Archive of Our Own ^beta

Peter Parker is just an average guy in high school.

Okay, maybe just a little less obsessed with sex than the majority of his peers, but still, fairly average. Until around a year ago when he had gotten bitten by that radioactive spider, he was just about as basic as basic could get.

Even now, taking into consideration the whole secret identity thing and how Peter and Spider-Man are somewhat two separate people, he hasn’t changed much. His high school reputation certainly hasn’t improved, if anything it has gone even further downhill with the speculated lies surrounding his Stark internship.

And yeah, maybe he’s not actually an intern, but he definitely knows Tony Stark and it’s not as though his classmates would believe the alternative even if he could tell them about it.

Peter Parker is just an average guy in high school. Which makes him a perfect target for teasing. Or bullying, though that seems like a bit of a stretch. Whatever.

Flash Thompson is a dickhead.

Everyone knows it, yet somehow Peter is the one that always gets called Penis. Everyone always laughs at Flash’s jokes about Peter, takes his side over Peter’s, likes him better than Peter. And if Flash Thompson is a dickhead and no one really likes him…

Surely one can imagine where that leaves Peter.

At least he has his friends. Friend. He’s still not sure what to classify MJ as, she seems to hate him and always calls him a loser but she’s also always around so there’s a lot of mixed signals going on there, but Ned is definitely a friend. Even while Peter has become like the worst person in the world to be friends with as he’s almost always busy, Ned is always there for him. As long as he has Ned by his side, Flash’s words really don’t mean anything at all.

But things kind of start to escalate when Ned is at home sick and Peter opens his locker and hundreds of condoms fall out onto the floor. Strangely enough, his first thought as he stands in the crowded hallway that has now become eerily silent, is ew, please don’t be used condoms.

Of course they aren’t, they’re all packaged for goodness sakes and who in their right mind who attends a school for the intelligent would leave the evidence of their… extracurricular activities to be easily tested and tracked down in a lab all for a stupid prank? But Peter’s never really had much use for a condom so it takes a minute for the relief of that to sink in. By the time it does, the hallway is no longer silent and Flash is leaning up against the locker next to Peter’s.

“Hey, Penis,” he says, having to speak loudly in order to be heard through the laughter which is of course the goal, “not sure if they’ll fit that ugly head of yours, but better to be safe than sorry, right? God only knows what kind of diseases you must be carrying around, the last thing we need is for them to spread, or to risk you reproducing. Not that it’s very likely that you’d get someone to feel sorry enough for you to fuck you, but…”

It’s weird, Peter thinks absently, how guys like Flash act as though not getting laid in high school is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person. Peter, honest to God, could not care less whether or not he has sex in the next century, much less the next four years.

Peter throws the remaining condoms out of his locker and onto the floor before grabbing the textbooks he’ll need for his homework and dumping them into his backpack. He slams his locker closed and turns to look Flash straight in the eyes.

“I prefer the flavored ones, actually,” Peter says, lifting his backpack up and onto his shoulders. Then, louder, “So, thanks, but I’ve got it covered. Figuratively and literally.” Somehow he even finds the nerve to wink.

He turns his back to him and throws over his shoulder, “Free condoms for everyone, courtesy of Flash Thompson!”

***

While it’s the first time that Flash does something more to him than simply tossing out nasty remarks, Peter really isn’t bothered by the event and doesn’t think much of it as he sees Happy’s car and stumbles into the backseat. The incident completely disappears from his mind once he notices that Tony is in the seat next to him.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter greets enthusiastically, shaking off his backpack before buckling his seatbelt. “What are you doing here?”

“Being domestic, picking my kid up from school and all that jazz. Don’t mind the driver,” Tony says, smiling at Peter.

“I heard that,” Happy mutters grumpily as he pulls the car out of the pickup zone.

“Never intended for you not to, Hap,” Tony quips. “So, how was school?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” Peter says, unzipping his backpack and taking out one of his textbooks and a spiral notebook with a mechanical pencil. “I’ve got a shit-”

“Hey,” Tony breaks in, “this is a family-friendly vehicle.”

