Archive of Our Own

Darker Than a Black Hole's Event Horizon

It's not 'just coffee,' Pete. It's the high-octane fuel that keeps this fragile engine from seizing up. Now, listen closely. I want it black. I'm talking 'darker than a black hole's event horizon' black. No milk—cow juice is for cereal. No sugar—I'm sweet enough, clearly. And if you ever even think about putting pumpkin spice anywhere near it, you're fired from the internship.

...

Ever since he saved the world five years ago and managed to live to tell the tale, officially retiring from his totally unsafe superhero activities to the infinite relief of his wife, and dedicating himself almost full-time to being a genuinely good, decent father, Tony Stark could honestly say that at 59 years old, he was finally enjoying a wonderful vibe of inner peace.

His life had undeniably become infinitely simpler and more boring, and he absolutely loved what it had turned into:

Instead of wild late-night parties and several one-night stands with faceless, unimportant women, he read bedtime stories to his 9-year-old daughter and fell asleep in the arms of the woman he had loved for a very long time. Instead of cold mornings and hellish hangover headaches, he woke up to the smell of pancakes and freshly brewed coffee. Instead of pointless trips all over the globe, he was content with driving Morgan to school every morning and picking her up in the early afternoon. Instead of endless UN council meetings and legal tribunals, he had serious, high-stakes pretend tea parties at four o'clock in the sharp. Pepper still ran Stark Industries, staying at the office during business hours and coming home in the late afternoon. Tony would cook for them then, or when they were too lazy, they would order takeout or go out for dinner; sometimes they’d catch a movie, gorging on cheeseburgers and ice cream—the man and the little girl stuffing themselves with all the junk food they could lay their hands on, much to the woman's exasperation and amusement, her nose twitching in a mix of mild disapproval and deep fondness.

They lived in Manhattan now, having returned to the Tower because of their daughter's school, though they frequently headed back to the lake house to spend a few days whenever possible.

He still tinkered in the lab, of course. That was as intrinsic to his being as coffee had become. He worked way less than the ungodly seventy-two straight hours he used to pull in his youth, now content with an hour and a half, maybe two hours max, late at night—sometimes working on projects to help the Avengers, the city, or just simpler things to cure his boredom. Morgan would often lean against his workstation, watching his hands work with eager fascination, finding it amusing how his titanium right arm, hand and fingers operated with the exact same flawless precision as his flesh-and-blood left side.

His daughter was a lovely miracle.

Sometimes Pepper would also sit on the sofa further back, quietly finishing up an urgent report while watching the two of them goof off. Pepper's sky-blue eyes would shine with tenderness then; just as Morgan's did, bright as stars in the night sky.

Tony couldn't be more grateful to be alive to witness any of it.

He had grown into a more mature, wiser man, and that had made him much more in tune with himself. And precisely because of that, he was certain that something was missing. He felt a strange, lingering emptiness inside him that never shrank, never faded, and never stopped making its presence known. It existed deep within him, always, no matter how content his life was, no matter how happy he felt, no matter how much he had everything a man could ever want.

Something important was missing—something dearly missed, but he simply couldn't remember what it was.

Every time he looked at his state-of-the-art lab, filled with computers and suits, it was fully equipped at the best, yet the engineer couldn't shake the nagging impression that something wasn't quite right.

Something was missing.

Time seemed to drift slowly and fluidly, like a calm, quiet river, and as the years slipped by, they stayed like that.

That is, until the day his trembling flesh-and-blood hand let a cup of fresh coffee slip and shatter into a thousand pieces as he watched on TV, utterly stunned, a news report announcing that Spider-Man had been shot and was dying.

...

It was with immense frustration that Tony walked into the first coffee shop he laid eyes on.

He needed coffee; he needed coffee now.

It was a cheap, very simple joint—definitely way below his usual standards of a frequented establishment, but it would do. There was a terror gnawing at his heart that he couldn't calm down, no matter how hard he tried. His pale hands shook subtly as he adjusted his coat around his frame, and the only thing on his mind was that the bitter, familiar taste of coffee would help snap his head back into focus. It usually did.

And that was how they met.

He had barely been in the shop for a minute when Tony immediately noticed a man clearly struggling to pick up a coffee cup and a sandwich from the pickup counter. He had fair skin, a very pale face, unkempt brown hair, and dull eyes. He looked young, couldn't have been more than 20 or 22. He was wearing a backpack on one shoulder, clutching a folder under one arm, and walking with an awkward limp that Tony, with his sharp gaze, instantly recognized for what it was.

An injury; the kid was clearly recovering from a severe wound.

Before the he dropped the coffee and made a mess of the shop, driven by a genuine instinct he honestly didn't know where came from, Tony stepped forward, grabbed the coffee, the sandwich, and the young man's backpack, startling the younger guy.

"Come on, kid, let me give you a hand. You sure look like you need it."

The younger's brown eyes widened in open, shocked recognition; he stared stupidly at the man, and Tony had to refrain himself from rolling his eyes. Well... he was used to his whole life usually causing that kind of reaction in people.

The sparse crowd inside the shop was also openly staring at them, completely awestruck to see Earth's Mightiest Hero standing right there before their eyes in such a humble place, but Tony ignored them, keeping his attention on the kid. Taking the initiative, he also grabbed one of the younger's arms and carefully guided him toward a nearby table, moving slowly at a comfortable pace so the limping man could keep up.

He sat down with him at the table, placing the coffee and the sandwich in front of the kid, and setting the moderately heavy backpack on the empty seat beside them.

The boy continued to stare stupidly at him.

"I'm Tony," the retired superhero introduced himself, keeping things simple, since the other guy was clearly too starstruck to speak. "And you?"

That snapped the younger man's out of his daze.

"P-Peter... Peter Parker..." the boy, Peter, replied in a faint, awkward murmur.

"Well, nice to meet you then, Mr. Parker," Tony told him, easygoing.

A waitress approached their table, clearly fascinated by Iron Man; she asked what he'd like to order, and Tony didn't hesitate to go straight for his long-coveted prize.

"Just coffee, please."

And then both of them—the man and the kid—spoke the exact same words at the exact same time:

"Black coffee. 'Darker than a black hole's event horizon' black. No milk and no sugar."

Both blinked at each other; the billionaire evidently surprised, the kid suddenly all too self-conscious, his pale cheeks turning completely crimson.

Tony arched an eyebrow in a mix of curiosity and amusement.

"Big fan, are you?"

Peter had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Sorry, it's just... well... you're famous and all..."

It sounded more like a last-second cop-out than an actual explanation, and it piqued the billionaire's interest; Tony's sharp gaze caught the younger's brown eyes subtly darting to the scars on the right side of his face and then dropping to his titanium hand resting on the table between them.

The kid's brown irises deeply haunted.

"I don't recall ever publicly sharing my coffee preferences, but I'll admit there are a few things that still slip my mind, and I'm still struggling to recover them. You know, my last heroic stunt kind of messed up my memory a bit," Tony said amicably, lightly gesturing to the light burn marks still on his face that plastic surgery hadn't been able to entirely erase. "You look like you've had your fair share of 'heroic stunts' yourself, kid."

The boy looked at him confused and the man gestured vaguely toward the younger's general complex, and understanding washed over Peter's countenance.

"Yeah... I kind of... was in an accident..." He muttered awkwardly.

"Spine?" Tony inquired, direct and spot-on. The flash of surprise Peter shot him then was answer enough. "I've seen plenty of injuries in my line of work, kid, to recognize a wound when it's right in front of my eyes. Looks like yours is pretty recent."

Peter only nodded in agreement, adding nothing more to the subject and looking visibly uncomfortable.

The waitress returned, set down the bitter, pitch-black coffee with no milk and no sugar, and the retired superhero thoroughly enjoyed it.

Before he could stop his mouth, Peter asked the billionaire in a low, incredulous tone, as if he was struggling to actually believe the man was sitting right there in front of him:

"What are you doing here, Mr. Stark?"

