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It's barely after midnight when Peter barges into Tony’s room.
“Tony, something’s wrong,” he says without preamble. Three seconds later, the dim emergency lights flick to life.
Tony’s out of bed in a second, grabbing Peter by the elbow and pulling him into the room and shutting the door behind him. Emergency lights mean lockdown, and since Tony didn’t initiate it, that means intruders.
“FRIDAY?” Tony asks. Nothing happens. “Crap.” Peter’s eyes are wide, his mouth set in a firm line as he fidgets slightly. “Ok, so we can’t get out and we can’t call for help. Whoever’s here is either going to come in guns blazing and try to overpower me, or they have a plan to take the suit out of commission.”
“What do we do?” Peter asks, and Tony freezes, suddenly jerked back into the reality of the situation. Intruders are easy, intruders he’s handled a dozen times in a dozen places with a dozen different people. But never before has he been under attack with his kid—his idiotically brave, self-sacrificing sixteen-year-old kid—in the line of fire. It’s suddenly hard to breathe.
He doesn’t know how many men there are, he doesn’t know how they managed to hack FRIDAY, and he doesn’t know what they want, but the most valuable thing in the compound is staring back at him with determination in his dark gaze, and there’s a possibility that whoever is attacking them isn’t after him, but Tony isn’t willing to take that chance.
“We aren’t doing anything. You’re—” Tony starts, all but snarling, fear getting the better of him. Peter interrupts, bristling.
“I’m not sitting this out, Tony.”
“Peter—“
“I was Spider-Man before I was your son.” Peter’s jaw is clenched, his hands in fists, and there’s the rub. He’s Spider-Man, and he can handle this, and Tony knows he can handle this, he has unquestioning faith in Peter’s abilities, has seen Peter take on everything that’s been thrown at him and win, but now he’s Tony’s and illogical, instinctual fear is creeping up Tony’s throat to choke him.
There’s a distant crash from the kitchen. Peter’s head snaps toward the sound.
“Ok, time’s up,” Tony says. He’ll have to have his parental existential crisis later. “You go reboot FRIDAY, I’ll distract them.”
“You’re faster with the code,” Peter argues, “and I can—”
“No, if they see you they’ll know exactly where I am. If I face them, they’ll assume I’ve hidden you in a closet somewhere—” ‘like a good dad,’ he doesn’t add “—and hopefully won’t go looking.”
Peter still looks like he wants to argue, but he nods, turns, and pulls the door open silently.
“Peter,” Tony whispers, and the kid looks back. “Your safety is more important than your identity.”
Peter nods seriously. “Be careful,” he says, and then disappears down the dark hallway.
“That was my line,” Tony mutters, and turns in the opposite direction.
Tony enters the kitchen cautiously, tapping at his watch to call a suit to him. Distantly, he can hear the repulsors growing nearer. But a more distinct sound near the ceiling makes Tony look up. A second later a piercing pain fills his side.
Gasping out a curse, Tony lifts a hand to the wound, only to bite back a scream as he bumps the crossbow bolt sticking out of his abdomen. Once he blinks the stars out of his eyes he can see his suit coming down the hall.
“Wait, stop,” he rasps, and the suit immediately halts, hovering a few feet away from Tony. He needs to pull the bolt out before the suit encases him, or the metal will just push it straight through him. He never gets a chance, however, because his assailants are appearing out of the strange shadows the red emergency lights cast.
One man steps closer, obviously the leader, and looks at Tony as he pants, hand pressed against his stomach to hold the arrow steady. Tony’s about to bite out some witty remark when the man reaches out and flicks the fletched end of the bolt, hard. Tony’s vision whites out. Distantly, he can feel someone cutting the band of his watch off his wrist.
He regains his senses in time to see another one of the men fiddling with the face of his watch, and then the Iron Man suit is flying out the window, shattering the glass as it disappears into the night. Tony growls. The suit can’t go more than five miles without Tony’s authorization, and once FRIDAY is up and connected to his watch, she’ll automatically disengage or self-destruct the suit, whatever the situation calls for. That’s not the problem. The problem is that he has no armor while he faces five armed men and his plan has flown out the window with his suit, and Peter is somewhere in the compound counting on him for a distraction.
