Chapter 15
In the daunting silence of the elevator ride, Peter’s mind replays only one thought: they hate me.
It’s irrational, he thinks, to tell himself that when they so clearly do not. People who hate him wouldn’t spend their precious time looking for him in the rain. People who hate him wouldn’t sit in the same puddle he was, just because they thought it would make him feel better (it did). People who hate him wouldn’t leave reassuring hands on his shoulders or ruffle his damp hair or press him close to their sides, almost as if they were too scared to let him go again. They don’t hate him. They don’t.
But there’s some detached part of Peter that reminds him that these people are technically celebrities — who knows the motive behind their actions? Could they be providing him with all of this for the media attention, or could they be doing it out of pure kindness? Does anything they’ve ever done for him matter anymore now that they know?
No. No. He can’t let his mind ruin this for him this time. Even if he is just another ploy to give them a good name in the public’s books, he isn’t going to let his own insecurities ruin the chance of getting a family he feels wanted in.
But he didn’t tell them that he was Spiderman…
How could you do this to us, Peter?
No. They’re not like that. They understand. Right?
What if you died? And I would be sitting here… waiting for you… without even- even knowing! Why would you do that to me?
They have a grasp on secret identities. They understand that keeping one protects the ones you love — only, that isn’t the reason Peter had been keeping his alias under wraps, and the only person he has in his life to love is the same person who kicked him out onto the streets of New York in a scenario just like this one.
They understand, though.
Right?
The elevator jarrs to a halt, then, and the doors open to reveal not the communal living room as he’d expected but Tony’s open lab instead.
In the tense quiet of the lab, Peter can hear his own heartbeat as if it were next to his ears. It’s not the kind of comfortable, collective silence when everyone is just chilling in each other’s company and doing their own thing — it’s the kind where everyone is just waiting for someone to break it, even though everyone knows that they’re all too scared to. It’s the kind of silence that has his heart hammering and his stomach twisting and his hands just shake and—
He clenches them and then unclenches them. Admires the way the bones ripple under his skin when he rolls his fingers. Makes a beeline for the seat furthest away from the others because he just can’t deal with their— the disappointment in their eyes—
“We don’t hate you, you know.”
Clint’s voice brings him to a stuttering halt mid-step.
The sharpshooter starts again, this time as he perches like a lingering bird on the arm of the couch: “I could practically hear the cogs turning in your brain in the elevator, Pete. And I’ve got the worst hearing out of everyone in this Tower.”
From the floor, Sam snorts. Sitting cross-legged next to him, Natasha does too.
Meanwhile, Tony has taken to sitting on the countertop like a rebellious teenager in a classroom, and Peter notes with some sort of muted amusement that his legs don’t reach the floor.
Clint watches him indifferently. “I can’t really say that I know what you’re thinking, but I can take a couple guesses and say that you’re thinking we’ll hate you. For not telling us that you’re Spiderman, that is. And you think that, now we know, we’ll… I don’t know. Boot you out of here or something. Right? How right am I?”
His thoughts are all just one big jumble, each one contradicting the next, and so Peter doesn’t really know how right Clint is because he doesn’t really know what he’s actually thinking. It’s because of this that whatever words he did have die in his throat.
Clint doesn’t so much as hesitate to add, “honestly, Pete, we just want to know why you ran off. That’s all.”
That’s the thing, though — Peter doesn’t really know why he ran off. It was as if everything happened at once, at that moment, only an hour or so ago; his mind threw him back to when Aunt May was peering at him through her wire-rimmed reading glasses that one miserable evening and it just felt like everything was closing around him , on top of him, heart beating, crushing, crushing, crushing—
Tony’s at his side, suddenly, hand hovering somewhere near his bicep but not daring to touch it. “Breathe, Peter,” he murmurs and Peter frowns because he is breathing , but oh God it’s too fast and everything is fast and it’s crushing, crushing—
“Peter,” Tony says again. It sounds like his whole word has been dunked underwater. “Peter, you’re having a panic attack.”
Is he?
“Can I touch you, Pete?”
Peter can barely hear him. It’s like he’s underwater, getting deeper… deeper… deeper…
And then someone is pressing his hand against something warm and Peter, through the blinding washes of water lapping at every crevice of his existence, registers the rise and fall of a chest underneath his palm.
“Breathe with me, Peter,” Tony’s voice murmurs, somewhere.
