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I.
Peter loved Tony because Peter hated his booster seat. He was old enough to realize he didn’t need it anymore, but his aunt and uncle insisted. Especially his uncle.
On long road trips, when Ben would play John Mellencamp and May would indulge in a few songs by the Indigo Girls, Peter carved his fingers into the hot plastic of his seat. He didn’t like the smell and he didn’t like how uncomfortable it was to sit on—whether he was there for two minutes or two hours, it still hurt. He pleaded and cried for his agony to end, and Ben was always there to console him.
“We gotta wait a few more months, Pete,” he said, running his fingers through Peter’s hair and drying his tear-streaked cheeks. “The doctors said you’re a little underweight. You’re a little smaller than everyone your age, but I promise, the minute you turn nine, we’ll find a dumpster and throw that booster seat away. Okay? Just a few more months.”
Peter nodded and rubbed his red eyes, but deep down, he was still angry about it. He hated his booster seat. He wanted it gone.
As an early present for his ninth birthday, he was given the option to choose between a day at the Queens Zoo or go to the opening night of the Stark Expo. And given that he was currently obsessed with tigers, his aunt and uncle believed they knew the obvious choice. Their nephew loved science and all things Iron Man, but his obsession with tigers grew each day. It was tigers or Iron Man, and Peter had seen tigers before. His aunt and uncle weren’t prepared to face the crowds and chirpy atmosphere of a billionaire's exposition. They weren’t prepared to wait outside for their nephew to get a pat on his $24.99 Iron Man helmet from Wal-Mart.
Unlike Peter, his aunt and uncle were indifferent toward Tony Stark. Ben had initially been the one to influence Peter’s adoration toward Iron Man, but he never spoke much about him. May, on the other hand, claimed to be repulsed by the man. The only compliment she gave him was on the day he shut down his weapons manufacturing. Peter couldn’t remember that day though, not really. Plus, he was nearly seven at the time and didn’t understand. He did, however, watch the press clip over and over again during his daily allotted time on the internet.
Once the Stark Expo had been announced, Peter stopped caring so much about a new booster seat. Instead, he begged his aunt and uncle for the chance to see his favorite superhero in person. All of his other favorite superheroes were toys and comics, but Iron Man was real.
“Did you see him, Ben?” Peter asked as he tugged on his uncle’s hand. “Did you get to see him? I saw him. Iron Man called me buddy! You don’t even call me buddy. These guys were pushing him out, but he stopped to say hi to me. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him. Maybe next time. Next time I’ll tell him he’s my favorite superhero. Next time we can make sure May sees him too. Maybe she wouldn’t hate him if she just said hello.”
“I call you buddy,” Ben replied. He chuckled along to the mess of words his nephew was spitting out left and right. “So, you’re planning on seeing him again soon, huh? You’re gonna take the car out and spend a day with Iron Man?”
“Yes,” Peter said, nodding. “I’ll drive and pick up dinner. You and May don’t have to do anything.”
Ben let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you. Y’know, we’ve been waiting for you to finally take up some responsibilities around here. I know you’re only eight, but it’s about time you start chipping in.”
Peter giggled and held the Iron Man helmet in his hands. “I’m never taking this off,” he told his uncle.
“Look at you, you little Iron Man,” May said. She had gone to pick them up a few sodas from a nearby concession. “I heard you met the big man himself.”
“I did!” Peter exclaimed excitedly, and if the mask wasn’t covering his grin, it could be seen from space. He had never been this happy. “He touched my head and said ‘see ya buddy’ before he left. It was so cool, May, you should’ve seen it.”
She smiled. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Iron Man himself christened our kid into being his sidekick,” Ben remarked.
May laughed and handed Peter his root beer. It was the only soda he liked.
“I’m not a sidekick,” Peter said, lifting up his helmet so he could lamely take a sip of the soda. He pouted and continued, “I’m my own hero.”
