Part Six: Too Much in My System

                                    

                                          
"PETER!" Tony stumbled over to the edge and peered over, eyes scouring the water for ripples or any evidence that Peter had landed in it. There was nothing. 
Thank god. 
He'd swung away. 
Now there was the problem of figuring out where to? 
"Did that kid just jump?!" A woman came barrelling over. 
Tony looked back to see a couple others peering, wide eyed, to where Peter had just stood. 
"Hold up," the woman looked at Tony and he watched as the concern instantly vanished. "You're Tony Stark! Oh man, can I get a picture with you? It's such an honour to meet you!"
Tony stared at her dumbfounded. How easily she'd just forgotten about the kid who - from her perspective - just committed fucking suicide. 
The others all started murmuring similar statements, not one of them bothering to call the police or even fucking look over to see if they could spot the kid. They didn't fucking care. 
Jaw tightening, he fixed each one of them with a glare that could kill and stormed back to his car, slamming the doors shut as he got in. "Fuck," he breathed, pinching the bridge of his nose. The kid was clearly going through a much worse time than Tony had originally suspected. 
May's number was no longer in use. 
Peter was doing drugs. 
Peter was running away. 
The realization hit him like that moon once had. 
May's number was no longer in use. 
"Oh god."
. . .
Tony found him. A month later, he found him. 
To say the least, it had been a stressful fucking month. 
After the bridge incident, Tony had done some research on the whereabouts of May Parker.
What he'd found out didn't help the fear he felt growing inside. Fear for the kid. 
He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to help. For God's sake, he didn't know how to bring it up. Had the kid talked to anyone about it? 
Probably not.
And Odin knew Tony wasn't the poster-child for emotional health. 
Pepper.
Tony would have to lean pretty heavily on Pepper for this one. She was better at that touchy-feely-emotional-stability stuff. She'd have an idea on how to help.
Tony just hoped to God he wouldn't be too late. With how the kid had been acting, he didn't trust him to be alone for a second. But that was a little tough given Peter kept fucking running away from Tony like he had the plague. 
And that worry wasn't exactly helped by the fact that Peter had straight up vanished. Tony had tried visiting his apartment, but he never seemed to be there. There was barely any evidence he even lived there at all. And Skeeter wasn't very much help. Tony was pretty sure the kid had told that friend of his to keep quiet about his whereabouts; the fucker kept offering Tony nothing but indifferent shrugs for answers to his questions.
And of course Tony had tried tracking Peter, but the kid - curse his genius - found a way to allude even Tony's intellect. 
The only ease to the mad panic growing in Tony's chest was the one fucking question Skeeter would answer: the kid was alive.