Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dinner was quiet for Peter. The TV was murmuring in the background, the other side of the table was empty, and his plate was half-finished. May was working another double shift meaning he’ll be alone until mid-morning tomorrow, which would then lead to May sleeping for over twelve or more hours. 

Which, again, means he’ll be alone for a while. 

Peter doesn’t mind it, he gets it. He’s challenging to provide for with his metabolism, and nursing is a time consuming and hard job. She’s busy because of him, so he can’t complain. He finished all the chores and made sure she’ll have fresh sheets and blankets to come home to. Leftovers were already put in the fridge for lunch tomorrow, and Peter is now sitting at the table. 

Alone. 

The food was bland in his opinion, though better than some of his usual concoctions. Peter shoveled another mouthful into his mouth before pausing, hearing his phone ring. 

AC/DC starts blasting from the kitchen and he smiles a little bit to himself. It must be Tony calling to check in on him again, as has become the normal routine over the last month when they both woke up from nightmares about the other. 

It makes Peter feel all warm and fuzzy inside when he thinks about his pseudo-father figure. Picking up his plate, Peter makes his way into the kitchen and answers the call, clicking it onto speaker as he scrapes off the rest of his plate. He knows it’ll just get cold once he gets distracted. 

“Hey, kid,” Tony says, it sounds muffled from his side of the line but Peter smiles regardless. “Hi, Tony.” 

Huffing a laugh, there's a bit of shuffling before Tony settles down. “How’s your night been? You been doing fine? No spidery activities?” 

Peter rolls his eyes despite Tony not being able to see him, dropping his plate lightly into the sink before dousing it in soap. “Nope, not tonight. Too cold, and the sleet coming down would just be something awful to swing with.” 

“Oh, so nothing to do with the concussion you are sporting?” Tony asks pointedly, Peter flushes guilty. “Yep, that too, obviously. I would never go out with a concussion.” 

There's a very sharp “Uh-huh” from the other side of the line, but Peter elects to ignore it. 

Tony laughs at his silence, “It is a bit cold out, isn't it? I feel as if it's a hot cocoa and movie type of night, isn't it?”

Somehow, Peter has the feeling that Tony is trying to goad him into coming over. 

It might be working– only a little. Obviously. 

“Potentially,” Peter remarks, taking a sponge and soaking it to hell and back before starting to scrub at the grease left behind on his plate. They keep passing teasing, pointed jabs back and forth. 

As he finishes wiping down the kitchen counter and putting away everything he used to cook, Peter has a niggling feeling in the back of his mind. It's subtle, barely there, but his spider-sense never lies. There's something not quite right about this peaceful little moment in time. 

There's something wrong. 

“Kid? You fall asleep cleaning on me or something?” Tony jokes, and Peter gives him a forced chuckle in response. “I’m not that much of a child, I can take care of myself, Tony .” He snips back with a smile, and the silence settles over them again. 

His spider-sense finally picks up on that weird feeling that’s buried in the back of his mind, and something bright red flashes in the corner of his vision near the kitchen table. Looking over, he spots the roses and camellias May has shoved in their tiny little glass case and puts off the abnormal spot in his vision as the flowers. 

Maybe he’s just extra lonely tonight, maybe his spider-sense is telling him to go to Tony’s and curl up in the warmth of the penthouse with a blanket draped over his shoulders and cocoa held in their hands as they laugh at some old cheesy movie. 

He almost leaves the kitchen when that creepy, overwhelming feeling that something is wrong finally buzzes to life. His spider-sense isn’t ever wrong, and he already had a feeling something was off. 

“Hey kid, you want Happy to come pick you up? I doubt May likes you all on your lonesome.” Tony finally asks, getting to the point of why he called in the first place. If Peter was paying more attention, he would noticed the hint of shyness in the bold ask but, inevitably, something always comes between them at such moments. 

Clutching his phone in his hand tightly, Peter brings it up to his mouth, clicks the speaker off, and puts it to his ear. “Tony?” Peter starts as he scans the apartment again. Curtains are partially drawn, the TV softly going, and one kitchen chair is pulled out. Nothing out of place. “Yeah, kid?”

