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Peter was going to die.
And it’d be all his fault.
He had so much he had to do and so much more that he wanted to do. There was a project in almost every one of his classes. He needed to finish his English homework and he needed to ask Aunt May if she was able to buy the equipment he needed for his science fair project but he couldn’t get off the floor. He knew he should go out as Spider-Man, could see the suit hanging off his desk chair in the corner of his eye but even the thought of moving from where he lay seemed to physically hurt.
Well… not physically exactly, that was an exaggeration. It was more so that he couldn’t bare to stand, to take out his school computer without wanting to scream as though it burned him or run into his closet to hide from his problems.
Even as Peter thought about everything he needed to do,
He couldn’t get up.
He should call MJ or Ned or at least respond to their texts after he left them on read but,
He couldn’t get up.
He should go eat the dinner that May had called him down for hours before but even as his stomach grumbled angrily,
He couldn’t get up.
He felt as though he was drowning, feeling useless and incompetent as he found patterns in the ceiling paint with his eyes and yet,
He couldn’t get up.
There was so much to do and so little time. Aunt May had given up trying to get him to come out of room for dinner after he told her he was fine. His phone lay on his bed, buzzing with texts that went unanswered and calls that went to voicemail. He felt pinned to the floor, his anxiety a heavy weight on his chest, reminding Peter of the building he had once found himself trapped under. This was different though — So incredibly different yet so exactly the same — and Peter began comparing the two experiences in his mind, just another way to procrastinate the work he needed done.
There was no bricks nor rubble piled over him. Nothing that he could physically lift off of himself and yet just like then, he couldn’t move.
There was no fire, no imminent danger or threat, but his heart rate was still through the roof, cold hard terror pumping through his veins as though there was.
There was no dust in the air and yet he still couldn’t breathe.
He was still stuck, staring straight up at the ceiling as tears blurred his eyes only to never fall.
Every time he thought of moving, of grabbing his phone, typing on his computer, putting on his spider-suit, or even touching his backpack, he was met by a sense of incomprehensible doom. It wasn’t his spider-sense but it still sent him into a panic as though it was.
Peter moved his eyes over to the clock on his wall, trying to focus on the sound of the ticking instead of the thoughts in his head.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He had been laying in this very spot for hours.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He had a complete list of everything he had to do right in his head but he couldn’t make himself act on it no matter how much he wanted to.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Peter finally decided that the ticking of the clock was annoying.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as he tried to build up his resolve.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Peter sat up, the action both easier and harder than he had anticipated it to be.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He took a deep breath.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He walked right past his phone, trying not to look at the amount of notifications that had accumulated over the course of his mini mental breakdown.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Peter pulled on his spider suit, adjusted the web shooters and swung out of his room. Away from the ticking of the clock that reminded him of just how much time he was wasting.
He was aware that he was doing things — stopping a robbery, preventing a mugging, webbing a would-be carjacker to the car he was trying to jack — but he wasn’t really there. His awareness was hiding somewhere deep in his mind, his body running on instinct and routine alone. If the criminals he was stopping had a problem with his silence then they didn’t show it. Or maybe they did and Peter just hadn’t been paying attention.
Before he knew it, he was back in his room, stripping off his suit and climbing into bed. He picked up his phone, unable to stop staring at the next thing on his to-do list.
(3 Messages from MJ)
(5 Messages from Ned)
(2 Messages from Aunt May)
Peter webbed the phone to his ceiling and rolled over to sleep only to be rudely awakened hours later as the phone fell on his face right as the webs melted.
Still 0 messages from his science fair group. Peter didn’t want to text first, didn’t want to seem cheap or rude by asking them if they were able to buy any of the materials they needed. He was the only one who had done anything for the project. He had made templates weeks before, filling out half then sharing the Google Documents with his group, desperately hoping that one of them would see it in their inbox and decide to work on it or at least ask him what they should be doing so that he could tell them about the templates and laugh self deprecatingly about how it was his own fault and he should have told them about the templates he made. No one in his group had talked to him. He had ended up completing and turning in the documents the very same day they were due.
Peter knew it was his own fault. He should’ve rounded his team up and assigned each a role to play. He should’ve done something more than trust them and hope someone else would take the lead. He wasn’t good at talking to people or being assertive out of costume. It was different in the suit. He could act fine and no one would see the worry on his face. He could climb on a wall and no one would assume that he was attempting to hide his own nerves. He could bark orders to police officers, act older than his young age. He could fake everything.
Out of suit though?
His feelings were out for the world to see. It was as though his face had captions — crumpling when upset, beaming when happy, flushing a deep tomato red when embarrassed — everyone around him always seemed to be able to tell what he was feeling and thinking, even while all the people around him were mysteries to himself.
They could tell when he was sad, mad, happy, worried, and yet he couldn’t do the same for them. Peter didn’t know what they thought. He didn’t know how they felt. He hated not knowing.
How could he pretend to be confident enough to talk to his teammates when he face burned from embarrassment, he couldn’t keep a stutter out of his words, and they could see the worry lines on his forehead plain as day?
He couldn’t just not do the work. What if someone from his team had a grade that relied on this project? He personally had an 90 in science and was perfectly fine and happy with that grade even if it went down a few points when this project was put in. But what if one of his team members had an 80? Or a 70? Or even a 60 and were relying on him, relying on this grade to pass. If he had the ability to do the assignment but just didn’t because it wouldn’t hurt his grade then he would feel like a monster. He had vented about this to MJ and Ned a week before, both of whom were ready to throw hands on his behalf. They assured him that it wouldn’t be his fault if his classmates failed but even as he laughed with them about the situation, he couldn’t help but not believe them.
He didn’t feel any ill will or anger towards his team members. He knew one of them from elementary school, a nonbinary kid named Kai. They were artsy, creative, and Peter knew that they had ADHD and executive dysfunction is a bitch (Peter should know) especially when it was Peter’s own fault for not telling them what they had to do. Peter could not find it in himself to blame them.
The other two were guys that he didn’t know at all before this project, named Thomas and David. All he knew about them was that they were friends with each other, a fact continuously made evident every time they ran off task as fast as Insane Bolt ran a race. Peter knew that he couldn’t fault them for that, knew that he probably would’ve done the same if Ned had been in his group (he also knew that if Ned were in this class with him then he at least wouldn’t have had to do the whole project himself). They were funny — albeit immature — and Peter had to force himself to stifle his laughter at their jokes on more than one occasion. He knew they both had good hearts, knew that they were good people. That was why he couldn’t find it in himself to hate them.
Peter laid on his bed, tangled in blankets, bruise forming from where his phone had smacked him in the face (he knew it’d be gone in a few minutes because of his enhanced healing). How was he supposed to hate his teammates when it wasn’t their fault?
’They could’ve at least asked what they needed to do or even what the topic was’ Peter’s thoughts rebelled against his morals. He buried his face deeper into his pillow, knowing he would never confront them about it.
How was he supposed to be a good person when he could barely keep his eyes open?
Peter didn’t know.
He hated not knowing.