Okay I changed my mind. Pt 3 was too short to be a pt 3 so I just made 2 parts.
Okie dokie so same trigger warnings apply (discussion of r@pe, restraining, panic attacks, unintentional self harm).
This chapter is the one that gets heavy. Like. This is the section that triggered my friend.
Sorry for the ending (unless you like it, than not sorry). It felt a bit rushed to me but idk how to fix it so that's how it is.
Having said that, I did a really long author's note last time, so here we go!
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Peter shot upright in his bed at May's, hands covering his mouth. It was dark and hot, too hot. He kicked off his blankets in a panic and rushed to his bathroom, falling to his knees and vomiting in the toilet. There came a point where he had nothing to throw up anymore and he just proceeded to dry heave, disturbed by the thoughts in his head left over from the nightmare.
God, it had seemed so real. Flash was in it, and Deimos. In the dream he went about his school day like any other, until lunch. Flash would catch up with him and something in Peter's stomach twisted as a voice in his head yelled at him to run, to get away, but before he could act on it, he was grabbed and pulled into a closet. Right around then was when Peter's line of sight got fuzzy. He figured that's when Deimos had fronted, so he didn't know why he had to see. God he wished he didn't have to see. He wished he didn't have to watch as Flash smiled at him, calling him degrading names as he reached for the buckle on his pants, as he slipped his hands under his shirt, as he used Peter like he was nothing other than a fuck-toy.
Peter of the present shook his head, sliding backwards to lean against his bathroom wall and take a deep breath. His brain was spinning, thinking long and hard even though Peter wished it wouldn't. His brain was just piercing together how the ceiling in his dream had looked eerily similar to the ceiling in his trauma flashes, how the hand reaching to open the closet door seemed too real for comfort, how the whole thing felt more like a memory than a fabricated terror.
Peter's eyes flew open and he threw himself at the toilet once again.
~
"I can't go to school today."
May looked up from the stove at Peter, who admittedly did look a little pale.
"Do you have a fever?"
"I was throwing up last night. Can't go to school for 24 hours after you throw up."
May frowned.
"Okay, now I know it's not Peter. He always insists on going to school. Who am I talking to?"
"Peter. Just Peter. May, seriously. I don't want to go to school today. Please."
May frowned and nodded.
"I guess, if you were throwing up."
Peter nodded and got up from his stool, walking back to his room and closing the door, paying no attention to May's frown.
~
Tony had made a face at the notification that popped up on his phone. It was from Peter, and Tony could already tell that it was not nearly long enough to answer his questions of why the boy hadn't been at school today, if he needed to come over, if he still felt sick. The text was a simple sentence, a short hey mr. stark, I won't be there for lab today.
And well, that just wouldn't do, would it?
So that's how Tony ended up knocking on the door of the Parkers apartment. At first no one had answered. Tony heard a door open and a few small footsteps, but they stopped a good few feet from the door as if waiting to make sure the person behind it would go away. Tony knocked again.
"Peter? It's just me. You seemed a little off in your texts, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
There was more silence with no movement. Then the footsteps walked away, and Tony sighed. He was just about to yell that he was leaving when he heard the steps again, coming all the way towards the door this time. There was the sound of a lock clicking, and the steps retreated again, leaving Tony to open the door himself. He did so and locked the door back up behind him, finally turning to Peter.
Who was a mess.
Peter's hair was sticking up in all directions, his face red and eyes puffy. His nose was a little runny, and Peter wiped at it with his hoodie sleeve. He looked like he had just rolled out of bed, which he probably had.
"Peter?"
Peter nodded, and Tony shook his head.
"What happened, kiddo? Are you sick?"
"Yeah," he croaked out, his voice raw and scratchy. Tony winced as he continued. "Yeah, I'm sick. I'm so sick of life. I'm so sick of people screwing me over and me not remembering it. And I'm so excited to kill Deimos for not choosing to either keep this to himself or to let me know right off the bat. I fucking hate him."
Peter was crying again by the end of his rant, holding his throat and trying not to fall over with the force of his painful sounding sobs. Tony walked over to him and gently took his shoulders, leading him to the couch and helping him sit down. Peter pulled his legs to his chest and took a deep breath, wincing at the pain in his throat. God, hysterical sobbing was not something he enjoys, especially the feeling he'd get when his throat would close up and he felt like he wasn't breathing. He took another deep breath, and Tony rubbed small circles into his back to ground him.
