Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Facing the chasm that stretches out in front of him, teeming with beasts, failed supersoldiers with paper skin pickling in their containers, titans more smitten with violent dreams of peace than their own children, Tony is happy.

His family is his crutch through it all, this five-year canyon.

Pepper maintains a garden, and under the summer heat the zucchini and pea yields are so excessive that Morgan nearly throws a fit when they get desperate enough to make zoodles. Internally, Tony can’t help but agree that making pasta out of vegetables is outright blasphemy, but hey; he’s not the boss of this household.

Their home blends in with the nature around them, tucked away from the rest of the world, away from failure. Tony teaches Morgan how to read, flipping through the phonetics flashcards his wife insists they use, Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He introduces his daughter to DUM-E and U.

Each breath of air is bittersweet, but it’s more than enough.

In contrast to his long history of self-destructive tendencies, alcoholism, overworking, fumbling with the concept of a hero, Tony’s no masochist. He doesn’t keep many reminders of Peter around the house — limits himself to one framed photo in the kitchen that doesn’t get set until Morgan’s about six months old. The kid still has such a gigantic lease on his heart, his soul, dead or alive, but he has an obligation to remain in the present, look forward.  

He’d always thought Peter would be leading the future. He’d so simple-mindedly believed that.

Pepper presses her mouth against his right cheek, soft, when he comes back from furniture shopping with a dark frame. He slides the picture in — Peter in his uncle’s hideous olive jacket, smiling brightly with Tony next to him — faintly embarrassed like he’s exposing some dark secret, hands steady.

He’s not physically there — he’s ash on an alien planet, slipping through his fingers like fine sand — but Peter’s presence permeates through every crevice, persistent and headstrong like he was. Peter Parker, awkward teenager extraordinaire, had never had any talent with presence, the kind of energy that brought a hush to the room upon stepping in, never had the larger-than-life charisma that Tony was groomed to exude. Nothing about Peter Parker immediately screamed, hey, look at me, you know who I am.

Instead, Peter’s there in the ways that matter. It’s in the way he holds Morgan like she’s the most important, most precious thing in the world – and she is. How he sits through every objectively awful episode of her favorite cartoon and very maturely blows raspberries at her from across the table when she refuses to eat her green peppers. It’s in how he’ll never pass up the chance to make sure she knows she’s loved, that he loves her.

In a way, it’s his redemption. Tony thinks of Peter and hopes he’s doing the most idiotic, kind-hearted boy he’s ever met justice.

_

Tony tucks the folder away to share a juice pop with his daughter. When he comes back downstairs, Pepper is curled into the sofa, reading about the newest advances in plant fertilizer, and her smile stays steady, unwavering when he brings up time travel.

He’s been in love with Pepper for so long. Had only been good for her for a measly fraction of that time. For whatever reasons his shit emotional intelligence had taken ages to grasp, her worst fear is losing him.

Nonetheless, she comes closer, runs her hands through his thinning salt-and-pepper hair.

“I’m proud of you,” she says.

That night, he falls asleep facing Pepper, breaths fanning against her collarbone, praying to something — anything — that he won’t hurt her again, won’t leave Morgan behind.

_

The Avengers fight tooth and nail for a single stroke of luck, the one in fourteen million that’s eluded them. For the first time in what feels like forever, they succeed.

Tony rouses to bright, unnatural lighting.

Peter hiccups against his still sore chest, hair greasy and unkempt, sclera completely bloodshot. It’s the best sight.

“I’ll be okay,” Tony soothes. “I’m okay, Pete, I promise.”

Peter scoffs. “You scared the fuck out of me,” he croaks, voice clogged, face puffy. “I thought — I thought you were dead, your heart — it — stopped, and —”

Tony grabs Peter’s hand and places it centre-left of his chest. “You feel that?” he asks. Peter nods, frantic, as if desperate to convince himself. “It’s beating. I’m okay.”

_

I love you, Tony thinks, still weakly holding Peter with his one arm as May storms in, sending the man a teary, grateful look. I love you, he thinks, when the kid bristles upon her insistence that he needs a shower, Peter, you look nasty, and laughs at the kid’s expense.

I love them is the melody that chants through his brain, still delirious with joy and painkillers when the dullness in Peter’s eyes — which they are one hundred percent addressing later on, mental health is hip now — retreats when he chats with Morgan. They’re both motormouths, bouncing nonsense off each other and Tony can tell that Morgan is absolutely dazzled by Peter. Peter has this weird compassion override that makes him calm down if someone else’s distress surpasses his own — he’d talked and joked and grinned to keep the mood light when Morgan kept fixating on her father’s arm, crying and scared. Peter had been promoted to super cool, super nice, can he hang out more, please in three days flat.

“Now that’s the first time I’ve heard anyone call you cool,” Tony had said.

Peter asked Tony, politely, to shut up.

I love you, Tony mouths, rubbing the ball of Peter’s shoulder. Peter’s hunched over a tablet, flicking through the news, eyes darting from headline to headline, expression blank. Sanitation crises, billions displaced, messes and chaos here, there, everywhere. Don’t blame yourself.

“I love you,” Tony says, loud and clear as they share a hug in the parking lot of Peter and May’s new building, snowflakes landing slowly, gently on dark hair. The chilly air makes their ears and cheeks flush pink as they stand below a streetlamp, their jacket-clad selves casting long shadows against crisp, fresh white. Morgan is drowsy, only half conscious in Pepper’s arms; they better start making the drive back upstate soon if they want to arrive to the lake house by midnight.

Rhodey, bless his heart, is making needless, teasing commentary in the background and Tony almost pulls away to send his friend a heatless glare. Peter’s arms constrict against the synthetic down of Tony’s coat before he shifts and puts some distance between them.

He crooks slightly to one side, and he’s beaming – the bright, happy beam that Peter makes with his eyes scrunched shut. “I love you too, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s brows furrow. “No,” he says, “say ‘I love you, Tony’.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on!" 

“Say it.”

“It.”

“You little –”

“This is all very aggressively wholesome,” Pepper says, making May snort, “but Morgan is dead weight in my arms and at the rate we’re going we’ll be home when the sun rises.”

With a half-hearted shrug, Tony messes up Peter’s hair with a gloved hand. “That’s it for now, then,” he mutters, sensing the beginnings of a heavy throat, a stinging behind his eyes. Jesus fuck is he ever a sap now. “Touch base often, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

_

With a heart kept beating by an arc reactor until he’d finally gotten over his fear of having the shrapnel removed, an arm amputated from the rotator cuff down, Tony is intimately familiar with phantom pain.

The whiplash is pretty intense, Peter’s absence of five years abruptly becoming quiet days in the lake house with his entire family finally intact again, catching up on lost time as Tony recovered and for the others, the grueling process of healing. It’d been over a month of fragile bliss before he had to let the kid go back to Queens. 

He knows that Peter is alive again, busy restarting his life in his beloved borough — getting ready to go to school again, unpacking any remaining boxes, re-establishing a pattern. The decimation had been reversed. The universe had righted itself.

Still, Tony dreams of Titan like he had since Danvers found him and Nebula, the capillaries in his eyes half-hemorrhaged and mere hours from being a deoxygenated bag of bones. The vacancy of Peter’s room aches like a missing limb.

It’s a terrible figment of his imagination, a rerun of Peter re-manifesting alone in space, lost and stranded among fire-coloured dirt as he calls out to Mr. Stark, asking where Tony went, why he left without him. Mr. Stark, dream-Peter would sob, dirty with dried blood and sediment, come back, I’m still alive; don’t leave me here. 

Peter isn’t a pile of soot on Titan. He’s back where he belongs in New York but it’s hard, Tony finds, to remember that when he lies restless in bed with no more tangible proof than Peter’s new number loaded onto his phone. 

Careful not to wake Pepper, Tony shuffles out of the duvet and as lightly on his feet as he can, grabs his phone from the nightstand and makes his way downstairs to mope in the living room.

This, he figures, is another facet of laser-precision karma for not answering Peter’s texts and calls after the skirmish in Germany. Divine justice. Tony wants nothing more to dial Peter right now and hear his kid’s voice, reassure himself that the snap’s been fixed beyond staring at his vibranium arm for evidence. It’s not the same as having Peter here, voice unfiltered by crackles of static, but it’s the next best thing. 

It’s late, he reminds himself — the sky is pitch black outside. The only source of noise is the hum of the fridge from the kitchen and his own breaths. It’s literally 3 a.m.

Tony sighs, audibly.

He sighs again.

Fuck it.

He opens up his phone and presses a thumb against the call button on Peter’s contact page.

Tony cringes immediately, regretting his impulsivity, though not enough to cancel — he could have texted Peter first to see if he was up instead of risking waking the kid up when he knows sleep is something Peter finds hard to come by.

His worries turn out to be unfounded: two rings in, the call connects. Peter’s voice, a whisper, asks, “Hello? Tony?”

Not really thinking he’d get this far, Tony just says, “Up this late, huh?”

“You’re literally the one who called me, but go off, I guess,” Peter replies. He sounds alert — not drowsy at all; the kid must still be wide awake. The he pitches his voice lower again, probably not wanting to wake May. “Everything okay?”

