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He’s screwed. He’s so painfully, horridly, royally, screwed he doesn’t even know why he’s standing there. On the plus side, he’s won the bet with Ned, which was to shock a visible, human reaction out of MJ before the school year ends (he’s sure it’s a feat he’ll never be able to accomplish again), on the downside, the twenty dollars he’s owed won’t do him much given that Tony Stark will personally drag him to Hell before he can use them. Oops.
Maybe he’ll be locked up in a tower like Rapunzel, grounded forever. That would make sense, Tony’s too nice and emotionally attached to kill him (he hopes). Besides, he didn’t spend all that time mourning his death simply to kill him when he comes back, right? Instead, he'll be stuck forever braiding his hair and singing to birds until a dashing man or woman come to steal him away. And Tony would then shoot them dead on spot. Unless it was MJ, Tony's a little (understatement) scared of her.
“Dude,” Ned rasps out in awed disbelief for the nth time that day, “You’re dead,”
Fuck it he knew that. “Yeah,” he tries to keep his voice level, nonchalant. He’d shown up at Ned’s house that afternoon, and had been graciously let in. After all, it was Spiderman who was dead to the world, not Peter Parker. MJ had been there too, probably over to grieve over his death, and had promptly moved to pinch his arm to make sure he was real. When she'd felt actual skin under her arms, and not mist or some magic shit, she'd pulled him into a hug, and then shoved him away just as fast, mumbling something about he was a loser and how he stunk.
MJ blinks, as though she can’t believe herself, and then takes a deep breath, quite possibly restraining herself from attempting murder. “You faked your death,”
“Accidentally,”
“You know-” she breaks off, closing her eyes once more as she inhales a little forcefully. He wonders if she’s holding back tears, but when she opens them again and looks at him, he realizes that, no, she’s holding back homicidal rage. “We thought you died,”
“I was hurt!” He flails his arms around, as though trying to defend himself. The wound in his side burns, and he winces. Better not let Tony find out about that, though he's sure it'll heal soon. “I thought I’d sleep it off and it’d be no biggie, with my super-healing and all, I didn’t know I crawled into the wrong apartment and was presumed dead,”
He actually had known the former, he’d just been too tired to care, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He’d been pronounced dead, for goodness’ sake, the only thing that hadn’t turned up was his body, which he was sure MJ would deliver right at the police station’s doorstep if he told her the whole truth. Besides, his neighbours had been out on vacation and, at the time, it had seemed like a great idea.
What he hadn’t taken into account during his blood-loss-induced haze, was that his aunt might have panicked, and maybe Tony cared enough to spend all day looking for him, scanning all of fucking America, calling up the president and shit when he hadn’t turned up. Of course he'd felt slightly giddy with happiness at that, Tony had cared enough for him to pull all the spots, MJ and Ned had bunked school, something he thought they weren't physically capable of, simply to show up to the Tower and demand a nationwide search for their friend. Ned, who sputtered and blushed every time he met Mr. Stark had demanded something for his sake. Okay, maybe he'd pleaded, and MJ has stepped in and demanded, but still. Tony had laughed and said he'd already got it covered, and then had proceeded to drink cold, sludge-like coffee with a shaking hand.
“You were gone for two days,”
“I fell asleep,”
“What about the tracking device Mr. Stark has on your suit?” Ned suddenly pipes up after drafting a quick text to Happy about how peter’s alive lol. Adrenaline makes him do possibly the stupidest thing he’s done (apart from hacking a multimillion dollar suit, and FRIDAY that one time they wanted to change Mr. Stark’s title to Mr. Stank), and he ignores the texts he gets from Happy in response, something along the lines of ‘stupid teenagers letting out grief through hurting others’ as though he’s some teen-hating psychologist. He thinks he sees a link for an article, something to do with dealing with grief. He leaves him on seen. This is his revenge, his bitterness and rage and sadness, making him a little shit to these authority figures, because he might worship them, but he partly blames them for all this. He shouldn’t, Peter’s a stubborn little shit, and all they’ve done is help, honestly, but he does.
