Chapter Text
The kitchen was supposed to be empty.
Peter had checked. He'd waited until the common floor went quiet, until the last murmur of conversation faded, until FRIDAY confirmed that everyone had dispersed to their own corners of the Tower. It was nearly one in the morning, and the odds of running into anyone were statistically minimal.
He'd calculated it. He was good at calculating things now. Scheduling his appearances at meals so he could grab something and leave before anyone settled in to talk. Mapping the Tower's rhythms so he could move through it like a ghost, present but never quite there.
It was exhausting, but it was working.
Or it had been working, until he pushed open the kitchen door and found Pepper Potts sitting at the island.
She didn't look up immediately. She was doing something on her tablet, the soft blue glow illuminating her face, a mug of tea steaming gently beside her. The kitchen was dim, only the under-cabinet lights on, and for one desperate second Peter considered backing out before she noticed. He could be quiet enough. He could pretend he'd never been here at all.
But then her eyes lifted, and she smiled, and it was too late.
"Peter." Her voice was warm, unsurprised. Like she'd been expecting him. Like she'd been waiting. "Couldn't sleep?"
"I was just..." He gestured vaguely toward the fridge, already calculating his exit. Thirty seconds, maybe less. Grab something, mumble an excuse, disappear. "Hungry. Didn't eat much at dinner."
That part was true, at least. He hadn't eaten much at dinner because he hadn't been at dinner. He'd claimed a headache and stayed in his room, which was becoming a more frequent occurrence than he'd like to admit. The headaches weren't real, but they were convenient. They explained the locked door, the silence, the need to be alone.
"There's leftover pasta in the blue container," Pepper said, returning her attention to her tablet. "Tony made too much again. He always does when he's stress-cooking."
"Thanks."
Peter moved toward the fridge, hyperaware of the way his sleeves fell past his wrists. Long sleeves had become his default, even indoors, even when it didn't quite make sense. The Tower was climate-controlled, always comfortable, and yet here he was in a thick hoodie at one in the morning. No one had commented on it yet. Or if they had, he'd managed to deflect.
He found the container, debated whether he could just take it back to his room, decided that would look suspicious. The microwave was right there. Two minutes. He could survive two minutes.
The hum of the microwave filled the silence. Peter leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and tried to look casual. Tried to look like someone who was just tired, just hungry, just passing through. Pepper was still focused on her tablet, and for a moment he let himself believe this might actually be fine. Just two people who happened to be awake at the same time. Ships passing in the night. Nothing more.
The microwave beeped. Peter retrieved the pasta, grabbed a fork, and turned toward the door.
Pepper’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Sit."
It wasn't a question. It wasn't even really a command. Just a single word, delivered with the same calm certainty she used in boardrooms, the same quiet authority that had built empires and navigated crises and managed Tony Stark for over a decade. And somehow Peter's feet stopped moving before his brain caught up.
"I should probably-“
"Sit," she repeated, and this time she looked up. Met his eyes. "Please."
The please was what did it. Pepper didn't say please like most people did, as a formality or an afterthought. When she said it, she meant it. She was asking, genuinely asking, and something in Peter's chest constricted at the thought of refusing her.
He sat.
The stool across from her felt too close, but moving to a different one would be obvious. Peter focused on his pasta, twirling noodles around his fork without actually eating them. The silence stretched, comfortable for Pepper and excruciating for him.
She was still looking at her tablet. Still scrolling through what appeared to be some kind of financial document, graphs and numbers flickering past. Still completely at ease, as if this were any other night, as if Peter weren't sitting across from her vibrating with the urge to flee.
"Tony's worried about you," she said eventually.
Peter's hand tightened on his fork. "I'm fine."
"Mm." A non-committal sound. Not agreement, not disagreement. Just acknowledgment that he'd spoken.
"I've just been tired," Peter added, because the silence was worse than talking. "School's been intense. And patrol. You know how it is."
"I do."
She still hadn't looked up. Still scrolling through her document like this conversation was happening in the margins of something more important. But Peter knew better. Pepper didn't do anything in the margins. Everything she did was deliberate.
"There's a lot going on," he continued, filling the quiet. "AP exams coming up. Ned's been stressed about college applications, so I've been helping him. And there was that thing with the Vulture last week, the warehouse situation. I'm just... spread thin."
"That makes sense."
"Right." Peter nodded, relieved. "So. That's all it is."
"Mm-hmm."
She set the tablet down, and Peter's stomach dropped. That was never a good sign. When Pepper Potts gave you her full attention, it meant she'd decided you were worth focusing on, and Pepper's focus was a formidable thing. He'd heard about it reducing board members to stammering apologies. He'd seen it cut through Tony's most elaborate deflections like a knife through tissue paper.
