Chapter Text
The cameras start flashing as soon as he walks on stage.
It’s blinding. He hasn’t done this in almost five years, hasn’t had any reason or desire to hold a press conference, to be someone people are looking to for information, for an explanation, since the Snap. He hasn’t missed it, not in the slightest. The lights, the overlapping voices, the heady sort of chaos - none of it was ever particularly appealing, as much as he always enjoyed finding new ways to shock the press, and it’s even less appealing now that he has to worry about Peter feeling it too.
He almost turns around and walks off the stage as soon as the thought crosses his mind. Because he doesn’t care how much irritation he has to deal with, but he knows that Peter will inadvertently have to deal with it too, right after he just -
(Peter is backstage. He’s backstage, mere feet away, with May and Natasha and Bruce, and he’s alive and safe and well - relatively so - and alive and breathing and oh, so very alive.
Tony can feel him. Now that he knows what that tugging feeling in his chest is, he knows with absolute certainty that Peter is alive.
If nothing else good comes from this, at least he doesn’t have to worry about all of it being a fever dream. It’s all too tangible to not be deeply, imperatively real.)
Tony stands in front of a podium on stage, spine rigid and shoulders straight, and says, “As you all know, my name is Tony Stark and I saved the universe.”
And somehow, impossibly, the chaos intensifies.
He pastes on his signature I’m Tony Stark smirk - his thoughts stick, still, on Peter, but he tries his damndest to put out of mind the question of whether all the noise and lights are affecting Peter’s senses and if so, how badly, because Peter’s senses are so heightened but he doesn’t know if the heightened senses still work when the input is coming from Tony or if this type of thing even transfers through their bond, and how far away from each other do they have to be for it to be a problem again and -
His eyes catch on Rhodey in the back of the room - he’d decided to stay in the audience instead of backstage so Tony would have a familiar face to look at. Tony had told him that he didn’t need him to do that, of course he didn’t, but now he’s grateful that Rhodey stopped listening to him decades ago - and he sees him mouth something.
He has absolutely no idea what it is, but he assumes it’s something along the lines of breathe, Tones and nods in acknowledgment anyway.
Dragging in a deep breath, Tony puts one hand on the side of the podium, tightening his grip until he hits that sweet spot between grounding and painful, and uses the other to unnecessarily adjust the microphone. It only buys him a couple seconds, but he’ll take what he can get.
He used to be good at this. Press conferences used to just be another thing to tick off of his to-do list, such a regular occurrence that he barely even noted it anymore, right up until -
An awful burst of static rings through the room as he accidentally brushes his hand against the felt tip of the microphone, making him wince. He watches everyone in the room do the same before finally going quiet.
Well. Not intended, but at least he can hear himself think now.
There are notecards in his pocket. Nat wrote them - short and succinct, just like Tony wanted them to be - and if this was any other sort of press conference, he’d probably ignore them just to stay on brand. But it’s not.
It’s not.
So instead, he clears his throat, pulls the notecards out, and for once, reads off the script.
“Five years ago, an alien named Thanos caused half of the life on the planet to disappear,” Tony says, and while his voice thankfully doesn’t shake, his stomach still twists with anxiety. “Ten days ago, I and the rest of the remaining Avengers reversed this.”
Once again, there’s a cacophony of overlapping voices. Tony wants nothing more than for the only voices he has to hear to be his family’s.
God, he wishes Pepper was here. She was in D.C., quietly doing damage control, when Rhodey called her to tell her that Tony and Peter were awake, and she started the drive back with Morgan as soon as she could, but she still won’t be here before this damn press conference ends.
He finds Rhodey in the crowd again, his best friend giving him a thumbs-up when their eyes meet, and continues over the noise, “I’m not going to get into the details of what happened or how it happened, as much of that is confidential information, but there are some things that I want everyone to know.
