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Peter refuses to watch Mr. Stark’s farewell video.
His body is torn apart into pieces, dusted to ashes on another planet and brought back from the unknown in what feels like a matter of minutes with the weight of the universe and all they lost on his shoulders. For five years, Peter sinks into darkness. Five years that pass in a matter of seconds but still leave its marks on his body.
Tired doesn’t even begin to describe how he feels. It’s easy to ignore on the battle. The epic struggle against Thanos and what feels like all the evil in the universe. Hope has a way of feeding their drive. Though Peter wants nothing more than to curl up on the couch and sleep, he fights, because that’s what he always does.
But then Mr. Stark dies.
The man leaves Peter and his family alone. Leaves them in a world where it feels like everyone else got their happy endings. Everyone except them. He dies and there is nothing now to bring him back. No dusting or snap of the fingers or anything. Mr. Stark is gone.
So, Peter refuses to watch his final words and instead paces outside. May sits on the steps behind him, watching as his legs mechanically carry him back and forth. The sky is cloudy; blue dull, monochromatic in its tone. The darkening clouds signify the threat of rain but it holds off. In a show of support, it seems like the universe itself allows them to gather and grieve as a family in the place Mr. Stark built for his family.
Who is he to refuse any wishes Mr. Stark has? Who is he to not hear the man out now after he saved everyone? Guilt balls in his stomach. Peter turns, looks to the door, but doesn’t move. The guilt twists and morphs. He’s making this about himself on a day when it should be anything but that. Peter shivers. He can’t bring himself to see Mr. Stark smile after five years of darkness. To finalize everything with final goodbyes, last smiles, ending words.
He tries to content himself. Despite the odds he saw Mr. Stark during the battle. He saw the man who saves the world, who saves his world, when many never see their loved ones again. The man’s face lights in wonder. They hug and it is everything. Peter finally, after all that time, gets his hug. He can live with that, he tries to tell himself. But even now, something inside himself yearns for more. More smiles and hugs, and more time. It will never be enough.
Peter knows he’s going to put too much stock in the details. How Mr. Stark’s eyes crinkle at the corners. If the man’s smile is forced or holding too much sadness. What his words will be. How much they will hurt. Peter knows if he watches it once, he will watch it a thousand times. Nothing will be enough. The whole gouged into his chest is too big, feels like he can barely breath most days, and he’s scared it will be unmanageable if he gives in.
People emerge from the house with tears glistening on their cheeks. Peter walks in procession a step behind everyone. The sky remains obstinate and dry like his own eyes.
The ceremony flows by him. Peter wonders if it is really happening? If maybe he isn’t still stuck in the dark void and this was some sick way to cope. People stand up and say nice things, caring and heartfelt words. They cry and smile broken smiles and it’s over.
Peter’s life returns to whatever normal is.
He moves into May’s apartment. Much to her annoyance his boxes remain lined along the wall of his room, no unpacking date in sight. Peter goes through the motions. It’s easy to fall into the drudgery of school; of pretending he’s okay. If everyone else thinks he’s fine maybe he can convince himself of it as well.
The only aspect that doesn’t change is the late nights. Sleep is a fickle thing staying outside Peter’s reach. He lies in bed. Darkness covers him like a well-worn blanket. Peter stares up at the ceiling he can’t really see and falls into his own darkness. Anger comes so strong he can barely breath. He hates Mr. Stark in those quiet moments when only his heart makes noise. Hates that the man can save the world but isn’t there to see it. Peter hates he that he wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it, that he missed so much time.
He’s lying on his bed but Peter’s back on the battlefield. He’s alone and crying but at the same time surrounded by war and death. Peter is drowning in his guilt and still, over and over, he can’t do anything to change the outcome.
Then one day months after everything Peter sits at his desk trying to concentrate on his homework. May hovers in the doorway not quite in the hall or his room. Her mouth is in a frown and when she wordlessly hands over a piece of mail his stomach squeezes.
It’s ironic the most technologically advanced man in the 21st century uses snail mail, but the proof is in the palm of his hand.
In a messy scrawl clear as day, Peter reads his name. Tucked into the upper left corner is the name of his mentor. Mr. Stark sent him a letter and the last thing Peter wants to do is open it. May’s already gone and he’s grateful for the privacy. With shaking hands, Peter shoves the letter into a book and places it on his bookshelf trying not to stare.
The curiosity is always in the back of his mind but every time he looks at the book in the coming months, his heart clenches. He has to look away.
Someday he will read the letter but that isn’t today.