"You've been tired for three weeks," she said.
It wasn't an accusation. Just a fact. Peter opened his mouth to argue, to explain, to deflect, but the number stopped him. Three weeks. She'd been counting. She'd been paying attention closely enough to count.
"It's been a lot," he managed.
"I'm sure it has."
Another pause. Pepper picked up her mug, took a sip of what smelled like chamomile tea, and Peter found himself cataloguing her posture. Relaxed but attentive. Feet planted. Shoulders back but not tense. Patient. Like she had all the time in the world and nowhere else she'd rather be.
It was unnerving.
"You have that early meeting tomorrow, right?” He tried. “The board thing."
"The board thing can wait."
"Pepper—"
"I've been running Stark Industries for a long time, Peter. I promise I know how to manage my schedule." She set her mug down, and there was something almost gentle in the way she looked at him. Not quite pity. Not quite concern. Something more complicated. "I also know when something matters more than a meeting."
Peter's throat felt tight. He forced himself to take a bite of pasta, chewing mechanically, buying time. The pasta was good. Tony really was an excellent cook when he bothered, when he was stress-cooking or trying to feed his family or just feeling domestic. Peter couldn't taste any of it.
"I'm really okay," he said once he'd swallowed. "I know everyone keeps asking, and I appreciate it, but I'm handling things. I've got it under control."
"I didn't ask if you were okay."
He blinked. "What?"
"I didn't ask." Pepper's voice was steady, measured. "You offered that information unprompted, which is interesting."
"It's not- I was just-“ Peter could hear himself floundering and hated it. "You said Tony's worried. I was responding to that."
"Is he wrong to be?"
The question hung in the air. Peter stared at his pasta, watching the steam curl upward, and tried to find an answer that wasn't a lie but wasn't the truth either. The truth was too big. Too sharp. Too much.
"He worries about everything," he said finally. "It's kind of his thing."
"That's not an answer."
The words were gentle, but they landed like stones. Peter felt the weight of them settle somewhere in his chest, pressing against the careful architecture of excuses he'd built.
"It's the only answer I have."
Pepper was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Peter started to hope the conversation was over, that she'd accept his non-answer and let him retreat. He could feel the ache in his arms, dull and constant, hidden under layers of fabric. He wanted nothing more than to be alone with it.
"You know," Pepper said, and Peter's hope evaporated, "when Tony first started... when I first noticed he was struggling, really struggling, he did the same thing you're doing."
Peter's head came up before he could stop himself. "What thing?"
"The strategic appearing and disappearing. Being present enough that no one could say he was isolating, but never actually being present." She tilted her head slightly, studying him with those sharp, kind eyes. "He had the whole Tower convinced he was fine for months. Busy, maybe. Distracted. But fine."
"I'm not -"
"I'm not saying you're the same," Pepper interrupted gently. "Tony's demons are his own, and yours are yours. I'm saying I learned to recognise the pattern. The shape of someone trying to be invisible while standing in plain sight."
The kitchen felt too small. Too bright, even in the dim glow of the under-cabinet lights. Peter pushed his pasta away, appetite gone, and tried to find somewhere to look that wasn't Pepper's knowing eyes.
"I have good days and bad days," he said. "That's normal. Everyone has good days and bad days."
"They do." Pepper nodded. "What's less normal is when someone stops having good days altogether and starts having 'fine' days and bad days instead."
"That's not - "
"When did you last laugh? Really laugh, not just the polite kind."
Peter opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried to remember and came up blank. There was probably something. There had to be something.
"When did you last sleep through the night?"
"I sleep."
"That's not what I asked."
"Pepper." His voice cracked slightly, and he hated himself for it. "I don't know what you want me to say."
"I want you to tell me the truth." She said it simply, without pressure, without demand. Just a statement of fact. "But I understand if you're not ready to do that yet. So instead, I'll wait."
"Wait?"
"Mm-hmm." She picked up her tablet again, scrolled through something, utterly at ease. "I have nowhere else to be."
Peter stared at her. "It's almost one-thirty in the morning."
"I'm aware."
"You have a meeting at seven."
"Six-thirty, actually. The Hong Kong market opens early." A small shrug. "But thank you for your concern."
"Pepper, you can't just—"
"Can't what?" She looked up, and there was something in her expression that made Peter's words die in his throat. Not anger. Not frustration. Something softer and somehow more terrifying. "Sit in my own kitchen? Enjoy my tea? Keep company with someone I care about?"
