He is heavy, Peter decides one day. Not in the physical sense. More in the sense that when he goes to get up in the morning, there's always a heavy weight holding him down. Or when a day is particularly more tiring than normal, it takes a lot out of him to just keep going, to just keep moving.
His thoughts, as jumbled and dark as they were, left his whole body feeling heavy. They felt full, like he'd explode, and they also felt so empty it hurt.
He's lying on his bed sideways now, his head dangling off the edge upside down and eyes lazily drifting over Ned, who was on the floor with his laptop, watching Star Wars instead of working on the project they were supposed to be working on.
"Hey, Ned?"
"Yeah?" His friend glances away from the computer for a moment to look at him.
"I feel heavy."
"Huh? No offense, dude, but I could pick you up with, like, my pinky."
"No," Peter scowls slightly at his friend's misunderstanding. "I mean like, mentally."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Anything I can do?" Ned asks after a small moment of contemplation.
Peter blinks, not even having thought about that. What does he need? "Can you. . . Can you just be here?" He questions hesitantly, not having the energy to hold a conversation all night.
"Of course, man. Star Wars?"
He smiles in response, and lets his eyes fall closed. He doesn't sleep, not yet. He just lies there, enjoying Ned's presence, and thankful he doesn't have to talk.
For a moment, he feels a little bit lighter.
"Are you okay, Peter?" MJ asks one day at lunch, her book closed and attention focused solely on him. It felt. . . intense.
"I'm fine." He answers, like always, and he realizes that this was the first time she's called him by his full name.
The girl's gaze flicks over him, lips pursing. She tosses the apple from her lunch to him, and even though his movements are slightly sluggish, he manages to catch it. "You look like shit. Eat something."
Staring down at the shiny green fruit in his hands, he wonders. Does he really look that bad? Nothing even. . . happened. He should be fine.
The silence around them begins to feel awkward, and he realizes he hadn't responded. He plasters on a smile, and glances over at her. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
Ned laughs, and MJ rolls her eyes, but he notices her watching him more often after that. He gets better at keeping a smile on his face.
A few weeks later, he wakes up and he feels light. He has days like that sometimes, where he can pretend that every other day, he's barely holding on.
And he feels good. He hugs his aunt in the morning with a smile, and the second he gets to school, he's rambling on about the newest Lego set to Ned.
Just like always on these days, Ned brightens at the Peter he's used to, the Peter he wishes was still there, and he's just as excited as his friend.
Even Flash's comments don't bother him much, and at Decathlon, MJ smiles at him a little bit. Feeling a flutter in his chest, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, things are starting to look up.
Then he gets home. The expensive looking car in front of his apartment gives away his mentor's presence, and he takes the steps two at a time, a grin on his lips.
He doesn't know why Tony is there, but he sure isn't going to complain. As he pulls the door open, he spots his aunt on the couch giving the billionaire a sad smile, and his good mood falters.
"Is everything okay?" He asks unsurely, slowly shutting the door.
They both turn to look at him. "Hey, Kiddo. I thought I'd stop by today, see how you're feeling. You up for a movie?" He says casually, and his voice is so much softer than normal.
Glancing around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he frowns. "Why wouldn't I be okay?" For a moment, his heartbeat speeds up, afraid that the superhero had somehow figured it out, had read his mind or seen through his fake smiles, but Tony frowns right back at him.
"I just figured today would be a bit harder than most days. I've lost people too." The man offers, and that's when Peter gets it, his breath freezing in his chest as his eyes widen.
He scrambles for his phone then, checking the date, and sure enough, it's what he thought. Peter can only blink for a moment, tears unwillingly welling in his eyes, and he looks back up at May and Tony.
"Oh Sweetheart. You forgot. It's okay, really. He'd want you to be moving on." She soothes, face sad as she gets up to hug him.
He flinches backward. His uncle was dead because of him, and he had the nerve to be happy on the anniversary of his death? "I'm going to my room." He chokes out, and darts away, slamming his door behind him and locking it, a desperate breath escaping him.
It was like whatever had held up all the weight suddenly cracked apart, and it was raining down on him, drowning him. His whole face scrunching up in pain, Peter puts his hand over his mouth and slides to the ground, refusing to let any of his cries escape.
He doesn't deserve to cry, not over this. Not when it was his fault. Leaning over himself, Peter's upper half shakes from silent sobs, the memory of Ben hitting him full force.
"Pete?" There's a knock at the door, and the teen squeezes his eyes shut in an attempt to stop the steady flow of tears.
"Buddy, nobody is upset at you. It's okay, really. I've done the same thing over ten times. It's really okay." Tony tries to convince him, and the teen shakes his head, despite knowing he can't see him.
He doesn't respond, obviously, and hears his mentor sigh. "He'd want you to be happy, Kid." And with that, his footsteps trail away from his door.
Peter finally lets out a broken sob, and drops his hand from his mouth as he sucks in shaky, unsteady breaths. "I'm sorry, Uncle Ben. I'm sorry." He gasps, crawling over to his bed and pulling out the worn shoebox that had been there since the day his uncle died.
With tears blurring his vision so much he can't see, he takes the lid off, reaching in and grabbing the T-shirt that he'd held too many times to count.
His eyes slip closed, salty droplets streaking down his face, and he brings the cloth to his face, inhaling deeply. The scent is still there, barely, and he's immediately thirteen again, being held tightly by Ben as tears rolled down his face from Flash's comments.
Peter can't remember what Flash had said that day, or what his uncle said to him to comfort him, and he wishes so badly that he could.
