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Tony’s knees buckle.
Rhodey and Steve reach for him at the same time, sharp gasps and are you okay on the tips of both their tongues. Tony beats them to it.
“What the fuck?” He spits out, but he isn’t angry, he isn’t afraid, he isn’t even shocked. He’s utterly numb. Hollow. “How the hell - where is he?”
“Shit. You need to sit down, Tony, I tried to tell you-”
“Rhodey. Please. Please. Where’s my kid?”
Maybe it’s his raw desperation or his quivering voice. Most likely, it’s the unshed tears that blur his vision. Rhodey meets his eyes, and his face softens exponentially.
“Don’t punch my teeth in,” Rhodey says, slow and overly kind, as if trying to draw in a wounded animal, “but it’s complicated.”
“Bruce can explain it better than either of us.” Steve’s voice drips with pity. Tony hates it with every fiber of his being.
“He can explain it later. Where’s Peter?”
“He can explain it now.” Rhodey helps Tony regain his footing, but his tone leaves no room for argument. “He needs to before you see him, Tony. Trust me on this one.”
Like that’s supposed to make him feel any better. Like the implication that Peter is in far from peak condition helps matters in the slightest. But he does trust Rhodey - not just on this one, but on everything. And so he says, “I...yeah. Yeah. Where’s Bruce?”
Rhodey keeps a hand on his bicep as Steve leads the way, and Tony would be lying if he said it isn’t a comfort. He feels untethered, dissociated, distant, but Rhodey holds him in a firm grip, keeping his feet planted on the ground where they belong.
He hardly recognizes the rebuilt interior of his own compound. He hasn’t exactly spent a whole lot of time in it. The hallways wind differently than they used to. It all feels strange and new, but he sees Pepper’s aesthetic touch in every panel of art, his tech at every door that Steve unlocks.
He wonders if that’s how Peter will be when he finally sees him. Strange and different. New and frightening. Still his stupid, selfless kid all the same. More than anything, Tony wants to see his eyes again. He can barely remember the exact hue of brown they were - the photographs he and May hold sacred don’t do justice to the way they shone in the light.
The way they shine in the light, he corrects himself.
Peter is alive. Peter is alive. Peter is alive.
When Steve stops outside their final destination, Tony’s hopeful ponderings cease, and his blood runs cold. A lot of the things about the compound have changed in the rebuild, but this area hasn’t. He remembers it vividly. It’s never been the sort of place to provoke fondness.
They’re in the containment zone.
“Somebody better start explaining,” Tony says shakily as the door slides open and an evergreen Bruce-Hulk steps out, looking more weary than ever, “because I’m actually about to lose my shit.”
His shit, he thinks, was lost when Steve woke him with the ominous opener of don’t freak out. But it’s the thought that counts.
“Tony.” Bruce fakes a smile. “Long time, no see.”
“Is he in a cell?” Tony asks. The way the other three heroes shift their weight and avoid his eyes tells him all he needs to know. “You put him in a fucking power-dampening cell?”
“It’s not like that,” Bruce says. “It’s not that simple. Peter isn’t - quite himself right now. He’s...we had to make sure he wasn‘t dangerous.”
Tony’s chest pinches as he breathes in deep and attempts to digest that. The words Peter and dangerous don’t belong in the same general ballpark, let alone the same breath. This is the kid who uses his several multi-million dollar supersuits to rescue kittens stuck in trees, who battled Thanos and came out on the other side with his smile still in place, who shoulders more than his fair share of undue trauma and shines on in spite of it.
Shines. Shone? Does he still shine that way? It doesn’t sound like it, if the way they’re all speaking of him is any indication. Has his flame finally been snuffed out?
Can it be rekindled?
Tony just wants to remember the color of his fucking eyes. He just wants to see him.
“How could he ever be ‘dangerous’?” He asks. “Have you met him? Are we talking about the same Peter?”
“No,” Bruce says. “Not really. Beck - or whoever he’s been with this whole time - did some things to him, Tony. Like I said, he’s not himself.”
“What kinds of things? I’m asking more questions than you’re answering here, Banner. They told me you were going to explain this shit.”
