we'll all be here forever
tw mention for dying/death, not quite suicidal ideation or purposeful self-harm but not taking care of yourself; panic attacks, small emetophobia, lotsa fighting and swearing
(pls pls pls be so nice and gentle I haven't written anything in like 3 years and idk if this fandom is even alive anymore but I found a WIP and had the inspiration to finish it)
read on ao3
The decline began when his principal mentioned, in passing, that Peter’s applications would look bare compared to a lot of applicants with his lack of extra-curriculars. Sure, he had Academic Decathlon and a Tony Stark Internship, but otherwise, that space of his college applications was empty.
So, he took the initiative in his Senior year to join a few extra clubs to bulk up his application. He started a campaign for student class president, joined the robotics club, and got on the football team. As well as all that, he started tutoring during his lunch hours both for volunteer hours and as an addition to his applications.
He needed to get into MIT. He didn’t think he could deal with any disappointment from anybody around him. Tony’s been talking about Peter’s future at SI after graduating MIT, May’s already preparing to sell the apartment and buy herself a smaller condo when he moves out, Ben always said Peter had to go to a school that challenged him like MIT would.
He wouldn’t let them down.
So he continued to squish his schedule as tight as he possibly could. AP classes, homework, four extra-curriculars, tutoring, Spider-Man, and the internship started leaving no time for himself. Sleeping at night started getting cut shorter and shorter, and he could barely make time to talk to his friends or May.
Tony notices first because he’s always been a genius and way too observant for his own good, so when Peter slides into his seat in the lab, dragging a hand through his hair, and tossing a couple textbooks in front of him, Tony almost immediately grabs his shoulder and stops him.
“You okay, kid? You look a little rough?” Tony says, eyes already narrowed in suspicion. One hand cups Peter’s face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone.
“Just been busy.” Peter looks towards his homework. English, physics, biology, spanish, chemistry, history, the academic decathlon practice he’s supposed to go over, the speech he’s supposed to have done for the next debate for student class president.
Tony frowns, making his forehead crease. “You look like you haven’t slept in days, kid. This doesn’t just look like regular high school stress.”
“High school student slash superhero is more accurate.”
His watch continues ticking, the conversation wasting all of his precious time.
He needs to get his homework done during lab time so he can squeeze in some Spider-Manning before May gets home from her shift.
“Still,” Tony says petulantly. He crosses his arms and frowns at the work. “You can’t, I don’t know, take a break from all this shit?”
If Peter takes a break, he’ll have double as much to do the next day on top of football practice after school and robotics club after that. But he can’t say that or Tony would force him to drop some of his extra-curriculars.
“Pepper would kill you if she found out you were being a bad influence on me,” Peter says, but when it doesn’t get the reaction he wanted, he frowns and shakes his head. “I’m fine, Mister Stark, just a little tired. Don’t worry, the weekend’s coming up soon.”
Tony sighs overdramatically and moves back to his lab bench.
Peter purposefully fails to mention that he’s got a football game early morning on Saturday, enough time to squish in some patrolling before he has an Academic Decathlon meet at Ned’s house all afternoon, and enough homework to last him all night. And on Sunday, he has to finish his speech for the debate, he promised May he’d pick up his slack with chores, and he’s tutoring a freshman in math all afternoon.
He fails to mention that for him, the weekend doesn’t mean relaxation or a break from the stress of the week, it just means catch-up from everything he failed to do during the week and a time to pick up his slack.
* There’s something so fundamentally wrong about being beyond exhausted and yet, when given the chance, unable to get any real rest.
Peter’s brain is always moving too fast, always caught in the To Do List’s and the ideas of failure and disappointment if he doesn’t complete every task. Everything he could’ve done that day but hadn’t, all the things he did but could’ve done better, all the things that were pushed to the backburner with all the things he had to complete.
His eyes are closed and his breaths are even, room dark around him and quiet except for the TV that plays almost silently in the background. He’s comfortable and vaguely floating, not enough to be considered asleep but nowhere near conscious either.
Math homework sits only half complete on the coffee table, his academic decathlon cue cards are mixed with his debate notes on the floor, his history textbook is left open on the opposite couch.
He should’ve done more. He should be trying harder. He should be doing better.
No matter how hard he tries, no matter how much work he puts into everything he does, it’ll never be enough.
He can’t sleep, he got a B- on his last pop quiz in chemistry, Coach Wilson shouts at him every practice for his clumsy feet and his slow pace during warmups, Tony’s been staring at him with the same worried expression every time he goes over for lab days.
Even Flash has been worried about Peter.
“You okay, Parker?” Flash had sounded at least partially concerned before quickly tacking on, “Because I get your spot on Acadeca if you’re slacking.”
But it had been weeks since Flash had been mean to Peter, he hadn’t been tripping Peter in the hallways or spitting cruel words at him in class.
If Flash is being nice to Peter, that means there’s really a problem.
May slips into the living room, meaning it’s already three am, when she leaves for her occasional morning shifts at the hospital. She lifts the quilt off the back of the couch to drape over him.
“Have a good day at work,” Peter slurs, not even bothering to open his eyes.
“Have a good day at school, honey.” She leans down and presses a quick kiss to his forehead. “And thank you for helping out this weekend with chores. I’m really proud of you, you know that? And I’m really proud of you for your football game. I’ll see you tonight?”
