TRIGGER WARNING!! MENTIONS OF SELF HARM WITH THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE!!
Tony remembered the exact moment that May Parker had called him. He never received calls from her and was unable to control the worry for Peter that was building in him at whatever news she held. Had Peter not come home after his trip to the Compound? Was he deathly sick from some kind of poisoning? Maybe some criminal found him and was holding them hostage?
When he answered the call, he had barely uttered a greeting before May started yelling at him. He couldn't understand most of what she was saying, but he was able to pull the keywords 'Spiderman', 'suit', and 'how dare you' from her ranting. Putting those pieces of information together, it was easy to say that May found out about her Nephew galavanting across the city in red and blue tights.
May seemed to hold Tony personally responsible for Peter's... side job, and wouldn't be placated for any promise that Tony tried to give. She demanded to meet with him and have him explain it all to her, every little detail that she wanted to know. Who was Tony to deny her? She was like a hurricane, a true force of nature that should not be tried.
When they met up at the cafe, May had calmed down slightly. Not really. But she wasn't screaming anymore and had stopped threatening his life, which Tony took as an improvement. He had made sure they were completely alone at the back of the cafe before he laid out his blueprints for Spiderman's suit, and all the safety protocols that were strictly enforced. He told her what had happened when he tried to stop Peter from being Spiderman by taking his suit away, he told her that Peter wouldn't stop being Spiderman no matter what anyone told him; May seemed to realize it as well as she silently cursed her husband and the Avengers for putting such a sense of heroism in the boy.
As the two of them talked it out, May demanded weekly updates on Peter. She knew that the boy wouldn't tell her everything that happened to him while he was gliding across the city, and that Tony had all the readings to his suit to tell him if anything ever went wrong. So they both agreed to meet at the cafe every week and share stories about each side of Peter's lives.
One such time, Tony noticed that May was acting differently than normal. Her smile didn't meet her eyes, she didn't keep eye contact for long, and she ordered a simple coffee without any kind of food to go with it. She barely batted an eye when Tony told her how Peter stopped an armed robbery, her mind deep in thought.
"You know," May finally started, staring into her coffee with a faraway gaze, "I hate that Peter is running around the city and putting himself in danger, but I'm glad that it's healing him."
Tony raised a curious eyebrow at the woman and tilted his head slightly. "Healing him how?"
"You didn't know?" She almost sounded shocked, as if it was the most obvious thing. Tony simply shook his head at her, not bothering to speak her confirmation out loud.
"Peter used to suffer from depression, borderline suicidal."
The new information was like a bucket of ice being poured on him, his eyes widening and mouth opening slightly in shock. Peter -- his Peter -- was suicidal? There was no way.
"I had had a feeling that something was wrong," May started to explain, "but could never prove anything. My boy is too good an actor... But one night I came home early to find him in the bathroom with a razor to his wrist." May's eyes took on a haunted look as she recalled the night. "There was so much blood, I was worried that he cut the artery and was going to bleed out on my bathroom floor... I tried taking him to the hospital but he outright refused me, and I couldn't drag him out of that apartment no matter how hard I tried. He was a scrawny little thing, but he was strong when he needed to be. So I patched him up as best as I could, trying to talk about it with him but he shut me out that night. It was like... it was like he wasn't my Peter when we would talk about that."
Tony's throat felt like it was closing, his ears not believing what he was hearing. It was so hard for him to imagine Peter like that, all his mind could see was the happy fifteen-year-old that couldn't shut up to save his life. The happy fifteen-year-old that followed the Avengers around like a puppy, just waiting for his next big break. The fifteen-year-old that had a problem with self-preservation and common medical sense. The fifteen-year-old that had been shot and stabbed in order to protect people, not caring in the least about his own safety. The fifteen-year-old that always seemed to wait until the last possible second to fire of one of his webs before he hit the ground or side of a building.
"He acted like his normal self during the day as long as I didn't bring it up," May continued, "but now that I had seen what he was feeling, I could tell that it was always the worst for him at night. I always tried to get him to talk about it, to open up to me or Ned or anyone, but he would close himself off again and only get worse. I remember crying when I was forced to throw out all the knives and razors in the house...