“I think…” The feeling gets sharper. “I think something’s wrong.” 

Lock the door. 

The strong urge shocks his system, and he freezes for a second because what the actual fuck? 

Lock. The. Door. 

Peter’s breath hitches and he scrambles to the front door and turns the deadbolt faster than he ever has in his life. Less than a few seconds later the doorknob starts shaking, as if someone's trying to turn it. 

His heart plummets to his stomach. Faintly, he can hear Tony speaking on the other side of the line asking if he’s alright but he only has eyes for the door. The door that a bright, blinking red dot is innocently resting on. 

Holy shit, that's a fucking Target Pointer. What the fuck. Shit shit shit. 

There's knocking at the door now, a careful deliberate 7-point knock that only he and Tony use. 

Knock. Knock Knock Knock-Knock. Knock. Knock.

Everything in him is buzzing with fear, that crawling and gnawing feeling that something is terribly wrong . 

That’s not Tony. 

“Hey! Someone ordered a large pepperoni pizza here, right?” A male voice calls out from the other side of the door and Peter finally snaps out of his trance. The red dot on the door ever so slowly inches over towards his shadow displayed on the door before disappearing completely. 

Move. Move movemove move-

The shot is near-silent until it breaches the window in the kitchen, shattering the glass before the bullet buries itself into the wood of the thick apartment door, they had only just upgraded to on a whim a few weeks ago. 

Now that panic has set in, Peter bolts away from the main room and sprints along to his own, and slams the door shut and zoning into his surroundings. Quickly, he draws the curtains along his window before looking for anything to defend himself with. 

He’s going to die, fuck fuck fuck, everything’s dizzy he can’t think. 

Through the haze, he can finally hear the voice in his ear screaming at him.

It's from his phone. 

It's from Tony.

“Shit.” Peter fumbles for a second before launching himself into his closet with one of his old t-ball bats, shutting the door and wrapping some pajama pants around the handles to secure it tightly. 

He can’t fight as Spider-Man. They’ll know. He can’t let anyone know.

Fuck, what does he do? 

“-id. KID!” Tony screams into the phone, and finally, Peter starts to listen to Tony, and he almost forgot he was still holding the phone to his ear like a lifeline. 

“T-Tony.” Peter whispers, and he can hear the beginnings of someone banging a foot into their front door. The sound of it starting to splinter. He’s never been more afraid. He’s already exhausted and dizzy and can barely think because of that stupid fucking concussion. 

How is he supposed to defend himself?

Tony sighs in relief on the other side of the phone. “Roo? What’s wrong? What’s going on? Did you break something? I heard glass breaking.” 

Peter clenches his eyes shut tightly, trying to even out his breaths. He can handle this. 

The front door breaks, splintering in on itself, and slams onto the floor. The sound of multiple pairs of boots flooding into the living room makes his breath catch again. 

He can’t do this. Not so many, not when they don’t know he’s Spider-Man. 

He needs Tony. 

He needs his Dad.

His breath hitches again, and he finally gives in to that secure feeling that Tony can help, that Tony will keep him safe. He sinks into that thought wholly and tells him. 

“D-Dad…” His voice breaks. Peter’s never been more scared. He doesn’t know what they want, who they are, what they have to hurt him with. Tony’s breath hitches itself; Peter’s never called him Dad to his face before, and never that heartbreakingly quiet. 

“S-Someone–” There are murmurs in the kitchen, now, “They’re here. I don’t know who they are. They broke in and they tried–” Peter stutters, pitching his voice lower. “To shoot. Shoot me.” 

There's a pause from the other side of the phone, so quiet that Peter thought Tony might’ve hung up. 

Instead, Tony’s breath rushes out of him as if he’d been punched. “Fuck, kid, shit. I’ll be there. You’re okay, I’ll get to you, okay? Don’t worry about it Bambino, you’ll be safe. Stay hidden.” 

The sound of breaking glass and rushing wind comes through the phone but Peter can barely focus on it as he hears the strangers start mockingly calling his name, dragging their guns and boots across the floor in the most horror-story-recalling way. 

