Adventures in FaceTime
At 8 pm on November 19th, Peter gets a FaceTime call from Flash.
It takes him nearly 30 seconds to answer. Thankfully, Peter hasn’t left for patrol yet and is still wearing normal clothes. He sits cross-legged on his bed and tries not to hyperventilate.
“Flash?” Peter asks, holding the phone strategically so he doesn’t look like he has 38 chins.
“No, it’s Oprah,” Flash snarks out, glaring at the screen. Peter giggles before he can help himself.
“Wow, I’m honored,” he gasps.
“Shut up, Parker,” Flash says. Peter starts to think it’s his new catch-phrase.
“So, uh, why did you call?” Peter asks after a beat of extraordinarily awkward silence.
“I got tired of explaining chemistry over text. Plus I wanted to see the stupid look on your face while I tried to nail this shit through your head,” Flash says, tilting his phone so Peter can only see his forehead and the ceiling above him. Peter blushes all the way down his chest. He tries not to think of the unintentional euphemism behind “see your face” and “nail.” “So, you ready?” Flash asks.
“Oh, uh, gimme a second,” Peter stammers, untangling his legs to rush and find his now-bountiful chemistry notes. He hears Flash sigh exaggeratedly over the phone. It comes out a little tinny, but still cute. “Ok, ready,” Peter says as he settles back down and props his phone up on a stray textbook.
“Ok, so-” Flash starts to explain. The two boys work together for nearly an hour even though they are already ahead of the class at this point. They surpassed the class’ curriculum last week and spent the past week learning whatever Flash wanted. Peter was just happy for any excuse to keep talking to the boy, really any excuse to keep talking to anyone. Flash has this uncanny ability to fight off the loneliness that has settled in Peter’s bones, even for just a minute. Plus, Peter has started implementing some of what Flash has taught him into improving his suit and web-shooters. Now that he isn’t working with Mr. Stark, he needs to keep his suit up to par on his own. Can’t have his laziness getting in the way of protecting his city...
“Alright, if I hear anything else about bonds or whatever I’m gonna rip my hair out,” Peter says when Flash gets to a stopping point. If he’s honest, he stopped paying attention nearly five minutes ago; instead, he’s been doodling and listening to Flash talk. He’s trying to memorize the upturn of Flash’s voice when he’s excited, the breathy chuckle he lets out when he makes an accidental science pun, the teasing yet encouraging tone of his voice as he pokes fun at Peter for falling behind.
“Weak, Parker,” Flash states but doesn’t protest. Peter hears shuffling for a minute before the scenery behind Flash changes. The boy must have moved to sit on his own bed, because now a beautiful wooden headboard frames his face as he holds Peter head-high to talk. Peter realizes that he fucked up when he realizes that Flash is going to hang up on him if they don’t keep talking about chemistry. Don’t blow this, Peter urges himself.
“So, uh, how was your Halloween?” Peter asks.
“Parker, it’s been like three weeks since Halloween,” Flash states. Fuck.
“Yeah, uh, yeah. Sorry,” Peter stumbles over his words. Blew it.
“It was good,” Peter hears after a second. Thank God.
“G-good! Uh,” Peter hates himself. This is so fucking pathetic.
“Hey, uh, did you read that thing on the Harvard scholars program?” Flash asks, clearing his throat awkwardly.
“N-no, what’d it say?” Peter asks.
“Other than that it’s better than fucking MIT? Well,” Flash goes on to ramble about his dream school at length. Peter thinks he’s the most gorgeous person alive.
After their conversation about Harvard, talking gets far easier. The two teens chat for another hour or so before Peter freezes, his super-hearing picking up on some commotion on Flash’s end of the screen. Is that… yelling?
Flash must see the shift in Peter’s focus, as he immediately starts talking louder. Peter pretends not to notice when quiet music starts up in the background, doing absolutely nothing to shield Peter’s sensitive ears from the fighting behind it. Peter pretends to be distracted from it, however, since he knows any normal person would no longer be able to hear the background noise; plus, he doesn’t want to make Flash uncomfortable. It’s none of his business.
The two teens talk for another couple hours, discussing anything and everything Flash comes up with until hours into the night. Peter feels more relaxed than he’s been in months, Flash’s excitable tone distracting him from the hunger pangs and dark thoughts that would usually have consumed Peter by this point in the night. When they finally hang up, Peter falls right asleep.
---
Peter and Flash FaceTime almost every night for the next four days. Flash calls him every time, Peter too insecure and overall confused to initiate anything. It’s Sunday night when Peter calls him for the first time.
He doesn’t really mean to, if he’s honest. It’s nearly midnight and Peter has been sitting on his bedroom floor for two hours.