Ben set a hand on Peter’s head. “And what kind of hero is that?”
“A better one.”
“Better than Iron Man?”
Peter nodded. “Yup. I’m gonna be better than Iron Man. I’m gonna be the best hero ever.”
Ben smiled and took his hand once again. “You’re already my hero, buddy.”
“Hey, you called me buddy!”
Peter loved Ben, but he was angry with him. All Peter wanted to do was go back to the Expo, and he had been begging his aunt and uncle for ages. It wasn’t for Iron Man this time—his new obsession was science and anything that was hands-on building. The Expo had promised exhibitions and inventions, and the more Peter heard about it from the kids in school, the more desperate he became to go back and see everything for himself.
May was keen on the idea. She promised she’d take him back whenever she had the night off from work. And on that particular night, Ben wasn’t nice to Peter, at least it seemed. It didn’t feel like Ben was being fair. He didn’t want to go to the Expo again, yet he felt obligated to because Peter and May were going. When Peter wanted to bring his action figures, Ben didn’t allow him.
Peter cried throughout dinner. He cried over his Hamburger Helper because he hated Hamburger Helper and he hated Ben. He cried because after throwing a tantrum, Ben grounded him and threatened to take away the Expo from that night. Peter hated Ben, but the feeling would go away.
It did a few hours later. He would always love Ben.
People were screaming and running, and all it took was one moment of distraction for Peter to lose sight of his aunt and uncle. Drones soared over the sky above and explosions on the ground soon followed. Peter couldn’t tell if he was crying or sweating, but he wasn’t running.
He was Iron Man—no, he was better than Iron Man, which meant he was stronger, too. Strong, fearless, and willing to fight.
Peter watched the skies in awe. He didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know why there were more suits and they were attacking people. But Peter knew which light in the sky was Iron Man, and he wasn’t scared anymore.
Not even when one of those suits touched down in front of him. Not even when the strangers cleared and Peter lifted his gloved hand. He was Iron Man. He was better than—
A blast came out of Peter’s hand, at least he thought it did. When he jumped back, the real Iron Man was there looking down at him with glowing eyes.
“Nice work, kid,” he said to Peter before taking back off into the sky.
Peter couldn’t be scared when Iron Man was there to protect him.
He wasn’t scared when his aunt and uncle got angry because they had been searching for Peter for a half-hour. And he wasn’t sorry either. He kept his mouth shut and held May’s hand, desperate to talk about his experience with Iron Man, but he knew it would upset them further.
Peter realized he loved Iron Man. He loved Tony Stark because he talked to him even in the middle of a battle—which was so cool to Peter. He had witnessed Iron Man in a battle! He couldn’t stop smiling.
And when Ben lost his temper because his car had most likely been blown to pieces, Peter loved Tony even more. That meant his booster seat was gone, too.
II.
Peter loved Tony because he always pushed him to be better.
May picked Peter up from school the day aliens came to New York. It was something out of the comic books he used to read, some science fiction novel that he pushed under his bed and forgot about until it was hung in the sky right before his eyes. He could see the ships pouring out of that wormhole through her rearview mirror, and she was crying. She kept crying. But Peter was in awe.
Everyone thought it was the end of the world, and Peter did, too. He thought the city was going to be sucked up into space. He thought, by the end of the day, he was going to be floating around in an icicle all the way to Mars, and he was going to be alone.
But the chaos died down and the wormhole closed. Peter watched a live broadcast of Iron Man falling out of space. That was the first time he ever cried for his hero. He watched and waited to hear the news that Iron Man—Tony Stark—was dead, yet it never came.
Peter didn’t find out what happened for a while. Everyone said that Tony saved them. The Avengers, this brand new team of heroes that made Peter squeak with glee, saved them. He had more people to look up to now. They saved him. His hero saved him.
That was why, when many years passed and Peter had the chance to be something bigger than himself, he took it without questioning his decision. He struggled to control his powers within the first few weeks, and attempts to climb up walls turned into temporary concussions while designing webbing required more patience than he could physically allow. He wanted to give up every day.
