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When it came to Beck, Peter wasn’t quite sure what was real and fake anymore. Beck’s voice was clear, as was the man in the mirror in front of him pleading while the world around them was a hazy mist of purple and green. Everything else pitch black, almost as if they’d stepped into a void and were trapped there.
Beck kept a firm hand over his left eye, presence thick behind him as the teen blearily looked at the man and his reflection, blood dripping from his head and over his free eye, tainting the abyss of fog around them.
“You could join me kid, we’d be the best heroes to ever live,” The crooning Peter heard now he couldn’t even begin to compare to the mad man’s earlier thunder. Both sounded truthful, Peter rationalized that. Well, he tried to. He himself had only been a good liar when telling others he was okay, never about anything else.
Beck didn’t seem to have that trouble.
Peter had only been back for a few months, he’d bared witness to the greatest hero ever snap Thanos out of existence and then managed not to pass out when said hero explained he’d done it all for him. Tony was the greatest hero to ever live and Peter didn’t have the heart to even doubt someone for a second could even compare, especially himself.
Quentin, if that was even his real name, especially couldn't. That’s why he was so desperate now, for help, for someone to be his sidekick, Tony was still alive and when he came to help, Beck knew he would lose.
Except the more blood that trickled down the teen’s face, he wondered if Tony knew what was happening. He’d retired, SHIELD now kept him out of the loop, and he was effectively cut off because after all he’d done he never had to step in again. His dues had been paid and not a single person or organization had the right to ask him to come back.
Maybe Tony hadn’t even seen the news of Mysterio, and never was informed that Spider-Man had been partnered with him against the Elementals. Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and all of Beck’s co-conspirators that’d brought ‘Mysterio’ to life were dead now, so who was there to blab about what’s been happening in London?
“Mr. Stark,” the teen choked out breathlessly, tears in his eyes, body tied to a chair and aching from where he’d been thrown in front of a train. No Stark suit to save him from Beck or to even call his mentor for help.
“Oh kid, you’re still only seeing half the picture,” Quentin’s gloved fingers threaded through his nape as he spoke. Peter knew if he was only seeing half the picture now, and even if he could, he didn’t want to open his eye and see the rest. Not if it meant hurting Tony after everything he’d done to save them all. If he had to do that, he’d rather see nothing at all.
Almost as if he could read the boy’s thoughts, Beck slammed the arachnids head forward.
The contact shattering the material, raining fractales down onto the floor and shattering a part of the boy’s mind so thoroughly, the trauma and stress pulled him under the depths before he could even dismay how his only defense hadn’t even warned him of the danger he’d been in.
Nick’s phone buzzed in a repeated litany, agents informing him of two alien bodies found in the London water and an array of burned corpses in a bar, all of the identified bodies having been former Stark employees.
Fury felt his blood boil, loss and worry clawing at his insides and doing what almost everything did to him, made him angry. Talos and Soren had been posing as him and Maria to manage SHIELD on his pseudo vacation and the founding of Sword.
Now they were dead and he had no idea about what had been happening on earth, he hadn’t imagined anyone would have acted too soon after the decimation, he’d been wrong. Pulling the pager from his pocket, Fury did the only thing he could do for the time being. Call Carol.
The scene before her brought her a horrible sense of deja vu as she looked down at the battered body of the boy who’d shakily introduced himself as Peter Parker. When she looked at him now though, he wasn’t dirtied with dusted debris or clutching an all too big gauntlet in his arms.
It didn’t make the sight any easier, body limp, immobilized with thick wire’d rope she’d seen used to keep bridges up. His bangs covered his lowered face, specks of blood and glass sprinkled over his prone form.
His outfit wasn’t it’s usual red, it was black, and it was clear from his breathing alone that the teen had been through the ringer.
“Peter,” she asked pensively, kneeling on the ground, glass crunching under her weight, her suit keeping the shards from imbedding into her skin. She couldn’t say the same for the teen in front of her, she could see some pieces stuck in the tops of his thighs from where they’d fallen, his left knee had a shard sticking out of it as well.
Whoever had made this suit for him, they hadn’t made it well, meaning it wasn’t Stark. She’d spent enough time with the billionaire to know he was protective, especially so when it came to his children, and considering what he’d done for this boy alone, she couldn’t help but wonder where he was now that his son was being saved by her of all people and not him.
