Break the Water

8

Before anyone says anything about this, I wrote this chapter at 1 AM. I have made very bad choices this evening and suddenly I thought: "hey some people asked how many months till the next chapter" cause it usually takes me eight. Now it only took three, so yayyy

I'm high as fuck. Or at least it feels like it.

Anyway, enjoy!

Ps. This has not been edited or checked for grammar/spelling mistakes. Sorry :'(

Also, TW: mentions of suicidal thoughts and suicidal topics. Read at your own risk.

~

Talking had never really been Peter's strong suit. Ok, that came out wrong: he loved to talk, did it a bit too often, even, but he was absolutely awful at having heartfelt conversations about his emotions. He usually tried to push them away, suppress them with a lot of force so other people wouldn't have to deal with his problems. That's why he always managed to keep his panic attacks to himself on the floor of his bedroom instead of the middle of the class.

Keeping panic attacks to himself was alright as long as he knew that he would soon be home to face all of his problems by himself, or perhaps even in the arms of his aunt. When it was early in the morning on a school day, he would go to the nearest bathroom stall and wait for it all to be over.

Of course Ned knew that he had panic attacks, MJ most likely did as well, but neither of them had ever seen him have one. Tony didn't even know that the kid had anxiety in the first place. (But then again, Peter didn't know about Tony's either.)

Because he had never had to deal with people around him if he had a panic attack, Peter didn't know what to say now that thee Avengers were looking right at him with worry evident in their eyes right after having seen one of the kid's attacks.

The attacks were caused by stress, peer pressure, bullying or the intensity of people around him for about half of the time. Even though you wouldn't expect it, the problems that a superhero faces are usually common things that everyone goes through. The other half contained out of flashbacks from his traumatising past and gruesome images of his daily patrols that popped into his head.

Before this mission, Peter had always thought that the ones about his uncle were the worst. As it turns out, Adrian Toomes haunts his mind even more.

"I have thalasphobia," Peter said to the three Avengers, deciding that it would be best not to beat around the bush. Who knows, all of his thoughts about anxiety and panic could be causing even more anxiety and panic. "Oh." Was the response that he got. He knew that he wasn’t in the presence of the most talkative Avengers, but he had expected a bit more reaction out of at least one of them.

"So your panic attack was caused by the water?" Steve asked. Peter nodded in response. "Then this is... quite the situation," Bucky piped up as he looked around him. "'Cause there's a lot of that around here."
"Yeah, I figured that one out."

"Why are you afraid of the water?" Natasha asked. Peter shrugged and pulled his feet closer to his chest. "I don’t know. It's just so deep and dark. Drowning doesn't seem like a very fun way to die and God knows what kind of creatures could be luring around the corner." He looked at Natasha's leg. "Your shark incident didn't help either."

Natasha looked down at her leg and then back at the boy, whose face was drained of colour. She quickly placed her leg out of his sight. "Oh- oh but that was nothing! It was a very small baby shark, almost as tiny as my fist. The wound just looks a lot more serious because of the water that thinned out the blood. In reality it's only a few drops."