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Tony feels fucking ill, but he’s not the one that’s sick, he’s not the one that’s in danger, it’s Ben, Ben, someone Tony loves, someone Peter loves, and yet all Tony could do was turn him onto his side and give him his goddamn jacket before Rhodey got here—
and Tony feels frozen—
they’re gone, I’m—Jesus, Tony, I’m sorry—
He remembers that feeling, that sinking feeling of helplessness that comes with something you want to change but you can’t, because it’s already happened—
But this is happening, it’s current, it’s in progress, and he needs to kick into gear but what can he do what can he do, they don’t even know what the hell this is—
May reaches out and grips Tony’s shoulder, and he can feel Peter hovering behind him, clutching at his shirt. Rhodey sits there in front of him, timing the seizure with his watch, and Ben moving like this—this isn’t normal, this couldn’t have been any fucking mix-up or reaction to alcohol, which means someone is fucking here someone is here who did this—
Is he just paranoid or is he right, is this a bad reaction or is he right, is he still reeling from what happened to Peter or is he right—
Ben stops moving and goes slack.
“Ben,” Tony says, grabbing onto his arm. “Ben, hey, can you hear me?”
Ben’s head lolls to the side a bit, and Tony scoots closer. Both he and Rhodey search for his pulse at the same time, Tony on his neck and Rhodey on the crook of his arm.
“Heartbeat’s uh…” Rhodey says, and he trails off and glances at Tony because it seems too slow, but he doesn’t want to say that in front of May. Tony doesn’t blame him—he doesn’t want to say it either, he doesn’t even wanna think it.
May looks at them with wild eyes, but doesn’t ask, doesn’t ask what Rhodey was about to say. Instead, she moves so she’s next to him.
“Should we move him,” May says, voice trembling. “Honey.” She leans over him and cups his face in her hands. He moves a little bit, under her touch, like having her close is a rush of adrenaline.
“Daddy—”
Tony glances behind him, sees Peter inching forward. His eyebrows are furrowed severely and his eyes are shining with unshed tears, and he’s shaking. Tony doesn’t like that he’s here and he’s seeing this, but he can’t have him anywhere else but by his side. That’s it.
Tony wraps his arm around his waist. “He’ll be okay, baby—”
“He’s still breathing,” Rhodey says, leaning forward, over him alongside May.
“He better be—Ben!” She shakes him a little bit, but gently. His mouth moves, like he’s trying to form her name, like he’s trying to pull himself from between sleeping and waking.
“They’re almost here,” Pepper says. “They’re right around the corner.”
“We’re not gonna use the doctors here?” May asks.
“No, we shouldn’t—”
Ben makes a little noise and his brows furrow. “Lordy, we’re on the ground now—” he says, and he rolls over onto his back.
Tony can hear the sirens among the distant Christmas music. His panic feels like a giant block surrounding him and Peter, making it so he can barely hear everything else, can barely get his own thoughts out or let theirs in.
“You cut it out, you hear me?” May says, still holding onto Ben’s face. “Whatever it is, it’s fine, you’ll get over it, get through it, it’s fine. We’ll take care of it, it’s fine, just—don’t let it—just don’t—”
Ben’s moving slower now, which is concerning, but he smiles slightly, looking at her. “I’m not going anywhere, honey,” he says, softly.
And the next few things happen quickly, and Tony is more of a useless observer than anything else. His hearing goes sharp so it’s mostly a high pitched wail, and the edges of his vision turn soft like an old memory in a soap opera. One of his mother’s soap operas, with the dramatic hand gestures and the slow pans from character to character, and he’d sit in her lap with her in rapt attention.
The ambulance drives up and the paramedics come over. Everyone is stepping back, and Tony grabs Peter up into his arms. He can hardly hear anything, can see mouths moving, can see Rhodey talking to them and telling them something, and then they’re taking Ben away and May is rushing after them, his hand clutched in hers.
Peter wraps his arms around Tony’s neck and buries his face in his shoulder. Tony holds him tighter, only keyed in to him and nothing else, and he rubs his back up and down.
“He was talking,” Tony whispers. “That’s good. That’s a good sign.”
“He’s gonna be okay?” Peter says, on the verge of tears.
“Yes,” Tony says, definitively, because saying anything else will upset him more, and he can’t have that, he can’t.
