Chapter Text
Tears streamed down Peter's cheeks. He felt empty. Hollow.
He was in his Spider-Man suit on the edge of a bridge. Well, not exactly. He sat the top of the structure sitting atop the bridge. The gate into the bustle of cars and traffic. He took his mask off. No one would be able to see him up there anyway. And what did it matter? People would probably put two and two together once he was gone.
He stared blankly at his blinding phone screen. He debated calling Tony. But what would he care? Even if he did, he'd get there too quickly. He'd stop Peter from doing what needed to be done.
Peter smiled fondly at the Stark Tower. He could see it in all it's glory just miles away from him.
Peter's thighs were poked by bits of gravel on the rough concrete. His eyes were stinging from the cool wind blowing in his face. His legs dangled off the edge of the structure, swinging back and forth. It was so peaceful. This was a good place to be. A good final place to be.
He glanced back at his phone. He teared up even more as he realized he never said goodbye to Ned. He didn't even write him a note. Sighing, he reluctantly tapped Ned's contact on his phone. He picked up; whether Peter was glad about this, he couldn't've been sure.
Ned's grogginess burned Peter's soul. He woke him up to say goodbye when Ned probably didn't even care about him. "Peter? It's so late. Are you okay?" Peter heard Ned's bedside lamp click on. This was a mistake.
"Nah, no. I'm fine. Just... couldn't sleep, I guess." Peter cursed at the wind blowing harder. Ned could probably hear it through the phone. "Stayed up rewatching The Last Jedi again and it messed up my whole sleep schedule." He gave a reassuring (but fake as fuck) chuckle.
Ned was suspicious. "You're sure? It's okay if you wanna talk. I don't have anything going on tomorrow anyway." Peter's breath caught. Even this small gesture from his friend was making him choke up. He was so needy. Peter sniffed. "Peter, seriously, are you good?" Ned was seriously worried now.
Peter couldn't contain himself anymore. He'd spent the last few months feeling nothing, and everything was coming up at once; every emotion he thought he didn't have, when really he'd just suppressed them.
He wanted to say he was fine so badly. He wanted Ned to have one last night of rest before learning what Peter had done after he hung up.
But he couldn't.
He couldn't keep in his cries any longer. He began sobbing to Ned. "Oh my god, Peter, what happened? Are you at your apartment? I'm coming over. I'll scale the side of the building if you don't let me in the door." Peter could hear Ned's covers ruffling and Ned standing up.
"Ned, please, don't," Peter wept. "I'm not at the apartment."
Ned was upset. "Then where the fuck are you at two in the morning?" He didn't care who heard at this point.
"I... I can't tell you that Ned," Peter replied softly. He looked down at the lake beneath him. Hopefully, the impact alone would be enough to do the job, but Peter knew it wouldn't. He'd either drown or freeze. But it's what he deserved.
Ned was exasperated. "Peter, I don't- please, let me help you." Peter knew he was desperate. He didn't do a great job of hiding it. "Why are you up in the city crying in the middle of the night?" Ned was pacing around his room, phone pressed to his ear. He looked out his window. Maybe he could see Peter atop a building on the skyline.
Peter sighed. He couldn't keep this up for much longer. He would break soon enough. He wiped away his tears with his suit and prepared to say goodbye to his best friend. "I'm really sorry, Ned. You really are the best friend I could've asked for."
Ned's blood ran cold. "Could've?- Peter, please, sto-" Peter hung up. He couldn't bare to hear Ned's pained pleas any longer. He knew he had to go now. He contemplated his last words. They needed to mean something. After a few minutes of deliberation, he had decided. It was time. He left his mask draped over the bars of the structure and his buzzing phone sitting next to it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew Ned had called someone. May, probably.
Rubbing his palms to his bloodshot eyes, he stood. Letting out one final cry, one scream, he was ready. He shot a web string on the underside of the bar and jumped off, still holding it. Swinging beneath it, he whispered to himself;
"I'm sorry."
Ned's heart sunk even further when he heard the beep from his phone. Peter had hung up. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." He muttered. He didn't know for sure what peter was going to do, but based on his hunch, it didn't sound good. He did the first thing he could think of.
"Mom! Mom, please, help!" Ned's mom awoke with the same groggy, sleepy look Ned had when Peter had first called. He struggled for the words to explain the situation. "I- I think Peter's trying to kill himself." Cold sweat was coating Ned's neck as he saw his mom bolt up, hair curlers still in, and grab her keys. She knew her son would explain everything on the way.
They ran out to their shared car, Ned rambling about everything Peter had said. "And he said he's not in his apartment. I really don't know where he could be, Mom, and I-" He choked back a sob, tears running down his cheeks. "I don't want to lose my best friend." Ned practically leapt into the passenger seat of the vehicle.
"Ned, look at me;" She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We will do our very best to help your friend. I promise."
They start off by attempting to scour the streets, looking left and right to try to see Peter before Ned had an idea. "I'll call Tony Stark."
"Wha-" Ned's mom's head turned to her son. "What? You have Tony Stark's phone number?"
Ned rolled his eyes. "I've met him like ten times, Mom. He picks Peter up from school like twice a month. We're basically bros." He frantically scrolled through his contacts before finding "TONY FUCKING STARK". He dialed the number.
