Chapter Text
In all the years Peter’s been in his life, there has always been movement. Peter was always pushing himself, jumping at the chance to do more, crossing state lines and riding on airplanes and sprinting to put his life on the line if it meant someone else had the chance to escape. And, on a more microscopic level, the things Tony only saw once they grew closer, he was passionate and hyperactive and anxious and fidgety. He bounced his leg and paced the room and talked with his hands, he stayed up too late and got up too early and threw himself into idea after idea with renewed vigor that Tony wouldn’t have managed to muster on his best days.
Tony had found it exhausting before he found it endearing.
You never truly know how much you love something until it’s gone, huh.
Because now, there’s only stillness.
At the end, Peter wasn’t moving. He wasn’t shivering, he wasn’t responding.
He wasn’t Peter.
Anything. Tony would take literally anything, any movement, just something to remind his heart that Peter’s still alive. By some godforsaken miracle.
(Half of that miracle was James Rhodes. Tony didn’t think he ever loved Rhodey any more than when he came blasting through that wall. Well, until he started beating the shit out of those Oscorp asshats. That had been pure art to witness.)
(The other half was Helen Cho. Goddamn that woman. Truly incredible.)
But now, Peter’s in a hospital bed, small and asleep and far too still. The heartrate monitor is beeping steadily, but it does little to comfort Tony. He’s already seen the kid be stripped of everything he is. He’s already watched as Peter’s life faded away without actually dying.
Peter’s heart never actually stopped, but Tony had watched him brush so close to death that he thought he was gone for good. It’s hard to believe he’s still here.
If he would just move, just a finger twitch or an eyelid flutter, Tony would be able to breathe again, think again, eat again, sleep again. He needs a sign of life, something, so he can start to function again. He’s so fucking tired of the stillness.
The stillness makes him small. The stillness makes him empty. The stillness doesn’t make him dead but it certainly doesn’t make him living.
They got him back to compound, heart still beating, and immediately the kid was torn away from him and swallowed up by a seemingly endless stream of medical personnel and equipment.
Tony has to explain to Helen Cho what happened. He tells her about the antifreeze poisoning, even though he has no idea if that’s even right. He’s taking the word of psychopaths. But apparently, they were right. That idea only barely has time to register in Tony’s mind before Helen is jamming a needle into his kid.
Fomepizole, she says. The most common treatment for antifreeze poisoning. Hopefully it works.
“It’s not exactly like normal antifreeze poisoning,” Helen explains as she rushes around Peter’s hospital room. “Since his body is producing it. But it seems similar enough that the fomepizole should help. And we’ll have to get him warm. I’m not quite sure completely what we’re working with, but it stands to reason that if we can warm him up, then his body will stop releasing the antifreeze chemicals and we can go from there.”
The next few hours are terrifying. Peter now has an oxygen tube and an IV and heated blankets and that useless heartrate monitor. They do hemodialysis too. It helps rewarm the blood, Helen explains.
“And he’ll need it if he’s taken sufficient damage to his kidneys. You said he had back pain?”
Tony nods.
Helen sighs. “That would be his kidneys. Hemodialysis is typically used when there’s an 85% loss of function. The timing of the pain and onset of poison in his system should correspond with total kidney failure, but his healing probably helped slow the damage. And, even better, once we help him fight through the hypothermia and the initial poisoning, his healing should take care of his kidneys. I have every reason to believe that they will be restored back to their full function.”
“What does that mean?”
Helen offers a gentle smile. “I think he’s going to be okay. We just have to give him some time to get warm and fight through the toxins. His body took a large toll, so he will most likely be asleep for a while, but for now, we just wait and let the treatments do their thing.”
“He—he stopped shivering. I thought he was dead. How—” Tony cuts himself off with a sound that’s half gulp, half gag. How is he not dead? He doesn’t want to ask that. He can’t ask that.
“My best guess?” Helen says, “As his body started shutting down from the cold, his spider side pulled out its last resort.”
“The antifreeze?”