Peter has to think for too long, scanning through his mental to do list. “Got football practice and then robotics till seven. And I said I’d walk MJ home first so I’ll only be home at nine or ten.”
“Michelle’s the opposite direction of here from school, isn’t she?”
“Mm,” Peter replies intelligently, the perfect image of a genius student planning on applying to MIT.
May kisses his forehead again. He knows she’s worried about him, he knows she wants to tell him to stop, or at least slow down, that he needs to take care of himself. But it’s not the time nor place for an argument like that. “Well, I’ll be asleep by the time you get back, but I’ll leave your dinner in the microwave. You’re too good, Peter.”
Peter barely manages to utter a goodbye and an I love you before his mouth stops working again, content to pretend to sleep for another two hours before he’s off to pick up MJ before school. She lives in a shadier part of town and she mentioned, quiet and more honest about herself than she normally is, that she gets nervous walking to school and back because of some people who have been trying to get her attention.
Without hesitation, Peter had offered to walk to and from school from now on. To keep her safe and comfortable. He is a superhero after all.
Just because that adds an extra hour and a half to his already hour-long trek to Midtown, doesn’t mean anything. He’s okay with waking up at five in the morning to get to school, and he’s okay with only making it home late after practices. If it means MJ’s safe, he’ll give up another chunk of his sleeping time for her.
MJ talks idly about academic decathlon for the majority of the long walk to school.
She keeps a hand firmly on his upper arm, as though scared he may keel over if she isn’t careful. Her eyes rarely leave his face, even if he barely offers any facial expressions let alone any words of wisdom. Easily, though, he answers every one of her decathlon practice questions from memory, proving that the sleeplessness and the stress hasn’t totally messed up his intelligence.
Or so he thinks.
He’s about to leave his history class when his teacher stops him.
She’s a nice woman who doesn’t assign a crazy amount of homework, no more than his other classes do, and she’s generally lenient with marking assignments. He wracks his head for any reason why she would stop him. He’s pretty positive he handed in his history assignment about one of the presidents at the end of the previous week, and he remembers being pretty confident in his answers to the pop quiz.
“Sit down for a second,” Miss Christie says, gesturing to the chair beside her desk. She has the decency to look sympathetic and confused when she tells him, “Your grades have dropped drastically since midterm, Peter.”
“What?” His brain’s moving a bit too slow through the sludge of his to do lists.
At midterm, he managed an eighty-eight on his test which brought his overall grade up to an eighty-five. Not his best grade, but certainly nowhere near worrying. He was just going to make sure to ace the exam, and he was sure he’d get a ninety out of the class.
“Your grade has gone from nearly a ninety down to barely passing, Peter,” Miss Christie explains, pulling open his file on the computer. “I normally wouldn’t worry too much about a sixty-five, it’s not too abnormal for lower grades in a history class for a STEM school, but this is concerning coming from a bright student like you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Miss Christie frowns, turning her monitor towards him and zooming into his grades. It shows all his assignments he’s submitted, all his grades slipping towards mid-fifties and lower. His pop quiz he only managed a thirty percent on.
“At this school, as you know, if you don’t make a sixty or higher for your final grade, you fail the class.”
Peter’s whole world feels like it’s crashing down around him.
“Now, I know how much potential you have, Peter, but I’ve taken a peek at the last assignment you submitted, and at this rate, you won’t be passing the class unless you put more effort in.”
More effort.
He doesn’t know where he has the time for more effort anywhere.
May’s going to kill him.
He might as well throw his MIT application down the drain if he fails history.
“I, uh, it’s just- Between my classes and my extra-curriculars and the internship, I just- I don’t have the time for much,” Peter admits. He’s not quite sure why he’s alright admitting his struggles to his history teacher and not to people like Tony or Ned or May, but the words fall from his tired mouth before he can stop them.
Miss Christie smiles like she understands his struggle. “I can give you another week to finish your last history project and I’ll assign an extra-credit assignment to get your grade up a little more, if that’s what you’d like. If all goes well with those two projects, future assignments, and your exam, I think you could pull off an eighty, Peter. Hope’s not lost.”
He doesn’t know how to tell her he doesn’t have time for two more big projects this week.
Football practices are longer because they have another game on Sunday, Academic Decathlon is getting harder because they have sectionals coming up, robotics club has a tournament in a few weeks so they need to put extra work into completing their robots, student class president debates are in a few days and then voting is coming up, he agreed to take on a project from the real Stark interns who need his help with their prototype, not to mention his actual homework.
“I just- Miss Christie, I need a good grade for college applications and I- My schedule is already as packed as possible, is there anyway I can get an extension-”
“I can’t start making exceptions for students, Peter. I’m already being generous by giving you more time for the first project.”
Peter swallows thickly, suddenly feeling very nauseas and dizzy. “Of course, Miss Christie. Thank you.”
He barely lets her finish giving her spiel on hard work equals good results before he races down the hallway towards the bathroom.
*
“You can’t tell May or Tony about this,” he begs, slumping against the wall, trying desperately to stop crying.
“Peter, this isn’t okay,” Ned says. His eyes are too wide and he looks shakier than Peter feels. He’s got a wad of damp paper towel and gently pats the sweat from Peter’s forehead.
MJ’s leaning against the sinks despite it being a boy’s bathroom. “Are you sick? Catch a stomach bug?”
“Panic attack.”
Apparently, that’s not the right answer because Ned cups Peter’s cheek and tips his head up, patting away his sweat and tears more insistently.
