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It had been one month.
One month since what was left of the Avengers had traveled across time and retrieved the infinity stones.
One month since Bruce had wielded the iron gauntlet and snapped away the Chitauri army, replacing it with the trillions of lives mercilessly taken from the universe.
Tony scolded himself for thinking it would ever be that easy.
Strange had explained it to him about a million times. The universe was already damaged beyond repair from one snap. Thanos destroying the stones ripped the fabric even more so, and Bruce’s snap a month ago was the cherry on top.
It wasn’t as simple as bringing everyone back. Bruce's snap had scattered them, displacing millions of trillions of living creatures.
Strange didn't sugarcoat it. In fact, he explained in rather visceral detail that Peter had been in space when he vanished, (which Tony didn't need reminded of, thank you), and that the chances of him drifting in the infinite vacuum of space weren’t all that unlikely.
But Strange had appeared back on Earth. He was even able to locate Peter Quill and his circus troupe of galactic warriors, too.
Tony wasn't entirely convinced the universe was as off kilter as Strange claimed it to be; it was still doing a fine job of continually squandering any inkling of hope he ever had.
He stared blankly out the window at the city below from the Tower penthouse. He could see Rhodey standing behind him in the reflection, had heard the soft click of the elevator doors closing moments before. He didn’t acknowledge him.
”Tones.”
Tony closed his eyes.
”Tony...you’ve gotta stop doing this.”
He sniffed, still not acknowledging him. Rhodey sighed behind him before he was stepping forward and standing by his side. Tony felt their arms touch, albeit briefly.
They were both looking down at the city now. It was dark and cold, another result of a third snap in the universe. It was August, yet it was bordering on twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside. The whole damn planet was off its axis.
”Can you at least eat something? Shower? Get some sleep?”
Tony blinked heavily and turned to look at his best friend, who stared back in urgency.
Tony was accepting more and more with these check-ins that the urgency was not in finding Peter, but in getting Tony to understand that the possibility was dwindling.
”...Pepper called.” Rhodey turned back toward the city, his voice gentle. “Mo is...confused, but she misses you. Sounds like she’s getting a little tired of having Uncle Happy around all the time. Pep too.”
Rhodey’s lip had quirked up at his own words, though one glance at Tony and it was fading.
Tony just deflated at the statement, like Rhodey had only reminded him about how badly he was relentlessly failing another kid. He opened his eyes and stared longingly at the skyscrapers below.
He used to wait in that very spot for Peter to get off of patrol, sometimes. He always ducked away from the window before Peter could spot him. God forbid the kid found out Tony was growing fond of him, of finding out how much he cared to know he made it out of a fight in one piece.
He bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood.
”What if he..."
Rhodey's eyes wilted. He wasn't sure how much longer he could entertain the false hope.
“Tony...”
”Just..." Tony begged in a quiet whisper, quick to abandon the thought at the threat of another lecture. "Don't."
”Tony, I...look, as much as it pains me to say, you gotta understand--hell, you do understand. It's basic astrophysics. Pete, he would’ve lasted ten, maybe fifteen seconds in space without a suit.”
”We don't know he came back in space," Tony bit back, his voice rising defensively. "He could...he might be here."
”...I don't think so, man.”
Tony clenched his jaw, turning his head to the side so Rhodey couldn't see him. Rhodey nodded, reverting his gaze back to the window.
”You know why I'm here. I can't let you punish yourself up here forever."
”Mhm," Tony sniffed sharply, finally turning to face his best friend head on. "Right. And, what else would you suggest I do? Hm? Just so we're on the same page here. Are you here to tell me that I have to tell his Aunt..."
His voice broke off at the end and he swallowed, hard, crossing his arms over his chest protectively.
"...that I have to tell someone I lost the kid, again?"
Rhodey stared at him with a special kind of intensity, laced with love and intimacy and guilt.
”...God, Tony, I’m so sorry, man.”
Tony cleared his throat obnoxiously and turned away from the window as Rhodey brought a hand to his friend’s shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.
“Yeah. I’m gonna go on a walk.”
”You walked all morning, Tony. It’s getting late.”
”I’ll be back later. Why don't you stay, and I’ll grab us some dinner.”
Rhodey bit his lip and watched Tony go, his eyes dark as he accepted he was staying the night while Tony threw on a heavy coat. He knew he couldn't deny the man company, couldn't well and leave him on his own like this so deep in his own denial.
