Chapter Text
The heat doesn’t work.
All things considered, Peter’s new apartment isn’t the worst place he could live. Not by a long shot. No rats. Almost affordable rent. (Relatively) dependable supply of hot water.
But the heat goes out more often than it doesn’t.
Peter knows he should call up his landlord, get the problem resolved. Cut him some slack, he’s not a total idiot. Just close. And maybe if the temperature rose a few degrees above freezing, Peter would sleep a few winks a night. Might be nice.
But he doesn’t want that.
Sleeping gives way to dreams. Dreams give way to nightmares. Nightmares give way to the feeling of a fault line in his chest shaking open.
Arc reactors flickering out. May’s lifeless eyes; staring at nothing, being nothing. MJ falling, falling – always falling. Peter, always too late to save any of them. He’s so useless. Worthless. Undeserving. Irresponsible. Stupid. Naive. Helpless.
So, yeah. Peter tries not to sleep very much. Just gets enough Z’s to avoid face planting into the side of the Empire State building and nothing more.
There’s something comforting about the shivering, anyways. After all, if you’re already reverberating from the cold, you don’t have to attach any other reason to your body’s tension. You can pretend your hands are trembling only because you are verging hypothermia, and not because your aunt is dead. And Tony is dead. And Ned will never again be his guy in the chair. And MJ doesn’t know how to comfort him. In fact, she doesn’t know him at all. No one does.
And he doesn’t have to think about how all of it, every horrible piece of it, is all his fault if he just blames it on the cold.
Furthermore, if he gets the heat fixed, the place will start to feel like home. And home is a word that can never and should never belong to Peter ever again. Because home is a place, an idea, a person he let bleed out beneath him. Snap his life away. Forget he exists. Home is something Peter Parker can’t help but ruin.
So he doesn’t get the heat fixed.
Makes sense, right?
Still, it makes the place sorta suck to come back to. A quick check of his unlicensed Spider-Man watch (it was a gift from a very grateful young boy he herded a puppy out of traffic for, don’t judge) reveals the time to be 4:57 AM.
Perfect. Too early to be up. Too late to sleep. His favorite.
Peter wrenches open the frosted window with an admittedly unnecessary amount of force. He’s lucky that the thing doesn’t crack. Almost quietly, he throws himself into the opening and slams back down the pane. God, see if he gives a shit at this point. He’s so tired.
Ah. Not -home sweet not -home.
With a sigh that seems to originate from the soles of his feet, he tears himself out of the suit. Being homemade, it doesn’t come off all that easy. It takes every ounce of his conscious energy not to rip the silly thing apart. And the fabric, cheap as it is, scratches at Peter’s skin.
God, he misses Tony’s suit. But there’s no use crying over spilled blood. Or milk. However the saying goes.
He pulls on pants and a shirt, doesn’t bother to check if they match. Who does Peter have to put on a fashion show for? The date he has with his blanketless bed?
Then he hears it. The unmistakable creak of the floorboards straining beneath weight, a whoosh of startled breath, and the frantic beating of a heart that belongs to someone who should most definitely not be in his apartment.
A younger Peter would launch himself at the ceiling and move in slowly, strategically, cautiously. But this Peter is so hysterically over it. He is running on Redbull and regret and the gut-wrenching fear he’s going to fail his GED.
So he waltzes into the hollow living room like he owns the place. Which he technically doesn’t. Renting and all.
Either way, he struts with a confidence. A recklessness. An exhaustion. It doesn’t help that his Spider-Sense ( Peter Tingle , if you ask May which you shouldn’t because you won’t get an answer because she’s six-foot deep in a plot of land that Peter spent almost his entire savings purchasing) just isn’t going off. The usually wildly upsetting instinct to duck, dodge, weave, and fight is completely dormant. As if the intruder raises no threat to him.
Or as if Peter doesn’t care if they do.
“Listen, it’s been a long night,” Peter announces as he creeps around the corner, fists curled in preparation. Still, he tries to keep his voice light. Maybe some poor bastard walked into the wrong room. “If we could just make this quick, that would be–”
So this is it then.
Peter is finally seeing things. It took quite a few dead parental figures, dying himself for five years, every one of his surviving loved ones forgetting the person he is, and all of it being his fault for the stress to finally traumatize him this bad. But the day has fucking arrived, apparently.
Because there is no way in hell that Tony Stark, his mentor, his rescuer, his hero , is staring him down with an expression so horrifically concerned that Peter almost worries for himself.