He thought back to when he was seven or eight and had something to believe in. The hero that graced the media with his red and gold had escaped captivity and never backed down from a fight. His objectives were minuscule and easy to pass, at least they were made to look that way. And Peter wanted to stop because he couldn’t get a stupid formula right. He was ashamed of himself. He wanted to be a hero, and now he had the chance; so, why was he so scared?
Tony had known what he had to do, so Peter knew, too.
But Peter didn’t know if he would have pushed himself if Tony hadn’t back when Iron Man began.
“Oh, Mister Parker,” hadn’t been bargained for.
Tony Stark sitting on his couch eating some walnut date loaf that May made two weeks ago? Completely wrong. It had to have been a dream. Peter didn’t get lucky. His luck came in the form of being a little stronger than everyone else but not being able to show anyone. And then Tony Stark? In his living room?
Peter knew what it was about, but he had to keep pinching himself to make sure it was real.
That was Iron Man. That was “see ya, buddy” and “nice work, kid” sitting right next to his aunt who hated the man’s guts so many years ago—and probably still did. She was only being nice for Peter’s sake.
Tony sat in his room, talking to him about Spider-Man and Germany, but Peter was still in denial about the whole thing. He was being offered the life of a superhero, yet he was hesitant to take it. His younger self would have been punching him in the arm.
Peter agreed because he knew he was going to regret it if he didn’t.
“Germany?” May exclaimed once Tony left. She began to laugh, but it wasn’t genuine. “You can’t be serious. He wants you to go to Germany in—in four hours?”
Peter was grinning, hands visibly shaky and mind still reeling from the events prior. Tony Stark. Hero work. Germany. The real deal. It was all happening. “Y-yeah,” Peter said. “Just for a few days. May, this could be really good for me, please. It’s Tony Stark, it’s my dream.”
The words came without thought, but he wasn’t sure what his dream was any more.
May’s eyes softened, and she bit her lip. “It’s just—that’s so soon,” she replied. “He only just met you, and now he wants to fly you off to Germany? Peter—”
“I know, May, I know,” Peter whispered, walking up to her and grabbing her hands. Like he had just told himself, he said to her, “but if I don’t do this, I know I’m gonna regret it for the rest of my life.”
She nodded understandingly. “Well, maybe not your whole life—”
“C’mon, you know what I mean.”
May pulled Peter into a tight hug. “Go pack your things,” she said, “before I change my mind.”
And Peter was so thankful. Thankful for her, thankful for Tony oddly enough. As far back as Peter could remember, he looked up to superheroes. The one hero he looked up to the most was pushing him to be a hero, too.
Tony kept pushing Peter to reach beyond his boundaries. No matter how many times he felt like he was at his limit, he wanted to be better than he was. He wanted to keep trying and prove himself. He wanted to be like Iron Man.
Well, Iron Man didn’t want that.
While Peter knew that Tony had always pushed him to be better, he never really realized it until he heard the man say it to his face. Solid words, no sugar-coating over it.
“I wanted to be like you,” came first. Peter was angry. He remembered feeling that angry at his uncle sometimes, but he still loved him.
Tony came back with, “and I wanted you to be better.”
Peter felt his world crumble around him. He had let down the one person he always dreamed of impressing.
He had loved Tony Stark for years, but it was only a surface feeling. It was a casual love, like finding trust in a new friend or looking up to celebrities who would never know his name. But then Tony learned his name. He earned his trust. And Peter let him down because Tony wanted him to be better.
Tony thought Peter could be better, and maybe it was true. It meant that he saw more in Peter than what Peter could see. It meant that Tony saw more in him than what he ever saw in himself.
He wanted Peter to be better, so Peter was going to be.
III.
Peter loved Tony because he never let him go.
