You Can Bury Me in Some Deep Valley
It started with a fight. An argument that got out of hand.
Or maybe it started before that.
Peter had always been an optimistic person—the kind of kid with an unwavering sense of self and positivity. Who could take the hand life gave him and play on, even with low cards and dead relatives. And, in secret corners and under his covers, Peter may have entertained darker thoughts—Skip, Ben, Flash, his parents—but one thing he prided himself in was his ability to bring happiness to the people around him. His aunt told him enough times that he was like the sun—warm and burning passionately, a joy to have. But this has been covered already—even a few chapters back. (Sometimes, reminders are good. Reminders keep the bad thoughts away.) Later, in the After, he thought this was probably the only reason Tony and everyone else tolerated him. It had been his only positive quality—the only thing that made him worth keeping around.
When he came back, he found it hard to describe to Tony what the orange, dusty Loneliness felt like. (So he didn’t describe it at all.) After realizing that he held the singular experience of being awake for the beginning and end of that hell (Maybe a year? Maybe longer? He was never able to quantify it.), he didn’t want to bring anyone down. Tony didn’t need to know the excruciating pain of being snapped out of existence—of feeling his atoms tear apart one by one—of feeling them put back together five years later. He didn’t need to know how he still felt a cough in his chest at times and how he sometimes saw orange whenever he was tired. How his brain felt jumbled—like something dislodged and never could fit again. Tony was celebrating his Return—Morgan was five-and-a-half and taught him how to make friendship bracelets and, really, why was it that important?
It started with a fight. Too many missed curfews and ignored text messages and a joint that he found on the ground after a patrol where all he could see was orange.
It started with Tony knocking on his door asking why his school emailed him about missed assignments. It started with “this isn’t you,” and “talk to me, please.” It started with an insult that only a teenager could deliver—about understanding and maturity and nosy parents.
It started with a text message. Peter, are you coming to Flash’s party? He’s been nicer to us lately. And Flash, who had found camaraderie in the other Snapped, had the house to himself with an unlimited keg and several bottles of his absent dad’s gin. It started with a dare.
It started with a liquor store being robbed late one night and a hero webbing up the thieves and the memory of seeing something other than orange, the memory of feeling settled and warm in the midst of a former bully’s taunts all because of what he drank. It started with taking back the stolen bottles to his room instead of returning them to the clerk.
It started with sitting on higher and higher buildings. Of refusing to use knives to cut his arms because his family was too smart for that, but instead using criminals’ fists and crowbars. It started with avoidance and faking and locked doors and mood swings. It started with a camping trip after smoking weed with Cooper where he received a class ring and a promise of unconditional love but all he could think about was why he still woke up from all his dreams coughing out orange dust.
It started with a trip to Europe the day after a close call with a knife. With a retired superhero way too good for the traumatized orphan yelling at him for getting drunk. With a plan to run away once he got there so he could give his family a well-deserved break from all his mistakes.
It started with all this. A broken spider sense that constantly buzzed no matter where he was. Keeping that secret was a given, just like the one about the Loneliness—and instead, ignoring all the anxiety running through his veins.
It started with all this. With glasses given at the airport desk (“in case you need me, I love you no matter what, I’m trusting you, figlio, please don’t break that trust”) and the silent treatment and an eye roll.
Paris was beautiful. Tony still hadn’t replied to Peter’s hastily texted “sorry” that he had sent before takeoff and by the time he arrived at the hotel, he was jet-lagged and craving a drink. And that kind of scared him, but he decided it didn’t really mean he had a problem, per se, just something to keep an eye on. He walked into his room and sitting on the spare bed that Ned was supposed to occupy but had missed his flight was Tony, apologetic and talking about a mission and apologizing for taking him away from a well-deserved vacation but “it’s important, Pete, you’re the only one I trust to do it.”
Peter left a note with Ned, jumped into the car Tony rented, and promptly fell asleep. (“Rest your eyes, kiddo. We’ll be there soon. Go ahead and give me back the glasses for safekeeping, buddy.”) Peter woke up to vibranium handcuffs in a leaky cellar and a man wearing Tony’s face cutting his arms and thighs because he bled so “beautifully.” Because he “deserved the pain.” Because he was broken and stupid and ugly and a burden and better off dead. Beck’s touches were possessive and crazed and filled with memories of Skip and the Vulture and when he left Peter for hours, he would blow dust in the room and turn up the heat and flash orange strobe lights. Beck was inventive and had a bone to pick—with Tony, with the world, with the boy who the Starks adopted, who was slated to inherit Stark Industries, who got glasses and rings and was lauded as a genius. Beck was inventive and too obsessed with waterboarding and needles and thread, which went through Peter’s lips more times than he could count because gagging him wasn’t enough to stop the screams.
Beck traveled and Peter traveled with him all the way to London where he was scheduled to die spectacularly in a fiery inferno outside Parliament. “I’m am a god, Peter, and you are my slave. And the whole world will know how pathetic you are.” And when Tony (the real one) finally found him, Peter was filled with disappointment because dying in an explosion sounded preferable to telling him what happened.
So, like the Loneliness and the atom-knitting and the pot and the liquor and the crowbars, he decided no one needed to know.
It started like that.