"But then, shortly after that, I noticed an improvement in him. I pride myself in knowing when Peter's lying to me and when he isn't, and I could see that he was doing better. He was smiling brightly and hanging out with Ned, he joined so many groups in his school -although they didn't last for long- and would come home and spend hours with me just talking about it all. I thought he was just getting help from someone at school, but now that I know the truth... Spiderman saved my boy."
Tony wasn't good with emotions, that was obvious -everyone knew it. The man would just rather pretend that they didn't exist than to try and offer words of comfort to others. But this was Peter they were talking about... He couldn't ignore Peter's emotions, no matter how hard he tried. The boy had a talent of getting into Tony's heart and making feel emotions that Tony would rather not think about.
Thankfully, May had seen Tony's struggle for words and called it a night. When the two of them parted that evening, Tony's head was in overload. He remembered how after the ferry incident, Peter said he was nothing without the suit, nothing without Spiderman. Tony just thought it was the fame that was getting to Peter at the time, he didn't think there was any kind of deeper meaning to those words. Was that the kid's way of reaching out to him? And what did Tony do? Take away the one thing that gave (what the kid thought) Peter's life meaning. Tony had guilt tripped himself enough in the past for taking the suit away, but now there was a whole new meaning to it. He could have caused the kid to-
With a shake of his head, Tony abolished the thought and walked down the street, turning into a few alleys and climbing up a fire escape to the roof of an apartment building. Wouldn't the residents have a nice surprise if they looked out their windows now to see the great Tony Stark climbing up the rusted metal? But he needed to talk to Peter and this was the only thing Tony's clouded mind could think of right now.
It didn't take long before another presence joined him on the roof.
"Hey, Mr. Stark, what are you doing up here?" Peter asked, his voice slightly muffled by his Spiderman mask.
"Kid..." Tony turned to look at him, taking his sunglasses off, "Kid, you know that I'm not good with all this emotional support kind of thing - it's never really been my style, emotions are just... eh. But I want you to know, no matter what it is, I'm here for you. Day or night. Alright?"
Peter's head tilted slightly in confusion, his lenses narrowing just a fraction as he studied Tony's face. His shoulders soon drooped as he went to lean against the tin of a vent and pulled off his mask.
"May told you, didn't she?" He simply asked, playing with the mask.
"Yeah. Kid, look-"
"Listen, I know what I was doing back then was a selfish move that hurt a lot of people. Just because I was struggling to get over something, I was pulling everyone else down with me." Peter looked up at him, those brown eyes seeming to age centuries, "But I have a purpose now. I feel better about myself and I know better than back then. I have a lot going for me in life now, things I don't want to give up. Spiderman gave me a purpose in life and helped me realize how stupid I was back then."
Tony and Peter stared into each other's eyes for some time before the older man nodded and slipped his shades back on. "Good. That's good, kid. Just keep it in mind, okay?"
Tony patted his shoulder as he started to make his way back down the fire escape when Peter called out to him.
"Mr. Stark?" He waited until Tony was facing him before speaking again, "Spiderman may have given me a purpose in life... But you helped me realize that Peter's life is better than it was before."
Tony's brows furrowed slightly, asking a silent question as the boy looked down. "After Berlin, and especially when I was working on finding the Vulture, I was planning on dropping out of school to become a full-time hero. I quit band and robotics because I was worried that it would be too much stuff going on in my life if you ever called me back for a mission. But then you took the suit away from me and I was left with no choice but to be Peter Parker and live my life as normal as I can be. And it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be... I was actually happy.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is..." Peter shuffled his feet as a blush crept onto his cheeks, "Spiderman may have saved past Peter from himself, but you saved this Peter from Spiderman. If that makes sense?"
The older man's face was blank for a second before a small smile graced the world. "Yeah, it makes sense, kid. Glad that I could help."
Peter grinned back and gave a mock salute to Tony as the man climbed back down the building and to his car, confident in the fact that the kid would be alright now or come to him if he were ever in need again.
A/N: I normally hate these types of stories because they seem so far out of character, I couldn't help myself when I was trying to sleep one night and had to write it down.