Nick had said he hadn’t known what was going on, so did Tony? Did any other hero on earth beside this boy know what the hell had happened? Carol then assumed that it didn’t matter if any other hero did know because Stark wasn’t here meaning he didn’t know.
He fought and killed the mad titan for this small yet powerful boy, he wouldn’t have let something like this happen.
“Peter,” she called again tentatively, cupping his cheek and lifting his head. A frown cut through her cheeks as she saw the blood and glass taking up a half of his face, the other side aside from a few bruises was surprisingly clean. Almost as if it had been covered and wiped, maybe that explained the missing mask.
She could see his eyes move under closed lids, wakefulness had the boy stirring, body coiling up the best it could, meaning his shoulders hunched further and his chin was now touching his chest, fingers and toes curling as if someone was there to break them if they weren’t already broken.
“Beck?” The name was croaked and brittle, the boy’s vocal cords hoarse and clouded with smoke, bruised and strained from screams, worry and uncertainty palpable.
“No, it’s me Carol, remember?”
“Captain Marvel?” The uncertainty in his voice felt familiar, as if she’d heard it come from her own lips. His chin remained tight against his chest, unwilling to unfurl, fear and ambivalence radiating off of him.
“Yes,” she smiled reassuringly even if he didn’t see it. A faint shake of the boy’s head followed, he was disagreeing.
“It’s me, I’m going to get you out of here,” the kid was losing more blood by the second, and now tears were dripping onto his thighs in the same manner the blood from his head was.
Another soft shake of the head followed, it should have been a sign for her not to reach for his bindings but she continued on, startling horribly as the teen flinched hard, a weak yipping sound jumping from his throat.
“Prove it,” the request she nearly missed, it was hard to make out between his hitches of breath and shuddering sobs but the second it processed in her brain she found herself frozen.
“How can I do that?” she asked after several long seconds, her tongue dry in her mouth.
The teen’s head lifted slightly, bangs covering his clean eye, the bloodshot and hazy eye looked up at her, tears continuing to slip. It was a look she’d seen in the mirror.
He was mulling it over, thoughtfully, critically, for a minute she was almost sure this was Tony’s flesh and blood.
She expected something odd to prove herself, like diagonally cut sandwiches or photon blast, but nothing prepared her for his request.
“Hurt me,”
As jarring as those words were, she could understand where he was coming from. She’d seen him in that fight. He was durable, powerful, and the more she thought about it, the better she understood what he was asking of her.
From what she could see now from his injuries, they weren’t exactly done by hand. They were done in with tools or improvised, whoever this Beck was may have laid a hand on him in some way or another but it hadn’t been as impactful as the glass or whatever had battered his ribs.
He was tied down with cords, and...how had she not noticed his shoulder and his hip? He’d been shot too.
He wanted her to hurt him because it was impossibly hard for others to do so and cause actual damage. He knew she could snap his arm in two with a simple twist of her wrist, and she could heat his skin until it was burning off with her powers, but from what she gathered he needed something physical and...personal, believable.
It hurt her to do so, but if she didn’t do something he wouldn’t willingly let her carry him out. Taking his wrist in her hand, she forced her eyes shut as the teen curled back further and tighter into himself as she broke it.
It was telling that he didn’t scream.
Peter Parker didn’t flinch or make so much as a peep as she broke through his binds with heated hands before carrying him to safety.
One of SHIELD’s medics met them at a rendezvous point, Carol activated her own helmet onto the boy’s head as to give him some privacy, from what she understood the boy’s identity remained under Stark protection even if Stark wasn’t exactly in the field anymore. Plus she was sure she could stitch his temple and pick out the glass herself later.
“Holy shit,” she heard the man utter, as he got to work.
“I’ll call Tony,” Captain Marvel announced, jumping when the teen’s arm shot out, latching onto her, eyes wide and nearly frantic.
“No,”
The medic startled at the teen’s shout, hopelessly looking to the hero who could help diffuse the situation.
Carol slumped into the table beside the teen, carefully extracting his fingers while the boy seemed to watch both her and the medic intently, the medic moreso.
“No ones going to hurt you,” she assured softly. It was obvious the teen didn’t believe her, in fact he didn’t seem to be sure of anything around him, except he did look to her with a bit more clarity than anything else.
“Why don’t you want me to call Tony?”
