Work Text:
“It wasn’t supposed to fall on you.”
Cement filling his lungs and crushing his limbs.
Come on, Spider-Man, come on, Spider-Man.
Quaking under the weight of the rubble and this wasn’t supposed to happen but it happened and he is going to die right here, under a pile of building -
“Peter.”
Die, die, die, die, DIE -
"Peter!”
Peter gasps awake, his heart pounding in his throat and his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin with sweat. He’s vaguely aware of a presence beside him, but he doesn’t concentrate on it – he’s a little preoccupied with the fact that he can’t breathe -
"In and out, bud,” someone says, pressing Peter’s hand to his rapidly beating heart. “Just keep breathing in and out.”
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock, Peter is aware of how the respiratory system works.
“Take one big breath of air for me, yeah? One big breath.”
Shakily pulling in oxygen, Peter gulps down a breath of air, before his breathing picks up once more.
“Another breath, Pete, you can do it.”
“C-Can’t,” Peter sobs, clawing at his chest.
“Yes, you can. Try to take another big breath.”
Someone rubs a comforting circle on Peter’s wrist. His brain really doesn’t want to disappoint this super nice and helpful person, so, somehow, he manages to take another breath. This process continues for about twenty minutes, until Peter’s heavy breathing ceases. His body trembles violently and his teeth chatter against each other as he comes off the adrenaline.
It's at this point that Peter starts to regain control of his facilities. So, it's also at this point that Peter remembers that he is currently staying at the Tower, while May is away at a nursing conference. Tower = Tony. Presence = Tony.
“Shit,” he mutters underneath his breath, grateful that the darkness in the room is shielding his reddening face. “I’m - I’m really sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t mean for you to, uh... see... that.”
“Kiddo...” Tony doesn’t say anything else for a while, just continues rubbing Peter’s wrist. “Do you always shake this much after a nightmare?”
Peter does a double-take. That... that’s not the tone he had been expecting from Tony. He isn’t sure what he had been expecting – annoyance, maybe – but certainly not... concern?
“Y-Yeah.”
“How about some hot chocolate?”
Hot chocolate does sound good. It always sounds good, to be fair, but hot cocoa is definitely the one and only nightmare cure. This is all well and good, but there's still that nagging doubt at the corner of his mind - pulsing, throbbing, and growing.
So: “I d-d-don't want to be a b-bother, sir,” Peter responds shakily.
Tony doesn't flinch.
“I’ll take that as a yes, then. Want to come and make it with me or should I bring it in?”
As childish as it is, Peter really doesn’t want Tony to leave him right now. “I can come.”
“Okay, bud, let me help you out.”
Tony loops his arm around Peter’s shoulders and pulls him off the bed, strengthening his grip as Peter tumbles into the man’s side.
“Let’s go, kiddo.”
They stumble through the hallway and into the kitchen, and Tony wastes no time in whipping up a batch of the cocoa. It's like a dance, the way he's preparing it, and Peter can tell that this is because he's prepared it many times before.
"Here it is, bud," Tony says. He sets a mug down - #1 DAD, it says in gaudy pastel lettering - on an Iron Man coaster in front of Peter. There's steam billowing up from the cup and rendering Peter's vision foggy. His eyes sting a little.
At Tony's expectant hum, Peter stares into the brown mixture. The marshmallows are already melting, starting to transform into goop. He sighs, brings his spoon down into the drink, and blows on the boiling hot liquid. It sends ripples throughout the hot cocoa on the spoon. Another sigh, and then he swallows it down.
“So, Peter,” Tony says. He scrubs a hand down the bottom of his chin awkwardly. “We... need to talk about what happened.”
Peter drops his spoon back into his mug with a clatter. This is it. This is when Mr. Stark is going to tell him to get the hell out, that he never signed up for mentoring a baby. It's Tyler all over again; he's seven and he's crying on the playground and his best friend in the whole wide world is laughing at him all over again.
“It’s okay, sir,” he says softly, controlling his voice so that it won't break. “I understand.”
He doesn't really understand, though, if he's being honest. He understands what is about to happen - it's only the natural progression of events - but he doesn't understand why. And no one can explain, because no one does, but no one cares either.
Tony gapes. “Uh. What?”
“Well -”
“Yeah, I don’t think I want you to answer that. Kiddo, I’m not... I was just going to ask what the nightmare was about, so I can help.” Tony pulls a strand of hair away from Peter’s eyes. “I get nightmares, too, buddy. After New York, I was – I was a mess, to put it lightly. I drank hot cocoa just like you. Ignored someone who was trying to help me just like you." Tony chuckles, and this isn't because he finds the comparisons funny, but he's sad. "I would never be mad at you for something like that. Really, Pete, it'd take a lot for you to get me angry, and then it'd probably be along the lines of you being an idiot and getting yourself hurt on patrol. Not for something like this. Never for something like this. Okay?”
“O-Okay.”
“Can you tell me what happened in the nightmare?”
Tony’s voice is so soft and so gentle that Peter hardly realizes how humiliating the situation is. Because it is humiliating, because everyone knows it's humiliating, and yet there's still that damn question of why?
Peter licks his lips. “The - The Vulture guy?”
“Yeah?”
