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There is something off about Tony.
And that’s not to say that Peter doesn’t absolutely adore his mentor, and his endlessly grateful for the opportunity to be taught by and fight alongside his childhood hero, but if he’s being completely honest, there is something strange about Tony that he can’t quite put his finger on.
It takes him a few weeks to notice.
Peter will blame that on the fact that it takes a while to stop being completely starstruck every time he walks into the lab, but once he manages to stop pinching himself over the fact that he now spends his weekends tinkering in Iron Man’s private lab, he quickly pieces together that there are many days where Tony’s mind seems to be elsewhere.
It starts about a month after the internship becomes official. Peter is chewing on his lip as he stitches up a torn part of the Spider-Man suit (he had to push a pregnant lady out of the business end of a knife last night, and got slashed in the thigh for his troubles), humming along to the steady tune of AC/DC, when he glances up at Tony to ask him a question about how to make sure that the stitching on the suit isn’t visible, and notices that the man looks... wrong.
He is no longer facing the holo-screen that he was enthralled with mere moments ago, head turned to the side and eyes squeezed shut as he rubs a trembling hand over his chest. Peter stares, pausing his movements and wracking his brain for what change he could have missed in a matter of seconds.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, dropping the suit on the table. The older man’s eyes shoot open so quickly that it startles him. “Are you okay?”
Tony just stares at him for a long moment, hand still resting flat on his chest, before the billionaire smiles uneasily, unconvincingly. He has seen Tony genuinely smile before and this is not it. It’s like someone painted a poor imitation of his face. “Right as rain, kid. Why’d you ask?”
“Just...” Peter gestures to his mentor, feeling suddenly embarrassed. He quickly realises that he doesn’t have an actual plan for confrontation. Tony still looks pale and shaky, almost nauseous. “Never mind. Sorry.”
Tony stands, and there is a horrible moment where Peter thinks that the man is mad at him for prying, but then he shoots him that fake smile again and starts walking towards the washroom attached to the lab. “Be right back.”
He disappears, and Peter can’t physically force himself to get back to work. There is this uncomfortable feeling that is sitting in the bottom of his stomach, something secretive and awful.
Tony looks perfectly fine again by the time he emerges from the washroom nearly ten minutes later, but it doesn’t soothe Peter’s nerves in the slightest.
-
It goes on like that for a while. For every bad day (which aren’t necessarily common but are far from a rarity) that Tony seems to experience, he adamantly denies that anything is wrong if Peter so much as glances at him sideways.
Sometimes, they are a mere passing moment, something that Peter would be able to miss easily if he didn’t pay so much attention. Tony will tense up while they’re in the lab or watching a movie or eating dinner and take a few seconds to right himself once more. He’ll close his eyes and breathe deep and sometimes, on the more intense occasions, will excuse himself for a minute or two and come back in significantly better shape.
But it doesn’t always pass.
A week and a half before Christmas, while Peter is spending the weekend at the tower, he awakes at three in the morning with a heavy feeling of uneasiness sitting firmly on his chest, making it impossible for Peter to even begin to feel tired enough to fall back asleep.
“FRIDAY?” Peter whispers into the darkness, eyes on the ceiling.
“Yes, Peter?”
“Is Mr. Stark still awake?” Peter doesn’t know if the nerves sparking in his veins are a symptom of his own anxiety, or his senses trying to quietly alert him of something greater.
“Yes, Boss is currently awake and sitting on the party deck.”
Peter’s heartbeat stumbles. He sits up, stomach turning in every direction as he tosses his feet over the side of his bed and starts making his way down the dimly lit hallway. All day, Tony had been vaguely distracted and noticeable distinct, enough for Peter to chew on his nails and stay on edge all evening as they worked in the lab.
And now Tony is on the roof.
The fifteen-year-old makes it to the party deck in record time, heart in his throat as he slides open the massive glass door and steps onto the freezing cold deck. It’s snowing lightly, little speckles of white landing at his bare feet. Peter shivers and walks forward until he notices Tony sitting at the very edge, posture hunched.