“First of all, Thanos is dead. He was killed in battle, and there is no way he could ever be brought back. Second, over three billion people have been reintroduced to the planet. This is, of course, completely unprecedented, and it will make for an incredibly hectic and incredibly difficult adjustment period. I know that the public will have a lot of questions for me and my team, but I ask you all to keep in mind that we are also adjusting and we won’t always be able to run interference. Third, the objects that Thanos used to - to - to -”
Nat’s script says kill. Of all the words that it could have said, the word kill is written in neat, looping cursive, and he hates it, he hates it, and he can’t believe this is what’s going to set him off -
“Mr. Stark, are you alright?”
No. No, I’m not alright, because my kid was one of them and Thanos ruined the planet and he ruined me and -
“Mr. Stark?”
My kid was one of them and now he’s here, but he’s still suffering because of me, he’s always suffering because of me -
“Mr. Stark!”
Tony blinks back into focus, and the first thing he notices is that the cameras are no longer flashing. The second is that he dropped all his notecards, and the third is that Peter is hovering beside him, hands in the air as if he’s not sure whether he should touch Tony or not.
He’s in his Spider-Man suit. He’s in his Spider-Man suit - well, the one that Tony made during those five years, the one he slaved and obsessed over for the first two years, the one he refused to get rid of no matter how long Peter was gone - because Tony is supposed to be introducing him as the newest member of the Avengers and he’s supposed to be holding a press conference and he’s supposed to be -
“Breathe, Mr. Stark. Everything’s alright. You’re safe, the team is safe, I - I’m safe, okay? I’m right here, and I’ll stay here if you need me to. You’re okay.”
Tony’s hands are shaking. They’re shaking and he can feel them shaking because he’s grabbing at his shirt and they’re knocking against his chest as he -
“Mr. Stark.” Peter finally grabs both of his wrists and squeezes. “ Breathe.”
He sucks in a harsh, dragging breath and thinks, Holy fuck, I’m having a panic attack in front of the entire world.
The realization makes his chest grow tighter, but he zeroes in on the feeling of Peter’s hands on his wrists and shit, Peter’s hands are shaking, too - harder than Tony’s own, he thinks - against his skin and it hits him that Peter will be feeling this, the awful, frantic, fluttery feeling of fear running through his veins, and he forces himself to breathe in and out, in and out, trying his best to think only of the spot where Peter’s fingertips press into his skin, and -
Feels his heartbeat start to slow down, gradually, as he squeezes his eyes shut and thinks of nothing but Peter, Peter, Peter.
“Okay,” Tony croaks, voice rough but blessedly audible. “I’m okay.”
Peter squeezes his wrists, then says, “Are you?”
He forgets, sometimes, that Peter can always see right through him.
Well, it wouldn’t matter even if Peter couldn’t. Not anymore, anyway.
“Yeah.” He pulls his arms, gently, out of Peter’s grip. “Yeah, yes, I’m okay. Promise.”
Peter nods, and even with the mask on, Tony can picture the kid’s eyes searching his face. He steps back and then glances out at the crowd of reporters and seems to register for the first time that he is standing in front of dozens of cameras, dragging Tony Stark down from a panic attack while wearing the Spider-Man suit.
He blinks. Looks back at Tony, then again to the crowd.
Guess I’m going off script again, Tony thinks. He collects the disordered set of notecards and steps back up to the podium.
“Sorry about that,” he says, artfully offhanded, donning his best don’t question me, I’m Tony Stark voice. The press is eerily quiet. “Comes with the job.”
He can’t exactly play this one off as if it didn’t happen, but this is the next best thing.
A single camera flashes. Tony winces, just a little, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Peter flinch.
“Alright,” he says, shifting, a heavy sort of discomfort settling in him. “Well. This was going to come much later in the speech, but I suppose now’s as good a time as any to introduce to the world -”
Once again, he catches Peter in his line of sight, watches the kid straighten up, seamlessly adopting the cool and confident demeanor that he only has when he’s Spider-Man. The discomfort doesn’t dissipate, still tight in his shoulders, but it does fade a little.
