Chapter Text
Rain pitter-pattered against the window, and Peter pulled the covers closer to his body. He didn’t have to check his phone to know it was morning. That he should be getting up and showering and starting the day, but the thing was, Peter didn’t know where they kept the extra towels and he was tired of asking questions.
It was exhausting, being a guest in what everyone else kept telling him was his home. This house, on the lake, was entirely too far from the city for him to ever be truly at home. The smells were wrong, the sounds were wrong.
Everything was wrong, and out of sync, or maybe it was just Peter. Maybe he just didn’t fit anymore. He’d missed out on five years of experiences, and now he’d never relate to his family or the rest of the ones who were left behind.
His door opened with a creak.
He shut his eyes, and burrowed into the pillow, but it was too late.
“I know you’re awake,” said Tony.
Peter groaned into the pillow. “Still tired.”
“And yet, you’ve slept long enough.”
“Why do you get to decide what’s long enough?” asked Peter, though it was a miracle Tony understood him at all. His words are muffled by the pillow.
“Cause I’m the dad, and my word is law.”
Tony attempted to take the comforter from him, but Peter remained determined to stay a burrito. He was more than willing to exercise his spidey strength against the old man, not even taking pity on him in his weakened, post-snap state.
Eventually Tony gave up, and there was a very brief few seconds Peter thought he might get away with sleeping a bit longer. Then his bed dipped with Tony’s weight and his hand rested on Peter’s back.
“Ok kid, I know yesterday was bad for all of us-”
“-colossally bad,” Peter corrected.
Everyday had started the same after the snap. An awareness that things were different, that he wasn’t home, and that his family had grown and changed in his absence. Most days he dealt with that well. They all dealt with it.
Yesterday had been something different.
“Perfect word choice,” said Tony. “I agree completely, but you still have to get out of bed. Shower. Brush your teeth. We’ve got places to be and all that.”
Peter flipped over, to look at Tony, but kept his head nestled in the pillow. “Where?”
“Thought we’d go on a drive,” said Tony. “Just the two of us.”
“Uh, you’re feeling up to that… with your arm-”
“I’m having a good day,” he told him. “And you’re going to, too. Now up and at em.”
“If Petey doesn’t want to go,” said Morgan, appearing in the doorway of Peter’s bedroom door. “You can always take me instead.”
“I want to go,” said Peter, quickly. Then the guilt. The awareness that he was competing with a four-year-old, but somehow couldn’t stop.
“Good,” said Tony, ruffling Peter’s hair. He stood up from his bed, and started towards the open bedroom door, bolting past Morgan while he said, “We’re leaving in thirty.”
Peter rose into a sitting position, and noticed Morgan still stood in his doorway, grinning maniacally at him.
“What?”
“You’re easier to trick than Daddy said you’d be.”
And then she walked away.
Peter let himself fall back into bed.
That was just great. The four-year-old had already successfully reverse psychology-ed him. And he still didn’t know where the extra towels were.
*
The drive was mostly quiet, and when they talked, it wasn’t about anything important. Just idle chit-chat that would normally make Peter want to claw his eyes out. He was fine with it now, though. It beat the alternative, talking about the real stuff, and the way the day before had turned out.
Tony parked the car in the parking lot outside of an ice parlor, near the park.
“Really?” asked Peter. “You’re taking me out for ice cream? Did you get mine and Morgan’s ages mixed up?”
“Funny, but no. You’re never too old for ice cream, Pete.”
They made their orders, and they got their desserts. It was Tony’s idea to stroll through the park while they ate. Peter didn’t complain. His dad needed the rehab, and lately, Peter hated to sit still.
And the walk felt good.
The clouds were gone, and the rain had left with them.
A gentle breeze blew through his hair, and through the leaves on the trees, and the sound of the river flowing along the path they walked soothed him. It was restful. It was a restful sort of day, with his dad, and it reminded him of the days before everything got so fucked up.
Then came the guilt. Just like it always did, haunting him like a ghost that just wouldn’t leave.
“I’m sorry,” said Peter. “About yesterday - I should’ve never, I didn’t know -”
“Peter, stop,” said Tony. He grabbed his arm, and directed him to a bench that overlooked the river. “Don’t apologize, of course you didn’t know.”
“I was just trying to help-
“-I know that,” said Tony. “And Pepper does, too.”
“Morgan doesn’t,” he told him. He shook his head, and watched the water flow downstream. “She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” said Tony. “She was upset. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t play with her.”
“Yeah.”
Peter had gotten that part. He’d listened to Tony tell Morgan that they’d have to kick the soccer ball around some other time. That he wasn’t feeling up to it. He’d heard Morgan get upset, and then Peter did the only thing he thought was logical and offered to go outside with her to play soccer.
And that had been a mistake, because apparently kicking the soccer ball around was their thing , as in Morgan and dad, not Morgan and Peter.
Everything spiraled after that, things were said, things were yelled , and it stabbed at Peter’s heart just thinking about it.
“I yelled at her,” said Peter. “I yelled at a four-year-old and -”
“She said things, too, Pete,” said Tony. “And that wasn’t yelling. At most you were talking just a little bit louder than usual.”
“I just want to stop ruining everything.”