"That's not what this is."
"What is it, then?"
Peter couldn't answer. He couldn't name what this was because naming it would mean acknowledging it, and acknowledging it would mean everything he'd been carefully holding together might start to fall apart. The walls he'd built, the schedules he'd perfected, the mask he wore every single day. It would all crumble if he let even one crack show.
"I can wait," Pepper said again. "I've gotten very good at waiting, over the years. For Tony to stop deflecting. For board members to come around. For difficult things to become possible." She took another sip of tea. "Patience is underrated. A lot of people don't have the stamina for it."
"And you do?"
"I married Tony Stark." A small smile, fond and slightly wry. "I have stamina in spades."
Despite everything, Peter felt something twitch at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile. Almost.
"You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"No." Said simply, without apology. "I'm not."
Peter looked down at his hands, curled on the counter. His sleeves were long enough to cover his wrists, but he was suddenly aware of them in a way he hadn't been before. The fabric felt heavy. Conspicuous. Like a sign pointing to everything he was trying to hide.
"There's nothing to tell," he said quietly.
"Okay."
"I'm just going through something. Everyone goes through things."
"They do."
"It's not a big deal."
"Okay."
Her agreement should have felt like a victory. It didn't. It felt like being seen through, like every word he said was being catalogued and weighed and found wanting. Pepper didn't argue because she didn't need to. She could afford to wait.
"Why are you doing this?" The question came out more raw than he intended.
Pepper set down her tablet completely this time. Folded her hands on the counter, fingers interlaced, posture perfect even at one-thirty in the morning in her pyjamas. She gave him the full weight of her attention, and Peter resisted the urge to squirm.
"Because I love you," she said. "And because I've watched people I love try to disappear before." A pause. "It never ends well when people are allowed to disappear. They don't find their way back. They just get further and further away until no one can reach them anymore."
Peter's eyes were stinging. He blinked hard, focusing on the counter, the pasta, the way the light reflected off the marble. Anything that wasn't Pepper's face.
"I'm not disappearing."
"Aren't you?"
"I'm right here. I'm in the Tower every day. I go to school, I come home, I patrol. I'm not going anywhere."
"Physically. Yes, you’re here.” Pepper's voice was impossibly gentle. "But that's not the same thing, is it? Being in a room and being present in a room. You've been here for weeks, Peter. Walking the halls, showing up to meals, going through the motions. But you haven't really been here. Not in any way that counts."
"That's not - "
"You flinch when Tony hugs you."
Peter froze.
"Small. Almost unnoticeable. But it's there. You tense up for just a fraction of a second before you relax into it." Pepper paused. "You didn't used to do that."
The silence that followed was deafening. Peter could hear his own heartbeat, too fast, too loud. He could feel the phantom ache in his arms, the pull of healing skin, the evidence of everything he was trying so hard to hide.
"You've stopped coming to movie nights," Pepper continued, her voice quiet but relentless. "You claimed headaches the last three times. You don't sit in the common areas anymore unless someone specifically asks you to, and even then, you find reasons to leave early. You time your meals for when the kitchen is empty. You've started taking the stairs instead of the elevator so you're less likely to run into anyone."
Each observation landed like a small, precise blow. Peter felt himself shrinking with every word, the careful illusion of normalcy crumbling around him. He hadn't realised. He hadn't realised how visible his invisibility had become.
"You wear long sleeves even when the Tower is warm," Pepper added, and Peter's blood went cold. "You used to roll them up when you were working in the lab with Tony. You don't anymore."
She didn't say what that might mean. She didn't have to. The implication hung in the air between them, heavy and terrible and true.
"I've been busy—"
"You've been hiding." No accusation in it. Just truth, plain and simple. "And I'm not going to force you to tell me why. But I'm also not going to pretend I haven't noticed, because that would be doing you a disservice. It would be pretending that your pain is invisible when it isn't."
The kitchen was too quiet. Peter could hear the hum of the refrigerator, the distant thrum of the Tower's systems, the soft tick of the clock on the wall. Everything felt too sharp, too close, too real.
"You've been watching me."
"I've been paying attention. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
Pepper smiled, and it was sad around the edges. "When you love someone, you learn to see them. Not watch. See. Their patterns, their tells, the small ways they communicate without words. Tony does it with machines. I do it with people. It's not surveillance. It's care."
"And what do you see?" Peter's voice was barely above a whisper. "When you look at me?"
For a long moment, Pepper didn't answer. She just looked at him, and Peter felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with his sleeves or the marks they were hiding. It was like she could see through skin and bone and all the layers he'd built, straight down to the scared kid underneath.
