spiderman angst/sickfic oneshots

gymnastics AU

An AU where it's avengers vs Hydra but as good vs abusive gymnastics companies, Peter is trapped w Hydra and avengers basically save him

I did competetive gymnastics as a kid so that makes me qualified to write this /j.

TW: injury, medical stuff, eating disorder, self harm

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Hydra Gymnastics and Tumbling was one of, no, scratch that, the best gym in the youth competitive gymnastics world.

That gym raised up the current world's best in male gymnastics, James Bucanon "Bucky" Barnes. He was serious and cold, focused on the competition and nothing else. He didn't slip up, and if he did, he didn't let people know. It was rare that he didn't stick a landing. He didn't mess up at competitions, ever since his debut before Olympic level gymnastics, he'd been scoring near perfect scores.

But Hydra was a youth gym. Sure, they raised and basically gave Bucky his name, but they didn't have him anymore. Instead, they had new rising superstar Peter Parker, nicknamed the "spider-man" for the way he seemed to stick to the floor on all his landings, the way he could swing himself around the bar effortlessly and carry himself on the rings like he was flying.

What the public didn't see was the emotional, verbal, mental, and physical abuse the HYDRA coaches put their gymnasts through. Peter was already anxious to start with, but since he'd been training with HYDRA, despite improving rapidly, he'd picked up so many unhealthy habits:

Extremely restrictive eating after the coaches told him he was fat (he was not fat) and that he needed to watch his calories over and over and over.

Binging and purging to ease the hunger but get the calories his body had begged and begged for out.

Self harm. No one could see the cuts and scars on his thighs under his leo or shorts.

On top of all that, he had bruises. So many bruises. Bruises from being pushed by coaches, violently spotted while learning new skills, by trying to adjust equipment too fast before coaches could yell at him, and sometimes just hitting him. Not being there to catch him. His coaches would also scream at him, yell out his imperfections until he was perfect. Most of his teammates gave up, threw in the towel, went home early, or their parents pulled them out. But Peter just kept taking it, kept persevering. He didn't know what his limit was. He didn't know how to stop, so he just let it continue.

He let the bruises pile up, letting his eating habits become more and more extreme, let the cuts become deep and dizzying.

The cherry on top was school. The bullying for being a little more feminine than the rest of the guys, for being to skinny, for being smart, for being a pushover, a try hard, a teachers pet, a cheater. People called him whatever they wanted to and he pretended to let it roll of his shoulders, but really it sat there next to the bruises and hand in hand with the void in his stomach.

Now, it was national qualifiers and his coaches were expecting him, for the 5th year in a row, to stand on that podium with five gold medals around his neck and go on to nationals, hopefully to win all around this year.

The night before he couldn't bring himself to eat, which wasn't routine for him before a competition, but the longer he stared at his plate the rounder his stomach seemed to become. He couldn't eat. He threw the food away.

It was fine, his coaches had convinced him he didn't need the calories anyways.

Worst decision of his life.

Time came for his bar routine, he did the usual. This was the event that really earned him his nickname, he had the highest difficulty routine and always got the highest scores. But he had no energy, his body was failing him, he felt so dizzy as he let go for another flip, twisting over the bar and reaching out to regrab, but he let go too early. His hands missed the bar, his head did not.