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Peter couldn’t help but love the house by the lake. The city was the city, and he could never replace the noise and the people and the closeness, but this was a good haunt for a mad inventor. And given that he’d only had four days without Mr. Stark and he already wanted to run into the trees and never come out, well. After five years he probably would’ve built a cabin, too.
He’d found this spot when he saw Pepper coming down the stairs with one of Mr. Stark’s helmets. This one was pristine, not even a scratch in the paint. It had never been used. Peter knew what it was for; he’d helped Mr. Stark test the command on FRIDAY when he’d first thought of it. “For once, be a real intern and take a look at this code, will you?” Peter had fixed a glitch that was making the hologram speak an octave too low and Mr. Stark had clapped a hand on his shoulder and left it there, admiring the result.
“Testing, testing… you’re doing good work, kid,” the Holo-Mr. Stark had said. Peter didn’t wait to see what this hollow apparition would say, he couldn’t. Not after what Happy had said that morning. He didn’t deserve any more words from Mr. Stark, any condolences or reassuring platitudes. Not in front of Pepper, and especially not in front of Morgan.
It was a nice place he was hiding, though. He’d gone out the back door and down a small path marked by stones. It was maybe a three minute walk to a stream that fed into the lake, and a small wooden bridge too beautifully engineered to have been built by anyone else but Mr. Stark. There were no nails, and no columns down into the water below, but it held when Peter sat on it and dangled his legs.
At some point somebody would come looking for him, but at that moment Peter allowed himself to feel alone, with nothing but himself and the love for this house, and these woods, and the life Mr. Stark had built in them. With his eyes closed, he thought he could almost hear Mr. Stark coming up the path behind him, could even sense his presence when the hair on his arms stood up—
“He used to come here to be alone, too, you know,” said Ms. Potts. She was holding her shoes in one of her hands and she looked worn down, tired.
Peter looked down at his hand, ashamed, and then back up in a panic. “Where’s Morgan, is she okay?”
Ms. Potts smiled, then, but it was a small, sad thing. “She’s with Happy, eating lunch.”
There was a silence that came as the answer to the second question. Morgan was not okay, and she wouldn’t be for some time. A wave of nausea gripped Peter, and he was forced to look away again. He wouldn’t think about them. He couldn’t, so he spoke instead: “I’m so sorry, Ms. Potts—“
“Call me Pepper,” she said. “Please.”
“Pepper, I’m- It’s all my fault and I’m so sorry, I know I shouldn’t even be here right now but Happy didn’t tell me until I was already-“ Peter breathed in and it made a ragged tearing noise that hurt his throat. “I’m so sorry.”
Pepper lowered herself onto the bridge next to Peter, smoothing her dress over her knees. She hummed once, low, like she was steeling herself, then said, “it’s not your fault.”
“It is,” said Peter, “it is, because if I’d have been here there would’ve been no reason for him to go back in time and get the stones and the he never—“
And that was when Peter started to cry, and he hated himself for it. Tony Stark hadn’t been anything to him but a distant mentor who felt guilty about dragging him into situations he wasn’t ready for, and to repay him Peter had gotten him killed. He gasped, swallowing snot and tears and everything else. Mr. Stark was one tenth to him what he was to Pepper, sitting next to him, and he would not cry, no matter how badly his throat hurt with the effort of it.
“Peter,” Pepper said once he’d quieted, and even the way she said his name was gentle and kind. “He loved you, but if it hadn’t been you who convinced him to save the world one last time it would have been something. He never would have been able to sit quietly in this house once he knew something could be done.”
Peter looked up at her so Pepper went on carefully. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better before all this happened.”
A wind came through the trees and brushed against Peter’s face, tears going icy cold on his cheeks. He relished the sting; such a small hurt, incomparable to everything else, but focusing. Present.
“Because it’s hard, now, me knowing so much about you and you sitting here like a complete stranger.”
“What?” Peter asked, powerless to stop the pathetic whine from crawling into the words.
