Chapter Text
“The skyline falls as I try to make sense of it all
I thought I’d uncovered your secrets, but turns out there’s more
You adored me before”
Good Looking - Suki Waterhouse
It is a curious thing, to be born into legacy. One is not asked if they are willing to carry the weight of a crown, only expected to grow strong enough not to falter beneath it.
Prince Peter Anthony Stark had known this truth since before he could lace his own boots.
The knowledge wasn’t granted in some grand moment, but it had crept into him slowly, It threaded itself into his bones during mornings in the solar, while the royal scribes droned on and on about border wars, or in a formal supper where every glance towards him and his parents was calculated, and gesture’s held meaning he had not yet been taught to decipher. It wasn’t some dramatic epiphany on his part, no sudden gasp of revelation, it was a resigned sort of acceptance that his life had been drawn long before he could ever wield a pen.
He didn’t question it at first, why would he? At that age the palace was a world unto itself: vast, intricate. He belonged to something larger than himself, and because no one around him ever seemed to chafe against it, he didn’t think he was supposed to either.
He was a prince. Not the first. certainly not the most favored, he wasn’t the strongest, or the most accomplished. But still, he was Stark-blooded, and royalty. which had to mean something, even if he didn’t know exactly what yet.
There had always been tutors and protocol and tradition, expectations sewn into his every action. His footsteps were measured and corrected until each one echoed against the walls in perfect harmony, his speech practiced. Even his silences were expected to speak volumes--to be thoughtful, composed. He knew when to bow, when to rise, when to speak, and most importantly, when to remain still.
But that knowledge came with a price.
He remembered being five years old and watching other children chase each other through the palace gardens with wild, unbridled joy. Their laughter had echoed like birdsong through the hedges, their shoes skidding across the paths as they played some game with no rules and no purpose beyond thrill of motion. Sunlight caught on their hair, their cheeks were flushed, their voices loud and carefree. For a moment, it looked like freedom, it looked like everything Peter had ever yearned for.
He had wanted to join them. Not for any particular reason, not to win the game or prove himself as better because he was a prince, but simply to feel what it was like to move like that, so loose-limbed and laughing, not worrying about how his shoulders sat or whether his tunic wrinkled unfavorably. It had been an instinct more than a decision, the instinct to move and to run. He had taken one eager step forward, his small boots already aimed toward the sun-warmed grass--
And then a gloved hand settled gently, but firmly, on his shoulder.
His governess. Her smile was the royal practiced kind, but her voice when it came was smooth and hard as polished steel.
“A prince does not run.”
He had stopped, of course.
The words were quiet, not inherently cruel. But they had locked into him like a clasp at the back of a collar built of gold and the best leather. He remembered the heat of embarrassment rising in his cheeks, hot and shameful as his ears turned red, embarrassed because he had forgotten, for a moment, what he was supposed to be. He was not given the privilege of fun, he was a prince.
He had watched the other children dash out of sight behind a hedge maze, their laughter growing fainter.
He wished he could chase after them, too.
And from that day forward, he walked.
Because princes do not run.
They also do not shout. Or sulk. Or cry too openly, and certainly never where someone might see. Tears, if they must fall, are reserved for behind closed doors, and even then, they are to be tidy things, not sobs, not wails. Princes are allowed grief, but only the kind that can be romanticized in paintings and poems and used as an advantage against others.
Emotions are tools, and he was expected to use them as such.
Prince’s also do not refuse their lessons, no matter how tedious or punishing. History, diplomacy, warcraft--each subject another brick in the fortress they were expected to become. They do not speak with their mouths full, or laugh too loudly, or slouch in their chairs, or fidget in a way that might suggest boredom. They are not bored. They are grateful. Honored.
They do not ask why they cannot be ordinary when it is such a blessing, such a privilege, to be royalty. When every comfort is theirs, when their name is known beyond the mountains and the oceans, when nations watch their movements down to a blink. They are reminded that millions would trade places with them in an instant. That to long for freedom is selfish. That to chafe against golden chains is childish, when those very chains are what keeps them fed.
They do not ask for more time to themselves, even as their schedules are packed from dawn to dusk, even as the reprieve of a garden or of a library becomes a rare and fleeting mercy. Time, after all, is not theirs to claim, it belongs to the kingdom.
They do not fall in love recklessly. Love is not a matter of the heart, but a matter of state. It must be weighed and measured, like silver or grain. Princes marry for alliance, not affection, but for stability.
And they certainly do not reject the path laid out before them.
Because that path has been paved by generations before them, sanctified by tradition and expectation. To step off it, even by a single footfall, is to risk not only their own ruin, but the trembling of the very people that depend on them.
And so they walk it.
Even if it leads them somewhere they never chose to go.
He remembered being thirteen years old and sitting through council meetings and feasts, his back straight, his hands folded just so, watching his parents move through the machinery of power with a kind of effortless grace that felt, to him, utterly impossible.
His father, sharp-eyed and witty, had a way of commanding a room without raising his voice. He spoke more than he listened, and when he finally did go quiet, it was with the knowledge that someone had made a mistake for him to do so. His mother, by contrast, was fluid and silver-tongued in her wit, her smile both shield and weapon. She could charm a foreign envoy and gut a court rival with the same sentence, sweetened just enough to be mistaken for kindness even as she sank her teeth in.
He remembered how cold the air had felt in those very meeting rooms, how the laughter never quite reached the high ceilings, how he was meant to observe, always observe, and learn. But there was nothing simple about watching people play a game you didn’t understand with rules no one ever explained playing out behind every moment of eye-contact, every toast, and every pause between sentences. How would he ever know what to say when it mattered?