Sometimes stories about tragic heroes are hard to hear. Maybe because it’s closer to reality than one prefers—it’s easier to live vicariously through triumph than to be reminded of the world’s tendency to abandon good people. Homer wrote the Odyssey about a hero who eventually conquered the unimaginable—most endings aren’t as happy. But it’s enough proof that tragic stories (even in the real world) don’t always end that way.
It’s that hope of a happy ending that pushes humans through the darkness, right? The hope of the light at the end of the tunnel, or the silver lining, or the happily ever after, or whatever shitty metaphor one prefers. That riding in a car and joking about pancakes, can be the beginning of a new life instead of a one-off that happens before swinging back into despair. That hope is what keeps people going. (And maybe it was mentioned a chapter or five ago, but sometimes reminders are good. Sometimes they keep the bad thoughts away.)
Hope.
The mighty protector of life itself. The middle name of an eight-year-old planning a trip to Disneyland while her dad made up bullshit excuses of why IHOP wasn’t open the day after Christmas. “Too bad, Pete. I know you had your heart set on it.”
Hope.
Greeting the caravan at the door to the mansion in the form of a green and muscular doctor and two worried friends.
Hope. A balloon that can pop at any moment.
Hope.
Something Wong was quickly losing as he examined Stephen stoically. He clicked his tongue, and portaled him to the New Compound’s med bay at the insistence of Helen Cho and a team of neurologists.
Fragile. Just like the line between tragic and happy endings.
“Ned, you need to eat something.” Peter watched as Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed as his friend pushed his burger away.
“I’m good, Dr. Banner! I’m just going to lay down for a minute.” Ned turned to Peter, “Will you help me get to the room? I’m a little unsteady.”
“You both need help.” Tony’s hovering got much worse after Dr. Strange had been portaled away. “Here Pete, Ned, I’ll walk you there. Kid, I’m going to ask Friday to wake you up in three hours for your meds. Cho said your side is healing faster than your head, so you really need to take it easy.”
“Not a kid.” Peter’s voice was quiet—embarrassed—but Tony still heard it. He smirked. “Forever, bud.”
They made it to Peter’s room—Clint moved in another bed after their memories all returned, and Ned laid down. Tony guided Peter to his bed and gave him a stern look. “Sleep.”
“Yes, sir.” Peter meant for it to come out playful, but it sounded sad even to his own ears. Tony looked as if he was going to say something, but opted for a hug instead. He closed the door quietly on his way out.
The silence lingered.
Ned rolled over on his side and Peter could feel him staring at him but opted to keep his eyes on the ceiling.
“Just say what you want to say.” Ned’s voice was gentle but held an undercurrent of steel.
Peter sighed as tears pricked the corners of his eyes. That was one of the reasons he liked drinking—no one seemed to understand how much a cry-baby he’d be without the buzz.
“Why?” It came out harder than he intended, especially after his talks with Morgan and Happy.
“Why what?”
Peter snorted. “Don’t play dumb, Ned.”
Ned made a frustrated sound and then turned to look at the ceiling as well. “The fact that I even have to answer that question is ridiculous.”
Peter glanced at him. Ned’s fists were balled and he was a conflicting mixture of defiant but incredibly frail. Peter had never known a stronger friendship than the one between them, but the downside of knowing each other so well was that they could mirror each other quickly. Ned was patient and loyal and loving, and gave off an air of a koala. But he was more like a grizzly—and getting him angry was not a pleasant experience the rare times it happened—especially when up against Peter’s own temper.
“The fact that you have to answer that question is the least you can do right now. You had no right.” Peter’s superpower, contrary to popular belief, was not stickiness, but self-sabotage. He was an expert.
“Really, dude? I’m exhausted. You’re exhausted. Just drop it. Maybe we should hold off on this conversation until you get at least six hours of sleep.” Ned was texting, opting not to look at Peter.
And he was going to leave it alone, he was, but his hands were shaking and his side was aching and he could’ve sworn the walls were turning orange. “Whatever possessed you to cast that spell, Ned? You could have died. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do and I watched you tell Flash to fuck off once.”
“I can’t do this with you Peter.” Ned sat up and looked at him. His face was ashen but his cheeks were red, a sure sign of his anger. “You tried to kill yourself eight times. Yeah, I remember every one, I remember every single day I was in that spell, I remember how you put that bullet in your chest, how you shot up enough heroin to overdose three times, how you jumped from that water tower, how you stood in front of that train.” Peter sat stock still, horrified, embarrassed, angry. He was shaking.
Ned continued, “You have such little regard for your life that you enrolled in college across the country just to design something that would finally do the job. Do you know what it’s like to watch your best friend give up? Do you understand what it’s like to have your brother decide the ground is a better place to live than with you? Fuck, Peter. You have a whole group of people who would do anything for you, a father-figure who would travel to the ends of the earth for you, and you have the audacity to sit there and tell me it would have been better to let you die?” Ned was yelling by the time he finished. Peter kept staring at the ceiling letting a tense silence build. Still angry, Ned bit out, “Eleven months, Pete. You couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to be that helpless.”
He rolled over and finally fell asleep when it was clear that Peter wasn’t going to answer.
It started with a fight.
And argument that got out of hand.
And, later that night, when Ned ended up being the second person of the day to slip into an inexplicable coma, all Peter could do was stare at orange walls, and wonder why his atoms sucked so much at knitting.