Well. Tony can be very distracting when he wants to be, Iron Man or no.
“Interesting plan,” he says, addressing the still slightly smirking leader. “Not really sure what the next step is. What’s the goal here?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” the man says. “Where’s your orphan, huh? The uh, the charity project?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” Tony snarls back. He tries to stand straighter and then groans when the motion pulls at his wound. He looks at the man holding the crossbow, standing silently behind the leader.
“Really? With a crossbow? What the heck, man?” Tony grunts, stabilizing the bolt with one hand. “Does it have a grappling hook setting? You gonna grab all the money bags and repel your way out of here?”
The crossbow guy looks confused and it occurs to Tony that he probably doesn’t have a kid who likes watching old Disney movies on Saturdays.
“You’ve never seen Robin Hood?” He rambles. “You’re not even a committed arrow guy. Hawkeye would be so ashamed.”
“Ok,” the leader says, “enough talking.”
“They always say that,” Tony grouses, rolling his eyes, “but trust me, I can talk from here to kingdom—” He doesn’t finish his sentence, instead gasping out a short yell of pain as the leader steps forward and tears the bolt out of Tony’s stomach.
Tony staggers back until he hits a wall, pressing both hands to the now profusely bleeding wound.
“Funny,” the leader sneers, watching him slide down the wall with a sort of disinterested amusement. “You’re not talking now.”
Tony’s gathering his wits to spew some sort of comeback, when the emergency lights shut off, followed by the claxon sound of the alarm. The lights turn on all at once, illuminating the way all of the men in front of Tony pale slightly.
For some absurd reason, it’s in that moment that Tony realizes that Peter called himself Tony’s son.
The leader turns on Tony, snarling furiously. Tony offers him a slightly manic grin.
“Find the kid,” the man orders, and two of his goons run off. Tony swallows, feeling his heart speed up, sending pulsing stabs of pain through his abdomen. He can handle them, Tony reminds himself. He’s doing better than you right now.
“What do you want with him?” Tony asks, breathing shakily. “Ransom?”
“You’ll see in a minute,” the leader assures him. Sure enough, a few moments later, Peter is marched into the kitchen, one of the men pressing a gun into his side while the other points a… camera at him. Tony watches, horrified that Peter has allowed himself to be caught. The gun presses harder into Peter’s ribs and the kid growls at the man holding him. Tony’s stomach twists.
They round the island, finally putting Tony in Peter’s view. Peter’s face drains of color when he sees the blood staining Tony’s t-shirt, coating his hands. He barely has time to react before the man is shoving Peter towards Tony. He lets himself be pushed, landing hard on his knees and hands, and immediately crawling toward Tony’s.
“Tony,” he whispers, breathing fast as he looks down at Tony’s injured side.
“I’m ok, kid,” Tony assures him.
“You might want to put pressure on that if you don’t want him bleeding out,” the leader says coolly, before turning and quietly discussing with the rest of the men. Peter shoots a piercing glare at him over his shoulder, and then does as he’s told. He peels Tony’s hands away, hissing as he finally gets a look at the puncture hole. It’s fairly small, but it’s deep and bleeding heavily. Tony’s dizzy with it. Peter’s hands shake. The man with the camera is setting up a tripod.
Peter glances at him, just a heartbeat of eye contact, but it’s enough for Tony to read him. It’s an intimacy that has taken months to build, but it’s undeniable when underneath the anger and resolve, Tony sees genuine fear in Peter’s eyes. He knows the kid well enough to know it isn’t the men pointing guns at them that scares him.
Peter presses on Tony’s wound hard, so hard an aborted yell of pain slips out of Tony’s clenched teeth, and he lets up suddenly, gasping out an apology. Tony swallows, then places his sticky hands over Peter’s and applies pressure, showing Peter how hard he should push.
“I thought I told you your safety was the priority here,” Tony breathes.
“That camera is live streaming all over the nation,” Peter says, just as quietly, gaze focused on their hands. One person knowing Peter was Spider-Man, Tony could keep quiet. The entire country knowing, not so much. He’d made a good call.