After the plane crash, Peter lost hope in himself. He didn’t take down Toomes to make Tony proud. He didn’t do it because it was another tally on the Hero Chart. Peter lost everything he had ever wanted—what more could he have lost?
Peter wanted to be Avenger, but it wasn’t his time. And for some reason, Tony still bothered with him. He still bothered to pick up the phone calls and to check in to make sure Peter was all right. Every call, text, or voicemail never went unanswered.
It didn’t make sense to Peter that Tony wanted a fifteen-year-old kid hanging around. It didn’t make sense that he wanted to help even when it didn’t benefit him.
The way Peter’s anxiety worked was that it found insecurities in everything. It made him worry that May didn’t want him anymore or Ned no longer wanted to be his friend. It made him worry that Tony hated his guts and wanted him to stop calling for good.
Some days were harder than others. Some days, Peter didn’t want to get out of bed because his heart ached too much that day. Everything was heavy and no one wanted to talk to him. It was fine. It had to be fine. He had to get up eventually. He had to be Spider-Man because people relied on him to be. But maybe they didn’t want Spider-Man either. Maybe the world hated Spider-Man, too.
Peter decided to do what he always did when he felt this way. He called Tony to get his mind off of it.
“You’re gonna have to make it quick, I’ve got food in the oven and Jeopardy! is on in ten minutes,” Tony said once he picked up the call. “You all right, kiddo?”
Kiddo. Peter no longer felt as though the name was demeaning. After all, he was still a kid, and the nickname made the anxiety over not feeling loved slowly dissolve.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered, picking at the frayed cuff of his jeans. “Sorry, I can let you go.”
“No, kid, it’s fine,” Tony insisted. “Now, you wanna tell me what’s really on your mind?”
Peter sniffed. He did, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to have a moment of weakness even though he knew it was okay to. But he didn’t feel good, not mentally. It was only going to get worse if he kept the feelings hidden away. “I’m—”
“I better not hear you finish that sentence with just ‘fine’, all right?” Tony remarked, and just the sound of his voice was sometimes enough to make Peter feel better. It wasn’t working, at least not right now. “I’ve heard enough ‘fine’ in my lifetime to buy out my company.”
“I-I’m not fine,” Peter answered.
There was silence on the other end.
“I don’t know,” he continued, sniffing. “I don’t know why. Today feels hard.”
“Yeah, hard days are rough,” Tony said, “but they just mean that there are gonna be days that are easy. Tell ya what—once I’m finished with dinner here, I’ll swing by and we can figure things out from there. Maybe go for a drive. I haven’t done one of those in a while.”
Peter found enough strength to smile. Maybe Tony did want to be around him.
“Yeah,” Peter whispered. “I’d like that.”
“Great, see you soon, kiddo.”
The car ride started off quiet. The sun was setting in the distance, and music that Peter didn’t recognize played over the radio. Every time he looked over, Tony Stark was sitting there in an old MIT sweatshirt, his focus locked on the road while Peter still refused to believe this was his reality. His reality was him in the passenger seat of a superhero’s car while he, in a way, was a hero himself. Peter’s heart was still sad, but the thought made him smile.
“You wanna know what Happy told me today?” Tony started, adjusting the volume of the radio so it could barely be heard. “I got this long text from him around four o’clock because our certain arachnid friend hadn’t called in two weeks, and Happy, of all people, was worried he had scared him off. And he’s very incapable of keeping his thoughts separate, so he started going off about how his new dentist sneezed in his face right after talking about how he missed hearing about your days.”
“I doubt that,” Peter mumbled.
“Doubt what?” Tony asked. “That his dentist sneezed or—”
“That he misses me.”
The older man’s eyebrows furrowed, and he frowned at Peter’s words. That wasn’t right. Peter didn’t make self-deprecating comments like that. That was Tony’s thing.
“Doubt away,” he said, “or you can trust me. Whichever you prefer.”