Pepper takes his elbow and it’s like something is activated in his brain, another light turning on that had burned out. She starts leading him away, after Rhodey, who’s on the phone, and then he realizes that she’s on the phone, too. He becomes aware of the few people nearby who’d seen the whole thing and everything that went down, and he keeps thinking about the party and if anybody is in danger.
“What does Happy know?” Tony asks Pepper, needing to have information, needing to figure this the hell out and know whether or not he was a target or if there’s just some lunatic in here poisoning people at a fucking Christmas party.
The same question, the same worry, over and over perpetually, and he feels crippled by the lack of knowledge.
Pepper hangs up without saying anything, and she looks at Tony as they step further outside, away from the overhang. He can still hear the siren, and he assumes May went with the ambulance. Shit, his brain, he didn’t even fucking notice, he didn’t even see. He’s fighting so hard against this situation and he has to fix that he needs to think on his feet and be able to handle shit whether it was expected or not. That was the whole issue with what happened to Peter, he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t prepared—and clearly, he still hasn’t gotten past that hurdle. He still isn’t ready for what the hell is out there.
This is what happens when he loves people. He’s just struck with the fear of losing them.
Focus.
“Has he found anything out?” Tony asks. “Do we need to order the building evacuated? Or at least our side—No one else is having a party tonight, but there are definitely still people staying in the hotel.”
“The security team hasn’t seen anything,” Pepper says, with a strange look on her face. “They’re combing through the footage but they haven’t seen anything yet. They’ve got a list of Ben’s drinks going and May’s right, nothing was alcoholic that they can see—”
“Have they pulled aside the serving team?” Tony asks, feeling bad about interrogating people, but shit, something’s fucking happened and they have to do something.
“They have, and nothing seems out of the ordinary—”
“Right here,” Rhodey says. “Sorry, found it.” He’s next to one of the company vans, Tony guesses the one he rolled up in, the valet must have moved it because it’s a little further from where Tony saw it when Rhodey first got here. Rhodey opens it, and Tony climbs into the back while Pepper and Rhodey get into the front.
“They’re taking him to the medical center on the Stark campus,” Rhodey says.
Tony peels Peter off of him and briefly situates him beside him. He reaches back into the back of the van and grabs the car seat that’s back there. He’s insane, and made sure all the company vehicles have a car seat and a first aid kit and a few other things—he did all that, and had some of the cars here at the party, but still couldn’t manage to keep his own brother-in-law from getting hurt. Injured? Poisoned? They don’t even fucking know.
“C’mon, Petey pie,” Tony says, swinging the car seat over on his left side, opposite of where Peter is sitting. “Help me assemble this thing.”
“I can just sit,” Peter says, shoving up close to him. “Buckle me in with you.”
“No, buddy—”
“I’m almost seven.”
“You just turned six a couple months ago,” Tony says, recalling New York and the last time things felt normal.
“It’s okay let’s go let’s go we’re wasting time,” Peter says, and he plasters himself against Tony’s side and wraps his arms around him. He hums a little bit, and he’s still shaking.
Both Rhodey and Pepper are looking back at them, and Tony sighs, rolling his eyes, and he drops the car seat in the back again. He buckles them in together, and reaches across and buckles the other buckle across Peter, too.
“I’ll drive slow,” Rhodey says, turning back around and starting the car.
~
Tony insists on looking at the tox screens and the results, too. But he and Rhodey see the same thing as all the doctors on staff, as well as the second and third and fourth opinions they sent out for.
Tony, Pepper, Rhodey and Happy stand in a quartet in the hallway, while Peter and May fawn over a recovering Ben in the next room.
“No way it was just roofies,” Tony says.
“That’s all it said,” Pepper says. “I know. It feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” Rhodey says. “All the way.”
“That’s not how you react to roofies,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest. “They bring you down and he was up. There’s something wrong here.”
“And no footage of anyone putting anything in anybody’s drink,” Happy says. “We combed over it about a hundred times, no joke. Obie even helped us.”
Tony sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Everybody else is okay, right?” Rhodey asks. “We’re keeping an eye on it? Least of everything, some asshole is out here trying to roofie people at a Stark party, and they did it out of camera view somehow—we’re monitoring the guests? Shit, we’re supposed to know these people.”