Tony nods yes even though no one can see it. “Everything is fine. Were you about to sleep?" 

“More like I’ve been trying to for the past two hours,” Peter sighs, frustrated. “Hold on for a minute; I don’t wanna wake up May by accident.”

He doesn’t need to know that Tony tends to forget that Peter’s not dead anymore whenever they’re not in the same room, anxious energy thrumming through his body even now because his heart is still mending itself. Not yet, anyway; he’ll let the kid focus on his own problems for now. Tony just hopes Peter understands the invitation to start talking, let Tony listen to the music of his rambling.

Through the receiver, Tony hears the sound of shuffling, the creak of a closet door opening. About a minute passes of nothing more than obscure, muffled noise before Peter speaks up again.

“Okay, on the balcony now,” Peter says. He exhales, deep and long. “May’s been sleeping pretty lightly, too – I’m pretty sure I’m getting more adrenaline sneaking back into my room than like, fighting guys that are one-hundred twenty percent muscle.”   

Tony blinks. “Wait — sneaking? Why were you out that —” he starts, before his tired brain stops lagging behind and the pieces click into place. “Patrolling, Pete? So soon?”

Without any other word between them, the mood shifts.

True to stubborn teenage form, what Peter says next betrays hints of irritation. More subtly, it’s just drained, because hundreds of versions of this conversation exist already. In one super-ear, out the other. “I’m Spider-man,” he mumbles, defensive, “that’s what I do.”

It sounds petulant, and to an extent, it is; Peter had sobered up considerably after losing his suit, but the thrill of superheroism can be near addictive. Tony remembers the pure joy of getting the Mark II to work for the first time. It was euphoric – it made his hands flutter with something other than alcohol withdrawal. Peter’s webbing was his typical hallmark as Spider-man, but to Tony, it laid more in the whoops of joy that the kid shouted out every time he took a particularly harsh, sharp swing.

Tony gulps. He gets it; he was that person, manic with urgency and making suit after suit after suit to quell his own deep-seated fears.

“Hey, hey,” Tony says, aiming for neutrality because Peter closing up is the last thing he wants. “I’m not mad; just… surprised, Pete. It’s hasn’t even been a week.”

“I’ve gotten enough time.” His voice is still so sulky that Tony can almost visualize Peter’s slouch, the mild glower around his mouth. “It was fine — I’m not overdoing it, I swear, and school’s not even on yet. It was only a few hours.” 

Okay. Let’s not push that button for now.

“Tell me, then — what good deeds did Spidey do tonight?”   

Peter does. New York is in the throes of winter-time right now, so there’s not as much crime to stop on the streets, but tonight he stopped a robbery in a CVS about a kilometer south of his apartment and got an older man, who had been getting sluggish from the cold, back home safely. Peter talks about all the emergency shelters, the people huddled inside together for warmth because the shoddy heating barely suffices, still apart from their families even though Thanos’ defeat had been two months ago. How he’d spent the bulk of his night there, talking, asking about who might be contactable, if there’s anything in particular that Spider-man could do to help.

“They’re still on the waitlist for housing,” Peter says, sounding so, so sad. “Mostly just people with no kids, who aren’t sick or not super young or old. They tell me they’re really scared, Tony, because it’s been two months and people are reuniting but they’re still alone.”

Yeah, Tony knows. Clearing enough buildings has been an arduous work-in-progress; hotel owners don’t want people rooming in their suites indefinitely, even though SI is promising to cover all costs and then some. A mind-boggling percentage of abandoned buildings are too decrepit, rampant with mould to be safe to stay in without another month of work, at least. No access to running water. No electricity. 

“They’re scared — and pissed,” Peter tells Tony. “They’re worried that they’ve been forgotten – that’s why no one’s come to take them home or tried to look for them.”

He could reassure the kid that maybe families are still looking — that five years isn’t enough to sever a bond, but that’s not giving the kid or the situation enough credit.

It certainly couldn’t for Tony, but he can’t guarantee the same for everyone else. All blanket statements have their outliers. It wouldn’t be fair to all those people still suffering to wave things off with forced optimism. All that would be is an abdication of responsibility. He knows Peter knows that, too, as young as he is.

Instead, he says, “Seeing Spider-man hopefully lifted their spirits a bit.” 

Peter hums. “That’s the goal. I’m gonna go back later, visit other locations too. May’s volunteering at the Queens homeless shelter — I could go with her,” he says. “I want to be dependable.”

“You are.” 

“Thanks, Tony.” It’s still subdued, but the pleased note in his voice tells Tony the compliment’s settling in. Then, a long huff. “I — I just can’t imagine, y’know? Coming back to nobody.”  

The if I came back and meant nothing to you anymore goes unsaid. 

Peter’s expressive, still an uncontrolled spout of emotions that write all over his face and body language. He’s gained more command over it since Tony first met him as a fourteen-year-old boy, but Tony’s well-versed in Peter Parker’s little tics and nuances at this point. He hadn’t commented on the brief flashes of hesitation, of insecurity as Peter drank in the sight of the lake house, the way his mouth thinned, and he tightened his grip around May’s arm as he stepped into the life Tony had built without him. But he’d seen it, mentally penned it down for later.

“Is that what’s been keeping you up, kiddo?”

“Part of it. There’s a lot of — other things, too — there’s so much going on, I feel like I can barely keep up even though I’m really lucky, you know? I don’t even know why I feel so overwhelmed.” He sighs. “I’m really, really lucky. I just feel bad.”

“Pete,” Tony tries, “You’re doing your best.” His kid always gives his all and it’s endearing, admirable. 

“I’m not,” Peter says weakly, wavering, before he laughs to himself. “I’m already half-assing stuff.” 

“Elaborate?”

“Like — not as Spider-man — that’s somehow easier. Like Ned? Tony, I haven’t even tried to find Ned yet. I don’t even know how to put it into words; I just don’t feel ready to see him.”  

“That’s okay.”

“Doesn’t feel like it. I’ll be on the news by tomorrow thanks to the robbery thing – what is he going to think — that I can go out as Spider-man before I spare my best friend a second thought?”

Tony rubs at his nose bridge, prosthetic hand still holding the phone to his ear. With him, Tony figures, Peter’s less obligated to put in the labour of contextualizing, hence his tendency to open up to Iron Man instead of his best friend since middle school. The two of them have the advantage of shared experience, common trauma.

This knot really needs to be untangled before the kid breaks down under the weight of his own guilt.

“From that angle, no, not the best move,” Tony admits.

Peter grumbles from the other end of the line. “Thanks. Ugh. I’m a shit friend." 

“But this is something you two can work out. You’re struggling – you’re allowed to give yourself space when you think you need it, and it doesn’t mean you don’t care about him.”

“And if he’s upset with me?” 

“Apologize,” Tony answers. “And try to be better.” 

Tony thinks he hears a faint okay before the other end dissolves into faint sniffling. Alarm doesn’t run through him, even though the sound of Peter upset bothers him like it always does – Tony had called to reassure himself that Peter is real, and there is nothing realer than this, proof in the compassion that saturates Peter’s actions. Even the kid’s dumb inferiority complex.

Peter yawns. “I’m really glad you called. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, kiddo,” Tony says. He glances to his left, where the digital clock, glowing bright red, reads 4:21. “How about we both try to sleep before the sun shows its ugly mug?”

“Ugh, okay,” Peter says. There’s a brief pause. Then, “I, um. I love you?”

Tony never thought he’d see the day where he’s somehow less emotionally constipated than Peter. With a snicker, he says, “I, um, love you too.”

“Hey, don’t make fun of me. That was heartfelt.”

“Then stop being an easy target,” Tony says. “Goodnight.” 

“’night.”

_

goodnight room

goodnight moon

goodnight cow jumping over the moon

goodnight light

and the red balloon

goodnight stars

goodnight air

good night noises everywhere

- margaret wise brown

Chapter Text

TV tends to romanticize the fuck out of big cities — LA, San Francisco, NYC. In dramas and coming-of-age films urban epicentres are the lands of opportunity, the catalyst for a grand adventure. Fancy buildings inspired by European architecture, busy streets, glimmering skyscrapers.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, or some shit.

Actual New Yorkers might (definitely) say otherwise, what with the MTA breaking down every other day, seemingly keener on convincing everyone that they’ll make it to their destination faster on foot than by train. Rent that’s practically in the clouds, nasty-ass streets and alleys, carrying the stench of rotting trash, every transit station somehow perpetually smelling like day-old piss.

It’s home, though.

It’s almost February — the school board has recovered enough to bring students back in for the new semester since the beginning of the year, even if the whole thing is a hot mess, classroom sizes ranging from forty to fifty and non-core classes simply not existing. 

(Rest in peace, home economics.)

Everyone seems intent on getting things back to normal and staying on track.

“Woah, dude,” Spider-man shouts, “Careful with that thing!”

Before the criminal, a skinny, middle-aged man with pale, cold skin can react, Peter fires a web and tears the boning knife out of his hand. 

“Yoink,” he says, discarding the thing behind him and climbing down the building. Then, he surges forward and gives the man a kick light enough to only bruise — because hey, when you try to attack someone who’s just trying to carry their groceries home and coax them into your car you deserve to be roughed up a bit — but hard enough that he’s thrown back against the building.