He wishes so badly that he was thirteen again, that Flash had shouted insults at him and he'd come home crying to fall into Ben's arms.
With another unsteady sob, the boy climbs into his bed, clutching the shirt to his chest like a lifeline, and allowing all of the thoughts that he normally pushed away to swarm him.
It isn't long before he's writhing as he sobs, begging his uncle to come back, begging him to just walk in the door with a smile on his face and wrap his arms around him. He just wants him back. He wants them back. Everyone he's lost.
Just like when he was four, Peter cries for his parents, curled up in a ball. And for a little while, he thinks, he wants to join them.
Later, when his cries have finally ceased, the last thought on his mind is that he doesn't remember what his parents looked like.
And when he wakes up the next morning, he washes the tears off his face, plasters on a smile and tells May, "I'm fine."
He's in History class months later, and the sleeve of his hoodie has ridden up to show his pale wrist, and he stares.
It's New York, so he's never exactly had the chance to get a tan, but he's increasingly paler than anybody else he knows. It's probably all the time as Spider-Man, really, always wearing a suit that covers his whole body.
Something about being so ashen, though, is the noticeably blue of the veins that run up his arm. When his thoughts drift to the razor that's been in his dresser drawer for almost two years, it doesn't startle him that he imagines what dragging it across the vein would look like.
His finger lightly brushes against it, and he'd be lying if he said he's not interested in the concept. How would they react? Would they get the same heavy feeling he had? Would they have thoughts just like the ones he's having now?
A crumpled paper collides with side of his head, and he startles, noticing that he'd begun to dig his nails into the skin over the vein. MJ is glaring at him, but her eyes are worried.
Pushing his sleeve down, he offers a reassuring smile. "I'm fine." He mouths. He can tell she doesn't believe him.
And Peter finds that he just doesn't care anymore.
Why? He thinks.
Why not? A voice in his head whispers back.
He's sitting on a random skyscraper now, his suit on as he swings his legs childishly. He'd muted Karen hours ago, and he considers unmuting her for a few seconds, but decides against it.
It's been raining for almost thirty minutes now, and he thinks he's shivering, but he hasn't bothered to go home or turn on his heater.
The clank of metal landing on metal brings Peter out of his head, and he picks at the fingers of his gloves, choosing to ignore his mentor approaching him.
"You're going to get hypothermia out here." The billionaire converses, plopping down next to him, so close their thighs touch.
Peter would be lying is he said he didn't lean slightly into his father figure's side, glancing over at him. "So will you. You're not wearing your suit." He argues weakly, looking out at the streets below.
"It's over there in case one of us gets butterfingers and falls of the edge." Tony explains to him, his tone careful.
It's almost funny how fast Peter is thinking of falling on purpose, but it's not. It scares him. He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything.
The silence lasts all of two seconds. "So, we gonna talk about it?"
"About what, Mr. Stark?" He questions like it's not obvious, keeping his eyes trained on the moving cars below them.
"About the fact that you're sitting on a roof, in the rain, at one in the morning?" Comes the man's response, one brow raising incredulously.
"You're doing it, too." Peter points out, and he knows he's just instigating him at this point, but he doesn't care.
"Peter, will you please take your mask off and fucking talk to me?" Tony snaps, growing impatient.
With a scoff, the teen rips the mask off his head, his curls quickly becoming soaked with the pouring rain. "What?" He hisses, agitation making him turn toward Tony with a scowl.
"Karen's told me that you have small cuts all over your thighs, multiplying every day. You're moodier, you're snappier, and you won't talk to me anymore." He's almost pleading at this point.
"Sorry I'm not the perfect little fanboy anymore." Peter mumbles, rolling his eyes as his legs stop swinging and he just sits there, deathly still.
"Peter, damn it, just listen to me! Please! You're getting reckless, Kid, you're getting sloppy. And I see you, you're not okay." The older man murmurs, face contorted in something akin to sadness.
"I'm fine." He defends, like always. I'm not, he thinks, like always.
"No, you're not," Tony says, looking him in the eyes, "and you're going to get yourself killed one day." He puts his hand on Peter's shoulder, lips pursed.
"Maybe that's what I want." The boy admits softly, so quiet he isn't even sure the man heard him. But, from the way he tenses up, and his heart rate quickens, he knows he had.
"What?"
Tears come to his eyes, mixing with the rain dripping down his face as he looks to him, and finally lets the dam break, finally lets the weight settle. "I don't know how to do this anymore, Mr. Stark." His voice cracks with the admission, and he can feel Tony's grip tightening on his shoulder.
"Every day, it's like there's this- this overflowing well of emotions following me around and I can never change it and I can never fix it. I hate it, Mr. Stark. I hate it." Peter sniffs, his breaths hitching with every intake.
"I'm so sorry, Pete," the man whispers, and he pulls his kid in for a hug, embracing him as tight as he possibly could. "I'm gonna help you, no matter how long it takes."
"I'm tired. I'm so, so tired, Mr. Stark." He cries, eyes squeezed shut as he returns the hug, grabbing fistfuls of his mentor's shirt.
"I know. I know, kiddo."
"It hurts."
"I know. I'm here, Pete. I'm here." Tony tells him, and even through his gasping sobs, even through the pain in his chest and his heart, he's so unbelievably relieved.
When the sobs finally take him over, Tony doesn't move, still holding him right where they are.
And Peter is afraid. He's afraid because the last person he loved like this was six feet underground and it's his fault. But he's also lighter, because Tony had taken some of that weight, and he was helping him hold it up now.
I'm going to be okay, he thinks, and the voice does not whisper back.