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Act I
The length between the tip of Tony’s pointed dress shoes and the threshold of Peter’s hotel door is simply a single footstep. And yet, Tony stands on one end, struggling to cross the distance. Peter’s fourteen, his more rational side reasons, and has already been spiderman for a couple of months at least. He should know how to treat a black eye.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter looks surprised to see him when Tony finally works up enough nerve to knock on the door. His worst worries are confirmed. Half of Peter’s face is swollen, marred by a bruise that encroach on his otherwise youthful features.
“In the flesh.” Tony gives something of a wan smile as he brushes past him.
“Wha-what are you doing here? I mean, not- not that I don’t want you here, of course.”
Tony doesn’t know how to answer the question without seeming like he cares too much, so he doesn’t. “Are you enjoying the hotel?”
“Oh, uh, yeah, it’s great.” Peter pauses for a moment. Then, more quietly, as if sharing some great secret, he adds, “There’s even a TV in the bathroom, Mr. Stark. The bathroom. ”
Steve must’ve hit his head one too many times because he hears awe in Peter’s voice, and worse, finds it reassuring. But even sleep deprived and beaten, Tony knows the real reason why, as much as he refuses to admit it. The fact is, he messed up bad, and Peter saw the repercussions: Tony’s life work-- his friendships, his career, his family-- fell apart, loud and rickety like an unoiled machine. A part of him feared that Peter would finally see him for who he is. Not a hero. A fuck up. That same part of him is glad that Peter doesn’t. It’s selfish, but he puts it in the back pocket to unpack later.
“Thank you so much for this, Mr. Stark. It’s really great. I haven’t even been on a plane before, and now I’m fighting with the Avengers in an airport. I mean obviously, I would rather be fighting with the Avengers and not against the avengers, but you can't win them all."
Tony swallows hard, fighting back affection that Peter seems to command without knowing. He’s just too young. Too good. “No problem, kid. Do me a favor, and sit on the bed over there.”
Peter sits on the edge, clasping his hands neatly on his lap in front of him. He smiles, genuinely (teeth, gums, and all), even though he has bruised flesh under his left eye that forces it halfway closed. His right eye shines with reverence and youth and excitement that, along with affectionate, makes Tony sick to the stomach with guilt.
“You need ice,” Tony croaks, quickly turning away to hide whatever emotions he was uncareful enough to let show.
Peter either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t point it out. “Hm? For what?”
“For your face.”
“Oh.” He gingerly presses his fingertips against the skin under his eye, as if he had just remembered the bruise that had been the source of Tony’s penitence since he first saw it forming in the car ride back to the hotel.
Tony hands Peter the bag of ice. “Keep this on for a little while.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Peter presses the ice to his eye and leans back to rest against the headboard. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Stark, I just wanted to let you know that you were super badass today.”
“Oh?” Tony snorts, sitting on the edge of Peter’s bed after his curiosity wins out over his better judgement. “How so?”
Peter grins. “Well, you’re always kind of badass. But seeing you in person today was on another level. And more importantly, seeing you fight for what you believe is right and what you believe would be the best for other people.”
“Oh,” Tony frowns, unbelieving and unused to receiving so many genuine compliments at one time. “You think so?”
“More than think so. Know so.” Peter presses on passionately, as if he somehow sensed Tony’s doubt. “My uncle Ben used to love Harry Potter, and he would always say that it is the quality of one’s convictions that determines success, not the number of followers.”
Peter leans closer to Tony, clenching his fist against his chest to show how strongly he believes in what he’s saying. “You’re a really good person, Mr. Stark! That’s why you will always be badass, even if Mr. Captain America doesn’t think so anymore.”
Tony blinks, trying to stave off sweet relief and the beginnings of tears that came with it. “Wow, kid. Are you always this…?” He makes a roundabout gesture with his hands, as if it were sufficient enough for his lack of a better word.
“Honest?” Peter offers.
Tony scans Peter’s face, looking for some hint of sarcasm, or some form of mockery, because there’s just no way someone can have so much faith in him. Instead, he sees what he’s seen all along, youth, and reverence, and just pure good. Tony has to get out of here fast before Peter gets himself into something he doesn’t want to be in.
“I should get going now.” He gets to his feet as Peter blinks at him in confusion. “Rest, and keep that ice on for at least another ten minutes.”
