Chapter Text
Peter
It had been exactly forty-two hours since Doctor Cho had admitted Peter for observation. Not that he was counting. Except, of course, he was. The white digital clock on the far wall blinked an indifferent “3:17 AM,” and Peter stared at it as though he could glare it into submission.
The medbay was quiet. Too quiet. Just the soft hum of machines and the low beep of the monitor tracking his heart rate. That stupid monitor that he was hooked up to because Cho insisted, “just in case.”
Peter lay on his side, curled slightly inward on the firm mattress, one hand pressed under his cheek, the other loosely gripping the edge of the blanket he refused to pull past his chest. The room smelled sterile. Like alcohol wipes and over-cleaned tile. He hated it. He hated the brightness. The silence. The constant surveillance. The way Helen Cho looked at him like she already knew something he hadn’t figured out yet.
A nurse had cut his finger nails. Not angrily, but with this gentle, deliberate care that made it feel worse. She hadn’t said much, just gently held him finger by finger, like disarming a bomb.
He didn’t want to be here.
Apparently that didn’t matter.
Now he was here.
Trapped.
Alone.
The worst part wasn’t even the observation - it was the waiting. The way the world upstairs kept spinning without him. No thump of Steve’s boots. No background hum of Tony's music drifting in from the lab. No rhythmic clang of a training session down the hall. No tower-wide pings from FRIDAY just for him.
Just this room. Just this bed. Just him.
Peter exhaled sharply and stared at the ceiling. He could feel the guilt curdling in his stomach like spoiled milk. Guilt for worrying them. For needing help. For not being able to keep it together. He’d never wanted this - being watched, checked on, assessed like some fragile thing that might shatter at any second. But… he hadn’t fought it either. Not when Tony looked at him like that. Not when Steve silently cried and placed a grounding hand on his shoulder. Not when Helen said, gently but firmly, “We need to keep an eye on you, Peter. This isn't a punishment. It's care.”
Still. He hated it.
Hated how raw he felt with nowhere to hide it. Hated how exposed he was, how much of his brain he couldn’t shut off anymore when the distractions were gone. When he didn’t have the excuse of a bruised rib or a sprained wrist to keep people focused on the outside.
A soft knock tapped on the glass panel of his room. Peter looked up to see one of Cho’s night nurses with a small tray - milk and toast. Peter didn't move.
The nurse didn’t say anything, just set the tray down on the small side table and left. Peter stared at the untouched food. Then away from it. His stomach turned at the thought of swallowing anything. The tea would go cold. The toast would dry out. And it would still just be him, alone, in a too-bright room, surrounded by quiet concern and antiseptic air.
He shoved the blanket off and sat up slowly. His knees popped.
He didn’t cry. He wasn’t going to cry.
But his hands were shaking.
And he was so, so tired. He wanted his Dads.
Tony
The Tower was too quiet.
Not the usual quiet, either—the late-night hum of tech and flickering screens, the peaceful kind of silence that settled when people were where they were meant to be. No. This was the wrong kind of quiet. The kind that echoed.
Tony had tried to stay busy.
He’d spent twenty minutes rebalancing an already-balanced repulsor array, another ten cleaning the same half of a table with a microfiber cloth. His mug sat beside him, long since cold, untouched. The label on it said #1 Genius Dad —a Peter gift from last Christmas. He hadn’t used it before this week. Now it hadn't left the bench.
Every so often, FRIDAY piped up with subtle updates.
“Peter is sleeping.”
“Peter declined breakfast.”
“Peter is awake but not speaking.”
Each one chipped away at him.
He wanted to hold his baby but Cho said no. Cho had forbidden him and Steve seeing Peter, his child , for at least the next 6 hours when the 48 hour hold would be up. But he hadn’t. Not once. Because if Peter caught him watching, even from a screen, it would only make things worse. He knew that much.
Instead, he waited. Listened. Checked the clock. Asked FRIDAY for updates. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his kid sitting on the bathroom floor again. Shoulders curled in like he wanted to disappear.
He wanted to fix this. But this wasn’t an arc reactor or a malfunctioning suit or a PR crisis.
This was Peter. And he was hurting in a way Tony couldn’t blueprint a solution for.
So he waited.
And worried.
Steve
Steve noticed the silence first.
Not in some dramatic, aching way, but in the absence of little things. The kind that crept in slowly. The kind you didn’t realize meant everything until they were gone. No muffled music bleeding out of Peter’s earbuds from the couch, where he’d usually be half-awake and tangled in a blanket. At the dinner table, two chairs were filled, and one sat pushed back, untouched.
The Tower felt hollow. Like a puzzle missing a corner piece.
Steve had spent that first night wide awake, arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling like it owed him answers. He kept waiting for the soft shuffle of feet on the ceiling, the bathroom door cracking open at 2 a.m., the unmistakable clicks of lego.
But it never came.
No Peter. No sound. No mess.
Just... absence.
He told himself Peter was in the best possible hands. That Cho knew what she was doing. That this was part of the process. But Steve knew how stubborn the kid could be. How good he was at hiding what hurt. How quiet he could get when he felt like a burden.
Steve had seen that kind of silence before. In the barracks. After missions. In Bucky’s eyes, before he vanished. That tight-lipped, don’t-look-at-me silence that wasn’t pride, it was pain without a safe place to land.
Peter was carrying too much for someone his age. He was a kid who would smile and wave at every toddler on a bus. And now that smile was gone.
So Steve cooked anyway.
Every morning.
He made enough for three, even when there were only two. He labeled a plate each time and sent it down to the medical floor, even when Cho said Peter wasn’t eating much. He figured maybe—just maybe—the smell of something familiar, something made for him and not at him, would crack through whatever wall the kid had built.
That morning, Steve made pancakes. Just the way Peter liked them—slightly burned around the edges, syrup drowning the plate, and a lopsided smiley face in chocolate chips. Tony leaned in the doorway, watching with arms crossed, brows lifted as Steve slid the plate onto a tray.
“You think he’s gonna touch that?” Steve didn’t look up. Just wiped his hands on a dish towel and grabbed a lid.
“Probably not,” he said. “But maybe it reminds him someone’s thinking about him. Maybe it helps.”
Tony didn’t argue. Just reached for two mugs on the counter - one of which had bold block letters that read: #1 Genius Dad. It used to be a joke.
Now it felt like a somber prayer.
Steve looked at the mug, then at Tony, then down at the tray in his hands. “I should’ve seen it sooner.”
Tony’s smile faltered. “Steve—”
“I saw this happen to Bucky. Different circumstances, sure. But the shutting down? The... slipping away?” Steve’s voice dipped, rough and raw. “I promised myself I’d never let it happen again. Not to someone I cared about.”
There was a pause—tight and heavy.
“You didn’t fail him,” Tony said, quiet now.
Steve didn’t answer right away. He just picked up the tray and carried it to the elevator. Because that was all he could do now. Feed a ghost. Hope the scent of syrup and chocolate chips reached far enough into the dark to remind Peter that he wasn’t alone.
He hadn’t been then. And he wouldn’t be now.
Not if Steve had anything to say about it.