Nightmares and Revelations
Peter wakes up to screaming. He feels the bed shake with another body’s weight, panic invading his chest before he remembers that he and Flash fell asleep side by side. The panic doesn’t fully dissipate, though, has he realizes that it is Flash who is screaming. The other boy is sitting ramrod straight in bed next to him, his eyes unblinking as pure fear escapes his lips. Peter reacts on instinct, grabbing Flash’s bicep gently and giving him a small squeeze. He starts talking to the other boy as well, barely processing his own words as he whispers meaningless comforts to the still-shaking teen. He finally stopped screaming, wet sobs taking their place as he seems to wake up.
After a few minutes of Peter gently rubbing circles against Flash’s arm, the taller boy finally looks up. His eyes are red and wild, tears streaming down his cheeks as his chest shakes with uneven breaths.
“Flash?” Peter whispers, unsure of how to comfort him. Flash just nods, but seems unable to speak. Peter can hear how frantic his breathing still is, realizing that Flash might be having a panic attack. Peter feels oddly reassured by this, not because he wants the other boy to feel like this, but because he knows how to handle it.
“Flash, I want you to breathe with me, ok?” Peter asks quietly. Flash’s eyes flit from Peter’s face, to his hand on his arm, back up to Peter’s face. He nods jerkily, and Peter begins to breathe. He overexaggerates, making sure Flash can see his chest moving. He counts quietly, “In, two, three, four. Hold, good. Out, two, three, four, five, six. Good, Flash. Really good, keep going.”
Despite Peter’s reassurance, Flash still can’t manage to get his breathing under control. It’s better, by far, but still nowhere near enough for his panic attack to subside. Peter gets an idea, grabbing Flash’s hand and pressing it against his sternum. It’s a crude reenactment of Peter’s first panic attack with Tony, the roles reversed so Peter is the one teaching Flash how to breathe again. His heart clenches at the thought of his old mentor, and he distantly wonders if Tony would be proud of him. He hasn’t exactly been a model mentee recently, but maybe helping Flash is a step in the right direction. Maybe he’s on his way to becoming a good person, or at least something other than a bad one.
Peter rips himself from his thoughts, chastising himself for letting his mind wander when he should be giving Flash his full attention. Thankfully, Peter had been distracted for only a few seconds, and Flash hadn’t managed to spiral any further. Peter redirects his attention to the matter at hand, directing Flash to breathe with him again and tapping his hand against his chest when Flash starts to get distracted by his own mind again. Finally, after many rounds of breathing and so many reassurances that Peter’s throat grew sore, Flash seemed to grow calm again.
“Thanks, Peter,” Flash breathes.
Peter nods, awkwardly, before asking, “nightmare?” Flash nods back, and Peter asks, “wanna talk about it?”
“You sure?” Flash asks, “it’s kinda… a lot,” he mumbles.
“Yeah, if you’re sure,” Peter says gently.
“Ok, yeah. Well, it started with… with my parents’ deaths. This time, though, I was there for the whole thing. I watched Father beat mom, listened to her screaming at me that it was my fault up until he shot her. Then, uh, he looked me in the eyes as he shot himself. His brain got all over me, Peter, it even got in my mouth. Then, umm, then I guess it went back in time? I blinked and ended up in mom’s piano room, and she was alive again, like nothing happened. She was yelling at me, I can’t even remember what about. I thought I had woken up, I guess, because this was so normal. But then, I turned around and, and Father was there, too. Then, the yelling got so loud that I started yelling, too. Then I guess I woke up,” Flash says. He has a distant look in his eyes, his voice sounding detached and monotone despite how off-putting his nightmare was.
“I’m so sorry, Flash,” Peter whispers. He isn’t really sure what else to say, but Flash doesn’t seem to mind.
Flash shrugs, “It’s fine. It’s over, and they’re gone now. Right?” He tries to sound humorous when he asks, but Peter can tell that he’s partially serious.
“Yeah, Flash. It’s all over,” Peter says. Flash shoots him a quick smile, his lips barely quirking up, and Peter tries to return it.
“Thanks again, Peter. For listening, and for… whatever you did earlier. How’d you learn that stuff?” Flash mumbles. He doesn’t like to admit to not knowing things, and Peter feels a bit of warmth flood his cheeks at the thought of teaching Flash something new.
“I, uh, I get a lot of panic attacks,” Peter responds. He knows Flash wouldn’t believe him if he told him that Tony freaking Stark taught him breathing exercises. “And, uh, you’re welcome. Any time.”
Flash nods, again. Then, without another word, he lies down, back facing Peter. Peter takes that as his cue to lie back down as well, and barely a minute passes before both teens are fast asleep.
---
The two boys wake up just before noon the next day. It’s the longest Peter has slept in who knows how long, only waking up when he feels Flash start to shift against him. The two must have moved in their sleep, as Flash is curled around Peter’s back, nearly covering the smaller boy with his long limbs. One of Flash’s arms is wrapped around Peter’s tiny waist, hanging loosely down in front of him. His face rests behind Peter’s neck, little puffs of hot air ghosting over the little hairs there. Their legs are tangled into a knot, so intertwined that Peter doesn’t know where he stops and Flash starts.
Peter feels a sick sort of satisfaction at how small he is compared to Flash. He smiles down at the sight of his tiny arm next to Flash’s muscular one, proud that he’s still in control. It’s not like Peter enjoys not eating, but he can’t say he hates the feeling of shrinking. He likes that he’s starting to take up less and less space, despite the food that Flash provides for him without a second thought. He likes that his body is starting to adjust, starting to enjoy running on one full meal a day and barely anything else. He likes to think that soon, he won’t even have to rely on Flash. Soon, he’ll be okay with no meals. He’ll be able to run on nothing, to need nothing, to never burden May or Flash or anyone ever again.
