Not a hero, just a boy

-or maybe something in-between

The sun shone, arcing over the tall reflective buildings of new york city and igniting the glass panes, the Avengers tower a tall blinding giantat it's centre. Tony stark stood with his cup of black coffee in hand, at the top of the tower, surveying the city- He wondered.

spider man had yet to accept their offer of becoming an avenger, the boy was young, a teen from what he knew, and he worried about him.

Tony knew what it was like to be trapped beneath a building, it's weight slowly crushing you,breathing restricted, and becoming frantic,but still holding on, so that one child could escape. Not really knowing whether or not you were going to survive-but staying anyway.

Holding on to that one beam, with your last strength, and in the quiet. Feeling that sense of release, a closeness to that feeling of redemption, letting go, and knowing that in that moment you are perfect. Immortal. A universe away from that last breath. In a loop milliseconds away from death,and happy. Because you have hurt so many, killed so many, and all of the destruction will end with you.

-and then life comes rushing back, and with it comes pain, and sorrow, and regret, that you could have worked harder, been faster. done more.and had your perfect end to your chapter, your small chapter. Before you have been hanging on for too long, and become someone-something, you weren't before.

A good hero is neither good nor evil. He teeters on the edge of self destruction.A constant struggle within himself,and fighting thosconsidered evil, to act the hero that people say you are. Wishing for the quiet, but hanging on, because fate asked you to. The world asked you to.

But you are just that same old confused distressed angry person you always were, but with a fancy name and a costume. Pretending you are what people say you are, a hero, not just some broken guy in a suit trying to make the world better, to heal the wound within his own heart, by healing the world. One broken building at a time…

-Peter-

Peter woke with a start,tumbling sideways out of bed and landing with a dull thump on his appartment floor. "aaargh" the pain in his side stabbed at him. The space around the wound like red hot flames licking up his body. Peter got up slowly on his hands and knees, his left arm curling protectively around himself. A sharp stabbing pulse had his hands balling into fists and his white knuckles pressing into the floorboards beneath him. The pale skin stretched tight over them and the muscles in his jaw working.

Bright blue eyes opened lit with pain. Spider man-Peter Parker,17 raised his head up to the ceiling in a silent lament to his pain, his naked torso heaving with stuttered breaths. He let his head hang beneath his shoulders. His dark soft locks bedraggled and sad looking-like a mo hanging over his eyes. And his strong lean shoulders stretching.

He shuddered out a quick succession of choked out breaths-after a while beginning to gain control over his abused body. The teen stood unsteadily, leaning against the nightstand heavily and regained his breath. He limped over to the small television in the corner of the room using the bed post and his small work table to get there, all the while curled protectively in on himself.

He switched on the news with a grunt, as the edited,prim voices of the reporters at CNN chirped out at him.

Falling backwards into the wall and staggering along it to the bathroom door, he half stumbled half fell through the opening, refusing to loo in the mirror, Peter knew he looked like hell- He started fumbling with the controls for the shower.

The youth stripped off his underwear. It took a few tries as his side hurt with every movement, and his torso was also littered with dark welt and bruises-turning it from smooth milky white to ugly green and purple. Marring the marble skin.

He stayed in there for a long time. Bracing his arm against the crisp white tiles, ignoring the searing pain in his side making his fingers twitch and watching the water going down the plug hole turn red.

He let it run down his face, locks sodden and floppy hanging down his cheeks. If you where to stand behind him you would see big ugly poppy bruises trailing down from his neck to the base of his spine. The former covered in large finger shaped bruises. Ugly welts etched into the pale skin, apart from the unmarred patches, unnatural on such a youthful body.

As well as the new signs of abuse there were old healed scars, jagged memories of hurt slashed cruelly across his skin. Spider man wouldtake it all, all of the hurt he could, so you didn't have to.

He shut off the water, lamenting at the loss of the steady warm stream of water enveloping his sore limbs. Stepping carefully out of the shower, hair wet and clinging to the sides of his head, he reached for the cabinet. Hand jerking back as if burned at the sight of his marred neck and chest in the cabinets mirrored doors. He frowned sadly at the split lip and nicked skin just above his eyebrow. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he was a sickly pale.

Peter watched his pale reflection in the mirror reach for the split in his lip,and rest its fingers upon it. Frowning had re opened the cut and he removed his fingers, watching with fascination as he removed it and it was wet with crimson blood, turning it in his fingers. Before quickly-frantically,wiping it on a blue towel on the rack next to him. The youth reached for the cabinet again. This time succeeding in opening it. Thisrevealed three rows of shelving filled to bursting with various medication. The teen reached fluidly for the middle pack and popped a fewwhite capsules into his mouth swallowing without water.