The woman, who’d gone stiff with shock, drops her bags and staggers a couple steps back, mouth wide open as the man gets pinned firmly to the nearest brick wall with two well-aimed flicks of the wrist.

Easy peasy. 

Peter turns to her, giving a little wave. She waves back, blinking dumbly.

“You okay, ma’am?”

She nods, eyes flickering to Spider-man as he turns around to dig the knife out of the snow. When he finds it, he carefully holds the blade portion and — straight up bends it like it’s as malleable as putty. 

“Can’t stab anyone with this,” he says.

She looks down at the man who’d probably been trying to kidnap her, groaning and in a clear amount of pain, half-buried in filthy New York snow. Finally, she mumbles, “What the fuck.”

Spider-man shrugs, hands on his hips, awkward. The woman just keeps staring at the scene in front of him, stunned, breathing hard. “I’ve called the police. Ma’am.”

“Right, right, right,” she says, “thanks… Spider-man…?” Her eyelids flutter open and shut a couple more times. Some part of her snaps back to awareness and she takes a few tentative steps forward, kneeling down to pick up an orange from the pavement.

Spider-man moves to help her, brushing snow off her things and making sure nothing inside’s gotten crushed. The other criminal, less dazed from being caught by a superhero, begins to yell some very nasty, very misogynistic expletives.

“Oh no, your jam,” Spider-man says before pointing at the man trapped between his webbing. “And as for you — do not make me start reciting the Miranda rights.”

The lady winces at the broken jar. “It’s okay,” she mutters, “I could have died tonight but the worst of it is a buck fifty down the drain — speaking of, let me thank you.”

“Oh, no, it’s cool, I don’t do this for recognition or whatever —”

She rifles through one of her bags and looks back up at him. “I’ve got some sweet buns,” she says. “They’re custard-filled.”

“Oh. Yeah okay.”

Sirens begin to ring as Spider-man takes one of the buns with a hasty That’s my cue, thanks, bye! and flies off into the forest of tall buildings.

_

Peter sits in one of the quieter areas of central Manhattan, asking Karen to do a cursory run if any security camera has him in view. When she answers with a negative, the nanites of his mask retract, exposing his face. A blast of crisp air hits his face immediately, tickling his jaw.

He’s glad the side of the skyscraper he’s picked is mostly blocking the wind and that he’d chosen to wear the nanotech armour today — not only does he now have time to appreciate the fact that the suit is awesome as hell, it makes his usual polymer get-up’s heater even more efficient.

Peter peels off the parchment paper wrapper and rips the bun open, popping a piece in his mouth. The bread is kind of stiff from the cold like it’s been in the fridge for a while, but the inside is still piping hot to the point that steam rises in the air. He lets the sweet-salty custard sit on his tongue for a few moments before he keeps chewing.

Winter’s reached its waning stages, each day growing a little warmer, but the sun still sets early in the evening. Peter loves the view of the skyline from so high up, far away enough that the traffic becomes faint background noise. Once the myriad of colours decorating the sky fade, each building, streetlight and storefront wake from their slumber.

There’s too much light pollution to see the stars within city limits, or even half-an-hour out of New York, but Peter finds the view lovely anyway.

Telling Karen to notify him if anything of note comes up on police radio, he begins his swing towards Queensboro bridge to watch the rest of the sunset there and complete the final leg of patrol through Sunnyside and Corona, maybe Forest Hills and then heading back home; it’s a school night and May wants him home by eleven.

He’s about three-quarters there, gripping onto a cement tower when he spots it:

A lone figure on the roof of an irregularly shaped building that looks like the haphazard fusion of several hexagons.

They’re kind of lanky, even padded with a chunky parka, and standing completely still. Peter’s stomach drops.

“Karen,” he says, so soft that he almost wonders if the AI heard it.

“Yes, Peter?”

“Send me the route to the hospital ER with the most vacancies, please. Give the staff a heads up.” 

“Sure thing, Peter,” Karen replies. “May I suggest notifying emergency services?” 

“He – he’s too close to the ledge. I can’t afford to startle him.”

In truth, Peter has no idea what he’s doing. Plans run through his mind, only half coherent – does he get this guy closer to the middle of the building and then call 911? How does he go about that in the first place? This is definitely out his ballpark, this is a big bite of something he knows he’s going to struggle with chewing. 

He has to do this right, but he has no idea how.

Webbing up criminals is easy. This? Peter’s a whole building across, still out of eyeshot, and already losing his cool. 

He takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, trying to figure out the best place to aim his next web so that the guy will see him coming, whatever angle is best to catch him in the worst-case scenario. Snakes squirm in his gut, pounding against the walls of his insides.

Priority one: get him somewhere safe. Make sure he stays calm. Get him to professionals.

Peter relaxes his touch and slides down a few floors. His palm extends, shooting a web outward that ricochets him towards his destination.

Peter’s instincts mean he lands exactly where he wants to — directly below where this guy is standing. Just in case he tries anything. The teenager looks up: he’s eye-to-lens with a young man, who’s craning his head down, eyes narrowed.

The man in the chunky parka quirks his mouth downwards and whispers, probably to himself, “Are you fucking kidding?”

It’s not the best reception Spider-man’s ever received, but the guy makes no other move, so it’s not the worst, either. He keeps his eyes on the activity of cars, motorcycles and pedestrians, miniscule like ants and beetles a whole death-drop down, ignoring Peter as he climbs towards the ledge, settling to his right.

Below them, a bus honks when a car takes too long to make a right. The man’s face is stony, a valiant attempt at neutral, but the hammer of his heart is loud and fast. 

In the end, Peter wills his palms steady and settles with a, “Hello.”

Dully, flat: “Go away.” 

Peter sits down, dangling his legs over the gap in front of the two. He does so at a snail’s pace, like the other guy is a scared, stray mutt that’ll react badly to any sudden movement.

“I’m all ears if you want to talk,” Peter says, doing his best to keep his voice steady, “but if not, I’ll be over here, keeping you company. If you fall, I’ll catch you. That’s a promise.”

“Here’s option three: leave. I don’t need to be another tick mark on Spider-man’s philanthropy checklist.” 

“No can do.” 

With the rustle of layers of clothing, one of his feet inch forward, closer to the end. Spider-man’s head snaps up, wide, white eyes fixed on him, at attention. He turns his wrists up so that his webshooters are clearly visible. The nanotech suit is dense enough that people can’t see the outline of his mouth when his expression changes. Meanwhile, even with the sky darkening, the Peter can see every facial twitch the man makes as he scowls at the vigilante. 

The man sighs and backs up a bit. Then he moves to sit down, cross-legged. A puff of air exits his mouth, white and transient like clean smoke.

“I don’t have a choice, right? No matter what I do you won’t let me die.”

“No,” Spider-man says.

“God,” the man murmurs, looking away from the deep maroon of the mask and arches his head back so that he’s looking straight at the overcast sky. Tears are beading at the edges of his eyes, shiny. “Just my rotten luck that Spider-man is making his rounds. I can’t even have this one thing.”

The sun has almost disappeared below the horizon, bright hues of yellow orange giving way to darker reds, the reds becoming a cloudy, rich violet. Soon, lamp poles will supplement in the absence of natural light, flickering on one by one. The temperature is already dropping steeply, but covered head-to-toe, Peter can’t sense the wind.

Peter could call it a day there and carry him to the emergency room Karen has flagged on the left corner of his HUD. Behind his armour, he purses his lips.

“Are you hungry?” Peter asks.

_

The guy — Marcus, Peter manages to get him to say — doesn’t know how he got on top of the building. There’s a blank between his usual trip back to Brooklyn by train station that’s likely shaped like Marcus trekking up each flight of stairs, sturdy steel below his boots as he moved on autopilot. It was like blinking, he said, and ending up in a different location entirely. Standing on the ledge, backpack dropped to the side, phone turned off. The indigo-saffron sky. The life teeming below him. It’s the sight Peter gets every time he goes out.

Now they’re sitting on the green floor, next to the green ATM and the green bank ads that decorate the otherwise sparse walls. The drone that makes up Peter’s chestpiece detaches and melts onto the security camera tucked the edge of the room, covering the lens.

Wordlessly, Spider-man holds out a burger and drink, waiting for Marcus to take them. Stares with blank white lenses until he takes a very, very small bite, still wearing a deep frown.

Peter had never imagined himself holding anyone hostage, and he distantly wonders if this counts. The nanites around his mouth retreat so that he can put a ketchup-soaked fry into his mouth.

After a prolonged, awkward silence, Marcus asks, gesturing to the greasy food laid out in front of them, “How’d you pay for this anyway? It’s not like you have pockets.” 

“Oh,” Spider-man says, “it’s one of the suit features, actually. E-wallet. You know, like Apple Pay.”

Marcus frowns and takes a sip of Pepsi.

“Fucking surreal,” he says. “So, what are you gonna do with me after this? Give me a big speech that’ll restore my will to live and walk me back home like the gentleman you are? Gonna tell me I matter?”

Peter is pretty glad no one can see how his face contorts with apprehension, the faintest amount of fear. As clearly as possible, he says, “No, I’m gonna take you to the hospital.”