Tears dripped out of the boy’s mask, bloodied hair sticking up out the helmet's slit. The kid was a sight.
“I don’t want him to be a lie too. What if he actually died and him living through the snap was just another illusion? What if who actually gets here is Beck? What if he’s not real? What if everyone isn’t real? My aunt, Happy, Mr. Rhodey? Fury and Hill weren’t real, I...I don’t want to see anyone...I can’t...I can’t trust myself, I can’t trust anyone else either. Not until Beck’s gone, maybe I need to talk to Beck. Maybe he should have killed me,” the rant left the teen heaving, spasming, trembling until Carol pulled him into a hug.
He trusted her because she could prove herself, how would he ask Tony or his family to prove himself? How would Tony react if his beloved son asked him to hurt him?
“Who’s Beck...kiddo?” She asked gently, careful not to use the boy’s name in front of the thoroughly disturbed medic.
“Mysterio, he lied,” the teen admitted suddenly, and she’d seen Mysterio’s broadcast on her gauntlet receiver on the way over, a shiver running up her spine at his appearance. A green clad fake hero who lied.
Coupled with the murmurs of what’s real. Who around them is real? It was all too familiar.
No one could understand the teen’s plight better than her, and now that she knew what the problem was, she knew exactly how to help, where to take him to recuperate. Looking down at the teen, shaking and rocking in her hold she wondered when was the last time this kid got to be a child?
Was he always this scared? Tense?
“Miss Carol?” the teen hiccuped.
“Yes little spider?”
“Beck was right, I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“I know a place we can go, somewhere safe where maybe we can help you figure it out. No Mr. Stark, or anyone else but a good friend of mine until you're ready. I’ll handle the rest,” And she would, she’d talk with Fury about what the hell he was thinking assigning her now dead friends to handle earth without any way to contact someone who could fight Mysterio properly.
Not that Peter wasn’t capable, he was, but after that fight he was adjusting, and probably more than overwhelmed, and this asshole Mysterio who seemingly was using psychological warfare to mess with him wasn’t okay.
Someone a little more experienced and less naive would have seen Mysterio for who he was, but she didn’t blame Peter. Not at all because she knew how easy it was to become a victim, and how easy it was when someone who knows how to hurt you does so.
She’d gotten through it, and she could help him too. It’d take time, and he’d never fully heal, but she knew the teen seemingly already knew this. Probably because he had to be going through the same thing among others.
There were tell-tale signs of lack of sleep, the worrying looks of someone always on edge, and she’d seen his reaction to pain and hurt now, tight lips and a will to be strong.
“They won’t come until I’m ready?” he asked almost as if expecting her to say no, as if he wasn’t just reiterating her words.
“I’ll keep them away until you’re ready,” Carol unclipped her brand new phone from her pocket, tapping away until she got ahold of Maria who agreed instantly to taking in the young spider.
“To Louisiana we go,” she hummed, but Peter didn’t seem to care about where they were going so long as they were going.
Now once the teen was safe, she’d start the search for Mysterio, but she had a feeling once she got a hold of Stark, he’d beat her to it. This seemed to be something that’d pull him from his retirement.
“Where is he?” Carol hadn’t bristled under Thor’s gaze or flinch when Thanos hit her in the face, but Tony Stark’s voice over the phone had her fist clenching and shoulders tightening. Little did she know both his wife and daughter were peaking down from the top of the stairs, both chillingly aware of what was about to happen.
“I can’t tell you that,” the decision not to disclose Peter’s location hadn’t been easy, it helped that Maria’s address was off all of SHEILDs grids due to her having married Fury and he’d never let anyone get his home address. But coupled with the fact that Peter had begged for Tony to stay away and if Tony knew where he was, he’d barge in without a second thought.
“I’m not doing this to hurt you, I’m doing this so you don’t hurt him,” The captain hung up the phone before he could attempt to trace it. She’d already taken the precaution of flying over alaska to break the signal so if he did trace it back, he’d only meet a dead end.
“What does that mean? What the fuck does that mean? Danvers!” Tony’s shout shook the house making Pepper pluck up her daughter and head to her bedroom.
“Someone took Peter?” Morgan asked rather confusedly, head tilting.
“In a way,” Pepper sighed, swiping the hair out of her daughter's eyes while contemplating the stuffed animals on the little girl's bed.