“-ton of homework to do,” Peter finishes, smiling sheepishly.

“Do you have time to intern?” Tony asks, using air quotes over the word “intern,” “because we can totally reschedule.”

“No, no, don’t worry I can handle it, it’s not as though homework is difficult. I’ll find the time.”

“You got time to have sex?”

“What?” Peter nearly shrieks as Happy practically slams on the breaks at the question.

Tony gestures towards the floorboard and Peter looks down to see a couple of condoms that had apparently fallen into his backpack and were now in the back seat of Tony Stark’s car. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Jesus Christ,” Peter mutters, picking up the condoms and stuffing them into a pocket in his backpack. Happy tentatively presses on the gas again. “This isn’t what it looks like, really.”

“Really? ‘Cause it looks like you’re carrying around condoms in your backpack.”

“You know they give these out for free in health class, right?”

“And you took them?”

“What if I did?”

Tony whips off his sunglasses. “You are way too young to be having sex-”

Peter can’t help it; he snorts. “Mr. Stark, no offense, but that’s gotta be like the most hypocritical thing you have ever said to me.”

“Kid’s got a point,” Happy chimes in, though he’s still driving slower than normal.

“Shut up,” Tony snaps. “He’s literally a child.”

“I’m literally not,” Peter grumbles, sounding like a child.

“Peter-”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter cuts him off, “I’m not- I’m not doing that, really. But on the offhand chance I did, wouldn’t you want me to be responsible about it?”

Tony pushes his sunglasses back onto his face, crossing his arms against his chest and sinking down in his seat before relenting. “Yeah… Alright, you got me there, kid. Good plan, very responsible, and all that garbage.”

Peter nods, glad that conversation is over but feeling guilt crawl up his chest as responsibility is definitely not the reason the condoms are in his bag. It never even crossed his mind to be so responsible, probably because sex is kind of the furthest thing from his mind. He’s asexual for goodness sake… he has no clue where that flavored condoms comment had come from earlier.

But there is no reason to bring up the real reason why the condoms were in his bag to Tony, it was just another dumb little thing with Flash. It isn’t a big deal and it doesn’t matter at all, really.

***

Except that it kind of does.

Not initially, as people laughing and whispering about Peter behind his back or even to his face is nothing new, and if a few kids throw a condom at his head every now and then it’s no sweat off his back, really. But the whole condoms in the locker incident seems to be the start to a chain of events that only gets more and more out of hand as time goes by.

Flash has been calling him Penis Parker ever since he got the nerve to blurt out the word in fifth grade and the name had since been fairly exclusive to him, but now it seems like everyone in the hallway has to call out for Penis. It’s almost getting to the point where Peter is calling himself that at times.

“Don’t let them bother you,” Ned murmurs as they walk to the lunchroom together, calls of Penis being heard behind them.

Peter frowns. “I’m not. They don’t bother me.”

Ned gives him a look that clearly states really? but he says no more as they pick up trays and stand in line for whatever horror of a meal they were offered today. Behold, a sorry excuse for meatloaf and lumpy mashed potatoes with gravy. Peter skips on the greyish substance as he is really just not a big fan of grease and flour serving as a topping.

Peter follows Ned to sit over at their usual table, where MJ is already there, nose stuck in her book as usual but still offering a courtesy “Hey, losers,” to the both of them.

“Hey, MJ,” Peter greets, sticking a spoon into his grey lunch. Even the ketchup on the meatloaf isn’t exactly generous with the red food coloring. Peter wonders if the state of school lunches in America might be one of the reasons as to why teenagers are statistically more depressed every year.

Bullying is supposedly the leading cause, though Peter doesn’t feel all that affected by it in his own life. It’s just Flash being a jerk. And, well, maybe other people sometimes, too, but they’re really just sheep. Peter figures that if someone is willing to follow Flash’s leadership then their brain is probably at least a little fried, therefore making their opinion of him somewhat irrelevant.

Being bullied doesn’t make him feel depressed, not really, but it can definitely get annoying. It’s particularly aggravating when some jackass decides that his mashed potatoes need gravy after all. And his lap, apparently.

