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It takes seventeen days to find Peter. Seventeen days of mind-numbing panic, dozens of dead ends, countless cups of coffee. Seventeen nights of Tony rarely getting more than two hours of sleep at a time, his nightmares never letting him truly rest. Nightmares where Peter is screaming for him, begging Tony to save him.
Nightmares of finding Peter already dead.
So when Tony blasts through the locked metal door and Peter turns his head to look at him, the sheer relief that hits him in that moment nearly brings him to his knees.
Peter is alive. Peter is okay.
“Peter.”
Tony’s voice breaks on the name as he stumbles over the prone door and into the room, the nanites disappearing back into their container. He can hear Rhodey and Steve taking care of the last of the crime outfit’s operatives still standing, but Tony pays them no mind.
The only person he wants to focus on is (finally, ultimately, miraculously) right in front of him.
Yet Peter’s face remains vacant as he takes Tony in. He doesn’t say you found me or I’m sorry or I want to go home or any of the things Tony had expected.
He says nothing at all.
A chill creeps up Tony’s spine. He detachedly wonders if the foreboding coursing through him is anything like Peter’s spidey sense as he run-walks up to where the kid is laying on a metal bed in a corner of the room. He’s not strapped down but there’s an IV in his arm that’s hooked up to a bag of what Tony can only assume is some nefarious substance.
Tony carefully pulls out the needle before cupping Peter’s face with both hands. “Peter. Kid? Are you hurt?”
The teenager’s expression stays emotionless as he watches Tony. There’s no recognition in his eyes, just a mild curiosity as Peter searches Tony’s face. Tony’s stomach sinks when the phrase awaiting orders does a loop through his thoughts.
“Peter? It’s Tony.”
Peter cocks his head slightly, eyebrows scrunching up as though Tony is speaking a language he doesn’t understand.
Tony takes a steadying breath, swipes a hand all around the kid’s skull, searching for bumps. He finds none.
“Please, kid, say something.”
Like a flipped switch the curiosity in Peter’s gaze goes out, all emotion disappearing.
“I’m not Peter. I am no one.”
The sinking stone in Tony’s gut freezes, twisting his insides around until they’re nothing but a block of ice. “What?”
“I’m not Peter. I am no one.”
If the words weren’t enough to make Tony’s alarm levels ratchet up again, the empty tone with which Peter recites them are. The kid’s voice is scratchy - either from disuse or screaming, and Tony isn’t sure at this point which is worse - but the conviction is evident.
Peter is alive, yes, but he’s definitely not okay.
Tony is suddenly filled with an irrational desire to shake the kid by the shoulders, demand that he explain exactly what atrocities were inflicted upon him by these paltry cretins to create this - this not-Peter.
But he doesn’t. Because Tony knows, even in his panic, that ultimately it doesn’t matter what they’ve done.
Tony lost Peter for nearly five years. Seventeen days is nothing, not when it comes to miserable attempts to make Peter forget Tony’s love for him. Not when it comes to erasing the overwhelming, all-consuming brightness that makes up the soul of Peter Parker.
There is frankly no amount of time, distance or terrible circumstance in which Peter could ever be truly taken from Tony again. Tony simply won’t allow it.
“No, Peter, that’s not true.”
Tony sits down on the hard metal edge of the bed before moving his hands from Peter’s face to around the boy’s shoulders. He starts to pull upward, Peter going willingly until the kid is sitting beside him in a ball, knees bent just under his chin. Tony leans over and tightly wraps his arms around the kid’s entire body, burying his face into Peter’s neck before lifting his head until his lips brush against the kid’s ear.
“You’re not no one. Your name is Peter Parker. I’m Tony, I love you, and I’m here to take you home.”
The kid stays motionless in his embrace, not moving away from Tony but not reaching for him either.
“I’m not Peter. I am no one.”
Tony tightens his hold, planting a quick kiss to the boy’s temple. He can hear shuffling at the doorway, knows instinctively it’s Rhodey and Steve. Hopes they know better than to interrupt.
“No, kid. Your name is Peter Parker, you’re from Queens, your aunt is May and your best friend is Ned. In your spare time you like to swing around the city as Spider-Man and find old ladies to buy you churros. Your favorite color is blue, you cut all the tags out of your shirts because you think they’re too scratchy, and you love to text me ridiculous memes and call me an old man when I don’t understand them. You’re not no one. You’re Peter.”
Tony can feel the kid shaking his head no. “I’m not Peter. I am no one.”
Tony shakes his head right back.
“That’s not true, kiddo. Your name is Peter Parker. Two months ago you graduated from Midtown High, and I cried when they said your name. In three weeks I’m supposed to help you move into a dorm and I’m going to be a total wreck when that day comes too. You have a disgusting habit of chewing on your hoodie strings when you’re thinking over a problem, and I threaten to cut them off all the time. You have a girlfriend named Michelle and she kinda scares me but she also adores you nearly as much as I do, so I deal. You’re not no one. You’re Peter.”
There’s a waver in the kid’s voice this time when he repeats yet again, “I’m not P-peter. I am no one.”
Tony leans back just enough to touch their foreheads together, eyes staring deep into the teen’s own.
“No, kid. Listen to me, please. Your name is Peter Parker. Your favorite sandwich at Delmar’s is the number two but since your uncle died you always get the number five because it was his favorite. You give my daughter Morgan three hugs in a row every time you see her, because you think it’s a way to make up for all the ones you missed before. The only thing you’ve ever given me real grief about was the time I let your hamster get loose, you hate cookie dough ice cream because you can’t stand the texture and you never, ever aim to kill if you can help it, because you’re kind in a way I can’t fathom being. You’re not no one, kid. You’re Peter, and I’m Tony, and there is no universe in which I’ll ever let you forget who you are and how much I love you.”
Peter is shaking in Tony’s arms now, tears leaking from his eyes. “I’m not Peter…”
The words come out wobbly, and he doesn’t finish the rest of the mantra.
Tony leans back, putting one hand over the kid’s heart and the other around the back of his neck, shaking his head sadly.
“No, underoos, that’s not true. You are Peter. You’re my kid, and I’ll tell you that as many times as you need me to, until you finally believe it. You’re Peter, and I’m Tony, and I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner. But I’m here now and you’re safe, and I’m taking you home.”
Peter lets out a shuddering breath, closing his eyes for a few moments while Tony silently waits, smoothing greasy curls back and out of his face.
When Peter opens them again, Tony gives a wide, watery smile at the knowing there that greets him.
“T-tony?”
It’s Tony’s turn to cry then. He lets out a relieved half-sigh/half-sob as he wraps himself once more around Peter, who returns the gesture fervently.
“Yeah, kid. I’m here,” he responds wetly into the kid’s collarbone.
“Tony.”
“I’m right here, Peter, and I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
Peter pulls away, wiping an arm across his eyes. “Th-they strapped me down in the dark and drugged me and left this recording going and it made me forget you and May and everything and I’m sorry-”
Tony lifts his hands to grasp Peter’s shoulders, latching on tight.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, kid. Not one thing. Do you understand?”
Peter slowly nods, more tears leaking out and falling down his cheeks. Tony gently wipes them off with a finger.
“How about we go home, huh? There’s a lot of people there who have been missing you almost as much as me.”
Peter smiles softly. “Almost?”
Tony smirks before softly planting another kiss on his kid’s forehead.
“What can I say? I’ve gotten pretty attached.”