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When the beatings started it was easy to ignore. It didn’t happen often, maybe once every couple of weeks.
But as time went on, it got worse. Recently, it had been happening a couple times a week. He knew he should tell someone, isn’t that what all the school counselors always say? Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. When his aunt got a boyfriend she was so happy. His aunt had lost her brother and was forced to take in his kid. Then she lost her husband. When she finally got a boyfriend, Peter could tell she was moving on. And she was so happy. If all it took to keep his aunt happy was a few punches, he could handle that. Right?
Well, he could at first. But the longer it went on, the more careless David started being. He started to hit him on his arms, his legs too. On top of that, it was the middle of May and it was starting to get warmer, so it was getting harder to hide. Everytime he got hurt, he thought of telling someone, Tony maybe, but then he would think of how happy his aunt was and he just couldn’t force himself to.
Then one day, he couldn’t keep it in any longer.
It was about six when David came home. Peter was in the living room finally getting caught up on homework.
“Is dinner ready?” he asked gruffly as he walked in the door. Peter could tell by his mood that he should tread lightly.
“Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to make anything.” he said.
“Excuse me?” he asked, not so much a question. “I’ve been at work all day to keep this roof over your head, to keep you fed. You didn’t think the least you could do is get dinner ready?” He stepped towards Peter angrily. Keep him fed? Peter had basically been starving, the food he’d been eating couldn’t keep up with his fast metabolism, and David wouldn’t allow him to eat any more than he was.
He scoffed. “Sorry, I didn’t know I was supposed to read your mind.”
Tread lightly. Right.
In hindsight, he definitely shouldn’t have been so sarcastic, but it had been a long week. He was tired and hungry and sick of this. When the first punch came, it wasn’t hard to see. His spider sense went off and he jerked back, just a bit, to keep the punch from hitting with its full force.
“Have attitude with me again, I dare you.” he said. Peter looked at him for a moment, too scared to say anything. He must have taken his silence has defiance, or something, because the next thing he felt was his spider sense, and then he was on his back, looking up at the ceiling.
“Ok, I’m sorry, I’ll go make dinner now,” he said. He moved to stand up, but he wasn’t going to let him go that easily. The next thing he felt was a kick to his ribs and he heard a sickening crack. He had already been roughed up on his patrol after school, and his ribs hadn’t had time to heal completely. Before he had a chance to recover, he felt David’s foot come down on his hand, breaking what he guessed was two of his fingers.
“Please, I swear I’ll make dinner from now on,” he said quietly. He hated how pathetic his voice came out. He was a superhero for goodness sake, but he couldn’t defend hisself from a random man? Even as he thought it, he new that it wouldn’t change anything. He would do anything for his aunts happiness, regardless of if it hurt him.
Peter’s cries were cut off with another kick to his side, and what was definitely now at least 3 broken ribs. He desperately tried to crawl backwards, not thinking much past getting away from the pain he was in. Before he could get very far though, David grabbed his shirt and roughly lifted his to his feet. Pushing him against the wall, he landed a few more punches. Peter had to fight not to react, he couldn’t let David know that he was stronger than he was letting on. The whole ordeal only lasted maybe ten to fifteen minutes, but to Peter it felt like much longer.
Finally, he pushed Peter towards the floor with a grunt. “Get to your room, and I don’t want to see you until tomorrow. And you better have dinner on the table before I get home from now on.” Peter didn’t wait for another chance. He ran to his room, shutting the door as gently as he could, still afraid that something else would set him off.
He collapsed on his bed, sobs wracking through his body. The cries just hurt his ribs even more, and he tried to calm down before he hurt them worse. He grabbed the watch that Tony gave him. Usually he didn’t take the watch off, but whenever David was home he did. The watch could send Tony his vitals, and he didn’t want him to find out when Peter was getting hurt. Peter realized that he left his homework and bag in the living room, but he wasn’t about to go grab it, so even though it was only six-thirty, he decided he would just go to bed. He was exhausted anyways.
He slept fitfully, waking up multiple times to nightmares. When his alarm went off, he reached over to shut it off, his ribs screamed at the pain of being moved. He had hoped he would feel better when he woke up, but his ribs just hurt even more. Usually he healed fast enough that no one could tell by the morning, but with how much he’d been getting hurt recently, it wasn’t that surprising that his healing factor wasn’t doing as much.
He got out of bed, his sides protesting at the movement, and went into his bathroom. He took one look at himself and sighed. His nose was definitely broken, bruises covering his face, from his nose, all the way up to his eyes. There was also a sticky spot on the back of his head that he hadn’t realized had been bleeding the night before. He stepped into the shower, trying to wash off the blood from his head, hoping that it wasn’t too serious.
