Holding To The Ground

 Peter spent most of Friday’s tinkering and check-in in silence, trying to force his mind to work on equations for a more efficient web fluid. But his head was foggy from hunger and he couldn’t hold onto a thought for more than a few seconds before it slipped through his fingers like water. Everything felt muddled, like in lieu of filling his stomach his body instead decided to stuff his head full of cotton.

He could hear Tony drawing out some sort of holographic blueprint twenty yards away, of what he couldn’t decipher. He was so exhausted that he wanted to just lay his head down on the desk and sleep for a decade, but Tony invited him here to work, not to sleep. So his head bobbed up and down as he fought back the tempting waves of darkness, blinking hard at the near-empty paper in front of him.

He felt bad for not going home to show May that he cared, but at the same time he was sure his absence was a relief to her. And although he shoved the thought away each time it emerged, he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to see her.

And it wasn’t just May he could escape at the informal lab; he could escape the judgemental stares of his classmates as he tried to balance all of his books in his arms. He could escape Ned’s concerned sighs whenever he ate all the food he was provided by the school before he even sat down. He could escape his own reflection, the increasingly pale skin, the prominent ribs and gaunt cheeks. He even noticed his own hair thinning and breaking off, half a fistful falling to the ground each time he brushed through it.

His stomach contracted suddenly and he bent over the table, biting on his bottom lip so hard he tasted copper to muffle his pained groan. He crumpled the papers he had scribbled on in his fists, practically writhing where he sat for what must have been ten seconds. He prayed to whatever malicious god was up there that Tony wouldn’t be able to hear the commotion over the music playing through his headphones, a rock tune he didn’t recognize but could hear every word of.

He breathed heavily as the cramp subsided, relaxing back into his chair. He eyed the destroyed papers through drooping lids. It wasn’t like there had been any important work on them anyways. He leaned his head back onto the chair, staring up at the high ceiling. If he just left now, maybe Tony wouldn’t notice and he could slip back into his bedroom. Sleeping on the floor hurt, yes, and his back ached like a bitch just thinking about it, but it was still sleep. That was all he wanted. Sleep.

He let his eyes shut. He could just get a quick nap here, right? Just a few minutes of sleep to recharge and then he could get back to work, renewed. Yeah. Yeah...

”Whatcha working on?”

Peter’s eyes shot open. He gasped loudly and scrambled out of his chair. His feet hit the floor ready to run, but he stopped himself from fleeing like frightened prey when he saw Tony staring down at him, a half-grin still lingering on his lips despite the furrow in his brow. Peter quickly shuffled into what he hoped was a relaxed position. “H-hey, Mr. Stark. What’s up?”

Tony cocked his head. “I just came over to see your progress,” he said.

Peter shot a glance at the crumpled, near-blank sheets of paper on his desk. “Um. Yeah. Progress.”

”And it doesn’t seem like you have much.”

Peter nodded slowly but didn’t reply. Tony stared at him for a long moment, his arms crossed over his chest. Peter felt himself begin to sweat under his calculating gaze. He forced a small smile onto his face.

Finally, Tony relinquished and said, “Let’s take a break, huh? You look like you need it. Maybe we can get some dinner and pick this back up tomorrow.”

Peter’ stomach growled at just the thought. With the weekend ahead of him he would have no source of food. This was a perfect opportunity to stock up on as many calories as he could before he could count his vertebrae in a mirror. Plus, the idea of being invited back to the tower on Saturday was too good to pass up. “God, yes, please.”

Tony lead him to the nearest kitchen in the building. He ignored the black spots crowding his vision when he began to move. Tony kept up idle conversation, chattering on about his newest ideas for Rhodey’s prosthetics or the stupid insults a congressman gave him. Peter nodded along absently, forcing his shaky legs to take step after step. He didn’t remember feeling this weak since before the bite, but he’d be fine, right? He always was. He didn’t have another choice.

Once in the polished, modern kitchen, Peter sat in the first chair he saw, trying to calm his flipping stomach. He didn’t pay attention to anything Tony was doing, so he sat straight up in shock when he placed a plate full of steaming spaghetti in front of him. The smell of tomato sauce hit his nose like a truck and it took all of Peter’s self control to not shovel the pasta into his mouth with his bare hands. He blinked and looked at Tony, who had sat down across from him.