But the cracks in his voice made Pepper smile that sad smile again: “He talked about you all the time. You’re Morgan’s favorite, because you were his.”
This broke something in Peter, this mention of Morgan. “It’s not fair,” Peter said, and then he let himself think of them: a four-year-old Peter cradled in May’s arms, asking Ben over and over where his parents were. A fourteen-year-old Peter, kneeling next to Ben’s body, everything so slick with blood he could taste it. Himself, now, grieving for a man that didn’t belong to him. Who belonged to Morgan.
Pepper didn’t see any of this. What she saw was a boy with his chin tucked into his shoulder, fighting not to let the tears escape and losing. “I came to get you because it’s important to me that you’re with us. With the family.”
Peter stiffened. His eyes went wide. But it was only for a second, and then he wiped his nose on the back of his hand and nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I just need one more minute.”
Pepper put her shoes back on before she went, and Peter couldn’t help but see behind the action. When her feet went into the heels she regained the serene expression she’d been wearing earlier. Her shoulders straightened. It was a familiar motion to them both; Tony wasn’t the only one who knew how to put on battle armor.
Peter sat for another minute, watching the trees and the twigs barely carried along by the shallow water.
When he finally went back to the house, it was just as hard as he’d expected. May asked him where he’d been in a low voice, breath tickling his ear, the concern so palpable all Peter could do was shake his head. Nowhere bad, he willed her to understand. Nowhere worse than here. Happy came over and apologized, only getting in “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that, well… I was just trying to say that he really cared about you” before May warded him off with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Peter said when she turned back to him. Across the room, Captain America stared at him over his mini-quiche. The Winter Soldier was just behind him, stony faced, just as scary as he had been the last time Peter had seen him.
“May, I swear, I’m fine,” Peter said, a little louder, and then watched the recognition dawn on Cap’s face. It quickly turned to horror, that the person he’d dropped a semi-truck on was still young enough to be fussed over by his aunt. There was no change in Bucky’s expression. Peter silently thanked him for it.
The only one who came up to Peter was the raccoon. It was weird, holding a conversation with a rodent who only came up to his waist, but no more weird than being vaporized on another planet, so Peter took it in stride as best he could.
Rocket approached only after May had gone to talk to Happy in another room. “You’re the spider kid, right?” he asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. “That was good stuff with the gauntlet, you running around with it.”
Peter realized he was staring at the raccoon’s tongue as it darted out of his mouth to wet his snout, and he glanced away, fidgeting. “Um… yeah, I guess so.”
“I heard you looked after my team on Titan,” Rocket went on. “Even waited until they were safe and dusted to go yourself. That’s commitment, thanks for that. If you ever get stuck on another planet and the wizard isn’t around to teleport you, just ask for Rocket and I’ll give you a ride.”
There was a moment where Peter forgot he was supposed to use basic human courtesies with a raccoon. Rocket used it to adjust the straps on his jumpsuit, smooth the middle under his belt. “I will, thanks,” Peter said finally.
“I am Groot,” came a voice from the next room, and Rocket held out a paw.
“That’s my cue. It was good to meet you, spider guy. And I’m really sorry about Stark. I never met him for longer than it took to kill an alien, but I’ve heard good things.”
Peter took the paw and gingerly moved it up and down. Satisfied, Rocket walked away. Peter resisted the urge to watch the process of a quadrupedal animal walk around comfortably on two legs, staring at the carpet, instead.
He was left alone until everyone followed Pepper outside to set flowers adrift on the lake. It was peaceful and beautiful but it seemed wrong to Peter, to use flowers. Mr. Stark had never been satisfied with what nature made, he’d always been looking for ways to make improvements. And maybe it was because she knew what Peter was thinking, or maybe it was just because she was four, but Morgan wouldn’t let go of her little handful of daisies, not until Happy agreed to take them right up to her room to put in water.
May had her chin on Peter’s shoulder, her arms wrapped around him from behind, and he knew what she was thinking: how Peter, carried to his parents’ graves in his Uncle’s arms, had ripped his clip-on tie off and thrown it into the graves with the dirt. Peter could recall that feeling more vividly than any memory he had of his parents when they were alive. Mommy and Daddy weren’t really in those holes in the ground, and they’d never make Peter wear anything so stupid and uncomfortable.