“Yeah, it’s winding down over there but we’re making sure nothing else happens,” Happy says. “And still analyzing the footage.”
“There were kids there,” Tony says. He looks up, and sees Pepper looking at him.
“I’m with you,” she says. “That wasn’t the proper reaction from Ben in any universe to being roofied, and even if it was just that, we don’t have the event on camera? From any of the angles?” She shakes her head, and a chill runs through Tony. “Thank God he’s okay. Because this feels like—I don’t know, there’s something wrong. There’s absolutely something wrong, and Tony, I know they weren’t going for him. I’m not exactly saying they were going for you, but whoever it was, they…this feels like a long game type thing.”
“Yeah,” Rhodey says. “The fact that we didn’t even see it, his reaction, all those high profile people there—feels like some kind of untraceable poison, with the roofies as a cover story.”
Tony feels like he’s gonna fall over, and he doesn’t know what it is keeping him upright right now. Could be the anger at the whole goddamn thing—it happening again, something endangering him and his family, him not being aware of it, no trace being left behind of something that’s completely obvious to him and everybody else with a brain around here. Even the doctors seem unconvinced, but they can’t say much because the results say what they say and don’t imply anything else.
Whoever did this was good. And he’s not being too paranoid.
“We have to up security,” Tony says. “Redo all the background checks, go deeper. I’ll overhaul Jarvis and get him in all the SI buildings. New everything, just, new, shiny—everything.”
“On it,” Happy says. “As good as done.”
“Are you gonna tell them what we think?” Rhodey asks, motioning towards the window. “You don’t think we sound like a bunch of conspiracy theorists?”
“I’m physically incapable of not telling them what’s going on, so,” Tony says. “I’ll tell them. And, uh—Peter...I don’t know.” They don’t know exactly what the hell is happening, just what they think is happening, but either way he doesn’t want to tell his child that he thinks his Uncle was poisoned and it could have been intended for Tony himself.
“You know how to talk to him,” Pepper says. “And he’s smart.”
“Too smart,” Tony says, with a sigh. “But Ben’s fine. He’s fine.” Tony stares through the window—Ben is still laying down, still pale, but May’s draped along his right side, her hand on his chest, and Peter is curled up on his left side, Ben’s arm around him, and he’s looking very intently at the menu of food for in-patients. “I’ll have them monitor him closely for a little while, though, to...make sure.” He doesn’t wanna be sideswiped by some shit that’s slow-acting, something meant to take them by surprise when they think everything is okay.
There’s already enough things they don’t understand, here.
“We’re never gonna know the full story on this, are we?” Pepper asks.
“Oh, I’m gonna keep looking,” Happy says.
“Me too,” Rhodey says. “But I’m not optimistic we’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s too weird, I think we’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”
Tony scoffs, and his mouth tastes bitter. “Merry Christmas,” he says.
~
May refuses to leave Ben, so Pepper and Happy head back to the house for a change of clothes and some of Peter’s things, since they’re gonna stay the night here tonight.
Peter is clutching his elf hat as he sleeps, still tucked under Ben’s arm, and Tony wraps a blanket around him.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” May says, once again absentmindedly moving around Ben’s wallet and phone and keys on the bedside table. “I know it wasn’t just roofies. I’ve been roofied—”
Ben lets out a big sigh, like he can hardly bear to hear it.
“—and I know what it feels like, what it looks like, and that wasn’t it,” she says.
“Before you met?” Tony asks, looking at Ben.
“Yeah,” Ben says, and he seems shaken by the mere mention of it.
“Whatever this was, it was more serious,” May says, and she moves in a way where Tony can tell she’s uncomfortable still being dressed up in this environment. He’s right there with her, and he hopes the others get back soon.
“I know,” Tony says, with a sigh, still staring down at Peter. “We all know, and we’re upping security and keeping on top of it. We’re not gonna let it go, even if we can’t find anything with the evidence we have. It’s too—fucking weird.” And personal. It’s too personal.
“No way they were going after me,” Ben says, shaking his head. “Even if they wanted to get at you through someone else, they’d go for the monkey, God forbid, or one of the ladies before me.”
“I don’t know,” Tony says, sitting beside the bed and making quick eye contact with May. “We’re pretty close.”
