Chapter Text
Tony is panicking.
“Tony, I’m going to need you to breathe. Tony. Look at me, Tony.” His eyes are frantic, blinking way too fast as he looks into Rhodey’s.
“Breathe with me, Tony. In. Out. In. Out. Come on, man.” Tony can’t, grasping at the wall behind him, feeling himself sink down to the cold floor.
The kid was dead. He was dead. He knew it. Tony knew it.
As Rhodey’s voice continues on in the background, the sound fizzling out like static in the background, Tony feels his eyes start to glaze over.
Peter was dead.
It was all his fault.
“Peter are you even listening to me?” The kid’s head snaps up, Tony sighing as he recognized the blank look on Peter’s face.
“Sorry, Mr. Stark. I missed that, what’s up?” Tony pinches the bridge of his nose, willing himself to calm down.
“I said – for the hundredth time, I might add – that you need to get your shit together. You’re going to college in the fall, Peter. I’m the last one on earth to pressure you about this, but come on kid, what’s going on?”
Peter fiddled with the tool he was working on, Tony watching as the kid’s leg started tapping up and down.
Peter had been distracted for the past few weeks, seemingly tuning in and out of the conversations and people around him.
May had noticed it. Ned had mentioned it. Even Michelle – Peter’s slightly terrifying girlfriend – had even commented on it during a Sunday dinner.
“There’s something wrong with Peter.” Tony almost jumped at the sound, whirling around to see Michelle, eyes serious and a stone-faced look on her face.
Tony looked at her up and down, before turning to her. “And you say that because?”
“I’m not an idiot, Stark. I know Peter’s got a lot on his plate with all your Avengers shit or whatever.” Tony watches as she takes in a deep breath, watching in real time as Michelle’s expression cracks just a little.
“But there’s something… something going on with him. I can’t tell what it is.” Her eyes are almost scanning the ground, darting back and forth as she thinks. Tony watches in amazement, if only because it was a look he’d only previously seen on someone else’s face.
His own.
Peter and Michelle had been dating for a little under a year – long enough that Tony knew the extent of how much the kid liked her. Had heard plenty from Peter of how MJ was this, how MJ did that, to the point where he’d eventually offered to have her around for their what was formerly family only dinners.
After only a few days of her joining them, Tony could already tell that Michelle would be around for a very long time.
Despite this, they hadn’t much interaction – hadn’t really had a need to, except for their connection to Peter. He liked her well enough, noticed how the kid seemed to be tethered to wherever she was. Appreciated that despite his best efforts, Michelle was the one who always seemed to make Peter laugh the hardest and longest.
Tony would’ve liked anyone who made Peter as happy as Michelle seemed to.
But a part of Tony also liked Michelle for her complete and utter disregard for anything remotely related to the Avengers, her complete disinterest in anything related to the fame and trappings that came with being a superhero’s significant other – if only for how his role as an Avenger affected Peter personally.
It reminded him a lot of Pepper, if Tony thought about it.
Having Michelle – a woman he implicitly trusted, if only for through their connection to Peter’s well-being – confront him with concern, gave Tony pause.
“Has he said anything?” Tony asks, lowering the octave of his voice as he shoots a quick glance to Peter.
He knows it wouldn’t matter, is convinced Peter could possibly hear all the way up to Harlem if he wanted to, but Tony is gaming on Peter being distracted by Morgan’s antics.
Peter is - riveted as Morgan regales him with some story from school, eyes lit up as her little hands gesture wildly.
Tony would almost smile at the scene, watching Peter and Morgan interact, but as he looks at the two of them – sees the look in Peter’s eyes – Tony can recognize the hint of something burrowing behind them.
A look of someone who is distracted but is desperately trying to focus.
Peter looked exhausted, more than usual. Something’s off with the kid, he’d noticed it but now – watching Peter as it seemingly took all of his attention to focus on Morgan – caused something akin to regret to churn in Tony's stomach.
Tony turns his attention back to Michelle, her face still firm and steady on his.
“No. You know he wouldn’t.” Michelle’s voice matches Tony’s, eyes glancing back to the scene in Tony’s living room. She has to know as well as Tony does that Peter could be listening in regardless.