“Go back to bed, Peter.” Tony says, voice cold and detached and awful.
Peter swallows, stepping forward until he’s just a few feet behind the man. “Are you okay, Mr. Stark? Do you need me to- do you want me to stay out here with-”
“I said go back to bed.” Tony cuts him off harshly, snapping through audibly clenched teeth. Peter flinches. The teenager only now notices that Tony’s shoulders are trembling, hiking up and down. They both know that it’s not the cold.
Peter turns around and scampers back to his room.
The following morning, though Tony doesn’t verbally apologize, he seems to try and show it in every way he can. He cooks Peter breakfast and brings him down to the garage when they’re finished eating, opening a long drawer filled with keys to his impressive car collection before letting Peter choose whichever one he wants to learn to drive for the afternoon.
By the time he drops Peter off back at the apartment late that evening, they have had such a good day that the teenager nearly forgets all about what happened last night.
Nearly.
-
He knows he can’t talk to May about his concerns, because she already hardly likes Tony, and he doesn’t want to put the internship at risk. Ned is off the table too because Peter knows that he’ll be too freaked out to offer any genuine advice.
“Hey, MJ, can I ask you something?” Peter catches her while she’s leaving her physics class, a copy of Dracula tucked underneath her arm as she heads to her locker.
“I already told you that you can’t miss practice tomorrow.” She says, not even turning to look at him as he nearly trips over himself in his haste to follow her. “Flash is in Florida for Christmas in Cindy is leaving school early for a dentist appointment and you swore to me that you were going to stop missing so many practices, Parker.”
“It’s not about that.” Peter nearly gets shoulder-checked by a group of seniors as they make it to MJ’s locker. “I need your… advice.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What about?”
It occurs to Peter that protecting Tony’s anonymity is important; he doesn’t want to imagine his mentor’s reaction if he finds out that Peter is asking his high-school friends for advice about this. “I have this... friend, and you don’t know him because he’s, uh, he doesn’t go here. He goes to public school in Brooklyn.”
MJ looks vaguely amused. “Okay?”
“And my friend is...” Peter clears his throat, leaning closer as he lowers his voice to a near whisper. “There’s something wrong with him. He’s all... I think he has anxiety, or something, but he’s always so- so upset and I was wondering if you know how to... handle it, I guess?”
Peter cringes as soon as he finishes speaking, cheeks burning with humiliation. This isn’t MJ’s problem. They have only been actual friends for a couple of months, and he’s sure that when she started actually talking to him and Ned at lunch, she didn’t sign up for having to coach Peter through handling his mentor’s unconfirmed mental health issues.
“Do you think that your friend is going to kill himself?”
“What?” Peter splutters on nothing. “No!”
“Just checking.” MJ shrugs, turning her back to him as she collects another armful of books from her locker. “Why don’t you just sit down and talk with him?”
Peter stares at her for a second, swallowing his embarrassment. “I... didn’t think of that.”
MJ smiles. “What would you and Ned do without me?”
-
He doesn’t get the courage to voice any of his concerns (which are now growing within him like poison, seizing all the good moments that Peter and Tony share and tainting them with the memory of Tony’s eyes screwed shut as he tries to suck in a breath) until after Christmastime, while he’s staying at the penthouse for the last stretch of his winter break.
“I’m picking the movie.” Tony informs him matter-of-factly as he slides down next to Peter on the couch. There’s a bowl of popcorn sitting on the teenager’s lap, hot even through the blanket wrapped around him. “My brain is going to explode if I have to watch the Star-Wars prequels one more time.”
Peter smiles half-heartedly, distracted, picking at the bowl in his lap. He crushes a piece of popcorn between his teeth, barely able to swallow through the rising mouthful of terror that seizes him every time the thought of Tony doing something awful to himself pops into his head. MJ’s words stick to his brain, crawling into the crevices of his mind and making their home there.