He got back from patrol early that night, climbing through his window at only 10. There are purple-green bruises surrounding his wrists from the asshole cops who decided tonight was a good night to arrest a fucking hero as he’s literally stopping a robbery. He’s frustrated, angry, and hungry as hell. Peter had to run nearly six miles to get back to his apartment, dodging and weaving police cars as they tried to stop him. He only made it 30 minutes into patrol before he was cuffed, and he had to flee so he wouldn’t get caught later in the night. He spent the first two miles with the broken handcuffs digging into his wrists, throbbing from when he ripped them apart to escape. He finally managed to rip them from his wrists later, but not before he literally thought he would lose his fingers from lack of circulation. Fucking cops.
When he finally made it to his window, Peter made it barely five steps before a panic attack wracked his frame.
His hands move with a mind of their own, jerkily ripping his suit off so he can lie on the floor in just his underwear. He curls into fetal position, one hand flying up to cover his mouth and muffle the sobs that fight to escape. The other circles around his waist, arm quivering as it attempts to comfort the rest of his body.
Peter hears Tony’s voice in his mind, breathe, Pete. He can’t. God, he just can’t. He’s too fucked up to get a breath in, wet sobs interrupting his breathing pattern and making his head swim.
Peter digs his fingers into the closed gash of his left arm. He sobs as the dull pain sears through him, just on the wrong side of enough. Blind with panic and brewing frustration, Peter does the only thing he can think to do. He takes the jagged edge of his web-shooter, broken during his wrestling match with the handcuffs, and digs it into the scabbing scar. A relieved sob tears from his throat as he caves in on himself, warm, wet blood flooding his frozen fingertips.
Peter stays curled up like that on his bedroom floor, the jagged cut dripping blood steadily down his body as he lies on his right side. He watches the thick liquid flow in smooth rivulets down his arm and across the shivering expanse of his torso, warm and sticky where the rest of his skin is coated in goosebumps.
He finally shakes himself out of his trance when the only thing he can hear is his shaking breaths and the comforting, muffled conversation of the older couple who lives below him. Mind still jumbled with self-deprecating thoughts and regrets, Peter picks up his phone from where it fell with him to the floor. He hits “call.”
“Parker?” Flash’s voice creaks over the phone, his screen black. Fuck. Was Flash asleep? Of course he was fucking asleep it’s midnight on a Sunday night and they have school tomorrow.
“F-flash?” Peter stutters, unsure of himself as his chest continues to shake with the leftover jitters of his attack.
“Yeah, yeah I’m here,” Flash grumbles. Peter can hear shuffling from his end of the phone.
“Can you just.. Just talk to me? About something?” Peter asks, doing his best to stay present as Flash flicks on his lamp. Peter flinches. He makes sure to keep the phone aimed at his ceiling. His phone shakes in his hand, but he knows that Flash can’t see anything lower than his eyes.
“Something?” Flash asks, sarcasm coloring his voice. Peter knows he should hate it, but it’s oddly comforting. Peter nods over the phone and Flash’s face changes, realization coloring his features. “Sure thing, Parker.” Flash agrees.
After endless minutes of listening to Flash drabble on about some band he likes while trying to get his breathing under control, Peter has a realization.
“Flash, are you scared of dying?” Peter whispers. He doesn’t even think Flash had finished his sentence, yet.
“W-what?” Flash sounds... confused? It isn’t that hard of a question.
“Dying, are you scared of it?” Peter asks again, feeling an urgency that he can’t explain.
“I, um, I guess? I’m not really scared of what happens after, though. I don’t believe in an afterlife. What about you?” Flash surprisingly just rolls with it, approaching it head-on just like he approaches everything else.
“No,” Peter says. He doesn’t feel like elaborating.
“Okay, then. Well, what do you think comes after?” Flash asks.
“Nothing. I’m Jewish so, you know, the void, I guess?” Peter whispers, struggling to pull himself into a sitting position so he can stay conscious enough to keep the conversation going. His arm hurts.
“Yeah, I feel that.” They sit in silence for a second. “Hey, Parker?” Flash asks.
“Yeah,” Peter replies quietly. He picks at the cut on his arm.
“Why’d you call me?”
“It’s, uh. It’s nothing. Just needed to talk to someone,” Peter says, feeling vulnerable. He is the open wound on his arm, he thinks ironically. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve.
“Okay. I’m gonna go to bed, if you’re good?” Flash, surprisingly, doesn’t make fun of him. Peter feels a little more human, a little less wound.
“Yeah, yeah I’m good. Hey, uh, thanks, Flash,” Peter says. Flash gives him a dorky little thumbs-up through the screen before it turns black and he hangs up. Peter falls asleep on the floor that night, but at least he falls asleep.