“Will do!” It’s the last thing Tony hears before he’s out the door.
The distance between Peter’s hotel room and the tip of Tony’s shoes had only been a single footstep. When Tony crossed it, he had unknowingly crossed a fine line. But as he walks to his hotel room, shaking his head, he vows to stay away. Because he destroys everything he touches. and the last thing he wants to do is destroy Peter.
;;
Act II
“Who knew shattering your leg would cause severe internal bleeding? Weird, right?”
“Pete, please stop talking, or I swear to Jesus himself, you will regret it.”
“Yessir,” Peter salutes, and for two seconds, looks like he actually considers listening to him. “But wow, I can’t feel my entire right side.”
“That’s it.” Tony says, stepping around Bruce to make threatening eye contact with him. “When you’re better, you still won’t feel your leg. Why? Because you won’t have a leg. And why is that? Because I will have ripped it right out of its socket.”
Peter’s eyes start to droop, the likely effect of the medication they had given him when he first arrived. Quietly, he mumbles, "That's just cold."
Bruce stops to remove his hands from the IV on Peter's arms and places them on Tony’s shoulders, slowly guiding him backwards and out of the room.
“Hey, buddy, I think you should step out for a bit. Get a breather. Maybe even a cup of water.”
“What, why? I’m fine.”
“No, you’re hysterical.”
“No, I’m not"
“Yes. You are.”
Tony looks over Bruce’s shoulders and sees nurses frantically working around Peter’s bed. Peter, finally asleep from medication, looks peaceful and blissfully unaware, even when his right leg is mangled enough that pieces of his bone pierce through the skin, and the majority of his thigh is black from severe internal bleeding. Tony isn't privileged enough to be spared from the sight. His stomach churns uncomfortably, and it makes him lightheaded. He looks down, and his hands slightly shake from adrenaline.
“Yeah, I could use a cup of water,” he finally relents.
“Good, I will let you know when we’re done.” Bruce pats him on one shoulder. He must see the reluctance on Tony’s face because he adds, “He will be fine, Tony,” and then shuts the door.
In the time he was locked out of the medbay (which he owns, Tony bitterly points out to himself), he had the time to get not one, but six cups of water. He could have gotten more, but had been too busy making an internal list. The first thing he had to do once Peter was out of surgery was strangle him. Then, he’d call his scary, yet attractive aunt, and suffer the consequences of Peter’s actions, while May coddles Peter through phone, and promises to visit straight away after work. Finally, he’d strangle Peter again, lovingly this time, and force him to promise to never pull a stunt like this ever again, only for Peter to break it, at most, three months later.
Bruce finally steps through the sliding glass doors as Tony tries to figure out the best way to break the news to May. “Alright,” he says, taking off his gloves. “He’s all fixed up.”
Tony gets off the chair he had been sitting on for the past three hours, and furrows his eyebrows. “As easy as that? No permanent bone damage?”
“As easy as that. His healing factor is really quite something else.”
“Don’t tell him that, or he might get more creative next time.”
Bruce rolls his eyes, but steps aside to let Tony through. “You can see him now. Be gentle, he just woke up.”
“Oh Brucie Bear,” Tony sighs, patting Bruce’s shoulder as he steps by. “What am I if not gentle?”
Peter had nearly fallen back asleep in the time he was left alone, and Tony, seeing him slowly nod off like the kittens in the cat videos Peter forces him to watch, feels all the previous agitation and anger leave him, as quickly as air deflating out of a balloon.
“Hey Pete,” Tony whispers. His fingers hover hesitatingly over his forehead, but eventually, he reaches to brush Peter’s fringe out of his eyes.. “How are you feeling?”
“Hm?” Peter squints at him, pushing up on his elbows. “Oh, hey, Mr. Stark. M’fine.”
“Wow, and the press calls me a dirty liar,” Tony says drly, leaning over to help Peter sit upright against the pillows. “You wanna tell me what happened?”
Peter winces. “Not particularly, but I’m guessing if I don’t, you’ll go through Karen, and I have some pretty embarrassing footage I don’t want you to see. Shit. Shouldn’t have said that.”
“No harm done,” Tony says, his voice laced with faux comfort. “I’ve already seen them. Your impression of Thor is really cream of the crop. Absolutely spot on. I’m sure Thor would agree. You know, once I show it to him.”