He remembered once, tugging a little too hard on the edge of the tablecloth while shifting in his seat, a motion born of nerves more than anything because he had not had any time to release the pent up energy that roiled through him. The goblets had rattled. A knife clattered. And then silence. He remembered his father’s eyes finding him across the expanse of the table, quiet, deeply disappointed in a way that made his chest ache.
He was never truly good enough.
“You must be better than that,” His father had said when the silence became unbearable in the days after. “Because princes do not make those mistakes.”
He had nodded, shame prickling hot behind his eyes, and spent the rest of the evenings sitting as still as stone.
Because princes rise above. They do not flinch. They do not weep. They do not make mistakes that could bring shame to their family.
They rise because the people must see strength. They rise because faltering means failure, and failure means weakness, and weakness breeds unrest.
And unrest, well, that was how wars began.
He’d learned that before he could even name the kingdoms on the maps embroidered into the drawing room tapestries. That stability, true stability, in a kingdom was not held in treaties or armies, but in confident appearances. In how a prince stepped onto a balcony and waved to the commonfolk below. In how evenly he held a gaze despite only being a boy himself. In how little room he left for doubt to bloom in the hearts of those who served under his banner.
Peter did not want a war. Not between the kingdoms. Not within his household. Not within himself.
He was already split in enough directions. Torn between the boy he still felt like and the man he was supposed to become. Between the longing in his chest and the titles given to him before he could speak.
But those pieces split away from his duties couldn’t be allowed to show. Not in the way he spoke, or walked, or hesitated. So he buried them deep, like seeds that might sprout if given too much light, he buried them and drowned them in darkness, walked out of the light that could make him grow, and into the shackles of responsibility.
And so, he rose.
Every day. With his spine straight and his jaw set and his hands clasped behind his back. He rose when the weight of a legacy he never asked for threatened to pin him to the floor. He rose when the silence of a room felt like judgment when all he’d done is exist. He rose when all he wanted was to remain still, to breathe, to run and to lay in the grass.
Because a prince rises. Even when it feels like drowning.
He was, from the moment he could form memory, the future of a kingdom. His cries had been soothed not with lullabies, but with reminders to breathe deeply and speak clearly because he was not a normal child. His toys were wooden maps, showing tales of conquest and wars won. And when he faltered, when his hands shook during a public address, or his voice cracked with nerves he could not drown, it was not with scorn he was met, but with disappointment, which somehow stung worse.
He was always disappointing his family, the staff, he was never built to be a prince, no matter how hard he tried.
The crown he would one day wear had never rested on his brow, but he felt it nonetheless, the cool, unyielding weight of it pressing down. He bore it in the tightening of his jaw and in the exhaustion that sleep could not seem to touch, in the ache of being seen by so many yet understood by so few.
And still, he had not crumbled.
That, too, was expected of him.
Because someday, when the crown did touch his brow, no one would ask whether he had wanted it. Only whether he could hold it without flinching, if he could take the role of king and not bring the cities down into ruin.
The morning sun filtered through the stained-glass windows of the eastern wing, casting fractured ribbons of pale gold and cerulean across the polished marble floors. Outside, the gardens had begun to bloom again, reluctantly, as though unsure if spring had truly arrived, the last frost being mere weeks ago.
Peter longed to sit in the blooms with his mother, to smell the sweet fragrance and to feel the sun on his face.
His day was much too busy for that, so he looked away from the view.
A prepared breakfast, and Peter, seated at the long table in a chair that felt more like a throne than a seat.
He lifted his cup, porcelain, fine, imported from the southern coast, and sipped at tea he did not particularly like. Breakfast was not just for pleasure or just to eat, but for decorum. Everything was, in his life, it was a time for his parents to tell him their plan for the day, and for him to tell them his aswell.
Not like his plan was ever anything but studies, and then a moment in the library or the office.
“Your Highness,” came a voice, crisp and polite.
Charles, the steward, stepped forward with the usual quiet behavior that was expected of the royal staff, the silver tray in his gloved hands bearing the morning’s correspondence. He placed the folded parchments beside Peter’s untouched plate, their wax seals glinting faintly in the amber morning light. Most bore the familiar crest of House Stark, red and gold with the silhouette of a rose, but one stood out. Black wax and the Fury crest pressed deep into its face.
Peter barely glanced at them. His father’s letters were often dry, practical things--updates from the western provinces, figures from the granaries, reports from the council chambers. Pages of tidy and boring words, designed not to be read but absorbed and regurgitated when necessary. Rarely anything truly urgent. Rarely anything personal.
Rarely anything fun.
But the topmost letter bore that very mark. Urgent.
Charles cleared his throat gently. “It was addressed for His Majesty,” he said, his tone smooth with apology, “but he instructed that any morning correspondence be brought here first. For review over breakfast.”
Peter raised a brow, expression unreadable, and uttered a thank you.
The steward bowed, and retreated soundlessly into the hall, leaving the letter--and that God-awful silence--behind.
Peter waited until the echo of retreating steps faded entirely before reaching for the parchment. He told himself it was nothing. A simple glance. A scan to be sure there was no immediate danger--rebellion, famine, or insult to the kingdom or his father. His father might even commend him for being so dutiful. Perhaps that was all this was, an early show of responsibility, that he was dedicated to the safety of his kingdom and what was being said.
Yes, he should check the paper.
