Pain Will Always Come Back to Haunt You

(Anti)Social Butterfly

"Then we have what happened with the Chitauri alien stuff about six years ago." A shaky video of the Iron Man suit starts playing. Tony has some sort of missile or nuke in the strong grip of his suit. If Peter had blinked, he would've missed Tony suddenly disappearing into thin air. "He flew a nuke into an alien portal." Peter shakes head in shock.

"I knew they beat up all the aliens and went through hell to save everyone...but this? This is insane..." A few moments later, Tony reappears. He limply falls through the sky until the Hulk catches him midair and takes him to the ground. The video ends there. Definitely trauma and PTSD inducing.

"The next thing took a bit more digging to find, but it definitely fits your requirement of 'traumatizing.'" Ned clicks on another video, even shakier than the last, and Peter waits for the scene to unfold. The phone camera is trained on someone, presumably Tony, rushing through a crowd outside of some sort of restaurant. Peter's thoughts are confirmed when the Tony quickly lets the Iron Man suit envelop him. Surprisingly, he drops to one knee and his fist rests on the asphalt beneath him for support. What's happening? It's hard to hear over the chattering crowd, but Peter can make out bits and pieces of Tony's mechanical voice; "check...heart...the brain...poison...severe anxiety... me?" Rhodey walks up to him and knocks on the outside of the suit before Tony flies off.

"Did he just..." Peter can't even finish his thought.

"Yeah. Anxiety attack." That's...that's how Mr. Stark knew how to help me with my anxiety attack. He's had them. Not only that, but the torture in Afghanistan and the Chitauri battle is probably why he didn't want anything to do with blood when Dr. Banner started talking about blood tests. It's starting to make sense. "That's all I got in the trauma department, but I do have information about the Sokovia Accords. There's not much info that I could get to legally, but I was able to do a bit of...investigating." Peter raises an eyebrow.

"What kind of investigating? On a scale of Scooby-Doo to Sherlock Holmes?"

"At least Nancy Drew levels of sleuthing," Ned admits with a sly smile. Peter chuckles and shakes his head. One of these days, the FBI is going to bust down our door. "The dude who proposed the Accords in the first place was the U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross. I swear, I got chills when I read his name. I mean, that's totally a villain name!" Ned squeaks.

"Focus, Ned."

"Right. Well, Ross is a retired Lieutenant General and, like I said, the current U.S. Secretary. He's not a nice guy, like, at all. I have no idea how he got elected." He clicks on a picture on his desktop and it expands to show a picture of a grumpy, older man with silver hair. "The Sokovia Accords are, and I quote, 'a framework for the registration and deployment of enhanced individuals.'" Peter sighs, the pieces clicking together.

"Which especially includes the Avengers and people like me," he grumbles. Secretary Ross wanted to put the Avengers on a leash and Captain America pushed back. "But that means Mr. Stark...agreed with Secretary Ross? I mean, I know that's why I went to Germany. Mr. Stark said Captain America thought he was doing the right thing, but wasn't. I had no idea it was something like this..." Peter obviously doesn't know a lot about the Accords, but he does know that he wouldn't want the government telling him when Spider-Man could save someone's life or not. The sudden thoughts startle him. Am I a part of the Accords? Is Spider-Man?

"It's okay, man. You had no way of knowing." Ned looks up at him with genuine eyes and Peter smiles. Still, there's an unsettling feeling in the pit of Peter's stomach. If this Secretary Ross guy is pushing Mr. Stark, is something going to happen to him? Is that why Mr. Stark has been so anxious and...overprotective lately? Even if that's the case, it still makes him sick to his stomach the way Tony snapped at him. With the way the man has been stressed lately though, he can't exactly blame him. Especially if Secretary Ross has been on his case. Ned's desk starts vibrating and Peter looks over to the lit up phone. "Crap, we're gonna be late for Betty's party! C'mon, we gotta go!" Ned flies out of his chair and practically leaps into his closet to find something to wear.