“Leftovers,” Tony explained. “The chefs made too much last night.”

Peter’s eyes widened for just a second. Then, he grabbed his fork and took the largest bite he could, manners be damned. He held back a moan at the taste; after eating only price-cut school lunches for a week, anything else tasted like heaven. 

It felt like only seconds had passed before his plate was empty. He was still starving, his stomach screaming for more, but he forced his hand to gently place the fork down. He looked up and saw Tony staring at him, his face suspicious and his food untouched.

Peter’s cheeks burned deep scarlet. He dipped his head and focused on his hands folded in his lap. Here he was, sitting in the house of one of the richest people on Earth, acting like the starving kid from Queens that he was. Shame filled the pit of his stomach, heavy and painful.

”So...” Tony said Slowly, “you were hungry, huh?”

”Yeah. Super metabolism and stuff...” he mumbled, trailing off.

”You’ve always had enough to eat before.”

Peter ducked his head lower. His neck burned in shame as he told the lie he had prepared for this very cirscumstance. “May’s been having some...work problems. I haven’t really been able to eat much.”

Tony kept his eyes on Peter. He heard his blood rushing quickly past his ears, felt it heat up his face. He was such a goddamn idiot, being up money. Now Tony would feel the gigantic gap between them more acutely than ever, they’d never be able to have a normal conversation without the guilt of class deprecating them like a thick barrier of glass. Deep in his own regret, Peter heard Tony’s chair scoot back and looked up.

Tony walked to the refrigerator with a determined stride and removed a tub of spaghetti large enough to put Costco’s industrial containers to shame. He hoisted it onto the counter and used a fork to shovel three servings worth of the contents onto a plate. 

“Mr. Stark? What are you doing?”

Tony didn’t reply. He placed the plate into the sleek black microwave. Peter watched in silence as the timer counted down to zero. Tony placed the overflowing plate in front of Peter with a startling clatter and said, “Eat.”

Peter looked up and met Tony’s eyes. He was surprised to see such hard purpose in them. “What?”

”Eat,” he repeated. “I know you don’t like to ask me for much, but I have more crap than I need anyways. You need to be healthy, and if that means eating my food, then that’s what it means.”

Peter pushed the plate away despite his body screaming in protest. “No, I can’t just take your food—“

”Kid, I don’t even like spaghetti. Pepper wanted it last night and now she’s in Europe for two weeks. Just take it.”

“But—“

”Eat the damn pasta, Peter.”

And because the commanding tone in Tony’s voice reminded Peter all too much of May, he did.

——

In the end, Tony forced Peter to take the entire bin. His empty protests didn’t faze him, and he stepped out of Happy’s car and into the cold night, feeling rather absurd at the amount of food in his arms. 

He didn’t move towards the apartment building. He stayed frozen on the sidewalk, staring at his bedroom window in silence. His senses flared the second his feet hit the concrete and the warmth of the night’s events drained out of him, replaced with the cold flow of fear through his veins. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Happy rolled the window down. “Hey, are you going in or what?”

Peter blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, I—I am.” He was being stupid. There was nothing to fear at home, right? Nothing to be afraid of.

He took a deep breath that did nothing to quell his nerves. Then, he forced his feet to move and started towards the door.

He heard the car pull away and drive off. For some reason, he felt more alone than ever, even though Happy was nothing but his driver. He shook the feeling off and stepped into the rickety elevator.

The moment he opened the door to the apartment the shrieking in his head increased tenfold, pounding painfully on his skull. The hairs on his neck stood up so hard they felt like they may fly off. Against common logic, he clapped his hand over his neck.

He took a tentative step into the apartment. The lights were all on, so bright he had to squint, but the rooms were all silent. He strained his ears to hear a stray heartbeat but the screaming of his nerves overpowered all.

He poked his head into the bathroom and kitchen and was met with silence. But when he looked in May’s room, he saw her reading a worn copy of A Child Called “It” and sipping a cup of tea rather than her now-usual whiskey. A quilt was draped over her legs and wore reading glasses obscured her relaxed eyes. Peter smiled gently at the familiarity from what felt like years ago. “Hey, May,” he said.

