peter despite all the other Avengers and powerful people they knew, then he had to help.
True there was no plan as of yet and he needed more information from Friday but excitement stole across his nerves. The need for movement pulled at his muscles making them tense.
With a nod of his head and another look down at the note he decided. He, Peter Parker, was going to Stark Towers. Again.