acceptance
“You're back,” Peter says flatly, and opens the door. He’s better, since last time they talked. Exorcised.
“I’m back,” Rhodey echoes, and steps inside.
They sit, like they normally do. Rhodey, at the too-small desk, Peter, on the bed. This time, Peter’s already high. He’s smoked enough weed that he’s actually feeling it, and Rhodey can probably tell, but he doesn't care.
“You know how I was talking,” Rhodey says, “about Tony.”
Peter just nods. Closes his eyes, opens them again, a few eternal seconds later.
“He was like this, too,” he waves a hand at him, in this debauched, broken down form. “Before his parents died, but it was bad after. He took everything he could get his hands on, which was a lot. And he just...didn't care. He really didn't. His stomached got pumped maybe once a month, he OD’d more than that for a bit. I was the one that saved him and Obadiah was the one that hushed it up.”
“Here to send me to rehab?” Peter jokes, and all his current world is contained to the textured ceiling above him and the other single point of life at the desk.
The other single point of life laughs a little. “No. That never worked for Tony either.”
“I'm not him,” Peter says, and turns his head to stare at him directly.
There's silence. Rhodey nods, clears his though. “No,” he says, like he’s realising it. “You're not.”
Rehab is okay. It’s not bad.
Not good, either.
The place they sent him — Rhodey, Pepper, May — is nice. Enough. It’s expensive, and seems like the kind of place you would go if you don't want anyone to know you do drugs. Or alcohol. Or sex. Or gambling. Or, or, or. There's a lot he hears about in group.
One guy, who's the kind of rich, privileged kid that seems like the type that’ll get kicked out of university but still end up working a hedge fund somewhere, has a bit problem with coke.
Well, not according to him. “So yeah, I’d do a couple lines every so while, what's the big deal?” he exclaims, and wave his hands around. Peter just watches. People will do anything to cover their addiction, he’s noticed.
"Thanks for your share," the lady leading the group says, "sit down."
They meet eyes across the circle, he snarls. "You want something?"
Peter shrugs. "Nothing."
"'Nothing." he snipes, a bad imatation of his voice. "You haven't told us nothing?" he contributes, and slouches further into his seat, as if the hard plastic will open and swallow him up.
He shrugs, and stands up. “My name’s Peter. Parker. I'm from Queens. You know the type. Dead parents, poor neighbourhood. But… there's more. I got a scholarship to some fancy school in Manhattan, to boast their average. I'm smart. Like, smart enough to get an internship at Stark Industries,” he laughs. “And, uh, someone died. I was there. And he died. There was...was nothing I could do it stop it.” He looks down, blinks. “So, I, uh, started using. Just to do something. Just to stop feeling."
“How has been clean being?” the woman leading the group asks softly
Peter swallows. “Everything feels so bold. I can't believe it. I've been dull for so long.”
His roomie, a dark haired man who looks a lot older than he should, stays up all night and stares at the wall. Peter doesn't really know him, doesn't really want to.
“Tony Stark,” he murmurs one day, and looks at him. Peter hasn't been looked at in a while. Everyone sees him, but they don't look.
“Yeah,” Peter says back, and turns over his pillow. “Tony Stark.”
“Sorry,” he says, and climbs into bed.
Peter doesn't answer, and turns out the light.
When he gets out, Rhodey picks him up. It's strange being in a car again. Stranger, being in the outside world again. Everything is bright. There are so many people. He can hear it all.
They don't say anything, for a minute, as Peter gets used to everything again.
“You gonna stay clean?” Rhodey asks finally, and switches lanes.
Peter watches a billboard go by. “Yeah,” he answers, because that's what adults like to hear, not because he is. He doesn't know.
Tony Stark is dead. That's alright. It is. he’s died, and that's just a part of life. He ded doing what he was born to do, what he wanted to do. His story ended the same way he started, an American hero trying to fix something he didn't create.
He’s coming off a bad high, throwing up into his dorm bathroom. He heaves of the last time, coughs wetly, tries to find a towel to wipe his mouth, can’t, then drags his mouth against his arm.
He fishes around for the spiked pills he took. He finds the baggie in his pocket and empties it down the toilet.
He gets up, starts to wash his hands at the cold ceramic sink. He looks up, connects eyes with the mirror. This isn't him anymore. It’s just the Peter he created. The Peter he created was scared of everything. Of connecting with people, of realising Tony Stark is dead.
Tony Stark is dead. And that's okay. It really is.
It’s not his fault, either.
He doesn't need drugs anymore. He doesn't want them anymore.
He starts to pulls out his supply. The weed taped to the bottom of the soap dispenser. Pills under the lip of the tub, the morphine in the shower. Half an hour later, he’s got a pile of narcotics at his feet.
He puts them in a garbage bag and drops them off in the dumpster down the street. Hopefully the rats don't get into them. Oh god, that would be anarchy on the streets.
“Hi, Ned,” he whispers, and hopes that he says something back other than contempt.
“Hi, Peter,” Ned says, still loud and bright and big, like a balloon at a birthday party, with that essence of him but sad, quiet, at the same time. “Hi.”
Peter grins, so wide his face changes. “I love you Ned, I really fucking do.”
“I love you too, Peter.”
“Thank you, Rhodey.” he says, and hugs him. Rhodey’s hands hesitate for a moment, like they don't remember what to do, and then grips him, firm and hard and steady.
“It’s okay, kid.”
“Thank you, Rhodey,” Peter repeats, and sobs into his jacket. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He’s not sure how many of those are to Rhodey, and how may are towards Mr. Stark.
He graduates, having finished his degrees in four years. Pepper calls with congratulations and an offer for a job at SI. It’s low-level, and she says he would have gotten it even if they had never met before. So, he takes it.
It’s okay. People don't know about Spider-Man, or how he knew Tony Stark, but they do know he was an intern and that Pepper got him the job.
It's a bit of a step down from personally designing a suit and helping upgrade Iron-Man, he mostly gets coffee and take lunch orders, but occasionally he gets to witness a great idea in progress.
The more time passes, the more he realises this isn't cut out for him. He loves designing, making things, but he hates the red tape, the time it takes to do anything. It’s too mediocre for him anyway, that terrific spark he gets when he’s got the tail of an idea and is pulling it down to earth is gone.
So when the stranger at his usual coffee place asks, “You want a job, kid?” he decides to indulge it by answering.
“I have a job.”
“Peter Parker does,” he replies.
Peter drinks his ice-coffee. He thinks of Tony Stark, and moving on, and the career options for Spider-Man. “Yeah. I kind of do.”
So, that's how he becomes this new, new him. Peter Parker, ex-mentee to Tony Stark, SHIELD agent, recovering drug addict, Ph.D.
He likes himself a lot better now.