“You know why?” Peter shakes his head. He glances over his shoulder again. The men are still conversing with each other, paying them only enough attention to keep their guns trained on the pair. Peter looks back at Tony, and then, very deliberately, pulls up his sleeve.
Tony had been too preoccupied earlier with the lethal weapon pointed at Peter to notice that instead of the t-shirt he’d worn to bed, Peter was now wearing Tony’s old MIT sweatshirt that he often kept in the lab because Peter got cold easily. As he raises his sleeve, it’s clear why he decided an outfit change was necessary. Underneath the worn out cuff, Tony sees Peter’s webshooter fastened on his wrist, and above it, Tony’s wristwatch gauntlet.
Gosh, his kid’s a genius. Tony loves him so much.
Tony lifts his hand and wraps it around Peter’s arm, covering the device, leaving bloody fingerprints on his pale skin. He’s about to start slowly detaching it, when the men all turn on them suddenly. Tony freezes, still clutching at Peter’s arm, concealing both the webshooter and the gauntlet. Judging by the way the leader smirks as he looks at them, it must look like they interrupted a heartfelt moment, rather than conspiring.
“Sorry about that, just had to sort out a few kinks,” the man says, smiling like he’s conducting a business deal rather than holding two people hostage. “Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed, Stark, that you’re now being filmed. Why don’t you say hi to everyone watching?” He pauses. Both Tony and Peter just continue to glare at him.
The man keeps talking as if that was expected. “Who is everyone, you ask? Well, a couple of my loyal men have hijacked a few national news channels, just for a bit. Live feed, and everything. I know it’s rather late, but I expect there’s still a good half million people seeing this. Sure you don’t want to say hi?”
“What, exactly, is the point of this?” Tony asks, sounding bored. The leader smirks again, and crouches down so that he’s at eye level with Peter and Tony.
“This country relies on you, Tony. Even when they’re pissed at you, even when they vote for the Sokovia Accords and demand you be held accountable, the people of this nation feel safer knowing that Iron Man is looking out for them.” He stands up and begins pacing. Tony finally unlatches the wristwatch gauntlet from Peter’s wrist, and hides it under his leg.
“And I know what’s coming, Tony.” Tony stiffens, and Peter looks at him with huge eyes. “There’s a leak in the Pentagon. I know why Ross is scrambling to locate the other Avengers, I know what all your meetings in D.C. are about. Something’s coming, bigger than ever before. And we’re going to need you to save all of our necks again.”
The man rounds on them again. “So do you know what I’m going to do?” He cocks his gun and aims it at Tony. “I’m going to shoot you in the head.” Peter makes to move, to put himself in the path of the bullet, but Tony grabs his other wrist, stopping him. He shoots a look at Peter, telling him to listen for the ultimatum. “And the kid, too. Unless I get a call from the President in the next five minutes willing to come to an agreement.”
He comes into the frame of the camera then, holding the gun to Tony’s temple. Peter’s practically vibrating under Tony’s hands.
“Your voters are watching, Mr. President. You have five minutes.”
Peter sucks in a sudden breath. When Tony glances over to him, his eyes are wide, but they aren’t looking at the gun. They’re flicking toward the hallway. Tony follows his gaze and after a moment hears the familiar sound of claws on hardwood floors.
Maggie.
The men must hear it too, because they turn toward the hall in just enough time to see a massive, snarling deerhound hurl herself at the leader. They go down in a flurry of limbs and fur. The man’s gun goes flying into the living room. The other men are shouting at each other to shoot the dog as she sinks her teeth into the leader’s leg, the growls tearing from her throat audible even over the man’s screams. And in all the chaos, Tony grabs his collapsible gauntlet, snaps it on, and activates it.
He takes aim and fires. The camera is obliterated as it sails into the opposite wall and shatters.
Less than a heartbeat later, Peter is flinging himself into action, webs flying as he disarms the remaining four men and binds them all in a heap on the floor. It’s over so fast Tony’s swimming head almost can’t keep up, but suddenly everything is still. Peter is standing over the mass of webs and cursing men, breathing hard. Maggie is crouched between them and Tony with her hackles raised, teeth bared. It’s calm for a breath, and then Peter is collapsing to his knees beside Tony again.
