Chapter Text
He had replayed the moment a thousand times.
The last look Peter gave him — wide-eyed, terrified, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing left in the universe. The kid hadn’t even said his name. Just “Mr. Stark.” Just that. Over and over. Until he started to vanish.
But Strange…
Just before it overtook him, he'd reached for Peter. Moved and threw out one of those damn golden portals.
“New York”
“Sanctum”
That had been enough. Enough to get Tony to believe that maybe Peter didn’t vanish. Maybe he’d been pulled through. Maybe he’d made it to the Sanctum. Maybe, just maybe, the kid had been waiting for him back on Earth.
He managed to survived three more days on that ship because of that hope.
Now he was back.
And the Sanctum was empty.
Wong hadn’t seen him. No one had. The portal had opened, but no one had comed through.
Tony had searched anyway. Clung to the sliver of hope like a dying man clings to air. He’d burned through the last of his energy trying to pull every feed he could access. He hacked CCTV systems from his hospital bed, voice hoarse, body trembling, barely able to sit upright without assistance. He had Friday scan every inch of Queens, then New York, then the rest of the state, then the whole damn country.
Then the planet.
Even when he slipped in and out of consciousness —his body wrecked, muscles deteriorating, an IV drip pumping nutrients into him because he couldn’t keep food down.
He still searched.
Still asked.
Still begged.
Between spikes of fever and pain, he muttered Peter’s name. Bark new search commands at FRIDAY in half-delirious whispers. Medical personnel thought he was dreaming. Maybe they hoped he was. But he wasn’t. He knew what he was doing.
Because if Strange had opened that portal, if he said he was sending Peter home… then maybe—maybe—he had.
And if Peter had made it through, if he’d landed anywhere at all, then Tony was going to find him.
Even if it killed him.
But hope is a cruel thing.
It stays just long enough to keep you alive.
And then it leaves.
He was barely conscious some days. He’d black out mid-command, blinking awake to find Pepper sitting at his bedside, eyes red. FRIDAY kept logs of everything in case he forgot. Which he did. Often.
The desperation blurred into delirium. Hope rotted into noise.
And still—
“Run another scan,” he’d whisper.
“Check again.”
“Cross-reference sightings with anything that looks like a teenage male—brown curls—anything.”
Even in sleep, the same name escaped his lips.
Peter.
Peter.
Peter.
Until one day… he stopped asking.
The silence inside him became bigger than the world around him.
Nothing.
Until that night.
Until the insomnia pushed past the grief and his body started moving before his brain could catch up.
He left the compound without telling anyone. Didn’t need an escort. Didn’t want one. He just got in one of the cars and drove.
To Queens.
To the Wall.
The first time he’d heard about it was through murmurs. One of the nurses had mentioned it. A community-made mural outside the help center, started the day after. Photos. Names. Scraps of memory. Pinned and taped and glued to a long white stretch of canvas. A public graveyard for the vanished.
Peter's name…
he wasn’t sure it would be there.
That was the whole point of going.
Because if it wasn’t—
If it wasn’t—
Tony parked a block away. It was dark. Cold.
The city was still too quiet.
It didn’t feel real. The buildings were still standing. Cars still lined the curbs. Lights still blinked on in upstairs windows. But it wasn’t real.
Not without Peter.
He walked fast. Too fast. Like his body wanted to outrun his brain.
And then he saw it.
The Wall.
It wasn’t made by the government. It wasn’t even a formal project. It was clearly something the people in this neighborhood had put together with what little they had. Tony saw photos torn from school IDs, print-outs from Facebook, drawings by kids.
Notes scribbled in crayon. Candles, melted and warped by the sun.
A hundred faces. Maybe more.
He stopped breathing.
He didn’t move for a long time.
Then his body did the rest — his hands reaching, rifling through names, paper, looking for one.
Peter Benjamin Parker.
He didn’t remember saying it.
But he did.
The breath knocked from his chest, knees slamming against concrete.
And there it was.
Peter B. Parker - 15
“Beloved nephew, son, friend.”
“We’ll keep looking.”
The photo was a school one.From one of the articles he had written for their paper —Midtown Science Monthly.
He looked too young. A crooked smile like he was caught mid-laugh. That dumb windbreaker he always wore. Tony remembered teasing him about it.
It was from the year before.
So Tony reached for it.
He couldn’t breathe.
His fingers trembled over the edge of the paper, like he thought touching it too hard might erase him completely. His knees gave out, hard against the concrete. He didn’t even try to catch himself. He just sank.
It was like his body gave up pretending.
The strength he’d borrowed from desperation —gone.
The breath he’d held since Titan —gone.
He folded.
Collapsed in on himself.
Grief cracked through every cell like static in a failing machine.
And then it came out of him.
A sound that wasn’t a sob, wasn’t a cry, wasn’t a scream —something beyond that.
Guttural. Shaking. The sound of a father mourning a child he didn’t get to bury.
“Peter,” he rasped. “Kid—”
His voice caught. He pressed his forehead to the base of the wall, next to the taped-up photo.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve… I should’ve protected you. I promised, I promised you’d be okay—”
He felt something move behind him. Someone. He didn’t care.
Pepper’s voice reached him like it was underwater.
“Tony… it’s okay, we’re here—”
“No.” He shook his head violently. “He’s gone. He’s gone. I lost him. I let him down. My kid—my kid, Pep…”
Happy was the one who lifted him. Gently. Strong arms under his, pulling him back, whispering something comforting. But Tony didn’t stop crying.
His voice still searching, still needing.
He didn’t fight. Didn’t resist.
His hands were still outstretched as they carried him away.
Still reaching for a face on a wall.