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Tony doesn’t allow regret to simmer in his mouth because he keeps himself busy. Through the goodbyes, through the tears, through that look on May’s face and the way Ben clears his throat. Through those final visits with Ned and with Harry. Tony stays separate, inside his own head, barely letting it process, barely letting it in. He doesn’t look out the window on the plane, doesn’t even try to see them still, and Peter sighs, leaning against his side with too much exhaustion for a little boy. And not exhaustion of someone that’s been running around playing, someone that’s been laughing too much and having a good time. No, the exhaustion of someone who’s seen too much. Already, and he’s just a kid in first grade.
“My eyes hurt,” Peter says, with a little huff, like he wants to be saying something else.
“Not from too much crying right?” Tony asks, wrapping his arm around him, rubbing his shoulder.
“Does not help, but no they just burning,” Petey says.
Tony hums to himself, that same tight chest feeling presenting itself like it always does when he’s worrying about Peter. And he constantly is, so his life is like perpetual heartache. But especially now. Especially through all this.
“Well close ‘em, pumpkin,” Tony says. “We’ve got a long flight and you already finished all your reading for your new classes.”
“Yes.”
“So you don’t need to rush with that,” Tony says, brushing Peter’s hair back. “I know how you rush.”
“Diligent,” Peter says, very careful with the word. He pushes up the armrest between them and scoots closer. “Aunt May says that’s me.”
Why is even hearing her name making Tony feel weird? He knows what he’s doing is right.
Right?
He clears his throat and hears the echoes of his failures wallowing in his head, and he hugs Peter a little closer.
Howard’s voice is loud, and Tony closes his eyes.
~
The Malibu house wasn’t built for him, per sé, but it was built with him in mind when the California SI campus was being built. Maybe it could have been a summer home, a place where they stayed on vacations or when he was in town for work, but knowing it was there, especially after the trouble, felt like a temptation.
And now they’re there. And it’s not furnished yet and it echoes and Peter’s little pitter-patter feet sound louder than they did at the apartment in New York. Tony hears the word mistake in his head like the end of some solemn song, and he feels so far away and realizes that he is so far away, in so many different versions of what that means.
And he retreats into himself.
Almost like he was before, before Peter, and he knows he’s been regressing but this—but this—
He’s here now, they’re here now, and should they be here now, and he’s right and he knows he’s right and he has to be right and is he right? Is he right?
He flits through days like a ghost, through Pepper handing him things to sign and people painting the walls in his house. Through a different climate and through sleepless nights in a goddamn sleeping bag because they can’t even get Tony Stark his furniture on time. Through Obie laughing and making plans.
He tunes in to Peter squinting. To more complaints about his eyes when he’s trying to read. And things are briefly clear for Tony when they aren’t for Peter, and his kid has to get reading glasses.
“Why does this feel like my failure?” Tony whispers, standing next to Rhodey. Peter is over by the wall of glasses with the lady, who’s been nice and uplifting and ready to make Peter’s prescription—soon as the kid picks what he wants.
“Don’t be saying that shit,” Rhodey says, giving him a look. “One, you’re ridiculous, and two, it’s not the end of the world. Don’t make him feel bad about it or he’s gonna feel bad about it. Do you want him to feel bad about it?”
Tony stares over at the back of Peter’s head, the way he talks to the lady and smiles, actually getting excited about his options. “I never want him to feel bad about anything ever.”
“So stop acting like reading glasses are something shameful,” Rhodey says. “Jesus, Tony, you know I had to have them—”
“I forgot about that—”
“Yeah, sure—”
“Honestly—”
“It’s not anything that’s wrong,” Rhodey says. There’s a little bit of anger and a lot of concern in his eyes, and Tony’s mind’s eye flickers like an old television. Like it’s trying to lock out the old memories and keep him worried and he doesn’t know how the hell to stop what’s going on in his head. Like he’s a passenger and he’s frozen and he’s just watching it happen, and is he right is he right is he—
And he knows Rhodey says something else, and he knows Peter picks out glasses, but the passenger thing continues and he falls to the wayside. The world passing him by, his mouth responding without his head’s permission and—
“Am I still handsome?” Peter asks, gently.
They’re sitting at the dinner table. Tony almost feels like May and Ben are gonna walk in any minute, but they’re not, he remembers that they’re not, because he left them on the other side of the country. Why does he feel drunk? He hasn’t had a drink in—
Don’t think about having a drink.