“I’m late for- for-” Peter’s vision swims as he stares at the watch, unable to comprehend the ticking hands or match it to his mental to do list.
“Tutoring. It’s lunch,” MJ supplies. She steps into the already-cramped stall and slides to the floor beside Peter. “Don’t worry, Flash is taking over for you. That kid already knows all she needs to know, though. She doesn’t really need Flash’s help.”
“We can’t hide this from May or Tony. You need help, Peter.” Ned finally gives up with the paper towel but his eyes are just as wide as he grabs Peter’s hand, hanging on to him.
Peter shrugs, eyeing MJ carefully before he lets his head fall on her shoulder. He closes his eyes, shutting himself off from further argument.
Nothing’s right.
The three friends are cramped together in a bathroom stall because Peter can’t hold himself together, because no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be enough.
He doesn’t say any of that, all the words getting clogged in his chest where all his self-loathing and pain sits. Instead, he murmurs a soft apology and lets his eyes fall shut.
Eventually, they have to drag themselves off the bathroom floor for class.
Ned rambles about how Peter should see the school nurse and go home for the rest of the day, and Peter makes up excuses about how he’s fine just a little stressed, how he’ll make sure to take the night easy and get some good rest and be back to normal by the next morning.
Even MJ tries to convince him to sit out of chemistry, even though Peter’s grade has dropped in that class too, even just to lie down in the nurse’s office for an hour.
But Peter throws on the most convincing smile he can muster and shakes his head, promising them that he’s fine.
And they trust him enough to take his word for it.
Maybe that’s a mistake.
*
May’s asleep by the time he gets home, so he grabs some money from his secret stash he’s been saving from some of the paid tutoring he’s been doing and grabs himself a few energy drinks from the bodega a block away.
And then he sets himself up at his desk with all the work he has to do laid out in front of him.
He was in for another long night.
*
It’s not like he has the option to stop.
It’s not that simple, it’s never been. Failing, at this point, would be the worst thing he’s ever done. The list of people he’d be letting down is too long, too many, he can’t do that. He can’t let down his loved ones like Tony and May, Ben, Mary and Richard, Pepper and the Avengers, his teachers, his friends, himself. He can’t do that.
Everything is resting on this.
May won’t be able to move out of the city, she’ll have to continue taking care of him when he’s unable to move, she’ll have to keep working to take care of him, she’ll have to keep worrying about him every night he goes out patrolling. He’ll continue dragging her down.
Tony and Pepper won’t be able to retire.
He’s heard them talking about that dream they have. The cabin, far away from everyone and everything, maybe a child down the line, a child of their own, not just some orphan kid they got saddled with. The garden, the lake, the pet, the baby, the ability to give up all the things tethering them down. Peter’s meant to take over SI when he graduates MIT. There’s never been an If with them. Like they couldn’t even imagine a world where Peter couldn’t do it.
Letting them down now?
He’d lose his second family. He’d lose Tony and Pepper, he’d lose his ties to the Avengers. How could he be Tony Stark’s prodigy if he couldn’t even get into MIT?
He has to work harder.
He has to do more.
He has to be better.
He has to.
*
MJ puts a hand on his knee in English class, everything between now and then is a confusing blur, but he’s suddenly grounded.
“You’ve been shaking all class,” she says. Her eyes are wide and worried, and she doesn’t take her hand off his leg. “When was the last time you slept?”
He takes another sip from his water bottle, filled with an energy drink. It makes his knee bounce under MJ’s hand. He tries to shake away how cloudy his mind is, trying to focus on what the teacher’s droning on about.
“Hey,” MJ says, elbowing him to get his attention. “If you don’t sleep at night, you’re never going to be able to focus.”
“I slept fine,” he snaps, pushing her hand off his leg.
The teacher’s talking about Shakespeare, going over the play they were asked to read earlier on. He knows it like the back of his hand, so it doesn’t matter that he zoned out for most of class.
“Don’t be a dick when I’m just trying to help.”
He shakes his head again, one hand lifting to tug at his hair, pain clearing a little bit of the fog.
“I’m sorry.” He sounds panicked, even to his own ears. He’s been fucking everything up, everywhere he goes, but he can’t lose his friends, he can’t fuck this up.
“It’s fine, dude, just…” She looks towards the teacher, who hasn’t seemed to notice their distraction, and slides her notebook across to him. She’s drawn a few sketches of him, all of which picture him with dark circles under his eyes, hair sticking up every which way, and movement lines around his legs and fingers. There are some notes on Shakespeare between the sketches and some absent thoughts in the margins.
Peter doesn’t know what to say.
“I’m worried, okay?” she says so genuine that it hurts his chest. She reaches out to touch his leg again, seeming to understand how much the small gesture helps. “I know you’re stressed about college applications, but you’re falling apart, and I don’t know how much longer I can just watch you do that to yourself.”
“I have to get into MIT.”
“You have Tony Stark willing to write you a letter of recommendation, all this other stuff, football and student council, it’s not necessary. All it’s doing is destroying you.”
Peter’s voice drops to below a whisper. “I don’t want a stupid accident to be the reason I get in.”
“Accident?”
“Spider-Man! I can’t have… It’s unfair. I’ll spend my whole life wondering if it was just a fluke.”
“How is that a fluke?”
“I wandered off on a field trip and got bit by an experiment. I should be dead. It’s a complete fluke that I am who I am.”