When he got out of the shower, he took his time putting concealer on. Aunt May had taught his how to use it after he kept coming home with bruises from patrols. He carefully concealed each bruise, using most of his color correcter. He sighed, hoping that the rest would be enough for the rest of the day, even though he usually had to put more on after gym.
When he left his room he silently prayed that David wouldn’t be in the living room. Luck must have been on his side that day, because his apartment was empty. He grabbed a granola bar and left his house.
School that day sucked. Hiis color correcter hadn’t been full enough to reapply enough after gym, and he was left with a (just a slightly hidden) bruise on most of the skin around his eyes and nose. He came up with the excuse that he was running on his way to the bus and fell. It wasn’t the most creative excuse, but hopefully it would be enough.
“Hey- shit Peter. What happened to your eye?” Peter turned towards the voice of his best friend. He shut his locker and fell into step beside Ned.
“I fell on the concrete running to the bus.” Ned eyed his suspiciously.
“Right…”
“I’m serious Ned,” Peter says, as convincingly as he can. Ned doesn’t look like he believes him, but Peter doesn’t have the energy to convince him. The rest of school goes by slowly and painfully. His ribs and hand hurt the worst. His head had been throbbing all day, he assumed from when he hit the ground. His back hurt from it too. Finally, the last bell rang and he made his way to his locker. As he walked outside his heart dropped. He was hoping to get Happy to stop by walgreens so he could touch up his makeup before going to his internship, but of course, because that’s just his luck, Tony was standing by the car waiting for him. It’s not that he didn’t like when Tony picked him up, but he didn’t give up as easily as Happy did when he was trying to hide something.
“Hey kid.” Tony stopped. “What happened to your face?” he asked in concern.
“Nothing, I just tripped and fell on the concrete on the way to the bus this morning.” he was getting exhausted explaining this to people (even if it was only two).
“No way,” he said shaking his head. “I don’t believe that for a second. Did you get in a fight with someone? Was it that Flash kid again? I swear-” Peter cut him off.
“No Mister Stark, I swear it was just my clumsiness. Can you just drop it?” Peter got in the car, and he only felt a little bad for being rude. He saw Tony walk around to the drivers seat, and for a moment thought about telling him. But he didn’t. Couldn’t.
Tony didn’t bring it up for the rest of the drive. They went to the elevator and asked FRIDAY to bring him to his lab. When they got there he started working on his current project, trying to forget about the pain in his broken fingers. He knew he wouldn’t be able to let them heal without getting them set or something, but he would google how to tonight.
A couple hours went by when Tony stopped in the middle of his work.
“Are you hungry? It’s about dinner time.” Peters heart stopped for a moment as he remembered the night before. What if David got mad because he didn’t go home to make dinner? No, that was stupid, he knew it was an internship night. Even so, his heart sped up and he tried to calm it down.
“Yeah, you can order whatever you want. I’m gonna run to the bathroom.” Peter didn’t wait for a response before basically running out of the lab. The second he was out he took off his watch. He went into the single stall bathroom and locked the door behind him. He tried to keep his breath calm, but the thought of David kept resurfacing. Just breathe. He can’t hurt you while you’re here. It’s ok.
“Peter, I am detecting a high heart rate. Do you need me to get Mister Stark?” FRIDAY’s voice came over the speaker.
“No!” he cleared his throat. “No, FRIDAY. I’m okay.”
He finally coaxed himself down from a panic attack, and hoped Tony wouldn’t say anything about his being in the bathroom for so long. He hoped he wouldn’t ask FRIDAY about it either. When he got down to the lab he was hanging up with one of the food places.
“I ordered some chinese. I figured that’s always a safe option,” he told him. Peter smiled and nodded, trying to keep his face neutral. He didn’t think he was doing a very good job, because Tony frowned concern. Before he could say anything though, he went back to his work.
A couple hours later he had finished dinner and was on his way out.
“Hey kid, are you sure everything’s ok? You know you won’t be bothering me if you need to talk.”
“Yeah Mister Stark, I’m ok.” he said. His smile didn’t quite come out as comforting as he wanted it to, but he was exhausted from the pain from working with his broken fingers. Plus his head still hurt, and his ribs, back, face, and pretty much everything else, was aching.
When he got home his anxiety spiked again. He tried to breathe through it. He knew David wouldn’t do anything with Aunt May around. But when he rounded the corner to his apartment and saw his aunts car gone, he didn’t think he would be able to avoid anything tonight. Instead of swinging the res of the way to his house, he slowed down and walked. He didn’t want to go inside, but knew that he couldn’t avoid it forever. Unless…
No. No, he couldn’t go to Tony. He could do this. He walked through the door. Immediately David was in his face.
“What did I say about dinner yesterday?” he asked angrily.
“I- I’m sorry. It was my intern day.” Peter said in disbelief.