He finds brief clarity in the question hanging before him, and the worried look on Peter’s face. He’s not wearing the glasses at the moment, because he’s not reading, but he has them beside his plastic bowl of spaghetti. Tony barely recalls the woman saying keep good care of them, honey, you don’t want them breaking! And he knows Peter takes those kinds of things to heart.
“You’re the most handsome,” Tony says, raising his eyebrows at him. “The most. In the entire universe.”
“Even more than Mars aliens?”
Tony snorts.
“You said universe.”
“Even more than Venus Gods,” Tony says. “And chiseled warriors that live in Jupiter’s big red eye.”
Peter grins at that. “But even with the glasses on, though.” He takes them and carefully unfolds them and pushes them onto his face, and looks up at him.
Tony almost wants to cry. His emotions are—on top of all this, like they’re the weight that’s making him lightheaded and making him question and making him falter. And Peter’s still the best thing in the world. The only thing. “Petey monkey. You’re like. The cutest thing, normally, but with the glasses, you’re somehow even cuter, and I don’t understand it and I didn’t think it was possible and I feel like you're gonna break some kinda rule of cuteness. Too much cuteness.”
Peter blushes a little bit and nods, taking solace in that. “So I won’t be made fun of in school when I go for being glasses boy when I read.”
Tony scoffs a little bit. “Glasses boy?”
He’s not thinking about school. He hates that idea. But he knows it’s gonna happen any day now—what day is it—and he’s gotta get used to that. He’s gotta get used to a lot of things. Peter’s already missing time, he’s gonna be coming into the year in his new school late. New first grader, late, tiny—Jesus, Tony doesn’t wanna think about bullying again.
“No, baby,” Tony says. “A lot of kids wear glasses.”
Peter nods, for an extended period of time, and he takes the glasses off and sets them on the table. The table...Tony runs his hands over the table and has a horrific moment of forgetfulness. Non-remembering? What the fuck.
“When did this table arrive?” he asks.
Peter narrows his eyes at him.
“What?” Tony asks, though his voice shakes.
“We shoulda just brought all the things we already had and I don’t know why—”
“Listen, we brought some things,” Tony says, and he feels incredibly displaced for a moment because he doesn’t remember, how much is he not paying attention to the point where he doesn’t fucking remember when the new table got here? They’re still sitting in lawn chairs and eating off plastic and when the hell—
Peter looks a little more wary now. “Yesterday,” he says. “You signed all crazy like a completely different signing of your name than usual. Chairs tomorrow. Grandma’s plates and bowls and things tomorrow too. And beds we don’t know. Lost.” Peter stares at him and stares and stares and stares. “You forgetting for real?”
He used to do this a lot. Just not tune in. Things would show up that he didn’t remember asking for, things would be on the schedule that he supposedly discussed with people already. Life would just—pass him by. Without him asking it to. Without him participating.
He needs to stop he needs to stop he needs to—
“Daddy.”
“No, I remember, bug,” Tony says, tapping his hands on the table. It’s nice, anyways. Part of a set, probably. Maybe Pepper helped him pick it out. Pepper...he needs to fix that too. Fix. Fix. He’s got so much to fix, and the little voice inside his head is screaming, but he can only pick up the echoes. “I also remember that the beds are coming on Friday,” he says, completely making some shit up.
“Friday?”
What day is it? When does school start? When was the last time he—
“Yep,” Tony says. “Handsome man. Finish dinner.”
~
“I understand that you’re not coping.”
May’s voice. Tony doesn’t remember where he was before this, what he was doing, but he’s in his new office now and he’s got about a hundred stacks of paper on his desk. Peter’s at his own mini-desk, which is facing the window, and he’s writing vigorously. He’s wearing his glasses.
“Uh,” Tony says, stupidly. He doesn’t remember the rest of the conversation. He’s got echoes of it, like everything else, but they’re only reverberations, ghosts of moments he lived in but didn’t truly experience. He tries to pick it back up. “I just wish you guys could have—I wish we all could have come. Change of scenery, change of—situation, for all of us.”