Had he ever told Mr. Stark that story? Had he ever told Mr. Stark anything about Ben? Or had it been like that moment in the car, when Peter had tried to hug him and gotten pushed away?
He hadn’t found an answer by the time people were turning around and heading back to the house, probably for more finger food and stilted conversation. Peter turned to May, thought about Pepper. She wouldn’t mind, he thought, if he took just one more minute.
“May, do you have paper in your purse?” he asked quietly.
May squinted at him, questioning, but dug around in her bag anyway. “I have Post-Its,” she said, offering him the bright orange sticky notes. “Do you want me to go inside?”
“Yes, please,” said Peter. May ran a hand over his cheek before she left, like she was checking to make sure he was still solid. Peter waited until the door closed behind her before beginning to fold, his back to the house and his shoulders hunched protectively forward.
It only took a minute for him to create a boat, only as big as his hand but definitely seaworthy. “I’m sorry it’s so small,” he whispered as he set it on the surface of the lake. “And orange, not our colors. But I only had time for a prototype, your wife only gave me a minute.”
“Better than anything I could’ve done,” said a voice behind Peter, and he knew without looking that it was Rogers.
“Go away.”
“Son—“
“With all due respect, Captain- Sir, my name is Peter and I don’t want you here.” Peter knew this should be making him nervous, that this was the literal first Avenger he was telling to fuck off, but he didn’t care. The realization of this, that he had absolutely nothing to lose, was like a high. It made the blood rush high in Peter’s ears, and the lake swim in front of him. And then Captain America started to walk away, and Peter decided he’d had enough.
“Actually, no, don’t go away. I changed my mind, because you know what? I want to talk to you.” Rogers turned around, wide-eyed, and if Peter wasn’t so goddamn angry he would’ve been just as surprised at what he was saying. “You kicked the shit out of him, and you kicked the shit out of me, with a fucking semi, and then, what? You just sat around, for five years? Five years when you could’ve made up, five years to have dinner and work in the lab together or at least talk on the fucking phone! Five years I didn’t get.”
Somewhere in there Peter had started crying, hot, frustrated tears that made him feel like the kid everyone thought he was. He swiped at them with the back of his hand, and then again at the snot dripping onto his lip. “I don’t care what you think you can say to me to make me feel better. It won’t work.”
“It is- was complicated between us. He was family.” Rogers, the bastard, spoke to Peter but he was looking at something in the air next to his head. He had his hands locked in front of him, and his feet were planted wide. He looked like a baseball card. “We, ah…”
And that was when Peter turned around and walked back up towards the house. He didn’t start running until he hit the porch, but once he did he didn’t stop. He burst through the back door and practically threw himself up the stairs. It was one of the time he was glad his body moved faster than he wanted it to; nobody had the speed to grab him, and all the explaining would be left to Rogers. Peter could hear him come into the house and try to explain what was going on (“I was just trying to talk to the boy and he ran away!”) but even then he didn’t stop, just bolted down the upstairs hallway and into a bedroom.
The walls were lavender and the bedspread was gray but Peter figured that must have been Pepper’s desperate grab for some serenity. The little contraptions everywhere marked it Tony’s room, so obvious and tactile that Peter stopped breathing for a long moment. Upon closer examination Peter realized they were toys, little machines made out of balsa wood and rubber bands and paperclips, meant to amuse.
And then the door creaked, and in came the inspiration for all of it. Peter had seen Morgan when he arrived at the house, and again by the lake, but he’d kept his distance. Up close she was bigger than he thought she’d be, and startlingly unfamiliar. It wasn’t like looking at Tony at all. Sure, she had the same dark hair and determined set to her mouth that Tony had hidden behind the goatee, but there was a hesitancy, a patience to the little face that made it impossible to see Tony lingering there.
“There was a lot of noise,” she said. “I thought you were my daddy.”