The wax cracked with a soft snap.
A breath caught in his chest. His eyes moved over the first lines.
Council minutes, surely. Or a border dispute in the eastern marshlands. Perhaps something about the merchant families in Greystone. That was all it could be.
We are in agreement that a formal union would serve both kingdoms.
He stilled. What?
The words didn’t register at first, just ink on a page, harmless, meaningless. But when they did, something inside him lurched.
The air thickened around him, the edges of the letter blurred for a moment as his vision narrowed, sharpened, then narrowed again. His blood ran cold, a slow, creeping chill that moved from his spine outward, as if his body were trying to distance itself from the truth settling in his chest.
A union. Formal.
He felt as though the ground beneath him had tilted, just enough to send everything off balance, he felt dizzy. The paper trembled between his fingers, betraying the steadiness he was so carefully known for. His pulse was loud in his ears, too loud, like the beating of something trapped, it pulsed and pulsed and he couldn’t hear anything else.
They were speaking of his life. Of him, as if he meant nothing more to his parents than a way to gain favor.
In one year’s time, the betrothal shall be publicly announced. The Prince of House Stark shall wed the Princess Michelle of House Fury.
He read it again. And then again.
Each time, the words struck with equal sharpness--final, impersonal, precise. Shall wed. Not might. Not should.
He had not meant to open the letter. He wished he hadn’t. He was glad he had.
It had been there on the long oak table, seated amongst mundane announcements--so… so ordinary, except for the seal. It had been addressed to his father, yes. But urgent. And rare. House Fury did not write often. Not openly, at least, not that he knew of.
Maybe he never really knew anything at all, though.
He had risen early that morning, as he often did. Before the kitchen fires were lit, before the castle stirred. A habit instilled first out of discipline, then out of the peace that being alone with no expectations brought him. The mornings were quiet. Untouched. His.
Some princes were born for war, for battles and blood soaked jewels. Others for decadence and long halls filled with laughter and wine.
Peter was not sure what kind of prince he was. He didn’t feel particularly prince-like in most ways. He did not revel in being rich, nor did he enjoy the bloodshed of war. The life of court, where every word was dissected and deemed worthy or lacking, had always felt like a role he was assigned, not one he had chosen.
It comforted him to move through the halls before anyone expected him to be anything. No posture to mind. No courtiers to impress. Just the rhythm of his footsteps and the spill of sunlight through the stained-glass windows, then the weight of the crown, of the titles, the expectations, the future--slipped from his shoulders and he could finally breathe.
In those moments of morning, he was allowed--briefly--not to be a prince. Just a boy. The kind of boy who could still imagine a world outside these walls, a world where he was just another face in the crowd. Where he wasn’t history or the bearer of responsibility. Where he could laugh freely, without worrying if the sound was too loud. Where his decisions didn’t have centuries of precedent behind them, pulling him in every direction.
He was allowed to not be a prince for a moment, but to be him.
He hadn’t broken the seal out of defiance.
He told himself it was duty. maybe even curiosity. A moment of caution because urgent could be bad. An instinct to know.
Now, his name stared back at him in ink darker than blood, paired with another.
Michelle.
Princess of House Fury. He had not heard the name aloud in years. Not since they were children circling each other at treaty dinners, avoiding formal dances and exchanging apprehensive looks from across ballrooms. She had always been so assured--razor-sharp in tongue, quick in wit. She wore her confidence like armor, and Peter had never quite known what to make of her.
She had unnerved him. Even as a boy.
And now, she was to be his wife.
The thought landed like a stone in his gut.
Seventeen. He had thought, perhaps naively, that he would have more time. Time to decide who he wanted to be. Time to shape his reign, his life, on his own terms. Time to fall in love, or at least understand the shape of the word. He had imagined that there would be moments, small, fleeting, and perhaps hidden from the eyes of those who expected him to be something he was still figuring out. He thought he could breathe, could be before everything turned into duty, into obligations that had been set in motion before his birth.
But time, it seemed, was not something princes were entitled to.
He could feel it now--the slip of those years, like sand through his fingers. All those moments that had seemed endless when he was younger, time to wander the halls of the palace, time to spend in the gardens with his mother, time to daydream of a world beyond royal politics, had been stolen away without him noticing, of maybe they had never actually been his.
The world had always been moving around him, pushing him forward even when he wasn’t ready to move. His father, his tutors, the council, they all had their hands on the reins of his life, pulling him along a path he had never truly chosen. And the path ahead of him was already drawn, carved into stone long before his own feet could find their footing.
The letters, the meetings, the words behind closed doors, each one had been part of a machine that never slowed. It didn’t matter that he was still trying to grasp the shape of his own desires. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t yet learned what kind of prince he wanted to be, or what kind of life he wanted to live.
He wasn’t allowed the luxury of time. Not when every second of his life had already been claimed by something or someone else.
No ceremony yet, but the arrangement was set to be formalized within the year. The letter was drafted with such clear, concise language, a proposal as elegant as it was impersonal. It had not been written for him to read, that much was clear.
His hands hadn’t shook even when he reached the end, or perhaps they had, and he simply couldn’t feel it, because his whole body trembled with such a deep violence that the edges of sensation blurred into one another.
The words of the letter still burned in his mind, the ink etched into his vision like a brand. A formal union. To serve both kingdoms. The next step in the arrangement. The ink seemed to throb with an alien pulse, every sentence heavier than the last. The weight of the words crushed him, not just because they weren’t something he hadn’t anticipated, but because, deep down, he had always known.