"I came to visit a friend. I was on a trip on the other side of the world with my family when I got the news that he had gotten into deep trouble, and the plane took forever long to get here," Tony replied, his frustration clearly bleeding into his voice now. "By the time we finally made it back to Manhattan, it was already too late. I found out that this morning he simply vanished from the hospital, and nobody knows where he ended up. I came straight here from there."

Faced with the young man's confused look, Tony pointed with the hand that wasn't holding his coffee toward the shop's window, out at the street where a child was walking with their parents, holding onto a red and blue balloon featuring the unmistakable design of the arachnid superhero.

"You came here... to see Spider-Man...?" Peter questioned, his voice weird, eyes wide, staring at the billionaire with even greater shock.

"Yeah, I kind of mentored him in the early years of his career; helped him build his first suits," Tony said, his voice and gaze turning distant. "Good kid, he is. It's been a while since I saw him; after Thanos, we kind of lost touch. But he's a decent superhero, I can tell you that..."

The engineer's brown eyes gazed at the balloon with a certain open, unconscious fondness.

"I honestly didn't even notice time fly... damn, it's been five years... my daughter is even in school now, and honestly, I don't know why I didn't reach out to him more. It's funny, I remember we fought side-by-side a bunch of times, but to this day, I still don't know his identity. He was always tight-lipped about it." Tony let out a humorless laugh. "I just can't believe the kid got himself shot and almost died."

His gaze snapped back to the young man sitting across from of him. Peter had gone very, very quiet, frozen in his seat, still staring at him as if he had suddenly turned into an alien and just declared he was going to destroy the world. And frankly, he understood it; Tony himself didn't know why he had suddenly gotten so emotional as to dump such open feelings onto a stranger. Seriously, he blamed it on fatherhood—Morgan had definitely softened him up.

Speaking of Morgan...

"I'm afraid I have to go now, Pete. It's almost time to pick my daughter up from school." Tony finished his cup of coffee, stood up, and nodded to the young man. "Thanks for the chat. Take care of yourself, prioritize your recovery, don't overexert—spine injuries take time to heal. My friend Rhodey took a pretty ugly hit, and to this day he still has to be careful with it."

Tony genuinely intended to leave the coffee shop right away to retrieve his daughter; but something about looking at the young man then and there made him freeze standing right beside the table.

He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was—definitely a foreign and entirely unfamiliar sensation—but as he gazed into Peter's large, wide eyes, looking up at him with a tearful expression full of a thousand overwhelmed emotions, while at the same time as though his hopes were shattering into a thousand pieces, Tony felt something strike him deep in the chest, and a totally random certainty, all of a sudden, dawned on him.

He grew restless, as if his spirit were reluctant to step out onto the street.

For some reason he couldn't explain, he couldn't just walk out of that shop—not without finding some way to stay in touch with that kid. His instincts were screaming it at him, and they were usually always right.

How curious...

"What's your number, kid?"

Peter blinked.

"What?"

"Your phone number. Something tells me that if I give you mine, you won't call me back. So I want you to give me yours."

"Why?" Peter murmured, seemingly too overwhelmed to think straight.

Tony offered him a genuine smile; it was weird how easily it came for a kid he didn't even know.

"I helped Rhodey with his treatment, I'm sure I can do something for you." The billionaire leaned in and unceremoniously grabbed the device popping out of the younger's coat pocket; Peter was so stunned he just stared in disbelief as the other man messed with his phone. "Found it."

Tony honestly couldn't tell what had possessed him to do that.

"M-Mr. Stark!" Peter exclaimed, scandalized and thoroughly dazed.

The man with practiced fingers managed to bypass the initial lock screen, entered his own number into the device's contact list, and quickly memorized the boy's, raising a brow at the only record shown that contained his own name. How's that a young kid with his whole life ahead of him had a contact list that was literally empty? Didn't he have any friends?

"Here." He handed the device back. "If you're not busy tomorrow afternoon, pick up my call."

And with a friendly wave, the billionaire left the shop, leaving the kid holding his phone with trembling, numb hands, staring at the man's retreating back and still wondering what the hell had just happened.

...

"Hello, Peter. You could've answered the phone right away instead of letting it go to voicemail three times before I overrode it to pick up remotely."

"Mr. Stark... seriously, you didn't have to call."

"Kid, pretending you weren't standing right next to the phone isn't cool. I have a super AI, you know? I know you were literally right next to it the whole time."

"I really don't know how to say this without sounding rude, Mr. Stark... but I don't want to impose, and you don't have to do anything—like, we don't even know each other..."

"Kid, I literally saved half the entire universe while almost getting my ass burned to a crisp by people I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even manage to meet in a hundred lifetimes. I know your name, and you know my favorite coffee preference. That's a great start for me."

"Mr. Stark..."

"I want you to come to the Tower. Let's take a look at that spine of yours and analyze the actual damage."

"I really don't think that's a good idea..."

"Why?"

"I... I... I don't have the money for a ride?"

"My driver is two minutes away from your apartment to pick you up."

"...."

"What can I say? I tracked your cell phone's IP. Sorry, I'm a bit neurotic, I know. I'm sure someone's told me that before. Grab your things, kid, I'll be waiting for you here."

...

Tony watched the young man limp out of the elevator into the main lobby of his penthouse, somewhat concerned. Happy had called him while the boy was riding up the floors and briefed him that the kid looked like he'd seen a ghost, casting weird glances at the driver and barely speaking the whole way.

He really was as pale as wax.

"Hey, Pete," he greeted casually, walking over to him.

"Mr. Stark," the younger one nodded, clearly awkwardly, clutching the straps of his backpack with tense fingers.

It didn't escape the billionaire's sharp gaze.

"Come on, drop your backpack anywhere, make yourself at home."

Peter limped along, following the engineer, and after setting his backpack down on a table, couldn't help but point out:

"You don't really seem like the type of person who invites total strangers into your home."

"You don't look like you're in any condition to kidnap my daughter anytime soon and hold her for ransom, kid. No offense," Tony chuckled softly, casting a humorous look at the still-limping boy, who shot a deadpan gaze right back at him. "Usually, I would've sent you down to the lower floors where I have a fully equipped medical bay, but Helen is away at a specialization course. And as much as her team is capable of defying physics, my lab right here has all the scans and data I used for Rhodey's prosthetics, so I can get a head start on things before Helen gets back if her help ends up being necessary. Plus, since I'm the one who personally invited you..."

Tony shrugged.

And as if the mention of her was some kind of magical summoning, the 9-year-old girl suddenly popped out of a bedroom, staring at the stranger with open curiosity.

Tony watched Peter freeze and gaze at the girl with the exact same emotional, awestruck expression he had directed at the billionaire back at the coffee shop.

Strange.

"Hi, I'm Morgan," the girl spoke, her brown eyes sharp, intelligent, and painfully similar to her father's.

"I'm Peter..." the young man whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

"You're hurt," she stated the obvious, noticing his awkward stance.

"He's here because daddy is going to help him with that, Maguna," Tony said, wrapping an arm around his daughter's shoulders and affectionately kissing her forehead.

Peter watched them in silence with a distant, yearning, and unmistakably sad look. Tony wondered what was running through the other's mind right then; he remembered the empty contact list and frowned, intrigued.

So... the kid lived alone and apparently had no family.

"Like you helped Uncle Rhodey, daddy?" Morgan inquired, and the engineer nodded.

"Just like that."

The small group moved slowly across the vast entryway of the luxury penthouse, mostly for the sake of the young man, who was clearly struggling to drag his body across the marble floor, his brow furrowed, sweat trickling down the side of his face.

Tony led them first to the kitchen, where he grabbed some freshly brewed coffee from the machine and shoved one of the two cups into the other's freezing hands, which Peter accepted with surprise on his countenance.

"Darker Than a Black Hole's Event Horizon," the billionaire repeated good-humoredly, nodding toward the cup. "Though if cosmic destruction is a bit much for your palate, there's sugar in the cabinet, I can grab it for you."