“You just need to be careful,” Ben says, raising his eyebrows at him. “I know you’re Tony Stark and all, and we’ve all experienced plenty of—famous person activity, but this is the first time I’ve really felt how people—wanna get at you. Because I know it wasn’t for me, and I feel like it probably happened when they delivered those drinks and I nabbed the one that was supposed to be for you.” He clicks his tongue. “And I feel like a damn moron, because I wasn’t paying attention to anyone or anything—”
“You were just having fun,” May says, rubbing his arm. “We didn’t think we had to be on high alert.”
Tony is normally aware when she means for things to sting, and this one doesn’t land as intentional, but it hurts anyway. Peter cuddles closer to Ben in his sleep, and Ben rubs his shoulder.
“No matter what happened to me,” Ben says, getting all serious. “You need to protect yourself, Tony. With all these guys out here wanting what you have, you’re a target, and you’ve got a family. We can’t lose you, and Pete especially can’t. “
“I know,” Tony says, too many fireworks going off in his head that aren’t beautiful and bright, but failing and sputtering across the sky. He reaches out and brushes Peter’s hair out of his eyes, and doesn’t feel up to this conversation anymore, even though they’re still in the thick of the situation. He’s beyond pissed off, taking steps back in his journey to whatever the hell, steeped in guilt and fear and things that shouldn’t be surrounding him and his family at Christmas time. Or ever, but especially at Christmas. “You’re just gonna stay tonight so we can make sure everything’s, uh—on the up and up. Then we’ll go home tomorrow and pretend this never happened.”
They both look at him like they know they can’t do that, but they don’t say anything to the contrary.
~
Nothing changes during the night, save for May climbing into bed with Ben and Tony finding a good spot for him and Peter, and they’re able to bring him home the next day around noon.
Christmas prep is distracting for the next couple days, but the ‘event’ still weighs on Tony. The lack of answers, the way whoever this was covered their tracks, how close and under their noses they were—and now there’s no way to prove that what they know happened happened. Another thing to feel sick over, and he tries not to fall into the kind of despair that dragged him across the country to begin with.
He tries to remember what he told himself before. What he has to keep telling himself, every damn day. Focus, focus, be better. For all of them, for his family—but especially for Peter.
“I went to like six different thrift shops to find that exact one,” Rhodey says, pointing over at a beaming Peter, next to the tree and surrounded by all kinds of wrapping paper. He’s holding a little kids building and engineering kit, something that looks kinda vintagey, maybe similar to something Tony’s own mother might have gotten him when he was young.
“Don’t say I,” Happy says, shaking his head. He’s holding his hot chocolate with one hand, almost like he’s ready to use it as a weapon. “Don’t say I when it wasn’t I.”
“We,” Rhodey corrects, to a chorus of laughter from the girls and from Ben. “We. The two of us, your Uncle Happy and your Uncle Rhodey. Together.”
Peter grins too, giggling. He looks at the box with stars in his eyes, and Tony takes a couple pictures. Peter hugs the box to his chest for a second, scrunching his eyes closed tight, and he puts it down gently, getting to his feet. “Just exactly what I wanted!” he declares, skipping over to the two of them where they’re sitting on the couch. “The exact exact thing from the pictures and it’s perfect and I love you!” He leaps onto the couch between them and they both laugh, ruffling his hair and giving him kisses.
Tony takes more photos.
“You’re welcome, buddy—”
“And I’m gonna get to help you build it, right?”
“We are gonna get to help—”
“Not your dad—”
Tony snorts.
“Everybody can help,” Peter says, sitting there, pleased as punch.
“Exactly,” Tony insists, loudly, taking a sip of his own coffee. “The selfishness. My God.”
“Alright, alright, Stark,” Pepper says, giving him a look. “It’s Christmas.”
“Keep unwrapping, baby,” May says, getting up and walking over to Peter’s pile of gifts. She pushes the building set towards the far wall with her slipper, smirking a little bit. “Let’s keep this one away from the men before they start building it themselves.”
~
After the morning presents are opened, Tony finds himself alone in the kitchen with Ben again, like that first night. He’s been keeping a special eye on him, but thankfully, he hasn’t seemed out of sorts.
“One again I am reminding you that you were supposed to wake me up for the turkey,” Ben says, raising his eyebrows. “It smells good and I think it’s cooking well, but you were supposed to wake me up to get it in here and get it going.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at him.
