Chapter Text
“Mom have you seen my jacket?” You ask as you walk from the living room back into the kitchen. You’re already dressed in ripped jeans, galaxy converse, and a grey AC/DC shirt.
“Which jacket?” Pepper asks as she stirs the eggs she’s cooking for you.
“My denim one? I wore it yesterday? Or maybe it was the day before?”
“Have you checked your room?”
“I looked there when I was getting ready. I didn’t see it.” Instead of being dressed for the office, Pepper is wearing running gear. “Are you going into the office today?”
“In a little bit. Your dad wants to go to the park for a run first.”
“Dad running? Since when?”
“I think your birthday is making him feel O-L-D.” Pepper teases as Tony walks down the stairs.
“I can still spell even if I’m getting old.” Tony responds. In his hand he’s holding your Rolling Stones jacket. “You left this on the stairs kiddo.”
“Oh, right! I meant to take it up last night.” You shrug it over your shoulders before sitting down at the food that Pepper made for you.
“What’s with the pep in your step today?”
“Field trip. I don’t have to be at school today.”
“Field trip?” Your dad asks as he sits down next to you. “Where to?”
“MoMA. My art class is going.”
“Ah so you and the young Parker are getting out of school to go look at art. How sweet.” Your dad says with a teasing tone remembering how Peter ended up in your art class after switching in in the second six weeks. “With how much it cost for you to go to that school, I would think you would spend more time at school than on field trips.”
“It’s educational. I promise.”
“Sure it is.”
“What your dad is trying to say is have fun.” Pepper says with a laugh. “He and I are going to go so can you lock up when you leave with Happy?” You nod. “Perfect. Have fun, love you, see you after school.”
“Love you kiddo.” Your dad kisses the top of your head. Pepper places a kiss behind him. You munch on your toast as they walk towards the door. Today should be a fairly normal day, apart from the field trip.
“Slow down, slow down. I’ll spell it out for you.” Tony tries to get Pepper to listen as he tries to explain his dream from last night while they walk through the park together.
“You’re totally rambling.”
“No I’m not.” Tony throws back in his own defense.
“You lost me.”
“Look, you know how you’re having a dream, and in the dream you gotta pee.” Tony ties his jacket around his shoulders as he says this.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. And then you’re like ‘Oh my God. There’s no bathrooms. What am I gonna do? Oh, someone’s watching.’”
“Right.”
“‘Oh, I’m gonna go in my pants.’”
“And then you wake up and in real life you actually have to pee.” Pepper catches his drift.
“Yes.” Tony’s hand waves in agreement.
“Yeah. Everybody has that.”
“Right that’s the point I’m trying to make. Apropos of that, last night I dreamt we had a kid.”
“We have a kid. Y/N.” Pepper points out with a smile.
“No like a baby.” Tony explains. “It was so real. We named him after your eccentric uncle. Uh what was his name? Morgan! Morgan.”
“Right. So when you woke up…”
“Naturally.”
“...and thought we were…”
“Expecting.”
“Yeah.”
“Yes?”
“No.” Pepper smiles at him as she says it.
“I had a dream about it. It was so real.”
“If you wanted to have another kid, you wouldn’t have done that.” Pepper unties the sweater and taps on the nanoparticle home.
“I’m glad you brought this up, ‘cause it’s nothing. It’s just a housing unit for nanoparticles.”
“You’re not helping your case, okay?”
“No, this is detachable. It’s not a…”
“You don’t need that. Y/N didn’t need you to get that. I didn’t need you to get that. Your family needs you to put them first sometimes ok?”
“I know. I had the surgery. I’m just trying to protect us and future usses and that’s it. Just in case there’s a monster in the closet. Instead of, you know…”
“Shirts.”
“You know me so well.”
“God.”
“You finish all my sentences.”
“You should have shirts in your closet.”
“Yeah, you know what there should be? No more surprises. We’re going to have a nice dinner tonight. Hear all about Y/N’s field trip. Show off this Harry Winston. Right?” Pepper chuckles at his antics. “And we should have no more surprises. Ever. I should promise you.”
“Yes.”
