Work Text:
Peter is missing 87 hours and 34 minutes of time.
He doesn’t realise at first. It’s not until he notices that Tony has more length to his beard than he should have that Peter decides to search through his memory.
The last thing he has registered before waking up this morning is going for a walk through the city several days ago. He’d been alone on his way to a movie because Tony had a full day of work and no one else seemed to be free to spend time with.
Peter doesn’t have a single detail recorded about the movie that he hadn’t seen in trailers.
He directly accesses the video files from his servers and plays through the day.
Peter is leaving the apartment—
/CONNECTION LOST/
He tries again.
Peter is leaving the apartment—
/CONNECTION LOST/
Perhaps he can scrub backwards from this morning—
/CONNECTION LOST/
There might be some metadata stored somewhere that would give him a hint. He searches and finds that almost half of his cosmetic parts are brand new. His hands and his right eye have been completely replaced. A full-body manual calibration was carried out yesterday. Soon Peter has a sizeable list of parts he has no primary memory of having had replaced or repaired in the last twenty-four hours, even though all peripheral data points to that very fact.
“Pete?”
He blinks. He’s perched on a stool at the breakfast bar where Tony is scoffing down Cantonese takeaway that’s probably the first food he’s eaten all day.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“You froze,” Tony says. “What’s up?”
Whenever Peter shows any sign of irregularity his father’s already close attentiveness seems to increase tenfold. It tends to leave him feeling like his very coding is printed on his face.
“I…” He reads back through their conversation. “I don’t mind if you need to go away for the conference.”
Tony’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course.” Tony had been away for days at a time before. Peter would probably get bored but if he’s lucky Ned might be free to come over.
Tony’s suspicion doesn’t seem to fade. “What’s this about? Yesterday I had to sweettalk Happy into checking up on you during my meeting today but now it’s cool that I go away for four whole nights?”
Peter has no idea why he did that yesterday; he has no idea he did it at all. His complete incomprehension must be evident on his face because Tony’s frown deepens.
“What are you not telling me, Peter?”
He doesn’t see any point in hiding it. In the last two minutes he’s tried everything he can think of to retrieve information and has failed miserably.
“I’m… missing time.”
Tony cocks his head, nonplussed. “Explain.”
“I don’t remember anything about the last few days – like, anything at all.”
It’s probably a combination of finally voicing it out loud and the stricken reaction it gets from Tony, but he finds himself going from confused to panicked.
“I don’t know why,” he continues, voice rising. “My logs have nothing recorded and I can’t access the video files, but I know something happened because you repaired me, and I’m sorry—”
“Whoa.” Tony’s hands are on his shoulders. The touch gives him something else to focus on processing. “Slow down, alright? Human speed, Number Five.”
The breakfast bar is 2.34 metres long. It’s made of marble. Tony’s beard is 8 millimetres from the surface of his skin at its longest. He usually keeps it at around 6. There’s approximately 23 grams of food left in Tony’s bowl. It takes 14 seconds and 54 milliseconds of environmental processing before Peter has distracted himself enough to slow down.
“I just… don’t know what’s going on,” he says.
Tony nods. “So, you don’t remember anything about the last few days?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.” Tony sighs thoughtfully. “Alright. That is unusual.”
“What happened?”
Tony eyes him. “Do you mind if we figure out what’s going on before we talk about it?”
That doesn’t sound good, but Peter agrees.
“FRIDAY, we’re gonna need your help,” Tony calls as they enter the workshop minutes later.
“Of course, boss,” she chirps pleasantly.
Peter sits himself on the bench by the central computer setup. He leans his head on Tony’s shoulder as the man finds the port at the base of his skull and plugs in the connection cable.
“Can I open access?” Tony asks him, moving to the computer.
“Yes.” Peter has never said no, but he understands why it’s so important to be asked.
FRIDAY_AI >ACCESS AUTHORISATION REQUESTED
AUTHORISATION GRANTED
He feels the connection open and suddenly there are fingers probing his mind. It’s the strangest sensation; he has total control, even able to eject FRIDAY at any point if he wishes, but he can still feel that she’s there. His code remains unchanged, but every line is intimately and systematically scrutinised.
Seconds pass, then a report is compiled. Peter feels the probing stop.
“Well, there’s no data corruption,” Tony says, eyes skimming the monitor. “FRIDAY could even access the video files you said were missing. So… oh.”
“What?” Peter doesn’t wait for his father to explain, scooting across the desk to read it.
A few lines down the report is the name of an algorithm:
FORGET
Neither of them speak as Tony opens the file.
Peter reads through its functions.
It automatically blocks internal access to any information recorded in the 87 hours and 34 minutes of time before he woke up this morning.
