It was late when Peter finally left, him and Katya having talked until she fell asleep. On his way to the elevator, Mr. Stark was walking up the hallway opposite him. For a moment Peter wasn't sure whether to wave, or to say anything, as he was still in that awkward distance away where any type of greeting would be weird as you kept walking towards each other, but by the time he'd decided what to do Mr. Stark was within speaking distance.

"Hey Mr. Stark!" He tried to keep his tone bright, despite his exhaustion.

"Hey, kid." There was a beat. "How's she doing?"

Peter shrugged. "She's doing okay, I think, everything seems to be healing up well, but you'd know better than me about that-"

"I mean more like...emotionally."

It took Peter a second to figure out how to formulate a response. "Erm, I think she's doing okay- some stuff gets to her, but it's not surprising, you know?"

'What kind of 'stuff' are we talking about?"

Peter shrugged. "She's generally in good spirits most of the time- but then earlier she and I had a conversation about the Red Room and she got kind of upset about that…" Peter's mind flashed back to when he'd walked in on Mr. Stark showing Katya everything that had been done to her body, including the lack of tracker in her body, as if that was something they would've put in in the first place. And Mr. Stark's obvious distress about the restraints-

"Mr. Stark?"

He took off his glasses to wipe them down on his shirt for a moment before replacing them. "Yeah, kid?"

"Why was it such a big deal to remove the restraints before Katya woke up?"

There was a pause, and Mr. Stark sighed. "Have you ever heard of PTSD, kid?"

PTSD? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder- he'd learned that in a psych class, once. "Yeah, kinda."

Mr. Stark took a second before waiving Peter over to the sitting area by the elevator, where they could both sit down on the leather benches. Mr. Stark situated himself for a second, elbows on his knees, leaning forward. He looked so tired- and not just because it was midnight.

"After New York- the attack on New York in 2012, back when you were just a baby-"

"- I was eleven."

Mr. Stark waved his comment away like he was shooing a fly. "Like I said. Anyway- " he sighed again, "I had a really hard time afterwards. Nightmares, anxiety attacks, the whole thing; I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I was just obsessing over my suits and it nearly tore me apart."

Peter nodded, not sure where it was going, but figured it'd be best for him to keep quiet.

"So I kind of get it. And going through Katya's file- which I will not show you, don't even ask, that's up to her if she wants to share that information- there's a lot more in there than I initially knew. I had my suspicions, but…she had a particularly difficult time in there. As if it wasn't difficult enough already."

Peter continued to nod. He'd obviously gathered that there was a lasting effect, it only made sense, but-

"-one of the things that she had a hard time with was restraints. I don't know the full details, but she fought the doctors here when she got here when they tried to put her under- she bit Dr. Micheals-"

"She bit a doctor?"

Tony closed his eyes for a second to take a breath, as if he were gathering up the last bit of patience he had. Peter regretted speaking, but eventually Mr. Stark continued.

"There's just a lot of stuff in there that points to things that she could have a …hard time with. Sedation and restraints being one of them. And I didn't want to risk her waking up, already confused, to that sort of situation again-"

The image of Mr. Stark hitting her in the forehead and trying to reorient her by telling her she was in New York- and how Peter had played off of that immediately, as it felt like the thing to do at the time, so he didn't question it- ran through his mind.

"I just wanted to avoid a scene, or worse. People react to anxiety in a lot of different ways, and Katya's favorite way to react, by what I've seen, is going down to the gym to beat shit up. She's lost, and she's confused- I know you know this- but she's also dangerous, whether she likes it or not. And anxiety appeals to our most basic of survival instincts, and I just- I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

Peter knit his brows. "You think she would have attacked us?"

Mr. Stark shook his head. "I don't know what I thought, only that it was an avoidable situation, so I did my best to avoid it. You already saw how she ripped everything out the second she woke up- I just didn't want her hurting herself, or anyone else in the room."

Peter couldn't help but think back to when he'd seen her fighting, full force for the first time in his life, against Aneszka- and she hadn't even been trying to hurt her, just fend her off. Something in his stomach twisted, that was immediately followed by shame...was it fear?

"She has this thing she does, that I've seen a couple of times" Peter said, "- like, when certain topics come up, or one time, we were at this party, and the DJ was this total asshole who kept using that foghorn effect DJ booths have, you know what I mean? And after it went off the first time she just sort of…spaced. Like, she was physically there, but she was staring at nothing. Eventually she left, and I found her on the rooftop of the neighbors house." He omitted the part where he'd been ready to go into the party dressed as Spiderman just to get his classmates to like him. "And it took her a long time to get that blank look sort of off her face."

Mr. Stark nodded. "I know what you mean, kid, I've seen that too- and after New York, I struggled with it for a while. It's called dissociation, and it's sort of like…mentally removing yourself from situations that can be triggers. To avoid having to deal with the emotions that it brings up. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Peter nodded.

"Good. Now, she's been doing really well with all things considered- better than I'd thought, because I hadn't read her file until the other day- but sometimes that kind of stuff can come out of what looks like nowhere to you or me, and we have to be careful. I don't know all her triggers- no one ever does, she probably doesn't recognize them herself- but it's a delicate situation that we just all need to be aware of."

He was talking about her like she was an active grenade, and the part of Peter that didn't meet that with indignance was more significant than he'd like to admit.

"Now, we don't need to treat her any differently- that's actually the worst thing you could go about doing- I just figured you should be, you know, aware. Just so everyone's prepared."

"You still say that like she's going to attack us."

Mr. Stark shook his head. "That's not what I'm trying to say, but that's not an impossibility- anxiety can be blinding. Once, I was having a nightmare, and accidentally called a suit in my sleep that almost attacked Pepper. But she's the same person," Mr. Stark stressed, "and this doesn't need to be a topic of further conversation. I just wanted you to know. The best thing we can do is just be aware, but ultimately this is something she needs to work through herself."

Peter nodded, leaning forward on his own knees. It was a lot to take in, but he was right, this didn't change anything. She was still the same person, no matter what Mr. Stark said. And Peter knew she'd never hurt him. He wasn't scared of that. He was scared of her hurting herself.

"Coming out of surgery, and dealing with what she- with what you both- have gone through can be a trying time for anybody. I just wanted to check on how it was playing out for her." Mr. Stark told him.

"Well she seems to be okay. I've been bringing her a lot of plants, and that calms her down-"

"I noticed that, what's with the plants?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know, she just likes them. She mentioned something about liking how it's something that she can nurture, which makes her feel better about…everything."

Mr. Stark nodded, taking in that information. "Well that's good to know. I'll work on getting more foliage in here-"

"And she's excited for Christmas." Peter added, "I invited her to come with me and Aunt May for it, if that's okay with you."

"Shit, Christmas, right." Mr. Stark's tone suggested he'd completely forgotten about it, as they all had. "Of course that's okay."

There was a beat, and Peter's knee had begun to jostle. He'd technically always known, he realized, that something was up, but not that there was a name for it or a way he could help her. Peter stood.

"Thank you, Mr. Stark." He said, turning to the man before moving to press the call button on the elevator. "For everything."