“I will.” Tony leans in to kiss Pepper. “Thank you.”
“Tony Stark?” Pepper pulls away at the sound of someone calling Tony’s name. Tony on the other hand can only roll his eyes because this was exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. “I’m Doctor Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.” Pepper grabs Tony’s hand at this. “Oh and uh congratulations on the wedding, by the way.”
“I’m sorry, are you giving out tickets to something?”
“We need your help. It’s not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake.”
“And who’s we?”
“Hey Tony.” Bruce appears by Stephen’s side, shocking both Tony and Pepper after so much time without him.
“Bruce.”
“Pepper.”
“Hi.”
“Oh.”
“Are you ok?” Tony asks as Bruce falls into hugging him. What has happened while he was away?
“Ready for this field trip?” Peter asks as he sits down next to you on the bus.
“I’m always ready. Getting out of school for the day? Hell yeah.” You nudge your boyfriend’s shoulder. “Are you ready to see MoMA?”
“I guess so. I haven’t been since Ben died so…” Peter trails off.
“Babe, you haven’t been to MoMA since then? Why?”
“Ben really liked seeing the new exhibits and he would take me with him when he went. It just felt wrong to go without him.” Peter explains as the bus takes off from MSST and heads towards MoMA. “But there’s a first time to do stuff since you lose people I guess.”
“It’s going to be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time.” You say as you take his hand in yours. Peter leans forward on the seat in front of you so he can look in your direction.
“Well that will make everything better.” Suddenly the hairs on Peter’s arm stand straight up.
“What?”
“Something’s wrong.” Peter mumbles. “Spidey senses are off the wall.” His voice is no louder than a whisper.
“Something like a giant donut spaceship floating over NYC seem off enough?” You say pointing towards the window beside him. He turns to look and the recognition on his face tells you all you need to know. Looks like Peter may not be on the field trip after all.
“Can you and Ned create a distraction?”
“Of course. But you’ll be safe?”
“Always am.” He kisses you on the lips really quick before you tap Ned on the shoulder. Ned spins around to look at you.
“Guy in the chair needs to distract everyone with me.” You say quickly, but as Ned turns he sees the ship out the window.
“Holy shit.” He then turns towards the back of the bus and yells, “We’re all gonna die! There’s a spaceship!” You follow him towards the back of the bus as people start calling out asking what’s going on. But your eyes catch Peter’s one more time before he opens the emergency exit window with his web shooter. While everyone else is watching the spaceship, your eyes are trailing out the back of the bus as Peter jumps off the bridge. You know he’ll web himself to safety, but it makes your stomach fall to your toes every time.
Peter swings into the park where he sees a big angry alien… if he had to guess, swinging a sword/ax at Tony. So he does the one thing he knows how to do, he grabs it. “Hey man. What’s up Mr. Stark?”
“Kid where did you come from?”
“Field trip, to MoMA.” Peter screams as he’s thrown in the other direction. “Uh what is this guy’s problem Mr. Stark?”
“Uh he’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.” As the alien throws cars around and Tony tries to laser him, Peter webs the car and swings it back at the alien. Which might just make him more angry, but that’s half the fun. Right as the alien swings his ax down again, a red object zooms by. “Kid that’s the wizard, get on it.”
“On it!” Swinging across New York, he finally grabs the wizard when a blue light grabs the wizard and pulls them both up towards the sky. “Uh, Mr. Stark, I’m being beamed up.”
“Hang on kid!” Wong traps the alien in an icy tundra, slicing off the hand that reaches up towards them. “Wong you’re invited to my wedding.” Tony shouts before jetting off to rescue his daughter’s boyfriend, who happens to be climbing up the side of the alien spaceship. “Give me a little juice FRIDAY. Unlock 17:A.” His boots morph together to form one big foot thruster. “Pete you gotta let go. I’m gonna catch you.” He says over the comms to Peter.
“But you said save the wizard.” Peter pulls his mask off as he says, “I can’t breathe.”
“We’re too high up. You’re running out of air.” If your boyfriend dies in space, you might kill your dad, so he’s going to do everything he can to save the kid.
