Chapter Text
The only thing creepier than watching Ned and MJ go about their lives is watching a ten year old girl get dropped off and picked up at school.
It’s pretty indefensible, except for the defense that he isn’t actually here to watch the ten year old. He’s here for her dad.
“Bye, munchkin,” he hears through EV’s amplified sound system in his earbuds, targeting the Mercedes idling by the curb in front of St. Michael’s Preparatory School.
“Bye, Daddy!” Morgan Stark says as she hops from the car, sky blue ribbons streaming from her braided hair as she runs towards the teacher herding the drop offs. Her coat is as bright orange as the leaves on the trees around them. It’s jarring how much taller she is every time Peter sees her.
Watching her disappear into the building, Mr. Stark raises the window as his fingers idly tap the dash. A rock song is playing, one they listened to more than a few times together in Mr. Stark’s garage, working together on their suits. He sits on the bench across the street, his usual perch, and wonders whether Mr. Stark ever feels nostalgic listening to the songs they used to shout along to—even without the memories to explain why.
There’s a leaf-littered street between him and the Mercedes, but even from this distance, Peter can see the scarring crawling up the right side of his face. It’s smoothed over around his lip and eye, has been for about a year and change. Probably another surgery.
“What?” Peter had asked, bewildered, when Mr. Stark brought it up the first time. Well, Tony, not Mr. Stark. He was more often ‘Tony’, by the time he’d recovered from his Snap, but Peter was still ‘kid’. They were sitting on the cabin porch, watching the sun go down. “What do you mean, plastic surgery? Your face looks fine.”
“Oh, come on. When I smile I look like I had a stroke.”
“Well, you…you kinda did,” Peter said with a wince.
Tony raised his physician-mandated nonalcoholic bottle and tilted it. “You get what I mean. It would help with eating, too, and my speech.”
“Your speech sounds fine,” Peter protested.
Tony abruptly turned his full body to face Peter with a small frown. “Kid, stop. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Peter said, raising his hands. “Seriously. I’m just surprised you want to do even more surgeries after…I mean, we just celebrated you being done with this stuff,” Peter said weakly.
“I won’t go back under the knife for a while,” Tony said, dismissing it. “I’m just thinking about it. Don’t stress out so much. We’re okay. Thanos is dead. Et cetera.”
Peter nodded and tried to relax back into his chair. “We’re okay,” he echoed.
Peter’s so lost in his memory that it takes him a stupidly long time to realize that Mr. Stark is staring right through his tinted windows at his side of the street. Wait. He’s looking back at Peter. His gaze is so penetrating Peter half-thinks that the stare is going through him to the street front behind him. After all, Peter is invisible to the Starks.
He should be invisible to the Starks.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit shit!
Peter tries to grab his bag and stand as inconspicuously as possible. His legs feel stiff and awkward as he turns away from Tony’s stare, but he can still feel it boring a hole in his back. He quickens his pace as he slings his bag over his shoulder and walks fast away from the street the school is on, turning left and right after a few blocks.
His impulse is to disappear into an alleyway and just change into his suit so he can swing away faster, but he can’t shake the feeling that Tony’s still watching him. He can’t tell if it’s “spidey sensing” or just his anxiety, but he isn’t taking this risk. He isn’t—
Clank-clank.
“I think we need to talk,” says the Iron Man suit that just conspicuously landed a few feet in front of Peter. The people on the street around them scatter to give a wide berth, though most are pulling out their phones to film. Everybody knows Tony Stark retired, but seeing one of the piloted suits is still awe-inspiring.
“Oh, great,” Peter mutters, slowing to a stop. He pulls his hood over his head and says to the suit, “Look, man. I’m trying to keep a low profile—”
“We can talk here, or you can come with my friend here—”
“I’m not trying to cause a problem; I think you’ve got the wrong guy—”
“I definitely don’t.”
Tony’s voice, even filtered through the suit speakers, is painfully familiar. Peter glances away from the suit to blink back sudden, embarrassing tears. “Look, I just—can you come find me later?”
“Later’s not an option. Talk to the suit, or talk to me. I’m happy to have an in person conversation about you stalking my daughter if you—”
“Woah, woah!” Peter yelps, turning back to Iron Man. “Hold on, I don’t—I’m not a creep, Mr. Stark, I—” He cuts himself off, hoping he was the only one who noticed his slip.
Turns out they both noticed it.
The suit tilts its head. “Right…” Tony says through the speaker. “I’m taking you for a ride.”
