Ultimate Spider-Man One-shots

Sensory Overload

Hey guys. This one shot is set somewhere in season 1.

School was hell. Peter hated school some times. He loved learning but hated the bullies. Today was worse than usual.

Peter had woken up with a headache. He found that every light was just a bit too bright, every sound a tiny bit too loud, every touch felt like too much. He knew that it was the beginning of a sensory overload. He got one around once every month. Usually they weren't too bad and more of an annoyance to him for a day or two, however, sometimes they were painful. Sometimes his already heightened senses assaulted him viciously making him feel incredibly ill. In his experience so far, the bad ones only came around once a year. Today was one of the bad ones. He couldn't tell anyone about it though, who would believe him?

Peter had a bad day at school. He was shoved into his locker, accidentally stood too close to an incredibly loud argument and received a huge pile of homework. He still had to go to S.H.I.E.LD. for training in the evening. Not a good day.

All day everyone had been accusing him of being 'different' from how he usually was. Harry had tried to drag him to the nurses office because he apparently looked really ill; MJ wouldn't stop asking him if he was okay; Ava was constantly berating him for being 'unfocused'; Luke wouldn't stop trying to get him to explain what was wrong with him; Sam was making fun of him for being a bit sick; Danny was actually sympathetic to him when he said that something in his chi didn't look very healthy.

Somehow, Peter had manged the day without any major problems. His head was pounding, his ears were ringing, his eyes were constantly on the verge of watering, he barely ate because his food tasted worse than normal, his clothes scratched painfully on his skin and all of his nerves were on fire. He felt everything so much more than normal. It was painful. His only solace was that the day was almost over. It wouldn't be much longer until he could sleep. In the past sleep had helped fix his body and reset his senses.

🎧🎧🎧

Spider-Man was swinging his way up to the Tri-carrier, he was still in pain but it was now a bit more bearable. The bit of extra distance from the street below had helped the pain in his ears immensely.

On the Tri-carrier Spider-Man made his way into training, if he could get the training over with quickly then he could go home and sleep. But, of course, things never go that well for him.

The training session was difficult. Really difficult. Spider-Man was thrown into walls, hit by robots and generally beaten up. The real issue was caused by Nova use of a Nova blast just a bit to close.

It hurt, a lot. It was just enough to tip him over the edge into a complete sensory overload. He had suffered them before, but never anywhere near this bad. It was like one of his normal, monthly sensory overloads combined with one that was triggered by bright lights or harsh sounds. It was total agony.

Spider-Man knelt down on the floor with his hands on his ears, eyes closed and head facing the floor. It was a position that he had found which had helped him in the past, it wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it was infinitely better than doing nothing.

White Tiger was furious that Spider-Man had just crouched down and was now whimpering pathetically, he was strong enough to take a few hits, she had seen him shrug off far worse injuries like they were nothing. She was sure that he was just doing it for attention. She started yelling to get him to get up and get back to training, not realising that she was making everything a thousand times worse.

"Spider-Man! Get up! You can cry about how much you hurt when training is over! Get up, Spider-Man! Now!" White Tiger's yelling hurt the ears of everyone in the room, not just the suffering spider.