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Peter’s hands slip from the ship as he runs out of air. But the Iron Spider suit Tony had been working on arrives just in time to grab hold of Peter and save him from falling back to Earth. Instead he just hits the ship a time or two before having air to breathe again. Peter grabs a hold of the ship and stands back up. “Mr. Stark, it smells like a new car in here!”
“Happy trails, kid. FRIDAY send him home.”
“Yep.” A parachute deploys and pulls Peter off the ship.
“Oh come on!” As Tony cuts into the side of the ship, FRIDAY alerts him of something else.
“Boss incoming call from Miss Potts.”
“Tony are you alright? What’s going on?”
“Yeah I’m fine. I just think we might have to push our 8:30 res.”
“Why?”
“Just ‘cause I’ll probably not make it back for a while.”
“Tell me you’re not on that ship.”
“Yeah.”
“God, no, please tell me you’re not on the ship.”
“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“Come back here Tony. I swear to God. I will take Y/N and I will leave for good. No more surprises. You promised.”
“Pep.”
“Come back here right now.” Static starts to crackle. “Come back.”
“Boss we’re losing her.”
“I’m going too…” Pepper’s voice breaks off as the call drops. While Tony is dealing with this call, Peter is climbing up his webs, back onto the ship he had been told not to be on.
All he can mutter is “I should have stayed on the bus,” as the doors shut on the ship.
The ship is no longer in the sky. You watched it fly away. But you don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, because now you can’t get a hold of your dad or Peter. So you call the one person who has always had to be in the same position as you- you call your mom.
“Y/N? Are you ok?”
“Mom tell me Dad didn’t do something stupid and get on that ship.” Your school group is starting to walk into the first exhibit hall, but you need reassurance right now, not art pieces. Pepper doesn’t say anything for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell you that your dad is on that ship. “He’s on that ship isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? Why would he be stupid enough to get on an alien space ship?”
“Because he’s stupid enough to think that saving the world falls on his shoulders and his alone.”
“I think Peter might have been stupid enough to think that too.” You say as soon as you know your class is out of hearing range.
“What?”
“I’ve tried calling him and he’s not picking up.”
“I thought he was on the field trip with you?”
“He was until he saw an alien ship in the sky. Then he decided that he needed to be a superhero. And now he won’t pick up the phone and he always picks up the phone, even when he’s in his suit.” You voice the concerns you’re having. “And my calls to Dad aren’t going through either which makes me think that Peter is with him.”
“He wouldn’t be stupid enough to take a fifteen year old with him on a space ship.” Pepper tries to reassure you.
“But just because he doesn’t take Peter doesn’t mean that Peter isn’t stupid enough to follow him.”
“Sounds like we both need to date smarter men.”
“They’re booksmart. I’m just not sure if they’re life smart.”
“I think I’d agree with that.”
“But we also love them too much to let them go.”
“That’s also true.” Pepper doesn’t comment on the fact that you just admitted that you love Peter. “But I also know that your dad will do anything to keep Peter safe if he’s with him. So you just focus on your school trip and at the end of the day, they’ll all come home safe.” Pepper’s promise doesn’t hold much truth to it, but you know your mom is trying to calm you more than anything. “I’m going to send Happy to pick you up from the museum and bring you to SI.”
“Right now?”
“No, but he’ll be there to pick you up when everyone heads back to school.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll just head back to school and then he can pick me up from school. But Mom, if you hear from Dad, can you tell him I love him?”
“He knows you love him.”
“But I didn’t say it to him this morning and if something happens to him…” You feel the tears welling in your eyes.
“Nothing is going to happen to him. He knows you love him.”
“You don’t know that. Every time he walks out the door to play Avenger, he could leave and not come back. He could die out there today. And I couldn’t take the two seconds it would have taken to tell him I loved him this morning.” The tears drizzle down your face as you mutter the words you feel in your soul. Out of the corner of your eye you see Ned waiting by the door leading to the next exhibit area. You wipe the tears from your cheeks. “So just if you hear from him tell him ok, Mom?”