Peter gasps, pressing his hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, but I would if you don’t tell me who did this to you.”
Peter groans into his hands and sinks further into his pillows, deliberating his options for a few moments.
“Ugh, fine,” he eventually concedes, embarrassment too large a price. “But you have to promise me you won’t commit first degree murder.”
“No can do. Thou shalt not lie, and all that. Besides, I don’t think you should worry too much about what happens to him when he nearly tore you to shreds.”
Peter glances down at his tightly bandaged leg in a disappointed frown. The turn of his lips create harsh lines around his mouth and between his brows that make him look wrought with fatigue, and years beyond his age.
“Yeah,” Peter mutters, a bit breathless. “He really got me good.”
Tony places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Pete,” he says gently, leaning down to make eye contact. “I know that you think you have to do this all alone, but you don’t. Whoever hurt you is dangerous, and deadly. You could’ve died, Peter. It does not make you weak to ask for help.”
Peter reaches up to grip the cuff of Tony’s button-up, tugging on it until Tony sits on the edge of his bed. He doesn’t make an attempt to move after that, simply clutches the fabric tightly between his fingers, wrinkling the material where it disappears underneath his fingertips.
“He calls himself the Green Goblin,” Peter whispers, many minutes later. “He’s large, and strong and...and scary."
“Okay,” Tony says, nodding his head. “Thank you for telling me. We’ll figure it out together. Maybe I can even threaten Rhodey into helping. Not that I would need to. He’s putty in your hands.”
Peter laughs, releasing his grip to press the back of his hand against his mouth. “ Mr. Stark,” he says, giggling. The lines on his face disappear to reveal the youth and naivety that Tony will always associate with Peter.
“It’s your stupid cat videos,” he says, smiling, pleased with his laughter.
“Thank you,” Peter whispers. His hands fidget for a little, until finally settling to fiddle with the loose seams of the blanket. “And I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Tony grunts. “Why do you always thank me for doing nothing? And yes, but you’re always scaring me. I’m only just a little used to it by now.”
“Really?" Peter's voice pitches. “Because it didn’t seem like it. At least from what I remember.”
“You probably don’t remember much. You were all delirious with the drugs.”
“But seriously. I really want to thank you for agreeing to work with me. Showing me the ropes, and all that. I haven’t… completely figured out how to handle all the superhero stuff yet, if you can’t already tell.” Peter gestures to his leg. “And there’s no one really better to show me how than you.”
Tony smiles, satisfaction settling in his body, warmly. Peter is always so startlingly sincere with his gratitude and admiration, and Tony has only gotten used to taking the compliments and thankfulness in stride rather than succumb to doubt.
“Thanks buddy,” he pats Peter on the shoulder. “Let’s see if you think that once I force you to call your Aunt.”
;;
Interlude.
“Hey,” Peter leans against the door. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and it makes him look small, and vulnerable and unsure.
“Come here,” Tony whispers, lifting his bed sheets. Peter stops playing with the hem of his shirt, and slowly walks over. He slips into the bed, and leans his back against the headboard, brushing his shoulders against Tony’s own.
He doesn’t say anything, and Tony doesn’t ask him to. Together, they sit in silence. Tony takes the time to contemplate life, and death, and chance. Peter, he assumes, thinks the opposite: war, and renewal, and luck.
Finally, Peter asks, “Did it hurt?”
“The snap?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Tony lies.
Peter shifts side to side. He doesn’t believe him, and for a moment, Tony waits for Peter to lean away and call him a liar. Instead, he presses his head against Tony’s left shoulder, and, in doing so, reveals the large, blue bruise that blemishes his temple.
“Did it hurt?”
“What did?”
Tony reaches over with his right hand, a piercing red silhouette in the night, and gently grazes the swollen skin.
“Oh,” Peter blinks twice. Then, “No.”
They settle back into silence. Tony presses his cheek against Peter’s hair. They look across Tony’s room, past the leather armchair, past Morgan’s bunny from where it was abandoned on the floor, past the wall. They look ahead.
Tonight, they pretend that everything is fine. Tomorrow, Peter will help Tony dress the burn wounds on his right side, and Tony will press an ice pack against Peter’s temple. Tomorrow, they’ll heal.