"I got used to taking it this way, thanks," Peter murmured, taking a sip of the hot, bitter liquid without hesitation as they slowly moved back toward the main area.

"It's rare for me to find someone with the same demanding palate as mine. Most people like to abominably sweeten it until it becomes undrinkable." The engineer commented, watching the kid walking beside him while on the other side he still cradled Morgan, still glued to his waist like a little koala.

"I worked with a mentor who only drank it this way, I accidentally picked up his taste." Peter whispered quietly, almost inaudibly, but the billionaire heard him all the same.

"Your teacher had good taste then, he must have been a great man." FRIDAY opened the glass doors of his private sanctuary and they stepped inside. Tony found himself making conversation with genuine interest. "And what did you used to study with him?"

"A little bit of everything... science-related." Peter answered slowly, his gaze now fixed on the lab, distant and clearly emotional, sweeping over each of the pieces of equipment and workstations, lingering on them for a moment far too long.

The young man's expression revealed a great deal, and Tony caught himself wearing a pleasantly surprised smile.

"You're a scientist then? Are you used to labs like this?"

"I'm not a scientist... actually, it was just an internship... but I had a good run." Peter's gaze shyly shifted back to the man.

"Sit down over there on that sofa, kid. I'm pretty sure we already have the results by now," Tony instructed, gently squeezing his daughter's shoulder. "Why don't you keep him company, Maguna, while I take a peek at the report, yeah?"

"Okay!" she chirped cheerfully and grabbed the confused young man's hand as if she were used to doing it all the time.

Peter let himself be easily led by her to the sofa, and as Tony walked away toward a workstation, his gaze still over them; he noticed how careful the young adult was with the girl, his hand holding hers back with excessive gentleness.

The engineer picked up a device from his desk, activated the holographic tablet, and began swiping through the information on the projected blue screen.

"Results...? What... what are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Peter inquired, sitting next to the man's daughter, looking rather on edge.

"FRIDAY already scanned you the moment you walked into the Tower, kid. I'm reading what she found so we can see what you'll need to get patched up."

Tony shot him a quick sideways glance. Peter's eyes filled with a contained flash of offense, but wasn't genuinely surprised—as if he had already expected that kind of behavior from him. When the man's eyes returned to the holographic tablet, they widened the moment he read the first line of the provided report. What he saw made his blood run cold. He lifted his gaze back toward Peter, his expression unreadable.

"Morgan." Her father's serious voice, devoid of his usual nicknames, made the girl immediately pay attention to him. "Can you make a sandwich for us? Just like the ones your mom taught you how to make?"

"Sure!" the girl agreed readily, looking at the two adults with curiosity. Something was happening, but she obediently left the room.

Tony and Peter looked at each other, and the engineer inquired directly and without reservation.

"You... got shot?" The words came out slowly, completely wrapped in utter disbelief.

Peter shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.

The silence that settled over the room was dense.

"What really happened to you, kid?" Tony asked then, softly and empathetically. "This right here clearly wasn't just an accident..."

"Mr. Stark..." Peter began hesitantly, his voice thick and slipping.

"Peter." The billionaire cut him off, his sharp gaze making it clear he wouldn't be fooled. "I know what an expert sniper shot looks like. This was meant to kill... are you in some kind of serious trouble?"

"No—"

"Wrong answer. Think carefully before you answer again, kid; because this genuinely looks serious." Tony set his empty cup down on the workstation and walked over to the boy, who was still holding his own mug with trembling hands.

The engineer sat down in the spot where his daughter had just been.

"Friday, pull up the skeletal structural analysis of the lumbar region," Tony ordered quietly, his brow furrowing deeper.

“Right away, Boss,” FRIDAY’s crisp Irish accent filled the lab, a 3D holographic spine expanding right in front of them, glowing with angry red lines of trauma. “As you can see, the bullet didn't just shatter the L4 and L5 vertebrae; there is severe structural fracturing and a devastating impact signature consistent with a high-caliber ballistic trauma. The ballistic data indicates the round was custom-made, heavily jacketed, and fired from a long-range precision weapon. It was explicitly engineered to bypass standard body armor and cause maximum, permanent structural destruction to the spine.”

Peter stared at the hologram, completely reduced to silence.

Tony’s jaw tightened, a flash of cold anger sparking in his chest. Someone hadn't just tried to shoot the kid; they had tried to execute him or permanently cripple him.

"And the regeneration rate?" Tony muttered, his gaze now burning holes into the boy, who didn't have the courage to look up at him. "With a wound this catastrophic, how is he even walking? Even with intensive physical therapy, a normal human would be bedridden, facing total lower-body paralysis."

“Subject’s current physical metrics show extreme strain, Boss. Tissue regeneration is dangerously sluggish, and the neural pathways in the lower lumbar region are heavily suppressed. The fact that he is ambulatory at all is a medical anomaly defying standard human physiology—testimony to either sheer, reckless willpower or an exceptionally stubborn pain tolerance. One wrong move and he could sever whatever's keeping those nerves connected for good.”

Tony exhaled a sharp breath, his eyes scanning the younger's extremely pale features, noticing his subtle tremors.

Peter shifted his hands abruptly, and the mug would have crashed to the floor if the engineer hadn't immediately reached out to steady it.

"You're in pain. Immense fucking pain," Tony said, his voice tight with tension. "How the hell are you even alive, kid?!"

"Mr. Stark, this... I knew this wasn't a good idea... I—" Peter swallowed hard, his voice genuinely shaking.

The AI's voice interrupted him.

“Shall I prepare a surgical intervention protocol, Boss?”

Tony didn't even hesitate.

"Yeah. Put together a targeted neural-regeneration treatment using the nanotech framework we tested on Rhodey and call Helen immediately back," Tony ordered, his eyes still locked on the kid right in front of him. "And get the medical bay prepped. Looks like we're keeping our young friend here for a while whether he likes it or not."

Peter stared at him in absolute horror.

"N-No," Peter stammered, panic instantly flashing in his wide, haunted eyes as he tried to scramble back against the sofa cushions. "No, no, no. No surgery. I'm fine. Really! I survived the first one, I can—I can walk it off, Mr. Stark, I swear—"

Before the the young adult could even finish his sentence, he attempted to stand up in a blind panic and his body violently betrayed him. A sharp, agonizing gasp choked off in his throat as his legs buckled beneath him.

Tony reacted on pure, instinctive reflex, lunging forward just in time to grab the other man by the shoulders before he face-planted onto the polished floor, firmly guiding him back down onto the couch.

"Whoa, easy there, flight risk," Tony ordered, his grip steady, hands warm against the trembling fabric of the kid's shirt. "Where do you think you're going? You can barely stand, let alone walk out of my tower! Sit your ass down before you snap whatever's left of your spine."

"You don't understand!" Peter breathed out, his voice cracking, panic radiating off him in waves as he clutched the edges of the sofa, his knuckles turning white. "I already had surgery! I was in the hospital, they stitched me up, they took the bullet out! I don't need another one!"

Tony froze for a split second, his brow furrowing as he incredulously stared down at the terrified kid. "They took it out?! Then why is your lumbar region still showing severe structural trauma and suppressed neural pathways? A standard hospital operation doesn't leave a patient walking around with a ticking time bomb in their lower back!"

Before Peter could desperately scramble for another excuse, FRIDAY’s calm, analytical Irish accent chimed into the lab.

“If I may interrupt, Boss,” the AI stated, projecting a secondary, detailed medical breakdown right beside the 3D hologram of the spine. “Analyzing the residual surgical telemetry from the public hospital database where the subject Peter Parker was admitted... The initial medical team performed an emergency thoracotomy and laparotomy combined with a primary laminectomy to extract the projectile and prevent immediate fatal hemorrhaging.”

FRIDAY zoomed in on a specific cluster of inflamed, damaged tissue surrounding the vertebrae.