“The antifreeze,” she nods. “Most likely, he started producing it even before the symptoms appeared. It’s probably what kept him alive so long below freezing, why he stayed awake for so long after he stopped shivering. But as he was continually exposed to below freezing temperatures, and he wasn’t getting warm, and his body had to keep producing more and more antifreeze to keep him alive. The cold itself wasn’t killing him anymore, but the excess chemicals in his system were.”
Tony was only allowed in the room because they made the initial mistake of trying to get him checked out too, and once they determined he was fine—he really was, stupidly, ridiculously fine—he downright refused to leave. It would have taken nothing short of the full Iron Legion to pull him away from Peter’s bedside.
It’s only now that Peter’s finally stable that they let May in. She’s been waiting for four days to see her son.
They were gone for a little more than three days, that’s what Rhodey tells him. With no natural light in that basement, time became associated with Peter’s suffering as opposed to the position of the sun in the sky. Peter freezing in that box became his days, Peter chained to the column became his nights. His only indicator of passing time was how much pain Peter was in, or how close he was to dying.
He wasn’t sure how to return to normal, not when Peter still hadn’t stirred.
He and May both take up constant vigil in Peter’s hospital room.
“I’m sorry,” Tony says, breaking the quiet of the room.
May glances up from her lap and meets his gaze with a frown. “What are you sorry for?”
“This is my fault. They—they wanted to hurt me. And I should have been better about—”
“Oh, can it, Stark,” May says, and a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.
“But—”
“No buts.” Tony immediately shuts his mouth and May’s expression softens. “Tony, I know that kid better than I know myself.” She turns to look down at her sleeping nephew and squeezes Peter’s limp hand. “If anything, he held on even longer because of you. I don’t know what happened there, not really, but I know you talked to him. I know you kept him alive.”
“May…”
She locks eyes with him again. Her smile is soft and sad, but there’s a hardness behind her eyes that’s no doubt been lingering for days. “I wanted to thank you. Don’t belittle what you did for him just because you feel helpless. You did everything you could. You did more than you know. Thank you, Tony.”
He nods dumbly and reaches out to take Peter’s other hand. He squeezes it gently and then hates it when there’s no response, but he holds on nonetheless.
--
They have the asshat psychopaths in some sort of custody. For the past three days, Tony had fantasized about what he would do to make their lives hell, but now he can’t imagine leaving Peter’s side.
He delegates the task to Rhodey.
Turns out, when they’re not torturing innocent teenagers, they aren’t very tough at all. Rhodey gets information out of them with minimal effort, an honestly, Tony wishes they had put up a better fight.
Rhodey relays everything to him in record time.
“Andrew Davis, Liam Smith, and Curt Thomas,” he says. “All former Oscorp employees.”
“Former?” Tony asks.
Rhodey nods. “Thomas was in R&D, worked as an experimental biologist, at least until he was fired in April of 2013 for not following ethical procedure.”
“2013?” Tony echoes. “Peter hadn’t even been bitten yet.”
Rhodey nods. “Mhm. He and Davis were old pals. He apparently got into the creepy mad science stalker business after Davis and Smith recruited him. They needed someone who could understand Peter’s physiology.”
“What about the other two then?”
“Smith was a night security guard. He’s apparently the one figured out Oscorp was even connected to Spider-Man. Not sure how since he’s dumber than a box of rocks. He got fired in March for sneaking around where he shouldn’t have, trying to find Spider-Man’s identity from security footage. Davis was a radiation technician working on the project that hit Pete’s spider. He quit out of the blue seven months ago, right after Smith was fired.”
“Not a coincidence, I presume,” Tony says dryly.
Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Smith called up Davis, Davis called up Thomas, and the three of them went right to work being creepy, evil jagweeds.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Tony says, “none of them actually had anything to do with Peter getting his powers?”
Rhodey shakes his head. “Nothing. And even if—and it’s a pretty big if—Davis was involved in the project that affected the spider, all he would have done was push a button. No one intended for Spider-Man to be born.”
Anger is churning hard in Tony’s veins, making his hands shake and his vision tunnel. His wrists, still torn apart from tugging on the chains, burn.