He tries to. Really, he does. But it’s so, so hard and he falls that little bit deeper and everything is getting underwater further… and further… and further…
There’s a presence on his other side, then, and the familiarity of it throws him back to the time he was lying on the cool floor of that alleyway — pain lacing across his ribs and stomach in powerful ripples, something warm pooling from the back of his head, Clint running his hand through his hair and showing a bloodied hand to Sam, who lingers over his shoulder like a hoverfly — and he sucks in a breath that has his head spinning all over again.
“Peter,” Clint’s voice says, “Pete, kid, can I touch you?”
“M’not a kid,” he manages.
It’s faint, blurry, but Peter thinks he catches Clint smiling. “You’re okay,” he’s saying again and again, almost like he’s trying to convince himself and not just Peter, “just breathe. Focus on breathing in time with Tony.”
But he instead just crumbles into Clint like a wet biscuit and the marksman doesn’t even hesitate to wrap his arms around Peter — holding him closer to his chest, enveloping him in the comfort that his warmth brings — and some part of Peter just dissolves and suddenly he’s sobbing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying, voice warbled by the onslaught of emotion clawing at his throat, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Clint is whispering. “I’m not mad. I promise, kid. None of us are mad that you didn’t tell us. None of us are mad that you ran away. I promise.”
“I just— I’m s—”
“I promise, kid,” Clint repeats, firmer this time. “No one is mad.”
“I’d call this interaction adorable if I didn’t feel so aggressively sad,” Sam murmurs to Natasha from somewhere nearby and even through the tightness in his throat and in his chest he’s starting to smile.
Maybe, just maybe, they’re telling the truth. Maybe he won’t get booted onto the street again. Maybe they’re not mad at him for not telling them about Spiderman. Maybe they’re not mad about him running away.
God, this is embarrassing.
“No, it isn’t,” Tony says from behind him, and Peter grins because isn’t it just so cliché that he didn’t even realise he said it out loud?
Eventually he manages to rein in some of the tears and he pulls his head away from Clint’s shoulder, glad that the man’s clothes are already too damp for the stain he’d have undoubtedly left to be noticable. He says sorry again, so fast it’s like a reflex.
“Stop apologising,” Clint replies.
Peter breathes out a laugh.
“Do— do I have to tell the others yet?”
“No, Pete. They’ll know when you want them to know. We can promise that,” Sam tells him, and the words are like a shot of relief flooding his veins.
Thank God. Oh, thank God.
He can feel the cold of his rain-soaked clothes now, hanging heavy on his frame like he’s tied to blocks of granite. They’d never gotten changed after their hot chocolate session in the puddle for they’d been too caught up in everything to even notice that they’ve left pools of water throughout the Tower in their wake.
There are no doubts that some of the others are beginning to feel it too and so he suggests, voice small, “I think I want to get changed now.”
“I was hoping someone would say that,” Sam huffs, standing up. “I was beginning to freeze my dick off.”
“Stop talking about your dick in front of a child,” Natasha snaps.
Sam cackles as he disappears into the elevator.
.
Natasha jumps out of the vents just as Clint is pulling his wet shirt over his head and the sound of her feet hitting the floor sends him reeling backwards, screaming murder.
“Didn’t you hear me coming?” she says.
“No! What the fuck!” He balls up the wet shirt and throws it at her face, hitting her cheek with a cringe-worthy slapping noise. “You can’t do that to a man when he’s exposed and vulnerable, tosser!”
“Go and find a shirt. Your man body looks weird.”
“You say that as if my body shouldn’t be a man body.”
“And you don’t even care that I called it weird?”
“Not every woman can be heart-wrenchingly attracted to my dashing six-pack, can they?”
Nashata snorts, “dashing is a debatable term.”
He flips her the bird as he leaves the room to find a shirt. When he comes back, Natasha is sitting on his sofa, her damp hair now tied into a ponytail instead of hanging around her shoulders and leaving marks on her dry shirt. “We need to talk,” she tells him.
“What is this, therapy?”
“Seriously, Clint.”
Suddenly his heart is hammering that little bit harder. It feels like he’s in the principal's office awaiting punishment all over again. He takes a seat on the sofa opposite her and rests his elbows on his knees — a feeble to at least appear nonchalant.
“It’s nothing bad. I can hear you worrying from here,” she begins. When Clint says nothing, she continues: “it’s just… he worried me, back there in the open lab. Something happened to him, something to do with his identity — that much is obvious, right? — and I don’t think I can let this issue sit in the water for too long. If that makes sense.”
“Yeah. No, I get you.”