“I will. Now just for now, don’t think about all of this. Just focus on the field trip and I’ll see you after it ok? Everything is going to be ok.”
“Mom? I love you.”
“I love you too Y/N. So much.” You hang up the phone and Ned walks over.
“Everything alright?”
“No, but the universe doesn’t usually ask me before it makes it’s decisions.”
“Have you heard from Peter?” You shake your head.
“I can’t get a hold of him or my dad. My mom said my dad is on that donut that flew out of the sky, which makes me think if I can’t get a hold of Peter…”
“He’s on it too.” Ned finishes your thought. “Peter’s in space with Iron Man. That’s so cool.” Ned mumbles but then sees your face. “Ok, not the point right now. What’s our plan?”
“We don’t have one. We’re not Avengers. We just wait around until the rest of them hopefully show up.” And you do what you hope is the next best step, you text your aunt- SOS.
N:Don’t worry. Avengers are on it. Focus on school.
Why does everyone think you’ll be able to focus on anything when your dad and boyfriend disappeared on an alien spaceship?
Y:you all think i’m going to be able to focus on learning when my dad and boyfriend have just gone missing? that’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard of coming from two of the smartest women i know.
N:I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but this isn’t on your shoulders. The Avengers will take care of this fight. I promise you, we’ll get them back. Any way we have to.
“Anything?” Ned asks quietly, as your tour guide goes on pointing out different pieces of art. You shake your head.
“Apparently it’s an Avenger problem, not a me problem, according to Aunt Nat.”
“It’s still cool that you can just text Avengers.”
“Ned, my dad is literally an Avenger. It loses the coolness factor when your dad leaves on missions and you don’t know if he’ll come back alive or not.”
“That’s true I guess.” He looks at the art piece next to you. “But still you get to text the Black Widow! Isn’t that cool?”
“She’s just my Aunt Nat. I’ve hung out with her watching horror movies and talking about crushes. It feels different than saying I text the Black Widow.” You glance over at the statue, trying to take it in so you can write your report when you get home.
“They could have tried to put at least one blemish on it.” MJ mutters and you nod in agreement.
“Uh, Y/N?”
“Ned?” You turn from MJ to see Ned staring at his hand. It’s turning to dust in front of his eyes. “Ned, what’s happening?”
“I think something’s wrong.” His other hand starts to turn into dust and you don’t understand.
“What is happening?”
“Something that can’t be good.” MJ says and you turn to see her hands turning to dust as well. “Y/N, something is wrong. Really wrong.” Your friends are turning to dust in front of your eyes. You can’t stop it, you can’t figure out what’s wrong. So you do the one thing you know to do when something is wrong- you call your mom.
“Y/N? Please tell me you’re not turning to dust too?”
“Mom, I don’t get what’s happening.”
“I don’t know either. But something isn’t right.” Your mom sounds stressed and worried at the same time you lift a hand to run through your hair and that’s when you see it. Your hand is disappearing before your eyes.
“Mom. Mom, I’m scared. My hand, it’s going.”
“Y/N, everything is going to be alright. It’s going to be ok.” Pepper doesn’t tell you that she has tears streaming down her cheeks. She needs to stay calm for you. You’re the one fading into nothing. She can stay calm for you in this moment.
“Mom, Mom. I don’t want to go. Please. I don’t know what’s happening. Mom, please make it stop.” Pepper closes her eyes as she listens to your pleads.
“It’s going to be alright sweetheart. Everything is going to be ok.” You watch in horror as Ned fades into nothing but a pile of dust.
“Mom, Ned’s gone. MJ’s seconds away from going. I don’t want to go too. Please make it stop.”
“Everything is going to be alright baby. Just breathe. Everything is going to be ok.” Pepper lies to you.
“Mom, I love you. Tell Dad I love him too. I don’t want to go. Tell him that. I never wanted to go. Having you two as parents was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Your eyes look in horror as MJ turns into dust too.
“We feel the same about you.”
“I love you. I love you so much Mom. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go. I love you.”
“We love you too.” Pepper knows she only has seconds left with you so she wants to make sure you know this before it’s too late.
“I love yo-”