Marcus’ hands tighten around his sandwich. The scowl on his fade wobbles and then, all of a sudden, he’s crying. Not the quiet, restrained leaking that he’d striven to will back for the past half-hour. Open crying, the first hiccup barely choked back and the second loud enough to echo, making Marcus shrivel — recoil — back with embarrassment.  

His own throat tight, Peter shifts and shuffles over so that they’re face-to-face. Places a careful, gloved hand on the other man’s knee and squeezes. “Hey — it’s okay, we’re gonna work this out —”

Peter is pushed back with a violent shove — he’s sturdy, but the force of it makes him land on his butt.

“Do not tell me it’s okay —” Marcus yells with a quarter-sandwich spilled onto his lap, “I’m alone — my entire life is gone; why do I have listen to some guy in a spider costume and stay here? Everything is gone.”

A decimation victim.

It’s in the way he enunciates everything with so much agony that Peter feels his own heart begin to crack. Karen is whispering in his ear, “Peter, you’re doing great. Your heartrate is now at 110 beats per minute and rising; please take some deep breaths.”

Peter reaches out again and Marcus flinches.

“Everything is gone,” Marcus mumbles. “My dad always said I would go to Hell.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

He snorts through the moisture trickling down his eyes, the clear snot emerging from his nostrils. “Not the way he thought I would. I’m already there. Everything I had is gone.”

“120 beats per minute.”

He tries again: “Hey —”

“Just. Just stop, okay?” Marcus chokes out. “I know you want to help me, but I don’t need to be your charity case — you’re trying to be the nice guy that treats some sad suicidal loser to Burger King and then dump him into a psych ward, out of sight, out of mind. I’ve lived here for years — you just make your dramatic exit, soak up the praise on the Twitter or some shit and leave the formalities to someone else, so tell me why it’s worthwhile dealing with your good Samaritan antics, please.” 

Spider-man tilts his head, as if pensive. 

With a flash of glowing red, the mask retracts, and Marcus’ jaw drops open. The man almost falls backwards, using his hands to balance himself before he rolls over. 

Now, Peter’s face is exposed, already swollen eyes mirroring those of his unlikely company for the evening.

“Are — are you crying?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I’m a sympathetic crier, can’t help it sometimes — sympathetic vomiter, too,” he says, scrubbing at his face. “Sorry, gosh that’s gross. You didn’t need to know the vomit part. I just ramble a lot.”

Fuck. This guy’s in distress, in crisis, and Peter’s trying to help but he’s just getting upset along with him. With the mask down he can hear everything around the room, the buzz of the overhead lights, twin heavy breathing. Karen is no longer able to whisper platitudes into his ears. Peter blinks rapidly and tries to get the ache building in his chest to subside.

Tentatively, he extends a hand, hoping that Marcus will meet him halfway. “I’m Peter." 

Perhaps too dazed by the new revelation, Marcus shifts forward and shakes it, grip limp.

“You’re right; I don’t stick around long because there’ll always be people trying to find out who I am,” Peter says. “But please, let me help you.”

He points to his face. Pale skin with a slight pink flush, short chestnut hair.

“Now I don’t want this to be on the local news as much as you do.”

This makes Marcus laugh, kind of nasally from all the mucus. The shock of seeing Peter’s face, ironically, seems to have calmed him down. “Playing dirty, huh.”

Then, “Jesus. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, that’s the reaction I got from my family.” Peter stands and rifles through the takeout bag again, handing Marcus a napkin. “Look, Marcus — I didn’t want to overstep my bounds or anything, or — use you to make me look good, I promise. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Not okay, okay, of course. Just enough that Marcus checks into a hospital and gets the help he needs from someone who’s actually qualified. Just enough that he sees tomorrow.

Marcus dips his head down, where the remnants of his bun is in pieces, a measly little piece of lettuce and a soft slice of tomato, the fat on the bacon white and solid from the cool air. He brings the napkin to his face and starts to clean up.

Again, Peter crouches in front of him, settling a gentle hand on one of Marcus’ kneecaps. “Marcus,” he pleads, voice hushed, just erring on the side of rocky, “please let me help.” 

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

“We don’t have to go. At least not right away.” Peter picks up the ruined cheeseburger. “I still have some fries we can split.”

_

Marcus is twenty-one, and from Maine. His dad kicked him out of the house with nothing but a black eye that took two weeks to heal, all the way back in 2015, and he’d couch-surfed in his friend’s homes until graduation. Got a full ride to NYU, got his high school diploma, packed up what little he had and set off to New York without a single look back.

He misses Maine — the crazy snowy winters, the autumns where the whole landscape is a mishmash of bright greens, carmine, lemon-coloured leaves. The few friends he’d made growing up, his baby sister. The harbours, the pine forests.

He’s never visited.

Peter nods along to every detail, committing them to memory.

Sophomore year, he’d moved to a shoddier area in Brooklyn because the rent was cheaper there, splitting the costs with his first-year roommate. Ate noodles with butter half the time because that was the cheapest thing that filled you up, balanced work while double majoring in humanities and computer science. The roommate — Andy — got a small stipend from his parents every month and had an easier course load, so he offered to pay a larger percentage of rent.

Marcus talks about Andy like he’s sunshine embodied, and the puzzle slides into a bigger picture with faint horror, sonorous misery.

Peter watches the click of Marcus’ jaw as he swallows, shudders. He’s not looking back at Peter, eyes glimmering yet so dull at the same time, fixated on the disabled security camera that’s a big black dot on the ceiling. “He OD’d last year.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, because there’s nothing better to answer with.

They’d never had the chance to say goodbye, because Marcus was on the train when he crumbled to nothing and re-emerged too late. The last words between them was a text exchange, Marcus saying he’d be back late because he needed to go to office hours.

“I was gonna tell him, Spidey — after our finals,” he mumbles, crying all over again. His voice cracks at what he says next. “What he was to me.”

“He knew, I think. Andy knew, from all your stories.” 

The food is gone, the soda flat. It’s mostly devoid of passerby outside – Peter had picked a pretty empty street to hole up in.

A snort. “I’d have rather straight-up said it.”

Can’t argue with that.

_

Peter pulls his mask back on. He and Marcus begin walking to the ER, crunch of snow under the tandem steps of nanotech-clad feet and boots. Around them, buildings are lit up with a scatter of windows with curtains and blinds drawn, the artificial glow of street-side pharmacies and drugstores.

Comparatively, the emergency room pokes out from the darkness like floodlights, a beacon. Peter shakes Marcus’ hand again, firmer this time, and pats him on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Peter says. Marcus shrugs at that, blatantly uncomfortable. 

From a lamppost far enough to be discreet but close enough to get a good view, Peter watches Marcus, shoulders slouched under his chunky parka, walk quietly, slowly in. When he’s almost there, the man turns back around and looks in Peter’s direction.

Peter waves.

Marcus goes inside, and when he doesn’t come out after half an hour, Peter fires a web and restarts his journey to Queensboro bridge.

_

“Hey, underoos. What’s up?”

“Hi, Tony. You weren’t about to sleep, right — I won’t keep you — I can call in the morning —”

“It’s half-past eleven, kid, geez. Sometimes I wonder if you think I’m going senile. Now. What’s up? How was patrol?”

 “Uh — about that. I need a favor.”

“And I probably have one, depending on the context.”

“You have access to satellite footage, right? I need you to wipe anything from the locations Karen’s gonna send you right now – from 7:32 to 10:49, and please don’t look at the files –”

“Kid, kid — backtrack. Not only is this getting more ominous with every word, but you don’t want me to look at the footage? Listen, we’re over hiding dangerous stuff from each other, right? Let me remind you the last time you tampered where you weren’t supposed to — if this is a big thing, we’ll notify the FBI or God forbid, SHIELD —”

“Tony, please. Can — can this just be a no questions asked thing? I promise I’m fine. There’s no big criminal, no security breach – I just need to get this done. I’ll tell you about it later, I promise, but it’s really more of a face-to-face thing.”

“You’re safe?” 

“Yeah, Tony. I am.” 

“Ugh, fine. The things I do for you. But I’m holding you to that — you’re telling me what’s going on, okay?”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Yup. Eyes are zipped.” 

“Thank you — and my suit footage too. Anything in that same timeframe.”

“You’re sketchy as hell, Peter, though I suppose your baseline is kind of shit — wait — is that a transaction to Burger King of thirty-five dollars? Timestamp from a few hours ago?”

“Like I said, I’ll explain. And… thanks.”

“No problem. Peter?” 

“Yeah?”

“You okay? You sound kind of shaken.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Sure. I’m trusting you, for some goddamn reason.”

“Thank you. Oh — and one more thing.”

“God, what now?”

“I love you.” 

“… yeah. I do too.”

Chapter Text

Progress is about paradigm shifts — integrating the new into the old to make sense of both. Openness with a healthy degree of skepticism. The trick, Tony figures, is rearranging your mental framework, tweaking it, stepping out from your typical process. Maybe you’ll learn something new.

Case in point: when seeking out a boy with mutant abilities and a penchant for risky business, it is highly suggested that one does not carry out their affairs as normal. Possible side effects include your puny raisin heart growing three sizes. May result in dizziness or fainting spells.