He sends a separate one to Tony. It just says, cum get ur son mr stork cunt see kinda cryin rn so oh hes unded btwz
They need to know.
Peter blinks, as though the thought has only just occurred to him, and MJ has to once again force every atom in her body not to attack him. She could take him. He might be an enhanced spider-boy thing but he’s a pussy, super-strength be damned.
She voices out as much, threatening him bodily harm if he doesn’t tell them exactly what the fuck happened. Ned holds back a comment about how Peter would probably like it.
“I-uh,” He flushes, actually looking embarrassed, and Ned has a horribly daunting realization.
“You disabled it,” Ned sputters out, barely able to believe Peter. For an absolute genius of a child, he sure lacks common fucking sense, “For the bet. You disabled it for the damn bet,”
Flash had bet them that they couldn’t sneak out to a party. Stupid, really, given that both their parents would be overjoyed at the prospect of them doing normal, teenage things. May would probably drive them there herself, and would give Peter a lecture on how he should drink, but not too much, and maybe not hook up but making out was fine. It filled him with dread.
But, of course ,he wouldn’t turn down a bet that simple, except, his suit was tracked, so he might have ‘accidentally’ turned said tracker off, and he might’ve gotten thrown in a lake, and then into a tree, and then into a wall, and then pummeled into the ground and shot at, and his tracker might have gotten a little broken. He’d meant to fix it, obviously, but he couldn’t just ignore someone’s cry for help. And the next thing he knew, he was in someone else’s bed, prying a bullet out his thigh and webbing up a stab wound on his abdomen, painting their bedspread red.
MJ is quick to connect the dots, and she turns to him, blankly, and says, “I would kill you but I’m guessing Tony Stark has that covered,” The sentence chills him to his bones. She pats his shoulder patronizingly, “Your funeral is at 3 today, don’t be late,”
*-*
He wonders if he’s the first person ever to crash his funeral. They’re all standing around a little Spiderman shrine, more than half of Queens, muttering words of solace and comfort. Tony stands away, so sure the kid is alive because he just can’t be dead. It’s not possible. Peter Parker will not die before him dammit.
The kid, his kid, he's sure, is alive somewhere, because there's no body and he's clinging on to every last bit of hope there is. God, the kid, the absolute genius child, fucking sunshine in a bottle or something, with his shit-eating grin and non-stop chatter and hero-worship, and his self-sacrificial self, all courage and smiles and everything Tony is, but better. He lost his kid. Because no matter what he says to the Avengers when they wiggle their brows or call him a 'dad', or to Pepper, when she smiles knowingly, there are some things he can't deny, one of them being that Peter Benjamin Parker is, in every way save biological, his child.
And then he feels guilty, the feelings he’d pushed away coming back in full force. It’s his fault the kid is dead. He should never have recruited him (even though he’d have gone around protecting Queens anyway), should have strictly reprimanded him (even though he knew it wouldn’t have done jackshit), should have done something. Another protocol, setting stricter rules with his aunt, getting Karen to check in with him every hour. He runs over the countless ways he could’ve avoided this, could’ve saved the kid, when he feels a hesitant tug at his sleeve.
This isn’t the first time someone’s cornered him while he’s mourning. He’s been ignoring people all day, sitting alone in his corner of misery, isolated from the world as he laments fate over and over again for taking away his child, because how can the universe be ever so cruel to a person? He lets himself stew in self-pity, no father, no son, pathetic, broken Tony Stark, who has everything, and yet, nothing.
He’s tired, distraught, and ready to snap at whoever it is before he comes face to face with Peter. He blinks, and Peter idly notices how everyone seems to do that whenever they see him. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, poking at the kid’s head, because this isn’t the first hallucination he’s had in the past 72 hours he’s been awake. His hand meets soft, fluffy, slightly matted, supposedly real, hair. He takes in a sharp breath, stumbling backwards, muttering about how he’s not real, how he’s not falling for the tricks his mind’s playing on him again.
