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As the world faded to black, Peter didn’t know if he wanted to wake up.
Despite the smell and feel of his warm blood and the pain in his abdomen, despite the distorted sound of Jean’s voice…he wasn’t scared. This wasn’t like before, where he could feel his bones and skin dissolve around him, feeling himself disappear. He knew what was happening, he knew what he did, and he didn’t regret it.
Peter Parker knew he was dying.
He wondered if May would be waiting for him.
~~~
Tony was used to dreaming about Peter. Watching him die over and over and over, crumbling to ashes in his arms, taking light and laughter with him.
He couldn’t comprehend the three years he had spent without the boy. Life had moved on, somehow, and he had been forced to move with it. But every so often, his mind got stuck with Peter. His smile and his bravery.
Tonight found him there again.
Peter looked…different, this time. It all looked different. Not exactly a nightmare, just foggy space. A beach in the early morning, pebbles instead of sand. Tony had seen beaches like this in Italy. Peter wasn’t in his Iron Spider suit this time, he wasn’t…disappearing.
He was older, holding himself differently, like someone who knew who they were. His hair wasn’t gelled or straightened, but curly and long. It was like Tony’s mind was filling in the years that Peter would never get to live, trying to picture him as if he would ever grow up.
“Peter,” Tony murmured, surprisingly lucid. Peter turned from where he had been facing, looking out at the endless ocean. He sank quickly into a familiar battle position, ready to shoot webs before he saw who had said his name.
The boy’s shoulders dropped, his expression going from defensive to utterly haunted. His eyes were darker, somehow. Clouded. “Tony?” Peter said, and the name sounded like it was being ripped out of him by force, “Wh-Tony?” He repeated, voice desperate.
“Kid-”
Peter stumbled forward, pulling Tony towards him and hugging him tightly. The boy- no, the young man, was taller. He held on to Tony like a life line. “Peter,” Tony said, hesitating before wrapping him in his arms. Even if this wasn’t real, he never got to hold his kid. He was always dead far too quickly.
“I didn’t- I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Peter rambled quickly, sounding like the words were stuck in his throat, “I thought maybe May, or- or I’d just fall asleep and never wake up but I didn’t expect to see you I didn’t think- I didn’t-” “Peter, c’mon, breathe,” Tony interrupted, pulling away to hold Peter by his shoulders, brushing his kid’s hair from his eyes. Peter clung to Tony’s sleeves, grip like a vice.
He was wearing a suit Tony had never seen. The lines were clean, the colors bright and shining. He had sloping scars on his neck and face, though Tony knew for a fact that Peter couldn’t scar, at least not that he had seen before. He had the strained and tight look of someone who hadn’t had enough to eat in a long time. What kind of future was he subconsciously imagining?
Peter looked so much older. So much more worn. It made Tony’s heart hurt.
The young man’s eyes searched Tony’s face desperately, “Are- are there other people here? May, Ben? Natasha? My- my parents? What-” ”Bambino,” Tony soothed softly. Something was wrong. This was…different. Too different. “What are you talking about?”
“We…we’re dead,” Peter said softly, “This is the whole…life after death thing.” The words hit Tony with violence, tearing him to pieces. Peter’s grip on Tony’s arms loosened and he fell. He looked just as confused as Tony felt. “You died,” Peter whispered, “And now I’m dead. That’s- It’s the only way I could be seeing you right now.”
“Peter, you died three years ago,” Tony said, dumbfounded yet trying to keep his voice steady, “I- I didn’t die. You did. I-” his breath caught, “I watched you, I held you.” Ash on his hands, Peter’s final apology ringing in his ears though it had only been a whisper.
Peter blinked, stepping backwards before furrowing his brow, “No, no that was the blip,” he said it like it should make sense. “I came back, everyone did but you- what are you talking about?”
“Peter,” Tony said the name like a prayer, like it could make any of what Peter was saying make sense. “Tony,” Peter said in response, eyes softening with sadness. Not Mr Stark, this time. Just his name.
Tony found himself lost looking at his kid, so different and so utterly changed and so obviously broken.
“What year is it, to you? “...It’s 2028.”
Peter was watching him, facial expression guarded. Tony felt as if his brain was breaking, he could barely breathe. This was far too real, far too strange. “No, it- it’s 2021, kid,” he breathed.
The young man’s eyes widened as he seemed to realize something, something Tony hadn’t yet. “What?” He asked, stepping forward. Peter was tapping his thumb against his index and middle fingers rhythmically, his gaze sliding to the ground as he thought. “You still with me Pete?” He hummed softly in acknowledgement before looking up.