"I see someone who's hurting," she said finally. "Someone who thinks they need to hurt alone. Someone who's been carrying something heavy for a while now and doesn't know how to set it down."
Peter's hands were shaking. He pressed them flat against the counter, trying to still them, but it didn't help.
"I see someone who's very good at ‘being’ fine," Pepper continued. "At performing fine. At saying all the right things and showing up in all the right places and making sure no one has a reason to worry. But the performance is slipping and the edges are starting to fray. And I'd rather sit here with you while you're still close enough to reach than wait until you've drifted so far we can't get you back."
"I don't know what you want me to say." The words came out broken, fractured.
"I don't want you to say anything." Pepper reached across the counter, her hand stopping just short of his. An offering, not a demand. Not forcing contact, just making it available. "I want you to know that when you're ready to say something, I'll be here. That's all. No pressure. No timeline. Just... here."
Peter stared at her hand. Pale and steady and close enough to touch.
"What if I'm never ready?"
"Then I'll keep waiting." Simple. Certain. Like it was the easiest thing in the world. "I told you. I have stamina."
Something cracked in Peter's chest. Not fully broken, not yet, but fissured. A hairline fracture in the wall he'd been building so carefully for so long.
"I don't know how to..." He stopped. Started again. "I don't know how to talk about it."
"That's okay."
"It's not - I can’t - " His breath was coming faster now, and he couldn't seem to slow it down. The familiar panic rising in his chest, the tightness that made it hard to think. "If I start, I don't know if I can stop. And if I can't stop, then everyone will know, and I can’t - I can't be that person. The one everyone has to worry about. The one who can't handle things."
"Peter." Pepper's voice was steady as an anchor. "Look at me."
He looked. Her eyes were bright, intent, but there was no judgement in them. No disappointment. No pity. Just something that looked terrifyingly like understanding.
"You already are someone we worry about," she said. "You have been for weeks. Not talking about it doesn't change that. It just means you're carrying it alone when you don't have to."
"But if I tell you - "
"Then we carry it together. That's how this works. That's how family works."
Family. The word hit him somewhere deep, somewhere he'd been trying not to feel. He'd had family once. Had lost it. Had found something new here, something fragile and precious that he kept waiting to lose again.
"I'm not..." He had to stop, swallow hard. "I'm not your family. Not really. I'm just - "
"If you finish that sentence with 'the kid who hangs around' or 'Spider-Man' or anything else that diminishes what you mean to this family, I will be very disappointed." Pepper's tone was light, but her eyes were serious. "You are Tony's son in every way that matters. You are part of this family, Peter. You have been for a long time now. And family doesn't get to disappear. Family doesn't get to suffer alone because they think their pain is a burden."
Peter couldn't speak. His throat had closed up completely, and his eyes were burning, and he was suddenly terrified that if he opened his mouth, something would come out that he couldn't take back.
Pepper didn't push. She just sat there, hand still extended, waiting.
The silence stretched. A minute. Two. The kitchen clock ticked softly in the background, and somewhere distant, the Tower hummed with its own quiet life. Peter listened to it, the rhythm of this place that had become home without him quite realising it. The building breathing around him. The family sleeping above and below, unaware that he was sitting here, falling apart in slow motion.
"I don't know where to start," he finally whispered.
"You don't have to start anywhere," Pepper said. "We can just sit here. That's allowed too."
"But you said - "
"I said I'd wait. I meant it." She withdrew her hand, wrapped it around her mug, and settled back in her chair. "There's no test to pass here, Peter. No right answer you need to give me. If all you can do tonight is sit in this kitchen and not be alone, that's enough."
"That's it?"
"That's it." A soft smile. "Tomorrow, or the day after, or whenever you're ready, we can talk. Or not. But for now, just... be here. Let someone see you, even if you're not ready to be seen."
Peter didn't understand how that could be enough. He'd spent weeks building walls, perfecting his performance, making sure no one could get close enough to notice the cracks. And here was Pepper, not demanding he tear them down, just... sitting on the other side. Acknowledging they existed. Refusing to pretend otherwise.
It was the strangest kind of pressure. Not the pressure to talk, or explain, or fix himself. Just the pressure of being known. Of having someone refuse to look away.
"I'm scared," he said, and the words surprised him. He hadn't meant to say them. They'd slipped out through a crack in his defences, unbidden and raw and true.
Pepper nodded slowly. "I know."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know what it looks like when someone's scared." She paused. "And because you've just told me, which is braver than you think."