“- the newest member of the Avengers and, more importantly, to re-introduce Queens’ beloved Spider-Man.”
Peter gives a wave to the crowd, a winning smile crossing his face, and the press is silent for another two, three, four seconds, before slow applause starts, gradually filling up the room as Peter’s smile grows. It’s awkward, still, what with the fact that this is the first Avengers press conference since half of the universe was brought back to life and Tony just had a panic attack on stage, but there’s still a sense of...excitement, perhaps, or relief. Gratitude.
And Tony knows, he knows that it’s not really about Spider-Man, as much as it is about Peter for him. It’s just about the reminder that this is real.
Spider-Man is back because everyone is back. And while only the first part of that sentence matters to Tony, the rest of it is what has everyone clapping.
Gradually, the applause dies down. As soon as it’s quiet enough for him to be heard, Tony says into the microphone, “Alright, alright, don’t go boosting his ego. He’s enough like me as it is.”
He doesn’t have to turn to see Peter’s smile.
Tony takes a deep breath, letting the crowd settle a little more. Then, “I want the world to know that the objects Thanos used five years ago are in good hands now. Nothing like this can ever, ever, happen again.”
He knows that a lot of people aren’t going to believe him, and he really can’t blame them. He wouldn’t believe himself if he hadn’t been part of the fight.
This is all he has, though. The only modicum of comfort he is able to offer to people.
Nothing like this will ever happen again, not if Tony has anything to say about - and seeing as he’s the one who ended it, who wiped Thanos out of existence for good, he’d say he does.
“And on that note,” he says, “I will take questions.”
Every hand in the room shoots up. Used to this, Tony quickly scans the room and picks out a tall, mousy-haired woman toward the right side of the room.
“Yes, hi, Mr. Stark,” she starts, and Tony hopes his wince is small enough to go unnoticed. “Emilia Forsett from BBC News. I have two questions, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course.”
She nods once. “First - are the Avengers officially back together? Will you be prepared in case...something happens, in the near future?”
God, he hopes they don’t need to be. He’s trying to fucking retire here.
Tony glances over at Peter, who’s still standing a few feet away on stage, looking awkward but not quite uncomfortable by now. Jerks his head toward the back of the stage, Peter easily getting the message and waving once more at the audience before he heads backstage. He looks over his shoulder at Tony, once, before he’s out of sight, concern still painted in the lines of his forehead, and Tony gives him what he hopes is a reassuring smile before turning back to the crowd.
“Well,” he says, “yes. The Avengers are together again and they will be prepared. The likelihood of anything happening, though -”
“They?” the reporter cuts in. “Does this not include you?”
“Ah, see…” Does it? No. It can’t. He’s much too old for this, and he’s supposed to be retire , because he has a kid, kids, who need him. And besides, with the possibility that Tony’s pain will hurt Peter too...he couldn’t do that to the kid. He won’t. “No. That does not include me. While I will be available if needed, I do still consider myself retired and I hope to only be involved with the Avengers on a...personal level, I suppose.”
Emilia nods, surprisingly understanding, taking it without protest or follow-up. “Second, then - do the Avengers have a plan for reintegrating the billions of people who were brought back into the world?”
It’s a good question, one that Tony certainly does not know the answer to.
Was this on one of the notecards? He’s pretty sure this was on one of the notecards.
He sifts through them, not even bothering to be discreet or subtle about it, until he finds one that is, in fact, labelled Reintegration. Tony scans the notecard, and he has to stifle a laugh at the words Nat’s jotted down on it.
“No. We do not. It is, uh -” Nat’s words just read not our fucking job. Ask the government. “- a responsibility that’s not exactly...allotted to us. That’s a question for people much higher up in the government.”
The hands shoot up again. He gestures for a guy in a blue striped tie that he thinks he vaguely recognizes.
“Thank you, Mr. Stark. Mark Davis, from the Associated Press,” he says. “And my question is a little...lighter, if you don’t mind.”
He does not. “Go ahead.”