;;
Act III
“Morgan, honey, what do we say when we do something bad?”
Morgan tilts her head and squints her eyes, thinking hard. “Shit?”
“Morgan!” Pepper presses her hand to her chest, aghast. She turns to Tony, lifting her finger accusingly. “ You.”
“I have no idea where she learned that, Pep. Scout’s honor.” Tony replies, trying to school his face into indifference. A futile attempt when Morgan twists to face him on her mother’s lap and gives him a small smirk that is the consequence of weekend sleepovers with Natasha, forcing Tony to hide his grin behind his hand.
“You were a boy scout?” Peter, who is holding a bag of peas against his head on the couch next to him, looks up with just a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“No. He wasn’t.” Pepper gives Tony a glare over Morgan's head, her eyes narrowed to a squint that meant she was only seconds away from sending Tony to the couch tonight, and shifts Morgan gently onto his lap. “You caused it, you deal with it.”
Tony leans over and presses a kiss to the top of Morgan’s head as Pepper walks down the hall, and out of hearing distance. Morgan giggles, and turns around to return it on the cheek. “What did I tell you before? Those are only Mommy’s words.”
Morgan nods seriously, looking as if she was hearing God himself dictate the eleventh commandment. “Mommy’s words," she repeats.
“That’s my treasure.”
“Treasure? She nearly took my life!” Peter scoffs, but with an undertone of care and affection that Tony hears more and more often when Peter talks to and about her. She’s going to grow up to be very spoiled, as clear when he thinks back to this morning-- she had coaxed Tony into giving her yet another banana for breakfast, and after she finished, left the peel by the doorway for Peter to trip on when he finally got out of bed at noon.
“Petey,” Morgan says, reaching out to group three of Peter’s fingers in her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Aw M, of course--”
“I should have known you weren’t smart enough to avoid it.”
Peter’s face goes slack, and Tony can read the shock on his face from the way his eyebrows disappear into his hairline and how his mouth falls slightly ajar. He slowly turns towards Tony, and narrows his eyes in the same manner Pepper had done just moments before.
Tony shrugs his shoulders. There was only one person capable of teaching impressionable, five year old Morgan such wyrness, and opposed to popular belief it wasn’t him. It was Peter.
“Morgan, that wasn’t very nice,” Peter warns threateningly. “Now you have no choice but to suffer my wrath!”
Peter reaches over to tickle Morgan’s stomach. Morgan shrieks, and falls off Tony’s lap and onto the couch in a fit of laughter.
“Noooo,” she cries. “I’m sorry, Petey! I’m sorry!”
“No can do, M.” But, Peter relents anyways, and leans down to give Morgan a peck on the cheek, even as he simultaneously presses peas against the bump on the back of his head. Tony changes his mind. She is already spoiled.
“Alright,” Tony says, playing peacemaker. “Now that this is settled. Let’s hit the lake!”
Morgan gasps, sitting upright on the couch. “The lake!” She cheers, already running to grab her flip flops.
“How is it that she’s the most adorable and cutest yet most evil person I know?” Peter sighs dramatically, placing the peas on the coffee table, now warm. He gets up off the couch and offers Tony a hand.
“You’re too little too late, Pete,” Tony says, groaning softly as he lets Peter pull him to his feet. “I asked myself the same question when she shat on my hand five years ago.”
“Petey! Dad!” Morgan runs by, now with her hair in a ponytail and with flips flops in hand. “C’mon let’s go! I want to take the boat out!”
“Coming, pumpkin.” Tony straightens his back, joints cracking loudly. “Ugh, that can’t be good. I’m getting too old for this.”
Peter laughs, patting Tony’s shoulder as he brushes past him. “Let’s go, Old Man. Before you hit the hay.”
Later that night, after Morgan fell fast asleep from a long day boating around the lake, and Pepper had dozed off after arguing with investors from Hong Kong, Tony does end up on the couch, but in his own volition. He’s nursing a cup of hot chocolate when Peter ventures into the living room.
“Hey,” he says, sitting down next to him. “What are you doing here? I thought old men slept like logs after their evil daughter connived them into speeding ten circles around on a boat.”
Tony snorts. “I could ask the same about older brothers.”