Peter felt small. Incredibly small. He wanted the world to be quiet for a few days. He wanted to be nothing, not even an existence, just so this feeling could go away. He wasn’t sure where he fit into people’s lives. Tony was sitting right next to him, but it still didn’t make sense.
“Sorry,” Peter whispered.
Tony clasped a hand onto Peter’s shoulder. “Don’t be, kiddo,” he said. “I just wanna make sure you’re okay.”
They were on a highway headed upstate, and the trees looked like shadows against the darkening sky. Peter thought, for a moment, maybe he was okay. Maybe he was just stuck in his head, and maybe Tony wanted to be there. Maybe it was all a matter of timing.
Tony drove into unfamiliar towns and on backroads where the black sky melted into the scenery. It was nothing but headlights and the road ahead, not to mention the man’s constant chatter about how little he remembered from college and many of the embarrassing things that Rhodey had done.
Tony talked about anything. He talked about his day. He talked about how he recently discovered what ‘memes’ were and that he wanted Peter to show him how they worked. That made the kid laugh. Tony talked about Iron Man and Spider-Man and the new additions he wanted to give them with Peter’s help. He talked about how boring it was to be in his workshop without hearing Peter rant about his teachers and the gobbledygook they ate at school.
As they made their way back into the city a little after midnight, Peter realized that he and Tony were alike in a lot of ways. The man had annoying moments, and his friends could attest to that. But Peter still loved being around Tony. He loved hearing about his stories, meaningless or not. Tony wouldn’t speak to him if he felt that Peter wasn’t deserving of his time.
Peter felt a little better. He felt better because he knew that his mentor wouldn’t be doing this—driving out into nowhere just to make him laugh—if he didn’t really want to. If Peter didn’t matter to Tony, Peter wouldn’t have Tony at all.
Peter’s eyes started to water, and before he could help it, he was holding back a sob.
“Whoa, whoa, hey, Pete—” Tony swerved over to the side of the road and parked the car, both of his hands reaching out to grab Peter by the shoulders. “Just breathe, kid, you’ll be okay. What can I do?”
Peter didn’t realize that he couldn’t breathe until Tony instructed him to. His lungs ached, but he wasn’t sure he even had lungs anymore. His hands felt numb on his lap, and he couldn’t stop his tears from falling. Why couldn’t he breathe? Why couldn’t he stop crying?
“Pete, c’mon, you gotta try for me, buddy,” Tony said. “It’ll be over soon. Should I keep talking? Is that helping?”
Buddy.
Peter nodded.
Tony did, too. “Okay, I can do that. We’ll just talk about, uh—” He looked down at his sweatshirt. “Hey, you thinking about schools yet? You’ve got plenty of time, but if you’re looking for suggestions, I’ve got a pretty biased opinion about MIT, so I’d love to give it. Plus, I’d give a recommendation so off the charts, they’d think your wonder boy or something. Lemme know what you’re thinkin’ about. Rhodey could chime in, too. Did I ever tell you about that time he vandalized the Physics building? Rhodey’s never had a good relationship with Physics. He’s a pretty clumsy guy.”
Peter chuckled, and with it, he let out a long, shaky breath. His crying stopped once Tony mentioned MIT because truthfully, Peter was excited to talk about college. He was excited to think about the future, even if it did terrify him. His limbs no longer felt numb.
“How’re you feelin’, kiddo?” Tony asked.
Peter exhaled again. “Fine.”
“You know I hate that word.”
Peter cracked a grin, finally looking over at the man who helped him work through the panic. “Better,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Everything okay?” Tony had never looked so worried before. “Come out of nowhere or did something trigger it?”
Peter shrugged. Truthfully, he didn’t know. “Overwhelmed, I guess. I feel—I feel like I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve… you.”
Tony’s brows knitted together again. “That’s bullshit,” he said, and Peter was taken aback. “Sorry. That was strong. But seriously, kid, you think you don’t deserve me? Where’d that come from?”