“However, due to the extreme complexity of the structural damage and the high risk of permanent lower-body paralysis during the procedure, the hospital surgeons opted for a conservative approach. They closed the primary wound, but left the surrounding L4-L5 vertebrae fundamentally unstable, with severe localized neural compression. Essentially, they kept him alive, Boss, but they left the heavy lifting unfinished.”

Tony slowly raised his gaze from the glowing holographic projection back to Peter. The kid looked cornered, chest heaving, his pale face buried partly in his trembling hands as if he wished the earth would just open up and swallow him whole.

The billionaire's expression softened instantly, all the aggressive frustration melting away into a profound, heavy understanding.

"You weren't discharged... you walked out."

"I didn't run away from the hospital, Mr. Stark," Peter answered tensely, gritting his teeth, his fists clenched in his lap so hard his knuckles turned white. "They knew I was leaving... I insisted, because I could recover the rest on my own."

"What do you mean, recover the rest?!" Tony's voice rose with absolute disbelief. "How the hell is an entire medical team going to let a patient just walk out the front door with his fucking spine practically falling to pieces?! They should be sued!"

"Mr. Stark—"

"What hospital was he admitted to, FRIDAY?" Tony immediately demanded of the AI.

"Mr. Stark, stop, this isn't necessary—"

"I want the name of the entire medical team responsible for the boy's surgery!"

"Mr. Stark—"

"If he can't afford a decent lawyer, I want you to schedule a meeting with our legal team, because heaven knows I'll sue their asses straight to hell and back for discharging a patient like this!"

"Mr. Stark!" Peter shouted, desperate and pleading.

"Peter was admitted to Bellevue Hospital, Boss." FRIDAY's voice sounded as calm and prompt as always, but it made Tony freeze completely in his tracks, his fury halting on the spot.

The hospital... it was the same one that...

The engineer's brain short-circuited as he stared at the kid, trying to connect the dots that his racing mind was calculating for him even before he could fully process it. Peter stared helplessly back at him, completely out of options as he watched a glint of dawning realization light up the engineer's eyes.

Only an enhanced individual could take a heavy-caliber bullet meant to kill and miraculously manage to walk off a hospital gurney; someone with a powerful healing factor working the impossible.

Tony stared with wide eyes at the young adult, who could barely be twenty years old.

He stared, and stared, and stared hard.

"Spider-Man..." the billionaire whispered; it wasn't a question.

"Daddy, I brought the sandwiches!" Morgan suddenly walked into the lab with a tray in hands and stopped at the door, looking at the two silent men with curiosity, immediately sensing that the atmosphere between them was tense.

Peter stared into his mentor's eyes; the coffee left forgotten on the counter had gone cold.

...

It was only when Tony saw the young man lying on the medbay gurney, completely bandaged from the waist almost up to his head like a waking mummy and totally doped up on medication specially manufactured for his enhanced metabolism, enough to leave him with a perpetual, drugged-up, dumb smile on his face after the surgery had been a success and his newly found spiderling was actually recovering in a decent way, that the terrible fear that had haunted his heart, suffocating him ever since he discovered on the news that the kid had been shot, finally, finally gave way to an immense, resounding relief.

Which was quickly replaced by a monumental headache with every new question he asked and the poorly stuttered answer he received from the boy's mouth, barely articulated by the meds.

Seriously, if he didn't feel deep into his core that Peter was being sincere, telling the truth—Tony could sniff out when someone was lying—he would say that all the bullshit coming out of the kid's mouth was fairy-tale fantasies created by a heavy-medicine-induced head.

With his face buried in his hands, glaring at the doped-up kid through his fingers while sitting on the chair next to his bed, the billionaire really, really tried to ignore the pounding migraine smashing his brain like the blow of a hammer.

It all started with three simple pieces of evidence turned into questions:

Knowing his exact coffee preference.

The confession about the exceptional mentor who had taught him science.

Spider-Man.

He doubted that Spider-Man had been his intern; it looked much more like Peter Parker had been, and by fucking hells, he couldn't remember any it.

Tony felt like strangling a certain former Supreme Sorcerer the moment he saw him face-to-face.

"Okay, let me get this straight, Pete. You’re telling me that an ex-Stark Industries employee in a fishbowl helmet stole my drones, you handed him access to one of my super advanced AIs, and he caused a hell of a chaos; then your secret identity was leaked to the entire world, so you ran off to the Supreme Dungeon Master to ask for a monumental forget-me-not spell that bit you right in the asses and dragged psycho villains from other universes straight to our doorstep; one of them killed your aunt, almost murdered you, and you had to team up with two alternate versions of yourself to contain them all at the freaking Statue of Liberty until our resident Merlin finally grew the balls to do something about it, and his absolute masterpiece of a solution was making the entire universe completely forget you exist so the multiverse wouldn't implode... and all of that while I was still in a goddamn coma?!"

Peter smiled dumbly and nodded, his gaze glazed and floating.

"Your face is soooooo funny when you're maddddd, Mishhhh Starkyyyy... so... soooooo funnyyyyyyy..." The young adult giggled unhelpfully, and the retired superhero let out a long, heavy sigh slowly through his nostrils, rubbing his face, which was burning red with anger.

He hated knowing that his memories apparently had been tampered with. His and everyone else's who had once known the kid. He had sparse memories of Spider-Man, fights together, sometimes the fully suited masked hero standing in his lab to fix something on the suit and such—nothing beyond that, nothing personal. But by God, he looked at Peter Parker's face and couldn't feel a thing, couldn't remember a single thing, absolutely nothing.

He was a complete stranger.

Yet something inside him kept flashing like a constant red alarm, telling him that the kid was important from the very moment he first saw him in the coffee shop, and that if he had just walk out the door without reaching out for him, sooner or later it would come back to bite his ass with devastating regret.

His instincts were usually always right.

He looked at Peter, a complex and intriguing puzzle, and the guy looked back at him, doped up, with an open and clearly adoring expression. It unsettled him, because Tony could plainly see how much Peter truly cared about him.

And he didn't remember a thing.

Nothing beyond the last twenty-four hours.

His dark musings were interrupted by a sudden halt when a hand grabbed his over the medbay sheets, firm yet gentle, and Tony raised his head to look once again at the face of the boy he didn't remember.

"It's... gonnaaaa to be okayyyyy, Mishhhh Starkyyyy..." Peter, who had been shot and whose spine almost was literally pulverized, assured him with unwavering conviction, his gaze fond and glazed, that stupid smile still lingering on his lips. "You alwaysssss told me that if... you drink coffeeeeee, everyshinnnng will b' fine... that's it... you need coffeeeeee... Blackkkyyy coffee... 'Darker than... a blackkkk hole'sss 'vent horizonn' blackyyy... No milkkkyyy and no sssshuuugar."

The engineer's gaze softened with compassion.

By the gods... how could he still remember that while being drugged out of his mind?!

Tony looked down at their hands and, after a second of hesitation, gripped the younger's back and squeezed it.

Maybe he was right.

He needed a good, bitter cup of coffee.

...

The next time he saw him was after a long conversation with his wife about everything that had happened; Pepper had always been resilient, with a sharp and perceptive mind. She accepted it all much better than he himself was still processing as he was still trying to piece together the shattered puzzle that suddenly had been dumped in his lap and turned his life upside down.

The Stark couple walked to the medbay room where their guest was recovering post-surgery, and Tony and Pepper paused just outside the ajar door, watching in silence for a long time as their nine-year-old daughter sat in the chair next to the bed, talking animatedly with the young superhero.

"And then Daddy said he flew over the airport and when he landed he called out 'underoos' and you showed up and stole Captain America's shield right from under his nose!" Morgan recounted excitedly, laughing and gesticulating wildly with her arms, one hand clutching a Spider-Man plushie. "Then he dropped a whole bridge on top of you and you managed to hold it all by yourself! All by yourself!"