There was no real reason for any of this.
“So, what?” Tony spits. “Why do this? They kept going on and on about making Pete and how they owned him and all that bullshit. Wha—How? Why? How?”
“They’ve been watching the kid for seven months, Tones. They have extensive amounts of data on him, but also on you. They fed off of each other’s bitter, jaded energy and somehow formed the delusion that because they knew Spider-Man better than anyone else in the world, they had claim to him.”
“But that’s—”
“I know, Tones,” Rhodey says, setting a gentle hand on his shoulder. It does very little to bring him back to reality, but he tries hard to focus on the steady pillar of comfort and grounding that Rhodey has always been. “I know. It’s complete bullshit. But I’m telling you what was going on in their heads, crazy as it is. They saw Spider-Man, something that had been made on their home turf and they figured out his identity. The more they learned about him, the more entitled they felt. Tony, they’ve been watching him for so long that they just might be the world’s leading experts—”
“That’s bullshit,” Tony snaps. He doesn’t mean to get this angry with Rhodey, but it’s getting to him. They hurt his kid because they felt jaded and entitled and smart for the first time in their pathetic lives. They tried to kill a kid for absolutely no goddamn reason. “They don’t know him. They don’t know that kid, Rhodey. They—"
“I know,” Rhodey reassures. “But they saw something that they felt they understood better than anyone. And they saw him with you, a rich guy who can have pretty much whatever he wants. To them, they were doing all the hard work and you were reaping the benefits.”
“Peter isn’t a fucking science experiment,” he growls. “He—he’s my kid. He’s a kid, Rhodey. He’s a kid.” He’s shaking now, bad, and his eyes are burning with unshed tears.
“I know.”
“I want them dead.”
“I know,” Rhodey says. “I know. Me too. And trust me, it’s nothing more than what they deserve. But we can’t do that.”
“Well, why fucking not?” He wants them dead. He wants to be the one to kill them. Once Peter is better, he’ll do it, and he’ll take his sweet time too.
“You can’t do that, Tones,” Rhodey says. “You’d be a murderer.”
“I don’t—”
“You want Peter to have to visit you in prison when he wakes up? Or do you want to be here for him, right here, and let the authorities handle this?”
He knows Rhodey’s right. And he’s already beginning to get antsy having been away from Peter’s side for so long.
He knows, logically, that most likely the kid’s condition has changed very little in the twenty minutes he’s been in the hall drinking crappy coffee while Rhodey breaks it down, but some annoyingly optimistic piece of him keeps chirping that Peter could wake up at any minute, any second—and he wants to be there when that happens.
He couldn’t be there for Peter while he was dying, but he’ll be damned if he misses a single moment of his recovery.
“Go be with your kid,” Rhodey says knowingly, shoving his shoulder lightly. Tony nods and all but runs back to Peter’s room.
Happy’s there when he gets back, sitting beside May and lending a comforting presence while she waits. Apparently, he’s been a fairly steady presence for May since Tony and Peter first went missing.
Happy had been waiting for them, when they were taken—gassed in the elevator before they made it to the waiting car. Happy had, once unable to locate Peter and Tony, leapt straight into action, making sure Pepper and May were safe and getting Rhodey on the case. He stayed with May at the compound while Rhodey scowered the world for her nephew.
Damn, if Tony were going to get kidnapped, he couldn’t think of a better person than Happy Hogan to look after the ones left behind. He did everything right.
The signs of stress and worry still linger on the other man’s face, for obvious reason. Happy cares about Peter, far more than he lets on. He’s been telling May stories of the stupid, dorky things Peter has done over the past few months, managing a few laughs out of her. Still, just like Tony and May, the bags linger under his eyes and he’s shaky on his feet.
In this room, they mourn but don’t mourn. It’s like time and energy and everything in the world are standing still and all they can do was wait for it to move again.
--
Tony’s always been impatient.
He’s stubborn, too, so he can wait forever, but that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.
Right, now he just wants nothing more to see Peter’s eyes open.