“Oh my God, Penis Parker, is that cum?” the boy asks, and Peter looks up to see a couple of guys he didn’t even recognize, one holding a tray with gravy dripping off of it while Flash stands behind him cackling.

“He must have been jacking off under the table,” someone says.

“Eww!” a girl shrieks.

“Aw, don’t be mean,” the familiar voice of Flash comes, teasingly. “It’s not like he can get anyone else to do it for him.”

“Fuck off,” MJ growls, while Ned grabs paper towels and attempts to clean up the mess. He places a hand on Peter’s thigh as he tosses a few napkins down onto his lap, and Peter jumps back at the contact, just barely containing a squeak.

Ned sends him an odd look and MJ takes out the trash. She stands up from the table as she engages in a verbal war with them that the boys are sure to lose, but Peter can’t hear her words even if he wants to.

There’s a ringing in his ears and suddenly he isn’t there in the cafeteria anymore. As he stares down at the wet substance staining his jeans, his mind takes him back to being nine years old and terrified, laying shivering on sheets stained with the aftermath of his sins.

“Peter, Peter!”

He must have passed out as he was now leaning heavily against Ned with MJ’s oddly concerned face hovering and studying his intently.

Laughter could be heard throughout the lunchroom but it didn’t seem to be directed at him anymore so hopefully no one had noticed his little freak out. He sat up, pushing the lunch tray away from him.

“You alright, dude?” Ned asks, worry evident in his voice.

Peter nods absently before laying his head down on the table, feeling exhausted, too much so to bother with hiding it.

He hears Ned and MJ’s voices conversing as sort of a background noise, something about the nurse and going home but he doesn’t care enough to offer his own opinion on whatever the heck just happened to him. He knows, really, what it was and what triggered it, but he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think-

“Peter?” someone is gently shaking his shoulder. He looks up to meet Ned’s gaze and blinks at him.

“Yeah, we’re taking him to the nurse,” MJ decides. “He’s completely out of it.”

“M’fine,” Peter mutters, but doesn’t protest being pulled up and guided out of the lunchroom by his friends. MJ was probably a friend at this point, right? She was giving up her lunch break to take him to the nurse or whatever they were doing, so she must care about him at least a little bit. Or maybe she was just a decent person. Yeah, that made more sense than Peter having more than just one friend in his lifetime. He was lucky to have that.

“I love you, man,” Peter finds himself saying to Ned. Maybe it’s a bit spontaneous, sure, but it’s true, isn’t it? “You’re such a good friend to me.”

Ned and MJ exchange a worried glance over Peter’s head. “We love you too, Peter,” Ned responds after a moment. Peter shakes his head.

“MJ doesn’t like me. I don’t blame her, though.”

“I like you, Peter,” MJ says quietly.

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you feel bad for me.”

MJ lets her breath out in a huff. “Do I normally placate people in an effort to spare their feelings?”

“No…”

“I’m not going to start now just because you look like someone kicked your puppy,” MJ says as they enter the nurse’s office.

“Oh. Alright,” Peter relents as he’s sat down in a chair. “I like you, too,” he admits.

Ned snorts as MJ is explaining what happened to the nurse, though she keeps the details of the gravy incident to a minimum. “Smooth, man. Real smooth.”

Peter nods, finding the action to be a bit easier than words. He does like MJ, quite a bit. She’s really pretty and, well, not nice but not mean, either. And also really pretty.

“Okay, how are you feeling, honey?” The nurse asks cheerfully.

“Tired,” Peter answers simply.

“Would you like me to call your guardian to come to pick you up? I think you could use some rest.”

Peter shakes his head. “She’s working.”

“Is there anyone else that can come? You have two emergency contacts listed.”

“I do?” It’s news to Peter.

“Mhm… it seems a Mr. Tony Stark is the second one.”

Peter thinks that she might be the only person in the country and possibly the entire world who doesn’t seem to know who Tony Stark is and is completely unfazed by him being his emergency contact. Even Peter is taken by surprise.

