Marvel Imagines ;)

peter parker - panic

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
This story deals with panic attacks, anxiety, and abuse. If any of these topics are triggering for you, I suggest you skip over this imagine.
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Now on with the show...

You've never been one to dwell on things.

Shit happens. Relationships crash and burn, life turns on it's side. People die.

If you let things weight on you, you'll sink to the bottom and drown. That's what you had always lived by, and so far, it's kept you alive. Not necessarily living, but alive. And it was enough. It had always been enough. Until now, when the boy you grew up with but never really talked to started coming to school bloodied and bruised. It had only gotten worse over the months. You didn't know why you were so worried, why you particularly cared. Maybe it was because you too had come to school trying to hide the marks your father gave you. Trying to hide the bruises. And if Peter was being abused as well ... You needed to help him.

Because nobody had helped you.

"... I don't know, I thought maybe he liked me or something..."

"... yeah, well, Peter's got his own thing goin' for him, ya know?"

Sat on the edge of the pool, leisurely swirling your feet in the water and watching it eddy and flow, you were trying to piece together conversations, but couldn't focus on a single one. The room had begun to blur together, as it always did when you were in large groups. Over-stimulation was a bitch, to say the least. Along with your anxiety. Trips like this one always made it more difficult to control, even though DC was a relatively short distance from Queens. You wanted to stay in your room, but had learned from experience that people would ask questions. Questions you wouldn't, couldn't answer. So, you headed down with the group to the swimming pool. And it was the worst mistake you'd ever made. Well, it certainly felt like it, at least.

"Lookin' a bit pale over there, Y/N! Why don't you come for a swim?"

Flash. Of course it was him.

You gave a sweet smile in return. "I'd rather gouge out my own eyes than swim in a community bathing bowl with you, Flashlight."

Your snide remark was met with scrambled laughter, but everything had begun to fade in and out of focus. It was like being held under water, and you were struggling to breathe evenly. 

Dammit, you thought silently. You were starting to hyperventilate.

"Y/N, are you okay?"

You hadn't even noticed Michelle sit down next to you, clad in what looked like pyjama bottoms and a shirt that said 'Feminist AF' across the front. You wanted to ask her why she, like you, hadn't bothered to change into a swim suit, but you couldn't form the words.

"C'mon, let's get out of here."

Hands grabbed yours, pulling you up off the tiled floor. Michelle had begun leading you away from the swimming pool (bless her), when you saw something move in the edge of your vision.

He was there and gone.

But you knew what you saw, and it terrified you more than perhaps your own nightmares: spider-man.

. . .

It was a full-blown panic attack.

You were hyperventilating, shaking, so tense you thought your muscles might snap. Your stomach continuously dropped the way it does when you're on a rollercoaster, and god, the sweat. It was everywhere. Coating your back, neck, sticking your hair to your forehead. You knew you probably looked like a fucking mess, and Michelle confirmed your suspicions when she said as much.

"Thanks," you mumbled, leaning back against the tiled wall of the hotel bathroom.

Michelle ignored your sarcasm and simply said with a smile, "You're welcome."

And then there was silence. Not awkward silence, but not wholly comfortable either. You and Michelle weren't exactly close. You were both a bit antisocial, a bit friendless, and, as a result, ended up being partnered up for anything and everything in school activities. Occasionally, you conversed in civil conversation, where one of you would end up ranting about something (you quickly realized that both of you had heavy opinions on world around you, opinions that no one else particularity wanted to hear). But that was where the similarities ended: a grim understanding that you were both different, and could really only stand each other's company.

Not friendship, not really. But something you needed. And maybe it was something Michelle needed too.

That was your first thought when the panic began to evade you. The second, and the more terrifying, was that you had seen him. Spider-man. Through the window over the pool, he was there. Watching... Well, you didn't know. But it couldn't have been good. Was there danger inside the hotel? Or, worse, did one of the students plan on hurting someone?

Your head was full of questions to which you had no answer. But you would find them soon enough, for you had a secret of your own. A secret that, if spider-man himself knew, than it probably meant he was after you.

A/N

WOw. Another Peter Parker imagine. Shocking, I know. Please leave a vote if you enjoyed this story!