“It’s not a fluke that Tony’s kept you around,” she argues. Her nails are digging into his leg a little, pressing the fabric of his jeans into his skin. Her voice almost raises, but she catches herself and glances back towards the teacher before whispering, “For a genius, you’re acting really fucking stupid.”
Peter takes a shuddering breath. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s not. You know it’s not. You’re killing yourself for no good reason.”
“MJ, Peter, your attention please,” the teacher says. They both apologize quickly, and MJ sends him a look that says this isn’t over.
*
MJ practically drags him by the ear to the nearest bathroom once class is let out.
“You know I’ve got super strength, right?” he says, though he doesn’t even think he could access it through his exhaustion anyway, not that he’d try. He’d let MJ drag him wherever she pleases.
MJ lets him go when they’re safely inside the single-person bathroom and leans back against the sink, staring him down.
“If you’re going to reprimand me, can we get it over with? I’ve got things to do, Em.”
“We’re waiting for Ned. He’s on his way.”
Peter rolls his eyes and huffs out a sigh. “So this isn’t a reprimand, it’s an intervention?”
“You should be grateful it’s only going to be me and Ned. I could’ve pulled some strings and had Stark and May yell at you too.”
Peter winces. “Please don’t.”
“I won’t if you stop acting like an idiot.”
There’s a knock on the door, a rhythmic sound, and MJ opens it to let Ned in. Ned’s face is flushed and his eyes are a little too wide, and anger sparks in Peter’s chest, setting off a red-hot forest fire through his body.
“Did Flash say something to you?”
Ned only gets like this, red-faced and wringing hands, when someone insults him.
“It’s fine, Peter,” Ned says quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter! I’m going to kill him. What did he say?”
MJ puts a hand on his shoulder, almost like she’s ready to hold him in place, like he’ll shake out of his own skin. “Easy tiger. Getting in a fight with Flash is the last thing you need to be worrying about.”
Peter looks to Ned who already seems to have calmed down at least a little. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, dude. I’m fine. Flash is always going to be Flash. It’s really okay… What’s important is you right now. What’s going on with you? When was the last time you slept?”
“I have to get into MIT.”
MJ rolls her eyes and pulls away from him. She smells like vanilla and it makes him dizzy. “He thinks the whole Spider-Man and Tony Stark internship is an unfair advantage he shouldn’t be able to use in order to get in.”
Ned’s jaw drops open and he looks absolutely flabbergasted at the idea. “That’s insane! Do you really think that?”
“As I told MJ, I wandered on a field trip and suddenly I have things that most people could only dream of having. It’s not fair that Tony Stark can write me a letter because I wandered on a field trip. I can’t use Spider-Man like I’m better than everyone else because I wandered on a field trip. It’s not fair.”
“Just because it was an accident that it happened doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve the benefits that come from it,” Ned says. “You could’ve gotten those powers and done nothing. Nobody is making you use your abilities for good. You save people’s lives, you do everything you can to keep Queens and Midtown safe. You spend hours everyday getting knives or worse pointed at you to keep those people safe. And it’s just some fluke? I don’t think so.”
Peter shakes his head, shutting his eyes when he feels tears burn at them. “It’s not that simple. I’m Spider-Man, but Spider-Man isn’t me. Spider-Man isn’t some poor kid from Queens who has one and a half friends and can’t keep his grade up in History. Spider-Man isn’t some teenager who dumpster dives and reads graphic novels. Spider-Man isn’t Peter Parker. And because Spider-Man isn’t Peter Parker, anything that Spider-Man has can’t be mine. The acclaim, the ties to the Avengers, the internship, those all belong to Spider-Man, not me.”
Neither of them seem to have an answer for him.
Ned’s looking at him like Peter’s a stranger, confused and uncertain.
MJ’s looking at him like she finally realizes he can’t be helped. He’s too far down to be fixed by a simple pep talk in the bathroom.
“It’s not fair for me to use Spider-Man or Mister Stark as leverage for university. So, in order to get in, I have to beef up my application. I need extra curriculars, good grades, AP classes, I need this stuff in order to get into MIT. I can’t stop.”
Ned shakes his head. His eyes are misty and his face is still red. “Sure, okay, but if you stack up your day to be full of extra curriculars and homework, you have to drop Spider-Man patrols and internship nights and tutoring for the money, you can’t do everything.”
“I have to do everything. I’m still Spider-Man, even if Spider-Man isn’t me. I have a responsibility to this city, to try as hard as I can to keep people safe. And I have a responsibility to Mister Stark to be a protegee, to be his heir, so that he can finally retire, both from Stark Industries and from Iron Man. I have a responsibility to May to make her proud. I have a responsibility to my parents, to Ben, to do something great like MIT. I have a responsibility to May to get scholarships so I don’t rely on her for money she doesn’t have. I… I don’t have a choice. I can’t just give up.”
“You’re going to kill yourself!” MJ says, voice loud, and Peter’s head pounds.
“I’m going to get in and I’m going to graduate and then I can stop. It’s only six months. I can survive six months of this.”
“At this rate, you’ll be dead in a week.” She sounds so angry, so upset with him, and god it hurts to feel like despite all the effort he’s put in, he’s still managing to let people down. “Do you have any idea what sleep deprivation does to a person? Especially someone who enjoys swinging around hundreds of feet in the sky and fighting people with guns.”
