Kid, tell me what happened: The Sequel

The Good Thoughts, and the Bad

A/N: Hey my dudes!!!! I forgot to post last week, which was a total oopsies on my part, but I'm back at it yet again, giving all of my amazing readers the content I hope they've been waiting for. Sorry for the inconvenience but high school has been keeping me on my hands and knees trying to manage midterms, projects, tests, and regents, like big oof. As a way of my thank you, take these many oneshots I've managed to write. This one is one of my personal favorites but has some triggers for contemplation of suicide, cutting, and the blues. 

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Sometimes the thoughts are good, waves of nostalgic memories, funny jokes, or just warm, uplifting things that make his heart beat with pride, and the corners of his lips tug into a smile. Those thoughts linger in Peter's head, making him feel welcomed and loved. Cared for. That he was important, and that he actually mattered in people's lives.

But sometimes, the thoughts weren't so good. Dark voices would hiss in his ears about how pathetic he was, or how stupid he was. He always felt the pricking of water threaten to flood before spilling, and he hated it. He hated how easy those watery feelings came to him, they made him feel stupid and weak. Or when he got a grade that was lower when he was expected, his thoughts always made it a thousand times worse by making him feel dumber than he was, unworthy of the status as an intern at Stark Industries. He'd feel like a failure, and he hated feeling like a failure.

Or sometimes, the thoughts would be about no one liking him, because of his appearance, or just his personality. Those thoughts made him want to fold into a ball as he tugged on his sleeves, wishing he had a blade between fingers to let the blood he begun to hate spill.

Peter hated that watching his blood trickle brought him satisfaction. But Peter also hated the loneliness and stupid feelings he brought upon himself.

Like, when he forgot to clean up his room because he passed out from exhaustion after patrol, she snapped at him about how he couldn't do the one thing she asked him to do. It wasn't even meant to hurt him, and Peter could feel the tears about to roll. He quickly wiped his eyes, blaming it on some dust that made his skin itch.

Peter couldn't trust himself, or at least, he couldn't trust his own mind.

His mind was complicated, a puzzle that was overly intricate. Peter didn't want to solve it. Not because he didn't want to, he spent hours laying in bed trying to figure out what was so wrong with him, only to come up with nothing. Instead, it was the very fact that his brain shouldn't be this complicated.

He shouldn't feel like crying at a slight repremandment.

Little things seemed to bother him, like when his skin seemed oily and in need of a cleaning, it really bothered him to the point where he couldn't do little things until the annoying itch was gone.

He shouldn't feel that all the people around him really don't like him.

He should, however, be able to control the bad thoughts. But he can't. Once the first bad thoughts form, they spiral out of control and Peter can't help the suffering. It's like a war with himself.

So he cuts. And yes, Peter hates that the only way to make the pain go away is by hurting himself.

But who can he tell?

Certainly not May, she'd judge him, and the last thing Peter needs is for May to hate him for real.

And especially not Mister Stark, the man has better things to do than to worry about him. He's Iron Man for God's sake!

So he keeps quiet and lets the suffering continue.

It's not until one night during patrol, he swoops in to save a man from being mugged when the man chortles, "I don't need to be saved by some weak hero in spandex, go home kid. The world doesn't need you. You think you're helping people, but all you're doing is getting in the way."