The oxygen tube is out, replaced with a nasal cannula, and they’ve almost stopped the hemodialysis treatments for his kidneys. He no longer needs the warm saline and heated blankets—he’s no longer producing antifreeze.
The doctors, Happy, May—they keep saying that’s it’s just a matter of waiting. Peter’s only been at the compound for two days, but already Tony’s been reduced to a bundle of anxious impatience.
“Why isn’t he awake yet?” Tony asks, coming to a halt when he realizes he’s been pacing the room again.
May shoots him a wry smile. “You know how he is. He always sleeps in. This is normal.”
“What if…” Tony falls into the chair on Peter’s other side and stares down at his blank face. “What if he doesn’t know that it’s safe to wake up this time?”
May’s expression morphs into something harder to read, something much sadder. The hand that isn’t intertwined with Peter’s reaches over to rest gently on Tony’s arm.
“He’s okay, Tony,” she says softly. “He’s gonna be okay.”
“You should talk to him,” Tony suggests. “You—Maybe your voice will help him come back.”
“Sure,” May says with a smile. “You should talk too, though. He’ll want to know that we’re both here, waiting. He’ll want to wake up surrounded by family.”
Tony’s throat tightens considerably at her words and his own voice fails for the first time in days, cut off by the lump of emotions.
“Hi, Peter,” May starts. “Hi, honey. You’re safe now, baby. I’m so sorry you’ve been hurting, but everything’s going to be okay now, okay? Just—whenever you’re ready, baby, we’ll be here. I know you like to sleep, but whenever you’re ready, let’s get those eyes open, okay? And—and we’ll make pancakes and I’ll try really, really hard not to burn them. I need you to actually keep your eye on them this time, alright? Last time you messed up, buddy-boy. You weren’t watching. I need your full attention this time, mister.”
She swallows hard and continues. “But you’re safe now, baby. I’m here and—and Tony’s right here, too. I know you’ve been worried about him, but he’s all good. We’re just waiting on you, Petey.”
She looks over at Tony encouragingly and he realizes that she’s expecting him to talk now, which is sufficiently difficult with the lump in his throat. It takes a few tries for his words to actually come out as more than croaks. “Yeah, kiddo, just waiting on you. I know—I know it’s been a tough few days and I’m so proud of you for holding on—I’m so, so proud, Pete. I—I think that was the strongest I’ve ever seen you and god, kid, you never cease to amaze me. You’re safe now, Pete. No more poison or cold. You’re safe and warm here and we love you, okay kid? So just go ahead and come on back to us. I’m going a little crazy here, bud.”
He laughs wetly, and May squeezes his hand in her own. Unsurprisingly, Peter doesn’t stir, but somehow it still feels like part of the weight has been lifted off of his chest. He doesn’t know why—it did nothing, Peter remains unconscious and still—but it does. He feels lighter, like now Peter knows. They put out the beacon and the kid is going to use it to find his way home.
He and May take turns talking, and time seems to move a little faster.
--
When Peter finally wakes up, the first thing he does is get crushed by his aunt’s hug.
The second thing he does is ask about Tony.
“Right here, kiddo,” Tony says, appearing beside May. Why was he so far away? “Hey. How are you?”
Peter’s smile is weak, and Tony can tell he’s still tired even after his three-day nap. He won’t remain conscious for very long, but it’s okay because it’s something. It’s another necessary step towards recovery.
“Tired,” Peter says. “Floaty.”
“Hmm. Okay. No pain though?”
“Nope. I’m all good, Mr. Stark. We made it out?”
“Yeah, Pete. We did. You did so well, bud. I was just telling May how strong you were.”
The kid flushes and May laughs lightly. “It’s nothing I didn’t already know, sweetheart,” May says, cupping his cheek. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”
“You’re okay, right Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, gazing up at him. “They didn’t hurt you?”
“No, Pete. I’m all good. They didn’t even touch me.”
“They didn’t shock you again, did they?” He’s looking up at him with such an earnest expression that Tony’s incredibly glad that he doesn’t have to lie to the kid.