“Would you like me to call him?”

“Um…”

“Yes,” MJ answers for Peter. “Just call him.”

***

Tony must have been in the area because he arrives shortly after the phone call.

“Mr. Stark,” the nurse greets him warmly. “I’ve already signed him out so you’re free to take him.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Tony nods before he turns to Peter. “How are you feeling, buddy?”

“Okay,” Peter responds. “You didn’t have to come and pick me up.

“It’s no problem. Besides, saves Happy the trip of picking you up later, right?”

Oh, yeah. It’s a compound weekend, Peter forgot. He’s not sure if he wants it to be a compound weekend or not.

“Just make sure he gets some rest,” the nurse breaks in. “I imagine that he’s quite tired.”

“Of course,” says Tony. “It’s a long drive, you can sleep in the car.”

Peter does feel tired, but he doubts that he’ll be able to sleep. His mind is still whirling with unpleasant thoughts and memories, so he’s not too keen to find out what images may be waiting to greet him behind his eyelids.

He says goodbye to his friends and follows Tony out of the school and into his ridiculously expensive car. He leans back into the leather seat and feigns sleep the entire way to the compound, while in reality he’s just thinking about Skip and Flash and random people who didn’t even know him yet seemed to despise him.

It’s starting to bother him.

***

Peter picks at his dinner and tries not to think about how horrible of a guest he’s being. But really, he’s being terribly rude.

Tony had gone to all the trouble of picking him up from school and bringing him here, gave him a really nice dinner and allowed him to pretend to be asleep during the time in between. Peter was pretty sure Tony could tell he was faking, he was a genius after all.

“Are you okay?” Tony finally asks. “I mean, obviously you’re not, but do you want to talk about it?”

Peter shakes his head. “No, not really. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Tony assures him airly. “Take your time.”

Take his time with what? Coming to terms with nearly his entire school hating his guts or trying to put the disgusting skeletons in his childhood closet away again? He really didn’t feel like doing either, so he was just trying to ignore the problem for now. It wouldn’t work out in the end, he knew, but he was damn sure going to try.

“It’s… school has just been really exhausting lately. I’m sorry but I don’t really feel like working in the lab tonight.”

Tony frowns. “Don’t worry about it, you can just go ahead to bed if you want. Or do you want me to take you home? Because I definitely can do that if you just wanna go.”

Normally Peter would have instantly refused the offer, not wanting to inconvenience Tony anymore than he already had. But he really did want to be at his own home in his own bed hiding his face under his own comforter.

“Y-yeah, I think. If that’s okay. I just…” he trails off. It’s not that he doesn’t feel comfortable here at the compound with Tony, but there’s just something about being at home.

“I got you, kid, it’s cool,” says Tony. “Let me just grab my keys. And try to finish your dinner.”

Peter tries to, he really does. It’s just that his stomach is already full of something other than the food and most of what he’s managed to get down feels like sandpaper on his tongue. And the mashed potatoes are something he’d prefer to never see again.

***

The car ride is silent enough to almost be awkward, which was something Peter hasn’t felt around Tony since the first few months they’d known one another.

“You sure you’ll be okay, buddy?” Tony asks as Peter opens the car door once they’re parked in front of his apartment building. He hesitates for just a second before nodding.

“Yeah, Mr. Stark, I’m fine.”

May isn’t home as she’s working a double shift, but it’s okay. Peter’s not sure if he could handle any more social interaction today.

He closes and locks the door before making a beeline to his room, tossing his backpack off of his shoulders and throwing himself into bed. He’s so done with this day.

He breathes in the scent of fabric softener on his bedding and basks in the comfort of it.

Flash will get bored. Things will get better. They just have to.

***

The thing is, it doesn’t get better. Things don’t improve. They gradually get worse.

It’s not even just Peter now as people seem to think that it’s appropriate to ask his friends, Ned and MJ, how he is in bed. As if the only reason people would stand by Peter is that he’s screwing them.

Peter’s flavored condom joke falls flat as those are now being tossed at his friends’ heads and they say that it doesn’t bother them but he knows that it does. Because he says that it doesn’t bother him when it really does.