“You’re not intimidating,” Tony says, listening to the laughter in the living room. It echoes here, and sometimes that’s nice.
“I can be,” Ben says.
“Oh, I know,” Tony says, grinning at him. Ben huffs and turns towards the fridge, grabbing out the canned cranberries and the stuff for the mashed potatoes. Tony clears his throat. “You know, when a man gets a party ruined for him by getting secretly poisoned, I feel like he earns a few perks, you know? Just a couple. Including not getting up at the crack of dawn to shove a turkey in the oven.”
Ben shuts the fridge door and laughs at him. “I’m fine. I’m peachy keen.”
“Uh huh,” Tony says, grabbing some bowls out of the cabinets. “Coulda been poisoned with anything and yet here you are complaining about cooking. Typical.”
“I’ve got a very robust constitution,” Ben says, grinning. “Pretty sure they can’t kill me easily, so if you ever need a taste tester, I’m your man.”
Tony shakes his head at him, too endeared for how serious this is. “May wouldn’t be too thrilled with that,” he says.
“Well, I’m protecting her too,” Ben says.
Tony doesn’t want anybody getting hurt on his behalf, especially these people that he loves so much. He thinks about Mary and all she gave him before she left, how she blessed him with the most precious gift he could have ever imagined, and tied him to her family, as well. He’s always sentimental on Christmas but this shit has only elevated it, and he feels like he’s about to dive into some soliloquy about protection and love and all that jazz, but then Peter rushes into the kitchen.
“Look at you, Mr. Plaid,” Ben says. Peter’s got on his new head to toe pajamas, and he’s wearing the hood with the little floppy ears. Tony is about half dead with how cute he is, and it reminds him a lot of when Peter was a baby and all the things they’d dress him up in. He seems perfectly content in this outfit, and Tony wonders if he’ll ever stop indulging them.
“Very comfy!” Peter says, grinning.
They both drop what they’re doing because he runs up into their space, holding something in his hands.
“Whatcha got, baby bear?” Tony asks.
“These are friendship family bracelets that I made!” Peter says. He grabs Tony’s hand and Ben’s hand too, and places the bracelets in their palms. They’re made with paneling and beads and little charms, and both of them spell out their names with tiny metal letters. “I made them for everybody in the family also known as everybody here, and I made one for mama and I gave it to Auntie May.”
“Oh man,” Ben says, laughing a little breathlessly and looking at Tony. “I bet that was something.”
“And I love you,” Peter says, and he hugs them both at the same time.
“I love you, monkey,” Tony says, his heart in his throat. “I’ll wear it forever.”
“Love you, buddy,” Ben says, and he sounds on the edge of tears, too. “Same here.”
Peter rests his chin on Tony’s stomach, his arms still around them both, and he looks up at them with a stern gaze. “And neither one of you are ever allowed to die or leave me not until I’m a hundred and not even then, you can start thinking about it then but I’m still gonna say no, so not even then. Okay? Okay?”
Tony wonders if he heard them talking, or if he’s just been thinking about it since all that shit happened at the gala.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Ben says, shaking his head. “You’re stuck with us into eternity, Petey!”
“Good because that’s what I want!” Peter says, and he pats Tony’s side and grins at him. “And now I gotta go help Uncle Happy with the gingerbread house!”
He lets go and runs off before Tony can say anything, and Tony wipes at his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath. Both he and Ben put on their bracelets, and hold out their wrists to compare.
“These are really nice,” Ben says.
“Professional shit,” Tony says, shaking his head. “No bias.”
“He can do anything,” Ben says, smiling. He pats Tony on the shoulder. “You got the best kid in the world.”
“God, I know,” Tony says, his heart bursting with it.
Ben looks past him, and he squeezes his shoulder again. “Excuse me for just a second, Mr. Sentimental,” he says. “I think I spy Rhodey and Pepper standing unawares underneath the mistletoe. Gotta go make ‘em aware.” He strides off past Tony before he can say anything, and Tony’s heart dips and wanes like a malfunctioning rocket.
“Hey now,” he says, going after him, not sure if he’s serious or messing around. “Hey. Hey, let’s not. Let’s not do that.”
And for a moment, things feel normal again.