“No, Pete. All good. Just worried about you, bud. I promise.”
Peter nods, obviously satisfied with that answer and lets his eyes drift closed again.
--
Tony and May take turns staying with Peter while he sleeps. He could get some shut-eye in the semi-comfortable hospital chair that’s been pulled up right next to Peter, but he hasn’t been sleeping well, for fairly obvious reasons, so Tony simply leans his head back, dozes slightly, and listens to the sound of Peter’s heart rate monitor.
It’s close to two in the morning when, next to him, Peter jerks suddenly awake with a gasp. For a moment, he thrashes wildly, before Tony sits up alert and catches his wrists.
“Whoa, Pete. Hey, you’re good. You’re good. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“Mis’r Stark?” Peter asks, pushing himself up to a seated position and staring up at him.
“Hey, Pete. Hi.”
He blinks and sniffs loudly, and although Tony can see his eyes shining, no tears spill down his cheeks.
“”M sorry I woke you,” Peter murmurs. “I’m okay.”
“Hey, it’s okay, bud. What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Just—just a nightmare. I’m okay now.”
“You’re safe, Pete,” he says, ruffling his hair gently. “You’re safe. Do you want to talk about it?”
“I… I’m okay. It was just… just the box again. I was in it and I couldn’t get out and I was all alone. You—you weren’t there. But I’m okay now. I’m fine.”
“Hey, Pete, it’s okay to have nightmares. It’s okay to be scared. God knows I was terrified. I’ve my own fair share of bad dreams.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Pete. But it’s okay. You’re okay. Do you want to talk about it?”
“I mean, there’s not much to talk about— But… I…” Peter stares at his lap, picking at the hem of his blanket. “I was so scared,” he admits. “I thought I was going to die.”
“Peter…”
“But I had to stay awake. It hurt, and I was so, so tired, but I had to. I didn’t want to die. And… And I—I knew they were keeping you there to watch, and—and I was scared of what would happen if I died.” He looks up suddenly, wide, determined eyes meeting Tony’s. “I didn’t want to leave you. They might have killed you, Mr. Stark. I—I couldn’t…”
“Pete…” Tony leans over and runs a hand through his curls. He doesn’t know what to say.
Selfless, brave Peter, trying to stay alive so they both would. It’s… unthinkable. He can’t even begin to comprehend this kid.
And he can’t find it in him to believe it, either.
He’ll never tell Peter, but he knows that’s not true. They wouldn’t have killed him, even after Peter died. They wanted him to live with it. They wanted to prove that they were smart and right and that Tony couldn’t stop them. They wanted Tony to carry around that failure for as long as possible.
They wouldn’t have killed him, and it would have hurt so much worse.
But he’ll never tell Peter that.
It would be an insult to how stupidly self-less and wonderful this kid is.
“I’m so sorry, Peter,” he says instead.
Peter cracks a watery smile. “I thought we agreed this wasn’t your fault. You kept me alive, Mr. Stark. You talked to me and you made me want to stick around as long as possible. You made it impossible to give up.”
He tugs Peter into his arms and the kid winds his hands up to grip Tony’s shoulders in response.
“You’re such a good kid, Pete. I’m so, so proud of you.”
“Love you, Mr. Stark,” Peter murmurs into his shoulder.
“I love you too, kiddo. So much.”
Peter sighs, and Tony helps him lay back down, keeping one of Peter’s small hands in his own.
He’ll be there if he wakes up again. He’ll be there for anything Peter needs.
He'll always be there.
--
A week after Peter gets released from the med bay, May has to work several late shifts, so Peter stays the weekend at the compound with Tony. They’re settled in to binge watch, Peter tucked into his side, sipping something warm from an Iron Man mug. Tony assumes it hot chocolate. He keeps a stash just for Peter and the kid’s been going to town on it ever since getting released from the med bay. He supposes the warmth is comforting.
Halfway through the show, he glances sideways at Peter, just to check. He’s always checking now.
Peter takes a sip from his mug and makes a face but doesn’t say anything. Tony frowns, leaning over just slightly. It doesn’t quite look like hot chocolate. He sniffs. Coffee.