Tony notices, of course. “Hey, what’s wrong? We can watch Star-Wars if you want. I was just joking, kid, I like watching those with you-”
“No, no, you didn’t, like, offend me-” Peter backtracks, stomach clenching with nerves. It’s now or never. There is a part of him that’s terrified that Tony will be furious with him for even thinking that there’s something wrong with his health, that he’s anything but the personality that he portrays to everyone outside of this tower, but Peter can’t sit with the thought of something awful happening just because he didn’t say anything any longer. “I just- are you okay, Mr. Stark?”
Tony blinks. “Uh, yeah?”
Peter nods too harshly, almost desperately. “Cool. Good. That’s- good. I was just asking because... you know, I was asking because of what happened on, uh, what happened before Christmas. You know, on the roof. You remember that? I’m sure you- I'm just gonna’ stop talking. You’re good. That’s good.”
There’s a thick silence. Peter can’t bring himself to look at his mentor, face burning with embarrassment as he pretends to be deeply invested in the task of flicking through movies. Just as the fifteen-year-old goes to click on Stand By Me, Tony gently pries the remote from his grip and doesn’t give it back until Peter raises his gaze to meet his.
“You shouldn’t have... I’m sorry you had to see that.” Tony says, voice firm but wavering. “And I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Tony shakes his head. He leans closer to catch Peter’s eye once more when the teenager tries to look down again. “It’s not okay. I’m an adult and you’re a teenager; you don’t need to be burdened with all of... all my shit, okay? It won’t happen again.”
Peter chews on his lower lip, nodding even though the idea of Tony keeping all of his troubles hidden inside makes him feel even more guilty.
“Okay.” He whispers, because he won’t let Tony live another second with this undeserved guilt. Tony wraps an arm around his shoulders and squeezes lightly, a silent thank you that, in the months to come, Peter will look back on with only a quiet fondness.
-
Everything is okay for a long time after that.
Tony and Peter go back to what they do best: saving people. Tony still has bad days, still has moments where Peter catches him looking like he’s one mistake away from a panic attack, but they deal with it together. Together, meaning that Tony will excuse himself from the room for intermediate periods of time while Peter carefully avoids bringing it up for the duration of their time in the lab.
It works perfectly, at first. Tony starts to get some colour back in his face, some genuine joy back in his laugh.
And then, a few days post-Valentine's Day, when Midtown High goes into lockdown because of a small army of mutated lizard creatures attacking Queens, it stops going so perfectly.
Peter sneaks out of school and frantically pulls on his Spider-Man suit before swinging into the eye of the action. Iron Man and War Machine are both already there, blasting creatures with a practiced grace and flinging away gooey remains. Peter notices the exact moment Tony seems to catch sight of him, and the ensuing fury that follows over the comms.
“You’re supposed to be in school.” Tony hisses through gritted teeth, blasting away a large group of the creatures when they try to attack his legs. Peter swings forward and kicks two from where they are trying to crawl up the side of an apartment building.
“I’m helping.” Peter responds. “There are, like, a million of these things.”
Tony doesn’t respond, but throughout the battle, Peter can see the anger radiating off the man in waves. In the last minutes of the fight, when the fifteen-year-old is starting to sway on his feet from exhaustion, he gets sloppy and ends up with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth digging into his hip.
He hisses in pain, pushing the little snarling monster off and webbing it to the nearest wall. At the same time, Tony finishes killing the last group of the creatures, and immediately makes his way over to where Peter is leaning heavily against a wall, cradling his now bleeding hip.
“What happened?” Tony pries his hand away to get a better look at the injury. It comes away sticky and deep red.
“Nothing.” Peter groans when the pain intensifies. “It bit me. I’m fine. I might need a- a tetanus shot, or something. And I should send Ned a picture. He’s gonna’ think this is the coolest thing ever. Oh my God, do you think this thing will give me powers, too? Will I be half-spider and half-lizard? I hope not; it’s too late to change my look, you know?”