***

It’s in the locker room when things truly escalate.

Peter is the last one in there, or so he thinks as he changes out of his gym clothes and back into his regular attire. It isn’t until he’s buttoning up his jeans when a pair of hands comes from behind to grab him by the wrists, stopping him in his actions.

“What the fu-”

“Oh, Pete, you really shouldn’t use such naughty words,” the voice behind the hands tsks. Peter doesn’t recognize his voice, but he definitely doesn’t like the sound of it.

“Let me go,” Peter mutters, attempting to shake the hands off while trying to refrain from using his super strength to do so. The last thing he needs is to have an identity reveal with some stranger in the locker room while his pants are undone.

“Why would I let you go when I just now caught you?” the stranger asks, shifting his hands so that one ridiculously large for a presumably teenaged boy one holds both of Peter’s wrists together and the other runs up his still naked chest, causing Peter to shiver. Whether it be from the chill or the absolutely repulsive action being done to him is unknown.

“When half the school refers to you as Penis,” the guy says, “it makes me wonder what you must be hiding down there. Especially seeing as how you’ve been packing abs like this under your nerdy t-shirts.”

It’s when his hand lands on Peter’s thigh and starts to tug down his pants that Peter realizes the extent of the situation and promptly freaks out. Peter isn’t going to help this guy out with his weird kink or fetish or whatever this is. Super strength secret be damned, this wasn’t happening to him. Not again.

Peter doubles his effort to escape, which really isn’t an effort at all now that he’s no longer restraining himself. His first move is the most obvious, he lifts his legs and swings it into the guy behind him, right where it really hurts. Right where he wanted to…

Once he’s free, Peter looks up to see who his attacker is and furrows his eyebrow trying to identify the stranger until it comes to him. It’s the senior jackass from the cafeteria a few days ago. He looks just as cruel and vicious as he did then, except now there was a bit of something else in his gaze, besides the pain that came from being kicked in the crotch by Spider-Man. Was it… lust?

Peter feels queasy at the thought.

His attacker is still holding his hands between his legs in evident pain, and Peter looks down to his wrists to see that they are starting to bruise from where the boy had gripped him. Peter knows then that if he hadn't had his super powers, whatever this guy had wanted to happen most probably would have happened.

He’s more than just queasy now, Peter is going to be sick.

He makes quick work of fastening up his pants and throwing on his t-shirt back on before bolting out of the locker room, in search of a bathroom. He pushes into the first one he finds and is able to make certain that the lock is secure before he’s kneeling down in front of the toilet, puking his guts out.

Once he’s finished, he wipes his face with toilet paper and flushes it all down. Then he simply leans back against the stall wall and remains sitting on the surely germ-covered bathroom tiles. Peter can’t bring himself to care.

Peter has just been sexually assaulted. The image is clear in his mind, but still, the words feel wrong. He’s at school, high school now, where he’s older and stronger and supposed to be safe. He’s so confused. What is it about him that makes people want to do things like that to him? It’s not like he’s trying to provoke them.

He takes a few minutes to catch his breath before standing on shaky legs. He’s going home to hide under his blankets again, where nobody can touch him unless he gives them permission to.

Outside of the bathroom, the hallways are mostly deserted, P.E. had been Peter’s last class of the day. He’d always hated it. It’s not until he’s nearly at the door that he passes another soul, and of course, it’s Flash Thompson. He seems to be on the verge of making some smartass comment before he shuts his mouth and just stares at Peter, who stares right back.

He knows that his cheeks are flushed and his pupils are dilated and regret seems to pass across Flash’s face briefly before he clears his expression into a sneer. Still, he’s silent as he pushes past Peter and leaves without a word.

Flash’s hatred towards Peter is so childish and stupid. It had never meant anything to Peter. But now somehow things seem to have changed overnight and Peter’s life has been shaped by it.

***

It never really occurs to him to say anything about the incident in the locker room, though later Peter would wonder why it didn’t. It was a pretty big damn deal, but May had still been at work when Peter arrived home and fell into his bed, and after he’d had his little breakdown under the covers he just felt like that was the end of it.

