10 Times Tony Stark Saved Peter Parker and Two Times He Couldn't

#1: Panic

It started off slowly, so slowly that not even Peter noticed it. A subtle change in his everyday routine, a small tweak in his emotions and thought process. It's like there was something constantly nagging at the back of his mind, drawing his attention, and slowly growing bigger and bigger. It was small at first, quick bursts of panic, times when Peter would become scared and nervous, his Spidey-senses tingling and perking up as if in danger. But there would never be anything there, never any danger. The first time it happened was while he was hanging out with Ned. The two were in Ned's room working on a new Lego set that Ned had gotten, it was 5000 pieces and a Millennium Falcon replica. Peter was excited and the two were having fun, he forgot about his superhero life for just a second, then it happened. His senses perked and fear racked his body. He excused himself quickly and practically ran to the bathroom. Peter immediately asked Karen if there was any sort of danger to which she quickly replied with a firm, "no." He was still terrified for some reason, a reason he couldn't place. It took a good five minutes before he was calm enough to go back to building the Millennium Falcon. That ordeal was the first of many "episodes" that plagued Peter. They became more and more frequent, coming on at Ned's house, his own apartment, school, and even once or twice while he was patrolling.

Then the nightmares came. Nightmares that would wake Peter up at two in the morning with sweat pouring down his neck and tears streaming down his face. The first time it happened he brushed it off as a fluke, a one-and-done type ordeal. But then they happened over and over again, each time Peter would wake up more violently. Sometimes screaming, sometimes crying, and other times waking up with a bone-crushing weight in his chest, making it so that he couldn't breathe properly. After about a month, he just gave up on sleeping, instead he opted for sitting on his bed, and reading or doing some sort of project.

It slowly got worse and worse, he wasn't sleeping and the moments of panic were getting worse and worse. It was a school day, he was working with the decathlon team and he got a question wrong.

"Nice job, Parker. This is why you're a failure," Flash had taunted.

It had sent him reeling and Peter left swiftly, finding the nearest empty room, and letting the attack come. He couldn't breathe, he could barely see, nothing but fear and panic was racking his body. It lasted about 20 minutes, until he finally could breathe properly and walk without shaking. This was the first panic attack in a long series of panic attacks. Within 3 months of the first one, Peter had survived through over 50 panic attacks. They were slowly tearing him apart, on the inside and on the outside. Along with the panic attacks and nightmares and anxiety, came the worst of the worst, the depression. It was eating him from the inside out, eating out a hole in his soul, and leaving an empty space in his life. He had become quiet, withdrawn, he was losing weight swiftly, and his energy was gone. Nothing could excite Peter anymore, not even his twice weekly lab visits with Tony could peak his interest.

It was a Friday afternoon and it was time for him to go from school to Tony's lab, but today he had no energy to. He walked out of school and saw Happy sitting in the car waiting for him. He got in and closed the door, not bothering to say anything to Happy. The security guard immediately took notice, realizing that he wasn't his normal chatty self. They got to the Tower and Peter slumped out of the car, dragging his feet as he walked through the Tower to Tony's lab. He sat down in a chair and started mindlessly fiddling with some sort of project. Mr. Stark wasn't there yet and he assumed that he was in some sort of meeting. Peter couldn't stand it anymore, the blackness was overwhelming, it was eating away at him and he didn't know how to handle it.

That's when the panic set in, the attack came on quickly. Peter stood up off the chair and found the nearest corner of the room, practically falling into the corner, his arms clutching his legs to his chest. The voices were so loud, the panic thrumming in his ears like a jack-hammer, it was all he could focus on. His vision was clouded over, his senses were going crazy, tingling and standing up as if he was in imminent danger. The tears came then, spilling over and rolling down his cheeks, splashing onto the ground below him. Peter was shaking, just as violently as the thrumming in his ears, and he couldn't stop it. It was too loud, too scary, too painful, he just wanted it to stop.