Peter had changed his entire life and Tony, for the life of him, cannot pinpoint a single aspect where it’s been for the worse. Even considering the ridiculous myriad of times his life has been remolded, be it by his own hands or by those that had reptile blood and no good intentions, it doesn’t cheapen what Peter’s done for him. Despite the careful, careful deliberation — or unnecessary angst, as Rhodey so thoughtfully worded it — Tony put himself through to let the kid into his life, he hadn’t ever expected Peter to worm his way in so easy.

There’s no wonder that trying not to be too protective is as hard as it is, considering where they started and what they have now. What it took to get here.

Peter’s a literal genius and rife with skills that can keep him safe. Mad skills, as Tony had told him once. 

But, he’s also, like, dumb. It’s a funny paradox.

Which brings them where they are now, in the basement of the lake house – Tony’s lab. Peter’s seated on a barstool-type chair, legs swinging back and forth while his hands are pressed under his thighs. He’s humming some silly tune to himself that Tony can’t quite put his finger on.

“It’s fun to stay at the,” Peter mumbles to himself, before his voice drops into a soft hush, all dramatic, “YMCA.”

Ah.

Tony is fiddling with the control panel in this more toned-down version of keeping an eye on Peter. He’s not Iron Man anymore but he worries, okay.

Nanotech is, as the kid says, awesome, but like anything else it needs proper upkeep to maintain peak function. The Iron Spider suit wouldn’t be crazy intuitive if it hadn’t taken a massive effort to complete.

Today’s lab session is a two-in-one: recalibrate the suit’s affinity to Peter’s nervous system and give the kid another lesson on how the nanites work so he has more knowledge when making his own tweaks. It’s fun and rewarding — Peter picks these kinds of things up so rapidly it takes Tony’s breath away and makes a surge of pride wash over him at the same time.

“Young man, young man, there’s no need to feel down,” Peter speak-sings, staring off into nothing. Tony wonders if he’s even aware of it.

The software boots up and Tony scrolls through a few options before he turns back towards Peter, who looks positively goofy with the scanner over his head, the handful of electrodes that have been taped onto his arms and right below his clavicles. Like getting a perm with those fancy rigid-hood hairdryers at a salon.

“Okay. Lights, camera, action. FRIDAY?”

The screen loads, bringing up a gray scan of Peter’s brain. The right side of the image begins to emit a bright yellow when Peter speaks.

“Oh, that’s so cool! That’s me!” he says, pointing to the illuminated spot. “My speech center.”

“Hm. Your brain’s bigger than I expected.”

Peter extends his leg towards Tony, just far enough to nudge him a little forcefully. “There’s no link between brain size and intelligence. Read up on your neuroscience.”

Tony repeats the procedure again, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page: all the devices Peter is currently attached to will be reading his brain activity, picking up on the impulses his nerves send across the body. Then, they’ll work the data into the armour’s processors.

“It’s so cool that you just have all this stuff lying around,” Peter says, as if Tony isn’t Iron Man and has some of the best tech in the world. Of course he’d have a miniature MRI scanner in his lovely home by a beautiful private lake. It’s basically an essential. Who does Peter think he is?

“So just do stuff and let the scanner pick up on it? Oh, what do I say? Do I recite something?” 

Tony shrugs. “Nah. Just talk about your day or something. It doesn’t need to be formal.” 

“Oh. Okay.” He clears his throat and shuffles a bit. Purple spots appear at the upper middle of the screen. “God that is so cool.”

Taking the suggestion quite literally, Peter fails to remember what he ate for breakfast that morning. The sides of the scan glow.

He talks about his walk to school, the dog he saw – which was cute but kind of angry-looking – and how he scaled the fence to get to class to beat the morning rush of students crowding around the main entrances. 

“Third period I had AP Lit and I got feedback on my essay – which, kind of yikes because Henry IV is dry as hell, Tony, you know? There’s like twenty-seven plays just titled King Henry?”

“Yeah. Shakespeare, the bane of high school English everywhere.”

“Right? I totally knew my work was garbage because I kept reading the play without absorbing literally any of it but there was so much red pen – Ms. Davis does this thing where she writes two really big question marks and draws a line under them so it looks like a sad face. I counted ten of them.”

Ouch. 

Still swinging his feet back and forth, Peter sees Tony’s wince and laughs. “Oh, man. MJ made the same face – she sits next to me. Her essay came back pristine,” he says. “But it’s okay – Ms. Davis is actually really nice if you ask for help and MJ was really cool about it too - she offered to let me read her stuff.”

Tony rattles his brain to try to put a face to a name. It’s not like Peter’s inventory of close friends is exactly big, but he swears he’s heard the name MJ before. Ned, he’s seen – him and Peter are in a lot of pictures together — best bros since 6^th grade. It’s sickeningly wholesome. 

Having exhausted anything of note from third period, Peter talks about lunch, biology and history in the afternoon. On the weekends, Peter is here by the early evening because on Fridays he has nothing scheduled for the last block. According to Peter, nothing of note really happened on the drive over. 

Apparently, he has AP Euro with MJ too, and she’s got a very firm grasp on the nuances of the Vienna Congress.  

“This MJ character’s got a knack for humanities, hm?”

Peter brightens. So does his brain.

Interesting.

“She’s a literal lifesaver,” Peter says. His eyes widen a little before he adds, “Not that I’m friends with her just because she’s good at… words. And understanding words. Making words. She’s really awesome.”

Tony’s no expert but the inside of the kid’s head looks like a carnival, or a strobe show, and that’s gotta mean something. Earlier, the colours springing up were a steady pitter-patter, like gentle patches of rain that wets and darkens concrete, calmer blues and greens that sometimes flared to orange.

Remembering something, Peter fishes out his phone (screen protector already in total shambles). “She’s really big on art too, lemme show you – she’s got a thing for drawing people in crisis.”

In crisis. Peter swipes a few times and Tony pushes closer to the kid and away from the keyboard, curious. He folds his arms over the head of his rolling chair, legs on either side of the seat, leaning forward. 

Peter finds the right photoset and shows them to Tony proudly with the same energy he has when he very seriously outlines why the prequels were so bad that they’re still good, great, even – with a degree of adamance and sheer excitement Tony’s not sure the situation warrants.

Tony peers at the screen.

They’re all pencil sketches in a hardcover notebook, the fancy kind with the elastic strap on the outside. Most are drawn from the shoulder up, the most detailed at the eyes, nose and mouth before the strokes get choppier around the hairline and neck, a deliberate, organized sort of chaos.

And they’re very, very good. Tony doesn’t care much for visual arts, but he’s passively absorbed some things just by virtue of his proximity to Pepper. And his mom had always loved art.

Each illustration is striking, personality shining through each one. They draw attention to the face, the expression, the feeling rather than a neutral study of a figure.

There are also sillier doodles tucked in the corner, simple smiley or frowny faces or a cartoonish bird. A flower, here and there.

But there’s the other thing: the thing that stands out.

Like the fact that most of the drawings are of Peter — Peter napping in class, Peter on his phone, Peter and Ned as a pair, chatting, Peter here.

Peter there. A little Peter, everywhere.

“Wow.”

“I know! She’s so talented, right?”

“You feature here… heavily.”

“Oh! Well this is just two pages of it — she does plenty of still lifes and draws Mr. Harrington a lot because she thinks it’s funny. I guess I show up a lot, but she says I’m always in crisis — it makes me an ideal subject.”

Well, MJ’s not wrong.

“They’re really well done,” Tony says, and they are — the drawings of Peter are of perfect likeness to the real thing, and it must be for the other characters scattered about as well. MJ’s gotten everything down to the weird part in the kid’s left eyebrow.

Peter preens at the compliment like it was aimed at him, and Tony idly reminds himself to check the parts of the MRI he’d just missed because he’s sure it’s a whole disco.

_

Tony wonders if Peter knows.

He isn’t sure how to piece this MJ together. Peter’s descriptions of her oscillate from one end to another or just don’t belong on a spectrum at all because it goes from I think she’s really making an earnest effort at getting closer to people because she was a loner when we first met and she really digs the idea of salamanders within the space of thirty seconds. 

Arguments can probably be made for either side:

For: it’s blatantly obvious. Peter’s not the type of shout affections from the rooftops, but in inviting him to talk about it, as Tony had inadvertently done, he’d pulled out all stops.

Against: Peter’s a smart nugget. But, he’s also, like, dumb.

The two have long emerged from the lab, satisfied with their work. Peter had a monstrous serving at dinner; knowing that the kid had a black hole for a stomach never seemed to dampen the surprise of how much he could shove into his mouth. Tony gets acid reflux just thinking about it.

Once the meal ended, Morgan declared that Dad had hogged Peter long enough and had guided the boy elsewhere.

They’d gone upstairs and Tony’s not really sure what they’re up to, but every while or so he hears Morgan shriek with laughter and it makes his insides go all fuzzy. Like mould.

Distracted from dishwashing, Tony sets down a plate on the drying rack, pats his hands dry on his pants and pads over to where Pepper is saran wrapping some leftovers — which somehow exist, despite Peter’s appetite.

He settles his chin on one of her shoulders, wrapping his arms across her torso. Nestles against her strawberry-blond hair.