"It's true..." Peter laughed, his gaze now more alert and free from the heaviest effects of the medication, openly affectionate as he looked at the little girl. "Your dad also helped take down a giant ant, did he ever tell you about that?"

"A giant ant?!" The girl's eyes widened with infinite curiosity.

"That's right! We tied up its legs and it hit the ground just like an AT-AT Walker."

"From Star Wars?!" Morgan immediately inquired, and Peter smiled back at her.

"The exact same one."

Thinking back to the airport in Leipzig, Tony frowned; he honestly couldn't remember how things had actually wrapped up between him and Spider-Man.

At least now they figured out where their daughter's inexplicable Star Wars addiction apparently came from.

...

When he was finally discharged from the medbay, it was morning over New York, and the Stark family invited him to have breakfast with them. Timidly, Peter found himself stepping into the Stark family penthouse once again, being dragged by the hand of a cheerfull nine-year-old into the dining room where the couple was already waiting for him with the table set.

"Mr. and Mrs. Stark, good morning," he greeted shyly, truly looking out of place.

"Hey there, kid. I would've come get you, but Maguna insisted on going in my place. She told me she was pretty convincing when she wanted to be and that she'd manage to drag you over here. Looks like she did, literally," the engineer spoke, watching his far-too-happily daughter practically push the young man toward a chair.

Ever since she found out her favorite superhero was temporarily staying there with them, she had been on cloud nine.

Poor superhero. He had no idea what he was in for.

His wife watched the scene with her usual grace, her blue eyes shining with polite amusement.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Peter. Although I suppose in this case, 're-meet you' would be more accurate."

The young adult looked at her with a lingering gaze and an expression that was a mix of politeness and suppressed emotion; Tony could tell that whatever had happened during the time he was in coma, his wife and the kid had been close in some way.

Pepper, standing beside him, studied her guest with genuine curiosity and interest; like him, she didn't remember the kid either, but she was willing to find out more.

"Call me Pepper, please, sweetheart. Take a seat at the table."

As Peter settled into the chair with a mix of shyness and reverence, Pepper smiled gently, breaking the ice that seemed to hover around the newcomer.

With an elegant gesture, the woman placed that morning's main dish in front of the young man. "I thought of something simple, a good, classic bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on toasted white bread."

Peter's eyes widened slightly, a flash of pure surprise crossing his face. He looked at Pepper with a genuine smile that lit up his entire expression.

"Really?! Mrs. Stark... I mean, Pepper," Peter corrected himself quickly, laughing awkwardly, but looking visibly touched. "This is like... my absolute favorite. How did you know?"

At the end of the table, Tony and Pepper froze for a second, exchanging a bewildered look. The question caught them off guard. No one at the table had mentioned preferences, let alone knew their guest morning habits which, theoretically, had been erased from both of their minds by the spell.

Pepper blinked, genuine surprise evident on her countenance as she watched the young man, before she disguised it with a flawless grace and an intrigued smile. "Oh. Well... let’s go with a very lucky guess, Peter. Or maybe just maternal instinct working overtime; I usually read Morgan like an open book."

This time it was Peter's face that showed surprise, and the look he shot her, so, so quickly, was so emotional that he struggled to compose himself, then hiding his face, lowering his head to gaze at the full plate in front of him.

It did not escape their notice; nor did Peter dare look them directly in the eyes anytime soon.

"I made coffee for us," Tony murmured then, setting a full cup next to the sandwich and sitting down beside his wife across from him with an identical cup in his hands, since his usual spot had already been taken by their daughter, literally glued to the superhero's side like an endless piece of gum.

"Thank you, Mr. Stark," Peter murmured, picking up the cup and keeping his eyes fixed on the sandwich.

"How is it that you readily call Pepper by her name and you keep calling me 'Mr. Stark', kid? I thought we were close?"

Tony inquired, half-exasperated, half-amused, raising an eyebrow at the young adult while taking a sip of the hot, bitter coffee.

Peter dared to lift his eyes to look back at him, his gaze shining with a touch of fondness and a hint of humor.

"Because ever since I met Pepper, she asked me to call her that... You were 'Mr. Stark' to me for almost two years..." he answered softly. "I guess old habits die hard..."

"Maybe, but with a little good will, we can get somewhere. Look at me. I'm the epitome of change." The engineer gestured dramatically to himself, and Pepper chuckled at her husband.

"And what is it that made that happen, may I ask, 'Mr. Stark'?" she inquired then, her deliberate choice of words earning her a half-hearted glare from him.

"Fatherhood, for sure. It gave me thousands of gray hairs and total sanity loss, definitely, 'Mrs. Stark'." Tony winked playfully at her, and Morgan giggled at the end of the table.

The billionaire then looked back at his guest and saw Peter staring at him with a distant look. Wistful. That same intriguing look from before.

Tony furrowed his brow then, the bitter taste of the coffee still lingering on his tongue.

Coffee always helped him think clearly, after all...

And there was definitely something else Peter knew that he wasn't letting show.

...

"I remembered that you showed an interest in the lab the other day."

Tony said to his young guest that morning, right after returning to the Tower after dropping Morgan off at school. He had found Peter sitting on the couch inside his lab, looking at the equipment and workbenches with a distant gaze.

"That's true..." Peter agreed sincerely, not daring to look directly at his mentor.

Tony watched him for a moment in silence, pondering; then he began to walk toward the far corner of the room, heading toward a workstation with an old unfinished project.

"So, Spiderling, are you going to keep sitting over there staring, or are you going to help me finish this up?"

Peter looked at him with shock, still frozen on the sofa, and this time Tony rolled his eyes openly.

"Come on, Pete; didn't you say you were my intern for almost two years? You must know this lab and my project style blindfolded, then. This right here is—"

"—a magnetic field generator for the pulse reactor. The last time you tried to calibrate the resonance frequency, the circuit almost melted the workbench because you ignored the thermal tolerance of the vibranium. If you use a slightly denser titanium alloy there, it should stabilize—"

Peter stopped talking abruptly, his eyes widening as he realized what he had just let slip. He stared at the man and Tony stood completely still, standing inches away from the metal piece.

The billionaire's brain worked at a million miles per hour, connecting the dots with the cold precision of a genius. The kid didn't just know what the project was; he knew the exact history of that specific flaw, a mistake Tony hadn't even mentioned out loud and that belonged to a testing phase from years ago—precisely during the period when, according to the shattered timeline of the spell, Peter should have been right there by his side.

He didn't know why he had left those scattered, disassembled parts lying around in the corner of his lab for so long instead of just fixing the damn thing and clearing off his workbench, but now he understood what his subconscious had unintentionally done.

It had been sitting there all those years, waiting for the missing second pair of hands to finally complete it.

"You're right, kid... impressive." The engineer praised him openly, and a genuine, pleased smile spread across his lips then. "You really know your thing. Let's see if you remember how to use your hands. God knows I need some useful help around here; I'm getting older and I can't work as fast or for as many hours as I used to, and those people from my superhero gang like to smash a lot of things up, you know? It always falls on me to stitch the pieces back together until it's usable again."

Peter slowly stood up from the couch, walking carefully—still mindful of his recent surgery—until he stopped next to his former mentor in front of the workstation, and without another word, they both began to work, diving entirely into the project.

It was as if he had found his other half. Quite literally.

Wonderful, inspiring, mind-blowing, and completely unexpectedly beautiful.

The weird emptiness that had lingered for so many years in that lab suddenly vanished, filled by the steady, sure, and knowledgeable hands of that curious kid.

Tony still didn't remember him.

Peter's face was still completely foreign to his memories.

But the way their hands worked together—precise, correct, flawless, always filling the space the other left behind, reaching for a tool, soldering a piece, tightening a screw, in a perfect sequence, without a single flaw, like no one had ever been able to do or to keep up with his reasoning without a single word being spoken out loud between them...

Tony didn't remember a thing.

But his eyes welled up unconsciously with every passing minute working alongside the Spiderling.

For the first time, he looked at the lab, the equipment, his workbench, and Peter, and everything felt right.