Bruce shoots Steve and Rhodey a sharp look. “I...don’t think I can explain this. You need to see it for yourself.”
And just like that, the world shifts. The planet itself seems to tilt on its axis as Bruce leads them into the room, and Tony imagines digging his heels into the ground with each slow step, keeping himself upright and stable in the only way he knows how - by lying to himself. By pretending.
He sees the back of Peter’s head first. His heart lurches into his throat. The kid’s curls are too long, matted - a testament to the fact that he’s lived the last year in less than ideal conditions. Peter stands facing away from the door in a cell not dissimilar to the one Loki was kept in so many years ago, and the sight turns his stomach. Peter doesn’t deserve to be locked up like an intergalactic war criminal.
“Peter?” Bruce calls, far too cautious, too gentle. “Someone’s here to see you, buddy.”
Peter doesn’t turn. With a sigh, Bruce looks at Tony and nods toward the cell, mouthing over here. They walk around the cylindrical glass barrier and stop in front of Peter’s downturned face.
It isn’t as bad as Tony thought. It’s worse.
Peter lifts his head. The light glints off a cybernetic implant not unlike Nebula’s attached around his left eye, carved into the flesh of his forehead and cheekbone. He flinches and stumbles backward at the sight of them all standing so close, wrapping his arms defensively around his midsection - both his right arm and the high-tech prosthesis his left has been replaced with. His clothes, a set of plain, black medical scrubs, are wrinkled and torn. The layer of grime he’s covered in makes it look like his skin hasn’t seen water in weeks. Maybe months.
“Shit,” Tony says, feeling weak. “Peter. Shit, kid.”
Peter begins to speak, voice rough from either unuse or overuse - Tony can’t decide which is worse - as he slowly moves toward the middle of the cell. Away from them. Away from Tony.
“The lamb is slain,” he mumbles. “The lamb is slain. The lion wins.”
“What’s he saying?” Tony’s eyes burn with the threat of tears. He glances between the others, desperate to understand. “What the hell does that mean?”
“We’re not sure,” Rhodey says, eyebrows drawn, gaze locked on Peter. “He’s been saying a lot of strange things. We can’t make heads or tails of any of it.”
Now on the opposite end of the cell, as far away from them as he can get, Peter turns his back again.
“Six,” he says, seemingly to no one. He repeats it like Pepper repeats the grocery list to herself before she walks out the door. “Six. Six and the Alpha. Six. Six.”
“I’m - fuck.” Tony tears his eyes away from the kid and sinks to the floor with all the grace that a fifty-something can muster. Bile climbs his throat. “I can’t do this. Holy shit.”
Rhodey goes down with him, a hand gripping his shoulder, and gives him a firm shake. “Hey. Don’t spiral, Tones. We’ll figure this out. Everything’s going to be fine.”
But it’s too late. The spiral is more like a hamster wheel than anything, and Tony’s already on it. He’s not sure how to make it stop - if it even can stop.
“What should we do?” Steve asks the room.
Tony glances up again at Peter, who stands repeating six and the Alpha, six to himself like a broken prayer.
“Call May Parker.”
“Don’t freak out.”
May groaned, voice groggy. “Oh, God. What am I supposed to not freak out over?”
“Deja vu.” Tony cleared his throat. To Happy’s credit, there really weren’t any good ways to begin this brand of decidedly not-good conversation. “Okay. So. Your boyfriend may or may not be on his way to the Netherlands to rescue your nephew, who may or may not be in imminent mortal danger. Your nephew who’s really terrible at obeying direct orders, by the way - you might want to look into that.”
“What?”
“I didn’t do it,” Tony added quickly. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“I’ll kill him. Please tell me he’s okay. I’m gonna kill him.”
“Happy might beat you to it.”
“Tony. Is he okay?”
The honesty burned his throat, reminded him of his own helplessness. “I don’t know, May. I really don’t know. I hope so, but I’m as out of the loop as you are.”
