Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"P– SPIDER-MAN!!"

As the light faded away, Spider-man felt like all his senses had been turned up to a 100 yet drained at the same time, with the exception of his spider sense, which was going off like never before. His ears were ringing, but it was like the sound came from behind a thick curtain, so it was near impossible to make out anything that was happening around him. The sudden light show he had found himself in had disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, which left his vision swimming with tiny black dots. Peter tried to take a step forward, just to find out his legs couldn't support his weight. At least instead of hitting the cold concrete like he'd expected, he found himself against the familiar sturdiness of the Iron man armor. Tony was clearly trying to talk to him, faceplate up and all, but Peter could barely make him out as anything else than colourful blobs let alone make sense of the words said to him.

"Nice catch, Tony."

It didn't feel like the words came out correctly, if at all, but whatever garbled nonsense he'd spoken would have to do as Peter didn't have the energy for another attempt. The last thing on his mind before everything went dark was how odd it was that being in Tony's arms hadn't had its usual calming effect on his spider sense.

When he woke up, the thought had Peter sitting up straight immediately, though he ended up regretting it seconds later when a heavy headache panged at the insides of his head in protest against the sudden movement. With a groan he lifted a hand to his face, like it would do anything to alleviate the pain. His second jumpscare came in the form of the sudden feeling of a hand on his shoulder. Peter smacked the hand away and reeled back, surprised to no end to be met with Tony's shocked expression. Well that at least explained why he hadn't registered anyone else's presence. Despite the clear surprise over Peter's actions, the genius lifted his hands in surrender and took a step back.

"Hey, it's okay, kid. It's just me."

The worried yet fond look he wore on his face broke through whatever haze Peter's mind had been in, bringing tears into his eyes as he reached for the man before him, Tony's name scratching its way out of his throat to its best abilities. Tony was by his side in seconds, gentle arms wrapping around him, one hand drawing comforting circles onto his back while the other gently caressed his curls. If he'd thought about it for longer than a few seconds, Peter would've noted how different it was from how Tony usually comforted him these days. What it lacked. As it was, he leaned into the genius' chest and gripped onto his back like his life depended on it. He wasn't sure what had happened during the attack and why he was feeling this drained, but all Peter cared about was having Tony right by his side where he needed him. He must've just been overwhelmed by whatever the light attack had been and that's why his spider sense hadn't calmed down even when Tony had had him. It was the only explanation given that he was fine now. Drained and feeling a bit off still, but fine. His spider sense wasn't screaming like it had been earlier either, reduced to just an odd tingle in the back of his mind for now. Expecting it to settle down so easily after something so intense was probably silly, even if it usually did settle rather fast once he was in the clear.

He must've fallen asleep again, given that the next time Peter remembered opening his eyes, he found himself lying down on the bed again. This time he sat up at a much calmer pace and thankfully didn't trigger any weird pains with the movement. Looking around the room revealed that he was alone, at least for the time being. There wasn't even a note anywhere. He wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or sad over the fact. The faint tingle from his spider sense was still there, but Peter chose to ignore it. The shock really had done him in, huh? He was very clearly in one of the medbay rooms at….the Tower. Okay, that was weird. They'd taken to using the compound for the hero stuff in the last year or so for various reasons, Tony's personal boundaries being not the least of them, but that didn't mean waking up in the Tower's medbay was anything dangerous. Right?

Before he had too much time to ponder over the fact, the door to his room opened again. The emerging Tony seemed surprised to find Peter awake, but the surprise turned into warm relief soon after.

"Had a good nap, princess?"

Peter rolled his eyes at the tease, but didn't take it too seriously. How could he, when Tony's face practically screamed of worry even though it was obvious he was trying to play it cool?

"If I said I didn't, would you offer to wake me up with a kiss like a proper prince?"

Instead of grinning slightly and offering to do just that, like Peter had expected, Tony made a small face at his response. It was like he didn't know what to think of it, bordering on being uncomfortable with it, which was…. weird. Again. Tony usually loved a little banter and an excuse to show affection after one of them had gotten hurt. Not that they needed any excuses. They just made things more fun and usually helped to distract them from the injuries be they the other's or their own. Currently though, the man seemed content to just ignore Peter's words and act like the interaction hadn't happened.

"They couldn't find anything wrong that your healing wouldn't have already taken care of by now, but the doc decided it'd be good to keep you here for the night for surveillance. It's just in case, but I agree." Peter watched Tony move to sit in the chair by the bed and reach over to gently ruffle his hair. "I know you don't like being stuck still for long, but we want to be sure you're alright, bambino. How're you feeling?"

