Kid?

Chapter 11: Open Up? How About No

Once Peter was done, he felt like he could finally breath again. He sat on the bathroom floor for a while, not feeling much but he closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the calm that he so rarely felt. He allowed the throbbing in his thigh to ground him, to make him feel alive. Eventually the not-so-calm thoughts started crawling back into his mind, prompting Peter to move off of the ground where he had been sitting. He wondered how long he'd been there, 10-15 minutes? Half an hour? Peter used wads of toilet paper to clean off the blood that was coating his legs like a second skin. It wasn't exactly quick work, but he knew he could dispose of toilet paper easiest. He had no bandages, he didn't really care, it was like he couldn't force himself to care even if he had wanted to.

In the days that followed Peter's talk with Tony and Steve, he spent most of his time in his bedroom. Avoiding all contact with people as to avoid seeing the looks on their faces when they looked at him. Sadness, pity, distrust. The only interaction he didn't entirely hate was when once a day Natasha would show up to take him to the training room. Peter found after not too long he didn't mind it that much. It seemed Nat was one of the few who had actually decided to act normal around him, at least one of the few who successfully acted normal. He could feel safe in the training room, he had quickly found that the entire thing wasn't actually a ruse to just get him to open up. Maybe Nat was using it as a way to distract him, but it required no taking about his feelings and it was usually a successful distraction so he didn't care. Apart from that he wiled the hours away mindlessly scrolling through his phone, ignoring the texts from his friends, or just lying there. Thinking. Peter didn't like thinking much, but he couldn't help it. When that happened he tended to cut the the dark thoughts away, and the dark feelings. Which meant that Peter now had cuts and scars decorating his skin all down his legs and around his hips.

Three times throughout each day, if he didn't show up himself, a member of the team would appear to try and get him to go to meals. Peter was quite happy to see that for that moment it seemed they had decided it was more important that Peter get rest than have to eat with the team. Which meant on the many occasions where Peter pretended to be sleeping he actually got left alone, although a plate of food was always left on his desk soon after. Peter was quite happy with that as well because it's a lot easier to throw out a meal without anyone noticing when you're by yourself. Through all this Peter couldn't help but get irritated by the fact that every half hour or so someone would enter his room to check on him. Along with the new permanent watch he had, made by Tony, that constantly monitored him, so that he would still be monitored even when he wasn't in the tower.

It had infuriated everyone when after 3 days Peter still refused to talk to anyone about anything. Even when Bruce told Peter about what he had done, it had gained his attention but he still refused to talk about himself. That's why on the 4th, Peter was forced to go to a therapist. The situation of telling him this was fun for no one. It began innocent enough.
"Peter, you said you were going to open up to us, and you aren't. We just thought maybe it would be easier to talk to someone that's not on the team," Cap had started the conversation.
"Nope," spoke Peter,"I am going to have to decline that offer."
"It's not a choice kid, you're going."
"Tony, please no."
"Peter you've got to."
"You can't get better the way you're going about this." Steve cut in.
"I don't need to get better, I'm not fucking crazy."
It had baffled the people standing in the room, Peter wasn't one to usually swear in front of them. In fact, he never had before. The adults had different reactions to it; Tony had to calm himself down from becoming mad (he was by no means unfamiliar from swearing and therefore not against it but he certainly did not like that tone he was hearing), Steve tried to talk Peter down and make him understand that no one was calling him crazy, Thor was just trying to understand why Peter was so opposed to it and was quite hurt when Peter had had the audacity to flip him off. That was when Tony got pulled away by Steve before he could start shouting and Bruce had to leave the room because of "stress levels". Bucky sat with his eyebrows raised watching from a corner, making no attempt to help his friends. Natasha, clint, and Sam walked in on this situation late and promptly turned around and walked right back out.