“No, I’m not…” Peter swallowed, and thought about his Uncle Ben. He crouched, putting her at eye level. “I’m Peter.”
She glowered at him. “I’d like you better if you were my daddy.”
Peter almost laughed. Four years old, and she was already smart enough to discover the secrets of telepathy. “Me too.”
There were muffled sounds coming from downstairs and Peter remembered, suddenly, where he was. “Hey, is anyone supposed to be with you right now? Like an adult?”
“I’m s’posed to be asleep,” Morgan said, pushing the door open wider and stepping into the bedroom. “But I don’t take naps anymore, I’m almost five, and even if I wasn’t I’m not tired.”
She was wearing Black Widow pajamas. Peter had to swallow hard again, twice this time, before he could say, “would you be more tired if we hung out in here for a bit?”
She had an appraising look, for a four-year-old, and Peter could practically see each synapse fire in her brain as she made her decision. She gave him a slow nod. “I’m gonna go get Kay,” she said, and marched out of the room. Peter stood up (painfully, four days wasn’t a long time to heal after getting his ass handed to him by several alien armies) to look around the room one more time before Morgan came back and took over, and that was when he saw it.
It was lying facedown on one of the bedside tables along with a lug wrench, so definitely Tony’s. If his vision hadn’t been so good he wouldn’t have been able to read what Tony had scrawled across the back of it: ME AND THE KID, EXPO 2018.
But he waited too long and before he could turn it over Morgan was back clutching a tin model biplane to her chest. It was yellow, with a red propeller and wheels, and the serial number K3215 printed on the side. Ah, he thought. Kay.
Morgan held it up, made it do a bob or two in the air. “Daddy built it for me out of…” her face scrunched up. “Crap metal.”
“Scrap metal,” Peter corrected gently. “Does your mom let you have Kay while you sleep?”
Morgan rolled her eyes, and there went any doubt that she belonged to Pepper. “I get one bedtime toy, I’m allowed to pick which one.”
Peter realized, as he was about to crouch back down, that he was still in the uncomfortable funeral suit. He shrugged off the jacket and let it fall to the floor, then toed off his shoes. Morgan watched him do it, standing at the foot of the bed with both hands on her plane. She was only wearing one sock.
The bed was tall and Morgan wasn’t, so Peter reached out his arms. “You want a lift up?”
“Mommy says I’m too heavy to get lifted up there anymore.” There was something unsaid in what Morgan said, something about her father. Peter tried not to think about it.
“Hey, I know you’re almost five, but I’m stronger than I look.” Morgan stepped forward and Peter gripped her under her armpits and lifted her easily onto the gray bedspread. She crawled to the headboard, nestling herself among the pillows with Kay tucked against her chest. Peter climbed up after her, settling down a careful distance away. It wasn’t hard, he noticed before he could stop himself, of course Mr. Stark had a bed as big as a spaceship.
“I don’t want to sleep,” Morgan reminded Peter. “I gotta be awake in case my daddy comes back.”
Peter fought with everything he had to control his expression. “You know why everyone is here today, right?”
“Yeah. Mommy said he’s not coming back but he told me loads of stories about how people tried to hurt him and couldn’t. So what if this is like that?”
“Morgan, do you know who I am?”
“You’re that Peter. Spiderman.”
“Yeah. So you know that your dad and I… we were on the same team. That means if he was coming back he would’ve… he would’ve told me.”
Morgan flicked the propeller on her plane and it spun, squeaking slightly. “Maybe.”
Peter didn’t want to push her. He wanted nothing more than to sit with her, with this little piece of Tony who hadn’t been through any of it yet. Ever since he’d come back from Titan he’d felt hollowed out, scraped raw by the battle, and then by how changed the world had become. The last five minutes with Morgan Stark had brought him so much relief, he hadn’t even noticed.
“Well,” he said, “I think your mom wants you to get some sleep. D’you trust me to watch for him?”