-
Peter stumbles through the window of his apartment. With a thud he falls onto the floor wincing as his muscles twinge against the cold wood. He can’t summon the energy to get up just yet. Content he is safer than he is outside, Peter remains curled up where he landed. His arms protest as he reaches up to pull of his mask but oxygen seems more important. Spiderman is only getting in the way, right now as air traps in his lunges. Peter leans back and stares at the ceiling. Patrol was…rough.
His gaze floats around the room before landing on the bookshelf. As if possessed by an outside force, Peter looks at the book against his will. It’s there between Austen and Morrison. Same as always. A layer of dust he can barely make out from his spot on the floor coats the pages but otherwise nothing’s changed. Groaning at the sore protest of his muscles, Peter gets onto his hands and knees, and crawls over. He reaches up, too lazy and sore to stand, and grabs the book down.
The pages flip open to the exact spot the letter is stashed away. He traces the familiar handwriting with his eyes. Sitting there, almost half laying, on the dirty laundry piled on the floor, with eyes only for the page in his hands. The corner page is bent awkwardly against itself, the pages yellowing from age, creases deep from being pressed in the bookshelf. Outside his room, May is moving around the living room, yoga he thinks. The people upstairs are having a debate on who their dog loves more. Peter knows it’s really the man selling hotdogs around the corner but it’s a sweet argument all the same. He can hear a group of birds sitting on the wires a couple of buildings over, chirping away to each other, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t react to any of it.
What he does hear like the roaring of a lion is the ripping of paper. The way the fragile material gives way under his hands. Fibers tearing into two between his fingers. Peter breaths deeply and takes the paper out, painstakingly flattening the creases and folds before reading. The papers feel heavy in his hands. He wonders if it’s because he doesn’t know what words they hold. If these pages store a thousand secrets or the answer to the universe. He wonders if he hasn’t built this up too much.
Peter closes his eyes, exhaling audibly, before looking down at the paper.
In something like a trance, he reads the letter starting with his name. Words infiltrate his body, searing into his veins and stinging the corners or his eyes. This is Mr. Stark’s last remarks to him, their last connection. Peter doesn’t want it to break or end or disappear now that he’s read it. There’s a knot in his chest, tightening every second, that’s urging him though. Telling him that it might disappear if he doesn’t read it now. Something drips onto the paper and Peter realizes he’s crying. Thick tears slide down his cheeks before gathering on his chin. The drops, heavy with emotion, hand on desperately until, with a push from gravity, they fall. The glistening tears plunge off his face and onto the letter, soaking the words and turning the page translucent.
He can’t comprehend the letter past his name now that his eyes are too full. But it’s as if Peter can hear Mr. Stark saying it. It’s as if the letter isn’t just written but the man himself is sitting next to him, saying his name over and over until Peter looks up at him. Peter is so tired. He only wishes the feeling is true.
Like a million times before. Like it will never happen again. Peter hadn’t known any of those times before in the lab or tower would be the last. There was no hint or clue that the last time they hugged, the loose arms and pat on the back would be a distant memory. He hadn’t known when Mr. Stark had winked as Friday urged them to hurry so they weren’t late for dinner, would be the final time they’d hugged.
Peter fists his hands crumpling the letter. His body mimics the paper and he sags down, deflating into himself. What he wouldn’t give to know then. To be able to go back in time. Instead of laughing at Friday and rushing out the door, he would take his time. He would wrap his arms around Mr. Stark with meaning. Would actually speak his appreciation and thanks to the man. Peter would try his hardest to protect the man who had protected everyone.
Peter stares unseeing at the words. He can’t read the rest. Can’t face all the things he’s left unsaid.
His cheeks burn from the tears and he can’t help that he feels like a coward for not reading the letter but, for now, the rumpled pages in his hand feels like enough.
-
“Up, Peter!” Like her father, Morgan knows what she wants. Peter is only too happy to oblige her wish.
After a mild kick to the chin he takes good naturedly, Peter finally hoists her up so she’ sitting atop his shoulders. He can’t see her face but, from the way she’s wiggling and her small hands tug at his hair, Peter hopes Morgan’s smiling. She needs to smile more.
“Where to now, kid?” He asks knowing it’s exactly what will wind her up. Pepper will not thank him later for this or the unlimited supply of cotton candy and churros but it’s worth it. This time is worth it.
“Peter,” She says with a small tug to his hair. “I’m 7 years old. I hardly think that counts as a ki-”
“Are you still younger than me?” He interrupts. The silence is enough to make a smile, an unforced smile, crawl across his face. Peter cranes his head back to see her raise her chin up to the sky. “Then I can call you kid... Kid.” Morgan sticks her tongue out and he laughs.