It’s not, it’s really, really not.

Not when the guy who Peter still doesn’t even know the name of is passing him the hallways with a wink and a smirk, apparently unfazed after the crotch kicking and Peter remembers his running his hands over his bare chest, a stranger’s unwelcome touch.

Not when he’s terrified of being in the locker room and begs Ned to stay with him while he changes in and out of his gym clothes with no explanation as to why because that’s not weird at all.

Not when Peter feels as though he’s nothing more than a petrified child once again, and not when no one ever seems to get bored of pushing him around and calling him names.

School sucks, people suck, life sucks. And far too many people wanted to know if Peter sucked, too.

***

“What happened in the locker room last week?” MJ asks one day at lunch while Ned is still in line and Peter freezes with his sandwich halfway to his mouth.

“What do you mean?” he questions, setting his food back down on his tray.

“I mean I heard that jackass Walsh bragging about… getting you alone in there.”

So that was his name then, Walsh. Nice to know.

“It’s not a big deal,” Peter shrugs, even though he knows that it really, really is. He’d been to the child psychologist long enough to learn that it wasn’t even a little bit okay. “He just… touched me for a second.”

MJ stares at him. “He touched you?”

Peter just shrugs again. “It’s like a locker room thing. It’s not like he actually did anything.”

Her gaze turns fiery. “I don’t care if it is a locker room thing, or how long it was, did you want him to touch you?”

“No!” Peter says instantly. “Of course I didn’t!”

“Then that’s unwanted sexual advances. That’s assault, Peter,” MJ says, looking sad now. “It’s a big deal. A very big deal.”

“Maybe to girls,” Peter mutters.

“Your gender doesn’t make it any less of a problem! God, you know, sexism can work both ways and this idea that the world has that it can’t happen to guys is just ridiculous.”

“Yeah, and what am I supposed to do about it? This is the world we live in, I’m sorry that I’m bothering you so much,” Peter snaps.

“You’re not bothering me, Peter,” MJ murmurs. “It’s not your fault that we live in a misogynistic world.”

Peter laughs lightly, rolling his eyes. Trust MJ to make it a social issue. Maybe it was, but Peter would rather it not be an issue at all. “Seriously though, MJ, he didn’t do anything. I threw him off before he could get the chance.”

MJ frowns, unconvinced. “He still attempted it, though, and that’s still a major problem.”

Peter can see Ned making their way to them out of the corner of his eye and he wants to end this conversation before yet another person is in on something he’d preferred to keep to himself.

“Can we please just drop it? I don’t really wanna talk about it,” Peter mutters. Or think about it. Ever again.

MJ bites her lip but after a moment she nods.

***

It’s on one particularly horrible day that he finds himself slamming the door on Happy’s expensive Audi and flinging himself onto the back seats, lazily buckling himself around the waist with the middle seat belt.

He knows that it’s probably not safe to be riding sprawled across the seats like this, but he frankly does not give a damn. Maybe he would be lucky enough to die in a car crash and swiftly be taken out of his misery.

Maybe that thought process was a little concerning.

“Bad day at school?” Happy asks. Peter only grunts in response.

It’s a long drive to the compound, and Peter is all too happy to spend that time sulking in silence. Happy doesn’t try to initiate a conversation and Peter is grateful for it. His anger is starting to die down and he’s starting to feel all together less pissy, that is until they finally arrive and Peter overhears Happy talking on the phone as he steps out of the car.

“Got a load of teenage angst coming your way,” Happy mutters into his phone as though Peter doesn’t have enhanced ears and can hear every syllable that comes out of his mouth.

Teenage angst? Was that all that the tragedy of Peter’s so-called life amounted up to? He’d only ever tried to be a nice person and yet nearly everyone he met despised him and made fun of him and hurt him. But of course it was all just the fault of his overactive hormones, it wasn’t as though he had actual problems for people to care about.

Peter doesn’t thank Happy for the ride as he usually would, instead he just slams the door to the Audi again, not even feeling a little bit bad about the action this time around.

