A Puzzling Thing

Chapter 11

About 30 minutes after the incident with Bruce, Peter was walking home from Stark tower. It was still light outside and he was wearing his suit underneath a hoodie and pair of sweatpants that Natasha was polite enough to let him borrow.

And then the realization hit them like a freight train.

    As soon as Peter arrived home, he greeted Aunt May and gave her a hug, and then rushed to his room. They quickly opened their laptop, double checked that they were on their personal account, and googled "autism symptoms teenager".

    As the results loaded, they clicked on the first link. He read the symptoms, which were in the form list. The first one was "dislikes or gets overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights, certain texture, etc." Peter thought back to some of the more recent times that they had gotten overwhelmed by sounds or noises. Gym class, the light flickering in the meeting, the fluorescent lights at school, and so many other things were super overwhelming.

But surely that didn't mean he was autistic. Right?

They kept reading, "Dislikes or doesn't make eye contact". Peter thought back to all of the times that people had gotten mad at them for not making eye contact. But he thought that everyone was just like that sometimes.

They kept reading the article and relating to every point that was listed, and then read another article. And another.

"Fuck," he said to himself. They thought, "but I couldn't possibly me autistic, right?". He layed in his bed, thinking and thinking, until he finally fell asleep.

    The morning arrived, and Peter hadn't slept well. They decided to go to see if Bruce would be available to talk.

    "Can we talk?" Peter texted.

    A few minutes later, Bruce texted back, "Yes, I'll be at Stark Tower around 11:00, what do you need to talk about?"

    "We can talk about what I need to talk about when I get there," Peter texted.

    As 11:00 was quickly approaching, Peter left for Stark towers, wearing their civilian clothes. He said "good-bye" to Aunt May and then started walking to Stark Tower.