He had always known.
Prince Peter Anthony Stark had long known he was not his own.
The truth had settled in his bones long before the letter, long before the whispers that had wound their way through the castle halls. From the moment he could walk, from the first time his name had been spoken in front of the crowds, he had known he was a thing to be shaped, not someone with a say in what shape he would take. A prince. A symbol. A future king. He had been all these things before he even understood what it meant to be a person.
As a child, it had been easier to ignore. There were moments of freedom, of playing in the sun or running through the gardens before the weight of expectation pressed down. But even then, he had felt it, the tug of something bigger than him, pulling at the edges of every choice. His desires were always secondary to the needs of the kingdom, his freedom a fragile illusion that cracked the moment anyone needed him to step up. To play the part. To be the prince.
And now, at seventeen, the illusion was gone. The truth was stark and cold and undeniable.
His life had never been his own. Not in the way he had wanted it to be. Not in the way he had dreamed it would be, when he was younger, when there had been time to decide. Time to choose.
The thought clenched tight in his chest, suffocating him. He had imagined that, once he reached this age, he would have at least some control. Some space to breathe and to carve his own path forward. Instead, he was trapped in a future already written and he hadn’t even known, a marriage, a responsibility to two kingdoms while everyone forgot he was a real person too.
A duty. That was what he was, at the end of the day. A duty.
The letter was just the beginning, but it felt like the end of everything else. He could already hear in his mind, the expectations of those who had always seen him as little more than a figurehead. His father’s hopes for a strong, capable heir. His mother’s hopes for a future of peace. The council’s hope that he would lead without faltering, strong enough he wouldn’t crumble, because Peter was soft and everyone was worried he couldn’t handle the pressure of a future that was his to control.
He could already feel it, the walls closing in.
A symbol of peace, they had told him.
A symbol of prosperity, of the hope of the great House Stark, they had told him.
That he was lucky. Fortunate. Blessed to be born under such banners. That the weight on his small shoulders was not a burden but an honor.
That kings are made from boys who understand restraint.
He had been reminded of it often. In the way his tutors praised his composure, mistaking his obedience for wisdom. In the way they smiled when he folded his hands and kept his gaze lowered, as if control was something innate in him rather than something painfully learned. He remembered being seven years old and knowing, knowing, that silence was safer, preferable, expected. That a prince was watched even when they sat unmoving, perhaps especially then.
The visiting dignitaries had always seemed so impressed. “Such poise for one so young,” they would murmur, like he was a rare creature trained to sit and not bite. They commented on his posture, his patience, his carefully curated answers. They never asked what he thought. That wasn’t the point.
And always, there were his parents’ voices, beloved, yes, but heavy with the expectation. Even their praise came like a test, cool, measured. Every word laced with demands in every syllable. They meant well, perhaps. They wanted him to succeed. But their love was filtered through the lens of legacy, with everything being a reminder that he was not just a son, but an heir.
Their voices had tuned him like an instrument, tightening and tightening the strings of who he was until there was no slack left. And still, he had not snapped.
But sometimes, when the halls were quiet and the candlelight flickered low until it was flashes of amber against the walls, he wondered what kind of music he was truly meant to play, or if he would ever be allowed to play it at all.
Peter had been loved. Of that he had no doubt.
He had been held close as a child, sung to, read to, kissed on both cheeks before bed. He had never once known cruelty from his parents’ hands or voices. But even that love had its expectations.
He was loved, yes, but loved for what he meant.
For what he could be, what he must be.
A prince, yes. But more than that, a hinge on which an entire era might turn, he was loved because he was a young, spry boy who had the opportunity to keep their kingdom at the top.
He had been cherished not just as a son, but as a future for the people. His first steps had been witnessed by half the court. His first words were to his nanny. Even his laughter in those early years had felt staged for others to admire, not even to be appreciated alone with his parents.
And so that love, warm as it was, had always come with a shape. A mold. A path already carved, waiting for his feet to fall into place.
Would they have loved him if he was not a prince?
Sometimes, he wondered what kind of love would have asked who he wanted to be, not assumed it from the cradle. What it might feel like to be chosen. To be wanted not because of what doors his name might open, but simply for the boy behind the title, to be loved for Peter.
But royalty did not have the luxury of that kind of wondering. Not aloud and not often.
Not without risking everything he had been trained to admire.
And so Peter had learned to bear it with grace. He had learned not to take up too much space. Not to raise his voice unnecessarily. To listen twice, speak once, and never speak rashly. He had trained himself in discipline, of denial, of making his heart quiet so his kingdom could hear itself think.
He had watched others stray. Watched distant cousins throw tantrums over courtship, watched barons’ sons sneak away from their estates to chase tavern girls and poetry and foreign wine. Watched young nobles break off perfectly planned engagements for love, for passion, for freedom.
And while they rebelled, Peter had remained, not without jealousy in his heart, but even so he had remained.
He had sat in marble-floored rooms and read old laws in older books. He had memorized the treaties that ended wars, he sat in offices and made small inventions no one would ever see. He had spent his youth preparing for a life that would never fully belong to him, because he was not Peter, he was the next generation of rulers.
He had done all the right things.
And this was his reward.
It didn’t feel like honor.
It felt like punishment.
And yet, still, he did not shout. He did not throw the letter. He did not call for the steward or demand his father.
Because a good son does not scream.
A good son does not question the throne.
A good son nods, and reads, and accepts.
A good son wears his chains so beautifully that no one calls them chains.