”Hey, Tony?”
Tony turned back toward his friend, adjusting the collar of his coat but still not making eye contact. Instead, his gaze was set distantly at the sleek, uninviting flooring of the penthouse, Rhodey just in his peripheral.
He got lost, briefly, in the thought of Peter's socked feet roaming the creaky wooden panels at the cabin, Morgan on his back and a fire kindling in the background.
Rhodey cleared his throat, harshly grounding Tony in the present again.
”I love you, Tones. You’re gonna make it through this.”
Tony’s smile didn’t reach his eyes but it was there all the same. Rhodey clung to it as he watched him flee.
He deflated onto the couch, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling.
It wasn't long until his own throat became constricted, his eyes prickling with tears.
⎊
Tony walked the same route just about every single day for the past month.
His hands shoved in his pockets and his coat wrapped around him protectively, he walked down the same streets and the same sidewalks he always did in the mornings and the evenings.
At first he was searching. Now, he wasn’t sure what he was even looking for anymore.
He knew, in the back of his head, that it was getting late. He'd probably been out walking for hours by now. Snow was beginning to dance in his vision, the busy streets dwindling until it was just him and the
He knew, logically, he should turn around. Grab Chinese for himself and Rhodey, maybe take a skin-melting shower.
Instead he loses himself in the late night traffic, like a fish in a never-ending ocean of grief.
Maybe he shouldn’t go home at all. Maybe it was easier to just swim down.
The cold nipped are his exposed face, the tips of his ears and the end of his nose burning red. Each exhale of breath was visible in front of him. Dark clouds above threatened another snow storm. Tony shoved his hands further into his coat pockets and trudged on.
He knew deep down that it was time to go. He needed to move back to the cabin with his family, both for their sakes and for his. The New York streets no longer held any appeal to them, instead lingering with memories too painful to reminisce.
Everywhere he went, he saw his face.
The city loved Spider-Man. That went without saying. Murals dedicated to his memory streaked every brick wall in plain sight, graced every television displayed in the shop windows.
But not only did Tony see Spider-Man everywhere he went, he saw Peter.
He saw that bright-eyed kid skipping out of Delmar’s, his incredibly peculiar after-school order in tow that always made Tony grimace. He saw him on Tony’s very sidewalk route, coming home from Decathalon practice with those friends of his while they ruffled his hair and asked him elaborate physics questions. He saw him, very indiscreet, look both ways on the sidewalk before slipping into an alley to change for his daily patrols.
⎊
Peter had been to just about every state in the country before he finally found his way home.
He came to in England, he didn’t remember where. All he knew was that one second he was on a planet light years from home, dying in his mentor’s arms, and the next he was lying in a field of green, pounded by heavy rain.
He had stumbled his way to a nearby farmhouse. The family there seemed to be just as confused as he was, but they gave him proper clothes and a place to stay. Peter thanked them to the moon and back before he was hitchhiking to the nearest town to find out what all the fuss was about.
The local townspeople had said it had been five years since an alien named Thanos used six infinity stones to rid half of all life in the universe.
Yeah. Peter remembered that part.
Apparently, Bruce Banner had snapped everyone back, but not before Tony Stark and the rest of the Avengers travelled across time and practically ripped the past apart looking for the infinity stones.
Peter believed it. His heart swelled with warmth at the idea of Tony working that hard for him, as selfish as it sounded.
He learned that the snap had displaced millions of people across the globe, children and adults alike. Someone gave him a number for a hotline that would take his name and contact his family, though the number was so backed up from callers on hold that it barely worked at all.
Peter cursed himself for relying so heavily on technology, because he didn’t even know May or Tony’s phone numbers from memory. They were saved on his phone, wherever that was, and his suit was dead beyond repair.
Peter hitchhiked across Europe in a raggedy t-shirt, an oversized coat, jeans, and a pair of dirty white converse from the family he'd stayed with, though they did nothing to spare him from the biting cold. Jesus, wasn’t it August?
Finally, Peter met a retired commercial pilot at some point on his journey by chance. The man was able to get him a flight to Texas of all places on a rattling old plane, one that Peter slept heavily through.
Whatever, at least he was in the damn country.
From there, he hitched several rides with truckers, an action he knew May would berate him for for all eternity. At least if something did happen, Peter could defend himself with ease.
He wasn’t so lucky in West Virginia.