The last person Tony Stark expected to get a call from at two a.m. was Ned Leeds. He thought it was him, anyway. The contact name buzzing on the screen was "peter's friend ned (i think??)". Reluctantly, he answers the phone. "Hello?" He sounded annoyed, and for good reason; he was working on a new, updated suit for Peter for his birthday coming up.
"I- uh, Mr. Stark, sir?"
"Yes, hello, teenager calling me in the middle of the night. Why are you doing that exactly?" He turns back to his work with Ned on speakerphone. "There better be a gun to Peter's head right now."
Ned cringed and swallowed, hard. "Well... not exactly."
Tony's brows furrowed and he laid down his tools, holding his phone to his ear. "What does "not exactly" mean, Ned? What happened to my kid?"
He swung forward and let go. The sharp, chilling air whipped through Peter's wavy, brown, hadn't-been-washed-in-a-week hair as he plummeted farther and farther. Somewhere in the distance, he heard something that resembled a scream, but it didn't matter now. He closed his eyes, waiting for the wonderful release of unconsciousness. As his fragile body hits the icy waters of the dark lake, he swore he could feel all of his bones break at once. Adrenaline rushed through him, his mind begging him to escape, to swim up and save himself, but his heart knew this was what he needed to do.
It was strangely tranquil in the water. The sounds of the city quieted and muffled by the water engulfing him. Sweet, sweet silence.
Peter felt the tips of his fingers and toes tingling with numbness. Had it been seconds? Or hours? Peter's lungs were silently screaming for oxygen and they were greeted with water. Everything was water. Water was in his nose and ears and hair and suit and now it was inside of him too. Maybe he'd hoped he'd just dissolve into the sea. Decarbonate.
This. This is how he knew he was meant to be.
But it was over all too quickly.
There was a disturbance in the water. Peter felt his limp body sway slightly do to the change in the flow of the once-still lake. Suddenly, there was something hard and sharp behind his back, pulling him roughly up to the surface. An arm? Was it attached to a body? Peter's freezing brain was whispering "No... let me be..." But the arm didn't listen. Before Peter knew it, he was back on the rough concrete, but on the sidewalk on the bridge this time. He vaguely heard troubled and worried voices around him and some sort of whooshing from Peter's rescuer. As water drained out of his ears, Peter heard everything again. Everything terrible. Everything that reminded him of living. Honking, crying, weeping, talking.
He feels a pair of hands on his chest, pressing it over and over, willing the water to release from his lungs as well. Involuntarily, Peter coughed and coughed. It hurt so badly, but now he could breathe.
Wait.
No.
He could breathe. Breathing means he wasn't dead.
His brain jolted awake and he opened his eyes. He rose from the ground, breathing deeply and quickly. At this, the voices around him seemed overjoyed. He still couldn't register anything happening. He knew people were talking. He saw a messy array of lights and colors. A pair of arms wrapped around him, and he realized that that could've been Aunt May. Her hugs always felt like that. Gentle but firm, warm and safe. Slowly, Peter's senses returned, sharp as ever. He rubbed his eyes with shaky hands and saw Mr. Stark sitting in front of him on the curb, head in his hands. Looking to his left, he saw Ned crying into Ms. Leeds' side, and hugging Peter was, in fact, Aunt May.
Peter was shaking and he welled up again. He screamed. "No! Let me go, please!" He was hitting May's arms, wriggling to get free. "I don't want to be here!" May held on to him for dear life (literally). After a minute or so of this, his head drooped and he said, defeated and sobbing, "Please... I want to die... let me leave."
Ned, watching his barely-alive best friend writhe and shout about wanting to die made him cry even harder than he was. He'd never seen Peter like this before. It hurt.
To think that if he'd believed that Peter was okay, it would be Ned's fault that he died. Peter's death would be on his hands.
He, still wearing his Star Wars pajama pants and Iron Man sweatshirt, buried his face into his mom's side and she hugged him, holding back tears of her own.
Tony collapsed onto the curb at the side of the highway, drained from the night's events. In the past fifteen minutes, Peter's friend had called him to say Peter was about to kill himself, Tony put on his Iron Man suit, left his house in the middle of the night, running on two hours of sleep from the night before, told FRIDAY to track Peter's suit, watched him jump off a bridge, and flew down after him to save his fucking life.
The same type of thought was repeating in his head. My kid wants to kill himself. His head sunk into his hands and he sobbed silently. His entire body heaved with his big breaths.
Startled by the outburst from Peter, he jumped a bit and looked at him. This cold, broken boy was trying to escape from his aunt's loving embrace, shouting about how he wanted to die. Tony's heart broke in two. "Oh, kid..." he whispered. There was a pain in his voice that was indescribable.
He noticed a gaggle of gawking New Yorkers watching from their cars. There was one man who seemed to be recording the screaming boy, and Tony became enveloped in rage. He stood, wiped his tears, and pointed at the rude audience member. "Hey, buddy, fuck off! Go home!" he yelled, waving him away. His eye was twitching. The man, who didn't even notice Tony had moved, quickly shoved his phone into his pocket and drove off.
Tony came closer to Peter, both of them having calmed down to an extent. He once again sat on the curb and watched Peter's weak sobs and whimpers. He glanced back at Ned, eternally grateful for the young man's help. His mother looked just as heartbroken as everyone else.
Tony focused his gaze back at Peter. In the time that he'd looked at Ned, Peter had begun hugging May back, tears staining both of their shirts. A constant flow of tears fell from Tony's eyes once again.
It had been a long night.