If They Knew All About You

Hide and Seek

Peter woke up with a start. The room was dark, but right away he could feel that he wasn't alone. He squinted to his right and sure enough, he could make out a silhouette in the chair next to his bed. Still heavy with sleep, his eyes needed to adjust but he had no problem telling who was sitting in that chair. He just needed a moment to accept that it was really him.

"Mr... Mr. Stark?"

Peter waited for an answer that didn't come. At first, he thought the man might have fallen asleep but that couldn't be it. His eyes were wide open. Peter tried to focus on the man's voice more than his silhouette. It was a little unnerving to have him just sit there.

"Sir, is... is everything okay, is—"

"How are you feeling?"

Peter gave his head a little shake. "How am I... I... Mr. Stark, what's wrong?" The man's eyes were somewhere else, not on him, maybe the room was too dark for him to see Peter anyway. "Why... why are you sitting here in the dark?"

"Didn't want to wake you." The man's eyes were still unfocused.

"Mr. Stark, it's... you're kinda freaking me out."

"Huh." He pulled a grimace. "It's a little creepy, right?"

Peter shook his head. "Yeah, I mean... why... what's happening?"

"I need to ask you something."

"O-oh...?" Peter's heart rate sped up at once, his pulse throbbing in his throat.

"When you hacked my server. When you shuffled through all these files—"

"Mr. Stark, I—"

"Just... just shut it for a minute, would you?"

Peter's heart bounced in his chest. The man's voice was heavy but not sharp enough to be angry, moreso impatient. Peter couldn't tear his eyes away from him probably because Mr. Stark was so obviously not looking at him, couldn't even see how frantically Peter's chest was heaving, how wide his eyes were just thinking of how he had gone behind his mentor's back.

"When you went through those files, those videos... those videos you watched. They were personal. You—" Mr. Stark closed his eyes, lips tightly pressed together. "Why? Why did you watch them?"

"I..." Peter tried to swallow the lump in his throat. "I don't know. I'm so sorry, Sir. I had no right to do that, I know I messed up. I'm so sorry."

"Not good enough." The man shook his head, his eyes blinked open and his head turned in Peter's direction, his eyes never focusing on him though. The man really had to be blind in the darkness. "Try again."

"I... I'm sorry—"

"Stop apologizing and tell me the truth. Was it just a dull nosy impulse? Just that?"

Peter didn't even really know why he did it. Why he had kept watching them. How was he supposed to explain something he didn't even understand himself? His eyes stung with just how disappointed he was in himself, how he had messed all this up so bad.

"It... I didn't mean to find them. I... I was just looking for video files from... from the patrols. I just... I... I know now that the suit films every time I'm on patrol and—" He stopped himself. No reason to mention how he had tried to destroy all evidence of his betrayal, of how he had been hacking the Spider-suit. "But then... then those popped up and... I just... I couldn't stop myself. They... I don't know. I don't—"

Peter closed his eyes and the tears that had gathered in his lashes rolled down his cheeks. He swiped at them with a frustrated hand. He was always crying. Why was he always fucking crying? He kept his eyes pressed close. Maybe if he didn't see the man... Maybe the words would come to him then. The truth.