She sighs, and Tony changes his phone to his other ear. “You know we can’t just pick up and go, as much as we may want you and Peter in our lives every day like you were,” she says. “Our lives are here, our jobs—we’d have to completely start over. Mary’s—Mary’s here.” She clears her throat and Tony remembers and recalls and recoils. They’re there, too. Howard and Mom. They’re there. “And before you even start,” May continues, “we can’t rely on you to build us a new life in California, Tony. Helping us with visiting, sure, but—listen, this is just—you made your choices, this is the way it has to be for now, I guess, and I know you’re not coping but I think—I mean, I hope it’ll get better soon. And hopefully you’ll have your little—whatever this is, and after about a year or so you two will come back and you’ll be able to—tackle New York again, feel safe here again.”
Tony clears his throat. Whenever the reason he came here is mentioned he feels like someone else. Is there any possible way to run away from his problems? Is there a single place on the earth where he’ll be able to protect Peter from insane people? No, there’s not. Why is there clarity on that in this moment? Because he feels like he’s made a mistake.
No, you haven’t.
Yes, I have.
We’re meant to be here.
No, we’re meant to go home.
Isn’t home just together? He feels fucking sick. He has to catch his breath but he’s not breathing hard and he’s just sitting here and he knows there’s no real solving it, he knows. But if there are things he can remember since he got here, other than things with Peter, he knows that he’s been beefing up security. At the house, at Stark campus. He’s changing Jarvis, too. He can code Jarvis in his sleep. He can do that and continue on with whatever he’s doing when he’s not tuned in. Because trying to prevent anything from happening to Peter is in his subconscious. It’s in his DNA.
He knows he’s gonna have to leave him again. For something. For a work trip. When the kid goes to school. Playdates. Tony knows he can’t be afraid forever and Peter’s already the son of a Stark so he’s steps away from a normal life. How much more can Tony fuck that up? His paranoia has spikes. It’s dangerous. He’s at war in his head, in a way unlike he has been for a while. Protect him. Normal life. Protect him. Normal life. Why can’t he have both? Why can’t Tony anticipate everything? Why can’t he be strong enough mentally and physically to get through this?
Why can’t he trust that it probably won’t happen again?
Probably.
He remembers the couple of days after where Peter had nightmares every night. How does he fix that? The memories are flashing red. They are prevalent. They keep making their way back like they’re superimposed on top of his present moment.
It’s happening. It’s still all happening.
It’s over. You’re doing this. You’re making it all worse.
Danger’s always going to find you.
Peter is looking over his shoulder at him with worried eyes.
“Tony?” May says, into the phone.
“Just don’t be too mad at me,” Tony says, without thinking about it. “I’m doing plenty of that for the both of us.”
She says something else, but he’s fading again.
~
The sleeping bags move to the living room.
The chairs for the dining room table have arrived, and the dish sets from his mother are here, too. It’s like Pepper knows what’s up with him and what his head is doing because she’s made a list that’s stuck to the fridge with a monkey “hear no evil” magnet. A list of when things have arrived, when Pete starts at his new school, when Tony’s got meetings he has to be at and the ones he can possibly miss, if he has to. Says when the replacement order of mattresses are supposed to arrive. Bed frames are here already. Sheets and cover sets too. Jarvis also knows all of this. Ask and he’ll tell you.
Tony has to talk to Pepper. Properly talk.
He feels frozen with that too, with the fear of it, with the things he’s felt and how he doesn’t feel worthy of them or of her and he’s gotten her hurt, now, just by being who he is. She and Peter, both hurt, and move past it it’s over it’s over move past it move on or you’ll get stuck you’ll get stuck if you don’t move on—
So the sleeping bags are in the living room.
And they didn’t bring their couch yet and they’ve been here for like a week—maybe? More or less? It wasn’t in Pepper’s note—and there’s still no couch, and he doesn’t know why the hell he was cosmically cursed for all the furniture to come in slow waves after the move, but he figures they’re in the living room tonight because the TV is finally here when it wasn’t before. There’s some nature documentary playing with penguins toddling around out on a frozen tundra, and Peter is in a nest of pillows in front of Tony, his little feet kicking inside of the sleeping bag. Tony’s laid out beside him, arm up and around the pillows, occasionally reaching down to brush Peter’s hair back—
And his head is roaring with too much and not enough and flick switch patterns and memories burned through like damaged film and Howard’s yelling and Peter recounting his escape and the bruise on Pepper’s forehead to match his son’s and the looks on Ben and May’s faces the last time he saw them and Mary’s hand in his own and Rhodey lifting him up from his place in the dirt and Happy turning around from the front seat at the sound of Peter’s crying and dark corners and shadows and Maria’s singing and slipping on sidewalks and stormy skies and and and—
Peter twists around and looks at him. And Tony keys in, like he has been when it’s just him and Peter, and everything else goes quiet. Peter sits up completely and criss-crosses his legs.