No.
No.
This hallucination sucks.
“What– the fuck ?” Peter feels more than hears the words choke out of his throat.
Tony – no, his hallucination of Tony, let’s keep things straight – reaches out a tentative hand, the one that’s not tucked into the suit pocket. To Tony’s credit, not even a single finger shakes.
Right. Mechanic. Steady hands. Peter has to award his memory some points for accuracy. Or deduct for laziness. He’s undecided.
“So do you talk first or do I?” he whispers after a silent, motionless moment. Horrifyingly enough, Peter feels twin streaks of wet flame begin to drip down his cheeks. Crying. For the most part, he is able to avoid it. Never underestimate the power of fifteen-mile light jogs in the dead of night. But this vision of Tony is just too much to bear. This is farther than his mind has ever taken it before. “I’m not sure how this whole’ seeing things situation works.”
“You’re not seeing things, kid,” Tony rumbles, hand still extended and slowly creeping closer. The sound of his voice is like morphine to a wound, or like a knife to a scar. Peter can’t quite make out which is more accurate.
“I’m here, okay?” the older man continues. “I’m sorry I left. Really, I’m so s orry, Pete. But I’m here now. I got you, alright? Just c’mere.”
“What?” Peter manages to hiccup out through the erupting fault line in his chest. Is something of this magnitude survivable? Can Peter still be Spider-Man if he’s in pieces?
“Pepper caught me up to speed.” Tony quirks his lips at that, but the playful expression doesn’t quite meet his eyes. It confuses Peter. Why is his brain showing him this Tony – the mundane, awkward, self-deprecating version he’d come to know after weekend-long lab sessions and dying in each other's arms – and not the Tony he failed at Thanos’ last stand, or the Tony that scolded him on the roof after the ferry situation. If his brain is trying to torture him, why is it being so ineffective about it?
Tony speaks again, breaking him from the focus of his thoughts. “I might have missed a few chapters, but I’m back in the story now.”
Missed a few chapters? The hell ?
“You died!” His words come out a yell, shattering the relatively quiet standoff that they had entered. Tony doesn’t even have the decency to flinch, like the outburst was something he’d been expecting. Always knew Peter so well, huh? Better than he knew himself? Why does the thought make him so bitter?
“You’re dead . You’re dead and–”
And what?
You’re not real (?)
You left me behind (?)
Please, don’t do it again (?) I can’t take it (?) I can’t be alone any longer than I’ve already been (?)
Peter doesn’t know how to finish so he doesn’t.
His knees wobble in a brave but ultimately pointless effort to stabilize him. Ultimately, they cave beneath the weight of wanting back all that he has destroyed, let die on an August morning two years ago in upstate New York. But before he can make brutal contact with the hardwood floor, hands catch him.
One warm and soft against his side. The other is hard, cold, and distinctly metal against the skin of his arm.
It hits. Something important clicks into place.
Because he can feel those hands.
He can fucking feel them.
This has to be real, then. Because Peter’s memory — although photographic — is just not that good. For months, he’s been trying to remember what it felt like to be held. To be supported. To have someone know your name and call you by it.
Peter had desperately tried to remember the feeling of Tony’s mechanic hand ruffling through his curls, patting him on the back, playfully shoving him away from the lab when he stupidly insisted on working while sleep-deprived. But even when he closed his eyes, trying to recall any of it at all, he hadn’t been able to manage anything a fraction as real as this .
It’s too much for him to bear.
He breaks.
Luckily, the very real, very worried Tony Stark doesn’t. He heaves them both off the floor and onto Peter’s couch that he took off the curbside of a nice couple living a few streets down.
What? Peter’s cheap. It was free. Do the math.
“ Whoa , kid. You’re pretty light, you know that? What’d you have for breakfast, a steaming bowl of air?” It’s chiding, but it’s so Tony that it physically hurts. “You’re turning me gray. Honestly, Pete.”
Even when they’re on a softer, far more human-body-friendly surface, Tony makes it a point to tuck Peter into him. His warm hand starts threading to Peter’s hair almost on instinct. And maybe for some people, this embrace would be too tight. Too childish for an eighteen-year-old boy. But Peter doesn’t care. Neither does Tony. This is how Peter likes to be held; legs slung over the other man’s lap, head invited to the crook of his shoulder, a scarred hand soothing the knots out of his unruly hair.