“They’re not going to hurt him, are they mama?” The brunette’s eyes were wide and Pepper figured Morgan would rather be asking her father these questions about her brother. The two had only met three times, most of it being Tony coddling the teen, still gobsmacked that he was there.
Pepper initially believed Morgan would be jealous of the teen taking up her dad’s attention, except from what she could figure, Morgan was clever and not in the same way as her father, emotionally.
In that way she was more mature than a lot of people.
She didn’t mind Tony trailing Peter and vice versa, in fact she encouraged it. Gave them room for the time being because she seemed to know the two of them needed it.
“No, I think they’re trying to help. But people don’t always agree on how to help others, on how to do a lot of things.”
“And daddy things he can help Peter better,” the little girl uttered thoughtfully.
“It’s ‘thinks’,” Pepper corrected and gave her daughter a nod, “He’s very hands on, dad won’t be able to calm down unless he helps Peter himself.”
“So Peter will get better if someone helps?”
“Maybe, but we all heal at our own pace with or without help,” Her daughter seemed to accept this, moving on and heading over to play with her dolls and Pepper was content to sit and watch as her husband bustled downstairs, his hair probably getting even more grey.
The first thing Tony did was try to locate the suit, to his dismay it was at the boy’s apartment meaning whenever whatever had happened he wasn’t wearing it.
“Sir, I believe this footage from Venice will serve you well,” Friday chimed, starting up the video of Peter and some fishbowl wearing freak fighting what seemed to be elemental monsters.
In both clips Peter wasn’t in his Spider-Man suit, the first clip he wasn’t even in a suit at all. That one didn’t bother him as much as the second clip where the kid was clad in black. No wonder he’d never heard anything, these dumbasses were calling him Night Monkey, a knock off Spider-Man.
Confusing the inventor further, Tony curled his bionic arm at the screen, quizzical at the location. Why in the hell was Peter in Europe? He knew Peter's school had a trip planned, hell he’d paid for Peter to go himself. Except Peter would have told him he was going, he’d have texted and called, ranting excitedly and bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Friday pull up every text and call sent from Peter’s phone to mine,” the screen lit up with weeks old text, and an error message.
“Boss it seems starting a week and a half ago the signal from Mister Parker’s phone has been tampered with.”
“For all his text? Or just mine?” the billionaire’s jaw tightened, temples throbbing, and heart beating hard enough to make his chest ache and ribs rattle.
“Just yours Sir, pulling up the missed messages now,” Friday announced, illuminating the screen with several texts that broke Tony’s heart. He’d been meaning to text the boy himself but he’d been busy with Morgan and he’d been so used to Peter reaching out with odd little messages. But Tony knew that wasn’t it, at least not fully. The silence of his now ever beeping phone had brought Tony back to those five years with no messages at all.
Hey Tony! I aced my math test :)
If my suit charger is pinging does that mean it's done? Ps. Will charging it like drastically increase the electric bill? because I don’t think May would like that.
{A picture of Peter wearing the glasses} I am Iron Man
I found one of those stuffed animals Morgan was looking for. I’ll bring it next time I visit. :)
Tony? I know it’s late but I really need to talk to someone.
I’m sorry for bothering you, I know it’s late.
Nvm.
Mr. Stark? Did I do something wrong again?
Hey I know you might not care, but my class is going on our trip tomorrow.
Getting on my flight. Would it be okay to call you when I land?
Mr. Stark I know you are mad at me for something but I think Fury is hijacking my trip. You don’t have to come and help but I don’t really know what to do or what’s happening.
I’m going to be honest Tony, I’ve been struggling a lot. My spider sense isn’t working, it’s like wrong. I’ve been trying to deal with it but I don’t know how anymore. It’s like I don’t know me. All my friends are here but everythings different. I really could use your advice. Fury introduced me to this other hero, and you wouldn’t believe me where he’s from. But he’s been pretty helpful and we’ve been talking about a lot of things, but I don’t know if I can talk to him about my Spider-sense. He’s been keeping Fury off my back and I’m thankful he’s here. If i’m being honest he kinda reminds me of you but I’m not trying to replace you or anything. I’m really not, no one ever could, I just thought maybe he had advice since I can’t exactly ask anyone else at the moment. You aren’t answering, and it feels like somethings wrong. But everything always feels wrong now, not only my anxiety but with my spider-sense too and I’m scared. Are you okay? You not answering is making me worry you're not but I’ve been wrong a lot lately.