(And look where it got you, whispered the voice in his mind, low and bitter.)
Peter’s fingers curled around the edges of the letter, creasing it. He did not tear it. He only pressed harder. The paper, at least, did not lie to him.
A good son does not question the throne, he told himself again, and again, and again--until the words rang hollow.
Still, he could not help but feel--reading those lines again, though he already knew them by heart--that he was not a boy at all, but a pawn. An ornament in a larger game, carved beautifully and placed purposefully on a board he had never been invited to study. A piece. A figure. Moved across polished squares by hands not his own.
He was not the player. He was the proof of someone else’s strategy, his life was not his life.
His eyes hovered once more over the names, inked so elegantly it felt almost cruel: Michelle of House Fury.
What would she say, he wondered, a slow and sick ache unfurling in his stomach.
Michelle.
Would she laugh? Would she scoff at the arrangement, bristle at the idea of being shackled to someone like him? Would she be horrified?
He could almost see it--her standing with arms crossed, expression sharp as a blade, denouncing the plan with a single raised brow. Perhaps she’d storm into the halls of her father’s court demanding answers. Or maybe she wouldn’t flinch at all. Maybe she already knew. Had already been told, years ago, in some private chamber with the windows open and the world ending around her.
Had her future been laid out in elegant script too?
Had she read it, as he did now, with that sick churn of disbelief sitting low in her chest? Or worse, had she accepted it without surprise--because someone, somewhere, had warned her that love would never be hers to choose?
He felt a strange and sudden grief for her.
For both of them.
Because no--she wouldn’t refuse. She couldn’t. Neither of them could. That was the great farce of it all. Whatever indignation they might carry, whatever opinions they might privately nurse in the dark--it didn’t matter. The world did not bend for princes and princesses. It bent around them, shaped itself with them, but never for them. Their lives were the scaffolding for a kingdom, not the blueprint for their own desires.
He pressed his palms flat against the table, the wood smooth beneath his skin, cool to the touch. The tea had long gone tepid.
Once again he was alone to lick his wounds.
He was not hungry. He wasn’t sure he’d be hungry again.
A good prince does not sulk, he reminded himself. He had heard it too many times--spoken by tutors and noblemen and councilors alike, all with their annoyingly perfect smiles and sharp, watching eyes. A good prince does not weep. He does not mourn freedom.
But he did mourn.
Footsteps echoed beyond the great door. He straightened his posture, the way a soldier does when parade drills near. The letter remained in full view--there was no point hiding it now, not when he knew too much already.
It sat between the silver cutlery and the cooled porcelain of his teacup like a blade lain across a banquet table. Obvious. Inescapable.
He wanted to rip it up and shove it in their face all at once.
His chest filled with tar and he couldn’t breathe.
The door creaked open, the kind of practiced perfection that meant the King and Queen were entering with the royal staff opening it for them, breakfast at half-past eight, together when schedules allowed. His father appeared first. No crown, of course, but still somehow walked with authority in a way that Peter had never learned. His mother followed close behind, her stride no less confident, as her heels clicked against the marble.
They both smiled, faintly, the gentle expression reserved for mornings where the burdens of ruling hadn’t yet pressed into the skin, reserved for Peter.
Peter did not smile back.
He wondered if he’d ever smile at them again.
He cringed at the thought, because despite his feelings he still did love his parents.
Maybe that was a harder thing to admit.
He kept his gaze fixed on the letter.
“Morning, Pete,” came Tony’s voice,“Anything good in the post today? We had a courier in from the north--should be a trade update or--“
He stopped, he could feel the older man looking over his shoulder.
Peter didn’t look at him, but he heard the pause. Heard it like a tolling bell. the silence had never felt so loud.
There was the faint rustle of fabric, his mother stepping forward. She saw the seal. She saw Peter’s posture. And then, very quietly, Peter heard her sigh as she read the first few lines, the breath full of exhaustion, as if she didn’t want to be dealing with this today.
Peter didn’t either, guess not everyone gets what they want. he thought bitterly.
Tony spoke again, his tone gentler, almost placating. “You read it.”
Peter still didn’t look up, but his words came out waspish and bitter. “It was on the table.”
“You opened something that wasn’t addressed to you?”
“Father,” he said evenly, “if the worst I’ve done this morning is open the letter that outlines the next forty years of my life, I’d like to think I’m behaving quite well.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Pepper said softly, “It wasn’t meant for you to read.”
Peter looked up at that. Not with anger becauss he didn’t feel angry, not in the way anger usually came for him, it did not burst from his mouth in fiery hot words, it did not beg to be heard, instead it sat in his chest like a stone he’d swallowed without noticing. It was the sense of having been discussed like weather or politics. Of being a solution, not a son. He thought for a brief moment, Is this how I’ve always been? Just a thing to be managed?
Tony pulled out a chair, dragging it back with one leg, and sat. His face, usually easy with charm, was drawn a little tighter today. He wasn’t sure how to approach his own child. The familiarity was gone. The ease was gone. How did you explain something like this to your son?
Peter almost felt happy that his father was just as uncomfortable with this as he, until he remembered that he was only uncomfortable because Peter found out in a way that was uncontrolled.
Pepper remained standing, still too close, it felt suffocating, as though the air itself had thickened.
“Does… she know?” Peter asked, more statement than question and unable to say Michelle outloud. He needed to know if he was the only one who had this dropped on him, and while his voice wasn’t harsh, it wasn’t kind, either. It was the voice someone who had come to terms with the fact that the world had always been one way, and now, in an instant, he was discovering that he had no control over any of it.