“I sounded the alarm when I turned FRIDAY back on, I don’t know what’s taking so long,” he says, words spilling out of him, tripping over each other. He shoots a web at the dish towel hanging over the oven handle and pulls it back to him. He pushes it against Tony’s stomach and winces when Tony shouts in pain.
“’S’ok,” Tony slurs, putting his hands back over Peter’s.
“Come on, Tony, you should lay down.” Peter maneuvers him until he’s supine. The change in perspective has Tony’s vision blurring for a second. When he blinks it back into clarity, Peter is kneeling over him, pale faced and shaking. His jaw is clenching and unclenching, and he won’t look Tony in the eye. He’s still so afraid it makes Tony’s chest ache.
Tony gets blood in Peter’s hair, leaves a crimson streak on the boy’s cheek as he cups the back of his neck and pulls him forward. Peter presses his forehead into Tony’s clavicle, hot breath sinking through his thin t-shirt.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster,” Peter whispers.
“You were perfect, Peter. I’m so proud of you.” Tony closes his eyes, only to open them again a second later when he suddenly has a cold nose nudging at his chin. Maggie has come closer, concernedly nuzzling both him and Peter.
Peter raises his head and lets her lick his face. “You were amazing, Mags,” he tells her quietly, a sort of reverent earnestness in his voice. Maggie lets out a low bark, as if agreeing, and Peter smiles.
“Maggie the wonder dog,” Tony says, and she turns her attention to him, dark eyes assessing him. “Good girl.” She whines and lays her head on Tony’s chest, blinking at him slowly. “Good girl.”
Rhodey shows up three minutes later with a team of SHIELD agents and EMT’s. He pulls Peter away from Tony’s side, and they stand a few feet away and watch the medics work with Rhodey’s hands on Peter’s shoulders. Peter looks a little macabre with Tony’s bloody handprint on his neck.
The woman working on him sticks a needle in his arm, puts a tube of oxygen under his nose, and tells him he can sleep now. He looks at Peter until his eyes close.
Early morning light is seeping through the medbay windows when Tony wakes up. It illuminates Peter, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest by Tony’s bedside. The kid has washed up, the blood gone from his hair and skin. He isn’t wearing the MIT sweater anymore, and Tony absently hopes that no blood got on it. He’s staring into space when Tony opens his eyes, but he must hear the change in his breathing, because he immediately looks around.
“Peter,” Tony rasps. Peter smiles wanly.
“Hey, Tony. How’re you feeling?”
Tony deliberates for a moment. “Fuzzy,” he decides, offering a lopsided smile. Peter huffs a nearly silent, exasperated laugh, looking away again.
Without really thinking about it, Tony blearily lifts a hand, holding it out for Peter to take. Pepper and Rhodey always say that Tony gets clingy when he’s sick or tired. Pretty much all he wants to do right now is pull Peter onto the bed, curl around him so nothing can hurt him, and sleep for another week, but he’ll settle for holding his hand.
Peter has been getting steadily more tactile as he heals from his grief, never shrugging away when Tony throws an arm over his shoulder or runs a hand through his hair. The other day, Tony had cupped his cheek while waking him up from an impromptu nap and Peter had leaned into the touch, sleep warm and half awake, and Tony’s heart had practically melted with happiness.
Which is why Tony watches in confusion as Peter eyes his hand for a long minute before finally ceding his own. Pretending that he didn’t notice Peter’s hesitation, Tony asks what time it is, just to have something to talk about.
“About 5:30.”
Tony looks at him more closely. “Did you get any sleep?” he asks, rubbing his thumb along Peter’s knuckles. Peter looks at their hands and then focuses on Tony’s heart monitor, his expression almost torn. Tony, suddenly afraid that he’s made Peter uncomfortable, stops the motion immediately.
“I dozed here and there,” Peter assures him, lips twisting into a shadow of a smile. Tony opens his mouth, wanting to ask why Peter looks a bit like he’s in pain, but growling from the hallway interrupts him. Tony looks toward the door, where he can see the silhouette of a person through the foggy glass, eyebrows furrowed.
Peter’s grimace turns into an actual smile. “Maggie’s guarding the door,” he tells Tony. “The doctor won’t let her come in the room, but she refuses to leave.”