If the kid does or doesn’t, Tony doesn’t know – just watching as Peter wills all of his attention on Morgan.
“I know you can’t tell me all the secret shit you get into but, is there anything that Peter would be concerned about you know with…” She vaguely gestures to Tony.
“Honestly, the kid’s more involved with it more than I am these days. You know Pep’s got me a on a strict ‘no-fly zone’ these days.” Michelle’s lips quirk but she says nothing, Tony recognizing that she’s letting the lie stand.
Pepper hadn’t convinced him of anything, hadn’t needed to. After Morgan was born, the idea of flying around in a red and gold suit had lost some of its luster.
Especially when Tony knew that the kid – Peter – was more than capable of leading the team, better than he and Steve ever could.
“Do you think it’s too much for him? Being so involved with everything?” Michelle’s question throws him, if only because it seems to be so interrelated to his inner thoughts.
Peter had mentioned that before, how intuitive Michelle seemed to be, how observant. It was a trait Peter admired, but if Tony was honest with himself, it’s part of the reason why he didn’t necessarily distance himself but didn’t actively seek out Michelle’s company.
Tony Stark didn’t like feeling like people could immediately get a read on him. And Michelle Jones seemed to automatically do that without even having to try.
“I don’t know.” Tony scratches the back of his beck, avoiding Michelle’s gaze. “We’ve talked about it some but each time, he just acts like everything’s okay.”
“And you believe him?”
“Well we both know he’s a terrible liar.” Michelle smirks, Tony matching it.
“Yeah, you’re right about that.” She purses her lips, lost in thought once again. Tony takes the opportunity to take her in, recognizing that she and Pepper looked physically nothing alike – Michelle’s curly natural hair a contrast to Pepper’s pin-straight red, brown skin contrasted with Pepper’s pale, dark eyes that were the opposite of her blue.
And yet seeing the twinge of concern on her face, the sense of a million thoughts, ideas, and problems running through behind her thoughtful eyes, made Tony feel once again that Peter was just a little too much like him.
He’d found himself his own Pepper, someone who would seek out the one person she had probably wanted to talk to the least in a crowded room, just for the sake of advocating for the man she loved the most.
Tony didn’t know what was going on with Peter, but he was at least glad in that moment – that he had Michelle on his side.
“I don’t know, Stark. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” Her eyes are firm again, the vulnerability that had slipped through gone as her tone changes.
“But you better help me figure it the hell out.” She turns to walk away, stopping while Tony watches.
“Cause if something happens – if anything happens to him and you didn’t do something to stop it – you’ll have more than May to contend with.” A flash of something almost like fear passes through her face before it changes into a quiet resolve.
“You’ll have me.” A shiver involuntarily flows down his back as she walks away, Tony almost bewildered at the feeling.
He liked Michelle well enough, trusted her implicitly when it came to Peter. But as she walked over to where Peter was, kneeling down beside him as her face transformed into one of delight as Morgan began another story, Tony was amazed once again.
Michelle was barely a legal adult – an actual infant in Tony’s perspective. And yet the look on her face, the chill he’d felt down his spine.
Tony almost felt intimidated by her.
Almost.
Tony waits as Peter thinks, the kid’s leg still going up and down.
He didn’t think it was a difficult line of questioning – what major are you thinking of? Have you done any shopping? Did you ever decide if you’re moving in with Ned? – and yet to Peter it had seemed to be utterly out of his depth.
Like he was completely unaware that Tony had been talking to him.
He presses the kid again.
“Peter, what is going on with you?”
“Huh?” Peter’s eyes are wide, his leg tapping so steadily that Tony’s sure he could try and decipher some kind of Morse code from it.
“You’ve been distracted for weeks. Something’s going on in that head of yours,” Tony points a tool in Peter’s direction before continuing. “Come on kid, talk to me. What’s going on?”
Peter seems to think for a minute, biting his lip. The shaking of his leg stops slightly.
Tony watches as the kid takes a deep breath, seemingly building up the courage for… something.
Tony feels almost relieved, glad that the kid is opening up to him.
“Mr. Stark, I—”
And then the world goes black.