”Hey, baby,” she mumbled her eyes still trained on the pages in front of her. Something warm bubbled up in his chest at the old pet name.

”I brought leftovers.” He held up the tub of cold spaghetti.

”From where?”

”Mr. Stark’s.”

May’s eyes stopped moving across the paper. She looked up at Peter. “You went there again?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. I go every Friday, remember?”

May hummed. “And you didn’t think to ask me first?”

”N-no,” Peter gulped.

May’s eyes moved to meet his. “And so you just went out without permission, after curfew no less?”

”Yeah...”

May put down her book and removed her reading glasses, folding them closed.  She breathed out a hard sigh. “So I worked my ass off getting calm enough to talk to you tonight and you don’t even care.”

”What? No! If I’d known I would have come home right away!”

”But you didn’t know because you couldn’t be bothered to ask.” 

Peter didn’t reply. He figured if he just stayed silent it would all end soon. May could only keep up for so long without any pushback.

And he was right. May slowly picked her book back up and said, “Get to bed. Fucking asshole.” She muttered the last sentence under her breath.

With a new dagger piercing his heart, Peter nodded and turned to leave. But May called after him, “And I don’t want you going back to Tony Stark’s house.”

Peter whipped back around. “What?”

She turned a page. “You heard me. You don’t need to be around him any more. He’s a bad influence.”

Peter’s jaw dropped open. His eyes opened wide as he sputtered, “May, I’m...” he trailed off as May’s hard eyes met his own. Ice cold fear stopped his words in their tracks. He considered just relenting and going to bed, letting the tears roll down his face but staying silent so May would be able to forget about him. Just like he had when she took away night patrol and television and food.

But then he remembered the meal in his arms and knew that this was not the same as those times. He kept his gaze on hers, never letting it waver no matter how much he wanted to avert his eyes to the ground. “May,” he started slowly, knees shaking, “I—I’ve given up everything for you. I do it because I love you, but I don’t want to give up everything. I just—I really like the time I spend with Mr. Stark. And—and he helps me stay safe during patrol when we get together. Maybe we can come to some sort of, Uh, compromise, but I really don’t want to give that up. Please.”

For a long moment May just stared at him. He wanted to curl up into a ball until her eyes could no longer see him but he stood firm, pretending he couldn’t feel his trembling muscles and the beads of sweat rolling down his back.

She carefully, methodically pulled off the blanket draping her legs. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Peter kept his feet planted as she approached him, each step calculated and purposeful. She stopped barely a foot from him and purses her lips, her hands on her hips. She let out a deep breath.

Then, with no warning, she struck Peter across the face. Her knuckles connected with his cheekbone and he stumbled back, clutching where her hand had only just hit. He groaned loudly as tears welled up in his eyes.

He let himself lean against the doorframe, trying to calm his breaths. He refused to give up, not at the farthest he’d ever gotten With May.

As he slowly stood back up he felt a hot bruise begin to form on his face. He was scared, he was so, so scared, but he ignored his shaking hands and quivering bottom lip and turned back to May, his lip stuck out in defiance. He stood firm and looked his aunt straight in the eye.

May’s eyes widened in shock for a single second, so short Peter could have imagined it. Then her face once again screwed up in fury. She pulled back her leg and kicked his shin as hard as she could.

Peter cried out, falling to the floor. He held his injured leg close to his chest, his eyes scrunched shut. He felt May’s eyes on him and tried to force himself to move, to get up and try to fight for the one shred of happiness he had left, but pain radiated from the indent on his shin all throughout his left side. He took in short, shallow breaths through gritted teeth, trying to will away the tears coating his eyelashes and threatening to fall.

Get up. You’ve fought after being stabbed before.

But it was all so different out from underneath a mask.

Slowly, shakily, he propped himself up on his arms, breathing through his mouth as the movement forced shocks of electric agony up his leg. But he gritted his teeth so hard he feared they may break and stood, shifting his weight to rest alost entirely on his right leg. He stared May straight in her red face. Her shoulders heaved as she took in monumental breaths, her flaring nostrils reminding him of a stampeding bull.