Peter keeps rambling on, mystified by the idea of adding a third species to his already muddled genetics, to the point where he barely even registers the pain of Tony inspecting and prodding at the sluggishly bleeding wound.
“You could’ve gotten yourself killed.” Tony says lowly, angrily, once he seems assured that the wound is only surface level. “How many times have I told you that if something is going on while you’re still in school, you stay where you fucking are?”
“I was helping-” Peter tries to argue, but Tony cuts him off.
“When are you going to get it through your head that playing hooky with your life isn’t a good fucking idea? Huh? You’re gonna’ get killed if you keep doing this. Is that what you want? You want me to have to show up to your apartment one day and tell your aunt that you’re dead?”
Peter flinches. “I’m sorry-”
“How do you think I’d feel?” Tony keeps going, face red with rage and eyes holding a certain pain that Peter doesn’t think he could even begin to understand, no matter how hard he tries. “Do you think I like watching you get hurt every third day? Do you think I’d just be okay if you fucking died? I wouldn’t! I would never be okay again! But you just keep running around in that costume, playing hero, and when you... you... Jesus Christ.”
Tony trails off as he falls into what Peter immediately recognizes as a panic attack, two hands braced on his knees as he tries, in vain, to breathe again. The teenager can only watch for a moment, horrified, before his brain kicks back into gear again and he steps forward, setting a hand on the older man’s back, who flinches away upon contact.
“It’s- it’s okay, Mr. Stark.” Peter whispers, feeling horribly awkward, but he plunges forward because he knows that Tony would do it for him. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Just breathe.”
Slowly, as the frigid mid-February wind whips passed them and leaves the fifteen-year-old shivering violently with each whispered comfort, Tony calms.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers when the worst of the attack is over.
Peter shakes his head at the apology. He knows from personal experience that shame takes its opportunities in the most vulnerable times, that humiliation crawls up his windpipe every time someone is there to witness his anxiety attempt to destroy him for the nth time, so he knows that a distraction is the best thing he can offer Tony right now.
“Ever tried a sandwich from Delmar’s?”
-
They end up on the roof of an apartment building down the block from Delmar’s. Peter scarfs down his sandwich (which is ninety percent pickles, at this point) quickly, then awkwardly fidgets with his hands while Tony eats his (slightly less pickle-y) sandwich.
“You don’t have to finish it if you don’t like it.” Peter offers, letting his insecurity get the best of him. “I know it’s not... I know you’ve probably had better because you eat, like, rich people food all the time, so you can just-”
“I like it.” Tony says simply, not looking at him as he takes another bite. Peter quiets, pressing his lips together and watching soft speckles of snow cover New York in a white blanket. If he listens hard enough, he can hear the gentle whir on Tony’s suit as it sits idle on his bones.
After a long time, when their sandwiches are nothing more than greasy wrappers crumpled up and set next to them, Tony speaks lowly. “I’m sorry about... all of this.”
Peter stares at the side of his head wordlessly. Tony looks deeply ashamed.
“I know...” The older man begins, breathing deep before starting again. “I know that this probably wasn’t what you had in mind when I gave you an internship; having to deal with me being a piping hot mess, I mean.”
“I don’t think you’re a piping hot mess.”
Tony narrows his eyes, disbelieving. “Anyways, yeah. That’s it. I’m sorry if it messes up your whole... Iron Man worship thing.”
“Actually, it makes me like Iron Man even more.”
Tony snorts.
“I’m serious! It makes you- or, uh, him more human. There’s nothing wrong with you, Mr. Stark. I mean, there’s technically something wrong, a little, but it doesn’t... it doesn’t make me look up to you any less, you know?”
It’s desperately honest, no matter how much Tony doesn’t want to believe him. Tony’s smile goes from rueful and self-hating to warmer, almost disbelieving that Peter could ever care about him with all of his flaws. The older man wraps an arm around his shoulder, closes his eyes and looks, for a flashing moment, utterly peaceful. Peter leans into the half-embrace.
“Thanks for sticking around, kid.”