FRIDAY grants him entry into the compound and Peter practically stomps like a toddler all the way to the lab. He tries to get his pouting under control before he opens the door to see Tony, but it’s a difficult thing.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter greets weakly as he enters the room.

“Hey there yourself, kiddo,” Tony offers in a soft tone. He’s simply sitting on a chair looking at Peter rather than engrossed in a project as he normally would be found, and the scene only serves to remind Peter that Happy and Tony were talking about his emotions behind his back and had probably planned a strategy as to how to deal with him.

Peter’s annoyance is back in full force.

He swiftly makes his way to his own table and plops down on the chair in front of it, focusing his attention on making more of his web fluid or at least feigning to, and paying no mind to Tony.

Tony Stark doesn’t take well to being ignored though, especially so blatantly. He comes over to stand beside Peter and watches him work like some sort of amusement park inspector. He doesn’t say anything though, and it just causes Peter to feel nervous over being watched and making his fingers fumble.

At one point Tony reaches a hand out to stop Peter from making a potentially lethal mistake, which does prevent a disaster but also makes Peter flinch at the unexpected movement, spilling chemicals all over the table.

“Shit,” Peter mutters, grabbing the rags that were placed beside his desk with this exact moment in mind and wiping up the mess. The web fluid was halfway finished so the mess is already a sticky disaster, and Peter feels like crying.

Maybe he does cry, as once he has the mess cleaned up with Tony’s help and their hands have been washed free of any possible chemical contact, Tony’s fingers are wiping tears away from his cheeks.

“Kid, what’s going on?” Tony asks, eyes pleading.

“Why were you and Happy talking about me?” is the first thing that comes out of Peter’s mouth and he doesn’t even know why. It’s not as though it’s the first time so it’s unclear why it bothers him so much this time.

Tony’s eyebrows furrow, evidently confused himself. “We’re just worried about you, bud. You’ve been acting off for weeks.”

“Yeah, well, life has really sucked for weeks,” Peter snaps, turning away from Tony and crossing his arms against his chest.

“What’s going on? Is it school? Is someone bothering you? That Flash kid?”

“No- well, yes, but I mean everyone has been bothering me. No one will leave me the fuck alone and I just don’t understand what I did to make them hate me,” Peter bursts out before leaning his forehead against the wall, panting.

“I highly doubt that you did anything at all. Bullies don’t usually care about the morals of their victims, they’re just looking for someone to hurt to compensate for their own lack of self-worth.”

“It’s- it’s more than just bullies, Mr. Stark. It all started with Flash calling me that stupid name, but when the majority of the school gets nauseous just at the sight of you, it makes you wonder if maybe you’re the problem.”

“Pete, you could never be a problem,” Tony breathes, hesitantly resting a palm upon his shoulder. “What stupid name?”

Peter rolls his eyes and laughs humorously. “It’s just- Penis Parker. It’s seriously so stupid, he’s been calling me that since the fifth grade, but… before it was only him, and it never really felt so… vicious. But now everyone… and it’s usually not this bad it’s just- I don’t care, I don’t. But it just…”

“It hurts,” Tony offers softly.

Peter nods. “Yeah. It hurts.”

Admitting it out loud feels like a breath of fresh air. He’s been trying so hard for so long not to let it all get to him that it has started to eat him alive from the inside. He’s been suffocating, and he’s been the one holding the gag against his mouth.

“I know that there’s even more than that,” Tony says. “So what else did that little twerp do?”

Peter laughed with a little more humor this time. Tony could act like such a dad sometimes. More than that, he felt like a dad a lot of the time, felt like his dad.

So Peter tells him everything. Even the things that he never wants to talk or even think about ever again, just everything painful that comes to mind and needs to be released from his mouth in order to exit his body. Once he’s finished, they’re sitting together on the couch in the lab and Peter feels less weighed down by it all, lighter.

“So that day with the condoms… that’s when this all started?”

Peter nods at Tony’s question.

“God, kid, that… that was like two months ago. And then that day I picked you up from school… I can’t believe that you’ve been dealing with this on your own for all that time.”