When the doctor finally convinces the dog to let him in, Peter pulls his hand away like he’s reminding himself that he should.
“Tony,” Dr. Costner says warmly. Tony had personally hired all of the medical officers that worked with the Avengers, so they’d met before. “Glad to see you awake.” She spends a few minutes checking over his readouts, explaining aloud what she was doing.
“Well, it looks like you’ll be able to go up to your own room this evening. The wound was deep, but didn’t hit anything significant, and we closed it up without any problems. As long someone stays with you for at least the first twelve hours,” she says, looking pointedly at Peter, who gives her a small half-smile and nods his head.
Dr. Costner leaves after examining Tony’s side. Peter’s fingers twitch like he’s going to take Tony’s hand again, but instead he wraps his arms around his knees, curling into a ball. They lapse into silence, and Tony slowly drifts back to sleep, feeling strangely uneasy.
Rhodey is there when he wakes up again. Peter is sitting in the same chair, still hunched in on himself. Rhodey is saying something to Peter, but the words get muddled in Tony’s mind. Peter just shrugs in response, picking at the hem of his shirt. His eyes flash up and meet Tony’s so suddenly he nearly startles.
“You’re awake,” Peter says simply.
“Yeah,” Tony croaks, while Rhodey comes to stand by his bed, looking relieved. He puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder.
“You hungry? It’s almost 9,” Rhodes says. Tony contemplates that for a moment, before finally nodding. Rhodey looks up at Peter.
“Do you mind telling the doctor he’s ready for some food? And then you can get some breakfast, too. I’ll stay with Tony.” Tony rolls his eyes at that, but doesn’t argue with the plan.
Peter glances at Tony, and then looks away quickly. “Ok,” he agrees quietly. “Thanks, Rhodey.”
He goes, pausing at the doorway. He turns his head as if he wants to look over his shoulder, but leaves without doing so. Maggie starts jumping at him the minute the door is open, and Tony watches him wrestle her away and the two of them set off down the hall.
Rhodey opens his mouth to say something, but Tony beats him to it. “Does Peter seem quiet to you?” He asks, finally looking away from where Peter had disappeared.
Rhodes looks taken aback. “I guess a bit. He hasn’t said much.”
“Was he checked over? He’s notorious for hiding injuries,” Tony demands, trying to sit up in bed, agitated at the thought. Rhodey keeps him laying down with a hand on his shoulder, but adjusts the pillows so he isn’t lying down completely.
“Relax, Tony, the medics made sure he was fine,” Rhodey soothes, looking more worried about Tony’s distress than Peter, which irks Tony.
“He won’t look at me,” Tony mutters, and it sounds so pathetic, but something is wrong with Peter, and he doesn’t know what it is.
“He’s probably just a little freaked out. His home was broken into and you were shot, after all.” Tony looks away, frowning.
“Yeah. I guess. I’ll um… I’ll talk to him about it,” Tony says, and Rhodey moves on, telling Tony what happened to the men and about the media reaction. Apparently half the country is convinced he’s on his death bed and won’t be pacified until Tony makes an appearance. They also want to meet Peter and Maggie. The former is a resounding ‘no,’ and the latter confuses him because she’s a dog. Tony will have quite the PR mess to sort through in the next few days. Pepper is in Europe, and Rhodes has assured her that she doesn’t need to come back, but Tony is sure he’s in for a long phone call sorting out the details.
Regardless, for the rest of the day, Tony’s thoughts are occupied with Peter. The kid stays by Tony’s bed, but always an armlength away, always curled in on himself like he wants to be invisible, and only speaking when Tony speaks to him first.
That evening, when Dr. Costner checks Tony over one last time and finally releases him, Peter dutifully takes Tony’s prescriptions and listens to the instructions she gives him on how to take care of Tony. He hovers while Tony heaves himself out of bed and as they walk to the elevator, he stays close enough that if Tony should fall, he could catch him.
Peter makes them dinner that night, and carefully doles out Tony’s medicine. He kneels next to the couch that he’s settled Tony on for the night and watches until Tony has swallowed the pills. He has a feeling that Rhodey warned him that Tony is rather stubborn about that kind of thing.
