Chapter Text
To see a world in a grain of sand.
And a heaven in a wildflower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake
Saturday 14th December 2024
Tony glanced at the digital clock illuminated on the far wall of the workshop before looking back to his hologram and inputting the final couple lines of code. He’d been working for most of the day, timing his sessions carefully around Peter coming and going from the Tower to keep the project away from the teenager’s curious eyes. Christmas was only just over a week away and he was determined to keep Peter’s gift a surprise, no matter how difficult his nosy kid made that feat.
His eyes shifted back to the project, passing briefly over the photo frame that had pride of place on his desk. The image was of Peter, slumped over his desk across from Tony’s in the lab, his head resting on his outstretched arm, using the limb as a pillow. His E.D.I.T.H. glasses were askew, digging into the side of the kid’s nose as he slept, his mouth hanging open. Tony stood behind him in an almost identical pair of glasses, giving the person holding the camera a wide smile and a double thumbs-up as he lent over Peter’s sleeping frame. The photo was one of his favourites.
The idea for Peter’s glasses had come to him before The Blip when he and the rest of the Avengers – and the overly lifelike Build-A-Bear, Rocket – had been working on throwing together the plan that would allow them to use the Time-Space GPS to travel through the Quantum Tunnel.
For the five years since The Snap, Tony had had no hope. He had lost Peter, his kid, the one person he loved more than anything in the world. He had resigned himself to a life of darkness and sorrow, because how could he ever be happy again when he had lost the one thing that made his life worthwhile? The one thing he had vowed to protect, above anything else?
And then Rogers, Nat and Tiny-Giant-Man had turned up to the cabin he had hidden away in for so long and given Tony hope again. Just a spark, at first. But it was a spark that grew quickly, engulfing Tony relentlessly until he could think of nothing else other than that tiny sliver of hope that he might be able to see Peter again.
So, he got to work.
He cracked time-travel in a few hours and had the Time-Space GPS ready to go after another few. The more he thought about the possibility of getting Peter back, the harder he worked. There was a chance. It was slim, minute even, but it was there, and that was good enough for Tony.
But, the more Tony thought about the possibility of getting Peter back, the more he realised how dangerous what they were about to attempt truly was. Yes, there was a chance he would get Peter back. But he knew there was a chance he wouldn’t make it himself. It was, of course, a sacrifice Tony was willing to make to ensure that his kid, and the other fifty per cent, would be able to live.
But, Peter had already lost so much in his short life; first his parents, then his uncle. When his aunt had been diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of cancer at the start of Peter’s Sophomore year, he was sure the kid would finally break. Tony had taken Peter under his wing more than ever before, organising lab days, training sessions and movie marathons, anything to give the kid a break from watching his last living relative fade away before his eyes. It was only a couple of months after her diagnosis that May had asked to speak with Tony privately. It was then, with her prognosis deteriorating by the day, that she had asked him to look after Peter after she was gone.
“You’re all he has left,” May had said.
Despite being out of his depth beyond belief and scared shitless, Tony agreed.
It was only a week after their conversation that May Parker passed away – as though knowing there would be someone left to look after Peter had granted her the peace of mind to let go – and Tony had adopted Peter.
The kid had been devastated. It had taken Tony at least two weeks to coax Peter out of his room for anything that wasn’t May’s funeral or the very occasional meal. He stopped going to school, he stopped going out as Spider-Man, he stopped seeing his friends. For a really long time, it was brutal, and Tony had wondered if Peter would ever recover.
But, somehow, they got through it. Peter was resilient, stronger than anybody Tony had ever met. He grieved, but he grew, eventually throwing himself back into school, making up for the missed time and reintegrating himself with his friends and decathlon team. He slowly began patrolling again, just for a couple of hours here and there, until his confidence grew, and then it was as though he’d never been away. Of course, there were still dark days. Days where the memories of loss would come crashing down anew, sweeping Peter away with them. Tony was always there, comforting and cradling Peter in his arms, and thankfully, those occasions had slowly become less and less.
As Peter grew, so did Tony. He grew further and further away from the image of Howard he was so afraid that he would replicate, and into the type of person he never dreamed he would be able to become.
A parent.
And, as Peter often told him, a good one.
And Tony felt love for Peter. Real love. The kind that transcended worlds and universes and didn’t disappear at the first sign of trouble – here one day, gone the next – it simply was. It was infinite and absolute. The kind of love only parents knew.
Then Thanos had snapped.
And Tony’s universe had been ripped apart.
Five torturous years passed until a new hope had been delivered, bringing an unfathomable danger with it. A danger Tony knew he might not come back from.
So, alongside the designing the Time-Space GPS and planning their leap through the Quantum Tunnel, Tony built something to keep Peter safe if he…couldn't.