“Y’know Doctor Strange?” “Wh- yes bambino, I know Doctor Strange.” Dead. So many, so many dead in an instant. Tony couldn’t stop it. “And he’s got the whole like, reality thing and then there’s the time stone which is obviously like, gone now.” Peter had begun rocking from foot to foot, his speech getting faster. For a moment he looked younger. “What are you getting at?” Tony asked cautiously.
Peter smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Tony, I think my death did like- some kind of something like that,” he waved his hand vaguely, “And I’m somehow visiting you in the past. That- that’s wild,” Peter laughed, and if Tony could’ve kept a sound in a jar it would’ve been that, “That’s so crazy, oh my-”
“You died?” Tony interrupted, his voice suddenly as hollow as he felt. Peter stilled and looked at him. “You came back after what Thanos did and…and you died a second time?” Could the universe have no mercy on Peter Parker? Did he have to die, did he have to suffer so long? Tony tried to fight back the feeling that if anyone, it should’ve been him.
Peter’s voice was quiet. “I think so,” he said, “It would make sense.” “Wh- how did you die? And you said,” Tony drew a shaking breath, “May. She’s gone?” The young man paled and looked back at the waves tumbling over the shore. He nodded once. “Yeah, she…it’s been a few years.”
“And you?”
“Gunshot wound. I was protecting someone..important.”
Tony felt as if he himself had died, as if he had been emptied and burned to the ground. Somehow - by some miracle - Peter had been brought back from the dead. Everyone had, maybe. Yet he had died from a gunshot wound. A bullet to his body, maybe to his brain or his heart.
He stepped forward and pulled the hero back into his arms, holding on even tighter this time as Peter shivered and melted into his touch once more. They swayed there, barely breathing in the salty air.
~~~
Peter felt odd, a tightness in his chest, separate from the waves of grief.
Tony was sitting next to him, his arm around Peter’s shoulders. The man was holding on to him like he was afraid he’d fall apart if he let go. Peter didn’t know if he was wrong on that assumption.
He hadn’t realized how much he missed being held. Being cared for. He knew could do it alone but it didn’t mean he wasn’t lonely. It didn’t mean he didn’t miss May and Tony and MJ and Ned and even Ben, sometimes.
He was so tired.
“You look older,” Tony said softly. Peter looked up to find the man's eyes trained on him, filled with unspoken mourning. “I never…I never thought I’d get to see you look older than sixteen.”
Peter looked back at the ocean, tipping his head onto Tony’s shoulder. The man pressed a kiss into his hair. It felt nice, just to sit here. It was quiet. “I’m twenty two, now,” he murmured, “I could drink, if I wanted to. I don’t, not really, but I could.”
Tony whistled lowly. “Look at you, Peter,” he said, a gentle tone of affection in his voice, though it was layered with terrible hidden grief, “All grown up. Not much of a kid anymore, huh?” Peter smiled, letting his eyes fall shut. His head hurt. Shouldn’t he get a break from headaches after death? “I guess,” he said,”I feel older than I am.” “That would be the trauma,” Tony laugh. “And the loneliness. Or the whole…spider thing," Peter added quietly, without thinking.
Tony paused, shifting a little under Peter’s weight. He felt the hair being brushed from his face. “What do you mean?” Tony asked. Peter opened his eyes, sitting up slowly to look at his mentor. He sighed, chewing on his lip. He might as well explain.
“Around when May died, I- a lot happened. This guy, Beck, he exposed my identity and kind of like, framed me for murder," “What?!” “And my friends they…they were being affected. It was my fault-” “It was not and you know it, Pete.” He glanced up at Tony with a half smile before looking back at his hands, playing with a round stone from the ground.
“Well…a lot happened. I talked to Dr Strange,” he continued, smiling at how Tony rolled his eyes, “And it was kind of a domino effect and I…made the choice to be forgotten. So the universe wouldn’t fall apart. No one knows Peter Parker, no one needs to know him. I, technically, have never existed”
The silence that followed was heavy between the two men. Peter felt his heart stutter in his chest. Had he had a heartbeat this whole time? He was usually aware of it. He tossed the pebble in his hands into the waves and watched it tumble away.
“You were- you are…alone.”
Tony’s voice was hesitant and achingly sad as he continued. “Everyone forgot about you. Your friends, your teachers, me,” the man swallowed, then said, voice shaking a little, “We all forgot.”
“You weren’t there to forget,” Peter said mutely. There was a beat “What do you mean?” Tony asked, his voice gentle but confused and even anxious. Peter didn’t say anything, instead he just leaned further into Tony’s side, relishing the warmth, the feeling of his mentor’s living breathing self next to him.
“Peter,” Tony said, voice a little more solid, “What do you mean I wasn’t there.”
He didn’t want to look him in the eyes, it was hard to exist, he felt like the strange light of this limbo was weighing on him like stones. “I thought you would’ve figured it out. I told you I thought this was the afterlife,” he said quietly.