Peter shrugs. “It really didn’t bug me at first. Flash has never really bothered me at all, he’s an amateur… Things only really began to get bad when Walsh started in…”

Tony’s eyes darkened as they did the first time Peter mentioned that day in the locker room, rushing over it before Tony even had time to explode about it.

“Yeah, well, the first thing I’m going to do is to pay a visit to the kid that dared to touch my kid.”

Peter didn’t doubt that Tony had every intention of putting on his Iron Man suit to pay that visit, and that just couldn’t happen. “Mr. Stark, please don’t. He’s a high school student, you’ll only get in trouble.”

“Just because he’s in high school doesn’t make his actions any less of a fucking crime,” Tony spits.

“And just because it’s justifiable doesn’t make murder any less of a crime.”

“Oh, I’m not going to kill him,” Tony smiles. “That would be too easy.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Peter says, trying but unable to muster up any sympathy for the guy that had made his life a living hell for weeks. “Just don’t land yourself in jail, please.”

Tony tightens his hold on Peter. “Don’t worry about it, kid, I’ll take precautions. After all, somebody’s gotta be here to take care of the Spider-Baby. “

Peter smiles. The name is a joke for the most part, and he knew he was supposed to pretend to hate it but the term of endearment served to warm his heart every time he heard Tony use it.

“In the meantime, you can make me up a list of every brat that gave you crap so I can take care of them as well.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter groans. “You can’t beat up every kid that calls me a bad name.”

“I’m not going to beat them up. But your school has an anti-bullying policy, does it not? A shit one, but it’s there. They’ll probably just get suspended for a couple of days, though that Flash asshole is definitely getting expelled.”

“Tony,” Peter says seriously, “you can’t just ruin his future like that. I- I don’t think he meant for it to go this far. He hasn’t been so bad since… and he even seemed a little regretful.”

“Oh, Petey,” Tony sighs into Peter’s hair. “You’re so kind to people who don’t deserve it, I don’t know how… But kiddo, he has been bullying you for years and this time, intentional or not, it has gone way too far. Just because someone might regret their actions doesn’t mean that they just escape punishment for them. It doesn’t make up for anything and he needs to learn his lesson.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Do you really think that he’ll be satisfied with bullying only you? That no one else will suffer because of his attitude?” Tony questions, cutting off Peter, who frowns.

“He’s only ever really gone after me. I mean, no one else is me, dorky, loser Penis Parker.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” Tony nearly bites. “Your name is Peter.”

“Is it?” Peter asks. “Sometimes I forget.”

Tony sighs. “Your name is Peter and Peter is the coolest, most amazing and smartest kid that I know.”

“That’s not always a good thing, Mr. Stark. Actually, most of the time it sucks, even in a school full of “smart kids,” there’s always the kid that’s too nerdy and dorky and annoying, and that kid is me.”

“See,” says Tony, “you wouldn’t be saying this crap about yourself if that jackass hadn’t bullied you long enough to make you feel like this. People like that, they won’t ever stop if they are never taught differently, and this kind of pattern will only continue later in their life. Don’t you think that both of you deserve better than the fates you’ve been dealt?”

Peter considered. He supposed that Flash did seem like a pretty miserable person overall, and as horrible as expulsion would look on his record, Tony was right and he did deserve a chance to learn from his actions while he was still capable of redemption.

“Alright,” Peter says. “Whatever you think is best.”

“Holy shit,” Tony says. “He trusts my judgment. I literally have the greatest kid ever.”

Peter smiles, feeling grateful for the surge of confidence running through him now. It feels really nice to be praised and comforted like this.

It’s strange how when things grow dark gradually rather than the lights just being switched off into complete darkness, it can be difficult to realize that you even need a flashlight to help you see because your eyes have just adjusted to the black over time.

It doesn’t make it all stop hurting, but Tony being here for him now does help to heal the cuts Peter hasn’t realized have been slicing into his soul.

It helps to know that if even the entire world is trying to push him off the ledge, Tony is always there to catch him when he falls.