Peter goes to stand up, but Tony grabs his arm. Peter pauses, caught mid-motion, looking at Tony.
“Do you need something?” He asks sincerely, eyebrows beetling.
Tony reaches up and smooths out the crease between his eyebrows with his thumb. Tony is familiar with the quiet pain in Peter’s eyes, but he isn’t used to it directed at him.
“We’re ok,” Tony says. “That was rough, but we’re ok.” Peter glances at Tony’s side, where his injury is hidden under an age-softened t-shirt. He nods jerkily, then pulls away. Tony is left with his hands hanging limply in the air, reeling in the sting of unexpected rejection.
Maggie, who’d trailed the two of them up from the medbay, comes over and licks Tony’s arm, jerking him out of his thoughts. He busies himself with petting her, hoping Peter won’t notice his expression.
They all sleep in the living room that night, sprawled on the couches, so that Peter can keep an eye on Tony. It should feel warm and peaceful, but it’s almost like there’s a wall between him and Peter, and Tony can’t stop thinking about it. It’s only his medication that allows him to sleep that night.
The next morning goes much the same. Peter is attentive to anything Tony needs, but rarely speaks. He curls up with a book on a different couch than Tony, Maggie sprawled across his lap. When Rhodey shows up around 11, Peter leaves. He comes back again when Rhodey has to go. It makes Tony feel like a task that needs doing, just another on a checklist of responsibilities Peter has to take care of. His medicine makes him sleep again, and Tony is almost grateful.
He’s allowed in his own bed that night. Peter reminds him three times that he’s just down the hall if he needs him as they walk from the living room to the bedroom. Tony can walk fine on his own, but Peter hovers, and something about it makes Tony’s inexplicably sad. When Tony’s settled in bed, he finally opens his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and Peter stops dead where he’s pulling the covers up around Tony, as if he weren’t capable of doing it himself.
“For what?”
“Scaring you.” Tony swallows and thinks for a moment. Peter’s tensed like he wants to run away. “You were shaking. And you were being so brave and brilliant but you were scared and it’s my fault.”
“You didn’t ask to be hurt, Tony,” Peter says.
There’s something heavy and important sitting in Tony’s throat, and whatever it is he needs to say it right now, and he raises his hand to take Peter’s chin and make sure he looks in Tony’s eyes and knows that he means it. But before he can, Peter turns away.
It honestly hurts more than an arrow to the gut, having Peter pull away from him like they’re still strangers.
“Come on, Mags,” Peter calls stiffly to the dog as he all but flees from the room. Maggie looks between him and Tony and whines pointedly. “Maggie, come.”
Looking mournfully over her shoulder, Maggie follows Peter out of the room. He closes the door and Tony is left alone.
Tony wakes, disoriented and on edge.
“FRIDAY, is Peter asleep?” Tony asks. He’s not sure why, but he needs the reassurance. FRIDAY doesn’t answer for a moment. Tony opens his eyes, his mind immediately flashing to intruders and crossbows and Peter with Tony’s blood on his cheek.
“No,” she finally says, and Tony’s heart settles back down.
“It’s like three in the morning, what is he doing?” Tony grumbles, closing his eyes again.
FRIDAY sounds almost saddened when she replies, “He’s crying.”
“What?” Tony scrambles out of bed, his side aching. “What happened? Why didn’t he come get me?”
He’s halfway across the room when the AI speaks up again. “His door’s locked, boss.”
Tony stops. His door’s locked. Peter doesn’t want him there. But…
“But he’s crying.”
FRIDAY doesn’t respond. Tony stands in the middle of his dark bedroom, knowing his kid is just down the hall and in pain and determined to get through it alone, and Tony doesn’t know what to do.
After a long minute, he returns to the bed and sits on the edge. It’s like someone has rewound the past few months, just erased all of their progress and growth. All their familiarity and trust and family gone in a few short days, and Tony can’t even begin to understand what he did wrong. Peter had just shut off, retreated into himself, reverted to what he had been when Tony first adopted him. And by doing so, he pushed Tony back into the role of mere bystander to his life.
