"Peter?...Peter!" Peter was suddenly aware of someone right in his face, although his brain didn't process it too well. 'Red hair, green eyes, woman, black clothes, Natasha. Just Nat.' "Um-yeah?" He said, but Natasha's eyes weren't focused on his face. The other members of the team, at least the ones in the room, Sam, Steve, and Clint, were also staring a little to the left, seemingly near his arm.
"What are ya doin' there, kid?" Clint said with a light laugh, and that's when Peter looked down, absolutely mortified. Every couple of seconds, his wrist would rotate to the left, and then to the right. This was one of his more common tics, and while the meds he took would usually keep vocal and more complex motor tics, like clapping, snapping, or hitting things, at bay, ones like blinking, scrunching his nose and rotating his wrist continued. Unfortunately, he had been so unfocused, he hadn't realized.
"Oh, it's just- something I do when I have a lot of energy," he said and quickly stood up. Thank God, at least they looked like they believed him. "I gotta go- uhm- study, see you guys later," he said with an awkward wave and sped out the door.
"Do you guys think something is wrong with Peter?" Natasha asked, and Sam shrugged.
"Kid seemed fine to me," he said, and Steve hummed in agreement.
Natasha left the subject for now, but she would make sure to keep an eye on the kid.
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Later that night, when the OG Avengers', along with Sam and Wanda, were hanging out in the commons, Natasha brought the subject up again.
"Do you guys think anything is up with Peter?" she asked, tapping one finger rhythmically against her wine glass. The men kept doing their separate activities but visibly perked up when asked about the youngest Avenger. "It's just, he seems to be pretty nervous lately, almost as if he is hiding a secret..." she said, but the men stayed focused. "Do you not care about him!" Natasha asked, a little forcefully.
Steve looked up from his newspaper, Tony turned away from his laptop, Wanda stopped the flow of red coming from her fingertips, Bruce just yawned and sat up a little from the couch, and Clint and Sam even paused their game.
"Of course we care about him!" Tony said, seemingly scandalized. "It's just that the kid is like that... well... pretty much all the time, honestly," he elaborated, and Natasha nearly facepalmed.
"Exactly!" she said. and Steve groaned.
"Do you have to be so loud? I'm trying to read the paper," he said, and Natasha turned towards him, her ears nearly the color of her hair.
"Sorry, old man, do you not care about Peter at all? He's just a kid, and something could be wrong!" by now Natasha was nearly yelling, and everyone thanked Tony for soundproof rooms.
Bruce, now very awake, decided to chime into the conversation.
"Well, Nat, since you seem so overprotective of him... and he probably won't tell us something is wrong, even if we ask, we could always..." Bruce let his sentence trail off as the rest of the adults realized what he was suggesting.
"That'd just be invading the poor kid's privacy!" Sam said, and Clint and Steve nodded in agreement.
"But there is something wrong, and we could fix it, wouldn't you feel bad that he was suffering more all this time?" Nat said, and Wanda and Bruce hummed their approval. Tony seemed undecided.
"Tony?" Nat asked, but before he could answer, there was a yell from the other room, loud enough for even the soundproof walls to be unable to contain. They all looked at each other and immediately dashed to Peter's room.
Wanda was the first there, with the rest trailing behind by at least ten seconds.
Peter was lying on the floor, seemingly unconscious, with a small amount of blood on his pillow and the wall behind his bed. His blue sweatshirt and gray sweatpants were seemingly unharmed, so his head had to be the source of the injury.
"What happened?" Tony asked, his eyes giving away how worried he really was- how worried all the Avengers were. This kid was precious to them, and if something was hurting them, they were going to stop it.
"I-I don't really know!" Wanda said, tearing up at the sight in front of her. "I got here and he was making odd movements so I kind of- well, I guess you could say I made him pass out. I didn't want him to hurt himself!" Wanda sniffled, thinking she had done something wrong.
"Friday, did Peter take any medications or anything?" Tony asked.
"Just his prescribed ones, sir." the A.I. replied, and Tony furrowed his eyebrows.
"The kid was on meds?" Sam asked, seeming just as confused as everyone else.
"Yeah, Stark, why wouldn't you tell us about that?" Steve asked, and Tony shook his head lightly.
"I never knew he was on meds," Tony said, and Bruce shrugged.
"Do you think he was ever...ya know..." Clint said, and Wanda turned more mad than upset.
"Do you think that Peter Benjamin Parker, who literally called you 'Mr. Barton' when he first met you, would ever, ever, do drugs?" she asked, a furious tone in her voice, and Natasha groaned.
"Somebody go check the medicine cabinets, bring me anything that isn't fucking Advil or something," she said with a sigh, and Clint hurried off to do the job.
