Chapter Text
Nightmares plagued his sleep that night.
They were vivid and horrifically graphic, most all of them involving Tony dying in one gruesome way after another. He couldn’t snap himself out of them either; he had to sit by and watch as his dad was burnt to death, decapitated, and poisoned amongst other things.
He woke just before dawn in a cold sweat, tears drying on his face. He was too disturbed to go back to sleep, and he felt guilty waking Tony up, (especially since Pepper got back from her trip late last night, and he didn’t want to interrupt their peaceful slumber together) so he just laid there, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of the day to come.
He made a vow to apologize to her for guilt tripping her and undermining what she was going through. It was shitty of him to just kind of throw all of that at her. It was almost like he was saying, “you think you have a shitty life? Take a look at mine!”
Yeah, he definitely had some apologizing to do. He rolled over with a sigh, closing his eyes and longing for a dreamless sleep.
--
Lily was avoiding him.
When Peter had gotten to school, he immediately made a beeline for Lily’s locker to apologize, but she wasn’t there. He knew she was at school, since his spider-sense had been tingling ever since he walked in the building, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He waited for a couple more minutes at her locker, ignoring the looks he was getting from Lily’s lockermates, before having to go to his own locker to collect his books for class.
On his way, Flash purposefully bumped into him, throwing Peter sideways into the lockers, bruising his shoulder.
“Watch where you’re going, dickweed!” Flash called, sauntering past, and Peter shut his eyes as his shoulder smarted.
“Fuck you, Flash,” Peter muttered under his breath, rubbing his shoulder with a scowl.
“What was that, Penis?” Flash demanded, stopping in the hallway and looking back at Peter. “What did you just say?”
“Nothing,” Peter said, walking past him towards his locker. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Flash today. Lily was stressing him out, he had his big Calculus test, and he was still unsettled from his nightmares.
He grabbed his books from his locker before slamming the metal door closed with more force than necessary and walking in the direction of his first class, grumpy and irritable.
“Hey Peter!” Ned said as he fell into step with his friend. He held his hand out, and he and Peter quickly did their handshake as they continued down the hall. “Did you see the new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars movie? It looks so good!”
Peter blinked. “There’s a new trailer?! I didn’t—”
“Hi, Peter,” a timid yet familiar voice said from behind him, stopping his speech and his gait. He turned and saw Lily, excessively frizzy hair and all. Her eyes looked downtrodden and her hands were buried in the sleeves of her cotton sweater. She held her books for class close to her chest, her arms crisscrossed over them. She was biting her pink lower lip.
Well, I guess she’s not avoiding me. “Hi, Lily,” Peter said quietly, unsure of how to proceed.
“Can I…” her eyes darted to Ned, who was looking at her with the serene expression of someone in love. “Can I talk to you? Alone?”
Peter’s spider-sense was clearly saying no, don’t do it, but he nodded anyways. “Yeah, okay.”
She looked at him a second longer, before turning on her heel and walking back down the hall. Peter stared at her before following, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to fall into step with her.
She opened the door to an empty classroom, gesturing Peter inside with her chin. Peter entered and Lily closed the door behind them, her face miserable.
“What’s up?” Peter asked, concerned despite his spider-sense prickling uncomfortably.
“I just wanted to say sorry for yesterday,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “It was wrong of me to assume that you had it easier than I do.”
“It—it’s fine,” Peter said, confused. “I was going to apologize to you, actually. I didn’t mean to unload all of my issues on you.”
“Thanks,” Lily mumbled, and Peter watched as she twitched uncomfortably.
Something was wrong. “Is everything okay?” Peter asked softly, trying to recreate what Tony did whenever Peter was distraught. “You seem… upset.”
“I’m okay,” Lily said, taking a deep breath. “I’m just… stressed.”
“I feel that,” Peter said with a fake laugh, trying desperately to diffuse the situation. “I have a Calc test in like five minutes.”
Lily still wasn’t looking at him. She scuffed her sneakers on the floor anxiously. Peter’s gaze, however, was drawn to the girl’s hair, which seemed to have gotten frizzier within the past few minutes.
Weird, Peter thought, his eyebrows furrowing.
A semi-awkward silence had fallen, and Peter watched as Lily looked everywhere in the room but him, her lip red and raw from being chewed on.
“By the way,” Peter said, breaking the silence. “I’m having a kind of get together at my place on Thursday night. I’m inviting Ned and MJ too. I’d really… er, I’d really like it if you came.”
He ended the offer awkwardly, even though he was trying to be smooth. He curled his hands into fists as a wave of anxiety came over him, before remembering that Tony had told him to stop and immediately unfurling them.
She finally met his eyes, and he saw that most of the sadness had disappeared. “Really?” she asked, her voice full of hope.
“Yeah!” Peter said enthusiastically. “There’s no school on Friday, since it’s the end of the grading period, so you guys can totally sleep over! It’ll be a ton of fun.” And, with a little luck, I won’t have a mental breakdown.
Lily’s face broke out into a smile. “I’ll definitely be there. Thanks, Peter.”
Peter smiled back just as the warning bell rang. Relief filled him as he left the empty classroom with a “see you at lunch!” and he scurried down the hall to Calculus.