Even just the memory of Peter panicking and sobbing into his shoulder clenches his heart in an indescribable ache. It’d been the first time Peter truly initiated contact with him and, while he hates it had to be in that kind of situation, he can’t say he’s not glad that the kid finally trusted him that little bit more.
The importance of touch is often underestimated, he’s always telling himself.
“I think we should leave it for today. I don’t think overwhelming him when he’s just been through all that panic will help anyone. Maybe get some food in the kid and give him a chance to wind down and take a nap before we touch that subject, y’know?” he suggests. “And… maybe we should tell the others at one point. If Peter wants us to, that is.”
“That’s what I was going to say.” Natasha stands up, absently rolling her shoulders and wrists. “Come on, let me blowdry your hair and we’ll talk about that more. It annoys me when it’s all wet like that. J, do us a favour and let Tony and Sam know about what we’ve been saying, please?”
“Certainly.”
.
Despite everything that had happened only a few hours before, dinner isn’t even that awkward. They’re eating spaghetti and that in itself is enough to cause a ruckus over the table, for Clint isn’t the cleanest eater and Thor is still grasping the concept of the point of the pasta itself. If anyone notices how detached Peter is from the rest of the team, they don’t comment on it — after all, it isn’t unusual for the kid to eat quietly in the midst of the chatter.
Sam regards him one tiny glance at a time. Now that he’s dry, he doesn’t look nearly as miserable as he did beforehand; his hair is fluffy and his cheeks are dusted rose-red with the warmth of the kitchen heat and some of that raw anxiety in his eyes has been replaced by something… calmer. Steadier.
But his therapist’s mind doesn’t let him be that naive. He can see lingering worry and inner conflict simply through the kid’s body language — the way he’s fisting his shirt under the table, staring at the surfacetop in a trance as if he were deep in thought are both telling signs that he’s having a battle in his brain.
Sam notices Bucky, next, detaching himself from the conversation at the other end of the table and looking at the kid up and down. There’s no doubt that he’s figured out something is up — he’s always been very good at reading the body language of his friends. “You’ve been quiet, Pete,” he observes.
Peter doesn’t look up at him. “Have I?”
“Mmm.” His eyes are fixated on Peter, searching for something on his face. There’s something akin to — and yet, not quite — maternal concern in this baby blues. “You’re a quiet person, but you’re not usually this quiet.”
“... maybe.”
Patiently, Bucky continues, “want me to leave it alone?”
Peter just shrugs. “Maybe.”
Shovelling another forkful of spaghetti into his mouth, Bucky shrugs too. Sam supposes he’ll only leave it until after dinner — he hasn’t known the guy as long as Steve has, but he’s known him long enough to know that he wouldn’t let the topic drop just like that.
After dinner, Sam is on his way to find Clint when Bucky stops him in the corridor behind the communal living room. The taller man’s hair is brushed back into a neat ponytail and, most noticeably, his face is slathered with a peppermint-scented, blueish green facemask. Draped over his lean frame is one of Steve’s older hoodies and a pair of boxer shorts. It’s certainly not a look Sam would have expected to find the supersoldier wearing but hey — what’s he to do about it?
“What, a man can’t care for his skin?”
“That’s not why I’m looking at you. What did you stop me for, Bucks?”
Bucky scratches the nape of his neck; a nervous habit of his, Sam realizes. “You know something’s up with Peter,” he says.
Now, Sam could have expected the supersoldier to go asking about Peter’s wellbeing, but he’d assumed that he’d just go looking for the kid himself. It isn’t often that Bucky initiates conversation with him — with anyone (save for Steve), really. “I do.”
“Can I know?”
Sam wants to tell him — really, he does — but it isn’t his business to tell. There’s no way in the world he’d betray the kid’s trust like, especially when they’ve gotten so far with developing it already. He’s steering clear of anything that could compromise his relationship with the kid, fragile already thanks to the recent events. “Uh, no. Sorry.”
“Mmm. Okay. I respect that.” Bucky distractedly adjusts the hair-tie that secures the ponytail in place. “He was worrying me, at dinner. I know he’s not really…” he pauses to consider his words, “... the most extroverted person in the world, but he’s not usually so… down. Y’know what I mean?”
“It’s alright, Bucks. You’ll know about it soon enough.”
When Peter is ready for it, they all will. He’s not going to go about telling the whole team about the recent events until he gives them the greenlight — the most essential parts of this stage are both trust and communication. Going behind his back for the sake of letting the others in on it all is betraying that promise he made.