The crows’ feet around her eyes crease, and Tony knows she’s smiling.

“You know, hon, the devil usually sits on the left shoulder instead of the right,” she says. “You’re on the wrong side.”

“Hush. I’m an angel.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“Hey, Pep?”

“Yeah?”

“I think Pete’s got a crush.”

Pepper hums and picks up the container of cooling noodles to stick in the fridge. Tony stays glued to her back; arms firmly locked. She ends up doing an awkward shuffle around the kitchen, Tony on her like an oversized backpack, chest rumbling with amused laughter.  

“Tony, you can let go now.”

“And I got a big crush on you.”

_

Sunday evening, Tony’s send-off to Peter is a stubbly kiss on the forehead, off-centre.

Weekend stay over, Happy takes the kid back to NYC.

_

Tony’s about ninety-seven percent sure. He’s never witnessed the kid in the throes of puppy-love — the last person Peter had liked was Liz – Vulture’s daughter — and Tony had missed that entire fiasco. The kid had apparently had feelings for that girl for a whole year.

So, in hindsight, it kind of made sense for Peter put his focus away from romance, or something like that. Too preoccupied with Spider-man, attending all those detentions, and whatnot.

The fallout comes that Wednesday. Morgan’s started kindergarten — gosh they grow up fast — and is off with other small children, doing whatever it is small children do among their peers. Tony takes the time to make a dent in SI’s proposal to revamp most power grids with better clean energy tech. Hopefully, it’s another booster shot for restoring cities to normal, maybe get them to be even better than before, to keep things optimistic. 

It’s mid-afternoon when Tony notices his phone buzzing from across the table. He’s spinning around on his chair, half working and half mildly concerned about the clicking noise his right ankle is starting to make whenever he puts enough pressure on it.

Setting his coffee down, he reaches over.

It’s a text from Peter, followed by another, and another.

Pete [15:35] ??????

[15:36] dlsjnvsjk ? ?

[15:36] sos

[15:38] Are you… ok

[15:38] NO

[15:38] Oh

[15:38] something is HAPPENING

[15:39] im dying!!!

Okay, so at least the kid’s not in any danger.

[15:39] How are you dying

[15:39] Details, kid

Peter’s text bubble emerges, the three little dots that indicates he’s typing. Then it disappears without any incoming message. The bubble appears again, and disappears. Then it appears once more.

Pete [15:41] i think im gonna puke

[15:41] ok not actually but sdsfsds

[15:42] Are you going to tell me what’s going on or

[15:42] im in photography club rn

Right. Peter joined photography club — when Peter and May were undusted, they had the opportunity to dig through and reorganize their things. Most of Peter’s things were stuck into a facility, while some knick-knacks were packed away to take up residence in the lake house garage. His Uncle Ben’s old Nikon had been lying around the lake house, and Peter had thumbed at the camera like a treasured childhood relic.

[15:42] Deflecting

[15:42] sorry its just that idk how to say it

[15:43] im not deflecting

[15:43] im with the guys in photography club and *********** is here and

Still not following.

[15:43] she asked if i could use my pics for references bc theyre good or smth

They are. Peter’s got a good eye, and no, that is not just his Inner Dad talking.

[15:43] im breathing really hard right now shes squinting at me

[15:44] being judged : (

Hm. References? For drawings, maybe?

Ah. It’s about MJ. The realization hits Tony quickly, like a swift pat on the back, and he snorts.

[15:44] Oh

[15:44] MJ?

Pete [15:45] DONT INVOKE HER NAME

[15:45] How many letters do you think the name MJ has

[15:45] i didnt say this was about ********* haha : )

[15:45] oh god

[15:46] Good trick on being around your crush

[15:46] Just act normal

Peter doesn’t answer for a good minute and for a second Tony wonders if the revelation actually made the kid pass out. Breathing too hard and fast deoxygenates the body, after all.

His phone rings and alas, it’s from one Peter Parker.

“You’ve reached Tony Stark.”

“Oh my God,” Peter whisper-shouts, “how did you know? Tony. Tony. How did you know.”

This is gold.

“Know what?”

“The thing!”

“The thing.”

“Yeah! The thing! About the thing!”

“The MJ thing?”

“Stop saying her name — shit — what if she hears? I’m in the hallway, can they hear through the door — my point of reference is really bad, you know, super hearing and all —” Peter says. “Woah, my heart is beating so fast.”

That’s it; Tony starts laughing.

He puts his hand over his mouth in attempt to suppress the mirth that’s fizzing up past his grin before he gives up. Over his own chortles, he can barely hear Peter’s agonized groan.

“Yeah, laugh it up, old man, I’m just going through cardiac arrest,” he mutters. “’s not funny.”

Nearly gagging on his own spit, Tony wipes an imaginary tear from his eye. He coughs a few times to clear up his airway. “It’s kind of funny.”

“How did you knoooow,” Peter says. “Did the helmet-thing you put on me for suit maintenance have subconscious-reading powers?”

Tony’s got eyes and ears — that’s how. “Here’s a counter-question, kiddo: did you not know?”

“What? Excuse me, what?” Peter sounds incredulous. “I had no idea until maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

God. This kid.

Sure. You can gush about someone and show off their talents to your conceivably-maybe-father figure with stars in your eyes, platonically. It happens. But if there’s any romance involved, well — that should be entirely within the realm of possibility, falling firmly under the category of Unsurprising Things.

“It was heavily implied,” Tony says. “You just seem really happy when you talk about her, is all.”

Peter whines. “She’s really cool.” 

“That’s been established, yes.”

“I’m dying.”

“No.”

“Yes! I literally just made a fool of myself in front of her and now I’m calling you from outside the classroom because I couldn’t wait until the meeting was over,” Peter says, sullen. “What am I going to do? Be myself?”

Tony can imagine it — the comical flash of panic as Peter comes to an important realization, the sinking swoop that jostles the gut like the sudden weight of a boulder. Peter suddenly having no idea what to do with his limbs, over-conscious of where he’s looking, hyperaware of the apparently newfound object of his affections.

It’s… mundane. That’s good, Tony thinks. They could all use some more mundane.

“I… guess? Maybe less of the heavy breathing,” Tony says. Remembers the handful of MJ’s drawings, vivid, detail-oriented, unconstrained. Remembers that Peter must be dense when it comes to things like this. “She might like you back.”

“You think so?” Peter sounds hopeful and it’s so sweet Tony’s teeth are going to fall out.

I know so is presumptuous, despite the relatively high degree of certainty that Tony has. It’s productive, but maybe not in the right way. “You were just fine around her before — just keep hanging out with her. Try to spot any signs.”

Very, very obvious signs. Come on, Peter. Come on, Spider-man.

A sigh. “You sound like May,” Peter grumbles. It’s not meant as a compliment, but Tony can’t help but take it as one.

“May’s got a knack for being right.” 

“Well —” Peter starts. The sentence is cut off by a distant yell. “Oh shit, I’ve been standing out here for too long. They want me back inside.” 

Right. Photography club.

“I am not ready to go back in.”

Tony rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. “Face your fears,” he says.

Another voice sounds from the receiver, muffled but enough for Tony to make out the words – they’re casting a vote on the yearbook design, Get your butt back inside, Peter.  

“Okay, cool, cool, cool, going back in —”

“Stalling,” Tony teases.

Maybe Peter doesn’t hear him over his own repetitive cool cool cools, no doubts. The angry third party’s voice returns, and Tony hears Peter blow a huff of air into the receiver, whispering quickly, “Cool okay byeTonyloveyou!”

And the line does dead.

Tony stares at the dark screen of his phone for a few moments before he decides to head upstairs for a smoothie break, maybe start dinner prep before Morgan and Pepper come back from karate lessons.

He stretches, wincing at the popping noises his back makes.

Eugh. To be young again.

Chapter Text

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

— henry iv, part ii

The world comes back to life all at once, and then in staggering increments.

_

Peter’s heard stories — of how people are warped by their traumas, bent far past their elastic limits like it had forced them through the wringer. Squeezed of every drop of blood until they come out a flimsy perversion of what they were before. Some dig as deep as they can to find the shards, hoping to glue themselves back together, but they do not know where to start looking, fragments hidden and buried under stone, tears, and mass graves with no bodies underneath.

They drown in the knowledge that their past selves are gone.

It’s on Peter’s mind quite often. A more motivating example, he thinks, is Tony, who, months later, is still not the man that Peter remembers. Sure, he’s still a friend that Peter had never expected — the caustic kind that likes poking fun at Peter whenever he’s in a good mood, makes pop culture references so old that most go over Peter’s head, is surprisingly patient when Peter makes mistakes in the lab.

But that Tony only ever gave him fleeting, skittish pats on the shoulder. His eyes were harder, carrying a thin film of frost over hazel. He had dark hair, fewer wrinkles, didn’t look so fucking sad whenever he thought others weren’t looking, didn’t look at Peter with so much candid affection like he was the answer to all the world’s problems —

To be honest, it’s the opposite of a problem. Peter tells Tony a lot about his comings and goings nowadays, the older man humming and offering a comment here and there to let Peter know he’s actually listening. He’s a good listener. Tony is one of Peter’s favorite people.