His mother nodded, though her usual confident exterior seemed to falter for one very brief moment. “Yes, for a few years now.” Was all she said, Peter nodded, more to himself than anything.
He blinked once, slowly, his gaze dropping to the letter once again. The air seemed thinner now, as though it had somehow lost its weight with that one word, or maybe he had just lost his ability to care. Years. Years that he had not been a part of. Years where his life had been laid out for him, and he had never known, never been asked.
Why had he been so unimportant that even his own future was not something he was apart of?
“It’s… it’s not--“ Tony started, running a hand through his hair. He always did that when he was uncomfortable. “It wasn’t meant to feel like this, kid. We were going to tell you.”
“When?” Peter asked, voice level. “When she had a ring on her finger and vows on my lips?”
“When you were ready,” Pepper said, but even she sounded unconvinced.
Peter felt defeated, he wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he didn’t know what he wanted.
Peter didn’t speak. He folded the letter once, carefully, as though that might somehow neatly fold up the mess that had formed inside him. The weight on his chest, the emptiness settling into his stomach, the absence of breath in his lungs as he sucked in unevenly.
“This arrangement,” Tony continued, his tone softer now, as if afraid of pushing too far, Peter felt like it was a little too late. “it’s been in motion since before you were born. There was a window--a narrow one. After the war ended, after the treaties were signed. Fury came to me. Said he didn’t want another generation growing up on hostility and blood feuds. Said the people deserved better.”
Peter looked down at his hands. They looked the same as always. Pale. Still. Capable. But they didn’t feel like his own. He flexed his fingers slowly, the action almost mechanical. Was this the way a prince’s hands were supposed to feel? Detached, disembodied? Tools to be used, not something that was truly his?
He hated that he understood the reasoning, hated that it was a smart decision politically, hated that his life was nothing more than politics.
“We agreed to wait. Let you both grow. Let you become who you were going to be. We didn’t want to trap you before you even knew what choices felt like, but this would unite our kingdoms and strengthen us both.”
“And yet here I am,” Peter said, his voice tight, but he pushed the words out lightly, as if they hurt to be said. “Trapped.”
Pepper came to stand beside him, her presence a comfort that Peter couldn’t quite bring himself to lean into, couldn’t accept when those very hands had laid out a terrible future. She hovered for a moment before resting at Tony’s side. He didn’t look up.
“It’s an honor, Peter,” she said softly, her voice almost fragile in its sincerity, she sounded like she had rehearsed this many times herself. “To be the one to unite us. To lead by example. To show strength, and grace at your age. This it’s--It isn’t just a marriage. it’s history. And you’ll be the one who made it happen, you should be proud.”
Peter didn’t move.
He had no choice in making it happen, it felt like a slap in the face to hear.
It didn’t feel like an honor, either.
It felt like being written into a story he hadn’t agreed to tell.
It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff with no choice but to jump, and the worst part was that he was expected to be grateful. He was supposed to thank them for throwing him into the abyss. Thank them for this honor, this life he didn’t choose.
He swallowed hard, the bitter lump in his throat making it harder to speak.
He wanted to vomit.
“I understand,” he said, his voice raw despite the calm he tried to project. “I do.”
Tony leaned forward. “Then you see why we had to wait. You needed time to become this person--“ Tony gestured towards Peter, “--Someone who could handle the role.”
Peter met his father’s eyes for the first time that morning. It wasn’t anger he saw there. It wasn’t guilt. It was… concern? Confusion?
He was hoping he’d find guilt, that maybe his own father had felt the tiniest bit of shame.
He looked away.
It didn’t matter. Peter couldn’t reach out to him now. He couldn’t allow himself to soften when these were the very people who had put him in this situation, as validated as the choice was.
“This person?” he asked, his words measured, almost too calm. He still wanted to vomit. “You mean the kind of person who sits still and smiles while the life he imagined is replaced with a more--What? palatable one?”
Tony flinched, barely, but it was enough for Peter to see the guilt there, the hesitation. and it felt like victory and failure at the same time. Tony wanted to apologize. He wanted to take it back. But there was nothing to be done. They’d made their choices long before Peter had the capacity to argue.
“We didn’t mean--”
“I know,” Peter said, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “You didn’t mean for me to find out like this. You didn’t mean for it to sting. You didn’t mean for me to feel like a stranger to my own future. No one meant anything. That’s the whole problem.”
Pepper opened her mouth, then closed it. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound like consolation. And Peter didn’t want to be consoled.
He wanted to feel real and heard and more than something to be used. And maybe even free.
But he was a prince. And princes did not ask for freedom. Not aloud. Not ever.
But who, then, was Peter if he wasn’t allowed to want something more? If his entire life had already been decided before his first breath?
His throat closed, but he didn’t cry. He wouldn’t.
A prince doesn’t cry. A prince doesn’t rebel. A prince does what is expected of him, no matter how much it costs.
He had never realized the price was himself
Peter rose from the table with precision, even if his hands had started to shake and his stomach rolled.
“I suppose you’ll want time,” Tony said, the way one might offer a raincoat during a storm.
A storm of their own making.
Peter bristled.
He gave a small, cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes. Time. Maybe even the illusion of choice, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Pepper winced.
Anger would have been simpler, easier to handle. It would have been something to grab onto, to cling to in the midst of this mess. But instead, there was only the resignation that pressed against his chest, squeezing the breath from him, coiling around his heart until he couldn’t handle it beating anymore.