Nothing but the soft sound of waves crashing against shore. “I died,” Tony said. It was a soft acceptance, nothing like Peter would’ve figured. The man wasn’t disbelieving or angry, he just sounded quiet and resigned. Peter chewed on his lip, trying to control the lump in his throat.
He had cried enough for this man. Had spent hours buried in the guilt of his memory.
Yet when Tony pulled Peter wordlessly back into his arms, he could hardly keep from breaking down. He had missed being seen, being held, being known. He had never realized how hollowed out he had felt.
Peter had missed being loved.
~~~
Peter’s eyes were dead. They were dark and dead and the color of pitch. And the worst part is that Tony knew he would never be able to fix that. He couldn’t help Peter cause Peter had died again. He had been shot.
Tony felt sick. Sicker at that then at the prospect of his own seemingly imminent death. Sure that scared him. It terrified him to know he left his family behind but if that was somehow the thing that brought Peter - and everyone else - back then maybe it was worth it. Maybe the world could go on without him.
Had Peter’s eyes changed color?
They must’ve.
They weren’t even brown anymore. Tony remembered that vivid brown. It had been tattooed into his head.
They were black.
There were so many things Peter wasn’t telling him.
His thoughts were going in circles.
The young man didn’t cry, where he might’ve before. In some kind of past that was still vivid in Tony’s mind but was distant to Peter. His body just trembled, still wrapped sickeningly in that stupid red and blue costume that had held him prisoner.
“It’s okay,” he said, holding Peter’s thin, shaking frame. It felt like his kid was coming apart and it was all Tony could do to try and keep him together. “It’s okay, Pete, it’s okay.” “It’s not,” Peter murmured, almost feverish, “It’s not. I could’ve- if I’d just done more-” “None of that, I know how you get.” “But-” “Kid.”
Peter went quiet. Tony wished he could hear his voice more but never saying such self deprecating lies as he seemed to believe. “I’m sorry,” Peter whispered after another moment, “I’m so sorry, Tony. I tried, I swear I tried. But- but I made so many mistakes.”
Tony watched as Peter pulled away from him, though he wouldn’t let go of the young man. Not while he was still here. Peter’s eyes were dim and half closed. “I wanted to be- I- I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Tony reached up slowly before brushing Peter’s hair from his face, just trying to see him better.
Peter looked up at him. He held so much sorrow in his face. So much desperate loneliness. Tony had seen it on himself. He didn’t like it on his kid.
Tony ran a thumb across a scar that traced along Peter’s cheekbone, the skin taut and shiny. “Peter,” Tony trailed off, watching as the young man’s face crumpled further.
“I didn’t want this,” Peter admitted, voice strained and breaking. “I didn’t have a choice.” It sounded like he had never let himself even think this. Tony felt like his heart was being pulled apart and broken.
“I know you didn’t, kid,” he murmured, holding Peter’s face in his hands, trying not to trick his mind into thinking he felt like ashes. Peter leaned into his hands, head dipping forward like a sleeping child. “I had to do it,” he whispered, “But- but I didn’t want to.” “No one would, bambino,” Tony said, “You were so much stronger than anyone else could’ve been. I couldn’t have done that.”
Peter looked away. His eyes, those dead eyes.
“What really happened to you?” Tony asked, his own voice sounding distant. Peter just shrugged a little. “It’s a really long story,” he said, tipping his head against Tony’s chest slowly, a soft, shaking sigh escaping his lips. Tony felt his heart skip in his chest, his breathing constricted with pain.
His kid, right there. In his arms like he was supposed to be. Peter.
Man, he had missed this boy.
“We’ve got time, kiddo,” he said, pressing a kiss into Peter’s hair.
So Peter started to talk.
He started slowly, explaining his trip to Europe and the illusion tech and his involvement with Nick Fury. Tony listened intently, an arm still around the boy’s shoulders. He described the Edith glasses, the way he had given them to Beck. The way he had manipulated Peter, Tony could see it in the way the young man still shook at the thought of him.
There was a shallow kind of horror that rose in Tony’s throat as he described the horrid man’s illusions.
“He made me see things,” Peter said softly, voice breaking just a little, “Bad things. Things I already blamed myself for and I just…it wasn’t good.” Tony pulled his kid a bit closer. “They probably weren’t your fault, Pete,” “Mmm,” Peter hummed softly, “You don’t really know that, though.” “I’m Tony Stark, I know everything.”
Peter laughed shakily. The way he spoke was so much less animated than before. Tony remembered vividly how he had once spoken with his hands, words and trains of thought tripping each other. Barely anything remained of that. Somehow Peter kept finding unconscious ways to show Tony just how much he’d changed. Just how much he’d been through.