“He, uh. And don’t freak out, Mr. Stark, okay? Because when you freak out, I freak out.”
Tony freezes.
"When she freaks out, I freak out.”
This is when Tony realizes that Peter cares. And Tony's cared for months, and he's cared enough to cry and yell and scream, but now Peter cares, too. It's what he's prayed for to the god constructed in some echo of the god he'd learned about; what he longed for over a box of pizza. Now he has it, and he'll always have it - and Peter cares. Peter cares.
“Okay,” Tony says. This is, of course, absolute bullshit. But one can hardly expect Tony to concentrate on Peter's words - not when this beautiful, perfect, undeniably magnificent thought has just entered his mind and is waiting to be turned over and over and over. Any other day, he'd have fixed Peter with a stern yet paternal gaze and give a firm: absolutely not, but today is not any other day and so Tony says, "Okay."
"So, yeah. The Vulture guy? And. A warehouse.”
“A warehouse.”
“Yeah. I tracked him down and there... was a warehouse.”
“Okay.”
“...And then there wasn’t a warehouse.”
Tony’s heart stops for a few moments. The arc reactor must malfunction or something. No, it's his ears that must malfunction, because these words can't be true. It's been a bad evening, then a great evening, and Tony thinks that if it flip-flops right back down to a bad evening again, he'll get whiplash.
“Kid. What do you mean by that.”
“See, the warehouse? It was no longer... upright. It fell. On me.”
Tony gulps down bile. There's no more room for imagination in Peter's story. Except that it isn't a story and this happened to Peter - this happened - a - a warehouse fell on his kid. It can't have. Just can't have. “No, that’s - no, Karen would have notified me.”
“I didn’t... have her.”
“You didn’t have her because I fucking -”
“Mr. Stark, you said you wouldn’t.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Pete, I’m so sorry. I screwed the pooch, big-time.”
“But you raised the hybrid puppies,” Peter adds with a snort.
“Maybe...”
Tony looks - really looks - at the boy next to him. Peter seems much younger than Tony remembers him seeming. Much, much younger. He seriously brought this tiny child to Germany? And then stole his suit, the only protection he had against this cruel and violent world that he insists on jumping headfirst into? Lordy, he messed up.
And the funny thing is (though it isn't funny, not at all) that this beacon of joy is only in Tony's life because of that giant mistake. And then the subsequent giant mistakes somehow kept him there. The funny thing is that Tony would move Heaven and Hell to undo these fuck-ups and make Peter's trauma go away, but then Tony wouldn't even know the kid and who knows where he'd be now.
It's all awful. Everything is awful. He's awful.
“C’mere, kiddo.”
Peter looks up, eyes wide, as Tony brings him into a hug. Tony squeezes his arm around Peter's shoulders, and Peter finally relaxes with the touch. Shoulders slump, worry wrinkles even out, and frown bends up into a smile. It’s cute. Fuck it, Peter is a cute kid.
“Pete?” Tony asks as he combs his fingers through Peter’s curls. “Is there anything you usually do after a nightmare to help you calm down?”
Peter sniffles. “It’s stupid.”
“If it helps my favorite young adult, it's not stupid. Pinky promise.”
“Please don’t make fun of me, Mr. Stark.”
Yeah, so much for raising the hybrid puppies. He is an awful mentor. Father-figure. What even is he? He's nothing, is what he is, or at least he deserves to be nothing.
“Never, bud.”
“Okay. Well, I, er... I have this Iron Man helmet. It’s dumb that I still have it, I know, but after my – my parents died, I wouldn’t take it off, and it – it still helps.”
He doesn’t deserve this kid. There is absolutely no universe where he deserves this kid.
“That’s not dumb at all, kiddo.” Tony pulls away from the embrace to make eye contact with Peter, gently tilting up the boy’s chin with his thumb. “Not at all. Repeat it for me, Pete.”
“I’m not four, Mr. Stark.” Tony glares at him. “Fine... It’s not dumb at all.”
“Good. Now, I have plenty of Iron Man helmets, or I could fly over to Queens and grab the real deal for you. Your choice, Pete.”
“Could you stay with me?”
“Of course.” Tony pats Peter’s shoulder with a smile. He hadn't really wanted to leave right now, anyway. “I think Rhodey gave me one of those toy masks a few years ago as a joke – but... Mark XXII's helmet could always use some love.”
“Wait, d-do you mean...?”
Peter's facial muscles get a hell of a workout. There's the raised eyebrows of Doubt, dropped jaw of Shock, giant grin for Excitement, and shy nose twitch that's Gratitude. Tony's really damn happy that Peter's still clinging onto a fraction of that hero worship, even though he knows Peter should probably find a better hero.
But it's Peter's choice, after all. And Peter's chosen him.
Tony nods with a grin. The edges of his guilt assuage with the now-unbridled anticipation that's stewing behind Peter's eyes. That's his kid. And he made his kid look like that. He did it. Him.
“Let’s go, kiddo.”
(Peter sleeps soundly that night, the head of the Mark 32 Iron Man armor safely in his grasp.)
(And Tony sleeps right beside him, too, his hand mindlessly threading through Peter’s curls.)
(He doesn’t freak out about how fatherly he must have looked when he wakes up, though, because when he freaks out, Peter freaks out, and that means something.)