Like the smile it’s real. He doesn’t feel like he’s forcing the muscles to contract or hear any hollowness in it. Foreign though it is, Morgan is always able to bring that out in him. Being with her and Pepper make him feel light – warm. He would spend all his time with them and May if he could.
Nothing seems as bad with them. Morgan is a constant source of energy and willpower. When she wants something, she will do everything in her power, including using her all too powerful charm, to get it. Most often sweeping everyone along in her quest. Pepper is, well, she’s just a badass. There really is no other word. Peter thinks she would approve of the title, too. She’s raising Morgan, running Stark Industries, and still he knows she will have time to lecture them both about the third churro they are going to eat on the way home before hugging them both.
His hands tighten on Morgan’s calves. They are family to Peter. Still. Forever.
Peter clears his throat. “How about we go on the spinny one again?” Morgan yells in favor, throwing her hands up to the sky. He’s already turning around to head in the right direction.
They sit side by side, strapped in with sketchy looking seatbelts. Peter puts his arm around her shoulder. Just in case, he tells himself.
Morgan’s the captain in this teacup. Her hands wrap as far as they will go around the middle wheel. The cup turns fast in her fervor that he and anyone else reluctantly riding this ride can’t match, holding no regards for his stomach,
Around and around they spun. He tries to latch onto an object in his peripheral view but they keep whipping by too fast. Colors blended together, shapes morphed into something else, and the world doesn’t look like the world anymore. It’s a blend of everything together, a foreign place where anything can happen. If not for his stomach he might like it better.
“Spin with me, Peter!” And as always, Morgan brings him back to this planet. She he can focus on. So, Peter does what he is learning to do best. He smiles and leans forward to place both hands on the wheel. Loving and hating how much faster they are spinning now.
Pepper does indeed yell at them before laughing at their windswept and fair smelling clothes. She hugs them despite it.
-
Peter is done being Spiderman. He hates it. Despises the way pain radiating from his body. How his blood seeps from torn wounds onto his bed, how his joints protest every movement, how the city’s smog always coats his longs. Peter is especially learning to hate how people don’t seem to care despite how much of himself he gives to the city.
He hates being Spiderman. He hates it with everything he’s got.
Peter curls up on his bed. The curtains are closed, lights off. His suit lays beside to him next to a discarded sowing needle and an almost empty spool of red thread. Peter hates sowing. Almost every time he seems to poke himself with the needle at the tip of his thumb.
His phone lights up. He stares at Morgan’s name and hates that he told her he was busy with school. That he can’t handle college and a visiting them back home. That it isn’t fair to her. The former of which is a lie, the latter a painful truth.
It’s Spiderman’s fault.
Peter wants to protect her and Pepper. It’s been long enough to know the only future near him is one where danger resides. He’s known it forever really but the black suit, crumpled on the floor next to his backpack and deadly silent apartment is only the most recent reminder.
There’s a hole in his chest where May’s smile rests. An aching loneliness, the piece that would fill it, gone with her. Peter can’t begrudge her the parting gift but he wishes it wouldn’t hurt so much.
He cannot keep giving bits of himself away. Not to the dead, anyway.
Spiderman takes the most. He is used to thriving off of the anonymity. The feeling of doing good just to do it. But without May, without Mr. Stark. Without so many, what does it mean?
Peter doesn’t know. He can’t know if it’s worth it anymore and because of that he’s decided to hate Spiderman.
Like so many times before, Peter forces himself up and goes to the bookshelf. The outside of the letter is worn, yellowed and aged from his fingers and time. He doesn’t open it. Just sets the letter on top of his suit and stares. He thinks he can almost see the residual tears, dried and embossed into the paper, but he blinks. They disappear.
It’s been so long, he’s almost scared to read it through. There’s too much pressure. It’s Peter’s fault. He’s built it up, thrust too much hope and trust and need into the words. It’s greedy but he wants Mr. Stark to write what he needs. To say all the right words that will fix everything in Peter’s life.
He wants Mr. Stark to tell him not to hate Spiderman. He wants his mentor to say that it’s worth the pain and tears, the laughter and struggle. The letter will tell him not to give up. That things might get hard but it’s worth it. Spiderman is worth it. Peter is worth it.
All things, no matter how they tear you up inside are needed, Mr. Stark would say. He knows Peter tends to distance himself. He would know Peter isn’t taking calls or going to the Stark family dinners these past couple months and would urge him, tease him back to his family.