"I'm okay, really. A little disoriented, maybe, but otherwise everything feels just fine." He shrugged as Tony pulled his hand back and it was then that Peter noticed the ring on Tony's hand. It wasn't gone or anything like that, thank heavens, but it was definitely different. That, and the nickname Tony had used, added to the list of weird Peter was putting together in his head. Piling his own hands on top of each other underneath the blanket, he felt relieved when the familiar weight of a band was still there on his own hand, so at least he had that. Maybe there was something behind his spider sense acting weird after all? "Why are we at the Tower and not the compound?"

"Peter, you were hit by a bolt of something by a nutjob speaking in riddles, and collapsed. Why on Earth would I take you to the compound, when we have perfectly working medical facilities right here?"

"Right, sorry." Peter gave a sheepish smile and while he suspected Tony had more to ask regarding the subject or talk about in general, he was saved by the growl coming from his stomach.

"Nothing to apologize for, kid. I'll go check things with the doc one more time now that you're awake and send someone in to bring you food. Try not to jump on the walls in the meantime." With one last smile, Tony took off again and left Peter alone with his thoughts.

Something was definitely wrong and he needed to get to the root of it, but Peter decided to wait for the food before he'd get to unraveling the situation. One could only do so much on an empty stomach.

Tony was pacing around the room, trying to get his head around the situation without losing his mind. He could feel the eyes of everyone else in the room on him, though the ones burning holes into his body were the familiar yet not eyes of one Peter Parker. After losing consciousness from the sudden light show that engulfed him, Peter had at first seemed to be fine so they'd cleared him to leave the medbay. Things took a turn, however, the moment he had opened his mouth to address Tony, who had thought he'd only misheard Peter's words before the arachnid hero had blanked out, but no. Even fully awake and well, by his own words, and the doctor's, as well as Friday's scan, he kept calling him that.

"Dad, what's going on?"

Tony cringed and finally stopped his pacing to turn around and face the kid. Because that's what this Peter was, or at least saw himself as. As Tony's kid. His kid. There was no other way to interpret the word, not the way the kid said it. The thought twisted something ugly in the genius' stomach and he wasn't having any more of that.

"Stop. Just stop. I don't have children and even if I did you most definitely would not be one." Even Tony wanted to flinch a bit at how harshly the words came out, but he really couldn't take any more of this dad calling without losing it. Least of all from Peter himself. Not that he was exactly able to handle the tears that filled the kid's eyes either. There wasn't anything he could do about it though. Not when it was obvious his ways of comforting would most likely not be welcomed in their usual form. He could only thank whatever being was up there that he hadn't done anything too revealing earlier.

"W-what?"

Tony turned to stare at the wall to cool his head and distract himself from how broken this Peter looked. Because it definitely was Peter, the medical exam would've told them otherwise if not, just not the one he could call his in the sense he wanted to.

"What he means is that the Peter we know doesn't consider himself as Tony's child. The tinhead here just should've phrased it better." There was no need to even turn to know Natasha was glaring daggers at him. She did always have a soft spot for Peter, even before the others did, so it wasn't surprising to have her side with this one as well. If only the genius could handle this...swap, for the lack of a better word for it, as easily.

"The...the Peter you know?"

Tony could make out the confused, still broken, and now a bit scared look on Peter's face from his peripheral vision. While his emotions were in too much turmoil to be ready to fully face him again just yet, some part of him must've thought he deserved to be punished with the sight for making the kid look like that in the first place.

Looks were exchanged around the room, Tony shaking his head slightly after Nat shifted her hands while briefly making eye contact with him. No need to tell the kid the exact difference between him and their Peter.

"Guys?" Not-Peter was clearly getting antsy over being left out of the loop like this, which had Tony crossing his arms tighter to keep himself from reaching for him.

"Can you tell us what you remember from this morning?" Apparently Steve decided to take the reins on this one. Not much of a surprise, given that Tony was still standing away from the others and trying to not explode at the Peter they had on the couch with questions the poor kid probably wouldn't even have answers to.

Said Peter didn't look happy about the change in topic, but turned himself to face Steve better nonetheless. The way he pulled himself together was so similar to their Peter that Tony felt a tug in his chest. He couldn't say if the kid realised the connection between Steve's question and their previous topic or not, but it was clear enough he knew it wasn't being asked for no reason.