“Mr Stark?” His kid says slowly, and that’s all it takes for him to break, reaching out to grab him, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.
Tony Stark, to his absolute horror, makes a guttural sound, which he later realizes is a half-strangled sob. He’s ugly-crying now, reporters and media and dignity be damned, clutching the kid so close because he’s scared to let go. It feels like a dream, like the second he loosens his grip the child will disappear, turn into smoke or some shit. So he doesn’t. He holds Peter close to him for twelve minutes straight, incoherently telling him he loves him and that he’s okay and alive. Peter will later deny any and all claims of him having cried, too.
When he pulls away, eyes red-rimmed, dark circles somehow even more prominent, looking as though he’s aged ten years within a few days, Peter feels so painfully guilty, he wants to cry all over again. Tony doesn’t let him, though, instead, he grabs the kid by the arm and leads him to the car, stumbling over his words, something about a scan and FRIDAY.
"Mr. Stark," he whispers, and is met with a tired smile.
"Yeah, kid?"
I love you, thank you, I'm sorry. "You look like a Victorian mother who ate her kids to survive the Great Depression,"
"My asshole kid convinced everyone he was dead, the haggard appearance is expected," I love you too.
"What a bitchass kid," I'm sorry
"Hm, but he's my bitchass kid," I forgive you.
Someday, he'll figure out a way to tell Mr. Stark everything he has to say to his face. Someday.
Happy looks at him for a long time when he climbs into the backseat of the car, gaping at him first, before muttering something about Ned, and wiping at his eyes to rid himself of something that looked suspiciously like tears as he speeds to the tower. Everyone else has been informed, and the Avengers have already promised to drop by the Tower to see the kid tomorrow (They would've the very same day, but Tony said something about rest and fragility, and they shut up. Bruce knew he was making shit on spot, he just wanted to be alone with the kid, but nobody had the heart to call him out on it) but Peter’s in Tony’s care right now, and he’s going to make sure the damn kid won’t die on him any time soon.
“Peter Benjamin Parker,” May’s voice rings out as they leave Dr. Cho’s care, and Peter suddenly regrets not letting MJ kill him. May strides over to him and she pats him down, checking for injuries as though he didn't just get scanned twice, before gathering him in her arms and proceeding to curse at him in Italian. He's sure May's coming up with half these curses on spot.
For the next hour, he sits as they both hug him, far too grief-stricken to do much more. He’s caressed and coddled and cried over until they finally realize that they have to yell at him. And then May begins cursing at him in Italian, and they form the oddest team of all, a sleep-deprived billionaire and an angry Italian woman, a mixture of languages and swears, with only one purpose in mind.
“I want an update even if you get so much as a single scratch-"
“Two minutes past curfew, that’s your grace period, otherwise I’m getting Tony to call the fucking military-”
“No Spidermanning for two weeks-"
“Three weeks,”
“Three months,”
“You’re grounded for the whole month,”
“What were you thinking?”
“We thought you were-” May breaks off, sniffling.
“There are protocols and tracking devices for a reason, Underoos, and we-when the news-kid, we just want you to be safe,”
Peter very pointedly does not tell them about the fact that he disabled the tracking device, although he suspects Mr. Stark already knows. He wants to save May from the aneurysm. He apologizes profusely, guilt eating him up, and he’s assured that it’s okay, that he’s alive and that’s all that matters, that they love him.
They decide on a punishment, no Spidermanning for two weeks, he’s grounded for a month, and no lab-time for two weeks, either, to which he protests with a groan. He deserves it, though, and is only allowed to show his face once in Queens as Spiderman, to assure them that he is very much alive.
Sometime later in the day, Tony finally checks his phone, and reads the message from Leeds twice before absolutely losing his shit as he clutches his kid close. He wipes his tears away, kissing the crown of Peter’s head, and runs his hand through his curls. “You’re undead,”
Peter has no idea what the absolute fuck he means, but he lets his slightly deranged mentor ramble on anyway, about storks, the undead, and some things he’s sure May would skin him alive for repeating.