Towelling himself off gingerly Peter limped over to his bed using the furniture in his small apartment to cling to as he literally fell through the space 'I should probably phone in sick…' Mused Peter morbidly, the numbness in his mind matching the numbness in his bodyas the pain meds kicked in. His head was fuzzy, like cotton wool was stuffed in his ears.

He dressed slowly, wincing every once and a-while as he was reminded of a small cut or welt, all the time refusing to acknowledge the rawness of his side. It was a large cut, more like a slice, long and jagged, tapering up from his waist all the way up to his third rib.

It needed to be stitched.Peter frowned, his brow furrowing and the skin between his eyes stretching. This caused the cut in his brow to twinge and the youth huffed out an annoyed puff of air through his nose-Peter wasn't even allowed to be annoyed without being reminded of his fight the night before, with mercenaries out for blood, specifically his blood.

It was quite a shock to be targeted in this way. Perhaps it was Tony Stark's formal request that he join the Avengers. It was plastered all over the news and had been talked about on several chat shows already. The main concern was that Spidey wasn't up for the job, using no weapons but webs and fighting small crime, not saving the world. But also there was concern that without spider man protecting people from mugging and assaults in the city, as well as mad power hungry scientists that he somehow knew how to disable, there would be utter had happened before.

The avengers where the poster boy heroes, the kardashians of super beings. They sat in their tower most of the time, playing with their toys and swooped in when there was a man was the one who cleared up the messes left behind, the dregs of society.

-Rapists, murderers, henchmen took to murder and robbery. Those who hated the heroes and directed all of their anger at those who can't fight back, or interfere with their dastardly plans. Those easier to hurt.

They took out their anger on Peter.

Peter sat heavily, still shirtless, reaching blindly for his nightstand and rifling through the top draw. His fingers brushed something-there. He pulled out a small black box, opening it with closed eyes and a sigh, baby blues opened simultaneously-the box clicking assuredly with a startling finality. the only sound other than the insistent busy traffic rioting 50 floors down and the hum of static from the television.

The 17 year old took a deep breath, eying the curved mettle of the tiny surgical needle. He grabbed hold of the spool of thread tucked neatly next to the rubbing alcohol and emergency Codeine, and pulled.

He would need two tries to seal the weeping wound. Peter cut an arms length of thread, placing the scissors back in the kit with a clatter, his hands had started shaking. This was going to hurt.

Peter scrubbed a hand roughly over his face, his knee bouncing an unsteady rhythm against the floorboards. Sometimes peter longed for the times when Aunt may would place a band aid over his skinned knee, petting back his unruly hair and kissing the injury away.

Or even the times when he was a little older and he'd gotten into a fight at school, and she cast a stern glance his way at the dinner table, but said nothing.

Long ago where the days where he could just have a break, give himself time to recover from knocks and bruises, or illness. Long past where the days when if he lost his job, or got into a fight -he could go home and be safe in his Aunt and Uncle's home.

Uncle Ben was dead, and he'd had to leave the house he'd grown up in. The house his loving Aunt still lived in. It was getting too hard to hide his long nightly absences, and the blood on his clothes, and the disappearing medical supplies and alcohol.

At first aunt may thought he'd been drinking, but soon found out he was using it on his 'd caught him pouring it over a glass wound in his side. He'd dismissed it as the school bully Jason's gang fighting with him and throwing him over a broken sheet of glass near the science the time they were slowly demolishing buildings for the new block. She had believed him, and wrote a strongly worded letter to the school about bullying, leaving out any names as peter has requested.

But he couldn't forget the hurt in her eyes when she'd seen the wounds, and her sorrow for not being able to protect him, like she, not he was to blame for them. Aunt May was shocked to see that he had already removed most of the glass himself, leaving only a few medium sized pieces that she removed herself. Her Nephew remained silent the whole time. Again his pain tolerance was a cause for concern...

Peter gritted his teeth.

Hey, it's me(: I just wanted to thank everybody for their reviews and encouragement and reassure everybody that I will be updating very soon. I have a lot of college work to do so I'm writing in the evenings when it's too late to work and I need a break.I have a huge plot planned but I'm not giving anything away, I'm just going to say it involves a lot of action and will be impossible to guess. My writing has been described as realistic, I like to push aside that Disneyfied view that making things a film can give you of a character or world, and push aside the veil of glory to remind people of the person beneath the name Hero. Peter is a hero, but he was made that way through a severe complex about his own goodness and insecurities about losing those he loved. but also because of this realistic view the story will pick up in the middle with some happy parts and humour.

I'm really enjoying writing it so far and have a couple of pages written, although I'm toying with the problem of maybe posting too soon as I feel there is less content to the new chapter. nothing really has happened yet either and I'd like to promise the third chapter will be much more exciting! It just wouldn't be good for the story if I skipped strait to the action (: well until the next chapter!