Peter looks to Ned, tries to see if maybe his best friend will understand, will, at the very least, take a different approach, but Ned just stares back, eyes wet and jaw clenched.
Peter’s breaths have gone shaky, chest aching with the lack of oxygen. “I can’t just stop, Em.”
“I’m not giving you a choice,” she grounds out. “This ends now.”
“I can’t stop,” he repeats, tears blurring his vision. He falls back against the wall, head thumping against the bricks. “I can’t. It’ll look worse now if I was on the football team for two months before abruptly dropping out. Same for robotics or student council. Even if it’s for the betterment of my grades, it’ll still look bad on my application. I can’t stop seeing Mister Stark, he’ll know something’s up, he’ll try and convince me to stop working so hard, he’ll try and use his power to prove that I can get in even if I fail all my classes this term and that’s not fair. I can’t stop.”
MJ shakes her head. She’s made up her mind on this, and when MJ makes up her mind there’s no turning her around. “Then stop Spider-Manning. If you let yourself rest at night instead of swinging around Queens in spandex, maybe you could actually do everything else without falling apart.”
“If Spider-Man disappears, people will die. And it’ll be on me.”
“You can’t save everyone!” she shouts. Her fist hits the edge of the sink with an echoing thud. “And if you die, you won’t be able to save anyone.”
He can’t help but flinch, trying to shake his head, come up with anything, find an argument that makes sense, but he comes up blank, just failure ringing through his head.
“I can’t stop,” he repeats like it’ll make a difference.
Ned finally speaks up, “I’ll call May. I’ll tell her what you’ve been doing, how you’re failing history. How little sleep you’ve been getting. I’ll tell her.”
“And what’s she going to do,” Peter challenges. “Tie me to my bed? Force me to sleep? Take away the suit? Ground me? She’d have to invest in vibranium locks if she really wanted to keep me from going out.”
“You’re really going to fight all of us?” MJ says, disbelief and anger darkening her voice.
“I have to do this.”
“Well, I’m not going to stand by and watch.” She shakes her head at him, mouth set in a deep frown, and then she walks out of the bathroom and his life.
He looks at Ned, silently pleading for him to understand, and Ned stares back with wet eyes for a moment before turning away as well.
He’s left alone in that bathroom, ears ringing and head spinning and tears sliding down his cheeks, clinging to his jaw, lungs aching.
*
Is it possible to do this without his two best friends at his side? He isn’t sure but he’s convinced himself that there’s no going back now. The only way he’ll get them back is if he stops, and that’s not an option.
So it’ll just be him against the world. He can handle that. He has before.
It’ll all be worth it when he gets that shiny acceptance letter.
*
“Kid.”
Tony says it in a way that Peter instantly knows what’s happening. He’s sitting at the dining room table when Peter gets to the tower for Lab Night, hands crossed on the table, shoulders tight, mouth set in a firm line.
“I don’t need another fucking intervention.” He doesn’t know where the anger came from, seeping through the tired cracks. He’s pretty sure he’s never sworn at Tony before. He’s not surprised that MJ and Ned ratted on him, he knew they would after their fight in the bathroom, he just hoped Tony wouldn’t make a big deal of it.
Tony shakes his head, gesturing towards the pulled-out chair beside him, Peter doesn’t move from the hallway, just drops his backpack on the floor. “Kid.”
“If you’re going to lecture me, I’m going to pass. I have shit to do.” He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. There’s no filter left. All that’s left is hardened sharp edges and dark rings beneath his eyes and the ghost of who he was shaking its head at him.
“Peter-” Tony never calls him that, so Peter knows it’s serious. “-Please just come sit and we can talk about this. It’s not a lecture or- or an intervention, I just… I’m worried.”
He crosses his arms tight, curling into himself a little. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not, kid, and I’m sorry I let it slide for too long, I should’ve said something sooner, but I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”
“I’m fine,” Peter grounds out again. “And I have shit to do.”
Tony stands slowly, hands open and fingers spread like Peter’s a feral animal. “You’re working yourself to the bone. You’re going to get hurt.”
Peter stays quiet, staring Tony down. The older hero takes a step closer and Peter steps back, keeping space between them.
“I’ve looked at Karen’s reports, kid-”
“You’re still spying on me?”
“I’m checking in.”
“I should’ve disabled those stupid protocols months ago.”
Tony doesn’t meet Peter’s fire with fire, though, he just looks… aged. He looks more exhausted than Peter feels, wrinkles set deeper than Peter remembers, streaks of grey in his hair standing out in the moonlight. “I just want you to be safe.”
“I’m fine, okay? I haven’t been to medical in weeks.”
“You’ve been averaging two hours of sleep a night. Do you know what that’ll do to your reflexes? Your fighting abilities?”
“How many fucking times do I have to say I’m fine?” Peter’s voice has raised a little, not much but it still feels like it echoes off the walls of the dark hallway, it rattles inside his head.
Tony sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “You’re working too hard. You’re not sleeping, you’re drinking an obscene amount of caffeine, you’re not eating enough, you’re stressed, you’re lashing out. You know who you sound like?”
“Exactly. Who are you to judge?”
“I’ve learned from those mistakes, Pete. And I don’t want you to make them too. You’re going to get yourself killed patrolling or have a caffeine overdose or hurt yourself in the lab or burn bridges or turn to something worse than caffeine to get you through the day.”
