You can trust now, Peter darling

40

Wow, 40 chapters in. Time to make this a good one.

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1 month later

Peter had been in Wakanda longer than he wanted to be. He missed his home, he missed his school, he missed his family.

He's been able to call Tony every few weeks, but he hasn't seen him in person since four weeks prior. Mainly because they let him see him so early on that they're stalling it now. Peter hated it.

But he had to admit that they had helped him a lot. At first, he didn't notice a difference. But then he looked at the lake and he felt...nothing. It was the first time he smiled in pure happiness since he had seen Tony.

Peter had lost count of the amount of sessions he had. All he knew was that it was two months worth.

"How are you today, Peter?" Ayo asked at the start of their session.

Peter didn't feel like talking today. That sometimes happened. With his selective mutism, there were moments where he just didn't want to talk at all. It could last for hours, days or weeks.

He nodded and stuttered a 'good' with a grimace. Of course, Ayo took notice of his displeasure.

"Are you sure?"

Peter nodded. The woman finally realized what was going on and adjusted in her seat.

"Is it a silent day today?" She asked him with a reassuring smile. She needed to let him know that it was okay to not want to talk.

Peter felt relief that she understood what he was going through. His fake smile immediately dropped and he nodded.

"That's fine. It gives us a good opportunity to talk about it. How often do you go through silent periods like this?"

Peter inhaled before signing. 'A few times a month. Tony always helps me though.'

Ayo furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

'He always gets me to talk again and reminds me that I'm safe.'

Ayo thought to herself. She needed to go about this carefully.

"Okay...and what do you feel when Tony pushes you to talk?"

Peter thought for a second. He bit his lip, he didn't want to talk badly about his Dad because he loved him so much, but he needed to be honest. 'I feel worse. But I know he only does it because he cares about me. He thinks it makes me feel safer. He does it a lot, but it's okay.'

Ayo nodded. "You know, Peter...sometimes that's not okay."

Peter whipped his head up to look at Ayo. He felt offended that she would talk badly of Tony like that. It wasn't like he was doing it on purpose.

'It's not his fault. He doesn't know.' Peter instantly signs.

"I know, I know. I'm not saying Tony is doing it on purpose. All I'm saying is that he clearly doesn't know much about selective mutism if he's pushing you to speak when you don't want to." She quickly reassured the boy. "But that's fine, we can talk to him about it."