The fifty dollars in cash he had accumulated on his travels was stolen from him at gunpoint. He tried to defend himself in his sleep deprived, malnourished state, but that only earned himself a gunshot to his upper bicep.
Peter used to think that the Snap didn’t discriminate, but he was starting to think the universe just hated him.
With a blood soaked arm and no money to his name, he ended up hiding inside a train car, the biting cold doing no good for his arm but he hoped that his super healing would prevail anyway.
He was kicked off of the train somewhere in Pennsylvania. From there, the route was far easier than his other several hundred throughout the past month.
Or, well, however long it had been.
All he knew was that it was August when he finally made it to the great state of New York. It was colder than he remembered it being around this time of year.
Somehow, the hundreds of missing person fliers hanging on every tree and telephone pole made it colder.
He remembered being somewhere in Rockland in a breakfast bar when he caught eye of a news station playing footage of Tony walking in the streets of New York City. The headline said something along the lines of “The End of Tony Stark.”
Peter hated himself ten times more for putting his mentor through that kind of grief.
Peter ended up staying for a free cup of coffee and whatever the head chef was willing to give Peter for free. He decided to read a newspaper while he waited.
There was a page in the paper in particular they caught his eye. An alphabetized list of previously vanished residents in New York and their status as far as still being missing.
Peter found his name under the presumed dead column.
He went to the bathroom and cried into his oversized coat before the chef knocked on the bathroom door and told him she had prepared him a meal, free of charge. That was enough to yank Peter right out of his stupor, clinging to the feeling of his super metabolism being satisfied for once that month.
“What happened to you, baby?” The chef said, wiping her hands on a rag as she raised an eyebrow and sent a pointed glance toward Peter’s blood soaked sleeve. “I mean, Jesus, you get shot or something?”
Peter quirked his lip politely. “Nah, I found the coat like this.”
”Uh-huh.” She narrowed her dark eyes. Peter dug into his breakfast before he could be poked at any further, though the chef had a maternal energy that Peter was drawn to.
”What’s your story? You get snapped or what?”
”Yes, ma’am,” Peter said as he munched on a piece of toast, his head and heart satisfied. “Trying to get home.”
”Mm. Where’s that?”
”Queens.”
”Yeesh. You got misplaced, huh?”
”Big time. I was in Europe before this.”
”Jesus. Poor thing. How’d you get here?”
”Got a free flight to Texas. Hitchhiked the rest of the way.”
The chef stared at him, dumbfounded. Peter shrunk under her gaze.
Before he knew it, she was crossing to the register, opening the cash drawer and fumbling through a few tens.
”Here, baby. It’s not much, but it’ll get you a ride or two. I can call you a cab and see how far that gets you.”
”...I-I can’t take this, ma’am. Really. I mean, you made me all this breakfast, I-“
”Shush. You gotta get home, kid. I’m sure your mom and dad are worried sick.”
Peter looked down at his plate, his lip quirked in a grin.
Huh. For the first time in his life, the words “mom” and “dad” didn’t bring with them the mental image of two graves.
Instead, it was the mental image of May and Tony cooking Italian in the Parker kitchen, singing Peter some ridiculous song to lift his spirits.
Bottom line, it was May and Tony. His heart swelled with warmth at the thought.
Someone sitting beside him caught his attention and he was jumping out of his thoughts, turning to his right to see a rather gruff looking man in a beanie cap staring at him suspiciously.
“Hey there, Bill.”
”Hey, Paula.”
Oh. Good. At least the chef knew the stranger. And at least Peter had a name to remember the chef by.
Peter smiled awkwardly at him before returning to his breakfast. The man leaned forward.
”Where have I seen you before, kid?”
Peter’s cheeks turned red.
“Uh...I have a pretty basic face. I get that a lot.”
”No...no, I’ve seen you on the television. You’re that intern. The one Stark has been lookin’ for.”
Peter instantly stiffened, turning toward the man with wide eyes.
”What? He’s-he’s looking for me? How do you know?”
”You kiddin’? Your face has been plastered all over Times Square and in almost every paper in New York. You run away from home or what?”
Paula smacked Bill on the arm with her dirty rag. “He was snapped, Bill. Show some respect.”
”Ah, right.” Bill leaned forward on the bar and took a sip of his coffee. “I’m lookin’ for someone, too. You need a ride to the city or what?”
Peter turned to Paula hopefully, earning a wink in return. He beamed, nodding.
”Y-yeah. I mean, if-if it’s no trouble. That-that would be really great.”