It was strange, viewing Peter’s safety through the lens of the unknown, but he liked to think it bred an abnormal sort of solidarity between May and himself. He couldn’t help but wonder how she’d put up with it for so long. How she’d lost the child she raised, gotten him back, and was still willing to let him act the hero. How she still entrusted Peter to this lifestyle without spending every waking minute aching for an update, a phone call, a hug.
Tony was strong in a lot of ways - but he wasn’t strong like that.
“Okay.” May exhaled, long and deep. “Alright. I need to call Happy. Will you be okay if I hang up? Are you alone?”
Her consideration made his throat tighten. Tony glanced at his wife, asleep and oblivious. “Pep’s here. I’m fine. Do what you need to do.”
“Take care of yourself, Tony. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Uh-huh.”
The line went dead. Tony pulled the phone away from his ear, breath harsh. Pepper stirred and sat up.
“Tony?” She asked, sleep-laden. “What’s wrong?”
“Okay, uh - don’t freak out…”
“Peter? Hi, baby. Can you look at me?”
May, who had entered the compound in a whirlwind, her anxiety so sharp it was contagious, now looks entirely deflated as she places one shaking hand against the glass.
Peter curls in on himself and slinks away to the other end of the cell. He doesn’t spare her so much as a glance. “Blue six. Green six. Six and the Alpha. Six. Six.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Tony says as Happy steps forward to wrap an arm around May’s shoulders. “We didn’t exactly get warm greetings, either.”
But the tears in May’s eyes are ready to spill when she turns to look at him, and Tony knows she’s taking it personally, anyway. How can she not? This is her kid. The kid she took shopping for Halloween costumes. The kid she helped with math homework. The kid whose tears she wiped away, whose anxious stomach she soothed, whose grief and burdens she’s shouldered as her own.
Tony tries to put himself in her shoes, tries to imagine an eighteen year old Morgan in that cell, but his psyche shuts him down in no uncertain terms: don’t go there.
May says, “Let him out.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bruce says, his eyes flicking between Tony and May. “He’s-”
May gives Bruce the sort of withering look only a distressed mother can conjure. “He’s not dangerous. He’s just a kid. Let him out.”
Bruce looks to Tony in search of confirmation. Tony doesn’t think it’s his decision to make, frankly, except maybe for the fact that his money funded the prison Peter is now entrapped in. He nods anyway.
“Just…” Bruce moves toward the control panel slowly, as if granting them a moment to come to their senses. “Just don’t touch him. Last time somebody tried to put their hands on him, it - didn’t go well.”
A brief look of anguish flashes across May’s face before she squares her shoulders and straightens her back. Tony knows exactly what she’s feeling, because he feels it, too. It’s a grief that seizes their lungs, a fear of the unknown that shakes them down to their very bones, a hope and a love that brighten the tone of their pain into something lighter than it has been. They take pinched breaths in tandem as the glass barrier retracts into the floor with a loud hiss.
Peter’s mumbling stops abruptly. He looks up in their general direction, not quite meeting their eyes, and takes two painstakingly slow steps toward the edge of the cell. The fingers of his prosthesis are outreached toward empty space where the glass had been. If Tony didn’t know any better, he’d say the kid looks almost hopeful .
And then, all at once, there is a shift. Peter’s face goes blank again. He wraps his arms around himself and moves, quick and calculated, toward the door.
“Honey, no-” May reaches out on instinct to grab his arm - and Peter screams.
The bloodcurdling nature of the sound comes in handy: May releases him and stumbles backward just as he gives one vigorous sweep of his metallic arm. The movement is awkward, clumsy, and so unlike Peter’s normal sense of bodily control that Tony’s chest aches at the sight.
Tony steps forward, his own prosthesis extended, then falters - he knows Peter needs to be restrained, and he knows he isn’t strong enough to restrain an enhanced person, but God, he just wants to hold the kid. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently, it is.
The way Steve takes the kid down is a far cry from an embrace. Peter screams again and lunges toward May and Happy, face the picture of terror and panic, eyes alight with a pain so soul-deep Tony wonders if he’ll ever know something as intangible as recovery. Steve meets him halfway, trips him forward, and wrenches him down. The way Peter flails and screams screams screams in his hold is so inhumane, so unnatural, that the only words Tony can think of to describe it are fish out of water.