"Sorry."
"Hey, no need to apologize. You're fine."
They sat in silence for a little while longer before Tony spoke again.
"Wanna talk about it?"
"I had a nightmare last night. It was... it was... I don't know. God, it scared me so much that I woke up and ran to the bathroom to throw up. And then my brain just did it's thing and I realized that it was all real. It's not often you realize your nightmares are fucking real and came from an altar who is suppsed to be keeping that info for themself. And when I got out of bed this morning, I just couldn't go to school. I-I couldn't look at people. I don't know if I can tomorrow either. Or ever."
"Peter, what happened? What was your nightmare about?"
"Mr. Stark? Have you ever had something done to you without your consent? Stupid question, yes you have, a whole ass surgery. How did you feel afterward? Broken? Changed forever? Like your opinion didn't matter anymore? Twice now. This has happened to me twice now. I have two different altars for the same thing, brought on by two different people. God, why does this keep happening to me?"
"What, Peter? Why does what keep happening to you?"
Peter seemed to have left the room, gone into his own reality as he talked, almost hysterically pushing out the words.
"Magazines and brooms, games and silence, fun and compliance. Clothes and then no clothes and babysitters and bullies and blood and stickiness and touching and belts and screaming and hands and..."
Peter kept going on and on, and Tony didn't think the boy even remembered Tony was in the room. But Tony was in the room, and feeling rather sick at the moment. Peter hadn't stated outright, and Tony didn't know if he would (that would just make it too real, wouldn't it?). But even without the word said outright, Tony still knew what he was talking about.
And god, Tony didn't know a heart breaking would feel as painful as it did at that moment.
~
It turned out that May, as hard as she tried, just couldn't be good enough. Granted, through his rage, Tony didn't think that May was really trying that hard. After all, who could think she was trying hard when, after finding out that Peter had just gone through an earth shattering event again, she kicked him out. It had been stated so styraight-forwardly that Tony hadn't processed it at first. Peter, however, had.
"You're what?"
"I'm kicking you out. I'm so sorry, Peter, but I can't help you anymore. I've tried, so hard, and I keep failing. I think it's time for you to get someone else's help, someone else's love."
Tony just stared as the words sunk in, and Peter shook his head.
"Wow. Okay. I've been waiting for this for a few years now so I guess I shouldn't be surprised, huh? Will you at least make sure I go somewhere where I can take my stuff?"
"I thought you'd go with Tony? Are you not?"
"I don't know. He's not really tuned into the convo right now, is he?"
"No, I am. I'll take him. If you are dumb enough to quict trying, I'll take him and try better. Get your stuff Peter. Whatever you want for now. We'll get the rest of it later."
Peter and May both stared at him for a moment before Peter nodded and went to his room, coming out a few minutes later with a backpack.
"Bye," Tony said walking out the door.
And May watched Peter leave, neither of them saying goodbye.
Peter hates goodbyes.
~
Tony stormed into Midtown High's office, going right up to one of the secretaries.
"I'd like to speak to your boss, please."
~
Tony stormed back out of Midtown, gears turning in his brain as he glared at the students taking pictures. One of them came up to him, and he was ready to push him away if he hadn't recognized the kid last minute.
"Hey, Ned."
Ned hurried to keep beside Tony as he walked towards the doors.
"Is Peter okay? This is like the second day in a row he hasn't been at school and he won't respond to my texts."
"Yeah. Well, no. You know, he's not okay. I'm fixing it. And I'm starting with expelling that Flash kid. And then I'm gonna give you guys an entirely new office staff. Now, I have to go, but I'll text you later, okay? Peter needs some friends right now. We'll get you and...what's her name? MJ? We'll get you and MJ out of school tomorrow. Bye, Ted!"
Ned stood there for a minute, processing.
"A new office staff... huh."
~
Turns out, the principal knew about the whole situation and never told anyone. There were cameras installed in the janitor's closet after she was hired, because the principal thought she looked suspicious and wanted to make sure that she didn't try to harm his school in any way. As it turned out, the janitor's closet was Eugene's favorite place to bring Peter.