Beck had framed Peter for his murder, revealing his face and identity. It made Tony’s blood boil in his veins. He’d kill that horrible man as soon as he could, as if maybe he could change the future he was seeing right in front of him. Peter didn’t even know the man’s real name. Tony would find it. The man had worked for his company after all.
Dr Strange had destroyed Peter, it seemed. There was no obvious intent to harm him, but it had happened. His spell had ripped Peter’s world apart and erased him. Tony didn’t even try to visualise what the young man described, the image of not only that many villains but that many versions of Peter…it was a lot to imagine.
Peter told him about the girl he had jumped in front of a bullet for. Jean Grey, an unfamiliar name. Unfamiliar intentions and terror. He talked about her with a tone of gentle grief and warmth.
He went quiet eventually, pulling his knees to his chest and setting his chin on them. Peter seemed used to making himself smaller. Tony hated it.
“But what about your eyes? You mentioned something about you being, like, ‘spiderish,’ but…what does that mean?” He asked hesitantly.
“My eyes?” Peter looked up, bringing a hand to right under his right eye. His irises were still black, though now Tony could see brown beginning to bleed through at the edges. He ran a hand over Peter’s hair, trying to soothe the boy’s endless shaking.
“I really…”the young man swallowed, “I really don’t wanna talk about it if…if that’s okay.”
No it wasn’t. But Tony wasn’t going to push him for answers. He wanted to know so bad it felt like he was being burned.
“Yeah, kid,” he said, “That’s okay. You’re okay.”
Peter bowed his head a little more, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He took a long, shaking breath.
“I really missed you, Tony.”
“Missed you too, Pete.”
Missed wasn’t big enough. Missed wasn’t- Tony had grieved this boy. He had had nightmare after nightmare about his death, had felt the regret so deeply it felt like it was carved into his aching bones.
“Peter…”
“Yeah?”
“I never told you I loved you, did I?”
Peter looked up at him, eyes full of sorrow and grief and a million things that Tony could never even try to comprehend.
“No,” he said, voice warbling.
“Well, I do. Never said it soon enough but- kid, I just-”
“I love you too,” Peter said softly, sounding like the words were foreign. The young man hadn’t felt loved in so long.
~~~
They sat there for what could’ve been hours or days. It had been so long since Peter had been at peace like this, warm and loved and some kind of happy.
Tony talked so he didn’t have to, telling Peter everything. It was nice.
Peter was oddly conscious of the way his chest was rising and falling, feeling air in his lungs. He pressed himself into Tony’s side as if he could stay there. He wished he could live in this way forever.
Of course, the universe never gave Peter Parker anything he wanted.
He felt it before anything happened, just like he had before the snap. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he felt the fog oppressively around his face. “Tony,” he said, sitting up straighter, “Tony, something’s happening.” “Wh- kid?” “Something- something’s happening, look, the fog it’s getting thicker.” “Peter, don’t- you can’t go.”
Peter looked up into Tony’s panicking eyes. The man was holding his shoulders tightly. “Tony?” “You’re fading you- Peter, don’t go, please, don’t go, kid-” Peter felt like he was dissolving into the fog. It was so much gentler than being dusted.
“Tony, you gotta promise me-” “Don’t go, don’t go Peter.” Peter pushed away so he could look Tony square in the face. “Promise me something, please, Tony.” “Anything kid just- stay,” Peter swallowed and tried to breathe. This was all he could do. “Don’t touch that gauntlet. Promise me you won’t, that you’ll find another way.
Tony looked confused under the thick layer of desperation on his frame. “Peter, what do you mean?” “Just- just promise me. Promise me,” Peter felt his voice break, “Please.” “I- I promise, bambino. I promise.”
Peter let himself be pulled into Tony’s embrace one last time, trying to memorize the feeling of it. Of being held and known.
He closed his eyes, feeling tears burning his eyes.
A soft beeping and the feeling of air being pressed into his lungs.
When Peter opened his eyes he saw a hospital ceiling.
~~~
Tony woke up and he couldn’t breathe.
Peter’s trembling form, older yet still young, was still stuck in his head.
Peter.
He had to fix this.
~~~
Peter’s head hurt. His throat felt tight as he walked into his small attic of a home. Something was off, his memory felt fuzzy.
It had been off since he woke up. It was like he was in a broken reality. He remembered his life vividly, except it was buried. Buried under real memories of a world where Tony never died.
“Welcome home, Peter,” EV greeted him.
“Hey, eve,” he said, taking off his jacket and throwing it on the ground, sitting on the bed with his legs aching.
“...EV?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“What…when did Tony Stark die?”
“Tony Stark is currently living and in his mid fifties.”
…
“Oh.”
…
“Hey, EV?”
“Yes?”
“Can you shuffle Stick Season and put it through the speaker?”
“Of course, Peter.”