“Alright, kid. Finish up that breakfast and we’ll hit the road. Don’t you let any of Paula’s food go to waste.”
”Yes, sir. I won’t.”
He patted Peter’s shoulder before he rose from his seat and went to wait in a blue pick-up truck out front.
Peter couldn’t fight the ear to ear grin now gracing his face.
God, he was finally going home. He was going to see May and Tony.
He prayed a quick thank you to the universe before he hugged the head chef and jogged out of the cafe, heart hammering in his thin frame.
⎊
It was well past sunset when Tony made it to Queens.
He usually ended up there accidentally, caught up in the late night traffic of people and stuck in his thoughts.
Rhodey was probably waiting up for him. He hoped not, but he knew he was.
He heaved a heavy sigh and trudged on, unsure as to where he was heading though he never really needed a destination. Just a breath of fresh, biting air, a chance to be alone with his thoughts without being alone physically.
The hum of the city soothed his aching heart, at least temporarily. Long enough for him to survive the night and see the next sunrise.
He found himself in one of the parks near Peter’s old apartment. May was staying in one of the spare rooms at the Tower since her old apartment had been occupied in her absence, though she was working double time at the hospital as more and more missing people turned up out of the blue.
Every day, Tony refreshed the list of patients checked into the hospital. None of them were Peter.
He swallowed down a jolt of sadness in his chest. He didn’t like being alone with his thoughts anymore.
The sidewalks in the park were slick with ice and the grass shimmered in the streetlight, piles of snow building up as the snow began coming down harder.
He knew he should get back. He should call for a cab and take care of himself. Rhodey’s voice in his head kept telling him that.
But his heart tells him to swim down, and swim down he does.
He walks another thirty minutes, swept up into another crowd of people. None of them recognize him.
That’s when his eyes start playing tricks on him.
Because he swears on his dead mother that about several yards ahead of him, Peter is walking his direction on the same sidewalk, hands stuffed in a coat that swallows him whole and hair disheveled, the tips white with snow.
Tony stops walking. A few people bump into him, grumbling at the disturbance in the flow of traffic. He pays them no mind.
Because his heart has ceased to beat, instead jolting anxiously.
But he’s seen this before. His mind had played tricks on him like this in the past, had led him to believe that he was looking at Peter Parker when in reality it was just another white, curly-haired teenager. He knew, logically, he needed to turn around and let this go.
He needed to let Peter go. To move on.
But then the kid in question lifted his head ever-so-slightly, his ears peeking out of his extremely outgrown curls, and Tony hiccuped a mini heart attack.
That was his kid.
That was Tony’s kid.
“...Peter?”
The name sounded so foreign on his tongue, yet felt so good to say. The call was barely audible to passersby, though the kid several yards in front of him perked his head up at the whisper, eyes searching the crowd of people feverishly for the source.
Familiar bright eyes find Tony’s hopeful ones and lock on them, breath taken clean out of his lungs. He stopped in his tracks just as Tony had, staring.
You’re supposed to be dead, Tony can’t help but think in disgust. You’re supposed to be floating in space somewhere. You’re supposed to hate my guts.
But Peter wasn’t floating in the never-ending vacuum of space. He wasn’t drifting in the stars light years from Earth, wishing Tony were dead instead of him.
He was standing on a sidewalk in Queens, tilting his head in astonishment, alive and completely incapable of hate.
Tony finally breathed out a laugh, eyebrows pinched together worriedly though he couldn’t fight the smile on his face as he began forcing his way through the crowd, hellbent on getting to his kid.
”Peter!”
Peter finally found it in him to move, brow still furrowed in confusion though he was trekking forward nonetheless, oblivious to the grunts of annoyance from passersby.
Tony picked up his pace, breaths becoming more and more frantic as he ached to get to his kid, to feel him, to hold him in that perfect spot where his head rested in the crook of Tony’s neck when they hugged.
“Tony,” Peter muttered, stupefied. Those several yards they had been apart felt like several miles before Tony was finally standing in front of Peter, staring at him with that same look of utter disbelief.
Tony held his breath as he carefully lifted his trembling hands to cup Peter’s face, thumb brushing away a tear that had escaped Peter’s eye.
“Tony,” Peter breathed out, lip quivering and eyes looking up at Tony guiltily. Why was he looking at him like that?