“I’m not you!” Peter snaps. He can feel tears in his throat, voice threatening to break, hands shaking so he curls them into fists and stuffs them in his pockets. “I’m fine, okay? I can handle it.”
Tony shakes his head again, people have been doing that a lot lately when they talk to him. “I spoke to your principal, Peter.”
He flinches, taking another step back into the dark hallway. His breaths are coming too quick and a headache is beginning to form behind his eyes and Tony’s eyes are following him, tracking every movement that cements his points, and he looks so fucking sympathetic, so hurt.
“I’m going to fix it, okay? I have a few more days to perfect that history assignment and I’ll get the grade up by finals. It’s going to be fine. I can fix it.”
“It’s not just history, Peter.” Tony keeps saying his name and Peter hates how it’s grounding him to the conversation, stopping his swirling to-do lists in their place to hear Tony’s words. “It’s history and it’s chemistry and it’s calculus and it’s gym and your football coach says-”
“I can fix it!” Peter pleads, voice trembling. “I just need to try harder, I just need to put more effort in, I just- I just need to do more.”
Peter’s starting to feel claustrophobic in the hallway, images of Toomes and dust and darkness seeping into his eyesight.
“There’s nothing more you can give,” Tony says, gentle despite tearing down Peter’s world with just his words. “There’s not enough time in the world.”
“Fuck you,” Peter spits, he takes another step back. He points a shaking finger at Tony. “Fuck you. And fuck Ned for telling you. And fuck Coach for thinking I’m not good enough. And fuck MJ for switching me to an alternate. And fuck Miss Christie for not giving me a chance. And- and fuck Oscorp for making that fucking spider and putting these responsibilities on me. And fuck for parents for putting this pressure on me. And- And-”
“Kid.” And he sounds so genuine and pained and soft. And Peter fucking hates him.
“This, all of this, is your fucking fault. Yours, and May’s, and my parents, and Pepper’s, and Ben’s, and Ned’s. It’s on you.”
Tony, for his credit, just sighs softly and nods. “I know what it’s like to be under that kind of pressure. To have people make it seem like their future for you is the only one that matters, that you have these insane expectations to live up to and what you do will never be enough. But, kid, we’re all proud of you already. You don’t have to go to MIT for us to be proud. I can’t speak for your parents or for your uncle, but me and May and Pepper, we’d be proud if you went to community college. Hell, we’d be proud if you didn’t go to college at all. You don’t need MIT to have our approval, Peter. And we certainly don’t want you to kill yourself trying to get there.”
Peter shakes his head, tears beginning to curl down his cheeks, no doubt bright red already. “What about your future? I’ve heard you talk about it. You and Pepper and that- a kid, a kid who’s actually yours, retiring, giving up Iron Man and Stark Industries. You can’t do that if I go to a fucking community college.”
“We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” he shouts, unable to stop himself, voice wavering. He clenches his teeth so hard that his head starts to pound. “I can’t let everyone down.”
“And I’m not going to lose you, Peter.”
“I can do it!”
“Kid.” He sounds so pained, strained, desperate. “You’re going to go out patrolling on zero sleep, hopped up on too much caffeine, and you’re not going to be able to dodge that bullet. I’m going to get the red alert that you’re hurt and I’m going to be the one to find you bleeding out in some shoddy alley. And I’m not going to be able to save you. I’m going to have to hold you as you die. I’m going to have to show up at May’s door at an unforgivable hour and give her the news. Is that really what you want?”
There are images of that night in his peripherals. The black of the gun, the grey of Ben’s jacket, the red on the pavement, the gold of the police officer’s badge, the red on his hands, the brown of the apartment complex, the red on his jeans, the green of their apartment door, the brown of May’s hair, the red of her eyes, the red on his sweater, the red on his shoes.
“It’s not going to happen.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“I can do it!” He’s crying, choked back sobs making his whole body tremble. “Why doesn’t anybody think I can do it? I have to- I can’t stop-”
Tony shakes his head again and again. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Peter.”
Peter doesn’t have the energy to stand anymore, pressing his back into the wall and sliding down it, knees pulling up to his chest. He curls into himself, as tight as he can, suddenly sobbing loudly into his knees.
“I can’t let everybody down. I can’t stop. I can’t give up,” he chokes out, pushing his hands into his hair and tugging until pain clouds his vision as much as his tears.
“I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, kid,” Tony says. “But I promised myself I wouldn’t let you become me. I swore after-” His voice breaks, guilt rushing into it. “After Toomes, that I wouldn’t make another mistake with you. So I can’t, I can’t let you do this.”
And Peter, he feels so small, so broken, so lost. “Are you going to take the suit?”
“If that’s what it takes to stop you from patrolling on no sleep, then yes, I have to.”
He bites his lip to stop the noise of despair from escaping him, metallic blood filling his mouth. He grabs his backpack from where he left it when all this started and throws it at Tony, too much superstrength behind his throw when it hits Tony in the chest with a solid noise.
“I wouldn’t have to if you dropped those extra-curriculars, Peter, or let me help with homework, or stopped tutoring or something. If I thought you could still be safe out there.” And he does sound genuinely guilty.
“Leave me alone.” He means to say it angrily, means to shout it from deep in his lungs, means to make it hurt, means to throw it like a dagger, but it just comes out small, weak, childish.
“Kid-”
“Please,” he says, looking up from his knees to meet Tony’s empathy with red eyes and wet eyelashes and a hoarse voice, to meet him with emptiness. “Leave me alone.”