“No–woah!” Peter protests as he’s grabbed and promptly lifted into the air. He winces at the chilly wind whipping at his face as Iron Man goes flying, and wishes he had his mask on to protect from autumn’s bite.
And then he realizes that this is the first time he’s been in flight with Tony since Dr. Strange’s spell.
And yeah, it’s not actually Tony, just a shell. But it kind of is. The noise of the city underneath them and the cold armor digging into his skin…that’s Iron Man, keeping Peter Parker safe.
His arms are pinned, so the tears that come out of his eyes free fall thousands of feet in the air.
He’s silent the whole flight, flooded with repressed memories of him.
He found Tony tinkering in the garage. He had the doors to both entrances raised, so you could see the setting sun in the distance. It made the acre of trees between them and the lake glow.
“Pepper said dinner’s ready,” Peter said quietly from the doorway, hitting it twice to get Tony’s attention. “If you’re up for it.”
Tony glanced up at him, distracted. There was some grease on his chin, and four articulate robotic arms, built to supplement instead of his bad one, glanced up too. They whirred curiously, but Tony stayed quiet. Peter wasn’t surprised. He had been having a rough few days.
“I could bring it to you,” Peter offered. “If you want me to.”
Tony sighed and went back to his project; the articulators did too. His soldering iron turned back on with a zzt. “Not a good time,” he rasped, facing away. “Thanks.”
Peter nodded, unseen, but didn’t move. His knuckles rested on the paint of the doorframe, like he was stuck knocking, at the precipice of Tony’s space. He was just stuck. “Is there anything at all I can do?”
“No.”
“I’m not applying to MIT.”
Tony stilled. “Why?”
Peter shrugged one shoulder. “It’s far.”
Tony turned back around to stare at him, visibly displeased. “No. You’re not—you’re not going to—”
“I can actually do what I want,” Peter bit, indignant.
“Not if it’s self-sacrificial bullshit,” Tony argued, voice hoarse.
Peter stood up straight from the doorframe. “I care about you.” His voice cracked, like he was younger than he was. He felt young, small.
Tony looked like he was grasping for a response, but as he struggled, his expression softened. “Not—you can’t, not like this. I have Pepper, okay? You need to go live your life without worrying about me. I’m not going to keel over.”
It didn’t feel like that to Peter. Any time he was away from the cabin for too long, his chest began to squeeze and he forgot how to breathe. He could see it so clearly; Tony on the floor, gasping for air as his eyes turned glassy. “It’s not about you,” Peter lies suddenly. “I just don’t want to go there anymore.”
“Peter—”
“Dinner’s ready if you want it,” Peter said stiffly, and pulled away from the doorway.
Tony didn’t emerge from the garage that night.
When they approach the ground after ten minutes or so, it’s no surprise to Peter to see the roof of the northern Avengers compound. A pit of dread opens in his stomach.
When they land, Peter doesn’t stumble; he’s surprised that Tony’s being gentle even though he currently sees Peter as a creepy stalker. He wouldn’t blame him for being a little rough.
“You know this is kidnapping, right?” Peter asks as he twists his spine to pop it. His back is drenched with sweat but his face is still numb. He rubs his cheeks vigorously to warm them up again, and makes sure to wipe away any tear tracks that may have been left behind.
“I’m sorry, am I keeping you from something?” Tony says, unaffected. “You didn’t look too busy before.”
“I have…work.”
“Nice try, you’re unemployed.”
Peter peers at the suit, thinking. “How long have you been following me?”
“A month,” Tony says, but his voice isn’t metallicized anymore. The suit has gone still.
Peter isn’t surprised by his approach from behind, and turns around to meet Tony face-to-face for the first time in four years. Tony’s wearing his glasses, an MIT sweatshirt and sweatpants that pool a little around his ankles. He’s still noticeably skinny from poor nutrition retention. Peter knows that’s why because he was there to help Tony vomit over the toilet for a whole year. And with the clearer full-body view it’s obvious his spastic right arm is still curled against his torso, not improved like they’d hoped years ago. That hand is an off brown-and-pink color, fingers melted together from the aftermath of the Snap. He has two less than he did before.
God. Peter wants to throw up so bad.
“I’m not a creep,” he manages.
“Do you have a better reason to be following my daughter to…” Tony raises his left hand to count on his fingers. Thumb, “School,” Index, “the park,” Middle, “and my wife’s job?” Tony cocks his head. “I was thinking you’re just some fan, put my security detail on you, but now I have to believe you’re more than that.”