Wanda bent down, putting Peters head in her lap and turning it to the side to assess the damage. There was some blood matted in Peters' hair, but the wound didn't seem too bad. Sam picked the kid up and set him back on his bed, but now a towel was over his slightly bloody pillow.
Soon, Clint came back, holding a small orange bottle. "What is it?" Tony asked, and Clint shook his head.
"I'm not even gonna try to pronounce this, but it's medicine for... Tourette's syndrome?" Clint ended in a question, and everyone looked over to Peter's sleeping form.
"He has Tourette's...and he never even bothered to think of telling anyone?" Wanda asked, and Tony shrugged.
"I'm sure his Aunt knew, but since he doesn't live with her anymore, I guess no one in his life would know about it," he said.
Steve sent Tony a confused look. "But... who got him the medicine then?" he asked.
As Tony tried to think of who would be close enough to the kid, and have the money, to pay for his meds, the rest of the group tended over Peters still asleep form. "Well," Bruce said, taking a slightly red washcloth away from Peter, "He'll be okay, but if this was because of a tic, from his Tourette's, then we might need to make his room a bit safer."
Tony nodded, plans for the renovations already coming to mind.
"H-hi?" a weak voice said, and Nat quickly walked over to give Peter a soft hug. She mumbled something incoherent to the other before pulling away. "So," Peter said, surprisingly casually, considering his situation. He was snapping his fingers and occasionally his head would jerk to the left, but other than that, he seemed fine. "Can I have my meds? It's past time for me to take them, and we don't want that happening again." Clint handed him the small bottle wordlessly, and everyone watched in silence as he took out two yellow pills, popped them in his mouth, and took a quick swig of water.
"So..." Steve said, and Peters right arm suddenly jerked back twice, hitting Wanda in the shoulder.
"Oh god! I'm so sorry!" Peter said, and Wanda rolled her shoulder out.
"It's fine, Pete, it didn't even hurt," Wanda reassured, and everyone smiled reassuringly at him. Everyone, that is, except for Steve.
"So," he started again, and Peter turned back to him. "What's wrong with you, exactly?" Steve asked, and he immediately had Nat's arm on the nape of his neck, already leading him out of the room, whispering furiously.
Peters' eye became slightly shiny, and his tics changed. He was still moving his head, but now it was accompanied by occasionally hitting the back of his neck.
"He didn't mean it, Peter, he's just from a different time," Bruce started, and Peter just stayed silent. Once his head stopped moving so harshly, he nodded it lightly. Everyone sat quietly, except for Peter, who would occasionally click his tongue. When his tics were reduced to the wrist rotating from earlier this morning, Tony decided to speak up.
"So what happened?" Tony asked, and Peter yawned before responding.
"I forgot to take my meds, and when I don't take my meds, my tics will get worse. It also happens if I'm more nervous or something. My head kept jerking back and I ended up hitting the wall. It's happened before, it's not that big of a deal."
"Who got you the medication?" Bruce asked, but he looked more curious than angry or annoyed, which is what the rest of them seemed to feel, most likely at the fact that Peter hadn't asked any of them.
"Pepper," he answered shortly, and Tony just narrowed his eyes.
"Seriously," he said with a sigh evident in his voice, and Peter laughed.
"She found out I had Tourette's and said you probably wouldn't notice... which you didn't," he said with a smirk, and Tony rolled his eyes, a small smile on his face.
"Why wouldn't you tell us?" Natasha asked, having just got back from her scolding of Steve.
"May kicked me out because she thought I was possessed by the devil or something like that so... I thought it might be easier to just not say anything," Peter said with a shrug, and Nat got a look of anger in her eye.
"I swear to god, I'll beat that right out of her until-" Nat started, but Peter cut her off with a humorless laugh.
"Don't worry, she already tried that on me," he said, and Sam was that first to get the 'joke'.
"Kid!" he nearly yelled, and the rest of the group were right behind him in their fury.
"Calm down," Peter said, and Wanda sighed.
"That's not okay, Pete," she said, and he yawned again, turning on his side.
"I know," he mumbled.
The Avengers could tell that the young boy was tired, and frankly, so were they, so they all decided to return to their beds tonight without another word.
If Nat came in, just twenty minutes later, to kiss Peter on the forehead and whisper a goodnight, or if Steve came in to stand in the doorway at one n the morning and mumble an 'I'm sorry' for his insensitivity, or if Sam and Clint came at two and two thirty, just to watch and make sure if he was okay, or if Bruce came with a newer, improved medicine that wouldn't have so many bad effects at three, or if Wanda came to give a kiss on the cheek at four, and if Tony came to ruffle the kids hair lightly at five, and to mumble an 'I love ya, kid, we all do," who would blame them?
After all, Peter was one of the most important people in all of their lives, and they would do anything for him.