“You’re not. Peter, listen to me. Stop this. You’re part of this family, okay? You’re allowed to lose it and get mad at us, and things are different now yeah, because I wanted them that way. Don’t think for a minute I wouldn’t do this all over again to get you back if I had to.”
“Yeah, but Morgan-”
“-is completely fine,” said Tony. “And loves having a big brother, even if she’s still learning to share and get used to my, uh, new disabilities. Besides, we didn’t come here to talk about Morgan. Stop using her as your distraction.”
Peter frowned, and looked down into the depths of his near empty ice cream cup. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
He should’ve figured it was a trap. It was just like his dad to trick him into ice cream and a nice walk along the river only to blindside him and force him to talk about feelings, something they both failed miserably at on the best day.
“Kid,” said Tony. “Can’t fool me. The gauntlet french fried my arm, but not my brain cells.”
“Would you please stop referring to it that way,” muttered Peter. “Like it’s just some big joke.”
“See. There it is. We’re getting somewhere finally,” said Tony. “I need you to tell me what’s bothering you, so I can fix it.”
“You can’t.”
“That’s not what my Father’s Day card said.”
“I was, like, five when I wrote that,” said Peter. “And you haven’t forgotten since.”
It would have been pretty impossible for him to, he mused, since Tony had that card framed. It had once hung in his office, back at their penthouse, but Peter didn’t know where it was now. Just like the damn towels.
“Children speak the truth.”
Peter laughed, and surprised himself, and Tony, who raised his eyebrows at him.
“It’s okay if you’re not okay,” said Tony. “But if I don’t know what’s going on in that brain of yours, I can’t help you.”
“You almost died,” said Peter, quietly. With his free hand, he gripped the edge of the wooden bench. “And I thought - I thought I was going to be here, alone. But I should be happy right, cause you and everybody else had to live five years thinking people were dead.”
“Please stop thinking about everyone else for just a damn minute, will you? Be selfish, like a normal teenager.”
“Fine,” said Peter, with a shaky laugh. He’d missed this. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed this, one on one conversation with Tony. “I miss my friends, dad. I miss the city. The lake house doesn’t even smell like home, and I don’t - I don’t even know where the towels are.”
“Quite a change for you, huh.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “It felt sudden - to me.”
“The lake house was never supposed to be permanent,” said Tony. “And now that you’re back, and the world’s getting back to normal, Pepper and I talked, and we’re gonna move back to the penthouse.”
“Really?” asked Peter, caught off guard by how simple that was.
“Yeah,” said Tony. “Pepper and I are pretty smart. We know things changed up on you really fast. We’d be the world’s worst parents to not get you back in your old school and your old stomping grounds.”
“Wait, wait,” said Peter. “You knew what was wrong this whole time, and you still forced me to talk about it anyway?”
“It’s good for you. Get it all out.”
“I hate you.”
“Do not,” said Tony. “I bought you ice cream.”
“A better bribe would have been a puppy.”
“Nice try,” said Tony. “Now drop that ice cream and give me a hug.”
Peter complied, and although they’d been doing a lot more hugging since Tony’s near-death and Peter’s return from the grave, that one felt different. Maybe Tony had been annoyingly right. Maybe some stuff just needed to get out.
“You fit in this family, Pete,” he told him, somehow his dad always knew what he needed to hear. “And you’re not ruining anything, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Tony released him. “And we keep the extra clean towels in the big closet, by mine and Pep’s room.”
“Oh .”
Tony laughed, and picked up both empty ice cream bowls from the ground. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
Peter nodded, and together, they walked back to the car.
*
Morgan was waiting for them, waving at them through the window, as Tony pulled the car into the driveway. She grabbed Peter’s hand just as soon as he walked through the door, and pulled him away, then up the stairs and into her room.
Her wooden, pink table was set up with a tea kettle. There were saucers with tiny teacups sitting on them, and pushed into the table were two stuffed bears. That left two seats empty.
“Come on, Petey,” said Morgan. “It’s time for tea.”
“I’m invited?”
“Well, duh,” she said. “Dad’s too old, and mom won’t let me use the sugar.”
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“Not anymore. That was yesterday ,” she told him, as if yesterday was a very long time ago, as if Peter were slow and needed to catch her pace. “Besides, you’re my brother. We fight sometimes, but we still love each other. And you’re not as bad as Ally’s brother. He throws cheerios at her.”
“Yeah,” said Peter, trying to comfortably fit on the tiny chair next to her table. “I’m way better than him. I won’t throw breakfast food at you.”
She held her pinky finger out to him. “Promise?”
“I promise.” He locked his pinky with hers, and they exchanged smiles. When they let go, Peter said, “You know, maybe we can throw cereal at dad, though.”
“Yeah!”
“Hey!”
Peter and Morgan turned, and saw Tony hovering in the doorway.
“Absolutely none of that,” he told him. “No plotting against dad.”
“Sure,” said Peter. “We’re totally listening to you, right, Mo?”
“Completely. We’re angels.”
Tony eyed them suspiciously. “Genetically impossible.”
He left them to their tea, but not before giving Peter a smug glance that screamed I told you so. It was a relieving, but infuriating thing, that his dad had a habit of being right.