The glasses.
They were almost identical to Tony’s own – a feature he hoped Peter would appreciate – holding a unique AI he had named E.D.I.T.H., with access to Stark Industries security, defence and tactical intelligence systems. If he ended up being unable to protect Peter, he knew that SI and E.D.I.T.H. would be able to.
So, with a contingency plan in place in the form of E.D.I.T.H., Tony and the team set about executing their plan.
They used the Pym particles to retrieve the stones and… it worked.
Tony created a gauntlet strong enough to hold them and… it worked.
Bruce snapped his fingers to bring back the fifty per cent and… it worked.
It worked.
It didn’t matter that a battle raged around him or that the compound was obliterated or that they were fighting for their lives again. When Tony saw Peter swing through Doctor Strange’s portal, it was the happiest moment of his life. He was there, alive, and for the first time in five years, Tony could breathe again.
The battle raged on, but despite their numbers, they were losing. Thanos was just too strong. And Tony knew what he had to do.
The funny thing about being a parent was that, if you were doing it right, it was unconditional. There was nothing you wouldn’t give, nothing you wouldn’t do, to save your child. And Tony knew that he would give his life for Peter’s. He had spent the five years since The Snap wishing that he could.
So, when Tony raised his hand, Infinity Stones in place, and looked Thanos in the eye, he wasn’t scared. He was happy that he had had the opportunity to meet Peter Parker and grateful to May for trusting him with the most precious thing in her life. He felt peaceful in the knowledge that Peter would be safe and looked after, by Rhodey and Pepper and the team but also, partly by him through E.D.I.T.H. and SI.
He felt hopeful, that whenever Peter put on the glasses, his kid would think of him.
So, Tony thought of Peter and snapped. And it had hurt. A lot.
When he woke up days later in a Wakandan hospital, minus an arm but still alive, with Peter slumped in the chair at his bedside, he knew it had all been worth it.
The recovery had been slow and painful and arduous. His wound had mostly healed within a few weeks thanks to Wakanda’s advanced technology and techniques but getting himself used to a life with only one arm had been tough. Peter was by his side the entire time, a constant reminder that his sacrifice had been worth it, but Tony was an inventor, an engineer, a mechanic. He relied on his hands for his work and he needed both of them. Princess Shuri had offered to produce him a prosthesis – it wouldn’t be her first, having done the same for Barnes – but Tony had refused. He wanted to do it himself back in New York, for no reason really, other than to prove that he could.
He was scarred now too, the Infinity Stones insisting on leaving behind nearly as much as they took. The scars almost reached his face, but thankfully stopped just short. Unlike normal scars, they weren’t white, but rather deep bruised versions of colours like red and blue and green – reminders of the stones – leaving Tony with trails from his stump, across his chest and up his neck. Tony didn’t mind them so much; they, and the loss of Tony’s arm, were a small price to pay to bring Peter back to life.
It had been over a year since the Battle of Earth, as the press loved to call it, and other than Peter’s little European battle against Mysterio, things had been pretty quiet on the whole bad-guys-trying-to-take-over-the-world front. And even though it had just been another traumatic experience to add to Peter’s ever-growing list of traumatic experiences, the kid’s trip to Europe just before his Senior year at school hadn’t been a total dud. He’d managed to come back home with his long-time crush MJ as his actual girlfriend, which in Peter’s eyes, had made the whole near-death experience thing totally worth it.
Tony liked MJ. Sure, she was scary as hell, but she was good for Peter. The past year had been tough on the kid. Adjusting back to normal life was difficult for any of the fifty per cent, but Peter had the final battle with Thanos, almost losing Tony and his run-in with Mysterio to deal with on top, and Tony knew, no matter how hard Peter tried to hide it, that everything he’d been through weighed on the kid.
The nightmares were evidence of that.
MJ helped a lot. She dragged Peter out of his room to do actual activities that actual teenagers did. She made Peter smile, made him happy, and gave him something other than Spider-Man to think about.
Tony was especially thankful for MJ for insisting that Peter accompany her to the Rockefeller Centre to go ice-skating that evening because it gave Tony a few extra hours to work on the kid’s Christmas present in peace. With the coding complete, Tony inserted the chip into the handle of Peter’s gift, using his right hand – his prosthetic hand – to hold the unit in place while his left hand closed the casing. He placed the gift on its matching stand and sat back to admire his work. A Lightsaber. A fully functioning, life-sized Lightsaber. The kid was going to freak.
Tony grabbed the gift and walked over to the barely used filing cabinet in the corner of the lab, placing the Lightsaber handle in one of the draws carefully and covering it with a few probably important documents. The cabinet didn’t have any special security features, it barely even had a lock, but it was the only place Tony knew Peter wouldn’t snoop, making it the perfect gift-hiding spot.