Peter wants that to be true. He wants something from Mr. Stark now, years later, that the man may not be able to provide and that’s unfair as well.
The letter can’t be exactly what he wants and so, again, Peter touches his name on the address and puts it away. Unread. He can’t cry, he’s too far gone for that, but there’s enough tears in the paper for a lifetime.
Spiderman is seen the next day, webbing around the city.
-
The stack of boxes next to the door are next in line to move. Peter stares around the empty apartment his eyes conjure images of furniture and photos on walls. He won’t let himself think of May today so instead he thinks of all the things that were theirs. All the stuff that’s no longer there.
One box left to carry out. Peter’s about to pick it up when someone knocks at the door. He doesn’t move. He knows who it is by the firm sound and doesn’t want to face the consequences of his avoidance.
“Come on, Peter. Friday told us you were here today.” Peppers voice comes through the door.
He unlocks the chain. His arm feels heavy as he slides the ball out of the socket. Pepper smiles, tight along the seams, but a smile nonetheless when she sees him. He smiles back, forced before gasping. She draws him into a hug. Another one around his leg. He peaks through Peppers shoulder and sees Morgan. Pepper knocks him on the shoulder and he play rubs it like it actually hurt causing Morgan to giggle.
“What?”
“Don’t gape like a fish. We know you’ve been avoiding us.”
“Yeah, Peter Benjamin Parker.” Morgan adds.
He blushes and once he detangles himself form the hug, itches the back of his neck.
“I’m not avoiding anyone.” He lies.
“Save it.” Pepper interrupts. “So, we know you’re a grown up, almost college graduate, but Friday gave us the details on your new place and it’s very circa 1990. We,” Pepper pauses and looks down at Morgan. She brushes her daughter’s hair back from her forehead and urges her forward. “Have something to ask you.”
Morgan looks to her mom before grinning up at Peter. He kneels down so he’s her height.
“Move in with us!” She yells still after all these years unable to contain her excitement.
Peter doesn’t move. For all his reflexes and foresight, he never imagined this. Morgan is already moving. She throws herself at him and he stumbles back. Peter is clumsy in all the ways Spiderman is not but he doesn’t quite care when all the warmth of her hug is on him.
Morgan clings to him. She’s getting taller but he still eclipses her in height. But she’s grown so much in what seems like no time and the air leaves his lunges for a moment.
“We miss you, Peter.” She says so quietly he’s not sure if he was supposed to hear. All he can do is wrap his arms around her, cling right back, and look up at Pepper. The woman surveys the apartment before smiling down at them.
“Morgan will be going to a middle grade here in the city so we’ll be back. Not in the Tower because that’s a bit much but I’ve bought a penthouse so there will be plenty of space.”
Peter laughs. “Your whole family is over the top, aren’t they? Is our Morgan going to have her own bathroom at least?”
Morgan pulls back from him and sticks out her tongue.
“I get my own floor.” She says like it’s not the most extravagant thing he’s ever heard. Peter laughs again before pulling her closer.
There’s no saying no to them. He tries more than once with no success. Pepper bought the apartment building he was going to live in and told him as his new landlord he was evicted. Peter didn’t even want to check if that was true.
And so, his boxes where driven to a new location.
He felt lighter on the trip over. Like he was going to the tower for the first time. Back then he was filled with nerves and awe. The awe remains the same but as he steps into his new home, Pepper in front of him and Morgan at his side, he has this feeling of coming home.
Peter places a photo of him and May next to the others, photos of Mr. Stark, Morgan, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy and other Avengers in the hallway leading to the kitchen.
Everyone looks so happy. Their smiles so wide.
Peter traces the tops of the frames before making his way to his new room. He’s got some unpacking to do.
Peter hears Morgan running around yelling something about a hidden room and smiles.
The letter makes its way onto this new bookshelf, safe and tucked between his well-loved books.
-
He finds his way into the window. Pepper hates when he crawls up the side of the building instead of using the door, but he’s too tired to even think about it. His rib is smarting. The burning in his side definitely telling him he’s broken something but all he wants is to get home.
Home.
Peter Parker has a home again.
It’s difficult at times. He wants to run away and hide, to disappear where no one cares. But other times, well, there is no feeling like knowing you have a place to go to, a place to belong. Peter realizes now how valuable it is. How important having people to love is. The fear for them remains but he soldiers through. Peter knows he can’t stay alone like before.