This doesn’t mean that they’re not going to talk about it, however. JARVIS had told him that Clint and Natasha suggested giving the kid a break before they delve deep into that shithole but there’s no way he’s going to let the subject drop completely — resolution is the best way around this dip no matter how differently he looks at it.
“I respect that,” Bucky says mildly. He’s never been one to push into people’s business and for that, Sam is eternally grateful. “I guess I’ll understand better when the time comes — just don’t expect me to worry about Peter any less for now. Thanks anyway.”
“It’s no problem.”
The supersoldier touches two tentative fingers to his cheek and then draws them away to check if any of the mask came with them. He makes a face when nothing does. “This isn’t supposed to dry completely. I’d better leave before it gets tattooed into my face permanently. See y’around.”
Sam doesn’t even have to say anything for the man is already making his departure, walking to the elevator much faster than he usually does. He can only wonder whether the facemask will actually improve his skin or not.
.
“I’m sorry.”
Clint, halfway through creating two cups of his famous, homemade Oreo milkshakes, takes his hand off the blender’s power button and turns to look at Peter, exasperated. “I thought we went over this.”
“I know,” Peter claims defensively. He holds the whipped cream can in one hand in preparation for the milkshake he waits oh-so-patiently for. “I was just being sure. Just in case.”
“Just in case,” Clint repeats. He goes back to blendering the milkshake mix until he’s positive that the oreo chunks to liquid ratio is just about perfect, before busying himself with finding two suitably-sized glasses that will fit both their beverages and the whipped cream that will soon be topping them. Once successful, he pours Peter his glass and slides it across the counter towards him. “Take that. It’s so good you’ll see Jesus himself.”
Peter shakes the whipped cream can and proceeds to top his milkshake with a swirl so perfect that Clint wonders just how much he’s practised. “You’re a whipped cream professional,” he gasps in exaggerated awe as he takes the can, capping his own milkshake with a swirl not quite as beautiful. “Teach me your ways, Oh Great One.”
But Peter just slurps his milkshake loudly through his straw and Clint smiles, wondering where the hell the kid got all this casual cheek from.
“I’m sure you want to know.”
Clint frowns, his lip barely touching his own straw as of yet. “About what?”
“Why I… freaked out. Earlier.”
Oh — Clint didn’t expect for Peter to initiate this conversation, but he can’t say he’s complaining about it. It’s a good sign that he wants to be open about it instead of them pressuring him to be. “Don’t feel obligated to tell us about that,” he says, and takes a loud, smacking sip of his milkshake, just to wear away some of the tension in the air.
“I want to,” Peter says. He carefully places his milkshake on the countertop, having drunken next to none of it so far, and lifts himself so he’s seated on the space beside it. “It’s… not a complicated or long story. Not— not really.”
As promised, the story isn’t long — probably only about five minutes, what with how briefly Peter explained it — and it isn’t so much as near complicated, but by the time it is finished, Clint is so sure he aged a decade out of stress that he reaches up to touch a tentative finger to his face as if to check for wrinkles. Halfway through the story he’d had to take hold of Peter’s arm to keep him steady and he doesn’t let go even now.
It’s the shock that gets to him first. It twists his stomach like someone would twist the moisture out of a towel, letting it spread across his torso and chest like a slow tide up a beach.
And then it’s the anger — raging, bubbling, boiling anger that spills over the lid and sets everything on fire, because who the fuck gives their nephew emotional trauma to that extent? Who can relax knowing that their kid is starving? Who the fuck can sleep at night when they know that the kid they vowed to care for is out on the streets?
“Clint,” Peter says, “Clint, my arm.”
He looks down and notices with a hammering heart that he’d started gripping Peter’s arm so hard that the faint shadow of bruising is starting to colour fingermarks. He lets go as if he’s been burned. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice warbled. “I’m so sorry, Peter.”
“Clint-"
“No, Pete. I’m sorry that you had to go through all that shit. I’m sorry that your fucking— fucking Aunt made such a mess over—“
“It’s my fault!” Peter yells, and the emotion in his cracking voice is raw enough to silence Clint. “It’s my fault that she reacted so badly. We— she lost Uncle Ben and— and that night, the night he was s—shot dead, she got a phone call after he was— and she was so, so— so scared and— and— oh, God, Clint. Why doesn’t— why doesn’t she want me?”
Clint doesn’t ask this time; just envelopes the kid in his arms and lets him cry into his shoulder for the second time that day. Every sob that racks the boy’s frame sends ripples of pain down Clint’s heart that forces the oxygen out of his lungs. God. God.
When will this kid get a break?