Satisfied with a job well done, Tony made his way to his room to get changed. He wasn’t expecting Peter back for at least another couple of hours, but he liked to wait up to make sure he got home okay. Spider-Man or not, Tony had found he couldn’t rest easy until he knew his kid was back from his adventures in the city safely.
He removed his Iron Arm, as Peter has dubbed it, and placed it on the stand in his closet. It was one of many. Once he had mastered the intricacies of creating an arm that was both practical and usable in and out of the lab, he had set about making at least a dozen more, and they all had their own stands within his closet. Some had interchangeable hand attachments which made some jobs in the lab a lot easier, others just replicated a normal hand, intended more for casual use. Many had their own colour schemes too. His everyday arm sported the classic hot rod red and gold of his Iron Man suits, of course, but others had a more subtle colour scheme, like the all-black he used for fancy dinners and charity galas. A particular favourite of his was his blue and red arm – Spider-Man colours – which he liked to wear to Peters academic decathlon competitions as a little inside joke between him and his kid.
With his arm safely stored away, Tony changed into a pair of navy-blue sweatpants and a threadbare AD/DC t-shirt. He settled himself in the living room, instructing F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn the TV on low in the background, and grabbed his Starkpad, planning to work on some SI designs Pepper had been badgering him about for the past couple of days.
It felt like no time at all had passed when F.R.I.D.A.Y. spoke up, alerting him that Peter had entered the lobby and was on his way up to their penthouse, as per her protocol. Tony checked the time in the top left corner of his tablet screen, noting that only half an hour had passed since he’d come up from the lab.
He heard the penthouse elevator doors open and the squeak of wet sneakers on the hardwood floor, heading in his direction.
“Hey, kid,” Tony said, his eyes still fixed on the blueprints on his tablet as Peter entered the living room. “Wasn’t expecting you back so soon, you guys have fun?”
Tony braced himself, ready for the onslaught of energy that Peter produced whenever he spent an evening out with MJ or Ned doing real-life, normal teenager activities. One of Peter’s favourite hobbies was coming home and filling Tony in on every tiny little thing he and his friends had gotten up to, from the hotdog stand that had been running out of mustard (“I mean, how do they expect anyone to eat a hotdog without mustard? It’s a travesty I tell you, a travesty!”) to the ant he had spotted by a bench in Central Park, trying to carry an entire potato chip that Peter had dropped (“I thought for a second it could have been one of Mr Lang’s buddies, but I couldn’t see a tiny saddle anywhere.”). Honestly, sometimes Tony felt like he’d been out with the kid, his play-by-plays were so thorough.
Tony typed a couple more things into the Starkpad before he realised Peter hadn’t replied. He looked up as Peter gave a pitiful sniff, startled at the sight before him. The kid was a mess. A tears streaming, nose running, soaked through to the bone, hair plastered to his forehead, mess. Tony felt his stomach lurch as he took in Peter’s face. He was sickly pale, his eyes wide as they brimmed with tears and bore into Tony helplessly.
Tony sprung to his feet, grabbing a knitted blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapping it tightly around Peter’s sodden frame and he guided him to sit down.
“Kid,” Tony started, his voice tinged with panic, “talk to me, what happened?”
A moment passed. Tony was about to repeat himself when Peter finally spoke up.
“I fucked up, Tony,” he whispered. A silent tear slid down his cheek as he stared straight ahead, eyes wide. “Like, I’ve really fucked up.”
Tony felt a lead weight land in his stomach. He’d never seen Peter like this, so distraught and hopeless, even after all the crap he’d been through. And it scared him shitless.
“Hey, hey,” Tony said, trying to keep his voice steady as he pulled Peter closer, “it’s okay. Whatever you’ve done, we can deal with it, Pete.”
Peter shook his head jerkily. “Not this,” he breathed. “You-you're going to be so disappointed in me,” Peter sobbed as his face crumpled.
Tony cupped the back of Peter’s neck, forcing their eyes to meet. “Pete, you could never disappoint me. Never, okay?” Tony said, conviction flooding his voice. “Whatever you’ve done we can deal with it together, but you’ve gotta talk to me. I can't help if I don’t know what’s going on.” Peter hesitated. When Tony spoke again his tone was soft. “You know you can tell me anything, Pete.”
There was a pause.
“It’s MJ.”
Tony was confused, but remained silent, not wanting to spook Peter before he said more. Had the pair broken up? If that were the case, why would Peter be worried about Tony being disappointed? He couldn’t see why anything to do with MJ would have Peter in such a state, unless…
“She’s pregnant,” Peter choked out.