”Peter...” Tony was suddenly and selfishly yanking Peter forward by the kid’s shoulder and holding him in his arms, squeezing him as tight as he could, keeping him in place with a hand cradling his head.
Before his heart could burst with joy, it was breaking with grief.
Everything around him was a blur. All he knew was Peter, and with that knowledge came the guilt.
He was numb with it. He was dead and useless to anything and everything else happening around him. All Tony could experience was horror and disgust and sorrow and guilt. Suffocating, heart-stopping guilt that swallowed him completely and cut off his air supply.
Peter was hugging Tony back with everything he had in his weak state, hands gripping fistfuls of Tony’s coat. Tony squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in Peter’s shoulder to the best of his ability.
He had no intention of ending the hug anytime soon, and neither did Peter.
Except Tony was silently killing him, to Peter’s dismay.
”Mis’er St’rk, I can’t-can’t breathe.”
Tony’s heart jolted again in guilt as he pulled out of the hug and held Peter by the shoulders, feverish eyes scanning him up and down.
They talked over each other, hasty and frantic and relieved and anxious.
“Peter, god, kid, where have you been? I-I’ve looked everywhere for you. I never-I never stopped looking. Fuck, are you hurt?”
“I’m sorry, Mister Stark, I tried to get back as soon as I could, but I didn’t have a phone and my suit was dead and I didn’t have any money and I had to hitch a ride with this guy I met at a cafe to get here and I-“
Just as Tony moved to cup Peter’s face, a crimson stain on Peter’s right sleeve caught his attention like a bullet to the chest, and Tony sucked in a sharp breath as he stared at it with wide eyes.
”What is that? Oh, my god, Peter, are you hurt?”
“I...look, Mister Stark, it’s fine, okay? It was days ago,” Tony’s face only paled even more so at that, “and I think my healing factor took care of it. I’m fine, I promise.”
“Peter.”
Peter bit his lip and deflated, cradling his right arm protectively.
”Someone mugged me with a gun.”
Tony’s lips were parted in horror and disgust, his face tinted a sickly shade of green. He searched Peter’s eyes feverishly, the guilt returning with a vengeance.
“...W-what? Kid, hey, let’s get you to the Tower, okay? We can-we can worry about everything else later, you don’t have to-“
Tony stopped short as Peter suddenly leaned forward and pressed his head against Tony’s chest, leaning into the man’s warmth. The kid wrapped his arms around Tony’s torso, his strength keeping him in place. Tony’s arms were wrapping around the kid again without question, taking any excuse he could to hold him.
But Tony’s guilt was returning again, though not for the previous reasons it had reared its ugly head.
Tony had been so caught up in relieving his own heart, constipated with grief and the built-up trauma of losing his child, that he hadn’t simply relished in his kid’s presence, hadn’t taken into consideration what he had been through and how he ended up here, a bullet in his shoulder and grief in his eyes and loneliness in his touch.
”Peter...baby, are you okay?”
”Mhm,” Peter nodded, his lips pressed in a thin line as he held back a sob in his throat. “M’fine, m’fine, m’okay.”
”Kid...talk to me.”
The sob escaped his lips before he could stop it, his shoulders trembling and his cheeks wet with warm tears.
Tony’s heart swelled with sadness and he held Peter tighter, rubbing soothing circles on his back reassuringly and holding a kiss to Peter’s temple longer than he probably should’ve but he didn’t care.
“I’ve got you,” Tony reassured both Peter and himself. He wasn’t sure when, but at some point they had both sunk to their knees on the pavement, the sidewalk now clear of foot traffic. “I’ve got you, Peter, I’m here. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
They stayed there until Peter’s crying ceased and Tony lifted the both of them up, Peter’s arm draped around Tony’s shoulder for support as they walked tiredly down the street until Tony was able to halt a cab.
Peter slept in Tony’s lap the entire ride back to the tower. Tony found himself combing the ice out of Peter’s hair and twirling Peter’s outgrown curls, satisfied as Peter’s body steadily grew warmer by the minute.
Tony couldn’t suppress the ear-to-ear grin that spread across his face as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it to his ear, waiting for the click on the other line.
”Rhodey, you’re not gonna believe this.”
⎊
Tony finds it in him to carry Peter into the tower, where Rhodey is waiting with open arms.
As much as Tony wants to keep Peter tucked into his chest, he had walked miles that evening just to clear his head, his body exhausted from the cold. When Peter’s sleeping form was deposited into Rhodey’s arms, Tony couldn’t find it in him to protest.
