AN: Hello friends. Welcome to my therapy!

No, seriously. This entire story is basically me trying to work through some shit.

If you've read my other stuff, you're probably peripherally aware that I have social anxiety. I'm lucky, and it's moderate rather than severe, but it's something that permeates everything I do.

This is a prologue to set the scene. I wouldn't be surprised if MCU Peter actually has social anxiety, by the way. His stuttering and nervousness could be coming from a mild case. But, I assume that his anxiety is like mine (so moderate) in this fic.

This story will follow Peter as he sort of finds his way into a place where he learns to cope with his anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

To anyone reading this who may have one of the above disorders: I have firsthand experience with both anxiety and depression, but NOT with PTSD. I have done as much research as I can on what it's like, and I've seen it secondhand in one of my friends, but I'll never be able to truly understand. If I misrepresent something important, please let me know so I can change it.

I'm not going to lie to you. This story is going to get a little intense. Peter is going to hit rock bottom before he gets better. If mentions of untreated mental illness, panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts/actions, and PTSD are going to trigger you, please don't read this.

Okay, guys. I'm done being super intense and stuff. I know I made this sound super dark, but this is a story about recovery. And, since it's me we're talking about, there's definitely going to be some Peter&Tony being adorable.

Whenever things get dark, there is always a light. Peter is going to discover that. I hope that everyone reading this remembers that, too.

Love yourself, and stay safe.

WARNINGS: mentions of panic attacks, a child in distress, and untreated mental illness

"Fewer than 5% of people of with social anxiety disorder seek treatment in the year following initial onset and more than a third of people report symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help."

-Anxiety and Depression Association of America

For as long as Peter could remember, people had scared him.

At first, he had thought that he was just shy. At least, that's what all his teachers said. He had countless memories of crying when his mom dropped him off at school, because he knew that the classroom would be filled with other children and he couldn't stand it. He could vaguely recall the moments where it would all be too much, and everything around him would fuzz out. The only sharp aspect of those incidents was the fear.

It had been all-consuming. It had made his stomach flip and his chubby hands shake. But he just didn't have the words to tell people. He couldn't explain it to his teachers, or to his classmates, or to his parents. Every time he tried, the sentences wouldn't come and it had made him want to scream with frustration.

He remembered the tired look in his mother's eyes as she pried him, sobbing, out of the car on a rainy Monday. He remembered the disappointed chastisements from his kindergarten teacher as he disrupted the morning lessons. He remembered sitting in the bathroom, just six years old and so very tired, trying to muffle his hiccups because people started staring when he cried and he hated it.

He'd been too young to understand. Too young to realize that this wasn't normal. Too young to ask for help.

And then his parents had died, and there'd been even more things that he could never, would never, comprehend.

He's been too young to understand why mommy couldn't kiss him goodnight. Too young to understand why daddy wasn't going to take him to playgroup on Saturday. Too young to understand why Aunt May and Uncle Ben looked so broken when he woke up from a nightmare and asked for his parents.

Too young to understand that mommy and daddy hadn't left because he had been bad. Too young to understand that they never wanted to go.

He'd stopped crying at school. When he cried, it made people sad. He had made mommy and daddy so sad that they had gone away. He didn't want Aunt May and Uncle Ben to leave, too. Not when they were all he had left.

A few years later, May had bought him a cheap, plastic Iron Man outfit, and Peter had discovered that wearing the mask made him feel powerful. He'd worn it everywhere, including to the Stark Expo that his Uncle had managed to score the little family tickets to.

And then the robots had come. And when everyone else ran, Peter Parker stood his ground.

It was the first time in the little boy's life that he had been stronger than his fear.

His Aunt had taken the mask away after that, and Peter had cried and cried and cried because it made him realize that he wasn't Iron Man. He wasn't big and strong and brave. He was just Peter Parker, and Peter Parker lived every single moment of his young life dangling on the precipice of his terror.

It wasn't until Peter was thirteen that he realized what the paralyzing thoughts of helpmehelpmeHELPME and runrunrun actually were.

Uncle Ben used to take Peter to a local bookstore every Sunday, and he was allowed to buy any book he wanted. It was a tradition they had started during the first months after Peter came to live with them, and it had been nice. It had been simple. Peter liked simple. He still looked back on those days with a mix of tearing grief and loving warmth in his stomach.

On this specific Sunday, Peter had picked out an old Psychology textbook. Uncle Ben had just smiled, used to his nephew's eclectic choices, and bought the book without another word.

A few days later, and Peter stumbled across a section about anxiety disorders. As he was reading, he reached a section that made him stop and stare.

Social Anxiety Disorder:

A disorder in which the sufferer experiences irrational fear and anxiety surrounding social interactions.

Sufferers often describe an intense fear of being judged. Everyday tasks, such as ordering at a restaurant or eating and drinking in front of others, can become impossible. Most chronic sufferers begin to exhibit symptoms in their early to mid-teens. However, there are correlations between children who experienced separation anxiety and struggled with bouts of anger or uncontrollable tantrums during school and the early stages of social anxiety.

Peter had looked at the page blankly, mind grappling with a sudden, crippling realization.

I have social anxiety.

As soon as he allowed himself the thought, he felt something click. Every symptom on the page aligned with what he'd been feeling for as long as he could remember.

I have social anxiety.

It explained why he felt so vulnerable in the school's crowded hallways when he didn't have a hand curled around Ned's jacket. It explained why, as much as he loved his middle school's Decathlon team, every practice made his heart pound painfully and his knees go weak. It explained why picking up the phone seemed just as terrifying as facing down a dragon.

I have social anxiety.

Peter never told Aunt May or Uncle Ben. They had enough to worry about, and Peter doubted they could afford to send him to a therapist anyway.

Months slid by, and Peter had found himself, quite suddenly, staring down the a life as a superhero. A few weeks after the spiderbite, Peter had realized that he hadn't needed to use his inhaler once and that his glasses were actually making his vision worse. Something hopeful had kindled inside him. The teenager had ran straight out of the apartment and into a crowded grocery store, expecting to feel nothing but a slight pang of hunger when he looked at the bakery section.

If his powers had healed his asthma and his astigmatism, why not his anxiety, too?

But as soon as he came jogging in and the first pair of eyes settled on his nerdy t-shirt, he felt that familiar rush of terror and his breathing picked up and he could feel static in his hands and his heart broke in two.

The bite fixed my body, but my mind is still a mess.

The first part of the suit Peter designed was the mask, and it was during his very first patrol that he realized something wonderful.

Spider-Man didn't have social anxiety.

Peter never felt more alive than when he was out in the suit. He had never realized how dizzyingly freeing it would feel to be out in the city streets and not have your hands tremble with fear.

Behind a mask, no one can see when you're afraid. Behind a mask, there isn't any reason to be.

And, okay, Peter knew that it was a pretty unhealthy coping mechanism. He'd created a strange disconnect between himself and Spider-Man. It was as if the moment the mask slid over his face, he became someone else.

Like he said, unhealthy.

But it was glorious. When Spider-Man made sarcastic quips at bad guys and reassured frightened civilians, his voice never stuttered. When Spider-Man walked into a room, he didn't slouch to hide his face. When Spider-Man saved the day, he wasn't distracted from his pride by that lingering taste of fear.

Spider-Man was free.

But Peter Parker? Peter Parker was still just a prisoner in his own mind.

AN: If you think you may be suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, or any mental illness, please see your doctor or a therapist. It's not worth suffering in silence. Believe me.