“I don’t know,” Peter mumbled. “You’re just doin’ all of these nice things. Driving me around and making me suits. Inviting me to become an Avenger for some reason. I just don’t know what you see in me. You’re—you’re Tony Stark. You’re not supposed to be hanging around some fifteen-year-old whose top priority is making sure he passes Spanish. It doesn’t make sense.”
“If it helps put things into perspective,” Tony began slowly, glancing at the road beside them, “sometimes I think I don’t deserve you.”
Peter hugged his arms around his chest.
“You’re so passionate, kiddo,” Tony continued. “You see everything good in the world even if it hasn’t been good to you. You don’t let your past affect your future, and you wanna help as many people as you can. You’re selfless, and you’re so goddamn better than the person I will ever be. So many people I know—they’ve had the life sucked right out of them. Hold onto your innocence and naïvety, Pete, because it’s what’s keepin’ you strong. It keeps you grounded.
“And that’s why I keep you around,” he carried on, smiling. “Because I’m selfish, and dare I say it, you make me feel happy. You make Happy feel happy. You give us all a purpose—something to keep us going and give us something to look forward to in our days. Life is so gray as you get older, Pete, so don’t even grow up; okay? It sucks. And I’m gonna be honest with you here, I’d never wanted kids before. Ever. I always thought I would end up like my dad. Sometimes I still see him in myself, and it disgusts me. You make me want to be better. Sound crazy? It isn’t. You’re a good kid. You deserve everything good.”
Peter bit his lip to keep it from trembling. He smiled instead. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I-I—thank you.”
Tony smiled, too. “Let’s get you home, kiddo.”
That was why Peter loved Tony.
IV.
Peter loved Tony because one night, Peter almost died.
It was quick. A bullet to his abdomen like many he had before, but this one was deeper than the rest. This one left him empty, airy, and cold. He fell onto a rooftop and clutched his stomach, focusing on the way the blood coated his hand. He was applying as much pressure as he could before it became too painful. And he thought he was crying, but he couldn’t tell. He just knew he was dying.
It was that impending doom feeling. Like leaning too far back in a chair or missing a step on the stairs. His senses were loud, and then they went quiet. The sky had never looked so welcoming before. The world had never seen such peace.
He asked Karen to talk to him. The urge to sleep weighed heavily on him, and he knew that if he did fall asleep, he wasn’t sure he would ever wake up. That no longer terrified him, at least not at the moment. Death used to scare him. Death used to be his number one fear. But now, as he stared up at where the stars were supposed to be in the sky if New York had no air pollution, death didn’t feel like he had imagined it to be.
Peter knew it was going to happen any minute now. He was slipping slowly, and his breaths were long and labored. It felt good to breathe. It was like hugging an old friend. And the friend was hugging back as tight as they could.
Peter felt the friend’s arms beneath him, holding him close to their cold, metal body. He wasn’t sure which friend of his it was, but he knew he loved them.
Now he was floating against the wind, rising steadily as the breeze strengthed. He could feel it, and he could feel metal. He thought he could hear something, soft pleads sounding like, “c’mon, kid, stay awake. Stay with me for fuck’s sake. Keep your eyes open. You gotta stay awake. Pete, please.”
Peter liked the sound of their voice, and it was all he needed.
His eyes opened to a sheet of vignette over his vision. The more he blinked, the more the light trickled in. Gray dots hazed over, and he could finally make sense of the ceiling above him. It was familiar, like a place he had been before.
Pain. There had been pain, and then there wasn’t. He remembered someone holding him in their arms.
Peter’s head lolled to the side. A hand was around his. A head of dark graying hair was all that he could see lying on the bed beside his thigh. He wanted to believe it was Tony, but Peter was too tired to think. He was too tired to move or speak. He let his eyes fall shut again.
He awoke to a television playing Star Trek across the room. It was on mute with English subtitles, and he immediately recognized the episode as the one where Kirk got stuck on the planet Gideon.