He lied.
“There’s seven missed calls, no voicemails,” Friday then announced as he reached the end of the text.
The man snarled, the same rush of terror flooding him that he could only remember feeling when Peter had been clutching his chest and whimpering that he wasn’t ready to die. Tony had felt the rush of fear and adrenaline many times in his life, but nothing could ever compare to that.
His child was scared and something had kept him from helping. Someone smothered Peter’s pleas for help, making him curl into himself until Peter thought he was upset with him. They’d isolated him. They’d isolated them both.
“What’d they use to scramble the system?” His words tongue lashing against teeth, rabid and unhinged.
“Licensed Stark Technology,” the humanness he’d programmed into her didn’t show, somehow that distance made it worse than if she’d gone for sympathy.
“Get Fur-”
“Incoming call, Director Nick Fury,” Friday cut him off, and the fact that Nick called first made the situation even worse.
“What the hell did you do with my kid?”
“Jesus Stark, I’m only now getting the details.” It’s been the wrong thing to say because it only left the inventor with more questions.
“He said you hijacked his trip,” every word came out low from within his gut, his vocal cords taut with tension.
“I can explain that too. You see when I met Captain Marvel, I was also introduced to a race of aliens who were under attack from the people of Hala. We’d initially believed their stay on earth had been an invasion of sorts but we were mistaken.” Fury already knew the man over the line was about to tell him to hurry along and get to the point.
“They’re shapeshifters Stark, I had one take my place so I could work on another...project. We found them dead along with a lot of your ex-employes. From what I understand, those elemental creatures were showing up. Random up in comer hero going by the name Mysterio steps into help, either he suggested Spider-Man help or Talos didn’t know how to get a hold of anyone else. Carol found the kid in bad shape, all she’s really told me was Beck, Mysterio, whoever the hell he actually is, is behind it all and currently no where to be found,”
As the call preceded, Friday worked diligently in pulling up the list of dead and their backgrounds at Stark Industries along with a profile on Quentin Beck who she surmised was Mysterio.
Tony remembered him and it certainly wasn’t fondly. Quentin had been insane, sick and vile. He’d wanted to use BARF as a form of warfare, he’d bristled when an alternative use had been suggested. In fact the man’s presence alone warded him away, as if he’d known all along something in the man’s head was twisted.
It showed when he’d fired the man for endangering another worker and the man had gone ballistic. And now that bastard went after Peter. The thought alone made his teeth grind uncomfortably.
“What do you mean by bad shape?” Tony almost surprised himself with how calmly the words came out of his lips.
“I’m sending over the medics log now,” A long list blew up on the screen in front of the inventor making his veins bulge from beneath his skin.
His brain in an attempt to save himself from giving himself an ulcer or heart attack tried not to focus on each individual injury, but the words Hemorrhage, Torn, fractured, and laceration, made his knees weak. So much so he had to place his arm on the table to keep his balance.
“I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” The inventor concluded, an unreadable look in his eyes. He’d been looking forward to a peaceful retirement, and now, he was looking forward to getting his hands on Beck and making him pay for laying his hands on his child.
Peter couldn’t explain why he wasn’t afraid when he met Maria Rambeau, he supposed it was her motherly aura and kind eyes. It helped seeing her interacting with Carol, the bond between the two electric in the air.
“Why don’t we get you something to eat?” She suggested easily, carefully putting a hand on his shoulder and leading him into the house with ease while still being mindful of his injuries. The teen sat heavily at the table, stomach rumbling for something filling even when his tender face protested at the thought of chewing.
“Tortellini in Brodo,” she announced, setting down a bowl of the soup in front of him. The food inside the liquid soft enough he didn’t have to noxiously chew it down to swallow.
“Thank you,” the teen murmured, hand shaking as he fed himself a couple of spoonfuls, moaning appreciatively as the warmth eased his throat.
“I made a whole pot figuring you’d need a lot, even if you're not eating it all in one sitting,” the second part came as an afterthought, a reassurance as if she knew he’d be anxious about the situation. She brushed his hair out of his face, leaving him to eat as she and Carol converged in the living room.
“What kind of fucking monster did that to that poor boy?” she snapped, leaning back against the wall while Carol perched herself against the window.
