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It feels as though they’ve been stuck in the tower for ages, Tony thinks as he prepares yet another smoothie for Peter.
The poor kid’s neck is still covered in deep bruises, even days (or has it been weeks now?) after Beck had attacked Tony, Pepper and Peter at the penthouse– using his weaponized BARF tech to create one horrific illusion after another.
Tony had sustained a bad hit to the forehead during the fight, and despite his best efforts he couldn’t remember exactly how they’d defeated his old employee. But he didn’t mind that he couldn’t recall the details– the important thing was that they had all made it out alive, if a little worse for wear.
Tony finishes blending the various fruits and veggies, pouring them into a glass. He wanders over to the living room where Peter is sitting up on the couch, reading a book.
Peter takes the glass gratefully, smiling at Tony. The kid was strangled so badly by Beck that he can hardly speak, his voice an incoherent rasp whenever he tries.
“Drink all that up, okay kiddo? You’re clearly not eating enough or else your healing factor would have taken care of this–” Tony motions to Peter’s neck “–already.”
Peter nods, taking a few sips before setting it down. Tony frowns at him, Peter grinning all the more in response.
“You seen Pep?”
Peter nods again, pointing over at the sliding doors that lead out onto the balcony. Tony ruffles the kid’s hair in thanks. “I want to see that glass empty when I come back in, okay?”
Peter rolls his eyes, grabbing the glass and taking a few more sips, but not before he makes a face.
Tony ignores him and heads out the balcony door– sure enough, there’s Pepper. She’s leaning against the metal and glass railing, seemingly lost in thought.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Tony asks as he comes up from behind and wraps her up in his arms.
“Just thinking about how high up we are,” Pepper replies quietly after a few moments. “The people on the sidewalk look like ants from here.”
“That was the idea,” Tony said, smirking as he softly kisses her shoulder. “Putting the living quarters on the top floors assists with safety and privacy– and, if I recall correctly, was your idea when I was designing the building.”
“You’re right, it was my idea,” Pepper agrees, turning in Tony’s arms to look at him. Tony frowns when he sees the troubled look in her eyes. “I just never factored in how lonely it could be, too.”
Tony presses a chaste kiss to her lips, before offering a tentative smile. “But you’re not alone, Pep. I’m here, the kid’s here– you’re not on your own, I promise.”
Pepper sadly smiles at him, before turning back around to once more look out at the wide expanse of Manhattan.
“I fear we might all be on our own when it comes down to it, Tony.”
“I think we might need Bruce to take a look at these, Pete,” Tony says one day, gently fingering the kid’s bruises. Peter doesn’t flinch at his touch at least, so the painkillers he’s been sneaking into the teen’s smoothies must be working. The bruising looks marginally better too, Tony thinks– though it might just be a trick of the light.
Peter just shrugs at Tony, continuing to watch TV.
Tony sighs. “I’ll be in the office, alright?”
Peter nods, not even looking over at him– engrossed in a Star Trek episode, Tony notes.
Tony sighs again, before heading down the hallway and into the small office he keeps up here. He hasn’t touched any SI work since, well, he can’t remember when. He can’t believe Pepper hasn’t been on his ass about it either, to be honest.
He sits down at his desk. Sure enough there’s a large stack of files, just waiting for him.
Tony opens the first one, and gets to work signing on every dotted line. He knows Pepper left these here for him, knows she carefully read every word already. He trusts her completely, and it’s long been his habit to only read over what she explicitly asks him to.
He’s mindlessly skimming the sixteenth file when certain words begin to stick out. Words like buyer and seller and bill of sale. But it’s not those words that cause his eyes to go wide, no– it’s Property Located at 200 Park Avenue. The address of the tower.
“What the fuck?” he cries out, rubbing at his eyes just to make sure he’s not seeing things.
But apparently he was just seeing things, for when his blurry eyesight clears all that’s before him is a contract to purchase a building in Dubai for a new SI satellite.
He rereads it through twice, just to make certain.
“God, I’m really losing it,” Tony says to himself, huffing out a mirthless laugh. “Been cooped up too long, probably. Damn head injury is messing with me.”
By the time he goes back out to the living room, joining Peter for what turns out to be a Star Trek marathon, he’s nearly forgotten all about the odd incident.
Some time later, Tony wakes up in the middle of the night. He’s by himself, which likely means Pepper got called away on some urgent SI matter. Pepper’s been gone a lot, it seems.
He stands up in the dark, stretching and scratching at his chest before lumbering into the hallway and heading for the kitchen, intent on getting a glass of water.
He’s just turned off the tap, glass in his hand when he hears a voice behind him whisper, “Go away.”
Tony twists around, looking every which way. He hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights, relying instead on the moonlight to get by.
“Peter?” he whispers, even though his mind is already shrieking that the voice had sounded nothing like his kid.
“I said, go away.”