What was he supposed to do with this? With them? With this life that had always been slipping through his fingers, even when he didn’t realize it?
Time. The illusion of choice. Was that too much to ask for? How much of his life had been a well-masked farce, a show of autonomy when all along, the script had been written long before his birth?
He had never truly been a child, not really. His father had said it often enough--You’re not just a boy, Peter, you are our future. And what a future it had been, expected to follow without deviation, as if his desires were less important than the crown that awaited him.
And yet, he had convinced himself, for so long, that the burden of royalty would eventually be something he could shoulder with grace. That someday, the responsibility would feel less like a trap and more like a calling. He had believed that he could learn to find peace in the rules that were drawn for him, to shape himself into the man they wanted him to be, without questioning it too much, maybe he could be as graceful as his mother and as witty as his father.
But here he was now. Staring at the cold, harsh reality of it all as it wrote out his future on the walls.
He had thought he would get to decide when it was time. Time for what? For marriage? For duty? But no. Time was never his to decide. It was always about when the world deemed him ready, when they decided he was enough of a man to take on the things he never asked for.
And Michelle. He had barely thought about her in years. Had she been living with the same knowledge, the same weight? Was she, too, a prisoner of her future? He could hardly remember the last time they’d spoken. But that didn’t matter, did it? He was her future, just as she was his. Their lives were already bound together, not by love, but by necessity. Convenience. Political strategy.
He wasn’t angry at Michelle, not really. She was another player in the game, as much a pawn as he was, as much a part of the fabric of this world as the very crown he had been raised to wear.
He could feel the tension in his bones, the stirrings of a life he had not asked for. It was as if his body itself was trying to reject it, the way something inside him screamed to break free, but he held it down. The temptation to run had never been stronger, but the truth was he had never had that option. Running had always been a fantasy, a thing he could entertain in secret, but never in reality.
The illusion of choice. It wasn’t just about the marriage. It was about everything. The endless expectations that never seemed to ease, the curated image of what it meant to be Peter Stark--the prince who could never ask for anything other than what was expected of him. The prince who had been taught that strength was in silence, that power meant restraint, that greatness was in being who he was destined to be.
Peter stood there, still, the weight of the world pressing down on him, as it always had, as it always would. He could feel the walls around him closing in, suffocating him slowly, steadily. What am I allowed to feel? he wondered. What is left for me to feel?
“I’m not angry,” he told himself quietly, almost as if to convince his own heart. Anger is wasted on things you cannot change.
But the anger was there, simmering beneath the surface, a quiet, terrible thing. He had to swallow it down, again and again. Because that was what a prince did. He swallowed it all. He wore the crown, and he did not dare question it. And if the crown choked him, then he would wear it tighter.
But in his heart, he was still Peter Stark. And Peter Stark had never wanted to be a thing, a symbol, a chess piece. He had wanted to be something that he was proud of creating. Something more than just a pawn in a game of kings and queens.
Yet, as he stood there, hands clenched and eyes drawn away from his parents, he realized, he wasn’t even sure who he was anymore.
“Peter--“ she tried, reaching for his arm. Her touch was gentle as it always was, but it felt like a hand placed on a bruise, he knew she only meant to comfort, but it only reminded him where it hurt.
He stepped back.
“Forgive me, Mother,” he said stiffly. “I need some time.” He echoed.
And with that, he bowed--not deeply or smoothly, almost mockingly, just enough to preserve the thinnest layer of civility as he ran away from his problems--and turned on his heel.
He walked quickly, his hands trembled in time with his pulse, tucked behind his back like he was afraid they’d betray the storm within from how violently they seemed to shake. By the time he cleared the hall and stepped out into the corridor, the need to be composed snapped like overstretched thread.
He didn’t think. He just turned down the path that led to the eastern wing- -the part of the palace that belonged to Uncle Ben and Aunt May. It was quieter there now, a little faded by time. Less swept by staff. But it was the closest thing to refuge Peter had ever known.
Ben had been the youngest of the Stark brothers, full of warmth and wit, always one step outside the mechanics of politics. He had a way of making others feel like they were the most important person in the room, a knack for drawing out laughter from even the most stoic of courtiers. He was never one to be confined by the formalities of court life, he preferred the open air and adventure, the kind of carefree existence that Peter could only ever admire from a distance. Where Peter saw duty, Ben saw freedom, and it made him seem all the more distant from the heavy expectations that weighed on their family name.
It had been a crisp autumn day when it happened. A day like any other, Ben had asked Peter to join him on a hunting trip, something that had become more of a tradition than a necessity. Peter hadn’t wanted to go, but Ben had been persistent--So, Peter had gone, not realizing that this would be the last time they would ever ride out together.
They had been out for hours, crossing the familiar paths, jumping over streams, chasing down game. The cold wind bit at their faces, but the rush of the hunt kept them both alert. Ben had always been a more skilled rider than Peter--fearless, confident. He’d made it look easy, the way he urged his horse to leap over a small stream that cut across their path. Peter had been behind, less certain, but he followed anyway. And then, Ben had fallen.
The crack had been sickening. Peter’s heart had stopped for a moment as he watched his uncle fall from the saddle, landing in a heap on the ground with an unnatural thud. His horse had reared up, startled, but Peter couldn’t see anything but the twisted form of his uncle. He had rushed to him, but by the time he reached him, the life had already gone from his eyes. One moment, full of life and a future and love; the next, gone.