"I woke up at home like usual, had breakfast with…," the not-Peter hesitantly chanced a brief glance over to where Tony was still pointedly acting like he was ignoring him, "with my parents. A villain broke out and we headed out to take care of it. The villain was one we had no prior intel on and honestly not a lot of what they said made any sense, that is when they actually formed actual words rather than just made various noises. At first it seemed like having both Iron man and Spider-man there was an overkill, but the villain's stance changed the second they saw us. The mumblings turned into cackles, like we were missing a part of a joke. They hadn't even told one! When I went to chase after them, I got hit with the beam just as I was rounding a corner. Da–Mr. Stark caught me and brought me here." A realisation seemed to dawn on the kid here. "What happened to the villain? Did...did I let them get away?"

"You didn't. However we don't know what happened to them either. They were gone after the light show went off, yes, but rather than running away it's like they'd never even been here in the first place. We have no footage of them and there's nothing on social media either despite the attack being rather noticeable," Natasha explained, though she made it obvious with her tone that no one was blaming the kid over what happened. Soft spot or not, she'd never been one to go easy on Peter by hiding information she thought he should know, even if it wasn't always good news.

"Which is why we should be trying to figure out a way to at least track their movements before the disappearing act instead of playing house." Tony was bitter, he'd be willing to admit that much. One could hardly blame him. He'd thought they would just need to get Peter checked and regroup before looking into the weird villain from earlier and get back on with their lives, but instead this 'dad' debacle had rooted everyone in the compound living room with a wrong Peter. They knew the kid was fine physically and yes, his scans had proved him to be Peter Parker without a shadow of a doubt, but Tony wasn't about to accept this as the same Peter he'd woken up with hours ago. He couldn't be, no matter how one looked at the situation

"Your story is sweet and all," he finally turned to address the not-Peter rather than talking to the room in general, "But I know for a fact that's not how my morning went, so sorry if I'm not inclined to become a father out of the blue. The rest of you are welcome to hash this out, but I need to make a phone call."

"C"mon, Tony–"

"Mr. Stark, please I–!"

"Tony!"

Ignoring the calls after him, Tony walked himself right out of the building, suddenly getting a strong need for air. The second he stepped outside, it was like he could breathe again. He would've laughed at the absurdity of the situation, if he hadn't been so consumed by worry. His frustration still needed to be released in one way or the other, which is how Tony found himself yelling at the trees for the lack of a better outlet. It infuriated him that his best bet on his Peter's whereabouts was with another version of himself. Only he had no guarantee that was the case. For all he knew his Peter could've ended up somewhere dangerous and far away from any safe place and person, in an entirely foreign universe. While he trusted Peter's ability to handle himself, the chance of him passing out like not-Peter had had Tony tasting bile in his mouth. He wanted to punch the weirdo from this morning for doing something this twisted, and himself for not keeping up with Peter well enough in the first place. For all sakes and purposes he could very well just go into his lab and try to work out the science to find the right Peter. There'd been a weird spike of energy at the heart of the light attack, not explained simply by the light itself, that would've been as good a starting point as any other. That would, however, take time and he didn't want to lose any of it. Not when Peter was involved. Calling the wizard would pick away at his pride, but it was an insignificant price to pay to get to the root of this as fast as possible.

Feeling more in control of his feelings, or as much as he could in this situation, Tony pulled out his phone and dialed a number he had hoped he would never need to use for something like this.

"Strange, it's me. We need help, stat."

"Do I really need to spend the night here?"

Peter fiddled with the ring on his finger, absentmindedly seeking comfort from its familiar feel and weight. Tony had returned to the room just as Peter had been finishing up his meal, which Happy had dropped off earlier. The genius had settled back into the chair by the bed with a Stark-pad in hand, most likely to work on SI documents. It had started to look like the man was ready to spend the night like that, which he would've most likely explained away as just keeping Peter company, were anyone to ask, even though keeping an eye on him must've played a part in it too.

It was something so very Tony that for a moment Peter had been sure everything was fine. In reality it had been months since Tony would hide behind an excuse like that. They'd had a long conversation about fears of losing the other one night after Tony woke up from his nightmares and only calmed down once Peter had him pinned down and their foreheads pressed together. Ever since then, whenever Peter got seriously hurt or close to it, or vice versa, the older man would seek out something physical to ground himself to the fact that Peter was still there. It didn't matter if it was holding his hand, cuddling together, a brief kiss, or a span of time to personally check the canvas of his body, Peter was willing to give Tony whatever he needed and took the comfort from it just as much.