“I was wondering, how do you know Spider-Man? He’s been seen with you before, but never on Avengers business.”
Automatically, Tony’s chest tightens, as it tends to do when other people mention Spider-Man, especially in the same sentence as the Avengers. But within seconds, the feeling fades, overpowered by the tugging, pressing feeling of Peter.
How does he know Spider-Man?
He’s my kid, he thinks.
“He’s my -” he says, and he’s trying to figure out a way to word this without giving anything away about Peter’s age or identity or...anything. Kid makes him sound like exactly that, intern is much too close to home. “He’s my protege, of sorts. I - I met him back in 2016, and I took him under my wing, and he’s...by now, he’s…”
The person I saved the world for.
“He’s family.”
Tony doesn’t get a chance to check in with Natasha or Rhodey or Peter in the minutes after the press conference, which dragged on longer than Tony had hoped it would, because almost as soon as he walks backstage, a four-year-old hurricane of a girl slams into him.
“Daddy!” she shouts. Tony’s back groans in protest as he catches her in his arms and lifts her up, spinning her around once, twice, before coming to a stop. Morgan giggles all the while. “I missed you!”
“I missed you too, sweetheart,” he says, and it hurts something awful, saying I missed you to his kid. It’s not the same, of course, not even the same kid, but it hurts. It still hurts. “How are you, pumpkin?”
“I’m okay,” she says brightly, arms looping around Tony’s neck. “Mommy and I just got back. How are you?”
“I’m…” He glances over his shoulder, eyes finding Peter immediately, and he’s good. He’s so good. “I’m great, M. I’m great, and you know why?”
“Why?” Morgan asks, eyes wide.
He catches sight of Pepper, watching them from a few feet away with a soft smile on her face. And Tony loves her, he loves her so fucking much, and he smiles back at her with tears prickling in the corners of his eyes because he has his family back.
All of them.
“You remember when I told you about your brother?” Tony says, quietly so that Peter can’t hear. So that he doesn’t have to hear this part. Morgan nods. “Well, he’s here. He’s back.”
Morgan’s face lights up - there’s no confusion, no hesitation, not even an odd minute of processing. That little kid brain of hers just takes this and accepts it, Morgan’s eyes darting around the room. And Tony’s nervous, strangely, and he doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t know why the hell he’d be this nervous about this, until he looks back to Peter and sees him sitting with May, resting his head on her shoulder and tapping the fingers of the hand that’s not tucked in May’s against his knee incessantly as he watches them.
Ah, he thinks.
“Alright, honey,” he says to Morgan, whose eyes have found Peter, whose gaze lingers on the boy sitting across the room before flitting back to Tony. “Let me say hi to your mom, and then I’ll introduce you to Pete, okay?”
She nods again, and Tony hands her off to Natasha, who’s already standing by to take Morgan off his hands. Nat smiles at Morgan in that way that she only does around kids, all of the ones who know her as Auntie Natasha. Tony watches them for a moment, watches Morgan twirl Natasha’s newly dyed red hair around her fingers, and then he turns to Pepper, to his beautiful, incredible wife, and he hugs her tight when she walks right into his arms. And he holds her and he loves her and he loves her and he loves her.
She twists her fingers into the back of Tony’s suit jacket, and she says, “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” and Tony loves her.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I love you.”
She snorts, quietly, and then sniffles a little, face buried in Tony’s shoulder. “I love you too, Tony. But I mean it - if you almost die on me one more time, I will kill you myself.”
He laughs, pulling back just a little to press his lips to her cheek, her temple, the corner of her mouth. Says, “I know,” and leans back into the embrace, ignoring how Pepper’s hair tickles the side of his neck.
He feels eyes on him, and he pulls away fully, now, keeping his hands on Pepper’s waist as he turns to find Peter staring at them with this odd, uneasy look on his face. He shifts when Tony’s eyes meet his, discomfort and an uneven sort of self-consciousness evident in his posture, but he doesn’t look away. Almost looks like he doesn’t know how to.