If that’s what Peter had wanted, Tony would have accepted it. What did it matter that his heart would break? But after that night when Peter had finally come to him for help, he had seemed open to change. It took them awhile to get used to it, but eventually being part of a family again had felt natural.
Tony isn’t sure he can handle going back to pretending that boy isn’t his son.
“Peter’s asleep,” FRIDAY informs him some time later. Tony nods numbly and clambers back into bed. He lays awake for a long time until, finally, his healing body shuts off and he sleeps.
When Peter surfaces the next morning, his eyes are swollen and he looks tired, but he says nothing, merely fusses over making sure Tony has taken his medicine and fixes himself some toast. They sit in their customary places, but instead of the easy quiet they usually share, it’s tense and awkward. Tony finds himself searching desperately for something to say.
“Pepper told me that late night shows keep calling her asking to have Maggie on,” he finally lands on, and then flinches. Maybe the break-in wasn’t the best topic.
“Really?” Peter asks, raising an eyebrow, a trace of his usual humor flitting across his face. “Why?”
“So they can meet the ‘hero dog that saved Iron Man,’” Tony says, holding up his hands to do the air quotes so Peter gets how ridiculous he finds this. This is the most normal conversation they’ve had in days, and if Tony has to ham it up a bit to keep it that way, so be it.
Peter scrunches up his face. “She’s a dog, it’s not like she can do an interview.”
“That’s exactly what I said!”
Peter smiles, and it’s bright and honest and there is no sadness in it, as if this were three mornings ago before everything mysteriously fell apart. It makes something in Tony’s chest ache, and his smile falls as he clenches his teeth against it. And then Peter seems to catch himself. His eyes go wide, like he’s done something wrong, the smile disappears, and Peter looks down at his plate.
Oh. Tony thinks. And then, Oh, Peter.
He thinks back to when he was bleeding on the floor, looking up at this kid. He’s still so afraid.
Tony wonders if Ben touched Peter’s face with bloody hands like Tony did. He imagines May telling Peter that she’s proud of him while her heart slows down and breathing gets difficult. Hadn’t Peter said, as he sat sobbing on the floor, that he couldn’t handle another funeral? Tony can’t believe it took him this long to figure it out.
The past two days of withdrawn silence and averted eyes suddenly make sense. It’s isn’t because Peter’s upset with Tony. It’s because Peter cares about him—has started to consider himself Tony’s son—and was abruptly, brutally reminded that he is mortal. And Peter—the only Parker still alive, this superpowered kid who would die to protect his family and lost them all anyway—decided that the only way to avoid having his heart broken again was to stop himself from getting attached.
But this is Peter, and he has a bigger heart than anyone Tony’s ever met, and he honestly isn’t sure Peter is capable of remaining unattached. He thinks about Peter alone in his room, crying, and for the first time realizes this might actually be killing Peter more than it is Tony.
The fact of the matter is, what Peter needs, and what he lets himself want, are two very different things. Peter needs family. He needs someone he can always rely on and he needs to know that he’s loved and appreciated and sometimes, honestly, he needs someone to hug him and tell him everything’s going to be alright. Nothing will be solved by shutting himself off, but Peter’s young and hurt and so afraid and he doesn’t know that. So he tells himself that he’s doing the right thing by distancing himself, and the kid is stubborn enough to think he believes it.
Tony knows better. He’s tried the whole lone gunslinger, always works alone gig, and not only had it sucked, it had almost killed him.
Spider-Man never lets fear stop him. Peter Parker just needs to be reminded.
Peter stands to take his plate to the sink, head down and avoiding Tony’s gaze. Tony watches him, watches as he stops to scratch Maggie’s ears. He looks so alone.
“I have a couple meetings today, so I’ll be home around seven, alright?” Tony says. Peter nods, shrugging his backpack on and making for the elevator. Tony takes a breath and, because he always dives head first without looking, tacks on, “Have a good day at school, Peter. I love you.”
Peter’s retreating back freezes. He sucks in an audible breath of surprise and then holds it for several long seconds. And then, without answering, he leaves.
It’s pretty much what Tony would have expected had he thought about this for more than a second. It’s alright, though. They’ll talk this evening, after Peter has had some time to get his thoughts in order. Right now Tony has to get ready to go face the media storm that’s still brewing after their very public invasion.
