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Pepper finds him on the floor of their garage. A small sectioned off corner serves as a makeshift lab, but that's not where the kid is. Her eyes scan the plain grey stone of the floor and the light filtering in from the opened garage door. Ultimately they land on a curled in figure near some weights.
She's puzzled for half a second, less, before it clicks exactly what's happening.
"Oh, Peter." The exhale is slight, nearly silent, but it alerts the boy to her presence. Brown locks with blue in a startled stare, red-rimmed and watery.
Her first step towards him is hesitant, this wasn't usually her place with Peter.
This was Tony's.
And therein lies precisely the problem.
When he doesn't shift away or say anything, she assumes she's alright to continue and makes her way over to him, sitting down in an awkward, graceless sort of plop.
Peter sniffles next to her. "Your dress." His voice is wobbly and sounds more pitiful than she's ever heard it. She smiles at him, softly.
"The dress will survive a little while on the ground. If it doesn't then, well, good riddance I suppose."
He huffs out what she assumes should be a laugh, but it comes out more shaky, and sob-like.
It's not that she's never comforted Peter before. There were times when he had been moping around the common floor of the compound on a day she was visiting, but it was over some new safety restriction that had been placed on him. She'd given him advice, and a minor pep-talk on kicking ass and showing them he didn't need all of the hovering.
He had the occasional sulking over a (rare) bad grade that she was around for, that Tony was too awkward to deal with. She'd given him advice, a morale boost.
And there were a couple of times he had come to her because he thought Tony was upset at him, or simply Tony was upset and he wasn't sure how equipped he was to deal with it.
Overall though, none of those times are remotely similar to this. And none could have ever put her on the same standing of safety, comfort, and love that Tony was on when it came to the kid.
She was at a loss. Which was kinda new for her. Only Tony could put her at a loss, and every once in a while aliens managed as well. Just as she's wondering what advice she can possibly give this kid, without being dishonest or hypocritical (because she probably needed to hear some too) he starts talking.
"It was stupid. I was," he swallows. "I was looking at my suit. I haven't bothered with it since… I was looking at the data on it. I noticed something with the web formula. It was what had been stumping us for weeks on why the ricochet webs wouldn't bounce right. And then I realized that those couple of weeks were five years ago but I remember it like a week ago. But, but that conversation happened five years ago."
She watched as he closed his eyes, leaning his head back onto a workout machine with a thump. Understanding unfurled as a gust of wind blew in, ruffling Peter's curls.
"And then-and then I remembered." He turned his head so that when he opened his eyes, they were locked once more in that terrible eye contact. "I remembered that I can't even, can't even go tell him I figured it out cause he's-he's." She catches the warning signs before it happens, well attuned to Morgan's hints as well. The shaky lip, the sharp inhale, and then he's crying.
Immediately his sleeve comes up to muffle it, and she can't help the hurt her heart feels for him. Peter is one of the sweetest boys she knows, hard working, honorable, and he was good for Tony. Really good.
She hadn’t fully realized just how good Tony was for him though.
Leaning in to him, she wraps her arm around him. He keeps his sleeve over his mouth, careful not to cry on her dress as he leans back into her and she feels her own eyes water at his thoughtfulness, at the ache that they both feel.
He's crying harder now however, and she's trying to find where she went wrong. At the same time, she's trying to stifle herself, you can't cry when comforting a child.
That's when they know it won't be okay like you're telling them.
"And I just want one of his hugs. I just- I just-." He can't get it out, and his entire body is wracked with his sobs. Noise begins to seep through his sweater paws, even though he tries hard to shush it. When he tries to talk again, she only hears what could maybe be interpreted as an I'm sorry but it's rather incoherent and she simply shhhh's.
She doesn't know the next step, which is one of her least favorite feelings. She hates not knowing the next step.
So she comes up with one, something she vaguely recalls in muscle memory of her mother doing for her; she rocks them.
Just a sway, gentle and soothing. She can't help the tear that falls, just a drop onto Peter's unruly hair. To prevent more, she tucks her head down against his head. His hair smells like coconut and a slight fresh scent, maybe pine. She focuses on that, the tiny hint of pine, outdoors and fresh air. And keeps rocking.
"It's okay." But her voice is unsteady too. "It's, it's gonna be okay Peter. We'll make it out of this." But she isn't sure she believes it herself.
"I want one of his hugs too."
And that's the most honest thing she thinks she's said this entire time. It's also when then dam feels like it cracks. She has to count to ten, four times. Just when she thinks it won't work, her breathing slows, and bawling her eyes out in front of a grieving teenager seems slightly less imminent.
"I- I." He tries to keep going, but she shakes her head, knowing he can feel the movement.
"Don't. You don’t have to tell me. I know."
Because she does. She knows that Peter wants Tony here to talk to, to spill everything to. She does too. Wants one of his hugs, the long ones, with his chin on your head. She does too. She knows he wants to hear his stupid quips, his sarcastic insults, the quick witted comebacks. She does too.
She knows Peter wants him to whirl around the lab with him, and she knows that not because she wants it too, God no.
But because she knows Tony is up there wanting the same thing. And she knows what he's thinking about goodbyes, about time not well enough spent. She understands the longing that they can't do anything about, the wanting for something that no longer exists.
And even though she doesn't feel the same bond of mentor/mentee, the specific quirks of each and everything Peter misses about Tony, she understands the hurt he feels no matter the differences in their bonds with Tony. They're one in the same.
They sit there for a long time. Long enough for it to get darker, and for the open garage door to stop providing warm breezes and instead cold wind. For their bones to get sore and joints to be stiff, and for her to know Morgan is gonna wake up from her nap any time now.
There's a safe haven here though. On the dirty stone floor of the garage, plain and boring except for when it was Tony dancing across it. In the stale sweat smell of the workout equipment behind them, gross except for when it was Tony using it.
In the arms of Peter Parker, far away except for when Tony dragged him close and kept him there.
She's never not had a special place for Peter in her heart, he deserved his spot there. For always being so good to Tony, for always being so polite, even when upset about a grade, a safety rule. She liked him.
And after having him over at the cabin for a week, watching him with Morgan, watching him around the house and in the garage working on projects, she thought that she understood him, a little bit like Tony did.
Now, she thinks she understands him, the same way he understands her.