Braver. Peter wanted to laugh. He didn't feel brave. He felt like a kid who'd been caught, like someone standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling the ground crumble beneath his feet. Brave people made choices. Brave people stepped forward on purpose. Peter had just... slipped.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe the bravest thing wasn't choosing to be vulnerable. Maybe it was not running away once you accidentally were.
Peter looked down at his hands again. Still shaking, but less than before. The trembling that had started in his chest was slowly subsiding, replaced by something else. Something that might have been exhaustion or might have been relief or might have been some combination of both.
"It won't get better on its own," Pepper said gently. "Whatever it is. It won't just go away if you ignore it long enough. I know that's hard to hear."
"I know." And he did know. He'd known for weeks, maybe longer. He'd known every time he rolled down his sleeves, every time he locked his door, every time he looked in the mirror and couldn't quite meet his own eyes. He just hadn't wanted to admit it. Admitting it would mean doing something about it, and doing something about it was terrifying in a way he couldn't quite explain.
"When you're ready - and I mean really ready, not just ready to perform being ready - there are people who can help. Professionals. People who know how to untangle these things." Pepper's voice was careful, measured. "I'm not going to push you toward that right now. But I want you to know it's an option, whenever you’re ready for it."
Peter nodded jerkily. He couldn't look at her.
"For now, though." Pepper picked up her tablet again, scrolled through something, deliberately casual. "I'm going to sit here and pretend to read this quarterly report. And you're going to eat your pasta, because Tony will mope for days if he finds out you didn't like his cooking. And we're going to exist in the same space for a while, and that's going to be enough."
"That's really it?"
"That's really it."
Peter stared at his pasta. It had gone cold, probably, but he picked up his fork anyway. Took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. The taste was there now, somewhere under the numbness. Garlic and tomato and something green. Tony's secret ingredient that wasn't actually secret, just basil.
Pepper didn't look up. Didn't comment. Just sat there, present and patient and impossibly calm, and somehow that was more terrifying and more comforting than anything she could have said.
They sat like that for almost an hour. Peter ate his pasta, every bite an effort but manageable. Pepper read her report, or pretended to, her tea going cold beside her. Neither of them spoke, but the silence wasn't empty. It was full of something Peter couldn't name. Understanding, maybe. Or just the simple presence of someone who refused to look away.
Outside, the city hummed with its late-night rhythm. Sirens somewhere distant. The rumble of traffic on the streets below. The Tower filtered it all into a soft murmur, background noise for the strange, quiet vigil Peter hadn't asked for but was beginning to need.
He thought about the week ahead. School. Patrol. The careful choreography of normal he'd been performing for so long. It all felt very far away right now, like something happening to someone else.
At some point, Peter realised he'd stopped shaking.
At some point, his breathing had evened out.
At some point, the ache in his arms had faded from a sharp reminder to a dull hum, still there but no longer screaming.
At some point, the kitchen had stopped feeling like a trap and started feeling like what it was supposed to be. Just a kitchen. Just a place where people came when they couldn't sleep. Just a room where someone could sit with their cold pasta and their fraying edges and not have to pretend.
When Peter finally stood to leave, his legs were stiff and his eyes were dry but tender, like he'd been crying without realising it.
"Pepper?"
She looked up.
"Thank you," he said. "For... I don't know. Not giving up."
"I never will." Said simply, without drama. Just a fact, as immutable as gravity. "Get some sleep, Peter. Or try to."
He nodded and headed for the door. Paused at the threshold, one hand on the frame.
"You should sleep too. Your meeting's in five hours."
"I'll manage." A soft laugh. "I always do."
Peter almost smiled. Almost.
"Goodnight, Pepper."
"Goodnight, Peter."
He made it to the elevator before the first tear fell. By the time he reached his room, his cheeks were wet and his chest ached in a way that was different from before. Not better, exactly. Not healed. But different.
Something had shifted. A crack in the wall, small but real. And for the first time in weeks, Peter wasn't sure if he wanted to seal it back up.
He lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, listening to the Tower breathe around him. The marks on his arms throbbed dully, a reminder of everything he was still carrying. Everything he hadn't said. Everything that was still waiting in the dark.
But for the first time in a while, the dark didn't feel quite as suffocating.
Someone knew. Not everything, not even close, but someone knew he was struggling. Someone had seen through the performance. Someone was waiting on the other side of the wall, patient and present, refusing to go away.
It should have felt like a threat. It felt like something else entirely.
When Peter finally slept, it was lighter than it had been in weeks. Still troubled. Still fragile. Dreams that dissolved the moment he tried to hold them.
But not quite as alone.