Peter looks content, and the sight of it unravels some knot that had been building at the pit of Tony’s stomach. It hasn’t been too long after the large and dramatic stand-off against Thanos, and a part of him had worried about life after. Life with both Peter and Morgan, but no Iron Man.
“How are you feeling?” Peter asks, eyes shifting across his face, as if he were searching for signs of distress. “Is it the nightmares again?”
Tony chuckles, and reaches over to brush back Peter’s hair. It’s gotten long, and if possible, even more curlier. May has been going on about having it cut, but for now, Tony counts it as a small blessing.
“Nope,” he says. “Another day scotch free. I think we should celebrate. Three months, a new record.”
“Oh,” Peter says, leaning back into the couch, his posture much more relaxed. “Then what are you doing out here?”
“Just enjoying the silence of the night. God knows we don’t get enough of it around here.”
Tony throws his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter sags against him, cuddling into Tony’s side. Inside his bedroom, Pepper is dreaming of investment meetings, and new punchlines to throw at misogynistic corporate leaders. Down the hall, Morgan sleeps soundly.
Everything is as it should be, even if the only piece missing is Iron Man’s signature red and gold hues, tracing shapes into the sky like Earth’s brightest star. Tony has everything he needs right here.
;;
Act IV
“Tony,” Peter groans, pressing an ice pack onto his cheek, where a bruise was black, and blue and blooming around a long gash that reached from his upper cheek to chin. “Please stop pacing, and sit with me.”
“No,” Tony quips, but sits on the chair next to the medbay bed anyways. “I’m too busy trying to figure out why you felt the need to keep this from me.”
“Because you get all crazy? Like right now?”
“It’s me, ” Tony replies, leaning forward in his chair and ignoring Peter’s remark, looking all types of the tormented soul he is and will always be. “You used to tell me everything. And now you're off on secret missions with Shield--”
"--yes, because that's what secret means--"
"--or taking down whole New York crime syndicates by yourself, making friends with that human embodiment of a tabloid Johnny Storm, or worse-- sneaking off to go to a party . It's like I don't even know who you are anymore."
A look of understanding comes across Peter’s face. Like he’s just realized this is about more than Fisk’s underground Mafia work, more than even the illegal multiverse experiment that had been one spilled beaker away from tearing the universe into two. It makes Tony miss the years right after the Snap, miss when Peter's first instinct would be to call him, before he had left for college, became war torn and world weary, and for whatever reason, decided that Tony simply wasn't needed anymore.
“Tony,” Peter says, more gently this time, reaching his hand out. Tony takes it, holding it tightly in his own as if should he let his grip slack for even just a moment, Peter would break into a million pieces of dust, unmendable and gone, but never forgotten-- just like he did on Titan, just like he does over and over again in nightmares that continue to plague him even years later.
“I’m always going to need my old man.” Peter jokes, but his face says otherwise: lips pressed together in a small smile, eyes bright with the beginnings of tears and something else. Love, Tony will amend, months later, thinking back to this memory as Peter hands him the invitation to his wedding.
“Then why didn’t you tell me? I could've helped you. Called for back-up, tracked him for you, Iron Man--"
"--is out of commission." Peter’s eyes drift to Tony's right arm, red and metallic, a synthetic replacement for the original which had been tragically incapacitated by the Snap.
“How am I supposed to help you if I don't even know?"
Peter drops the ice bag to reach over and lay his hand on top of Tony’s, cupping it tightly between both of his own. “I don’t need Iron Man. I need Tony Stark. Tony who might not be there for the battle, but will always be there for me in the aftermath.”
Peter doesn’t say anymore, and he doesn’t have to. Tony has since learned the art of reading into the unsaid.
;;
Act V
Peter grips Tony’s hand too hard, and it creates fingerlike bruises on his skin.
“I can’t do this, Tony,” he says, using his other hand to wipe at his face. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Tony gives Peter’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Peter doesn’t bother to squeeze back, too busy looking down the hallway, eyes shifting left and right in search of the nurse.
“Do you think it’s done? Why hasn’t anyone come out yet? Do you think something went wrong? What if--” Peter’s face goes slack, and he slumps down on the chair, finally letting go of Tony’s hand to run them through his hair. “I think I’m having a breakdown.”
“Oh hey. You’re not that bad. If it makes you feel better, I vomited on the nurse twice before Pepper popped Morgan out.”