“Mysterio,”
“That stupid looking guy on the news?”
“I guess he’s not as stupid as he looks,”
“Miss Carol?” the teen asked softly as she tucked him into bed, the act too difficult for Peter to do himself with his arm molded into a cast and eyes drooping with fatigue.
“Yeah?”
The boy’s face contorted as if he wasn’t sure how to ask his question, so when the word, “How?” Breached his lips, and his own lost look accompanied her own, they stayed quiet as she figured it out.
“Someone lied to me before too.” She didn’t have to say anymore than that because the jaded look in her eyes was mirrored back to her in his own.
“Did you get better?” the seventeen year old in front of her she could possibly mistake for seven as he melted further into the pillows.
Flashing a reassuring smile, the blonde nodded, her fingers curling as she swept the boy’s bangs behind his ears. It was enough to send the teen off to sleep and push the air from her obnoxiously tight lungs.
“Both those assholes seemed to do a lot more than lie,” Maria hummed from the doorway, gazing down at the battered teen the same way she’d look down at Monica when she went back to sleep after a nightmare.
“Their mistake. We always come back stronger,” she had, and she had a feeling Peter would too. Carol understood that some villains take things from you, shaping you into a new you. Peter Parker would never again be a naive teen who had the utmost faith in everyone he met ever again.
In this business she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. It could go either way.
The half burned bodies littered with bullet holes strewn about the bar didn’t bother him in the way he thought they would. What bothered him was the fact that Peter had been here and these people had done everything they could to help Beck hurt him.
Tony grit his teeth, suit buzzing in warning as footsteps approached. He knew who it was, how could the bastard resist.
“Your stupidity amazes me, you know that?” turning towards Mysterio, Tony’s gauntlet charged, ready to fire and blow him to shreds.
“My stupidity? You steal my invention and my boldness is what amazes you?” Beck retorted, eyes seemingly made of steel.
“Steal? You signed a clause for intellectual property. And not only that, you wanted to use it for warfare. Everything you suggested qualified as a war crime,” Tony snarled, flashes of his past assaulting him.
“You called my life’s work BARF!” Beck shouted in rage, temples throbbing, the veins in his neck bulging.
“You attacked my kid,” Tony shot back. The boy being the wrong thing to bring up because Mysterio smiled almost maliciously and fondly all at once. The array of mixed feelings in his eyes jarring. Madness bouncing off him in waves.
“I did,” Quinten spoke evenly, suddenly composed, “I’ll be honest, I really didn’t want to. I really didn’t,” Beck grinned, seemingly endeared, looking off and seemingly reminiscing.
The avenger unnerved shot his arm to the side, blowing a waiting drone to bits, Friday and Edith having already located the lingering threats. The thought of Beck, the madman, thinking back on Peter with a sense of...affection? Felt almost as if something had reached into his body, holding both his heart and throat, squeezing and twisting until he couldn’t think.
A hot flash of emotion infesting him.
“I thought maybe I could get him to see, he was so close, so close. I could have gotten him so far, but he insisted on holding onto you. I can fix this though, I just need you dead. I can take everything from you then, including Peter. He’ll be pretty useful in the end, a perfect hero trained by me: what were the kids calling me? A mixture between Iron Man and Thor? That one really upset Pete. But it's okay, I know what I’m doing. And this interaction brought something to light that may make things easier. But maybe that’d take all the fun out of it if he didn’t remember you,”
Tony didn’t even blink as he shot the bastard, the man’s image fizzed out, an illusion it seemed. The missiles locked in the suit’s backing shot out all at once, decimating every last drone until there was nothing left.
“Sir, I’ve calculated where the broadcast originated from. It appears he’s in an abandoned botanical garden. Five hundred miles south,” Tony didn’t bother to say thank you and he wouldn’t bother with letting Mysterio speak either. He’d be dead the second he stepped in front of him.
No one was going to take Peter away from him again, he’d gone five long years without his son and he didn’t intend on letting Peter do the same without him while in the clutches of a madman.
Mysterio was dead and three months had passed, Peter had yet to return home or talk to Tony or his aunt. He thought with Beck confirmed dead he’d feel safer and more sure of himself, so did Maria and Carol but they couldn’t have been more wrong.
With Quentin gone his only source of answers had been taken. The little things he’d started to feel assured about dissipated. He’d spent the first month under the belief Tony had died in that inevitable fight.
