Please please please let me know what you think!
tw: self-harm, pills, depression, anxiety
summary: tony has peter over to the tower for a movie night... and to finally talk about what he saw on the boy's arm.
word count: 3024
Everything seemed so normal. Tony was waiting for him as Happy led the way inside headquarters. A quick jerk of the billionaire's head directed Peter to follow him towards the lab.
"Hey, Kid. Follow me a minute before we start the movie. I want you to try something."
Peter obeyed uncertainly, his skin crawling with nervousness and all of his over-active senses even more on edge than they always were.
"What do you mean, Mr. Stark? Something with my suit?"
He wasn't given an answer, but he wasn't really expecting one. Tony didn't do questions about the lab. The lab was a place for showing, not telling.
Peter trailed his mentor on a familiar trail down a few hallways before they reached a door unlocked with a retinal scan, which opened to one of Peter's favorite places on earth.
It was a strangely organized mess, as usual. Mr. Stark wove his way around various tables and stools stacked with tech and half-completed experiments before he found the right one and reached into the clutter to withdraw a bottle Peter wouldn't have even seen among its surroundings.
The inventor tossed it to Peter, then nodded to a small fridge against a nearby wall. "Grab some water and take two."
The teen opened the bottle and peered inside uncertainly. The pills inside didn't look like anything unusual... he would have taken them for Ibuprofen if he hadn't known better.
"Mr. Stark, these don't work on me," he said, dragging his sincere gaze up to the older man's.
"I'm hoping these ones do, alright?" Tony replied patiently. "Just give 'em a try, okay, Kiddo?"
Peter nodded in resignation and walked over to the fridge, opening it and pulling out a bottle of water. He uncapped it before pouring two of the mystery pills into his hand. He only allowed himself a brief hesitation before raising them to his lips and washing them down with a swig of water.
When he'd recapped both bottles, he looked back up at his mentor. "Now what?"
"If they do anything, they should do it within twenty minutes or so," Tony replied easily. "So we hang out for a little and see what happens."
Peter nodded, then hesitantly sank onto a nearby stool. "So... did you come up with that yesterday?"
He shrugged a little. "Last night."
Peter knew him well enough to know that meant he'd stayed up all night working on it.
"I was working with the bones of something Bruce tried to put together for Steve," he continued. "He had the same issues as you when it came to that. So, I didn't have to do any of the really hard stuff."
Peter nodded, considering the statement. It was hard for him to imagine it... the OG Avengers, all living here and fighting together. Those Avengers were celebrities of his childhood, seeming to exist in an entirely different universe than the one he was living in, where he spent time here, with Iron Man, every week, and had fought beside Black Widow and stolen Captain America's shield.
Not that this world was going to last much longer.
The boy stared at the pill bottle that was still in his hand, and his mind returned to the name Tony had just mentioned.