Peter gives Tony a long look and proceeds to groan. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I don’t know. Do you feel better now?”
“Not particularly. But I am more distracted. The image of you vomiting is equally too familiar and hilarious.”
Tony smiles and lovingly pats Peter’s cheek, now less flushed from his previous outburst. “Then my job here’s complete.”
Peter returns the smile, and looks contemplatively at his hands. “Do you think MJ will be mad at me for not being with her?”
“Michelle? Probably not. She’s a strong, independent woman. And I’m pretty sure she’s the one who told you to leave after you started to freak out.”
“Ugh,” Peter grimaces, most likely reliving the memory. “I’m just not sure if I’m ready yet. To be a father.”
Tony reaches over to brush back Peter’s hair from his forehead. When Peter took over Stark Industries two years ago, he had gotten into the habit of gelling it back. It was one of Tony’s greatest losses. Today, he relishes in the fact that Peter left it undone, too in a hurry to get to the hospital in the middle of the night. His baby, who no longer looks it, is all grown.
“Do you know what’s the most important part of parenting?”
“No?” Peter slumps in his chair, saddened by his own ignorance.
“The answer’s more obvious than you think: love, and honesty and respect. Being emotionally open, loving your kid, and letting your kid know that, but also, somehow respecting their boundaries.”
Tony’s words do nothing to appease Peter. If anything, he’s more discouraged and sinks further into the uncomfortable waiting room chair.
“It’s a learning curve, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. Peter, you’re the most honest and affectionate person I know. Before I met you, I don’t even think I was capable of saying I like you, nevermind love. And look at me now, I spend all my time with you and Pepper and my baby Morgan who’s got me wrapped around her small yet powerful finger.”
Peter laughs, his eyes looking suspiciously watery. “Don’t worry. She’s got us all in her evil clutches.”
“My point is,” Tony continues, chuckling softly. “You’ve taught me all of these things about parenting, just by being yourself. I have so much faith in you, there are not enough words for me to even describe it.”
Peter looks as if he’s about to break into pitiful sobs, but the nurse steps out of Michelle’s room, smiling brightly as she calls Peter’s name, and saving him from what would’ve been inevitable seconds later.
“Oh god, I think I might vomit.”
“Oh no. Vomiting during labor only needs to happen once in history.” Tony jokes, feeling as if he might vomit himself. He pushes lightly on his shoulders. “In you go, Pete.”
The room is quiet when they walk in. Michelle is propped up against some pillows, simultaneously exuding tire and glowing with the newfound joy of motherhood. In her arms, swathed in light blue blankets, is the baby, sleeping comfortably.
“Oh my,” Peter chokes, approaching the side of the bed. “He’s just so tiny.”
“And yet he took so long to come out,” Michelle says, lids heavy as if she were on the brink of passing out. “Do you want to hold him, Peter?”
Peter hesitates for a few seconds, but reaches down shakily, and gently lifts the baby off Michelle’s arms. “Oh wow,” he says quietly, adjusting the baby’s blankets with one hand. “Hi there, baby. It’s me, your dad.”
Slowly, he turns towards Tony, tears making their way down the side of his face. “Look, Tony. It’s my baby. He’s beautiful.”
Tony looks down at the bundle, and indeed, burrowed between the creases of the fabric, is a baby boy with the beginnings of Peter’s hair, his nose, his ears, and if he looked closely enough, maybe his smile.
“Hey there, Beautiful,” Tony’s voice cracks. “You got a name yet?”
“Say hi to Grandpa, Ben. Benjamin Anthony Parker.”
;;
End.
The hospital room is dark, mostly lit by the dim yellow light that emanates from the small lamp next to the bed. Michelle is sleeping quietly, and beside her, still wrapped in baby blue blankets, is Ben. Across the bed, is a long, grey ottoman sofa. On one end, May is sleeping with her head tucked on Pepper’s shoulder. On Pepper’s other side is Morgan.
Tony watches everything from the other end of the couch, and tucked into his side, is Peter, exhausted but still clinging to the last dredges of consciousness.
“Are you still worried about fatherhood?”
Peter looks up at him with glassy and wistful eyes. “No. I have the best role model.”
At that, Tony smiles, content. He has all he needs, and then some, right here.