“I actually am a fan,” Peter tries, but Tony clucks his tongue.
“No, no,” he dismisses. “You’re not. You’ve been looking me up for years. Checking in on me. Cute, fine. But digging through my medical history, following my surgeons around at work, and now following my kid? That’s screwed up. You can’t blame me for thinking that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Be talking about why I shouldn’t kick your ass right now.”
Well.
“I’m…” Peter bites the inside of his cheek, thinking, then exhales sharply. “It’s a long story. But to summarize: um, you shouldn’t…because I’m Spiderman.”
Tony blinks at him.
Peter waits, but gets no response for so long that he tries again. “Spiderman. That’s me. You know, pew-pew?” He does the hand signs for his webs.
“I know.” Tony looks a little like he wants to laugh. “Hold on. I thought you knew that I knew.”
Peter can’t hide his flabbergasted expression. “What—how would I know that?”
“Buddy, I just told you I’ve been following you for a month! You change into your suit in Porta Potties, it’s not exactly subtle!”
Peter points a finger at him. “Hey, that’s only happened, like, once—“
“I don’t care. Look.” Tony sighs through his nose, evidently tired of the banter. He drops the genial smile. “What is it,” he bites. “Hm? Money? You want mentorship? Information? What do you need so badly? Or do you just want to join the Avengers, is that it?”
Peter presses his lips into a thin line, mute. His mind is racing. He figured the day he would see Tony again would be inevitable, but not like this. He thought he’d either be Peter Parker or Spiderman, not both.
“I’m not messing with you. You’re not talking to Iron Man, right now. You’re talking to Tony Stark, and I want to know why you’re obsessed with my goddamn family or I swear to god I’ll level your ass—“
“I can’t tell you,” Peter says evenly, suddenly still. He feels the panic and discombobulation of this conversation start to settle, getting replaced with a certain sort of calm. “I can say that I’m sorry, because I am. And I can promise never to come near you or look your family up ever again. But you have to trust that my reasoning is personal.”
Tony studies him. Peter can feel it, not even using his heightened senses. He just recognizes the look on Tony’s face.
“Okay.”
Peter pauses. “Okay?”
Tony looks at him a little longer. Peter takes the chance to look back. Tony’s eyes are sunken and glassy, but he carries himself like he always has, unflappable and confident. “You’re younger than you seem. Only twenty-two.”
“I’m an adult,” Peter defends, but then realizes how childish that sounds.
“You’ve been able to drink legally for a year,” Tony replies, unimpressed. His face softens. “Believe it or not, I still operate on innocent until proven guilty. If you ever tried an attack on my family you wouldn’t be able to succeed, even though you’re…” he gestures like he’s web shooting. “You wouldn’t get far. But you haven’t yet, which is a point in your favor. And you’ve done a lot of good work for this city.”
“So…I’m off the hook.”
“That did not come out of my mouth.”
“But you’re not going send the suits to kick my ass.”
“Not yet.” Tony squints at him. It’s bright on the roof, and for a second he shifts his body weight off his bad leg. It’s subtle, but Peter clocks it.
Peter can’t stop himself from blurting, “We can sit down if you want to. Maybe inside? It’s cold.”
Recognizing the thinly veiled concern, Tony backs up a step. “Just because you’ve read my medical records doesn’t mean you get to act like a medical provider,” he says sharply, and Peter recognizes this. He knows this, the hackles raised against him.
It feels like deja vu, standing on the roof of a building while Tony Stark accidentally rips his heart open.
“Sorry.” Peter opens his arms, questioning. “I can leave you alone, man. But you’re the one who brought me here.”
“Just to send a message.”
“Well, message received. I’m—I know how it looks. I’m sorry. I’d never hurt M—your family.”
Tony stares at him for a little longer, then nods once.
“Have a safe trip back,” Tony says suddenly, just as the Iron Man suit whirs and comes at Peter from behind.
“Oh—“ Metal arms clamp around him, and without a chance to say anything else, he’s lifted into the air. Peter stares mutely at Tony, who has his hands in his pockets as he watches the suit fly into the air. Wind whips around them again, slapping Peter’s face, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of Tony, still in disbelief over the last twenty minutes.
They stare at each other until they’re just pinpricks in each other’s vision.
Then Peter shuts his eyes, leans on the metal suit, and imagines he’s falling out of the air, the vast city stretching out underneath him, heart in his throat.
He pretends Mr. Stark caught him.