That’s when Tony sees it: a person-shaped shadow standing in the corner, by the stove. Tony can only make out the slightest of features, but– it both appears and sounds to be a teenage boy, similar in age to Peter. He has dark wispy hair and chiseled features, and by the way his clothing glints in the moonlight, he’s wearing silk pajamas.
“I live here, kid,” Tony finally says, trying to hide how creeped out he is. “Now how about you tell me what the hell you’re doing in my penthouse?”
The kid doesn’t answer him “If you don’t go away, I’m telling my father and then he’ll make you go away. So go away!”
Just then the shadow runs down the hallway, and Tony races after it. He sees it run into Peter’s bedroom, and his heart leaps up in his throat. He bursts into the room and turns on the light– only to see nobody but Peter, who is squinting up at him from his bed, sleepy and confused.
“Just me, kiddo,” Tony reassures even as he frantically searches the room– looking in the closet, behind the shower curtain in the bathroom, under the bed. But there really is nobody there but him and Peter.
Peter is still watching him curiously when he finishes. Tony takes a deep breath, before sitting down on the bed and putting a hand on Peter’s foot.
“Kid, either I’m losing my mind or the tower is goddamn haunted.”
In response Peter just rolls his eyes - Tony finding the gesture rather cryptic, if he’s honest - before closing them and turning onto his side, curling up into as small a ball as possible.
Tony stays and watches over him until long after the kid’s fallen back asleep.
It’s a gloomy, rainy day when Tony decides to venture to the tower lab. He hasn’t been down there since before the incident with Beck, he’s pretty sure. It’s probably the longest he’s ever gone.
He glances around the penthouse, doesn’t see Pepper anywhere. When he asks Peter where she is, he points out to the balcony, but Tony just shakes his head– it’s pouring outside.
She must have gone away for SI business again, Tony thinks. Pepper’s barely spoken to him since the attack… Tony needs to sit down and really talk with her about that soon. Maybe when she gets back.
But in the meantime– “I’m heading down to the lab,” Tony announces, eyebrows rising at the way Peter’s head whips over to him, his eyes like saucers. “What? I go to the lab all the time, or used to.”
Peter opens his mouth like he wants to say something, before closing it again. He just tightly nods twice before turning back to the TV, eyes wide as ever.
Tony watches him for a few seconds, brow furrowed.
“I swear, teenagers are like another species,” he mutters to himself as he goes over to the elevator, taking it down five floors. Nothing seems amiss until the sliding doors open, and he enters into–
“What the fuck?” Tony yells, sprinting into his lab. Because instead of all his various projects and tools, there’s cage after cage of all manner of creatures– rabbits and rats, scorpions and spiders. Where DUM-E and U would have greeted him, there are personality-less cleaning and care-taking robots roaming the rows.
Tony stumbles about, looking for anything to ground him. But all he sees are the makings of what can only be awful, illegal experiments– needles, chemicals, surgical equipment. At one point he comes across a half-dissected chimpanzee, only to turn away when a wave of nausea nearly overtakes him.
It seems like an age before he finally makes his way into the middle of the large room. There in the center is a giant workbench with a screen upon which there is no familiar Stark Industries logo. No, instead there’s a giant, stylized O and in the middle it says– it says–
“ Oscorp,” Tony whispers, heart pounding in his chest. He stares in horror, slowly backing away until he hits a cage, hungry mice trying to viciously bite at his the back of his neck.
He staggers away, running past all the cages and experimentation zones until he collapses in the elevator, lungs heaving.
As soon as the doors open to the penthouse he’s racing out again. Peter stands as Tony clambers into the living room, spots crowding his vision. He’s right on the verge of a panic attack, because what the fuck.
“There’s– kid, the lab– there’s– fuckin’ Oscorp shit down there– hundreds of– god, thousands of poor animals– I– I can’t–”
Peter grabs onto Tony’s arm before he can fall to the ground, steadying him. When Tony’s vision finally clears, he glances up at Peter– but where he’d expected the kid to look horrified, he only looks sad. The expression causes a realization to click in Tony’s brain.
“You– you knew.”
Peter nods apologetically, before pulling on Tony’s arm gently. Tony is still out of it enough that he lets himself be led, all the way through the kitchen and out onto the balcony, where it continues to rain.
“Kid, why are we–”
“Tony."
He turns to see Pepper standing by the railing. Tony stares at her in shock before saying the first thing that comes to mind. “What are you doing out here? It’s pouring out, Pep– we need to go–”
“I can’t go inside, Tony,” Pepper says sadly.
Tony shakes his head, incredulous. “What do you mean, you can’t go inside? Of course you can go inside, it’s your home, it’s–”
“It’s not our home anymore, Tony,” Pepper says, walking up to him. Despite the pouring rain, Tony can tell her eyes are full of tears. “My love, it hasn’t been our home for a long time now.”
“W-what do you mean?”
Pepper reaches a hand up, runs her fingers through Tony’s soaked hair. “Tony, just think… when was the last time you spoke to anyone besides Peter or myself?”