“What the hell happened? Where did you find him?”
”I-I was just walking. I spotted him in Queens.”
”Jesus. Has he been here this whole time?”
”I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
I hope not, he thinks to himself. If Peter had been there the whole time, had he been avoiding Tony?
“Okay. He could be hypothermic. Let’s get him to the medbay.”
Tony’s heart sunk right down to his stomach. That probably wasn’t good with a gunshot wound, was it?
As if on cue, Rhodey stopped in his tracks, brow furrowed as he stared down at the precious cargo in his arms. “What the hell happened to his arm?”
”Kid said he was mugged at gun point. I didn’t get to hear the rest.”
Rhodey continued on with a new sense of urgency, Tony hot on his heels. They eventually find themselves in the medbay, where Rhodey draped Peter on a cot and began peeling away his coat, one that appeared as if Peter had been wearing for at least a month.
God, he probably had.
A ragged t-shirt underneath was peeled off after that, Peter’s blood-soaked arm nearly causing Tony to double over in sickness as the wound was illuminated underneath the glow of the lights.
His kid was shivering, too, only adding to Tony’s nightmare fuel.
”Alright, Tones. Looks like he’s not too hypothermic. But he’s already healing around this bullet in his arm. We’re gonna have to get Cho in here eventually.”
Tony nodded with a grimace, watching intently as Rhodey prepared two hot compresses, placing one behind the kid’s neck and the other on his chest. Rhodey draped one of the hospital blankets over Peter’s frail body, keeping him warm.
“What can I do?” Tony’s entire body was rigid, his eyes looking his kid up and down worriedly. Rhodey simply huffed with a smile, rounding the bed and pulling Tony into a hug.
”Can’t believe I’m saying this, but: cuddle him. Doctor’s orders.”
Tony couldn’t fight his grin as he released a relieved breath and clapped Rhodey on the back, breathing sporadically in a blend of a laugh and a cry.
”Thank you, Honeybear.”
”Hey, there’s the Tony I know.”
Tony nodded as Rhodey clapped his friend’s back one more time before pulling out of the hug with a smile, asking FRIDAY to turn the lights down and making his way out of the medbay.
Tony didn’t waste any time in rounding Peter’s bed and climbing onto the side of it, wrapping his kid up in his arms and kissing Peter’s curls before the two of them were drifting off into a deep slumber.
⎊
Tony’s first thought upon waking up was more of a plea to the universe.
Please don’t let this be a dream.
To Tony’s relief, he opened his eyes and his kid was still there in his arms, now wearing a hospital gown though the two hot compresses still warmed his body back into reality. Cho was there, too, placing an IV in Peter’s arm. Tony winced at the sight.
“What’s up, doc?”
”Good morning, Tony.”
Tony turned toward the window. The heavy clouds remained above the city, but sure enough, it was bright out.
Tony couldn’t remember the last time he had slept through the night like that.
”How is he?”
Cho seemed pleased. “He’s a trooper. He’s gonna need surgery, but he powered through the hypothermia, which I wasn’t sure he’d do. That’ll make things easier.”
Tony hummed, beaming with pride. Peter stirred on cue, his brow furrowed as he adjusted to the light.
”M’s’r St’rk?”
”Hey, kiddo. Right here.”
Peter turned his head surprisingly to his left where Tony was lying next to him, keeping him warm. The kid frowned.
”’You sleep with me?”
”Doctor’s orders. You needed the body heat.”
Peter’s lip quirked in a fond smile. He hoped it wasn’t an order from someone else.
”S’ nice.” Peter curled up into Tony’s warmth. Tony’s heart swelled again, his fingers finding their place back in Peter’s hair.
”Peter?” Peter hummed at Cho’s soothing voice, glancing her way. He blinked up at her in acknowledgment.
”Oh, hi, Doctor Cho. How’re you?”
Cho snorted despite herself. “I’m great. Thanks for asking, Peter. I’m more worried about you.”
Peter frowned. “How come?”
”How long ago were you shot, Peter?”
Peter blinked tiredly, making a subtle glance Tony’s way before he swallowed in thought.
“I think...a week ago? I was in West Virginia.”
Tony’s heart stopped in his chest. “West Virginia? What were you doing in West Virginia?”
”Tryin’ to get here.”
”Is that where you’ve been this whole time? Jesus, kid, you were missing for an entire month. Where did you-?”
