Chapter Text
When Tony finds Peter bleeding out in his bathtub, his first thought is that he’s having another nightmare.
He’s had a lot of them over the past four years. There’s nothing like holding your kid in your arms while he disintegrates to refresh all your nightmare fuel. Tony’s watched Peter die over and over again. He’s heard Peter apologize, scream in agony, curse him for being alive while he stays dead, dead, dead.
But, the worst nights are the ones when Tony sleeps all the way through, and he wakes up well-rested and content until he remembers that Peter’s still gone.
Tony’s terrified of forgetting what his voice sounds like. No technology has perfect audio capture, not even the kind that gets put into super suits.
“F-Fuck,” Tony hisses, as he presses a towel to Peter’s wrist. It’s quickly becoming warm and heavy with his blood.
Peter’s blood, all over Tony’s hands.
He feels like he’s going to pass out.
“FRIDAY?”
“Mr. Wilson is on his way with a medkit.”
“Okay,” Tony says. “Okay, okay, okay. You’re gonna be okay, kid.” He cups Peter’s cheek with one hand, lifting his face out of the shower spray. His skin is cold.
Ten minutes ago, Tony had thought that Peter being horrified by the sight of him, Peter crying and throwing up while trying to fight him, Peter falling out of the sky were the worst things he’d ever seen. He’d thought that the empty bed and open window in the penthouse were the things that would come closest to giving him a heart attack this year.
But, this.
Tony can already tell that he won’t be sleeping for months.
“What’s going o— Oh my God.”
“Shit, wha—“
“Peter—“
“Stark, I’m gonna need you to move—“
Sam shoulders Tony aside, so he can stop Peter from bleeding out. Tony steps back, steps away, steps himself all the way out to the kitchen, because even though he spent more than a decade as an active combatant, he’s never learned any first aid beyond sticking a Hello Kitty bandaid on a scrape. And doesn’t that just tell you what kind of fucking hero he is.
“I sent Morgan out to play before FRIDAY announced the alarm,” Pepper tells him. “What happened?”
“Peter,” Tony chokes out. “He—“
He can’t say it.
“Take Morgan back to the city,” Tony says instead. “Overnight. It’s— She can’t see Pete like this. You don’t want to see him like this. Please,” he adds, when Pepper’s eyes dart towards the hallway.
“What’s wrong with Peter? Is he—“
“Look, if you want to be able to walk into our bathroom again without imagining Peter taking a kitchen knife to his wrist in the tub, then take Morgan to the city and stay there until I give the okay.”
Pepper’s face goes pale.
“Sorry,” Tony says. “But, please.”
Slowly, Pepper nods.
“Keep me updated,” she says.
Tony doesn’t remember if he agrees or not before he’s rushing back to the bathroom.
It’s all a blur. Gauze and blood and towels, and they finally get that Spider-Man suit off of the kid. They find the infected wounds on his feet and the low blood sugar that’s keeping him knocked out, and the mantra of Peter’s alive, Peter’s alive, Peter’s still alive— that has been thrumming through Tony’s brain for the past couple days is the only thing that keeps him from having a panic attack.
Once everything bloody has been bandaged, they move Peter to his room and lay him in his bed. It’s simultaneously Tony’s worst nightmare and a dream come true.
He’s been living with the ghost of Peter Parker for so long that he’s not entirely sure that this isn’t a hallucination conjured up by his broken brain.
Peter in the Spider-Man Day crowd, looking like he hasn’t aged a day.
Peter in the penthouse, crying and saying Tony’s name.
Peter in the yard, running around with Morgan like the kid he’s always been.
Peter in the room Tony keeps for him as part of a desperate fantasy where Morgan still has a brother and May still has a nephew and Tony still has the kid.
Peter, alive.
Peter, an inch away from death again.
“He’s going to be okay,” Steve says gently.
Tony whirls around.
“You think this is okay?” he says. “Look at him. Look at his face. Does he look okay to you? I told you— I knew we needed to give him the time to—“
“We don’t know if he has that time,” Steve explains. Tony can tell that he’s upset, too, and that he didn’t intend for this to happen, but so the fuck what? Right now, instead of enjoying a long overdue brunch with the family, Tony’s kid is trying to replenish half the blood in his body, because some people just couldn’t give them one hour to not think about genocidal aliens. “We have no idea what Thanos did to him.”
“Yeah, well, his face is an open book, so I know enough, alright? You shouldn’t have— All you had to do was trust me with him.” Tony jabs his index finger into Steve’s chest.
“He’s not one of your soldiers,” Tony says. “He’s just a kid.”
My kid, Tony doesn’t say.
“He’s a kid who’s been gone for years, and he doesn’t remember who he is, and he’s lost and hurt and confused, and he needs us— the people who love him— not the Avengers right now. Him being alive? That’s a miracle. So, I cannot fucking believe—“ Tony raises his hands into the air. ”— that we came this close to losing him. Again.”
Steve lowers his eyes.
No one says anything.
Tony turns back to the bed.
“Give me some time alone with him,” he says.
“Tony—“
“Get out. Go.”
A pause. Then Tony hears everyone troop out the door.
Except for one.
“Go, Natasha.”
She steps closer instead, reaching out. She brushes Peter’s drying curls out of his eyes.
Tony pulls up the chair from Peter’s desk and slumps into it.
He puts his head in his hands.
“It’s not Steve’s fault,” Natasha says.
“I know.”
“It’s not your fault either.”
Tony doesn’t say anything.
“He’s going to need a lot of help after this,” Natasha says. “But, we’ll all be there for him. And he’s strong. He’s going to be okay, Tony.”
Tony leans his elbows onto Peter’s bed, like he’s praying.
He takes a deep breath.
Natasha closes the door behind herself.
Under the light from the window, Peter looks small and pale. But, his expression is smooth. And he’s breathing.
When Tony takes his right hand, it’s warm.
He’s alive.
These past few days— these past few hours— have been unbelievable. Tony’s been oscillating between elation and horror so frequently that he’s surprised that he can still feel his feelings.
But, the pain and tenderness and overwhelming joy that comes from seeing Peter— That’s still there.
“You’re killing me, kid,” Tony whispers.
Four years. Four years without him. Four years of trying to keep all of him together, trying not to forget a single thing, trying to keep his memory alive. Four years of trying to ignore that tiny flame of hope, which kept Tony building and inventing and looking and waiting.
Tony used to sit in this very chair, tinkering with his latest detector, surrounded by videos of Peter, surrounded by Peter’s voice, and he’d wonder if he was going crazy.
But, here he is.
Peter’s alive.
Now, all Tony has to do is keep him.
Tony presses his lips to the back of Peter’s hand.
Then, he straightens up in his chair, eyes never leaving Peter’s face.
Peter’s alive.
Tony can wait a little longer for him.