“I don’t care! I’m hungry and your aunt is about to get off a twelve hour shift. Is it so much to ask you to do one thing around here?”
Peter almost scoffed. One thing? He was the only person keeping the house running. If he weren’t so scared, he probably would have said something. He decided nothing he could say could make this better, so he just closed his eyes and prepared for what came next.
Even prepared, the first hit was usually the worst. This time, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to his hits. David punched him until he saw stars and his already bruised face was swelling way more than it should. Then he switched to kicks, his foot landing hard against Peter’s already sore ribs. He had to have broken at least six at this point.
Eventually David got bored of punches and kicks. He picked Peter up and slammed him against the wall so many times he lost count. He knocked the breath out of Peter long before he stopped hurting him. Only when he heard his aunts car pull up outside did David stop. He didn’t even say anything, just looked at Peter, and that was all he need to run to his room. Some part of his brain told him that his aunt might check on him, might see what’s going on and stop it, but he knew it wouldn’t happen. David was smart. He could always keep his aunt from knowing.
That night Peter slept in more pain than he had in long time, even with the patrols he’d been doing. The next day when he woke up, he could barely move. Even the act of grabbing his phone and turning his alarm off set off every nerve ending in his body. He texted Aunt May, asking if he could stay home for the day, telling her he didn’t feel good. It was Friday, and he knew that he could take the weekend to rest and come back to school okay. his aunt told him yes, and to text her if he felt any worse.
He fell back asleep, and slept for a while longer. When he woke up, it was around three pm, and he heard the apartment door opening. Immediately his heart rate sky rocketed and tears sprang to his eyes. He couldn’t take another beating, he was already in too much pain. He was paralyzed in fear, hearing the footsteps get closer to his room. A soft knock on his door halted his racing thoughts. David didn’t knock like that, didn’t usually knock at all.
A few moments later the door opened and Tony stepped in. The relief that entered Peter was a huge blessing for a moment, before a different type of fear stopped his heart again. Oh no, he was going to see his bruised face, and his arms weren’t covered because he didn’t think anyone would be home until tonight.
“Hey kid, y0ur aunt asked me to come check on you because you-” he stopped dead in his tracks. “Peter. What happened to your face?”
“Mister-” he started. He didn’t know what to say, and all of a sudden the last few weeks caught up with him. The beatings, the secrets, the pain. He couldn’t do it anymore. He choked out a sob. “Tony-,” was all he could get out.
Tony was next to him in an instant. He hugged him, gently, but it still hurt his ribs and he couldn’t help the cry that slipped out.
“Hey, it’s ok. What happened?” Tony asked him. Peter didn’t know how to say it, his brain was still trying to think of an excuse to hide the truth. He just let out another sob and buried his face in his shoulder.
“Ok, it’s ok. C’mon I want to get you to the compound, Bruce is there, he can help.”
“No- no one else can know,” he desperately ground out.
“Kid, no one knows anything. I don’t know anything. But I promise you can trust me and Bruce. You don’t have to talk right now, I just need to make sure you’re ok.”
Peter noded and Tony helped him off the bed. He walked slowly to the apartment door, his ribs begging him to stop moving the whole way to the car. He sliped into the passenger seat and leaned his head against the window. The drive to the compound was tense and quiet, but Peter just couldn’t bring himself to care.
Once they parked next to the side entrance, he made another grueling trip to the elevator, while Tony asked FRIDAY to take them to the medbay. The doors opened and they steped out, Tony helping his onto the nearest bed. He curled up and put his hands over his ribs, trying to avoid hurting them worse.
“Hey Peter, you not feeling so well?” Bruce asked as he walked over to the bed. He gave him a comforting smile, and too exhausted to keep up pretenses, Peter just shook his head. “Okay, can I take a look?” he nodded. Bruce gently touched his nose, trying to see how bad it was. He shone a pen light in his eyes then nodded.
“Can you tell me what else hurts?” Peter sighed and closed his eyes.
“Um- my sides hurt, bad. And my fingers. Um, my arms and legs. My back and head too,” he said hesitantly. He didn’t look at Tony or Bruce, but could hear the intake of breath from one of them, probably Tony. He glanced up at Bruce, and saw him exchange a worried look with Tony.
“Ok, can I look at your side first?”
He didn’t say anything, but he gently moved his hands from his ribs anyway. He straightened out to give Bruce a better angle. Bruce lifted up his shirt and gently felt along his sides, trying to figure out how many were cracked or broken. As he went along his brows furrowed.
“What? What’s wrong?” Tony asked. Bruce’s face went relaxed and kind again.
“Nothing Tony,” he said. His smile was back, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes this time. Then Bruce moved to Peter’s head and worked his way down his body. When he got to his arms Peter actually looked at them for the first time. They looked terrible, most of them covered in dark purple or blue bruises. Bruce made his way to his legs and rolled his pant legs up. His legs didn’t look much better than his arms did.