“I don’t like this one,” Peter slurred to himself. He couldn’t stop the thought from leaving his head. Something made him feel weird and dizzy. And funny. When he reached over to find the remote control, he noticed a figure slumped over in a chair by the door.
It was Tony, and he was asleep. His eyes were dark and heavy.
“Oops,” Peter whispered, turning back to the TV. “He’s jus’ sleep. He won’t care if I change the channel. This one’s dumb and stupid. Where’s Kirk even go? Wha’s the virus? So stupid. So, so stupid.”
“Peter?”
Peter rolled his head over to look at Tony. “Hi.”
Tony’s eyes went wide. Something lit up in them for a second. Relief. Gratitude. Overwhelming joy. It was masked over quickly as he brought his chair over beside Peter’s bed. But even when he sat back down, there was still something there. Happiness. Tony’s smile trembled.
He called him Peter. He never called him Peter.
“How ya feeling?” Tony asked. His skin was paler than usual, eyes red and watery while the dark circles beneath them brought out their contrast.
“Syfy sucks at Star Trek marathons,” Peter answered, and he almost bit his tongue in the process.
Tony chuckled and shook his head. “I meant physically.”
“Oh.” How did Peter feel? He glanced down at his body. There was a blanket covering everything but his hand. There was an IV sticking out of it. Honestly, he didn’t feel much. “Weird. Woozy. Drugged?”
“Substantially,” Tony replied. He was still smiling, and it was beginning to creep Peter out. Had something happened? The smile faltered once Peter felt himself succumbing to sleep again. Tony leaned over and kissed Peter’s forehead.
He had never done that before.
Peter had a stitched up torso, but it meant little compared to the number of restrictions Tony placed on him once he got better.
“Sorry, Pete, I don’t wanna be a nark, but I gotta ground you somehow,” the man said. “So, uh, no patrolling past seven o’clock. Even if the sun is still up, I don’t wanna see you in that suit.”
“But, Mister Stark, most of the bad stuff happens when—”
“Ah, ah!” Tony raised a finger. “I don’t wanna hear it. Also, I’m taking away four-hundred of your web combinations. If you’re out in the suit and your senses have gone batshit crazy, I want you to leave. If things feel scarier than usual, get the hell out. And I’m gonna need the suit for like, two weeks. Not for any reason. Just because I want you to heal and not get yourself nearly-killed again.”
Peter frowned, but he understood. Tony was worried; right? It had to be worry.
“And you have to spend every Friday night with me and Pepper,” Tony added. “No questions asked. Deal?”
Peter nodded. “Deal.”
He wanted to talk about a few of the restrictions. He didn’t want to wait two weeks before using the suit again, but he also didn’t want to argue. Tony had seen Peter almost die, so he didn’t blame him. Tony was worried. It had to be worry.
Peter didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but worry came in many forms. He hoped that Tony worried about Peter because maybe that meant he loved him, too.
V.
Peter loved Tony because, in space, no one can hear you scream.
But in all seriousness, Peter loved Tony because when Tony said he’d catch him, Peter believed that he would, and he did.
He gave him a new suit, one Peter had seen before a year or two ago, but it was still new to him. It was sleek and shiny, and it smelled like a new car. And, he could breathe in space. Tony did so much for Peter, and that was why Peter didn’t leave. He didn’t go back home like Tony had asked him to.
Peter loved Tony, but aboard that ship, he felt out of place. He felt his age. All the while, he felt like he was a part of a team. Tony listened to his ideas—even though most of them were prefaced with a movie reference or two that made the older man roll his eyes, but he still listened. And the ideas, to Peter’s surprise, seemed to work.
In that act of valiance, Peter was the Avenger like he had always dreamed of becoming. Of course, he never imagined it to happen like this and in space, but he knew it would be because of Tony. He knew Tony would be there no matter what.