“What’s up, monkey?” Tony asks, resting his hand on Peter’s knee.
Peter stares at him for a couple seconds longer. “I’m okay,” he says, softly.
Tony narrows his eyes a bit. “I know you are,” he says.
Peter shakes his head and scoots closer, and he grips Tony’s shoulder. “No, I’m okay so you gotta be okay.”
Tony stares, flabbergasted. None of all the previous insanity is swirling around like a tornado in his head anymore, and it’s just his kid and what he just said. Tony’s braced on one elbow and he knows he needs to sit up but he doesn’t feel like he can move.
Peter lets go of his shoulder, tips Tony’s chin up and then he pats his cheeks. He leans in and kisses him on the forehead, and then pulls back again. “You need to be okay because I’m okay, like I am okay a-okay all the way, but I need you to be okay so I can stay okay. And so does everybody else. Family and everybody at your job because you’re the big boss captain of the ship knows everything. Things are hard hard real difficult when you’re not okay for everybody but especially—especially me, Daddy.”
Tony’s throat feels tight and he shakes his head, tears gathering in his eyes. He’s just about to make an attempt to sit up when Peter lays out beside him again, wrapping his arms around his neck and burying his face in his shoulder. He’s not crying but he’s holding Tony real tight, and Tony lets out a shuddering breath and wraps his arms around him, sitting up with him so he can hold onto him better.
It’s like a strange door has been opened. A window. A pocket of air.
He clears his throat to try to get the words out. “I’m not okay, am I?”
Peter shakes his head. “Nope, but we can change that!” he says. He pulls back then, arms still around Tony’s neck but looking at him now. “We need to get the best food. Best best food. Always helps. Macaroni and cheese with the hot dogs in it, and you know how to make that and I can help and we’ve got all our kitchen stuff now so we won’t gotta use the plastics anymore and we can actually cook that for real.”
Tony feels like he’s gonna let out a sob if he says anything, so he just nods.
“Then Auntie May and Uncle Ben can fly out and we can get the mega fly to get them here like real quick. And that’ll help. And I talked to Uncle Ben on the phone yesterday when you were brain dead and he says he’s got some work time off built up because he’s such a good worker and he’s trying to arrange for Auntie May to use hers too so they can come. And that’ll help.”
“Right,” Tony says.
“And Uncle Rhodey can also come because he makes you smile every time and Pepper can also come because she makes you smile too even though you act like a big weirdo with her and Happy can take a night off from being your worker and be your friend.”
Tony snorts, shaking his head and patting Peter’s side.
Peter readjusts so he’s leaning forward against Tony’s shoulder, and he holds out his hand like he’s presenting the room to Tony. “And they all be here with us and we paint and sing and dance and be together and not think about bad things anymore at all because the bad things are done and if they happen again we’ll ram right through them and smash ‘em up and I’m safe with you and you’re the best and that’s it.” Peter nods and hugs him again. “How’s that?”
Clarity. Peter’s been bringing it in small bursts since all this started, but now it’s like everything else falls away. He hates that the kid has noticed what a fucking freak he’s been acting like, but how could he not, and Tony hates that it took a six year old to knock him out of his funk. But he feels—he feels clear, now, with this. Fog lifting. Like he can face it, like—like maybe he can keep going. Perspective. If he can think like this, I can manage it. I can manage it for him. That’s the whole point, that was the whole purpose all along and here it is and I’m finally latching onto it. It’s all about him, that’s it.
Hold onto it. Hold on.
I’m sorry, kid, I’m sorry. But I’ve got you. And you’ve got me.
“That sounds—that sounds great, baby bear,” Tony says, kissing the side of Peter’s head. “You really think—it’s all gonna be fine? You do?”
“Yeah,” Peter says, completely sure. “Me and you are the best team and we’re superheroes and we can do anything.”
Tony nods, swallowing hard.
Peter’s the hero.
And Tony’s gotta be better for him. That’s all there is to it. No more screwing around and making matters worse.
He’s not gonna lose another moment. Because the strength starts with him. No more mistakes.
Doesn’t he always say that?
But he’s gotta try. New Chapter, all that. And the picture on the front of the book has Peter in focus. The star of the story. The meaning behind it all.