Tony swallows loud enough for Peter to hear even through the rushing in his ears and then nods slowly. “Okay, kid. You know where to find me. And just so you know, I’m not doing this to be malicious. Everything I do is for you.”
“Go away.”
And he’s left alone. MJ, Ned, and now Tony. Gone.
He cries until he has nothing left to give. And then he curls up on the hardwood floor and cries some more.
*
When he wakes, there’s a blanket covering his body and a pillow underneath his head in the hallway, and a glass of water sits nearby. His head throbs something wicked and his back aches, but it’s probably the most sleep he’s gotten all week.
He drinks some water and then slowly rises to his feet, joints cracking at every move. He keeps the blanket tucked around his shoulders, hanging off him like a cape, and shuffles towards the kitchen.
See, he knows he’s in the wrong. He’s known since before MJ confronted him that what he was doing to himself was fucked up. He knows that this isn’t good or healthy or right, that he’s pushing everyone away like he wants to be killed and forgotten. He knows that Tony had every right to be pissed after yesterday. He knows that he hurt his friends and his family. He just doesn’t know how to stop anymore, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s lost and he feels small, he wants his mom to run her fingers through his hair and tell him everything will be okay.
Instead, he puts on a pot of coffee.
He makes two cups, too much sugar in one and just a little milk in the other, and takes them down to the lab.
He hesitates just outside the glass doors. He knows Tony didn’t sleep last night. He knows Tony has every right to hate him. He knows Tony probably broke down the second he left Peter alone. He knows Tony probably had footage of him sleeping open all night. And Peter doesn’t know if he can fix this.
Tony looks up like he knows Peter’s there. His eyes are red-rimmed, a little wild from caffeine consumption, and his hair sticks up in every direction like he ran his hand through it a hundred times.
Peter walks into the lab cautiously, slowly, like he’s the one approaching a feral animal this time. He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all, he just sets the coffee down in front of Tony and then backs off a few feet.
They stare at each other for a few moments.
“Hey, kid,” Tony finally says, looking like he might cry at any moment, Peter feels the same, on the edge of a precipice.
Peter’s hands are shaking so badly that his coffee is spilling. He sets it down on the lab bench, knowing it’ll make a ring and guilt rising just a little higher.
“Hi,” he squeaks, swallowing again and again. He doesn’t let himself clench his hands into fists, just lets them shake.
Tony takes a long sip of coffee, Peter watches every movement he makes like he’s scared Tony will lash out at him, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop and it could happen at any second.
“Kid,” Tony says again. But he doesn’t follow it up with any words of wisdom.
The apologies ball up in his throat, getting stuck, and his breathing starts to struggle around them.
Tony’s expression softens, shoulders relaxing a little. “It’s okay.”
And Peter’s the one to start shaking his head fervently now. “It’s not okay.”
“It’s okay,” Tony repeats gently, always so gentle like Peter’s made of fucking glass. “It’s going to be okay, kid.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Peter feels panicked, trapped, scared. He feels like he’s dying. Like the past weeks of pushing himself beyond what he’s capable of have finally caught up to him. All the caffeine, the sleepless nights, the stress, the fights, the anger, the nightmares, the headaches, the visions, the pressure, it all just caves in at once.
“We’ll figure it out, okay?”
“I don’t want to die,” Peter chokes out. Because Tony was right, if he continued like this, he was going to die before he was able to make it to MIT, no ifs ands or buts. He would die. Even without the suit, he would die.
And he didn’t think it would bother him so much, the idea of dying, but with the work he’s put towards his future, is also the dreams of what could be. That future he’s planned for himself could be so exciting, so fulfilling, if he made it there.
“It’s going to be okay, bud. We’re going to figure it out.”
Peter doesn’t cry, he doesn’t think he has a single tear left in him, but his shoulders wrack with pain regardless. He reaches out for Tony with what strength he has when the whole world is caving in on him. And Tony moves quickly, standing and coming around the bench, wrapping Peter up in his arms, taking the weight of the world off his shoulders, burdening some of the pressure with him.
“I can’t give up,” Peter says, words muffled in Tony’s sweater.
“You don’t have to give up, buddy, but we have to make some changes.”
“I need MIT. I need Boston. I need scholarships. I need the grades and the extra-curriculars and the money, I need Spider-Man. How- How?”
Tony holds him up when his knees threaten to give out, cradles the back of his neck, a good pressure that alleviates a little bit of the pressure behind his eyes. “MJ told me how you feel. That what Spider-Man has doesn’t belong to you. That I, what we have, belongs to Spider-Man and not you, but you’re my kid, Peter Parker is, not Spider-Man.”
“We wouldn’t have met without the spider. We wouldn’t know each other. I wouldn’t have this internship, I wouldn’t have a spot in your life. Even if you like me for me and not my alter-ego, it still is because of him.”
“Even so, I wouldn’t have kept you around if I didn’t like you, kiddo. I wouldn’t have offered an internship, I wouldn’t have bought back this tower to stay nearby, I wouldn’t have wine nights with your aunt, I wouldn’t have movie nights with you, I wouldn’t go to your decathlon meets, I wouldn’t be handing over my company, I wouldn’t be planning out a room for you in my cabin, if it weren’t for you.”
“You are?”
“You’re my kid, Peter.”
“So it wouldn’t be wrong for me to use the internship on my application,” Peter says quietly, less of a question. “It wouldn’t be wrong for you to write me a letter of recommendation.”