It’s just — Peter can’t get the idea that this Tony must be the product of tragedy out of his head. Suffering shouldn’t have been one of the conditions to get to this point. To merely bask in the fact that everything seems to be going uphill, idyllic — is it disingenuous?

Tony’s heart and mind survived Thanos’ attempt at playing God. They’d emerged from the flood, different, weary, but blessedly intact.

Many, many others were nowhere near as lucky. Survivors say when their loved ones faded away it had taken part of them too — the snap was only the first stage. The extent of the decimation didn’t stop there — past the immediate aftermath, when the reality and permanence of what had taken place truly sank in, people just started to… give up.

Peter and billions, trillions more are back, resurrected. Murals and graffiti of Tony, who, to the public, is a symbol — of ingenuity, perseverance, overcoming the impossible — litters every block. Earth’s best defender. Red-and-gold thank yous.

Thank you for giving me my life back, say those that were reassembled from dust.

Thank you for giving me my life back, say those that survived the sweepstake.

Those bright, fiery colors are chiaroscuro against a world that is still mourning.

Peter meets a lot of people as Spider-man; there’s Mabel, who struggling to make a living wage because her employer inevitably dropped her in the half-decade absence. Ruishen is only eighteen and still doesn’t know what happened to his parents and sister. He cried as Peter walked him to the nearest safe injection clinic. Marcus, who loved someone that’d faded to nothing in the loneliness that followed the snap.

There’s a lot. It’s a lot.

Peter sometimes gets whiplash going back to school in the morning after particularly brutal nights, in the calmer, organized chaos of classrooms and lighthearted jokes. Ned and MJ make the transition bearable; Ned sticks around and doesn’t say much on the days where Peter visibly isn’t in the mood. His best friend stands his ground on a day where Peter is snappish and ends up raising his voice over a small disagreement. Gesticulates a bit too fast, too forcefully for comfort.

He’s bothered, afterwards, immensely so; he’s never been so quick to anger. Much less with Ned.

Peter ends up hugging Ned as tightly as he can, covers his next few orders of coffee before Ned asks him to stop, and simply listens to the other boy ramble about the latest scoops in his life. He doesn’t need to say anything. He just needs to pay attention and absorb.

MJ, meanwhile, is quiet; most of her communication is through frowns and flat stares, but each twitch of the face is incredibly coherent. She gives Peter small smiles and eyebrow raises whenever something dumb is happening in class, or when Flash is being himself. It makes Peter feel like he’s in on something, and it’s nice.

_

Tonight — two hours into Peter’s journey through the city, the overcast sky had begun to drizzle. Rainfall darkens each building, moist air clean and sweet. A clear petrichor from wet dirt and stone. Peter has to hone his focus to his palms and the bases of his feet to maintain his grip on the walls.

The earthy smell after a long dry spell is the best — it feels like dust being washed away, the start of a clean slate. Umbrellas dot the pedestrian walkways below him, sparse as nightfall circles around on shrewd paws and finally settles in, blanketing the city in gray clouds and filtered moonlight. Droplets beading onto canopies of nylon and acrylic, the small ones clinging while fatter ones slide off.

Peter is tucked into the side of a building that bears a solemn-looking bar with tired patrons, slate gray wood, steel, and flashy neon red. Karen’s radio scanner isn’t picking up on much — it’s a weekday and overhead, the world rumbles as water hits the ground with increasing aggression.

Maybe it’s time to pack up for the night.

He doesn’t think anyone’s going to try to follow him home in weather like this, but he swings back to the alleyway with the convenient little nook where he’d webbed up his backpack, pulling out his clothes.

This area’s quieter, with complexes from the 70s and 80s, and is largely free from any corner stores or late-night establishments.

Peter’s gotten into the habit of changing back further and further away from his apartment and commuting home just to make sure no one puts together where he lives. Tonight’s route is a brief walk, followed by four train stops East before he’ll make it home.

It’s a hassle, but too many eyes are following him, now. With Iron Man out of the picture, Spider-man is the new hot topic. They’re hungry for fresher meat. A spiritual successor.

The tingle that always begins at the back of his neck and radiates into a thrum through the plates of his skull starts right as Peter gets the zipper of his windbreaker up to his collar.  

Impeccable timing, as always.

Peter stuffs his backpack and shoes back into their hiding place before jogging out to where his senses are guiding him. It’s like a game of hot and cold, a gut-feeling that something is wrong radiating with heat and urgency the closer he gets to the source.

At higher ground, he spots a man standing by the main entryway of a residential building, crouched behind a shrub. His face is obstructed by a hood and a surgical mask over his nose and mouth. Tucked under his legs is a large duffel bag.

Oh, yikes. None of those things are green flags.

Trying his best to stay in the guy’s blind spot, he crawls across layers of brick, closer towards the ground. Peter’s almost directly above him, well-hidden by the awning when a woman and a small boy walk out, hand-in-hand.

The woman pauses a few steps from the door to dig out something from her purse — a MetroCard and ticket stub for the train that she hands to the kid. The man takes this time to unzip his duffle, the sound of his movements largely masked by the beat of the rain.

“No, you don’t,” Peter says — mostly to himself.

The gun gets webbed up before it’s even completely out of the bag. Before the guy can react, Peter drops down from the awning in a short arc. The momentum lets his legs lock right around the man’s neck.

They both go flying to the right of where the other two are standing. Peter feels the guy reach for something at his belt and springs away with his feet against the man’s chest.

The hand holding the taser is pinned to the ground first, then the free one. For good measure, the legs are next, white webbing over dark galoshes.

The attacker, whose head is turned to the side to avoid getting water droplets directly into his eyes, is sneering, swearing.

“Mom,” the kid says. “Holy cow.”

Peter waves. “Spider, actually.”

_

It’s usually that easy, really. He reacts faster than anyone else, runs faster than anyone else. He can lift up tons and tons of weight, even if his knees protest a bit the next day. Unenhanced criminals, whether they have a gun, crowbar, even the more creative meat mallets and hockey sticks — are all very run-of-the mill for Spider-man.   

Things really pummelled downhill, Peter figures, because everyone’s attention was too divided.

After Peter had undone the webbing, holding the guy down so officers could get cuffs on him, he’d been about to swing away when the mother had asked Spider-man to keep her son company while she spoke with the police over what had happened. She knows the attacker, apparently.

Peter’s presence seems to be calming on her kid, so he sits nearby while the paramedics give the boy a cursory assessment. He can’t be much older than Morgan is, short and shivering from the spring chill. His eyes are wide, deep, dark as he stares up at Spider-man.  

They’re tucked at the back of an ambulance, the roof of the van shielding them from the worst of the rainfall. Droplets of water still hit Peter’s feet, where they are dangling over the edge of the vehicle.

Under his mask, Peter musters a smile and his lens contract just a notch. He brings his knees forward, closer to his chest. “What’s your name?”

“Luca.”

“That’s a cool name,” Peter answers.

Luca is eyeing his webshooters, little fingers drumming at his thighs.

Peter brings his wrist forward. “You can take a look.”

The webshooters have a slight curvature against the bend of Peter’s wrists, thin bands of metal that extend from the suit’s fluid stores to his palm. Luca starts with a hesitant poke, then runs his fingers across the smooth lines of Peter’s suit.

“How do you fit your webs in there?” he asks. “There’s so much of it when you fight bad guys.”

“Oh,” Spider-man says, trying to put it in simple terms, “when the webs are in my suit it’s more — liquid, like water, but when I shoot it out it expands.”

“Like a balloon?”

“Sort of, yeah. A lot of air gets into it and makes it bigger.”

“Woah,” Luca says. He must think Peter is a nice enough guy because his next words are a little bolder: “What’s your name?”

“Spider-man.”

“No — your real name. I’m good at secrets; you can tell me, Mr. Spider-man.”

“Actually, Spider-man is my legal name. My parents picked it — it's so hard to be unique these days, y'know? They wanted me to stand out.”

“That’s silly.”

“It’s not silly; it’s true!”

The kid’s giggle is cut off by a shout that follows a splash of water — an officer has hit the ground.

The man from earlier, now completely drenched in rainwater, throws down a piece of metal — handcuffs, unlocked, he must have picked them — against the pavement and grabs the gun attached to the knocked-out policeman’s hip —

There’s a shout —

Finally, a bullet makes its target.

This time Peter lunges towards the man, less intent to safely disable. The sizeable distance between them closes in just a short moment thanks to the speed of his sprint and the webbing against the attacker’s chest, sending his body surging towards where Peter is.

Peter brings a swift fist up against the man’s jaw.

Idly, the back of his brain registers that he’d dislocated the bone from the pop he hears, giving away against his knuckles like putty. The guy goes limp, head lolling back, eyes fluttering shut.

Peter watches his body slump against the ground, blood streaming out of his nostrils and into the grass.

He leaves him there, trying to locate where the bullet had landed. 

The blood spurting out of the woman’s shoulder is already being diluted by rainwater, a blooming flower against the light fabric of her clothes. Petals of deep, deep red arching down with gravity.

Fuck.

Paramedics are already all surrounding her, hastily keeping Peter back. He watches as they try to stifle the bleeding. One person is applying pressure against her shoulder while others rush to get a gurney wheeled over.