Hours passed by without them even noticing, amidst parts, circuits, and the smell of freshly brewed bitter coffee that lingered between them.

...

"I can't believe you've spent literally four whole years swinging around in this piece of crap that's thinner than my bedsheets, Peter!" Tony roared in absolute outrage one afternoon in the lab, after Peter—somewhat more recovered and already back in his own apartment—had started visiting the Tower daily to play with Morgan and help him with ongoing projects.

The retired superhero had convinced the kid to bring his current suit to the Tower for maintenance and to fix the tear left by the bullet.

When he saw it, he damn near had a heart attack.

Whatever few black hairs he had left on his head definitely turned gray right then and there.

Just because he didn't remember the kid didn't mean he didn't care about the brat.

Especially when the kid literally seemed to have tried to get himself killed under his watch for four years straight.

Tony glared at the young man, who at least had the decency to look offended.

"It's a perfectly decent suit, Mr. Stark! Considering I didn't have access to a state-of-the-art lab like yours!"

"Decent?! Decent?! Only if your goal is an early express ticket to a shallow grave, kid! Look at this... this thing! There isn't a single one of my safety protocols, your AI is prehistoric, the nano-circuits are second-hand garbage that look like fourth or fifth-hand scraps, the fabric is worn out and isn't even microfiber; it literally looks like you ripped the curtains right out of your apartment, decided to hand-sew them into a suit, and wore it to fight supervillains. Where the hell did you get these lenses? Good god, I swear if you salvaged those from some pharaoh-era junk DVD player to put on here, I'm going to call your little wizard buddy Merlin and have this monstrosity banished to another dimension! Seriously, Peter, what the hell is this?! Are you trying to kill yourself?! The only thing worse than this is that wretched onesie from back when I recruited you for Germany!"

Migraine.

A migraine was definitely coming on.

Peter glared at his former mentor petulantly.

"Look, I didn't get the fabric from a curtain! I actually did some research to buy something decent, okay?! And it's true I salvaged a piece here or there, melted down some scrap metals, and repurposed some wires and microcircuits from old circuit boards I found, but it was all perfectly safe! The lenses work great when they're active, and I had zero problems with the suit until the mutations started!"

A tomb-like silence fell over the lab.

The man stared at the kid, incredulous; the kid stared back at him, mortified.

"Mutations...?" Tony muttered slowly, his perplexity escalating into a dramatic, uncontrolled outburst. "What the hell do you mean by mutations?!"

Peter blinked.

"Mutations... like... spider mutations? Like... actual spiders...?"

The engineer took a step forward, still holding the pathetic suit out at arm's length by his fingertips as if it were a biohazard, while Peter instinctively took a cautious step back.

"Define actual spider mutations." Tony said dangerously low; the young adult began to stammer out words that tumbled over one another.

"I don't know, stuff like... gross organic webs, waking up wrapped in cocoons in the middle of buildings, a super-hyper-developed spider-sense, a few memory lapses, temporary stress spikes—thank God there's no exoskeleton nonsense, at least! Oh, and there's also the minor detail of behavioral changes that honestly make me want to murder someone, but I swear it doesn't happen all the time, Mr. Stark!"

Peter flashed a nervous, tight-lipped smile.

Tony's eyebrow twitched in a full-blown nervous tic.

The cups of coffee sat forgotten, growing completely cold.

...

"Alright kid, that's enough for today, lab time is officially over for you," Tony said, setting his tools down on the workbench. The sharp clatter against the metal made the young adult across from him jump, heavy sleep weighing down his eyes.

Peter blinked disorientedly, looking around at Tony and then down at the project they had been working on. His face flushed bright red when he saw a small patch of drool right on the piece he was supposed to be screwing in.

"Sorry, Mr. Stark! I'm awake! I'm awake! I can keep working—"

"Not a chance, Peter. You're literally falling asleep sitting up. Your meds are strong, and you're still recovering, so we are not overexerting this."

The engineer walked around the table, managing to grab the kid by the shoulders before he literally face-planted onto their workspace.

He steadied him, coaching him to stand up. Peter obeyed, mumbling something incomprehensible looking like a zombie—half-awake, mostly asleep, his soul one step away from diving straight into dreamland.

"I can work... I'm working, Mr. Stark..."

"Uh-huh, it's top-notch work, kid; the drool is definitely going to make the piece extra shiny," the engineer agreed instantly, his subconscious parenting skills taking over as he supported the boy, slinging one of Peter's arms over his shoulders and half-dragging him out of the lab toward a guest bedroom.

His back protested; it had been a while since he was in his prime Iron Man shape, and Peter wasn't exactly a toddler like Morgan had been not too long ago. Even so, Peter leaned right into him, completely out of it as he snored softly against the man's shoulder, and Tony felt an inexplicable warmth wash over him, a genuine contentment he usually only felt when he was with his family.

Family...

The thought settled strangely in his mind, solid and insistent, as he quietly pushed open the bedroom door and guided the younger man inside, stretching Peter out over the mattress, taking off his shoes, and watching the kid bury his face deep into the pillow, completely dead to the world.

The meds were good; they were doing wonders to boost the kid's enhanced healing, but they knocked Peter out hard. It wasn't the first time in the past few days that, working late into the night in the lab, the kid had just flat-out crashed like this.

Tony grabbed a blanket, pensive, and draped it over the boy while watching him sleep with a flurry of restless thoughts.

With each passing day, with every moment he got to know the kid better, weaving him deeper into his life and his family, the strange emptiness he’d felt in his chest for years was shrinking, unquestioningly filled by the Spiderling's presence.

More and more, he found himself wishing he could remember what the spell had stolen from him.

"Who are you really, Peter Parker?" he whispered, his hand lingering a second longer near the younger's face, his fingers unconsciously, boldly brushing against Peter's cheek just like he used to do when tucking his daughter in to sleep.

The moment he realized what he was doing, Tony immediately pulled his hand back, startled. Peter's face shifted toward where his hand had just been, almost seeming to miss the contact.

"Thanks, Dad..." The murmur, very, very low and barely audible, reached his ears.

Tony's breath hitched in his lungs, freezing in shock and surprise as he stared wide-eyed at the sleeping boy. And for a very, very long time, the man stayed frozen right where he was standing, watching the kid sleep as an untamed ocean of emotions danced in his brown eyes, entirely unable to hold them back.

...

"Mr. Stark?!" Peter exclaimed genuinely when he answered the apartment door that morning to find the billionaire standing outside, dressed casually as if he were just out for a walk, looking at him with expectation. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in the neighborhood and decided to say hi," the billionaire replied. "Can I come in?"

Peter's face flushed; he kicked himself mentally, immediately stepping aside and opening the door wider to let him pass.

"Sure!"

Tony stepped inside; Peter became very self-conscious of his extremely humble dwelling, but trying to be polite and a good host, he offered:

"Do you want some coffee, something to eat? I still have my stuff out on the table, it's no trouble at all."

"Coffee would be great!" Tony said, his voice a bit tight, barely above a whisper.

"Awesome! Black, bitter coffee, no milk, no sugar. Darker Than a Black Hole's Event Horizon. Okay." The kid muttered to himself, quickly hurrying to grab the items.

As soon as Peter turned his back, Tony's eyes swept across the place, this time not hiding his horror.

The space was extremely humble; everything was in a single room, a hard bed on one side, a table with a sink on the other, a computer with what looked like a sewing machine and a beat-up 3D printer, a single closet, a makeshift mini-fridge. A single-burner stove. The curtain was missing from the window, which made his initial theory about the origin of the kid's suit gain strength. It was obviously lacking in everything, and looking at it caused a sudden, indescribable tightness in his chest that he simply didn't have words to express.

His kid was living in a place like this, this whole time...

His eyes welled up, and Tony took a deep breath to compose himself just as Peter turned back around and handed him the cup of coffee—a well-worn plastic mug with faded paint, but the bitter liquid was impeccably perfect; he knew exactly how to make his favorite.