It makes every hair on his arm stand up, and he curls into himself more as a stabbing headache appears. He wants his Dad.

He wants to go home; he wants to go to bed. 

Tony keeps trying to murmur reassurances over the phone, but he pays him no mind. The guys in the house have reached his door, are turning the knob. 

It’s locked.

Peter turns his phone volume down more, eyes clenching shut as he tries not to cry. He doesn’t want to die. 

The kicking starts up again against his door, cracking the wood along the frame and Peter lets a soft sob escape his lips. The floodgates open as he holds his phone in his little curled-up shelter. “D-Dad–” He cries quietly, tears leaking out of his eyes. His spider-sense is exploding his senses and he can feel a hyper-overload well on the way through his system as everything just keeps getting louder, his clothes too tight, the closet too small, his tears too warm.

“Come on out Peter! You can’t hide!” The door busts down at that moment, slamming open in a way that guarantees his wall must have a nice door-knob shape at this point. Fuck. “Come on, Pete, don’t you want come with us? Don’t you wanna go? See your old man, huh?” 

Peter can’t stop himself from murmuring to Tony, to his dad over the phone. “I don’t wanna go–please, Dad I-I don’t want to go.” 

A bullet pierces the closet and Peter lets out a yelp, the sound grating on his ears in the most painful way, and finally the sensory overload crashes over him. He covers his ears as tight as possible as voices outside the closet only grow louder and someone’s trying to pull the sliding doors open. 

“I don’t wanna die, please Dad– I-I don’t wanna die.” Peter keeps trying to focus, but the closet finally breaks open and someone’s dragging him out by his feet. He screams. 

His phone drops, cracking against the hard floor as he tries to hit his attackers weakly. All his senses are going haywire as fists and kicks are flown in his direction to try and subdue him, and finally, when a cold-butted gun is shoved in his face Peter freezes.

He froze for only a second, but it was enough for them to knock it against his head hard enough for black dots to dance across his vision. Something pricks into his neck, and all he can remember after that is the vision of bright-blue flaming fury breaking through his window and lighting up the room in a raging red fire and bursts of impossible noise. 

***

Peter wakes up to warmth. Something soft wrapped around him, lights dimmed to the point of darkness, and the light sound of snoring somewhere over his head. 

His pillow is moving slightly, but it's warm in such a comforting way it takes everything in his willpower to fight against the drug-induced sleep that’s urging him to collapse again. He groans in pain as he tries to roll over, the right side of his face stinging like a bitch just partially trying to lay on it. 

A startled snort sounds overhead, and warm hands are immediately in his curly hair. Soft and pleasant as they untangle it in such a gentle way. 

“Pete?” A worried voice calls, and Peter makes his eyes crack open a little just to see who is talking to him. Confusion fills his brain as he registers Tony’s face. Wasn’t he home alone? May shouldn’t be back yet, and why is Tony here? 

Tony gives him a slight smile, brushing his hair away from his face ever-so-carefully. “Hi, Bambi. How are you feeling?” 

Peter takes stock of his person. His head throbs like never before, and his body is sore as hell, but he’s warm. He feels sleepy and safe, and never has he been happier to see Tony in his life. He can’t seem to remember why, but he remembers that he wanted Tony. 

Maybe his dad’s a mind reader or something. Maybe he did end up coming over for that movie night and just forgot. 

He doesn’t really care, he’s with his Dad.

“M’kay I g’ess.” Peter mutters, furrowing his brows when it comes out slurred, but he tries not to pay it much attention. That’s too much work, and his head hurts way too much for that. Thinking’s hard. 

Tony smiles again, pressing a light kiss to his forehead. “That’s good, you can go back to sleep, kiddo.” 

Peter follows through with that demand happily, snuggling back into his dad’s stomach and curling up tighter than before. 

“T’anks, Dad.” In the morning, Peter wouldn’t remember calling him dad at all. Or why he thanked him for that matter, but Tony will remember. 

Because Tony is his Dad, and whether Peter remembers, he’ll hold that fact to his heart fondly.