“FRIDAY,” Tony interrupts, “pause.”
“Wha—” Peter splutters. “Hey! Why’d you do that? We were just getting to the good part!”
“Kid it’s,” Tony checks his watch, “8:42. Why are you drinking coffee? You’re never going to be able to sleep if you have caffeine right now. You’re a smart kid, I feel like you should know this.”
“It’s decaf?” Peter tries. It’s a truly pitiful attempt.
“Wrong answer,” Tony says. “We don’t have decaf in this house.”
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Peter says. “It’s really not healthy for you to be consuming that much caffeine.”
He levels an unamused look at the kid. It’s a pitiful attempt at deflection.
“You don’t even like coffee,” Tony says. “Why are you drinking this?”
Peter fidgets, like he always does when he’s nervous. He wrings his hands and scratches behind his ear and looks at anything except for Tony. He tries to take another drink from the mug, but Tony carefully snatches it away, ignoring all protests. He sets it on the table on his other side, far out of Peter’s reach, before returning all of his focus on the kid.
“Come on, Pete. Lay it on me. You gotta tell me what’s going on, bud.”
“I don’t…” Peter huffs, obviously frustrated.
“Is it nightmares?” Tony asks, setting a gentle hand on Peter’s arm. “It’s okay, Pete, we can get through—”
“It’s not nightmares,” Peter says. “Well, sometimes it is, but… but…” He blinks with shining eyes and Tony is so ready to just tug the kid into his arms and wipe the tears away for good. Peter just has to tell him what’s happening. “I don’t like feeling tired.”
Tony blinks, tries to register, and blinks again.
“I know it’s irrational,” Peter says quickly, before Tony can speak, “but before, I—I knew that—that if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t wake up. It’s hard to—to not feel that way anymore… even though I know I’m safe. I know I’m safe, Mr. Stark, and it’s so stupid, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
Tony’s hugging Peter before he even realizes he’s moved. Peter seems surprised for just a second before his hands come up to rest on Tony’s back, holding on for dear life and sobbing silently into his chest.
“You’re safe, Pete. You’re safe. You’re here and I’m here. You’re safe.”
“I know,” Peter says, his voice shaky and hoarse with sobs. “I know, I know, I know. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. My brain won’t… I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”
“Shh. Hey, bud, it’s okay. We’re gonna get through this, Peter, I promise you, okay? You’re gonna get through this.”
“I’m so tired,” Peter sobs. “I want to sleep, but—but I can’t do it. I’m not gonna wake up, Mr. Stark. I have to—I can’t—”
“You can, bud. You can. It’s okay. You’re safe, I promise. Shh. You can sleep, Peter. I’m right here. I’ll be right here.”
“R—really?” Peter pulls away and blinks up at him with puffy red eyes.
“Yeah, kiddo,” Tony says, pushing a few stray curls back from his forehead. “If you need me, I’ll be here, okay? I’ll always be here for you. You can sleep now, Peter.”
Peter sobs again and Tony maneuvers them so the kid is lying more comfortably, his head in Tony’s lap. Peter’s hands wind around his waist as his sobs slowly weaken. Eventually, they morph entirely into soft, steady breathing, and Tony doesn’t even need to look to know that he’s asleep.
It took less than twenty minutes, and Tony wonders how many nights the kid has been forcing himself to stay awake. It aches to think about Peter lying awake all night, alone and scared.
He’s not going to miss any more signs. No way is he letting Peter suffer through this alone.
“I got you, kid,” he whispers, gently carding his hand through Peter’s hair. “I got you.”
--
It’s cold in New York, almost winter now. Tony knows Peter loves this city, loves everything about it, but that doesn’t do much to stop the autumn chill from turning into something much more dangerous.
The cold didn’t used to feel this sinister.
Every day that Peter’s body gets stronger, the air gets colder, and Tony doesn’t want Peter to feel afraid of his city. He makes it his mission to make sure the chill never reaches Peter’s heart.