And Tony still was there when that orange planet grew silent. When strangers dusted away into the breeze and faded into the atmosphere. When Peter’s insides stirred, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of his anxiety or because he knew that something really bad was about to happen. Something a lot like what he had experienced before, but this time, he wasn’t ready to go.
Peter loved Tony because, during those few moments, Tony was there to catch him.
Peter knew he was dying. He sensed it so hauntingly. It prickled under his skin, and he felt like he hardly existed at all. It was hot and red and painful like his body was tearing itself apart. It was. And Tony caught him.
“You’re all right,” he told Peter, holding him like he never had before. So tight that he was afraid to let go and see the unimaginable.
Peter could no longer stand.
With Tony’s hand beneath his head, with him looking at him so intently like he knew those were the kid’s final moments with him, Peter could finally see how much Tony loved him, too.
There was fear, so much fear. Fear of losing hope. Fear of losing a loved one. Fear of never seeing him ever again.
Peter could see how much he would be missed in those eyes.
So, Peter said he was sorry. He was sorry because Tony didn’t know how much that meant to Peter in his last few seconds alive.
+1
Peter hated Tony because he was so selfless, he died to save the world.
And he was so selfish, too. He was so selfish because when everyone returned, he decided to die so that they could stay.
Peter hated Tony because no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop thinking about him and how much he loved him.
He couldn’t stop thinking about that day. He went to school, excited for a field trip to a museum he had been to a handful of times. Things were normal, but somehow they weren’t. Somehow he had known that something was going to go wrong. It had been building for months. An odd sensation at the back of his neck that never went away. That impending doom feeling, except he wasn’t falling in his sleep or tripping over thick carpet. He was breathing and living like normal, yet it was still there following his every move. It got worse once he stepped aboard that flying donut.
Peter couldn’t change his fate. Not when it was too late.
And then he woke to a world five years later. Five years where Peter had ceased to exist, but he couldn’t think about that when the Avengers needed him. Tony needed him. Tony, who hadn’t seen Peter in five years, needed him.
That hug meant the world to Peter, but it meant so much more to Tony.
Peter had started his day expecting to indulge in modern art, but in the end, he had to watch his mentor die instead.
It was hours for him. Hours. But in those five years for Tony, Peter had been dead.
Peter hated Tony because he lived an entirely new life without him. He got married, became a father, and Peter wasn’t there through any of it.
Tony found a chance to change in the wake of a crisis. Half of the universe had vanished, but in those five years, Tony became the version of himself he had always wanted. Happy and healthy and in denial. Everyone thought he had accepted his fate, but he never really did. Not completely.
Peter hated Tony because he never had the chance to be the brother he always wanted to be, but he now he could. When Peter met Morgan, he cried. That was Tony Stark’s daughter. Flesh and blood and everything Peter hadn’t been. For five years, she had been Tony’s new life, which spanned far greater than Peter had ever known Tony. Peter promised himself that he would be the best brother ever, and he hoped that made Tony smile.
But Peter hated Tony because now Morgan didn’t have a father. Peter knew a little about what that was like.
Peter hated Tony because he left an emptiness when he died. It was the same emptiness that Ben left, too. It was heavy and sickening, and it made him feel like the entire world was sitting on his shoulders, waiting for him to crack. Peter was tired of losing people. He was so tired of losing. He hated that he had to lose Tony, too.
And Peter hated that he saw Tony everywhere even after he was gone. He saw him in the stickers on street signs. He saw him in every Starbucks because Peter could never forget Tony’s order even if he damn well tried. He saw him at Delmar’s because of the day he finally took his mentor to the best sandwich place in Queens. He saw him in graffiti and monuments and murals on bridges. He saw him in the face of every student he passed on his way to class and the artwork hanging above lockers. He saw him in everything and everyone.
They were only there because Tony risked his life to save them.
Peter hated Tony. He hated him so much.
Peter hated Tony because he never got to tell him how much he truly loved him.