Tony takes Morgan from Nat, bouncing her in his arms a couple times before setting her down. With her hand in his and Pepper’s on the small of his back, he heads over to Peter.
Peter’s expression gradually starts to smooth out as they get closer, which has Tony wondering vaguely if the kid’s been feeling what Tony felt when they were apart that first time. Except no, he can’t be - Tony would feel it too. And besides, they can’t possibly have been too far apart when Tony was on stage.
“Now, Morg,” Tony says, quiet still. “Petey here’s been through a lot in the past few days. So you can meet him and hug him and all, just be careful not to overwhelm him.”
“Okay,” she says, earnestly, all four-year-old seriousness. And then as soon as they get close to Peter, who stands to meet them and, finally, releases May’s hand, she pulls her hand out of his and dashes to him. Tony’s about to run to try to catch her, but she skirts to a stop once she reaches him. “Hi, Petey. I’m Morgan. Daddy says you’re my brother who came back to life.”
Peter doesn’t flinch, as much as Tony expects him to. He takes it in stride, crouching down to Morgan’s level so he can look her in the eyes when he says, softly, “I am, yeah. It’s nice to meet you, Morgan.”
And Tony knows, he knows, that if this had never been able to happen, if Peter and Morgan were, by the shitty, terrible way of the world, never allowed to exist at the same time, to exist simultaneously in Tony’s world, nothing would ever have been right.
After all, how could anything possibly feel right when Tony himself never could?
He’s never liked the idea that everyone was looking for the other side of themselves. That everyone is born as half of a person, that they exist this way until they find someone that makes them whole. He never liked it, never believed in it, never thought there could be anyone that would make him feel like more of a person than he already was.
And then he met Peter. And then he lost him.
And he understands it, now.
He still doesn’t believe that one can be less than whole. But he thinks there may be truth to the idea that there are people who are meant for each other. People who change you in ways that you never knew you needed. People who, when they leave you, take a piece of you with them.
Watching Peter with Morgan, holding Pepper’s hand in his, feeling Rhodey’s settle on his shoulder as he finds his way to them, he knows.
“Will you teach me how to be Spider-Man?” Morgan asks Peter.
Peter smiles, wide and bright and solid and real, and responds, “I’d be honored, Morgan.”
She turns around, holding Peter’s hand in hers. “Daddy, Peter’s gonna teach me to be Spider-Man! Then the whole family will be superheroes!”
Tony smiles at her, then up at Peter, who’s staring at Morgan with such gentle fondness already gleaming in his eyes, and he knows.
He squeezes Pepper’s hand, once. Twists a little to find Rhodey’s hand and squeezes it, too. Then he lets go of both of them and moves to join his kids.
As Morgan reaches for him, tugging on the bottom of his shirt as soon as he’s close enough, Tony catches May’s eye over Peter’s shoulder. She smiles at him, and Tony hears her voice in his head, hears Thank you, Tony. Thank you for saving him, the first thing she said to him when she hugged him after she’d fussed and fretted over Peter. He smiles back.
With his free hand, Peter takes Tony’s wrist, delicate fingers pressing gently into his pulse point for just a moment before he lets go, and there’s a flicker of - something, when Peter touches him. Of static, of unease, of gray. Of being stuck, just for a second - of being caught, somehow, like a stuttering record.
Then just as it came, it leaves with Peter’s touch. Tony blinks, once, twice, three times, and everything continues around him.
And there is Peter - he looks confused when Tony’s eyes find his face, but the expression is so short-lived that Tony’s not quite sure he didn’t imagine it. He’s not quite sure he didn’t imagine the whole thing, really.
But Peter touches him again, a hand on his shoulder as he says, “Come on, Mr. Stark. Let’s get out of here,” and there is nothing more to it than just Peter.
So he files the moment away in his head, in the lockbox labelled weird shit that may or may not be important, takes Morgan’s hand again and pulls Peter close to his other side, and he goes.