"Can you please just eat Peter!"
He hears the words come out of his mouth. He hears himself get frustrated and yell at this sweet kid who didn't actually do anything wrong. But it's too late, he can’t ram the words back into his idiot mouth. He’s just about to avalanche as many apologies as he can when he sees Peter shove a forkful into his mouth. And that breaks his heart.
It hurts to watch Peter not eat day after day. But seeing him do it out of fear? That hurts so much worse.
Peter looked down at his plate still chewing, not daring to look up at the man in front of him. He feels his hands shake, and opps to place them in his lap. His mind races:
I'm sorry, I’m sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry. I made him mad, I made him mad, I made him mad. And he hates that.
"Peter-" Tony's About to apologize when abruptly, Peter gets up and scurries to the bathroom.
Peter’s knee deep in set-loathing as he heves over the toilet when he feels a pair of gentle hands pull up his bangs from his face and hold them on his head as the other rubs circles on his back. And he curses himself for flinching.
Tony can't describe now. Guilty and angry at himself he feels when he hears Peter throwing up in the other room, he stands there for a moment, his heart clenching, then immediately rushing to the bathroom; knocking before he comes in. He crouches down next to Peter, pulling hair out of his face and rubbing his back. It feels like stepping on glass when he flinches.
When Peters is done throwing up he brushes his teeth, then walks back to the table and sits down. Eyes downcast as shame engulfs him. Tony pushes a glass of water to him and peters glances up at him before picking it up and taking a sip.
"I'm sorry..." Peter says softly.
Tony wouldn’t have heard it if they weren't alone in the dining room. Tony's head snaps up so fast he gets whiplash. What on earth could he possibly be sorry for??? Peter looks up at him with big brown guilty eyes. like a puppy who just knocked over a glass.
"I-I'm sorry I really didn’t mean to, I promise. I-I just couldn't keep it down..."
He says looking back down at the cup of water he's holding in his lap he shoots his head back up. "Not that it wasn’t good! It was amazing I ju- I didn't throw up cause I-it was bad I-" he shakes his head blinking furiously as if it could untangle him from his stuttering rant. "I-I'm Sorry you had to take care of me- get me w-water and hold up my hair! I di-I didn’t mean to um-“ Tony (thank God) decides to cut off this mess he has tied himself in.
“Peter, Peter, hey, hey, hey." He saw leaning
forward to get his attention “you shouldn’t be apologizing kid, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Peter is taken aback by the sincerity in his eyes.
He's not blaming me? He's not mad at me? He continues after Peter just stares at him confusedly. "I'm so sorry I yelled at you. I lost my temper and snapped. I shouldn't have done that. I just-“ He sighs. “I just hate to see you not eating like this. And of course that is not an excuse at all! I just want you to tell me what’s going on so I can help you. I care about you a lot kid. All of us do and it just kills me to see you starving and not knowing how to fix it.
Now I’m not gonna force you to eat because obviously that’s not gonna work.” He nods his head towards the bathroom. “But I do wanna know what’s going on kid. Please.”
Peter looks at his mentor and wants to cry. He hasn’t had someone care about him like this in a long time and it yanks at his heart to hear words like that come out of an adult's mouth.
“They wouldn’t believe me…” Tony looks at him puzzlingly and so Peter continues. “He would force me to eat and then…then he would say that since he fed me I owe him and that he gets to do whatever he wants. He would say that…that no one would believe me if I told them that he hits me because they would see that he takes care of me and that’s all they would care about…I knew that he was probably wrong and that- that they would still believe me but… I dunno I guess it just got so stuck in my head that I couldn’t get it out. My subconscious just doesn’t want me to be in a state like that again; where I was hurt so bad like that all the time, so it took it out on food.”
Peter says avoiding eye contact. Gosh, Tony must think he’s so weak. I mean what kind of superhero is afraid of eating?
Tony’s blood turns to ice. His expression dropped into horror. He looks down at Peter's plate again.
“Peter oh my gosh I- I had no-“ he cuts himself off. What can he even say? He could even be so ignorant and oblivious. In that moment Tony wants to just hold him and have him never ever feel anything remotely sad again and strangle the man who did this to him until his head pops off. “God Peter, I’m so sorry that you went through that. And I am so sorry that I yelled at you. I was a complete idiot and should’ve realized that there were probably other reasons that you weren’t eating. I’m sorry you keep having to deal with such incompetent adults. Geez kid I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Listen to me alright,” he puts his hand on Peter's shoulder. “I care about you more than you could ever possibly know and I will never hurt you like that or any other way and I swear, I will hurt anyone that does. You are the kindest, most amazing, most brilliant human I have ever met and I promise to always protect and do anything and everything I can for you for as long as I live. You mean so much to me kid and I won't ever do anything like that.”
Tears start spilling over Peter’s cheeks cascading down to his neck. That catches Tony off guard and it shows which is why Peter says, “I’m sorry- I just-“ he wipes his eyes with his sleeve (which does nothing because the tears just keep coming) then looks back at Tony’s face. “No ones really said anything like that to me in like a really long time,” he says, his voice cracking up at the end. Barely holding it together.
To which Tony responds with, “well then you should get used to it cause you’ll be hearing it a lot more often.” He says with a warm smile. And that’s the grain of sand that breaks Peter.
Peter immediately breaks down crying. Tony comes over crouching down in front of Peter's chair and lovingly wraps his arms around Peter's small body. Holding him tight. Peter fists Tony’s shirt as he cries into the creek of his neck. “Thank you” Peter says around a sob. “For everything.” Tony squeezes him tighter. “Anytime kid.”