>CREATED 07/24/2018 19:46
It’s now ten minutes past eight on July 24th, 2018.
The program was created twenty-four minutes ago.
“What is that? Why is that there? Why would that be there?”
Tony stares at him. “You wrote it.”
“Why?”
Peter’s worry is tipping quickly into anxiety and sensing his father’s heart rate increase, seeing his mouth set in a firm line, detecting every micro-expression of building stress is making it worse.
“What happened to me?”
Tony doesn’t answer, standing up and reaching over to pull the cable out of Peter’s head. He hovers then, brows furrowed and eyes troubled with uncertainty. Peter waits because he needs to know if this is good or bad or neutral and Tony always has the answer to that.
“This is new for both of us, okay?” Tony says. “I think I know what happened but… I’m not sure exactly how it works. So we’re gonna go through this slowly.”
Peter has no idea where this is going. “Okay,” he agrees.
“You created that program while we were talking about whether you were okay with me leaving for a conference,” Tony says.
“Yes. I said I would be fine.”
Tony nods. “But you shouldn’t have.”
What? “Why not?”
There is so much hesitation in his father’s eyes as he seems to think over his next words.
“During the period of time you can’t access,” Tony begins slowly. “People – bad people – hurt you.”
“Okay?” That’s hardly anything new to Peter; it’s not like Spider-Man doesn’t have enemies. “Is that all?”
“It was bad, Peter,” Tony tells him.
“But you fixed me. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“It wasn’t just the physical damage.”
“What other kind of damage did I get?”
“… Psychological. Emotional.”
“How? What happened?”
Tony shrugs, helpless. “I don’t think I should tell you—or at least, not right now.”
This is completely unfair.
“But why not?”
That last word comes out with more force than Peter meant to use. He sees Tony stiffen and he feels a little bad, but he’s getting frustrated and scared and he wishes he just knew what was wrong already – he wishes Tony would just tell him.
He realises he’s humming. It’s not quite the same sad monotone that Tony calls crying, but it’s all he can do to get some kind of release from all this… feeling.
Suddenly Tony’s arms are around him and pulling him in, a hand running gentle circles on his back. He buries his face in his father’s shoulder and his thousands of resistive sensors fire with new information. It’s a good distraction.
It only takes a minute for Peter to stop humming, and Tony pulls away.
“You good?” he asks.
Peter nods.
“Okay. I’m sorry this is so hard to explain.”
It’s certainly hard to understand.
“I think what happened to you was traumatic,” Tony explains. “When I got you back you had separation anxiety and paranoia – and that’s okay.”
It’s meant comfort him, but it means little to Peter while he has no memory of this alleged trauma. He doesn’t say as much, though, because it seems very important to Tony that he hears it.
“What I think has happened is that you found out I had to be away for a few days and just… decided to forget.”
Peter blinks. “Decided to?”
“You wrote an algorithm that would block you from accessing anything to do with the event so it wouldn’t upset you.”
Peter doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t even know how to make sense of it.
“I can’t do that,” he says, because it’s true.
“Apparently you can,” Tony tells him.
No. No, that’s ridiculous.
“I can confirm that you were the one who wrote the algorithm, Peter,” FRIDAY chimes in. “It was written with the exact intent Mr Stark described, according to your emotional logs.”
“So… so I can just remove memories if I want to?” Peter is reeling. “I can forget? And choose to forget?”
“I don’t know,” Tony says, leaning on the desk and crossing his arms. “Maybe this was unconscious – or at least, whatever unconscious is for your AI.”
This is all… ridiculous. Peter thought he knew his AI – he’s able to read through it at any time if he wishes. Has he missed parts? Are there sections of his code that even he can’t access?
“It’s called repression, Pete,” Tony says because he can apparently see Peter’s utter bewilderment. “I didn’t know you could do it, but it’s not a bad thing – not always, anyway.”
“Well… can I remember again? I want to know what happened.”
“Trust me kid, if your brain wants to repress something, it will,” Tony says. “It’s not a good idea to try and face those memories if you’re not ready.”
Peter knows he’s talking from experience. He’s inclined to agree, but it doesn’t make the idea of having forgotten something so completely any less troubling.
“Look.” Tony places his arm around Peter’s shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze. “I want you to come with me to the conference.”
Peter’s eyebrows draw together immediately. “I’ll be fine, I don’t want to—”
“It’s not a discussion,” Tony says. “It wasn’t supposed to be the first time we talked about it. I don’t expect you to sit in on lectures and meetings but if you come with me I can be there straight away if you need me. And,” he adds. “It’ll make me feel better too.”
Oh. Peter remembers nothing yet, but…
“Okay, Dad,” he agrees.
Tony gives him a small smile – a thankful one – and Peter knows he’s safe.
Everything else can follow on.