”West Virginia was just a pit stop,” Peter snorted, as if it were obvious. “I woke up in Europe.”
With Peter’s enhanced hearing, he was almost certain Tony’s heart had just erupted in his chest, and not in a good way.
”Europe?! You were in fucking Europe?”
”Yeah...I think I was in the Netherlands, I’m not sure.”
Tony blinked, utterly stupefied. He sat up straight, staring down at his kid in horror yet he had to admit he was slightly impressed.
“How-how in God’s green Earth did you get to the U.S.? You swim here?”
”I met a retired pilot. He set me up with a flight to Texas.”
“Texas? Texas?! Jesus Christ, Peter! That’s almost two-thousand miles away!”
”I tried to get a flight closer! Look, I did my best, okay? I had no phone and fifty dollars.”
Tony looked just about on the verge of vomiting his guts out, though he kept it together to Peter’s surprise.
“...So, you fly here from Europe, hitchhike from Texas to West Virginia, get shot, and then you kept going? What the hell were you thinking?”
”I-I didn’t know what else to do, okay? I don’t know your number by memory, and no one would believe me that I was the kid Tony Stark was looking for. Luckily I met a guy in this cafe a few hours from here and he gave me a ride to Queens. He was really nice, he had jolly ranchers in his truck.”
Tony slapped a hand to his face. The same kid that got excited over jolly ranchers had hitchhiked from Europe to Queens, New York?
...Huh. How about that?
”Where-where’s Aunt May? Is she okay?”
“I asked Uncle Rhodey to shoot her a text when we were in the cab. She’s been working double time, kiddo. I don’t even know if she saw-“
“Tony?”
The double doors to the medbay swung open violently, a frantic May Parker standing in the threshold. Her eyes scanned the room worriedly, glasses crooked and hair a mess.
”Tony, are you okay?! Rhodey told me you were in the-“
She stopped dead in her tracks when her eyes finally found the hospital bed where Peter lay in Tony’s arms. Her mouth hung open in shock, eyes glued to her kid.
”...Peter?”
Peter was sitting up in an instant, eyes staring longingly at May from her stance at the door as he ached to be in her arms. He was guilt-ridden and sweating a fever from the cold, but alive nonetheless. That was all she cared about.
She sucked in a sharp breath and collapsed to her knees, bringing her hands to her face and crying into them. Peter didn’t have to think twice before he was ripping out his IV, much to the dismay of Tony and Cho, and lurching toward his Aunt on the ground, taking her shoulder worriedly.
“May? May, it’s okay. May, can you look at me?”
She seemed numb with disbelief, raising shaky arms forward and enveloping Peter in a bone crushing hug. He melted into her familiar touch, his heart content after five years of being apart from her, even if he hadn’t remembered.
“I thought-I thought you were-“
”Shh. I’m sorry, May. You don’t have to-“
”I didn’t-I can’t lose you. I already lost Ben, I-I can’t-“
”I’m here, May. I’m not leaving you. I’m so sorry.”
”I love you, baby. I love you so so much. I’m not losing you again.”
Peter could only nod. There was probably no discussing with her in her frenzied state anyway.
All he cared about was being in her arms, safe and sound.
She pulled out of the hug and began smacking kiss after kiss onto Peter’s face, cheeks red through her tears.
”Blech-May!”
”I love you,” she said through kisses, planting a long sloppy one onto his forehead and releasing it dramatically. “I love you so much, baby. I promise, I won’t lose you again. I promise.”
”It wasn’t your fault, May. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
May frowned, glancing to Tony momentarily who had watched the scene unfold with a relatable admiration. “Where the hell were you? Huh? Do you have any idea how scared we’ve been? Where have you been all this time?!”
”...the Netherlands?”
May narrowed her eyes, glanced to Tony once more, and rolled her eyes.
”Ugh. Forget it. If you’re not gonna tell the truth, I don’t want to know.”
Peter glanced Tony’s way with a victorious smile. Now it was his turn to roll his eyes.
May let it slide for the time being, nudging her head and gesturing for Tony to join them. “C’mon, Stark. Get over here.”
Tony smiled fondly before he was rounding the bed and meeting the two on the ground, wrapping them both in a protective hug and closing his eyes contentedly. They both leaned into it, May still pecking kisses on Peter’s cheek and Tony joining in, placing kisses in Peter’s hair.
Peter couldn’t find it in him to complain.
He was exactly where he’d wanted to be for the past month of searching.