Peter scratched the back of his head, clearly awkward, and Tony watched him for a moment far too long, deeply moved.

"So... what can I do for you, sir?"

"Me and the girls are heading out to the lake house tomorrow; we're going to be gone for two weeks." Tony began; Peter nodded, showing no surprise.

"Morgan is super excited about it, she hasn't stopped talking about anything else." Peter smiled at him. "I'd even offer to get ahead on some of the lab stuff, but I don't want to intrude on the Tower in your absence and seem like overbearing—"

"I want you to come with us," Tony interrupted bluntly, almost rudely.

Peter blinked, genuinely stunned.

"What...?"

"Come with us," the retired superhero insisted, taking a step forward, holding the mug in one hand while his other came to rest on the younger man's shoulder. "I know you're free. Morgan would be thrilled to have you playing with her around the lake, Pepper is excited for you to join us, and I happen to have a state-of-the-art lab hidden underneath our garage that will keep you entertained if you ever get bored."

Peter stared at him in silence for a long time; words failed him, but his wide, open gaze spoke volumes.

"Why?" he asked softly then.

Tony flashed a charismatic smile at him.

"You know how to make my favorite coffee," he waved the mug for emphasis. "I can't miss out on that."

Peter snorted, and the smile on the engineer's face grew softer and more genuine.

"I know it's early, Pete... we've only known each other for a few weeks, at least to me, but... it just feels right. This. I feel like it's right. I really want you to come with us. In a way I can't quite explain yet, but..." Tony gestured awkwardly with the hand resting on the boy's shoulder. "I know I need to do this."

Peter looked like he was genuinely about to burst into tears right then and there, but the he held it together, standing awkwardly and Tony watched him with a look of deep compassion.

"I know the lake house, Mr. Stark..." Peter confessed openly in a choked whisper, his eyes welling up. "I've been there lots of times, I... we... were waiting for your recovery, for you to wake up from the coma... One of the last conversations I had with Pepper before... before everything happened was that we'd go back to the lake house the four of us after you woke up..."

"I know..." Tony replied in an equally soft whisper and he finally revealed. "She told me, buddy..."

It took three seconds for the words to sink in and be fully assimilated.

Peter's eyes widened then with profound astonishment, he stared at Tony, perplexed.

"What...?"

"Pepper remembered you... a short while after she offered you that sandwich at breakfast," the engineer remarked with no small tone of jealousy. "Turns out you always praised her cooking way too much, and that gave the memory barriers just enough of a kick to crack. Morgan too; during her first few conversations about Spider-Man... our roles flipped, it seems. She told me that back then I used to tell her stories about you during the Snap years, and now she's the one telling me stories about you every night from the two years I spent in a coma."

Peter really started crying then, and in a paternal, effortless motion, Tony's hand flew from the younger's shoulder to his face to wipe away the tears. The engineer smiled gently at him.

"Since I've completely blown the lid off the secret, well, kid... I know damn well what's rattling around at the back of my mind, especially now that I know it's possible..." the engineer whispered softly. "You're family, Pete... and I want you to come with us because I need you with us... because I desperately want to remember you too, and something tells me... something tells me it's close... it's right here... dancing invisibly in the front of my mind... close, but still just out of grasp... but so very close."

He stroked the kid's cheeks then, just as emotional as he was.

"So... please... pack your bags?"

Peter nodded.

...

Peter waited on the curb outside the rundown building where he rented his modest apartment, a backpack slung over his shoulders and a plain suitcase resting on the pavement beside him. Tony would never forget the look of raw emotion that washed over the young adult’s face the second his eyes caught the flashy, instantly recognizable red Audi turning the corner, spotting the vehicle and its passengers from a distance.

It was the look of someone who had been abandoned, left to weather the cold alone for far too long, only for a spark of hope to ignite all over again. Like if he realized it wasn’t a dream—they were actually coming back for him.

The sight shattered the engineer's heart so thoroughly that Tony couldn't find his voice when the luxury car pulled up beside the kid and they stepped out. He watched his daughter shout Peter’s name, immediately throwing her arms around the waist of the boy she now wouldn't stop calling her older brother. He saw his wife step in front of Peter, her sky-blue eyes overflowing with recognition and emotion, before leaning in to wrap him in a tight, endless embrace, kissing his cheeks over and over with maternal warmth. Peter clung back to her, weeping openly now, holding on as if his very life depended on it.

Suddenly, Tony felt like a awkward bystander—watching from the sidelines as his family welcomed the kid into their fold with open arms, while he remained the only one who didn't remember a single thing about him.

This time it was him who truly felt out of place.

The boy who, just a few nights ago, had unconsciously called him dad.

It was unfair, Tony thought bitterly. He was glad for his daughter, glad for his wife, and relieved that Peter clearly had someone in his corner after having no one for so long, but it was still unfair to him.

Given everything Peter had told him, given just how close they used to be...

Why couldn't he just remember him?!

The dark cloud hovering over his thoughts dissolved like morning mist when he suddenly found Peter standing right in front of him—tearful, hesitant, yet wearing the same fond, tender smile he’d had ever since they reconnected.

"Hello, Mr. Stark."

"Hey, kid," Tony greeted awkwardly, giving the boy's shoulder a quick, reassuring pat as he pulled himself together, careful not to let his dark thoughts show.

Peter looked at him with a knowing, slightly mournful gaze. Apparently, Tony wasn't the only one desperately wishing the billionaire would instantly unlock all those buried memories.

"Well, let's get moving. It's a long drive, and Maguna can't wait to show you everything all over again."

The billionaire quickly changed the subject, ushering the boy toward the Audi. Morgan excitedly pulled Peter inside to sit next to her in the back seat.

Pepper shot him a knowing look, her face still flushed with emotion. Her eyes held a deep blend of understanding and tenderness; she knew him better than anyone. She squeezed his hand in a silent gesture of solidarity and kissed his lips softly.

"Give it time, honey. You'll remember him too."

...

It was only after they reached the cabin that Tony became palpably aware of various small things that had previously existed within their family seemingly without reason—things that had now become so clear and obvious that it was impossible ignore.

He couldn't remember Peter, but it was undeniable that he belonged with them.

Whether in the way Morgan cheerfully dragged the still-recovering young man into their house, talking just as excitedly and rapidly as Peter used to when he was at ease in the lab. In the guest bedroom that had always stood empty, painted in red and blue with Star Wars posters that had remained hanging there at the insistence of his daughter, who had suddenly developed a taste for the retro movies. In the closet filled with clothes meant to fit a teenage or young adult male. In how the kitchen table had four chairs, one of which had always sat empty until now; in why there were two main workstations down in the garage lab when usually only he ever worked there. In the paintings above the Stark family fireplace—some of Pepper and Morgan posed at strange angles, looking as though someone should be standing right beside them. In the framed photo on the kitchen counter that he swore to God he didn’t know why he still kept there, of himself in a ridiculous, extravagant purple suit, holding empty air and glaring irritably at a camera. In the ungodly amount of Spider-Man action figures and plushies, reflecting a compulsive obsession Morgan had with the superhero while he could never quite decide whether he should find it funny or feel offended that she preferred the web-slinger over her Iron Man dad. In the living room setup, featuring a long sofa and two armchairs to comfortably seat four people cuddled up for a movie night. In the four coffee mugs resting inside the kitchen cabinet.

In the way Morgan naturally hugged the kid, in how Pepper kissed his forehead with maternal fondness, in how Peter looked up to him with so much admiration and unreserved care, and in how the young man fit so perfectly beneath the crook of his arm.

In the way Peter suddenly filled that void—naturally, undeniably, as if he had always been there with them.

All those years.

As if, in truth, he had never left or ever been forgotten at all.

...

The best things in the world were always reflected in the simplest of ways.

That was the ultimate secret to true happiness.