When the principal had found out, he had done nothing other than email the Thompson parents and tell them that their kid had made an action that required either an expulsion or a raise in donation money, which happened to go right to the principal's bank account.
Tony was not thrilled, and even less thrilled when he returned to the tower penthouse and saw Peter laying on the couch, his head in Steve's lap as he stared into space with glazed over eyes. Steve's hands were dragging their way through Peter's hair as gently as possible as he looked up at Tony.
"He had a panic attack earlier. He came out here and laid down and I started playing with his hair and he freaked out. When he calmed down, he told me to be softer. Something about not pulling his hair."
Eugene pulled his hair. He pulled his kids' hair.
For some reason, that realization made everything real, and Tony found himself running to the bathroom, crying for his kid as he threw up his lunch.
~
Peter was tired. He was tired of people hovering over him and trying to comfort him and always treating him like he was glass that could shatter at any moment. He was tired of floating around in his own brain, but not really retreating. No one else had fronted in a while and Deimos was nowhere to be seen.
Peter was also just tired in general, so he didn't think much of it when a voice he felt comfort in whispered in his brain to relax and take a break from his body. He just let it pull him down, tuck him into silence, and leave him to the peace.
~
Tony had been watching when the switch happened. Honestly, he was surprised that Peter hadn't checked out sooner. He knew this whole thing had to be stressful, and it probably didn't help that they had all been treating him with the utmost care they could muster. He tried not to, because he knew Peter would hate it, but it was hard not to when your kid who you cared about more than anything in the world would spend his days laying on the couch, staring at nothing.
He watched whomever had fronted as they blinked a few times, shifting under the blanket as if they didn't quite know how to use the body. It took a minute, but eventually they sat up and shook their head as if to clear it, curls bouncing limply, before looking up at Tony.
"Sorry, I don't usually front. Not my kind of thing. I just keep the system in semi-control, supervise them. Chaos. I was the first altar. He/him."
Chaos held his hand out for Tony to take, and Tony leaned forward to do so. It was rather awkward, but Chaos didn't seem to mind, so Tony brushed it off while trying to think of something to say.
"So, the first altar, huh? Do you mind sharing that story?"
"Not at all. Not deep details, but I can give you a general overview."
"A gist is better than nothing."
Chaos nodded and frowned.
"Peter was about five, almost six. His parents were still around before I was formed, and one day, they went on a trip. They dropped Peter off with his aunt and uncle, and they promised him that they would be back in a while. Of course, they weren't. When May and Ben told Peter he was just confused. He didn't quite understand, he was only five, after all."
Tony nodded, already hating the story. He could see it, though. A small Peter Parker, light freckles dotting his cheeks from his time outside, small curls trimmed neatly, dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, wide eyes filling with tears as his little eyebrows furrowed in confusion and his lips twisted downwards.
"May and Ben could tell that he didn't quite absorb the information right away. They didn't know what to do, naturally, so they sent him up to bed. Peter did not fall asleep right away, though. He just kept thinking, over and over, that his aunt had to be lying, because his parents had promised and they never broke their promises. After a second, he thought the same thing again, but with anger. He was so angry at his parents for breaking their promise that he just got up on his little five year old legs and started kicking and throwing and tearing the blankets off his bed. Of course, he couldn't do much since he didn't have a lot of muscle, but he tried. And at some point, he started panicking too badly that he wasn't breathing. He passed out, and when he woke up, I was there, picking up his room and making his bed and making sure he hadn't hurt his body at all."
"Had he?"
"No. he tried to never intentionally hurt himself when he has episodes like that. It doesn't always work, and that's usually when I come out. Don't panic, it's never anything bad and it's never intentional."
Tony took a deep breath, because wow, that was a lot to learn about your kid in an hour, and he let it out with a small shudder.
"Well, at least it's not intentional."
There was silence (god, Tony was starting to hate the silence), and Tony's brain suddenly formed a question.
"Hey, you guys are all named after some sort of Greek Mythology thing, right? What's with 'Chaos'?"
Tony felt dumb the instant that he asked, but Chaos just laugjed and nodded.