Before he could move away May wrapped her hands around his throat and pushed, forcing Peter to walk backwards to avoid his breath being cut off. He gasped as his back hit the wall. She tightened her grip slowly, watching his face turn deeper shades of red and then purple as she increased pressure. Peter lifted his hands to hers, scrabbling at the soft skin, but he was so weak from not eating for so long and one good meal only did so much for his exhausted muscles. His lungs burned and his throat ached where May pressed against it and he felt his eyes bulge out of his skull. The tears welling up in them began to fall over as he opened and closed his mouth like a fish, trying to gulp in air to no avail.

Black began to dot the edge of his vision and he felt his hands go limp at his sides. One particular thought ran through his brain, crisp and cold:

She’s really going to kill me this time.

Those words spurred on a sudden burst of energy, one that he would later think of as akin to the adrenaline a mother gets when she sees her child in danger. As his eyes began to roll back in his head he flung out his right leg in a random direction. He felt it connect with May’s flesh and she released him. He fell to the floor, landing on his hands and knees and heaving against nothing. He gasped loudly, trying to force his stalled lungs to work again.

From above him, May snarled, “Son of a bitch.” Peter whipped his head up just in time to see her grab an antique crystal vase from the dresser behind him and lift it high over her head. He dropped his head once more in an attempt to shield his face, but it didn’t decrease the scattered pain of the vase shattering over his skull. Large shards of broken glass rained down over his head and stuck in his skin. He felt hot blood begin to stream through his hair.

“Let me see your fucking face,” May growled over him. Peter only curled deeper into himself.

May was unsatisfied with that reaction. She bent down and shoved his body over so that he was sprawled on his back. Peter just had enough time to scrunch his eyes shut before the bottom of her foot connected with his nose. He felt it crack in two and screamed as blood poured from his nose and the glass stuck in the back of his head embedded further into his skull. He brought his hands to his face to try and shield it from harm. “No!” May shrieked and sent her foot down again. His own knuckles pressed into his bony cheeks.

She kicked him again. His hands fell away when her heel caught his wrist, pushing it far beyond its limits. He felt a bone snap and let out a clipped yelp.

She kicked him again. A large shard of glass in his head scraped against the bones in his skull. His back arched off of the ground and he screamed, long and loud and wavering.

She kicked him again. Something went off kilter in his head. Suddenly, everything sounded muffled. The colors began to blend into one another. May’s foot coming down repeatedly on his face barely registered. He felt like he was watching the blurry scene unfold in front of him on a television, detached from all pain or feeling. And he didn’t mind. It kind of felt nice, in a fuzzy, aching sort of way.

With a final blow to the side of his skull, May bent down and whispered in his ear, “Tell anyone about this and I’m blaming all of this on your precious fucking Tony Stark.” She spit the name out like it was poisonous. Then, she stalked past his limp form and out of the apartment, shouting scathing insults over her shoulder the whole way. When the door shut behind her, Peter was blanketed in merciful silence.

For a long moment he simply stared at the popcorned ceiling. He remembered how much Ben and May hated the texture, but the landlord had never let them change it. He did let them change the floors from carpet to hardwood, though.

Oh, wait. His blood would stain the nice floors, wouldn’t it? Yes, and May would see it next time she walked into her room, wouldn’t she? 

So he ought to move.

With great struggle he rolled over into his stomach. He reached a hand out in front of him and pulled his limp body across the floor. He tried to do the same with the other, but his limp wrist refused to pull him. When he tied to force it, a sharp pain radiated through his arm so forcefully that he cried out.

So he slowly dragged himself along with one hand, a smear of blood training behind him. He breathed in sharp gasps, every inhale sending stabs of pain through his right side. He probably had a broken rib or two. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Finally, he collapsed on his bedroom floor, panting as his ravaged body relaxed. He wanted to sleep so, so bad, but his body hurt so much that he knew the reprieve of unconsciousness would never come naturally. He sobbed as pain of all forms encompassed every inch of his being.

He had to sleep. He couldn’t stay awake like this.

His raised his head slowly and slammed it against the floor. He groaned, but despite the blindness creeping into the corners of his vision, his mind refused to go blank.

Once again he lifted his head, and his shoulders with it. He took in a deep breath and sent his forehead flying towards the hardwood below him.

The second time his skull collided with the floor, everything went dark.