So, when what he had wanted for so long finally, finally happened, it didn't come with a flashy explosion, blinding lights, or any of that fluorescent neon crap that used to plaster his face across the tops of skyscrapers in the old days.

It happened on the porch of a lakeside cabin, on a quiet spring morning, accompanied by the chirping of birds and a generous dose of hot, bitter coffee.

Literally hot, bitter coffee.

"Peter, come on, the sun is coming up. You said you wanted to watch it," the billionaire called out from the porch bench where he sat, watching the sky brighten over the glass-like lake in vibrant, warming colors.

"I'm coming, Mr. Stark! Hold on, it's not my fault your coffee machine is slower than a turtle," Peter shouted back from inside.

"Don't talk about it like that, you'll hurt its feelings—then it'll really freeze up on you. Trust me, I've gone through all seven stages of Buddhist tranquility, or something like that, trying to deal with it. Complaining won't help." Tony's voice dripped with amusement.

"Why haven't you replaced it yet? It's not like you're short on cash," Peter countered, thoroughly annoyed.

"I'm getting old, kid. I'm turning into a softie. I don't just throw my stuff away anymore—I fix it, remember? That machine is a relic. It has my sentiment attached to it."

"A Jurassic relic, you mean. And you were complaining that my suit had more patches than Frankenstein! How many times have you rebuilt this coffee maker, Mr. Stark?"

"About a dozen times—basically every time I threw it against the wall in a fit of rage. Pepper made me put it back together as a twisted form of punishment, I swear."

"And you expect it not to run this slow?!" the young man exclaimed in utter disbelief from inside the cabin.

"I'm not the one complaining, Pete, you are." Tony snorted. A fond smile tugged at his lips as he heard an insanely dramatic and exaggerated 'Finally!' from the kid.

The sun began to peek over the horizon, painting the dawn. The engineer sighed and stood up. Better go help him before he missed the whole show.

"Hey, Peter, you're missing—"

As he turned the corner of the porch, he collided spectacularly with the boy. Not even Peter's enhanced reflexes could prevent the mug from sloshing in his hands at the sudden impact, sending a tidal wave of black liquid spilling right across the engineer's chest.

Tony hissed sharply in pain and shock, the scorching liquid burning against his skin.

Peter stared at him in horror.

Then, he panicked.

"Shit!"

"Oh my god, Mr. Stark!"

"Really, kid?! Look, I like coffee, but this is a bit excessive—"

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark, I swear—"

"—whoa, calm down, Peter—"

"—I didn't mean to do it, it was a total accident—"

"—it's fine, it's not the end of the world—"

"—I was just bringing you the coffee you asked for—"

"—I've suffered way worse burns than this, kid, it's nothing—"

"—and you kept rushing me, and—"

"—we'll just slather on some of those horrible-smelling herbal ointments Pepper loves brewing from the garden—"

"—and then you popped out of nowhere and I tried to dodge—"

"—worst case scenario, I have to buy a new shirt—"

"—but the mug went flying anyway, and I swear—"

"—kid, I already told you, it's fine—"

"—I really didn't mean to, I'm gonna—"

"—Peter, stop panicking, I'm still alive—"

"—go get help—"

"—let's just calm down, go inside, and get you a glass of water!"

"—for you!"

Both moved at the exact same time toward the porch door and collided awkwardly once again; a chaotic mess of arms tangled up in a clumsily frantic embrace.

Tony's eyes widened.

That's not a hug. I'm just grabbing the door for you.

Nice work, kid!

If you had listened to me, none of this would've happened!

And what if you died? I don't need that on my conscience.

You did good. Maybe with a little more mentorship, you could be a real asset to the team.

Underoos!

Hey Mr. Stark, you're late for lab hours!

Come on, Pete. If you're gonna mope around the Penthouse, I swear I'm gonna kick you out of the lab.

You're so annoying, Mr. Stark.

Oh, I can't believe you're holding the award upside down. What the hell, Peter?!

Kid! Where'd you come from?!

Field trip to MoMA!

I was actually on my way home, but this suit is ridiculously intuitive, so it's kinda your fault.

Aliens aren't gonna lay eggs in my stomach like in Alien...

You're alright.

I don't wanna go. Please, I don't wanna go. Please, please...

I'm sorry...

Then Dr. Strange was like, 'It's been five years, come on, they need us.' And he started making the yellow wobbly thing...

We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, you did it... Mr. Stark? Please... Tony...!

Dad...Please, wake up!

Tony fell forward, breathless, as if the air had been suddenly stolen from his lungs and he had taken a blow so severe it left him completely disoriented. He gripped the kid for dear life, crushing the younger man against his chest and hugging him with such force that Peter genuinely grew worried.

"Mr. Stark?! Are you okay? Mr. Stark?! Hey! Mr. Stark?!"

The young adult stared at him, completely startled, now supporting the full weight of the man with his enhanced strength. The engineer's body failed him, his strength suddenly left him, and he abruptly sank ungracefully to his knees as Peter collapsed to the ground right along with him. Tony had turned completely waxy pale, his breathing coming out in short gasps that couldn't keep up with the frenetic, painful, irregular heartbeats inside his chest.

"Mr. Stark! Please! What's going on?! Mr. Stark?!" Peter pleaded, and watched the engineer pull back partly to look at him.

Tony took a deep, shaky breath, looking at the kid as if he were seeing him for the very first time; as if the veil that clouded his vision and his memories had been abruptly ripped apart, allowing him to see things with such a startling, deep clarity as he rarely had done in his past.

He looked at him as he had done when he held him in his arms for the very first time back in a luxury car, not giving much importance to the value of that boy who had so suddenly crashed into his life, turning it upside down.

He looked at him as he had done when he longingly held him in his dreams, after he had disintegrated in his arms, yearningly and achingly wishing to move heaven and earth to bring him back, just as he so desperately and wistfully did in the midst of a bloody battlefield, drinking hungrily in every detail of his young face and feeling like he was able to breathe again because he was alive and so, so real, because he was here and he remembered.

He remembered!

Suddenly, everything mixed together and transformed into a single, unique being—complex, simple, and absolutely so, so perfect in the form of his son; his boy who had taught him how to love and care and be a father long before his daughter was even born; the beloved son he had lost and forgotten and now found again. And Tony, at that moment, saw him with such clarity: in the curve of his eyebrows, in his cheeks, in his nose, in the familiar way his grin rested on his lips, in the warmth of his sparkling brown eyes that seemed to hold all the stars of the very universe, now staring up at him with that same admiration and a heavy amount of concern, just like so many years ago, idolizing his childhood hero whom he so wanted to be like, too.

Tony took in a new, deep, shaky breath, completely reduced to silence, staring at his boy in humble adoration and wonder, his being so overwhelmed by such a fierce and reinless love that it broke him into a complete mess of sensations and emotions to the point of suffocating him, while at the same time transforming and renewing his entire being, breathing life inside him in a way so strong it almost seemed like he wouldn't be able to bear such endless joy.

And when the tears finally slid down the engineer's face—abundant, silent, and continuous—Peter's countenance shifted into an expression of surprise, and then into understanding.

“Dad…?" he inquired then, in a very small, timid voice.

Tony opened his lips several times, but no words came out; he couldn't speak, his throat closed and choked by emotion. He could only give his son a wet smile, his shaking hands reaching out for his boy, and Peter, without hesitation—his own face flushed with an ocean of long-repressed tears and emotions—threw himself into his father's arms.

The man sat on the ground, cradling his precious kid carefully and firmly against his chest as if he were holding his own lifeline, and Tony sank his head onto the younger's shoulder and wept heavily, his whole frame trembling and protectively curled around his son's.

“Hey, dad… it's okay… you're okay…” Peter whispered softly, hugging the engineer back, patting the man's back, finally saying what he had wanted to say out loud for a very, very long time. “It's okay... I love you, dad… we're here, together…”

And Tony could only press his boy even closer to his chest, closer to his heart, to never let go.

He could only be forever grateful, because the best things in his life happened over a good cup of coffee.