"Chaos, in mythology, is essentially the first of everything. There was the earth, whatever heavens you believe in, and then the space between was chaos. Chaos birthed the first gods and goddesses, the sky, the night, etcetera. Chaos also sort of keeps a sort of calm over the world as it advanced, not stopping them from their actions, but making sure that the entire race they created wouldn't be wiped out in one blow. I thought it was a fitting name. Peter was there before me, I filled up the space made by his trauma. I supervise the other altars as well as Peter, making sure they don't end up killing us all."
"The name is kind of ironic then, huh?"
Chaos nodded, smiling.
"Yeah, it is."
There was silence again, but not so heavy this time. Chaos took a deep breath after a while, and Tony looked up at him.
"Dissociative Identity Disorder is a covert disorder. If I had my way, not even you would know about it. Not even Peter would know about it. But you do. I;m not complaining, because you and the others have been rather impressive about reacting and accommodating for him. The issue is though, that it is still a covert disorder. We are here to protect Peter, and we failed. When we fail, we try to fix it ourselves, and usually we can. But this time, we can't do it ourselves. Having said that, I've been paying more attention than Peter to our surroundings. You have a plan about Eugene. Would you be willing to share that with me? Maybe I can have the others help, or at least stay out of our way."
"Our way?"
Chaos smirked.
"I'm helping however I can. I was the first. Peter and I did a lot of bonding when he found out he wasn't exactly normal. I'm not going to not help."
Tony stared for a minute before smiling.
"I admire you. I'm sure you can help every once in a while, especially in the paperwork stages of the plan."
"That's all I want."
"Perfect. Here's the plan..."
~
Chaos was a fucking genius. God, all Tony had to do was hand over papers for him to read and Chaos would come back fifteen minutes to a half hour later with pages of paper filled with scribbles of dirt on the Thompsons and on the current principal of Midtown. Pages and pages of leverage stacked up as Tony filed lawsuit after lawsuit. Once all of those were filed, Tony sat Chaos down and managed to figure out just how long the bullying has been occuring, as well as the events that happened in the closet. After filing complaints on those events, Tony leaned back in his chair, sighing and rubbing a hand over his face.
"Stressed, huh?"
"Yeah. That's a lot of lawsuits. They don't stand a chance."
Chaos nodded.
"Yeah. you'd think they'd try to be at least a little better about covering up that stuff, huh? They're all rather criminal in their lives."
Tony snorted, getting up and stretching.
"You'd think. Hungry?"
"Hell yes."
~
It was a long and messy process, but Tony ended up winning the trials. He vividly remembered running through the courthouse doors to Peter, who was waiting in the car for the verdict. Peter only had to take one look at Tony's ecstatic face before he burst into tears, jumping up to hug the man as he sobbed. The sun was out, and it glinted off Peter's freshly washed curls and into Tony's eyes.
"Oh, Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. We did it! We did it. New principal, no more of that kid or his parents. School will be safe again for you. Safe. I swear."
~
Peter hesitantly stepped into his school for the first time in about a month, taking a deep breath as he felt Deimos confront. He stood in the doorway for a minute, watching the other students mull around the hallways, closing their lockers and grabbing books for class. He took a deep breath and stepped forward, smiling softly as the new principal, Morita, stepped out of the office to greet the students.
"Peter! You're alive!"
Peter snorted as Ned ran up to him, MJ following not far behind. Ned wrapped Peter in a hug, MJ waving at him with a small smile. Ned hugged him tighter, and Peter relaxed into his friend's arms.
"Never again. Tony and I, and MJ, we'll make sure it never happens again."
Peter felt Deimos relax, and he smiled.
"Thank you."
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After that whole affair, Peter realized that it wouldn't be too terrible if the other Avengers met his altars, would it? I want Natasha to bond with a little, Tony to bond more with Chaos, Clint and Loki to bond with Loki (lol let's confuse everyone), Steve to bond with H more, and i need some Thor and Peter action, because i just think they'd be best friends lol try and convince me otherwise.
Okay, that was part 2! I'm still half full of energy and really want some hot chocolate because fun fact hot chocolate is my comfort drink, but I'm quarantined to a room and can't leave. So. No comfort for me ig.
Anyways, question!
What is your favorite comfort drink?
Okay, I guess that since I now have more than one person yelling at me to go to sleep I probably should at least get off my phone.
Peace out!
-person