“We’ve needed family time, it’s been a hard recovery–”
“When was the last time you had FRIDAY help you with anything?”
“She doesn’t– I haven’t had need of her, we’re just in the penthouse all the time, ever since–”
“When was the last time you left the tower?”
“Not since– since right before Beck attacked us, I’ve been looking after Peter, you know that–”
“Yes, Tony,” Pepper says, stroking his temple. “Since Beck attacked us. Do you remember what happened? What really happened? Think, sweetheart. Try to remember.”
Tony wants to argue again, but the memories are right there suddenly and he’s falling into them before he can stop himself.
Tony is staggering about the penthouse, a vicious head wound bleeding down his temple. There’s broken glass everywhere, and all the furniture is in shambles. He doesn’t know where Pepper or Peter are– hopes they got out safe. FRIDAY has long ago gone silent, having been hacked.
Or was she? Tony can’t tell anymore what’s real and what’s not– not since Beck came out of nowhere and attacked the tower with his drones while Pepper, Peter and Tony were eating dinner.
“Tony!” he hears Pepper scream from the balcony, and Tony stumbles out the sliding doors to see Beck at the edge, an arm wrapped around Pepper, holding her in place.
“This has been very fun, Stark, but I’m afraid I’m getting bored,” Beck says, and then before Tony can so much as take another step he lifts Pepper up and hauls her over the balcony railing.
“No!” Tony screams, but just as he lunges for her the scene goes black. Another two blinks and Tony is being lifted by his collar and punched by a faceless enemy.
A terrible feeling in his gut tells him that what he just witnessed - Pepper being tossed to her death - was real, and the thought has him in a rage, punching back in every direction.
His fist makes purchase with a jaw and suddenly the blackness fades, and Beck appears, looking stunned. Tony lunges at him and the two go hurtling back through the balcony door and into the kitchen. Beck stands up and makes for the living room but Tony is fast on his heels.
He calls for his suit armor and miraculously FRIDAY must be back up because the nanites whirl around him. He wastes no time shooting the dazed Beck with a repulsor shot that has the man on the living room carpet, Tony rushing over and pinning him. Tony wraps his hands around the man’s neck.
Tony has never wanted someone dead more that he does this heinous human, and he takes great pleasure in watching Beck’s face turn red, then purple.
“This is for Pepper, you fuckin’ asshole,” he says, before twisting his arms until he hears a sharp snap.
He stares at Beck’s slack face in triumph until suddenly the scene morphs again, and instead of Beck under his hands it’s– it’s–
“Oh god,” Tony cries, stumbling back and off Peter, whose head is twisted to the side, eyes vacant. The suit disappears back into its case as Tony leans over Peter’s body, sobbing. “No– no. Peter!”
Someone starts to clap behind him, and Tony turns around only to see Beck standing there, a giant grin on his face.
“God, that was an amazing show, don’t you agree?” Beck says, and Tony can’t breathe– can’t even think. “But I’m afraid all good things must end, and I really do need to be going before your little superhero friends arrive.”
Beck pulls a pistol out of his pocket, aiming it right between Tony’s eyes. “Take a bow, Stark.”
The last thing Tony thinks before Beck executes him is that wherever he goes next, he doesn’t want to remember this. Doesn’t want to face what he let happen– what he did. He just wants to be with Pepper and Peter, safe and whole and without any memory of this horror. He just–
BANG.
“Oh my god,” Tony says, coming back to himself. He looks first at Pepper then twists around to find Peter, still standing nearby with the dark bruises adorning his neck.
Bruises Tony caused.
“Oh my god, Peter– kid–”
“Shhh,” Pepper soothes, guiding Tony to look back at her. “It’s okay, Tony. It’s all going to be alright. I know it’s awful– I know it’s the absolute worst thing you can imagine. But now that you remember - now that you can accept it - we can all finally move on.”
Tony is shivering in her hold, his head pounding– as if he can actually feel the bullet still lodged in his skull.
“Pepper, I can’t– I can’t stay here– not if the tower belongs to Osborn– we can’t–”
Pepper gives him a genuine smile. “We don’t have to stay, not anymore. Just think of where you want to be, my love. Peter and I will follow, I promise.”
Tony turns to look at Peter again, who is smiling encouragingly, happy tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks. Tony’s eyes widen when he sees that Peter’s neck is no longer bruised– in fact, he looks as healthy and whole as Tony’s ever seen him.
“Let’s go home, Mister Stark,” he says, the sound of his voice so bright and clear that it instantly calms Tony down, putting him at ease.
He holds out an arm, and Peter falls into his side, Tony pressing a kiss into his curls before he turns and rests his forehead against Pepper’s. The three of them hold onto each other, forming a tight, protective circle. Somehow, despite everything, Tony feels safe.
Tony takes a deep breath in, imagining a place far away from here– a beautiful cabin next to a calm lake. Whether it’s from an old childhood memory or something Tony came up with just now, he doesn’t know.
By the time Tony lets the breath go, he’s home.