“I have one written already. Had it written since you were fifteen.”
Peter breathes in the smell of metal and day-old cologne and coffee, and finally feels like his lungs accept the oxygen for the first time in what feels like forever. Tony will make it all okay.
*
“Hey… I’m sorry for what happened the other day,” he says, listening to the tinny sound of silence as he leaves a message on MJ’s phone. “I really am. I know you were just trying to help, I was just too far gone to accept it. I’m- I’m going to stop, relax, slow down. You were right, of course you were. I don’t know a time when you weren’t right. I’m dropping football and robotics and tutoring. I can’t do it all and Spider-Man. I’m taking a couple days off, a ‘mental health long weekend’ Tony’s calling it. If you… Maybe you’d think about coming by? I know you have no reason to forgive me, but- I just- I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry. And thank you. Thank you for trying to help me, thank you for being a friend, thank you for putting up with me these past months, thank you for telling Mister Stark, thank you for everything. Alright, well… bye, MJ.”
*
May comes by that night. She cries when Tony tells her how bad it got, how little sleep Peter was getting, how much he was pushing himself. She cries and gathers Peter up in her arms like he’s still five-years-old.
“Peter, baby,” she says into his hair. And that’s all it takes for him to cry too. And she keeps saying it, “Peter, baby, I should’ve known, I should’ve seen it. I’ve been working too much and I…”
“I just wanted to make Ben proud,” he cries into her scrubs.
“Ben would be so proud of you, baby, so goddamn proud. You don’t need to do anything more than be you for him to be proud. I’m so sorry we ever made you think otherwise. He loved you so much and he just saw so much potential in you, we all do, that’s why- We never wanted to put you under so much pressure, just wanted to make sure you knew you could do anything you set your mind to.”
*
MJ and Ned come by. They exchange their apologies, even MJ says she’s sorry for being so angry that day.
They spend the day playing video games and talking and eating.
Peter feels like the balance has been restored in the universe.
*
When he finally applies to MIT as well as plenty of back-up schools, he doesn’t freak out. He thinks that it’ll be okay, whatever happens. If he has to do a lap year, so be it, if he goes to a college in Boston or New York for a year before reapplying, it’ll be okay.
His grades have steadily increased since The Intervention, and his caffeine intake has steadily declined. He hangs out with his friends more regularly, spends time with May, has relaxed nights with Tony instead of cramming them full of studying. He gets back his spot on the Academic Decathlon team and splits his responsibilities as student class president with his vice president.
Tony pats him on the shoulder and presses a kiss to his forehead when he hits the final submit button on his final application. He murmurs a quiet admission of pride into Peter’s hair.
Whatever happens, it’ll be okay.
*
MJ gets early acceptance to Harvard. Peter’s never seen her smile that wide before.
*
Ned gets accepted to MIT a few weeks later. He brings the letter to Peter’s apartment and says that they should wait until Peter gets his, but Peter shakes his head and tells him to open it now. Ned’s hands shake badly as he opens the letter. There’s a long moment of silence as Ned reads and Peter waits.
And then, “I got accepted.”
Ned doesn’t sound as happy as he should, sounds nervous even as he looks up at Peter.
“Dude!” Peter exclaims, jumping up from his seat. He grabs the letter from Ned’s hands and reads the congratulations. He throws his arms around Ned. “Holy shit!”
Ned hugs him tight but when they pull away, he still looks small. “You’re not… upset? I mean, if you don’t get it, I can wait to start, defer until next year-”
“Are you kidding?” Peter says, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. “I’m so proud of you, dude. I’m so excited for you. You deserve it, man.”
And Ned finally smiles. “I can’t believe it.”
Peter pulls him into another hug.
*
Peter doesn’t hear anything for weeks.
There are a few nights where his anxiety gets the best of him. Sometimes, he heads over to Tony’s lab, knowing he’ll be up even at the odd hours. Sometimes, he swings over to MJ’s, lands on her fire escape and taps on her window. She’s always there to soothe his worries. She doesn’t have a doubt in her mind that he’ll get accepted, neither does May or Tony or Ned. But, worse case scenario, it’ll all work out. Nobody’s going to be upset or mad if he doesn’t go to MIT in the fall.
*
And then he gets it.
He’s studying at the dining room table with Ned and MJ, preparing for midterms in March, when May comes home from work with the mail. And sitting among them is the letter he was waiting for.
MIT.
“You ready?” MJ asks. She puts her hand over his on the letter.
“No matter what it says, it’ll be okay,” Ned reminds him. “No matter what.”
Tears burn his eyes all of a sudden. He puts the letter down on the table, unopened, swallowing thickly around the lump in his throat. They have a future planned out, the three of them. An apartment in Boston, road trips together back to New York whenever they can, MJ wants to get a cat. May’s had her two-week notice letter ready on the coffee table. Tony’s already started blueprints for that cabin he’ll build. He knows he keeps saying everything will be okay if he doesn’t get in, but…
“It will be,” MJ says like she knows what he was thinking. “You can still come to Boston with us if you don’t get in. Your future doesn’t rest on what this letter says.”
Peter believes her, that it’ll be okay, but slides the letter to her, silently asking her to do the honors, he can’t do it himself.
She nods and picks it up. She gives him one last reassuring smile before opening the envelope.
“Dear Peter Parker,” MJ reads.