Peter wishes that he could live in Flash’s warmth forever. He allows himself a second of weakness, snuggling closer to Flash’s torso and taking a deep breath, breathing in the scent of his coconut shampoo.
Flash must be in the process of waking up, Peter thinks, as he feels him start to squirm and detangle himself with his eyes still shut. Flash’s arm lifts a bit from around Peter’s waist and Peter uses that opportunity to roll over to the other side of the bed, putting some distance between them before Flash can realize that he’s been wrapped around Peter. That would be… awkward.
Flash grumbles a second later, one arm coming up to brush a fist against his sleep-crusted eyes as he starts to sit up. Panic flashes over his sleepy face for a millisecond as Peter assumes the memories of the night before have started to flicker behind his eyes. Peter sits up next to him, his hand moving without his permission to rest gently on Flash’s shoulder. Flash jerks and looks at him, his terrified eyes meeting Peter’s empathetic ones. The two boys share a beat of silence, just breathing as Flash tries to calm down.
“Breakfast?” Peter asks after a second, unsure of what else to say.
“Starving,” Flash nods, a small smile playing at his lips even despite the events of the night before. He can always count on Peter to be awkward, that’s certain.
---
Flash and Peter awkwardly navigated Peter’s small kitchen, moving in near-silence as Peter searched for breakfast in the pantry and directed Flash toward the fridge to grab himself a drink.
“Holy shit,” Peter hears Flash exclaim from beside the fridge. Peter cringes a bit, thinking that Flash is commenting on the sparse options within their barren fridge. “Parker, is that Tony fucking Stark?” Flash yells a moment later.
Peter speed-walks toward Flash, for a second thinking that Tony himself is in his kitchen with the shock that Flash expressed. He breathes a sigh of relief as he sees that Flash just noticed the picture of him and Mr. Stark taped to the fridge door. His heart hurts at the sight, yearning to feel an ounce of the pure joy that past-Peter had felt smiling goofily at the camera while Tony gave him wonky bunny-ears behind his head.
“Yeah, Flash, I told you I knew him,” Peter mumbles, shaking himself out of the memory.
“And I thought you fucking lied, Parker!” Flash exclaims. He grabs the picture off of the fridge door and walks a couple of steps toward the kitchen table, falling down into a chair. One of the legs of the table is too short so, when Flash braces a hand on the table before sitting, he stumbles a bit when the table shifts abruptly. Peter blushes, embarrassed by the state of his tiny apartment in comparison with Flash’s lavish near-mansion. “So, when the fuck was this taken? God, you look like a baby,” Flash says, inspecting the photo.
“Like, a year and a half ago? I was still fifteen,” Peter says, avoiding Flash’s inquiring eyes. He feels his cheeks grow even warmer, blush moving down his neck and prickling on his cheeks with how overwhelmed he feels. First Flash finds the picture, now he calls Peter a baby? He’s going to die of embarrassment.
“You’ve had proof for almost two years and you haven’t fucking used it?” Flash questions, sounding nearly angry in how surprised he is. Peter just shrugs. “Parker, you realize you could’ve saved yourself literal years of embarrassment if you just brought this shit to school,” Flash says. Realization then dawns on Flash’s face. “Fuck, I’m such an asshole,” he whispers.
“No, Flash, you couldn’t have known. Why would T-Mr. Stark hang out with some random poor kid from Queens, right?” Peter says self-deprecatingly. He refrains from calling him Tony in front of Flash-- doesn’t even know if he has the right to call him Tony at all, since it’s been months since he’s even seen him-- because he doesn’t want to give away how close they used to be.
“But he did, Parker. You fucking worked for Tony Stark!” Flash yells. Peter flinches a bit, trying to cover it up with a forced laugh.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Peter mumbles.
“Oh my God, tell me about it! Tell me everything,” Flash demands, putting the picture down and turning his whole body to face Peter.
They spend the next couple of hours discussing-- a very watered-down version of-- Peter’s “internship.” Peter tells Flash about working with Tony in his workshop, fudging the details and saying that there were other interns and employees in there with them.
He doesn’t mention the Avengers at all, but he does talk about working on Spider-Man’s gear. Flash lights up at that, going on a rant about how Spider-Man is his favorite hero and how much he “respects the guy for continuing to work on his own even after he got offers from the mother-freaking Avengers.” Peter plays off his blushing as a result of working with Spidey, rather than literally being him. Flash makes sure to ask Peter a myriad of questions about Spidey, such as how his powers work and how he shoots webs. Peter reveals that he invented and constructed Spidey’s web-shooters and Flash nearly loses his mind.
What Peter doesn’t tell him, though, is that Flash’s chemistry help has allowed Peter to concoct a stronger mix of web-fluid. He also doesn’t tell him that Flash is the reason he even tried to make a stronger one, because before they got close, Peter didn’t exactly mind the risk of his webs snapping and causing him to fall out of the air. It actually happened, once, when Peter was swinging home from patrol one night months ago. He was tired, hungry, and mildly dizzy when his web connected with a rooftop. It snagged on the ledge of a balcony, the fibers stretching and, finally, snapping under his meager weight. Peter fell through the air, not even really attempting to catch himself. He landed a couple of stories down on another balcony, feeling his arm snap beneath him. At the time, Peter healed much faster and was good as new by the time he woke up the next morning. Looking back, Peter still sometimes regrets that night. He doesn’t really know which part of it, just that thinking of it makes his chest hurt and his palms sweat. Yeah, he won’t tell Flash that.