When Tony gets home, Peter is slouched on the kitchen counter in the dark. His expression is grim, and a little bit heartbroken. He doesn’t acknowledge Tony, so he’s either so involved in his thoughts he didn’t hear him come in, or he’s waiting for Tony to speak first.
“Lights, please, FRIDAY,” Tony says. The lights come on slowly, a protocol Tony had added once Peter moved in, so as not to blind his sensitive eyes. Peter looks up at him finally, his eyes dark with a familiar sort of resolve. Tony has a feeling Peter knows exactly how he wants this conversation to go.
“Tony,” Peter says quietly.
“Hey, kiddo.” Tony gingerly slips out of his suit jacket, tosses it on a chair, and then settles against the counter opposite Peter. The kid seems to take this as a sign that he’s ready to listen, because he takes a deep breath.
“Tony,” he starts, staring down at his feet, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I don’t know where I’d be without you. But—” Peter has to pause for a moment, and he swallows hard. Tony can feel his carefully prepared speech going off the rails. “I can’t ask you to—” He stops again. His hands are clenched around the edge of the countertop, stopping himself just short of cracking the marble.
Peter raises his head and meets Tony’s eyes, his voice steady, as if he’s accepted this universal constant, as he says, “Tony, everyone who loves me dies.”
Tony nods slowly, taking in Peter’s words. Then he crosses the distance between them and puts a hand on Peter’s knee. Peter’s spine is curved like a parenthesis, his head bowed like he’s too tired to hold it up. He doesn’t look at Tony.
“Ok, a few things. A—I’m Iron Man, kid,” Tony says, shooting Peter a small smile that he doesn’t return. “Even if you were, for some reason, cursed or some other weird crap—which you’re not, ok? You’re not—I can handle it.” Peter doesn’t make any move to interrupt, just turns his head so he’s looking at Maggie, asleep on the kitchen rug, rather than his shoes, so Tony plows on.
“B—You’re not asking me to do anything.” He’s the one who has to pause now, gathering his courage. Peter closes his eyes, like he doesn’t want to hear what’s coming next. “I’ve loved you from the moment I picked you up at the hospital, Peter. I knew it, and I think you did too, and me saying it out loud doesn’t make it more real or more damning or whatever.”
“And C—” Tony reaches up and cups Peter’s cheek, turning his head so the kid will finally look at him. “I want you to know that I’m not expecting anything from you. You don’t have to feel the same way or say it back or anything.” Peter looks like he might interject, so Tony adds. “I can see the guilt written all over your face, kid. And it doesn’t need to be there. I said it cause I wanted to, and that’s it.”
Peter nods, expecting that to be all, but Tony’s been gearing up for this talk all day, and he has more to say. He doesn’t move his hand, and Peter doesn’t pull away.
“But this thing you’re doing? Stopping yourself from getting attached to anyone so you won’t get hurt? It doesn’t work, buddy. I learned that the hard way. Cause if something bad does happen, it’ll still hurt like heck, and you’ll never forgive yourself for wasting all that time. Ok?”
Peter gives another tiny nod. Tony hesitates for a second, but then reminds himself that he’s decided to be all in, just like he wanted to be from day one. All in, nothing held back. He tilts Peter’s head down and kisses his forehead. Then he pats his knee and turns away. He can see Peter wiping his eyes in his periphery.
“Have you eaten dinner yet?” Tony asks, sticking his head in the fridge to give Peter a minute to compose himself.
Peter sniffs and then says, “No, I was waiting for you.”
Tony settles on breakfast for dinner: waffles, eggs, and bacon. Maggie perks up as soon as she smells the bacon cooking, coming over to circle their legs and eat anything Peter offers her. She licks his hand and pants happily as Tony and Peter stand at the island, close enough their shoulders touch, waiting for the waffles to be done. They settle at the table, Maggie taking her customary spot by Peter’s chair, though she occasionally stands on her hind legs and tries to steal a piece of bacon, only to have Peter shoo her away, laughing.
Later, when they say goodnight and part ways, Maggie dutifully shadowing Peter to his bedroom, Tony hesitantly brushes his fingers over Peter’s cheek. He leans into the touch.