Spider-Man: New Home (18+)

Chapter 36: We Need to Talk

Peter woke up very early one morning. His eyes wearily peeled open as he gazed around his dark bedroom. His arms still wrapped around Raven's sleeping form. He hummed with satisfaction and nuzzled his face into her, enjoying the way her soft skin felt against his. Slowly he rolled out of bed and crept backwards across the room, slipping on a pair of shorts as he did, before leaving his room.

It had been two days since their mission to the H.I.V.E. headquarters. Brother Blood had given them a decent amount of information. Slade had been holed up in an underground bunker just outside the city, buy laid waste to it once he stole away with Terra. Now both him and Terra were apparently holed up at the last stronghold he had left, Fort Eternal. Now with Brother Blood's cooperation, they had every bit of information to make it past the security systems. He and Robin had spent the past day coming up with a plan of action for their next mission.

As Peter felt himself waking up as he sipped his morning coffee, his mind raced with countless contingency plans for the mission. From if he ran out of webs all the way to plans for what to do if somebody got injured. He made his way into the lab to tinker a bit more with his web shooters, however, as soon as he stepped through the door, he was surprised to see that the light was already on. He wondered for a moment in confusion if he had forgotten to turn the light off, or if somebody had somehow infiltrated their home.

However, upon turning his head he was surprised to see all of the Titans including Raven already sitting in chairs by the workbench, with one empty one waiting by them.

"Hey guys." Peter asked, raising a brow, confused at their suspicious amount of eye contact and the worried looks on their faces. "What's up?"

The others gave each other uncomfortable looks for a moment, before finally Raven broke the silence with a sigh and patted the seat of the chair beside her.

"Sit down, Peter." She said.

Peter looked even more confused then and slowly started for the chair. "O....kay...?"

As he sat down between Robin and Raven he could almost immediately feel his knee start bouncing and his hands picking at the nails on each other. All eyes were on him, as if he was supposed to give a speech that he didn't prepare for.

"What's going on?" He asked nearvously.

"Peter, we need to talk about the elephant in the room." Robin explained.

Peter raised a brow. "What elephant in the room?"

"You're not okay, man." Cyborg replied with concern.

"Indeed." Starfire nodded. "It is the obvious."

"It is?" Peter replied with surprise.

"As much as we all try to ignore it, you haven't been okay since you got here." Robin replied. "And that was months ago."

"Come on." Peter scoffed. "I'm fine. Look at me." He shrugged. "I'm fine."

"You and I both know that's a lie." Raven replied. "You barely sleep, you can never sit still, and you beat yourself up over every little thing that goes wrong."

"And you barely eat." Beastboy added. "I don't know how you function, dude."

"It's hard." Peter chuckled in response.

"Look, Peter." Robin patted him on his shoulder. "We're here for you. We care about you, all of us." The others all nodded in agreement. "We wanna help you, but you have to let us in."

"What do you want me to say?!" Peter snapped, feeling his stomach drop and the turmoil within him bubble to the surface. "So I'm a bit anxious, what's the big deal?"