It’s perfect. After everything, Tony remembers.
Wait.
Tony remembers.
“Wait,” he manages to hiccup out between sobs. Frankly, how loud he is wailing would be embarrassing if he could muster up the energy to give half a shit. Luckily, he really fucking can’t. “How do you— how do you — know who I—“
“ Shh , Peter.” Tony quiets him like he’s just a fussy baby. Like he can be calmed just by the sound of his voice. Of course, he’s right. But still. “Just breathe with me, alright? Then we’ll talk. Plenty of time for that, don’t worry.”
“You’re not gonna leave, right” Peter finds himself gasping, his mouth completely out of his control.
Who’s he kidding, what part of this is in Peter’s fucking control? He’s crying like he’s trying to create a new river.
He feels a soft peck collide with the top of his head break him from his thoughts. If he were only a little less of a wreck, he’d snort with laughter. Tony and his fuckin’ forehead kisses.
Peter even watched Rhodey get one once. And Peter didn’t know the Colonel well enough to say whether or not Rhodey’s answering peal of delighted laughter was out of character.
“No, Pete.” The low rumble of Tony’s chest against his side is better than any sedative, better than any painkiller (and he should know — he used to have the good stuff, thanks to Dr. Banner.) “I’m not leaving you. Not ever again, I promise.”
“Good,” he chokes, dragging up one shaking hand to wind the fabric of Tony’s shirt into his fist. A precaution. Just in case. “That’s— that’s good. Thank you. For doing that.”
Tony releases a sigh so familiar, so missed it brings a whole new round of sobs out of him. “You don’t need to thank me. You know that.”
Does Peter know that? No. No, because this is the best gift he’s ever gotten. Even if it’s only a hallucination, even if it only lasts a few more minutes, even if it’s just a temporary dream.
“I know,” he lies, attempting in vain to slow the sobs that are absolutely drenching Tony’s shirt. God, he smells exactly the same. Like motor oil and metal and fancy cologne. Exhaling almost seems a waste. “I just really, really missed you, Mister Stark.”
“I can tell,” Tony jokes, rubbing an encouraging hand over Peter’s freezing arm. The friction helps to offset the cold just a little. ‘S’nice. “I missed you like hell when you were gone.”
“Really?” Those five years chalk up to nothing but a long blink in Peter’s memory. Rather selfishly, he never gave much thought to what Tony must have gone through during that time. The grief. Tony always did have a tendency to think everything was his fault. “I’m sorry.”
Tony’s hand stops its rhythmic movement to squeeze him in light admonishment. “Hey, don’t ever apologize for that, you hear me?” Then, under his breath, “Gonna give me a heart attack.”
“That’s not funny.” Peter sits up a little then, leaning back to stare at the gleaming blue light of the arc reactor. With his enhanced hearing, he can even pick up the barely noticeable hum it constantly produces. New tears pool in his eyes, turning the arc reactor into a tiny, blurred solar flare.
“Well, I never claimed to be a comedian.”
“No.” Peter lets out a wet laugh. “Just a genius.”
The corners of Tony’s mouth perk up. “I never claimed to be humble, either.”
It’s really not that funny, but Peter laughs anyway. He laughs, and he cries, and he doesn’t let go of Tony the entire time.
Can’t. Won’t. Does it matter?
“But enough about me,” Tony eventually says when Peter has regained some modicum of control over himself. With a gentle hand, he swipes away the tears slowly freezing on Peter’s face. “Let’s hear about you. Wanna tell me what’s going on, Webs?”
Ha. Wouldn’t Peter like to know?
Still, it’s a genuine question. It deserves a genuine answer.
He starts from the beginning.
“Do you remember hiring a Quentin Beck?”
—------------
Despite being entirely uncertain of whether this Tony is a hallucination, an imposter, or the real fuckin’ deal, Peter spills his guts like he’s being filleted – like holding any of it inside him for one second longer will rot his organs from the inside out.
He explains Mysterio. The glasses.
“I’m so sorry, Mister Stark. I didn’t deserve to wear them.” Peter keeps his eyes trained firmly on the cuticles he’s picking apart. When Tony notices, he just tucks one of Peter’s arms into his side and that’s that.
Even still, Peter can’t bear to look him in the eyes when he describes what went down on the bridge. How the blood crusted a chunky black in the corner of Beck’s mouth. How he spent his last bitter moments of life recording a video that would illuminate every TV screen in New York with Peter’s unmasked face.
