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“I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” Tony sighs, watching in amusement as Peter paced back and forth.
“You’ll be fine, Pete. I promise you’ll—“
“What if he comes out with eight legs? Or, freaky eyes? What if he’s fine but I fuck it up? Oh God, what if I drop him, I can’t—“
“Pete. Calm down.” Tony says, going to stand as Peter’s hands start to shake. Tony had half-expected this would be his role, talked about it as much with Michelle in the months leading up to this day.
Michelle was in labor, Peter panicking - but Tony knew, as a father twice over, that Peter just needed reassurance.
“You won’t drop him. You stopped a train derailment last week and barely broke a sweat.”
“It’s not that. It’s… it’s me. What if, what if I…” Peter trails off, having stopped pacing. Tony sees the vacant look in his eyes.
It’s then that Tony understand that there’s more to it than normal parental nerves.
Peter had lost nearly ever father figure in his life - Tony included. And even if he knew Peter had the makings of being the best damn father in the universe - that fear was still there.
The fear of messing up. The fear of losing them.
The fear that their child would grow up without them.
Tony knows that fear too well, flexing his mechanical arm as he stands up - meeting Peter halfway.
He puts his hands on Peter’s shoulders, grounding him and forcing him to look up at Tony.
“Listen to me, kid. You’re going to be fine, better than fine.”
“But Tony—“
“No, Pete, I mean it. You are going to be an amazing dad.” He tightens the grip on Peter’s shoulders, smiling.
“You’re not alone in this. No matter what happens, no matter what, that kid in there? He’s gonna have a hundred people running after him, keeping him safe.”
Tony brings a hand to Peter’s jaw, holding his gaze.
“But none of that would even matter because you will be there. You can do this, Pete. You and Michelle, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
It’s a promise neither of them can make, a sharp pang shooting through Tony at the thought of the kid never coming home - the agony of those five years lost still on the edges of his darkest nightmares.
But Peter seems to accept his words anyway, nodding his head.
“I got this.”
“Hell yeah you do.” Tony lifts his hands of his shoulders, bring a hand to Peter’s back - almost pushing him back towards the birthing room.
“Now come on, Michelle’s about to kick ass and you’re gonna want to be there for it.”
Peter laughs, Tony watching as he quickly wipes a tear away. He puts a hand up to the door before stopping, looking to Tony.
“Thank you.”
“Always, kid.”
As Peter smiles, heading back to the room where Michelle and his future child were waiting for him, Tony felt his heart swell.
I’ll always be there for you.
“Pete, can you come in here?”
Peter pauses, feeling the slight tension in Michelle’s voice. He sets the knife down, hoping the peanut butter won’t attract any flies.
The AC in their apartment had been out for only a few hours, the power being out for three blocks. Peter had propped the window open to try and let some air in, but the sticky heat of New York in August almost made the airflow worse.
Tony had already called, saying that they were free to come to the Tower but he and Michelle had wanted to wait until Ben had gotten up from his nap at the very least.
He’d gotten better at this parenting thing, Peter thinks. Realizing that Tony had been right - his words after Ben had been born ringing in his ears, holding him as Tony watched.
Peter smiles at the memory, of Tony’s eyes going from him to Ben.
”You still scared?”
”Shitless.” Tony had laughed, bringing a hand to his shoulder again.
”We all are, kid.”
As Peter made his way to the bedroom, he wondered what he was about to walk into.
He finds Michelle, hair frizzy from the heat as she held Ben close.
“Your son is freaking out about the bugs.”
Peter furrowed his eyebrows. “Bugs?” Peter knew flies came in and out, but there was no way for Ben to have noticed them.
Unless.
Peter’s breath hitches at the thought of Ben having his powers, a constant worry that had made Michelle’s relatively easy pregnancy still stressful.
A year on and Ben had been nothing but a healthy - loud - baby, though Peter wondered if now was the time that Ben’s senses had started to go haywire, if Ben was reacting awfully to the heat, if Ben--
“Pete?”
Michelle’s question brings him out of his thought spirals, her hand pointing towards the wall opposite of Ben’s crib.
Peter turns and with a sigh, realizes that once again - he was overreacting.
He’d completely forgotten the glow in the dark bugs that Morgan had brought the last time she’d come over, a gag gift that Tony had been saving and then completely forgotten about until Morgan happened across them by accident.
Peter turns to look back at Ben, smiling as he burrows himself into Michelle’s chest. Peter quickly takes the offending stickers down.
“Hey, Benny boy. Look at dad.” Ben squints an eye open, Michelle gently nudging as he wiggles in her arms.
“Hey, hey, calm down. They can’t hurt you anymore.” Ben turns to Peter, seeing the stickers are gone. Peter almost wants to laugh at how visibly relaxed Ben is, the tension in his tiny shoulders lifting.
Ben might not have inherited his spider-senses, but Peter realized that even at a year old - he was already a little too much like Peter.
Ben was crying. Again.
“Pete, I can get him.” Peter shakes his head, tucking Michelle into the couch.
“I got him, MJ.”
“Peter, you’ve been up for thirty-seven hours.” She goes to move but Peter’s grip on her shoulders is firm.
“And you’ve been sick for thirty-one of them. Come on Michelle, just rest. I got him.”
She makes a half-hearted attempt to move but Peter knows he’s won when she closes her eyes and turns her body towards the couch.
Peter smiles, wishing he could just sit there and watch her as she sleeps. Michelle thought it was weird but there was something calming about it, the knowledge that she was safe.
That she was alive.
He pauses for another moment before Ben’s newest wail brings him out of it. Not wanting to wake her, Peter quietly walks to Benjamin’s room only to see him standing in his crib, snot coming out of his nose.
“Hey there Benny boy, what’s wrong?”
The crack of the thunder outside is booming, Ben letting out another sharp cry.
“Oh come on kiddo, there's nothing to be scared of, okay? I’m right here.”
Peter pulls Ben out of the crib, Ben instantly latching on to him.
Peter laughs at his son’s grip, rubbing his hand soothingly down his back.
“It’s okay, Ben. It’s okay. It’s just Uncle Thor having a little fun, alright?”
Ben is still whimpering, Peter gently rocking him back and forth.
After a few minutes, Peter hears Ben’s sniffling start to fade, Peter swaying to an invisible beat until he hears the soft and measured breathing that Peter knows to mean that he’s drifted off to sleep.
Peter knows he should put Ben back in his crib, that he and Michelle had a hard enough time getting him to sleep there in the first place.
But as the rain continues to pour outside, Peter feeling his own eyelids starting to droop, he thinks that maybe - just this one time - it wouldn’t hurt anything.
Peter walks over to the lounge chair they’d put in Ben’s room, slowly lowering himself down - making sure not to jostle him as he sat down.
Peter feels himself relax into the chair, his eyelids feeling heavier and heavier by the second.
He’d have to call Tony later, see if they could do something about soundproofing Ben’s room.
Listening to Michelle’s soft breathing in the other room, hearing his son’s heartbeat beating steadily against his chest - Peter lets his eyes close - feeling completely at peace.
And as the rain continues to fall, the thunderstorm already moving away, the last of the Parker family falls fast asleep.