He spies her as he drops to the floor. Peter sighs. Morgan sleeps in his bed, waiting for him to get back like too many nights before. He doesn’t want to wake her tonight. The dark circles under her eyes make him wince and he knows she’s tried to stay up as long as she could to see him.
His eyes widen. Morgan holds the letter from her father clutched in her hand. He doesn’t know where she dug it up from, how she got it but he’s not angry or sad… Peter stares at the letter and realizes he wants to read it.
Carefully, he tugs it out of her fingers.
Peter sits back against the side of the bed so he can still see the rise and fall of Morgan’s chest and so he doesn’t wake her up.
The pages are old, folded shut for so long, they protest being opened now. He unfolds the pages, and for the first time since May handed it to him, Peter reads it.
It doesn’t take long for tears to fall but he doesn’t try to stop them, just lets them run over his cheeks and down onto his hands and the paper.
It feels before. As though Mr. Stark is next to him. Like he’s seeing into the past somehow with this arrangement of words. Peter feels like his heart is tearing in two. Peter feels his heart is knitting back together again.
He startles back when Morgan moves, blinks into awareness. Quickly, he wipes his face off.
“Peter? You okay?” He loves that she worries over him and wishes she never had to worry in the first place.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He says.
She looks at him, eyes narrowed with bedhead and sighs. “That means you have a broken bone somewhere, I’m guessing rib by how your sitting. And don’t tell me ‘It will heal in no time.’”
They are both too good at reading him now.
“Why even ask, kid?”
He wants her to focus on the nickname but in an act of showing her age, she just winks at him and then sighs.
“You look so much like your dad.” He says without thinking. Peter winces, doesn’t want to bring up bad memories for her but she lights up. Morgan’s eyes widen and a smile so bright crosses her face. She climbs down to sit next to him, pulling a blanket so that she covers both their legs.
“Really?” He wonders how much she remembers of her dad? Makes sure he will talk about him more, more details and stories in the future if she wants.
“Oh yes, love for robots, check, penchant for curse words and trouble, check, smile that could dominate over the world, double check.”
Peter sniffs and wipes his hand on his cheeks again.
“Peter, will you read the letter to me?”
“You didn’t read it earlier?” He’s a bit shocked when she shakes her head.
“I just wanted something of his close.”
The back of his throat closes for a moment. Peter takes a deep breath.
He wonders how many times he missed reading this, if it would have helped him earlier in his life, if he wouldn’t have spilled so many tears into its pages.
It doesn’t matter now. He reads to Morgan.
It’s not perfect, He remembers how many times he wished for the perfect words and this is not it, but he realizes it doesn’t have to be perfect. No one is perfect, least of all himself and Mr. Stark. What the letter is, is meaningful. It’s his and Mr. Stark’s, and the letter is a reminder of their connection. It’s a reminder of how kind and loving the man was.
Peter is thankful for the tears in it, he wonders if somehow Mr. Stark received them through his words. If the man realized how much he was loved.
Peter puts his arm around Morgan and reads the letter. There’s no façade now. He is sad and will always be sad about the loss of his family and friends, but he’s also so happy and proud to know them; to have loved them.
Peter reads with Morgan; hearing Pepper listen from in the hallway. New tears soak into the page, but these are happy ones.
Pepper comes into the room and sits on the other side of him. He wraps his arms around both Stark’s and smiles. He’s with his family.
-
Peter, Kid, Underroos.
If you can’t tell who this is by the fine example of stationary then I will have to yell at Pepper.
Anyway, if you’re getting this that means Friday sent it out and if it was lost in mail that is Dume’s fault for posting it wrong. I will reprimand him about that. The cone of shame may have to come out of retirement.
I can’t say anything like I’m gone to a better place, the best place or good place or whatever because honestly, I don’t know. No one does and even if I have enough money that won’t help in this case. Most people actually think it will hurt my chances of getting to the best place, but I think I’ve made a good faith effort there.
I’ve done a lot of terrible things and a lot of not great things, pretty mediocre if you average it all out. But you, Peter. You and Pepper and Morgan are all outliers in my life.
I’m so proud of you. I know it’s tough. Of course, I’m talking about your alter ego. Friendly Neighborhood Spiders need a union or something, it’s a tough biz, and you’re a hero to the city and world. But you’re also a hero to me. Not Spiderman. But Peter. Your dedication, care, and genuine compassion have awed me more times than I can count.
Keep being yourself, Peter, and I know you’ll do great things.
Look after Morgan and Pepper. They love you.
I asked them to look after you as well, so make sure to listen to them and not spoil my kid too much.
I love you, kiddo,
Tony