“Alright Peter. Nothing on your arms, legs, or back look too serious, just a lot of bruises. I need to set your fingers, it looks like you have a couple broken ones. You have 3 cracked ribs, and 5 broken ones that will need to heal. I also want to get a CT for your head, it looks like you hit it pretty hard. You also have a minor concussion, not too big of a deal. I want to keep you here for a couple days, to monitor your head and check your ribs.” he smiled at him, making Peter feel a little more at ease. “Peter, you’re really hurt. Can you tell us what happened?”
The ease he felt went away, and he closed his eyes, a few stray tears forcing themselves out. He tried to keep his sobs in, but mostly it just made his lungs and ribs hurt.
“Kid, we want to help. We can’t do that if we don’t know what happened,” Tony said. Peter couldn’t do it anymore. He gave in.
“It was um- David.” he didn’t elaborate.
“Who?” Tony and Bruce asked at the same time.
“Aunt May’s new boyfriend. He gets angry sometimes, and he thinks I’m an easy target.”
“Holy shit Peter. He’s abusing you?” Tony asked. His jaw was tight, his anger simmering just beneath the surface.
“I don’t know if abusing is the right word-” Peter said weakly.
“Kid. did you see your ribs? Your arms? Legs? There’s bruises everywhere, you have a concussion. That’s abuse.” Peter didn’t say anything, but another sob ripped out of him. Tony softened and moved to grab his hand. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I just- she’s so happy. She’s lost so much and done so much for me. I just thought that I could do this one thing for her. If all it takes for her to be happy is a few broken ribs, I can do that,” Peter sobbed out. Tony moved his free hand to Peter’s hair and planted a gentle kiss to his forehead.
“Jeez kid. Your aunt loves you so much, she doesn’t want to see you hurt. If she knew about this, David wouldn’t make her happy.” Peter couldn’t bring himself to say anything else then, just kept crying into Tony. After a few minutes he calmed down and Bruce took him to CT.
Once he was done, he stayed in the medbay to rest. Part of him knew he should message Aunt May, let her know why he’s not at home. But most of him was just too tired. So he just slept.
__________
“He’s going to be ok, Tony.” Bruce said.
“Yeah, but how didn’t I see this? I kenw he was hurt when he came to the lab, I should’ve followed up more. He’s my kid and I just-” he broke off, trying to keep the tears at bay. “I let this happen.” he ignored the way he said Peter was his kid, and so did Bruce.
“No Tony, this isn’t your fault. This is Davids fault. Peter didn’t tell you, you couldn’t be expected to know.”
Tony didn’t respond, just stood up and walked to the elevator. The logical part of Bruce told him he should stop Tony, he knew that he would probably make a bad decision. But Bruce was too angry to care. Whatever Tony did, David deserved it.
Tony started to make his way to Peter’s apartment. He thought the drive would calm him down, but if anything getting closer just made him more angry. He stomped up to the door and banged his fist against it. At this point it was about seven, and both May and David were home.
“What- oh Tony, are you here about Peter? We don’t know where he is, we’ve been worried sick-”
“Yeah I’m here about Peter.” Tony cut her off. She furrowed her brows in confusion.
“Is everything ok? Tony?” Tony didn’t let her finish. He pushed his way through, eyes landing on David. Seeing him lounging on the couch while Peter was lying in a medbay bed, nursing broken bones and a concussion, made Tony see red. In a flash, he had David against the wall, his face lowered to his ear.
“If you ever touch my kid again, I will make sure you can’t walk, talk, or breathe without help ever again.”
“I’m not threatened by-” Tony slammed him against the wall again.
“Anything you do to Peter, I will do to you, five times worse. I mean it David, do not come anywhere near my child ever again.” With that, Tony stormed out to go take care of his son.
___________
A couple days later, Peter was mostly healed. He had skipped school Monday, and his aunt had come to the compound to talk to him. She had broken up with David and apologized for not knowing what was happening. For now though, Peter was staying at the compound. Tony offered to let May stay too, but she opted to stay at the apartment. The memories surrounding the apartment from the last few months were taking a toll on Peter, and he couldn’t focus there. He needed to study for finals, and he couldn’t when all he could think about was David.
“Hey kid, how are you feeling?” Tony asked. Peter was lying in the common living room watching T.V.
“Good. I think I’m mostly healed.” Peter had been wearing the watch Tony gave his for the last few days, promising not to take it off again. He thought he should feel like his privacy was being impeded on, but the thought that Tony would always be there for him gave him comfort.
Tony sat down next to him, hugging Peter to him. Peter got comfortable next to Tony, laying his head on his chest. He let his eyes slipped close.
“Thank you, Tony.”
Tony smiled down at his son. “Of course, kid.”