Ben had fallen, his neck snapping when he hit the ground. A clean break, but a deadly one. Peter had never forgotten the way his Uncle’s body had crumpled, the way his world had crumbled along with it.
He never hunted again after that day. The thought of riding out with a bow in his hand, the thrill of the chase--none of it ever held the same meaning. How could it? Hunting had always been something they did together, and without Ben, it felt like an insult to even consider it. The blood of the hunt had always tasted bitter, but it was nothing compared to the bitterness that clung to Peter’s throat when he thought about that day.
Ben had been the spark in their family. His sudden absence had left a cold void that no one knew how to fill. Peter couldn’t even bring himself to mourn properly--not at first anyway. The weight of his death hung over him, but it wasn’t until later, much later, that he truly understood the loss.
In Ben’s absence, May had remained in residence. A royal by marriage, but never truly in the power that peter was born into. She had her own quarters, her own life, an existence apart from the formalities of the court. She had always been an outsider, in a way, never quite fitting into the role she was expected to play. Peter had never understood her entirely, but he respected her--respected the way she kept her own counsel, how she never let anyone reduce her to the footnotes of their history. There was an edge to her that was sharp, that reminded him of his own mother, and it was that sharpness that kept the court from dismissing her entirely.
Peter knocked once, already hearing the soft clink of teacups within. The door opened before he could knock again.
“Peter,” May said, surprised but not startled. Her eyes scanned him, sharp as always, taking in every detail. She never did miss much.
“Come in.”
He stepped inside without a word.
The room smelled like chamomile and old books, thoughi t always did. The curtains were drawn halfway, letting in soft, clean light. There was a fire going, despite the spring chill having all but passed. And May, in her simple gown of navy wool and hair swept back in a loose knot, looked every bit the picture of put together.
Peter sat heavily on the arm of a chair, his fingers twisting together. He didn’t speak at first.
Only when he leaned forward, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes--trying, uselessly, to keep his thoughts from spilling over the edges--did he speak.
“Marriage.”
Was all he could get out, the word torn from somewhere behind his ribs, choked and misshapen by the sheer weight of it.
The word didn’t even feel real. It wasn’t the kind of marriage he imagined as a child, purposeful, built on affection or even something as simple as preference.
Peter wanted to rip his hair out, he wanted to cry, he wanted to vomit, he wanted to sleep.
“I assume you found out.”
He nodded, a quick, jerky motion that felt too small for how much was unraveling inside him. It was like trying to acknowledge a flood with a single drop of movement. He hadn’t expected her to be surprised. Still, the confirmation hurt in a way that felt strangely physical, like a bruise he hadn’t realized was forming until it was pressed.
“Did you know?”
There was hesitation in her voice when she answered, and it sounded like she was frowning. “Yes.”
That one word, said so simply, nearly undid him.
Because it confirmed what he’d feared since the moment he’d opened the letter, that this wasn’t some… some mistake, some administrative oversight or hastily signed agreement. It was a decision. They had all known. And no one had told him.
It wasn’t betrayal in any way he had expected, not knives or shouting or doors slammed shut, but it felt like it, it felt like a knife in his back and screaming in his ears and doors slammed in his face he didn’t even realize he wanted to walk through.
But still, there was no malice in her answer. That was what made it hurt more. May wasn’t cruel.
It felt the same anyway, she may not have held the knife, but she sure as hell twisted it.
He wondered if this was what legacy really looked like, not jewels or statues or pages in books, but generations of people learning to carry the hurt of their parents just to leave it with the next. Learning how to take what they were given and turn it into anything but what it was.
He had always imagined adulthood would come like an accomplishment, a moment he could recognize and meet with purpose because it meant freedom, or so he hoped.
And now, even here, even with her, he didn’t feel like a boy anymore.
He just felt tired.
“And you didn’t say anything.”
“I spoke,” she said quietly. “But no one was listening.”
Peter blinked hard. “No one cared.”
“Not when you’re a woman. Not when you marry into your royalty instead of being born into it.”
There was silence.
“I told them,” she continued, voice still low, “that binding two kingdoms together with children is an old way of solving a problem that could have found newer answers. I told them it would cost you. That you deserve more than a life you didn’t choose.”
Peter looked at her then. Really looked at her, saw the face of an old woman in the skin of a thirty year old, saw her eyes shadowed with sadness as they looked at him.
“And?”
She shrugged, a small motion. “Ben used to say--‘May has the sharpest mind in the room, and they’ll all pretend she doesn’t until she agrees with them.’ I think they listened to me just enough to nod, and not one bit more.”
Peter’s throat worked, but no words came.
She rose and crossed to him. Sat down on the ottoman beside his chair.
Peter couldn’t take any of this, he couldn’t handle it, he wanted to sleep.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” she said. “But I knew you would.” She frowned again, and looked more disappointed than he’d ever seen. “They--your parents--always told me they’d say something, but they never did.”
“I’m not angry at you.”
“You’re allowed to be angry,” she said. “Just don’t pretend not to be.” She added on softly.
Peter gave a shuddering breath.
“I thought I had time,” he murmured. “Time to figure out who I am. What I want. I didn’t think it had all already been decided--before I even learned to… to read.”
May looked at him, her eyes softening. “You still have time, Peter. The marriage is a promise, a legality, yes. But who you are in it, that’s yours to decide. And if you don’t want it… you still have a voice, you have power, Peter, even if it doesn’t feel like it now, being a prince isn’t just for show.”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”
“Then scream,” she said, “until they learn what your voice sounds like.”
And He wanted to scream. God, he wanted to scream.