So Tony just sitting by his side with the Stark-pad, and not even on the bed but on the chair by it, was the last confirmation Peter needed to know he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Maybe he'd been kidnapped and taken to some weird cell disguised as the Tower, with actors to make him think he was safe? Taken by aliens fooling him with technology? Actually still unconscious and this was all just in his head? Only problem was that each and every scenario he could think of all crashed at the same point; he knew for certain that the one sitting by his side was the real Tony. Not an actor or even a figment of his imagination there to comfort him. It might not be the Tony he knew, but there wasn't a single cell in his body that wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a real and fake Tony Stark. Tony was real, which should mean that so was everything else, even if it wasn't like he knew it. What Peter needed was information and he couldn't get what he wanted while stuck in the medbay, which led to him switching tactics.

"Before you protest, just think about it. I feel completely fine and even the doctor said my healing factor should've taken care of everything by now. I know you're still worried, but we can just have Friday scan me periodically to make sure nothing new pops up. If she deems something's wrong, I'll come right back for a check up!"

At first Tony looked like he would still protest so Peter deployed his best puppy dog eyes. His Tony or not, he doubted the man was immune to them. A theory which was proven correct, when the man rested the Stark-pad on his knees and sighed.

"If Fri notices anything at all, you'll drop what you're doing and come straight down, got that? And no Spider-man for the rest of the week."

"What?! You ca–"

"I can and I will. The freak that attacked you this morning is who knows where so excuse me for not wanting you out on your own for the time being. You don't want to spend the night in the medbay, that's fine, but you have to promise me you'll stay put, Pete. Let us adults take care of this, at least for the time being."

Peter could feel his blood boiling even though he knew that this wasn't his Tony talking. Even then it made him angry to be talked to like he was...like he was a child. He'd done so much to try and prove himself to the team and Tony to be seen as an equal despite his young age. To go back to like none of it had happened infuriated him to no end. He had to remind himself that he didn't know what the relationship between this Tony and his Peter was, so like it or not he had to play along, if he wanted to get out of here without a battalion after himself.

"Fine… But please let me know if you find anything. I'd rather at least not be left in the dark, even if I can't participate." He'd need all the information he could get regarding the villain and their attack to figure out how he even ended up here, but Tony didn't need to know that.

"As long as you won't try and sneak out to find them, we have a deal."

"Sure thing, dad." Peter might've been smiling, but it didn't mean the sarcastic tone didn't come through. If Tony was going to talk to him like a child, he might as well play up his part no matter how weird he felt about it. Needless to say Peter was surprised when Tony didn't even flinch at the moniker he'd used. Quite the opposite, he acted like it was entirely normal.

"Hey now, don't take that tone with me, Peter. I'm just trying to look out for you, you know that."

They stared into each other's eyes for a moment before Peter gave in with a sigh.

"Alright. Fine. I'm sorry. No Spider-man, no sneaking out. Now can we please go home?"

"I'm sorry too, for what it's worth. I'd just rather know you're safe while we try to find leads on the wacko." Tony picked up the tablet and motioned for Peter to get up. "Just so you know, I had to ban the others from this floor to keep them from barreling in here instead of letting you rest, so they might be a little in your face."

Spirits lifted with the confirmation he was free to go, Peter practically leaped off the bed, landing perfectly a few feet away from it, and moved towards the door. He pointedly chose to ignore the look Tony shot his way at the trick.

"You banned them? I'm starting to think you weren't prepared to stay the night here just to keep me company," Peter snickered.

"Ha ha. Now get in the elevator before I change my mind, smart ass."

The elevator ride up didn't take long, but it was quiet and gave Peter the seconds he needed to put together what he'd figured out in the last few minutes. First, this Tony and the Peter he'd replaced had a familial relationship, which was uh... certainly something to keep in mind. Second, they apparently lived at the Tower, possibly with the team? It wasn't a lot, but it was a good start and gave him something to play off of. He wasn't looking forward to having to act like being seen as a child, especially by Tony, was an everyday thing. It couldn't be helped that it was his best bet to keep the others from suspecting anything. Peter never expected he'd be putting his acting lessons from Nat to use against the Avengers, but it couldn't be helped. Hopefully he'd manage to be convincing enough to at least buy himself some time to figure out a way to get home.