Morgan adjusted Kay against her chest, lay her head down on the pillows. “Okay,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed. Peter lay his head back, too, and before he could think about what a bad idea it was, he was asleep, too.
He didn’t see Pepper come upstairs and crack the door open, only to be followed by Rhodey and May. Satisfied, they went back down the stairs to where everyone was gathered in an awkward knot. “They’re fine,” Rhodey said, and then rubbed absently at his forehead. “She liked him, too, which is gonna be trouble.”
“Was nobody going to tell me he was a kid?” Steve burst out, like he’d been waiting to restart the fight that had begun when Peter ran through the backdoor like there was someone chasing him.
“Kid talks while he fights, you didn’t pick up that his voice hasn’t broken yet?” Sam asked, then glanced at May and coughed awkwardly. “And, um, his name was on the list of the dusted, I checked when I got back.”
“Yeah, as Peter Parker, not as that kid in the red and blue spandex—“
“If he was under that name I would’ve assumed you were gone, too,” Clint said from where he was perched on the kitchen counter.
Pepper coughed, and the room went silent. “I yelled at him too, when I found out he recruited a fifteen-year-old. But that being said, Steve, I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from starting any more fights with or about him.”
Rogers, chagrined, still standing in his collector’s card stance, nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
“And I think we should all take a leaf out of my daughter’s book and get some rest. But thank you all so much for coming, I know Tony would really appreciate it.”
May approached Pepper while everyone else was on their way out. “Should I wake him up?” she asked.
“No,” Pepper said quickly, and May was struck with the sheer force of will of this woman. Chastising Captain America, looking after May’s teenager, and still wearing heels. “When I said leave, I didn’t mean you. He’s been through a lot today.”
“And you haven’t?”
Pepper smiled, tight. There was something in it that was regretful and resigned all at the same time. “I knew this would happen, someday. I hoped it would be later, of course, but I’ve been preparing myself for this since he first put on that stupid suit.”
May did her best to be gentle, and patient. “How’s Morgan?”
“Well, I know from experience that when it feels worst, that’s when all the healing gets done. Peter was a mess after my husband… well, he’s a mess now, too, but he was younger then.”
Pepper pushed her hair behind her ears and looked at May. Her expression wasn’t exactly grateful, but it was close. “It’s funny, I feel like I know him so well, the amount Tony talked about him. But even with all that care, there’s things he never knew. Tell me about your husband?”
When Peter woke up, it was dark. It had been a knock that had woken him, but he was the only one who heard it; Morgan was curled away for him, her shoulders rising and falling with the deep, easy breaths of sleep. The knock came again, gentle, against the doorframe. May tilted her head at him.
“We have to go,” she whispered, and even though Peter wouldn’t have been able to hear it without his super hearing, he checked to make sure Morgan didn’t stir.
He swallowed, the taste of sleep sour and heavy in his mouth. “I can’t, I promised her I’d be here when she gets up. In case T- um… in case her dad gets back.”
“Oh, Peter, baby,” said May. Peter shushed her but it was too late, Morgan was shifting and Peter knew from all his years of babysitting that she was about to wake up. “I’m sorry,” May said, but there wasn’t time to respond before Peter was watching Morgan turn over, rub her fists into her eyes.
When she saw Peter there was a flash of confusion, and then recognition settled in her eyes. “He didn’t come?”
Peter was so tired of crying, so tired of the pressure that built behind his eyes and in his throat. It stopped his breath, over and over again. He kept his eyes open, trained on the ceiling so the tears wouldn’t fall. “No,” he said, because what else was there to say?
“Morgan, can I let you in on a secret?” May said, and Peter could hear the tears in her voice too well. Peter knew this secret. He’d grown up with its weight in his chest. “Your daddy isn’t going to be around anymore to give you hugs or pick you up, but that doesn’t mean you can’t think about him, or talk to him. And if you watch really carefully, maybe he’ll show you he’s still thinking about you, too.”
At this, Peter closed his eyes. He was tired of looking for signs. But then he felt a little hand on his knee, and the voice that came with it: “Did you see anything?”
“Not yet.”