The whole ordeal is viscous against Peter’s vision, motor oil, molasses, honey. Sounds fade out — first the perpetual pitter-patter of the rain, then the shouts people swarming around him.

Then the volume cranks way up again.

Luca’s screams replace his mother’s as her energy fades, eyes staring up at the sky with detached interest.

“Spider-man,” one of the medics says, measured, professional, “please keep him back; we’re trying to get her loaded up.”

Peter complies, scooping the boy up and holding him to his chest even as he kicks, claws, yelling let me go let me go.

His mother lays on the stretcher with wet hair, pallid skin. Saturated with red. Chest heaving.

“I’m so sorry, kiddo — they’re trying to help your mom, okay? You gotta let them do their job.”

“Mom,” he whimpers. Snot and tears mingle on his face. “Mama.”

The paramedics invite Spider-man into the back of the ambulance as the tail lift loads the gurney up and into the vehicle.

On the short, arduously long trip to the ICU — just six minutes to the nearest hospital — Peter sits in the spacious back compartment, listening to the engine's low rumble, discordant with shrill sirens. He’s leaning forward in his seat, holding Luca upright as he stands next to where his mother rests, barely awake but conscious enough to take her son’s hand, rubbing weakly at the soft, unweathered skin of his knuckles.

It’s just a flash, just a traitorously awful moment where Luca’s face morphs into Morgan’s and then it’s Tony laid out on the gurney with only dismal, pathetic breaths for any sign of life. Coal for skin, dying, dying, dead —

Peter shakes his head a few times, biting down hard on his lip. 

He’s back in the ambulance car.

Luca’s mother is speaking in a tongue Peter does not know, but the words make her son’s face scrunch up. He shakes his head, vigorously, squeezing her fingers. Like she’ll slip away at any moment.

Peter does not know their tongue, but he understands.

_

Mr. MacLennan started to get violent after the birth of his son, pissed that his wife’s attention was no longer on him. By the time Luca is two months old, Petra was making contingency plans with her husband’s threats looming over her, intensifying by the day. She called her parents in secret, and her friends reached out and offer to help her get legal backup, protection. She did it all with remarkable stealth, texting in the dark, deleting call histories as soon as she hung up.

Within two weeks she had a cash stash under her mattress and packed bags, ready to make her escape out of state, Luca in tow.

The decimation happens instead, and MacLennan dies.

Five years pass, and Petra got by. She couch surfed and ate out of food banks. Living paycheque to paycheque was an upgrade.

She moved out of Hempstead, to Queens. She worked long hours but scraped by enough to send Luca to a babysitter that could pick her son up from school and watch over him until nightfall.

Somehow, even that was not harsh enough a scrub on her trail.

_

Peter stumbles back into his and May’s apartment at exactly 2:47 in the morning, nearly four hours after weekday curfew. May is seated at the kitchen table, a cooled mug of tea in her hands when the doorknob finally turns. Her nephew steps in, wearing the same clothes he’d had on since this morning and the world’s soggiest backpack.

Thankfully, she doesn’t look too pissed; Peter’s been pretty good about being home on weeknights, so this is out of character for him. It’s more worrying than anything; the annoyed furrow of her brow subsides completely when Peter finally hangs his bag up against one of the hooks and unglues his eyes from the ground, tilting his head up.

“Peter?”

Peter just shakes his head, lips quivering.

May makes long strides to the entryway of the apartment and pulls Peter into a hug. His eyes are swollen to absolute hell, and his sclera are pink. He arches down to bury his face into May’s shoulder. Vaguely, he figures that his rain-soaked clothes are probably getting her all dirty.

“Honey,” May says. “Honey, hey. Oh, you’re freezing; you should go wash up, get a change of clothes. I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

“I’m so sorry I’m late —”

“How about a free pass for tonight?” May cuts in. She takes steady steps to where her nephew stands. “I was working late. You weren’t keeping me up.”

Peter doesn’t really like the half-lie, but he accepts it anyway.

_

Peter takes a long, scalding hot shower. When he emerges in threadbare pajamas and a damp towel over his hair, he feels vacant, oddly lucid — the paradoxical sort of hazy clarity that comes with being tired. Probably in desperate need to sleep.

May is on the couch, speaking with someone over the phone. When she spots Peter lingering by the washroom door, she waves him over, cell still pressed to her cheek.

When he takes a spot next to her, settling onto the cushions, May nudges her device into Peter’s hand.

He takes it.

The weight, the burn in his throat only flares when he hears the voice on the other line, steady, careful. At the same time, it's immediately alleviating — a salve on this utterly shitty day.

His chest still aches like hellfire, he’s stiff, but May places a hand on the back of his neck and applies a bit of pressure. Instinctually, Peter relaxes just a smidge.

“Pete? That you?” Tony says.

Peter smacks his lips together a few times. “I,” he tries, the single syllable still managing to crack. “Um.”

“So it is you, kiddo,” Tony mutters, so softly. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“May got me up to speed,” he says. “I’m driving down; I’ll probably be another ten, fifteen minutes.”

Peter gulps. He arches his head up and starts to blink as quickly as he can.

“Pete?”

“Still here,” Peter says. “You — you didn’t have to come over. It’s really late.”

Tony honest-to-God scoffs, and Peter can imagine his face scrunching up in annoyance. “Put a lid on that shit, bug brain,” he reprimands. “This is firmly on the lower spectrum of the things I would do for you.”

“Oh, um,” Peter croaks. “Um, okay. Thank you.”

“It's nothing.”

It is to him. “Thank you.” He really, really means it; Peter hopes Tony understands, even if he can barely articulate it at the moment. 

Neither of them speak for a good while.

“Do you want me to stay on the line?”

Peter shakes his head. He doesn’t want to talk — not immediately, not over the phone, where nothing sits right through static and distance. It’s always over the phone, because he’s in New York and Tony is not. “No, it’s okay. I’ll — I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Okay. See you soon, Pete,” Tony says. “I love you.”

Peter makes a noise of affirmation and ends the call.

“I checked the news,” May says, after a stretch of silence, interrupted only by the ticking of the analog clock on the wall.

“Uh-huh?”

She taps the shell of his ear absentmindedly. “Now, you’ll have to forgive me for being presumptuous — but I think Spider-man did all he could back there.”

Peter huffs a laugh. He’s thawing a bit, he thinks; May has a way of doing that. Just like magic. “Yeah?” he says. She nods, totally serious. “Heard he was a menace, though.”

“I didn’t imply he wasn’t.”

“How dare you,” he says mildly.

May grins and runs a quick hand through his still-damp curls. She bumps his forehead against his. For a second, Peter lets himself relish in the fact that he isn’t alone.

And then it’s just the clock’s measured, regular tick, tock, ticks again.

“May?”

“Yeah, Pete?”

“What is it like? To lose a patient.”

In the earlier years of May’s nursing career, she had been stationed at the ER — whose intake consisted from anything ranging between knife accidents in the kitchen to strokes. It’d been a rough time for her, and as much as she tried not to let the stress of work leak into her personal life, to shelve away the guilt of not having done better until she clocked back in, it was nigh impossible. Peter remembers being ten and hearing Ben and May arguing, hushed but vehement discussions seeping into his room like the yellow lights of the living room shining through the cracks of his door, long after he’d been put to bed.

May, sunshine, please. This is — this is eating you alive.

May switched to the post-anesthesia care unit a few weeks later.

Right now, she’s leaning her head back against the cushions, tongue poking at the hollow of her cheeks. “I’m not good with faces.” May tucks back a stray lock of hair; toys with the piercing at her earlobe. “And you see a lot of faces come in and out — a lot that never opened their eyes again. I don’t remember them.”

Peter says nothing.

“But the sounds,” May says, quiet. “The crying. The begging — that’s different from a dead body, which can be horrifying in a different way. There was —” She cuts herself off and swallows. “This hit and run incident. A young lady. I could hear her father screaming the whole time we were getting through the primary survey. She didn’t last another minute. And the cherry on the cake is that the world doesn't stop when one patient dies — you just have to keep going. Someone else always needs help, and maybe that's a someone you can save.”

The cries on the way to the hospital. The waiting room as Peter held a sweet little boy in his lap and watched him break down all over again when a doctor, a bearer of bad news, emerged from the operating theatre. They still sing in Peter's bones.  

“That was years ago — I resigned a while later — so the memory is blurry, now; I don’t remember which day it was, what time of the day, or what any of them looked like. I can still hear it, though. It’s hard. It stays hard, but I don’t regret a minute of my time being there. Really.”

Peter swallows. He takes her hand and squeezes it, presses her cheek to hers for a moment before pulling back. In return, he receives a strained smile.

May is incredible, there is no one in the world like her, so few are just this good, this wonderful.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, “but you’re definitely handling it like a champ.”

May’s phone buzzes.

“Oh — Tony’s downstairs.”

Peter takes a large breath, as if bracing himself. He watches as May pushes herself out of her seat and heads to the shoe rack. She looks over to where Peter still sits on the cushions, cross-legged.

“You wanna come down too?”

He mouths a no. 

“Okay. We’ll just be a minute.”