Unofficially, he was one of the most famous people in the world. Far more officially, he was one of the most hated.
“Bricks came through our window. I couldn’t even get through the hall of my school. Neighbors kept showing up at the door… And I couldn’t stop thinking about how unfair it all was. Why shouldn’t MJ and Ned get to go to MIT? They didn’t do anything wrong. I did .”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, either, Pete,” Tony interjects for the first time since Peter began his tale of misery, gently stroking the boy’s curls from his face.
The scoff that comes out of Peter’s throat is almost unrecognizable in its bitterness. It seems to startle Tony, and Peter can understand why. That sound doesn’t belong to the teenage Peter that begged to hunt down the Vulture in his whiniest voice. No, it belongs to the Peter of today; the one that wanted to be both hero and a good man, and lost both titles in the process.
So he tells Tony absolutely everything, knowing it will (rightfully) cause him to hate Peter for the twisted man he has become and not the ambitious child he once was. He tells him about Strange’s botched spell; the one he begged for so obnoxiously it tore holes in the multiverse itself. He tells him about refusing to send the villains back to die in their worlds.
Worst of all, he tells him about who paid the price.
Peter, Peter, Peter. No good deed goes unpunished.
“I tried to remember what you said to me when I was… going away. Back on Titan. Remember?” Tony’s face visibly pales at the memory, but he nods his head yes. His grip on Peter impossibly tightens; pulling him in closer. Holds him together. “I told her… that it was alright. And it wasn’t alright. She was… dying beneath me. There was nothing I could do to stop it. But I just didn’t want her to feel scared, y’know?”
“I know, kid.” Another peck graces his forehead. “Trust me, I know.”
The worst of the story is over, thank God. He even manages a half-laugh while recalling the ridiculous banter between himself and the other two Peter Parkers. The fact that neither of them had any idea what an Avenger was… how extraordinary that seemed to him, for someone whom Earth’s Mightiest Heroes had been such an important institution.
They both sober up when he remembers the spell, though.
“There was no other choice.” He says it low, like he’s trying to convince himself more than Mister Stark. Maybe he is. “And it was my mess to clean up so… I told Doctor Strange to make everyone forget me. No changes to the spell. No exceptions. It was the right thing to do.
“Ned and MJ made me promise I’d come find them after it was all over. But when I went to go see them again…” He pauses, remembering the white bandage that was firmly plastered to MJ’s forehead. It doesn’t hurt anymore. “I realized they would be so much better off without me. If I wasn’t there putting them in danger all the time. Ruining their futures with my dumb decisions.” He swallows. “I mean, what if I kill them like I killed–”
“Peter, don’t . Hey, shh. Don’t.” The ruffling of his hair becomes more deliberate; a genuine massage that distracts him for an invaluable second from the splintering sensation of his heart crack open. “You did not kill May, alright? It wasn’t your fault.”
“How would you know?” he snaps. Bitter. Angry. Tony doesn’t deserve his pain, but he’s getting it. He twists out of Tony’s grip, going to stand on quaking legs over the still seated man that he kneeled in front of two years ago as he died. “You weren’t there.”
“You’re right.” This shocks Peter, makes him blink in surprise. Tony takes advantage of the rare opening, raising his palms in a peacemaking gesture.
One made of metal. The other still of flesh.
Huh. Somewhere, in a very distant corner of Peter’s mind, he wonders at the difference.
“I wasn’t there when you needed me most, and I’m so sorry. I really am.” Peter doesn’t doubt it. The brown of Tony’s eyes is genuine, sincere. Unwavering. Indubitable. “But I’m here now, right?”
On instinct, Peter nods.
He has to be in shock. Has to be.
“Right. And I’m a mechanic, yeah? I fix things?”
Again, Peter nods.
Tony reveals his gentlest smile; the one that softens the harshest corners of his face, the one that doesn’t seem like it should still exist after all they have been through to get here. But it does. It exists here and now, and for Peter of all people.
The fault line in his chest is no longer a line. It quakes too hard to be anything but rubble.
Before Tony’s even fully stood up from his sunken spot on the couch, Peter launches himself into his mentor’s already open arms. He feels Tony’s hands press him back together, hold him upright.
He can feel the rumble in Tony’s chest when he promises, “So believe me when I tell you I’m going to fix this, too.”
And miracle of all miracles, Peter does.
—----------------------------