They came up with a solution together (with May’s help—what would either of them do without that woman?). Now, whenever Peter or Tony have a particularly bad day, all they have to do is text the little coffee cup emoji and they’ll meet up at a little café Peter likes near his school.
It’s usually Peter texting, but sometimes Tony just needs to see the kid and make sure he’s okay, and he’s rarely ashamed anymore of requesting their emergency meet-ups.
That day it was Peter.
It wasn’t an urgent meeting—they had a different signal for that—but Tony made sure to get there early so he and Peter’s usual order would be waiting for the kid when he got out of school.
The café was small and there usually weren’t a ton of people there, but they had half-decent scones and a warm atmosphere that Peter seemed to really love. The walls were painted a strange mustard yellow, but in the glow of the hanging lights, it actually made the whole place radiate warmth and comfort.
Tony was settled in their usual place near the back, the fireplace to his left, a bookshelf of used books to his right. If he timed it just right (and he could—genius, duh), they would bring out Peter’s hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and Tony’s coffee and they would be cooled the perfect amount to start drinking as soon as Peter sat down.
Their drinks had been on the table for three minutes now and Peter should be there any second.
As if on command, the bell above the café door jingles and Peter hurries over to their corner.
“Hey, kiddo.” Seeing Peter okay always lifts a weight off of his shoulders. He can’t stop himself from grinning.
Peter smiles back at him as he slides into the chair. “Hey, Mr. Stark.” He immediately takes a sip from his hot chocolate and wipes marshmallow fluff off of his lip with the back of his hand.
“How was school?”
“Not bad,” Peter says with a shrug. His expression is still light, which Tony is thankful for. There’s just a slight crinkle around his eyes that say something’s off.
“You want to talk about it?” Sometimes he doesn’t. That’s okay. He never pushes, just encourages.
Peter shrugs. “It… it really wasn’t anything too bad. I was at decathlon practice and I guess I got a lot of stuff right in a row, and Flash called me a freak.”
Tony felt his expression darken, and Peter catches on quickly.
“It’s not a big deal, Mr. Stark,” Peter says quickly. “Really. He was joking, you know? He didn’t even really mean it to be an insult. It was just a joke, really, and honestly not a big deal. At all. But, it still sort of brought some things back.”
After watching Peter nearly freeze to death, he sometimes forgets how their kidnappers treated Peter outside of the box. For three days, they called him “experiment,” and “spider,” and “it.” They tried to strip away his humanity. For god’s sake, they threw him in a dumpster.
Peter told him how they made him feel like nothing, that Tony speaking to him was the only thing that reminded him that he existed outside of the basement, that he was a real person, not a science experiment.
“You’re not a freak, Peter,” Tony says, laying a hand on Peter’s wrist.
“I know,” Peter says, and he smiles like he means it. “I know. I’ve just been stuck in that mindset for a couple hours and I wanted to snap out of it. So, here we are.”
“Yeah,” Tony says. “Well, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it as many times as I need to: you’re a good kid, Pete, and I’m always going to be here for you.”
“Thanks. Honestly,” Peter says, blushing just slightly. “I feel better already. Thanks for meeting me, Mr. Stark.”
“Of course, kiddo,” Tony says. It’s routine. Peter always thanks him, even though Tony’s just happy the kid’s taking care of himself. “Anytime. So, how was school?”
“You already asked that.” Peter rolls his eyes with a grin.
“Well, you didn’t give me a very good answer! How was the math test?”
“Aced it,” Peter says.
“Knew you would.”
Their conversation turns natural, almost as if nothing had ever happened. The lively, enthusiastic light has returned to Peter's eyes and a smile lingers on Tony's face. It's not quite as simple as before. There are lasting effects and Tony knows they're going to weigh on them probably for years, but they're working on it.
He'll work on it for the rest of his life if he has to.
And Peter's strong, possibly the strongest person he knows. He'll be okay. It doesn't matter if it takes a hundred sleepless nights helping the kid through his nightmares or a thousand mugs of hot chocolate after hard days, Tony will be there for all of it.
They're going to be okay.