May begins to cry. Tony tries not to, hands clenched at his sides to hold it all in. They watch in wordless shock as Bruce rushes toward Steve’s side with a full syringe and administers it. Within seconds, Peter goes limp, and Steve’s grip visibly loosens.
The room is quiet - but it’s not, really. His screams echo on and on and on.
“He won’t pick up my calls.”
“Mine either. I’m working on it.”
“Work on it faster.”
“How the hell am I supposed to locate a lost teenager faster?”
“Happy, this isn’t fucking okay-”
“-I never said it was okay, I said I’m working on it. ”
Tony rubbed a hand down his face and willed his drum-beating heart to slow. “I know. Shit. Sorry. I know. I’m just…”
He trailed off, lost for words, but Happy seemed to get the gist. “Yeah. Me, too.”
Anxiety curled its claws around his heart and squeezed. Tony fought not to scratch the itch to try Peter’s phone again, just in case it was on this time. Just in case the call went through. Just in case, just in case, just in case.
You need to learn to let things go, the therapist Pepper insisted he needed had told him only months ago. You can’t hold onto every feeling, to everyone, to everything. You need to let things go.
Even then, the advice had reeked of bullshit. Let things go. If only he could. If only his life were that simple.
His very bones screamed the truth - he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone - but Tony tuned it out. He couldn’t let Peter go. He refused.
“Have you talked to May recently?” He asked.
“Yeah,” Happy said, sounding exhausted. “Just a few minutes ago. She’s...not taking it so well. What about you?”
“Me? I’m good. I’m fine. Just - worried. I’ll be alright.”
“Tony.”
“I’m okay, Hap. Swear on my right arm.”
“That’s not funny.”
Tony released a dry, humorless huff of laughter, because he feared if he didn’t laugh, he might cry. “Funny to me. Fuck. Just...keep me updated, alright? Let me know if anything changes.”
He lowered his phone for what felt like the hundredth time that day - or maybe the five hundredth. He hadn’t kept track.
Again, the waves crashed - don’t let him go - but it was too late. Tony already had.
And now he had to live with the consequences.
“So he just…”
“Stumbled onto the front lawn in the middle of the night, altered with cybernetic implants and mumbling nonsensical bullshit?” Tony says dryly, taking comfort in his wife’s warm weight pressed against his side. “Yeah. Basically.”
“You don’t have any leads on who did this to him?” Pepper pauses. “Was it Beck?”
“Probably.”
“That’s…”
“Yeah.”
They stand together and watch as this dystopian scene unfolds before them: on the floor of his newly-renovated, high-security bedroom in the compound, Peter rocks back and forth, metallic and flesh arms both wrapped tight around his knees. May sits a yard away from him, eyes glistening.
“I’m here, baby,” May whispers. She reaches out to him, then seems to think better of it. Her hand retracts. “It’s me. I’m here. I’m right here.”
Peter’s replies are predictable at this point, but still unsettling, nonetheless. “Blue six. Green six. Six and the Alpha.”
“What does that mean?” There’s a note of desperation in May’s voice, a longing to understand. “What are you trying to say, Peter?”
“The lion,” Peter mumbles toward his knees. “The lion wins. Wins.”
Tony brings a hand to his face and rubs at his temples, shoulder digging into the doorframe. He should be able to decipher the undercurrent of meaning hidden beneath those phrases - there should be a meaning, a pattern, a puzzle for him to solve. There has to be.
But maybe there isn’t.
Maybe he can’t.
“We’ll figure this out, Tony," Pepper says, ever the mind reader, as she wraps an arm around his waist. “Peter’s going to be okay. We’ll fix this. We always do.”
Tony has no response for that. The only one he can muster is not the one any of them want to hear.
Maybe, he wants to say, maybe we aren’t lucky this time. Maybe our luck’s run out.
They’ve beaten too many odds, had too many mathematically impossible victories, won too many lopsided wars for luck to not be a deciding factor.
Maybe this is the one they lose.