Carol had tried to play Tony’s voicemails to the boy but he couldn’t be swayed. The two women had a hard time watching it but they dried his tears when he cried, woke him when the nightmares of him clinging to Tony’s chest while Thanos fell to dust behind them returned.
They sat around the TV as a unit playing video games and watching cartoons. Maria taught him a great many things, how to cook, explaining how to fly, how to play cards, and roast the most golden brown marshmallow possible.
Month two had consisted of uncertainty, mainly with himself. Hesitation in each action, a lack of will to do anything at all for himself. Fear permeating anything and everything, encouragement was needed.
They ordered a weighted blanket for the panic attacks, had water and ice available at all times. Carol was pretty sure the child drank more chocolate milk this month than she’d ever drank in her life, and he played more animal crossing than she’d played the arcade games at her favorite bar.
And this last month his animal crossing hours stayed the same, and so did his consumption of chocolate milk but he’d gained his footing once more, and was sure Tony hadn’t died. Not to mention, he was more certain that Beck hadn’t messed with more things than he’d originally thought.
“Aunt Carol?” the teen questioned, jumping in tandem with the hero on the new trampoline while Maria was inside getting lunch ready.
“Yeah twirp?” she laughed, successfully flipping in the air before bouncing onto her front.
“What if I finally see my family, Tony, and I break?” their bouncing came to a less than graceful stop, both of them curling into a criss cross applesauce position, wind tousling their hair while the heat bore them down.
Peter studied his mickey mouse pajama bottoms intently, unable to look back up at her sunlight halo.
“He’d understand if you did, but I think you’re ready. And if you aren’t, if you're okay with it, maybe he can help you get there,”
He met her gaze with a weak smile, “I want to see Tony,”
“I’ll let him know,” Carol smiled, excusing herself as the boy did a few flips. The second she got inside she was squealing with excitement and Maria who was watching her with keen eyes squealed too when she realized what was happening. They were proud of their boy.
When Tony landed he didn’t think much of the mass of land, the quaint house, and large awning. Although the scenery helped expel some of the breath lodged in his throat, it reminded him of home, and it brought him some comfort that Peter was somewhere nurturing rather than something foreign and unaccommodating.
The door creaked as it opened, his footsteps staggering on the steps but it wasn’t Peter who opened the door. He didn’t recognize the woman and for a minute he was afraid he’d gotten the wrong house but that was quickly brushed off by her sympathetic look.
“They’re playing on the trampoline,” she announced, pointing to the side, an obvious sign to walk around the house. Moving to do so, the billionaire sucked in a breath when the squeaking of springs met his ears, his heart skipping a beat when a very familiar laugh soon followed.
It actually was only familiar in voice, not in volume or excitement, he’d never had the privilege of hearing Peter sound so...carefree, lost in the moment. His pace quickened, his legs threatening to give out on him when the boy came into view.
His hands were intertwined with Carol’s as they tried to jump together, stumbling and laughing as the springs groaned.
“Kid,” it came out no more than a whisper, unheard as the two continued to bounce, falling onto their sides when they couldn’t keep their balance, laughing hard enough Tony was sure it hurt.
Carol noticed him first, Peter’s back to him. The heroine spoke to the teen, likely letting him know he was here before she started heading inside. Tony knew it was his cue to do something, and since he had Morgan he’d learned how to get on his childrens level.
Peter picked at the leaves that’d blown onto the trampoline, stiff and tense, eerily silent as his mentor approached. Tony less than gracefully walked around the circle, staring at the boy for a second who didn’t look up, not even as he clumsily pulled himself up.
The avenger mirrored Peter’s twisted position, sitting on his legs, a mere foot away from the teen. The arachnids eyes bounced as they darted to his legs and then back to the leaf in his hand.
“It’s been awhile Pete,” Tony murmured knowing Peter wouldn’t speak first, “Too long. If I’m being honest kid, I think missing you has become a part of me. And I’ll wait longer if you need me too, but you need to know I’m here,”
“I know,” the teen whispered, and quicker than lightning Peter struck, jumping into his mentor's arm, sobbing into his chest, “I really, really, missed you too,” was warbled into the fabric of Tony's shirt. The feeling so right Peter was sure it was Beck who was only seeing half the picture, because from where he was sitting, it was whole to him.